Sunday, July 27, 2025

Poem in Support of Those Who Refuse Conscription


Conscientious Objection

 

Praise to those who refuse conscription.

Praise to ‘draft dodgers’ and objectors to war.

May the only thing they are ever induced to burn

be their draft cards. Let them stand against

the vast sways of their deluded societies

which crave and justify war as if it’s the answer

to their crisis, crises, situations, conditions.

Praise to the ones who stand against the claims

of ‘no alternative’, ‘responsibility to your country’,

and other epithets of manipulation and destruction.

Praise to the conscience that understands killing

leads to more killing and that military ‘camaraderie’

is the ultimate ganging up, bullying behaviour.

Praise to those who know cowardice is operating

in armies is facilitating starvation and the deaths

of children. To refuse conscription, to refuse to fight,

is not cowardice, and ‘bravery’ is not even a word

with an adequate range or an adequate history

to apply to such resolution, inner strength, morality.

 

 

            John Kinsella

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