Miscellaneous tax resisters → individual war tax resisters → Dana Visalli

Code Pink notes, of its audacious campaign to get 100,000 Americans to pledge to resist taxes, that “if we succeed, it will be the single largest war tax resistance in U.S. history.”

It has been heartwarming to read the comments left by some of those who have signed the pledge so far:

After my son’s second deployment when he related to me the horrors of the occupation in Iraq, I vowed I would do whatever it took to end it. As we urge our lawmakers to stop funding the war, we have to be willing to do the same. It is time we stop funding with our tax dollars.: Tina Richards, founder, Grassroots America
The world and history will judge us by how vigorously we resist the illegal and immoral war tactics of the Bush Administration. My husband, friends and I have decided we can’t pay for war anymore.: Jodie Evans, Cofounder, Code Pink
I won’t pay my taxes if you won’t pay yours.: Nina Rothschild Utne, Utne Reader
We should stop the war, whatever it takes. If withholding our income taxes is a way to do it, I am all for that.: Lee Newman, Retired Captain. U.S. Air Corp, World War Ⅱ
We must stop supporting policies that use our tax dollars to bring violence around the world. Not one cent more.: Maricela Guzman, Iraq War Veteran U.S. Navy, 1998–2002
I am one of the majority of Americans who want the war to end and will be happy to pay my taxes when democracy and the rule of law and the Constitution is restored to our once great nation.: Steve Savitch, Tuscon, Arizona
I increased my deductions to 10 this year. I am so glad for this movement to show me what to do next and for the safety in numbers. I will no longer help kill people.: andee Scott, Pacific Grove, California
We must renew the American Revolutionary Spirit. We must have a Velvet Revolution to save America.: Theadora de Soyza, New Rochelle, New York
If our leaders won’t stop this travesty, then We, the People must: anonymous, Oregon, Wisconsin
Stop feeding the bush war machine… if he thinks the war is so damn important why aren’t his daughters on the front lines?: Gina Arcuri, Barneveld, New York
Time to act for justice and do the right thing. I refuse to pay a war tax!: Herb Gonzales, Jr., San Antonio, Texas
We must have the courage to take a stand. If enough of us will take this stand, I believe this government will listen.: Leo Anderson, Austin, Texas
I will not pay my taxes to support the war in Iraq.: Renata Ahmed, Brooklyn, New York
As a matter of conscience I will not voluntarily pay my hard earned money to a government whose daily order of business is waging war.: Michael Zargarov, Houston, Texas
When government is out-of-control, citizens must exert control.: Den Mark Wichar, Vancouver, Washington
I refused to pay for an illegal war. It is unconscionable and disgusting that U.S. Congress continues to fund President Bush’s war-crimes.: anonymous, Ewa Beach, Hawaii
I am so impressed and proud of your actions. Blessed be.: Vicki Noble, Freedom, California
I may not have much to withhold, but it’s all worth it! It’s time to stop this crap…: Daniel Bryan, Granc Blanc, Michigan
Hell nay, I won’t pay!: Avi Peterson, San Francisco, California
United we stand; divided we fall.: Kristine Abney, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia
Taxation without representation. Let’s fight this together and start restoring democracy.: Shawn DeFrance, Dallas, Texas
Throw the tea into the harbor. 70% of the American people oppose this war. That constitutes taxation without representation. It is time to throw the tea into the harbor. Coincidentally, that is exactly what I have been saying. Let’s have a tea party.: Bobi Meola, Berkeley, California
