Respect

Congratulations to Tony Blair (via).

Who having just learned of his unpopularity, invokes with a feeble "but"--and in that age-old rhetorical tradition of the polis (there where the spoken word is still, relentlessly prioritized and worshipped)--not a future, but "the future", about which we can, must all agree, moving ever-forward as we most certainly, indisputably are. After all, what is a politician without "the future" on hir side, safely, firmly holstered in a leather pouch, yet always visible, ready to hand for mustachioed enemies and friends alike, the resulting discharge as inevitable as death. (What is a politician without the potential of this sovereign threat?)

But what is this "future" exactly? Necessarily vague enough to evoke popular illusions, and some kind of neoliberal-glossed Enlightenment narrative, surely. But also, most essentially, it is a certainty. In short, no future at all. Cloaked in inevitability, intended to assuage fear, without performing any real work. Drained of all futurity, the politician's future is rather accused, held up at gunpoint, made to shimmer and spin in the air.

There is no 'future' in the "future" held up by these third way band-aids. The coin shimmers and disappears. No commitment to a future of any genuine futurity at all. (Marching, instead, to the beat of a 'fraternity of the cruel'...)