Letters
LETTERS Eviscerated Congratulations on the May issue, which was one hardhitting, well-researched article after another. Special kudos for authors Medsger, Bonner, Le-win, Mulligan, Talbot, and...
...Taxation is clearly involuntary servitude...
...Only three sentences in the first paragraph of thirteen lines...
...It is apparent we have created hospital structures that are often inappropriate in size, purpose, type, and location...
...I treasure the memory of the time a columnist praised Margaret Thatcher's strength of character and then (if memory serves me) recommended "a shot of testosterone" for U.S...
...Public and private, profit and non-profit hospitals alike feed from the same table...
...Articles such as "The Power of James Watt" give us neither new information nor a balanced analysis of the future of the Interior Department under James Watt...
...My interest is in Namibia and Namibia only, where apartheid has been abolished and one man, one vote representative government rules the country...
...If so, their last requests were denied—by none other than Steven Judy...
...No matter how they try, those people—and all others like them—cannot help being anything but "shrill, kooky, bigoted, intimidating, or just plain reactionary...
...William Seeman Cincinnati, Ohio Last request Somehow, I just can't get too upset about Steven Judy's last request from Death Row being denied him ("Request Denied," by Felix Pollak, May issue...
...A group working for repeal should be added to The Progressive's list of "contacts": The Liberty Amendment, P.O...
...If we accept the capitalist posture of our economy and society, we will never become healthier until we evolve public policies and attendant financing systems that offer profitability to providers of health care who make us healthier, rather than taking care of us when we are sick...
...Hospitals struggle to survive and function in the midst of a capitalist system which produces incentives contrary to health—it is illness which makes the system "healthy...
...David Tobin The Barter Project Washington, D. C. I enjoyed reading Jerry Williamson's piece on bartering...
...He doesn't say which industry analysts "prediet Western coal production could quadruple by 1985," but the present lead time of four to seven years to attain production precludes such an increase, even if the market could absorb it...
...I look forward to the day when Zimbabwe has equal access...
...Roland C. Townsend Aurora, Colorado Lost children Rarely do I find in a popular magazine a piece I think good enough to assign to my classes in psychology...
...Christine J. Shirley Phoenix, Arizona...
...Might they have asked to stay alive...
...We even have merchandise, provided at cost by businesspeople...
...Your article also stated that because of this, "Pretoria had a special friend in the Transition Team...
...Whenever people are coerced to pay for "government services," hostility and conflict are inevitable because different sets of taxpayers hold different ideas about what is morally right and who is needy (the "needy" dairy and tobacco farmers...
...The IRS has found ways to collect...
...And we continue to support a financing system which encourages these dinosaurs to grow, reproduce themselves, and then send us the bill...
...The author replies: I admire Marion Smoak's candor in admitting the accuracy of my statement that he was a paid agent of Namibia inside the State Department...
...it clearly tells me that you subscribe to the sick philosophy of that publication...
...Many hospitals have undoubtedly failed to meet their Hill-Burton obligations...
...Their taxes, like ours, are working against their deepest ethical and religious convictions...
...I gave up...
...I'd add, also, that it is equally naive to think that bartering will somehow occur naturally in the often impersonal, non-communal, and dependent environment of the declining big-city neighborhoods...
...What are the "tumultuous effects of the new Western strip mine industry" that "are already legend...
...I am both a war tax resister and a Quaker...
...I strongly believe that the lucky should help the unlucky...
...Maybe "bitter battles" have erupted "between coal corporations and farmers for precious water" in some areas, but usually water rights needed for mining are purchased...
...This type of perspective will only get us into deeper trouble than we're already in...
...My goal in not paying war taxes is not to avoid paying taxes but to share my views with elected officials and Government employes, along with the bankers and employers from whom the IRS ultimately gets the money...
...Such articles hurt the cause of environmental protection by enflaming and polarizing opposition...
...Pledge forms can be requested from Conscience and Military Tax Campaign, 44 Bell-haven Road, Bellport, New York 11713...
...Granted, bartering is not a new concept, especially in rural areas (though there it is threatened by a rising influx of ur-banites), and in those low-income urban communities where some semblance of "neighborhood" hasn't been redlined or gentrified away...
...It is patently untrue that the public has seen "little return for its money" appropriated through the Hill-Burton Act...
...Because no group ever has the right to impose its ideas on any other group, and because no group ever has the right to put people into involuntary servitude, and because no group approving of such aggression against fellow citizens is worthy of the name "peace" group, and because I am a profoundly peaceful person, I support complete repeal of the income tax amendment...
...Kenneth E. Hinton Spokane, Washington Included We read almost wistfully the statement in the April issue ("Why Pray for Peace While Paying for War...
...I sometimes wonder how much the Government is expending to get the relatively small amount of taxes I owe it—money that could more profitably be spent looking at ways to close the loopholes used by potentially big taxpayers...
