Why it is your duty to stop supporting the government →
the danger of “feel-good” protests →
liberals can be infuriating →
supporting the Democratic Party in spite of its policies
The United States has the largest, most expensive, most internationally-dispersed military the world has ever seen.
The United States spends about as much on what it still teasingly calls “defense” as the rest of the world combined.
But you knew that.
What you didn’t know is that it isn’t big enough!
Among those 21 Democrats signing the letter are John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Hilary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, Joseph Biden, and Joseph Lieberman.
Remember that budget that came out a few days ago?
You know, the one that was the largest one ever, with a gigantic deficit, that the press kept trying to describe as “spare” and “full of deep cuts” to “rein in spending”?
But even that wasn’t good enough.
, the Dubya Squad asked Congress for an additional $82 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for the greater glory of American foreign policy (you know, like payoffs for foreign governments that backed the Iraq War fiasco).
Why didn’t they include this money in the budget they just released?
Well, you know, these wars are big, unpredictable, exceptional things.
Huge asterices that get in the way of reasonable budgeting.
Besides, the rules on these supplemental warbucks packages are faster and looser and the bills get much less Congressional scrutiny… which means, of course, that they’ll try to sneak in as much as they can.
There’s not much in the way of specifics in any part of this document — no breakdown, beyond a billion or so, of that $17.3 billion for Army operations and maintenance, or of $5.6 billion for Air Force operations and maintenance, or of $990 million for Army military construction in Iraq.
The list could go on and on.
This is one reason the administration is loading so much military spending in a supplemental instead of the regular budget.
The budget is scrutinized; supplementals aren’t.… ¶ [T]his supplemental includes quite a lot of money for items that have nothing to do with the costs of war in Iraq.…
Finally, there is the slush fund for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
When that $87 billion supplemental came out in , I noted provisions giving Rumsfeld the authority to move around $9.3 billion — 11 percent of the total amount — from one account to another at his discretion.
This time, I’ve spotted between $7.5 billion and $11 billion (10 percent to 14 percent), depending on how it’s counted.
I wonder what would have happened if John Kerry had won in — would he stop this military gluttony?
Sen. John Kerry called for tens of thousands of new U.S. troops on and said the country should adopt a series of initiatives to support military families.
Kerry said he plans to file legislation to increase the size of the military by 40,000 — 30,000 in the Army and 10,000 in the Marines — to help support the country’s efforts in Iraq and the larger war on terrorism.…
“The war in Iraq proved that a lightning-fast, high-tech force can smash an opposing army and drive to Baghdad in three weeks.
But there is no substitute for a well-trained and equipped infantry to win the peace,” Kerry said in remarks delivered at an annual ceremony sponsored by the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester.
Is there something you care about more than winning the next election?
For example, curtailment of civil liberties; imprisonment without trial; torture; military adventures based on lies that kill tens of thousands of people?
And I don’t want you just nodding your heads.
I want your push-comes-to-shove response.
Let’s say it’s and the choice somehow gets to be completely stark: proclaim your enthusiasm for torture or lose.
Which will it be?
It would be nice if that were not a question, if it was everyone’s moral intuition that you can’t trade lives for electoral victory.
Indeed, anyone who made such a trade would both an evil coward.
But, um…
Here’s what I believe about John Kerry.
On the Patriot Act, on No Child Left Behind, on war, on gay marriage, on whatever: in every case he voted and spoke with one goal: getting elected president.
For Kerry and the Democratic leadership, getting elected was more important that a thousand American lives, more important than tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, more important than the Constitution.
Now of course this is more or less just the reality of American politics.
But, um, it is morally monstrous.
I actually admire a straight-up enthusiastic murderer more than someone who with eyes fully open endorses murder in order to further a certain set of personal ambitions.
I do not believe that our sad little species offers up any more despicable choice.
Kill because you believe it’s the right thing to do and you may be terribly, terribly wrong.
Kill because killing polls well and you’re not even worth frying.
I’ve been arguing that, as FDR’s administration represented a sort of socialist revolution in America, GWB’s represents a fascist revolution.
Of course, in both cases the revolution is pretty mild: FDR wasn’t Stalin; Bush isn’t Hitler.
But even if he were, let me put it like this.
Hitler is an evil man.
But by himself he’s just another nutjob.
He needs help.
But he also needs acquiescence.
He needs a whole citizenry and specifically a set of leaders who are just too chickenshit to say stop.
Hitler is despicable, but the Vichy collaborators aren’t even good enough to be despicable, if you get me: they’re too empty.
