Spirit in Action
Resisting War Taxes in Southern California
[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeak. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ Today, for Spirit in Action, we're going to be revisiting an issue and a witness that is near and dear to my own heart, War Tax Resistance. We'll be speaking with two members of a group called Southern California War Tax Resistance, Frances Schneider Liao and Kathy Depp. Unfortunately, a scheduling conflict came up for a third member of the group, Joe Maeslish. But, never fear, we'll be speaking to him in the not-too-distant future as he has a wonderful story and life of witness that we'll want to profit from. But the topic today is War Tax Resistance or Conversely, Peace Tax Paying. The fact is that military spending makes up something like 50% of our federal income tax spending. That's immense. Half of every federal income tax dollar feeds the military machine, which is why the U.S. spends more on the military, plus or minus a few dollars, than every other nation of the world combined. For those who have deep concerns, religious or otherwise, about this issue, the question becomes, "How can I change this? How can I, in good conscience, voluntarily contribute to this incredible misappropriation of our societal resources?" Our guests today have decided, "No, they can't simply let the government draft our dollars for bullets, bombs and war." Before we talk to Frances and Kathy, maybe it'd be good to prime you with a quotation and a song. First, the quote from Chris Hedges. Chris said, "The refusal to pay my taxes is not a means. It is an end. I do not know if my refusal and the refusal of others will be effective in halting these wars. All I know is that it's worth doing. The alternative, a complacency bred from cynicism and despair, is worse." And before we get Frances Schneider-Liao and Kathy Depp on the phone, let's ramp up the energy by a song from David Robix, "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" I've seen you in the markets, I've seen you in the streets, and at your political conventions. Talking up your crusade, talking up your nation, and other things too terrible to mention. And you proclaim your Christianity, you proclaim your love of God, you talk of apple pie and mine. I've just got one question, and I want an answer, tell me, "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" May Jesus would bomb the Syrians, 'cause they're not Jews like him. Maybe Jesus would bomb the Afghans on some kind of vengeful whim. Maybe Jesus would drive an M1 tank, and he would shoot Saddam. Who would Jesus bomb? Yes, I've seen you on the TV, and on the battleships, I've seen you in the house, on the hill. And I've heard you talking about making the world safer, and about all the men you have to kill. And you speak so glibly about your civilization, and how you have the moral higher ground. While halfway around the world, your explosive smashed the buildings. You could only hear the sound, but maybe Jesus would sell landmines, and turn on his electric chair. Maybe Jesus would show no compassion for his enemies in the lands way over there. Maybe Jesus would have flown the planes that killed the kids in Vietnam. Who would Jesus bomb? Yes, I hear you shout with confidence as you praise the Lord, and you talk about this God, and you know so well. You talk of Armageddon, and your final victory, when all the evil forces go to hell. Well, you'd best hope you've chosen wisely on the right side of the Lord, and when you die, your conscience it is clear. You'd best hope your atom bombs are better than the sword, at the time when you're reckoning is here. Because I don't think Jesus would send gunships in the Bethlehem, or chance to raise the towns of chimerys. I don't think Jesus would lend money to dictators, or drive those as huge ease. I don't think Jesus would ever have dropped a single ounce of Nepal. Who would Jesus bomb? Who would Jesus bomb? Who would Jesus bomb? Kathy and Francis, thanks so much for joining me for Spirit in Action. Hi, it's good to be here. Kathy, I understand that you work for an organization called 9-to-5. What is that? I mean, I've gotten your name because of war tax resistance, but 9-to-5 and war tax resistance, so those go together. They do in my heart. 9-to-5 is a national association of working women, and its mission is to make sure that women have rights, races, and respect in the workplace. Francis, your connection, obviously war tax resistance, is one of the things near and dear to you. What has been your employee? What do you do for work, and for serving good in the world? Well, I was a teacher for 25 years in East Los Angeles, and I work with special needs children. My background is in cognitive psychology and special ed, and so I was really, I guess, on the ground working with kids who lived in not the most affluent of situations and in regular classrooms preparing them, and how that relates to war tax resistance is that these are more likely the kids that might end up going into service in the military, and when I see their great potential, I see that they have a range of many more opportunities, so that's what really got me aside from my own desires and conscience to work with war tax resistance. I'm interested in hearing from both of you how you got connected with war tax resistance. I guess I assume you're both war tax resistors, as am I. How did you get involved with this, and tell me a little bit about Southern California war tax resistance? I began to be concerned about war tax resistance as an opportunity to implement my ideals and beliefs back in the Vietnam War. There was an opportunity to resist telephone taxes at the time. It seemed to be a very good idea, since it was my generation that was being drafted to fight in what I considered an illegal and immoral war, and