Not In Our Name writes:

"Not In Our Name" Renews Struggle for Central Park Demonstration
New York City, August 29, 2004

The city of New York's denial of a permit for a rally
at Central Park is an absolute outrage and is nothing
but a naked attempt to marginalize the anti-war
movement and dissent generally. This is a part of an
overall clamping down on protest and civil liberties
that has swept the country since 9/11 which cannot be
allowed to continue. The objective effect of
conceding the right to protest in a central public
space sets a dangerous precedent which we feel must be
challenged. What follows is our understanding of the
stakes of this issue, a plan to re-open a petition for
the permit and an invitation to all other groups to
join us in doing so.Over 9 million people watched Michael Moore?s new film
and saw the live footage of U.S. troops kicking down
doors in Iraq and dragging men out of their homes as
their families watched horrified. We saw images of
U.S. military culture compelling our youth to kill for
sport and brag about the music that gets them most
pumped to kill more.

We know that this war was based on lies, lies, and
more lies. First, the links to September 11th which
never materialized;
then the claims of WMDs, for which
there was never any evidence;
finally the flimsy claim
of delivering "liberation" to the Iraqi people.
None of this is true; in fact, as the current
administration have themselves made clear repeatedly,
they have wild ambitions of entirely reordering global
power and economic relations so that the U.S. is
permanently on top and permanently unchallenged in
this position. These plans have nothing to do with
September 11th and protecting the American people —
and they never have! As Rumsfeld himself said, hours
after September 11th, "Go massive. Sweep it all up.
Things related and not."

And, it is simply a fact that there is no presidential
candidate who is even talking about pulling out of the
brutal occupation of Iraq or stopping the chilling
repressive moves domestically — even though millions
in this country have repeatedly have expressed their
fierce opposition in countless ways.

It is in this context that there is the need for the
most massive outpouring of opposition to the whole
direction Bush and his team are taking the country, a
massive NO! We must do this not because we expect
them to listen to reason or to the truth and NOT to
just "register our dissent," but because there must be
a visible and powerful resistance so that as the
empire goes forward with their horrors against our
country and the world all those who are outraged and
have a conscience will know there is A RESISTANCE to
support and join — one that brings people together
across borders to act in bringing forth a future that
is livable for all the people on the planet.
This is what more than a million taking to the
streets on August 29th means. And this is what the
powers that be desperately want to prevent,
intimidate, and render irrelevant. This is not, and
has never been, about the grass in Central Park!
Everyone knows this, and it is a subject of open
ridicule in the newspapers every day. [See the
article where Jimmy Breslin of Newsday calls the
city's decision "the work of dictatorship" and urges
people to "rail and refuse to follow the parade route"
and to march to Central Park with or without a permit.
As well, read in the New York Times
how the horticulture expert who designed the Great
Lawn confirms that the grass can withstand this large
crowd and shows how this has nothing to do with the
city's decision.]

This is also not about our safety — nor has it ever
been. Just as the Bush regime has cynically used
September 11th to carry out wars they were previously
planning, so are they now attempting to use the pain
and loss of New York City as a way to whip up fear and
intimidate people into staying home, quaking and
trembling, rather than pouring into the streets to
express our outrage and indignation.

First, in this proposition from Bush and company there
is a profound immorality to acquiescing as our
government terrorizes and destroys whole peoples and
countries around the world for some narrow conception
of a U.S. "gated community" of razor wire and
wiretaps, police spies and roundups, for our "safety."

Secondarily, it is the crimes, murder, and torture our
government is committing against people all over the
world that makes the people in the U.S. "targets." We
must let the people of the world know that we are
doing everything we can to stop them! And, we are
extending a hand of unity to the people of the planet
— trying to set terms where everyone can see more
clearly the common interests of people all over the
world and act together to bring into being a better
world.