And Hitler can’t do his thing without them.
Hitler believes something.
And other people believe what he believes.
But the real nightmare is the people who know he’s wrong and still help him herd the Jews into the cattle cars.…
Now what I’m about to say is a horrible thing to say to Democrats, really a dangerous thing because it constitutes a motivation for further acts of moral self-destruction.
But the fact that Bush spoke plainly and took controversial and clear positions on most issues was a key reason he won.
People looked at Kerry as if gazing into a void.
That itself presents certain dangers in a leader that makes people leery of casting their vote.
No telling what Kerry might do in a given situation because he comes unencumbered by beliefs.
I mean, let me ask you this.
Had Kerry been elected, would there be any difference in American Iraq policy?
How about in the approach to Iran or North Korea?
He’s unpredictable or unstable because he’s always feeling around for the safe answer.…
[I]f you take what I’m saying as strategic advice, then it won’t work as strategic advice or in any other way.
You’ll hear what I’m saying as follows: next time we’d better simulate commitment.
And then you’re truly living in a hall of mirrors.
You’ve reached the point at which it is literally impossible to say what you believe or to believe anything, because your act of belief is always strategic.
But we could say this: belief is never strategic.
You never actually believe anything because you think it’s fun to believe it or because it will make you a million dollars or will win you the presidency, though you can start out on a lengthy process of self-delusion.
But you believe something when and only when you take it to be true.
So here, again, is the question for Democrats: is there anything you believe that you would not give up or qualify in order to elect a president?
If not, I suggest that there is no reason for you to exist at all.
Get out now: you can’t possibly do anything good for anyone.
Give up.
Disband your party.
Hang yourself.
You really won’t be killing anyone when you do.
So: is opposing the invasion of Iraq worth taking a political risk?
If not, nothing is.
If nothing is, die like the cur you are.
That way you won’t be killing people by performing acts you yourself don’t believe in.…
Strategic questions cannot be the only questions.
I think that the Democratic party had an absolute moral obligation to run against the Patriot Act and the war, to present an alternative to these disasters, even if it had been perfectly clear that these oppositions would lead to resounding defeat.
It’s bad going down to defeat for what you believe, but it must be really sorry to betray all your convictions and get whipped anyway.
The election of should have been a pivotal moment in American history, but turned out to be one that yielded nothing but bathos.
It was not a turning point because the Dems were too scared to turn.
It’s funny because the “get out the vote” thing was so extreme on campuses etc. but it was actually a good year for apathy because Kerry refused to articulate any convictions.
Everyone kept saying “this is the most important election of my lifetime.”
But it was barely an election at all.
If you voted for Bush or you voted for Kerry, all you did was ratify the politics of the Bush administration.…
So here’s my advice, such as it is.
Forget questions like: should we tack left or right?
How can we carry Ohio?
How can we appeal to Christians?
Who’s the least offensive southern governor?
How can we show that we’re tough on terror?
How do we reach out to pro-life voters?
How nasty can we get in our opposition to gay marriage?
Etc. Stop asking the strategic question at all for a second.
Take a safari into your own heart and come back believing something.
Now take a deep breath and say it.
Naturally, I took a look around to find out what else this Crispin Sartwell has to say.
I found his very interesting-looking book on Extreme Virtue, and also a well-thought out meditation on the “support the troops” mantra and its use by people who are against the war: “I find this puzzling,” he writes.
“If you think the war is wrong, then you think what the soldiers are doing is wrong.”
The way out of this dilemma is to think of the troops as being automata, acting apart from their own wills, or somehow in ways that are immune to judgment.
That way you can continue to support them, because their actions are separate from who they are.
This, Sartwell says, is going way too far.
[E]ven in a context in which someone is telling you what to do, you’re responsible for what you do.
If this is not the case, then not only are there no war crimes, there are no war heroes.
¶ To join the military is a decision.
To allow yourself to be deployed to Iraq is a decision.
“For us to oppose what our troops are doing and to support them for doing it,” Sartwell concludes, “is to regard them as inanimate objects, as things with no responsibility for their own actions.
It is to excuse everything on the ground that the persons doing it have no conscience, understanding or will.”
But Sartwell is astute enough to see that if he pulls on this thread of logic long enough, he may end up chillier by one sweater:
[W]e, too, need to accept our responsibility.
Thoreau went to jail because — in protest of the war and as a refusal to participate in it — he declined to pay his taxes.
I myself, though I oppose the war, am no tax resister.
In other words, when the authorities order me to cough up (or, rather, when they confiscate the war machine’s cut directly from my paycheck), I utter nary a peep.
