Cal EM Neg v. Minnesota CE – Fullerton R4
1NC
K – Governmentality
Legalizing marijuana is a tactic of neoliberal governmentality that places the onus on
individuals to govern themselves while the government sits back and makes sure that
they’re doing it right – this increases state control through regulatory mechanisms
while minimizing its perception
O’Brien 13 - University of Wisconsin-Whitewater (February 25, Patrick, “Medical Marijuana and Social
Control: Escaping Criminalization and Embracing Medicalization” Deviant Behavior, 34: 423–443, Taylor
& Francis)
A latent outcome of this legal-medical system has been its adaptation to the new criminologies evidenced in late modern society (Garland
1996, 2001). The medicalization of cannabis has defined deviance down significantly (Moynihan 1993) and effectively reduced the demands
placed on the State’s criminal justice agencies. At the same time,
the State has increasingly embedded social controls
into the fabric of society , rather than inserting them from above in the form of sovereign command (Garland 2001).
Medical
dispensary owners, cultivators, investors, and employees, along with local politicians and affiliated
business owners, have
remained bound to State laws and policies, but have also been expected to proctor
themselves while government powers watch at a distance for a breakdown in control. The State has conceded
that it is unable to manage the illicit marijuana market alone and has redirected its control efforts away
from the sole authority of the police, the courts, and the prisons. The dispensary industry has provided the State
a situation in which it governs, but does not coercively control marijuana and its users. Instead, the State
manages the drug through the actors involved in the legal-medical industry, and has effectively mandated them as active partners in sustaining
and enforcing the formal and informal controls of the dispensary system.
resigned its power. On the contrary, it
The State
controls at an ostensibly distant fashion, but it has not
has retained its traditional command over the police and the prisons
while expanding its efficiency and capacity to control marijuana and its users . This new reality in crime control
has stratified itself across all facets of society, including its structural, cultural, and interactional dimensions. At the structural level, the
legal-medical model has reduced the strain of a substantial segment of society by institutionalizing
acceptable and lawful means of accessing marijuana, effectively shifting this population into an ecological
position where they can be watched and controlled . The groups once involved in the illicit market have
become visible, and the laws that govern the use, distribution, and production of cannabis have
actually become enforceable
by the State. Marijuana users have become patients, requiring a physician’s recommendation to con
sume the drug lawfully. The State has mandated what medical conditions warrant a registry card, monitoring people through licensing
applications, doctors’ files, government paperwork, and the medical marijuana registry. Dispensary owners have been required to grow 70%of
their own product, to provide live 24-hour surveillance camera feeds of their cultivation and distribution warehouses, and to subject
themselves to periodic inspection. Dispensary owners and employees have been fingerprinted and undergone extensive background checks,
and marijuana businesses only operate in State zoned locations. By
amassing knowledge about the social organization
of the marijuana industry and its users, the government has engaged in monitoring, aggregating, and
transmitting such information to law enforcement and the public. At the cultural level, the legal-medical system
has provided a greater degree of social order, stability, and integration by relocating marijuana users
into the fold of conventional norms and values. Cultural cohesion and conformity have been fostered
through legitimate business opera tions that cater to conventional lifestyles and work hours, that quell
concerns over safety and lawfulness, and reduce the alienation of a subculture of users. The State has
effectively aligned a once criminal population of people with dominant ideals of normality (Goffman 1983)
and dismantled a framework of deviant organization (Best and Luckenbill 1982) with
distinct ideol ogies and norms concerning
marijuana sales and use. The government has incorporated the norms and values of conventional society into the processes of
distributing and using cannabis, and now assists in controlling marijuana through the cultural transmission (Shaw and McKay 1972) of rituals
and sanctions now aligned with the normative social order. Both
of these macro- and meso-level shifts have augmented State
control of marijuana and its users at an interactional level. These structural and cultural changes have directly
influenced micro-level processes and mediated people’s differential associations and social learning
processes (Akers 2000; Sutherland 1949; Sutherland and Cressey 1955) as users have been increasingly socialized into a
conventional drug lifestyle. Marijuana users in the dispensary sys tem have decreased their contacts with deviant others and
increased their contacts with legitimate associations by purchasing lawfully from licensed distributors. Dispensary owners have
come to interact with banks, contractors, real estate firms, tax specialists, and lawyers because they exist in
legitimate occupational associations and lawful community relations. This legal-medical model has allowed the State to
further monitor interactional processes through receipts, taxes, and video surveillance. This continuous supervision
has led to growing discipline and normal ization. The State has prescribed conforming modes of
conduct upon marijuana users with new found power
(Foucault 1975). Zoning laws have mandated where transactions
occur, distribution laws have defined how much can be purchased, and monitored business hours have controlled the time sales occur. The
State has also strengthened individual bonds to society (Hirschi 1969) as a medical license protects users’ conventional
investments (i.e., education, career, and family) and caters to their time-consuming activities as they have decided the time, speed, and
location of their purchases. Finally, State medicalization of marijuana
has prompted people to endorse society’s rules as
progressively more politically and morally correct , since users are typically critical of cannabis
prohibition. This
legal-medical
system has also accommodated the ideals of neoliberalism . Through the
adaptive strategy of responsibilization (Garland 2001), the penalization
strategies (i.e., control mechanisms) regulating
marijuana have become increasingly privatized , operating through civil society. For example, although the
State has demanded 24-hour video surveillance over dispensary operations, it has also required these businesses to regulate
their own marijuana production and distribution, monitor their own employees and financial accounts, and direct their own
branding and promotional campaigns. Furthermore, by defining deviance down, marijuana has become legally sold through privately owned
dispensaries. In neoliberal fashion, marijuana has been deregulated for capital gain.
Biopower and neoliberalism combine to create a unique form of necropolitics that
drives endless extermination in the name of maintaining the strength of the market
Banerjee 6 - University of South Australia (Subhabrata Bobby, “Live and Let Die: Colonial Sovereignties
and the Death Worlds of Necrocapitalism,” Borderlands, Volume 5 No. 1,
http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol5no1_2006/banerjee_live.htm)
10. Agamben shows how sovereign power operates in the production of bare life in a variety of contexts:
concentration camps, 'human guinea pigs' used by Nazi doctors, current debates on euthanasia, debates on human rights
and refugee rights. A sovereign decision to apply a state of exception invokes a power to decide the
value of life, which would allow a life to be killed without the charge of homicide. The killings of mentally and physically handicapped
people during the Nazi regime was justified as ending a 'life devoid of value', a life 'unworthy to be lived'. Sovereignty thus becomes a decision
on the value of life, 'a power to decide the point at which life ceases to be politically relevant' (Agamben, 1998: 142). Life is
no more
sovereign as enshrined in the declaration of 'human' rights but becomes instead a political decision, an
exercise of biopower (Foucault, 1980). In the context of the 'war on terror' operating in a neoliberal economy, the
exercise of biopower results in the creation of a type of sovereignty that has profound implications for
those whose livelihoods depend on the war on terror as well as those whose lives become constituted as 'bare life' in the economy of the war
on terror. 11. However, it is not enough to situate sovereignty and biopower in the context of a neoliberal economy especially in the case of the
war on terror. In
a neoliberal economy, the colony represents a greater potential for profit especially as it is
this space that, as Mbembe (2003: 14) suggests, represents a permanent state of exception where sovereignty
is the exercise of power outside the law, where 'peace was more likely to take on the face of a war
without end'
and
where violence could operate in the name of civilization.
But these forms of necropolitical
power, as Mbembe reads it in the context of the occupation of Palestine, literally create 'death worlds, new and unique
forms of social existence in which vast populations are subjected to conditions of life conferring upon
them the status of theliving dead
' (Mbembe, 2003: 40). The
state of endless war is precisely the space
where profits accrue whether it is through the extraction of resources or the use of privatized militias or
through contracts for reconstruction. Sovereignty over death worlds results in the application of
necropower either literally as the right to kill or the right to 'civilize', a supposedly 'benevolent' form of
power that requires the destruction of a culture in order to 'save the people from themselves' (Mbembe,
2003:22). This
attempt to save the people from themselves has, of course, been the rhetoric used by the
U.S. government in the war on terror and the war in Iraq. 12. Situating necropolitics in the context of economy, Montag
(2005: 11) argues that if necropolitics is interested in the production of death or subjugating life to the power of death then it is possible to
speak of a necroeconomics - a space of 'letting die or exposing to death'. Montag explores the relation of the market to life and death in his
reading of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments. In Montag's reading of Smith, it is 'the dread of death, the great
poison to the happiness...which while it afflicts and mortifies the individual, guards and protects the society' (cited in Montag, 2005: 12). If
social life was driven solely by unrestrained self-interest then the fear of punishment or death through juridical systems kept the pursuit of
excessive self-interest in check, otherwise people would simply rob, injure and kill for material wealth. Thus, for Smith the universality of life is
contingent on the particularity of death, the production of life on the production of death where the intersection of the political and the
economic makes it necessary to exercise the right to kill. The market then, as a 'concrete form of the universal' becomes the 'very form of
universality as life' and requires at certain moments to 'let die'. Or as Montag theorizes it, Death establishes the conditions of life; death
as
by an invisible hand restores the market to what it must be to support life. The allowing of death of the
particular is necessary to the production of life of the universal. The market reduces and rations life; it not
only allows death ,
it demands death be allowed by the sovereign power , as well as by those who suffer it. In other
words, it
demands and required the latter allow themselves to die. Thus alongside the figure of homo sacer,
the one who may be killed with impunity, is another figure, one whose death is no doubt less spectacular than the first and is the object
of no memorial or commemoration: he who with impunity may be allowed to die, slowly or quickly, in the name of the
rationality and equilibrium of the market (Montag, 2005: 15). Montag, therefore, theorizes a necroeconomics
where the state becomes the legitimate purveyor of violence: in this scenario, the state can compel by
force by 'those who refuse to allow themselves to die'
(Montag, 2005: 15). However, Montag's concept of
necroeconomics appears to universalize conditions of poverty through the logic of the market. My concern however, is the creation of death
worlds in colonial contexts through the collusion between states and corporations. 13. If
states and corporations work in
tandem with each other in colonial contexts, creating states of exception and exercising necropower to
profit from the death worlds that they establish, then necroeconomics fails to consider the specificities of colonial capitalist practices. In this
sense, I would argue that necrocapitalism
emerges from the intersection of necropolitics and necroeconomics, as practices of
accumulation in colonial contexts by specific economic actors - multinational corporations for example - that
involve dispossession, death, torture, suicide, slavery, destruction of livelihoods and the general
management of violence. It is a new form of imperialism, an imperialism that has learned to 'manage
things better' . Colonial sovereignty can be established even in metropolitan sites where necrocapitalism may operate in states of
exception: refugee detention centres in Australia are examples of these states of exception (Perera, 2002). However, in the colonies (either
'post' or 'neo'), entire regions in the Middle East or Africa may be designated as states of exception.
