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San Franciscans who disapprove of the war are among the war’s biggest supporters
My imaginary friend Ishmael Gradsdovic seems to have gone turncoat on me and joined the other team.
I intercepted a letter he sent to my friends across the bay:
San Franciscans—
Thank you for your generous support to the George W. Bush administration and the Republican Congress.
When President Bush first came to office, we sent out requests to every American household through the Internal Revenue Service requesting (okay, demanding) donations to help pay for our agenda and our expensive overseas wars.
San Franciscans have a reputation for being unpatriotic people with nothing better to do than protest the war and bad-mouth the nation’s leaders.
But the numbers don’t lie.
San Franciscans may like to march around and chant and complain, but when that hundred billion dollar war bill comes due and it’s time for someone to pick up the tab, nobody is more reliable.
When you see the President announcing our next war, take pride in knowing that when San Francisco was asked to help make it possible, it did more than its share.
―Ishmael Gradsdovic
The Berkeley Daily Planet published Ishmael Gradsdovic’s letter thanking the people of Berkeley for their outstanding support of the Dubya Squad’s war effort.
[T]he thing we have the greatest power to change — our own lives — is the thing we’re often most resistant to change.
This is a good-old/bad-old human trait in general; we don’t want to give up our grudges or our self-destructive habits (because after all, they’re ours).
But especially we don’t want to practice our “political” ideals in our own lives because it’s risky and uncomfortable to personally resist the evils we claim to oppose.
We want to stop the war but we won’t do it by refusing to finance the war.
We want to stop the invasion of our privacy, but we won’t do it through non-cooperation with the database makers or through smashing the surveillance systems. We don’t wish to reduce our dependence on heavily regulated and taxed products.
We cooperate, we collaborate, then we complain.
It’s so comfortable to complain.
So familiar.
So us.
And it is so easy just to blame the entire loss of freedom on them — whoever they may be today.
So the one part of the world that we’re best positioned to “do something” about is the one thing we often do the very least to change.
The one place we really, truly can oppose evil — right at our own doorsteps, right in our own hearts — is the one place where we perpetually surround ourselves with excuses for inaction.
I wake up to the news that the voters of San Francisco have boldly passed a non-binding resolution declaring that the people of San Francisco disapprove of military recruiters in the public schools.
This pairs up nicely with ’s Proposition N, in which San Franciscans boldly voted to declare their absolutely powerless opinion that U.S. troops should be withdrawn from Iraq.
When it comes time for empty gestures, San Franciscans can be counted on to disapprove of the war.
When it comes time to send representatives or money to Congress, however, these scolding peaceniks seem to have other priorities.
The people, united, will pass a non-binding resolution disapproving of their defeat!
In , before such views became trendy nationwide, San Francisco voters approved a “nonbinding resolution” of their own — Proposition N — answering “yes!” by about a two-to-one margin to the question:
Shall it be City policy to urge the United States government to withdraw all troops from Iraq and bring all military personnel in Iraq back to the United States?
Also in , the average San Francisco tax return showed a $12,180 federal income tax liability, putting our county in the top 0.8% of income-tax-paying counties nationwide (the average return in the average county in America showed $3,139 in federal income tax in ).
This, according to figures released by the Tax Foundation showing federal income tax burden by county, by congressional district, and by “major city area.”
A great article from the “Taxes for Peace, Not War” group from Eugene, Oregon suggests itself as a template that other local war tax resistance groups could follow.
It starts by summarizing the ongoing Iraq war atrocity and noting that the American peace movement has largely been caught napping:
A number of years ago, Father Daniel Berrigan wrote a short statement that comes as a deep challenge to the nonviolent peace movement.
In it he points out that we yearn for peace, but we are unwilling to make any significant sacrifices to obtain it.
The United States public takes for granted that, for a war effort, families will be torn apart, young men and women’s careers and education disrupted, and young soldiers will die.
But we in the peace movement want to set our own schedules, fit our peace activities safely into the rest of our lives.
The article then tells the stories of four local activists who decided on a little disruption instead:
For some of us in the peace movement, it is not only Congress who holds the power of the purse.
We believe it is each individual’s right to say, “Not in my name, and not with my money!”
Some of us are willing to sacrifice security and comfort by refusing to pay for the war through our federal income tax.
We are war tax resisters and here are some of our stories.
There’s going to be a “Stop Funding the War in Iraq” protest rally down at San Francisco’s Federal Building on .
