Federal Budget graph painted on a street in Eugene, OR, 1984, with local activist Leslie Brockelbank. Photo by Ed Hedemann, WRL files

These days when I feel that we must be in the worst of times, items in the collections are reminding me that there were other dark times for peace activists. The 1930s had some heady years of pacifist sentiment but, as Hitler’s power grew, the pacifist position was marginalized and mocked. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki introduced new horrors. The 1950s with anti-Communist fever and McCarthyism made it hard for organizations like WRL to grow their ranks. There’s a packed folder of political cartoons during the Reagan era that demonstrates the widespread anger at his administration’s “guns over butter” policies and the fears of a nuclear WWIII.

Reviewing all this history can enhance one’s feelings of failure to reach the kind of society and world we want, but the photos of antiwar actions and protests against injustices are also a testimony to carrying on against the odds. War tax resistance actions are scattered through the WRL files, so I pulled out a random few that can also give us ideas for things to do during the upcoming tax season — carrying on Chrissy’s theme from an earlier blog, “Making War Tax Resistance Visible and Accessible.”

— Post by Ruth Benn

Books purchased with tax resisted dollars and donated to the local library, Brunswick, GA, 1991. Photo by Ruth Benn, WRL files	Activists change the message on a billboard in Alaska, 1990. Photo by Karen Beetle, WRL files
Missiles or Human Needs? Tax day vigil, Long Island, NY, 1989. WRL files	Charlie King performs on a stage-topped van, tax day 1975, NYC. Photo by Karl Bissinger, WRL files. Charlie will open NWTRCC’s virtual gathering on November 4.

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Among the slogans projected above the stage at the concert.

Pink Floyd was not a group I followed lo these many years, although a few of their songs are familiar. Ed made a CD mix of music to accompany our trips to view total eclipses of the sun, so of course Pink Floyd’s “Eclipse” made the cut. “Money” was a hit single in the U.S. back in the 70s so it did get into my memory bank, although I didn’t give it enough of a listen to respond with a comment like this one on the song’s YouTube page:

Kids thinking of joining the military: Take a copy of the Wall Street Journal, any high tech weapons trade magazines, and this song playing through your earbuds. Sitting in the closest legal parking area, facing Raytheon Technologies, Northrup Grumman, Beretta, Westinghouse, etc business parks, factories, airplane hangars… check out the prices of these bad boys’ stocks. …Tell me we went to ‘war’ (against) Afghanistan, Iraq, dozens of known & unnamed countries & entire regions to ‘defend our country’, to ‘keep us free’….

Now it’s thanks to Veterans For Peace (VFP) that I’ve had a full introduction through Roger Waters’ “This Is Not A Drill” concert tour. He’s had a solo career for years, but does a lot of Pink Floyd songs and throws some history of the group into this otherwise massively political show. VFP was invited to have a literature table and received a block of tickets to various shows around the country. Happily for Ed and me, our VFP friends here in NYC allowed us to join them for a Madison Square Garden concert. And kudos to Roger Waters for giving them and other activists this outreach opportunity.

You can find all kinds of video and reviews of This Is Not A Drill on the internet, like this pretty thorough review from the Boston concert mentioning his support of VFP. This review from The Times of Israel is interesting because Waters support of Palestinians inspires protests from some pro-Israel activists.

If you have seen or read about the concert you’ll find a lot to agree with, although if you don’t see the concert live you do miss out on the technological spectacle that goes along with it. What war tax resister would not appreciate seeing the huge projected images of Reagan and all following presidents tagged with “War Criminal” for the thousands that were killed on their orders during their respective administrations, with Biden “War Criminal just getting started”.

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

I might not agree with everything Waters says, but I was especially impressed with his adamant speech about the insanity of nuclear weapons as he introduced the first encore, “Two Suns in the Sunset.” With his platform, he informs thousands about the Doomsday Clock, now set frighteningly at 100 seconds to midnight. Included on the YouTube page with a solo version of “Two Suns in the Sunset”, he says:

That we allow Nuclear Weapons to exist in a world controlled by deranged sociopaths is, in itself, a deranged arrangement.
We are many they are few.
We could just say no, to the whole MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) insanity.
It makes zero sense and is potentially omnicidal.

While Waters sings “Two Suns in the Sunset” a video projects images of nuclear destruction. Members of the New York City government and Emergency Management Office need tickets to a Waters concert. In July 2022 they released a public service announcement telling us how to survive a nuclear attack. The PSA has gotten thousands of views, mostly because it has been mocked from start to finish. The New York Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons posted a “correction” video in response.

Waters says, “We are many they are few”. There are thousands attending This Is Not A Drill concerts. How many of them turn their cheers for his plea against nuclear weapons into action? Somehow this reminds me of a headline in The Onion years ago to the effect of “If one more person had come to the demonstration, the war would have ended.” Perhaps if one more person openly resisted war taxes….

