PENALTY SHARING COMMUNITY

The Iowa Peace Network maintains a mailing list of persons who have made a commitment to the Penalty Sharing Community to share in the penalties assessed to individuals and families who have chosen to resist war taxes or have participated in civil disobedience or non-violent direct action.  When a request for assistance is received, a mailing is sent out which explains the resister’s situation and the amount of money needed.   For example, if the resister was assessed a $300.00 penalty, each of the persons in the Community would pay an equal portion of the $300.00.  Thus if there were 200 people in the Community, each would pay  $1.50.  The Iowa Peace Network will also add into the amount requested its costs for printing and mailing.  Such costs have proven to be minimal.

So very often concerned and law abiding citizens bristle or disapprove of civil disobediance, direct action, civil resistance, or other terms for non-violent "action oriented" acts and behavior.  Martin Luther King's Letter From the Birmingham Jail was written as a direct response to critisisms of just this type of action.  

You may well ask:  "Why direct action?  Why sit-ins, marches and so forth?  Isn't negotiation a better path?  You are quite right in calling for negotiation.  Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action.  Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.  I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension, which is necessary for growth.  

Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.  Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.                                           ---Martin Luther King JR. Letter from Birmingham Bail

The Penalty Sharing Community-- Why join?

Please view this video.  Kathy Kelly has been  twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.  Click on this picture to listen to her elequent discussion of the vital importance of direct action during her interview  on C-Span during the Iowa Caucuses.  

I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs

--Frederick Douglass

       click the above picture to join us in the Penalty Sharing Community

Download "PENALTY SHARING COMMUNITY" brochure (pdf.)

IPN is supported by the United Methodist Church, Iowa Annual Conference; Church of the Brethren, Northern Plains District; Iowa Yearly Meeting of Friends, Conservative; Iowa Yearly Meeting of Friends, United Meeting; and the Mennonite Church, Central Plains District.