Howard Machtinger Reflects on the Weather Underground
Howard Machtinger was a member of the Weather Underground, which attempted to add a violent domestic insurgency to the mix of techniques used by the movements protesting against U.S. imperialism and injustice in the Vietnam era.
He’s recently written up a reappraisal of the role of the Weather Underground that makes for interesting reading.
In short, he thinks that Weather Underground members were too impatiently focused on proving their own willingness to take risks and to up the ante to violence, and not concerned enough about thinking of long-term and effective strategy that succeeds more through the patient, steady work of organizing than through the dramatic actions of self-appointed revolutionaries.
Good food for thought.
Seems like Argentina is a hotbed of tax rebellion these days:
Los Vecinos Autoconvocados [the mobilized neighbors? — ♇]
decided to have recourse to Justice against the city council’s measure to
raise the value of the land and houses by decree; Moreover, they will return
to gather in front of
city hall to protest against the hike applied to the rates; They decided not
to pay the TGI [property tax] and to leaflet against the city measure.
It was decided, after an exchange of opinions:
do not pay the TGI by confiscation [«por confiscatoria» — I’m not sure whether this is a description of the method the tax is collected, or the method it will be resisted, or something else — ♇]
conduct a protest march and cacerolazos at the Plaza de Mayo in the city of Paraná
leaflet the city to inform the public about the non-payment
Assembled together , the
taxpayers of Paraná decided to bring a constitutional challenge today against
the measure of the city executive to increase valuations by decree.
This act determined increases between 50 and 500%, or more in some cases, in
the property tax rates charged by the municipality to Paranans.
The recommendation of the Executive Board of Los Vecinos
Autoconvocados had been to suggest legal actions, before the decision of
mayor José Halle not to review the situation and his refusal to meet with
the citizens.
They also suggested taking as the groundwork the arguments of the opinion of
the City Ombudsman of Paraná that had advised that the city council suspend
the increases.
They also reiterated the motions against paying the fees in the current
conditions and the proposal set forth to make the values that held until
last year.
This is in addition to the potential tax resistance campaign by drought-stricken farmers in Argentina, which I’ve noted here a couple of times before.