— Post by Ruth Benn

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Photos by Sue Barnhart

We drove our Prius from Eugene, Oregon to these outstanding national treasures. We passed through some unbelievably scenic countryside and I often thought about how many more of the wonders of our country could be protected and restored if we weren’t supporting wars.

As most of you know, our country spends more on war than any other country in the world. In fact, our military budget is larger than the combination of the next seven largest military budgets! I began resisting paying taxes back in the 70’s when I learned it was possible to do, because I was against killing people. I’m still resisting for that reason, and also because I want my tax dollars to go to life affirming projects, not to war.

Climate and the U.S. Military

Everyday we hiked lovely trails, and often saw wildlife and plants that are threatened with extinction. In fact, we are all threatened with extinction and the U.S. military is the biggest carbon emitter in the world. So in my mind, they one of the biggest contributors to our extinction in two ways: (1) by always being involved in wars which threaten our extinction by nuclear bombs and (2) being the biggest contributor to the climate catastrophe.

Lowering the U.S. military budget would go a long way in lowering carbon emissions from our country. Giving more money to our national parks, reserves, and monuments and less to the military could be used to protect more trees and plants. And that in turn would help to lower the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and slow the effects of global warming.

The Army & Yellowstone

We learned while we were at Yellowstone that the park was established in 1872. In its early years the 2.2 million acres of park was managed by just a handful of people. The government allocated very little resources to protect the park and it was hard to stop the defacing of the geysers, the chopping down of trees, and the poaching of the animals. Many acres were destroyed by fires intentionally set by settlers annoyed that the park was established.

In 1886, the U.S. Army was tasked with managing Yellowstone National Park until 1916 when the National Park Service was established. The troops withdrew from the park by 1918. The military administration of Yellowstone was a model for the management of Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks. If you look at  the park rangers uniforms today, they are similar to the uniforms the Army wore at that time.

Eventually hundreds of officers and enlisted men were stationed at Yellowstone. After a first winter in tents, the Army built some beautiful buildings still used today including a post office, a courthouse, some houses, barracks used for more housing, a museum, and administrative buildings. The Army Corps of Engineers built many of the roads and bridges that were still in use until they were flooded and destroyed a few weeks after we left the park.

We were able to drive on all those bridges and roads, enjoying the beautiful nature of the park, and they will take years to replace. The flooding was another example of our climate catastrophe–lots of snow extremely late in the season that melted during unusually high amounts of rain.

Photos by Sue Barnhart who stated “We saw many animals- baby bison and bears, coyote, wolf and fox cubs”

Let’s Preserve Life

If only the funds and personnel in the Defense Department could be transferred to preserving life instead of destroying life. Funds could be used to maintain trails and build more trails. Many of the trails we were on needed maintenance. Money could be put towards building an outhouse in front of each trailhead. It could be used to restore buildings that were built by people out of work during the Great Depression who found work in the Civil Conservation Corps. 

Money could also be used to hire more rangers and biologists to study climate change and the threatened extinction of so many animals and plants and to work toward preserving them. It could be used to purchase electric buses to transport tourists so that there would be less cars on the park road and less congestion. More informational displays could be built. More National Parks could be created. The National Parks budget gets cut every year, while the military’s budget  gets more funds than it asks for.

I’ll keep resisting taxes for war until none of our tax dollars go towards war. And I’ll keep dreaming of what those tax dollars could be going towards if they were not paying for war.

Post by Sue Barnhart

The post Let Us Imagine Investing in Preserving Our Natural Wonders first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

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— David Harris, at a 1960s antiwar protest

David Harris is one of the featured draft resisters and organizers in the recently released film, The Boys Who Said No: Draft Resistance and the Vietnam War, directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Judith Ehrlich. The film gives an overview of the draft resistance movement from 1965 – 1975 through the eyes of those who participated and those who were influenced by the resistance, with an emphasis on The Resistance founded by Harris and others in California. It honors a movement that helped inspire a wider antiwar movement, grew to include resistance within the military, and was a key factor in bringing an end to the war.

Still from The Boys Who Said No

For those of us of the Vietnam generation the film is both nostalgic and educational and full of amazing people we know or were inspired by. It’s a reminder of how horrific and wrong that war was — and how horrific and wrong war still is. It’s an incentive to press on with our protests of militarism and war.  Although tax resistance is not mentioned in the film, two in our network,  Randy Kehler in Massachusetts and Joe Maizlish in Los Angeles, are featured. Like many draft resisters, they went to prison for their refusal, but once that was over they realized they also didn’t want to pay for others to go to war. Their draft resistance was behind them but war tax resistance became part of a lifetime of war resistance.

The Boys Who Said No does an excellent job of showing the connections between the civil rights movement of the time and war resistance. Many of the draft resisters — both Black and White — had already been involved in voting rights demonstrations in the south. The famous refusal of Mohammad Ali to go “10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters” is a moving highlight. I had not remembered that when the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee took a position against the war it caused an uproar from the civil rights leadership or about the Vietnam comic book that was created to outreach to young men in the Black community.

