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1NC T – Infrastructure
A. Infrastructure investment is capital spending.
CBOJCT 9 — Congressional Budget Office/Joint Committee on Taxation, October 2009 (Subsidizing
Infrastructure Investment with Tax-Preferred Bonds, p. 2-3)
In this analysis, investment in infrastructure is defined as capital spending on transportation, utilities (for example, water and
power supply), environmental projects, and schools. 1 In addition, because they account for a significant share of the tax-exempt
debt issued, health care facilities and hospitals are treated as infrastructure in this study, although they might not be classified as
such for many other types of analyses. Capital spending under this study’s definition consists of investment in physical capital,
such as structures and facilities, rather than intangible capital, which is formed by spending on educational programs or on
research and development.
B. Violation – capital expenditure does not include the repair of assets
Law Depot 8 — (“Capital Expenditure”, 2-6, http://wiki.lawdepot.com/wiki/Capital_Expenditure)
Definition of "Capital Expenditure" Capital expenditure is money spent to acquire or upgrade (improve) long term assets such as
property, buildings and machinery. Capital expenditure does not include the cost to merely repair such assets.
C. Vote neg –
1. Limits – their interpretation allows for an explosion of an infinite amount of minor repair affs like
potholes, broken railroads, and fixing cracks in canals
2. Extra topicality – anything outside of new assets is negative counterplan ground – extra topicality is
a voting issue because it justifies endless amount of plan specifications making it impossible to be
negative
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1NC Elections DA
Obama will squeak a victory – consensus of polls and forecasts
Reuters 8/1 “Analysis: Scientists go beyond the polls to forecast U.S. election,” hhs-ps
Another U.S. academic has penned a complex equation -- using data on the economy and presidential approval ratings -- that predicted who
won the most votes in the last six presidential contests. As the election draws closer, pundits and journalists are looking at all sorts of data, from
persistently high jobless rates to the latest polls in the politically divided state of Ohio, for clues on Obama's chances of defeating Republican Mitt Romney.
But at a few U.S. universities, academics have boiled the art of prediction down to a dispassionate science. Some claim their forecasts in presidential elections - typically issued months before Election Day -- have been more accurate than opinion polls taken the day before ballots are cast. Plugging decades of
data into spreadsheets, they calculate everything from how much a bad economy is hurting an incumbent to how the results of
New Hampshire's presidential primaries, conducted 10 months before an election, can signal who the eventual winner will be in
November. "What this forecasting really amounts to is quantitative history," said James Campbell, a political scientist at the University at
Buffalo, SUNY. So far this year, forecasters in line with many current opinion polls see Obama squeaking out a victory over Romney.
In a Reuters poll of nine leading forecasters, the median prediction was for Obama to win 50.5 percent of the vote . Although under the
complicated American system, that would not necessarily mean victory because the winner is determined by the state Electoral College results. In 2008, the
median forecast of the same group, which estimated that Obama would receive 52 percent of the vote compared with
Republican John McCain's 48 percent, was about as close to the election results as Gallup's final poll from the last three days of the
presidential campaign. In the end, Obama received 52.9 percent of the vote to McCain's 45.7 percent, with other candidates receiving the rest.
ACE funding is unpopular with the taxpayers and Obama will get blamed– perceived as irresponsible
spending
Coburn ’12 [Senator Thomas. “US Army Corps of Engineers”
http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=f8447710-cd35-4a92-9029-4ae52ca464ec 2012]
The Corps of Engineers has a long history of wasteful, low priority, and questionable spending. For example, a 2004 joint
report by the National Wildlife Federation and Taxpayers for Common Sense identified 29 wasteful Corps projects that
would cost the federal government $12 billion.1 The report stated, ―The fact that damaging and wasteful proposals
continue to receive federal funds and are proceeding is a dramatic testament to the need to overhaul the Corps of
Engineers.‖2¶ Additionally, Congress has refused to prioritize the completion of ongoing Corps of Engineers projects before
beginning new projects. This behavior has resulted in a construction backlog ranging from $61 billion to more than $80
billion.3 This backlog has had a negative impact on our economy and the environment.¶ According the Office of
Management and Budget, ―The Corps‘ enormous backlog of ongoing civil works construction represents a significant
source of unrealized economic and environmental benefits. The size of the backlog and the amount of funding necessary to
complete it have grown in recent years, largely because of the continued addition of new projects to the Corps workload
each year… This growth trend in the construction backlog unfairly penalizes both taxpayers and project sponsors.‖4¶
Congress should stop authorizing new Corps of Engineers projects until it addresses its $80 billion backlog. Congress also
needs an automatic process to trim the Corps‘ to-do list by systematically de-authorizing outdated or unfunded projects.
Current laws for unfunded projects can easily be circumvented by Congress or the agency spending a small amount on an
updated study or evaluation to keep the project authorized.5 ¶ The National Academy of Public Administration also found
the Corps is unable to adequately address national priorities because of parochialism in Congress. ―Annual appropriations
for specific, individual projects, or project segments, are not conducive to efficient and effective completion of major
infrastructure systems; they often do not adequately support system-wide performance improvements… The present
project-by-project approach, with lagging project completions, on-again-off-again construction schedules, and disappointed
cost-share sponsors¶ that do not know what they can count on, is not the best path to continued national prosperity.‖6¶ With
the current earmark ban in the 112th Congress, this is a rare opportunity for Congress to¶ restructure the federal
government‘s role in civilian works. Congress must clearly and more¶ narrowly define the central mission of the Corps of
Engineers to allow it to focus on meeting the¶ nation‘s most urgent needs. The agency should also be removed from
projects or studies that¶ overlap other federal agencies, or supplant state, local, or private functions.
Romney election results in Iran strikes --- Obama reelection defuses the situation with diplomacy
Daily Kos, 4/16/2012 (President Obama versus Romney on Iran, p.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/16/1083726/-President-Obama-versus-Romney-on-Iran)
3. Approach to foreign policy: Romney says he will “not apologize” for America and advocates a return to the Bush
cowboy “my way or the highway” approach to dealing with other nations. When John Bolton is an endorser, that scares me.
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To me, however the biggest contrast is their approach to Iran. Binyamin Netanyahu by all accounts is a hawk who is
pushing the United States to bomb Iran and has been doing so for a long time. He appears to see no need for negotiation.
Granted, he has a right to protect his nation if he believes that its under threat. However, we all know how flawed the
“intelligence” was for the Iraq war. And its important to let negotiations play out as far as possible before rushing to war,
which would have many unintended consequences for years to come. (See the Iraq war). Here’s the big difference. Here’s
Netanyahu’s recent response to the ongoing P5+1 talks: http://news.yahoo.com/... Netanyahu -- whose government has not
ruled out a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities -- earlier said however that Tehran had simply bought itself some
extra time to comply. "My initial impression is that Iran has been given a 'freebie'," Netanyahu said during talks with
visiting US Senator Joe Lieberman, the premier's office reported. "It has got five weeks to continue enrichment without any
limitation, any inhibition. I think Iran should take immediate steps to stop all enrichment, take out all enrichment material
and dismantle the nuclear facility in Qom," he said. "I believe that the world's greatest practitioner of terrorism must not
have the opportunity to develop atomic bombs," he said. Here’s President Obama’s response yesterday to Netanyahu (in a
response to a journalist's question) at the press conference in Cartagena: But Obama refuted that statement, saying "The
notion that we've given something away or a freebie would indicate that Iran has gotten something." "In fact, they got the
toughest sanctions that they're going to be facing coming up in a few months if they don't take advantage of those talks. I
hope they do," Obama said. "The clock is ticking and I've been very clear to Iran and our negotiating partners that we're not
going to have these talks just drag out in a stalling process," Obama told reporters after an Americas summit in
Colombia."But so far at least we haven't given away anything -- other than the opportunity for us to negotiate," he said.
Obama in conjunction with world powers is negotiating with Iran, trying to prevent a needless war. You can be sure that
Mitt Romney would bow to his buddy Netanyahu and attack Iran. He has previously said “We will not have an inch of
difference between ourselves and Israel”. As he also said in a debate, before making any decision regarding Israel, he will
call his friend Bibi. Bottom line, if somehow the American people elect Mitt Romney, expect more of the bombastic,
Bush cowboy approach to foreign policy with a more than likely bombardment of Iran. If the American people
are not fooled by this charlatan and they reelect Barack Obama, he will continue in his measured way to deal with the
threats around the world, quietly, through the use of negotiation, and force if absolutely necessary, but only as a last resort,
without bragging, and scaring the American people with needless terrorism alerts.
