While the presidential campaign "season" seems
to have begun, our resistance communities are carrying on and
building campaigns of our own. During the recent tax season
we saw person after person hang their head as they wrote their
check to the IRS, knowing what their money was doing in Iraq,
but unready or unable to refuse. Is there wider interest in
lower-risk war tax resistance campaigns? It may be too early
to tell now, but a few efforts are underway.
Axis of Peace Campaign is a Northwest regional
campaign that was launched in 2002 by activists with Seattle's
Nonviolent Action Community of Cascadia (NACC) and the Portland
(OR) chapter of the War Resisters League. The campaign emphasizes
three elements: a low risk level, redirection, and mass participation.
Organizers encourage taxpayers to resist a symbolic amount of
$9.11 or $91.11, marking a day when U.S. leadership might have
begun to recognize that violence can only perpetuate violence
and a new path to peace is imperative.
At the end of the first Axis of Peace tax season,
organizers report that "mass participation" is a goal yet to
be met, but there were other positive signs, such as one new
resister choosing to redirect $911.01. All told between Seattle
and Portland about $4,000 was redirected, planting the seeds
of growing participation in the coming years. Organizers found
that many potential "redirecters" were expecting a refund from
the IRS for their 2002 withholding, but they have now learned
that adjusting allowances will afford them the opportunity of
participating with their 2003 redirected taxes. For more information
see http://axisofpeace.info or contact NACC, 4554 12th Ave.
NE, Seattle, WA 98105, (206) 547-0952.
(A more full report appeared in the NACC newsletter
by John Chisholm.)
One Million Taxpayers for Peace was launched
out of grief and horror at the thousands of lives senselessly
lost September 11, 2001. This national campaign is an outgrowth
of a local "1040 Club," sponsored by Sonoma County (CA) Taxes
for Peace, and involves refusing to pay a symbolic $10.40 of
income taxes. The campaign is open to anyone, including those
who want to "vote for peace" by contributing $10.40, but don't
want to commit civil disobedience. The goal is to reach 1,000,000
participants. The $10.40 "peace tax" is used to fund trainings
in nonviolent conflict resolution in schools and communities
nationwide.
During the 2003 tax season, 56 donors from 19
states "filed" with the campaign, paying in over $700, with
some contributing over the $10.40 suggested. Many were new donors,
with few repeat contributors from the previous year.
Appeal to Conscience, a petition and web-based
sign-on campaign, began last spring before the war on Iraq.
The text was written in the context of peace actions to prevent
the war and asked signers to support those who refuse to pay
taxes for war, especially if there are new crackdowns on resisters.
Plans are for this campaign to continue and the revised text
is available on the NWTRCC and War Resisters League web sites
(if you haven't signed on, you can do so online at the WRL website).
Thus far over 900 signatures have been collected, along with
some well-known signers. Many of you are still sending the petitions
to the NWTRCC office, and you are encouraged to turn in any
stray copies you have. A database of signers (there may be more
than we think!) is being developed with volunteer help, and
signers will be notified of the effort to continue this campaign-as
the Bush Administration continues its military expansion. Check
for updates on the website at www.nwtrcc.org or www.warresisters.org,
or contact the NWTRCC office if you'd like a paper copy mailed
to you.
Hang Up On War, a budding campaign growing
out of the initiative of staff from the War Resisters League
and the Iraq Pledge of Resistance, is coming to a computer near
you! Taking its name from the Vietnam War era phone tax campaign,
Hang Up On War is looking to reinvigorate resistance to the
federal excise tax on telephone service, bringing in new people
and drawing in those who already resist under a single campaign
umbrella. Representatives of these two groups and NWTRCC have
held preliminary planning calls, and an endorsement letter for
organizations has already begun to circulate (NWTRCC affiliates
should have received a copy in July by mail or email; if not,
please contact the office). The June meeting of United for Peace
and Justice endorsed Hang Up On War and will help promote the
campaign to its members. At least initially, it will be a web-based
campaign with most staff assistance coming from the Iraq Pledge
of Resistance office in Washington, D.C. Look for www.hanguponwar.org
on a computer near you!
More Than A Paycheck would like to know
if your group is involved in a local, regional, or national
war tax resistance campaign (or one that endorses war tax resistance
as part of a wider call). Please send a description of your
efforts or your comments on any of the projects mentioned here
to the NWTRCC office by mail or email.
