1NC

The US uses economic engagement as a disguise to hide their

colonialist efforts towards Latin America
Ryan 99
[David Ryan, Colonialism and Hegemony in Latin America: An Introduction, The International History Review, June
1999, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40109004, pages 290-296]
Colonial sentiment underpinned US policy towards both the inter- American economic and world systems. Following
US policy-makers opted to seize the opportunity to
the Second World War,
integrate the world economies wherever possible . The assumed lessons of the 1930s
taught that fragmentation in the global political economy was perilous as well as inefficient: economic autarchy
inhibited growth in the world sys- tem, restricted the performance of the US economy, and at times restricted its
access to strategic resources.The United States regarded economic nationalism, which
as a rejection of modernization
'peripheral' countries associated with national self- determination,
and, at times, as a threat to the hegemonic model. Economic multilateralism,
integral to the Bretton Woods system and promoted through its affiliate institutions - the Inter-
national Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Recon- struction and Development (IBRD, later
known as the World Bank) - became a tradition, albeit an invented one, of US
diplomacy. The colonial characteristics of dollar diplomacy are evident in
the post- war operations of the IMF, in that loans were accompanied by fiscal supervision.2
Much of the advice given did not conform, however, to the traditions of the United States's economic history, only
to its ideology and needs at the time. US economic development was marked by state inter- vention in the form of
protective tariffs, import quotas, and subsidies to the export sector in the form of state-financed promotions. Yet
modernization theories forbade foreigners to emulate these practices, while simul- taneously claiming that
universal models of development existed, of which the United States was the finest.3 Thus, the combination of the
world system and the international system created an uneasy conceptual alliance, which at times could only be
maintained through the use offeree or covert action. In the immediate post-war period, the weight of US political
and eco-nomic power limited the self-determination of the Latin American states. When the United States, at the
inter-American conference at Chapultepec in 1945, reaffirmed its belief in free trade to 'a sceptical Latin American
Latin American governments faced a dilemma. As the growth of
audience',
imports showed no signs of slowing down, they had either to find add-itional
sources of foreign capital to pay for them or to restrict them. Such restrictions had been
necessary after the crash of 1929 and during the sub- sequent depression, but in the post-war period such
The propensity to opt for
limitations aggravated the world system and required internal structural adjustment.
Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI), fuelled by the rise of nationalism and the knowledge
that the European countries could no longer purchase primary products in their former quantities, followed from
widespread scepticism of 'models of development that required an open door to foreign goods and capital'.1
gave the United States opportunities to disguise its
Coupled with the cold war, ISI
colonialism in Latin America through the banks and newly created
multilateral lending institutions. Given that ISI required consid- erable capital injection in the form
of aid programmes or direct investment, and that both were contingent on accepting economic and political pre-
scriptions, the United States had the opportunity to enhance its influence over the structural and political outcomes.
The Latin American states were told that they would not benefit from an equivalent of the Marshall Plan despite
their wartime co-operation: their capital demands would only be met in the 'right' political environment. Thus, most
of them responded to the United States's anti-Communist message; promising to fight Commun- ism throughout the
Western Hemisphere by introducing anti-Communist legislation and bringing labour and the left under greater
control. In resisting what labour and the left regarded as US colonialism, they oscillated 'between authoritarian
nationalist projects . . . and a commitment to revolutionary politics' that at times erupted in revolution.2 The string
of reform and revolutionary movements from the 1940s to the 1990s, from Bolivia and Guatemala to the
Sandinistas and Zapatistas, was partly a reaction to the exclusion of the left from the political system and revulsion
against regimes identified with US interests.
Unlimited imperialist conquest inevitably results in extinction,
every modern war has been a byproduct of the spread of
colonialism
Harvey 06
[David Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism: A Theory of Uneven Geographical Development, May 17 2006,
Chapter 13]
At times of savage devaluation, interregional rivalries typically degenerate into struggles over who is to bear the
burden of devaluation. The export of unemployment, of inflation, of idle productive
capacity become the stakes in the game. Trade wars, dumping, interest rate wars,
restrictions on capital flow and foreign exchange, immigration policies, colonial
conquest, the subjugation and domination of tributary economies, the
forced reorganization of the division of labour within economic empires,
and, finally, the physical destruction and forced devaluation of a rival's
capital through war are some of the methods at hand. Each entails the aggressive
manipulation of some aspect of economic, financial or state power. The politics of imperialism, the
sense that the contradictions of capitalism can be cured through world domination by some omnipotent power,
surges to the forefront. The ills of capitalism cannot so easily be
contained. Yet the degeneration of economic into political struggles plays its part in the long-run stabilization
of capitalism, provided enough capital is destroyed en route. Patriotism and nationalism have many functions in the
contemporary world and may arise for diverse reasons; but they frequently provide a most convenient cover for the
devaluation of both capital and labour. We will shortly return to this aspect of matters since it is , I believe, by
far the most serious threat , not only to the survival of capitalism (which matters not a jot), but to
the survival of the human race . Twice in the twentieth century, the world has been
plunged into global war through inter-imperialist rivalries. Twice in the space of a
generation, the world experienced the massive devaluation of capital through
physical destruction, the ultimate consumption of labour power as cannon
fodder. Class warfare, of course, has taken its toll in life and limb, mainly
through the violence daily visited by capital upon labour in the work place and through the violence of primitive
accumulation (including imperialist wars fought against other social formations in
the name of capitalist 'freedoms'). But the vast losses incurred in two world
wars were provoked by inter-imperialist rivalries. How can this be explained on the basis
of a theory that appeals to the class relation between capital and labour as fundamental to the interpretation of
history? This was, of course, the problem with which Lenin wrestled in his essay on imperialism. But his argument,
as we saw in chapter 10, is plagued by ambiguity. Is finance capital national or international? What is the relation,
then, between the military and political deployment of state power and the undoubted trend within capitalism to
create multinational forms and to forge global spatial integration? And if monopolies and finance capital were so
powerful and prone in any case to collusion, then why could they not contain capitalism's contradictions short of
destroying each other? What is it, then, that makes inter-imperialist wars necessary to the survival of capitalism?
The 'third cut' at crisis theory suggests an interpretation of inter-imperialist wars as constitutive moments in the
dynamics of accumulation, rather than as abberations, accidents or the simple product of excessive greed. Let us
see how this is so. When the 'inner dialectic' at work within a region drives it to seek external resolutions to its
problems, then it must search out new markets, new opportunities for capital export, cheap raw materials, low-cost
labour power, etc. All such measures, if they are to be anything other than a temporary palliative, either put a claim
on future labour or else directly entail an expansion of the proletariat. This expansion can be accomplished through
The
population growth, the mobilization of latent sectors of the reserve army, or primitive accumulation.
insatiable thirst of capitalism for fresh supplies of labour accounts for the
vigour with which it has pursued primitive accumulation, destroying,
transforming and absorbing pre-capitalist populations wherever it finds
them. When surpluses of labour are there for the taking, and capitalists have not, through competition,
erroneously pinned their fates to a technological mix which cannot absorb that labour, then crises are typically of
short duration, mere hiccups on a general trajectory of sustained global accumulation, and usually manifest as mild
switching crises within an evolving structure of uneven geographical development. This was standard fare for
nineteenth-century capitalism. The real troubles begin when capitalists, fating shortages of
induce unemployment through
labour supply and as ever urged on by competition,
technological innovations which disturb the equilibrium between
production and realization, between the productive forces and their accompanying social relations.
The closing of the frontiers to primitive accumulation, through sheer exhaustion of possibilities, increasing
resistance on the part of pre-capitalist populations, or monopolization by some dominant power, has, therefore, a
tremendous significance for the long-run stability of capitalism. This was the sea-change that began to be felt
increasingly as capitalism moved into the twentieth century. It was the sea-change that, far more than the rise of
monopoly or finance forms of capitalism, played the crucial role in pushing capitalism deeper into the mire of global
crises and led, inexorably, to the kinds of primitive accumulation and devaluation jointly wrought through inter-
capitalist wars. The mechanisms, as always, are intricate in their details and greatly confused in actual historical
conjunctures by innumerable cross-currents of conflicting forces. But we can construct a simple line of argument to
illustrate the important points. Any regional alliance, if it is to continue the process of accumulation, must maintain
access to reserves of labour as well as to those 'forces of nature' (such as key mineral resources) that are otherwise
capable of monopolization. Few problems arise if reserves of both exist in the region wherein most local capital
circulates. When internal frontiers close, capital has to look elsewhere or risk devaluation. The regional alliance
feels the stress between capital embedded in place and capital that moves to create new and permanent centres of
accumulation elsewhere. Conflict between different regional and national capitals over access to labour reserves
and natural resources begins to be felt. The themes of internationalism and multilaterialism run hard up against the
desire for autarky as the means to preserve the position of some particular region in the face of internal
contradictions and external pressures - autarky of the sort that prevailed in the 193Os, as Britain sealed in its
Commonwealth trade and Japan expanded into Manchuria and mainland Asia, Germany into eastern Europe and
Italy into Africa, pitting different regions against each other, each pursuing its own 'spatial fix'. Only the United
States found it appropriate to pursue an 'open door' policy founded on internationalism and multilateral trading. In
the end the war was fought to contain autarky and to open up the whole world to the
potentialities ofgeographical expansion and unlimited uneven development.
That solution, pursued single-mindedly under United States's hegemony
after 1945, had the advantage of being super-imposed upon one of the
most savage bouts of devaluation and destruction ever recorded in
capitalism's violent history. And signal benefits accrued not simply from the immense destruction of
capital, but also from the uneven geographical distribution of that destruction. The world was saved
from the terrors of the great depression not by some glorious 'new deal' or
the magic touch of Keynesian economics in the treasuries of the world, but
by the destruction and death of global war.

Alternative text: engage in scholarly analysis of imperialism as

it relates to micro and macro level politics. This allows us to
see the origins of imperialism within the political and
education realm and separate ourselves from them
Shome 06
[Raka Shome, Postcolonial Interventions in the Rhetorical Canon: An Other View, Communication Theory, March
17 2006, Wiley interscience]
The importance of a postcolonial position to any scholarly practice is that
it urges us to analyze our academic discourses and connect them to the
larger political practices of our nations. This means that in examining our academic discourses, the
postcolonial question to ask is: To what extent do our scholarly practices-
whether they be the kind of issues we explore in our research, the themes around which we organize our teaching
syllabi, or the way that we structure our conferences and decide who speaks (and does not speak), about what, in
the name of intellectual practices - legitimize the hegemony of Western power
structures? In posing this question, the postcolonial perspective does not suggest that as scholars writing in
the West all that we do is legitimize the imperial political practices of Western nations. Rather, the argument
is that we need to examine our academic discourses against a larger
backdrop of Western hegemony, neocolonial, and racial politics. We need
to engage in contrapuntal lines of a global analysis where we see texts
and worldly institutions . . . working together (Said, 1993, p. 318). In the pursuit of our
scholarly goals, we often do not stop to think or ask questions about why, for example, research agenda A seems
more important to us than research agenda B? What is the ideology that operates in us that makes research agenda
A seem more significant than research agenda B? How are we always already interpellated into examining A but
not B? What does that interpellation say about our role in reproducing and participating in the hegemonic global
domination of the rest by the West? What does it mean, for instance, when I am told that there is a market for
research agenda A but none for research agenda B? Or that if I did pursue research agenda By I would have to do it
Who
in a way that would make it marketable? And what way would that be? Whose way would that be?
decides what is marketable? What does the decision have to do with the
political practices of our nations? How does this market serve the
capitalistic and racist hegemony of Western nations? And what is my
position, as an intellectual, in reproducing this hegemony? The point in asking such
questions is to recognize the latent ideological structures that inform our scholarship and practices. As Van Dijk
(1993) puts it, often under the surface of sometimes sophisticated scholarly analysis and description of other
races, peoples, or groups . . . we find a powerful ideological layer of self-interest, in-group favoritism, and
In fact, even when we do sometimes try to break out of
ethnocentrism (p. 160).
the Eurocentric canons informing contemporary academic scholarship by
including alternate cultural and racial perspectives in our syllabi, we often
do not realize that instead of really breaking free of the canon, all that we
do is stretch it, add things to it. But the canon remains the same and
unchallenged. Our subject positions in relation to the canon remain the same and challenged. Instead
of examining how the canon itself is rooted in a larger discourse of
colonialism and Western hegemony, we frequently use the canon to
appropriate other voice^.^ The question than arises, so what is to be done? Perhaps the
first step here is to do what Spivak (1990) suggests: to unlearn our privilege (p. 9). And the first step toward that
it requires seeing ourselves not sequestered in an
unlearning requires self-reflexivity;
academic institution but connecting things that we think or not think, say
or not say, teach or not teach, to the larger political and ideological
practices of our nations in their interactions with the rest of the world. The
solution, however, is not merely to do more rhetorical studies on nonwhite people (e.g., Campbells, 1986, study on
African American women speakers), for that only becomes a matter of extending, instead of displacing or
challenging, the canon by adding others. Rather, the solution is to critically examine and challenge the very value
system on which the rhetorical canon and our scholarship is based. For instance, rhetoric as a discipline has been
traditionally built on public address. But historically public address has been a realm where imperial voices were
primarily heard and imperial policies were articulated. The colonized did not always have access to a public realm,
or if they did, their speeches were not always recorded in mainstream documents, since the means of production
rested with the imperial subject. All this perhaps means that we have built a lot of our understanding of rhetoric,
and the canon of rhetoric, by focusing on (and often celebrating) imperial voices. This calls for a reexamination of
our paradigms. The move here is parallel to that made by feminists in their challenges of the masculinist biases of
scholars are to reexamine the discipline in relation to issues such as imperialism,
the discipline. If rhetorical
neocolonialism, and race, then they need to perhaps do what Spivak (see explanation) suggests, unlearn
a lot of the rhetorical tradition and evaluate critically what kinds of
knowledge have been (and continue to be) privileged, legitimated [and]
displaced in our texts and theories and what configuration of socio-political [and racial] interests this
privileging, displacing, and legitimizing has served (and continues to serve) (Conquergood, 1991, p. 193). For one
this means engaging in some serious soul searching to uncover why
thing,
scholarship in our discipline has been and continues to be so white (Rakow,
1989, p. 2l2). It is through such postcolonial self-reflexivity of our discipline, as well as our individual scholarship,
that we will be able to continue the task of pushing the traditional paradigms of rhetoric further in order to create
spaces for racially and culturally marginalized voices and perspectives on rhetoric to emerge - voices and
perspectives that would comprise sensitive postcolonial responses to the neocolonial and racist circumstances of
our present time. Second, the postcolonial critique of Western discursive imperialism that constructs racial others
and that legitimizes the contemporary global power structures has important implications for rhetorical criticism, in
that it beckons us to recognize postcolonialism as a timely and important critical and political perspective. As
Williams and Chrisman (1 994) emphasizes with great urgency in their introduction to Colonial Discourse and Post-
Colonial Theory, it is alarming how many of the attitudes, the strategies, and even how much of the room for
manoeuvre of the colonial period [still] remain in place (p. 3) in contemporary social, cultural, and I would add,
academic practices. Given this, it is unfortunate that in our literature we hardly find articles, especially in our
mainstream journals, that examine neocolonial representations of racial others or that analyze, for instance, the
discursive processes through which the (white) West gets constantly legitimized in political, cultural, and social
discourses.
Link Stuff
 Cultural Exchange Link
Culture exchange is a neoliberal attempt for the US to control
the revolutionary figure; the depiction of the new Anglicized
Zorro is a response to Subcomandante Marcos Zapatista
revolutionary movement
Lie 01 (pronounce Lee-ye) [Nadia Lie, Free Trade in Images? Zorro as Cultural Signifier in the Contemporary
Global/Local System, Nepantla: Views from the South 2.3 489-508, 2001, professor of Spanish and Spanish-
American literature at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Louvain, Belgium. She is the author of Transicin y
transaccin: La revista cubana "Casa de las Amricas" (1996) and coeditor, with Theo D'haen, of Constellation
Caliban: Figurations of a Character (1997). She is currently working with colleagues on a volume on postcolonial
popular heroes provisionally titled "Postcolonial Legends: Stories Children Live By."]
It would be tempting to relate the film's censorship of anti-American
sentiments to its North American origin and to present Spielberg as the champion of
cultural imperialism, as Debray and other European intellectuals have done. We should take into account, however,
the possible interest of the Mexican state in the recycling of the mythical Zorro figure, not only because the film was shot in Mexico
and, according to the publicity surrounding it, proudly sobut also because Mexican organizations were
involved in its production (particularly the Mexican Ministry of Culture and Estudios Churubusco Azteca).14 If the
new state of accelerated globalization we are said to have entered teaches us anything, it is that the old [End Page 499]
center-periphery model in power analyses no longer holds (Walters 1995, 296)
since new, cross-border alliances between the rich and the powerful have
come into being. As an agreement between "rich, capitalist" countries (the
United States, Canada) and a "poor, underdeveloped" one (Mexico), NAFTA is a
clear expression of this new situation (Roncagliolo 1996, 41; Ydice 1996, 93). In this sense, Spielberg's
production might very well be addressed to both sides of the border, translating and channeling not only subaltern
frustrations, but also Mexican and U.S. upper-class obsessions with possible gains
and losses in the new socioeconomic configuration. For one, Spielberg could have avoided in
a more radical way any reference to the above-mentioned episodes in U.S. imperialism, but his specific though anachronistic
allusions to it show that he rather preferred to simultaneously arouse and control a social phantasy of possession and dispossession.
Likewise,the taming and training of the bandit Murieta by the Spanish, anglicized Zorro-
might be considered the expression of a common
Hopkins into a system of law and order,
neoliberal obsession with controlling new groups of subalterns . As Gareth Williams
(2000 [1997], 19) puts it, the denationalized labor market "produces a populace on the one
hand subsumed by market forces yet on the other with a potential for ungovernability that the
neoliberal state constantly needs to control, manage and, when necessary,
dominate, though not necessarily incorporate."15 In this context, the current Zorro boom created
by Spielberg's film (reeditions, new releases of old videos, Sandra Curtis's popularizing study, etc.) could also be read as indicating
the increasing importance of this "populace" as a social group (a reading that parallels the original Zorro's success during the
Depression). Thus we find on both sides of the border an obsession with the symbol of the bandit, a symbol linked to unruly political
It is this
times in which there is a "decline, or even a break-up and dissolution of state power" (Hobs\-bawm 2000 [1969], 17).
political context which makes Hobsbawm conjecture that we might be reentering a phase
of banditry, though now in a modified form: Insofar as the myth of the
bandit represents not only freedom, heroism and the dream of a general
justice, but more especially personal insurgence against personal
injustice, the righting of my individual wrongs, the idea of the individual
justicer survives, particularly among those who lack the collective
organizations that are the main line of defense against such wrongs . There are
plenty of people on the underside of modern [End Page 500] urban society who feel this. Perhaps, as the state becomes more
remote and such bodies as unions contract into sectional self-defense organizations (as happens in some countries), the appeal of
such dreams of private insurgence and private justice will grow. (Hobsbawm 2000 [1969], 189) As my analysis has demonstrated, it
is precisely the inscription of personal sentiments of frustration in the Zorro-noble robber figure that characterizes the Spielberg
production and allows it to update the bandit motif for our "global" times. At the same time, the renewed stress on our hero's
cultural identitySpanish or Mexicancan be regarded as another logical outcome of the globalization process: "As power moves
upwards from the nation-state towards larger international units so there is a countervailing pressure, whose roots are various, for
it to move downwards. There is a new search for identity and difference in the face
of impersonal global forces" (Martin Jacques, quoted in Tomlinson 1991, 178). It is remarkable that precisely
these two features distinguish the updated Zorro as a model of resistance
from its contemporary Mexican counterpart, a figure whoat least until nowhas lived in the
Lacandona jungle as an outlaw and presented the mask as a key symbol of his movement : Subcomandante
Marcos.16 Indeed, though Marcos defends his country's indigenous people, his green eyes behind the mask make it clear that
he is not one of them; moreover, Marcos explicitly dissociates himself as a symbol of resistance from any particularist identity.17 In
his enemy is not a specific, individual adversarynor even a nationbut a worldwide system
addition,
called globalism or neoliberalism, a system that should be fought in order
to achieve a more just and dignified Mexican society.18 Alejandro Murieta,
on the other hand, describes himself as "a man in search of a vision,"
incapable as he is of providing one of his own. In this sense, as Banderas asserted, the new
Zorro does turn out to be a singularly important role model, "especially today, and especially in Mexico." More
precisely, his fusion with the noble robber figure, who is not a
revolutionary or a reformer, helps to domesticate the subversive potential
of the Zorro icon as a clear reply (or alternative) to the Zapatista symbol.

Western culture works as a quid pro quo with the Mexican

state to manipulate identity politics- the new platform is
Hollywood
Lie 01 (pronounce Lee-ye) [Nadia Lie, Free Trade in Images? Zorro as Cultural Signifier in the Contemporary
Global/Local System, Nepantla: Views from the South 2.3 489-508, 2001, professor of Spanish and Spanish-
American literature at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Louvain, Belgium. She is the author of Transicin y
transaccin: La revista cubana "Casa de las Amricas" (1996) and coeditor, with Theo D'haen, of Constellation
Caliban: Figurations of a Character (1997). She is currently working with colleagues on a volume on postcolonial
popular heroes provisionally titled "Postcolonial Legends: Stories Children Live By."]
"We must again stress the importance," urges Carlos Fuentes, "from the beginning, from the classroom and, if
possible, from the home, of submitting [End Page 501] the audiovisual image to the same critique that we have
always subjected literature and the plastic arts" (quoted in Fell 2000, 23). I have tried to undertake such a critique
an older Zorro model, designed for Anglo-American ,
here by analyzing the recoding of
working-class readers as a symbol of heroism and exoticism, into an updated version of the
Mexican American subaltern who, trained into the codes of neoliberal citizenship, is able to stand up
for his rights. The translation of the rhetoric of Otherness into that of
particularist identity, I have argued, is a function of a wider shift in the target
audiences. Inscribing the evolution of the Zorro figure in its context of global, imperialist politics allows us to
read the blank in both discourses, McCulley's and Spielberg's, regarding, respectively, the Mexican phase in
The Mask of Zorro, then, participates both
Californian history and the U.S. expansionist one.
in the new language of hybridity and borderlessness that is currently
linked to the NAFTA discourse, and in the at first glance more traditional
procedures of ideological selectivity and censorship once considered to be
the typical strategies of "cultural imperialism " (as exemplified in McCulley's and
Spielberg's erasure and distortion of historical facts). This conclusion might warn us against a too easy dismissal of
the cultural imperialism thesis in favor of a new "globalization concept" in cultural studies, a model that insists on
creativity and chaos rather than on power and resistance (Walters 1995, 3; Golding and Harris 1997, 5). For indeed,
"Relations of power and hegemony are inscribed and reproduced within
hybridity for whenever we look closely enough we find the traces of asymmetry in
culture, place descent. Hence hybridity raises the question of the terms of the
mixture, the conditions of mixing and melange. At the same time it's important to note the ways in
which hegemony is not merely reproduced but refigured in the process of
hybridisation" (Jan Nederveen Pieterse, quoted in Barker 1999, 44). On the other hand, it is true, as the
new globalization discourse holds, that those who benefit from these kinds of
procedures are no longer easy to identify, since transnational agreements
distribute wealth and misery in more diffuse ways than before . In the specific
case of Zorro, the possible interest of the Mexican state in domesticating the
discourse of social banditry revived by the Zapatista movement must be taken
into account before putting all the blame for the censorship on the U.S. side of the border. And, finally, we must
acknowledge what Peter Golding and Phil Harris (1997, 5) have described as a shortcoming of the former cultural
imperialist model in cultural criticism, namely, the "assumption that audiences are passive, [End Page 502] and that
local and oppositional creativity is of little significance." In the last instance, the readers or spectators will decide
what to make of the Zorro symbol, and among them may be found middle- or upper-class spectators (not only
"subalterns") who discover in the Zorro product an imaginary way of reliving and countering the risks of future
neoliberal engagements (risks I have evoked in my allusions to the gold rush) or even something completely
different. This unpredictable element in the interpretation process opens the door to other kinds of analysis of this
film, critiques that, by turning to matters of actual reception, might shift from considering Zorro as a cultural
"signifier" within the general (and useful) interpretative code of the overall global/local system to conceiving it as
"currency" in the unpredictable negotiations carried out between subject and text. Perhaps the combination of
these two approaches (the historical-contextual one and the reception study), together with scrupulous text
analysis, will provide the most interesting way of dealing with the new importance of audiovisual images alluded to
by Carlos Fuentes. If it is true, as Garca Canclini holds, that "in
the new generations identities
are organized not so much around historical-territorial symbolsthose of
the memory of the nationbut rather around Hollywood, Televisa or
Benetton" (quoted in Williams 2000 [1997], 30), the stakes in this kind of cultural
criticism might be much higher than one would first expect .
 Economic Engagement Link
The US uses economic engagement as a disguise to hide their
colonialist efforts towards Latin America
Ryan 99
[David Ryan, Colonialism and Hegemony in Latin America: An Introduction, The International History Review, June
1999, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40109004, pages 290-296]
Colonial sentiment underpinned US policy towards both the inter- American economic and world systems. Following
US policy-makers opted to seize the opportunity to
the Second World War,
integrate the world economies wherever possible . The assumed lessons of the 1930s
taught that fragmentation in the global political economy was perilous as well as inefficient: economic autarchy
inhibited growth in the world sys- tem, restricted the performance of the US economy, and at times restricted its
access to strategic resources.The United States regarded economic nationalism, which
as a rejection of modernization
'peripheral' countries associated with national self- determination,
and, at times, as a threat to the hegemonic model. Economic multilateralism,
integral to the Bretton Woods system and promoted through its affiliate institutions - the Inter-
national Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Recon- struction and Development (IBRD, later
known as the World Bank) - became a tradition, albeit an invented one, of US
diplomacy. The colonial characteristics of dollar diplomacy are evident in
the post- war operations of the IMF, in that loans were accompanied by fiscal supervision.2
Much of the advice given did not conform, however, to the traditions of the United States's economic history, only
to its ideology and needs at the time. US economic development was marked by state inter- vention in the form of
protective tariffs, import quotas, and subsidies to the export sector in the form of state-financed promotions. Yet
modernization theories forbade foreigners to emulate these practices, while simul- taneously claiming that
universal models of development existed, of which the United States was the finest.3 Thus, the combination of the
world system and the international system created an uneasy conceptual alliance, which at times could only be
maintained through the use offeree or covert action. In the immediate post-war period, the weight of US political
and eco-nomic power limited the self-determination of the Latin American states. When the United States, at the
inter-American conference at Chapultepec in 1945, reaffirmed its belief in free trade to 'a sceptical Latin American
Latin American governments faced a dilemma. As the growth of
audience',
imports showed no signs of slowing down, they had either to find add-itional
sources of foreign capital to pay for them or to restrict them. Such restrictions had been
necessary after the crash of 1929 and during the sub- sequent depression, but in the post-war period such
The propensity to opt for
limitations aggravated the world system and required internal structural adjustment.
Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI), fuelled by the rise of nationalism and the knowledge
that the European countries could no longer purchase primary products in their former quantities, followed from
widespread scepticism of 'models of development that required an open door to foreign goods and capital'.1
gave the United States opportunities to disguise its
Coupled with the cold war, ISI
colonialism in Latin America through the banks and newly created
multilateral lending institutions. Given that ISI required consid- erable capital injection in the form
of aid programmes or direct investment, and that both were contingent on accepting economic and political pre-
scriptions, the United States had the opportunity to enhance its influence over the structural and political outcomes.
The Latin American states were told that they would not benefit from an equivalent of the Marshall Plan despite
their wartime co-operation: their capital demands would only be met in the 'right' political environment. Thus, most
of them responded to the United States's anti-Communist message; promising to fight Commun- ism throughout the
Western Hemisphere by introducing anti-Communist legislation and bringing labour and the left under greater
control. In resisting what labour and the left regarded as US colonialism, they oscillated 'between authoritarian
nationalist projects . . . and a commitment to revolutionary politics' that at times erupted in revolution.2 The string
of reform and revolutionary movements from the 1940s to the 1990s, from Bolivia and Guatemala to the
Sandinistas and Zapatistas, was partly a reaction to the exclusion of the left from the political system and revulsion
against regimes identified with US interests.

The affirmative uses trade as a method of dominating the

world and creating a colonial empire
Koshy 99
[Susan Koshy, From Cold War to Trade War: Neocolonialism and Human Rights, Social Text, Spring 1999,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/466713, pages 1-16]
Neocolonial strategies of power are increasingly articulated not through the language of the civilizing mission as in
the nineteenth century, or through the American-sponsored discourses of anticommunism and mod- ernization that
superseded it, but through a new universalist ethics of human rights, labor standards, environmental standards, and
intellectual property rights. In the New World Order,neocolonial power operates less through
military force than through economic domination. What we are witnessing
in our time is the scramble among developed countries (which now no longer refers
exclusively to the former colonial powers) not for territory but for the competitive edge in
trade and commerce, especially through monopolistic control over vital sectors of profitability (informa-
tion, biotechnology, and technological innovations).2 Consequently, the shaping of trade policy
has become increasingly crucial to the assertion of global domination , and
the political changes of the post-Cold War era have worked to establish closer linkages between trade and human
rights standards. Within this context, the human rights arguments of many Western liberals and labor activists,
while ostensibly oppositional within a nation-state framework, are often complicitous with neocolonial domina- tion
in an international framework. Simultaneously, the oppositional dis- courses of Third Worldism have been undercut
by the collapse of social- ist states; they have also been co-opted in many arenas to serve statist and corporate
agendas, thus rendering the articulation of resistance a more vexed project, especially at a time when resistance
has become more frac- tured, local, and issue-specific. In the face of these challenges, what are we to make of the
idea of human rights both as a philosophical concept and a politicohistorical pro- ject? Does the imbrication of much
current human rights discourse in global capitalism and Eurocentrism mean that it should be abandoned as a
vehicle for social transformation?3 What is its potential as a counter- hegemonic discourse? This essay will critique
the deployment of human rights discourse in international relations, while simultaneously affirming the political
necessity of retaining the project of universal human rights as an ongoing and historically specific endeavor. A brief
summary will help to illuminate the growing importance of trade control in the post-Cold War era. Following World
War II, "imper- ial overstretch" rendered the pursuit of economic and political power through colonial domination a
more costly and problematic enterprise. Imperial overstretch refers to the weakening of a country's economic base
through high military spending and the diversion of resources involved in the acquisition and domination of
The shift from colonialism to neocolonialism thus effected , in
additional territory.
a transition to a more efficient form of domination. As a result, trade rather
part,
than conquest came to be seen as a critical means of international control .
However, the threat of Communism and the ideological conflicts of the Cold War created an environment where
political strength still depended heavily on military strength. So, it was only with the end of the Cold War that the
focus on trade intensified, inaugurating the shift from the Cold War to the Trade War era. For the United States, the
end of the Cold War deprived the state of ideological justification for equating human rights protection with anti-
communism as had been the case, particularly in the Reagan years. How- ever, the temporary lack of focus in U.S.
foreign policy dealings was rapidly replaced by a growing recognition of the crucial importance of trade to the
The strategies to
consolidation of power and the possibility of coupling trade and human rights concerns.
acquire and retain trade control are currently in the process of being
worked out with several important groups (transnational corporations [TNCs], labor,
environmental groups, consumer protection groups, human rights activists, media) competing to define
the "national interest." Inconsistencies and vacillations on trade and foreign policy are symptomatic of
this contest. Although the "national interest" is frequently invoked as if it signified a fixed and determinate agenda,
it is further com- plicated by the contradictions between global capitalism and the nation- state that have disrupted
the ready accommodation between big business and big government that had been worked out during the Fordist
era. As David Harvey observes, the state is now in a much more problematic position. It is called upon to regulate
the activities of corporate capital in the national interest at the same time as it is forced, also in the national
interest, to create a "good business climate" to act as an inducement to trans-national and global finance capital,
and to deter (by means other than exchange controls) capital flight to greener and more profitable pastures.38
Harvey goes on to say that under a regime of flexible accumulation, state intervention is more crucial than ever
"particularly regarding labour con- trol." However, it should be pointed out that while the weakening of the nation-
state is a global phenomenon, there are still vast discrepancies between the relative power of various nation-states.
Furthermore, although developed nations are also subject to the forces of global capital, they have succeeded in
shoring up the regulatory powers of their own states, while simultaneously breaking down those of developing
nations. As Raghavan explains, the transnationalisation of the world economy has
been going on at an accel- erated pace. But the TNCs are now coming up against the reality of
the nation state and the postwar order, and finding it constraining. The US which still is the dominant home of
the TNCs and the leading country in outward foreign direct investment (FDI) is hence directing its
effort to limit the national space of others, through demands for
"liberalisation" and "deregulation." But this is confined to selected areas and sectors, and there is little talk
of it in the high technology areas, which are subject to high degrees of regu- lation and state support and
 Often in these areas mercantilist concerns for goods, services,
intervention.
patents and other industrial property protec- tion to ensure monopoly
rentier incomes, are masked under pleas of "secu- rity" and safeguarded
and protected.39

The spreading of Americas economic might subordinates the

nation state it is directed at and allows the US to brutally
enforce imperialism throughout the region
Jameson 10
[Fredric Jameson, Valences of the Dialectic, November 8 2010, Wiley Interscience]
Indiscussions of globalization at the political level, one question has
predominated: that of the nation-state. Is it over and done with, or does it
still have a vital role to play? If reports of its demise are nave, what then to make of globalization
itself? Should it, perhaps, be understood as merely one pressure among many on national governmentsand so
on? But lurking behind these debates, I believe, is a deeper fear, a more fundamental narrative thought or
when we talk about the spreading power and influence of
fantasy. For
globalization, arent we really referring to the spreading economic and
military might of the US? And in speaking of the weakening of the nation-
state, are we not actually describing the subordination of the other
nation-states to American power, either through consent and collaboration, or by the use
of brute force and economic threat? Looming behind the anxieties expressed here is a new
version of what used to be called imperialism, which we can now trace through a whole dynasty of forms. An
earlier version was that of the pre-First World War colonialist order, practiced by a number of European countries,
the US and Japan; this was replaced after the Second World War and the subsequent wave of decolonization by a
Cold War form, less obvious but no less insidious in its use of economic pressure and blackmail (advisers; covert
putsches such as those in Guatemala and Iran), now led predominantly by the US but still involving a few Western
European powers. Now perhaps we have a third stage, in which the United States pursues what Samuel
Huntington has defined as a three-pronged strategy: nuclear weapons for the US alone; human rights and
American-style electoral democracy; and (less obviously) limits to immigration and the free flow of labor.3 One
might add a fourth crucial policy here:the propagation of the free market across the
globe. This latest form of imperialism will involve only the US (and such utterly
subordinated satellites as the UK), who will adopt the role of the worlds policemen,
and enforce their rule through selected interventions (mostly bombings, from a great
height) in various alleged danger zones. What kind of national autonomy do the other
nations lose under this new world order? Is this really the same kind of domination as
colonization, or forcible enlistment in the Cold War? There are some powerful answers to this question, which
mostly seem to fall under our next two headings, the cultural and the economic. Yet the most frequent themes of
collective dignity and self-respect lead in fact less often to social than to political considerations. So it is that, after
the nation-state and imperialism, we arrive at a third ticklish subjectnationalism.

