[Peace-discuss] ron paul, teabaggers, and some of their best friends

Tue May 4 18:33:32 CDT 2010

On Tue, May 04, 2010 at 02:54:29PM -0700, Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
> The only way to get ANY folks out of the woodwork to protest the US's
> imperialist wars is to reinstate the draft. How 'bout we [peace activists]
> start a rumor that that's in the works and see what happens? Add that to
> blogs and picket signs, get talk radio hosts ranting about it. Worth a try
> :-) 

Actually, we have a much better option at hand: a war *tax*,
as an addition to the income tax.

It could be (relatively) progressive, making people with
higher incomes pay more, unlike a draft which disproportionately
burdens people who can't buy themselves out of it by going to school, etc.;
affects everybody, not just young people or families with young people
(lots more families these days would have no one of likely draft age);
and, it could expose directly the monetary cost of a war,
instead of just adding more-or-less-silently to the debt.
And as a fiscally responsible measure it's hard for the Right to dismiss.

It's been recently proposed in Congress at least twice,
in 2007 and 2009, both by David Obey and others...
Here's the 2009 one:

   http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.4130.IH:

H. R. 4130                                              

   To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to establish a temporary surtax to offset the       
   costs of the Afghanistan war.                                                                  

                               IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES                                    
                                      November 19, 2009                                           

   Mr. OBEY (for himself, Mr. MURTHA, Mr. LARSON of Connecticut, Ms. ESHOO, Mr. FARR, Mr.         
   FRANK of Massachusetts, Mr. GRIJALVA, Ms. MCCOLLUM, Mr. MCDERMOTT, Mr. MCGOVERN, and Ms.       
   LINDA T. SANCHEZ of California) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the       
   Committee on Ways and Means                                                                    
  [...]

Starts at 1%, increases to 2% over $36K or something.

I don't think it went far politically either time.  But if we can talk
about balanced-budget requirements, as deficit hawks want to do,
then how can we not talk about taxing to support wars too?

>  -- Jenifer
> --- On Mon, 5/3/10, Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> From: Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] ron paul, teabaggers, and some of their best friends
> To: "E.Wayne Johnson" <ewj at pigs.ag>
> Cc: "Peace Discuss" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> Date: Monday, May 3, 2010, 11:06 AM
> 
> Wayne, I assume you are referring here to the "tea party" as the rebellion?  I think there's an element of that, but it's dragged so far out of that orbit by the weight of its racism and Know-Nothingism, homophobia and fear of socialism, and miscellaneous rightwing conspiracy theories, that it's more likely to push national policy away from anything that might help working people than accomplish anything good and decent.
> 
> Is the government run by elites and does it tax lower income people too much?  Of course on both counts.  But the fact that these particular "masses" come out of the woodwork to protest against health care reform, and not imperialist wars is very telling.
> 
> The depressing fact is, there are many things wrong with the health care changes -- no being single-payer just for starters -- but those are not the reasons the
>  tea-baggers were riled.  And it's not really taxes, either.  They're happy to pay for the largest military budget in world history, for more police and prisons.  And most people, tea-baggers or not, are happy about government-funded libraries, streets, fire departments, etc.
> 
> People object to taxes to pay for things they don't like, and for many of these folks, the things they don't like are infamous: welfare (now including half-assed health care reform), and integrated public schools that won't teach things like gods creating universes in 7 days and dinosaurs walking around with people and hell as a real place where Jesus will send boys who like boys or girls who fancy girls or even if you follow all the rules but you don't like it.
> 
> I think your description below is pretty apt in this regard, for some of the angry white folks who've been amassing lately, but not for everybody.  There happen to be many, many working
>  people and unemployed workers in this country who couldn't care less who you sleep with, what color you are, or what religion you have if any.  I've had my light turned off with some of them, and I've eaten meals with many of theme here in town.  I attended a rally with thousands of them in Springfield a couple weeks ago.
> 
> Do they trust the government?  No more than anyone else.  But they also understand that the government is an important part of the economy, not separate from it, and that certain government policies can help people who need help in ways they most of us can't afford to do out of our own individual pockets - people without health care, for example.
> 
> We never get what we really want, of course.  Even if we in the anti-war movement finally manage to get all the foreign troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan, which is a big if, you can bet there will be a downside to the way it's done - scorched
>  earth, leaving cronies and puppets in power, taking national treasures with the departing troops, corporate control of resources, warlords swoop in and massacre people, etc?  So, if these things happen will we agree with the angry white guys who come out in protest that the anti-war movement is caused these things?
> 
> Oh, they'll find their effete peace advocates, the overeducated, etc.  They might even blame Hillary Clinton, that old hawk.  Stranger things have happened in our lifetimes.  And some of them will be sincere.  I know returning vets who valued the help they felt they were doing the people in Iraq.  The class tensions in this country are real, whether between the Hillaries and the "masses" or between unions and John McCain with his 10 houses.  In the French Revolution many people believed Marie Antoinette was a witch with three breasts.  In the English Civil War some of the "masses" believed the
>  Catholics were coming to make them give birth to babies with mouths in their stomachs and arms on their heads, and so on.  
> 
> Legitimate class grievances just don't make people right about other things:
>  ...who 
> want to teach queer-ism and candy-ass Hillary-ism in their schools.  Again 
> I think that Sarah comes off as being as fake as a 3 -dollar bill clinton but 
> many of those people think that Sarah is like them.  Hillary is not like 
> them.  Obama is not like them,  Obama is not only black but he's a 
> mulatto and an uppity one at that.
>  
> These people dont generally have good 
> information.  They arent violent by nature but if they had the full 
> scoop, then the elite bastards had sure enough better buy handguns.
> 
> 
> 
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