Although it took longer to end the war than any activist at the time hoped, the filmmakers want viewers to see the success of the draft resistance movement as a relevant model today. The film demonstrates how that personal and individual act of refusal — burning a draft card or refusing to step over the line at the induction center — inspired the Berrigans and others to burn draft files; Dr. Benjamin Spock to speak out in support of resisters and face a federal conspiracy charge; Daniel Ellsberg to release the Pentagon papers; and eventually massive actions in cities across the country, like the October 1969 Moratorium. A soldier in Vietnam represents the growing resistance within the military: “The Woodstock generation came to Vietnam. Killing for peace just doesn’t make sense.”

The effectiveness of the movement is also described in numbers, as prosecutions and imprisonments of draft resisters dropped over the decade, because the court system was overwhelmed, many judges were sympathetic, and public opinion had turned against the war.

Still from The Boys Who Said No

One of my favorite stories in the film is told by Geoff Fishman who remembers getting his induction notice and heading to his appointment with no intention of refusing. At the induction center doors his bus full of young men was met by draft protesters holding signs and handing out leaflets. He took a leaflet and went in, but when it came time to cross the line and join the army he surprised himself by not taking the step. After that he found a welcoming community of support for his act of conscience. Harris says, “The longer we kept doing stuff, the more people kept joining us. The more that happened, the more people were able to stand up.”

The Boys Who Said No is packed with great quotes that I find especially relevant to encouraging individual resistance, like refusing war taxes. Randy Kehler, who spent two years in prison for his draft resistance, talks about his decision to send his draft card back with his refusal; he hesitates before letting it drop into the mailbox asking himself, “Is this what I want to do?” How many war tax resisters have hesitated as they mailed their tax return with no check and their “I refuse to pay for war” letter?

For so many of these draft resisters, the risk of going to prison was real, but those interviewed expressed again and again that time in prison was worth it if it helped bring an end to killing. In the film, Christopher Jones reads his statement to the court which ended, “Stop the war. End the draft. I refuse to register with glad heart.”

See the film and let it inspire your continued — or new or renewed — resistance to war. See the film with an organizer’s eye and consider how as war tax resisters we can take some lessons learned and build on them today.

— Post by Ruth Benn

The Boys Who Said No website lists current screenings and has a page where you can inquire about holding a screening in your community.

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Image by Viacheslav Lopatin from Shutterstock

On September 1st, the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee backed a proposal to increase military spending for the Department of Defense by $25 Billion. That total was more than the Biden Administration had requested of $715 Billion. The vote was 42 to 17 which passed in the Senate. 

Many have been raising the issue of how the US could increase the military budget while the needs within our communities grow. The number of groups opposing the military budget has been encouraging. There were close to 50 organizations that signed on to a recommendation to decrease military spending. Barbara Lee, the legislator who voted against the war with Afghanistan, proposed to cut military spending by $25 Billion to align with the presidential request. This request would be less than at the height of the wars in Korea and Vietnam and the build up in arms during the Reagan Administration. 

The current Department of Defense budget is $37.5 Billion more than last year. There have been calls to reduce the military budget by 10% in order to redirect those funds to human needs. William Hartung recently wrote “If we’re concerned about making America and the world safer, we should be investing more funds in addressing pandemics, climate change, and racial and economic injustice—not buying weapons we don’t need at prices we can’t afford,” he said, calling the vote “good news for Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and other big weapons contractors and bad news for the American public.”

The SPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Center) recently reported that the Democrats who voted against the 10% funding decrease for the military had received on average 3.7 times more money from defense contractors than those who voted against. It seems that the money from funders may have influenced their vote and it seems that those who voted against funding military bloat could use our support as well as those who voted to reject the 1033 program that gives military surplus to police departments.

War tax resisters had a literature table and participated in the annual conference of the
Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. The event was held in Huntsville, Alabama. Pictured are war tax resisters and friends (l to r): Bother Utsumi, Sister Denise, Karl Meyer, Judy Collins, Clare Hanrahan, Jim Allen (back right), Barbara & Albert Strickland, Coleman Smith. Photo courtesy of Clare Hanrahan.

Recently, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) pushed back against the narrative that cutting Pentagon spending would make Americans less safe, emphasizing how easy it would be to find the funds.”The Pentagon could save almost $58 billion by eliminating obsolete weapons, weapons like Cold War-era bombers and missiles designed and built in the last century that are completely unsuitable for this one,” said Ocasio-Cortez.  “We could find another $18 billion by simply preventing the end-of-year spending sprees that lead to contract money being shoveled out the door every September,” she added, echoing Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) observation earlier this week that the Pentagon—which has never passed an audit—is inherently susceptible to fraud.”

On a recent webinar, someone stated how they pulled up a seat at the TV on September 1st to watch details of the Defense Authorization Act on C-Span. While it seems important to stay abreast of developments of military spending, it seems all the more important to take action.

 The words of  Barbara Jordan from Texas come to mind, “The stakes… are too high for government to be a spectator sport.” I am encouraged to think of all the war tax resisters finding ways to bypass the government; say enough is enough!

