NWTRCC News

The (Art and) Science of Peace

I’ll be writing a more in-depth reflection on our Cleveland meeting for the next newsletter, but suffice it to say, it was a terrific weekend! The primary organizer of the weekend was the amazing Maria Smith, whose care and thoughtfulness and deep roots in Cleveland were evident in each activity. We met a variety of people who are intertwined with her activist communities and her work. Thank you, Maria! Friday night’s Cleveland Airshow protest presentation, led by Mike Fiala and with contributions from several other participants, gave us a sense of what resistance to military glorification looks like in Cleveland. I recorded this presentation and will be editing it for YouTube in the coming weeks, so look for that announcement! […]

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I find myself torn once again between getting myself out the door to be at a demonstration versus doing all the personal and behind-the-scenes political projects that are piled up around me. This weekend is the Women’s March on the Pentagon, a protest initiated by Cindy Sheehan and inspired by the 51st anniversary of the 1967 march on the Pentagon — a spirited event with a turnout of 50,000 on October 21, 1967. Such a turnout is exceedingly unlikely this weekend, despite the couple hundred individual and group endorsers listed on the website, including our own National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee. Within our war tax resistance network, initial interest in having a group presence there has dwindled to whether […]

Laugh, Cry, Carry On! Mining NWTRCC’s Archives

As Erica mentioned in her post last week, I’ve been clearing out old war tax resistance files and sorting those that will go to the Swarthmore College Peace Collection.  Along with many other peace groups — War Resisters League, National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom — NWTRCC sends our newsletters, audio-visual materials, literature, and other organizing papers to the archive. The Peace Collection also saves our website periodically, so that online information will be available to researchers. Going through the files is quite a project, and you have to be very disciplined to press along and not read every note, every flyer, and every letter sent to the IRS or elected officials […]

Investing in People: Our LA Gathering

Ruth Benn and Lincoln Rice laughing during May 5, 2018 coordinator transition discussion.

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 For Peace LA Chapter, LA Catholic Worker, and NWTRCC. It was held at the LA Workers Center in Koreatown. In addition, LA Food Not Bombs provided food throughout the weekend! Thank you to all our hosts and supporters. Here are some of the highlights, in my humble opinion: The weekend began with dinner and a panel discussion on divestment. Panelists Jim Haber, Anne Barron, Dr. […]

Spread the Word This Tax Day!

Hi everyone, Tax Day is coming up fast. NWTRCC’s team of consultants is working to spread the word about war tax resistance as much as possible, and you can help! Attend a local tax day event! Share our press release with your local media or favorite website. Got pictures/reportbacks from a tax season event, or want promotional coverage of your upcoming event? Send pictures, text, or other info to nwtrcc@nwtrcc.org, socialmedia@nwtrcc.org, and wartaxresister@nwtrcc.org, and we’ll make sure it gets into our listings, gets posted on social media, and/or is included in our newsletter coverage of tax season 2018, as appropriate! Make your own social media posts with links to NWTRCC and/or sharing your own perspective on WTR. Use hashtags like […]

New Resources for Divestment

screenshot of the Divest from War, Invest in People website at wartaxdivestment.org

NWTRCC has launched a brand new website for our Divest from War, Invest in People campaign! Visit us at www.wartaxdivestment.org. Refusing to pay war taxes is divesting from state violence, fossil fuels, and military prisons. Unlike other forms of divestment, war tax refusal often involves civil disobedience. Personally divesting from militarism enables immediate reinvestment in people and the planet. This website is a great way to introduce people already interested or active in divestment movements to war tax resistance. It builds on the work that NWTRCC and its affiliates have been doing around divestment and war tax redirection since the 2016 tax season! The site includes: Q&A, links to NWTRCC resources, a sign-up form, and quotes from current resisters, like […]

Keep resistance alive in 2018

"I know first hand how hard NWTRCC's coordinators work to spread the word about war tax resistance and to create and provide resources. All this work requires money to continue." - Peter Smith and Ellyn Stecker

Just a brief post this week! Please support the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee with a generous donation by December 31! We want to keep going strong in 2018, able to address new events and concerns in the struggle against war – but also keep up our solid work in providing community and support for resisters! Your donation will help a lot. The War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund announced that they received no requests for assistance in 2016. I would call this shocking, but it seems like resisters just aren’t being collected on lately. Success! But if people need this fund and aren’t using it, that’s no success. To support resisters in the future by contributing to reimburse them for […]

A NEW HOPE (Sam’s October College Tour)

Disclaimer: This blog post about Sam’s college tour is best to be watched, not read. Watch it in its true format here! A long time ago (not so long actually, it was only in October of this year) in a galaxy far, far away (called “The Northeast”), it is a period of civil war. A lone rebel spaceship, striking from a hidden base (Philadelphia), won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet (the Military Industrial Complex, funded by hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars). Pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents (cops be […]

“Fighting Nazis should be fun” and other lessons

Last weekend’s Voices of Resistance conference, a joint effort of the joint New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters and the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (oh, jeez, that’s a mouthful) was some deep food for thought. I want to start by thanking the organizing team and all of the guests who joined us for the panel and workshops. It was great to see several UMass students in attendance too. Every part of this weekend was a different challenge for me! Friday was a lot of meetings and logistics, with Ad Comm meeting and then prepping for the Fulfilling Lives While Fighting for Our Lives panel. During the panel, Camila, Nathalie, and Rojas were dropping a lot of heavy […]

Gatherings of Resistance

I’ve been at three different activist events recently – or at least parts of all of them. For various reasons I didn’t stay for the full programs, but each provided some food for thought. WTF Do We Do Now? This was a day-long forum in Brooklyn sponsored by Pioneer Works, Creative Time, and the Yes Men and defined as a time to “reflect on a year of incredibly bad politics, and to gather energy, develop clarity, and make plans for the long fight ahead.” It was all day on a Sunday, which is really my time to gather energy catching up at home, so I got through about half the program. Still, it was a young crowd, mostly artists and […]

You should read our newsletter

Before there was a National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) blog, there was the newsletter. It’s taken a few different forms over the years – it started as the print-only Network News. Eventually we started putting it online too. Now a pretty large portion of readers get it online only as More Than a Paycheck: Refusing to Pay for War (MTAP). Subscribe to MTAP by email for free here. Subscribe to receive the print version for $15/year here. (Donations are highly appreciated for the online version.) Our newsletter is a great read every two months. I am not saying that just because my article “The Vietnam Legacy of War Tax Resistance” appears in this issue. I am also not  saying […]

There And Back Again: Organizing on the Road

Sam Koplinka-Loehr, NWTRCC Field Organizer, testified at the Iraq Tribunal on Friday, December 2nd about the costs of the war. Her testimony is below.

Whew! What a trip. Eight days, six presentations, two conferences, nine states & provinces in two countries, 50 hours on the road, and 3,600 miles later! And I am back in Philly. Glad to say it was a rental car with unlimited miles rather than with my 1990 Oldsmobile (even though I would have been looking a lot more fly on the road in the Oldsmobile…). There’s so much to share from my latest war tax resistance organizing trip, I’m not even sure of where to begin. So I’ll share some tidbits and then if you have additional questions, please comment or email me. Most Relaxed Point The first stop of my field organizing trip was perhaps the most peaceful. […]