Featured Post for 05/29 – 06-04: I was notified recently by the Internal Revenue Service that I have been fined $5,000 for “frivolous filing” of a tax document.
The story, quickly:
In the spring of 2007 and the spring of 2008 I took a book tour around the country. In 2007 I went east and in 2008 I went west.
Each time before I left home I sent a letter and a tax form to the IRS.
The forms each had a black Magic Marker “X” through them.
The letters indicated why I did not wish to cooperate with the United States of America.
It was symbolic. They had already received my money through paycheck withholding tax.
But even though merely symbolic, it’s something, some very little thing, in an effort to stand with those who have been stomped on by the government of George W. Bush, those in Iraq, and those in the United States, who have gone without health care, decent schools, roads, lived in poverty so that we might spread the American empire across the globe.
And it is now apparent that having a Democrat in the White House means only more of the same, a lesson we might have learned from living through the Clinton years, the bombing of Iraq, the sanctions on Iraq that killed millions, the increase in prison construction, the “reform” of welfare etc.
These people. These people have everything on their minds but public service.
My impression is they have power and the keeping of that power on their minds. We imagine that people who seek public office want to work for the social welfare and would naturally want to know the truth, but so often and for so many years we have been disappointed by putting our faith in our political leaders.
We have a semblance of representation, but not in reality.
Nobody asks you if you want to build more prisons. Nobody asks you if you want to bomb children in Iraq. Nobody asks you if you want your money to go to the poor, to schools, to roads.
Nobody ever asks.
So sometimes, sometimes you just have to tell them.
Every year we are asked to pay our taxes, send in our forms, pay for the bullets, the bombs that kill the children, the men and women.
We are given no choice.
Just as we were given no choice as children whether or not to rise before class and say the pledge of allegiance to America’s wars.
We’re not children anymore.
Our acquiesance has real consequence.
We pay to have people killed so that America and America’s businesses may expand influence and market area.
I don’t want to believe that.
I want to rather believe in the America I believed in when I walked alone into Mrs. Steele’s kindergarten class and saw written across the giant blackboard in gigantic white chalk letters: President John F. Kennedy.
But.
They killed Kennedy and America has never been the same since.
But the ideal remains.
The dream of a good and just America remains.
We may never get there, but we must try.
We must try.
Here are the letters from 2007, 2008:
March 1, 2008
Internal Revenue Service
3539 Southern Hills Drive
Sioux City, Iowa 51106
Hello.
Enclosed is my tax form for this year.
It is crossed-out because I do not wish to cooperate with the government of George W. Bush.
President Bush has chosen to spend our tax dollars on war and killing while cutting spending on social programs.
As a Christian, I cannot go along with this.
I must protest.
Sincerely,
Mike Palecek
March 27, 2007
Internal Revenue Service
Kansas City, MO 64999-002
Hello,
Enclosed is a crossed-out tax form.
I will not cooperate with the murderous regime of George W. Bush.
President Bush and his administration planned and carried out the attacks on the United States on 9-11-01, in order to attack Iraq and steal their oil.
In the eyes of Bush and Cheney and Rove, the war is going according to plan. They and their friends are making millions, billions, from the oil, from the defense industry, while the poor go without, while social services are cut in order to pay for more war and killing.
As a Christian, I cannot go along with this.
I must protest.
Sincerely,
Mike Palecek
17 comments ↓
Courage to resist. Mike, I applaud you for taking this kind of stand. Not something that most people put out there….but I think it’s going to have to come to this in massive numbers sooner or later.
Well Mike it looks like you have a fight on you hands and it can take years and many dollars but if people elect not to fight it will only get worse.
I fought a 10 year battle and lost hundreds of thousands and no one said thanks but some of us feel that we have no choice. The really brave are those that put their lives on the line for a cause. Like the millions who have been killed when America invaded their countries.
I think something like this is a great example of how this government is not “of the people” it’s not peaceful, and it’s not voluntary.
Anytime they have to resort to threats and force to get people to pay for their crap, you know it’s a tyranny.
