Hodgkiss Tsdc Imperialism K

hodgkiss tsdc imperialism k

Imperialism K

1NC Shell

Initially, the question of imperialism is no longer just about occupation but the role our actions play in economic and extra-economic coercion which is the new avenue for sustaining imperial control and interventions – the affirmative’s calls for economic engagement are rooted in a colonialist desire to control and manipulate

WOOD 2003 [Ellen, Ph.D Political Science from UCLA, Empire of Capital, isbn: 1859845029, p. 4-5

What makes class domination or imperialism specifically capitalist is the predominance of economic, as distinct from direct 'extraeconomic' - political, military, judicial - coercion. Yet this certainly does not mean that capitalist imperialism can dispense with extraeconomic force. First, capitalism certainly does not rule out more traditional forms of coercive colonization. On the contrary, the history of capitalism is, needless to say, a very long and bloody story of conquest and colonial oppression; and, in any case, the development of economic imperatives powerful enough to replace older forms of direct rule has taken a very long time, coming to fruition only in the twentieth century. But, more particularly, capitalist imperialism even in its most mature form requires extra-economic support. Extra-economic force is clearly essential to the maintenance of economic coercion itself. The difficulty, again, is that the role of extra-economic force, in capitalist imperialism as in capitalist class domination, is opaque, because in general it operates not by intervening directly in the relation between capital and labour, or between imperial and subordinate states, but more indirectly, by sustaining the system of economic compulsions, the system of property (and propertylessness) and the operation of markets.

And, imperialism makes lives disposable and justifies war as a perpetual means of control for the state.

Kelly 2010. (M.G.E. Lecturer in Philosophy at Middlesex University and author of The Political Philosophy of Michel Foucault (Routledge, 2008). “International Biopolitics: Foucault, Globalisation and Imperialism” < http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/3887/1/Theoria_-_final.pdf>

Our account is of a biopolitical imperialism, a biopolitical dimension to imperialism as understood in the Marxist sense.47 It adds the dimension of populationto the existing economic accounts of imperialism.. Economics is of course closely tied to biopolitics, to the wellbeing of the population and the functioning of administration. The economic dimension of imperialism is something that has been extensively studied and debated: we cannot deal with it here. Biopolitical imperialism is not meant to be an historically new form, unlike Hardt and Negri‟s Empire. Imperialism has been biopolitical for a long time: as long as both biopolitics and imperialism have existed concurrently. Mike Davis‟ work on nineteenth century imperialism, Late Victorian Holocausts, is instructive in this regard.48 Davis shows through case studies of India, China and Brazil that imperialism, present either in the form of direct government or that of economic interest, horribly devastated the welfare apparatuses of these countries, such as they were, during the nineteenth century. As Davis points out, this pattern is originary to the existence of a „third world‟, and reverses the situation which existed prior to the French Revolution, in which state welfare provision was far more advanced in the Orient than Europe.49 Moreover, the populations of these countries were decimated precisely in order to benefit European populations – the most graphic example of this is the export of foodstuffs in massive quantities to Britain from India while Indians starved in their millions.50 It would seem the situation a century later is similar in its broad pattern. The IMF-World Bank complex‟s imposition of „structural adjustment‟ austerity measures have mandated slashing spending on basic biopolitics and the conversion of economies to exporting to the First World. Imperialism ensnares through direct investment (buying resources and the means of production) and by „development loans‟, both of which foster the harvesting of surpluses from the economy, not biopolitics. Investors may take care of their workforce, but they don‟t take care of the country more generally. Neoliberal economic reform in the periphery refers precisely to the dismantling of biopolitics. In the centre, neoliberalism is imposed with care and consideration, not absolutely; although there has been dismantling here, biopolitical protections are not simply trashed, but they are in the periphery. That is, the introduction of neoliberalism in the centre occurs in the context of a state that is still fundamentally concerned with the welfare and consent of a population, whereas elsewhere it is imposed from without, overriding such concerns. The states and civil societies of the First World essentially do not care about humanity outside their populations and derive a benefit for their own population at the expense of those outside. As Foucault puts it in explicating the relation of the subject to the pre-biopolitical sovereign, those outside are „neutral‟ „from the point of view of life and death‟.51 This allows the life of those outside to be actively imperilled for any benefit, no matter how marginal, accruing to those inside. The biopolity assumes, in respect of the masses outside its population, „the right to take life or let live‟:52 this „right to take life‟ is an aspect we have yet to examine, the use of force – war – as the thanatopolitical tool for the regulation of the outside.

And, the endpoint of this colonialist imperialism is species extinction

Porter 1998 [Robert B. Porter is Professor of Law and Director of the Tribal Law and Government Center, University of Kansas, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of the Sac and Fox Nation, “A Proposal to the Hanodaganyas to Decolonize Federal Indian Law,” University of Michigan Journal of Law, p. 11, 1998]

Nonetheless, this otherwise natural process was dramatically altered by colonization. These colonizing efforts were accomplished by force and often with great speed, producing dramatic changes within Indigenous societies and interfering with the natural process of adaptation and change. This disruption has had a genocidal effect; groups of Indigenous peoples that existed 500 years ago no longer exist. There should be no doubt that their extinction was not an accident – it was the product of a concerted effort to subjugate and eliminate the native human population in order to allow for the pursuit of wealth and manifest destiny. As a result, extinction is the most dramatic effect of colonization. Allowed to run its full course, colonization will disrupt and destroy the natural evolutionary process of the people being colonized to the point of extinction.

