Peaches, Origami Peace Cranes and Hope
The recent NWTRCC Outreach meeting began with talking about peaches and how sweet they were this year in some parts of the country. Cathy Deppe was the first to arrive. When asked why she looked so aglow, she responded that it was because she got to meet with all of us on that day. All on the call were all aglow in their own ways. The Outreach committee was planning for the upcoming NWTRCC November 7-9 conference in Worcester, Massachusetts. The meeting wrapped up with encouraging each other to savor the sweet things in life like ice cream, peaches, sweet corn and going to the beach. Sharing in the sweetness lingered throughout the day, along with the awareness that we do not do this work alone.
Image from Pixabay
It is surprising at times to meet people in day to day life when the topic of war tax resistance comes up, they respond that they to have practiced war tax refusal. At some point while looking out at the wider world they have recognized their role in perpetuating harm with their tax dollars. NWTRCC has witnessed a surge of people making that connection with the U.S. arming and making the genocide in Gaza possible. Attendance at our introduction to war tax resistance (WTR 101) sessions has surpassed 100 people on multiple occasions causing NWTRCC to get a larger zoom account. In the 1 year, 10 months and 1 week that the war in Gaza has been going on at least 62,000 Palestinians have been killed, 83% of whom were civilians. In that same period of time over a thousand people have attended WTR 101 sessions.
Those in our network have been very generous in supporting this work and invite those who can support various ways to do that on our website. We are very grateful to continue to get information about refusing to pay for war out into the wider world and build the community. In recent years NWTRCC has been hosting quite a few WTR 101s and has witnessed an increase from national organizations and local community groups requesting 101 sessions.
Following the November NWTRCC meeting, we have been hosting monthly Social Hours as an opportunity for people in the network to connect beyond our bi-annual gatherings. Quite a few new people have been joining with questions of how to go about refusing to pay for war, gleaning from the experience of people who have embraced war tax resistance over decades.
It was nearly 2 decades into my practicing war tax resistance before I became more involved with NWTRCC. I regret that I waited so long. It was like a homecoming, meeting family I had not met yet.
I hope others who are new and experienced in war tax resistance do not wait so long to get involved with NWTRCC. We welcome others to join in the work, together. Consider joining NWTRCC’s Outreach or Fundraising Committees, our monthly Social Hour or our November gathering in Worcester. In these challenging times it is essential to join in this work together.
Post by Chrissy Kirchhoefer