Among the slogans projected above the stage at the concert.

Pink Floyd was not a group I followed lo these many years, although a few of their songs are familiar. Ed made a CD mix of music to accompany our trips to view total eclipses of the sun, so of course Pink Floyd’s “Eclipse” made the cut. “Money” was a hit single in the U.S. back in the 70s so it did get into my memory bank, although I didn’t give it enough of a listen to respond with a comment like this one on the song’s YouTube page:

Kids thinking of joining the military: Take a copy of the Wall Street Journal, any high tech weapons trade magazines, and this song playing through your earbuds. Sitting in the closest legal parking area, facing Raytheon Technologies, Northrup Grumman, Beretta, Westinghouse, etc business parks, factories, airplane hangars… check out the prices of these bad boys’ stocks. …Tell me we went to ‘war’ (against) Afghanistan, Iraq, dozens of known & unnamed countries & entire regions to ‘defend our country’, to ‘keep us free’….

Now it’s thanks to Veterans For Peace (VFP) that I’ve had a full introduction through Roger Waters’ “This Is Not A Drill” concert tour. He’s had a solo career for years, but does a lot of Pink Floyd songs and throws some history of the group into this otherwise massively political show. VFP was invited to have a literature table and received a block of tickets to various shows around the country. Happily for Ed and me, our VFP friends here in NYC allowed us to join them for a Madison Square Garden concert. And kudos to Roger Waters for giving them and other activists this outreach opportunity.

You can find all kinds of video and reviews of This Is Not A Drill on the internet, like this pretty thorough review from the Boston concert mentioning his support of VFP. This review from The Times of Israel is interesting because Waters support of Palestinians inspires protests from some pro-Israel activists.

If you have seen or read about the concert you’ll find a lot to agree with, although if you don’t see the concert live you do miss out on the technological spectacle that goes along with it. What war tax resister would not appreciate seeing the huge projected images of Reagan and all following presidents tagged with “War Criminal” for the thousands that were killed on their orders during their respective administrations, with Biden “War Criminal just getting started”.

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

I might not agree with everything Waters says, but I was especially impressed with his adamant speech about the insanity of nuclear weapons as he introduced the first encore, “Two Suns in the Sunset.” With his platform, he informs thousands about the Doomsday Clock, now set frighteningly at 100 seconds to midnight. Included on the YouTube page with a solo version of “Two Suns in the Sunset”, he says:

That we allow Nuclear Weapons to exist in a world controlled by deranged sociopaths is, in itself, a deranged arrangement.
We are many they are few.
We could just say no, to the whole MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) insanity.
It makes zero sense and is potentially omnicidal.

While Waters sings “Two Suns in the Sunset” a video projects images of nuclear destruction. Members of the New York City government and Emergency Management Office need tickets to a Waters concert. In July 2022 they released a public service announcement telling us how to survive a nuclear attack. The PSA has gotten thousands of views, mostly because it has been mocked from start to finish. The New York Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons posted a “correction” video in response.

Waters says, “We are many they are few”. There are thousands attending This Is Not A Drill concerts. How many of them turn their cheers for his plea against nuclear weapons into action? Somehow this reminds me of a headline in The Onion years ago to the effect of “If one more person had come to the demonstration, the war would have ended.” Perhaps if one more person openly resisted war taxes….

— Post by Ruth Benn

The post This Is Not A Drill first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

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Roger Franklin at the 2008 conference. Photo by Ed Hedemann.

One of those chance encounters on the internet led me to an obituary of Roger in The Guardian, and another one on the CND Salisbury website. He died at age 93 just over a year ago now. This got me to thinking about the 2008 International Gathering of War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns in Manchester, England, where I had the pleasure of meeting Roger and feeling very humbled by his acts of creative noncooperation with governments that perpetuate war.

In the 1970s Roger had purchased a home and 17 acres of land he named Tickmorend and declared it a nuclear free zone. In 2005, he increased his independence from the state and announced “The Republic of Tickmorend” or “Tickmorend Free Space” in response to “the madness of governments”. “I’m no longer implicated in aggressive wars, aggressive economics and nuclear insanity…. The state is a protection racket, which doesn’t protect you. It endangers you even more.”

The obituary links will tell you more about him. I also enjoyed reading about his run-in with the law when he refused the census in Britain in 2012 because it was being carried out by the “war machine corporation” Lockheed Martin. You can read his letters to the court here.

NWTRCC’s recent gathering included presentations about tax refusal in Spain and Britain with mention of the differences between refusing taxes in the U.S. and other countries. Most countries don’t have the “voluntary” filing like we do here, so in that way we are lucky to be able to make choices about whether to pay and how much to pay. But I was sorry to hear that the Money Rebellion campaign in Britain, which is focused on climate issues, had not been able to make contact with war tax resisters in that country and was not yet connecting the issues of war and the climate crisis.

Conscience – Taxes for Peace Not War is active in Britain, although they seem to have drifted more to promotion of non-military security and legislative campaigns. Nevertheless, they still promote some war tax resistance, and their website features a letter to Inland Revenue from Robin Brookes, who helped organize that 2008 Manchester conference. Robin says in his letter,

“I have wondered, on a purely personal level, whether I can continue to hold out in the face of accumulating interest and fines, but then I see that our government would not be party to the UN talks on making nuclear weapons illegal. …I have to continue to act under conscience.”

Photo by Ed Hedemann, 2017.

We can often feel alone in our war tax refusal, so it is heartening to remember that wherever and whenever there are taxes collected for war, there will always be some stubborn, brave, and inspiring individuals who will resist and refuse to cooperate no matter the consequences. Always.

