Tournament: Grapevine | Round: 1 | Opponent: BZ | Judge: Mario Shields

Red Pedagogy AFF:

1AC:

FW:

1. Truth does not exist independently of humans. For instance, individuals would have different interpretations of what is true if they were kept separate from each other. Thus, there are no a priori truth claims that can apply to every instance regardless of the context. Instead, we derive truth based on our relationships and agreements with others. Truth is intersubjective in that it can only exist based on the understanding and affirmation of certain identities and their relationship to others. Without this understanding or affirmation, it is impossible to claim anything as true since everything would be disagreed upon with no reason to prefer one interpretation over any other.

2. Actions that we take are predicated upon confirming/furthering the identity that is based on an aggregate of interactions with others. Because of this, our identities are an established truth. This means that when we take any action, it perpetuates and legitimizes that identity.

3. Identities are recognitive:

a. If truth is intersubjective then when we come into the world and identify other agents we encounter alterity because it has already been given to them as a condition of their identity, and in order for us to recognize that they are other we have to look at their differences; this also means that you can only hold an identity if it is recognized by others because identities are intersubjective truths.

b. When we look to understand alterity, it's impossible to look at all instances at once so we have to focus on specific groups and in doing so that inevitably excludes a forms of the other.

c. Interaction with the other makes us vulnerable because we extend ourselves to the other and become vulnerable to the way that they construct our identities and our necessity for them to affirm our identity. This also opens the possibility for them to misrecognize us, or not recognize us at all.

d. Precariousness must then be the condition for life because what someone considers to be living can only be possible if that person holds an identity that creates conditions for life, this also becomes true at the point that our identity is a form of truth, which is intersubjective.

4. If we do not recognize the precarity of life, then we reject the system of intersubjectivity. If we do not recognize this system, then our conceptions of our own identity and how it is formed ceases to exist. It becomes permissible to misrecognize others, and thus our understanding of our own identity breaks down.  We wouldn't be able to be recognized as people or an identity

5. These norms of recognizing alterity predate us which forces us to evaluate why we should care in the first place. In order to engage in any interaction, including debate, we are already engaging with the structures of recognition to facilitate it. There are no instances in which someone is completely isolated from relationships who would be asking the questions about why this matters, because everyone is unwillingly cast into these relationships. Apprehending the recognition of alterity is a necessary step in making sure we don't misrecognize, or fail to recognize, the other in these inevitable confrontation.

6. Thus the role of the ballot is to radically change pedagogical spaces to open up a dialogue that challenges colonialist ways of conceptualizing the Native American identity so that we can apprehend equal precariousness as a condition of life

Sandy Grande, 2004, associate professor and Chair of the Education Department at Connecticut College her research interfaces critical Indigenous theories with the concerns of education, Red Pedagogy Native American Social and Political Thought, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, https://academictrap.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/sandy-grande-red-pedagogy-native-american-social-and-political-thought.pdf
In recognition of the seeming sociocultural nature of these behaviors, some educators have advocated
AND
work together; referencing the importance of political solidarity and coalition-building. 

7. Ought is defined as mora obligations, an obligation is created when there is sufficient reason to act

Contentions:

1. Uranium mining has harmed Navajo lands, uranium has plagued natives for generations.

Jovana J. Brown, PhD, Her research centers on the participation of American Indian tribes in off-reservation environmental decision-making, and Lori Lambert, PhD, 2010, Blowing in the Wind: The Navajo Nation and Uranium, https://www.evergreen.edu/tribal/docs/blowinginthewindcasestudy.doc
After the uranium ore is mined, it is milled. This is the second
AND
they were the ones who answered the call. (Shirley, 2006)

2. Now HRI's mining will increase radiation levels up to 15 times over the regulatory limit, water and air will become unsafe for nearby residents.

Jovana J. Brown, PhD, Her research centers on the participation of American Indian tribes in off-reservation environmental decision-making, and Lori Lambert, PhD, 2010, Blowing in the Wind: The Navajo Nation and Uranium, https://www.evergreen.edu/tribal/docs/blowinginthewindcasestudy.doc
Though the Navajo Nation has forbidden uranium mining and processing on its lands, it
AND
factor into HRI's future plans. Uranium prices have fluctuated in recent years.

