The Picket Line — 23 March 2007

23 March 2007

Reporter Aleksandra Todorova of SmartMoney.com brings us one of the first war tax resistance articles of the 2007 tax season: Skipping Tax Bill Is One Way Some Are Protesting Iraq War.

It mentions the tax resistance of Larry Rosenwald, Juanita Nelson, Ruth Benn, and myself.

In August, 2005, Cindy Sheehan announced that she was going to stop paying her taxes in protest against the government’s duplicity in launching the Iraq War. This announcement was met by indignant shrieks from the right wing press and embarrassed and embarrassing silence in anti-war circles.

Sheehan stood her ground, but since 2005 I haven’t heard her mention her tax resistance or recommend the tactic. I worried that maybe she’d changed her mind or decided it was too controversial to mention, both inside the anti-war movement and out.

Turns out I had nothing to worry about. She’s back — and more tax resistery than ever:

This supplemental funding bill will pass, and I believe that giving George Bush a blank check for more killing is reprehensible and I refuse to support these crimes against humanity with my own funds.
I urge every American with a heart, compassion, and a sense for justice and a return to moral based leadership to join me in withholding our money from this murderous and callous government.
Give your money to peace or justice groups instead. Give your money to homeless shelters; grass-roots Katrina recovery efforts; create a “Peace Scholarship” at your local college to reward a young person who doesn’t want to join the military to pay for college; give to Veteran’s groups who are advocating for better care for our veterans or a group like IVAW which is a group of returning vets who are actively trying to stop the war; give to War Resisters to support legal aid for our active duty soldiers who refuse to go to war; give to Camp Casey; give to your local peace group.
I am sure there are thousands of places to put our money besides the pockets of the Military Industrial Complex. So many people and groups have been damaged because of our war economy. A lot of good could be done with our tax dollars instead of funding continued killing.
Our elected officials have failed us miserably. We elected them to oppose George and his war, not support him. We are not being represented properly and I, for one, refuse to be taxed by them.

Man oh man, we have been on a free spree around the house lately! Over the past several weeks, we’ve scored a handsome ceiling-mounted hanging pot rack, a large-sized Foreman Grill, and a spare back door (so I could install a cat door and keep the landlord happy) all for free thanks to members of a local “Freecycle” mailing list.

If you haven’t looked into “Freecycle” yet, you might want to take a peek.

Freecycling is a pretty moderate step on the freegan living plan. Some people push things a little further. Reporter Becca Tucker decided to give “dumpster diving” a try for the sake of journalism, and filed a fascinating report for a Manhattan weekly newspaper. Excerpts:

According to Madeline Nelson, who looks like your favorite librarian and dumpster dives for most of her food, dumpstering once a week can fulfill about 85 percent of your grocery needs. Twice-weekly dives can cover 90 to 95 percent. She didn’t need to come out to the trash tour, because a friend recently stayed at her apartment, and as a thank-you gift he dumpster dove her fridge stock-full.

For self-identifying freegans, embarrassment is not an issue. “I’m not so much bound by the illusions of our culture,” says Adam Weissman, 29, who does activist work twelve to sixteen hours a day for no pay and lives on $20 a week.
“Being bound by the cultural norm of whether someone’s going to think it’s icky or weird for me to be going through the trash is far less compelling than my sense of embarrassment or horror that I would feel for being part of the problem, by basically pumping more fuel into the economy in the form of capital, in the form of money.
“So it’s not that I’m in any way not cognizant of the fact that what we’re doing is socially deviant. It’s quite deliberate.”

When I started this experiment I had little interest in the politics of waste. I simply wanted to see whether a person could actually eat for free in a city where a sandwich costs $7. How freeing that would be, in a way. How strange an inversion of everything that drives us to go to work every day. We have to earn, we think, because we have to eat.
But after awhile, my exuberance at opening a bag to find it full of still-warm chocolate munchkins, or a hundred fat New York-quality bagels, or fifty plastic containers of organic lettuce from Mexico, or ten wrapped and ready-to-eat sandwiches, or two dozen firm, colorful peppers, was nudged out by dismay.

…now that I’ve had to throw away good food I’ve foraged from the trash to make room in the fridge for even better food, now that I’ve passed up wrapped cinnamon buns not because they’re stale, but because there are fifty of them, it’s started to sink in.
This happens every night all over the city, and to varying degrees, in every city across the country. All the energy that went into growing, producing, packaging, shipping, refrigerating, and dumping all this food is worth less than what it would cost a store to run out of something and fail to make a sale. So they deliberately overstock. And while the food and packaging gets dumped in landfills, people are going hungry just blocks away.
It’s depressing. It’s shameful.
It’s delicious.

Indefatigable military budget watchdog Winslow T. Wheeler takes a look at the latest Iraq War “emergency supplemental” and wonders what ever happened to the new Democratic Congress’s pledge to eliminate porkful earmarks?

