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Legalizing marijuana is a tactic of neoliberal governmentality that places the onus
on individuals to govern themselves while the government sits back and makes sure
that they’re doing it right – this increases state control through regulatory
mechanisms while minimizing its perception
O’Brien 2013 - University of Wisconsin-Whitewater (February 25, Patrick, “Medical Marijuana and Social Control: Escaping
Criminalization and Embracing Medicalization” Deviant Behavior, 34: 423–443, Taylor & Francis)
A latent outcome of this legal-medical system has been its adaptation to the new criminologies evidenced in late modern society (Garland
1996, 2001). The medicalization of cannabis has defined deviance down significantly (Moynihan 1993) and effectively reduced the demands
placed on the State’s criminal justice agencies. At the same time,
the State has increasingly embedded social controls
into the fabric of society , rather than inserting them from above in the form of sovereign command (Garland 2001).
Medical dispensary owners, cultivators, investors, and employees, along with local politicians and affiliated
business owners, have remained bound to State laws and policies, but have also been expected to proctor
themselves while government powers watch at a distance for a breakdown in control. The State has
conceded that it is unable to manage the illicit marijuana market alone and has redirected its control
efforts away from the sole authority of the police, the courts, and the prisons. The dispensary industry has
provided the State a situation in which it governs, but does not coercively control marijuana and its
users. Instead, the State manages the drug through the actors involved in the legal-medical industry, and has effectively mandated them as
active partners in sustaining and enforcing the formal and informal controls of the dispensary system. The State controls at an ostensibly
distant fashion, but it has not resigned its power. On the contrary, it
has retained its traditional command over the police
and the prisons while expanding its efficiency and capacity to control marijuana and its users . This new
reality in crime control has stratified itself across all facets of society, including its structural, cultural, and interactional dimensions. At the
structural level, the
legal-medical model has reduced the strain of a substantial segment of society by
institutionalizing acceptable and lawful means of accessing marijuana, effectively shifting this population
into an ecological position where they can be watched and controlled . The groups once involved in
the illicit market have become visible, and the laws that govern the use, distribution, and production
of cannabis have actually become enforceable
by the State. Marijuana users have become patients, requiring a physician’s
recommendation to con sume the drug lawfully. The State has mandated what medical conditions warrant a registry card, monitoring people
through licensing applications, doctors’ files, government paperwork, and the medical marijuana registry. Dispensary owners have been
required to grow 70%of their own product, to provide live 24-hour surveillance camera feeds of their cultivation and distribution warehouses,
and to subject themselves to periodic inspection. Dispensary owners and employees have been fingerprinted and undergone extensive
background checks, and marijuana businesses only operate in State zoned locations. By
amassing knowledge about the social
organization of the marijuana industry and its users, the government has engaged in monitoring,
aggregating, and transmitting such information to law enforcement and the public. At the cultural level, the
legal-medical system has provided a greater degree of social order, stability, and integration by
relocating marijuana users into the fold of conventional norms and values. Cultural cohesion and
conformity have been fostered through legitimate business opera tions that cater to conventional
lifestyles and work hours, that quell concerns over safety and lawfulness, and reduce the alienation of
a subculture of users. The State has effectively aligned a once criminal population of people with
dominant ideals of normality (Goffman 1983) and dismantled a framework of deviant organization (Best and Luckenbill 1982) with
distinct ideol ogies and norms concerning marijuana sales and use. The government has incorporated the norms and
values of conventional society into the processes of distributing and using cannabis, and now assists in controlling marijuana through the
cultural transmission (Shaw and McKay 1972) of rituals and sanctions now aligned with the normative social order. Both
of these macro-
and meso-level shifts
have augmented State control of marijuana and its users at an interactional level.
These structural and cultural changes have directly influenced micro-level processes and mediated people’s
differential associations and social learning processes (Akers 2000; Sutherland 1949; Sutherland and Cressey 1955) as
users have been increasingly socialized into a conventional drug lifestyle. Marijuana users in the dispensary sys tem
have decreased their contacts with deviant others and increased their contacts with legitimate associations by purchasing lawfully from
licensed distributors. Dispensary
owners have come to interact with banks, contractors, real estate firms,
tax specialists, and lawyers because they exist in legitimate occupational associations and lawful community relations. This legalmedical model has allowed the State to further monitor interactional processes through receipts, taxes, and video
surveillance. This continuous supervision has led to growing discipline and normal ization. The State has
prescribed conforming modes of conduct upon marijuana users with new found power
(Foucault 1975).
Zoning laws have mandated where transactions occur, distribution laws have defined how much can be purchased, and monitored business
hours have controlled the time sales occur. The State has also strengthened individual bonds to society (Hirschi 1969)
as a medical license protects users’ conventional investments (i.e., education, career, and family) and caters to their time-consuming activities
has prompted people
to endorse society’s rules as progressively more politically and morally correct , since users are
as they have decided the time, speed, and location of their purchases. Finally, State medicalization of marijuana
typically critical of cannabis prohibition. This
legal-medical
system has also accommodated the ideals of
neoliberalism . Through the adaptive strategy of responsibilization (Garland 2001), the penalization strategies (i.e.,
control mechanisms) regulating
marijuana have become increasingly privatized , operating through civil
society. For example, although the State has demanded 24-hour video surveillance over dispensary operations, it has also required
these businesses to regulate their own marijuana production and distribution, monitor their own employees
and financial accounts, and direct their own branding and promotional campaigns. Furthermore, by defining deviance down, marijuana has
become legally sold through privately owned dispensaries. In neoliberal fashion, marijuana has been deregulated for
capital gain.
The aff’s reduction of state prohibitions is an excuse for an increase in governing the
conduct of individuals – removing prohibitions in favor of individual responsibility
creates subjects that are willing partners in neoliberal exploitation
Lemke 2002 - assistant professor at the Social Science Department of Bergische Universität (December 7, Thomas, “Foucault,
Governmentality, and Critique” google scholar)
The concept of governmentality also proves to be useful
in correcting the diagnosis of neoliberalism as an
expansion of economy in politics, which takes for granted the separation of state and market. The argument goes that there is
some “pure” or “anarchic” economy that will be “regulated” or “civilized” by a political reaction of society. But as we have known
since Marx, there is no market independent of the state, and economy is always political economy. The problem with
this kind of critique is that it shares the (neo-)liberal program of a separation between politics and
economy. The perspective of governmentality makes possible the development of a dynamic form of
analysis that does not limit itself to stating the “retreat of politics” or the “domination of the market ,”
but deciphers the so-called end of politics itself as a political program. In his work, Foucault shows that the “art of government” is
not limited to the field of politics as separated from the economy. Instead, the constitution of a
conceptually and practically distinguished space, governed by autonomous laws and a proper
rationality, is itself an element of “economic” government . 5 Foucault repeatedly pointed out that the power of the
economy was vested on a prior “economics of power” since the accumulation of capital presumes technologies of
production and forms of labor that enable putting to use a multitude of human beings in an
economically profitable manner. Foucault showed that laborpower must first be constituted before it can
be exploited : that is, that life time must be synthesized into labor time, individuals must be subjugated to the production circle, habits
must be formed, and time and space must be organized according to a scheme. Thus,
economic exploitation required a prior
“political investment of the body ” (1977, 25). By this theoretical reorientation , Foucault hoped to complement and enlarge
Marx’s critique of political economy with a “critique of political anatomy.” 6 In his studies on governmenta lity and his courses at the Collège de
France on neoliberal reason, Foucault takes this form of analysis one step further, combining the “microphysics of power” with the
macropolitical question of the state. Again, he does not limit the field of power relations to the government of the state; on the contrary, what
Foucault is interested in is the question how power relations historically could concentrate in the form of the state without ever being reducible
to it. Following this line of inquiry, Foucault
sees the state as “nothing more that the mobile effect of a regime of
multiple governmentality . . . It is necessary to address from an exterior point of view the question of
the state, it is necessary to analyse the problem of the state by referring to the practices of
government” (1984, 21). When Foucault speaks of the “governmentalization of the state” (1991a, 103), he does not assume that
government is a technique that could be applied or used by state authorities or apparatus; instead he comprehends the state itself as a tactics
of government, as a dynamic form and historic stabilization of societal power relations. Thus, governmentality
is “at once
internal and external to the state, since it is the tactics of government which make possible the
continual definition and redefinition of what is within the competence of the state and what is not,
the public versus the private, and so on; thus the state can only be understood in its survival and its
limits on the basis of the general tactics of governmentality” (103). Foucault’ s discussion of neoliberal
governmentality shows that the so-called retreat of the state is in fact a prolongation of government:
neoliberalism is not the end but a transformation of politics that restructures the power relations in
society . What we observe today is not a diminishment or reduction of state sovereignty
capacities
and planning
but a displacement from formal to informal techniques of government and the appearance of
new actors on the scene of government
(e.g., nongovernmental organizations) that
indicate fundamental
transformations in statehood and a new relation between state and civil society actors. This
encompasses, on the one hand, the displacement of forms of practices that were formerly defined in terms
of nation-state to supranational levels and, on the other hand, the development of forms of subpolitics
“beneath” politics in its traditional meaning. In other words, the difference between state and society,
politics and economy does not function as a foundation or a borderline but as element and effect of
specific neoliberal technologies of government .
Resistance to government techniques is impossible through the law – it inevitably
gets coopted by state interests and just obscures state power
Leonard 1990 - Juris Doctorate from the Syracuse University College of Law and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of
English and Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Jerry D., “Foucault: Genealogy, Law, Praxis” Legal Studies Forum,
Volume XIV, Number 1, Hein Online)
As I have implied above, the intricate and multitudinal sets of rules of law are inseparable from the similarly diverse forms of legal rights and
obligations, all of which are constituted within the rituals of political struggles. These rules of law should be understood, then, as cultural
signifiers of power struggles. The use of particular legal rules, or the more generalized resort
to legal rule systems in the effort to
a concealed deployment of political force. These legal rules and
their use are therefore not designed to temper violence, but, on the contrary, to satisfy it (see Foucault
1971: 85). As Foucault puts it: "Humanity does not gradually progress from combat to combat until it arrives at
universal reciprocity, where the rule of law finally replaces warfare; humanity installs each of its violences in a
derive some set of principles embodied in them, is
system of rules and thus proceeds from domination to domination " (Foucault 1971: 85). At least a partial answer to
the genealogical enquiries into the historical processes of political violences, therefore, would lie precisely in this properly critical identification
of the radical contingency, malleability and interpretability of the rules themselves -that is to say, in a theory of the opacity of language. 8 Thus
we have the proposition that the
particular rules of law are, at a single stroke, the disguises of violent struggle
and the "tools" (critically understood) or instruments of that struggle. As Foucault writes in "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History"
(1971): Rules are empty in themselves, violent and unfinalized; they are impersonal and can be bent to any purpose. The
successes of history belong to those who are capable of seizing these rules, to replace those who had
used them, to disguise themselves so as to pervert them, invert their meaning, and redirect them
against those who had initially imposed them; controlling this complex mechanism, they will make it function so as to
overcome the rulers through their own rules (Foucault 1971: 85-86). It goes almost without saying that an oppositional politics is concerned
with this "play of dominations" (Foucault 1971: 85), as Foucault puts it, which constantly rumbles beneath the surface of appearances in
legal(istic) culture. But it is no less true that those political collectivities which currently exercise hegemony/dominance must also, at some level
of consciousness, know the threatening pressure at stake in the question of interpretation as Foucault's work (re)presents it - that is to say, the
exposure of an essential indeterminacy in the existence of rules, and thus an obstinate contingency at the heart of culture's order and
organization. The
threatening position of a genealogical legal theory, in other words, is that reading is always
already political; or to put this same proposition on a more general level, that power insinuates itself into the fabric of
not only what we claim to understand, but also what is (re)presented as the unknown and mysterious.
What goes by the name of "interpretation," then, under Foucault's analytic of power/knowledge, is in fact a series of
actions which are profoundly dangerous and potentially uncertain: "the violent or surreptitious
appropriation of a system of rules, which in itself has no essential meaning, in order to impose a
direction, to bend it to a new will, to force its participation in a different game, and to subject it to
secondary rules" (Foucault 1971: 86). The critical insight running through Foucault's analyses of political power, law and interpretation is
that the knowledge(able) practices inscribed in such cultural operations constitute, at bottom, a silent warfare, a play
of dominations, a constant tug of war over the organization of culture and the (re)preseitation of its
historical formation. That this is indeed a constant struggle and not a natural given, or a "once and for all" event, is doubtless of most
importance for the forces of opposition, for as Foucault reminds us in the interview "Body/Power" (1975), " the impression that
power weakens and vacillates ... is in fact mistaken; power can retreat here, re-organise its forces,
invest itself elsewhere ... and so the battle continues " (Foucault 1975: 56). This understanding of political struggle as
conquest, displacement, reversal, re-conquest, etc., can of course be situated in the context of juridical struggles over rules of "right" by
recalling the legal apparatus as a massive field of discursive productions - involved in producing, namely, the truths of legitimacy. The effect of
this discursive machination is that, just as oppositional forces effectively expose legal illegitimacies to the dangerous extent that the dominant
legal consciousness must acknowledge crisis and the concomitant necessity of reform(ation) (of the same system),
regime's seemingly innocent interpretation of a new set of rules
or "rights "
the dominant
effectively works to recoup
the losses of the crisis-moments in order to reinscribe but another form of hegemony . As Robert Gordon
has written, the doctrinal "victories" tend always to peak all too early; just as an apparently promising line
of rules is opened up, they become qualified (interpreted) before becoming truly threatening to the
existing order (see Gordon 1982).9 A large part of the problem for opposition to the legal hegemony, then, lies
in this awareness that this massive network of the dominant juridical apparatus vigorously works at once - at
the level of social appearances - to recognize its operations and acts of interpretation as illegitimate, and at a
deeper, critical level to produce ever more subtle plateaus of cultural legitimacy. To put it another way, as
oppositional discourses effect real crisis consciousness at the social level - or, in other words, as opposition
intervenes in the hegemonic system of signification - the juridical apparatus (among other system-maintaining
apparati of culture) responds essentially in the way of a "crisis management" to re-articulate the terms (the
appearance of "new" rules and rights) of the same macropolitical structure. As Gordon puts it, "The official legal establishment
ha[s] been compelled to recognize claims on its utopian promises. But these real gains have deepened the legitimacy of the system as a whole"
(Gordon 1982; see also 1987). But as Foucault insists, what
is taking place in these contestations is not so much a
"recuperation" as the "usual strategic development of a struggle.... One has to recognise the indefiniteness of the
struggle - though this is not to say it won't some day have an end ... " (Foucault 1975: 56-57). Conclusion: Praxis
Biopower and neoliberalism combine to create a unique form of necropolitics that
drives endless extermination in the name of maintaining the strength of the market
Banerjee 2006 - University of South Australia (Subhabrata Bobby, “Live and Let Die: Colonial Sovereignties and the Death Worlds of
Necrocapitalism,” Borderlands, Volume 5 No. 1, http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol5no1_2006/banerjee_live.htm)
10. Agamben shows how sovereign
power operates in the production of bare life in a variety of contexts:
concentration camps, 'human guinea pigs' used by Nazi doctors, current debates on euthanasia, debates on human rights
and refugee rights. A sovereign decision to apply a state of exception invokes a power to decide the
value of life, which would allow a life to be killed without the charge of homicide. The killings of mentally and physically handicapped
people during the Nazi regime was justified as ending a 'life devoid of value', a life 'unworthy to be lived'. Sovereignty thus becomes a decision
on the value of life, 'a power to decide the point at which life ceases to be politically relevant' (Agamben, 1998: 142). Life is no more
sovereign as enshrined in the declaration of 'human' rights but becomes instead a political decision,
an exercise of biopower (Foucault, 1980). In the context of the 'war on terror' operating in a neoliberal economy,
the exercise of biopower results in the creation of a type of sovereignty that has profound
implications for those whose livelihoods depend on the war on terror as well as those whose lives become constituted as 'bare life' in the
economy of the war on terror. 11. However, it is not enough to situate sovereignty and biopower in the context of a neoliberal economy
especially in the case of the war on terror. In
a neoliberal economy, the colony represents a greater potential for
profit especially as it is this space that, as Mbembe (2003: 14) suggests, represents a permanent state of
exception where sovereignty is the exercise of power outside the law, where 'peace was more likely
to take on the face of a war without end'
civilization.
But these forms of necropolitical
and
where violence could operate in the name of
power, as Mbembe reads it in the context of the occupation of Palestine,
literally create 'death worlds, new and unique forms of social existence in which vast populations are
subjected to conditions of life conferring upon them the status of theliving dead ' (Mbembe, 2003: 40). The
state of endless war is precisely the space where profits accrue whether it is through the extraction of
resources or the use of privatized militias or through contracts for reconstruction. Sovereignty over
death worlds results in the application of necropower either literally as the right to kill or the right to
'civilize', a supposedly 'benevolent' form of power that requires the destruction of a culture in order
to 'save the people from themselves' (Mbembe, 2003:22). This attempt to save the people from themselves
has, of course, been the rhetoric used by the U.S. government in the war on terror and the war in Iraq.
12. Situating necropolitics in the context of economy, Montag (2005: 11) argues that if necropolitics is interested in the production of death or
subjugating life to the power of death then it is possible to speak of a necroeconomics - a space of 'letting die or exposing to death'. Montag
explores the relation of the market to life and death in his reading of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments. In
Montag's reading of Smith, it is 'the dread of death, the great poison to the happiness...which while it afflicts and mortifies the individual,
guards and protects the society' (cited in Montag, 2005: 12). If social life was driven solely by unrestrained self-interest then the fear of
punishment or death through juridical systems kept the pursuit of excessive self-interest in check, otherwise people would simply rob, injure
and kill for material wealth. Thus, for Smith the universality of life is contingent on the particularity of death, the production of life on the
production of death where the intersection of the political and the economic makes it necessary to exercise the right to kill. The market then, as
a 'concrete form of the universal' becomes the 'very form of universality as life' and requires at certain moments to 'let die'. Or as Montag
theorizes it, Death establishes the conditions of life; death
as by an invisible hand restores the market to what it must
be to support life. The allowing of death of the particular is necessary to the production of life of the
universal. The market reduces and rations life; it not only allows death , it demands death be allowed by the
sovereign power , as well as by those who suffer it. In other words, it demands and required the latter allow
themselves to die. Thus alongside the figure of homo sacer, the one who may be killed with impunity, is another
figure, one whose death is no doubt less spectacular than the first and is the object of no memorial or commemoration: he who with
impunity may be allowed to die, slowly or quickly, in the name of the rationality and equilibrium of the
market (Montag, 2005: 15). Montag, therefore, theorizes a necroeconomics where the state becomes the
legitimate purveyor of violence: in this scenario, the state can compel by force by 'those who refuse to
allow themselves to die'
(Montag, 2005: 15). However, Montag's concept of necroeconomics appears to universalize conditions of
poverty through the logic of the market. My concern however, is the creation of death worlds in colonial contexts through the collusion
between states and corporations. 13. If
states and corporations work in tandem with each other in colonial
contexts, creating states of exception and exercising necropower to profit from the death worlds that they establish,
then necroeconomics fails to consider the specificities of colonial capitalist practices. In this sense, I would argue that necrocapitalism
emerges from the intersection of necropolitics and necroeconomics, as practices of accumulation in colonial contexts
by specific economic actors - multinational corporations for example - that involve dispossession, death,
torture, suicide, slavery, destruction of livelihoods and the general management of violence. It is a
new form of imperialism, an imperialism that has learned to 'manage things better' . Colonial sovereignty
can be established even in metropolitan sites where necrocapitalism may operate in states of exception: refugee detention centres in Australia
are examples of these states of exception (Perera, 2002). However, in the colonies (either 'post' or 'neo'), entire regions in the Middle East or
Africa may be designated as states of exception.