nobody wanted my body, but they did want my money. I felt that if I could withhold money from war and send it in a different direction, a healthier direction, that it would be a better way to respond to that terrible effort that our government was engaged in. I began at that time, and I was about 24. Well, it's very similar. In the 70s, my husband and I both resisted paying our taxes because of the same situation, because of having friends who had fought in Vietnam coming home as broken and as disturbed as they were. Because of our conscience, we both felt that we did not want to be paying for war, and we did the very same thing. We started with the telephone tax, and then we began resisting. We didn't have those wonderful pie charts, but we just would take a certain amount and not pay those taxes, still believing that the government had a responsibility to pave the roads and have libraries and schools and pay for that, but certainly not pay for the destruction that we saw. That was my beginning, and then I guess sometime in the late 90s, I found out about Southern California War tax resistance and got involved with Joe and with the group over there. How big a group is this? I mean, you've been doing this evidently for 40 years. There must be, in California, from the point of view of the Midwest where I live, California is where all the liberals are supposed to be. Actually, what my husband and I did in the beginning was really very personal, and in a way very private. We didn't belong to a group. We just felt this was something we needed to do. I don't know if California is the home of the liberals. Very often, I wish it were. I'd welcome more. But that was a private situation for both of us, and then in the 90s, as I said, when I found out about Southern California War tax resistance, I suppose I had known about it, but I never got involved. And you asked how big the group is. I think that if you added up the number of people over the years, and maybe you could speak for Northern California, Kathy, you probably have a lot of people. At the moment, the core group that meets is rather small. I think maybe there's about 10 or 12 of us. I think if you add up everybody, Kathy can correct me on that. And Kathy, do you have any input about the group? How big it is, how you got involved? Well, let's say I moved to California in 1999. Having lived in the Midwest and growing up in the Midwest, but having lived in New York and upstate New York area, and managing a peace center up there as a volunteer, I think that War tax resistance has been around a long time, and there are various groups around the country involved in this and coordinated by a national group. In New York, it was a group out on Long Island called the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign that was providing an alternative fund for you to deposit resistant war taxes. I thought that was brilliant because I didn't want to be seen by myself or anyone as making out by not paying taxes by keeping it myself, but I wanted it to further the movement and the cause. So, I got involved through, I believe it was, the War Tristers League in New York with the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign. That campaign, by the way, has moved to Seattle, and it is a depository for my resistant war taxes. When I moved to Southern California four years ago, I was through my contact and informed that there was an alternative fund here, and so I began to search out the people involved and to see how I might put future monies into a Southern alternative fund, which I have done. I find it very interesting, Francis, that you joined after doing this already for perhaps almost 30 years. Why was community, why was getting involved in a group of people doing this important, how did that enhance your experience? Well, that's a great question, and I've often asked myself the same question. First of all, when my husband and I were doing this, and he passed away in the early 90s, so that may have been a catalyst too, because the other person with whom I shared these ideas, the closest person, was no longer here. So that might have been it, but I am not a person who can tolerate a great deal of stress. And even though it's so that in the Vietnam years after resisting taxes for seven or eight years, the government finally sent me a notice. And I was at that point raising two small children, and we were working on some of our own personal things as a family. And I was going back to school, and I think my tolerance for the pressure that was being exerted, we were trying to buy a small home. A lot of things that led to our paying the government, which is something that in war tax resistance, people need to understand that when they set aside a certain percentage of their monies, or according to a pie chart, or at that percentage that goes to war effort by our government, that money is always available to reclaim from the war tax resistance fund. And Kathy can speak more to this because I've always admired her involvement as an activist. I have not. I have been a teacher. My husband was a carpenter. I've just gone along because my conscience has dictated that I don't want to pay for this kind of destruction. I want to pay for social, peaceful, creative community actions and involvement. So over the years, as the government started sending us these letters, I sort of succumbed to that pressure, always knowing that the war tax resistance community would support me because it was critical for me to do something. And it was enough just to be able to even write letters to say that war was something that I did not want to pay for. I don't know if that makes any sense to you or to people who might be listening. But the money was available. I took care of my issues with the government. And then as I was teaching for 15 years, I decided that I needed