The laws and mechanisms under which I do this are designed precisely to exculpate me, to diminish my own sense of my responsibility.
But whether the law treats me as a child, an object, an idiot or a victim, still I am responsible as I pay for what I hate.
A team of Senate and House Democrats are planning to introduce legislation today aimed at significantly increasing the size of the U.S. Army.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services (SASC) airland subcommittee, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), a SASC member, and Reps. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), both members of the House Armed Services committee, are pressing for the passage of the United States Army Relief Act.
Everything that needs to be known is now [now? — ♇] known: The reasons the Bush Administration gave for the American war in Iraq were all falsehoods or deceptions, and every day the U.S. occupation continues deepens the very problems it was supposed to solve.
Therefore there can no longer be any doubt: The war — an unprovoked, unnecessary and unlawful invasion that has turned into a colonial-style occupation — is a moral and political catastrophe.
As such it is a growing stain on the honor of every American who acquiesces, actively or passively, in its conduct and continuation.
…In short, ending the Iraq War is the most pressing issue facing America today.…
The Nation therefore takes the following stand: We will not support any candidate for national office who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq a major issue of his or her campaign.
We urge all voters to join us in adopting this position.…
We firmly believe that antiwar candidates, with the other requisite credentials, can win the Congressional elections, the Democratic presidential primaries and the subsequent national election.
But this fight, and our stand, must begin now [now? — ♇].
…There is no other way to save America’s security and honor.
And to those Democratic “leaders” who continue to insist that the safer, more electable course is to remain openly or silently complicit in the war, we say, paraphrasing the moral philosopher Hillel: If not now, when?
If not you, who?
This magazine’s disagreements with Kerry are deep and touch on fundamental matters.
We believed that the invasion of Iraq was “the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time” (as he now describes it) before the war was ever launched; he has come to that conclusion only recently, having voted to authorize the war.
We believe the United States should withdraw from Iraq; he wants to “win” the war there.
We think the military budget should be cut; he plans to increase it, adding 40,000 troops.
(For what, exactly? to fight another wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time?)
We reject pre-emptive war; he embraces it.
It will be another full year before The Nation will have a chance to make its next endorsements.
I fear that their new policy will prove to be a tidal one, ebbing in election years only to come back in strong waves of proud and stern prose in the years in-between.
So the news has been full of the hawkish, decorated, ex-Marine, Vietnam Vet, Democratic House Member John Murtha calling for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
(Followed quickly by San Francisco’s representative, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, saying “Mr. Murtha speaks for himself.”)
Murtha introduced (as the sole sponsor) a House Resolution to support his call, which (after all of the usual throat-clearing “whereas”es) reads:
Section 1. The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.
Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines shall be deployed in the region.
Section 3 The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy.
He apparently didn’t care to sign on to House Concurrent Resolution 35, which has a mere 34 co-sponsors so far, and which puts it this way (after the usual throat-clearing “whereas”es):
[I]t is the sense of Congress that the President should—
(1) develop and implement a plan to begin the immediate withdrawal of United States Armed Forces from Iraq;
(2) develop and implement a plan for reconstructing Iraq’s civil and economic infrastructure;
(3) convene an emergency meeting of Iraq’s leadership, Iraq’s neighbors, the United Nations, and the Arab League to create an international peacekeeping force in Iraq and to replace United States Armed Forces in Iraq with Iraqi police and Iraqi National Guard forces to ensure Iraq’s security; and
(4) take all steps necessary to provide the Iraqi people with the opportunity to completely control their internal affairs.
…or H.R. 4232, the “End the War in Iraq Act,” which has even fewer cosponsors, and puts things sans whereases:
(a) Prohibition– Except as provided in subsection (b), funds appropriated or otherwise made available under any provision of law may not be obligated or expended to deploy or continue to deploy the Armed Forces to the Republic of Iraq.
(b) Exception– Subsection (a) shall not apply to the use of funds to—
(1) provide for the safe and orderly withdrawal of the Armed Forces from Iraq; or
(2) ensure the security of Iraq and the transition to democratic rule by—
(A) carrying out consultations with the Government of Iraq, other foreign governments, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United Nations, and other international organizations; or
(B) providing financial assistance or equipment to Iraqi security forces and international forces in Iraq.
(c) Rule of Construction– Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit or otherwise restrict the use of funds available to any department or agency of the Government of the United States (other than the Department of Defense) to carry out social and economic reconstruction activities in Iraq.
