Browse Topics
Government
On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. . . . I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was.
December 1983Saying No
An Interview With Dirk Spruyt
When we filed our 1981 return, we wrote a letter saying that we had a conscientious objection to the paying of money for the purpose of killing people and asked that portion to be refunded. The IRS audited us.
December 1983Gandhi’s Way To Peace
Most western students (I say most, not all), and interpreters of Mahatma Gandhi have understood him in a rather narrow sense. They have seen his non-violence, his Satyagraha and his pacifism in terms of war and resistance. They have ignored a very important section of his philosophy which is about the reconstruction of a peaceful society. War to him was only a by-product of our economic and political systems, a symptom of wrong relationships among human communities. There is no point in resisting war if we do not remove the causes of war.
May 1983Tuli Kupferberg
Cartoons
The article is available as a PDF only. Click here to download.
February 1982Excerpts From The Incompleat Folksinger
I guess in modern life you have to plan. But there’s such a thing as planning too much. There’s such a thing as planning too early. Here’s what jazz musicians can teach the politicians of the world: we must plan for improvisation.
May 1981New Age Politics: Healing Self And Society
Social action that is not based on a firm sense of self can only be based on guilt or rage — and guilt or rage do not allow us to see clearly; they render us, in fact, extremely susceptible to manipulation by demagogues.
April 1981No Safety
An Excerpt From Cover-Up: What You Are Not Supposed To Know About Nuclear Power
A massive dose, even a mid-range dose of radioactivity, the kind you’d get from a nuclear plant accident, is not necessary to produce cancer. “Routine” radioactive emissions will do it.
December 1980