You Okay With Over Half Your Discretionary Tax Dollars Going To The Pentagon? ('Cause CEOs Need New Yachts)

Or to put it another way,

Weapons are the US's #1 industrial export.  When weapons are your #1 industrial export, what is your global marketing strategy for that product line?


The good folks at National Priorities Project have done our federal budget homework for us again.

Tax receipt: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/interactive-data/taxday/average/2018/us/receipt/

Full Tax Day analysis and fact sheets: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/analysis/2019/tax-day-2019/

Here are a few of their sample tweets for April 15, 2019. They are basing their calculations on federal taxes paid in 2018 covering the year 2017:

Average annual U.S. tax bill for public housing: $9.79. We can afford more. #ShowTheReceipts #TaxDay2019

The average taxpayer paid $225 to military contractor Lockheed Martin, but only $9.79 for public housing.  #ShowTheReceipts #TaxDay2019

The average tax bill for welfare (TANF) is just $6.50 per month. Military contractors take $144 per month.  #ShowTheReceipts #TaxDay2019

The average taxpayer last year paid $180 for all diplomacy and foreign aid, compared to almost nineteen times as much — $3,395 – for the Pentagon and military. #ShowTheReceipts #TaxDay2019

President Trump wants to eliminate the Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program, which costs the average taxpayer just $16.32 per year. #ShowTheReceipts #TaxDay2019

Meanwhile, corporate fat cats (like "defense" contractors) are paying less and less of their fair share.

Join individuals and groups calling for conversion of General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works shipyard to address climate change. Sponsoring organizations include Americans Who Tell the Truth, Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats (COAST), Durham Quaker Meeting, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, Island Peace & Justice, Maine Natural Guard, Maine Veterans for Peace, Maine War Tax Resistance Resource Center, Midcoast Peace & Justice Group, Pax Christi Maine, Peace Action Maine, Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine, Peace & Justice Group of Waldo County, PeaceWorks of Greater Brunswick, 350 Maine and Peninsula Peace & Justice.

Maine Natural Guard At Peace Hub In Portland Climate Action Saturday, September 8 Noon

Calling all Maine Natural Guard members to help bring the essential message that the Pentagon is the biggest polluter on the planet to a climate action being organized by 350 Maine:

RISE for Climate, Jobs and Justice

Saturday Sep 8 -- noon

Portland, Maine

The Maine Natural Guard will display our MNG t-shirts and messaging:

Click here to order your shirt

or other costumes:

That's Natasha Mayers holding her giant (cardboard) carbon footprint

That's Cynthia Howard as a polar bear who recognizes the largest cause of carbon polluting

We will carry signs such as:

​image: Suzanna Lasker

Image: Lisa Savage

Image: Jason Rawn 

Bruce Gagnon in action for life on the planet

Last Run (serigraph by Kenny Cole)

Also, since part of the call by organizers is for jobs (i.e. RISE for Climate, Jobs and Justice) messages about the urgent need for conversion of the military-industrial mess we're in would also be a great fit. For example:

Mary Beth Sullivan showing that public transportation light rail could be built at Bath Iron Works instead of warships.

Jenny Gray sharing her conversion vision

You can join the Natural Guard campaign by signing the pledge here.

Be a communication worker and help bring news of the path of real resistance to people befuddled by corporate media messaging.

Add your name to join the Natural Guard effort from wherever you are!

I pledge to speak out about the effects of militarism on our environment, because the commons we all share that sustain life are valuable to me. 

In discussions about security and safety, I will remind others of the need to count in the cost in pollution and fuel consumption of waging wars all around the planet.

In discussions about acting soon to protect our loved ones from the effects of climate chaos, I will remind others of the need to examine the role of the Pentagon and its many contractors in contributing to planetary warming.

Mark Roman, Ridgely Fuller and other climate activists at Bath Iron Works bridge banner drop

We welcome all who want to help bring this important message on September 8, one which is very often omitted from climate events.  FMI call me at 399-7623

thanks!

Lisa

For more information on the September 8 event:

This is our invitation to participate in a joint action as part of the global RISE for Climate, Jobs and Justice  in Portland on Saturday, September 8th beginning at noon. It’s  part of a worldwide mobilization taking place four days before the  Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. 350 Maine is  coordinating the event focused on the rising and warming waters of  the Gulf of Maine, but we expect the Maine Chapter of the Sierra  Club to join us as co-sponsors. Our goals for the event are to move the state legislature toward  climate action; get voters to ask what candidates in the November  election are going to do to take action on climate change; and to  register new voters. We want people to see and understand how much is at stake and how important it is to elect people willing to  work seriously on environmental issues as well as jobs and justice.    