(d) Definition– In this section, the term ‘Armed Forces’ has the meaning given the term in section 101(a)(4) of title 10, United States Code.
While war-ending resolutions like these have attracted few sponsors, many Democratic members of the House have been trying to compete rhetorically for the love and votes of the increasingly anti-war, withdrawal-happy public.
So the Republicans decided to call their bluff today by introducing and rushing to the floor their own resolution which reads:
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.
The roll call vote should create a helpful list for The Nation to refer to when deciding which candidates to endorse .
For as they said in their recent editorial:
Courageously standing up to this stern threat from The Nation, Rep. Pelosi urged Democrats in the House to vote against the resolution, and 93% of them did (the total vote in the House was a lopsided 403 to 3).
Many Democrats have hit on a nuanced position that rejects the rash, cut-and-run language of the Republican-introduced measure, (which establishes that the opinion of the House is that “the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately”) in favor of the far more reasonable language in Murtha’s resolution (which says that “The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated”).
Oh yes, if only they would allow us to bring up the Murtha resolution for a vote… but this sham Republican amendment is far too reckless to consider!
Update: According to the Associated Press, on Pelosi stopped distancing herself from Murtha’s position.
“We should follow the lead of Congressman John Murtha, who has put forth a plan to make American safer, to make our military stronger and to make Iraq more stable,” she said.
…do not start to mutter to yourself about spineless Democratic politicians.
For the fault lies not in our politicians, but in ourselves.
Let us remind ourselves that twice in two weeks, the avowedly prowar Senators, mainly Republicans, filibustered against a toothless non-binding anti-war resolution against the war.
Why?
Their base demands it.
Theirs is not a spineless base, and so they are not spineless legislators.
But in over four years the supposedly antiwar Democratic Senators did not even raise the idea of a filibuster.
Why not?
In part because their base did not demand it.
Not once was it raised to my knowledge.
What does the mainstream or “official” antiwar movement, as it more properly should be called, do?
Does it demand or does it grovel?
Quite frankly it grovels — at most.
The Dem politicians are spineless in part, because we are.
I’m fresh back from the NWTRCC national conference, which was held in Eugene, Oregon, and hosted by the enthusiastic and welcoming Eugene “Taxes for Peace Not War” group.
I’ve got a binder full of handouts and hastily-scratched notes that I took whenever I found a spare moment.
Today I’ll share some of my impressions of the gathering and of the current state of the war tax resistance movement.
Frivolity
Many of the attendees were concerned about the IRS being more aggressive in sending out notices of “frivolous filing” penalties to resisters who send letters of protest that explain their refusal to pay along with their tax returns.
One couple who were first-time resisters and had only refused to pay a token $50 last year were assessed “frivolous filing” penalties of $5,000 — each, even though they had filed a single return jointly — though they had filled out their return accurately and completely.
The IRS also insists that once they have assessed a “frivolous filing” penalty, you must pay that penalty before you can appeal it!
The law seems pretty clear that the “frivolous filing” penalty is only meant to apply if the tax return is incomplete or incorrect, but the IRS seems to be applying it haphazardly — not only to people who file complete and accurate returns but who refuse to pay some portion, but even to people who file and pay every cent but who merely inclose a letter registering their protest or disapproval!
Meanwhile, other resisters — including one who files a return every year with her social security number at the top but with none of the other required information, and with the 1040 form over-written with a protest message in red ink — have never been assessed a “frivolous filing” penalty or even received a “frivolous filing” warning letter.
The coordinating committee discusses the RFPTFA on morning
The “Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act”
For a more in-depth examination of my misgivings about the RFPTFA, see:
One item on the agenda was a request by the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund that NWTRCC formally “recommit to the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill and the efforts NCPTF is doing to get it passed in Congress.”
As I explained , I have serious misgivings about “peace tax fund” proposals in general, and think that the current incarnation of the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act in particular would do more harm than good.
However, NWTRCC had endorsed a different version of this legislation years ago, and so many people expected this new call for an endorsement to be a no-brainer.
Much debate ensued.
Robert Randall pointed out that NWTRCC’s “Statement of Purpose” includes “support of the US Peace Tax Fund Bill.”
He interpreted this as being a built-in endorsement of the latest act which would make the current debate moot.
However, no act by that name has been introduced recently — I think since — and in many important ways the current legislation does not resemble the version that NWTRCC endorsed back in the day.
I was a little worried that I would be the only one objecting to the endorsement and that this would put me outside of the general consensus of the group, but as it turns out there were many people present who expressed misgivings about peace tax fund legislation and who weren’t enthusiastic about endorsing it, and I heard more than one person express that this was a long-overdue debate.
