From: "Leila Pine" <[log in to unmask]> 12/04/02 08:58AM >>>
From: Rae Vogeler
Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2002 12:55 AM
Subject: FW: Wisconsin - Not in our Name Newspaper Ad
From: Jean and Charles Sweet
To: Debra Sweet
Cc: Jean & Charles Sweet
Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 2:08 PM
Subject: NION LETTER
Dear Friend,
"We believe that as people living in the United States it is our
responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government, in our
names."
In September a wonderful ad was published in the New York Times signed by
well-known writers, artists, activists and academics. It proclaimed "Not in
Our Name". We were encouraged and heartened by the ad, and apparently,
others were, too. 30,000 people have since signed it, and it's been printed
in USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and dozens
of regional and local papers.
Something happened recently that galvanized our thought that the ad should
appear in Wisconsin papers. A courageous Milwaukee businessman sent a $250
check to the Not in Our Name Statement of Conscience and added his name,
which appeared on the ad's website. Richard Abdoo, CEO of the Wisconsin
Energy Corporation, was criticized by a talk show host questioning his
patriotism, and Lebanese ancestry, and was the focus of very negative news
coverage in the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel. Matt Rothschild of the
Progressive, and himself a signer of the Not in Our Name ad, noted that the
criticism has a "whiff of neo-McCarthyism about it." Although Mr. Abdoo was
forced to apologize for his decision to contribute, he says he spoke out
because he supports peace.
By publishing the Not in Our Name ad in Madison-and perhaps in the Milwaukee
papers-we can make a statement against such punishment of dissent. We
probably have a unique responsibility to do so, being in the "homeland" of
Joe McCarthy. The Statement of Conscience is unique among anti-war ads
published this fall, because it so movingly stands against the government's
war plans, but also against such suppression of dissent. We must let other
people know they are not alone in their feelings of outrage and fear; we can
provide hope and inspiration to those who feel our country is beyond hope,
and we must provide a way for them to become part of the solution.
We want to publish the "Not In Our Name Statement of Conscience" with a list
of selected national and local signers in The Capital Times/Wisconsin State
Journal, as a full-page proclamation. By doing this we can reach hundreds
of thousands of people in Wisconsin, letting them know about the massive
movement growing nationwide that demands an end to U.S. war efforts, an end
to the attacks on immigrants and an end to the attacks on our civil
liberties here at home. This advertisement would let people know that
another world is possible and that we pledge to make it real!
This Statement is not sponsored by any organization. It is a project to
promote a diverse, unified movement. It does not espouse a specific ideology
or particular form of action, but instead calls on people to pledge their
determination to come together as a broad movement of resistance in this
time of war and repression in our country. Numerous prominent supporters
including Edward Asner, Russell Banks, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, Ani Di
Franco, Danny Glover, Martin Luther King III, Barbara Kingsolver, Phil Lesh,
Susan Sarandon, Rev. Al Sharpton, Martin Sheen, Gloria Steinem, Oliver
Stone, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, and Howard Zinn (for a
complete listing of endorsers go to website http://www.nion.us.
The entire text of this Statement is attached here. We are asking you to
help us print the ad. You can:
1. Add your name and return it to us by mail or email.
2. Send the most generous contribution you can afford to help cover the
$5,500 to get this Statement printed in the CapTimes/State Journal at an
advocacy rate. All contributions will go only to the printing of this
Statement. We expect to generate additional funds after printing in the
Madison newspapers to be able to print in Milwaukee.
3. Forward this message to your friends. Help us get prominent members of
our community to sign.
Make checks payable to NOT IN OUR NAME STATEMENT
Mail to: Charles Sweet, 506 Woodside Terrace, Madison WI
53711-1429
Email: [log in to unmask]
Signed:
Joe & Joann Elder, Bill Keys, The Rev. Arthur & Susan Lloyd, Midge Miller,
Jeffrey J. Patterson D.O. UW Medical Faculty, Alder Gary Poulson, Matthew
Rothschild, Margaret Stephenson, Jean & Charles Sweet, Debra Sweet
NOT IN OUR NAME
STATEMENT OF CONSCIENCE
Let it not be said that people in the United States did nothing when their
government
declared a war without limit and instituted stark new measures of
repression.
The signers of this statement call on the people of the U.S. to resist the
policies and overall
political direction that have emerged since September 11, 2001, and which
pose grave dangers to the
people of the world.
