Round 5 - Liberty
1nc
OFF
Problem gambling low, but expanding OG poses risks
Statement of Keith s. Whyte, executive director, national council On problem gambling (NCPG) “ H.R. 2266, The Reasonable Prudence In Regulation
Act; and H.R. 2267, The Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, And Enforcement Act” congressional testimony, December 3, 2009
printed for the use of the committee on financial services serial no. 111-92 http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-111hhrg56235/html/CHRG111hhrg56235.htm ac 7-27
Problem gambling is an important public health disorder characterized by increasing preoccupation with and loss of control over gambling,
restlessness or irritability when attempting to stop gambling, and/or continued gambling despite serious negative consequences. Approximately 2 million
adults, which is 1 percent of the population, meet criteria for pathological gambling in a given year. An additional 4 to
6 million adults, another 2 to 3 percent, plus 500,000 youth between the ages of 12 to 17 show less severe but still
serious symptoms of a gambling problem in a given year. The estimated social cost to families and communities
from gambling-related bankruptcy , divorce , crime , and job loss was almost $7 billion last year. Problem
gamblers also have high rates of other health problems and disorders . But regardless of the legality of Internet gambling,
millions of Americans today right now are experiencing gambling problems devastating themselves, their
families, and their communities. The only research information we have on Internet gambling shows that Internet
gambling in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom has the lowest participation rates of any form of gambling,
whether legal or illegal. Internet gamblers are also extremely likely to gamble in multiple traditional forms , if you
will, to the extent that it appears that Internet gambling is an add-on for people already involved in gambling. Internet gamblers who spend significant
amounts of time and money, while relatively rare, are, of course, more likely to meet problem gambling criteria. While participation in Internet
gambling by U.S. residents appeared to decline after the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, UIGEA,
we did not see a decrease in indicators of gambling problems, such as helpline calls. If you will refer to my written testimony, we have a chart of the last
10 years of helpline calls to the national helpline number, which is the largest problem gambling helpline in the world. There are a number of possible
explanations, of course, for the continued rise in these statistics, including the fact that our timeframe is too short to see what impact UIGEA may or may
not have had on rates of problem gambling in the United States or rates of help-seeking for problem gambling in the United States. It is likely that
individuals with gambling problems will find the Internet attractive for pursuing their addiction. Risk factors for gambling problems on the
Internet include high speed of play, perceived anonymity , social isolation , and, of course, the use of credit or
noncash means to
finance the gambling, as well as the 24-hour access . However, it is important to note many of these factors can
also be found in more traditional forms of gambling. These factors are mutable and are not specific to any one form of gambling or one delivery system
of gambling.
Legalization collapses the global economy and ruins people’s lives—worse than ‘08
Jan Dennis, 12/3/2009 | Business & Law Editor, University of Illinois News Bureau, quotes John W. Kindt, University of Illinois Professor and
Gambling Expert, “Online gambling a threat to global economy, U. of I. expert says“ University of Illinois,
http://news.illinois.edu/news/09/1203gambling.html ac 9-1
Legalized o nline g ambling would fuel an epic surge of betting in the U.S., leaving lives in tatters and the world’s
economy in jeopardy , a University of Illinois professor and national gambling critic warns. ¶ John W. Kindt says U.S. Rep. Barney Frank’s
renewed push to overturn the decades-old ban on
o nline g ambling would put the nation at risk of an economic collapse
rivaling the 2007 sub-prime mortgage crisis that sparked a deep and lingering global recession .¶ “Barney Frank has
been railing against the lack of regulation on Wall Street and now he’s trying to create an even more dangerous threat by throwing the prohibition against
Internet gambling into the toilet,” said Kindt, a professor of business and legal policy who has studied gambling for more than two decades.¶ Frank, a
Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, resumed hearings Thursday on legislation he sponsored that would lift
the longtime ban on Internet gambling, allowing the Treasury Department to license and regulate online gaming companies that service American
customers.¶ Legalizing
online gambling and the firms that run it would create a potentially disastrous speculative bubble
in U.S. financial markets similar to the sub-prime mortgage crisis, spawning fast-growing companies with
exaggerated earnings expectations that far outstrip real value, Kindt said.¶ “I actually think a speculative bubble on
Internet gambling would be worse because it’s based on nothing,” Kindt said. “With the sub-prime crisis, there was
at least some real property involved . With online gambling, there’s nothing but people dumping money into their
computers.Ӧ Global markets have already seen the consequences, Kindt said. The London Stock Exchange, which permits trading of online
gaming company shares, saw its value plunge by $40 billion in one day after the U.S. strengthened its ban on Internet gambling in 2006.¶ O nline
g ambling also would “ throw gasoline” on a recession that has already cut deeply into Americans’ savings and
put more than 7 million people out of work, Kindt said. ¶ “Money that should be spent on cars, refrigerators and other
goods that build the economy and create jobs would instead be wasted on Internet gambling in every living
room, at every work desk and at every school desk,” he said.¶ Kindt says Frank’s bill flies in the face of research that supports
maintaining a ban that traces to the 1961 Federal Wire Act, pushed through by then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to curb the flow of money for
organized crime.¶ “In today’s world, that money-laundering threat also applies to terrorist organizations,” said Kindt, a contributing editor and author of
the United States International Gambling Report Series, a 3,000-page collection released this year that includes hundreds of pages on the perils of
online betting.¶ He says online
gambling also would yield steep social costs , including gambling addiction ,
bankruptcies and crime .¶ The threat of addiction is especially high among younger people , who studies show
are already twice as prone to gambling problems as older Americans, Kindt said. Studies estimate that about 4 percent of
young people are addicted to gambling and 8 to 12 percent are problem gamblers.¶ “It’s getting worse and worse as
gambling spreads and would soar if o nline g ambling is legalized,” he said. “ I nternet g ambling is known as the crack
cocaine of creating new, addicted gamblers because it’s so accessible.”¶ Kindt says bankruptcy and crime rates also
would balloon as people deplete family finances or raid their employers’ accounts to cover online gambling debts.¶ Thursday’s hearing on Frank’s
bill comes less than a week after the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve postponed the effective date of new regulations that would strengthen
the existing ban.¶ The new rules, which had been set to take effect Dec. 1 but were pushed back until June 1 of next year, would prohibit U.S. financial
institutions from accepting payments from credit cards, checks or electronic fund transfers to settle online wagers. U.S. bettors have been estimated to
supply at least half of the revenue of the $16 billion online gambling industry, which is largely hosted overseas.¶ Frank said the delay will give Congress
time to overturn the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. He also sought to repeal the act but failed in 2007, just a year after Congress
approved the measure.¶ He argues that online gambling should be legal as a matter of personal liberty and that the federal government could gain tax
revenues if Internet gambling is allowed and regulated.¶ Kindt disagrees, saying the costs far outweigh the benefits.¶ “Online gambling should not be
legalized for the same reasons that hard drugs remain banned,” he said. “The social and crime costs are enormous and if gambling
is easy to access more and more people will get hooked.”
OFF
The United States should
 create a strict criminal ban for online gambling, including but not limited to criminal
sanctions on both operators and players, and publically announce the decision as part
of a broad campaign to raise awareness about the law
 repeal the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, taking upon itself all
responsibilities for enforcing anti-gambling legislation and provide all necessary
resources to financial institutions to ensure its enforcement
 amend the Horseracing Act, Wire Act, Travel Act and Illegal Gambling Business Act to
comport with the WTO ruling
that brings the US into compliance with the WTO and builds credibility to survive the fallout
Heather A. Bloom 2008 * BIO: * J.D., 2008, The George Washington University Law School; B.A., Georgetown University Fall, 2008 “ARTICLE:
UPPING THE ANTE: THE UNLAWFUL INTERNET GAMBLING ENFORCEMENT ACT'S NONCOMPLIANCE WITH WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION
LAW” South Carolina Journal of International Law & Business 5 S.C. J. Int'l L. & Bus. 75 Lexis
To comply with GATS, the U.S. should first clarify that the UIGEA applies to betting on horseracing, as well as
amend the IHA to prohibit internet gambling on pari-mutuel wagering . Second , the U.S. should adjust the UIGEA
to fit within the GATS public morals exception . The following suggestions are the most practical measures for
the U.S. to take because they involve little change to existing U.S law, yet are significant enough to prevent
further i nternet g ambling complaints from member countries. n160 Amending the UIGEA would put the U.S. in a
better position should future WTO complaints against the U.S. arise. Modifying existing U.S. law is necessary
because it is difficult to amend the list of GATS commitments . n161¶ 1. THE U.S. SHOULD MODIFY THE IHA AND
UIGEA TO APPLY TO ONLINE WAGERING ON HORSERACING ¶ First, the U.S. should amend the IHA and clarify
that the UIGEA applies to betting on horseracing. n162 Currently, the IHA discriminates against foreign service
suppliers: it permits "domestic, but not foreign, services suppliers to offer remote betting service in relation to
certain horse races." n163 Despite the DOJ's position that all types of remote internet gambling are illegal under existing federal law, the U.S.
should follow the Appellate Body's interpretation and modify the IHA and [*102] UIGEA. n164 The DOJ's position conflicts
with (1) the Fifth Circuit's holding in In re MasterCard; n165 (2) general principles of statutory construction; n166 and (3) the exceptions carved out in the
2 . THE U.S. SHOULD MODIFY THE UIGEA TO ENSURE THAT IT FALLS WITHIN THE PUBLIC MORALS
EXCEPTION¶ Second, the U.S. should adjust the UIGEA to fit within the public morals exception. Although a WTO
panel would likely find that the UIGEA satisfies the first prong of the public morals test, the scope of public
morals exception, the U.S. should nevertheless amend the statute to clarify that the purpose of the UIGEA is not
only to target debt collection and to improve law enforcement, but also to prevent fraud, money laundering, and
underage gambling. n168 With respect to the second prong of the public morals test, the necessity requirement, the U.S.
UIGEA. n167¶
should amend the UIGEA to ban all forms of remote internet gambling . Prohibiting all offshore internet
gambling is a more "WTO-consistent alternative measure" that the U.S. should take, given the likelihood that future
complaints against the U.S. would focus on this second prong. n169 Thus,
the best way for the U.S. to prohibit all forms of remote
internet gambling is to apply the ban to horseracing . n170
OFF
Iran deal now – capital key to get congress on board
The Economist 10-31-14 “We shall overcome, maybe” http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21628603-chances-deal-west-we-shallovercome-maybe
MILLIONS OF EDUCATED and prosperous Iranians resent being isolated from the rest of the world. Until sanctions started to emasculate trade, life had
been gradually improving. Now many people have lost their jobs or seen their pay and savings eroded by inflation. The government, too, is having a
difficult time. Oil revenues have dwindled and allies around the region are wobbling. Is relief in sight? After nine months of nuclear talks in Geneva, the
broad outlines of a possible deal with the West are becoming clear. The aim is to ensure that Iran would need
about a year to build a bomb, giving the West plenty of advance warning. To achieve that, the two sides are talking about
limiting Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 5% for the next decade or so, and putting the plutonium programme at Arak to irreversibly civilian
use. All this would be monitored closely by international inspectors, but without forcing Iran to acknowledge past weapons tests in
any detail. In return, Iran could expect a rolling (though reversible) lifting of sanctions over several years. According to
one Western official involved in the negotiations, “ technical issues are not the main problem .” The tough part is
convincing the respective elites back home to accept the deal that is on the table. The real negotiations
arguably take place in Tehran and Washington, not Geneva. A majority of American congressmen seem reluctant to
approve anything negotiated by the White House, even if their own generals say it is in America’s national
interest. Mr Rohani, for his part, faces pushback from conservatives, even though a deal promises to relieve economic and regional pressures.
Opposition is driven by each side’s suspicion of the other. Some of that may be justified. Iran has repeatedly lied about and cheated over its nuclear
programme. Equally, many of the Washington-based architects of the sanctions would like to see regime change in Tehran. Both sides have covertly
and overtly harmed each other in recent years, compounding distrust. However, mutual suspicion is also driven by pride, ignorance, historical grievances
and partisan self-interest. American suggestions in the past that the Islamic Republic might be close to collapse still rankle in Tehran. One academic
close to the revolutionary guards says testily, “America keeps thinking we are about to sink, that we’ll implode. I say, just come to terms with reality. We
have figured out a stable path.” Iranians complain that America is being hypocritical, supporting autocratic Saudi Arabia while denouncing more
democratic Iran. Americans retort that the Saudis have not tried to kill or kidnap them, and point out that Iran has its own double standards, supporting
the crushing of a revolution in Syria that is similar to its own in 1979. Iranian students at Tehran University are particularly aggrieved by what they see as
American hypocrisy in foreign military missions, asking why Americans supplied weapons to rebels in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s. The
students quote from a Hollywood film on the subject, “Charlie Wilson’s War”, in which American officials intone, “Let’s go kill some Russians.” So why,
they ask, were Americans so offended when Iran used similar tactics against them in Iraq? Historical grievances lurk everywhere. Three decades ago
America shot down a civilian Iranian airliner, and Iran helped to bomb America’s embassy in Beirut. Hardliners on both sides are still looking for revenge.
