Anarchoblogs

Don’t forget… there’s a “Google Hangout” on the subject of war tax resistance today at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. (You don’t have to sign up for a Google account to participate.)

Over at War Tax Talk, Ed Hedemann takes a second look at the annual War Resisters League federal discretionary spending pie chart — asking whether it provokes people into taking action or whether instead it gives them a reason to avoid taking action. Excerpt:

I’ve recently come to realize that all too often the pie chart… has been used as a means to avoid taking action or, at least, direct action. Having these obscene specific dollar figures and percentages readily displayed can be seductive (even mesmerizing): billions of dollars going to this or that imperialist war or horrible weapons system. Though this can spur people to lobby Congress or the President, generate letters to the editor, and even provide ammo, so to speak, for protest signs (“No More Money for War!”), all too many people seem consumed by the mechanics of the budget process to such an extent that it paralyzes them from moving beyond protest.…

…It’s almost as if protesting military spending — they (the government) did to us so they have to fix it — is safer and less threatening than contemplating taking matters into our own hands by declaring “The U.S. war and military spending is a crime against humanity. I refuse to wait for the politicians to correct these injustices, so I will refuse to be complicit and, from this day forward, will resist payment of war taxes to the IRS!”

From The Salem [New York] Press of 27 March 1952:

South Hartford Pastor Refuses to Pay All of Her Income Tax Due

Miss Marion C. Frenyear, pastor of the South Hartford Congregational church, has paid only 25 per cent of her income tax to the collector of internal revenue, saying that she can not support the training of young men to be killers.

In her letter to the collector, Miss Frenyear said, “I am paying only 25 per cent of my tax because I cannot conscientiously support our government’s participation in and preparation for war. I believe that war is wrong, contrary to God’s commandments and directly opposed to Christ’s spirit and teaching. I also believe that modern war is obsolete and futile. We can not destroy communism or any other false idea by killing those who hold it.”

Ten years ago today, Albuquerque’s local newsweekly, the Alibi, published a feature by Singeli Agnew about war tax resisters. Here are a few excerpts:

Maureen, an Albuquerque peace activist in her 40s who just recently began resisting taxes, credits a situation that happened in the ’80s for planting the seed that now inspires her resistance. Alexander Haig, secretary of state during the Reagan Administration, commenting on anti-nuclear weapon protesters gathered outside the White House said, “Let them protest, as long as they are paying taxes.”

“For me,” Maureen said, “I think this kind of lay dormant. You know how you get influenced by something but you don’t act on it but it stays. [Haig’s comment] was truly to me a revelation, like, ‘you know you can stand there, you can go on a hunger strike, you can fast and you can march and have your signs, but we have your money and we’re going to do what we want with it.’ And that I think stuck with me in a big way, even though I didn’t really start acting on it until recently.”

Maureen said that more and more people are beginning to connect their money with war. “Now that people are struggling with health care, 30 percent of Americans are living on $8 an hour or less, the gap between the rich and the poor is increasing — people are becoming more aware of this and they hear, ‘Oh yeah, they’re spending a billion dollars a day in Iraq.’ People are like, ‘Wait a minute, they need to be spending that money here.’ So even if they’re not necessarily anti-war… people start to get it.”

Max and Nancy Rice, Albuquerque residents and long-time peace activists, have been involved in several methods of resistance for several decades. They claim that they got a refund back one year after claiming “war tax deductions” in the “Other Deductions” column. The IRS overlooked the details and dutifully sent a check. The Rices took the refund, matched it with money of their own, and donated half the money to hospitals in North Vietnam, and half to hospitals in South Vietnam, publicizing the event openly.

Max Rice is one of the few people who have served time in jail for war tax resistance. Only about 20 people have been jailed in the last 60 years for reasons related to war tax resistance. In Rice’s case, the charge was actually contempt of court, for failing to provide financial information requested by the IRS.

Aanya Adler Friess is an activist in her 70s living in Albuquerque who also began resisting taxes during the Vietnam War. Recently, she has lived below the taxable minimum, but still finds ways to be active around the issue. Her primary method of resistance when she did owe taxes was to include a letter with her tax return, indicating the amount she was refusing to pay. A letter from 1992 states: “Please Note: I owe the IRS $87 for 1991. [I am] a tax protester of conscience, protesting the huge military budget which has crippled the economy of the USA and which is in no way related to defense needs but only to enrichment of the military industries. We are now seeing, finally, the results of 45 years of Cold War idiocy! I believe that eventually the military budget will be reduced, for economic reasons. I, in the meantime, will continue to withhold one-third of my taxes until the defense budget is reduced to some reasonable level. Therefore I am refusing to pay $30 of my tax. I enclose my check of $57. The refused portion will be added to the Albuquerque War Tax Alternative fund and interest on the fund is given to peace and other life affirming organizations. Signed, Yours Sincerely…”

At one point, the IRS entered her bank account and appropriated approximately $1,500, Aanya said. “It took so much time and effort. I mean, I’m not afraid of the penalties particularly, because I wouldn’t go to jail, I would pay the money. But, you’re costing them money and making them work to get your tax. It’s a very cumbersome process.”

