[PAA-Discuss] FW: [ufpj-activist] Why Tax the Rich to Pay for More War?

[Lee Loe]

This is great! Wish I had had it for HPN Oct. But what would I have left
out! Lee

 

From: ufpj-activist-bounces+leeloe=igc.org at lists.mayfirst.org
[mailto:ufpj-activist-bounces+leeloe=igc.org at lists.mayfirst.org] On Behalf
Of Robert Naiman
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2011 1:37 PM
To: ufpj-activist
Subject: [ufpj-activist] Why Tax the Rich to Pay for More War?

 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/millionaire-tax_b_987263.html

 

Ordinarily, I think of myself as a card-carrying liberal. But lately, I'm
getting the feeling that Liberal America had a meeting to decide on our
current priorities and peace advocates weren't invited. I open my email and
it's full of rallying cries about the urgency of taxing the rich. When was
it decided that taxing the rich was the marquee demand of Liberal America at
this juncture? Were peace advocates invited to this meeting? I see no
evidence that we were.

In a different political juncture, I would be happy to march behind the
banner of taxing the rich. But at this political juncture, when the war
budget is half of federal discretionary spending, and when because of the
Budget Control Act and the Supercommittee, we have a historic opportunity to
cut the war budget -- a much better prospect, at present, than our prospects
for raising tax rates on rich people -- I ain't marching for this dogwhistle
anymore.

Suppose there were a massive government program to dump truckloads of dioxin
in Lake Michigan. And suppose that -- in addition to the direct effects of
poisoning a major source of drinking water -- this program were tremendously
expensive in blood and treasure. Suppose that since October 7, 2001, more
than five thousand American workers had been killed carrying out the Lake
Michigan-poisoning project, with tens of thousands of American workers
counted as wounded, and the real toll of wounded American workers many times
higher. And suppose that the budgeted cost so far of the massive government
program to dump poison in Lake Michigan were over a trillion dollars so far,
with the real financial cost to society, when you count things like the
future health costs of the poisoned American workers, much higher.

Would the marquee demand of Liberal America be to make Warren Buffett pay
his fair share for the Lake Michigan-poisoning program? Or would the marquee
demand of Liberal America be to stop dumping poison in Lake Michigan?

If we're going to use the money to kill, imprison, and otherwise oppress
people in other countries who have done us no wrong, I would just as soon
let Warren Buffett keep his money. Maybe he will donate some of it to a good
cause. But even if he uses it to buy caviar, that would be better than
continuing the war in Afghanistan, which is, on a routine basis, violating
the basic human rights of the Afghan people, in addition to killing and
maiming Americans for no good reason.

Item: in the November issue of the Atlantic, Matthieu Aikins
<http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/our-man-in-kandahar/865
3/> makes a compelling case that the Pentagon is violating the Leahy
Amendment by arming the forces of Afghan warlord Abdul Raziq, given that
Raziq's forces have a history of gross human rights abuses as long as your
arm. But this Pentagon activity has proceeded unmolested by the Leahy Law.

Why should we take money from Warren Buffett to pay for this? Shouldn't we
just stop it?

Item: in a recent article in Truthout, Gareth Porter
<http://www.truth-out.org/how-mcchrystal-and-petraeus-built-indiscriminate-k
illing-machine/1317052524> demolishes the claim that U.S. "night raids" in
Afghanistan - that's when U.S. forces smash into people's homes in the
middle of the night, shooting anyone who might appear to resist -- are
"precisely targeted," noting that a key target of the night raids is not
insurgents, but civilians who might know insurgents, a blatant violation of
the laws of war; and that moreover, people are targeted based not on their
identity, but based on their phone records. So if somebody calls someone
linked by the U.S. to the insurgency from your phone, U.S. forces can smash
into your house, kill you and your relatives, and claim success: "Taliban
killed."

Why should we take money from Warren Buffett to pay for this? Shouldn't we
just stop it?

At this juncture in our history, why should we make common cause with the
warmongers against the Tea Party? Wouldn't it be more righteous to make
common cause with the Tea Party against the warmongers?

What's particularly striking at this juncture is this: House Democrats
appear to be ahead of Liberal America on this issue right now. Seventy
Representatives -- mostly Democrats -- have written to the debt-reduction
Supercommittee,
<http://woolsey.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=18&sectiontree=6,18&itemid=108
5> urging them to end the wars. Why isn't our email full of urgings to
support the seventy Representatives in their demand that the Supercommittee
end the wars?

On October 7, 2011, we'll have been at war for ten years.
<http://occupytogether.org/> There will be protests around the country. Let
us first end the wars. Then I will gladly march behind the banner of taxing
the rich.


-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org

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