“You are sick. You are unwell,” said the man in the white coat.
“No rational person believes 9/11 was an inside job. Alas,
You are a very sick man, and we are going to make you well.
We can cure you. We used to burn witches, yet we’ve grown more
Sophisticated in our methods. Now we leave the body intact – but not
The mind. Look at what we did to Julian. No one can escape us.”
And no one was there to rescue the wrongfully detained: neither
The New York Times, nor The Wall Street Journal, nor The New Yorker,
Nor The Washington Post, nor the noble virtuous liberals, nor those
Charged with the task of protecting their fellow citizens from arbitrary
Detention, nor the people on the subway all staring at their phones,
Nor the teenagers playing video games instead of reading, nor the
Destitute to whom no one would listen, nor the professors giving lectures
On the wonders of neoliberalism, nor the college students ranting and raving
About race and gender, nor the residents who were competing for the
Prize of chief resident, nor the medical students who were too frightened,
Nor the nurses who had student loans to pay back, nor the Muslims who
Were already being tortured in different black sites; nor the pharmaceutical
CEO, who was buying his wife a five million dollar necklace; nor the law
Schools, who ostensibly teach their students about due process and
Habeas corpus; nor the medical schools, who allegedly teach their students
About informed consent; nor the Democratic Party, which was still complaining
About the 2016 election result; nor John Brown – whose body was buried in
The too cold earth – and whose eternal sacred soul was crying out in silence.
*****
David Penner’s articles on politics and health care have appeared in Dissident Voice, CounterPunch, GlobalResearch, MintPress News and KevinMD; while his poetry has been published with Dissident Voice. Also a photographer and native New Yorker, he is the author of three books of portraiture: Faces of The New Economy, Faces of Manhattan Island, and Manhattan Pairs. He can be reached at [email protected].
