Call to Resist NDAA and Stand Together Against Repression Published in The Nation
October 28, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The November 5 issue of The Nation magazine features, as a paid ad, A Call To Stand Together to Oppose the Obama Administration’s Dangerous Assault on Fundamental Rights. The statement has garnered more than 700 signers from diverse fields.
The statement sounds a much-needed wake-up call about the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This law extends the arbitrary and illegitimate authority of the President to indefinitely detain, without charge or trial, a broad and vague category of people. The Call is a summoning to step up resistance to the NDAA and other repressive moves underway.
The Call is also an affirmation of a core principle: people cannot allow the powers-that-be to determine which movements or organizations are “acceptable” or “unacceptable.” This has particular relevance owing to the fact that the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA and its Chairman Bob Avakian were singled out in a legal ruling about the NDAA and mischaracterized in a way that could cause great harm.
Signatories include Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, and Cindy Sheehan; actors Mark Ruffalo and Peter Coyote; Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff of Project Censored; scholars Steven Zunes and Donna Haraway; Raymond Lotta of Revolution; poet Lyn Hejinian; Michael Steven Smith of the Center for Constitutional Rights and civil liberties attorney Stephen Rohde.
In September, an appeals court stayed an injunction against the NDAA. So this draconian law is now in full effect, while the dangerous mischaracterization of the RCP and Bob Avakian remains part of the court record.
The publication of the Call could not be more timely, and its organizers plan to take the message of the Call into the media and to stir wider public discussion.
To sign the Call, to see the signers, and to make a tax-deductible donation for publication, go to Opposerepressionndaa.net.
If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.