Post by Chrissy Kirchhoefer

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Nobel Peace Prize winners Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel carry “more creativity” signs at an October 7, 2001, march in New York City against the invasion of Afghanistan. Photo by Ed Hedemann.

That was Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld in September of 2002, almost a year after the invasion of Afghanistan and at the time the Bush Administration was building support for their second war on terrorism in Iraq. After Rumsfeld’s death this past June, Phyllis Bennis wrote an obit titled, “War Criminal Found Dead at 88: The human and economic costs of Donald Rumsfeld’s wars are staggering.” I think her piece just about sums up the disaster of these wars — from the lies to the civilian casualties to the use of torture to the monetary costs U.S. taxpayers will face for decades to come.

One angle she didn’t touch on is covered by Jon Schwartz in the Intercept answering the question, “Was the Afghanistan war a failure?”, with the answer, “Not for the top five defense contractors and their shareholders: $10,000 Invested in Defense Stocks When Afghanistan War Began Now Worth Almost $100,000.”

Immediately after 9/11 there were plenty of wise voices calling for the U.S. to refrain from war on Afghanistan. Many reading this were out in the streets at anti-war protests and vigils pretty quickly after 9/11. Our first vigil in Brooklyn was on October 11, 2001. Emotions were running high in New York City. We tried with our flyer (still quite good I think) to ease the anger that was directed at us and consider responses other than a military attack.

Brooklyn vigil, Oct. 11, 2001. Photo by Ed Hedemann.

NWTRCC coordinator Mary Loehr reported more calls to the NWTRCC office after September 11, “higher even than our busiest season.” She reported that a mention of war tax resistance by folk singer Utah Philips on his radio show in December 2001 led to a surge in calls. (I don’t think I found that exact show, but #93, Peace Rant: As we again plunge into the idiocy of war is worth listening to.)

Today, watching the evacuation in Afghanistan is reminiscent of the fall of Saigon for those of us who lived through the American war in Vietnam. We thought the lesson of the futility of war at that time was obvious, and here we are many U.S. interventions and ongoing wars later….

And suddenly at this point the phrase “won’t get fooled again” came to mind, and I had to watch a performance of that by The Who, which did boost my mood considerably. Turn it up loud. Maybe we can make that into a new “peace rant.”

October 7, 2001, antiwar protest, Union Square, new York City. Photo by Ed Hedemann.

While on the one hand we just want to scream “I told you so”, it also feels like an opportune time to redouble our outreach efforts to a wider community who can see how trillions are wasted on wars while other desperate needs go unmet. We need to continue our efforts to connect with climate change activists who seem reticent to talk about the military’s role as the #1 user of fossil fuels (not to mention the environmental destruction of war itself).

Now is a time when I ask myself why tweets about some celebrity’s latest fashion go viral but we count our “likes” in the double digits at best. I wish I had the answer! The best I could do was remember how NWTRCC or local war tax resistance groups used to put out sign-on statements to encourage more public resistance. The last one that we promoted had been started by Kathy Kelly and Daniel Sicken and is here.

There was one written after the invasion of Afghanistan also. I didn’t find if there were many signers or if it gained any traction, but it was a rather good statement, and it was sad to see the prescient introduction suggesting it would be circulated “if and when there is another offensive, which may be, for example, Somalia, Sudan, or Yemen. The statement will be the following, with the references to Afghanistan taken out, and the new country put in.” You can read the statement here.

This would be a great time to be in a room together, reflecting on the tragedy of the war in Afghanistan, all the amazing actions that have taken place since then, and tossing around ideas and slogans and strategies for new efforts today. Short of that, I hope that you will add your thoughts and ideas below as we continue the struggle for an end to militarism, for More Creativity, Not War.

10th anniversary of Afghan war, Times Square, Oct. 7, 2011. Photo by Ed Hedemann.

— Post by Ruth Benn

The post The Obvious Futility of War. What Can We Do? first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

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Addressing the Harms in Our Neighborhoods

Long time war tax resister Robert Randall  introduced me to his hometown of Brunswick, Georgia by saying it was mostly known as a port town for automobile transportation; quickly followed by saying “not much happens there.”  On April 4, 2018, 7 people entered the King’s Bay naval submarine base, home to one of the largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons in the U.S., as part of a Plowshares nuclear disarmament action down the shore from Robert’s home. In September 2019, the Golden Ray cargo ship full of 4,200 cars keeled over outside of Brunswick after it was loaded improperly and was lacking in water in the ballast to balance the ship.

Image of Golden Ray from Wikimedia Commons

It would have been difficult to appreciate the tragedy of the capsized ship without seeing the tar balls and oil come ashore while visiting the beach during the King’s Bay trial a month later; the warnings to not go in the water. It also would have been difficult to appreciate the beauty existing on the wide, tree-lined streets where Ahmaud Arbery was tragically gunned down while running in his neighborhood in February of 2020 if not having traveled to Brunswick. It may have been easier to only see tragedy. 

