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
Holy Cross
4
Opponent: Durham OC | Judge: William Ponder
Kant AC (yea it wasn't legit but whatever)
Midway
Finals
Opponent: Plano East ES | Judge: there were three but i forget who
Hauntology aff really awkward plan shift thing happened it was weird and kinda abusive
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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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- 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-Disclose or Die Or lose whatever i guess
Tournament: Unbroken | Round: 1 | Opponent: You | Judge: not you Interp- debaters must disclose all broken positions on the NDCA wiki at least 30 min before the start of the round. First year debaters are exempt from my interp. a. engagement b. predictability c. checks abuse d. small schools e. accessibility Vote on jurisdiction, fairness, education
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-Plan flaw
Tournament: UNT | Round: Semis | Opponent: Collyville Heritage AltS | Judge: Rutter, Melin, McGee I lost all my documents. this is to remind myself to update this. rip.
11/29/16
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
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.