THE ENIGMA

by Lynn White

"The Enigma of Hitler" by Salvador Dali

Project 2025’s 180-Day Playbook is a remarkably detailed guide to turning the United States into a fascist’s paradise. —The New Republic, February 8, 2024

The new far-right alliance "Patriots for Europe," only launched two days ago, is already attracting suitors, reflecting a wider struggle for power among the EU's nationalists. Announced on 30 June by radical parties from Hungary, Austria, and Czechia, the Patriots aim to become the largest hard-right group in the European Parliament, and there are certainly plenty of options to increase membership. —euronews, July 2, 2024

The far right wins the first round of France’s snap election —NPR, July 1, 2024

Hitler was an enigma,
Dali knew it,
he could sense it
even in the nonsense of his dreams
he knew Maldoror was malodorous.

Yes, Hitler was an enigma,
such a master of communication,
but Dali knew that his communication
would be as broken as his old black phone,
no more likely to function than an umbrella is
to change into a bat and fly away when the end came.

But that was then and now Dali is dead,
perhaps more dead than Hitler,
who seems again an enigma,
a still unbroken influencer 
of malodorous malevolence
in the era of mobile phones 
and the reality of fake news
breeding New Pretenders to the crown
he left seemingly broken beyond repair.

So many now ready to pick up the pieces 
and put them together to fly
with no umbrella for protection
in the perpetual rain of the present
which spells the death of dreams.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.

X

by Rob McClure

X Is The Biggest Source Of Fake News And Disinformation, EU Warns —Forbes, September 26, 2023

A great Antarctic ice-wall girds our world

and JFK Junior flies his plane there

first across Idaho, false flags unfurled,

where Bigfoot is a forest-ranger bear.

Junior’s chemtrails stream upon 51

where the freemasons faked the moon-landing 

and spaceship dismantling has just begun,

for alien tech gets swift rebranding.

Soros builds birds there, makes 5G fluoride,

listens to tunes penned by surrogate Paul

who offed Diana on that fateful ride

(9/11 sonic death-waves installed),

while adrenochrome demons mixed vaccines,

fixed birth certificates, voting machines…

Rob McClure’s creative work has appeared in many magazines—Gettysburg Review, Manchester Review, Barcelona Review, New Ohio Review.

IN-SUH-REK-SHUHN

by Rémy Dambron

they said this man was just like them we said he doesn’t feel the same

they said he said that’s just fake news we said this is a dangerous game

they said he’s making us great again while we witnessed his power abuses

they diminished and deflected delivering his excuses

we called this pattern treacherous nefarious hateful nasty

they called him biblical 

patriotic bold and crafty

we said he’s promoting violence 

they said he doesn’t mean it

we showed them clips of footage 

they said we just don’t see it

we said hands up don’t shoot 

black lives matter me too

they said shut up and dribble 

all lives matter back the blue

we plead for justice 

but just us took a knee

so they beat us up with shields batons and false decrees

we said we have our rights 

they said well not today

we said these were our streets 

so they gassed us all away

we protested peacefully 

get your knees off our neck

they called us anarchists

then wrote themselves some checks

we turned out in record 

to win the election

they claimed there was fraud 

pledged their objections

we agreed to a recount 

they cried stop the steal

maskless they rallied 

refusing to heal

they threatened more violence despite our constitution

we said he’s propagating 

they called it lib delusion

then hundreds and hundreds 

with his flags and motifs

assailed the steps

of our nation’s top chiefs

we cried this is madness 

the building’s not secured

they said our take-back has begun and we will not be deterred

we said look at the police 

they’re like ushers in disguise

allowing them to enter 

with insurgency supplies

we saw gates open wide 

with a skirmish or two

then a lonely black cop

with just a stick and film crew

never drawing his firearm 

just clutching his baton

yelling and retreating

his leverage too far gone

they paraded their faces 

took selfies and stole files

besieged and disgraced

our nations state house defiled

they were released without consequence 

set free without question

acquitted of their felonies 

at forty fives direction

we watched in horror for hours

what we had known would come true

his fascist america 

executing their coup

Rémy Dambron is an English teacher, proud husband, and activist whose poetry focuses primarily on advocating for social justice and denouncing political corruption. His work has been featured on What Rough Beast, Writer’s Resist, Poets Reading the News, and The New Verse News.

