Lynchburg 'war tax resister' speaks about pacifist lifestyle

[TexasTowelie]

In the song “Alice’s Restaurant,” Arlo Guthrie tells a meandering Thanksgiving tale involving a garbage dump, an empty church and “police officer station,” ending by encouraging listeners to sing the song’s chorus to protest the Vietnam War.

An Ann Arbor, Michigan, radio station played the song on Friday nights when Larry Bassett was in college, marking the time when he began considering civil disobedience before becoming a “war tax resister” at different times in his life.

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A pacifist who lives in downtown Lynchburg, Bassett said he refuses to pay $128,000 in federal taxes owed by today’s deadline, citing Henry David Thoreau, the 19th century philosopher who wrote the pamphlet “Civil Disobedience.”

Instead of sending his money where a substantial percentage would go toward military spending, he “redirects” it to local and international nonprofit organizations, he said.

Read more: http://www.fredericksburg.com/news/va_md_dc/lynchburg-war-tax-resister-speaks-about-pacifist-lifestyle/article_9fc2eb95-f4d8-5820-82d3-ad2b8c0a982a.html