So its probably a bad strat to read 'feminism excludes trans people' as a response to a fem by read by a trans feminist but that's what the 1AR did lol
Cypress baeeee
3
Opponent: Penbrook Pines SG | Judge: Pablo Meles
I'm disclosing this for the round report-this dude has a really abusive 1ar strat where he shifts his entire advocacy into anarchy which he claims affirms I responded with must not shift actor extra t and this keep in mind this was in front of a lay judge
Hauntology aff really awkward plan shift thing happened it was weird and kinda abusive
UT
4
Opponent: Edmond North DA | Judge: Nikunj Patel
Dude read a queer theory rights aff Neg was 2 off AC
UT Austin
1
Opponent: Connal AW | Judge: Brady Lu
IM FKN PISSED OFF AND YOU SHOULD BE TOO- Hes white and he reads wilderson and state good in the 1AC okay whatever fine Later in the 2AR HE LITERALLY SAYS WHITE SUPREMACY IS GOOD BECASUE IT GAVE US THE CONSTITUTION AND STATE
UT Austin
1
Opponent: Connal AW | Judge: Brady Lu
IM FKN PISSED OFF AND YOU SHOULD BE TOO- Hes white and he reads wilderson and state good in the 1AC okay whatever fine Later in the 2AR HE LITERALLY SAYS WHITE SUPREMACY IS GOOD BECASUE IT GAVE US THE CONSTITUTION AND STATE
Prolif Ac- state bad and death good NC AR contained a timeframe perm- 'do the aff and the alt later' 3-0 for the nagative
Valley
5
Opponent: Dan Carlson | Judge: Lake Highland RS
Abusive genealogy aff also read T
Valley
5
Opponent: Lake Highland RS | Judge: Dan Carleson
the genealogy is still abusive
valley
3
Opponent: Lexington CB | Judge: Abby Chapman
She read a brazil plan
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Cites
Entry
Date
0-PLEASE READ general info
Tournament: All | Round: 2 | Opponent: you probably | Judge: idk Hi! I'm Logan, i hope our round goes well! I intend to probably maybe disclose some this year. ANYONE ON MY TEAM WILL DISCLOSE HERE TOO. It will be here. dont you dare read disclosure theory on my novices or i will cut you lol.(not serious about that but its not cool to do that) i will at bids maybe not at locals because like nobody does? If I haven't, or I have and you have questions/comments/anything debate related you want to talk about contact me at 817-995-0135, loganreed101@att.net, or FB. Texts get the quickest responses generally. If i did something in round that upset you i need you to tell me PLEASE because i want debate to be a good space for all of us!!!! She/they pronouns (even if I'm not passing please-its very appreciated) I bracket for gendered language and grammar. If this is a problem tell me before the round? trigger warnings- suicide, queer and trans violence and trans homelessness. ask me before reading. Thank you. Just please be nice. I try to be. lets have fun and learn something from an activity we all love! 0-read first 1-misc 2-sepoct 3-novdec 4-janfeb 5-march april 6-national tournaments
10/14/16
1- Confessions K
Tournament: Harvard | Round: Triples | Opponent: David Moon | Judge: Vincent, Wang, Jorma God is dead but we have yet to vanquish his shadow- AC prostrates themselves before the altar of debate contributing to an economy of confession. The judge in the back of the room who listens and says nothing mirrors the priest during confession who hears and says nothing but yet who also imparts the will of God. And like those who are guilty of sin begging for forgiveness, they purge their souls of their identity for a ballot. Just look at how they speak the TRUTH of Asian experience in the American university in their speeches, and to have their voices recorded and commented on through a meaningless piece of paper are all ways in which the inquisition of debate silences debaters with the illusion of control, of having our eternal souls saved and our physical bodies disposed. You link with the wording of your rob- you literally demand performance. You supercharge the link through your personal components of your performance- I can’t engage without confessing my own experience.
Foucault 76 (Michel, yeah, your authors probably wouldn’t exist without him, History of Sexuality, Scientia Sexuliascheung)
The confession is a ritual of discourse in which the speaking subject is also the subject of the statement; it is also a ritual that unfolds within a power relationship, for one does not confess without the presence (or virtual presence) of a partner who is not simply the interlocutor but the authority who requires the confession, prescribes and appreciates it, and intervenes in order to judge, punish, forgive, console, and reconcile; a ritual in which the truth is corroborated by the obstacles and resistances it has had to surmount in order to be formulated; and finally, a ritual in which the expression alone, independently of its external consequences, produces intrinsic modifications in the person who articulates it: it exonerates, redeems, and purifies him; it unburdens him of his wrongs, liberates Them, and promises him salvation. For centuries, the truth of sex was, at least for the most part, caught up in this discursive form. Moreover, this form was not the same as that of education (sexual education confined itself to general principles and rules of prudence); nor was it that of initiation (which remained essentially a silent practice, which the act of sexual enlightenment or deflowering merely rendered laughable or violent). As we have seen, it is a form that is far removed from the one governing the "erotic art." By virtue of the power structure immanent in it, the confessional discourse cannot come from above, as in the ars erotica, through the sovereign will of a master, but rather from below, as an obligatory act of speech which, under some imperious compulsion, breaks the bonds of discretion or forgetfulness. What secrecy it presupposes is not owing to the high price of what it has to say and the small number of those who are worthy of its benefits, but to its obscure familiarity and it§ general baseness. Its veracity is not guaranteed by the lofty authority of the magistery, nor by the tradition it transmits, but by the bond, the basic intimacy in discourse, between the one who speaks and what s/he is speaking about. On the other hand, the agency of domination does not reside in the one who speaks (for it is he who is constrained), but in the one who listens and says nothing; not in the one who knows and answers, but in the one who questions and is not supposed to know. And this discourse of truth finally takes effect, not in the one who receives it, but in the one from whom it is wrested. With these confessed truths, we are a long way from the learned initiations into pleasure, with their technique and their mystery. On the other hand, we belong to a society which has ordered sex's difficult knowledge, not according to the transmission of secrets, but around the slow surfacing of confidential statements. The confession was, and still remains, the general standard governing the production of the true discourse on sex. It has undergone a considerable transformation, however. For a long time, it remained firmly entrenched in the practice of penance. But with the rise of Protestantism, the Counter Reformation, eighteenth-century pedagogy, and nineteenthcentury medicine, it gradually lost its ritualistic and exclusive localization; it spread; it has been employed in a whole series of relationships: children and parents, students and educators, patients and psychiatrists, delinquents and experts. The motivations and effects it is expected to produce have varied, as have the forms it has taken: interrogations, consultations, autobiographical narratives, letters; they have been recorded, transcribed, assembled into dossiers, published, and commented on. But more important, the confession lends itself, if not to other domains, at least to new ways of exploring the existing ones. It is no longer a question simply of saying what was done-the sexual act-and how it was done; but of reconstructing,
That’s that the shit I don’t like – vote neg on presumption – the 1ac doesn’t exist. Their inscription into the confessional economy of debate subjugates agency around the external-validation of a governing body, the “USFG”, the judge, or the authority of evidence which in turn erases who they are as debaters.
Deleuze and Guattari 80 (Gilles, and Felix professors somewhere I am sure, maybe not so sure, ATP pg 129-130)
. The various forms of education or "normalization" imposed upon an individual consist in making him or her them change points of subjectification, always moving toward a higher, nobler one in closer conformity with the supposed ideal. Then from the point of subjectification issues a subject of enunciation, as a function of a mental reality determined by that point. Then from the subject of enunciation issues a subject of the statement, in other words, a subject bound to statements in conformity with a dominant reality (of which the mental reality just mentioned is a part, even when it seems to oppose it). What is important, what makes the post signifying passional line a line of subjectification or subjection, is the constitution, the doubling of the two subjects, and the recoiling of one into the other, of the subject of enunciation into the subject of the statement (the linguists acknowledge this when they speak of the "imprint of the process of enunciation in the statement"). Signifiance brought about uniformity in the substance of enunciation; now subjectivity effects an individuation, collective or particular. Substance has become subject, as they say. The subject of enunciation recoils into the subject of the statement, to the point that the subject of the statement resupplies subject of enunciation for another proceeding. The subject of the statement has become the "respondent" or guarantor of the subject of enunciation, through a kind of reductive echolalia, in a biunivocal relation. This relation, this recoiling, is also that of mental reality into the dominant reality. There is always an appeal to a dominant reality that functions from within (already in the Old Testament, and during the Reformation, with trade and capitalism). There is no longer even a need for a transcendent center of power; power is instead immanent
The alternative is to refuse the call of the affirmative and negate ritualistic confession with the possibility of becoming secret. Gilles Deleuze, Claire Parnet 77 (Gilles Deleuze is an ex-professor of philosophy @ the University of Vincennes, Claire Parnet is a French philosopher and journalist, Co-Authors, Translation by Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam, Dialogues, p. 46-9Aaron)
There we no longer have any secrets, we no longer have anything to hide. It is we who have become a secret, it is we who are hidden, even though we do all openly, in broad daylight. This is the opposite of the romanticism of the ‘damned’.11* We have painted ourselves in the colours of the world. Lawrence condemned the craze for ‘the dirty little secret’, which he saw as running through all French literature. The characters and the authors always have a little secret, on which the craze for interpretation feeds. Something must always remind us of something else, make us think of something else. We remember Oedipus’ dirty little secret, not the Oedipus of Colonnus, on his line of flight, who has become imperceptible, identical to the great living secret. The great secret is when you no longer have anything to hide, and thus when no one can grasp you. A secret everywhere, no more to be said. Since the ‘signifier’ has been invented, things have not fallen into place. Instead of language being interpreted by us, it has set about interpreting us, and interpreting itself. Significance and interpretosis are the two diseases of the earth, the pair of despot and priest. The signifier is always the little secret which has never stopped hanging around mummy and daddy. We blackmail ourselves, we make ourselves out to be mysterious, discreet, we move with the air of saying ‘See how I am weighed down by a secret.’ The thorn in the flesh. The little secret is generally reducible to a sad narcissistic and pious masturbation: the phantasm! ‘Transgression’, a concept too good for seminarists under the law of a Pope or a priest, the tricksters. Georges Bataille is a very French author. He made the little secret the essence of literature, with a mother within, a priest beneath, an eye above. It is impossible to overemphasize the harm that the phantasm has done to writing (it has been invaded by the cinema) in sustaining the signifier, and the interpretation of one by the other, of one with the other. ‘The world of phantasms is a world of the past’, a theatre of resentment and guilt. You see many people today one after another proclaiming ‘Long live castration, for it is the home, the Origin and the End of desire!’ What is in the middle is forgotten. New races of priests are always being invented for the dirty little secret, which has no other object than to get itself recognized, to put us back into a very black hole, to bounce us off the very white wall, Your secret can always be seen on your face and in your eyes. Lose your face. Become capable of loving without remembering, without phantasm and without interpretation, without taking stock. Let there just be fluxes, which sometimes dry up, freeze or overflow, which sometimes combine or diverge. A man and a woman are fluxes. All the becomings which there are in making love, all the sexes, the n sexes in a single one, or in two, which have nothing to do with castration. On lines of flight there can no longer be but one thing, life-experimentation. One never knows in advance, since one no longer has either future or past. ‘See me as I am’: all that stuff is over.
AND-The Role of the Ballot is to reject meaning through negation – attempts to presence the political in the classroom merely plays into the systems hands. Your ballot interrogates the confessional dispotiff of educational practices- we are a prerequisite to avoiding social death- we hijack your ROB and provide a competitive method
In this crisis the Chancellors and Presidents, the Regents and the British Petroleums, the politicians and the managers, they all intend to be true to their values and capitalize on the university economically and socially—which is to say, nothing has changed, it is only an escalation, a provocation. Their most recent attempt to reorganize wealth and capital is called a crisis so that we are more willing to accept their new terms as well as what was always dead in the university, to see just how dead we are willing to play, how non-existent, how compliant, how desirous. Every institution has of course our best interest in mind, so much so that we’re willing to pay, to enter debt contracts, to strike a submissive pose in the classroom, in the lab, in the seminar, in the dorm, and eventually or simultaneously in the workplace to pay back those debts. Each bulging institutional value longing to become more than its sentiment through us, each of our empty gestures of feigned-anxiety to appear under pressure, or of cool-ambivalence to appear accustomed to horror, every moment of student life, is the management of our consent to social death.
2/23/17
1- Deleuze Vol 1
Tournament: Collyville | Round: 4 | Opponent: Marcus ST | Judge: Dinooooo Difference is not negative, outlining the boundaries of striated space. Instead, it is anarchic, permeating every aspect of life and death to create meaning. Only this explains the creation of the new. Your logic traps us in the logic of being, we gesture towards becoming.
Colebrook 02. Claire. Understanding Deleuze. Crows Nest, N.S.W.: Allen and Unwin, 2002. Print. AKB
The key challenge of Deleuze’s thought lies in its acceptance of the problem of both genesis and structure. On the one hand, against Hegel, We have to recognise the positivity of difference. There is no origin (such as consciousness) that must negate the world in order to think the world, for consciousness itself must already be differentiated. Difference is therefore not grounded on anything other than itself. It is only through difference that we can think of any origin, including consciousness. On the other hand, Deleuze will not accept that there just ‘is’ a structure of differences. He insists on thinking the genesis or emergence of difference: how is it that we have a system of differentiated signs, such as a language? How did we come to think of ourselves as differentiated from the world, as subjects? Deleuze insists that we have to confront this problem by thinking difference positively. Only positive difference can explain the emergence of any differentiated thing, whether that be the system of differences of a language or the differentiated human individual. Thinking difference positively is no easy task, However, for it is the very nature of thought, as common sense, says to accept a world of already given identities and to subordinate difference to the relations among those identities. Positive difference must therefore destroy the pacifying and stabilising intellect of common sense; it must allow thought to move beyond a logic of fixed terms. For Deleuze, positive difference is not so much a theory or proposition as it is an eternal challenge. We tend to perceive the world as already differentiated; we do not, for example, perceive the differential genetic powers that produce organisms. At any time that we try to think of the difference that produces distinct terms, we tend to label it, identify it and subordinate it once again to common sense and representation.
THE SOCIAL CONTRACT WAS NEVER SIGNED. Instead, the state operates by capture, defining legality and then putting itself before the law, always already removed from culpability. That creates the fundamental tautology in which the state guarantees its own existence and operation, becoming the judge, jury, and executioner, but also the bible upon which we pledge our beliefs. The 1AC’s acceptance and affirmation of the law sustains this domination.
Toscano 05. Alberto. “Capture”. The Deleuze Dictionary. P43-45. 2005. AKB.
The concept of capture is used by Deleuze and Guattari to deal with two problems of relationality: (1) how to conceive of the connection betweenthe state, the war machine and capitalism within a universal history of political life; (2) how to formulate a non-representational account of the interaction between different beings and their territories adequate to a thinking of becoming. In the first instance, Capture defines the operation whereby the state (or Urstaat) binds or ‘encasts’ the war machine, thereby turning it into an object that can be made to work for the state, bolstering it and expanding its sovereignty. Apparatuses of capture constitute the machinic processes specific to state societies. They can be conceived as primarily a matter of signs. Whence the figure of The One-Eyed emperor who binds and fixes signs, complemented by a One-Armed priest or jurist who codifies these signs in treaties, contracts and laws. Capture constitutes a control of signs, accompanying the other paradigmatic dimension of the state, the control of tools. The principal ontological and methodological issue related to this conception of capture has to do with the type of relation between capture and the captured (namely in the case of the war machine as the privileged correlate of the apparatus). Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of universal history evades any explanation in terms of strict causality or chronological sequence. It turns instead to notions drawn from catastrophe theory and the sciences of complexity to revive The Hegelian intuition that the state has always been there – not as an idea or a concept, but as a threshold endowed with a kind of virtual efficacy, even when the state as a complex of institutions and as a system of control is not yet actual.¶ The logic of capture is such that What is captured is both presupposed and generated by the act of capture, at once appropriated and produced. Deleuze and Guattari return to many of the key notions in the Marxian critique of political economy to affirm the thesis of a constructive character of capture, arguing, for instance, that surplus labour can be understood to engender labour proper (though it can also be understood as the attempt to block or manipulate a constitutive flight from labour). Capture is thus an introjection and determination of an outside as well as the engendering of the outside qua outside of the apparatus. It is in this regard that capture is made to correspond to the Marxian concept of primitive accumulation, interpreted as a kind of originary violence imposed by the state to prepare for the functioning of capital. Deleuze and Guattari are very sensitive here to the juridical aspects of the question, such that State capture defines a domain of ‘legitimate’ violence, inasmuch as it always involves the affirmation of a right to capture. In its intimate link with the notion of machinic enslavement, the apparatus of capture belongs both to the initial imperial figure of the state and to full-blown global or axiomatic capitalism, rather than to the intermediary stage represented by the bourgeois nation-state and its forms of disciplinary subjectivation.¶ The notion of capture can also be accorded a different inflection, associated with the privileging of ethological models of intelligibility within a philosophy of immanence. Here the emphasis is no longer on the expropriation and appropriation of an outside by an instance of control, but on the process of convergence and assemblage between heterogeneous series, on the emergence of blocs of becoming, as in the case of the wasp and the orchid. What we have here is properly speaking a double capture or intercapture, an encounter that transforms the disparate entities that enter into a joint becoming. In Deleuze and Guattari’s Kafka, such a process is related to a renewal of the theory of relation, and specifically to a recon- sideration of the status of mimesis, now reframed as a type of symbiosis.¶ Under the heading of capture we thus encounter two opposite but entangled actions, both of which can be regarded as schemata alternative to a dominant hylemorphic mode of explaining relation: the first, under- stood as the political control of signs, translates a coexistence of becomings (as manifested by the war machine) into a historical succession, making the state pass from an attractor which virtually impinges upon non-state actors to an institutional and temporal reality; the second defines a coexist- ence and articulation of becomings in terms of the assemblage of heteroge- neous entities and the formation of territories. What is paramount in both instances is the affirmation of the event-bound and transformative charac- ter of relationality (or interaction), such that capture, whether understood as control or assemblage, is always an ontologically constructive operation and can never be reduced to models of unilateral causation.
The 1AC’s over-determination of valid activism as legal – the constitution, the USFG, public colleges, legal discussion, etc – erases the state from the frame of criticism and protest ineffective. Sit and discuss, never challenge.
Svirsky 10. Marcelo G. “Introduction: beyond the royal science of politics”. Deleuze Studies Volume 4: 2010 supplement 1-6. AKB 3’s Michigan.
Anxieties over democracy in the post-war era, reinvigorated by philosophical Nostalgia for the modern icons of civic engagement – including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill and James Madison – resulted in a flourishing industry of academic writing on political participation, especially in the English-speaking world and particularly in the field of political science. Almond and Verba’s legendary The Civic Culture (1963) and Carole Pateman’s Participation and Democratic Theory (1970), together with Robert Dahl’s and Seymor Martin Lipset’s works on democratic theory, are just a few of the most prominent names and different works that have become the pillars of a very influential clergy, which has helped circumscribed contemporary understandings of politics. The paradigm introduced by such thinkers (and supported more effervescently by republicans than by liberals) did not seek to replace or challenge the privileged political form that is ‘representative democracy’; rather, it assumed that ‘mass participation is the lifeblood of representative democracy’ (Norris 2002: 5), and identified elitism as that which impedes the reinvigoration of democratic regimes (see Schumpeter 1950). As a sequel to this colossal effort, researchers on political activism have has anchored the concept firmly within official politics through the invention of a statistical science of voting fluctuations, participation in party politics and other formal indicators; only lately has this school of thought devoted any critical attention to the evident limits and barriers of formal political participation (see Norris 2002). Other trends in political theory have derided the efficacy of activism by forcing the concept into a reductive alignment with merely habitual social habits, thereby making the future of political life dependent on banalities such as ‘bowling together’ (cf. Putnam 2000). By default, Such developments in political theory tend to categorise the informal protests of the citizenry as the most radical of activist practices. Ultimately, the tides and modes of civic engagement (or disengagement) are seen as symptomatic of either the flourishing or the declining state of an existent ‘democratic spirit’, which is invariably celebrated per se, leaving no room for significant criticism of the nature of the ‘democracy’ supposedly animating that ‘spirit’. As Deleuze and Guattari have explained, this characteristic ‘royal’ science of politics ‘continually appropriates the contents of vague or nomad science’ – those forms of political investigation looking ‘to understand both the repression it encounters and the interaction ‘ “containing” it’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 367–8). One major task of new activist war machines is, then, to escape entrapment within the black hole of the majoritarian discourse on civil society, captured and defined by pervasive notions of ‘representative participation’. Although the ‘NGOisation’ of the public sphere since the 1980s (see Yacobi 2007), together with other forms of political proliferation, have broadened the visible political field, The potential of non-institutional forms of action has been weakened ideologically by a whole state apparatus comprised of research centres and budgets, instrumental teaching, and a parliamentary politics that has incorporated the discourse of civil society – all of which have effected a sectorisation of society and political life. The epistemological aspirations of the three ‘ideal circles’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 367) of the state, economy and civil society are commonly used to categorise political eruptions as forms of participation in the official, representative state politics. It is in This light that we must interpret the failure of academia to come to terms with the division of labour lately being imposed by the transversal relations between intellectual investigation and political situatedness embodied in militant research. As Deleuze and Guattari suggest, ‘we know of the problems States have always had with journey-men’s associations or compagnonnages, the nomadic or itinerant bodies . . . ’ (368). It is clear that a Jamesonian ‘strategy of containment’ is at work in the narrative tradition of royal political science. It is in the notion of ‘representative participation’ that a function of formal unity or a strategy of containment has been founded, which, as Jameson puts it, ‘allows what can be thought to seem internally coherent in its own terms, while repressing the unthinkable . . . which lies beyond its boundaries’ (Jameson 1981: 38). By tying official politics together with every form of political participation it can ensnare, what royal political science does is ‘radically impoverishes . . . the data of one narrative line’ – namely, that of the new activisms – ‘by their rewriting according to the paradigm of another narrative . . . ’ – namely, that of representative participatory politics (Jameson 1981: 22). The subversive power of political potentia is thus contained by this reductive strategy; civil society becomes the main territory of this imprisonment, assisted by a false equation of official participation with challenging politics. Rather than problematising The political, This royal understanding of activism uses its ‘metric power’ to axiomatise politics, while simultaneously repressing activist experiences that refuse simply to align with ‘the given’ of formal politics. An example of this can be seen in the hostility of western states towards Organisations such as ‘Wikileaks’ or the ‘Animal rights movement’, each of which are immersed in creative acts of citizenship that actualise ruptures. Such new scenes and acts are constantly at risk of being appropriated by this royal science of politics, which imposes upon them a model that channels civic participation according to established rules and concepts. Activisms that seek only to guarantee the workings of representative democracy are essentially Slave activisms; they dwell in safety and their impact and potential is expected to be absorbed without drawing the system into new structures of resonance. The assumption that ‘mass participation is the lifeblood of representative democracy’ not only imposes a particular model of the political, it also reinforces a pejorative way to conceive activism. By Positing representative democracy (or any other regime) as the reified model of political process, theory necessarily idealises certain forms of involvement over others. For example, classical participatory theory is often blind to the creative significance of the activist energies being unfolded in such events as critical teaching in schools, revolutionary philosophical writing, the deconstructive effect of a critical assemblage that confronts patriarchal power, or of civic homosexuality which disrupts heterosexism. In fact, the assumptions underlying ‘representative’ participation are troublesome for at least two reasons. Firstly, Participation in the formal political process of ‘representative democracy’ does not in itself necessarily implicate a critical attitude or action, seeking a less repressive and more creative life. To evidence this, it is enough to keep in mind some fearful recent examples of mass political support for ‘representative’ state violence, as occurred last May when thousands of Israelis marched in Tel Aviv and the streets of Jerusalem to back the killing by the Israeli Defence Forces of nine activists from the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and 4 Marcelo Svirsky Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, as they boarded the Mavi Marmara ship sailing to Gaza as part of a humanitarian flotilla. Similarly, We might remain mindful of other, no less electrifying, cases of popular support for wars and genocides in South America, Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa, or of events such as the Holocaust. In these instances, mass Participation more accurately falls within the Reichian analysis of a popular ‘desire for fascism’ – which lies worlds away from a participatory liberalism that idealises the commitment of the public to activist citizenship (see Isin 2009) and to the tolerant ‘good life’ that western democracy claims to represent. Secondly, passivity is not necessarily a sign of political anaemia, but may be a cultural expression that requires local explanation. Here, Research at times confuses the visible with the political: absence of visible mass participation might be a sign of unconscious and pre-conscious compliance with ongoing forms of oppression, and can impact more energetically on the perpetuation of a regime than can tangible acts of the body – these modes of active abandonment produce the reign of daily microfascisms.
This model of royal politics – both in the state and activism – renders all subjects passive and generalized under the thumb of the law, classifiable within the grid of the constitution and the cell of the jail. We might change these categories, but their logic remains the same.
Lefebvre 05. Alexandre. A New Image of Law: Deleuze and Jurisprudence. 2005. AKB.
II. Critique of the Dogmatic Image of Law¶ I term the “Dogmatic image of law” a collection of four interrelated characteristics – false repetition, distributive difference, state-centered, and abstract – that together form a figure that prevents the appearance of authentic difference and repetition. It is, therefore, not inconsiderable that Difference and Repetition opens with, and is organized by, a critique of law, and that this critique is systematically extended in A Thousand Plateaus. In what follows I present four critiques of the dogmatic image of law and its replacement by extra-legal terms that put true difference and true repetition to rights.¶ 1. Singular ‡ Particular (critique of false repetition).¶ A law is a set of constant relations, its most basic operation consists in determining a resemblance of the subjects it rules vis-à-vis terms it designates.10 The formulation of a law requires the extraction of constants, or what amounts to the same thing, a determination of variables belonging to another law. Fundamental for Deleuze is that Law compels singularities to change: they pass from being singularities to particulars. Instead of possessing their own singular differences in combination with other singularities, law transforms the singular into a particular exemplification of a general law in relation to other particulars that also exemplify laws. This conversion to particularity precludes true differential repetition of singularities: “As an empty form of difference, an invariable form of variation, a law compels its subjects to illustrate it only at the cost of their own change.”11¶ This concept of law prevents consideration of the singular and its difference. It is dogmatic for two reasons. First, singularities are made to resemble one another as particulars subsumed by an identical law. Second, laws themselves stand in fixed relation to other laws, rendering change as calculable repetition. The singularity is arraigned by a law which changes it in kind; it discovers that its intimate legal subjectivity is in fact an expression of a law and its powerlessness is simply its objective legal form: “a subject of law experiences its own powerlessness to repeat and discovers that this powerlessness is already contained in the object, reflected in the permanent object wherein it sees itself condemned.”12 The legal form imprisons the singularity in constituting it as a regular legal particular; in so doing, law separates the singular from what it can do. creative and strictly unforeseeable powers are substituted for the legal form of generality/particularity.¶ For these reasons, authentic repetition denounces the relationship of the law to its particular in favor of the differential repetition of the singular. Repetition is extra-legality itself, everywhere it puts law into question: “Repetition is against the law: against the similar form and the equivalent content of law. If repetition can be found, even in nature, it is in the name of a power which affirms itself against the law, which works underneath laws, perhaps superior to laws.”13 Moreover, as Deleuze will later argue in Difference and Repetition, genetic positive repetition of singularities gives rise to the legal order, an order which then obfuscates the true genesis of singularities by representing these as legal particularities. My point is not to comprehensively sketch authentic repetition for Deleuze, but simply note that it is conveyed in adamantly anti-legal formulations.¶ 2. Distributive Difference (critique of judgment)¶ The critique of distributive difference in Difference and Repetition is a critique of Aristotelian specific and generic difference. The most perfect type of difference for Aristotle is “specific” difference, found between species sharing a genus. Within the genus, difference is univocal: the many different species are said in one and the same sense as their genus. Genera are able to bear differences while remaining substantially the same, “they remain the same in themselves while becoming other in the differences which divide them.”14 This is not the case with generic difference. Here, differences between genera are equivocal; their differences are too large to enter into relations of specific contrariety and cannot be gathered into a covering identity.15¶ For Deleuze, this schema of specific/generic is a timid conception that forfeits the true nature of difference. At once, true universality is lost in equivocity and true singularity vanishes in favor of resemblances between specific differences.16 This concept of difference has significant consequences for judgment. Generic difference is equivocal and as such is not collective but distributive. A list of categories (broadest divisions) comes to represent being and establishes a “sedentary distribution, which divides or shares out that which is distributed in order to give ‘each’ their fixed share.”17 Here, Judgment divides and proportions the concept into the terms of which it is affirmed; it distributes Being into categorical differences and proceeds to subsume specific differences under these categories. This activity preserves identity within judgment, it “allows the identity of the concept to subsist.”18 Categorical judgment allocates to each being a space in Being, it divides up a territory into particular domains ordered by divisions of generic and specific differences.¶ Judgment thus prevents any apparition of internal difference, or differences between things of the same kind (either between existents or within the existent itself). Judgment is a twofold operation based upon commonsense (the equivocal partition of the various categories and their coordination) and good sense (accurate empirical distribution into categories); these two values “constitute the measure la juste mesure or ‘justice’ as a value of judgment.” 19 Underlying judgment is the presupposition of existing categories that can adequately portion difference; it is precisely this presupposition that assures that judgment “can neither apprehend what is new in an existent being, nor even sense the creation of a mode of existence.”20 If judgment apprehends a discrete “new” being, the schema will be redrawn with finer distinctions, but the form of judgment and distributive difference remains obviously intact. Echoing Artaud, Deleuze therefore recommends “to have done with judg- ment,” to abandon distributive difference in favor of a nomadic nomos.21 Such a smooth space occurs when differences distribute themselves (and not according to an ordering plan) into an open space that overturns the totality of judgment. Here, beings go to the limit and threshold of their power and in so doing transform and differentiate themselves. Laws of good sense and common sense are overturned in the rejection of judgment occasioned by the nomadic nomos.
Instead, we affirm the queer suicide bomber, an explosion of the self/other dialect to create new potential for meaning. We affirm a reading of the unreadable, a playing with the taboo, becoming before, through, and after the law.
Puar 7. Jasbir. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. 2007.
The fact that we approach suicide bombing with such trepidation, in contrast to how we approach the violence of colonial domination, indicates the symbolic violence that shapes our understanding of what constitutes ethically and politically illegitimate violence. - Ghassan Hage, "'Comes a Time We Are All Enthusiasm'" Ghassan Hage wonders "why it is that Suicide bombing cannot be talked about without being condemned first," noting that without an unequivocal condemnation, one is a "morally suspicious person" because "only un- qualified condemnation will do." He asserts. "There is a clear political risk in trying to explain suicide bombings."33 With such risks in mind, my desire here is to momentarily suspend this dilemma by combining an analysis of these representational stakes with a reading of the forces of affect, of the body, of matter. In pondering the modalities of this kind of terrorist, one notes a pastiche of oddities: a body machined together through metal and flesh, an assemblage of the organic and the inorganic; a death not of the Self nor of the Other, but both simultaneously, and, perhaps more accurately, a death scene that obliterates the Hegelian self/other dialectic altogether. Self-annihilation is the ultimate form of resistance, and ironically, it acts as self-preservation, the preservation of symbolic self enabled through the "highest cultural capital" of martyrdom, a giving of life to the future of political struggles-not at all a sign of "disinterest in living a meaningful life." As Hage notes, in this limited but nonetheless trenchant economy of meaning, Suicide bombers are "a sign of life" emanating from the violent conditions of life's impossibility, the "impossibility of making a life. "" This body forces a reconciliation of opposites through their inevitable collapse- a perverse habitation of contradiction. Achille Mbembe's and brilliant meditation on necropolitics notes that the historical basis of sovereignty that is reliant upon a notion of (western) political rationality begs for a more accurate framing: that of life and death, the subjugation of life to the power of death. Mbembe attends not only to the representational but also to the informational productivity of the (Palestinian) suicide bomber. Pointing to the becomings of a suicide bomber, a corporeal experiential of "ballistics," he asks, "What place is given to life, death, and the human body (especially the wounded or slain body)?" Assemblage here points to the inability to clearly delineate a temporal, spatial, energetic, or molecular distinction between a discrete biological body and technology; the entities, particles, and elements come together, flow, break apart, interface, skim off each other, are never stable, but are defined through their continual interface, not as objects meeting but as multiplicities emerging from interactions. The dynamite strapped onto the body of a suicide bomber is not merely an appendage or prosthetic; the intimacy of weapon with body reorients the assumed spatial integrity (coherence and concreteness) and individuality of the body that is the mandate of intersectional identities: instead we have the body-weapon. The ontology of the body renders it a newly becoming body: The candidate for martyrdom transforms his or her body into a mask that hides the soon-to-be-detonated weapon. Unlike the tank or the missile that is clearly visible, the weapon carried in the shape of the body is invisible. Thus concealed, it forms part of the body. It is so intimately part of the body that at the time of its detonation it annihilates the body of its bearer, who carries with it the bodies of others when it does not reduce them to pieces. The body does not simply conceal a weapon. The body is transformed into a weapon, not in a metaphorical sense but in a truly ballistic sense.,1 Temporal narratives of progression are upturned as death and becoming fuse into one: as one's body dies, one's body becomes the mask, the weapon, the suicide bomber. Not only does the ballistic body come into being without the aid of visual cues marking its transformation, it also "carries with it the bodies of others." Its own penetrative energy sends shards of metal and torn flesh spinning off into the ether. The body-weapon does not play as metaphor, nor in the realm of meaning and epistemology, but forces us ontologically anew to ask: What kinds of information does the ballistic body impart? These bodies, being in the midst of becoming, blur the insides and the outsides, infecting transformation through sensation, echoing knowledge via reverberation and vibration. The echo is a queer temporality-in the relay of affective information between and amid beings, the sequence of reflection, repetition, resound, and return (but with a difference, as in mimicry)-and brings forth waves of the future breaking into the present. Gayatri Spivak, prescient in drawing our attention to the multivalent tex- tuality of suicide in "Can the Subaltern Speak," reminds us in her latest ruminations that suicide terrorism is a modality of expression and communication for the subaltern (there is the radiation of heat, the stench of burning flesh, the impact of metal upon structures and the ground, the splattering of blood, body parts, skin): Suicidal resistance is a message inscribed on the body when no other means will get through. It is both execution and mourning, for both self and other. For you die with me for the same cause, no matter which side you are on. Because no matter who you are, there are no designated killees in suicide bombing. No matter what side you are on, because I cannot talk to you, you won't respond to me, with the implication that there is no dishonor in such shared and innocent death. 36 We have the proposal that there are no sides, and that the sides are forever shifting, crumpling, and multiplying, disappearing and reappearing, unable to satisfactorily delineate between here and there. The spatial collapse of sides is due to the queer temporal interruption of the suicide bomber, projectiles spewing every which way. As a queer assemblage- distinct from the queering of an entity or identity-race and sexuality are denaturalized through the impermanence, the transience of the suicide bomber, the fleeting identity replayed backward through its dissolution. This dissolution of self into others and other into self not only effaces the absolute mark of self and others in the war on terror, but produces a systemic challenge to the entire order of Manichaean rationality that organizes the rubric of good versus evil. Delivering "a message inscribed on the body when no other means will get through," suicide bombers do not transcend or claim the rational nor accept the demarcation of the irrational. Rather, they foreground the flawed temporal, spatial, and ontological pre- sumptions upon which such distinctions flourish. Organic and inorganic, flesh and machine, these wind up as important as (and perhaps as threatening) if not more so than the symbolism of the bomber and his or her defense or condemnation. Figure 24 is the November/December 2004 cover of a magazine called Jest: Humor for the Irreverent, distributed for free in Brooklyn (see also jest .com) and published by a group of counterculture artists and writers. Here we have the full force of the mistaken identity conundrum: the distinctive silhouette, indeed the profile, harking to the visible by literally blacking it out, of the turbaned Amritdhari Sikh male (Le., turban and unshorn beard that signals baptized Sikhs), rendered (mistakenly?) as a (Muslim) suicide bomber, replete with dynamite through the vibrant pulsations of an iPod ad. Fully modern, animated through technologies of sound and explosives, this body does not operate solely or even primarily on the level of metaphor. Once again, to borrow from Mbembe, it is truly a ballistic body. Contagion, infection, and transmission reign, not meaning.
Framing The role of the judge is to be a polyvocal educator, endorsing methodologies that affirm the multiplicity of voices within the debate space and our pedagogical exploration. That’s key to accessing or even understanding the kinds of questions and values we can get from the activity.
Koh and Niemi 15. Ben, Rebar. How Do I Reach These Kids?: An Affirmation of Polyvocal Debate. NSDUpdate. September 15, 2015. AKB.
For as long as there has been debate, there has been the debate about what debate is. We are not against a discussion of what constitutes debate. In fact we are absolutely for it. We argue that this is a crucial debate within debates. The question should not be “what is debate?” The proper question is “what can debate do?” The constitutive feature of debate that we are most abstractly interested in is the precise one that is so often banished by debate pundits – the possibilities of what it can do. We do not yet know what debate can do. All are welcome to accept the challenge of forcing debate into a linear and instrumental framework, but be warned it will certainly fail. Debate is a process and a field, not a mechanism. This is the case for polyvocal debate. Our current definition (which is open to redefinition) is that debate should be thought of as a complex assemblage of voices (the debaters, the judge, audiences, coaches, the authors quoted, and so on), and that it is wrong to limit the possible voices or the possible enunciations of those voices. Debate is always about multiple voices – multiple ways of sensing/expressing. Even non-sense and non-expression have their own voices. This is not a paradigm. It is a hypothesis about the system of relations that co-creates debate. The power and potential of polyvocal debate is not located in some far-off future. It is right here right now, and it is also capable of contact with the outsides of one perspective on time and space. To paraphrase June Tyson – Don’t you know? It’s after the end of the world. Within the system of relations composed by polyvocal debate, we always have the ability to ask “should we believe in something in the first place?” as well as “if we believe it, what are its normative implications?” These questions, in whatever form they take, are some of the most primal elements of debate. Restricting the scope of debate to only some of these questions is a serious loss. More absurd is the justification for restriction based on the value of being able to ask and engage with these questions in the first place. It is wrong to assume that chaos and doubt are bad. It is even worse to argue for a progressive fallacy that chaos and doubt can be removed from debate without debate ceasing to be debate at all. Debate is not soccer, or chess, or playing the trumpet. Perhaps it can do similar things to those activities, but if so it is because it does not feature the limits that define soccer or chess or playing the trumpet. It is apparently very easy to make assumptions about what education is. Most often this is accomplished without citing a single theorist on the subject of education OR a robust understanding of what education could be outside of “commonsensical” assumptions (which are less common and relatable that they initially seem). As we often like to tell our students – read the literature. We call the kind of education that is often assumed “banking-style education” after Paulo Friere. This is the notion that education is about accumulating knowledge. 100 facts are better than 99 facts. People devalue education because they think of it only in these calculated terms. To the banking conception, the end game of education would not be an increase in self-respect, a commitment to social justice, or a development of communication and empathetic powers. It would be the resume statement of “things I’ve learned.” We must not buy into this conception of education. In debate, the Collaborative way voices intertwine and builds a world of speech and frames it. No debate performance can be perfectly reproduced. The judge’s interpretation and voice are then added. The desire for absolutely objective or procedurally exact judging is a desire for an impossibility. We should not be afraid of the judge’s voice. We recognize it as one among many. Some judges speak loudly and have particular desires. We do not begrudge them this. What is important is that they acknowledge that theirs is only one voice among the many and one way of sensing among all sense and nonsense. It is not a question of excluding the chaos or even controlling it, but understanding the value in hearing the clash of multiple voices. For Nowhere else in school are we given the vibrant opportunity to be as real in the academic space as is in debate; where we are able to read multiple arguments from multiple views from multiple bases. We must encourage debate to be an outlet for the chaotic and doubtful elements of our beliefs for it’s an opportunity to bridge debate’s separation from the real world into our own world. Our lives aren’t always smooth unwavering stories. They are often a chaos that is hard to grasp outside the lens of community. Polyvocal debate is inclusive and encouraging of this chaos, of the hard questions and life changing moments of realization. A form of debate that acts as if it can omit doubt is not a true form of debate at all. This isn’t just an argument for “unique educational value” in the banking-sense. Debate should not be thought of as an esoteric extracurricular designed to spice up the resume. Paradigms of debate that stop at the moment of rational justification treat the issue of what world we create for ourselves as an unnecessary step, but this conversation is what must happen in our lives and further what must happen in debate. Polyvocal debate allows for this discussion. We should not just ask “is deontology true” but further “is it good for me to believe in deontology” or util or contractarianism, etc. Rationality cannot be trusted to judge itself, but abandoning logic altogether isn’t necessary just yet. It is too easy to take up one side or the other (only truth matters or only the good matters). Debate is harder. The tenets of logic and justification can create questionable conclusions, and a truly valuable form of debate must allow us to criticize and reevaluate these conclusions to live our lives to the fullest. We must be able to ask if beliefs empower or disempower our lives. We always have the power to ask should we believe it or is it correct, and exercising this capacity is the practice of debate. There are two ways in which we can understand and consider what we ought to believe – what is rationally justifiable, and what is good for us to believe for ourselves. In our lives we cannot just ask “what do I think is true.” We must always end up asking “is it good for me to believe in what I believe?” This is how we must act in our own lives outside of just the debate space. When we are faced with a difficult situation be it in our personal lives, work, etc., we are inevitably going to be confronted with moments of seemingly undeniable hopelessness; where despite our best efforts and our thinking, we cannot justify or rationally see a way to be happy or push ourselves through to the other side. Is it good for me to believe that no matter what I will do, that I will get a bad grade in this class? Is it good for me to believe that I will fail in my work? Is it good for me to believe in hopelessness? Our answer is no. Our answer is that Debate helps you learn new questions as well as new answers. Again and again we’ve heard the articles and arguments that collapse everything to the Old questions: education versus fairness, the rules versus innovation and expansion, correct ways of being versus incorrect ones. Bizarrely there are some who like to play with the same questions forever, perpetually flipping bits between one and zero, never writing new code. We are tired of these questions. Perhaps they would be enlivened by new voices. Polyvocality is the necessary and explosive generation of new questions. The practice of debate is an educational activity because it is generative and interrogative of voices. Use it for what it’s used for. Education can be praxis – where the abstraction of theory becomes lived abstractness inside the fabric of everyday experience. Where a radical new way of thinking-feeling the world become possible. Where you don’t just learn about quantum physics, but cry at how beautiful the expression of quantum interactions can be and feel blessed to be a part of them, and then teach them to your friends and family. But this is only part of what education is. Education is a becoming that is necessarily political. Often times it is anti-reactionary or anti-conservative, not because it includes some biased political position, but because it is impossible to actually experience learning without it changing you – what you think is right and wrong, what you want to do, and who you think of yourself as. On our view, this makes education necessarily anti-fascist (where fascism is defined as the tendency to over-represent and prefer certain ways of being to others based on normative, intuitive, or ontological claims). No matter your petty political affiliations, too many people in our world must attempt escape everyday, live as targets, suffer, and experience domination. If education is not a force to help us address this, it is not a properly empathetic education. Even if the educational space of debate allows for slightly more opportunities to escape the everyday and find new connections and places to dwell, this is a greater benefit to everyone than any obedience to respectability politics, norms of conduct, or “correct ways of being” could ever achieve. This is how the world works. We should not abandon the cause of empathy just because we can have that elsewhere. It’s not as if we should not care about others at certain times because we do so in others Debate is foundationally about empathy. Arguments are only persuasive in the ability for their to be foster a shared experience of understanding. Judges vote for arguments that have a particular effect on them – the effect of “being convincing.” Arguments that win send the judge on a path of becoming-convinced. In order for this to happen, the debater must actually get through to the judge on some level, whether intuitively, emotively, via rhetoric, the flow, or explanation. The best debating promotes empathy. Not empathy defined by biased terms – empathy defined by actual contact with actual others, perspectives, and ways of expressing oneself. It is not that young people are in need of moral training or must be told what is right and wrong or that debate should erase and conquer disagreement. Rather, it is that we should strive to learn to live with disagreement. For it is too simple and brute to believe in a monovocal system of thought – that your language is the only Rosetta Stone to translate the world through. Debate must be a place to see how to live with ourselves and live among others. If being the better debater means being the worse person, we should NOT endorse this conception of better debating. There is no value to improving a debate related skillset that is not bracketed by being caring and affirming of the world. The argument against education, methodology, and performance debates is that these will somehow sacrifice an essential part of what makes debate debate. This perspective is entirely wrongheaded. What a polyvocal understanding of debate underscores is that what makes debate is multiple voices. Our belief is that it is possible to promote incredible skill, learning, and growth in students and be better debaters while at the same time being better people. Debate is a field where participants of all kinds create real experiences and real change. Students have the ability to speak their individual truths and have real academic and personal conversation about what creates, sustains, and restricts their worlds – and If the current “rules of debate” do not allow for that, we advocate breaking those rules.
2/4/17
1- Existentialism K
Tournament: Strake Round Robin | Round: 3 | Opponent: Lake Highland MK | Judge: Alberto Thome and Johnathan Wei For radical freedom there is no principle that can tell us what action we ought take but freedom of choosing a principle is a constraint. It is not what you chose but how you chose that is important and the form of choice must be absolutely free, that is to say that you see yourself as responsible for your choices. This means you have to see yourself as free to do anything. LITERALLY ANYTHING which puts them at a double bind- analytic
We know that the framework debate determines truth in round but even if you are ahead analytically, this should definitely be excluded in debate. YES, WE ARE CALLING YOU TO INTERVENE IN THIS ROUND. VOTE AGAINST THIS FUCKING FRAMEWORK. WE KNOW THE DISCUSSIONS OF WHAT QUALIFIES AS OPPRESSION CAN BE IMPORTANT AND ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORKS ALLOW US TO DETERMINE TRUTH BUT COM ON. IF YOU THINK KANT IS BAD THIS IS SO FUCKED UP THAT YOU SHOULD INTERVENE. THIS IS LITERALLY JUSTIFYING FUCKING RAPE AND MURDER. IF YOU HAVE SOME BASIC DECENCY DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE DEBATE AND SET THE NORM THAT THIS IS BAD FOR DEBATE.
And, here is some explicit evidence about the conclusion of radical freedom. It literally justifies everything. Radical freedom would conclude that we should construct our own conceptions of the good freely. We can pass judgment if in choosing we deceive ourselves from this total freedom. The only constraint on radical freedom is denying your own freedom to do whatever the fuck you want. SARTRE: “Existentialism is a Humanism” by Jean-Paul Sartre 1945 DD “The same applies to the moral plane. What art and morality have in common is creation and invention. We cannot decide a priori what ought to be done. I believe I made that clear enough when discussing the case of the student who came to see me: regardless of whatever ethical system he might attempt to follow, whether Kantian or any other, none would offer any guidance. He was obliged to invent his own laws. Certainly we cannot claim that this young man – who chose to remain with his mother, taking as his guiding moral principles his feelings, individual action, and concrete charity (or who could have chosen sacrifice by going to England) - made a gratuitous choice. Man makes himself; he does not come into the world fully made, he makes himself by choosing his own morality, and his circumstances are such that he has no option other than to choose a morality. We can define one man only in relation to their his commitments. It is therefore ludicrous to blame us for the gratuitousness of our choices. In the second place, people tell us: "You cannot judge others." In one sense this is true, in another not. It is true in the sense that whenever man chooses his commitment and his project in a totally sincere and lucid way, it is impossible for him to prefer another. It is also true in the sense that we do not believe in the idea of progress. Progress implies improvement, but man is always the same, confronting a situation that' is forever changing, while choice always remains a choice in any situation. The moral dilemma has not changed from the days of the American Civil War, when many were forced to choose between taking sides for or against slavery, to our own time, when one is faced with the choice between the Popular Republican Movement a Christian democratic party founded in 1944 and the Communists. Nevertheless we can pass judgment, for as I said, we choose in the presence of others, and we choose ourselves in the presence of others. First, we may judge (and this may be a logical rather than a value judgment) that certain choices are based on error and others on truth. We may also judge a man when we assert that he is acting in bad faith. If we define one man’s situation as one of free choice, in which he has no recourse to excuses or outside aid, then anyone man who takes refuge behind their his passions, any man who fabricates some deterministic theory, is operating in bad faith. One might object by saying: "But why shouldn't he choose bad faith?" My answer is that I do not pass moral judgment against him, but I call his bad faith an error. Here, we cannot avoid making a judgment of truth. Bad faith is obviously a lie because it is a dissimulation of man's full freedom of commitment. On the same grounds, I would say that I am also acting in bad faith if I declare that I am bound to uphold certain values, because it is a contradiction to embrace these values while at the same time affirming that I am bound by them. If someone were to ask me: "What if I want to be in bad faith?" I would reply, "There is no reason why you should not be, but I declare that you are, and that a strictly consistent attitude alone demonstrates good faith." What is more, I am able to bring a moral judgment to bear. When I affirm that freedom, under any concrete circumstance, can have no other aim than itself, and once a man realizes, in his state of abandonment, that it is I he who imposes values, he I can will but one thing: freedom as the foundation of all values. That does not mean that he I wills it in the abstract; it simply means that the ultimate significance of the actions of men of good faith is the quest of freedom in itself. A man who joins a communist or revolutionary group wills certain concrete aims that imply an abstract will to freedom, yet that freedom must always be exercised in a concrete manner. We will freedom for freedom's sake through our individual circumstances. And in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely on the freedom of others, and that the freedom of others depends on our own. Of course, freedom as the definition of man does not depend on others, but as soon as there is commitment, I am obliged to will the freedom of others at the same time as I will my own. I cannot set my own freedom as a goal without also setting the freedom of others as a goal. Consequently, when, operating the level of on complete authenticity, I have acknowledged that existence precedes essence, and that one man is a free being who, under any circumstances, can only ever will one’s his freedom, I have at the same time acknowledged that I must will the freedom of others. Therefore, in the name of this will to freedom, implied by freedom itself, I can pass judgment on those who seek to conceal from themselves the complete arbitrariness of their existence, and their total freedom. Those who conceal from themselves this total freedom, under the guise of solemnity, or by making determinist excuses, I will call cowards. Others, who try to prove their existence is necessary, when man's appearance on earth is merely contingent, I will call bastards. But whether cowards or bastards, they can be judged only on the grounds of strict authenticity. Thus, although the content of morality may vary, a certain form of that morality is universal. Kant states that freedom wills itself and the freedom of others. Agreed. But he believes that the formal and the universal are adequate to constitute morality. We, to the contrary, believe that principles that are too abstract fail to define action. Consider again the case of the student: in the name of what-what inviolable moral maxim-could he possibly have decided, with perfect peace of mind, whether he should abandon or remain with his mother? There is no way of judging. The content is always specific; inventiveness is always part of the process. The only thing that counts is whether or not invention is made in the name of freedom.” (46-50)
Additionally, Gut check that oppression is bad. Anything else only makes the debate space unsafe – that outweighs – it’s an out of round impact. Teehan 14: (Ryan Teehan, NSD staff and debater, NSD comment on TOC protests, 2014) “Honestly, I don't think that 99 of what has been said in this thread so far actually matters. It doesn't matter whether you think that these types of assumptions should be questioned. It doesn't matter what accepting this intuition could potentially do or not do. It doesn't matter if you see fit to make, incredibly trivializing and misplaced I might add, links between this and the Holocaust. All of the arguments that talk about how debate is a unique space for questioning assumptions make an assumeption of safety. They say that this is a space where one is safe to question assumptions and try new perspectives. That is not true for everyone. When we allow arguments that questioning the wrongness of racism, sexism, homophobia, rape, lynching, etc., we make debate unsafe for certain people. The idea that debate is a safe space to question all assumptions is the definition of privilege, it begins with an idea of a debater that can question every assumption. People who face the actual effects of the aforementioned things cannot question those assumptions, and making debate a space built around the idea that they can is hostile. So, you really have a choice. Either 1) say that you do not want these people to debate so that you can let people question the wrongness of everything I listed before, 2) say that you care more about letting debaters question those things than making debate safe for everyone, or 3) make it so that saying things that make debate unsafe has actual repercussions. On "debate is not the real world". Only for people who can separate their existence in "the real world" from their existence in debate. That means privileged, white, heterosexual males like myself. I don't understand how you can make this sweeping claim when some people are clearly harmed by these arguments. At the end of the day, you have to figure out whether you care about debate being safe for everyone involved. I don't think anyone has contested that these arguments make debate unsafe for certain people. If you care at all about the people involved in debate then don't vote on these arguments. If you care about the safety and wellbeing of competitors, then don't vote on these arguments. If you don't, then I honestly don't understand why you give up your time to coach and/or judge. The pay can't be that good. I don't believe that you're just in it for the money, which is why I ask you to ask yourselves whether you can justify making debate unsafe for certain people.”
Education is always a sight of politics because it functions to indoctrinate us into a form of reasoning but it can never be neutral, you either oppress or resist, because not resisting oppressive structures only re-entrenches oppression by allowing them to normalize what they do. THERE IS NO OPTING OUT OF THIS DEBATE. VOTING AFFIRMING VOTES FOR MURDER AND RAPE. Shaull, (Paulo Friere, Foreword by Richard Shaull. “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Foreword.”) “When an illiterate peasant participates in this sort of educational experience, he or she they comes to a new awareness of self, has a new sense of dignity, and is stirred by a new hope. Time and again, peasants have expressed these discoveries in striking ways after a few hours of class: "I now realize I am a person, an educated person." "We were blind, now our eyes have been opened." "Before this, words meant nothing to me; now they speak to me and I can make them speak." "Now we will no longer be a dead weight on the cooperative farm." When this happens in the process of learning to read, men and women they discover that they are creators of culture, and that all their work can be creative. "I work, and working I transform the world." And as those who have been completely marginalized are so radically transformed, they are no longer willing to be mere objects, responding to changes occurring around them; they are more likely to decide to take upon themselves the struggle to change the structures of society, which until now have served to oppress them. For this reason, a distinguished Brazilian student of national development recently affirmed that this type of educational work among the people represents a new factor in social change and development, "a new instrument of conduct for the Third World, by which it can overcome traditional structures and enter the modern world." At first sight, Paulo Freire's method of teaching illiterates in Latin America seems to belong to a different world from that in which we find ourselves in this country. Certainly, it would be absurd to claim that it should be copied here. But there are certain parallels in the two situations that should not be overlooked. Our advanced technological society is rapidly making objects of most of us and subtly programming us into conformity to the logic of its system. To the degree that this happens, we are also becoming submerged in a new "culture of silence." The paradox is that the same technology that does this to us also creates a new sensitivity to what is happening. Especially among young people, the new media together with the erosion of old concepts of authority open the way to acute awareness of this new bondage. The young perceive that their right to say their own word has been stolen from them, and that few things are more important than the struggle to win it back. And they also realize that the educational system today—from kindergarten to university—is their enemy. ¶ but There is no such thing as a neutral educational process. Education It either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes "the practice of freedom," the means by which men and women to deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. The development of an educational methodology that facilitates this process will inevitably lead to tension and conflict within our society. But it could also contribute to the formation of a new man and mark the beginning of a new era in Western history. For those who are committed to that task and are searching for concepts and tools for experimentation, Paulo Freires thought will make a significant contribution in the years ahead.” (33-34)
On Poole- They say morality must appeal to our individual experiences to confer value on the experience but no analytic
12/29/16
1- Interp- method must not be descriptive
Tournament: Harvard RR | Round: 3 | Opponent: Stuyvesant KF | Judge: Panel A is the interp- if the affirmative advocates voting on their method as desirable, rather than a topical advocacy, then their method must not be able to be carried out by people only descriptively speaking or being present in the debate space. To clarify, your method must be a specific way of acting, speaking, or advocating, rather than the act of being, speaking, or activism.
Heres their advocacy card- talking about oppression or a black woman being here is a killjoy. These are two separate violations- Your method is done by any marginalized body existing in a space that excludes them, like debate. Even if there are additional prescriptive components, there is still a descriptive one
Ahmed 10. Sara. Feminist Killjoys (And Other Willful Subjects). The Scholar and Feminist Online. The Barnard Center for Research on Women. Issue 8.3. Summer 2010. AKB.