“The fear of the IRS has been so strong,” Maureen added. “People think ‘Oh, they’re going to come and take everything away and throw you in jail.’ I know I would be not truthful if I said I’m not worried about this, or I don’t think about dealing with some of that one day. It is very scary. So that’s why I think it’s kind of like taking little baby steps. You try something, see what happens and then maybe you get a little braver about it.” The IRS wields power by making the tax system complicated, and changing it all the time to keep people confused and a bit intimidated. People think breaking the law means you automatically are in jeopardy of losing everything.

“It’s always a process,” Aanya contends, “You have control because you can always give them the money. I know where my limits are, so I wouldn’t go to jail. My main concern is, do I want my time and energy to go into fighting the IRS, is that a good use of my limited resources?”

The advantage for those that don’t file is that they can often escape being noticed. It is common, especially for women, to change their tax status or change their names, things which make it easy to get overlooked by the IRS.

“Any time that your fighting a really huge bureaucratic organization, it’s going to suck up a lot of time and energy (trying) to build an alternative world. I want to be organic gardening, and looking into alternative energy… that’s one of the reasons I haven’t written a letter” Maureen said. “My philosophy has been well, if they figure it out, let them come get it from me.”

Also, in 1972 the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill was introduced in the House of Representatives. It has been sponsored most years since, but has failed to pass into law. It would provide a legal means to direct one’s personal income taxes toward nonmilitary uses. Some war tax resistors disagree with the proposal, however, feeling that someone else would simply pick up the amount, failing to affect the amount we spend on military. It would make it easier for people to “swaddle the fact” that they were paying for war, Max Rice said. Theoretically one’s federal taxes would be going to peaceful purposes, such as roads and social services, but someone else would just be picking up the amount missing from the military budget.

“That’s going to undercut the whole idea of tax resistance.” Rice added. “We need to resist the evil that we know is much huger. If people have a legal out then they’re not going to deal with the fact that so much of their money goes to the military.”

Bill Brunson, an IRS spokesperson in Phoenix who was contacted for this article, said he wasn’t aware of war tax resistance as a movement. Eighty five percent of the nation’s population are fully compliant with federal income taxes, he said. Ten percent are not fully compliant for a variety of reasons, but are not opposed to the taxation system. Five percent of the nation’s population refuse to pay taxes because they are constitutionally opposed to the taxation system, he said, but he was not aware of people refusing to pay taxes because of opposition to military spending. He made no differentiation between anarchists, libertarians, or others simply trying to avoid paying and those resisting due to pacifist beliefs.

Some links that have whizzed by my screen in recent days:

War Tax Resisters

• A new edition of The Debt Resisters’ Operations Manual, a project of Strike Debt! has a chapter on Tax Debt: The Certainty of Debt and Taxes that was partially inspired by NWTRCC’s material on the subject. (There was some idea-swapping between the Strike Debt crew and war tax resisters at the NWTRCC national gathering in New York last fall.)
• William Ruhaak of has penned a piece on war tax resistance for Pax Christi U.S.A.’s blog. He invites readers who are struggling with their consciences over the issue of paying for war with their taxes to begin by writing and sharing a “statement of conscience.”
• Esther Epp-Tiessen, of Ottawa’s branch of the Mennonite Central Committee, addresses war tax resistance as protest and as conscientious objection:

  Do we use our limited resources of time and money primarily to advance the idea of war tax resistance and a legal peace tax fund for conscientious objectors? Or do we use those resources to speak to the larger policy framework and ethos? To put it crassly, do we advocate for special accommodations for the few? Or do we confront the system that says peace can be built through war and military force?

• Martin Newell has engaged in a variety of anti-war civil disobedience actions, and earlier this month he was sentenced to 28 days in prison for refusing to pay the fines for his previous convictions. He explained:

  Jesus taught us to love not just our neighbours but also our enemies. He showed us by his life and example how to resist evil not with violence but with loving, persistent, firm, active non-violence. It was this revolutionary patience on behalf of the poor and oppressed that, humanly speaking, led to him being arrested, tried, tortured and executed by the powers that be. The acts of witness that resulted in the fines I have refused to pay were a form of conscientious objection. Refusing to pay them is a continuation of that objection. It is a privilege to be able to follow on the path that led Jesus to the way of the cross and resurrection.