We are retired and don’t pay any tax. I fully support your courageous efforts to end this bloody occupation.: Chris Caldwell, Anaheim, California
Yes and though dangerous, I pledge to join in not paying the 7% taxes!: Nat Vance, Muskogee, Oklahoma
I will not pay my taxes if we bomb Iraq. I will not pay my taxes if we bomb Afghanistan. I will not pay my taxes if we bomb Nicaragua. I will not pay my taxes if we bomb Vietnam. I will not pay my taxes if we bomb Laos. I will not pay my taxes if we bomb Cambodia. Therefore, I don’t pay my taxes.: Dani Visalli, Winthrop, Washington
Spend my tax dollars on the good of the nation, not war.: Jennifer Chacon, Portland, Oregon
Together we can bleed the war machine dry by using this non-violent civil disobedience.: anonymous, Modesto, California
Already had planned to put all of my taxes for this past year in escrow. Refusing to pay 7% is a good start, but is it really impacting enough? As Michael Venturi suggests, they will only borrow from the resources for our poor to kill their poor. The war will continue, and the 7% will be stolen from the ‘lock-box.’: Alan Scouten, Charlottesville, Virginia
Thank you for organizing this.… It is time to act. CodePink consistently does excellent work.: anonymous, Olympia, Washington
‘A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.’ — Martin Luther King Jr.: Thomas Fatone, Brooklyn, New York
Bravo. I have been advocating for just this to happen for several years.: Duncan Dow, South San Francisco, California
Cherish the people, defund the military machine.: Doug Mackenzie, Los Gatos, California
This is a great idea. Next a national strike!: Claire Chang, Gill, Massachusetts
I already signed onto NWTRCC’s 2008 War Tax Boycott, refused to file for FY2006 and have quit my full-time job to live below the taxable threshold. If Congress won’t defund the war, the last bulwark of democracy, The People, must.: NTodd Pritsky, Cambridge, Vermont
This is a bandwagon that most Republicans should hop onto since they abhor paying taxes. Alert everyone you know about this cause there is larger safety in larger numbers.: Laura Martin, Clarkson, Georgia
Let’s protest with our dollars this time.: Maria Kanaan, Chicago, Illinois
Thank you all! If Congress wimps out by giving Bush more $$, than we must not provide it. Enough! I refuse to pay for murder.: Friend Burton, St. Louis, Missouri
Time to defund the war.: Larry Harper, Sebastopol, California
I consider myself in good company — like all the ‘traitors’ who fought off British control and taxation without representation, who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.: Friend Johnson, Cedar Falls, Iowa
Let’s put our money where our mouths are — since Congress doesn’t have the courage to stop funding war — the people will.: Susan Eleuterio, Highland, Indiana
Things have to change with this disastrous war and administration, and women will be the ones to do it.: Joni Goodale, Orlando, Florida
In a governmental system based on money and corporate profits, the most effective form of protest comes from withholding payment of taxes.: Daniel Woodham, Greensboro, North Carolina
Thank You! It is about time… I am so ready to join those who are ready to live their convictions.: Tighe Barry, Santa Monica, California
With 50% of the federal budget being used for military purposes, I cannot in good conscience pay for war while praying for peace.: Lincoln Rice, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
I will refuse to pay taxes for war even if fewer than 100,000 people pledge because I cannot in conscience pay for these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.: Peter Smith, South Bend, Indiana
It’s about time citizens used their green to bring peace.: Heli Taylor, Los Angeles, California
Not one more dollar!: Deidra Lynch, Orlando, Florida