So, yes, let's take the figure of The feminist killjoy seriously. Does the feminist kill other people's joy by pointing out moments of sexism? Or does she expose the bad feelings that get hidden, displaced, or negated under public signs of joy? Does bad feeling enter the room when somebody expresses anger about things, or could anger be the moment when the bad feelings that circulate through objects get brought to the surface in a certain way? The feminist subject "in the room" hence "brings others down" not only by talking about unhappy topics such as sexism but by exposing how happiness is sustained by erasing the signs of not getting along. Feminists do kill joy in a certain sense: they disturb the very fantasy that happiness can be found in certain places. To kill a fantasy can still kill a feeling. It is not just that feminists might not be happily affected by what is supposed to cause happiness, but our failure to be happy is read as sabotaging the happiness of others.¶ We can consider the relationship between the negativity of the figure of the feminist killjoy and how certain bodies are "encountered" as being negative. Marilyn Frye argues that oppression involves the requirement that you show signs of being happy with the situation in which you find yourself. As she puts it, "it is often a requirement upon oppressed people that we smile and be cheerful. If we comply, we signify our docility and our acquiescence in our situation." To be oppressed requires that you show signs of happiness, as signs of being or having been adjusted. For Frye "anything but the sunniest countenance exposes us to being perceived as mean, bitter, angry or dangerous".6¶ To be recognized as a feminist is to be assigned to a difficult category and a category of difficulty. You are "already read" as "not easy to get along with" when you name yourself as a feminist. You have to show that you are not difficult through displaying signs of good will and happiness. Frye alludes to such experiences when she describes how: "this means, at the very least, that we may be found to be "difficult" or unpleasant to work with, which is enough to cost one's livelihood."7 We can also witness an investment in feminist unhappiness (the myth that feminists kill joy because they are joy-less). There is a desire to believe that women become feminists because they are unhappy. This desire functions as a defense of happiness against feminist critique. This is not to say that feminists might not be unhappy; becoming a feminist might mean becoming aware of just how much there is to be unhappy about. Feminist consciousness could be understood as consciousness of unhappiness, a consciousness made possible by the refusal to turn away. My point here would be that feminists are read as being unhappy, such that situations of conflict, violence, and power are read as about the unhappiness of feminists, rather than being what feminists are unhappy about.¶ Political struggles can takes place over the causes of unhappiness. We need to give a history to unhappiness. We need to hear in unhappiness more than the negation of the "un." The history of the word "unhappy" might teach us about the unhappiness of the history of happiness. In its earliest uses, unhappy meant to cause misfortunate or trouble. Only later, did it come to mean to feel misfortunate, in the sense of wretched or sad. We can learn from the swiftness of translation from causing unhappiness to being described as unhappy. We must learn.¶ The word "wretched" has its own genealogy, coming from wretch, meaning a stranger, exile, banished person. Wretched in the sense of "vile, despicable person" was developed in Old English and is said to reflect "the sorry state of the outcast." Can we rewrite the history of happiness from the point of view of the wretch? If we listen to those who are cast as wretched, perhaps their wretchedness would no longer belong to them. The sorrow of the stranger might give us a different angle on happiness not because it teaches us what it is like or must be like to be a stranger, but because it might estrange us from the very happiness of the familiar.¶ Phenomenology helps us explore how the familiar is that which is not revealed. A queer phenomenology shows how the familiar is not revealed to those who can inhabit it. For queers and other others the familiar is revealed to you, because you do not inhabit it. To be "estranged from" can be what enables a "consciousness of." This is why being a killjoy can be a knowledge project, a world-making project.¶ Feminist Tables¶ A feminist call might be a call to anger, to develop a sense of rage about collective wrongs. And yet, it is important that we do not make feminist emotion into a site of truth: as if it is always clear or self-evident that our anger is right. When anger becomes righteous it can be oppressive; to assume anger makes us right can be a wrong. We know how easily a politics of happiness can be displaced into a politics of anger: the assumption of a right to happiness can convert very swiftly into anger toward others (immigrants, aliens, strangers) who have taken the happiness assumed to be "by right" to be ours. It is precisely that we cannot defend ourselves against such defensive use of emotion that would be my point. Emotions are not always just, even those that seem to acquire their force in or from an experience of injustice. Feminist emotions are mediated and opaque; they are sites of struggle, and we must persist in struggling with them.8¶ After all, feminist spaces are emotional spaces, in which the experience of solidarity is hardly exhaustive. As feminists we have our own tables. If we are unseated by the family table, it does not necessarily follow that we are seated together. We can place the figure of the feminist killjoy alongside the figure of the angry Black woman, explored so well by Black feminist writers such as Audre Lorde9 and bell hooks10. The angry black woman can be described as a killjoy; she may even kill feminist joy, for example, by pointing out forms of racism within feminist politics. She might not even have to make any such point to kill joy. Listen to the following description from bell hooks: "a group of white feminist activists who do not know one another may be present at a meeting to discuss feminist theory. They may feel bonded on the basis of shared womanhood, but the atmosphere will noticeably change when a woman of color enters the room. The white woman will become tense, no longer relaxed, no longer celebratory."11¶ It is not just that feelings are "in tension," but that the tension is located somewhere: in being felt by some bodies, it is attributed as caused by another body, who comes to be felt as apart from the group, as getting in the way of its enjoyment and solidarity. The body of color is attributed as the cause of becoming tense, which is also the loss of a shared atmosphere. As a feminist of color you do not even have to say anything to cause tension! The mere proximity of some bodies involves an affective conversion. We learn from this example how histories are condensed in the very intangibility of an atmosphere, or in the tangibility of the bodies that seem to get in the way. Atmospheres might become shared if there is agreement in where we locate the points of tension.¶ A history can be preserved in the very stickiness of a situation. To speak out of anger as a woman of color is then to confirm your position as the cause of tension; your anger is what threatens the social bond. As Audre Lorde describes: "When women of Color speak out of the anger that laces so many of our contacts with white women, we are often told that we are 'creating a mood of helplessness,' 'preventing white women from getting past guilt,' or 'standing in the way of trusting communication and action.'"12 The exposure of violence becomes the origin of violence. The woman of color must let go of her anger for the white woman to move on.¶ The figure of the angry black woman is a fantasy figure that produces its own effects. Reasonable, thoughtful arguments are dismissed as anger (which of course empties anger of its own reason), which makes you angry, such that your response becomes read as the confirmation of evidence that you are not only angry but also unreasonable! To make this point in another way, the anger of feminists of color is attributed. You might be angry about how racism and sexism diminish life choices for women of color. Your anger is a judgment that something is wrong. But then in being heard as angry, your speech is read as motivated by anger. Your anger is read as unattributed, as if you are against x because you are angry rather than being angry because you are against x. You become angry at the injustice of being heard as motivated by anger, which makes it harder to separate yourself from the object of your anger. You become entangled with what you are angry about because you are angry about how they have entangled you in your anger. In becoming angry about that entanglement, you confirm their commitment to your anger as the truth "behind" your speech, which is what blocks your anger, stops it from getting through. You are blocked by not getting through.¶ Some bodies become blockage points, points where smooth communication stops. Consider Ama Ata Aidoo's wonderful prose poem, Our Sister Killjoy, where the narrator Sissie, as a black woman, has to work to sustain the comfort of others. On a plane, a white hostess invites her to sit at the back with "her friends," two black people she does not know. She is about to say that she does not know them, and hesitates. "But to have refused to join them would have created an awkward situation, wouldn't it? Considering too that apart from the air hostess's obviously civilized upbringing, she had been trained to see the comfort of all her passengers."13¶ Power speaks here in this moment of hesitation. Do you go along with it? What does it mean not to go along with it? To create awkwardness is to be read as being awkward. Maintaining public comfort requires that certain bodies "go along with it." To refuse to go along with it, to refuse the place in which you are placed, is to be seen as causing trouble, as making others uncomfortable. There is a political struggle about how we attribute good and bad feelings, which hesitates around the apparently simple question of who introduces what feelings to whom. Feelings can get stuck to certain bodies in the very way we describe spaces, situations, dramas. And bodies can get stuck depending on the feelings with which they get associated.¶ Getting in the Way¶ A killjoy: the one who gets in the way of other people's happiness. Or just the one who is in the way—you can be in the way of whatever, if you are already perceived as being in the way. Your very arrival into a room is a reminder of histories that "get in the way" of the occupation of that room. How many feminist stories are about rooms, about who occupies them, about making room? When to arrive is to get in the way, what happens, what do you do? The figure of the killjoy could be rethought in terms of the politics of willfulness. I suggested earlier that an activist archive is an unhappiness archive, one shaped by the struggles of those who are willing to struggle against happiness. We might redescribe this struggle in terms of those who are willing to be willful. An unhappiness archive is a willfulness archive.¶ Let's go back: let's listen to what and who is behind us. Alice Walker describes a "womanist" in the following way: "A black feminist or feminist of color... Usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior. Wanting to know more and in greater depth than is considered 'good' for one... Responsible. In charge. Serious."14 Julia Penelope describes lesbianism as willfulness: "The lesbian stands against the world created by the male imagination. What willfulness we possess when we claim our lives!"15 Marilyn Frye's radical feminism uses the adjective willful: "The willful creation of new meaning, new loci of meaning, and new ways of being, together, in the world, seems to be in these mortally dangerous times the best hope we have."16 Willfulness as audacity, willfulness as standing against, willfulness as creativity.¶ We can make sense of how willfulness comes up, if we consider a typical definition of willfulness: "asserting or disposed to assert one's own will against persuasion, instruction, or command; governed by will without regard to reason; determined to take one's own way; obstinately self-willed or perverse" (OED). To be called obstinate or perverse because you are not persuaded by the reason of others? Is this familiar to you? Have you heard this before? When you are charged with willfulness it is as if your being is an insistence on being, a refusal to give way, to give up, to give up your way. Can what we are charged with become a charge in Alice Walker's sense, a way of being in charge? If we are charged with willfulness, we can accept and mobilize this charge.¶ We have to become willful, perhaps, to keep going the way we are going, if the way you are going is perceived to be "the wrong way." We all know the experience of "going the wrong way" in a crowd. Everyone seems to be going the opposite way than the way you are going. No one person has to push or shove for you to feel the collective momentum of the crowd as a pushing and shoving. For you to keep going you have to push harder than any of those individuals who are going the right way. The body "going the wrong way" is the one that is experienced as "in the way" of the will that is acquired as momentum. For some bodies mere persistence, "to continue steadfastly," requires great effort, an effort that might appear to others as stubbornness or obstinacy, as insistence on going against the flow. You have to become insistent to go against the flow; you are judged to be going against the flow because you are insistent. A life paradox: you have to become what you are judged as being.¶ It is crucial that we don't assume that willfulness is simply about lonely individuals going against the tide of the social. At the same time, we can note how the social can be experienced as a force: you can feel a force most directly when you attempt to resist it. It is the experience of "coming up against" that is named by willfulness, which is why a willful politics needs to be a collective politics. The collective here is not assumed as a ground. Rather, willfulness is a collecting together, of those struggling for a different ground for existence. You need to be supported when you are not going the way things are flowing. This is why I think of a feminist queer politics as a politics of tables: tables give support to gatherings, and we need support when we live our lives in ways that are experienced by others as stubborn or obstinate.¶ A flow is an effect of bodies that are going the same way. To go is also to gather. A flow can be an effect of gatherings of all kinds: gatherings of tables, for instance, as kinship objects that support human gatherings. How many times have I had the experience of being left waiting at a table when a straight couple walks into the room and is attended to straight away! For some, you have to become insistent to be the recipient of a social action, you might have to announce your presence, wave your arm, saying: "Here I am!" For others, it is enough just to turn up because you have already been given a place at the table before you take up your place. Willfulness describes the uneven consequences of this differentiation.¶ An attribution of willfulness involves the attribution of negative affect to those bodies that get in the way, those bodes that "go against the flow" in the way they are going. The attribution of willfulness is thus effectively a charge of killing joy. Conversations are also flows; they are saturated. We hear this saturation as atmosphere. To be attributed as willful is to be the one who "ruins the atmosphere." A colleague says to me she just has to open her mouth in meetings to witness eyes rolling as if to say, "oh here she goes." My experience as a feminist daughter in a conventional family taught me a great deal about rolling eyes. You already know this. However you speak, the one who speaks up as a feminist is usually viewed as "causing the argument," as the one who is disturbing the fragility of peace. To be willful is to provide a point of tension. Willfulness is stickiness: it is an accusation that sticks.¶ If to be attributed as willful is to be the cause of the problem, then we can claim that willfulness as a political cause. Queer feminist histories are full of self-declared willful subjects. Think of the Heterodoxy Club that operated in Greenwich Village in the early 20th century, a club for unorthodox women. They described themselves as "this little band of willful women," as Judith Schwarz reveals in her wonderful history of this club.17 A heterodoxy is "not in agreement with accepted beliefs, or holding unorthodox opinions." To be willful is to be willing to announce your disagreement, and to put yourself behind a disagreement. To enact a disagreement might even mean to become disagreeable. Feminism we might say is the creation of some rather disagreeable women.¶ Political histories of striking and of demonstrations are histories of those willing to put their bodies in the way, to turn their bodies into blockage points that stop the flow of human traffic, as well as the wider flow of an economy. When willfulness becomes a style of politics, it means not only being willing not to go with the flow, but also being willing to cause its obstruction. One could think of a hunger strike as the purest form of willfulness: a body whose agency is expressed by being reduced to obstruction, where the obstruction to others is self-obstruction, the obstruction of the passage into the body. Histories of willfulness are histories of those who are willing to put their bodies in the way.¶ Political forms of consciousness can also be thought of as willfulness: not only is it hard to speak about what has receded from view, but you have to be willing to get in the way of that recession. An argument of second-wave feminism (one shared with Marxism and Black politics) that I think is worth holding onto is the argument that political consciousness is achieved: raising consciousness is a crucial aspect of collective political work. Raising consciousness is difficult as consciousness is consciousness of what recedes. If the point of a recession is that it gives some the power to occupy space (occupation is reproduced by the concealment of the signs of occupation), then raising consciousness is a resistance to an occupation.¶ Take the example of racism. It can be willful even to name racism: as if the talk about divisions is what is divisive. Given that racism recedes from social consciousness, it appears as if the ones who "bring it up" are bringing it into existence. We learned that the very talk of racism is experienced as an intrusion from the figure of the angry black woman: as if it is her anger about racism that causes feminist estrangement. To recede is to go back or withdraw. To concede is to give way, to yield. People of color are often asked to concede to the recession of racism: we are asked to "give way" by letting it "go back." Not only that: more than that. We are often asked to embody a commitment to diversity. We are asked to smile in their brochures. The smile of diversity is a way of not allowing racism to surface; it is a form of political recession.¶ Racism is very difficult to talk about as racism can operate to censor the very evidence of its existence. Those who talk about racism are thus heard as creating rather than describing a problem. The stakes are indeed very high: to talk about racism is to occupy a space that is saturated with tension. History is saturation. One of the findings of a research project I was involved with on diversity was that because racism saturates everyday and institutional spaces, people of color often make strategic decisions not to use the language of racism.18 If you already pose a problem, or appear "out of place" in the institutions of whiteness, there can be "good reasons" not to exercise what is heard as a threatening vocabulary.19 Not speaking about racism can be a way of inhabiting the spaces of racism. You minimize the threat you already are by softening your language and appearance, by keeping as much distance as you can from the figure of the angry person of color. Of course, as we know, just to walk into a room can be to lose that distance, because that figure gets there before you do.¶ When you use the very language of racism you are heard as "going on about it," as "not letting it go." It is as if talking about racism is what keeps it going. Racism thus often enters contemporary forms of representation as a representation of a past experience. Take the film Bend it Like Beckham (2002, dir. Gurinder Chada): the film is very much premised on the freedom to be happy, as the freedom of the daughter, Jesminder, to do whatever makes her happy (in her case playing football—her idea of happiness is what puts her in proximity to a national idea of happiness). Her father's memory of racism gets in the way of her happiness. Consider two speeches he makes in the film, the first one takes place early on, and the latter at the end:¶ When I was a teenager in Nairobi, I was the best fast bowler in our school. Our team even won the East African cup. But when I came to this country, nothing. And these bloody gora in the club house made fun of my turban and sent me off packing... She will only end up disappointed like me.¶ When those bloody English cricket players threw me out of their club like a dog, I never complained. On the contrary, I vowed that I would never play again. Who suffered? Me. But I don't want Jess to suffer. I don't want her to make the same mistakes her father made, accepting life, accepting situations. I want her to fight. And I want her to win.¶ In the first speech, the father says she should not play in order not to suffer like him. In the second, he says she should play in order not to suffer like him. The desire implicit in both speech acts is the avoidance of the daughter's suffering, which is expressed in terms of the desire that she does not repeat his own. The second speech suggests that the refusal to play a national game is the "truth" behind the migrant's suffering: you suffer because you do not play the game, where not playing is read as self-exclusion. To let Jess be happy he lets her go. By implication, not only is he letting her go, he is also letting go of his own suffering, the unhappiness caused by accepting racism, as the "point" of his exclusion.¶ I would suggest that the father is represented in the first speech as melancholic: as refusing to let go of his suffering, as incorporating the very object of own loss. His refusal to let Jess go is readable as a symptom of melancholia: as a stubborn attachment to his own injury.20 As he says: "who suffered? Me." Bad feeling thus originates with the migrant who won't let go of racism as a script that explains suffering. The melancholic migrant holds onto the unhappy objects of difference, such as the turban, or at least the memory of being teased about the turban, as that which ties it to a history of racism. It is as if you should let go of the pain of racism by letting go of racism as a way of remembering that pain. I would even say that racism becomes readable as what the melancholic migrant is attached to, as an attachment to injury that allows migrants to justify their refusal to participate in the national game ("the gora in their club house"). Even to recall an experience of racism, or to describe an experience as racism, can be to get in the way of the happiness of others.¶ Consciousness of racism becomes understood as a kind of false consciousness, as consciousness of that which is no longer. Racism is framed as a memory that if it were kept alive would just leave us exhausted. The task of citizenship becomes one of conversion: if racism is preserved only in our memory and consciousness, then racism would "go away" if only we too would declare it gone. The narrative implicit here is not that we "invent racism," but that we preserve its power to govern social life by not getting over it. The moral task is thus "to get over it," as if when you are over it, it is gone.¶ Conclusion: A Killjoy Manifesto¶ Audre Lorde teaches us how quickly the freedom to be happy is translated into the freedom to look away from what compromises your happiness.21 The history of feminist critiques of happiness could be translated into a manifesto: Don't look over it: don't get over it. Not to get over it is a form of disloyalty. Willfulness is a kind of disloyalty: think of Adrienne Rich's call for us to be disloyal to civilization. We are not over it, if it has not gone. We are not loyal, if it is wrong.22 Willfulness could be rethought as a style of politics: a refusal to look away from what has already been looked over. The ones who point out that racism, sexism, and heterosexism are actual are charged with willfulness; they refuse to allow these realities to be passed over.¶ Even talking about injustices, violence, power, and subordination in a world that uses "happy diversity" as a technology of social description can mean becoming the obstacle, as the ones who "get in the way" of the happiness of others. Your talk is heard as laboring over sore points, as if you are holding onto something—an individual or collective memory, a sense of a history as unfinished—because you are sore. People often say that political struggle against racism is like banging your head against a brick wall. The wall keeps its place so it is you that gets sore. We might need to stay as sore as our points. Of course that's not all we say or we do. We can recognise not only that we are not the cause of the unhappiness that has been attributed to us, but also the effects of being attributed as the cause. We can talk about being willful subjects, feminist killjoys, angry black women; we can claim those figures back; we can talk about those conversations we have had at dinner tables or in seminars or meetings. We can laugh in recognition of the familiarity of inhabiting that place, even if we do not inhabit the same place (and we do not). There can be joy in killing joy. Kill joy, we can and we do. Be willful, we will and we are.
Turn ground-
Advocacy skills
perm grounds
2/19/17
1- K- Ableist reps
Tournament: Harvard | Round: Triples | Opponent: David Moon | Judge: Vincent, Wang, Jorma Link YOU USE the word COLORBLINDNESS IN YOUR ADVOCACY------The term “blindness” specifically in the context of the ac ingrains the oppression of those with no sight, implying their lack of sight is a flaw. We recognize that ignorance of race is a bad thing, but you don’t need abelist to explain this James: 2k, Rachel, 8-19-09 Deeply Problematic, “‘Blinded by privileged’: ableist language in critical discourse” PESH AK
Using the term "blindness" to reflect mishaps of privilege is a way to further ingrain the oppression of those with little or no sight. By constructing the disablity of blindness as something that an ignorant person needs to educate themselves about, that someone needs to overcome, it minimizes the permanence of lack of sight and turns it into a fault., a flaw. It's also constructing blindness as something that needs to be fixed, as something that leads to misery and inflicted hurt, rather than part of a full and happy life. It's is even more problematic when the "privilege-blindness" is constructed as willful— putting one's blinders on to avoid looking at uncomfortable truths. This supposes that the disability of blindness is somehow false or temporary. ¶ This may seem as if I'm somehow overly concerned with minutiae, but it's necessary to be careful about my language when I'm discussing how to end or mitigate oppression. "Lame" and "retard" have become thoroughly unacceptable in progressive discourse, but we are turning another word into a slur by saying that being "blind" is a status to be avoided, something that will hurt others. Blind has been turned from a word describing disabilities into a pejorative attacking ignorance. It's made being blind synonymous with stupidity and having sight synonymous with truth. When I say that I must open my eyes to oppression, I must see my own racism, I must stop being blinded by my cis privilege, what am I saying about the people who are literally blind? Are they are not included in the discussion of working towards a better world, or does their blindness prevent them from truly seeing oppression? Why are my views on oppression and racism and sexism insights? ¶ The stigmatization of blindness has very real consequences that significantly impair and impact the blind community. As Alena recently wrote: ¶ Have you ever noticed that calling someone blind is like calling them a four letter word.?
The alternative is to reject the affirmative in an explicit endorsement of increasing access to the debate space. And, I link stronger to 1AC framing. Your reps exclude people from debate- it’s a precondition to embrace he alternative.
Lanning Eric Lanning Eric Lanning is a debater at the University of Houston and former National Debate Tournament Champion. January 22, 2014, “What is Access?”, access debate, http://accessdebate.com/2014/01/22/what-is-access/ I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what “access” means in the context of the debate community. I don’t have all (or even a lot) of the answers to this question, but I’m beginning to think that might be the point. We can’t figure this out alone. We need each other. Disability Studies gives the means, motives and opportunity to reframe this “dependence” as inevitable, necessary and valuable. What would it mean to universally design debate? What would it mean to ask and answer this question together? I believe that “access” is the process (not outcome) of answering that question over and over. It is the process of destabilizing our assumptions about what debaters “are” and “do”. What assumptions do we make about debaters inherent “abilities” or natural “capabilities” when we debate in particular ways and in particular spaces? What changes should we make to debate practice and culture? These are questions that I am asking and answering in every negative debate – but the “pre-requisite” for me to asking and answering these questions in any debate was my own disability consciousness. The most portable skill debate ever gave me was consciousness. Debate gave me a vocabulary and audience to articulate what my lived experience with disability teaches me everyday. It gave me the experience and environment to develop and explain my own consciousness of disability. For me, that is the beginning of access. Before we can debate about what access means, it is worth thinking about the status quo – what does it mean for debate to be “inaccessible” to particular debaters and particular identities? What is wrong with the status quo? For many years and for most debaters, “ableism” was nothing more than a list of words you should not use: blinded, silenced, paralyzed, crazy, lame, disabled, crippled, etc. To be clear, I think that ableist language is problematic and constitutes a micro-aggression against disabled people that we should all work to stop. But it is about SO much more than language. Disability is an embodied experience. In a poem I wrote called “Broken” – I explain this distinction as, “disability is not something you have, its something you are” (If you’re interested in hearing/reading the entire poem, I’ve included a link at the end). This recognition of the lived experience of disability – of disability as a social and political fact – of disability as a category of human existence is missing from our current debates about ableism and access. One of the most meaningful and empowering contributions of disability studies is expressed in the mantra, “nothing about us without us”. It is a call to foreground and privilege the experience of disability. This is not to say that TABS (temporarily abled bodies) can’t participate and contribute to the conversation about access, but instead it is a call to reverse the history of marginalization of disabled people‘s experience in the academy and our society. Obviously not every debater has a lived experience with disability, but we all do research. In debate, this research is a reflection of our priorities
AND-Ableism entails the subjugation of oppressed groups as physically inferior. A social model of disability consciousness creates a side constraint on body politics, allowing the contestation of the universal individual as the dominant conception of normality. K offense is a sequencing question – you can’t get access to offense about bodies with specific racial identity markers while justifying the exclusion of bodies based upon ability.
Russell Marta Russell, The Social Movement Left Out, SOA Watch, http://www.soaw.org/resources/anti-opp-resources/112-abilities/828-the-social-movement-left-out It is disheartening, to say the least, when I can still pick up a book or read a all for unity to fight for social justice which omits or does not give equal weight to the disability social movement against oppression. Here is one recent call for forming alliances with various groups in the struggle. The groups listed are "Greens, labor, people of color, feminists, environmental activists, students and youth, supporters of a death penalty moratorium, gay/lesbian people, people of faith, peace activists, senior and community organizations." Can we call this anything other than disablism or ableism ableism being defined as "any social relations, practices, and ideas that presume that all people are ablebodied"? (Chouinard and Grant, 1995) Nondisabled activists and scholars have fervently studied and challenged the rational explanation for oppression based on identity in particular, gender, race, and ethnicity but excluded disability. Disability activists and scholars, on the other hand, have fervently been supplying a plethora of disability social model theorizing which doesn't seem to be read or absorbed by many of the other activists and scholars. Knowing what less than stellar past other social movements in this country have had regarding impairment, it is necessary to confront this history so that we can all move forward. Here I am going to rely of the work of Douglas Baynton in his essay "Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History" (Paul K. Longmore and Lauri Umansky, eds, THE NEW DISABILITY HISTORY: AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, 2001) to explain how other oppressed groups have situated disablement. Baynton lays it out plain and simple. He writes, "Rarely have oppressed groups denied that disability is an adequate justification for social and political inequality. Thus, while disabled people can be considered one of the minority groups historically assigned inferior status and subjected to discrimination, disability has functioned for all such groups as a sign of and justification for inferiority." (Baynton p. 34) The concept of inferiority is rooted in the late 19th century social creation of "normality." "The normal" was used as a means of measuring, categorizing, and managing populations. It informed hegemony, ranking order by the directive of the constructed "norm." In turn, normality established the universal, unequivocal good and right from which social, economic, and political rights were granted rights being a means in liberal democratic societies of mitigating oppression. Simultaneously the concept of normality equated with a belief in western progress. Eugenics was its obvious "scientific" progeny. Under the eugenic view, perfection was attainable; by eliminating the abnormal; the defective could be eradicated from humanity. Along with the conservatives and later the Nazis, Anarchist Emma Goldman, "friend of the oppressed" and a proponent of eugenic thought wrote that unless birth control was encouraged, the state would "legally encourage the increase of paupers, syphilitics, epileptics, dipsomaniacs, cripples, criminals, and degenerates." (D.J. Kevles, IN THE NAME OF EUGENICS, 1985) (emphasis mine)What was not so obvious was that both blacks and women's liberation movements did not challenge the notion that disability was a legitimate reason for social, economic and political exclusion. he continues Historically, labor associations similarly found it shameful to be injured or impaired and "equated manhood with independence (bodily and financial)." (John Williams Searle, "Cold Charity: Manhood, Brotherhood, and the Transformation of Disability, 1870 1900," THE NEW DISABILITY HISTORY, 2001) It has been close to a century since US disabled peoples'first known disability civil rights group formed, the League for the Physically Handicapped. Some three hundred disabled pensioners in New York engaged in civil disobedience during the Great Depression to protest their discriminatory rejection from the employment offered by the Works Progress Administration. Much later, in 1970, came Disabled in Action (DIA) which founded and adopted the tactic of direct political protest. There were many groups of all types of impairments involved in the 25 day occupation of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) federal building in San Francisco in 1977 to have regulations issued pursuant to section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 making it illegal for federal agencies, contractors, or public universities to discriminate on the basis of disability. In 1983 came Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), established by disability rights activists in several important cities in the USA to highlight the inaccessibility of public transit for people with mobility impairments. It quickly became known for its confrontational and often successful tactics. Movements for blind persons, deaf persons, developmentally disabled persons and psychiatric disabilities similarly evolved, the histories all too numerous to list in this brief commentary. There have been many groupings leading up to passage of the American's with Disabilities Act in 1990 and beyond. Yet to this day class, race, gender and sexual oppression are often alluded to in developing vision and strategy for social change in leftist circles disability, too often, is not. Scanning the internet I found numerous examples of sites where ableism gets left out of the isms. Here is just one such statement. This group is "in opposition to racism, sexism, homophobia, economic class oppression and all other forms of oppression and discrimination." What are "all other forms of oppression and discrimination"? Do they mean ableism? When the left leaves us out of its analysis, or includes us in a cursory manner as "other forms of oppression" this is clearly not sufficient. It only leads to the suspicion that there is no real understanding of disability oppression. For example, on the most basic level which we should be well beyond by now some still hold their events in inaccessible locations. Michael Moore did this in Cambridge when he was promoting his new book "Stupid White Men." Don't get me wrong, I like Michael Moore but please! It is so obvious that those disabled persons who could not attend his event due to it not being physically accessible to them would include him in the category of "stupid white men." We leftie disability activists have been silent far too long. I would go so far as to say that the portion of the left which still excludes by not reporting, covering or identifying disability in its platforms, programs, publications or web sites shows that it has not *fully* understood individualistic consciousness or institutionalized practices under capitalism. Despite the fact that disabled persons to this day remain at the bottom of the socio economic ladder being the most impoverished and degraded group of persons worldwide still segregated and institutionalized, some nondisabled persons and social movements have not accepted the idea that disability oppression really exists. As Michael Oliver frames it when disablism does not merit inclusion "even those writers who have specifically examined oppression have internalised the dominant, individualised world view of disability and have failed to conceptualise it as social oppression." (Oliver, Understanding Disability, p. 133) The dominant view that Oliver refers to is that the social and economic pain that disabled people deal with is a personal problem, an individual pathology, a personal tragedy and a personal failing. While other social movements have been granted the status of having a collective dimension and are viewed as the result of systemic social structures rather than personal shortcomings, the disability movement has largely been left out as an oppressed group. Oliver writes "it is not disabled people who need to be examined but able bodied society; it is not a case of educating disabled and able bodied people for integration, but offighting institutional disablism; it is not disability relations which should be the field for study but disablism." (Oliver, p. 142) Radical disability theorists have posed that under capitalism impairment is socialized as a specific form of oppression disability. The defining feature of capitalism, commodity relations, has been a primary force behind the economic impoverishment of impaired persons. The material relation is primary and the ideology of superiority/inferiority serves the function of maintenance and perpetuation of this social relation. Why cannot some elements on the left apply disablement to C. Wright Mills' observation that seemingly "personal troubles", are more appropriately understood as "public issues" which link to the institutions of society as a whole? Ongoing exclusion of disability oppression unfortunately only contributes to the disabling society when what we do need is a "trajectory of change," as Michael Albert phases it, with everyone's contributions and energies working towards global justice. (which people are defining and re-defining), which some believe is being coopted, there still needs to exist a particular pedagogy that advocates and provides a platform for people with disabilities, therefore the rise of disability pedagogy.
2/23/17
1- Tuck and Yang
Tournament: Harvard RR | Round: 3 | Opponent: Stuyvesant KF | Judge: Panel Fisrt the link: their killjoy arguments frames suffering and acts of violence in a way intended to access personhood through injury- your framing may be good, but your reps fail to do your method and link to the k
Second the impact: Framing the demand for recognition in terms of stories of suffering makes personhood only accessible through injury – turns case: legitimizes violence and means any gains only reinscribe pain and subjugation. Tuck and Yang 14 explain with an example:
The costs of a politics of recognition that is rooted in naming pain have been critiqued by recent decolonizing and feminist scholars (Hartman, 1997, 2007; Tuck, 2009). In Scenes of Subjection, Sadiya Hartman (1997) discusses how recognizing the personhood of slaves enhanced the power of the Southern slave- owning class. Supplicating narratives of former slaves were deployed effectively by abolitionists, mainly White, well-to-do, Northern women, to generate portraits of abuse that ergo recognize slaves as human (Hartman, 2007). In response, new laws afforded minimal standards of existence, “making personhood coterminous with injury” (Hartman, 1997, p. 93), while simultaneously authorizing necessary violence to suppress slave agency. The slave emerges as a legal person only when seen as criminal or “a violated body in need of limited forms of protection” (p. 55). Recognition “humanizes” the slave, but is predicated upon her or his abjection. You are in pain, therefore you are. “The recognition of humanity requires the event of excessive violence, cruelty beyond the limits of the socially tolerable, in order to acknowledge and protect the slave’s person” (p. 55). Furthermore, Hartman describes how slave-as-victim as human accordingly establishes slave-as-agent as criminal. Applying Hartman’s analysis, we note how the agency of Margaret Garner or Nat Turner can only be viewed as outsider violence that humane society must reject while simultaneously upholding the legitimated violence of the state to punish such outsider violence. Hartman asks, “Is it possible that such recognition effectively forecloses agency as the object of punishment . . . Or is this limited conferral of humanity merely a reinscription of subjugation and pained existence?” (p. 55).
The alternative is to phrase the violence trough the lens of the oppressor, rather than the oppressed. The alt adequately portrays suffering and uses the knowledge we get from suffering so that we can work against it, but it refuses to satisfy the fascination with suffering and de-spectaclizes it. This also does your method better- we refuse the ability for the oppressor to gain perverse joy through the representation of the suffering they cause- our alternative is the shit that makes white people uncomfortable.- Yang 2 explain with an example:
Gonzales-Day’s Erased Lynching series reintroduces the photographs of lynching to a contemporary audience, with one critical intervention: The ropes and the lynch victim have been removed from the images. Per Gonzales-Day’s website (n.d.), the series enacted a conceptual gesture intended to direct the viewer’s attention, not upon the lifeless body of the lynch victim, but upon the mechanisms of lynching themselves: the crowd, the spectacle, the photographer, and even consider the impact of flash photography upon this dismal past. The perpetrators, if present, remain fully visible, jeering, laughing, or pulling at the air in a deadly pantomime. As such, this series strives to make the invisible visible.¶ The Erased Lynching series yields another context in which we might consider what a social scientist’s refusal stance might comprise. Though indeed centering on the erasure of the former object, refusal need not be thought of as a subtractive methodology. Refusal prompts analysis of the festive spectators regularly backgrounded in favor of wounded bodies, strange fruit, interesting scars. Refusal shifts the gaze from the violated body to the violating instruments—in this case, the lynch mob, which does not disappear when the lynching is over, but continues to live, accumulating land and wealth through the extermination and subordination of the Other. Thus, refusal helps move us from thinking of violence as an event and toward an analysis of it as a structure.¶ Gonzales-Day might have decided to reproduce and redistribute the images as postcards, which, by way of showing up in mundane spaces, might have effectively inspired reflection on the spectacle of violence and media of terror. However, in removing the body and the ropes, he installed limits on what the audience can access, and redirected our gaze to the bodies of those who were there to see a murder take place, and to the empty space beneath the branches. Gonzales-Day introduced a new representational territory, one that refuses to play by the rules of the settler colonial gaze, and one that refuses to satisfy the morbid curiosity derived from settler colonialism’s preoccupation with pain.¶ Refusals are needed for narratives and images arising in social science research that rehumiliate when circulated, but also when, in Simpson’s words, “the representation would bite all of us and compromise the representational territory that we have gained for ourselves in the past 100 years” (p. 78). As researcher-narrator, Simpson tells us, “I reached my own limit when the data would not contribute to our sovereignty or complicate the deeply simplified, atrophied representations of Iroquois and other Indigenous peoples that they have been mired within anthropologically” (p. 78). Here Simpson makes clear the ways in which research is not the intervention that is needed—that is, the inter- ventions of furthering sovereignty or countering misrepresentations of Native people as anthropological objects.¶ Considering Erased Lynchings dialogically with On Ethnographic Refusal, we can see how refusal is not a prohibition but a generative form. First, refusal turns the gaze back upon power, specifically the colonial modalities of knowing per- sons as bodies to be differentially counted, violated, saved, and put to work. It makes transparent the metanarrative of knowledge production—its spectatorship for pain and its preoccupation for documenting and ruling over racial difference. Thus, refusal to be made meaningful first and foremost is grounded in a critique of settler colonialism, its construction of Whiteness, and its regimes of representation. Second, refusal generates, expands, champions representationsal territories that colonial knowledge endeavors to settle, enclose, domesticate. Simpson com- plicates the portrayals of Iroquois, without resorting to reportrayals of anthropo- logical Indians. Gonzales-Day portrays the violations without reportraying the victimizations. Third, refusal is a critical intervention into research and its circu- lar self-defining ethics. The ethical justification for research is defensive and self-encircling—its apparent self-criticism serves to expand its own rights to know, and to defend its violations in the name of “good science.” Refusal challenges the individualizing discourse of IRB consent and “good science” by high- lighting the problems of collective harm, of representational harm, and of knowledge colonization. Fourth, refusal itself could be developed into both method and theory. Simpson presents refusal on the part of the researcher as a type of calculus ethnography. Gonzales-Day deploys refusal as a mode of representation. Simpson theorizes refusal by the Kahnawake Nation as anticolonial, and rooted in the desire for possibilities outside of colonial logics, not as a reactive stance. This final point about refusal connects our conversation back to desire as a counterlogic to settler colonial knowledge.
And, The distinction between violation and victimization solves all their offense against the K. We understand the violation, which is the consciousness-raising they’re going to try to leverage, but that isn’t what we focus on.
Their identification in terms of suffering also spills over, it 1. creates a totalizing, essentialist notion of group identity that stops members of the group from defining themselves as anything but injured, and 2., excludes members that haven’t experienced all the harms or don’t identify “correctly” with a particular set of harms. This also is relevant under your method- the killjoy cant let their identity be defined by the oppressor, as that cedes even more power. This also turns your collectivization argument. Brown 96
If, taken together, the two passages from Foucault we have been consider- ing call feminists to account in our compulsion to put everything about women into discourse, they do not yet exhaust the phenomenon of being ensnared 'in the folds of our own discourses.' For if the problem I have been discussing is easy enough to see--indeed, largely familiar to those who track techniques of co-optation--at the level of legal and bureaucratic discourse, it is altogether more disquieting when it takes the form of regulatory discourse in our own sub- and counter-cultures of resistance . . . when confessing injury becomes that which attaches us to the injury, paralyzes us within it, and prevents us from seeking or even desiring a status other than injured. In an age of social identification through attributes marked as culturally significant--gender, race, sexuality, and so forth--confessional discourse, with its truth-bearing status in a post-epistemological universe, not only regulates the confessor in the name of freeing her as Foucault described that logic, but extends beyond the confessing individual to constitute a regulatory truth about the identity group. Confessed truths are assembled and deployed as "knowledge" about the group. This phenomenon would seem to undergird a range of recurring troubles in feminism, from the "real woman" rejoinder to post-structuralist deconstructions of her, to totalizing descriptions of women's experience that are the inadvertent effects of various kinds of survivor stories. Thus, for example, the porn star who feels miserably exploited, violated and humiliated in her work invariably monopolizes the truth about sex work; as the girl with math anxieties constitutes the truth about women and math; as eating disor- ders have become the truth about women and food; as sexual abuse and viola- tion occupy the knowledge terrain of women and sexuality. In other words, even as feminism aims to affirm diversity among women and women's ex- periences, confession as the site of production of truth and its convergence with feminist suspicion and deauthorization of truth from other sources tends to reinstate a unified discourse in which the story of greatest suffering becomes the true story of woman. (I think this constitutes part of the rhetorical power of MacKinnon's work; analytically, the epistemological superiority of confes- sion substitutes for the older, largely discredited charge of false consciousness). Thus, the adults who does not suffer from her or his childhood sexual experi- ence, the lesbian who does not feel shame, the woman of color who does not primarily or "correctly" identify with her marking as such--these figures are excluded as bonafide members of the categories which also claim them. Their status within these discourses is that of being "in denial," "passing" or being a "race traitor." This is the norm-making process in feminist traditions of "breaking silence" which, ironically, silence and exclude the very women these traditions mean to empower. (Is it surprising, when we think in this vein, that there is so little feminist writing on heterosexual pleasure?)
2/19/17
1- Virillio K
Tournament: Collyville Heritage | Round: 5 | Opponent: Dullus | Judge: Maddie Stevens 1st- dromology defined Wood Considered - the Faculty of Education blog at Canterbury Christ Church University Should education policy have a speed limit? Slowing down the process of change by Phil Wood on Thursday, 11 April 2013 in Education Policy Phil Wood is a lecturer in education at the University of Leicester. His research interests focus on understanding and developing learning and teaching through participatory research. In this piece he considers the extent to which the pace of change is damaging education. http://www.consider-ed.org.uk/should-education-policy-have-a-speed-limit/ Over the past 15 years policy development in English education has seen an ever more acute acceleration. This acceleration was first identifiable under New Labour and ‘deliverology’ which demanded ever faster increases in examination outcomes. Driven by a need for higher and ever more improbable targets, faster and more complex policy initiatives were developed, self-evaluation forms, personalised learning, learning styles, curriculum innovation, and diplomas. Since the Coalition government has taken power, this need for accelerated policy development has continued. Much of the educational landscape is seeing radical change, sometimes untried and untested, sometimes not even seeing initial implementation before being abandoned or changed. Paul Virilio, urbanist and cultural theorist, defines social and political acceleration, particularly relating to technology, as ‘dromology’, the compression of time as a consequence of geopolitics, technology and the media leading to an emerging process of velocity and acceleration. Rather than leading to better, more efficient social systems acceleration can lead to detrimental impacts. 2nd- the political- Status qou politics construct *truth* through dromology- a prerequisite to engage in ethics, the political or debate itself is to deconstruct dromology Wood Considered - the Faculty of Education blog at Canterbury Christ Church University Should education policy have a speed limit? Slowing down the process of change by Phil Wood on Thursday, 11 April 2013 in Education Policy Phil Wood is a lecturer in education at the University of Leicester. His research interests focus on understanding and developing learning and teaching through participatory research. In this piece he considers the extent to which the pace of change is damaging education. http://www.consider-ed.org.uk/should-education-policy-have-a-speed-limit/ Neoliberal policies have brought greater volumes of data and information often identified as some form of analytic ‘truth’. Virilio, however, sees greater information and data as a recipe for disinformation and confusion. Politicians are able to hide, embed and control, ‘speed is power itself’ (Virilio, 1999, 15). As policy generation accelerates, those outside of government are in a constant state of reaction attempting to understand and analyse new sets of ideas as the next policy is already being announced. By instigating reform at a very fast pace, a Secretary of State essentially creates a ‘power-grab’, the sheer velocity and acceleration of change eroding debate, ensuring less resistance and short-circuiting the democratic process. In addition, the media become the dromological troops of politicians (Eriksen, 2001). Eriksen (see Levy’s associated lecture) focuses on the dromological impact of modern society, arguing that ‘fast’ time increasingly drives out ‘slow’ time. Slow time is important as it allows for deliberation, thought, debate, and considered ways of working which are important in all facets of the educative process. But society and the commercial world eradicates slow time; fast time is becoming dominant in society at large, and in education. Eriksen identifies six problems with this change: speed is an addictive drug speed leads to simplification speed creates an assembly line (Taylorist) effect speed leads to a loss of precision speed demands space (it fills gaps in the lives of others, just consider your e-mail in box!) speed is contagious, spreading and killing off slow
Thus the role of the ballot is to reject systems of dromology- key to better education Wood Considered - the Faculty of Education blog at Canterbury Christ Church University Should education policy have a speed limit? Slowing down the process of change by Phil Wood on Thursday, 11 April 2013 in Education Policy Phil Wood is a lecturer in education at the University of Leicester. His research interests focus on understanding and developing learning and teaching through participatory research. In this piece he considers the extent to which the pace of change is damaging education. http://www.consider-ed.org.uk/should-education-policy-have-a-speed-limit/ time In education, these effects are all too obvious. Recourse to ever more complex data systems allows rapid generation of targets and tracking sheets which become regarded as ‘truth’. Learning must be ‘measured’ in every lesson, and progress assessed- sometimes not even every 50 minutes, but every 15! The illusion persists that we can ‘know’ the extent of the learning of every child at the end of every lesson. As a result, the desired speed for learning and progress has indeed demanded the space of professional dialogue and reflection. Data systems are ‘fast’ processes – they give the illusion of progress, of learning – and so the acceleration of education has in part gone hand in hand with ever greater reliance on numeric data, both internal and external (league tables for example). The dromological impact of social and political change might lead us to believe that we need to make faster, better decisions and changes. The mantra of fast time leads to perpetual revolution and a chimera of perfection constantly found just ahead of us. But I argue that this is (self-) destructive. Kahneman (2011) highlights that acceleration in decision-making and change is based on gut reactions, emotions and biased perceptions. Decisions become based on associating new information with old rather than synthesising information to bring new insights. The constant speeding up of reform, demands for progress and an increasing focus on the short-term have served to blunt critical capacities, to surrender professional and community debate to ever more rapid production and enslavement to numeric data. This is what Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) describe as the ‘business capital’ model of education. An alternative view of the process of education, both in school and at policy level is the notion of ‘professional capital’ again outlined by Hargreaves and Fullan. This approach to education is based on seeing teachers as valued professionals who require time and resources to develop and perfect their professional skills and thinking. They argue that this is best achieved in groups, through collaborative endeavour. However, this is not to be a top-down model driven by senior leaders, fulfilling their own agendas or those of government, but driven by teacher groups who are given the space to exercise their own professional judgement – in short it is a dialogic approach. Data is still important, but it acts as the starting point for discussion and development, not as a numeric yoke under which teachers are expected to toil. A dialogic approach may be criticised as ‘soft’, ‘cosy’, a system where individuals can hide and be left to do as they wish. Nothing could be further from the truth; for example, the Finns understood in the 1980s that they needed to improve their education system but it was only thirty years later that they felt in any definable way they had achieved what they set out to do. No quick fixes, no acceleration in policy change, but a reasoned, debated and consensus driven approach, where honest dialogue about educational processes, theory and practice built strong foundations to aid in the emergence of the system as it stands today. Hardly a rulebook for standing still, more one of considered and transformatory change. Education in England has been under an increasing dromological pressure over the past 15 to 20 years, with more and more policy used as a lever to bring faster and faster change. However, how far has this brought us? Gains in academic achievement are questioned by many; ever greater incursion of private finance into education has started to break the system apart, both organisationally and increasingly professionally and politically. We are accelerating into an uncertain future, with little reasoned debate or consensus building. Dialogue may not feed an event hungry news-media, it may not promise increased examination outcomes in a matter of weeks. However, if developed professionally, if used to engage with local communities, and used to forge strong foundations for sustained development and professional capital, surely dialogue is a better basis for our country’s education system than that of dromology?
And, the squo erases subjectivity through the imperial gaze-the neg is needed to a. restore subjectivity b. eliminate unjust domination- precondition to any framework. Thus, the alterative is to reject the subjectivity of the AC Harris 6 — Chad Vincent Harris, Lecturer at the University of California-San Diego and Adjunct Professor in the School of Journalism and Media Studies at San Diego State University, holds a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of California-San Diego, 2006 (“The Omniscient Eye: Satellite Imagery, ‘Battlespace Awareness,’ and the Structures of the Imperial Gaze,” Surveillance and Society, Volume 4, Issue 1/2, Available Online at http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/viewFile/3457/3420, Accessed 10-05-2011, p. 101-103) located at the center of military command structures, where surveillance, control, and organized state violence come together in a set of abstracted and routine social and technical practices. It is where surveillance is most directly attached to concrete purposive action: the precise application of force and violence for organized warfare, perhaps the ultimate act of purposive agency. In this article, I explore, in close detail and with some deep description, a specific historical instance of the use of aerial and satellite imagery in a military C4I (command, control, computers, communications, and intelligence) system during combat operations. The focus on a warfare scenario provides an extreme example of what is at stake with systems of overhead surveillance that are deployed in the larger society, systems seemingly as mundane as commercial observation satellites or Google Earth. Ultimately what is at stake is the creation of a specific kind of subjectivity, an attempt to create an omniscient or imperial gaze by connecting what Sturken and Cartwright (2001) call “practices of looking” directly to the technologies and practices of state administrative control. Large satellite imagery and intelligence architectures are what Donald MacKenzie calls “technologies of power” (MacKenzie, 1990: 28, 34-36), deployed by nation states for the administrative control of space and territory. In warfare these systems are deployed for the precise application of force and violence. Large intelligence and weapons systems in the US military and their interoperation as system architectures provide a rich context for exploring how satellite imagery surveillance and reconnaissance systems not only detect objects and people, but also produce both objects on the ground and surveillant subjects. These ideas may have relevance to other civilian surveillance systems like closed circuit television (CCTV) systems, police command and control centers, and publicly-available satellite imagery databases like Google EarthÔ.2 They produce objectivity, a techno-discursive distance between the observer and the observed, and a particular kind of modern surveillant subject. This subjectivity is structured by an omniscient, imperial gaze, a particular kind of subjectivity that signifies dominance over what is being observed. In order to illustrate this process, I will discuss how violence can be rendered everyday, bureaucratic, and even mundane by the technologies and practices of imagery production. Technologically, distance is produced by layers of systems that combine surveillance with weapons control, referred to in the US military as “C4I” systems that combine the practices and technologies of “Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence.” The targeting cycle in Operation Instant Thunder was a feedback system that transformed data into targets and then back into data, a center through which information and commands generated by the entire U.S. war effort had to pass through on their way towards the destruction of these targets. The personnel who ran this center were never actually required to be in direct proximity to the carnage of combat, but they were nevertheless central to its organization. It is where extreme forms of violence and normal bureaucratic practices are co-extensive, because we must step back from this series of mundane translations (images into data, data and images into targets, targets turned back into data, and thus back again to images), in order to see the destruction that these activities were committing. It is this distance that creates an isolated and dominant subjectivity: isolated from the violence on the ground, but interpellated in a dominant imperial gaze.
2/4/17
1- White people shouldnt read Wilderson
Tournament: UT Austin | Round: 1 | Opponent: Connal AW | Judge: Brady Lu This was analytic but like come on are you fucking serious this round was a clusterfuck.
12/9/16
1- the blacks bad
Tournament: UT Austin | Round: 1 | Opponent: Connal AW | Judge: Brady Lu Calling black people 'the blacks' is a form of anti black dehumanization analytics AND, it literally takes less than half a second to say 'black people' instead. the alternative is to say 'black people'- humanizes black ppl in debate.
12/9/16
1-Analytic deleuze K
Tournament: Midway | Round: Finals | Opponent: Plano East ES | Judge: there were three but i forget who 1-the links- a. distinction between nature and man b. distinction between ecological eras c. distinction between death and life 2-the impacts- a. microfacism b. root cause of their impx c. links to their framework 3-the alt- reject the affirmative in favor of discursively becoming nature, death, and the past
10/14/16
1-Anarchy Bad
Tournament: Cypress baeeee | Round: 3 | Opponent: Penbrook Pines SG | Judge: Pablo Meles analytics (look at round report)
11/29/16
1-Counter Genealogy
Tournament: Valley | Round: 5 | Opponent: Dan Carlson | Judge: Lake Highland RS
counter genealogy-the american state sucks analytics 2. this outweighs-magnitude analytics 3. And, no perms analytics
10/14/16
1-Death Good
Tournament: Holy cross | Round: 2 | Opponent: Mountain Brook PS | Judge: Traivis Fife Utilitarianism is strictly defined as the greatest good for the greatest number. It’s meant to minimize suffering. However, life is a sentence of never ending suffering, every day will simply be worse than the next. On the whole it would be better if the Earth was like the Moon, devoid of life. Schopenauer in 1904 (Arthur philosopher THE ESSAYS OF ARTHUR SCHOPENAUER; STUDIES IN PESSIMISM, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10732/10732-8.txt ACCESSED 8/1/05) In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like innocent prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as yet all unconscious of what their sentence means. Nevertheless, every man desires to reach old age; in other words, a state of life of which it may be said: "It is bad to-day, and it will be worse to-morrow; and so on till the worst of all." If you try to imagine, as nearly as you can, what an amount of misery, pain and suffering of every kind the sun shines upon in its course, you will admit that it would be much better if, on the earth as little as on the moon, the sun were able to call forth the phenomena of life; and if, here as there, the surface were still in a crystalline state. Again, you may look upon life as an unprofitable episode, disturbing the blessed calm of non-existence. And, in any case, even though things have gone with you tolerably well, the longer you live the more clearly you will feel that, on the whole, life is _a disappointment, nay, a cheat_.
10/14/16
1-Edelman
Tournament: Valley | Round: 2 | Opponent: Scarsdale LS 2 | Judge: Dani Part A is the Link- The ACs political concern for future generations is an attempt to frame the political in terms of reproductive futurism Lee Edelman. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. Recut and published on http://queergeektheory.org/112/Edelman.pdf, Lothian | CORE 112 | Spring 2011 Public appeals on behalf of ... chlidren are ... impossible to refuse. ... "We're fighting for the children. Whose side are you on?" The affirmation of a value so unquestioned, because so obviously unquestionable, as that of the Child whose innocence solicits our defence ... distinguishes public service announcements from the partisan discourse of political argumentation. But ... the image of the Child invariably shapes the logic within which the political itself must be thought. That logic compels us, to the extent that we would register as politically responsible, to submit to the framing of political debate––and, indeed, of the political field––as defined by the terms of what this book describes as reproductive futurism (2) ... For politics, however radical the means by which specific constituencies attempt to produce a more desirable social order, remains, at its 3 core, conservative insofar as it works to affirm a structure, to authenticate social order, which it then intends to transmit to the future in the form of its inner Child. That Child remains the perpetual horizon of every acknowledged politics, the fantasmatic beneficiary of every political intervention.
Political discourse will inevitably result in reproductive futurism- the figurative chid is our huristic model of politics. Disrupting this model is independently good. Lee Edelman. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. Recut and published on http://queergeektheory.org/112/Edelman.pdf, Lothian | CORE 112 | Spring 2011 t\for us the telos of the social order and come to be seen as the one for whom that order is held in perpetual trust.” “In its coercive universalization … the image of the Child, not to be confused with the lived experiences of any actual historical children, serves to regulate political discourse—to prescribe what will count as political discourse—by compelling such discourse to accede in advance to the reality of a collective future whose figurative status we are never permitted to acknowledge or address.
10/23/16
1-FrommBaudrillard K
Tournament: Holy Cross | Round: 2 | Opponent: Mountain Brook PS | Judge: Travis Fife Overview and alt
The aff’s invocation of death impacts is necrophilia, a blind obsession with body counts that ends in extinction. Vote neg to reject death impacts—this is a gateway issue—if they win death impacts are good, the rest of the 1NC applies—we won’t cross-apply to prove links or the NC turns don’t link, as they don’t explicitly endorse death impacts, the K is contingent on the invocation of these impacts, declaring this unfair destroys ground, philosophical education, and creates a strategy skew Erich Fromm 64, PhD in sociology from Heidelberg in 1922, psychology prof at MSU in the 60’s, “Creators and Destroyers”, The Saturday Review, New York (04. January 1964), pp. 22-25 People are aware of the possibility of nuclear war; they are aware of the destruction such a war could bring with it--and yet they seemingly make no effort to avoid it. Most of us are puzzled by this behavior because we start out from the premise that people love life and fear death. Perhaps we should be less puzzled if we questioned this premise. Maybe there are many people who are indifferent to life and many others who do not love life but who do love death. There is an orientation which we may call love of life (biophilia); it is the normal orientation among healthy persons. But there is also to be found in others a deep attraction to death which, following Unamuno's classic speech made at the University of Salamanca (1938), I call necrophilia. It is the attitude which a Franco general, Millán Astray, expressed in the slogan "Long live death, thus provoking Unamuno’s protest against this "necrophilous and senseless cry." Who is a necrophilous person? He is one who is attracted to and fascinated by all that is not alive, to all that is dead; to corpses, to decay, to feces, to dirt. Necrophiles are those people who love to talk about sickness, burials, death. They come to life precisely when they can talk about death. A clear example of the pure necrophilous type was Hitler. He was fascinated by destruction, and the smell of death was sweet to him. While in the years of success it may have appeared that he wanted only to destroy those whom he considered his enemies, the days of the Götterdämmerung at the end showed that his deepest satisfaction lay in witnessing total and absolute destruction: that of the German people, of those around him, and of himself. The necrophilous dwell in the past, never in the future. Their feelings are essentially sentimental; that is, they nurse the memory of feelings which they had yesterday--or believe that they had. They are cold, distant, devotees of "law and order." Their values are precisely the reverse of the values we connect with normal life; not life, but death excites and satisfies them. If one wants to understand the influence of men like Hitler and Stalin, it lies precisely in their unlimited capacity and willingness to kill. For this they' were loved by the necrophiles. Of the rest, many were afraid of them and so preferred to admire, rather than to be aware of, their fear. Many others did not sense the necrophilous quality of these leaders and saw in them the builders, saviors, good fathers. If the necrophilous leaders had not pretended that they were builders and protectors, the number of people attracted to them would hardly have been sufficient to help them seize power, and the number of those repelled by them would probably soon have led to their downfall. While life is characterized by growth in a structured, functional manner, the necrophilous principle is all that which does not grow, that which is mechanical. The necrophilous person is driven by the desire to transform the organic into the inorganic, to approach life mechanically, as if all living persons were things. All living processes, feelings, and thoughts are transformed into things. Memory, rather than experience--having, rather than being--are what counts. The necrophilous person can relate to an object--a flower or a person--only if he possesses it; hence, a threat to his possession is a threat to himself; if he loses possession he loses contact with the world. That is why we find the paradoxical reaction that he would rather lose life than possession, even though, by losing life, he who possesses has ceased to exist. He loves control, and in the act of controlling he kills life. He is deeply afraid of life, because it is disorderly and uncontrollable by its very nature. The woman who wrongly claims to be the mother of the child in the story of Solomon's judgment is typical of this tendency; she would rather have a properly divided dead child than lose a living one. To the necrophilous person justice means correct division, and they are willing to kill or die for the sake of what they call, justice. "Law and order" for them are idols, and everything that threatens law and order is felt as a satanic attack against their supreme values. The necrophilous person is attracted to darkness and night. In mythology and poetry (as well as in dreams) he is attracted to caves, or to the depth of the ocean, or depicted as being blind. (The trolls in Ibsen's Peer Gynt are a good example.) All that is away from or directed against life attracts him. He wants to return to the darkness {23} of the womb, to the past of inorganic or subhuman existence. He is essentially oriented to the past, not to the future, which he hates and fears. Related to this is his craving for certainty. But life is never certain, never predictable, never controllable; in order to make life controllable, it must be transformed into death; death, indeed, is the only thing about life that is certain to him. The necrophilous person can often be recognized by his looks and his gestures. He is cold, his skin looks dead, and often he has an expression on his face as though he were smelling a bad odor. (This expression could be clearly seen in Hitler's face.) He is orderly and obsessive. This aspect of the necrophilous person has been demonstrated to the world in the figure of Eichmann. Eichmann was fascinated by order and death. His supreme values were obedience and the proper functioning of the organization. He transported Jews as he would have transported coal. That they were human beings was hardly within the field of his vision; hence, even the problem of his having hated or not hated his victims is irrelevant. He was the perfect bureaucrat who had transformed all life into the administration of things. But examples of the necrophilous character are by no means to be found only among the inquisitors, the Hitlers and the Eichmanns. There are any number of individuals who do not have the opportunity and the power to kill, vet whose necrophilia expresses itself in other and (superficially seen) more harmless ways. An example is the mother who will always be interested in her child's sickness, in his failures, in dark prognoses for the future; at the same time she will not be impressed by a favorable change nor respond to her child's joy, nor will she notice anything new that is growing within him. We might find that her dreams deal with sickness, death, corpses, blood. She does not harm the child in any obvious way, yet she may slowly strangle the child's joy of life, his faith--in growth, and eventually infect him with her own necrophilous orientation. My description may have given the impression that all the features mentioned here are necessarily found in the necrophilous person. It is true that such divergent features as the wish to kill, the worship of force, the attraction to death and dirt, sadism, the wish to transform the organic into the inorganic through "order" are all part of the same basic orientation. Yet so far as individuals are concerned, there are considerable differences with respect to the strength of these respective trends. Any one of the features mentioned here may be more pronounced in one person than in another. Furthermore, the degree to which a person is necrophilous in comparison with his biophilous aspects and the degree to which a person is aware of necrophilous tendencies and rationalizes them vary considerably from person to person. Yet the concept of the necrophilous type is by no means an abstraction or summary of various disparate behavior trends. Necrophilia constitutes a fundamental orientation; it is the one answer to life that is in complete opposition to life; it is the most morbid and the most dangerous among the orientations to life of which man is capable. It is true perversion; while living, not life but death is loved--not growth, but destruction. The necrophilous person, if he dares to be aware of what he feels, expresses the motto of his life when he says: "Long live death!" The opposite of the necrophilous orientation is the biophilous one; its essence is love of life in contrast to love of death. Like necrophilia, biophilia is not constituted by a single trait but represents a total orientation, an entire way of being. It is manifested in a person's bodily processes, in his emotions, in his thoughts, in his gestures; the biophilous orientation expresses itself in the whole man. The person who fully loves life is attracted by the process of life in all spheres. He prefers to construct, rather than to retain. He is capable of wondering, and he prefers to see something new to the security of finding the old confirmed. He loves the adventure of living more than he does certainty. His approach to life is functional rather than mechanical. He sees the whole rather than only the parts, structures rather than summations. He wants to mold and to influence by love, by reason, by his example--not by force, by cutting things apart, by the bureaucratic manner of administering people as if they were things. He enjoys life and all its manifestations, rather than mere excitement. Biophilic ethics has its own principle of good and evil. Good is all that serves life; evil is all that serves death. Good is reverence for life (this is the main thesis of Albert Schweitzer, one of the great representatives of the love of life--both in his writings and in his person), and all that enhances life. Evil is all that stifles life, narrows it down, {24} cuts it into pieces. Thus it is from the standpoint of life-ethics that the Bible mentions as the central sin of the Hebrews: "Because thou didst not serve thy Lord with joy and gladness of heart in the abundance of all things." The conscience of the biophilous person is not one of forcing oneself to refrain from evil and to do good. It is not the superego described by .Freud, a strict taskmaster employing sadism against oneself for the sake of virtue. The biophilous conscience is motivated by its attraction to life and joy; the moral effort consists in strengthening the life loving side in oneself. For this reasons the biophile does not dwell in remorse and guilt, which are, after all, only aspects of self-loathing and sadness. He turns quickly to life and attempts to do good. Spinoza's Ethics is a striking example of biophilic morality. "Pleasure," he says, "in itself is not bad but good; contrariwise, pain in itself is bad." And in the same spirit: "A free person man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life." Love of life underlies the various versions of humanistic philosophy. In various conceptual forms these philosophies are in the same vein as Spinoza's; they express the principle that the same man loves life; that man's aim in life is to be attracted by all that is alive and to separate himself from all that is dead and mechanical. The dichotomy of biophilia-necrophilia is the same as Freud's life-and-death instinct. I believe, as Freud did, that this is the most fundamental polarity that exists. However, there is one important difference. Freud assumes that the striving toward death and toward life are two biologically given tendencies inherent in all living substance that their respective strengths are relatively constant, and that there is only one alternative within the operation of the death instinct--namely, that it can be directed against the outside world or against oneself. In contrast to these assumptions I believe that necrophilia is not a normal biological tendency, but a pathological phenomenon--in fact, the most malignant pathology that exists in mail. What are we, the people of the United States today, with respect to necrophilia and biophilia? Undoubtedly our spiritual tradition is one of love of life. And not only this. Was there ever a culture with more love of "fun" and excitement, or with greater opportunities for the majority to enjoy fun and excitement? But even if this is so, fun and excitement is not the same as joy and love of life; perhaps underneath there is indifference to life, or attraction to death? To answer this question we must consider the nature of our bureaucratized, industrial, mass civilization. Our approach to life becomes increasingly mechanical. The aim of social efforts is to produce things, and. in the process of idolatry of things we transform ourselves into commodities. The question here is not whether they are treated nicely and are well fed (things, too, can be treated nicely); the question is whether people are things or living beings. People love mechanical gadgets more than living beings. The approach to man is intellectualabstract. One is interested in people as objects, in their common properties, in the statistical rules of mass behavior, not in living individuals. All this goes together with the increasing role of bureaucratic methods. In giant centers of production, giant cities, giant countries, men are administered as if they were things; men and their administrators are transformed into things, and they obey the law of things. In a bureaucratically organized and centralized industrialism, men's tastes are manipulated so that they consume maximally and in predictable and profitable directions. Their intelligence and character become standardized by the ever-increasing use of tests, which select the mediocre and unadventurous over the original and daring. Indeed, the bureaucratic-industrial civilization that has been victorious in Europe and North America has created a new type of man. He has been described as the "organization man" and as homo consumens. He is in addition the homo mechanicus. By this I mean a "gadget man," deeply attracted to all that is mechanical and inclined against all that is alive. It is, of course, true that man's biological and physiological equipment provides him with such strong sexual impulses that even the homo mechanicus still has sexual desires and looks for women. But there is no doubt that the gadget man's interest in women is diminishing. A New Yorker cartoon pointed to this very amusingly: a sales girl trying to sell a certain brand of perfume to a young female customer recommends it by remarking, "It smells like a new sports car." Indeed, any observer of men's behavior today will confirm that this cartoon is more than a clever joke. There are apparently a great number of men who are more interested in sports-cars, television and radio sets, space travel, and any number of gadgets than they are in women, love, nature, food; who are more stimulated by the manipulation of non-organic, mechanical things than by life. Their attitude toward a woman is like that toward a car: you push the button and watch it race. It is not even too farfetched to assume that homo mechanicus has more pride in and is more fascinated by, devices that can kill millions of people across a distance of several thousands of miles within minutes than he is frightened and depressed by the possibility of such mass destruction. Homo mechanicus still likes sex {25} and drink. But all these pleasures are sought for in the frame of reference of the mechanical and the unalive. He expects that there must be a button which, if pushed, brings happiness, love, pleasure. (Many go to a psychoanalyst under the illusion that he can teach them to find the button.) The homo mechanicus becomes more and more interested in the manipulation of machines, rather than in the participation in and response to life. Hence he becomes indifferent to life, fascinated by the mechanical, and eventually attracted by death and total destruction. This affinity between the love of destruction and the love of the mechanical may well have been expressed for the first time in Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto (1909). "A roaring motor-car, which looks as though running on a shrapnel is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace. … We wish to glorify war--the only health-giver of the world-militarism, patriotism, the destructive arm of the Anarchist, the beautiful Ideas that kill the contempt for woman." Briefly then, intellectualization, quantification, abstractification, bureaucratization, and reification--the very characteristics of modern industrial society--when applied to people rather than to things are not the principles of life but those of mechanics. People living in such a system must necessarily become indifferent to life, even attracted to death. They are not aware of this. They take the thrills of excitement for the joys of life and live under the illusion that they are very much alive when they only have many things to own and to use. The lack of protest against nuclear war and the discussion of our "atomologists" of the balance sheet of total or half-total destruction show how far we have already gone into the "valley of the shadow of death."1 To speak of the necrophilous quality of our industrial civilization does not imply that industrial production as such is necessarily contrary to the principles of life. The question is whether the principles of social organization and of life are subordinated to those of mechanization, or whether the principles of life are the dominant ones. Obviously, the industrialized world has not found thus far an answer, to the question posed here: How is it possible to create a humanist industrialism as against the bureaucratic mass industrialism that rules our lives today? The danger of nuclear war is so grave that man may arrive at a new barbarism before he has even a chance to find the road to a humanist industrialism. Yet not all hope is lost; hence we might ask ourselves whether the hypothesis developed here could in any way contribute to finding peaceful solutions. I believe it might be useful in several ways. First of all, an awareness of our pathological situation, while not yet a cure, is nevertheless a first step. If more people became aware of the difference between love of life and love of death, if they became aware that they themselves are already far gone in the direction of indifference or of necrophilia, this shock alone could produce new and healthy reactions. Furthermore, the sensitivity toward those who recommend death might be increased. Many might see through the pious rationalizations of the death lovers and change their admiration for them to disgust. Beyond this, our hypothesis would suggest one thing to those concerned with peace and survival: that every effort must be made to weaken the attraction of death and to strengthen the attraction of life. Why not declare that there is only one truly dangerous subversion, the subversion of life? Why do not those who represent the traditions of religion and humanism speak up and say that there is no deadlier sin than love for death and contempt for life? Why not encourage our best brains--scientists, artists, educators--to make suggestions on how to arouse and stimulate love for life as opposed to love for gadgets? I know love for gadgets brings profits to the corporations, while love for life requires fewer things and hence is less profitable. Maybe it is too late. Maybe the neutron bomb, which leaves entire cities intact, but without life, is to be the symbol of our civilization. But again, those of us who love life will not cease the struggle against necrophilia. Links Trivialization. Death debating causes an aesthetic fascination with the spectacle of death. This denies the choice to avoid death impacts. Jean Baudrillard, Dartmouth BM Hack, ‘93 (Symbolic Exchange and Death trans Iain Grant, p. 185-7) Pursued and censured everywhere, death springs up everywhere again. No longer as apocalyptic folklore, such as might have haunted the living imagination in certain epochs; but voided precisely of any imaginary substance, it passes into the most banal reality, and for us takes on the mask of the very principle of rationality that dominates our lives. Death is when everything functions and serves something else, it is the absolute, signing, cybernetic functionality of the urban environment as in Jacques Tati’s film Play-Time. Man is absolutely indexed on his function, as in Kafka: the age of the civil servant is the age of a culture of death. This is the phantasm of total programming, increased predictability and accuracy, finality not only in material things, but in fulfilling desires. In a word, death is confused with the law of value – and strangely with the structural law of value by which everything is arrested as a coded difference in a universal nexus of relations. This is the true face of ultra-modern death, made up of the faultless, objective, ultra-rapid connection of all the terms in a system. Our true necropolises are no longer the cemeteries, hospitals, wars, hecatombs; death is no longer where we think it is, it is no longer biological, psychological, metaphysical, it is no longer even murder: our societies’ true necropolises are the computer banks or the foyers, blank spaces from which all human noise has been expunged, glass coffins where the world’s sterilized memories are frozen. Only the dead remember everything in something like an immediate eternity of knowledge, a quintessence of the world that today we dream of burying in the form of microfilm and archives, making the entire world into an archive in order that it be discovered by some future civilization. The cryogenic freezing of all knowledge so that it can be resurrected; knowledge passes into immortality as sign-value. Against our dream of losing and forgetting everything, we set up an opposing great wall of relations, connections and information, a dense and inextricable artificial memory, and we bury ourselves alive in the fossilized hope of one day being rediscovered. Computers are the transistorized death to which we submit in the hope of survival. Museums are already there to survive all civilizations, in order to bear testimony. But to what? It is of little importance. The mere fact that they exist testifies that we are in a culture which no longer possesses any meaning for itself and which can now only dream of having meaning for someone else from a later time. Thus everything becomes an environment of death as soon as it is no longer a sign that can be transistorized in a gigantic whole, just as money reaches the point of no return when it is nothing more than a system of writing. Basically, political economy is only constructed (at the cost of untold sacrifices) or designed so as to be recognized as immortal by a future civilization, or as an instance of truth. As for religion, this is unimaginable other than in the Last Judgment, where God recognizes his own. But the Last Judgment is there already, realized: it is the definitive spectacle of our crystallized death. The spectacle is, it must be said, grandiose. From the hieroglyphic schemes of the Defense Department or the World Trade Center to the great informational schemes of the media, from siderurgical complexes to grand political apparatuses, from the megapolises with their senseless control of the slightest and most everyday acts: humanity, as Benjamin says, has everywhere become an object of contemplation to itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order. (‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, in Illuminations tr. Harry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt, London: Jonathan Cape: 1970, p. 244) For Benjamin, this was the very form of fascism, that is to say, a certain exacerbated form of ideology, an aesthetic perversion of politics, pushing the acceptance of a culture of death to the point of jubilation. And it is true that today the whole system of political economy has become the finality without end and the aesthetic vertigo of productivity to us, and this is only the contrasting vertigo of death. This is exactly why art is dead: at the point of saturation and sophistication, all this jubilation has passed into the spectacle of complexity itself, and all aesthetic fascination has been monopolized by the system as it grows into its own double (what else would it do with its gigantic towers, its satellites, its giant computers, if not double itself as signs?). We are all victims of production become spectacle, of the aesthetic enjoyment jouisseance, of delirious production and reproduction, and we are not about to turn our backs on it, for in every spectacle there is the immanence of the catastrophe. Today, we have made the vertigo of politics that Benjamin denounces in fascism, its perverse aesthetic enjoyment, into the experience of production at the level of the general system. We produce the experience of a de-politicised, de-ideologised vertigo of the rational administration of things, of endlessly exploding finalities. Death is immanent to political economy, which is why the latter sees itself as immortal. The revolution too fixes its sights on an immortal objective, in the name of which it demands the suspension of death in the interests of accumulation. But immortality is always the monotonous immortality of a social paradise. The revolution will never rediscover death unless it demands it immediately. Its impasse is to be hooked on the end of political economy as a progressive expiry, whereas the demand for the end of political economy is posed right now, in the demand for immediate life and death. In any case, death and enjoyment highly prized and priced, will have to be paid for throughout political economy, and will emerge as insoluble problems on the ‘day after’ the revolution. The revolution only opens the way to the problem of death, without the least chance of resolving it. In fact, there is no ‘day after’, only days for the administration of things. Death itself demands to be experienced immediately, in total blindness and total ambivalence. But is it revolutionary? If political economy is the most rigorous attempt to put an end to death, it is clear that only death can put an end to political economy.