[Return to List of Headlines]
Conscience and Peace Tax International (CPTI)
is now in its third year of advocating for the right of conscientious
objection to military taxation at the United Nations. CPTI was
founded in 1994 in Hondarribia, Spain, at the 5th International
Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns. Representatives
Rosa Packard, John Randall, and Marian Franz regularly visit
the U.N. and NGO's (non-governmental organizations) in New York
to talk about military taxation concerns and make links with
like-minded groups. Derek Brett does the same at the U.N. in
Geneva and also monitors the work of various U.N. bodies to
discover the best ways for CPTI to proceed.
For the third year CPTI officially used its special
consultative status to the U.N. Economic and Social Council
(ECOSOC) to attend and address the 59th Session of the U.N.
Commission on Human Rights in Geneva last April (see statement
below).
Gaining recognition of the right to object to
pay for war and war preparation as a fundamental human right
may be a long journey, but those active with CPTI are building
on what's been learned and expect to slowly develop support
for the aims.
Participants at the 9th International WTR-PTC
Conference (September 2002 in Germany) selected CPTI as the
nonviolent project to be financially supported by the various
national movements. This selection process takes place at each
bi-annual conference after presentation of proposals and conference-wide
discussion. (There was also strong support for the Nicaraguan
project reported in MTAP last fall, and some confusion about
the final recommendation.)
U.S. contributions to CPTI may be made by checks
made out to PTF (CPTI) and sent to: Marian Franz, CPTI c/o NCPTF,
2121 Decatur Place N.S., Washington, D.C. 20008-1923. Contact
the NWTRCC office if you are interested in direct transfer information.
Visit the CPTI website for more information about their activities
and documents from international conferences and presentations:
www.cpti.ws.
[Return to List of Headlines]
Written statement submitted by Conscience
and Peace Tax International (CPTI) to Commission on Human Rights,
Fifty-ninth session, April 2003
Conscience and Peace Tax International (CPTI)
is the international NGO representing a growing number of national
movements which: a) uphold the right of conscientious objectors
to refrain from contributing to military expenditures through
taxation, and, b) promote the creation of mechanisms whereby
conscientious objectors might divert the appropriate portion
of their tax contribution to nonmilitary, peace-building purposes.
We welcome the recognition by the Commission on
Human Rights, in resolution 1989/59, that conscientious objection
to military service is a legitimate exercise of the freedom
of thought, conscience and religion, and the reaffirmation and
development of this principle in resolutions 1993/84,1995/83,
1998/77, 2000/34 and 2002/45.
We are pleased to note that an increasing number
of states now apply legislation allowing "conscientious objectors
to military service" to serve the national and international
community in unarmed, non-military alternative service. This
enables them to fulfill their civic duty, without obliging them
to live and act in a manner which compromises their deep-seated
religious or moral principles. Moreover, the alternative service
not infrequently includes work for the defense and protection
of the many human rights that this Commission addresses.
However, we would argue that the moral objection
to participation in war is not assuaged if one is required to
pay for others to do what oneself in conscience cannot do. We
believe that the conscientious objection to military taxation
is no less valid than the conscientious objection to military
service and is its logical concomitant.
To punish those who, on grounds of conscience,
withhold taxes for the military is, we maintain, to penalize
a legitimate expression of their freedom of thought, conscience
and religion. Thus it is contrary to the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights.
This should not be understood as a negative right.
CPTI would bring you a vision held by many people all over the
world. We see a future in which governments, which exist by
the people and for the people, gather taxes from their people
to create a culture of peace, free from the scourge of war.
All over the world, individuals who, because of
conscience, cannot serve in the military or pay for the military
already work in diverse ways for peace and give generously of
their resources to create a culture of peace. Much more could
be accomplished beyond these initiatives through partnerships
between international organizations, states, and nongovernmental
efforts to create a culture of peace.
Our 9th International Conference was held last
September, near Berlin. We heard reports from numerous countries
about their efforts to introduce legislation toward this vision.
The number of legislators that support this vision is growing.
The number of religious leaders and institutions that support
this vision is growing.
At the conference we heard testimony from conscientious
objectors who have acted upon their religious beliefs and their
conscience with regard to military taxes. Some deliberately
choose poverty so as to live below the taxable level. Some publicly
redirect their taxes to peaceful purposes. Some place their
taxes aside in escrow-in trust for their government-until their
government will agree to accommodate their religious or ethical
convictions by allocating their taxes for non-military purposes.
