Constitution?

Well the voting is underway.  I don't mean to belabor this, and neither do I pretend to be an expert on the subject, but maybe the referendum is not the “pseudo-democratic aberration” Paul Virilio recently claimed it to be (while gushing, it must be noted, over Blair's infinite wisdom) (via).  That is, perhaps the “pseudo-democratic aberration” is the constitution itself!  Is it even correct to call this thing—500 pages of detailed trade agreements— a constitution?  I have not read it, no, but from what I've been able to understand, not least of all regarding the eventual prospect of a privatized BBC (and a FOX News for Europeans?), I'm very inclined to insist:  let us hope they succeed in voting this abberation down so that a genuine constitution may be written; one more responsive to the needs of the working class, one capable of leaving itself open to alternatives to an unchecked neoliberal world order.  One can only wonder what a Lacanian would make of Virilio's rather exemplary, closing remarks:

We are moving from a democracy of opinion toward a "democracy of public emotion", where what is desired of voters is less a free choice, a firm affirmation by a sovereign people, than a "limp consensus", a friendly solution in the name of a population subjected to all possible forms of brain washing after the excesses of the polls. In the meantime, after the progress of electronic democracy in real time, we are seeing the era of virtual democracy, inspired by the most outrageous marketing strategies, as exemplified by the election of the current governor of California.

In any case, Blair is about to get off the hook, which I imagine he has some mixed feelings about.  Is the far left up to this fight?  We had better hope so.

Update:  It would be nice if those voting their conscience today were not so habitually denounced as being simultaneously head-in-the-clouds and "conservative nationalists."  This has very little to do with nationalism, in fact, as usually understood, and some people priveleged enough to be published should know better, or perhaps be less dishonest.  (As à Gauche points out, what is nationalism anyway if not the fancy clothing and cloaking of a more fundamental economic anxiety?)  Eurosceptics we are not (though the earth is still most definitely round).  Which is not to suggest for a minute that an effective, realpolitik counter-balance to the U.S. isn't still drastically needed, one can only hope it goes without saying.
Update II:  More here, here, here, here, here and here.  The full text of the recently dispatched, for those without day jobs, is here.

Comments

[Matt]

It seems to me what you're talking about is more an emancipatory ideal; why keep the nationalism? (To what extent is a uniquely progressive Canadian nationalism a result of a secure border with the US, etc, anyway?)

But the liscense or even duty to DEscribe, on the other hand, through language that allows itself the provisionality of saying something ("late capitalism") is LIKE something else ("fascism") or at least in significant and worrisome ways RISKS approaching something else (though the future is by no means certain, and will never be the same as the past)...would seem to me absolutely essential to retain (which is not to excuse the merely sloppy, either).

The spirit of such concern or indeed vigilance must be allowed a space to breath and exist, and must be permitted to be distinguished from facile "equation" (with historical events, at once singular and lingering, unresolved, such as those of Nazism or the Soviet Gulag ("Stalinism" is a deceptive term, and the cult of Stalin distracts and detracts from a good deal of historical scholarship)).

(To mimic Zizek, is not such critical language not only in a sense provisional but also performative, containing within itself an acknowledgement of a reality more complex than "either-or," of a history that is still unfolding as we speak? But maybe I am just dreaming. To mistake such concerns or vigilance for incautious zeal or naive nostalgia for an era of "Stalinism" or even "Leninism" or some such would also be a mistake (though there is no denying the existence of a good deal of naiveté among many of those who might be properly labeled "revolutionary hacks"). In a crucial sense, there is absolutely no comparison. Needless to say, things are much better now than they were then, but the dangers are also very real. Anyway sorry for soapboxing on, poor form on my own post especially.)

[anon]

[5] Raulff: Nevertheless, people were shocked by your comparison because it seemed to equate American and Nazi policies.

[5] Agamben: But I spoke rather of the prisoners in Guantánamo, and their situation is legally-speaking actually comparable with those in the Nazi camps. The detainees of Guantanamo do not have the status of Prisoners of War, they have absolutely no legal status.[5] They are subject now only to raw power; they have no legal existence. In the Nazi camps, the Jews had to be first fully “denationalised” and stripped of all the citizenship rights remaining after Nuremberg,[6] after which they were also erased as legal subjects.

From here: http://www.germanlawjournal.com/article.php?id=437