American economic intervention in Latin America is

intrinsically tied to military conquest, and the engagement
the aff claims enforces imperialism
Knauft 07
[Bruce M. Knauft, Provincializing America: Imperialism, Capitalism, and Counterhegemony in the Twentyfirst
Century, Current Anthropology, December 2007, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/521415]
The growing power and influence of the United States during the twentieth century is closely associated with the
spread of neoliberal capitalism, the increasing military superiority of the United States, and the extension of
American politicoeconomic and political influence by international financial, political, and economic organizations.
political economy and militarism are integrally rather
Though ideologically separated,
than contingently related. Though September 11, 2001, is often taken as a turning point, the United
States has intervened militarily against 24 countries since the end of World War II, an average of one country every
twoandahalf years. In the past two decades this intervention has included military operations against El Salvador,
Nicaragua, Libya, Grenada, Iran, Panama, Haiti, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq and proxy interventions and black
bag wars ranging across parts of Latin America and extending to countries such as the Philippines. These
In
incursions have typically attempted to topple political regimes or, alternatively, repress political resistance.
American government discourse, the link between U.S. military objectives
and American economic interests is typically played down, as with the relationship
between the U.S. invasion of Iraq and access to Iraqi oil (see Harvey 2003a). These connections were
often made more explicit during the earlier part of the twentieth century, especially in Latin
America, which had been claimed by U.S. presidents as a special sphere of American influence since the
Monroe Doctrine of 1823 (Rosenberg 1999). Over the decades, parts of Latin America and especially Central
America have provided test cases and training grounds for aggressive
assertion of U.S. political and economic interests overseas , even by means of
armed intervention or proxy insurgency (Grandin 2006).6 U.S. interventions in Latin America have seldom been
the line between
opposed by other major world powers (cf. Smith 1994). In these and other cases,
military and politicoeconomic objectives is hard to draw . Though the United States
differs from classic or colonial empires such as ancient Rome or Victorian Britain in its lack of formal or colonial
control over foreign lands, prior empires had their own ebb and flow between indirect control, vassalage, tribute,
economic exploitation, formalized rule, and what Stoler (2006a) terms degrees of imperial sovereignty (see also
Steinmetz 2006; Garnsey and Saller 1987; Whittaker 1994). Combinations of economic exploitation with spotty or
selective political control are evident in Portuguese influence during the sixteenth century and Dutch imperialism
during the eighteenth. Beyond direct colonialism, this pattern is evident during the midnineteenth century in the
Opium Wars and other military incursions that opened up East Asia to Western trade and national government
and in the U.S. incursions associated with and facilitated by the SpanishAmerican War. Spreading with the
intensification of global capitalism, these trends range from what Gallagher and Robinson (1953) call the mid
nineteenthcentury British imperialism of free trade to what Wood (2003a) calls an empire of capital for the
Absence of formal American control over the political
contemporary United States.
sovereignty of other countries is consistent with capitalist neoimperialism,
dependence on transnational contracts, nationstate enforcement, and
transnational organizations and the neoliberal development industry (cf.
Hardt and Negri 2000). During the cold war era, as the leader of the free world economy and its financial
infrastructure, the United States asserted international economic dominance through the Bretton Woods agreement
on monetary policy, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and then the World Trade Association (WTO) (Hudson 2003). Over the decades, these
organizations have furthered American and more generally Western interests via international monetary and
currencyexchange policy and by alternately ameliorating and abetting national debt crises, including those in
Mexico in 1995, Southeast Asia in 198790, and Argentina in 20002001. Because of its superpower status, the
United States is immune from such sanctions, though the IMF (2004) has reported that American debt to foreign
countries amounts to approximately 40% of the U.S. economya situation that in other countries would court harsh
the nationstate system of ostensible sovereignty that
IMF sanctions.7 Politically,
has become global during the twentieth century is a strong condition
rather than a declining feature of American imperialism (contrast Guhenno 2000;
Appadurai 1996). International standards for economic contracts , banking, credit, and
repayment have promulgated, manipulated, and enforced neoliberal
capitalism and its benefits. Especially since 1989 and the fall of the Soviet Union, the connection between
global capitalism and nationstate sovereignty has become the geopolitical analogue to the relationship ascribed by
Marx to capitalism, free markets, and free labor. In both cases, an emphasis on freedom and liberty structures
differential enrichment and obfuscates relations of dominance and inequality both between countries and within
The end of classic imperialism in Europe and Japan
them (Harvey 2005, 2006).
following World War II has marked not the end of imperialism but its
evolution through new patterns of American influence and control (Steinmetz
2006; Maier 2006).
Generic Link
Wood-03 Historian and Scholar
Ellen Meiksens Wood, Empire of Capital, Verso Publications, 2003,
http://books.google.com/books?id=N74C0f-
h0wEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepa
ge&q&f=false,pg. 4-6

What makes class domination or imperialism specifically capitalist is the

predominance of economic, as distinct from direct 'extra- economic'
political, military, judicial coercion. Yet this certainly does not mean that capitalist imperialism can dispense
with extra- economic 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. Even when
direct force is applied in the struggle between classes as when police arrest strikers the nature of the transaction is likely to be obscured
by the ostensible neutrality of the coercive power. Especially in liberal democracies, with universal suffrage and fairly well established civil
liberties, the police are not employed by capital but represent a state that, in principle, belongs to all citizens. Today, when powerful
states launch military actions against weaker ones, we are given to understand that, here too, force is operating not imperially but
neutrally, in the interests of an 'international community'. To question this is not to say that police action, domestic or international, can never do
anything but operate in the interests of a dominant class or imperial power. The point is simply that, in capitalism, even when it
does so operate, its purposes are not transparent, as they were when feudal lords exercised their own coercive force against their
peasants, or when old imperial states set out explicitly to conquer territory, establish colonies and impose their rule on subject peoples.
To understand the 'new imperialism' indeed to determine whether it exists at all requires us to understand the
specificities of capitalist power and the nature of the relation between
economic and 'extra-economic' force in capitalism. It will be argued in what follows that
capitalism is unique in its capacity to detach economic from extra-economic power, and that this, among other things, implies that the
economic power of capital can reach far beyond the 7 grasp of any existing, or conceivable, political and military power. At the same time,
capital's economic power cannot exist without the support of extra-economic force; and extra-economic force is today, as before,
primarily supplied by the state. The argument here is not that the power of capital in conditions of 'globalization' has escaped the control of
the state and made the territorial state increasingly irrelevant. On the contrary, my argument is that the state is more essential_than_everto,
capital, even, or especially, in its global form. The political form of globalization is not a global state but a global system of multiple states,
and the new imperialism takes its specific shape from the complex and
contradictory relationship between capital's expansive economic power
and the more limited reach of the extra-economic force that sustains it.
The conviction that we live in an increasingly stateless world - or, at least, a world in which an increasingly irrelevant state has been
subordinated to a new kind of global 'sovereignty' - belongs not only to the mythology of conventional globalization theories. A
fashionable book such as Philip Bobbitt's The Shield of Achilles, for all its claims that the state as such is not dead, insists that the
territorial nation state has been replaced by the 'market state', in essence, a state with no boundaries. This is also the central
premise of an ostensibly radical and iconoclastic work like Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire, which argues that the nation
state is giving way to a new form of stateless 'sovereignty' that is everywhere and nowhere.2 The contrasting prem-i-se of My book is that such
views not only miss something truly essential in today's global order but also leave s powerless to resist the empire_ of capital) This book is not
a history of imperialism. Although much of its argument will be historical, the purpose of its excursions into the history of empire is to
bring into relief the specificity of capitalist imperialism by observing it against the contrasting background of other imperial forms.
Some major cases, European and non-European, will not appear at all, or only in passing, such as, among others, the Inca,
Portuguese, Ottoman and Mughal empires. The historical chapters will concentrate on a few important examples that were marked by one
or another characteristic commonly associated with capitalism - the dominance of private property or the centrality of commerce in order
to highlight the essential ways in which even these cases differ from capitalist empire. Nor does the book claim to be a comprehensive history of
capitalist imperialism itself. Here, too, readers will no doubt think of cases that could and perhaps should have been mentioned, or they
may object that there is not enough discussion of US imperialism before it matured into its present form. But the main objective of the
book is not to present a thorough historical narrative. My purpose is rather to define the essence of capitalist imperialism, the better to
understand how it operates today. In Chapter 1, I shall briefly outline how the economic power of capital has detached itself from extra-
economic force, sketching out, in very broad strokes, the relation between economic and political power in capitalism and what implications
this has for the relation between the capitalist economy and the territorial state. Chapters 2 and 3 will consider several non-capitalist
empires, to exemplify what I call the 'empire of property' (the Roman and Spanish), as against the imperial dominance of a bureaucratic
central state (as in China), and the 'empire of commerce' (the Arab Muslim Empire, the Venetian and the Dutch). The remaining
chapters will deal with the development of capitalist imperialism, and the expansion of capitalism's economic imperatives, from the
English domination of Ireland to their extension overseas in America, and from the 'second' British Empire in India to today's US-
dominated 'globalization'. The final chapter will explore the role of military force in the new imperialism and the contradictions of a
system in which a globalized economy is sustained by a system of multiple states - a system in which the extra-economic force of military
power is becoming essential to imperialism in wholly new ways, taking new forms in the theory and practice of war.
 Economy Link
Their econ advantage inherently links them to the K the process of
neoliberal economics is one of homogenization and control over the native
populace.
McKinney 13 [Claire McKinney coaches for the Kinkaid School in Houston, Texas,
Latin America Topic Analysis Economic Engagement and the Neoliberal
Consensus, published 5/15/13, accessed 7/16/13, <
http://utdebatecamp.com/2013/latin-america-topic-analysis-economic-engagement-
and-the-neoliberal-consensus/> ] //pheft

The first response of most critical debaters in looking at next years topic is certainly going to be the ease of making
a critique of capitalism a topic specific kritik. Economic is right there in the resolution! While it is undoubtedly true
that it will be exceedingly difficult for an affirmative to claim no link, it is also the case that every affirmative will
be much more prepared to debate your generic kritik of capitalism using the specificity of the aff mechanism. That
is, any affirmative team that has done their own work will have designed the plan mechanism in such a way that
generic arguments about the economic system and its rampant production of harm will seem generic and not
intrinsic to their deployment of economic mechanisms of foreign policy. Thus, debaters who want to win the Cap K
will have to have a more nuanced and historically grounded criticism of the aff if you want to be a step ahead and
win. (For a good primer on why a historically grounded and nuanced kritik is strategically useful, see Max Hantels
blog post from a couple of years ago: http://utdebatecamp.com/2011/thunder-rods-and-aliens-beginning-
preparation-for-the-space-topic/) This post will not provide you with all you need to know to run the Cap K and
win; rather, I hope to provide a basis for beginning to think of historically grounded approaches to critiques of
An excellent, though dated, history on the use
economic engagement as a tool of foreign policy.
of foreign aid as an economically coercive tool to remake countries into
the US economists image and the production of the 1980s debt crises that
still fundamentally shape the economies of countries across the globe is Robert
Woods From Marshall Plan to Debt Crisis: Foreign Aid and Development
Choices in the World Economy. Woods book is an attempt to diagnose the
aid policies that led to the debt crisis that gripped the world economy in the
early 1980s, precipitated by several developing countries , including Mexico, stating
that they would be unable to pay back their external debt obligations. While
other authors have argued that this was precipitated by the oil crisis and the anti-inflationary policies of the United
Wood sees deeper roots to the
States that took place to control the stagflation of the 1970s,
crisis in how foreign aid was conceived as a tool to manage and open
developing markets to foreign investment and profit. We can understand
the foreign policy of economic engagement as bookended by two crises:
the debt crisis of the 1980s and the global financial collapse of 2008. The
period in between is dominated by an almost unchallenged dedication to
neoliberal foreign policy and economic relations. What is neoliberalism? Broadly,
neoliberalism is a belief that markets can perform the functions of government and more efficiently; thus free
markets absent governmental regulations can create the conditions for global prosperity and growth. Neoliberalism
also transforms our understanding of citizenship away from a notion of engaged members of a polity who
democratically participate to transform the conditions of governance and towards the notion of the citizen-
consumer, who must bear the burden of low wages, insufficient social support, resource wars, and military
repression. The primary positive role of individuals is to continue to sustain the market through purchasing goods
and services without any power of decision-making over the operation of the engines of economic growth. Thus,
profit over people is more than just a leftist mantra; it is the central
operative logic for neoliberal economics to function. As David Harvey writes, For
capital accumulation to return to 3 per cent compound growth will require a new basis for profit-making and surplus
absorption. The irrational way to do this in the past has been the rough the destruct on of the achievements of
preceding eras by way of war, the devaluation of assets, the degradation of productive capacity, abandonment and
other forms of creative destruction, The effects are felt not only throughout the world of commodity production
and exchange. Human lives are disrupted and even physically destroyed, whole careers and lifetime achievements
are put in jeopardy, deeply held beliefs are challenged, psyches wounded and respect for human dignity is cast
aside. Creative destruction is visited upon the good, the beautiful the bad and the ugly alike. Crises, we may
conclude, are the irrational rationalisers of an irrational system. Can capitalism survive the present trauma? Yes. of
course. But at what cost? This question masks another. Can the capitalist class reproduce its power in the face of
the raft of economic, social, political and geopolitical and environmental difficulties? Again, the answer is a
resounding Yes it can: This will however, require the mass of the people to give generously of the fruits of their
labour to those in power, to surrender many of their rights and their hard -won asset values (in everything from
housing to pension rights) and to suffer environmental degradations galore, to say nothing of serial reductions in
their living standards which will mean starvation for many of those already struggling to survive at rock bottom.
More than a little political repression, police violence and militarised state control will be required to stifle the
How is this connected to the two crises mentioned
ensuing unrest. (2010, 224-225)
above? Well, the 1980s debt crisis produce the Washington Consensus,
a ten-point plan for addressing the debt crisis through neoliberal
mechanisms. Regan whole-heartedly endorsed the plan, tying debt cancellation
to the enactment of these various elements to transform the economies of
developing countries. What are these ten points? According to John Williamson, who coined the term
Washington Consensus, the policy proposals are as follows: Fiscal policy discipline, with avoidance of large
fiscal deficits relative to GDP; Redirection of public spending from subsidies (especially indiscriminate
subsidies) toward broad-based provision of key pro-growth, pro-poor services like primary education, primary
health care and infrastructure investment; Tax reform, broadening the tax base and adopting moderate marginal
tax rates; Interest rates that are market determined and positive (but moderate) in real terms; Competitive
exchange rates; Trade liberalization: liberalization of imports, with particular emphasis on elimination of
quantitative restrictions (licensing, etc.); any trade protection to be provided by low and relatively uniform tariffs;
Liberalization of inward foreign direct investment; Privatization of state enterprises; Deregulation: abolition of
regulations that impede market entry or restrict competition, except for those justified on safety, environmental and
consumer protection grounds, and prudential oversight of financial institutions; Legal security for property rights.
In preparing for the debate season, it will be important to understand what each of these policy aims means and
what those transformations would do to Mexico and Venezuela. As we know Cubas aid was tied to the Soviet Union
and thus has a distinctly different historical trajectory, where economic engagement form the United States took
the form of embargoes and travel restrictions. Suffice to say, these transformations called for an achieved in many
countries the end of state-run industries that caused oligarchic control of industries that further impoverished
domestic populations and the elimination of crucial elements of social safety nets that an invisible and massive
What we have
human toll to economic liberalization would remain unseen from the economists view.
seen is the development of microfinancing loans that ostensibly
transform people in poverty from the clients of state welfare that they had been
into entrepreneurial mini-capitalists that will create the freest of all behavior:
generation of profit. But as most anthropological and sociological work on micro-finance has shown, the
majority of people and collectives take out these loans to pay for day-to-day needs and special occasions like
weddings. Thus, state welfare has been replaced by a draconian system of loans, where missed payments ensure
the tenuous economic status of people in poverty is rendered intolerable.
 Free trade Links

Neoliberalism is the new weapon for imperialism- NAFTA has caused

the systematic exclusion of indigenous peoples through economic
control of once sovereign states
Sub Marcos 97 [Subcomandante Marcos, The Fourth World War has Begun, Online Article, September
1997, accessed 7/16/13, http://mondediplo.com/1997/09/marcos.pdf]
Thanks to computers and the technological revolution, the financial markets, operating from their offices and
answerable to nobody but themselves, have been imposing their laws and world-view on the planet as a whole.
Globalisation is merely the totalitarian extension of the logic of the
finance markets to all aspects of life. Where they were once in command of their economies,
the nation states (and their governments) are commanded - or rather telecommanded - by the same basic logic of
this logic has profited from a new
financial power, commercial free trade. And in addition,
permeability created by the development of telecommunications to
appropriate all aspects of social activity. At last, a world war which is totally total! One of
its first victims has been the national market. Rather like a bullet fired inside a concrete room, the war unleashed by
neoliberalism ricochets and ends by wounding the person who fired it. One of the fundamental
bases of the power of the modern capitalist state, the national market, is
wiped out by the heavy artillery of the global finance economy . The new
international capitalism renders national capitalism obsolete and
effectively starves their public powers into extinction . The blow has been so brutal
that sovereign states have lost the strength to defend their citizens
interests. The fine showcase inherited from the ending of the cold war - the new world order - has shattered
into fragments as a result of the neoliberal explosion. It takes no more than a few minutes for
companies and states to be sunk - but they are sunk not by winds of proletarian revolution, but
by the violence of the hurricanes of world finance. The son (neoliberalism) is
devouring the father (national capital) and, in the process, is destroying the lies of capitalist ideology: in the
new world order there is neither democracy nor freedom, neither equality
nor fraternity. The planetary stage is transformed into a new battlefield, in which chaos reigns. Towards
the end of the cold war, capitalism created a new military horror: the neutron bomb, a weapon which destroys life
while sparing buildings. But a new wonder has been discovered as the fourth world war unfolds: the finance bomb.
Unlike the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this new bomb does not simply destroy the polis (in this case, the
nation) and bring death, terror and misery to those who live there; it also transforms its target into a piece in the
jigsaw puzzle of the process of economic globalisation. The result of the explosion is not a pile of smoking ruins, or
thousands of dead bodies, but a neighbourhood added to one of the commercial megalopolis of the new planetary
hypermarket, and a labour force which is reshaped to fit in with the new planetary job market. The European
Union is a result of this fourth world war. In Europe globalisation has succeeded in eliminating the frontiers between
rival states that had been enemies for centuries, and has forced them to converge towards political union. On the
way from the nation state to the European Federation the road will be paved with destruction and ruin, and one of
these ruins will be that of European civilisation. Megalopolises are reproducing themselves right across the
the North
planet. Their favourite spawning ground is in the worlds free trade areas. In North America,
American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico is a
prelude to the accomplishment of an old dream of US conquest : "America for the
Americans". Are megalopolises replacing nations ? No, or rather not merely that. They are
assigning them new functions, new limits and new perspectives . Entire countries
are becoming departments of the neoliberal mega-enterprise. Neoliberalism thus produces, on the one hand,
destruction and depopulation, and, on the other, the reconstruction and reorganisation of regions and nations.
the
Unlike nuclear bombs, which had a dissuasive, intimidating and coercive character in the third world war,
financial hyperbombs of the fourth world war are different in nature. They serve to
attack territories (national states) by the destruction of the material bases of their sovereignty and by
producing a qualitative depopulation of those territories. This depopulation involves
the exclusion of all persons who are of no use to the new economy
(indigenous peoples, for instance ). But at the same time the financial centres are working on a
reconstruction of nation states and are reorganising them within a new logic: the economic has the upper hand over
the social. The indigenous world is full of examples illustrating this strategy: Ian Chambers, director of the Central
America section of the International Labour Organisation, has stated that the worldwide populations of indigenous
peoples (300 million people) lives in zones which house 60 % of the planets natural resources. It is therefore "not
surprising that there are multiple conflicts over the use and future of their lands in relation to the interests of
The exploitation of natural resources (oil and minerals) and
business and governments (...).
tourism are the principal industries threatening indigenous territories in
America (1)." And then come pollution, prostitution and drugs.
 Gov links
The United States policy towards Latin America has always been one of
imperialism and homogenization
Petras 2 [James Petras writer for The Monthly Review (a quasi-Marxist think tank)
and professor of Sociology at the State University of New York, U.S. Offensive in
Latin America
Coups, Retreats, and Radicalization, 2002, Volume 54, Issue 01 (May), accessed
7/16/13, <http://monthlyreview.org/2002/05/01/u-s-offensive-in-latin-
america#top> ] //pheft

The worldwide U.S. military-political offensive is manifest in

Introduction
multiple contexts in Latin America. The U.S. offensive aims to prop up
decaying client regimes, destabilize independent regimes, pressure the
center-left to move to the right, and destroy or isolate the burgeoning
popular movements challenging the U.S. empire and its clients. We will discuss
the particular forms of the U.S. offensive in each country, and then explore the specific and general reasons for the
offensive in contemporary Latin America. In the concluding section we will discuss the political alternatives in the
The most
context of the U.S. offensive. Military-Political Offensive: Diverse Approaches, Singular Goal
striking aspect of the U.S. military-political offensive in Latin America is
the diverse tactics utilized to establish or consolidate client regimes and
defeat popular socio-political movements opposed to imperial
domination. The focus of high intensity U.S. intervention is in Colombia
and Venezuela. In both countries, Washington has high stakes, involving
political, economic, and ideological interests, as well as geopolitical
considerations. Each country faces both the Caribbean and the Andean countries, as well as Brazil. The
emergence of a revolutionary regime in Colombia or the stabilization of a nationalist regime in Venezuela could
inspire similar transformations in the adjoining regions and undermine U.S. control via its client regimes. Moreover,
significant political changes could affect U.S. control over oil production and supply, not only in Venezuela and
Colombia, but also in Mexico and Ecuador, where pressure might build against the privatization process.
Washington, at all costs, wants to maintain a secure supply of oil in the current period of undeclared war against the
Gulf Oil producersnamely Iraq and Iranand in the face of an increasingly vulnerable Saudi Arabia.
Geopolitically, socio-political transformations in Colombia and Venezuela could ultimately lead to an integration pact
with revolutionary Cuba, Washingtons ultimate nightmare. At risk is Washingtons forty-year embargo of Cuba and
the fate of the primary new instrument of imperial control of Latin Americathe U.S.-sponsored Free Trade Area of
Washington has adopted different strategies in each of the
the Americas (FTAA).
two countries. To defeat the popular insurgency in Colombia, it has
embraced a total war strategy. In Venezuela, it pursues a combined civil
political-economic destabilization strategy planned to culminate in a
military coup. Washingtons counterinsurgency strategy in Colombia has operated under cover of an anti-
narcotics campaign. The anti-narcotics campaign has centered on regions where the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) has been strongest, while virtually ignoring the areas controlled by paramilitary clients of the
Colombian Armed Forces. The political-military advance of the FARC in the late 1990s forced the Colombian
government to the negotiating table and increased its dependence on the United States for military aid and
advisors. In Washington (and in Colombia) the peace negotiations were seen as a temporary tactic to forestall a
full-scale FARC assault on the urban centers of power, gain time to build up the military capability of the Colombian
Armed Forces, and strengthen and extend the scope and depth of U.S. military influence on the military-paramilitary
forces and military strategy. The government peace negotiators also hoped to entice or split the FARC by offering
them an electoral option, as was done in El Salvador and Guatemala. The FARC, cognizant of the brutal
assassination of more than four thousand leftist political activists in the mid-to-late 1980s and of the abject failure
of the Central American guerrillas turned electoral politicians to bring about any meaningful social changes, refused
to surrender. They insisted on basic reforms of state structures and the economy as preconditions for any durable
peace settlement. These proposals for democratic and socioeconomic reforms were totally unacceptable to the
United States and the regime of President Andrs Pastrana, which instead aimed at greater militarization of political
life and liberalization of the economy. Throughout the period of peace negotiations, Washington and Pastrana
combined peace rhetoric with funding and promotion of paramilitary groups (via the Colombian military), which
were involved in the capture and destruction of villages and towns, displacing millions of peasants and trade
unionists and killing thousands of peasants suspected of having leftist sympathies. The idea was to isolate the FARC
within the demilitarized zone; to train, arm, and mass troops on the borders; to carry on high tech electronic
surveys to identify strategic targets; and then to break off negotiations abruptly and blitz the region with a land and
air attack, capturing or killing the FARC leaders and demoralizing the fleeing insurgents. Needless to say, the tactics
failed. The guerrillas continue to be active outside of the peace zone; they strengthened their forces within the
demilitarized zone; and they suffered no serious losses when Pastrana broke off peace negotiations. Washington
has made Colombia the test case for its political-military offensive in Latin America. This is because the FARC is the
most powerful anti-imperialist formation contending for state power and also because the FARC controls territory
bordering on Venezuela, and is perceived as an ally of President Hugo Chavez. Defeating the FARC would allow
Washington to increase the external pressure on Venezuela and reinforce the internal destabilization campaign. As
the political base of the Colombian regime erodesdue to the prolonged recession and social cutbacks resulting
from the huge military budgetthe United States escalates its military support. The entire Colombian economy is
now subordinated to the U.S. military strategy; and the military strategy is directed by a scorched earth, total war
policy. This means that all Colombian civilian and economic considerations are secondary to Washingtons primary
interests in winning the war against the FARC. Given the strength and experience of the FARC and the formidable
strategic capacity of its leader, Manuel Marulanda, and his general staff, the U.S.-Colombian war promises to be
prolonged and bloody, marked by a continuous major escalation of U.S. intervention, increased use of paramilitary
terror, and greater indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets. Nonetheless a military victory by the United States is
very doubtful; the end result may be nearer to Vietnam than Afghanistan. The first signs that Washingtons
offensive may have a boomerang effect are visible in Colombia. Less than two weeks after Washington pressured
President Pastrana to end the peace talks and declare the demilitarized area a war zone, the first general to lead
troops into the zone resigned. He publicly declared that military victory was impossible. The FARCs successful
military offensive following the end of the peace talks led the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia to admit that Plan
Colombia was a failure. In contrast to the scorched earth military strategy in Colombia, Washington is
implementing a civil-military approach to overthrow President Chavez in Venezuela. Chavez is a liberal nationalist;
he has followed a fairly orthodox domestic economic policy while pursuing an independent nationalist foreign policy.
U.S. strategy is multiphased and combines media, civic, and economic attacks with efforts to provoke fissures in the
The first phase of this struggle is to
military, all aimed at encouraging a military coup.
destabilize the economy, via closely coordinated actions with client
business and professional groups, and corrupt right-wing trade union
bosses. The purpose is to mobilize public opposition, and focus mass
media attention on the instability of the country, thus inhibiting
investment from less politicized capitalists, who are fearful of declining
profits in a conflictual situation. The mass media are engaged in a
systematic propaganda campaign to overthrow the Chavez regime,
advocating a violent seizure of power. Government and public protests
against the subversive behavior of the mass media allows Washington to
orchestrate an international campaign against violations of free speech,
particularly via the U.S.-influenced Inter-American Press Association. The
second phase of the Bush Administrations strategy is to move from destabilization directly toward a military coup.
This involves two steps. The first is to mobilize U.S. intelligence assets, retired officials and those labeled
dissidents among the active military officers from the more reactionary branches of the militaryin the case of
Venezuela, the air force and navy. The idea is to force a political discussion in the military command, provoke other
like-minded officials to come out in defense of the expelled officers, and to reinforce the mass media-business
message of the instability and imminent fall of Chavez, thus further stimulating capital flight. The second step is to
organize authoritarian navy and air force officials to put pressure on the armythe main bulwark of Chavezs
supportto gain adherents, neutralize apolitical officers, and isolate Chavez loyalists. Washingtons two step
approach is to culminate in a military coup with active U.S. military support, in which a transitional civic-military
junta rules. Linked with its internal strategy, Washington has implemented an external strategy. Secretary of State
Colin Powell has publicly denounced Chavez as authoritarian, and both Powell and the IMF have publicly stated their
support for a transitional governmenta clear signal of U.S. support for those hoping to stage a coup. U.S. Special
Forces now operate in Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Panama, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Philippines, Georgia, Uzbekistan,
and other Central Asian client states. It is more than likely that, in the event of a coup attempt, the Pentagon will
send tactical operatives and political advisers to guide the coup and ensure that the appropriate configuration of
civilian personalities emerges for propaganda purposes. The dangers facing the Venezuelan regime is that in
Washingtons war of political attrition, where daily propaganda barrages and provocative actions abound, Chavez
cannot depend on constant mass mobilizations. He must actually implement immediate radical redistributive
socioeconomic policies to sustain mass commitments and active organized support. The U.S.-orchestrated offensive
is geared to creating permanent tension as a psychological weapon to exhaust popular support and undermine
army morale. Chavezs independent foreign policy is what antagonizes the United States: his opposition to Plan
Colombia; his criticism of the U.S. war in Afghanistan and the worldwide imperial offensive; his cordial relations with
Iraq, Libya, Iran, and Cuba; and his refusal to allow the United States to colonize Venezuelan airspace.
Unfortunately, this foreign policy has not been adequately complemented by a series of comprehensive
socioeconomic reforms affecting the welfare of millions of his unemployed and poorly paid supporters living in the
slums and shanty towns. U.S. efforts to overthrow Chavez are based on his refusal, in early October, to back
Washingtons worldwide imperial offensivethe so-called war against terrorism. Close advisers to President Chavez
informed me that a delegation of high officials from Washington visited Chavez and bluntly informed him that he
would pay a high price for his opposition to President Bush. Shortly thereafter the local business federation and
trade union bosses launched their campaignseven though President Chavez had introduced a very modest tax
reform (mostly affecting foreign oil companies), put in place a compensated land purchase plan, and privatized the
major publicly-owned electrical enterprise company in Caracas. Clearly, Chavezs attempt to ride two horsesan
independent foreign policy and liberal reform domestic policymakes him very vulnerable to the U.S.-designed
coup strategy. U.S. imperial tactics in Venezuela differ substantially from Colombia, largely because in one case it is
defending a client state against a popular insurgency, and in the other trying to create a civilian movement to
provoke a coup. Strategically, however, the political goal is the same: to consolidate a client regime which will
subordinate the country to the imperial project embodied in the FTAA, and which will become a willing vassal in
policing the Latin American empire, perhaps supplying mercenaries for new overseas wars. Argentina is the third
country in which Washington is intervening. Following the mass popular uprising of December 1920, 2001 and the
fall of five client presidents, Washington began to work through a multiphased strategy which was designed to
continue the transfer of billions of dollars in assets to U.S. companies, prejudice European competitors, and
resecure a privileged position in the Argentine political and economic system. The collapse of the client regime of
Fernando De la Rua and the weakness of the regime of Eduardo Duhalde have led Washington to turn to its wholly
controlled civilian clients (former President Carlos Menem and former minister of economy Ricardo Lopez Murphy)
and the military intelligence apparatusrelatively intact since the days of the bloody dictatorship. Washingtons
problem with the Duhalde regime is not his rectification of populist measures (he has agreed to partial debt
payments, has sworn unconditional support of the U.S. global offensive, proposes to limit spending, etc.). The U.S.
problem is that Duhalde cannot forcefully fulfill his commitments to the IMF and Wall Street. The popular
movements are growing in size and activity and they are more organized and radical. In their assemblies they are
raising fundamental issues as well as immediate concerns. Their demands include repudiating the foreign debt,
nationalizing the banks and strategic economic sectors, and redistributing incomein a word repudiating the
neoliberal model, at a time when the United States is pushing to extend and deepen its control via the FTAA. There
is little doubt that the Duhalde regime is prepared to meet most of the demands of the IMFbut he lacks the power
to implement the whole austerity package and bailout of the banks in the time frame and under the conditions
which Washington and the IMF demand. Budget cuts ignite more demonstrations among teachers and public
employees; the bailout of the foreign banks requires the continued confiscation of private savings; and slashing the
provincial budgets provokes greater unemployment, hunger, and revolts. The Duhalde regime has already
increased the level of repression and unleashed its street thugs, but the movements still proliferate and the thin
veneer of legitimacy is dissolving. The director of the CIA, George J. Tenet, has already pointed out the U.S.
preoccupation with instability in Argentina. The U.S. assets in the Argentine intelligence apparatus are floating
trial balloons, evaluating the response to rumors of a military coup. These tentative, exploratory moves are
designed to secure a consensus among the military, financial, and economic elitestogether with the U.S. and
European, especially Spanish, bankers and multinationals. The U.S. and European mass media have begun to
resonate with Washingtons evolving strategywriting of chaos, breakdown, and chronic instability of the civilian
regime. Washington is pointing toward a civic-military regime, if and when Duhalde resigns or is overthrown.
Washingtons strategy is to decapitate the popular opposition. The plan can be summarized as the three ms: a
regime configured with Menem, Murphy, and the military. Their lack of any social support among the middle and
urban poor means that they would constitute a regime of force. In summary, Washington is working on two tracks:
on the one hand, pressuring Duhalde to conform to its demands by assuming full dictatorial powers; and on the
other hand, preparing the conditions for a new authoritarian torture regime. The reversion to client military
dictatorships with a civic facade will not prevent the Bush Administration from claiming to be defending democracy
and free markets. The U.S. mass media can and will embellish on this and any variety of related motifs.
Washingtons militarization strategy is also evident in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Paraguay, where client regimes,
stripped of any popular legitimacy, impose Washingtons formula of free markets in Latin America and protectionism
and subsidies in the United States. In Brazil and Mexico, Washington relies heavily on political and diplomatic
instruments. In the case of Mexico, Washington has direct entre to the administration of Vicente Fox in economic
policy, and a virtual agent in the Foreign Minister, Jorge Castaneda. The goal of Mexican subordination to U.S. policy
is not in question, as Fox and Castaneda are in total agreement. What is in question is the effectiveness of the
regime in implementing that policy. Foxs effort to convert southern Mexico and Central America into one big U.S.
assembly plant, tourist, and petroleum center (the Puebla-Panama Plan) has run into substantial opposition. The
massive shift of U.S. capital to cheaper labor in China has provoked large-scale unemployment in Mexican border
towns. The so-called reciprocal benefits of integration are glaringly absent. U.S. dumping of corn and other
agricultural commodities has devastated Mexican farmers and peasants. The U.S. takeover of all sectors of the
Mexican economy (finance, telecommunications, services, etc.) has led to massive outflows of profits and royalty
payments. In foreign affairs, Washingtons influence has never been greater, as Castaneda crudely mouths the
policies of the U.S. Defense Department and CIAdeclaring unconditional support for the U.S. policy in Afghanistan
and any future military interventions, and grossly intervening in Cuban internal politics, provoking the worst
incident in Cuban-Mexican diplomatic relations in recent history. Castanedas anti-Cuban interventions on behalf of
Washington backfired, with the great majority of the Mexican political class calling for his censure or resignation.
Yet, it is clear that the mere presence of such an unabashed promoter of U.S. policy in the Fox Administration is
indicative of Washingtons aggressive conquest of space in the Mexican political system. The powerful presence of
U.S. corporations, banks, and numerous regional and local client politicians facilitates the recolonization of Mexico
against an increasingly restive and impoverished labor force. In Brazil, the U.S. has been active in both the political
and economic sphere. Its backing of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso produced unprecedented results: the
virtual sell-off of the principle public telecommunications, financial, natural resource, and commercial sectors. More
significantly, the linkup between U.S. and European capital, and Brazilian media empires, and big business sectors
has had a powerful influence on the political class and on shaping electoral politics. This power bloc has succeeded
in turning center-left electoral politicians to the right in order to secure the media access and financial support to
win national elections. U.S. hegemony over Brazil is a political process. Influence moves through local and regional
power brokers and national media monopolies. The U.S. offensives most recent conquest is the leadership of the
so-called Workers Party and in particular its presidential candidate, Luiz Incio Lula da Silva. In response to the U.S.
offensive, Lula selected a millionaire textile magnate from the right-wing Liberal Party as his vice presidential
candidate. He has tried to ingratiate himself by seeking a meeting with Henry Kissinger, declaring loyalty to the IMF
and pledging to honor the foreign debt and the privatized industries. The right turn of Lula and the Workers Party
means that all major electoral parties remain within the U.S. orbit, and guarantees uncontested U.S. hegemony
In summary, the U.S. imperial offensive has adopted a
over the political class.
variety of tactics and approaches in different countries in a variety of
military-political contexts. While giving greater primacy to military
intervention and military coups (always with some sort of civilian facade),
Washington continues to instrumentalize its political and diplomatic
clients, and turn its political adversaries. The strategic goal of
constructing an empire based on direct economic domination faces a great
variety of political, social, and military obstacles, particularly evident in
Colombia, Venezuela, and Argentina. In other words, the imperial
projection of power is far from realized. It is enmeshed in a series of
conflictual relations, in a context where the past socioeconomic failures of
the empire do not create a favorable terrain for easy advance or provide
any justification for assuming an inevitable victory. On the contrary, the
current imperial offensive is in part the result of severe setbacks in recent
years, and the growth of opponents among previous supporters in the
middle class in some countries.
 Humanitarianism
there are no humanitarian missions, we dont do things to help the
people of Latin America, only to further our interests and the interests of
neo-liberals NGOs are a prime example of this
Petras 97 [James Petras writer for The Monthly Review (a quasi-Marxist think
tank) and professor of Sociology at the State University of New York, Imperialism
and NGOs in Latin America, Volume 49, Issue 07 (December), 1997, accessed
7/16/13, < http://monthlyreview.org/1997/12/01/imperialism-and-ngos-in-latin-
america> ] //pheft