By picking the winner of a mechanism of state-based legalization, the affirmative
forecloses the potential of constant questioning and emergence of innovative nonstate solutions – only the alt solves
Seddon 2010 – reader at U of Manchester (Toby, “A History of Drugs: Drugs and Freedom in the
Liberal Age”)
I want to end these introductory remarks by saying a little more here about what is currently the most pervasive, and
indeed most powerful, mode of drug-policy critique. I referred to this above as the arguments for legalization or decriminalization
and these are useful shorthand labels for what is a familiar position. It is founded on the idea that the prohibition paradigm lies at
the core of our contemporary difficulties in dealing with the‘drug problem’. The solution, from this
perspective, is to scrap the drug laws and start afresh with a more rational and humane approach. For those
with slightly broader vision, the target is reform not just of national drug laws but of the entire edifice of
international drug control administered by the United Nations. I have a great deal of sympathy for this line of argument. Indeed, it is
very difficult to study drug policy for any length of time without coming to the conclusion eventually that the prohibition paradigm is
fatally flawed and in fact causes more problems and more suffering than it alleviates or prevents. As I have now been researching in this
area for about 15 years, I have certainly seen plenty of evidence for this! Nevertheless, despite this,
I have some significant doubts
about this approach . At the heart of my concern is a view that this way of identifying or describing the problem
does not provide the analytic space necessary for finding and developing a good solution to it . This is
somewhat ironic, of course, as most drug-law reform campaigners tend to identify themselves explicitly as focused on policy matters, rather
than theoretical or philosophical ones. I think the
fundamental difficulty is that the implicit analytical frame is a
Hobbesian one which assumes that the solution to the problem must be located within a framework
of state institutions
(or supra-national institutions like the UN or EU to which states sign up). I
am rather pessimistic about
the prospects of finding answers or solutions within this type of frame. And indeed, in my eyes at least, it is telling that
one of the weakest parts of the drug-law reformers’ case is when it comes to making concrete
suggestions or proposals for what should be done after prohibition is dismantled. But I am not in fact
pessimistic or nihilistic about the prospects for change and it is here that a regulation perspective comes in.
Regulatory scholarship is based on a theoretically and conceptually sophisticated understanding of how regulation and governance actually
operate in the real world built up through years of rich empirical research across diverse fields. In this chapter, I want to explore then how far
we can get by framing the ‘drug problem’ as a regulatory and governance challenge and whether this approach may provide new conceptual
tools for the construction of new policy directions. Of course, ‘“governance” is not synonymous with “good governance”’(Burris et al., 2008: 3),
nor ‘regulation’ with‘good regulation’. Simply to identify something as a‘regulatory and governance challenge’ does not lead automatically to
the‘best’ policy solution. Nevertheless, there is good evidence from the work of Braithwaite, Shearing and others to suggest that this type of
approach has great potential, both intellectually and practically. As those two scholars, in particular, have demonstrated, the best work
here proceeds not by ignoring or evading normative issues but by connecting them with explanatory
theory through an ongoing and interactive process of‘iterated adjustment’ (Braithwaite, 2000: 64–65). In the main sections of this
chapter, I am going to explore how some related but distinct approaches to regulation and governance might be applied to the analysis of drug
policy. As well as the regulatory scholarship from the ANU ‘School’ led by Braithwaite that I have already mentioned, I will also draw on the
closely related nodal governance approach developed by Clifford Shearing, Scott Burris and others. I will look as well at some of the global
governance scholarship, including the work on the idea of global administrative law developed by Benedict Kingsbury and colleagues at the
New York University School of Law. What
all these approaches share in common is that they eschew state-led or
state-centric approaches to understanding how politics and government actually work–the Hobbesian frame
that I referred to above. This also articulates well with the governmentality perspective and its emphasis on
examining‘political power beyond the state’ (Rose and Miller, 1992; Rose, 1999), providing a further indication of the
coherence within the twin-track analytical strategy I described above.
The alternative is to refuse to imagine legality – only the formation of autonomous
geographies can challenge biopolitical neoliberalism
Pickerill & Chatterton 6 - Leicester University AND Leeds University (Jenny and Paul, “Notes
towards autonomous geographies: creation, resistance and self-management as survival tactics”
Progress in Human Geography30, 6 (2006) pp. 730–746)
In essence, autonomy is a coming together of theory and practice, or praxis. Hence, it is not solely an intellectual tool nor a guide for living;
it is a means and an end. Autonomous geographies represent the deed and the word, based around ongoing examples and
experiments. Autonomous
spaces are not spaces of deference to higher organizational levels
governmental organizations, political representatives or trade union officials. They
such as non-
are based around a belief that the
process is as important as the outcome of resistance , that the journey is an end in itself. As the Zapatistas say: ‘we
don’t know how long we have to walk this path or if we will ever arrive, but at least it is the path we have
chosen to take’. Autonomous geographies are based around a belief in prefigurative politics (summed up by
the phrase ‘be the change you want to see’), that
change is possible through an accumulation of small changes ,
providing much-needed hope against a feeling of powerlessness. Part of this is the belief in ‘doing it yourself ’ (see
McKay, 1998) or
creating workable alternatives outside the state . Many examples have flourished embracing ecological
direct action, free parties and the rave scene, squatting and social centres, and opensource software and independent media (Wall, 1999; Seel
et al., 2000; Plows, 2002; Chatterton and Hollands, 2003; Pickerill, 2003a; 2006). Resources are creatively reused, skills shared, and popular or
participatory education techniques deployed, aiming to develop a critical consciousness, political and media literacy and clear ethical
judgements (Freire, 1979). In
the terrain opened up by the failure of state-based and ‘actually existing
socialism’, autonomy allows a rethinking of the idea of revolution – not about seizing the state’s power
but, as Holloway (2002) argues, ‘changing the world without taking power’
(Vaneigem, 1979). Autonomy
does not
mean an absence of structure or order, but the rejection of a government that demands obedience
(Castoriadis, 1991). Examples of postcapitalist ways of living are already part of the present (Gibson-Graham, 1996). The documentation of the
‘future in the present’ has been a hallmark of work by anarchist, libertarian and radical scholars from Peter Kropotkin (1972) to Colin Ward
(1989) and Murray Bookchin (1996). Their
work looks for tendencies that counter competition and conflict,
providing alternative paths. Some of these disappear, others survive, but the challenge remains to find
them, encourage people to articulate, expand and connect them. Autonomous projects face the
accusation that, even if they do improve participants’ quality of living, they fail to have a transformative
impact on the broader locality and even less on the global capitalist system (DeFilippis, 2004). Consequently, in talking of local
resistance, Peck and Tickell (2002) suggest that ‘the defeat (or failure) of local neoliberalisms – even strategically important ones – will not be
enough to topple what we are still perhaps justified in calling “the system”’ (p. 401). However,
commentators make the mistake
of looking for signs of emerging organizational coherence , political leaders and a common programme that bids for
state power,
when the rules of engagement have changed . A plurality of voices is reframing the debate,
changing the nature and boundaries of what is taken as common sense and creating workable solutions
to erode the workings of market-based economies in a host of, as yet, unknown ways. Rebecca Solnit’s writings
on hope remind us that, while our actions’ effects are difficult to calculate, ‘causes and effects assume history
marches forward, but history is not an army . It is a crab scuttling sideways, a drip of soft water wearing
away stone’ (Solnit, 2004: 4).
