It’s super bowl week in an election year
Both dramas meant to be compelling
Spectacles reminiscent of the Roman circuses
Intended to make distracted spectators of us all
A chance to party enjoying like minded friends
Even if you do not favor one side or the other
Perhaps interested in the various plot lines
Or just to be conversant in popular culture
Even if you are indifferent to the hype
The media saturation will occupy the news
As if nothing in the world is more important
Promoting an uninformed mindset
The big game camera runs replays of colliding bodies
Then cuts to injury timeout commercials
Using the brutality to draw eyeballs to sell products
In a competition orchestrated by billionaire owners
So too the election candidates are fielded
Presented like a Kabuki theater show
Funded with the dark money of capitalist oligarchs
Marketed expecting a return on investment
We are supposed to hold our noses and vote
As if there is a lesser evil between them
But the great majority will surely sit this one out
Given the choice between vicious and villainous
One panders to white male supremacy
While reversing every progressive reform
Profiting from corrupt crony capitalism
Promising to install a fascist regime
The other has the blood of innocents on his hands
Guilty of Palestinian genocide by proxy
Exposing the Ukraine propaganda hypocrisy
Guilty of the NATO war of aggression by proxy
Impossible to determine which is worse
Both of them monstrous manifestations
Serving the ever expanding system of exploitation
That is destroying life on earth
Elections don't change the system
But ordinary working people acting together
Have the power to turn things around
With organization and vision and a mission