2. Body Counts. Death debating reduces peoples’ lives to numbers for debaters to consume in their game. Jean Baudrillard, Dartmouth BM Hack, ‘93 (Symbolic Exchange and Death trans Iain Grant, 162-3, 173-5, “manpower” is left deliberately in) 2. More importantly, that everyone should have a right to their life (habeas corpus – habeas vitam) extends social jurisdiction over death. Death is socialized like everything else, and can no longer be anything but natural, since every other death is a social scandal: we have not done what is necessary. Is this social progress? No, it is rather the progress of the social, which even annexes death to itself. Everyone is dispossessed of their death, and will no longer be able to die as it is now understood. One will no longer be free to live as long as possible. Amongst other things, this signifies the ban on consuming one’s life without taking limits into account. In short, the principle of natural death is equivalent to the neutralization of life. 28 The same goes for the question of equality in death: life must be reduced to quantity (and death therefore to nothing) in order to adjust it to democracy and the law of equivalences. Baudrillard Continues p. 173-5 The same objective that is inscribed in the monopoly of institutional violence is accomplished as easily by forced survival as it is by death: a forced ‘life for life’s sake’ (kidney machines, malformed children on life-support machines, agony prolonged at all costs, organ transplants, etc.). All these procedures are equivalent to disposing of death and imposing life, but according to what ends? Those of science and medicine? Surely this is just scientific paranoia, unrelated to any human objective. Is profit the aim? No: society swallows huge amounts of profit This 'therapeutic heroism is characterised by soaring costs and 'decreasing benefits': they manufacture unproductive survivors_ Even if social security can still be analysed as 'compensation for the labour force in the interests of capital, this argument has no purchase here_ Nevertheless: the system is facing the same contradiction here as with the death penalty. it overspends on the prolongation of life because this system of values is essential to the strategic equilibrium of the whole; economically: however, this overspending unbalances the whole_ What is to be done? An economic choice becomes necessary, where we can see the outline of euthanasia as a semi-official doctrine or practice_ We choose to keep 30 per cent of the uraemics in France alive (36 per cent in the USA!). Euthanasia is already everywhere, and the ambiguity of making a humanist demand for it (as with the 'freedom' to abortion) is striking: it is inscribed in the middle to long term logic of the system. All this tends in the direction of an increase in social control. For there is a clear objective behind all these apparent contradictions: to ensure control over the entire range of life and death. From birth control to death control, whether we execute people or compel their survival (the prohibition of dying is the caricature, but also the logical form of progressive tolerance), the essential thing is that the decision is withdrawn from them: that their life and their death are never freely theirs, but that they live or die according to a social visa. It is even intolerable that their life and death remain open to biological chance, since this is still a type of freedom. Just as morality commanded you shall not kill', today it commands: 'You shall not die', not in any old way. anyhow, and only if the law and medicine permit. And if your death is conceded you, it will still be by order. In short: death proper has been abolished to make room for death control and euthanasia strictly speaking, it is no longer even death, but something completely neutralised that comes to be inscribed in the rules and calculations of equivalence: rewriting-planning-programming-system. It must be possible to operate death as a social service, integrate it like health and disease under the sign of the Plan and Social Security. This is the store of 'motel-suicides' in the USA, where, for a comfortable sum, one can purchase one's death under the most agreeable conditions (like any other consumer good); perfect service, everything has been foreseen, even trainers who give you back your appetite for life, after which they kindly and conscientiously send the gas into your room, without torment and without meeting any apposition. A service operates these motel-suicides, quite rightly paid (eventually reimbursed?). Why did death not become a social service when: like everything else: it is functionalised as individual and computable consumption in social input and output? Impact In addition to the internal impacts in the links, debating causes mass violence and genocide – over 80 studies prove. Solomon, Psych – Brooklyn Clg, Greenberg, Psych – U Ariz, and Pyszczynski, Psych – U Colorado, 2K (Current Directions in Psychological Science 9.6, Sheldon, Jeff, and Tom, “Fear of Death and Social Behavior”) Terror management theory posits that awareness of mortality engenders a potential for paralyzing terror, which is assuaged by cultural worldviews: humanly created, shared beliefs that provide individuals with the sense they are valuable members of an enduring, meaningful universe (self-esteem), and hence are qualified for safety and continuance beyond death. Thus, self-esteem serves the fundamental psychological function of buffering anxiety. In support of this view, studies have shown that bolstering selfesteem reduces anxiety and that reminders of mortality intensify striving for self-esteem; this research suggests that self-esteem is critical for psychological equanimity. Cultural worldviews serve the fundamental psychological function of providing the basis for death transcendence. To the extent this is true, reminders of mortality should stimulate bolstering of one’s worldview. More than 80 studies have supported this idea, most commonly by demonstrating that making death momentarily salient increases liking for people who support one’s worldview and hostility toward those with alternative worldviews. This work helps explain human beings’ dreadful history of intergroup prejudice and violence: The mere existence of people with different beliefs threatens our primary basis of psychological security; we therefore respond by derogation, assimilation efforts, or annihilation. Why has history been plagued by a succession of appalling ethnic cleansings? Archaeologists have found bas-reliefs from 1100 B.C. depicting Assyrian invaders’ practice of killing indigenous people by sticking them alive on stakes from groin to shoulder. These xenophobic propensities reached their zenith in the 20th century, when Hitler’s Nazi regime perpetuated the most extensive effort at genocide in history, and have continued to resurface throughout the world in
Finally, Voting neg solves: Voting neg sets a precedent for educational settings that reject the commodification of death Austin Kutscher, President of the Foundation of Thanatology and Professor – Columbia University, ‘80 (Death and Existence, p. Foreward) Within the educational setting, interdisciplinary relationships are altering the perspectives of those who must make decisions on the care of terminally ill patients, the members of their families, and other involved professional staff. The approaches to and expectations from therapeutic modalities are being broadened by new explorations into the ethics and values which should be automatically considered whenever human lives are being cared for. Philosophical enlightenment adds indispensable historical clarification to scientific interventions on behalf of the dying and the bereaved. Philosophy relates death to human existence and the quality of life – the essential quality of human existence itself that engages the consciences of those who would offer us humanistic medicine. Compassion and knowledge are the springs from which flow trust and faith, without which man can live only a most deprived and barren existence. The task is to know how and when decisions can be made, to proceed thoughtfully while making them, to distinguish between what can and cannot be done and what should and should not be done. In analyzing death, in interpreting its every significant nuance, Professor Carse advances the cause of all who delve into the meaning of life. Mere survival is not enough to provide nourishment for the soul of man. The message to be read in Philosophy and in Thanatology is the same: Life is a treasure which mankind must cherish a treasure whose value increases exponentially when one being bestows solace on and acts to give love to humankind, collectively and individually.
A. Deterrence Alfred C. Snider, Edwin Lawrence Assistant Professor of Forensics - University of Vermont, ‘4 (http://debate.uvm.edu/ReplyFrank.doc, date from Archive.org, article also cites 2002 articles) The challenges to the game of debate mentioned in my essay also directly address this. The critical move in debate, where debaters step outside of the traditional “box” to analyze the ethical issues of argumentative perspectives and to analyze the language employed in a debate belies this concern. Almost all American debaters know that making a racist or sexist comment in a debate is one of the easiest ways to lose a ballot, as the opposing team is likely to make that the only issue in the debate, and the judge will make an example of you. There is no time in debate history when falsification and fabrication of evidence has been better monitored or when the behavior of debaters as regards evidence has been better. This may be more due to the ability to check the evidence used by others, but it still is the case. This sort of ethical dimension of argument and presentation has been made an issue in the decision. Winning at all costs could cost you the win.
B. Corrective justice Alfred C. Snider, Edwin Lawrence Assistant Professor of Forensics - University of Vermont, ‘84 (The National Forensic Journal, II, Fall, “Ethics in Academic Debate”) Ethics concerns codes of behavior, specifically in the "ought to" or "should" sense of behavior. Duke notes that the ethics of game use is a very important issue.5 While an issue of importance should be dealt with by strict criteria in the game design process, this is not possible, since many ethical considerations cannot be anticipated during the design process and must be dealt with during the play of the game itself. In attempting to compose an ethical code for the game of debate, the options are either to state a small number of criteria which lack precision or to produce a long list of criteria which restrict the options of the participant. Almost all philosophical disputations which attempt to determine whether a given pattern of behaviors is "ethical" or not give special attention to the particulars of the situation and the ends which are at issue. While murder is seen as unethical behavior by most individuals, never-theless these same individuals might find it tolerable if it was committed in self-defense. Once we begin formulating ethical guidelines we are soon lost in a sea of "if. . . then" statements designed to take situational factors and the desirability of certain ends into account. What is true of general ethical guidelines is also true of ethical guidelines for debate. Recognizing that ethical considerations probably must be dealt with inside a given debateplaces such as Cambodia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, and the United States— where in 1999 A.D. ------------at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, two Nazi-influenced teenagers massacred schoolmates, seemingly provoked by threats not to material well-being, but to the abstract entity known as self-esteem.
10/14/16
1-Nebel T
Tournament: Valley | Round: 3 | Opponent: Lexington CB | Judge: Abby Chapman Interp-On the SepOct NSDA topic debaters must advocate for countries in general prohibiting nuclear power and not that one country of combination of countries prohibit. Violation- bruh brazil isnt every country standards- a. Grammar (do i have to provide the cite for nebel like we all know it whatever) ‘countries’ in the resolution is a generic bare plural. Nebel, http://vbriefly.com/2014/12/19/jake-nebel-on-specifying-just-governments/, dec19 2014 b. common usage c. jurisdiction d. Limits
drop arg no rvi on t
10/14/16
1-Performance wreform bad k
Tournament: UT | Round: 4 | Opponent: Edmond North DA | Judge: Nikunj Patel Our alternative is a performative interrogation of debate Hi. I’m Logan. I hope you are having a good day. I wonder, have you ever heard that in a round before? In this round, flow everything you can, this debate shouldn’t be read like a flow, but rather a novel. Every word is relevant. Lets start with some poetry. Decency, by Logan Reed Published on my wiki Tabroom offers a gender option. You knew that, You got a text before the round. It told you to call me she. You looked on my wiki. It told you to call me she. You may have even asked me. I told you to call me she. Yet you still called me he. This is me every week, At every tournament this year, I’ve been called he. We claim to fight oppression in debate, And that sounds great, Winter and Leighton, And safe spaces. And we claim advocacy. But what’s the relevancy, If we can’t act decently? Even in progressive attempts to create gender equality in debate, transgender identity is disregarded. Articles talking about gender in debate literally in exclude gender identities that don’t fall into conventional binaries. Here’s the method of ‘Gender Disparities in Competitive High School Debate’- To clarify, in this paper, “gender gap” refers to gender identity since the data I use asks for selfor coach-reported gender. The data does not distinguish between biological sex and gender identity. It is probably safe to interpret summary statistics as applicable to either a “biological sex gap” or a “gender gap” given the small size of the population whose biological sex and gender identity differ, but there is no way to know this with certainty. Moreover, I exclude observations where gender is labeled “Other” due to concerns about reporting accuracy and sample size. For instance, only 5 debate rounds in my sample were judged by a judge whose gender was labeled “Other.” While some of these observations may capture students or judges who identify as genderqueer or otherwise, others may simply be errors in data entry. Gates and Steinberger (2010) have documented substantial errors in gender reporting on U.S. Census data that pose large challenges to studying same-sex couples, and similar problems apply to this paper’s dataset.
Next, the community Trans students aren’t just marginalized in debate; we aren’t even part of the conversation. This results in an environment where I don’t feel safe using the restroom at debate tournaments, where I’m told even by my own school that, for the purposes of competition, I am to be labeled with my assigned gender at birth, and where I and other students face consistent and sometimes malignantly misgendered both in and out of round. Most the time, there’s no action taken, not even a comment on the ballot, even by judges aware of the circumstances. This is the shit that we have to fix- we need to interrogate our norms that allow us to talk about oppression every round then actively oppress members of our community. You link specifically through your commodification of the others suffering- this is uniquely bad under a Levinasian ethic. Right now, we “ What’s left is a community of very ‘woke’ students who thrive on a set of, honestly, quite bizarre community norms framed by espousals of a community ethic of academic progressivism. As we’ve started speaking faster and spending more time with our faces buried in academic literature studying the root conditions of social inequity, I think we’ve lost sight of the intersection between the now eve r-present discussions of the oppressed in rounds and the real marginalized students who aren’t given the opportunity to speak in the debate space that we’ve carved out around their social image. Debate, with the apparent tenure of role of the ballot-style arguments, is evolving into it’s potential as a micropolitical space that would be incredibly valuable for oppressed voices who are all too often placed in educational settings that, fatally, do not give them the skills to question their own situations. We must go forth with unwavering self-critique of our tendency to fall into internalist tunnel vision if we are to reclaim authenticity in an increasingly obfuscated debate climate. I debated locally on the New Orleans, Louisiana LD circuit for Benjamin Franklin High School all four years of high school. My sophomore year I became cognizant of the national (or TOC) circuit of debate and knew I wanted to be part of it. I looked up to the national circuit debaters I watched, they seamlessly could control a round and think fast on their feet. But those debaters generally came from big programs with funding for coaches and travel, which made their presence on the national circuit of little controversy. I never felt the same comfort. Coming from a small charter school in education budget-stripped Louisiana, my school was unable to monetarily assist me in the, frankly, enormous costs to travel nationally and could only give me the ability to use the school name. My family isn’t rich, but we get by, and I was lucky enough to have a father invested enough in debate to travel with me to tournaments across the country out of our pocket. I traveled nationally my junior and senior years and qualified to the Tournament of Champions both years and saw, first hand, the ways that debate excludes those who need it most. During my time debating, one thing always tore at my connection to the activity: the hands-on disparities I felt as an independent (or “lone wolf”) debater and, much larger than my own struggle, the unspoken truth of the barrier to entry faced by countless racially and economically disenfranchised students across the country. The national circuit rests on a set of paradoxes: we speak rapidly in an intense lexicon of jargon indecipherable by those outside of our nerd commune, but read cases that tout frameworks about establishing social conditions for participatory and moral inclusion; tournament directors homogenize independent debaters as anarchic forces that threaten the stability of established program hegemony, but if a debater defends any long-standing institution of power they are likely to be critiqued as a degenerate peddling the ideology of absolute evil; programs would rather hire a new coach to turn debaters into perfect social justice allies for ballots, instead of dedicating funds to scholarships to allow low-income students in middle school debate leagues to access the established, well-funded programs that win rounds off of recycled images of these students very real social position. Sadly, the inconsistencies go on and, upon examination of this quiet hypocrisy, our supposed devotion to the radical restructuring of powerful systems in favor of the oppressed looks more like soft-boiled, self-moralizing liberalism. It seems to be the case that it’s time to put our intellectual money where are mouths are and for the prevailing in-and-out of round discussion to shift from, ‘What can debate do for the marginalized?’ to ‘How can we incorporate the marginalized into high levels of debate?’ Talking to local circuit debaters coming from a background in national circuit debate was always incredibly humbling because I had no greater claim to my ability to travel than the less privileged debaters I spoke to. They would speak longingly about the ability to travel and see the regional spectrums of the national circuit, be privy to experienced judges, and have the ground to read new philosophy. These students often dealt with various combinations of undedicated and/or inexperienced coaches, lack of school funding, and personally unstable financial situations. These students have all the passion and curiosity (if not more) of the greatest national circuit debaters and the barrier they face is unacceptable in a community that espouses mass, unabashed openness. Some tournaments and debate camps have begun to feature open table discussions about community issues of exclusion surrounding race, gender, sexuality, etc. These discussions are incredibly valuable and I have been a part of many of them, but they are ultimately not encompassing of those who have no voice in those discussions at all. They are part of a privileged form of liberalism that has proliferated national circuit debate. It hails anyone’s inclusion into discursive spaces…as long as you can pay for your plane tickets to the Glenbrooks. We must understand discrimination in debate as multi-leveled. The type of discrimination we are generally concerned about is the institutional disparities between social groups within debate. This is only the surface and it overlooks the web of structural violence and exclusion that keeps debate, and many sites of political discourse, defined by class lines and prejudice. It is the lived reality of these forgotten, yet never introduced students that show us exactly whom debate’s “critical pedagogy” is not made for. “Critical pedagogy” is a term often thrown around in debate rounds without much inquiry as to what it constitutes, it has just become another assumption in our jargon and a buzzword. Paulo Freire, one of the first to write extensively on the subject, explains these forgotten, yet defining features of critical pedagogy in Pedagogy of the Oppressed: “Authentic education is not carried on by “A” for “B” or by “A” about “B,” but rather by “A” with “B,” mediated by the world—a world which impresses and challenges both parties, giving rise to views or opinions about it. These views, impregnated with anxieties, doubts, hopes, or hopelessness, imply significant themes on the basis of which the program content of education can be built. In its desire to create an ideal model of the “good human,” a naively conceived humanism often overlooks the concrete, existential, present situation of real people. … For the truly humanist educator and the authentic revolutionary, the object of action is the reality to be transformed by them together with other people—not other men and women themselves… The revolutionary’s role is to liberate, and be liberated, with the people—not to win them over.” Critical arguments and identity politics attempt to create a model of good human conduct towards the Other, but currently do very little materially to include many of those that they claim to liberate with their words. Critical pedagogy is defined by the egalitarian academic relationship between the marginalized student, educators, and academic spheres, such that they can come together to draft authentic liberatory strategies for the historically marginalized. These arguments may exist as cathartic and crucial academic avenues for traditionally societally marginalized students who are fortunately allowed to debate, but the proliferation of these arguments has not lead to the proliferation of attempts to bridge the socially deprived and the national circuit – these arguments can only benefit those who have already been integrated, which seems odd from a community that treats Wynter and Leighton like one of the 10 Commandments. Impersonal appeals to roles of ballots and judges are ultimately what Freire characterizes as revolutionary’s appealing to the marginalized in an attempt to ‘win them over.’ This is problematic because it imagines the marginalized solely as an object of suffering and not as a concrete, political subject with potential for creating positive, material change. Debate heroism drains the marginalized of agency through false representation and, like any self-serving palliative in the economy of white supremacy, tells us that our dues have been paid to the marginalized without having to actually interact with them. Sure, the education that current debaters gain now is important, but are well-off students the ones who are really lacking an academic source of the critical thinking skills that debate fosters in comparison to students whose classroom setting are cyclically underfunded and present a façade of learning. Freire’s model of critical pedagogy critiqued the “banking model” of teaching that runs supreme in these destitute classrooms. Banking is characterized by the teaching of ‘objective’ facts to be memorized and repeated, but never critically examined – this is the demand of a society that mixes quality of academia and capital. The crucial issue with this model of education is that marginalized students never learn how to question the terms and conditions of their social location from this system because their social position is taught to them as fact to be internalized for regurgitation. Absent an educational site for marginalized students to relate their quotidian experiences with oppression to larger systems of social division’s historical construction, authentic and informed social and policy changes will never come because the voice of the marginalized is not its foundation. National circuit debate often only produces the privileged conjecture of what world the oppressed must desire if they think like the rest of us, and that approach disguises itself as a humanist gesture from elites to cover up their conscious use of narratives of real suffering to fulfill self-interested ends, which constitutes the total commodification of the suffering of the Other. Which is to say, the suffering of the Other is used as a strong persuasive tool to breed fear-based politics around a narrative of moral absolution to Western liberalism. In a society structured heavily by class lines, we continually consume images of the suffering to relieve deep-seated anxieties about our own social locations through displacement. This is why people watch mindless reality television and shows like Narcos or Orange is the New Black, which serve as disaster porn for an increasingly numbed audience. When heteronormative, sexist, and racist violence is what average people watch before they go to bed, how do we actually process impacts of structural violence and social death against groups of people who are largely not even present? In The Illusion of the End, sociologist Jean Baudrillard examines this frenzied devouring of suffering: “We have long denounced the capitalistic, economic exploitation of the poverty of the ‘other half of the world’ ‘autre monde. We must today denounce the moral and sentimental exploitation of that poverty – charity cannibalism being worse than oppressive violence. The extraction and humanitarian reprocessing of a destitution, which has become the equivalent of oil deposits and gold mines. The extortion of the spectacle of poverty and, at the same time, of our charitable condescension: a worldwide appreciated surplus of fine sentiments and bad conscience. … material exploitation is only there to extract that spiritual raw material that is the misery of peoples, which serves as psychological nourishment for the rich countries and media nourishment for our daily lives.” Without an authentic attempt to place the exploited in the center of our discussions, we commodify their real, lived experiences to moralistic ballot appeals that quarantine potentially liberatory discussion to a 45-minute discursive proxy wars where the only real goal is the accumulation of communal prestige. Fiat fuels our politics of exaggeration by establishing an undue assumption of reality behind the advocacies of debaters. This allows debaters to make claims like voting aff is a “try-or-die” situation for the marginalized people the aff speaks about, but after the round the aff doesn’t happen, no one is saved and those people may still ‘or-die’, but the judge and debater leave and feel like they’re done the ‘right’ thing. Here we see exactly why the subjectivities of the marginalized are absolutely essential when deconstructing historical lines of oppression. The marginalized are the sole interlocutor between perspectives defined by survival and subversion against prevailing paradigms of total antagonism, and the revolutionary energy stored within the silenced for reclamation of a stolen humanity. It is critical education that allows the marginalized to synthesize these two conditions into real change that defies our scheduled demands for suffering. An example familiar to a fair amount of debaters who have, inadvertently or not, read this argument is Damien Schnyder, UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, when he writes about the importance of including ‘black thought’ in light of it’s historic exclusion by virtue of it’s ability to imagine alternatives to our major systems of economy. It is this hegemonic fear of possibility that explains both the debate community’s flocking to Blackness studies as the new, cool outlook, and it’s simultaneous disavowal of personal narrativity through a culture that worships academic evidence: “Black bodies, through their collective experiences of subjugated Blackness, become a threat to the very function of civil society. Blackness has to be contained and managed in order to protect white supremacy. … It is at this moment – when Blackness becomes identified as antithetical to the notions of work –that white supremacy is able to unleash it’s fury upon the Black body. For it is within this space that the Black body can have anything and everything done to protect the order of civil society.46 Thus in order to contain the threat of Blackness, the Herculean managers of the hydra-like attack upon society are teachers (Linebaugh and Rediker, 2000).47 Within the development of civil society, the function of teachers is to both categorize states of being and enclose Blackness. … Students are prevented from interjecting alternative versions of economic systems within the framework of the discussion. Students must perform the perfunctory duty of work (basic memorization and recitation skills) not to only to be awarded with a passing grade, but not to be penalized. The result is a silencing of Black voices whose life experiences are in direct contradiction with hegemonic constructions of economy (i.e. supply and demand) that was taught by Mr. Keynes. There was no space to analyze the racial structure that frames economic modes of relation, nor was there opportunity to engage in dialogue with regards to the economics of why many of the students had to work to support their families.” If we are to create true critical pedagogy, centrally interested in the marginalized student’s liberation, the community must devote itself to actually doing the ‘right’ thing after these rounds and confirming that direction with those we intend to recover full humanity with. If we legitimately care about the community principle of fighting structural violence, we must start with those who understand that violence as quotidian. Hegemonic systems privilege established factions because the marginalized have very purposefully never been given an active voice in social construction. We are beginning to face a challenge to the extent of our progressivism and it increasingly seems like we’re only willing to draw attention to the marginalized when it posits us as discursive Robin Hoods and fills our ego with ballots. This orientation risks inculcating bad dispositions towards life and political agency outside of debate. When judges aren’t there to drool over social justice parlor tricks, debaters have no incentive to do anything more than change their Facebook profile pictures in line with social events to get the same self-moralism through ‘likes’ and validation. Therefore, if we are to earnestly reverse this trend, the role of the debate community is to give marginalized students a new and encompassing means by which they can speak in the supposed ‘space of inclusion’ we’ve built, otherwise debate’s tragic irony can only be described as an ivory tower made to host elephants. I can only think of the countless impoverished students that we implicitly refer to when we make structural violence arguments, and their deeply ironic absence as we claim to do something novel. The faces behind our impacts cannot afford to be in the room to know they’ve been saved. Some may characterize this as fatalistic and an unfair evaluation of the state of debate activism, but I view it more as a realistic platform for looking forward. We have done well to create such an open-minded space amongst mostly privileged actors, we simply need to redirect that energy to real programs instead of ballots that do nothing for the social groups that they are directed at. Urban debate leagues do good work in exposing marginalized students to forums of critical exchange, but few do well in bridging the gap to the national circuit. Teams like Newark Science Park in Newark and Success Academy in New York City constitute only a small section of the national circuit, but give us a good vision for how independent actors should work to empower traditionally excluded schools and communities. It should be noted that these schools are able to have such progressive programs due to the crucial coaching work of ex-debaters who are willing to give back to those who need debate most. Ex-debaters with national circuit experience should give serious thought to devoting some time to helping those who otherwise cannot experience what they did. Revolutionary education is only valuable if we spread it to those who have a significant stake in its vision and national circuit does give us a conceptually great framework for the marginalized to imagine change. However, as an ex-independent and as someone who coaches a few independent debaters now, arbitrary exclusion of independents is rampant. This stigma derives from the belief by a group of prominent coaches that independents homogenously are not held accountable for school rules, do not provide judges, and are somehow betraying their schools. When I debated nationally, I, and my current independent students, followed all tournament and school rules, provided judges consistently, and had approval from the school. These facts did not allow me to register for anti-independent tournaments (which include massive bid tournaments) and did not stop tournament directors from making registration harder than necessary. My, and many other aspiring debaters, situation is not the fault of students; it’s the fault of nationally poorly funded public education programs. We effectively victim blame students for going to public schools in the status quo of debate, so, before we hail ourselves for being progressive leftists, we ought to examine our own practices, prejudices, and norms ” Heres some additional links- you use legal reform: “The hypothesis drawn by some feminist lawyers from Gilligan's research is that, just as traditional psychological theories have privileged a male perspective and marginalized women's voices, so too law privileges a male view of the universe and that law is part of the structure of male domination. The hierarchical organization of law, its adversarial format and its aim of the abstract resolution of competing rights, make the law an intensely patriarchal institution. Law, thus represents a very limited aspect of human experience. The language and imagery of the law underscores is maleness: it lays claim to rationality, objectivity and abstractness, characteristics traditionally associated with men, and is defined in contrast to emotion, subjectivity and contextualized thinking - the province of women. ” AND, “Though patriarchal customs preceded state formation, masculinist and class systems got institutionalized as states were structured. Gender and class relations were backed by the coercive power of the state and the reproduction of this hierarchy was ensured through a complex of legitimizing ideologies. The 'individual household unit rendered women vulnerable to and dependent on fathers/brothers/husbands and weakened their access to countervailing power and support from larger kin networks. The role of women in the domestic/household sphere was regulated by the state. With new inheritance claims, sexuality and reproduction too were regulated by the state. For instance, women's adultery became a crime against the state and was punished publicly. The state became the main organizer of power relations of gender. It engaged in the mystification of its patriarchal base by constructing and manipulating the ideology that drew a distinction between public and private life. ” This is especially true of this specific topic. We ignore the way that ”“The state further formalized gender power relations by retaining male domination of the top personnel within it. Gender differentiation became evident, thanks to disproportionate number of men in the coercive structures of the state (army, police, etc.), and women in the service sectors (teaching, health, clerical support, etc.). In fact, women were "protected" from the so-called "tough professions" in order to keep them out and to prevent them from getting equal rights. Men became eligible for better jobs and better pay in the liberal societies while women had to struggle hard for these privileges. ” And we act like state action changes anything in the first place, despite the fact that “Traditional feminism, in law as elsewhere, sought to "put women on the agenda" -- for example, to make violence against women a violation of international human rights. While first-wave feminism concentrated on legal reform, the second wave has lost faith. Reform has often been ineffectual or led to transformation, rather than eradication, of male dominance. Sometimes, "using" law may have seemed to be a fatal concession. For the law and legal method may themselves, with their adversarial style and obsession with authority and rationality, be bastions of stereotypical masculinity-hence, of male domination. This applies also to the rhetoric of liberal rights ("men's rights," Shelley Wright, p. 120). While "rights," like reformism, may have played a beneficial role in early feminist struggles, they have also proved counterproductive. They oversimplify complex power relations (within the family, for instance); they are individualistic, indeterminate, conflictual and easily appropriated to enhance domination (as the right of free speech is used to defend pornography). ” Your ballot should signify an epistemic break, a genuine encounter with the other where we interrogate lived experiences with oppression in the debate space. The ac is a performative act with the intent of criticizing the replication and commodification of oppression in debate. Negate in a rejection of passivity, of rage, that confronts the powers that work against gender autonomy. We demand that identities marginalized by the totality of normalcy be recognized in this space. Historically, I hate straight people who can’t listen to queer anger without saying “hey, all straight people aren’t like that. I’m straight too, you know,” as if their egos don’t get enough stroking or protection in this arrogant, heterosexist world. Why must we take care of them, in the midst of our just anger brought on by their f—ed up society?! Why add the reassurance of “Of course, I don’t mean you. You don’t act that way.” Let them figure out for themselves whether they deserve to be included in our anger.¶ But of course that would mean listening to our anger, which they almost never do. They deflect it, by saying “I’m not like that” or “now look who’s generalizing” or “You’ll catch more flies with honey … ” or “If you focus on the negative you just give out more power” or “you’re not the only one in the world who’s suffering.” They say “Don’t yell at me, I’m on your side” or “I think you’re overreacting” or “Boy, you’re bitter.”¶ ¶ - The Queer Nation Manifesto ¶ ¶ Last weeks post involved a quote from The Queer Nation referring to the way in which straight people have taught us that good queers don’t get angry. A good queer is one that accepts the “progress” that others have made for us. According to straight people, and some queers who have accepted the straight position, we should be thankful for things like same-sex marriage and the repeal of DADT. However, the acceptance of progress is a form of passivity that forgets the importance of queers of the past who fought for our recognition while maintaining the uniqueness of queer identities. We forget about the politics of groups like ACT UP and the protests of Stonewall. These histories are ignored in favor of assimilationist strategies that we are taught are good because of straightness. ¶ ¶ Rather, we need to use our anger at straightness as the starting point for our politics. We need to stop accepting liberal progress narratives that keep us passive and have forced us to conform to what a “good citizen” should look like. Benjamin Shepard writes, ¶ Thus, play intermingled with a full range of emotions—from despair to pathos, from pleasure to terror. Charles King, a veteran of ACT UP New York’s Housing Committee, which evolved into Housing Works, of which he is now president, explained that these combined feelings of joy and anger fueled the group’s work: I actually think it’s a combination of the two. . . . The AIDS movement in the 1980s was fueled by this amazing combination of taking grief and anger and turning it into this powerful energy for action. But in the course of that, developing this comradely love. Yes, the anger was the fuel. It’s what brought us together and taking that anger and not just sitting with it. . . not just letting grief turn into despair. Bringing it into some sort of action was very cathartic, but also what was cathartic in the process was all the loving that was taking place. ¶ ¶ Anger can be transformative. Anger is a strategy that allows us to develop creative strategies for resistance against heteronormative institutions and practices. I am tired, and we should all be tired of both straight people along others in our own community telling us that we should be happy about all of the progress that has been made. FUCK THAT PROGRESS. Our passivity and acceptance of it makes us forget about the queer bashing that so many in our community face everyday. Anti-queerness is still just as prevalent as ever, but under the guise of tolerance we have covered up the physical and psychological violence that so many queers face everyday. There are homeless queer youth everywhere. There are queer people being assaulted in our streets. There are parents telling their children they are going to get AIDS and die, that they are perverts and should die, and are sending them to therapy to “make them straight.” Governments – state and local are complacent and strategically prevent us from having access to housing, jobs, and other material resources. Instead of being fucking happy about same-sex marriage, we should be fucking mad. We should be angry that we pretend that it’s getting better. IT IS NOT! Stop pretending. Be angry. Utilize our rage to confront the ways in which anti-queerness continue to perpetuate violence against queer bodies everywhere.
Heres the bibliography, in case your word processor doesn’t deal well with footnotes. If you have a problem with my formatting of cites in this case, tell me BEFORE THE ROUND please.
4 Charlesworth and Chinkin 2000 - *Hilary, Christine Professors of Law at University of Adelaide and University of South Hampton, The boundaries of international law: a feminist analysis, 2000, p. 40-1)
5 Chenoy 2000 – Professor of International Studies @ Nehru University. (Anuradha, Professor, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, 2000, p.19)
6 Chenoy 2000 – Professor of International Studies @ Nehru University. (Anuradha, Professor, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, 2000, p.19)
7 Koskenniemi 1995 Martti Koskenniemi, University of Helsinki, January, , The American Journal International Law, 89 A.J.I.L. 227, p. 227
8. Copenhaver 14 (Robert Copenhaver identified as a Queer person of faith, graduate of Idaho State University, whose interests include queer theory, politics, and theology. He will be starting a masters in theological studies at The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago next fall; “Queer Rage”; published 2/19/14; http://coperoge.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/queer-rage/) GFD
12/10/16
1-Plan flaw
Tournament: UNT | Round: Semis | Opponent: Collyville Heritage AltS | Judge: Rutter, Melin, McGee Interpretation- Unconditional affirmative advocacies must be grammatically coherent. To clarify, your advocacy text must not be vague/ ambiguous Violation:
Violation:
Impact- Lack of definitional clarity undermines the implementation of your advocacy- kills your ability to solve Crawford 1 (Gordon, Lecturer in Development Studies @ University of Leeds, Foreign Aid and Political Reform: A Comparative Analysis and Political Conditionality, 2001, pg.29-30) A range of analysts have commented that a feature of the main concepts – human rights, democracy and good governance – is their contested nature and that their introduction into development assistance is characterized by a lack of conceptual clarity, with repercussions for policy coherence. The only possible exception is human rights, benefiting from greater definitional specificity through its incorporation into international law. Pertinently, Burnell (1994, p. 488) noted that clarity of aims and objectives is essential for effective policy implementation, with negative implications if concepts are insufficiently well defined.
And, Standards- advocacy shift
jurisdiction
2/23/17
1-T laundry list
Tournament: Midway | Round: Finals | Opponent: Emil lol | Judge: 3 ppl Interpretation- Affirmatives must only defend a topical advocacy. to clarify-you must be t and must not be extra t
Tournament: University of North Texas | Round: Finals | Opponent: Southlake Carroll JC | Judge: panel-Jackson, Davidson, Rutter interp- The aff must permute the alt within the same timeframe as the alt and Plan. violation- you perm by changing the timeframe of the alt standards-
impact ground analytic 2. Clash analytic vote on edu/ROB Drop the argument- this shell contests the theoretical legitimacy of your perm. this implies no rvi so there can be reciprocity, which comes first because analytic
10/31/16
2- CP Fusion
Tournament: Holy Cross | Round: 2 | Opponent: Mountain Brook PS | Judge: Travis Fife Fusion pic Text Countries will prohibit the production of nuclear energy produced through fission reactors. Competition-the cp excludes power from fusion reactors-mutually exclusive. Net benefits- Nuclear fusion energy is clean, safe, and possible- it represents a solution to the worldwide nuclear crisis. Jagers et al Nuclear Energy Author(s): Karl Grandin, Peter Jagers and Sven Kullander Source: Ambio , Vol. 39, Supplement 1. Special Report: Energy 2050 (2010), pp. 26-30 Published by: Springer on behalf of Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40801588 Accessed: 08-08-2016 19:23 UTC During the past 50 years, a steadily growing collaboration on fusion research has taken place within the world scientific community. Large successful projects are being conducted in many of the industrialized countries such as JET (EU), TFTR and DIII-D (USA), and JT60-U (Japan). These are now followed by an even larger international experiment, ITER, initiated in 2005 and aiming at a burning full-scale reactor-like plasma. This is a joint project of the EU, USA, Japan, Russia, China, South Korea, and India. A further step after ITER is a demonstration reactor, DEMO, to be decided on around 2020. The international strategy also comprises back-up activities including concept improvements of the stellarator, the spherical tokamak and the reversed field pinch, coordination of national research activities on inertial confinement and possible alternative concepts as well as long-term fusion reactor technology. An important part of the latter is the IFMIF materials irradiation facility that fills the present gap of material tests at the high flux of 14 MeV neutrons in a fusion reactor. Some key issues in the use of fusion: Advantages and disadvantages compared to fission Technical and physical issues (initial confinement, magnetic confinement) From JET to ITER to DEMO to a power producing reactor Non-proliferation and waste Economical competiveness Time scale of realization Due to the inherent physics, fusion has a safety advantage over fission, and no long-lived radioactive waste is produced. However, there is a long road ahead before all the physical and technological issues are solved. The roadmap will address these aspects. In his talk “Fusion energy—ready for use by 2050?” Friedrich Wagner addressed the state of the development of fusion energy. Fusion energy, being the energy source of the stars, has the advantage of being both sustainable and environmental friendly. He pointed out that the energy within 1 g of fusion fuel corresponds to that of 12 tonnes of coal. The fuel for the first generation of a fusion reactor would be deuterium and tritium, where deuterium can be obtained from seawater and tritium can be bred from lithium, which is contained in the earth’s crust. In order for fusion reactions to take place, the repelling Coulomb forces of the nuclear constituents have to be overcome, which may occur at temperatures of 150 million °C. At such temperatures the fuel is in a plasma state, and needs magnetic confinement. The most popular fusion research facility is of the Tokamak type with magnetic confinement. An alternative way of obtaining fusion energy is by using a Stellarator type device with magnetic confinement in three dimensions. Already a short pulse of 16 MW of fusion energy has been produced at JET, the Joint European Torus experimental facility at Culham, UK. Plans are already underway to build the first experimental fusion reactor ITER, International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, in France as an international collaboration. ITER is a Tokamak type facility for demonstrating the feasibility of a fusion power plant. The goal is to produce fusion power of 500 MW, but most importantly to gain experience in regard to all the inherent physical problems. The target parameter for fusion research is the triple product of plasma temperature, particle density, and plasma confinement time. The plasma is heated by produced alpha particles and cooled by radiation and transport losses. From the present research, the targets for temperature and density have been achieved, but a factor 4 remains for the plasma confinement time. The solution is to make the containment volume larger and, in ITER with a radius of 6 m, the goal is to reach the sufficient confinement time and required triple product. According to Wagner, it is envisaged to deliver adequate information on physics, technology, and materials so that construction of a demonstration reactor, a DEMO plant can be started in 2030. In parallel to the ITER research, studies on the Stellarator type facility W7-X will be carried out in Greifswald for studying the plasma physics. When the decision for the final DEMO design is taken, the Tokamak geometry is the main option for the magnetic field layout, but a Stellarator design may be an attractive alternative. Along with the plasma physics studies, material studies are being carried out at the IFMIF 14 MeV neutron source in Japan. The DEMO will address the technological aspects and test the economy of the design. The main goal is to reach a steady-state operation, to achieve a reliable tritium production, to optimize the ferritic steel material and to demonstrate an economically competitive price. In conclusion, Wagner believed that fusion energy would be available from 2050, at least there is no evidence that there should be any fundamental obstacle in the basic physics. According to Wagner, there is a clear roadmap to commercialize fusion and he concluded that with fusion, we hand over to future generations a clean, safe, sustainable, and—in his expectations—economical power source accessible to all mankind. Nuclear energy cannot, as once believed, solve all of the world’s energy problems, but it can play an important carbon-free role in the production of electrical energy. For this reason, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ Energy Committee sees a need for continued and strengthened research for the development of the third and especially fourth generations of fission reactors. Without functioning fourth generation reactors, nuclear fission energy will not be sustainable, but with such reactor designs in operation it will be a viable option for a long time. Fusion energy has the potential of becoming a long-term environmental friendly and material-efficient energy option. However, concerted scientific research and technology development on an international scale is required for fusion to become a cost-effective energy option in this century.
And, they have to win a disad to fusion power to win- the CP still solves all the aff offence by banning fission power, which is the form of nuclear power that actually causes their impacts
10/14/16
2- CP negotiation
Tournament: Holy Cross | Round: 4 | Opponent: Durham OC | Judge: William Ponder Part one is the counterplan- The nuclear industry should engage in social risk assessment with native peoples; this corrects for the failures of current social impact assessment and is key to a new engagement process that respects indigenous people- better solves their impacts by directly including indigenous people in the social. Graetz, Geordan. “Uranium Mining and Indigenous Peoples: The Role of SIA.” 32 nd Annual Meeting of the International Association for Impact Assessment. January 06, 2012. Web. August 12, 2016. http://conferences.iaia.org/2012/pdf/uploadpapers/Final20papers20review20proce ss/Graetz,20Geordan.2020Uranium20Mining20and20Indigenous20Peoples ,20the20Role20of20SIA.pdf.
Conclusion: A New Approach In light of the constraints associated with SIA and HRIA, this paper proposes the development of a new approach, which would better incorporate insights from social risk and business risk disciplines, and their interconnections, as well as theoretical and practical knowledge about indigenous rights. Indigenous people are increasingly cognisant of their rights, and the promulgation of indigenous rights instruments over the last 20 years has enhanced their bargaining position vis-à-vis uranium companies. If companies fail positively to respond to this new rights paradigm, they are unlikely to gain or maintain the important social licence to operate. The approach suggested here would supplement the SIA/HRIA process, and, importantly, would result in a new stakeholder engagement process being embedded into corporate decision-making and government policy-making apparatuses. However, social risk is relatively under-theorised, especially as it pertains to the extractive industries, thereby necessitating more empirical and theoretical work to demonstrate its appropriateness as a prism through which to engage with indigenous peoples confronted with uranium developments. The recent thawing in relations between indigenous peoples and the Australian uranium industry arguably is attributable to the recognition of both indigenous rights and the business risk consequences of not getting engagement right. The importance of this nexus cannot be understated, especially as demand for uranium increases to fuel the next generation of nuclear power plants. Part 2 is Net benefits- analytic and, mutually exclusive
10/14/16
2-DA Consumerism
Tournament: Valley | Round: 2 | Opponent: Scarsdale LS | Judge: Danni A is the linbk- Consumption-the AC engages in technological determinism. This is the belief that changing our technology can change our society. This is backwards, we must start with a vision of society and then chose the appropriate tech. Failure to engage in societal critique reinforces a genocidal system of overconsumption
Byrne and Toly 6 John – Head of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy – It’s a leading institution for interdisciplinary graduate education, research, and advocacy in energy and environmental policy – John is also a Distinguished Professor of Energy and Climate Policy at the University of Delaware – 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Toly – Directs the Urban Studies and Wheaton in Chicago programs - Selected to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Emerging Leaders Program for 2011-2013 - expertise includes issues related to urban and environmental politics, global cities, and public policy, “Energy as a Social Project: Recovering a Discourse,” p. 1-32 From climate change to acid rain, contaminated landscapes, mercury pollution, and biodiversity loss, the origins of many of our least tractable environmental problems can be traced to the operations of the modern energy system. A scan of nightfall across the planet reveals a social dila that also accompanies this system’s operations: invented over a century ago, electric light remains an experience only for the socially privileged. Two billion human beings—almost one-third of the planet’s population—experience evening light by candle, oil lamp, or open fire, reminding us that energy modernization has left intact—and sometimes exacerbated—social inequalities that its architects promised would be banished (Smil, 2003: 370 - 373). And there is the disturbing link between modern energy and war. 3 Whether as a mineral whose control is fought over by the powerful (for a recent history of conflict over oil, see Klare, 2002b, 2004, 2006), or as the enablement of an atomic war of extinction, modern energy makes modern life possible and threatens its future. With environmental crisis, social inequality, and military conflict among the significant problems of contemporary energy-society relations, the importance of a social analysis of the modern energy system appears easy to establish. One might, therefore, expect a lively and fulsome debate of the sector’s performance, including critical inquiries into the politics, sociology, and political economy of modern energy. Yet, contemporary discourse on the subject is disappointing: instead of a social analysis of energy regimes, the field seems to be a captive of euphoric technological visions and associated studies of “energy futures” that imagine the pleasing consequences of new energy sources and devices. 4 One stream of euphoria has sprung from advocates of conventional energy, perhaps best represented by the unflappable optimists of nuclear power 12 Transforming Power who, early on, promised to invent a “magical fire” (Weinberg, 1972) capable of meeting any level of energy demand inexhaustibly in a manner “too cheap to meter” (Lewis Strauss, cited in the New York Times 1954, 1955). In reply to those who fear catastrophic accidents from the “magical fire” or the proliferation of nuclear weapons, a new promise is made to realize “inherently safe reactors” (Weinberg, 1985) that risk neither serious accident nor intentionally harmful use of high-energy physics. Less grandiose, but no less optimistic, forecasts can be heard from fossil fuel enthusiasts who, likewise, project more energy, at lower cost, and with little ecological harm (see, e.g., Yergin and Stoppard, 2003). Skeptics of conventional energy, eschewing involvement with dangerously scaled technologies and their ecological consequences, find solace in “sustainable energy alternatives” that constitute a second euphoric stream. Preferring to redirect attention to smaller, and supposedly more democratic, options, “green” energy advocates conceive devices and systems that prefigure a revival of human scale development, local self-determination, and a commitment to ecological balance. Among supporters are those who believe that greening the energy system embodies universal social ideals and, as a result, can overcome current conflicts between energy “haves” and “havenots.” 5 In a recent contribution to this perspective, Vaitheeswaran suggests (2003: 327, 291), “today’s nascent energy revolution will truly deliver power to the people” as “micropower meets village power.” Hermann Scheer echoes the idea of an alternative energy-led social transformation: the shift to a “solar global economy... can satisfy the material needs of all mankind and grant us the freedom to guarantee truly universal and equal human rights and to safeguard the world’s cultural diversity” (Scheer, 2002: 34). 6 The euphoria of contemporary energy studies is noteworthy for its historical consistency with a nearly unbroken social narrative of wonderment extending from the advent of steam power through the spread of electricity (Nye, 1999). The modern energy regime that now powers nuclear weaponry and risks disruption of the planet’s climate is a product of promises pursued without sustained public examination of the political, social, economic, and ecological record of the regime’s operations. However, the discursive landscape has occasionally included thoughtful exploration of the broader contours of energy-environment-society relations. As early as 1934, Lewis Mumford (see also his two-volume Myth of the Machine, 1966; 1970) critiqued the industrial energy system for being a key source of social and ecological alienation (1934: 196): The changes that were manifested in every department of Technics rested for the most part on one central fact: the increase of energy. Size, speed, quantity, the multiplication of machines, were all reflections of the new means of utilizing fuel and the enlargement of the available stock of fuel itself. Power was dissociated from its natural human and geographic limitations: from the caprices of the weather, from the irregularities that definitely restrict the output of men and animals. 02Chapter1.pmd 2 1/6/2006, 2:56 PMEnergy as a Social Project 3 By 1961, Mumford despaired that modernity had retrogressed into a lifeharming dead end (1961: 263, 248): ...an orgy of uncontrolled production and equally uncontrolled reproduction: machine fodder and cannon fodder: surplus values and surplus populations... The dirty crowded houses, the dank airless courts and alleys, the bleak pavements, the sulphurous atmosphere, the over-routinized and dehumanized factory, the drill schools, the second-hand experiences, the starvation of the senses, the remoteness from nature and animal activity—here are the enemies. The living organism demands a life-sustaining environment.
We must begin with a social critique and analysis of the modern energy regime. Ethical criticism of the existing energy regime cultivates alternatives to technocratic consumption. Barry 12 John Barry, Reader Politics @ Queen’s University (Belfast), The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability p. 284-290 'Dissident' is perhaps a better and more accurate term to apply to greens than 'revolutionary', since while both share an opposition to the prevailing social order, revolutionary is clearly more antagonistic rather than agonistic, to use the terms indicated in chapter 7. Dissidents seek to direct a self transforming present in a more radical direction, whereas revolutionaries typically seek the complete destruction of the existing order and then the construction of a new one. Greens as dissidents also begin from an acceptance of the inevitability of key aspects of this transition-primarily around climate change and the end of the oil age-and thus see an answer to 'what is to be done?' in terms of managing and shaping that inevitable transition, rather than building/re-building. Dissident also seems less extreme and dogmatic in its critique and its demands, than those who advocate full-blown revolution. And given what was said in chapter 3 and elsewhere about the link between creativity, flexibility, and adaptive fitness, it would be odd for green politics to be dogmatic revolutionaries animated by a sense of the hopelessness of working within and through contemporary institutiohs or that there was nothing worth preserving within and from the contemporary social order. Green dissent could perhaps be (wrongly) described as somewhere on a continuum between 'reformism' and 'revolution', a form of 'creative adaptive management' to create collective resilience in the face of actually existing unsustainability.1 In his essay 'The Power of the Powerless', Vaclav Havel uses the story of a greengrocer who unthinkingly displays his 'loyalty' to the regime by displaying a Communist Party slogan in his shop. This the greengrocer does 'ritualistically, since this is the only way the regime is capable of acknowledging his display of loyalty' (Havel, 1978: 45). In a similar way, being a dutiful consumer and not questioning economic growth could also perhaps be regarded as the way in which loyalty to a dominant capitalist, consumer regime is ritualistically displayed, enacted, and affirmed. It is for this reason, if not only this reason, that one completely misunderstands consumerism, consumption, and being a 'consumer', if one views it solely individualistically as some economic-cum-metabolic act. As a public display of loyalty, consuming is first and foremost a collective act, an individual joining others in a shared activity and associated identity. So while critics such as Fromm are correct in highlighting the distinction in consumer culture between 'being' and 'having' (Fromm, 1976), what these analyses often miss is that consumption is also an act of' belonging' and identity affirmation (Keat, 1994; Jackson, 2009b).It is for this reason that a refusal to consume is so damaging to the modern political and economic order and why to consciously choose not to consume is perhaps one of the most politically significant acts one can do in a consumer society. And one that, the continual performance (or rather non-performance) of which, further marks one out as a dissident, part of 'the great refusal' to use Marcuse's term (Marcuse, 1964). That is, to question economic growth under consumer capitalism is to be 'disloyal' to the prevailing order. While for Havel living in what he calls the 'post-totalitarian' communist regime is 'living a lie', I do not want to go so far and say that life in contemporary consumer capitalist democracies is in the same way to 'live a lie'. Rather what I would like to dwell upon is Havel's notion of'living within the truth' and what this can offer for green dissidents. For Havel 'living within the truth ... can be any means by which a person or group revolts against manipulation: anything from a letter by intellectuals to a workers' strike, from a rock concert to a student demonstration, from refusing to vote in the farcical elections, to making an open speech at some official congress, or even a hunger strike' (Havel, 1986: 59-60). Though clearly written with the then communist regime in mind, Havel's call to 'live in truth' is equally pertinent to consumer capitalism. As he puts it: The profound crisis of human identity brought on by living within a lie, a crisis which in turn makes such a life possible, certainly possesses a moral dimension as well; it appears, among other things, as a deep moral crisis in society. A person who has been seduced by the consumer value system, whose identity is dissolved in an amalgam of the accoutrements of mass civilization, and who has not roots in the order of being, no sense of responsibility for anything higher than his or her own personal survival, is a demoralized person. The system depends on this demoralization, deepens it, is in fact a projection of it into society. (Havel, 1978: 62; emphasis added) Silence is of course a consequence and precondition for this demoralization, and what power requires under consumer capitalism is passive and silent acquiescence as much as active participation. For Havel the re-appropriation of individual responsibility is something to be actively striven for. This reverses or balances the usual focus on rights and freedoms with which often 'progressive' critiques of consumerism are couched. In Havel's response to what Tim Jackson amongst others has called 'The Age of Irresponsibility' (Jackson, 2009b ), also connects with some of the green republican arguments outlined in chapters 6 and 7, not least the stress on both the recovery of the good of politics and the centrality of the individual citizen as a moral being and not just or only a consumer (or producer/worker or investor). As Jackson notes, 'the "age of irresponsibility" is not about casual oversight or individual greed. The economic crisis is not a consequence of isolated malpractice in selected parts of the banking sector. If there has been irresponsibility, it has been much more systemic, sanctioned from the top, and with one clear aim in mind: the continuation and protection of economic growth' (Jackson, 2009b: 26; emphasis added). The struggle Havel describes from the 1968 'Prague Spring' between 'the system' and 'the aims of life' (Havel, 1978: 66) resonate green concerns of the degradation of natural life-supporting systems and the undermining of conditions promoting human conviviality, quality of life, and well-being (Barry, 2009b; De Geus, 2009, 2003; Jackson, 2009a). What Havel goes on to say about political change and strategy in the context of a consumer culture is pertinent and important for those seeking a transition away from unsustainability, 'Society is not sharply polarized on the level of actual political power, but ... the fundamental lines of conflict run right through each person' (Havel, 1978: 91; emphasis added). This is a profound point, namely that it is difficult, if not impossible, to simply analyse actually existing unsustainability as an oppressive totalitarian regime in which there is an identifiable 'them' dominating 'us'. Under consumer capitalism, debt-based consumption, and so on, we who live in these societies are all implicated in its continuation. And while of course there are identifiable groups and institutions (such as large corporations, financial wealth management firms, the leadership of mainstream political parties, key agencies of the nation state such as departments of finance, global financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMP, and what Sklair has called the 'transnational capitalist class') who do benefit more from actually existing unsustainability, we have to face up to the fact that 'ordinary people', that is, everyone also contributes (unequally of course) to the 'mundane' operation of global capitalism and the exploitation of people and planet. The recognition of this is but another way of drawing attention to the fact that capitalism, the common sense of neoclassical economics, and so on have achieved 'full spectrum' domination of hearts and minds, such that capitalism, and realistic critiques of it, need to be viewed as cultural (and indeed psychological) projects. It is for this reason that I canvassed the Transition movement in chapter 3, since it adopts an explicitly cultural and psychological approach. Of course such cultural and psychological critical analyses are not exhausted by this movement and these cannot be a substitute for oppositional political struggle. This 'cultural turn' in green politics is, to my mind, linked to the 'postscarcity economics of sustainable desire' outlined in chapter 5, and is premised firmly on a notion of human flourishing that lies beyond production, 'supplyside' solutions, 'competiveness', and increasing 'labour productivity'. This notion of flourishing is not anti-materialist. Let me make that abundantly clear, it is not an ascetic renunciation of materialism for its own sake, as if material life is intrinsically unworthy or does not express valued modes of human being. Thus I do not accept the Fromm-inspired view that materialism or indeed material consumption is simply a mode of 'having' and not 'being'. After all, the critique should be directed at consumerism and overconsumption, not materialism or consumption per se. At a basic level one can see how communism and consumerism are two 'regimes of truth' -to return to the Foucauldian language used in chapter 4 imposing their version of the truth, exacting payment, compliance, and subjectivity from their client populations, quelling, distracting, and undermining dissidents, and using different but also some shared techniques to continue. And the appropriate dissident, progressive attitude, and strategy against both is, for Havel, ultimately an ethical one, an ethical and political life-affirming 'reconstitution of society' (Havel, 1978: 115). That Havel conceives consumer-capitalist and communist societies as comparable can be seen in his view that: traditional parliamentary democracies can offer no fundamental opposition to the autonomism of technological civilization, and the industrial-consumer society, for they, too, are being dragged helplessly along by it. People are manipulated in ways that are infinitely more subtle and refined than the brutal methods used in the post-totalitarian societies ... the omnipresent dictatorship of consumption, production, advertising, commerce, consumer culture, and all that flood of information. (Havel, 1978: 116; emphasis added) Some of the republican elements expressed in Havel's thought centre around 'responsibility' (Havel, 1986: 104). He maintains that the abdication of responsibility in the name of consumer choice-what I have elsewhere described as the reduction of political liberty to a consumer 'freedom of choice' (Barry, 2009a)-weakens the ethical and political capacities of citizens within liberal democracies. Liberal consumer-citizens then become 'victims of the same autonomism, and are incapable of transcending concerns about their own personal survival to become proud and responsible members of the polis, making a genuine contribution to the creation of its destiny' (Havel, 1978: 116; emphasis added). In this Havel is articulating concerns very close to the type of green republicanism outlined in this book. His concluding comments in The Power of the Powerless also offer suggestive lines for interpreting the Transition movement. In a passage focusing on the contours of what Havel calls the 'existential revolution' that is needed to renew the relationship of humans to the 'human order and cosmopolitan responsibility', Havel notes that the structures needed to make this happen 'should naturally arise from below as a consequence of authentic "selforganization"; they should derive energy from a living dialogue with the genuine needs from which they arise, and when these needs are gone, the structures should also disappear ... The decisive criterion of this "selfconstitution" should be the structure's actual significance and not just a mere abstract norm' (Havel, 1978: 119). A better description of the Transition movement's aims, motivations, and objectives would be hard to find. Havel goes on to describe these new, provisional, and practical structures 'postdemocratic'. He describes the outlines of these 'authentic' political structures in this manner: Do not these groups emerge, live, and disappear under pressure from concrete and authentic needs, unburdened by the ballast of hollow traditions? Is not their attempt to create an articulate form of 'living within the truth' and to renew the feeling of higher responsibility in an apathetic society really a sign of some rudimentary moral reconstitution? In other words, are riot these informed, non-bureaucratic dynamic and open communities that comprise the 'parallel polis' a kind of rudimentary prefiguration, a symbolic model of those more meaningful 'post-democratic' political structures that might become the foundation of a better society? (Havel, 1978: 120-121). Fundamental here, I think, is Havel's call to responsibility and struggle against the prevailing political order when it undermines quality of life, perpetuates injustice, or the denial or compromising of democratic norms. In a similar vein Carla Emery puts it eloquently, 'People have to choose what they're going to struggle for. Life is always a struggle, whether or not you're struggling for anything worthwhile, so it might as well be for something worthwhile' (in Astyk, 2008: 204). Or to phrase it differently: get busy living or get busy dying. WHAT IF WE ARE THE PEOPLE WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR? 289 As argued throughout this book in facing the many challenges of the present time-climate change, peak oil, diminishing forms of social well-being, financial and economic crises, and the ecological liquidation of the foundations of life on the planet-the most important response needed is one which explicitly focuses on imagination and creativity. As W. B. Yeats (long before Barak Obama used a version of these sentiments) suggested, what is needed is for us 'to seek a remedy ... in audacity of speculation and creation' (Yeats, 1926). While 'another world is possible' it can only be possible if it is imagined, and perhaps one of the most persistent obstacles to the transition away from actually existing unsustainability apart from ignorance of the ecological and human costs of our capitalist-consumer way of life-is the stultifying grip of 'business as usual' and its limited and limiting horizons of possible futures for ourselves and our societies. In many respects, our collective inability to respond to 'limits to growth' is in large measure due to limits of creativity and imagination. We cannot, or find it very difficult, to imagine a different social order. For Richard Norgaard the answer to our present ecological predicament is as difficult to achieve as it is simple to express, 'We need a new life story. We need an overarching story that respects a diversity of life stories. Living the story of economic development is destroying humanity and nature and a good many other species along with us. We need a master story that puts our hope, compassion, brains, sociality, and diversity to new and constructive ends' (in Deb, 2009: xxiii). And if we follow Havel, it may be that this new story we need is already here, in the same sense that the eco-feminist Mary Mellor (Mellor, 1995) has persuasively written that the sustainable world, society, or mode of being is not some utopian 'there' but an already living, embodied, engendered 'here' in the reproductive and exploited labour of women, in the 'core' economic activity of caring and sharing and ... flourishing. The Polanyi-inspired attempt to 'reembed' the economy within human social relations can be viewed as a defensive move to protect community from both the formal market and the state. Such protective measures can include the expansion of the social economy, or the efforts by the Transition movement in seeking to disrupt, slow down and re-conceptualize the economy. Such reactive measures could all be thought of as seeking to defend and extend those sustainable practices in the here and now, that is, that already exist within 'actually existing unsustainability'. This is particularly the case with reproductive labour as outlined in this book. Actually it is the neoclassical economic view that is 'utopian' in promoting a fictitious and dangerous imaginary of human life lived at 365/24/7 speed and a way of life completely out of synch not just with human biological but also ecological time. And, it must be recalled, 'Mother Nature does not do bailouts'. As Havel suggests, 'For the real question is whether the "brighter future" is really always so distant. What if, on the contrary, it has been here for a long time already, and only our own blindness and weakness has prevented us from seeing it around us and within us, and kept us from developing it?' (Havel, 1978: 122). Now there's an intriguing set of concluding thoughts-what if not only the resilient, sustainable way of life is 'always already here', present, and available to us if we so choose-but also if it is indeed the case that 'we are the people we've been waiting for?' And what of the hard greens, where do they and their analysis fit within this book? For it is fair to say that they have been shadowing the book. While I discussed them briefly in the Introduction and made some casual comments about them and their diverse positions and prescriptions throughout, I have not met them head on as it were. So it would be fitting for me to offer my thoughts on the place and status of the hard green position. Are they basically correct? Do I agree with them (from the green republican acceptance of the time-bound and contingent character of all human creations, including civilizations and societies) that they have identified the beginning of the end of our existing capitalist, carbon-based civilization and societies? While I certainly admire their brutal honesty, I baulk at their jump from crisis to collapse, and then from collapse to violence and 'de-civilization' (Elias, 2000; Hine and Kingsnorth, 2010). Their political analyses echo (almost always unwittingly) the eco-authoritarian position of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The hard-green view in being so pessimistic means its pessimism precludes a view of politics as the 'art of the possible', and a view of the inevitability of collapse can and does lead to de-politicized or even anti-political responses. But surely the challenge, as outlined by the green republican project of this book, is to embrace new intelligibilities, ways of being, having, and doing, new identities and subjectivities, and new arts of life, all must be part of a project to avert collapse?2 This is, as I see it, the point of green republican politics as a form of 'anticipatory politics' to challenge the rule of the 'nee-liberal vulgate'. At this present moment, on the cusp of this 'Great Transition', what greens need is to cultivate critical awareness, opposition, and dissent, to have the courage of their convictions in analysing and resisting actually existing unsustainability, and outlining their vision for the transition to a better society, in part to engage, inform, and prepare citizens for the coming changes that will characterize the decades ahead. Greens need to be realistic and cleareyed in their disavowal of naive utopianism, but convinced of its basic conviction that another world is possible, necessary, and desirable. And while on quiet mornings we may hear it coming, its arrival, like all major transitions in human history, will demand political struggle. The battle for hearts, minds, and hands has begun, and my writing this book and you reading it are constitutive of that struggle.
