1NC – Short
And that’s no reason why it is mutually exclusive with our framework:
A. The ballot’s sole purpose is to answer the resolutional question: Is the outcome of the enactment of a
topical plan better than the status quo or a competitive policy option? It’s a voting issue.
Definitional support --1. “Resolved” before a colon reflects a legislative forum
Army Officer School ‘04
(5-12, “# 12, Punctuation – The Colon and Semicolon”, http://usawocc.army.mil/IMI/wg12.htm)
The colon introduces the following: a. A list, but only after "as follows," "the following," or a noun for which the list is an
appositive: Each scout will carry the following: (colon) meals for three days, a survival knife, and his sleeping bag. The
company had four new officers: (colon) Bill Smith, Frank Tucker, Peter Fillmore, and Oliver Lewis. b. A long quotation
(one or more paragraphs): In The Killer Angels Michael Shaara wrote: (colon) You may find it a different story from the
one you learned in school. There have been many versions of that battle [Gettysburg] and that war [the Civil War]. (The
quote continues for two more paragraphs.) c. A formal quotation or question: The President declared: (colon) "The only
thing we have to fear is fear itself." The question is: (colon) what can we do about it? d. A second independent clause which
explains the first: Potter's motive is clear: (colon) he wants the assignment. e. After the introduction of a business letter:
Dear Sirs: (colon) Dear Madam: (colon) f. The details following an announcement For sale: (colon) large lakeside cabin
with dock g. A formal resolution, after the word "resolved:" Resolved: (colon) That this council petition the
mayor.
2. “United States Federal Government should” means the debate is solely about the outcome of a policy
established by governmental means
Ericson ‘03
(Jon M., Dean Emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts – California Polytechnic U., et al., The Debater’s Guide, Third
Edition, p. 4)
The Proposition of Policy: Urging Future Action In policy propositions, each topic contains certain key elements, although
they have slightly different functions from comparable elements of value-oriented propositions. 1. An agent doing the acting
---“The United States” in “The United States should adopt a policy of free trade.” Like the object of evaluation in a proposition of
value, the agent is the subject of the sentence. 2. The verb should—the first part of a verb phrase that urges action. 3.
An action verb to follow should in the should-verb combination. For example, should adopt here means to put a
program or policy into action though governmental means. 4. A specification of directions or a limitation of
the action desired. The phrase free trade, for example, gives direction and limits to the topic, which would, for example,
eliminate consideration of increasing tariffs, discussing diplomatic recognition, or discussing interstate commerce.
Propositions of policy deal with future action. Nothing has yet occurred. The entire debate is about whether something ought
to occur. What you agree to do, then, when you accept the affirmative side in such a debate is to offer sufficient and
compelling reasons for an audience to perform the future action that you propose.
Not increase or expand. These are action verbs
Random House Dictionary, 2010
Increase verb (used with object) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/increase
–verb (used with object)
1.
to make greater, as in number, size, strength, or quality;augment; add to: to increase taxes.
Expand verb (used with object) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/expand
1. to increase in extent, size, volume, scope, etc.:
3. Not visa eligibility and number. These are legal limits
Wasem ‘10 Ruth Ellen Wasem, Specialist in Immigration Policy,Congressional Research Service March 10,
2010 Immigration Visa Issuances and Grounds for Exclusion: Policy and Trends, CRS Report for
Congress http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/139239.pdf
Foreign nationals not already legally residing in the United States who wish to come to the United States
generally must obtain a visa to be admitted.3 They must first meet a set of criteria specified in the INA that
determine whether they are eligible for admission. Conversely, foreign nationals also must not be deemed
inadmissible according to other specified grounds in the INA.
B. Reasons to prefer:
D. Topicality is a voting issue for fairness and outweighs all other issues because without it,
debate is impossible
Shively ‘2K
(Ruth Lessl, Assistant Prof Political Science – Texas A&M U., Partisan Politics and Political Theory, p. 181-2)
The requirements given thus far are primarily negative. The ambiguists must say "no" to-they must reject and limitsome ideas and actions. In what follows, we will also find that they must say "yes" to some things. In particular, they must
say "yes" to the idea of rational persuasion. This means, first, that they must recognize the role of agreement in political
contest, or the basic accord that is necessary to discord. The mistake that the ambiguists make here is a common one. The
mistake is in thinking that agreement marks the end of contest-that consensus kills debate. But this is true only if the
agreement is perfect-if there is nothing at all left to question or contest. In most cases, however, our agreements are highly
imperfect. We agree on some matters but not on others, on generalities but not on specifics, on principles but not on their
applications, and so on. And this kind of limited agreement is the starting condition of contest and debate. As John
Courtney Murray writes: We hold certain truths; therefore we can argue about them. It seems to have been one of
the corruptions of intelligence by positivism to assume that argument ends when agreement is reached. In a basic sense,
the reverse is true. There can be no argument except on the premise, and within a context, of agreement. (Murray
1960, 10) In other words, we cannot argue about something if we are not communicating: if we cannot agree on
the topic and terms of argument or if we have utterly different ideas about what counts as evidence or good
argument. At the very least, we must agree about what it is that is being debated before we can debate it. For
instance, one cannot have an argument about euthanasia with someone who thinks euthanasia is a musical
group. One cannot successfully stage a sit-in if one's target audience simply thinks everyone is resting or if
those doing the sitting have no complaints. Nor can one demonstrate resistance to a policy if no one knows that
it is a policy. In other words, contest is meaningless if there is a lack of agreement or communication about
what is being contested. Resisters, demonstrators, and debaters must have some shared ideas about the
subject and/or the terms of their disagreements. The participants and the target of a sit-in must share an
understanding of the complaint at hand. And a demonstrator's audience must know what is being resisted. In short,
the contesting of an idea presumes some agreement about what that idea is and how one might go about
intelligibly contesting it. In other words, contestation rests on some basic agreement or harmony.
But, again, the response to the ambiguist must be that the practice of questioning and undermining rules, like all other
social practices, needs a certain order. The subversive needs rules to protect subversion. And when we look more
closely at the rules protective of subversion, we find that they are roughly the rules of argument discussed above.
In fact, the rules of argument are roughly the rules of democracy or civility: the delineation of boundaries
necessary to protect speech and action from violence, manipulation, and other forms of tyranny.
E. Stasis
C) Deliberative Argument Requires An Agreement Established Before the Debate In Order to
Determine the Relevance of Any Argument. Without a Point of Stasis, Debates could easily
devolve into ridiculous claims like vote for us because we are San Antonio Spurs fans and Tim
Duncan is awesome. The logic of the Affirmative makes every argument relevant and therefore
makes deliberative argument impossible.
Douglas Walton, Full Professor of Philosophy at the University of Winnipeg, 2004
(Relevance in Argumentation) pg. 126
Such matters of how a chain of arguments can be relevant to the issue of a discourse have been largely ignored
in the history of logic. Thy have, however, been studied closely in rhetoric, as far back as Greek rhetorical
manuals. This historical background of the concept of relevance as it developed in both rhetoric and logic will
be outlined in chapter 4. Drawing on the ancient framework of Hermagoras, it will be shown that the
relevance of an argument in a case is principally determined by what the issue in the case is supposed
to be. As the ancients knew well, and as Quintilian ably explained, abstraction is also important in
determining, in light of a given issue, what is relevant at the particular stage of a discourse, once the
issue has been stated at a prior stage. What is judged to be materially relevant or not, at any given
stage of a sequence of argumentation, depends on how the sequence has evolved at that stage. Such
matters need to be judged by examining the text of discourse in the given case. One needs to ask what
the purpose of the discourse is supposed to be. If it is supposed to be to prove something, one needs to
ask what that something is or should be taken to be. It depends on the issue that is to be decided or
the problem that is to be solved. Something should only be excluded as irrelevant if it is not useful for
proving what should be proved or for solving the problem that should be solved.
D) Deliberative Argument is Critical to Prevent Marginalization and Violence. The Affirmative’s
move to abandon deliberative argument because it has the potential to exclude perspectives
ignores the Spectrum of Power Relationships that exist throughout society. Their naïve belief
that total inclusion in an unfettered public discussion will end discrimination is disproven by
the violent history of social hegemony. Deliberative argument is crucial to ending the very
violence they isolate.