The New Orleans Style Funeral procession we are planning will  pass through the center of town and end at a point currently being  determined, but at a place where a modest and active rally can take  place combined with voter registration.  We want as many people  as possible to be involved in the action with individual groups  taking responsibility for a specific components of the overall  program.  This should be a fun event that carries a serious message  and purpose.      Accordingly, some of the ideas being considered include:  ● The Leftist Marching Band to lead the funeral procession  ● A coffin containing a Gulf of Maine codfish and/or other  endangered species inside   ● Puppets, cheerleaders and dancers  ● People in costumes that emphasize mourning or sea level  rise  ● Floats or similar (e.g. Noah’s Ark, a giant lobster, fishermen  with empty nets, etc.)  ● Fishermen & lobstermen with empty traps and nets (income  & job loss)  ● Symbols of rising, warming seas (e.g. blue ribbon)  ● Children, teens, college students participating in any way  they see fit  ● Rally point activities that are lively and active:  o With local performers (singers, dancers, band)  o Limited talks that include funeral orations or memorial  addresses  o Tables with displays of Portland areas likely to be  flooded, climate action plans (simple, easy things  everyone can do), Children’s Trust, etc.  o Voter registration  ● YOUR IDEA PLEASE

The event wants to be big and memorable.  Would you be  interested in helping us pull it off?  Will you get involved and help  make it happen?    You, ------, are invited to play an active role in the overall  planning and event coordination and/or to simply take an active role  in the event itself.  Since we are working on a tight schedule, we’d  like to hear from you a.s.a.p. one way or another.     Let us know what you think.

With best regards, Espahbad Dodd & Chuck Spanger, 350 Maine 

Take the Natural Guard pledge 

to connect the dots between 

militarism and environmental harm.

Budget For War Up, Food Down In U.S. Imperial End Times

View a detailed analysis of the proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2017 at nationalpriorities.org

Now that we know the current regime's budget plans to accelerate robbing the poor to further enrich Pentagon contractors, maybe the U.S. public will begin to pay more attention to the cost of our endless wars of conquest. 

But, probably not.

Lately I've been examining the issue of young organizers' disinclination to focus on opposing militarism, and how their anti-imperialist approach might carry us into a better future. A skillfull young organizer in DC told me recently she had found plenty of young people willing to oppose wars and occupations. They just did not want to do so under the banner of the organization she had formerly worked for -- mostly old, mostly white, and very top down in operations.

I've also noted how women's march organizers and many others fronting for the Democratic Party have carefully avoided any mention of opposition to the empire's wars. 

An interesting analysis by Daniel May in The Nation this week nevertheless also avoided any mention of the role of the Democratic Party in silencing war dissent. May reached some of the same conclusions as young organizers I spoke with: the war machine is both everywhere on the planet and yet nowhere specific enough to be effectively confronted. 

It's corporate government that's the real disease, and endless wars are a symptom rather than a cause. 


The invisibility of war has been with us for a while now. I watched a music video  recommended by an 8th grader yesterday. "Hey Brother" depicted vintage televised war and had images alluding to PTSD and a military funeral. Some students thought it was about WWII because they are too young to know that that war, like the ones their country has been waging their entire lives, wasn't televised either.

Remember when Barack Obama said he wasn't against all wars, just dumb ones? That was before he won the Nobel Peace [sic] Prize, occupied Afghanistan and Iraq for eight more years, bombed Libya, and ordered thousands of drone strikes that killed thousands of innocent people. 

Now the demagogue with bad hair finds himself in the same bind: calling the war in Afghanistan a mess while campaigning, and then finding Pentagon brass pushing for escalation. 

Except the unpopularity of war makes Vietnam-era terms like "escalation" verboten; instead, government spokesmen prefer euphemisms like "surge" and "humantiarian intervention."

Why would Pentagon brass push for wasting more tax dollars on an unwinnable war in Afghanistan? Here's a quote from May's article that helps put their advocacy in perspective:

Raytheon, the fourth-largest military contractor in the United States and the world’s leading producer of guided missiles, received 90 percent of its revenues in 2015 from the federal government. In that year, Raytheon CEO Thomas Kennedy took home $20.4 million in total compensation. Among the large military contractors, this is the norm. In 2014, the CEO of Lockheed Martin—which received 78 percent of its revenues from the government that year—was paid a total of $33.7 million. In 2015, the CEO of Boeing, the second-largest government contractor, earned $29 million—and paid no federal income tax in 2013 [emphasis mine].