Italy

While everyone was busy watching the kerfluffle in Crimea, the people of Venice voted to restore the Venetian Republic and secede from Italy. Italy itself is disregarding the vote and claiming that Venice has no authority to secede. So the movement is moving on to stronger measures. They are taking ideas from other seperatist movements: The referendum itself was inspired by a similar effort in Scotland, and they plan now to redirect their federal taxes to the local government, which is a technique they picked up from the Catalan nationalists.

Some are even taking some inspiration from the “Tea Party” apparently. Check out this flashy video:

Netherlands

Christiaan Elderhorst writes about the recent imprisonment of Toine Manders for his work counseling tax avoidance:

Toine Manders works at the Haags Juristen College (Hague Lawyers Board) and specializes in tax avoidance. Manders refers to tax avoidance as a moral duty. Tax revenue is used by the state to pay for war, prisons, the militarization of the police force and the regulatory agencies which constantly privilege big business. This moral duty is connected the Haags Juristen College’s former business practice which was to help individuals avoid the military draft. Avoiding the draft and avoiding taxes are both ways by which personal contribution to state oppression and war is reduced. Calling this a moral duty is not a far-fetched idea.

Austria

Gerhard Höller, a tobacconist from Wagrain, has launched a one-man tax strike.

“Something has to happen at the grassroots, so that those on top notice how much discontent there already is among the population,” says Höller. He was actually a completely apolitical man, he stressed, but the scandals and the squandering of tax money — “from Eurofighters to the Hypo bailout” — had gotten on his last nerve. “Enough is enough.”

When I last visited the site with the article covering Höller’s case, it had a reader poll attached to it that asked people to give their opinion of tax resistance as a protest tactic:

Venezuela

I’m hearing a lot of buzz in the twitterverse about tax resistance as a possible component of the ongoing demonstrations in Venezuela, but I haven’t found much more solid information yet. Here’s an example:

England

Another council tax rebel has been jailed. Ross Longhurst stopped paying his council tax in protest against budget cuts:

“These particularily impact on poor people,” he told the court. “We live in a country where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.”

He claimed there were 20,000 people in Nottingham in council tax arrears.

“I refuse to pay in solidarity with and in support of the victims of austerity measures. I encourage everyone in court, including the magistrates, don't pay up.”

Magistrates explained to Longhurst, who arrived with a large group of supporters, that he was likely to go to prison if he refused to pay. Justices even urged him to consult with a duty solicitor. But he confidently said he he had spoken with a lawyer and he did not think there was any need for him to see another one.

Another account adds that “[a]s he was led down to the cells by prison guards he was applauded by his supporters and one could be heard shouting: ‘It’s absolutely disgraceful.’”

One of his supporters, who did not want to be named, said afterwards: “It is a travesty that he has been jailed. It is disgusting, he is an elderly man who was trying to make a stand, he was trying to make the area a better place and this is why he is now behind bars. He has worked and paid council tax, but as all of us do, he got sick of it, he was braver than everyone because he stood up for what he thought was right.”

If you’re curious about war tax resistance, you might want to check out this upcoming “Google Hangout” on the topic:

A recent pie chart from the War Resisters League shows that even as we're told the Pentagon is getting cuts in its budget, a full 45% of the federal budget is still going to the military and to U.S. warmongering.

War tax resistance is one way we can redirect our money, time, and efforts away from the war machine and toward a better, more peaceful future.

Ari, Katherine, and Shaolida will discuss why and how they practice war tax resistance — refusing to pay federal income taxes that support the war machine. Followed by Q&A.

The hour-long hangout will start this Thursday, March 27, at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

There’s a new Statistics of Income Bulletin out, with preliminary numbers from the 2012 filing season that show the number and percentage of “lucky duckies” who file tax returns showing that they owed no federal income tax all year:

The list of upcoming Tax Day actions in the U.S. is beginning to fill out.

Here’s the list NWTRCC is putting together. The Global Day of Action on Military Spending (the previous day) is also assembling a list.

And just in time for events like these the War Resisters League has just updated their popular “pie chart” flyer which is meant to show the percentage of your income tax dollar that goes to military spending.

The chart is based on Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2015, but from what I hear, nobody really expects his budget to even come up for a vote. Instead, a divided Congress will wrangle their own budget together. Knowing that his budget would be ignored by Congress, Obama decided to use it more as a public relations vehicle than an actual budget.

Part of this public relations included Pentagon budget “cuts” which, though they’re the sort of “cuts” that always seem to leave the budget bigger than it was last year, and though they are accompanied by an anticipated supplemental slush-fund that isn’t part of the budget, still raised howls from the usual warmongers. In any case, the real budget Congress passes is predicted to stuff all of the usual military pork back in.