Mari Boor Tonn, Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland, 2005
(“Taking Conversation, Dialogue, and Therapy Public” Rhetoric & Public Affairs Vol. 8, No. 3)
This widespread recognition that access to public deliberative processes and the ballot is a baseline of
any genuine democracy points to the most curious irony of the conversation movement: portions of
its constituency. Numbering among the most fervid dialogic loyalists have been some feminists and
multiculturalists who represent groups historically denied both the right to speak in public and the
ballot. Oddly, some feminists who championed the slogan “The Personal Is Political” to emphasize ways
relational power can oppress tend to ignore similar dangers lurking in the appropriation of
conversation and dialogue in public deliberation. Yet the conversational model’s emphasis on
empowerment through intimacy can duplicate the power networks that traditionally excluded females
and nonwhites and gave rise to numerous, sometimes necessarily uncivil, demands for democratic
inclusion. Formalized participation structures in deliberative processes obviously cannot ensure the
elimination of relational power blocs, but, as Freeman pointed out, the absence of formal rules leaves
relational power unchecked and potentially capricious. Moreover, the privileging of the self, personal
experiences, and individual perspectives of reality intrinsic in the conversational paradigm mirrors
justifications once used by dominant groups who used their own lives, beliefs, and interests as
templates for hegemonic social premises to oppress women, the lower class, and people of color.
Paradigms infused with the therapeutic language of emotional healing and coping likewise flirt with the type of
psychological diagnoses once ascribed to disaffected women. But as Betty Friedan’s landmark 1963 The
Feminist Mystique argued, the cure for female alienation was neither tranquilizers nor attitude adjustments
fostered through psychotherapy but, rather, unrestricted opportunities.102
The price exacted by promoting approaches to complex public issues— models that cast conventional
deliberative processes, including the marshaling of evidence beyond individual subjectivity, as “elitist”
or “monologic”—can be steep. Consider comments of an aide to President George W. Bush made before
reports concluding Iraq harbored no weapons of mass destruction, the primary justification for a U.S.-led war
costing thousands of lives. Investigative reporters and other persons sleuthing for hard facts, he claimed,
operate “in what we call the reality-based community.” Such people “believe that solutions emerge from [the]
judicious study of discernible reality.” Then baldly flexing the muscle afforded by increasingly popular socialconstructionist and poststructuralist models for conflict resolution, he added: “That’s not the way the world
really works anymore . . . We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re
studying that reality— judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities.”103 The recent
fascination with public conversation and dialogue most likely is a product of frustration with the tone
of much public, political discourse. Such concerns are neither new nor completely without merit. Yet,
as Burke insightfully pointed out nearly six decades ago, “A perennial embarrassment in liberal
apologetics has arisen from its ‘surgical’ proclivity: its attempt to outlaw a malfunction by outlawing
the function.” The attempt to eliminate flaws in a process by eliminating the entire process, he writes,
“is like trying to eliminate heart disease by eliminating hearts.”104 Because public argument and
deliberative processes are the “heart” of true democracy, supplanting those models with social and
therapeutic conversation and dialogue jeopardizes the very pulse and lifeblood of democracy itself.
1NC
Death and misfortune are inevitable. The joy of life comes in accepting things as they are. Plans
to fix the world only destroy us spiritually—
Slabbert, Taoist teacher and philosopher, 2001
(Jos, “Tao Te Ching: How to Deal With Suffering,” http://www.taoism.net/theway/suffer.htm)
If you open yourself to loss, you are at one with loss and you can accept it completely.
This openness, a willingness and courage to face reality, is the only way to deal with suffering, particularly
inescapable suffering. But the openness the poet is describing is more than just facing reality. It is facing reality
in total harmony with the Tao:
If you open yourself to the Tao, you are at one with the Tao and you can embody it completely.
It is only when you "embody" the Tao that you can face suffering with true equanimity. You will then have the
openness that insight into your own nature and the natural way of Tao brings you. The right approach to
suffering is only possible when you have reduced your ego to a minimum. The less ego you have, the less you
suffer. Facing death with unresolved agendas is a terrible form of suffering. You will have to let go of selfish
interests and futile aims to concentrate on dealing with the moment.
It is the acceptance of the inevitable that makes suffering bearable.
On his death bed,
his family mourning,
he is serene,
for he knows
Death,
like
Life,
is an illusion:
there is no beginning and no end.
There is only the endless flow of Tao.
The man of Tao has no fear,
for he walks with Tao.
(The Tao is Tao, 154)
Agendas
A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving.
(Chapter 27)
Plans, aims, objectives and agendas have become the routes of suffering for so many people, and not only the
ambitious. Agendas often take spontaneity and joy out of life. In the process, many people have become
bad travelers, concentrating only on their objectives, and arriving at their destinations only to find that even
their destinations are not really worth the trouble.
Having no fixed plans? This does not sound like survival in a modern technological environment, does it? I
mean, who but the extremely fortunate have the luxury of not having agendas running their lives? In most
cases, one could justifiably point out, agendas are forced on you by your professional and familial obligations.
You do not really have a choice, do you?
How could one then become a good traveler through life in this modern world? I think the key lies in the
second line of the
Slabbert continues…
Slabbert continues…
quotation. One should not be "intent upon arriving". You should adopt an attitude of detachment. The moment
your aims become egocentric, your suffering increases. The less your own ego is involved, the less seriously you
will take life, and the more you will enjoy the journey. It is easier said than done, though, particularly when the
job you are doing seems to be devoid of meaning, and the activities on your agenda tedious. They might even go
against what you truly believe.
It is clear. To become a good traveler in the modern world often entails more than just a change of attitude. It
could also mean changing your life style, even your profession. It could mean taking risks in the process. But
liberation has always been a risky undertaking, hasn’t it? People are willing to take risks for the most mundane
things like profit and possession. Why not take a few risks when your spiritual progress is at stake? Truly good
travelers often leave the beaten track and become masters of their own far more adventurous journeys.
Tampering with the world
Do you want to improve the world? I don't think it can be done. The world is sacred. It can't be improved. If
you tamper with it, you'll ruin it. If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.
(Chapter 29)
If anything, the Twentieth Century will be called the century of social engineering. Simplistic ideologies, like
fascism, were used to try to change the world, with terrible consequences inducing suffering on a scale never
seen before in the history of the human being. A savage economic system based on greed - capitalism - has
ravaged the world.
Yet, the human being has not learnt from this. Still, politicians show their ignorance by tampering with the
sacred. It is the age of management, that euphemistic word for manipulating society. It is still happening. What
else are many political programs but tampering with the sacred and ruining it in the process? It is the source of
endless suffering.
Forcing issues
Whoever relies on the Tao in governing men doesn't try to force issues or defeat enemies by force of arms.
For every force there is a counterforce. Violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon oneself.
The Master does his job and then stops. He understands that the universe is forever out of control, and
that trying to dominate events goes against the current of the Tao.
(Chapter 30)
Understanding that the universe is out of control is the key to wisdom and patience. No amount of tampering
with the universe will change this. In fact, the more we tamper with it, the more damage we will do.
