Tournament: Dowling | Round: 1 | Opponent: asdf | Judge: asdf
~Be~ in a field long enough, and the sounds   
start up again. The crickets, the invisible   
toad who claims that change is possible,
And all the other life too small to name.   
First one, then another, until innumerable
they merge into the single voice of a summer hill.
Yes, it's hard to ~be~ still, hour after hour,   
fixed as a fencepost, hearing the steers
snort in the dark pasture, smelling the manure.
And ~puzzled~ by the mystery of how a stone   
can bear to be a stone, the pain
the grass endures breaking through the earth's crust.
Unimaginable the redwoods on the far hill,   
rooted for centuries, the living wood grown tall
and thickened with a hundred thousand days of light.
The old windmill creaks in perfect time
to the wind shaking the miles of pasture grass,   
and the last farmhouse light goes off.
-Becoming a redwood by Dana Gioia ~edited for ableist language~

The essence of the university is the signification of reason – constituted through the metaphysical model of being as a self-contained organism, a rational animal. The university reflects and re-produces the center of society suspended over the abyss of its own incompleteness and contradictions. All movement within the confines of the university only enforce its transcendent interiority – we must begin from the marginalized peripheries of the abyss itself. Derrida 83:

The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes of Its Pupils Author(s): Jacques Derrida, Catherine Porter and Edward P. Morris Source: Diacritics, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Autumn, 1983), pp. 2-20 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/464997 Accessed: 16-02-2017
Today, how can we not speak of the university? I put my question
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institutes guardians and calls upon them to watch faithfully- truthfully- over itself

The notion of speech itself encodes violent metaphysical abstraction that necessitates the dialectical destruction of the object in the gaze of the subject. The silent material expression of plants is uniquely marginalized by this conceptualization, and is key to deconstructing the entire metaphysical edifice. Marder 11:

Vegetal anti-metaphysics: Learning from plants Michael Marder Published online: 28 October 2011
The meaning of plants The other remnants of metaphysics in Levinas's oeuvre revolve around his
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complete; something of meaning always burns up along with the tree simpliciter.

So the ROB is to endorse the best method of plant pedagogy.

The alt is to become plant through poetry. Marder 12:

~Michael, Ikerbasque Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz~ The Life of Plants and the Limits of Empathy. Dialogue, 51,  pp 259-273 doi:10.1017/S0012217312000431
A more subtle method of inviting the rapprochement of the human and the vegetal worlds
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existences and mediate between various ontologies without privileging the standpoint of the human Dasei

Metaphysics outweighs – the violent dichotomies that produce human reason and individuality in opposition to plant ontology lead to endless exploitation and extinction. Marder and Vieira 13:

"Writing Phytophilia: Philosophers and Poets as Lovers of Plants" michael marder and patricia vieira
The uneasy predicament of Western philosophy, which has, since the nineteenth century,
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being dogmatically superseded the plant- and animal-like evanescence of wisdom.

Tournament: st marks | Round: 2 | Opponent: Lake Travis KE | Judge: Cade Skelton

FW

The standard is resisting orientalism. The Orient is as a geopolitical construct, deeply engrained in Western language, culture, politics, ethics, and ontology. It creates a totalizing East and West, where the East is defined as merely other than the West. A critical centering of Orientalism is an epistemic prerequisite to discussion of global politics, and so is necessitated by the resolution's question of what is ethical for 'countries'. Said:

Orientalism, Edward Said, New York: Vintage, 1979
Taking the late eighteenth century as a very roughly defined starting point Orientalism can be
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without taking account of the limitations on thought and action imposed by Orientalism. 

Orientalism makes global violence inevitable by constructing a perpetual Oriental threat. Jabri:

abri Professor of International Politics and the Director of the Centre for International Relations at the King's College London 06 ~Vivienne, "War, Security and the Liberal State" Security Dialogue http://sdi.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/37/1/47~~====
What I want to argue
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l enemies, internal and external.