Nuclear world war
Chossudovsky, 12/26/2011 (Michel, Preparing to attack Iran with Nuclear Weapons, Global Research, p.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28355) we do not endorse the word Holocaust in this
evidence
An attack on Iran would have devastating consequences, It would unleash an all out regional war from the Eastern
Mediterranean to Central Asia, potentially leading humanity into a World War III Scenario. The Obama Administration
constitutes a nuclear threat. NATO constitutes a nuclear threat Five European "non-nuclear states" (Germany, Italy,
Belgium, Netherlands, Turkey) with tactical nuclear weapons deployed under national command, to be used against Iran
constitute a nuclear threat. The Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not only constitutes a nuclear
threat, but also a threat to the security of people of Israel, who are misled regarding the implications of an US-Israeli attack
on Iran. The complacency of Western public opinion --including segments of the US anti-war movement-- is disturbing. No
concern has been expressed at the political level as to the likely consequences of a US-NATO-Israel attack on Iran,
using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state. Such an action would result in "the unthinkable": a nuclear
holocaust over a large part of the Middle East.
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1NC States CP
CP Text: The United States federal government should devolve authority of river locks and dams to the
states. The states should modernize river locks and dams. The United States federal government should
regulate fees placed on river locks to ensure competitive pricing of American goods. The states will
ensure uniformity of modernization and acquire all necessary resources to modernize river locks and
dams, including all requisite funding, burden sharing, personnel, and training. The states will release a
press statement describing their intent.
States can efficiently AND uniformly implement inland port and waterway infrastructure
REGARDLESS of the Army Corps of Engineers jurisdiction
Chris Edwards, Director of Tax Policy at the Cato Institute, October 2005, “Privatize the Army Corps of Engineers”, http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb0510-27.pdf, Tax and Budget Bulletin No. 27; AB
Reform Options To solve these problems, the civilian activities of the Corps should be transferred to state, local, or private
ownership. A rough framework for reform might be: • Privatize: port dredging, hydroelectric dams, beach replenishment,
and other activities that could be supported by user fees and revenues. • Transfer to lower governments: levees, municipal
water and sewer projects, recreational areas, locks, channels, and other waterway infrastructure. Such reforms could
accompany broader reforms to U.S. ports and waterways. For example, U.S. ports are owned by state and local
governments and are dredged by the Army Corps. But ports could be privatized, and they could purchase dredging services
in the marketplace. The harbor maintenance tax could be repealed, and ports could recover dredging costs from port users.
For example, if the $286 million Delaware River dredging project made sense, it could be funded by the refineries and
other industries along the river that would be the beneficiaries. In Britain, 19 ports were privatized in 1983 to form
Associated British Ports. ABP and a subsidiary UK Dredging sell port and dredging services in the marketplace. They earn
a profit, pay taxes, and return dividends to shareholders. 11 Two-thirds of British cargo goes through privatized ports,
which are highly efficient. In the United States, there are complaints that governments are not investing enough in port
facilities and dredging to the detriment of U.S. international trade. If ports were privatized, they could invest and expand as
needed to relieve congestion and accommodate larger ships. Privatization is also a good option for the Corp’s large
inventory of hydroelectric dams. The Corp’s recreational areas should be transferred to state governments or to the private
sector if they could generate sufficient user fees. Municipal water, sewer, and beach projects should be left to local
governments. Waterway and environmental projects, such as the $8 billion Florida Everglades Restoration Plan, should
be funded by state governments. Waterway facilities that affect numerous states, such as those along the Mississippi
River, could be transferred to the states and managed under a regional agreement. Conclusion For decades, presidents
have tried to rein in wasteful spending by the Corps of Engineers. President Eisenhower vetoed a Corp’s spending bill in
1958 because it included numerous projects that made no economic sense. In 1977 President Carter gave Congress a hit list
of wasteful water projects that he wanted to cut. The Bush administration has tried to cut the agency’s waste and to refocus
its budget on completing the high-value projects in its large construction backlog. But as TCS noted, “the administration
has failed to follow through and defend those budget cuts,” which is a common problem with this White House. 12 A better
solution is to privatize and devolve to lower governments the Corp’s activities. The New Orleans levees, for example,
should be transferred to the State of Louisiana. State, local, and private ownership would better ensure that infrastructure is
efficiently maintained and upgraded, and not subject to neglect because of distracted policymakers in far away Washington.
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1NC Cap K
The root of the food crisis is capitalism, and the affirmative proposes more free-market claptrap.
Solutions are coming from social movements demanding food sovereignty.
Eric Holt-Giménez, Ph.D., Executive Director of Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy and analyst for the
Americas Program, October 21st [2008 http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5611]
But the reasons so many people have limited access to food are anything but "natural." On the contrary, decades of skewed
agricultural policies, inequitable trade, and unsustainable development have thrown the world's food systems into a volatile,
boom and bust cycle and widened the gap between affluence and poverty. Though hunger is coming in waves, not everyone
will "drown" in famine. In fact, the world's recurrent food crises are making a handful of investors and
multinational corporations very rich—even as they devastate the poor and put the rest of the planet at severe environmental
and economic risk. The surge of so-called food "riots" not only in poor countries like Haiti, but in resource-rich countries
like Brazil—and even in the industrialized nations of Europe and the United States—reflects the fact that people are not just
hungry, they are rebelling against a dangerous and unjust global food system. The food crisis is anything but silent, and—as
long as we are aware of its true causes—we are not helpless. The World Bank, the World Trade Organization, the World
Food Program, the Millennium Challenge, The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, and industrial giants like Yara Fertilizer, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Syngenta, DuPont, and Monsanto,
carefully avoid addressing the root causes of the food crisis. The"solutions" they prescribe are rooted in the same
policies and technologies that created the problem in the first place: increased food aid, de-regulated global trade in
agricultural commodities, and more technological and genetic fixes. These measures only strengthen the corporate status
quo controlling the world's food. For this reason, thus far, there has been little official leadership in the face of the crisis.
Nor has there been any informed public debate about the real reasons the numbers of hungry people are growing, or what
we can do about it. The future of our food—and fuel—systems are being decided de facto by unregulated global
markets, financial speculators, and global monopolies. For decades, family farmers and communities around the world have
resisted the destruction of their native seeds. They have worked hard to diversify their crops, protect their soil, conserve
their water and forests, and establish local gardens, markets, businesses, and community-based food systems. There are tens
of thousands of highly-productive, equitable, and sustainable alternatives to the present industrial practices and corporate
monopolies holding the world's food hostage, and literally millions of people working to advance these alternatives in this
time of need. What is missing is the political will on the part of government, industry, and finance to support these
alternatives. 7) Food Sovereignty: Democratize the Food System! Food sovereignty is the right of all people to healthy
and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their
own food and agriculture systems. At the heart of these concepts is the belief that we need to democratize our food
system in order to ensure equity and sustainability. The democratization of our food systems requires a social change in the
way we manage food. We must reduce the political influence of the industrial agri-foods complexand strengthen antitrust
laws and enforcement. These changes will require both changes in practices and in legislation in order to establish a
regulatory context for sustainable and equitable food systems. These changes also depend on the degree of political will on
the part of business, our legislators, and our communities. Political will results from social pressure from informed social
movements. These movementsalready exist, and are gaining strength in the face of the food crisis. Join and support
organizations campaigning for fair food system policies; write letters and make calls to your elected officials; and ask
questions of presidential and congressional candidates about hunger and poverty in the United States and abroad and what
they intend to do about it. Together we can fix the food system and solve the food crisis once and for all.
Capitalism causes extinction
Foster, Oregon University Department of Sociology Professor, 05 (John B., Monthly Review,
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0905jbf.htm, September,)
From the longer view offered by a historical-materialist critique of capitalism, the direction that would be taken by U.S. imperialism following the fall of
the Soviet Union was never in doubt. Capitalism by its very logic is a globally expansive system. The contradiction between its
transnational economic aspirations and the fact that politically it remains rooted in particular nation states is insurmountable for the system. Yet, ill-fated
attempts by individual states to overcome this contradiction are just as much a part of its fundamental logic. In present world circumstances, when one
capitalist state has a virtual monopoly of the means of destruction, the temptation for that state to attempt to seize fullspectrum dominance and to transform itself into the de facto global state governing the world economy is irresistible. As the
noted Marxian philosopher István Mészáros observed in Socialism or Barbarism? (2001)—written, significantly, before George W. Bush became
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president: “What is at stake today is not the control of a particular part of the planet—no matter how large—putting at a disadvantage but still tolerating
the independent actions of some rivals, but the control of its totality by one hegemonic economic and military superpower, with all
means—even the most extreme authoritarian and, if needed, violent military ones—at its disposal.”The unprecedented
dangers of this new global disorder are revealed in the twin cataclysms to which the world is heading at present : nuclear
proliferation and hence increased chances of the outbreak of nuclear war, and planetary ecological destruction. These are symbolized by the
Bush administration’s refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to limit nuclear weapons development and by its failure to sign the Kyoto
Protocol as a first step in controlling global warming. As former U.S. Secretary of Defense (in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations) Robert
McNamara stated in an article entitled “Apocalypse Soon” in the May–June 2005 issue of Foreign Policy: “The United States has never endorsed the
policy of ‘no first use,’ not during my seven years as secretary or since. We have been and remain prepared to initiate the use of nuclear weapons—by the
decision of one person, the president—against either a nuclear or nonnuclear enemy whenever we believe it is in our interest to do so.” The nation
with the greatest conventional military force and the willingness to use it unilaterally to enlarge its global power is also the
nation with the greatest nuclear force and the readiness to use it whenever it sees fit—setting the whole world on edge. The
nation that contributes more to carbon dioxide emissions leading to global warming than any other (representing approximately a
quarter of the world’s total) has become the greatest obstacle to addressing global warming and the world’s growing
environmental problems—raising the possibility of the collapse of civilization itself if present trends continue. The United States
is seeking to exercise sovereign authority over the planet during a time of widening global crisis: economic stagnation,
increasing polarization between the global rich and the global poor, weakening U.S. economic hegemony, growing nuclear
threats, and deepening ecological decline. The result is a heightening of international instability. Other potential forces are
emerging in the world, such as the European Community and China, that could eventually challenge U.S. power, regionally and even globally. Third
world revolutions, far from ceasing, are beginning to gain momentum again, symbolized by Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution under Hugo Chávez. U.S.