No one knows what is good and bad. Reject the aff’s judgments, even if we lose all life on earth—
Kirkland, professor of Asian religions and Taoism at the University of Georgia, 2001
(Russell, “'Responsible Non-Action' in a Natural World: Perspectives from the Neiye, Zhuangzi, and Daode
jing,” Daoism and Ecology: Ways within a Cosmic Landscape,
http://kirkland.myweb.uga.edu/rk/pdf/pubs/ECO.pdf)
In the Taoist classic Huai-nan-tzu, one finds a famous story of a man who suddenly finds himself the
unexpected owner of a new horse. His neighbors congratulate him on his good fortune, until his son falls from
the horse and breaks his leg. The man's neighbors then act to console him on his bad fortune, until army
conscriptors arrive and carry off all the able-bodied young men, leaving the injured young man behind as
worthless. The lesson of the story is that when an event occurs, we are quick to judge it as fortunate
or unfortunate, but our judgments are often mistaken, as later events often prove.6 And one of the
most heavily stressed lessons of the Chuang-tzu is that humans quickly judge events on the basis of what we
accept on the basis of simplistic assumptions — e.g., that life is inherently better than death — and that the wise
person learns to question and discard such assumptions, and forego such judgments regarding events. When
Chuang-tzu's wife died, Chuang-tzu does not argue that the world is a better place for her absence, or that his
life is improved by his sudden new freedom. In fact, there is no issue in the passage of whether the world is
better off with Chuang-tzu's wife alive or dead. The only issue in the passage is that people are born and that
people later die, and to ignore that basic fact would display culpable stupidity. The very same lesson is
impressed upon the reader of the previous passage, regarding the sudden transformation of a character's
elbow. What we are taught in that passage is that life is a process of ineluctable change and transformation, and
that humans would be profoundly wrong and clearly silly to object to such change. Another element of the
lesson is that the nature of human life is not separate from, or other than, the nature of nonhuman life. When
one says that "life is ineluctable change, and we must accept such change with serenity," one is speaking about
"life" in such a way that it clearly involves the lives of individual humans just as fully as it involves the events
that occur in the broader world, and vice versa. Imagine the story of the death of Chuang-tzu's wife involving,
instead, the death of the species we call whooping cranes: Chuang-tzu would, in that case, patiently point out to
his deeply caring but deeply shallow friend that he had indeed felt grief to see such beautiful birds come to their
end, but had gone on to engage in appropriate rational reflection upon the nature of life, and had come to
accept the transitory nature of all such creatures, just as in the present story Chuang-tzu had come to accept
the transitory nature of his own spouse. If one must learn to accept with serenity the death of someone we love,
someone without whose life our own life would have never been what it is, wouldn't the author urge us to
accept that the death of some birds, birds that have never played a role in our lives the way that one's deceased
spouse had done, is an event that we should accept with equanimity? If change catches up with us, even to
the extent that the planet that we live on should become permanently devoid of all forms of life,
the response of the author of these passages would logically be that such is the nature of things, and
that crying over such a sudden turn of events would be very silly indeed, like a child crying over a spilt glass of
milk, or the death of some easily replaceable goldfish. The only reason that a child cries over the death of a
goldfish is that he or she has become irrationally attached to that creature as it exists in its present form, and
has formed an immature sentimental bond to it. As adults, we appreciate the color and motion of fish in our
aquaria, but seldom cry over the death of one of its inmates: we know very well that to cry over the death of
such a fish would be silly and a sign of juvenile behavior. As our children grow, we teach them, likewise, never
to follow their raw emotional responses, but rather to govern their emotions, and to learn to behave in a
responsible manner, according to principles that are morally correct, whether or not they are emotionally
satisfying. If, for instance, one were to see a driver accidentally run run over one's child or beloved, one's first
instinct might be to attack the driver with a righteous fury, falsely equating emotional intensity and violent
action with the responsible exercise of moral judgment. In general, we work to teach ourselves and each other
not to respond in that way, to take a course of self-restraint, curbing emotion, lest it propel us into actions that
will later, upon calm reflection, be revealed to have been emotionally satisfying but morally wrong. If I saw my
child run down by a car, it might give me great emotional satisfaction to drag the driver from her car and beat
her to death. But it might well turn out that she had in fact done nothing wrong, and had been driving legally
and quite responsibly when a careless child suddenly ran into her path, giving her no time to stop or to evade
the child. Because we have all learned that the truth of events is often not apparent to the parties that are
experiencing them, we generally work to learn some degree of self-control, so that our immediate emotional
reaction to events does not mislead us into a foolish course of action. Now if we take these facts and transfer
them into our consideration of Chuang-tzu and Mencius on the riverbank, that episode should, logically, be
read as follows. If Mencius feels an emotional urge to jump into the river to save the baby, his emotional
response to the baby's presence there must be seen as immature and irresponsible. After all, one might muse,
one never knows, any more than the man with the horse, when an event that seems fortunate is actually
unfortunate, or vice versa. What if the baby in the water had been the ancient Chinese equivalent of Adolf
Hitler, and the
saving of young Adolf — though occasioned by the deepest feelings of compassion, and a deep-felt veneration
for "life" — led to the systematic extermination of millions of innocent men, women, and children? If
one knew, in retrospect, that Hitler's
atrocities could have been totally prevented by the simple moral act of refraining from leaping to save an
endangered child, would one not conclude, by sound moral reasoning, that letting that particular baby drown
would have represented a supremely moral act? How, Chuang-tzu constantly challenges us, how can we
possibly know what course of action is truly justfied? What if, just for the sake of argument, a dreadful plague
soon wipes out millions of innocent people, and the pathogen involved is soon traced back to an organism that
had once dwelt harmlessly in the system of a certain species of bird, such as, for instance, the whooping crane?
In retrospect, one can imagine, the afflicted people of the next century — bereft of their wives or husbands,
parents or children — might curse the day when simple-minded do-gooders of the twentieth-century had
brazenly intervened with the natural course of events and preserved the cursed specied of crane, thereby
damning millions of innocents to suffering and death. We assume that such could never happen, that all living
things are somehow inherently good to have on the planet, that saving the earthly existence of any life-form is
somehow inherently a virtuous action. But our motivations in such cases are clearly, from a Taoist point of
view, so shallow and foolish as to warrant no respect. If Mencius, or a sentimental modern lover of "life," were
to leap into the river and save a floating baby, he or she would doubtless exult in his or her selfless act of moral
heroism, deriving a sense of satisfaction from having done a good deed, and having prevented a terrible
tragedy. But who can really know when a given event is truly a tragedy, or perhaps, like the horse that breaks a
boy's leg, really a blessing in disguise. Since human wisdom, Chuang-tzu suggests, is inherently incapable of
successfully comprehending the true meaning of events as they are happening, when can we ever truly know
that our emotional urge to save babies, pretty birds, and entertaining sea-mammals is really an urge that is
morally sound. The Taoist answer seems to be that we can never be sure, and even if the extinction of
Chuangtzu's wife or of the whooping crane really brought no actual blessing to the world, such events are
natural and proper in the way of life itself, and to bemoan such events is to show that one is no more insightful
about life than a child who sentimentally cries over the loss of a toy, a glass of milk, a beloved pet, or even her
mommy, run over by a drunken driver. The Taoist lesson seems, in this regard, to be the same in each case:
things happen, and some things cause us distress because we attach ourselves sentimentally to certain
people, objects, and patterns of life; when those people, objects, or patterns of life take a sudden or drastic turn
into a very different direction, a mature and responsible person calms his or her irrational emotions, and
takes the morally responsible course of simply accepting the new state of things.’
Take no action to create desired ends—
Kirkland, professor of Asian religions and Taoism at the University of Georgia, 1996
(Russell, “The Book of the Way,” Great Literature of the Eastern World,
http://kirkland.myweb.uga.edu/rk/pdf/pubs/DAODE.pdf)
Specifically, the Tao is humble, yielding, and non-assertive. Like a mother, it benefits others selflessly: it gives
us all life and guides us safely through it, asking nothing in return. This altruistic emphasis of the Daode jing
has seldom been noticed, but it is one of the most important lessons that it draws from the observation of the
natural world. Water, for instance, is the gentlest and most yielding of all things, yet it can overcome the
strongest substances, and cannot itself be destroyed. More importantly, however, water lives for others: it
provides the basis of life for all things, and asks nothing in return. If we learn to live like water does, we will be
living in accord with the Tao, and its Power (De) will carry us safely through life. Such a way of life is called
wuwei, usually translated as "non-action." Wuwei means foregoing all activity intended to effect desired
ends. Instead, one should follow one's natural course and allow all other things to do likewise, lest our willful
interference disrupt things' proper flow. Few modern readers have ever grasped the full radicality of the ideal
of wuwei. Many of us today (like the ancient Chinese Confucians and Mohists) look at the world and see
things that we think need correcting. The Daode jing would actually have us do nothing whatsoever
about them. The repeated phrase "do nothing, and nothing will be undone" admonishes us to trust the Tao -the natural working of things -- and never to do anything about anything. Actually, such is the most that
anyone can do, because the Tao -- as imperceptible as it is -- is the most powerful force in existence, and
nothing can thwart its unceasing operation.