DA – Iran Ptx
Obama’s using capital to persuade Congress to avoid sanctions on Iran but opponents
are nearing a veto-proof majority
Riechmann 12/29—Deb, AP writer, “Obama doesn't rule out opening US embassy in Iran; Congress
planning January vote on sanctions,” MN Star Tribune,
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/286993011.html --BR
While President Barack Obama hasn't ruled out the possibility of reopening a U.S. Embassy in Iran, Republicans
say the Senate will
vote within weeks on a bill to impose more sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program. Obama was asked in an
NPR interview broadcast on Monday whether he could envision opening an embassy there during his final two years in office. "I never say
never," Obama said, adding that U.S. ties with Tehran must be restored in steps. Washington
and its partners are hoping to
clinch a deal with Iran by July that would set long-term limits on Iran's enrichment of uranium and other activity that could produce
material for use in nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is solely for energy production and medical research purposes. It has agreed to some
restrictions in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from U.S. economic sanctions. On a visit to Israel on Saturday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., said the new Republican-controlled Senate will vote on an Iran sanctions bill in January. He said the
bipartisan sanction legislation says: "If Iran walks away from the table, sanctions will be re-imposed. If Iran cheats regarding any deal that we
enter to the Iranians, sanctions will be re-imposed." Graham also is sponsoring legislation that would require any deal with Iran to be approved
by Congress before sanctions could be lifted. Standing alongside Graham, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Iran a "dangerous
regime" that should be prevented from having nuclear weapons. "I believe that what is required are more sanctions, and stronger sanctions,"
Netanyahu said. The Obama administration has
been telling members of Congress that it has won significant
concessions from Iran for recently extending nuclear talks, including promises by the Islamic republic to allow snap
inspections of its facilities and to neutralize much of its remaining uranium stockpile. Administration officials have been
presenting the Iranian concessions to lawmakers in the hopes of convincing them to support the
extension and hold off on new economic sanctions that could derail the diplomatic effort . Obama has
threatened to veto any new sanctions legislation while American diplomats continue their push for an accord that would set
multiyear limits on Iran's nuclear progress in exchange for an easing of the international sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy.
Senate hawks are still trying to build a veto-proof majority of 67 votes with Republicans set to assume
the majority next month. Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., told Fox News Sunday that Senate Republicans might have enough backing from
Democrats to pass veto-proof legislation that would impose more sanctions on Iran. "The good thing about those votes, they will be really
bipartisan votes," he said. "I have 17 Democrats with me. . We
have a shot at even getting to a veto-proof majority in
the Senate."
The plan kills PC
Sullivan 12—Andrew, one of the most widely syndicated columnists in the USA, “The Silent Stoner
President, Ctd,” The Dish, http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2012/11/27/the-silent-stoner-president-ctd/ - BR
That old footage you showed of Obama speaking in favor of decriminalization in 2004 reminded me of one of the weirdest
Obama videos I've ever seen. It's from the summer of 2007 when he was running for president and in it someone on a
rope line in New Hampshire asked what his stance was regarding medical marijuana. You can tell right away from
Obama's body language that he really doesn't want to answer this question , presumably because he
thinks it's a political landmine . Then the oddest thing happens, and I had to watch it a few times to
make sure that I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. You can see Reggie Love in the background
apparently listening to an earpiece, which I'm assuming must be radioed directly to somebody like Gibbs
or Axelrod or some other adviser. Reggie hears something in the earpiece and suddenly has to get
Obama's attention in the middle of this guy's question and not-so-smoothly transfers the ear piece to
Obama, who then pauses, and after a few beats apparently parrots back the stock answer coming to him
in his ear. Obama's response was that the Feds cracking down on state medical marijuana operations wouldn't be a worthwhile use of
federal resources. But never mind the answer, which didn't seem like his own. To me, it was one of those rare times where you
see the politically calculated side rather than the casual authenticity that usually comes across in him,
and the sense I got was that whatever Obama's actual position on marijuana is, he's not about to let that
be the issue that he wastes political capital on. That's not going to be the issue that prevents him from becoming president
and fixing everything else that he cares more about. As a big Obama supporter back in the summer of '07, I wouldn't have dared point out this
video before Obama won the Democratic primaries, the election in 2008, or the recent reelection, but now that we're on the other side of all
three, I couldn't help but pass along the footage. Above is some footage closer to the real Obama.
Obama’s capital is do or die—failure triggers war
Winsor 14 (Ben, “A Coalition Is Working Furiously Behind The Scenes To Support Obama's Iran Talks,”
Oct 2, http://www.businessinsider.com/rag-tag-iran-coalition-backing-diplomacy-2014-10)
Since November 2013, the Obama administration has engaged with Iran in tense, drawn-out nuclear
negotiations which optimists hope could bring an end to decades of hostility and mistrust. Throughout it
all, Congress has threatened to play the spoiler , with a tough sanctions bill passing the House and
looming in the Senate which would almost certainly scuttle the fragile talks over the Iranian nuclear program.
Now, as the deadline for the end of the talks approaches, a coalition of legislators, advocacy groups, and White
House officials are working to hold Congress back from the brink of thwarting what they see as a
historic window of opportunity. They're fighting against legislators and conservative groups
Heritage Foundation and The Free Enterprise Institute
like The
who are pushing for the US to take a hawkish stance . Legislators,
led by Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, have been maneuvering quietly behind the scenes in Congress to keep the talks alive. At the same
time,
officials from the White House have been leaning heavily on Senate Democrats to refrain from
bringing a sanctions bill to the floor . On the outside, a diverse range of pro-diplomacy groups, led by organisations like the
National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and the liberal Jewish organization J Street, have found a common cause and rallied together to lobby
for restraint. Even the Quakers are energized. “This
is a do-or-die moment, either we succeed, or we go in a much
more negative direction,” said NIAC co-founder Trita Parsi at the group’s annual conference last weekend. Parsi sees
the negotiations as a historic moment during a narrow window of opportunity . Presidents on both
sides have sunk significant time and energy into the talks and Parsi believes the current leadership in
both countries is more likely to make a deal than those who came before — or might come after. “The
next president, whatever political party they’re in, is not going to spend precious political capital
battling Congress… [Obama] is the guy ,” Parsi said. Supporters fear that failure of the talks could trigger
increased sanctions, the rise of hardliners in Iran, and relations spiraling toward military
confrontation .
Veto threats are only credible if Obama has capital
Lee 5—Andrew Lee (Professor of Political Science at Claremont McKenna College) 05 “Invest or Spend?
Political Capital and Statements of Administration Policy in the First Term of the George W. Bush
Presidency”, Georgia Political Science Association, Conference Proceedings
With these words, the Framers created veto power, a central feature of our legislative process. The veto, traditionally an
executive prerogative designed as a defensive check on Congress, has become an offensive tool for the
president’s legislative agenda. In addition to blocking disfavored legislation, the president may threaten
to veto favored legislation to compel Congress to change provisions within legislation. Congressional
leaders take a veto threat very seriously. How does Congress gauge the credibility of a veto threat?
Legislators would gauge the “political capital” of the president to determine the credibility of the
threat . According to political journalist Tod Lindberg (2004), political capital is a “form of persuasive authority stemming from a position of
political strength” (A21). Political capital can be measured by favorability and job approval polling numbers because they signify support for the
president’s actions and agenda. For example, President Bush’s leadership after the September 11th terrorist attacks increased his favorability
and job approval polling, and thus his political capital. He subsequently was able to launch a war with Afghanistan and Iraq. In such cases, the
president’s high political capital would make a veto more credible . Congress must also reckon whether the
president will think an issue is worth spending political capital on. As Richard S. Conley and Amie Kreppel (1999) write, “Whenever the
President . . . act[s] to change the voting behavior of a Member, political capital is expended. It would not be logical to expend that capital in
what was known ahead of time to be a losing battle” (2).
Goes nuclear
Avery 13 -- Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen (11/6/2013, John Scales Avery, “An Attack
On Iran Could Escalate Into Global Nuclear War,” http://www.countercurrents.org/avery061113.htm)
Despite the willingness of Iran's new President, Hassan Rouhani to make all reasonable concessions to US demands, Israeli pressure groups in
Washington continue to demand an
attack on Iran. But such an attack might escalate into a global nuclear war, with
War I, we should remember that this colossal disaster
escalated uncontrollably from what was intended to be a minor conflict. There is a danger that an attack
catastrophic consequences. As we approach the 100th anniversary World
on Iran would escalate into a large-scale war in the Middle East , entirely destabilizing a region
already deep in problems. The
that is
unstable government of Pakistan might be overthrown, and the revolutionary
Pakistani government might enter the war on the side of Iran, thus introducing nuclear weapons into
the conflict . Russia and China, firm allies of Iran, might also be drawn into a general war in the Middle East. Since
much of the world's oil comes from the region, such a war would certainly cause the price of oil to reach
unheard-of heights, with catastrophic effects on the global economy . In the dangerous situation that could
potentially result from an attack on Iran, there is
a risk that nuclear weapons would be used, either intentionally, or
by accident or miscalculation. Recent research has shown that besides making large areas of the world
uninhabitable through long-lasting radioactive contamination, a nuclear war would damage global
agriculture to such a extent that a global famine of previously unknown proportions would result. Thus,
nuclear war is the ultimate ecological catastrophe. It could destroy human civilization and much of the
biosphere. To risk such a war would be an unforgivable offense against the lives and future of all the
peoples of the world, US citizens included.
DA – Mexico Coop
US/Mexico defense cooperation high now
Lee 14, Production Editor at Council on Foreign Relations (3/5, Brianna, Mexico's Drug War,
www.cfr.org/mexico/mexicos-drug-war/p13689)
Security cooperation between the United States and Mexico expanded significantly with the Mérida
Initiative, launched in 2007, which designated nearly $1.4 billion in U.S. funds for Mexico, Central America, Haiti, and the Dominican
Republic. The bulk of the money went to Mexico, with a mandate to "break the power of organized crime, strengthen the U.S. southern border,
improve Mexican institutional capacity, and reduce the demand for drugs," according to CFR's Shannon O'Neil [PDF]. In March 2010, this
partnership was renewed with Beyond Mérida, which placed a larger emphasis on addressing the
socioeconomic factors underneath the violence. Over the past few years, the United States has sent
unarmed drones to collect intelligence on traffickers, and has also sent CIA operatives and retired
military personnel to a Mexican military base, while training Mexican federal police agents to assist in
wiretaps, interrogations, and running informants. The United States has also ramped up security on its own side of the border, spending
approximately $3 billion annually on patrolling the border. More than twenty thousand border patrol agents have been deployed, double the
number from a decade earlier. U.S.-Mexico
cooperation has also been effective in targeting drug kingpins: In a 2013
Congressional testimony, O'Neil said that many of the Mexican government's high-profile arrests or killings of top-level
drug lords "resulted from bilateral intelligence and operational cooperation."