Thus, our alternative is to reject the 1AC by voting negative to embrace the immanence of revolution against imperialism.
Rejection of the 1AC opens up the space of a revolutionary subjectivity – voting negative is to affirm the immanent presence of revolution – the only thing stopping it is the belief that it's not here.
Zizek 2004 [Slavoj, Revolution at the Gates, Zizek on Lenin – The 1917 Writings, p.259-260]
As Deleuze saw very clearly, we cannot provide in advance an unambiguous criterion which will allow us to distinguish "false" violent outburst from the "miracle" of the authentic revolutionary breakthrough. The ambiguity is irreducible here, since the "miracle" can occur only through the repetition of previous failures. And this is also why violence is a necessary ingredient of a revolutionary political act. That is to say: what is the criterion of a political act proper? Success as such clearly does not count, even if we define it in the dialectical terms of Merleau-Ponty: as the wager that the future will retroactively redeem our present horrible acts (this is how Merleau-Ponty, in Humanism and Terror, provided one of the more intelligent justifications of the Stalinist terror: retroactively, it will become justified if its final outcome is true freedom);129 neither does reference to some abstract-universal ethical norm. The only criterion is the absolutely inherent one: that of the enacted utopia. In a genuine revolutionary breakthrough, the utopian future is neither simply fully realized, present, nor simply evoked as a distant promise which justifies present violence – it is rather as if in a unique suspension of temporality, in the short circuit between the present and the future, we are – as if by Grace – briefly allowed to act as if the utopian future is (not yet fully here, but) already at hand, there to be seized. Revolution is experienced not as a present hardship we have to endure for the sake of the happiness and freedom of future generations, but as the present hardship over which this future happiness and freedom already cast their shadow – in it, we are already free even as we fight for freedom; we are already happy even as we fight for happiness, no matter how difficult the circumstances. Revolution is not a Merleau-Pontyan wager, an act suspended in the futur anterieur, to be legitimized or de-legitimized by the long-term outcome of present acts; it is, as it were, its own ontological proof, an immediate index of its own truth.

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Cuba specific

Since the era of Thomas Jefferson, Cuba has been in the sights of the American Empire. However, they have always been seen as “the one that got away.” The aff’s attempts to enter into “economic engagement” with Cuba are nothing but another attempt by imperial powers to finally gain control of Cuba and begin its domination of Latin America.Lamrani 2013 Salim Lamrani, La Sorbonne University, Paris, France. “US economic sanctions against Cuba: objectives of an imperialist policy,” 2013, http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Caribbean/USEconomicSanctions_Cuba.html

The economic sanctions imposed on Cuba by the United States are unique in view of their longevity and of their complexity but they are consistent with the real objectives of the first world power. In order to show this, it is necessary to base this analysis on the following postulate: the blockade is part of a scheme designed not to promote democratic values, as the administration in Washington would have us believe, but to control the natural resources of Third World nations through subjugation. And the history of the United States characterized mainly by violent and bloody conquest of new territories proves this unequivocally. As far back as the middle of the 19th century, U.S. expansionist William Gilpin announced: "The destiny of the American people is to subdue the continent." The primary goal of the United States is to make sure that the resources of the countries of the South remain at hand of the capital of the masters of the universe. The case of Cuba is exceptional because it is the only country that has dared to refuse to follow the orders set by their northern neighbor, designing its political, economic and social system, at once sovereign and independent, despite the unilateral constraints imposed by Washington. The enmity Cuba is a victim of reflects a historical continuity whose broad lines must be retraced. And by the way, it would be widely-known if something like a sense of respect for obvious historical truisms existed. This topic would not be controversial if the society we live in was intellectually free. Cuba is no doubt the oldest preoccupation of U.S. colonialists. As far back as October 20, 1805, Thomas Jefferson evoked the extreme importance of the Caribbean archipelago under Spanish rule at the time stating: "The control which, with Florida Point, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure of our political well-being." However, Spain could rule the island until "our people is sufficiently advanced to take those territories from the Spanish, bit by bit" . In 1809, in a letter to James Madison, he wrote: "I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States." The theory of the "ripe fruit" evoked in 1823 by one of the most clear-sighted and intelligent political visionary of the history of the United States, John Quincy Adams mentioned "an object of transcendent importance to the commercial and political interests of our Union" that was to fall in the hands of the United States at all costs . This object was the Cuban island, which was already the priority of the United States government of the time. After the collapse of Napoleon's empire, the Monroe doctrine came into the world. It stipulated that the United States would on no account accept European interventions in the affairs of the American hemisphere. It would enable the northern giant to establish its power on the whole continent without hindrance, since Europe would not interfere. The theory was first motivated by Russian designs on Oregon and by the will to prevent any reconquest of the young Latin American republics by European nations. The Monroe doctrine one of the founding principles of U.S. foreign policy had imperialist and hegemonic aims. With the Roosevelt Corollary, its scope was later extended to encompass a diversity of situations. Economic factors had a primary role in the search for new markets. The birth of an industrial nation and the rapid increase in the production of goods entailed the need to conquer new territories. Because of its strategic position if the Gulf of Mexico and despite the failure of the various attempts to buy the island to Spain, Cuba was in the U.S. line of sight . In 1890, U.S. investments in Cuba amounted to $50 million and 7% of U.S. foreign trade was with the island. Spain spent $7 million on Cuban imported goods whereas U.S. imports from the archipelago amounted to $61 million. U.S. economic interests entailed the need for the U.S. to closely control the Cuban market in order to protect U.S. investments .