And, to bring this narrative right up to date, yesterday the demogague with bad hair nominated Boeing senior vice president Patrick Shanahan for Deputy "Defense" [ironic quotation marks mine] Secretary.

As the rich get richer and the poor sink into bankruptcy, war-fueled opioid addiction, and early death, who will effectively object? Of course the people in the countries being bombed and occupied will continue to raise their voices. An excellent example are the Youth Peace Volunteers of Afghanistan, whose Global Days of Listening project has for years been bringing truth to those with ears to hear it.

Survivors of the recent U.S. bombing of a mosque in Syria cry out, but who hears them? 

From Common Dreams: "Civil defense team members and people try to rescue people who were trapped under the debris of a Mosque after an aerial attack on a mosque during prayer in the Cina village of Etarib district of Aleppo, Syria on March 16, 2017.'  (Photo: İbrahim Ebu Leys/ Anadolu Agency )

Families digging through the rubble in Mosul as they try but fail to free trapped relatives weep on camera, but who sees this? Those of who who try to do the work that corporate media will not do, e.g. sharing the images of war victims via social media, are scorned by comfortable liberals who don't want to face burned children over their morning coffee. One click blocks such truth from bleeding through into the reality they prefer. Which is marching around demanding environmental protection while ignoring the leading cause of carbon pollution worldwide.

From The Intercept: "Pentagon Denies Bombing Syrian Mosque, But Its Own Photo May Prove That It Did"  Boy walking through ruins after U.S. airstrikes hit a crowded mosque during night prayer in Al-Jiney village, Aleppo on March 17, 2017. Photo: Ibrahim Ebe Leys / Anadolus Agency / Getty Images 

There's nothing new about any of this. Until the war arrives on your shores it's easier to pretend that your elderly next door neighbor is literally starving because...capitalism is great! the Arab world hates us for our freedoms!..than to admit the war machine robbed her of sustenance.

Once people are hungry enough they may finally notice the real causes and effects at work here. Or, they may continue to be fooled by propaganda into voting against their own prosperity as they did in the 2016 election in the U.S. and the Brexit vote in the U.K. Ordinary people can't see the uber wealthy CEOs draining the nation's coffers to build still more weapons of mass destruction. Those yachts sail far offshore, and those private jets land at secluded private air fields.

All empires fall after reaching the stage of wretched excess we're seeing today: cut Meals on Wheels for the elderly while funding still more weapon systems. 

And also funding lavish perqs for the president's family that are characteristic of kleptocracies.

Can we claw our way back from this stage of history? Probably not. But we can band together to hasten the demise of empire, building relationships to sustain one another through the dark days ahead.

Consider the opportunity to come together with others  paying attention to the cancerous growth of militarism by attending "Pivot Toward War: U.S. Missile Defense and the Weaponization of Space," the 25th Annual Space Organizing Conference & Protest from April 7-9 in Huntsville, Alabama. Col. Ann Wright (U.S. Army retired, diplomat) will be the keynote speaker at this important international conference. More details here.

Jason Rawn, #Zumwalt12: More Harmful To Agree To Pay Federal Income Tax Than It Is To Choose To Refuse

Jason Rawn being arrested in Bath June 18, 2016 (photo: Regis Tremblay)

The youngest member of the Zumwalt 12 is Jason Rawn, a Maine permaculture worker and dedicated international peace activist. Jason has traveled to Jeju Island in South Korea to stand with villagers resisting the destruction of their traditional fishing and farming economy by a naval port for ships like the Zumwalt destroyer, and to Okinawa to stand with people resisting U.S. military bases there.

The outcome of the three day trial, which concluded yesterday, was a verdict of guilty and a fine of $250. According to Jason, "Most of us told the judge we'd refuse to pay fines. We were sentenced to 30 hours of community service. The jury only took about 15 minutes deliberating. I heard that three members of the jury re-entered the courtroom to observe sentencing after they were dismissed." 

I am excited to be able to share Jason Rawn's testimony from February 2, day two of the Zumwalt 12 trial. It is one of the best short essays on the folly of militarism as an economic model that I have ever read.

Jason Rawn

I have waived my right to remain silent. My testimony here is in support of the reasonableness (not "rightness") of my obstructing the public way last June. From the get go I will say that my actions on June 18 do not support the status quo. This is intentional. Many of us learned a bit about Thoreau in school. We have at least some grasp of "civil disobedience" and understand that civil disobedience is a real thing with a long history in the US and elsewhere. I think the popular anecdote is that Ralph Waldo Emerson went to bail Thoreau out of jail where he was because he refused to pay taxes in support of the Spanish-American War. 

