Will the Real Prisoner Please Stand Up

March 16, 2014

I’ve taken to writing poetry as my mind wanders about the circumstances in which I find myself.  I can empathize with how Senator John McCain felt as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.  I can empathize with Kenneth Bey in North Korea.  I can empathize with U S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl being held by the Taliban.  I can understand all too well the circumstances that bind them and have bound them.  But we are in America; we’re not in the Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam, we’re not in Pyongyang in North Korea; we’re not located in some cave in Afghanistan.  We’re in America, an so by the mere definition of that, justice is the goal, and truth, integrity and ethics are the tools that help us achieve it.  When you intentionally lie to the people, when you intentionally help falsify evidence, that means that your legal argument never had any substance to begin with, and your real agenda was never justice or to illuminate the truth, but merely to conceal it.  Injustice -- hiding behind a curtain, protected by men whose self interests and relationships run deep and who enjoy an intoxicating construct of privilege and anonymity; essentially a hidden branch of government with no oversight.   Relying on its citizens to forgive and forget when they have failed to live up to their oath.  There is an old saying “people who do more must forgive more.  Justice is the goal, not revenge or anger.”