In April Mr Rohani tried to appoint his deputy chief of staff, Hamid Aboutalebi, as head of Iran’s UN mission in New York. But the ambassador was
denied a visa after an outcry in Congress because he had played a minor part in the hostage crisis in 1979. America thus deprived itself of the chance to
have a trusted interlocutor on its doorstep. Many Iranian leaders have built political careers on bashing America. To a lesser degree the same in reverse
is true for some congressmen with close links to Israel. Accommodation now would cause a loss of face, maybe even of factional support. Yet overall,
the greatest obstacle to reaching a deal is ignorance rather than self-interest. Iran’s supreme leader believes that the American government, not just its
hardliners, wants to see him toppled. He misread the Ukrainian revolt earlier this year as an American plot. Enigma variations No diplomat from either
Iran or America has been posted in the other’s capital for 35 years, though some Iranians have served at the UN in New York. In a documentary called
“The Fog of War”, Robert McNamara, who served as America’s defence secretary in the 1960s, said that America escaped disaster in the Cuban missile
crisis because its officials knew their adversaries in Moscow and could work out what sort of deal they might accept. On the other hand, America came
to grief in Vietnam because it knew nothing and nobody in Hanoi. A central premise of the war—America’s fear that North Vietnam might form a
communist alliance with China—ignored the fact that the two regimes hated each other. In the absence of knowledge, people will err on the side of
caution. A politically active member of the Khomeini family forcefully makes this point: When I visit a new city I figure out two or three main roads and
use them to go anywhere—even if it takes longer—because I fear getting lost. Eventually I will try new, shorter routes. But as soon as I’m no longer sure
where I am I revert to the thoroughfares. Regime hardliners act much the same. Occasionally they try new, conciliatory routes, but as soon as they feel
insecure they revert to familiar antagonism. They know they won’t get lost that way, even if it means travelling the long way round. You have to
remember that most of them have spent very little time in the West and feel intimidated by it. Just listen to all the talk of past humiliations. They regard it
as a hostile environment they don’t understand. It fits into the wider historical experience of the Shia as a minority sect. We have long been the victims,
or at least defined ourselves as such, dressing in black. The most successful strategy in our past has been to hunker down, wait and distrust rather than
act. Seen in this light, the nuclear negotiators have taken courageous steps. To get the talks going, America conceded that in principle Iran could enrich
nuclear fuel for civilian use. In return, Iran froze its programme for the duration of the talks. Both sides appear committed to reaching a deal. They
recognise that this is a rare moment. For the first time since 1979 the governments in Tehran and Washington both want to improve relations at the
same time. Previously, one or the other was always on the warpath. Many observers believe that a deal will either be done in the next few
months or not at all. Both presidents have a narrow window to sell it at home. Mr Obama is likely to face an even
more hostile Congress from next January and will soon become a lame duck. Mr Rohani is struggling to hold off hardliners
and cannot afford to use all his political capital on this venture. If the November 24th deadline is missed by much, the naysayers
on both sides will claim that no deal can be had, making a future agreement even harder. Others think it is possible or
even likely that the two sides will formally extend the talks. They see little sign of Iranian hardliners accepting the sort of deal that is available. Yet neither
they nor the Americans want to see the talks fail conclusively. Negotiations may yet drag on into next year. The prizes to be had If the negotiators do
succeed, it will be because the potential benefits would be substantial, especially for Iran. In its foreign relations, it could breathe easier and come a step
closer to fulfilling its ambition of leading other nations in the region. The partial withdrawal of American troops from the Gulf would be a strategic victory.
The economy would be likely to pick up. Foreign investors are ready to return to Iran. Many have visited in recent months in anticipation of an opening.
Rolling back sanctions would take a long time, and difficult economic reforms will still be needed. But there would be some quick results. Car production
could soon double, and so might oil exports. The impact on Iranian domestic politics is harder to gauge. Mr Rohani could expect a boost from the lifting
of sanctions and improve his longer-term chances of succeeding Mr Khamenei as supreme leader. However, if he is seen as garnering too much
acclaim too quickly, hardliners may decide to take him down a peg, say, by blocking economic reforms or boosting sponsorship of foreign extremists.
People close to Mr Rohani suggest that he has a longer-term plan to use the momentum he would gain from lifting sanctions into reshaping the political
system. The next step would be to win more seats in parliament. But how much more sway he could gain is uncertain. Hardliners retain control of many
levers of power. The totems of their ideology, from denouncing Israel to insisting on the veil for women, are unlikely to disappear. Progress will be slow.
If no nuclear deal is signed, the domestic pendulum is likely to swing in the opposite direction. Conservatives will reassert themselves. They
have already talked of running a “resistance economy”, meaning one less reliant on trade. Hostility towards the West would increase. State media would
resume their mantra that America is only interested in destroying Iran. The likely American response would be to impose more
sanctions. In the absence of a deal, Congress will conclude that Iran is not serious about finding a solution and
tighten its grip still further. The question is whether other countries will go along with it. China may no longer be willing to curtail trade with Iran.
Russia is already in talks about a $20 billion barter deal. Some of Iran’s old trading partners in Europe could peel away too, especially if they feel that
America is to blame for the failure of the talks. Even so, as long as American banking sanctions remain in place, trade will continue to suffer. And if Iran
still refuses to budge? Pressure to bomb its nuclear installations would increase, but until hope of a deal has completely evaporated America seems
unlikely to attack Iran when it is also fighting Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria, protecting Europe from Russia and guarding Asian allies against an
increasingly aggressive China. By comparison, doing a deal with Iran may seem easy.
Plan causes huge fight—particularly from the right
Karoun Demirjian, journalist, “Harry Reid Rushes Effort to Legalize Internet Poker,” LAS VEGAS SUN, 12—7—10,
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/dec/07/reid-pushes-online-poker-bill/
But Internet
gambling is as controversial in Washington as it has historically been in the gaming industry, meaning that while the lame-duck
still going to be a hard road. The bill is a work in progress, but
opposition is in full swing on the Hill, where critics are lobbying against it on both moral and fiscal grounds. Ranking
session is likely Reid’s best chance to push something through, it’s
Republicans of the House’s three committees with jurisdiction on Internet gambling — Spencer Bachus of Financial Services, Dave Camp of Ways and
Means, and Lamar Smith of Judiciary — are lobbying the Senate against taking up any measure that “might be partially motivated by one of the gravest
sins that afflicts this Congress: desperation for more tax dollars to pay for ever-increasing federal spending.” “Creating a federal right to gamble
that has never existed in our country’s history and imposing an unprecedented new tax regime on such activity require careful
deliberation, not backroom deals or earmarks or special interests,” they wrote in a letter sent to Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
— who has historically opposed Internet gambling. The letter amounts to little more than emphatic opposition from the minority. But in a
few weeks, those same Republicans enter the majority in the House, from where they could easily stop similar legislation, adding to the urgency for Reid
to work fast. Lobbyists guess that the bill could hit the Senate floor as early as next week. Reid won re-election with the backing of Nevada’s biggest
gaming operators. For example, Caesars Entertainment facilitated union efforts to drive up voter turnout among members. And MGM Resorts CEO Jim
Murren endorsed Reid in campaign ads. Mainstream Republican opposition to legalization of online gambling has always been fierce. In 2006,
one of the last acts of the Republican Congress was passing the [UIGEA] Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which outlawed all forms of
gambling online — and, advocates say, helped to drive this offshore business further underground.
Deal failure ensures a war
Ben Windsor, “A Coalition Is Working Furiously Behind the Scenes to Support Obama’s Iran Talks,” BUSINESS INSIDER 10—2—14,
http://www.businessinsider.com/rag-tag-iran-coalition-backing-diplomacy-2014-10
Since November 2013, the Obama administration has engaged with Iran in tense, drawn-out nuclear negotiations which optimists hope could bring an
end to decades of hostility and mistrust. Throughout it all, Congress has threatened to play the spoiler, with a tough sanctions bill passing
which would almost certainly scuttle the fragile talks over the Iranian nuclear program. Now, as the
officials are working to hold
Congress back from the brink of thwarting what they see as a historic window of opportunity. They're fighting against legislators and
conservative groups like The Heritage Foundation and The Free Enterprise Institute who are pushing for the US to take a hawkish
stance. Legislators, led by Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, have been maneuvering quietly behind the scenes in Congress to keep the talks
alive. At the same time, officials from the White House have been leaning heavily on Senate Democrats to refrain from bringing
a sanctions bill to the floor. On the outside, a diverse range of pro-diplomacy groups, led by organisations like the National Iranian American
the House and looming in the Senate
deadline for the end of the talks approaches, a coalition of legislators, advocacy groups, and White House
Council (NIAC) and the liberal Jewish organization J Street, have found a common cause and rallied together to lobby for restraint. Even the Quakers
are energized. “This is a do-or-die moment, either we succeed, or we go in a much more negative direction,” said NIAC co-founder Trita Parsi at the
group’s annual conference last weekend. Parsi sees the negotiations as a historic moment during a narrow window of opportunity. Presidents on
have sunk significant time and energy into the talks and Parsi believes the current leadership in both countries is
more likely to make a deal than those who came before — or might come after. “The next president, whatever political party they’re in,
is not going to spend precious political capital battling Congress… [Obama] is the guy,” Parsi said. Supporters fear that
failure of the talks could trigger increased sanctions, the rise of hardliners in Iran, and relations spiraling toward
military confrontation.
both sides
Nuclear war
John Scales Avery, Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen,” COUNTERCURRENTS, 11—5—13,
http://www.countercurrents.org/avery061113.htm
Despite the willingness of Iran's new President, Hassan Rouhani to make all reasonable concessions to US demands, Israeli pressure groups in
Washington continue to demand an attack on Iran. But such an attack might escalate into a global nuclear war, with catastrophic
consequences. As we approach the 100th anniversary World War I, we should remember that this colossal disaster escalated uncontrollably from what
minor conflict. There is a danger that an attack on Iran would escalate into a large-scale war in the Middle East,
destabilizing a region that is already deep in problems. The unstable government of Pakistan might be overthrown, and
the revolutionary Pakistani government might enter the war on the side of Iran, thus introducing nuclear weapons into the
conflict. Russia and China, firm allies of Iran, might also be drawn into a general war in the Middle East. Since much of the world's oil
comes from the region, such a war would certainly cause the price of oil to reach unheard-of heights, with catastrophic
effects on the global economy. In the dangerous situation that could potentially result from an attack on Iran, there is a risk that nuclear
weapons would be used, either intentionally, or by accident or miscalculation. Recent research has shown that besides making large areas of the
world uninhabitable through long-lasting radioactive contamination, a nuclear war would damage global agriculture to such a extent that
a global famine of previously unknown proportions would result. Thus, nuclear war is the ultimate ecological catastrophe. It could
destroy human civilization and much of the biosphere. To risk such a war would be an unforgivable offense against the lives and future of all
was intended to be a
entirely
the peoples of the world, US citizens included.
WTO
The US withdrew from it’s commitments
--that solves the dispute
Yevgeniya Roysen* Yevgeniya Roysen, Articles Editor, Cardozo Arts & Ent. L.J.; J.D. Candidate, 2009, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; B.A.,
2006, Economics and History, magna cum laude, New York University. “NOTE AND RECENT DEVELOPMENT: TAKING CHANCES: THE UNITED
STATES' POLICY ON INTERNET GAMBLING AND ITS INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS+”
JOURNAL 26 Cardozo Arts & Ent LJ 873 Lexis
2009 CARDOZO ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW
Although the official reason for withdrawal remains the correction of an oversight, it is unclear whether the United States actually erred or is now simply
trying to escape its commitments. By withdrawing, the United States took drastic measures. Yet, the government is arguing that its
withdrawal now places it in compliance with the GATS, thereby making any furtherance of the dispute
unnecessary . n116 The move itself has been characterized by Mark Mendel, one of the attorneys for the Antiguan government, as "a most
shocking development" that when used "in the face of an adverse DSU ruling is nothing short of incredible." n117 The withdrawal of the United States
may also be viewed as cowardly and insulting to the rest of the WTO community, and has in fact resulted in accusations of bad faith on the part of a
nation unwilling to succumb to the continuous adverse rulings against it. n118
Antigua challenge is insignificant and other disputes pound
William J. Davey 14 PhD, currently teaches International Trade Law at the University of Illinois, previously served as the director of the Legal Affairs
Division of the World Trade Organization. He has served on several WTO dispute settlement panels. “The WTO and Rules-Based Dispute Settlement:
Historical Evolution, Operational Success, and Future Challenges” J Int Economic Law (2014) 17 (3): 679-700.
Indeed, if one takes a longer-term perspective and asks in which disputes implementation has never been achieved, it can be said that for the most part ,
there are only a few, relatively insignificant cases that have remained on the DSBs surveillance agenda. For
example, at the DSB meeting of 25 April 2014, there were 10 items on the surveillance part of the agenda and in
respect of one of the items the reasonable period of time for implementation had not expired.50 In three cases,
implementation may have been overdue, but only by a year or two. One of those cases involved a US antidumping measure on
shrimp challenged by Vietnam, where some of the contested implementation issues are soon to be considered by a new panel sought by Vietnam in
respect of related US antidumping measures on shrimp.51 The second case involved a Filipino challenge to various Thai customs measures involving
Thai treatment of Filipino cigarettes, a matter which has been implemented for the most part.52 The third case concerned USA claims that China has
failed to implement completely the decision in the China – Electronic Payment Systems case.53 Implementation was long overdue in the
remaining six cases. Four of those cases involved EU and/or Japanese complaints against US measures that overall
involve relatively little trade (Section 211 – Havana Club; Section 1105 – Irish Music)54 or have been partially implemented or
settled (Hot-Rolled Steel and Byrd).55 One involved a US complaint against the EU (Biotech) that the EU has settled with
the other complainants.56 Finally, there is the Antiguan challenge to US restrictions on cross-border internet
gaming, a matter that the USA has negotiated settlements with all other interested WTO members .57 Thus, while
it would be nice to see these items finally removed from the DSB’s agenda, they are not major cases.
No WMD Terror
John J. Mearsheimer 14, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, “America
Unhinged”, January 2, nationalinterest.org/article/america-unhinged-9639?page=show
Am I overlooking the obvious threat that strikes fear into the hearts of so many Americans, which is terrorism? Not at all. Sure, the United States has
a terrorism problem . But it is a minor threat . There is no question we fell victim to a spectacular attack on September 11, but it did not
cripple the United States in any meaningful way and another attack of that magnitude is highly unlikely in the foreseeable
future. Indeed, there has not been a single instance over the past twelve years of a terrorist organization exploding a
primitive bomb on American soil, much less striking a major blow. Terrorism—most of it arising from domestic groups—was a much bigger
problem in the United States during the 1970s than it has been since the Twin Towers were toppled.¶ What about the possibility that a
terrorist group might obtain a nuclear weapon? Such an occurrence would be a game changer, but the chances of that happening
are virtually nil . No nuclear-armed state is going to supply terrorists with a nuclear weapon because it would have no
control over how the recipients might use that weapon. Political turmoil in a nuclear-armed state could in theory allow
terrorists to grab a loose nuclear weapon, but the United States already has detailed plans to deal with that highly unlikely
contingency.¶ Terrorists might also try to acquire fissile material and build their own bomb. But that scenario is
extremely unlikely as well : there are significant obstacles to getting enough material and even bigger obstacles
to building a bomb and then delivering it. More generally, virtually every country has a profound interest in making sure no
terrorist group acquires a nuclear weapon, because they cannot be sure they will not be the target of a nuclear attack, either
by the terrorists or another country the terrorists strike. Nuclear terrorism, in short, is not a serious threat . And to the extent that we should worry
about it, the main remedy is to encourage and help other states to place nuclear materials in highly secure custody.