Legalization tanks US/Mexico relations – signals lack of US resolve for the fight against
DTO’s
Murray 11, Elliott School of International Affairs/Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission
(Chad, Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations and Marijuana: The Potential Effects of U.S. Legalization,
https://elliott.gwu.edu/sites/elliott.gwu.edu/files/downloads/acad/lahs/mexico-marijuana-071111.pdf)
Relations between the U.S. and Mexico will deteriorate in the short-term if the U.S. legalizes
marijuana.
Relations between the United States and Mexico have improved over the last decade, and President Obama and President
Calderón continue to work diligently to maintain relations and combat drugs. However, this relationship is likely to decay even if the United
States legalizes marijuana in only a de facto manner on the state level. Last year President Calderón openly expressed his distaste for
Proposition 19 before it was defeated in November. He believes that any form of
would be a sign of hypocrisy
legalization of marijuana in the United States
as evident when he stated, “I think they [United States] have very little moral authority to condemn a
Mexican farmer who for hunger is planting marijuana to sustain the insatiable North American market for drugs.”86 Although President
Calderón has acknowledged the fact that the drug policy debate needs to take place, he has been adamant that legalization in the United States
is not the best policy. In addition, other Latin American leaders, such as Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, have expressed their support of
President Calderón‟s position on the legalization of marijuana. President Calderón and others believe that the legalization
of
marijuana in the United States would delegitimize the Mexican war on drugs . Some scholars note that if the
United States legalized marijuana, the Mexican populace would be left wondering, “What team are you
[United States] playing for?” Mexico has spent a lot of blood and treasure fighting against DTOs over the last
few years, and some feel that the legalization of marijuana in the United States, no matter how well intentioned,
would be negating those efforts. Proof of the seriousness of Mexico‟s dedication to the drug war is evidenced by the recent
tensions between the United States and Mexico.
Perception of reduced US support for the Mexican war on drugs collapses the overall
defense relationship
Downie 11, Director of the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the National Defense University
(Richard, Critical Strategic Decisions in Mexico: the Future of US/Mexican Defense Relations,
chds.dodlive.mil/files/2013/12/pub-OP-downie1.pdf)
Given the transnational nature of organized crime, we recognize that the United States cannot address
this issue without the help and involvement of international partners. Accordingly, we must ensure that
we stand united against this threat with our southern neighbor. If we want Mexico to be willing to
work with the United States in this fight, we must develop the political conditions that will indeed
make Mexico want to work with us . The three-year Mérida Initiative support is ending. The United States should
work with Mexico to develop and establish a follow-up strategy that demonstrates US resolve
and
leverages all instruments of national power to
help address Mexico’s security problems effectively. A bi-national
initiative with the full support of both nations will be required to achieve success against powerful and agile
transnational criminal organizations—a possible, but very difficult, task to accomplish in either, let alone both, countries. US
programs should continue to focus on building much needed judicial, intelligence, and law enforcement capacity in Mexico. Identify Realistically
Attainable Objectives and Manage Expectations. We must work with Mexico to determine realistic objectives that can be accomplished through
a binational partnership. Mexico’s domestic political issues are as complicated and as difficult as our own. On the one hand, the United States
would have Mexico accomplish judicial, law enforcement, and legislative reforms that would make their efforts against the TCOs more
effective. However, in Mexico all these issues have proven the most controversial and problematic to achieve. Conversely, the Mexicans expect
the United States to achieve the political objectives they desire. For example, at every opportunity, Mexican officials ask the United States to do
more to reduce demand for drugs, and to control the flow of weapons and cash from the United States to Mexican TCOs. Indeed, a prominent
Mexican legislator recently complained publicly that all Mexican Army checkpoints searching for drugs headed north should be turned around
to check for weapons and cash headed south.54 Yet the issues most important to Mexico, such as gun control and immigration reform, are the
most controversial, painful, and divisive for the United States. Over the past several years,
the improving US/Mexican defense
relationship has been an important indicator of the commitment our nations give to a combined
effort to fight transnational organized crime. The United States should seek to maintain the
momentum and bilateral collaboration this key aspect entails. Those in Mexico who oppose a strategy to confront the
TCOs assert that the United States is not taking the actions necessary to assist Mexico solve its problems. In many ways these critics are right.
Achieving a US strategy that would truly support Mexico is difficult because it demands consensus from influential domestic interest groups. To
accomplish their political agendas, these groups do not necessarily intend to scapegoat Mexico. But the collective result can be a
or program
that does not demonstrate the appropriate urgency or solidarity with Mexico
US policy
on challenges that
affect the United States. Such a plurality of views results in a lackluster effort in providing effective assistance. More importantly, it
emphasizes to our Mexican neighbors that too few in the United States recognize or even care that the
stakes are high in Mexico. The US/Mexican defense relationship is a demonstrable, unifying element
toward confronting our shared security challenges. We still have the opportunity to shape conditions
that may determine Mexico’s strategic decisions on how to address organized crime and violence. The time to take
action to demonstrate US resolve in this fight so critical to US interests is now.
Defense cooperation key to solve existential threats from pandemics, WMD terrorism,
and economic collapse
Baker 7, North American Aerospace Defense Command (Biff, The United States and Mexico Enhanced
Military Cooperation, http://www.disam.dsca.mil/pubs/Vol%2029_3/Baker_Biff.pdf)
Conventional conflicts will continue throughout the rest of the world and will continue to have little direct effect upon the North American
continent. However, the
asymmetric threat to Mexico and the United States has never been greater. Nonthreats may include narcotics traffickers, terrorists, or natural threats such as a pandemic
traditional, or non-conventional
influenza, none of which respect our common national borders. The September 11, 2001 attacks changed former perceptions of the threat,
such that superior information and intelligence sharing have become essential to the viability of our shared
economic infrastructure, as well as the safety and survival of our nations. Although stationing Mexican soldiers on
American soil or American soldiers on Mexican soil might be unpalatable to citizens in both nations, our nations have a common interest in
defending our people from external threats. The Louisiana offshore oil fields are as vulnerable to potential external threats as are the
Campache oil fields. Therefore, cooperative ventures must be expanded, which do not adversely impact upon sovereignty concerns. In addition,
trust is the foundation of every relationship whether it is between two individuals or two nations. Therefore,
we must maintain
continual outreach efforts to open and maintain dialogue among leadership of USNORTHCOM, SEMAR,
and SEDENA. Senior leaders within USNORTHCOM already acknowledge the professionalism and competence of the Mexican military.
Over the years, the Mexican military has maintained a fairly distant relationship with the United States counterparts.36 In turn, there was
significant gratitude for the Mexican army convoys and a naval ship laden with food, supplies and specialists that helped in the 2005 Hurricane
Katrina relief effort. This symbolic journey by Mexico’s military marked a new age of cooperation between our nations in the realm of
emergency support to civil agencies. The SPP is meant to enhance our common efforts to combat infectious diseases, develop responses to
man-made or natural disasters, and to coordinate efforts against terrorist threats. This provides a basis for enhanced cooperation among
USNORTHCOM, SEMAR, and SEDENA, which are addressed in the following paragraphs.
identified the Pandemic Influenza
(PI)
The
World Health Organization ( WHO)
has
as a potential threat to the world population . Pandemics killed
estimated 40–50 million people during the “Spanish influenza” in 1918, 2 million during the Asian influenza in 1957, and approximately 1
million deaths during the Hong Kong influenza in 1968.37 The WHO has used a relatively conservative estimate for PI from 2 million to 7.4
million deaths because it provides a useful and plausible planning target. Should
another PI occur, lead civilian agencies from
call upon the militaries of each country to assist civil authorities,
hence it makes sense to develop a bilateral plan whereby cooperation is assured. Responses to man-made or
Canada, Mexico and the United States would
natural disasters are central roles of the USNORTHCOM, SEMAR and SEDENA. The types of disasters may include hurricanes such as Katrina,
tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or floods. If the Popocatepetl Volcano, an Aztec word for ‘smoking mountain,’ erupted, millions of
Mexican citizens lives and livelihoods would be adversely affected. Similarly, faults could result in earthquakes impacting upon the San Diego
and Baja California region. Deaths and injuries on both sides of the border could impact upon millions of people, and would increase if the
response to such a tragedy was delayed. Undersea earthquakes could also result in a Tsunami, with disastrous consequences for United States
and Mexican citizens along the Pacific coast. Travel time between the earthquake occurrence and arrival of the first waves at the adjacent coast
varies from 10-20 minutes for the areas most severely affected, so that no official warnings could be broadcast in sufficient time for evacuation.
Whether the threat comes from narcotics-traffickers or external terrorists, the potential exists for
cooperation between USNORTHCOM, SEMAR and SEDENA against chemical, biological, nuclear , radiological and high
explosive
threats
(CBRNE). Any weapon of mass destruction of the CBRNE ilk would have a spillover effect from one nation to the other.
For example, an attack on Juarez, would impact upon El Paso Texas; similarly an attack on San Diego, California would impact upon Tijuana.