Alarm Bells Going Off

Last week a report came out with details of what  transpired on the Golden Ray with the captain of the ship stating “The only thing that worked on that ship after the capsizing were alarms.”  Then there were alarms that went off when some of the sections of the ship that still contain cars and oil began spreading into the sea. Those responsible for the removal of the ship said that there was no reason for concern. This was after part of the ship had been engulfed with flames at sea when it was suspected that a torch had come into contact with some of the oil while cutting the ship into sections for removal almost two years after it fell to its side. Month earlier there was another warning The ship, with its belly full of oil and other pollutants, is now about to weather a third hurricane season that lasts until November.  

Robert recently shared a petition “Polluters Pay Tax” to address the 4 Super Fund sited in Glynn County where he resides. Just as we all have aspects of the military industrial complex in our backyards, we also inherit the messes they inevitably cause. Some of the impetus of the petition can be summed up:  “Your taxes, my taxes, are going to pay for Exxon’s excesses… We are essentially footing the bill for the cleanup of the messes that these trillion-dollar corporations helped create.”

Part II

Earth-Water-Fire image by Pixabay

Waters on Fire

Yesterday, Jessica Reznicek reported to prison to begin her 8-year sentence. She had been facing 110 years for her attempts to protect water from the harm caused by oil extraction.  The title of an article sums up the hierocracy:  “Climate activist gets eight-year sentence while Capital rioters, Big Oil execs go free.”  She was able to self report even though the judge had deemed her a domestic terrorist. At her sentencing she spoke of her love of rivers around her and her concern not only of the health of the rivers but the dwindling water supply around her home in Des Moines. 

The day of her sentencing there was a fire in the Gulf of Mexico after an underwater pipeline caught on fire even though the oil company said there was no spill or damage done. The New York Times reported “The footage is pretty alarming: It looks like the gates of hell are opening up… As long as we’re drilling for oil and natural gas, these kinds of accidents, unfortunately, are going to continue to occur.” 

Oil Water Don’t Mix

Image of Water and Oil from Stockvault

A widespread, global movement has been gaining momentum to take a proactive stance against creating new superfund sites especially related to pipeline construction. The No DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) movement that emerged largely at Standing Rock Reservation in 2016 also had other sites of opposition including the Mississippi Stand in Iowa near the Missouri border.

The encampment was started when Jessica Reznicek started a solo encampment when she learned of the plans to burrow a pipeline under the largest waterway in North America to transport a material extracted from the Earth and potentially contaminate the most necessary element for life on Earth.   

The Mississippi Stand caravan employed various tactics in their direct action campaign including climbing into the DAPL pipeline and shutting down construction for 17 hours as well as going to places where the pipeline was crossing waterways. They had hoped to bleed the corporations through monkeywrenching tactics that would stop the profit motive of the extractive industries. 

Our Inheritances; Paying Our Dues

Jessica and Ruby Montoya openly took responsibility for actions that began on election night 2016 and continued into the summer of 2017 on the DAPL pipeline throughout Iowa despite not facing charges. They were inspired by the Plowshares movement who have been taking actions to prevent nuclear holocaust and only faced charges after holding a press conference at the Iowa Utilities Board taking responsibility for their destruction of property. For that they face years in prison followed by probation and a debt of $3.2 million in fines to Energy Transfer Limited Liability Company that operates many pipelines throughout the U.S. Rolling Stone and Grist collaborated on an extensive article about the actions that you can find here. 

Image from Upslash.

Prior to reporting to prison, Reznicek shared her feelings about going to prison and noted “I was indicted on malicious use of fire while the whole world is burning.”  She stated that her greatest fear was the potential of losing loved elders and mentors. She was wearing a shirt that said Love > Fear. At Claire Grady’s trial for the Kings Bay Plowshares action, her message was Love More, Fear Less. We joked of making t-shirts with that message. Claire was released from prison on the 76th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. 

At the beginning of the week, between the time of Claire’s release and Jessica’s entrance to prison, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a comprehensive study. Secretary General Antonio Guterres of the United Nations stated it was a Code Red for Humanity and the window for change is closing fast. Others found in the study that it gave Humanity a Clear Directive to Act Boldly and Urgently.

Fortunately we do not have to travel to find places to act; we can catch inspiration from war tax refusers like Jessica and Claire who have been taking bold actions for years. We can support these actions by sharing their stories, signing a petition that challenges terrorist charges meant to intimidate and gathering with others to share in devising more bold actions. We can allow our love for all around us to overcome our fear. 

Post by Chrissy Kirchhoefer

The post Righting the Ship first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

The post Righting the Ship appeared first on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

Dan Ellsberg speaking at the Continental Walk rally in Washington, DC, on Oct. 16, 1976, a couple days before joining others in a civil disobedience action at the Pentagon. Photo by Janet Charles/WRL files.

The Pentagon Papers at 50 is getting a lot of attention and giving Daniel Ellsberg another chance to tell his story as well as talk about more recent releases of secret documents including his own. Ellsberg says he’s ready to go to jail again for his use of classified information in his 2017 book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. He copied those papers in 1969 at the same time as he copied the documents behind the Pentagon Papers.