And this is just from those who have signed up by the beginning of the opening weekend of the campaign!

At the wtr-s mailing list, Dana Visalli shares some of his experiences with tax resistance:

I started “resisting” in about 1990, paying half of my taxes, putting the other half in an escrow account. About 8 years ago I stopped filing — I just don’t do forms well. I make something like $15–18,000 a year and half of that is now from farmer’s market and other invisible sources. I also work as a contracting botanist for the Forest Service and other official entities, and have had the touching experience of having both the local Forest Service office and one of my banks help me conceal income from the criminals that run the country (that would be the aforementioned US government).
I recently had a $2400 payment processed through the central USFS payment center in Albuquerque. To the credit of their “smart” computers, they caught the name and subtracted $400 from the total against money they say I owe them. What is interesting to me is that they don’t take it all; this is truly the land of justice! This happened once before with a $3700 payment, which they took $500 of. In both cases I was delighted to get the larger portion. With the $400 they took this time they said they were going to load up a white phosphorus bomb to burn the skin off an Iraqi child. Sorry kid, I tried.
They sent the remainder to an ancient account number of mine that they had liened, drained and closed about 8 years ago. They weren’t too sharp on that move. The bank phoned me and said they would write me a cashier’s check but I should straighten up my account numbers with the feds.
The bottom line is, it is so stunning how obedient we are as human beings, without even thinking about it. Why would we pay for the death of all these beautiful human beings around the world, slaughtered by the US government? I think it is because we are not fully formed yet, we have not emerged into our full human potential. So we are ruled by fear. I find that Americans are so afraid of their own government that they take it completely for granted, like their next breath of air or the next beat of their heart. I now consider it an important evolutionary step to walk through that invisible barrier to a more meaningful life.
Here is a short quote from The Politics of Obedience: A Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, written by Etienne De La Boetie in 1550. The book can be found online, although I find this intro to the essay to be even better.
“Every tyranny must necessarily be grounded upon general popular acceptance. In short, the bulk of the people themselves, for whatever reason, acquiesce in their own subjection. The central problem of political theory: why in the world do people consent to their own enslavement? The mystery of civil obedience: why do people, in all times and places, obey the commands of government, which always constitutes a small minority of the society?”

There have been some interesting and thoughtful threads on the wtr-s email list recently. 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?

Re: IRS contact: Carol Moore reacts to news of a recent IRS seizure of a resister’s bank account: “The problem with doing [war tax resistance] when you make a lot of money is they get so much interest and fines, which almost defeats the purpose. Better to do ‘token’ resistance of whatever feels right — be it for you $500 or $2000, or whatever — and make them go through the effort of collecting.”
Banks: Randy Belmont says: “I am very puzzled why WTRs use banks. Most banks are members of the Federal Reserve Banking System and if they are not members they are tributaries, in that they must follow all regulations and are beholding to the Fed. Why would anyone who refuses to voluntarily fund war do business with these people? The funding of America’s empirical wars is brought about through the fiat money creation machine known as the Federal Reserve.

“Stealing ones money from a bank account is the simplest and easiest strategy for the IRS. I read over and over the same scenario of funds being stolen from bank accounts. Yet, people continue to patronize these institutions. There is no law requiring one to use banks or keep money deposited in the bank. Please stop using banks!”
Re: Banks: Christopher Toussaint responds: “To use a war analogy, in this case for nonviolent resistance, one must sometimes go behind enemy lines, use their infrastructure to infect transformational memes into the dominant society, get a hold of their ‘ammunition’ and use it against them. We are a minority, guerrillas who must be grounded in integrity and street smarts. After all, if we are forced to live in poverty and/or keep our cash in our mattresses, haven’t we compromised ourselves beyond the point of sacrifice, where we become ineffective in changing the greater community toward peace?

“In my case, using the banks to keep small amounts of money to pay by check and debit card, makes my life easier and I am more productive in the work I do on behalf of creating a more just and sustainable society. Its not hard to change banks periodically if you want to do that to keep the IRS from pilfering your accounts since they are often months and even years behind in their collection process. Just make sure you have a good reason to change banks, other than evasion of IRS collections, like the bank service fees are too high or their percentages of interest are no longer high enough or you have moved, etc.

“I am aware of the Federal Reserve fiat money situation and yes, in an ideal world, ‘Stop Using Banks’ and trading in silver and gold coins might be preferred. But this discussion needs to focus more on strategies for keeping our money out of the reaches of the IRS and not on just blanket statements that are not always practical to most WTRs.”
Re: Banks: Heather Snow agrees: “Keeping small amounts in the bank is so much easier to pay bills… all the bills are connected to banks. I mean, living without a bank, is like living without a car. Almost impossible. That’s how the feds want it. I don’t keep all my money in the bank, and enjoy having cash on hand.”
Re: Banks: Dana Visalli adds: “[I]t is possible with small banks that have no branches to have an account in somebody else’s name, or more meaningfully, someone else’s SS#. There can be two signers on the account but they only take the SS# of the first person. Apparently this option does not exist with banks with branches; only dog knows why this is the case.

