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Reports from Tax Day Actions
April 15, 2008
Links
to Newspaper Articles and Online Interviews
Journal
News, (Rockland County, NY) April 15, 2008
KGNU,
)Boulder, Denver) April 15, 2008 (listento interview with Shirley Whiteside,
about 3/4 way along)
Democracy
Now, April 15, 2008 (listen/watch interview with Portland, OR, WTRs)
Nashua
Telegraph (NH), April 16, 2008
Seven
Days,, (Vermont), April 2, 2008
| Milwaukee, Wisconsin | |
 |
Milwaukee War Tax Resistance & Casa Maria Catholic Worker held a joint vigil with Citizen Action at the main post office in Milwaukee, holding signs and handing out flyers. WTR Lincoln Rice is holding the "haven't paid federal taxes" sign. |
| Austin, Texas | |
 |
Tax
Day Banner at the Downtown
Post Office. Similar photo in the Austin Chronicle (pdf) |
Chicago,
Illinois
The
Chicago Area War Resisters Support Committee held a demonstration at
Federal Building Plaza from about 10:00a to 1:00p, Tuesday, April 15.
The demonstration included speeches, distribution of the WRL's "Pie Chart" leaflet,
a "Penny Poll," and singing. Mike Bremer (a Catholic Worker), Brahm Bassford
(a Christian socialist and frequent "College of Complexes" moderator),
and Brad Lyttle spoke. Several other people helped with the distribution
of leaflets. The demonstration coincided with another tax day deonstration
at the Square, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee. This
demonstration included several large banners that showed how 2008 discretionary
funds were being managed by the government, a press conference, a speech
by Mike McConnell (the AFSC's Midwest Region executive secretary), and
a table at which people could phone requests to their representatives
and senators that there be no more funding for the Iraq War, and that
tax dollars be spent for peaceful human needs. The two demonstrations
shared a number of resources.
—Brad Lyttle
Colorado
Springs, Colorado
War Tax Protest at the downtown post office. More than a dozen people
gathered to hand out pie chart leaflets and banner against the US war
in Iraq. Esther Kisamore organized the event and had, with Pete Haney,
held a war tax protest workshop in February. Photos by Donna Johnson.
 |
 |
Glynn County,
Georgia
As
best we can figure, we gave out about 2200 flyers on Tuesday at the Brunswick
and St. Simons Island P.O.'s. Amazing!
We started at 8:30 AM with 500 War Resisters League pie chart flyers
at each Post Office. We ran out of those at 12:30 PM in Brunswick and
on St. Simons at 1:00, just as I arrived to give Bill Jerome a stack
of about 400 "Economic Costs of the War" flyers with info from the American
Friends Service Committee. Milly Hastings reported later that when she & Steve
Stevens finished their leafletting at 3 PM, they had only 16 flyers left!
Although our youth were ready to provide someone to take over on St.
Simons, there weren't flyers for them!
On the Brunswick side, Cathy Browning brought us a couple of hundred
of the flyers addressed to Georgia taxpayers, giving figures from the
National Priorities Project on how much the war is costing us locally
and what else the money could have purchased in services and meeting
community needs. Those weren't going to be enough, so she went back and
printed 600 more. These were all gone by 4:30 PM, a half-hour before
the P.O. closed.
We have no way of knowing the eventual results of getting all this info
out to our neighbors and fellow citizens. Of course, we signed up a few
new members on the spot, but this sort of leafletting is not very intimate;
it is mostly an act of faith that our presence and the information will
act to move some people to do something to end the war. It's like the
parable of the sower in Matthew 13:3-8:
"Once there was a man who went out to sow grain. As he scattered
the seed in the field, some of it fell along the path, and the birds
came and ate it up. Some of it fell on rocky ground, where there was
little soil. The seeds soon sprouted, because the soil wasn't deep. But
when the sun came up, it burned the young plants; and because the roots
had not grown deep enough, the plants soon dred up. Some of the seed
fell among thorn bushes, which grew up and choked the plants. But some
seeds fell in good soil, and the plants bore grain: some had one hundred
grains, others sixty, and others thirty."
Jesus' explanation of this parable is in verses 18-23. But I think it's
pretty obvious. And any organizer for peace & justice needs to understand
it.
—Robert Randall
Cleveland, Ohio
Two
of us passed out a few hundred pie charts in the Public Square in downtown
Cleveland at midday. We asked simply woudl people like to know where
their tax dollars are going? The reactions were some of th4 most genial
we've ever received and united the belief in the misappropriation of
hte tax dollar into defense.
I like a campaign that wins so many friends! We've come
a long way - it seems like an opportuinty waiting to happen. I just don't
know how to engage peopel further.
—Maria Smith
New
York, New York |
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War tax resisters gather at the General Post Office in Manhattan. See photos from the action by Tom Good, Next Left Notes | ||||
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Raging Grannies sing their protest at the General Post Office in Manhattan. See more photos from the action by A Jesse Jiryu Davis on flickr. | ||||
Eugene,
OR |
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Portland,
Oregon
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us your report and photos! Email to nwtrcc@nwtrcc.org or mail to NWTRCC, PO Box 150553, Brooklyn, NY 11215 |
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