ojai news at The Ojai Post :: blog, newspaper, events in Ojai, California

Great question. Next step: how many taxpayers are there in Ojai, and how much was our average contribution towards the war?

That may be asking too much, literally, but thanks for making us think.

Well, I've contributed nothing. I know I'll take a mighty hit when I do have to pay, but I'd rather that money go to anything else but this administration. I won't pay taxes until this war is over, and I haven't since it began.

Anonymous #2, kudos to you. You must not work a job with a W-2 and tax withholding. If you are making any money at all, and people are reporting about you - 1099s and the like - when the bill comes it will likely be ugly.

For (most of) the rest of us, having paid taxes to this administration is just one of the ethical compromises we make in our daily lives, enabling the horrors of Bush. We are all less than American for having done so.

I think this is one reason why the news can, for example, track every last comment and wink of the primary season, while barely reporting the horrors of this war and crimes of this administration. At the end of the day, we are enabling the Bush regime. That is an uncomfortable truth, that doesn't sell in the headlines. All of the anti-war words and demonstrations in the world, all the letters to the editor, all the shout-outs to Congress, are basically hypocritical if at the same time, we are working a substantial portion of our working day to fund the Bush horror. Maybe the reason the mainstream media blows over this stuff is because at the end of the day, we collectively don't really want to know what's happening. We want to be spared for our own complicity.

(I bet evan could give us an exact figure of how may work days we spent on average funding the war in Ojai.)

For those interested in this topic, here are three links that talk about war tax resistance:

Southern California War Tax Resistance

DontBuyBushsWar.org

National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee

And in followup, in case there remains anyone who thinks this "war" is somehow OK (and that includes our Congressional Democrats who continue to abide it), who else saw the Washington Post piece last week about Bush's bombing of homes in Pakistan, killing "at least" nineteen innocents?

"In the predawn hours of Jan. 29, a CIA Predator aircraft flew in a slow arc above the Pakistani town of Mir Ali. The drone's operator, relying on information secretly passed to the CIA by local informants, clicked a computer mouse and sent the first of two Hellfire missiles hurtling toward a cluster of mud-brick buildings a few miles from the town center...

Officials say the incident was a model of how Washington often scores its rare victories these days in the fight against al-Qaeda inside Pakistan's national borders: It acts with assistance from well-paid sympathizers inside the country, but without getting the government's formal permission beforehand."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/18/AR2008021802500_pf.html

According to the article, "at least 13" civilians were killed. The action was unilateral, without permission or cooperation of Pakistan. Supposedly, we are to believe that the heretofore unheard of target individual - who was assassinated - was a "high value terrorist" and "Al Qaeda leader."

How is this action any different than the 9/11 attacks themselves?

Is it because the target was "mud brick buildings" instead of the Twin Towers? Because only "at least 13" innocents were killed instead of almost 3,000? Because it was missiles instead of airliners?

Or is it just because we bombed the buildings full of innocents, instead of Al Qaeda?

"War on Terror" indeed.

Anon 1:22, i went ahead and made your links live to give them a better chance of being clicked. i hope that's okay...

anonymouses 12:05 and 1:22, can you contact me? i think i need your help.

as for our average contribution, the NPP gives a general figure of $1,500 per American to fund this war. the only other data i can give you now is employment stats:

(the community names are links to the pdf documents containing 2000 demographic data)
Employed civilian population age 16 and over in:
Meiners Oaks - 1,872
Oak View - 2,039
Ojai City - 3,337

...equals 7,203 workers (note that this is in only three of the Valley's communities). even if they/we all were paying just the $1,500 each into this war so far, that's a grand total of $10,804,500 to date.
Valley-wide, i calculate $44,425,500 contributed based on total population (not tax-payer only).

It looks like Obama will get the nomination. If he does and if he wins the Presidency, something which also looks increasingly likely, I really hope he is what everyone hopes he is.

