America continues to treat 'lesser' citizens like nonpeople (PoMo Nonsense BARF ALERT!)

A single lawn placard, the only one thus far on my side of North High Street, is plainly visible from my front door. As I leave my home in the morning and make my way back in the afternoon, its message never fails to provoke a sense of fleeting happiness; it simply reads in all upper case and navy blue letters: "NO IRAQ WAR." I notice how the letter "O," akin to the shape of an open mouth, encases a single white star, one reminiscent of the Stars and Stripes. According to the Flag Resolution of June 14, 1777, it is resolved "that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field representing a new Constellation."

Light from the heavens, whether it is the single star of the sun or the inexorably ordered and unified constellations - from Hellenic Society to the American Empire - represents the enlightenment of human civilization. Inspired by the metaphysical unity of the constellations, Hellenic Society also produces, orders and unifies the city-state, the polis, symmetrical to the appropriating manner in which the stars are naturalized from disparate singularities into a cohesive and intelligible complex.

At the figurative spatial level, a seamless unity between the celestial (deities of the heavens) and terrestrial (human beings of the earth) realms is produced, whereby the former becomes subordinate and the latter becomes sovereign. In perhaps simpler terms, as the truism suggests, "The namer of names is the father of all things." Everyday social relations within the polis, after all, are presupposed and dependent upon the organizing and governing figure of the patriarch; the sovereign, akin to Zeus, becomes responsible for the order, unity and protection of his subjects.

Based upon his hereditary descent, the basileus (an early form of the sovereign), according to historian Richard Hooker, rules (absolutely) to the extent in which he succeeds at fortifying the polis, namely with regard to his armed forces and wealth accumulation. In short, the sovereign orders and unifies the house/oikos (economy) of the polis through his appropriation of the work of the slave/famulus (family); his authority is decisive, because in the process, he naturalizes the rules of governance.

Sovereign power, nevertheless, depends not upon the rules themselves, but rather the exception to said rules. As political philosopher Carl Schmitt tersely states, "Sovereign is he who decides on the exception." With this in mind, one could argue without the notion of the exception, the rules prove inoperative; that is to say, the normative rule becomes the exception itself, or as Schmitt further emphasizes, sovereignty is "the monopoly to decide."

As the basileus succumbs to the grievances and uprising of the like-minded male-elder-affluent (oftentimes armed to the teeth), this oligarchy ("rule of the few") inevitably supplants the monarch. Despite the perceived regime change, sovereign power remains fully intact, especially as the oligarchy still orders and unifies the polis through its naturalized law, but more importantly, through its "monopoly to decide" on the exception.

In a parallel manner, democracy ("rule of the people") emerges coextensively with the crisis of the expanding polis, namely the moment in which "the people" must adjudicate upon matters of citizenship. In other words, based upon the ordering and unifying metaphysics of naturalized law, according to the basileus and "the people," women, slaves or foreigners are biologically incapable of political citizenship.

This democracy, from Hellenic Society to the American Empire, regardless of its cant of inclusiveness, is always marked by its decision to exclude. In more precise terms, as political philosopher Charles W. Mills states, "White supremacy is the unnamed political system that has made the modern world what it is today."

In other words, akin to the manner in which Hellenic Society orders and unifies the polis, Western democracy is always presupposed and dependent upon the production of an antagonistic binary between citizen and noncitizen, what Mills generally refers to as the "Racial Contract."

With regard to the United States, the so-called "founding fathers" discursively, ideologically and juridically constitute the political sovereignty of their "whiteness" in stark contrast to those, whom by virtue of naturalized difference, are incapable of full citizenship: "Injuns, Mexkins, Afrkins or Ohrentals." In fact, one could equally argue that the ideological "war on terrorism" begins precisely at the moment in which the imperialism of the nation-state approaches a state of emergency, namely when its innumerable acts of genocide, removal, termination or incarceration of the "nonpeople" are met with armed resistance.

As Mills states rather incisively, "These the white men bring partially into society as subordinate citizens or exclude on reservations or deny the existence of or exterminate." As previously intimated, "whiteness" is produced concomitant with the ordering and unifying notion of "the people," in particular, the male, elder, affluent or commander is posited as the naturalized beginning of time and space under the auspices of civil society. According to the logos of the "Racial Contract," if the "nonpeople" survive his genocide, removal, internment, termination or incarceration, they exist (at best) as subordinate political subjects, or (at worst) as mere cultural artifacts bound by the time and space of the rez, barrio, cell, hood, colonia, ghetto or camp.

In this regard, the political sovereignty of the United States, in terms of its international policy (policing) of "non people," remains steadfastly premised and inextricable from its domestic repression of "nonwhites" through de jure and de facto segregation, detention or incarceration. Parallel to the manner in which the Oglala Lakota, Apache, Mexican American, Chinese American, African American, Japanese American and Xicana (as well as many more) are mandated by "the people" to turn themselves in at various military forts, encampments, police agencies or citizens from 13 ("nonwhite") countries - in accordance with the U.S. Patriot Act - must now follow suit.