to renew the energy to resist by withholding my taxes because I felt stronger. And so that's when I sought the community so that I would have sort of a heart to go back to, a group of people that I could go back to. And I must say that Joe Maislish has been a fabulous counselor and a great help because I am currently dealing again with the government and letters from the government and we'll see how that all works out. So the need to go back to community with something that I felt that I needed that support. That's really interesting, Francis, because I think most people assume that if you're doing war tax resistance, you have to be one of the brave titans of the world willing to stare the IRS into the eye. And you described yourself as not being comfortable, not good with stress, not tolerant of stress. Have you just gotten stronger over the years or how has this changed? Yes, perhaps I have gotten stronger and perhaps I've educated myself more. So I think that as I have connected more with community, the community has given me strength. I mean, and I must say knowing Joe, knowing Kathy and her husband, there's always that backup in a sense. I've always believed in certain kinds of principles and I think I got that both from my mother and my father. This is me, this is mine, in my life, in my time. Every heart, every soul, we're each part of the whole. Every birth, every breath, every life, every death. I am here, I am home, I am not alone. Every step of this journey will be mine. Take a stand, take my hand, take your time from the moment of my birth. Every day around this earth, I will live this life for all that I am worth. But this is me, this is mine, in my life, in my time. Every heart, every soul, we're each part of the whole. Every birth, every breath, every life, every death. I am here, I am home, I am not alone. In the end, there's precious little that we own. Great or small time is all, just alone. Let us live life to the brim, and if we sink, if we swim, let us leave a bit of grace where we have been. But this is me, this is mine, in my life, in my time. Every heart, every soul, we're each part of the whole. Every birth, every breath, every life, every death. You are here, you are home, you are not alone. Every joy we close leads to an open door. Love is worth this living all is far. [Music] This is me, this is mine, in my life, in my time. Every heart, every soul, we're each part of the whole. Every birth, every breath, every life, every death. We are here, we are home, we are not alone. [Music] We are not alone by John McCutchen, which is part of what Francis Schneider-Liao just told us has helped her be strong and clear in her decades-long witness of war tax resistance. In the USA, we have such a culture of rugged individualism, and we have to admit the failings of many institutions and organizations that we sometimes throw the baby out with the bathwater, and we forfeit the power and support of group nurture and witness. That communal power can come from peace and justice, faithful organizations, churches or other groups, like Southern California War Tax Resistance, and two of their members with us here today. And where you are is listening to Spirit In Action. I'm Mark Helpsmeet, your host for this Northern Spirit Radio Production website, northernspiritradio.org. Our home station is WHYS, L.P. Eau Claire, Wisconsin, though we're broadcast across the nation. If we're not in your town, contact us via northernspiritradio.org, and we'll see what we can do to arrange it. We can get the word out together. Again, we're speaking with two members of Southern California War Tax Resistance, Francis Schneider-Liao, and Kathy Depp. Francis was just talking about what motivated and supported her in her practice of war tax resistance. What about you, Kathy? Where did you get your staying power for decades to be facing into the beast? Again, so many people are just really terrified of facing the government, particularly the IRS. I think I'm more terrified of facing the threat of nuclear war, or more as a general than I am of the government. The government can only make war if it has the money and the people to do so. It has gone after members of my family, my close family, including my first husband, to address them and to killing other people. While I was encouraging others to resist the draft and not to join the military and allow the government to use them to kill others, I felt that I needed to also take some risks in order to stand with them. When my nephew sought help from the family with a decision they had to make after the Vietnam War was over about registering for the draft, that was a voluntary -- well, not voluntary. When you're 18, you have to get on the post office and voluntarily register for the government that you're available if there would be a draft. And they asked everyone in the family, "Should we do this?" And no one would tell them, "Yes or no." Everyone said, "Your choice and the consequences are yours." They asked me and I said, "Let's tell you what. If you decide not to register, I'll decide not to pay." So we had a bargain there, and they have for a sense forgotten that. But I'm still keeping my end as a bargain. That's some real dedication. Your group there, the Southern California War Tax Resistance Group also has the Alternative Life Fund connected with it. And just to be upfront with everyone, I'm a beneficiary of that. You've given me some money to help me with my programming for Northern Spirit Radio and specifically for Spirit and Action. So I guess, you know, maybe there's conflict of interest. Except the reason I sought you out is because I have been a War Tax Resistor for 30 years myself. I didn't start during Vietnam War. I started particularly during the buildup of the military during the Reagan years. So anyway, that one's clear. Your group, Southern