So the “pie chart,” which is based on the for-show Obama budget, as bad as it looks, probably understates how dreadful the budget will end up looking.

The newsletter of Pax Christi (“International Catholic Movement for Peace”) has an article on a new variety of war tax resistance:

From local to global… funding of the arms trade

The truth can be simply stated: everyone in the West Midlands who pays Council Tax is funding the activities of the military-industrial complex, led by the likes of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman.

As a long-term resident of Coventry, I [Paul McGowan] was well used to hearing the place described as “the city of Peace and Reconciliation.” But the contradiction between this reputation and the discovery that Coventry is one of the seven District Councils of the West Midlands who together founded, and now run, the West Midlands Pension Fund (WMPF), and invests £90 million in arms-dealers, has altered everything I thought I ever knew about the city. When the discovery was shared with the Deanery Justice and Peace Group, we knew we had to act. 2013 became the year of the WMPF campaign.

April 15^th was the Global Day of Action on Arms Spending. Thanks to the interactive map produced by CAAT, we knew that we had two giants of the international arms business operating in our city. (No, we didn’t know beforehand!) These were General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman. We picked on General Dynamics because it was bigger than Northrop Grumman, and closer to where most of us lived, made our placards and banners, informed the local media, and set up a two-hour silent protest outside the factory. One of the free papers gave it a good write-up and a photo. General Dynamics refused to comment. A few weeks later, however, General Dynamics closed its Coventry factory. It just shows what can happen when do-gooders are allowed to get their hands on pieces of card and felt-tip pens!

In May, we sent a letter to all Councillors, explaining the background to the campaign and asking for their support. No one replied. Several members of the group wrote to their Councillors, asking for meetings. We took advantage of the installation of the new Lord Mayor to hold another demonstration as the Councillors processed ceremonially into the Cathedral. Even if they hadn’t read their letters, at least they had seen us.

Over the next four weeks we collected signatures for a petition highlighting our aims — divestment from arms companies and an undertaking to work towards an arms-free city. 424 signatures were collected and presented to the Council (by a Conservative Councillor) on 25^th June. The petition was handled in accordance with council procedures, but because of the summer holidays, it was 21^st October before it reached the relevant sub-committee.

In the meantime, we demonstrated silently at the Council House before each monthly meeting of the full Council, and individual Councillors were pressed for their views on specific questions, such as whether an investment in Textron (cluster bombs) reflected well on the City’s image. A further opportunity came on 6^th August, Hiroshima Memorial Day. For a quarter of a century, this has featured a ceremony held in Coventry Cathedral attended by the Lord Mayor. This year, it contained a silent demonstration to draw attention to the financial support which the WMPF gives to companies directly involved in the nuclear weapons programmes of Britain, France, and the U.S.A.

There are other funds across the U.K. run by many of the local councils of the major towns and cities, again funded from Council Tax, e.g. West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside. Many of us rely on pensions built up in this way, but we can begin to dismantle the existing arrangements and build new ones. With total assets of £90 billion, local government pension schemes can exert massive influence on big business and big politics, of which the arms trade is certainly part.

As we start 2014, we know that the petition has been through the bureaucratic process, and turned down. I have it in writing from our Pension Fund representative that he regards this as the end of the matter. Sadly, for him, this is not the case. The struggle continues.

Another note by Paul McGowan in the same issue details the research Pax Christi has done into which companies manufacture “cluster munitions,” which have been outlawed by a Convention that was signed by the U.K.. Excerpt:

By comparing the data in the IKV–Pax Christi report with the latest statement from the West Midlands Pension Fund on its Equity Holdings, it has been possible to draw up a list of firms known for certain to be still producing cluster bombs, and receiving direct investments of Council Tax money. In addition, and this is entirely new for us, we now know which financial institutions in receipt of direct WMPF investments are themselves lending money and managing the assets of cluster bomb manufacturers such as Alliant Techsystems (U.S.A.), Hanwha Corporation (South Korea), Singapore Technologies Engineering, and Textron (U.S.A.).

This throws a little more light on Hedley Lester’s refusal to pay his council tax, which I reported on last month.

From the 18 March 1843 Monmouthshire Merlin:

Rebecca and Her Daughters

More Gates Destroyed.

Monday, Rebecca and her daughters appeared at the Plaindealings and Cotts Gates, in the neighbourhood of Narbeth. It is said that the party mustered about 100 strong, and in each instance the gates were completely demolished in the very short space of ten minutes. The Pembrokeshire grand jury have returned a true bill of felony against Thomas and David Howell, two of Rebecca’s daughters.

This may be older news than it appears to be, as the Pembrokeshire assizes had already acquitted Thomas Howell and David Howell on 8 March. On the other hand, Henry Tobit Evans’s book on the Rebecca Riots puts the destruction of the Plaindealings and Cott’s Lane gates as having taken place on 29 March — eleven days after the date of this newspaper. Again, it seems like it is going to be difficult to arrive at an accurate chronology of the Rebeccaite activity.

