May, 1985. After sleeping the night in the back of his old Ford Pinto, Tom Hastings awakened to the sound of official vehicles along the Navy’s new access road in the Upper Peninsula woods of Michigan. He roused the resisters who had blockaded the road into the ELF cables lines being stretched from Wisconsin into Michigan and intended for communication with nuclear submarines that could launch first-strike missiles against the Soviet Union. The four resisters who had planted poles across the road were arrested and jailed. The following day, Hastings returned alone and felled one of the support poles to the 57-mile, extreme low-frequency lines, and then turned himself in. After testimony, including that of an international law expert, Phil Berrigan, and a former nuclear sub commander, a jury declared Tom guilty of property destruction but innocent of the more serious charge of sabotage. He received a three-year sentence for his first major nonviolent action.
Hastings’s life subsequently has been a story of sustained nonviolent activism, combined with teaching and exemplary scholarship that has gifted us with five major books since 2000. All of them expand the circle of practical nonviolence—from transpersonal to transnational, to Native Americans and all people of color, and the fight against terrorism, and the devastation of war.
Tom is a vivid example that the most memorable teaching is lived and the most effective writing is embodied in the telling of stories. He writes that Lessons of Nonviolence is not intended as a defense of nonviolence, although it is that. Insights from major advocates of nonviolence testify to the author’s immersion in the literature of the tradition. His personal stories weave together theory and practice. Actions, he concludes, should be focused on single issues. Violent elements should be isolated and disavowed to avoid guilt by association. Leadership should be diverse. Stamina must be cultivated for the long haul. “Hope is a virtual duty to the real peace activist” (184). Conclusions, briefly listed in four short pages (chapter 3) reflect pragmatic insight:
Hastings concurs with Gene Sharp, author of the acclaimed three-volume Politics of Nonviolent Action, that religious or philosophical beliefs are unnecessary for nonviolent campaigns. Both men hold that when people come to understand nonviolence as the strongest tactic for winning, they will use it. Hastings calls himself a “born-again tree hugging pantheist” (93) rather than a religious or philosophically-motivated person. He sees himself as “one who believes in absolute nonviolence” (165, emphasis mine). No experience or series of failures shakes his faith in the ultimate benefit of nonviolence over the harm of overt or structural violence. That belief underlies his life, thought, tactics, and hope. Because it is at the center of his being, it is a stance by which principles are derived and tactics are measured. Hastings points out that Gandhi could have left a more lasting impact on India if his followers had been philosophically committed rather than tactically nonviolent. I agree. In a militarized culture of sanctified violence, as is ours that defeats nonviolent alternatives time after time, it takes a principled philosophy to persist.
Hastings notes the inconsistency of religious conscientious objectors to war who continue to pay for it through taxation. He observes his own struggle with the difficulty posed by tax resistance and the threat it holds for retaining a professional position he wants and needs to retain. Tom’s personal solution is to refuse paying income taxes that finance war, but if consequences such as job loss become untenable, one can “cave in,” that is, cease tax resistance. Christian Ethicist John Howard Yoder’s position was similar. Yoder would not voluntarily pay income taxes or cooperate in their collection, although he would not use subterfuge or hide assets in an attempt to prevent the seizure of assessments. As many of us know, the IRS then takes taxes and penalties due from available checking or savings accounts. Our understanding is that none of the added charges goes into the general federal budget or for military use. Further, there are organizations, such as the War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund (WTRPF) that assists resisters by compensating part or all of incurred penalties through voluntary contributions.
As a teenager, Tom was given the gift of sensitivity to injustice by a Minneapolis teacher who introduced him to the black subculture of South Side Chicago. It never left him. He extended it through subsequent work with Native Americans, against nuclear warfare, and for war victims everywhere. When he found himself challenged by the prophetic witness of Phil Berrigan, Kathy Kelly (who wrote the foreword to this book) and others, he was moved to a lifetime of active protest. Although now a professor and director of the Peace and Nonviolence Studies track in the Department of Conflict Resolution at Portland State University, his commitment still finds expression in the streets as well as through his scholarship He lives with other nonviolent visionaries in a Portland Catholic Worker house. In addition to local political activism, Hastings founded “Peace Voice,” an attempt to offer expanded publication avenues for writers on topics related to nonviolence. He offers workshops on utilizing media for peace.
Gandhi’s call for “experiments in truth” echoes from the pages of Lessons of Nonviolence and rebounds from Portland. As long as there are “tree-loving pantheists” and pacifist Quakers who, despite odds, hold to nonviolence, there is hope.
Copyright © 2008. Published by Plowshares: a Peace Studies Collaborative of Earlham, Goshen, and Manchester Colleges