IF AMERICA FOUGHT WORLD WAR II LIKE COVID-19

by Jon Wesick

More people in the United States have died this year from Covid-19 than were killed in four years of fighting on the battlefields during World War II, according to the latest NBC News data. —NBC News, December 11, 2020

The President calls it Fake News

and urges Americans to buy Japanese.

As hundreds of thousands die

in Guadalcanal and Normandy, the public

adopts swastikas and Hitler salutes

in disdain for the “liberal media.”

 

No scrap drives, no Rosie the Riveter, just Emperor Hirohito

on the cover of Life Magazine. Gilligan and the Skipper

shadow convoys across the Atlantic

and radio their positions to lurking U boats.

Calling him an “Antifa terrorist,” Gomer Pyle  

mails Audie Murphy death threats. Barney Fife

kidnaps General Eisenhower and tries him for treason.

 

A lot of people, really important people,

say this is a terrific generation, maybe the most terrific

of all. Terrific is better than greatest, okay.

It’s huge. Better than the generation that freed

the slaves, too. Bunch of losers, so sad. 

Why terrific? Winning. It’s true.

So much winning

 

Jon Wesick is a regional editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual. He’s published hundreds of poems and stories in journals such as the Atlanta Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, Metal Scratches, The New Verse News, Pearl, Slipstream, Space and Time, Tales of the Talisman, and Zahir. The editors of Knot Magazine nominated his stories “The Visitor” and “A Story for the Rest of Us” for Pushcart Prizes. His poem “Meditation Instruction” won the Editor’s Choice Award in the 2016 Spirit First Contest. Another poem “Bread and Circuses” won second place in the 2007 African American Writers and Artists Contest. “Richard Feynman’s Commute” shared third place in the 2017 Rhysling Award’s short poem category. Jon is the author of the poetry collections Words of Power, Dances of Freedom and A Foreigner Wherever I Go as well as several novels and short story collections. His most recent novel is The Enigma Brokers.

THE AMERICAN GOSPEL (2020 EDITION)

by Avalon Felice Lee

In the beginning…

January judgment 

Red hat, white lies

"The flu is worse!" he scorns

as his gavel cudgels China, the blue-faced, the blue-lunged

The pen of law

holds the ink for healthcare blueprints. 

The dough in his fist

for swab tests; for the people. 

              

February denial

Nailed wrists, or tied hands?

Our savior, or an excuse?

Americans,

             repent!

                          Beware of

                                       fake news

                                                    sham gold

                                                                 idols— 

Nothing to worry about! Nothing at all!

Come to the altar, worship whoever’s crowned

The winged choir guard the American garden

from Wuhan fiends

And so, nib unscathed

Pockets heavy

The Gospel

Good thing he cares for his shares 

The yeast for His bread

unrisen, decayed

So, He Marches forward

And trumpets that “the numbers are good” as is

apparently

contrarily

But April showers make faith dour.

Just in case, behind Jericho bricks

He breaks bread

for swab tests; for His people

crumbs

Oh, you sinner

Cast doubt from your mind!

May you rejoice!

The Savior saves His people!

Good thing he cares for his shares.

Revelation

Though idols dine in violet silk, one day

the synthetic dye will blanch

Dress in your Sunday best, filter masks

Earth will soon steal the recipe for

manna

Sacrifice pedestrian beer

for communion wine, Purell

June bugs, heathens, see the sunup

The world ends not with a virus!

(But by the folly of man.)

Avalon Felice Lee is an Asian-American Californian. She has been writing poetry and prose since the age of eleven. Her works have been published in The Heritage Review, Kalopsia Literary Journal, and elsewhere.