The alternative is a critical refusal of the affirmative – criticism of power is
necessary to destabilizing the status quo
DONEGAN 2006 – PHD STUDENT DEPT ANTHROPOLIGY SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL STUDIES GOVERNMENTAL REGIONALISM,
MILLENNIUM, VOL 35 NO 23
The typical reproach to Foucault’s conception of power as immanent to all types of relationships is
that such a conception prevents us from ever being able to step outside a conflict, whether it be epistemic or
political, in order to resolve it. Of course it is the case that ‘to make truth-claims is to try to strengthen some epistemic alignments, and to
challenge, undermine, or evade others’.148 To
criticise power is to attempt to resist or evade it; it is also to take a
stance, a position. Foucault’s critics ask: how is it possible to take a stance without some outside, neutral position from which to make a
decision about which side to adopt, about which side is ‘right’? According to Foucault, neither side is right. But [m]y point is not that
everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous , which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then
we always have something to do . So my position leads not to apathy but to a hyper- and pessimistic
activism . I think that the ethico-political choice we have to make every day is to determine which is the main
danger.149 Is there any reason why a neoliberal, neo-medieval world order of multiple levels of governance need be ‘worse’ than the
present world order? This is the wrong question. The question to ask is: how are things developing, how are social
relations changing, and who will be hit hardest, and who will benefit most? These are the questions we need
to be asking, as analysts. A governmentality perspective can contribute to our ability to respond to this task. Mitchell Dean has emphasised
that the study of governmentality as an empirical phenomenon ‘does not amount to a study of politics or power relations in general; it is a
study only of the attempts to (more or less) rationally affect the conduct of others and ourselves’.150 In this sense, the picture of power
relations that governmentality scholarship can offer is therefore partial and incomplete. But to
the extent that the particular
power relations it portrays are both hard to see and increasingly significant, the governmentality
framework offers something useful to the analyst of power in the contemporary global social order. It may seem
that post-structuralist theorists are constantly engaged in a game of ‘catch-up’,151 unpacking and teasing out
how those with power do what they do, always after the event. But the conclusion to be drawn should not focus on the
fact that the deconstructive practice is always post- and thus ‘too late’, in vain, without hope; rather it should
focus on the fact that in order for those in power to do what they do the use of such material and
discursive practices is necessary
– which suggests, as Foucault points out, that
their hold on power is far more
fragile , that the relationships of power they impose are far closer to relationships of confrontation,
than they would like us to believe. Thus the deconstructive practice is not essentially negative, pessimistic,
and nihilistic. In seeking not simply to understand what or why any particular action was undertaken in the past, but also to use
that understanding when engaging with political practice in the present, it is hopeful, optimistic, and proactive.
CP
Text: The United States federal government should repeal the portion of the
Controlled Substances Act that lists marijuana as a Schedule One substance and allow
states to adjust their own marijuana laws.
That solves
Thimmesch 13 – former spokesman for NORML
(Nicholas, There’s a big difference between legalization and decriminalization,
http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/25/theres-a-big-difference-between-legalization-anddecriminalization/2/)
There is more than just a semantic difference between the legalization of marijuana and the
decriminalization of marijuana. The difference is that one is a mare’s nest of logistical and pragmatic
questions and the other is a benign way of ending draconian laws that account for the incarceration
of
hundreds of
thousands
of American citizens over the last fifty years,
billions
of dollars
flawed War on Drugs , ruined lives and careers, and sales by an industry that is
criminal
spent
by government
grassroots at best,
on a
violent and
at worst. ¶ Legalization appears to be the best remedy: not only does it remove criminal penalties but it’s yet another source of
taxation and control by local, state, and someday, the federal government (which, with the “Marihuana Act,” is where this whole fiasco started
eighty years ago) so how could that go wrong? The common
notion put forth by the legalization proponents is a trade
off of sorts: leave us alone to smoke our pot and you can tax and regulate the hell out of us. Even some Republican legislators beginning to
warm to this notion. What government doesn’t want another source of revenue, another tax on a substance, or another commodity to control?
Decriminalization — which I favor — does none of that: it simply removes criminal and monetary
penalties for possessing any amount of marijuana, including the “manufacture,” transportation, or
¶
storage of the substance . It does not address in any way the actual usage of marijuana, the sale of it,
taxation, quality, driving under the influence, age restrictions, etc. because these are better left up to
local, county and state governments
to determine, certainly not the federal government which is the seminal reason marijuana
became illegal and has stayed illegal throughout the United States in the first place. ¶ Most recreational marijuana proponents are just that:
they like if not worship marijuana, promote its responsible use, want unhindered access to it, and have a multitude of studies that say it is a
benign substance: maybe. The icons of the marijuana “reform” movement are to be found at NORML, where I briefly served as
Communications Director during the awful years under the zealously anti-pot Bush administration and his drug czar John Walters. Founder
Keith Stroup, Executive Director Allen St. Pierre, and policy guru Paul Armentano — a nationally recognized expert on all things marijuana —
have over a half century of combined experience working to reform American marijuana laws. The upstart Marijuana Policy Project, once
funded by Progressive Insurance executive Peter Lewis, is less a proponent of its use as much as a reformer of marijuana laws: they have
thrown millions of dollars at efforts to get the legalization issue on state ballot questions and referenda, with some success and some failure. ¶
As for the “medicinal marijuana” organizations: with total legalization their cause will be moot. If there ever was what one recreational
reformer once called “a red herring” it is the notion that smoked marijuana is some sort of acceptable medical treatment in and of itself. Of
course smoked marijuana is a life saver for MS patients, AIDS patients and probably countless others with all kinds of maladies. But the vast
majority of so-called “medical marijuana patients” I witnessed during my years in the movement were simply seeking a way to obtain and
smoke marijuana unmolested. ¶ In California medical marijuana cards are given out like candy on Halloween: at NORML conferences “patients”
waved their cards in the faces of security guards who were telling them they could not smoke pot in hotel elevators or lobbies any more than
they can smoke cigarettes, but to them, they had a government-issued license to do what they liked. ¶ Which leads us back to legalization vs.
decriminalization: cigarettes are legal but cannot be smoked in many places. Alcohol is legal but cannot be consumed in your vehicle nor for the
most part in public, and public marijuana use is already being questioned in hindsight after being “legalized” in Colorado. Under the medicinal
marijuana con, what other medicine cannot be taken anywhere in public? How will New York City, which has banned smoking everywhere from
bars to Central Park, handle legalized or “medicinal” marijuana smoking in public? ¶ Where is this legalization going? What confused message is
legalization sending to our kids who are told by countless ads not to do any drugs (I do not consider marijuana to be a “drug” in the sense that
cocaine, heroin, PCP, meth are) and suffer under “Zero Tolerance” school policies? Kids who “wake and bake” in adolescence can do serious
damage to their bodies. Grown-ups who chronically smoke marijuana definitely do harm as well to their lungs and oral health. How silly is it for
localities like Washington DC, which just opened its first medical marijuana dispensary, to fine people for possession? ¶
Legalization, in
some ways, is the same product as criminalization, sold in a different wrapper: government will still
control the commerce of marijuana but instead of spending billions fighting it will now make billions taxing it along with
regulations. With decriminalization, we can start with the federal repeal of marijuana listed as a Schedule
One substance in the Controlled Substances Act, let individual states adjust their own marijuana laws based upon
the consensus of the voters, prosecute bad behavior by marijuana smokers, and educate people about the
negatives of chronic marijuana use, but otherwise treat it as if it was just another herbal tea, not a
drug.
DA
The best forecasting model says the GOP takes the Senate
Five Thirty Eight, 9-10-14
“FiveThirtyEight’s Senate Forecast,” 538 team (Harry Enten, Al Johri, Ritchie King, Allison McCann, Dhrumil Mehta, Andrei Scheinkman and Nate
Silver,) http://fivethirtyeight.com/interactives/senate-forecast/
FiveThirtyEight’s election forecasting model combines hundreds of opinion polls with
historical and demographic information to calculate odds for each Senate race. We estimate
the probability that each party will win control of the Senate by running those odds through
100,000 simulations . The forecast is updated regularly. What It Means Republicans have a
62.6% chance of winning a majority. Democrats have a 37.4% chance of keeping the majority.
There is a 15.2% chance Republicans will control 52 seats and Democrats will control 48 seats.
Probabilities For Each Race Election Leader Chance of Winning Iowa D+1 54% Kan. R+2 55% N.C.
R+1 55% Colo. D+2 63% Alaska R+4 68% Ark. R+3 71% La. R+5 72% Ga. R+3 72% Mich. D+4 76%
N.H. D+5 81% Minn. D+7 85% Ky. R+6 85% S.D. R+12 89% Ill. D+11 93% N.J. D+12 95% Del. D+18
96% Ore. D+13 96% S.C. R+15 96% Va. D+15 97% Miss. R+16 97% Tenn. R+19 98% W.Va. R+18
98% R.I. D+25 99% S.C. ★ R+19 99% Maine R+28 99% N.M. D+17 >99% Neb. R+24 >99% Mont.
R+20 >99% Texas R+21 >99% Mass. D+24 >99% Okla. ★ R+29 >99% Idaho R+33 >99% Okla.
R+30 >99% Hawaii ★ D+33 >99% Wyo. R+42 >99% Ala. R+100 100% ★ Special election For
Kansas, the margin is between the Republican candidate and the independent, Greg Orman.
The GOP has an edge because of turnout—the plan is the key issue in flipping that
Linskey, 14—Annie, citing; George Washington U polling, Lake Research Partners polling firm and the Tarrance Group, a public affairs
firm
“Poll: Marijuana Legalization Measures Will Drive Voters,” Bloomberg, Mar 25, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-25/poll-marijuanalegalization-measures-will-drive-voters.html --BR
A majority of Americans favor legalizing marijuana and would be motivated to vote if a measure to
do so is on the ballot, according to a George Washington University Battleground poll released today.
The survey of 1,000 likely voters found 73 percent support allowing marijuana for legal medical
purposes, 53 percent favor decriminalization and 68 percent are “more likely” to go to their polling
place to weigh in on a ballot. “Marijuana legalization and marijuana decriminalization is at a tipping
point ” said Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners and one of the two pollsters who
conducted the survey. Support crosses party lines, though younger and single voters -- who tend to
vote for Democrats -- are more motivated by those issues, she said. Ballot measures on legalizing pot
are set for Alaska’s August primary and probably this November in Oregon, according to Allen St. Pierre,
the executive director Norml, a Washington-based nonprofit pushing for more access to the drug.
Florida will see a decriminalization effort, he said. The marijuana question was part of a wide-ranging
poll that tested President Barack Obama’s approval rating, potential 2016 presidential candidates and
American’s views on the billionaire Koch brothers. The survey, conducted March 16-20, was released
today at a breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. It has a margin of error of plus or
minus 3.1 percentage points. Republican Edge While the poll showed Americans are evenly split
between supporting Democrats and Republicans on a generic ballot, Republicans hold an advantage
because they are more motivated to vote : 64 percent said they are “extremely likely” to go to the polls
compared with 57 percent of Democrats. The president’s job-approval rating is 44 percent in the survey
-- up 3 points from when the question was last asked in mid-January. Obama’s disapproval is 53 percent,
down a point from when the question was last asked. “This data gives an edge to Republicans,” said Ed
Goeas, chief executive officer of the Tarrance Group, a public affairs firm based in Alexandria, Virginia,
who also worked on the survey. “Obama’s name will not be on the ballot but Obama’s polices will be,”
he said. And “you don’t have the operation of the presidential race there turning out votes on that side.”
GOP senate is key to Asia Pivot
Keck 14—Managing Editor @ The Diplomat, former Deputy Editor of e-IR @ Center for a New American
Security
Zachary Keck, “The Midterm Elections and the Asia Pivot: The Republican Party taking the Senate in the
2014 elections could be a boon for the Asia Pivot.” The Diplomat, April 22, 2014,
http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/the-midterm-elections-and-the-asia-pivot/ --BR
There is a growing sense in the United States that when voters go to the polls this November, the
Republican Party will win enough Senate seats to control both houses of Congress. This would
potentially introduce more gridlock into an already dysfunctional American political system. But it
needn’t be all doom and gloom for U.S. foreign policy, including in the Asia-Pacific. In fact, the
Republicans wrestling control of the Senate from the Democrats this November could be a boon for
the U.S. Asia pivot. This is true for at least three reasons. First, with little prospect of getting any of his
domestic agenda through Congress, President Barack Obama will naturally focus his attention on
foreign affairs. Presidents in general have a tendency to focus more attention on foreign policy during
their second term, and this effect is magnified if the other party controls the legislature. And for good
reason: U.S. presidents have far more latitude to take unilateral action in the realm of foreign affairs
than in domestic policy. Additionally, the 2016 presidential election will consume much of the country’s
media’s attention on domestic matters. It’s only when acting on the world stage that the president will
still be able to stand taller in the media’s eyes than the candidates running to for legislative office.
Second, should the Democrats get pummeled in the midterm elections this year, President Obama is
likely to make some personnel changes in the White House and cabinet. For instance, after the
Republican Party incurred losses in the 2006 midterms, then-President George W. Bush quickly moved
to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with the less partisan (at least in that era) Robert
Gates. Obama followed suit by making key personnel changes after the Democrats “shellacking” in
the 2010 midterm elections. Should the Democrats face a similar fate in the 2014 midterm elections,
Obama is also likely to make notable personnel changes. Other aides, particular former Clinton aides,
are likely to leave the administration early in order to start vying for spots on Hillary Clinton’s presumed
presidential campaign. Many of these changes are likely to be with domestic advisors given that
domestic issues are certain to decide this year’s elections. Even so, many nominally domestic
positions—such as Treasury and Commerce Secretary—have important implications for U.S. policy in
Asia. Moreover, some of the post-election changes are likely be foreign policy and defense positions,
which bodes well for Asia given the appalling lack of Asia expertise among Obama’s current senior
advisors. But the most important way a Republican victory in November will help the Asia Pivot is that
the GOP in Congress are actually more favorable to the pivot than are members of Obama’s own
party. For example, Congressional opposition to granting President Trade Promotional Authority —
which is key to getting the Trans-Pacific Partnership ratified — is largely from Democratic legislators.
Similarly, it is the Democrats who are largely in favor of the defense budget cuts that threaten to
undermine America’s military posture in Asia. If Republicans do prevail in November, President
Obama will naturally want to find ways to bridge the very wide partisan gap between them. Asia
offers the perfect issue area to begin reaching across the aisle. The Republicans would have every
incentive to reciprocate the President’s outreach. After all, by giving them control of the entire
Legislative Branch, American voters will be expecting some results from the GOP before they would be
ostensibly be ready to elect them to the White House in 2016. A Republican failure to achieve anything
between 2014 and 2016 would risk putting the GOP in the same dilemma they faced in the 1996 and
2012 presidential elections. Working with the president to pass the TPP and strengthen America’s
military’s posture in Asia would be ideal ways for the GOP to deliver results without violating their
principles. Thus, while the president will work tirelessly between now and November to help the
Democrats retain the Senate, he should also prepare for failure by having a major outreach initiative to
Congressional Republicans ready on day one. This initiative should be Asia-centric.
Pivot is to key to prevent Asia wars
Lohman 13 – MA in Foreign Affairs @ UVA (Walter, “Honoring America’s Superpower Responsibilities,”
http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/2013/06/honoring-americas-superpower-responsibilities)
When you withdraw from the world, either by imposing trade barriers or drawing down military
commitments, you lose your ability to influence events. Those considering an Asia with less
American presence have to ask themselves whether freedom would do as well without us. In fact,
proponents of American withdrawal have to ask themselves a more important question: Whether
they have responsibility for anyone’s well-being but their own! Times are, indeed, changing in Asia.
Power is shifting. I have traveled to Asia quite a bit—easily 50 times over the course of my career.
I’ve seen the change first-hand. One thing that is not changing is that the U.S. is the one
“ indispensable” ingredient for continued peace, prosperity, and freedom around the world.
Everyone I talk to in Asia tells me that. They must be talking to President Obama, too, because he’s
also used the word “indispensable” to describe America’s role in the world. Of course, these
countries want access to our markets and our capital. But on the diplomatic side , it is also the case
that the U.S. is the closest thing in Asia to an honest broker . And because if anything, nationalist
tensions in Asia are only growing, this is not going to change anytime soon. Sure, there are South
Koreans who would rather not have American troops in their country. But they are not the majority.
And they like us a whole heck of a lot more than they like the prospect of another invasion. They like
us a lot better than they like the Japanese. Imagine how the Koreans feel about the prospect of Japan
acquiring nuclear weapons to defend itself. That’s what they would have to do without the benefit of
the American nuclear deterrent.
