The Protocol asks:
“What year is it now?”
“1984” I reply.
The machine stamps ‘Cognitive impairment ESTABLISHED’:
and I fall down a dystopian Orwellian memory-hole.
The Protocol knows what’s best:
do not stray from the pathway
Evidentially (or not)
The Protocol has no need to consider
maleficence and Hippocrates’
but I am an oaf.
The Protocol has moved-on:
ageing is a thing of the past!
Patterns of pathology
have become
TODAY.
The Protocol is unstoppable in its progress.
“It is an all out fight”
our Prime minister confirms.
The metaphors
engaged
are indeed pathological.
The Protocol fights stigma! [The machine confirms].
And any ‘diseased Other’ has nothing to fear
from The Protocol.
A poem written by Dr Peter J Gordon, February 2013.
Spot on.
I fear The Protocol very much. Much harm will be done in effort to address the ‘burden.’ The Protocol will add to the burden, become the burden. The Protocol will become the stigma, stigmatising forever the mildly cognitively impaired. The Protocol will become the stigma that is the burden – but something will be seen to have been done, it will be the proof of caring, but caring not for the ramifications of its action.
It is 1984 and way beyond…