These acts of conscience have led to fines, seizure of homes
and cars, and sometimes even imprisonment. Still their exercise
of conscience persists because they know it is the right thing
to do.
Many more states in today's world have compulsory
taxation for military purposes than have compulsory military
service. As things stand, persons whose fundamental religious,
moral, or ethical beliefs are incompatible with such expenditures
are generally faced with the choice between disobeying the dictates
of their conscience or disobeying the law of the land.
We hope over the coming years to work with the
Commission and the other organs of the United Nations, and with
the member states, to develop models of alternative "peace tax"
programs, and linked systems of tax accounting, thereby enabling
conscientious objectors to military taxation to discharge their
civic obligations by making no less full and valuable a contribution
than, under best current practice, do conscientious objectors
to military service.
[Return to List of Headlines]
Counseling
Notes:
Frivolous Activity
"We have determined that the return is a
frivolous return. The position you have taken has no basis in
law…. The tax laws are very clear and have been tested in the
courts…Therefore, we will not respond to future correspondence
from you concerning these same issues."
At this point the NWTRCC office has heard of about
a half dozen people who have received this letter (PRE-6640)
in recent months from the IRS in response to filing for tax
years ending 2001 or 2002. The letter, which is a pre-notification
or warning, demands that the taxpayer send a corrected return
within 30 days to avoid the penalty ($500).
Some of the folks who received this letter have
filed the same way for years and just refused to pay. Most did
not write anything special on their form. One person filed a
"Zero return" (filling in 0 on each line), which has generally
been more likely to generate a frivolous fine letter than those
who file normally and refuse to pay.
Despite the language of the letter, you may still
want to call the IRS and ask them why your return was rejected.
Frivolous fine letters to war tax resisters have
not been common in recent years, so please contact the NWTRCC
office if you received the letter or have an experience to share,
and we will try to determine if a pattern is developing.
Here are a few stories:
Carol Moore, DC (in May 2003 received
the frivolous notification for tax year 2001, then in June for
2002).
My 2002 filing was rejected by the IRS, but this
time [as opposed to when they rejected the 2001 filing] they
made it clear why: I hadn't included any official documentation
(W-2, 1099) of the income I claimed. As it happened, 2002 was
the first year I did NOT have such documentation, since I just
sold buttons at different events and got all cash, which I will
tell them.
However, I think this also means that the reason
they rejected my 2001 filing was I also didn't include my employer
documentation. Now that I've figured it out, I will send them
the paperwork. Anyway, this seems to be something new since
I haven't included my documentation for years and the last two
years is first time they've asked for it.
Robert Randall, GA
More than a year after filing my 2001 return,
I received a letter from the Ogden, Utah, Service Center saying
the return was frivolous and giving me 30 days to send a non-frivolous
return. A few phone calls elicited their agreement that the
return did not meet the criteria for frivolousness.
However, I have now received my first bill on
this return, and it includes a penalty for filing late. This
is a problem which occurs almost every year, so I urge those
of you who file but do not pay to give close attention to your
add-on charges; the IRS seems to automatically assess the filing
late penalty whenever you don't pay, despite the fact that this
is inappropriate. I usually just make a phone call, have them
check the filing date (often they have to request the envelope
to look at the postmark), and then they remove the penalty.
One year I got my very non-supportive Congressman's office to
help me with this process. Getting this penalty removed is important,
because it is a much larger penalty than the one for not paying!*
Anyway, this year the woman on the other end of
the phone at the IRS said their system was showing my date of
filing as May 2003! Undoubtedly this 13-month error is due to
when the question of the frivolity of the return was cleared
up; the return was entered into the system upon the determination
that it was not frivolous, and the system is now assessing penalties
based on that date. This time I've had to send a letter, along
with all documentation of the date of mailing (hopefully all
of you know to send your return certified, return receipt requested),
to the Memphis Service Center, from which the bill came. Of
course, I have also asked them again to request the envelope
so they can see the postmark. I have not yet heard back from
the IRS.
I have often said that the worst part of war tax
conversion is having to deal with IRS ineptitude. It makes another
strong argument for just ignoring them altogether. But then,
it also provides opportunities for interactions with real people
in the bureaucracy, which would be missed if their systems actually
worked.
Martha Cain, CA
I called the IRS and asked for instructions and
advice regarding their request that I file a "correct" form.