Here are some excerpts from a recent heartwarming article from Spain:

One student donates to the social struggle an award presented by [Education Minister] Dolores Serrat

Alba Pedro, a student of Computer and Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Zaragoza who yesterday received one of six Student Prizes (education and values) issued by the Social Council of the Aragonese campus, will donate the amount received (500 euros) to “a resistance fund,” which is a temporary institution based on support and solidarity used to alleviate specific economic problems.

The academic, who received in a green shirt [a symbol of protests against education budget reductions] against cuts the prize from the hands of the Minister of Education, said that “my outcomes, my effort, and my very existence have been possible thanks to all those who came before me. I would not be here without a public education and the incredible teachers that I have had, who have not only formed me academically, but have inculcated in me enormously worthy and noble values,” he elaborated later in a statement.

The recipient is the antimilitarist activist collective Mambrú, which carries out campaigns such as War Tax Resistance, which will begin at the end of this month with the objective of not accepting previous declarations that the Treasury submitted for the income tax return and then redirecting the funds from military spending to social projects.

You can read Pedro’s full statement (in Spanish) at this link

I’ve been slacking a bit in my reporting, but a lot has been coming across my screen in recent weeks:

War Tax Resistance News

• Erica Weiland penned a thoughtful piece on War Tax Resistance as Self-Care at NWTRCC’s blog. Excerpt:

  Some resisters describe war tax resistance as something they do so they can live with themselves, or something they do to assuage their conscience about where tax money goes. Being able to live in alignment with your beliefs is a profound form of self-care — think about the dis-ease you experience when you do something against your beliefs. War tax resistance not only brings you into alignment with your beliefs about war, it can also help you integrate your beliefs on other issues.

• The Global Day of Action on Military Spending is right around tax day (April 15) again this year, and the coalition is making plans for a variety of protest actions.

U.S. Tax Law News

• If you’re self-employed as a sole proprietorship in the U.S., you’re supposed to pay self-employment tax on all of your profits, just as though you were employed and it was your salary. But if you’ve organized yourself as an “S Corporation” — you can instead pay yourself a specific salary out of your profits and you’ll only owe self-employment tax on that. Seems an arbitrary and even sketchy loophole? Tax expert Peter J. Reilly says it’s “a valid self-employment tax avoidance strategy… organizing as an S Corporation and avoiding self-employment tax seems like a no-brainer for a sole proprietor” though he also warns that “you really should not use the strategy to avoid SE/payroll taxes entirely.”
• NPR looked into Why More Americans Are Renouncing U.S. Citizenship and concluded that there isn’t one single cause, but instead it is the result of “dominoes falling, one after another, leading to an unexpected outcome.” But all of the dominoes have to do with taxes, and how the U.S. tax system makes life difficult for citizens living overseas.

Tax Resistance in Spain

• Professor Roberto Centeno, writing at El Confidencial, made a bit of a stir by arguing that since much of the Spanish government debt is not legitimate, the people of Spain do not owe it and ought not to pay for it through their taxes. Excerpts:

  Following the marvelous example of civil dignity that Henry David Thoreau gave us with the practice of disobedience against unjust taxes, created and used against the interest of the citizens, now more than ever it has become indispensible to put an end to the particracy of lies and corruption. And to do this by means of an exemplary action of tax withholding against the enrichment without reason of the political and financial oligarchs, by means of those taxes created and a debt assumed to defend their interests, and so it will be them who reassume this debt or answer for the consequences of its nonpayment.

  It is a debt of the regime, a personal debt of the government that contracted it, because it does not comply with the essential requirements of a legitimate debt, which would be that it was contracted for the exclusive benefit of the people.

• Meanwhile the number of towns in Catalonia that have stopped paying their taxes to the federal government, sending them to the regional government instead has risen to 54. This is currently only a sort of quasi-tax-resistance, as the regional government dutifully forwards these taxes to the central government, but it is part of a strategy of strengthening the regional tax agency in anticipation of eventually making the buck stop there in “the transition to statehood.”

Tax Resistance in France

• Yes, they’re still burning “ecotax” portals in Brittany. The latest one was partially burned on the night of the 5^th, which damaged it enough that the authorities ordered it to be removed.

A Look Back at the Poll Tax Resistance Campaign

• Chris Robinson has published a series of reminiscences of the campaign against the poll tax that brought down Thatcher’s reign in Great Britain:
  1. The Anti-Poll Tax Campaign
  2. A Paler Shade of Red
  3. Get Militant
  4. Revolution Down Below
  5. The Wall Comes Tumbling Down
  6. The Art of Self-Defence
  7. Demo
  8. Victory
• I also found some archives about the poll tax resistance effort at an Anarchist Communist Federation website.