“When the IRS seized my account some years ago, the bank president came up to the teller window and explained this technique to me!”
Re: Banks: Randy Belmont responds: “Actually, not using banks is really not that hard. Cash checks at the local corner store or bar. You can pay many utility bills directly at local drug stores and purchase money orders for other bills. You can also recycle checks because all checks are drafts for money. Example: You have a bill for $100.00 owed to ABC Co. and a check made out to you for $75.00. Sign and write pay to the order of ABC Co. on the back of the check and purchase a money order for $25.00. Send both of these to ABC Co. and your bill is paid. Additionally, if the check is bad the issuer of the check and not yourself is liable. You can also purchase a pre-loaded debit card for internet purchases etc. at 100s of stores. I understand that we all must use Federal Reserve Notes to survive, but it is not hard to ween yourself from the constant use of banks. If you must keep an account keep very little in it and cash your checks for cash and use the methods I described above. Additionally, you will never have an overdraft or bounced check fee again.”
Re: Banks: Larry Rosenwald: “We keep our money in a local bank (two branches). I love Dana’s story about the bank president! But here’s a question. As noted in an earlier exchange with Carol Moore, I think of war tax resistance as an act of civil disobedience, and in that context — and for other reasons — I am not trying not to be penalized; rather the being penalized is for me part of the civil disobedience. I hate being levied, I should make clear! But I understand being penalized as part of the process, and when I’m penalized, when we’re levied, I take that occasion to publicize what we’re doing. I’m guessing from the responses to this thread, and from other threads, that other readers of this list don’t think of wtr as civil disobedience, or think of civil disobedience in a different way, and I’d be interested in understanding these other conceptual frameworks better, if readers would be willing to comment on them.”
Re: Banks: Dana Visalli again: “Interesting note Larry, thanks. I’m sure it is the case that everyone interprets their ‘resistance’ (I like to think of it as ‘complete refusal’) to pay for the insanity of war.

“For one think it is quite important for me to keep my financial resources away from the IRS because they will use that money to kill people. So, when they did seize my account and get $4000 some years ago, that was a sizable amount that went to war (I know we generally calculate about half goes in that direction). It is a real, literal, tangible issue to me; I don’t want any of my resources to go to war (not to be too pure here, I do drive my car quite a bit… petroleum is quite a war-related problem…).

“It’s certainly an issue that if the IRS does seize a large sum then the mechanics of living become problematic. I’m sure that’s what Diogenes was getting at when he said ‘People don’t own possessions, possessions own people.’ He apparently lived in a barrel in the town square for quite a while. I’m passionate… but not that passionate.

“Also, if one can retain one’s resources, one can redistribute them. Some years ago I gave $1000 to the town community center for their new roof; when I handed the cash to the manager I stipulated that I was going to point out in a letter to the editor why I could afford to give away a thousand dollars when I don’t have a lot of money. I would like to get up to giving away ¼ of what I make (total taxes are about ¼ of income), but I’m not there. It is however a real pleasure to give $100 here and $100 there; if the IRS got at my funds that would be impossible

“I’m 61 and I think I can get social security next year. Surprisingly, they are offering me something like $600 a month (I’ve paid very little into the system in my life). My favorite idea is to take the money and then donate it to groups working on the aftermath of American war-making, or the many exemplary groups I met in Afghanistan when there in March, trying to educate street children or take care of old people with almost zero resources (speaking of this there are two good essays at CommonDreams right now by Kathy Kelly and her co-workers, who are in Afghanistan as we speak). I know not everyone could afford to do this, but in my case I think I can make some money until I’m at least 70 selling at farmer’s market and doing other work.