— Post by Ruth Benn

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Banner of Military spending v Human needs at the farmers market in Eugene OR

April 15th saw Tax Day actions not seen in years. Well at least in 2 years. After Tax Day spread into 3 months in 2020 to finally conclude on July 15th last year, people were eager to come out on April 15th in order to join in a long tradition of holding that day as a stand out day to raise the issue of military spending in the US. War Tax Resisters and those concerned about militarism organize actions in their communities to educate that nearly half of the federal income taxes are devoted to war. April 15th also serves as a day of action to build upon community by investing our energy and resources towards human needs through individual and communal redirection ceremonies.

April 15, 2021. Customary band of pickets, NYC. Photo by Ed Hedemann

This year continued to see a mix of online gatherings and in person actions. You can find a list of actions posted at  NWTRCC website under Tax Day Actions as well as international actions mapped out on the Global Days Against Military Spending. The group in Eugene, Oregon has been bringing out a banner that they have made that is to scale of cost comparisons of human needs to bloated military spending. You can watch a short video they shared describing their action. If you have videos or photos to share of actions in April please send them to NWTRCC as we update our Tax Day page. Ed Hedemann captured some irrepressible resisters with the New York War Resisters League outside of the IRS building. 

The May NWTRCC conference spanned three days online this past weekend. We began Saturday with two amazing panels. We heard from panelists focused on nuclear disarmament on how the Entry Into Force of the  has created a great opportunity to call for the end of nuclear weapons and prevent an new generation of nuclear weapons from coming into existence. You can find a link to the panel on NWTRCC’s YouTube Channel here.  The second panel of younger war tax resisters followed. Their articulation of conscientious objection to war will impress. We will share a more detailed report back and links from the conference in coming days.  Thanks to all who attended. It was good to connect with you!

The final day to file taxes this year is May 17th.  The date falls on a Monday following Conscientious Objector Day, May 15th.  There was a clear decision of the the Administrative Committee (Ad Comm) meeting of NWTRCC a few years ago to frame our war tax resistance as a matter of conscientious objection. It was to identify with the long tradition of resistance to war in the US and those who faced prison for their opposition to World War II.  Those pacifists who had taken a principled stance against war continue to guide us as we proclaim that our opposition to war is not simply refusing to engage in combat but also to acknowledge and resist our complicity in paying for it with our taxes. (See a history of Pioneers of the Modern American War Tax Resistance Movement)

Ammon Hennacy with his active war tax resistance photo from wikisource

Ammon Hennessey often comes to mind around tax day. His public  resistance to war went back to World War I and extended throughout his life. He once said “A pacifist between wars is like a vegetarian between meals.”  David Gross wrote about the principles of Ammon’s ‘one man revolution’ in an earlier blog. The work of  NWTRCC is to dispel the myth that we are resisting war in isolation.  We are actively investing in building community, devoting our energy and resources into real needs around us.  As we focus more on redirection efforts and less on the waste of military spending, we are strengthening the mycelium-like networks. Share with the network any actions you have planned around disrupting the military madness. 

Post by Chrissy Kirchhoefer

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“I don’t want to pay for what I don’t want. I won’t buy what I don’t want.
I’m that way with everything. So, why not war? I don’t want it either…”

— Juanita Nelson on Democracy Now!

During this season of Black Fridays, Cyber Mondays, big online retailer vans and trucks crowding streets and highways, advertisements for all manner of plastic stuff, etc., it’s a great time to remember Wally and Juanita Nelson. They lived lives centered around their belief in nonviolence as a way of life, a belief that led Wally to prison for refusing to fight in WWII. A belief that led the couple to refuse to pay taxes for war. A belief that evolved to an exemplary life of simple living.

“By simplifying my needs and living more nearly within the bounds of my own productivity, I hope to reduce my exploitation of the earth and its inhabitants,” explained Juanita in an essay titled “Nonviolence of Daily Living.”

Brochure cover

That quote is in a beautiful new brochure that came in the mail recently from the Nelson Legacy Project at Woolman Hill in Deerfield, Massachusetts. In 2019, a group of friends in that area — many of them war tax resisters — raised money and took on the reconstruction and repair of Wally and Juanita’s house. They gathered up photos and writings and other materials to put on display in the house and held an open house at the property in October 2019 after completing the renovation.

A permanent exhibit to remember Wally and Juanita, share their story, and educate about simple living and nonviolence is being organized in the house. It will be open to school groups and visitors when such gatherings are allowed again. In the meantime, a website is in the works and will be housed on the Woolman Hill website (a temporary site is here). Many will be challenged by the idea that it is possible to live happy and fulfilling lives on a few thousand dollars a year.

Wally and Juanita at home. Photo by Ed Hedemann, 1998.

I often look at the wall of books in our house and remember the time Ed and I were visiting Juanita some years after Wally had died. She looked at a shelf of about a dozen books and sighed “I have too many books!” Of course, this led me to burst out laughing given how much stuff we have collected. But Juanita was not judgmental. She knew how she had to live her life, and if it served as a model for others that was a bonus.

In 2005, Amy Goodman interviewed Juanita on Democracy Now! and ran the interview again in March 2015 when Juanita died. What a happy discovery that the interview ends with Juanita reading her poem, “Outhouse Blues.”

Rev. Billy and choir members at NWTRCC’s 2005 strategy conference. Photo by Ed Hedemann.