Asian wars cause extinction – multiple reasons they uniquely escalate
Mead, 10 – Senior Fellow @ the Council on Foreign Relations
Walter Russell, American Interest, Nov 9, “Obama in Asia”, http://blogs.the-americaninterest.com/wrm/2010/11/09/obama-in-asia/
The decision to go to Asia is one that all thinking Americans can and should support regardless of
either party or ideological affiliation. East and South Asia are the places where the 21st century, for
better or for worse, will most likely be shaped; economic growth, environmental progress, the
destiny of democracy and success against terror are all at stake here. American objectives in this
region are clear. While convincing China that its best interests are not served by a rash, Kaiser
Wilhelm-like dash for supremacy in the region, the US does not want either to isolate or contain
China. We want a strong, rich, open and free China in an Asia that is also strong, rich, open and
free. Our destiny is inextricably linked with Asia’s ; Asian success will make America stronger,
richer and more secure. Asia’s failures will reverberate over here, threatening our prosperity,
our security and perhaps even our survival . The world’s two most mutually hostile nuclear
states, India and Pakistan, are in Asia. The two states most likely to threaten others with nukes ,
North Korea and aspiring rogue nuclear power Iran, are there. The two superpowers with a billion
plus people are in Asia as well. This is where the world’s fastest growing economies are. It is
where the worst environmental problems exist. It is the home of the world’s largest democracy,
the world’s most populous Islamic country (Indonesia — which is also among the most democratic
and pluralistic of Islamic countries), and the world’s most rapidly rising non-democratic power as
well. Asia holds more oil resources than any other continent; the world’s most important and most
threatened trade routes lie off its shores. East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia (where American and
NATO forces are fighting the Taliban) and West Asia (home among others to Saudi Arabia, Israel,
Turkey and Iraq) are the theaters in the world today that most directly engage America’s vital
interests and where our armed forces are most directly involved. The world’s most explosive
territorial disputes are in Asia as well, with islands (and the surrounding mineral and fishery
resources) bitterly disputed between countries like Russia, the two Koreas, Japan, China (both from
Beijing and Taipei), and Vietnam. From the streets of Jerusalem to the beaches of Taiwan the world’s
most intractable political problems are found on the Asian landmass and its surrounding seas.
Whether you view the world in terms of geopolitical security, environmental sustainability, economic
growth or the march of democracy, Asia is at the center of your concerns. That is the overwhelming
reality of world politics today, and that reality is what President Obama’s trip is intended to address.
1nc AT: Federalism
Alt causes swamp federalism –
a) The EPA
Yeatman 9-2, William Yeatman is Senior Fellow specializing in energy policy and global warming at the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
How the EPA Is Undermining Cooperative Federalism under the Clean Air Act And What Congress Can Do About It,
http://cei.org/sites/default/files/William%20Yeatman%20-How%20the%20EPA%20Is%20Undermining%20Cooperative%20Federalism.pdf
When it crafted legislation to fight air pollution, Congress relied on America’s unique system of federalism. The 1970 Clean Air Act establishes a
“division of responsibilities” between the state and federal governments commonly known as “cooperative federalism.”2 In practice, this
means that the federal agency sets minimum standards, which states are left to meet however they best see fit, subject to U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) approval. Pursuant to this partnership, “[t]he state proposes” and “the EPA disposes.”3 Typically, states shoulder 80
percent of the costs of implementing regulations under the Clean Air Act.4 For
most of the Clean Air Act’s history, states
and the EPA have worked well together. However, during the Obama administration, there has been a
marked shift away from harmonious relations between these co-sovereigns. This transition from cooperative
to combative federalism has led to some serious problems
EPA takeovers of
state air quality programs, known as Federal Implementation Plans (FIPs), have increased precipitously since President Obama
took office. The Obama administration has imposed more FIPs than the sum of the previous three administrations—
eight percent (50 of 51) of Obama-era Clean Air Act FIPs are of dubious l
-
By using a
legal strategy known as “sue and settle,” the EPA has effectively undermined states’ authority in favor of
environmental special interests in the implementation of the Clean Air Act. This involves the agency implementing policy changes
in response to lawsuits by environmental pressure groups, rather than pursuant to any explicit delegation by Congress. Sue and settle
litigation has tripled during the Obama administration. Two legislative solutions would restore the proper balance of
In return for investing in electoral politics, green groups have been given the reins to environmental policy making at the E
power between the state and federal governments pursuant to the Clean Air Act. The first would level the balance of justice when state and
federal governments disagree on how to implement the Clean Air Act. The second would ameliorate the impacts of collusive “sue and settle”
policymaking between EPA and special interests, to the exclusion of the states. The Obama Administration Ushers
Unprecedented Expansion of Federal Power at the Expense of States.
in
During the Obama administration, the
EPA has demonstrated an unprecedented usurpation of the states’ role under the Clean Air Act’s system of
cooperative federalism. If the EPA disapproves a state Clean Air Act compliance plan, then the agency is empowered to impose a Federal
Implementation Plan that would achieve the statute’s purpose. 5 Under the Clean Air Act’s cooperative federalism structure, a FIP is the most
drastic and aggressive action the EPA can take against a state government, as it represents a seizure of the state’s authority.
b) Obamacare
Moffit 10, Robert E. Moffit, Ph.D., is Senior Fellow in Domestic and Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, Revitalizing
Federalism: The High Road Back to Health Care Independence, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/06/revitalizing-federalism-thehigh-road-back-to-health-care-independence
Americans face a direct and historic challenge to their personal liberty and to their unique citizenship in a federal republic. Though its
enactment of the massive Patient Protection and
A ffordable C are A ct (PPACA), official Washington is not merely engi-neering a federal
takeover of health care, but is also
radically altering the relationships between individ-uals and the government as well as
the national gov-ernment and the states.
In other words, the PPACA is a direct threat to federalism itself . As Jonathan Turley, professor of law at George Washington
University, has argued, “Federalism
was already on life support before the individual mandate. Make no mistake
about it, this plan might provide a bill of good health for the pub-lic, but it
could amount to a ‘ do not resuscitate’ order for
federalism .”[1]
Never before has Congress exercised its power under Article I, Section 8 of the Federal Constitu-tion to
force American citizens to purchase a pri-vate good or a service, such as a health insurance policy.[2] Congress is
also intruding deeply into the internal affairs of the states , commandeering their officers, specifying
in minute detail how they are to arrange health insurance markets within their bor-ders, and
determining the products that will be sold to their citizens.
If allowed to stand, this unprecedented concen-tration of political power in Washington will result in the states
being reduced to mere instruments of federal health policy rather than “distinct and inde­pendent
sovereigns,” as James Madison described them in Federalist No. 40.[3]
There’s no correlation between hegemony and stability
Fettweis, ’10
[Christopher J. Fettweis, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Tulane University, “Threat and Anxiety in US Foreign Policy,” Survival, 52:2,
59-82, March 25th 2010, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00396331003764603]
One potential explanation for the growth of global peace can be dismissed fairly quickly: US actions
do not seem to have contributed much. The limited evidence suggests that there is little reason to
believe in the stabilising power of the US hegemon, and that there is no relation between the relative
level of American activism and international stability. During the 1990s, the United States cut back on
its defence spending fairly substantially. By 1998, the United States was spending $100 billion less on
defence in real terms than it had in 1990, a 25% reduction.29 To internationalists, defence hawks and
other believers in hegemonic stability, this irresponsible ‘peace dividend’ endangered both national
and global security. ‘No serious analyst of American military capabilities’, argued neo-conservatives
William Kristol and Robert Kagan in 1996, ‘doubts that the defense budget has been cut much too far to
meet America’s responsibilities to itself and to world peace’.30 And yet the verdict from the 1990s is
fairly plain: the world grew more peaceful while the United States cut its forces. No state seemed to
believe that its security was endangered by a less-capable US military, or at least none took any action
that would suggest such a belief. No militaries were enhanced to address power vacuums; no security
dilemmas drove insecurity or arms races; no regional balancing occurred once the stabilising presence
of the US military was diminished. The rest of the world acted as if the threat of international war was
not a pressing concern, despite the reduction in US military capabilities. Most of all, the United States
was no less safe. The incidence and magnitude of global conflict declined while the United States cut
its military spending under President Bill Clinton, and kept declining as the George W. Bush
administration ramped the spending back up. Complex statistical analysis is unnecessary to reach the
conclusion that world peace and US military expenditure are unrelated.
Economic competitiveness causes economic collapse, resource crunch, and
environmental destruciton
Bristow ‘10
(School of City & Regional Planning, Cardiff University) (Gillian, Resilient regions: re-‘place’ing regional competitiveness, Cambridge Journal of
Regions, Economy and Society 2010, 3, 153–167)
In recent years, regional development strategies have been subjugated to the hegemonic discourse
of competitiveness, such that the ultimate objective for all regional development policy-makers and
practitioners has become the creation of economic advantage through superior productivity
performance, or the attraction of new firms and labour (Bristow, 2005). A major consequence is the
developing ‘ubiquitification’ of regional development strategies (Bristow, 2005; Maskell and
Malmberg, 1999). This reflects the status of competitiveness as a key discursive construct (Jessop,
2008) that has acquired hugely significant rhetorical power for certain interests intent on
reinforcing capitalist relations (Bristow, 2005; Fougner, 2006). Indeed, the
competitiveness hegemony is such that many policies previously
considered only indirectly relevant to unfettered economic
growth tend to be hijacked in support of competitiveness
agendas (for example Raco, 2008; also Dannestam, 2008). This
paper will argue, however, that a particularly narrow discourse of
‘competitiveness’ has been constructed that has a number of
negative connotations for the ‘resilience’ of regions. Resilience is
defined as the region’s ability to experience positive economic
success that is socially inclusive, works within environmental
limits and which can ride global economic punches (Ashby et al.,
2009). As such, resilience clearly resonates with literatures on
sustainability, localisation and diversification, and the developing
understanding of regions as intrinsically diverse entities with
evolutionary and context-specific development trajectories
(Hayter, 2004). In contrast, the dominant discourse of
competitiveness is ‘placeless’ and increasingly associated with
globalised, growth-first and environmentally malign agendas
(Hudson, 2005). However, this paper will argue that the relationships between competitiveness
and resilience are more complex than might at first appear. Using insights from the Cultural
Political Economy (CPE) approach, which focuses on understanding the construction, development
and spread of hegemonic policy discourses, the paper will argue that the dominant discourse of
competitiveness used in regional development policy is narrowly constructed and is thus
insensitive to contingencies of place and the more nuanced role of competition within economies.
This leads to problems of resilience that can be partly overcome with the development of a more
contextualised approach to competitiveness. The paper is now structured as follows. It begins by
examining the developing understanding of resilience in the theorising and policy discourse around
regional development. It then describes the CPE approach and utilises its framework to explain
both how a narrow conception of competitiveness has come to dominate regional development
policy and how resilience inter-plays in subtle and complex ways with competitiveness and its
emerging critique. The paper then proceeds to illustrate what resilience means for regional
development firstly, with reference to the Transition Towns concept, and then by developing a
typology of regional strategies to show the different characteristics of policy approaches based on
competitiveness and resilience. Regional resilience Resilience is rapidly emerging as an idea whose
time has come in policy discourses around localities and regions, where it is developing widespread
appeal owing to the peculiarly powerful combination of transformative pressures from below, and
various catalytic, crisis-induced imperatives for change from above. It features strongly in policy
discourses around environmental management and sustainable development (see Hudson, 2008a),
but has also more recently emerged in relation to emergency and disaster planning with, for
example ‘Regional Resilience Teams’ established in the English regions to support and co-ordinate
civil protection activities around various emergency situations such as the threat of a swine flu
pandemic. The discourse of resilience is also taking hold in discussions around desirable local and
regional development activities and strategies. The recent global ‘credit crunch’ and the
accompanying in-crease in livelihood insecurity has highlighted the advantages of those local and
regional economies that have greater ‘resilience’ by virtue of being less dependent upon globally
footloose activities, hav-ing greater economic diversity, and/or having a de-termination to prioritise
and effect more significant structural change (Ashby et al, 2009; Larkin and Cooper, 2009). Indeed,
resilience features particular strongly in the ‘grey’ literature
spawned by thinktanks, consul-tancies and environmental
interest groups around the consequences of the global recession,
catastrophic climate change and the arrival of the era of peak oil
for localities and regions with all its implications for the longevity
of carbon-fuelled economies, cheap, long-distance transport and
global trade. This popularly labelled ‘triple crunch’ (New
Economics Foundation, 2008) has power-fully illuminated the
potentially disastrous material consequences of the voracious
growth imperative at the heart of neoliberalism and
competitiveness, both in the form of resource constraints
(especially food security) and in the inability of the current
system to manage global financial and ecological sustainability. In
so doing, it appears to be galvinising previously disparate, fractured debates about the merits of the
current system, and challenging public and political opinion to develop a new, global concern with
frugality, egalitarianism and localism (see, for example Jackson, 2009; New Economics
Foundation, 2008).
1nc AT: Afghanistan
Tons of alt causes to Taliban rise
Arbour, president – International Crisis Group, 12/27/’11
(Louise, “Next Year’s Wars,” Foreign Policy)
A decade of major security, development, and humanitarian assistance from the international community has failed to create
a stable Afghanistan, a fact highlighted by deteriorating security and a growing insurgent presence in
previously stable provinces over the past year. In 2011, the capital alone saw a barrage of suicide bombings, including the deadliest attack in
the city since 2001; multiple strikes on foreign missions in Kabul, the British Council, and U.S. Embassy; and the assassination of former
president and chief peace negotiator Burhanuddin Rabbani. The
prospects for next year are no brighter, with many key
provinces scheduled for transfer to the ill-equipped Afghan security forces by early 2012. The litany of
obstacles to
stability , in Afghanistan is by now familiar. President Hamid Karzai rules by fiat, employing a
combination of patronage and executive abuse of power. State institutions and services are weak or nonexistent in much of the
country, or else so riddled with corruption that Afghans want nothing to do with them. Dari-speaking ethnic minorities
remain skeptical about the prospects for reconciliation with the predominately Pashtun Taliban insurgency, which enjoys the
backing of Pakistan's military and intelligence services. The Taliban leadership in Quetta seem to reason that victory is
within reach and that they have simply to bide their time until the planned U.S. withdrawal in 2014.
peace, or at least
No impact
Melvin A. Goodman 9, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins
University, “Five Myths on Afghanistan,” Oct 8 2009, http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/86385:five-myths-on-afghanistan
Myth #3: Any loss in Afghanistan would have a domino effect in the region that would affect Pakistan, India and
Iran, with the U nited S tates and NATO suffering a significant loss of credibility. The domino effect and
the credibility argument represent old saws from the Vietnam era that were discredited 35 years ago and should
be dismissed today. Internal political machinations in Afghanistan, even the restoration of a Taliban
government in Kabul, would not have significant implications outside the country , and there is no
indication that the Taliban has aspirations beyond Afghan borders. The international community has a
good sense of US military capabilities, and a reduced US military footprint would not lessen the
international
perception of US power.
Cooperation solves stability
Hadar 11—former prof of IR at American U and Mount Vernon-College. PhD in IR from American U (1 July 2011, Leon,
Saving U.S. Mideast Policy, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/saving-us-policy-the-mideast-5556)
the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and
Afghanistan would not necessarily lead to more chaos and bloodshed in those countries. Russia, India and Iran—
Indeed, contrary to the warning proponents of U.S. military intervention typically express,
which supported the Northern Alliance that helped Washington topple the Taliban—and Pakistan
(which once backed the Taliban) all have close ties to various ethnic and tribal groups in that country and now have a common
interest in stabilizing Afghanistan and containing the rivalries.
These obstacles are overwhelming
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 nucleararmed 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.
Terrorists don’t want nukes
Wolfe 12 – Alan Wolfe is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. He is also a Senior Fellow with the World Policy Institute at the
New School University in New York. A contributing editor of The New Republic, The Wilson Quarterly, Commonwealth Magazine, and In
Character, Professor Wolfe writes often for those publications as well as for Commonweal, The New York Times, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly,
The Washington Post, and other magazines and newspapers. March 27, 2012, "Fixated by “Nuclear Terror” or Just Paranoia?"
http://www.hlswatch.com/2012/03/27/fixated-by-“nuclear-terror”-or-just-paranoia-2/
If one were to read the
most recent unclassified report to Congress on the acquisition of technology
relating to weapons of mass destruction and advanced conventional munitions, it does have a
section on CBRN terrorism (note, not WMD terrorism). The intelligence community has a very
toned down statement that says “several terrorist groups … probably remain interested in [CBRN]
capabilities, but not necessarily in all four of those capabilities. … mostly focusing on low-level chemicals and toxins.”
They’re talking about terrorists getting industrial chemicals and making ricin toxin, not nuclear weapons. And yes, Ms.
Squassoni, it is primarily al Qaeda that the U.S. government worries about, no one else. The trend of worldwide
terrorism continues to remain in the realm of conventional attacks. In 2010, there were more than
11,500 terrorist attacks, affecting about 50,000 victims including almost 13,200 deaths. None of them were
caused by CBRN hazards. Of the 11,000 terrorist attacks in 2009, none were caused by CBRN hazards. Of the 11,800
terrorist attacks in 2008, none were caused by CBRN hazards.
No retaliation
Bremmer 4, Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, senior fellow at the World Policy Institute, September 13, 4, New Statesman,
“Suppose a new 9/11 hit America…,” p. Lexis
What would happen if there were a new terrorist attack inside the United States on 11 September 2004? How would it affect the presidential
election campaign? The conventional wisdom is that Americans - their patriotic defiance aroused - would rally to President George W Bush and
make him an all but certain winner in November. But consider the differences between the context of the original 9/11 and that of any attack
which might occur this autumn. In 2001, the public reaction was one of disbelief and incomprehension. Many Americans realised for the first
time that large-scale terrorist attacks on US soil were not only conceivable; they were, perhaps, inevitable. A majority focused for the first time
on the threat from al-Qaeda, on the Taliban and on the extent to which Saudis were involved in terrorism. This time, the public response would
move much more quickly from shock to anger; debate over how America should respond would begin immediately. Yet it is difficult to imagine
how the Bush administration could focus its response on an external enemy. Should the US send 50,000 troops to the Afghan-Pakistani border
to intensify the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and 'step up' efforts to attack the heart of al-Qaeda? Many would wonder if that wasn't what the
administration pledged to do after the attacks three years ago. The president would face intensified criticism from those who have argued all
along that Iraq was a distraction from 'the real war on terror'. And what if a significant number of the terrorists responsible for the pre-election
attack were again Saudis? The Bush administration could hardly take military action against the Saudi government at a time when crude-oil
prices are already more than $45 a barrel and global supply is stretched to the limit. While the Saudi royal family might support a co-ordinated
attack against terrorist camps, real or imagined, near the Yemeni border – where recent searches for al-Qaeda have concentrated – that would
seem like a trivial, insufficient retaliation for an attack on the US mainland. Remember how the Republicans criticised Bill Clinton's
administration for ineffectually 'bouncing the rubble' in Afghanistan after the al-Qaeda attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in
the 1990s. So what kind of response might be credible? Washington's concerns about Iran are rising. The 9/11 commission report noted
evidence of co-operation between Iran and al-Qaeda operatives, if not direct Iranian advance knowledge of the 9/11 hijacking plot. Over the
past few weeks, US officials have been more explicit, too, in declaring Iran's nuclear programme 'unacceptable'. However, in the absence of an
official Iranian claim of responsibility for this hypothetical terrorist attack, the domestic opposition to such a war and the international outcry
it would provoke would make quick action against Iran unthinkable. In short, a decisive response from Bush could not be external. It would
have to be domestic. Instead of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, leading a war effort abroad, Tom Ridge, the homeland security
secretary, and John Ashcroft, the attorney general, would pursue an anti-terror campaign at home. Forced to use legal tools more controversial
than those provided by the Patriot Act, Americans would experience stepped-up domestic surveillance and border controls, much tighter
security in public places and the detention of a large number of suspects. Many Americans would undoubtedly support such moves. But
concern for civil liberties and personal freedom would ensure that the government would have nowhere near the public support it enjoyed
for the invasion of Afghanistan.
