| War
Tax Resistance and...
the Environment
Women
Homophobia
Foreign Intervention
Anarchism
War
Tax Resistance and the Environment
Environmental destruction
isn't simply a matter of carelessness or waste. It is a deliberate sacrifice of
our earth for the short-term profit of those in power. Regardless of professed
ideology, governments around the world aid and enforce corporate destruction of
the environment. In the U.S., the gutting of environmental regulations and
enforcement goes hand in hand with enormous military expenditures. The military
serves not only to protect corporate pillaging around the globe; military production
and training, not to mention warfare itself, use vast amounts of resources and
destroy the environment directly. The 1991 Gulf War was the single most destructive
environmental event in human history; nuclear war, which the U.S. spends more
to prepare for than all other countries combined, would be the ultimate environmental
disaster. Restoration of the environment requires new priorities. One of many
tactics in the struggle for change is refusing to pay taxes for war and military
spending - and redirecting refused tax money to positive uses which WE regard
as essential.
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War
Tax Resistance and Women
Over 50% of federal tax dollars
go to fund one of the most misogynist and destructive forces in our society: the
military. In addition to its own inherent sexism (remember Tailhook?), the U.S.
military serves primarily to protect corporate interests overseas - keeping Third
World women in poverty and virtual slave labor, while protecting the right of
the wealthy to exploit them. Money spent on the U.S. military is money that
could be spent on issues vital to women: health care, education, day care, pay
equity, job training, and environmental protection. Instead, these programs are
being slashed, "welfare mothers" are vilified, and tax dollars go to prepare equipment
and train the military to threaten and kill an increasing proportion of women
and children worldwide. Righting these priorities is up to us. If we are working
to dismantle patriarchy, why are we funding it? One of many tactics in the struggle
for change is refusing to pay taxes for war and military spending - and redirecting
refused tax money to positive uses which WE regard as essential.
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War Tax Resistance and Homophobia
Why are we paying over half of our federal tax dollars to a bigoted
institution that would prefer we do not exist? The military is, bar none,
the most homophobic institution in our culture. Yet for all its sexism, heterosexism,
racism and persecution of sexual minorities at home AND overseas, the military
continues to be funded at enormous levels while programs everybody needs - health
care, housing, food, environmental protection and education - continue to be gutted.
More continues to be spent on the military each month than has been spent by the
U.S. in the entire history of AIDS research. Killing, it seems, is far more important
than saving lives. Righting these priorities is up to us. One of many tactics
in the struggle for change is refusing to pay taxes for war and military spending
- and redirecting refused tax money to positive uses which WE regard as essential.
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War Tax Resistance
and Foreign Intervention
If we are working for peace,
why are we paying for war? In most of the nearly four dozen wars in 1995,
the U.S. was directly involved - with covert or overt aid, advisors, and/or arms
sales - with one or both sides. In nearly all of them, the U.S. preference was
FOR "stability" and AGAINST popular democracy. This meant protection for U.S.
corporate interests, regardless of human costs, or the cost to the U.S. public
through taxes and destroyed human services. As scholar Michael Parenti has put
it, "When it comes to protecting their profits, your money is no object!"
The U.S. now dominates the world's arms trade, selling over twice as many weapons
as every other country in the world combined. Both development and sales of these
weapons are subsidized by our tax dollars. Meanwhile, more than 50% of U.S.
tax dollars go to the military, while contructive foreign aid, food distribution,
public health, and projects that would better the lives of a majority of the world's
people have been systematically gutted. Righting these priorities is up to
us. One of many tactics in the struggle for change is refusing to pay taxes for
war and military spending - and redirecting refused tax money to positive uses
which WE regard as essential.
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War
Tax Resistance and Anarchism
Nation-states in the modern
world, - regardless of professed ideology - consistently work to maintain and
expand their own power. No country does this more consistently, more ruth-lessly,
and more successfully than the United States. Over half of U.S. tax dollars
go to military spending. Not to housing, education, environmental protection,
or any of the other desperately needed social programs, but to killing people
to maintain state and corporate power, expand wealth, and enforce racism, sexism,
homophobia and xenophobia . The U.S. military does not, as it claims, protect
us from people who would take what is rightfully ours; instead it protects THEM,
the people who take what is rightfully ours, from us. One of the best ways to
challenge that power is to refuse to fund the system that maintains it. Consider,
and encourage your friends to consider, refusing to pay taxes for war and military
spending - and redirecting refused tax money to positive uses.
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