In the course of thinking about consumerism, how can I not mention the creative and ongoing singing and preaching protests of Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. They were out on Black Friday in front of Jeff Bezos’ 80 million dollar manse in Manhattan. Juanita and Woolman Hill hosted Rev. Billy and the choir a few times for performances in Western Massachusetts. She would appreciate his recent message:

“Greetings in these strange, strange times. We steel ourselves for the onslaught of shopping at the holidays. Now it’s not the door-buster sale. Now it’s Amazon. We have 100 jets and 30,000 trucks to stop. Amazon puts a million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air each week. Its life and death, Children! What’s the direct action protest that will work against this extraordinary threat? Let’s find it!  Let’s invent it! Earthalujah!”  www.revbilly.com

And, of course, let’s broaden that call to action to include the horrific contribution that militarism and war add to the climate crisis. Don’t pay for what you don’t want.

— Post by Ruth Benn

If you’d like to donate to the Nelson Legacy Fund, please email me for the address.

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2020 has revealed so much inequity within our society, especially related to class and racial justice.  Conversations around the injustices in which this nation was founded, with stolen land and stolen bodies that created the very wealth of those who continue to benefit, are more prevalent in the present than ever before.  Many will acknowledge that the United States was founded through revolution and tax protest,  yet do not see this as a participatory part of democracy even now when the very vitality of the U.S. and its inhabitants are at stake.

U.S. War Tax History

Following the American Revolution, George Washington proposed a tax on spirits to fund a policy of “assuming war debt” for the war that established the United States. It was the first time that Congress approved of a tax on a domestic product, which fomented the Whiskey Rebellion. The first income tax was placed on the population to pay for the Civil War in 1861.  Abraham Lincoln voluntarily paid income tax that was later returned to his estate.  There was much debate about the legitimacy of federal income tax. There were two types of taxes imposed: the poll tax or head tax for individuals as well as property taxes; the distribution of the taxes was related to each state’s population from the census. While there were income taxes imposed in the late 19th century to recoup costs from the war, it was not until Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1913 that federal income taxes were formalized. Teddy Roosevelt had pushed for a “progressive tax” in 1907, which would tax each income class according to its means. At that time a 1% income tax was imposed on net personal income over $3,000 and 6% on incomes over $500,000.  

Following World War I, the top income rate rose to 77% to help pay for the war but in reality the wealthy only paid 15%. The percentages of taxes levied varied greatly following the Great Depression and increased dramatically at the end of World War II. At that time Congress introduced payroll withholdings and quarterly tax payments. Although income taxes were imposed to pay for wars, it was not until 1967 until Lyndon Johnson proposed an income tax “surtax” to pay for the Vietnam War; created an explicit “war tax.”

U.S. War Tax Resistance History

One of the most well known  war tax resister in the US was Henry David Thoreau  who spent a night in jail for refusing to pay for Mexican-American war and slavery.  His writing “Civil Disobedience” penned in  1847 continues to be an influential source of principled resistance tactics. While there were other examples of war tax resistance it was not until the dawn of the nuclear age that nationwide networks of  WTR were established. Peacemakers and the Committee for Nonviolent Revolution, the predecessors to NWTRCC,  were established in 1948 following a gathering in Chicago of  anti-war radicals. An article, “Hell No I Won’t Pay” by Kennett Love was published during the Vietnam War and included many of names of those who have paved the way with their principled approach to oppose paying for war. A.J. Muste penned a letter to the Washington Post to articulate some of those principles in stating that many came to WTR after “the ordinary channels of protest have been exhausted.” Many well known people signed onto the pledge at a time when there was little support for that position; they paved the path for people of conscience to rise above fear of the IRS and to simply paying for wars. While approaches to WTR vary, two common themes seem to be harm reduction, concern for those impacted from U.S. wars and the theft of those resources from our communities as well as an emphasis upon collectivism, devoting time, energy and resources into our communal needs. 

Donald Trump & Taxes

Donald Trump’s taxes seem to epitomize the antithesis of the values of WTR. I originally intended to share some of the “highlights” of the Trump taxes, but then it felt more like regurgitating a tired, stale tale that would create more agitation than inspiration. Anger and fear can only carry us as far as it is ignited. I have been thinking a lot about language, especially as it relates to rejecting militarized language and focusing more on language that encourages action and inspiration. I continue to ponder Ruth Benn’s questions posed in last week’s blog. I have been pondering for much of 2020 how to encourage others to divest from paying for wars and invest in their communities as they are able. Many are seeing with new eyes in 2020; I hope that we are able to inspire others to take bold, creative actions rooted in uplifting life.

Here are additional sources of information about the conversations happening around federal income taxes:

The President’s Taxes: Long Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Loses and Years of Tax Avoidance

How Reality-TV Fame Handed Trump a $427 million Lifeline

Trump’s Tax Avoidance is a Tax on the Rest of Us

A Brief History of the Taxpayer in Chief

Among the key findings of the Times’ investigation:

• Mr. Trump paid no federal income taxes in 11 of 18 years that the Times examined. In 2017, after he became president, his tax bill was only $750.
• He has reduced his tax bill with questionable measures, including a $72.9 million tax refund that is the subject of an audit by the Internal Revenue Service.
• Many of his signature businesses, including his golf courses, report losing large amounts of money — losses that have helped him to lower his taxes.
• The financial pressure on him is increasing as hundreds of millions of dollars in loans he personally guaranteed are soon coming due.
• Even while declaring losses, he has managed to enjoy a lavish lifestyle by taking tax deductions on what most people would consider personal expenses, including residences, aircraft, and $70,000 in hairstyling for television.
• Ivanka Trump, while working as an employee of the Trump Organization, appears to have received “consulting fees” that also helped reduce the family’s tax bill.
• As president, he has received more money from foreign sources and U.S. interest groups than previously known. The records do not reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia.