attempts to tighten its imperial grip on the Middle East and its oil have had to cope with a fierce, seemingly unstoppable,
Iraqi resistance, generating conditions of imperial overstretch. With the United States brandishing its nuclear arsenal and refusing to
support international agreements on the control of such weapons, nuclear proliferation is continuing. New nations, such as North Korea,
are entering or can be expected soon to enter the “nuclear club.” Terrorist blowback from imperialist wars in the third world is
now a well-recognized reality, generating rising fear of further terrorist attacks in New York, London, and elsewhere. Such vast and
overlapping historical contradictions, rooted in the combined and uneven development of the global capitalist economy
along with the U.S. drive for planetary domination, foreshadow what is potentially the most dangerous period in the history
of imperialism.
The alternative is political disobedience to the capitalist form of development in the 1AC- only this new
paradigm shift provides a radical leap to forgo the permeations of capitalism
Bernard E. Harcourt is chair of the political science department and professor of law at The University of Chicago, 10/13/ 11,
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/occupy-wall-streets-political-disobedience/#more-108081, “Occupy Wall
Street’s Political Disobedience”; AB
Our language has not yet caught up with the political phenomenon that is emerging in Zuccotti Park and spreading across
the nation, though it is clear that a political paradigm shift is taking place before our very eyes. It’s time to begin to name
and in naming, to better understand this moment. So let me propose some words: “political disobedience.” Occupy Wall
Street is best understood, I would suggest, as a new form of what could be called “political disobedience,” as opposed to
civil disobedience, that fundamentally rejects the political and ideological landscape that we inherited from the Cold War.
Civil disobedience accepted the legitimacy of political institutions, but resisted the moral authority of resulting laws.
Political disobedience, by contrast, resists the very way in which we are governed: it resists the structure of partisan
politics, the demand for policy reforms, the call for party identification, and the very ideologies that dominated the postWar period. Occupy Wall Street, which identifies itself as a “leaderless resistance movement with people of many …
political persuasions,” is politically disobedient precisely in refusing to articulate policy demands or to embrace old
ideologies. Those who incessantly want to impose demands on the movement may show good will and generosity, but fail
to understand that the resistance movement is precisely about disobeying that kind of political maneuver. Similarly, those
who want to push an ideology onto these new forms of political disobedience, like Slavoj Zizek or Raymond Lotta, are
missing the point of the resistance. When Zizek complained last August, writing about the European protesters in the
London Review of Books, that we’ve entered a “post-ideological era” where “opposition to the system can no longer
articulate itself in the form of a realistic alternative, or even as a utopian project, but can only take the shape of a
meaningless outburst,” he failed to understand that these movements are precisely about resisting the old ideologies. It’s not
that they couldn’t articulate them; it’s that they are actively resisting them — they are being politically disobedient. And
when Zizek now declares at Zuccotti Park “that our basic message is ‘We are allowed to think about alternatives’ . . . What
social organization can replace capitalism?” ― again, he is missing a central axis of this new form of political resistance.
One way to understand the emerging disobedience is to see it as a refusal to engage these sorts of worn-out ideologies
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rooted in the Cold War. The key point here is that the Cold War’s ideological divide — with the Chicago Boys at one end
and the Maoists at the other — merely served as a weapon in this country for the financial and political elite: the ploy, in
the United States, was to demonize the chimera of a controlled economy (that of the former Soviet Union or China, for
example) in order to prop up the illusion of a free market and to legitimize the fantasy of less regulation — of what was
euphemistically called “deregulation.” By reinvigorating the myth of free markets, the financial and political architects of
our economy over the past three plus decades — both Republicans and Democrats — were able to disguise massive
redistribution toward the richest by claiming they were simply “deregulating” when all along they were actually
reregulating to the benefit of their largest campaign donors. This ideological fog blinded the American people to the
pervasive regulatory mechanisms that are necessary to organize a colossal late-modern economy and that necessarily
distribute wealth throughout society — and in this country, that quietly redistributed massive amounts of wealth to the richest 1 percent. Many of the voices at Occupy Wall Street
accuse political ideology on both sides, on the side of free markets but also on the side of big government, for serving the few at the expense of the other 99 percent — for paving the way to an entrenched
permissive regulatory system that “privatizes gains and socializes losses.”The central point, of course, is that it takes both a big government and the illusion of free markets to achieve such massive
redistribution. If you take a look at the tattered posters at Zuccotti Park, you’ll see that many are intensely anti-government and just as many stridently oppose big government. Occupy Wall Street is surely
right in holding the old ideologies to account. The truth is, as I’ve argued in a book, “The Illusion of Free Markets,” and recently in Harper’s magazine, there never have been and never will be free markets.
All markets are man-made, constructed, regulated and administered by often-complex mechanisms that necessarily distribute wealth — that inevitably distribute wealth — in large and small ways. Tax
incentives for domestic oil production and lower capital gains rates are obvious illustrations. But there are all kinds of more minute rules and regulations surrounding our wheat pits, stock markets and
economic exchanges that have significant wealth effects: limits on retail buyers flipping shares after an I.P.O., rulings allowing exchanges to cut communication to non-member dealers, fixed prices in
extended after-hour trading, even the advent of options markets. The mere existence of a privately chartered organization like the Chicago Board of Trade, which required the state of Illinois to criminalize
and forcibly shut down competing bucket shops, has huge redistributional wealth effects on farmers and consumers — and, of course, bankers, brokers and dealers. The semantic games — the talk of
deregulation rather than reregulation — would have been entertaining had it not been for their devastating effects. As the sociologist Douglas Massey minutely documents in “Categorically Unequal,” after
decades of improvement, the income gap between the richest and poorest in this country has dramatically widened since the 1970s, resulting in what social scientists now refer to as U-curve of increasing
“the number of Americans living below the official poverty
line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it.” Today, 27
percent of African-Americans and 26 percent of Hispanics in this country — more than 1 in 4 — live in poverty; and 1 in 9
African-American men between the ages of 20 and 34 are incarcerated. It’s these outcomes that have pushed so many in
New York City and across the nation to this new form of political disobedience. It’s a new type of resistance to politics tout
court — to making policy demands, to playing the political games, to partisan politics, to old-fashioned ideology. It bears a
similarity to what Michel Foucault referred to as “critique:” resistance to being governed “in this manner,” or what he
dubbed “voluntary insubordination” or, better yet, as a word play on the famous expression of Etienne de la Boétie,
“voluntary unservitude.” If this concept of “political disobedience” is accurate and resonates, then Occupy Wall Street will
continue to resist making a handful of policy demands because it would have little effect on the constant regulations that
redistribute wealth to the top. The movement will also continue to resist Cold War ideologies from Friedrich Hayek to
Maoism — as well as their pale imitations and sequels, from the Chicago School 2.0 to Alain Badiou and Zizek’s attempt
to shoehorn all political resistance into a “communist hypothesis.”On this account, the fundamental choice is no longer the
ideological one we were indoctrinated to believe — between free markets and controlled economies — but rather a
continuous choice between kinds of regulation and how they distribute wealth in society. There is, in the end, no “realistic
alternative,” nor any “utopian project” that can avoid the pervasive regulatory mechanisms that are necessary to organize a
complex late-modern economy — and that’s the point. The vast and distributive regulatory framework will neither
disappear with deregulation, nor with the withering of a socialist state. What is required is constant vigilance of all the
micro and macro rules that permeate our markets, our contracts, our tax codes, our banking regulations, our property laws
— in sum, all the ordinary, often mundane, but frequently invisible forms of laws and regulations that are required to
organize and maintain a colossal economy in the 21st-century and that constantly distribute wealth and resources. In the
end, if the concept of “political disobedience” accurately captures this new political paradigm, then the resistance
movement needs to occupy Zuccotti Park because levels of social inequality and the number of children in poverty are
intolerable. Or, to put it another way, the movement needs to resist partisan politics and worn-out ideologies because the
outcomes have become simply unacceptable. The Volcker rule, debt relief for working Americans, a tax on the wealthy —
those might help, but they represent no more than a few drops in the bucket of regulations that distribute and redistribute
wealth and resources in this country every minute of every day. Ultimately, what matters to the politically disobedient is the
kind of society we live in, not a handful of policy demands.