We believe that peoples and nations have the right to determine their own
destiny, free from
military coercion by great powers. We believe that all persons detained or
prosecuted by the United
States government should have the same rights of due process. We believe
that questioning,
criticism, and dissent must be valued and protected. We understand that such
rights and values are
always contested and must be fought for.
We believe that people of conscience must take responsibility for what their
own
governments do - we must first of all oppose the injustice that is done in
our own name. Thus we call
on all Americans to RESIST the war and repression that has been loosed on
the world by the Bush
administration. It is unjust, immoral, and illegitimate. We choose to make
common cause with the
people of the world.
We too watched with shock the horrific events of September 11, 2001. We too
mourned the
thousands of innocent dead and shook our heads at the terrible scenes of
carnage - even as we
recalled similar scenes in Baghdad, Panama City, and, a generation ago,
Vietnam. We too joined the
anguished questioning of millions of Americans who asked why such a thing
could happen.
But the mourning had barely begun, when the highest leaders of the land
unleashed a spirit
of revenge. They put out a simplistic script of "good vs. evil" that was
taken up by a pliant and
intimidated media. They told us that asking why these terrible events had
happened verged on
treason. There was to be no debate. There were by definition no valid
political or moral questions.
The only possible answer was to be war abroad and repression at home.
In our name, the Bush administration, with near unanimity from Congress, not
only attacked
Afghanistan but arrogated to itself and its allies the right to rain down
military force anywhere and
anytime. The brutal repercussions have been felt from the Philippines to
Palestine, where Israeli
tanks and bulldozers have left a terrible trail of death and destruction.
The government now openly
prepares to wage all-out war on Iraq - a country which has no c0nnection to
the horror of September
11. What kind of world will this become if the U.S. government has a blank
check to drop
commandos, assassins, and bombs wherever it wants?
In our name, within the U.S., the government has created two classes of
people: those to
whom the basic rights of the U.S. legal system are at least promised, and
those who now seem to
have no rights at all. The government rounded up over 1,000 immigrants and
detained them in secret
and indefinitely. Hundreds have been deported and hundreds of others still
languish today in prison.
This smacks of the infamous concentration camps for Japanese-Americans in
World War 2. For the
first time in decades, immigration procedures single out certain
nationalities for unequal treatment.
In our name, the government has brought down a pall of repression over
society. The
President's spokesperson warns people to "watch what they say." Dissident
artists, intellectuals, and
professors find their views distorted, attacked, and suppressed. The
so-called USA PATRIOT Act -
along with a host of similar measures on the state level - gives police
sweeping new powers of search
and seizure, supervised if at all by secret proceedings before secret
courts.
In our name, the executive has steadily usurped the roles and functions of
the other
branches of government. Military tribunals with lax rules of evidence and no
right to appeal to the
regular courts are put in place by executive order. Groups are declared
"terrorist" at the stroke of a
presidential pen.
We must take the highest officers of the land seriously when they talk of a
war that will last a
generation and when they speak of a new domestic order. We are confronting a
new openly imperial
policy towards the world and a domestic policy that manufactures and
manipulates fear to curtail
rights.
There is a deadly trajectory to the events of the past months that must be
seen for what it is
and resisted. Too many times in history people have waited until it was too
late to resist. President
Bush has declared: "you're either with us or against us." Here is our
answer: We refuse to allow you
to speak for all the American people. We will not give up our right to
question. We will not hand over
our consciences in return for a hollow promise of safety. We say NOT IN OUR
NAME. We refuse to
be party to these wars and we repudiate any inference that they are being
waged in our name or for
our welfare. We extend a hand to those around the world suffering from these
policies; we will show
our solidarity in word and deed.
We who sign this statement call on all Americans to join together to rise to
this challenge.
We applaud and support the questioning and protest now going on, even as we
recognize the need
for much, much more to actually stop this juggernaut. We draw inspiration
from the Israeli reservists
who, at great personal risk, declare "there IS a limit" and refuse to serve
in the occupation of the West
Bank and Gaza.
We also draw on the many examples of resistance and conscience from the past
of the
United States: from those who fought slavery with rebellions and the
underground railroad, to those
who defied the Vietnam war by refusing orders, resisting the draft, and
standing in solidarity with
resisters.
Let us not allow the watching world today to despair of our silence and our
failure to act.
Instead, let the world hear our pledge: we will resist the machinery of war
and repression and rally
others to do everything possible to stop it.
__________________________________
Signature
__________________________________
Print Name
__________________________________
Affiliation if you wish to use one
_________________________________________________________________
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