Disregard their terror impact evidence – assumes the worst-case scenario- their author
Ayson ’10 – Professor of Strategic Studies and Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies: New Zealand at the Victoria
University of Wellington (Robert, “After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic Effects,” Studies in
Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 33, Issue 7, July, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via InformaWorld)
For argument's sake let it be assumed then that the hypothetical nuclear terrorist attack occurs in the continental United States, and that there are very serious civilian
casualties and structural damage radiating out from ground zero.34 What response is most likely to eventuate from the superpower so targeted? It
might be assumed that the response will automatically be a severe one: a magnified version of America's
response to 9/11, which has had a major impact on international politics, including the campaigns that were launched in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the other
components of the “War on Terror.” But before doing so, it is useful to realize that there is an entire spectrum of potential (or at least
conceivable) responses that could result. These range from very little obvious action to the most formidable display of
retaliatory power.
Trade is irrelevant for war
Katherine Barbieri 13, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of South Carolina, Ph.D. in Political Science from Binghamton
University, “Economic Interdependence: A Path to Peace or Source of Interstate Conflict?” Chapter 10 in Conflict, War, and Peace: An Introduction to
Scientific Research, google books
How does interdependence affect war , the most intense form of conflict? Table 2 gives the empirical results . The rarity of wars makes any analysis of their
causes quite difficult, for variations in interdependence will seldom result in the occurrence of war. As in the case of MIDs, the log-likelihood ratio tests for each model suggest that the inclusion of the
various measures of interdependence and the control variables improves our understanding of the factors affecting the occurrence of war over that obtained from the null model. However, the individual
interdependence variables, alone, are not statistically significant. This is not the case with contiguity and relative capabilities, which are both statistically significant. Again, we see that contiguous dyads
are more conflict-prone and that dyads composed of states with unequal power are more pacific than those with highly equal power. Surprisingly, no evidence is provided to support the commonly held
evidence from the pre-WWII period provides support for
those arguing that economic factors have little, if any, influence on affecting leaders’ decisions to engage in war, but
proposition that democratic states are less likely to engage in wars with other democratic states.¶ The
many of the control variables are also statistically insignificant. These results should be interpreted with caution, since the sample does not contain a sufficient number wars to allow us to capture great
variations across different types of relationships. Many observations of war are excluded from the sample by virtue of not having the corresponding explanatory measures. A variable would have to have
an extremely strong influence on conflict—as does contiguity—to find significant results. ¶ 7.
Conclusions This study provides little empirical support for
the liberal proposition that trade provides a path to interstate peace. Even after controlling for the influence of
contiguity, joint democracy, alliance ties, and relative capabilities, the evidence suggests that in most instances
trade fails to deter conflict . Instead, extensive economic interdependence increases the likelihood that dyads engage in militarized dispute; however, it
appears to have little influence on the incidence of war . The greatest hope for peace appears to arise from symmetrical trading relationships. However, the
dampening effect of symmetry is offset by the expansion of interstate linkages. That is, extensive economic linkages, be they symmetrical or asymmetrical, appear to pose the greatest hindrance to peace
through trade.
Interdependence checks china war
Nuno P. Monteiro is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches International Relations theory and security
studies. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2009. “ Theory of Unipolar Politics” (Cambridge University Press)
April 2014 Ch 8: Conclusion, p. 202-232
This expectation is compatible with major powers continuing to invest in their own military capabilities so that they strengthen their ability to condition
outcomes in their own regions. For example, we can expect China to continue to invest in its military so that over time it may
be able to deny U.S. forces an unfettered hand in East Asia and the Western Pacific. This would not, however,
represent the end of a unipolar world. The United States would continue to be the only state able to project
significant power and engage in prolonged politico-military operations beyond its own region. In other words,
even if China can match U.S. power in the Asia-Pacific region, the United States would continue to be the sole
great power and the world would remain unipolar. China's interest in not challenging U.S. global power
preponderance is strengthened by the high degree of economic interdependence that has resulted from the past
few decades of U.S. accommodation of Chinese economic growth. As we have seen in Chapter 5, the United States has
consistently taken steps to incorporate China into the global U.S.-run economic system. Beijing would therefore
have much to lose from challenging that system. In this sense, China is locked into a virtuous equilibrium of
mutual accommodation with the United States. Beijing may well want greater military capabilities to ensure
secondary security interests in its own region, but an unintended transformation of the international structure
into bipolarity as a result of Chinese efforts to boost regional power will remain unlikely. Furthermore, the economic
strategy of accommodation the United States has implemented toward rising major powers such as Brazil, China,
India, and Russia over the past few decades also increases U.S. incentives to maintain its strategic course. Once
Washington allows these states to grow economically, their ability to balance against the United States, should they have an incentive to do so, would be
greater. This means that the more the U.S. accommodates their growth, the more an eventual U.S. shift toward an economic strategy of containment or
a military strategy of offensive dominance in (or disengagement from) their region would trigger a swift balancing effort on their part, leading to the quick
reestablishment of a balance of power. Major powers, of course, also know this. Overall, common knowledge of the added costs the
United States would pay if it would go on the offensive militarily, disengage from the world, or attempt to contain
others* economic growth has a stabilizing force on the international system. For this reason, defensive
accommodation produces a self-reinforcing virtuous equilibrium .
Instability spurs peaceful democratic transition
Lui, 8 -- UC Santa Barbara Chinese political culture professor
[Alan P., University of California Santa Barbara political science professor emeritus specializing in contemporary
Chinese political culture and development, China Review International,” 3-22-8, China’s Democratic Future: How It
Will Happen and Where It Will Lead,” l/n, accessed 2009]
At the same time, Chinese society has been undergoing rapid changes because of increasing exposure to the West. New ideas about justice,
individualism, democracy, and a feel for community have spread far and wide in the country. More and more Chinese have gone abroad as tourists, and
they know how ridiculous the CCP system is. An increasing number of urban people are organizing into civil society-type groups, with the help of the
media. These constitute facilitating conditions for a mass movement for democracy. A
major crisis of any kind would galvanize these new
forces and confront the CCP , in the styles of the People Power in the Philippines in 1986 or the Velvet Revolution in Eastern Europe in 1989.
According to Gilley, when the moment comes for democracy, an insider—maybe a closet reformer in the CCP—would come forth to take the lead. This
is the Russian path; someone like Gorbachev or Yeltsin would guide the Chinese push toward democracy. Gilley called this the “extrication” model.
He is banking on the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) not wanting to repeat its bloody deeds in 1989; the PLA had learned the lesson (so Gilley
believes). Then an interim regime will follow to open up the political system, hold elections, enact new legislation to establish rule of law, keep the
bureaucracy together, and plan rationally for democratization. Finally, the new government would consolidate democracy by writing a new constitution,
carrying out a national election based on proportionate representation, organizing a federalist political system, installing a government structure
resembling Sun Yat-sen’s five branches (adding “special Chinese” departments of anticorruption and civil service examination to the usual legislativejudiciary-executive model).
[Matt note: Gilley = Bruce Gilley, New School University international affairs professor]
Chinese democracy solves global democratic peace
Gilley, 5
-- New School international affairs professor
[Bruce, New School University, former contributing editor at the Far Eastern Economic Review, China’s Democratic Future, 2005, 246-8, accessed 2009]
If it has not already been brought into serious question by the continued spread of democracy to every corner of the world, Samuel Huntington's thesis of a world dominated
by a "clash of civilizations" rent between a liberal and progressive West and a conservative and benighted "other" should be given a final burial by China's embrace
of democracy. It will confirm that the real clash in our world remains a clash of just versus unjust political conceptions, between dictatorship and democracy or
minimal democracy and full democracy, not between some imagined, essentialized, and monoistic "cultures." The very terms "East" and "West" will finally be
exposed as so bereft of any cultural or social meaning as to be virtually useless in our modern world except as geographic shorthand. Still, if democracy is merely
the most efficient and fair mechanism for organizing a polity—any polity—then its meaning will continue to change as each finds new ways to improve that mechanism. While
"history" as defined by the monumental struggle between the notion of the political equality of individuals and rival conceptions appears to have ended, it will go on being spun
out in competing conceptions of democracy. Debates about issues like compulsory voting, fair electoral systems, money in politics, judicial review, and the like will be the
dominant "historical" issues of our time. As an ongoing experiment in best-practice politics, democracy
is sure to be influenced by its practice in
China, which will come to the game with a rich tradition of indigenous innovation and, arguably, deeper cultural roots in
the essential principles of democracy such as tolerance, compromise, and egalitarianism. How will democracy change as a result? There has
been much recent discussion in the West of a "democratic malaise" where the associational and norms-oriented life of a democracy is breaking down. Many
scholars see the democratic waves of the past as having ended and the old democracies in a state of slow regression. Some countries are thought to be
stuck in minimal democracies of dispersed power but not true equality. To some, the value of political power is unequal, some freedoms more cared for than
others, and economic justice unachieved. If modern-day social contractarians are right, a failure to achieve these things make a democracy's claim to
goodness very thin indeed. It is here that China's democratization may play a vital role. Most Chinese scholars harbor the hope that China will "surpass"
traditional forms of democracy as practiced in the rest of the world—especially the imagined "Western model"—and introduce to the world a new
system that will be "even better."' This is the so-called "surpass sentiment" (chaoyue qlngxu) mentioned earlier. Of course, there is not a little bit of cultural chauvinism
at work here, the desire for China to retake its rightful place as the dispenser of civilization to the world's benighted peoples, especially the stubbornly dynamic West. Even so,
we should not rule out, nor rue, the possibility that China will pioneer a unique version of democracy. As one Western scholar notes: "It remains possible that
some day the Asian, perhaps even the Chinese, vision of the best form of government will become the dominant vision."' If so, it would be a cause for
celebration because everyone benefits when a more just system is available. Many Chinese scholars conjure up a new form of political order that is both
strongly democratic and strongly social-oriented. One talks of the emergence of a "creative ambiguity," in China which defies easy labels, in which a "mixed
economy" with a state sector will exist alongside "mixed politics" with elements of both liberal democracy and social democracy.4 Others seem to echo classical
republican political theorists of the West with dreams of "deliberative democracy" (shangyi minzhu)l or "policy democracy" (zhengce minzhu) in which people's considered
views on issues actually translate into outcomes .6 Here, elections lose their pride of place as the hallmark of democracy, being replaced by other mechanisms
for contesting state power and proposing interests and views of the good. One Chinese scholar anticipates a
vast lab oratory of democratic
experimentation which, given the sheer size of the country, would create a whole new lexicon of democratic forms and theories: "There
are actual opportunities for transcending historically known systems and they might be seized by a conscious people." 7
There is much here that meshes with recent thinking on democracy in the West, which stresses issues like social capital, popular deliberation, equality of political opportunity,
and more. In other words, the ongoing struggle to move from mere formal democracy to a substantive democracy of equal citizens will be helped by
China. Its efforts at "real democracy" may
inspire and push established democracies to "deepen" their own democratic experiences. One Indian
author has said that "the future of Western political theory will be decided outside the West," noting, rightly, that India would loom large in that experience.' One could not but
add China. Indeed, given that it was never imprinted with colonialism and given its long isolation from Western theory, China's impact may be much
greater. Notes one scholar: "The final destination of the search remains veiled, but China's preoccupation with local innovation and adaptation certainly goes
beyond mere rhetoric."9 Even without any major innovations in the practice of democracy emanating from China, the mere adoption of this long-evolving
and never-perfected system by the largest country in the world and one of its most ancient will have a profound effect on deepening democracy. Just as the
fall of the Berlin Wall reinstated some confidence in liberal regimes, and just as the collapse of authoritarian regimes in Asia has undermined advocates of
soft authoritarianism there, so too China's democracy may shore up the loss of interest in the West about democracy. To return to a quotation cited earlier,
China's democratization will
probably
transform global politics at every level. It will mean that roughly three quarters of the
world's population lives in democratic states, creating "an historic opportunity to bring
a truly democratic world into being," notes one
scholar."' Relations among the world's peoples could for the first time be governed according to the same norms that apply to their domestic polities. Much
of this had already begun in the post-cold war era as new democracies in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America forged alliances grounded in
these norms. With China aligned with that global movement, the possibilities for positive change will be immense.
Solves nuclear war and ecocide- extinction
Diamond, 95 -- Hoover Institution Senior Fellow
[Larry, Stanford Univ. Political Science and Sociology professor, former Baghdad CPA senior adviser, 1995, "Promoting Democracy in the 1990s,"
http://wwics.si.edu/subsites/ccpdc/pubs/di/fr.htm, accessed 2009]
This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years and decades. In the former Yugoslavia nationalist aggression
tears at the stability of Europe and could easily spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through increasingly powerful international crime syndicates
that have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and have utterly corrupted the institutions of tenuous, democratic ones. Nuclear, chemical,
and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very source of life on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of
these new and unconventional threats to security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its provisions for
legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, and openness. The experience of this century offers important lessons. Countries that govern themselves in
a truly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another. They do not aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their
leaders. Democratic governments do not ethnically "cleanse" their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency.
Democracies do not sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another.
Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and enduring trading partnerships. In the long run they offer better and more stable climates for
investment. They are more environmentally responsible because they must answer to their own citizens, who organize to protest the destruction of their
environments. They are better bets to honor international treaties since they value legal obligations and because their openness makes it much more
difficult to breach agreements in secret. Precisely because, within their own borders, they respect competition, civil liberties, property rights, and the rule
of law, democracies are the only reliable foundation on which a new world order of international security and prosperity can be built.