I was alerted by a former colleague from the Senate staff that page 238 of the committee report… contains the following statement:
“EARMARKS: Pursuant to clause 9 of rule ⅩⅪ of the Rules of the House of Representatives, this bill, as reported, contains no congressional earmarks, limited tax benefits, or limited tariff benefits as defined in clause 9(d), 9(e), or 9(f) of rule ⅩⅪ.” (Emphasis added.)
Wow! $21.3 billion in add-ons and not a single earmark! Now, that’s reform! Right?
Not exactly, check out page 291 for the $25 million added for spinach producers. And, page 216 for $60 million for salmon fisheries. And, page 214 for $5 million for aquaculture. Other tables in the report appear to contain many more. (I’ll get back to you on that. It looks like a “target rich environment.”)
Not earmarks? You could have fooled me. Having worked the congressional pork system for most of the 31 years I was on Capitol Hill, they sure smell, wallow, and oink like earmarks to me.

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How you can resist funding the government → other tax resistance strategies → freeganism → dumpster-diving: ▶; ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦; If you think “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” you might want to try telling that to Adam Weissman, who’s been eating free lunches for nine years and counting.; Visualizing U.S. war fatalities, buttons of death in the Twilight Zone, a dumpster diving information clearing-house, the President vows to stay the course, Samuel Adams calls for a campaign of swadeshi, and a look at the anarchist colony of Pennsylvania. Y tambien, El Piquete en español.; A profile of Kate Harvey, a tax resister from Britain’s women’s suffrage movement. Also: an I.R.S. audit forecast for the coming year. And: the right-wing media discover the wacky world of freegans.; Russell Kanning was sentenced today to time served, with no probation and no fine. Also: The Washington Post discovers dumpster diving. And: debating the merits of the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act.; Help lay the groundwork for a “People Power”-style freedom movement in the U.S. by adding to the project’s strategic estimate. Also: Americans renouncing their citizenship to become “taxpatriates”, waste and pork in the military budget, and upscale dumpster-diving in Berkeley.
How you can resist funding the government → other tax resistance strategies → freeganism: ▶; ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦; If you think “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” you might want to try telling that to Adam Weissman, who’s been eating free lunches for nine years and counting.; The White House may borrow a ton of money to enact Social Security reform and then pretend that it hasn’t borrowed any money at all when it calculates the deficit. Don’t you wish you could use such creative accounting techniques? Also: foes of a new nuclear arms race manage to win a rare victory — the new nuclear weapons projects requested by the White House were dropped from the budget bill. And: 40%–50% of the food America produces is thrown away uneaten — go Freegans go!; Susan van Haitsma advocates tax resistance in Dissident Voice. Also: the U.S. constitution on religious vs. secular conscientious tax objection, new frugality links, and Iraq is not Vietnam, but…; Where’s the outrage? Well, maybe it’s being channeled into productive action instead of noisy lather.; Can you work without using a social security number? (Yes, if you know what you’re doing.) When you withdraw from those tax-deferred retirement accounts can you avoid the tax hit? (Yes, at least for the time being.) The free market — the really free market — the market where everything’s free… is it an anarchist plot to unloose chaos and destruction on the polis? (No: but call out the national guard anyway.); A survey of anti-war activists reveals a surprising ignorance about war tax resistance, but an encouraging willingness to give it a try. A one-year, large-scale, organized tax strike may be in the cards.
How you can resist funding the government → the tax resistance movement → birth of the modern American war tax resistance movement → Juanita Nelson: ▶; ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦; A profile of Juanita and Wally Nelson, two founders of the modern tax resistance movement, and tax resisters for half a century.; In an excerpt from Juanita Nelson’s account of her arrest, I find sentiments about personal responsibility that are remarkably similar to those I expressed at the start of my experiment.; Today’s Picket Line contest: Name my philosophy! If you put existentialism, “rational anarchism,” disumbrationism, and virtue ethics in a blender, what do you call the smoothie?; The “Pitstop Ploughshares” — a group of five peace activists from the Catholic Worker movement who broke into Shannon airport in Ireland and disabled a U.S. Navy supply plane with hammers and a pickaxe the month before the invasion of Iraq began — have been found not guilty by a Dublin jury. Also: an on-line recording of a talk by Juanita Nelson leads me to wonder about the return-on-investment of shock-and-awe.; Two war tax resistance films — “Paying for Peace” and “An Act of Conscience” — are released on-line. Also: the story of The Bezuidenoudt Affair, an act of tax resistance that triggered the first Boer War.; War tax resisters are having a conference in New England this weekend. Also: Once tax resistance got going during the French Revolution, it just kept going, long after the Assembly took power from the Church and the Crown.; The Greenfield, Massachusetts Recorder profiles Juanita Nelson, who hasn’t paid federal income tax for sixty years. Also: is it worth the cost to shift my support away from government-subsidized industrial corn chow agriculture?; Examples of twenty-two ways tax resisters and their sympathizers have organized to support tax resisters and tax resistance campaigns.; If you didn’t love that whole prebate “economic stimulus” vote buying fiasco before, you may love it when you read what it’s costing the government. Also: One