I said that I was prepared to re-file, but that I would be obliged
to fill out the form exactly as I had originally filled it out
as that was "correct." The woman at the IRS to whom I was speaking
(who did not seem particularly experienced) was unable to pull
up my tax form to check that I had filed it correctly, as it
had not yet been processed since someone had determined it was
frivolous. She advised me to re-file. However, I asked to speak
with her supervisor as I was loathe to file another form exactly
as I had filed the first one and be charged with an additional
frivolous fine as the letter threatened. The supervisor asked
if I had attached any notes to the form. I informed her of the
"post it" I had stuck to the form alerting the IRS to the reasons
I was not paying the entire amount as listed required on my
1040 form. She told me to re-file the 1040 without the post-it
attached. I am thinking of doing so, but am wondering about
other people's experiences with the frivolous filing accusation.
Gary, VT (Filed a "0" return for 2001
taxes; received the IRS letter in May 2003 giving 30-days to
re-file or expect the frivolous fine)
I did my taxes for the year they requested to
avoid the frivolous notice.... I haven't heard if it is being
dropped or not ...
Pete Meyers, NY
Asked if he was going to talk with the IRS about
the letter he received: I guess I'm not inclined to have to
have any more contact with IRS than I have to, which is pretty
much nil!
Some of these stories appeared on the wtr listserve.
You can sign on from the NWTRCC homepage at www.nwtrcc.org,
where you can lurk or participate in discussions related to
war tax resistance questions, tactics, ideas, etc. Generally
the volume of emails is not overwhelming.
*Late filing penalty: 5% per late month (up to
25%); Nonpayment penalty: ½ - 1 percent a month (up to 25%).
[Return to List of Headlines]
MANY THANKS
Thank you to all the groups who have given since
our last issue. Your support helps keep us going!
Albuquerque War Tax Resistance Alternative Fund
Iowa Peace Network
Ithaca War Tax Resistance
National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund
Northern California War Tax Resistance
Southern California War Tax Alternative Fund
Southern Wisconsin Alternative Tax Fund
[Return to List of Headlines]
More Tax Day Actions
Boulder, CO
There was more tax protest activity in the Denver
Metro Area this year than any of the past 12 years. An information
meeting at the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center in Boulder
drew 30. In Denver on April 15, there was a parade past the
corporate offices of Halliburton and other oil companies as
well as those of military contractors. Ten CU Boulder students
displayed a budget cheesecake and banners and fed cake to the
curious at the two locations where the post office was accepting
late drop-offs. These activities went off despite discouraging
weather.
-Gary Erb, Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center,
War Tax Information Project
Princeton, NJ
Activists from the Coalition for Peace Action
handed out their own version of a pie chart flyer and held their
annual penny poll in front of the Palmer Square post office.
The Princeton Packet of April 18, 2003, carried an excellent
picture of the penny poll and two "staffers" holding their "Where
Do Your Tax Dollars Go?" placards.
Chapel Hill, NC
"The annual all-day Tax Day Penny Poll held at
the East Franklin Street Post Office drew 648 participants to
register their preferences on how their individual federal income
taxes should be spent by the U.S. government.
"Even before the end of the day, it became apparent
that local citizens did not have the same priorities as those
in Washington.
"Members of the Orange County Peace Coalition
gave "taxpayers" 10 pennies to distribute among seven labeled
jars to "vote" for funding of services provided by the federal
government. The local choices were 30 percent for education;
20 percent for health care; 17 percent for environment; 13 percent
for military; 9 percent for housing; 7 percent for transportation;
and 4 percent for other (administration, Congress, foreign affairs,
and judiciary)."
-Margaret Misch, Chapel Hill
This is part of a longer letter that appeared
in the Chapel Hill Herald, April 23, 2003.
[Return to List of Headlines]
Attention all Resisters, Refusers, and Redirectors:
Did you resist and/or redirect 2002 tax dollars?
We'd like to know how much!
More Than a Paycheck traditionally surveys
alternative funds post tax season to find out how much was redirected,
which then gets written up into a report. This kind of information
is useful when the media calls. We'd like to add in individual
redirection also, so please send an email, note, or give a call
to the office with your totals (excluding what you gave to an
alternative fund). Prod others to do so also or send a group
report. Alternative funds should have received a specific request
for this information; if not, get your redirection totals to
the office ASAP!