A couple things have struck me in hearing the story again. The first is the web of individual actions that can lead to such a historically significant event as the release of the papers. Ellsberg himself writes eloquently about the influence of activists, and particularly the speech by Randy Kehler, also a long time war tax resister, who was about to head to prison for resisting the draft. This Waging Nonviolence piece covers that background well.

A page in the War Resisters League 1963 Peace Calendar

But what led Randy to that day was a whole other set of influencers, and it made me think of one story that Randy shared last year. Back in 1963 at about age 20, Randy got on a bus at the Harlem CORE office to head to the March on Washington. Traveling on his own, Randy ended up sitting next to an older man who thrust a small publication at him saying, “Read this!” It was a profile of a resister named “Max Sandin” who had left his native Russia in 1910 rather than join the Czar’s army, then refused to join the U.S. army in WWI for which he was sentenced to be shot, then refused to register in the WWII “older man’s draft,” and also refused to pay war taxes for decades despite regular government harassment.

Randy quickly discovered that he was actually sitting next to Max Sandin, and he was reading Max’s profile in that year’s War Resisters League Peace Calendar, thus introducing Randy to WRL and a lifelong path of war resistance.

I love to think that we can trace Ellsberg’s action back to Sandin’s 1910 resistance in Russia. Of course, not all our acts of resistance will lead to one that becomes famous and worthy of tributes 50 years later. Still, you never know. Interestingly, The New York Times June 13, 2021,  special section on the Pentagon Papers includes a reference to a 1990 poll where 25% of those asked said they wished they had “made a stronger effort to protest or demonstrate against the Vietnam War.” An action you take might push another person in that 25% to act on their conscience.

The more down side of this 50^th anniversary that sticks in my mind is the quote, “In war, truth is the first casualty.” It’s not that truth is not there; it’s getting the powerful to listen and take their own risks to use it. Part of the story of the Pentagon Papers is the year Ellsberg spent trying to find a congressperson or high official to look at the documents and act on what the papers revealed. NY Times’ journalists report that they were shocked when the first excerpts appeared in print and the immediate reaction was silence. The effort to squelch the publication was what made the content famous.

I just got around to reading Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s Guantanamo Diary, after seeing the film The Mauritanian. In the prison, Slahi learns stories of the random arrests of his fellow prisoners, and he himself tries over and over to get his interrogators to believe him when he says he is innocent of involvement in 9/11. Slahi quotes a German proverb that came to his mind, which he translates as “When the Military sets itself in motion, the truth is too slow to keep up, so it stays behind.”

Our job is to keep speaking and acting on our truth and revealing the lies that keep this dirty rotten system going — no matter the consequences.

— Post by Ruth Benn

And a couple more links, just because:

There’s this nice newspaper interview with Randy Kehler from a couple years ago, “Colrain’s Kehler played role in release of Pentagon Papers”

And I see that Ed Hasbrouck on the WTR listserve reminded us that there are on-camera interviews with Daniel’s son Robert Ellsberg and Randy Kehler about the Pentagon Papers back story in the fairly new film, The Boys Who Said No, which is well worth your viewing for all kinds of reasons if you get a chance.

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Saturday featured two panels. The first was a “Panel on the New Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons & Paths Forward for Resistance,” featuring Mari Inoue (attorney and cofounder of the Manhattan Project for a Nuclear-Free World), Dr. Linda Richards (historian of science and a grassroots activist since the 1986 Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament who represented the WILPF Disarm Committee in international meetings), and Jack Cohen Joppa (cofounder of the Nuclear Resister newsletter in 1980, which continues to provide information and support for imprisoned anti-nuclear and anti-war activists).

The second was a “Panel on Organizing with Younger War Tax Resisters,” featuring Lindsey Britt (Vermont), Jerry Maynard (Texas) and Allison McGillivray (Oregon). The younger war tax resisters shared stories about how they each came to WTR and their suggestions for spreading WTR among younger activists. Both panels featured a lively, Q&A which is included on the YouTube recordings. Saturday concluded with concurrent WTR 101 & 201 sessions.

The Sunday business meeting began with reports from both NWTRCC consultants (Coordinator & Outreach consultant), a review of our objectives, and a financial update (which included news about our upcoming charity auction and push for more church donations [www.nwtrcc.org/church]).

Next, we unanimously approved the nominations of Lindsey Britt and Erica Leigh to begin serving three-year terms on NWTRCC’s Administrative Committee. (A huge thank you to both DeCourcy Squire and Sam Leuschner, who finished their three year terms!)

There were two proposals on our agenda. The first was an update to our statement of purpose, which simplified our previous statement and made it more succinct. We reached consensus on adopting the new statement, which can be found here: https://nwtrcc.org/about-nwtrcc/statement-of-purpose/

The second proposal was to choose a new logo from among three options. No consensus was reached on this item. If you have any ideas for a new NWTRCC logo, please contact the NWTRCC office. Minutes from NWTRCC’s business meeting will be posted in the near future at https://nwtrcc.org/nwtrcc-business/.

