File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2001/postcolonial.0108, message 29


From: "Brian Drake" <thedrake000-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: redirect the tax refund
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 14:16:44 




1.  Its not your money.  That money belongs to US Federal Government (USFG). 
  This "rebate" is a payoff to buy your vote for Shrub, Jr. in the 2004 
election.  This money was earmarked for spending on societal welfare 
programs (health care, welfare, etc.), if anyone "owns" the money then it is 
those who make $15,000 or less.

2.  In two years that money will be taxed back out of you and your family.  
Multiply $300.00 by 250 million (the rough estimate of the US tax paying 
population), that's how much money the USFG is loaning to you before they 
take it back.

3.  The position you are exposing is morally repugnant.  When people discuss 
personal responsibility and personal need, they often forget that there are 
people in this world that would like to have the opportunity to be 
responsible, to not be dependent on the USFG, to eat three meals a day, to 
go to a *public* school (let alone a private school), to drink water that 
isn't poisioned by lead pipes, and many other simple dreams.  The rhetorical 
approach of couching you and your husband's "hard work" in Objectivist terms 
denies that people in need do not also labor and that your work in some way 
is more valuable than another's.  The janitor who cleans the operating room 
has the same responsiblity to the patient as the surgen who performs the 
operation.  If either does not do their job well, the patient will die from 
an infection or medical error, yet their pay is vastly different.

The next time you're spending your hard earned dollars when you eat at a 
resturant with your family and the waiter/waitress brings your meal, think 
about the people in the world who have to rumage through garbage to find 
food, then come talk to people on this list-serve about need and suffering.  
I highly reccomend the book The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon.  He 
writes the following on page 96:

"Today, national independence and the growth of national feelings in 
underdeveloped regions take on totally new aspects.  In these regions, with 
the exception of certain spectacular advances, the different counties show 
the same absence of infrastructure.  The mass of the people struggle against 
the same poverty, flounder about making the same gestures and with their 
shrunken bellies outline what has been called the geography of hunger.  It 
is an underdeveloped world, a world inhuman in its poverty; but also it is a 
world without doctors, without engineers, and without administrators.  
Confronting this world, the European nations sprawl, ostentatiously opulent. 
  This European opulence is literally scandalous, for it has been founded on 
slavery, it has been nourished with the blood of slaves and it comes 
directly from the soil and from the subsoil of that underdeveloped world.  
The well-being and the progress of Europe have been built up with the sweat 
and the dead bodies of Negroes, Arabs, Indians, and the yellow races."

Why not send this letter to people who make $150,000.00 or more?  Because we 
are all responsible for the destruction of our sisters and brothers.  Fanon 
is speaking to the attitude of throwing our hands in the air and saying, 
"I've got my own problems, I can't worry about 'those people.'"  This 
"rebate" is a divide and conquer strategy to make us feel good about our 
position in society.  The fact that certain people don't "qualify" means 
that there is a classist division in the nature of the "rebate."  To uphold 
this unjust approach is to continue the spiral of starvation and inequality.

I await the defense of your position.

Yours,

Brian Drake
Master's Degree Candidate
Security Studies Program
Georgetown University


>From: "Huete, Rosalia" <RHuete-AT-chla.usc.edu>
>Reply-To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>To: "'postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu'" 
><postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
>Subject: RE: redirect the tax refund
>Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 09:19:45 -0700
>
>Roxanita-  I don't know if you thought you were sending this to your dad or
>to me but here's what I think:
>
>The professor's ideas are wonderful and for those who don't need the money,
>I'm sure it would be great- however-as far as I'm concerned, I already feel
>that too much of my salary is going to taxes and I'm already paying for
>educations that my own kids aren't even using since they attend private
>schools- I'm already paying for meal plans in the schools, welfare people,
>etc, etc.  I have financial responsibilities that I can only meet by me and
>my husband's hard work.  No one is giving me a free ride.
>
>As far as helping poor countries- yes, of course I agree- I myself come 
>from
>a third world country-  Why not send this letter to folks who make 
>$150,000-
>and over?
>
>
>
>
>Rosalia Huete
>Revenue Manager
>Orthopaedic Center
>UCMG/CHLA
>(323)669-4153
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: lewiss-AT-cofc.edu [mailto:lewiss-AT-cofc.edu]
>Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 6:36 AM
>To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Cc: LEWISS-AT-cofc.edu
>Subject: redirect the tax refund
>
>
>Within the next few weeks many of us on this list will be receiving up to
>$600 as a tax refund from the US gov't. There is probably a fairly large
>majority of that many that feels awkward about getting money back when
>poor US taxpayers aren't getting anything at all, when we believe that
>federal and state government should be supporting education, health,
>social security, etc. more  rather than less, and when we recognize how
>far all those millions of checks could go if applied to aid to poorer
>countries.  So, feeble though the gesture might be, I suggest that those
>of us fortunate enough to be receiving tax refunds should redirect the
>money to the programs that we believe tax should support; pass on the
>largesse to the non-profit organization, school, college, political
>pressure group, or charity of your choice. Maybe send your Congress
>representative a letter explaining how you've divvied up the payment and
>why. It won't solve anything, perhaps, but it's something, and, as the
>KiSwahili proverb has it, drop by drop, the bucket fills.
>Simon
>
>Simon Lewis
>Assistant Professor of English
>Editor--Illuminations: An International Magazine of Contemporary Writing
>http://www.cofc.edu/Illuminations
>
>Department of English
>College of Charleston
>66 George Street
>Charleston SC, 29424-0001
>
>Tel: 843-953-1993; Fax: 843-953-3180
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
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