Next meeting in Chicago
The next meeting and gathering of the National
War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee will be in Chicago
over the weekend of November 7-9. The gathering will be held
at Quaker House, near the University of Chicago, and will start
with dinner on Friday evening and end at Sunday lunch. The business
meeting will be held Sunday, with discussions, workshops, and
presentations on war tax resistance related issues at other
times. Those flying to the conference should use Midway airport
if possible. Affiliates are asked to send at least one representative.
Contact the office or see the web
site if you would like to attend and need more information.
In Fond Memory
Mark Scheu, a war tax resister for two decades
and the treasurer of the St. Louis Covenant Community of War
Tax Resisters died on May 3, 2003. It was as a member of the
St. Louis Catholic Worker Community in the early 1980s, that
Mark first gathered the courage to redirect his federal taxes
from his income as a librarian at the University of Missouri,
St. Louis. A faithful activist, ardent naturalist, and perpetual
scholar, Mark provided SLCCWTR members meticulous bookkeeping,
the right passage from Henry David Thoreau at the appropriate
moment, a clear sense of history, and a smile and laugh that
his friends will never forget.
Volunteer Opportunities
At the NWTRCC meeting in May, there was talk
of conducting a national survey of war tax resisters (filers,
non-filers, phone tax resisters, low income refusers, etc.),
something that hasn't been done in many years. We are looking
for one or more volunteers who might help with this project,
in terms of designing a survey, planning outreach, and collecting
and analyzing the responses. If this is something up your alley,
please contact the NWTRCC office.
As you may have noted by now, the NWTRCC office
has moved to Brooklyn. Volunteers are welcome both for ongoing
office work and special projects. Please call or
email if you can give a little time to NWTRCC.
Network List Updates
Groups and individuals on NWTRCC's Network List
-- Affiliates, Alternative Funds, WTR Counselors, and Area Contacts:
Please be sure to respond to the mailing from the office asking
for any updates on your contact information or changes in your
relationship to NWTRCC. A new list will be available in the
early fall, and updates to the Network List will appear on the
website also.
If your group is not affiliated with NWTRCC
and might be interested, please contact the office for more
information. (800)269-7464.
nwtrcc@nwtrcc.org
[Return to List of Headlines]
20 Years of Turning Data into Action
Let's see, the average U.S. military budget
over the last 20 years is approximately $300 billion. $300B
x 20 = $6 trillion. Now imagine if the U.S government had paid
attention to the alternative spending ideas coming out of the
National Priorities Project. What a different world we would
be seeing today!
Many readers know about the National Priorities
Project, and for those who don't, it's time to check out their
website or ask for a copy of their latest report. These folks
have spent 20 years analyzing the federal budget, zeroing in
on military expenditures, and helping organizers find out how
much their community is spending on the military and how many
homes that money could build, or how many teachers that money
could hire, or how many kids could get into Head Start.
The National Priorities Project (NPP) is based
in Northampton, Massachusetts, and was founded by Greg Speeter
in 1983 during the Reagan military build-up. NPP offers citizen
and community groups tools and resources to shape federal budget
and policy priorities that promote social and economic justice.
NPP has focused on the trade-offs between military spending
and tax breaks with social spending. In this way they have been
able to build bridges between the peace community and the many
groups fighting for social and economic justice, expanding the
number of groups who will work on both. The growth in popularity
of the internet has allowed for wider access to NPP's data,
and many cities and towns used their calculations and reports
during the last year to pass community resolutions against the
war on Iraq.
For so many of us in the NWTRCC network, NPP has
helped us create flyers with impact and added well-researched
data to our literature tables. Thanks to them for 20 years of
great work, and let's hope that 20 years from now we can look
at the federal budget and feel like somebody listened.
NPP is celebrating its 20th Anniversary on Sunday,
October 26, in western Massachusetts. The night of celebration
will include presentation of the Frances Crowe Award to George
and Arky Markham for their decades of activism for peace and
social and economic justice. For more information, contact Phil
Korman at (413) 584-9556 or philk@nationalpriorities.org.
To see the latest statistics for your community go to www.nationalpriorities.org
or write National Priorities Project, 17 New South St., Suite
#302, Northampton, MA 01060.
Updated/Reprinted Phone Tax Brochure
The ever-popular basic brochure on phone tax
resistance is available again. It includes some updated information
on dealing with phone companies. Single copies free, $12/100
postpaid. Contact the NWTRCC office for prices on bulk orders.