Q

by Kathleen Murphey

What Is QAnon: Explaining the Internet Conspiracy Theory That Showed Up at a Trump Rally. —The New York Times, August 1, 2018

Questionable, quagmire, quack, quackery, quandary, qualm, quail, quarrel, quash,
            quasi, quaver, queer, quell, quench, querulous, quibble, quid pro quo, quietus,
            quip, quirk, quisling.

Q,  a fictional, Star Trek, New Generation, character, who thought humanity was a waste of time.

Q, an anonymous, conspiracy-theory blogger, who is content to further lies on
            T***p’s behalf despite the hate and harm of T***p’s verbal slime.

Captain Picard, on Star Trek, was put on trial by Q over the fate of humanity.

T***p, backed by Q, is shaking the foundations of American democracy
            and its integrity.

Q Clearance or Q Access Authorization, the Department of Energy’s highest security
            clearance level—similar to Top Secret Clearance, hence Q’s claims to legitimacy
            by association.

Q, the 17^th letter of the alphabet, when uttered by T***p, confirms the validity of Q’s
            crazy conspiracy claims.  “Follow the rabbit whole.” 

            Everything is fine, T***p has everything under control, and everyone who
                        stands in his way will soon be sent to prison.  “Trust the plan.”

            Leading Democrats are wearing ankle monitors because they are criminals.

                        “Bread crumbs”

            Kim Jong Un was placed in power by the CIA.  “The Storm.”

            JFK, Jr., isn’t dead.  “Activated, the beam of LIGHT.”

T***p just has to be right.

            The Clintons are crooked, child molesters.  “Lock her up!”

            The media is unfairly critical of T***p.  Just look at SNL.

            The media is spreading fake news:  “Enemy of the people” and “CNN sucks!”

            Illegal immigrants are taking our jobs, “infesting” our country, with 
                        “criminals” and “rapists.”

            Climate change isn’t real; it’s just a scam to make us weak and lower our
                         productivity.

            T***p didn’t collude with Russia.  “The Mueller investigation is a
                        Witch Hunt!”

            The 2016 T***p election is a victory! “God bless fellow Patriots!”
                        “Great Awakening”

            It can’t be a scam!  “We are Q!”

            I can’t believe it is a scam, so I’ll believe Q and T***p.  I just have too!

The alternative is too terrible to contemplate:

            That we elected a traitor (a quisling),

            That the Russians have compromised our country,

            That we would be better off with crooked Hillary,

            That we, T***p followers, are helping to destroy the fabric of our country,

            That Fox News is Fake News and the major media outlets are right
                        and under assault,

            No that can’t be!  It just can’t!  “Where we go one, we go all!”

QAnon!

QAnon!

It must be true!

We are Q!

Q!  Q!  Q!

Anything, but rational thought.

Kathleen Murphey is an associate professor of English at Community College of Philadelphia. She has been writing fiction lately, both poetry and short stories.

OPERATION SARAH

by Matt Witt

LONDON — Facebook was hit with the maximum possible fine in Britain for allowing the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to harvest the information of millions of people without their consent, in what amounts to the social network’s first financial penalty since the data leak was revealed. The fine of 500,000 pounds, or about $660,000, represents a tiny sum for Facebook, which brings in billions of dollars in revenue every year. But it is the largest fine that can be levied by the British Information Commissioner’s Office, an independent government agency that enforces the country’s data-protection laws. —The New York Times, July 10, 2018. Photo via MadhouseNews.

I asked Facebook
for the key words
they have been selling
to anyone who wanted to
target me
for any purpose.

There were 139 words or phrases.

This data about a person’s interests
is valuable
to help someone to
sell you a product,
decide whether to hire you,
rent to you,
accept you as a student,
or disrupt your community group
or social movement.

Many were accurate about me,
or I’d like them to be.

“Fine-art photography.”
“Hiking.”
“Lakes.”
“Community organizing.”
“Working families.”
“Racial equality.”
“Feminism.”
“Climate change.”

But bots are only human.
So Facebook was also selling
fake news
about me
with irrelevant words
out of the blue.

