Fair Use Blog

Here’s an important passage from Chapter 23 of In the Land of Invented Languages, Arika Okrent’s wonderful and engaging book on artificial languages, and the inventors and communities who create and practice them.

The story of invented languages has not been entirely a story of failure. While Wilkins’s project did not become a universal language of truth, he produced an extraordinary document, a snapshot of linguistic meaning in his culture and era–and paved the way for the thesaurus. Esperanto did not become an auxiliary language for the whole world, but it did become a real, living language, and in the small sphere of people who use it, it does seem to promote a general atmosphere of international understanding and respect. Blissymbolics found a way to be useful, despite the wishes and actions of its creator, and Loglan lives on today, despite not having fulfilled its scientific mission.

One could argue that the success of these languages is only accidental, and makes their inventors no less naive, or misguided, or presumptuous. Just because they produced something that turned out to have some value for someone doesn’t mean they deserve to be admired. We should admire them, however, for their raw diligence, not because hard work is a virtue in itself, but because they took their ideas about language as far as they could go and really put them to the test. Who hasn’t at one time or another casually suggested that we would be better off if words had more exact meanings? Or if people paid more attention to logic when they talked? How many have unthinkingly swooned at the magic of Chinese symbols or blamed acrimony between nations on language differences? We don’t take responsibility for these fleeting assumptions, and consequently we don’t suffer for them. The language inventors do, and consequently they did. If we pay attention to the successes and failures of the language inventors, we can learn their hard-earned lessons for free.

We can also gain a deeper appreciation for natural language and the messy qualities that give it so much flexibility and power, and that make it so much more than a simple communication device. The ambiguity and lack of precision allow it to serve as an instrument of thought formulation, of experimentation and discovery. We don’t have to know exactly what we mean before we speak; we can figure it out as we go along. Or not. We can talk just to talk, to be social, to feel connected, to participate. At the same time natural language still works as an instrument of thought transmission, one that can be made extremely precise and reliable when we need it to be, or left loose and sloppy when we can’t spare the time or effort.

When it is important that misunderstandings be avoided, we have access to the same mechanism that allowed Shirley McNaughton’s students to make use of the vague and imprecise Blissymbols, or that allows deaf people to improvise an international sign language–negotiation. We can ask questions, check for signs of confusion, repeat ourselves in multiple ways. More important, we have access to something that language inventors have typically disregarded or even disdained–mere conventional agreement, a shared culture in which definitions have been established by habit. It is convention that allows us to approach a Loglan level of precision in academic and scientific papers or legal documents. Of course to benefit from the precision you must be in on the conventional agreements on which those modes of communication depend. That’s why when specialists want to communicate with a general or lay audience–those who don’t know the conventions–they have to move back toward the techniques of negotiation: slowing down, answering questions, explaining terms, illustrating with examples. Convention is a faster, more efficient instrument of meaning transmission, but it comes with a cost. You have to learn the conventions. In the extreme cases this means a few years of graduate training or law school. In general it means getting experience with the way other speakers–of English, Spanish, Greenlandic Eskimo, or whatever language you’re interested in learning–use their words and phrases.

When language inventors try to bypass convention–to make a language that is self-explanatory or universal–they either make a less efficient communications tool, one that shifts too much of the burden to negotiation, like Blissymbolics, or take away too much flexibility by over-determining meaning, like Wilkins’s system did. When they try to take away culture, the place where linguistic conventions are made, they have to substitute something else–like the six-hundred-page book of rules that define Lojban, and that, to date, no human has been able to learn well enough to comfortably engage in the type of conversation that any second-semester language class should be able to handle.

There are types of communication, such as the language of music, that may allow us to access some kind of universal meaning or emotion, but give us no way to say, I left my purse in the car. There are unambiguous systems, such as computer programming languages, that allow us to instruct a machine to perform a certain task, but we must be so explicit about meanings we can normally trust to inference or common sense that it can take hours or days of programming work to achieve even the simplest results. Natural languages may be less universal than music and less precise than programming languages, but they are far more versatile, and useful in our everyday lives, than either.