“So… I had no intention of ending up an anarchist, but the Politics of Obedience are too much for me.”
Re: Banks: Ginny Sсhnеider adds: “Aside from the Federal Reserve tie, imagine how the banks are investing your money! Likely these investments uphold the military-industrial complex — just what you are working to overcome. Credit Unions and newer, socially-responsible bank like institutions might be better alternatives even while you wait for the IRS to seize your money from an account.”
Re: Banks: Ed Agro says: “I think I’m somewhere else entirely. This isn’t surprising; I think if 100 resisters-refusers-redirectors got together & beyond our standard slogans, there’d be 100 different reasons.

“I do know I’m not as attached to independence as Dana; but on the other hand I can’t quite see Larry’s putting up with seizure as civil disobedience.

“If we cannot point out a palpable relationship between making the collection of taxes difficult and a turn away from war, where is the salience of the disobedience? Is it even civil if it’s an individual or a small-group action with no hope of provoking change? We cannot show the salience theoretically, and worse, our experience over our years of refusal don’t show it empirically. It’s not at all obvious that even were there a mass refusal of ‘war taxes’ (which would mean at the very most half of the population, as it has been shown over & over that at least half of our fellow citizens love the government’s wars) that the government would be less inclined or less able to wage war. The draft resistance movement in the 1960s and ’80s were successful enough to worry the military-industrial complex; so now they buy their soldiers, and as we see there are plenty who will take them up on it. This is just to say that consumer capitalism’s genius is its ability to absorb and commodify almost any dissent, particularly when that dissent expresses itself as dissatisfaction.

“I’m not saying that either Dana’s or Larry’s different conceptualizations of citizens and subjects are not worth following to their deedful conclusions, but only that perhaps neither of these are resistance. It’s been interesting and very useful for me to note and remember that their different actions both result in a very good thing: conversation with neighbors, co-workers, officials… There, perhaps is the nub of what we’re doing. It’s the most we can expect out of WTR, and it’s not a small thing in these timid times.

“Long ago I took a job precisely so that my WTR could be as ‘effective’ as possible in that the substantial risk of seizure at least would give the resistance a voice, and for years I enjoyed sticking it to the IRS with many an antic scheme. (I particularly enjoyed taking as business losses the time I spent in antiwar work.) In the end, though, the thing that I cam away with wasn’t the accounting of who was ahead, or the best way to protect my money. (Though I have to agree with Dana: without a very good reason to let the IRS get much more than I refused, I could get really bummed out.) Rather I finally came to see that this was indeed a species of tilting at windmills since except insofar as I wrote to various presidents & secretaries of state — and even then with no apparent effect — the IRS was if not a windmill, at least a coffee mill into which my resistance was soon ground up. The occasional agent who looked with sympathy on my stance — really, I could’ve gotten more mileage for my ideas with less work by way of a letter to the editor.

“I don’t know how I’d feel about all this were I still in the labor market, though I like to believe I’d still be happily reckless. But this feeling that WTR is less than cogent has had one good effect. It’s led me to thinking over the years about why, exactly, civilization is so screwed up. This in turn (and I have to admit, helped along by a good social-security situation) has led me to a preference for a frugal life.

“Yet… Maybe a disadvantage of a frugal life is that it turns not to include tax liability. Though the relationship isn’t as ‘functional’ as we like to believe, ‘war’ taxes are associated with state violence; so I do miss (or think I miss) the occasion to refuse them. For that reason I find myself inordinately attached to refusing the phone tax, the only one to which I’m liable and to which with a certain amount of mental gymnastics I can associate with war. Why do I bother, after these long-winded arguments for ineffectiveness? The only reason that makes sense to me is that I enjoy the ritual. Like voting, which ritual I also enjoy even though in the large it apparently doesn’t accomplish anything meaningful either.”

Batting around ideas like this is even more fun in person, so if you have a chance, you should swing by the 25^th Annual New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters and National War Tax Resistance Gathering and Coordinating Committee Meeting in Boston this weekend.

