Some links that have bubbled up in my browser over the past few weeks as I’ve been on my Brethren binge:
- Businesses in Chattanooga, Tennesseee held a one-day strike in support of #BlackLivesMatter, as a way to withhold sales tax dollars in order to pressure the city government to redirect funding from the police department to less-nefarious uses.
- American war tax resister Ed Agro has died. Agro was one of the founders of the New England War Tax Resistance regional group, and was also the admin behind the wtr-s war tax resistance email list.
The Mennonite Church USA is promoting its reinvigorated “War Tax Alternative Fund” through which Mennonites can redirect their taxes from the U.S. government to more worthy causes.
Richard Yoder responds in a letter: “I am grateful that there seems to be a renewed emphasis on the historic peace witness of the Mennonite tradition, including war-tax resistance and redirecting of our tax dollars to life-giving activities. The nature of warfare has changed from the past when the military needed our bodies to now needing our dollars to pay for high-tech warfare. So in the same way Mennonites in the past found a way to say no to participating in war through conscientious objection, we now need to do the same with our tax dollars.”
- NWTRCC coordinator Lincoln Rice explores the connections between war tax resistance and resistance to militarized and militant domestic police forces, and Chrissy Kirchhoefer notes that while some of the troops have come home, that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped trooping.
- There’s a new NWTRCC newsletter out.
- Jim Loewen reflects on his token tax resistance efforts during the Vietnam War — and how he got an in-person visit from an IRS agent over a $6 tax bill.
- The human rebellion against traffic ticket radar robots continues, with robot hordes falling to the rebels in France, England, and Germany; France a few more times; Belgium and France; France again; Mexico, Spain, and France; and France and Germany in recent weeks.
- Paolo Bozzi shares some notes from a recent workshop on “Not Paying Taxes: Tax Evasion, Tax Avoidance, and Tax Resistance in Historical Perspective.”
- An Italian “orange vest” nationalist movement is calling for a tax strike to pressure the government to call new elections and withdraw from the Euro.
- Aidan Collymore gives a whirlwind tour of existing studies in “The Ethics of Tax Evasion: Literature Review.”
- Karen Robinson looks back at the history of the campaign for a “peace tax” in the U.K. parliament.
- A Glasgow man whose apartment keeps getting flooded has accused the city of negligence for signing off on the building’s construction, and is refusing to pay his council tax as a pressure tactic.