The confusion concerning the political character of the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) stems from their
earlier history in the 1970s during the days of the dictatorships. In this period they were active in providing
humanitarian support to the victims of the military dictatorship and denouncing human rights violations. The NGOs
supported soup kitchens which allowed victimized families to survive the first wave of shock treatments
administered by the neoliberal dictatorships. This period created a favorable image of NGOs even among the left.
Even then, however, the limits of the
They were considered part of the progressive camp.
NGOs were evident. While they attacked the human rights violations of
local dictatorships, they rarely denounced the U.S. and European patrons
who financed and advised them. Nor was there a serious effort to link the
neoliberal economic policies and human rights violations to the new turn
in the imperialist system. Obviously the external sources of funding
limited the sphere of criticism and human rights action. As opposition to
neoliberalism grew in the early 1980s, the U.S. and European governments and the World Bank increased their
funding of NGOs. There is a direct relation between the growth of social movements challenging the neoliberal
model and the effort to subvert them by creating alternative forms of social action through the NGOs. The basic
On the
point of convergence between the NGOs and the World Bank was their common opposition to statism.
surface the NGOs criticized the state from a left perspective defending
civil society, while the right did so in the name of the market. In reality,
however, the World Bank, the neoliberal regimes, and western foundations
co-opted and encouraged the NGOs to undermine the national welfare
state by providing social services to compensate the victims of the
multinational corporations (MNCs). In other words, as the neoliberal
regimes at the top devastated communities by inundating the country
with cheap imports, extracting external debt payment, abolishing labor
legislation, and creating a growing mass of low-paid and unemployed
workers, the NGOs were funded to provide self-help projects, popular
education, and job training, to temporarily absorb small groups of poor,
to co-opt local leaders, and to undermine anti-system struggles. The NGOs
became the community face of neoliberalism, intimately related to those at the top and complementing their
destructive work with local projects. In effect the neoliberals organized a pincer operation or dual strategy.
Unfortunately many on the left focused only on neoliberalism from above and the outside (International Monetary
Fund, World Bank) and not on neoliberalism from below (NGOs, micro-enterprises). A major reason for this oversight
was the conversion of many ex-Marxists to the NGO formula and practice. Anti-Statism was the ideological transit
ticket from class politics to community development, from Marxism to the NGOs. Typically, NGO ideologues
counterpose state power to local power. State power is, they argue, distant from its citizens, autonomous, and
arbitrary, and it tends to develop interests different from and opposed to those of its citizens, while local power is
necessarily closer and more responsive to the people. But apart from historical cases where the reverse has also
been true, this leaves out the essential relation between state and local powerthe simple truth that state power
wielded by a dominant, exploiting class will undermine progressive local initiatives, while that same power in the
hands of progressive forces can reinforce such initiatives. The counterposition of state and local power has been
used to justify the role of NGOs as brokers between local organizations, neoliberal foreign donors (World Bank,
Europe, or the United States) and the local free market regimes. But the effect is to strengthen neoliberal regimes
by severing the link between local struggles and organizations and national/international political movements. The
emphasis on local activity serves the neoliberal regimes since it allows its foreign and domestic backers to
dominate macro-socio-economic policy and to channel most of the states resources toward subsidies for export
capitalists and financial institutions. So while the neoliberals were transferring lucrative state properties to the
private rich, the NGOs were not part of the trade union resistance. On the contrary they were active in local private
projects, promoting the private enterprise discourse (self-help) in the local communities by focusing on micro-
enterprises. The NGOs built ideological bridges between the small scale capitalists and the monopolies benefitting
from privatizationall in the name of anti-statism and the building of civil societies. While the rich accumulated
vast financial empires from the privatization, the NGO middle class professionals got small sums to finance offices,
The important political point is that the
transportation, and small-scale economic activity.
NGOs depoliticized sectors of the population, undermined their
commitment to public employees, and co-opted potential leaders in small
projects. NGOs abstain from public school teacher struggles, as the
neoliberal regimes attack public education and public educators. Rarely if
ever do NGOs support the strikes and protests against low wages and
budget cuts. Since their educational funding comes from the neoliberal governments, they avoid solidarity
with public educators in struggle. In practice, non-governmental translates into anti-public-spending activities,
freeing the bulk of funds for neoliberals to subsidize export capitalists while small sums trickle from the government
In reality non-governmental organizations are not non-
to NGOs.
governmental. They receive funds from overseas governments or work as
private subcontractors of local governments. Frequently they openly collaborate with
governmental agencies at home or overseas. This subcontracting undermines
professionals with fixed contracts, replacing them with contingent
professionals. The NGOs cannot provide the long-term comprehensive programs that the welfare state can
furnish. Instead they provide limited services to narrow groups of communities. More importantly, their programs
are not accountable to the local people but to overseas donors. In that sense NGOs undermine democracy by taking
social programs out of the hands of the local people and their elected officials to create dependence on non-
elected, overseas officials and their locally anointed officials.
 Immigration Link
Affs Economic and Immigration Dialogue flawed- fails to
contextualize benefits within the dimensions of US-Mexico
economic interaction and labour migration
Delgado-Wise 04 [Raul Delgado-Wise, Critical Dimensions of Mexico-US Migration under the Aegis of
Neoliberalism and NAFTA, Canadian Journal of Development Studies 25.4 (2004): 591-605, Director of Doctoral
Program in Migration Studies, Professor of Development Studies, Universidad Autnoma de Zacatecas, Mexico]
Another dimension for debunking the myth of the Mexican export
miracle is the peculiar dialectic that is interwoven between what is
euphemistically called the successful sector and the rest of the economy.
This dialectic questions two classical concepts that attempt to explain the underdeveloped insertion of economies
in classical Latin American economic development theory. The functionalist concept of structural dualism
(Germani 1974) does not apply, and neither does the concept of enclave (Cardoso and Faletto 1974), which has
been dusted off to explain the economic integration of Mexico and the United States (Calva 1997, 71101). In
contrast to what those concepts assume, there is no divorce between the successful
sector and the rest of the economy, nor can the two be analysed in
isolation. On the contrary, the relative increases in the export sector are based
on the impoverishment of the remaining sectors. The export orientation
of the Mexican economy demands certain macroeconomic conditions that are obtained by
squeezing internal accumulation: in particular, reduced public investment expenditure, the
states withdrawal from strictly productive activities, privatizations, budget deficit
controls, and interest rates that are attractive to foreign capital but that,
in contrast, depress domestic activity within the economy. This further
heightens social inequalities and generates an ever-growing mass of
workers who cannot find a place within the countrys formal labour
market; as a result, a third of the economically active population work in what is called the informal sector.
This is the breeding ground that fuels the vigorous process of cross-
border migration that currently exists. The contradictory dynamic that arises between
migration and economic growth in that context can be summarized as follows.

Immigration policies with Mexico justify US imperialism and a

regime of terror while Mexico willingly submits for petty
economic benefits
Delgado-Wise 04 [Raul Delgado-Wise, Critical Dimensions of Mexico-US Migration under the Aegis of
Neoliberalism and NAFTA, Canadian Journal of Development Studies 25.4 (2004): 591-605, Director of Doctoral
Program in Migration Studies, Professor of Development Studies, Universidad Autnoma de Zacatecas, Mexico]
Neither Mexico nor the United States recognize an international migration
agenda commensurate with a reality that exists. They consequently fail to
act in accordance with this agenda. However, given its importance to the two countries, it is
impossible to ignore. Using strict costbenefit calculations (with the clear aim of avoiding a confrontation with the
United States, particularly with regards to undocumented migrants), from 1974 until very recently the Mexican
government chose to follow a peculiar strategy that Garca y Griego (1988) calls the policy of no policy, entailing
the absence of any explicit policy on migration matters. The negotiation and enactment of NAFTA served as a
fundamental point of reference for the subsequent course of bilateral relations and, in particular, of international
The Mexican governments agreement to exclude the issue of
migration.
migration from the negotiation agenda and adhere acritically to the principle of free
movement for investments and goods reaffirms not only its lack of commitment toward the migrant sector but also
and, in this instance, open subordination to the hegemonic interests of the
its frank
United States. The same attitude can be seen in the Mexican
governments lukewarm stance vis--vis Washingtons ferocious assault
on the human and labour rights of Mexican migrants. Among the many
measures introduced by the United States to install a regime of terror
along the border with Mexico are the countless operations deployed by its
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to curtail, at any cost, the
growing flow of labour migrants. Bearing in mind that Mexico ranks as the United States number
two trading partner, this is far from a civilized good neighbour policy between
partners. One clear indicator of the vehemence with which the anti-immigration policy is being pursued is the
increasingly generous some might say exorbitant budget given to the INS, totalling US$ 4.18 billion in 1999.
In line with xenophobia behind the failed Proposition 187 of California Governor Pete Wilson,
the
on 30 September 1996 the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act came into effect. This legislation (which is still in force) was important in that it
institutionalized the criminalizaton of labour migration through a series of
arbitrary procedural provisions that violate the human and labour rights of
cross-border workers (Mohar 2001, 51). One of the most reprehensible outcomes
of this hard-line approach within US immigration policy has been the
proliferation of Mexican deaths along Mexicos northern border , totalling 1236
between 1998 and 2000 (Villaseor and Morena 2002, 13); recourse is thus being made to
death as an element in dissuading migration, ratifying the
predisposition toward state terrorism as an essential ingredient in US
foreign policy and domestic security.
 Investment Link
Economic investment, even if it seems benign, is a form of capitalist
imperialism
Parenti 95 [Michael Parenti received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale
University. He has taught at a number of colleges and universities, in the United
States and abroad, Imperialism 101, published in Against Empire in 1995,
accessed 7/19/13, http://www.michaelparenti.org/Imperialism101.html] //pheft

The Dynamic of Capital Expansion Imperialism is older than capitalism. The Persian, Macedonian, Roman, and
Mongol empires all existed centuries before the Rothschilds and Rockefellers. Emperors and conquistadors were
Capitalist imperialism differs from
interested mostly in plunder and tribute, gold and glory.
these earlier forms in the way it systematically accumulates capital
through the organized exploitation of labor and the penetration of
overseas markets. Capitalist imperialism invests in other countries,
transforming and dominating their economies, cultures, and political life,
integrating their financial and productive structures into an international
system of capital accumulation. A central imperative of capitalism is
expansion. Investors will not put their money into business ventures unless they can extract more than they
invest. Increased earnings come only with a growth in the enterprise. The
capitalist ceaselessly searches for ways of making more money in order to
make still more money. One must always invest to realize profits, gathering as much strength as
possible in the face of competing forces and unpredictable markets. Given its expansionist nature,
capitalism has little inclination to stay home. Almost 150 years ago, Marx
and Engels described a bourgeoisie that "chases over the whole surface of
the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish
connections everywhere. . . . It creates a world after its own image." The
expansionists destroy whole societies. Self-sufficient peoples are forcibly
transformed into disfranchised wage workers. Indigenous communities
and folk cultures are replaced by mass-market, mass-media, consumer
societies. Cooperative lands are supplanted by agribusiness factory farms,
villages by desolate shanty towns, autonomous regions by centralized
autocracies. Consider one of a thousand such instances. A few years ago the Los Angeles Times carried a
special report on the rainforests of Borneo in the South Pacific. By their own testimony, the people there lived
contented lives. They hunted, fished, and raised food in their jungle orchards and groves. But their entire way of life
was ruthlessly wiped out by a few giant companies that destroyed the rainforest in order to harvest the hardwood
for quick profits. Their lands were turned into ecological disaster areas and they themselves were transformed into
disfranchised shantytown dwellers, forced to work for subsistence wageswhen fortunate enough to find
employment. North American and European corporations have acquired control of more
than three-fourths of the known mineral resources of Asia, Africa, and
Latin America. But the pursuit of natural resources is not the only reason for capitalist overseas expansion.
There is the additional need to cut production costs and maximize profits
by investing in countries with cheaper labor markets. U.S. corporate
foreign investment grew 84 percent from 1985 to 1990, the most dramatic increase
being in cheap-labor countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Spain, and Singapore. Because of low wages,
low taxes, nonexistent work benefits, weak labor unions, and nonexistent
occupational and environmental protections, U.S. corporate profit rates in
the Third World are 50 percent greater than in developed countries. Citibank,
one of the largest U.S. firms, earns about 75 percent of its profits from overseas operations. While profit margins at
home sometimes have had a sluggish growth, earnings abroad have continued to rise dramatically, fostering the
four
development of what has become known as the multinational or transnational corporation. Today some
hundred transnational companies control about 80 percent of the capital
assets of the global free market and are extending their grasp into the ex-
communist countries of Eastern Europe. Transnationals have developed a
global production line. General Motors has factories that produce cars, trucks and a wide range of auto
components in Canada, Brazil, Venezuela, Spain, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Nigeria, Singapore, Philippines, South Africa,
South Korea and a dozen other countries. Such "multiple sourcing" enables GM to ride out strikes in one country by
stepping up production in another, playing workers of various nations against each other in order to discourage
wage and benefit demands and undermine labor union strategies.
 Mexican Engagement Link
Discourse link The way the 1ac frames the interactions
between the US and Mexico spreads imperialism by
maintaining a distance between the colonizer and the
colonized
Toths 09
[Margaret A. Toth, Framing the Body: Imperialism and Visual Discourse in Mara Cristina Mena's Short Fiction,
Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, 2009,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/journals/legacy/v026/26.1.toth.html]
In 1913, Century magazine commissioned Mexican American writer Mara Cristina Mena, only twenty years old and
unknown at the time, to write a series of stories about life in Mexico. Over the course of the next few years, these
stories were published in Century, while several others appeared in journals like American Magazine. When Mena's
final short story was printed in Household Magazine in 1931, the periodical billed her as "the foremost interpreter of
Mexican life" (Mena, The Collected Stories 137).1 Largely forgotten today, Mena carved a distinct, if modest, space
for herself on the early-twentieth-century US cultural landscape. She cultivated professional friendships with such
literary figures as D. H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley, published numerous short stories in well-known periodicals
(most appearing between 1913 and 1916), and, later in life, authored several children's books.2 Recently, critics
have revisited Mena's stories, interrogating, among other things, the author's tricksteresque discourse, gender
politics, and role as cultural interpreter.3 In this essay, I adopt a new interpretive lens through which to read Mena's
work, as I situate her short fiction within a framework attentive to the colonialist dynamics at work in early-
twentieth-century US-Mexico relations. Broadly speaking, Mena's stories provide a sustained, if at times veiled,
commentary on the imperialist interests of the United States in Mexico. More specifically, they think through how
this particular imperialist drama plays itself out in and on subaltern bodies. By engaging both theoretical questions
about imperialist visual production and pragmatic ones about living within the shadow of US colonialism, Mena asks
people of color are shaped not only figuratively, within the
us to see how bodies of
imperialist imaginary, but also literally, by the daily realities of
imperialism.4 To argue these claims, I turn first to stories in which Mena grapples with [End Page 92] broad,
conceptual questions about imperialist visual practices.5 In the opening section of this essay, I illustrate that Mena's
stories, themselves steeped in ocular language, respond in complex ways to imperialist art's construction of the
other. In their discussion of colonialist photography, Eleanor M. Hight and Gary D. Sampson maintain that the genre
relies on "[t]he colonial constructions of racial, cultural, and geographic difference" (2). This emphasis on and
production of difference in colonialist photography, and in imperialist visual texts more
often
abets imperialist political projects, fueled as they are by a power
generally,
distribution that requires maintaining a distance between colonizer and
colonized. Imperialist images of human subjects, in particular, turn upon a self/other dichotomy, with the
separating bar representing an insurmountable difference: On the one side, we have the normative white, western,
imperialist subject; on the other, the colonized, exoticized, and racialized other, emptied of subjectivity. Images
grounded in this ideology were popular in early-twentieth-century US publications, including Century. Yet Mena's
stories, published alongside exoticizing pieces like the photo-essay "Unfamiliar Mexico," which I will discuss below,
challenge images that position Mexicans' bodies as ineradicably other. In the first part of this article, I examine two
stories, "The Vine-Leaf" and "The Gold Vanity Set," in order to show how Mena undermines such imperialist
practices. In these stories, Mena implicitly destabilizes the status of the image as bearer of truth. That is, she
exposes imagesincluding the photograph, which tends to carry an objective truth valueas manipulable, biased,
and, therefore, suspect. Yet while Mena debunks exoticizing mythsthose that would emphasize the difference of
Mexicans, representing them, whether textually or visually, as othershe is more overtly concerned with the threat
of sameness inherent in the tangible processes of imperialism and globalization. The characters in her stories
consistently confront the infiltration of US values and market goodsincluding the imported, generic white Anglo
body itselfinto their daily lives, and this confrontation sets in motion a renegotiation of identity, both
psychological and corporeal. Therefore, in the second half of this essay, I will shift gears, turning to stories in which
Mena articulates this danger of sameness. This issue isn't entirely unrelated to imperialist visual production. Indeed,
as a transition into this section, I will gesture toward a very relevant, and under-examined, facet of imperialist
media: the systematic use of visual apparatuses, particularly photography, to identify assimilable bodies, a practice
that turns on sameness rather than difference. In the second half of the essay, I will largely leave behind the
theoretical concerns of imperialist images to focus instead on stories about what I call embodied imperialism. Along
with "The Gold Vanity [End Page 93] Set," both "John of God, the Water-Carrier" and "Marriage by Miracle" register
the real, lived burdens that imperialism thrusts upon native bodies. While the characters in these stories face
various physical dilemmas, they are all targets of an imperialist machinery that would wipe out difference, leaving
behind a homogenous, markedly anglicized culture and people. Before examining how Mena's stories engage with
and disrupt imperialist narratives, I want to turn briefly to an example of how Century participated in the project of
conditioning its target audience, "the Anglo-American middle- and upper-class" (Doherty, Introduction xvii), to read
racialized images of Mexico. According to Tiffany Ana Lpez, "Century promoted itself" as "cosmopolitan" but built
this reputation on written and visual practices that tended to devalue non-Anglo cultures ("'A Tolerance for
Contradictions'" 64, 65). The magazine's most popular genre storiestravel and adventure narrativesare shot
through with covert and often overt racism. Its visual production, including photo essays, drawings, and
advertisements, tends to reproduce not only racist but also imperialist thought, as it takes up and redeploys a
hegemonic way of seeing non-Anglo peoples, cultures, and landscapes common in other visual media from the
period. Century's visual texts resemble, both formally and ideologically, early-twentieth century tourist photography
and pictorial postcards of non-Anglo subjects. For example, postcards of Mexico from the period fall into several
identifiable categories: views of various laborers, including water carriers and pulque drawers; hand-painted
illustrations and photographs of Mexican architecture, most commonly dilapidated churches and simple dwellings;
landscapes; and exotic pictures of people generally classified as "natives."6 Such postcards, often titled generically
as "Aspecto Tipico" 'Typical Sight,' emphasize how different Mexicans are from the US patrons who are buying and
sending the cards, a difference that supports a hierarchical system. For example, the visual and textual elements of
a postcard like "A Mexican Bath Tub" (Fig. 1), which depicts partially clad women and naked children in a stream,
are structured around a cluster of value-laden binaries that produce a gap between Anglo-American and Mexican
experience, including, to name just a few, progress versus regress, culture versus nature, and private versus public.
The production and reception of such images are governed by what Homi K.
Bhabha calls the "rules of recognition." These rules refer to "dominating discourses" that
"articulate the signs of cultural difference and reimplicate them within the
deferential relations of colonial powerhierarchy, normalization , [End Page 94]
marginalization, and so forth" (11011). In other words, the rules demand and in
fact beget an epistemological framework organized around hierarchical
difference, most commonly cultural and racial. While Bhabha uses his rules to describe
colonialist literature and the colonialist encounter more generally, his metaphorical references to visionthe rules
rely on "the visible and transparent mark of power" (111)suggest that a visual logic undergirds the system.
Indeed, it is not difficult to see how such codes apply to visual production, since visual texts like "A Mexican Bath
Tub" have the capacity literally to make visible the power dynamics that Bhabha describes.

L- US economic engagement in Mexico assumes and legitimates the

genocide of its indigenous peoples. Immigration reform veils the root
issue of a failing, dictatorial, Mexican government alienating its own
peoples
S Marcos 95 [Subcomandante Marcos, Sub-Commander Marcos letter to the people of the U.S., La
Jornada, Subcommander Insurgent of the National Zapatista Liberation Army, September 13, 1995]
The U.S. government has been wrong more than once in regards to its foreign policy. When this has occurred it is due to the fact it is making a mistake as
to the man it ought to be backing up. History is not lacking in this type of examples. In the first half of this decade, the U.S. government made a mistake
It made a mistake signing a NAFTA which lacked a
backing Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

majority support from the North American people and which meant an
order of summary execution against the Mexican Indigenous people . On the
dawn of 1994 we rose up in arms. We rose up not seeking power, not responding to a foreign order. We rose up to say "here we are." The

Mexican government, our government, had forgotten us and was ready to

perpetrate a genocyde without bullets or bombs, it was ready to
annihilate us with the quiet death of sickness, of misery , of oblivion. The U.S.
government became the accomplice of the Mexican government in this genocide. With
the signing of NAFTA, the U.S. government acted as guarantor of and gave its blessing
to the murder of millions of mexicans. Did the people of the U.S. know this? Did it know that its government was signing accords of massive extermination in
Mexico? Did the people of the U.S. know that his government was backing a criminal? That man is gone. We remained. Our demands had not been solved and our arms kept saying "here
we are" to the new government, to the people of Mexico, to the people and governnments of the world. We waited patiently for the new government to listen to us and pay attention to
us. But, within the dark circles of U.S.power someone decided that we, the insurgent Indigenous people of the Mexican South East, were the worst threat to the United States of America.
From the darkness came the order: Finish them up! They put a price on our brown skin, on our culture, on our word, because, above all they put a price on our uprising. The U.S.
government decided, once more, to back a man, someone who continues with the politics of deceit of his predecessor, someone who denies the people of Mexico democracy, freedom

Millions of dollars were lent to that man and his government. Without the approval of the American people, an
and justice .

Not to improve the living

enormous loan, without precedent in history, was granted to the Mexican government.

conditions of the people, not for the democratization of the country's

poltical life, not for the economic reactivation promoting factories and
productive projects. This money is for speculation, for corruption, for
simulation, for the anihilation of a group of rebels, Indians for the most part, poorly armed, poorly nourished, ill
equipped, but very dignified, very rebellious, and very human. So much money to finance deceit can only be explained by fear. But, what does the U.S. government fear? Truth? That
the North American people realize that their money is helping to back the oldest dictatorship in the modern world? That the North American people realize that their taxes pay for the
persecution and death of the Mexican Indian population? What is the North American people afraid of? Ought the people of North America fear our wooden rifles, our bare feet, our
exhausted bodies, our language, our culture? Ought the North American people fear our scream in demand of democracy,liberty, and justice? Aren't these three truths the foundation
which brought forth the birth of the United States of America? Aren't democracy, libertu, and justice rights that belong to all human beings? How many millions of dollars justify that one
may deny, to any human being, anywhere in the world, his right to be free in the thoughts that bring about words and actions, free to give and receive that which he justly deserves, to
freely elect those who govern him and enforce the collective goals? Should the North American people on the other hand fear money, modern weapons,the sophysitcated technology of
drug-trafficking? Should the North American people fear the complicity between drug-trafficking and governnments? Should the North American people fear the consequences of the

Today, the
single party dictatorship in Mexico? Should it fear the violence that the lack of freedom, democracy and justice usually brings about irrevocably?

American government, which for decades prided itself in promoting

democracy in the world is the main support of a dictatorship which, born at the beginning of
the XXth Century, pretends to end this century with the same lie, governing against the will of the Mexican people. Sooner or later, in spite of the support of the U.S. government, in spite
of the millions of dollars, in spite of the tons of lies, the dictatorship that darkens the Mexican sky will be erased. The people of Mexico will find the ways to achieve the democracy,liberty
and justice that is their historical right. Americans: The attacks against the Mexican nation brought about by political U.S. personalities have been big and numerous. In their analysis
they point out the awkwardness and corruption of the Mexican government (an awkwardness and corruption which have increased and are maintained under the shadow of the U.S.
government's support) and they identify them with an entire people who take shelter under the Mexican flag. They are wrong. Mexico is not a government. Mexico is a nation which
aspires to be sovereign and independent, and in order to be that must liberate itself from a dictatorship and raise on its soil the universal flag of democracy, liberty and justice .

Fomenting racism, fear and insecurity, the great personalities of U.S.

politics offer economic support to the Mexican government so that it
controls by violent means the discontent against the economic situation.
They offer to multiply the absurd walls with which they pretend to put a
stop to the search for life which drives millions of Mexicans to cross the
northern border. The best wall against massive immigration to the U.S. is
a free, just, and democratic regime in Mexico. If Mexicans could find in their own land what now is denied
them, they would not be forced to look for work in other countries. By supporting the dictatorship of the

state party system in Mexico, whatever the name of the man or the party, the North American
people are supporting an uncertain and anguishing future. By supporting the people of Mexico in
their aspirations for democracy, liberty and justice, the North American people honor their history...and their human condition. Today, in 1995 and after 20 years and tens of thousands
of dead and wounded, the American government recognizes that it made a mistake getting involved in the Vietnam war. Today, in 1995, the U.S. government has begun to get involved
in the Mexican government's dirty war against the Zapatista population. War material support, military advisors, undercover actions, electronic espionage, financing, diplomaticc support,
activities of the CIA. Little by little, the U.S. government is beginning to get involved in an unequal war condemned to failure for those who are carrying it on, the Mexican government.
Today, in 1995 and 20 years before 2015, it is possible to stop and not to repeat the error of other years. It is not necessary to wait until 2015 for the U.S. government to recognize that it
was an error to get involved in the war against the Mexican people. It is time for the people of the U.S. to keep its historical compromise with respect to its neighbor to the South. To no
longer make a mistake as to which man to support. To support not a man but a people, the Mexican people in its struggle for democracy, liberty and justice. History will signal,
implacable, on which side were the people and the government of the U.S. On the side of dictatorship, of a man, of reactionarism, or on the side of democracy, of a people, of progress.
Health and long life to the people of the United States of America

Trade with Mexico is always associated with domination and imperialism

best source proves
Shor 12 [FRANCIS SHOR is a professor in the History Department at Wayne State
University, U.S. Economic Imperialism and Resistance from the Global South: A
Prelude to OWS, published in NewPolitics Summer 2012 Vol:XIV-1 Whole #: 53,
accessed 7/17/13, <http://newpol.org/content/us-economic-imperialism-and-
resistance-global-south-prelude-ows>] //pheft

The devastation and disruption wrought by U.S. economic imperialism was

obviously co-determined by willing ruling classes in certain countries. In
numerous instances, foreign governments and their colluding political and economic elites helped to construct
financial and political arrangements conducive to the array of domestic and foreign economic interests and
in between the near bankruptcy in 1982 and
detrimental to the poor majority. For example,
the financial collapse in the mid-1990s, the Mexican Government and
various bankers aided a "Washington Consensus" that tied the Reagan and
Clinton Treasury Departments together with the IMF and private banks. Under Clintons
Secretary of Treasury, Robert Rubin, a former Citibank and Wall Street manager, private banks, including Citibank,
used both the Mexican and U.S. governments to salvage their bad economic investments. With the full participation
of the Mexican presidents during this time, but especially by Carlos Salinas de Gortari, neoliberal policies and
programs were adopted that, among other changes, privatized former communal farms and, in the process, forced
Furthermore, in taking away land
Mexican peasants into the cities or across the U.S. border.
that had been used for subsistence farming and the growing of corn, U.S. corn
imports, primarily the less nutritious and even GMO yellow corn, flooded the Mexican markets.
NAFTA accelerated U.S.-subsidized agricultural imports, in particular, even
though it did lead to the emergence and resistance by the Zapatistas and
others in Mexican civil society. While primarily a response to the debt
crisis and neoliberal policies in Mexico, including the implementation of
NAFTA, which, in turn, drove those on the margins into further economic and political deprivation, the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion NacionalEZLN)
opened a significant front against U.S. economic imperialism and global
neoliberalism. Embracing the legacy of political struggles from the Mexican past, the Zapatistas also looked
forward to creating a new and better world. In the January 1 missive that accompanied
their occupation in Chiapas, the legacy of past conflicts acknowledged the
role of the poor, despised, and marginalized: "We are the product of 500 years of
struggles: first against slavery, in the War of Independence against Spain
led by the insurgents, then to keep from being absorbed by U.S.
expansionism, then to enact our Constitution and expel the French Empire
from our land, then the Porfiro Diaz dictatorship prevented the just
application of the Reform laws and the people rebelled, developing their
own leadership, Villa and Zapata emerged, poor men like ourselves." After close to a year of public
engagement that saw the intervention of the Mexican army and the establishment of a wary truce, the EZLN issued
another declaration about their political intentions: "The Zapatista plan today remains the same as always: to
change the world to make it better, more just, more free, more democratic, that is, more human."
 Mexican Infrastructure Link
Mexican infrastructure is the weapon of imperialists, it allows
capitalism to expand and destroy our resources unless we stop to
recognize the people suffering from the insatiable beast
Marcos 92, [Subcomandante Marcos, August 1992, leader of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), a Mexican rebel
movement fighting for the rights of the indigenous peoples of Mexico, Our Word is Our Weapon
http://faculty.washington.edu/caporaso/courses/203/readings/marcos_our_word_is_our_weapon.pdf]
Suppose that you live in the north, center, or west of this country. Suppose that you
heed the old Department of
Tourism slogan: "Get to know Mexico first." Suppose that you decide to visit the southeast of your country and that
in the southeast you choose to visit the state of Chiapas. Good, suppose you have. You have now entered by one of the
three existing roads Into Chiapas: the road into the northern part of the state, the road along the Pacific coast, and the road by which you entered are the three ways to
Chiapas loses
get to this southeastern comer of the country by land, but the state's natural wealth doesn't leave just by way of these three roads.
blood through many veins: through oil and gas duets, electric lines,
railways; through bank accounts, trucks, vans, boats, and planes, through clandestine paths, gaps,
and forest trails. This land continues to pay tribute to the Imperialists : petroleum, electricity, cattle,
money, coffee, banana. honey, com, cacao, tobacco, sugar, soy, melon, sorghum, mamey, mango, tamarind, avocado, and Chiapaneco blood
all flow as a result of the thousand teeth sunk into the throat of the
Mexican Southeast. These raw materials, thousands of millions of tons of them, flow to Mexican ports,
railroads, air and truck transportation centers. From there they are sent
indifferent parts of the world the United States, Canada, Holland, Germany, Italy, Japanbut all to
fulfill one same destiny: to feed imperialism. Since the beginning, the fee that
capitalism imposes on the southeastern part of this country makes
Chiapas ooze blood and mud. A handful of businesses, one of which is the Mexican state, take all the wealth out of Chiapas and in
exchange leave behind their mortal and pestilent mark: in 1989 these businesses took 1,222,669,000,000 pesos from Chiapas and only left
behind 616,340,000.000 pesos worth of credit and public works. More than 600,000,000,000 pesos went to the belly of the beast. In
Chiapas, Pemex has eighty-six teeth sunk into the townships of Estacion Juarez, Reforma, Ostuacan. Pichucalco, and Ocosingo. Every
They take away the
day they suck out 92,000 barrels of petroleum and 517,000,000,000 cubic feet of gas.
petroleum and gas and, in exchange, leave behind the mark of capitalism:
ecological destruction, agricultural plunder, hyperinflation, alcoholism,
prostitution, and poverty. The beast is still not satisfied and has extended its tentacles to
the Lacandon Jungle: eight petroleum deposits are under exploration. The paths are made with machetes
by the same campesinos who are left without land by the insatiable beast.
The trees fall and dynamite explodes on land where campesinos are not allowed to cut
down trees to cultivate Every tree that is cut down costs them a fine that is ten
times the minimum wage, and a jail sentence. The poor cannot cut down trees, but
the petroleum beast can, a beast that every day fells more and more into
foreign hands. The campesinos cut them down to survive, the beast cuts them down to plunder.
 NGOs Links
NGOs can be devised with government aid to promote neoliberalism in
autonomous communities.
Stahler-Sholk 07 [Richard Stahler-Sholk, Resisting Neoliberal Homogenization: The Zapatista
Autonomy Movement, Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 34, No. 2, Globalizing Resistance: The New Politics of Social
Movements in Latin America (Mar., 2007), pp. 48-63]
Economic "autonomy" from the state and from the global market entailed other trade-offs. The Zapatistas had to
improvise a mode of relations with NGOs to preserve community control. Since the 2003 creation of Juntas de
municipal autonomous
Buen Gobierno headquartered in five caracoles, the regional juntas and
councils review NGO projects to decide whether and on what terms they
can proceed (Earle and Simonelli, 2005) instead of letting NGOs drive the
development process, which could be just as divisive as the government's
deliberate counterinsurgency aid. This has reinforced the autonomous
authorities' legitimacy and participatory experience in self-government . As
the Zapatistas explained (Marcos, 2003: pt. 2): It was a matter of time before people came to understand that the
Zapatista . . . There is a
indigenous people had dignity and were not looking for alms, but rather respect.
more sophisticated kind of handout which is practiced by some NGOs and
international organizations. It consists more or less in their deciding what
the communities need and, without even consulting them, imposing not
just particular projects but also the timing and form of their execution. Imagine
the desperation of a community that needs potable water and instead is given a library or needs a school for children and is given a course in herbiculture. Where projects were
established in specific communities, the Juntas some times charged a 10 percent tax for the region. The collective fund would create a counterbalance to the uneven development
that reflected the convenience and preferences of NGO funders, reaffirming the concept of community empower ment. The Zapatistas would now have some modest revenues to
respond to needs and proposals emanating from the communities-an escape from the "autonomy without resources" trap, though it meant defining self-sufficiency in terms of wider
networks of fair trade and solidarity. It also meant tightening the criteria for Zapatista-affiliated communities "in resistance" (i.e., rejecting gov ernment aid), a trade-off that
sacrificed some pluralism and flexibility in pushing communities to define themselves as "in" or "out." The new structure of the caracoles-extending the movement into state like
functions- posed broader questions of whether a social movement/rebellion/revolution must eventually institutionalize and in the process lose some of its mobilizational impetus. The
Juntas included a governing council of two representatives from each of the autonomous municipalities composing the region, who rotated every 10-15 days. This new dynamic
logically entailed some trade-offs. The frequent rotation of representatives fostered grassroots participation and accountability but perhaps at some cost of efficient continuity. The new
task of regional representation also required travel and extended shifts outside the community, which in light of gender roles in the indigenous communities might reduce womens
participation in governance structures. In reformulating the structure of community representation at the regional level, the Zapatistas were explicitly cutting out the intermediary
roles of both the political-military apparatus of the EZLN itself and the self-appointed leaders and organizations of civil society (Marcos, 2003: pt. 6): The military structure of the
EZLN "contaminated" in some ways a democratic and self-governing tradition. The EZLN was, shall we say, one of the "antidemoc ratic" elements in a relation of direct
community democracy. . . . Since the EZLN, on principle, is not fighting to take power, none of the military leadership or members of the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous
Committee can occupy positions of authority in the community or in the autonomous municipalities. . . . Often dishonest people deceive national and international civil society by
pre senting themselves in the cities as "Zapatistas.". . . Now it will just be a matter of contacting one of the Juntas de Buen Gobierno . . . and in a matter of minutes one can find
out if it is true or not, and if he is a Zapatista or not. This reaffirmation of the authority of the communities fit the Zapatista commitment to mandar obedeciendo (lead by obeying),
Yet it left unclear the role of the EZLN leaders (or of the civic
reflecting the attention to process that characterizes new social movements.
Frente Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional [Zapatista National Liberation Front-FZLN]) in connecting to a national
during periods of "strategic silence" when there was no
movement, particularly
dialogue with the government. It was this dilemma of potential isolation within their autonomous
regions- containment within a space that could be ignored, the "indio permitido" (Hale, 2004)-that the Zapatistas
sought to address with their June 2005 Sixth Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle. They broke a four-year silence
to hold a series of conferences /forums with civil society, inaugurating the "Other Campaign," in which Zapatista
leaders would visit other movements through out the country from January to July 2006 to refocus the national
agenda awayfrom election-year politicking (Harvey, 2005). In November 2005 the Zapatistas dissolved