1nc AT: Hydroponics
Legalization turns the advantage – causes big business to fill-in
Paulas 2013 (August 1, Rick, “Monsanto Poised To Take Over the Weed Industry” http://www.kcet.org/living/food/foodrant/monsanto-to-take-over-the-weed-industry.html)
As this report from CNBC makes clear, there's tons of money in pot. It's the so-called "largest cash crop in California" for a reason:
the cultivation of marijuana plants in Mendocino County alone is theorized to reach roughly $1.5 billion a year. Seeing as no one has a perfect
understanding of just how many plants are being grown up there, that estimate may actually be low. And
with that much money
hanging around, corporate interests are sure to follow . What the CNBC report surmises, then, is that what has
happened with the coffee/beer/wine industry is going to happen to the marijuana one: Small artisan
growers get a jump-start and make big profits for a few years before large corporations buy them out,
create partial monopolies, and dominate the industry from that point forward. Legal commercial production
in the U.S. is currently handled by a patchwork of small farmers. While there have been rumors for years of big
agricultural firms buying up land ahead of legalization, it would still take time to develop a mass production product, and even more time to
build a Maxwell House-like brand that would come to dominate that market. Dominate
they will, unless something drastic changes
with the state of the country's fundamental economic philosophy. That's just the current way of our world. But there's
actually a distinct possibility that those artisan developers aren't even going to get their handful of
glory days before big business takes over. And the swift market domination may come from one of
our favorite genetic-engineering corporate supergiants: Monsanto. The move certainly makes sense on a logical
level. At its core, marijuana is an agricultural product. It's a crop. And that's a system that Monsanto, as detailed
time and time again in these parts, specializes in gaming. As far as the "technological advancements" they're
working on in order to put themselves ahead of the game: The company is investing millions of dollars
into this new technology dubbed "RNAi." With RNAi, it is possible to manipulate everything from the color of
the plant to making the plant indigestible to insects. With medical marijuana, RNAi could be used to
create larger, more potent plants effectively cornering the market and exceeding the legal demand for
the plant.
No impact – empirics
Willis et. al, ’10 [Kathy J. Willis, Keith D. Bennett, Shonil A. Bhagwat & H. John B. Birks (2010): 4 °C and beyond: what did this mean for
biodiversity in the past?, Systematics and Biodiversity, 8:1, 3-9, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14772000903495833, ]
The most recent climate models and fossil evidence for the early Eocene Climatic Optimum (53–51 million
years ago) indicate that during this time interval atmospheric CO2 would have exceeded 1200 ppmv and
tropical temperatures were between 5–10 ◦ C warmer than modern values (Zachos et al., 2008). There is also
evidence for relatively rapid intervals of extreme global warmth and massive carbon addition when
global temperatures increased by 5 ◦ C in less than 10 000 years (Zachos et al., 2001). So what was the
response of biota to these ‘climate extremes’ and do we see the large-scale extinctions (especially in the
Neotropics) predicted by some of the most recent models associated with future climate changes
(Huntingford et al., 2008)? In fact the fossil record for the early Eocene Climatic Optimum demonstrates the
very opposite. All the evidence from low-latitude records indicates that, at least in the plant fossil record, this was
one of the most biodiverse intervals of time in the Neotropics (Jaramillo et al., 2006). It was also a time when the
tropical forest biome was the most extensive in Earth’s history, extending to mid-latitudes in both the
northern and southern hemispheres – and there was also no ice at the Poles and Antarctica was
covered by needle-leaved forest (Morley, 2007). There were certainly novel ecosystems, and an increase in
community turnover with a mixture of tropical and temperate species in mid latitudes and plants
persisting in areas that are currently polar deserts. [It should be noted; however, that at the earlier Palaeocene–
Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) at 55.8 million years ago in the US Gulf Coast, there was a rapid
vegetation response to climate change. There was major compositional turnover, palynological richness decreased, and regional
extinctions occurred (Harrington & Jaramillo, 2007). Reasons for these changes are unclear, but they may have resulted from continental
drying, negative feedbacks on vegetation to changing CO2 (assuming that CO2 changed during the PETM), rapid cooling immediately after the
PETM, or subtle changes in plant–animal interactions (Harrington & Jaramillo, 2007).]
Kennedy is about “specialty crops” not just marijuana
Hydroponics fail and cause warming, environmental destruction, and food shocks
Siegel 13 Erin, Dirt-Free Farming: Will Hydroponics (Finally) Take Off?, June 18, http://modernfarmer.com/2013/06/dirt-free-farming-willhydroponics-finally-take-off/
But not
everyone is convinced. Melissa Brechner, the director of Cornell University’s Controlled Environment Agriculture
Hydroponic Technology Transfer Center, thinks that Yohannes’s dreams of vertical farming are far-fetched, at best.
“People are saying that we want to bring healthy food to inner city people, but the real problem with inner cities
is that healthy food costs a lot of money .” Brechner pointed out that Yohannes needs to sell his produce at a
premium in order to maintain profitability, but this prevents the people he wants to feed from purchasing
it. According to Brechner, an urban hydroponic grower will always pay more than a conventional field-grower
because he has to pay for the sun. “Plants grow in direct proportion to light. So if you give them more light,
then you’re going to improve your yield,” Brechner says. ‘The sheer amount of energy that it takes to grow things in the
warehouse — we would say in our more passionate moments that it’s environmentally irresponsible.’ Brechner points to
the work of her former colleague at Cornell, Louis Albright. Taking into account the lighting and the heating of an enclosed warehouse or
skyscraper, Albright calculated that it
takes nearly three times as many kilowatt hours to grow a head of lettuce
vertically as it does to grow it in a glass greenhouse outside of the city. Even when factoring the
carbon cost of shipping lettuce en masse, he has found that it is still more environmentally friendly to grow lettuce away from urban
centers. Albright also found that wheat, one of America’s most consumed crops, is not genetically suited for
hydroponic production. He calculated that it currently costs $23 worth of electricity to produce enough wheat for one loaf of bread in
an enclosed warehouse. Brechner highlights another major vulnerability with large-scale hydroponic production. A power
outage will stop the circulation of the nutrient solution. With most systems, this could destroy a
whole season’s worth of crops in a short time . From Brechner’s perspective, hydroponic technology has not
progressed significantly since Gericke’s time. As long as hydroponic systems cost more money and require more resources than
conventional growing techniques, Brechner remains opposed to hydroponic farming. “I understand the value of making healthy plants more
visible to residents,” she says. “But the sheer amount of energy that it takes to grow things in the warehouse — we would say in our more
passionate moments that it’s environmentally irresponsible.”
Hydroponic production causes GHG emissions – turns the advantage
Lewis 2013 - senior lecturer in international history at Stanford (October 22, Martin W., “Unnecessary Environmental Destruction from
Marijuana Cultivation in the United States ” http://geocurrents.info/place/north-america/northern-california/unnecessary-environmentaldestruction-marijuana-cultivation-united-states)
Although I am tempted to break down the graph and criticize its various components, I will confine my
attention to one feature: the environmental damage of cannabis production. According to the figure,
such costs are almost negligible, as can be seen in the inset illustration (which I have modified to
highlight cannabis). In reality, the environmental damage imposed by marijuana growing is massive. The
most extreme form of environmental degradation associated with the cannabis industry stems from
indoor cultivation. Growing indoors requires not merely intensely bright lights, but also extensive
ventilation and dehumidification systems. The result is a gargantuan carbon footprint. According to a
well-researched 2012 report: The analysis performed in this study finds that indoor Cannabis production
results in energy expenditures of $6 billion each year–6-times that of the entire U.S. pharmaceutical
industry–with electricity use equivalent to that of 2 million average U.S. homes. This corresponds to 1%
of national electricity consumption or 2% of that in households. The yearly greenhouse-gas pollution
(carbon dioxide, CO2 ) from the electricity plus associated transportation fuels equals that of 3 million
cars. Energy costs constitute a quarter of wholesale value.
Multiple alternate causes to food prices
Teslik 8 – Assistant Editor at Council on Foreign Relations (Lee Hudson, “Food Prices”, 6/30/2008,
http://www.cfr.org/publication/16662/food_prices.html)
Before considering factors like supply and demand within food markets, it is important to understand
the umbrella factors influencing costs of production and, even more broadly, the currencies with which
and economies within which food is traded. Energy Prices. Rising energy prices have direct causal
implications for the food market. Fuel is used in several aspects of the agricultural production process,
including fertilization, processing, and transportation. The percentage of total agricultural input
expenditures directed toward energy costs has risen significantly in recent years. A briefing from the
U.S. Department of Agriculture notes that the U.S. agricultural industry’s total expenditures on fuel and
oil are forecast to rise 12.6 percent in 2008, following a rise of 11.5 percent in 2007. These costs are
typically passed along to customers and are reflected in global spot prices (i.e. the current price a
commodity trades for at market). The input costs of electricity have also risen, furthering the burden.
Though it isn’t itself an energy product, fertilizer is an energy-intensive expense, particularly when
substantial transport costs are borne by local farmers—so that expense, too, is reflected in the final
price of foodstuffs. (Beyond direct causation, energy prices are also correlated to food prices, in the
sense that many of the same factors pushing up energy prices—population trends, for instance, or
market speculation—also affect food prices.) Currencies/Inflation. When food is traded internationally—
particularly on commodities exchanges or futures markets—it is often denominated in U.S. dollars. In
recent years, the valuation of the dollar has fallen with respect to many other major world currencies.
This means that even if food prices stayed steady with respect to a basket of currencies, their price in
dollars would have risen. Of course, food prices have not stayed steady—they have risen across the
board—but if you examine international food prices in dollar terms, it is worth noting that the decline of
the dollar accentuates any apparent price increase. Demand Demand for most kinds of food has risen in
the past decade. This trend can be attributed to several factors: Population trends. The world’s
population has grown a little more than 12 percent in the past decade. Virtually nobody argues that this
trend alone accounts for rising food prices—agricultural production has, in many cases, become more
efficient, offsetting the needs of a larger population—and some analysts say population growth hasn’t
had any impact whatsoever on food prices. The shortcomings of a Malthusian food-price argument are
most obvious in the very recent past. Richard Posner, a professor of law and economics at the University
of Chicago, argues this point on his blog. He notes that in 2007 the food price index used by the FAO
rose 40 percent, as compared to 9 percent in 2006—clearly a much faster rate than global population
growth for that year, which measured a little over 1 percent. Nonetheless, experts say population
trends, distinct from sheer growth rates, have had a major impact on food prices. For instance, the past
decade has seen the rapid growth of a global middle class. This, Posner says, has led to changing tastes,
and increasing demand for food that is less efficient to produce. Specifically, he cites an increased
demand for meats. Livestock require farmland for grazing (land that could be used to grow other food),
and also compete directly with humans for food resources like maize. The production of one serving of
meat, economists say, is vastly less efficient than the production of one serving of corn or rice. Biofuels.
Experts say government policies that provide incentives for farmers to use crops to produce energy,
rather than food, have exacerbated food shortages. Specifically, many economists fault U.S. policies
diverting maize crops to the production of ethanol and other biofuels. The effects of ramped-up U.S.
ethanol production—which President Bush called for as part of an initiative to make the United States
“energy independent”—was highlighted in a 2007 Foreign Affairs article by C. Ford Runge and Benjamin
Senauer. Runge and Senauer write that the push to increase ethanol production has spawned ethanol
subsidies in many countries, not just the United States. Brazil, they note, produced 45.2 percent of the
world’s ethanol in 2005 (from sugar cane), and the United States 44.5 percent (from corn). Europe also
produces biodiesel, mostly from oilseeds. In all cases, the result is the diversion of food products from
global food markets, accentuating demand, pinching supply, and pushing up prices. Joachim von Braun,
the director general of IFPRI, writes in an April 2008 briefing (PDF) that 30 percent of all maize produced
in the United States (by far the largest maize producer in the world) will be diverted to biofuel
production in 2008. This raises prices not only for people buying maize directly, but also for those buying
maize products (cornflakes) or meat from livestock that feed on maize (cattle). Speculation. Many
analysts point to speculative trading practices as a factor influencing rising food prices. In May 2008
testimony (PDF) before the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security, Michael W. Masters, the
managing partner of the hedge fund Masters Capital Management, explained the dynamic. Masters says
institutional investors like hedge funds and pension funds started pouring money into commodities
futures markets in the early 2000s, pushing up futures contracts and, in turn, spot prices. Spot traders
often use futures markets as a benchmark for what price they are willing to pay, so even if futures
contracts are inflated by an external factor like a flood of interest from pension funds, this still tends to
result in a bump for spot prices. Still, much debate remains about the extent to which speculation in
futures markets in fact pushes up food prices. “In general we [economists] think futures markets are a
good reflection of what’s likely to happen in the real future,” says IFPRI’s Orden. Orden acknowledges
that more capital has flowed into agricultural commodities markets in recent years, but says that he
“tends to think these markets are pretty efficient and that you shouldn’t look for a scapegoat in
speculators.” Supply Even as demand for agricultural products has risen, several factors have pinched
global supply. These include: Development/urbanization. During the past half decade, global economic
growth has featured expansion throughout emerging markets, even as developed economies in the
United States, Europe, and Japan have cooled. The economies of China, India, Russia, numerous
countries in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, and a handful of achievers in the Middle
East and Africa have experienced strong economic growth rates. This is particularly true in Asian cities,
where industrial and service sector development has clustered. The result has often been a boost for
per capita earnings but a drag on domestic agriculture, as discussed in this backgrounder on African
agriculture. Farmland has in many cases been repurposed for urban or industrial development projects.
Governments have not, typically, been as eager to invest in modernizing farm equipment or irrigation
techniques as they have been to sink money into urban development. All this has put an increased
burden on developing-world farmers, precisely as they dwindle in number and supply capacity.
Production capacity in other parts of the world has increased by leaps and bounds as efficiency has
increased, and, as previously noted, total global production exceeds global demand. But urbanization
opens markets up to other factors—transportation costs and risks, for instance, which are particularly
high in less accessible parts of the developing world—and prevent the smooth functioning of trade, even
where there are willing buyers and sellers. Weather. Some of the factors leading to recent price
increases have been weather-related factors that tightened supply in specific markets. In 2008, for
instance, two major weather events worked in concert to squeeze Asian rice production—Cyclone
Nargis, which led to massive flooding and the destruction of rice harvests in Myanmar; and a major
drought in parts of Australia. Estimates indicate Myanmar’s flooding instantly destroyed a substantial
portion of Myanmar’s harvest, limiting the country’s ability to export rice. Meanwhile, Australia’s
drought wiped out 98 percent of the country’s rice harvest in 2008, forcing Canberra to turn to imports
and further straining Asia’s rice market. Trade policy. Agricultural trade barriers have long been faulted
for gumming up trade negotiations, including the Doha round of World Trade Organization talks. But in
the midst of the recent food pinch, a different kind of trade barrier has emerged as a problem—export
bans. As discussed before (in the instance of the Philippines meeting difficulty in its efforts to import
rice), several exporters have tightened the reins in light of domestic supply concerns. According to the
UN’s World Food Program, over forty countries have imposed some form of export ban in an effort to
increase domestic food security. India, for instance, imposed bans on exporting some forms of rice and
oil in June 2008—a move that took food off the market, led to stockpiling, and brought a spike in prices.
China, Kazakhstan, and Indonesia, among other countries, have introduced similar bans. The distorting
effects of these barriers are particularly troubling in the developing world, where a much larger
percentage of average household income is spent on food. The African Development Bank warned in
May 2008 that similar moves among African countries could rapidly exacerbate food concerns on the
African continent. A group of West African countries, meanwhile, sought to mitigate the negative effects
of export bans by exempting one another. Food aid policy and other policies. Experts say flaws in food
aid policies have limited its effectiveness and in some cases exacerbated price pressures on food. CFR
Senior Fellow Laurie Garrett discusses some of these factors in a recent working paper. Garrett cites
illogical aid policies such as grants for irrigation and mechanization of crop production that the Asian
Development Bank plans to give to Bangladesh, a densely populated country without “a spare millimeter
of arable land.” Garrett also criticizes food aid policies (U.S. aid policies are one example) that mandate
food aid to be doled out in the form of crops grown by U.S. farmers, rather than cash. The rub, she says,
is that food grown in the United States is far more expensive, both to produce and to transport, than
food grown in recipient countries. Such a policy guarantees that the dollar value of donations goes much
less far than it would if aid were directed to funds that could be spent in local markets. Other experts
note additional policies that limit supply. In a recent interview with CFR.org, Paul Collier, an economics
professor at Oxford University, cites European bans on genetically modified crops as a prime example.