1NC K
The determination of which immigrants are included creates a myth of community that justifies
exclusion of the other
Ridler et al. ‘9 (Law and Critique © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Editors’ Introduction: ‘The
Politics of the Border/The Borders of the Political’ Ben Golder1 , Victoria Ridler2 and Illan Rua Wall3 (1)
Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia (2) School of Law, Birkbeck
College, University of London, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX, UK (3) Department of Law, Oxford Brookes
University, Headington Hill, Oxford, OX3 0BP, UK Published online: 31 March 2009
What, then, can we call the politics of the border? The examples of the Israel–Palestine and the United States–Mexico
borders demonstrate that the border is the site of both an actual and an imaginary exclusion. The border is that
site where the state determines the limits of its own territory and arrogates to itself the right to determine who
is to be included and who is to be excluded. The former Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, eloquently
attested to this solipsistic state logic when he famously stated before the 2001 Australian federal election that:
‘We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come’ (Howard 2001). Borders in
this sense are productive of loss, exclusion and banishment. In this vein the figures of the refugee, the asylum seeker, the illegal immigrant and the ‘boat
person’ are created and mobilised as the state’s dark other. Whilst the border cannot function seamlessly in this regard, nevertheless, it often does so
effectively in practice, projecting images of negative self-reference against which the community seeks to define itself in pure and hermetic terms. This
traumatic, ‘external’ aspect of the border of course recalls a more ‘internal’ and constitutive function, for it is precisely against such spectres of alterity
that the specious ‘we’ of Howard’s logic is itself imagined. The unity of the nation-state is achieved in and through the
invocation of a border—the border functions in this register as the very object of imagination around which
(national) identity is created and recreated. Contemporary discourses of national security and border
protection are directed not simply at the exclusion of the unwanted other but also towards the production and
regulation of political subjectivity within the polity. The border allows us to project a limit to the community
and to create an ‘us’. Jean-Luc Nancy tells us that this process of the creation of a community of unity (what he
calls ‘communion’) is a form of ‘mythic’ thought. Myth is that to which a political community appeals in order
to found its existence as such and to perpetuate that existence as the intimate sharing of an identity or essence.
The passage from the political to the sphere of politics occurs, then in myth, insofar as it is in myth that the
existence of lived community is founded and perpetuated (James 2006, p. 196). Nancy rejects this attempt to
enclose the community, claiming that the community exceeds any possible representation of it. If this is the
case then the border, as that which attempts to define a unity of community, is to be resisted. Kafka’s short story, ‘The
Great Wall of China’, presents us with an interruption of the mythic thought of community’s unity. As Peter Hutchings will later discuss, the story relates
the building of the Great Wall of China through the eyes of one of its engineers. However, what begins as a simple tale quickly becomes something much
more complex. We begin to see how the wall is in fact a technology of community. Because each of the very many engineers is periodically rotated around
the country, the sense of the struggle for the wall creates the very sense of the community in unity. The wall operates in this order to enclose the
community, much like in Benedict Anderson’s analysis newspapers allowed for the creation of a sense of nation by involving the readership in imagining
all the other readers (Anderson 1991). However, this nation-building does not end there, because Kafka goes on to overturn or deconstruct this sense of
an operative unity of the community. His short story ends with a number of allegorical tales. The one that matches our purpose here is that of the
monarch. The size of the country implies that no province knows the name of the current Emperor: Thus, then do our people deal with departed
emperors, but the living ruler they confuse among the dead. If once, only once in a man’s lifetime, an imperial official on his tour of the provinces should
arrive by chance at our village, make certain announcements in the name of the government, scrutinize the tax lists… [when he mentions the name of the
ruler] then a smile flits over every face…. Why, they think to themselves, he’s speaking of a dead man as if he were alive, this Emperor of his died long
ago, the dynasty is blotted out, the good official is having his joke with us…. If from such appearances any one should draw the conclusion that in reality
we have no Emperor, he would not be far from the truth (Kafka 1973, pp. 78–79). Kafka’s community, despite the projected unity that the wall brings, is
ungovernable. The imagined unity of the mythic thought is exceeded in every moment by the community itself. Thus, the question of the territorial unity
given by the projected space of the border is to be rejected. Community always exceeds its mythic representations. This use of
the border is an excuse to create an oppressive unifying notion of communion. As we can see, the politics of the
border are not only reducible to the exclusionary and governmental functions of managing and dividing
populations, of casting out and rejecting, but also of shoring up and stabilising that which remains within the
border. Beyond the question of the border’s inclusion/exclusion, we might also ask of the borders of the political. We are reminded of Jacques
Rancière, who speaks to the centrality of borders to the concept of the political: To speak of the boundaries of the political realm would seem to evoke no
precise or current reality. Yet legend invariably has the political begin at one boundary, be it the Tiber or the Neva, and end up at another, be it Syracuse
or the Kilyma: riverbanks of foundation, island shores of refoundation, abysses of horror or ruin. There must surely be something of the essence in this
landscape for politics to be so stubbornly represented within it. And we know that philosophy has played a signal part in this stubbornness. Its claims in
respect of politics can be readily summed up as an imperative: to shield politics from the perils that are immanent to it, it has to be hauled on to dry land,
set down on terra firma (Rancière 2007, p. 1). Politics begins and ends with a border because it is, at base, the problem of foundation. Rancière details
the Platonic project as an anti-maritime polemic; that is, a move away from the sea in order to provide the solid ground of foundation. In Rancière’s
idiolect this ‘solid foundation’, which Plato finds a distance of 80 stadia from the sea, is none other than the ‘distribution of the sensible’ of the ‘police’
order. For Rancière, the ‘police is not a social function but a symbolic constitution of the social. The essence of the police is neither repression nor even
control over the living. Its essence is a certain manner of partitioning the sensible’ (Rancière 2001, pp. 6–7). The everyday politics of the
police order is a process of counting, of managing who and what counts, and the manner in which they count. In
the international realm this can literally be seen with the strategic and legitimatory fixation of the West on the horrors of Halabja, and the incessant
counting of those murdered there. This is then to be put beside the refusal to count the Iraqi deaths since the beginning of the invasion and occupation,
and more recently the deaths due to Turkish incursions in Northern Iraq. In this the very same citizens are counted or not counted by the very order of
everyday politics. Against this police order, ‘politics’ does not occur in the everyday micro-politics of Westminster or Washington; rather it is the very
disruption of the everyday course of things. This interruption is rare and revolutionary in its outlook—an event. Thus, the event itself is a border, it is a
limit which cannot be explained by the order that it ends or indeed by the new that it begins. To talk of the borders of the political is not simply to
propose that we divide up, in a disciplinary sense, the political from its others. Nor is it simply to pose the question of the boundaries of the state. Rather,
it is to pose the possibility of a political event which ruptures the givenness of existing relations. Antonio Negri articulates such a possibility as
constituent power, and characterises it as the very essence of the political. ‘Constituent power is the definition of any possible paradigm of the political.
The political has no definition unless it takes its point of departure from the concept of constituent power’ (Negri 1999, p. 333). Such a formulation
would attempt to reverse the Platonic move towards the solidity of the political fundament with the ‘motley crew’ (Linebaugh and Rediker 2002) of the
multitude. While we may not be certain about Hardt and Negri’s concept of the multitude, we can see the utility of posing the question of the political
especially in the context of the radical questioning of the current state of the situation. Now, more than ever, is the time to question the borders of the
political, to reassert its openness.