Naturally, the rally is not one at which the peace activists are going to declare their own unwillingness to continue to fund the war, but instead one in which they will plead with the façade of the building containing Nancy Pelosi’s local office that she stop funding the war.
I’m thinking of picketing the protest as a way of pointing out this disconnect.
What do you think would make a good picket sign?
I’m considering
The Power of the Purse Begins With You
Stop Paying War Taxes
and
If Congress Won’t Stop Funding War
You Can Stop Funding Congress
but I’m open to suggestions.
How to win friends and influence people (only slightly fictionalized):
To whom it may concern:
I noticed a couple of problems with your stopfundingthewariniraq.com site.
First, the logo.
Are you sure you meant to go with that trisected octagon thing?
The red octagon I get, the trisection not so much.
I’m guessing this is that peace sign vs. Mercedes logo confusion that’s been so popular lately.
Is that really what you were aiming at, though?
I admit, I’m not much up on the latest trends in detournement, so please disregard this if I’m missing the point.
But the second issue seems to me more important.
I don’t see any indication on the site that any of the sponsors, organizers, or speakers have stopped, or plan to stop, funding the war in Iraq.
Anyone reading the site would have the impression that all they’re going to do is ask other people to do this for them, or, even less usefully, that they’re going to plead with the façade of the building that holds Nancy Pelosi’s regional office to stop funding the war.
The site now looks like it would be better named “Won’t Somebody Else Please Stop Funding The War In Iraq” — it might help if the site mentioned the various ways in which the sponsors, organizers, and speakers are themselves stopping their payments; elsewise, whatever logo is on the site, it risks looking ridiculous.
A garden of miscellany:
Christina Cowger of “North Carolina Stop Torture Now” talks about the various ways her group is fighting at the grass-roots level to expose and fight the domestic enablers of the “extraordinary rendition” program — from Air America-like front companies like “Aero Contractors” to subsidiaries of Boeing.
Thanks to MetaFilter: Some links on “Possum Living”:
“How To Live Well Without a Job… building a $100 Log Cabin… a geodesic dome out of cardboard… handbook for cob building… cheap solar power system… stocking up on food…” and more.
A “white powdery substance” in an envelope shut down the IRS mail room in Fresno .
And a Connecticut tax collector was run over by a vehicle he was trying to impound.
The Coalition to Get the Stop Funding the War Coalition to Stop Funding the War put out a press release:
“We have had enough of waiting around for politicians to take action.
If those of us in the peace movement use our own power instead of begging officials to use theirs, we might actually stop this war and prevent the next one too.
It’s way past time for those of us who say we stand for peace to put our money where our mouths are.
Don’t pretend you can oppose the war with your rhetoric while you’re paying for it with every paycheck.
The power of the purse begins with us — let’s cut the war funding at the source.”
Truth is, I had a fancy new sign and couldn’t wait to show it off:
I was more interested in being a billboard than in doing active outreach on , but I was approached by people on several occasions who wanted to know more about tax resistance, or who expressed that they wished they could do it “but I don’t want to end up in jail.”
I assured them there was a tax resistance method appropriate to their desired level of risk, and I gave them the contact info for our local tax resistance group.
Then, on , came the Stop Funding the War in Iraq rally at the San Francisco Federal Building, which houses House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.
Northern California War Tax Resistance was there to hand out stickers for people to wear that read “I refuse to fund this war!”
I figured a few people would take them and wear them without thinking much about it, a few people would refuse to take them without thinking much about it, and the remainder would have to think about whether they should start refusing if they hadn’t already.
As it turned out, just about everyone we offered the stickers to was eager to wear one, though it’s hard to tell which of these will put their money where their mouths are.
Hopefully a few, anyway, had that light bulb go on, and then looked around and wondered “have all these other people wearing these stickers started resisting their taxes?”
One of the speakers, conscientious objector and counter-recruiter Aimee Allison, even gave an unsolicited plug for war tax resistance in the course of her speech:
The true power — the power of funding the war — is within our grasp.
If we cut that off, we stop the war machine, we stop the crimes against humanity, we stop underwriting the war profiteers, we stop starving our social services including our own veterans who we’ve sent over there and do not get the support that they need when they get home.
We have got to answer the call of conscience, and, if our leaders don’t then we the people in the democracy will.
For those of you who haven’t been in the military let me tell you that it is time to get some skin in the game.
