NWTRCC’s first online conference was a success. (Though to be clear, NWTRCC has had an online component to its conferences that allowed folks who were offsite to join us for quite a few years now.) About 50 folks signed up for the conference and 42 attended at least some portion of the conference. We had folks joining us from Alaska to Georgia, from San Diego to Houston, and even folks from both Portlands (Oregon and Maine).

The conference started on Saturday May 2 at 11a Eastern / 8a Pacific. Over 30 folks joined us for our first session, in which everyone provided an update on their WTR situation and to highlight any local collaboration between war tax resisters and other justice movements. For those who were new to WTR, it was an opportunity to hear a variety of WTR experiences and share their own thoughts and concerns about WTR.

This session was a natural lead-in to our WTR 101 session, which started one hour after the first session ended. We had thirteen folks show up for this session, though most were seasoned war tax resisters. (The fact that so many long-time WTRs joined us for 101 was a surprise. Normally, WTR 101 & 201 are concurrent, so folks have to choose one or the other.) The mix of interested and new folks with seasoned resisters led to the sharing of many perspectives and experiences.

After another hour break, we gathered again for WTR 201. This time, about 25 folks joined us, including some of the new folks from WTR 101. We covered the new W-4 form, home visits, passports, frivolous warning letters, IRS response to COVID-19 (suspension of most collection efforts until July 15), stimulus checks, deferred compensation and IRAs, unemployment (& the extra $600/week, which is taxable), and head of household fraud.

The conference finished on Sunday morning with our business meeting. The business meeting minutes will be posted later in the month. I would like to especially thank Anne Barron and Justin Becker, who each finished a three-year term on NWTRCC’s Administrative Committee (AdComm) when the conference ended. I’d also like to welcome Lida Shao (New York, NY) and Joshua Wrolstad (Eugene, OR), who were selected to begin three-year terms.

With this being our first fully-online conference, we tried to keep it simple (which hopefully made the conference easier for participants and planners alike). Our next conference will be 6-8 November 2020. We have an invitation to meet in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but we will have to see what the state of the pandemic is at that point. The AdComm plans on making a decision by July 1. We’ll keep you updated. Thanks to everyone who attended the conference and made it such a success. It really was a delight to see so many new faces with faces I had not seen in a while.

Post by Lincoln Rice

The post NWTRCC’s May 2020 Conference Report first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

The post NWTRCC’s May 2020 Conference Report appeared first on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

A long time ago (not so long actually, it was only in October of this year) in a galaxy far, far away (called “The Northeast”), it is a period of civil war. A lone rebel spaceship, striking from a hidden base (Philadelphia), won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet (the Military Industrial Complex, funded by hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars).

Pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents (cops be everywhere), Princess Leia (Sam) raced aboard her starship (rental car), custodian of the stolen plans (War Tax Resistance literature) that can save people and restore freedom to the galaxy….

Leia (Sam) took a number of stops while on her way to deliver the secret stolen plans, including refueling and delivering secret messages on a few important planets (Haverford, Amherst, and Bates Colleges). She took time to explain the plans for resistance against the Empire and insure that everyone understood the plan. The Jedi Initiates and Padawans (college students) were eager to learn about the force behind War Tax Resistance and how they could get involved in the struggle against the Dark Side.

Padawans learning about the force behind War Tax Resistance (Actual footage from Sam’s presentation at Bates College)

While the future of the resistance’s plans are ultimately in the hands of R2-D2 (interpret how you see fit…), it was clear that the relationships Princess Leia (Sam) built with people along the way would carry the resistance forward on these small yet important planets. For many facing the empire’s strong presence taking over their small communities throughout the galaxy, this truly felt like A NEW HOPE.

Aight…. Now for the non-star wars fans out there, here’s a brief summary of my last organizing trip in perhaps a more clear yet *clearly more boring* fashion…. In the middle of October, I did three back-to-back presentations at colleges in the Northeast as part of a whirlwind self-dubbed Tax Resistance Education And Power-up Tour (TREAPT, another catchy acronym like NWTRCC…).

The first one was at Haverford College, hosted by Grace Brosnan and the Anti-capitalist group at Haverford. We ended up having a blast, with lots of good conversations and about twenty students trickling in as the night went on. It was clear that people were thirsty for concrete resistance steps in a time of so much societal oppression. Students were particularly excited about trying to get more money from their rich institution and rich people at the college to be redistributed to community organizers in Philadelphia.

The next presentation was at Amherst College as part of a panel discussion on divestment strategies and regional campaigns for justice. Other panelists included Anthony Tallow and Susan Theberge from All Nations Rising and the Sugarshack Alliance. The two groups have brought native and non-native people together in resistance to the proposed pipelines in the Western Massachusetts region. Another panelist talked about the ongoing campaigns at UMass Amherst and Amherst College to get their colleges to divest from prisons and fossil fuel companies. I talked about when I was a student activist and how to not get co-opted by administrators, and how maintaining radical politics and direct action is important for ourselves and others. The other panelists and many of the students there were stoked about tax resistance and wanting to learn more.