Upholding the idea of community destroys being and ensures mass genocide
Glowacka ‘6 (Culture Machine, Vol 8 (2006) Community and the Work of Death: Thanato-Ontology in
Hannah Arendt and Jean-Luc Nancy, Dorota Glowacka ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HUMANITIES;
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR MA(Wroclaw), PhD(SUNY)
Why is the idea of community so powerful that it is possible for its members to willingly die for such limited
imaginings?' (Anderson, 1983: 7) The anthropologist's answer is that the Western conception of community has been founded on the mythical bond
of death between its members, who identify themselves as subjects through the apology of the dead heroes. Yet is not this endless recitation of
prosopopeia, which serves as the self-identificatory apparatus par excellence, also the most deadly mechanism of exclusion? Whose voices have been
foreclosed in the self-addressed movement of the epitaph? Indeed, who, in turn, will have to suffer a death that is absolute, whose negativity will not be
sublated into the good of communal belonging, so that community can perpetuate itself? 'Two different deaths': it is the 'they' who will
perish, without memory and without a remainder, so that the 'we' can be endlessly resurrected and blood can
continue to flow in the veins of the communal body, the veins now distended by the pathos of this recitation. The question I would
like to ask in this paper is whether there can be the thinking of community that interrupts this sanguinary logic. A collectivity that projects itself as
unified presence has been the predominant figure of community in the West. Such community reveals itself in the splendor of full
presence, 'presence to self, without flaw and without any outside' (Nancy, 2001:15; 2003a: 24), through the re-telling of
its foundational myth. By infinitely (self)communicating the story of its inauguration, community ensures its
own transcendence and immortality. For Jean-Luc Nancy, this immanent figure of community has impeded the
'true' thinking of community as being-together of humans. Twelve years after writing his seminal essay 'The Inoperative
Community', Nancy contends that 'this earth is anything but a sharing of humanity -- it is a world lacking in world'
(2000: xiii). In Being Singular Plural (1996), Nancy returns to Heidegger's discussion of Mitsein (Being-with) in Being and Time, in
order to articulate an ontological foundation of being-together or being-in-common and thus to move away
from the homogenizing idiom of community. Departing from Heidegger's habit of separating the political and the philosophical,
however, Nancy situates his analysis in the context of global ethnic conflicts, the list of which he enumerates in the
'Preface',3 and to which he returns, toward the end of the book, in 'Eulogy for the Mêlée (for Sarajevo, March 1993)'. The fact that Nancy has
extended his reflection on the modes of being-together to include different global areas of conflict indicates
that he is now seeking to re-think 'community' in a perspective that is no longer confined to the problematic of specifically Western
subjectivity. This allows me to add to Nancy's 'necessarily incomplete' list the name of another community-inconflict: the Polish-Jewish community, and to consider, very briefly, the tragic fact of the disappearance of that
community during the events of the Holocaust and in its aftermath. Within a Nancean problematic, it is
possible to argue that the history of this community in Poland, which has been disastrous to the extent that it is
now virtually extinct, is related, as in Sarajevo, to a failure of thinking community as Being-with. What I would like
to bring out of Nancy's discussion, drawing on the Polish example in particular, is that rethinking community as being-in-common necessitates the
interruption of the myth of communal death by death understood as what I would refer to, contra Heidegger, as 'dying-with' or 'Being-in-commontowards-death'. Although Nancy himself is reluctant to step outside the ontological horizon as delineated by Dasein's encounter with death and would
thus refrain from such formulations, it is when he reflects on death (in the closing section of his essay 'Of Being Singular Plural' in Being Singular Plural),
as well as in his analysis of the 'forbidden' representations of Holocaust death in Au fond des images (2003b), that he finds Heidegger's project to be
lacking (en sufferance). This leads me to a hypothesis, partly inspired by Maurice Blanchot's response to Nancy in The Unavowable Community (1983),
that the failure of experiencing the meaning of death as 'dying-with' is tantamount to the impossibility of 'Being-with'. In the past and in the
present, this failure has culminated in acts of murderous, genocidal hatred, that is, in attempts to erase a
collectivity's proper name, and it is significant that many of the proper names on Nancy's list fall under the
1948 United Nations' definition of the genocide as 'acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnic, racial or religious group'.4 The Polish national narrative has been forcefully structured by
communal identification in terms of the work of death, resulting in a mythical construction from which the death of those who are
perceived as other must be excluded. It is important to underscore that the history of Polish-Jewish relations has never been marred by violence of
genocidal proportions on the part of the ethnic Poles. I will argue nevertheless that what this history discloses is a fundamental failure to produce modes
of co-habitation grounded in ontological being-in-common. As became tragically apparent during the Holocaust and in its
aftermath, Poles' disidentification with their Jewish neighbors led to an overall posture of indifference toward
(and in some cases direct complicity in) their murder. Again, I will contend that this failure of 'Being-with' in turn reveals a
foreclosure of 'dying-with' in the Polish mode of communal belonging, that is, a violent expropriation of the Jewish death. At this fraught historical
juncture of ontology and politics, I find it fruitful to engage Nancy's forays into the thinking of death and the community with Hannah Arendt's reflection
on the political and social space. In 'The Nazi Myth' (1989), which Nancy co-authored with Lacoue-Labarthe, Arendt's definition of ideology as a selffulfilling logic 'by which a movement of history is explained as one consistent process' (The Origins of Totalitarianism, qtd in Lacoue-Labarthe and
Nancy, 1989: 293) is the starting point for the analysis of the myth. Nancy
and Lacoue-Labarthe elaborate Aredn't analysis in order to
will to mythical identification, which saw its perverse culmination in the extermination of
European Jews during the Nazi era, is inextricable from the general problematic of the Western metaphysical
subject.
argue that the
Reject the aff- Rejection is the only way to deconstruct the myth of the community
Morin ‘6 (Culture Machine, Vol 8 (2006) Putting Community Under Erasure: Derrida and Nancy on the
Plurality of Singularities Marie-Eve Morin Department of Philosophy. 3-45 Assiniboia Hall. University of
Alberta.
Thus the community of human beings excludes animals, and the community of beings in general excludes ghosts. To
escape this double
violence, it is necessary, according to Derrida, to cut the bond that binds me to, or excludes me from, a group. Only
then will there be an experience of the other, or a relation to the other, which will respect and do justice to its
otherness, its difference. Though Nancy does not criticise fraternity directly, his discussion of the interruption of myth serves the same purpose.
The myth presents the community to the community itself; it is the identificatory mechanism of a community.
Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy explain: A myth is a fiction in the strong, active sense of shaping or moulding, or as Plato himself says, of 'plasticity': it is a
fictionning, whose role is to propose, if not to impose, models and types, -- types by whose imitation an
individual ' or a city, or a whole people ' can grasp and identify itself. (Lacoue-Labarthe & Nancy, 1991: 34) The
interruption of myth means that it becomes impossible for us to represent our common origin. Because the genealogical relation rests on
a phantasmatic commonality of origin, the loss of common origin means the impossibility of recognising each
other as brother. In their having been interrupted, myths do not disappear, but they no longer function as the
ground of communal belonging: it becomes impossible for us to gather around the narration of our common
origin. The interruption does not build a community, it un-works it, that is, it lets a space open in the
identification of the community with itself. This un-working is the active incompleteness of community: it
prevents the community from effecting itself as work.
1nc DA
CIR will pass- GOP will support
Lawrence ’11 (January 14, 2011 The GOP, the Chamber and the Nativists Is a Deal on Immigration Possible
Before 2012? By STEWART J. LAWRENCE Stewart J. Lawrence is a Washington, DC-based an immigration
policy specialist. He can be reached at stewartlawrence81147@gmail.com
A funny thing happened on the way to the Republican party’s expected post-midterm election bashing of illegal
immigrants. The whole thing got called off. Well, sort of. Incoming House Judiciary Committee chairman
Lamar Smith (R-KY), a long-time GOP hard-liner on immigration, was expected to name Rep. Steve King (RIA) – a Tea Party supporter who once said he’d like to deport one liberal for every illegal immigrant – as the
head of Judiciary’s powerful subcommittee on immigration. But that was before House Majority leader Mitch
McConnell received a letter from the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce saying, in effect, that King was too much
of flaming nativist for the post. In fact, the Chamber even recommended that Smith, who favors a complete
moratorium on legal as well as illegal immigration – not be given the Judiciary post, either. McConnell also
heard from top GOP leaders, among them former Bush political advisor Karl Rove, and two rumored GOP
presidential candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush They
quietly advised McConnell that the party needed to moderate its immigration policies if it expected to win back
the presidency in 2012. And so, apparently, they struck a deal: King is out, but Smith can stay.
Piecemeal reform destroys comprehensive reform
Young ’10 (Comprehensive Immigration Reform—Dead, Dismembered, or Alive? Posted February 17, 2010 by Patrick
Young, Esq.