Tax Resistance in Greece

• The Greek “Won’t Pay” movement won’t quit either. Thousands of Greeks marched at Afidnes and raised the toll gates there last month.

Tax Resistance in the Dominican Republic

• I feel like I have way too little context to make sense of all of this, but various industrial and commericial unions are squabbling over whether to support a business strike in the Dominican Republic over the expansion of a value-added tax there.

Tax Resistance in Argentina

• Last month, twenty “productores, industriales forestales, empresas de servicios, y colonos” (roughly: “manufacturers, foresters, service businesses, and farmers,” I think) in Colonia Delicia decided to stop paying taxes in protest at the poor state of the government-maintained roads. The businesses say that the poor condition of the roads is making their businesses impossible to operate.

Tax Resistance in Great Britain

• “A mother of three is so incensed by the Isle of Man’s new sewerage charge she has pledged to go to prison rather than pay it.”

Beginning on 29 March 1930, The Spectator published a few articles that touched on tax resistance in the Indian independence struggle. Here are some excerpts from these articles.

First, from the 29 March 1930 issue (though the dispatch itself is dated 8 March), the dismissive and condescending voice of colonial orthodoxy speaking from within the Bombay bubble:

Mr. Gandhi’s Edicts

Has the world for centuries witnessed anything comparable to what is occurring in India to-day? From his Ashram at Ahmedabad, where eighty devoted followers submit themselves to a discipline so iron that none can write a letter without his permission, Mr. Gandhi has issued his edict to the Viceroy, demanding that certain things shall be immediately done, under pain of challenge to all authority in the country. Here is a manifestation of a truth often forgotten in England — that whilst some Indians speak in terms of democracy, all think in the language of autocracy. Mr. Gandhi speaks for none but himself. He has secured complete immunity, even from such authority as the National Congress may wield. His edict needs only the stroke of the Vermilion Pencil and the words — fully intended — Tremble and Obey, to carry us back to the most despotic days of the Manchu Emperors. The Edict was borne to Delhi by a young Oxford graduate called Reynolds, of whom none heard before yesterday. He has gone in a Gandhi cap and cotton homespun; picture the Carpenter from Alice in Wonderland with his box cap and clad in “shorts,” and you have the scene.

What is in this edict? It is a long tirade against “the curse” of British Rule, with not a word of the peace it wrought; of the one and sixpenny ratio, of which Mr. Gandhi knows no more than of Chinese metaphysics; of the land revenue, centuries old, and cast on an equitable basis in Lord Curzon’s days; and of The Salt Tax, which averages five annas per head yearly. There is not one concrete proposal not a single justification for the revolution which Mr. Gandhi intends to inaugurate.

The scene of action will probably be the coast of Surat; where the British Factors had their first settlement; the objective will probably be to encourage the villagers to make salt from sea water and thereby to break the law under which the Salt Tax is collected. Many young folk will go to gaol, and then the movement will peter out. That is to imagine the most favourable situation. In less fortunate circumstances there will be riot and bloodshed, strikes and disturbances, from which many innocent people will suffer.

What does India think of this? To that inquiry none but the very ignorant would attempt a dogmatic answer. India is not Europe; the Hindu mind has little in common with the West. Most of the Indians with whom you come in contact say that Mr. Gandhi must completely fail; they think that the land wants peace and quiet in order to recover from the industrial depression and prepare for the Free Conference which will consider the report of The Simon Commission. In short, they regard Mr. Gandhi as an annoying megalomaniac, who is disturbing men’s minds without the possibility of success, particularly the minds of the young men, so apt to be swept by gusts of emotion. But that is not the whole truth.

The Indian, and particularly the Hindu, sees nothing inappropriate, but rather a reversion to tradition, in the individual challenging the State. Then, remember always that the strongest emotion in India to-day is the emotional surge towards Swaraj, expressed in the yearning for independence — an unreasoning emotion, unchastened by knowledge of the principles of constitutional growth or experience, but not less strong for that. Even those who differ markedly from Mr. Gandhi, who see the perils of the course on which he has embarked, are not without a hidden sympathy for an Indian who deliberately throws down the gauntlet to the British Raj.

