Pat Shannan's MUSINGS
ONE OF THEIR OWN
With me, please thank Devvy Kidd for the Joe Banister story. Sure, it was all over the net the following week, and now he is on the talk show circuit. But five minutes after joining me in the Media Bypass booth at the Sacramento Expo in February, Devvy was telling me about this story that "has got to be told." She was the one who got Joe Banister on the phone, and it was she who urged him to come over from San Jose on Saturday for the interview, telling me, "I want you to write it, Pat." All I had to do was turn on the recorder and ask a few questions. It is amazing how much we can accomplish together, if nobody cares who gets the credit.
When this finally comes to a head, when enough congressmen, senators, and bureaucratic robots are made to look foolish by not demanding that these questions be answered, then Joe Banister and the rest of us may get some satisfaction. At that time I want the record show that it was a California housewife - a 120 pound dynamo with the knockout punch of a heavyweight - who first learned some truths in 1992 and got angry enough to self-publish a pamphlet. It caught on, millions of copies went into print, and she became the darling of the talk show hosts - those who were seeking truth, that is.
For the Fed's democracy to work, the majority have to believe an awful lot of lies, ignore an awful lot of facts, make an awful lot of false assumptions and tolerate much violence. The majority must be rewarded for not producing. When the majority are rewarded for not producing, the ratio of production to consumption must be ruthlessly regulated lest consumption exceeds production and the system collapses. There is no better way to enhance the ratio of production to consumption than to eliminate non-productive consumers; babies and retirees. (Dave Wilber)
IRS officials would probably conclude today that it was a mistake to hire Joe Banister. He refused to be dumbed-down. One morning in 1997, he was listening to his favorite talk show host in San Francisco. Joe is a longtime member of the NRA and a political conservative. Geoff Metcalf spoke his language. Joe told me that it was for this reason only - his respect for Metcalf - that he did not flip the dial and dispense with Devvy Kidd's foolishness. She was espousing "this same old illegal tax protestor crap" for which his superiors had long since prepared him. But Metcalf had credibility. He would never allow disinformation on his show, and Banister was intrigued.
"Okay, so it was time to set her straight," he said. He ordered her materials and began to check out everything - the supreme court cites, the constitutional grounding, and the actual people in the footnotes - all on his own time and at his personal expense. The deeper he dug the smarter these kooks became.
One of the names and phone numbers listed in Devvy's booklet was that of Bill Conklin in Denver. Conklin had brazenly advertised in various newspapers offering a $50,000 reward to anyone who could produce the law requiring individuals to file an IRS 1040. (Famed tort lawyer Melvin Belli had previously taken on Conklin and flunked the test.) Banister got him on the phone and explained who he was, where he worked, and exactly what his mission was; saying, "I won't be surprised if you don't believe me."
Whether Conklin believed him or not, he called his hand by sending Banister fifty bucks to go towards his phone bill - giving him more phone numbers and urging him to call everybody in the book. It was the first of what was to be dozens of conversations with Conklin, Bill Benson, Alabama attorney Larry Becraft, and Orange County, California activist Peymon Mottahedeh. Every place the IRS agent looked he found another piece to the puzzle, each one further cementing for him the truths in the law and exposing the fabricated deception by government. Joe Banister's emotional level went from intrigue to obsession.
"None of these people tried to influence my thinking at all. They just sent me evidence," Joe says today. Larry Becraft was the most skeptical of all. After his initial conversation with Joe, he confided to Benson, "I don't care what he says, Bill, he's still a !@#$% IRS agent, and I don't trust him!"
Becraft is not alone. Others have expressed a "Trojan Horse" concern, admittedly without any evidence but genuine concern. The past dealings with the underhanded enemy have been etched on their memories forever. Joe will just have to earn his stripes now, and I believe he will. He intends to hang a shingle and go into private business, utilizing his CPA certificate. (AUTHOR'S 2004 INSERTION: Becraft's distrustful comments about Banister came before Banister even resigned in February, 1999. Once Becraft witnessed Banister's dedication and sacrifices made in order to expose IRS wrongdoing, Becraft's feelings about Banister changed 180 degrees. Becraft now sees that Banister is far from a "Trojan Horse" or "plant" and that he is truly the IRS's worst nightmare because of his sterling record and professional accomplishments before, during, and after working in the IRS Criminal Investigation Division ( see, for example, www.josephbanister.com . ) Banister and Becraft have become trusted friends since Banister's resignation from the IRS. Banister said in September of '04, "Now that I have over 5 years of activism under my belt regarding exposing IRS misdeeds, people can see that I am sincere about putting an end to the income tax fraud. It appears that only those who want to keep the public from learning the truth about IRS misdeeds still peddle the worn-out, unsupportable claim that I am a 'plant'. People just aren't buying it."
Attorney Steffan Bertsch, who knows him better than all of us, says,
"Most Americans who learn of the fraudulent implementation of the income taxes and dare to protest aren't subjected to the criminal aspects of the IRS. Instead they are fleeced of their "fortunes" by Revenue Officers on the "civil" side of the IRS.
"Joe Banister was from the criminal segment of the IRS. This means he was a gun-carrying investigator. The CID has the ear of the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorneys and many CID recommendations are followed through with criminal prosecutions. In short, the CID has the power to punish by sweeping away the liberty of those who dare to challenge the implementation of the income tax code.
"Special Agents, like the Revenue Officers, and also like the District Court Judges, U.S. Attorneys and the criminal defense bar, all have been programmed to presume the income tax code is lawful, and is being implemented through clear legal authority. It is a most difficult effort to break through this programming, but Joseph Banister was able to do so. He has won his battle for integrity, come what may from the system that uses ignorance and lies to keep us in chains."
Bill Benson and others, independent of each other, implored Joe not to quit. "Make them fire you and then sue their pants off." Benson had done just that and collected $350,000 from the State of Illinois a few years ago. "But if you quit now, you have lost your leverage."
Joe and his lawyer, Don Kilmer, agreed that the hardnosed approach probably would yield the most in the long run, but there were other prevailing circumstances which neither volunteered to pursue any further. Reviewing the segment on tape later, I wondered if Joe Banister may have seen the Waco video where four BATF agents climb the ladder and crawl through a second story window. But the fifth, instead of entering, blasts into the room with a couple of bursts from his automatic weapon. I've always wondered if those were the same four ATF "heroes" - the former bodyguards of Governor Clinton - who died that day. Whatever the case, that image could weigh heavily on a young man, with a wife and two children, who has taken an active stand to expose fraud within the government.
See: Pat Shannan's Investigative Reports
http://www.patshannan.com/