Ambiguity, or fuzziness of meaning, is not a flaw of natural language but a feature that gives it flexibility and that, for whatever reason, suits our minds and the way we think. Likewise, the fact that languages depend on arbitrary convention or cultural habit is not a flaw but a feature that allows us to rein in the fuzziness by establishing agreed-upon meanings at different levels of precision. Language needs its flaws in order to do the enormous range of things we use it for.

–Arika Okrent (2009), In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers who Tried to Build a Perfect Language. ISBN 978-0-385-52788-0. 255-258.

Now available thanks to Shawn P. Wilbur at Contr'un:

The Humanisphere:

Anarchic Utopia

Joseph Déjacque

UTOPIA: "A dream not realized, but not unrealizable."


ANARCHY: "Absence of government."


Revolutions are conservations. (P. J. PROUDHON)


The only true revolutions are the revolutions of ideas. (JOUFFROY)


Let us make customs, and no longer make laws. (EMILE DE GIRARDIN)


So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty…. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.


For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (SAINT PAUL THE APOSTLE)

What is this Book!

This book is not a literary work, it is an infernal labor, the cry of a rebel slave.

Being, like the cabin boy of the Salamander, unable, in my individual weakness, to strike down all those who, on the ship of the legal order, dominate and mistreat me, when my day is done at the workshop, when my watch is finished on the bridge, I descend by night to the bottom of the hold, I take possession of my solitary corner and, there, with teeth and claws, like a rat in the shadows, I scratch and gnaw at the worm-eaten walls of the old society. By day, as well, I use my hours of unemployment, I arm myself with a pen like a borer, I dip it in bile for grease, and, little by little, I open a way, each day larger, to the flood of the new; I relentless perforate the hull of Civilization. I, a puny proletarian, on whom the crew, the horde of exploiters, daily inflict the torment of the aggravated misery of the ...

Read the whole thing at Contr'un.

Now available thanks to Shawn P. Wilbur at Two-Gun Mutualism & the Golden Rule:

Letter to the Associations on the Organization of Credit

[Conclusion; continued from Part I — Part II]

Revolutions cannot produce the well-being toward which the suffering classes aspire, they almost always serve as stepping stones for a few ambitious types to come to power.

And when they are achieved, they continue the habits of the past. They find no other means to combat poverty, when the sufferers grow weary and irritated, than the compression which provokes resistance and prepare new battles.

And when the sufferers resign themselves, alms, which adds moral degradation to poverty, and which is an outrage to human dignity.

It is because the rights of the disinherited are misunderstood that revolutions are providentially necessary; and, in that case, the justice of the people is the justice of God.

And it is the disagreement on the choice of means to combat poverty and constitute well-being which has caused reactions up to the present.

But social science had come to bring the light.

Socialism is the synthesis of all the social truths taught by the reformers.

The various schools differ in the means of organization, but, deep down, they all have the same basis: SOLIDARITY;

The same principal means: ORGANIZATION OF LABOR;

The same goal: WELL-BEING FOR ALL.

They differ on the degree of solidarity;

On the mode of organization;

On the nature and enlargement of well-being that suits the human being.

These differences manifest the wisdom of the ways of Providence, which intended that the teaching of social verities should simultaneously penetrate the various classes of society, in the forms most in harmony with their various needs and aspirations.

And the discussions that rise from these differences must cast light on the great questions of social economy.

But practice alone can give a certain solution to these ...

Read the whole thing at Two-Gun Mutualism & the Golden Rule.

Now available thanks to Shawn P. Wilbur at Two-Gun Mutualism & the Golden Rule:

Letter to the Associations on the Organization of Credit

[continued from Part I]

The circulation of these bills of credit assuring to each of the associations adhering to the mutual credit the business of all the other subscribing associations.

In order to form a mutual credit bureau, it is not necessary to form public gatherings. All that is required, to give the first impetus, is a few associations of various professions which have understood all the present advantages and all the possible results of this mode of credit.

