From
These Flames No Light
Against
the U.S. Election Spectacle
Consumption
of industrially produced commodities is no necessary adjunct to or true
ornament of life, in advanced capitalist societies especially, but rather the
invention of a barbarous age, used to obscure wretched matters. Neutered antagonisms – of Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola
or Romney vs. Obama – likewise are manufactured consumer commodities, blessed
as they are by the powerful, the famous, the holy.
That few
people, in the United States or elsewhere, believe that these antagonisms actually
accomplish much less change anything more
substantial than the window dressing of power is a banality as obvious as it is
wearying.
Nonetheless
the people’s consumption continues, carried out as if some ancient custom, a
vain, futile holocaust the flames of which produce no light. The practitioners of this rite are granted
nothing but vexation, hindrance, and constraint for their efforts.
Not without
cause then, do Republicans and Democrats alike urge the populace to vote. Participation in the ritual, even if only by
blind habit, grants legitimacy to the system of modern bondage that both parties
preside over in tandem.
Though
expressing this obvious fact is deemed vulgar and troublesome, a few judicious
ears have long since rejected the trivial pleasures of eloquent oratory and the
jingling sound of false victories. We
recognize there is no true musical delight here, just the hollow thunder of
order applauding itself.
Zero Sum
October 2012