ECON
**No revenues- it’s driven by political need and magic math--empirics prove
Adrienne Lu, Pew/Stateline 11:24 a.m. EDT June 24, 2014 Stateline is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Charitable Trusts that
provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy. “Online gambling revenues fall short”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/24/stateline-online-gambling-revenues-fall-short/11306661/ ac 7-26
State lawmakers
who dream of dollar signs from legalized online gambling might want to pause for a moment to
consider Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey.¶ Last year, the three states became the first in the country to legalize
Internet gaming. But as New Jersey Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff told state lawmakers earlier this year: " Clearly , the results so far
have not met our expectations."¶ New Jersey officials initially predicted legal online gambling would boost state tax revenues by $180 million
in fiscal 2014. By the time Republican Gov. Chris Christie signed the budget last June, the figure had been revised downward to $160 million.¶ We just
didn’t feel that it would be wise to put out a number. It was just too much unknown. ¶ Michael Lawton, Nevada Gaming Control¶ By the end of May, one
month shy of the fiscal year's end, the state had taken in just $9.3 million in revenue from online gambling, according to
the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services. And with collections in April and May falling below those in March,
online gambling isn't even
trending upward . State officials have blamed the slow start on technology glitches and payment processing issues. ¶ Nevada and Delaware,
also have collected only modest revenue from online gambling.¶ In
Delaware, state officials had counted on $7.5 million in additional tax revenue in fiscal year 2014. But because of a delayed rollout and
one-time startup costs, Internet gaming made no net contributions to the state budget in fiscal 2014, state officials said.
which have much smaller populations than New Jersey,
The startup costs included software design and data servers to host the gambling. ¶ In Nevada, officials opted not to make revenue projections for the
nascent industry – or to count on the money in its budget. The state, which legalized only interactive poker, generated about $700,000 in tax revenue
from about $10.2 million in gaming wins from May 2013 through April of this year, according to Michael Lawton, a senior research analyst with the
Nevada State Gaming Control Board.¶ "We just didn't feel that it would be wise to put out a number," Lawton said. "It was just too much unknown." ¶ In
March, Morgan
Stanley chopped its market projection for the U.S. online gaming industry by 30 percent , from $5
billion to $3.5 billion by 2017, "to better reflect the insights we have gained following the first few months of operations" in Delaware, Nevada and New
Jersey.¶ From illegal to legal¶ Experts said it's natural that legal Internet gaming would take some time to develop. "This is an industry that requires
consumer education," said Chris Grove, editor of the Online Poker Report. "It exists in a weird gray area because it was perceived to be illegal for so
long." In Nevada, where only casinos are permitted to operate online gambling web sites, the casinos take a cut from the winnings and then pay the
state a percentage of their take.¶ The three states have different approaches to taxing online gambling revenue:¶ • In Delaware, after expenses are paid,
revenues for online slots are divided three ways: the state receives 43.5 percent, the horse racing industry receives 10 percent and the casinos receive
46.5 percent. For table games, the distribution is the same as for land-based casinos: casinos receive 66.1 percent, the state, 29.4 percent and the
horse breeders, 4.5 percent.¶ • Nevada taxes Internet gaming up to 6.75 percent, the same tax rate it uses for other gross gaming revenue.New Jersey
taxes Internet gambling at 15 percent, nearly double the 8 percent tax on gross gambling revenue at its casinos. ¶ • New Jersey's revenue
estimates were unrealistic from the start, Grove said, because they relied on the most optimistic projections and counted on 12 months'
worth of revenue even though online gambling did not go live until late November, nearly halfway into the fiscal year. Grove said the state's initial
revenue estimates for online gambling were "driven far more by political need and budgetary magic math than
by sober, rational analysis of the market."
**It’s a black hole for money- zero economic benfits
Kindt and Joy 7, John Kindt: Professor of Business and Legal Policy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, former senior fellow at the
London School of Economics, Stephen Joy: Ph.D. candidate, Legal Psychology at Florida International University, Sept 2007, “Internet Gambling and
the Destabilization of National and International Economies: Time for a Comprehensive Ban on Gambling Over the World Wide Web,” Reprinted from 80
Denv. U.L. Rev. 111
http://acdis.illinois.edu/assets/docs/241/InternetGamblingandtheDestabilizationofNationalandInternationalEconomiesTimeforaComprehensiveBanonGam
blingOvertheWorldWideWeb.pdf, Accessed 7/30/14
"Too often, public officials view gambling as a quick and easy way to raise revenues, without focusing on
gambling's hidden social, economic, and political costs," n123 President Clinton wrote to U.S. Senator Paul Simon
in a 1995 letter endorsing his legislation to establish the National Gambling Impact Study Commission to study
the various impacts of widespread legalized gambling. However, the claimed "new revenues" from gambling
operations did not materialize when the operation involved Internet gambling . n124 Online casinos cost almost
nothing to build or maintain when compared to their brick-andmortar counterparts. In addition, Internet gambling
operations neither employed the numbers of people employed by conventional casinos, nor paid regular taxes. ¶
One Web site that featured a NCAA tournament betting pool cost only $ 225,000 to create and earned its money through advertising. n125 The
Internet's first virtual casino, Internet Casinos, Inc. ("ICI"), reportedly opened for business on August 18, 1995, and offered 18 different casino games,
plus online participation in the National Indian Lottery, as well as the planned development of an Internet sports book. n126 While it generally might cost
$ 300 million or more to build a totally new resort-style casino employing thousands, ICI developed its online casino for only $ 1.5 million and created
only 17 new jobs. n127 ICI's founder, Warren B. Eugene, stated that his "house" cut usually averaged around 24%, compared to "the typical U.S. casino
house take," which fluctuated between 8% and 16% of every dollar wagered. n128 National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling ("NCALG") political
director Bernie Horn summarized, " There
are virtually no jobs created and there's no tax revenue derived." n129 He added that
cyberspace gambling, exemplified by Internet gambling, "creates kind of a black hole for people's money." n130
**Be skeptical of their authors – they’re bought off
Kindt 7 (John Warren, Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Research of the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and
International Security, “Gambling with Terrorism and U.S. Military Readiness: Time to Ban Video Gambling Devices on U.S. Military Bases and
Facilities?”,
http://acdis.illinois.edu/assets/docs/242/GamblingwithTerrorismandUSMilitaryReadinessTimetoBanVideoGamblingDevicesonUSMilitaryBasesandFaciliti
es.pdf)
B. Recognize Erroneous Information in the Age of Terrorism: Credibility Issues and Pro-Gambling Influences 1. Recommendation: Follow the Money In
the Twenty-First Century Age of Terrorism, as in all important issue areas, accurate information is essential. The
importance of communicating relevant, authoritative, and current information that “could have foiled some of the 9/11
hijackers”200 was highlighted by the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. 201 In this context, some industries might have an
inherent interest in repressing or controlling information that could damage or even eliminate their financial base.
credibility issues become important and in a legal context, the impeachment of industry informational sources becomes
Columbia Journalism Review indicated what the threshold test is: Follow the Money. 202 2.
Recommendation: Encourage the Academic Community to Divorce Itself from the Direct and Indirect Financial Aura of Pro-Gambling Interests During
the 1990s, national U.S. press sources raised issues involving the appearance of direct and/or indirect conflicts of
Accordingly,
relevant. In 1994, the
interest in the interface between academics/experts and pro-gambling interests . 203 The only practical method for avoiding
such criticisms was for impacted members of the academic community to divorce themselves completely from a financial interface with pro-gambling
interests. Accordingly, some academics/ experts, such as several at the University of Illinois, refused to receive any honoraria, consultant fees, or even
grants from any pro-gambling interests or other special interests. In the article The Costs of Addicted Gamblers: Should the States Initiate MegaLawsuits Similar to the Tobacco Cases?204 (Mega-Lawsuits) it was appropriate to recap some of the issues already raised by the national media
involving the financial aura projected by pro-gambling interests and the potential impeachment of witnesses. Contrary to implications by gambling
industry apologists that only one national news outlet had raised these issues, these types of issues have been raised for example by: a. The Chronicle
of Higher Education, 205 b. The Philadelphia Inquirer, 206 c. A series of Los Angeles Times articles, 207 d. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 208 e. The
New York Times, 209 f. A series of articles in Mother Jones Investigative Magazine, 210 and g. The Columbia Journalism Review, 211 et alia. When
numerous national media stories have raised similar credibility issues, the academic community must necessarily
address them as well. The primary goal should be for the academic community to eliminate all direct and indirect
financial links to pro-gambling interests or other special interests. Some academics/experts who attempted to maintain a degree of contact
with the pro-gambling interests during the 1990s via the grant/research process eventually felt that they had to distance themselves from those gambling
interests presumably to maintain their own ethical standards. 212 3. Recommendation: Encourage More Public Scrutiny
The millions of dollars
which pro-gambling interests have utilize d to promote or impact research may return to haunt the industry and
associated research interests . The national media and academia have indicated that the following groups may face particular scrutiny: a. The
National Center for Responsible Gaming (NCRG) founded in 1996 by the American Gaming Association, 213b. The Journal of Gambling Studies after
pro-gambling interests began significant funding circa 1990 (formerly the Journal of Gambling Behavior), 214 c. The Gaming Law Review founded in
1997 but which has no university affiliation, 215 d. The National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG), 216 and e. The UNLV Boyd Law School, 217
founded in 1996–97. The 2001 President of the NCRG, 218 whose associated company pledged $875,000 to the NCRG, also provided the primary
contribution of $5 million to establish the UNLV Boyd Law School. 219 Critics argued that the financial aura of pro-gambling
interests could have the effect of taint ing the research process . In reviewing the NCRG, the news media made some comparisons
to the tobacco industry:
Some critics see an analogy with cigarette manufacturers , which for decades financed medical
studies on tobacco—and were later found to have suppressed evidence that cigarettes were harmful. “It’s the
Tobacco Institute of gambling,” grumbled Bernie Horn [the former] legislative director for the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling
Tobacco Institute used to fund all these studies about how smoking is good for you,” Horn said,
contending that the gambling industry is essentially doing the same thing . 220 While there may not always be full disclosure
in Washington. “The
of the degree of involvement or influence exercised by the AGA lobbying group and its associates in various organizations, many academics, experts,
and government decisionmakers will need to explore these issues and then decide whether to embrace or divorce themselves from suspect groups.
When AGA representatives and lobbyists blatantly seek visibility in some groups, a fortiori the nonvisible
influences of the AGA’s philosophies become more problematic to decisionmakers . Upon being made aware of the
apparent direct and indirect conflicts of interest outlined in the Mega-Lawsuits article, academics/experts should divorce themselves from the gambling
industry’s umbra and rejoin mainstream academia.
**Econ strong now
Gillespie 10-30
Patrick Gillespie, “US economy chugging along at 3.5% growth”, CNN, 10/30/14, http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/30/news/economy/us-gdp-3-and-halfpercent-beats-expectations/index.html?iid=SF_E_River, 10/30/14, JS
Gross domestic product increased 3.5% between July and September, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. It exceeded
analysts' expectations and offered more proof of an economy gaining momentum. "This is a good number," says Jay Bryson, global
economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, N.C. " The
economy has a fair amount of momentum ." Analysts had only projected GDP
growth to hit 3% this quarter, according to data from FactSet. The GDP report reflects a widely held view that employment is picking up.
More jobs means higher incomes and spending, economists say. Consumer spending is the largest factor for U.S. economic
growth, and it rose 1.8% in this quarter, a slight drop from the same time a year ago, but better than the bleak first quarter this year. The
GDP report shows some bright spots. Government spending, often lagging behind in the recovery, hit its highest quarterly mark since 2009. Exports also
showed a healthy gain in the third quarter compared to the same time a year ago. "When you look at the underlying pace of the economy, we should
continue to see solid numbers going forward,
" says Bryson. "The government won't be a drag on growth ." 2014 had a dicey start. Economic growth dropped 2.1% the first quarter
because the extremely cold winter (remember the Polar Vortex) kept many businesses and schools closed for days and people inside their homes. The
weather also lowered exports to other countries. Second quarter GDP rebounded well, posting 4.6% growth from the same time a year ago. The GDP
news comes on the heels of the Federal Reserve's announcement Wednesday to end its bond-buying stimulus program now that
the economy is improving. Economists
viewed the Fed's decision as a mostly positive sign that growth is picking up, even
in the job market. What's next? The IMF forecasts that the U.S. will have 2.2% GDP growth for the year. So far, the nation appears
to be on track for that. It's a lot higher than Europe and other parts of the world that have been hit by geopolitics and slowing growth
such as Russia. Europe's slowdown could also be a drag for the U.S., although so far the impact has been modest. "I think Europe by
itself poses no real threat to the U.S. recovery or expansion," said Dr. Robert Shapiro, former Under Secretary of Commerce for
Economic Affairs. The big concern for next quarter is holiday spending. Americans are clearly buying more, but it's still not a level
investors and economists want to see to feel confident that the worst is behind. Falling oil prices could help shoppers and savers.
The majority of Americans now have under $3 a gallon gas. Although prices might adversely affect oil-producing states, they're
a good sign for
most, says Jeremy Lawson, chief economist at asset management firm Standard Life Investments. "There will be some states that are disadvantaged
by oil prices," says Lawson, "but for the overall economy it is a positive."
