When I find myself wishing this I recognize with sorrow and rage how far the current political reality has pushed me. Me: someone who never believed electoral politics, as they operate here and now, could begin to hold the answers to people’s real needs. Desperate times make for desperate wishes.
Soon it became apparent that this was the famous $300 per taxpayer so grandly publicized last year by Bush and company. The president’s ‘gift’ to the American people. A gift that would enable us all to spend, consume, do our part to remedy the failing economy. Those who so proudly announced this gift went so far as to tell us how it would be paid for. In return they expected gratitude, patriotism, and ever more favorable ratings.
The letter explained that as I had failed to declare this $300 income, my refund would be $300 less than I had noted on my return. Additionally, IRS would send my refund check sometime in the next six weeks (thereby earning six weeks’ worth of interest on my money, on income that was supposed to have been a gift!)
But many are producing articles of analysis of and protest against our government’s policy of war as a cure for war. And many others are speaking out about its equally dangerous war on our rights and freedoms here at home.