In article <telecom24.78.4@telecom-digest.org>, ptownson@telecom-
digest.org says:
> Some folks are not aware of it, but you _can_ withhold (refuse to pay)
> that federal tax which is added to your phone bill each month, and the
> telephone company _cannot_ disconnect your service. Let's say for
> example, you have personal grievances or problems with President
> Bush's Religious War against Islam in Iraq, or his pending (soon to
> start almost any day) attack against Iran for similar bogus reasons.
But, Pat, I thought that the federal excise tax on telephone service was
being used for it's original purpose -- to pay for expenses related to
the Spanish-American War. After all, Puerto Rico is kind of high
maintenance.
Michael Chance
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, but the Spanish-American War also
included Cuba, did it not? And Guantanomo is a very high maintainence
cost for the government these days. I mean, consider all the costs to
the government as it fights with that 'run away, vast liberal conspiracy
known as the Supreme Court which is always telling us that the
prisoners being tortured there have certain legal rights also, human
rights and all that rot. And when our brave and courageous president
fights the court for the right to continue practicing -- err, oops, I
mean 'authorizing' -- he would not get his own hands dirty -- the
degrading practices employed on the prisoners there daily, including
but by no means limited to throwing the Koran in the buckets used as
toilets by prisoners; practicing humiliation and sexual sadism on the
inmates, making large numbers of them stay totally naked for days at
a time, etc, well that costs a lot of money. It always costs a lot of
money when 'good Christians' like our president tries to protect us
from 'terrorism'. Ooops, did I label this one 'Last Laugh' by accident?
Thank God on his European trip now in progress, *most* but not all of
the people over there have not fallen for his latest pleas for
cooperation. Have you read the 115-page 300 plus-paragraph report of the
British guys who were held incommunicado in Guantanamo for two years?
See if you can get through it without losing your breakfast or dinner:
http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/docs/Gitmo-compositestatementFINAL23july04.pdf
.
This is one, or maybe the first, *non USA government produced* reports
on the truth about what prisoners of war there are going through.
Three independent witnesses, prisoners there with a report so detailed
and so comprehensive, they simply could not have just made it up to
'make trouble for Bush' as some fundamentalist Christians I know have
claimed.
No siree, running an operation like Guantanamo costs our country a lot
of money, so be sure to pay your Spanish American War luxury tax on
your phones. PAT]
Michael Chance (mchance@swbell.net)