California War Tax Resistance, what kind of activities do you do? How do you make your presence known? Do you counsel people? What are your functions as a group? Well, we are connected to the National Coordinating Committee for War Tax Resistance. As such, we provide counseling services. People can locate us through the Internet. And we provide grants from the fund on a yearly basis to organizations that apply. We pass out the pie charts around April 15th and at peace demonstrations and other places where they're likely to be. And could you say something about that pie chart where you're talking about a lot of people who are listening may have no idea what you're referring to? It's a yearly flyer put out by the War Resistance League in New York City, which takes the government's expenses. It's similar to what you might find in the back of your textbook for your April 15th taxes. It describes how the government spends its money, what percentage of money goes to education and to health to various things that the government spends money on. And the government pie chart in your textbook includes social security. And so it makes the military portion of the pie chart look much smaller. The War Resistance League takes out the monies raised and spent separately through social security. And therefore, it gets a better picture of what really is being spent on war and preparations for war. That amount turns out to be just about 50% right now. So that means 50 cents on every tax dollar given to the government is going into government coffers for war and preparations for war. And that does include veterans benefits and a huge amount of interest being paid on the past war expenses and loans that the government took out to pay for wars. And I might add that the pie chart is up on our website, which is just a very nice brief overview of some articles and some other issues relating to military expenditures. The pie chart is also up on the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee website www.n-w-t-r-c-c.org. And there should be a link to our website. And I think the reason Francis you didn't give the website for your local group is because it's a little bit complicated. It is S-O-C-A-L-War-W-A-R-Tax-Resist.org. And it's probably going to be easier for people to get a link to you from my site. So just come to northernspiritradio.org and you'll have a link to the Southern California War Tax Resistance group. So go on, say a little bit more about the group, about what you've been doing. You mentioned, Mark, that you are the recipient of a small grant, a very modest grant. I have to say that the time of the year when we gather to consider the letters to apply for small grants is for me one of the great pleasures of being part of this group. This year, actually, I missed it because I was in the desert in Nevada doing the walk from Las Vegas to the nuclear test site as part of the sacred peace walk. So I missed the time when the group gets together. What we do is, at the beginning of the year, a notice is published in several of the local activist newspapers. We have an announcement up on our website and most of us talk to folks that we know that are doing activist kind of work, peace work in the community. And folks can write a letter, a very brief one page, expressing their need for a small amount of money to help with their peace activities, with various activities that they may be doing. The money is generated from the interest that comes from the deposits in our local bank account or whatever the bank account is. And I assume with Kathy's, with Seattle, with each individual organization has their own accounts and processes. I'm not familiar with that. I know that we have the money deposited, folks send the percentage that they wish to withhold, so that basically what they're saying is they believe in paying for services. And I think Kathy said it before, where no one should think that you are personally pocketing the money that needs to go to the government for services. But what you are saying is you do not want those money, those taxes to go for illegal and immoral purposes like war. So that money generates interest and at the end of the fiscal year, or we learn how much money we have, sometimes three to four thousand dollars and with interest rates being lower, of course, that changes each year and then various groups apply. And the kinds of groups that apply are similar to yours, Mark, for Northern Spirit Radio. One of the ones that has been very dear to my heart over the years is a group of teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District that it's called the coalition against militarism in our schools. And so they provide information and counseling to families as to how to sign off on the no child left behind, which requires information be sent to the military of high school students. One of the recipients of the money about a year or so ago was something that I've had very stimulating because of my work in the Los Angeles Barrio. And it was a group of moms who had to walk their children past an alleyway that was rather dangerous on their way to school. And what they decided to do is to clean up that alleyway and make it a safe place for kids. So that's the kind of activities that we engage in. And I have to say personally, it is one of the highlights of my year because it's such a joy to see folks who need something like three or four hundred dollars to be able to make a difference in the world, a peaceful social collaborative collective change. It's great that you're doing that kind of work. Cathy Francis mentioned one of the groups that particularly caught her fancy that made it feel like giving this seed money out to groups was particularly helpful. Do you connect with any of the groups that you've been gifting over the years? Yes. I'm a member of Veterans for