The bills of credit should have a character of unity, and come from a common center, in order to give the mutual credit a more powerful guarantee, and to avoid making an emission of bills surpassing the resources of the credit.

But when two or three associations of different professions resolve to establish the mutual credit, and take the initiative to establish a credit bureau, no discussion will be necessary to lead the other associations: those who do not want to take part will not receive the bills, and they will await the results.

There will be nothing to discuss; it is not a question of a theory, but of a practical fact, and practical means are the best means of propaganda; the least fait accompli often has more value than an axiom.

The associations that wish to subscribe at the founding of the Bureau of Mutual Credit, will make a loan to that bureau, by subscribing an emission of bills of credit which cannot surpass the amount of consumption that they can make of the products and labors of the other adherent associations for three or six months.

That loan must be based on consumption, because it is an advance made in proportion to the consumptive needs of the lenders.

...

Read the whole thing at Two-Gun Mutualism & the Golden Rule.

Now available thanks to Shawn P. Wilbur at Contr'un:

The radical literature that any of us are actually familiar with always seems to be just a drop in the bucket. There are masses of largely ephemeral publications in every language, and all of the advances in digital archiving have only really begun to make any sort of dent in the work to be done. We can't ignore all that ephemera, unless we're content with a sort of abstract, top-down understanding of our traditions. After all, for every Proudhon, there were a dozen Greenes and Langlois, and for every one of them there were dozens of Junquas and Blackers, and for every one of them there were hundreds and thousands of rank-and-file radicals, many of them with ideas all their own. When we scour all the radical papers, we'll still only get a sample of the real history of the radical movements—but at least it will be a start.

In the meantime, a lot of the work to do involves relatively "big names" in radicalism. Some of that is, of course, translation. There's still a lot of work to do on Proudhon, and we've hardly started on his collaborators. We've also hardly started on his critics—and the literature of direct responses to Proudhon is huge by itself. This last weekend, while I was tabling the Portland Anarchist Bookfair, I dedicated my transit time to a pair of pamphlets debating the merits of Proudhon's work: "Histoire de M. Proudhon et de ses principes," by "Satan" and "Réponse à Satan au sujet de M. Proudhon" by "l'Archange Saint-Michel." "Satan" was apparently Georges-Marie Dairnvæll, the author of a number of other works, and the "Response" was published by the Société d'Education Mutuelle des Femmes, a group founded by Jeanne Deroin and Desirée Gay. I recently translated the manifesto ...

Read the whole thing at Contr'un.

Now available thanks to David Gross at Anarchoblogs in English:

23 October 2010

Wat Tyler is another name that frequently comes up when mention is made of English tax resisters of yore. From what I’ve been able to find out about the Tyler case, it seems to be more complicated than a case of tax resistance, though tax resistance seemed to play a part.

Here is chapter 38 from the Reverend John Adams’s 1813 textbook The Flowers of Modern History, telling one version of the Wat Tyler story:

Of the Insurrection occasioned by a Poll Tax, A.D. 1379.

In the reign of Richard, II. a poll tax was passed at twelve pence per head, on all above the age of sixteen. This being levied with severity, caused an insurrection in Kent and Essex.

A Blacksmith, well known by the name of Wat Tyler, was the first who excited the people to arms. The tax-gatherers coming to this man’s house, while he was at work, demanded payment for his daughter, which he refused, alledging that she was in the age mentioned in the act. One of the brutal collectors insisted on her being a full grown woman; and immediately attempted giving a very indecent proof of his assertion. This provoked the father to such a degree, that he instantly struck him dead with a blow of his hammer. The standers by applauded his spirit; and, one and all, resolved to defend his conduct. He was considered as a champion in the cause, and appointed the leader and spokesman of the people.

It is easy to imagine the disorders committed by this tumultuous rabble. The whole neighborhood rose in arms. They burnt and plundered wherever they came, and revenged upon their former masters, all those insults which they had long sustained with impunity.

As the discontent was general, the insurgents ...

Read the whole thing at Anarchoblogs in English.

