I thought that would get your attention.
Now give it to this article on people who are resisting the war effort by refusing to pay their federal income tax, by Mark W. Anderson at The American Sentimentalist.
According to the War Resisters League, the long-standing pacifist organization, nearly one-half of all government spending goes for the express purpose of supporting military activities, while less than a third is spent on social programs. Each year, the League calculates what portion of the federal income tax collected goes to the military, and for the 2005 budget a full 49% is earmarked for past and current military purposes, up from 47% the year before. And, of course, that doesn’t include the unknown costs of current activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.War tax resistance has a long and distinguished history in the United States, ranging from colonial Quakers, who refused to pay taxes during the American Revolution, and author Henry David Thoreau, who went to jail rather than pay a Massachusetts poll tax that generated funds for the Mexican-American war, to more recent war tax resisters such as Gloria Steinem, Joan Baez, and Noam Chomsky. Currently, there are about 50 or 60 local groups spread across the country supporting the movement in one way or another, such as the inter-faith social outreach program Fellowship of Reconciliation, the National Campaign for Peace Tax Fund, and the Mennonite Central Committee, an arm of the North American Mennonite Church.
“The basic idea behind refusal is that the government doesn’t demand anything else of us in support of a war and the growing military-industrial complex other than to pay taxes,” explains Karl Meyer, a longtime war tax resister and political activist who lives in Nashville, Tenn. “No draft, no demand that we vote – in fact, the only thing they demand of us in support of militarism is to pay our taxes. So if we want to show that we don’t support what they’re doing, we have no choice but to refuse.”
Now, on the one hand I can't endorse this because I know the Borrow and Spend Republicans just going to take the money for the military anyway and shortchange domestic programs. On the other hand, because of other decisions the Bushistas have made, they actually have a chance at getting away with it.
Posted by P6 at April 5, 2004 04:29 PM
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