Many of the Act’s supporters seem to have ideas of what the Act would accomplish that go way beyond the actual text of the legislation.
One said, for instance, that if the Act passed, it would effectively allow citizens to annually vote yea or nay on war or on whatever wars the government was engaged in at the time.
Some participants in the discussion were concerned that NWTRCC remain on good terms with NCPTF, in part so that we may be more influential as they recraft their strategy in the coming years.
One person said that because the Act is a long-shot to ever become law, it is best judged not by what its effects would be if it were enacted, but by what it symbolizes as a proposal that approximates the hopes of people who want legal recognition for conscientious objection to military taxation.
(Myself, I’m not sure I buy this argument, but in any case I think that the symbolism of the Act is ambiguous at best and may very well communicate a message that is, on the whole, harmful to the cause.)
The result of our discussion was that we decided to hold off on making a decision of whether or not to endorse until our meeting, at which time we will have more time to discuss the question and more time to study the points that are in debate.
A book of writings by and about Marian Franz and her work with the peace tax fund campaign is forthcoming, and will include a piece by Ruth Benn about the war tax resistance movement and its relationship with the peace tax fund campaign.
Election aftermath
There was varied reaction to the recent presidential election.
Many people were skeptical of the promise for meaningful change, and distrustful towards the Democratic party, and saw the election mostly in terms of whether it would anaesthetize progressive activists or whether it might be possible to reactivate the hopeful coalitions that helped to propel Obama into office once Hope turns to disappointment.
Others were very enthusiastic about the change and hoped that progressives and peace activists might finally be able to influence government policy.
One person went as far as to say that we’d “won” and would have to get used to being winners on the inside of the power structure instead of ignored pleaders outside of it.
Another hopefully imagined getting a group of progressive religious leaders to sit down with Obama and confront his faith with a challenge to go further than his public statements have so far suggested.
To me this all sounds like stuff of the same sort as gingerbread houses, flying carpets, and fairy godmothers, but I mention it here to show that some of the Hope bubble has infected even a skeptical group like NWTRCC.
There was much mention of “Camp Hope” — a vigil that will be held near Obama’s home in Chicago in up to inauguration day.
The goals of this vigil will be to encourage Obama to follow-through boldly on some of his more progressive campaign themes.
The demands of the vigil are meant to harmonize with, rather than to protest, the goals of the Obama campaigners, and will concentrate on actions that the new administration can take immediately via executive orders.
This is said to be partially based on a similar vigil that took place in the run-up to Jimmy Carter’s inauguration in that asked Carter to pardon Vietnam-era draft resisters and to cancel the B-1 bomber program, both of which Carter did.
A new war funding supplemental bill is expected to hit Congress in , and this will be an early test of what kind of Change we can expect from the new order, and what kind of power the current anti-war movement is capable of asserting.
The War Tax Boycott
’s war tax boycott campaign was well-received by some local war tax resistance groups, who found it a good focal point for their outreach efforts.
However, the number of people who participated in the boycott disappointed the hopes of those who initiated the campaign.
There was much discussion of whether we should continue the campaign into and if so in what fashion.
If we were to continue the campaign into — making the the climax of the campaign — this would give us little time to mount a serious outreach effort, and at the same time it would have to compete for attention with the actions of the opening months of the new Obama administration.
It might be hard to convince new resisters to join up if they’re still placing their hopes for peace with their rulers.
We eventually concluded that we would continue the campaign, but would concentrate this year on retrenching and consolidation rather than on a major outreach and publicity campaign, in preparation for a larger campaign when the inevitable Obama Disappointment sets in.
Meanwhile, local groups that find the campaign useful can continue to use it as before.
Rather than making April 15th the target date for beginning to resist, we may be better off doing what Code Pink did with its war tax resistance campaign and tell people that their resistance begins the moment they take their first affirmative step toward tax resistance, for instance by adjusting their W-4 withholding.
One person said that although she resisted taxes , she didn’t sign up for the boycott because she was only resisting a small amount and was redirecting that amount to local groups, and she had the impression that the boycott was mainly for people redirecting larger amounts to the two showcase charities highlighted by the boycott campaign.
Some people who did boycott outreach found that some folks were reluctant to sign on to the boycott for fear of the danger of being on some government list, and stressed that there should be a way for people to join the campaign anonymously.
Miscellany
Some local University of Oregon students dropped by the meeting and volunteered to create a redesigned mock-up of the nwtrcc.org web site that we could use if we’d like — a much-appreciated and spontaneous act of generosity.