Hospitals could be overwhelmed, resources depleted and lives lost if bilateral cooperation did not occur. Development of Mexican Weapons-of
Mass Destruction-Civil Support Teams (WMDCST) would not require significant expenditures, but would greatly increase capabilities and lives
saved. In addition, this
cooperation could not occur in a mere military to military context, but would have to be pursued in an
inter-agency cooperative environment. Despite the significant steps forward resulting from the Mexican relief operations after
Hurricane Katrina, seamless interoperability is still a great distance away. Within the human dimension, we must increase the number of truly
fluent English-Spanish speakers to achieve any degree of interoperability. Secondly, numerous after action reports (AAR) have identified that
communications interoperability has been a needed, but neglected, capability in virtually every major disaster. Several AARs have identified
that messengers were the most efficient form of communications until electronic communications were established. Hence, a second area of
cooperation might be to train and equip SEMAR and SEDENA with communications packages that are interoperable with United States
emergency communications suites. Training, equipping, and then exercising communications interoperability in a civil support role would also
have positive spillover effects upon a homeland defense mission. Communications suites supporting post-natural disaster relief efforts could be
used in postterrorist attack scenarios as well as pre-conventional attack scenarios. Out of the approximately $1 billion spent by the United
States on counter-drug initiatives per year, less than 1 percent is provided to USNORTHCOM. In addition, the restrictions associated with the
American Service Member Protection Act (ASPA) have severely hampered the ‘equip’ portion of the training and equip roles. Future Legislators
in the United States must recognize that economics or trade is the U.S. center of gravity; and the
U.S. economic engine could be
adversely impacted by an attack on either Canada or Mexico. Hence, waivers for restrictions on training and equipment should
be a top priority. The attacks of September 11, 2001 showed that airspace can be threatened, and common sense leads to the possibility for
attacks to emerge through the maritime domain. Hence,
the Department of State and Department of Defense will
need to work closely with counterparts in Mexico at developing viable options to counter real-world
threats.
CP – Mexico Coop
Text: The United States should commit to a mutual bilateral cross-border marihuana
legalization policy with Mexico that legalizes nearly all marihuana removing it as a
Schedule 1 Drug from the federal Controlled Substances Act and by creating a
regulatory tax regime in a hemispheric dialogue on marijuana legalization among the
member countries of the Organization of American States. The United States should
not legalize marihuana unless Mexico agrees to the mutual bilateral cross border
marijuana legalization policy.
The United States should not legalize in isolation - only a hemispheric dialogue that
creates commitments to a mutual drug policy preserves post-legalization cooperation
Bender 12, Law prof at Seattle (Steven, Run for the Border: Vice and Virtue in U.S.-Mexico Border
Crossings, pg. 182)
A better outcome that preserves mutuality of cross-border policymaking would be shrinking the illicit
trafficking networks through reduced demand. As the world’s most voracious drug consumer, the United States can
abruptly staunch
demand for illicit drugs through selective legalization as outlined above. But the United States
should not legislate in a vacuum . As with immigration, both countries must realize their connectedness
and work toward a mutual drug policy that reflects the historical realities and honors foremost the safety of
communities on
both sides of the border. Because the drug trade resonates throughout other countries in
Latin America, particularly Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, an inter-American dialogue on the drug trafficking crisis must occur
to formulate and implement policy alternatives to prohibition .
Moreover, because
of the possibility that
Mexico (or Latin American) trafficking routes will continue or begin to supply drug demands in other
countries such as Canada, a hemispheric and even global dialogue must engage the international trend toward
selective legalization.
The counterplan solves the case – Mexico will backlash to the aff but respond
positively to the counterplan
Reich 13, Professor of Global Affairs and Political Science (Simon, The Paradox of Unilateralism:
Institutionalizing Failure in U.S.-Mexican Drug Strategies, NORTEAMÉRICA, Año 8, número 2, juliodiciembre)
Thus, the evident paradox –one whereby U.S. leaders can simultaneously speak of the success of certain operations and failure elsewhere– is
explained by the dynamic that ensues in
the aftermath of U.S. unilateralism, one in which Mexicans protest and U.S.
Americans agree to institute new regulations that primarily address the issue of U.S. American unilateralism rather than drug interdiction, and
so ignores the underlying policy issue . Unilateral U.S. policy carries the seeds of its own future policy
limitations
and the inevitable prospect of reduced autonomy. The sovereignty cycle is complete. Yet,
the cycle we have
identified, while most common, only occurs when the U.S. initiates a unilateral policy . There is also evidence
of an alternative pattern than ensues when the process is initiated on a bilateral basis , attempting to
address jointly identified problems , founded on principles derived from international legal sovereignty and employing
regulations derived from interdependent sovereignty. The
empirical evidence suggests that only this negotiated
problem-solving approach generates more positive outcomes in the fight against drugs, recognizing that
success is a relative concept and that the implementation of coordinated initiatives is the nearest we can offer as a measure of success in an
endless war.
Cartels Adv
No impact to heg
Fettweis 10 [Christopher J. Fettweis, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Tulane University,
“Threat and Anxiety in US Foreign Policy,” Survival, 52:2, 59-82, March 25th 2010,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00396331003764603]
One potential explanation for the growth of global peace can be dismissed fairly quickly: US actions do
not seem to have contributed much. The limited evidence suggests that there is little reason to believe
in the stabilising power of the US hegemon, and that there is no relation between the relative level of
American activism and international stability. During the 1990s, the United States cut back on its
defence spending fairly substantially. By 1998, the United States was spending $100 billion less on defence in real terms than it
had in 1990, a 25% reduction.29 To internationalists, defence hawks and other believers in hegemonic stability, this
irresponsible ‘peace dividend’ endangered both national and global security. ‘No serious analyst of American
military capabilities’, argued neo-conservatives William Kristol and Robert Kagan in 1996, ‘doubts that the defense budget has been cut much
too far to meet America’s responsibilities to itself and to world peace’.30 And
yet the verdict from the 1990s is fairly plain:
the world grew more peaceful while the United States cut its forces. No state seemed to believe that its
security was endangered by a less-capable US military, or at least none took any action that would
suggest such a belief. No militaries were enhanced to address power vacuums; no security dilemmas
drove insecurity or arms races; no regional balancing occurred once the stabilising presence of the US
military was diminished. The rest of the world acted as if the threat of international war was not a
pressing concern, despite the reduction in US military capabilities. Most of all, the United States was no less
safe. The incidence and magnitude of global conflict declined while the United States cut its military
spending under President Bill Clinton, and kept declining as the George W. Bush administration ramped the
spending back up. Complex statistical analysis is unnecessary to reach the conclusion that world peace
and US military expenditure are unrelated.
Mexico is stable – Sinaloa primacy has dampened violence
Bates 14 (Theunis, "A Mexican drug cartel's rise to dominance," The Week, January 25, theweek.com/article/index/255503/a-mexican-drug-cartels-rise-todominance)
The Mexican crime syndicate is the world's most powerful drug trafficking organization, and the biggest
supplier of illegal narcotics in the U.S. About half of the estimated $65 billion worth of cocaine, heroin, and other illegal drugs that American
users buy each year enters the U.S. via Mexico. Sinaloa — which is named after its home state in western Mexico —
controls more than half of
that cross-border trade , from which it earns at least $3 billion a year. U.S. law--enforcement officials
say the group has a presence in all major American cities, and a near monopoly on the wholesale distribution of heroin and cocaine
in Chicago. The city's Crime Commission has branded Sinaloa's elusive leader, Joaquín Guzmán, also known as El Chapo (or Shorty), Public Enemy No. 1 — a title last
held by Al Capone. "
What Al Capone was to beer and whiskey, " said commission member Arthur Bilek, " Guzmán is to
narcotics." ¶ How did the cartel get started?¶ Mexican smugglers have long trafficked homegrown heroin and marijuana to the U.S. But in the 1980s,
Mexico also became the primary route for Colombian cocaine bound for the U.S. At the time, U.S. law enforcement was cracking down on the Colombian drug
producers' attempts to ship the lucrative drug into Florida by boats and planes. So the Colombians hired Mexico's Guadalajara cartel to smuggle drugs across the
border, and paid them in cocaine, which allowed the Mexicans to build their own drug networks in the U.S. Before long, the Mexicans were the senior partners in
the relationship. When Guadalajara's leader was arrested in 1989, the group's remaining capos, including a young Guzmán, divided up its trafficking routes, creating
the Sinaloa, Juárez, and Tijuana cartels. These gangs soon became locked in a series of turf wars that have killed more than 60,000 people. But throughout the
bloodshed, El Chapo's organization has continued to grow.¶ Why has Sinaloa succeeded?¶ The 5-foot-6 Guzmán may be a grade school dropout, but he's also "a
logistical genius," said Jack Riley, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Chicago division. He's trafficked cocaine from Colombia to Mexico in small
private planes, in the luggage of airline passengers, and on the cartel's own 747s. Sinaloa has also moved cocaine on custom-built $1 million submarines. El Chapo,
56, has shown similar ingenuity moving drugs from Mexico to the U.S. He's built scores of tunnels under the border, some of which are air-conditioned and boast
half-mile-long trolley lines. He's sent drugs through U.S. checkpoints in hidden car compartments, in cans of jalapeños, and in the bellies of frozen shark carcasses.