Peace. Although I wasn't in any war, I consider myself a veteran of both groups having worked so hard to resist them. And there's a piece of the Veterans for Peace group that does weekly demonstration at Santa Monica Pier here in California. They call it Arlington West and they put crosses out on the beach at Santa Monica to demonstrate the number of people who have died in recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And they've been doing this for 10 years. So the Arlington National Cemetery West Coast is a very important educational piece that has been ongoing for a long time. And as part of that group, there are filmmakers, of course we're here in the Hollywood area, and filmmakers who take their time and by volunteer efforts to interview returning soldiers to interview people who've received going into the military and to take those film interviews into the local high schools also with education about the Santa Monica Arlington West weekly demonstration. So these people have sought help from our alternative fund in order to pay for the equipment that they use and the film and the CDs and so on. But they donate their time. They don't ask for any salary even. And they've been into hundreds of classrooms here in the LA area with the message that, you know, war is not a good thing and joining the military is not a job. And letting the people who have gone into the military and come to that conclusion be the spokesperson for that message. I think it's really important to emphasize what a powerful tool this is if half of your income tax goes to the military or to military uses. And you consider just a small town of people and how much money that represents. You've seen the bumper sticker perhaps that, you know, it'll be a great day when the military has to have a bake fund and the schools get all the money they need. If you put that principle into action with an alternative fund, you say, okay, so here's the money that would have been military. And now here's the people promoting life. Here's the money that can go to them. The millions of dollars that even a small town would raise were quite impressive. One of the influential people I've heard talk about this is Karl Meyer, a war tax resistor of something like 50 years. Karl said, if I send $1,000 to DC, I doubt 10 cents would go to direct services. But he said, if I send it to the Catholic worker community, the whole $1,000 will go to the hungry and poor. The logic is crushing and overwhelming. And I take that to be a lesson about what we can do with alternative fund services like those provided by Southern California War Tax Resistance. With that in mind, and before we go back to our visit with Kathy and Francis, let's sing along with Charlie King and Karen Brandau as they sing "If You Want Peace." If you want peace, work for justice, you want peace, work for justice, you want peace, work for justice, no justice, no peace. You can't have peace in a world of hunger, one dog over, one dog under, can't have peace in a world of hunger, not in this world. Until the last chain falls, hunger will make slaves of us all. If you want peace, work for justice, you want peace, work for justice, no justice, no peace, you can't have peace in a world of war. Where the rich get richer and the poor stay poor, you can't have peace in a world of war, not in this world. Until the last chain falls, hunger will make slaves of us all. So if you want peace, work for justice, if you want peace, work for justice, you want peace, work for justice, no justice, no peace. You can't have peace in a world of hatred, in your way evil, my way sacred, you can't have peace in a world of hatred, not in this world. Until the last chain falls, hatred will make slaves of us all. So if you want peace, work for justice, if you want peace, work for justice, you want peace, work for justice, no justice, no peace, you can't have peace in a world of violence, world of terror, fear and silence, can't have peace in a world of violence, not in this world. Until the last chain falls, violence will make slaves of us all. So if you want peace, work for justice, you want peace, work for justice, you want peace, work for justice, no justice, no peace, no justice, no peace, no justice, no peace. That was Charlie King and Karen Brandau, if you want peace. This is Spirit and Action, Northern Spirit Radio Production, check on our website to see where we're broadcast, listen via our website, northernspiritradio.org, subscribe via iTunes, lots of options. Now back to Francis Schneider-Liao and Kathy Depp of Southern California, War Tax Resistance, to talk about their experience of being active War Tax Resistors. So with each of you, what have been the consequences of the War Tax Resistance? Has the IRS come to your door, if they haul you into court, did they torture you? What happened? Oh dear, well I'll respond because I have a letter sitting on my desk right now that has to be dealt with in the past and this is about the third time it's happened to me. I almost feel as if there's some sort of a chip somewhere in the government that they say, oh well let's check out what Leo is doing. I will send a letter and I mean the amount of tax that I pay or that I might withhold is really minimal but they will send a letter and as I said I'm a person who does not like having any kind of stress. The letter will say please respond, it will give certain criteria to respond in the past. It stated that I would have penalties to pay almost like an interest on the fact that I did not send them the money. I have responded to that and not only did I have to pay what I did not pay, I had to pay both penalties and interest on it but in my heart it was in a sense only money. It was, the most important thing was that I felt that I was making a kind of statement that was very important. So nobody came to my door, however