“Lotus Cars.”
“Salerno.”
“Beetroot.”
“Pro-Ject.”
“Bible.”

And “Sarah.”

Maybe because I have 16 Facebook friends named Sarah.
A community organizer now on the city council.
A muckraking journalist.
A longtime neighbor.
A local painter.
And a dozen more.

Or maybe the same bot
that mistakenly included “Bible”
thought I might be a student of
Sarah, biblical wife of Abraham,
who at the age of 90
gave birth to Isaac,
and lived to be 127.

Last night I dreamed that
all two billion Facebook users
started occasionally “liking” things we don’t like,
commenting about topics of no interest,
inserting random words into posts,
forming strange sounding groups.

Since we were all doing it from time to time
our “friends” were not confused,
but, together,
we made Facebook’s data worthless
so no one would buy it.

In my dream, we called it “Operation Sarah.”

Matt Witt is a writer and photographer who lives in Talent, Oregon. He was recently selected a Writer in Residence at Mesa Refuge in California and has been selected an Artist in Residence at Crater Lake National Park, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, and PLAYA in Summer Lake, Oregon. His writing has been published in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, the literary journal Cirque, and many other publications.

AGRO-INDUSTRIAL EPISTEMOLOGY

by Matthew Ford

It must have been a Tuesday when
the grey-haired white farmer emerged from his large, expensive home
far north of Herndon
but after a quick glance at the damage
he turned around
and went back
straight to the laundry room
where his Guatemalan maid leaves the dirty laundry
he grabbed an old towel and went back out
to his big white Ford F-250
to wipe the ash off the windshield
that had accumulated from the nearby fire then
he jumped in, switched on Rush Limbaugh
and drove to the gas station coffee shop
where he and his friends gather to
talk politics, condemn “illegal aliens,” and the liberal swine
in Sacramento that shut off their water supply.
they all agree
the drought is fake news
and the border wall was necessary . . . yesterday
high taxes in California are correlated to the
mass of illegals that eat up the social services
but do not pay taxes
they all sing in unison until
the one in the white F-250 stands up to take a call
from his labor contractor—“pay-droh”
who tells him the van is arriving out to the melons in Mendota
so he salutes his gang
and heads to the westside to deliver paychecks
to the workers with fake social security numbers
who worked 70 hours last week without overtime pay
and in Spanish, discussed the tax deductions
at the bottom of their pay stubs
on his way out
he stopped at the next field over
to switch on the valve—flooding it.

Matthew Ford is a PhD student studying Latin American History at Stony Brook University in Long Island, New York. He is originally from California's central valley.

WHAT T***P WAS REALLY SAYING

by Kathleen A. Lawrence

Image by DonkeyHotey

      a word collage from T***p’s

           2/15/17 press conference

I’m not ranting and raving. This is how I won.
Lying, hacking, cheating and very fake news.
It’s all fake news, and lies. I like them.

I am putting out lies. I am running a Russian scam.
It’s a ruse. I am false reporting. I am. I am. I am.
I’m so beautifully brutal, like a nuclear holocaust.

I’m fantastic. I’m terrible.
I’m one of the bad ones, like North Korea.
I hate, but I’m the least racist.

I shame. I have a certain bias.
I can’t fix the inner cities. Why should I?
I like bleeding jobs.

Can I be honest with you?
It’s great that that there’s one Chicago that’s luxurious.
I think it’s great that I can divide this country.

I think I’m great. Pretty great. Really great.
I am a fine tuned machine.
Just push my stupid plastic button.

Just look, look at me.
I can make it bad, really, really bad.
I’ve got uranium. I’ve got secrets.

I don’t think. I don't care about any of you.
Well, maybe some of you. I just don’t think.
It’s really bad, but I don’t think.

Kathleen A. Lawrence’s poems appeared recently in Rattle’s Poets Respond, Eye to the Telescope, Silver Birch Press, and haikuniverse. A poem in Altered Reality Magazine was nominated for a 2017 Rhysling Award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association. She was a Poet of the Week at Poetry Super Highway in January 2017.

