Chris Hedges’ Civil Disobedience
The Truthdig columnist writes in The Nation that he will not pay his taxes if the United States attacks Iran. Like Henry David Thoreau before him, Hedges will not help finance an immoral war. "I realize this is a desperate and perhaps futile gesture," he writes. "But an attack on Iran -- which appears increasingly likely before the coming presidential election -- will unleash a regional conflict of catastrophic proportions."
The Truthdig columnist writes in The Nation that he will not pay his taxes if the United States attacks Iran. Like Henry David Thoreau before him, Hedges will not help finance an immoral war. “I realize this is a desperate and perhaps futile gesture,” he writes. “But an attack on Iran — which appears increasingly likely before the coming presidential election — will unleash a regional conflict of catastrophic proportions.”
Read Chris Hedges’ Truthdig columns here.
WAIT BEFORE YOU GO...The Nation:
I will not pay my income tax if we go to war with Iran. I realize this is a desperate and perhaps futile gesture. But an attack on Iran–which appears increasingly likely before the coming presidential election–will unleash a regional conflict of catastrophic proportions. This war, and especially Iranian retaliatory strikes on American targets, will be used to silence domestic dissent and abolish what is left of our civil liberties. It will solidify the slow-motion coup d’état that has been under way since the 9/11 attacks. It could mean the death of the Republic.
Let us hope sanity prevails. But sanity is a rare commodity in a White House that has twisted Trotsky’s concept of permanent revolution into a policy of permanent war with nefarious aims–to intimidate and destroy all those classified as foreign opponents, to create permanent instability and fear and to strip citizens of their constitutional rights.
A war with Iran is doomed. It will be no more successful than the Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon in 2006, which failed to break Hezbollah and united most Lebanese behind that militant group. The Israeli bombing did not pacify 4 million Lebanese. What will happen when we begin to pound a country of 65 million people whose land mass is three times the size of France?
This year, the ground feels uncertain — facts are buried and those in power are working to keep them hidden. Now more than ever, independent journalism must go beneath the surface.
At Truthdig, we don’t just report what's happening — we investigate how and why. We follow the threads others leave behind and uncover the forces shaping our future.
Your tax-deductible donation fuels journalism that asks harder questions and digs where others won’t.
Don’t settle for surface-level coverage.
Unearth what matters. Help dig deeper.
Donate now.
Extinction Rebellion plans to “get in the room” with the elite and effect change on the climate crisis through well-planned street actions.
A group of British scientists and their supporters presses governments to tackle climate change and environmental crisis.
Ear to the Ground
Hundreds of activists were arrested for civil disobedience, but the movement was a source of purpose and hope for many of them.
Every day the foundations of our institutions decay more, but American society is emotionally unable to grasp the mortal danger that approaches.
This movement has nothing to do with left or right, Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal. It's all about right and wrong.
Civil rights leader Bob Moses warns today’s protest movements not to allow media celebrity and protest spectacles to take the place of organizing.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.