**US unemployment rate low- Federal Reserve Milestone
Paul Davidson, 10-29-14, Fed ends bond buying but keeps low-rate pledge, USA TODAY,
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/10/29/fed-october-meeting/18115435/
Despite stock market volatility and global economic troubles, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday agreed to end bond
purchases that have supported U.S. economic growth since the 2008 financial crisis, marking a milestone in the five-yearold recovery. At the same time, the Fed pledged to keep its benchmark short-term interest rate
near zero for a "considerable time" after the bond buying ends. The Fed did upgrade its view of the
labor market but gave no clear signal that it planned to raise its benchmark rate earlier than the mid-2015
mark
time frame previously indicated by Fed policymakers despite the solidly performing U.S. economy. As widely anticipated,
the Fed said it would reduce its monthly purchases of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities from $15 billion to
zero, ending its third round of bond buying since the crisis after less than two years. It began tapering those purchases
from $85 billion a month in December as the economy and job growth strengthened
**Deficit decreasing now
John Stoehr, October 28, 2014, A smaller federal deficit, but Democrats won't talk about it ,The Hill, http://thehill.com/blogs/punditsblog/economy-budget/221996-a-smaller-federal-deficit-but-democrats-wont-talk-about-it
Now comes news that the federal deficit is the lowest it has been since Obama took office amid a financial panic rivaled only by
the Great Depression. According to an Associated Press report, the government borrowed 40 cents for every dollar spent in 2008. Now it's just 14 cents.
The falling deficit, moreover, is directly attributable to Obama's domestic policies, especially the Affordable Care
Act, which has slowed to a crawl the once-explosive growth of healthcare spending.
**US economy decoupled from the world
Charles Hugh Smith,Of Two Minds, 1-6-12, p. Lexis
It's possible that the U.S. economy can keep logging positive statistics even as the global economy spiralsinto
depression. Never mind that gasoline consumption has plummeted or that savings have dropped or that austerity and higher debt service payments
insure a deep recession in Europe; and who cares about China's real estate bubble popping? None of that matters here--or so it seems. Heck, maybe
we've entered a new golden era of low volatility; that's possible, too. Everything's fixed, and the U.S. has
successfully decoupled from the rest of the global economy. Based on sentiment and volatility readings, those
are the consensus views .Reportedly16 out of 16 stock market mavens see nothing but rally ahead--and we all
know unanimity is astonishingly accurate in predicting stock prices. The U.S. dollar has traded on a see-saw with
equities for years; recently, both equities and the dollar have surged. So either the see-saw has broken or this is
the mother of all divergences.
**Risk is decreasing, its hype and cures solve
Ridley 8/17/12 [Matt Ridley, columnist for The Wall Street Journal and author of The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, “Apocalypse Not:
Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Worry About End Times,” http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/ff_apocalypsenot/all/]
AIDS led to a theory that other viruses would spring from tropical rain forests to wreak revenge on
humankind for its ecological sins. That, at least, was the implication of Laurie Garrett’s 1994 book, The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in
The emergence of
a World Out of Balance. The most prominent candidate was Ebola, the hemorrhagic fever that starred in Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone, published the
same year. Writer Stephen King called the book “one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever read.” Right on cue, Ebola appeared again in the
Congo in 1995, but it soon disappeared. Far from being a harbinger, HIV was the only new tropical virus to go pandemic
in 50 years .¶ In the 1980s British cattle began dying from mad cow disease, caused by an infectious agent in feed that was derived from the
remains of other cows. When people, too, began to catch this disease, predictions of the scale of the epidemic quickly turned terrifying: Up to
136,000 would die, according to one study. A pathologist warned that the British “have to prepare for perhaps thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of
thousands, of cases of vCJD [new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human manifestation of mad cow] coming down the line.” Yet the total
number of deaths so far in the UK has been 176, with just five occurring in 2011 and none so far in 2012.¶ In 2003 it was SARS, a
virus from civet cats, that ineffectively but inconveniently led to quarantines in Beijing and Toronto amid predictions of global
Armageddon. SARS subsided within a year, after killing just 774 people. In 2005 it was bird flu, described at the time by a United Nations
official as being “like a combination of global warming and HIV/AIDS 10 times faster than it’s running at the moment.” The World Health Organization’s
official forecast was 2 million to 7.4 million dead. In fact, by late 2007, when the disease petered out, the death toll was roughly 200. In 2009 it
flu. WHO director general Margaret Chan said: “It really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic.” The outbreak
proved to be a normal flu episode.¶The truth is, a new global pandemic is growing less likely, not more . Mass
migration to cities means the opportunity for viruses to jump from wildlife to the human species has not risen and has
possibly even declined,
was Mexican swine
despite media hype to the contrary. Water- and insect-borne infections—generally the most lethal—are declining as living
standards slowly improve. It’s true that casual-contact infections such as colds are thriving—but only by being mild enough that
their victims can soldier on with work and social engagements, thereby allowing the virus to spread. Even if a lethal virus does go
global, the ability of medical science to sequence its genome and devise a vaccine or cure is getting better all the
time.
Burnout checks disease
Posner 5—Senior Lecturer, U
Chicago Law. Judge on the US Court of Appeals 7th Circuit. AB from Yale and LLB from Harvard. (Richard,
Catastrophe, http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-4150331/Catastrophe-the-dozen-most-significant.html)
Yet the fact that Homo sapiens has managed to survive every disease to assail it in the 200,000 years or so of its existence is a
source of genuine comfort, at least if the focus is on extinction events. There have been enormously destructive plagues, such as the Black Death,
smallpox, and now AIDS, but none
has come close to destroying the entire human race. There is a biological reason .
Natural selection favors germs of limited lethality; they are fitter in an evolutionary sense because their genes are
more likely to be spread if the germs do not kill their hosts too quickly. The AIDS virus is an example of a lethal virus, wholly
natural, that by lying dormant yet infectious in its host for years maximizes its spread. Yet there is no danger that AIDS will destroy the entire
human race. The likelihood of a natural pandemic that would cause the extinction of the human race is probably even less today than in
the past (except in prehistoric times, when people lived in small, scattered bands, which would have limited the spread of disease), despite wider human
contacts that make it more difficult to localize an infectious disease.
2nc
PTX
Iran deal within reach – Obama push for sanctions relief key – failure causes Middle East war
Cirincione 10-18-14 (Joe, president of Ploughshares Fund and author of "Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late, “Time is
right for U.S.-Iran arms deal,” http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/time-is-right-for-us-iran-arms-deal-b99371238z1-279669282.html)
We will know before Thanksgiving if negotiators can strike a deal to confine Iran's nuclear program to purely civilian uses, or if they have let slip a
historic opportunity. Our two nations are closer than ever before to an agreement, but both sides must take some big, final steps.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani may have to take the biggest of all. Last month, I had dinner with Rouhani. It was a small, private event in New York
attended by eight Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Javed Zarif, and 25 American former officials and experts from both parties, including
former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former national security advisers Stephen Hadley, Sandy Berger and Brent Scowcroft. We asked tough
questions. We were not always satisfied with the answers, but Rouhani was candid and direct. Gone was the electricity and sense of history that
crackled through a similar dinner last year, Rouhani's first U.S. visit. But there was something perhaps more meaningful: a feeling that U.S.-Iran relations
were beginning to normalize. There have been hundreds of exchanges between officials, experts and journalist from the two nations over the past year.
We will not quickly resolve the many differences between our two nations, but we may be finding ways to manage them. At
the top of the list is constraining Iran's large nuclear program. This is the gateway issue through which we must pass before tackling the problems of
human rights in Iran, Iran's support for anti-Israel groups and urgent regional issues. All of us at the dinner left impressed by Rouhani's clear desire to
conclude an agreement. He has staked his government's future on it, hoping to trade verifiable limits on the nuclear program for lifting the sanctions now
crippling Iran's economy. We are closer to resolving this issue than ever before. On Oct. 13, just ahead of meetings between Zarif, Secretary of State
John Kerry and other top diplomats, Rouhani said, "We have reached consensus on generalities, and there are only the
fine details to be worked out." Acknowledging that "details are important, too," he said, "I think a final settlement can be achieved in
these remaining 40 days," by the Nov. 24 deadline set for the talks. The American side is not so sure. We have indeed worked out compromises that
would roll back many parts of the sprawling Iran nuclear complex, including reconfiguring a new research reactor so it cannot make plutonium for
weapons. But we are still thousands of centrifuges apart on the number Iran would be allowed to keep in a deal. Iran wants about 10,000, we are
proposing around 5,000. These are the machines that Iran uses to enrich uranium to low levels for reactor fuel, but which could be spun up to enrich
uranium to high levels for a bomb. One way to ensure Iran cannot quickly make the material for one bomb is to limit their number. But there are other
ways. Negotiators have proposed sharp limits on the amount of uranium feed stock that could go into the centrifuges, limits on the size of some of the
tanks that hold the uranium gas, disconnecting the piping between centrifuges and other constraints. Most important, Iran seems ready to agree to an
unprecedented system of inspections that would allow a steady presence of international experts, optical devices, monitors and seals that could detect
any break out attempt within days. Iran's program could be put in an iron box with a camera on it. However to make this deal work by Nov. 24, Iran must
take a major step and agree to drop below the 10,000 centrifuges it now operates. If it does, the other parts of the deal can be hammered into place.
U.S. diplomats say that Iran, in return, would get "substantial" economic relief early in the arrangement. The president has the power to drop or
suspend many of the sanctions placed on Iran; ultimately, Congress will have to vote to remove them, but not for
several years. All this will be tough to do in the time remaining, but it would be a historic achievement. The deal would not only end one of the
world's nuclear nightmares but could open a path to cooperation on several of the Middle East's most difficult
issues. Iran is one of the few remaining stable nations in the region. It has different goals than the United States but shares
many of the same strategic interests, such as preventing Taliban control of Afghanistan , stabilizing Iraq, ending
the civil war in Syria and, most urgently, stopping the Islamic State group. Crack Iranian troops, led by top commander Qasem
Soleimani (who worked with U.S. commanders to overthrow the Taliban in 2001), are now fighting the Islamic State in Iraq. These Iranian "boots on the
ground" are not cooperating with U.S. forces, but we are in communication, say U.S. officials. Rouhani blames "strategic blunders" by the West for
creating the Islamic State. But his criticisms are no worse than those heard daily on cable news, and, in this case, he has a point. We do not yet know if
we can get a final nuclear deal and whether it can serve as the stepping stone Rouhani envisions to other vital issues. Hardliners in both nations
will try to kill any deal, preferring unending hostility. But the alternatives to a deal are grim — Iran with an unconstrained
nuclear program or another war in the Middle East. Regional pressures and strategic imperatives are driving both
sides toward an agreement. Both governments have invested heavily in the process and have much to gain. It is hard to believe that
either side will allow a disagreement over plumbing to kill a deal so close to completion.
Uq
Iran deal now—capital key to head off Congressional derailment
WALL STREET JOURNAL, “White House Seeks Support from Allies, Congress for Potential Iran Deal,” 10—23—14,
http://online.wsj.com/articles/white-house-seeks-support-from-allies-congress-for-potential-iran-deal-1414107695
The Obama administration is
promoting a possible nuclear agreement with Iran to allies, Congress and U.S. policy makers in an effort
to win support ahead of a late November deadline. Significant divisions remain between Tehran and global powers in negotiations that
seek to constrain Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for an easing of Western sanctions, senior officials stressed in interviews this week. But these
officials also said important progress has been made in recent talks in Vienna and New York. The White House has subsequently
decided to begin more aggressively outlining to various partners the contours of a prospective deal with Tehran, and its potential merits, they
said. “This is a period of heightened activity. And it’s a chance to level-set people on where we are,” said a senior U.S. official working on Iran. “There’s a
stepped-up effort to show people what this deal might look like.” Among the administration’s point people in this effort is Undersecretary of State Wendy
Sherman, the U.S. chief nuclear negotiator with Iran. On Thursday, Ms. Sherman gave her most expansive address on the status of the negotiations
since taking her post and stressed the need for Iran to seize on the diplomacy to end its international isolation. “We have made impressive
progress on issues that originally seemed intractable,” she told a gathering at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a
Washington think tank. “We have cleared up misunderstandings and held exhaustive discussions on every element of a possible text. However, like any
complicated and technically complex diplomatic initiative, this is a puzzle with many interlocking pieces.” U.S., Iranian and European officials have said
in recent weeks that the main barriers to a deal remain focused on the future size of Tehran’s nuclear-fuel production capacity and the pace of the
potential lifting of Western sanctions in the case of an agreement. The Obama administration initially demanded a complete dismantling of the nearly
20,000 centrifuges Iran has amassed to enrich uranium for the production of nuclear fuel. Tehran said it would ultimately need up to at least five times
that number to have enough fuel to power the country’s reactors. Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons and says its activities are for peaceful
purposes only, such as the production of energy. Signs of a potential compromise have emerged in recent days with Iranian state media
reporting that Tehran and its negotiating partners, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council along with Germany—a
diplomatic bloc known as the P5-+1—focused
on a number of 4,000 centrifuges. U.S. officials have neither confirmed nor denied the numbers.
Outside experts said the number could be acceptable to the P5+1 and to Congress because it would place constraints on Iran’s ability
to produce weapons-usable fuel. “It’s not as simple as saying X-number of centrifuges, because it has to be taken as a whole package,” said another
senior U.S. official. “We’re looking at all of the ways that we can basically block off any potential combination that they could think of how to get to a
weapon.” The White House’s outreach to Congress will be critical to sealing an agreement with Iran. The issue of Congress’s
role is a contentious one. The White House is arguing that an agreement wouldn’t be a formal treaty, and, therefore, wouldn’t require
congressional approval. Leading U.S. lawmakers are threatening to impose new sanctions if a deal isn’t seen as doing enough to roll
back Tehran’s nuclear capabilities. Pro-Israel lawmakers have voiced concern and are demanding the White House seek congressional approval to
forge an agreement with Tehran. “It’s tough to see a solid agreement when Congress—which was critical to putting in the strong sanctions that got
negotiators to this point—is so clearly sidelined,” said Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Administration
officials expect consultations to ramp up significantly in coming weeks, as President Barack Obama tries to head off a
confrontation over the easing of sanctions—an issue that not only draws criticism from Republicans but also divides his own Democratic
Party. The White House is looking at a deal that would have a probation period of sorts for Iran, where sanctions would be in abeyance until Tehran has
demonstrated its adherence to the terms of the agreement over a set amount of time. Only after that would sanctions be lifted. One senior administration
official said that time period is likely to be more than two years. “There are going to be conditions on moving forward with this,” the second official said.
