Born on the 4th of July
S. Brian Willson
By
Cindy Sheehan
 |
| S. Brian Willson |
CLICK PLAYER TO LISTEN TO A REPLAY OF SOAPBOX INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN
“We are not worth more.
They are not worth less.”
S. Brian Willson
Aw…the 4th of
July!
Picnics, cookouts,
hotdogs, watermelon, barefoot American children burning their feet on discarded
sparkler wires, three-day weekend, FIREWORKS! Did I miss anything?
Oh, yeah! Today we are allegedly celebrating our Declaration of Independence from an oppressive
empire. I would usually write about how the Empire we replaced has in less than
2 ½ centuries become far more bloody and oppressive than the one our ancestors
supposedly replaced, but today, I want to talk about a personal hero of mine:
S. Brian Willson (b. 4 July 1941).
For those not
familiar with Brian’s story, to give you a “Brian in a nutshell” seems trivial
for everything he has sacrificed and endured to live as close to his values as
possible, but I shall try.
Brian joined the US Air
Force as a young, patriotic man in the 1960’s after he earned a Master’s
Degree. As he told me on an interview I did with him for Cindy Sheehan’s
Soapbox, (April 12, 2012 HERE) on a tour in Vietnam, he was confronted with
hundreds of dead civilians and found out that the indiscriminate slaughter was not
an “accident” or “aberration” but that “body counts” were policy.
At a devastated village
in Vietnam where he stood among the carnage he said he looked at the eyes of
the dead civilians and realized two things: everyone is connected in a “web of
humanity” and he also came to the painful conclusion that he was “the savage.”
During that tour of
Vietnam he also came to the awareness of how “absurd” it was to follow orders
and travel thousands of miles to kill people one didn’t even know. I believe it's human nature to place blame on exterior actors or circumstances, but few people can do such self-examination, go through the depths of despair that confronting naked truths demands and come out the other side as a more compassionate and aware individual.
Brian left the military
as a Captain and joined Vietnam Veterans Against War and Veterans for Peace.
Fast forward to the eighties when Brian, as a trained lawyer, writer and human
rights activist who documented US abuses in other countries, like Nicaragua and
El Salvador, he was protesting in California at the Concord Naval Air Station
which was shipping arms to those countries in Central America in its war on
campesinos.
There were prolonged
protests at the base in 1987 and on September 1st, Brian and two
other veterans determined to stop the illegal and immoral shipments decided to
lie on the tracks as they had done before.
Unbeknownst to them,
this time, the conductors were ordered not to stop being told that Brian and
his comrades were “domestic terrorists” who were planning on hijacking the
train! The train was going 17 miles/hour when it struck Brian and ultimately he
lost both legs below the knees and sustained a severe skull fracture.
Even since before
Brian’s courageous and loving stand for his brothers and sisters of Central
America, he came to the conclusion that paying income taxes was contributing
directly to the crimes of the US government, and according to the Nuremburg
Code:
"Individuals have international duties which
transcend the national obligations of obedience...Therefore individual citizens
have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and
humanity from occurring." (Nuremburg)
As with the case of most
of us War Tax Resisters (Brian calls himself a tax “refuser”) Brian had to come
to some very difficult decisions.
Many USAians are
terrified of crossing the IRS and even though a person may sincerely oppose
what the US government uses his/her money for, that person will grudgingly fork
over hard earned money to avoid any personal consequences. Some of us,
including myself and Brian, have come to terms with the fact that we would
rather go to prison, then fund crimes against humanity. That’s one obstacle
that must be overcome.
The second hurdle to becoming a War Tax Resister that I think is
even more frightening to the average USAian is living a simple
lifestyle: Divesting oneself of property and anything that the government can
confiscate. During the April 12, 2014 interview I did with my friend, Brian, he
said that he pared his life down to where there was nothing for the IRS to
"seize" but his “body.”
Brian doesn’t own a car;
rides a hand bike every where in the town where he lives in Portland, Or. He even rode his bike down
from Portland to the SF Bay Area when he was on tour for his book: Blood on the Tracks, The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson. It’s been years since Brian has flown on an airplane and
he ironically takes Amtrak if he has to travel far.
Today, Brian is
interested in permaculture and building community to create “horizontal power
structures” to break free of the “vertical patriarchy” of Empire.
I don’t remember when I
first met Brian and his partner Becky Luening, but knowing Brian and his
example of humanity above his own self-interest has made me a better activist
and a better human being. In my opinion, Brian’s journey of self-awareness and
putting his core values into daily practice can be an example to all of us who
are on that same journey.
In that interview Brian
very humbly rejected the idea of being a role model or hero stating that he
just does what he knows is right and he doesn’t try to be a leader, just an
exemplary human being.
That’s why S. Brian
Willson is my hero!
In addition to tax refusal, Brian engages in other forms of noncompliance, such as not voting.
ReplyDeleteWe have a winner-take-all electoral system, so when somebody votes for you or for some other peace candidate,. their vote is counted as part of the mandate of the winner, and the system always wins. To vote at all, in a capitalist imperialist system with an economy based on war, is to consent not just to allow whoever wins to govern in favor of whichever corporations funded them, but also to consent to genocide and to allow human rights violations to be committed in your name--the name you have to sign when you register to vote and again when you vote.
Voting is the consent of the governed. Many of us, like Brian, do not consent to this form of government and therefore withhold our consent by refusing to vote.
It might be different if there was any chance whatsoever that we, or even 49% of elected officials, could end the wars on which our economy is based by voting. But in addition to our lack of proportional representation, the fact that the results of our national elections are not verifiable, the fact that the popular vote doesn't have to be counted and can be overridden by corrupt elections officials, political party superdelegates, the Electoral College, Congress, and the Supreme Court, the fact that corporations spend billions of dollars financing election campaigns so that de facto corporate rule can continue to claim to have the consent of the governed, and the fact that war isn't on the ballot and can be initiated secretly and unilaterally by a President or by various intelligence agencies, means that there is no chance that we can end war by voting.
But there is a small chance that we could end war by NOT voting. If we boycott elections, the government cannot claim that a majority has consented, and therefore cannot claim the legitimacy of appearing to be an elected government. When governments cannot demonstrate the consent of the governed, they appear to be unstable, so internations banks and businesses go elsewhere. It takes trillions of dollars to continue our imperialist adventures, much of which is borrowed. The the only surety for those loans is the "full faith and credit" of the US government--and that is meaninful only as long as it appears to have the consent of the governed.
Have a peaceful fourth, Cindy. Brian's my hero too. You would be also if you would stop trying to participate in a corrupt system, and stop granting your consent of the governed to a government based on policies like war that you oppose.
It wasn't just Bush, and it isn't just Obama. This country was founded by means of genocide and has been in the genocide-for-profit industry ever since. That's what capitalist imperialism is: genocide for profit.
Did you ever read the little story I wrote with you in mind back in 2008?
The Fable of Lanova Messiah
http://fubarandgrill.org/node/1319
The government doesn't need your tax money in order to wage wars, as much as it needs your consent. Why not talk to Brian about it?
"Exxonia" that's good.
DeleteThanks, Cindy!
DeleteI notice that Missy Beattie has stopped voting.
Here's another article of mine:
You've Got to Stop Voting!
http://fubarandgrill.org/node/1172
If you care about something as deeply as you do about peace, it probably isn't a good idea to entrust it to government--in fact it would be downright irresponsible.
Niece piece Peacegigi, I knew nothing of this man.
ReplyDelete