Post by: Chrissy Kirchhoefer

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From We Are the Shutdown:

• On May 1st, we decide what is essential.
• We make the economy. We can shut it down. We don’t need stay-at-home orders or the false liberty of re-opening the economy: we can decide, together, what is essential, and how to care for everyone. We can open a new world, not the economy.
• From now on, we work for ourselves, we live for ourselves.
• This is only the beginning. We will have to create our own way out of this crisis. We’ve got to keep each other alive. No one else is going to do it.

A former Amazon employee, Christian Smalls who was fired after expressing his concerns about workers safety tweeted “It’s time to join up! Protect all workers at all costs we are not expendable or replaceable- enough is enough- TAKE THE POWER BACK!”  Workers taking their power back seeming all the more urgent when the president suggested reopening the US economy on May 1st as well as Amazon ending its unlimited and unpaid time off for workers. 

One of  the participating organizations, 5 Demands Global,  clearly identifies in name and purpose. The 5 Demands are : Free Health Care/ No Work/ No Paying, No Debt/ Free Prisoners/ Homes for All. You can find more information on their website. The Youth Liberation Front had a rather humorous list of demands for the call for Autonomous actions On May 1st on their website It’s Going Down. 

One of the suggested actions for May Day from We Are the Shutdown  is to reach out to coworkers, neighbors and friends. That is what NWTRCC had planned for May Day with our for our bi-annual conference from May 1-3.  With the concern of COVID-19 and most of the US still shut down, we shifted our in person gathering to a video conference. Fortunately, we have more people signed up for the conference than could normally make it in person. It will be the first conference for many of the registrants. We will share stories of collaborative resistance in our local communities and strategize on how to build upon the national network. Now is the time to share messages of empowerment to the masses about redirection of our resources and how we as War Tax Resisters have experimented with this tactic that has long been employed in this country.

Happy May Day!

Hope to see you this weekend at the NWTRCC Gathering.  For information about registering for the NWTRCC gathering check by clicking here

Image from Flickr of May Day Gathering in Melbourne

History of the May Day in the US

For many, May 1st summons up images of dancing around a maypole and traditional European spring celebrations but for movement people we often think of International Workers Day and Haymarket Square in Chicago. During a convention of labor union in Chicago in 1884, proclaimed that beginning on May 1, 1886 8 hours of labor would constitute a legal day of work with the same amount of wages. On that day more than 300,000 workers in over 13,000 businesses walked off their jobs in the first May Day.  Chicago drew the largest crowd with 40,000 workers going on strike. 

In the days that followed almost 100,000 walked off of their jobs and filled the streets of Chicago displaying the strength and unity of the workers.  Much attention focused on the Mc Cormick plant which had locked out workers since the beginning of the year. The plant was heavily protected by armed Pinkerton agents and police. They had harassed and beat up workers as they picketed outside the plant and to protect the strike breakers. On May 1, over half of the strike breakers deflected to join those on the picket line as 400 armed agents watched.   After a speech near the plant on May 3rd, hundreds of demonstrators joined the strikers on the picket line. During skirmishes with armed agents,, strikers began throwing rocks to which the police responded to with gunfire, killing 2 people and injuring many. 

The following day a call was put out to meet in Haymarket Square. The weather was rainy and led to a small crowd of 3,000 people. Many of the speakers made their speeches and then got out of the weather. The mayor of Chicago attended the gathering and found it rather uneventful and left. As the last speaker was wrapping up his talk and bringing the gathering to a close, the police arrived en masse and marched in formation to break up the gathering that was already dispersing. A dynamite bomb was thrown in the path of the advancing police. Within minutes the square was cleared except for 4 strikers and 7 police were killed and over 70 wounded. There is evidence that some of the police losses were due to “friendly fire.”

Hundreds of labor leaders and sympathizers were rounded up, questioned and harassed.  Eight anarchists were convicted of conspiracy despite the fact that it was known that none of them threw the bomb but it was believed that maybe one of them had built the bomb even though there was no evidence. Seven were sentenced to death and the other was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Four of the men were publicly executed on November 11, 1887. At the Haymarket monument are the last words of August Spies before he was executed “The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.”

Mother Jones, who was born on May 1, reported how the the worker in Mexico remembered those killed in Haymarket Square on May 1, 1921 Image from Wikimedia Commons

Post by Chrissy Kirchhoefer

The post May Day first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

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Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn. March 19, 2020. Photo by Ed Hedemann

On March 19 — just last week before the state really shut down — our NYC War Resisters League group held vigils in three areas of the city. A few of us walked to the busy traffic circle at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn and stood with our signs to mark the 17^th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and demand an end to endless war.

Because there wasn’t much else going on, drivers zipping by and people walking in and out of the park turned their heads to see what we were up to. Despite some controversy in our group about whether protesting in a time of pandemic was a good idea, we got plenty of supportive honks and thumbs up. It felt important to take some time to get out of ourselves and remember the people in the world suffering under — and because of — U.S. wars.

Rise and Resist protest, Brooklyn, March 24, 2020. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann-Gorden

It was easy enough to practice social distancing but have some social time too, although we weren’t as precise as the Rise and Resist protest on March 24.

Now, while mostly at home, we find plenty of things to do, but running out to a big demonstration is not one of them. This got me thinking about war tax resistance as a perfect protest for the isolated. That led me to think of the many individual acts of resistance in antiwar history and thus to Ammon Hennacy and his “one man revolution.” Fellow WTR David Gross has done extensive writings on this topic, and he sums it up this way:

This idea is that, contrary to what the organizers of the world are always telling us, the key to curing society’s ills is not necessarily to organize at all. You don’t need a majority, or a critical mass, or a disciplined revolutionary vanguard. Just get your own house in order and commit yourself to your own personal revolution — that’s the most crucial and practical thing you can do.