inequality. Recent reports from the Census Bureau confirm this, with new evidence last month that
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1NC Case – Solvency
The aff would have to shut down locks to modernize them – triggers all of their impacts
Terrorists will attack inland waterways
Bakir 07 (1-1-2007 Niyazi Onur Bakir is a postdoctoral research associate at University of Southern California Center for
Homeland Security, “A Brief Analysis of Threats and Vulnerabilities in the Maritime Domain”,
http://research.create.usc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=nonpublished_reports)
3.2.2.1 Critical Coastal Targets. Maritime terrorism has hit US and non-US coastal infrastructure in the past. Terrorists
have a plethora of potential targets for launching deadly attacks on the US coast. History of maritime terrorism suggests
that terrorists have already exercised a variety of options to execute such attacks. In recent years, many terrorist
organizations have added various means of suicide attacks in their portfolios. This poses further challenges to those who
seek to deter terrorists from attacking one of the most vulnerable points of the nation. LNG facilities, chemical plants,
urban centers, bridges and nuclear plants are among those critical targets that are exposed to waterborne terrorism threat.
There are various ways to attack critical coastal targets. Terrorists may acquire new vessels through piracy or smuggle
humans on vessels that are destined to sail near the target of interest. Piracy is a rising threat across the globe, and
terrorists are already known to use piracy for financing purposes. Having acquired a ship to execute an attack, terrorists
may detonate explosives on the ship at a time or location of their choice, or ram the ship into the target. It may be difficult
to execute an attack hijacking an LNG ship due to security guidelines followed by the Coast Guard, but vessels with other
forms of hazardous cargo may be vulnerable to hijacking. In particular, ships carrying bulk shipments of ammonium
nitrate are potentially vulnerable. A huge volume of ammonium nitrate flows through US inland waterways each year. For
example, in 1997 over 400,000 tons of ammonium nitrate was shipped through the Mississippi river. These shipments
pass near urban centers such as New Orleans, St. Louis, Memphis, and Pittsburgh. In order to monitor and reduce
vulnerability against ammonium nitrate and other hazardous cargo shipments (commonly called certain dangers cargo or
CDC), the Coast Guard acted to introduce new regulations in 2004. These regulations include mandatory development of
security plans at vessels and facilities handling ammonium nitrate, preparation of vessel maintenance and security
records, training of a facility and vessel security officer, and installation of vessel and facility security systems. These new
regulations increased the transportation cost of ammonium nitrate.
That turns all of your advantages – the US would shutdown EVERYTHING
Flynn 03 (Stephen, Natl Sec Studies, “The Fragile state of container security,” testimony before the senate, March 20
http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=5730)
A year later I joined with former senators Warren Rudman and Gary Hart in preparing our report, “America: Still Unprepared—Still In Danger.” We observed that “nineteen men wielding box-cutters forced the United States to do to itself what no adversary could ever accomplish: a successful blockade of the U.S.
. If a surprise terrorist attack were to happen tomorrow involving the sea, rail, or truck transportation systems that carry
millions of tons of trade to the United States each day, the response would likely be the same—a self-imposed global embargo.”
economy
Based on that analysis, we identified as second of the six critical mandates that deserve the nation’s immediate attention: “Make trade security a global priority; the system for moving goods affordably and reliably around the world is ripe for exploitation and vulnerable to mass disruption by terrorists.” This is why the
topic of today’s hearing is so important. The stakes are enormous. U.S. prosperity—and much of its power—relies on its ready access to global markets. Both the scale and pace at which goods move between markets has exploded in recent years thanks in no small part to the invention and proliferation of the
intermodal container. These ubiquitous boxes—most come in the 40’x8’x8’ size—have transformed the transfer of cargo from a truck, train, and ship into the transportation equivalent of connecting Lego blocks. The result has been to increasingly diminish the role of distance for a supplier or a consumer as a constraint
in the world marketplace.
Ninety percent of the world’s freight now moves in a container.
Companies like Wal-Mart and General Motors move up to 30 tons of merchandise or parts across the vast Pacific Ocean from Asia
to the West Coast for about $1600. The transatlantic trip runs just over a $1000—which makes the postage stamp seem a bit overpriced. But the system that underpins the incredibly efficient, reliable, and affordable movement of global freight has one glaring shortcoming in the post-9-11 world—it was built without
credible safeguards to prevent it from being exploited or targeted by terrorists and criminals. Prior to September 11, 2001, virtually anyone in the world could arrange with an international shipper or carrier to have an empty intermodal container delivered to their home or workplace. They then could load it with tons of
material, declare in only the most general terms what the contents were, “seal” it with a 50-cent lead tag, and send it on its way to any city and town in the United States. The job of transportation providers was to move the box as expeditiously as possible. Exercising any care to ensure that the integrity of a container’s
contents was not compromised may have been a commercial practice, but it was not a requirement. The responsibility for making sure that goods loaded in a box were legitimate and authorized was shouldered almost exclusively by the importing jurisdiction. But as the volume of containerized cargo grew
exponentially, the number of agents assigned to police that cargo stayed flat or even declined among most trading nations. The rule of thumb in the inspection business is that it takes five agents three hours to conduct a thorough physical examination of a single full intermodal container. Last year nearly 20 million
containers washed across America’s borders via a ship, train, and truck. Frontline agencies had only enough inspectors and equipment to examine between 1-2 percent of that cargo. Thus, for would-be terrorists, the global intermodal container system that is responsible for moving the overwhelming majority of the
world’s freight satisfies the age-old criteria of opportunity and motive. “Opportunity” flows from (1) the almost complete absence of any security oversight in the loading and transporting of a box from its point of origin to its final destination, and (2) the fact that growing volume and velocity at which containers move
around the planet create a daunting “needle-in-the-haystack” problem for inspectors. “Motive” is derived from the role that the container now plays in underpinning global supply chains and the likely response by the U.S. government to an attack involving a container. Based on statements by the key officials at U.S.
, should a container be used as a “poor man’s missile,” the shipment of all
containerized cargo into our ports and across our borders would be halted. As a consequence, a modest investment by a terrorist
could yield billions of dollars in losses to the U.S. economy by shutting down—even temporarily—the system that moves
“just-in-time” shipments of parts and goods.
Customs, the Transportation Security Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Department of Transportation
Given the current state of container security, it is hard to imagine how a post-event lock-down on container shipments could be either prevented or short-lived. One thing we should have learned from the 9-
11 attacks involving passenger airliners, the follow-on anthrax attacks, and even last fall Washington sniper spree is that terrorist incidents pose a special challenge for public officials. In the case of most disasters, the reaction by the general public is almost always to assume the event is an isolated one. Even if the
post-mortem provides evidence of a systemic vulnerability, it often takes a good deal of effort to mobilize a public policy response to redress it. But just the opposite happens in the event of a terrorist attack—especially one involving catastrophic consequences. When these attacks take place, the assumption by the
general public is almost always to presume a general vulnerability unless there is proof to the contrary. Government officials have to confront head-on this loss of public confidence by marshalling evidence that they have a credible means to manage the risk highlighted by the terrorist incident. In the interim as recent
events have shown, people will refuse to fly, open their mail, or even leave their homes.If a terrorist were to use a container as a weapon-delivery devise, the easiest choice would be high-explosives such as those used in the attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Some form of chemical weapon,
perhaps even involving hazardous materials, is another likely scenario. A bio-weapon is a less attractive choice for a terrorist because of the challenge of dispersing the agent in a sufficiently concentrated form beyond the area where the explosive devise goes off. A “dirty bomb” is the more likely threat vs. a nuclear
weapon, but all these scenarios are conceivable since the choice of a weapon would not be constrained by any security measures currently in place in our seaports or within the intermodal transportation industry. This is why
container could cause such profound economic disruption.
a terrorist attack involving a cargo
An incident triggered by even a conventional weapon going off in a box could result in a substantial loss of life. In the immediate aftermath, the general public will want
reassurance that one of the many other thousands of containers arriving on any given day will not pose a similar risk. The President of the United States, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and other keys officials responsible for the security of the nation would have to stand before a traumatized and likely skeptical
, the public would likely insist that all containerized
cargo be stopped until adequate safeguards are in place. Even with the most focused effort, constructing that framework from
scratch could take months—even years. Yet, within three weeks, the entire worldwide intermodal transportation industry would
effectively be brought to its knees—as would much of the freight movements that make up international trade.