of the more in-depth explanations of the Quaker position against paying commutation, bounty, or militia exemption fines, came from the Meeting for Sufferings of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1865.; An on-line movie celebrating the life and works of Ammon Hennacy and covering 20th century American anarcho-pacifism. Also: Utah Phillips on Ammon Hennacy.; NWTRCC has added some “Readings on Money” to their website, including discussions of the ethics of interest, the management of inheritances, a look at how money comes into being, the dilemma of tax-exempt status for nonprofit organizations, and hints on how to run a penny poll.; Juanita Nelson shrugs off the inaugural hoopla and says she doesn’t go in for elections. “I vote with what I do or don’t do,” she says. Also: Did you pay enough in taxes last year to pay for the $46,790 portrait of Donald Rumsfeld the Pentagon commissioned? The nation thanks you for your sacrifice. And: farmers in Argentina organize and plan a tax strike for next month.; Some notes and photos from the first full day of the NWTRCC National Gathering in Cleveland, Ohio. Also: Aristotle continues to try to understand self-control and its absence, and contrasts his view with that of Socrates. Does this have anything to do with hypocrisy?; Randy Kehler and Juanita Nelson address the Conflict Transformation Across Cultures program in Brattelboro, Vermont tonight. Also: a showing of “Death and Taxes” coming up at the Ventura Film Festival.; More than fifty war tax resisters from across the country (and a few WTR-curious from the Boston area and elsewhere) gathered at the Cambridge Friends Meeting house last night at the opening session of the joint National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Meeting Fall gathering / 25th annual New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters.; You may have heard that big federal tax legislation just passed. Here are some details. Also: the story of the founding of Peacemakers, and with it the modern American war tax resistance movement, is told in Robert Cooney’s & Helen Michalowski’s “The Power of the People: Active Nonviolence in the United States.”; On this day in 1958, picketers protest the imprisonment of war tax resister Maurice McCrackin; and on this day in 1949, picketers welcome war tax resister Katsuki James Otsuka back from prison.; Topianism is an anarchist philosophy, but not because it preaches that The State should be abolished, but because it asserts that The State, as an independent moral agent capable of making decisions and shouldering responsibility, does not exist. The attitude of a topian to The State is not like the attitude of an assassin to the Emperor but like the attitude of an athiest to God. Also: Lech Walesa calls for Poles to resist their taxes… in 1995.; Juanita Nelson’s life and work, how much of your salary the I.R.S. will let you keep when it starts levying, an update on Spanish war tax resisters Jorge Güemes and Hugo Alcalde, and Roy Prockter gets a visit from a rude tax collector. Also: Anthony Benezet thought the Quaker conflict over paying war taxes might lead to a healthier attitude toward money and riches in the Society as well.; News accounts of war tax resisters Juanita Nelson (1959) and Ken & Noreen Gingerich (2007).; Activist S. Brian Willson was interviewed yesterday on KQED. Here is some of what he had to say about his tax resistance.; Some excerpts from the writings of Dorothy Day in “The Catholic Worker” on the subject of war tax resistance and resisters.; Ginny Schneider writes about navigating an IRS wage garnishment. And: Mother Jones magazine tries to guesstimate the size of the war tax resistance movement in 1987.; 350 people put their names on an ad that appeared in the Washington Post on this date in 1966 saying “We will refuse to pay our federal income taxes voluntarily” because of the war in Vietnam. Also: In These Times magazine looks at the war tax resisters of the early 1980s.; Tax resisters sometimes form cooperative housing or business relationships that help facilitate their resistance. Today I’ll summarize some examples of this that I have encountered in my research.; Another way to support tax resisters as they go up against the legal system is to pay their legal fees or their fines. But sometimes such an offer is an unwelcome gift, as the resisters are not facing jail for lack of money but for the sake of principle.; The lesser-known of two large public rosters of war tax resisters during the Vietnam War, and some other artifacts from the American war tax resistance movement circa 1967.; Tax day aftermath, IRS heavy-handedness & blundering & budget cuts, Gambling on the Rapture, tax resistance in Argentina, and a long-term look at public opinion about taxes in the United States.; War tax resisters David Waters and Juanita Nelson make the news. More on tax resistance in Catalonia. I.R.S. employee furloughs ahead. And: the movers and shakers at Google are ominously pitching their view of the future of the internet to the lords of war, international intrigue, and government intervention, who sound delighted by what they are hearing.
How you can resist funding the government → my tax resistance → media mentions of → March 2007 SmartMoney.com
