has come and gone, and with it the TEA Parties and protests. Some items of note:
- The National Priorities Project has long been maintaining a Cost of War counter that keeps track of the monetary cost of the major wars the United States is pursuing at the moment, and allows you to see how much your community has spent on these wars. Recently, the mayor of Binghamton, New York, approved the installation of a large, digital “cost of war” counter in front of City Hall.
- Pam Allee explains her war tax resistance at Portland Independent Media Center: “your vote on April 15th is the permission Congress needs to continue ‘business as usual.’ ”
- Seacoast Peace Response held a penny poll in Portsmouth, Maine to see how folks’ spending priorities compare to those of Congress.
- Another penny poll by Taxes for Peace Not War competed for attention with the TEA Party in Eugene, Oregon.
- Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite mingled with the TEA Party in Chicago, but decided she liked the war tax resistance protest of Kathy Kelly better:
She and other anti-war folks were also protesting taxes, only because tax dollars are used to support war. Kathy lives at a subsistence level to avoid paying taxes. “I can’t imagine changing my life so I can contribute to the devastation of war,” she told me. In addition, she observed that because of her commitment to living at a subsistence level, she can’t own a car and she consumes very little fossil fuels, just helping to save the planet. “The IRS is my spiritual director,” she argued. Now that’s not something you hear every April 15.
- Susan Henking at religion dispatches, looks at war tax resistance, and other forms of tax resistance before retreating into a “write your Senator and vote, vote, vote” thing.