American people and outline the measures they have in place to prevent another such attack. In the absence of a convincing security framework to manage the risk of another incident
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1NC Case – Agriculture – Famine
1. Droughts are causing food price increases now – triggers all their impacts
Isobel Coleman is a senior fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy and director of the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative
at the Council on Foreign Relations, 8/6/12, http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/06/the-global-impact-of-the-u-sdrought/, “The global impact of the U.S. drought”; hhs-ab
Global food prices are spiking upwards because of widespread drought in the U.S., the breadbasket of the world. Nearly 80
percent of the country’s corn crops and over 11 percent of its soybean crops – which are major exports for the U.S. and an
important source of animal feed – have been affected. Last month, soybean and corn prices were at record-breaking highs.
Poor weather conditions in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine are also inflating global wheat prices; these countries typically
produce around one-quarter of the world’s wheat exports. The U.S. itself exports more wheat, corn, and soybeans than any
other country. While high food prices are devastating for importing countries that are already deeply food insecure, they
can also be economically destabilizing for lower- and middle-income countries with big populations that import large
amounts of food. Around the world, shortages and price spikes of everyday goods can throw societies into unrest and
conflict. The current spike in food prices begs comparisons with other recent rises in food price that led to widespread
protests. In 2008, high food prices incited protests and turmoil in a number of countries, including Egypt, Ethiopia,
Indonesia, and the Philippines. Arguably, food prices were one precipitating factor of the Arab Spring; in a report on the
phenomenon, The Economist notes that in Egypt, local food prices increased by 37 percent from 2008 to 2010. The New
England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) has also done important work on the numerically demonstrable link between
food crises and political instability in the MENA region, even “identify[ing] a specific food price threshold above which
protests become likely.” Many governments subsidize food, so rising prices puts significant pressure on their budgets.
Egypt is a case in point: the largest importer of wheat in the world, Egypt spends about 4 percent of its total budget each
year on food subsidies, a drain on its coffers. As I’ve written previously, its subsidy programs are in need of reform. As the
Egypt Independent reports, the government’s draft budget proposes keeping overall subsidy levels the same, but shifting
more towards food subsidies and away from fuel subsidies, which are particularly wasteful and tend to go toward the better
off. This could help take the edge off the current food crisis, although given internal political dynamics in Egypt, the
budget’s future is uncertain. At the same time, the government is revising price controls on farmers that keep the amount
they are paid for wheat artificially low. Increased prices for farmers would provide incentives for them to plant more wheat,
although this doesn’t help in the short term. How can the U.S. minimize the impact of the drought on the rest of the world?
There are no quick fixes, but as I and others have argued, the U.S. should reevaluate the 2007 law that compels gasoline to
contain a certain amount of ethanol – a policy that channels some 40 percent of U.S. corn into gasoline and away from food
each year. The New England Complex Systems Institute has also done some fascinating research on the role of ethanol as
well as investor speculation in food prices; as its president Yaneer Bar-Yam says, “Given the possibility of price-driven
famines, burning corn for cars is unconscionable.” Scrapping the ethanol policy would reduce pressures on corn prices.
This would be no panacea to today’s tight global food supply chain, but it could mitigate the growing financial hardship
and suffering around the world caused by the current spike in food prices.
2. High food prices inevitable
Romm 11 [Joe, Dr. Joseph Romm is the editor of Climate Progress and a Senior Fellow at the American Progress. In 2009,
Time magazine named him one of the “Heroes of the Environment″ and “The Web’s most influential climate-change blogger.”
Romm was Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy during the Clinton
Administration where he directed $1 billion in research, development, demonstration, and deployment of clean energy and
carbon-mitigating technology. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT. In 2008, Romm was elected a Fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science for “distinguished service toward a sustainable energy future and for persuasive
discourse on why citizens, corporations, and governments should adopt sustainable technologies.”Climate Progress, Global food
prices hit new record high March 3, 2011]
Global food prices increased for the eighth consecutive month in February, with prices of all commodity groups monitored
rising again, except for sugar, [UN Food and Agriculture Organisation] said today. What is driving up food prices to record
levels? As I’ve discussed in CP’s food insecurity series, it’s harvests ruined by extreme weather, coupled with rising oil
prices, increasing demand from population growth and changing diets in a global market made all the tighter by
unsustainable biofuels policies. The only good news going forward is that the Chinese drought has abated somewhat.
Here’s more from the FAO release:
FAO expects a tightening of the global cereal supply and demand balance in
2010/11. In the face of a growing demand and a decline in world cereal production in 2010, global cereal stocks this year
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are expected to fall sharply because of a decline in inventories of wheat and coarse grains. International cereal prices have
increased sharply with export prices of major grains up at least 70 percent from February last year.
“Unexpected oil
price spikes could further exacerbate an already precarious situation in food markets,” said David Hallam, Director of
FAO’s Trade and Market Division.
“This adds even more uncertainty concerning the price outlook just as plantings for
crops in some of the major growing regions are about to start,” he added. Unless oil prices come down sharply and soon,
it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.
3. Consequences outweigh a moral obligation to prevent famine.
Singer, Spring 1972 (Peter – Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, Laureate Professor at the Centre
for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, Philosophy and
Public Affairs, Vol. 1. No. 1, p. 229-243)
I begin with the assumption that suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad. I
think most people will agree about this, although one may reach the same view by different routes. I shall not argue for this
view. People can hold all sorts of eccentric positions, and perhaps from some of them it would not follow that death by
starvation is in itself bad. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to refute such positions, and so for brevity I will henceforth
take this assumption as accepted. Those who disagree need read no further. My next point is this: if it is in our power to
prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance ,
we ought, morally, to do it. By "without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance" I mean
without causing anything else comparably bad to happen, or doing something that is wrong in itself, or failing to
promote some moral good, comparable in significance to the bad thing that we can prevent. This principle seems almost as
uncontroversial as the last one. It requires us only to prevent what is bad, and to promote what is good, and it requires this
of us only when we can do it without sacrificing anything that is, from the moral point of view, comparably important. I
could even, as far as the application of my argument to the Bengal emergency is concerned, qualify the point so as to make
it: if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally
significant, we ought, morally, to do it. An application of this principle would be as follows: if I am walking past a shallow
pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but
this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing.
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1NC Case – Agriculture – China
Biotech solves China food security
Wharton, July 10th 2012, “Can Biotechnology Solve China's Food Security Problem?”,
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/arabic/article.cfm?articleid=2850&language_id=1
China's population is expected to grow to 1.39 billion by the year 2015 and the government estimates that national
consumption of grain will reach 572.5 million tons by the year 2020. This is complicated by unpredictable weather patterns
and an increasingly affluent population that is eating an increasingly large amount of meat. More meat consumption means
China will have to increase its production of feedstock even further. The inflation of food prices, also, is a top government
concern. "We have 1.3 billion people to feed with limited land resource," Wen Jiabao, China's premiere, said in a 2011
interview issued in the Chinese publication Seeking Truth Magazine. "Food security remains our biggest concern. There is
no other way to address the challenge than relying on technologies to transform traditional agriculture, such as high-yield
variety breeding and GM technology." As part of China's 12th five-year plan, released in 2011, the country established a
540 million ton annual yield goal for grain production. In 2011, the country reported a record 571 million tons of grain
production. China's efforts, however, have been more successful in some crops than in others. For example, the country is a
net importer of soybeans. According to the State Administration of Grain, the country expects to import 56 million metric
tons of soybeans during 2011-2012. And, despite record production of corn in 2011, the U.S. Department of Agriculture
estimates China will have to import 4 million tons of corn to meet demand this year. "The Chinese government places
extraordinarily high importance on achieving success in agriculture," notes McConville. And China's government officials
have not been all talk: In 2008, the country introduced the National Transgenic New Variety Development Project,
promising an investment of $3.8 billion by 2020. The investment, McConville points out, comes along with a push to
improve agricultural technology across the board. Investment also went into the promotion of tractors and backhoes. The
goal is simple, says Dan Cekander, the director of grain research at Newedge USA. "They need to increase their yields."
While GM crops are not the only answer to achieving this goal, they will likely be an important part of the recipe,
according to McConville. In trying to reduce food imports and approach the goal of 95% self-sufficiency, GM crops offer a
number of advantages. They can help increase yields and can be engineered to resist pests and disease. They can also be
engineered to withstand harsh growing environments. Clive James, founder of the International Service for the Acquisition
of Agri-biotech Applications, takes an almost evangelical tone when he talks about biotech crops. "We don't call them GM
crops, because that could be confusing," he says. ISAAA's mission is to provide information on the safety and growth of
biotech crops and let people decide for themselves. "In the next 50 years, the global population will consume twice as much
food as they have since the beginning of agriculture," James notes. "You have to convey to the rest of the world that you
have this huge challenge and then you can talk about solutions."
