Complicity / Collusion (Part 2)

Part 2 of a 4 part poem

1

Mis and disinforming
              talking-points promulgating
incessantly distorting  selectively ignoring
                            doggedly obfuscating
spurious-claims disseminating
              press-release repeating
                            photo-op propagating

       gov-prop peddling   celebrity smitten
       wealth-and-power-fawning-bug bitten
              official-lies defending
              common-sense suspending
              groupthink / think tank echoing
                     establishment spokestoadies

de facto stenographic agents
                     journalists in name alone
mere courtiers who take dictation
       from the ring of loyal barons
              surrounding the lawless throne

leaders   in the field of misleading
       spinners   of institutional spin
              shills   for big-biz big-money sin
                     gods   of nonstop softball lobs
masters of projection  misdirection
       and the impossibly incurious question

diligently-cheerleading snakes
with well-earned well-worn keys to the gates
              of covert-infomercial heaven
                     and glowing  puff-piece nirvana
experts at breathlessly disclosing
              insights  as incisive as the bites
                     of well-fed toothless piranhas.


2

Ever mindful of never-written-
yet-spelled-out-by-its-system-of-rewards
              orders   to only cover symptoms
and to never acknowledge
much less discuss  any roots or root causes

              so as not to unravel
              the insubstantial fabric
              of the flimsy falsehoods being spun;

content to consent  to pretend world events
happen   in some sort of magical vacuum
       when dealing with stories
       constrained and fashioned
       by the tacit command from on high
                     that makes it clear asking why
                                   is entirely verboten;

disposed  to follow the unspoken
       policy of opposing
       the exposing of anything outside
                     the highly zoomed-in image
                            the narrowly focused shot;

obliged to abide  by the editorial given
that honest context is and will be cropped
and that if not explicitly approved
allusions to history are implicitly forbidden

the powers-that-be's  devoted media
unofficial publicists for team amnesia
— ideologically and/or contractually trapped
into proudly mouthing pre-packaged pap —
              are unable to stray from the script

       not even to state the most basic of facts
              should these  in any way conflict
              with the feeble threadbare fables
                     the narrative-managing class
                            is paid to fanatically back


as newscasting presstitute types
reduced  to prostituting their pipes
       — in lockstep with both their outright
                     and shadow-banning bands
       of online-censoring  memory-holing
       big-tech-web-controlling  search-engine-
                     algorithm-rigging brethren —

find themselves spewing
devious fictions and baseless accusations
effectively fueling  fires of misinformation
of sufficient size to create
       a raging conflagration
       of division  suspicion  distrust and hate

all the while maligning their designated prey
by intently dispensing
the poisonous pills of legalized libel
— ever so slyly  insidiously defaming —

       and administering pernicious tinctures
       of persistent  concerted mislabeling
              combined  — as often as not —
              with venomous shots
              of insinuated   guilt by association
              no matter how maliciously fallacious.