Television will not be revolutionized

 

Television will not be revolutionized
You will be able to stay home, sister
You will be able to plug in, turn on, and cop out

In fact, you will be systematically programmed
To prioritize your lifestyle around your viewing habits
Will be encouraged to become addicted to latest trend
To watch each series to it’s tantalizing end and then
Follow the characters to their spin-off time
So you can get inside their heads all over again

So the corporations that spend
billions of dollars getting inside your head
Can convince you to go out and buy clothes
so you can look like them

Television will not be revolutionized
Television will be brought to you by Xeorox
In 4 parts with strategically placed commercial interruptions
Guaranteed to keep you plastered to your chair
Annoyed with your children for imagined disruptions

Which are only considered disruptive
because you have chosen to stare
At a mechanical box instead of at their
Towers of blocks ... At the soft curl of their locks
edging eyes brimming with fear

Television will not be revolutionized
Television will be brought to you by Proctor & Gambol, Halliburton
And Exxon Mobile, by the money-stained hands
Of the few rich white men who own 98% of the stations
Or the few rich white men who own or govern 97% of this nation,
As well as the hands of the common man or women
Prioritizing our lives according to the lies of corporations

On an ancient fear bred by thousands of years of enculturation
That we are not good enough as we are, that there is something
Outside ourselves we require to make ourselves complete,
To fill the hole we have created within; with Eve it was
The tree of knowledge which she ate from and thus created sin,
Before turning around to tempt him, or so the story goes,

But what I’m asking you is, “Why would a loving God
Create a garden filled with beautiful things for their pleasure
And then tell them there is a wisdom they do not know,
And then tell them this wisdom is forbidden?”

Yes, television will not be revolutionized
Even if we pay out of pocket to watch it
Television will still be commercialized
Even if we are aware of the media lies
Television will still leave us mesmerized
Even if we focus on edu-tainment
Television will still be propagandized

Television will not show you reality
Television will not show you the real casualties
Television will not show you remnants of Iraqi children
Bodies broken and hollowed by our masses of weapons of destruction
Eyes glazed and flattened by our "humanitarian" focus on reconstruction
Which happen, again, to line the wallets of those few rich white men

Television will not show you the remnants of American children
Expelled from their mother’s wombs before their lives even began
Sister soldiers returning from fighting for our land, for this abstract concept
Of freedom to find themselves barren and branded with mysterious illnesses
Not recognized by the military as having anything to do with those
Gases used as artillery in the time since we realized invisibility
Does not decrease a weapon’s power

Television will not be revolutionized
Will not be revolutionized
Will not be revolutionized
Television will not be revolutionized
So, unplug … so walk outside and open your eyes

See, the problem with lies is you always gotta be reminding people of them
You always gotta be convincing people of them
You always gotta remain vigilant and organized

And we all have a threshold; all have a limit to how much we can take,
How much we believe despite the reality of our lives
And the beauty of it is, when we reach it
When we are exhausted by our divinity of denial
The truth is right there waiting for us … all the time
Just waiting for us to open up our eyes
And recognize

 

Author's Note

Another older, though not so much older, piece ... still working on it though ... long rant ... maybe too long, don't know what to cut though ... based, obviously, on Gil Scott Heron's "The Revolution will not be Televised"

Reviews

[Murphy Clamrod]

Fanfrigintastic! I am glad I was recommended to read this!

[Glenn Davis]

Glad to see you are still here. I love this piece, a great remix of a great poem.