10/14/16
2-DA Warming
Tournament: valley | Round: 3 | Opponent: Lexington CB | Judge: Abby Chapman Warming DA Shell Nuclear power is currently progressing – many reactors are being built with only more planned. Groskopf ‘01/26 Christopher Groskopf – reporter. “New nuclear reactors are being built a lot more like cars.” Quartz. January 26, 2016. http://qz.com/581566/new-nuclear-reactors-are-being-built-a-lot-more-like-cars/ JJN At its birth, nuclear power was a closely guarded national enterprise, only accessible to the most prosperous nations. But over the last 50 years it has evolved into a robust international market with a global supply chain. Not only are more countries starting or considering new nuclear plants, a great many more countries are contributing to their construction. According to data from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 66 nuclear reactors are under construction around the world. Dozens more are in various stages of planning. The vast majority of new reactors are being built in China, which has invested in nuclear power in a way not seen since the United States and France first built out their capacity in the 1960’s and 70’s. China’s 2015 Five Year Plan calls for 40 reactors to be built by 2020 and as many as ten more are planned for every year thereafter. Fifteen other countries around the world are also building reactors. The Chinese sprint toward nuclear power is along a path toward becoming a major exporter of nuclear technology and expertise. In addition to adopting western designs, China also has its own reactor designs. Plants based on those designs are also under construction both China and in Pakistan. Other countries are considering them. At the same time China has upgraded its capacity to produce pressure vessels, turbines and other heavy manufacturing components—all of which it is expected to begin exporting. This sort of globalized manufacturing is nothing new: cars, airplanes and most other complicated machines are built in this way. However, it is new for reactors, which must be constructed on-site and rely on highly specialized parts. Those parts must be manufactured to tolerances well beyond what is required in other industries. In some cases even the equipment needed to creating them must be purpose-built. Consider, for example, the steel pressure vessel at the heart of the most common reactor designs. These vessels can only be created in the world’s largest steel presses—some of which exert more than 30,000 pounds of force. The vessels are forged out of solid steel ingots that may weigh more than a million pounds. Until recently there were only a handful of such presses in the world. Today there are at least 23, spread across 11 countries, according to the World Nuclear Association (WNA). Such specialization is not limited to heavy manufacturing. Nuclear reactors require thousands of other mechanical and electronic components, many of which are purpose-made. A brochure from the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) identifies hundreds of individual parts. (pdf) Even otherwise common products may need to meet extraordinarily fine tolerances. Standards require that steel elements relevant to safety are manufactured with exceptional “nuclear-grade steel.” According to another NEI list, the construction of a new reactor may require a total of: 500 to 3,000 nuclear grade valves 125 to 250 pumps 44 miles of piping 300 miles of electric wiring 90,000 electrical components According to Greg Kaser, who analyzes supply chains for the WNA, the market for nuclear components has been driven by US-based reactor companies, namely Westinghouse Electric Company. “The US can’t produce everything that’s required for a nuclear reactor anymore, so they have to go international,” Kaser told Quartz. Reactors based on Westinghouse’s AP1000 design are under construction in both the US and China. The parts for these reactors are sourced from all over the world. Many come from European companies that were originally created to supply domestic nuclear programs, but have since become important exporters. This trade in nuclear components is difficult to measure. Despite the specific qualifications of a nuclear-grade valve, it is still a valve and doesn’t necessarily show up in trade statistics as anything more. A great deal of trade is also in expertise. Engineers from China, Japan, South Korea and the United States frequently consult on (or lead) nuclear projects around the world. A 2014 WNA report (paywall) estimates that the total value of investments in new nuclear facilities through 2030 will be $1.2 trillion. But this nuclear globalization has not been greeted with enthusiasm everywhere. The 2011 nuclear contamination disaster at Fukushima, Japan, briefly stalled development of some projects and prompted Germany to begin shutting down all of its reactors. A decision by the UK to allow a Chinese company to develop new nuclear reactors in England has led to both domestic and international hand-wringing over the security implications. Others worry about about safety issues resulting from companies faking the certifications required for selling reactor components. In 2013, two South Korean nuclear reactors were shut down when it was discovered that they had installed cables with counterfeit nuclear certifications. This year the IAEA will update a procurement guide for plant operators that was published in 1996. (pdf) The new version will include a chapter specifically addressing counterfeit components. For the moment, it’s unlikely any of these concerns will be enough to slow the resurgent growth of the global nuclear industry. Though big nuclear companies often speak of localizing the supply chain—and keeping those jobs in their home country—international competition can drive down the price of building a reactor. In fact, the supply chain is likely to become even more important to the construction process in the future. New reactors being designed today are both smaller and more modular, and plans call for large sections of them to be assembled in factories and shipped to the site. If it sounds a lot like the assembly line at a automobile plant, that’s because it is. But of course, one small oversight or production flaw could make a much greater difference.
Newest studies prove – warming is real, anthropogenic, and almost certainly caused by emissions from fossil fuels. Phys ‘8/24 Phys.org. “Humans have caused climate change for 180 years: study.” Phys.org. August 24, 2016. Originally provided by Australia National University from Nature Journal. http://phys.org/news/2016-08-humans-climate-years.html JJN An international research project has found human activity has been causing global warming for almost two centuries, proving human-induced climate change is not just a 20th century phenomenon. Lead researcher Associate Professor Nerilie Abram from The Australian National University (ANU) said the study found warming began during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution and is first detectable in the Arctic and tropical oceans around the 1830s, much earlier than scientists had expected. "It was an extraordinary finding," said Associate Professor Abram, from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science. "It was one of those moments where science really surprised us. But the results were clear. The climate warming we are witnessing today started about 180 years ago." The new findings have important implications for assessing the extent that humans have caused the climate to move away from its pre-industrial state, and will help scientists understand the future impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the climate. "In the tropical oceans and the Arctic in particular, 180 years of warming has already caused the average climate to emerge above the range of variability that was normal in the centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution," Associate Professor Abram said. The research, published in Nature, involved 25 scientists from across Australia, the United States, Europe and Asia, working together as part of the international Past Global Changes 2000 year (PAGES 2K) Consortium. Associate Professor Abram said anthropogenic climate change was generally talked about as a 20th century phenomenon because direct measurements of climate are rare before the 1900s. However, the team studied detailed reconstructions of climate spanning the past 500 years to identify when the current sustained warming trend really began. Scientists examined natural records of climate variations across the world's oceans and continents. These included climate histories preserved in corals, cave decorations, tree rings and ice cores. The research team also analysed thousands of years of climate model simulations, including experiments used for the latest report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to determine what caused the early warming. The data and simulations pinpointed the early onset of warming to around the 1830s, and found the early warming was attributed to rising greenhouse gas levels. Co-researcher Dr Helen McGregor, from the University of Wollongong's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said humans only caused small increases in the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere during the 1800s. "But the early onset of warming detected in this study indicates the Earth's climate did respond in a rapid and measureable way to even the small increase in carbon emissions during the start of the Industrial Age," Dr McGregor said. The researchers also studied major volcanic eruptions in the early 1800s and found they were only a minor factor in the early onset of climate warming. Associate Professor Abram said the earliest signs of greenhouse-induced warming developed during the 1830s in the Arctic and in tropical oceans, followed soon after by Europe, Asia and North America. However, climate warming appears to have been delayed in the Antarctic, possibly due to the way ocean circulation is pushing warming waters to the North and away from the frozen continent.
Prohibiting nuclear power means warming can’t be solved – impracticality of renewables combined with a switch to coal only makes warming worse. Harvey ‘12 Fiona Harvey - award-winning environment journalist for the Guardian, used to work for financial times. “Nuclear power is only solution to climate change, says Jeffrey Sachs.” The Guardian. May 3, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/may/03/nuclear-power-solution-climate-change JJN *bracketing in original Combating climate change will require an expansion of nuclear power, respected economist Jeffrey Sachs said on Thursday, in remarks that are likely to dismay some sections of the environmental movement. Prof Sachs said atomic energy was needed because it provided a low-carbon source of power, while renewable energy was not making up enough of the world's energy mix and new technologies such as carbon capture and storage were not progressing fast enough. "We won't meet the carbon targets if nuclear is taken off the table," he said. He said coal was likely to continue to be cheaper than renewables and other low-carbon forms of energy, unless the effects of the climate were taken into account. "Fossil fuel prices will remain low enough to wreck low-carbon energy unless you have incentives and carbon pricing," he told the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank in Manila. A group of four prominent UK environmentalists, including Jonathon Porritt and former heads of Friends of the Earth UK Tony Juniper and Charles Secrett, have been campaigning against nuclear power in recent weeks, arguing that it is unnecessary, dangerous and too expensive. Porritt told the Guardian: "It nuclear power cannot possibly deliver – primarily for economic reasons. Nuclear reactors are massively expensive. They take a long time to build. And even when they're up and running, they're nothing like as reliable as the industry would have us believe." But Sachs, director of the Earth Institute and professor of sustainable development at Columbia University in the US, said the world had no choice because the threat of climate change had grown so grave. He said greenhouse gas emissions, which have continued to rise despite the financial crisis and deep recession in the developed world, were "nowhere near" falling to the level that would be needed to avert dangerous climate change. He said: "Emissions per unit of energy need to fall by a factor of six. That means electrifying everything that can be electrified and then making electricity largely carbon-free. It requires renewable energy, nuclear and carbon capture and storage – these are all very big challenges. We need to understand the scale of the challenge." Sachs warned that "nice projects" around the world involving renewable power or energy efficiency would not be enough to stave off the catastrophic effects of global warming – a wholesale change and overhaul of the world's energy systems and economy would be needed if the world is to hold carbon emissions to 450 parts per million of the atmosphere – a level that in itself may be inadequate. "We are nowhere close to that – as wishful thinking and corporate lobbies are much more powerful than the arithmetic of climate scientists," he said.
Warming leads to extinction – multiple scenarios prove. Roberts ‘13 David Roberts - staff writer for Grist. “If you aren’t alarmed about climate, you aren’t paying attention.” Grist. January 10, 2013. http://grist.org/climate-energy/climate-alarmism-the-idea-is-surreal/ JJN There was recently another one of those (numbingly familiar) internet tizzies wherein someone trolls environmentalists for being “alarmist” and environmentalists get mad and the troll says “why are you being so defensive?” and everybody clicks, clicks, clicks. I have no desire to dance that dismal do-si-do again. But it is worth noting that I find the notion of “alarmism” in regard to climate change almost surreal. I barely know what to make of it. So in the name of getting our bearings, let’s review a few things we know. We know we’ve raised global average temperatures around 0.8 degrees C so far. We know that 2 degrees C is where most scientists predict catastrophic and irreversible impacts. And we know that we are currently on a trajectory that will push temperatures up 4 degrees or more by the end of the century. What would 4 degrees look like? A recent World Bank review of the science reminds us. First, it’ll get hot: Projections for a 4°C world show a dramatic increase in the intensity and frequency of high-temperature extremes. Recent extreme heat waves such as in Russia in 2010 are likely to become the new normal summer in a 4°C world. Tropical South America, central Africa, and all tropical islands in the Pacific are likely to regularly experience heat waves of unprecedented magnitude and duration. In this new high-temperature climate regime, the coolest months are likely to be substantially warmer than the warmest months at the end of the 20th century. In regions such as the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Tibetan plateau, almost all summer months are likely to be warmer than the most extreme heat waves presently experienced. For example, the warmest July in the Mediterranean region could be 9°C warmer than today’s warmest July. Extreme heat waves in recent years have had severe impacts, causing heat-related deaths, forest fires, and harvest losses. The impacts of the extreme heat waves projected for a 4°C world have not been evaluated, but they could be expected to vastly exceed the consequences experienced to date and potentially exceed the adaptive capacities of many societies and natural systems. my emphasis Warming to 4 degrees would also lead to “an increase of about 150 percent in acidity of the ocean,” leading to levels of acidity “unparalleled in Earth’s history.” That’s bad news for, say, coral reefs: The combination of thermally induced bleaching events, ocean acidification, and sea-level rise threatens large fractions of coral reefs even at 1.5°C global warming. The regional extinction of entire coral reef ecosystems, which could occur well before 4°C is reached, would have profound consequences for their dependent species and for the people who depend on them for food, income, tourism, and shoreline protection. It will also “likely lead to a sea-level rise of 0.5 to 1 meter, and possibly more, by 2100, with several meters more to be realized in the coming centuries.” That rise won’t be spread evenly, even within regions and countries — regions close to the equator will see even higher seas. There are also indications that it would “significantly exacerbate existing water scarcity in many regions, particularly northern and eastern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, while additional countries in Africa would be newly confronted with water scarcity on a national scale due to population growth.” Also, more extreme weather events: Ecosystems will be affected by more frequent extreme weather events, such as forest loss due to droughts and wildfire exacerbated by land use and agricultural expansion. In Amazonia, forest fires could as much as double by 2050 with warming of approximately 1.5°C to 2°C above preindustrial levels. Changes would be expected to be even more severe in a 4°C world. Also loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services: In a 4°C world, climate change seems likely to become the dominant driver of ecosystem shifts, surpassing habitat destruction as the greatest threat to biodiversity. Recent research suggests that large-scale loss of biodiversity is likely to occur in a 4°C world, with climate change and high CO2 concentration driving a transition of the Earth’s ecosystems into a state unknown in human experience. Ecosystem damage would be expected to dramatically reduce the provision of ecosystem services on which society depends (for example, fisheries and protection of coastline afforded by coral reefs and mangroves.) New research also indicates a “rapidly rising risk of crop yield reductions as the world warms.” So food will be tough. All this will add up to “large-scale displacement of populations and have adverse consequences for human security and economic and trade systems.” Given the uncertainties and long-tail risks involved, “there is no certainty that adaptation to a 4°C world is possible.” There’s a small but non-trivial chance of advanced civilization breaking down entirely. Now ponder the fact that some scenarios show us going up to 6 degrees by the end of the century, a level of devastation we have not studied and barely know how to conceive. Ponder the fact that somewhere along the line, though we don’t know exactly where, enough self-reinforcing feedback loops will be running to make climate change unstoppable and irreversible for centuries to come. That would mean handing our grandchildren and their grandchildren not only a burned, chaotic, denuded world, but a world that is inexorably more inhospitable with every passing decade. Take all that in, sit with it for a while, and then tell me what it could mean to be an “alarmist” in this context. What level of alarm is adequate?
Climate change threatens indigenous people’s culture and puts them at increasingly lower odds of survival. Baird 08 Baird, Rachel (Litigation attorney in Torrington, Connecticut)."The Impact of Climate Change on Minorities and Indigenous Peoples." Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, April 2008. Indigenous peoples tend to live close to nature, in relatively natural environments, rather than in cities, growing and making much of the food and other products that they need to survive. This gives them an extraordinarily intimate knowledge of local weather and plant and animal life. Traditional wisdom on matters such as when to plant crops or where to hunt for food has been accumulated over many generations, but now that the climate is shifting, some of those understandings are proving to be no longer valid. Climate change, and the rapidly increasing amount of land being converted into plantations of biofuel crops, threatens the very existence of some cultures. In the Arctic, where the atmosphere is warming twice as quickly as in the rest of the world, there are currently some 400,000 indigenous peoples. They include the Sami people of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, who traditionally herd reindeer as a way of life.11 Olav Mathis-Eira, a herder and vice-chair of the executive board of the Sami Council, says people first noticed signs of climate change in the mid-1980s, when winter rainfall increased. Now, higher temperatures and increased rainfall are making it harder for reindeer to reach the lichen they eat, which in winter can be covered in ice. ‘There are a lot of starving reindeer in some years,’ he says. The thinning of the Arctic ice has also made reindeer herding tracks dangerous, forcing people to find new routes. ‘Old people used to tell us how to move the herds and where it was safe to go,’ says Mathis-Eira. ‘Now they are not sure if they can do that any more ... because conditions are so different.’ The loss of their ability has damaged old people’s status, he adds: ‘Suddenly, they are nothing.’ Many aspects of Sami culture – language, songs, marriage, child-rearing and the treatment of older people, for instance – are intimately linked with reindeer herding, says Mathis-Eira. ‘If the reindeer herding disappears it will have a devastating effect on the whole culture of the Sami people.... In that way, I think that climate change is threatening the entire Sami, as a people.’ Climate change has also played havoc with the lives of indigenous people living on Nicaragua’s remote North Atlantic coast, where groups such as the Mayangna, Miskitu and Rama peoples live. Rainfall patterns have changed in line with what climate change scientists are predicting for the region and, as a result, people’s traditional knowledge about when to plant crops is no longer reliable. Their ability to correctly identify the rainy season has suffered, leading them to plant crops prematurely. Then, when the rain stops, they lose what they have planted and have to start all over again. Even when the main rainy season does arrive, it is shorter than before, inflicting further economic and psychological damage. ‘To see something growing really nicely is going to make the community optimistic,’ says Carlos Ling, a Nicaraguan who is humanitarian officer for Oxfam in the region. ‘In the middle of that rainy season, they see things rotting away, so collective confidence is being damaged.’ Without surplus crops to exchange with others for goods such as soap and cloth, indigenous peoples have become less prepared to take risks and try new methods, says Ling. ‘They are going to be even more prone to extinction because they are not going to survive in a changing environment when they are not changing themselves,’ he warns. As in the Arctic, the increasingly unpredictable weather has also undermined older people’s ability to interpret their environment and make decisions such as when to plant crops. This, in turn, has damaged community respect for them, and reduced people’s confidence that their community’s intimate knowledge of their environment will guarantee their livelihoods. Instead they have become more interested in alternative means of survival, such as helping drug-traffickers or allowing gold prospectors and loggers into the forest. ‘They are being pressured, more and more, to give away the forests,’ says Ling. While the amounts of money on offer seem small – $300 for a big tree, say – they are huge to people who might make $40 in an entire a year. According to the Nicaraguan government, people living on the Atlantic coast are among the nation’s poorest.12 In northern Kenya, increasingly severe and frequent droughts, as well as major floods, have had a devastating impact on pastoralists. Traditionally, they have survived by herding animals, in an already harsh and dry environment. However, the drought of 2005–6 led to a 70 per cent fall in the size of their herds of cattle, goats and camels, leaving some 80 per cent of pastoralists dependent on international food aid, according to Mohamed Adow. He is regional programme manager for Northern Aid, a Muslim organization based in Mandera in north-east Kenya, which does development and advocacy work with pastoralists. Droughts force them to travel long distances in search of water and have also sparked deadly conflicts over water. The deaths of so many livestock in 2005–6 reduced pastoralists’ food supplies and damaged their health. Around one-third of the pastoralists of northern Kenya are now ‘living on the periphery of their way of life’ – in villages and small communities, where they work for money, having given up their small numbers of remaining livestock to family or kinsmen, says Adow.13
10/14/16
2-K threat construction
Tournament: Holy Cross | Round: 2 | Opponent: Mountain Brook PS | Judge: Still fife LINKS Threat construction efforts are rampart around nuclear power- the aff is part of a broader imperative to securitize this form of power. Specific links- greenpeace, fukeshima disco, stress testing
Mitev Securitization of Nuclear Power in Europe Posted on March 16, 2011 Lubo Mitev's Blog Analysing the future, today. https://lubomitev.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/securitize-nuclear-power-europe/ Securitization of Nuclear Power in Europe Posted on March 16, 2011 | 1 Comment Anyone who watches or reads the news has heard of the disaster in Japan. Following one of the worst earthquakes in history and the tsunami which resulted from it, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has become the center of attention. The systems of the plant and its nuclear reactors have malfunctioned and a nuclear disaster is said to be immanent. This has raised questions about the safety of nuclear power plants in Europe and has resulted in securitization of the topic. Security is defined by the Copenhagen School of Security Studies as “the pursuit of freedom from threat and the ability of states and societies to maintain their independent identity and their functional integrity against forces of change which they see as hostile”. The main action to securitize an issue is the ‘presentation’ or ‘securitizing move’, which usually takes the form of rhetoric (e.g. a speech, a report, legislation etc.). When it comes to energy, there are two security sectors worth considering. First, economic security is defined as the “access to the resources, finance and markets necessary to sustain acceptable levels of welfare and state power”. The securitization of economics is mainly derived from the concept of investment risk and choices which have to be made in this respect. For example, the possibility that economic dependencies within the global market (especially oil) will be exploited for political ends or questions of security of supply are important to take into account. Second, environmental security is defined as “the maintenance of the local and the planetary biosphere as the essential support system on which all other human enterprises depend”. The main securitizing actors here are scientists, who use specialized reports to bring environmental threats to the public and to the political scene. The fact that the energy sector is often identified as one of the main causes of environmental threats has led to the spillover of environmental securitization into securitization of energy. In this way, the environmental and energy sectors have been inseparably linked through the urgent need for action to prevent an existentially threatening environmental disaster. Taking these two security sectors into account, there are three indicators used to define the level of securitization: 1) government policy; 2) NGO activity; and 3) public opinion. The first indicator is important because a consistent energy policy is essential to a government’s political stability. In any democratic system, if the ruling elite does not provide its people with electrical power, heating and fuel at acceptable prices, it will lose favor with voters. The second indicator – NGO activity – is also important since lobby groups or media organizations have a large sway over the perception of certain objects. If something is presented as a threat in the media, it inevitably becomes securitized. The last indicator, and perhaps the most important one, is the opinion of the public on an issue. If the population of a state deem a certain topic to be essential to their identity or national security, a securitization move will necessarily result. The securitization of energy has been a gradual process and has caused an increase in the perceived importance of the issue and the urgent necessity for action. The securitization of nuclear power, however, has been on the agenda for many years. For example, word-wide organization called Greenpeace was created in the 1970’s with a clear mission to stop the development of nuclear power. Events such as the partial reactor meltdown on Three Mile Island in the USA, and the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine, further fueled the anti-nuclear movement. At the moment, Greenpeace is one the organizations leading the securitization of nuclear power because of the emergency in Japan. Nuclear power plants all over the world are now being questioned over their safety and security. The media’s role in this is minimal, since they report the facts coming from Japan, but try to remain objective. However, there is no question that nuclear power has been securitized to the highest level – it has become a question of national security and is being judged as a threat to the economic and environmental security of Europe. The announcement from March 15 2011 that the European Union has agreed to run ‘stress-tests’ on its nuclear installations is a direct result of this securitization.These tests will include an assessment of the risks that earthquakes, tsunamis, terror attacks and power cuts could pose to European nuclear plants. How this will be done remains a mystery, yet it is certain that nuclear power plants will have to adopt more stringent safety and security procedures and systems. Also, the fact that Germany decided to temporarily shut down the nuclear power plants operational since before 1980, shows how serious governments are taking the crisis in Japan. Environmentalists all over the world are hailing this as a major breakthrough for ridding the Earth of nuclear waste. However, the securitization effect also has an economic dimension which is not being considered – one has to watch out how much electricity prices will rise due to the discontinuation of such a large and cheap source of energy. The securitization of nuclear power to such an extent can lead to two conclusions: 1) nuclear power plants are deemed too great an environmental risk and a plan is adopted for their decommissioning; or 2) nuclear power plants are judged to be a necessary risk for achievement of economic stability. Either way, both the environmental and economic aspects have to be taken into account. Weighing the facts at hand is the difficult side. In the end, there are two clear-cut facts that have to be remembered before a decision is taken. First, the nuclear incident in Japan is a direct result of an environmental disaster. Once we start going down this road (initiating stress tests for nuclear installations), we might as well conduct such tests on gas-fired power plants, as well as office buildings and schools. When building any structure, the threat of environmental disasters has to be taken into account – earthquakes, hurricanes, risk of floods etc. Nuclear incidents can cause deaths and environmental damage just like a gas explosion or a hurricane, but on different scales. One has to be careful how far securitization can go. Second, nuclear power remains a key element in our energy-generation system. The Japanese recognized this, and that is why they have 53 nuclear reactors, generating 15 of their electricity. In the EU’s plan for 80 reduction of emissions by 2050, nuclear power still plays a role because of the lack of potential to achieve this target solely through renewable energy technology. In the World Energy Outlook report of the International Energy Agency, nuclear power will have to contribute 10 of electricity-generation in 2030. Realistically, there is no way to abolish atomic energy in the near future. N.B. I would like to state a personal opinion on the matter. Securitization of nuclear power has led to several misunderstandings in Europe: The radiation that is reportedly leaking from the power plant in Japan can reach Europe. This is simply ridiculous due to wind direction, the distance between Japan and Europe, and the rate at which radiation dissolves in the atmosphere. The only people benefiting from this are pharmaceutical companies who produce iodine, because the panic created by these beliefs has caused people to start consuming this substance which protects the body from radiation. Also, an iodine overdose can cause a burning sensation in the mouth, stomach and throat, abdominal pain, vomiting, nausea, weak pulse, diarrhea and coma. Nuclear power plants are bad for the environment. Yes – nuclear power plants can cause environmental damage. Waste requires careful handling and storage. At the same time, there have only been three recorded nuclear power plant incidents in history (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and now – Japan). Also, please remember that all power plants are harmful to the environment in one way or another (e.g. fossil fuels pollute the air; wind-generators kill birds). If environmentalists are ready to pay extremely high electricity bills in order to phase out nuclear power completely, most people are not. My final remark is that sacrifices are always required for progress to be made. Whether we have to sacrifice nuclear power for the avoidance of a potential disaster, or we have to live with it in order to have cheap electricity, is a matter of weighing the options. Just make sure you have all the facts before passing judgment. The rhetoric of terror is an extension of a specific form of securitization. This independently turns case Kapitan, 03 (Tomis Kapitan, Professor of Philosophy, Northern Illonois Univeristy, 2003, “Terrorism and International Justice”)
More dramatically, the ‘terrorist’ rhetoric actually increases terrorism in four distinct ways. First, it magnifies the effect of terrorist actions by heightening the fear among the target population. If we demonize the terrorists, if we portray them as arbitrary irrational beings with a “disposition toward unbridled violence,” then we are amplifying the fear and alarm generated by terrorist incidents. Second, those who succumb to the rhetoric contribute to the cycle of revenge and retaliation by endorsing terrorist actions of their own government, not only against those who commit terrorist actions, but also against those populations from whose ranks the terrorists emerge, for the simple reason that terrorists are frequently themselves civilians, living amid other civilians not so engaged. The consequence has been an increase in terrorist violence under the rubric of ‘retaliation’ or ‘counter-terrorism’. Third, short of genocide, a violent response is likely to stiffen the resolve of those from whose ranks terrorists have emerged, leading them to regard their foes as people who cannot be reasoned with, as people who, because they avail themselves so readily of the ‘terrorist’ rhetoric, know only the language of the ‘terrorist’ rhetoric, know only the language of force. As long as they perceive themselves to be victims of intolerable injustices and view their oppressors as unwilling to arrive at an acceptable compromise, they are likely to answer violence with more violence. Fourth, and most insidiously, those who employ the rhetoric of terrorism for their own political ends, are encouraging actions that they understand will generate or sustain further violence directed against civilians. Inasmuch as their verbal behavior is intended to secure political objectives through these means, then it is an instance of terrorism just as much as any direct order to carry out a bombing of civilian targets. In both cases, there is purposeful verbal action aimed at bringing about a particular result through violence against civilians.
AND- Err in favor of a link- Psychology proves their impacts tend to be constructed Jacobs, 10 – Journalist, Former Staff Writer for The LA Daily News (Tom, "The Comforting Notion of an All-Powerful Enemy", Miller-McCune, March 8th 2010, July 17th 2010, http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/the-comforting-notion-of-an-all-powerful-enemy-10429/, KONTOPOULOS) Citing a Psychologist -- Daniel Sullivan of the University of Kansas -- Ph.D. candidate in Social Psychology at University of Kansas We have seen the enemy, and he is powerful. That’s a recurring motif of contemporary political discourse, as generalized fear mutates for many into a fixation on a ferocious foe. Partisan rhetoric has turned increasingly alarmist. President Obama has difficulty getting even watered-down legislation passed, yet he is supposedly establishing a socialist state. The Tea Party is viewed as a terrifying new phenomenon, rather than the latest embodiment of a recurring paranoid streak in American politics. Osama bin Laden is likely confined to a cave, but he’s perceived as a threat large enough to justify engaging in torture. According to one school of thought, this tendency to exaggerate the strength of our adversaries serves a specific psychological function. It is less scary to place all our fears on a single, strong enemy than to accept the fact our well-being is largely based on factors beyond our control. An enemy, after all, can be defined, analyzed and perhaps even defeated. The notion that focusing our anger on a purportedly powerful foe helps mitigate our fears was first articulated by cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker in his 1969 book Angel in Armor. It has now been confirmed in a timely paper titled “An Existential Function of Enemyship,” just published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. A research team led by social psychologist Daniel Sullivan of the University of Kansas reports on four studies that suggest people are “motivated to create and/or perpetually maintain clear enemies to avoid psychological confrontations with an even more threatening chaotic environment.” When you place their findings in the context of the many threats (economic and otherwise) people face in today’s world, the propensity to turn ideological opponents into mighty monsters starts to make sense. In one of Sullivan’s studies, conducted during the 2008 presidential campaign, a group of University of Kansas undergraduates were asked whether they believed enemies of their favored candidate (Obama or John McCain) were manipulating voting machines in an attempt to steal the election. Prior to considering such conspiracy theories, half were asked to consider the truth of statements such as “I have control over whether I am exposed to a disease,” and “I have control over how my job prospects fare in the economy.” The other half were asked to assess similar statements on relatively unimportant subjects, such as “I have control over how much TV I watch.” Those who were forced to contemplate their lack of control over significant life events “reported a stronger belief in opponent-led conspiracies,” the researchers report. In another study, the student participants were randomly assigned to read one of two essays. The first stated that the U.S. government is well-equipped to handle the economic downturn, and that crime rates are declining due to improved law enforcement. The second reported the government is not at all competent to cope with the recession, and crime rates are going up in spite of the authorities’ best efforts. They were then presented with a list of hypothetical events and asked to pick the most likely cause of each: A friend, an enemy, or neither (that is, the event happened randomly). Those “informed” that the government was not in control were more likely to view a personal enemy as responsible for negative events in their lives. In contrast, those told things are running smoothly “seemed to defensively downplay the extent to which enemies negatively influence their lives,” the researchers report. These studies suggest it’s oddly comforting to have someone, or something, you can point to as the source of your sorrows. This helps explain why Americans inevitably find an outside enemy to focus on, be it the Soviets, the Muslims or the Chinese. Given that society pays an obvious price for such illusions, how might we go about reducing the need for “enemyship?” “If you can somehow raise people’s sense that they have control over their lives and negative hazards in the world, their need to ‘enemize’ others should be reduced,” Sullivan said in an e-mail interview. “In our first study, for instance, we showed that people who feel dispositionally high levels of control over their lives did not respond to a reminder of external hazards by attributing more influence to an enemy. Any social structure or implementation that makes people feel more control over their lives should thus generally reduce (though perhaps not completely eliminate) the ‘need’ or tendency to create or attribute more influence to enemy figures. “In our third study, we showed that if people perceived the broader social system as ordered, they were more likely to respond to a threat to personal control by boosting their faith in the government, rather than by attributing more influence to an enemy. So, again, we see that the need to perceive enemies is reduced when people are made to feel that they are in control of their lives, or that there is a reliable, efficient social order that protects them from the threat of random hazards. “One could imagine, then, that circumstances which allow all citizens to be medically insured, or to have a clear sense of police protection, could reduce the tendency to seek out enemy figures to distill or focalize concerns with random, imminent threats.” Sullivan also offers two more personal potential solutions. “If people have such inherent needs for control and certainty in their lives, they should try to channel those needs as best they can into socially beneficial pursuits,” he says. “Lots of people pursue science, art and religion — just to give a few examples — as means of boiling down uncertainty about the world into clear systems of rules and engagement with reality, creating small domains for themselves in which they can exert a sense of mastery. Insofar as these pursuits don’t harm anyone, but still provide a sense of control, they can reduce the need for enemyship. “A final solution would be to encourage people to simply accept uncertainty and lack of control in their lives,” he adds. “Some meaning systems — Taoism for example — are rooted in this idea, that people can eventually accept a certain lack of control and eventually become resigned to this idea to the extent that they no longer react defensively against it.” So there, at least, is a practical place to begin: Less MSNBC and more meditation. Impacts TURNS THE AFF The discourse of threat construction makes the impacts of the plan inevitable- independent reason to reject if I win a link as it forecloses the ability to have dialogue over our own responsibility
Just as the outcome of World War I sowed the seeds of World War II, and the outcome of World War II the seeds of the cold war, so the outcome of the cold war sowed the seeds of the war on terrorism. And this newest war is already, quite visibly, sowing the seeds of insecurity to come. It may be most useful to view the whole period from the early cold war years through the present war as a single historical era: the era of the national insecurity state. Throughout that era, U.S. policy decisions made in the name of national security consistently breed a greater sense of vulnerability, frustration, and insecurity. It is not hard to see why. Four decades of cold war enshrined two fundamental principles at the heart of our public life: there is a mortal threat to the very existence of our nation, and our own policies play no role in generating the threat. The belief structure of the national insecurity state flows logically from these premises. If our nation bears no responsibility, then we are powerless to eradicate the threat. If others threaten us through no fault of our own, what can we do? There is no hope for a truly better world, nor for ending the danger by mutual compromise with "the other side." The threat is effectively eternal. The best to hope for is to hold the threat forever at bay. Yet the sense of powerlessness is oddly satisfying, because it preserves the conviction of innocence: if our policies are so ineffectual, the troubles of the world can hardly be our fault. And the vision of an endless status quo is equally satisfying, because it promises to prevent historical change. If peril is permanent, the world is an endless reservoir of potential enemies. Any fundamental change in the status quo portends only catastrophe.
alt-reject secularization
10/14/16
2-Minarchy
Tournament: Valley | Round: 2 | Opponent: Scarsdale LS | Judge: Dani 1st- The Affirmative’s call for state action fails to achieve its desired goals while directly reinforcing state power, increasing the legitimacy of State violence. Martin 1990, associate professor at the University of Wollongong, Australia, Brian, Uprooting War
What should be done to help transform the state system in the direction of self-reliance and self-management? The problem can seem overwhelming. What difference can the actions of an individual or small group make? Actually quite a lot. The state system is strong because the actions of many people and groups support it. Most social activists see state intervention as a solution, often the solution to social problems. What can be done about poverty? More state welfare. What about racial discrimination? Laws and enforcement to stop it. What about environmental degradation? State regulation What about sexual discrimination? Anti-discrimination legislation. What about corporate irresponsibility or excess profit? Added government controls and taxation, or nationalization. What about unemployment? State regulation of the economy: investment incentives, job creation schemes, tariffs What about crime? More police, more prisons, more counselors What about enemy attack? More military spending What about too much military spending? Convince or pressure the government to cut back The obvious point is the most social activists look constantly to the state for solutions to social problems. This point bears laboring, because the orientation of most social action groups tends to reinforce state power. This applies to most antiwar action too. Many of the goals and methods of peace movements have been oriented around action by the state, such as appealing to state elites and advocating neutralism and unilateralism. Indeed, peace movements spend a lot of effort debate which demand to make on the state: nuclear freeze, unilateral or multilateral disarmament nuclear-free zones, or removal of military bases. By appealing to the state, activists indirectly strengthen the roots of many social problems the problem of war in particular. To help transform the state system action groups need to develop strategies which, at a minimum, do mot reinforce state power. This means ending the incessant appeals for state intervention, and promoting solutions to social problems which strengthen local self-reliance and initiative. What can be done about poverty? Promote worker and community control over economic resources, and local self-reliance in skills and resources What about racial discrimination? Promote discussion, interaction and nonviolent action at a grassroots level. What about sexual discrimination? Build grassroots campaigns against rape and the gender division of labour, and mount challenges to hierarchical structures which help sustain patriarchy What about corporate irresponsibility or excess profits? Promote worker and community control over production. What about unemployment? Promote community control of community resources for equitable distribution of work and the economic product, and develop worker cooperatives as an alternative to hobs as gifts of employers. What about crime? Work against unequal power and privilege and for meaningful ways of living to undercut the motivation for crime, and promote local community solidarity as a defense against crime. What about enemy attack? Social Defense What about too much military spending? Build local alternatives to the state, use these alternatives to withdraw support from the state and undermine the economic foundation of military spending These grassroots, self-managing solutions to social problems are in many cases no more than suggestive directions. Detailed grassroots strategies in most cases have not been developed, partly because so little attention has been devoted to them compared to the strategies relying on state intervention. But the direction should be clear in developing strategies to address problems, aim at building local self-reliance and withdrawing support from the state rather than appealing for state intervention and thereby reinforcing state power.
Minarchy Alt; I defend a minarchist framework in which states are limited to preventing direct physical aggression and enforce contracts made between citizens. And C-the alt solves the aff: without government subsidies, nuclear power would not be competitive and would not exist. Minarchy removes these subsidies. Koplow, Douglas N. Nuclear power: Still not viable without subsidies. Union of Concerned Scientists, 2011. to be integrated into the price of electricity. But water use in electricity generation has yet to be integrated in this way—and nuclear reactors are the most intense water users per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced. This amounts to a large subsidy to all thermal electric plants; the value to nuclear reactors is estimated to be nearly 0.2 ¢/kWh. Additional research is needed to further refine 106 Union of Concerned Scientists individual-reactor estimates; actual values are likely to vary widely by reactor location and be a more important factor in reactor siting than at present. • Tax breaks for decommissioning. Special reduced tax rates for decommissioning trust funds are the final major subsidy to existing reactors. With an estimated worth of 0.1 to 0.2 ¢/kWh ($450 million per year to $1.1 billion per year), the tax savings on trust-fund earnings are often as large as the new contributions that companies make to the funds. While ongoing subsidies to reactors remain a critical element in the competitiveness of nuclear power, legacy subsidies to capital formation and other parts of the nuclear fuel cycle were also important. If legacy subsidies are added to subsidies that reduce the cost of ongoing operations, this support amounts to between 8 ¢/kWh and 12 ¢/kWh for POUs—a staggering 150 to 220 percent of the value of the power produced. While this level of support has not been available every year, it is reflective of capital and operating support that subsidized the development of our existing reactor fleet. Even at the low end of our calculations, this support is well above the value of the power produced. Among the findings of interest: • Stranded nuclear costs. Despite large subsidies to capital formation, nuclear plants remained high-cost suppliers when they had to recover capital as well as operating costs. When power markets were deregulated, nuclear reactors constituted the largest share of uneconomic (or “stranded”) generating plants, at nearly $110 billion (2007$)—or more than 1 ¢/kWh on average, based on all nuclear electricity generated from the inception of the industry through 1997, when the estimate was made. Subsidies to specific reactors could be much higher. • Regulatory oversight. Although nuclear power plants require more complex regulatory oversight than virtually any other energy source, taxpayers were still paying for most of it prior to 1991. The $11 billion in taxpayer-financed oversight of civilian nuclear power amounted to roughly 0.2 ¢/kWh during the period—a subsidy that exceeds utility funding for nuclear waste disposal at the federal repository. • Compensation to injured workers. Nuclear workers at mining, milling, enrichment, and other fuel-cycle facilities incurred a variety of occupational injuries and illnesses associated with their work. Federal payments to workers of record prior to 1971 (under RECA) and 1992 (under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act) supported both the civilian and military sectors. The civilian share of payments was roughly $1.1 billion, or nearly 0.3 ¢/kWh of nuclear power produced during the period of occupational claims under the programs. Later occupational injuries are not covered in these statutes.
10/23/16
3- CP Privatize police
Tournament: Byron Nelson | Round: 1 | Opponent: Jasper High School | Judge: idk lay Text- The United States Federal Government, in concurrent action with state and local governments, will phase out public police completely, replacing it with a privatized police force Grigg LewRockwell.comanti-state•anti-war•pro-market Email address SUBSCRIBE ARCHIVESAUTHORSBLOGBOOKS and RESOURCESPOLITICAL THEATREPODCASTSSTOREABOUTCONTACTDONATEADVERTISE search Call the Anti-Police: Ending the State's "Security" Monopoly By William Norman Grigg Pro Libertate Blog September 17, 2014 https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/09/william-norman-grigg/call-the-anti-police/ Call the Anti-Police by Feed on in Liberty Leave a comment “How would things be different,” muses Dale Brown of the Detroit-based Threat Management Center, “if police officers were given financial rewards and commendations for resolving dangerous situations peacefully, rather than for using force in situations where it’s neither justified nor effective?” Brown’s approach to public safety is “precisely the opposite of what police are trained and expected to do,” says the 44-year-old entrepreneur. The TMC eschews the “prosecutorial philosophy of applied violence” and the officer safety uber alles mindset that characterize government law enforcement agencies. This is because his very successful private security company has an entirely different mission – the protection of persons and property, rather than enforcing the will of the political class. Those contrasting approaches are displayed to great advantage in proto-dystopian Detroit. “We’ve been hired by three of the most upscale neighborhoods in Detroit to provide 24/7 security services,” Brown proudly informed me during a telephone interview. “People who are well-off are very willing to pay for Lamborghini-quality security services, which means that our profit margin allows us to provide free services to people who are poor, threatened, and desperate for the kind of help the police won’t provide.”“Unlike the police, we don’t respond after a crime has been committed to conduct an investigation and – some of the time, at least – arrest a suspect,” Brown elaborates. “Our approach is based on deterrence and prevention. Where prevention fails, our personnel are trained in a variety of skills – both psychological and physical – to dominate aggressors without killing them.” Police typically define their role in terms of what they are permitted to do to people, rather than what they are required to do for them. Brown’s organization does exactly the reverse, even when dealing with suspected criminals. To illustrate, Brown refers to an incident from a security patrol in which he encountered a black teenager “who was walking in a neighborhood at about 3:00 a.m. dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt, doing what is sometimes called `the drift’ – it was pretty clear he was up to something.” Rather than calling the police – who, given their typical four-hour response time, wouldn’t have arrived soon enough to be of any help, as if helping were part of their job description – Brown took action that was both preventive and non-aggressive. “I told him, `There are criminals here who might rob you, so you’ll get free bodyguard service anytime you’re in the neighborhood,’” Brown related to me. “I also asked for his name and personal information for a `Good person file’ that would clear him with the cops next time he decided to go jogging in a black hoodie a three in the morning. He didn’t have to give me that information, of course, but he told me what I needed to know – and we’ve never seen him there again.” Brown and his associates takes a similar approach to dealing with minor problems that usually result in police citations that clog court dockets and blight the lives of harmless people. “When we see someone who is drunk or otherwise intoxicated, we offer to take their keys and call their families to get them home,” he reports. “This way we keep them safe from harm – and, just as importantly, protect them from prosecution. Again, everything we do is the opposite of what the police do. If you have a joint in your pocket, the cops will be all over you – but if you’re facing actual danger, they’re nowhere to be found, and aren’t required to help you even if they show up.” That contrast is most visible in confrontations with potentially dangerous people. Brown’s company receives referrals to provide security for people who face active threats, such as victims of domestic violence. One representative case involved a young mother whose daughter had been abducted by a violent, abusive father with a lengthy criminal history. The child was rescued and reunited with her mother without guns being drawn or anybody being hurt. For reasons of accountability and what the private sector calls “quality assurance,” Brown and his colleagues recorded that operation, as they document nearly everything else they do. However, they weren’t playing to the cameras. The same can’t be said of the Detroit PD SWAT team that stormed the home of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones at midnight in May 2010 while filming the assault for a cable television program. Officer Joseph Weekley, who burst through the door carrying a ballistic shield and an MP5 submachine gun, shot and killed Aiyana, who had been sleeping on the living room couch. By the time she was killed terrified little girl had already been burned by a flash-bang grenade that had been hurled into the living room. The home was surrounded with toys and other indicia that children resided therein, and neighbors had pleaded with the police not to carry out the blitzkrieg. The cops did arrest a suspect in a fatal shooting, but he resided in a different section of the same building. In any case, the suspect could have been taken into custody without a telegenic paramilitary assault – if the safety of those on the receiving end of police violence had been factored into the SWAT team’s calculations. Owing in no small measure to public outrage, Weekly has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and careless discharge of a weapon resulting in death. A jury deadlocked on the charges in July 2013. Weekley now faces a second trial that will produce a conviction only if the prosecution can overcome the presumption that the officer’s use of deadly force was reasonable. This is a function of the entirely spurious, and endlessly destructive, doctrine of “qualified immunity,” which protects police officers from personal liability when their actions result in unjustified harm to the persons or property of innocent people. The rationale behind qualified immunity is the belief that absent such protection competent and talented people wouldn’t enlist as peace officers. In practice, however, qualified immunity merely emboldens incompetent and vicious police officers. “Police should be subject to exactly the
The police itself is the problem- there is no incentive to stop abuses Grigg LewRockwell.comanti-state•anti-war•pro-market Email address SUBSCRIBE ARCHIVESAUTHORSBLOGBOOKS and RESOURCESPOLITICAL THEATREPODCASTSSTOREABOUTCONTACTDONATEADVERTISE search Call the Anti-Police: Ending the State's "Security" Monopoly By William Norman Grigg Pro Libertate Blog September 17, 2014 https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/09/william-norman-grigg/call-the-anti-police/ observes, “we have double accountability – first to our clients who pay us, and then to the criminal justice system and civil courts if we do something wrong. And because the police usually see us as competitors, they are very eager to come after us if we screw up. But in all the years we’ve been working, we’ve had no deaths or injuries – either to our clients or to our own people – no criminal charges, and no lawsuits.” Not only do Brown and his associates operate without the benefit of “qualified immunity,” they are required to expose themselves to physical risk on behalf of their clients – something that police are trained to avoid. “For police officers, going home at the end of the shift is the highest priority,” Brown observes. “For us it can’t be. When we’re hired to protect a client, his home, his business, his family, we’ve made a choice to put the client’s safety above our own, and to make sure that he or she gets home safely at the end of the day.” When people seek help from the police, Brown points out, they’re inviting intervention by someone who has no enforceable duty to protect them, but will be rewarded for injuring them or needlessly complicating their lives. “Let’s examine this logically,” Brown begins. “What is this human being – the police officer – going to get out of becoming involved in your troubles? Will be he rewarded for helping you to solve them, especially if this involves a personal risk? Would solving your problem be worth getting injured or killed?” “We’re dealing with a basic question of human motivations,” Brown continues. “Police are not required to intervene to protect you – there is a very long list of judicial precedents proving this. They’re actually rewarded for not intervening. Here, once again, I emphasize that Threat Management is not comparable to the police. We follow exactly the opposite approach. People don’t have to work with Threat Management, but if they choose to, that’s what we expect of them.” Some critics of TMC and other private security firms insist that their personnel cannot match the qualifications and experience of government-employed police officers. That objection wildly overestimates the professional standards that must be met in order for an individual to become a government-licensed purveyor of privileged violence. “An individual can become a police officer in six months,” Brown points out. “Can you become a doctor or an EMT in six months? Is there any other profession in which employees can become `qualified’ to make life-and-death decisions on behalf of other people after just a few months of training?” By way of supplementing Brown’s point: In Arkansas, an applicant can become a police officer in a day, and work in that capacity for a year, without professional certification of any kind. However, to become a licensed practicing cosmetologist, an applicant must pass a state board examination and complete 2,000 hours of specialized training. For an investment of 600 hours an applicant can qualify to work as a manicurist or instructor. While Arkansas strictly regulates those who cut hair or paint nails in private, voluntary transactions, it imposes no training or licensing standards whatsoever on armed people who claim the authority to inflict lethal violence on others. This is not to concede that there is any way one human being can become legitimately “qualified” to commit aggressive violence against another. “Law enforcement attracts a certain personality type that is prone to narcissism and aggression,” Brown asserts, speaking from decades of experience. “People like that get weeded out from our program very early. We protect innocent people from predators, and we can’t carry out that mission by hiring people who are predatory themselves. Our people receive extensive training in firearms and unarmed combat techniques, but they’re also taught to look at all humans as members of the same family. The question we want them to ask themselves is – in what circumstances would you shoot, or otherwise harm a member of your family? They’re trained to apply that standard in all situations involving a potential use of force. People who can’t think that way aren’t going to fit in with our program.” Brown emphatically agrees that the phenomenon called “police militarization” is a huge and growing menace, but insists that the core problem is “not the military hardware, or the other trappings of militarization, but the system itself. Police agencies attract the wrong kind of people and then tell them, `You’re like God’ – they get to impose their will on others and use lethal force at their discretion. And when someone who is really golden shows up – that is, an ethical, conscientious person who wants to protect the public – they get redirected into a role that will minimize their influence for good by people who are worried about their own job security.” “Ideally, the best approach would be to abolish the current system and start over,” Brown concludes. “But the very least we should demand would be total equity and complete accountability – which would mean, as a starting point, doing away with this idea of `qualified immunity.’ Police are citizens, and they should be governed by the same laws that apply to all citizens. No exceptions, no special protections.” Several studies have shown that there are between three and four times as many private peace officers – such as security guards, armored truck drivers, and private investigators – as sworn law enforcement officers in the United States. That fact demonstrates that the security market is completely unserved by government law enforcement agencies. This shouldn’t be surprising, since – as I have observed before – police agencies serve the interests of those who plunder private property, and thus can’t be expected to protect it. Police personnel practice aggressive violence from the shelter of “qualified immunity.” The absence of such protection doesn’t deter talented, motivated people such as Dale Brown and his associates – and others providing similar services in Houston, Oakland, and elsewhere — from seeking employment as private security officers who actually accept personal risk to protect property. Why not abolish qualified immunity for all security personnel? Critics of that proposal might protest that this would undermine the state’s monopoly on the provision of “security” by requiring its employees to compete on equal terms with the private sector. Which is precisely the point.
Competition- analytic
net benefits- analytic
11/7/16
3- Fem K
Tournament: Cypress baeeee | Round: 2 | Opponent: Pembrook Pines WW | Judge: Wendy Schauben Part A is the links- 1st- the Legal system inherently locks Masculinity in a hierarchal relationship above femininity. Charlesworth and Chinkin 2000 - *Hilary, Christine Professors of Law at University of Adelaide and University of South Hampton, The boundaries of international law: a feminist analysis, 2000, p. 40-1)
The hypothesis drawn by some feminist lawyers from Gilligan's research is that, just as traditional psychological theories have privileged a male perspective and marginalized women's voices, so too law privileges a male view of the universe and that law is part of the structure of male domination. The hierarchical organization of law, its adversarial format and its aim of the abstract resolution of competing rights, make the law an intensely patriarchal institution. Law, thus represents a very limited aspect of human experience. The language and imagery of the law underscores is maleness: it lays claim to rationality, objectivity and abstractness, characteristics traditionally associated with men, and is defined in contrast to emotion, subjectivity and contextualized thinking - the province of women.
2nd Your attempt to change a legal standard of ‘clearly established’ into an objective metric supercharges this link- you prioritize the structure of male domination even more through your specific advocacy Lindsey de Stefan, JD Candidate, Seton Hall University School of Law, “No Man is Above the Law and No Man is Below It: How Qualified Immunity Reform Could Create Accountability and Curb Widespread Police Misconduct,” Seton Hall Law Student Scholarship, 2017. But perhaps somewhat ironically, the concept of a “clearly” established right is in and of itself less than clear, and a great deal of confusion exists over what rights fall within this vague classification. 83 In essence, approximately 50 percent of the time, a court’s decision to grant immunity to an official is based on a muddled and uncertain legal precept. In order to qualify as clearly established, “a right must be sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.” 84 There are few unambiguous bright-line rules in modern constitutional jurisprudence, and most doctrines are instead articulated as relatively vague standards or balancing tests.85 In addition, because there are considerable distinctions in terms of the structure, aim, and available alternative remedies of various constitutional rights, the general-purpose nature of qualified immunity is problematic.86 Defining a clearly established law is straightforward when the right is laid out in a stable and fairly specific doctrine, but when the rule changes, the new law only becomes clearly established when a clarifying court decision is handed down.87 When such constitutional rights are violated, qualified immunity allows officials to avoid liability because of a failure to anticipate developments in the law. 88 And although the Court held in 2002 that there need not be a case on point in order to find clearly established law,89 it has nevertheless continued to grant qualified immunity in the absence of similar precedent.90 Unsurprisingly, lower courts struggle with the question of whether a right is clearly established, and the circuits have developed markedly varying approaches to the inquiry.91 Finally, year after year, despite attempts to clarify the doctrine, it seems that the Supreme Court has only further added to the confusion of lower courts. Indeed, almost without fail, Supreme Court cases since Pearson have apparently further expanded the qualified immunity doctrine by upholding its application in all manner of diverse situations—seemingly in every set of circumstances with which it has been presented. 3rd The state locks in gender binaries Chenoy 2000 – Professor of International Studies @ Nehru University. (Anuradha, Professor, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, 2000, p.19)
Though patriarchal customs preceded state formation, masculinist and class systems got institutionalized as states were structured. Gender and class relations were backed by the coercive power of the state and the reproduction of this hierarchy was ensured through a complex of legitimizing ideologies. The 'individual household unit rendered women vulnerable to and dependent on fathers/brothers/husbands and weakened their access to countervailing power and support from larger kin networks. The role of women in the domestic/household sphere was regulated by the state. With new inheritance claims, sexuality and reproduction too were regulated by the state. For instance, women's adultery became a crime against the state and was punished publicly. The state became the main organizer of power relations of gender. It engaged in the mystification of its patriarchal base by constructing and manipulating the ideology that drew a distinction between public and private life.
4th- another state link- The state formalizes gender oppression-as long as the aff allows the police to exist oppression is inevitable. Chenoy 2000 – Professor of International Studies @ Nehru University. (Anuradha, Professor, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, 2000, p.19)
According to feminist scholars, the state further formalized gender power relations by retaining male domination of the top personnel within it. Gender differentiation became evident, thanks to disproportionate number of men in the coercive structures of the state (army, police, etc.), and women in the service sectors (teaching, health, clerical support, etc.). In fact, women were "protected" from the so-called "tough professions" in order to keep them out and to prevent them from getting equal rights. Men became eligible for better jobs and better pay in the liberal societies while women had to struggle hard for these privileges. 5th- reformism links- Legal reforms are counterproductive- even liberal rights: independently no solves and contests your method. Koskenniemi 1995 Martti Koskenniemi, University of Helsinki, January, , The American Journal International Law, 89 A.J.I.L. 227, p. 227 Traditional feminism, in law as elsewhere, sought to "put women on the agenda" -- for example, to make violence against women a violation of international human rights. While first-wave feminism concentrated on legal reform, the second wave has lost faith. Reform has often been ineffectual or led to transformation, rather than eradication, of male dominance. Sometimes, "using" law may have seemed to be a fatal concession. For the law and legal method may themselves, with their adversarial style and obsession with authority and rationality, be bastions of stereotypical masculinity-hence, of male domination. This applies also to the rhetoric of liberal rights ("men's rights," Shelley Wright, p. 120). While "rights," like reformism, may have played a beneficial role in early feminist struggles, they have also proved counterproductive. They oversimplify complex power relations (within the family, for instance); they are individualistic, indeterminate, conflictual and easily appropriated to enhance domination (as the right of free speech is used to defend pornography). Part 2 is the impact- patriarchy is bad Part 3 is the alt- The alternative is feminist anarchy- an intersectional approach to combatting the neoliberal order and normative legal structures of the aff. http://struggle.ws/wsm/ws/2004/79/thinking.html, Anarcha-Feminism Thinking about Anarchism, by Deirdre Hogan, jan 2004 An important principle of anarchism and one that more than any other differentiates it from other types of socialism is its emphasis on freedom and non-hierarchical social relations. Central to anarchism is the rejection of society without an end to all existing structures of domination and exploitation, including naturally the oppression of women. As anarchists we believe that the means determines the end. This means that we do not wait for some future revolution to tackle the problems of sexism any power hierarchy between men and women. Anarchists believe that the liberty of one is based on the liberty of all and so there can be no true anarchist but instead see that it is important to struggle against it in the here and now. As anarchists we strive to ensure that both our own organisations and also those campaigns we are involved in are free from sexism and power-hierarchies and that all members have equal decision-making power. We recognise that the full participation of women within the anarchist movement and social struggles of today is very important. In order to shape the future society women must be involved in its creation and, of course, without the participation of half of the population there will be no social revolution. Just as we believe the emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class themselves, we also see that, essentially, women’s development, freedom and independence must come from themselves. Becoming involved in political struggle is in itself an act of empowerment. Many women in today’s society do not believe that they could have a role in fundamentally changing things. However by getting involved, by assuming our place — agitating, educating and organising — we begin to take control of our own lives in the process of actively fighting to change the unjust society in which we live. Only in an anarchist society will the basis for the oppression of women cease to exist. This is because women, due to their reproductive role, will always be more vulnerable than men in capitalist society which is based on the need to maximise profit. Abortion rights, paid maternity leave, crèche and childcare facilities etc., in short everything that would be necessary to ensure the economic equality of women under capitalism, will always be especially relevant to women. Because of this, women are generally viewed as being less economical than men to employ and are more susceptible to attacks on gains such as crèche facilities etc. Also, women cannot be free until they have full control over their own bodies. Yet under capitalism, abortion rights are never guaranteed. Even if gains are made in this area they can be attacked, as happens with abortion rights in the USA. The oppression of women under capitalism has thus an economic and sexual basis. From these root causes of women’s oppression, stem other forms of oppression like, for example, the ideological oppression of women, violence against women etc. That is not to say that sexist ideas will just disappear with the end of capitalism, but rather only with the end of capitalism can we rid society of an institutional bias that continues to propagate and encourage sexism. As an anarchist society will not be driven by profit, there, for example, will be no economic penalty for having children or wanting to spend more time with them. Childcare, housework etc., can be seen as the responsibility of the whole of society and thus give women and men more options in general. Anarchism/Anarcha-feminism 1 joins the fight against class exploitation and that against women’s oppression together. True freedom, both for women and men, can only come about in a classless society, where workplaces are self-managed, private property is abolished and the people who make decisions are those affected by them. Clearly the struggle for women’s freedom requires a class struggle by the workers. And in turn, the class struggle can only be successful if it is at the same time a struggle against women’s oppression.
Part 4 is framing Judge is an educator? The epistemological underpinnings of the school and the affs methods must be flipped on its head, key to accessing agency and preventing hierarchal violence. Thus the Roll of the judge is to develop feminist standpoint epistemology Pandey 6(Anupam, thesis submitted to faculty of graduate studies and research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctorate of philosophy department of political science Carleton university, forging bonds with women, nature and the third world: an ecofeminist critique of international relations, 103-105 Proj Muse KD)
Both traditional IR theory and its positivist basis have been soundly criticized for their shortcomings by post-positivist approaches such as feminist, post-modern, poststructuralist and critical approaches. This research aims to extend and deepen the existing critique by developing an ecofeminist perspective. A short summation of the post- positivist critique of the neo-realist agenda in this regard lies in the fact that the problem is inherent in the epistemological premises of the school itself. The subject-object dichotomy is responsible for the divorce of ethics from theory. That theorizing helps to construct the reality and the need for epistemological self-consciousness cannot be emphasized enough. “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are” (Ken Booth quoting Anais, 1995: 334). As discussed earlier, the most critical aspect with respect to epistemology and methodology is the hidden element of power associated with it. Robert Cox’s famous statement that theory is always to benefit someone or for some purpose (1986: 207) is equally true for epistemology. The adoption of a particular epistemological choice (which we discussed leads to serious ontological consequences for the discipline which in turn, in constitutive of reality) cannot be an innocent exercise. Thus, the fundamental question that arises is just whose perspective is reflected in the choice of method or even epistemology or quite simply, who is the “knower”? The answer to this question with respect to International Relations and its scientific methods and positivistic methodology is that the subject is clearly the male who represents the White, western, Bourgeois masculinity. Alternately, an ecofeminist epistemology is reflective of the subjectivity or perspective of the epistemology of the voiceless, the dispossessed and the marginalized, specifically, women and nature and it explores the relationship between the two. As discussed in detail in chapter 2, in this regard, much of what an ecofeminist critique promises is already covered by a feminist standpoint epistemology. Not only does the latter help to reveal the element of power in the construction of knowledge by specifying exactly who stands to benefit from such knowledge but it also helps to reverse the hierarchical order by developing an epistemology from the standpoint of the oppressed, namely, women. However, an ecofeminist perspective serves to expand the existing body of knowledge by shifting the focus away not only from androcentricism but even anthropocentricism. This shift in focus is the key to understanding hierarchization, inegalitarianism and exploitation in relationships between humans. Dis comes first- 1 reps first- don’t even try to weigh case fam
11/29/16
3- Wilderson negates on this topic fam
Tournament: UT Austin | Round: 1 | Opponent: Connal AW | Judge: Brady Lu Please read the round notes.
Bro- u read wilderson and state good. Extend wilderson- under your own framing, you don’t solve case and you are anti black. Heres an extrapolation of your argument- The call for equality will always fail. Claims of American progression are all lies. Civil society produces a perfected form of slavery, where violence is hidden from us by a mask of freedom and reformism. Liberation is impossible under current legal structure, and their unwillingness to break away from that structure reinforces hierarchies of anti-blackness through a process of the slave willingly bowing down to its master. Farley ’05 (Anthony Paul, Professor of Law @ Boston College, “Perfecting Slavery”, 1/27/2005, http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1028andcontext=lsfp - SG)
The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is, in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth, and in power. So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for all time, if it remains true to its great heritage, and holds fast to the principles of constitutional liberty. People will be able to liberate themselves only after the legal superstructure itself has begun to wither away. And when we begin to overcome and to do without these juridical concepts in reality, rather than merely in declarations, that will be the surest sign that the narrow horizon of bourgeois law is finally opening up before us. Slavery is with us still. We are haunted by slavery. We are animated by slavery. White-over-black is slavery and segregation and neosegregation and every situation in which the distribution of material or spiritual goods follows the colorline. The movement from slavery to segregation to neosegregation to whatever form of white-over-black it is that may come with post-modernity or after is not toward freedom. The movement from slavery to segregation to neosegregation is the movement of slavery perfecting itself. White-over-black is neosegregation. White-over-black is segregation. White-over-black is slavery. All of it is white-over-black, only white-over-black, and that continually. The story of progress up from slavery is a lie, the longest lie. The story of progress up from slavery is told juridically in the form of the rule of law. Slavery is the rule of law. And slavery is death.
