The Smartest People

The nice thing about living in a meritocracy is that you
Get to be ruled by the smartest people; they went to

The very finest schools where they got the best grades,
Some undoubtedly got perfect SAT scores; for instance,

Those who offshored millions of jobs and deindustrialized
The country are really smart, the people who spent

Trillions committing genocide in Iraq are really smart, and
Those who gave us the highest incarceration rate on Earth

Are really smart, those who took us off the gold standard
Are really smart, and those who burned the humanities to

Ashes are really smart, those who run our multi-tier for-profit
Health care system are really smart, and the people who

Happily destroyed Ukraine, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya,
Yemen, the US, the EU and half of Syria and then blamed it

All on Trump and the Russians are really smart, those who
Regularly provide billions of dollars in military aid to regimes

Run by murderers and torturers when their own citizens lack
Jobs, health care, and education, they are irrefutably smart –

Geniuses some would say – and also particularly smart are those
Who stir up wars for a living and who relentlessly brainwash

Their readers in an avalanche of lies, propaganda, and deceit –
Indeed, they could very well be the smartest people of all

David Penner’s articles on politics and health care have appeared in Dissident Voice, CounterPunch, Global Research, The Saker blog, OffGuardian and KevinMD; while his poetry can be found at Dissident Voice, Mad in America, and redtailedhawk.substack.com. Also a photographer, 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 321davidadam@gmail.com. Read other articles by David.