China self sufficient now – agriculture investment and policy reform
Vincent ter Beek, staff writer, 6/27/12, http://www.pigprogress.net/background/china-%96-heading-for-food-self-sufficiencyand-more-8981.html, “China – heading for food self-sufficiency and more”; AB
How will China cope with its growing population and growing demand for foods? Is the country able to feed its projected
1.34 billion inhabitants by 2050? Clearly, yes, says Jikun Huang, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. By 2020 the
country will be 99% self-sufficient. The story has been well-known for some time. When it comes to food security in
China, many have pointed to rapid economic growth, the rising food demand, increasing imports of feedstuffs like
soybeans. So often, the question is: Who will feed China? A question for Jikun Huang, from the Center for Chinese
Agricultural Policy at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He addressed the audience at the ‘Feeding the World’ summit,
organised by the Economist Group and sponsored by DSM, in Geneva, Switzerland, on 8 February. His answer can be
summarised as: China will take care of itself – and others too. Huang pointed to the time frame between 1992 and 2010,
stating that in 17 years, China was a net food exporter. It is only in the last three years that China had to import. He also
mentioned the fact that both national and household food security has significantly improved in this time. Huang
continued by explaining how China had managed to achieve this. The annual growth rate of China’s agriculture has been
4.4 times the rate of the population growth in the last 30 years. To support this, he showed figures of a staggering grain
production growth (74%) between 1978 and 2009; a whopping oil crop production growth by 505% in that same time
frame. Similarly, meat production has grown extremely strong over the last 30 years, be it for pork, poultry, beef or mutton.
Two developments in Beijing are at the basis of these achievements, Huang explained – a combination of strong
investments in agriculture and a national policy reform. Investments Between 1984 and 1997, the Chinese central
government invested roughly between 50-100 billion yuan (€6-12 billion) annually in the agricultural sector. As from 1998,
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the budget was increased virtually every year to reach 450 billion yuan (€56 billion) in 2008 with more growth projected.
Part of the investments went into stepping up the amount of irrigated land. About 50% of total cultivated land in China is
now used for irrigation, a total of almost 60 million ha. In comparison, by 1950, this was approximately 15 million ha. The
key element of future investments (e.g. for 2012) will be Research & Development-related, Huang said. Policy changes
Water always used to be a key element in the agricultural investments and in the future, water management will continue to
receive a lot of attention. Huang said that in the next ten years, about 4,000 billion yuan (€495 billion) will be invested in
water conservancy. This eventually has to lead to improvements in water use in both agricultural and non-agricultural
sectors. The rising food import pressure is also a theme the Chinese government is working on, Huang said. Policy
responses include a target of 95% of grain self-sufficiency and nearly 100% food self-sufficiency. The investments in
agriculture in China were mentioned, but this also includes investments in Africa. All these changes ought to lead to a
reasonably positive outlook in the longer term with regard to imports and exports. A positive balance for rice is achievable
in the longer term, Huang said. For wheat and coarse grains, however, China may be dependent on imports in a projection
until 2020. For other agriculture and food products, a slightly positive balance for pork and poultry products is anticipated
– contrary to projections for beef and mutton. As for maize, the country is able to meet domestic demand until 2025 even
with currently available technologies – and with foreign genetically modified techniques, opportunities can only grow.
Huang closed off stating that China’s political commitment to invest in agriculture and policy reforms are crucial to
agricultural development and food security. He added that China will continue to heavily invest in technology, water and
other rural infrastructure to increase its overall food self-sufficiency. “While China is expected to increase import of land
intensive products (e.g., feeds, cotton, edible crops, sugar, dairy, etc); China will also continue to be a major exporter of
labour and capital intensive products (e.g., vegetable, fruits, fishery and processed foods) and contribute to global food
security. And China is also ready to help other food deficit regions such as Africa to increase their food production
capacity.”
CCP won’t collapse – multiple reasons
- empirics from pro-democracy uprisings in 1990’s
- public support
- qualified non biased polls
- performance legitimacy
- meritocratic legitimacy (educated politicians)
- nationalism
CS Monitor, Daniel Bell, 7/11/12, http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Global-Viewpoint/2012/0711/Why-China-won-tcollapse, “Why China won't collapse”; AB
Or so we are told. Such predictions about the collapse of China’s political system have been constantly repeated since the
suppression of the pro-democracy uprisings in 1989. But the system didn’t collapse then, and it won’t collapse now. The
key reason such dire predictions are taken seriously – especially in the West – is that non-democratic regimes are seen to
lack legitimacy. A political regime that is morally justified in the eyes of the people must be chosen by the people. In the
case of China, the political leadership is a self-selected elite. Such mode of rule is fragile, as the Arab Spring has shown.
But this view assumes the people are dissatisfied with the regime. In fact, the large majority of Chinese people support the
single-party state structure. Since the 1990s, scholars in the West and China have carried out many large-scale surveys into
the legitimacy of Chinese political power, and by now they have virtually arrived at a consensus: The degree of legitimacy
of the Chinese political system is very high. Surveys have been modified to prevent people from telling lies, and the results
are always the same. To the extent there is dissatisfaction, it is largely directed at the lower levels of government. The
central government is viewed as the most legitimate part of the Chinese political apparatus. How can it be that the Chinese
government managed to achieve a high level of political legitimacy without adopting free and fair competitive elections for
the country’s leaders? However paradoxical it may sound to Westerners, the Chinese government has succeeded by
drawing upon sources of non-democratic legitimacy. The first source of non-democratic legitimacy can be termed
performance legitimacy, meaning that the government’s first priority should be the material well-being of the people. This
idea has deep roots in China – Confucius himself said the government should make the people prosperous – and the
Chinese Communist Party has also put poverty alleviation at the top of its political agenda. Hence, the government derives
much, if not most, of its legitimacy from its ability to provide for the material welfare of Chinese citizens. It has
substantially increased the life expectancy of Chinese people, and the reform era has seen perhaps the most impressive
poverty alleviation achievement in history, with several hundred million people being lifted out of poverty. The second
source of non-democratic legitimacy can be termed political meritocracy: the idea that political leaders should have aboveaverage ability to make morally informed political judgments. It too has deep historical roots. In Imperial China, scholar-
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officials proved their ability in a fair and open examination system, and consequently they were granted uncommon (by
Western standards) amounts of respect, authority, and legitimacy. Political surveys have shown that Chinese still endorse
the view that it is more important to have high-quality politicians who care about the people’s needs than to worry about
procedural arrangements ensuring people’s rights to choose their leaders. In recent decades, the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) has increased its legitimacy by transforming itself into a more meritocratic political organization, with renewed
emphasis on examinations and education as criteria for political leadership. The third source of non-democratic legitimacy
is nationalism. An important part of legitimacy can be termed “ideological legitimacy”: The regime seeks to be seen as
morally justified in the eyes of the people by virtue of certain ideas that it expresses in its educational system, political
speeches, and public policies. The CCP was, of course, founded on Marxist principles, but the problem is that few believe
in the communist ideal anymore. Hence, the regime has increasingly turned to nationalism to secure “ideological
legitimacy.” Nationalism has more recent roots in China: In imperial China, the political elites tended to view their
“country” as the center of the world. But this vision collapsed when China was subject to the incursions of Western colonial
powers in the mid-19th century, leading to a “century of humiliation” at hands of foreign powers. The CCP put a symbolic
end to abuse and bullying by foreign powers with the establishment of a relatively secure state in 1949, and it constantly
reminds Chinese of its function as protector of the Chinese nation. In short, it should not be surprising that the CCP is
widely seen to be legitimate in the eyes of the people, and barring unforeseen events there is no reason to expect imminent
collapse of the regime. But the key word is “imminent.” In the absence of substantial political reform, China’s nondemocratic sources of political legitimacy may not be sustainable in the long term. First, performance legitimacy varies
according to economic conditions. China’s doomsayers often point out that the regime will be in trouble once the economy
takes a hit. But that view may not be correct. If China’s rulers are still seen as the best stewards of the economy in times of
crisis, their legitimacy may actually increase. In fact, the real trouble may occur once China has successfully eliminated
poverty in the whole country. According to the Confucian perspective, the government must then focus on the education of
the people, meaning the provision of the conditions for the ethical and intellectual development of the people. The highest
mode of human realization lies in extending the love and responsibility learned within the family to the whole community.
In practice, it means more opportunities to participate in politics in a public-spirited way, including the freedom of political
speech.