Their reformism is anti-revolutionary – historically, public social investments like the aff are used to create a narrative of national redemption from racism. The use of expansive taxation and market mechanisms is used to incorporate and defuse anti-racist struggles around issues like public transportation
12/9/16
3- also-totally-unique-T-shell-youve-never-seen
Tournament: UT Austin | Round: 1 | Opponent: Connal AW | Judge: Brady Lu JK its limits T
Interp: The affirmative must not defend the abolishment of qualified immunity. Limit means to reduce: Oxford Learner’s Dictionariesworld’s largest repository of information about the English language, Oxford Dictionaries is part of Oxford University Press (OUP), a department of the University of Oxford. A global organization, covering major languages such as English, Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, French, and Portuguese, and less widely spoken ones such as isiZulu and Malay, “Limit,” http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/limit_2,
to restrict or reduce the amount of something that you or somebody can have or use
limits 2. Field usage- specifically in a legal context, limitations require restriction of the law – government debates are about restrictions and modifications on current programs not complete elimination Brian Tamanaha 07William Gardiner Hammond Professor of Law, renowned jurisprudence and law and society scholar, and the author of eight books and numerous scholarly articles “A CONCISE GUIDE TO THE RULE OF LAW,” ST. JOHN’S UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, LEGAL STUDIES RESEARCH PAPER SERIES, SEPTEMBER 2007, http://content.csbs.utah.edu/~dlevin/conlaw/tamanaha-rule-of-law.pdf, ghsBZ The second type of legal restraint imposes restrictions on the law itself, erecting limitations on the law making power of the government. Under this second type of restraint, certain prohibited actions cannot be legally allowed, even by a legitimate lawmaking authority. Legal restrictions of this sort rank above (control over) ordinary lawmaking. The most familiar versions of this are: 1) constitutionally imposed limits, 2) transnational or international legal limits, 3) human rights limits, and 4) religious or natural law limits. In different ways and senses, these types of law are superior to and impose restraints upon routine law making. The first two versions share a quality described above in that the limits they impose can be changed by legal bodies, but they are nonetheless distinct in that alterations usually cannot be made in the ordinary course by the government subject to the limitation. Constitutionally imposed limitations and transnational or international legal requirements are often more difficult to modify than ordinary legislation—as when a higher threshold must be overcome or changes must be effectuated by a different law making body. Constitutional amendments, for example, may require a supermajority vote while ordinary legislation requires only a majority vote, or must be made by a special body with a constitutional mandate; changes in transnational or international law rules must be effectuated by transnational or international institutions, and thus are beyond the power of the nation state to unilaterally alter. These heightened hurdles enhance the efficacy of the legal limits. And- field usage first in determining if they are T analytic 3. policy edu 4. jurisdiction
12/9/16
3-Agamban K
Tournament: UT | Round: 4 | Opponent: Edmond North DA | Judge: Nikunj Patel the LINK-Rights are based on an inscription of life in birth. This inevitably inscribes the power of the nation state, barring life to those outside. The functionality of rights also kills solvency of the ac, because It is contingent on the continued goodwill of the state Giorgio Agamben Beyond Human Rights, This English translation of the original Italian text (1993) was first published in: Giorgio Agamben, ‘Means without End. Notes on Politics’ in: Theory Out of Bounds, Vol. 20 (Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000). anitarian organizations and to the police. The reasons for such impotence lie not only in the selfishness and blindness of bureaucratic apparatuses, but also in the very ambiguity of the fundamental notions regulating the inscription of the native (that is, of life) in the juridical order of the nation-state. Hannah Arendt titled the chapter of her book Imperialism that concerns the refugee problem ‘The Decline of the NationState and the End of the Rights of Man’.2 One should try to take seriously this formulation, 2. Hannah Arendt, Imperialism which indissolubly of Totalitarianism, Part II of The Origins (New links the fate of the York: Harcourt Brace, 1951), 266-298. Rights of Man with the fate of the modern nation-state in such a way that the waning of the latter necessarily implies the obsolescence of the former. Here the paradox is that precisely the figure that should have embodied human rights more than any other – namely, the refugee – marked instead the radical crisis of the concept. The conception of human rights based on the supposed existence of a human being as such, Arendt tells us, proves to be untenable as soon as those who profess it find themselves confronted for the first time with people who have really lost every quality and every specific relation except for the pure fact of being human.3 In the system of the nation-state, so- 3. Ibid., 290-295. called sacred and inalienable human rights are revealed to be without any protection precisely when it is no longer possible to conceive of them as rights of the citizens of a state. This is implicit, after all, in the ambiguity of the very title of the 1789 Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen, in which it is unclear whether the two terms are to name two distinct realities or whether they are to form, instead, a hendiadys in which the first term is actually always already
impact-this barring of life detracts from the realization of Naked Life- a form of persistent dehumanization. The only way to escape is by embracing a denationalized subject in the REFUGEE Giorgio Agamben Beyond Human Rights, This English translation of the original Italian text (1993) was first published in: Giorgio Agamben, ‘Means without End. Notes on Politics’ in: Theory Out of Bounds, Vol. 20 (Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000). contained in the second. That there is no autonomous space in the political order of the nation-state for something like the pure human in itself is evident at the very least from the fact that, even in the best of cases, the status of refugee has always been considered a temporary condition that ought to lead either to naturalization or to repatriation. A stable statute for the human in itself is inconceivable in the law of the nation-state. It is time to cease to look at all the declarations of rights from 1789 to the present day as proclamations of eternal metajuridical values aimed at binding the legislator to the respect of such values; it is time, rather, to understand them according to their real function in the modern state. Human rights, in fact, represent first of all the originary 2008/No. figure for the inscription of natural naked life in the political-juridical order of the nation-state. Naked life (the human being), which in antiquity belonged to God and in the classical world was clearly distinct (as zoe) from political life (bios), comes to the forefront in the management of the state and becomes, so to speak, its earthly foundation. Nation-state means a state that makes nativity or birth nascita (that is, naked human life) the foundation of its own sovereignty. This is the meaning (and it is not even a hidden one) of the first three articles of the 1789 Declaration: it is only because this declaration inscribed (in articles 1 and 2) the native element in the heart of any political organization that it can firmly bind (in article 3) the principle of sovereignty to the nation (in conformity with its etymon, native natío originally meant simply ‘birth’ nascita. The fiction that is implicit here is that birth nascita comes into being immediately as nation, so that there may not be any difference between the two moments. Rights, in other words, are attributed to the human being only to the degree to which he or she is the immediately vanishing presupposition (and, in fact, the presupposition that must never come to light as such) of the citizen. If the refugee represents such a disquieting element in the order of the nation-state, this is so primarily because, by breaking the identity between the human and the citizen and that between nativity and nationality, it brings the originary fiction of sovereignty to crisis. Single exceptions to such a principle, of course, have always existed. What is new in our time is that growing sections of humankind are no longer representable inside the nation-state – and this novelty threatens the very foundations of the latter. Inasmuch as the refugee, an apparently marginal figure, unhinges the old trinity of state-nation-territory, it deserves instead to be regarded as the central figure of our political history. We should not forget that the first camps were built in Europe as spaces for controlling refugees, and that the succession of internment campsconcentration camps-extermination camps represents a perfectly real filiation. One of the few rules the Nazis constantly obeyed throughout the course of the ‘final solution’ was that Jews and Gypsies could be sent to extermination camps only after having been fully denationalized (that is, after they had been stripped of even that second-class citizenship to which they had been relegated after the Nuremberg Laws). When their rights are no longer the rights of the citizen, that is when human beings are truly sacred, in the sense that this term used to have in the Roman law of the archaic period: doomed to death. The concept of refugee must be resolutely separated from the concept of the ‘human rights’, and the right of asylum (which in any case is by now in the process of being drastically restricted in the legislation of the European states) must no longer be considered as the conceptual category in which to inscribe the phenomenon of refugees. (One needs only to look at Agnes H
And, even if I lose FW, dehumanization comes first because
The alt: to create an extraterritorial space in the debate round: one that we create refugees out of debaters in the rejection of birthed rights and duties. This functionally and representationally exclusive with the aff because this space excludes the state and its arbitrary categories, as well as the affs rights based advocacy Giorgio Agamben Beyond Human Rights, This English translation of the original Italian text (1993) was first published in: Giorgio Agamben, ‘Means without End. Notes on Politics’ in: Theory Out of Bounds, Vol. 20 (Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000).
eller’s recent Theses on the Right of Asylum to realize that this cannot but lead today to awkward confusions.) The refugee should be considered for what it is, namely, nothing less than a limit-concept that at once brings a radical crisis to the principles of the nation-state and clears the way for a renewal of categories that can no longer be delayed. Meanwhile, in fact, the phenomenon of so-called illegal immigration into the countries of the European Union has reached (and shall increasingly reach in the coming years, given the estimated twenty million immigrants from Central European countries) characteristics and proportions such that this reversal of perspective is fully justified. What industrialized countries face today is a permanently resident mass of noncitizens that do not want to be and cannot be either naturalized or repatriated. These noncitizens often have nationalities of origin, but, inasmuch as they prefer not to benefit from their own states’ protection, they find themselves, as refugees, in a condition of de facto statelessness. Tomas Hammar has created the neologism of ‘denizens’ for these noncitizen residents, a neologism that has the merit of showing how the concept of ‘citizen’ is no longer adequate for describing the social-political reality of modern states.4 On the other hand, the citizens 4.Tomas Hammar, Democof advanced indus- rAacliensy and the Nation State, Denizens, and : trial states (in the Citizens in a World of International Migration (Brook- United States as field, Vt.: Gower, 1990). well as Europe) demonstrate, through an increasing desertion of the codified instances of political participation, an evident propensity to turn into denizens, into noncitizen permanent residents, so that citizens and denizens – at least in certain social strata – are entering an area of potential indistinction. In a parallel way, xenophobic reactions and defensive mobilizations are on the rise, in conformity with the well-known principle according to which substantial assimilation in the presence of formal differences exacerbates hatred and intolerance. Before extermination camps are reopened in Europe (something that is already starting to happen), it is necessary that the nation-states find the courage to question the very principle of the inscription of nativity as well as the trinity of state-nation-territory that is founded on that principle. It is not easy to indicate right now the ways in which all this may concretely happen. One of the options taken into consideration for solving the problem of Jerusalem is that it become – simultaneously and without any territorial partition – the capital of two different states. The paradoxical condition of reciprocal extraterritoriality (or, better yet, aterritoriality) that would thus be implied could be generalized as a model of new international relations. Instead of two national states separated by uncertain and threatening boundaries, it might be possible to imagine two political communities existing on the same region and in a condition of exodus from each other – communities 2008/No. that would articulate each other via a series of reciprocal extraterritorialities in which the guiding concept would no longer be the ius (right) of the citizen but rather the refugium (refuge) of the singular. In an analogous way, we could conceive of Europe not as an impossible ‘Europe of the nations’, whose catastrophe one can already foresee in the short run, but rather as an aterritorial or extraterritorial space in which all the (citizen and noncitizen) residents of the European states would be in a position of exodus or refuge; the status of European would then mean the being-in-exodus of the citizen (a condition that obviously could also be one of immobility). European space would thus mark an irreducible difference between birth nascita and nation in which the old concept of people (which, as is well known, is always a minority) could again find a political meaning, thus decidedly opposing itself to the concept of nation (which has so far unduly usurped it). This space would coincide neither with any of the homogeneous national territories nor with their topographical sum, but would rather act on them by articulating and perforating them topologically as in the Klein bottle or in the Möbius strip, where exterior and interior in-determine each other. In this new space, European cities would rediscover their ancient vocation of cities of the world by entering into a relation of reciprocal extraterritoriality. As I write this essay, 425 Palestinians expelled by the state of Israel find themselves in a sort of no-man’s-land. These men certainly constitute, according to Hannah Arendt’s suggestion, ‘the vanguard of their people’. But that is so not necessarily or not merely in the sense that they might form the originary nucleus of a future national state, or in the sense that they might solve the Palestinian question in a way just as insufficient as the way in which Israel has solved the Jewish question. Rather, the no-man’s-land in which they are refugees has already started from this very moment to act back onto the territory of the state of Israel by perforating it and altering it in such a way that the image of that snowy mountain has become more internal to it than any other region of Eretz Israel. Only in a world in which the spaces of states have been thus perforated and topologically deformed and in which the citizen has been able to recognize the refugee that he or she is – only in such a world is the political survival of humankind today thinkable.
Tournament: Cypress bae | Round: 5 | Opponent: Pembrook Pines SS | Judge: Lay JK its abolish QU lol Part one is the counterplan: The United States federal government should fully replace qualified immunity with the strict liability standard. Bernick 15 explains the plan-strict liability is the standard for every other form of processional. Evan Bernick (Assistant Director of the Center for Judicial Engagement at the Institute for Justice). “To Hold Police Accountable, Don’t Give Them Immunity.” Foundation for Economic Education. 6 May 2015. https://fee.org/articles/to-hold-police-accountable-dont-give-them-immunity/ Simply put, qualified immunity has to go. It should be replaced with a rule of strict liability for bona fide constitutional violations. There are a variety of possible rules. First, police officers could be held personally liable for any rights violations. They’d need to carry personal malpractice insurance, just like lawyers, doctors, and other professionals. Insurance companies are qualified and motivated judges of risk, and they would provide another reasonable level of scrutiny on police conduct, policies, and training. Second, police departments could be held liable for any rights violations by officers and punitive damages could be assessed against individual officers for particularly outrageous conduct. Third, police departments could be required to insure officers up to a certain amount — officers would have to purchase insurance to cover any costs in excess of that amount. As ambitious as these reforms might seem, never underestimate the power of widespreadpublicoutrage. InthecaseofKelo, theCourt’s cavalier treatmentofpropertyrightsled to a number of laws protecting citizens from eminent domain abuse in states across the country. Here, too, the public can force legislators to respond. The question of how to ensure that officers exercise the authority delegated to them with the proper vigor, while also keeping them within the limits of that authority, should be left in the first instance to elected officials — subject to constitutional limits and the requirements of valid federal laws (like Section 1983). Qualified immunity enables officers to flout those limits and those laws. We must replace the judicially invented impunity that police officers currently enjoy with a realistic avenue for the vindication of constitutional rights.
Part two is net benefits- Solves the whole aff better- we ban qualified immunity completely, giving more accountability. We demand police be treated equally to the public- this is key to break the reliance on the state. Any legal distinction between members of the state and the public is unjust because it places unequal moral worth on the ones in control, this functions as the root cause of violence as power structures are able to justify atrocities. Only the counterplan solves- Studies show officers are never held financially liable in the status quo due to indemnification-liability is shifted to the police department, incentivizing future abuses. The CP is absolutely key to stop this- it demands direct, personal liabillity for officers. Joanna Schwartz (Law Professor at UCLA); interview with Paul Rosenberg (California-based writer/activist, senior editor for Random Lengths News, and a columnist for Al Jazeera English). “We must make the police pay: When cops go too far, they must feel the pain too.” Salon. 9 May 2015. http://www.salon.com/2015/05/09/we_must_make_the_police_pay_when_cops_go_too_far_they_must_feel_t So, what was the scope of your investigation in terms of timeframe and the jurisdictions you looked at? I began this project in 2012, and sent out public records requests to the 70 largest law enforcement agencies, including both municipal agencies and county and state agencies. My public records request essentially asked for information about the amounts spent, in civil rights claims, over six years—from 2006 to 2011—and the frequency with which punitive damage judgments were awarded, and any instances in which officers were required to personally pay, in part, any of those awards. There was, as you might imagine, a lot of runaround with a lot of jurisdictions to get the information. I would say 80 percent of jurisdictions to 20 percent of my time, and the final 20 percent of the jurisdictions took 80 percent of my time. Sometime in about 2013, after about a year and a half, or almost two years, I tracked down information from 44 of those 70 departments, and then I presented the paper at Berkeley, at Boalt Law School, and someone asked a very good question: they said, “These are the 70 largest agencies. How do you know what happens is smaller agencies?” That was a very good question, because there are 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, and many of those are very small, so I decided to then submit public records requests to a randomly selected group of 70 smaller law enforcement agencies, and got responses from 37 of those 70. So that is how I got the 81. The results you found were sort of what I expected, only more so, I would say personally, but I don’t know about the general public. And certainly it didn’t match the expectations out there in the legal literature. So what did you find? I found that indemnification of officers is virtually certain and universal. During the six year period across the 81 jurisdictions, there were over 9,200 civil rights cases in which plaintiffs received payments. The total awarded was over $730 million, but there were just 37 to 39 cases in which officers contributed something. When they contributed, it was a rather small amount. The median payment was just over $2,000 by officers per case. And those could be cases where there were five- or six-figure settlements for the plaintiffs in most cases. So the officers really contributed, when they contributed—which was very infrequent—they contributed a rather small amount. No officer paid more than $25,000 in any case. The next-highest amount was $16,500, and the next amount was $12,000. And most of the amounts in most cases were far smaller. So, as you said, it was sort of what I imagined, but more. Those findings amazed me, but what I found particularly amazing was jurisdictions indemnified officers for punitive damages. Punitive damages are awarded in cases in which officers are found by a jury to have engaged in reckless conduct, intentional misconduct; and punitive damages are intended not compensate victims, but to punish wrongdoers. I found 20 cases in that six-year period, in those 81 jurisdictions, in which a jury had awarded punitive damages against one or more defendants, and the jurors awarded over $9.3 million in punitive damages in those 20 cases. In many instances those awards were reduced by the courts, often based on argument by defense counsel that the punitive damages awarded would be a financial hardship for the individual officer–but not one officer paid a nickel toward any of those punitive damages. They were either indemnified, paid by the cities and counties that employed them, or the cities and counties entered into some post-trial settlement that waived the punitive damages judgment, and essentially the city paid the entirety of the settlement—which was a settlement in the shadow of the punitive damages judgment. The other thing that I suppose really shocked me, there has been an assumption, even with people who believe that officers are usually indemnified, there’s usually some sort of caveat, that of course officers wouldn’t be indemnified if they were fired, if they were criminally prosecuted, if they were criminally convicted. What I found during my study was that in multiple instances in which officers were terminated, when they were indicted, when they were criminally prosecuted, even when they went to prison, they did not suffer these financial consequences of the suits. They were nonetheless indemnified.
Part 3 is competition analytic
12/9/16
4 and 0- Jan Feb note
Tournament: All Jan Feb | Round: 1 | Opponent: Fuck this topic | Judge: Fuck this topic Fuck the topic selection committee for making me actually have to say this, but please do not read (out load, in round) any slurs, especially about LGBT+ people when debating me. (queer is not a slur unless used like an insult). Sorry if this infringes on your 'free speech', this is 200 triggering and really not cool.
Also- there may be slurs in my evidence (because, again, fuck this topic, you cant escape them in the topic lit). I will not read them out loud. If you read through evidence during/before the round, and don't want to be confronted with any of these, contact me and let me know.
Peace
12/16/16
4- Biopower K
Tournament: Strake | Round: 1 | Opponent: Montgomery | Judge: Rodrigo Part one, links- Your specific aff is only true to constitutionally protected porn Free speech is bullshit, a mindless social construction we use to endorse preferred verbal behaviors. There’s no natural meaning to this idea, this allows ‘free speech’ to magnify biopolitical control under the guise of resisting the state Fish, Stanley. There's no such thing as free speech: And it's a good thing, too. Oxford University Press, 1994. Lately, many on the liberal and progressive left have been disconcerted to find that words, phrases, and concepts thought to be their property and generative of their politics have been appropriated by the forces of neo-conservatism. This is particularly true of the concept of free speech, for in recent years First Amendment rhetoric has been used to justify policies and actions the left finds problematical if not abhorrent: pornography, sexist language, campus hate speech. How has this happened? The answer I shall give in this essay is that abstract concepts like free speech do not have any “natural” content but are filled with whatever content and direction one can manage to put into them. “Free speech” is just the name we give to verbal behavior that serves the substantive agendas we wish to advance; and we give our preferred verbal behaviors that name when we can, when we have the power to do so, because in the rhetoric of American life, the label “free speech” is the one you want your favorites to wear. Free speech, in short, is not an independent value but a political prize, and if that prize has been captured by a politics opposed to yours, it can no longer be invoked in ways that further your purposes, for it is now an obstacle to those purposes. This is something that the liberal left has yet to understand, and what follows is an attempt to pry its members loose from a vocabulary that may now be a disservice to them. Not far from the end of his Areopagitica, and after having celebrated the virtues of toleration and unregulated publication in passages that find their way into every discussion of free speech and the First Amendment, John Milton catches himself up short and says, of course I didn’t mean Catholics, them we exterminate: “I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which as it extirpates all religious and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate . . . that also which is impious or evil absolutely against faith or manners no law can possibly permit that intends not to unlaw itself.” Notice that Milton is not simply stipulating a single exception to a rule generally in place; the kinds of utterance that might be regulated and even prohibited on pain of trial and punishment constitute an open set; popery is named only as a particularly perspicuous instance of the advocacy that can-not be tolerated. No doubt there are other forms of speech and action that might be categorized as “open superstitions” or as subversive of piety, faith, and manners, and presumably these too would be candidates for - the very structure of constitutional protections is internally contradictory; it functions as a document that paradoxally affirms censorship. Independently, the framework you use to justify the Ac contradicts this purpose of the document- constitutional protections provide the strongest ability to censor, as they legitimize demarcation of legitimate discourse Fish, Stanley. There's no such thing as free speech: And it's a good thing, too. Oxford University Press, 1994. It is a counsel that follows from the thesis that there is no such thing as free speech, which is not, after all, a thesis as startling or corrosive as may first have seemed. It merely says that there is no class of utterances separable from the world of conduct and that therefore the identification of some utterances as members of that nonexistent class will always be evidence that a political line has been drawn rather than a line that denies politics entry into the forum of public discourse. It is the job of the First Amendment to mark out an area in which competing views can be considered without state interference; but if the very marking out of that area is itself an interference (as it always will be), First Amendment jurisprudence is inevitably self-defeating and subversive of its own aspirations. That’s the bad news. The good news is that precisely because speech is never “free” in the two senses required— free of consequences and free from state pressure—speech always matters, is always doing work; because everything we say impinges on the world in ways indistinguishable from the effects of physical action, we must take responsibility for our verbal performances—all of them—and not assume that they are being taken cares of by a clause in the Constitution. Of course, with responsibility comes risks, but they have always been our risks, and no doctrine of free speech has ever insulated us from them. They are the risks, respectively, of permitting speech that does obvious harm and of shutting off speech in ways that might deny us the benefit of Joyce’s Ulysses or Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover or Titian’s paintings. Nothing, I repeat, can insulate us from those risks. (If there is no normative guidance in determining when and what speech to protect, there is no normative guidance in determining what is art—like free speech a category that includes everything and nothing—and what is obscenity.)Moreover, nothing can provide us with a principle for deciding which risk in the long run is the best to take. I am persuaded that at the present moment, right now, the risk of not attending to hate speech is greater than the risk that by regulating it we will deprive ourselves of valuable voices and insights or slide down the slippery slope toward tyranny. This is a judgment for which I can offer reasons but no guarantees. All I am saying is that the judgments of those who would come down on the other side carry no guarantees either. They urge us to put our faith in apolitical abstractions, but the abstractions they invoke—the marketplace of ideas, speech alone, speech itself—only come in political guises, and therefore in trusting to them we fall (unwittingly) under the sway of the very forces we wish to keep at bay. It is not that there are no choices to make or means of making them; it is just that the choices as well as the means are inextricable from the din and confusion of partisan struggle. There is no safe place. analytic analytic Part two is the impact- deon/freedom We no solve the aff- if the government can alter the definition of protection there is none
Governmentalization constructs and constrains the individual dimensions of life. Lipshutz 09 (Ronnie, Professor of Politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, 8-27-09, Institute of European Studies, "The Governmentalization of “Lifestyle” and the Biopolitics of Carbon," p .8, http://escholarship.org/uc/item/472341ct, accessed 7-7-12, CNM) The example of smoking also suggests that deeply-embedded and widely- accepted social practices related to lifestyle can, and do, change over time, albeit not via the much-vaunted market and its concern with prices and internalization. Although we tend to regard lifestyles as a matter of “freedom of choice,”23 they are, in fact, heavily- regulated in terms of what we are permitted to do, what we are encouraged to consume, and what happens if we “violate” the rules and regulations that constrain our “freedom.” The governmentalization of lifestyle thus becomes a set of internalized norms and practices through which individual members of specified populations shape themselves so as to comport with their statistical placement in specific categories of consumers. Data on these practices can be collected to generate statistical norms about group “preferences” that, in turn, can be applied to further shape and stimulate the biopolitics of consumers. All of this serves the imperative of economic growth and accumulation, although it would be inaccurate to say that there is strong intentionality present in this process.24 A further point here is that the processes, practices and effects of governmentality serve as much to create those populations as they do to keep them contained within normative limits.
Part three is the alt- Vote negative as an act of criticism – exposing fissures in the affirmative’s analysis creates new spaces for freedom, only exposing entrenched social formations can produce spaces for alternative models of living. We preform the alternative- you can’t say we don’t solve as we expose and problematize biopolitical control May 11 (Todd, Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Clemson, “A New Neo-Pragmatism: From James and Dewey to Foucault,” 2011, Foucault Studies, http://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/foucault-studies/article/view/3205/3399, Pg. 60-62, JS) I believe we can answer this question in the affirmative. The claim is not that all prac-tices have the same level of depth or influence when it comes to relations of power and know-ledge. If that were the case, then it would have been just as expedient for Foucault to study baseball as psychotherapeutic practice. Rather, the idea is that, to one extent or another, power and knowledge, and particularly their relationship, arises within practices. So in the case of baseball one might find it operating, at least at the margins—indeed it is not difficult to imagine such a case. Think, for instance, of a baseball player who is about to give a public speech being told that he is ‚on deck.‛ The implication here is that the person is about to en-gage in a competitive activity whose goal is to win something, whether that be audience’s respect, other speaking engagements, or something else. Inasmuch as this person understands himself through the game of baseball, transferring the image of being on deck to other activities promotes a competitive self-understanding, which generates beliefs and actions en-gaged with the world in a competitive mode. It might be pointed out here that not only baseball players, but other people as well are subject to the locution of being on deck. This is true. It is also true that people who are not in psychotherapy are subject to influences from that practice. Practices do not exist in isolation. They are intertwined and pervade our culture and society in different ways and to different extents. Moreover, an individual’s immersion in different practices can cause cross-fertiliza-tion of the power/knowledge effects of those practices within his or her beliefs, actions, and engagements. What Foucault offers in focusing on the level of practices as his unit of histo-rical and genealogical inquiry is not a specialized or narrow analytic, but instead a way of understanding ourselves and how we got to be who we are through the most common and pervasive ways in which we engage with the world. The addition I have made to Foucault’s own claim about practices is that it is in the practices that the power/knowledge relationships May: A New Neo-Pragmatism 61 are to be found. Even this is not an addition so much as a clarification that allows us to see more straightforwardly the relationship between his work and pragmatism. Having made this clarification, though, we must ask about that relationship. What is the implication of all this for pragmatism? It lies in introducing a complexity that appears to have escaped James and, to a lesser extent, Dewey, for whom the success of a practice lay in its ability to help us navigate the world. If Foucault’s genealogical approach is helpful, the con-cept of success must itself be investigated rather than being a sort of ‚unexplained ex-plainer.‛17 Successful navigation of the world seems to be a matter of accomplishing one’s goals better or more efficiently or more meaningfully. This being said, we might ask, what are the self-understandings tied up with particular senses of success? If, for instance, we are pro-duced to one extent or another to be psychological beings with personalities of the type that psychotherapy promotes, then success will be defined in psychotherapeutic terms. This, in turn, has its own political effects, effects Foucault has traced in Discipline and Punish and the first volume of the History of Sexuality. These effects are not always ones we would, on reflec-tion, seek to ratify. Some of them, for example the making-docile of human bodies, are, in Foucault’s term, intolerable. We cannot, then, take the notion of success or the idea of navi-gating the world more successfully at face value. We must see it as the name of a problem to be investigated rather than a solution to be attained. This, it seems to me, is a point that would deepen pragmatism without violating any of its central commitments. It would, instead, offer a historical dimension to pragmatist thought. Success in navigating the world is not a given. Rather, one is successful within parti-cular parameters, and those parameters have political inflections. It is not only that the para-meters provide territorial borders within which one can have more or less success in one’s navigation. The problem is deeper: what counts as success as well as what is encouraged or discouraged (or even prohibited) in the name of that success are political matters. They are matters of whom we have been shaped to be and what our understanding and self-under-standing consists in. We might, from another angle, locate the difference between Foucault and the prag-matists and neo-pragmatists this way. For the latter, pragmatism is a matter of what is prac-tical; while for Foucault, pragmatism is a matter of taking our practices as the unit of analysis. What gives Foucault’s work its force, and what makes it relevant for pragmatism, is that it is through our practices what is considered practical arises for us. We cannot take the practical, or successful within it, as a given. That is the lesson of his genealogies.
12/16/16
4- Butler NC
Tournament: Strake | Round: 3 | Opponent: Lake Highland RS | Judge: JP 1st, the judge is an educator, 2 warrants Debate is an educational setting; we represent schools in a school
B. the ballot endorses a truth claim, such as ‘I affirm’, thus the judge endorses a frame of truth, educating students with it
Thus, the judge has the primary obligation to deconstruct oppressive regimes. Schooling institutions, like this debate round, are especially important in this role. Robinson, Kerry, and Cristyn Davies. "Docile bodies and heteronormative moral subjects: Constructing the child and sexual knowledge in schooling." Sexuality and Culture 12.4 (2008): 221-239. Schools, as a discursive field, are sites where technologies of power produce ‘regimes of truth’ that uphold the hegemonic social, political and moral values of dominant and powerful groups (Foucault 1977). This is obvious within the syllabi that we examine in this discussion, in which children are constructed as heteronormative subjects. Schooling as a disciplining state apparatus has a compulsory captive audience––docile bodies––through which to constructs knowledge and discipline heternormative moral subjects. Foucault’s concept of the powerknowledge nexus operates through hegemonic discourses that are perpetuated through curricula, rules and regulations, philosophies, policies, and pedagogical practices that prevail in schooling (Foucault 1977). The regulative and repetitive practices of schooling become part of children’s habitus as they tap into the cultural, social and economic capital valued in schooling (Bourdieu 1991). Habitus refers to the dispositions, perceptions, and attitudes generated throughout an individuals’ cultural history that can enable or prohibit effective exchange or accumulation of one’s capital (Robinson and Jones-Diaz 2006). However, it is important to point out that part of the way that education is transformed is through teachers’ critical approach towards pedagogy and the curriculum. Some teachers question what constitutes ‘official knowledge’ within the mainstream curriculum to reshape and contest the power of dominant groups. Syllabi are also interpreted by individual teachers, who can include perspectives that challenge regimes of truth operating in schools. So despite our critique of educational syllabi in this paper, we need to acknowledge that some teachers would have challenged the representation of knowledge about health and its presentation. It is also important to acknowledge that even though we critique the lack of specific Docile Bodies and Heteronormative Moral Subjects 123 detail in the syllabi on sexual identity, we do so with an awareness that some teachers may have used this space (marked by an absence of definition around sexual identity) to address issues of non-heterosexuality. However, this potential ‘queer space’ may also be counteracted by other forms of regulation, including students’ surveillance of heteronormative values, or the introduction of additional policies, such as the Controversial Issues Policy that has operated along side the syllabi in NSW schools since the 1970’s.
Part 2 is framework Section A is ontology 1st Ontology is social. We are born into society and society sustains us- agents are socially constructed and the recognition of the social is constitutive to us being agents. Butler 1, Judith, badass MoFo and mother of modern feminism in her text “Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy” , on a broader sociality, and this dependency is the basis of our endurance and survivability. When we assert our “right,” as we do and we must, we are not carving out a place for our autonomy—if by autonomy we mean a state of individuation, taken as self-persisting prior to and apart from any relations of dependency on the world of others. We do not negotiate with norms or with Others subsequent to our coming into the world. We come into the world on the condition that the social world is already there, laying the groundwork for us. This implies that I cannot persist without norms of recognition that support my persistence: the sense of possibility pertaining to me must first be imagined from somewhere else before I can begin to imagine myself. My reflexivity is not only socially mediated, but socially constituted. I cannot be who I am without drawing upon the sociality of norms that precede and exceed me. In this sense, I am outside myself from the outset, and must be, in order to survive, and in order to enter into the realm of the possible. To assert sexual rights, then, takes on a specific meaning against this background. It means, for instance, that when we struggle for rights, we are not simply struggling for rights that attach to my person, but we are struggling to be conceived as persons. And there is a difference between the former and the latter. If we are struggling for rights that attach, or should attach, to my personhood, then we assume that personhood as already constituted. But if we are struggling not only to be conceived as persons, but to create a social transformation of 32 Undoing Gender RT9239_C01.qxd 6/25/04 12:51 PM Page 32 the very meaning of personhood, then the assertion of rights becomes a way of intervening into the social and political process by which the human is articulated. International human rights is always in the process of subjecting the human to redefinition and renegotiation. It mobilizes the human in the service of rights, but also rewrites the human and rearticulates the human when it comes up against the cultural limits of its working conception of the human, as it does and must. Lesbian and gay human rights takes sexuality, in some sense, to be its issue. Sexuality is not simply an attribute one has or a disposition or patterned set of inclinations. It is a mode of being disposed toward others, including in the mode of fantasy, and sometimes only in the mode of fantasy. If we are outside of ourselves as sexual beings, given over from the start, crafted in part through primary relations of dependency and attachment, then it would seem that our being beside ourselves, outside ourselves, is there as a function of sexuality itself, where sexuality is not this or that dimension of our existence, not the key or bedrock of our existence, but, rather, as coextensive with existence, as Merleau-Ponty once aptly suggested.6 I have tried here to argue that our very sense of personhood is linked to the desire for recognition, and that desire places us outside ourselves, in a realm of social norms that we do not fully choose, but that provides the horizon and the resource for any sense of choice that we have. This means that the ec-static character of our existence is essential to the possibility of persisting as human. In this sense, we can see how sexual rights brings together two related domains of ec-stasy, two connected ways of being outside of ourselves. As sexual, we are dependent on a world of others, vulnerable to need, violence, betrayal, compulsion, fantasy; we project desire, and we have it projected onto us. To be part of a sexual minority means, most emphatically, that we are also dependent on the protection of public and private spaces, on legal sanctions that protect us from violence, on safeguards of various institutional kinds against unwanted aggression imposed upon us, and the violent actions they sometimes instigate. In this sense, our very lives, and the persistence of our desire, depend on there being norms of recognition that produce and sustain our viability as human. Thus, when we speak about sexual rights, we are not merely talking about rights that pertain to our individual desires but to the norms on which our very individuality depends. That means that the discourse of rights Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy 33 RT9239_C01.qxd 6/25/04 12:51 PM Page 33 avows our dependency, the mode of our being in the hands of others, a mode of being with and for others without which we cannot be
2rd, Our relationship to the Other is inescapable, the distinction between the social and the self is non-existent. Butler 2, Judith, badass MoFo and mother of modern feminism in her text “Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy” eeks to tell the story is stopped in the midst of the telling. The very “I” is called into question by its relation to the one to whom I address myself. This relation to the Other does not precisely ruin my story or reduce me to speechlessness, but it does, invariably, clutter(s) my speech with signs of its undoing. Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something. If this seems so clearly the case with grief, it is only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact. It may be that one wants to, or does, but it may also be that despite one’s best efforts one is undone, in the face of the other, , by the touch, by the scent, by the feel, by the prospect of the touch, by the memory of the feel. And so when we speak about my sexuality or my gender, as we do (and as we must) we mean something complicated by it. Neither of these is precisely a possession, but both are to be understood as modes of being dispossessed, ways of being for another or, indeed, by virtue of another. It does not suffice to say that I am promoting a relational view of the self over an autonomous one, or trying to redescribe autonomy in terms of relationality. The term “relationality” sutures the rupture in the relation we seek to describe, a rupture that is constitutive of identity itself. This means that we will have to approach the problem of conceptualizing dispossession with circumspection. One way of doing this is through the notion of ecstasy. We tend to narrate the history of the broader movement for sexual freedom in such a way that ecstasy figures in the 60s and 70s and Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy 19 RT9239_C01.qxd 6/25/04 12:51 PM Page 19 persists midway through the 80s. But maybe ecstasy is more historically persistent than that, maybe it is with us all along. To be ec-static means, literally, to be outside oneself, and this can have several meanings: to be transported beyond oneself by a passion, but also to be beside oneself with rage or grief. I think that if I can still speak to a “we,” and include myself within its terms, I am speaking to those of us who are living in certain ways beside ourselves, whether it is in sexual passion, or emotional grief, or political rage. In a sense, the predicament is to understand what kind of community is composed of those who are beside themselves. We have an interesting political predicament, since most of the time when we hear about “rights,” we understand them as pertaining to individuals, or when we argue for protection against discrimination, we argue as a group or a class. And in that language and in that context, we have to present ourselves as bounded beings, distinct, recognizable, delineated, subjects before the law, a community defined by sameness. Indeed, we had better be able to use that language to secure legal protections and entitlements. But perhaps we make a mistake if we take the definitions of who we are, legally, to be adequate descriptions of what we are about. Although this language might well establish our legitimacy within a legal framework ensconced in liberal versions of human ontology, it fails to do justice to passion and grief and rage, all of which tear us from ourselves, bind us to others, transport us, undo us, and implicate us in lives that are not are own, sometimes fatally, irreversibly. It is not easy to understand how a political community is wrought from such ties. One speaks, and one speaks for another, to another, and yet there is no way to collapse the distinction between the other and myself. When we say “we” we do nothing more than designate this as very problematic. We do not solve it. And perhaps it is, and ought to be, insoluble. We ask that the state, for instance, keep its laws off our bodies, and we call for principles of bodily self-defense and bodily integrity to be accepted as political goods. Yet, it is through the body that gender and sexuality become exposed to others, implicated in social processes, inscribed by cultural norms, and apprehended in their social meanings. In a sense, to be a body is to be given over to others even as a body is, emphatically, “one’s own,” that over which we must claim rights of autonomy. This is as true for the claims made 20 Undoing Gender RT9239_C01.qxd 6/25/04 12:51 PM Page 20 by lesbians, gays, and bisexuals in favor of sexual freedom as it is for transsexual and transgender claims to self-determination; as it is for intersex claims to be free of coerced medical, surgical, and psychiatric interventions; as it is for all claims to be free from racist attacks, physical and verbal; and as it is for feminism’s claim to reproductive freedom. It is difficult, if not impossible, to make these claims without recourse to autonomy and, specifically, a sense of bodily autonomy. Bodily autonomy, however, is a lively paradox. I am not suggesting, though, that we cease to make these claims. We have to, we must. And I’m not saying that we have to make these claims reluctantly or strategically. They are part of the normative aspiration of any movement that seeks to maximize the protection and the freedoms of sexual and gender minorities, of women, defined with the
THUS without mutual recognition the possibility of life becomes impossible. This means their framework is derived from a flawed starting point, social recognition is a precondition to their framework. This also means that ideal theory makes no sense, as it abstracts from ontology of agents. Butler 3, Judith, badass MoFo and mother of modern feminism in her text “Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy” Is the problem that we have no norm to distinguish among kinds of possibility, or does that only appear to be a problem if we fail to comprehend “possibility” itself as a norm? Possibility is an aspiration, something we might hope will be equitably distributed, something that might be socially secured, something that cannot be taken for granted, especially if it is apprehended phenomenologically. The point is not to prescribe new gender norms, as if one were under an obligation to supply a measure, gauge, or norm for the adjudication of competing gender presentations. The normative aspiration at work here has to do with the ability to live and breathe and move and would no doubt belong somewhere in what is called a philosophy of freedom. The thought of a possible life is only an indulgence for those who already know themselves to be possible. For those who are still looking to become possible, possibility is a necessity. It was Spinoza who claimed that every human being seeks to persist in his own being, and he made this principle of self-persistence, the conatus, into the basis of his ethics and, indeed, his politics. When Hegel made the claim that desire is always a desire for recognition, he was, in a way, extrapolating upon this Spinozistic point, telling us, effectively, that to persist in one’s own being is only possible on the condition that we are engaged in receiving and offering recognition. If we are not recognizable, if there are no norms of recognition by which we are recognizable, then it is not possible to persist in one’s own being, and we are not possible beings; we have been foreclosed from possibility. We think of norms of recognition perhaps as residing already in a cultural world into which we are born, but these norms change, and with the changes in these norms come changes in what does and does not count as recognizably human. To twist the Hegelian argument in a Foucaultian direction: norms of recognition function to Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy 31 RT9239_C01.qxd 6/25/04 12:51 PM Page 31 produce and to deproduce the notion of the human. This is made true in a specific way when we consider how international norms work in the context of lesbian and gay human rights, especially as they insist that certain kinds of violences are impermissable, that certain lives are vulnerable and worthy of protection, that certain deaths are grievable and worthy of public recognition. To say that the desire to persist in one’s own being depends on norms of recognition is to say that the basis of one’s autonomy, one’s persistence as an “I” through time, depends fundamentally on a social norm that exceeds that “I,” that positions that “I” ec-statically, outside of itself in a world of complex and historically changing norms. In effect, our lives, our very persistence, depend upon such norms or, at least, on the possibility that we will be able to negotiate within them, derive our agency from the field of their operation. In our very ability to persist, we are dependent on what is outside of us
Part two is the death of being 1st Grievability is defined as the capacity to mourn a person’s death- when an agent dies they are connected to the social in a way that changes others.
2nd Certain forms of marginalization have been rendered some agents ungrievable because of oppressive power structures- lives do not matter, not considered to be agents. Butler 4, Judith, badass MoFo and mother of modern feminism in her text “Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy” given over to nothing, or to brutality, or to no sustenance. No matter what the valence of that scene is, however, the fact remains that infancy constitutes a necessary dependency, one that we never fully leave behind. Bodies still must be apprehended as given over. Part of understanding the oppression of lives is precisely to understand that there is no way to argue away this condition of a primary vulnerability, of being given over to the touch of the other, even if, or precisely when, there is no other there, and no support for our lives. To counter oppression requires that one understand that lives are supported and maintained differentially, that there are radically different ways in which human physical vulnerability is distributed across the globe. Certain lives will be highly protected, and the abrogation of their claims to sanctity will be sufficient to mobilize the forces of war. And other lives will not find such fast and furious support and will not even qualify as “grievable.” What are the cultural contours of the notion of the human at work here? And how do the contours that we accept as the cultural frame for the human limit the extent to which we can avow loss as loss? This is surely a question that Lesbian, gay, and bi-studies has asked in relation to violence against sexual minorities, and that transgendered people have asked as they have been singled out for harassment and sometimes murder, and that intersexed people have asked, whose formative years have so often been marked by an unwanted violence against their bodies in the name of a normative notion of human morphology. This is no doubt as well the basis of a profound affinity between movements centered on gender and sexuality with efforts to counter the normative human morphologies and capacities that condemn or efface those who are physically challenged. It must, as well, also be part of the affinity with antiracist struggles, given the racial differential that undergirds the culturally viable notions of the human—ones that we see acted out in dramatic and terrifying ways in the global arena at the present time. So what is the relation between violence and what is “unreal,” between violence and unreality that attends to those who become the victims of violence, and where does the notion of the ungrievable life 24 Undoing Gender RT9239_C01.qxd 6/25/04 12:51 PM Page 24 come in? On the level of discourse, certain lives are not considered lives at all, they cannot be humanized; they fit no dominant frame for the human, and their dehumanization occurs first, at this level. This level then gives rise to a physical violence that in some sense delivers the message of dehumanization which is already at work in the culture. So it is not just that a discourse exists in which there is no frame and no story and no name for such a life, This implies that the aff framework is the only way to interrogate oppression as it fights the root cause of violence. ROOT CASUSE K SPIKE
And, quiet is violent-representational and media silence coupled with social power structures creates a hegemonic truth, preventing access to agency Butler 5, Judith, badass MoFo and mother of modern feminism in her text “Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy” or that violence might be said to realize or apply this discourse. Violence against those who are already not quite lives, who are living in a state of suspension between life and death, leaves a mark that is no mark. If there is a discourse, it is a silent and melancholic writing in which there have been no lives, and no losses, there has been no common physical condition, no vulnerability that serves as the basis for an apprehension of our commonality, and there has been no sundering of that commonality. None of this takes place on the order of the event. None of this takes place. How many lives have been lost from AIDS in Africa in the last few years? Where are the media representations of this loss, the discursive elaborations of what these losses mean for communities AND, this comes first-their ethical system and ideal theory justifications might account for oppression, but they do not account for this specific annihilation of the subject, which means that A. their system fails to guide action as some are outside their notion of subjectivity and B. their system cannot access the subject. Butler 6, Judith, badass MoFo and mother of modern feminism in her text “Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy” a reality, and to insist that these are lives worthy of protection in Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy 29 RT9239_C01.qxd 6/25/04 12:51 PM Page 29 their specificity and commonality; but it is quite another to insist that the very public assertion of gayness calls into question what counts as reality and what counts as a human life. Indeed, the task of international lesbian and gay politics is no less than a remaking of reality, a reconstituting of the human, and a brokering of the question, what is and is not livable? So what is the injustice opposed by such work? I would put it this way: to be called unreal and to have that call, as it were, institutionalized as a form of differential treatment, is to become the other against whom (or against which) the human is made. It is the inhuman, the beyond the human, the less than human, the border that secures the human in its ostensible reality. To be called a copy, to be called unreal, is one way in which one can be oppressed, but consider that it is more fundamental than that. To be oppressed means that you already exist as a subject of some kind, you are there as the visible and oppressed other for the master subject, as a possible or potential subject, but to be unreal is something else again. To be oppressed you must first become intelligible. To find that you are fundamentally unintelligible (indeed, that the laws of culture and of language find(s) you to be an impossibility) is to find that you have not yet achieved access to the human, to find yourself speaking only and always as if you were human, but with the sense that you are not, to find that your language is hollow, that no recognition is forthcoming because the norms by which recognition takes place are not in your favor. We might think that the question of how one does one’s gender is a merely cultural question, or an indulgence on the part of those who insist on exercising bourgeois freedom in excessive dimensions. To say, however, that gender is performative is not simply to insist on a right to produce a pleasurable and subversive spectacle but to allegorize the spectacular and consequential ways in which reality is both reproduced and contested.
Thus the standard is reducing frames of ungreivabillity in order to create democroacy. The nc is a pre-requizete to your framing To clarify, this is an intents based famework- impacts relate to a frame of agency, not material conditions Norms of grievability depend upon the reproduction of their existance through frames. Our stance must impede upon the reproduction of this frame, which requires we recognize that freedom of speech is inseparable from its norms of usage.
Part three is the offence-affirming creates frames of ungrievabillity 1st- The social norms around the constitution are fucked- it’s historical legacy legitimizes anti blackness and the commodification of black bodies. Your invocation of ‘constitutional protections’ historically used to perpetrate slavery makes it impossible to divorce your speech and politics from anti-blackness Weinberg, Louise. "Overcoming Dred: A Counterfactual Analysis." Constitutional Commentary 24 (2007): 733-770. But a Lincoln Court could not pretend that the Constitution did not recognized slavery, even though, as Lincoln argued at Cooper Union, the Constitution did not "expressly" affirm slavery. 7 " The Constitution does not establish property in slaves, but it variously recognizes the existence of slavery and makes accommodations to slavery. Paul Finkelman has discussed these at length in various of his writings. 77 Slaves were to count as fractions of persons for the purposes of both taxation and representation.7 x Fugitive slaves were to be returned. 74 The slave trade was not to be prohibited before 1808.80 It also seems relevant that the Senate consists of two representatives from each state, large or small, without possibility of amendment,' 1 an arrangement enabling a Southern majority to block an appointment to the federal judiciary. Furthermore, the supermajorities that the logic of the Constitution required for the amendment processx2 ensured that the South would enjoy a permanent veto over proposed amendments to the Constitution. While neither provision was merely an obeisance to the concerns of the slave South, Southern delegates to the Constitutional Convention could return to the South claiming them as victories. In providing that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, the Fifth Amendment is understood to mean at a minimum that before federal authorities can execute, imprison, or fine anyone, before a federal court can impose a sentence or assess damages or issue an injunction, due process first requires notice, trial, and judgment. And in 1860 it is fair to say not only that most Americans, North and South, would have thought the Due Process Clause to be purely ''procedural" in this sense, but also that most Americans, North and South, would have understood the "property'' protected by the Clause to include slave property. Many today still believe that it did. Recently David Currie, for example, has termed "fatuous" the argument in the 37th Congress, as it prepared to abolish slavery in the capital, that there could be no property in human beings, because that argument was "contradicted by decades of history in the District of Columbia and centuries of it elsewhere.""' Southerners took the argument further. They also argued that the Fifth Amendment protected slave-owners' "liberty" to Southerners' as well as Northerners' rights to travel to, or settle in, a United States territory-with their "property." AND, Constitutional protections have a legacy of not applying to oppressed groups- the intent of the constitution has been defined to only include the privileged by social precedent Marshall, Thurgood. "Reflections on the bicentennial of the United States Constitution." Harvard Law Review 101.1 (1987): 1-5. "We the People." When the Founding Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did not have in mind the majority of America’s citizens. "We the People" included, in the words of the framers, "the whole Number of free Persons." 3 On a matter so basic as the right to vote, for example, Negro slaves were excluded, although they were counted for representational purposes- at three-fifths each. Women did not gain the right to vote for over a hundred and thirty years. 4 These omissions were intentional. The record of the framers’ debates on the slave question is especially clear: the Southern states acceded to the demands of the New England states for giving Congress broad power to regulate commerce, in exchange for the right to continue the slave trade. The economic interests of the regions coalesced: New Englanders engaged in the "carrying trade"would profit from transporting slaves from Africa as well as goods produced in America by slave labor. The perpetuation of slavery ensured the primary source of wealth in the Southern states. Despite this clear understanding of the role slavery would play in the new republic, use of the words "slaves"and "slavery"was carefully avoided in the original document. Political representation in the lower House of Congress was to be based on the population of "free Persons" in each state, plus three-fifths of all "other Persons." 5 Moral principles against slavery, for those who had them, were compromised, with no explanation of the conflicting principles for which the American Revolutionary War had ostensibly been fought: the self-evident truths "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." 6 It was not the first such compromise. Even these ringing phrases from the Declaration of Independence are filled with irony, for an early draft of what became that declaration assailed the King of England for suppressing legislative attempts to end the slave trade and for encouraging slave rebellions. 7 The final draft adopted in 1776 did not contain this criticism. And so again at the Constitutional Convention eloquent objections to the institution of slavery went unheeded, and its opponents eventually consented to a document which laid a foundation for the tragic events that were to follow. Pennsylvania’s Governor Morris provides an example. He opposed slavery and the counting of slaves in determining the basis for representation in Congress. At the Convention he objected that the inhabitant of Georgia or South Carolina who goes to the coast of Africa, and in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections and damns them to the most cruel bondages, shall have more votes in a Government instituted for protection of the rights of mankind, than the Citizen of Pennsylvania or New Jersey who views with a laudable horror, so nefarious a practice. 8 And yet Governor Morris eventually accepted the three-fifths accommodation. In fact, he wrote the final draft of the Constitution, the very document the bicentennial will commemorate. As a result of compromise, the right of the Southern states to continue importing slaves was extended, officially, at least until 1808. We know that it actually lasted a good deal longer, as the farmers possessed no monopoly on the ability to trader moral principles for self-interest. But they nevertheless set an unfortunate example. Slaves could be imported, if the commercial interests of the North were protected. To make the compromise even more palatable, customs duties would never be imposed at up to ten dollars per slave as a means of raising public revenues. 9 No doubt it will be said, when the unpleasant truth of the history of slavery in America is mentioned during this bicentennial year, that the Constitution was a product of its times, and embodied a compromise which, under other circumstances, would not have been made. But the effects of the framers’ compromise have remained for generations. They arose from the contradiction between guaranteeing liberty and justice to all, and denying both to Negroes. The original intent of the phrase, "We the people," was far too clear for any ameliorating construction. Writing for the Supreme Court in 1857, Chief Justice Taney penned the following passage in the Dred Scott case, 10 on the issue of whether, in the eyes of the framers, slaves were "constituent members of the sovereignty," and were to be included among "We the People" : We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included.....
2nd- Freedom-of-speech discourses, especially those of counterspeech force dehumanization on marginalized bodies contribute to frames of ungrievabillity- the social location of the marginalized is completely forgotten KENT GREENFIELD MAR 13, 2015 , The Limits of Free Speech, The Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/the-limits-of-free-speech/387718/ Those not targeted by the speech can sit back and recite how distasteful such racism or sexism is, and isn’t it too bad so little can be done. Meanwhile, those targeted by the speech are forced to speak out, yet again, to reassert their right to be treated equally, to be free to learn or work or live in an environment that does not threaten them with violence. The First Amendment’s reliance on counterspeech as remedy forces the most marginalized among us to bear the costs of the bigots’ speech. Counterspeech is exhausting and distracting, but if you are the target of hatred you have little choice. “Speak up! Remind us why you should not be lynched.”
12/17/16
4- Counterfactual K
Tournament: Strake | Round: Semis | Opponent: Saavan | Judge: Kris, Jeremy Dang, Tyler Sullivan First- We cannot escape the social norms around the constitution. Social ontology has concrete effects on how black flesh is constructed. Polizzi ’13. “Pursuing Trayvon Martin Historical Contexts and Contemporary Manifestations of Racial Dynamics” 2013 Edited by George Yancy and Janine Jones – Chapter 13: “Social Presence, Visibility, and the Eye of the Beholder A Phenomenology of Social Embodiment” by David Polizzi LW-DD “In its most general sense, the social presenting of the body refers to the way in which the body flesh becomes viewed and constructed from a variety of social interactions and social contexts. At its most mundane, the body of the individual or the embodied subject retains what Merleau-Ponty has called an intervolvement with world that is experienced as a fluid and open shared possibility for embodied existence.2 However, in the absence of such openness, the possibility for embodied subjectivity is denied and the body is reduced to that of a shadow, or pathological artifact of social visibility. The recent killing of Trayvon Martin provides yet another tragic re minder as to how the black flesh body continues to be constructed as the manifestation of social threat and danger. As such, the contours of these constructed fears are not only present within the visibility of the physical body, but also come to represent a type of geographical demarcation or territorialization whereby the body may be "legitimately" pres- enced as a problematic body. Such a dynamic evokes the "invisible wall" described by Kenneth Clark: that cultural line of demarcation that separates the racially marginalized from those who wield social power. 3Tray von Martin's killing represents not only the way in which his killer con structed the m eaning of his presence, but the way in which the social context of that presencing was employed by him to further "justify" the legitimacy of this construction. In this chapter I explore the phenomenolbgy of the social presencing of the black body through the work of Merleau-Ponty and his notion of embodied subjectivity. I also include a description of Drew Leder's no tion of the absent body relative to the way in which these theoretical constructs may help to better understand the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin. I will begin with a brief description of embodied subjectivity outlined by Merleau-Ponty in his classic text. Phenomenology of Perception. THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE BODY AND ANTI-BLACK RACISM Merleau-Ponty and Embodied Subjectivity In the Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty formulates his theory of the body or what he describes as embodied subjectivity. From this vantage point, embodied subjectivity becomes a theory of human perception, and I would argue a theory of ethics as well, which encounters the world from a specific perspectival point of view, thereby allowing for a particular profile of an object or other embodied subjects to appear.4 Unlike empiricism (Behaviorism), which understands the body as an ob ject among other objects, or intellectualism (Idealism), which recognizes the body as an extension of consciousness, here the body is taken up as a lived-body, as incarnate-subjectivity, which is inseparable from the world. Shabot describes this process as follows: In perception, thus a deep ambiguity takes place regarding the rela tionship of subject-object: no apparent distance separates the subject from the object in perception, and the object is recognized only as the sum of multiple subject perspectives of it, from his/her concrete position. By theorizing flesh body and world in this manner, both becomes "intervolved" within a system of meaning that can never be viewed in isolation. Ultimately, then, this relationship between individual and world reveals the situated nature of our existence which both acts and is acted upon by the world. "The body is the vehicle of being in the world, and having a body means being united with a definite milieu, merging with certain projects, and being perpetually engaged therein." Merleau-Ponty's theory of the body becomes the description by which human existence is situated and its specific meanings experienced and lived. It becomes the point from which we take up the projects of our lived-experience. The intervolvement with world, according to Merleau- Ponty, becomes the ground from which existence rises up to embrace a world and by so doing gives birth to a contextualized constellation of meaning. These meanings are not independent of me, they inhabit me and I them. The context, in which I find myself, is one that also extends beyond me, taking in a world shared by others, and it is through this shared relationship with the world that the other becomes recognizable to me. But how does this recognition of the other come about?” (173-175) Especially true in the context of language. Words like “constitutionally protected” cannot escape their social meaning. Mills ’07. “Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance” 2007 Edited by Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana – Chapter One: “White Ignorance” by Charles W. Mills LW-DD “Start with perception. A central theme of the epistemology of the past few decades has been the discrediting of the idea of a raw perceptual “given,” completely unmediated by concepts. Perceptions are in general simultaneously conceptions, if only at a very low level. Moreover, the social dimension of epistemology is obviously most salient here, since individuals do not in general make up these categories themselves but inherit them from their cultural milieu. “The influence of social factors begins at birth, for language is not reinvented by each individual in social isolation, nor could it be. Because language acquisition is socially mediated, the concepts we acquire are themselves socially mediated from the very beginning” (Kornblith 1994a, 97). But this means that the conceptual array with which the cognizer approaches the world needs itself to be scrutinized for its adequacy to the world, for how well it maps the reality it claims to be describing. In addition, it is not a matter of monadic predicates, reciprocally isolated from one another, but concepts linked by interlocking assumptions and background belief sets into certain com- plexes of ideation that by their very nature tend to put a certain interpretation on the world. So in most cases the concepts will not be neutral but oriented toward a certain understanding, embedded in subtheories and larger theories about how things work. In the orthodox left tradition, this set of issues is handled through the category “ideology”; in more recent radical theory, through Fou- cault’s “discourses.” But whatever one’s larger metatheoretical sympathies, whatever approach one thinks best for investigating these ideational matters, such concerns obviously need to be part of a social epistemology. For if the society is one structured by relations of domina- tion and subordination (as of course most societies in human history have been), then in certain areas this conceptual apparatus is likely going to be shaped and inflected in various ways by the biases of the rul- ing group(s). So crucial concepts may well be misleading in their inner makeup and their external relation to a larger doxastic architecture. Moreover, what cognitive psychology has revealed is that rather than con- tinually challenging conceptual adequacy by the test of disconfirm- ing empirical data, we tend to do the opposite—to interpret the data through the grid of the concepts in such a way that seemingly discon- firming, or at least problematic, perceptions are filtered out or margin- alized. In other words, one will tend to find the confirmation in the world whether it is there or not.” (25)
Second- The social norms around the constitution are fucked- it’s historical legacy legitimizes anti blackness and the commodification of black bodies. Your invocation of ‘constitutional protections’ historically used to perpetrate slavery makes it impossible to divorce your speech and politics from anti-blackness Weinberg, Louise. "Overcoming Dred: A Counterfactual Analysis." Constitutional Commentary 24 (2007): 733-770. But a Lincoln Court could not pretend that the Constitution did not recognized slavery, even though, as Lincoln argued at Cooper Union, the Constitution did not "expressly" affirm slavery. 7 " The Constitution does not establish property in slaves, but it variously recognizes the existence of slavery and makes accommodations to slavery. Paul Finkelman has discussed these at length in various of his writings. 77 Slaves were to count as fractions of persons for the purposes of both taxation and representation.7 x Fugitive slaves were to be returned. 74 The slave trade was not to be prohibited before 1808.80 It also seems relevant that the Senate consists of two representatives from each state, large or small, without possibility of amendment,' 1 an arrangement enabling a Southern majority to block an appointment to the federal judiciary. Furthermore, the supermajorities that the logic of the Constitution required for the amendment processx2 ensured that the South would enjoy a permanent veto over proposed amendments to the Constitution. While neither provision was merely an obeisance to the concerns of the slave South, Southern delegates to the Constitutional Convention could return to the South claiming them as victories. In providing that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, the Fifth Amendment is understood to mean at a minimum that before federal authorities can execute, imprison, or fine anyone, before a federal court can impose a sentence or assess damages or issue an injunction, due process first requires notice, trial, and judgment. And in 1860 it is fair to say not only that most Americans, North and South, would have thought the Due Process Clause to be purely ''procedural" in this sense, but also that most Americans, North and South, would have understood the "property'' protected by the Clause to include slave property. Many today still believe that it did. Recently David Currie, for example, has termed "fatuous" the argument in the 37th Congress, as it prepared to abolish slavery in the capital, that there could be no property in human beings, because that argument was "contradicted by decades of history in the District of Columbia and centuries of it elsewhere.""' Southerners took the argument further. They also argued that the Fifth Amendment protected slave-owners' "liberty" as well as their "property." This was a liberty to take their slaves with them into the territories, free of federal interference. They sometimes argued that the concesrt of ''due process" included the concept of ''equality" as well. In this view, due process required the nation to give equal respect to Southern as to Northern property rights, to slave as to other property, and to Southerners' as well as Northerners' rights to travel to, or settle in, a United States territory-with their "property." Constitutional protections have a legacy of not applying to oppressed groups- the intent of the constitution has been defined to only include the privileged by social precedent Marshall, Thurgood. "Reflections on the bicentennial of the United States Constitution." Harvard Law Review 101.1 (1987): 1-5. "We the People." When the Founding Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did not have in mind the majority of America’s citizens. "We the People" included, in the words of the framers, "the whole Number of free Persons." 3 On a matter so basic as the right to vote, for example, Negro slaves were excluded, although they were counted for representational purposes- at three-fifths each. Women did not gain the right to vote for over a hundred and thirty years. 4 These omissions were intentional. The record of the framers’ debates on the slave question is especially clear: the Southern states acceded to the demands of the New England states for giving Congress broad power to regulate commerce, in exchange for the right to continue the slave trade. The economic interests of the regions coalesced: New Englanders engaged in the "carrying trade"would profit from transporting slaves from Africa as well as goods produced in America by slave labor. The perpetuation of slavery ensured the primary source of wealth in the Southern states. Despite this clear understanding of the role slavery would play in the new republic, use of the words "slaves"and "slavery"was carefully avoided in the original document. Political representation in the lower House of Congress was to be based on the population of "free Persons" in each state, plus three-fifths of all "other Persons." 5 Moral principles against slavery, for those who had them, were compromised, with no explanation of the conflicting principles for which the American Revolutionary War had ostensibly been fought: the self-evident truths "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." 6 It was not the first such product of its times, and embodied a compromise which, under other circumstances, would not have been made. But the effects of the framers’ compromise have remained for generations. They arose from the contradiction between guaranteeing liberty and justice to all, and denying both to Negroes. The original intent of the phrase, "We the people," was far too clear for any ameliorating construction. Writing for the Supreme Court in 1857, Chief Justice Taney penned the following passage in the Dred Scott case, 10 on the issue of whether, in the eyes of the framers, slaves were "constituent members of the sovereignty," and were to be included among "We the People" : We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included..... They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race....; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.... ...Accordingly, a Negro of the African race was regarded... as an article of property, and held, and bought and sold as such... No one seems to have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the time.11 And so, nearly seven decades after the Constitutional Convention, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the prevailing opinion of the framers regarding the rights of Negroes in America. It took a bloody civil war before the thirteenth amendment could be adopted to abolish slavery, though not the consequences slavery would have for future Americans. While the Union survived the civil war, the Constitution did not. Third- the Alternative The NC engages in a counterfactual analysis of the constitution- we advocate that the Dred Scott V. Stanford (1857) supreme court case be decided in Dred Scott’s favor, by deciding that there could be no property in human beings. This is key to reverse the commodification of black people in the constitution. Such a decision is materially possible- there is a precedent from 1836 and in the courts dissent Weinberg, Louise. "Overcoming Dred: A Counterfactual Analysis." Constitutional Commentary 24 (2007): 733-770. A better basis for an overruling of Dred Scott might have been presented by a redefinition of the word "property" in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Of course, the Supreme Court could not bind the states to its view of property as a matter of state law. Even in those days when the Court generally was not bound to follow state case law where it applied,62 the states were certainly not bound to follow the Supreme Court's lead as to matters of state law. 63 But the Court could authoritatively redefine ''property" as that word is used in the Fifth Amendment. In his 1858 debates with Douglas, Lincoln said that Chief Justice Taney's essential mistake of constitutional interpretation in Dred Scott lay in the assertion that "the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution."64 61. Cf. Daniels. 474 U.S. at 336 (Stevens, J., concurring in the judgment) (pointing out that there are three different kinds of Fourteenth Amendment due process: First, "incorporating" rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights: second, incorporating unenumerated rights and rights to be free of arbitrary law; and, third, protecting under the bare Due Process Clause rights to fair procedures). 62. Cf. Swift v. Tyson, 41 U.S. 1 (1842). overruled. Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 u.s. 64 (1938). 63. Erie, 304 U.S. at 74 (Brandeis. J.) (noting the persistence of state courts in applying their own laws on questions of common law). Brandeis's observation points up the fact that the common law available in federal courts under Swift had never been federalized, and thus was not the "supreme" law of the land. It simply represented an independ· ent judgment of what state law ought to be, and as such was not binding on the state judges. 64. Abraham Lincoln. Reply in the Galesburg Joint Debate (Oct. 7. 1858), in I COMPLETE WORKS. supra note 22. at 437. 445. 2007 OVERCOMING DRED 751 Lincoln firmly contradicted any such assertion as ''not true in fact. "65 A strong Lincoln Court might well reinterpret the meaning of the word "property" in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. There is a brief passage in Aves' Case that suggests the possibility of such a reinterpretation. Aves' Case is a celebrated Massachusetts opinion by Chief Justice Shaw, influential for the seminal distinction it drew, crucial to antebellum thought, between fugitives escaping from slave territory and slaves voluntarily brought into free territory. Fugitives were to be rendered up to their masters under the Fugitive Slave Clause" -part of the sacred constitutional bargain."" Even slaves brought voluntarily into a free state were to be rendered up, if they were only in transit there. But those brought voluntarily into a free state, sojourning there for a period of time, were not within the terms of the sacred bargain. "Sojourners'' could become free."" In the course of discovering this distinction, through a prolonged struggle, Chief Justice Shaw briefly, in passing, suggested the more fundamental point that there could be no property in human beings. Here is Lemuel Shaw wrestling with this insight: But it is not speaking with strict accuracy to say, that a property can be acquired in human beings, by local laws. Each state may, for its own convenience, declare that slaves shall be deemed property, and that the relations and laws of personal chattels shall be deemed to apply to them; as, for instance, that they may be bought and sold, delivered, attached, levied 65. /d. at 446. 66. Commonwealth v. Aves, 35 Mass. 193, 219 (1836) (Shaw, C.J.). See LEONARD W. LEVY, THE LAW OF THE COMMONWEALTH AND CHIEF JUSTICE SHAW (1957), at 84. 67. U.S. CONST. art. 4, § 2, cl. 3. See Paul Finkelman, Legal Ethics and Fugitive Slaves: The Anthony Burns Case, Judge Loring, and Abolitionist Attorneys, 17 CARDOZO L. REV. 1793 (1997); Louise Weinberg, Methodological Interventions and the Slavery Cases: Night-Thoughts of a Legal Realist, 56 MD. L. REV. 1316, 1342-59 (1997) (recounting the struggle in the courts over fugitive slaves). 68. It is sometimes remarked that the South would never have joined the Union had not the Constitution embodied a sacred bargain guaranteeing Southern state signatories' rights to their existing labor systems. The Fugitive Slave Clause was a prominent feature of the sacred bargain. Interestingly, at least one Northern judge reasoned. to the contrary, that the North would not have signed the Constitution had it imagined that it could be invaded by bounty hunters. and its own free black citizens kidnapped and sent into chattel slavery. In re Booth. 3 Wis. 13. 72 (1854) (Crawford. J.. dissenting). 69. For the antebellum interstate conflict over the freedom vel non of non-fugitive slaves, see Louise Weinberg, Of Theory and Theodicy: The Problem of Immoral Law, in LAW AND JUSTICE IN A MULTISTATE WORLD (Symeon Symeonides ed., 2002), at 473-99; PAUL FINKELMAN, AN IMPERFECT UNION: SLAVERY. FEDERALISM. AND COMITY (1981); ROBERT M. COVER, JUSTICE ACCUSED: ANTI-SLAVERY AND THE JUDICIAL PROCESS (1975); Weinberg, Methodological Interventions, supra note 67. at 1316. 752 CONSTITUTIONAL COMMENTARY Vol. 24:733 upon, that trespass will lie for an injury done to them. or trover for converting them. But it would be a perversion of terms to say, that such local laws do in fact make them personal 70 property generally .... A similar uneasiness with the chattel aspect of slavery is echoed, also in passing, in Salmon P. Chase's brief in the Birney case in Ohio. 7 ' Chase wrote, "I maintain that the relation of owner and property, as existing between person and person, has. or can have, no existence in this state ...... On some such thinking, a Lincoln Supreme Court might overrule Dred Scott- by redefining the category of "property'' as incapable of attaching to human beings for purposes of the Due Process Clause. The question was raised in argument in Dred Scott.n Yet in Dred Scott, only Justice McLean, dissenting, seems to have had a doubt about property in human chattel, and he expressed this quite casually, without developing the argument: "But we know as a historical fact, that James Madison. that great and good man, a leading member in the Federal Convention, was solicitous to guard the language of that instrument so as not to convey the idea that there could be property in man. , 7 True, the Founders owned slaves themselves. a fact on which Chief Justice Taney relied in Dred Scott. Taney suggested that the Founders could not, without hypocrisy, own slaves while thinking it wrong.74 Dred Scott's originalism on this point is among Taney's least edifying tropes. Justice McLean, dissenting, responded, I prefer the lights of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, as a means of construing the Constitution in all its bearings, rather than to look behind that period, into a traffic which is now declared to be piracy, and punished with death by Christian nations. I do not like to draw the sources of our domestic relations from so dark a ground. 7 ' Chief Justice Taney's kind of originalism would fasten upon us the sins of the fathers, stripping them, and with them the Con- 70. Aves' Case. 35 Mass. at 216. 71. Birney v. State. 8 Ohio 230.231 (1837) (brief of Salmon P. Chase). 72. Dred Scott. 60 U.S. at 451 ("lt seems. however. to be supposed. that there is a difference between property in a slave and other property. and that different rules may be applied to it in expounding the Constitution of the United States .... "). 73. Dred Scott. 60 U.S. at 537. 74. /d. at 410. 75. /d. at 537. 2007 OVERCOMING DRED 753 stitution, of their ideals and aspirations. And- court decisions are performative acts with real consequences for the way that the constitution is socially understood. The NC is able to change our understanding of the constitution through counterfactual analysis. White, James Boyd. "Constructing a constitution: Original intention in the slave cases." Md. L. Rev. 47 (1987): 239. My examination will proceed at two levels, which might be called the explicit and the performative. At the explicit level, the Court expresses a restatable view, perhaps directly, perhaps partly by implication, of what the Constitution is, how it ought to be interpreted, and so forth, and we can ask what that view is. But in addition to the articulation, or implication, of views of this sort, the judge in her actual writing performs as a writer and mind in ways that enact her sense of who a judge is, what the Constitution is, how constitutional arguments should proceed, and so forth. These enactments or performances may themselves be analyzed and judged; and they may be found to be either consistent or inconsistent with the judge's explicitly stated views on these matters. Let me give three brief examples of what I mean. In McCulloch v. Maryland3 Chief Justice Marshall describes the Constitution as a kind of testamentary trust, a document created by a mythical figure, 1. 41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 539 (1842). 2. 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857). 3. 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316 (1819). 240 VOL. 47:239 CONSTRUCTING A CONSTITUTION "The People of the United States," who existed at one time and for one purpose only, namely the creation of this document, after which they resolved themselves into the competing political and economic factions that we see around us.