Overall, it was wonderful conference that featured attendees from Alaska, Hawaii, both Portlands, and everywhere in between. It was also great to host such great panels with panelists from all over the country. It would be better meeting in person, but I am glad we were able to make the best of what technology has to offer.

~Lincoln Rice

The post Report from NWTRCC’s Third Online Conference first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

The post Report from NWTRCC’s Third Online Conference appeared first on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

On the subway headed to the Nakba Day demonstration in Brooklyn, May 15, 2021. NYC photos by Ed Hedemann.

Watch your taxes
Don’t kill the kids
Don’t participate in this

So said a Palestinian lawyer in Gaza City as he gently shook his finger at the group of Americans on a human rights witness tour of the West Bank, Gaza and Israel. That was back in 1988, on a trip I took with the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, who continue demands to cut U.S. aid to Israel and protect Palestinians.

I’ve written about that trip and that lawyer before, because I came home and changed my income tax resistance and redirection from some partial amount to 100% of what was due to the government.

Tax Day in Times Square with NYC War Resisters League and other groups. May 17, 2021

Nakba Day, May 15, 2021. Brooklyn, NY

This tax day — many “peace processes” later — that trip was much on my mind with the death toll from the latest Israeli strikes rising over 200 and more than 60 Palestinian children killed by Israel’s well-armed and vast military and two Israeli children killed by Hamas rockets. Of the many stories, this one reported by Mondoweiss.net was especially heartbreaking:

The Norwegian Refugee Council confirmed today that 11 of over 60 children killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza over the last week were participating in its psycho-social programme aimed at helping them deal with trauma.
“We are devastated to learn that 11 children we were helping with trauma were bombarded while they were at home and thought they were safe,” said NRC’s Secretary General Jan Egeland. “They are now gone, killed with their families, buried with their dreams and the nightmares that haunted them. We call on Israel to stop this madness….”

Nakba Day, May 15, 2021. Brooklyn, NY.

Of course, the list of reasons to refuse to voluntarily support the U.S. government with our tax dollars is long and extends far beyond the borders of Israel and Palestine. At our tax day demonstration people spoke of nuclear weapons, Yemen, endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan (including contractors who will remain even if US troops leave), war on drugs, drones, militarization of the police here at home, border walls and troops at the border with Mexico, the military-industrial-congressional complex — and more.

Tax day outreach in Brattleboro, Vermont, included asking passers-by “What do you want your taxes to pay for?” and creating this flower from the answers. Photo thanks to Lindsey Britt.

On the other side, the list of services that need our redirected tax dollars is equally long. All of us love to imagine a world where those billions spent on war could be used instead to heal the wounds of war, take care of people, work to reverse the climate crisis.

It felt good to be out in the streets making our protests to the public and supporting each other, even as I fight the urge to throw up my hands and bury myself in novels as the wars rage on and the bodies of so many innocents of all ages pile up.

Tax Day march, NYC. May 17, 2021.

The support of passers-by is heartening, as are some of the newer voices in Congress calling for dramatic change in U.S. policy with Israel. I don’t know how much effect our marching about has, but I know we can’t stop trying to end the killing of children with as many of our nonviolent methods as possible.

— Post by Ruth Benn

The post “Watch Your Taxes” first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

The post “Watch Your Taxes” appeared first on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

Photo taken by Sue Barnhart with Michael along one of her favorite trails near Eugene OR

We woke up to black smoky air the day after Labor Day 2020.  It was challenging to breathe outside, even with a N95 mask. We could not see the sun. The air quality index was over 500, in the extremely hazardous range. Our beautiful Oregon was burning up. The trails we love hiking and the places we love camping in and many families’ homes were burning. All over the state fires were burning out of control, including along a major highway following the McKenzie River, only 10 miles from Eugene, Oregon, where I live. In some cases folks had less than a 15-minute warning to abandon their homes.

Photo of forest trail by Sue Barnhart

Up until the wildfires happened, though we were in the COVID shutdown, we were able to enjoy hanging out in our yard and taking walks. Suddenly we were confined to our homes. We had to keep all the windows and doors shut and were sharing air filters with friends to keep the air quality livable inside our homes. People without homes were not as lucky as us. Due to the pandemic they weren’t allowed inside public buildings to breathe fresh air, and though a few shelters were open, there was not enough room for everyone who needed shelter from the bad air. We were all scared and glued to the news. We learned the fires might keep burning until the fall rains and winter snow started, and due to global warming the rains might not start for months.

We all packed go bags and had them near our doors or in our cars. We took pictures of family pictures, because there isn’t much room in a car for all the things you might want to save if the fires continued to spread. And we wondered, if we had to evacuate, where would we go? There were traffic jams everywhere as people fled the poor air quality.