I mean, think about it, a lot of people don’t like wal mart, but do they go around fining people? And, if you don’t pay, would wal mart send people with guns to come get you?
Well, they can’t lock us all up, right???
The problem is that you have no friends among those who make the rules. And they know they are omnipotent. They are that way because we for too long have encouraged their lawlessness by voting Party first instead of voting for America. And over time the Parties took advantage of it.
In my home state several years ago , Federal Agents gunned down and burned the body of a tax protester. They said that he fired first. His body didn’t arise from the dead and say they were lying. So it goes down in history as a job well done by the Feds.
It was not the first or only time this has happened. How many times are police found guilty of killing someone who “fired first” or “made a threatening move”, when there were no witnesses to state otherwise?
Actually I don’t know of any.
That’s the problem with challenging the lawless. You have nobody but right on your side and right is not worth much without witnesses.
Years ago when I lived in Los Angeles, some citizens formed a “Police Watch” to try to stop what they thought was police assassinations. One of my friends was one of those who patrolled. I used to wonder if his elevator went to the top floor, then one day during the Watts riots I saw what could happen when word of mouth could somehow convolute a story.
Cliff, i’m giving you a big thumbs up on your comment here. Especially with how you start – you have no friends among those who make the rules.
It’s true, no doubt about it. And what else is true is that they rule over us, not for us.
Thanks Spooner. Unfortunately it is true. They are the Kings and were are the King’s subjects. That is what it has become.
We the people need to force another Magna Carta Libertatum.
We first need to decide that we will demand better Governance.
I once read a book called “The Illusion of Authority” (I don’t remember who authored it). I remember it pointed out that the government and the police have only as much authority as we choose to give them by recognizing their illusion as real. If everyone decided to stop playing the game and simply not take them seriously anymore, they would instantly cease to wield power over us. Of course, that would involve citizen’s militias forming to do things like arresting the cops every time they drew their weapons, and shutting down the “halls of power” in Washington DC. In theory it’s true–in practice, highly unlikely. But the idea seems so appealing these days…
In my home state not only the tax protester was killed but also a Militia was attacked by a Fed Army and it “come in with guns ablazin”. Several militia were killed. The “need” for the attack was supposedly that child welfare was endangered at the Militia camp.
Kind of like the Mormon and Alamo recent shut-downs. Readers might remember that the Texas Mormon camp raid was based on a lie by an activist – one the authorities knew was likely to call in false information because she had done the same thing before about various different causes. But they couldn’t pass up the opportunity even if the original charge they knew to be a lie.
Its a very similar situation with the Alamo scene.
It might also be revealing that all those charges brought after the raid have been quietly melting away. But the Feds have realized their aim. They have formed public opinion and destroyed the “Nest of opposition”.
Don’t forget all those prisons that KBR built for Bush and the Bush Directives. They are still there. Obama didn’t get rid of those dangers that he promised to remove. They’re just waiting for an excuse to further subjugate the people and they have been training Army units to do just that.
We forget important things so quickly.
You’re right, Cliff. We forget quicker than ever. And, as the wise saying goes – the only thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history….
If that’s not courage, I don’t know what is. please keep us informed of what happens next, Mike!
Tax; Taxes; Taxable; Taxation; &c.
Read Otto Skinner’s books “The Best Kept Secret”, “The Biggest “Tax Loophole” of All”, and others.
I think he’s dead now–I saw a “For Sale” sign on his website a while back.
He provides logical info on America’s tax laws, and references to court cases by The Supremes (U.S. Supreme Court) and other sources, which tell us what the law says, what it requires of us, and what we need do to comply….altho we may still–prob.ly will!–end up in the hoose-gow;
of course it’ll be someplace special for us, like Abu Graibe, Gitmo….. <grin!>
thanks for dialoguing, eh?!
kenn
1RmSchlHs@gmail.com
“There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.”
— Harry S. Truman
you can protest on the street if you’re willing to ask permission and you can protest with your wallet if you’re willing to accept jail.
free country my a&&
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