curtailed the role of Enlace Civil (an organization that had served
the FZLN and
as a clearinghouse for NGOs working in autonomous territories), reflecting the new
emphasis on direct decision making by Zapatista community-based civil
authorities.
 Venezuela Links
The US has and continues to view Latin America as its backyard and
Venezuela has historically been at the forefront this is especially true
with Chavez dead now
Greene 5 [Cort Greene Writer for US Hands Off Venezuela, The Monroe Doctrine,
US Imperialism and Venezuela, published 11/8/5, accessed 7/16/13, <
http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/monroe_doctrine_venezuela.htm>] //pheft
US Hands Off Venezuela Campaign organizer Cort Greene writes: This December marks the
anniversaries of two of the most important documents of the United
States ruling class imperialist policy. These documents epitomize the
American imperialists paternalistic worldview, which they use to maintain
their political and economic interests, and to expropriate the markets, raw
materials and labor of the peoples of not only the western hemisphere but
of the world. The Monroe Doctrine of December 2, 1823, and the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine of December 6, 1904, are the bedrocks of expansionism and intervention which has caused so much
misery, death and impoverishment for millions across Latin America. The country of Venezuela has
played no small part in this history. In the early decades of the 19th century, the South
American Wars of Liberation were raging against Spanish domination in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and
Venezuela. One figure who rose to international prominence during these struggles was Simon Bolivar. His vision of
freedom from foreign domination, as well as the necessity of economic and social integration of the region has
become the inspiration for Venezuelas Bolivarian revolution But he was not just a man of words. At the Battle of
Carabobo on June 24, 1821, his brilliant military maneuvers sealed the fate of the Spanish forces in Venezuela, and
The Monroe Doctrine was
shortly thereafter, assured the demise of their empire in the region.
created to project the United States sphere of influence into the Americas
and fill the void left by Spain. It was also due to the upstart nations fear of
Latin American colonization by other more powerful European imperialists. In short,
they saw Latin America as their own "backyard" and field for exploitation.
Even before setting out to impose their will on the peoples of Latin America, one of the first applications of the spirit
of the doctrine was the "internal imperialism" against the indigenous peoples of North America, oppressing and
obliterating entire civilizations in the countrys move westward. Hundreds of thousands of square miles belonging to
Mexico were "acquired" as well. A succession of presidents invoked the Monroe
Doctrine in the annexations of Texas, California, Oregon and to fend off
European interest in the Yucatan and Mexico, and it was used as the
justification for the building a canal in Central America to control shipping
and commerce. President Cleveland used it to force a settlement in land dispute between Venezuela and
Britain in 1895. The Roosevelt Corollary In 1902, Venezuela could no longer placate the
demands of European bankers and pay back its debt, so the navies of
Great Britain, Italy and Germany blockaded and fired on its coastal
fortifications. Theodore Roosevelt became fixated on the prospects of re-
colonization of the hemisphere, and in 1903, he matched threat with
threat, warning the combatants that Admiral Deweys fleet would
intervene. The navies withdrew, and negotiations returned to the field of diplomacy. Roosevelts
Corollary, in an address to Congress, became an amendment to the Monroe Doctrine
which launched the era of the US as an international police force through
the use of its infamous "big stick." This opened the bloody history of US involvement on a grand
scale, which haunts the peoples of the region and the world to this day. Though it has gone through
many ideological contortions including "dollar diplomacy," the "good neighbor" policy, the "Reagan
Doctrine" and most recently, the "Bush Doctrine," the content has remained the same. Some of
the mechanisms of control include the School of the Americas, the Organization of American States, the Inter-
American Defense Board, Plan Colombia, the IMF and World Bank, NAFTA, CAFTA, and now the Free Trade
Agreement of the Americas. It is clear from the above how the Monroe Doctrine has been used
to dominate the cultures, political life, and economics of the Latin
America, all the while integrating the labor, natural resources, productive
and financial structures into a system of capital accumulation for the
benefit of US hegemony. As Karl Marx explained, "The profound hypocrisy and inherent barbarism of
bourgeois civilization lies unveiled before our eyes, turning from its home, where it assumes respectable forms, to
The US has long considered Latin America its own
the colonies, where it goes naked."
backyard and has tried to keep a stranglehold on the region. But through its own
policies, a beacon of light has appeared: Venezuelas Bolivarian Revolution. Hugo Chavez and above all the
Venezuelan grass roots movement have shown the masses of Latin America a way out. Revolutionary waves are
sweeping the region, and working people are engaged in a war with the exploiters on a mass scale. The masses
have shown an unquenchable fighting spirit: there is not one stable pro-US regime from the Rio Grande to Tierra del
From 1798 to 1993, the US used its
Fuego, and Washington is terrified of the implications.
armed forces to intervene in other countries 234 times. Since then we
seen the bombings of Yugoslavia and Sudan, the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and the US intervention in Haiti which was aimed also at
Venezuela and Cuba. In Venezuela the US has been waging a protracted
covert struggle, fighting what the US Army manuals call "fourth
generational warfare" by using the National Endowment for Democracy, AID, the AFL-
CIOs Solidarity House, some NGOs, corporations and others.

The history and present trajectory of the US is wrought with

destabilization attempts toward Venezuela and the supposed
cooperation of the plan is just another form of economy sabotage or
mobilization within the country
Robinson 10 [Interview with William I. Robinson, Professor of Sociology, University
of California at Santa Barbara By Chronis Polychroniou Editor, Greek daily
newspaper Eleftherotypia, *italics are Polychroniou*, The Challenges of 21st
Century Socialism in Venezuela: published 1/31/10, accessed 7/16/13, <
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-challenges-of-21st-century-socialism-in-
venezuela-by-william-i-robinson>] //pheft

There are scare stories coming from Venezuela. The border is heating up,
infiltration is taking place, a new Colombian military base near the border, US access to
several new bases on Colombia and constant subversion. Is the regime
concerned about a possible invasion? If yes, who is going to intervene? The Venezuelan government is
concerned about a possible US invasion and certainly an outright invasion cannot be ruled out. However I think
the US is pursuing a more sophisticated strategy of intervention that we
could call a war of attrition. We have seen this strategy in other countries,
such as in Nicaragua in the 1980s, or even Chile under Allende. It is what in CIA
lexicon is known as destabilization, and in the Pentagon's language is
called political warfare - which does not mean there is not a military component. This is a
counterrevolutionary strategy that combines military threats and
hostilities with psychological operations, disinformation campaigns, black
propaganda, economic sabotage, diplomatic pressures, the mobilization of
political opposition forces inside the country, carrying out provocations
and sparking violent confrontations in the cities, manipulation of
disaffected sectors and the exploitation of legitimate grievances among
the population. The strategy is deft at taking advantage of the
revolution's own mistakes and limitations, such as corruption, clientalism, and opportunism,
which we must acknowledge are serious problems in Venezuela. It is also deft at aggravating and
manipulating material problems, such as shortages, price inflation, and so forth. The goal is
to destroy the revolution by making it unworkable, by exhausting the
population's will to continue to struggle to forge a new society , and in this way to
undermine the revolution's mass social base. According to the US strategy the revolution must be destroyed by
having it collapse it in on itself, by undermining the remarkable hegemony that Chavismo and Bolivarianismo has
been able to achieve within Venezuelan civil society over the past decade. US strategists hope to provoke Chavez
into a crackdown that transforms the democratic socialist process into an authoritarian one. In the view of these
strategists, Chavez will eventually be removed from power through any number of scenarios brought about by
constant war of attribution - whether through elections, a military putsch from within, an uprising, mass defections
from the revolutionary camp, or a combination of factors that can not be foretold. In this context the military bases
in Colombia provide a crucial platform for intelligence and reconnaissance operations against Venezuela and also
for the infiltration of counterrevolutionary military, economic sabotage, and terrorist groups. These infiltrating
groups are meant to harass, but more specifically, to provoke reactions from the revolutionary government and to
synchronize armed provocation with the whole gamut of political, diplomatic, psychological, economic, and
Moreover, the mere threat of US
ideological aggressions that are part of the war of attrition.
military aggression that the bases represent in itself constitutes a
powerful US psychological operation intended to heighten tensions inside
Venezuela, force the government into extremist positions or into "crying
wolf," and to embolden internal anti-Chavista and counterrevolutionary
forces. However, it is important to see that the military bases are part of the
larger U.S. strategy towards all of Latin America. The US and the Right in
Latin America have launched a counteroffensive to reverse the turn to the Left or
the so-called "Pink Tide." Venezuela is the epicenter of an emergent counter-hegemonic bloc in Latin America. But
Bolivia and Ecuador, and more generally, the region's burgeoning social movements and left political forces are as
much targets of this counteroffensive as is Venezuela. The coup in Honduras has provided impetus to this
counteroffensive and emboldened the Right and counterrevolutionary forces. Colombia has become the epicenter
regional counterrevolution - really a bastion of 21st century fascism.
Impact Stuff
 Mexico Specific stuff
Mexican neoliberal political change strain democracy and sells out
Mexico to the US Imperialism
Kim 2013 [Kim, Dongwoo. "Modernization or Betrayal: Neoliberalism in Mexico." Constellations 4.1 (2013)]
Carlos Salinas trampled the workers rights, one of the key victories of the Mexican Revolution enshrined in the
Constitution of 1917, as part of his neoliberal economic agenda. The article 123 of the Constitution of 1917,
among many other things, guarantees the right of the workers, whether employed by public or private enterprises,
to organize and strike; it states that [t]oda persona tiene derecho al trabajo digno y socialmente til; al efecto, se
promovern la creacin de empleos y la organizacin social de trabajo, conforme a la ley.29 Salinas brutal
crackdown on union workers, which completely contradicted the article 123, symbolized the continuation of the
PRI governments betrayal and oppression. For Salinas, the crackdown of the unions was a necessary step before
the implementation of his neoliberal policies.
In the context of free trade with Canada and the
United States, the competitive advantage of Mexico consisted of
cheap labor and a minimum of state intervention in the economy , and
thus the labor had to be subdued before anything else.30 According to Mark Eric Williams, most of the scholars
agree that the weak labor opposition, diluted in the CTM, was one of the key characteristics of the Mexican
industry that allowed Salinas to implement his privatization policies.31 However, the labor leaders who wielded
significant influence in Mexican society, such as Joaqun Hernndez or Agapito Gnzalez definitely posed a threat
Instead of
to Salinas agenda and hence it was necessary for him to overcome this opposition beforehand.
negotiation, which would have been preferred in modernized countries
and more in line with the Constitution of 1917, Salinas chose a rather caudillo and PRI
method of resolving conflicts: brutal crackdown. The arrest and sentencing of Joaquin La Quina
Hernandez demonstrates the undemocratic and classical PRI method of
dealing with dissidents which completely disregards the article 123 of the constitution. Carlos
Salinas launched a war against the unions with the controversial arrest of La Quina in
January of 1989. Galicia was the de-facto leader of the union of Petrleos Mexicanos
(PEMEX) that represented the interests of more than 200,000 workers.32 Hernndez staunchly opposed the
privatization of the petroleum industry and this belief was echoed when he said that the oil should always be in
the hands of the Mex-i-cans.33 Hence, he was an enemy who had to be overcome by Salinas in order to privatize
one of the greatest industries of Mexico. Eventually, Hernndez was arrested on January 10th, 1989
on charges of corruption and possession of firearms.34 Expectedly, Hernndezs arrest sparked a series of strikes
across the nation, which were quickly subdued by the federal government. Hernndez acquiesced to the charges
laid against him when the chief commander of the Federal Judicial Police threatened to harm his family, and was
PEMEX was then gradually privatized
sentenced to thirty-five years in prison.35
eventually having its petrochemical plants out for sale (open to both domestic
and foreign buyers) in early 1993.36 Subsequently, Salinas went after the dockworkers union in Veracruz
and another prominent labor leader Agapito Gonzlez Cavazo, a day before his union was scheduled to protest against the maquiladora
plants owned by the American investors.37 The foreign media regarded Salinas as a competent leader who maintained the stability of the countryand
commented that Mexico was being well prepared for the neoliberal market economy.38 However, the brutal crackdown of the union leaders and their
strikes demonstrate Carlos Salinas disregard for the promises of the PRI government embedded in Article 123 of the Constitution of 1917.The
privatization of public corporations not only prepared the markets for foreign investmentbut also strengthened the PRI governments grip on the power.
After the crushing of the key labor leaders, the Salinas administration started to privatize various key corporations with free rein. Interestingly, many
close associates of the PRI government, most notably Carlos Slim Her, benefited the greatly from the series of privatization efforts.39 Furthermore, Jorge
the series of privatizations and
Castaeda, who was then a professor of political science at UNAM, asserted that

the upcoming implementation of NAFTA undertaken without political

transparency, and predicted that they would eventually strengthen PRIs hold on power.40 Hence, he interpreted the neoliberal reforms implemented by the Salinas administration as the means of
strengthening its unjust grip on the power, and, therefore, as the perpetuation and confirmation of the betrayal of the promises of the Mexican Revolution and the Constitution of 1917. However, the challenge to the sacred Article
27 of the Constitution of 1917 was a far clearer symbol of the PRI governments betrayal. The land reform of the Salinas administration was among the most controversial. As mentioned previously, Carlos Salinas, as part of the
neoliberal policies that would prepare Mexican market for the implementation of NAFTA, amended the Article 27 of the Constitution of 1917. For many Mexicans, this article symbolized the victory of, and the promises of the PRI to
stand by the Mexican Revolution; the statements of this article eventually became central to the assertion of Mexican nationalism and the right of the Mexican state to control the activities of foreign capital.41 The Article 27
basically delivered the long-demanded land reform to the campesinoswhich guaranteed a more equitable distribution of public wealth and protection from the abuses of the church and foreigners.42 Granted, the land reform
guaranteed by the Constitution of 1917 was not entirely successful and in fact statistics suggest that the lands were not being used efficiently mostly due to the lack of the capital to work on them.43 Still, the Article 27 provided
a sense of history and pride for the campesinos who associated themselves with the Zapatista rebels of the early twentieth century and legitimacy to the party that claimed to be the heir of the Mexican Revolution. These,
however, would soon be gone with Salinas land reform. In February 1992, Carlos Salinas took an even bolder step with his neoliberal economic policy and amended Article 27 to effectively privatize the lands. Under the
amendments, Mexicans were deprived of the constitutional guarantee of receiving land from the government; the government lost the authority to expropriate and distribute lands; and the farmers were allowed to purchase, sell,
or rent out their properties on the market.44 Wesley Smith, writing for a conservative policy periodical, praised the implementation of this land reform as a policy that would effectively improve Mexicos antiquated agricultural
sector and prepare the local economy for the implementation of NAFTA.45 The Salinas administration defended this policy on the grounds that this would dramatically improve the productivity of the countryside, which did not
fare well in comparison to the industrial sector, and also to attract foreign investments.46 Rosaria Angela Pisa argues that the new land reforms were used by the PRI regime to gain a tighter control of the countryside, especially
before the 1994 General Elections, which paralleled the idea of the democratic faade that it had been perpetuating throughout the twentieth century.47 In all fairness, the productivity eventually increased in these lands and the
former ejido reform was not doing enough for Mexican farmersbut many felt uneasy about this transition. Benito, a farmer, echoed this general feeling when he angrily said that his neighbor shouldnt be selling his land, even if

The trope of neoliberalism as the ultimate betrayal becomes

it is now the law.48
clearer with the rhetoric of imperialism. Many Mexicans and foreign observers displayed
concerns about the possible unbalance of economic benefits between the United States and Mexico. The
NAFTA negotiation was in a way described as selling out of Mexico to the
foreigners. Ramn, a farmer from Mexquitic, associated the PRI presidents with Spaniards, drawing a
multivocal symbol of capitalism, greed, and foreignness, the characteristics that symbolized the United States.49
the neoliberal policies were then associated with the Salinas government and the
As such,
American imperialists. The invitation of foreign investment and the
amendment of the Article 27, which allowed Mexican peasants to sell out
their lands to foreigners, suggested the imagery of the American invasion
and as the betrayal of lo Mexicano. Zapata was the image of nationalism (as well as the Revolution,which the PRI
government had appropriated), which sharply contrasted from the selling out attitude of the Salinas
government. Benito, who I have quoted above, also made the association between the gringo,50 and those
outside the community51 when he talked about his thoughts on the ejido reform. This imagery of imperialism
was further reflected in the reaction of the Maquiladora workers.
 Cultural Diversity
Neoliberal Imperialism is homogenizing and destroys culture, and
diversity
S Marcos 01 [Subcomandante Marcos, Participant of EZLN, The Fourth World War, International Civil
Commission of Human Rights Observation in La Realidad, October 23, 2001]
This Fourth World War uses what we call "destruction." Territories are destroyed and
depopulated. At the point at which war is waged, land must be destroyed, turned into desert. Not out of a
zeal for destruction, but in order to rebuild and reorder it. What is the primary problem
confronted by this unipolar world in globalizing itself? Nation States, resistances, cultures, each nation's means of
relating, that which makes them different. How is it possible for the village to be global and for everyone to be
equal if there are so many differences? When we say that it is necessary to destroy Nation
States and to turn them into deserts, it does not mean doing away with the people,
but with the peoples' ways of being. After destroying, one must rebuild. Rebuild the
territories and give them another place. The place which the laws of the
market determine. This is what is driving globalization. The first obstacle is the
Nation States: they must be attacked and destroyed. Everything which makes a State "national" must
be destroyed: language, culture, economy, its political life and its social
fabric. If national languages are no longer of use, they must be destroyed, and a new language must be
promoted. Contrary to what one might think, it is not English, but computers. All languages must be made the
All cultural aspects that make a French person
same, translated into computer language, even English.
are barriers
French, an Italian Italian, a Dane Danish, a Mexican Mexican, must be destroyed, because they
which prevent them from entering the globalized market . It is no longer a
question of making one market for the French, and another for the English or the Italians. There must be one
single market, in which the same person can consume the same product in any part of the world, and where the
same person acts like a citizen of the world, and no longer as a citizen of a Nation State. That means that
cultural history, the history of tradition, clashes with this process and is the enemy of the Fourth World War. This is
especially serious in Europe where there are nations with great traditions. The cultural framework of the French,
the Italians, the English, the Germans, the Spanish, etcetera - everything which cannot be translated into
computer and market terms - are an impediment to this globalization. Goods are now going to circulate through
information channels, and everything else must be destroyed or set aside. Nation States have their own
economic structures and what is called "national bourgeoisie" - capitalists with national headquarters and with
national profits. This can no longer exist: if the economy is decided at a global level, the economic policies of
Nation States which try to protect capital are an enemy which must be defeated. The Free Trade
Treaty, and the one which led to the European Union, the Euro, are symptoms that the
economy is being globalized, although in the beginning it was about regional globalization, like in
the case of Europe. Nation States construct their political relationships, but now political relationships
are of no use. I am not characterizing them as good or bad. The problem is that these political
relationships are an impediment to the realization of the laws of the market. The national political class is old, it
is no longer useful, it has to be changed. They try to remember, they try to remember, even if it is the name of
one single statesman in Europe. They simply cannot. The most important figures in the Europe of the Euro are
people like the president of the Bundesbank, a banker. What he says is going to determine the policies of the
If the social fabric is
different presidents or prime ministers inflicted on the countries of Europe.
broken, the old relationships of solidarity which make coexistence
possible in a Nation State also break down. That is why campaigns
against homosexuals and lesbians, against immigrants, or the campaigns
of xenophobia, are encouraged. Everything which previously maintained a certain equilibrium
has to be broken at the point at which this world war attacks a Nation State and transforms it into something else.
It is about homogenizing, of making everyone equal, and of hegemonizing
a lifestyle. It is global life. Its greatest diversion should be the computer, its work should be the
computer, its value as a human being should be the number of credit cards, one's purchasing capacity, one's
productive capacity. The case of the teachers is quite clear. The one who has the most knowledge or who is the
wisest is no longer valuable. Now the one who produces the most research is valuable, and that is how his salary,
his grants, his place in the university, are decided. This has a lot to do with the United
States model. It also so happens, however, that this Fourth World War produces an opposite effect, which
we call "fragmentation." The world is, paradoxically, not becoming one, it is breaking up into many pieces.
Although it is assumed that the citizen is being made equal, differences as differences are emerging: homosexuals
and lesbians, young people, immigrants. Nation States are functioning as a large State, the anonymous State-
land-society which divides us into many pieces.
 Genocides
The 1acs method of imperialism is uniquely bad it hides
atrocities in the shadows and allow them to escalate to the
point of genocides without anyone thinking twice about them
Sugirtharajah 11
[R.S. Sugirtharajah, 1. Postcolonialism: Hermeneutical Journey through a Contentious Discourse, Exploring
Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: History, Method, Practice, April 20 2011, Wiley interscience]
Colonial discourse analysis began with several theorists who studied colonialism in the Arab world, such as Albert
Memmi in Tunisia, Frantz Fanon in Algeria, and Edward Said. Since then it has seen several changes. First, the way
of doing postcolonialism has changed. In the initial stages, following Said, Spivak, and Bhabha, postcolonialism was
based on, in Spivak s phrase, a South Asian model 17 and was seen as an anglophone affair limited to the
imperial adventures of the British. Now, postcolonial studies has widened its scope to include not only the other old
European empires like the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, and French, and Eastern ones like the Japanese, but
also the newer empires like that of the United States of America. To this one could add the Soviet empire as well,
demonstrating that not all colonialism was from the far right. As Spivak points out, with such a changed and
widened focus of attention, the old model derived from South Asia, which was basically India plus the Sartrian
Fanon will not serve We are dealing with heterogeneity on a different scale and related to imperialism on
another model. 18 This also means that the earlier texts of Fanon, Memmi, and Cabral, which supplied exemplary
theoretical underpinning in their time, may not have as much purchase as they did with the old colonialism. To meet
the different demands of the decolonization process which started soon after the Second World War, and was soon
to be caught up in the Cold War and the new imperialism in the form of globalization, new texts are required. One
such, which accommodates the new political geography and neo - colonial context, especially in Asia, is Kuan -
Hsing Chen s Asia as Method . 19 In this volume, Chen takes into account Japanese military occupation, US
imperialism after the Second World War, and the emergence of China as both territorial and economic superpower.
Second, the nature of colonialism has changed. The old territorial colonialism has given way to new forms under the
heading of neo - colonialism. Unlike the old empires, where one knew the boundaries and identifi ed their
power structure, now it is diffi cult to specify the parameters. The new empire has no territorial center of power or
is a decentered and
clearly delineated boundaries. As Hardt and Negri put it, it
deterritorializing apparatus of rule that progressively incorporates the
entire global realm within its open, expanding frontiers The distinct
national colors of the imperial map of the world have merged and blended
in the imperial global rainbow. 20 In this barrierless world it is not the traditional nation - states
that wield power but the transnationals, which have become the fundamental motor of the economic and political
One such borderless empire
transformation of postcolonial countries and subordinated regions. 21
is environmental colonialism. Just as the old colonialists tried to redeem the savages for the
Christian Church, the new conservationists try to save the natural resources not
so much for the local people as for the multinationals. With the
professedly altruistic motive of preserving the tropical rainforests,
Western corporations are buying them up as resources. The lands in which the
indigenous peoples lived for long ages have been declared idyllic and turned into wildlife sanctuaries, and local
people are forbidden to hunt, cut trees, and quarry stone. The eviction of the aborigines of Palawan Island in the
Philippines, and the bushmen in Botswana, in order to create national parks are egregious examples of this type of
green colonialism. 22Physical occupation may be a thing of the past but there is
still the desire to extend sovereign rights in a place like Antarctica where
the seabed is rich in gas, oil, and minerals. Colonialist tactics, too, have become much more
nuanced. The old colonialists preached Christianity as a way of saving souls, whereas the current neo -
colonialists spread the virtues of democracy and human rights in order to
prepare countries for a liberalized market economy. According to The Guardian
columnist Simon Jenkins, democracy has become the new Christianity. 23 The word mission has been replaced
with the word intervention. The former British foreign secretary, David Miliband, called for a moral intervention
as the West s new mission to encourage democracy through soft or hard power. 24 The old colonizers saw
the new colonizers, no less
themselves as masters and used brute force to achieve their goals, but
project themselves as liberators, or, to use the words of Reinhold Niebuhr, tutors of
violent,
mankind in its pilgrimage to perfection. 25 Third, there is a remarkable change in the
geopolitical landscape. In the north, with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the old ways of drawing boundaries
determined by the Cold War are no longer politically tenable. In the south, the emerging markets have altered the
old classifi cation of developing and underdeveloped world. The emergence of China, India, and Brazil as new
economic forces on the world stage has unsettled the traditional Western hold on the economy. Rapid globalization
and the free - market economy have called into question what is local and indigenous. But the structuring of the
world is not as rigid as it used to be. The old stringent oppositional division of colonizer/colonized, East/West,
oppressor/ oppressed, and First World/Third World has slowly lost its ideological purchase. The world has become
more unipolar and more singular, and as such it is now much more nuanced and interrelated. Fourth, a critical
practice which started as a political frame of reference and a tool for literary analysis has moved beyond its general
theorizing to a specifi c, deeper, and more practical phase of engagement. Some of the recent literature offers
evidence of engagement of postcolonialism with particular subjects, thus bringing to the fore a variety of fi elds
which are underrepresented in the various earlier anthologies and compilations. To name a few: legal studies,
disability, 26 development, 27 international terrorism, 28 environmentalism, 29 fi lm, tourism, popular music,
dance, 30 and the history of book production. 31 These studies extend the central debates and concerns of the
theory beyond its rich theoretical manifestations. More importantly, these engagements have not only answered
the earlier accusation that postcolonialism was pure theory and very much slanted towards high literature, culture,
and philosophy, but also introduced popular cultural forms such as music, fi lms, and sport. Interestingly, a
theoretical practice which has its roots in humanistic tradition has now become a serviceable tool providing
challenging refl ections on religions. There are books using postcolonial insights to study Hinduism, 32 Buddhism,
33 Islam, 34 the Bible, 35 and Christian theology. 36 These books not only demonstrate how ideologies of empire
shaped the construction of the Eastern religions but also show how the religions themselves offered a form of
postcolonialism has embraced a wide variety of disciplinary fi elds
resistance to colonial rule. Meanwhile,
has now expanded to include all
which have not usually been open to postcolonial inquiry. It
forms of oppression and subjugation ranging from disability studies to queer studies. It has
moved back in time to embrace subjects such as classics 37 and medieval studies which at fi rst glance might not
have been seen as having any postcolonial interest. As Barbara Goff, the editor of Classics and Colonialism , put it,
it is no longer appropriate to account for e.g. British Romanticism without an acknowledgment of the emergence of
the British empire. 38 Fifth, the nature of the postcolonial condition has perceptively changed. In the early stages,
it was as seen as a newly acquired territorial freedom enjoyed by former colonized countries soon after the physical
departure of Western countries. Then, with forced and voluntary migration, diasporic status became a new
postcolonial status. The resultant border - crossing anguishes such as yearning for home and recovering the cultural
soul were treated as new forms of the postcolonial condition. While this predicament of dislocation reifi ed the plight
and distresses of the metropolitans, the material conditions of the rural poor were altered by state development
policies, agrarian capitalism, and technological changes in food production in the rural economy, which, in Akhil
Gupta s view, have led to a condition of postcoloniality for the rural poor and peasants. 40 The defi nition of
postcoloniality was thrown into further confusion with the recent wars in Iraq, Iran, Sri Lanka, and the Balkans,
which resulted in a great number of internally displaced people forced to live in detention centers and welfare
the narratives which postcolonialism dealt with in
camps in their own countries. Sixth,
its initial stages have given way to newer grand narratives. The earlier anti -
colonial writers and activists were wrestling with European expansionism, Enlightenment values, and neo -
liberalism. The new metanarratives are war on terror, ethnic cleansing, environmental catastrophe, and
The earlier grand narratives resulted in destruction and
religious fundamentalisms.
annihilation of the benighted people, whereas the new ones speak about
the redemption and salvation carried out on behalf of the hapless victims.

Imperialism is Bad
Ottoway & Lacina- 03, Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson
Center, Political Analyst
Marina Ottaway and Bethany Lacina, International Interventions and Imperialism:
Lessons from the 1990s, The SAIS Review, Summer-Fall 2003,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/journals/sais_review/v023/23.2ottaway.html