Have things really gotten that bad? → U.S. government is cruel, despotic, a threat to people → robbing the public and spending irresponsibly → bloated military budget → hiding pork in the military budget: ▶; ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦; Links-a-plenty: A new torture memo says “the gloves are coming off… we want these individuals broken.” A pork-hungry Congress loads the defense budget with billions of dollars of worthless crap. Jon Else revisits a nuclear weapons test site and checks on our priorities. A town in Vermont wants to join the gulchers from the Free State Project and move to New Hampshire. And if a mountain of debt is keeping you from getting below the tax line, here’s some news you can use.; Bob Harris thinks the war is the less important thing the U.S. is losing. Milton Mayer wonders what you can do if tyranny sneaks up on you gradually. Chalmers Johnson suggests that “only bankruptcy will stop the American imperialist juggernaut.” And McCaffrey & Cohen suggest that Congress conspires to assemble citizens into “special-interest groups” and dangle frightening or lucrative legislation in front of their noses in order to shake them down for campaign contributions.; Adding insult to the biggest military budget America has ever seen, the Dubya Squad request another $82 billion in supplemental war funding. Oh, if only Kerry had won in November! (Well, you try saying it with a straight face.); Enough pork to spackle an ox. Also: U.S. airstrikes in Iraq are up 50% from this time last year. And: The T.V. show “Boston Legal” features a stirring defense of tax resistance.; The Picket Line commemorates an important anniversary with some vintage rhetoric and a bunch of links.; Help lay the groundwork for a “People Power”-style freedom movement in the U.S. by adding to the project’s strategic estimate. Also: Americans renouncing their citizenship to become “taxpatriates”, waste and pork in the military budget, and upscale dumpster-diving in Berkeley.; Yesterday was my first day as a VITA volunteer this tax season, and the government is $2,314 poorer. Also: a heaping helping of miscellany, including grass roots action against domestic torture enablers, Democratic plans to increase military spending, Homeland Security pork, Possum living, attacks on tax collectors, the Coalition to Get the Stop Funding the War Coalition to Stop Funding the War, federal employees who moonlight as tax evaders, and tax policy by merry men in tights.; The I.R.S. Data Book gives a hint at how their collections efforts are going. Also: direct action against war material shipments, construction recycling, the down side to tax efficiency, an increased I.R.S. enforcement budget, a new war tax resistance blog, Iraq War supplemental funding pork, and more leisure for the poor.; War tax resistance on a video blog, military spending as corporate welfare, another take on the Render Unto Caesar koan, stealing stolen money from the I.R.S., and a radical Muslim cleric preaches tax resistance. Also: a review of Crispin Sartwell’s book “Extreme Virtue: Truth and Leadership in Five Great American Lives.”; Tax-advantaged retirement plans for the self-employed, driving a stake through the heart of Slobodan Milosevic’s corpse (literally), the I.R.S. substitutes racial profiling for terrorist hunting, kickbacks and bribes connect the neocon war profiteers and the Saudi royal family, U.S. aerial bombardment of Iraq kicks into high gear, and leading Democrats pledge to further bloat the gigantic blood-filled tick that is the U.S. military.; A survey of anti-war activists reveals a surprising ignorance about war tax resistance, but an encouraging willingness to give it a try. A one-year, large-scale, organized tax strike may be in the cards.
Miscellanous tax resisters → individual war tax resisters → Ruth Benn: ▶; ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦; We’re a long way from April 15th, the war tax resistance movement’s traditional fifteen minutes of fame, and yet the news is full of war tax resisters doing their thing.; More tax day news, including “Burma Shave”-style protest signs in Oregon, an interview with NWTRCC coordinator Ruth Benn, and Ashby Crowder reminding taxpayers that conscientious objection isn’t just for those in uniform.; It is going to take a lot of work to convince people that you don’t have to live under the poverty line to live under the tax line — even people in the war tax resistance movement who should know better.; Self-restraint as consent, pre-dawn protests at military processing centers, how to get a conscientious vegetarian to fund your meat habit by keeping empty promises, and how to spend thousands of dollars on coffee without really trying.; More on the I.R.S.’s new W-4 strategy, debates about the size of the tax gap (and some ideas on how to increase it), and the I.R.S. loses in court yet again while trying to close the flat-rate long distance loophole.; War tax resisters Ruth Benn, Jim Allen, Becky Pierce, Jim Stockwell, Peter Smith, Ellyn Stecker, and Susan Quinlan are profiled in newspaper articles about tax resistance.; A Daily Kos contributor reminds liberals that the “power of the purse” doesn’t begin and end with Congress, but with them. Also: Ruth Benn of NWTRCC advises activists who want to take a step beyond marching with signs and lobbying politicians.; The War Resisters League’s annual “pie chart” shows you where your income tax money really goes. Also: Ruth Benn of NWTRCC explains war tax resistance on Ashland, Oregon’s KSKQ.; War tax resisters hit the radio waves and the newspapers across America as “Tax Day” approaches. Also: the adolescent sophistry of the tax protester set hits The Picket Line’s comment section. And: a review of “Off the Books.”; Jerry DePyper is a rare example of a right-wing conscientious tax resister, on strike against a government that funds abortion and tolerates gay marriage. Also: a profile of Ithica War Tax Resisters, and a new edition of “More Than a Paycheck.”; Dave Ross recycles bits of my appearance on his radio show for a commentary that has the Freepers screaming. Also: here’s the audio from Ruth Benn’s appearance on the Marc Germain show.; To what extent does paying taxes to the government make you responsible for what the government does? That turns out to be a very hard question. Also: The Money Magazine article I’m in is finally on-line. And: Ruth Benn eulogizes Ralph DiGia. Also: is war tax resistance futile, or scrappy? And: United for Peace & Justice breaks my heart.; Is advocating war tax resistance the same as “promoting tax evasion schemes” and if so, could the government shut down organizations that promote war tax resistance and seize their membership rolls? What about tax resisters’ “alternative funds”? Are they a variety of “warehouse bank” vulnerable to wholesale seizure by the government?; Karl Hess’s tax resistance in Time magazine, Ruth Benn interviewed on Australian radio, and a remarkable proposal from Cato Unbound.; Ruth Benn reports