By Susan Miller President Trump has finally made a proclamation that I agree with. By renaming the Department of Defense, he tells the truth about what the department has been all along: a Department of War. I don’t believe that any of the wars that the United States has engaged in during my lifetime have… Continue reading
Today’s exciting topic is…..drum roll….capital gains! Ok, I admit it. I know very little about capital gains, but it is a question that has come up recently in WTR counseling, particularly among older antiwar activists. Many have had a low income and been glad to avoid paying for war. Suddenly a gift or inheritance drops… Continue reading
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…. Continue reading
It’s hard to concentrate on day-to-day tasks of late. What with the weather, projects piling up around the house, worrying about the present and future, worrying I’m not doing enough, worrying that whatever I do is so minor in the face of it all… I’ve been to the U.S. Mission to the UN a few… Continue reading
By Tim Godshall When I first learned of WTR in my teenage years, I was smitten. Growing up in the Mennonite church, in which pacifism is a key part of church doctrine, I learned about our history of conscientious objectors who refused to fight in previous wars. Since the U.S. military draft ended a few… Continue reading
In a recent Boston Globe column (“Resisting Trump: The Revival of Tax Protest,” April 10), Alex Beam points to a time-honored way of resisting violence and war: refusing to pay for it. He highlights the activism of the Pioneer Valley in western Massachusetts, and central to that activism were Juanita and Wally Nelson, two peace… Continue reading
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” One of the greatest opening lines. Are we there, 41 years later? In real life, 1984 was a year during Reagan’s presidency, and a lot of us thought we might be headed into the book’s vision of dystopia at that time. Or… Continue reading
Taxpayers Against Genocide (TAG) recently hosted a national webinar in response to the overwhelming support of their efforts to raise awareness of the role of the US tax money in funding genocide in Gaza. In late December, over 600 taxpayers in Northern California filed a class action lawsuit against their representatives in Congress for their… Continue reading
When single-sheet zines cease slinking from the printer, I stop biting my nails. With a little shuffle of feet and paper, I begin to fold and cut pages at my desk. Completing little 8-page booklets brings a small satisfaction on an otherwise unremarkable workday. A coworker I trust stops to chat as he does every… Continue reading
Review Lawrence Rosenwald Autobiography of a Political Objector Max Sandim’s Memoir; Forward by Randy Kehler; Edited by Ed Hedemann & Ruth Benn ($15) Published in May 2024 Max Sandin’s memoir begins with a story told by the late Randy Kehler, who met Sandin in 1963, in New York, on a bus taking them to the… Continue reading
Dear IRS Friends, I was not born or raised this way. But when I received a death threat, in 1968, and was planning a gunfight, a prophet/angel appeared in a dream, taking me to talk with the man who wanted to kill me. I know now that Jesus’ “love your enemy” actually works better than… Continue reading
The first obligation of responsible citizenship, I believe, is obedience to one’s conscience. Obedience to one’s government, and to its laws, is very important, but it must come second. Otherwise there is no check on immoral actions by governments, which are bound to occur in any society, whenever power is abused. — Randy Kehler The… Continue reading