Pacifica Radio Media estimates nearly 1,500 Muslim men, regardless of their citizenship, are being detained in clandestine locations without facing formal charges - without receiving legal recourse. Mexican Americans from southwest Detroit, akin to their decade of forced repatriation (1929-1939), continue to endure and resist an intensified siege from local, state and federal police authorities, in particular, the Immigration and Naturalization Service checkpoint.

For these various reasons, my pursuit of happiness is fleeting, because even though I stand in solidarity with millions in opposition to 12 years of military aggression and inhumane economic embargoes against Iraqi families, I realize most are not united against this naturalized law of the exception.

In short, the "new Constellation" persists in ordering and unifying "the people" in permanent opposition to the "nonpeople," the presupposition for all political strife "from sea to shining sea."

Anthony R. Vigil is an English doctoral student. Reach him at vigilant@msu.edu.

Tom Daschle, This One's For You!

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Anyone out there sure what this guy is talking about, or what his point is?

Well, yeah - he's saying the new constellation persists in ordering and unifying the people in permanent opposition to the nonpeople.

Duh.

What in the name of all that is good is this wack-job talking about?

I'm guessing this guy is a History major who's trying to impress some commie professor.

Or he's been dropped on his head one to many times.

Either way,he needs to go easy on the bong hits.

About this windbag:

Anthony R Vigil, born and raised in Denver, Colorado, is a Chicano poet and activist who tutors and educates barrio youth in the areas of Mexicano/Chicano Studies and Literature. Through his experience with his sisters and brothers of the barrio, he identifies the arts, specifically, poetry, as the epicenter for liberating revolutionary social change for Mexicano/Chicano youth. As such, his Chicanoetry and "los wordshopz" often lowride him to jive [juvenile] hall, recreation centers, street corners, detention centers, and to Mexicano/Chicano youth conferences. Because of his poetry of witness and protest in the urban barrios, he has been unofficially banned from speaking and reading at numerous public schools in Denver. Although his first manuscript of poetry, The Obsidian Ranfla, is yet unpublished, his poems have been placed in the Mid-American Review, The Dry Creek Review, Tonatiuh-Quinto Sol, The Heartlands Today, El Mexica, and Struggle. His largo poema, "La Boda Chicana: Globeville, Color Azlan" won a 1994 AWP Intro Award in poetry.

Not to you personally but, I'll never understand why people post articles from University newspapers here.

I mean, university newspapers are "just pretend" papers produced by "journalists" who've not yet attempted to exist in the real world where human effort breeds consequence.

Why not post High School Newspaper articles?

I'd weigh the opinions of the NY Times before any university paper in the US because there's a chance (however small) that a writer at the Times has actually lived in the real world and developed an informed opinion based on experience.

I know what I was like when I was 20. I know what my friends were like. Lets not kid ourselves: We all know that the opinions of 20 year olds are basically worthless.

Postmodern writing reminds me of something that could be churned out by an ant. Using overwrought moralistic language, vague concepts, bits and pieces from philosophy and history, it always tells the same tale in exactly the same way it's been told hundreds of times before. Can you guess the moral of the story - of any story that postmodernists would like to tell? It's easy. White men are evil. "People of color" are good. The Enlightenment was a study in oppression. No one knows but us.

This author's little exercise is the same as thousands of others. It sounds the same; tt smells the same. It uses the same phrases and the same emotionally-charged moralistic language. It's the kind of writing that would be acceptable in Soviet Russia.

Postmodernists are boring, pretentious midgets. The one thing they appear to love most of all, however, is the thought of educating everyone else as to their own goodness. They love the moral pose and the kettle drum bang of their own bloated rhetoric.

I get your point, but this one was so over-the-top that I had to post it.

My source? The Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web" email digest. If it was good enough for the WSJ, it's certainly good enough for Freepers.

And this guy is no doubt closer to 30 than 20...that is, if he hasn't passed the Big Three-Oh already. Note from the bio above that he's a doctoral candidate and has a long history of AztlaNazi agitation behind him.

HE is a LEFTIST AND POSTMODERN OBFUSCATOR. He says in 1000 words what could be said in 5 "Its the white mans fault".

There are many errors in fact, logic and thought in the essay, but the obscurity of his point makes it hard to even engage a logical debate. (To wit, he pretends that democracy requires citizens AND noncitizens. wrong, but an essential component of marxist thought these days is such a dichotomy - to contruct classism out of every element of complex society ).

Why should you care? IN 5 YEARS HE WILL BE TEACHING THIS CRAP TO FRESHMAN STUDENT SOMEWHERE.

He is saying that he is frustrated that because he is not white, he has little or no voice in shaping american public policy. Fact is, his non whiteness has nothing to do with it. For most of us, life is about finding our personal happiness in our own little sphere, and we have little or no effect in the big scheme of things.

To quote a song title "everbody wants to rule the world". This guy does too, but does not understand that only a few actually get to do it or even have a small semblence of real power.

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