This afternoon it was my good fortune to fall into intimate talk with a wise Indian, long prominent in the public life, who has held high office. He dwelt on the extraordinary difficulties of the Government of India. “The Administration,” he said, “stands in the eyes of the people chiefly as the tax-gatherer. The Government officials seen by the villager are the tax-gatherer and the policeman; in addition to the dues they collect there are the petty exactions of the Native subordinates. In England if you do not like the Government of the day you can turn it out through the ballot-box; you have to pay the same taxes under the new. Government, but you have the satisfaction of venting your displeasure. Here there is no such relief. Then every evening, when work is done, the rural folk gather round the village banyan tree, and the schoolmaster reads from one of the Extremist newspapers vehement denunciations of the ‘Foreign Government,’ to which all ills, real and imaginary, are attributed. My wonder is not that the Government is unpopular, but that it is as well liked as it is.”

The 18 April issue included another dispatch, presumably from the same correspondent, dated 22 March. It is another desperate attempt to ridicule, dismiss, and downplay the impact of Gandhi’s movement, and reminds us that the role of journalism has long been to tell us what we want to hear as though it also happened to be true:

Mr. Gandhi — Complete Nihilist

My knowledge of and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Gandhi goes back many years. I recall the days during and immediately after the War when we worked in complete harmony; when he used to sit in my office, and in his own words “pour out his soul.” He was then an eminently reasonable man. At the end of these long discussions the feeling uppermost in my mind was the intense desire to agree with him, though that was impossible. Since we parted company when he launched on non-co-operation, I have been sorely baffled. Is he the sincere, simple-minded gentleman that I should still like to think him, or is he, as my Indian friends tell me, an ingenious, not to say cunning, politician? Perusal of the uncensored reports of the speeches he has been making in the Kaira district on his pilgrimage to the sea to violate the Salt Laws removes the last doubt. They reveal either the revolutionary politician or a monomaniac who is a danger to the State.

Consider the nature of these speeches, made to people who are politically ignorant, made at a time when India is so riven by militant communalism that no District Magistrate can rest secure against the peril of an émeute. Regardless of facts which show that by every test which can be applied to modern societies India has made immense progress in all that indicates national growth, he declares that British rule has brought about the moral, material, cultural, and spiritual ruination of the land: “I have made it my religion to destroy this government as early as I can do it. I pray God day and night that this system of Government may be destroyed once and for all. I appeal to you to make it your dharma to destroy this satanic government… this Government is so Monstrous that it is a sin to allow it to exist any longer.” And so on — one long unqualified hymn of hate. And this in a programme launched in the name of love and non-violence. Doubt is no longer permissible. If there is a spark of sincerity left in Mr. Gandhi — if he really believes that language of this character can be used to untutored villagers without producing violent reactions of the most virulent character — he is no longer sane. The kindest act towards him and to the country is to put him under the restraint the law imposes on dangerous lunatics.

The grave menace which lurks in this propaganda is its complete nihilism. Nowhere in his writings or speeches can you find a trace of constructive imagination. When Mr. Gandhi is tackled on the subject of the system of government he would establish in place of that which exists, he takes refuge in the excuse that this is the business of the politician. That is not simplicity; it is cunning, because he knows full well that the moment the stage of construction emerges immense problems arise. That is illustrated by the unbridgeable differences that stamp the report of the Indian Committee which was appointed to co-operate with the Simon Commission. His doctrine is one of political anarchy, and that in a land beset with religious, racial, and communal feuds. Were the issue less serious, there would be an element of grim humour in the mountain of hate he seeks to rear and the significant duty on which it is based. The actual incidence of the Salt Tax is a little less than sixpence per head of the population. In the history of civilization is there a more grotesque disproportion between cause and effect?

What has induced this development of splenetic hate in the man who at the Lahore Congress fought a losing battle with the forces of youthful revolution? Already Mr. Gandhi has found that his followers are too few. He has had to lower the standards for admission into the ranks of volunteers and to agree to a simplified form of pledge. The volunteer now agrees to accept the creed of the National Congress — “the attainment of Purna Swarajya (complete independence) by the people of India by all peaceful and legitimate means”; to express his willingness to suffer imprisonment and to refuse if he is sent to jail to seek any monetary help for his family from the Congress funds. Unlike the old pledges, this simplified form makes no mention of the wearing of khaddar, of the promotion of communal unity and the removal of the stain of untouchability. For years Mr. Gandhi has written as though each of these aims was a cardinal factor of his political philosophy. Is it possible that the man who has told no one what is to be done when he has won complete independence for India is ready to sacrifice his principles merely to win more recruits for his new campaign? It was at one time possible to understand Mr. Gandhi’s attitude to the political future of India. But now it appears that Mr. Gandhi advocates anarchy because he is himself suffering from a complete anarchy of thought.