There are also calls for abandoning the comprehensive immigration reform effort and instead trying to pass sections of the
bill piecemeal. Frankly, in 1999, when comprehensive reform was first proposed as the entire agenda for the immigrant
rights movement, I believed that piecemeal was the way to go. I did not believe that passage of a comprehensive package
was possible. In addition, my experience as an advocate told me that a piecemeal approach could accomplish much without the serious negative trade-offs that
comprehensive reform would demand. But my position was not the majority position, and the broad movement adopted
comprehensive immigration reform and emblazoned it on its banner. Over the next decade, the treasure and efforts of the
immigrant rights community around the United States were devoted to crafting and passing far-reaching legislation that
would address the United States’ immigration needs for decades. While that effort has not yet succeeded, it is too soon to
declare it failed. It may also already be too late to break up the comprehensive immigration reform bill and pass smaller
pieces of legislation like the DREAM Act and AgJobs separately. Many supporters of reform will melt away if the
comprehensive bill is abandoned—they signed on for the whole package. And piecemeal legislation will be met with the
same arguments against legalizing a portion of the undocumented that have been voiced against legislation that would
enable larger earned legalization. In addition, to secure passage of the DREAM Act and AgJobs, so many concessions will
have to be made that little may be left to trade if we try to revive legalization. Analysts in Washington say that there is still
a slim chance for reform this year. With other prospects looking even dimmer than pressing on with our current strategy, it would seem that the immigrant
rights movement’s last best hope is to press the Democrats hard with the threat that a failure to push reform will lead to Latino electoral defections and simultaneously
embarrass the president into assuming the role of Reformer-in-Chief that we once thought fit him naturally. We also need to be realistic about what a reform bill will
look like if one is introduced by Senator Schumer in the next 50 days. It will not be perfect, and attacks on it for its flaws will likely condemn immigration reform to the
legislative graveyard. Any reform bill will need to satisfy the two to six Republicans we need for passage. Pulling out the
elements of any compromise Schumer arranges will doom the bill. For those of us outside the Beltway, we need to keep
the pressure on. This year there have already been more than 160 pro-reform events. More than 300,000 people have communicated with Congress and the
President in support of reform. Churches, city councils, unions, and community groups have passed hundreds of resolutions in support of reform. Here on Long Island,
the Workplace Project has collected more than 5,000 pro-immigrant postcards, Long Island Immigrant Alliance’s call-in day to Schumer’s office got wide support, and
Long Island Wins’ e-mail campaigns have generated more than 2,500 communications with our elected officials. These efforts have won over more than
half of the Senate to reform already. Since the time horizon for winning reform is limited to the next several months, we must continue to push hard in the
knowledge that while victory may be difficult even with the greatest effort, defeat will be certain if we give up.
Comprehensive reform is key to prevent food insecurity
Gaskill ’10 (Ron Gaskill is director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Worker shortage urges immigration reform efforts April 9, 2010 Season Right for Meaningful Immigration
Reform By Ron Gaskill
Even in these times of higher-than-usual unemployment, most farmers and ranchers still struggle
to find all the workers they need
for a successful season. Serious concerns that not enough domestic workers will choose to work in agriculture
has become a harsh reality across the countryside. About 15 million people in the United States choose non-farm jobs at wages that are actually
lower than what they could earn by working alongside farmers and ranchers. The on-farm jobs and opportunities are there, but many workers choose not
to take advantage of them. The issue is rapidly moving from one centered on a lack of resources, to one with food
insecurity at its heart. Farmers and ranchers are the ones being squeezed; caught between a domestic labor force that doesn’t want agricultural
work, government policy that fails to recognize the seriousness of the problem and an administration that consistently makes it harder to hire workers.
U.S. consumers will continue to eat fresh fruits and vegetables regardless of how the labor scenario ultimately plays out. But, whether or not those fruits
and vegetables are grown in the U.S. or imported from other countries where labor is more plentiful greatly concerns Farm Bureau. It’s past time for our
nation’s policymakers to translate grassroots concern into meaningful action. As much as we believe in a farmer’s right to farm, Farm Bureau fully
respects the right of U.S. workers to choose other lines of work. But, on the flip side, as employers, we must be able to legally employ those who do want
to work, even if they’re from other countries. Comprehensive immigration reform is needed, so that America’s farmers and
ranchers can continue to produce an abundant supply of safe, healthy food, as well as renewable fuels and fiber
for our nation.
Food insecurity kills billions
Brown ‘5 (Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute, February 7, 2005, People and the Planet,
“Falling water tables 'could hit food supply',” http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=2424
Many Americans see terrorism as the principal threat to security, but for much of humanity, the effect of water shortages and rising temperatures on
food security are far more important issues. For the 3 billion people who live on 2 dollars a day or less and who spend up to 70 per
cent of their income on food, even
a modest rise in food prices can quickly become life-threatening. For them, it is the next
meal that is the overriding concern."
Food distribution is a moral imperative
Watson 77
philosophy professor, Washington University, WORLD HUNGER AND MORAL OBLIGATION, 1977, pp. 118-9.
One may even have to sacrifice one’s life or one’s nation to be moral in situations where practical behavior would preserve it. For example, if a
prisoner of war undergoing torture is to be a (perhaps dead) patriot even when reason tells him that collaboration will hurt no one, he remains silent. Similarly, if one is to
be moral, one distributes available food in equal shares even if everyone dies. That an action is
necessary to save one’s life is no excuse for behaving unpatriotically or immorally if one wishes to be a patriot or moral. No principle
of morality absolves one of behaving immorally simply to save one’s life or nation. There is a strict analogy here between adhering to moral principles for the sake of being moral,
and adhering to Christian principles for the sake of being Christian. The
moral world contains pits and lions, but one looks always to
the highest light. The ultimate test always harks back to the highest principle – recant or die. The ultimate test
always harks back to the highest principle – recant or die – and it is pathetic to profess morality if one quits when the going gets
rough.
Case
The plans destroys coalitions and alliances effective for immigration tropes
Lara, Greene, & Bejarano 9
Dulcinea Lara, Dana Greene, and Cynthia Bejarano, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at New Mexico State University, Assistant Professor in the
Criminal Justice Department at New Mexico State University, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at New Mexico State University, “A critical analysis
of immigrant advocacy tropes: how popular discourse weakens solidarity and prevents broad, sustainable
justice”,http://www.thefreelibrary.com/A+critical+analysis+of+immigrant+advocacy+tropes%3A+how+popular...-a0226634224
These are times of great duress for multiple marginalized populations. American workers have been coping
with stagnant wages, diminishing benefits, and persistent attrition of living-wage jobs. With the recent
economic crisis exacerbating the situation, the nation's punished classes are under siege. The prison population
currently hovers around a staggering 2.3 million people. The most disturbing feature of the nation's penal
archipelago is the racial disproportionality of those who end up under correctional supervision, a population
that tops seven million. In 1996, "the most restrictive immigration bills in the history of the United States," the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration
Responsibility Act of 1996, were passed (Hines, 2006:11). Since that time, immigrants have been in increasing
jeopardy and harsh immigration enforcement has "become a fixture in the spiraling apparatus of social
control" (Welch, 2002: 170).
Yet these times also present an opportunity for groups to coalesce around similar oppression in the interest of
creating meaningful, shared change. Decisions made in crisis are often expedient; they are not the most
thoughtfully strategic with regard to long-term goals. Given the opportunity to organize a broad collective and
to recognize alliances and shared goals, it is crucial that the rhetoric and logics most easily accessed do not
foster divisions and disable the possibility of a coalition with ample leverage. Though this analysis has focused
on immigration advocacy tropes, it is aimed at a broad and diverse audience that is engaged in critical practices
of organizing and activism around distinct causes.
The IATs explored here exacerbate tensions between populations at a time when much could be gained by
organizing in concert with one another. Constituents include the unemployed and the immigrant, the laborer
and the immigrant, the racialized U.S. citizen and the immigrant, the prisoner and the immigrant, the
racialized citizen and the prisoner, and the immigrant and the working poor. These are not mutually
exclusive or static categories. Many people inhabit two or more positions simultaneously and the power to
create meaningful social change lies not in their distinctions, but in their affinities.
