text: NWTRCC • November 2011 proposals Home
  Finally it would have to be making a clearly defined demand on the government. This for Thoreau's reason but without his sexism: "Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it." In the absence of such a demand – quit India, integrate the lunch counters, give us our sons and husbands back – no movement can engage in dialogue with its opponent. The government has a goal: to collect the taxes to fund the wars. The movement – and "movement" is the right word for what I'm trying to imagine here, something less comfortable but more disciplined than a community – needs to have a goal of its own. Without such a goal, we cannot enter into dialogue; for that matter, without such a goal, how would we know if one day we won? (Here, tentatively, is my proposal for such a goal: a 75% reduction in the U.S. military budget and a restriction of American military actions to self-defense in the strictest sense.) There are, by the usual estimates, 10,000 war tax resisters in the U.S. What if next year all of us who could make this choice (some of us cannot) chose to make a taxable income, filed a tax return, proclaimed to the IRS and to the public generally why we were refusing to pay part or all of what we owed, proudly publicized every governmental act taken against us?
  I think of war the way the War Resisters League does, as a crime against humanity. That crime is getting worse. It's only because that's the case that I make these admittedly controversial statements; I want the waging of wars to be slowed. I think we could do more to make that happen. I think we could be more dangerous. Lawrence Rosenwald is the Anne Pierce Rogers Professor of English at Wellesley College; he has published essays on war tax resistance, pacifism, and Thoreau, and has been a war tax resister since 1987 and an active member of New England War Tax Resistance since the early 1990s.
  Two and a half years ago, I made a quick trip to the Pine Bluff Arsenal in southeastern Arkansas to see where the white phosphorous used in the Israel war on Gaza (Dec. 2008–Jan. 2009) was manufactured. Tucked among rolling farmlands, the arsenal was built in 1941 and quickly became one of the region's biggest employers. According to one local woman, teachers literally "walked out of their classrooms to go make bombs because the pay was so good." My Pine Bluff visit came to mind while reading "WTR Manifesto," a proposal that throws a monkey wrench into the economics of our war-making. Having ten thousand Americans publicly declare they will withhold a portion of their federal taxes until there is a 75% reduction in the U.S. military budget, and a restriction of military actions to self defense in the strictest sense is gutsy, concrete, and perhaps even doable. While I can imagine a lot of heated debate, some of it excruciatingly convoluted, on what qualifies as "self-defense" (for some Americans it includes pre-emptive strikes against suspected or "potential" terrorists), I see the value of having a goal for a movement of war tax resistance. There is an implied optimism and courtesy in telling the government exactly what you want, and, as Larry notes, goals provide focus to the movement.
  "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries." –Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare
  Karl Meyer helped create the Nashville Green-lands community in Nashville, Tennessee. His story is included in the book War Tax Resistance.
  Bill Glassmire — Larry Rosenwald proposes that the WTR community engage in illegal and widely publicized tax resistance to make a specific demand of the U.S. government. The proposal comes at a time of opportunity, because all around the country there is a lot of dissatisfaction with our political system. Thank you, Larry, for articulating a possible response. I can see two ways forward. First is how I understand Larry's suggestion: individuals in the tax resistance community start right away to implement the proposal however works best for him/her, making public both acts of refusal and responses from the IRS and government. Although likely I would participate, I think this course unlikely to work; in the next paragraph I explain why. Second, the WTR community could spend some time and effort refining the proposal, trying to figure out how to make it work effectively. That effort I think worthwhile, maybe even worthwhile if no action comes of it. I have been a tax resister for about 20 years. There are tax resisters among my neighbors and friends, but there is no local WTR organization to be part of. For me, what WTR means is that I do not willingly pay my tax liability; in recent years I have also been writing to my congresspeople to tell them that I am not paying. I have not gotten any response. Most often, after a couple of years and several threatening letters, the IRS collects the unpaid tax by a levy on a bank account. From my experience, I cannot see how individual tax resisters would effectively carry out the proposal. The taxes which I resist, and the letters and the levy with which the IRS responds, are pinpricks. Specifically, I think that the U.S. ruling class, including the national government and the wealthy institutions which support it, could easily ignore whatever publicity I produced about my resisted taxes and the collection procedure.
  Bill Glassmire lives in Corvallis, Oregon, with his wife Leslie and two dogs. A tax resister for about twenty years, he is honored to be part of a community including Henry David Thoreau, Ernest Bromley, Wally Nelson, and the readers of More than a Paycheck.
  Move to Amend (MTA) is a grassroots
  movement to overturn the "Supreme" Court's infamous "Citizens United" decision
  that bestowed personhood on corporations, entitling them to human and civil
  rights and the protections thereof. The decision — called the worst since Dred Scott — allows corporations to