An Act of Conscience Documentary

Friday April 14, 2006

We get a cable channel called FSTV (Free Speech Television) that broadcasts totally off the main stream documentaries and programs that are often thought provoking, anti corporate/establishment and invariably very low budget. Ever since I found that channel, I always look at what is running there first before moving over to the regular corporate broadcasts. Today at 10pm saw a documentary called "An Act of Conscience" that discussed an antiwar protest by a Massachusetts couple named Randy Keiler & Betsy Conner in 1992 - 93. Since about 50% individual federal income tax dollars go towards Pentagon budgets used to fund wars, and since they are in principle against war, this couple refuse to pay federal income tax. They do pay state and local taxes. They then compute their share of federal income tax to the penny and then give away that exact amount to charities that particularly support war ravaged societies which were attacked by U.S. or where the wars are funded by U.S. Government. (Refusing to pay taxes so that wars can't be fought is indeed a time honored American tradition from the time U.S. refused to pay Britain tea taxes used to fund wars while it was a British colony centuries back to about 20,000 individuals refusing to pay federal taxes during the Vietnam war since they were opposed to the war effort.) Eventually this behaviour leads to confrontation with the U.S. Govt. and the IRS (Internal Revenue Service, the US govt. agency setup to collect federal taxes). Randy gets arrested and then released after IRS takes over their house and evicts them out of their home.

The house is subsequently put on auction and another couple bid and buy the house for $5400, which is probably less than 5% of the house's market value. Randy & Betsy refuse to move out of the house and start a sit in with their supporters. There are hundreds of supporters from allover the country. Naturally, the couple and their supporters are all extremely dedicated to non-violent principles. They even have a huge picture of Gandhi (only picture/poster found anywhere in the documentary) among their protest signs. They believe that the govt. does not have the right to takeover their house and it still belongs to them. The other couple who bought the house move into the house one day when the original owners are away and nail the doors shut refusing to let Randy/Betsy back in. Interestingly, though the new couple bought the house from the govt., it is built on top of leased land owned by a trust (Valley Land Trust) formed on the principle that since human beings did not create land, they should not profit from buying and selling the land. So, the trust formed by collecting donations and other contributions, owns the land and leases it to people who want to use it in an environmentally sound manner. After initially trying to reason with the new owners that what they are doing is wrong and they should support the antiwar movement (the new owners think these protesters are just nuts & hippies), the couple and their supporters start a vigil outside the house on the trust's land. 

Local police simply says that everyone has a right in this case and pending court adjudication on land rights, they can not do much. Believe it or not, the vigil continues for 1.5 years with different groups of people (one week per set of people) continuing the vigil at different times. The couple and the supporters want to make sure that this does not become a fight against them and the new couple (which some supporters do see as an extension of the IRS since they paid money to IRS and took advantage of the situation while others think it is a tactic by the IRS to modify the situation by pitting them against Randy & Betsy). They want to keep the focus on civil disobedience to protest war efforts. 

Randy & Betsy have traveled around the world and have seen people affected by U.S. initiated wars. For example, people in Nicaragua, where they have personal friends, children who have lost loved ones to bombs. They question as to how when inner city schools suffer from lack of funds, there are still thousands of homeless and destitute in the U.S. streets, there never seems to be any dearth of funds for new war toys. 

Trying to break the deadlock, people come up with a compromise solution that will get Randy & Betsy back in their original home. One solution is to build several more low cost homes in the trust's land with the help of the supporters. If the new owners help in building these new houses, they will be guaranteed one of the new homes in exchange for giving back Randy/Betsy their home. The new owners refuse this option. The Massachusetts court then issues an injunction for the protest vigil saying it is violating the civil rights of the new couple who bought the house from IRS, even though the protest is taking place in the land owned by the trust. Support for the vigil thins down since people don't want to get arrested. Even Randy & Betsy lose some of their resolve since 1.5 years is far beyond the time line anyone imagined for this protest to last. Some including Randy say that may be it is time to give up since "you can't force us to pay taxes to support war" idea has been well established and understood by the community now. But many supporters want to continue the vigil in defiance to the court order. They all get arrested (about 53 people) in the next few days and kept in prison for 2 weeks each. There are librarians, painters, organic farmers, musicians and others among those who spend time in jail. 

After close to two years, realizing that the protest and vigil may not end anytime soon, the new owners sell the house back to the trust for an undisclosed sum and move out. Thus, Randy/Betsy finally get their house back but then choose to live in another house on the same trust's land in the same community with Betsy's ailing mother. The house is resold to another couple by the trust who are dedicated to organic farming. 

Randy & Betsy still live in the same community and still refuse to pay federal taxes. Similar to their point of view, I have also heard of those who choose voluntary poverty by intentionally not earning enough so that they don't have to pay federal taxes, as a more muted form of war protest. Some antiwar groups have pushed for the idea of a check box on the tax form you can check to say that you don't want your tax dollars to go towards war efforts so that such dollars can be directed to a separate account that funds only non-war related governmental spending. For those who may have never filed a US tax return, there is a check box in the US tax form asking if we would like $3 of the tax we pay can go towards funding US presidential candidates in their election campaign effort. Saying Yes or No does not increase or decrease our tax burden but will send/not send $3 of the taxes to political campaign. Since I feel that there is enough money in politics as such, I always choose not to let $3 of my tax dollars go towards presidential campaign. This checkbox and account management will be very similar. Thus, though the idea has precedence and is not difficult to implement, I am sure it will not come to fruition anytime soon.

The IRS agent who auctions off their house says that since this is democracy, this couple should petition the congress to change the laws or start a ground root movement or run for the govt. themselves to get things changed, but should not skip out on taxes.

That is a very good point, since in a democracy, when we elect our representatives, we do authorize them to act on our behalf, which may include starting/running wars as well. But I wonder how practical it is to run for govt. and rewrite laws to prevent American govt. from waging wars. During the civil rights movement in this country (though it was a democracy at that time as well, unlike India during Gandhi's struggle), there were large civil disobedience movements. The justification was simply that segregation laws were unjust. So resorting to such methods, when you think the system is totally unjust, seems to shake up things more quickly though not without damages for those involved. Obviously everyone failing to follow the laws when they don't like something the govt does (e.g. issuing traffic tickets) will lead to total chaos. But it seems to help your cause get noticed at the least..

What will be a cause for which you & I will be willing to forego the roof above our head and possibly end up in prison..? Do we believe in anything at all that deeply..? 

-sundar.