At 09:32 PM 12/4/2002 +0000, you wrote:
>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
>
>_Adrienne Muhammad_________________________________
>
>Affiliation if you wish to use one
>
>_________________________________________________________________
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>
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