The Hollow Men

are the talking heads instilling anger and fear

“We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us-if at all-not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men.”-TS Eliot

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On this most significant indictment week, I am concluding “The Hollow Men” series with my ninth and final piece, portraying what may be the most culpable of the hollow grifters, scammers, enablers, sycophants, and ignoramuses that brought this calamity upon us. While news and circumstances of the latest and most serious indictment should be thoroughly sought out by any responsible civic-minded citizen, it is hardly certain that the relevant facts of this case will make it through to the typical Fox news viewer. The ascendency of ignorance as a virtue is the most significant characteristic of the political and media climate that brought the rabid and bedraggled maga movement to our doorsteps and there is no single entity more responsible for it than Fox. It is a uniquely hallowed institution of nescience and ignorance which has been preying on, and building upon, the anger and fears of its audience for years with a consistent theme of ‘they are coming for you!’. It is never clearly defined as to who is ‘they’ but it is generally understood to be some sort of amalgamated cabal of elites, intellectuals, minorities, immigrants, Hollywood actors, coastal liberals, tech companies, and George Soros. In recent years Fox has taken what was once a novel spectacle of stupidity (à la birtherism and Sarah Palin) and ratcheted it up to meet the tactless grandiosity befitting of the trump-era.

After successfully discrediting all the ‘main stream news’ outlets in the minds of their viewers and constituents, the network was able to silo away their audience and thereby have a permanent and unwavering stake in the real estate of their brains. There they could build whatever elaborate and fanciful structures they deemed fit. They have a virtual congregation that worships in front of their screens through all of their idle hours watching the angertainment with a devotion once unique to religious institutions. The former president was able to capitalize on this infrastructure, building upon it to create the cult he has today. In fact, he has been so successful at this that it now seems he has taken possession of all that brain space, relegating Fox to operating as a mere care-taker on the gray property. In this respect, perhaps he is the great developer that he claims to be.

And so the viewers don’t understand, or don’t care to understand, the facts nor the import of the case(s) against their martyred savior. Just as he ‘loves the poorly educated’, they have been taught that ignorance is a virtue to behold and so they will actively avoid ingesting any inconvenient facts or evidence that might cause an uncomfortable degree of cognitive dissonance.

By successfully souring people on the idea of critical thinking and objective analysis, Fox is most responsible for putting in power a singularly dangerous, unprincipled, amoral, vindictive demagogue who will always put his self-interest above all else. He tried to overthrow our elected government and is actively working to undermine our system of justice, our democracy, and possibly even the world order. They did it for profit and for power. They did it because they could. And those that knew better didn’t speak up.

We all know people in the silo. The danger is real and it is high time for everyone to speak up.

“This is the way the world ends
    Not with a bang but a whimper”

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Thanks for following along with this series! I will be taking a hiatus while generating some new artwork which I will be back to share along with my thoughts. Signed archival prints are available for all nine pieces of The Hollow Men series. Message me for details.

*Credit to

Charlie Sykes

for the reference to this great TS Eliot poem that inspired this series