Once in the U.S., the drugs are ferried to warehouses in Chicago — which Guzmán has called his "home port" — before being divided up and distributed across the
nation.¶ Why Chicago?¶ It's the transportation hub of America. The city is located within a day's drive of 70 percent of the nation's population, and is crisscrossed
by major interstate highways and railway lines. Chicago is also a huge drug market in its own right. Some 86 percent of people arrested in Cook County in 2012
tested positive for at least one illegal narcotic — the highest percentage of any big U.S. city. With his monopoly in the city, Guzmán doubled wholesale heroin prices,
thus cutting profit margins for street dealers. That fueled greater competition for turf and exacerbated Chicago's epidemic of gang violence. "It used to be honor
among thieves," said Harold Ward, a former gang member turned anti-violence campaigner. "Now, it's by any means necessary."¶ How violent is the cartel?¶
Sinaloa can be exceedingly brutal — it left 14 severed heads in iceboxes outside a mayor's office in the northern Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo in 2012. But
compared with other cartel leaders, El Chapo is a practical businessman who prefers "bribe over bullet." He invests millions in corrupting police and government
officials in Mexico rather than intimidating them with violence. "There is a level-headedness about [Sinaloa's] leadership that the other groups lack," said Malcolm
Beith, author of a book on Guzmán titled The Last Narco. Some observers claim that this fact has led both Mexican and U.S. authorities to go easy on Sinaloa.¶ Is
that allegation true?¶ A
2010 National Public Radio investigation of Mexican arrest records noted that Sinaloa
had suffered notably fewer arrests than other cartels. U.S. court documents also show that top Sinaloa officials
regularly met with DEA agents between 2006 and 2012 and fed them intelligence about rival cartels,
helping law enforcement crush their competitors . U.S. and Mexican officials have denied showing any favoritism toward Sinaloa, and
the DEA has arrested several high-ranking cartel members in recent years, including Jesús Vicente Zambada Niebla, the son of the organization's No. 2 leader, Ismael
Zambada. In a rare 2010 interview, the
senior Zambada said that such arrests had no effect on the cartel, and that its
drugs would keep flowing north even if El Chapo were brought down. "When it comes to the capos, jailed, dead, or
extradited," he said,
"their replacements are ready."
Legalization causes cartels to compete over new revenue streams – increases violence
Felbab-Brown 11, Vanda, a senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence in
the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. She is an expert on international and internal conflicts and
nontraditional security threats, including insurgency, organized crime, urban violence and illicit
economies, “Law Enforcement Actions in Urban Spaces Governed by Violent Non-State Entities: Lessons
from Latin America,” September
Often, criminal groups function as security providers (suboptimal as they are), regulating and punishing theft,
robberies, extortions, rapes and murders and dispensing their rules and punishments for transgressions.
The removal of the criminal gangs often results in a rise of street crime that can become a critical nuisance to
the community and discredit the presence of the State and its law enforcement. That has in fact been the case in
both Medellín in the post-Don Berna order as well as in the pacified favelas of Rio.14 Especially in areas where
police have been trained as light counterinsurgency forces (in Latin America, unlike South Asia, this is more often a
problem in rural areas rather than in urban spaces) they may be undertrained, under-resourced, and not focused on
addressing street crime. Even community-policing forces may have little capacity to undertake criminal
investigations that lead to meaningful prosecution, yet police units specialized in criminal investigations may continue to be
too far away and have limited access to a pacified urban space to conduct investigations that reduce street crime. Providing training to
community police forces for tackling at least some street crime and streamlining and facilitating the presence of specialized criminal
investigation units, such as homicide squads and prosecutors, are of critical importance for improving public safety for the community and for
anchoring State presence in the pacified areas. Under some circumstances, law
enforcement actions against the governing
criminal entity may give rise to intense turf warfare among other criminal groups over the spoils of the
criminal market. After Don Berna was extradited to the United States, for example, many criminal gangs in and
around Medellín, including two large ones led by Sebastian and Valenciano, began fighting each other over smuggling
routes, local drug distribution, prostitution enterprises, and protection rackets. The turf war triggered
extensive violence, including homicide rates in over 100per 100,000 in the late 2000s and on par with those before the
FARC was defeated in the city, and Don Berna established his “narco-peace”.15 Similarly in Mexico, law enforcement
actions against established DTOs triggered intense violence among splinter groups and new gangs, such as
in the Mexican state of Michoacán where interdiction operations against La Familia Michoacana have given rise to Los Templarios. That
criminal gang has since been battling with Los Zetas, another of Mexican DTOs originating as splinter
group, over control of criminal markets in the state. Such turf wars can compromise the physical and
economic security of local communities far more than
even
the previous criminal order . In some
circumstances, an urban area to which State presence has been extended may even suffer a peace deficit.
Along with or instead of the hoped-for peace dividend of legal businesses moving into the urban space and providing legal jobs and income,
the new areas may be attractive as a source of new land to be taken over by nefarious land developers.
Such demands for land in the newly “pacified” urban areas may generate new forced land displacement, instead of
benevolent gentrification. In rural spaces, the cause of such new illegal displacement may be the presence of
profitable resources, such as gold, coal, and others, or the agricultural potential of the land, such as for African oil palm
plantations. In urban spaces, housing development and real estate speculation may well drive such illegal
displacement. Competition over State resources inserted to “pacified” areas, such as for socio-economic
development, may generate new temptations of illegal behavior. Militias or new criminal groups seeking
to set up new protection rackets and usurp the inserted State resources may well emerge. Many urban spaces
in Colombia suffer from such old-new criminality today, as they have historically. Local community forces, even while effective at
keeping the old criminals out, may not have the capacity to prevent such nefarious activities cloaked as legal
development. At the same time, criminal units specializing in white-collar organized crime and asset
expropriation are often located in the city center of a State capital far away from the “pacified” slums and
may be paying little attention to such phenomena in the newly-liberated spaces. Moreover, since such land takeover and asset
expropriation may well be linked to legal and politically-powerful developers, municipal authorities may
lack the motivation to pay close attention to such criminal developments in the “pacified” urban areas. Yet
without diligent and concerted law enforcement actions against such new crime, the benefits of the
complex and costly State
interventions in the marginalized urban areas may be altogether lost . Instead of
addressing the causes of illegal economies and violent organized crime by strengthening effective and accountable
State presence, the State
intervention may ultimately only alter the manifestation of illegality and displace
existing problems to other areas . Not only criminality and criminal gangs, but also the marginalized residents of the
urban shantytowns themselves may merely be
forced out to other slums.
Prohibition Adv
The plan frees up resources for more policing of cocaine and heroin – turns the
advantage
Hesson 14 -- immigration editor, covers immigration and drug policy from Washington D.C. [Ted, "Will
Mexican Cartels Survive Marijuana Legalization?" Fusion, fusion.net/justice/story/mexican-cartelssurvive-marijuana-legalization-450519, accessed 6-2-14]
1. Mexico is the top marijuana exporter to the U.S. A 2008 study by the RAND Corporation estimated that
Mexican marijuana accounted for somewhere between 40 and 67 percent of the drug in the U.S. The
cartel grip on the U.S. market may not last for long. Pot can now be grown for recreational use in
Colorado and Washington, and for medical use in 20 states. For the first time, American consumers can
choose a legal product over the black market counterpart. Beau Kilmer, the co-director of the RAND Drug
Policy Research Center, says that a few states legalizing marijuana won’t eliminate the flow of the drug from
down south, but a change in policy from the federal government would be a game changer. “Our research also
suggests that legalizing commercial marijuana production at the national level could drive out most of the
marijuana imported from Mexico,” he wrote in a 2013 op-ed. 2. Marijuana makes up more than $1 billion of
cartel income Pot isn’t the main source of income for cartels. They make most of their cash from drugs
like cocaine and heroin. But marijuana accounts for 15 to 26 percent of the cartel haul, according to RAND’s
2008 data. That translates to an estimated $1.1 billion to $2 billion of gross income. The drop in sales
certainly wouldn’t end the existence of drug traffickers — they bring in an estimated $6 billion to $8
billion annually — but losing a fifth of one’s income would hurt any business. On top of that, Kilmer says
that marijuana likely makes up a higher percentage of the cartel take today than it did back in 2008. So taking
away pot would sting even more . 3. Authorities could focus on other drugs Marijuana made up 94 percent of
the drugs seized by Border Patrol in the 2012 fiscal year, judging by weight. If pot becomes legal in the U.S.
and cartels are pushed out of the market, that would allow law-enforcement agencies to dedicate more
resources to combat the trafficking of drugs like heroin and cocaine.
No impact to AIDS
James, 05 (John, Reporter for AIDS Treatment News, AIDS Treatment News, “Modern HIV May Be
Slightly Less Virulent, Laboratory Study Suggests”, September, http://www.aidsnews.org/2005/10/lessvirulent.html)
A laboratory study comparing recent (2002-2003) vs. early (1986-1989) untreated HIV found that the
recent virus reproduced somewhat less well, and appeared more sensitive to two antiretrovirals tested
(3TC and TAK-779, a CCR5 antagonist no longer being developed as a drug). The authors suggested that
"this 'attenuation' could be the consequence of serial bottlenecks during transmission and result in
adaptation of HIV-1 to the human host." [1] It is common for infectious diseases to become less severe
after they have been in a population for a long time. One mechanism is that bacteria or viruses that kill
people or animals too quickly have less time to spread, so greater virulence is a selective disadvantage.
At the same time, the individuals more resistant to the disease are more likely to survive and reproduce.
The new study [1] shows the first evidence that such attenuation of HIV (with the virus becoming less
able to reproduce, and also less able to be transmitted) appears to have occurred. The "bottlenecks"
quoted above refer to the fact that HIV loses its genetic diversity when transmitted from person to
person--perhaps because only one virus or very few succeed in getting established in the newly infected
person. Unfortunately genetic diversity then develops again, separately within each infected person,
since HIV makes many mistakes in replication. This diversity is important in disease progression, as
viruses can become less susceptible to control by parts of the immune system, much as they become
resistant to drugs. The authors note that the transmission bottlenecks could result in overall reduction in
viral fitness if more fitness is lost during each transmission than is gained as viral diversity develops
again in the person infected [1]--one possible mechanism for attenuation of HIV over time. Other
evidence suggests that when an animal population has long been infected by a retrovirus, the virus may
be present with a high viral load, but the animal does not get sick--while the same virus kills animals in
other species where it is not native. [2] This seems to be how populations adapt to retroviruses (there
are no human examples, as HIV was the first retrovirus found to infect humans). Of course no one wants
to wait centuries for the HIV epidemic to control itself this way.