The last presentation I did was at the Queer and Trans Youth Conference of Maine at Bates College. This was a group of high school and college students. My talk and following discussion, Resisting False Solutions: How trans liberation is being defined by our participation in state violence, drew on my blog post about the “Trans Military Ban” and engaged people in an honest discussion about how we as trans and queer people could refuse to assimilate and resist all oppression instead.

All told, it was a dope college tour. It’s clear we need to do more of these, and that we should have young folks doing the presentations. Being able to bond over being young and wanting to resist was important. I still have a lot of follow-up to do that has slipped behind with getting ready for the NWTRCC gathering and all, but now I am able to catch up a bit. There were a number of students that were interested in interning with us over the summer, so we’ll see where it goes from here!

The post A NEW HOPE (Sam’s October College Tour) first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

The post A NEW HOPE (Sam’s October College Tour) appeared first on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

There’s so much to share from my latest war tax resistance organizing trip, I’m not even sure of where to begin. So I’ll share some tidbits and then if you have additional questions, please comment or email me.

Most Relaxed Point

The first stop of my field organizing trip was perhaps the most peaceful. I arrived in Western PA amid rolling green hills and a garden full of wildflowers. Karen and Michael Bagdes-Canning hosted me for a home presentation on war tax resistance as an avenue for challenging white supremacy. After a delicious bowl of chili we had a great discussion with a group of people who are involved with local organizing around environmental, healthcare, and peace issues. Many of them were familiar faces from when I was doing organizing against fracking and pipelines throughout Pennsylvania. Nice to see old friends in a new context.

Most Effective Point

Hmmm, it’s always a bit hard to gauge but I think the most effective part of the trip was my presentation at the “Solidarity and Fightback: Building Resistance to US-led War, Militarism, and Neofascism” Conference in Toronto. The conference was organized by the International League of Peoples Struggle and brought together people who are involved in resistance struggles from around the world, from the Philippines to Kurdistan to Oakland. It was inspiring to hear the work of, in particular, youth activists who are working for true system change and building connections across huge divides.

I was on a panel discussion of radical activists from the United Snakes of America as well as Klanada. There were about 30 people in attendance, almost all of whom had never heard about war tax resistance, and were excited to know that this form of civil disobedience “in the belly of the beast” was alive and well. There are a number of people who are now wanting to organize presentations in their local communities (in particular, organizers who came to the conference from the Bay Area in California). I also got to meet Monica Moorehead which was a life goal! Always inspired by her organizing and life’s work.

Most Stressed Point

Partly from my own doing, I didn’t have any firm housing lined up for when I was in Toronto. I had heard from one of the conference organizers that they were working on it, but hadn’t gotten any confirmation. So I ended up driving 16 hours from Minneapolis to Toronto without any housing. Oh, and also no phone or email because I couldn’t get service once I crossed the border. I thought about stopping in Detroit and driving the rest of the way in the morning, but the folks I know there were either out of town or I couldn’t get in touch with them. I also tried to set up an AirBnb thing ahead of time, but the host never confirmed so that was no longer an option.

So I just kept driving, past Climax, Michigan which is a real place, and arrived in Drake’s hometown at 1:30 AM bumping Controlla and totally exhausted. Needless to say I found a dark sidestreet in a random neighborhood and passed out in the car. I woke up shivering a few hours later (it’s 50 degrees in Toronto in August apparently), so went to go find a Tim Horton’s (or “Timmies” for us Canucks) to try to warm up and find some wifi to get directions to the conference. It worked out eventually, but with a cramped neck and a grumpy Sam.

Personal Favorite Point

I stopped for a bit in Cincinnati, Ohio to visit some friends there and got to cuddle with their adorable puppy. But my favorite moment was once I arrived back in the United Snakes of America (coming over the “peace bridge” into Buffalo ironically enough). After another “Aghhh, I don’t have a map of Buffalo State University” hectic directions search again, I joined up with Vicki Ross from the Western NY Peace Center for her “talking peace” radio show on the university station. It was a solid conversation talking about everything from systemic racism and war tax resistance to fracking to trans issues. Unfortunately, I don’t have a recording of it, but it was nice to chat about a lot of important issues near and dear to my heart.

Post by Sam Koplinka-Loehr

Unfortunately with our website in transition (yay transitions!), we are having trouble uploading new photos at the moment. You can check out some photos of the ILPS conference here and here. So I will try to add photos back in at a later date.

The post There And Back Again: Organizing on the Road first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

The post There And Back Again: Organizing on the Road appeared first on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.