back from the 12th International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns in Manchester, England.; Ruth Benn tells us more about the 12th International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns, and I reflect on whether war tax resisters have much in common with peace tax fund scheme promoters, or whether we’d be better off doing some outreach to other varieties of tax resister instead.; An American libertarian-oriented tax resistance campaign that calls itself the “Slave Uprising” gets ready to launch. Also: more impressions of the recent international conference on war tax resistance and peace tax campaigns, highlighting the differences between the United States and European countries. And: the Wall Street Journal profiles Gene Sharp, wrist-slaps for murderous soldiers, and the release of the Peace Tax Seven movie.; A brief report from the NWTRCC conference in Eugene, Oregon. Also: Melissa Etheridge joins the emerging tax resistance movement to protest government discrimination against same-sex marriage.; I report back from the NWTRCC conference in Eugene, Oregon. Lots of news about frivolous filing penalties, the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act debate, the aftermath of the recent election, the future of the War Tax Boycott, and much more.; Ruth Benn shares her notes from the recent NWTRCC national gathering. Also: more people pile on the gay rights tax resistance bandwagon. And: Ron Paul salutes tax resisters from within the bowels of the House of Representatives.; If you’re interested in starting a regular regional gathering of war tax resisters in your area, NWTRCC is eager to help, and can help you both with expertise and with seed money.; From the latest issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter: updates on tax policy and the international conscientious objection movements, news and updates about war tax resisters and the war tax resistance movment, a story of how even a first-time token resister might come face to face with the capricious jaws of the I.R.S., and announcing a new speaker’s bureau. That and a great review of “We Won’t Pay!”; A Tax Day round-up: penny polls and other war tax resistance actions, interviews and profiles of war tax resisters, reactions to the “Tea Party” phenomenon, gay and lesbian tax resistance, a conservative call for an anti-war/anti-tax convergence, a columnist notes how easy it is to get away with not filing your taxes, I.R.S. employees pissed off that their boss got away with the sort of tax evasion that would get them fired, contractors in the I.R.S. mail room caught stealing the government’s stolen money, and Joe the Plumber’s 1-900 fair tax trainwreck.; I report back from the Spring NWTRCC national gathering in Virginia.; The most contentious item on the agenda at the NWTRCC Spring national gathering was our organization’s relationship with the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act and with the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, a long-time affiliate of NWTRCC, which promotes the act.; More reports from the national NWTRCC gathering earlier this month. Also: a report on the barter economy, the federal government’s vast borrowing, an update on Charles Merrill’s tax resistance court battle for same-sex marriage rights, and the civil rights movement seen as a successful (nonviolent) revolutionary insurgency.; More “Tax Day” recaps. Also: war tax resister Allen Cooper gets fired by his jingoistic cocaine snorting boss. And: a flashback to Utah Governor J. Bracken Lee’s quixotic tax protest in 1956.; Reports and photos from the opening days of the Spring 2010 NWTRCC national gathering in Tucson, Arizona.; A new issue of “More Than a Paycheck,” NWTRCC’s newsletter, is on-line, including news about penny polls, “settle with the IRS for pennies on the dollar” companies, “frivolous filing” overreach from the IRS, Karl Meyer on what makes war tax resisters more vulnerable to criminal prosecution, Ed Hedemann on the history of the U.S. government’s use of property seizures and criminal cases as tools against war tax resisters in the post-World War II era, and more.; More than fifty war tax resisters from across the country (and a few WTR-curious from the Boston area and elsewhere) gathered at the Cambridge Friends Meeting house last night at the opening session of the joint National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Meeting Fall gathering / 25th annual New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters.; Maurice McCrackin fasts while in jail for war tax resistance in 1958. Also: some notes on phone tax resistance from this date in 2005 and 1998.; NWTRCC announces this year’s crop of “tax day” war tax resistance actions. Also: “tax day” newspaper articles from years past cover the war tax resistance of Max Sandin, Joan Baez, Irwin Hogenauer, Raymond Hunthausen, Clare Hanrahan, Susan Quinlan, Larry Harper, Bill Ramsey, Ruth Benn, Mary Ann C. Holtz, and Karl Meyer.; Notes from the Social Justice Networking panel at the NWTRCC conference earlier this month, resolving a tangle of taxpatriatism, and a look back at the conviction of war tax resister Ellis Rece in 1972.; A guest post from a war tax resister who participated in the Occupy Freedom Plaza event, and some additional comments about the Occupy Wall Street and related protests.; An overview and update on the Greek tax resistance movement from the New York Times. Also: Ed Hedemann and Ruth Benn talk war tax resistance on Cindy Sheehan’s radio show.; A search through the archives for more information about war tax resisters Art Harvey and Elizabeth Gravalos.; The latest edition of “More Than a Paycheck,” NWTRCC’s newsletter, is on-line. Also, in a new blog, Vickie Aldrich talks about her war tax resistance and her father’s experiences in a Civilian Public Service camp for drafted conscientious objectors during World War Two.; Catholic bishops get all bent about being forced to pay for contraceptive-coverage in the health insurance of their employees, and war tax resisters ask “hey, what about us?” Also: resistance to the “Household Tax” in Ireland, and