R[[Bard Jeworski-Seyer Aff]]
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JJ and I affirm democracy.
Contemporary democracy is bound up with ideas of sovereignty that limits the possibility of politics and language. Fear not however, on the horizon there lies a possibility. That is the democracy to come. In order to engage in the possibility of the democracy to come we must engage in a practice of openness, to present a Khora or container into which radical democracy can be fit. These concerns come before any others within both the sphere of politics and debate.
(Derrida, Jacques Wordsmith of France, Rogues 2003 p. xiv-xv)
Nowhere is spelling out the internally necessitated violence of democracy more urgent than with regard to the middle east Dissecting the normatively applied democracy of contemporary life is most urgent in terms of the Middle East, the resistance to contemporary Western democracy presents the Middle East as a rallying point for the urgent injunction to democracy. This interrogation is the here and now of urgency, trumping any other concerns even the “rules” of debate.
(Derrida, Jacques Wordsmith of France, Rogues 2003 p. 28-30)
The status quo rhetoric of democracy isolates America within an “us-versus-them” dichotomy in which those who do not engage in our type of democracy must be destroyed—the irony of this logic is that it degrades our very democratic institutions and destroys true equality at home and abroad.
Henry Giroux, professor of communication studies at McMaster University, “Winter In America: Democracy Gone Rogue,” Thursday, March 4, 2010, accessed: Thursday March 11, 2010
Combined with the virutalization of war, the imperative for global democratic reform participates in a virtual reality in which we further ignore the image of the enemy. Entire populations become discardable because they are represented as non-democratic.
Der Derian, professor of political science at Brown University “Virtuous War/Virtual Theory,” International Relations, Royal Institute of International Affairs 2000, pg. 772-773, Wiley InterScience
The opening of a space for the democracy to come must be formed through self criticism and interrogation and as such necessarily negates teleology. This is the most important step toward any substantial political change.
(Derrida, Jacques Wordsmith of France, Rogues 2003 p. 86-87)
THIS IS NOT JUST AN INTERSTATE PROBLEM
New methods of social control have infiltrated the debate sphere—while explicitly open and liberating, implicitly, the status quo mode of debate praxis is being compromised as it is colonized by the restrictive logic of institutions.
Mitchell 98.
Mitchell comes close here to mentioning fascism. We define fascism as an ideal system of total power, which emphasizes disciplinary regimentation and seeks to suppress all criticism. On the governmental level, this historically equates to ultra-conservative dictatorships, which use left-wing propaganda, but when we focus too much on the state, it can blind us to the micro-political groups and gestures that sustain fascism in the here and now.
Deleuze and Guattari 80.
A Thousand Plateaus (1980. p214-5.)
Complicity with the systemic logic of institutionalized debate that actively chooses not to push back against microfascisms is very dangerous—these microfascisms create social war machines, social bodies that destroy everything perceived as a threat to their sovereignty.
Deleuze and Guattari 80.
(A Thousand Plateaus, 230-231)
Every step towards the fascist discourse that the squo takes increases the prospect of absolute annihilation. The state apparatus becomes a means of constant violence against difference that compromises human agency.
Deleuze and Guattari 72.
The democracy to come is a question always politicized in advance. The speech act we are engaging in is by its nature a challenge to the power structures of democracy. Only by engaging in this discussion can we create a field of possibility for this coming democracy.
(Derrida, Jacques Wordsmith of France, Rogues 2003 p. 91-92)