And, academic spaces like debate are uniquely key to interrogating Orientalism from outside its hegemonic grips. Biswas:

Shampa Biswas 2007 Empire and Global Public Intellectuals: Reading Edward Said as an International Relations Theorist
This is especially true for scholars of the global writing in this age of globalisation
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of all, their ability and willingness to be seduced by power.17

To this end, fiat is the best political method. We need to engage in politics and develop pragmatic advocacy skills in order to create any real change. Alinsky gives two warrants:

RULES FOR RADICALS A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals SAUL D. ALINSKY 1971
What I have to say in this book is not the arrogance of unsolicited advice
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of a coming massive repression in the name of "law and order." 

Plan

After the Cold War, the Non-Proliferation Treaty divided the world into five Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) and (now) 186 Non Nuclear Weapons States (NNWS), in order to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, promote the peaceful use of nuclear power, and move towards global disarmament.  But, it didn't really work out like that. The goal of the NPT was to create an equal playing field, but instead the vague and uneven enforcement of the NPT enables the expansion of western hegemony at the expense of eastern and third world interests. Since the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995, NNWS have continued to fight for concrete movement towards disarmament , and NWS, especially the US, have continued to spend billions upgrading their nuclear weapons  and shifting the focus back to non-proliferation, while at the same time finding loopholes in the NPT to allow them to proliferate nuclear weapons to NATO allies . It is understandable to designate states that already have nuclear weapons so they could move towards disarmament. But instead, the NWS/NNWS divide has created a worldview at the heart of this disproportionate enforcement and a new age of nuclear orientalism. Gusterson 1:

Hugh Gusterson. "A Double Standard on Nuclear Weapons?," MIT Center for International Studies Audit of the Conventional Wisdom, 06-08 (April 2006).
There has long been a widespread perception among U.S. defense intellectuals,
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-legal-action-aimed-at-global-nuclear-disarmament

Non-proliferation is futile as long as the western powers the rest of the world must compete with refuse to cooperate on disarmament. Countries naturally want non-proliferation and disarmament, as long as it does not seem to weaken their place in global politics. Gusterson 2:

Hugh Gusterson. "A Double Standard on Nuclear Weapons?," MIT Center for International Studies Audit of the Conventional Wisdom, 06-08 (April 2006).
The second position, participation, is based on Kenneth Waltz's argument that all countries
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to shift the balance of power in their client relationships with the superpowers.

And in the status quo, nuclear powers are spending trillions upgrading their nuclear arsenals . Global nuclear politics are becoming increasingly unstable and dangerous. Krieger 16:

OCTOBER 14, 2016 "The Fierce Urgency of Nuclear Zero" by ~David, is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation~  http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/14/the-fierce-urgency-of-nuclear-zero/
The use of only one or two percent of the more than 15,000
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by mistake, miscalculation or malice. There is no meaningful middle ground.

Thus, I advocate for a joint enterprise among nuclear powers and members of the NPT to fully enforce the NPT and move towards global disarmament. Schultz et al:

 (A WORLD FREE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS By George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn The Wall Street Journal January 4, 2007
http://disarmament.nrpa.no/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/A_WORLD_FREE.pdf  DFS)
The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) envisioned the end of all nuclear weapons
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the actions, the vision will not be perceived as realistic or possible. 

Underview

ANALYTICS
Abstract critique accomplishes nothing when in fails to engage with infrastructural realities and present concrete alternatives. Bryant:
(Levi, prof of philosophy at Collins college, http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/underpants-gnomes-a-critique-of-the-academic-left/) 2012

 We almost never make concrete proposals
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and denounce. Good luck with that.

