by David M. Gross In mid-April, people across the United States struggle to fill out their federal income tax returns. This shared calamity has created something of an inverted holiday season — with grumbling about paperwork and frustration towards government bureaucracy replacing the “peace on earth, goodwill to men” of the Yuletide. But at a church in… Continue reading
Real Life Stories
Resistance, Redirection, and Revolution: Tabling at the Seattle Anarchist Bookfair
Tabling at the Seattle Anarchist Bookfair this weekend, I realized again that anti-war activism is only part of the picture in modern war tax resistance. With so many problems in the world, with so much reporting and news from the proliferation of modern media sources online, it’s hard to know where to focus. Not only… Continue reading
Summer Travel: Destination Wisconsin
Family related activities got me out of New York City a week ago and into Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Given the timing of my flights I realized I could fit in a visit or two with people in our war tax resistance network, so I made some contacts and set up a couple meetings. We are very… Continue reading
Affordable Care Act As War Tax Redirection
(This article appeared in the June/July 2014 edition of More than a Paycheck, NWTRCC’s bimonthly newsletter, but several links have been added.) By Robert G. Randall II Several of you have written about your own experiences with the Affordable Care Act (ACA, I call it Obamasurance rather than Obamacare, because, other than the free preventive… Continue reading
A Sense of Freedom
Marion Bromley (1913-1996) was working for the Fellowship of Reconciliation in the 1940s when she met Ernest Bromley, who was circulating a statement about refusing to pay for war. She and Ernest married not too long after that and made their way to Cincinnati, Ohio, where they lived the rest of their lives. They are… Continue reading
War Resistance Beyond the Rally
We’re holding our second Google Hangout on June 4 at 9 AM Pacific, noon Eastern. Hear from panelists from the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee and two of its affiliates, the Center on Conscience and War and the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, about their approaches to war resistance that go beyond… Continue reading
The Health Care Conundrum
Within the war tax resistance network we’ve been following Obamacare for a while, but a tax day article in the New York Times added to my own concerns/suspicions/disgust about the new health care law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly known at Obamacare. The article, “Tax Preparers’ New Role: Health-Coverage Advisers,” makes obvious the connection… Continue reading
WRL Pie Chart — Escape from Responsibility?
A Distraction from Direct Action? Since the 1970s the War Resisters League’s annual Federal Tax Pie Chart has been a very effective vehicle to channel outrage and protest, by radicals and liberals alike, against U.S. wars and military spending. However, I’ve recently come to realize that all too often the pie chart (as well as similar analyses… Continue reading
Redirecting Our Money, Time, and Focus from War
Last week in NWTRCC’s Strategy Committee, we discussed war tax redirection, which is a tactic employed by many war tax resisters. The money such resisters refuse to pay to the IRS, they instead “redirect” it to organizations they feel will make better use of the money. (Read more about redirection on our website.) One of… Continue reading
Weathering a WTR Workshop
On February 7, Ed Hedemann and I headed up to Rochester, New York, from Brooklyn, on the bus to facilitate a Friday night/Saturday war tax resistance workshop. We’ve had quite a winter, so heading 300 miles north, where the cold and snow was bound to be worse, left us wondering if the workshop would be… Continue reading
Zero Interest in Paying the Killing Machine’s Bills
I learned everything I need to know about the United States when I saw that picture of the young Vietnamese girl Kim Phuc running down the road with napalm burning through her skin to her bones. I finally in 1980 began questioning whether I wanted to spend my life paying for the death of other… Continue reading
War Tax Resistance Trailblazer
Today, January 26, in Philadelphia the Quaker Action Team honors five elders, including our friend and associate Robin Harper. NWTRCC sent this tribute in his honor: Speaking truth to power has been the undercurrent of Robin Harper’s years as a war tax resister. Since Robin began his resistance in 1958, he has had many opportunities… Continue reading