3. Discourse solves, red pedagogy is key to understand the historic oppression inflicted upon natives and recognize them as people with identities.

Clarke, Tracylee, 2010, Assistant Professor at California State University Channel Islands, Goshute Native American Tribe and Nuclear Waste: Complexities and Contradictions of a Bounded- Constitutive Relationship
The controversy surrounding the storing of nuclear waste on the Goshute reservation highlights the critical
AND
and the symbolic, and its implications for tribal conflict and policy development.

Underview:

Interpretation: If a debater advocates an interp, all debaters must only defend a paradigm that necessitates that the judge only vote for the debater who a) wins that a violated interp or counter interp of theirs is the better norm for debate and b) wins that the norm should operate as the most important level of the topicality or theory debate. To clarify: If my opponent initiates theory and does not violate this interp, then the ballot should be determined based on who wins that interp. If my opponent initiates theory and does violate, then the debate collapses down to this interp. But if this interp is violated but I lose the shell then we would move on to the next layer of the debate.

Standard: Quality of clash- in the world where topicality and theory is not a two-way street, the quality of the clash produced in round severely undermined. The debater initiating theory has no incentive to make rigorous justifications for their arguments instead they are encouraged to just try and outspread their opponent. In losing this clash we lose the ability to compare arguments and determine whether the interp being advocated for is a good interp. Theory is a valuable tool that allows students to advocate for what the community should look like, and it must be taken seriously in order to actually create change. The climate for theory now is bad because they just have to extend one thing that I might miss due to time to win; even if I had a better interp it wouldn't generate me sufficient offense to win. Clash is constitutive of debate because if we accept that debate is people presenting, clashing, over two competing ideas, then clash is an independent reason to vote aff

Blocks:

A/T: Natives want the waste:

The supporters of putting waste on reservations are the owners of the uranium mines and the people they pay off

Kevin Kamps 2001, Nuclear Waste Specialist, Nuclear Information Resource Service, 1424 16th Street, NW, Suite 404, Washington, D.C., 20036. 202.328.0002; f: 202.462.2183; http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/pfsejfactsheet.htm
Just 25 tribal members live on the tiny Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians Reservation
AND
," said Utah Governor Mike Leavitt, who adamantly opposes the PFS dump.

Tournament: Grapevine | Round: 1 | Opponent: GE | Judge: 

Tuck and Yang NEG

1NC

Generic K

The kinds of questions that inspire the academy are formed in the rhetoric of the conqueror which leads to colonized forms of knowledge, the alternative is to reject the settler ideology in favor of a desire-based framing method, a higher question to endorsing an advocacy is whether or not the question used to analyze the advocacy is indicative of a method to engage in the problem that is actually solvent of the issue, if not then we have not approached the problem in the right way.

Tuck and Yang, 14
 ~Eve (Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations and Coordinator of Native American Studies at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Earned her Ph.D.in Urban Education at The Graduate Center, The City University of New York in 2008) and K Wayne (Ph.D., 2004, Social and Cultural Studies, University of California, Berkeley), "R-Words: Refusing Research, ~
Under coloniality, Descartes' formulation, cognito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I
AND
. 14). Desire interrupts this metanarrative of damaged communities and White progress.

The use of debate specifically propagates the conquering of knowledge

Tuck and Yang, 14
 ~Eve (Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations and Coordinator of Native American Studies at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Earned her Ph.D.in Urban Education at The Graduate Center, The City University of New York in 2008) and K Wayne (Ph.D., 2004, Social and Cultural Studies, University of California, Berkeley), "R-Words: Refusing Research, ~
One might ask what is meant by the academy, and by the academy being
AND
and mystery-underlie much of modern American culture (p. 59)

Tournament: Grapevine | Round: 2 | Opponent: AO | Judge: Victor Wu

MSR CP

1NR

Counter Plan Text:

Text: Countries ought to prohibit the production of nuclear power except molten salt reactors.