2nc
Their neoliberal project makes extinction inevitable – the environmental byproducts
of neoliberalism create gaps in ecosystem services, creating multiple, mutually
reinforcing feedback effects – causes climate change, resource collapse, disease
spread, and biodiversity collapse
Ehrenfeld ‘5,
(David, Dept. of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources @ Rutgers University, “The Environmental Limits to Globalization”, Conservation
Biology Vol. 19 No. 2 April 2005)
The known
effects of globalization on the environment are numerous and highly significant. Many others are
undoubtedly unknown. Given these circumstances, the first question that suggests itself is: Will globalization, as we see it now,
remain a permanent state of affairs (Rees 2002; Ehrenfeld 2003a)? The principal environmental side
effects of globalization—climate change, resource exhaustion (particularly cheap energy), damage to
agroecosystems, and the spread of exotic species, including pathogens (plant, animal, and human)—are
sufficient to make this economic system unstable and short-lived. The socioeconomic consequences
of globalization are likely to do the same. In my book The Arrogance of Humanism (1981), I claimed that our ability to
manage global systems, which depends on our being able to predict the results of the things we
do, or even to understand the systems we have created, has been greatly exaggerated. Much of our alleged control is
science fiction; it doesn’t work because of theoretical limits that we ignore at our peril. We live in a dream world in which reality
testing is something we must never, never do, lest we awake. In 1984 Charles Perrow explored the reasons why we have trouble
predicting what so many of our own created systems will do, and why they surprise us so unpleasantly while we think we are
managing them. In his book Normal Accidents, which does not concern globalization, he listed the critical characteristics of some of
today’s complex
systems. They are highly interlinked, so a change in one part can affect many others,
some processes feed back on themselves in unexpected
ways. The controls of the system often interact with each other unpredictably. We have only indirect
ways of finding out what is happening inside the system. And we have an incomplete understanding of some of the
even those that seem quite distant. Results of
system’s processes. His example of such a system is a nuclear power plant, and this, he explained, is why system-wide accidents in
nuclear plants cannot be predicted or eliminated by system design. I would argue that globalization
is a similar system, also
subject to catastrophic accidents, many of them environmental—events that we cannot define
until after they have occurred, and perhaps not even then. The comparatively few commentators who have
predicted the collapse of globalization have generally given social reasons to support their arguments. These deserve some
consideration here, if only because the environmental and social consequences of globalization interact so strongly with each
other. In 1998, the British political economist John Gray, giving scant attention to environmental factors, nevertheless came to the
conclusion that globalization is unstable and will be short-lived. He said, “There
is nothing in today’s global market
that buffers it against the social strains arising from highly uneven economic development within
and between the world’s diverse societies.” The result, Gray states, is that “The combination of [an]
unceasing stream of new technologies, unfettered market competition and weak or fractured social
institutions” has weakened both sovereign states and multinational corporations in their ability to control
important events. Note that Gray claims that not only nations but also multinational corporations, which are widely touted as
controlling the world, are being weakened by globalization. This idea may come as a surprise, considering the growth of multinationals
in the past few decades, but I believe it is true. Neither
governments nor giant corporations are even remotely
capable of controlling the environmental or social forces released by globalization, without first
controlling globalization itself. Two of the social critics of globalization with the most dire predictions about its doom are
themselves masters of the process. The late Sir James Goldsmith, billionaire financier, wrote in 1994, It must surely be a mistake to
adopt an economic policy which makes you rich if you eliminate your national workforce and transfer production abroad, and which
bankrupts you if you continue to employ your own people.... It
is the poor in the rich countries who will subsidize
the rich in the poor countries. This will have a serious impact on the social cohesion of nations.
Another free-trade billionaire, George Soros, said much the same thing in 1995: “The
collapse of the global marketplace
would be a traumatic event with unimaginable consequences. Yet I find it easier to imagine than the
continuation of the present regime.” How much more powerful these statements are if we factor in the environment! As
globalization collapses, what will happen to people, biodiversity, and ecosystems? With respect to people, the gift of prophecy is not
required to answer this question. What will happen depends on where you are and how you live. Many citizens of the Third World are
still comparatively self-sufficient; an unknown number of these will survive the breakdown of globalization and its attendant chaos. In
the developed world, there are also people with resources of self-sufficiency and a growing understanding of the nature of our social
and environmental problems, which may help them bridge the years of crisis. Some species are adaptable; some are not. For the nonhuman residents of Earth, not all news will be bad. Who would have predicted that wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo), one of the
wiliest and most evasive of woodland birds, extinct in New Jersey 50 years ago, would now be found in every county of this the most
densely populated state, and even, occasionally, in adjacent Manhattan? Who would have predicted that black bears (Ursus
americanus), also virtually extinct in the state in the mid-twentieth century, would now number in the thousands (Ehrenfeld 2001)? Of
course these recoveries
are unusual—rare bright spots in a darker landscape. Finally, a few ecological
systems may survive in a comparatively undamaged state; most will be stressed to the breaking point, directly
or indirectly, by many environmental and social factors interacting unpredictably. Lady Luck, as always, will have much to say. In his
book The Collapse of Complex Societies, the archaeologist Joseph Tainter (1988) notes that collapse, which has happened to all past
empires, inevitably results in human systems of lower complexity and less specialization, less centralized control, lower economic
activity, less information flow, lower population levels, less trade, and less redistribution of resources. All of these changes are inimical
to globalization. This less-complex, less-globalized condition is probably what human societies will be like when the dust settles. I
do
not think, however, that we can make such specific predictions about the ultimate state of the
environment after globalization, because we have never experienced anything like this
exceptionally rapid, global environmental damage before. History and science have little to tell us in this situation. The
end of the current economic system and the transition to a postglobalized state is and will be
accompanied by a desperate last raid on resources and a chaotic flurry of environmental
destruction whose results cannot possibly be told in advance. All one can say is that the surviving species,
ecosystems, and resources will be greatly impoverished compared with what we have now, and our descendants will not thank us for
having adopted, however briefly, an economic system that consumed their inheritance and damaged their planet so wantonly.
Environment is a true bottom line—concern for its condition must trump all purely economic
growth strategies if both the developed and developing nations are to survive and prosper.
Awareness of the environmental limits that globalized industrial society denies or ignores should not,
however, bring us to an extreme position of environmental determinism. Those whose preoccupations with
modern civilization’s very real social problems cause them to reject or minimize the environmental constraints discussed here (
Hollander 2003) are guilty of seeing only half the picture. Environmental scientists sometimes fall into the same error. It
is
tempting to see the salvation of civilization and environment solely in terms of technological
improvements in efficiency of energy extraction and use, control of pollution, conservation of water, and regulation of
environmentally harmful activities. But such needed developments will not be sufficient—or may not even
occur— without corresponding social change, including an end to human population growth and the
glorification of consumption, along with the elimination of economic mechanisms that increase
the gap between rich and poor. The environmental and social problems inherent in globalization are
completely interrelated—any attempt to treat them as separate entities is unlikely to succeed in
easing the transition to a postglobalized world. Integrated change that combines environmental awareness, technological
innovation, and an altered world view is the only answer to the life-threatening problems exacerbated by
globalization (Ehrenfeld 2003b). If such integrated change occurs in time, it will likely happen partly by our own design and partly
as an unplanned response to the constraints imposed by social unrest, disease, and the economics of scarcity. With respect to
the planned component of change, we are facing, as eloquently described by Rees (2002), “the ultimate
challenge to human intelligence and self-awareness, those vital qualities we humans claim as uniquely our own. Homo
sapiens will either. . .become fully human or wink out ignominiously, a guttering candle in a violent storm of our own making.” If
change does not come quickly, our global civilization will join Tainter’s (1988) list as the latest and most dramatic example of collapsed
complex societies. Is
there anything that could slow globalization quickly, before it collapses
disastrously of its own environmental and social weight? It is still not too late to curtail the use of
energy, reinvigorate local and regional communities while restoring a culture of concern for each
other, reduce nonessential global trade and especially global finance (Daly & Cobb 1989), do more to
control introductions of exotic species (including pathogens), and accelerate the growth of sustainable
agriculture. Many of the needed technologies are already in place. It is true that some of the damage to our
environment—species extinctions, loss of crop and domestic animal varieties, many exotic species introductions, and some climatic
change— will be beyond repair. Nevertheless, the
opportunity to help our society move past globalization in
an orderly way, while there is time, is worth our most creative and passionate efforts. The citizens of
the United States and other nations have to understand that our global economic system has placed both our
environment and our society in peril, a peril as great as that posed by any war of the twentieth century.
This understanding, and the actions that follow, must come not only from enlightened leadership, but also from
grassroots consciousness raising. It is still possible to reclaim the planet from a self-destructive
economic system that is bringing us all down together, and this can be a task that bridges the divide between
conservatives and liberals. The crisis is here, now. What we have to do has become obvious. Globalization can
be scaled back to manageable proportions only in the context of an altered world view that
rejects materialism even as it restores a sense of communal obligation. In this way, alone, can we achieve
real homeland security, not just in the United States, but also in other nations, whose fates have become so thoroughly entwined with
ours within the global environment we share.
Structural violence is the proximate cause of all war- creates priming that
psychologically structures escalation
**Answers no root cause- because there is no root cause we must be attentive to structural inequality of all kinds because it primes people for
broader violence- our impact is about the scale of violence and the disproportionate relationship between that scale and warfare, not that one
form of social exclusion comes first
Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois ‘4 (Prof of Anthropology @ Cal-Berkely; Prof of Anthropology @ UPenn) (Nancy and
Philippe, Introduction: Making Sense of Violence, in Violence in War and Peace, pg. 19-22)
This large and at first sight “messy” Part VII is central to this anthology’s thesis. It encompasses everything from the routinized, bureaucratized,
and utterly banal violence of children dying of hunger and maternal despair in Northeast Brazil (Scheper-Hughes, Chapter 33) to elderly African
Americans dying of heat stroke in Mayor Daly’s version of US apartheid in Chicago’s South Side (Klinenberg, Chapter 38) to the racialized class
hatred expressed by British Victorians in their olfactory disgust of the “smelly” working classes (Orwell, Chapter 36). In these readings violence
is located in the symbolic and social structures that overdetermine and allow the criminalized drug addictions, interpersonal bloodshed, and
racially patterned incarcerations that characterize the US “inner city” to be normalized (Bourgois, Chapter 37 and Wacquant, Chapter 39).
Violence also takes the form of class, racial, political self-hatred and adolescent self-destruction (Quesada, Chapter 35), as well as of useless (i.e.
preventable), rawly embodied physical suffering, and death (Farmer, Chapter 34). Absolutely central to our approach is a blurring of
categories and distinctions between wartime and peacetime violence. Close attention to the “little” violences produced in the structures,
habituses, and mentalites of everyday life shifts our attention to pathologies of class, race, and gender inequalities. More important, it
interrupts the voyeuristic tendencies of “violence studies” that risk publicly humiliating the powerless who are often forced into complicity with
social and individual pathologies of power because suffering is often a solvent of human integrity and dignity. Thus, in this anthology we are
positing a violence continuum comprised of a multitude of “small wars and invisible genocides” (see also Scheper- Hughes 1996; 1997; 2000b)
conducted in the normative social spaces of public schools, clinics, emergency rooms, hospital wards, nursing homes, courtrooms, public
registry offices, prisons, detention centers, and public morgues. The violence continuum also refers to the ease with which humans are
capable of reducing the socially vulnerable into expendable nonpersons and assuming the license - even the duty - to kill, maim, or soulmurder. We realize that in referring to a violence and a genocide continuum we are flying in the face of a tradition of genocide studies that
argues for the absolute uniqueness of the Jewish Holocaust and for vigilance with respect to restricted purist use of the term genocide itself
(see Kuper 1985; Chaulk 1999; Fein 1990; Chorbajian 1999). But we hold an opposing and alternative view that, to the contrary, it is absolutely
necessary to make just such existential leaps in purposefully linking violent acts in normal times to those of abnormal times. Hence the title
of our volume: Violence in War and in Peace. If (as we concede) there is a moral risk in overextending the concept of “genocide” into spaces
and corners of everyday life where we might not ordinarily think to find it (and there is), an even greater risk lies in failing to sensitize
ourselves, in misrecognizing protogenocidal practices and sentiments daily enacted as normative behavior by “ordinary” good-enough
citizens. Peacetime crimes, such as prison construction sold as economic development to impoverished communities in the mountains and
deserts of California, or the evolution of the criminal industrial complex into the latest peculiar institution for managing race relations in the
United States (Waquant, Chapter 39), constitute the “small wars and invisible genocides” to which we refer. This applies to African American
and Latino youth mortality statistics in Oakland, California, Baltimore, Washington DC, and New York City. These are “invisible” genocides not
because they are secreted away or hidden from view, but quite the opposite. As Wittgenstein observed, the things that are hardest to
perceive are those which are right before our eyes and therefore taken for granted. In this regard, Bourdieu’s partial and unfinished theory of
violence (see Chapters 32 and 42) as well as his concept of misrecognition is crucial to our task. By including the normative everyday forms of
violence hidden in the minutiae of “normal” social practices - in the architecture of homes, in gender relations, in communal work, in the
exchange of gifts, and so forth - Bourdieu forces us to reconsider the broader meanings and status of violence, especially the links between the
violence of everyday life and explicit political terror and state repression, Similarly, Basaglia’s notion of “peacetime crimes” - crimini di pace imagines a direct relationship between wartime and peacetime violence. Peacetime crimes suggests the possibility that war crimes are merely
ordinary, everyday crimes of public consent applied systematically and dramatically in the extreme context of war. Consider the parallel uses
of rape during peacetime and wartime, or the family resemblances between the legalized violence of US immigration and naturalization border
raids on “illegal aliens” versus the US government- engineered genocide in 1938, known as the Cherokee “Trail of Tears.” Peacetime crimes
suggests that everyday forms of state violence make a certain kind of domestic peace possible. Internal “stability” is purchased with the
currency of peacetime crimes, many of which take the form of professionally applied “strangle-holds.” Everyday forms of state violence during
peacetime make a certain kind of domestic “peace” possible. It is an easy-to-identify peacetime crime that is usually maintained as a public
secret by the government and by a scared or apathetic populace. Most subtly, but no less politically or structurally, the phenomenal growth in
the United States of a new military, postindustrial prison industrial complex has taken place in the absence of broad-based opposition, let alone
collective acts of civil disobedience. The public consensus is based primarily on a new mobilization of an old fear of the mob, the mugger, the
rapist, the Black man, the undeserving poor. How many public executions of mentally deficient prisoners in the United States are needed to
make life feel more secure for the affluent? What can it possibly mean when incarceration becomes the “normative” socializing experience for
ethnic minority youth in a society, i.e., over 33 percent of young African American men (Prison Watch 2002). In the end it is essential that we
recognize the existence of a genocidal capacity among otherwise good-enough humans and that we need to exercise a defensive
hypervigilance to the less dramatic, permitted, and even rewarded everyday acts of violence that render participation in genocidal acts and
policies possible (under adverse political or economic conditions), perhaps more easily than we would like to recognize. Under the violence
continuum we include, therefore, all expressions of radical social exclusion, dehumanization, depersonal- ization, pseudospeciation, and
reification which normalize atrocious behavior and violence toward others. A constant self-mobilization for alarm, a state of constant
hyperarousal is, perhaps, a reasonable response to Benjamin’s view of late modern history as a chronic “state of emergency” (Taussig,
Chapter 31). We are trying to recover here the classic anagogic thinking that enabled Erving Goffman, Jules Henry, C. Wright Mills, and Franco
Basaglia among other mid-twentieth-century radically critical thinkers, to perceive the symbolic and structural relations, i.e., between inmates
and patients, between concentration camps, prisons, mental hospitals, nursing homes, and other “total institutions.” Making that decisive
move to recognize the continuum of violence allows us to see the capacity and the willingness - if not enthusiasm - of ordinary people, the
practical technicians of the social consensus, to enforce genocidal-like crimes against categories of rubbish people. There is no primary
impulse out of which mass violence and genocide are born, it is ingrained in the common sense of everyday social life. The mad, the
differently abled, the mentally vulnerable have often fallen into this category of the unworthy living, as have the very old and infirm, the
sick-poor, and, of course, the despised racial, religious, sexual, and ethnic groups of the moment. Erik Erikson referred to “pseudospeciation” as the human tendency to classify some individuals or social groups as less than fully human - a prerequisite to genocide and one
that is carefully honed during the unremark- able peacetimes that precede the sudden, “seemingly unintelligible” outbreaks of mass violence.
Collective denial and misrecognition are prerequisites for mass violence and genocide. But so are formal bureaucratic structures and
professional roles. The practical technicians of everyday violence in the backlands of Northeast Brazil (Scheper-Hughes, Chapter 33), for
example, include the clinic doctors who prescribe powerful tranquilizers to fretful and frightfully hungry babies, the Catholic priests who
celebrate the death of “angel-babies,” and the municipal bureaucrats who dispense free baby coffins but no food to hungry families. Everyday
violence encompasses the implicit, legitimate, and routinized forms of violence inherent in particular social, economic, and political
formations. It is close to what Bourdieu (1977, 1996) means by “symbolic violence,” the violence that is often “nus-recognized” for something
else, usually something good. Everyday violence is similar to what Taussig (1989) calls “terror as usual.” All these terms are meant to reveal a
public secret - the hidden links between violence in war and violence in peace, and between war crimes and “peace-time crimes.” Bourdieu
(1977) finds domination and violence in the least likely places - in courtship and marriage, in the exchange of gifts, in systems of classification, in
style, art, and culinary taste- the various uses of culture. Violence, Bourdieu insists, is everywhere in social practice. It is misrecognized because
its very everydayness and its familiarity render it invisible. Lacan identifies “rneconnaissance” as the prerequisite of the social. The exploitation
of bachelor sons, robbing them of autonomy, independence, and progeny, within the structures of family farming in the European countryside
that Bourdieu escaped is a case in point (Bourdieu, Chapter 42; see also Scheper-Hughes, 2000b; Favret-Saada, 1989). Following Gramsci,
Foucault, Sartre, Arendt, and other modern theorists of power-vio- lence, Bourdieu treats direct aggression and physical violence as a crude,
uneconomical mode of domination; it is less efficient and, according to Arendt (1969), it is certainly less legitimate. While power and symbolic
domination are not to be equated with violence - and Arendt argues persuasively that violence is to be understood as a failure of power violence, as we are presenting it here, is more than simply the expression of illegitimate physical force against a person or group of persons.
Rather, we need to understand violence as encompassing all forms of “controlling processes” (Nader 1997b) that assault basic human freedoms
and individual or collective survival. Our task is to recognize these gray zones of violence which are, by definition, not obvious. Once again, the
point of bringing into the discourses on genocide everyday, normative experiences of reification, depersonalization, institutional confinement,
and acceptable death is to help answer the question: What makes mass violence and genocide possible? In this volume we are suggesting that
mass violence is part of a continuum, and that it is socially incremental and often experienced by perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders and even by victims themselves - as expected, routine, even justified. The preparations for mass killing can be found in social sentiments and
institutions from the family, to schools, churches, hospitals, and the military. They harbor the early “warning signs” (Charney 1991), the
“priming” (as Hinton, ed., 2002 calls it), or the “genocidal continuum” (as we call it) that push social consensus toward devaluing certain forms
of human life and lifeways from the refusal of social support and humane care to vulnerable “social parasites” (the nursing home elderly,
“welfare queens,” undocumented immigrants, drug addicts) to the militarization of everyday life (super-maximum-security prisons, capital
punishment; the technologies of heightened personal security, including the house gun and gated communities; and reversed feelings of
victimization).