His first duty as the President is to the Constitution of the United States of America. He must undo the unitary executive and all of the laws and executive orders and signing statements that Bush has used to set it up. As a corollary to this paramount duty, he must prosecute the entire Bush administration for the multiple criminal acts they have engage in from treason to war crimes to fraud. These people cannot be allowed to go back to private life without consequences for their actions. Their acts cannot be countenanced by this country if it wishes to regain the rule of law and the Constitution.

Second, he has to end this occupation. Immediately. He also has to recast the Global War on Terror as a police problem not a war situation. Non-state sanctioned terrorism is a criminal problem not a problem that can be dealt with with war.

Third, he has to dismantle the corporatist power. Everything from NAFTA and globalized "free trade" to war profiteering and the huge "security industrial complex" that has been allowed to grow up around the ridiculously named Homeland Security Administration must go.

If this country is going to continue in the vein that the founders intended, the Constitution has to be restored. I really really hope Obama is up to the task.

Hope Nader doesn't dilute the Democratic vote ... again.

Thankfully, Bagdad improving.

http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17268&Itemid=1

#7: My thoughts exactly!

Sure, if you ignore stories like today's atrocity. Really, where else in the world are massive suicide bomber attacks considered normal? Iraq is a mess, and those who supported it do not deserve to be elected/re-elected/given the power to try and fix things. New leadership is what is called for.

Suicide bomber kills 40 in Iraq
Blast hits Shiite pilgrims on highway south of Baghdad; 60 wounded

When you have people that are willing to kill innocent people by blowing themselves up it not an easy thing to stop. They are also using retarded people with bombs strapped to themselves.

Anon 1:22. You can avoid taxes even with a W2 simply by raising the amount of people dependent on you. Of course this would mean you should actually give your money to those who are dependent (unless you perjure yourself).

I had a friend who put down something like 12 dependents arguing that there were 12 people in Colombia who relied on him financially (he was sincere and did give send money). This past year he decided he couldn't do that anymore so he simply wrote a letter to the IRS and said he was not paying taxes and gave the reasons. He isn't in jail yet and he works for a school district.

All the links you provided should help you with this quest but you can also check out Practical Tip #1 for controlling federal tax withholding.

Brian, the real question we could be asking is why are people willing to blow themselves up. It must come from a deep place of frustration and desperation to be pushed so far as to take ones own life. A truly sad circumstance that I hope never to find myself.

Another question may be how could we, as members of the human race, prevent this from happening in the future? It may be hard to change the circumstances in our current situation, but can definitely impact what happens in 10, 20, or 30 years from now by working for peace in the world, by working together internationally, and by eliminating poverty.

Good question ! why would a person blow themselves up and take 40 innocent people with them? Maybe if we look deep inside ourselves we will realize that it is our fault.

Brian, how are you defining "our" in your sentence? Do you mean all of humanity? If yes, then I suspect you are correct because we probably do play a role in these circumstances. If you mean just the United States, I think you are taking a rather narrow view.

There are many examples where we haven't done a very good job of taking care of each other. We (and mean this in the broadest sense of the word) build walls, design borders, enslave people, invade countries, conduct espionage, steal, take advantage of each other, etc.

My sense is that when we do these things, we are doing them to ourselves.

What I meant to say is that the reason this person blew himself up and 40 innocent people as well, is because of George Bush.

Brian, #16 shows more insight than you have exhibited in the past. I am guessing you believe yourself being sarcastic, or facetious.

If there had been no George Bush, would there have been a mind-bogglingly misguided and bungled Iraq invasion and occupation?

If there had been no occupation, would this person have blown himself up?

How many suicide bombers were there in Saddam's Iraq?

Like it or not, Bush is the "but-for" cause of this suicide bomber.

Bush is responsible for another reason. Nuremberg established an ethical principle as a legal one: When you commit the ultimate crime of an aggressive war, you are responsible for all the evil that follows.

Bush committed the ultimate crime. And as a result, he is not only the actual, "but-for" cause of the suicide bombers, but the person ethically, morally, and - according to Nuremberg - legally responsible for it.

You might prefer to coddle mass murderers. But most of the world understands the need to bring these kind of people to justice.

To follow up on Kenley's post #12:

If you claim too many dependents, when you file your return you just end up owing, right?