NWTRCC will be trying to nurture a new regional gathering of war tax resisters — something along the lines of the New England Regional Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters that is coming up later .
To this end, it will be inviting groups that are interested in hosting such a gathering to submit proposals, and will select one of these proposals to support with some seed money and other assistance.
NWTRCC decided to commit to revitalize the War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund, which seems to have run out of steam (appeals for funds go out very infrequently, and resisters are reimbursed only after long delay).
NWTRCC coordinator Ruth Benn is preparing a series of “Readings on Money.”
These include transcripts of some of the discussion on that subject at the Fall gathering in Las Vegas, Karen Marysdaughter’s essay on “The Influence of Money on Decisions to Engage in War Tax Resistance,” George Salzman’s “Inheritance and Social Responsibility,” a debate about the ethics of accepting interest on loans and bank deposits from Juanita Nelson and Bob Irwin, and a look at the intwined structure of government spending, national debt, the war machine, the federal reserve, and the income tax from Jay Sordean.
Kathy Kelly leads a workshop on “Honesty and Empathy: Questions for Collaborators”
Kathy Kelly led us through some role-playing exercises concerning collaboration and how to confront it, and shared some stories with us from her experiences with activism and humanitarian assistance.
Her public presentation at the University after the end of the NWTRCC conference session was well-appreciated by those who attended.
Kelly is an engaging speaker who relates interesting experiences vividly and well — with a great command of accents and the ability to invoke strong and varied emotions without making the audience feel like they’ve been strapped on a roller-coaster.
One of her themes: around the world, many people are forced to make great sacrifices because of the decisions our political leaders are making.
Meanwhile, what will raise us to make the sacrifices we need to make to make things right?
To those of us to whom much has been given, much will be expected in this regard.
We need to slow down and unflinchingly reassess our priorities.
“This is what grown-ups do.”
Mike Butler volunteered to bring NWTRCC into the MySpace / Facebook universe, so keep an eye out there.
Erica Weiland removes a pillar of militarism in Susan Quinlan’s workshop
Susan Quinlan demonstrated some of the techniques she uses in youth outreach to teach about the unbalanced government budget priorities and about how to build a better society by shifting your support from the pillars that support a system of injustice to the pillars that support the scaffolding of a better system.
I remember a couple of interesting stories of how people were introduced to war tax resistance.
One couple was working with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Colombia and met some war tax resisters there and then took up war tax resistance on their return home.
Another new resister had been working for an alternative newspaper that received a grant from a war tax resisters’ tax-redirection alternative fund, and learned about war tax resistance that way.
Conference attendees review part of Steev Hise’s rough cut for Death and Taxes
Steev Hise’s war tax resistance video project continues, with a projected completion date around .
Conference attendees saw a preview of a portion of the film and seemed enthusiastic about it.
The next national meeting will be held this coming Spring (early ) somewhere in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. — details to be hashed out in the coming months.
The next national will be in Cleveland, Ohio around .
And with all that, I’m still leaving a lot out.
But for now, that’ll have to do.
During World War Ⅱ, the U.S. income tax expanded its reach.
Formerly a tax that targeted the well-to-do, it became a tax on income-earners in general.
In order to help this go smoothly, the government enlisted popular entertainers to create pro-tax propaganda.
I’ve already mentioned here The Spirit of , a Disney cartoon that told citizens that “Taxes Will Sock the Axis.”
Today David Beito reminds us of another bit of this propaganda campaign.
A song penned by Irving Berlin and sung by Danny Kaye: “I Paid My Income Tax Today.” Some sample lyrics:
I paid my income tax today I never felt so proud before To be right there with the millions more Who paid their income tax today I’m squared up with the U.S.A. See those bombers in the sky? Rockefeller helped to build ’em, so did I I paid my income tax today
I paid my income tax today A thousand planes to bomb Berlin They’ll all be paid for and I chipped in That certainly makes me feel okay Ten thousand more and that ain’t hay We must pay for this war somehow Uncle Sam was worried but he isn’t now I paid my income tax today
And that reminds me of this.
The first evidence I’ve seen of a foul-weather war tax resister deciding to give it up at the first hint of sunshine.
Obama’s not even in office yet, and already…
I’m Paying Taxes Now
Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to say that?
I’m paying taxes this year.
Barack Obama has just been called as the next President of the United States.
This war tax resister is going to pay her taxes for the first time in six years.
I can’t wait.
I love this country, and at this exact second, I feel that love.
I will write my check with a happy heart.
