British pensioner shows you the way

[jmatthan]

"Very often people have had to take this drastic action to get bad laws changed."

This was the cry of a 73 year old British lady pensioner who goes to jail for failing to pay £53.71 as council tax.
"Tax protest pensioner facing jail" is the story in today's BBC.

How many Americans are prepared to do this to bring all the unjust laws passed by your Congress and Senate in your country which affects people all around the world?

Do I need to answer this question?

[spuddonna]

1. Can you help me understand more about this?

What exactly is the council tax? Is it the equavalent of our income tax?

Just trying to understand... :)

[evermind]

2. It's a local government tax

It's paid at a fixed (non-income-dependent) rate set by the local "council" to one of so many bands according to the value of the property you live in.

The money pays for services funded by the local councils (and the subsidy to councillors' friends' excessively expensive contractors, often ;-) )

[jmatthan]

3. That is not the point I am making

What I am pointing out is that a 73 year old lady is prepared to go to jail, and is actually now in jail, to make the Government change something.

That was what Gandhi did with his protest against the Salt tax. That was how Nelson mandela got freedom for the blacks and asians of South Africa.

If you want to obtain Democracy in the US (my opinion is that you have already lost it) you will have to resort to some steps which directly challenges the present Republican (illegal) control of all branches of your administration and running of the country.

The appointment of Judge John Roberts is one more nail in your coffin. We in the world are seeing a blind and handcuffed American people being led to the slaughter house and they seem totally indolent to do anything about it.

Can you imagine how it must have been for Iraqis under Saddam - and now it is the US citizenry under Bush. You are being murdered by the hour and you do absolutely NOTHING about it.

[spuddonna]

4. No, I get it! Using civil disobedience to fight the system...

But I'm just thinking that here in the US the penalties for income tax evasion are really much stiffer than a simple civil disobedience charge.

I totally agree. We need more civil disobedience. I think you will see more and more of that... People want change NOW, not 3 yrs from now.

I just read that Cindy Sheehan may have been arrested. The first salvo's of this new movement may have been fired...