At that time, I suppose when you are supposed to cut the check, you refuse to pay.

The IRS is likely to make that a very painful reality for the person who does it. If you are thinking its tough to pay the mortgage and bills right now, see what it will be like when the IRS has come down on you like a ton of bricks.

What would be really powerful is if a mass movement of people coordinated their efforts and resisted together. If the 15 million that have show up at protests of this war were to coordinate tax resistance, the IRS would have a hell of a time dealing with it. A coordinating committee could have a coordinated legal defense with the capability to take on the IRS. Such a movement would also allow people to get alot of publicity, and make a larger case - potentially bringing more people along.

Mass, coordinated tax resistance is the route to real change. Cut the bastards off from the funds unless they can control themselves and refrain from spending it on unnecessary, misguided wars. This whole thing runs on the money. If the political class is made to realize there will not be any money if they spend it on war, that's when they will stop spending it on war.

I admire anyone who is resisting today, and worry about them too. As individuals, they stand to lose everything. To be Thoreau in a jail cell is admirable, and perhaps it is morally and ethically necessary. But isn't there an alternative?

Perhaps a better solution is to follow what many of our best countrymen and countrywomen already are doing or have done: expatriating. If the only ethical choice here basically requires one to lose everything and go to jail, why not simply contribute one's talents to a society that does not require such a choice? In the end, isn't what we all really want just the opportunity to lead a reasonable life, raise our children, and contribute our talents in a way that makes the world a better place for our having been here? If that opportunity is no longer available in the present-day United States, perhaps the real ethical choice is to leave this place to the dustbin.

The question: Where would one go?

anonymous #18, the kind of mass resistance you're talking about is precisely the goal of the Don't Buy Bush's War campaign, linked above and here.

Comment #18 & #7,

I'm not quit ready to give up the fight. This is my country and I want to see it restored to the Constitutional government it was meant to be. That said, I'm glad Nader is running. If I don't hear that the Democratic nominee intends to right the wrongs of this administration and eliminate the treasonous unitary executive, I might just end up voting for Ralph yet again. The candidates need to know they work for us and that contingent on the oath they take to support and defend the constitution. Fascist conditions the Bush Administration has set up must be dismantled and the people who built it must be prosecuted.

Your vote for Nader in '00 put Bush in the White House.

Not unless he was living in Florida. And even then, you can't say it is entirely Ralph's fault (although I do see him as a "spoiler candidate").

Trixie, Beau, Green Eyes, Blue Moon, Princess Pricilla, Leo the Lion, Ginger and my two new potbellied pigs, New Rosie and Tilly...all think I should be able to claim them as dependents. If Uncle Sam gave me a "pet" deduction I could afford to adopt that three-legged dog that walks with a volunteer from the Humane Society. She says he has been waiting for a new home for about two years.

The constant myth put forward by the DLC Democrats that Nader cost Gore the election in 2000 is laughable. The myth serves the purpose that people like Rahm Emmanuel and the majority of the Democratic leadership intended it to serve. Namely to confuse people who should know better into forgetting the issues that Ralph has been trying to bring to the fore.

Gore listened to the DLC wing of the party and ran one of the worst campaigns in modern American politics. Simple as that. He didn't even win his home state because he took his handlers advice that he should stay away from real issues, like his signature issue of global warming and the environment. This basically left him with nothing to say and probably went a long way toward making him seem "wooden". But even with all the horrendous advice from the DLC/Clinton wing of the party, he still won the 2000 election. The only reason he wasn't inaugurated as President instead of Bush is because he gave up. That's right, he gave the fuck up. The unprecedented Supreme Court decision that stopped the recount in Florida was so narrow that it only pertained to the specific set of circumstances in that one case. All the campaign had to do was pick from a huge pile of other issues and go through the process again asking for the recount. The Florida Supreme Court would have said go ahead again and if the Bush campaign pushed it to the US Supreme Court again, it's highly unlikely they would have taken it. They'd already stuck their necks out so far with that first ridiculous decision that they wouldn't have wanted to touch it with a ten foot pole. If they did overturn the will of the people again, well the Gore campaign could have started over with yet another issue until they allowed the votes to be counted.