ACCOUNTABLE

Jim Hanson is a retired Senior Researcher at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale where he worked and taught in community development. He currently resides in the St. Louis area. He has a doctorate degree in sociology and is a lay-ordinated Zen Buddhist.

GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE

by Chris O’Carroll

Confronted with new evidence of torture and mass hangings in one of his military prisons, Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an exclusive interview February 10, 2017 with Yahoo News that the allegations were the product of a “fake news era” and charged that a human rights group, Amnesty International, had fabricated evidence to discredit his embattled government.

Our prez now finds a brand new soulmate;
Putin’s not his only bro.
Assad, fellow fan of torture,
Learns to whine that news is faux.

Chris O’Carroll has published unfair attacks on the president in dishonest journals on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s disgusting the stuff he gets away with. 

WONDER WOMAN IS MAYBE A 5 AT BEST

by Daniel M. Shapiro

The Orange Menace offers $10 million to “the man who invents the best device—
THE best device—for grabbing a woman and making her keep quiet about it. GO!”

The Orange Menace ends up hiring his sons, who repurpose a glove designed to conceal
offshore funds. They buy silencing technology from a mastermind for steaks and ties.

The Orange Menace enjoys setting traps. He tweets, “@realAmazonWW can’t fight.
She’s nothing without bracelets and tiara. Knows where I live. Do her hips look bigger?”

The Orange Menace hears a bump on the roof, an invisible jet he refers to as “a rip-off.
Disaster.” He puts on the glove. Wonder Woman walks through an unlocked door.

The Orange Menace lunges at her. She feels nothing. The glove has malfunctioned because his
sons made it too large. Wonder Woman slips her lasso around The Orange Menace for his truth.

“What do you want in life?” Wonder Woman asks. “All I want is to be loved,” The Orange
Menace says. She records the confession, which goes viral. “Fake news. I have it all!” he tweets.

Daniel M. Shapiro is the author of Heavy Metal Fairy Tales (Throwback Books, 2016) and How the Potato Chip Was Invented (sunnyoutside press, 2013). He is a senior editor with Pittsburgh Poetry Review.

A NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING

by Mary Saracino

Poster by JessicaSabogal for We the People which will flood Washington, DC with NEW symbols of hope on January 20. You can download the set of posters for free at http://bit.ly/wtpdownloads.

I will wear black on January 20
a national day of mourning
while the collective soul of America
lets loose a dirge as an illegitimate president
takes the oath of office
his place secured in history
by fake news, voter suppression
the deception of a foreign dictator
and his own brand of white supremacy
spewed from his bully pulpit of
racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia
and every other kind of –ism the world has ever witnessed

On the next day the women of the world will don
pink pussy hats, take to the streets in cities far and wide
to march in protest, defying the fake king, the tyrant
in the Oval Office
reclaiming their vulva power,  the power to
procreate truth, to name evil, to smash
the glass ceiling of lies that tries to silence us

Mary Saracino is a novelist, poet, and memoir writer who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her most recent novel is Heretics: A Love Story (Pearlsong Press 2014). Her novel, The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006) was a 2007 Lambda Literary Awards Finalist. Mary’s short story, "Vicky's Secret," earned the 2007 Glass Woman Prize.

HOUSE CLEANING REQUIRED

by Howard Winn

They lifted up the corner of the Internet carpet
and exposed the filthiness and rat droppings
as well as ordinary dirt of life that is
part of the way in which some people live
and think and lie when truth and cleanliness
is uncomfortable for the mucky minds
who dream up the details of a life which
enriches them despite the facts of science
which gets in the way of what they want
to believe when that knowledge is inconvenient
as well as what they want the gullible to
think is the truth when it is really just a
pile of dirt mixed with mouse droppings.

Howard Winn's work has been published in Dalhousie Review, Galway Review, Descant. Antigonish Review, Southern Humanities Review, Chaffin Review, Evansville Review, and Blueline. His latest work is Acropolis, a novel published by Propertius Press. He is Professor of English at SUNY-Dutchess.