“As part of an overall comprehensive agreement, there will be a mix of legislative and executive actions, but at what point those different actions come in
we’re not in position to say because there’s no deal.” The U.S. is only looking at lifting nuclear-related sanctions, not others such as those related to
human rights concerns. But officials acknowledged that many of those sanctions are entwined, making it difficult to separate out the nuclear-related
ones. Mr. Obama, for whom a nuclear deal with Iran is a top priority, is regularly briefed on the talks, the senior administration official said.
He is expected to become even more closely involved as the deadline nears. “We will need every single minute of the time
through Nov. 24. The goal is to have an agreement by then but it’s unclear whether that will come to pass,” a senior administration official said.
Issues only cost capital once they reach the finish line
Drum, 3/10/2010 (Kevin – political blogger for Mother Jones, Immigration coming off the back burner?, Mother Jones, p.
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/03/immigration-coming-back-burner)
Not to pick on Ezra or anything, but this
attitude betrays a surprisingly common misconception about political issues in
dogs never bark until an issue becomes an active one. Opposition to Social Security
privatization was pretty mild until 2005, when George Bush turned it into an active issue. Opposition to healthcare reform
was mild until 2009, when Barack Obama turned it into an active issue. Etc. I only bring this up because we often take a look at polls and
think they tell us what the public thinks about something. But for the most part, they don't.1 That is, they don't until the
issue in question is squarely on the table and both sides have spent a couple of months filling the airwaves with
their best agitprop. Polling data about gays in the military, for example, hasn't changed a lot over the past year or two, but once Congress takes
general. The fact is that political
up the issue in earnest and the Focus on the Family newsletters go out, the push polling starts, Rush Limbaugh picks it up, and Fox News creates an
incendiary graphic to go with its saturation coverage — well, that's when the polling will tell you something. And it will probably tell you something
different from what it tells you now. Immigration was bubbling along as sort of a background issue during the Bush
administration too until 2007, when he tried to move an actual bill. Then all hell broke loose. The same thing will happen
this time, and without even a John McCain to act as a conservative point man for a moderate solution. The political environment is worse now than it
was in 2007, and I'll be very surprised if it's possible to make any serious progress on immigration reform. "Love 'em or hate 'em," says Ezra, illegal
immigrants "aren't at the forefront of people's minds." Maybe not. But they will be soon.
Sanctions will be a high priority --- Obama’s PC is key
Cittenden, 9/29/14 (Michael R., “Hoyer Sees Iran Sanctions, ISIS in Lame-Duck Session,” http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/09/29/hoyer-seesiran-sanctions-isis-in-lame-duck-session/)
While lawmakers’ attention has been focused on the fight against Islamic State extremists, another major foreign policy issue – nuclear
negotiations with Iran – could also spur congressional action when lawmakers return to Washington. Talks
between Iran and Western powers over Tehran’s nuclear program currently have a Nov. 24 deadline to try and reach
an accord, though the most recent round of talks resulted in little headway being made. The Obama administration has dissuaded lawmakers
from leveling additional sanctions against Iran while the talks are ongoing, but lawmakers on both sides of the
aisle have said they could move quickly to pass additional sanctions if negotiations falter. Mr. Hoyer said he has already
started discussing the issue with Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “I think potential
sanctions are on the table depending upon what happens on the 24th of November,” Mr. Hoyer said of the chance
for action during the lame duck. Western powers need to make clear to Iran that there won’t be additional reductions to existing sanctions
unless talks are moving in a direction the U.S. finds acceptable.
US will strike – there will be popular US support
Jim Walsh 9-30-14, a research associate in MIT’s Security Studies Program and an expert in international security and nuclear nonproliferation. “3
Questions: Jim Walsh on the elusive U.S.-Iran nuclear treaty” https://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/us-iran-nuclear%20treaty-jim-walsh-0930
The political advantage with an agreement in hand shifts to the president. He can say, “Look, I have this. It’s not just me, it’s Britain, France, Russia,
China, this is the international community, we’ve come up with an unprecedented agreement, and if you vote against it, that’s a vote for taking us down a
path toward war.” Because if there’s no agreement, Iran’s program will now be unconstrained and they can build all
the centrifuges they want. … The U.S. will respond with sanctions, and the result will be Iran’s program will grow
and then you’ll hear calls for military action. So I think the president with an agreement in hand has the advantage, if he is willing to get
out and lead on it. But that’s the calculation both President Rouhani and President Obama have to make. My own sense is they will get this done, and
then there will be a tremendous battle in each capital. Q. So your view is not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, when it comes
to nonproliferation? A. As someone whose core scholarly interest is in the reasons why states who start down the nuclear path stop and reverse course
— 30 countries have [done that], three times the number that became nuclear-weapons states — I can tell you this is a moment of
opportunity that, if it passes, we may not ever get back. The [U.S.] Director of National Intelligence has publicly testified that as it
stands today, Iran has not yet made a decision to build nuclear weapons. And so Iran is at a crossroads. An agreement constrains their program,
changes the politics within Iran, and has a chance of putting this whole issue on a different trajectory. But if you lose that opportunity, that
will help the hardliners and bomb advocates in Iran, and we will end up in a very different place.
No Iran prolif – no evidence they will pursue nukes and history proves they’ll adhere to the
NPT
Paul Pillar 9-29-14 an academic and 28-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), serving from 1977 to 2005. He is now a non-resident
senior fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Security Studies, as well as a nonresident senior fellow in the Brookings Institution's Center for 21st
Century Security and Intelligence. “Past Versus Future in the Iranian Nuclear Program” http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/past-versus-future-theiranian-nuclear-program-11369
Some of the most recent efforts to derail a nuclear agreement with Iran have been focusing on what has come to be
called “possible military dimensions” (PMD), a term that refers to any work Iran has performed in the past on
designing nuclear weapons. One of the latest such efforts is a letter that the leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Edward Royce
and Eliot Engel, have circulated for signature by their Congressional colleagues. The letter essentially says that all questions about PMD need to be
cleared up before we can reach any agreement to restrict Iran's nuclear program. The government of Iran will not issue during the
next couple of months a public confession about past research or design work on nuclear weapons. This simply
won't happen. So for the United States or its negotiating partners to make clearing up of all questions about PMD a prerequisite to signing an
agreement would be a deal-killer. Most of those pushing the PMD issue hardest probably recognize it would be a dealkiller, which is why they are pushing it. The Royce-Engel letter attempts to relate past behavior to future
requirements in enforcing an agreement by asserting there must be a “baseline” of information about the past to
assess Iran's current and future nuclear activity. That assertion lacks logic . Baseline information is important in many things,
where what matters is the amount and direction of change in a continuing process—such as what is measured by achievement test scores in education,
or by blood tests tracking the level of an antigen produced by the human body. But under
an agreement with Iran no work on nuclear
weapons would be allowed. It's not a matter of comparing the pace of current activity with the pace of past
activity. Any such activity would be a clear violation of Iran's obligations under the agreement, as well as its
existing obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The single biggest reason, from the standpoint of preventing an
Iranian nuclear weapon, for completing the agreement under negotiation is to extend and expand the inspection arrangements—already, under the
preliminary agreement, unprecedented in their scope and intensity—including full adherence to the Additional Protocol governing inspections by the
International Atomic Energy Agency. That is what is needed to be confident that the Iranian nuclear program remains peaceful—not some fessing up
about something done in the distant past. Besides ,
if the Iranians really wanted to cheat, they would be stupid simply to pick
up or duplicate what they had done in the past (and which they already knew Western governments and intelligence services were on
to). The distant past is getting steadily more distant, and even more irrelevant to present concerns. The publicly
expressed judgment of the U.S. intelligence community on this subject is that Iran did work on the design of nuclear weapons but that it ceased such
work in 2003, now more than a decade ago. The basic choice in handling the PMD issue in the negotiations now in progress is between attempting to
get a confession about behavior that ended more than a decade ago and getting an agreement that provides the best possible assurance that there will
be no Iranian nuclear weapon in the future. The advantage of choosing the latter option should be obvious enough when the choice is phrased that way.
It should be even more obvious when considering that in terms of actual results, the realistic alternatives are, on one hand, being hardline on the PMD
issue and getting neither the confession nor an agreement, and on the other hand, getting an agreement that restricts and monitors Iran's nuclear
program to an extent that years of pressure and hardlining on our side never were able to achieve. In the history of nuclear
nonproliferation efforts, the failures—including one conspicuous case of not acknowledging either past or
current activity—have been offset by successes that have included several cases, ranging from Sweden to South
Korea, in which states with nuclear weapons programs moved away from them and decided instead to commit
themselves to a nuclear-weapons-free future. Isn't that what we supposedly want from Iran today? Those earlier cases did not
involve past confessions but instead a straightforward commitment to keeping national nuclear programs
peaceful in the present and future. In a speech on the floor of the Senate in January, Senator Dianne Feinstein referred to such earlier cases
in stating, “I believe countries can change. This capacity to change also applies to the pursuit of nuclear weapons.” The question before us, said the
senator, is whether Iran is “willing to change its past behavior.” It is change from past behavior, not a public confession about past behavior, that matters.
It is the “job of diplomacy,” said Feinstein, “to push for that change.” It is the job of analysts and pundits to realize that agreements
need to be assessed according to how they shape future behavior, not just make some statement about the past.
CP
Legalized OG causes organized crime and terror and extinction- regulations can’t solve
Joint statement by: Michael K. Fagan et al 14, career federal prosecutor and post-911 anti-terrorism coordinator active in investigating and
prosecuting illegal offshore online commercial gambling enterprises; Earl L. Grinols, distinguished professor of economics at Baylor University, former
senior economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisers; Jim Thackston, software engineer with a background in the aerospace,
manufacturing and energy industries; John Kindt, Professor of Business and Legal Policy, University of Illinois, Senior Editor, U.S. International Gaming
Report. NEW YORK, Jan. 7, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --http://finance.yahoo.com/news/internet-poker-vulnerable-money-laundering-131100914.html ac 7-27
online gambling - including Internet poker - is
vulnerable to money laundering and cheating and is a vehicle to bribe public officials and others. Online players
can disguise both their location and identity and thereby fleece unsuspecting innocent participan ts. In its September,
2013 letter, the FBI stated "Transnational organized crime (TOC) groups might exploit legal online gambling to
generate revenue, steal personally identifiable information (PII), and engage in public corruption." (http://bit.ly/1dOvbI9)
The FBI's correspondence confirms what we have known for several years – that, despite the gambling industry's
The FBI recently wrote Congress for the second time expressing the Agency's concern that
claims to the contrary, there exists effective and non-detectable methods which can be used to anonymize a
player's identity and geo-location in order to corrupt a game and these threats will become more prevalent as
more states race to embrace online gambling. As the FBI confirmed, "Individuals may use a wide variety of
mechanisms to conceal their physical location, or give the appearance of operating in a different jurisdiction …"
This statement is easily proven using scientifically verifiable and undetectable methods to demonstrate how a
person located in Pakistan can play poker on a system located inside New Jersey. We know because we have done it .
Despite what the poker websites and online gaming activists claim,
this science is irrefutable and has been peer reviewed by top
computer experts and law enforcement .¶ Online poker attracts big money. As recently demonstrated by American player Brian Hastings
and his Swedish competitor half a world away, a
single online poker game facilitated the international transfer of $5 million in
mere hours . Accordingly, an established al-Qaida poker network could extract enough untraceable money from the
United States in just a few days to fund several 9/11-sized attacks .¶ The website www.undetectablelaundering.com illustrates
how this is accomplished, as does the statement of Jim Thackston ( http://bit.ly/1a1TDT5 ) which was included in the record of a recent US House
Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade hearing regarding a bill seeking to legalize online poker nationwide.¶ We urge Congress to
carefully consider all the consequences of legalized online gambling. No benefits outweigh these consequences. Online gambling's
legalization solves none of the problems cited by advocates and is sure to create many—including existential
ones for America .
ISIS is exaggerated – no risk of attack
Chapman 8/27/14 (Steve Chapman, a member of the Tribune Editorial Board, “A Mideast war we should avoid”,
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman/ct-isis-panic-united-states-steve-chapman-template-20140827-column.html)
The hysteria confirms that the U.S. government can turn any enemy into a rampaging Godzilla posing an
imminent threat to our existence . In reality, this one is a fringe insurgency with maybe 10,000 fighters who are
stretched thin and outgunned by the Iraqi military. The group, whose fanatical nature is not in dispute, has managed to rout units of the
Iraqi army and gain control of a slice of territory. Its leaders claim to have founded a strict theocratic state on behalf of Muslims the world over. They vow
to "raise the flag of Allah in the White House." If
big talk were music, these guys would be a marching band. But issuing
threats is easier than making good on them , and seizing turf is not the same as keeping it. The Islamic State's success
promises to be its undoing. U.S. military intervention is more likely to multiply the danger than reduce it.
Even Dempsey admits there is no
evidence the group is plotting attacks on the U.S. That's not surprising . It's pretty occupied right now fighting the Kurdish army
and the Syrian army. Being Sunni in a Shiite-majority country,
it isn't likely to try to march to Baghdad , where the Iraqi army would have
the help of Shiite militias. We are supposed to be impressed that the Islamic State controls a swath of land, which al-Qaida never did. But Ohio State
University political scientist John Mueller says that's not the advantage it appears to be. "The fact that they want to hold territory and are
likely to deeply alienate the people in their territory means that, unlike terrorists, they will present lucrative targets while
surrounded by people who are more than willing to help with intelligence about their whereabouts," he told me. It's often forgotten that al-Qaida
proclaimed its own state in Iraq in 2007, but its brutal ways alienated fellow Sunni insurgent groups so completely that they switched to our side. The
Islamic State is equally vulnerable to a backlash. As for the prospect that it could hit the homeland, our usual problem in deterring terrorists is that their
bombs have no return address. The Islamic State, by contrast, is adorned with a neon bull's-eye. "The place would be a miserable, ostracized blotch on
the map with no ability to project power at a distance," argues Paul Pillar of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University in The National
Interest magazine. It is surrounded by enemies — not only the Kurds but the governments of Iraq, Iran and Syria.
Given all the local trouble it faces, the Islamic State can ill afford to focus on attacking the U.S. unless the U.S. focuses
on attacking it. Like
power morcellation, American military intervention may spread the cancer instead of killing it.