The election in 2000 was Gore and his campaign strategists to lose and they lost it, simple as that. To wander around claiming that if Ralph didn't run Gore would have won is insulting and incorrect. It presupposes that the people who voted for Nader would have instead voted for Gore. That's just bad logic and it's false. Many of those people, probably most, would have joined the VAST majority of Americans who just don't vote at all. It's time to put this farce that Nader cost the Democrats the Presidency to rest.

We should be focusing on the exact same issues Nader has been talking about for years now. Corporatism in the United States and its unwarranted power over politics in our country. The occupation in Iraq is still going on largely because it is making many corporations billions of dollars. If it stops, the pig trough starts to run dry. Another reason the occupation is still going on is that the Democrats have allowed it to. That's right, they've FAILED to stop it and they could have stopped it. Don't let them lie to you and claim they didn't have a veto proof majority. They could have forced the Republicans to filibuster and forced Bush to veto them and they should have. Instead the DLC leadership took impeachment off the table and kowtowed to every wish of the administration. It's embarrassing. It's enough to make me wonder if the Democrats really want Iraq to stop. I'm supporting Obama and he has caused me to have some HOPE. I really really HOPE he's what everyone HOPEs he is. I really really HOPE that when he gets in he doesn't simply lets the people responsible for this war go on home like Bill Clinton did with Bush Sr. and Reagan.

Good comment, Sean, with plenty of food for thought...

thank you, Sean, for addressing and debunking the myth of third party spoilers. the only purpose it seems to serve is to reinforce the strangle-hold of the two-party (some would even say one-party) system we have, which by many accounts IS NOT WORKING. heaven forbid We The People have more than two choices, and "spoil" the great gig that the D&R Alliance has going.

nobody in the Power Parties ever seems concerned over the diminished choices presented to our government (that's us, the voters and non-voters), and why would they? it'd be competition, and we all know that it's not about issues or what's best for the country...it's about claiming to have ALL the answers, and winning. so it keeps the tiny parties tiny and leaves them continually scraping and clawing to get a foothold in the political scene. they're humored in early races by the media, but then once things get serious they mysteriously drop from the radar. even now as a registered Green i get a lot of "oh, how cute for you and your ideals...someday you'll grow up and be a Democrat" energy.

frankly, i believe that the two Power Parties have a responsibility to a multi-party system that presents voters with more and better choices, increases civic participation, and diversifies the dialogue. but i don't think we'll ever start having those how-do-we-improve-national-politics conversations if we keep squabbling over "the aisle" and distract ourselves with things like war.

Here comes McCain, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh et al.

So prepare. Remember that opportunity only comes to the prepared mind.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18722376/the_myth_of_the_surge

Anonymous #18 wrote with regards to expatriation: "The question: Where would one go?"

Very interesting question? I have been researching this on and off for over 20 years (Actually, since Bush Sr. made in into the White House). The problem is - it's not so easy. Unless you have quite a bit of money stashed away, own property in the desired country, have proof of health insurance, etc., it's not all that easy to live full time in most places. Forget about trying to work there unless you can fill a need that the country can't fill with their own domestic workers, are completely fluent in their language, and so forth. If you are lucky enough to have a "portable" job (working from your computer, for example) or CAN find work in another country, you still need to pay taxes to Uncle Sam (so much for emigrating to avoid paying taxes to support the crimes of the Bush Admin.) Actually, I think we are one of the only countries that taxes it's citizens when they make money abroad. So, what's left? Many wealthy people and a few conscientious objectors are giving up their citizenship (the former for tax purposes, the latter for obvious reasons). But that still begs the question - how does one support oneself in another country?

I personally plan to buy cheap property in Europe ("just in case") and for retirement purposes, but I just can't figure out how to sustain myself there sooner than that.

If anyone else has any pearls of wisdom, please share!!

Ooops, Anoymous. I meant to say "Very interesting question (Exclamation Point)".

LTOR-
"Cheap property in Europe"?
Where?