to the many fee hikes in Greece. And: the I.R.S. is getting overwhelmed by a cottage industry of tax fraud via identity theft.; Tax evasion could get you deported… or confined within the borders. Also: updating the war tax resistance bible. And: the rise of popular sociopathic protagonists. Also: Ed Agro on war tax resistance. And: updates on the Irish and Greek anti-austerity tax resistance movemements.; Ruth Benn explains war tax resistance on David Swanson’s show. Also: speed camera destruction, paying a traffic ticket with origami, collecting blood in Greece, tax resistance in Indonesia, council tax resister June Farrow gets a finger-wagging, and the U.S. increases its lead as the biggest global arms race dealer.; Some video from the recent NWTRCC national conference. Also: Heinrich Böll refused to pay a tax to the Catholic Church in 1972 — a tax that is still causing controversy today, as the German Catholic Church has decided to effectively excommunicate Catholics who refuse to pay their government-mediated church tax. And: a couple of American war tax resisters ran for office — how’d they do?; Some documents from the New England regional war tax resistance gathering concerning whether war tax resistance is a politically potent action. Also: Welsh miners went on strike against the income tax in 1919.; Ruth Benn, Ed Hedemann, and Cindy Sheehan talk war tax resistance this evening. Also: income tax resistance in the campaign for expanded citizenship rights in the Northern Territory of Australia in 1919.; Tomorrow I leave for the 14th International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns in Bogotá, Colombia. Expect things to be a little quieter around here for the next month. Also: tax resistance in Catalonia, more on the War Resisters International war tax capitulation, and an update on prisoner tax fraud.; Cindy Sheehan forces the I.R.S. to blink. A look inside NWTRCC’s latest newsletter. Yesterday’s “Pull the Pork (from the Pentagon)” protests. War tax resisters Francesc García Barberà and Amy Wachspress. And the I.R.S. use of civilian informers.; A new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter with information about regional, national, and international war tax resistance gatherings, and news and commentary about war tax resistance.
Miscellanous tax resisters → individual war tax resisters → Larry Rosenwald: ▶; ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦; Lawrence Rosenwald has written a fantastic study of the historical, political, biographical and philosophical context of Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” and how it came to influence an unlikely array of activists. Also: The I.R.S. is issuing its annual bluff about catching tax cheats.; How can we make the war tax resistance movement less culturally monotone and more successful? Thanks for asking! I happen to have provocative suggestions on just those very topics.; More news from NWTRCC’s national meeting in Las Vegas last weekend. Also: Dave Ridley gets cited for “Distribution of Handbills” after leafletting the I.R.S. office in Nashua, New Hampshire.; War tax resisters Anna Aschenbach and Joanne Sheehan in the news. Also: Northern California war tax resisters redirect money from the Pentagon to community needs. And: Lawrence Rosenwald on unsentimental pacifism, tax resistance, and the seeds of war.; Don Schrader lives simply (and strangely) in pursuit of ethical living (and generates plenty of interest); war tax resisters in Colorado Springs make the news; the I.R.S. refuses to cough up its audit statistics despite a court order; expatriate tax resister Jeff Knaebel speaks at the Gandhi Sixtieth Memorial in Pune; and Larry Rosenwald wonders if the emphasis on voluntary simplicity means that tax resisters with voluntarily complex lifestyles aren’t welcome in the clubhouse.; Does a taxpayer enter into a criminal conspiracy with the government, with the risk of being prosecuted under the Nuremberg Principles? If you pay taxes under duress or under protest, do you not have to worry about the ethical consequences? How was Chiquita (the banana company) convicted for paying taxes? Can Caesar take your blame away? Is paying taxes obligatory, like paying your debts, regardless of the consequences? Have people really been arguing about this stuff for centuries now?; Examples of twenty-two ways tax resisters and their sympathizers have organized to support tax resisters and tax resistance campaigns.; Emily Greene Balch and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon on tax resistance. Also: is “eudaimonia” to be praised, or to be prized?; A new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter is on-line. Also: Bomb-throwing anarchists, mutinies, and revolutionary agitators on the march, in the wake of the Viborg Manifesto, which called on Russians to refuse to pay taxes to the Czar.; Is it really war tax resistance if you’re pretty sure the IRS is just going to lift the money (with penalties & interest) from your bank account anyway? Is the point of our resistance to register our disapproval strongly with the government, or to actually withhold funds from the war machine? Highlights from a recent mailing-list back-and-forth. Also: in 1978 the I.R.S. sent agents to tax protester seminars to jot down names and take notes. Suppose they still do?; Reporting from the first full (very full!) day of the joint National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee Fall gathering / 25th annual New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters.; War tax resisters on the “wtr-s” email list mull over the prospects for building a war tax resistance movement.; The other night I was in the kitchen, alone in the house, when a large rat tripped the trap in the laundry room. The trap seized around the rat’s neck without snapping it, and the rat thrashed around in agonized panic. So did I, in a manner of speaking. Also: a new issue of More Than a Paycheck is out.; Larry Rosenwald thinks that American war tax resistance could become a real movement, if only resisters would sign on to a more coherent program. His idea of which program that