Things You Can Do

Days of Actions and Lessons Learned

  Code Pink, Veterans for Peace and other national groups have called for a Day of Action on January 25th to bring awareness to the situation in Iran and to empower people to prevent an intensified war with Iran. Currently there is a “cold war” happening in Iran with severe economic sanctions that are affecting everyday people. It is like Yogi Berra said, “It’s like deja vu all over again.” Economic sanctions were imposed upon neighboring Iraq prior to the Gulf War campaign in 1990. The severity of the sanctions increased with time, just as they have with Iran. Another similarity is that sanctions did not lift even if the governments were in compliance with the requests made of them. […]

“I’m not sure I can tell the difference in Iraq and Iran”

Yellow button with words "No to War & Racism- HANDS OFF IRAN- Neighbors for Peace. org

As we ready our current blog post my thoughts turn to my own experience in the Middle East just as the Trump administration has launched new rumors of impending endless war in the region. In an extrajudicial drone missile strike Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani was killed. Soleimani (an Iranian) was assassinated at Baghdad International Airport on Iraqi soil without permission of Iraq where the US had been engaged in active warfare for decades. The US escalation comes after Trump walking away from Nuclear negotiations and imposing strict economic sanctions. Iran has now threatened revenge as the US Army deploys an estimated 3,000 additional troops in the 82nd Airborne brigade to the area. The US has ordered all Americans to […]

Yuletide Express carries a universal message of world peace

With  the backdrop of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and seemingly endless conflicts on the horizon, a local musician created an opportunity for people to come together for the holiday season. Celia’s Yuletide Express was formed 15 years ago to share joy and remember the deepest longings of humans in the long nights of winter. Over the years, the numerous sing a longs have brought together hundreds of people at numerous venues. The  Express stops range from assisted living facilities, coffee houses, high schools, psychiatric centers, to actual Metro train stops.  All are welcome to take part.  The age ranges from young ones to  elders singing along.and dancing. It can be magical in what singing can bring about in the […]

Sing a New Song for the Climate in the Streets this Black Friday and Beyond

young people marching with signs, banners and smiles

Friday the 29th of November Extinction Rebellion groups internationally will be doing direct actions to wake us all up to the climate crisis and on Friday the 6th of December Sunrise groups will be striking for the climate across the country. Look for actions both of these days near you. Extinction Rebellion was founded a year ago in Great Britain and has become an international organization with over 485 groups throughout the world.  They are advocating nonviolent direct action to try to save our planet. They believe that if they can get 3% of the people to join them in the streets that more will be convinced to join and that the climate crisis will have a chance to be mitigated.  Extinction Rebellion US […]

Georgia on My Mind

Close the School of the Americas banner with woman and man on both sides

A rare event occurred in my life that I found myself traveling to Georgia for two important events in peacemaking recently. The first event was for the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 trial in Brunswick and the second was the 30th Anniversary Commemorative Gathering at Fort Benning with the School of the Americas Watch. Both events were heavily populated with War Tax Resisters as well as potential War Tax Resisters.  The Kings Bay Plowshares 7 (KBP7) action took place in the home of long time War Tax Resister (WTR) Robert Randall who helped organize many of the events around the trial as well as bringing attention to the Trident nuclear weapons for many decades. Like many WTRs, he had focused on […]

Converging and Choosing our Path

pertoglyh on stone with images of "stick" people facing two paths- one with a locomotive running away (representing modern technology) and another path that includes farming corn and living close to the earth

There is a petroglyph on the Hopi Reservation that has been referred to as the Prophecy Rock that presents two paths forward for humankind. One is reliant upon technology and Western ways and the other is the ways of the people close to the Earth. While it seems rather simplistic and known for some time, the implications of this prophecy have been increasingly important in recent times.  Koyaanisqati and the Hopi Prophecy  The Hopi translate their name into English as “people of peace.” Near the village of Hotevilla, Arizona just off Highway 264 there are ancient petroglyphs. One of the petroglyphs, the Prophecy Rock, is said to pictorially depict the Hopi prophecy of a coming “purification” due to on-going environmental […]