No impact to South China Sea conflict- no escalation and economy won’t be
threatened
Goldstein, 2011, Lyle, associate professor in the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War
College in Newport, R.I. He is co-editor of the recent volumes China, the United States and 21st-Century
Sea Power: Defining a Maritime Security Partnership and Chinese Aerospace Power: Evolving Maritime
Roles. “The South China Sea's Georgia Scenario,”
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/07/11/the_south_china_seas_georgia_scenario?page=0,2
The brutal truth, however, is that Southeast Asia matters not a whit in the global balance of power.
Most of the region comprises small, poor countries of no consequence whatsoever, but the medium
powers in the region, such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and Australia will all naturally and of their own accord
stand up against a potentially more aggressive China. If China and Vietnam go to war over some rocks in
the ocean, they will inevitably both suffer a wide range of deleterious consequences, but it will have
only a marginal impact on U.S. national security. True, these sea lanes are critical to the Japanese and
South Korean economies, but both of these states are endowed with large and capable fleets -- yet
another check on Beijing's ambitions. China, moreover, is all too aware of what happened to Georgia in
2008. In that unfortunate case, the United States showered a new ally with high-level attention and
military advisors. But when Russian tanks rolled in, effectively annexing a large section of the country
and utterly destroying Tbilisi's armed forces, Washington's response amounted to a whimper: There
was, in the end, no appetite for risking a wider conflict with Moscow over a country of marginal strategic
interest. The lessons for Southeast Asia should be clear. Washington must avoid the temptation -despite local states cheering it on at every opportunity -- to overplay its hand. The main principle guiding
U.S. policy regarding the South China Sea has been and should remain nonintervention. Resource
disputes are inherently messy and will not likely be decided by grand proclamations or multilateral
summitry. Rather, progress will be a combination of backroom diplomacy backed by the occasional
show of force by one or more of the claimants. In fact, Beijing's record of conflict resolution over the last
30 years is rather encouraging: China has not resorted to a major use of force since 1979.
Food price rise inevitable – multiple reasons
Strain, 08 (Jeffery, staff writer, The Street, 7-7-08, http://www.mainstreet.com/eightreasons-food-prices-will-keep-rising?puc=msgoogle&cm_ven=MSGoogle)
Be prepared -- food is going to become more expensive, even if oil prices stabilize. Agriculture tends to
be heavily dependent on energy for fueling tractors and field equipment, as well as having a heavy
reliance on petroleum-based fertilizers and herbicides. But what most people don't realize is that even if
oil prices level off, food prices are likely to continue to rise. Here are some reasons food prices will
continue to increase. Bees The number of bees has been dramatically declining over the last few years.
In 2006, Colony Collapse Disorder wiped out 30% to 90% of beekeeper hives. The losses continued last
year through this year with over 30% of hives being destroyed in both 2007 and 2008. The exact cause
of Colony Collapse Disorder is not known. Since roughly 75% of flowering plants rely on pollination to
help them reproduce, bees are an important link in the chain that produces much of the food that we
eat. Without bees to pollinate crops, the crops can't bear fruit, causing crop yields to drop. The end
result is higher prices in the supermarket for these foods. Hoarding A growing number of countries
have sharply curbed food exports in order to ensure an adequate supply of food at affordable prices for
their country. While this trend is a much bigger problem for poor countries that rely heavily on imported
food than the U.S., it also puts pressure on world food prices including those foods being imported to
the U.S. To make matters worse, the hoarding creates the perception of food shortages, which can lead
to more hoarding and further increases food prices. World Demand for Food There is a growing demand
for food around the world with the emergence of a middle class in such places as China, Latin America,
Africa and the Middle East. With more disposable income, these people demand more and a greater
variety of food. These middle classes will likely continue to increase, placing more pressure on world
food prices. The Lowly Dollar The dollar has fallen against other world currencies over the past year.
When the dollar goes down in value against other currencies, any dollar-denominated commodity tends
to go up in price. Part of the huge increase in oil prices can be attributed to the fall of the value of the
dollar against other currencies. In the same way, most major food commodities are traded in dollars,
which makes foreign-produced food more expensive. Hidden Price Increases Normally, food
manufacturers would be hard-pressed to increase food prices further if they had already raised prices
with their increased costs from oil. There is always fear among food manufacturers when they must
raise prices that doing so will cause a decline in the amount they can sell. One way around this that
manufacturers have been using is that instead of raising the price marked on the product, they simply
place less into the package. Many people don't notice the change so they don't lose as much in sales.
Having done this, food manufacturers still have room to raise the actual prices where they would have
been much more reluctant to do so if they had previously raised prices the same way. Weather Recent
flooding in the Midwest and Corn Belt has prevented farmers from planting soybeans and damaged the
corn crop, which had recently been planted. Analysts have estimated that there may be a shortfall of
15% or more in grain produced this year compared to last year due to the flooding. The bad weather
hasn't been limited to the U.S. Poor weather has reduced overall global food production from Canada,
the European Union and Eastern Europe over the last couple of years. A drought has resulted in a major
Australian wheat decline. This has tightened world food stocks, which has contributed to rising food
prices. Speculation Speculation's role in increased food prices is hotly debated, but it appears that
investors have taken an interest in food prices and are playing a larger role in the commodity markets.
As food supplies tighten, there is a good chance that speculators will increase in the hope of making a
quick buck, further increasing food prices.
Warming Adv
Species extinction won't cause human extinction – humans and the environment are
adaptable
Doremus, 00 (Holly, Professor of Law at UC Davis Washington & Lee Law Review, Winter 57 Wash & Lee L. Rev. 11, lexis)
In recent years, this discourse frequently has taken the form of the ecological horror story . That too is no
mystery. The ecological horror story is unquestionably an attention-getter, especially in the hands of skilled writers [*46] like
Carson and the Ehrlichs. The image of the airplane earth, its wings wobbling as rivet after rivet is carelessly popped out, is
difficult to ignore. The apocalyptic depiction of an impending crisis of potentially dire proportions is
designed to spur the political community to quick action . Furthermore, this story suggests a goal that appeals to
many nature lovers: that virtually everything must be protected. To reinforce this suggestion, tellers of the ecological horror
story often imply that the relative importance of various rivets to the ecological plane cannot be determined. They offer reams
of data and dozens of anecdotes demonstrating the unexpected value of apparently useless parts of nature. The moth that
saved Australia from prickly pear invasion, the scrubby Pacific yew, and the downright unattractive leech are among the
uncharismatic flora and fauna who star in these anecdotes. n211 The moral is obvious: because we cannot be sure
which rivets are holding the plane together, saving them all is the only sensible course. Notwithstanding its
attractions, the material discourse in general, and the ecological horror story in particular, are not likely to generate policies
that will satisfy nature lovers. The ecological horror story implies that there is no reason to protect nature until catastrophe
looms. The Ehrlichs' rivet-popper account, for example, presents species simply as the (fungible) hardware holding together the
ecosystem. If we could be reasonably certain that a particular rivet was not needed to prevent a crash, the rivet-popper story
suggests that we would lose very little by pulling it out. Many environmentalists, though, would disagree. 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.
Although it is clear that the earth is experiencing a mass wave of extinctions, the complete elimination of life
on earth seems unlikely. Life is remarkably robust. 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. 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. 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.
Current US emissions reductions solve warming through global agreements
Bledsoe, Senior Fellow Energy and Society at German Marshall Fund of the United States, ’14 (Paul,
July 16, “Ambitious US emissions pledge can lead to global climate agreement” The Hill,
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/212316-ambitious-us-emissions-pledgecan-lead-to-global)
The Obama administration’s recent policies to combat climate change, including draft EPA regulations to limit
emissions from existing power plants released last month, have put the U.S in its strongest-ever domestic position on the
issue. These efforts set the stage for America to make an ambitious new international emissions
commitment, which in turn will provide the U.S. the moral authority to press hard for an international
climate agreement next year, without which 97 percent of scientists say we risk runaway climate change
impacts around the world. American emissions have now fallen to their lowest level in 20 years, through
a combination of effective policies and market changes, and are on pace to meet the commitment President
Obama made in 2009 to cut emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. When Obama first announced this goal, skeptics of climate action like former House Speaker
Newt Gingrich said such policies would be economically ruinous and “job-killing.” Indeed, critics on both right and left contended that Obama’s pledge was not supported by policy proposals,
the U.S. and other major emitting nations are formulating
targets for the period of 2020 to 2030. Due next March, these commitments will form the basis for U.N.
and could not be achieved. Yet here we are five years later, right on track. Now
negotiations culminating in Paris in December 2015, where world leaders hope to gain emissions cuts
deep enough to keep global temperature increases below levels a series of major reports by thousands of leading scientists
have found could risk catastrophic climate impacts. In deriving the U.S. climate pledge, administration officials might be tempted to add up all the
valuable policy efforts the administration and states have undertaken, basing the commitment on such a “tally of current policy” approach. But history suggests such a method would
substantially underestimate the level of emissions reductions long-term policies and the U.S. economy will produce. Instead, the administration should base its emissions commitment
primarily on the broader, accelerating trend of lower emissions during the last 20 years, since efforts to cut U.S. emissions began. Using historic trends makes sense for a number of reasons.