That's been the story of our involvement in wars in that part of the world since 9/11. The more we do, the more
turmoil there is and the more endangered we feel . But with potential foreign dangers, as with prostate cancer, reflexive fear can be
deadly. Sometimes, the safest policy is watchful waiting.
Econ
Kindt’s charges of gaming industry bias are empirically verifiable
Lorenz, 4 - Compulsive Gambling Center, Inc. (Valerie, “Comment on Kindt’s Paper” Manage. Decis. Econ. 25: 219–220 (2004), DOI:
10.1002/mde.1178)
Not surprisingly, the pro and con gambling camps are battling. Protestations of innocence and defensive postures by the gambling industry oppose
grass-roots community efforts and economists who want quality of life, less crime, and fewer addicts. Kindt is well versed in this controversy, and is
to be lauded for his efforts to scrutinize the effects of the gambling industry and its methods of operation. Kindt describes the
similarities between the actions of the tobacco industry and the gambling industry in his sections titled, ‘The Trend Toward Obfuscating the Issues’, and
‘The Gravamen of the Potential Mega-Lawsuits Against the Gambling Industry’.
I can attest to the factual accuracy of Kindt’s description of my removal from the editorial board of the Journal of
Gambling Studies (formerly the Journal of Gambling Behavior) after it acquired leadership with closer connections to the
gambling industry, including individuals funded by it. I questioned the credibility of studies on gambling which show that support
came from the gambling industry. I also disputed the accuracy of the term ‘disordered gambling’ to describe ‘pathological gambling’, which has been the
approved nomenclature for this psychiatric disorder (American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd
edition) since 1980.
Kindt, like others, wants accountability. But what has the gambling industry offered? Will it address the issues raised so often, by so many? The National
Gambling Impact Study Commission firmly recommended that a moratorium be observed regarding any expansion of gambling. Has the gambling
industry acknowledged this Congressional Commission’s recommendation? Not at all.
If the gambling industry ignores the obvious and opponents cannot have honest and unbiased dialogue, then the Kindt proposal
seems a longoverdue alternative. His proposal is by no means the first, and will not be the last, but the issues are laid out for all to see. When our
families and our communities become sources of unjust enrichment for a few and the fundamental values about unharmful commerce are attacked,
what’s left except a lawsuit to counter encroachment of the gambling industry? Kindt has given us a proposal that makes sense.
Treatment professionals hope that justice and good policy will prevail, but what we want most is to help Tommy. That requires adequate funds for
prevention and treatment off this addiction. Since the damage was caused by the gambling industry, perhaps lawsuits, as was the case with the tobacco
industry, are the only recourse. Kindt is moving us in the right direction . A class action lawsuit against the gambling industry is necessary
because it is another industry that gives too little and demands too much.
Revenues are overestimated—new jersey and Delaware prove
Tuttle 4-3-14
Brad Tuttle is a reporter for TIME “So Far, Online Gambling Revenues Have Been Pathetic” Time, http://time.com/48411/so-faronline-gambling-revenues-have-been-pathetic/ ac 7-26
State budget makers and gaming interests have drastically , laughably overestimated the amount of money that
would be generated with the advent of legalized online gambling, especially in New Jersey.¶ In March 2013, New Jersey officials
forecast that online gambling would yield somewhere in the neighborhood of $180 million in tax revenues for the state
during the first fiscal year Internet gaming was legal. But the estimates have been falling ever since —to $160 million when Christ
down to just $ 34 million earlier this year, after a few months of legalized online
gambling had passed. More recently, the state treasurer said that no more estimates on online gambling revenues would be
made public, which seems wise considering how previous predictions have fared. ¶ From the end of November, when
legalized online gambling in New Jersey, through February 2014, a mere $ 4.2 million in tax revenues has been collected by the
state, leading one legislative budget officer to now project an estimate of $12 million in revenues for the year, the Associated Press reported. The
Christie signed the state budget last summer, and
revised estimate for next year’s revenues was listed at $48 million. At that pace, it would take four or five years for the state to take in revenues equal to
the amount it was supposed to collect in tax revenues during the first year of legal online gambling. ¶ It’s not just state officials who seem mystified by the
lackluster returns. Caesars Entertainment recently informed the New Jersey Star-Ledger that its online gaming operation was experiencing decent
success in a few parts of the state—Jersey City, Toms River, Cherry Hill—but that it couldn’t explain why interest was strong in some areas and almost
nonexistent in others.¶ New
Jersey isn’t the only state that seems to have drastically overestimated online gambling’s
potential as a budgetary savior. When Delaware’s gambling sites launched, there were often only a couple dozen
players online at any moment , and almost immediately it became apparent that revenues wouldn’t come
anywhere near to the first-year estimates. Toward the end of March, Morgan Stanley issued a note regarding longer term prospects for online
gambling in the U.S. “We are lowering our estimates to better reflect the insights we have gained following the first few months of operations in New
Jersey, Nevada and Delaware,” the note stated, lowering the anticipated gross online gambling spending for 2017 from $5 billion to $3.5 billion, and for
2020 from $9.3 billion to $8 billion.
No realistic economic benefit – not enough to overcome deficits
Cooper, 12 – Michael, national correspondent, taking a lead role in covering the Boston marathon bombings, fact-checking the candidates and writing about policy
during the 2012 presidential election, and covering urban affairs and the impact of the downturn on state and local governments (“As States Weigh Online Gambling,
Profit May Be Small,” NYT, 1/17/12, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/us/more-states-look-to-legalize-online-gambling.html?_r=1& //Red)
But as
desperate as states are for new revenue, after four years of often painful austerity, there are questions about just how
much income they can expect to receive from online gambling. The state of Iowa released a study last month that found
that legalizing online poker might net it $3 million to $13 million a year, far less than private companies had
estimated. The American Gaming Association, a casino industry trade group, has estimated that legalizing online poker would generate roughly $2 billion a year
in new tax revenues, a fraction of what states get from their lotteries.
Supporters of legalizing online poker in California estimate that it would net the state $100 million to $250 million a year — a tidy
sum, to be sure, but still only enough to put a small dent in the $9.2 billion budget shortfall California faces.
Still, advocates of online poker in California say that the state should not throw away a winning hand just because the pot is not big enough to solve all of its
problems.
“Two hundred and fifty million dollars buys you a lot of teachers,” said State Senator Lou Correa, a lawmaker from Orange County who sponsored one of the bills
seeking to legalize online poker in California. He thinks legalization could bring in more than the estimates show. “Half a billion dollars buys you even more teachers.
When we’re cutting social services to the poorest in our state, it buys you a lot of social services. The budget deficit is tremendous, but you take $500 million here,
$500 million there, and pretty soon you’re talking serious money.”
One reason that the yields are not expected to be huge is that many states are considering legalizing only online poker, which they argue involves more skill and less
chance than other forms of gambling. Since poker pits players against one another — unlike, say, roulette or slot machines, in which gamblers play against casinos
that have the odds stacked in their favor — online poker sites make their money by taking a small percentage, or “rake,” from each pot. States could make money by
taxing the rake, and by selling licenses to run the sites.
Supporters of online gambling say the current estimates may undercount how many people would play poker online. Many of the forecasts are based on how many
people have played on illegal Web sites in the past. But placing bets on illegal Web sites requires a leap of faith — that the electronic cards are shuffled fairly, that
other players cannot see your hand and that the Web site will pay you if you win. Legal, well-regulated Web sites, supporters say, would attract more players.
In fact, the proposal to legalize online poker in Iowa is more about protecting consumers than about raising
money, said State Senator Jeff Danielson, a Democrat from the Cedar Falls area who is drafting a bill. “We are not doing this to expand
our state budget,” he said. “Our purpose is to make sure every Iowan who wants to play poker has a fair game, has protections, and, if they win, is able to retain
those earning in a fair and safe way.”
1nr
WTO
A labor-led, united transition founded in social justice is underway now- only the plan derails
it
Chen, 14 – In These Times contributing editor
[Michelle, CultureStrike associate editor, co-producer of “Asia Pacific Forum” on Pacifica's WBAI and Dissent Magazine's “Belabored” podcast, "Could
China’s Labor Unrest Spark Another Tiananmen Moment?" The Nation, 6-9-14, www.thenation.com/blog/180161/could-chinas-labor-unrest-sparkanother-tiananmen-moment#, accessed 9-28-14]
The thing is, the majority will make itself heard regardless. And China’s working class hasn’t disappeared since Tiananmen’s bloodbath; it is diversifying and in
some sectors, getting angrier. According to data from the Hong Kong–based NGO China Labour Bulletin, there have been more than 700 labor-related uprisings
in the past year, and since 2011, more than 1,500 protests, strikes and other “mass incidents” have ensued, ranging from clashes with management over back wages to
road blockages to taxi worker strikes. There are no official independent unions (just a massive state-sponsored All China Confederation of Trade Unions), but workers are
growing increasingly savvy at manipulating technology to spread their message and extract concessions from management. When their store was slated for
closure, aggrieved workers at a Walmart in the Hunan city of Changde blockaded the store and demanded negotiations over severance pay for employees fearing sudden
layoffs. Led by a maverick local leader of the usually conciliatory state-run union, workers recently rebuffed the retail giant’s settlement offer, demanding extra payment to
compensate for “breach of contract.” Labor unrest is also emerging among the migrant workforce—a more diffuse wave of activism driven by some of the most exploited
workers, often in precarious industries, who are typically isolated from both their rural home communities and from the urban societies where they work. Guangdong, a hub of
foreign investment and migrant labor, has percolated with labor militancy at multinational firms. In April, for example, an historic strike involving some 40,000 workers exploded
at a Taiwanese-owned Yue Yuen shoe factory, shaking up the supply chains of Adidas and Nike. But the state is also adapting to these new currents of strife. Just as the
regime’s neoliberal reforms effectively bought the silence of the intelligentsia with consumptive prosperity, it now seeks to contain (and ultimately neutralize) workers’
unrest through formal civil legal channels. For material disputes over, for example, wage arrears, the state encourages workers and advocates to take to the courts
rather than the streets. The logic of the gradualist, legalistic approach to labor empowerment is appealing. Han Dongfang, a worker who protested at Tiananmen and now
heads China Labour Bulletin, argued in New Left Review in 2005: Will you put your trust in gathering tens of thousands of people onto the streets, or in seeking legal help from
a lawyer? Most Chinese people believe in the former rather than the latter.… This is what we are trying to do—to solve existing social problems through existing legal
systems. In a sense, you could call it a cultural project: encouraging people to trust in peaceful negotiations. That kind of confidence is needed for a healthier development of
the country in the future. However, China scholars Eli Friedman and Ching Kwan Lee have observed that unrest has actually increased during periods of legal reform. Despite
more formal rights, workers remain constrained by anemic enforcement, unresponsive leadership from the management-friendly official union and, generally, labor violations
on such an epidemic scale that the fundamental problems can’t be resolved on an individual basis: The rise of rights consciousness is outgrowing institutional capacity to meet
or contain workers’ demands. Workers have more rights on paper—and are more aware of them—than ever before. But in reality they have little leverage in their places of
employment, and the protection that their interests receive from the courts and the government is uneven at best. Not surprisingly, worker protests do not look as if they will
disappear from Chinese life anytime soon. But they may yet spread in another direction: as consciousness of labor rights solidifies, higher-ranked workers and even
managers have sometimes taken the lead in workplace uprisings, with labor demands that galvanize unrest in the lower ranks . The moments of
convergence between upper- and lower-tier employees faintly echoes the brief cross-sector solidarity that protesters displayed at Tiananmen. If a
conception of legal justice can form the basis for a new class consciousess, it could seed the germ of a collective social movement. But only if workers
believe that existing institutions are doing more to derail change than to shepherd it. Under the current political climate—fueled by repression, nationalist
fervor and economic boom times—activists face daunting obstacles to building a mass consciousness amid a systematically depoliticized, individualistic social landscape.
Still, the social order is hardly seamless. Protests regularly erupt—in factories, in communities enraged by local pollution, or among farmers resisting land grabs. But such
localized unrest hasn’t been fully harnessed into a wider political consciousness. Or will the next political spark emerge from a more organic sense of social
justice? The massive Yue Yuen uprising,
after all, began with a straightforward protest about unpaid social insurance pensions: a recent retiree
reportedly complained that her payments fell short of what she was entitled to after years spent working her way up to management; she joined the plant in her twenties in
1989. The strike capped a narrative about twenty-five years in the making. Maybe today, a quarter-century on,
due
Tiananmen’s
unredeemed
legacy is coming
as well.
Autocracy makes lashout inevitable- try or die
Friedman, 2k -- University of Wisconsin-Madison Political Science chair
(Edward, University of Wisconsin-Madison Hawkins Chair of Political Science and professor, former China specialist on the U.S. House of
Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, “Preventing War Between China and Japan,” in What if China Doesn’t Democratize?, ed. By Friedman
and McCormick, 2000, 111)
It, however, was not Lee Teng-hui's alleged provocativeness, but changes in
China, including a growing anti-Japanese nationalism that sparked Beijing's military action against Taiwan in Summer 1995 and 1996.