Now available thanks to Shawn P. Wilbur at Two-Gun Mutualism & the Golden Rule:

[Note: For some general thoughts on The Theory of Property, see "property must justify itself or disappear"]

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, The Theory of Property, Chapter VI: "The New Theory" (1865)

New theory: that the motives, and thus the legitimacy of property, must be sought, not in its principle or origin, but in its aims. Presentation of these motives.

Philosophy has had, for three centuries, many institutions and many beliefs: will it be the same for property? If my opinion is of any weight here, I dare to respond that it will not. Jurisprudence has not grasped thus far the causes or the reasons for property, because property, as it has come to reveal itself to us in its principle and in its history, is a fact of collective spontaneity of which nothing would have been able a priori to detect the spirit and the reason; because, on the other hand, it is still in the process of formation, and in this regard experience is incomplete; because, until the last few years, philosophical doubt has struck it only timidly, and because it is necessary, beforehand, to destroy its religion; because in this moment it appears to us rather as a revolutionary force than as an inspiration of universal conscience, and that if it has reversed many despotisms, overcame many aristocracies, one cannot finally say that it has founded anything at all.

The moment has come when property must justify itself or disappear: if I have obtained, these last ten years, some success for the critique that I have made of it, I hope that the reader will not show themselves less favorable today to this exegesis.

I will first observe that if we want to be successful in our research, it is completely necessary that we abandon the road where our predecessors became lost. In order to make sense of property, they returned to the origins; they scrutinized and analyzed the principle; they invoked the needs of personality and the rights of labor, and appealed to the sovereignty of the legislator. That was to place oneself on the terrain of possession. We have seen in Chapter IV, in the summary critique that we have made of all the controversies, into what paralogisms the authors were thrown. Only skepticism could be the fruit of their efforts; and skepticism is today the only serious opinion which exists on the subject of property. It is necessary to change methods. It is neither in its principle and its origins, nor in its materials that we must seek the reason of property; in all those regards, property, I repeat, has nothing more to offer us than possession; it is in its AIMS.

But how to discover the purpose of an institution of which one has declared it useless to examine the principle, the origin and the material? Is it not, to lightheartedly pose an insoluble problem? Property, indeed, is absolute, unconditional, jus utendi et abutendi, or it is nothing. Now, who says absolute, says indefinable, says a thing which one can recognize neither by its limits nor its conditions, neither by its material, nor by the date of its appearance. To seek the aims of property in what we can know of it beginnings, of the animating principle on which it rests, of the circumstances under which it manifests itself, that would be always to go in circles, and to disappear into contradiction. We cannot even bring to testimony the services that it is supposed to render, since those services are none other than those of possession itself; because we only know them imperfectly; because nothing proves besides that we cannot obtain for ourselves the same guarantees, and still better ones, by other means.

Here again, and for the second time, I say that it is necessary to change methods and to start ourselves on an unknown road. The only thing that we can know clearly about property, and by which we can distinguish it from possession, is that it is absolute abusive; Very well! It is in its absolutism, in its abuses that we must seek the aim.

Do not let these odious names of abuse and absolutism, dear reader, frighten you unnecessarily. It is not a question of legitimating what your incorruptible conscience condemns, nor or misleading your own reason in the transcendental regions. This is an affair of pure logic, and since the Collective Reason, the sovereign of us all, is not at all frightened of proprietary absolutism, why should it scandalize you any more? Should we be ashamed, perhaps, of ourselves? Certain minds, from an excess of puritanism, or perhaps a feebleness of comprehension, have posed individualism as the antithesis of revolutionary thought: it was simply to drive the citizen and man from the republic. Let us be less timid. Nature has made man individual, which means rebellious; society in its turn, doubtless in order not to remain at rest, has instituted property; in order to achieve the triad, since, according to Pierre Leroux, every truth is manifested in three terms, man, rebellious and egoistic subject, has dedicated himself to all the fantasies of his free will. It is with these three great enemies, Revolt, Egoism and Good Pleasure that we must live; it is on their shoulders, as on the back of three caryatids, that we will raise the temple of Justice.