Coalition politics and alliance are crucial to prevent degenerating into narcissism where they
get coopted- the impact is worse forms of exploitation
Best and Kellner ‘01
(Steven, Prof Philosophy, UT El Paso and Douglass, Philosophy Chair, Postmodern Politics and the Battle for the Future, Democracy and Nature: The
International Journal of Inclusive Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 1)
The emphasis on local struggles and micropower, cultural politics which redefine the political, and attempts to develop political forms relevant
to the problems and developments of the contemporary age is extremely valuable, but there are also certain limitations to the dominant forms of
postmodern politics. While an emphasis on micropolitics and local struggles can be a healthy substitute for excessively utopian and
ambitious political projects, one should not lose sight that key sources of political power and oppression are precisely the big targets aimed at by modern
theory, including capital, the state, imperialism, and patriarchy. Taking on such major targets involves coalitions and multi-front struggle, often requiring a
politics of alliance and solidarity that cuts across group identifications to mobilize sufficient power to struggle against, say, the evils of capitalism or the state.
Thus, while today we need the expansion of localized cultural practices, they attain their real significance only within the struggle for the
transformation of society as a whole. Without this systemic emphasis, cultural and identity politics remain confined to the margins of society and are in
danger of degenerating into narcissism, hedonism, aestheticism, or personal therapy, where they pose no danger and are immediately coopted by the culture
industries. In such cases, the political is merely the personal, and the original intentions of the 1960s goal to broaden the political field are inverted and
perverted. Just as economic and political demands have their referent in subjectivity in everyday life, so these cultural and existential issues find their
ultimate meaning in the demand for a new society and mode of production. Yet we would insist that it is not a question of micro vs macropolitics, as if it
were an either/or proposition, but rather both dimensions are important for the struggles of the present and future.[15] Likewise, we would argue that
we need to combine the most affirmative and negative perspectives, embodying Marcuse's declaration that critical social theory should be both
more negative and utopian in reference to the status quo.[16] There are certainly many things to be depressed about is in the negative and cynical
postmodernism of a Baudrillard, yet without a positive political vision merely citing the negative might lead to apathy and depression that only benefits the
existing order. For a dialectical politics, however, positive vision of what could be is articulated in conjunction with critical analysis of what is in a multioptic
perspective that focuses on the forces of domination as well as possibilities of emancipation. While postmodern politics and theory tend to polarize into either the extremely
negative or excessively affirmative, key forms of postmodern literature have a more dialectical vision. Indeed, some of the more interesting forms of postmodern critique today
are found in fictional genres such as cyberpunk and magical realism. Cyberpunk, a subgenre within science fiction, brings science fiction down to earth, focusing not on the
intergalactic battles in the distant future, but the social problems facing people on earth in the present.[17] Cyberpunk writers such as Bruce Sterling and William Gibson offer
an unflinching look at a grim social reality characterized by transnational capitalist domination, Social Darwinist cultural settings, radical environmental ruination, and the
implosion of the body and technology, such that humans become more and more machine like and machines increasingly become like human beings. Yet cyberpunk novels
foreground this nightmare world in order to warn us that it is an immanent possibility for the near future, in order to awaken readers to a critical reflection on technology and
social control, and to offer hope for alternative uses of technology and modes of social life. Similarly, magical realism examines the wreckage of centuries of European
colonialism, but also maintains a positive outlook, one that embraces the strength and creativity of the human spirit, social solidarity, and spiritual and political
transcendence. Like cyberpunk novels, magical realism incorporate various aesthetic forms and conventions in an eclectic mixture that fuses postmodernism with social
critique and models of resistance. But it is also a mistake, we believe, to ground one's politics in either modern or postmodern theory alone. Against one-sided
positions, we advocate a version of reconstructive postmodernism that we call a politics of alliance and solidarity that builds on both modern and
postmodern traditions. Unlike Laclau and Mouffe who believe that postmodern theory basically provides a basis for a new politics, and who
tend to reject the Enlightenment per se, we believe that the Enlightenment continues to provide resources for political struggle today and are skeptical
whether postmodern theory alone can provide sufficient assets for an emancipatory new politics. Yet the Enlightenment has its blindspots and dark sides (such
as its relentless pursuit of the domination of nature, and naive belief in "progress," so we believe that aspects of the postmodern critique of
Enlightenment are valid and force us to rethink and reconstruct Enlightenment philosophy for the present age. And while we agree with Habermas that a
reconstruction of the Enlightenment and modernity are in order, unlike Habermas we believe that postmodern theory has important contributions to
make to this project. Various forms of postmodern politics have been liberatory in breaking away from the abstract and ideological universalism of
the Enlightenment and the reductionist class politics of Marxism, but they tend to be insular and fragmenting, focusing solely on the experiences
and political issues of a given group, even splintering further into distinct subgroups such as divide the feminist community. Identity politics are
often structured around simplistic binary oppositions such as Us vs. Them and Good vs. Bad that pit people against one another, making
alliances, consensus, and compromise difficult or impossible. This has been the case, for example, with tendencies within radical feminism and
ecofeminism which reproduce essentialism by stigmatizing men and "male rationality" while exalting women as the bearers of peaceful and loving value
and as being "closer to nature."[18] Elements in the black nationalist liberation movement in the 1960s and the early politics of Malcolm X were
exclusionist and racist, literally demonizing white people as an evil and inferior race. Similarly, the sexual politics of some gay and lesbian groups tend to
exclusively focus on their own interests, while the mainstream environmental movement is notorious for resisting alliances with people of color and
grass roots movements.[19] Even though each group needs to assert their identity as aggressively as possible, postmodern identity politics should avoid
falling into seriality and sheer fragmentation. These struggles, though independent of one another, should be articulated within counterhegemonic
alliances, and attack power formations on both the micro- and macro-levels. Not all universalistic appeals are ideological in the sense criticized by Marx;
there are common grounds of experience, common concerns, and common forms of oppression that different groups share which should be
articulated -- concerns such as the degradation of the environment and common forms of oppression that stem from capitalist exploitation and alienated
labor.
The plan fails- global solutions are best
George Monbiot, journalist, academic, and political and environmental activist, 2004, Manifesto for a New World Order, p. 11-13
The quest for global solutions is difficult and divisive. Some members of this movement are deeply suspicious of all
institutional power at the global level, fearing that it could never be held to account by the world’s people. Others are
concerned that a single set of universal prescriptions would threaten the diversity of dissent. A smaller faction has
argued that all political programmes are oppressive: our task should not be to replace one form of power with another,
but to replace all power with a magical essence called ‘anti-power’. But most of the members of this movement are
coming to recognize that if we propose solutions which can be effected only at the local or the national level, we
remove ourselves from any meaningful role in solving precisely those problems which most concern us. Issues such as
climate change, international debt, nuclear proliferation, war, peace and the balance of trade between nations can be
addressed only globally or internationally. Without global measures and global institutions, it is impossible to see how
we might distribute wealth from rich nations to poor ones, tax the mobile rich and their even more mobile money,
control the shipment of toxic waste, sustain the ban on landmines, prevent the use of nuclear weapons, broker peace
between nations or prevent powerful states from forcing weaker ones to trade on their terms. If we were to work only
at the local level, we would leave these, the most critical of issues, for other people to tackle. Global governance will
take place whether we participate in it or not. Indeed, it must take place if the issues which concern us are not to be
resolved by the brute force of the powerful. That the international institutions have been designed or captured by the
dictatorship of vested interests is not an argument against the existence of international institutions, but a reason for
overthrowing them and replacing them with our own. It is an argument for a global political system which holds power
to account. In the absence of an effective global politics, moreover, local solutions will always be undermined by
communities of interest which do not share our vision. We might, for example, manage to persuade the people of the
street in which we live to give up their cars in the hope of preventing climate change, but unless everyone, in all
communities, either shares our politics or is bound by the same rules, we simply open new road space into which the
neighbouring communities can expand. We might declare our neighbourhood nuclear-free, but unless we are
simultaneously working, at the international level, for the abandonment of nuclear weapons, we can do nothing to
prevent ourselves and everyone else from being threatened by people who are not as nice as we are. We would deprive
ourselves, in other words, of the power of restraint. By first rebuilding the global politics, we establish the political
space in which our local alternatives can flourish. If, by contrast, we were to leave the governance of the necessary
global institutions to others, then those institutions will pick off our local, even our national, solutions one by one.