It is time to declare your city or your town or your church a sanctuary for soldiers who refuse to fight.
It is time to investigate the ways to assert your war tax resistance.
It seemed to me a grand success; though I suppose the proof will be in whether or not the people who saw or who heard the message will respond with action.
We’ll have a better idea of that as people begin to contact our group for information, counseling and workshops.
The report shows that Nancy Pelosi’s congressional district, full of anti-war liberals who are pleading with her to stop funding the war in Iraq, is also full of eager taxpayers who pay, on average, twice what the average American pays in over-all federal taxes (and 2½ times what the average American pays in federal income tax).
If Pelosi is refusing to cut off funds for the Iraq War, she’s only following the lead of her constitutents.
I gave a little speech at a “die-in” at the San Francisco Federal Building:
Thank you for inviting me to speak .
My name is David Gross and I’m with Northern California War Tax Resistance.
I understand that Nancy Pelosi has an office here, though she’s not here .
But I’d like you to imagine that she is here and that you could walk into her office right now and tell her all the reasons why she has to stop funding this horrible war.
But now imagine that Nancy Pelosi hears you out, then she stands up, leans over her desk, looks you in the eye and says, “You first.”
What would you say to that?
Because I’ve seen the opinion polls, and I know that most of the people in Pelosi’s district want her to stop funding the war.
But I’ve also seen the IRS statistics, and I know that Nancy Pelosi’s constituents on average pay twice as much in federal taxes as the average American.
If Nancy Pelosi is refusing to cut off funding for the war, she’s representing her constituents very well, because they’re refusing too.
Too many of us in the anti-war movement are working for peace with one hand and for war with the other.
We come to rallies and chant our chants, we wave our banners, we march, we write letters, we even block doors and block traffic and get arrested.
But if we go back to work the next day and see part of each paycheck sent to the Pentagon, we’re working against our own values.
Look at your tax return this month and ask yourself how many hours you worked for the war machine, and how that compares to the hours you worked to stop it.
If we remain content to oppose the war with our voices while we support it with our taxes, we need to ask ourselves whether maybe we’ve really been war supporters all along.
Because before the first American boots hit the ground in the Iraq invasion, U.S. taxpayers had already struck Iraq in the form of the missiles and bombs — shock and awe that was bought and paid for by people like you and me.
And it’s people like you and me who have the power to stop this war, but only if we put all of our energy on the side of our values.
If we wait for the Democrats in Congress to stop funding the war, it’s going to be a long war.
Bush isn’t attacking Iraq alone.
Iraq isn’t under assault from 535 legislators in Washington.
Iraq is being occupied by an army of American taxpayers and it’s way past time for us to stop the occupation!
Don’t wait for the politicians!
We, ourselves, today can stop funding the war!
We can put our money where our mouths are.
War tax resistance is direct action — one that we can do every day.
It is a way to put all our life energy on the side of our values, instead of letting the tax collector force us to work for Pentagon priorities, politicians, and pork.
If you think war tax resistance is too difficult, dangerous, or impractical, trust me on this: you just need to learn more about it.
There are many, many methods of war tax resistance — some are risky, others are not at all; some require civil disobedience, others are perfectly legal; some mean radical lifestyle change, others you could start doing today.
In the war tax resistance movement we often remark that there seem to be as many methods of war tax resistance as there are resisters.
There is a method of war tax resistance for everybody — there is one that is right for you, that meets the goals you want to meet, with risks you can afford to take.
I urge you to contact us at NoWarTax.org — we have literature that can help you to learn more about your options, we run workshops periodically, and we do individual one-on-one counseling as well.
But most of all I urge you to stop funding the war machine!
Not one more dollar, not one more death!
A couple of short bits:
Laura Baran took the plunge and decided not to pay her federal income taxes. On her blog, she shares the letter she sent in place of her payment. “I’ve been thinking about doing this since I read Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience several years ago. I held back out of fear. I’ve been reading about the history of war tax resistance. Inspiring stuff. Found a lot that helped me to finally do what I know in my heart makes me feel good.”
Randal Bentz has a thing or two to say to the city of Berkeley regarding the unwelcome mat it’s put out for U.S. Marine Corps recruiters. Not your typical critic, Bentz believes that Berkeley has taken only a timid first step and has a ways to go still — as Thoreau noted so long ago, it’s easy for taxpayers to applaud those who resist fighting in the wars the taxpayers continue to pay for.
