[Peace] Huge peace rally in NYC!

[Danielle Chynoweth]

To Fill the Vacuum of a Fallen Press
A Report on the
New York City Peace Rally
NOT IN OUR NAME
Sunday, Oct. 6, 2002
East Meadow
Central Park


	The day was glorious and the turnout was glorious – somewhere between
30,000 and 50,000 people thronged the space – though you didn’t read much
about it.  They were engaged in peaceful democratic assembly, and the police
had nothing to do.  The attendees were enthusiastic, attentive, and united.
Journalism has failed us completely.  Therefore, this report.

	The throng was repeatedly asked to move left (the symbolism was not lost)
so that people jammed together around the corner of 96th St. and Fifth
Avenue (to the far right) could move into the park.  Young and old, students
and the retired, and everyone in between took part in a communion for
reason.

	The speaking list was brilliantly assembled.  The President of the United
States was there.  I am speaking, of course, of Martin Sheen, who plays the
President on the NBC-TV series West Wing (it takes guts for a TV star to do
what he did, as those of you old enough to remember blacklists will recall).
As for actual politicians, there was, sad to say, only one – a member of the
New York state legislature.  Several speakers had lost brothers, sisters and
friends in the 9/11 tragedy, and were insightful enough to tell us that the
Bush operation in Iraq has NOTHING to do with 9/11. There was a
representative of the emergency medical teams who worked to save lives after
the planes hit.   Some high school students spoke to us, and they were
wonderful.   Tim Robbins, the writer and actor was there.  What did they all
have to tell us?

	That Bush is planning a campaign of war and occupation as a permanent
condition, without the slightest idea of how to pay for it.

	That attack will never win us friends around the world, but sworn enemies.
“I will never feel safe,” said one speaker.

	That Congressmen whom one delegation visited in Washington reported most of
the phone calls to their office opposed war --- but they would vote for war
anyway.  The disconnect is profound, and chilling.

	That all fundamentalisms are evil, and that includes America’s major,
indigenous expression of fundamentalism, corporate business, out to assure
global profits at the cost of human lives.

	That, like the immortal Mississippi activist Fanny Lou Hamer, “I am so
tired of feeling so tired.”

	That the United States is not untouchable, as 9/11 proved, and attack never
wins hearts or minds, as Vietnam proved.

	That there are so many new young poets at work because someone needs to put
meaning on all the new metaphors we showering upon us – more than we can
keep track of.

	That we must re-invent the nation’s press.  The next day, the New York
Times buried its report of the rally on local section B—3.  The item did not
appear at all in the New England edition,

	That, under Bush, the character of a great nation is being forcibly
changed, against large segments of the popular will.

	That we have a nation to reclaim.

	The climax of the rally under a canopy of cool breeze, sunny skies, and
great puffball clouds, was the reciting of a pledge to resist the condition
of permanent war – with 50,000 voices raised in unison.  I’ll end this
report with the words of that pledge, which, I hope, you will save and relay
to others and recite at other rallies you will attend:

PLEDGE OF RESISTANCE

We believe that as people living
in the United States, it is our
responsibility to resist the injustices done
by our government  in our name.

Not in our name
will you wage “endless war.”
There can be no more deaths,
no more transfusions of blood for oil.

Not in our name
will you invade countries,
bomb civilians, kill more children.
letting history take its course
over the graves of the nameless.

Not in our name
will you erode the very freedoms
you have claimed to fight for.

Not by our hands
will we supply weapons and funding for
the annihilation of families
on foreign soil.

Not by our mouths
will we let fear silence us.

Not by our hearts
will we allow whole peoples
or countries to be deemed evil.

Not by our will
and Not in our name.

We pledge resistance
We pledge alliance with those who
have come under attack
for voicing opposition to the war or
for their religion or ethnicity.

We pledge to make common cause
with the people of the world to
bring about justice,
freedom and peace.

Another world is possible.
And we pledge to make it real.
-0-
[Pledge taken by thousands at the Not In Our Name Rally in the East Meadow,
Central Park, New York City, October 6, 2002]

	It will take great events to root out the war party from the government
they now occupy by guile.  There are great events ahead.

	Sandy and I send you greetings.  Please relay this report to others –
especially to those who do not presently agree with it.  They will.

	Jerry M. Landay
	Bristol, RI
	10/9/02