We thought of escaping to the coast, where the ocean breeze normally keeps the air clean, but a fire on the coast meant that the air quality wasn’t much better there. Friends who were camping there had to leave.

View from highway by Oregon Department of Transportation on Flickr

One friend who lives in the forest woke up to his house surrounded by flames. Knowing he was on an evacuation alert, he had put things near the door that he planned to take if the fire came close to his house. Sure enough, as he slept the winds whipped up the fires. All he was able to do was rush out the door past his collected belongings, jump in his car and drive through raging bright orange and yellow flames and large darting embers from both sides of the road. He made it out.  One of the lucky ones,  eleven others did not.

Low humidity and unusually high winds from the east fanned fires already started by lightning, campfires and electrical wires blown down by the winds. But the major culprit in this historic wildfire season on the west coast was climate change.

The summer of 2020, an extremely hot, dry one, was precipitated by decades of drought caused by rising world temperatures. The result was massive, sobering destruction in rural Oregon.  And what might be the world’s largest emitter of CO2 and therefore the largest driver of climate change? The US military.

Though firefighters worked bravely to put out fires in our beautiful forests and proud rural communities, a bloated military budget funneled off tax money that could have been better spent to hire more firefighters. Many small town fire departments are run by volunteers. Firefighters stationed in every town who are paid a living wage would be a much better use of our taxes.

Eugene, Oregon Tax Day Actions 2021

Now the fires are out and eventually the forests will recover, but many magical hiking trails and camping areas have been destroyed.  4,000 homes were lost in the fires last fall, and Oregon’s homeless population, which is already very large, grew by the thousands. Whole towns burned down all over western Oregon.

Debris from Oregon wildfire 2020 image from Flickr

Federal and state funds to help people rebuild or relocate are stretched thin. Wouldn’t funds to help all people have a home be a better use of our tax dollars than more funds to the military? But just today I learned that Biden is asking for more than a  6% increase to the military budget.

Spring has come to Oregon, and my yard is green and full of colorful flowers. The fruit trees are blooming and the sky is a brilliant blue. But due to the climate crisis we again did not get enough rain and snow this winter and so far this spring we have had very little rain. I have had to begin watering my garden, something that I never had to do in previous Aprils. We worry when fire season will start this year and how much more of Oregon will be destroyed.

I have been a war tax resister since the 1970’s, since I do not want my money supporting murder. Now I am also a war tax resister because I don’t want my money supporting the biggest contributor to the burning of our planet – the U.S. military. I want my tax dollars to provide for food and homes for all, comprehensive health care that includes dental, hearing, vision and mental health care for all who need it.  Free, excellent childcare and education should be provided for all who need it, children and adults. Finally, I want my tax dollars going towards ensuring a sustainable future for our planet, towards real solutions to the climate crisis.

Penny Poll conducted in Eugene OR

Post by Sue Barnhart

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Right, Catholic Worker musicians “Filthy Rotten System” join tax protest outside the IRS, April 15, 2021. NYC photos by Ed Hedemann.

No troublesome incidents of any kind developed in the course of the day, although the customary band of pickets turned up outside the Forty-fifth Street headquarters for an hour at noon. Recruited by members of the Tax Refusal Committee of Peacemakers, of Sharonville, Ohio, were representatives of the War Resisters League, 5 Beekman Place, and The Catholic Worker, 223 Christie Street.

They either refused to pay Federal income taxes or sympathized with those who did not because “the huge program of armaments can only lead to a third world war.” Weapons, it was claimed, eat up seven-eighths of the national budget. In Philadelphia, other groups of pacifists objected on the same grounds.

Published: March 17, 1953. Copyright © The New York Times

That pretty much sums up the 2021 NYC event, except that Peacemakers is no more, the IRS, WRL and Catholic Worker addresses have changed, and many other groups were out across the country, including:

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Eugene, Oregon

As noted above in that quote above, a very high percentage of taxes paid for war in those years. The introduction to the Historical Tables, published annually with the federal budget, has an interesting section on trends that includes this:

“Throughout most of the Nation’s history prior to the 1930s, the bulk of Federal spending went towards national defense, veterans’ benefits, and interest on the public debt. In 1929, for example, 71 percent of Federal outlays were in these three categories.”

There are still many people who believe that that is all the government should do (until their Social Security check is taken away…), but, during the 1930s efforts to fight the depression with public works led to an increase in social spending. Social spending gained more ground in the 1970s after the Vietnam War ended, thus the pie chart today shows a lower percentage allotted to war. However, the charts in the historical table give you the actual dollar figures (in constant dollars) for so-called “national defense” spending.

1953: $52,802,000,000

2019: $686,003,000,000

There are billions of reasons to refuse to pay for war and institute our own systems of social spending. This year the Northern California People’s Life Fund announced grants from war tax resisted dollars of $2,500 each to 24 groups doing important work in our local communities. Individuals have until May 17 to decide what they are going to do if they owe federal income taxes this year, and the customary band of pickets will be out on May 17 along with other groups across the country to deliver the message again.

— Post by Ruth Benn

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