Prefer this impact – structural violence is invisible and exponential
Nixon 11 (Rob, Rachel Carson Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Slow Violence and the
Environmentalism of the Poor, pgs. 2-3)
Three primary concerns animate this book, chief among them my conviction that we urgently need to rethink-politically, imaginatively, and
theoretically-what I call "slow violence." By slow violence I mean a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed
destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at all. Violence is customarily
conceived as an event or action that is immediate in time, explosive and spectacular in space, and as erupting into instant sensational
visibility. We need, I believe, to engage a different kind of violence, a violence that is neither spectacular nor instantaneous, but rather
incremental and accretive, its calamitous repercussions playing out across a range of temporal scales. In so doing, we also need to engage the
representational, narrative, and strategic challenges posed by the relative invisibility of slow violence. Climate change, the thawing cryosphere,
toxic drift, biomagnification, deforestation, the radioactive aftermaths of wars, acidifying oceans, and a host of other slowly unfolding
environmental catastrophes present formidable representational obstacles that can hinder our efforts to mobilize and act decisively. The long
dyings-the staggered and staggeringly discounted casualties, both human and ecological that result from war's toxic aftermaths or climate
change-are underrepresented in strategic planning as well as in human memory. Had Summers advocated invading Africa with weapons of
mass destruction, his proposal would have fallen under conventional definitions of violence and been perceived as a military or even an
imperial invasion. Advocating invading countries with mass forms of slow-motion toxicity, however, requires rethinking our accepted
assumptions of violence to include slow violence. Such a rethinking requires that we complicate conventional assumptions about violence as
a highly visible act that is newsworthy because it is event focused, time bound, and body bound. We need to account for how the temporal
dispersion of slow violence affects the way we perceive and respond to a variety of social afflictions-from domestic abuse to posttraumatic
stress and, in particular, environmental calamities. A major challenge is representational: how to devise arresting stories, images, and symbols
adequate to the pervasive but elusive violence of delayed effects. Crucially, slow violence is often not just attritional but also exponential,
operating as a major threat multiplier; it can fuel long-term, proliferating conflicts in situations where the conditions for sustaining life
become increasingly but gradually degraded.
causal linear IR predictions are inherently incomplete – epistemic uncertainty is the
defining principle of international politics
Hendrick 9 – PhD from Bradford U, contributor to Oxford University Press
(Diane, “Complexity Theory and Conflict Transformation: An Exploration of Potential and Implications”,
http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/confres/papers/pdfs/CCR17.pdf)
In international relations Neil E. Harrison makes the case for the value of complexity theory given
in world politics
the unpredictability of events
that has confounded expectations based on existing theories. While there are various explanations proffered for this
situation, Harrison sees the tendency of current theories of world politics to work with models of the social world that present it, for analytical
purposes, as a simple system as fundamentally misleading. In contrast to realism, that sees political behaviour being driven by essential
human characteristics within fixed structures, complexity theory sees world politics as a self- organising complex system in which
macroproperties emerge from microinteractions. It is precisely the interactions among interdependent but individual agents within the system
that account for the surprising events that
defy prediction
through the simple models used at the moment. Harrison thus takes the
state as a system that is not closed but open to other natural and social systems: “defined as a political system, it is open to technological,
cultural and economic systems that influence political choices and processes.” (Harrison, 2006 p. 8) The state is also influenced by other
states and by numerous transboundary interactions between major corporations, NGOs, terrorist groups, etc.
In such complex
systems it is not possible to trace linear causal links : “Despite occasional attempts to bring in domestic politics the state is
usually modelled as a unit with exogenous identity and objective interests. This greatly reduces the range of possible causal explanations for
any perceived social event, simplifying causal analysis and hypothesis generation and testing.” (Harrison, 2006 p. 11) It is a disconcerting fact
that outcomes may have multiple causes and that in different contexts, historically or spatially, the same cause may lead to different
outcomes. This cannot be captured by the over-simplified models of international systems. Given the multiple, mutually influencing
interactions within social systems it is necessary to look to the evolution of the system rather than to individual events when seeking the causes
of observed effects. Complexity theory focuses on processes and relations between components, or in the case of social systems, agents, rather
than the components themselves. In a similar criticism to that of Walby, Harrison points to the tendency of theories in international relations to
focus on one level of analysis and to present competing theories based on these. Where systems are theorised, they are limited by being
presented as nested. Harrison notes that the impact of positive feedback in systems has been acknowledged: “ ‘(I)ntra-national and international events all impinge on one another in a cyclical and ongoing process within which the self-aggravating propensities frequently exceed
the self-correcting ones by an unacceptably large amount’ (Singer 1970, 165) thus national elites use rhetoric for domestic political
consumption that can incite potential enemies, the public and military desire the psychological comfort of discernible superiority, media
amplify inter-nation conflicts, and the benefits of participation in the ideological mainstream preserve the distribution of power and inhibit
changes in the historic patterns that transform inevitable conflicts into costly rivalries.” (Harrison, 2006 p. 28) While Walby refers to examples
of the importance of the notion of path dependence with reference to differences in development between countries, Harrison sees its
relevance at the level of the international state system. Thus development through time is not wholly random and there are limits or
constraints created by the prior development of the system that restrict the possible options for change. In this way the international system
may change its structure without becoming another system and here Harrison brings the example of the Cold War. While it is true that the Cold
War was produced by historical interactions, it is still not possible to claim that it was an inevitable effect of historical causes. The
microinteractions
that occurred
introduce unpredictability
myriad
into development, especially given the above-mentioned
possibility of positive feedback. Harrison is optimistic with regard to the gains from the application of complexity theory to world politics in
theoretical but also in policy terms: “This ontological shift from simple to complex systems opens new paths to knowledge and understanding
yet incorporates much current knowledge; it validates novel research methods; and theories founded in this approach will generate radically
different solutions to policy problems.” (Harrison, 2006 p. 2)
this makes their impact calculus based on try or die completely worthless
Brown 11 – professor @ Naval Postgraduate School
(Gerald, “Making Terrorism Risk Analysis Less Harmful and More Useful: Another Try,” Risk Analysis Vol. 31, Issue 2)
5. Better risk analysis is easy. We have tried, by exposition and example, to show that correctly applying existing techniques of applied
probability, modeling, and optimization can provide useful insights for guiding effective allocation of limited defensive resources.
Unfortunately, feeding expert judgments into the Risk = Threat x Vulnerability x Consequence framework is
example, because the framework
omits crucial information
not how to do it —for
needed to predict and manage risks (such as correlations among
terms, or bang-for- the-buck information about risk reductions achieved by implementing different subsets of possible actions); because its
key terms are not well defined
(Cox 2008); because our
experts often lack the information needed to
provide useful estimates , even if the concepts made sense; and because the framework has never been shown to
produce good results (e.g., better than random).
Better risk analysis is easy, but requires replacing the TVC approach with
more useful analyses.
The alt is a prior question – knowledge needs to be reconstituted before a solution is
reached – current conditions make alternatives seem impossible
EVERNDEN 1992 – PROF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AT YORK SOCIAL CREATION OF NATURE, PAGE 109-110
Since it seems only commonsensical that what we are attempting to achieve knowledge of is the objects "out there," one can scarcely imagine
how this dualism could be avoided. Yet as we noted earlier, it may only be because it is common-sensical that it appears inevitable. And it may
be that "common sense" is actually a rarefied faculty, heir to centuries of theoretical explanation. Common sense is an interpretation of
experience as an encounter of an inner self and outer objects. Yet lived experience does not confirm that interpretation. Erazirn Khoak
illuminates this through the example of a man who is a smoker searching for an ashtray in the house of a nonsmoker. Obviously his search is
doomed from the outset, but he eventually encounters a seashell or a nut dish that serves his purpose. He obviously didn't "find" an ashtray,
since there weren't any; he "invented" one.
This solution is ignored by common sense,
which instead treats the experience
as "an encounter with an object out there in the world. Typically, it will report that 1 found an ashtray.' But there was no ashtray to be found;
the smoker had to constitute it. Here 1 found one' is an interpretation, so habitual as to seem 'natural,' but still not a direct report." The
ashtray that the smoker claims is "out there" is certainly not merely in his mind, either; it exists in his experience. "That is also a crucial point:
the world is indeed 'there' in lived experience, but that experience is not an ephemeral, transparent nonrealm between a 'subjective' mind and
an 'objective' world. Nor is it a passive 'subjective' report of an autonomously existing 'objective' reality. It is reality, the only reality that is
actually given in experience rather than constructed in speculation." As should be apparent from the preceding discussion, the entity which
we take for granted as an objective reality has, in fact,
a complex origin as a social creation . The fact that it seems obvious is a
function of its absorption into our very expectations of the world, and a function of our willingness to dwell in the world of symbols and
abstractions. But when we accept that this "nature" of which we speak is an interpretation of our worldly experience, we become open to
the question, “what, then, is our experience'" what do we encounter before we discover "nature?" Surely, some uncaged experience of
otherness must still be accessible to us? Maurice Merleau-Ponty suggests that "to return to things themselves is to return to that world which
precedes knowledge, of which knowledge always speaks, and in relation to which every scientific schematization is an abstract and derivative
sign-language, as is geography in relation to the countryside in which we have learnt beforehand what a forest, a prairie, or a river is."
Claims to inevitability directly prevent finding an alternative system and justify the
current project of exterminating the periphery and ultimately all life
Santos, 2003 [ Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Professor of Sociology at the School of Economics, University of Coimbra (Portugal) and
Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. He is Director of the Center for Social Studies of the University
of Coimbra and Director of the Center of Documentation on the Revolution of 1974, at the same University., "Collective Suicide?" March 28,
2003 online http://www.ces.fe.uc.../bss/072en.php]
According to Franz Hinkelammert, the West has repeatedly been under the illusion that it should try to save humanity by destroying part of
it. This is a salvific and sacrificial destruction, committed in the name of the need to radically materialize all the possibilities opened up by a
given social and political reality over which it is supposed to have total power. This is how it was in colonialism, with the genocide of
indigenous peoples, and the African slaves. This is how it was in the period of imperialist struggles, which caused millions of deaths in two
world wars and many other colonial wars. This is how it was in Stalinism, with the Gulag and in Nazism, with the holocaust. And now today,
this is how it is in neoliberalism, with the collective sacrifice of the periphery
and even the semiperiphery of
the world system. With the war against Iraq, it is fitting to ask whether what is in progress is a new genocidal and sacrificial illusion, and what
its scope might be. It is above all appropriate to ask if the new illusion will not herald the radicalization and the ultimate perversion of the
western illusion:
destroying all of humanity in the illusion of saving it . Sacrificial genocide arises from a totalitarian
illusion that is manifested in the belief that there are no alternatives to the present-day reality and that the problems and difficulties
confronting it arise from failing to take its logic of development to its ultimate consequences. If there is unemployment, hunger and death in
the Third World, this is not the result of market failures; instead, it is the outcome of the market laws not having been fully applied. If there is
terrorism, this is not due to the violence of the conditions that generate it; it is due, rather, to the fact that total violence has not been
employed to physically eradicate all terrorists and potential terrorists. This political logic is based on the supposition of total power and
knowledge, and on the radical rejection of alternatives; it is ultra conservative in that it aims to infinitely reproduce the status quo. Inherent
to it is the notion of the end of history. During the last hundred years, the West has experienced three versions of this logic, and, therefore,
seen three versions of the end of history: Stalinism, with its logic of insuperable efficiency of the plan; Nazism, with its logic of racial superiority;
and neoliberalism, with its logic of insuperable efficiency of the market. The first two periods involved the destruction of democracy. The last
one trivializes democracy, disarming it in the face of social actors sufficiently powerful to be able to privatize the State and international
institutions in their favour. I have described this situation as a combination of political democracy and social fascism. One current manifestation
of this combination resides in the fact that intensely strong public opinion, worldwide, against the war is found to be incapable of halting the
war machine set in motion by supposedly democratic rulers. At all these moments, a death drive, a catastrophic heroism, predominates, the
idea of a looming collective suicide, only preventable by the massive destruction of the other. Paradoxically, the broader the definition of the
other and the efficacy of its destruction, the more likely collective suicide becomes. In its sacrificial genocide version, neoliberalism is a
mixture of market radicalization, neoconservatism and Christian fundamentalism. Its death drive takes a number of forms, from the idea of
"discardable populations", referring to citizens of the Third World not capable of being exploited as workers and consumers, to the concept of
"collateral damage", to refer to the deaths, as a result of war, of thousands of innocent civilians. The last, catastrophic heroism, is quite clear
on two facts: according to reliable calculations by the Non-Governmental Organization MEDACT, in London, between 48 and 260 thousand
civilians will die during the war and in the three months after (this is without there being civil war or a nuclear attack); the war will cost 100
billion dollars, enough to pay the health costs of the world's poorest countries for four years.
The alt is a prior question – knowledge needs to be reconstituted before a solution is
reached – current conditions make alternatives seem impossible
EVERNDEN 1992 – PROF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AT YORK SOCIAL CREATION OF NATURE, PAGE 109-110
Since it seems only commonsensical that what we are attempting to achieve knowledge of is the objects "out there," one can scarcely imagine
how this dualism could be avoided. Yet as we noted earlier, it may only be because it is common-sensical that it appears inevitable. And it may
be that "common sense" is actually a rarefied faculty, heir to centuries of theoretical explanation. Common sense is an interpretation of
experience as an encounter of an inner self and outer objects. Yet lived experience does not confirm that interpretation. Erazirn Khoak
illuminates this through the example of a man who is a smoker searching for an ashtray in the house of a nonsmoker. Obviously his search is
doomed from the outset, but he eventually encounters a seashell or a nut dish that serves his purpose. He obviously didn't "find" an ashtray,
since there weren't any; he "invented" one.
This solution is ignored by common sense,
which instead treats the experience
as "an encounter with an object out there in the world. Typically, it will report that 1 found an ashtray.' But there was no ashtray to be found;
the smoker had to constitute it. Here 1 found one' is an interpretation, so habitual as to seem 'natural,' but still not a direct report." The
ashtray that the smoker claims is "out there" is certainly not merely in his mind, either; it exists in his experience. "That is also a crucial point:
the world is indeed 'there' in lived experience, but that experience is not an ephemeral, transparent nonrealm between a 'subjective' mind and
an 'objective' world. Nor is it a passive 'subjective' report of an autonomously existing 'objective' reality. It is reality, the only reality that is
actually given in experience rather than constructed in speculation." As should be apparent from the preceding discussion, the entity which
we take for granted as an objective reality has, in fact,
a complex origin as a social creation . The fact that it seems obvious is a
function of its absorption into our very expectations of the world, and a function of our willingness to dwell in the world of symbols and
abstractions. But when we accept that this "nature" of which we speak is an interpretation of our worldly experience, we become open to
the question, “what, then, is our experience'" what do we encounter before we discover "nature?" Surely, some uncaged experience of
otherness must still be accessible to us? Maurice Merleau-Ponty suggests that "to return to things themselves is to return to that world which
precedes knowledge, of which knowledge always speaks, and in relation to which every scientific schematization is an abstract and derivative
sign-language, as is geography in relation to the countryside in which we have learnt beforehand what a forest, a prairie, or a river is."
Intervention into the affirmative’s externalities while maintaining the [explain link]
core is a tactic of biopower to render resistance impotent and expand power even
farther
Hubert L. Dreyfus, professor of philosophy at UC Berkeley, “ ‘Being and Power’ Revisited,” Foucault and Heidegger: Critical Encounters,
2003, p. 42-44
Foucault felt he had to expose this sinister repression and liberate the repressed. Later, however, he realized that repression, calling for
liberation, was not the problem. He rejected the idea that underneath power with its acts of violence and its artifice we should be able to
recuperate things themselves in their primitive vivacity: behind the asylum walls, the spontaneity of madness; through the penal system, the
generous fever of delinquence; under the sexual interdiction, the freshness of desire.44 For Foucault, postmodern power is not an instrument
of exclusion, but a pervasive pressure toward ever greater inclusion. Its disciplinary practices do not serve to objectify, exclude, coerce, or
punish, but rather to order and enhance life. Power creates docile bodies and self-absorbed subjects, so as to produce ever greater welfare
for all. The resulting practices embody what Foucault calls bio-power. It is a power working to incite, reinforce, . . . optimize, and organize the
forces under it: a power bent on generating forces, making them grow, and ordering them, rather than one dedicated to impeding them,
making them submit, or destroying them.41 Foucault, in a variation on Heidegger's account of research, sees that our current practices,
supposedly grounded in sciences such as social psychology, produce anomalies such as delinquents, and then take every anomaly, every
attempt to evade them,
as an occasion for further intervention
to bring the anomalies under scientific norms. All this is done,
of course, for the anomaly's own good, so that, ideally, everyone gladly accepts this intervention. Heidegger emphasized the tendency
toward total ordering in technicity by calling it "total mobilization"; Foucault refers to the totalizing tendency of disciplinary power as
"normalization." He speaks of "new methods of power whose operation is not ensured by right but by technique, not by law but by
normalization, not by punishment but by control. 1141 Normalization is, of course, more than socialization into norms. Socialization into norms
is the universal way the understanding of being or power governs the actions of the members of any society. In the new arrangement that has
emerged more and more clearly since the classical age, however, norms are progressively brought to bear on all aspects of life. Apparently,
what makes normalization different (and dangerous) for Foucault is that it expands to cover all practices. Similarly, Heidegger, quoting
Nietzsche, says, "the wasteland grows." Both see that there is something new and peculiar about the way, in modernity, that individuation and
totalizing go hand in hand. Heidegger notes: Certainly the modern age has ... introduced subjectivism and individualism. But it remains just as
certain that ... in no age before this has the non-individual in the form of the collective, come to acceptance as having worth.... It is precisely
this reciprocal conditioning of one by the other that points back to events more profound.47 And Foucault, after discussing the way pastoral
power takes care of each individual, says: I think that the main characteristic of our political rationality is the fact that this integration of the
individuals in a community or in a totality results from a constant correlation between an increasing individualization and the reinforcement of
this totality.48 In Discipline and Punish, Foucault explains the way postmodern power is something entirely new. Unlike monarchical power,
whose exercise was top down, centralized, intermittent, highly visible, extravagant, and stable; postmodern power is bottom-up, diffuse,
continuous, invisible, operating in the micro-practices, and constantly on the move colonizing new domains. In The History of Sexuality, vol. i,
Foucault adds: Power's condition of possibility ... must not be sought in the primary existence of a central point, in a unique source of
sovereignty from which secondary and descendent forms would emanate....