should be bears some resemblance to one published by some Spanish war tax resisters several years back.; Some back-and-forth about my “one man revolution” post from last week, and some bits of interest that didn’t make the final cut.; Some documents from the New England regional war tax resistance gathering concerning whether war tax resistance is a politically potent action. Also: Welsh miners went on strike against the income tax in 1919.; There are four fairly distinct varieties of tax resister. Most tax resistance campaigns are dominated by one variety or another, but the American war tax resistance movement is an amalgam of all four. This makes it difficult for that movement to decide on goals and tactics.; Muted reaction from American war tax resisters to my series of articles on tactics. Also: Eighty years ago, a taxpayers’ league in Elmira, New York, threatened a tax strike as a way of pressing for reduced rates.
Miscellanous tax resisters → individual war tax resisters → Cindy Sheehan: ▶; ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦; Cindy Sheehan, who is camped out in front of Dubya’s vacation home trying to get him to talk with her about the war that killed her son, has announced that she isn’t going to be paying her taxes any more either.; Is the Iraq war a problem, a quagmire, or a crime? You’ll get different answers from Dubya, Howard Dean and Cindy Sheehan. Also: High school reporter David McSwane pulls a daring undercover sting that leaves the Pentagon reeling. And: Fully half of Iraq’s own billion-dollar defense budget has been squandered on corruption, kickbacks and outright theft.; The peacenik press in its excitement over Cindy Sheehan’s protest is almost entirely ignoring her tax resistance — why do you suppose that is?; Another peacenik wonders how the rest of us can support Cindy Sheehan, but the possibility of war tax resistance escapes his attention. I try to correct that omission.; Connie Mack of Dubya’s tax panel is pretty casual about billions and trillions. And Cindy Sheehan calls for massive non-violent civil disobedience.; Cindy Sheehan responds to the internet hawk on-line petition begging the I.R.S. to audit her: “I am thinking of signing it myself.”; Cindy Sheehan and Sam Bostaph join hands across the liberal/libertarian divide in order to fight aginst the war. And: Samuel Edward Konkin III says that counter-economics may be the best sabotage where sabotage is most needed: against the war machine. Also: Frustrated that you can’t resist U.S. federal income tax because you don’t live in the States and don’t owe anything to the I.R.S.? Try a consumer boycott.; Ed and Elaine Brown gear up to martyr themselves for fatuous tax protester claptrap. Also: it costs about 26 cents for the I.R.S. enforcers to collect $1, and every year they lose $20 billion in unpaid taxes to the statute of limitations. And: Cindy Sheehan continues to beat the tax resistance drum.; Here’s the audio file of my appearance on the Dave Ross show last week. Also: answering the question “What can I do (that’s easy, safe, quick, and makes me feel all special without committing me to anything)?” And: American paleocon tax resister Rose Wilder Lane’s “The Discovery of Freedom” released on-line. Also: War tax resister Cindy Sheehan to challenge U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the 2008 elections.; The anti-war activist group “Code Pink” is launching a massive nationwide war tax resistance campaign that aims to get 100,000 people to pledge to cut off their funding for U.S. wars.; The war tax resisters from the Restored Israel of Yahweh are resentenced. Also: is war tax resistance “purely symbolic” or is it tactically useful?; Tax resister Cindy Sheehan has qualified for the ballot and will challenge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this fall. I may vote after all. Also: a tax resistance group on Facebook.; Cindy Sheehan renews her call for mass tax resistance.; The people have spoken. If the people had any sense of shame or any self-awareness, they’d shut the fuck up. They’ve been speaking for a long time now and casting terrible, hateful imprecations that have called forth demons that they refuse to accept responsibility for or attempt to control. Also: Cindy Sheehan on the relation between dissident protest and mainstream political power.; Cindy Sheehan promotes a new plan to free America’s “Robbed Class” from its robbers. Also: Glenn Beck interviews former I.R.S. chief Mark Everson about the consequences of tax resistance.; A new “International People’s Declaration of Peace” being developed by Cindy Sheehan and other members of an anti-war coalition includes a pledge not to “allow the fruits of our labor to be used by our governments to finance wars.” Also: Aristotle is skeptical that there is such a thing as a Platonic Good.; Cindy Sheehan tells the peace movement to stop begging the Robber Class for change, but to start making the change it demands. Also: Summing up book one of Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” and preparing for an in-depth look at the virtues.; TEA Party tax protesters seem to be mostly hot air at this stage, but there’s potential for tax resistance under the surface. Also: the final draft of the International People’s Declaration of Peace waters down its war tax resistance plank to the point of meaninglessness. And: Aristotle uses the Goldilocks Principle to sample virtues and find them all “just right.”; If you’re going to ask soldiers to take a risk by refusing to deploy, it helps your credibility if you’re willing to take some risks of your own by refusing to fund the deployment. Also: excerpts from a letter from H.D. Thoreau on the purpose of simple living. And: if we use choice to pick the means, how do we pick the ends? Aristotle says “wish” fits the bill. Also: how much it costs the I.R.S. to process an average tax return.; Cindy Sheehan tells a San Francisco peace rally to get real. Also: Is something unjust or just? was it done justly or unjustly? was it done voluntarily or involuntarily? was it done knowingly, or from ignorance, or in ignorance? was it done deliberately or