There is little point in devising an alternative economic policy for your nation, as Luis Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva, now
president of Brazil, once advocated, if the International Monetary Fund and the financial speculators have not first
been overthrown. There is little point in fighting to protect a coral reef from local pollution, if nothing has been done to
prevent climate change from destroying the conditions it requires for its survival.
Public policy debates about immigration key to preventing political hawks from taking
over – the impact is dehumanization
Williams, Huffington Post, ‘6 (Byron, May 9, “Immigration Frenzy Points Out Need for Policy
Debate” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/byron-williams/immigration-frenzy-points_b_20717.html)
As emotions flare on both sides of the immigration debate it has morphed into "Immigration a la King." But
unlike my father's mysterious concoction, the ingredients are well known. It consists of one part legitimate
public policy, one part ethnocentrism, and one part political pandering. There is no doubting we need a
legitimate public policy conversation around illegal immigration. The porous nature of America's borders
coupled with the post 9/11 climate does warrant national concern. If, however, we remove the legitimate public
policy aspect, what's left? What's left is ugly, reactionary fear-based hatred symbolizing America at its worst.
With 9/11 approaching its 5th anniversary, why are we just getting around to dealing with immigration? Like a
wounded, cornered animal, the Republican-led Congress and the president conveniently fan the flames of one
of America's greatest tragedies, resurfacing fear, in order to gain short-term political points. It is hard to
embrace the concept that at this late date the administration and Congress are worried about Al Qaeda
members coming across the border in man made tunnels or in the back of trucks when you consider the 9/11
attackers entered the country legally. They have successfully created a climate where vigilantes known as the
Minutemen--who do a disservice to the brave individuals who fought during the Revolutionary War by
embracing the name--are viewed as patriotic by taking the law into their own hands allegedly protecting
American's borders. How many poor white southerners willingly accepted a death sentence by fighting for the
Confederacy to protect a "southern way of life" in which they did not participate? They were seductively lured,
in part, by the notion that all hell would break loose if emancipated African slaves were elevated to their same
impoverished status. The ethnocentrism and political pandering has sadly infected parts of the African
American community. If one removes the veil of objecting to the comparisons between the civil right
movement and Hispanic immigration demonstrations, which a number of African Americans hide behind, they
would discover the same fear that plagues the dominant culture. This does not dismiss the obvious concerns
about the plight of low-skilled African Americans who find themselves competing with immigrants for certain
entry-level employment. But again, this is part of the much needed public policy debate that is submerged
under the current political frenzy. Freely throwing around words such "illegal" and "Al Qaeda" opens the door
to dehumanization. And once an individual has been dehumanized that individual can be taken advantage of.
Even those who compassionately advocate for a guest worker program, forget that the last such program that
existed on a large scale in this country was struck down by Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1863. There are
legitimate concerns on both sides of this issue. But history has shown us there is something wrong when
marginalized groups are systematically pitted against each other. For all of the cries to protect the borders and
the loss of job opportunities for low-skilled Americans, I doubt there would be 11 million undocumented
individuals in the country if no one was hiring. There can be no legitimate immigration debate that does not
hold the business community equally accountable for hiring undocumented individuals while paying less than
a living wage. Each individual must come to his or her decision as to how they feel about immigration. But the
only way to have an authentic policy is to have an authentic policy debate--one that does not include the
unnecessary ingredients that ultimately lead to dehumanization.
() Explicitly political strategies are a prerequisite to effective immigrant narration
Apostolidis – Professor of Political Science at Whitman College – ‘8
Paul, Politics and Connolly’s Ethics: Immigrant Narratives, Racism, and Identity’s Contingency, Theory and
Event Volume 11, Issue 3, 2008
Both these transformations, however, presuppose a context of political organization for immigrants: a
movement that actively elicits immigrant worker storytelling, that brings those stories into the hearing range of
immigrants’ detractors, and that challenges the institutional apparatuses of power that presuppose and
normalize popular expectations regarding immigrants’ ethical deficiencies. The immigrant workers whose
stories I consider here were politically active in just such a movement in their form of their union and its
alliances with community groups. Hence, I conclude, effectively countering the latest efflorescence of
xenophobia in the US should mean energetically promoting environments where immigrants’ stories can be
told, unleashing their power as what I call catalytic genealogy. Doing this, in turn, depends on stimulating
“experiences of democracy,” to use Connolly’s phrase (Connolly 2002, 200), that include not only encouraging
narration but also mobilizing campaigns to challenge institutional vortices of racial and class domination.
Connolly’s ethos neither contradicts nor ideologically mystifies these political exertions but rather presupposes
them as a necessary, historicizing complement.
Sole focus on racism in present times is counterproductive
McWhorter 8
linguistics prof, 8—Stanford. senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Nominated for an NAACP Image Award
for Outstanding Literary Work in Non-Fiction. PhD in linguistic (John, June 5, 2008; “Racism in Retreat;” The
Sun, http://www.nysun.com/opinion/racism-in-retreat/79355/)
His victory demonstrates the main platform of my race writing. The guiding question in everything I have ever written on
race is: Why do so many people exaggerate about racism? This exaggeration is a nasty hangover from the sixties, and the
place it has taken as a purported badge of intellectual and moral gravitas is a tire-block on coherent, constructive
sociopolitical discussion. Here's a typical case for what passes as enlightenment. On my desk(top) is an article from last
year's American Psychologist. The wisdom imparted? To be a person of color these days is to withstand an endless
barrage of racist "microaggressions." Say to someone, "When I look at you, I don't see color" and you "deny their ethnic
experiences." You do the same by saying, "As a woman, I know what you go through as a racial minority," as well as with
hate speech such as "America is a melting pot." Other "microaggressions" include college buildings being all named after
straight, white rich men (I'm not kidding about the straight part). This sort of thing will not do. Why channel mental
energy into performance art of this kind? Some may mistake me as implying that it would be okay to stop talking about
racism. But that interpretation is incorrect: I am stating that it would be okay to stop talking about racism. We need to be
talking about serious activism focused on results. Those who suppose that the main meal in the aforementioned is to decry
racism are not helping people. At this point, if racism was unattended to for 10 years, during that time it would play
exactly the same kind of role it does in America now — elusive, marginal, and insignificant. Note that I did not say that
there was no racism. There seems to be an assumption that when discussing racism, it is a sign of higher wisdom to
neglect the issue of its degree. This assumption is neither logical nor productive. I reject it, and am pleased to see
increasing numbers of black people doing same. Of course there is racism. The question is whether there is enough to
matter. All evidence shows that there is not. No, the number of black men in prison is not counterevidence: black
legislators were solidly behind the laws penalizing possession of crack more heavily than powder. In any case, to insist
that we are hamstrung until every vestige of racism, bias, or inequity is gone indicates a grievous lack of confidence,
which I hope any person of any history would reject. Anyone who intones that America remains permeated with racism is,
in a word, lucky. They have not had the misfortune of living in a society riven by true sociological conflict, such as
between Sunnis and Shiites, Hutus and Tutsis — or whites and blacks before the sixties. It'd be interesting to open up a
discussion with a Darfurian about "microaggressions." To state that racism is no longer a serious problem in our country is
neither ignorant nor cynical. Warnings that such a statement invites a racist backlash are, in 2008, melodramatic. They are
based on no empirical evidence. Yet every time some stupid thing happens — some comedian says a word, some
sniggering blockhead hangs a little noose, some study shows that white people tend to get slightly better car loans — we
are taught that racism is still mother's milk in the U.S. of A. "Always just beneath the surface." Barack Obama's success is
the most powerful argument against this way of thinking in the entire four decades since recreational underdoggism was
mistaken as deep thought. A black man clinching the Democratic presidential nomination — and rather easily at that —
indicates that racism is a lot further "beneath the surface" than it used to be. And if Mr. Obama ends up in the White
House, then it might be time to admit that racism is less beneath the surface than all but fossilized.