Unpleasant truths about preemptive strikes: War Is a Lie
After putting the book down for a few months, I recently picked back up my reading of David Swanson’s War Is a Lie, which I got from the author himself at his April 16 appearance in Portland, Oregon. Over this weekend, I think I started to understand why I had put the book down. Just… Continue reading
Opposing nuclear weapons at Lawrence Livermore Lab
by Cathy Deppe Last August was the 70th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan. As members of the international peace group Global Network, Alex and I were fortunate to participate in commemoration services in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A year later we traveled a shorter distance to California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, to… Continue reading
Understanding common IRS collection letters
Most war tax resisters who refuse federal income taxes will eventually (or quickly) get a letter from the IRS. Here I describe some of the most common letters one tax-return-filing resister has gotten over the past few years. Resisters who do not file tax returns may get letters more slowly or not at all, until… Continue reading
Fits and Starts with WTR Organizing
Here in New York City there are a lot of war tax resisters and people who support war tax resistance. It should be a big, active community, but over the years and from experience, we’ve found it exceedingly hard to get people together. There are about 125 people on the email list for NYC resisters…. Continue reading
Expanding war and nuclear programs
Foreign Policy just released another episode of its Editor’s Roundtable podcast, called “What does the expanding definition of war mean for the US military?” The panelists discuss Rosa Brooks’ new book, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything, as well as the general idea of the expansion of war into economic intervention and… Continue reading
Mutual aid and war tax resistance
One of the ways war tax resisters support each other is through the War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund (WTRPF). This fund was founded in 1982 by the North Manchester, Indiana chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and later became a separate organization. Its purpose is to provide mutual aid for war tax resisters who have… Continue reading
Resisting in Dreamland
Home ownership might seem like a mundane topic while confronted with the latest news headlines, but most of us in war tax resistance see life choices as inextricably linked to global issues, so let’s see where this goes. I saw the movie The Big Short a while ago. I totally don’t understand what those guys… Continue reading
Job opening at NWTRCC; new books by war tax resisters
First and foremost, we have just listed our new Field Organizer/Outreach Consultant position on Idealist, New York Craigslist, and our website! We’re looking to build more power among our network affiliates and individual WTRs around the country. This is a temporary position with flexible hours. See the listings for details and application procedures. War tax… Continue reading
Presidential candidates against war taxes?
Note that this blog post, like all of our blog posts, are the opinion of the author and don’t represent any official NWTRCC position. Short answer: There aren’t any presidential candidates against war taxes. As we all know, success in national major-party politics requires a commitment to a certain kind of discourse about war: the… Continue reading
Maladjusted to a War Culture
“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.” —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Western Michigan University, 1963 “Creative maladjustment” emerged as a take-home theme (at least for me) from the day I spent at the… Continue reading
Why I am going to Russia
David Hartsough June 14, 2016 The US and Russian governments are pursuing dangerous policies of nuclear brinkmanship. Many people believe we are closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuba missile crisis in 1962. Thirty-one thousand troops from the US and NATO countries are engaged in military maneuvers on the Russian border… Continue reading
An Unhealthy State of Things
I have a pile of clippings from newspapers and magazines intended for notes in the NWTRCC newsletter. They go back a few years because the newsletter pages seem to fill up before I get around to the clippings, and the pile keeps growing. I was pulling out some of the articles that have to do… Continue reading