Ammon Hennacy. Photo: wikisource

Now that so many of us have time to consider our own house (especially in the context of the lack of resources invested in healthcare) becoming a war tax resister/refuser/redirector might just move up on the to-do list for more folks – right in the comfort of your own home!

For many it can take years from the time they first heard about war tax resistance to actually do it. I had correspondence recently with a woman who was quietly on my local war tax resistance list for years. In early March I sent out an email about an upcoming workshop, and she replied that she’d love to come but she has moved across the country. She went on,

I would like to talk to an experienced counselor soon as I go through my
process so I can figure out how I can do this while minimizing my risk as
I try to quell the fears that have interfered in the past. I do have a taxable
income and I do have assets – a home, bank account & investments, and 401K retirement accounts. It’s hard to risk the little bit of financial security I have been able to establish. BUT I have long been distressed and conflicted by the violence that my tax dollars support. The other day I watched a film called The Report which is a dramatization about the Senate investigation into CIA “enhanced interrogation tactics” after 9/11.  It was a horrifying reminder of what I need to do. I will be continuing down this path. 

In our correspondence I asked her about the impact of the pandemic in her new location, and among other things this prompted her to say, “Coronavirus will probably always be linked in my mind with my renewed interest in tax resistance!”

These days, as health systems in the U.S. and most countries can’t keep up with critical needs, the linkage to the trillions of dollars and mountains of resources wasted on military madness over the decades is more obvious than ever. The new War Resisters League pie chart is out and available in English and Spanish online, so another one-person action you can take is to share it on social media, download it and mail to elected officials, email the link to everyone you know demanding Pentagon money be shifted to human and planet needs.

WRL used to have a brochure titled, “If you think you’re too small to be effective … you’ve never been in bed with a mosquito.” Now’s the time to be that mosquito in the ear of those in power. Please add your ideas for one-person protest (if not revolution) in the comments section.

— Post by Ruth Benn

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From the Movement for Black Lives to Extinction Rebellion, CODEPINK to the Baltimore Wisdom Project, or from the Voices of Creative Nonviolence to the Brooklyn Center for Sacred Activism, there are dynamic people causing beautiful trouble through a variety of means but all utilizing methods that motivate us to noncooperate with the injustices we have now. What is noncooperation? Noncooperation is the decisive act of refusing to engage in an a particular process, experience, or scenario. If we took even just the first two groups I mentioned, both have indeed decided to refuse engagement with the status quo, daring to disrupt through creative forms of public defiance. The Baltimore Wisdom Project also defies the status quo by empowering teens with the methods necessary for cultivating wisdom in their lives in order to be able to think beyond the norm when it comes to designing a more just world for each of us to live with.

Noncooperation at Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

For us at the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC), noncooperation is our mission objective. The members of NWTRCC and our allies, choose to deny billionaires the ability to get rich off the lives of people of color who are forced to fight wars for the rich and pollute the earth on behind of oil corporations who fund the building of military equipment which perpetuates the destruction of our common home. We refuse and resist paying income taxes so money can be directed to programs, people, and grassroots communities who are actively building a pro-human, pro-peace, and pro-planet society. Now, let us be clear that this is not merely a bunch of people who have an issue with being told what to do, or a conglomeration of people who have “nothing better to do”, which many status quo Americans accuse activists of. Each of us, in our own way, are striving to enact a way of life that prioritizes the greater good so that in the long term the children who are being born at this very minute, have an opportunity to grow up and experience the majesty of life. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was very clear about this when in his Letter to a Birmingham Jail he stated:

We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

The Prophet of Racial Justice, Martin Luther King Jr. was indeed correct that we who practice the way of nonviolence (Satyagraha as Gandhi called it), are revealing the “tension” that causes the poor to become more poor, the tension that causes black people to be murdered by police and then labeled a “criminal” by society, or the tension that permits children to be placed in cages all along the United States border while their parents are held for days in freezers without any idea if they will ever see their children again. Noncooperation is the way of the big-hearted, the prophet, the dreamer, and the sage. To stare injustice in the face and deny it power is the way of the rebel who values people over corporations and community over government. So, how can you noncooperate in your area and build a culture of peace with justice? Here are some key points that can assist you in building a new world:

1. Have a Vision: If you as an individual or your community, do not have a vision that guides you in the pursuit of justice, you will always remain immobile.
2. Regeneration: Each of us deal with highs and lows in life, especially those of us who go up against this huge beast of capitalism. However, when each of us practices caring for one another, we help to lessen the amount of trauma caused by oppression. Example of this could be, teaching community-care strategies, having weekly in-person check-ins with members of your community, creating time and space for visiting the elders of your community, etc. When you practice care, you facilitate peace.
3. Commit to a Dynamic Strategy: Way too many movements die out or reinforce harm due to the lack of committal to a dynamic strategy. Everyone has a gift and that gift can be properly used for the development of the global family. However, you and your community have to be disciplined in the determination of how/when gifts are used. Gene Sharp describes this as the different types of change agents. Some people are the media personalities, they help get the narrative out there and know how to stay on script. Some of you may be the agitator who stirs up trouble, or exposes the “tension” as Dr. Martlin Luther King Jr. mentioned before. Maybe a few of you are the healers, those who deal with those who are physically, emotionally, or spiritually wounded. Whichever form of change agent you are, commit to it and have that as part of the overall strategy. Do not put the healers in front of the planning meeting because they are not organizers, whereas; do not put the agitators in the healing camp because each of us must use our gifts in their proper place. (https://wagingnonviolence.org/2016/02/bill-moyer-four-roles-of-social-change/)
4. Speak Up and Be Silent: Security Culture is a big problem in a majority of movements partly because many change agents do not fully grasp the importance of protecting the privacy of targeted communities and the nuanced ways we freely give away our information which is then used to monitor us without consent. So, when you are organizing in your communities, do the research and determine what is the best mode of communication that puts up enough barriers to deter “big brother” from watching. Use fake news in meeting minutes, download signal, discord, or other encryption platforms, and stop using Google products for storing your vital documents…that is basically giving big brother everything. (https://techbeacon.com/security/6-ways-develop-security-culture-top-bottom)