12/18/16
4- Levi-nasty NC
Tournament: Flomo | Round: Finals | Opponent: Marcus | Judge: Panel First- framework. Ethics by definition concerns our interaction with the other as every system of morality seeks to guide or make sense of that encounter. Attempting to rationalize the ethical encounter or ground ethics in pure reason is self-defeating because it is impossible to form ideas about or attribute characteristics to the Other before encountering them without totalizing the Other into a concept that misrepresents the Other's difference. Thus, ethics can only emerge from the direct encounter with a concrete, unique, and situated Other.
Beavers agrees:
If we can accept this notion that ideas are inventions of the mind, that ideas are, when it comes down to it, only interpretations of something, and if ethics, in fact, is taken to refer to real other persons who exist apart from my interpretations, then we are up against a problem: there is no way in which ideas, on the current model, refer to independently existing other persons, and as such, ideas cannot be used to found an ethics. There can be no pure practical reason until after contact with the other is established. Given this view towards ideas, then, anytime I take the person in my idea to be the real person, I have closed off contact with the real person; I have cut off the connection with the other that is necessary if ethics is to refer to real other people. This is a central violence to the other that denies the other his/her own autonomy. Levinas calls this violence "totalization" and it occurs whenever I limit the other to a set of rational categories, be they racial, sexual, or otherwise. Indeed, it occurs whenever I already know what the other is about before the other has spoken. Totalization is a denial of the other's difference, the denial of the otherness of the other. That is, it is the inscription of the other in the same. If ethics presupposes the real other person, then such totalization will, in itself, be unethical. If reducing the other to my sphere of ideas cuts off contact with the other, then we are presupposing that contact with the other has already been established. And if contact with the other cannot be established through ideas, then we must look elsewhere.
Ethics is the fundamental human experience, and is grounded in permanent responsibility for the other. And, since ethics concerns the relationships between multiple people, the only way to be an ethical subject is to be for the other. Ethical subjectivity is an ongoing process, so I have a permanent responsibility for the other.
Nealon:
For Levinas, on the other hand, if one is to be an ethical subject, one must escape the dark, anonymous rumbling of Being; in order for there to be a subjectivity responsive to the other, there must be a hypostasis that lifts the subject out of its wallowing in the Solipsistic raw Materiality of the il y a. Out of the “there is” of anonymous being, there must rise a “Here I Am.” me voici that nonetheless retains the trace of the hesitation and debt -- what Levinas will call the "passivity" -- characteristic of the il y a's impossibility. As he writes, hypostasis is subject-production, the introduction of space or place into the anonymous murmur of being: "to be conscious is to be torn away from the “there is" (EandE, p. 60/98). Subjectivity is torn away from impersonal being the anonymity of the there is by a responding to the other that is not reducible to any simple rule-governed or universalizing code; the ethical subject is, in other words, a responding, site-specific performative that is irreducible to an ontological or transhistorical substantive. As Levinas writes, “the body is the very advent of consciousness. It is nowise a thing -- not only because a soul inhabits it, but because its being belongs to the order of events and not to that of substantives. It is not posited; it is a position. It is not situated in space given beforehand; it is the irruption in anonymous being of localization itself. . . . The body as subjectivity does not express an event; it is itself this Event. (EandE, pp. 71,72/122,124)” This is perhaps the most concise statement of Levinas's understanding of a subjectivity that rises out of the il y a through hypostasis: the subject comes about through a performative response to the call of the other, through the bodily taking up of a "position," "the irruption in anonymous being of localization itself." However, this hypostasis is not the intentional act of a subject; it is, rather, subjection in and through the face-to-face encounter with the other person. As Levinas writes, "the localization of consciousness is not subjective; it is the subjectivization of the subject" (EandE, p. 69/118). Thus, "here I am" rises out of the there is as an accusative, where I am the object rather than the subject of the statement, where I am responding to a call from the face of the other. As Jan de Greef writes, "for Levinas the movement of subjectivity does not go from me to the other but from the other to me . . . . “Here I Am” (me voici) -- the unconditional of the hostage -- can only be said in response to an 'appeal' or a 'preliminary citation.' Convocation precedes invocation."16 It is to-the-other that one responds in the hypostasis that lifts the subject out of the il y a the face of the other, and its call for response-as-subjection, is the only thing that can break the subject's imprisonment in the anonymous il y a and open the space of continuing response to alterity. As Levinas sums up the project of his Existence and Existents, "it sets out to approach the idea of Being in general in its impersonality so as to then be able to analyze the notion of the present and of position, in which a being, a subject, an existent, arises in impersonal Being, through a hypostasis" (p. 19/18). As the evasion of the "impersonal being" that is the il y a hypostasis (as the concrete performative response to the face or voice of the other person) is the birth of the ethical Levinasian subject. Such a so subjection to the other which makes or produces a subject at the same time that it unmakes any chance for the subject to remain an alienated or free monad. As Levinas writes, "The subject is inseparable from this appeal or this election, which cannot be declined" (OTB, p. 53/68), so the subject cannot be thematized in terms of alienation from some prior state of wholeness; in Levinasian subjectivity, there is an originary interpellating appeal of expropriation, not an originary loss of the ability to appropriate.
Thus, the ethical subject is heteronomous, not autonomous, from the very moment of self-consciousness. The notion of ethical responsibility is being obligated to the Other. It is in responsibility for the Other that the self can have an actual encounter with ethics.
Beavers 2 concludes:
Furthermore, "the tie with the Other is knotted only as responsibility “as well. Thus, responsibility is the link between the subject and the other person, or, in more general terms, the source of the moral "ought" and the appearance of the other person as person and not as thing are one and the same. There is no authentic sociality apart from ethics, and there is no ethics apart from sociality. To say that responsibility is foundational for ethics and interpersonal relations is to say then not only that responsibility it is what relates one subject to another, but it is to go on to say that the meaning of the otherness of the other person is given in responsibility, and not in my interpretation of the other person. The very meaning of being another person is "the one to whom I am responsible." Thus, the contact with the real other person that I spoke of at the beginning of this lecture as something presupposed by the very meaning of ethics turns out to be, in Levinas' account, the source of the moral "ought."
Thus, the standard is consistency with Levinasian principles of responsibility. I contend that the AC is incompatible with the NC’s ethic.
similar analytic offense
1/31/17
4- Levinas Hijack
Tournament: Strake | Round: 3 | Opponent: Lake Highland RS | Judge: JP Levinas hijack- Thus, the ethical subject is heteronomous, not autonomous, from the very moment of self-consciousness. The notion of ethical responsibility is being obligated to the Other. It is in responsibility for the Other that the self can have an actual encounter with ethics.
Beavers 2 concludes:
Furthermore, "the tie with the Other is knotted only as responsibility “as well. Thus, responsibility is the link between the subject and the other person, or, in more general terms, the source of the moral "ought" and the appearance of the other person as person and not as thing are one and the same. There is no authentic sociality apart from ethics, and there is no ethics apart from sociality. To say that responsibility is foundational for ethics and interpersonal relations is to say then not only that responsibility it is what relates one subject to another, but it is to go on to say that the meaning of the otherness of the other person is given in responsibility, and not in my interpretation of the other person. The very meaning of being another person is "the one to whom I am responsible." Thus, the contact with the real other person that I spoke of at the beginning of this lecture as something presupposed by the very meaning of ethics turns out to be, in Levinas' account, the source of the moral "ought." Thus allow totalization impacts under u Freedom of speech totalizes the other because it offers an illusion of accessibility that is often denied in practice. Additionally, our hegemonic understanding of speech totalizes other cultures via narratives of American exceptionalism. Downing, John DH. "Hate Speech'andFirst Amendment Absolutism'Discourses in the US." Discourse and Society 10.2 (1999): 175-189. enforced throughout US history in favor of free public speech. Indeed, the evidence suggests quite the opposite. Linfield (1990) offers a mass of supporting evidence in the same direction during wartime periods. The First Amendment does not guarantee a right to communicate, it only prohibits government from passing certain types of legislation, and even this prohibition has to be interpreted, ultimately, by a given Supreme Court. What then is the First Amendment’s actual force? There is no way of offering a comprehensive answer to that question here. But it is important to consider the position put forward by Jensen and Arriola (1995), who argue that the First Amendment offers illusory protections. The ideology that in the USA anyone can constitutionally say anything, bypasses the social factors inhibiting the free and full expression of grievances and problems: ‘. . . the vast majority of survivors of sexual violence are ignored, blamed, pathologized, threatened, disbelieved, and otherwise revictimized when they protest the violation and try to hold their offenders accountable’ (pp. 195–6). Thus women or ethnic minority groups with important stories to tell who do not tell them, are subject to what Jensen and Arriola sum up as ‘oppressive silencing’ (pp. 199–203) – yet can comfortably be presumed by the public to have nothing of substance straitjacketing them because there is a talismanic First Amendment in existence. In reality that Amendment in no way protects their freedom to communicate, or their right to freedom from hate-based communication that does indeed straitjacket them. Hostile power in society is far from being only governmental, and the suppression of rights goes far beyond what has been legislated to that end. 2 IS THE FIRST AMENDMENT PECULIARLY AMERICAN? On one level, yes. There is no exact equivalent, not least because of its interrelation with the whole corpus of US legislation, constitutional and otherwise. Some would go further, however, and claim it is part of a distinctively American constitutional genius, one of the features of the USA that citizens of other nations should envy and aspire to reproduce, if they are up to it. Often lurking in this second claim is the assumption that no country enjoys more freedom of expression than the USA, almost as though in all other nations the citizens were constantly hedged about with blockages on public speech. With some degree of justice, the atrociously written British libel laws are the example of choice for those arguing this position, but even in Britain it is hardly the case that citizens are cowering in case they will be carted off to court for communicating freely. This viewpoint almost seems to squidge dictatorships and liberal democracies into a single bag, and thereby to trumpet American glory and exceptionalism (see Smith, 1995: 228). Downing: ‘Hate speech’ and ‘First Amendment absolutism’ 179 At this point it is probably appropriate to dispel some typical American illusions about European laws that ban incitement to racial hatred. Far from muzzling all free speech, as the rather apocalyptic First Amendment essentialist would claim, these laws are very rarely used. And in British experience, they have mostly been used against Black nationalist and Black racist speakers, rather than across the board.
12/17/16
4- Levinas Hijack vol 2
Tournament: Strake | Round: 5 | Opponent: Lake Highland SS | Judge: Sasso HIJACK. And, since ethics concerns the relationships between multiple people, the only way to be an ethical subject is to be for the other. Ethical subjectivity is an ongoing process, so I have a permanent responsibility for the other.
Nealon :
For Levinas, on the other hand, if one is to be an ethical subject, one must escape the dark, anonymous rumbling of Being; in order for there to be a subjectivity responsive to the other, there must be a hypostasis that lifts the subject out of its wallowing in the Solipsistic raw Materiality of the il y a. Out of the “there is” of anonymous being, there must rise a “Here I Am.” me voici that nonetheless retains the trace of the hesitation and debt -- what Levinas will call the "passivity" -- characteristic of the il y a's impossibility. As he writes, hypostasis is subject-production, the introduction of space or place into the anonymous murmur of being: "to be conscious is to be torn away from the “there is" (EandE, p. 60/98). Subjectivity is torn away from impersonal being the anonymity of the there is by a responding to the other that is not reducible to any simple rule-governed or universalizing code; the ethical subject is, in other words, a responding, site-specific performative that is irreducible to an ontological or transhistorical substantive. As Levinas writes, “the body is the very advent of consciousness. It is nowise a thing -- not only because a soul inhabits it, but because its being belongs to the order of events and not to that of substantives. It is not posited; it is a position. It is not situated in space given beforehand; it is the irruption in anonymous being of localization itself. . . . The body as subjectivity does not express an event; it is itself this Event. (EandE, pp. 71,72/122,124)” This is perhaps the most concise statement of Levinas's understanding of a subjectivity that rises out of the il y a through hypostasis: the subject comes about through a performative response to the call of the other, through the bodily taking up of a "position," "the irruption in anonymous being of localization itself." However, this hypostasis is not the intentional act of a subject; it is, rather, subjection in and through the face-to-face encounter with the other person. As Levinas writes, "the localization of consciousness is not subjective; it is the subjectivization of the subject" (EandE, p. 69/118). Thus, "here I am" rises out of the there is as an accusative, where I am the object rather than the subject of the statement, where I am responding to a call from the face of the other. As Jan de Greef writes, "for Levinas the movement of subjectivity does not go from me to the other but from the other to me . . . . “Here I Am” (me voici) -- the unconditional of the hostage -- can only be said in response to an 'appeal' or a 'preliminary citation.' Convocation precedes invocation."16 It is to-the-other that one responds in the hypostasis that lifts the subject out of the il y a the face of the other, and its call for response-as-subjection, is the only thing that can break the subject's imprisonment in the anonymous il y a and open the space of continuing response to alterity. As Levinas sums up the project of his Existence and Existents, "it sets out to approach the idea of Being in general in its impersonality so as to then be able to analyze the notion of the present and of position, in which a being, a subject, an existent, arises in impersonal Being, through a hypostasis" (p. 19/18). As the evasion of the "impersonal being" that is the il y a hypostasis (as the concrete performative response to the face or voice of the other person) is the birth of the ethical Levinasian subject. Such a so subjection to the other which makes or produces a subject at the same time that it unmakes any chance for the subject to remain an alienated or free monad. As Levinas writes, "The subject is inseparable from this appeal or this election, which cannot be declined" (OTB, p. 53/68), so the subject cannot be thematized in terms of alienation from some prior state of wholeness; in Levinasian subjectivity, there is an originary interpellating appeal of expropriation, not an originary loss of the ability to appropriate.
same offence
12/17/16
4- Military CP
Tournament: Harvard | Round: 1 | Opponent: Lexington | Judge: Bennett CP Text: the United States federal government should abolish the entirety of the armed forces. Edmons 04 Brad Edmonds. “Four Reasons We Should Abolish the Military” February 10, 2004. Free Republic.
Four Reasons We Should Abolish the Military To address the common claim by neoconservatives that we owe our freedom to the men and women of the US military, I've written recently that we don't owe the military anything of the sort. While many soldiers, airmen, etc. died in combat believing they were defending our freedom, they were misguided in this belief. The "for our freedom" claim is false because our freedoms were won by the founders and written into law by them, hence a military created afterward could have had nothing to do with that; the freedoms then created have only eroded over time, and the military did not prevent this (and could not, not being part of the legislative process); the military has never been necessary to prevent our freedoms being taken by other countries, as historians available all over the web are now making clear; and the military over the last century has only executed the adventurous whims of individual congressmen and presidents, and in so doing has been the muscle behind needlessly making the rest of the world hate us. Aside from looking at the past, there are compelling reasons we should abolish all government military forces now. 1. Any standing military force aside from the Navy is unconstitutional. The Constitution provides for funding of armies only two years at a time – even the typical four-year commitment for ROTC cadets and new enlistees is thus illegal, as presumably it could not be known four years in advance that there would still be a standing Army or Air Force. Many things the federal government does today are unconstitutional, but this is no reason not to continue to consider the Constitution an authoritative document. 2. The private sector could provide heavy-weapons regional defense better than the government. I neglected to mention in recent articles, but included in my "abolishing government" series, that insurers would most likely take up this task. Insurers have the resources and incentive already, and unlike the government's military, if an insurer caused "collateral damage," the insurer would be held responsible, with no protection from lawsuits. Additionally, an insurer would be required to succeed in protecting its customers, which our military isn't; and do at least as good a job of that for the dollar as the next insurer. By contrast, in today's government military, drill instructors are required to be "sensitive" rather than effective; gays and women share close quarters with men, even in combat, to the detriment of combat effectiveness; materiel is often purchased from the lowest bidder (unless the bidder represents a token minority contractor the Pentagon needs, in which case a toilet seat can cost hundreds of dollars); and in general our government military is a playground for the social-engineering initiatives of leftists in Congress, and is not dedicated primarily to its mission. The private sector, were it allowed to provide regional defense without government interference, would be more efficient, more effective, safer, and would never have incentive to engage in social engineering, nor in murderous foreign-policy adventurism and the consequent creation of bitter enemies around the world. 3. Even if the military were both efficient and constitutional, a standing military is a threat to our liberty, as has been proven in US history. The ultimate test of liberty is secession. Even Lincoln himself agreed before he became president that secession is a natural right. What made a slave a slave was that he could not secede from his owner's governance and go into business for himself. What makes the states and all their citizens slaves to the union today is that we are not allowed to secede and govern ourselves. The US military, in the only action it ever took that directly affected American liberty, prevented it – prevented the secession of several states by killing 300,000 of their citizens, then over several years enforcing draconian martial law over the survivors. 4. As the military is a government outfit, it can never be efficient. Indeed, as Ludwig von Mises showed, the US military, being a purely socialist government monopoly, can never know how much money it should have or spend, can never have a good idea how much its operations should cost. Right now, the US defense budget is over $1,400 for each man, woman, and child in the US. The private sector could provide a deterrent, enough to prevent any threat of foreign invasion, for probably 1/10 of that – which, remember, would still amount to $40 billion. No government agency can ever know what its costs should be; it is a forcible monopoly, and never can face bankruptcy, competition, or loss of customers. For the most part, the military as we have it is unconstitutional, as have been most of its actions since 1812 (in which war most of the work was done by privateers anyway). The private sector would do a far better job for far less money, as the individual Ross Perot proved in practical terms. The only impact the standing military has on our freedom is to take it away. And the military will eternally waste money because it cannot be governed by market forces, cannot ever know what its costs should be, cannot know what value it should return to stakeholders, and will never have an incentive to do a good job efficiently. In short, just as with any government service such as education or welfare services, it can never work well. This military must be abolished.
Solves case better-
2/23/17
4- Opp K
Tournament: Strake | Round: Quarters | Opponent: Mac | Judge: Panal First- the link- freedom-of-speech discourses, especially those of counterspeech force dehumanization on marginalized bodies KENT GREENFIELD MAR 13, 2015 , The Limits of Free Speech, The Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/the-limits-of-free-speech/387718/ Those not targeted by the speech can sit back and recite how distasteful such racism or sexism is, and isn’t it too bad so little can be done. Meanwhile, those targeted by the speech are forced to speak out, yet again, to reassert their right to be treated equally, to be free to learn or work or live in an environment that does not threaten them with violence. The First Amendment’s reliance on counterspeech as remedy forces the most marginalized among us to bear the costs of the bigots’ speech. Counterspeech is exhausting and distracting, but if you are the target of hatred you have little choice. “Speak up! Remind us why you should not be lynched.” “Speak up! Remind us why you should not be raped.” You can stay silent, but that internalizes the taunt. The First Amendment tells us the government cannot force us either to remain silent or to speak, but its reliance on counterspeech effectively forces that very choice onto victims of hate speech.
2nd- The protection of the AC cannot be functionally accessed by these marginalized bodies. This A. kills solvency of the Ac and B. means that you prop up a false narrative of inclusion with your politics. This allows dominant powers in society to silence the oppressed. Downing, John DH. "Hate Speech'andFirst Amendment Absolutism'Discourses in the US." Discourse and Society 10.2 (1999): 175-189. enforced throughout US history in favor of free public speech. Indeed, the evidence suggests quite the opposite. Linfield (1990) offers a mass of supporting evidence in the same direction during wartime periods. The First Amendment does not guarantee a right to communicate, it only prohibits government from passing certain types of legislation, and even this prohibition has to be interpreted, ultimately, by a given Supreme Court. What then is the First Amendment’s actual force? There is no way of offering a comprehensive answer to that question here. But it is important to consider the position put forward by Jensen and Arriola (1995), who argue that the First Amendment offers illusory protections. The ideology that in the USA anyone can constitutionally say anything, bypasses the social factors inhibiting the free and full expression of grievances and problems: ‘. . . the vast majority of survivors of sexual violence are ignored, blamed, pathologized, threatened, disbelieved, and otherwise revictimized when they protest the violation and try to hold their offenders accountable’ (pp. 195–6). Thus women or ethnic minority groups with important stories to tell who do not tell them, are subject to what Jensen and Arriola sum up as ‘oppressive silencing’ (pp. 199–203) – yet can comfortably be presumed by the public to have nothing of substance straitjacketing them because there is a talismanic First Amendment in existence. In reality that Amendment in no way protects their freedom to communicate, or their right to freedom from hate-based communication that does indeed straitjacket them. Hostile power in society is far from being only governmental, and the suppression of rights goes far beyond what has been legislated to that end. 2 IS THE FIRST AMENDMENT PECULIARLY AMERICAN? On one level, yes. There is no exact equivalent, not least because of its interrelation with the whole corpus of US legislation, constitutional and otherwise. Some would go further, however, and claim it is part of a distinctively American constitutional genius, one of the features of the USA that citizens of other nations should envy and aspire to reproduce, if they are up to it. Often lurking in this second claim is the assumption that no country enjoys more freedom of expression than the USA, almost as though in all other nations the citizens were constantly hedged about with blockages on public speech. With some degree of justice, the atrociously written British libel laws are the example of choice for those arguing this position, but even in Britain it is hardly the case that citizens are cowering in case they will be carted off to court for communicating freely. This viewpoint almost seems to squidge dictatorships and liberal democracies into a single bag, and thereby to trumpet American glory and exceptionalism (see Smith, 1995: 228). Downing: ‘Hate speech’ and ‘First Amendment absolutism’ 179 At this point it is probably appropriate to dispel some typical American illusions about European laws that ban incitement to racial hatred. Far from muzzling all free speech, as the rather apocalyptic First Amendment essentialist would claim, these laws are very rarely used. And in British experience, they have mostly been used against Black nationalist and Black racist speakers, rather than across the board. Nor is Thus- the alternative is to make whiteness unsafe as a dominant frame of discourse. This is the only way to disrupt false narratives of diversity and inclusion- this is a pre-requisite to resist structural violence- the alternative is a question of methodology, if we don’t understand whiteness and the voices of the oppressed we cant actualize change.
Yancy’12 {George; Prof at Duquesne University; “How Can You Teach Me if You Don’t Know Me? Embedded Racism and White Opacity”; Philosophy of Education Archive; http://ojs.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/pes/article/view/3600/1221}AvP So, I decided to talk about diversity in a way that would create risk, something that Odysseus failed to do. In other words, diversity, within the context of white North America, requires something more radical than Odysseus was willing to do. Hence, I think that it is important that I deploy one central pedagogical value that I hold dear, one that will shape the spirit of this talk: parrhesia (or fearless speech). Fearless or courageous speech involves genuine risk and vulnerability. Fearless or courageous speech, however, also involves fearless or courageous listening, which is a form of listening that does not leave us intact, unmoved, and dogmatic. One must be willing to listen to what is often most difficult and painful to hear about oneself and our society. So, I decided to talk about what I see as part of the problem for genuine diversity to take place: namely, the problem of whiteness. My talk then is not designed to leave us feeling “good” about ourselves; it is not designed to make us feel that my presence here — the fact that you see before you a Black philosopher talking about diversity — is a sign of your progress, and your liberal political sensibilities, your openness to dialogue. After all, if whiteness is the problem, then it is important that we avoid reinforcing the centrality of that problem. So, my contention is that instances of diversity where whiteness remains the center of privilege, invisibility, and power are not genuine instances of diversity at all. If diversity-talk is to be more robust, and if diversity at the level of lived experience is to be more fruitful and vivacious, then it is necessary that we engage in the process of un-concealing whiteness, revealing its subtle dynamism and structure. After all, without this pre-conditional critical work of naming whiteness, of critically engaging whiteness, “diversity” might simply function to serve the hidden values of whites as a group; diversity might function as a way of feeding white moral narcissism; and, diversity might function as a way of making whites comfortable, giving them a false sense of post-racial and post-racist arrival. What we really want to do, then, is to make whiteness “unsafe” as a normative category. Therefore, it is important to put whiteness at risk. Otherwise, whiteness can maintain its stability precisely through the rhetoric of self-congratulatory processes as it constructs its own safe vision of diversity. What is necessary is a discussion about diversity that raises the stakes, like walking from Jerusalem to Jericho, where something is “lost,” where we disorient ourselves, were we “dwell near” others in a transformative way, where we do not simply walk by and notice that which is different from us, but where we “dwell near” differences, where we tarry with differences. So, before we can talk about happy stories of diversity, we must, as Sara Ahmed would say, hear unhappy stories about racism,1 specifically the way in which the Black body constitutes not a site of difference as the human other, but difference as the problematic other, the other who is only allowed a voice so long as that voice does not disrupt whiteness as usual. The title of this essay — “How Can You Teach Me if You Don’t Know Me?” — suggests the idea that to know me as an embodied Black person it is necessary that I am actually heard, that is, that I am not occluded by white voices from speaking from my own embodied experiences. Indeed, it is also important that my voice is not simply rearticulated through a prism of white discourse that can and often does obfuscate the voices of people of color. Another way of thinking about the critique of whiteness as implied within the title of this essay is to ask: How can you critically engage the theme of diversity if you don’t know yourself? This question gives the problem back to whites, signifying their own cognitive and emotive distortion vis-à-vis themselves. Indeed, the heart of this question posed to whites involves a powerful act of transposition: How does it feel to be a white problem? Rethinking the term “nigger” through the process of reversal, James Baldwin asks, “But if I am not the ‘nigger’ and if it is true that your invention reveals you, then who is the nigger?” Baldwin goes on to say, “I give you your problem back. You’re the nigger, baby, it isn’t me.” As long as whites see themselves as normative, and I am different qua “nigger,” diversity will function as a cover, a political maneuver, a mere empty gesture. Baldwin’s point forces us to ask: Will the real “nigger” please stand up?
12/17/16
4- Polls NC
Tournament: Flowermound | Round: 2 | Opponent: idk | Judge: Old policy I negate Presume neg Negate means to deny the truth of, thus if theres no obligation to vote aff I’ve met my burden Substantive presumption comes first- it means I’ve met my burden so there’s no reason to presume Ought is to mean an obligation so permissibility negates as it’s the aff’s resolutional burden to prove an obligation
I value justice- the normative function of institutional ethics is to promote justice within the institution
Ethics devolve to the individual perspective since people constantly gain new knowledge, making their perspective the most indicative of truth.
Anker, (Michael Anker, PhD Dissertation “The Ethics of Uncertainty: Aporetic Openings”, Atropos Press, 2009. Pg 25)
As mentioned and affirmed, all things (concepts, words, objects, subjects, etc.) are in a state of becoming. Gaining knowledge or insight into any of these particulars thus entails an unstable terrain. If some-thing is constantly in a state of also becoming some-thing other, there is no stable ground for absolute knowledge and judgment. Furthermore, and to complicate matters even more so, it is not only the object being considered that exists in a state of transformation, but also the “subject” doing the interpretation. What we have left is a thoroughly perspectival (Nietzsche) relation to viewing and interpreting what we see and know of this world. By affirming this, knowledge becomes not a ground or an end in itself, but the means for a continual perspectival shifting. Perspectivism, as a thoroughly ungrounded and continuously shifting mode of interpretation, furthermore affirms the uncertainty of an indeterminate subject, object, and conceptual becoming.
And, disagreement plagues objectivist systems of justice since there’s no way to resolve differences, so evaluation devolves to the first person.
In some ways, moral disagreement seems to parallel the diversity of opinion as color to which shade of green is unique green. Unique green is that shade of green that is neither bluish nor yellowish. When asked to select the a particular shade shade which is unique green, different subjects with normal color vision will select different shades. As in the case of our controversial moral views, opinion about which shade is unique green not only fails to be unanimous, but is substantially divided. Perhaps if there were relatively widespread agreement as to which shade is unique green, then the dissenting judgments of a few who possessed otherwise normal color vision could be dismissed. But the fact that the actual division of opinion is substantial suggests that human beings are not reliable detectors of the relevant property. That relevantly similar creatures—since creatures with the same type of visual system—arrive at different verdicts when similarly situated seems to show that that kind of creature is simply not well equipped to detect the presence or absence of the property in question. That human beings are not, as a species, reliable detectors of unique green seems to tell against crediting any individual with knowledge that a certain shade is unique green, particularly if the individual knows of this general lack of reliability and has no good reason to think that he is exceptional in this respect. Note that although questions about which shade of green is unique green are hard questions for human beings, such questions do not present themselves to us as difficult ones. In fact, most subjects are quite confident of their initial judgments; each person’s view strikes her as obviously correct. This seems parallel to the moral case: in the moral case too, many find that their own views about controversial moral questions strike them as obviously correct.
In order to reconcile our subjective beliefs, we must look towards community desires. In a first person world, community is epistemologically most likely to be true and key to identity construction.
Two kinds of in instrumental benefits are commonly attributed to democracy: relatively good laws and policies and improvements in the characters of the participants. John Stuart Mill argued that a democratic method of making legislation is better than non-democratic methods in three ways: strategically, epistemically and via the improvement of the characters of democratic citizens (Mill, 1861, Chapter 3). Strategically, democracy has an advantage because it forces decision-makers to take into account the interests, rights and opinions of most people in society. Since democracy gives some political power to each more people are taken into account than under aristocracy or monarchy. The most forceful contemporary statement of this instrumental argument is provided by Amartya Sen, who argues, for example, that “no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent country with a democratic form of government and a relatively free press” (Sen 1999, 152). The basis of this argument is that politicians in a multiparty democracy with free elections and a free press have incentives to respond to the expressions of needs of the poor. Epistemologically, democracy is thought to be the best decision-making method on the grounds that it is generally more reliable in helping participants discover the right decisions. Since democracy brings a lot of people into the process of decision making, it can take advantage of many sources of information and critical assessment of laws and policies. Democratic decision-making tends to be more informed than other forms about the interests of citizens and the causal mechanisms necessary to advance those interests. Furthermore, the broad based discussion typical of democracy enhances the critical assessment of the different moral ideas that guide decision-makers. Many have endorsed democracy on the basis of the proposition that democracy has beneficial effects on character. Many have noted with Mill and Rousseau that democracy tends to make people stand up for themselves more than other forms of rule do because it makes collective decisions depend on them more than monarchy or aristocracy do. Hence, in democratic societies individuals are encouraged to be more autonomous. In addition, democracy tends to get people to think carefully and rationally more than other forms of rule because it makes a difference whether they do or not. Finally, some have argued that democracy tends to enhance the moral qualities of citizens. In Addition When they participate in making decisions, they have to listen to others, they are called upon to justify themselves to others and they are forced to think in part in terms of the interests of others. Some have argued that when people find themselves in this kind of circumstance, they come genuinely to think in terms of the common good and justice. Hence, some have argued that democratic processes tend to enhance the autonomy, rationality and morality of participants. Since these beneficial effects are thought to be worthwhile in themselves, they count in favor of democracy and against other forms of rule (Mill 1861, p. 74, Elster 2002, p. 152).Some argue in addition that the above effects on character tend to enhance the quality of legislation as well. A society of autonomous, rational, and moral decision-makers Democracy is more likely to produce good legislation than a society ruled by a self-centered person or small group of persons who rule over slavish and unreflective subjects.
The US is a federal republic defined as “a state in which power rests with the people or their representatives” (CIA.gov), so the US definitionally ought to do what its people will, making it justified. This means not only that democracy is the only way to say what public institutions of the US should do in terms of justice, but also that any other ethical system would change the agent we are talking about, and is thus incoherent, so textually it precedes other justifications.
Thus, the standard is consistency with communal norms, defined as looking towards what the within a community view on an issue. And, this means that in colleges we should look to the majority opinion of students, as they form the community within colleges Also-tyranny of the majority turns don’t apply- college attendance is voluntary
Prefer my evidence because Counter studies are biased; Gallup conducted this poll to understanding the public’s opinion. Gallup is reputable and uses the best available methods-theres no ulterior motive in my evidence.
1/28/17
4- Privatization CP
Tournament: Flowermound | Round: 3 | Opponent: Cypress Falls | Judge: policy judge kinda Text: Public colleges and universities should privatize James A. Dorn, http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-11-10/news/1991314063_1_higher-education-system-of-higher-college-education, Privatizing Higher Education JAMES A DORN November 10, 1991, the Baltimore Sun Every crisis presents an opportunity to challenge the status quo and embark on a new path. In the case of higher education, one can challenge the system of state ownership and control and ask if we cannot do better. Instead of restructuring the system of higher education from the center, consider the idea of privatization. While privatization and educational choice may appear radical in an environment dominated by government schools, those notions are gaining ground as the budget crisis deepens. Maryland's Secretary of Higher Education, Shaila Aery, has recommended that the possibility of privatizing at least parts of the UM system be given further study, and UM College Park President William Kirwan has stated, "It's essential that we look at the concept of privatization." Privatization would end central planning of higher education and eliminate state subsidies. Ownership and control would be in the hands of trustees who would be directly responsible for the health of their private institutions. Experience has shown that managers of private colleges or universities have a stronger incentive to cut costs, improve efficiency, and innovate than do managers of state-owned schools. The ratio of staff to faculty at Johns Hopkins University, for example, is significantly lower than at UM College Park. Ending state subsidies for higher education would reveal the true cost of college and lead to more efficient educational choices. Higher education is primarily a private rather than a public good: benefits accrue almost entirely to those who receive the education, and tuition can be charged to cover the costs of education. College should be viewed as an investment in one's future. The lifetime income of a college graduate is nearly three times that of a non-college graduate and this premium is likely to increase in the future. Solves case- the freedom of speech is not a requirement for privatized schools Marcus, Laurence R. Fighting words: The politics of hateful speech. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996. Deeply ingrained in higher education is the principle of academic freedom, which incorporates the concepts of freedom of inquiry and freedom of expression. As John Seigenthaler (1993: 48) of the Vanderbilt University’s Freedom Forum First Amendment Center posits, “the academy should be an open forum—a place where learning is fostered and knowledge revered, but where ignorant, unpleasant, objectionable, offensive points of view might be exposed for what they are, or rejected in debate for what they are, but never suppressed or banned or sanctioned punitively.” At public institutions, academic freedom rests on the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech. While is not necessarily a legal requirement in the independent sector, the principle is strong also in most private institutions, where it is supported by a long tradition of commitment to the value of the inquiring mind. Indeed, the centrality of freedom of expression to higher education has been recognized by the Supreme Court, in Sweeney v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234 (1957). Thus, the intellectual reaction to an incident of hateful speech on campus is that, distasteful as it may be, it falls under the protection of academic freedom or the First Amendment. The gut reaction is often very different, since most on college campuses view hate speech as antithetical to the goals of higher education and the mission of their institutions. Competition – analytic
1/28/17
4- Queer Narrative K
Tournament: Strake RR | Round: 4 | Opponent: Morgan | Judge: Ruben and Patrick Graham The evidence in the narrative is from Nick Duffy Part one is the narrative First, lets set the stage. Let me introduce you to Milo Yiannopoulos Duffy, University ignored warnings about far-right speaker, leaving him free to bully trans student on stage Nick Duffy 15th December 2016, 1:53 PM, http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/12/15/university-ignored-warnings-about-far-right-speaker-leaving-him-free-to-bully-trans-student-on-stage/ A university ignored multiple warnings about a speaker’s extreme views and history of abusive behaviour – leaving him free to single out a trans student and bully them on-stage. Far-right internet troll Milo Yiannopoulos has seen his media profile rise thanks to attention-grabbing bigoted comments and support of Donald Trump, whom he refers to as ‘daddy’. Yiannopoulos, who was banned from Twitter earlier this year after allegedly encouraging a wave of racist abuse directed at Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones, is capitalising on his cult-like following with a ‘Dangerous Faggot Tour’ at universities and colleges across the US. When Yiannopoulos was confirmed to be speaking at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, students attempted to make officials aware of his views and abusive history. But despite repeated protests, university administrators decided that Yiannopoulos – who says he would ‘cure’ himself of being gay if he could and describes trans people as “mentally ill… gay men dressing up for attention” – should still be allowed to speak at the event on December 14. Yiannopoulos proceeded to use the event to single out and humiliate a transgender student who attends the university, exactly as protesters had warned he would. In his speech – which was streamed on the internet by far-right news outlet Breitbart – Yiannopoulos singled out Milwaukee engineering student Adelaide Kramer, showing pictures of her on a PowerPoint presentation and mocking her as a “man in a dress” who “I’d almost still bang”. He said: “I’ll tell you one UW-Milwaukee student that does not need to man up, and that is used herusing former name Justine Kramer.” “Do you know about Justine Kramer? Have any of you come into contact with this person? This quote unquote nonbinary trans woman forced his way into the women’s locker rooms this year. “He got into the women’s room the way liberals always operate, using the government and the courts to weasel their way where they don’t belong “Equal rights law Title IX is being used to put men in to women’s bathrooms. I have known some passing trannies in my life… which is to say transgender people who pass as the gender they would like to be considered.” “The way that you know he’s failing is I’d almost still bang him. It’s just…it’s just a man in a dress, isn’t it? I should reapply my lipstick.” The session continued for nearly two hours after the incident.
Sounds pretty bad huh? It gets worse. Speaking to student media outlet Media Milwaukee, Adelaide Kramer – whose case had received some limited media attention previously – said: “I knew Milo was going to regurgitate a profound amount of racist and transphobic hate. “What I did not anticipate was being specifically targeted and called out in the way he did. I hadn’t said anything or made even the slightest disruption: He had his harassment of me planned out well in advance. “I’m sitting there and I hear him say ‘Justine Kramer’ and I just froze up. I have never, ever, ever been more terrified in my life of being outed. Ever. “This also isn’t just a case of a speaker going off an a tangent like that, like some random occurrence. It was not a case where you had no way of knowing he would do this. Quite the contrary: Milo has a supremely extensive, highly-documented track record of doing precisely this. “As I’ve already said, ‘YOU KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN. WE TOLD YOU IT WOULD. AND WE TOLD YOU AGAIN. AND AGAIN’.” Adelaide Kramer told the outlet she is quitting the university. And the reaction? The University chancellor Mark Mone – who ignored repeated warnings and protests in order to let Yiannopoulos speak – sent an all-student email condemning the comments. After defending the principle of “free speech”, he wrote: “I do not agree with Yiannopoulos’ views, and I strongly condemn the belittling of others and their appearance, and the encouragement of hate and harassment. “I also will not stand silently by when a member of our campus community is personally and wrongly attacked. I am disappointed that this speaker chose to attack a transgender student. “Our campus has a wonderful diversity that fosters a creative and exciting learning environment. It is critical that we protect, support and celebrate the exchange of ideas and cultural traditions that take place here. “The inclusivity and safety of our campus are top priorities. Every member of our community should feel safe and valued, regardless of beliefs, race, sexual orientation, immigration or other status.” THROUGH THIS WE SEE THE INFULTRATION OF FACISM INTO OUR SCHOOLS FROM THE OUTSIDE. TRANS AND OTHER MARGINALIZED STDUENTS BECOME PAWNS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS, THEIR SUFFERING DISCARDED IN THE NAME OF FREE SPEECH, IN ORDER TO GENERATE HEADLINES AND POLITICAL CAPITAL FOR LITERAL NATZI. THIS IS COMPLETE DEHUMANIZATION- STUDENTS BECOME SACRIFICE. Some more specific links- analytic Next, Schools are subject to constitutional requirements to allow guest speakers who perpetrate dehumanizing conduct ROLAND http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/campus-speakers, FREE SPEECH ON PUBLIC COLLEGE CAMPUSES Campus speakers DAVE ROLAND CONTRIBUTING WRITER Friday, September 13, 2002 Public colleges and universities frequently make their facilities available to speakers unaffiliated with the campus, seeking to provide educational experiences outside the classroom. Sometimes these speakers are chosen by the administration, sometimes by students. Regardless of who selects a speaker, once a university has created a forum on its campus, the same First Amendment protections will apply. A school has no obligation to grant every student-group request for guest speakers. Administrations may create regulations for handling requests, and at least one court has held that universities may be justified in denying applications if they have reason to believe that the speaker will advocate violent rebellion against the government, or immediate, destructive, and disruptive action against the host institution. Generally, however, courts have held that when an audience brings someone to campus to speak, the school bears a constitutional responsibility not to interfere. The situation is different if the speaker is uninvited. Campuses usually require uninvited speakers to apply for a permit and can limit where and when these speakers speak. A public college or university is constitutionally permitted to place certain time, place, manner, and (in very limited circumstances) even content-based restrictions on speech, as long as the restrictions are reasonable, apply to everyone, are in line with the school’s educational mission, and do not discriminate according to viewpoint. Such restrictions may run into constitutional trouble if the school administration’s effort is seen as an attempt to block particular individuals, topics, or points of view. In a string of cases decided during the Vietnam War, federal courts clearly established that regardless of the controversy that might be caused by a speaker’s presence or the content of the message, inflammatory guests could not be denied the opportunity to be heard in an appropriate forum on public college campuses. To prevent their ideas, however distasteful to some, from being presented on campus would be an exercise of prior restraint, which the Supreme Court has said is generally (though not always) unconstitutional. Recently the question of the appropriate forum has become the key factor in determining whether an uninvited speaker may speak on campus. Thus, the alternative- public colleges and universities should adopt a ‘no platforming’ policy, as modeled by the NUS in the UK. This allows student unions to prevent speakers from speaking on school grounds. Bell, BBC News, Education and Family NUS 'right to have no platform policy' By Sar ah Bell Victoria Derbyshire programme, http://www.bbc.com/news/education-36101423 Nearly two-thirds (63) of university students believe the National Union of Students is right to have a "no platforming" policy, a survey suggests. The policy means people or groups on a banned list for holding racist or fascist views are not given a platform to speak on student union premises. And 54 of 1,001 students asked thought the policy should be enforced against people who could be found intimidating. The NUS said the policy allowed free speech without intimidation. ComRes interviewed 1,001 UK university students online for the survey, commissioned by the Victoria Derbyshire programme, with data weighted by course year, university type and gender. The NUS official no platform list contains six groups including the BNP and Al-Muhajiroun, but individual unions and student groups can decide their own. Find out more: The Victoria Derbyshire programme broadcast a special programme on the issue of no platform on Monday. If you missed it you can catch up here. The NUS said it was proud of the policy and that the poll results showed students recognised it was important to stand up to racism and fascism. "In the past, students have been physically harmed and tragically even killed as a result of such organisations coming on to campuses and inciting hatred. That is why no platform was introduced in the first place, to keep students safe in a very real sense," a spokeswoman said. "Our policy does not limit free speech, but acts to defend it by calling out violence, hate speech, bullying and harassment, which allows debate to take place without intimidation. Students' unions are champions of debate on campus, in fact a recent survey showed zero out of 50 students' unions had banned a speaker in the past year." In recent years, individuals believed to be sexist, transphobic or rape apologists have also been banned from speaking at universities. 'Outrageous' It is argued these speakers would threaten a "safe space", which is described as an accessible environment in which every student feels comfortable, safe and can get involved free from intimidation or judgment. At Canterbury Christ Church University, an NUS rep refused to share a platform with gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, whom she regarded as having been racist and "transphobic". PREFER- analytic
12/18/16
4-Fem K
Tournament: Strake | Round: 1 | Opponent: Montgomery | Judge: Rodrigo your specific aff links through invocation of liberal rights and porn: independently no solves and contests your method. Koskenniemi 1995 Martti Koskenniemi, University of Helsinki, January, , The American Journal International Law, 89 A.J.I.L. 227, p. 227 Traditional feminism, in law as elsewhere, sought to "put women on the agenda" -- for example, to make violence against women a violation of international human rights. While first-wave feminism concentrated on legal reform, the second wave has lost faith. Reform has often been ineffectual or led to transformation, rather than eradication, of male dominance. Sometimes, "using" law may have seemed to be a fatal concession. For the law and legal method may themselves, with their adversarial style and obsession with authority and rationality, be bastions of stereotypical masculinity-hence, of male domination. This applies also to the rhetoric of liberal rights ("men's rights," Shelley Wright, p. 120). While "rights," like reformism, may have played a beneficial role in early feminist struggles, they have also proved counterproductive. They oversimplify complex power relations (within the family, for instance); they are individualistic, indeterminate, conflictual and easily appropriated to enhance domination (as the right of free speech is used to defend pornography).
Ethical responsibility to reject patriarchy—it leads to unjust domination Jhyette Nhanenge, 2007 (developmental Africa worker), 2007, Retrieved May 30, 2015 from http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/570/dissertation.pdf?sequence=1/ ns The two characteristics, which benefit in a racist and/or patriarchal society are white and male. Since both are received by birth, the benefits are not based on merit, ability, need, or effort. The benefits are institutionally created, maintained and sanctioned. Such systems perpetuate unjustified domination. Thus, the problem lays in institutional structures of power and privilege but also in the actual social context. Different groups have different degrees of power and privilege in different cultural contexts. Those should be recognized, but so should commonalities where they exist. However, although Ups cannot help but to receiving the institutional power and privileges it is important to add that they are accountable for perpetuating unjustified domination through their behaviours, language and thought worlds. That is why ecofeminism is about both theory and practice. It does not only try to understand and analyze, it also finds it important to take action against domination. (Warren 2000: 64-65).¶ Patriarchy is an unhealthy social system. Unhealthy social systems tend to be rigid and closed. Roles and rules are non-negotiable and determined by those at the top of the hierarchy. High value is placed on control and exaggerated concepts of rationality, even though, paradoxically, the system can only survive on irrational ideologies. You should reject sexism as an individual--we need to integrate gender into our struggles and discussions Chew 07 staff, Chinese Progressive Association Huibin Amee, June 16 2007, "Left Turn: Notes from the Global Intifada," http://www.leftturn.org/?q=node/699 This shallow vision of gender justice has so permeated even progressive circles, that our very definition of sexism is circumscribed. Too often, sexism is merely seen as a set of cultural behaviors or personal biases; challenging sexism is simply seen as breaking these gender expectations. But sexism is an institutionalized system, with historical, political, and economic dimensions. Just as it was built on white supremacy and capitalism, this country was built on patriarchy—on the sexual subjugation of women whether in war or “peace”, slavery or conquest; on the abuse of our reproductive capacity; the exploitation of both our paid and unpaid labor. Truly taking on an anti-sexist agenda means uprooting institutional patriarchy. To do so we must first, as a society, overcome our fears of addressing feminist issues and views. A deep analysis of how patriarchy operates is typically absent across progressive organizing in the US—whether for affordable housing, demilitarization, immigrant rights, or worker rights. In all of these struggles, women are heavily affected, and moreover, affected disproportionately in gendered ways, as women. Yet too often, organizers working on these issues do not recognize how they are gendered. In the process, they prioritize men’s experiences, and perpetuate sexism. Gender is ghettoized, rather than fully integrated into radical struggles. Appended to the main concerns of other movements, it is at best engaged on a single-issue, not systemic basis.
Part 3 is the alt- The alternative is feminist anarchy- an intersectional approach to combatting the neoliberal order and normative legal structures of the aff. Deirdre Hogan ,Anarcha-Feminism Thinking about Anarchism, http://struggle.ws/wsm/ws/2004/79/thinking.html, An important principle of anarchism and one that more than any other differentiates it from other types of socialism is its emphasis on freedom and non-hierarchical social relations. Central to anarchism is the rejection of any power hierarchy between men and women. Anarchists believe that the liberty of one is based on the liberty of all and so there can be no true anarchist society without an end to all existing structures of domination and exploitation, including naturally the oppression of women. As anarchists we believe that the means determines the end. This means that we do not wait for some future revolution to tackle the problems of sexism but instead see that it is important to struggle against it in the here and now. As anarchists we strive to ensure that both our own organisations and also those campaigns we are involved in are free from sexism and power-hierarchies and that all members have equal decision-making power. We recognise that the full participation of women within the anarchist movement and social struggles of today is very important. In order to shape the future society women must be involved in its creation and, of course, without the participation of half of the population there will be no social revolution. Just as we believe the emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class themselves, we also see that, essentially, women’s development, freedom and independence must come from themselves. Becoming involved in political struggle is in itself an act of empowerment. Many women in today’s society do not believe that they could have a role in fundamentally changing things. However by getting involved, by assuming our place — agitating, educating and organising — we begin to take control of our own lives in the process of actively fighting to change the unjust society in which we live. Only in an anarchist society will the basis for the oppression of women cease to exist. This is because women, due to their reproductive role, will always be more vulnerable than men in capitalist society which is based on the need to maximise profit. Abortion rights, paid maternity leave, crèche and childcare facilities etc., in short everything that would be necessary to ensure the economic equality of women under capitalism, will always be especially relevant to women. Because of this, women are generally viewed as being less economical than men to employ and are more susceptible to attacks on gains such as crèche facilities etc. Also, women cannot be free until they have full control over their own bodies. Yet under capitalism, abortion rights are never guaranteed. Even if gains are made in this area they can be attacked, as happens with abortion rights in the USA. The oppression of women under capitalism has thus an economic and sexual basis. From these root causes of women’s oppression, stem other forms of oppression like, for example, the ideological oppression of women, violence against women etc. That is not to say that sexist ideas will just disappear with the end of capitalism, but rather only with the end of capitalism can we rid society of an institutional bias that continues to propagate and encourage sexism. As an anarchist society will not be driven by profit, there, for example, will be no economic penalty for having children or wanting to spend more time with them. Childcare, housework etc., can be seen as the responsibility of the whole of society and thus give women and men more options in general. Anarchism/Anarcha-feminism 1 joins the fight against class exploitation and that against women’s oppression together. True freedom, both for women and men, can only come about in a classless society, where workplaces are self-managed, private property is abolished and the people who make decisions are those affected by them. Clearly the struggle for women’s freedom requires a class struggle by the workers. And in turn, the class struggle can only be successful if it is at the same time a struggle against women’s oppression.
Part 4 is framing Judge is an educator- 2. The epistemological underpinnings of the school and the affs methods must be flipped on its head, key to accessing agency and preventing hierarchal violence. Thus the Roll of the judge is to develop feminist standpoint epistemology Pandey 6(Anupam, thesis submitted to faculty of graduate studies and research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctorate of philosophy department of political science Carleton university, forging bonds with women, nature and the third world: an ecofeminist critique of international relations, 103-105 Proj Muse KD)
Both traditional IR theory and its positivist basis have been soundly criticized for their shortcomings by post-positivist approaches such as feminist, post-modern, poststructuralist and critical approaches. This research aims to extend and deepen the existing critique by developing an ecofeminist perspective. A short summation of the post- positivist critique of the neo-realist agenda in this regard lies in the fact that the problem is inherent in the epistemological premises of the school itself. The subject-object dichotomy is responsible for the divorce of ethics from theory. That theorizing helps to construct the reality and the need for epistemological self-consciousness cannot be emphasized enough. “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are” (Ken Booth quoting Anais, 1995: 334). As discussed earlier, the most critical aspect with respect to epistemology and methodology is the hidden element of power associated with it. Robert Cox’s famous statement that theory is always to benefit someone or for some purpose (1986: 207) is equally true for epistemology. The adoption of a particular epistemological choice (which we discussed leads to serious ontological consequences for the discipline which in turn, in constitutive of reality) cannot be an innocent exercise. Thus, the fundamental question that arises is just whose perspective is reflected in the choice of method or even epistemology or quite simply, who is the “knower”? The answer to this question with respect to International Relations and its scientific methods and positivistic methodology is that the subject is clearly the male who represents the White, western, Bourgeois masculinity. Alternately, an ecofeminist epistemology is reflective of the subjectivity or perspective of the epistemology of the voiceless, the dispossessed and the marginalized, specifically, women and nature and it explores the relationship between the two. As discussed in detail in chapter 2, in this regard, much of what an ecofeminist critique promises is already covered by a feminist standpoint epistemology. Not only does the latter help to reveal the element of power in the construction of knowledge by specifying exactly who stands to benefit from such knowledge but it also helps to reverse the hierarchical order by developing an epistemology from the standpoint of the oppressed, namely, women. However, an ecofeminist perspective serves to expand the existing body of knowledge by shifting the focus away not only from androcentricism but even anthropocentricism. This shift in focus is the key to understanding hierarchization, inegalitarianism and exploitation in relationships between humans.
12/16/16
4-University K
Tournament: Collyville i think | Round: Doubles | Opponent: Westwood | Judge: Melin The 1ac hopes to awaken critical consciousness via free speech, the question of the negative is where does that awakening take place? In academia? In debate? The silence of the affirmative on this question is problematic—the university structure is not neutral- relying on the university space creates contanment Harney and Moten 13. Stefano Harney, Professor of Strategic Management Education at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University and a co-founder of the School for Study and Fred Moten, Helen L. Bevington Professor of Modern Poetry at Duke University, “Politics Surrounded,” The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study, pg. 41
Here one comes face to face with the roots of professional and criti- cal commitment to negligence, to the depths of the impulse to deny the thought of the internal outside among critical intellectuals, and the necessity for professionals to question without question. What- ever else they do, critical intellectuals who have found space in the university are always already performing the denial of the new society when they deny the undercommons, when they find that space on the surface of the university, and when they join the conquest denial by improving that space. Before they criticise the aesthetic and the Aes- thetic, the state and the State, history and History, they have already practiced the operation of denying what makes these categories pos- sible in the underlabor of their social being as critical academics. The slogan on the Left, then, “universities, not jails,” marks a choice that may not be possible. In other words, perhaps more universities promote more jails. Perhaps it is necessary finally to see that the uni- versity produces incarceration as the product of its negligence. Perhaps there is another relation between the University and the Prison – be- yond simple opposition or family resemblance – that the undercom- mons reserves as the object and inhabitation of another abolitionism. What might appear as the professionalization of the American uni- versity, our starting point, now might better be understood as a cer- tain intensification of method in the Universitas, a tightening of the circle. Professionalization cannot take over the American university – it is the critical approach of the university, its Universitas. And in- deed, it appears now that this state with its peculiar violent hegemony must deny what Foucault called in his 1975-76 lectures the race war. War on the commitment to war breaks open the memory of the con- quest. The new American studies should do this, too, if it is to be not just a people’s history of the same country but a movement against the possibility of a country, or any other; not just property justly distrib- uted on the border but property unknown. And there are other spaces situated between the Universitas and the undercommons, spaces that are characterized precisely by not having space. Thus the fire aimed at black studies by everyone from William Bennett to Henry Louis Gates Jr., and the proliferation of Centers without affiliation to the memory of the conquest, to its living guardianship, to the protection of its honor, to the nights of labor, in the undercommons. The university, then, is not the opposite of the prison, since they are both involved in their way with the reduction and command of the social individual. And indeed, under the circumstances, more uni- versities and fewer prisons would, it has to be concluded, mean the memory of the war was being further lost, and living unconquered, conquered labor abandoned to its lowdown fate. Instead, the under- commons takes the prison as a secret about the conquest, but a secret, as Sara Ahmed says, whose growing secrecy is its power, its ability to keep a distance between it and its revelation, a secret that calls into being the prophetic, a secret held in common, organized as secret, calling into being the prophetic organization.
2nd- the academy is a space that excludes the undercommons- many don’t have functional access to free speech. This independently no solves the aff- critical education becomes co-opted onto replicating wage labor Harney and Moten 13. Stefano Harney, Professor of Strategic Management Education at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University and a co-founder of the School for Study and Fred Moten, Helen L. Bevington Professor of Moden Poetry, “Politics Surrounded,” The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study, pg. 29
Introducing this labor upon labor, and providing the space for its de- velopment, creates risks. Like the colonial police force recruited un- wittingly from guerrilla neighborhoods, university labor may harbor refugees, fugitives, renegades, and castaways. But there are good rea- sons for the university to be confident that such elements will be ex- posed or forced underground. Precautions have been taken, book lists have been drawn up, teaching observations conducted, invitations to contribute made. Yet against these precautions stands the immanence of transcendence, the necessary deregulation and the possibilities of criminality and fugitivity that labor upon labor requires. Maroon communities of composition teachers, mentorless graduate students, adjunct Marxist historians, out or queer management professors, state college ethnic studies departments, closed-down film programs, visa- expired Yemeni student newspaper editors, historically black college sociologists, and feminist engineers. And what will the university say of them? It will say they are unprofessional. This is not an arbitrary charge. It is the charge against the more than professional. How do those who exceed the profession, who exceed and by exceeding es- cape, how do those maroons problematize themselves, problematize the university, force the university to consider them a problem, a dan- ger? The undercommons is not, in short, the kind of fanciful com- munities of whimsy invoked by Bill Readings at the end of his book. The undercommons, its maroons, are always at war, always in hiding. The maroons know something about possibility. They are the condi- tion of possibility of the production of knowledge in the university – the singularities against the writers of singularity, the writers who write, publish, travel, and speak. It is not merely a matter of the secret labor upon which such space is lifted, though of course such space is lifted from collective labor and by it. It is rather that to be a critical academic in the university is to be against the university, and to be against the university is always to recognize it and be recognized by it, and to institute the negligence of that internal outside, that unas- similated underground, a negligence of it that is precisely, we must insist, the basis of the professions. And this act of being against al- ways already excludes the unrecognized modes of politics, the beyond of politics already in motion, the discredited criminal para-organiza- tion, what Robin Kelley might refer to as the infrapolitical field (and its music). It is not just the labor of the maroons but their prophetic organization that is negated by the idea of intellectual space in an organization called the university. This is why the negligence of the critical academic is always at the same time an assertion of bourgeois individualism. Such negligence is the essence of professionalization where it turns out professionalization is not the opposite of negligence but its mode of politics in the United States. It takes the form of a choice that excludes the prophetic organization of the undercommons – to be against, to put into question the knowledge object, let us say in this case the university, not so much without touching its founda- tion, as without touching one’s own condition of possibility, with- out admitting the Undercommons and being admitted to it. From this, a general negligence of condition is the only coherent position. Not so much an antifoundationalism or foundationalism, as both are used against each other to avoid contact with the undercom- mons. This always-negligent act is what leads us to say there is no distinction between the university in the United States and profes- sionalization. There is no point in trying to hold out the university against its professionalization. They are the same. Yet the maroons refuse to refuse professionalization, that is, to be against the uni- versity. The university will not recognize this indecision, and thus professionalization is shaped precisely by what it cannot acknowl- edge, its internal antagonism, its wayward labor, its surplus. Against this wayward labor it sends the critical, sends its claim that what is left beyond the critical is waste. But in fact, critical education only attempts to perfect professional education. The professions constitute themselves in an opposition to the unregulated and the ignorant without acknowledging the unreg- ulated, ignorant, unprofessional labor that goes on not opposite them but within them. But if professional education ever slips in its labor, ever reveals its condition of possibility to the professions it supports and reconstitutes, critical education is there to pick it up, and to tell it, never mind – it was just a bad dream, the ravings, the drawings of the mad. Because critical education is precisely there to tell professional education to rethink its relationship to its opposite – by which criti- cal education means both itself and the unregulated, against which professional education is deployed. In other words, critical education arrives to support any faltering negligence, to be vigilant in its negli- gence, to be critically engaged in its negligence. It is more than an ally of professional education, it is its attempted completion. A professional education has become a critical education. But one should not applaud this fact. It should be taken for what it is, not pro- gress in the professional schools, not cohabitation with the Univer- sitas, but counterinsurgency, the refounding terrorism of law, coming for the discredited, coming for those who refuse to write off or write up the undercommons.