All the abuses of which property can make itself guilty, and they are as numerous as profound, can be reduced to three categories, according to the point of view from which one considers property: political abuses, economic abuses, moral abuses. We will examine one after another these different categories of abuse, and, concluding à mesure, we will deduce the AIMS of property, in other words its function and social destiny.

[section 2] 

[translation by Shawn P. Wilbur]

Read the whole thing at Two-Gun Mutualism & the Golden Rule.

Now available thanks to David Gross at Anarchoblogs in English:

15 October 2010

From the 15 October 1910 issue of The Vote come these reports of speeches given at a mass meeting in Trafalgar Square:

Mrs. Cobden Sanderson.

In the course of a well-reasoned speech, Mrs. Cobden-Sanderson said: We live in revolutionary times. The will of the people must prevail. The Portuguese Royal Family fell because it did not consider this. Berlin has also revolted, and the revolt there would have been more sanguinary had it not been for women, who placed themselves in the front — themselves and their children — and it takes much self-sacrifice to sacrifice your child. Here the women are also in revolt against the social and economical condition of things, for similar grievances prevail here to those which prevail in Tariff Reform Germany.

Mr. Lloyd George will be attacked more severely. Hitherto he has had some unpleasant moments; now we are going to attack his pocket. We are going to have our say in the spending of twelve millions on Dreadnoughts, and also on the reform of Poor Law system. I am a Poor Law guardian, but I am almost ashamed to own it, for I find the whole system of Poor Law administration is rotten to the core, and I work harder as such than in presenting petitions at Downing Street.

Our next move is to pay no taxes. It is the most direct and unanswerable method. If we are not good enough to vote, we are not good enough to pay. No vote, no tax. Those little income-tax forms, Form IV. or VI., or some other number, will be just thrown into the basket and not returned. Everyone who perhaps has not an income to be taxed can have a dog, and then refuse to pay tax.

We all at the ...

Read the whole thing at Anarchoblogs in English.

Now available thanks to David Gross at Anarchoblogs in English:

14 October 2010

Remember good ’ol J. Bracken Lee? Governor of Utah in the 1950s? Decided to stop paying his federal income tax because he thought the Feds were unconstitutionally spending good American taxpayer dollars on foreign projects of various sorts?

From the 14 October 1955 Sarasota Journal:

Letters Pour In Backing Governor’s Tax Stand

By Frank Wetzel

Salt Lake City (AP) — The post card from Monroe, La. to Gov. J. Bracken Lee reads:

“Two, four, six, hut—

“We want a tax cut—

“Seven, eight, nine, ten—

“We want to know when—

“We don’t want no hem or haw—

“We’re for the governor of Utah.”

The Louisiana doggerel was among more than 500 letters and cards piled across the desk today of Harold W. Simpson, Lee’s administrative assistant. Lee is a Republican.

Simpson said all but four letters praised Lee’s statement he will not pay all his income tax next year, hoping to prod the government into a suit in which he can challenge the constitutionality of using income tax funds for foreign aid.

“These letters would surprise a lot of politicians,” said Simpson. “Judging from them, I believe a nationwide referendum would go against continuing foreign aid.”

Utah Democrats have blasted Lee’s proposal. They asked the governor to either retract or resign. Lee refused to do either. State Republicans have said “No comment.”

Challenged Two

Lee’s assistant said 90 per cent of the letters came from outside Utah. Of the four opposing Lee’s stand, Simpson challenged two. He said they appeared to come from the same typewriter, although different names were typed a[t] the bottom. Both were postmarked Los Angeles.

One congratulatory message came from Vivien Kellems, a Stonington, Conn., manufacturer who in 1948 stopped withholding income taxes from employes of her cable grip firm. She contended the government couldn’t make her serve as an unpaid tax collector. The government seized $7,819 in penalties from her firm’s bank accounts, but Miss Kellems and her brother David sued and got most of that amount back.

Other letters offered to help. Several included small amounts of money to help finance Lee’s battle.

Lee declared last week he would withhold his income tax on a portion of his salary. “I shall put my tax in the bank here in Salt Lake City,” he said. “Not a dollar of it will they get until legality of this case is tested in the United States Supreme Court.”