Unless there are changes in Chinese politics, more military action should be expected from Beijing if Taiwan
does not capitulate.36 This threat to the peace is real and new . There was no Chinese irredentism toward Taiwan from the Mao camp before
Yet many American analysts treat Chinese words of pure defensiveness as gospel.
the 1943 Cairo Conference, when Nationalist Party leader Chiang Kai-shek persuaded the Allies arrayed against Showa-era Japanese military expansionism to agree to give
Taiwan to Chiang's Republic of China after imperial Japan's armies, which had first occupied Taiwan in the Meiji era, were defeated. It is not surprising that Taiwan had not
been part of Mao's nationalism, since during the many millennia of Chinese history, Taiwan had never been a province of China until the expansionist imperialism of the
Manchu Empire, and then, for just one decade. (Mongolia is unique in having regained its independence after the fall of Manchu imperialism in 1911.) When Chiang's forces
fled from Mao's conquering army to safety on Taiwan in 1949, Mao treated Taiwan mainly as a home to a defeated civil war military force that wrongly sat in Beijing's rightful
seat in international bodies. Mao saw no need for a war over Taiwan in his lifetime. For the post-Mao generation out to build up China, Taiwan might be seen as a partner in a
common project. After all, Taiwan is a major source of foreign exchange helping to speed China's economic growth, a partner in trade, a well-spring of foreign investment, a
part of a huge tourist influx. There was no cross-straits civil war. Millions of people from the mainland of China and the island of Taiwan went back and forth peacefully. It is
were China to democratize and federalize or confederate, it would swiftly
become irresistibly attractive to Taiwanese. It is dictatorship in China which perpetuates war-prone division.
possible to imagine European Common Market—style mutual benefit. Indeed
Democracy is key to sustainable US-China relations
McCormick, 2k --Marquette University political science professor, 2k
[Barrett, “Democratization and China’s Nation Building,” in What if China Doesn’t Democratize?, ed. By Friedman and McCormick, 305, mss]
Democratization in China would lead to
better relations between the United States and China. This is because the present atmosphere of mutual
suspicion and hostility between China and the United States is more the result of perceptions and institutions than unchanging culture or immutable
national interests. Far from being inevitably driven to conflict by culture or realpolitik, China and the United States could derive mutual benefit from
economic and cultural exchanges and cooperate to achieve common diplomatic goals. As the democratic peace argument suggests, democracy offers
the
best hope of ameliorating institutional conflicts and negotiating mutual understanding between the United States and China. As Bruce Russett
and others have argued, democracy fosters a climate of negotiation and compromise. An open public debate offers the best chance of introducing new
information and changing perceptions.
Anti-democratic Chinese diplomacy makes US-China war inevitable
Friedman, University of Wisconsin-Madison Political Science chair, 2000
[Edward, University of Wisconsin-Madison Hawkins Chair of Political Science and professor, former China specialist on
the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, “Preventing War Between China and Japan,” in What if
China Doesn’t Democratize?, ed. By Friedman and McCormick, 226, mss]
Because China has been the most rapidly growing and largest emerging market since 1978, its economic clout has led democratic trading nations in
Europe to back off from human rights activism. But is China also succeeding beyond its borders in Asia in rolling back human rights and democracy?
Samuel Kim's chapter shows it is. This may touch vital American interests. After all, the spread of fascism in Europe in the early part of the twentieth
century eventually dragged the United States in to a world war. It would be irresponsible not to inquire whether China's work to roll back human rights
activism in Asia (e.g., Myanmar) could also eventually
drag America into a major conflict . The American economy entering the twenty-first
century is far more enmeshed with Asia than the American economy of the 1920s was with Europe. The democratic world's ability to grapple with its
social problems depends on continuing growth, which, in no small part, is linked to a friendly and prospering Asia-Pacific region. China has growing
influence in Asia. Already, Beijing has used its power to sustain dictatorship or block human rights efforts in North Korea, Myanmar, and Cambodia. It
has bailed out a friendly Bangkok. While China is far from matching America militarily in an all-out confrontation, that will almost never prove decisive in
a particular Asian conflict. China has been using its power to impose its territorial claims and to promote antidemocratic and anti-American purposes. In
sum, China's opposition to democracy
makes war more likely.
Spread of democracy solves disease- free flow of information and trust contain epidemicshistory is on our side
Joseph Siegle et al, Center for Institutional Reform Associate Director, '04
[Michael Weinsstein (CFR Senior Fellow) and Morton Halperin Center for American Progress Senior VP, Foreign Affairs, "Why
Democracies Excel," Sept/Oct, infotrac]
Democracies are open: they spur the flow of information. Organizations in and out of government regularly report findings, educate the public, and push
political leaders to consider a full range of options, spreading good ideas from one sector to another. The free flow of ideas, every bit as much as the
flow of goods, fosters efficient, customized, and effective policies. Put this way, development is an exercise in educating a population: to wash hands,
improve farming techniques, eat nutritious food, or protect the environment, for example. And societies that promote the free flow of information have a
distinct advantage in these efforts. Information is best communicated through multiple and independent channels. For example, it was the active publiceducation campaign undertaken by the Ugandan government and nongovernmental organizations in the 1990s that dramatically reduced the
transmission of HIV/AIDS in that country. Uganda was once the world leader in percentage of adult population infected, at roughly 30 percent, but by
2003, that rate had declined to 7 percent. By contrast, attempts to suppress information during the SARS epidemic in China allowed the disease to
spread before the public became aware and concerted action could be taken. Once the epidemic was acknowledged, distrust of the government led
many Chinese in infected areas to violate the government's quarantine. This example also confirms a larger proposition: democracies do a better job of
correcting errors. Once private or public authorities make decisions in open societies, the results become known and corrective action, if needed, can be
taken.
Democracy solves terrorism – provides alternatives and removes underlying causes
Jennifer Windsor, Freedom House Executive Director, 3
[The Washington Quarterly, "Promoting Democratization Can Combat Terrorism," Summer,
http://twq.com/03summer/docs/03summer_windsor.pdf]
Although cynics may scoff, democratization has gained credence as a counterterrorism strategy in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001,
attacks. The underlying logic is that democratic institutions and procedures, by enabling the peaceful reconciliation of grievances and providing
channels for participation in policymaking, can help to address those underlying conditions that have fueled the recent rise of Islamist
extremism. The source of much of the current wave of terrorist activity— the Middle East—is not coincidentally also overwhelmingly
undemocratic, and most regimes in the region lack the legitimacy and capacity to respond to the social and economic challenges that face them.
Chinese democracy would solve poverty and income inequality
Gilley, New School University international affairs professor, 2005
[Bruce, former contributing editor at the Far Eastern Economic Review, China’s Democratic Future, 209-210, mss]
Social Welfare
Alongside developmentalism, a renewal of interest in social welfare is a likely result of democratic transition. Mainstream opinion is likely to favor a
reconstruction of the social welfare system that fell apart in the PRC's reform era. The reform-era model of "growth without equity" would no longer be
acceptable to the newly visible majority who suffered from the yawning inequalities of the PRC. Although China is unlikely to witness mass executions of
its modern-day landlords, the "big portions" (dakuan) of the cities, a rebalancing of priorities is to be expected.
Chinese poverty triggers Sino-Russian war- it will go nuclear
Sharavin, Political and Military Analysis Institute director, 2001
[Alexander, “The Third Threat: Russia is overlooking the increasing military might of China,” Sept 28, Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie,
No. 28, http://www.cdi.org/russia/Johnson/5470.html]
China's economy is among the fastest-growing economies in the world. It remains socialistic in many aspects, i.e. extensive and highly expensive,
demanding more and more natural resources. China's natural resources are rather limited, whereas the depths of Siberia and the Russian Far East are
almost inexhaustible. Chinese propaganda has constantly been showing us skyscrapers in free trade zones in southeastern China. It should not be
forgotten, however, that some 250 to 300 million people live there, i.e. at most a quarter of China's population. A billion Chinese people are still living in
misery. For them, even the living standards of a backwater Russian town remain inaccessibly high. They have absolutely nothing to lose. There is every
prerequisite for "the final throw to the north." The strength of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (CPLA) has been growing quicker than the Chinese
economy. A decade ago the CPLA was equipped with inferior copies of Russian arms from late 1950s to the early 1960s. However, through its own
efforts Russia has nearly managed to liquidate its most significant technological advantage. Thanks to our zeal, from antique MiG-21 fighters of the
earliest modifications and S-75 air defense missile systems the Chinese antiaircraft defense forces have adopted Su-27 fighters and S-300 air defense
missile systems. China's air defense forces have received Tor systems instead of anti-aircraft guns which could have been used during World War II.
The shock air force of our "eastern brethren" will in the near future replace antique Tu-16 and Il-28 airplanes with Su-30 fighters, which are not yet
available to the Russian Armed Forces! Russia may face the "wonderful" prospect of combating the Chinese army, which, if full mobilization is called, is
comparable in size with Russia's entire population, which also has nuclear weapons (even tactical weapons become strategic if states have common
borders) and would be absolutely in-sensitive to losses (even a loss of a few million of the servicemen would be acceptable for China). Such a war would
be more horrible than the World War II. It would require from our state maximal tension, universal mobilization and complete accumulation of the army
military hardware, up to the last tank or a plane, in a single direction (we would have to forget such "trifles" like Talebs and Basaev, but this does not
guarantee success either). Massive nuclear strikes on basic military forces and cities of China would finally be the only way out, what would exhaust
Russia's armament completely. We have not got another set of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-based missiles, whereas the general
forces would be extremely exhausted in the border combats. In the long run, even if the aggression would be stopped after the majority of the Chinese
are killed, our country would be absolutely unprotected against the "Chechen" and the "Balkan" variants both, and even against the first frost of a
possible nuclear winter. An aforementioned prospect is, undoubtedly, rather disagreeable and we would not like to believe it can be true. However, it is a
realistic prospect - just like a war against NATO or Islamic extremists.
China-Japan war is inevitable without Chinese democracy- CCP ensures tit-for-tat escalation
to war
Friedman, University of Wisconsin-Madison Political Science chair, 2000
[Edward, University of Wisconsin-Madison Hawkins Chair of Political Science and professor, former China specialist on
the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, “Preventing War Between China and Japan,” in What if
China Doesn’t Democratize?, ed. By Friedman and McCormick, 105, mss]
The Chinese people continually remind themselves of their suffering at the hands of Japanese aggressors, supposedly from 1874-1945, that is, the
entire modern era, and swear that it shall never be allowed to happen again, interpreting virtually every Japanese gesture as if Japanese militarism
might soon be on the march all over Asia. Japan is treated as inherently evil. Actions premised on such worst case readings readily create security
dilemmas because defensive efforts by Tokyo are taken in Beijing to be threats that must be met in a tit-for-tat way. A vicious spiral has been unleashed.
Consequently, peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region in the twenty-first century require a major change in Beijing-Tokyo relations, a move
toward genuine reconciliation. This large change may be impossible unless China democratizes. Analogous transitions which illuminate what is at stake
include initial efforts at democratization in Russia allowing, at least momentarily, an end to Cold War tensions, and, more clearly, post—World War II
German-French reconciliation after Germany democratized. Prior to Germany's democratization, from Napoleon's invasion of Germany to Hitler's
invasion of France, France and Germany were regularly at war with each other. Mistrust, hate, and desires for vengeance suffused the relationship. Only
the trust, transparency, and cooperation facilitated by democratization could, over time, reduce the hates and angers that provided the tinder that could
be ignited into war by unfortunate incidents and domestically needed maneuvers. So I believe it is with China and Japan. Democratization, and getting
past the passions of early democratization, are required for genuine China-Japan reconciliation.
Chinese democracy would solve poverty and income inequality
Gilley, New School University international affairs professor, 2005
[Bruce, former contributing editor at the Far Eastern Economic Review, China’s Democratic Future, 209-210, mss]
Social Welfare
Alongside developmentalism, a renewal of interest in social welfare is a likely result of democratic transition. Mainstream opinion is likely to favor a
reconstruction of the social welfare system that fell apart in the PRC's reform era. The reform-era model of "growth without equity" would no longer be
acceptable to the newly visible majority who suffered from the yawning inequalities of the PRC. Although China is unlikely to witness mass executions of
its modern-day landlords, the "big portions" (dakuan) of the cities, a rebalancing of priorities is to be expected.
Chinese poverty triggers Sino-Russian war- it will go nuclear
Sharavin, Political and Military Analysis Institute director, 2001
[Alexander, “The Third Threat: Russia is overlooking the increasing military might of China,” Sept 28, Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie,
No. 28, http://www.cdi.org/russia/Johnson/5470.html]
China's economy is among the fastest-growing economies in the world. It remains socialistic in many aspects, i.e. extensive and highly expensive,
demanding more and more natural resources. China's natural resources are rather limited, whereas the depths of Siberia and the Russian Far East are
almost inexhaustible. Chinese propaganda has constantly been showing us skyscrapers in free trade zones in southeastern China. It should not be
forgotten, however, that some 250 to 300 million people live there, i.e. at most a quarter of China's population. A billion Chinese people are still living in
misery. For them, even the living standards of a backwater Russian town remain inaccessibly high. They have absolutely nothing to lose. There is every
prerequisite for "the final throw to the north." The strength of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (CPLA) has been growing quicker than the Chinese
economy. A decade ago the CPLA was equipped with inferior copies of Russian arms from late 1950s to the early 1960s. However, through its own
efforts Russia has nearly managed to liquidate its most significant technological advantage. Thanks to our zeal, from antique MiG-21 fighters of the
earliest modifications and S-75 air defense missile systems the Chinese antiaircraft defense forces have adopted Su-27 fighters and S-300 air defense
missile systems. China's air defense forces have received Tor systems instead of anti-aircraft guns which could have been used during World War II.
The shock air force of our "eastern brethren" will in the near future replace antique Tu-16 and Il-28 airplanes with Su-30 fighters, which are not yet
available to the Russian Armed Forces! Russia may face the "wonderful" prospect of combating the Chinese army, which, if full mobilization is called, is
comparable in size with Russia's entire population, which also has nuclear weapons (even tactical weapons become strategic if states have common
borders) and would be absolutely in-sensitive to losses (even a loss of a few million of the servicemen would be acceptable for China). Such a war would
be more horrible than the World War II. It would require from our state maximal tension, universal mobilization and complete accumulation of the army
military hardware, up to the last tank or a plane, in a single direction (we would have to forget such "trifles" like Talebs and Basaev, but this does not
guarantee success either). Massive nuclear strikes on basic military forces and cities of China would finally be the only way out, what would exhaust
Russia's armament completely. We have not got another set of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-based missiles, whereas the general
forces would be extremely exhausted in the border combats. In the long run, even if the aggression would be stopped after the majority of the Chinese
are killed, our country would be absolutely unprotected against the "Chechen" and the "Balkan" variants both, and even against the first frost of a
possible nuclear winter. An aforementioned prospect is, undoubtedly, rather disagreeable and we would not like to believe it can be true. However, it is a
realistic prospect - just like a war against NATO or Islamic extremists.