I can’t wait to introduce my daughter to our new President.
Sigh.
In Eugene some people feared the possibility of this sort of reaction, but nobody seemed to know of any actual examples of it.
Well, there’s at least one.
…I will vote for the Lieberman-Warner amendment to authorize the use of military force against Iraq.
And unlike my colleagues from West Virginia and Maryland, I do not believe this is a rush to war.
I believe it is a march to peace and security.
I believe that failure to overwhelmingly support this resolution is likely to enhance the prospects that war will occur.…
In the middle of a long rant about Saddam’s many and dangerous weapons of mass destruction that make his vote so necessary, he says — get this:
President Bush did not lash out precipitously after 9/11. He did not snub the U.N. or our allies.
He did not dismiss a new inspection regime.
He did not ignore the Congress.
At each pivotal moment, he has chosen a course of moderation and deliberation.
I believe he will continue to do so — at least that is my fervent hope.
I wish he would turn down the rhetorical excess in some cases because I think it undercuts the decision he ends up making.
But in each case, in my view, he has made the right rational and calm, deliberate decision.
Comedy gold, people.
…if it comes to war, I fully expect the President will come back to the American people and tell us what is expected of us.
As a matter of fact, when he met with the congressional leadership and the committee chairmen about 10 to 15 days ago — I forget the exact date — we were all around the Cabinet table and at one point he turned to me and he said: Mr. Chairman, what do you think?
And I said: Mr. President, I will be with you if you make an earnest effort to go through the United Nations, if you try to do this with our allies and friends; if in fact the U.N. does not support our effort, as in Kosovo, and if you are willing to be square with the American people, Mr. President, of what sacrifices we are going to ask of them, particularly the need to have a significant number of American forces in place in Iraq after Saddam Hussein is taken down.
In the presence of all my colleagues at that meeting, he said: I will do that.
He has never broken his word.
Then there’s this part at the end:
…the sin of Vietnam, no matter what our view on Vietnam is, is not whether we went or didn’t go.
But the sin, in my view, is the failure of two Presidents to level with the American people of what the costs would be, what the continued involvement would require, and what was being asked of them.
No.
I’m pretty sure that “the sin of Vietnam” has a lot more to do with the dead and maimed people in Vietnam than it does with the President failing to tell Americans how much all that killing and maiming was going to cost.
This is almost as good as when Gore picked Lieberman.
And now I’ve got to spend the next four years listening to my good, liberal friends pretend that this kind of crap is something other than it is.
I didn’t see any of ’s coronation hoopla, but many of my friends were overcome by emotion and emitted yelps of excitement in various on-line fora, so I couldn’t just let the event pass without notice as I would have wished.
I am embarrassed for my friends and my country that we still enthusiastically install royalty at such great expense at this late date after the success of our revolution.
And unlike the former monarchies which have devolved into republics and divested their crowns of significant power, we seem largely determined to attach all of our hopes and most of our sovereignty onto our king (or even, as showed, some court jester).
The people have spoken.
If the people had any sense of shame or any self-awareness, they’d shut the fuck up.
They’ve been speaking for a long time now and casting terrible, hateful imprecations that have called forth demons that they refuse to accept responsibility for or attempt to control.
And that button has just gotten better-insulated and more satisfying to fondle, hasn’t it?
For all of Obama’s talk of “responsibility” yesterday, you can be damn sure nobody is going to be asked to accept any.
For instance, I noticed — crestfallen in spite of myself — that Bush escaped Washington without having issued a much-expected midnight blanket pardon to the people who designed and implemented the U.S. policy of torturing its prisoners — so confident was he that no prosecutions (at least of anyone important) would be forthcoming.
Is there any hope that in my lifetime Americans will grow up and begin to take on the responsibilities of adults, instead of superstitiously appointing royal messiah-scapegoats to absorb our agency and take the blame for our sins?
Our local war tax resistance group is still trying to come up with a game plan for .
We may try to come up with an action of our own and then invite some other local groups in the anti-war/militarism milieu to join us.
Or we may try to piggyback on some other group’s tax day protest.
I suggested that maybe we could try joining up with the local incarnation of the Tax Day “Tea Party” protest.
Those protests are happening nationwide this year, and are being egged on by the usual megaphone-wielding suspects in the American right-wing.
The protests are meant to be a way for citizens like you and me to express our outrage at the government’s waste of our money in the bailout boondoggle (and in general), and at the tax increases that are bound to follow.