As you can see from these guidelines, noncooperation is intentional, mindful, and proactive. Every single member of the human family must be conscious when it comes to creating a just world and that includes defying the status quo. We must reclaim our planet, reclaim our right to healthcare, our right to education and reclaim our right to be human in this inhumane society. In that same letter that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, he reminds us of an important historical truth, namely, “We have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined…nonviolent pressure. It is a historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily”. Noncooperation is how we reclaim our common humanity in right relationship with our common home (earth).

The late great poet and mystic, Mary Oliver, once asked this question and I leave it with you:

What is it that you will do with your one wild and precious life?

Rev. Jerry Maynard O.M.M. is known as “The People’s Priest”, and has a ministry of Protest, Praise, and Community Organizing in Houston, TX. Jerry works on foreign & domestic issues, teaches the spirituality of nonviolence, and serves as the Founding Pastor of The People’s Church. Jerry is an Independent Catholic Priest with the Order of Mary Magdalene and serves on both the Administrative and Outreach Committees of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC). For more info: https://www.RevJerryMaynard.org/

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Now I see a similar law is proposed in New York, where I live. There’s a Freelancers New York campaign against it, and their website announces, “Freelancers in New York watched in horror as AB5 passed hastily in California, destroying the livelihoods of thousands of independent contractors in one vague, sweeping bill.” Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration as far as horror goes (there are plenty of horrors these days), but it is worrisome.

As part of our war tax resistance counseling in the NWTRCC network, we have long pointed out that working as an independent contractor (subject to 1099 tax reporting unless off-the-books) gives individuals the freedom to decide whether and how much they are going to pay to the IRS. NWTRCC’s Practical War Tax Resistance #4, Self Employment: An Effective Path for War Tax Refusal is all about this. The key thing is that 1099 workers do not have withholding like W-2 employees, something the IRS has long been lobbying to change. Now it seems the states are going to help with that shift, along with, apparently, knocking a lot of people out of their paying freelance work.

Hopefully other freelancers will weigh in on this topic, especially those in California who may be feeling the effects of the new law. I see in the Freelancers New York FAQs that 33 states already have enacted the “ABC test,” the controversial change in this legislation. Personally I am not totally understanding the nuances in the ABC test compared to the current IRS regulations defined in the Employer’s Tax Guide (click on chapter 2, “Who Are Employees”). It seems one major problem with the ABC test is that it is vague, and employers are scared to hire freelancers because it will be hard to prove their independence if tax or labor enforcers come calling.

Pets are particularly happy to have work-at-home, freelancing caretakers. Photo by Ed Hedemann.

I think the quandary that I have felt over the past decade or so with the rise of the gig economy is that I’m all for freelancing — it’s great to set your own rate and hours and choose where you work — but watching companies like Uber and Lyft rake in profits off the labor of underpaid, no-benefits workers is another story. Of course, small employers exploit workers in many fields too, whether restaurant work, construction, house cleaning, etc.

In part the quandary comes down to: some of us are quite happy to be choosing our own hours, where we work —and whether we are going to give the feds money for war. We know we are sacrificing some protections like health and unemployment insurance, employer’s share of FICA or workers comp. Others definitely need protection.

I’ll be interested in reader comments on this legislation and whether happy and exploited independent contractors can both be accommodated under these new labor laws.

— Post by Ruth Benn

A few other links:

You’ll find many links to articles and info if you do a search. I was interested in what the National Writers Union and Freelancers Union had to say, and also ran into that “unintended consequences” piece below, which brings up some other good points.

The two sides to AB-5, and how we can fix the gap, Freelancers Union blog post, 1/23/20

National Writers Union had a September 2019 statement supporting the California bill, but now their Twitter feed has a lot about AB-5 and their hope that the New York law will be better and more specific about exemptions for freelance writers.

The Many Unintended Consequences of AB5, California Globe, 12/10/19. Maybe a more libertarian point of view but brings up some of the tax and benefit issues.

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​

Faslane is a beautiful little area along the shores of Gare Loch. With the morning fog still burning off on the shore, and rolling hills reaching down to the water, it was honestly very hard to imagine why people would want to stick a military base here, let alone nuclear submarines.

​When our little bus pulled into the visitors parking lot at HMNB Clyde, it only took a few minutes for the local police to show up. The police recognized Willemien immediately, since she’s a resident of the peace camp and a frequent protester.

​Our trip coordinator spoke with the police at length about our plans, and then we went over to another base entrance, more visible to passing cars, for a short vigil. The police snapped a lot of photographs of everyone present as we lit a candle, and several people spoke about their opposition to nuclear weapons and support for peace. There was a little singing as well.

​After we concluded our vigil, an officer asked if I “would like to give your details” and I said “no thanks.” Fortunately, I had been pre-alerted by another attendee that police often ask for your personal information at protests (often less politely, or implying that you have to give your information), but you’re not required to do so unless you’re under arrest.

