The News

The keepers of the knowledge gate

Demark the bounds of the debate,

And manufacture an illusion

That we've reached our own conclusion.

Certified as safe to know,

What is is what they say is so.

Thus they conquer and confuse,

And manipulate the news.

Whoever wants to be the keeper

Climbs a slope that's ever steeper.

He who will not sell his soul

Needn't bother with the role.

Still the lines are long enough

Of those who think they have the stuff

To sell a fable as a fact

And keep their consciences intact.

We see their faces every night

Telling us that black is white.

The paper at the breakfast table

Ought to have a warning label:

"Caution: what you read within

Is doctored with a careful spin.

Lift your eyes and call a halt

If you lack a grain of salt."

I don't know how it got this way.

And it gives me pain to say

We're not a land of liberty

If it's truth that makes us free.

David Martin

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