...Hospitals themselves are not to blame...
...Most ranchers sell out willingly because they can't make a profit on ranching, and mining companies pay top prices for land...
...Special kudos for authors Medsger, Bonner, Le-win, Mulligan, Talbot, and O'Donnell...
...But Cecil Andrus had the same power before James Watt...
...There is no "balancing" of services used against services given...
...If your readers have any ability or talent to share, I invite them to join us...
...I work for the democratically elected government of Namibia, which enjoys almost total autonomy from South Africa...
...Jeffrey Stein Washington, D. C. Taxes for war I felt great appreciation for John Junkerman's article, "Why Pray for Peace While Paying for War...
...Anyone who cannot afford the price may ask for a free copy...
...It could have been worse, of course...
...Hospitals are allowed and encouraged to succeed, yet our financing system prevents them from failing...
...More than 100 million Americans work one-third of the year to pay taxes, under threat of jail—a magnitude of forced labor far larger than the forced labor of the four million slaves before the Civil War...
...they merely follow the direction provided by public policy...
...As for Namibia's "almost total autonomy from South Africa"—isn't that a bit like being almost pregnant...
...Copies may be obtained from Peacemakers, Box 627, Granville, California 95440 or from the undersigned at $1.50 for a single copy, $5 for four copies, and $50 for fifty copies...
...Honey, all you have to do is put in a period now and then and start again with a capital letter...
...War tax resistance is a lonely position to take, even among Friends...
...Egan O'Connor San Francisco, California The 1981 edition of the Peacemakers' Handbook on Nonpayment of War Taxes is now available...
...I do have one very small bone to pick with the last—his warning that Daniel Boggs seeks the "emasculation" of the Environmental Protection Agency...
...I hereby cancel my subscription to The Progressive...
...Next thing you know, we'll be reading that food banks, coops, legal services for the poor, and Alinsky-style advocacy groups (which espouse a commitment to the democratic system) are not to be taken seriously because they aren't "subversive enough...
...All coastal areas are "fragile," and any move to develop energy resources is "unleashing" the corporations...
...The Best Kept Secret in Health Care is not the impact of the Hill-Burton Act, but the fact that our "health care" system was never intended nor structured to make us healthier...
...They may obtain full information by sending a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Free for All, 1623 Granville Avenue, Suite 11W, Los Angeles, California 90025, or by telephoning (213) 826-9665...
...This part of your statement is, of course, not true, since I have no relationship with the Republic of South Africa...
...Box 20888, El Ca-jon, California 92021...
...Moreover, there is a distressing inconsistency within a peace movement which opposes war as a violation of human rights, but which does not oppose taxation as a violation of human rights, too...
...But Christian Scientists as a group chip in their 6.65 per cent to Social Security the same as everyone else...
...I urge those who are not yet ready to take the step of nonpayment of war taxes to think seriously about becoming one of the 100,000 who will agree to withhold taxes once 100,000 have signed the pledge to withhold...
...Thus JWS holds an emergency fund, should I need it, and in the meantime this money is supporting a service I regard as important...
...I send an amount equal to unpaid taxes as a loan to John Woolman Friends School...
...Baiter's focus, in my opinion, helps fuel a long-standing smoke screen...
...Unlike a barter system, Free for All operates on the basis of free sharing, as in a family...
...A little inquiry would show that "Interior's Bureau of Mines" does not conduct "the surveys that guide Government decisions on coal mining"—and a little more inquiry would show that we do need coal, at least until something better comes along, unless one doesn't mind paying out fortunes for foreign oil...
...Isabel Weathersby Little Rock, Arkansas Sickened New Oxford Review's ad in your May issue does it...
...Rod Nippert Route 1, Box 90-B Amesville, Ohio 45711 Barter Jerry Williamson's "The Genteel Subversives" (April issue) bordered on the irresponsible and reflected a self-righteous "more progressive than thou" attitude that I thought had gone out with the election of Ronald Reagan...
...Like other Americans, they may sometimes wish that it were true...
...The only "need" for taxation is to make people work for the programs they hate, since they would voluntarily pay for the projects, charities, and services which they like without compulsion...
...But surely the substitution of some appropriate synonym would not have emasculated (gutted, vitiated, ravaged, savaged, eroded, sabotaged, crippled, maimed, hamstrung) O'Donnell's article...
...This much of your statement is true, although it failed to indicate that my very first act upon entering these duties was to reveal my association with Namibia and to declare to the other team members that I would have nothing to do with not only Namibia, but the entire continent of Africa...
...the fact is, however, that many hospitals have far exceeded their regulatory obligation to provide charity care...
...Massive landscapes in Wyoming and Montana are ripped open," Zwerdling says...
...Richard O. Johnson Los Angeles, California Health care I want to take issue with most of what Michael Baiter wrote in "The Best Kept Secret in Health Care" (April issue...