"What are you doing in there," Emerson asks his friend.

"What are you doing out there?" Thoreau replies.

Just because we prefer not to look at something, that doesn't mean it's insignificant.  

Just as Justice Billings is allowing testimony in this trial regarding our motives for obstructing the public way, so it makes sense to consider where the $4-7 billion Zumwalt warships go once they leave Bath, to be loaded up with over $84 million worth of ammunition each and heading to US war bases on foreign soil thousands of miles from home to do or to threaten to do exactly what they were manufactured to do:  

Destroy hundreds of targets at a rate of up to ten per minute! 

I'm going to give some easy to find facts and figures as part of my testimony, and I will argue that war profiteers General Dynamics steal from US taxpayers and the City of Bath in multiple ways. It's important to have an understanding of how the products made by workers here in Bath affect not only Bath, but the state of Maine, the nation, our whole planet.  

But first I'll tell you a little more about my history as a dedicated peace person, someone concerned enough about the crimes of war and war profiteering to actually stop investing my hard-earned money in them, regardless of potential persecution. My opinion is that in the big picture, it's more harmful to agree to pay federal income tax than it is to choose to refuse to pay.  

About ten years ago, I became a War Tax Resister (WTR). I stopped paying the IRS because I learned that more than 50% of the discretionary portion of the US budget is misinvested every year in war through war profiteering corporations like General Dynamics.  

WTRs are conscientious objectors to paying taxes that fund organized violence.

Some file, but instead of sending a check, send a letter explaining that they'd gladly pay federal income taxes if the money wasn't going to be used to pay for war and war profiteering. Others send a check, but withhold a certain percentage or a symbolic amount. Still others deposit their "redirected" funds into escrow accounts or donate to grassroots peace organizations, school music programs, etc.  

As for me, last time I made more than the taxable amount, somewhere around $10,000, I redirected the full amount - I think it was around $1,200 - to local organizations, including WERU Community Radio and Maine Organic Farming and Gardening Association (MOFGA), hosts of the Common Ground Fair. 

Basically, WTR is a form of divestment from war and war profiteers. Since then, I have been living in voluntary poverty. I believe in working with others to achieve common goals, but I refuse to pay for war.  

War profiteering, getting rich off of war, is a lucrative form of organized crime, a kind of thievery that involves the funneling of our tax dollars through the IRS and war profiteering corporations to benefit a tiny group of political and financial elites. US-based General Dynamics, corporate owners of the world-class metal fabrication facility Bath Iron Works (BIW), consistently ranks as one of the world's top ten war profiteering corporations. In addition to the Darth Vadery Zumwalts, they also manufacture nuclear submarines, tanks,  combat jets, private jets for the rich, etc.  

Banner by the Artists' Rapid Response Team (ARRT!) of the Union of Maine Visual Artists

In 2013, General Dynamics reported earnings of $31.2 billion. Despite that, General Dynamics also attempted to fleece  the City of Bath for over $6 million in tax breaks. These tax breaks were in the form of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) agreements. The people of Bath organized, however, and cut the corporate subsidy by $3 million!  

But somehow, General Dynamics was still able to afford to give its CEO, former CIA operative Phebe Novakovic, a $12 million raise, pushing her total compensation to over $18 million in 2013 alone. Is that reasonable? Maybe not, but that's how it works: Bleed everyday people so the rich can take a few more million.  

Zumwalt 12 co-defendant Bruce Gagnon

And in the meantime, the US military has been identified as having the largest or one of the largest carbon bootprints on the planet. This means that the US military and its activities contribute to climate change more than any other individual institution on the consumer end. It's widely recognized that climate change is a clear and present danger to life on our planet. War profiteering corporations such as General Dynamics make this magnitude of destruction possible. Actually, war and war profiteering drive climate change. 

Another example of the big picture, long-term, exponential effects of a war profiteering economy is that, by fleecing taxpayers in the present, war profiteers strengthen the entrenched war-based economy into a future of endless war. Not a good legacy to be leaving our children. There are alternatives.  

Maine's congressional delegation pledging allegiance at General Dynamics as a warship is "christened" [sic] April, 2014

The 5,600 jobs General Dynamics needs to fill in order to make its profits through BIW are important. But this 5,600 is a small number relative to the number of jobs that would be created by investing our tax dollars in peace. So while it's true that the war profiteering economy creates some wealth, investment in peace produces more prosperity for more people. 

In their 2007 study "The US Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities," UMASS Amherst's Political Economy Research Institute demonstrates that, per billion dollars, investment in war creates fewer jobs and less general wealth than investment in four areas:  

• health care (50.2% more jobs, 29.3% increase in total wages and benefits relative to defense) 
• education (106.7% more jobs, 131.4% increase in wages/benefits) 
• mass transit (131.4% more jobs, 55.9% increase in wages/benefits) 
• and construction relating to weatherization and infrastructure improvements (49.7% more jobs, 22.9% increase in wages/benefits). 

So while it may seem foolish or somehow disrespectful to discuss details about jobs and war profiteering right here in Bath, where 5,600 people are considered "lucky" to have decent union jobs at BIW, it's neither foolish nor disrespectful. Corporations are planning for their futures. These futures do not bode well for non-elites, those forced out of economic necessity to build weapons, those who will never receive a $12 million raise. 

Or even a measly $1 million raise.

Jason Rawn, left, doing political theater at the Women's March on Maine! January 21, 2017

My comment: Jason, Thoreau would be proud of you.

The (Exceptional) American Way Inspires Resistance All Over The Planet

Photo credit: Roger Leisner, Maine Paparazzi

Meet Jason Rawn, the youngest member of the Zumwalt 12, arrested for civil disobedience in the street outside General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works shipyard on June 18.

Jason recently returned to the U.S. from participating in protests of U.S. military presence in Okinawa that look like this:

Photo credit: Reuters via Irish Times, "Huge protests at U.S. bases after Japanese woman's murder" June 19, 2016

Much of Jason's recent trip to Asia was also spent in solidarity actions, including planned arrests to block ongoing construction in Gangjeong Village, Jeju Island, South Korea. The Bath action on June 18 was in solidarity with the resistance group whose soft coral reef was entombed in concrete by South Korea's Navy working under the direction of the Pentagon to port large warships such as the Zumwalt class destroyer. 

Photo credit: Jason Rawn

Here's Jason being arrested by South Korean police for civil disobedience outside the navy base on Jeju Island:

Photo credit: Jason Rawn

As you can see from these photos, Jason has the gear and the determination for civil disobedience to resist militarism in every season. Here we see a banner displayed by activists on Jeju with Jason's trademark slogan, Dive$t from the Pentagon:

Photo credit: Jason Rawn

I have followed Jason's posts from Jeju and Okinawa these past several months with interest. He often highlighted the creative components of resistance there including performances, songs and visual displays.

Photo credit: Jason Rawn
Singers lift spirits at naval base resistance on Jeju Island

Photo credit: Jason Rawn
Artists at work on Jeju Island

The role of artists in lifting the spirits and supporting the solidarity of resistance movements cannot be overstated. It, too, finds a parallel in Maine where those arrested on July 18 held a banner created by the Artists Rapid Response Team (AART!) of the Union of Maine Visual Artists:

Photo credit: Regis Tremblay from "One More Warship: Remarks at the Launching of a Stealth Destroyer" by Dud Hendrick in Common Dreams, June 20, 2016

Photo credit: Roger Leisner, Maine Paparazzi

Another of the Zumwalt 12, artist Russell Wray, created and displayed a sculpture entitled "Maka the Dolphin" and a banner as beautiful as it is clear about why to resist the militarization of our oceans. Many children who passed by the display in Bath on June 18 remarked with excitement about the lovingly rendered dolphin.

Photo credit: Regis Tremblay of Rosie Tyler Paul harmonizing with singer-songwriter Mike Hasty in Bath.
From "More Photos From 'Stealth' Destroyer Protests at BIW in Maine" by Bruce Gagnon in Organizing Notes, June 18, 2016

As is evident from the reflection in Jason's sunglasses at the beginning of this post, the photographers who document resistance actions are another integral part of the movement resisting militarization. I have credited many of them here but it would be difficult to note them all; no matter what the corporate press in the U.S. lead you to believe, there are many of us working to resist the Pentagon's encroachment on our natural resources, our financial resources, and on innocent people around the planet. 

One more photographer whose contributions I'll note is Jenny Gray, who provided some of the most compelling photos of the civil disobedience sit-down action to block Washington Street in Bath:

Photo credit: Jenny Gray

Photo credit: Jenny Gray. Note Russel Wray in the dolphin hat he created for the occasion.

Can you find Jason Rawn in this photo? He's right there amid his blessed community of those not afraid to speak out and act out for peace. This is his rightful place and he often looks the happiest there. Let's join him.