I have met people with whom the situation is different. It may be a little bit more dangerous or a little bit more stressful in that they have had their homes, the government is saying that they will come after their homes and I really can't speak any more to that. I know for me it's been a letter, it's a decision that I may personally ask you how to respond to that. And probably you may have some more experience with that. Well I've been working since I was 16 and resisting more tax since I was 23. And so over the years I've had my salary guaranteed by government about four times. As you know nobody stays in the same job very long anymore, that's a thing of the past. So I too have moved to different jobs and it seems to take the government at least three years because of the slowness of their machinery to discover where I am and to begin to send letters again. And often then I'm moving on so I believe that's why it's only been three or four times. When money is garnished from my salary I can go back to the alternative fund and withdraw from that fund to make a difference. So it hasn't been that huge a problem. The addition of penalties and late fees and so on that the government has added to what they think I owe them just about doubles the amount. And I have on several occasions gone to a group of war tax resistors in Indiana who have collectively decided to help people with reimbursements of those late fees and penalties. So I'm part of that group every three months or so I get a letter saying that the group has received requests for people to help with their penalties and late fees in the amount of say $28,000 lists and because there's 500 efforts in the fund that could be divided into like $16.42 a piece. And then you send in your check, you know usually 20, you know, 30, but you're really only are committed to $16.32 for that three month period. The fund then distributes money to help people who are suffering because the government has added so many penalties to the back taxes. You really can reduce your exposure by being part of a community of people who are holding out against this. And you know financially it limits your exposure. I've also heard of people in the northwest when the government was coming to possess a home where the community gathered together and essentially stood around the house preventing the government from taking the house. And so community can be a very strong tool. How do you feel about the fact that you're paying penalty and interest? Some people say I'm not going to do it because that means the government gets more money. That hurts what my ultimate objective is. For me everything I do has to be way in the balance. And for me, you know I don't like to give the government more money but it's really a minor, not minor and it's financial sense, but minor in the repercussions to me, it's just in a way easier to, I don't feel badly about it is what I think I'm trying to say. I think your point about community is so well taken because I think it really echoes and reverberates with why at a point I felt that I needed to connect with our modest group here in Southern California and feel that I'm part of that. And one thing I wanted to say just in addition when I talk with friends and right now since I completed the sacred peace walk, the anti-nuclear sacred peace walk, a lot of people supported that, they have been asking me about war tax resistance and I think the most important point of that is if I go back to Vietnam, the amount of money that was going to the war effort that we knew about in our telephone taxes was very small. Resistance can come in very different ways. It's like every child learns differently, every person makes their statement about their need for peaceful action and their need to not support war in very different ways. So even if it's withholding $10 from the total amount of money that people owe the government, say they owe the government $500 and they pay $490 and make a statement with a small letter, that's resisting and that's making a statement and that begins the process in your heart I think of saying I'm not going to be part of this even though I'm not yet ready to make the full commitment and that's why I so admire Kathy and having done this work for so many years. It will begin to grow once people understand it. I think that they can do it on a small basis and that's sort of my evolution. What about you, Kathy? How do you think and feel about that? I wanted to add to what Francis just said that there is the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee which has a website and has an action that steps that people can take to sign a pledge saying when 100,000 people have signed this pledge I will resist X amount of dollars of my tax. That's a very cautious step that people can take to get involved when 100,000 people agree that something has to be done and are willing to do something I will join them and I will resist and people fear the IRS will then begin to audit them or you know, arrest them if they withhold $10 or $20 or 20 cents from their income tax but that really does not happen because the IRS is short of people and hasn't been fully funded by the government for a long time and so it takes them a very long time to figure out what's going on and to respond back when there was the alternative that we could resist pay their telephone tax. That telephone tax amounted to three or four or six cents a month and the government really couldn't do anything about that when so many people were withholding those pennies. We have actually won that battle and the telephone tax has disappeared after a long fight like 40 years of that tax morphing into different forms and different percentages and so on. That was the red letter day for the War Tax Resistance Movement to finally get rid of that tax which was specifically used for