...But the deep revulsion I feel for voluntarily contributing to the forces of destruction makes this act necessary for me...
...Regarding "mountain vistas" that "are clouded gray by coal dust and power plant pollution," I live and work in mountain areas and seem never to be around when the coal dust and power plant pollution cloud things gray...
...A. W. Phinney The First Church of Christ Scientist Boston, Massachusetts Wattage Such articles as Daniel Zwerdling's "The Power of James Watt" (March issue) make it increasingly difficult for me to call myself an environmentalist...
...Many in the peace movement claim taxation is good because it helps the needy...
...Williamson managed to take an exciting and timely topic and totally neglect its contribution to fighting poverty and empowering citizens The reemergence of bartering as a way of doing business, and its evolution as a way for middle- and higher-income citizens to combat inflation, represent only two factions of the bartering community...
...If the peace movement claims the right not to pay for ideas which it abhors, then the peace movement must support and truly respect the same right for other movements and individuals...
...I agree with Williamson's observation that most barterers are not out to alter drastically our economic or political system, but it takes a very narrow perspective not to see the political and social implications of bartering...
...I am sickened at the sight in print, and at the thought, that I, a homosexual, am a "lethal force at loose eating away at the health of the American family...
...Zwerdling should know that Federal lands are not "Interior's soil," but are owned by United States citizens, some of whom never gave much thought to "mountain vistas" but are daily plagued with high heating costs...
...Williamson's failure to make those distinctions and focus on the truly "progressive" contributions of bartering is his article's greatest shortcoming...
...foreign policy...
...Since 1974, Free for All, our non-profit skills pool, has offered most of the benefits of barter with few of the drawbacks...
...the "needy" automobile companies and unions...
...Marion H. Smoak Washington, D.C...
...My opposition to taxation to help the needy is definitely not the same thing as opposing help for the needy...
...the second with fifteen lines boasted of one, one sentence, and on and on throughout the article...
...the "needy" nuclear power in- * dustry...
...Joan B. Schneider Felton, California I was one of those 1,470 Americans mentioned by John Junkerman who refused to pay income tax for the Vietnam war...
...But bartering, through neighborhood-based, small-scale "skills and service exchange" centers, is making its most significant impact as a way of restoring community and meeting basic needs essential to survival in declining neighborhoods...
...I am not so naive as to think I will get away with nonpayment of taxes...
...Your readers may be interested in another alternative to the money/exchange system...
...Since then, however, I have come to realize that I must oppose taxation, period— not just war taxation...
...Bonnie E. Selmer Eau Claire, Wisconsin Autonomy Jeffrey Stein's "March Briefing" stated, under the heading "Darkest Washington," that I, as a paid agent of U.S.-South West Africa/ Namibia Trade and Cultural Council, served on the Transition Team for the Reagan Administration in the Department of State...
...It has sections on reasons for not paying, ways of nonpayment, regulations on filing, lists of counselors, centers, and alternative funds, and much more information...
...Because we are not a barter system, Internal Revenue Service policy on barter does not apply, and everything received by the members is tax-free...
...We do know that some day the surface disturbed by strip mining may come to equal the surface disturbed by the highway program in Wyoming...
...A non-male myself, I rather wince at the impression, however metaphorical, that male is good and non-male is bad news...
...To the contrary, the impact is, has been, and will continue to be large, and is evident in its contribution to snowballing healthcare costs...
...Our members share many hundreds of services, from dental and legal through plumbing and typing to cooking and mending...
...by John Junkerman) that Christian Scientists are exempted from payment of Social Security taxes...
...I am not opposed to paying my fair share to support paying for human needs...
...The strident and prejudiced article is full of misinformation, innuendo, and exaggeration...
...Betty Medsger's "Lost Children" (May issue) is relevant and seems to have the solid research which is an irreducible requirement for quality...
...April issue...
...How about it...
...Instead, I wonder what were the last requests of the woman and children he killed...
...Christian Science practitioners, who give full time to religious work, can be exempted on the same grounds as ministers in other denominations...
...Under the guise of explaining how much power James Watt will have as Secretary of Interior, Zwerdling fires with both barrels, simultaneously indicting Watt and issuing a call to arms for environmentalists...
...Members of the Moral Majority seem deeply and sincerely troubled by having to pay for abortions, and for schools where prayers and the Ten Commandments are banned, where evolution instead of creation is taught, where sex education is offered, and where their children may be exposed to drugs and violence...
...But if I claim the right to impose my belief on others by law, then others have the right to impose their beliefs by law on me—including their racial, religious, and military beliefs about whom I can marry, what I can read, and where I must make war...
...There are built-in controls, though, so no one gives more time than he or she can comfortably afford...
...Peg Hausman Providence, Rhode Island Sentenced Is there any, any excuse for the long sentences in Jean Bethke Elshtain's "Hard Times for the American Family" (May issue...
Vol. 45 • June 1981 • No. 6
