Crossposting Tax Protest to Save Planet

CEO of Huntington-Ingalls, Mike Petters, Wants to Annihilate Income Tax (and all life on earth too) 2021. Acrylic on canvas board, 11 x 14"

Watching my rogue government act like spoiled rich babies infuriates me. Today I’m cross-posting this tax protest on several platforms. We must think collectively on these unpleasant things.

This is a touchy subject. I must be careful how I write else become a dot on the political spectrum. Where does “Clown Anarchist” fall anyway? Left or right? Few know that the origins of the terms “left” and “right” were born in the National Assembly during the French Revolution. Those who favored the monarchy sat to the right of the President (high clergy and nobles), while disgruntled lawyers and priests of the Ancien Régime sat on the left. As the revolution advanced, far ends on each side of the room had their heads lopped off until a weak center prevailed, and Napoleon marched in on his tip toes to take over.

Of course these political markers do not apply anymore, except among fools who tout a vaporous “pure” ideology with the presence of Crest® toothpaste in their lives. Try to get into an argument with someone who claims to be left or right. It’s like listening to a child’s proof of the existence of Santa Claus. Conversely, an ideology of the 18th century was like a giant wart hanging off the nostril of a typical bourgeois Frenchman. And if you dared insult that wart, a duel to the death might ensue. The ideology often meant life or death. Literally bread or no bread. Today, opposing political philosophies meet in a bar. One says “Rush Limbaugh”, the other “Michael Moore”. The former has handguns and 22" rims on his Ford 350, and the latter smokes pot. One is a bigot and the other guilty for being a bigot. Both are political ignoramuses and slave with less pride than serfs to pay for a mortgage, new car and spoiled kids picking out face filters on Instagram®. In matters of life and death, their realities are exactly the same. Their political differences are like choosing Crest® over Colgate®. They’re so tightly centered and weak that a revolutionary squirrel could rush in and subjugate them, paws down.

Imagine if the National Assembly stretched left and right, all the way around the world, and met to grab hands—that is my political philosophy. I go so left that I’m right, and vice-versa. It’s as human as I can be. It encompasses everyone. Yes, even those billions inhabiting unobtrusive continents. Like the devout in confession, I admit I have committed dirty modern left/right wing sins—sometimes I clean out the peanut butter jar with my bare fingers and recycle it, and sometimes I toss it in the garbage. However, unlike the fellas in the bar, who see enemies among members of groups they do not identify with, I imagine only one group, all human beings, connected by a circle of abandoned liberty. Talk about left and right politics is chimera if all individuals are not respected equally. And by equally, I mean exactly the same without diversion or division. Individual liberty can only exist with collective responsibility. Hence the political circle. Toothpaste doesn’t grow on trees. Yet there exist humans and human systems that expend a great deal of energy trying to get you to think otherwise.

Those people are my enemies. Easy to identify. Any person or institution holding power without consent. He or she has fallen off the human circle into the darkness, and from an illusory “outside”, tries to turn humanity like a knob in order to control it.

Federal tax season is my annual (mental) confrontation with a very small, yet god powerful influential group—the United States Military brass and their adjunct systems (ex., U.S. Congress, President and CEOs and boards of directors of weapons manufacturers). They are my mortal enemies. And it always sucks giving money to your enemies. Each spring I am confronted with a dissonance I am unable to muffle. This year it’s especially bad. To pay or not pay federal income tax to a rouge state harboring 3800 active nuclear warheads. Every March and April I rack my brain trying to come up with a sufficient protest to break into the consciences of the death wielders, but without success. Strength in numbers I have not! The majority of federal tax is taken out of my wife’s paycheck bi-monthly, leaving about a thousand dollars in arrears. To hold back those taxes “due” would just invite unwanted harassment and headaches to my wife (and separation papers to me). The last thing I want to do while saving the world is destroy my marriage.

Good news! This year I came up with a suitable protest.

Last January the United Nations passed a resolution banning nuclear weapons. How would we even know? It wasn’t front page news. TV media made no mention. I didn’t hear a single ecstatic joy or hallelujah. Why this total lack of response and sharing of the greatest news ever told to humankind?

The social psychologists have proven that individual and group behaviors can be steered and controlled. We have seen it in action on playgrounds and in North Korea. Popularity and propaganda easily influence populations. Of course it’s more quickly effective in autocracies with the help of precision night raids and baton bashings, though success has also come to republics and democracies who consistently (persistently) provide attractive media and entertainment. Around-the-clock perceived threats from outside boogeymen (via attractive media and entertainment) popularize ignorance of domestic groups and foreign societies.

What else can explain our quietude over the celebration of the passage of the U.N. ban on nuclear weapons? Knowing the total annihilation capabilities of nuclear warfare, how can there not be massive popular movements against its continued funding? Why aren’t we talking at our dinner tables about the only thing, barring a Texas-sized asteroid or the failure of gravity, that will end all life in a weekend? I mean just talking about it? How is it that the little children aren’t warned about the monsters in power, the psychopaths, the presidents, senators, congresspeople who would allow its own military to kill everything? Why didn’t our parents or their parents stop this psychosis in its tracks?

Three reasons I can come up with. ( I would love to hear more, please.)

The rogue nation of the United States “won” WWII with atomic weapons and became a superpower while threatening any nation with annihilation who questioned its supremacy. The Soviet Union soon followed.

Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience to authority.

Cognitive Dissonace Theory.