Lots of interesting discussion on the wtr-s email list this week:

re-building a movement?: Ed Agro started things off by bemoaning the current lack of “political salience” of war tax resistance, and wondering “what it might take to turn (or re-turn?) wtr into something resembling a social movement… What do we mean by a ‘movement’ and how does it differ from the wtr community that now exists?”
Re: re-building a movement?: Larry Rosenwald suggests that in order to become a real movement, we need to reach agreement on a set of principles and guidelines, to resolve “the relation between wtr as civil disobedience, committed publicly, and wtr as a mode of life in which one simply doesn’t owe the government any money,” to “seek to exert influence, even power… to win, that is,” and to give a collective answer to the question: “What changes in governmental behavior would it take [for] us to stop doing war tax resistance?”
Re: re-building a movement?: Dana Visalli is skeptical of the value of “movements,” saying that “we are confronting an issue of consciousness… it seems to me to be an issue of waking up, and only individuals can do that.”
Re: re-building a movement?: I suggest a couple of possible paths to movementhood: 1) a “revival” of enthusiasm in the anti-war movement like the “come-outer” abolitionist movement in American protestantism, 2) a populist tax resistance campaign from outside the anti-war movement that leads to a sympathetic reaction by anti-war activists. I suggest we more aggressively confront “complacency and feel-goodism in the peace movement.” I also am skeptical of Larry’s call for us to come to agreement on the details of our methods and goals: “I doubt we could come up with a fixed answer… even in the small circle of a NWTRCC gathering that would satisfy everyone, and an attempt to do so might divide us rather than strengthen us.”
Re: re-building a movement?: Larry responds, seconding my call for confronting a complacent peace movement, suggesting that the emergence of a populist, TEA-party-like tax-resistance movement is unlikely, and addressing my skepticism about his call for tighter definition of the tactics and goals of war tax resistance. He identifies three tendencies among resisters: 1) people who have embraced radical simplicity to avoid paying taxes but without engaging in confrontational civil disobedience (“it’s not, in Thoreau’s sense of the word, ‘friction’”), 2) people who refuse to pay taxes due and then do whatever they can to prevent the government from seizing the money (“For them, holding on [to] the money is a victory, being found and levied is a defeat”), and 3) people who refuse to pay taxes due and who see being found and levied as “like being arrested for civil disobedience” and a vital part of the action (“when the penalty is exacted, we can throw a party, tell our friends, write our bank administrators or our employers or colleagues, make it even more public than it was before”). He also says that having explicit goals or demands is perhaps crucial for war tax resistance to become a movement: “When the Montgomery bus boycott began, among the first thing the organizers did was to stipulate what changes would cause them to stop boycotting.”
re-building a movement - constituencies1 - contra Visalli: Ed Agro writes about doing outreach to encourage war tax resistance from a non-pacifist perspective — “an audience for WTR that’s been given short shrift, perhaps unconsciously, by activists moved by personal conviction so strong that it leads to a too-quick devaluing of other, different convictions” — and says that the experience of his local WTR group shows the strength of ideological diversity.
Re: re-building a movement - constituencies1 - contra Visalli: Larry Rosenwald then asks: “if one isn’t what Ed calls ‘a radical pacifist’ (I myself am), what justifies doing war tax resistance? And if one is of two minds, supports some military actions, opposes others, what results does that have in how one practices wtr?”
Pacifism, non-pacifism, and taxes (was "Re: re-building a movement…"): I try to answer Larry’s question: “[I believe] that whether or not a person should use violence in some situation is something that that person needs to carefully decide on a case-by-case basis and not by applying a pre-made doctrine. Paying taxes, though, means that you’re not making considered decisions about your participation in war and peace, violence and nonviolence, and so forth — instead, you’re leaving those decisions up to politicians. These politicians are, almost by definition, morally repulsive creatures. They cannot be trusted with such decisions, and to allow them to make these decisions for you is morally reckless.” Then I add this challenge: “I’d turn the question around and ask the ‘radical pacifists’ how they can justify taxation of any sort (many do, to my surprise). If you wouldn’t support violence even to stop a Hitler, how can you justify using violence to collect money for any of the far less crucial things government does?”