from sudden passionate impulse? There are a lot of things to consider before you know whether an act was an accident, a mistake, an injustice, or the result of someone acting unjustly, and whether or not it is forgivable.; Taxpatriatism on the rise, says the Wall Street Journal. Also: details on the upcoming NWTRCC National Gathering, libertarian war tax resister Jose Roldan explains himself, tax resistance for animal welfare in Spain, and Cindy Sheehan reminds anti-war taxpayers that you get what you pay for.; A letter-to-the-editor and response from the editor in the September, 1900 edition of “The British Friend” concisely sums up one argument about war taxes and mixed taxes that came up frequently in debates about Quaker war tax resistance. Also: an update on Cindy Sheehan’s tax resistance.; If you give a person power over other people, this may cause that person to judge other people more harshly and themselves more leniently, according to a new set of experiments. Also: 100 major U.S. companies vow to withhold campaign contributions. And: Peter J. Reilly revisits the legal tax resistance arguments of William Ruhaak. Also: A look at the history of war tax resistance internationally. And: Cindy Sheehan explains her tax resistance.; Cindy Sheehan gives her take on tax resistance in her book “Myth America II: The Twenty Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution” (now freely available on-line).; The voluntaryist case against taxation. Greece erupts in a variety of tax resistance tactics. The I.R.S. hands Cindy Sheehan a summons. More private tax debt collection follies. To be free is not freedom from responsibility but freedom to take responsibility. Also: some background on the tax resistance campaign in Germany in 1848.; An overview and update on the Greek tax resistance movement from the New York Times. Also: Ed Hedemann and Ruth Benn talk war tax resistance on Cindy Sheehan’s radio show.; Tax resistance in occupied Mexican Texas in 1877. Also: Cindy sheehan on “frivolous” conscientious objection, more background on the Greek tax rebellion, and Indian farmers using the power of poisonous snakes against a corrupt tax office.; A new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter with news from the war tax resistance movement. Also, a call to war tax resistance from an anti-imperialist book from Britain a century ago wouldn’t sound out of place in the American empire today.; An update on Cindy Sheehan’s tax resistance and her fight with the I.R.S. Also: the Irish government is hiking utility fees to raise money for their bankster bailouts, but some folks are telling them to shove it.; The IRS has asked a judge to compel Cindy Sheehan to provide them with detailed financial information. She previously declined to provide such information in response to an IRS “Collection Information Statement” summons. The agency hopes to find assets they can seize for back taxes.; Cindy Sheehan hopes for a revitalized war tax resistance movement. Also: updates from war tax resisters Vickie Aldrich and Chris Gaunt, and a public forum on taxes and conscience in Pennsylvania featuring war tax resisters Pat Hostetter Martin and Shane Claiborne.; The I.R.S. takes war tax resister Cindy Sheehan to court. Also: notes from war tax resisters Ed Agro and Paul Leatherman. And: the I.R.S. shed 5,000 employees over the last year, mostly from their tax enforcement division.; War tax resisters are finding that it is no less of a delicate balancing act trying to merge their message with the left-wing Occupy movement than it was with the right-wing TEA Party. Also: area war tax resisters are supporting Cindy Sheehan in her struggle with the I.R.S.; Cindy Sheehan vs. the IRS in federal court: round one goes to Sheehan. Andy: The federal government spends more to pay fraudulent tax refunds to identity thieves than it spends on the I.R.S. budget. Also: more tax day war tax resistance action reports. And: the I.R.S. abuses its frivolous filing penalty authority, an authority that seems designed for abuse.; Cindy Sheehan tells us what happened when she went up against the I.R.S. in federal court.; Cindy Sheehan faces down I.R.S. interrogators. Also: A couple of notes from some of the war tax riots in Spain in 1900.; The new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter is out, full of news about the Chicago conference, tax day actions, legal updates, international tax resistance news, and more.; Tax resistance by Catalan separatists and by Italy’s Northern league, household tax resisters in Ireland and a council tax resister in England, the story of the Bardoli satyagraha, the I.R.S. seizes a bit of Cindy Sheehan’s rent money, an American alternative currency martyr is profiled, and I.R.S. employees seem to be in a rush to get delinquent accounts off their desks. Also: a few more glimpses at the tax strike of Beit Sahour during the first intifada in 1989.; Ruth Benn, Ed Hedemann, and Cindy Sheehan talk war tax resistance this evening. Also: income tax resistance in the campaign for expanded citizenship rights in the Northern Territory of Australia in 1919.; Tomorrow I leave for the 14th International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns in Bogotá, Colombia. Expect things to be a little quieter around here for the next month. Also: tax resistance in Catalonia, more on the War Resisters International war tax capitulation, and an update on prisoner tax fraud.; Cindy Sheehan forces the I.R.S. to blink. A look inside NWTRCC’s latest newsletter. Yesterday’s “Pull the Pork (from the Pentagon)” protests. War tax resisters Francesc García Barberà and Amy Wachspress. And the I.R.S. use of civilian informers.; A new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter with information about regional, national, and international war tax resistance gatherings, and news and commentary about war tax resistance.; Notes from the NWTRCC national conference earlier this month. Also: tax resisters versus the banks. And: profiles of the Transform Now Plowshares activists and of incorrigible moonshiner Popcorn Sutton.

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