TheevolutionofinternationalinterventionssuggeststhatU.S.unilateralism,asexpressedinthedoctrineofpreemptiveintervention,isinpartan
extensionofideasandtrendsthatemergedinthe1990s.TheUNsincreasingrelianceonpartnershipswithothermultilateralorganizationand
membercountryforces,forexample,ledindividualcountriestotakeonresponsibilitiestraditionallyreservedfortheUN,albeitwithUNconsent.
U.S.unilateralismisalsoareactionagainstthefrustratingdelaysandcompromisesrequiredtoobtainSecurityCouncildecisions.Buttheideas
setforthinthedoctrineofpreemptiveintervention,andtheU.S.attitudetowardtheUNondisplaybeforeandduringtheIraqwar,breakwith
thattrendinsignificantways.First,theUnitedStatesisseekingtoshiftfinalauthorityforauthorizinginternalinterventionsawayfromtheUN
andtowarditself,relegatingtheUNtoapositionofsecondaryimportance,tobecalleduponwhenconvenientasamarginalcontributorto
essentiallyAmericanundertakings.Second,by
arguing that the United States has the right to
intervene not only to eliminate threats to itself and international peace,
but also to put in place new regimes, the doctrine of preemptive
intervention poses a new threat to the principle of state sovereignty. Not
surprisingly, the debate on imperialism has intensifiedunilateral
American interventionism constitutes a far greater threat to the
foundations of the international system than even the most aggressive
multilateral missions of the 1990s.InNamibia,Haiti,andSierraLeonemultilateralinterventionssupported
regimechange,butthesecaseshavebeenjustifiedasthereturnoflegallyrecognizedpowersinplaceofanillegaldefactoregime.The
unilateralistAmericanprojectappearstogomuchfurther.Itjustifiesregimechangenotsimplyasameansofrestoringalegitimategovernment,
butasameansofremovingthreatstoU.S.securityinterestsasdefinedbytheU.S.administration. Though
all states have
the right to defend their security interests, U.S. unilateral interventions,
based on preemption of vaguely defined threats and undertaken without
an international process of legitimization, would provoke widespread
international resentment against the United States, as the war in Iraq
already has. U.S. unilateralism may also furnish a license for unilateral
interventions by other states, and thus become a source of instability .In
additiontothethreatunilateralinterventionsposetotheinternationalsystemandU.S.moralcredibility,theexperienceofmultilateralpost
conflictreconstructionduringthe1990sshouldbeamajorcheckonsuchaproject.Thatexperiencedemonstratesthat
interventions, even those with imperial characteristics and significant
resources, often result in very little change to internal power dynamics.
Even the tremendous military power and financial resources of the United
States cannot necessarily keep its attempts to rebuild states and support
stable, benign, and democratic regimes from being thwarted by local
political realities.Rapidly transforming rogue and failed states will prove a
daunting task, and unilateral intervention, shackled by international
resentment and charges of imperialism, is especially unlikely to prove an
effective tool.Theinternationalcommunitystilldoesnothaveasatisfactoryanswertotheissuesofcivilconflict,humanitarian
crisis,andstatecollapsethathavebroughttheprincipleofstatesovereigntyintoconflictwiththeinternationalinterestinpeaceandsecurity.
What is now necessary,however,isnotaunilateralU.S.projectofregimechangesandstatetransformations,butthe
reinvention of international mechanisms in order to make multilateral
interventions more responsive and more effective, while avoiding threats
to state sovereignty and independence.
 Extinction
Unlimited imperialist conquest inevitably results in extinction,
every modern war has been a byproduct of the spread of
colonialism
Harvey 06
[David Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism: A Theory of Uneven Geographical Development, May 17 2006,
Chapter 13]
At times of savage devaluation, interregional rivalries typically degenerate into struggles over who is to bear the
burden of devaluation. The export of unemployment, of inflation, of idle productive
capacity become the stakes in the game. Trade wars, dumping, interest rate wars,
restrictions on capital flow and foreign exchange, immigration policies, colonial
conquest, the subjugation and domination of tributary economies, the
forced reorganization of the division of labour within economic empires,
and, finally, the physical destruction and forced devaluation of a rival's
capital through war are some of the methods at hand. Each entails the aggressive
manipulation of some aspect of economic, financial or state power. The politics of imperialism, the
sense that the contradictions of capitalism can be cured through world domination by some omnipotent power,
surges to the forefront. The ills of capitalism cannot so easily be
contained. Yet the degeneration of economic into political struggles plays its part in the long-run stabilization
of capitalism, provided enough capital is destroyed en route. Patriotism and nationalism have many functions in the
contemporary world and may arise for diverse reasons; but they frequently provide a most convenient cover for the
devaluation of both capital and labour. We will shortly return to this aspect of matters since it is , I believe, by
far the most serious threat , not only to the survival of capitalism (which matters not a jot), but to
the survival of the human race . Twice in the twentieth century, the world has been
plunged into global war through inter-imperialist rivalries. Twice in the space of a
generation, the world experienced the massive devaluation of capital through
physical destruction, the ultimate consumption of labour power as cannon
fodder. Class warfare, of course, has taken its toll in life and limb, mainly
through the violence daily visited by capital upon labour in the work place and through the violence of primitive
accumulation (including imperialist wars fought against other social formations in
the name of capitalist 'freedoms'). But the vast losses incurred in two world
wars were provoked by inter-imperialist rivalries. How can this be explained on the basis
of a theory that appeals to the class relation between capital and labour as fundamental to the interpretation of
history? This was, of course, the problem with which Lenin wrestled in his essay on imperialism. But his argument,
as we saw in chapter 10, is plagued by ambiguity. Is finance capital national or international? What is the relation,
then, between the military and political deployment of state power and the undoubted trend within capitalism to
create multinational forms and to forge global spatial integration? And if monopolies and finance capital were so
powerful and prone in any case to collusion, then why could they not contain capitalism's contradictions short of
destroying each other? What is it, then, that makes inter-imperialist wars necessary to the survival of capitalism?
The 'third cut' at crisis theory suggests an interpretation of inter-imperialist wars as constitutive moments in the
dynamics of accumulation, rather than as abberations, accidents or the simple product of excessive greed. Let us
see how this is so. When the 'inner dialectic' at work within a region drives it to seek external resolutions to its
problems, then it must search out new markets, new opportunities for capital export, cheap raw materials, low-cost
labour power, etc. All such measures, if they are to be anything other than a temporary palliative, either put a claim
on future labour or else directly entail an expansion of the proletariat. This expansion can be accomplished through
The
population growth, the mobilization of latent sectors of the reserve army, or primitive accumulation.
insatiable thirst of capitalism for fresh supplies of labour accounts for the
vigour with which it has pursued primitive accumulation, destroying,
transforming and absorbing pre-capitalist populations wherever it finds
them. When surpluses of labour are there for the taking, and capitalists have not, through competition,
erroneously pinned their fates to a technological mix which cannot absorb that labour, then crises are typically of
short duration, mere hiccups on a general trajectory of sustained global accumulation, and usually manifest as mild
switching crises within an evolving structure of uneven geographical development. This was standard fare for
nineteenth-century capitalism.The real troubles begin when capitalists, fating shortages of
labour supply and as ever urged on by competition, induce unemployment through
technological innovations which disturb the equilibrium between
production and realization, between the productive forces and their accompanying social relations.
The closing of the frontiers to primitive accumulation, through sheer exhaustion of possibilities, increasing
resistance on the part of pre-capitalist populations, or monopolization by some dominant power, has, therefore, a
tremendous significance for the long-run stability of capitalism. This was the sea-change that began to be felt
increasingly as capitalism moved into the twentieth century. It was the sea-change that, far more than the rise of
monopoly or finance forms of capitalism, played the crucial role in pushing capitalism deeper into the mire of global
crises and led, inexorably, to the kinds of primitive accumulation and devaluation jointly wrought through inter-
capitalist wars. The mechanisms, as always, are intricate in their details and greatly confused in actual historical
conjunctures by innumerable cross-currents of conflicting forces. But we can construct a simple line of argument to
illustrate the important points. Any regional alliance, if it is to continue the process of accumulation, must maintain
access to reserves of labour as well as to those 'forces of nature' (such as key mineral resources) that are otherwise
capable of monopolization. Few problems arise if reserves of both exist in the region wherein most local capital
circulates. When internal frontiers close, capital has to look elsewhere or risk devaluation. The regional alliance
feels the stress between capital embedded in place and capital that moves to create new and permanent centres of
accumulation elsewhere. Conflict between different regional and national capitals over access to labour reserves
and natural resources begins to be felt. The themes of internationalism and multilaterialism run hard up against the
desire for autarky as the means to preserve the position of some particular region in the face of internal
contradictions and external pressures - autarky of the sort that prevailed in the 193Os, as Britain sealed in its
Commonwealth trade and Japan expanded into Manchuria and mainland Asia, Germany into eastern Europe and
Italy into Africa, pitting different regions against each other, each pursuing its own 'spatial fix'. Only the United
States found it appropriate to pursue an 'open door' policy founded on internationalism and multilateral trading. In
the end the war was fought to contain autarky and to open up the whole world to the
potentialities ofgeographical expansion and unlimited uneven development.
That solution, pursued single-mindedly under United States's hegemony
after 1945, had the advantage of being super-imposed upon one of the
most savage bouts of devaluation and destruction ever recorded in
capitalism's violent history. And signal benefits accrued not simply from the immense destruction of
capital, but also from the uneven geographical distribution of that destruction. The world was saved
from the terrors of the great depression not by some glorious 'new deal' or
the magic touch of Keynesian economics in the treasuries of the world, but
by the destruction and death of global war.
 Economy
Even under the affs framework you vote neg globalization
and imperialism have destroyed Latin Americas economy and
it is steadily bringing down the worlds as well
Robinson 2002
[William I. Robinson, Latin America in the Age of Inequality: Confronting the New Utopia, International Studies
Review, December 17 2002, Wiley interscience]
Globalization has played a determinant role in the shift in Latin America
from a regional model of accumulation, based on domestic market expansion, populism, and
import-substitution industrialization, to the neoliberal model based on liberalization and integration to
the global economy, a laissez-faire state, and export-led development.3 The transition from predominant
worldwide model of Keynesian or Fordist accumulation to post-Fordist flexible accumulation models involves a
process in each region of internal adjustment and rearticulation to the global system. It has accelerated diversity
and uneven development among countries and regions in accordance with the matrix of factor cost
considerations and the configuration of diverse social forces in the new globalized environment. The particular
form of rearticulation to the global economy, including new socioeconomic structures and a modified regional
The dismantling of the
profile in the global division of labor, has varied from region to region.
preglobalization model of development and its replacement by the
neoliberal model began in Latin America in the 1970s. But the imbroglio in Latin
Americas development hit in the 1980s, often referred to as Latin Americas lost decade. At the
beginning of the decade, Latin America was hit by an economic crisis
unprecedented since the 1930s crisis of world capitalism, and that
endured throughout the decade. Latin American development not only
stagnated in absolute terms, but perhaps more significantly, the region
has experienced backward movement in relation to the world economy .
Some have referred to the regions marginalization as the Africanization of Latin America, in reference to Africas
severe marginalization from the centers of world power and wealth and the increasing structural similarity of the
Latin Americas share in world trade and production
two regions in the global system.
has declined steadily since 1980. Income and economic activity have
contracted relative to the global system. As growth stagnated worldwide during the world
recession that began in 1973, Latin America fell behind developing countries as a whole. The average annual
growth of real Gross Domestic Product per capita in Latin America dropped to 0.4 percent, compared to 2.3
Between 1980 and 1989 world economic activity
percent in developing countries.4
expanded by an annual average of 3.1 percent. Growth in Africa dropped
from 4.2 percent (19651980) to 2.1 percent (19801989), and in Latin America it dropped
even more precipitously, from 6.1 percent (19651980) to 1.6 percent (1980
1989).5 Between 1980 and 1990, Latin Americas share of manufacturing value added
fell from 6 percent of the world total to 4.9 percent.6 Latin Americas share of world
exports and imports has declined steadily from 1950, but it dropped precipitously from 1980 into the 1990s.7 In
contrast, the volume of Latin American exports increased significantly throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In other
words, Latin Americans have worked harder and produced more for the global economy, even as they have
become more impoverished and marginalized. Between 1983 and 1985, the volume of the regions exports rose
by 16.2 percent, but the value of these same exports dropped by 9.9 percent. Between 1992 and 1994, the volume
rose by 22.3 percent, but the value only increased by 3.3 percent.8 The steady deterioration of the terms of trade
for Latin America must be understood as a consequence of the regions increasingly asymmetric participation in
the global division of labor at a time when adjustment has shifted resources toward the external sector.9 Latin
Americas increasing marginality in the global system should not be
confused with its contribution to global capital accumulation . Latin America was
a net exporter of capital to the world market throughout the 1980s, exporting $219 billion between 1982 and
1990.10 Ironically, therefore, Latin America continues to be a supplier of surplus for the world and an engine of
growth of the global economy. In a liberalized global capitalist economy, surpluses may be transferred just as easily
The
as they are generated, which reminds us that growth alone does not involve development.
permanent drainage of surplus from Latin America helps to explain the
regions stagnation, declining income, and plummeting living standards.
The poor have to run faster just to remain in the same place. The social crisis in
Latin America is not as much a crisis of production as one of distribution. Inequality is a social relation of unequal
power between the dominant and the subordinate, we should recall, and more specifically, the power of the rich
locally and globally to dispose of the social product. Latin America experienced renewed growth and a net capital
inflow of $80 billion between 1991 and 1994.11 But the vast majority of the inflow of capital is not a consequence
of direct foreign investment that could have helped expand the regions productive base as much as from new
loans. It also did not result from the purchase of stock in privatized companies and speculative financial
investment in equities and mutual funds, pensions, insurance, and so on.12 The dominance of speculative financial
flows over productive capital, reflecting the hegemony of transnational finance capital in the age of globalization
and its frenzied casino capitalism activity in recent years, gives an illusion of recovery in Latin America. In
addition, Latin America continued to export annually between 1992 and 1994 an average of $30 billion in profits
and interests. Although there has been a resumption of growth, recovery has not generated new employment
opportunities but has been accompanied by increased poverty and inequality.13 Given the outward drainage of
surplus combined with liberalization and deeper external integration, it is not surprising that the external debt has
continued to grow throughout the late 1980s and into the 1990s, and that its rate of growth is again increasing in
the 1990s.14 Latin
Americas development debacle is clearly linked to the
crisis of global accumulation, which also hit Africa in the 1980s and finally caught up with the
miracle economies of East Asia starting with the currency crises of 1997. Yet, there are also region-specific
considerations. The particular preglobalization structures and the form of articulation to the world economy help
shape each regions fate under globalization. Africas relegation to a world preserve for mineral and agricultural
raw materials (with some notable exceptions, among them South Africa) placed that region at a severe
disadvantage as globalization unfolded. East Asia and Latin America shared a more advanced level of import
substitution industrialization (ISI). But East Asias ISI model was based on the simultaneous expansion of the
domestic market and increasingly higher value added exports for the world market, along with growing sectoral
articulation and forward-backward linkages, a pattern that it sustained into the mid-1990s. Latin American ISI, in
contrast, was characterized by an internal-external dualism: industrial expansion largely for the domestic market
and continued articulation to the world economy through primary exports.18 By eliminating the domestic market
globalization has placed Latin America in a structural
as a factor in development,
situation parallel to that of Africa. But this is only part of the story. Regional adjustment in Latin
America to the global economy has been effectuated through the neoliberal program, which is most advanced in
this region, and is based on creating the optimal environment for private transnational capital to operate as the
The fact that the domestic market is not
putative motor of development and social welfare.
of strategic importance in development and accumulation has important
implications for class relations and social movements, and is, I suggest, at the
heart of the development crisis in Latin America.
 Environment
Neoliberal imperialism causes environmental destruction turns case
Zimmerer 9 [Karl S. Zimmerer is chair of the Department of Geography, University
of
Wisconsin, Madison, Beyond Neoliberalism in Latin America? Societies and Politics
at the Crossroads, published in 2009, accessed 7/16/13, p. 157]//pheft

Neoliberal trade and economic policies have incurred environmental

consequences that are negative across much of Latin America and the
Caribbean. Environmental destruction attributed to specific policies range
from widespread deforestation, overfishing, soil and water degradation,
damage due to mineral and energy resource extraction and processing;
industrial waste and toxin contamination; and urban environment
problems such as worsening air and water pollution (Hindery 2004; Liverman and
Vilas 2006; Moog Rodrigues 2003; Speth 2003). If not dismissed outright, these environmental problems are
often regarded as economic externalities that can be treated or regulated
through the further privatization of resources and property. Increasingly, privatization
approaches have been associated with market valuation policiessuch as eco-certification and market-based
conservation rewarding ecological services (Perreault and Martin 2005).
 Democracy
Imperialism destroys democracy
Mehta 06
[Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Empire and Moral Identity, Ethics & International Affairs, August 30 2006, Wiley
interscience]
empire building would subvert the moral
According to Dana Villa, the concern that the practice of
democracy. As Villa characterizes
identity of a society underlay Socrates criticism of Athenian imperial
Socrates view, An imperial democracy cannot stay a democracy for long, since
the basis of democratic justiceequal shares for all demands a self-
restraint directly at odds with the energies and ambitions of imperialism.2
In the eighteenth century, Edmund Burke vigorously stated similar worries about the corrupting effects of empire on
Britain. Empire is a craving for power that can corrupt the citizenry. It alters the
balance of the constitution, and it implicates the nation in crimes for which it scarcely takes responsibility.
Almost all empires have a profound impact on the internal political
processes of a nation. Burke worried that the veneer of empire allowed the most venial of mercantile
interests to gain ascendancy over the British constitution, and in a manner that was corrupting. Empire almost
always enlarges the powers of the state at the expense of the people. The vast panoply of offices, institutions, and
it occasions leads to concentrations of power that
networks of patronage and favor that
would be disallowed by any robust democratic constitutional scheme.
Engaging in the grand project of building and maintaining an empire hides from view the internal infirmities and
fissures that any complex society faces, and small plutocracies rather than citizens at large will tend to reap the
greatest material benefits of these policies. According to this view, empire enlarges domestic inequalities, and the
diversion of energies that it represents can have a profound impact on the domestic arrangements. U.S. senator J.
William Fulbrights impassioned exhortation to his fellow citizens in The Arrogance of Power expressed many of the
same concerns about what the project of empire building was doing to America, and what this would mean for the
rest of the world. The argument that empire corrupts the identity of a people has obvious appeal. Most peoples
have a sense of practical identity, a set of shared values that define who they are; they like to think of themselves
as being shaped by moral ideals, not just by the imperatives of power. These values provide authoritative
constraints on their behavior. It assumes further that this practical identity is not simply an abstraction but is
embodied in these peoples shared practices and institutions. What empire puts at risk, then, is not some abstract
moral value, or even simply the well-being of subject peoples, but rather the constitutive features of a peoples
empire would
moral identity. But why, more precisely, have theorists like Socrates and Burke thought that
corrupt moral identity, and especially the moral identity of democratic
peoples? The short answer is that empire appears to stand for everything that
democracy stands against namely, the lack of properly authorized political authority. Proper
authority in international affairs may be claimed in two ways. Regimes can acquire authority by some claim to
possessing the consent of the people over whom power is being exercised as expressed, perhaps, in practices of
collective decision-making. Or it could at least have the seal of approval of duly constituted international bodies
that formulate the rules of recognition by which states regulate their relations with each other. Thus, instances
where there is some kind of appropriate multilateral authorization for armed intervention are not characteristically
described as empire. Nor are all illegitimate acts of intervention tantamount to carrying out an imperial project.
American intervention in Iraq has many of the hallmarks of an imperial project. This intervention used military
means to acquire power in Iraq. Its consequence will be nothing less than the reconstitution of Iraqi society, and
even if power is transferred to an Iraqi regime, this regime will operate under constraints set by the U.S. military
presence in Iraq. But most of all, the absence of proper multilateral authorization contributed to the sense of
illegitimacy of American intervention in Iraq and earned it the designation imperial.3 Imperial acts seem to be
paradigmatic instances of procedural illegality. And since the essence of legitimate political power is authorization,
empire seems manifestly illegitimate. Whatever the consequential outcomes of an empire, its illegitimacy remains a
ground for rebuke. The failure to secure political authorization for the use of power is a failing that seems to reveal
the character of a nations moral identity. It reveals the propensity of a nation to set itself up as a judge in its own
cause, to have little regard for the opinions of mankind, and to be neglectful of many of the relevant
consequences of its actions. There may be times, of course, when confronted with genocide or serious security
threats, that nations may simply have to act on their consciences, and when the complicated negotiations of
international society may be found morally wanting. Such interventions, however, are exceptions for which clear
and forceful justification must be offered. On most occasions, setting oneself up as a judge in ones own cause is
It suggests an unwillingness to submit to
singularly narcissistic or arrogant or both.
proper authority: a sentiment incompatible with democratic restraint.
 Structural violence
The globalized economy under imperialism promotes structural
violence
Demenchonok and Peterson 09
[Edward Demenchonok and Richard Peterson, 1.Globalization and Violence: The Challenge to Ethics, American
Journal of Economics and Sociology, February 18 2009, Wiley interscience]
globalization has proven to harbor a good deal of
DESPITE its many benefits,
violence. This is not only a matter of the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction inaugurated by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, but includes
many forms of indirect or structural violence resulting from the routine
of economic and political institutions on the global scale. In this essay, the
multifaceted phenomena of violence are approached from the standpoint of ethics. The prevailing political thinking
associated with realism fails to address the problems of militarism and of hegemonic unilateralism. In contrast,
many philosophers are critically rethinking the problem of global violence from different ethical perspectives.
Despite sharing similar concerns, philosophers nevertheless differ over the role of philosophical reflection and the
potentials of reason. These differences appear in two contrasting approaches associated with postmodern
philosophy and discourse ethics. In the analysis of discourse ethics, attention is paid to Karl-Otto Apels attempt of
philosophically grounding a macroethics of planetary co-responsibility. At the heart of the essay is the analysis of
the problem of violence, including terrorism, by Jrgen Habermas, who explains the phenomenon of violence in
terms of the theory of communicative action as the breakdown of communication. Jacques Derridas deconstruction
of the notion of terrorism also is analyzed. According to the principle of discourse ethics, all conflicts between
human beings ought to be settled in a way free of violence, through discourses and negotiations. These
philosophers conclude that the reliance on force does not solve social and global problems, including those that are
the source of violence. The only viable alternative is the dialogical multilateral relations of peaceful coexistence
and cooperation among the nations for solving social and global problems. They emphasize the necessity of
strengthening the international rule of law and institutions, such as a reformed United Nations. THE IMPORTANCE OF
the global dimension has emerged on almost every level of social experience, from the economic and political to
the cultural and psychological. One can view globalizing phenomena and the problems they raise through a variety
of lenses, including those of social justice. These reveal questions of inequality, power, and recognition. Closely
related to each is an issue that can become a distinctive lens of historical perception on its ownthe question of
violence. Indeed, the question of violence is inescapable once one attends to the actual conflicts that the many
In a nuclear age ushered in
aspects of globalization and issues of justice have brought to the fore.
by the bombing of Hiroshima, war has become a global danger. The toll
taken by the many regional wars and neocolonial conflicts during the Cold
War itself show, further, that the nuclear stalemate was no solution to this
recurring danger facing human society. The problem of violence is itself extremely difficult to
untangle, in part because what some thinkers treat as a matter of human nature has been shown by others not to
be a constant of human societies, and by still others to be something that evolves dramatically with historical
change.1 Nevertheless, within this multifaceted problem, two aspects are becoming more obvious and disturbing:
one is the globalization of violence; the other is the spread of structural violence. First, the complex of change
associated with the idea of globalization, despite all its benefits and promise, is itself frequently a very violent
business. One may think, indeed, that the underside of globalization is itself a host of old and new kinds of violence.
We can see this in the new kinds of wars that accompany structural change pushed forward by global economic
pressures,2 in the new weapons of destruction that flow through global networks that often mix together the
movement of arms and illegal drugs,3 as well as in the new kinds of terrorist violence associated with the idea of a
global network.4 One can think also of new kinds of weapons systems associated with space weapons, including not
just missiles but satellite technology, laser-operated devices, and so on.5 And these observations only consider
violence in the familiar sense of actual or threatened harms imposed on bodies and populations. In addition to its
direct manifestations, violence in a broader sense has many indirect and subtle forms. If we think of structural
violence, for example, we can see that many of the economic and environmental changes taking place raise
questions of violence as well.6 The term structural violence does not refer to all the kinds of physical and
psychological suffering caused by the workings of social institutions. Rather, it refers to those institutionally caused
harms that are not only predictable but have been predicted and debated, and for which preventive measures could
be taken. The moral force of the notion of violence is preserved in the case of structural violence when we see that
agents have knowingly permitted predictable harms, even though they have not intended them, as is the case with
Structural violence in this somewhat restricted sense includes
direct violence.
the poverty that has expanded with the dramatic increases of inequality
that globalization has caused, both on the global scale and within many
national societies like the United States itself. We see such violence in the proliferation of
sweatshops and other kinds of harsh labor, including contemporary forms of slavery and trafficking in humans. We
see it, too, in so-called natural disasters, where conscious policies have made populations vulnerable and
unprepared for predictable harms triggered by dramatic weather events. Facing the combination of the growing
we can think of violence
scope of structural violence with the evolving conditions of direct violence,
as a key issue in the unfolding conflicts over globalization . While violence is by no
means the only challenge posed by globalization, it is of indisputable importance both for its impact on the lives of
individuals and societies and for its place in the historical problem of finding adequate institutional forms to bring
the processes of globalization into line with the needs and aspirations proper to justice and democracy. In this light,
the theme of violence is a key part of the larger prospect of the kind of social learning that is needed if the new
structures and cultural forms that are needed are to be found/achieved.7 Within this sweeping set of challenges,
the problem of ethics has a key role. But ethics needs to be viewed in the historical terms of globalization itself. In
what follows, we will survey some facets of this problem of ethical reflection and action in the shadow of a violence-
prone globalization. In this setting is it possible to imagine a universal ethics, one that informs a global co-
responsibility for shared problems?
 Feminism/womens rights
We solve feminism - Imperialism oppresses women by creating
inequalities in the workforce as well as in the social sphere
Robinson 2002
[William I. Robinson, Latin America in the Age of Inequality: Confronting the New Utopia, International Studies
Review, December 17 2002, Wiley interscience]
The larger structural context for the upsurge in womens struggles is the dramatic change in the status of women
Globalization has major implications for the sexual
in Latin America in recent decades.
division of labor, for gender relations, and for the transformation of the
family itself. The percentage of women in the labor force has grown in most regions of the world under
globalization. 37 Increased formal sector female participation has resulted from several factors. Among them are
the predictable pattern that accompanies capitalist development in general, that is, the need for families to send
an increasing number of family members into the labor market with the decline in real wages and household
income; the predilection of transnational capital to hire docile female labor, particularly in maquila production;
and so on.38 With the decline in male employment and real wages brought about by neoliberal restructuring,
women have assumed a growing absolute and also relative importance as wage earners, and their contribution to
household economies has increased. The reorganization of production on a global scale is feminizing the labor
force and changing the previous gender demarcation of domestic and wage labor .
Gender inequality is
reproduced in the workforce at the same time as it continues in the
household: the systematic subordination of women in the reproduction sphere is coupled with the systematic
inequality of women in the production sphere. It is clear that under globalization there is a

transformation of the sexual division of labor . New forms of labor market segmentation
between men and women and wage differentials in the formal sector converge with unpaid domestic labor and
hardship imposed in the sphere of gendered social reproduction, resulting in a deterioration of
the status and social condition of most women . From the maquilas of Mexico, Central
America, and the Caribbean to the new transnational agribusiness plantations in Chile and Colombia and the new
industrial complexes in Brazils northeast, women in Latin America disproportionatelyand in some cases,
exclusivelyengage in unskilled, laborintensive phases of globalized production.39
Alt Stuff
 Mexico/Zapatista Alt Evd
The Zapatista antiglobalization movement is unique in its focus on
discourse and symbolic strength
Wagner and Moreira 2003 [Valeria Wagner and Alejandro Moreira, Towards a Quixotic
Pragmatism: The Case of the Zapatista Insurgence, PDF Academic Journal, 2003,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/journals/boundary/v030/30.3wagner.html]
"As Che Guevara would have said: When the dream of evolution dissipates, the time of revolutions returns.'" It is on
this optimistic note that Ignacio [End Page 185] Ramonet ends an editorial article marking the thirtieth anniversary
of the revolutionary's death in the magazine Manire de voir. 2 The issue is significantly titled Amrique Latine: du
Che Marcos, thus framing the analysis of Latin America's predicament upon the death of one charismatic
revolutionary figure and the advent of another. 3 According to the editorial,this period is
characterized by an apparent political "evolution" that is undermined by the
failure of democracies to guarantee economic development and, above all, to attend
to economic justice: even when countries grow richer, inhabitants still
grow poorer. As a result, for most Latin Americans the situation is definitely worse than it was thirty years
ago. Hence the "spectacular" irruption of the Ejrcito Zapatista de Liberacin Nacional (EZLN), the
Zapatista National Liberation Army, in Chiapas in 1994, which Ramonet reads as "the
first response, weapons in hand, of the south against economic
globalization [mondialisation] and neoliberalism." This implies, of course, that it will not be
the last response: "social revolts will multiply"; the time of revolutions is back. Three years later, Ramonet sees at
least part of his prophecies fulfilled: the dawn of the new millennium "glows" with the victory of what "seems to be
the embryo of an international civil society" over the World Trade Organization (WTO), after massive demonstrations
against the November 1999 summit in Seattle. 4 Ramonet does not hesitate to qualify this [End Page 186]
international protest against globalization as a "turning," thus recalling the "time of revolutions" he had announced
in Che's voice and seen heralded by the 1994 Zapatista uprising. The continuity between the 1994 uprising and the
Seattle demonstrations is suggested from the outset by his account of the motives of the protesters, who, echoing
the now famous Zapatista "Ya Basta!" have had enough of globalization and of the passive role to which it assigns
them. And in March 2001, following the Zapatistas' march to Mexico, Ramonet decidedly argues that, having chosen
the date of the beginning of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for the Zapatista uprising, "Marcos
signs . . . in a sense, that day, the first symbolic revolt against globalization." 5 The
reader will have
noticed the change of status of the Zapatistas' insurgence: it is the first
armed and local response to globalization, announcing similar local responses
throughout the South; then it lends its voice ("Ya basta!") to the
antiglobalization movement; finally, it becomes the first symbolic revolt
marking not just the beginning but the mode of struggle of the
antiglobalization movement. Whether considered as the "model" for antiglobalization movements or
as representing the transition from armed to symbolic struggle that characterizes them, the Zapatista
insurgence clearly emerges as paradigmatic of the new forms of
resistance, political organization, and transformation that have been
called for, with growing consensus, to understand and cope with
globalization. This has not gone unnoticed by the Zapatistas themselves: "We have learned,"
Marcos tells Ramonet, "that we are a kind of mirror and that we reflect, in
our way, other movements of resistance throughout the world." 6 Their
"way," as Ramonet points out, is with words, and it is indeed undeniable that, having secured the
attention of the Mexican government and the international community
through the impact of their weapons, the Zapatistas owe their longevity mainly to the
force of their discourse. 7 It is their discourse that now sustains their
weapons, and it is in their discourse that other movements find their
"reflection," as Marcos says. If, however, the Zapatista discourse functions as a mirror, it is as much because
it offers, as mirrors do, the image of oneself as anotherthat foreign look, the expression surprised with a sidelong
glanceas because it gives an image to the self, which can then be corrected, adapted, the hair combed back, the
jacket redressed. If a mirror, then, the Zapatista discourse transfigures what it
reflects, and what it reflects and transfigures, as we will argue, is the
prevailing political and historical imaginaryin particular, in its formulation of
the relationship between power and praxis. If the "time of revolutions" has "returned" with the
Chiapas uprising, it is not, as we will see, the same time, nor the same revolution, that is associated with the image
of Che.

Zapatistas movement is k2 fighting neoliberalism around the world-

growing networks on the internet means the indigenous movement has
grown to encompass all issues of democracy, neoliberalism, and
grassroots movements
Cleaver 2k [Harry Cleaver, The Zapatista Effect: The internet and the rise of an alternative political fabric,
Ciberlegenda, 2000, PhD em Economia pela Universidade de Stanford, professor do Departamento de Economia
da Universidade do Texas em Austin. tambm um dos mais destacados analistas das estratgias polticas e aes
comunicacionais desenvolvidas na Internet pelo Exrcito Zapatista de Libertao Nacional, do Mxico, e por
simpatizantes de vrios continents]
In the last few years concern with the ability of such non-governmental networks to undercut national governments
and international agreements has grown. This concern has derived, in part, from the growing strength such
The extremely rapid
networks have derived from the use of international computer communications.
spread of the computer "Net" around the world has suggested that such
networks and their influence may grow apace. Surprisingly, no catalyst of that
growth has been more important than the indigenous Zapatista rebellion
in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas and the widespread political mobilization to which it
has contributed. The computer networks supporting the rebellion have evolved from
providing vehicles for the familiar, traditional work of solidarity (e.g., material aid and the defense of human rights
into a kind of electronic fabric of
against the policies of the Salinas and Zedillo administrations)
opposition to much wider policies. Today those networks are providing the nerve
system of increasingly global challenges to the dominant economic
policies of this period and in the process undermining the distinction between
domestic and foreign policy and even the present constitution of the nation-state. Whereas the anti-
NAFTA coalition was merely North American in scope, the influence of the pro-Zapatista
mobilization has reached across at least five continents and dozens of countries
generating a much, much wider activism. This activism has spread so rapidly, to such a degree and in such a way
as to call for the most careful scrutiny. At first the Zapatista uprising appeared primarily to be a challenge to
The EZLN did point to
domestic policies in Mexico, those having to do with land and indigenous affairs.
NAFTA as sounding a "death knell" for indigenous peoples, but their main
orientation was towards gaining recognition and standing within the
Mexican nation. The state's initial response sought to isolate the Zapatistas through a variety of means.
Militarily it sought to crush the rebellion if possible and at least confine it to Chiapas. Ideologically, its control of the
mass media in Mexico was used to limit and distort news about the uprising. In part, the government attempted to
portray the Zapatista movement as a threat to the political integrity of the Mexican nation. The government's first,
and quickly aborted, effort to mobilize public sentiment against the Zapatista uprising was to portray it as the result
of foreign subversive manipulation of the indigenous. Once it was forced to recognize that the source of the uprising
was the indigenous themselves, it shifted to an argument that played on ignorance of the specificity of Zapatista
demands --an ignorance which the government did its best to maintain. The government conjured the threat of a
Evoking the
pan-Mayan movement embracing both Southern Mexico and much of Central American.
horrors of the Balkans, the Mexican government equated indigenous
autonomy with succession and the break-up of country. As the Zapatista
movement succeeded in communicating to the rest of Mexico and the
world that it sought indigenous autonomy within the framework of the
Mexican nation, that ploy was rendered useless. Although the government stopped
evoking Pan-Mayan phantasms, it has continued to pretend that national integrity must be defended against
indigenous autonomy. Such autonomy, it claims, would rupture the political, juridical and cultural cohesiveness of
the Mexican nation. Given the reiterated emphasis by the Zapatistas on autonomy within, not against, Mexican
society --dramatically symbolized by the flying of giant Mexican flags at virtually all Zapatista gatherings-- this
argument has been difficult to sustain in the current debates in Mexico. But if changes demanded by the
Zapatistas do not threaten the integrity of the Mexican nation, they certainly do threaten the integrity of the
Mexican state as it is currently constituted. The basic thrust of their political demands, and one reason for their
wide- spread popularity, has been for a recasting of democracy in ways which would break the power not only of
The demands for autonomy involve
the central government but of the political parties in Mexico.
a relocation not only of authority but of resources to much more local
levels. The search for wider citizen participation in public policy making
involves not only more direct democracy at the local level, but a liberation
of electoral politics from the grip of the parties from which all candidates
must currently come. Such changes have been clearly perceived by the ruling party as a threat to its
now fading hegemony but also by the oppositional parties as a threat to their recent advances in sharing power
with the PRI. Such radical ideas coupled with other demands for reform energized by the rebellion itself have
caused a profound crisis of the Mexican political system. Beyond plunging the political system into crisis in Mexico,
the Zapatista struggle has inspired and stimulated a wide variety of
grassroots political efforts in many other countries. For reasons I spell out below, it is perhaps not
exaggerated to speak of a "Zapatista Effect" reverberating through social movements around the world -- homologous to, but ultimately much more
threatening to the New World Order of neoliberalism than the "Tequila Effect" that rippled through emerging financial markets in the wake of the Peso
Crisis of 1994. In the financial case, the danger was panic and rapid withdrawal of hot money from speculative investments that could collapse markets.
In the case of social movements and the activism which is their hallmark, the danger lies in the impetus given to the active rejection of current policies, to
the rethinking of the institutions and functioning of democracy and to the development of alternatives to the status quo. While it has become
commonplace to discuss social movements and their activism in terms either of NGOs or of "civil society", these two terms are highly problematic and
vague. They are often used in ways which include everything from groups of villagers who have organized themselves for some local purpose through the
Rockefeller and Ford Foundations to multinational corporations. The term often includes corporate-spawned entities, truly autonomous organizations and
those which have become inextricably tied to the state. In this essay, therefore, I use the term "grassroots" instead. It is also vague, but by it I mean all of
those member-funded efforts at self-organization which remain autonomous of either the state or corporate sectors. Such organization often includes
independent NGOs but is more broadly inclusive of various informal networks of activists and community organizations. The grassroots movements
catalyzed by the Zapatistas include everything from human rights and environmental NGOs through local community governments to loose networks of
political, media and labor activists who have linked other movements to those of the Zapatistas. In what follows I sketch this mobilization, the role of
computer communications has played in it, and then consider some possible implications for the future of the nation-state and foreign policy.