Finally, there is a basic principle that everyone in
the movement must understand and base ourselves on. We
are taking on the most vicious, powerful, ruthless
rival our planet has ever seen! They are using force
all over the world to push ahead their global agenda.
They are not going to be easily derailed. And if we
are serious about stopping them, and we must be this,
there can be no compromise! We are not going to get
them to back off the world by "appearing reasonable,"
cooperating with their restrictions, or "behaving
well." We are not going to get further in our appeals
if we accept their terms of how we resist. The ONLY
way to stop them is to increasingly step into the ring
with them, expose every new outrage, how this is part
of their whole global domination scheme, and call
forward many, many more in their outrage and
resistance. Each new act from the Bush team and their
flunkies should be seen as a new way to expose them
and to bring forward more powerful resistance. This
includes right now very urgently taking on and
fighting against the city's denial of a permit to
protest in Central Park on August 29th.

In doing this, we want to accomplish 4 things:

1. Call forward the many, many millions who deeply
hate the Bush Agenda to be part of a protest that is
RELEVANT and VISIBLE and a MASSIVE REPUDIATION to
everything Bush concentrates and is doing to our
country and our planet. This must be so massive and
with such a strong message that it cannot be
misinterpreted or covered up. Everyone everywhere, in
this country and around the world, must see that no
matter who becomes president that the people issued a
huge "NO!" to the whole sweep of the Bush Agenda. And
everyone everywhere will know there is a movement of
opposition that they need to support and strengthen to
ultimately stop this whole course as it goes forward.

2. In doing this we will make clear that this is not a
"token protest" but a mounting of opposition!
Otherwise people will not be won to come out in the
face of high levels of police intimidation, media
persuasion, and rumors of terrorist threats. If we
stop compromising and start putting out powerfully and
clearly our intention to STOP the whole Bush Agenda,
and how this protest is part of that, we can call
forward and give expression to the seething anger many
are feeling. So, fighting for the Park and the message
about why this matters and the stance of not allowing
ourselves to become marginalized, is critical to even
calling forward the more than a million who can be won
to protest.

3. Recast the political terms around the whole
question of "fear" and "safety." As long as people are
gripped with this fear the supposed need to rely on
the current powers to protect us, people, in the
millions, will not themselves find the courage or the
reason to step out to oppose and stop the detentions,
the round-ups, the clamp down on free speech and all
the wire-taps and invasions of privacy, no-fly lists,
Patriot Acts I and II, etc. WE — the anti-war movement
— MUST start exposing that none of this has anything
to do with our safety, but everything to do with
carrying out their global-dominance strategy they had
already planned and suppressing and crushing any group
or movement that would effectively challenge them. We
must shift the terms back — where people are no longer
afraid of the people of the planet and standing with
(or at least relying on) our government, but instead
are afraid of the future as it will shape up if our
government goes unchallenged and are fighting and
standing with the people of the world to call forward
powerful enough resistance to stop them.

4. We must not concede this permit battle and allow a
precedent to be set that even when there are millions
and millions who deeply feel something is outrageous
and wrong, that at a moment when there are more people
who are outraged by what their government is doing
than in at least a generation but probably more, that
the government ignores the will of the people, goes to
war in the face of it, and then effectively tells
people to "SHUT UP." If they do so without at least a
fierce fight that takes a big political toll on their
program, we will be a BIG step closer to a police
state and it will be MUCH harder to build opposition
in the future as the situation gets worse.

There are many who will be thrilled by this challenge
to the city and we invite all groups and organizations
to join in this fight. We appreciate the efforts of
UFPJ over the recent months in struggling to secure
Central Park for a permitted rally. Now we feel it is
on all of us to take this further. We will do this
because we understand that history demands it. We
respect other organizations and embrace the whole
spectrum of antiwar outpourings and resistance that
has been planned, but we feel obligated — to the
people of the world and to the future of dissent in
this country — to continue this permit battle in the
midst of this.

We feel it is tremendously important to continue to
dialogue with all the groups in the anti-war movement
to coordinate logistics and how to conduct media in a
way that does not create divisiveness or undercut each
other's efforts, but which also doesn't demand that
any group "trim its sails" in the name of unity. There
is too much at stake for our country and our planet,
and it is the future generations here and around the
world we must ultimately answer to.

Not in Our Name — National

info@notinourname.net

www.notinourname.net