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1NC Case – Agriculture – Iran
High Iran food prices and instability now – sanctions
Esfahlani and Abdi 8/2 (“Sanctions cripple Iran's middle class, not the regime,” 8/2/12, Mohammad Sadeghi
Esfahlani is a PhD student in Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary, and was the founder of
the first virtual political campaign on Facebook in the Middle East. Jamal Abdi is the Policy Director of the
National Iranian American Council. He previously worked in US Congress as a Policy Advisor on foreign
affairs) hhs-ps
Over the past month, as EU and U.S. sanctions on Iran have escalated and the White House and Congress roll out new "crippling" measures on an
almost biweekly basis, the situation for ordinary Iranians has become increasingly dire . Health organizations are reporting medicine shortages
that could endanger the lives of tens of thousands of children. The price of food and basic goods has skyrocketed . And middle class
households are facing an increasing sense of economic doom. Many in Washington, including in the Obama administration, continue to assert
that the pain inflicted by broad sanctions on ordinary Iranians is simply an "unintended consequence." But the pro-sanctions lobby is increasingly singing a
different tune. A recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, for instance, states that "Stronger sanctions will not persuade the regime to accept compromise over
its nuclear program" and acknowledges that, "While government fat cats are unaffected, ordinary Iranians must contend every day" with the sanctions. These
are not the words of a sanctions skeptic, but rather a major sanctions supporter. Those that helped craft the sanctions and sell them as the best
means to achieve a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear dispute are now saying sanctions are indeed designed to impose
collective punishment on the Iranian people to pressure them to rise up against the regime. According to this logic, sanctions will simply
make life so dire for the average Iranian that an opposition movement will manifest from within the despair and topple the
regime. Others in the pro-sanctions camp have argued that sanctions will drive Iran's working class to join and revitalize Iran's indigenous democratic Green
Movement. But all of these analyses ignore the long and destructive history of embargo-level sanctions, which have failed to produce democratic regime
change.
India would fill in for Iran’s food security
India Online, 10/20/11, http://www.indiainfoline.com/Markets/News/India-and-Iran-to-cooperate-in-food-security/5270675102,
“India and Iran to cooperate in food security”; AB
The Minister of Water Resources Pawan Kumar Bansal stressed that India and Iran have a strong cultural affinity
embedded deep in our history and there is great potential for cooperation in irrigation and water resources sector also. The
Minister of Water Resources Pawan Kumar Bansal represented India at the 21st ICID Congress on the theme ‘Water
Productivity towards Food Security’ and 8th Micro Irrigation Congress on the theme ‘Innovation in Technology and
Management of Micro-irrigation for Crop Production Enhancement’ in Teheran, Iran today. Pawan Kumar Bansal said
that the theme of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) Congress, ‘Water Productivity towards
Food Security’ has immense relevance in the current scenario, as the issue of poverty and hunger has become the most
serious challenge facing the world today. In order to meet the increased food requirements of the global population, it is
necessary to economise the use of water for irrigation by adopting improved technologies and improving water use
efficiencies. Water productivity alone can be the answer to the challenge of water scarcity and for ensuring food security,
he said in his address to the congress. The Minister of Water Resources Pawan Kumar Bansal stressed that India and Iran
have a strong cultural affinity embedded deep in our history and there is great potential for cooperation in irrigation and
water resources sector also.
No instability – high food prices consolidates regime power
Esfahlani and Abdi 8/2 (“Sanctions cripple Iran's middle class, not the regime,” 8/2/12, Mohammad Sadeghi
Esfahlani is a PhD student in Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary, and was the founder of
the first virtual political campaign on Facebook in the Middle East. Jamal Abdi is the Policy Director of the
National Iranian American Council. He previously worked in US Congress as a Policy Advisor on foreign
affairs, ) hhs-ps
As documented by the report's firsthand account on the ground, sanctions are not driving the working class to join Iran's democracy
movement, they are doing the opposite -- decimating the Iranian middle class, that has been at the center of the democracy movement, by
intensifying their economic struggles. The greatest impediment for Iran's pro-democracy movement -- as we saw at the height of the Green
Movement protests in 2009 -- has been that working class Iranians who are preoccupied with immediate financial struggles are
unable to enlist in a struggle for political freedoms. Additionally, economist Djavad Salehi-Isfahani argues that "As basic services
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deteriorate, and the shortages and long lines that were common sights during the Iran-Iraq war reappear, the government will
once again become not the source but the remedy to their problems." Populist hardliners in Iran have proven adroit at
exploiting economic vulnerabilities to consolidate political power, investing in working class constituencies and directly
dispersing direct financial aid and even food and basic goods. Hence, sanctions have played a major role in Iran's transformation from a theocracy to a
"thughocracy." And with private businesses increasingly being squeezed out, Iranians are becoming more dependent on the state and "thus
unable and fearful of engaging in civil activism" at the risk of losing their livelihood, according to the ICAN report. At the same time, the
ICAN report also finds that women are bearing a disproportionate burdened under sanctions. Educated woman, who "have been the primary engine of sociopolitical change in Iran," face diminishing opportunities in the public and private sphere as conservatives exploit the political and economic impact of sanctions
to advance a regressive social agenda.
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1NC Case – Deforestation
They have to win their food price spike internal link to access this impact
Robust peer reviewed evidence indicates ecosystems are resilient
Matthew McDermott, 09, “Good news: most ecosystems can recover in one lifetime from human induced or natural
disturbance” www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/most-ecosystems-can-recover-from-disturbance-in-one-lifetime.php]
There's a reason the phrase "let nature take its course" exists: New research
done at the Yale University School of Forestry & Environmental Science
reinforces the idea that ecosystems are quiet resilient and can rebound from pollution and environmental degradation. Published in
the journal PLoS ONE, the study shows that most damaged ecosystems worldwide can recover within a single lifetime, if the source
of pollution is removed and restoration work done: Forests Take Longest of Ecosystems Studied The analysis found that on
average forest ecosystems can recover in 42 years, while in takes only about 10 years for the ocean bottom to recover. If an area has seen multiple, interactive
disturbances, it can take on average 56 years for recovery. In general, most ecosystems take longer to recover from human-induced disturbances than from
natural events, such as hurricanes. To reach these recovery averages, the researchers looked at data from peer-reviewed studies over the past
100 years on the rate of ecosystem recovery once the source of pollution was removed. Interestingly, the researchers found that it appears that the
rate at which an ecosystem recovers may be independent of its degraded condition: Aquatic systems may recover more quickly than, say, a forest, because the
species and organisms that live in that ecosystem turn over more rapidly than in the forest.
Their AM evidence says that Brazil is already going to outpace the US in terms of soybean production
without the collapse of locks – means their impact is inevitable
No human extinction – adaptation and functional redundancy
Doremus, Berkeley La, 2K [Holly, Law Professor – Cal Berkeley, 57 Wash & Lee L. Rev. 11, L/N]
Reluctant to concede such losses, tellers
of the ecological horror story highlight how close a catastrophe might be, and how little we
know about what actions might trigger one. But the apocalyptic vision is less credible today than it seemed in the 1970s. Nor is
human extinction probable any time soon. Homo sapiens is adaptable to nearly any environment. Even if the world of the
future includes far fewer species, it likely will hold people. n215 [*47] One response to this credibility problem tones the story down a bit,
arguing not that humans will go extinct but that ecological disruption will bring economies, and consequently civilizations, to their knees. n216 But this too
may be overstating the case. Most ecosystem functions are performed by multiple species. This functional redundancy means that a
high proportion of species can be lost without precipitating a collapse. n217
They have no internal link into their extinction claim. Their evidence says that without the plan
deforestation will occur but they have NO evidence that this would kill ONE MILLION species which is
the number their evidence identifies as what would cause extinction.
No reason why Brazil would stop competing – US soy competitiveness would cause Brazil to ramp up soy
production
Cattle ranching is a bigger threat to the Amazon than soy farming – our evidence is comparative
Reuters 09 (“Cattle, not soy, drives Amazon deforestation: report” 4/14/09, www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/14/us-brazil-amazonidUSTRE53D65C20090414)
(Reuters) - Cattle ranchers are far bigger culprits in Amazon deforestation than soy farmer s, a study showed on Tuesday, as the
environmental record of Brazil's commodity exporters comes under increasing international scrutiny. The study, produced jointly by
environmental groups and the soy industry, showed that only 12 of 630 sample areas deforested since July 2006 -- or 0.88
percent of 157,896 hectares (390,000 acres) -- were planted with soy. By comparison, nearly 200 were converted into
pasture land for cattle. The rest of the deforested areas had not yet been put to use. "The big villain of Amazon destruction is
cattle ranching," said Paulo Adario, Amazon campaign coordinator with Greenpeace, one of the groups that sponsored the
report. Each year country-sized chunks of the world's largest rain forest are devastated, although the rate has fallen
sharply from a few years ago and preliminary data shows it fell further in the past 10 months. In addition to loggers,
ranchers and peasants, large-scale farmers are often blamed for contributing to the devastation as Brazil's agricultural frontier has
expanded due to strong foreign demand for the country's commodities in recent years. Brazil is the world's biggest beef exporter and the second-
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largest exporter of soy, much of which is bought by China. Adario said the size of deforested plots had been falling
consistently in recent years. That suggests that soy farmers, who require large areas to be efficient, were no longer
involved directly in clearing forest.
Their impact is non-unique. Their Takacs evidence says that we’ve already passed the tipping point for
biodiversity and extinction is inevitable within the century.