Zapatista protest has snowball effect- increased Kritical discussion and

concessions generate momentum for both counter-movement and pro-
Zapatista activity
Inclan 12 [Mara Incln, Zapatista and counter-Zapatista protests: A test or movementcountermovement
dynamics, Journal of Peace Research , Vol. 49, No. 3 (may 2012), pp. 459-472, Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
Mara Incln is Assistant Professor at the Division of Political Studies at Centro de Investigacin y Docencia
Econmicas in Mexico City. Her research interests include social and indigenous movements, cycles of protests, and
democratization processes. ]
The analysis of this study offers interesting and unexpected results. First, the results confirm that regardless of
protests by pro- and counter-Zapatista groups had a positive
political conditions,
and statistically significant effect on their opponents protest activity . If one
more counter-Zapatista protest event occurred in a given municipio in a given month, pro-
Zapatista protest activity increased in that locality by 0.53 during the following month.
Similarly, more than one monthly pro-Zapatista protest triggered a 0.21 increase in counter-Zapatista activity the
following month in that same locality (See marginal effects in Tables II and III.). The results regarding the effects of
political conditions on protest behavior are unexpected. Hypothesis 2a proposed that the Mexican federal system,
which allows different political parties to govern at different levels of government, should have triggered more
protest activity from movement and countermovement actors alike. The results show that all possible combinations
had a negative but statistically insignificant effect on pro-Zapatista protest activity. For counter-Zapatista protests,
the sign of the relationship varied from case to case, but it also never reached statistical significance. Hypothesis
2b suggested that protest groups will be more active when their political opponents are in power. Given the
assumption that Zapatistas were more aligned with the leftist PRD and counter-Zapatistas were more aligned with
the PRI, it was expected that pro-Zapatistas would have protested more frequently in PRI-ruled localities, while
counter-Zapatistas would have protested more frequently in PRD-ruled localities. The results, however, tell a
Both pro- and counter-Zapatistas tended to protest more
different story.
frequently in PRI-ruled localities; protest frequency for both groups had a
positive but statistically insignificant relationship with the presence of
PRD-run local governments. These results suggest that all groups had a tendency to
protest the party in power at the national level, in this case, the PRI. During the period
studied, PRI hegemony was crumbling, but it was still the dominant political force in the country. It was the PRI who
the Zapatistas first targeted with their uprising, and it was the PRI that was responsible for compensating the
aggrieved landowners. Both pro- and counter-Zapatistas had a specific interest in targeting PRI governments to
press for their demands. Hypothesis 2d proposed that protest groups tend to target local governments during their
first year in office in order to impact the new governments agenda. This did prove the case for PRI-led local
governments. Both pro- and counter-Zapatista groups conducted more protest events during a PRI governments
first six months in office than they had during the previous months, even when the PRI was in office during the
previous administration. Five months into a PRI-led local government, pro-Zapatista protest activity increased by
0.52, and, six months into a PRI-led local government, counter-Zapatista activity increased by 1.51.15 The fact that
a significant increase in pro-Zapatista protest activity occurred five months into a PRI administration, and counter-
Zapatistas activity increased during the sixth month, suggests that the counter-Zapatista protests were linked in
part to the governments response to the pro-movement actors. Neither groups protest activities increased in the
six months after the PRD won control of a municipality. This may be because, after 70 years of PRI rule, citizens
were more likely to view opposition parties with more sympathy and tolerance. Results on the effects of the
election variable provide some support for this claim: while pro-Zapatista protestors continued to mobilize during
campaigns and elections, counter-Zapatistas significantly decreased their protest events around elections. Finally,
both types of procedural concessions were expected to increase movement and countermovement protest activity.
Indeed, both types did positively correlate with an increase in counter-Zapatista protests. A single additional partial
concession to the Zapatistas in a given month increased counter-Zapatista protest by 0.10 the following month in a
given municipio. Although statistically significant, the increase in counter-Zapatista protest activity due to an
increase in local government expenditures was negligible. For an increase of 3,591,337 pesos (one standard
deviation) (approx. 292,000 USD) in local government expenditures on public works and social programs, counter-
Zapatista activities increased by 0.009 in that municipio the following year. Pro-Zapatistas did not respond to
Procedural concessions granted to
procedural concessions the same way as their counterparts.
the Zapatistas during negotiations with the federal government had the
expected positive effect of triggering further pro-Zapatista protests . A single
additional partial concession granted to the Zapatistas in a given month led to a 0.49 increase in pro-Zapatista
procedural concessions granted in
protests in a given municipio the following month. However,
the form of social program and public works expenditures had a negative
but statistically significant effect on pro-Zapatista protestors. The same increase
of 3,591,337 pesos in local government expenditures decreased pro-Zapatista protests in that municipio by 0.005
events the following year.
 Discussion
Creating a counter-project to US hegemony solves imperialism
by rejecting its support structure
Slater 08
[David Slater, Chapter 8. Another World is Possible: On Social Movements, the Zapatistas and the Dynamics of
Globalization from Below, Geopolitics and the Post-Colonial: Rethinking North-South Relations, January 14 2008,
Wiley interscience]
With reference to the WSF, the above theme can be looked at in terms of the coalescence of a point of arrival and a
point of departure. The siting of the WSF in Porto Alegre was a reflection of a range of influences. The governmental
presence of the Brazilian Workers Party at state (regional) and local (municipal) levels was an enabling presence in
terms of providing a political space as well as needed financial support, together with progressive civil society
associations mentioned above. The setting up of the WSF in Porto Alegre also flowed out of the struggles of social
movements in Latin America, the activities of the Hemispheric Social Alliance and the global wave of anti-neoliberal
mobilizations. These mobilizations, even before Seattle in 1999, were beginning to impact on the decision-making
centres of capitalist power, most notably reflected in the derailment of the transnational corporations MAI
(Multilateral Agreement on Investment) initiative, which if implemented would have given greater power to big
firms over nation-states. But Porto Alegre and the World Social Forum are not only a point of arrival for these
diverse influences and flows of resisting power they have also become a point of departure for a further
broadening of counter-sites to globalization from above. This is clearly reflected in the inauguration of an African
Social Forum in 2001, which met again in Addis Ababa in 2003 (Robert 2003), and a European Social Forum in 2002,
as well as plans to host the 2004 World Social Forum in Mumbai as part of the formation of an Asian Social Forum.
While theWorld Social Forums point of arrival and point of departure may be based in the struggles against neo-
liberalism, the meetings and activities generated by the WSF as a counter-site of protest and an alternative,
counter-hegemonic globalization are motivated by a desire for more
democracy, more social justice and more dignity for the peoples of the
world. Not only, as the Zapatistas have done, do they place onto the agenda the right to have rights, but also
the movements and associations belonging to the WSF are involved in Foucaults three kinds of social struggles,
They are not only against ethnic
mentioned in the first part of the chapter. But they go further.
and religious domination, capitalist exploitation and new forms of
subjection and subordination, but they are against new forms of
imperialist power, of global colonialism, and moreover they have a vision
for an alternative kind of global politics based on redistribution and
recognition the drive towards greater equality together with a greater
recognition of difference. This requires respect for the autonomy of different movements while
seeking out what may be held in common and what might bring movements together in new forms of cooperation.
Differences are to be respected, but commonalities discovered. As Santos (2001) suggests, common ground needs
to be identified in, for example, an indigenous struggle, a feminist struggle and an ecological struggle, without
cancelling out in any of them the autonomy and difference that sustain them. The autonomy and the difference, the
commonality and the connectivity, have to be held in creative tension. This can be done through a struggle for
greater democratization which includes an articulation of struggles rather than a passive acquiescence of their
The idea of a counter-hegemonic globalization, a
separation (Laclau & Mouffe 2001).22
globalization from below that not only challenges the neo-liberal doctrine
of capitalist expansion and a resurgent imperialism, but at the same time
offers an alternative vision of how the world could be organized, also can
be viewed as offering the possibility of a counter-geopolitics. A
transnational project for global justice and participatory democracy which
does not prioritize any one spatial level, and does not downgrade the relevance of the national level (Glassman
2001), offers a real alternative to the current hegemony of neo-liberalism . The
actual practice of opposition has also been innovative, as the previous director of the World Development
Movement, Barry Coates, has pointed out. Face-to-face lobbying, alliance-building, the arrival in politicians
mailboxes of thousands of letters, cards and emails from the public, stories placed with sympathetic journalists,
working through trade union and political party structures, and the production of alternative proposals on world
trade and investment done through international coordination via the internet, all came together in a successful
campaign to block the MAI initiative (see Green & Griffith 2002). A similar campaign is now underway against the
attempt to revive the MAI initiative, which is linked to another ongoing campaign against the GATS proposal on the
privatization of services (see WDM 2003). But also street protests and demonstrations are a key part of the
resistance movement, as was vitally clear on 15 February 2003, when over 8 million people marched on the streets
 The counter-geopolitics
of the worlds five continents, protesting against the imminent invasion of Iraq.
that I have invoked above is rooted in an optimism of the will that goes
beyond national boundaries, that encompasses activists across borders,
and provides a new kind of globalization. It is taken forward by grassroots activists,
progressive NGOs, civil society organizations, pressure groups and critical writers and intellectuals like Eduardo
An archipelago of resistances that
Galeano, Walden Bello, Vindana Shiva and Martin Khor.
engenders new spatialities of solidarity and hope for a more emancipatory
politics of the future.

Alternative text: engage in scholarly analysis of imperialism as

it relates to micro and macro level politics. This allows us to
see the origins of imperialism within the political and
education realm and separate ourselves from them
Shome 06
[Raka Shome, Postcolonial Interventions in the Rhetorical Canon: An Other View, Communication Theory, March
17 2006, Wiley interscience]
The importance of a postcolonial position to any scholarly practice is that
it urges us to analyze our academic discourses and connect them to the
larger political practices of our nations. This means that in examining our academic discourses, the
postcolonial question to ask is: To what extent do our scholarly practices-
whether they be the kind of issues we explore in our research, the themes around which we organize our teaching
syllabi, or the way that we structure our conferences and decide who speaks (and does not speak), about what, in
the name of intellectual practices - legitimize the hegemony of Western power
structures? In posing this question, the postcolonial perspective does not suggest that as scholars writing in
the West all that we do is legitimize the imperial political practices of Western nations. Rather, the argument
is that we need to examine our academic discourses against a larger
backdrop of Western hegemony, neocolonial, and racial politics. We need
to engage in contrapuntal lines of a global analysis where we see texts
and worldly institutions . . . working together (Said, 1993, p. 318). In the pursuit of our
scholarly goals, we often do not stop to think or ask questions about why, for example, research agenda A seems
more important to us than research agenda B? What is the ideology that operates in us that makes research agenda
A seem more significant than research agenda B? How are we always already interpellated into examining A but
not B? What does that interpellation say about our role in reproducing and participating in the hegemonic global
domination of the rest by the West? What does it mean, for instance, when I am told that there is a market for
research agenda A but none for research agenda B? Or that if I did pursue research agenda By I would have to do it
Who
in a way that would make it marketable? And what way would that be? Whose way would that be?
decides what is marketable? What does the decision have to do with the
political practices of our nations? How does this market serve the
capitalistic and racist hegemony of Western nations? And what is my
position, as an intellectual, in reproducing this hegemony? The point in asking such
questions is to recognize the latent ideological structures that inform our scholarship and practices. As Van Dijk
(1993) puts it, often under the surface of sometimes sophisticated scholarly analysis and description of other
races, peoples, or groups . . . we find a powerful ideological layer of self-interest, in-group favoritism, and
In fact, even when we do sometimes try to break out of
ethnocentrism (p. 160).
the Eurocentric canons informing contemporary academic scholarship by
including alternate cultural and racial perspectives in our syllabi, we often
do not realize that instead of really breaking free of the canon, all that we
do is stretch it, add things to it. But the canon remains the same and
unchallenged. Our subject positions in relation to the canon remain the same and challenged. Instead
of examining how the canon itself is rooted in a larger discourse of
colonialism and Western hegemony, we frequently use the canon to
appropriate other voice^.^ The question than arises, so what is to be done? Perhaps the
first step here is to do what Spivak (1990) suggests: to unlearn our privilege (p. 9). And the first step toward that
it requires seeing ourselves not sequestered in an
unlearning requires self-reflexivity;
academic institution but connecting things that we think or not think, say
or not say, teach or not teach, to the larger political and ideological
practices of our nations in their interactions with the rest of the world. The
solution, however, is not merely to do more rhetorical studies on nonwhite people (e.g., Campbells, 1986, study on
African American women speakers), for that only becomes a matter of extending, instead of displacing or
challenging, the canon by adding others. Rather, the solution is to critically examine and challenge the very value
system on which the rhetorical canon and our scholarship is based. For instance, rhetoric as a discipline has been
traditionally built on public address. But historically public address has been a realm where imperial voices were
primarily heard and imperial policies were articulated. The colonized did not always have access to a public realm,
or if they did, their speeches were not always recorded in mainstream documents, since the means of production
rested with the imperial subject. All this perhaps means that we have built a lot of our understanding of rhetoric,
and the canon of rhetoric, by focusing on (and often celebrating) imperial voices. This calls for a reexamination of
our paradigms. The move here is parallel to that made by feminists in their challenges of the masculinist biases of
scholars are to reexamine the discipline in relation to issues such as imperialism,
the discipline. If rhetorical
need to perhaps do what Spivak (see explanation) suggests, unlearn
neocolonialism, and race, then they
a lot of the rhetorical tradition and evaluate critically what kinds of
knowledge have been (and continue to be) privileged, legitimated [and]
displaced in our texts and theories and what configuration of socio-political [and racial] interests this
privileging, displacing, and legitimizing has served (and continues to serve) (Conquergood, 1991, p. 193). For one
this means engaging in some serious soul searching to uncover why
thing,
scholarship in our discipline has been and continues to be so white (Rakow,
1989, p. 2l2). It is through such postcolonial self-reflexivity of our discipline, as well as our individual scholarship,
that we will be able to continue the task of pushing the traditional paradigms of rhetoric further in order to create
spaces for racially and culturally marginalized voices and perspectives on rhetoric to emerge - voices and
perspectives that would comprise sensitive postcolonial responses to the neocolonial and racist circumstances of
our present time. Second, the postcolonial critique of Western discursive imperialism that constructs racial others
and that legitimizes the contemporary global power structures has important implications for rhetorical criticism, in
that it beckons us to recognize postcolonialism as a timely and important critical and political perspective. As
Williams and Chrisman (1 994) emphasizes with great urgency in their introduction to Colonial Discourse and Post-
Colonial Theory, it is alarming how many of the attitudes, the strategies, and even how much of the room for
manoeuvre of the colonial period [still] remain in place (p. 3) in contemporary social, cultural, and I would add,
academic practices. Given this, it is unfortunate that in our literature we hardly find articles, especially in our
mainstream journals, that examine neocolonial representations of racial others or that analyze, for instance, the
discursive processes through which the (white) West gets constantly legitimized in political, cultural, and social
discourses.

The alternative solves by opening up a space for discussion

without the influence of imperialism
Coupland 10
[Nikolas Coupland, Chapter 3. The Global Politics of Language: Markets, Maintenance, Marginalization, or Murder?,
The Handbook of Language and Globalization, October 7 2010, Wiley interscience]
The present - day strength of English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese in the Americas, in
Africa, in Asia, in Australasia and in the Pacific is a direct consequence of European
expansion throughout the world since 1492 and of successive waves of colonization.
The languages have accompanied political and economic influence, being
invariably backed up by military might. The promotion and hierarchization of languages often
dovetailed with missionary activity: Christianity thus accompanied several European languages world - wide, just as
Arabic has been an integral part of the spread of Islam, and Russian of Soviet communism. While Europeans were
experiencing industrialization and the consolidation of national (that is, dominant) languages, they were deeply
involved in overseas expansion, which contributed to economic boom in Europe. Many of the features of what is
now known as globalization were presciently described by Marx and Engels in their Communist Manifesto of 1848
(1961) . This text stressed global economic markets, class interests, and ideological legitimation of an oppressive
world order. The project of global dominance has been articulated since before the USA achieved its independence;
for instance George Washington saw the United States as a rising empire (Roberts 2008 : 68). US national
identity was forged through massive violence, the dispossession and extermination of indigenous peoples, the myth
of unoccupied territory, the surplus value extorted from slave labor, and an active process of national imagination
used to form a common identity, one deeply permeated by religion (Hixson 2008 ). The project of
establishing English as the language of power, globally and locally, is
central to this empire. The manifest destiny that colonial Americans arrogated to themselves has
been explicitly linked, since the early nineteenth century, to English being established globally: English is destined
to be in the next and succeeding centuries more generally the language of the world than Latin was in the last or
French in the present age (John Adams to Congress, 1780, cited in Bailey 1992 : 103). The whole world should
adopt the American system. The American system can survive in America only if it becomes a world system.
(President Harry Truman, 1947, cited in Pieterse 2004 : 131). The role of scholars in facilitating US empire is
explored in Neil Smith s American Empire. Roosevelt s Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization (2003) ,
which traces the shift through territorial, colonial dominance (the invasion of the Philippines in 1898) to the attempt
to dominate globally through a strategic recalibration of geography with economics, a new orchestration of world
geography in the pursuit of economic accumulation (2003: xvii xviii). Academia services the global needs of
the political project, perpetuating a system in which [ ] global power is disproportionately wielded by a ruling
class that remains tied to the national interests of the United States (ibid., p. xix). In US colonies and in the British
Empire, English was privileged and other languages marginalized. Today s global ruling classes tend to be
proficient in English. In the twenty - first century, empire has increasingly figured in the political discourse of
advocates and critics. Englers How to Rule the World. The Coming Battle over the Global Economy (2008)
distinguishes clearly between the corporate globalization of the final decades of the twentieth century and its
successor, imperial globalization based on military dominance. Alternatives to Economic Globalization ( 2002 :
19) lists the following eight key features of economic/corporate globalization (neo - liberalism): 1 promotion of
hypergrowth and unrestricted exploitation of environmental resources to fuel that growth; 2 privatization and
commodifi cation of public services and of remaining aspects of the global and community commons; 3 global
cultural (and, we would add, linguistic) and economic homogenization and the intense promotion of consumerism; 4
integration and conversion of national economies, including some that were largely self - reliant, to environmentally
and socially harmful export - oriented production; 5 corporate deregulation and unrestricted movement of capital
across borders; 6 dramatically increased corporate concentration; 7 dismantling of public health, social and
environmental programs already in place; 8 replacement of the traditional powers of democratic nation states and
local communities by global corporate bureaucracies. Alternatives to Economic Globalization fails to mention
language among the features listed under cultural homogenization, despite referring to a global monoculture
and to the unrestricted flow of production and marketing, needed by large multinational corporations. It seems
that not even the best globalization experts are aware of the tendencies toward linguistic homogenization and of
the threats to linguistic diversity mentioned above. Much of the literature on English as a global or
international language has tended to be celebratory and failed to situate English within the wider language
ecology or to explore the causal factors behind its expansion (on these subjects, see Phillipson 1992 and 2008a and
Pennycook 1998 ). Influential work by Crystal, Fishman, and Graddol is critically analyzed in Phillipson 2000 , and
books on the world language system by De Swaan and Brutt - Griffler are critically analyzed in Phillipson 2004 . One
of the controversial questions today is to what extent corporate globalization is leading toward greater
homogenization or greater diversification (for instance through localization), as some researchers claim. For
instance Mufwene ( 2008 : 227) claims that McDonaldization does not lead to uniformity because the McDonald
menu is partly adapted to the local diet. Even if McDonald s in India may serve vegetarian burgers in Hindi, this
reduction to superficial adaptation disregards completely the structural and process - related aspects of
homogenization (see n. 3 for examples; also, for a discussion of McDonaldization, see Hamelink 1994 ; Ritzer 1996 ;
Linguistic globalization needs to be
and Defi nition Box 6.3 in Skutnabb - Kangas 2000 ). 3
discussed in a politico - economic framework which relates the
hierarchization of languages to global and local power relations. A typical
example of special pleading for English can be found in a book by a political scientist who argues for the formation
of an EU super - state and cites the familiar trope of English as lingua franca, along with young people s
consumerism and global business integration (Morgan 2005 : 57). He seems unaware that there are many lingua
francas in Europe; or that the common transnational youth culture is essentially American and that the
convergence of business practices derives from the US corporate world and from the conceptual universe it
embodies. It is false to project English as though it is neutral, English as a mere tool that serves all equally well,
in whatever society they live. The phrase English as a lingua franca generally decontextualizes users and seems
to imply symmetrical, equitable communication, which is often not the case. It conceals the actual functions that
the language performs, English as a lingua academica , lingua bellica , lingua culturalis , lingua economica , and so
on (Phillipson 2008b ). It also ignores the Anglo - American semantics and grammar embedded in the language
(Wierzbicka 2006 ; M hlh usler 2003 ). It fails to explore the hegemonic practices of the currently dominant
Imperialism needs careful
capitalist language or to theorize English linguistic neo - imperialism.
definition if it is to be used analytically. This principle guided the definition of linguistic
imperialism as a variant of linguicism (Skutnabb - Kangas 1988 : 13) operating through structures and ideologies
and entailing unequal treatment for groups identified by language (Phillipson 1992 ). For Harvey ( 2005 : 26),
capitalist imperialism is a contradictory fusion of the politics of state and
empire (imperialism as a distinctively political project on the part of the actors
whose power is based in command of a territory and a capacity to mobilize its human
and natural resources towards political, economic, and military ends) and the
molecular processes of capital accumulation in space and time (imperialism as a diffuse political economic
process in space and time in which command over and use of capital takes primacy). (Emphasis added) The first of
these components of the contradictory fusion is the top - down process of what a state, a combination of states,
or an institution such as a corporation or a university does to achieve its goals which includes the way it manages
economic power flows across and through
linguistic capital. The second is the way
continuous space, toward or away from territorial entities (such as states
or regional power blocs) through the daily practices of production, trade,
commerce, capital flows, money transfers, labour migration, technology
transfer, currency speculation, flows of information, cultural impulses, and
the like (ibid.). Most of these processes are crucially dependent on
language, and constituted by language. English can be seen as the
capitalist neo - imperial language that serves the interests of the
corporate world and of the governments it influences (Phillipson 2008a , 2009 ). This
dovetails with the language being activated through molecular processes of linguistic capital accumulation in space
linguistic
and time , in a dialectic process at the intersection of economics, politics, and discourses. So far as
neo - imperialism is concerned, the political mode of argumentation refers
to decision - making, language policy, and planning, whereas the
economic mode of argumentation refers to the working through of such
decisions at all levels, to the implementation of language planning
decisions, to the actual use of English in myriad contexts. When English increasingly
occupies territory that hitherto was the preserve of national languages in Europe or Asia, what is occurring is
linguistic capital accumulation , over a period of time and in particular territories, in favor of English. When
Singaporean parents gradually shift from an Asian language to the use of English in the home, this represents
linguistic capital accumulation. If users of German or Swedish as languages of scholarship shift to using English,
similar forces and processes are at work. When considering agency in each of these examples, the individuals
concerned opt for the neo - imperial language because they perceive that this linguistic capital will serve their
personal interests best, in the false belief that this requires the sacrifice of their own language. When language shift
is subtractive, and if this affects a group and not merely individuals, there are serious implications for other
languages. If domains such as business, the home, or scholarship are lost, what has occurred is in fact linguistic
capital dispossession . Analysis of the interlocking of language policies with the two constituents of Harvey s
contradictory fusion can highlight both the corporate agendas, which serve political, economic, and military
purposes, and the multiple flows that make use of English for a range of purposes. New discourses and technologies
are adopted and creatively adapted, but in a rigged, so - called free global and local market. The active
promotion of other major international languages such as Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish also aims to
strengthen the market forces and the cultures associated with each language; but at present the linguistic capital
invested in these languages does not seriously threaten the current pre - eminence of English. A Chinese global
empire may be on the way. International language promotion itself needs to be seen in economic terms, dovetailing
as it does with media products and many commercial activities. TESOL (the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other
Languages) teaching materials, examinations, know - how, teachers, and so on is a major commercial enterprise
for the British and for the Americans and a vital dimension of English linguistic neo - imperialism. The English
language teaching sector directly earns nearly 1.3 billion for the UK in invisible exports and our other education
related exports earn up to 10 billion more (Lord Neil Kinnock, Chair of the British Council, in the Foreword to
Graddol 2006 a work that charts many variables in the global linguistic mosaic, challenges British monolingual
complacency, and aims, as Kinnock stresses, to strengthen the UK s providers of English language teaching
and broader education business sectors ). The major publishing houses are now global. For instance Pearson
Education s international business has been growing rapidly in recent years, and we now have a presence in over
110 countries ( http://www.pearson.com/index.cfm?pageid=18 ). The website of Educational Testing Services of
Princeton, NJ, which is responsible for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) for language profi ciency,
declares as their mission: Our products and services measure knowledge and skills, promote learning and
educational performance, and support education and professional development for all people worldwide
The entrenchment of English in many countries world -
( www.ets.org , About ETS).
leads Halliday (2006) to make a distinction
wide and for many cross - national purposes
between indigenized and standardized Englishes, which he categorizes as international
and global : English has become a world language in both senses of the term, international and global:
international, as a medium of literary and other forms of cultural life in (mainly) countries of the former British
Empire; global, as the co - genitor of the new technological age, the age of information. [ ] they obviously
overlap. [ ] International English has expanded by becoming world Englishes, evolving so as to adapt to the
meanings of other cultures. Global English has expanded has become global by taking over, or
being taken over by, the new information technology, which means everything from email and the internet to mass
all the other forms of political and commercial
media advertising, news reporting, and
propaganda. Halliday s international is an unfortunate label, since he is in effect referring to local forms
and uses of English, comprehensible within a country, for instance. His terms also elide the anchoring of global
English in the English - dominant countries, where this is the primary national language and one that also opens
 This terminology is a minefield which obscures power
international doors.
relations and hegemonic practices, nationally and internationally.
 Vote Neg
Voting negative reveals the gaps and omissions of the
knowledge produced by the aff, this is the first step to a true
understanding of the world and eliminating imperialism
Tikly 04
[Leon Tikly, Education and the New Imperialism, Comparative Education, May 2004,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4134648]
The question remains, however, as to whether there can be an alternative to the 'regime of truth' that operates
around the education and development problematic and whether alternative visions of the future, of education and
even of 'development' itself are possible? After all, as Mudimbe (1988) reminds us in relation to Africa, even in the
most Afrocentric of perspectives on change, the western epistemological order remains as both context and
referent. Indeed, it will not have escaped the attention of the reader that the present article, like so much
'postcolonial' scholarship, is also written largely within a western frame of reference, whatever its intentions or
is it possible to conceive of
commitments! For critics of the new imperialism this poses a dilemma-
a critical social theory and epistemology on which an alternative to
western hegemony can be built, and what ought the role of education to
be in this endeavour assuming it were possible? To some extent, this is not a new
problem within the social sciences. It is a problem of how to go beyond the existing order of knowledge whilst
being obliged simultaneously to work within its frameworks. For some critics this has meant abandoning the
whole 'development' problematic entirely. Against this kind of nihilism, however, another view is that such an
abandonment is itself a betrayal of the poor and marginalized. As Tucker (1999) points out, 'If we were to follow
this logic, we would also need to abandon concepts such as socialism, cooperation and democracy because they
have also been abused and manipulated for purposes of domination and exploitation' (p. 15). In relation to formal
education in particular, it is often the poorest and most marginalized communities that have struggled hardest,
both during the period of European colonialism and subsequently, to create educational opportunities for their
children because formal schooling is still perceived by those with the most to lose as a way out of poverty and
destitution. At a theoretical level I find Santos' (1999) work to be particularly useful in beginning to reconstruct a
role for education. He sets out what he describes as a postmodem critical theory (but for our purposes might
Foucault's
equally be described as a new anti-imperial critical theory). Santos starts by pointing out that
great merit was 'to show the opacities and silences produced by modem
science, thus giving credibility to alternative "regimes of truth", for other
ways of knowing that have been marginalised, suppressed and discredited
by modern science' (1999, p. 33). Part of this process or silencing has been to obscure the nature and
origins of western science itself. To begin with, modern science developed in the crucible of Enlightenment
thought owes much to the Islamic world of scholarship. Secondly, modern science from its inception has had both
emancipatory and regulatory dimensions. It was emancipatory to the extent that it sought to bring the
threatening chaos of unmastered natural forces under control in relation to an emerging liberal notion of freedom
and equality. It was regulatory because it excluded from this and indeed sought to dominate and regulate large
Santos' (1999)
sections of humankind including slaves, indigenous peoples, women, children, the poor, etc.
plea is for a reinvention of 'knowledge as emancipation' based on the principle of
solidarity, and a commitment to praxis. That is to combine a new knowledge as
emancipation with a commitment to meeting localized needs (here his theory
intersects with that of other scholars such as Freire). The principles of knowledge as emancipation are firstly, that
it must move from monoculturalism towards multiculturalism based on
the recognition of the 'Other' (indigenous and colonized peoples, women, rural dwellers etc.) as
producers of knowledge. This means recognizing the silences, gaps and
omissions within and between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic systems
of knowledge so as to begin to unearth alternative ways of knowing the
world. However, this also entails a recognition of difference (see also Crossley &
Watson, 2003). Rather than posit one 'knowledge as emancipation' it requires recognizing a multitude of voices of
the historically marginalized and to work towards a theory of translation, a hermeneutics that makes it possible
knowledge
for the needs, aspirations and practices of a given culture to be understood by another. Thirdly,
as emancipation involves developing greater awareness and links
between the production of knowledge and its likely impact, that is, in
contextualizing knowledge production rather than separating it off as a
technical area of expertise and in creating an ongoing critical and
deconstructive approach towards forms of knowledge power. Finally, however,
and going beyond deconstruction, Santos (1999) urges us to reconstruct the idea of emancipatory social action
and to 'inquire into the specific forms of socialisation, education, and work that promote rebellious, or on the
contrary, conformist, subjectivities' (p. 41).Within the educational sphere and within the context of this article,
Santos' challenges lead us to inquire as to what conditions are necessary for transforming education as a
disciplinary technology into a potentially liberatory institution based on a view of knowledge not as a means of
western control and of regulation of non-western populations but of emancipation from the new imperialism. A few
brief points, however, are relevant here. Firstly, as Sardar (1999) has pointed out: Resistancet o Eurocentricisma,
and hence development, can only come from non-Western concepts and categories. The non-Western cultures and
civilisations have to reconstruct themselves, almost brick by brick, in accordance with their own world views and
the non-West has to create a whole new body
according to their own norms and values. This means that
of knowledge, rediscover its lost and suppressed intellectual heritage, and shape a
host of new disciplines. (p. 57)
 A2 Zapatistas Bad
Other normal revolutions only lead to more repression-
Zapatistas unique
Wagner and Moreira 2003 [Valeria Wagner and Alejandro Moreira, Towards a Quixotic
Pragmatism: The Case of the Zapatista Insurgence, PDF Academic Journal, 2003,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/journals/boundary/v030/30.3wagner.html]
In response to this insidious understanding of power and the practices it sustains, and with an attention to words
the Zapatistas propose
that testifies to an awareness of their [End Page 189] complex relationship to acts,
"the concept of mandar obedeciendo [to order with obedience] as one of the cornerstones of a new
democratic culture" (EZLN II, 390). 12 The precept, it is worth stressing, does not conform to the
practice of power that characterized Latin American revolutionary guerrillas of the
seventies, and it is definitely incompatible with the model of the revolutionary avant-garde
leading the masses forward toward the realization of a project they cannot
fully grasp. In the revolutionary avant-garde, power is hierarchically distributed and
decisions are taken by a select group that, however well intended, is bound to reproduce sooner or later
the pattern of repression it struggles against. The principle of "ordering with
obedience" seems capable of precluding this kind of slippage, because it posits a circular
structure of subordination through which power flows. In such a setup, the "ordering"
instance is delegated to organize the implementation of the people's decision, so that the people ultimately follow
the Zapatistas' motto has the merit of
the "orders" they themselves give. Familiar as it sounds,
formulating clearly the nonauthoritarian foundations of democracy and of
articulating an understanding of power in terms of the power to do or to accomplish, that is, of power as exercised
in the actual fulfillment of the people's decision and with the people's willing participation .
 A2 Vague Alts
Our alternatives vagueness is a pragmatic and sensible option
in recognizing the fundamental indeterminacy of the future
Wagner and Moreira 2003 [Valeria Wagner and Alejandro Moreira, Towards a Quixotic
Pragmatism: The Case of the Zapatista Insurgence, PDF Academic Journal, 2003,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/journals/boundary/v030/30.3wagner.html]
That there is no foreseeable future to revolutions, "no recipes, lines, strategies, tactics,
laws, rules or universal axioms," as Marcos remarks, to determine their outcome does not imply,
then, that they have no future at all. Neither does it imply that their future is completely out of human hands, or, as
Deleuze points out, that it is left to the tidings of a "spontaneous dynamics ": "The
question of revolution has never been: utopic spontaneity or State [End Page 206] organization. . . . The question
has always been organizational, not at all ideological: is an organization possible, that is not modeled on the State
apparatus, even to prefigure the State-to-come?" 42 We think that the concept of "ordering with
obedience," at once means and end of the professed Zapatista revolutionary praxis, is an attempt to provide
an organizational principle capable of sustaining viable alternatives to the ideal of programming that is embodied in
the model of the State apparatus. As a principle, it is organizational enough for the future to
be projected according to the new power relations it implies and
sufficiently flexible to allow projects to be reviewed in response to present
circumstances. The principle cannot, to be sure, vouch for either the success or the "ethical propriety" of
attempted projects, but in this it is in keeping with what Castoriadis considers to be " the first problem of
praxis [la pratique]," namely, "that men [people] are to give their individual and
collective lives a meaning that is not pre-assigned , and that they are to do this as
they grapple with real conditions that neither rule out nor guarantee the
accomplishment of their projects" (IIS, 73). Here, the fundamental
indeterminacy (and concurrent unpredictability) of the future is a problem for praxis in
the sense that it is a specifically practical problem, proper to practices, inevitably raised and addressed by them.
Hence it is also the first problem of praxis, in that praxis defines itself with respect to this indeterminacy of the
the EZLN's
future, which is a condition for innovative action. From a practical standpoint, then,
admission to their lack of a precise political program , or their provocative "confession"
that they did not "intend" the revolution, that all they ever wanted to do was "change the world" and only
outlines a fundamentally
"improvised" the rest, is not a sign of political irresponsibility. Instead, it
pragmatic attitude, consistent with the realization that what the revolution
"needs" to be practicable is not a predictable future but a visible and
ongoing present that can envisage and fashion a future. In other words: "the time of
revolutions" is today, not tomorrow; their "moving principle," now.
Block Stuff
 Discourse First

Discourse shapes reality specifically in the context of

education about Latin America - even if they win that their
plan isnt imperialist, the way they frame it makes the link
exponentially bigger
Beech 2002
[Jason Beech, Latin American Education: Perceptions of Linearities and the Construction of Discursive Space,
Educational Transfer, November 2002, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3099544]
educational systems
The perspective which stresses 'domination' argues that the similarities of national
are rather a result of
in Latin America do not derive from voluntary educational borrowing. Similarities
cultural imperialism and neo-colonialism exercised especially by
international agencies that have imposed a 'neo-liberal agenda' on Latin
American countries in order to keep them economically, politically and
culturally dependent. This view is represented by much of the writing by Martinez Boom (2000) and
Corragio (1997). Even though the sharing of similar problems amongst Latin American nations and the processes
of cultural imperialism can be noted, this article suggests a different perspective- based on the analysis of
discourse-to understand the similarities in the Latin American educational reforms. A perspective that puts
discourse at the centre of the analysis explains the similarity in the latest educational reforms in Latin America by
the existence of a regional educational discourse: a discourse that has Latin American education as its object.
The way in which we view the world, the way in which we think and speak
or write about the world affects the way in which we act upon it. Thus,
the existence of a regional educational discourse creates the conditions of
possibility for certain things to be said and done in Latin American
education, but at the same time this discourse implies a limit on
educational thought and action. In other words, why is it that of all the things that could be said
and done in Latin American education only certain things are said and done? Overall, then, this essay offers an
analysis of the process by which the Latin American discursive space is constructed in the educational literature.
The argument is that there are a number of themes that dominate contemporary 'Latin American educational
discourse' and that this can partly explain the similarities in the latest educational reforms in the region. This
closed discursive space creates the conditions for the production of certain ideas and practices, but at the same
time it becomes a limit for the production of other ideas and practices.
 Epistemology Stuff
Epistemology disad The way the affirmative understands
Latin America has been constructed through colonialism, their
truth claims have been created in the interest of domination
Casella 99
[Ronnie Casella, Pedagogy as View Sequence: Popular Culture, Education, and Travel, Anthropology & Education
Quarterly, June 1999, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3196072]
U.S. under- standings of Latin
Repeated images in travel advertising make evident that
America are discursively constructed, that is, con- nected to a web of meanings found in U.S.
popular culture-in Mexican restaurant chains, for example, or adventure films (such as Mosquito Coast). Today,
constructions of Latin America revolve around a legacy of colonialism and
distinctions of class, gender, and race that have contin- ued to define Latin
America as "colorful" and the United States as "sci- entific" (Duncan 1993). As
individuals from the United States become more aware of Latin America -through
travel, television, immigration, agreements such as NAFTA- there grows the feeling that the
United States must better monitor and control the activities in Central and
South America. Borders between the Americas no longer seem as pro- nounced. This effect is partly
achieved through the overt manipulation of images. When appropriate and advantageous,
Latin America is con- structed as corrupt. When appropriate, it is pristine,
friendly, and color- ful. Brochures take part in this production. They contribute to U.S. un- derstandings
of the world and reiterate and therefore support knowledge about Latin America-about its history, culture, and rela-
tionship with the United States. The advertisements tell us about Latin America, but they also tell us about U.S.
power to define Latin America for political and economic purposes (Munt 1994). How this is accom- plished in the
case of brochures is a trip in itself-a textual tour-a form of "armchair traveling" (Bartkowski 1995) that I call
brochure mini tours.

The affs approach to globalized knowledge subverts local

knowledge and prevents opposition, their epistemology is
upheld through the destruction of local knowledges
Alcadipani 11
[Rafael Alcadipani and Alexandre Reis Rosa, From global management to local management: Latin American
perspectives as a counter-dominant management epistemology, Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences,
January 4 2011, Wiley interscience]
This approach raises arguments both for and against globalization (Kellner, 2002). Those in favour of globalization
see an end to borders as a positive thing, which will create new economic, political, and cultural opportunities. On
critics of globalization consider it a form of imperialism that
the other hand,
takes advantage of the end of borders to impose market and capital logics
throughout the world (Kellner, 2002). These two possibilities can lead us to ask: What is
managements role in the global picture? As an area of academic knowledge and social
practice, management is a globally widespread phenomenon. It is taught at almost all the worlds universities,
and practiced professionally and nonprofessionally in all corporations, governments, NGOs, and so forth. However,
this global aspect also implies that management knowledge and
practices generated and developed in Western countries, especially in the
United States (US), can then be seamlessly transferred to other contexts
(i.e., Jack, Calas, Nkomo, & Peltonen, 2008). The assumption is that knowledge in
management can be universally applicable and is, supposedly, neutral. The resultant view
is that management globalization is positive, and is indeed an opportunity
created by globalization. On the other hand, if analyzed from a critical perspective and from the
viewpoint of Latin America a region that is a recipient of management knowledge and practices
the process can pose many problems. This is especially because globalized
management tends to impact management knowledge and experiences developed
locally. The logic behind this impact is linked to a wider context in which epistemologies are
based on a dividing line that creates a hierarchy of knowledge and that
subordinates local thinking (which is considered as particular) to global thinking (which is
considered universal. This unequal knowledge-power relationship, which undermines the
particular knowledge of many colonized peoples, is called coloniality of power by Quijano
(2000), and the manner in which this epistemological difference was (re)produced is called abyssal thinking by
Santos (2007). Both of them define lines that divide experiences, knowledge, and social players into two groups
On one side is the hegemonic, useful, intelligible,
that inhabit each side of the abyss.
and visible knowledge produced by the North (or First World), and on the
other is the inferior, useless or dangerous, and unintelligible knowledge
produced by the South (or Third World), which is meant to be forgotten. In
management terms, this means that the colonial meeting between Northern and Southern knowledge has created
a naturalized view that useful, intelligible, and visible ways to manage an organization are necessarily found in
the knowledge produced in the North. Here North refers to the countries in the Northern Hemisphere formed by
Europe and the US and South refers to countries in the Southern Hemisphere, formed by regions that were
colonized by Europe but which have not achieved the same level of development as the North (Santos, 1995).