Tournament: dowling | Round: 4 | Opponent: asdf | Judge: asdf
http://picturethis.museumca.org/timeline/unforgettable-change-1960s/people-s-park-fights-uc-land-use-policy-one-dead-thousands-tear-
In 1969, the proposed use of a three-acre, muddy, trash-filled parking lot off Telegraph Avenue on the South side of the UC Berkeley campus triggered an armed confrontation between police, students, and local residents. It was the most violent confrontation in the university's history. Today, when the word "green" is recognized throughout the world as shorthand for an environmental ethic, it gives pause to remember that a struggle to create a small urban oasis—a park, with trees, grass, and swing sets—pitted students and local residents against university officials, police, and even units of the national guard, leaving one man dead, another permanently blinded, and wounded more than 100 people. Conflict and struggle over a large Berkeley city block bordered by Dwight Way and Haste Street—later called "People's Park"—began when the university's plans to expand campus facilities were stalled by lack of funds, yet remained an administrative priority. In 1956, the university bought property on either side of Telegraph Avenue to build dormitories. By 1960, sixteen blocks of the South Campus area were designated an urban renewal site and Telegraph Avenue was slated to become a pedestrian mall. Although securing federal funds proved elusive, conservative members of the city council continued to urge the university to "clean up" the area, as an increasing number of Haight-Ashbury hippies, runaways, and youngsters were leaving San Francisco after 1967's Summer of Love to join Berkeley students in their quest to find cheap housing in South Campus boarding homes. By the end of 1967, the university had purchased all the properties on the three-acre lot between Haste and Dwight. In spring 1969, a small group of locals—spearheaded by Mike Delacour, a former defense contractor employee turned anti-war activist and a number of former Free Speech Movement activists, New Left radicals, and hippies—decided to take back the empty lot and create a park. The original core of activists were inspired by a desire to find an issue that would unite Berkeley's divergent population: idealistic hippies who wanted a gentle green setting for rock concerts and personal reflection, and the politically oriented radicals who saw an opportunity for confrontation with the university over land-use policies. In April, activists Frank Bardacke and Stew Albert showed the site to their friend, Abbie Hoffman, who predicted the issue would "suck ~then-California governor Ronald~ Reagan into a fight." The group published an article in the local counterculture newspaper, the Berkeley Barb, saying, "The University had no right to create ugliness as a way of life." They called for a public gathering on Sunday, April 20, 1969 to all those interested in "engaging in the creative act of building a park out of the University's muddy ruins". On the appointed day, they were shocked to find they had unwittingly struck a deep chord: hundreds of people were already there, digging, planting and landscaping with gusto. In the span of four weeks, thousands of people worked on the site and a genuine green space took shape. Conservative politicians urged Berkeley's chancellor, Roger Heyns, to crack down on the activists before the regents (all of whom were appointed by the governor) and other state officials arrived for their monthly meeting on May 15. The day before the meeting, Heyns sent a construction crew to bulldoze the park and erect a chain link fence and No Trespassing signs. At 4.30 a.m. on the morning of the Regent meeting, Heyns called for California highway patrolmen to surround~ed~ the park. By noon, thousands gathered a rally at Sproul Plaza on an unrelated topic—the Arab-Israeli conflict—when student body president Dan Siegel urged the crowd to take back the park. The crowd surged forward and marched down Telegraph Ave where police, who fired tear gas and birdshot at the demonstrators, blocked all entrances to the park. At the urging of Berkeley's sheriff and mayor, Governor Ronald Reagan called out the National Guard. As the day wore on, police replaced birdshot with larger, more lethal buckshot. James Rector, an innocent bystander on a side street, was shot in the stomach and later died from his wounds. Alan Blanchard, an assistant manager of the Telegraph Repertory Theatre was permanently blinded. One hundred and ten people were injured and taken to the hospital. For an additional 17 days, the troops patrolled Berkeley with bayonets and guns in hand. Berkeley residents grew furious. Through no action of their own, they were living under martial law with an imposed curfew. Groups of three or larger were not permitted to congregate in public places. Police and guardsmen confiscated cameras. Streets leading in and out of the city were blocked. The lowest point of the struggle occurred on the afternoon of May 20. Several thousand people appeared on campus at Sproul Plaza for a memorial honoring James Rector, the student who had been killed in the initial riot. As the large but peaceful crowd gathered, National Guard units formed a long line down Bancroft Ave and sealed off the campus. Overhead, helicopters released tear gas, spraying the trapped crowd on Sproul Plaza. The crowd panicked, desperate to break through the police lines. The noxious stench reached Cowell Hospital, endangering patients. It caused skin burns on swimmers in the pool at Strawberry Canyon nearly a mile past campus. By then, Berkeley's residents were furious. The citizens were sick of the National Guard and police units that had once been called "Blue Meanies," but were now called "foreign invaders." Local residents, led by Fred and Pat Cody of Cody's Bookstore, organized a peaceful march of over 30,000 people from Memorial Stadium to People's Park. Sorority houses hung banners proclaiming their support. Anti-war Quakers from the local American Friends Service Committee donated 30,000 daisies which demonstrators passed out to guardsmen who placed them in their rifle barrels and bayonets. Marchers also created green banners made from old girl scout uniforms. In mid-June, Reagan withdrew the troops and by the next Regent meeting in Berkeley, residents had pulled down the chain link fence around the park. The city council agreed to lease the land from the University. Within a year, Chancellor Haynes resigned. Residents never forgave the local politicians who called for the National Guard. In the coming election, voters elected established leftists to citywide political office. There are famous photographs that capture the fevered peak of 60s-era protest: hippies at Woodstock in August, 1969, turning muddy fields into an ecstatic sanctuary; hippies in Washington, DC, at the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam in November, 1969, using flower power to protest the military. But these and other potent visual symbols that now sum up an entire decade emerged first in Berkeley, California. Here, both activists and their opponents defined the issues that mattered and how to respond. What began in Berkeley has been taken up and adopted across the country, and witnessed by the entire world.

