“No Way, We Won’t Pay”

By Erin Thompson, The Indypendent, Oct. 19, 2005

Click here to read article. 

Initial Report from the Strategy Conference
(Brooklyn, NY, October 7 - 10, 2005)

by Robert Randall, Georgia

It was great!  Although we did not obtain the broader participation from all segments of the peace movement for which we had hoped, there were a lot of us there (over 70 throughout the weekend), about 1/2 “old hats” and about 1/2 “new folk”, by my guestimate.  It was great seeing so many old friends and getting to know new ones.

Although the most important part of the weekend was the nightly up-until-midnight jokefests in the “noisy room,” I’ll defer reporting on that (except to say that I will probably never again be able to hear the term “Freudian slip” without bursting out laughing) and move on to the more mundane but far-reaching stuff.

We strategized!  Several plans came out of that.  Here are some, with ways you can connect:

A new Working Group was established to develop a WTR Intro DVD, parts of which will also be put on our website for download/streaming. 

Another working group was set up to work on the survey/boycott proposal from the St. Louis Covenant Community of WTR’s.  The original proposal is at www.nwtrcc.org/oct05conf.htm (Proposal #2). While the exact form of stages 2 & 3 will be developed later, we decided to go ahead with the development and pilot testing of a survey between now and the May NWTRCC meeting in Seattle. 

Both of the above working groups are to include young people.  In addition, we decided to establish a Young Adult Review Panel to look at all of NWTRCC’s literature and work and make recommendations for improving our outreach to young people.  If you are under the age of 30 and would like to serve on that panel, contact the NWTRCC office at the email below.

Some of the which we will plan to develop are:

• new youth-oriented W-4 piece
• a cellphone wtr campaign
• making wtr links with counter-recruitment movement
• redirection of war taxes to youth/student groups/projects
• wtr outreach to young people involved in intentional community and nonviolent lifestyles

NWTRCC’s objectives budget for 2006 were approved.  A new Peace Tax Form for 2006 (tax year 2005) is nearly complete and will be available soon for your local organizing.  Three people (1 full time and 2 alternates) will need to be selected at the May meeting for the Administrative Committee.  Next NWTRCC meeting:  May 5-7, 2006, in Seattle.

If you are interested in helping with any of the projects or working groups listed above, please contact Ruth Benn at the NWTRCC office, nwtrcc@nwtrcc.org.

And we will not pay for killing

By Susan Van Haitsma

Not one more death.

Not one more dollar. 

Dollars and death are connected in more ways than one.  The old adage claims that death and taxes are the only certainties in life, but it is the connection between taxes and death that is the real certainty.  

The grinding machinery of war needs fuel: soldiers and money.  A majority of Americans indicate they want the machine to stop.  Parents and students, veterans and military families are working together to withhold human resources from the war.  Cindy Sheehan has movingly expressed the ways that one death has been one too many. 

But what happens when the majority of Americans want war to stop, and the money to wage it keeps flowing in?  Larger bonuses are used to lure enlistees, and more military services are performed by expensive contract labor.  The machine rolls on.  

What happens when wage earners get together and withhold their financial resources from the war?  The amount of money diverted from death to life may be small in the face of the huge US military budget, but the challenge to the system is great.  Somehow, when someone says, “Not with my money,” and backs it up with the open civil disobedience of war tax refusal, eyes open wider.  “You can do that?”  Yes, we can and do.  WWII conscientious objector and civil rights Freedom Rider, Wally Nelson, carried his well-used sign, “Haven’t paid taxes since 1948,” up through his last demonstration at age 93.  “Say yes to no,” he would say with a smile.

Wally Nelson’s widow, activist and writer, Juanita Nelson, was not the only octogenarian among the war tax resisters who met recently in Brooklyn, NY for a conference of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC), a network of groups and individuals around the USA.  Nor was Lincoln Rice of the Milwaukee Catholic Worker the only attendee in his 20’s.  But, as we stretched ourselves into a human timeline according to the decade during which we began war tax refusal, the largest groupings were in the middle decades of the 1970’s and ‘80’s. 

War tax resistance reached its peak of activity during the Indochina War, with several hundred thousand phone tax resisters and some 20,000 income tax resisters openly redirecting some or all of their federal taxes.  A number of well-known figures publicly joined the ranks of war tax refusers, including Joan Baez in 1964 and a group of over 500 writers and editors by 1967.  Long-time activist Brad Lyttle, on hand from Chicago for the recent Brooklyn conference, was the first coordinator of National War Tax Resistance (WTR) when it was formally launched in December, 1969 during a New York City press conference that included Allen Ginsberg and Pete Seeger.  By 1972 there were 192 local WTR chapters across the country. 

In 1975, WTR was laid down, and NWTRCC was formed seven years later in response to the growing military budget of the Reagan era.  Currently, NWTRCC is comprised of some 40 affiliate groups with area contacts in as many states.

Most war tax resisters consider themselves conscientious objectors.  One of Juanita and Wally Nelson’s public statements about their resistance read, “We hope our actions have some effect.  But, in any case, simply in order to justify our humanity, we must persist in our attempt to make action serve belief.”  Conscientious objection invites a paradox that has been expressed eloquently by soldiers-turned-conscientious objectors like Camilo Mejia and Kevin Benderman; taking an intensely personal, often lonely stand based on one’s conscience makes one feel more deeply connected to all humanity.

Connection with one another is an important aspect of the war tax resistance movement.  Peter Goldberger, long-time lawyer advocate for war tax resisters, spoke during the Brooklyn conference to stress the value of the “big tent” of NWTRCC.  He believes that the openness and transparency of a shared public witness offers a protective force.  War tax resisters tend to be willing to discuss publicly what our society tends to consider private matters: personal income and expenses, financial assets, and our deepest moral and ethical beliefs about life and death.

One focus of the recent NWTRCC gathering involved outreach to young people.  A young resister described the anxiety she felt early on about how she would plan for the next 40 to 50 years of life as a war tax resister.  She found the prospect rather daunting.  Older war tax resisters responded reassuringly that we can take things only one step at a time.  Some resisters take the opportunity to reevaluate their situation every year, and many revise their method of refusal over time. In fact, many war tax resisters feel that one of the lessons learned is to live more by faith, trusting that each day’s needs will be met.  It is a lesson that contradicts the value placed in this country on long-term personal security and financial investment.

War tax resisters have become active in the counter-recruitment movement.  Juanita Nelson, who is invited into school classrooms, counsels us to be sure to talk to students about our war tax resistance.  Even for students who are not yet confronted with paying taxes, she believes it is important to plant the seeds of resistance.  “In a way, we cheat them if we don’t talk about it!” she says.

A joint effort of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Center on Conscience & War is the “I Will Not Kill” campaign, which educates young people about the concept of conscientious objection.  The www.iwillnotkill.org web site features inspiring photographs of young people holding their I Will Not Kill pledge cards.  At the close of the NWTRCC conference, we gathered for a photograph of our own: all ages standing behind a banner that read, “We Will Not Kill, And We Will Not Pay for Killing.”  We stood under a tent that could grow big enough to hold every taxpayer whose dollars were not meant for death. [The photo is also posted at http://www.iwillnotkill.org/warby.html.]

Van Haitsma is active with Nonmilitary Options for Youth and Austin Conscientious Objectors to Military Taxation, a NWTRCC affiliate www.nwtrcc.org