3rd- (if critical) Their stance commodifies the experiences of the oppressed they claim to speak for -- this renders their political act meaningless and creates a destructive model of dissent that depends upon authoritarian institutions and imprisons the rhetorical value of the 1ac via commodification that denies the dignity of the represented. They also link through their call to static institutions James 3. Joy James, Professor of Africana Studies @ Brown “Academia, activism, and imprisoned intellectuals.” http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Academia,+activism,+and+imprisoned+intellectuals.-a0133368005
Activism is as multidimensional in its appearances as the academy; as academia's alter ego, or problematic twin, it also reflects the best and worst tendencies of the marketplace. When structured by the market, activism is not inherently infused with responsible behavior or compassion. In its push for productivity--more rallies, demos, conferences, meetings--it can lose sight of effective strategies, community, and the importance of young activists exercising decision-making power. To value one's presence, i.e., just showing up for work, class, or demonstrations, over one's preparedness to fully participate in transformational acts is a feature of the crass market (where volume or quantity of a product register more than quality or utility). Likewise, expectations for unquestioning obedience to managerial elites--whether radical instructor or organizer--are also features of the market found in activism and academia. Thus, beyond confronting the social crises and military and ideological wars enacted by the state, we are disturbed, destabilized, and therefore challenged by the commodification of our own educational sites and political movements. The marketplace--as the dominant metaphor and construct--influences our consciousness and regulates our lives to shape both academia and activism. Conformity and compliance, rebellion and resistance, are often channeled through and structured by markets that turn intellect and action into objects for trade and barter in competition for status and acquisition, while making our ideals (freedom and justice) and their representatives (prisoners of resistance) into commodities. Through books, videos, and CDs, political representations are purchased and circulated with the intent of creating greater demand not only for the "product," but also for social justice, release campaigns, opposition to expanding police and military powers, and executions and state violence. For the imprisoned, the possibility of release, or at least remembrance, mitigates their social death in prison (or physical death, as in the cases of MOVE's Merle Africa and former Black Panther Albert Nuh Washington). Academics and activists use the market to highlight the human rights abuses and conditions of the imprisoned, the 2.5 million people locked in U.S. penal institutions, and the perpetuation of torture and slavery through the Thirteenth Amendment. The irony is that commodification is another form of containment. Although Harlow advocates the "activist counterapproach" to consumption, not all activism provides an alternative. Some of it re-inscribes the competition, opportunism, disciplinary mechanisms, and demands for institutional loyalty that characterize the marketplace. Activism or activists, like academia and academics, have their own forms of commerce. At their weakest and most problematic points, they share, in their respective sites, careerism, appropriation, and the assertion of "authoritative" voices. For instance, the "political prisoner-as-icon" can be deployed to minimize or silence external and internal critiques. Editors, translators, and advocates can wield iconic power as surrogates (and in surreal fashion use that proxy against the incarcerated themselves). The structural position that the non-incarcerated possess, a quite valuable commodity, permits the appropriation of voice and new forms of dependencies. Perhaps, the imprisoned use self-censorship not only as a shield against their guards (as Marilyn Buck describes in On Self-Censorship), but also as armor against their allies. Political prisoners have strategies to counter "free" progressives, given that in the social death of the prisoner rebel, the state is not the only entity that has the ability to capitalize on or cannibalize captive bodies. If indeed the political prisoner or imprisoned intellectual can be either "freed" or frozen in academic and/or activist discourse and productivity, then it is essential that academics-activists, students-scholars, directly communicate with political prisoners, as openly as possible given the structural disparities.
The alternative is to refuse the aff’s—this is theoretically generative, so it provides offence under your framework. Tuck and Yang – ’14 – Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations, SUNY New Paltz and Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, UC San Diego (Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, “R-Words: Refusing Research,” Humanizing Research, https://faculty.newpaltz.edu/evetuck/files/2013/12/Tuck-and-Yang-R-Words_Refusing-Research.pdf, p. 237-242, MM) In this final section, our task is to engage in a more tentative, more shifting and in-formation discussion of refusal—indeed, a theorizing of refusal as an operationalization of the three axioms we have already presented. Far from axiomatic, this discussion is more speculative and less sure-footed. Here we will consider this question: Without a wholesale dismissal of social science research, how do we understand the researcher's and researched's relationships to knowledge circulated and recirculated by the academy? Our discussion relies heavily upon a rich and dynamic 2007 article by Kahnawake scholar Audra Simpson, titled "On Ethnographic Refusal: Indigeneity, 'Voice,' and Colonial Citizenship." We engage a close discussion and description of Simpson's work in order to begin to piece together a methodology around refusal, not as a simple or extremist or prohibitive stance, but as a generative orientation. In part, we are trying to help readers think through what there is instead of pain for social science research to look at, and also to provide some ways of theorizing the political and sovereign advantages of ascribing limits to settler colonial social science research. It is our conviction that once social science research is understood as settler colonial knowledge, nothing less and nothing more, it then makes sense why limits must be placed on it. If social science research is not understood as such, then talk of limits reads as a violation of the universal benefits of knowledge production, and perhaps of humanity itself. There is no rulebook, no set of step-by-step directions to follow for refusal. It means stepping to the side of the march of the academic industrial complex, taking stock of its recruiting of conscript knowledges, and formulating ways to do things differently. Refusal, taken seriously, is about humanizing the researcher. / Simpson's (2007) article is in many ways a director's-cut commentary on her ethnography on Mohawk nationhood and citizenship, and is a layered example of refusal centered in the Kahnawake Nation, within which she herself is a member. Simpson opens her article with a critique of the need to know as deeply connected to a need to conquer, a need to govern. In light of this, how Canada "knows" who is and isn't Indigenous is imbricated with law. The Indian Act, / a specific body of law that recognises Indians in a wardship status in Canada, created the categories of person and rights that served to sever Indian women from their communities upon marriage to white men. It did the reverse to Indian men—white women gained Indian status upon their marriage into an Indian community, (p. 75) / In 1984, Bill C-31 amended the act to add Indian women and their descendants back into the federal registry of Indians in Canada, leaving it up to individual nations to determine whether to reinstate them in their local registries. The politics of membership generated a series of massive predicaments for people who had assimilated versions of the law for the past 150 years and found ways to resist it all the same. Kahnawake's own blood quantum membership code, developed in defiance of Canadian regulations for political recognition, was "contested and defended by, it seemed, everyone within the community and sometimes all at once" (p. 73). The question of who is and isn't Mohawk is not only politically contentious but one that is implicated within the very logic of settler colonial knowledge. Instead of surfacing the personal predicaments of "cousins and friends and enemies that comprise my version of Kahnawake" (p. 74), Simpson turns her ethnography toward the ways in which Kahnawake participants incorporated, dismissed, thwarted, and traversed notions of membership, especially via constructions of citizenship that intentionally drew upon logics found outside settler colonialism. / There are three concurrent dimensions of refusal in Simpson's analysis—in Simpson's words, her ethnography "pivoted upon refusal(s)" (p. 73). The first dimension is engaged by the interviewee, who refuses to disclose further details: "I don't know what you know, or what others know ... no-one seems to know." The second dimension is enacted by Simpson herself, who refuses to write on the personal pain and internal politics of citizenship. / "No one seems to know" was laced through much of my informant's discussion of C-31, and of his own predicament—which I knew he spoke of indirectly, because I knew his predicament. And I also knew everyone knew, because everyone knows everyone's "predicament." This was the collective "limit"—that of knowledge and thus who we could or would not claim. So it was very interesting to me that he would tell me that "he did not know" and "no one seems to know"—to me these utterances meant, "I know you know, and you know that I know I know ... so let's just not get into this." Or, "let's just not say." So I did not say, and so I did not "get into it" with him, and I won't get into it with my readers. What I am quiet about is his predicament and my predicament and the actual stuff (the math, the clans, the mess, the misrecognitions, the confusion and the clarity)—the calculus of our predicaments, (p. 77) / The interviewee performs refusal by speaking in pointedly chosen phrases to indicate a shared/common knowledge, but also an unwillingness to say more, to demarcate the limits of what might be made public, or explicit. The second dimension of refusal is in the researcher's (Simpson's) accounting of the exchange, in which she installs limits on the intelligibility of what was at work, what was said and not said, for her readers. Simpson tells us, "In listening and shutting off the tape recorder, in situating each subject within their own shifting historical context of the present, these refusals speak volumes, because they tell us when to stop," (p. 78). In short, researcher and researched refuse to fulfill the ethnographic want for a speaking subaltern. / Both of these refusals reflect and constitute a third dimension—a more general anticoloniality and insistence of sovereignty by the Kahnawake Nation—and for many, a refusal to engage the logic of settler colonialism at all. / For the purposes of our discussion, the most important insight to draw from Simpson's article is her emphasis that refusals are not subtractive, but are theoretically generative (p. 78), expansive. Refusal is not just a "no," but a redirection to ideas otherwise unacknowledged or unquestioned. Unlike a settler colonial configuration of knowledge that is petulantly exasperated and resentful of limits, a methodology of refusal regards limits on knowledge as productive, as indeed a good thing. / To explore how refusal and the installation of limits on settler colonial knowledge might be productive, we make a brief detour to the Erased Lynching series (2002-2011) by Los Angeles-based artist Ken Gonzales-Day (see Figure 12.1). Gonzales-Day researched lynching in California and the Southwest and found that the majority of lynch victims were Latinos, American Indians, and Asians. Like lynchings in the South, lynchings in California were events of public spectacle, often attended by hundreds, sometimes thousands of festive onlookers. At the lynchings, professional photographers took hours to set up portable studios similar to those used at carnivals; they sold their images frequently as postcards, mementos of public torture and execution to be circulated by U.S. post throughout the nation and the world. Lynching, we must be reminded, was extralegal, yet nearly always required the complicity of law enforcement—either by marshals or sheriffs in the act itself, or by judges and courts in not bothering to prosecute the lynch mob afterward. The photographs immortalize the murder beyond the time and place of the lynching, and in their proliferation, expand a single murder to the general murderability of the non-White body. In this respect, the image of the hanged, mutilated body itself serves a critical function in the maintenance of White supremacy and the spread of racial terror beyond the lynching. The spectacle of the lynching is the medium of terror. / Gonzales-Day's Erased Lynching series reintroduces the photographs of lynching to a contemporary audience, with one critical intervention: The ropes and the lynch victim have been removed from the images. Per Gonzales-Day's website (n.d.), the series enacted / a conceptual gesture intended to direct the viewer's attention, not upon the lifeless body of lynch victim, but upon the mechanisms of lynching themselves: the crowd, the spectacle, the photographer, and even consider the impact of flash photography upon this dismal past. The perpetrators, if present, remain fully visible, jeering, laughing, or pulling at the air in a deadly pantomime. As such, this series strives to make the invisible visible. / The Erased Lynching series yields another context in which we might consider what a social scientist's refusal stance might comprise. Though indeed centering on the erasure of the former object, refusal need not be thought of as a subtractive methodology. Refusal prompts analysis of the festive spectators regularly backgrounded in favor of wounded bodies, strange fruit, interesting scars. Refusal shifts the gaze from the violated body to the violating instruments—in this case, the lynch mob, which does not disappear when the lynching is over, but continues to live, accumulating land and wealth through the extermination and subordination of the Other. Thus, refusal helps move us from thinking of violence as an event and toward an analysis of it as a structure. / Gonzales-Day might have decided to reproduce and redistribute the images as postcards, which, by way of showing up in mundane spaces, might have effectively inspired reflection on the spectacle of violence and media of terror. However, in removing the body and the ropes, he installed limits on what the audience can access, and redirected our gaze to the bodies of those who were there to see a murder take place, and to the empty space beneath the branches. Gonzales-Day introduced a new representational territory, one that refuses to play by the rules of the settler colonial gaze, and one that refuses to satisfy the morbid curiosity derived from settler colonialism's preoccupation with pain. / Refusals are needed for narratives and images arising in social science research that rehumiliate when circulated, but also when, in Simpson's words, "the representation would bite all of us and compromise the representational territory that we have gained for ourselves in the past 100 years" (p. 78). As researcher-narrator, Simpson tells us, "I reached my own limit when the data would not contribute to our sovereignty or complicate the deeply simplified, atrophied representations of Iroquois and other Indigenous peoples that they have been mired within anthropologically" (p. 78). Here Simpson makes clear the ways in which research is not the intervention that is needed—that is, the interventions of furthering sovereignty or countering misrepresentations of Native people as anthropological objects. / Considering Erased Lynchings dialogically with On Ethnographic Refusal, we can see how refusal is not a prohibition but a generative form. First, refusal turns the gaze back upon power, specifically the colonial modalities of knowing persons as bodies to be differentially counted, violated, saved, and put to work. It makes transparent the metanarrative of knowledge production—its spectatorship for pain and its preoccupation for documenting and ruling over racial difference. Thus, refusal to be made meaningful first and foremost is grounded in a critique of settler colonialism, its construction of Whiteness, and its regimes of representation. Second, refusal generates, expands, champions representational territories that colonial knowledge endeavors to settle, enclose, domesticate. Simpson complicates the portrayals of Iroquois, without resorting to reportrayals of anthropological Indians. Gonzales-Day portrays the violations without reportraying the victimizations. Third, refusal is a critical intervention into research and its circular self-defining ethics. The ethical justification for research is defensive and self-encircling—its apparent self-criticism serves to expand its own rights to know, and to defend its violations in the name of "good science." Refusal challenges the individualizing discourse of IRB consent and "good science" by highlighting the problems of collective harm, of representational harm, and of knowledge colonization. Fourth, refusal itself could be developed into both method and theory. Simpson presents refusal on the part of the researcher as a type of calculus ethnography. Gonzales-Day deploys refusal as a mode of representation. Simpson theorizes refusal by the Kahnawake Nation as anticolonial, and rooted in the desire for possibilities outside of colonial logics, not as a reactive stance. This final point about refusal connects our conversation back to desire as a counterlogic to settler colonial knowledge. Academic debate and civic life are social death – plugging meaning into the university factory just increases the management of our social death and neutralizes all resistance – instead, we should try to rupture academic debate Occupied UC Berkeley ‘9 (“The Necrosocial – Civic Life, Social Death, and the University of California,” November 2009, Craccum Magazine – University of Auckland Student Magazine. Iss. 4, 2012. http://craccum.ausa.auckland.ac.nz/?p=286) m leap
Yes, very much a cemetery. Only here there are no dirges, no prayers, only the repeated testing of our threshold for anxiety, humiliation, and debt. The classroom just like the workplace just like the university just like the state just like the economy manages our social death, translating what we once knew from high school, from work, from our family life into academic parlance, into acceptable forms of social conflict. Who knew that behind so much civic life (electoral campaigns, student body representatives, bureaucratic administrators, public relations officials, Peace and Conflict Studies, ad nauseam) was so much social death? What postures we maintain to claim representation, what limits we assume, what desires we dismiss? And in this moment of crisis they ask us to twist ourselves in a way that they can hear. Petitions to Sacramento, phone calls to Congressmen—even the chancellor patronizingly congratulates our September 24th student strike, shaping the meaning and the force of the movement as a movement against the policies of Sacramento. He expands his institutional authority to encompass the movement. When students begin to hold libraries over night, beginning to take our first baby step as an autonomous movement he reins us in by serendipitously announcing library money. He manages movement, he kills movement by funneling it into the electoral process. He manages our social death. He looks forward to these battles on his terrain, to eulogize a proposition, to win this or that—he and his look forward to exhausting us. He and his look forward to a reproduction of the logic of representative governance, the release valve of the university plunges us into an abyss where ideas are wisps of ether—that is, meaning is ripped from action. Let’s talk about the fight endlessly, but always only in their managed form: to perpetually deliberate, the endless fleshing-out-of—when we push the boundaries of this form they are quick to reconfigure themselves to contain us: the chancellor’s congratulations, the reopening of the libraries, the managed general assembly—there is no fight against the administration here, only its own extension. Each day passes in this way, the administration on the look out to shape student discourse—it happens without pause, we don’t notice nor do we care to. It becomes banal, thoughtless. So much so that we see we are accumulating days: one semester, two, how close to being this or that, how far? This accumulation is our shared history. This accumulation—every once in a while interrupted, violated by a riot, a wild protest, unforgettable fucking, the overwhelming joy of love, life shattering heartbreak—is a muted, but desirous life. A dead but restless and desirous life. The university steals and homogenizes our time yes, our bank accounts also, but it also steals and homogenizes meaning. As much as capital is invested in building a killing apparatus abroad, an incarceration apparatus in California, it is equally invested here in an apparatus for managing social death. Social death is, of course, simply the power source, the generator, of civic life with its talk of reform, responsibility, unity. A ‘life,’ then, which serves merely as the public relations mechanism for death: its garrulous slogans of freedom and democracy designed to obscure the shit and decay in which our feet are planted. Yes, the university is a graveyard, but it is also a factory: a factory of meaning which produces civic life and at the same time produces social death. A factory which produces the illusion that meaning and reality can be separated; which everywhere reproduces the empty reactionary behavior of students based on the values of life (identity), liberty (electoral politics), and happiness (private property). Everywhere the same whimsical ideas of the future. Everywhere democracy. Everywhere discourse to shape our desires and distress in a way acceptable to the electoral state, discourse designed to make our very moments here together into a set of legible and fruitless demands. Totally managed death. A machine for administering death, for the proliferation of technologies of death. As elsewhere, things rule. Dead objects rule. In this sense, it matters little what face one puts on the university—whether Yudof or some other lackey. These are merely the personifications of the rule of the dead, the pools of investments, the buildings, the flows of materials into and out of the physical space of the university—each one the product of some exploitation—which seek to absorb more of our work, more tuition, more energy. The university is a machine which wants to grow, to accumulate, to expand, to absorb more and more of the living into its peculiar and perverse machinery: high-tech research centers, new stadiums and office complexes. And at this critical juncture the only way it can continue to grow is by more intense exploitation, higher tuition, austerity measures for the departments that fail to pass the test of ‘relevancy.’ But the ‘irrelevant’ departments also have their place. With their ‘pure’ motives of knowledge for its own sake, they perpetuate the blind inertia of meaning ostensibly detached from its social context. As the university cultivates its cozy relationship with capital, war and power, these discourses and research programs play their own role, co-opting and containing radical potential. And so we attend lecture after lecture about how ‘discourse’ produces ‘subjects,’ ignoring the most obvious fact that we ourselves are produced by this discourse about discourse which leaves us believing that it is only words which matter, words about words which matter. The university gladly permits the precautionary lectures on biopower; on the production of race and gender; on the reification and the fetishization of commodities. A taste of the poison serves well to inoculate us against any confrontational radicalism. And all the while power weaves the invisible nets which contain and neutralize all thought and action, that bind revolution inside books, lecture halls. There is no need to speak truth to power when power already speaks the truth. The university is a graveyard– así es. The graveyard of liberal good intentions, of meritocracy, opportunity, equality, democracy. Here the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. We graft our flesh, our labor, our debt to the skeletons of this or that social cliché. In seminars and lectures and essays, we pay tribute to the university’s ghosts, the ghosts of all those it has excluded—the immiserated, the incarcerated, the just-plain-fucked. They are summoned forth and banished by a few well-meaning phrases and research programs, given their book titles, their citations. This is our gothic—we are so morbidly aware, we are so practiced at stomaching horror that the horror is thoughtless. In this graveyard our actions will never touch, will never become the conduits of a movement, if we remain permanently barricaded within prescribed identity categories—our force will be dependent on the limited spaces of recognition built between us. Here we are at odds with one another socially, each of us: students, faculty, staff, homebums, activists, police, chancellors, administrators, bureaucrats, investors, politicians, faculty/ staff/ homebums/ activists/ police/ chancellors/ administrators/ bureaucrats/ investors/ politicians-to-be. That is, we are students, or students of color, or queer students of color, or faculty, or Philosophy Faculty, or Gender and Women Studies faculty, or we are custodians, or we are shift leaders—each with our own office, place, time, and given meaning. We form teams, clubs, fraternities, majors, departments, schools, unions, ideologies, identities, and subcultures—and thankfully each group gets its own designated burial plot. Who doesn’t participate in this graveyard? In the university we prostrate ourselves before a value of separation, which in reality translates to a value of domination. We spend money and energy trying to convince ourselves we’re brighter than everyone else. Somehow, we think, we possess some trait that means we deserve more than everyone else. We have measured ourselves and we have measured others. It should never feel terrible ordering others around, right? It should never feel terrible to diagnose people as an expert, manage them as a bureaucrat, test them as a professor, extract value from their capital as a businessman. It should feel good, gratifying, completing. It is our private wet dream for the future; everywhere, in everyone this same dream of domination. After all, we are intelligent, studious, young. We worked hard to be here, we deserve this. We are convinced, owned, broken. We know their values better than they do: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. This triumvirate of sacred values are ours of course, and in this moment of practiced theater—the fight between the university and its own students—we have used their words on their stages: Save public education! When those values are violated by the very institutions which are created to protect them, the veneer fades, the tired set collapses: and we call it injustice, we get indignant. We demand justice from them, for them to adhere to their values. What many have learned again and again is that these institutions don’t care for those values, not at all, not for all. And we are only beginning to understand that those values are not even our own. The values create popular images and ideals (healthcare, democracy, equality, happiness, individuality, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, public education) while they mean in practice the selling of commodified identities, the state’s monopoly on violence, the expansion of markets and capital accumulation, the rule of property, the rule of exclusions based on race, gender, class, and domination and humiliation in general. They sell the practice through the image. We’re taught we’ll live the images once we accept the practice. In this crisis the Chancellors and Presidents, the Regents and the British Petroleums, the politicians and the managers, they all intend to be true to their values and capitalize on the university economically and socially—which is to say, nothing has changed, it is only an escalation, a provocation. Their most recent attempt to reorganize wealth and capital is called a crisis so that we are more willing to accept their new terms as well as what was always dead in the university, to see just how dead we are willing to play, how non-existent, how compliant, how desirous. Every institution has of course our best interest in mind, so much so that we’re willing to pay, to enter debt contracts, to strike a submissive pose in the classroom, in the lab, in the seminar, in the dorm, and eventually or simultaneously in the workplace to pay back those debts. Each bulging institutional value longing to become more than its sentiment through us, each of our empty gestures of feigned-anxiety to appear under pressure, or of cool-ambivalence to appear accustomed to horror, every moment of student life, is the management of our consent to social death. Social death is our banal acceptance of an institution’s meaning for our own lack of meaning. It’s the positions we thoughtlessly enact. It’s the particular nature of being owned. Social rupture is the initial divorce between the owners and the owned. A social movement is a function of war. War contains the ability to create a new frame, to build a new tension for the agents at play, new dynamics in the battles both for the meaning and the material. When we move without a return to their tired meaning, to their tired configurations of the material, we are engaging in war. It is November 2009. For an end to the values of social death we need ruptures and self-propelled, unmanaged movements of wild bodies. We need, we desire occupations. We are an antagonistic dead.
2/19/17
5- Anarcho-primitivism K
Tournament: TFA | Round: 3 | Opponent: Saavan | Judge: Nolan Your call for the elimination of homelessness is an attempt to force the homeless into government built houses- this isolates two links 1. You idealize state-sponsored civalization which independently kills the perm and 2. Creates reliance on the state Additionally- giving people houses is just an extension of the capital of the state and civil society- giving poor people property doesn’t make private property go away. This is especially bad because you give sedentary property in land ownership, which makes you an active participant in civilization, leading to the total destruction and commodification of the natural world- your idea of housing is flawed Black and Green Press no date, What is Green Anarchy?, http://www.blackandgreenpress.org/p/what-is-green-anarchy.html This has given the leftists reason to criticize green anarchists for not being 'organized' and having only loose visions. However, we feel that this is an important step if we are to again be full beings. Anarchy is NOT Democracy Despite the efforts on behalf of aspiring populists to prove otherwise, anarchy is, by definition, not democracy (whether one calls it direct or social democracy). Needing to point towards this seems rather petty, but it’s hard to look at the huge amounts of anarchist literature without seeing the bulk of it as any more than ‘radical democracy,’ dressed up in anarchist rhetoric. Let’s look at the word anarchy, stemming from the Greek an-, meaning without, and arkhos, meaning ruler. Put them together and you have without ruler, or more commonly, absence of any form of political authority. Democracy, believe it or not, is a form of government. The suffix, –cracy, following the Latin –cratia, to the Greek –kratia meaning strength, power, translated to government, or rule (Greek: demokratia meaning people + government dictatorship of the people or dictatorship of the proletariat for Marx). And to step down one more notch here, a government is a governing organization, or the mediator of all social, economic, and political activities of a certain people. So, as we can see, anarchy, by definition, is not democracy. Anarchists are for a complete rejection of all authoritarian institutions/structures on principle. All governments impose themselves on the Earth and all life on it. So long as they exist, autonomy cannot. This being established, we can move on. Green Anarchies? There is no single strand of 'green anarchy' and there are surely as many divisions between ourselves as there are in anything. The unifying principle between green anarchists is an ecologically oriented understanding of power relations. Differences primarily arise from the extents to which we feel the initial terms this domestication can, or should, be overturned. We lack the capabilities and want to list all different strands of 'green anarchism'. We want to emphasize that these categories are given not of want, but of simplicity. We have no interest in ideological restrictions and have no absolute faith in such abstracts. The distinctions point to specific critiques and are used for conventional reasons only!! Here are some of the primary strands; Anarcho-Primitivism: This critique looks to the millions of years of human wild co-existence within the community of life as a look at 'human nature' and capability. What is gathered from this is that contrary to the myths of the civilized, humans, given the chance, are not evil, although we feel that power corrupts absolutely. The critique looks to domestication as the beginning of a process that has brought us to where we lie now. Our understanding is that not only are capitalist relations oppresive, but that sedentary, agriculture gave way to property and thus power. This point shows the beginning of the process of removing ourselves from the 'other' into an 'thingified' relation to the world, where all things are seen as objects for our use/manipulation. Some major points of contention as far as this critique lie in its implications. John Zerzan contends that to overturn civilization would require abolition of symbolic thought, whereas others would say that symbolic culture is a bigger and more realizable issue. Both agree on the need to turning back from agricultural sedentism. Anti-Civilization: This critique is similar in it's understanding to anarcho-primitivism, but it's constituents tend to feel that anarcho-primitivism over idealizes a certain peoples/time. The convention of this strand is to remove itself from the baggage that anarcho-primitivists tend to carry. Green Anarchism: This is used as a general term for those who don't use either of the above categories and this definately has no pure consistency, and the broad title is not intended to group these folks entirely. Distinctions within this category lie primarily in questions of how far back to look for understanding the destructiveness of civilization. Some would say that domestication and agriculture can be ecologically 'sustainable' and preferrable. Others would contend that technology itself is not an inherent problem. The unifying principle lies in an ecological basis and understanding of the megatechnological State as destructive. The above mentioned philosophical strands tend to be accompanied by another factor (although not necessarily as divisive or particular). That lies in; Revolutionary Green Anarchists: Those seeking a mass movement and revolution as means to an anarchistic world. and, Insurrectionary Green Anarchists: Those who seek revolt here and now as a means to abolish the system on a more individual basis. There is rarely a genuine split here, but the distinction tends to have a larger impact on the approaches one takes to destroying the totality of civilized existence. A large contention remains that the two are not inseparable and that any act of revolt strikes a blow to the civilized order. Some would point that insurrection is the breeding ground of revolution. For an example of debate between the two strands, see Ted Kaczynski's 'Hit Where it Hurts' (Green Anarchy #8) and Primal Rage's 'Hit Where it Hurts, but in the Meantime' (Green Anarchy #9). A Note on Social Ecology Social ecology, generally related to Murray Bookchin and his Institute for Social Ecology has typically been held as one constituent within green anarchy. The Black and Green Network, Coalition Against Civilization, 'Bring on the Ruckus' Society, and Green Anarchy magazine have both publically denounced that this strand has no relation to anarchy. Bob Black's Anarchy After Leftism (Columbia: C.A.L., 1998) further draws on the authoritarian principles that underlie this strand. Social ecology, or libertarian municipalities, are inherently authoritarian, democractic utopias that seek only to make a green civilization. We have no interest in relations with those who actively seek to reform and carry on such a mundane, destructive reality. * The following sections are from the Black and Green/Green Anarchy "Back to Basics" Primer from Green Anarchy No. 9 (2002) CIVILIZATION We’re now seeing the end-point of civilization: for one thing, the complete domination-and soon to be destruction-of nature. And, as Freud predicted, a nearing state of universal neurosis. In spades. Paul Shepard said that the step to genetic engineering, including human cloning, is implicit in the first step: domestication. The urge to control and dominate is the cornerstone of civilization. The inner logic of this orientation toward the world and the life upon it is reaching its completion. The founding spirit of civilization begins, most likely, in a gradually developing division of labor or specialization. Inequities of influence come about via the affective power of various kinds of experts.
Independently, your critique doesn’t challenge systems of capital, rather you challenge the symptoms, which means you always link
if vouchers or smthing And, you focus on home ownership- this is two separate links 1. The concept of ‘owning’ land is incompatible with the alt and 2. Your focus on alleviating conditions for the individual humans obscures structural problems by allowing you to make reformism arguments- even if reform is good these arguments are bad in debate because they become hegemonic which kills the perm
The impact- This is the root cause and biggest manifestation of anthro, leading to complete unsustainability- but, even if you don’t think anthro impacts are legit, this process of civilization has paradoxally drained our existence of meaning and entrenched higharchies- civilization only helps if you are the privliged, and that benefit is bought with the lives of the other. Black and Green Press no date, What is Green Anarchy?, http://www.blackandgreenpress.org/p/what-is-green-anarchy.html The road to civilization was paved by the domestication of animals, plants and our own ancestors only 10,000 years ago, which ended a state of natural anarchy that had prevailed for about 2 million years. Prior to civilization there generally existed ample leisure time, considerable gender autonomy and equality, a non-destructive approach to the natural world, the absence of organized violence and strong health and robusticity. Civilization inaugurated warfare, the subjugation of women, population growth, drudge work, entrenched hierarchies, and virtually every known disease, to name a few of its “benefits”. Civilization begins with and relies on an enforced renunciation of instinctual freedom and Eros. It cannot be reformed and is thus our enemy. DOMESTICATION Domestication began - first in the (once) Fertile Crescent in the Near East (modern day Iraq) - some 12,000 years ago. Though it took a few thousand years for this process and the property and power it produced to necessitate the military defense and social control strategy of civilization, it was the first mistake in the series leading to modernity. Domestication is the process by which human beings tame, control, breed, and genetically modify other forms of life. It is also the process by which previously nomadic human populations shift towards a sedentary or settled existence. The first kind of domestication, that of the human control of life, necessitates a totalitarian relationship with both the land and the plants and animals being domesticated. Whereas in the true state of wildness, all life competes for resources in a limited way (i.e. seldom is more taken from any resource than needed at one time); domestication destroys this balance. The domesticated landscape (e.g. pastoral lands/agricultural fields, and to some extent -- though to a much lesser degree-- horticulture and gardening) necessitates the end of open sharing of the resources that exist or formerly existed on that landscape. The domesticated landscape is the statement that where “once this was everyone’s, it is now mine”. Arguably this notion of ownership laid the foundation for social hierarchy as property and power emerged. Domestication does not only change the ecology of the landscape from free to totalitarian, it enslaves the species that are domesticated. While the wheat and corn, pigs and horses were once freely dancing in the chaos of nature, they have come under the control of human captors that literally twist their genes to their will. Generally the more an environment is controlled, the less sustainable it is: the most sustainable types of domestication in existence are the practices of horticultural gardeners that work within -- not against -- natural cycles and are small scale. The second kind of domestication -- that of the humans themselves -- involves many trade-offs in comparison to the foraging nomadic mode. It is worth noting here that most of the shifts made from nomadic foraging to domestication were not made autonomously, they were made at the tip of the sword and gun. Whereas only 2000 years ago the majority of the world population where hunter/gatherers, now it is .01. This fact is not a result of a collective informed decision of the last wild and free humans to go the way of slavery and ruin. The path of domestication has involved more than the enslavement of once free populations throughout the planet. It has meant myriad pathologies for the conquering population and the originators of the practice. Several examples include a decline in nutritional health due to over-reliance on non- diverse diets, almost 40-60 diseases integrated into human populations per domesticated animal (influenza, the common cold, tuberculosis, etc.), the emergence of surplus which can be used to feed a population out of balance and invariably involves property and an end to unconditional sharing, the first ever problems resulting from disposal of and proximity to excrement, the rise of ideal host environments for parasites, and the capacity for diseases to be carried on through generations as the artificial environment buffers natural selection. INDUSTRIALISM Industrialism - the existence of complex mechanized systems of production that are built upon centralized power and the exploitation of people and nature. A critique of industrialism is a natural extension of the anarchist critique of the state, because industrialism is inherently imperialistic, genocidal, ecocidal, and patriarchal. In order to maintain an industrial society, you must set out to conquer and colonize lands in order to acquire non-renewable resources to fuel and grease the machine. This colonialism/ imperialism is rationalized by racism, sexism, and cultural chauvinism. In the process of acquiring these non-renewable resources, you must force people off of their land. And in order to make people work in the factories that produce the machines, you must enslave people, or hoard the resources that they are dependent upon for their survival, as a means to coerce them into entering the mines, toiling in the factories, and otherwise subjecting themselves to the destructive industrial system. Industrialism cannot exist without massive centralization because it cannot exist without massive specialization; class-domination is a tool of the industrial system that denies people access to knowledge, making people helpless and easy to exploit. Furthermore, industrialism demands that resources be shipped from all over the globe in order to perpetuate its existence, and this globalism undermines local autonomy and self-sufficiency. Industrialism is inherently patriarchal because it is essentially anti-life and objectifying by its very nature. In the eyes of the industrialist, women and nature are here for men to exploit for material gain. It is a mechanistic world-view that is behind industrialism. This is the same world-view that has justified slavery, exterminations, and the subjugation of women. It should be obvious to all that industrialism is not only oppressive for humans, but that it is also fundamentally ecologically destructive. Industrialism means sucking the earth dry with mining operations and oil drilling; contaminating ecosystems, the air, and the water, with chemical agents. Nuclear energy, the backbone of the advanced industrial economy, may soon render this planet uninhabitable if it is not deconstructed. For these reasons and others, we are uncompromisingly against industrialism. TECHNOLOGY Technology is more of a process or concept than a static form. It is a complex system involving division of labor, resource extraction, and exploitation for the benefit of those who implement its process.
Instead, we affirm the anarcho-primitivist model of decentralized communities. This is the best method to solve both cap and anthro- their reformism fails and recreates our impacts, its an independent link, even if it reduces violence, our argument is that civilization itself needs to be broken Black and Green Press no date, What is Green Anarchy?, http://www.blackandgreenpress.org/p/what-is-green-anarchy.html The tragic irony of revolutions is that many of the “successful” ones in modern times have actually reduced the level of freedom and authenticity in society. This is the case when the root causes of oppression and estrangement are not addressed, when the god of progress/development/domination of nature is perhaps ever more fully obeyed than before the Revolution. For revolution to have meaning, substance - to be liberatory - certain hitherto unquestioned institutions must be undone. Civilization is the fountainhead of all dominations: patriarchy, division of labor, domestication of life, warfare, on down the line to its present ghastly fullness. The “revolutionaries” who fail to indict and move against these fundamentals, who only wish to re-arrange or reform the ensemble of technology and capital, offer only a prolonging of what is so deeply objectionable. For us, if the word has any meaning it entails the dismantling of the whole thing. LEFTISM AND LIBERALISM The two main failed and exhausted means or approaches towards change in recent times have been liberalism and leftism. What really remains to be said about the liberal or reform outlook? It’s an endless masochism, time and energy wasted in pursuit of negligible crumbs, while society and the biosphere become evermore impoverished and ruined. Liberals of all parties, and including virtually every pacifist, continue in denial as to the deepening crisis everywhere. Some of them will apparently never wake up to the depth and scope of what is wrong. Faithful voters and recyclers, they cling to the palpably false claim that an all- destructive system can somehow be redeemed, can somehow serve life. As for the Left, where it can be distinguished from liberalism, we find it hard to imagine a more discredited, dead-end. It has failed universally in terms of the individual and in terms of nature. It is an albatross to be thrown off. Basically it appears in two forms. The first is the more overtly reformist, in which more “radical” goals are hidden from the “masses” it seeks to attract. Manipulation and lack of transparency (e.g. the Green Party) define this brand of Leftism. The overtly “radical” form is straight- up authoritarianism and has proven so in every instance in history. The so- called “small c” communists will never escape this baggage, rejected everywhere. Leftism approaches extinction, the sooner the better. Insofar as anarchists cling to the left and define themselves in its terms (e.g. anarcho-syndicalists) they will go nowhere. Technology, production, hierarchy, government, ecological destruction, and ideas like “progress” continue to go unquestioned by most who would identify with the left. In U.S. history, the Left, even in its best opportunities, failed miserably and current prospects are even worse now that its record is known to all. Everyone knows something different is needed. POPULATION The world population is out of balance; we aren’t suggesting a strategy to deal with this, we just think there is data about the situation that should be known. For one thing, for about the last 200 years the human population growth curve has shifted from the normal mammal “s” shape to the more viral “j” shape. Essentially this means that population has been dramatically increasing at an ecologically lethal rate and the behavior of this increase is much like that of viruses (which is to consume the host until both the virus and the host are dead). This is a very serious reality that previous social movements have neither considered nor had the tools to consider. We now have many tools to understand this and the population problem cannot be tabled as one of many “issues” to one day address after some eventual revolution. Addressing this issue should not, however, equate to devising means of population control; rather population awareness would be the anti-authoritarian approach. Because as anarchists we seek no means to impose a “sustainable” number on the world’s populations, we choose to disseminate understanding and awareness of the problem for anti-authoritarian and autonomous action to be based upon. What is needed to approach the question of population is a understanding of context. This can include the world population, those of given bioregions, the consumption habits per population, etc. Of particular importance to green anarchists would be an understanding of the contexts of local limits of both numbers of people and consumption habits. As it stands the most unsustainable populations have less to do with actual numbers, it is more a matter of cultural behavior. The billions of rural farmers -- literally half the world’s population -- while responsible in many places for deforestation and land degradation are, in ecological terms, far less impacting than the destruction wrought by the cultural behavior (i.e. consumption habits) of the urbanized and “first world”. While it is true that the current population is out of balance and headed for a crash, the blame must be placed on the populations that are most responsible for ecological destruction, not simply on numbers alone. In this context, it is more than the population which must be stopped; it is the cultures whose behaviors represent many times the destructive impact of non-industrialized population growth centers of the world. Ultimately, the industrialized North will pay the price of un-sustainability far more than any others as its inhabitants have lost the knowledge of land-based survival, unlike half the population of the world. As anti-authoritarians, we hope that autonomous populations and autonomous communities will live within their means, and we have faith that the imbalances that imperialism, capitalism, and globalization have caused in the third world will quickly subside once the industrial system is gone and natives of the planet can return to their stolen and lost ways. And this will be based on collective autonomy and ecological awareness, not external authority or nation-states. INDIGENOUS SOLIDARITY A revolutionary movement that does not address the reality of the original inhabitants of the land is a movement doomed to failure. We believe that one of the reasons that past revolutionary movements have failed miserably in their attempts to create a free, egalitarian society, is because they have not adequately addressed issues concerning the right of indigenous peoples to secession, sovereignty, or self-determination. Movements that don’t attempt to build egalitarian relations with Indigenous communities and assist them in their struggles for autonomy will never have the support of those communities. In fact, if a supposedly “revolutionary” movement does not address the issue of de- colonization, it will most likely only contribute to the marginalizing of Native peoples and turn them into enemies. State-communist movements have been outright genocidal in their practice towards indigenous peoples. These movements regard indigenous peoples as “pre-capitalist” artifacts that stand in the way of socialist evolution and industrial progress. The conditions faced by indigenous people’s under “revolutionary” “communist” governments and proto-governments in Russia, China, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Peru, Columbia, and elsewhere, have differed very minimally from the oppressive conditions they faced under capitalist governments. The anarchist movement does not share the communist movement’s gross history of subjugating indigenous peoples, but anarchists have largely failed to address the reality of indigenous peoples at all. This is extremely unfortunate because the anarchist movement finds natural allies in the Indigenous sovereignty movement. Many anarchists regard Native issues as “nationalist” and therefore irrelevant. This is extremely flawed because it holds that any distinct culture that takes action against a colonial power is “nationalist”. Some Indigenous movements are indeed “nationalistic” - but usually not in the sense of a nation-state, but rather in terms of a distinct culture with distinct customs that has the right to exist freely within its own bioregion. The efforts of Native peoples to declare their sovereignty is often fully consistent with the anarchist desire for decentralization. Our movement needs to realize that the struggles of Native peoples are issues that should be of major concern to all who consider themselves opponents of oppression. Indigenous peoples have always engaged in struggles against the state, industrial expansionism, and corporate exploitation. They are the only communities that have maintained a relatively harmonious relationship with the natural world. They have and continue to wage impressive battles against the status-quo. These battles often have the objective of forcing corporations off of sacred land, rejecting the arbitrarily imposed laws and ordinances of the State, and ending industrial developments which threaten the well-being of humans and animals. These issues are fully consistent with anarchism, and here we find the potential for powerful alliances between sincere anarchists and radical ecologists, and Native peoples. Anarchist solidarity with Native peoples must not resemble, in any shape or form, the “solidarity” of “New-Age” cultural appropriationists - whose idea of “solidarity” with Natives really consists of stealing their traditions and exploiting them for personal gain and profits. Rather, anarchist solidarity with Natives must be genuine, concrete, and, most importantly, egalitarian. When our support is welcomed by them, we should accept it and join them on the frontlines in the battle against colonial domination. ECONOMIC SABOTAGE It’s amazing that so many insurrectional anarchists allow themselves to be drawn into energy-draining, rhetorical debates with liberals who attempt to turn strategic issues into moralistic ones, i.e. their attempts to define property destruction and economic sabotage as “violent”, and thus, control the rage of those who have clearly identified their oppressors and who are rising up against their rule. Reverence for property is loyalty to capitalism and to the values of the system that some of us are serious about destroying, not reforming. We know that our enemy worships property, and that the source of their power - in the world that they’ve created - is their stolen property and wealth and we have no reverence whatsoever for anything the system uses to oppress us. If we’re attempting a genuine jailbreak out of the prison of this society, if we’re ready to make a move on our oppressors while there is still time, then we have to strike blows against them that hurt, and this is not going to be accomplished through voting or peace vigils. Our enemy - the industrial mega-machine - has to be weakened before it can be completely destroyed, and this can be very effectively accomplished by striking ruthless, crippling blows at the System’s key, strategic pressure points, with the intent of impairing the industrial cancers’ ability to spread and replicate itself. Movements like the Earth Liberation Front have demonstrated that economic sabotage can be effective in forcing specific industries out of business; our task now is to put this system in it’s totality out of business. REVOLUTIONARY VIOLENCE While most of us strive for a peaceful and harmonious existence among ourselves and the rest of life, it is important to recognize the context we currently live within. Most of the world’s people are living under deplorable conditions, not because they have not become “civilized” or “modernized”, but instead are forced to be the workforce and dumping ground for, or dependent on, the so-called “first world” powers. Those of us living in the “first world” are also suffering from this rotten set-up. With extreme alienation, physical deterioration, psychological distortions, and spiritual emptiness, there is no question we are all quickly headed down a one-way path of ultimate doom. Needless to say, it is also undeniable that we are on the verge of ecological collapse. With this being said, it is important for us to take responsibility for this situation and to take action now. . . as we understand that time is running out! Inherent in being a revolutionary anarchist is the notion of insurrection, or the promotion and insurgence of uprising for the purpose of liberation. This can take many forms, but reform of the systems of domination cannot be viewed as revolutionary. While most actions anarchists take would be considered non-violent, there can be no limitation set on our resistance. As anarchists, we should flatly refuse any ideological and philosophical confines to how we choose to resist. Physical interaction with authority needs to move beyond the passive and symbolic. In fact, many anarchists embrace revolutionary violence as a necessary and natural reaction to oppression. If we look anywhere in the natural world, we see that self- defense is instinctual. This cannot be overridden by hypothetical ideals. It is important to question ideological limitations stemming from a place of extreme privilege. Most people on earth do not have the comfort to decide what the most "righteous" response to domination should be, and often the stakes are life and death. It is not a matter of individual reflection or ideological refinement; it's do or die. This is not to say that everyone needs to engage in violent resistance, but rather, to say that it exists, it is justifiable (in many situations), and should not be condemned. Revolutionary violence, in a variety of forms, is a necessary response to the system’s institutionalized violence, and necessary for the continuation of all of life. Yes, we need to heal the wounds caused by this death-trip we call civilization, but the healing process can only go so far until we are able to stop the infliction of these wounds by our oppressors. As Franz Fanon suggested, there is also a kind of catharsis and deepening in connection between one another in the act of revolt and in the physical removal of one’s oppressor. Although some cannot or refuse to see that we are all looking down the barrel of a gun, it is there and we must respond to it in an act of self- defense and of liberation. BACK TO BASICS Based on what we know of what has worked in the past, many anarcho- primitivists (APs) envision a post-industrial future of decentralized autonomous village-like communities. Housing collectives, community gardens, free schools, barter networks and community centers are great examples of ways people can begin creating such networks for mutual aid. It is no longer enough to assume that ecological sustainability will come naturally after “the social revolution”. We must assume that sustainability has already existed. The struggle to return to our wild roots and to destroy authority and domination is one struggle. While some APs believe humanity can only be free when we can return to our hunter-gatherer roots, others see a sort of blend of appropriate technologies, permaculture and natural farming methods, and wild food gathering as good models for post-industrial communities. Despite these differences in perspectives, APs agree about the necessity of a future without mega-technology and industrialism. Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest No comments: Post a Comment Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment. Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Translate Powered by Google TranslateTranslate Search This Blog Awesome Inc. theme. Theme images by moorsky. Powered by Blogger. This impact turns your homelessness arguments- we say that the nomadic existence of a homeless person can be improved only by embracing the removal from civilized systems and embracing non-static living
A2 state of nature bad- also state of nature links Turn- the state of nature is fucking great but it doesn’t really exist anyway- paradoxally, it only became bad when made into an imperialist war machine to eradicate the state of nature Also, you should be skeptical of their claims, hobbs is 1. Unscientific 2. Operating from a place in civilization that WAS very violent, his social location impacted his theories, and 3. Doesn’t account for the empirical multiplicity of natural societies Kevin Tucker, http://www.blackandgreenpress.org/2015/01/the-forest-beyond-field-consequences-of.html, Friday, January 16, 2015 The Forest Beyond the Field: The Consequences of Domestication - Kevin Tucker This is my primary essay from Species Traitor no. 4, 2005 and also in my book, For Wildness and Anarchy (BandG, 2009). For some reason no easily readable or printable version of it seems to have made it online. So here it is. The Forest Beyond the Field the Consequences of Domestication
. Some societies changed, some societies grew, some stayed in a particular form, but some other kept growing. To feed that growth, they developed more tools and technologies designed to kill more people and cut more forests and dig more soil quickly. There was no Hand of God in this nor any act of evolution. And never was there an origin of ‘society’ as such. No matter what we are now or have been, we have been social first and foremost. Even the most archaic form of human society flowed organically from the way our bodies and minds have evolved. This is where our ‘human nature’ stems from. It flows from our needs as social animals that must think, eat, drink and sleep, our need for companionship and community (both human and non-human), our need for autonomy and the fulfillment of simply being. For over 99.99 of human history, that has looked like small and open bands of about 15-25 people who live in temporary camps throughout a given bioregion with loosely defined and larger affiliations to each other. Food was hunted, gathered, scavenged, or fished. In some people could make fire, others would keep coals, and some had none at all. Cultural knowledge was shared and all had equal access to what domesticated peoples refer to as ‘resources’. Meals, hunts, and social life were collective and while men and women often did separate things, neither was seen as more valuable than the other. This is the life of the nomadic gatherer-hunter. It is the way that we have lived for the bulk of our existence as humans and then it goes back even further. This is the world that has shaped our minds and bodies as humans. And this is where we’ll start our look at human societies.
3/10/17
5- Markets DA
Tournament: TFA | Round: 3 | Opponent: Saavan | Judge: Nolan Uniqueness- the housing market is stable now Cale Thomas 951-473-0390 cthomas@epdre.com 24910 Las Brisas Rd Suite 101 - Murrieta, CA 92562 | BRE# 01248699 Home Meet Our Team MLS Search For OC Realtors Articles and Information Contact Us Is the Housing Market Stable Right Now? http://www.elitepropertiesdirect.com/is-the-housing-market-stable-right-now/ If you are thinking about buying or selling a home, then you probably have a lot of questions about the current real estate market conditions. A stable housing market is important because it will affect the price of the home as well as the length of time that it takes to sell. In my opinion, housing is stable right now. These are a few reasons why: Financing Options to Buy a Home The current housing market is very different compared to the trends that were happening from 2003 – 2008. One of the big differences is financing. Everyone knows that it is difficult to get a home mortgage right now, especially since there aren’t any more “no-document” loans. Only fully amortized loans are offered, and the banks are careful to be sure that you aren’t putting yourself in a bad position. If the loan is fully amortized, then it means that the bank is going to force you to pay principle back to the loan every month. Previously, homeowners were using interest-only loans, which resulted in situations where they were upside-down on the properties that they owned. After the housing market crash, the banks changed their approach to protect homebuyers by avoiding these problems. Another reason the mortgages are more stable is that only fully documented loans are offered. So, the bank is going to look at your tax returns and pay stubs. It is likely that the bank will contact your employer to make sure that you will be able to continue paying the mortgage. These steps are designed to verify that your income number on your application is correct. Why Do Mortgage Practices Matter? The reason these details matter is because the mortgage industry has a direct impact on the real estate industry—they go hand-in-hand. Steady mortgage practices mean that housing isn’t going to shoot rapidly up in price like it did before. At the same time, the prices won’t fall quickly either. The market is stable, which means that things are only going to grow now with the pace of inflation.
The link- Right to housing is independently bad- it empirically creates crisis. The problem isn’t the influx of money into the system, but rather the way that government policy is able to direct the market. DeHaven, Three Decades of Politics and Failed Policies at HUD By Tad DeHaven November 23, 2009 The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has long been plagued by scandals, mismanagement, and policy failures. Most recently, HUD’s subsidies and failed oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac helped to inflate the housing bubble, which ultimately burst and cascaded into a major financial crisis. Given this giant policy blunder, now is a good time to review the many failures in HUD leadership over the years. This study discusses how HUD officials operate within a highly politicized environment, which is heavily influenced by the groups that HUD subsidizes and regulates, including the housing industry, financial institutions, and community activists. At the same time, HUD leaders often put their personal goals ahead of those of the general public. Recent HUD secretaries have focused on gaining private benefits while doing favors for business interests and political insiders. These leadership failures are illustrated in this study by profiles of four recent HUD secretaries: Samuel Pierce in the 1980s, Henry Cisneros and Andrew Cuomo in the 1990s, and Alphonso Jackson in the 2000s. These public officials touted seemingly noble goals while pursuing personal and political agendas that ended up harming taxpayers and the economy. Even if there were a need for federal housing programs, experience has shown that HUD could not implement such programs without mismanagement, cronyism, and other abuses. Federal housing policies illustrate broader realities of government intervention. When making decisions, policymakers usually have selfinterested goals that conflict with the broader interests of taxpayers and the general public. Furthermore, their visions for improving society with federal programs usually backfire because of the distortions that those programs create in the economy. Housing was traditionally a private concern, and it should be made so again because government involvement has done great damage. Alas, policymakers have not learned this lesson even after the recent housing boom and bust. Since the housing and financial meltdowns, federal intervention in housing markets has substantially increased, thus paving the way for further troubles down the road for taxpayers and the economy.
Housing meltdowns empirically spillover- they cause massive harms to the developing world-mass poverty and malnutrition. This outweighs Klare, ECONOMY Will Our Economic Collapse Cause the Death of Millions Abroad? As the wealthier nations cease investing in the developing world or acquiring its exports, the crisis is hitting them with a vengeance. By Michael T. Klare / Foreign Policy in Focus March 19, 2009 While the economic contraction is apparently slowing in the advanced industrial countries and may reach bottom in the not-too-distant future, it's only beginning to gain momentum in the developing world, which was spared the earliest effects of the global meltdown. Because the crisis was largely precipitated by a collapse of the housing market in the United States and the resulting disintegration of financial products derived from the "securitization" of questionable mortgages, most developing nations were unaffected by the early stages of the meltdown, for the simple reason that they possessed few such assets. But now, as the wealthier nations cease investing in the developing world or acquiring its exports, the crisis is hitting them with a vengeance. On top of this, conditions are deteriorating at a time when severe drought is affecting many key food-producing regions and poor farmers lack the wherewithal to buy seeds, fertilizers, and fuel. The likely result: A looming food crisis in many areas hit hardest by the global economic meltdown. Until now, concern over the human impact of the global crisis has largely been focused -- understandably so -- on unemployment and economic hardship in the United States, Europe, and former Soviet Union. Many stories have appeared on the devastating impact of plant closings, bankruptcies, and home foreclosures on families and communities in these parts of the world. Much less coverage has been devoted to the meltdown's impact on people in the developing world. As the crisis spreads to the poorer countries, however, it's likely that people in these areas will experience hardships every bit as severe as those in the wealthier countries -- and, in many cases, far worse. The greatest worry is that most of the gains achieved in eradicating poverty over the last decade or so will be wiped out, forcing tens or hundreds of millions of people from the working class and the lower rungs of the middle class back into the penury from which they escaped. Equally worrisome is the risk of food scarcity in these areas, resulting in widespread malnutrition, hunger, and starvation. All this is sure to produce vast human misery, sickness, and death, but could also result in social and political unrest of various sorts, including riot, rebellion, and ethnic strife. The president, Congress, or the mainstream media are not, for the most part, discussing these perils. As before, public interest remains focused on the ways in which the crisis is affecting the United States and the other major industrial powers. But the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and U.S. intelligence officials, in three recent reports, are paying increased attention to the prospect of a second economic shockwave, this time affecting the developing world. Sinking Back Into Penury In late February, the World Bank staff prepared a background paper for the Group of 20 (G-20) finance ministers meeting held near London on March 13 and 14. Entitled "Swimming Against the Tide: How Developing Countries Are Coping with the Global Crisis," it provides a preliminary assessment of the meltdown's impact on low-income countries (LICs). The picture, though still hazy, is one of deepening gloom. Most LICs were shielded from the initial impact of the sudden blockage in private capital flows because they have such limited access to such markets. "But while slower to emerge," the report notes, "the impact of the crisis on LICs has been no less significant as the effects have spread through other channels." For example, "many LIC governments rely on disproportionately on revenue from commodity exports, the prices of which have declined sharply along with global demand." Likewise, foreign direct investment is falling, particularly in the natural resource sectors. On top of this, remittances from immigrants in the wealthier countries to their families back home have dropped, erasing an important source of income to poor communities. Add all this up, and it's likely that "the slowdown in growth will likely deepen the deprivation of the existing poor." In many LICs, moreover, "large numbers of people are clustered just above the poverty line and are therefore particularly vulnerable to economic volatility and temporary slowdowns." As the intensity of the crisis grows, more and more of these people will lose their jobs or their other sources of income (such as those all-important remittances) and so be pushed from above the poverty line to beneath it. The resulting outcome: "The economic crisis is projected to increase poverty by around 46 million people in 2009." The picture provided in the Bank's G-20 report turns even darker when turning to an assessment of the capacity of affected LICs to address the needs of all these newly impoverished people. Because so much of the income of these countries derives from the sale of commodities -- the demand for which has significantly diminished (thus lowering prices) -- and because foreign loans and investment have largely dried up, the governments involved have precious little money left to provide emergency services for their country's growing legions of poor. The implications are ominous. "Absent public assistance, households may be forced into the additional sales of assets on which their livelihoods depend e.g., farm implements and livestock, withdrawal of their children from school, reduced reliance on health care, inadequate diets and resulting malnutrition." The long-run consequences of these desperate actions can be severe: "The decline in nutritional and health status among children who suffer from reduced (or lower-quality) food consumption can be irreversible." Already, "estimates suggest that the food crisis has...caused the number of people suffering from malnutrition to rise by 44 million." These estimates — an increase in those forced into poverty by 46 million and those suffering from malnutrition by 44 million -- far exceed anything reported anywhere else. And they must be viewed as preliminary figures, subject to recalibration based on the duration and severity of the global meltdown. If the Bank's prognostications on the likely impacts of the crisis on the LICs prove accurate, these figures could rise much higher. Looming Food Insecurity The spring growing season has now begun in many areas of the world, and worried agricultural experts are already calculating the p
3/10/17
5- Neolib K
Tournament: TFA State | Round: Doubles | Opponent: Jugal | Judge: Timmons, Kris, Castillo neolib Giving people houses is just an extension of the capital of the state and civil society- giving poor people property doesn’t make private property go away. This is especially bad because you give sedentary property in land ownership, which makes you an active participant in civilization, leading to the total neoliberal commodification of the natural world Black and Green Press no date, What is Green Anarchy?, http://www.blackandgreenpress.org/p/what-is-green-anarchy.html This has given the leftists reason to criticize green anarchists for not being 'organized' and having only loose visions. However, we feel that this is an important step if we are to again be full beings. Anarchy is NOT Democracy Despite the efforts on behalf of aspiring populists to prove otherwise, anarchy is, by definition, not democracy (whether one calls it direct or social democracy). Needing to point towards this seems rather petty, but it’s hard to look at the huge amounts of anarchist literature without seeing the bulk of it as any more than ‘radical democracy,’ dressed up in anarchist rhetoric. Let’s look at the word anarchy, stemming from the Greek an-, meaning without, and arkhos, meaning ruler. Put them together and you have without ruler, or more commonly, absence of any form of political authority. Democracy, believe it or not, is a form of government. The suffix, –cracy, following the Latin –cratia, to the Greek –kratia meaning strength, power, translated to government, or rule (Greek: demokratia meaning people + government dictatorship of the people or dictatorship of the proletariat for Marx). And to step down one more notch here, a government is a governing organization, or the mediator of all social, economic, and political activities of a certain people. So, as we can see, anarchy, by definition, is not democracy. Anarchists are for a complete rejection of all authoritarian institutions/structures on principle. All governments impose themselves on the Earth and all life on it. So long as they exist, autonomy cannot. This being established, we can move on. Green Anarchies? There is no single strand of 'green anarchy' and there are surely as many divisions between ourselves as there are in anything. The unifying principle between green anarchists is an ecologically oriented understanding of power relations. Differences primarily arise from the extents to which we feel the initial terms this domestication can, or should, be overturned. We lack the capabilities and want to list all different strands of 'green anarchism'. We want to emphasize that these categories are given not of want, but of simplicity. We have no interest in ideological restrictions and have no absolute faith in such abstracts. The distinctions point to specific critiques and are used for conventional reasons only!! Here are some of the primary strands; Anarcho-Primitivism: This critique looks to the millions of years of human wild co-existence within the community of life as a look at 'human nature' and capability. What is gathered from this is that contrary to the myths of the civilized, humans, given the chance, are not evil, although we feel that power corrupts absolutely. The critique looks to domestication as the beginning of a process that has brought us to where we lie now. Our understanding is that not only are capitalist relations oppresive, but that sedentary, agriculture gave way to property and thus power. This point shows the beginning of the process of removing ourselves from the 'other' into an 'thingified' relation to the world, where all things are seen as objects for our use/manipulation. Some major points of contention as far as this critique lie in its implications. John Zerzan contends that to overturn civilization would require abolition of symbolic thought, whereas others would say that symbolic culture is a bigger and more realizable issue. Both agree on the need to turning back from agricultural sedentism. Anti-Civilization: This critique is similar in it's understanding to anarcho-primitivism, but it's constituents tend to feel that anarcho-primitivism over idealizes a certain peoples/time. The convention of this strand is to remove itself from the baggage that anarcho-primitivists tend to carry. Green Anarchism: This is used as a general term for those who don't use either of the above categories and this definately has no pure consistency, and the broad title is not intended to group these folks entirely. Distinctions within this category lie primarily in questions of how far back to look for understanding the destructiveness of civilization. Some would say that domestication and agriculture can be ecologically 'sustainable' and preferrable. Others would contend that technology itself is not an inherent problem. The unifying principle lies in an ecological basis and understanding of the megatechnological State as destructive. The above mentioned philosophical strands tend to be accompanied by another factor (although not necessarily as divisive or particular). That lies in; Revolutionary Green Anarchists: Those seeking a mass movement and revolution as means to an anarchistic world. and, Insurrectionary Green Anarchists: Those who seek revolt here and now as a means to abolish the system on a more individual basis. There is rarely a genuine split here, but the distinction tends to have a larger impact on the approaches one takes to destroying the totality of civilized existence. A large contention remains that the two are not inseparable and that any act of revolt strikes a blow to the civilized order. Some would point that insurrection is the breeding ground of revolution. For an example of debate between the two strands, see Ted Kaczynski's 'Hit Where it Hurts' (Green Anarchy #8) and Primal Rage's 'Hit Where it Hurts, but in the Meantime' (Green Anarchy #9). A Note on Social Ecology Social ecology, generally related to Murray Bookchin and his Institute for Social Ecology has typically been held as one constituent within green anarchy. The Black and Green Network, Coalition Against Civilization, 'Bring on the Ruckus' Society, and Green Anarchy magazine have both publically denounced that this strand has no relation to anarchy. Bob Black's Anarchy After Leftism (Columbia: C.A.L., 1998) further draws on the authoritarian principles that underlie this strand. Social ecology, or libertarian municipalities, are inherently authoritarian, democractic utopias that seek only to make a green civilization. We have no interest in relations with those who actively seek to reform and carry on such a mundane, destructive reality. * The following sections are from the Black and Green/Green Anarchy "Back to Basics" Primer from Green Anarchy No. 9 (2002) CIVILIZATION We’re now seeing the end-point of civilization: for one thing, the complete domination-and soon to be destruction-of nature. And, as Freud predicted, a
Discursive link-your call to end homelessness in certain areas literally forces homeless people into the neoliberal system an denies choice
The “right to housing” and it’s establishment has led to demolition of previously functional public housing in favor of profitable, minimum effort communities. We are isolating a gentrification link, individualism link, market link and a state link- this also turns case because the housing is net worse which causes more death during a disaster Edward Goetz, 2011 (“Gentrification in Black and White: The Racial Impact of Public Housing Demolition in American Cities”, http://usj.sagepub.com/content/48/8/1581.full.pdf) In the US, the centrepiece of state-led efforts to deconcentrate poverty and transform inner-city neighbourhoods is the HOPE 6 programme. This programme has been used in dozens of cities to demolish public housing developments and to create new mixed-income communities in their place. The programme thus redefines public housing policy and serves as the main vehicle through which the state has triggered innercity revitalisation (Newman, 2004; Wyly and Hammel, 1999). The major transformation of public housing, in fact, reflects several dimensions of neo-liberal urban policy in the US over the past 20 years. While the elimination of the physical structures of public housing eliminates visual references to New Deal and welfare state policies no longer dominant, the removal of concentrations of very-low income people of colour allows a reimaging of urban spaces critical to the national and international competition for private investment (Newman and Ashton, 2004). Further, the policy prescriptions imposed upon former public housing residents, both relocation to private-sector housing through the use of Housing Choice Vouchers and the increased behavioural monitoring and screening techniques employed at the mixed-income communities, reflect newfound emphases on choice, individualism and market discipline that are central to the neo-liberal governance paradigm
This specific type of rational economic science has created a bloodthirsty form of capitalism which attempts to erase affect and makes violence inevitable by erasing where bodies can and cannot exist. Neoliberalism constantly produces crisis to demonstrate its capacity for control. While this system focuses on total peace, its hatred of uncertainty makes the destruction of all life immanent- this outweighs on magnitude Wiltgen 2k5 james, professor at cal, b.a. in political science from the u of iowa, doctorate at ucla, ‘sadomonetarism or saint fond saint ford’, article in consumption in the age of information by cohen and rutsky, pg at bottom How does digital capitalism intertwine with the concept of uncertainty? What key changes have taken place in the structuring of the world, via the digital and the biotechnological, what forces have emerged or coalesced, and finally, how do they affect the realm of subjectivity and consumption? Here, Arthur Kroker has transposed McLuhan into the twenty-first century, performing an interrogation of what he calls the "digital nerve," basically the exteriorization of the human sensorium into the digital circuitry of contemporary capitalism (Kroker, 2004:8I).This (in)formation, "streamed capitalism," rests not exclusively on exchange value, nor material goods, but something much more immaterial, — a postmarket, postbiological, postimage society where the driving force, the "will to will," has ushered in a world measured by probability. In other words, this variant of capitalism seeks to bind chaos by ever-increasing strictures, utilizing an axiomatic based on capture and control, with vast circuits of circulation as the primary digital architecture. This system runs on a densely articulated composition, similar to the earlier addressed concept of sado-monetarism, based upon extensive feedback loops running between exchange value and abuse value. This assemblage, however, has multiple levels, and not all are connected to the grid at the same speeds; a number of different times exist within this formation, including digital time, urban time, quotidian time, transversal time, etc. Spatially, the structure relies not on geography but "strategic digital nodes" for the core of the system, and connectivity radiates out from these nodal points (Kroker, 2004: 125). For example, a key site for these points would be the Net corporation, defined as "as a self-regulating, self-reflexive platform of software intelligence providing a privileged portal into the digital universe" (Kroker, 2004: 140). Indeed, his mapping of digital capitalism has clear parallels with the shifts Katherine Hayles analyzes, in particular the underlying, driving mechanism whereby information severs itself from embodiment. Boredom and acquisitiveness become the principle markers of this new form of capitalism, which provides a rationale, or a new value set for the perpetual oscillation between the two poles, producing an insatiable desire for both objects and a continuing stream of fresh and intense experience. Perhaps the most densely argued assessment of capitalism, whose obvious parallel would be Marx's Capital, is the two volumes by Deleuze and Guattari, Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, With all the concern over the theoretical concepts developed in these books, it remains extremely important to understand the analysis as possessing a fundamental focus on the question of political economy. Capitalism forms, via its structural and affective matrix, a system capable of unparalleled cruelty and terror, and even though certain indices of well-being have increased, "exploitation grows constantly harsher, (and) lack is arranged in the most scientific ways" (Deleuze and Guattari, 1983: 373). Their framework for analysis targets the global, where the deepest law of capitalism sets limits and then repels those limits, a process well known as the concept of deterrorialization. Capitalism functions, then, by incessantly increasing the portion of constant capital, a deceptively concise formulation that has tremendous resonance for the organization of the planet—resources continually pour into the technological and machinic apparatus of capture and control, to the increased exclusion of the human component (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987: 466—7). In other words, it not only thrives on crisis but one of the principle definitions of capitalism would be to continually induce crisis; nostalgia for a "los time" only drives these processes. The planet confronts the fourth danger, the most violent and destructive of tendencies, characterized as a turning to destruction, abolition pure and simple, the passion of abolition (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987: 229). Deleuze and Guattari make clear this fourth danger does not translate as a death drive, because for them desire is "always assembled," a creation and a composition; here the task of thinking becomes to address the processes of composition. The current assemblage, then, has mutated from its original organization of total war, which has been surpassed "toward a form of peace more terrifying still," the "peace of Terror or Survival" (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987: 433). Accordingly, the worldwide war machine has entered a postfascist phase, where Clauscwitz has been dislocated, and this war machine now targets the entire world, its peoples and economies. - An "unspecified enemy" becomes the continual feedback loop for this war machine, which had been originally constituted by states, but which has now shifted into a planetary, and perhaps interstellar mode, with a seemingly insatiable drive to organize insecurity, increase machinic enslavement, and produce a "peace that technologically frees the unlimited material process of total war" (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987: 467).7 Deleuze has analyzed these tendencies extensively in his own work, in particular with his dissection of active and reactive forces in his book on Nietzsche but also in his work on Sade and Masoch, where he points to a type of sadism that seems capable of attempting a "perpetually effective crime" to not only destroy (pro)creation but to prevent it from ever happening again, a total and perpetual destruction, one produced by a pervasive odium fati, a hatred of fate that seeks absolute revenge in destroying life and any possible recurrence. (Deleuze, 1989: 37). This tendency far outstrips what Robert Jay Lifton has described as the "Armageddonists," in their more commonly analyzed religious variant and in what he calls the secular type, both of which see the possibility of a "world cleansing," preparing the way for a new world order, be it religious or otherwise (Lifton, 1987: 5—9). Embedded within the immanence of capitalism, then, one can find forces which would make fascism seem like "child precursors," and Hitler's infamous Telegram 71 would be applied to all of existence, perpetually. (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987:467). One final complication in terms of currently emerging subjectivities, the well-known analysis in Anti-Oedipus where capitalism, as basically driven by a certain fundamental insanity, oscillates between "two poles of delirium, one as the molecular schizophrenic line of escape, and the other as paranoiac molar investment" (Deleuze and Guattari, 1983: 3I5).8 These two markers offer dramatically different possibilities for the issues of subjectivities and agency, and questions of consumption and the political can be posed within their dense and complex oscillations.