Buttons, Buttons, Buttons
The NWTRCC office has lots of "Ask Me About
War Tax Resistance" buttons. Single buttons: $1; 10 buttons
for $5. 2¼", green with black lettering. Wear it proudly at
your workshops, tables, demonstrations, and vigils!
[Return to List of Headlines]
Tax Day Reflections on War and Reparations
By Arnie Alpert
April 15,2003. At the moment the United States
launched its attack against Iraq, March 19, I was in Nicaragua,
with a group of neighborhood women describing their working
conditions in Managua's "free trade zone" clothing factories.
Juana said she gets up at 3:30 a.m., six days a week, in order
to cook, iron, wash, and get her kids ready for school in time
to get to the foreign-owned blue jeans factory where she works
from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Her typical take-home pay is about $65
a month, of which $25 goes to her sister for childcare.
Sweatshop jobs are one of the legacies of United
States intervention in Nicaragua. The Marines landed for the
first time in 1894, when they occupied the Atlantic coast town
of Bluefields for a month to protect "U.S. interests." They
returned in 1896,1898,1899,1907, and 1910. In 1912-five years
before the "communist threat" was born in Russia-the Marines
landed again and stayed for 21 years. By the time they left,
the U.S.-trained National Guard under the leadership of Anastasio
Somoza was ready to seize power. Somoza and his sons ran the
country for the next 46 years, during which time they and their
cronies amassed huge fortunes, and those who objected met repression
from the National Guard. United States' support for the Somoza
regime is summed up in a statement often attributed to President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who is said to have stated of Somoza
senior, "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch."
Regime change finally came in 1979, when the government
of the third Somoza fell to a popular insurrection led by the
Sandinista National Liberation Front. The U.S. government responded
by organizing former National Guard members into a counter-revolutionary
force, known as contras, which waged attacks for the next decade.
Nicaragua responded, in part, by taking the United
States to the World Court, a United Nations agency formally
known as the International Court of Justice. The Court ruled
in 1986 that the United States had violated international law
"by training, arming, equipping, financing, and supplying the
contra forces or otherwise encouraging, supporting, and aiding
military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua."
Specific acts the Court found to be illegal included the mining
of Nicaragua's harbors, a trade embargo, attacks on ports, and
publication of a training manual instructing the contras in
commission of acts that violate humanitarian law, i.e. acts
of terrorism. The Court ordered the United States to pay reparations.
The United States refused and maintained its political, military,
and economic pressure on Nicaragua, one of the poorest nations
in the western hemisphere.
When the Sandinistas lost power to a U.S.-backed
candidate in the 1990 election, the contra war ended and U.S.
intervention shifted to the economic arena. The Nicaraguan government
was forced by U.S.-dominated international lending institutions
(the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) to sell off
state-owned enterprises, cut spending on education and health
care, and create the "free trade zones" so attractive to sweatshop
manufacturers like Juana's employers.
The reason I am telling this story now is that
I am preparing to complete my tax form, and my mind is filled
with the faces of my Nicaraguan friends. I cannot escape the
news stories of bombed-out cities in Iraq, where the United
States now proposes to reconstruct a country in its own image,
probably with the involvement of the IMF and World Bank. Already
the Bush Administration has received a special $62 billion appropriation
to pay for the cost of war (compared to only $2.5 billion for
post-war relief and reconstruction), on top of the $400 billion
previously allocated to what is so cleverly called "national
defense." With that huge sum of money, which accounts for nearly
half of world spending on military forces, the Bush Administration
plans to revive production of nuclear weapons, which according
to its Nuclear Posture Review, may even be launched against
non-nuclear adversaries.
I cannot obey my conscience and turn over another
dime to the federal government. Instead, I will devote the amount
the IRS says I owe, to reparations-in Nicaragua and Iraq. Half
of my withheld taxes will go to a grassroots women's group in
the neighborhood where Juana lives, to help with nutrition,
education, and economic development projects. The other half
will go to a humanitarian organization to rebuild Iraq's water
systems.
I have no problem paying my fair share to support
our nation's schools, health care system, housing, and environmental
protection. But I cannot willingly provide one more cent to
a government bent on war, destruction, and nuclear terror.
Arnie Alpert is New Hampshire Program Coordinator
for the American Friends Service Committee. This article was
originally printed in Peacework, monthly magazine of the New
England Regional Office of the AFSC and can be found on the
web at www.afsc.org/pwork/0306/030617.htm
.
[Return
to List of Headlines] [Return
to NWTRCC home ]
[Previous
Newsletter]
|
