March 2018 – Engaging Peace

Dear Mr. President., regarding those tax bills….

Posted on March 31, 2018April 7, 2018 by kathiemm

Feed the people, not the Pentagon. Artist Roger Roth. Published courtesy of Larry Bassett.

Note from Kathie MM: It’s that time of year again. Just 12 months ago, I published a post by Larry Bassett entitled Ain’t gonna finance war no more — another effort in a long line of efforts to pursue peace and social justice rather than war and destruction.

April is upon us and most people, excluding the obscenely greedy at the top of the military industrial complex, are trying to be “good citizens” and pay their “obligations,” although the vast majority probably have doubts about the fairness and integrity of the system.

So Larry is back, promoting reflection about what it all means, and sharing his tax return.

By Larry Bassett

Here is what I am sending them this year, a greeting card! No gift enclosed!

Here is the front of the card:

My tax return. April 17, 2018. By Larry Bassett.

And here is the back of the card:

I had substantial federal taxes in 2016 and 2017 because of taxable income that I inherited from my father. In the past my resistance had been for much smaller amounts, and since I am retired with relatively low income I would usually owe no federal taxes. But I have seized this opportunity to redirect almost a quarter of a million dollars to good causes in several years. I believe the IRS will have a hard time collecting from me, but whatever they do they will not be able to undo the many people and organizations that I have helped. I am still trying to poke the bear since if the government ignores me my resistance has had limited impact. I resisted $130,000 last year and so far the IRS has sent me five letters and filed the usual tax lien. Maybe I will get their attention when the documentary about my WTR action is released. For more about that, go to The Pacifist Facebook page.

That’s not enough! Artist:
Roger Roth. Published courtesy of Larry Bassett.

Note from Kathie MM: It takes courage in today’s world to believe in and work for democracy, for human rights, for social justice, for ways to be ethical when constantly confronted by corruption. What are your views on the ways in which Larry Bassett faces these challenges? I am sure all of Engaging Peace’s readers look for ways to make the world a better place. Please share your stories with us.

I was there, Marching for Our Lives

Posted on March 26, 2018April 7, 2018 by kathiemm

Last year, I wrote about my belief that we know the names of too many shooters and not enough victims. This year, I centered my poster around Parkland victims’ faces, aiming my focus at the march on the safety of children rather than on the punishment of shooters.

By Sarah Mensch

Yesterday, I marched for 2.5 miles with an estimated 50,000 people in Boston. As a student, I stood toward the front, and when I looked around I could see so many of the children I wrote about protecting late last week walking next to me. They looked tired; this was their Saturday morning, intended for soccer practice or Girl Scouts or watching cartoons, and they were spending it pleading for legislators to make school a safer place

The March for Our Lives did not maintain the level of pride or excitement I’ve felt at other rallies I’ve attended; at the Boston Women’s March in 2017 I felt solidarity in my womanhood, and at the Deaf Grassroots Movement rally I felt admiration for my Deaf professors and classmates. But at the March for Our Lives, I felt anger, grief, and most importantly, determination.

The walk-outs at high schools all over the nation and demands from students in Florida specifically have already resulted in Governor Rick Scott (R) signing a new gun bill into law that raises the minimum age to purchase a gun, ends same-day gun licensing, and bans bump stocks.

I and the hundreds of thousands of others who marched yesterday have a new obligation today, one that is much more uncomfortable than our duty to be good adults and protect our children: we have to hold on to our anger and our grief. We have to maintain its magnitude and it’s momentum, because without any emotional charge, change in the way states handle guns doesn’t start with the Florida gun bill, it stops there. And until no child or adult dies at the hands of gun violence, we have not done enough.

Given that I’ve just given anyone who reads this a hefty call-to-action, I want to make it clear what organizations Engaging Peace readers can support to make gun safety in the United States a reality:

Some other young protestors, marching for our lives

Tens of thousands marched. I was there.

Posted on March 24, 2018April 7, 2018 by kathiemm

March for Our Lives, Boston MA, March 24, 2018. Photo by Deborah Belle.

By guest author Deborah Belle

Such a mixture of pain and joy to see so many marching today. Joy in the incredible strength, wisdom, and commitment of the young people leading this social movement along with their equally passionate elders. Pain is the very reason for and topic of the march. Children with signs wondering if they will be next, or pleading, “Don’t shoot!” Teachers who did not sign up to be soldiers and carry guns. Reminders of the young people lost recently in Florida and also the young father killed only days ago in Sacramento, shot 20 times by police officers in his own backyard.

What a crazy dystopia we are forced to inhabit. When will we awaken from this nightmare? Along with the emotion today there was a focus on the future and on the next steps to take. Activists were out registering marchers to vote and reminding us that voting will be our best hope of purging our national political life of the deadly influence of the NRA.

Note from KMM: Please help with the voter registration process.

Why I Will March

Posted on March 22, 2018April 7, 2018 by kathiemm

Note from Kathie MM: Stay tuned for a new series from our Engaging Peace intern, Sarah Mensch, who intends to be an active supporter of the March for Our Lives movement.

By Sarah Mensch

“…I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff… that’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.”

J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, chapter 22

A little over a year ago, I began working with Kathie Malley Morrison exploring the effect of the media on gun violence. During that time, 17 children were shot and killed in school shootings. Since then, 50 more children have been shot and killed at school. Fifteen of them (and two teachers) were victims of the shooting in Parkland.

Students around the nation walked out of their schools in solidarity with the students of MSDHS on March 14, standing outside for 17 minutes in honor of the 17 victims of the shooting. Adults asked their children to “Walk up, not out”— to talk to the student who eats alone, to smile and wave to the “loner kid.” to be so kind to any potential shooters that they do not become actual shooters. It’s important to encourage children to reach out to each other, and doing so would probably decrease violence, depression, and self-harm. But adults telling children to be kind and not to protest is adults telling children that it’s their job to keep themselves safe during shootings, not adults’ job to keep shootings from happening to them. That’s a mistake.

It’s children’s job to learn how to be good adults. It’s adults’ job to keep children safe. So on Saturday, I will march in The March for Our Lives to take responsibility as an adult, because I will not accept that the government isn’t doing everything they can to disarm harmful people and to protect our children. The numbers over the last few years and especially over the past few months have made it clear that legislators have no intention of making children’s lives safer; between the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 and the five year anniversary of the shooting in 2017, 382 pro-gun bills passed in various states’ legislatures. The responsibility of keeping our children safe from gun violence has fallen to us, the voters. So, I will march.