As best as I can remember, this is a copy of the letter I sent to the IRS in lieu of a tax return in 1992. The section in italics was added more recently. To whom it may concern, As a conscientious objector to war, I refuse to participate in the carnage committed by the… Continue reading
Conscientious Objection and Encounters with the IRS
James Satterwhite, 1946 – 2016 “If we could read the secret histories of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow In 1969, as I was graduating from college in Florida at the height of the war in Vietnam, I faced a dilemma…. Continue reading
Tamika Beyer 2003
The Hand April, 2003 This is a protest poem but I’m not sure to whom I should register my complaint. I would like to protest the dismembered hand draped across a tree branch close to a market in an old neighborhood of Baghdad bombed during its evening peak: packed with women vying for the few,… Continue reading
