NEW YORK CITY -- Rebels are stirring in the American War on Dissent.

Two movements -- one aimed at reversing the Right Wing's domestic war on civil rights, the other resisting President Bush's shocking determination to christen Warmonger America -- made public declarations of opposition this month in New York City.

It's too early to know if either movement will gain sufficient momentum to change policy. Many Americans, rightly concerned about the threat from organized terrorism, have been cowed into believing that the very act of questioning government policies is unpatriotic if not outright treasonous.

But these movements have dared to face gale-force winds out of Washington demanding orthodoxy and conformity in the name of national security.

Last week those winds blew a large chunk of the Democratic Party off the deck and into a dank sea of timidity and capitulation to a terribly unwise foreign policy -- just months after it caved in on an alarming domestic spying apparatus called the Patriot Act.

An assemblage of lawyer activists and more than 100 grass-roots, social-advocacy organizations convened the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights at Columbia University in early October. Their aim is to reverse several recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have undermined the ability of private citizens to fight discrimination based on gender, age, race, disability, nationality and immigration status, among others, through the federal courts.

HIGH COURT RULING

Organizers cited key rulings such as Alexander v. Sandoval, in which Maria Sandoval, a Hispanic resident, claimed Alabama violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination based on national origin when it stopped giving its driver's license test in any other language but English.

Sandoval won her trial and six appeals, but lost in the U.S. Supreme Court -- not on the merits, but because the 5-4 conservative majority ruled that the 38-year-old law didn't give individuals the power to sue a state or state agency receiving federal funds.

The decision had sweeping impact: Though discrimination based on race, color and national origin is still prohibited, individuals no longer can sue to enforce it.

While lawyers plot courtroom strategy, another force is taking it to the streets.

On Oct. 6, between 20,000 and 30,000 antiwar demonstrators gathered in Central Park under the banner Not in Our Name. The rally had a similar feel to Vietnam War protests three decades earlier, but with a wider range in the ages of the participants and a surprising discipline in rhetoric.

Most of the anger stayed focused on the Bush administration's press toward war against Iraq. There were almost no broad-brush indictments of America itself: One typical banner said, ``Dissent is Patriotic.''

''I don't think you can use violence to gain peace,'' said Silvia Villacis, 27, a Miami resident working on her master's degree at New York University, who attended the rally. ``We learned that from Vietnam.''

WORLD LOOKS TO U.S.

The erosion of essential civil rights at home, together with America' emerging posture as the world's military bully abroad, is a devastating one-two punch to the historical virtue of the American conscience.

This nation's influence has been based on neither its economic power (that many resent) nor its military power (that many fear), but on principles that have guided our exercise of power. Worldwide, people of good conscience have respected the restraint that we have exercised in our use of power.

Despite myriad cases of American leaders failing to live up to the lofty principles we espouse, the world sees -- or has seen, until now -- a nation ever struggling to be nobler.

It has seen us run one president out of office and impeach another. It has seen us hold free, transparent elections since 1791, always transferring power peacefully. It has seen a race of slaves evolve into citizens and women approach equal social status. The world has admired our struggle to be better, even when we've fallen short.

This is what President Bush is risking -- and perhaps, has already forfeited -- in his high-stakes poker game over Iraq. His doctrine declares that we will flex our awesome power unilaterally, for our own purposes, in our own interests, world be damned.

With every act promoting war abroad and undermining civil rights at home, America's worldwide influence drains away. When America fails to stand for peace and justice, the world loses faith in the very notions.

Only disciplined, noble dissent can temper the forward march of Bush's dangerous doctrine.

If the Democratic Party can't muster the will, the American people will have to find it on their own.

Copyright 2002 Miami Herald

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