Somehow, a group of activists and a garden overcame the brute force of the police and the law. We see here the paradoxical powerless power of the plant, that can incite political change by merely being; its corporeality its protest; its pacifism its greatest weapon. This narrative from the Oakland Museum of California explores the practice of 'guerilla gardening', or illegally facilitating the growth of vegetal ecosystems on unused land. In doing so, it reveals possibilities for solidarity with the absolutely subaltern – vegetal life. Ontological violence is visited daily upon plants – who release biochemical signals of distress to one another but whose alien ontology damns them to the peripheries of our utility-obsessed ethics. Everything that western metaphysics would see as a lack within the plant – its lack of autonomy, its lack of opposition to its environment, lack of a clear differentiation between its inside and outside, or between the one and the many— are in fact crucial for us to learn from in the post-metaphysical, and post-environmental-crisis world we inhabit. Moving forward, politics MUST center the plant – this is key to pragmatic political movement that does not merely entrench underlying symbolic hierarchy. Marder 12:

Michael, Ikerbasque Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz~ "RESIST LIKE A PLANT! ON THE VEGETABLE LIFE OF POLITICAL MOVEMENTS" Peace Studies Journal, Vol. 5, Issue 1, January 2012
The politics of space, privileging the sedentary component of bodies largely exposed to the
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stuff out of which philosophy as the history of the future is made.

I look at the resolution and see a garden

From which vegetal possibilities emerge

To limit qualified immunity with plant immunity

Resistance without an Other

The silent scream of a daisy in a rifle barrel

Rings in my head

As I affirm

Guerilla Gardening, contextualized by People's Park, as a grassroots method of undermining the animal ontology of police power. Marder 2:

 It is noteworthy …. . ..  them flourish in us.

This is a poetic, vegetal reading of the resolution. Marder and Vieira 13:

Barros's phyto-metamorphosis ….. vantage point creates communion with trees"

Top-down, snap-on philosophical approaches fail and perpetuate domination –Guerilla gardens geopolitically reproduces a vegetal epistemology of flux, through which we can acquire knowledge via a loving, non-totalizing, non-appropriative quest for truths. Marder and Vieira 2:

"Writing Phytophilia: Philosophers and Poets as Lovers of Plants" michael marder and patricia vieira
In spite of (or, better, thanks to) the rigorous scientific and
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attuning her to singularity, the love of plants opens thought to life.

Next, the ROB is to endorse the best method of vegetal politics. Prefer for three reasons:

First, Marder 12 showing this …………………….  can ethically engage with it.

Second, Marder and Vieira 2 are contextualizing  …………………. metaphysical thought systems.

Third, the subjugation of vegetal and human life are inextricably linked. My method destabilizes the network of dualisms and domination projected onto the plant. Marder 3:

~Michael, Ikerbasque Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz~ The Life of Plants and the Limits of Empathy. Dialogue, 51,  pp 259­273 doi:10.1017/S0012217312000431
At this point, at the apex of natural beauty already verging on the ideal
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self-referentiality and narcissism, needs to be non-dialectically overcome. 

This focus is crucial in the contemporary moment. Human metaphysics cause perpetual exploitation and extinction. Marder and Vieira 3:

The uneasy predicament of …………. animal-like evanescence of wisdom.

Thus, plants.