Dissident Veteran For Peace: GP-US & PTF

Dissident Veteran For Peace

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." —Alexis de Tocquevile. Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter XV.

With a nod to the Most Rev. Dom Helder Camara: When I support Palestinians some call me an 'anti-Semite', when I try to explain why I stand in solidarity with Palestinians they call me a Nazi.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." —Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)

"... no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." —character of O'Brien in 1984, part 3, ch. 3 by George Orwell.

"Every prophet has realized that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions. Every prophet has realized that most of us want peace at any price as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price. That is why the prophet Jeremiah said, ' "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace,' ..." —The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. "Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword."

Friday, September 15, 2006

GP-US & PTF

Thanks to Bill H., I just learned that the Green Party of the United States' 2002 "Proposal on the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act" passed with 36 "Yes" votes to 29 "No" votes. I was surprised (and pleased) to learn how much opposition there was to the proposal and, maybe, now is a good time to start working to rescind this misguided endorsement and to propose a peace tax credit instead. I'm still waiting for the folks at the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund to respond to my blog post of 8/16 ("Peace Tax Fund Staffer Admits 'bill does not decrease military spending' ").

Addendum: Interested readers would do well to read the Picket Line post on this subject.

Last revised: 9/30/06

Labels: critical thinking, Peace Tax Fund Bill, politics, resistance, United States, war tax resistance