From These Flames No Light

Against the U.S. Election Spectacle

Consumption rules us in the form of neutered antagonisms.  These antagonisms, be they  Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola, Aarhus vs. Brøndby or Mitt Romney vs. Barack Obama , 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.