war so we can win. It's going to take more of us and it's going to take more dedication and more people willing to say the IRS doesn't scare me. What scares me is war. The money that we need here at home are disappearing and people in other countries lives are at risk and at stake so that the war in other countries is really a war on the people here at home as well and once people make that connection that's what is so frightening. Living here in California with 12.8% unemployment and a 19.7 billion dollar deficit in the state budget with governors threats to completely eliminate welfare to work here and other threats that makes you wonder why people haven't seen the connection more clearly between government spending on more and government being broke when it comes to human needs here at home. Absolutely. I was wondering for both of you, Francis and Kathy, if you could speak a little bit about where you come from religiously, spiritually, however you conceive of that, the kind of big picture thing behind you're taking this risk, taking this initiative to make a difference in the world. Could you share a little bit about your personal experiences that got you here? My background is I was raised by Jewish parents who were very progressive and this was in my 70s and as a youngster, my parents put me in a school in New York. I was raised in New York and they put me in a school called Ethical Culture and which I attended from kindergarten through the second grade. I did not enter a public school in New York until third grade. I have been actually thinking about the implications of that because it was a group of people of mixed religious backgrounds and the focus of the curriculum was something that had led me to be very aware of various cultures, various religions. So, I think I'm almost more of a universalist. In my life now, I consider myself more of an atheist, but I'm also a daoist. I have a background. I believe that as the Quakers do, that there is that of God in everything, however you define God. So, I feel personally that I'm a spiritual person and a respectful person, but I do not adhere to any particular religion other than that which I gather from the environment and from honoring the individuality and the differences of all of my fellow beings. I suppose it's the best way to describe it. What about you, Kathy? Well, I grew up in the Protestant tradition and had a grandfather who was Methodist Episcopal. I attended pastor of Illinois and a brother who became Methodist minister, so I certainly have been steeped in the thinking that Christ was a peacemaker and that he would not want people to be at war on his screeners, so that has certainly influenced me, the basic tenets of what I believe is that if we should love one another and war does not evidence any love at all, it's pretty simple to me that one has to take a position on war which is that it's unacceptable and that it must be resisted by all people trying to live a moral human life here with concern for other people in a desire to share the richness of ours with everyone, so it seems pretty simple to me, but the actual acting out of it is not that simple because whether we resist taxes or not, we are all complicit in the actions our government takes around the world and we have to do more than just war tax resistance. We have to speak out, we have to attend demonstrations against war, we have to put our money where our mouth is and we have to pray as well. And one thing, Kathy, that I admire that when you speak about our actions, one thing that's very important and I know there was an article up on our website, in my interest in nature and my interest in the environment, the military is the greatest polluter on earth. The government seems to make us all feel that we need to go out and drive Prizes to become good citizens and I see that happening, but the amount of poison being spilled and I'm not even talking about the Gulf or that kind of oversight or lack of on the part of the government, but the operations and activities aside from the destruction and caused by military is that the dirt and the filth and the stuff that's being spewed into the environment by the military is greater than anything collectively. We could do as citizens by putting in fluorescent light bulbs and driving Prizes, so not that I'm demeaning anybody who does those things because I do have fluorescent light bulbs, but we have to remember that the military is the one that is doing a major part of this environmental destruction and we pay for it on both ends. But that some of us are not paying for it and I want to thank you for your witness that way. That's been very important. I want to thank you for joining me, of course, for spirit and action, but also for decades of witness for being a beacon for people who are standing up to do what's good for the world. Thank you both, Kathy and Francis. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Kathy Depp and Francis Schneider Liao of Southern California War Tax Resistance were with us here today for spirit and action. I'd just like to leave you with a quote from Henry David Thoreau about resisting payment of taxes used for unjust purposes. He wrote, "If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure as it would be to pay them and enable the state to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution if any such is possible. Thanks for joining me for spirit and action." The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This spirit and action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is spirit in action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. And our lives will feel the echo of our healing. [MUSIC PLAYING]
2 members of Southern California War Tax Resistance, Frances Schneider Liau & Cathy Deppe, speak of WTR, witness, community, and the SCWTR alternative fund.