Samples from other letters:

Boulder, Colo. — “Good for you — both for having the courage to stand up to this tax-despotic government of ours and its paid press, and for BEING RIGHT.”

Santa Ana, Calif. — “When a man of your stature comes out as you have on such a vital issue it rekindles the hopes of the American people that all is not lost and that there is still a chance.”

Houston — “I doubt if you can muster much support — the people are just too ignorant of what is going on to be impressed, but I urge you to carry on.”

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From the 14 October 1911 issue of The Vote:

Holloway: Woman's “Polling Booth.”

“We began with a Mud March; I wonder whether we shall end with one!” So said a marcher last Saturday afternoon; the relentless rain and the merciless mud gave point to the observation. Neither rain nor mud deterred the women from their protest procession long ago, nor did they have any daunting effect on Saturday in the march from Kingsway to Holloway. The change in attitude of the onlookers was extraordinary and emphasises the educative influence of such demonstrations. No word of scorn or ridicule was heard on Saturday; such words have passed; little but amazement remained, amazement at the courage shown in trying weather conditions.

Truly it was a brave show. Bands and banners lend splendid aid on such occasions, but the gratifying sight was to see the solidarity and co-operation of many societies. The Women's Tax Resistance League led the way, and were followed by the Women's Social and Political Union, the Women's Freedom League, the New Constitutional Society, and Actresses' League, the Fabian Women's Group, and, finally, the men's societies; the Men's League for Women's Suffrage, the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement, and the Men's Committee for Justice to Women. Faithful friends these, whose help is always available, and one could not help noticing that some of the men were bringing up their small sons in the way they should go! Let us hope that the boys will not have to do much more marching for the Suffrage Cause!

An hour of it! Who can describe the determination and courage needed? But we arrived, and in a very few minutes the chairman, Miss Christabel Pankhurst, was in her place on the cart, surrounded by the speakers. One's eyes were rivetted by the sight of the tall, self-possessed lady, quiet and undemonstrative, who scarcely twenty-four hours before had been inside those prison walls. The singing and the enthusiasm were to reach her in her cell, but the action of the authorities in releasing Miss Housman enabled her to be the seen instead of the unseen centre of the demonstration. Her words, too, carried great weight. Humorously she contrasted the treatment of men voters and of voteless women: agents to do everything for the men, motors to take them to the polling booth. Turning to the prison, Miss Housman exclaimed dramatically, “Holloway is woman's polling booth; it is there that I have been able to register my vote against a Government that taxes me without representation.” Only words of courtesy were heard concerning all the officials with whom Miss Housman had come into contact, and she was cheered to the echo when she declared that, glad as she was to be outside Holloway, she was ready to go back again to win the fight for the recognition of woman's citizenship. “If that great act of justice, the Conciliation Bill, fails to carry next year, there will be not merely one but hundreds of women in prison to make the nation realise that justice is not being done.” Thus spoke Mr. Laurence Housman, whose pride in his sister's devotion to the woman's Cause was shared by those who listened. Women were only doing what men had gloried in doing in times past, he added, they were struggling for constitutional liberties; women, too, had caught the spirit of democracy. Mrs. Despard, heedless of the drenching rain, made an appeal which touched the hearts of all who heard it; she rejoiced in the victory won by Miss Housman's courageous act of self-sacrifice, and said that tax resistance was drawing women together in a bond as strong as death. She laughed to scorn the idea that men had all the chivalry and clear-sightedness, women the tenderness and self-sacrifice; neither sex had a monopoly of these qualities, but she looked for the coming of the new day when man and woman should stand side by side as equals. Miss Adeline Bourne, speaking for the actresses, amused the audience by insisting that if women united in a protest such as Miss Housman had made, the Government would be powerless to deal with them. Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, who succeeded Miss Pankhurst in the chair as soon as the resolution had been moved, gave some remarkable facts as to the predicament of the officials with regard to women tax resisters; amazing differences of treatment were recorded for the same offence, as also the practical sympathy of some who have to carry out a disagreeable duty towards women resisters.