​After the vigil we briefly visited the Faslane Peace Camp (Facebook / website). The camp is rudimentary – wood stoves provide most of the heat, and campers live in rundown trailer RVs or other makeshift homes. But their spirit is really beautiful – the camp is decorated with many slogans, painted caravans, and artwork.

​

And the Faslane campers and their allies have been maintaining this direct action camp for decades, continuing to put their bodies on the line at significant cost and risk to themselves. Many people demonstrate and are arrested at Faslane every year.

​
Following the conference, I ended up in London for a day and visited the 56A Infoshop, an anarchist resource center and bookshop in the Elephant & Castle area. The infoshop, together with a bike repair project and a food cooperative, has occupied the address for over 30 years. Among their fascinating archive of UK and other countries’ social movement publications, flyers, books, and other resources, 56A has a partial collection of the publications that have come out of Faslane Peace Camp since it was founded, all of which show their rowdy, rebellious nature and commitment to long-term resistance.

​

One of my favorite pieces was a list, I think in the 2000 issue, of all the arrests at Faslane in 1999. This list featured such gems as the arrest of a person called Fungus on November 13, 1999, at a Ploughshares action, “‘for being a pain in the arse’ near the Faslane fence.” Teapot was arrested “for snogging a police van” at a Ploughshares action on August 24, 1999. There were many more serious entries on the list too – climbing fences, cutting fences, blocking traffic. And from what I can glean online, this spirit of direct action and resistance persists to this day.

​You can support Faslane Peace Camp by spreading the word about their work, and coordinating supplies donations or volunteers if you know folks in the UK or anyone willing to travel there. There is also a set of routing numbers on their website for doing a donation, although I’m not quite sure of the details of how that would work but they can always use your support.

post by Erica Leigh

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The longest term war tax resisters (l to r) Joffre Stewart, Juanita Nelson, Karl Meyer and Brad Lyttle at the 2005 WTR strategy conference in NYC. Photo by Ed Hedemann.

Joffre Stewart died in his hometown Chicago at age 93 on March 12. He became a dedicated nonviolent resister to war and injustice out of a short stint in the military during WWII when he went to prison for going AWOL. Early on he found his political home with the revolutionary pacifism and direct action of Peacemakers, a group founded in the late 1940s by Ernest and Marion Bromley and Juanita and Wally Nelson. He carried his anarchist-pacifist politics with him for the rest of his life, although Joffre was not someone who fit easily into a group. He was a poet and might have known every open mic poetry night in Chicago; he had a great voice for recitation, but it wasn’t always easy to comprehend or accept the content.

Reading a poem at NWTRCC’s 2012 Colorado Springs gathering. Photo by Kima Garrison.

I first met him in person at the International Conference of War Tax Resisters and Peace Tax Campaigns in Washington, DC, in 2000, which was organized and hosted by the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund and NWTRCC. I knew of Joffre from the late 1980s because his mailings, with writing all over the outside of the envelope, frequently turned up in the mailbag at the War Resisters League where I worked.

At the 2000 conference, Joffre’s name was announced from the stage because he was being publicly censured for passing out leaflets that were felt as offensive and antisemitic by many attendees. Digging through movement records one finds interviews with Joffre at least back to the 1970s that discuss these charges with him. He couldn’t see it; he was anti-state and adamantly anti-Zionist but didn’t accept the charge of antisemitism. Despite his denials, his writings often incorporated the swastika among other symbols and continued to offend. Still, he did not change.

Nevertheless, I was intrigued to meet him in person and was shocked to find a soft-spoken engaging person with impressive stories from his history of activism (here’s sample from a Peacemakers’ write-up in 1950).

Through most of the 2000s and until Joffre became too frail to travel at about age 91, he came to most of the twice-yearly gatherings of NWTRCC. He’d often arrive early and be the first to greet people with his latest legal-size, 2-page flyer featuring one of his poems full of symbols plus some bits copied from our newsletter or other mailings. Many of our meetings had to include a disclaimer: “those handouts are by one person and do not reflect the beliefs of this organization.” He’d lay waste to a lot of good work by blocking proposals because of one word or phrase or any mention of legislation.

A correction to the NWTRCC newsletter from Joffre.

At times there were conversations about whether he should be banned, but those of us who were regulars at the meetings never came to such an agreement. Joffre did have something of a winning personality, and he was so damn dedicated to REVOLUTIONARY NONVIOLENT DISOBEDIENCE, as he might write. Joffre’s anarcho-pacifism continually challenged us to think before saying “my state,” “my government,” or “taxes for peace” (see graphic). When people would talk about nuclear disarmament, he would clarify that one nuclear weapon is too many. In response to an article explaining presentations of military budget percentages he wrote “1% of a ‘defense’ budget is more than enuf to destroy our world.”

Stories of his arrests for leafleting, or the time he took the bus to our meeting in Tucson and the border patrol hassled him at a checkpoint, reminded our predominantly white group that living while black is a whole other experience. He was resourceful and somehow found his way to our meeting location when his bus was way late or the person who was to pick him up couldn’t find him. All of us who knew him can share lots of stories  — funny ones too. (I mean, really, Joffre visiting the Las Vegas strip. It was incongruous.)

Thinking about Joffre gets me thinking about group process and all the dynamics involved in trying to keep a group together, welcome in new people, and get business done. Certainly our meetings became easier without this one-of-a-kind thinker. In many difficult group situations it might be necessary to resort to mediation or other measures to deal with a problem and avoid a total rupture. Joffre wasn’t really “mediatable”; he’d listen to criticism, maybe argue back, and carry on. It was just how he was.