Mike Conley and Tim Maloney, April 17, 20'15, "Lets Run the Numbers; Nuclear Energy vs. Wind and Solar", The Energy Reality Project, http://energyrealityproject.com/lets-run-the-numbers-nuclear-energy-vs-wind-and-solar/, Mike Conley is a writer from L.A., California.
The Molten Salt Reactor was invented by Alvin Weinberg and Eugene Wigner, the same
AND
cheaper than a coal plant, and far cleaner and safer as well. 

Solvency: 

Nuclear power can provide enough energy for millions of years.

Stephen Williams, July 4, 20'16, "How Molten Salt Reactors Might Spell a Nuclear Energy Revolution, ZMEscience, Stephen Williams is a retired software engineer and former technical writer, http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/
Although it is sometimes claimed that nuclear power is not sustainable, the truth is
AND
, which makes up a mere 0.7 of natural uranium.

Extra:

First, MSRs can run with unparalleled safety.

Stephen Williams, July 4, 20'16, "How Molten Salt Reactors Might Spell a Nuclear Energy Revolution, ZMEscience, Stephen Williams is a retired software engineer and former technical writer, http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/
The figure above shows one type of MSR design. As shown towards the left
AND
to both remove undesired fission products and add more fuel to the reactor.

Second, MSRs are much safer than conventional reactors in the face of a terrorist breach

Stephen Williams, July 4, 20'16, "How Molten Salt Reactors Might Spell a Nuclear Energy Revolution, ZMEscience, Stephen Williams is a retired software engineer and former technical writer, http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/
MSRs are walk-away safe. They cannot melt down as can conventional reactors
AND
physically bound to the hardened coolant and do not leave the reactor site.

Third, MSRs can run on existing nuclear waste and leave no traces of long term waste.

Stephen Williams, July 4, 20'16, "How Molten Salt Reactors Might Spell a Nuclear Energy Revolution, ZMEscience, Stephen Williams is a retired software engineer and former technical writer, http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/
Conventional reactors use solid ceramic fuel rods containing enriched uranium. The fission of uranium
AND
rest of the available fuel in these rods to make electricity.

Also, there were no technical reasons why MSRs lost funding after its development in the 1950s.

Bruce Hoglund, November 5, 20'10, "W H Y T H E M O LT E N S A LT R E A C TO R ( M S R ) WA S N OT DEVELOPED BY THE USA", http://moltensalt.org/references/static/downloads/pdf/WhyMSRsAbandonedORNLWeinbergsFiringV3.pdf
'The best way to stop a Revolution is to shoot the leader', or
AND
why the USA abandoned Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors (MSRs) in 1972.

Coal DA

1NC

Uniqueness

Coal consumption is on a rapid decline now

Krukowska, Ewa, 2015, Bloomberg News reporter covering EU climate and energy policy from Brussels, Global Coal Consumption Heads for Biggest Decline in History, Bloomberg, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-08/global-coal-consumption-headed-for-biggest-decline-in-history
Coal consumption is poised for its biggest decline in history, driven by China's battle
AND
more stranded coal assets — both mines and coal-fired power plants."

In the absence of nuclear energy, coal and other fossil fuels would be the dominant energy source receiving the most subsidies.

World Nuclear Association, June 2016, "World Energy Needs and Nuclear Power", http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/world-energy-needs-and-nuclear-power.aspx
WEO 2011 also included a "Low Nuclear Case (which) examines the implications
AND
$240 billion per year in 2035, for 31 of power).

Air pollution kills thousands per day and decreases value to life

Berkeley Earth, 15 (group of scientists dedicated to the study of pollution; "KILLER AIR"; 8/13/15; Berkeley Earth; http://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Press-Release-Killer-Air-August-2015.pdf )KW
Berkeley Earth released today a study showing that air pollution kills an average of 4000
AND
see: http://berkeleyearth.org/air-pollution-overview/. 

Air pollution has the same effect as nuclear winter

Kaiman 14 (Jonathan Kaiman is an Asia correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, reporting from Beijing; China's toxic air pollution resembles nuclear winter, say scientists; 2/25/14; The Guardian; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/25/china-toxic-air-pollution-nuclear-winter-scientists )KW
Chinese scientists have warned that the country's toxic air pollution is now so bad that
AND
bring Shijiazhuang the attention it has deserved for a long time."