Welcome to the 2nd in the Conscience and History series! In each of these posts I’ll explore a little bit of the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign (CMTC)’s newsletter, Conscience, which was published from 1980 to 1994. The newsletter was continued as Nonviolent Action (1995-2007) by the Nonviolent Action Community of Cascadia (NACC), which ran… Continue reading
At NWTRCC gatherings, we always have cards on a back table so attendees can write notes of support to those who are facing garnishment or some other type of IRS action. At our last NWTRCC meeting in May, we mainly signed cards for those regular attendees that could not come due to ill health or… Continue reading
Recently, former NWTRCC coordinator Ruth Benn, as part of her ongoing effort to finally clear the NWTRCC archives out of her house, sent me a stack of old issues of Conscience. This was the newsletter of the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign (CMTC), which promoted what was then called the World Peace Tax Fund and ran… Continue reading
By Lincoln Rice I become a war tax resister because of my deep-seated belief that war is wrong and I cannot voluntarily participate in war with my body or resources. Therefore, I have spent the last twenty years refusing to pay my federal income taxes and have redirected those funds to more life-giving projects. A… Continue reading
I got a very striking email from the ACLU the other day. I don’t know that anyone in the ACLU is aware of what it sounds like they’re saying, which is stopping just short of calling for tax resistance against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS): This is all happening on our dime. Congress will… Continue reading
Over the past few weeks, several resisters in the NWTRCC network have reported getting unusually swift Notices of Intent to Levy by certified mail from the IRS. (A Notice of Intent to Levy is the last letter the IRS must send you before they can begin collection action, assuming you don’t dispute their tax assessment… Continue reading
by Lincoln Rice Every September for about forty years, there has been a Midwest Gathering of Catholic Workers near Preston, Iowa. Attendance ranges from 75 to 200, with representatives from around two dozen Catholic Worker communities. The weekend is a chance for autonomous Catholic Worker communities to share stories and hold roundtable discussions on topical… Continue reading
A new book by professor and former Air Force officer Sarah E. Kreps, Taxing Wars: The American Way of War Finance and the Decline of Democracy, argues that the decline of the war tax has a lot to do with why the U.S. modern wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are seemingly neverending. What do you… Continue reading
What is intersectionality and why is it an important concept for war tax resisters to understand? Over the past few years, I’ve heard folks in our network use the word “intersectionality” to describe our aims to work with and support a variety of movements. I’m excited about WTRs working with other movements and organizations! However,… Continue reading
by Susan Miller When we’ve inquired about remodeling our apartment in Manhattan, contractors ask, “Is it pre-war?” That’s hard to answer. Pre- which war? For the past century, the U.S. has been complicitly or directly at war with countries around the world, with perhaps only a few years during President Jimmy Carter’s administration in which… Continue reading
We had a delightful NWTRCC gathering in sunny Los Angeles this past weekend. I want to start with a HUGE thank you to the local organizing team, including Cathy Deppe, Alex Walker, and Anne Barron from Southern California War Tax Resistance and Alternative Fund (sorry if I missed other names). The gathering was co-sponsored by Veterans… Continue reading
I’ve been tangentially following the Pueblo Sin Fronteras caravan of Central American migrants, and have been reading more closely about their experiences since they arrived at the San Ysidro port of entry on April 29, 2018. Migrants and supporters also gathered at the beach in Tijuana and San Diego that day. Although, several days later,… Continue reading