survivor

[saw]

some called it an empire
of unrivaled fantasy
others a victory of spectacle
but mostly we all agreed
it was the end of literacy
the bad guys kidnapped reality
tied him to a chair in the cellar
sent out their puppet illusion
in his place, a clone so real
it was like John Wayne
in the sands of Iwo Jima
every day of the week,
Martha Stewart was the only one
could teach them how to create
a perfect home, Oprah, Dr. Phil
the millionaire mystic preachers
pop pop pop pshychology, gunned
down in a hail of starry bullets
by hollow point drive-by celebrity
and the people froze in their tracks
stopped working to get a better look
to visualize their futures, they learned
from the afternoon, the morning programs
that even though they had no intrinsic value
they should still try to look fabulous
they bathed in Springer humiliation
they clawed and betrayed in the Stern light
they screwed like hot Trump apprentices
and in the end none of it mattered,
they were all voted off the island anyway

[judih]

would rather read you than watch any of them

[dadio]

An enjoyable poem and theme.

[saw]

thanx for the kind words judih and dadio.....much obliged .......

[mnaz]

yet they still hang around...

"reality" is the opiate of the... never mind. good one, steve.

[happytrails]

I love this. I hate everyone of all those reality shows. I actually canceled cable years ago because I was sick of the content. Now, I borrow from the library or rent the videos of the shows I do wish to watch, And none of them are the ones you mention here in your poem.I live reality; watch fantasy.

Mmmmmmmmmm, Angel.

[stilltrucking]

A Pretty timely poem for me, thank you. for another pretty good poem

I just read the following bit which I with I juxtaposed in my mind with your poem. I think I stumbled on the Karl Rove quote in a movie called The American Ruling Class. Pretty good movie.

Reality-based community is an informal term in the United States. In the fall of 2004, the phrase "proud member of the reality-based community" was first used to suggest the commentator's opinions are based more on observation than on faith, assumption, or ideology. The term has been defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from judicious study of discernible reality." Some commentators have gone as far as to suggest that there is an overarching conflict in society between the reality-based community and the "faith-based community" as a whole. It can be seen as an example of political framing.

The source of the term is a quotation in an October 17, 2004, The New York Times Magazine article by writer Ron Suskind, quoting an unnamed aide to George W. Bush (later attributed to Karl Rove[1]):

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community

On a personal note
It is a wonder to me how my family has survived these past two-thousand years. We kept getting voted off of somebody else's island. Till now, my family found a refuge in this land of the wretched teeming refuse of foreign shores.