Here’s how our local group is putting it:
Together with Tea Parties taking place in hundreds of cities across the country, concerned taxpayers will gather on in Civic Center Park in San Francisco to send the following message to President Obama and the Congress:
No You Can’t! spend taxpayers’ hard-earned money on reckless stimulus packages loaded with pork.
No You Can’t! implement a pork-laden budget that can only lead to increased taxes and further debt.
No You Can’t! put a stranglehold on our economy.
No You Can’t! take our money and limit our freedoms.
The consequences of such profligate spending are far-reaching and will affect the economic well-being of future generations while thwarting the basic liberties entrusted to the people by our Constitution.
When, in , the colonists were not heard or respected, the Boston Tea Party was born and the Sons of Liberty dumped tons of tea into the Harbor as a protest against the British government.
Tax Day Tea Party protesters are gathering across this great nation in the spirit of those patriots, demanding to be heard.
The winds of change are blowing but this isn’t change any of us can believe in.
The irresponsible behavior of Washington’s politicians has prompted taxpayers to action.
Hard-working Americans throughout the country and across the economic and political spectra are joining forces to send a message to their politicians: America is going to party like it’s !
While protesting shoulder-to-shoulder with folks who get their news from Fox would be a big step out of the traditional comfort zone for our local war tax resistance group, I think it might be productive.
We’d be introducing conscientious tax resistance to a group of people who may never have encountered it before.
And we could point out that most of the pork and waste in Washington is pentagonal in shape — a message the dittoheads may not have yet been exposed to.
My proposal has gotten a lukewarm reception so far.
One person emailed me saying that she wasn’t sure she wanted to join a protest against the government’s spending priorities since she’d just gotten an email from the American Friends Service Committee declaring its enthusiastic support for the budget!
Sad to say, it’s true.
Read it and weep. The email message was even worse than what you find on the web site.
Dozens of liberal groups, including the American Friends Service Committee, signed on to support “President Obama’s budget priorities” and urge passage of his budget, claiming:
His budget commits major investments in health care reform, education, and clean energy, while restoring fairness to our tax system and reducing military expenditures over time in a responsible manner.
[Emphasis mine — ♇]
This is an incredible distortion.
Over the last decade, in real, inflation-adjusted dollars, U.S. military spending has just about doubled.
Is Obama reversing this cancerous growth?
Hardly.
Obama’s budget allocates more to military spending than any of the Dubya Squad’s budgets did. And the American Friends Service Committee and the Friends Committee on National Legislation are doing their part to make sure it passes.
Much of the U.S. peace movement has been anesthetized by the one-two punch of Hope and Change, but Cindy Sheehan stayed alert and noticed that the war, militarism, and torture policies are just as worthy of disgust and revolt now as they were before the last election.
She recently tried to rally what remains of the active anti-war movement at Martha’s Vinyard, where Obama was taking a Summer break (Obama was no more interested in meeting with her than was Dubya back in the day).
Those in attendance have composed something they call an International People’s Declaration of Peace.
(This link may be to a draft, not the final declaration; I’m not sure.)
I could quibble with some of the details, I suppose, but I like the look of it.
It’s fairly tightly-focused on war & militarism, without trying to throw in a horn-of-plenty’s worth of concerns, which I think is a good thing.
Most crucially, it represents a commitment by the signers themselves to certain actions — it’s not just a set of demands they’re making of the powers-that-be, which is where many such declarations flounder.
Although it’s an “International” declaration, its focus is on the United States.
This is for the very sensible reason, the Declaration says, “that the United States of America is still, as the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. said, the ‘greatest purveyor of violence in the world today’ and the biggest arms dealer and war profiteer; citizens of the USA should acknowledge the special role that must be played and the sacrifices that must be made to help lead this planet on the path to peace and worldwide reconciliation, as the US has allowed its leaders to lead this planet in aggressive behavior.”
The signatories of the declaration pledge, among other things, that “We will not allow the fruits of our labor to be used by our governments to finance wars.”
This is the sort of thing I’ve been hoping to see for years now.
However, the peace movement is at an ebb, and the influence that Sheehan and the other signatories (I haven’t seen a list of drafters or signers yet) over what remains of this movement is uncertain.
It may be that with the collapse of the fair-weather, luke-warm liberal support of the anti-war movement, a more dedicated core remains who may be more willing to rise to the challenge of such a declaration than the more dilute movement ever was.
Hard news about this Declaration has been difficult to come by, but I think the folks putting it together are hoping to roll it out in a final form at the White House protest action being organized by the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (formerly, Iraq Pledge of Resistance).
I was happy to see that that group has prominently linked “War Tax Resistance” on its web site.