Perhaps just out of softness of heart NWTRCC gave Joffre a political home, but it didn’t go unappreciated as illustrated in these stanzas from his poem about the suicide of Malachi Ritscher. Joffre was at a NWTRCC gathering at the time of his Chicago friend’s death.

So while I was in Vegas
plotting with tax-resisters
to move resistance into mass movement
Malachi committed the ultimate act
of tax resistance:
taking himself permanently
Out of the Infernal Revenue System

Had he known about us
he might be letting his little light shine
rather than having his
Millennium Flame
doused, smothered, hidden, suppressed
by the patriotically polluted overflow
of MainStream Media

If I believed in heaven I could imagine Joffre standing at the pearly gates with his bag of leaflets, definitely not going in, but handing his flyers to all the unwitting takers.

— Ruth Benn

P.S. One more link from David Gross’s blog, which also takes you to the obit from a Chicago friend of Joffre’s.

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A few months ago, the war tax resistance e-mail discussion list took up this topic of public resistance when discussing how to deal with NWTRCC archival materials, including correspondence.

Several resisters expressed concern about a trend of people wanting to remain private about their resistance, associating relative quietness with an lack of willingness to take responsibility for their actions. Indeed, a hallmark of “civil disobedience” as a concept is choosing to be outspoken and public with one’s refusal to cooperate.

Some felt that resistance loses some of its value when undertaken in relative privacy. Others spoke out in support of those who choose to resist quietly, including Edward Hasbrouck, a long-time war tax resister and anti-draft activist and refuser. This was his response:

The draft resistance movement I was part of in the 1980s spent a lot of time arguing about (a) definitions of resistance and (b) whether quiet (closeted) nonregistration with Selective Service should be considered “resistance” or was “political”.

I don’t think either argument advanced our cause, or at least my cause. I’d rather recognize the diverse forms and self-definitions of resistance, and support all those who strive to resist war, than try to define a singular correct way to resist, or impose it on others.

I think the facts are pretty clear that there are hundreds of people who don’t like military conscription and violated the draft laws in some way than who publicized or told the government what they did.

Click to see a collection of draft refusal posters, including this one, on Edward Hasbrouck’s website.

I chose to publicize and tell the government about my nonregistration, and was prosecuted for doing so, but that was a personal and tactical choice. I don’t think those who were closeted about their law-breaking were any less legitimate or less politically correct resisters.

Will Doherty, my queer comrade in public resistance and in support of closeted resistance, and my first teacher of the lessons for other movements of the movement for gay liberation, drew the analogy of the importance of gay people coming out of the closet. Coming out is an important part of the growth of a movement, which one can encourage in others by setting an example of coming out oneself, and supporting others who do. But one can’t impose that choice by outing others.

(I was out as bisexual to fellow inmates and guards in prison camp. I hadn’t really planned to talk about it, but it came up in a conversation, and word spread. I wasn’t sexually active in prison and both my fellow prisoners and the guards had seen my visits with a woman with whom I was obviously in love, which significantly affected how it was interpreted.)

As for tax resistance, I suspect that there are many more people who do things to reduce how much tax they pay, some of which including non-filing might be considered illegal by the government, because they oppose war, than who do so publicly or notify the government.

I welcome their actions, and encourage others to do likewise.

In any resistance movement there are those who take more direct and visible actions, and those (usually in larger numbers) who take similar actions more quietly, or don’t engage in them directly but provide various forms of support to those who do.

The best theoretical analysis I have seen of the relationship between closeted and public resistance comes from James C. Scott, the political anthropologist and scholar of peasant and other subaltern resistance:

“Much of the active political life of subordinate groups has been ignored because it takes place at a level we rarely recognize as political. To emphasize the enormity of what has been, by and large, disregarded, I want to distinguish between the open, declared forms of resistance, which attract most attention, and the disguised, low-profile undeclared resistance….

“For many of the least privileged minorities and marginalized poor, open political action will hardly capture the bulk of political action…. The luxury of relatively safe, open political opposition is rare… So long as we confine our conception of the political to activity that is openly declared we are driven to conclude that subordinate groups essentially lack a political life…. To do so is to miss the immense terrain that lies between quiescence and [open] revolt and that, for better or worse, is the political environment of subject classes….

“Each of the forms of disguised resistance… is the silent partner of a loud form of public resistance.”[Domination and the Arts of Resistance, Yale University Press, 1990, Chapter 7]

“Desertion is quite different from an open mutiny that directly challenges military commanders. It makes no public claims, it issues no manifestos, it is exit rather than voice. And yet, once the extent of desertion becomes known, it constrains the ambitions of commanders, who know they may not be able to count on their conscripts…. Quiet, anonymous,… lawbreaking and disobedience may well be the historically preferred mode of political action for… subaltern classes, for whom open defiance is too dangerous.” [Two Cheers for Anarchism, Princeton University Press, 2012, Chapter 1]

Both books are worth reading in their entirety, but seem to have been largely overlooked as contributions to the theory and practice of resistance to authority.

I quote these excerpts from Scott in an essay on the history of draft resistance since 1980 at: https://hasbrouck.org/draft/background.html

and in an essay on the politics of that resistance at: https://hasbrouck.org/draft/draft-identity-status.pdf

Peace,
Edward Hasbrouck

To see the entire conversation, check out this thread.

News coverage of Edward Hasbrouck’s draft registration resistance in 1983: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/01/15/No-jail-for-draft-resister/3641411454800/

Post by Erica Leigh

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