Our feeling is that while the State may remove any material artifacts that speak in defiance against incumbent authoritarianism, the acts of resistance remain in the public consciousness. And it is in sharing that act of defiance that hope resides. — The Illuminator Art Collective
http://mashable.com/2015/04/07/edward-snowden-hologram-statue-brooklyn/
Fittingly, this was the poem I read on Tax Day:
Bewildered
There are many guises for intelligence.
One part of you is gliding in a high windstream,
while your more ordinary notions
take little steps and peck at the ground.
Conventional knowledge is death to our souls,
and it is not really ours. It is laid on.
Yet we keep saying we find “rest” in these “beliefs.”
We must become ignorant of what we have been taught
and be instead bewildered.
Run from what is profitable and comfortable.
Distrust anyone who praises you.
Give your investment money, and the interest
on the capital, to those who are actually destitute.
Forget safety. Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.
I have tried prudent planning long enough.
From now on, I’ll be mad.
–Rumi
Each day I read a poem from Coleman Barks’ very excellent collection, A Year With Rumi. Thanks to my friend Fareed for suggesting this to me when I first began recovery three years ago.
I am grateful to Huffington Post Live and my friend Alyona for having me on to speak about my decision to become a war tax resister.
From the Huffington Post on Tax Day:
If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood.
This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.
— Henry David Thoreau
This will be the first year I willfully and intentionally do not pay my full share of income tax.* I certainly have no illusions that I am Henry David Thoreau — frequent readers of mine will attest to that — nor do I believe that withholding a portion of my federal income taxes will cause the American war machine to grind to a halt, or that the sufferings of millions in wars around the world, wars supported, directly and indirectly, by the U.S. government and U.S. industry, will be ended. However, no longer can I look past the reality that my annual voluntary forfeiture of money to my government pays for violence around the globe, at astounding levels, and I am not able to provide any more excuses or rationalizations that paying without protest, that being complicit in funding war without resistance, is not contradictory to my faith and to my conscience. Quite simply put, I can no longer ignore the basic, yet just, wisdom and truth found in the war tax resisters’ dictum: “If you work for peace, stop paying for war.”
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From the Huffington Post:
It is very bewildering, albeit horrifyingly fascinating, to watch American politicians jockey and posture for war with Iran. With the announcement last week that years of negotiations have yielded a framework agreement that will arrest any Iranian nuclear weapons program, not that one actually exists, while starting the much needed process of bringing Iran back into the world community, many members of Congress seem not just reluctant, but hostile, to the prospects of averting a war with Iran.
From continual presidential aspirant to the freshman senator from Arkansas, the Senate, which was once regarded as the greatest deliberative body amongst men and women, is a constant source, from the Right and the Left, of fist pounding threats to bomb and kill Iranians and sabotage peace. The House is no better, with scores of Democrats and Republicans, a veto proof majority actually, echoing the same threats to undo diplomacy and ensure war.* Now, that an agreement has been reached, will our Congress actually live up to their threats? Based on the modern history of Americans at war overseas, you would expect not, that members of Congress, as rational and thoughtful individuals, would be wise and attuned enough to reality to recognize war as a fool’s path. However, the behavior of our Congress, and their near continuous endorsement of U.S. military intervention, means there may be dangerous action behind their rhetoric.
We are still sending thousands of young men every year to the war in Afghanistan, along with tens of billions of our dollars annually, on top of the near trillion dollars we have already spent on that thirteen-year-long war. Thousands of U.S. troops are back in Iraq, the same Iraq U.S. presidents have been attacking for 24 years, while American war planes and unmanned drones have bombed, and continue to bomb, various American enemies, mostly killing civilians though, in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. With the exception of Pakistan, whose political stability is continuously fragile, all six other nations that have received American military attacks, invasion and occupation over the last decade and one half, are in horrid civil wars, with death tolls throughout these nations numbering in the millions. The only organisms that have seemingly prospered and flourished, besides defense companies, have been terrorist groups, like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
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I’ve been on One America News Network (OANN) a few times now, and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite channels to be on. It’s not because it’s a conservative network, I’m not a conservative, but because I find the format and respectful disagreement to be invigorating. Plenty of time to explain the issue and a host who disagrees, but respects her guests. It’s a nice change from a lot of programs on evening TV news where the host has a view and will not allow or tolerate dissent. So, Tomi and OANN may not be the best political theater, but it’s a quality interview and they provide a service. Here’s a clip:
From today’s Huffington Post:
Last week charges of Desertion and Misbehavior Before the Enemy were recommended against Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. Tragically, Sergeant Bergdahl was once again crucified, without evidence or trial, throughout mainstream, alternative and social media. That same day Sergeant Bergdahl was offered as a sacrifice to primarily Republican politicians, bloggers, pundits, chicken hawks and jingoists, while Democrats mostly kept silent as Sergeant Bergdahl was paraded electronically and digitally in the latest Triumph of the Global War on Terror, President Ashraf Ghani was applauded, in person, by the American Congress. Such coincidences, whether they are arranged or accidental, often appear in literary or cinematic tales, but they do, occasionally, manifest themselves in real life, often appearing to juxtapose the virtues and vices of a society for the sake and advancement of political narratives.
The problem with this specific coincidence for those on the Right, indulging in the fantasy of American military success abroad, as well as for those on the Left, desperate to prove that Democrats can be as tough as Republicans, is that reality may intrude. To the chagrin and consternation of many in DC, Sergeant Bergdahl may prove to be the selfless hero, while President Ghani may play the thief, and Sergeant Bergdahl’s departure from his unit in Afghanistan may come to be understood as just and his time as a prisoner of war principled, while President Obama’s continued propping up and bankrolling of the government in Kabul, at the expense of American servicemembers and taxpayers, comes to be fully acknowledged as immoral and profligate.
Buried in much of the media coverage this past week on the charges presented against Sergeant Bergdahl, with the exception of CNN, are details of the Army’s investigation into Sergeant Bergdahl’s disappearance, capture and captivity. As revealed by Sergeant Bergdahl’s legal team, twenty-two Army investigators have constructed a report that details aspects of Sergeant Bergdahl’s departure from his unit, his capture and his five years as a prisoner of war that disprove many of the malicious rumors and depictions of him and his conduct.
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Matthew Hoh 