Power is everywhere; not because it embraces
everything, but because it comes from everywhere .49
Legalizing marijuana maintains the police apparatus in a more insidious and
racialized form – now we crack down on people for driving while high or having
crack
Nakagawa 2014 - Lifelong political activist, community organizer, organization builder, and trouble-maker (July 31, Scott, “Why I
Support Marijuana Legalization, But Not as a Strategy for Winning Racial Justice” http://www.racefiles.com/2014/07/31/why-i-supportmarijuana-legalization-but-not-as-a-strategy-for-winning-racial-justice/)
But, while I support legalization as an incremental step in the right direction, I think
we are wrong to promote legalization as
a means of achieving racial justice . Making that claim minimizes the very real problem of structural racism that has made the
war on drugs such a hugely devastating law enforcement strategy for Black people. The legalization of marijuana, in my opinion, would not
lead to less over-policing, racial profiling, or over-incarceration of Black and brown people. What relief legalization would provide, and I do
believe there would be some immediate relief,
would be mostly temporary . Why? The New York Times report on reader response
to their legalization editorials sums it up nicely, Times readers favor legalization for the same reasons the Times editorial board does: They
think the criminalization of marijuana has ruined lives; that the public health risks have been overstated; and that law enforcement should
focus its resources on graver problems. Those “graver problems” bother me. They bother me because the illegal drug trade is as much an
economic issue as it is public health issue. My experience growing up in a drug economy tells me that folk turn to illegal means of making
money when legal jobs aren’t available. And decent paying legal jobs have rarely been harder to find than right now. As a sociologist friend
of mine recently reminded me, prison is a form of disguised unemployment. That’s part of the reason programs meant to reduce recidivism so
often don’t work. Without a job, people are often forced to commit crimes, like selling marijuana. Once convicted of that crime, a criminal
record can make you unemployable. Those who’ve been to prison too often end up back in prison, and keeping them there is a way of
managing unemployment, even if this effect is, perhaps, mostly incidental. If we added incarcerated Black people to the unemployment rolls,
Black unemployment statistics would be noticeably higher (and it’s already twice that of whites). This would more accurately reflect the status
of Black people in the U.S. labor market. Large numbers of poor Black people have been structurally excluded from the legitimate economy,
ironically in part because Black people as a class won the right to ordinary worker protections nationwide via the Civil Rights Movement. This
made other excluded workers, like undocumented migrants, cheaper, more compliant, and, following the logic of the market, more
desirable. Being excluded from decent employment opportunities will drive some people to drug dealing. Unless we deal with this reality,
legalizing marijuana will only drive current, low-end marijuana dealers to “graver problems”
for which
there are often more stringent punishments and less public sympathy. From the perspective of a poor person dependent on the marijuana
trade for their living, legalization is a dead-end. Richer people with the capital to invest in grow operations, licensing, retail stores, etc., will
come in after ordinary drug dealers have suffered all the risk involved in developing marijuana markets illegally and squeeze them out.
Those of us concerned with racial justice must ask, “squeezed out to where?”
view the impact debate from the lens of the dispossessed—conventional moral
theory operates on a false assumption of equal opportunity, the negs demand for
justice precedes other discussion of competing moral theories
Mills 97 – Associate Prof of Philosophy @ U Illinois, Chicago
(Charles-; The Racial Contract)
The Racial Contract has always been recognized by nonwhites as the real determinant of (most) white moral/political practice and thus as the
real moral/political agreement to be challenged . If the epistemology of the signatories, the agents, of the Racial Contract requires evasion and
denial of the realities of race, the epistemology of the victims, the objects, of the Racial Contract is, unsurprisingly, focused on these realities
themselves. (So there is a reciprocal relationship, the Racial Contract tracking white moral/political consciousness, the reaction to the Racial
Contract tracking nonwhite moral/political consciousness and stimulating a puzzled investigation of that white moral/political consciousness .)
The term "standpoint theory" is now routinely used to signify the notion that in understanding the workings of a system of oppression, a
perspective from the
bottom up
is more likely to be accurate than one from the
top down.
What is involved here, then, is a "racial"
version of standpoint theory, a perspectival cognitive advantage that is grounded in the phenomenological experience of the
disjuncture
between official (white) reality and actual (nonwhite) experience, the "double-consciousness" of which W. E . B . Du Bois spoke .48 This
differential racial experience generates
an alternative moral
and political
perception of
social
reality
which is encapsulated
in the insight from the black American folk tradition I have used as the epigraph of this book : the central realization, summing up the Racial
Contract, that "when white people say Justice,' they mean 'Just Us."' Nonwhites have always (at least in first encounters) been bemused or
astonished by the invisibility of the Racial Contract to whites, the fact that whites have routinely talked in universalist terms even when it has
been quite clear that the scope has really been limited to themselves . Correspondingly, nonwhites, with no vested material or psychic interest
in the Racial Contract-objects rather than subjects of it,
viewing it from outside rather than inside , subpersons rather than
persons-are (at least before ideological conditioning) able to see its terms quite clearly. Thus the hypocrisy of the racial polity is most
transparent to its victims . The corollary is that nonwhite interest in white moral and political theory has necessarily been focused less on the
details of the particular competing moral and political candidates (utilitarianism versus deontology versus natural rights theory; liberalism
versus conservatism versus socialism)
functioning.
than in the unacknowledged Racial Contract that has
usually
framed their
The variable that makes the most difference to the fate of nonwhites is not the fine- or even coarse-grained conceptual
divergences of the different theories themselves (all have their Herrenvolk variants), but whether or not the subclause invoking the Racial
Contract, thus putting the theory into Herrenvolk mode, has been activated . The
important
than
details
of the moral theories thus become
the metatheory , the Racial Contract, in which they are embedded.
less
The crucial question is whether
nonwhites are counted as full persons, part of the population covered by the moral operator, or not.
Federalism isn’t an expansion of freedom but instead is a masking of the way the
state shifts around its power while making sure to maintain its control of
populations
Parry 2005 - Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Law (John T., “"SOCIETY MUST BE [REGULATED]": BIOPOLITICS AND
THE COMMERCE CLAUSE IN GONZALES V. RAICH,” Lewis and Clark Law Review, Vol 9:4, Hein Online)
Another way of making the point is that federalism should not be seen merely as an issue of legal boundaries between state and federal
governments. Nor does it function primarily to protect individual liberty. 52 Instead,
federalism is about allocating an
increasing and overlapping government power to regulate people . Under this account, the struggle in recent
federalism cases over state sovereignty and the appropriate level of dignity and respect to be accorded the states has resonance precisely
because of the specific meaning and significance of "sovereignty" today. 53 With a broadening and deepening of the categories in which
governments legitimately may regulate has come a kind of turf fight over which governments will have the greater share of regulatory
authority authority which they fully intend to use. In general, that is, the federalism fight is not a dispute in which one government seeks
merely to prevent regulation by the other, so that one possible outcome would be lack of regulation altogether. (Although because challenges
to the constitutionality of particular exercises of government power are often brought by individuals,
it is easy to forget that fact .)
That is certainly the case with respect to Raich, for California plainly sought to regulate and control the use of marijuana; it just had different
methods and goals than the federal government. 54 Or consider the current effort to combat the spread of methamphetamine by restricting
access to over-the-counter cold and allergy medications that contain pseudoephedrine. In the absence of significant federal regulation, several
states have limited public access to these over-the-counter medications. The federal government now appears poised to follow suit. 55 The
only difference from regulation of medical marijuana-and one of the significant areas of controversy-is that the proposed federal statute might
not restrict the ability of the states to regulate even more broadly than the federal government. Respecting the dignity of the states, then,
means
respecting their sovereign capacity to manage their populations . Accepting federal power to regulate
increases the size of the relevant population to be regulated, but I suspect it has little impact on whether regulation takes place. People
disagree, of course, on whether it is better or more efficient to centralize regulation with the federal government or leave it to state or local
entities that may have advantages in dealing with local conditions. Localized regulation could arguably even be more sensitive to the liberties or
freedoms of those being regulated-although if that is the case, then we must consider whether those freedoms and liberties are themselves a
subject of regulation and exist at its sufferance. In a series of lectures given in the mid- 1970s, recently collected under the title Society Must Be
Defended (which I have adapted for the title of this Article), Michel Foucault used the term "biopolitics" to describe the expansion of
sovereign power from "the right to take life or let live," to include "the right... to 'make' live and 'let' die," and he suggested that this
sovereign right operates through general regulation of populations rather than through acts targeted at specific individuals. 57 As he
explained, [T]his technology of power, this biopolitics, will introduce mechanisms with a certain number of functions that are very different
from the functions of disciplinary mechanisms. The mechanisms introduced by biopolitics include forecasts, statistical estimates, and overall
measures. And their purpose is not to modify any given phenomenon as such, or to modify a given individual insofar as he is an individual, but,
essentially, to intervene at a level at which these general phenomena are determined, to intervene at the level of their generality. The mortality
rate has to be modified or lowered; life expectancy has to be increased; the birth rate has to be stimulated. And most important of all,
regulatory mechanisms must be established to establish an equilibrium, maintain an average, establish a sort of homeostasis, and
compensate for variations within this general population and its aleatory field. In a word, security mechanisms have to be installed around the
random element inherent in a population of living beings so as to optimize a state of life. It does not take much effort to see that this
description matches the everyday, largely uncontroversial practices of what we sometimes call "the administrative state," even allowing for
differences in the ways the administrative state operates in different societies. Most of the opinions in Raich, as well as the quotation that
opens this Article, reflect the way in which this biopolitical perspective on state power and thus the idea of federalism that I just developedhas become pervasive, so that the rational regulation and management of the population in the aggregate becomes
expected, and beneficial by definition.
normal,
By contrast, the alternative of individual choice-or even choice through majority
rulebecomes "irresponsible" and inconsistent with a "civilized [read, regulated] society." 5
The process of normalization that occurs through disciplinary power permits the
efficient self-management of populations in the interests of a better quality of life. In
the attempt to aid populations the affirmative engages in a bio-politics that
underwrites mass-violence, turning the affirmative.
James Bernauer, Professor of Philosophy @ Boston College, 1990 (Michel Foucault’s Force of Flight, (p111-112)
This capacity of power to conceal itself cannot cloak the tragedy of the implications contained in Foucault’s examination of its functioning.
While liberals have fought to extend rights and Marxists have denounced the injustice of capitalism, a political technology, acting in the
interests of a better administration of life, has produced a politics that
places
man’s
[humanity’s] “existence as a living
being in question .” The very period that proclaimed pride in having overthrown the tyranny of monarchy, that engaged in an endless
clamor for reform, that is confident in the virtues of its humanistic faith –
dominated by history’s bloodiest wars.
this period’s politics created a landscape
What comparison is possible between a sovereign’s authority to take a life and a
power that, in the interest of protecting a society’s quality of life, can plan, as well as develop the means for its implementation, a policy of
mutually assured destruction? Such a policy is neither an aberration of the fundamental principles of modern politics nor an abandonment of
our age’s humanism in favor of a more primitive right to kill; it is but the other side of a power that is “situated and exercised at the level of
life, the species, the race, and the large-scale phenomena of population.” The bio-political project of administering and optimizing life
closes it circle with the production of the Bomb . “The atomic situation is now at the end point of this process: the power
to expose a whole population to death is the underside of a power to guarantee an individual’s continued existence.” The solace that might
have been expected from being able to gaze at scaffolds empty of the victims of a tyrant’s vengeance has been stolen from us by the noose
that has tightened around each of our own necks.
That noose is loosened by breaking with the type of thinking
that has led to its fashioning , and by a mode of political action that dissents from those practices of normalization that have
made us all potential victims. A prerequisite for this break is the recognition that human being and thought inhabit the domain of
knowledge-power relations (savior-pouvoir), a realization that is in opposition to traditional humanism. In the light of SP and VS, man – that
invention of recent date – continued to gain sharper focus. By means of that web of techniques of discipline and methods of knowing that
exists in modern society, by those minute steps of training through which the body was made into a fit instrument, and by those stages of
examining the mind’s growth, the “man of modern humanism was born.” The same humanism that has invested such energy in developing a
science of man has foisted upon us the illusion that power is essentially repressive; in doing so,
it has led us into the dead end
of regarding the pursuit and exercise of power as blinding the faculty of thought . Humanism maintains its
position as Foucault’s major opponent because it blocks the effort to think differently about the relations between knowledge and power. His
weapon against this humanism continues to be a form of thinking that exposes human being to those dissonant series of events that subvert
our normal philosophical and historical understanding. Foucault’s thought and the action it motivates may be approached as two
distinguishable elements. The next part of this section will look at his understanding of thought in terms of that strategic model within which
Foucault is articulating it, a model that is of the greatest consequence for understanding the development of his style of thinking after AS’s
statement of method. In the region of power-knowledge relations, thinking finds itself allied with a political engagement, with a practice of
dissent; the last part of this chapter will be given over to a consideration of Foucault’s own political dissent.
1nr
Competitiveness causes trade wars and protectionism- turns their offense
Krugman ‘94,
PhD (Paul, Nobel Prize winning Economist, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New
York Times) March/April Foreign Affairs “Competitiveness: A Dangerous Obsession” l/n
A much more serious risk is that the obsession with competitiveness will lead to trade conflict,
perhaps even to a world trade war. Most of those who have preached the doctrine of
competitiveness have not been old-fashioned protectionists. They want their countries to win the
global trade game, not drop out. But what if, despite its best efforts, a country does not seem to be winning, or
lacks confidence that it can? Then the competitive diagnosis inevitably suggests that to close the borders is better than
to risk having foreigners take away high-wage jobs and high-value sectors. At the very least, the focus on the
supposedly competitive nature of international economic relations greases the rails for those who
want confrontational if not frankly protectionist policies. We can already see this process at work,
in both the United States and Europe. In the United States, it was remarkable how quickly the
sophisticated interventionist arguments advanced by Laura Tyson in her published work gave way
to the simple-minded claim by U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor that Japan's bilateral
trade surplus was costing the United States millions of jobs. And the trade rhetoric of President
Clinton, who stresses the supposed creation of high-wage jobs rather than the gains from
specialization, left his administration in a weak position when it tried to argue with the claims of
NAFTA foes that competition from cheap Mexican labor will destroy the U.S. manufacturing base.
Economic competition spills over into military competition – leads to racism and
makes war inevitable
Saito ‘97
(Associate Professor, Georgia State University College of Law) (Natsu Taylor, Alien and Non-Alien Alike: Citizenship, "Foreignness," and
Racial Hierarchy in American Law, 76 Or. L. Rev. 261, LN)
The model minority myth has also created a paper tiger, or false threat. n272 The perception of
Asians-as-enemy is never far from popular consciousness: from precipitating the breakup of the
Beatles to bringing the U.S. auto industry to the brink of disaster to "sneak attacks" on the Speaker
of the House Newt Gingrich's mother to perpetuating revisionist history (gasp) by suggesting that
the 25th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may be something less
than an unalloyed moment of joyous patriotism. n273 One pervasive theme in this "enemy"
imagery is the conflation of economic competition and military threat. Today's yellow peril appears
"in the threat of 'Japan, Inc.,' the so-called 'Pacific Century,' and the rise of the East and the decline
of the West." n274 The danger in creating such a paper tiger is not simply that Asian Americans
are, as a result, the target of hostility and resentment. They also become a target upon whom racial
and economic tensions can be vented without any real changes being made to underlying racial and
economic relationships. Kathryn Imahara has described this process: This country depends on
immigrant labor to pick the produce in the fields, work long hours for little pay in sewing factories,
wash dirty laundry, care for children, clean homes and hotel [*315] rooms, wash dishes in
restaurants, and tend gardens. But when the economy goes into a recession, government leaders
prefer to see immigrants, most of whom are at the very bottom of the socio-economic ladder, fight
amongst themselves for the lowest of jobs because scrutiny is shifted away from inept and racist
government policies. n275 Thus, this paper tiger distracts attention from more fundamental
problems in our legal, economic, and social structure. Asian Americans have been effectively raced
as foreign. This allows them to be used as cheap and disposable labor, turned into an instant
enemy, whether economic or military, and held up as a model minority in a way that masks real
issues of discrimination and violence and pits Asian Americans against other minorities. These
phenomena, in turn, help maintain the racial hierarchy and economic stratification that exist in the
United States.
Competitiveness leads to economics of speed
Giaretta ‘5
(Elena, Associate Professor in Economics @ University of Verona, “Ethical Product Innovation: In Praise of Slowness”, TQM Magazine, Vol. 17
No. 2, 2005)
The above-described characteristics exert at least two crucially important types of pressure on
businesses. Some press in the “speed of change” direction (including rapidity of change,
accelerating technological change and the shortening both of the product’s life cycle and its time to
market), while others, such as market maturity and demand complexity, exert an increased
“demand conditioning power” on the company itself. As regards the former variable, i.e. the “speed
of change”, it can be observed that this follows directly from a global competition context in which
instability, change and dynamism work together to make competition more fierce and force
businesses to abandon consolidated practices to behave in new ways and within ever smaller time
scales. This growing complexity[5] and environmental and organisational indecipherability,
coupled with conditions of global hyper-competition, make tried and tested adaptation processes
and solutions of little assistance. A necessity has developed to assume approaches that embrace
change and generate new products and methods[6], once more emphasising the importance of
developing competitive capacity based on innovative processes[7]. From the perspective of the
business’s relationship with the market, continuous and systematic search for product innovation is
required to meet the increasingly rapid running speeds imposed by the competitive context. The
company therefore no longer incorporates an innovation phase within its own dynamics but
innovation has to become a constant expression of its activity. Innovation and renewal thus become
ongoing and continuous processes.
That causes economic collapse- turns the aff
Goldman et al. ‘6
(Robert Goldman, Stephen Papson, Noah Kersey, Landscapes of the Social Relations of Production in a Networked Society, Fast Capitalism 2.1,
http://www.uta.edu/huma/agger/fastcapitalism/2_1/SocialRelations.html)
The formula for success is knowledge, power, mobility, and determination. Situated in positions of
power, the corporate elite imagistically embody these attributes -- they are active, informed,
determined, focused, surrounded by technology. Even when the body is not moving, information
continues to flow via cell phones and electronic information tools integrated into the scenes.
Embodied in pinstripes, wingtips, and the other accoutrements of power, these scenes suggest that
markets may be volatile but capital is composed and disciplined in its pursuit of opportunities.
