Comments on: Protest in the Time of Coronavirus

By: Don Timmerman

Don Timmerman — Fri, 27 Mar 2020 20:22:20 +0000

Yes, I agree. We can all demonstrate as individuals like Ammon did. We do it all the time at the guns shops and at ROTC at Marquette U. I also recommend sending the pie chart to the media in hopes that one of them might print the facts about how tax money is spent. Thank you for your inpuit. Peace, Don Timmerman

By: Larry Bassett

Larry Bassett — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 21:41:25 +0000

Ruth mentions that sometimes people think about the potential of them doing WTR for a very long time before they decide to do anything. In the 1980s Kathy Levine and I lived on Long Island and worked for the CMTC. Every year the Quaker meeting in NYC would invite us to come and talk and of course we loved to do that! Kathy was the one on one specialist and I was the group specialist. We probably went in and talk to essentially the same group about five years in a row. Every year some of them would say they were seriously thinking about it. They probably said some other quaker words like seeking the light or something like that. But I don’t think any of them ever became active WTR people during my time on Long Island which was about 10 years all together.

By: Ed Hedemann

Ed Hedemann — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 18:09:23 +0000

Excellent and very timely piece, especially now that Tax Day has stretched to July 15.

One thing I’d add is that though WTR can be a solitary act, it doesn’t have to be if it’s done publicly. The act of resisting one’s tax dollars is magnified by announcing that resistance and by donating the taxes to organizations actually doing something to help others.

Then there’s that classic story of A.J. Muste (or a similar one citing Ammon Hennacy) being asked by a reporter if he really thought he was going to change U.S. war policies by standing with a candle alone at night in front of the White House, to which Muste replied, “Oh, I don’t do this to change the country. I do this so the country won’t change me.”