I suggest a few remote areas of Baja, or even mainland Mexico, assuming you like tacos and tequila

El:

I guess it's all relative. Properties in France (Brittany, Normandy, The Vendee, Champagne, etc. and basically all of the other places that AREN'T all that touristy or over-run by the Brits) are still relatively cheap. (Although, they were a lot cheaper before the dollar started to tank against the Euro!) But if you're looking for a place in The Languedoc, The Dordogne or Provence, etc. - good luck! Portugal, Spain, most parts of Eastern Europe (where more and more expats are heading to), Turkey - all cheaper places to consider. A riyad in Morocco can still be found on the cheap.

Mexico, yes. But watch out for Baja - they are leaseholds and not freeholds as I understand it. (The Mexican government doesn't allow foreigners to own land outright within a certain distance from their coastlines. Not sure if this affects all of Baja or not, but many foreigners have been screwed).

The thing that is of most concern to me is that the government is stable with a history of welcoming foreigners and protecting their property rights (so that would leave out many of the cheaper countries of South America for me - although a lot of Americans are heading for Argentina, Uraguay and Chile). Costa Rica, Panama, etc. are extremely popular places for Americans to expatriate to.

Got any special places in mainland Mexico??

THIS JUST IN:

NPP calculated the cost TO DATE:

Taxpayers in Ojai, California have paid $14.4 million for the Iraq War thus far. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:

5,923 People with Health Care OR
25,695 Homes with Renewable Electricity OR
268 Public Safety Officers OR
215 Music and Arts Teachers OR
2,215 Scholarships for University Students OR
1 New Elementary Schools OR
43 Affordable Housing Units OR
5,379 Children with Health Care OR
1,711 Head Start Places for Children OR
218 Elementary School Teachers OR
193 Port Container Inspectors

Iraq war 'caused slowdown in the US'

Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent | February 28, 2008

Full article at The Australian

THE Iraq war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush
administration predicted and was a central cause of the sub-prime banking crisis threatening the world economy, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The former World Bank vice-president yesterday said the war had, so far, cost the US something like $US3trillion ($3.3 trillion) compared with the $US50-$US60-billion predicted in 2003.

Australia also faced a real bill much greater than the $2.2billion in military spending reported last week by Australian Defence Force chief Angus Houston, Professor Stiglitz said, pointing to higher oil prices and other indirect costs of the wars.

Professor Stiglitz told the Chatham House think tank in London that the Bush White House was currently estimating the cost of the war at about $US500 billion, but that figure massively understated things such as the medical and welfare costs of US military servicemen.

The war was now the second-most expensive in US history after World War II and the second-longest after Vietnam, he said.

The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.

"The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," he said.

That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom, and the fallout was plunging the US economy into recession and saddling the next US president with the biggest budget deficit in history, he said.

Professor Stiglitz, an academic at the Columbia Business School and a former economic adviser to president Bill Clinton, said a further $US500 billion was going to be spent on the fighting in the next two years and that could have been used more effectively to improve the security and quality of life of Americans and the rest of the world.

The money being spent on the war each week would be enough to wipe out illiteracy around the world, he said.

Just a few days' funding would be enough to provide health insurance for US children who were not covered, he said.

The public had been encouraged by the White House to ignore the costs of the war because of the belief that the war would somehow pay for itself or be paid for by Iraqi oil or US allies.

"When the Bush administration went to war in Iraq it obviously didn't focus very much on the cost. Larry Lindsey, the chief economic adviser, said the cost was going to be between $US100billion and $US200 billion - and for that slight moment of quasi-honesty he was fired.

"(Then defence secretary Donald) Rumsfeld responded and said 'baloney', and the number the administration came up with was $US50 to $US60 billion. We have calculated that the cost was more like $US3 trillion.

"Three trillion is a very conservative number, the true costs are likely to be much larger than that."

...and from Common Dreams:
Nobel Laureate Estimates Wars’ Cost at More Than $3 Trillion
(with graphs and a link to his book!)

at this point, it isnt even Noa's money they're spending. it's her grandkids' grandkids' money. sick.