by Joe Kandra & Kathie Malley-Morrison
Tag: environmental protections
Morality and taxes
With April 15 (Tax Day in the U.S.) looming, I consider myself to have three moral obligations:
- Pay taxes that can provide funding for many vital programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, public transportation, human services, education, environmental protections, and veterans’ benefits.
- Protest tax policies that further entrench the rich and powerful while robbing the poor, depleting the middle class, and killing innocent people in the names of profit and national security.
- Protest policies allowing huge corporations like General Electric to make billions of dollars in profits from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while paying NO federal taxes.
To find out where your tax payments go, check out the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). According to their analysis, out of each dollar paid in federal income taxes in 2010, 39 cents went to fund current and past wars. This is probably an underestimate.
The federal budget deficit has been growing alarmingly since 2001, and it makes sense to look for ways to trim expenditures. But ask yourself, is it moral, is it just, and in the long run is it wise to cut the budgets for programs such as Social Security, job training, and Head Start, while keeping the Pentagon budget “off the table” and maintaining enormous tax breaks for the wealthy (e.g., through recent tax cuts on millionaires’ estates).
For a detailed breakdown of how social programs could be saved if some of the tax breaks for the rich were reduced, see the Center for American Progress.
In last year’s “weak economy,” hundreds of new billionaires emerged in this country while more and more people were losing their jobs and homes and falling below the poverty line. Is this what you want your taxes and current tax policies to support?
Finally, I have some suggestions:
- Go to the FCNL page to learn more about how your taxes are spent and to retrieve a toolkit that will give you some ideas about how you can get involved
- Participate in Global Day of Action on Military Spending, April 12, 2011.
To get some idea about what a cutback in military spending could accomplish, watch this video:
Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology
Nobel Peace Laureates and International Women’s Day
In honor of International Women’s Day, celebrated March 8 of this year, we dedicate this post to the five most recent female winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
2004: Wangari Maathai from Kenya, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, received the award for her achievements in sustainable development, the rights of women, democracy, environmental protections, and peace. (For more on Wangari Maathai, see this video.)
2003: Shirin Ebadi from Iran was awarded the Peace Prize for her work on behalf of democracy and human rights, particularly the rights of women and children. She was the first woman in Iran to become a federal judge, a position taken from her following the Islamic Revolution of 1975. Not until 1992 was she again allowed to practice law in her home country. Much of her work is risky, focusing on human rights cases. (For more on Shirin Ebadi, see this video.)
1997: The 1997 Peace Prize was shared by Jody Williams of Putney, Vermont, USA, and the organization she co-founded, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. She has devoted her life to anti-war, anti-violence activities, and has helped to found the Nobel Women’s Initiative which works for peace with equality and justice. (For more on Jody Williams, see this article and video.)
1992: Rigoberta Menchú Tum from Guatemala grew up in an impoverished Mayan Indian family that founded the Committee for the Peasant Union, which fought for social reform and justice for native families. Following the torture and murder of her father and brother, she fled the country and dedicated her life to promoting human rights and reconciliation. (For more on Rigoberts Menchu Tum, see this video.)
1991: Aung San Suu Kyi, born in Burma (now Myanmar), has earned international recognition for her work on human rights. Despite being held under house arrest in Burma for most of the past few decades, she has been continuously outspoken on behalf of the Burmese people. (For more on Aung San Suu Kyi, see this video.)
These five women are all human beings who have devoted their lives to promoting human rights and peace. Read or listen to their stories. What characteristics do you share with them? What can you do to promote peace and human rights? Everyone can do something–you don’t have to be a Nobel Laureate to make a difference for peace.
Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology