Ironically, it is often people who have served in the military and have experienced firsthand the banality and brutality of mindless obedience who come to question and then reject external authority over their own internal ethical decisions. (“Brian Willson and the Problem of Obedience” by Dana Visalli) Heading into the Memorial Day weekend it seems… Continue reading
By Betty Winkler I received a big surprise in early July of this year. A former professor of mine who followed my careers and with whom I maintained contact for fifty years, left me a modest “Inherited IRA” as one of several beneficiaries. She passed on suddenly, at age eighty-nine. I am honored by this… 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
Activism against nuclear weapons got me my second arrest and pushed me further into war tax resistance. It was the late 70s into the 80s, the time of Reagan’s military build-up, nuclear threats, and No Nukes: The MUSE Concerts For a Non-Nuclear Future to inspire activism.* Over the years artists of all genres have used… 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
By Karl Meyer I see two alternative visions that I call War Tax Protest and Resistance and War Tax Refusal. I distinguish these two basic approaches by an analogy with the behavior of electrical energy. Copper is a material that allows, but resists, the passage of electric currents. The process of resistance generates heat and… 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
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
Hundreds of people risk arrest in direct actions pretty much every day. Protests about the war on Gaza might top the list with thousands of arrests in the U.S. since Israel’s genocide began. Last July Nuclear Resister tallied 9,000 arrests, but that number could have doubled by now. Thousands have been arrested in Black Lives… Continue reading
This week marked the anniversary of wars largely paid for with US taxpayer money. Twenty- three years ago on October 7, the United States began bombing Afghanistan not even a month after the 9/11 attacks. Brown University’s Cost of War Project estimates that the United States spent $2.313 trillion on the war in Afghanistan between… 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