Is it bleeding, screaming, or burningIs it bleeding, screaming, or burning
“Under Empire, the very persistence of the formal trappings of the state is part of the strategic maneuvering that renders it obsolete. Insofar as Empire is unable to recognize an enemy, an alterity, an ethical difference, it cannot recognize the war conditions it has created. There will therefor be no state of exception as such but a permanent, indefinitely extended state of emergency. The legal system will not be officially suspended in order to wage war against the domestic enemy, against the insurgents, or whatever else; to the current system will simply be added a collection of ad hoc laws designed to fight the unmentionable enemy. Common law will thus transform into a proliferative and supererogatory development of special rules: the rule will consequently become a series of exceptions. The sovereignty of the police, which have again become a war machine, will no longer suffer opposition. They will recognize the police’s right to shoot on sight, reestablishing in practice the death penalty which, according to the law, no longer exists. They will extend the maximum time spent in police custody such that the charges will henceforth amount to the sentence. In certain cases, the ‘fight against terrorism’ will justify imprisonment without trial as well as warrantless searches.” – Tiqqun, This Is not a Program (internal quotes and citations omitted)