Independent reason to vote neg rejecting the colonizers is

the only way to create a true epistemology
Alcadipani 11
[Rafael Alcadipani and Alexandre Reis Rosa, From global management to local management: Latin American
perspectives as a counter-dominant management epistemology, Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences,
January 4 2011, Wiley interscience]
To consider management from a Southern point of view means to reclaim
the principle that the world is epistemologically diverse and that this
diversity could enrich human capacity to manage and organize social life.
It also means denouncing coloniality and reclaiming other types of
knowledge that have resisted the colonial encounter and that today are
deprived of a horizontal dialogue with Northern knowledge . It is to defend global
perspective for management. In this sense, this article aims at denaturalizing management by exploring its
diversity in the world, particularly regarding the way in which management is conceived and carried out in Latin
American contexts and by exploring how this can help change current global management. This article will show
how management has spread around the world as a North American phenomenon, becoming characterized as an
agent of Americanization. We argue that this Americanization of management led to the
emergence of the grobal management perspective and, as a result, took
on the aspect of epistemic coloniality, as problems might emerge during its encounter
with local realities. For this reason, based on ideas conceived by Latin American social scientists and on
the experiences of local organizations, this article defends a global management approach
that takes into consideration local realities and challenges knowledge
produced in the North.
 General FW Evd
Understanding the oppression of imperialism is key for
scholarly discussions
Sachs 03
[Aaron Sachs, The Ultimate "Other": Post-Colonialism and Alexander Von Humboldt's Ecological Relationship with
Nature, History and Theory, December 2003, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3590683]
There is no denying the value of the post-colonial critique and its relevance to all studies of travel and the
In a world
environment. Post-colonialism, at its best, means recuperating the objects of the traveler's gaze.
so profoundly shaped-damaged, I would argue-by colonialism and imperialism, it is
imperative that scholars focus on celebrating the colonized, on hearing the
voices of "others." We must understand all the ways in which Western
civilization has come to depend directly on forms of domination. Indeed, it makes
perfect sense, as David Spurr has noted in The Rhetoric of Empire (1993), that "works once studied primarily as
expressions of traditionally Western ideals are now also read as evidence of the manner in which such ideals have
served in the historical process of colonization."16

Imperialism is held up through discourse, voting aff only

normalizes it more
Pease 02
[Donald Pease, Imperial Discourse, Diplomatic History, December 17 2002, Wiley interscience]
As grounds for associating questions of foreign policy with travelers itineraries and museum exhibits, Endy and
Conn both depended on an understanding of the role that discourse played in fashioning imperialism as an
As a discourse, imperialism correlated a broad range of
American way of life.
cultural spheres to solicit the publics consent to imperialism as a U.S. foreign
policy but also to the domestic arrangements that policy valorized. It reorganized such disparate practices as
museum displays and traveling abroad within a much more inclusive network of linguistic and extra-linguistic
practices that naturalized imperial norms. Conn highlighted this discourses hegemonizing effects when he
remarked that American imperialism was not exclusively, or even most importantly, an episode in American
foreign relations, presidential policy, or military history. The
process of Empire took place on
a multiplicity of terrains, domestic and foreign, public and private . I have
mentioned the hegemonizing aspect of the discourse of imperialism because of the parts played by Wilsons
the discourse of
commercial museum and imperial travel in producing it. In discussing the means whereby
imperialism forged a hegemony out of linkages between such unrelated
cultural terrains as travel and ethnographic exhibits, I propose an addendum to Conns and Endys fine
essays. In what follows, I hope to track one of the relays whereby imperialism became an American way of life
through an analysis of three interdependent aspects in evidence in Conns and Endys discussions. The analysis
shall begin with an account of how Wilsons museum displaced the distinction between (Europes) territorial and
(U.S.) commercial expansionism from a contested point within the field of debate into a normative presupposition
the
that regulated its terms. Discussion will then move to a topic that Endy left out of his essay, namely, how
discourse of imperialism constructed linkages between travel abroad and
ethnic and racial hierarchies in the domestic sphere. The question of the relationship
between Conns and Endys knowledges and the hegemonizing discursive formation they analyze will shape the
contours of this entire discussion.

The education created by the affirmative team is uniquely bad

because it is used to engrain colonialism within society
Kumaravadivelu 99
[B. Kumaravadivelu, Critical Classroom Discourse Analysis, TESOL Quarterly, Autumn 1999,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3587674]
Postcolonial theorists offer a refreshingly challenging perspective on education in general and on English language
education in particular. They tell us that education was "a massive canon in the artillery
of empire," effecting, in Gramsci's (1971) phrase, "a domination by consent" (p. 28). They also tell us that
language is a fundamental site of struggle for post-colonial discourse
because the colonial process itself begins in language. The control over language by
the imperial centre-whether achieved by displacing native languages, by installing itself as a "standard" against
other variants which are constituted as "impurities,"or by planting the language of empire in a new place-remains
the most potent instrument of cultural control. (Ashcroft, Griffiths, & Tiffin, 1995, p. 283) Perhaps no language is
as much implicated in colonialism as English is. Several postcolonial commentators have pointed out that the
same ideological climate informed both the growth of English and the growth of Empire. In her pioneering study
Masks of Conquest, Viswanathan (1989) argues that in colonial India, the English literary text functioned as a
mask that camouflaged the conquering activities of the colonizing authority. She wonders at the historical "irony
that English literature appeared as a subject in the curriculum of the colonies long before it was institutionalized
in the home country" (p. 3) of England. Noting that "the superiority of English rested on a racialized and gendered
equation between language and nation" (p. 20), Krishnaswamy's (1998) Effeminism: The Economy of Colonial
Desire shows how colonialists relied "heavily upon a vocabulary of effeminacy to describe and codify Eastern
languages and literatures while defining European languages and literatures, especially English, as hard,
English
energetic, rational, and masculine" (p. 20). Connecting this line of thinking specifically to
language teaching (ELT), Pennycook (1998), in English and the Discourses of Colonialism, offers an in-
depth analysis of what he calls "the continuity of cultural constructs of colonialism" (p. 19) and demonstrates how
ELT is deeply interwoven with the discourses of colonialism . ELT, he argues, is a
product of colonialism not-just because it is colonialism that produced the initial conditions for the
global spread of English but because it was colonialism that produced many of the
ways of thinking and behaving that are still part of Western cultures.
European/Western culture not only produced colonialism but was also produced by it; ELT not only rode
on the back of colonialism to the distant corners of the Empire but was
also in turn produced by that voyage. (p. 19)

The education that the aff claims their framework sponsors is

just a tool used by imperialists to hold power and control over
their subjects
Tikly 04
[Leon Tikly, Education and the New Imperialism, Comparative Education, May 2004,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4134648]
Modern forms of education with their roots in western cultures and civilizations have been
deeply implicated in and provide a common thread between European imperialism and
colonialism and the new imperialism. Firstly, formal educational institutions have
provided a key disciplinary institution within the context of classical and settler
colonialism. It provided in many contexts a basis for the exercise of the pastoral power of the colonial
missionaries who often controlled formal schooling. Through reinforcing and legitimizing the trusteeship status of
the colonial master through a particular interpretation of the bible, it helped to forge the colonized as colonial
subjects rather than as equal citizens. This imperative of schooling, however, often clashed with a more
'modernist', economic imperative, namely to prepare through the inculcation of basic skills, dispositions and
attitudes, indigenous workers intended largely to staff the colonial administrations. For the small minority who
progressed beyond basic education, colonial schooling was also 'disciplinary' in another sense because it
inculcated these indigenous elites into a western way of thinking based on western forms of knowledge, part of a
process that scholars such as Ngugi Wa Thiong'o (1981) and more recently, Nandy (1997) have described as a
'colonisation of the mind'. The effects of colonial schooling were, however, contradictory. To begin with the
experience differed slightly with respect to differing colonizing powers and contexts. Secondly, however, the
effects of schooling on those who were subject to it was to produce a bifurcation, a split in the loyalties and
identities of the colonized that Fanon (1970) captures so vividly in his metaphor of Black skins white masks.
Thirdly, the spread of the western episteme based on Eurocentric conceptions of human nature and of social
reality, led in some cases to the development of oppositional discourses although these were inevitably couched
within a western discursive framework, most usually either liberalism or Marxism. Following independence, formal
education continued to operate as a disciplinary technology in both senses of the term. To begin with,
education remained in missionary hands, although as schooling
increasingly became subject to government control in many countries, it
was used by emerging elites as a tool for transforming colonial subjects
into new kinds of postcolonial identities linked to alternative forms of
sovereignty. In some instances, the receivers of formal education remained as
subjects of a new illiberal sovereignty under dictatorial and oppressive
regimes or under one party rule. In other cases, they were constituted more as citizens of an
emerging liberal form of state. Postcolonial education was not just disciplinary in the sense that it
sought to forge postcolonial subjectivities in relation to new political imperatives and identities. It was also
disciplinary in that it extended the modernist, economic imperative of
schooling through the gradual expansion of formal education at all levels
in the post-independence period. This belief in the modernist view of the role of formal schooling
was a necessary precondition for the subsequent spread of global governmentality.

This form of education turns the workforce of a nation into

human capital to be spent by the imperialist nation and it
entrenches imperialism into everyday life
Tikly 04
[Leon Tikly, Education and the New Imperialism, Comparative Education, May 2004,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4134648]
Education has historically had a key role to play in relation to the
development project for all of the multilateral agencies. Education was,
however, constructed in different ways in relation to the overall object of
development, namely, economic growth and poverty reduction. From the
perspective of the United Nations and the non-aligned movement, for example, education was often constructed
as a basic human right and the extension of education was a means for extending a notion of global citizenship
(although as Santos (1999) reminds us, this form of global citizenship and of human rights implied in these
discourses often remained a peculiarly western one). Of more relevance here was the extent to which
education was constructed, following the ground-breaking theoretical work of Theodore Schultz in
the discourses of the World Bank in primarily economic terms as a question of raising
'human capital'. Human capital theory has remained a central tenet of World
Bank thinking on education and has proved to be a flexible and resilient discursive resource (Fagerlind
& Saha, 1989; Ilon, 1996; Rose, 2002; Little, 2003). As Ilon (1996) has argued, in the post-war period and until the
human capital was primarily conceived of in terms of its
late 1970s,
contribution to raising GNP. In this discursive context, the World Bank and the other agencies
supported a range of projects to expand the skills base of low-income countries to provide the necessary human
human capital was conceived
capital to kick-start the industrialization process. In this context,
largely as a 'technical' question of inculcating the necessary skills
required for economic competitiveness and growth. As such, human capital theory
contributed to the de-politicization of development discourse mentioned above through removing reference to the
In human capital discourses, the
role of education in relation to reproducing social inequality.
notion of skills was itself conceived in terms of discrete competencies
acquired by individuals, with little attention paid to the social nature of
many skills (such as team work, communication, etc.) and to the cultural context of skills acquisition. By way
of contrast, more recent work, within a skills formation framework has emphasized these dimensions as a key to
understanding different skills paths adopted by different countries and regions (Brown 1998; Tikly et al., 2003). In
these formulations, social, cultural and political factors and differences in context are seen to play a key role in
determining the skills formation strategy adopted. Human capital theory also has a distinctive cultural bias. In the
1960s and 1970s, for example, the development of human capital through education was seen as a key means to
promote 'modernization' (Fagerlind & Saha, 1989). This was achieved through the further institutionalization of a
form of western education in the post-independence era. The nature of this bias has, however, changed in relation
Given the obvious failure of the human
to the uses of human capital theory itself.
capital/modernization coupling to promote growth and to reduce poverty,
attention shifted during the 1980s to the role of human capital in determining
levels of resource allocation to different levels of education. Here, George
Psacharopoulos' (1983) work on individual and social rates of return to different levels of education was significant.
In relation to rates of return analysis, primary education is seen as a principal means to eradicate poverty
because of its relatively high social rates of return to gross domestic product (GDP) and growth. In this way, human
capital theory became linked to structural adjustment lending and the increased use of development targets by
 This new role for education, however, only serves to
multilateral agencies.
reinforce the new imperialism through further limiting the capacity of low-
income countries to determine their own educational agendas. Dependency and
the resulting incapacity generated are reinforced through the disciplinary mechanisms of poverty-conditional
lending, poverty reduction strategies and international target setting, as highlighted above. Firstly, as has been
argued elsewhere and is gradually being recognized by some of the multi-lateral development agencies
themselves, the over-emphasis on primary education at the expense of other levels of education removes the
indigenous capacity for research and innovation which is centrally important if countries are to link education to
indigenously determined future development priorities (Crossley, 2001; Tikly, 2003b; Tikly et al., 2003). Secondly,
as Rose (2003) points out, education and training are treated as a black box in relation to the underlying
processes that take place. In this context, and given the continued hegemony of western text books, materials and
education will continue to serve as a basis for a
resources, it is likely that
Eurocentric kind of education for most of the world's children.
 A2 Perm
All permutations fail - sacrificing something from the
alternative will destroy the movement empirics prove
Amin 03
[Samir Amin, The Alternative to the neoliberal system of globalization and militarism Imperialism Today and the
Hegemonic Offensive of the United States., February 25 2003]
THE ALTERNATIVE: SOCIAL PROGRESS, DEMOCRATIZATION, AND NEGOTIATED INTERDEPENDENCE 1. What
people need today, as well as yesterday, are society wide projects (national and / or regional)
articulated to regulated and negotiated globalized structures (while assuring a relative complementarity between
them), which would simultaneously permit advances in three directions: -Social Progress:
this demands that economic progress (innovation, advances in productivity, the eventual
expansion of the market) are necessarily accompanied by social benefits for all (by
guaranteeing employment, social integration, reduction in inequalities, etc.) - The democratization of
society in all dimensions, understood as a never-ending process and not as a
blue print, defined once for all. Democratization demands that its reach is felt in social and economic spheres,
and not to be restricted to just the political sphere. - The
affirmation of society-wide economic
and social development, and the building of forms of globalization that
offer this possibility. It needs to be understood that the unavoidable auto-centric character of
development does not exclude either the opening (on condition that it remains controlled) or the participation in
globalization (inter-dependence). But it conceives of these as needing to be formulated in terms that would
permit the reduction-not the accentuation-of the inequalities of wealth and power between nations and regions. 2.
The alternative that we are defining by advances in three directions
demands that all three progress in parallel. The experiences of modern
history, which were founded on the absolute priority of National
independence whether accompanied by social progress,or even
sacrificing it, but always without democratization, continually
demonstrate their inability to go beyond the rapidly attained historical
limits. As a complementary counterpoint, contemporary democracy projects, which
have accepted to sacrifice social progress and autonomy in globalized
interdependence, have not contributed to reinforcing the emancipatory
potential of democracy, but have, instead, eroded it - even to discredit and finally
delegitimize it. If, as the predominant neoliberal discourse pretends, submitting to the demands of the market
presents no other alternative, and if, this idea would by itself produce social progress (which is not true), why
bother voting? Elected governments become superfluous decorations, sincechange (a succession of different
heads who all do the same thing) is substituted to alternative choices by which democracy is defined. The
reaffirmation of politics and the culture of citizenship define the very possibility of a necessary alternative to
democratic decadence. 3.
It is therefore necessary to advance in the three
dimensions of the alternative, each one connected to the other. Less can be
more-developing step-by-step strategies which allow for the consolidation of progress, even ones that are so
modest that they can be achieved immediately, to go even further while minimizing the risk of failure, going off-
course or moving backwards.

Alt is mutually exclusive- neoliberalism has created the demand for a

new form of social struggle that the state cannot engage in
Stahler-Sholk 07 [Richard Stahler-Sholk, Resisting Neoliberal Homogenization: The Zapatista
Autonomy Movement, Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 34, No. 2, Globalizing Resistance: The New Politics of Social
Movements in Latin America (Mar., 2007), pp. 48-63]
Subcomandante Marcos
In the documentary ?Zapatista! there is a scene in which the ski-masked
tells the camera that the rebels rose up against the Mexican government in
1994 only to discover that the Mexican government didn't exist; instead,
they found themselves fighting against the structures of global capital.1
Social movements do not literally resist neoliberalism; they resist a specific landlord's hired guns trying to drive
them off the land they need for subsistence or a specific agency that privatizes their water supply and triples the
rates. In Mexico they resist a golf course in Tepoztl?n, an air port in San Salvador Ateneo, a Costeo in Cuernavaca?
concrete manifestations of a global logic that disempowers
all local and
people who lack capital and ignores their right to establish their own
priorities. A growing number of movements in Latin America are engaging
in innovative organizing against the injustices of the neoliberal paradigm (Gills,
2000), departing from the revolutionary focus on seizing state power (Foran,
2003). Privatization, fiscal austerity, and economic liberalization have resulted in the contraction and redeployment
of the state, shifting the locus of political struggles away from direct contestation for state power and opening new
spaces to contestation (by new movements and old) over whether they will be controlled from above or below.
The Mexican state acts increasingly as a broker for global capital as it attempts to re-regulate the conditions for
accumulation on a global scale. Neoliberalism involves not simply a headlong retreat of the state but rather a
renegotiation of The attempted recomposition of capitalist
state-society relations.
hegemony included targeted social compensation programs such as the National
Solidarity Program?PRONASOL. These somewhat contradictory efforts to create a reformulated clientelism for the
neoliberal era (Hellman, 1994) one more selective and flexible than the old corporatist structures had allowed did
not entirely succeed in shielding the dominant-party form of the Mexican authoritarian state from political
shift from state-orchestrated to market mechanisms of
change. The
distribution overlapped with new forms of social-movement-based
struggles, ranging from the debtors' movement El Barzon to independent unions and neighborhood
associations (Williams, 2001; Otero, 2004). As the turn to the market left state authorities in control of fewer
increasingly independent social sectors formulated their
resources for co-optation,
demands not in terms of clien telistic expectations but in terms of citizenship rights (Fox,
1997). This discourse of rights is characteristic of the newly constituted social
subjects confronting neoliberalism throughout Latin America by
simultaneously claiming indigenous and other collective rights that markets deny
and the citizenship rights that the neoliberal state pretends to offer equally to all (Eckstein and Wickham-Crowley,
2003). The Zapatistas organize in newly contested spaces paradoxically created by neoliberal globalization itself
(Stahler-Sholk, 2001), joining independent peasant and liberation-theology organizing that predated the neoliberal
The forces of globalization that affect class relations are
era (Harvey, 1998)
experienced (and resisted) through a variety of locally relevant identities, including
ethnicity and gender (Nash, 2001; Yashar, 2005). In Chiapas, elaborate structures of labor control
were constructed in the centuries after colonization by grafting them onto co-opted "traditional" religious/civic
hierarchies in indigenous communities. Changes in the global political economy of post-1982 (oil/debt shock)
Mexico were experienced locally as community power struggles that went to
the core of what it meant to be part of the indigenous community (Collier,
1994; Rus, 1995). The state regularly mediated private capitalist development
initiatives (e.g., logging operations in the Lacandon Jungle in the second half of the twentieth century) by
reinventing indigenous identities and lines of authority in ways that
facilitated the particular strategy of capital accumulation (De Vos, 2002). Resistance to
neoliberalism, then, has taken the form of a movement for autonomy,
with the protagonists struggling for the right to define themselves
culturally, socially, and politically.

Perm fails- AFF takes on 1 of the 3 following paths to failed autonomy.

ALSO, Zapatistas movement is K2 spill-over.
Stahler-Sholk 07 [Richard Stahler-Sholk, Resisting Neoliberal Homogenization: The Zapatista
Autonomy Movement, Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 34, No. 2, Globalizing Resistance: The New Politics of Social
Movements in Latin America (Mar., 2007), pp. 48-63]
The Zapatista movement is continually evolving, reflecting the dynamic interaction between neoliberalism and the
social movements that contest it. As the state brokers the reconfiguration of markets in accordance with the logic
of global capital, new organizational bases and forms of organizing are emerging within civil society, attempting
to build alternatives from the grassroots. This necessarily involves these movements in political struggles as they
claim rights to organize autonomously from control by the state or market actors. The Zapatista
example suggests that "autonomy" is not a monolithic concept or a magic
bullet against neoliberalism. States implementing neoliberal projects have a variety of ways of
responding to autonomy movements, trying to neutralize or divert them. Several potential dead
ends for autonomy movements are identified here. One is a version of autonomy defined
merely as territorial decentralization, which could convert the regional
authorities into appendages of the existing power structure. A second is
autonomy that cuts off local claimants from resources, "freeing" them to fend for
themselves as the central state paves the way for the penetration of the global
market. A third is the neoliberal multiculturalism trap, recognizing
multiple (ethnic) identities while denying any substantive collective rights to
the diverse groups. In navigating between these shoals, the Zapatistas have created a space for
local communities to experiment with the construction of new models of government .

This pluralism and flexibility of autonomies helped the movement survive

over 10 years of intense state-organized counteroffensive, but the Zapatistas' future depends on their ability
(limited so far) to articulate this local resistance into a national movement. Community- controlled social and
political institutions- schools, clinics, systems of justice, and regional planning-are part of the struggle to define
market. As global market forces reduce
collective priorities independently of the logic of the
space for self-sufficient development, the importance of the microcosm of
Zapatista autonomous communities-like the spaces occupied and transformed by Argentine
piqueteros and Brazilian land less-is in symbolizing alternative and inspiring new
political movements that challenge the states posture as broker for global
capital.
 A2 Perm (Mexico Specific)
Permutation DO BOTH fails: State and Zapatista utilization of tourism
are completely different and cannot both utilized at the same time
Martin 2004 [Desiree A. Martin, Assistant Professor of English at the University of California, Davis; she is
currently completing her dissertation, "Bordered Saints: Unorthodox Sanctity Along the Border in Mexican and
Chicano/a Literature" in the Graduate Program in Literature at Duke University, Excuse the inconvenience, but this
is a revolution: Zapatista Paradox and the Rhetoric of Tourism, South Central Review 21.3, 2004]
The union of "national and indigenous identity" represents a paradox within
dominant Mexican nationalism, since indigenous identity is routinely collapsed into
state discourse in order to facilitate a universalizing nationalism that
effectively excludes living indigenous people . In other words, although the post-
revolutionary Mexican state celebrates its indigenous past in the form of
monuments, museums, murals, and the presentation of ancient ruins, indigenous groups in
Chiapas and elsewhere in the republic are marginalized and condemned to a life of
poverty. The presence of living indigenous difference in Mexico reminds the state that it is not a unified whole
whose inhabitants are all equal under the rubric of Mexican national belonging and citizenship, while state
oppression brutally reminds the indigenous people of their status as non-entities to the state. The suggestion is that
indigenous difference and Mexican national belonging and citizenship are incompatible and in fact, preclude each
the Zapatistas
other, for each can seemingly only exist without [End Page 109] the other. To this end,
counter the state's imposition of paradox with their own series of
paradoxes. The Zapatistas wear concealing black ski masks in order to reveal their faces, identify themselves
as "soldiers who are soldiers so that one day no one will have to be a soldier," or as revolutionaries who wish to end
the need for revolution, are represented by a titular leader (Subcomandante Marcos) who is not a leader, and live
by the refrain, "everything for everyone, nothing for ourselves."10 Unlike within Mexican state
discourse, which contends that certain conditions necessarily preclude others, as in the representation of the
union of national citizenship and indigenous self-determination as irresolvable paradox, the use of
paradox within Zapatista discourse creates a situation where multiple
possibilities can exist at once. However, despite the fact that hegemonic
Mexican nationalism calls forth a unified idea of the "people" through the
incorporation of the indigenous past, the critic David Lloyd argues that nationalism "is
always confronted with that people as a potentially disruptive excess over
the nation and its state."11 In the case of the Mexican state, an official version of hybridity between tradition
and modernity proposes a solution to the presence of certain unruly sectors of the population by establishing a
place where the two can co-exist through state appropriation. There are, however, several instances in which the
illusion of hybridity as an all-inclusive mechanism breaks down or isolates and emphasizes its multiple parts. Some
examples quite obviously reveal the confrontation or clash between the nation-state and its "potentially disruptive
excess," such as moments of indigenous rebellion or the paramilitary repression of indigenous groups, as in the
case of the 1997 Acteal massacre in Chiapas.12 Others, such as tourism, aim to present a united front for national
the state's version
and indigenous identity. However, as the conflict over El Rancho Esmeralda reveals,
of national identity and indigenous difference and the Indians' version of the two are
opposed, and their distinctions may be revealed through the practice of tourism.
Indeed, in Chiapas, tourism becomes a paradox as well, for it strives to present a neatly
packaged version of indigenous Mexican difference for easy consumption ,
yet carries with it the constant threat that this indigenous difference will escape its Mexican national packaging and
reveal the true alterity beneath. In this context, tourism takes on multiple functions in relation to indigenous groups,
as it blurs the distinctions between both the preservation and destruction
and between the commodification and self-determination of such groups. Furthermore, since the experience
of tourism is predicated upon access and authenticity, [End Page 110] the presence of the Zapatistas
in Chiapas raises new concerns for the Mexican state, as it expands the avenues for
access and changes the scope of tourism. In the eyes of the state, the fear that Zapatistas will block
access to tourist areas, thus hindering the free flow of capital, is compounded by the fear that too much
access will unravel its carefully constructed version of the authentic
indigenous experience, or worse yet, encourage tourists' support of Zapatismo, and even provoke
collusion in "international terrorism." The state wishes to preserve its control over the
representation of authentic indigenousness at all costs, as well as its
control over the tourists themselves. Indeed, the Mexican state manipulates the
idea of tourism in order to delegitimate and marginalize Zapatismo, as when
President Ernesto Zedillo labeled foreign and metropolitan Mexican Zapatista supporters
"revolutionary tourists," a term which was principally used to describe the Zapatour. The state's use of
the "revolutionary tourist" label seeks to remove the potential power of Zapatista political praxis by converting it
a "repetition of outdated 1960s political activism " which has remained stagnant
into
the Zapatistas reclaim the power of
without producing concrete results in Mexico.13 At the same time,
political praxis, at least symbolically, by utilizing tourism as a rhetorical device to
represent and analyze the construction of national and indigenous identity within Zapatista discourse. Through the
use of mock tourist guides or travel narratives, the EZLN demonstrates the confluence and inversion of the so-
called "non-modern" and "modern," in which both the nation-state and indigenous groups are revealed to
appropriate and reject or alienate official national discourse and autonomous indigenous identity. As such, tourism
becomes a space not to access potential national unity, as the state would have it, but rather, to access the
potential national difference of Mexicans.
 A2 Cede the Political

No cede the political- The Zapatista movement is a political force that

restructures democratic participation by defining its own debates in
terms of the non-dominant peoples
Pollack 99 [Aaron Pollack, Epistemological Struggle and International Organizing: Applying the Experience
of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Institute of Social Studies, August 1999, PhD program for the
scientific basis for the formulation of appropriate development policies, Working Paper series]
Just as the global economy is nothing new to Chiapas, neither is protest and rebellion, occurring periodically through colonial times
and continuing after independence (Bricker 1989: 111-140, 235-248). This history has arrived at another active phase in the last
30 years with a great deal of religious, indigenous and campesino organizing, the most visible manifestation at present being the
Unlike many other movements, armed and unarmed, the EZLN position, in addition to
EZLN.
questions some of the
the social and economic revindications which form the backbone of its demands, also
basic ideas regarding the distribution of political power within a nation-
state and, more broadly, the political implications of diversity at the level of
epistemology or cosmovision. In the Mexican case, the power differential between the dominant and the
dominated can only be understood in reference to the relative importance given in public discussion to the epistemological
differences of the indigenous and mestizos. The negation and denial of the indigenous
cosmovision, not only by those who oppose them, but also by those who
would help them (be they Maoists, priests or state officials), has meant that all debate has
taken place on the terms defined by the dominant groups. This denial has
also meant that the various ideological debates both between liberals and
Marxists, as well as within the Left are of secondary importance for the
Mayans themselves (See Rabasa 1997: 420). The history and struggle of the Mayans
in Chiapas goes back further than these differences of opinion between the
kaxlanes33 and, in many senses, regardless of which camp might gain the upper hand in the struggle, their own
voices would be ignored. An important aspect of the Zapatista rebellion is that it has
allowed these epistemological differences, as well as their political
implications, to be openly voiced and to be heard outside of the
indigenous communities. From a perspective which sees the modern episteme as, at the very least,
problematic, a political force such as the EZLN which actively questions it, and does so within a discourse
of social justice (or at times of an isomorphic non-modern one), is an important actor to watch, and
reflect upon, as the Left goes ambling confusedly into the twenty-first
century, seemingly trapped in modernity and unable (or unwilling) to look
outside of it. In this regard, the EZLN has successfully made contact with a
number of other political actors in Mexico and around the globe (through the use
of internet and email), gaining politically important support from many
organizations, while simultaneously promoting and participating in new
national and global networks/alliances/encounters.
 A2 Neolib Helps Mexico

Neoliberals economic benefits are falsified and only exist for

the richer, more dominant country-Mexico and US proves
Delgado-Wise 04 [Raul Delgado-Wise, Critical Dimensions of Mexico-US Migration under the Aegis of
Neoliberalism and NAFTA, Canadian Journal of Development Studies 25.4 (2004): 591-605, Director of Doctoral
Program in Migration Studies, Professor of Development Studies, Universidad Autnoma de Zacatecas, Mexico]
in spite of the Mexican economys dedication to exports the total
Paradoxically,
this does not
volume of which rose from US$ 22 million to US$ 158 billion between 1982 and 2001
help mitigate the countrys severe external deficit problems ; on the contrary, it
translates into an ever-increasing volume of imports . It is particularly revealing that
between 1988 and 1994, manufactured exports grew at an average annual rate (5%) that was less
than half the rate of growth recorded for imports of those same products (12%) (Rueda 1998, 110). So pronounced
are these tendencies that Enrique Dussel (1996, 80) has called this import-oriented model
industrialization.2 And although this import dynamic was momentarily interrupted by Mexicos 1995
economic crisis, it soon picked up again with deficits of slightly over US$ 6
billion in 1997 and US$ 17.5 billion in 2002. All of this casts a diminished
and relativized view on the scope of the new export dynamic, making it
clear that this process, contrary to what might be expected from its
evolution toward a model of secondary exporting (i.e., a specialization in manufactured
exports), bears little relation to the domestic economy and has a minimal
multiplying effect on it. In addition to showcasing the fragility and volatility of
the export dynamic, the comments made above require that we accurately assess the nature and scope
of what the country actually exports. In this regard, it is clear that the name manufactured exports is too grand a
title for most of Mexicos foreign trade, which takes place within the realm of intra-firm commerce and primarily
Mexico essentially
involves the maquiladora sector. As Tello (1996, 50) has correctly pointed out, what
exports is its labour force, without ever having it leave the country. Thus,
the veil of supposed progress in secondary exports conceals the
contraction of a part of the Mexican economy, which is reduced and
compelled to serve as a reserve of manpower for foreign capital .

Five key points that Affs neoliberal immigration discussion of

Mexico fails to take into account
Delgado-Wise 04 [Raul Delgado-Wise, Critical Dimensions of Mexico-US Migration under the Aegis of
Neoliberalism and NAFTA, Canadian Journal of Development Studies 25.4 (2004): 591-605, Director of Doctoral
Program in Migration Studies, Professor of Development Studies, Universidad Autnoma de Zacatecas, Mexico]
The contradictory dynamic that arises between migration and economic growth in that context can be summarized
First , international migration brings some positive elements for the Mexican economy. On the one
as follows.
is the importance of migrants remittances as a source of foreign
hand
exchange for the country. This assumes a new relevance following reductions in other sources of
external funding (debt and direct foreign investment) and the drop-off in maquiladora industry exports.5 At the
with regard to the domestic economy, pressure on the job market
same time,
is reduced and the risk of social conflict is diminished, thus enabling
migration to act as a kind of escape valve (and a safety valve) vis--vis the economys
reduced structural capacity to expand employment. Thus, remittances (family and collective alike but more
particularly the latter) help cover social spending and pay for the minimal infrastructure previously supplied
through public investment or, alternatively, help cover the subsistence expenses of numerous Mexican households
they tend to mitigate the distributive conflict
(Garca Zamora 2003). Consequently,
between the state and the most vulnerable groups in the social spectrum,
improving to some extent the levels of poverty and marginalization that
prevail in the areas where migration is most common. Second , over and above
the previous remarks, migration in and of itself implies that the economy loses
valuable resources through these exports of potential wealth. In turn,
exporting labour implies transferring to the receiving country the costs of
reproducing and training those resources that were originally covered by
the Mexican population as a whole. Third , unlike labour that is exported indirectly (through
maquiladoras), workers who emigrate and settle in the United States consume
a very significant part of the wages in that country, whereby the potential
multiplying impact of their earnings is transferred to the US economy . Note
that, in 2000,the incomes of workers of Mexican origin in the United States totalled some US$ 250 billion,of which
US$ 87 billion were earned by Mexican-born emigrants. These amounts contrast sharply with the remittances sent
back to Mexico, which, impressive as they may seem, accounted for a total of US$ 6.57 billion during that same
year. Fourth , from a fiscal point of view, international migrants contribute
more to the receiving economy than they receive in benefits and public
services. Through transfers of resources, migrants contribute to the mass of social
capital available to the US state. According to data from The National Immigration Forum (Moore
1998), during 1997 the migrant population in the United States contributed US$
80 billion more to that countrys coffers than they received in benefits from
the US government at the local, state, and national levels. With these contributions, migrants dynamize
the receiving economy. Fifth , although this aspect is difficult to quantify, by bringing
pressure to bear on the job market, migrants tend to have an adverse
affect on wage increases in the receiving economy, particularly in the areas and sectors
in which they are employed. In connection with this, a recent study by Papail (2001) points out that the gap
between the average income of migrant workers and the US federal minimum wage has been decreasing for the
past 25 years. Measured in constant 2000 prices, the minimum wage fell by 38% over that period, from US$ 11.70
The paradox of this situation is that it is taking place
to US$ 7.20 per hour.
alongside the changes in migrant profiles described above in other
words, that migrants now have higher education standards and greater
presence in the manufacturing sector. This clearly reveals the perverse dialectic that arises
between the Mexican export dynamic and international migration. While it falls to Mexico to
reproduce and train the workers it exports (both directly and indirectly), the United
States avails itself of those advantages to restructure its industry and
reduce its costs.
Aff Answers
 Imperialism Good
Imperialism does more good than bad
Boot 03 (Max, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies,
U.S. Imperialism: A Force for Good May 13, 2003, http://www.cfr.org/iraq/us-
imperialism-force-good/p5959)
While the formal empire mostly disappeared after the Second World War, the United States set out on another bout
of imperialism in Germany and Japan. Oh, sorry -- that wasn't imperialism; it was "occupation." But when Americans
are running foreign governments, it's a distinction without a difference. Likewise, recent "nation-building"
experiments in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan are imperialism under another name. Mind you, this
is not meant as a condemnation. The history of American imperialism is hardly one of unadorned good doing; there
But, on the whole,
have been plenty of shameful episodes, such as the mistreatment of the Indians.
U.S. imperialism has been the greatest force for good in the world during
the past century. It has defeated the monstrous evils of communism and
Nazism and lesser evils such as the Taliban and Serbian ethnic cleansing.
Along the way, it has helped spread liberal institutions to countries as
diverse as South Korea and Panama. Yet, while generally successful as imperialists, Americans
have been loath to confirm that's what they were doing. That's OK. Given the historical baggage that "imperialism"
But it should definitely
carries, there's no need for the U.S. government to embrace the term.
embrace the practice. That doesn't mean looting Iraq of its natural
resources; nothing could be more destructive of the goal of building a
stable government in Baghdad. It means imposing the rule of law,
property rights, free speech and other guarantees, at gunpoint if need be.
This will require selecting a new ruler who is committed to pluralism and
then backing him or her to the hilt. Iran and other neighbouring states won't hesitate to impose
their despotic views on Iraq; we shouldn't hesitate to impose our democratic views.