Systematic economic flaws drive environmental degradation- highest rate in the past 10,000 years. Controls the internal link to the aff and the alt solves Milman ’15 (Oliver, environmental reporter, The Guardian. Rate of environmental degradation puts life on Earth at risk, say scientists.” January 15, 2015. https:www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/15/rate-of-environmental-degradation-puts-life-on-earth-at-risk-say-scientists) Humans are “eating away at our own life support systems” at a rate unseen in the past 10,000 years by degrading land and freshwater systems, emitting greenhouse gases and releasing vast amounts of agricultural chemicals into the environment, new research has found. Two major new studies by an international team of researchers have pinpointed the key factors that ensure a livable planet for humans, with stark results. Of nine worldwide processes that underpin life on Earth, four have exceeded “safe” levels – human-driven climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land system change and the high level of phosphorus and nitrogen flowing into the oceans due to fertiliser use. They found that the changes of the last 60 years are unprecedented in the previous 10,000 years, a period in which the world has had a relatively stable climate and human civilisation has advanced significantly. Carbon dioxide levels, at 395.5 parts per million, are at historic highs, while loss of biosphere integrity is resulting in species becoming extinct at a rate more than 100 times faster than the previous norm. Since 1950 urban populations have increased seven-fold, primary energy use has soared by a factor of five, while the amount of fertiliser used is now eight times higher. The amount of nitrogen entering the oceans has quadrupled. All of these changes are shifting Earth into a “new state” that is becoming less hospitable to human life, researchers said. “These indicators have shot up since 1950 and there are no signs they are slowing down,” said Prof Will Steffen of the Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Steffen is the lead author on both of the studies. “When economic systems went into overdrive, there was a massive increase in resource use and pollution. It used to be confined to local and regional areas but we’re now seeing this occurring on a global scale. These changes are down to human activity, not natural variability. Steffen said direct human influence upon the land was contributing to a loss in pollination and a disruption in the provision of nutrients and fresh water. “We are clearing land, we are degrading land, we introduce feral animals and take the top predators out, we change the marine ecosystem by overfishing – it’s a death by a thousand cuts,” he said. “That direct impact upon the land is the most important factor right now, even more than climate change.” “It’s fairly safe to say that we haven’t seen conditions in the past similar to ones we see today and there is strong evidence that there are tipping points we don’t want to cross,” Steffen said. “If the Earth is going to move to a warmer state, 5-6C warmer, with no ice caps, it will do so and that won’t be good for large mammals like us. People say the world is robust and that’s true, there will be life on Earth, but the Earth won’t be robust for us. “Some people say we can adapt due to technology, but that’s a belief system, it’s not based on fact. There is no convincing evidence that a large mammal, with a core body temperature of 37C, will be able to evolve that quickly. Insects can, but humans can’t and that’s a problem.” Steffen said the research showed the economic system was “fundamentally flawed” as it ignored critically important life support systems. “It’s clear the economic system is driving us towards an unsustainable future and people of my daughter’s generation will find it increasingly hard to survive,” he said. “History has shown that civilisations have risen, stuck to their core values and then collapsed because they didn’t change. That’s where we are today.”
Instead, we affirm the anarcho-primitivist model of decentralized communities. This is the best method to solve both cap and neolib- their reformism fails and recreates our impacts, its an independent link, even if it reduces violence, our argument is that civilization itself needs to be broken. Also, we solve water pollution which controls the internal link into water access which controlls the IL into aff solvency. Idenpendently, our world is able to solve for pollution which causes your impacts Black and Green Press no date, What is Green Anarchy?, http://www.blackandgreenpress.org/p/what-is-green-anarchy.html The tragic irony of revolutions is that many of the “successful” ones in modern times have actually reduced the level of freedom and authenticity in society. This is the case when the root causes of oppression and estrangement are not addressed, when the god of progress/development/domination of nature is perhaps ever more fully obeyed than before the Revolution. For revolution to have meaning, substance - to be liberatory - certain hitherto unquestioned institutions must be undone. Civilization is the fountainhead of all dominations: patriarchy, division of labor, domestication of life, warfare, on down the line to its present ghastly fullness. The “revolutionaries” who fail to indict and move against these fundamentals, who only wish to re-arrange or reform the ensemble of technology and capital, offer only a prolonging of what is so deeply objectionable. For us, if the word has any meaning it entails the dismantling of the whole thing. LEFTISM AND LIBERALISM The two main failed and exhausted means or approaches towards change in recent times have been liberalism and leftism. What really remains to be said about the liberal or reform outlook? It’s an endless masochism, time and energy wasted in pursuit of negligible crumbs, while society and the biosphere become evermore impoverished and ruined. Liberals of all parties, and including virtually every pacifist, continue in denial as to the deepening crisis everywhere. Some of them will apparently never wake up to the depth and scope of what is wrong. Faithful voters and recyclers, they cling to the palpably false claim that an all- destructive system can somehow be redeemed, can somehow serve life. As for the Left, where it can be distinguished from liberalism, we find it hard to imagine a more discredited, dead-end. It has failed universally in terms of the individual and in terms of nature. It is an albatross to be thrown off. Basically it appears in two forms. The first is the more overtly reformist, in which more “radical” goals are hidden from the “masses” it seeks to attract. Manipulation and lack of transparency (e.g. the Green Party) define this brand of Leftism. The overtly “radical” form is straight- up authoritarianism and has proven so in every instance in history. The so- called “small c” communists will never escape this baggage, rejected everywhere. Leftism approaches extinction, the sooner the better. Insofar as anarchists cling to the left and define themselves in its terms (e.g. anarcho-syndicalists) they will go nowhere. Technology, production, hierarchy, government, ecological destruction, and ideas like “progress” continue to go unquestioned by most who would identify with the left.
3/11/17
5- State of Nature K
Tournament: TFA | Round: Quarters | Opponent: Richard Cook | Judge: Laurence, Arun, Mconway Turn- the state of nature is fucking great but it doesn’t really exist anyway- paradoxally, it only became bad when made into an imperialist war machine to eradicate the state of nature Also, you should be skeptical of their claims, hobbs is 1. Unscientific 2. Operating from a place in civilization that WAS very violent, his social location impacted his theories, and 3. Doesn’t account for the empirical multiplicity of natural societies Kevin Tucker, http://www.blackandgreenpress.org/2015/01/the-forest-beyond-field-consequences-of.html, Friday, January 16, 2015 The Forest Beyond the Field: The Consequences of Domestication - Kevin Tucker This is my primary essay from Species Traitor no. 4, 2005 and also in my book, For Wildness and Anarchy (BandG, 2009). For some reason no easily readable or printable version of it seems to have made it online. So here it is. The Forest Beyond the Field the Consequences of Domestication
. Some societies changed, some societies grew, some stayed in a particular form, but some other kept growing. To feed that growth, they developed more tools and technologies designed to kill more people and cut more forests and dig more soil quickly. There was no Hand of God in this nor any act of evolution. And never was there an origin of ‘society’ as such. No matter what we are now or have been, we have been social first and foremost. Even the most archaic form of human society flowed organically from the way our bodies and minds have evolved. This is where our ‘human nature’ stems from. It flows from our needs as social animals that must think, eat, drink and sleep, our need for companionship and community (both human and non-human), our need for autonomy and the fulfillment of simply being. For over 99.99 of human history, that has looked like small and open bands of about 15-25 people who live in temporary camps throughout a given bioregion with loosely defined and larger affiliations to each other. Food was hunted, gathered, scavenged, or fished. In some people could make fire, others would keep coals, and some had none at all. Cultural knowledge was shared and all had equal access to what domesticated peoples refer to as ‘resources’.
Giving people houses is just an extension of the capital of the state and civil society- giving poor people property doesn’t make private property go away. This is especially bad because you give sedentary property in land ownership, which makes you an active participant in civilization, leading to the total neoliberal commodification of the natural world Black and Green Press no date, What is Green Anarchy?, http://www.blackandgreenpress.org/p/what-is-green-anarchy.html This has given the leftists reason to criticize green anarchists for not being 'organized' and having only loose visions. However, we feel that this is an important step if we are to again be full beings. Anarchy is NOT Democracy Despite the efforts on behalf of aspiring populists to prove otherwise, anarchy is, by definition, not democracy (whether one calls it direct or social democracy). Needing to point towards this seems rather petty, but it’s hard to look at the huge amounts of anarchist literature without seeing the bulk of it as any more than ‘radical democracy,’ dressed up in anarchist rhetoric. Let’s look at the word anarchy, stemming from the Greek an-, meaning without, and arkhos, meaning ruler. Put them together and you have without ruler, or more commonly, absence of any form of political authority. Democracy, believe it or not, is a form of government. The suffix, –cracy, following the Latin –cratia, to the Greek –kratia meaning strength, power, translated to government, or rule (Greek: demokratia meaning people + government dictatorship of the people or dictatorship of the proletariat for Marx). And to step down one more notch here, a government is a governing organization, or the mediator of all social, economic, and political activities of a certain people. So, as we can see, anarchy, by definition, is not democracy. Anarchists are for a complete rejection of all authoritarian institutions/structures on principle. All governments impose themselves on the Earth and all life on it. So long as they exist, autonomy cannot. This being established, we can move on. Green Anarchies? There is no single strand of 'green anarchy' and there are surely as many divisions between ourselves as there are in anything. The unifying principle between green anarchists is an ecologically oriented understanding of power relations. Differences primarily arise from the extents to which we feel the initial terms this domestication can, or should, be overturned. We lack the capabilities and want to list all different strands of 'green anarchism'. We want to emphasize that these categories are given not of want, but of simplicity. We have no interest in ideological restrictions and have no absolute faith in such abstracts. The distinctions point to specific critiques and are used for conventional reasons only!! Here are some of the primary strands; Anarcho-Primitivism: This critique looks to the millions of years of human wild co-existence within the community of life as a look at 'human nature' and capability. What is gathered from this is that contrary to the myths of the civilized, humans, given the chance, are not evil, although we feel that power corrupts absolutely. The critique looks to domestication as the beginning of a process that has brought us to where we lie now. Our understanding is that not only are capitalist relations oppresive, but that sedentary, agriculture gave way to property and thus power. This point shows the beginning of the process of removing ourselves from the 'other' into an 'thingified' relation to the world, where all things are seen as objects for our use/manipulation. Some major points of contention as far as this critique lie in its implications. John Zerzan contends that to overturn civilization would require abolition of symbolic thought, whereas others would say that symbolic culture is a bigger and more realizable issue. Both agree on the need to turning back from agricultural sedentism. Anti-Civilization: This critique is similar in it's understanding to anarcho-primitivism, but it's constituents tend to feel that anarcho-primitivism over idealizes a certain peoples/time. The convention of this strand is to remove itself from the baggage that anarcho-primitivists tend to carry. Green Anarchism: This is used as a general term for those who don't use either of the above categories and this definately has no pure consistency, and the broad title is not intended to group these folks entirely. Distinctions within this category lie primarily in questions of how far back to look for understanding the destructiveness of civilization. Some would say that domestication and agriculture can be ecologically 'sustainable' and preferrable. Others would contend that technology itself is not an inherent problem. The unifying principle lies in an ecological basis and understanding of the megatechnological State as destructive. The above mentioned philosophical strands tend to be accompanied by another factor (although not necessarily as divisive or particular). That lies in; Revolutionary Green Anarchists: Those seeking a mass movement and revolution as means to an anarchistic world. and, Insurrectionary Green Anarchists: Those who seek revolt here and now as a means to abolish the system on a more individual basis. There is rarely a genuine split here, but the distinction tends to have a larger impact on the approaches one takes to destroying the totality of civilized existence. A large contention remains that the two are not inseparable and that any act of revolt strikes a blow to the civilized order. Some would point that insurrection is the breeding ground of revolution. For an example of debate between the two strands, see Ted Kaczynski's 'Hit Where it Hurts' (Green Anarchy #8) and Primal Rage's 'Hit Where it Hurts, but in the Meantime' (Green Anarchy #9). A Note on Social Ecology Social ecology, generally related to Murray Bookchin and his Institute for Social Ecology has typically been held as one constituent within green anarchy. The Black and Green Network, Coalition Against Civilization, 'Bring on the Ruckus' Society, and Green Anarchy magazine have both publically denounced that this strand has no relation to anarchy. Bob Black's Anarchy After Leftism (Columbia: C.A.L., 1998) further draws on the authoritarian principles that underlie this strand. Social ecology, or libertarian municipalities, are inherently authoritarian, democractic utopias that seek only to make a green civilization. We have no interest in relations with those who actively seek to reform and carry on such a mundane, destructive reality. * The following sections are from the Black and Green/Green Anarchy "Back to Basics" Primer from Green Anarchy No. 9 (2002) CIVILIZATION We’re now seeing the end-point of civilization: for one thing, the complete domination-and soon to be destruction-of nature. And, as Freud predicted, a nearing state of universal neurosis. In spades. Paul Shepard said that the step to genetic engineering, including human cloning, is implicit in the first step: domestication. The urge to control and dominate is the cornerstone of civilization. The inner logic of this orientation toward the world and the life upon it is reaching its completion. The founding spirit of civilization begins, most likely, in a gradually developing division of labor or specialization. Inequities of influence come about via the affective power of various kinds of experts. The “right to housing” and it’s establishment has led to demolition of previously functional public housing in favor of profitable, minimum effort communities. We are isolating a gentrification link, individualism link, market link and a state link Edward Goetz, 2011 (“Gentrification in Black and White: The Racial Impact of Public Housing Demolition in American Cities”, http://usj.sagepub.com/content/48/8/1581.full.pdf) In the US, the centrepiece of state-led efforts to deconcentrate poverty and transform inner-city neighbourhoods is the HOPE 6 programme. This programme has been used in dozens of cities to demolish public housing developments and to create new mixed-income communities in their place. The programme thus redefines public housing policy and serves as the main vehicle through which the state has triggered innercity revitalisation (Newman, 2004; Wyly and Hammel, 1999). The major transformation of public housing, in fact, reflects several dimensions of neo-liberal urban policy in the US over the past 20 years. While the elimination of the physical structures of public housing eliminates visual references to New Deal and welfare state policies no longer dominant, the removal of concentrations of very-low income people of colour allows a reimaging of urban spaces critical to the national and international competition for private investment (Newman and Ashton, 2004). Further, the policy prescriptions imposed upon former public housing residents, both relocation
3/14/17
5- Util NC
Tournament: TFA | Round: Quarters | Opponent: Richard Cook | Judge: Laurence, Arun, Mconway There were analytics too
Tournament: TFA | Round: 2 | Opponent: Ricky | Judge: Aaron Timmons Rights, as in the rights to housing, inscribes the power of the nation state, barring life to those outside. This kills solvency of the ac, because It is contingent on the continued goodwill of the state Giorgio Agamben Beyond Human Rights, This English translation of the original Italian text (1993) was first published in: Giorgio Agamben, ‘Means without End. Notes on Politics’ in: Theory Out of Bounds, Vol. 20 (Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000). the fate of the York: Harcourt Brace, 1951), 266-298. Rights of Man with the fate of the modern nation-state in such a way that the waning of the latter necessarily implies the obsolescence of the former. Here the paradox is that precisely the figure that should have embodied human rights more than any other – namely, the refugee – marked instead the radical crisis of the concept. The conception of human rights based on the supposed existence of a human being as such, Arendt tells us, proves to be untenable as soon as those who profess it find themselves confronted for the first time with people who have really lost every quality and every specific relation except for the pure fact of being human.3 In the system of the nation-state, so- 3. Ibid., 290-295. called sacred and inalienable human rights are revealed to be without any protection precisely when it is no longer possible to conceive of them as rights of the citizens of a state. This is implicit, after all, in the ambiguity of the very title of the 1789 Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen, in which it is unclear whether the two terms are to name two distinct realities or whether they are to form, instead, a hendiadys in which the first term is actually always already
The impact-this barring of life forces us under the control of the state- causeing dehumanization that inevitably results in mass violence and genocide Giorgio Agamben Beyond Human Rights, This English translation of the original Italian text (1993) was first published in: Giorgio Agamben, ‘Means without End. Notes on Politics’ in: Theory Out of Bounds, Vol. 20 (Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000). contained in the second. That there is no autonomous space in the political order of the nation-state for something like the pure human in itself is evident at the very least from the fact that, even in the best of cases, the status of refugee has always been considered a temporary condition that ought to lead either to naturalization or to repatriation. A stable statute for the human in itself is inconceivable in the law of the nation-state. It is time to cease to look at all the declarations of rights from 1789 to the present day as proclamations of eternal metajuridical values aimed at binding the legislator to the respect of such values; it is time, rather, to understand them according to their real function in the modern state. Human rights, in fact, represent first of all the originary 2008/No. figure for the inscription of natural naked life in the political-juridical order of the nation-state. Naked life (the human being), which in antiquity belonged to God and in the classical world was clearly distinct (as zoe) from political life (bios), comes to the forefront in the management of the state and becomes, so to speak, its earthly foundation. Nation-state means a state that makes nativity or birth nascita (that is, naked human life) the foundation of its own sovereignty. This is the meaning (and it is not even a hidden one) of the first three articles of the 1789 Declaration: it is only because this declaration inscribed (in articles 1 and 2) the native element in the heart of any political organization that it can firmly bind (in article 3) the principle of sovereignty to the nation (in conformity with its etymon, native natío originally meant simply ‘birth’ nascita. The fiction that is implicit here is that birth nascita comes into being immediately as nation, so that there may not be any difference between the two moments. Rights, in other words, are attributed to the human being only to the degree to which he or she is the immediately vanishing presupposition (and, in fact, the presupposition that must never come to light as such) of the citizen. If the refugee represents such a disquieting element in the order of the nation-state, this is so primarily because, by breaking the identity between the human and the citizen and that between nativity and nationality, it brings the originary fiction of sovereignty to crisis. Single exceptions to such a principle, of course, have always existed. What is new in our time is that growing sections of humankind are no longer representable inside the nation-state – and this novelty threatens the very foundations of the latter. Inasmuch as the refugee, an apparently marginal figure, unhinges the old trinity of state-nation-territory, it deserves instead to be regarded as the central figure of our political history. We should not forget that the first camps were built in Europe as spaces for controlling refugees, and that the succession of internment campsconcentration camps-extermination camps represents a perfectly real filiation. One of the few rules the Nazis constantly obeyed throughout the course of the ‘final solution’ was that Jews and Gypsies could be sent to extermination camps only after having been fully denationalized (that is, after they had been stripped of even that second-class citizenship to which they had been relegated after the Nuremberg Laws). When their rights are no longer the rights of the citizen, that is when human beings are truly sacred, in the sense that this term used to have in the Roman law of the archaic period: doomed to death. The concept of refugee must be resolutely separated from the concept of the ‘human rights’, and the right of asylum (which in any case is by now in the process of being drastically restricted in the legislation of the European states) must no longer be considered as the conceptual category in which to inscribe the phenomenon of refugees. (One needs only to look at Agnes H
And, even if I lose FW, dehumanization comes first because
Thus, the alternative is to create an extraterritorial space, where we convert all residents into the figure of the refugee. Our alternative is functionally and representationally exclusive with the aff because this space excludes the state and its arbitrary categories. Its try or die- only by disrupting space can we survive politically. Giorgio Agamben Beyond Human Rights, This English translation of the original Italian text (1993) was first published in: Giorgio Agamben, ‘Means without End. Notes on Politics’ in: Theory Out of Bounds, Vol. 20 (Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000).
would articulate each other via a series of reciprocal extraterritorialities in which the guiding concept would no longer be the ius (right) of the citizen but rather the refugium (refuge) of the singular. In an analogous way, we could conceive of Europe not as an impossible ‘Europe of the nations’, whose catastrophe one can already foresee in the short run, but rather as an aterritorial or extraterritorial space in which all the (citizen and noncitizen) residents of the European states would be in a position of exodus or refuge; the status of European would then mean the being-in-exodus of the citizen (a condition that obviously could also be one of immobility). European space would thus mark an irreducible difference between birth nascita and nation in which the old concept of people (which, as is well known, is always a minority) could again find a political meaning, thus decidedly opposing itself to the concept of nation (which has so far unduly usurped it). This space would coincide neither with any of the homogeneous national territories nor with their topographical sum, but would rather act on them by articulating and perforating them topologically as in the Klein bottle or in the Möbius strip, where exterior and interior in-determine each other. In this new space, European cities would rediscover their ancient vocation of cities of the world by entering into a relation of reciprocal extraterritoriality. As I write this essay, 425 Palestinians expelled by the state of Israel find themselves in a sort of no-man’s-land. These men certainly constitute, according to Hannah Arendt’s suggestion, ‘the vanguard of their people’. But that is so not necessarily or not merely in the sense that they might form the originary nucleus of a future national state, or in the sense that they might solve the Palestinian question in a way just as insufficient as the way in which Israel has solved the Jewish question. Rather, the no-man’s-land in which they are refugees has already started from this very moment to act back onto the territory of the state of Israel by perforating it and altering it in such a way that the image of that snowy mountain has become more internal to it than any other region of Eretz Israel. Only in a world in which the spaces of states have been thus perforated and topologically deformed and in which the citizen has been able to recognize the refugee that he or she is – only in such a world is the political survival of humankind today thinkable.
3/9/17
UIL- Biopower K
Tournament: UIL Districts at Arlington | Round: 3 | Opponent: Arlington BK | Judge: idk The rhetoric of terror is an extension of a specific form of securitization. This independently turns case and increases biopower Kapitan, 03 (Tomis Kapitan, Professor of Philosophy, Northern Illonois Univeristy, 2003, “Terrorism and International Justice”)
More dramatically, the ‘terrorist’ rhetoric actually increases terrorism in four distinct ways. First, it magnifies the effect of terrorist actions by heightening the fear among the target population. If we demonize the terrorists, if we portray them as arbitrary irrational beings with a “disposition toward unbridled violence,” then we are amplifying the fear and alarm generated by terrorist incidents. Second, those who succumb to the rhetoric contribute to the cycle of revenge and retaliation by endorsing terrorist actions of their own government, not only against those who commit terrorist actions, but also against those populations from whose ranks the terrorists emerge, for the simple reason that terrorists are frequently themselves civilians, living amid other civilians not so engaged. The consequence has been an increase in terrorist violence under the rubric of ‘retaliation’ or ‘counter-terrorism’. Third, short of genocide, a violent response is likely to stiffen the resolve of those from whose ranks terrorists have emerged, leading them to regard their foes as people who cannot be reasoned with, as people who, because they avail themselves so readily of the ‘terrorist’ rhetoric, know only the language of the ‘terrorist’ rhetoric, know only the language of force. As long as they perceive themselves to be victims of intolerable injustices and view their oppressors as unwilling to arrive at an acceptable compromise, they are likely to answer violence with more violence. Fourth, and most insidiously, those who employ the rhetoric of terrorism for their own political ends, are encouraging actions that they understand will generate or sustain further violence directed against civilians. Inasmuch as their verbal behavior is intended to secure political objectives through these means, then it is an instance of terrorism just as much as any direct order to carry out a bombing of civilian targets. In both cases, there is purposeful verbal action aimed at bringing about a particular result through violence against civilians.
Liberal Democracy helps rationalize or obscure power relations- worsens biopower Torgerson ’99 (Professor Trent University “The promise of Green Politics: Environmentalism and Public Spheres” 1999) The democracy actually achieved under liberal democracy has largely come as a result of struggles over the past two centuries or so by subordinated peoples who have sought to gain some measure of power against starkly authoritarian and oligarchical institutions. With the rise of representative government, the gradual extension of suffrage to people who had been formally and informally excluded by class, race, and gender serves as a marker of these historical struggles. But the advent of universal adult suffrage in liberal democracies has by no means eliminated the significance of authoritarian and oligarchical patterns in social, economic, and state institutions. Liberal democracy never pretended to do away with the dramatic economic and social inequalities of capitalism; these were conceived as necessary and legitimate. There was, of course, the supposed equality of the market. All were proclaimed formally equal in the sphere of the market--capitalists and workers, rich and poor alike--whether or not they had anything more to sell than their skins. Demands for social justice were in part eventually (and rather grudgingly) accommodated with welfare-state policies that bolstered consumer demand and promoted mass acquiesence. Still, liberal democracy singles out government as an island of democracy in an undemocratic sea of economic and social relations. The effect is to render democracy largely a governmental formality, something of a symbol that fosters the legitimacy of the established order while helping to rationalize or obscure actual power relations.
Biopower allows the sovereign to construct internal ememies- turns case- rawles difference principal means we have an obligation to fight this oppression Charrett, 09 Catherine – International Catalan Institute for Peace, “A Critical Application of Securitizing Theory: Overcoming the Normative Dilemma of Writing Security” http://www.gencat.cat/icip/pdf/WP7_ANG.pdf In his 2002 article, ‘Defining Social Constructivism in Security Studies’, Huysmans discusses the normative dilemma of speaking or writing security, which he argues is grounded in an understanding of the performative role of language. Huysmans explains that “language is not just a communicative instrument used to talk about a real world outside of language. Rather it operates as a mediating instrument that brings social practices into a particular communicative, institutionalized framework” (Huysmans 2002: 44). Here Huysmans is referring to the symbolic power of ‘security,’ as a word and a concept, and how its invocation articulates a specific rationality. Security is thus understood as a political technology, which “interlocks system of knowledge, representations, practices, and institutional forms that 15 imagine, direct and act upon bodies, spaces, and flows in certain ways” (Burke 2002: 2). Post-structural scholarship argues that the political technology of security links sovereignty, discipline and government under the bio-power of governmentaility which seeks to (re)-order society, preserve power relations, and oppress or exclude opposition (Burke 2002: 1-27; Neocleous 2008; Bigo 2002: 63-92). Others in this camp have argued that dominant modes of security work to define ‘the other’ as inferior and threatening and instill images of fear within a population. A feminist perspective acknowledges that the state then seeks to fill its role as the patriarchal protector, “provoking feelings of allegiance, safety, and submission” (Burke 2002: 20-21). Consequently, security, as a concept and a political tool, is able to promote subjectivities of fear and it often materializes as the product of oppressive or undemocratic acts as well as processes of social and political exclusion.
The alternative is to explicitly affirm Russia and chinas opposition to globalism. By refusing to accept biopolitical thought in the debate sphere we separate ourselves from the states power structures Godiwala ‘6 Godiwala, Dimple. Dimple Godiwala was educated at the Universities of Bombay and Oxford. She is the author of 'Breaking the Bounds: British Feminist Dramatists Writing in the Mainstream "The Western patriarchal impulse" Interactions 15.1 (2006): Web. Dimple is quoting Foucault in this. Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are, but to refuse what we are. We have to imagine and to build up what we could be to get rid of a political 'double bind',which is the simultaneous individualization and totalization of modern power structures. The conclusion would be that the political, ethical, social, philosophical problem of our days is notto try and liberate the individual from the state, and from the state's institutions, but to liberate us both from the state and from the type of individualization which is linked to the state. We have to promote new forms of subjectivity through refusal of this kind of individuality which has been imposed upon us for several centuries.
3/22/17
UIL- Extinction scenario util NC
Tournament: Grandview | Round: 2 | Opponent: Eh | Judge: Lay Part one is framework I value morality derived from ought in the resolution, which implies a moral obligation. All other values are nonsense, we can always just ask why they matter which is infinitely regressive.
First, only consequences of our actions matter, suffering is the most important considerations
Ariansen 98 Per Ariansen (University of Oslo, Department of Philosophy). “Anthropocentrism with a human face.” Ecological Economics 24 (1998) 153–162 AJ
Suspending for a while the idea of morality as a game, one could approach the question of the nature of ethics from another angle. One could try to seek out a set of necessary and sufficient condi- tions for ethics to be operative. What traits of ethics cannot be lacking without ethics losing its meaning? Will ethics be meaningful in a world where no suffering (to focus on the duty to alleviate suffering rather that promote happiness) is known to anyone? Technically it would be possible to tell a lie or break a promise in such a society, but the difference between lying and telling the truth or breaking and keeping promises would have no moral significance, since any outcome of any event is just as good (rather, as indifferent) as any other outcome of the event. In such a world any mention of responsibilities and duties would be meaningless. Ethics clearly needs to relate to joy and suffering. This axiological orientation is necessary to give meaning to the ethical project, to mark it out as an ethical project in contrast to other projects of rationalization.
Second, government actions will inevitably lead to trade-offs between citizens since they benefit some and harm others; the only justifiable way to resolve these conflicts is by benefitting the maximum possible number of people since anything else would unequally prioritize one group over another. Several impacts: a. Side constraint theories are useless for forign policy since they’ll inevitably violate some constraint b. Answers util indicts; non-consequentialist moral theories prevent any action which is worse than not being able to use util c. Takes out indicts about calculability since governments already use util which proves it is possible to do so
Second, Independent of considerations of future happiness or life, death is always the worst possible evil since it destroys the subject itself- even if there is a different moral good than happiness, if we die we never get to access that good.
Paterson, 03 – Department of Philosophy, Providence College, Rhode Island (Craig, “A Life Not Worth Living?”, Studies in Christian Ethics.
Contrary to those accounts, I would argue that it is death per se that is really the objective evil for us, not because it deprives us of a prospective future of overall good judged better than the alter- native of non-being. It cannot be about harm to a former person who has ceased to exist, for no person actually suffers from the sub-sequent non-participation. Rather, death in itself is an evil to us because it ontologically destroys the current existent subject — it is the ultimate in metaphysical lightening strikes.80 The evil of death is truly an ontological evil borne by the person who already exists, independently of calculations about better or worse possible lives. Such an evil need not be consciously experienced in order to be an evil for the kind of being a human person is. Death is an evil because of the change in kind it brings about, a change that is destructive of the type of entity that we essentially are. Anything, whether caused naturally or caused by human intervention (intentional or unintentional) that drastically interferes in the process of maintaining the person in existence is an objective evil for the person. What is crucially at stake here, and is dialectically supportive of the self-evidency of the basic good of human life, is that death is a radical interference with the current life process of the kind of being that we are. In consequence, death itself can be credibly thought of as a ‘primitive evil’ for all persons, regardless of the extent to which they are currently or prospectively capable of participating in a full array of the goods of life.81 In conclusion, concerning willed human actions, it is justifiable to state that any intentional rejection of human life itself cannot therefore be warranted since it is an expression of an ultimate disvalue for the subject, namely, the destruction of the present person; a radical ontological good that we cannot begin to weigh objectively against the travails of life in a rational manner. To deal with the sources of disvalue (pain, suffering, etc.) we should not seek to irrationally destroy the person, the very source and condition of all human possibility.82
Third, this commits us to a standard of preventing extinction. Independently, risk of extinction outweighs It’s a huge impact- extinction effects everyone and probably hurts a lot Its irreversible- any other impact can be fixed, but extinction can’t If there’s any skepticism about what is morally good, then preventing extinction is a prerequisite to finding a moral truth.
Part two is the contention- I contend that affirming risks extinction
Scenario one is growth- the market growth of globalization is unequally distributed, so there are few benefits, however the growth still destroys structures of society and resources, dooming us to collapse. Richard A. Smith 7, Research Associate at the Institute for Policy Research and Development, UK; PhD in History from UCLA, June 2007, “The Eco-suicidal Economics of Adam Smith,” Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol. 18, No. 2, p. 22-43 So there you have it: insatiable growth and consumption is destroying the planet and dooming humanity-but without ceaselessly growing production and insatiably rising consumption, we would be even worse off. Such is the lunatic suicidal logic of capitalist economics. Adam Smith's fatal error was his assumption that the "most effectual" means of promoting the public interest of society is to just ignore it and concentrate instead on the pursuit of economic self-interest. In the 18th century, this narcissistic economic philosophy had little impact on the natural world. Today it has a huge impact and is, moreover, totally at odds with the world's scientific bodies who are crying out for a PLAN to stop global warming and save nature. Capitalist Limits to Corporate Environmentalist!! Corporations aren't necessarily evil, but corporate managers are legally responsible to their owners, the shareholders, and not to society. This means that the critical decisions about production and resource consumption-decisions that affect our health and survival-are mainly the private prerogative of large corporations and are often only marginally under the control of governments. The blunt reality of this situation was well summed up by Joel Bakan in his recent book (and film), The Corporation: Corporations are created by law and imbued with purpose by law. Law dictates what their directors and managers can do, what they cannot do, and what they must do. And, at least in the United States and other industrialized countries, the corporation, as created by law, most closely resembles Milton Friedman's ideal model of the institution: it compels executives to prioritize the interests of their companies and shareholders above all others and forbids them from being socially responsible - at least genuinely so.38 So when corporate and societal interests conflict, even the "greenest" of corporate CEOs often have no choice but to make decisions contrary to the interests of society. British Petroleum's CEO, Lord John Browne, is good example. In the late 1990s, Browne had an environmental epiphany, broke ranks with oil industry denial, and became the first oil company executive to warn that fossil fuels are accelerating global warming. BP adopted the motto "Beyond Petroleum" in its advertisements, painted its service stations green and yellow, and bought a boutique solar power outfit. But under Browne, BP has spent far more on advertising its green credentials than it invests in actual green power production. Fully 99 percent of its investments still go into fossil fuel exploration and development, while solar power is less than 1 percent and seems to be declining. 9 In 1999, BP spent $45 million to buy the solar power outfit Solarex. By comparison, BP paid $26.8 billion to buy Amoco in order to enlarge its oil portfolio. BP's 2004 revenues topped $285 billion, while its solar power sales were just over $400 million. In February 2006, Browne told his board that the company had more than replenished its marketed output in 2005 with new proven reserves of oil and gas, and that "with more than 20 new projects due on stream in the next three years, and assuming the same level of oil price, the annual rate of increase should continue at some 4 percent through 2010."40 So, far from shifting to renewable sources of energy, BP is not only expanding its output of fossil fuels but increasing its overall reliance on fossil fuel sources of profit. BP now possesses proven reserves of 19 billion barrels produced in 23 countries, and the company currently explores for oil in 26 countries. Given the proven and stupendous profits of oil production versus the unproven profitability of alternative energy, how can Brown go "green" in any serious way and remain responsible to his owner-investors?41 Were he to do so, he would soon be out of a job.42 Ecosocialism or Collapse If we're going to stop the capitalist economic locomotive from driving us off the cliff, we are going to have to fundamentally rethink our entire economic life, reassert the visible hand of conscious scientific, rational economic planning, and implement democratic control over our economies and resources. We're going to have to construct an entirely different kind of economy, one that can live within its ecological means. Such an economy would have to be based around at least the following principles: An Ecosocialist Economy of Stasis First, in a world of fast-diminishing resources, a sustainable global economy can only be based on near-zero economic growth on average. That means that to survive, humanity will have to impose drastic fixed limits on development, resource consumption, the freedom to consume, and the freedom to pollute. Given existing global inequities and the fact that the crisis we face is overwhelmingly caused by overconsumption in the industrialized North, equity can only be achieved by imposing massive cutbacks in the advanced countries combined with a program of rational planned growth to develop the Third World, with the aim of stabilizing at zero growth on average. This will require drastically cutting back many lines of production, closing down others entirely, and creating socially and environmentally useful jobs for workers made redundant by this transition. This will also require physical rationing of many critical resources on a per capita basis for every person on the planet. Human survival will thus require a profound rethinking of our most fundamental ideas-bourgeois ideas-of economic freedom. For too long, many Americans, in particular, have come to identify their notion of "freedom," if not their very being and essence, with insatiable consumption-unlimited freedom of "choice" in what to buy. But 50 styles of blue jeans, 16 models of SUVs and endless choices in "consumer electronics" will all have dramatically less value when Bloomingdales is under water, Florida disappears beneath the waves, malarial mosquitos blanket Long Island beaches, and the U.S. is overrun with desperate environmental refugees from the South. Once we as a society finally admit the "inconvenient truth" that we have no choice but to drastically cut production and severely reduce consumer choice, it will also become apparent that we have to put in place a planned economy that will meet our needs and those of future generations as well as the other species with whom we share the planet. A Restructured Economy of Production for Social Need and for Use Second, we need to massively restructure the global economy. Enormous sectors in the global capitalist economy-plastics, packaging, much of the manufactured consumer electronics, petrochemical-based and other synthetic products, many pharmaceuticals, all genetically modified foods, and the vast and ever-growing production of arms-are either completely unnecessary or waste increasingly scarce resources and produce needless pollution.44 Our parents did without nearly all of this before WWII, and they were not living in caves. Many lines of production and most retail industries are built around unnecessary replacement and designed-in obsolescence. How much of the American economy from cars and appliances to clothes is purposefully designed to be "consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever-increasing rate"46 so the cycle of waste production can begin all over again? How much of the planet's natural resources are consumed every year in completely unnecessary annual model changes, fashion updates, and "new and improved" products whose only purpose is simply to sell and sell again? If a global population of 6 to 9 billion people is going to survive this century, what choice do we have but to reorganize the global economy to conserve what shrinking natural resources we have left, reorient production for need rather than profit, design products to last as long as possible, enforce as close to total recycling as possible, and aim for as close to zero pollution as is possible? A Socialist Economic Democracy Third: an ecosocialist democracy. Endless growth or stasis? Resource exhaustion or conservation? Automobilization of the planet or enhanced public transport? Deforestation or protection of the wild forests? Agro poisons or organic farming? Hunt the fish to extinction or protect the fisheries? Raze the Amazon forest to grow MacBurgers or promote a more vegetarian diet? Manufacture products designed to be "used up, burned up, consumed as rapidly as possible" or design them to last, be repaired, recycled and also shared? Enforce private interests at the expense of the commons or subordinate private greed to the common good? In today's globalized world, decisions about such questions will determine the fate of humanity. Who can make these critical economic and moral decisions in society's interest and in the interest of preserving a habitable planet? In Adam Smith's view, which is still the operable maxim of modern capitalists and neoliberal economists, we should all just "Look out for Number 1," and the common good will take care of itself. If Smith were right, the common good would have taken care of itself long ago, and we wouldn't be facing catastrophe. After centuries of Smithian economics, the common good needs our immediate and concentrated attention. Corporations can't make such decisions in the best interests of society or the future, because their legal responsibility is to their private owners. The only way such decisions can be scientifically rational and socially responsible is when everyone who is affected participates in decision-making. And time is running out. We don't have 20 or 30 years to wait for Ford and GM to figure out how they can make a buck on electric cars. We don't have 60 or 70 years to wait while investors in coal-powered power plants milk the last profits out of those sunk investments before they consider an alternative. Humanity is at a crossroads. Either we find a way to move toward a global economic democracy in which decisions about production and consumption are directly and democratically decided by all those affected, or the alternative will be the continuing descent into a capitalist war of all-against-all over ever-diminishing resources that can only end in the collapse of what's left of civilization and the global ecology. To be sure, in an economic democracy, society would sometimes make mistakes in planning. We can't have perfect foresight, and democracies make mistakes. But at least these would be honest mistakes. The conclusion seems inescapable: Either we democratize the economy, construct the institutions of a practical working socialist democracy, or we face ecological and social collapse.
Scenario two is war- Market liberalization increases statistical risk of war Zhen Han 12, MA, Political Science, University of British Columbia, March 2012, “The Capitalist Peace Revisited: A New Liberal Peace Model and the Impact of Market Fluctuations,” https://circle.ubc.ca/bitstream/handle/2429/41809/ubc_2012_spring_han_zhen.pdf?sequence=1 The third causal mechanism is socialization theory. Market integration provides more forums allowing national policy makers to meet, thus policy transparency can be increased, and misinterpretations, which can lead to more conflicts, are reduced62 . Similar policy interests can also be developed through the socialization processes63. *TO FOOTNOTES* 63 This is the hypothesis 3 in Gartzke’s Capitalist Peace argument. Gartzke, 2007. *END FOOTNOTES* However, Waltz argues that as the number of contracts increases through international market integration, the number of contract default will also increase64; therefore, socialization under globalization can work in a negative way and make conflicts more likely. On the other hand, the socialization effect caused by financial market integration can be limited, as the highly professionalized nature of financial markets creates interactions only within a small group of experts. Chewieroth suggests that state leaders often have little to say in the norm building of international financial structure, and the self-interested bureaucrats of IMF and other international financial organizations have a significant impact on financial liberalization65. These discussions suggest there are some reasons to argue that the pacifying effects of financial liberalization are not as strong as commodity international trade. The causal mechanisms of conventional commercial peace may not function well with the financial integration. Furthermore, the possible negative impact of liberalization needs to be considered, as liberalization does not always bring stability. Financial market fluctuations, often marked by significant amount of capital inflows and outflows, can destabilize economy and cause further crisis. While the negative impact of large capital outflows, often known as the capital flight, are well recognized, this paper suggests that large capital inflows can be risky too. One can observe a large foreign capital inflow in cases of speculative accumulation, which often leads to financial crises when market confidence starts to collapse. The Asian Crisis in 1997 is an example of this type of crisis66. A large capital inflow also can be observed if the state is consistently borrowing from international financial markets to fix its budget deficits, such as the case in the 2011 Euro crisis. In both cases, large capital net inflows destabilize the economy and causes economic crisis. In the processes discussed above, higher level of financial deregulation provides the tool for states to borrow more from foreign capitals market, and it also encourages foreign capitals to take the risk of entering a foreign market, as liberalization guarantee foreign capitals can pull out at any time as they want. For these reasons, it is reasonable to observe increasing capital net inflows67 before a crisis breaks out, and a higher level of liberalization increases the vulnerability of the state. These discussions lead to the Hypothesis 5 and 6 of this thesis. H5: A higher level of financial liberalization leads to a higher chance of having militarized interstate conflicts. H6: A higher level of capital flight leads to a higher chance of having militarized interstate Conflicts.
And, war goes nuclear, causing extinction, US an china are already on the brink over Taiwan Johnson, Journalist, 5-14-2K1 (Chalmers, “Time to Bring the Troops Home,” The Nation, Volume 272, Number 19) China is another matter. No sane figure in the Pentagon wants a war with China, and all serious US militarists know that China's minuscule nuclear capacity is not offensive but a deterrent against the overwhelming US power arrayed against it (twenty archaic Chinese warheads versus more than 7,000 US warheads). Taiwan, whose status constitutes the still incomplete last act of the Chinese civil war, remains the most dangerous place on earth. Much as the 1914 assassination of the Austrian crown prince in Sarajevo led to a war that no one wanted, a misstep in Taiwan by any side could bring the United States and China into a conflict that neither wants. Such a war would bankrupt the United States, deeply divide Japan and probably end in a Chinese victory, given that China is the world's most populous country and would be defending itself against a foreign aggressor. More seriously, it could easily escalate into a nuclear holocaust. However, given the nationalistic challenge to China's sovereignty of any Taiwanese attempt to declare its independence formally, forward-deployed US forces on China's borders have virtually no deterrent effect.
Scenario three is ecology- globalization destroys the environment and biodiversity and increases emissions Liverman and Vilas 2006 Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University Center for the Environment Diana M. Liverman and Silvina Vilas June 23, 2006 , NEOLIBERALISM AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN LATIN AMERICA http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.energy.29.102403.14072
Critics of neoliberal environmental management argue that free trade, deregulation, privatization, and commodification are more likely to destroy the environment more than protect it. For example, the Environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis is rejected because it only works for a limited number of countries, for per capita not¶ ¶ absolute pollution data, and for only a few pollutants (e.g., SO2 but not CO2 or¶ ¶ water quality) (25). Critics of trade argue that liberal trade and investment rules¶ ¶ are likely to result in a race to the bottom in the search for pollution havens as¶ ¶ companies flee tough environmental standards in the developed world for lower or¶ ¶ unenforced environmental regulations in developing regions (26). Forest transition¶ ¶ theory is criticized by Koop and Tole (27) who argue that the highly unequal distribution of income in developing countries means that, even when national economic¶ ¶ indicators improve poverty, inequality will continue to drive deforestation.¶ ¶ The privatization of environmental commons has been condemned from human¶ ¶ rights theory e.g., that clean water or air are a common good that should not be¶ ¶ commodified (28) and by those who argue that the state or common property¶ ¶ institutions are better able to protect nature than private interests. For example¶ ¶ Ostrom (18, 19) has documented commons systems that have worked for centuries to manage water and forests in cases where boundaries and members of the¶ ¶ commons community are well defined and there are strong institutions for conflict¶ ¶ resolution and rule making.¶ ¶ Left theorists argue that neoliberal processes are a new form of imperial or¶ ¶ colonial control whereby new resources are identified, expropriated and assigned¶ ¶ to private property, commodified, and exported to support capital accumulation¶ ¶ by powerful interests (10). Political ecology provides a framework that identifies¶ ¶ the changes in political and economic structures, power relations in markets and¶ ¶ property rights, as well as ideas and discourses that promote neoliberal policies¶ ¶ (29). Thus the selling of rights to prospect for biological material of use to the¶ ¶ pharmaceutical industry is seen as a slippery slope toward the wholesale privatization, patenting, and marketing of biodiversity that is not easily valued or separated from the livelihoods of indigenous groups
Two impacts; first, Biodiversity loss guarantees multiple scenarios for extinction, including nuclear war, and turns you economy argument Takacs, Environmental Humanities Prof @ CSU Monteray Bay, 1996 (David, “The Idea of Biodiversity: Philosophies of Paradise” pg. 200-201) So biodiversity keeps the world running. It has value and of itself, as well as for us. Raven, Erwin, and Wilson oblige us to think about the value of biodiversity for our own lives. The Ehrlichs’ rivet-popper trope makes this same point; by eliminating rivets, we play Russian roulette with global ecology and human futures: “It is likely that destruction of the rich complex of species in the Amazon basin could trigger rapid changes in global climate patterns. Agriculture remains heavily dependent on stable climate, and human beings remain heavily dependent on food. By the end of the century the extinction of perhaps a million species in the Amazon basin could have entrained famines in which a billion human beings perished. And if our species is very unlucky, the famines could lead to a thermonuclear war, which could extinguish civilization.” 13 Elsewhere Ehrlich uses different particulars with no less drama: What then will happen if the current decimation of organic diversity continues? Crop yields will be more difficult to maintain in the face of climatic change, soil erosion, loss of dependable water supplies, decline of pollinators, and ever more serious assaults by pests. Conversion of productive land to wasteland will accelerate; deserts will continue their seemingly inexorable expansion. Air pollution will increase, and local climates will become harsher. Humanity will have to forgo many of the direct economic benefits it might have withdrawn from Earth's wellstocked genetic library. It might, for example, miss out on a cure for cancer; but that will make little difference. As ecosystem services falter, mortality from respiratory and epidemic disease, natural disasters, and especially famine will lower life expectancies to the point where cancer (largely a disease of the elderly) will be unimportant. Humanity will bring upon itself consequences depressingly similar to those expected from a nuclear winter. Barring a nuclear conflict, it appears that civilization will disappear some time before the end of the next century - not with a bang but a whimper.14
Seond, Warming Destroys All Life On Earth—once we hit a brink theres a runaway cycle of warming Brandenburg and Paxson (Phds) ’99 John and Monica, Dead Mars, Dying Earth, p. 232 wndi03
One can imagine a scenario for global catastrophe that runs similarly. If the human race adopted a mentality like the crew aboard the ship Californian- as some urge, saying that both ozone hole and global warming will disappear if statistics are properly examined, and we need do nothing about either- the following scenario could occur. The ozone hole expands, driven by a monstrous synergy with global warming that puts more catalytic ice crystals into the stratosphere, but this affects the far north and south and not the major nations’ heartlands. The sea rise, the tropic roast but the media networks no longer cover it. The Amazon rainforest becomes the Amazon desert. Oxygen levels fall, but profits rise for those who can provide it in bottles. An equatorial high pressure zone forms, forcing drought in central Africa and Brazil, the Nile dries up and the monsoons fail, Then inevitably, at some unlucky point in time, a major unexpected event occurs—a major volcanic eruption, a sudden and dramatic shift in ocean circulation or a large asteroid impact ( those who think freakish accidents do not occur have paid little attention to life or mars), or a nuclear war that starts between Pakistan and India and escalates to involve China and Russia…Suddenly the gradual climb in global temperatures goes on a mad excursion as the oceans warm and release large amounts of dissolved carbon dioxide from their lower depths into the atmosphere. Oxygen levels go down precipitously as oxygen replaces lost oceanic carbon dioxide. Asthma cases double and then double again. Now a third of the world fears breathing.. As the oceans dump carbon dioxide, the greenhouse effect increases, which further warms, the oceans, causing them to dump even more carbon. Because of the heat, plants die and burn in enormous fires which release more carbon dioxide, and the oceans evaporate, adding more water vapor to the greenhouse. Soon, we are in what is termed a runaway greenhouse effect, as happened to Venus eons ago. The last two surviving scientist inevitably argue, one telling the other, “See! I told you the missing sink was in the ocean!” Earth, as we know it dies. After this Venusian excursion in temperatures, the oxygen disappears into the soil, the oceans evaporate and are lost and the dead earth loses it ozone layer completely. Earth is too far from the sun for it to be the second Venus for long. Its atmosphere is slowly lost- as is its water- because of ultraviolet bombardment breaking up all the molecules apart from carbon dioxide. As the atmosphere becomes thin, the earth becomes colder. For a short while temperatures are nearly normal, but the ultraviolet sears and life that tries to make a comeback. The carbon dioxide thins out to form a think veneer with a few wispy clouds and dust devils. Earth becomes the second Mars- red, desolate, with perhaps a few hardy microbes surviving.
2/19/17
UIL-Neolib K
Tournament: UIL Districts at Arlington | Round: 3 | Opponent: Arlington BK | Judge: idk Globalization is a façade; it prioritizes the rich, trapping us into a neoliberal order where we can’t take measures needed to aid the economy or the poor. Our argument isn’t that complete control is good, but rather that globalization is too extreme and doesn’t give the ability to make good economic decisions when needed- prefer our evidence Monbiot 12 (George, environmental and political activist, Forbidden Planet, December 3, 2012, monbiot.com)
Neoliberalism, also known as market fundamentalism or laissez-faire economics, purports to liberate the market from political interference. The state, it asserts, should do little but defend the realm, protect private property and remove barriers to business. In practice it looks nothing like this. What neoliberal theorists call shrinking the state looks more like shrinking democracy: reducing the means by which citizens can restrain the power of the elite. What they call “the market” looks more like the interests of corporations and the ultra-rich(1). Neoliberalism appears to be little more than a justification for plutocracy. The doctrine was first applied in Chile in 1973, as former students of the University of Chicago, schooled in Milton Friedman’s extreme prescriptions and funded by the CIA, worked alongside General Pinochet to impose a programme that would have been impossible in a democratic state. The result was an economic catastrophe, but one in which the rich – who took over Chile’s privatised industries and unprotected natural resources – prospered exceedingly(2). The creed was taken up by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. It was forced upon the poor world by the IMF and the World Bank. By the time James Hansen presented the first detailed attempt to model future temperature rises to the US Senate in 1988(3), the doctrine was being implanted everywhere. As we saw in 2007 and 2008 (when neoliberal governments were forced to abandon their principles to bail out the banks), there could scarcely be a worse set of circumstances for addressing a crisis of any kind. Until it has no choice, the self-hating state will not intervene, however acute the crisis or grave the consequences. Neoliberalism protects the interests of the elite against all comers.
And, Free trade doesn’t help the developing world- It kills growth, creating an illusion of progress Ian Fletcher, Huffington post, Free Trade Isn’t Helping World Poverty 03/18/2011 11:41 pm ET | Updated May 25, 2011 Author, ‘Free Trade Doesn’t Work,’ Advisor, Coalition for a Prosperous America, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/free-trade-isnt-helping-w_b_837893.html Unfortunately, free trade just doesn’t work as a global anti-poverty strategy. The spreading Third World affluence one sees in TV commercials only means that the thin upper crust of Western-style consumers is now more widespread than ever before. But having more affluent people in the Third World is not the same as the Third World as a whole nearing the living standards of the First. This is actually not a terribly big secret, and is fairly well known to the people who promote free trade. For a start, the World Bank standard for poverty is $2 a day, so “moving people out of poverty” can merely consist in moving people from $1.99 a day to $2.01 a day. In one major study, there were only two nations in which the average beneficiary jumped from less than $1.88 to more than $2.13: Pakistan and Thailand. Every other nation was making minor jumps in between. The developing world’s gains from trade liberalization (insofar as there are any) are concentrated in a relatively small group of nations, due to the fact that only a few developing nations have economies that are actually capable of taking advantage of freer trade to any meaningful extent. Although it depends a bit on the model, China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Vietnam, and Turkey generally take the lion’s share. This list sounds impressive, but it actually leaves out most Third World nations. Dirt-poor nations like Haiti aren’t even on the radar. Even nations one notch up the scale, like Bolivia, barely figure. So forget helping starving children in Africa this way. They’re not even in the game of international trade—let alone winners of it. Like it or not, this is perfectly logical, as increased access to the ruthlessly competitive global marketplace (which is all free trade provides) benefits only nations whose industries have something to sell which foreign trade barriers are currently keeping out. Their industries must both be strong enough to be globally competitive and have pent-up potential due to trade barriers abroad, a fairly rare combination. As a result, the most desperately impoverished nations, which have few or no internationally competitive industries, have basically nothing to gain from freer trade. What progress against poverty has occurred in the world in recent decades has not been due to free trade, but due to the embrace of mercantilism and industrial policy by some poor nations. (This is, of course, the same way nations like the U.S. and England became prosperous hundreds of years ago.) According to the World Bank, the entire net global decline in the number of people living in poverty since 1981 has been in mercantilist China, where free trade is spurned. “2008 World Development Indicators: Poverty Data Supplement,” The World Bank, 2008, p. 10. Elsewhere, their numbers have grown. The story on global economic progress for poor nations in the last 30 years is roughly as follows: 1. China (one fifth of humanity) braked its population growth, made a quantum leap from agrarian Marxism to industrial mercantilism, and thrived—largely because the U.S. was so open to being the “designated driver” of its export-centered growth strategy during this period. 2. India (another fifth) sharply increased the capitalist share of its mixture of capitalism and Gandhian-Fabian socialism after 1991. It did reasonably well, but not as well as China and not well enough to reduce the absolute number of its people living in poverty, given unbraked population growth. 3. Latin America lost its way after the oil shocks of the 1970s, experienced the 1980s as an economic “lost decade,” and tried to implement the free market Washington Consensus in the 1990s. It didn’t get the promised results, so some nations responded with a pragmatic retreat from free market purism, others with a lurch to the left, the former showing results in the last five years or so. 4. The collapse of Communism left some nations (Cuba, North Korea) marooned in Marxist poverty, while others (Uzbekistan, Mongolia) discovered that the only thing worse than an intact communist economy is the wreckage of one. Much of Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR got burned by an overly abrupt transition to capitalism, then recovered at various speeds. 5. Sub-Saharan Africa spent much of this period in political chaos, with predictable economic results (except for South Africa and Botswana). Washington Consensus policies in the 1990s did not deliver, and the few recent bright spots have yet to deliver increased per capita income or lower unemployment. 6. Other poor countries followed patterns one through five to varying degrees, with corresponding outcomes. China is unquestionably the star here. But all its brutally efficient achievements in forcing up the living standards of its people from an extremely low base, it still has serious problems. Its growth miracle has been largely confined to the metropolitan areas of the country’s coastal provinces. Of the 800 million peasants left behind in agriculture, perhaps 400 million have seen their incomes stagnate or even decline. Over the last 30 years of greatly expanding free trade, most of the world’s poor nations have actually seen the gap between themselves and the rest of the world increase. As economist Dani Rodrik of Harvard summarizes the data: The income gap between these regions of the developing world and the industrial countries has been steadily rising. In 1980, 32 Sub-Saharan countries had an income per capita at purchasing power parity equal to 9.3 percent of the U.S. level, while 25 Latin American and Caribbean countries had an income equal to 26.3 percent of the U.S. average. By 2004, the numbers had dropped to 6.1 percent and 16.5 percent respectively for these two regions. This represents a drop of over 35 percent in relative per capita income. Today, because a few formerly poor nations are succeeding economically while most have been hit with economic decline, the world is splitting into a “twin peaks” income distribution, with a hollowing out of middle-income countries. A significant number of nations have gone backwards, and are now poorer than they were a generation ago. Most poor nations have high fertility, so population growth drags down their per capita income by a percentage point or two every year if economic growth does not outpace it. Contrary to impressions in the media, economic success is actually becoming more concentrated in the Western world, not less. According to one summary of the data by Syed Murshed of Erasmus University in Holland: Between 1960 and 2000 the Western share of rich countries has been increasing; to be affluent has almost become an exclusive Western prerogative—16 out of 19 non-Western nations who were rich in 1960 traversed into less affluent categories by 2000 (for example, Algeria, Angola, and Argentina). Against that, four Asian non-rich countries moved into the first group. Most non-Western rich nations in 1960 joined the second income group by 2000, and most non-Western upper-middle-income countries in 1960 had fallen into the second and third categories by 2000. Of 22 upper-middle-income nations in 1960, 20 had declined into the third and fourth income categories, among them the Democratic Republic of the Congo, also known recently as Zaire, and Ghana. Most nations in the third group in 1960 descended into the lowe
The alternative is to turn the system upside down - in a mass rejection of neoliberal globalization, we say that developing countries should enact protectionist policies in defiance of globalization. This allows development and fights poverty. llen Frank, 2004, a member of the DandS collective, is senior economic analyst at the Poverty Institute at Rhode Island College and author of The Raw Deal: How Myths and Misinformation about the Deficit, Inflation, and Wealth Impoverish America (Beacon Press, 2004).Dollars and Sense, http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2004/0704dollar.html The modern theory of free trade argues that countries are “endowed” with certain quantities of labor, capital, and natural resources. A country with lots of labor but little capital should specialize in the production of labor-intensive goods, like hand-woven rugs, hand-sewn garments, or hand-picked fruit. By ramping up production of these goods, a developing country can trade on world markets, earning the foreign exchange to purchase capital-intensive products like computers and cars. Free trade thus permits poor countries (or, to be more precise, their most well-off citizens) to consume high-tech goods that they lack the ability to produce and so obtain higher living standards. “Capital-rich” countries like the United States benefit from relatively cheap fruit and garments, freeing up their workforce to focus on high-tech goods. Free trade, according to this story, is a win-win game for everyone. The flaw in this tale, which you have hit upon exactly, is that being “capital-rich” or “capital-poor” is not a natural phenomenon like having lots of oil. Capital is created—typically with plenty of government assistance and protection. Developing countries can create industrial capacity and train their citizens to manufacture high-tech goods. But doing so takes time. Building up the capacity to manufacture computers, for example, at prices that are competitive with firms in developed countries may take several years. To buy this time, a government needs to keep foreign-made computers from flooding its market and undercutting less-established local producers. It also needs to limit inflows of foreign capital.