Dear Progressive Reader,

Today is April 15, which is normally known as “Tax Day.” This year income taxes are due on April 18 because Monday is being celebrated as the federal holiday for “Emancipation Day” in Washington, D.C. Tax Day is often a time when we think about how the federal government is spending our money. In December 2022, Congress authorized, and President Joe Biden signed a record military budget. According to Lindsay Koshgarian of the National Priorities Project, “This budget deal is shameful. It perpetuates the status quo, where domestic priorities never get equal footing with military spending. It’s unconscionable to keep throwing more money at Pentagon contractors when so many in this country are struggling needlessly.” The War Resisters League, each year, publishes a pie chart leaflet that illustrates graphically “Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes.”

This year the Global Campaign on Military Spending is holding three weeks of actions to raise awareness of these discrepancies in budget priorities. “We believe the response should be quite the opposite: we should drastically reduce military spending and invest in common & human security instead,” they say. As Professor Noam Chomsky notes in the latest issue of The Progressive, “The U.S. military and fossil fuel industries are drowning in profit, with great prospects for their missions of destruction many years ahead. For a small fraction of its colossal military budget, the United States is severely degrading the forces of a major military adversary. In the geopolitical dimension, Vladimir Putin’s criminal aggression [in Ukraine] handed the United States its fondest wish: driving Europe deeper into the U.S.-run NATO-based system.” One group that is working to actively oppose this funding of the military budget is the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee. As they chronicle on their website, resistance to the payment of war taxes has a long history, going back to at least 411 B.C.E. in Ancient Greece. In 2010 they released the film Death and Taxes, telling the stories of modern day war-tax resisters and their motivations.

There was a lot of news this week stemming from revelations about actions by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas that appear to have flown in the face of ethics rules and disclosure requirements. As cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates, “It all stinks to high heaven, is clearly unethical, and is damaging to the U.S. Supreme Court and the entire United States justice system.” But, unfortunately, as Bill Blum writes, “Although Thomas is a clear-cut candidate for impeachment or at the very least an investigation by the Senate Judiciary Committee . . . . The Republican Party of 2023 loves Clarence Thomas, and as long as it does, he isn’t going anywhere.”

Meanwhile, in Tennessee, Republican moves against two state lawmakers, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, seem to have backfired. As Tennessee State Senator London Lamar and former mayor of Ithaca, New York, Svante Myrick pen in an op-ed this week, “The Republican Party, today, is swimming against the current on climate change, voting rights, racial equity, reproductive freedom, LGBTQ+ rights, and, of course, gun safety. . . . The young lawmakers [are now] back, and behind them will be an entire cohort of passionate young progressives that are now fired up and galvanized.” Similarly, in Wisconsin, Tom Nelson explains, “Like any movement cast in cynicism, the Republican takeover of the battleground state has ultimately failed—setting the stage for progressive wins in 2024.” We must also not forget that the actions in the Tennessee State Legislature were occasioned by Republican silence and inaction following the tragic mass shooting in a school in Nashville. As writer Laura Jean Baker points out, “There are plenty of words. So let us never again say there aren’t any. Instead, we must say, ‘There are no more excuses. There are no prayers strong enough. There is no time left to delay.’ There are also, by the way, plenty of megaphones for dismantling the false decorum of the day.”

This week also marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the “Hollywood Blacklist," as Ed Rampell reports in an interview with the granddaughters of blacklisted screenwriter John Howard Lawson. As Andrea Lawson tells Rampell of her grandfather’s 1947 testimony before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, “[It was] so strong for democracy, what democracy is, and freedom of expression. When I listen to it, I get kind of emotional because it’s so strong. I’m really proud that he did that. . . . he really was so strong in his views and wanted to make serious changes to society, not just talk about it.” The events at three different museums in Los Angeles run through early-May.

On April 10, I introduced a screening of the new film Ithaka, about the imprisonment of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, which was hosted by The Progressive. The film was followed by a panel discussion featuring Assange’s father John Shipton, brother Gabriel Shipton, and journalist John Nichols. A recording of that panel is now available on YouTube at this link.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

P.S. - The new 2023 Hidden History of the United States calendar is now available. You can order one online.

P.P.S. – If you like this weekly newsletter, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you know someone who would like to subscribe to this free weekly email, please share this link: http://tiny.cc/ProgressiveNewsletter.

P.P.P.S. – If you don’t already subscribe to The Progressive in print or digital form, please consider doing so today. Also, if you have a friend or relative who you feel should hear from the many voices for progressive change within our pages, please consider giving a gift subscription.

P.P.P.S. – Thank you so much to everyone who has already donated to support The Progressive! We need you now more than ever. If you have not done so already, please take a moment to support hard-hitting, independent reporting on issues that matter to you. Your donation today will keep us on solid ground in 2023 and will help us continue to grow in the coming years. You can use the wallet envelope in the current issue of the magazine, or click on the “Donate” button below to join your fellow progressives in sustaining The Progressive as a voice for peace, social justice, and the common good.