Imperialism is needed to maintain order

FERGUSON 04 (NIALL, Professor of History at Harvard University, A World
Without Power JULY 1, 2004,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2004/07/01/a_world_without_power?page=full)

If the United States

Critics of U.S. global dominance should pause and consider the alternative.
retreats from its hegemonic role, who would supplant it? Not Europe, not China, not
the Muslim world -- and certainly not the United Nations. Unfortunately, the alternative to a
single superpower is not a multilateral utopia, but the anarchic nightmare
of a new Dark Age. We tend to assume that power, like nature, abhors a vacuum. In the history of world
politics, it seems, someone is always the hegemon, or bidding to become it. Today, it is the United States; a century
ago, it was the United Kingdom. Before that, it was France, Spain, and so on. The famed 19th-century German
historian Leopold von Ranke, doyen of the study of statecraft, portrayed modern European history as an incessant
struggle for mastery, in which a balance of power was possible only through recurrent conflict. The influence of
economics on the study of diplomacy only seems to confirm the notion that history is a competition between rival
In his bestselling 1987 work, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers:
powers.
Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, Yale University
historian Paul Kennedy concluded that, like all past empires, the U.S. and
Russian superpowers would inevitably succumb to overstretch. But their
place would soon be usurped, Kennedy argued, by the rising powers of
China and Japan, both still unencumbered by the dead weight of imperial
military commitments. In his 2001 book, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, University of Chicago
political scientist John J. Mearsheimer updates Kennedy's account. Having failed to succumb to overstretch, and
after surviving the German and Japanese challenges, he argues, the United States must now brace for the ascent of
new rivals. "[A] rising China is the most dangerous potential threat to the United States in the early twenty-first
century," contends Mearsheimer. "[T]he United States has a profound interest in seeing Chinese economic growth
slow considerably in the years ahead." China is not the only threat Mearsheimer foresees. The European Union (EU)
too has the potential to become "a formidable rival." Power, in other words, is not a natural monopoly; the
The "unipolarity" identified by some
struggle for mastery is both perennial and universal.
commentators following the Soviet collapse cannot last much longer, for
the simple reason that history hates a hyperpower. Sooner or later,
challengers will emerge, and back we must go to a multipolar, multipower
world. But what if these esteemed theorists are all wrong? What if the world is actually heading for a period
when there is no hegemon? What if, instead of a balance of power, there is an absence of power? Such a situation
is not unknown in history. Although the chroniclers of the past have long been preoccupied with the achievements
of great powers -- whether civilizations, empires, or nation-states -- they have not wholly overlooked eras when
power receded. Unfortunately, the world's experience with power vacuums (eras of "apolarity," if you will) is hardly
Anyone who dislikes U.S. hegemony should bear in mind that,
encouraging.
rather than a multipolar world of competing great powers, a world with no
hegemon at all may be the real alternative to U.S. primacy. Apolarity could
turn out to mean an anarchic new Dark Age: an era of waning empires and
religious fanaticism; of endemic plunder and pillage in the world's
forgotten regions; of economic stagnation and civilization's retreat into a
few fortified enclaves.

American imperialism is awesome

Miller 11 (Harrison, head writer and research for The Miller Monitor, Justifying
Imperialism December 21, 2011, https://sites.google.com/a/ncps-
k12.org/amhnews-h-miller-2011/intellectual/justifying-imperialism)

United States imperialism began in the late 1800s and since its inception Americans have been debating the moral
validity behind the idea. Through the tenacious leadership of American presidents, the United States has been
The effects of United States
influencing other countries in political, economic, and cultural ways.
imperialism have been positive and justify the concept because the ideals
of democracy have been spread to the nations of Panama and the
Philippines, and Puerto Rico continue to be positively influenced by
American politics, economy, and culture. Since interaction began between
America and Panama in the early twentieth century we have been able to
see how both parties benefit from the United States intervention. America
originally went into Panama because they wanted to build the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal would benefit the
United States in trade because it was a good passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans - it could save
Americans time and money. However, Columbia owned Panama at the time, and would not let the United States
build and use a canal in Panama; Panama, displeased with Columbias rule in their country, turned to the United
Once independent, Panama granted America the canal and both
States for help.
nations walked away from the situation very pleased. America stayed in
Panama to build and use the canal until 1977, when the Panamanians
wanted to be fully independent. In 1989, however, the United States
helped Panama overthrow the dictator Noriega and restored democracy to
the Central American nation. The United States has stayed in Panama ever
since, and the Panamanians are happy with their involvement because
America has helped them maintain both liberty and democracy. Panama is just
one example; America has also maintained freedom and democracy in Puerto Rico. The United States originally
They gained Puerto Rico
became involved in Puerto Rico as a result of the Spanish American War.
from the war, and helped Puerto Rico by guiding them and controlling the
island's politics and economics for the first few years of independence.
Times have changed, and, Puerto Rico has become a commonwealth; they
have their own their own government, we support them economically.
Politically, Puerto Ricos government is democratic due to the exposure
the island received in prior years from the United States. The democratic
government ensures that all Puerto Ricans are free and equal and entitled to suffrage. Without Americas
involvement, Puerto Rico might not have become the democracy that it is today; America spread democracy to
them, and perhaps there is one less dictatorship because of that. Although America is no longer taking over other
countries as much as they used to in the twentieth century, but a different kind of imperialism still exists cultural
imperialism. Cultural imperialism is the promotion of American beliefs in morals through the growth of our industry
While some say that cultural imperialism does not affect other
in other nations.
countries positively, it is clear that there many benefits linked to cultural
imperialism. Those who don't support imperialism believe that America needs to listen to Gandhi, who said
that I want the culture of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off
my feet by any. While the quote has its truths, this is indeed and opinion that can easily be argued. Gandhi is
saying that he is open to learning about other cultures, but doesnt want to be forced to take part in one.
However, America is not forcing anyone to take part in their culture and
has not in the past; countries like France and China have limited American
cultural programming through satellites and the Internet. With six billion
people in the world, one culture taking over would be impossible. And
even if it were possible, what constitutes American culture? It is my belief
that our culture is just a homogenized cluster of all the cultures in the
world, so in part, nations are scared to accepted a "tainted" version of
their original culture? Cultural imperialism is spreading though American culture to those who want it,
just as the most successful imperialism in the twentieth century resulted when countries were happy overall with
The majorities of both Panama and Puerto Rico (based on a
American influence.
vote) are happy with the current involvement of the United States. The
United States helped them economically and politically. They are both
democratic, and cultural imperialism is just spreading other American
beliefs through American movies goods, and brand names, to those who
want them. After analyzing historical growth of the American empire, it is
safe to say that there has been an overall positive affect of United States
imperialism. Panama has been helped economically with the building of the canal, and the ideal of
democracy made their government democratic. Puerto Rico also has a democratic government, and the United
States economically supports them. Americans spread the ideal of democracy, and as a result these two countries
are democratic. American cultural imperialism exists today for those countries who want to learn about American
culture. Thus, the United States has positively affected other countries with the ideal of democracy, and continues
to spread their culture to other countries today, justifying the validity of imperialism.

Colonialism is key for democracy in underdeveloped nations

Ishiyama 11
[John T. Ishiyama, 6. Democratization and the Global Environment, Comparative Politics: Principles of Democracy
and Democratization, April 20 2011, Wiley interscience]
An oft- cited additional international factor affecting democratic development, particularly in the developing
the spread
world, is the legacy of colonialism. On the one hand, there is the extremely Eurocentric view that
of democracy is the political outcome of the spread of European values and traditions
via colonialism (for a discussion, see Huntington, 1984 ). This is because, theoretically, the
colonial power may have transmitted some of its culture and language to
the colony, which in turn may have led to the emergence of a cooperative
political culture, or may have left institutions that were conducive to democracy in place when the colonizing
powers exited (Weiner, 1989 ). However, some scholars (Barro, 1999 ; Quainoo, 2000 ) have found no relationship
between colonial heritage and democracy, while others (Lipset et al ., 1993; Clague et al. , 2001 ) fi nd that being a
former British colony increases the probability that a country becomes democratic. In particular, several scholars
have argued that the type of colonizer was important in explaining whether a country was able to develop into a
democracy after the end of colonial rule. Myron Weiner (1989) , for instance, noted that by 1983 every country in
the Third World that emerged from colonial rule since World War II with a population of at least one million (and
almost all the smaller countries as well) with a continuous democratic experience was a former British colony. This
would suggest that there was something about British colonial rule that made it different from the colonial
administration of other European states, such as France and Belgium. Khapoya (1998) , for instance, distinguishes
between two main types of colonial rule in Africa: indirect rule and direct rule. The British generally used a system
of indirect rule, where the emphasis was not on the assimilation of Africans to become black Britishers,
 empower the Africans with the ability to run
but rather to share skills, values, and culture, to
their own communities. Thus, instead of assimilating the Africans as British citizens, society was
segregated between the natives and the whites living in the colony. The British also employed an indirect system of
administrative rule. Generally this meant that the colonial authorities would co - opt the local power structure (the
kings, chiefs, or headman) and via invitations, coercion, or bribery, incorporate them into the colonial
administrative structure. In return, these local elites were expected to enforce laws, collect taxes, and serve as the
A positive consequence of this system
buffer between the natives and colonial authorities.
of indirect rule (a system used elsewhere in the British Empire, such as in India and Malaya) was that
it provided native elites with important experiences in self - rule. Further,
many British colonies adopted practices that mimicked British practices such as
experience with electoral, legislative, and judicial institutions (Clague et al. ,
2001 ). Given this level of preparedness, then following World War II, Britain was much more willing than other
colonial powers to grant independence, which in turn made the newly independent states more willing to retain the
institutions the British had put into place. Thus, from this perspective, Britain seems to have left its colonies in a
better situation to develop democracy later than non - British colonies.
 Imperialism Ethical
Imperialism breeds democratic self rule
Kurtz 03 (Stanley, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, A just
empire? Democratic Imperialism: A Blueprint, April 1, 2003,
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6426)

Our commitment to political autonomy sets up a moral paradox. Even the mildest imperialism will
be experienced by many as a humiliation. Yet imperialism as the midwife
of democratic self-rule is an undeniable good. Liberal imperialism is thus a
moral and logical scandal, a simultaneous denial and affirmation of self-
rule that is impossible either to fully accept or repudiate. The counterfactual offers
a way out. If democracy did not depend on colonialism, we could confidently forswear empire. But in
contrast to early modern colonial history, we do know the answer to the
counterfactual in the case of Iraq. After many decades of independence,
there is still no democracy in Iraq. Those who attribute this fact to
American policy are not persuasive, since autocracy is pervasive in the
Arab world, and since America has encouraged and accepted democracies
in many other regions. So the reality of Iraqi dictatorship tilts an admittedly precarious moral balance in
favor of liberal imperialism.

American imperialism K2 world peace

Elshtain 03 (Jean Bethke, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and
Political Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Just War Against
Terrorism pg. 169)

The heavy burden being imposed on the United States does not require
that the United States remain on hair-trigger alert at every moment. But it
does oblige the United States to evaluate all claims and to make a
determination as to whether it can intervene effectively and in a way that
does more good than harmwith the primary objective of interdiction so
that democratic civil society can be built or rebuilt. This approach is better by far than
those strategies of evasion and denial of the sort visible in Rwanda, in Bosnia, or in the sort of "advice" given to
At this point in time the possibility of
Americans by some of our European critics.
international peace and stability premised on equal regard for all rests
largely, though not exclusively, on American power. Many persons and powers do not
like this fact, but it is inescapable. As Michael Ignatieff puts it, the "most carefree and confident empire in history
America's
now grimly confronts the question of whether it can escape Rome's ultimate fate."9 Furthermore,
fate is tied inextricably to the fates of states and societies around the
world. If large pockets of the globe start to go badhere, there,
everywhere (the infamous "failed state" syndrome)the drain on
American power and treasure will reach a point where it can no longer be
borne.

Intervention protects basic human rights

Nardin and Pritcharal 90 (Terry- professor and head of the Political Science
Department at the National University of Singapore, Kathleen D- director of
community impact product development for the United Way of America, ETHICS
AND INTERVENTION: THE UNITED STATES IN GRENADA, 1983 1990, pg 9)

A second major argument in favor of intervention is based on a concern

for human rights. This argument rests on the idea that a country that
values democracy and individual rights should be pre-pared to act when
those values are threatened, not only at home but abroad. According to this
view, it is simply intolerable for a free nation to stand on the sidelines while foreign
tyrants like Idi Amin and Pal Pat enslave and massacre their own unfortunate
subjects. At least in extreme cases like these. unilateral intervention should
be permitted if other means fall. A nation that is not in a position to
intervene Itself should support those governments (like Tanzania in the
case of Idi Amin) that are able to act.
 Imperialism Inevitable
Imperialism cant be blamed solely on the imperialist
Said 94 (Edward W., was a professor of English and Comparative Literature at
Columbia University, a literary theorist, and a public intellectual, Culture and
Imperialism May 31, 1994, pg. 19)
Domination and inequities of power and wealth are perennial facts of human society. But in today's global setting
The nations
they are also interpretable as having something to do with imperialism, its history, its new forms.
of contemporary Asia, Latin America, and Africa are politically
independent but in many ways are as dominated and dependent as they
were 'when ruled directly by European powers. On the one hand, this is
the consequence of self-inflicted wounds, critics like V. S. Naipaul are wont
to say: they (everyone knows that "they" means coloreds, wogs, niggers)
are to blame for what "they" are, and it's no use droning on about the
legacy of imperialism. On the other hand, blaming the Europeans
sweepingly for the misfortunes of the present is not much of an
alternative. What we need to do is to look at these Matters as a network
of interdependent histories that it would be inaccurate and senseless to
repress, useful and interesting to understand. The point here is not complicated. If while
sitting in Oxford, Paris, or New York you tell Arabs or Africans that they belong to a basically sick or unregenerate
Even if you prevail over them, they are not
culture, you are unlikely to convince them.
going to concede to you your essential superiority or your right to rule
them despite your evident wealth and power. The history of this standoff
is manifest throughout colonies where white masters were once
unchallenged but finally driven out. Conversely, the triumphant natives soon enough found that
they needed the West and that the idea of fatal independence was a nationalist fiction designed mainly for what
Fanon calls the "nationalist bourgeoisie," who in turn often ran the new countries with a callous, exploitative tyranny
reminiscent of the departed masters.
 Perm
Perm solves Their absolutist rejection of imperialism is too
dualistic
Angus 4 (Ian, Professor of humanities at Simon Fraser University, Empire, Borders, Place: A Critique of Hardt and Negris Concept of
Empire. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/v007/7.3angus.html)

The two critical points that I have made converge on a central issue: how
can one find a limit to the expansive tendency of
empire? The inscription of a border and a politics of place both pertain to the construction of a limit to
expansion and thus to hybrid identities, flexible hierarchies, and plural exchanges (xii). While
deterritorialization cannot be exactly reversed, it is not true that this implies that emancipation must
lie in further deterritorialization and that all reterritorializations are perverse, or fundamentalist.
They are artificiala matter of human artificeto be sure. However, it can be argued that the most profound and effective
anti-neoliberal globalization politics in recent years has been inspired precisely by inventive
reterritorializations, localizations that retrieve that which has been pushed aside by empire and
preserved by borders. It is a politics of limit to empire so that a plurality of differences can occur
differences from empire, not the putative consumer differences that are equalized by exchanges . Leonard
Cohen has pointed to the problem of empire in this fashion. Things are going to slide in all directions. Wont be nothing. Nothing you can measure
anymore.24 How exactly to define limits, draw borders, to open a space where measure can be taken, will take a great deal of political debate and action in
deciding. There is a lot more to be said and done about this, but I doubt whether the perspective put forward in Empire will be of much use in this important
matter. Their
concept of abstraction is too dualistic, their concept of border too one-sided, their concept of
history too uni-linear, their concept of place too shallow, to have much long-term resonance in the anti-
neoliberal globalization alliance. I would put my bets on the construction of borders that allow Others to flourish, a politics of place and a
defence of communities against exchange value. This is a very different politics whose difference is perhaps now obscured by the common opposition to
empire. But it is different enough that one may expect it to become generally visible before too long.

Hegemonic cultures do not subvert others; they create a

dynamic dialectic that advances culture for both nations.
Demont-Heinrich 11
[Christof Demont-Heinrich, Cultural Imperialism Versus Globalization of Culture: Riding the Structure-Agency
Dialectic in Global Communication and Media Studies, Sociology Compass, Wiley interscience]
Multiple scholars (Hall 1990; Kraidy 2002; Straubhaar 2007; Tomlinson 1999, etc.) have picked up the trope
of hybridity and hybridization and sought to develop it and refine it, and, in some cases, to claim it as the analytical
and theoretical locus around which international media and communication research ought to congeal. Hall (1990)
propose the examination of globalization and culture
was among the first to
through the lens of hybridization via his notion of cultures in contact. According to Hall, new
and different cultures hybrids emerge from social and cultural
overlapping. This overlapping has historically taken place in what Hall
describes as contact zones. These are places where cultures intersect,
with one typically an imperialist culture, the other(s) a subordinate one.
The dominant, imperialist culture does not, according to Hall, steamroll
the subordinate culture. Instead, a subordinate culture draws from its own
roots and mixes its culture with elements of the hegemonic culture.
Considerable attention has recently been paid to considering hybridization in terms of power inequities. Attention
has also been given to the challenge of marrying macro- and micro-level analysis. This, in an attempt to mold an
approach which captures the strengths of both cultural imperialist and globalization of culture perspectives while
leaving the weaknesses of each behind. In this section, I examine and analyze two comparatively recent articles in
which some of the scholars at the leading edge of theorizing globalization, culture, and media seek to forge new,
interesting and productive methodological and theoretical ground. The articles I select are certainly not the only
ones I could have chosen. However, they are thought-provoking and highly relevant to the focus of this article.
Rogers (2006) searches for a middle ground vis-a`-vis the cultural imperialism and globalization of culture
continuum and, more broadly, with respect to a structure and agency continuum in the article, From Cultural
Exchange to Transculturation: A Review and Reconceptualization of Cultural Appropriation. In it, he advances an
intriguing proposal to consider globalization, culture and media through the lens of transculturation. According to
Rogers, Neither pure determinism (vulgar Marxism) nor pure agency (neoliberalism) is capable of accounting for
the dynamics of cultural appropriation in the conditions of cultural dominance (2006, 482). Here, Rogers locates
cultural appropriation in the conditions of cultural dominance while also acknowledging inequities in global cultural
flows, most notably the tremendous televisual and film outflow as opposed to inflow with respect to the United
States. This sets Rogers analysis apart from those which stop at the dynamics of cultural appropriation and fail to
get to the question of cultural dominance or unequal flows. Rogers also tips his theoretical hat to globalization of
culture active audience theorists, underscoring the importance of the idea of polysemic media texts which, he
writes, challenge(d) simplistic models of ideological domination (483). Rogers ultimately proposes a typology of
cultural appropriation based on four categories: Exchange, dominance, exploitation, and transculturation. He
devotes the final third of his article to transculturation and to making an argument for its comparative superiority as
a theoretical and analytical instrument by which to engage the intersections among globalization, media, and
culture. Transculturation, he writes, refers not only to a more complex blending of cultures than the previous
categories but also to a set of conditions under which such acts occur: globalization, neocolonialism, and the
increasing dominance of transnational capitalism vis-a`-vis nation states (2006, 491). Rogers makes his primary
appeal to the trans. However, it is worth asking: Does the reality of a growing tendency toward the trans mean
thatno single national actor, or group of social actors, has more control over
the emergent trans-based system than another? It seems to me that the condition of
transculturlarity is likely to be different sometimes dramatically so for
different people and peoples around the world, all of them positioned
differently sometimes radically so vis-a`-vis this social phenomenon. As a critical scholar, I am especially
interested here in the question of power differentials in terms of the condition of transculturalarity how can we
most usefully and effectively understand, theorize, and address such differentials in a transcultural world while
keeping the question of inequality squarely in view? Conclusion: melding the macro and micro, the global and local,
and production and consumption Kraidy and Murphys call for a comparative, empirically grounded translocalism
and Rogers appeal to a transcultural approach represent the leading edge of global communication theory. In
general, the direction in which they seek to push the field is a highly productive one as it seeks to tap
the strengths of cultural imperialism and globalization of culture
perspectives while also aiming to avoid some of their weaknesses. This
melding of the two approaches undoubtedly has resulted in, and will
continue to result in, the development of a more sophisticated and
nuanced theoretical base from which to better understand the complex
interplay among globalization, culture, and media. Ultimately, it seems to me that the
most effective middle ground approach would situate local, creative
appropriation of cultural objects against the backdrop of those larger
regional and global macro-forces which play a significant role in the
question of which cultural objects are widely available in which particular
cultural contexts, and which ones are not. This approach which would keep an eye
both on productive and consumptive players and actors would also seek to acknowledge the
many complexities and paradoxes that characterize the intersections
among globalization, culture, and media, including, for example, the ways in which the local,
national, regional, and global constitute one another (Kraidy and Murphy 2008). Ideally, such an approach
would also pay attention to the ways in which resistance to local or
regional cultural hegemony can paradoxically fuel national or international
cultural hegemony. More concretely, it would, for example, acknowledge the ways in which, in Quebec,
an individual business owners decision to post a store sign in English only rather than in English and French in an
attempt to resist and challenge the regional imposition of French in Quebec might also be understood as
contributing to the hegemony of English on a national, North American, and global scale. If paying attention to
cross-cutting tendencies and paradox, for example, to the ways in which the global growth of MTV or McDonalds is
heavily dependent upon localization strategies that, at a broad level of analysis, are comparatively homogenous, is
crucial and it is it is equally important to engage processes of globalization at multiple levels of analysis. In other
words, while it is crucial to pay attention to the reality of widespread localization of cultural products, in other
words, to undeniable cultural difference, it is equally important to pay close attention to similarities and
comparative homogenization. This means examining the ways in which the macro-sociological processes and forces
of globalization are realized in, and shaped by, the micro-practices of everyday life. What, for example, does it
mean in terms of larger macro-sociological forces such as the global spread of fast food culture and global popular
music when a Nigerian immigrant to Brazil sits down and helps herself to a Big Mac to the strains of a Celine Dion
song in English in Sao Paulo? Alternatively, how do we make sense of, and meaningfully situate against the
backdrop of the increasing global prevalence of English, a decision by Slovenian pop music group such as Siddharta
to re-record its top songs in English? We might read the first example as an instance of increasing cultural
hybridization, or, rather differently, as indicative of the increasing homogeneity of modern life. Alternatively, it
could be read as indicative of both of these tendencies. And we might read the second example primarily as an
instance of a musical group tapping English to realize greater global agency, or, rather differently, primarily as a
micro-act that when added together with thousands of similar micro-acts contributes to the very thing that
necessitates that Siddharta sing in English in the first place, meaning the global hegemony of English. Ultimately,
the challenge for global communication studies lies in constructing an analytical
approach that doesnt lean too far toward a macro or micro-level
perspective, but which effectively and critically takes both into account
at the same time. This is not an easy, nor necessarily unproblematic, task. Indeed, the difficulty of
perhaps the impossibility of putting aside ones assumptions about the nature of the relationship between the
human social whole and the individual is surely one of the primary reasons for the often heated debates that have
swirled around, and which will continue to swirl around, how best to approach theorizing and studying the relation
between the global and local and culture and media. As contentious as these debates have been and as passionate
as they continue to be, it seems clear that, as Fornas (2008), Jansson (2009), and others have noted, global
communication and media studies has generally moved beyond the polarization that once characterized the field.
Thus, there appears to be general agreement that one cannot adequately grasp the nexus between globalization
and culture by looking exclusively at the realm of cultural production or by zeroing in only on local, individual acts
of creative cultural appropriation. This doesnt mean that disagreement and debate have disappeared from global
communication and media studies, or that the disagreement that remains does not revolve around some of the
same issues that it has in the past, most notably, the question of where the balance of power primarily resides in
the global local equation. However, it does mean global communication and media studies is moving toward
building approaches to engaging and understanding the global local-culture media dynamic in more sophisticated
and productive fashion than it has in the past. In short, it shows that the field is not stagnant and that it is not being
held back by entrenched thinking. Indeed, it is, as Rogers (2006) and Kraidy and Murphys (2008) recent work
shows, very definitely moving forward. In the end, this is exactly what ought to be happening with theory, whether
its focused on the interplay between globalization, media and culture, or, more broadly, on the general nature of
human social being in the world.
 Alt Fails
The ideology of imperialism is to deeply entrenched in society
that the State has been corrupted and prevents any
alternative
Van Elteren 3 (Mel, Associate Professor of Social Sciences at Tilburg University, US
Cultural Imperialism Today
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/sais_review/v023/23.2elteren.html)

To the extent that advertising constitutes a pervasive public "art form," however, it has
become the dominant mode in which
thoughts and experiences are expressed. This trend is most evident in U.S. society. While alternative
values and ideologies do exist in this culture, it is harder to find representations for them. Advertising
distorts and flattens people's ability to interpret complex experiences, and it reflects the culture only
partially, and in ways that are biased toward a capitalist idealization of American culture. 47 At this level, goods are
framed and displayed to entice the customer, and shopping has become an event in which individuals purchase and consume the meanings attached to
goods. The
ongoing interpenetration and crossover between consumption and the aesthetic sphere
(traditionally separated off as an artistic counter-world to the everyday aspect of the former) has
led to a [End Page 182] greater
"aestheticization of reality": appearance and image have become of prime importance. Not only have
commodities become more stylized but style itself has turned into a valuable commodity. The refashioning and reworking of commoditieswhich are
themselves carefully selected according to one's individual tastesachieve a stylistic effect that expresses the individuality of their owner. 48 This
provides the framework for a more nuanced and sometimes contradictory second order of meaning.
The dynamics of cultural change therefore entail both processes of "traveling culture," in which the received culture (in this case
globalizing capitalist culture) is appropriated and assigned new meaning locally, and at the same time a "first order" meaning that
dominates and delimits the space for second order meaningsthus retaining something of the
traditional meaning of cultural imperialism. The latter is, ultimately, a negative phenomenon from the
perspective of self-determination by local people under the influence of the imperial culture. Traditional
critiques of cultural globalization have missed the point. The core of the problem lies not in the homogenization of cultures as such, or in the creation of a
"false consciousness" among consumers and the adoption of a version of the dominant ideology thesis. Rather, the
problem lies in the global
spread of the institutions of capitalist modernity tied in with the culturally impoverished social
imagery discussed above, which crowd out the cultural space for alternatives (as suggested by critical analysts like Benjamin
Barber and Leslie Sklair). The negative effects of cultural imperialismthe disempowerment of people
subjected to the dominant forms of globalizationmust be located on this plane. It is necessary, of course, to
explore in more detail how the very broad institutional forces of capitalist modernity actually operate in specific settings of cultural contact. The practices of
transnational corporations are crucial to any understanding of the concrete activities and local effects of globalization. A state-centered
approach blurs the main issue here, which is not whether nationals or foreigners own the carriers of globalization, but whether
their interests are driven by capitalist globalization.

Imperialism doesnt allow for the space of alternatives to exist

Ali 6 (Tariq, novelist, historian, and commentator on the
current situation in the Middle East, The new imperialists Ideologies of Empire,
Ch 3 Pg 51)

Did the
Then came the total collapse of the Soviet Union and the restoration of a peculiar form of gangster capitalism in the world.
triumph of capitalism and the defeat of an enemy ideology mean we were in a world without conflict or
enemies? Both Fukuyama and Huntington produced important books as a response to the new situation. Fukuyama, obsessed with
Hegel, saw liberal democracy/capitalism as the only embodiment of the world-spirit that now marked the end of history, a phrase
that became the title of his book.3 The long war was over and the restless world-spirit could now relax and buy a condo in Miami.
Fukuyama insisted that there were no longer any available alternatives to the American way of life. The philosophy, politics,
and economics of the Other each and every variety of socialism/Marxism had disappeared under the ocean, a
submerged continent of ideas that could never rise again. The victory of capital was irreversible. It was a
universal triumph. Huntington was unconvinced, and warned against complacency. From his Harvard base, he
challenged Fukuyama with a set of theses first published in Foreign Affairs (The Clash of Civilizations? a phrase originally coined
by Bernard Lewis, another favourite of the current administration). Subsequently these papers became a book, The Clash of Civilizations
and the Remaking of the World Order. The question mark had now disappeared. Huntington agreed that no ideological
alternatives to capitalism existed, but this did not mean the end of history. Other antagonisms remained.
The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. . . . The
clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. 4 In particular, Huntington emphasized the continued importance of
religion in the modern world, and it was this that propelled the book onto the bestseller lists after 9/11. What did he mean by the
word civilization? Early in the last century, Oswald Spengler, the German grandson of a miner, had abandoned his vocation as a
teacher, turned to philosophy and to history, and produced a master-text. In The Decline of the West, Spengler counterposed culture (a
word philologically tied to nature, the countryside, and peasant life) with civilization, which is urban and would become the site of
industrial anarchy, dooming both capitalist and worker to a life of slavery to the machine-master. For Spengler, civilization
reeked of death and destruction and imperialism. Democracy was the dictatorship of money and
money is overthrown and abolished only by blood.5 The advent of Caesarism would drown it in blood and
become the final episode in the history of theWest.Had the Third Reich not been defeated in Europe, principally by the Red Army (the
spinal cord of the Wehrmacht was broken in Stalingrad and Kursk, and the majority of the unfortunate German soldiers who perished are
buried on the Russian steppes, not on the beaches of Normandy or in the Ardennes), Spenglers prediction might have come close to
realization. He was among the first and fiercest critics of Eurocentrism, and his vivid worldview, postmodern in its intensity though not
its language, can be sighted in this lyrical passage: I see, in place of that empty figment of one linear history, the drama of a number of
mighty cultures, each springing with primitive strength from the soil of a mother-region to which it remains firmly bound throughout its
whole life-cycle; each stamping its material, its mankind, in its own image; each having its own idea, its own passions, its own life, will
and feeling, its own death. Here indeed are colours, lights, movements, that no intellectual eye has yet discovered. Here the Cultures,
peoples, languages, truths, gods, landscapes bloom and age as the oaks and stonepines, the blossoms, twigs and leaves. Each Culture has
its own new possibilities of self-expression, which arise, ripen, decay and never return.6 In contrast to this, he argued, lay the destructive
cycle of civilization:Civilizations are the most external and artificial states of which a species of developed
humanity is capable. They are a conclusion, death following life, rigidity following expansion, intellectual age and the stone-built
petrifying world city following motherearth . . . they are an end, irrevocable, yet by inward necessity reached again and again. . . .
Imperialism is civilization unadulterated. In this phenomenal form the destiny of the West is now
irrevocably set. . . . Expansionism is a doom, something daemonic and intense, which grips forces into
service and uses up the late humanity of the world-city stage.7
 No Links
They confuse the distinction between hegemony and
imperialism, by simply cooperating we are maintaining peace
and avoiding imperialism
Yilmaz 10
[Sait Yilmaz, State, Power, and Hegemony, December 2010]
According to Cox, theories like Realism and Neo-realism were coined to preserve the status quo serving the
interests of rich dominant Western countries and their elite (Cox, 1981: 16-155). Those theories aimed to make the
international order seem natural and unchangeable. Hegemony enabled the dominant state to spread its moral,
political, and cultural values around the society and sub-communities. This was done through civilian society
institutions. Civilian society consists of the net of institutions and practices that are partly autonomous from the
state.Hegemony is to produce social and political systems that are to be
applied on the nations targeted. There are many ideas about the relationship between hegemony
and imperialism. Imperialism is defined as enlarging the dominance of one
nation over the other by way of open political and economical instruments
(Heywood, 2007: 392). To explain the basic difference between the imperialism
and hegemony Keohane says that as hegemony manipulates the relations with no
superior body, imperial powers set their superiority with a senior political
body (Keahone, 1991: 435-439). However imperialists have an approach for expansion
by conquering new territory. Another scholar, Duncan Snidal separates hegemony into three;
hegemony implied by conviction, kind but forceful hegemony, and colonialist hegemony based on force (Snidal,
1986: 579-614). Discrimination between hegemony and dominance is another study subject argued by many
scholars including Machiavelli, Gramsci, and Nye. According to those three intellectuals, a major power should not
just rely on dominance, force, and hard power. Machiavelli advocates respect as a source of obedience to a major
power (Wright, 2004). Gramsci says that a major power itself evokes willingness and cooperation instinctively (Cox,
1993: 49-66). Nye believes that a superior power becomes a hegemonic power by
persuading others to cooperate. Persuasion would be ensured by the utilization of soft power that
makes other countries believe in common interests (Nye, 2002). However, according to hegemonic
stability theory, major powers achieve their position unilaterally with the
deployment of hard power but retaining consent and convinction (Keahone,
1984: 11). In another definiton, hegemony is the position of having the capability and power to change the rules
and norms of international systems based on ones own motivation and desire (Volgy, 2005: 1-2). If you dont have
enough power to affect global events in line with your own road map, that would be a dangerous illusion. Susan
Strange envisages that hegemony requires two kinds of strength; relational and structural based (Strange, 1989:
165). Relation based power is the strength to persuade and force the other actors one by one or in groups.
Structural power is the essential capacity to realize the desired rules, norms, and operations in the international
A hegemon creates or maintains critical regimes to cooperate in the
system.
future, and reduces uncertainty while other states are in pursuit of their
own interests.
 FW Evd

In the context of Latin America policy debates that focus on

how to best utilize liberalized trading lead to the best forms of
stability and decrease oppressive regimes - decades of reforms
prove
Korzeniewicz 00
[Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz and William C. Smith, Poverty, Inequality, and Growth in Latin America: Searching
for the High Road to Globalization, Latin American Research Review, 2000, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2692041]
A major concern addressed by the intellectual architects of the original
consensus involved the social conflicts and political instability of the 1970s, both
linked to the crisis of civilian rule and the prevalence of authoritarian regimes in the region. Rising
instability, associated with "macroeconomic populism, was linked to the crisis of state-centric
development models in closed protectionist economies (see, for example, Dornbusch and
Edwards 1991). In this regard, the collapse of heterodox shock policies (such as the Austral, Cruzado, and Inti plans
in Argentina, Brazil, and Peru) contributed to the growing hegemony of more orthodox neoclassical policies. In
cross-regional comparisons with the then thriving East Asian economies called
addition,
attention to the advantages of an alternative model of development based
on a "market-friendly" strategy built on trade liberalization and export orientation
as engines of growth (Kahler 1990, 1992; World Bank 1993c). According to this new World Bank perspective,
although poverty rates may have recently declined somewhat in some countries, this outcome is due not to trade
and financial reforms but to lower inflation and a return to modest growth. This admission brings the views of the
bank into alignment with the broad consensus previously discussed. Moreover, the authors of these studies agree
that formal and informal unemployment has risen in many countries and that wage differentials between skilled and
This rather pessimistic assessment of a decade of Washington
unskilled workers have worsened.16
Consensus-style reforms is the basis for their advocacy of "a dialogue among
policy-makers, civil society, and the academic community in [Latin America
and the Caribbean] on how best to design and reform institutions-that is, on how to
'supply' institutional reforms to meet new societal demands " (World Bank 1998, 2).