The movement will probably soon cease to be non-violent. For this Mr. Gandhi’s lack of prescience is to blame. The All-India Congress Committee is ready to act as soon as Mr. Gandhi manufactures salt at Dandi. The breaking of the Salt Act is to be nothing more than a ritual, and Mr. Gandhi no more than a master of ceremonies. The future of the movement belongs not to Mr. Gandhi but to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and the younger men who control the Indian National Congress, if the Congress can be said to be controlled at all. They have made preparations in various parts of the country. Congress supporters in Bombay propose to manufacture salt at Juhu, “the Brighton of Bombay.” The proceedings will bring thousands to Juhu; and Bombay, which has had more than its share of communal riots and industrial discontent within the last two years, does not like the new menace.

Mr. Gandhi is old and far from well. He refuses to return to the Ashram until he has won the war with the “Satanic” Government. He will die or be arrested. No one knows what gesture he will make when the movement comes into the control of revolutionaries fed on pamphlets from Moscow and when even the pretence of non-violence is given up.

What an atmosphere in which to launch the report of the Simon Commission! Sir John and his colleagues have kept their counsel well; none has an inkling of the tenor of their proposals. But this careful secrecy does not affect the realities of the situation. With the Congress directly committed to revolution, and the Indian Liberals outbidding the Congress by demanding almost immediate Dominion status, the issue is fast clarifying itself. There seem to me to be only two alternatives — everything or nothing. Either Parliament must face the tremendous risks involved in virtual responsible government or dig its toes in and maintain the strong central government which must be predominantly British. Halting between these two will induce nothing but failure and confusion.

The “Simon Commission” was Britain’s attempt to mollify Indian protests by setting up a committee to study the grievances and make recommendations for reform. Independence-minded Indians were largely unimpressed with the idea of a reform of their country’s Constitution as decided upon by a commission of seven British parliamentarians, and had been dismissive of the commission from the start.

Next comes a brief report in the 9 May 1930 issue:

The Situation in India

The news from India is still grave, but better than might have been expected. On Monday morning, Mr. Gandhi was arrested in his camp at Jalalpur. Receiving every consideration; he was removed by train, and then in a car with the blinds drawn, to Poona, where under an ancient regulation — issued by the East India Company in 1827 — he is being detained “during the Government’s pleasure.” The Governor of Bombay has thus hit upon an ingenious way of avoiding the clamorous demonstrations which would have attended a political trial, and Mr. Gandhi’s treatment as a guest rather than as a prisoner should atone for a revival of the raison d’état. In a Press note the Bombay Government charges Mr. Gandhi with “incitement to withhold payment of land revenue” and with having threatened to raid salt which was the property of salt manufacturers. We must congratulate the Government of India on a forbearance whiah is duly appreciated throughout the world, but which also confers on the Government a certain tactical advantage. The careful plans of the Congress leaders for a campaign of resistance to succeed the arrest of the Mahatma are in disarray, since several of the organizers are already under restraint and out of mischief. The Government’s arrangements were much the better.

History didn’t quite play out in the way the author suggested it should. Indians didn’t shrug their shoulders at Gandhi’s “treatment as a guest” but, more realistically, were infuriated at his arrest and detention without trial. The Dharasana salt raids continued under new leadership, and when those leaders were arrested, new ones took their places. Salt raiders who peacefully submitted to savage beatings by soldiers guarding the salt depots became the face of the Indian independence movement in the international press, and helped to strengthen and radicalize the Indian independence movement. A year after his imprisonment, Gandhi would be negotiating on behalf of the Indian independence movement in London.

The 26 September 1930 issue contained an article that began “The purpose of this page is to ventilate that moderate Indian opinion which, recognizing all the difficulties, yet believes in the continued association of Great Britain and India within the loose framework of the British Commonwealth of Nations” — which shows how far the goalposts had moved by that time. That article praised Gandhi as a moderate and even “a conservative by nature” and urged the government to get out in front of him by enacting some inevitable reforms by fiat.

Yesterday I got five letters from the IRS. One each to remind me of my unpaid taxes for 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 (I didn’t owe any federal tax in 2008).

They didn’t include anything ominous, except for the mild warning on the reverse side that if I don’t pay up “interest will increase and additional penalties may apply.” Apparently they are required to send out these bland reminders annually.

The total amount I owe from those years is a little north of $22,000. So I’m a little surprised they aren’t putting more effort into collecting. It’s possible they’re just too overwhelmed with other things to go after small-fry. Or they may be biding their time… the statute of limitations gives them ten years, I believe, so there’s no great hurry. In any case, it’s been ages since they’ve done anything more substantial than sending me letters.

Representatives from two of the “historic peace churches” — Mennonites and Brethren — met in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, last month to discuss how to revitalize the tradition of war tax resistance in their congregations.

[Barry] Kreider and [John] Yeatts agreed that neither purity nor protest resonates with church people who annually face the prospect of paying a share of the cost of America’s many wars. But witness may. “Jesus’s final instructions were that we are to be his witnesses,” said Yeatts, “and Revelation is filled with the language of witness.”