Soybean farming doesn’t cause deforestation
Reuters 09 (“Cattle, not soy, drives Amazon deforestation: report” 4/14/09, www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/14/us-brazil-amazonidUSTRE53D65C20090414)
Brazil's soy industry, with exports of $18 billion last year, agreed in July 2006 not to trade soy from deforested areas. That
accord helped prevent farmers from clearing large, new areas, the authors of the report said. "Soy is no longer a big threat to the
Amazon," said Carlo Lovatelli, head of the soy industry association Abiove.
Species loss solves extinction
Michael Boulter (professor of paleobiology at the University of East London) 2002 Extinction: Evolution and the End of Man, p. 67
If biological evolution really is a self-organised Earth-life system there are some very important consequences. One is that life on this planet continues
despite internal and external setbacks, because it is the system that recovers at the expense of some of its former parts. For example,
the end of the dinosaurs enabled mammals to diversify. Otherwise if the exponential rise were to reach infinity, there would
not be space or food to sustain life. It would come to a stop. Extinctions are necessary to retain life on this planet.
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1NC Case – Economy
Economy stagnant now - jobs
NYT “Stuck in Place,” 8/3/12 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/04/opinion/the-economy-is-stuck-in-place.html
With 163,000 new jobs created, July’s employment growth topped both analysts’ expectations and the meager job gains in May and June. While that
growth was not enough to reduce the jobless rate —now 8.3 percent — it was enough to boost the stock market. For investors, the job
tally was just high enough to be a pleasant surprise and low enough to give them hope that the Federal Reserve would soon intervene to juice the economy.
The market’s reaction aside, the report actually shows how bad things are and highlights what needs to be done to improve
conditions. July’s job-growth figure brings the monthly average tally for 2012 to 151,000, compared with a monthly average in 2011 of 153,000. At that
tepid pace, it would take roughly 10 more years to regain the jobs that were lost — or never created — as a result of the Great
Recession. The month’s jobless rate brings the average for 2012 to 8.2 percent, compared with an average in 2011 of 9 percent, though most of the
“improvement” is because of a shrinking labor force, not more hiring. The average hourly wage in 2012, adjusted for inflation through June,
has been $23.39; the average in 2011 was $23.44. The picture that emerges is of a job market that is stuck. Broader measures reinforce that
conclusion: In the first half of this year, economic growth averaged 1.7 percent; in 2011, it was 1.8 percent. For all the up and down of monthly and quarterly
economic data, the economy lacks forward momentum.
Economic decline doesn’t cause war
Morris Miller, economist, adjunct professor in the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Administration, consultant on international development issues, former
Executive Director and Senior Economist at the World Bank, Winter 2k, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, Vol. 25, Iss. 4, “Poverty as a cause of wars?” p.
Proquest
The question may be reformulated. Do wars spring from a popular reaction to a sudden economic crisis that exacerbates poverty and growing
disparities in wealth and incomes? Perhaps one could argue, as some scholars do, that it is some dramatic event or sequence of such events leading to the
exacerbation of poverty that, in turn, leads to this deplorable denouement. This exogenous factor might act as a catalyst for a violent reaction on the part of the
people or on the part of the political leadership who would then possibly be tempted to seek a diversion by finding or, if need be, fabricating an enemy and
setting in train the process leading to war. According to a study undertaken by Minxin Pei and Ariel Adesnik of the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, there would not appear to be any merit in this hypothesis. After studying ninety-three episodes of
economic crisis in twenty-two countries in Latin America and Asia in the years since the Second World War they concluded that:19 Much of the
conventional wisdom about the political impact of economic crises may be wrong ... The severity of economic crisis - as measured in
terms of inflation and negative growth - bore no relationship to the collapse of regimes ... (or, in democratic states, rarely) to an outbreak of
violence ... In the cases of dictatorships and semidemocracies, the ruling elites responded to crises by increasing repression (thereby using one form of
violence to abort another).
Even if war broke out it wouldn’t escalate
D. Scott Bennett and Timothy Nordstrom 2000 (Department of Political Science Professors at Pennsylvania
State, "Foreign Policy Substitutability and Internal Economic Problems in Enduring Rivalries," Journal of
Conflict Resolution, Ebsco)
When engaging in diversionary actions in response to economic problems, leaders will be most interested in a cheap, quick
victory that gives them the benefit of a rally effect without suffering the long-term costs (in both economic and popularity
terms) of an extended confrontation or war. This makes weak states particularly inviting targets for diversionary action since they may
be less likely to respond than strong states and because any response they make will be less costly to the initiator. Following Blainey (1973), a state facing poor
economic conditions may in fact be the target of an attack rather than the initiator. This may be even more likely in the context of a rivalry because rival states
are likely to be looking for any advantage over their rivals. Leaders may hope to catch an economically challenged rival looking inward in response to a
slowing economy. Following the strategic application of diversionary conflict theory and states' desire to engage in only cheap
conflicts for diversionary purposes, states should avoid conflict initiation against target states experiencing economic problems.
Global economy is resilient
Financial Times, 9/27/2006, p. lexis
To doubt the resilience of the world economy must now look perverse. Since 2000, it has overcome so many obstacles:
post-bubble traumas in Japan; the bursting of a global stock market bubble in 2000; the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001; a
US recession; years of stagnation in the eurozone; wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; real oil prices at levels close to those of the
late 1970s; and the failure to complete the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations. Yet, in spite of all this, world economic growth
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was 4.1 per cent in 2003, 5.3 per cent in 2004 and 4.9 per cent in 2005, measured at purchasing power parity exchange rates. In the International
Monetary Fund's latest World Economic Outlook (WEO), it is forecast to reach 5.1 per cent this year.*
Specifically, the US economy is resilient
Michael Dawson, US Treasury Deputy Secretary for Critical Infrastructure Protection and Compliance Policy, January 8, 2004,
Remarks at the Conference on Protecting the Financial Sector and Cyber Security Risk Management, “Protecting the Financial
Sector from Terrorism and Other Threats,” http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/js1091.htm
Fortunately, we are starting from a very strong base. The American economy is resilient. Over the past few years, we have seen that
resilience first hand, as the American economy withstood a significant fall in equity prices, an economic recession, the terrorist
attacks of September 11, corporate governance scandals, and the power outage of August 14-15. There are many reasons for the
resilience of the American economy. Good policies – like the President’s Jobs and Growth Initiative – played an important part. So has the
resilience of the American people. One of the reasons are economy is so resilient is that our people are so tough, so determined to
protect our way of life. Like the economy as a whole, the American financial system is resilient. For example, the financial
system performed extraordinarily well during the power outage last August. With one exception, the bond and major equities and futures
markets were open the next day at their regular trading hours. Major market participants were also well prepared, having invested in contingency plans,
procedures, and equipment such as backup power generators. The U.S. financial sector withstood this historic power outage without any reported loss or
corruption of any customer data. This resilience mitigates the economic risks of terrorist attacks and other disruptions, both to the
financial system itself and to the American economy as a whole.
The impact to economic decline is slow
Bruce Russett, Dean Acheson Professor of International Relations and Political Science at Yale University,
December 1983, International Studies Quarterly, v27 n4, “Prosperity and Peace: Presidential Address,”
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-8833%28198312%2927%3A4%3C381%3APAPPA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V, p.
384
The ‘optimism’ argument seems strained to me, but elements of Blainey’s former thesis, about the need to mobilize resources before war can be begun, are
more plausible, especially in the 20th century. Modern wars are fought by complex organizations, with complex and expensive weapons.
It takes time to design and build the weapons that military commanders will require, and it takes time to train the troops who must use them.
Large bureaucracies must plan and obtain some consensus on those plans; and even in a dictatorship the populace in general must be prepared,
with clear images of who are their enemies and of the cause that will justify war with them. In short, preparations for war take time. Just how long a
lag we should expect to find between an economic downturn and subsequent war initiation is unclear. But surely it will be more than a
year or two, and war may well occur only after the economy is recovering.
No causality – economic decline doesn’t cause war
Niall Ferguson 06, Professor of History @ Harvard, The Next War of the World, Foreign Affairs 85.5, Proquest
There are many unsatisfactory explanations for why the twentieth century was so destructive. One is the assertion that the availability
of more powerful weapons caused bloodier conflicts. But there is no correlation between the sophistication of military technology and the lethality of conflict.
Some of the worst violence of the century -- the genocides in Cambodia in the 1970s and central Africa in the 1990s, for instance -- was perpetrated with the
crudest of weapons: rifles, axes, machetes, and knives. Nor can economic crises explain the bloodshed. What may be the most familiar
causal chain in modern historiography links the Great Depression to the rise of fascism and the outbreak of World War II. But that simple
story leaves too much out. Nazi Germany started the war in Europe only after its economy had recovered. Not all the countries
affected by the Great Depression were taken over by fascist regimes, nor did all such regimes start wars of aggression. In fact,
no general relationship between economics and conflict is discernible for the century as a whole. Some wars came after periods
of growth, others were the causes rather than the consequences of economic catastrophe, and some severe economic crises
were not followed by wars.
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