The resolution, which was passed unanimously and with enthusiasm, ran as follows:

That this meeting, held at the gates of Holloway Gaol, congratulates Miss Clemence Housman on her refusal to pay Crown taxes without representation, a reassertion of that principle upon which our forefathers won the constitutional liberties which Englishmen now enjoy, and also upon the successful outcome of her protest. It condemns the Government's action in ordering her arrest and imprisonment as a violation of the spirit of the Constitution and of representative government; and it calls upon the Government to give votes to women before again demanding from Miss Housman or any other woman-taxpayer the payment of taxes.

Miss Housman's communication to the Home Secretary, asking for information as to a definite term of imprisonment, contains so able a statement of her point of view that it should be widely known. It runs thus:—

That she has resolved to abide by the conditions by law appointed for a woman who, lacking representation, has personally fulfilled a duty — moral, social, and constitutional — by refusing to pay taxes into irresponsible hands. But, while willing to satisfy the requirements of the law at the expense of her personal liberty to any extent, she learns that no limit has been set to these claims either by statute or by judgment, and she believes that it rests with his Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department to rectify what she feels to be a grievance not intended in such a case as hers. She begs, therefore, that he will be so good as to define her term of imprisonment, and she desires this not on personal grounds only, but that, thereby, the comparative cost and value of a woman's liberty and a man's vote may be officially recorded for the understanding of others, women and men.

Also from the same issue:

A large and enthusiastic crowd listened in Hyde Park on Sunday morning to Mrs. Clarkson Swann, who explained fully the Conciliation Bill now before Parliament, and to Mrs. Emma Sproson, who has recently served six weeks in Stafford Jail for non-payment of her dog-tax.…

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9 October 2010

Last month I shared an Associated Press dispatch from 1978 about a then-upcoming meeting of Quakers, Brethren, and Mennonites who were planning to coordinate war tax resistance. Today, an article reporting on how the conference went, from the 9 October 1978 Milwaukee Sentinel:

Sects Urge Tax Protest for Peace

Green Lake, Wis. — A national meeting of “historic peace churches” — Quakers, Mennonites and Brethren — agreed Sunday to support those who refuse to pay “the military portion” of their federal taxes.

The possibly illegal “war tax resistance” position is a giant step for many in the churches from the passive refusal to bear arms and turning the other cheek.

Statements such as “we are praying for peace but paying for war” prodded the more than 300 delegates at a New Call to Peacemaking conference to back what advocates called an economic moral equivalent to military conscientious objection.

The lengthy statement also urged total disarmament after arms reduction, formation of a peace church delegation to President Carter, establishment of a world peace tax fund and simpler lifestyles.

It is not binding on the 350,000 members of the churches in the US or the nearly one million members worldwide.

The four day conference at the American Baptist Assembly here followed 26 regional meetings with participation by more than 1,500 Quakers, Mennonites and Brethren.

The joint meetings in themselves were a new ecumenical venture in breaking stereotypes. It was the first time in recent years representatives of the churches had met in such a conference.

The national conference challenged congregations and church agencies to consider refusing to pay the military portion of their federal taxes, generally thought to be about half, as a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship.

It also asked them to “uphold war tax resistors with spiritual, emotional, legal and material support,” and to consider requests of employees who ask that their taxes not be withheld.

As I mentioned last month, the “New Call to Peacemaking” isn’t so new anymore — but it’s still active, as is its sister project Every Church a Peace Church. I think the new $10.40 for Peace campaign may also spring from these roots.

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You are viewing this feed through the Anarchoblogs aggregator, a hub for blogs by self-identified anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists, anarcha-feminists, anarchists without adjectives, libertarian-socialists, autonomists and other assorted anti-statists. Anarchoblogs relies on your support to stay running. We're doing a fundraising drive for the months of October and November. Donations cover the costs of running anarchoblogs.org and provide direct financial support to active Anarchoblogs contributors. See Anarchoblogs: Donate for details.

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