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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
"Peace kooks" lash back, and Salon's reporter responds.
Nov 15, 2002 | [Read "Peace Kooks,"by Michelle Goldberg]
On Oct. 16, Salon published a strident attack on the movement that has sprung into existence in the face of the Bush administration's determination to launch a war on Iraq and impose sharp new attacks on domestic civil liberties. The "Bush doctrine," as it has become known, encompasses a declared American right to impose will on the world by force, and to suspend basic liberties at home in the name of a war that has no end.
The document that has best captured that deep-felt concern for the whole direction of things (including, but not just limited to a war on Iraq) has been the Not In Our Name statement of conscience.
The Not In Our Name statement first appeared as an Op-Ed in the Guardian of London back in June. It has since been published as full-page ads in newspapers from the New York Times to USA Today, and has been taken up locally and reprinted in dozens of community and campus newspapers. Its organizers, a group of prominent artists, writers and political activists, intended it as a statement by a short list of well-known voices of conscience. Yet it quickly caught fire and tens of thousands have added their names to it.
The idea behind the Statement was to carve out a space where people could feel resistance was possible, to give them a vocabulary to voice this opposition, and to make them feel not alone. This is a statement that cares about the people of the world, and about the kind of country we live in. The signers of the Statement aimed to reach out to millions, and the Statement has proven its ability to do just that. At this point it has mobilized and emboldened tens of thousands to resist. It might seem strange then, that Salon, which has a reputation for being a progressive publication, would lash out so sharply at a statement of conscience against war and repression. What's going on?
The Salon article upholds the argument that the most effective line of opposition to a war on Iraq is that it is not in America's national interest, assuming that America's national interest is the yardstick of what is right and wrong in the world. Quoting Todd Gitlin, it argues for a movement "opposing the war on the grounds that it would be costly, bloody and dangerous -- as opposed to simply immoral."
What does the Not In Our Name statement say by contrast? It tells the truth. It points out that we are confronting a new openly imperial policy toward the world and a domestic policy that manufactures and manipulates fear to curtail rights. It upholds our obligation to take responsibility for opposing injustice being done to other peoples by our own government and in our name. It rejects the government's contention that Bush's war on the world is being waged for our benefit. It affirms the principle that peoples and nations have the right to determine their own destiny, free from military coercion by great powers. It pledges to make common cause with the people of the world. And it pledges us to not remain silent, to not be sucked in, but rather to resist -- the only effective way to stop the juggernaut of war and repression.
The Statement has touched a real chord in the hearts of the American people. Its message has demonstrated an actual ability to unite people across an amazing political spectrum, including people who consider themselves patriots as well as those who feel little in common with their government. It is a message that is able to go beyond minor criticism at the margins to plant an actual pole of opposition -- a pole that has the very real potential to repolarize public sentiment against the looming catastrophe. Most people don't want to live in "the new Rome" and be hated by the peoples they rule over.
We fully acknowledge that the writers and organizers of the Not In Our Name statement come from quite divergent political philosophies and programs. There is much we disagree on. But on what we have said in our joint statement, we fully agree. On that basis we have demonstrated a capacity to work together and to grow. On that basis we have been able to become a powerful grass-roots movement, joined by thousands of ordinary people who are deeply concerned about the dangerous direction the country is going in.
Given the potential of this statement to mobilize hundreds of thousands of Americans from all corners of the political spectrum to oppose this war, we are not surprised that attempts would be made to target certain signers of the Statement for their political views and to send a chilling message to others to watch with whom they associate. We are disappointed, however, that this attempt to scare people away from a movement that has been marked by diversity and that is capable of activating and inspiring tens of thousands would be denounced by a journal that otherwise champions the very values NION seeks to defend.
-- Russell Banks, C. Clark Kissinger, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Jeremy Pikser, Michael Ratner
