Fiscal Disobedience

The United States has been accused from at least three different quarters of committing genocide in Iraq.

The charge was first laid by a bureaucrat: former UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq Denis Halliday, in 2000; arguing that the Anglo-American oil-for-food shenanigans were a "deliberate policy to destroy the people of Iraq".

In November of last year, a soldier, 12-year Marine veteran Jimmy Massey echoed Halliday:

A recent study estimated the number of Iraqi deaths since the start of the war in March 2003 at around 100,000. When asked if this number seemed accurate, Massey responded:

"Yes, but that of course does not include the thousands more who will be dying from disease because of a lack of medical supplies, clean water, or proper sanitation. It does not include the hundreds of thousands that died in Iraq before the war even began from the sanctions. We are committing genocide in Iraq, and that is the intention."

In the same month, a civilian, Iraqi blogger Riverbend, in reaction to the savage assault upon Fallujah, minced no words: "Iraqis will never forgive this, never. It's outrageous. It's genocide, and America -- with the help and support of Allawi -- is responsible."

That three people from disparate walks of life -- but all of whom have seen the results of American policies up-close -- would charge the United States of committing genocide should give us an idea of the realities on the ground in Iraq. Whether or not we want to use that specific word to categorise the policies, the magnitude of the injustice being perpetrated in our names is (at least, for those with eyes to see) incontrovertible.

Meanwhile, the website costofwar.com is tracking the monetary cost of the war in Iraq. At this writing, it tots up to just over $149 Billion -- and rising at the rate of about $1,500 per second.

Not-so-coincidentally, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has let it be known that, "The governors must expect flat funding on everything other than homeland security and defense. Not just the governors, but the American people."

More recently, we learn that:

Congressional aides have been told to expect virtually the same level of spending in fiscal 2006 as this year in programs not connected to defense and homeland security. This fiscal year, those domestic programs grew by a slim 0.8 percentage point, and Bush plans to be even tighter, ensuring that spending will not keep up with inflation in most domestic programs. [Emphasis added.] [...]

"We have to find the money somewhere to [avert the president's proposed cuts], and I don't know how you find it if everything is tighter than a drum," said one House Appropriations Committee aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They are on the warpath."

You don't know how to find it? How about programs "connected to defense and homeland security"? How about repealing the President's tax cuts, instead of making them permanent?

The chutzpah is pretty stunning, isn't it? The Bush Administration undertook the tax cuts, and then undertook the multi-hundred-billion dollar boondoggle in Iraq (knowing full well that Iraq posed absolutely zero threat -- "imminent" or otherwise -- even to its own neighbours, let alone to the United States). Yet, it's the Administration that is now "on the warpath" against fiscal irresponsibility? Okaaaaaaaay...

Oh-by-the-way: among those "entitlements" not expected to keep pace with inflation? You guessed it: "...agriculture, veterans, and science..." [Emphasis added.] At least the cat's officially out of the bag: Veterans are "not connected to defense and homeland security".

Meanwhile, the President has set as his top priority for his second term the privatisation of Social Security; and has appointed a panel to "craft proposals...that could become the groundwork for Bush's bid to overhaul the nation's complex tax code."

Would you like some input into the process? Go ahead and contact your representative -- and see how rigorously your recommendations are taken into account.

Meanwhile, Seymour Hersh is reporting that the Administration has "consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities’ strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state," and that, "The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia."

While the Proles (nor Congress) will never be consulted about, or indeed even be informed about, these operations, rest assured that we will be expected to finance them.

Meanwhile, if you don't approve of an ever-more-regressive tax code, and don't approve of the uses to which your tax dollars are put, and don't approve of being written off as merely a member of a "focus group" whose opinions account for naught; go ahead and raise a stink.

The state will be only too happy to bash your skull up real good, as it did (for example) to protesters in Miami in November of 2003 -- in what Miami Mayor Manny Diaz called "a model for homeland security".

So if you're opposed to Taxation Without Representation, and you're opposed to getting your skull bashed up real good, what's to do? How about hitting 'em where it really hurts: in the pocketbook.

War Tax Resistance is a time-honoured form of Civil Disobedience, and its practice is as important now as it's been at any time since the Vietnam era. It should not be undertaken without first receiving counseling -- but this does not mean that it should not be undertaken. Merely that one should understand the potential consequences (which in almost all cases will be financial), and take steps to avoid them.

And what to do with the tax dollars withheld from Uncle Sam? Besides investing in alternative funds which can direct the money towards the types of funding that Bill Frist wants us to quit dreaming about, here are two ideas.

First, if we can get resources into the hands of Iraqi (and Palestinian) civilians, it can help to mitigate the effects of our government's genocidal policies.

Second, the manpower-strapped military is offering monetary incentives for re-enlistment. If we can counter these incentives with even greater incentives to not enlist, we can systematically drain the military of the cannon fodder needed to carry out our leaders' nefarious designs.

Think of your tax dollars as a "disobedience fund".

The potential consequences of Tax Resistance are real. But they can be overcome; and more importantly, while real, they're a lot less horrific than the consequences (some of which enumerated above) resulting from citizens' consenting to pay their taxes.

Contact the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee today, won't you?

Posted by Eddie Tews at January 9, 2005 02:35 PM