Nowhere is this scenario more graphically played out than in the 1999 ad campaign for Salomon
Smith Barney that reveals a world moving at warp speed while the elite investment bankers calmly
survey it as they spot the “opportunities” that will pay off. These representations resemble what
Thomas Friedman (1999) dubs the “Electronic Herd” in The Lexus and the Olive Tree. His
metaphor embraces the volatility of markets in conjunction with the diffusion of capital across the
electronic circuits of finance. According to Friedman, no corporation or nation-state can risk losing
the favor of the Herd. In the global economy this can be catastrophic to market values. Those who
comprise the Herd compete to maximize the rate of return on investments, which translates into
manically scouring the planet for opportunities or cutting losses as quickly as possible when it is
time to sell. The manic need to invest is matched by panic selling. Combined with the ability to
transfer funds and monies electronically, a stock can be cut in half in hours, or a country’s currency
thrown into crisis with a rapidity hitherto unknown. Friedman’s metaphor of the electronic herd
pictures an economic elite dashing about in a global free market economy fueled by technological
innovation and the liquidity of capital forms (currency, stocks, commodities). The figures who
compose this grouping are constructed as dynamic, mobile, and technologically sophisticated. They
fluidly traverse the world of nonplaces and occupy office suites in corporate towers surrounded by
personal communication technologies. And yet, even in these idealized abstractions, uncertainties
and anxieties seep through. Narratives of success are sprinkled with hints of impending crisis, or
stories of those who made the wrong choices - the wrong office equipment, the wrong software, the
wrong package delivery service. The exhilaration associated with accelerated social, economic, and
technological change mixes with an undercurrent of apprehension. Speed may mean winning, but it
can also lead to crashing. There are more losers than winners in casino capitalism. The landscape
of risk is omnipresent.
US decline will not spark wars.
MacDonald & Parent 11—Professor of Political Science at Williams College & Professor of Political Science at University of
Miami [Paul K. MacDonald & Joseph M. Parent, “Graceful Decline? The Surprising Success of Great Power Retrenchment,” International
Security, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Spring 2011), pp. 7–44]
Our findings are directly relevant to what appears to be an impending great power transition between
China and the United States. Estimates of economic performance vary, but most observers expect Chinese GDP to surpass U.S. GDP
sometime in the next decade or two. 91 This prospect has generated considerable concern. Many scholars foresee major conflict during a SinoU.S. ordinal transition. Echoing Gilpin and Copeland, John Mearsheimer sees the crux of the issue as irreconcilable goals: China wants to be
America’s superior and the United States wants no peer competitors. In his words, “[N]o amount of goodwill can ameliorate the intense
security competition that sets in when an aspiring hegemon appears in Eurasia.” 92
Contrary to these predictions, our analysis suggests some grounds for optimism. Based on the historical
track record of great powers facing acute relative decline, the United States should be able to retrench in
the coming decades. In the next few years, the United States is ripe to overhaul its military, shift burdens to its
allies, and work to decrease costly international commitments. It is likely to initiate and become embroiled in fewer
militarized disputes than the average great power and to settle these disputes more amicably. Some might view this prospect
with apprehension, fearing the steady erosion of U.S. credibility. Yet our analysis suggests that
retrenchment need not signal weakness. Holding on to exposed and expensive commitments simply
for the sake of one’s reputation is a greater geopolitical gamble than withdrawing to cheaper, more
defensible frontiers.
Some observers might dispute our conclusions, arguing that hegemonic transitions are more conflict
prone than other moments of acute relative decline. We counter that there are deductive and empirical
reasons to doubt this argument. Theoretically, hegemonic powers should actually find it easier to manage
acute relative decline. Fallen hegemons still have formidable capability, which threatens grave harm
to any state that tries to cross them. Further, they are no longer the top target for balancing coalitions,
and recovering hegemons may be influential because they can play a pivotal role in alliance formation.
In addition, hegemonic powers, almost by definition, possess more extensive overseas commitments;
they should be able to more readily identify and eliminate extraneous burdens without exposing
vulnerabilities or exciting domestic populations.
We believe the empirical record supports these conclusions . In particular, periods of hegemonic transition do
not appear more conflict prone than those of acute decline. The last reversal at the pinnacle of power
was the AngloAmerican transition, which took place around 1872 and was resolved without armed
confrontation. The tenor of that transition may have been influenced by a number of factors: both states were democratic maritime
empires, the United States was slowly emerging from the Civil War, and Great Britain could likely coast on a large lead in domestic capital stock.
Although China and the United States differ in regime type, similar factors may work to cushion the impending Sino-American transition. Both
are large, relatively secure continental great powers, a fact that mitigates potential geopolitical competition. 93 China faces a variety of
domestic political challenges, including strains among rival regions, which may complicate its ability to sustain its economic performance or
engage in foreign policy adventurism. 94
Most important, the United States is not in free fall. Extrapolating the data into the future, we anticipate the United States will experience a
“moderate” decline, losing from 2 to 4 percent of its share of great power GDP in the five years after being surpassed by China sometime in the
next decade or two. 95 Given the relatively gradual rate of U.S. decline relative to China, the incentives for either side to run risks by courting
conflict are minimal. The United States would still possess upwards of a third of the share of great power GDP, and would have little to gain
from provoking a crisis over a peripheral issue. Conversely, China has few incentives to exploit U.S. weakness. 96 Given the importance of the
U.S. market to the Chinese economy, in addition to the critical role played by the dollar as a global reserve currency, it is unclear how Beijing
could hope to consolidate or expand its increasingly advantageous position through direct confrontation. In short, the United States should be
able to reduce its foreign policy commitments in East Asia in the coming decades without inviting Chinese expansionism. Indeed, there is
evidence that a policy of retrenchment could reap potential benefits. The drawdown and repositioning of U.S. troops in South Korea, for
example, rather than fostering instability, has resulted in an improvement in the occasionally strained relationship between Washington and
Seoul. 97 U.S. moderation on Taiwan, rather than encouraging hard-liners in Beijing, resulted in an improvement in cross-strait relations and
reassured U.S. allies that Washington would not inadvertently drag them into a Sino-U.S. conflict. 98 Moreover, Washington’s support for the
development of multilateral security institutions, rather than harming bilateral alliances, could work to enhance U.S. prestige while embedding
China within a more transparent regional order. 99 A
policy of gradual retrenchment need not undermine the
credibility of U.S. alliance commitments or unleash destabilizing regional security dilemmas. Indeed,
even if Beijing harbored revisionist intent, it is unclear that China will have the force projection
capabilities necessary to take and hold additional territory. 100 By incrementally shifting burdens to
regional allies and multilateral institutions, the United States can strengthen the credibility of its core
commitments while accommodating the interests of a rising China. Not least among the benefits of
retrenchment is that it helps alleviate an unsustainable financial position. Immense forward
deployments will only exacerbate U.S. grand strategic problems and risk unnecessary clashes. 101
a) Tons of factors check collapse—ISAF is firmly in control
DoD 13, Department of Defense, July 2013, "Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan,"
http://www.defense.gov/pubs/Section_1230_Report_July_2013.pdf
The conflict in Afghanistan has shifted into a fundamentally new phase. For the past 11 years, the United States and our
coalition partners have led the fight against the Taliban, but now Afghan forces are conducting almost all combat
operations. The progress made by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)-led surge over the past three
years has put the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) firmly in control of all of
Afghanistan’s major cities and 34 provincial capitals and driven the insurgency into the countryside. ISAF’s
primary focus has largely transitioned from directly fighting the insurgency to training, advising and assisting the Afghan
National Security Forces (ANSF) in their efforts to hold and build upon these gains, enabling a U.S. force reduction of roughly
34,000 personnel— half the current force in Afghanistan—by February 2014. As agreed by President Obama and President Karzai at their
January 2013 meeting in Washington, D.C., and in line with commitments made at the Lisbon and Chicago NATO summits, "Milestone 2013"
was announced on June 18, 2013, marking ISAF’s official transition to its new role. The
ANSF has grown to approximately 96
percent of its authorized end-strength of 352,000 personnel and is conducting almost all operations independently. As a result,
ISAF casualties are lower than they have been since 2008. The majority of ISAF bases has been transferred to the ANSF
or closed (although most large ISAF bases remain), and construction of most ANSF bases is complete. Afghanistan’s populated
areas are increasingly secure; the ANSF has successfully maintained security gains in areas that have
transitioned to Afghan lead responsibility. To contend with the continuing Taliban threat, particularly in rural areas, the ANSF
will require training and key combat support from ISAF, including in extremis close air support, through the end of 2014.
a) Too large to take control and logistical issues stop it
ASG 11 [“A New Way Forward: Rethinking U.S. Strategy In Afghanistan,”
http://www.afghanistanstudygroup.org/NewWayForward_report.pdf] authors below
Bruce Ackerman, Yale University, Gordon Adams, American University and Stimson Center, Amjad Atallah, New America Foundation, James
Bamford, Author/Documentary Producer Darcy Burner Progressive Caucus Action Fund, James Clad, National Defense University, Steve
Clemons, New America Foundation and The Washington Note, Juan Cole, University of Michigan and Informed Comment, Patrick Cronin, Center
for a New American Security, Arnaud de Borchgrave, Center for Strategic & International Studies, Graciana del Castillo, Columbia University,
Michael C. Desch, University of Notre Dame, Robert H. Donaldson, University of Tulsa, Bernard I. Finel, National War College, James K.
Galbraith, University of Texas at Austin, James Goldgeier, George Washington University, William C. Goodfellow, Center for International Policy,
Selig S. Harrison, Center for International Policy, Leo Hindery, Jr. Chair, US Economy/Smart Globalization Initiative New America Foundation,
Matthew P. Hoh, Former U.S. Marine Officer and former Department of State official, Michael Intriligator, University of California, Los Angeles
and The Milken Institute, Robert Jervis, Columbia University, Sean Kay, Ohio Wesleyan University, Parag Khanna, New America Foundation and
former Senior Geopolitical Officer, US Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, W. Patrick Lang, Former Defense Intelligence Officer,
South Asia Publisher, Sic Semper Tyrannis, Anatol Lieven, King’s College London and New America Foundation, Flynt Leverett, New America
Foundation and Race for Iran, Hillary Mann Leverett, Yale University and Race for Iran, Justin Logan, Cato Institute, John Mueller, Ohio State
University, Robert A. Pape, University of Chicago, Paul R. Pillar, Georgetown University, Barry Posen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Jason Rosenbaum, Writer, Priya Satia, Stanford University, Stephen Schlesinger, Century Foundation, Sherle R. Schwenninger, New America
Foundation, Michael Shank, Office of US Congressman, Michael Honda, and Afghanistan Taskforce Chair, Congressional Progressive Caucus, J.P.
Singh, Georgetown University, Richard Vague, The Governor’s Woods Foundation, America Strategy Leadership Council of the New America
Foundation, Martin Walker, Woodrow Wilson Center, Stephen M. Walt, Harvard University, Jeffrey Winters, Northwestern University, Col.
Lawrence B. Wilkerson, (USA, ret.) College of William & Mary, Former Chief of Staff, US Department of State, Leighton Woodhouse Labor
Organizer Mosharraf Zaidi, International Development Expert and Columnist
Second, a U.S. drawdown would not make Al Qaeda substantially more lethal. In order for events in
Afghanistan to enhance Al Qaeda’s ability to threaten the U.S. homeland, three separate steps must
occur: 1) the Taliban must seize control of a substantial portion of the country, 2) Al Qaeda must
relocate there in strength, and 3) it must build facilities in this new that will allow it to plan and train
more effectively than it can today. Each of these three steps is unlikely, however, and the chances of all
three together are very remote. For starters, a Taliban victory is unlikely even if the United States
reduces its military commitment. The Taliban is a rural insurgency rooted primarily in Afghanistan’s
Pashtun population, and its seizure of power in the 1990s was due to unusual circumstances that no
longer exist and are unlikely to be repeated. Non-Pashtun Afghans now have ample experience with
Taliban rule, and they are bound to resist any Taliban efforts to regain control in Kabu
a) Wouldn’t cause extinction
Copley News Service, 02 (Bruce Lieberman, “Fallout from nuclear war in South Asia seen as unlikely to reach
U.S.”, http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/020610-indopak1.htm)
The horror of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan could decimate South Asia's largest cities, killing
up to 12 million people and bringing misery to countless others. But a war, if limited to those two nations and the
nuclear arsenals they are thought to possess, poses little danger of radioactive fallout reaching North
America, physicists and atmospheric scientists say. There are fundamental reasons. First, India and
Pakistan are believed armed with less potent weapons, pro
bably no larger than the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT, about the same size as the bombs the United
States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. In contrast, the typical nuclear weapon in the
U.S. stockpile today is 10 to 20 times more powerful than the weapons held by India and Pakistan,
according to GlobalSecurity.org. Second, the two countries are thought to have no more than 200
warheads between them - not enough, scientists believe, to endanger populations far beyond
South Asia. More than 31,000 nuclear weapons, by contrast, are maintained by eight known nuclear powers,
and 95 percent are in the United States and Russia, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which monitors
nuclear proliferation. Third, the approaching summer in the Northern Hemisphere will mean an absence of fastmoving winter storms that could carry nuclear fallout quickly across the globe. Further, South Asia's monsoon
season, which begins this month and extends into October, could wash nuclear fallout back to Earth,
confining the worst environmental damage to that part of the world. "Of course, there will be some
radiation reaching globally, but the amounts will be small compared to the levels that would
produce health effects," said Charles Shapiro, a physicist at San Francisco State University, who co-authored a
1985 study on the environmental effects of nuclear war. Irradiated particles blasted into the atmosphere from a
nuclear war between India and Pakistan, carried aloft by the jet stream, would eventually reach every part of the
globe and rain back down to Earth as fallout, scientists say. Atmospheric studies conducted by scientists at the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., have found that particulate from pollution in South
Asia can reach the West Coast of the United States in as few as six days. However, those studies
focused on the migration of haze in South Asia that covers thousands of square kilometers - a much
greater area than that affected by a nuclear explosion , said V. Ramanathan, an atmospheric scientist at
Scripps. "It's very risky to extrapolate" data from the pollution study, he said. Ramanathan's study found that
particulates larger than 10 microns in diameter fell to Earth before reaching North America, so it's unclear how
much radioactive fallout might reach the West Coast, or how dispersed it would be, he said. "I think East Asia has
more to worry about, as well as Europe," Ramanathan said. Larry Riddle, a climatologist at Scripps, said the levels
of radiation reaching the United States probably would not be any higher than background
radiation. Humans are exposed every day to radiation from space, from deep in the Earth, and
from man-made sources such as medical X-rays and other consumer products. "Essentially, it would have
no effect," Riddle said.
a) Lots of checks
Thomson 9, reports on national security and other matters for several publications, Why Terrorists Never Have Gotten Hold of
a Nuke and Why the Taliban Won't Be First http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-thomson
Say things had gone a bit differently during the Taliban's attack on Pakistan's Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi on
Sunday. Say the Taliban had prevailed, then entered to find a nuclear weapon--far from implausible since Pakistan is
believed to have 70 to 90 nuclear missiles secreted within its borders. Taliban operatives probably would have wasted no
time attempting to launch their new missile, as opposed to absconding with it, for several reasons, not least of which is that
the weapon's radiation signature would be tantamount to leaving a note saying where they'd gone. A potential launching
hitch: For security purposes, Pakistan keeps warheads, other bomb components and delivery devices (rocket launchers,
planes, etc.) in separate locations, guarded by 10,000 of the million-plus soldiers who in turn are part of the world's sixthlargest armed force.
b) Locks solve loose nukes
Thomson 9, reports on national security and other matters for several publications, Why Terrorists Never Have Gotten Hold of
a Nuke and Why the Taliban Won't Be First http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-thomson
Taliban operatives still have needed to navigate an elaborate command-and-control process. Among other safeguards,
even the most rudimentary nuclear devices are equipped with Permissive Action Links (PALs), whereby three men are
required to arm a bomb, each man privy to just one third of a complex numeric code. So say, for argument's sake, that in
Rawalpindi, the Taliban came into possession of exactly such an ADM, or about the simplest nuclear weapon to arm.
Hemp deforestation is even worse than using other crops because it causes massive
soil erosion, destroying biodiversity.
DWI ,Drug Watch International , ’02 (11/02/02 , "Position Statement on Hemp" , http://www.drugwatch.org/Hemp.htm
there are fertilization requirements, the need
to deal chemically with insect pests, and the use of fungicide treatment of hemp seeds. Cannabis
hemp causes more soil nutrient depletion than cotton, flax, and grain crops, and far greater soil
erosion than occurs with well managed and minimally disturbed forestlands. Additionally, a hemp field’s
possibilities for biodiversity and wildlife habitat are very limited in comparison to those of a
forest.15.Yield: Claims that hemp has “four times” the pulp yield of forests are false. Joseph E. Atchison, a non-wood plant
fiber scientist, consultant, and winner of many industry awards, has stated that the yield of acceptable hemp pulp (.5 - .6 tons per acre) is only about
half that of well managed pine plantations (.9 -1.2 tons) and only a small fraction of some intensively
managed, fast-growing hardwoods (4 - 6 tons).16.
Cannabis hemp is not a unique, environmentally friendly crop. Like any other agricultural commodity
Subsidies give industrial ag a death grip on policy
Carr 10, Donald Carr is a senior policy and communications advisor for the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group and the
author of Psaurian: A Novel of Semi-Intelligent Design, Corn subsidies make unhealthy food choices the rational ones,
http://grist.org/article/food-2010-09-21-op-ed-corn-subsidies-make-unhealthy-food-choices/
There is no denying that America faces a health crisis with its simultaneous obesity and hunger epidemics. And right now is an especially good
time to confront the issue. The
law that guides federal food and agriculture policy — the Farm Bill — comes
up for debate again in 2012, and deliberations have already begun. The corn refiners’ push to re-brand corn syrup is a
clear response to the growing awareness among consumers not only of the environmental perils of
modern industrial agriculture , but the heavy toll of our current food and farm system on the health of families and kids. If the
death grip that agribusiness and its powerful lobby have had on the food and farm status quo is to be
loosened
subsidy-friendly members of Congress must hear from people who want a system that serves them
and their families. One important thing for consumers to note is that in 2009, $15.4 billion in subsidies were lavished on the growers of
corn, cotton, rice, wheat, and soybeans. In that same year, fruits, vegetables, and organics received only $825 million in support from the
federal government. And that money doesn’t go directly into fruit and vegetable growers’ pockets, but mostly goes toward procurement for
schools, research and market promotion programs. We can agree with the subsidy lobby that eliminating the billions in grain subsidies
tomorrow wouldn’t make much of a dent in the widespread availability of cheap chips and soda. What our maze of farm and risk management
subsidies do is facilitate a highly risky agricultural business model that makes our industrial food system overly dependent on one or two grain
crops. In the end, these subsidies are not about producing food at all. They are about taking the financial risk out of a system that encourages
fencerow-to-fencerow production of raw material for highly processed food — with deleterious effects on the environment and human health.