In the U.S., we are the Nazi Germany that ended a world war with an atomic bomb. In autumn 1945, 25 fearful old men in war rooms decided to expand and invest our (great) grandparent’s labor into nuclear weapons research, development, and testing, while young, surplus cannon fodder made babies all over Levittowns, America. Life continued and victorious generals and weapons manufacturers sought more advancements in death technology. Enter the self-imposed and official implementation of cognitive dissonance and obeyance to authority, followed by a new generation loving and trusting their parents to have done everything they possibly could to eradicate the greatest evil (which they most certainly did not). Then baby boomers had babies and the entrenchment was complete. Today kids look at their hair. And parents look at their hair. And the grandparents go to salons to get their hair done. The phenomenon that has taken place in 75 years is nothing short of miraculous. A high speed evolution to the Eloi species (H.G. Wells Time Machine).

And here we are in our repetition of apparent helplessness, bombarded by the trite and inane nearly every minute of our awake time, and not a single person you care about knows what a 300 kiloton explosion does to a Smithsonian Institution.

Of course it’s easier not to think about it. Whenever I do, I tend to juxtapose the glowing cheeks of my wife with the results of a four star general’s most recent prostate exam, and a flood of rage envelopes me. And then strangely, almost immediately, I feel a wave of guilt for thinking such off-scene thoughts. Am I out of step with reality? What’s wrong with me?

Oh boy. That’s some powerful social conditioning. How the hell did I get here, imagining that I am “off” because I don’t want some kill-hungry dried up old fart general threatening the lives of our grandchildren? Why can’t I even think straight about the most obvious evil in the universe?

The General and His Prostate 2021. Acrylic on canvas board, 11 x 14"

That is twisted guilt wrought by do-nothing time and the efforts of power-brokers with their propaganda apparatus. Not a single person connected to the existence of nuclear weapons should walk another minute on earth not under arrest. How could this be a debate one second longer?

For sake of argument and haste toward my mini-protest revelation, let’s assume we agree on everything. That you too think nuclear weapons are bad for the planet and want them eradicated immediately. But of course, like me, you’re a nation’s peon and powerless to sway the criminals in control.

What can we do about it nonviolently, for now?

My answer is to think on it. Please. Just try it. Use whatever methods work—logic, mindfulness, self Q & A, yoga. You’re gonna run into some difficulty. The mind control has been very effective. It’s dug in deep here. Uncomfortable feelings will arise. You will probably blame me for being such a downer. But if you can get through these exercises, and learn to nurture an acute disdain for the death-wielders, then it might be an indicator that it’s time to share these thoughts with someone very close to you. A spouse, mother, or child. However, they must love you enough to take on the exercise themselves. When mutual trust is gained and you sincerely believe that your loved ones also do not want to be vaporized (and can identify the guilty parties), then it’s time to share your concerns with a friend or friends out in the open.

I believe hope can begin after we overcome our fear of not fearing the only technology that will annihilate everything instantly. I think the path to life and death sanity is thinking sanely about life and death. Right now we’re collectively, murderously, cuckoo in the head. 75 year old realities can be eradicated. It happens every second of the day. People and elephants die. Nuclear weapons can too. It helps that they have been outlawed recently and the outlaws named. In our country, many are in government, self-stamping budgets and paychecks via our taxed labor. That must end. The existence of nuclear weapons is not set in stone, even if proof of their use is.

Enter my infinitesimal tax protest.

At this point in life, knowing what I have come to know, I would choose to live below the poverty line if it meant avoiding paying tax to the federal government. However, over the years, I have chosen to invest more in human relationships (marriage, parenting) rather than sanctioning my life to prove a point. Basically, I won’t leave my wife to try to convince others to dream my dreams. I have grandchildren I need to play with, not old pots I want to piss in.

So what can I do this year to protest the tax stolen to fund the end of life on earth?

For 2021 I’ve honed in on the illegal manufacture of a nuclear submarine. It costs 4.4 billion dollars, and will be the first in a line of 12 “new generation” Columbia Class Ballistic Missile submarines to be manufactured over the next ten years. It will have 16 missile tubes, each one housing a Trident II D5LE missile carrying 8 (475 kiloton) warheads. It is being built at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. Enough payload to turn every child and grandchild on earth into tiny flakes of strontium-90 floating around in what used to be called breathable air.

I want to take back the money stolen from us to fund the manufacture of an internationally outlawed WMD. First, I need to determine how much money is taken from our family to pay for the nuke sub.

Estimated 2021 U.S. tax revenues: $3.863 trillion
Cost of nuclear submarine: $4.4 billion
In order to simplify I rounded up to 4 trillion and 5 billion respectively. Smarter people on the Internet determined the following percentage of the total U.S. tax revenue used to pay for the submarine, which is .125%
Again, in order to simplify, I applied this percentage equally among all people who pay federal taxes and determined our families’ forced contribution.

7.5 cents.

I think my protest this year should involve taking time away from some high office secretary at Huntington Ingalls Industries® (Newport News Shipbuilding where the sub is to be built). 7.5 cents worth of time. I’ll print out this essay and mail it to the office of Mike Petters, president and CEO of Huntington Ingalls®. An office secretary will be forced to at least, open the letter and glance at it. Let’s say his company time is worth $35/hour, $.58/minute, or roughly a penny a second. Opening this letter and determining its waste of time will take from 5 - 10 seconds away from his potential productivity. And I’ll figuratively get back the money that was stolen from my family to pay for the end of the world.

If he actually reads the essay? Well then, it’s all too much gravy and protest well-received.

Office of Mike Petters
(Room 666 Hell)
Huntington Ingalls Industries Communications
4101 Washington Ave.
Newport News, VA 23607