Know the Earth…Share the Way…Understand the World

Flag of International Atomic Energy Agency with blue background, atomic particle surrounded by oak leaf branches

Last week I joined with others who had participated in a tax day action earlier in the year to raise awareness about nuclear weapons on the UN designated day to eliminate the most potent weapon ever created.  We set out seeking midday crowds in a boldly painted vehicle with messages of nuclear disarmament and “armed” with materials including the Warheads to Windmills literature. The program provides a framework of how we could invest the $61 billion for nuclear weapons (in 2018) into programs that could counter climate catastrophe including the Green New Deal. While we traveled around the city I had to put some of my organizing instincts on hold and focus on what underlies all of this work, building […]

Paying for Policies We Protest?

Signs at Climate Strike Sept 2019

I carried my “Refuse to Pay Taxes” sign at a march to “welcome” the president to NYC and the UN the other day. The sign listed various reasons to refuse: family separation, ICE, border wall, hate, war. Can’t say anyone asked me about it. Maybe one of them wrote down the NWTRCC website? Maybe they searched the internet about refusing to pay taxes? Maybe they resist? Not sure there were any other signs about what people’s taxes are up to during this time when so many are out in the streets protesting pretty much everything that the current administration is doing.  I was thinking back to that period after the election, through the inauguration, and the first months of this […]

Confessions of an Anonymous War Tax Refuser

I grew up in a constant shadow of wars—from bomb shelters when I was a child, through Vietnam, the “cold war,” and ceaseless hot ones since then. When I discovered in my 30s that besides what we directly participated in, our government was also fomenting wars all over the world and supplying the arms for them, sometimes to both sides, I vowed myself to peace. That meant I would not help war efforts in any way, including paying for them or for weapons, buying products from companies which profited from war, and every other way that came to my attention. The only way I felt comfortable resisting taxes (other than the phone tax resistance during Vietnam) was to keep my […]

Nukes vs. Earth: Wake Up and Change

#1 polluter = war with Frances Crowe

“People tell me I should study to become a climate scientist so I can solve the climate crisis. But the climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change.” — Greta Thunberg It’s pretty easy to find great quotes from the surprising and powerful new voice of the climate change movement, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg. I like that quote because often I feel like we are drowning in information and should spend more time out making more noise than listening to news (ok, I’m something of a news addict, but then my parents were journalists) or reading yet another book on how we ended up where we […]

Frances Crowe, WTR and Anti-War Activist Extraordinaire

NWTRCC Coordinator Lincoln Rice wrote yesterday:  “Brandywine in Philadelphia sent out an email on their list today about Frances Crowe, who is in hospice. She’s been a longtime supporter of NWTRCC, whom some of you may know. Here is the note from Brandywine: “Yes, the amazing peacemaker, Frances Crowe, is in hospice. Friends and loved ones predict she is soon to leave us. Frances is still able to receive visitors and field phone calls. If you wish to say Godspeed and express your gratitude for her magnificent life you may do so. Her number is: 413 586-4950 [Editor’s Note: Frances passed away at her home on Tuesday August 27th. Here is link to a NY Times article about her life.] […]

War, conscience, and war tax resistance as a movement

demonstration photo war tax resisters

Maybe because I was in Massachusetts over the weekend, the Colrain house seizure story from 1989 – 1993 was on my mind today. And then I remembered something I had neglected to do, which was to post a talk by longtime war tax resister and Massachusetts resident Larry Rosenwald. Larry was a panelist at the 25th anniversary Colrain reunion in November 2018. The panel topic was “The impacts Colrain might have had on the national WTR movement and thoughts on the current state of the WTR and the peace movement.” By “Colrain” we mean not just a house seizure, but the four years of organizing, vigils and civil disobedience at the seized property under the banner “It’s wrong to confiscate […]