For one thing, we cannot reliably predict the exact climate policies that will be in place in 2020, let alone 2030. We have no idea which political party will be in power, whether climate change
impacts may drive more aggressive policy, whether lawmakers will embrace carbon pricing, when the GOP might abandon its climate skepticism, and which new technologies and market
conditions will emerge. But we can learn from the trends of the last two decades. And they all point in the same direction, toward an ever more energy-efficient economy and greater ability to
cut emissions in absolute terms and relative to economic growth. As the U.S. Energy Information Agency has documented, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions have declined in 5 of the
last 8 years, and are about 12 percent below their 2007 peak. For example, in 2012, U.S. GDP rose by 2.8 percent, but energy consumption fell by 2.4 percent and emissions were almost 4
percent lower than the previous year. These trends should accelerate, as investments in new technologies through the Obama stimulus and new federal regulations begin to bear fruit,
The formulation of a U.S. climate pledge to take effect
will form the level of
ambition for future Administrations and Congresses, since once the U.S. makes a pledge, it will be under
withering diplomatic pressure to meet its commitment, a process that will only intensify as climate
change impacts worsen, even under a GOP Administration. Second, an aggressive U.S. pledge will also put pressure on other
nations, especially China, whose emissions are almost double ours, to make strong emissions pledges,
and therefore largely determine whether the world can finally begin to significantly reduce global
emissions. Finally, setting an ambitious emissions reduction standard will validate our domestic climate
leadership, and signal to the American people and the world that the U.S. can still do great things, much as President Kennedy’s call for a moon
suggesting the U.S. commitment should if anything be significantly more ambitious than historic trends.
five years hence may seem an arcane exercise, unlikely to affect actual events. In fact, it may be among the most important actions the U.S. takes. First, it
landing did in the 1960s, when the Cold War was the issue of global concern. Just this month, no less than former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated that domestic climate actions have
put the U.S. in a strong position to drive international progress. However, the U.S. pledge should not been seen as the basis for a formal treaty, as administration officials have made crystal
clear to the European Union and others. Senate ratification will not be needed.
The U.S. emissions pledge is just that—not legally binding -- but morally and
politically profound and influential. Policymakers in the State Department and White House are formulating the method and rationale for a U.S. climate
commitment now. Industry, Congress and concerned citizens should let them know that now is the time to reawaken America’s grand ambition
and role in the world, by staking out a leadership position in meeting the climate challenge where it
must ultimately be addressed, at the global level.
2NC
K - Governmentality
Structural violence is the proximate cause of all war- creates priming that
psychologically structures escalation
**Answers no root cause- because there is no root cause we must be attentive to structural inequality of all kinds because it primes people
for broader violence- our impact is about the scale of violence and the disproportionate relationship between that scale and warfare, not
that one form of social exclusion comes first, only commit violence when violence as been done to you
Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois ‘4 (Prof of Anthropology @ Cal-Berkely; Prof of Anthropology @ UPenn) (Nancy and
Philippe, Introduction: Making Sense of Violence, in Violence in War and Peace, pg. 19-22)
This large and at first sight “messy” Part VII is central to this anthology’s thesis. It encompasses everything from the routinized, bureaucratized,
and utterly banal violence of children dying of hunger and maternal despair in Northeast Brazil (Scheper-Hughes, Chapter 33) to elderly African
Americans dying of heat stroke in Mayor Daly’s version of US apartheid in Chicago’s South Side (Klinenberg, Chapter 38) to the racialized class
hatred expressed by British Victorians in their olfactory disgust of the “smelly” working classes (Orwell, Chapter 36). In these readings violence
is located in the symbolic and social structures that overdetermine and allow the criminalized drug addictions, interpersonal bloodshed, and
racially patterned incarcerations that characterize the US “inner city” to be normalized (Bourgois, Chapter 37 and Wacquant, Chapter 39).
Violence also takes the form of class, racial, political self-hatred and adolescent self-destruction (Quesada, Chapter 35), as well as of useless (i.e.
Absolutely central to our approach is a
blurring of categories and distinctions between wartime and peacetime violence. Close attention to the
“little” violences produced in the structures, habituses, and mentalites of everyday life shifts our
attention to pathologies of class, race, and gender inequalities. More important, it interrupts the voyeuristic tendencies
preventable), rawly embodied physical suffering, and death (Farmer, Chapter 34).
of “violence studies” that risk publicly humiliating the powerless who are often forced into complicity with social and individual pathologies of
power because suffering is often a solvent of human integrity and dignity. Thus, in this anthology we are positing a violence continuum
comprised of a multitude of “small wars and invisible genocides” (see also Scheper- Hughes 1996; 1997; 2000b) conducted in the normative
social spaces of public schools, clinics, emergency rooms, hospital wards, nursing homes, courtrooms, public registry offices, prisons, detention
centers, and public morgues. The
violence continuum also refers to the ease with which humans are capable of
reducing the socially vulnerable into expendable nonpersons and assuming the license - even the duty to kill, maim, or soul-murder. We realize that in referring to a violence and a genocide continuum we are flying in the face of a
tradition of genocide studies that argues for the absolute uniqueness of the Jewish Holocaust and for vigilance with respect to restricted purist
use of the term genocide itself (see Kuper 1985; Chaulk 1999; Fein 1990; Chorbajian 1999). But we hold an opposing and alternative view that,
to the contrary, it
is absolutely necessary to make just such existential leaps in purposefully linking violent
acts in normal times to those of abnormal times. Hence the title of our volume: Violence in War and in Peace. If (as we
concede) there is a moral risk in overextending the concept of “genocide” into spaces and corners of everyday life where we might not
ordinarily think to find it (and there
is), an even greater risk lies in failing to sensitize ourselves, in misrecognizing
protogenocidal practices and sentiments daily enacted as normative behavior by “ordinary” goodenough citizens. Peacetime crimes, such as prison construction sold as economic development to impoverished communities in
the mountains and deserts of California, or the evolution of the criminal industrial complex into the latest peculiar institution for managing race
relations in the United States (Waquant, Chapter 39), constitute the “small wars and invisible genocides” to which we refer.
This applies to African American and Latino youth mortality statistics in Oakland, California, Baltimore, Washington DC, and New York City.
These are “invisible” genocides not because they are secreted away or hidden from view, but quite the
opposite. As Wittgenstein observed, the things that are hardest to perceive are those which are right before
our eyes and therefore taken for granted. In this regard, Bourdieu’s partial and unfinished theory of violence (see Chapters 32
and 42) as well as his concept of misrecognition is crucial to our task. By including the normative everyday forms of violence hidden in the
minutiae of “normal” social practices - in the architecture of homes, in gender relations, in communal work, in the exchange of gifts, and so
forth - Bourdieu forces us to reconsider the broader meanings and status of violence, especially the links between the violence of everyday life
and explicit political terror and state repression, Similarly, Basaglia’s notion of “peacetime crimes” - crimini di pace - imagines a direct
relationship between wartime and peacetime violence. Peacetime crimes suggests the
possibility that war crimes are
merely ordinary, everyday crimes of public consent applied systematically and dramatically in the
extreme context of war. Consider the parallel uses of rape during peacetime and wartime, or the family resemblances between the
legalized violence of US immigration and naturalization border raids on “illegal aliens” versus the US government- engineered genocide in 1938,
known as the Cherokee “Trail of Tears.” Peacetime crimes suggests that everyday forms of state violence make a certain kind of domestic peace
possible. Internal “stability” is purchased with the currency of peacetime crimes, many of which take the form of professionally applied
“strangle-holds.” Everyday forms of state violence during peacetime make a certain kind of domestic “peace” possible. It is an easy-to-identify
peacetime crime that is usually maintained as a public secret by the government and by a scared or apathetic populace. Most subtly, but no less
politically or structurally, the phenomenal growth in the United States of a new military, postindustrial prison industrial complex has taken
place in the absence of broad-based opposition, let alone collective acts of civil disobedience. The
public consensus is based
primarily on a new mobilization of an old fear of the mob, the mugger, the rapist, the Black man, the
undeserving poor. How many public executions of mentally deficient prisoners in the United States are
needed to make life feel more secure for the affluent? What can it possibly mean when incarceration becomes the
“normative” socializing experience for ethnic minority youth in a society, i.e., over 33 percent of young African American men (Prison Watch
2002). In the end it
is essential that we recognize the existence of a genocidal capacity among otherwise
good-enough humans and that we need to exercise a defensive hypervigilance to the less dramatic,
permitted, and even rewarded everyday acts of violence that render participation in genocidal acts and
policies possible (under adverse political or economic conditions), perhaps more easily than we would like to recognize. Under the
violence continuum we include, therefore, all expressions of radical social exclusion, dehumanization,
depersonal- ization, pseudospeciation, and reification which normalize atrocious behavior and violence
toward others. A constant self-mobilization for alarm, a state of constant hyperarousal is, perhaps, a
reasonable response to Benjamin’s view of late modern history as a chronic “state of emergency” (Taussig,
Chapter 31). We are trying to recover here the classic anagogic thinking that enabled Erving Goffman, Jules Henry, C. Wright Mills, and Franco
Basaglia among other mid-twentieth-century radically critical thinkers, to perceive the symbolic and structural relations, i.e., between inmates
and patients, between concentration camps, prisons, mental hospitals, nursing homes, and other “total institutions.” Making
that
decisive move to recognize the continuum of violence allows us to see the capacity and the willingness if not enthusiasm - of ordinary people, the practical technicians of the social consensus, to enforce
genocidal-like crimes against categories of rubbish people. There is no primary impulse out of which
mass violence and genocide are born, it is ingrained in the common sense of everyday social life. The
mad, the differently abled, the mentally vulnerable have often fallen into this category of the unworthy
living, as have the very old and infirm, the sick-poor, and, of course, the despised racial, religious, sexual,
and ethnic groups of the moment. Erik Erikson referred to “pseudo- speciation” as the human tendency to classify some individuals
or social groups as less than fully human - a prerequisite to genocide and one that is carefully honed during the unremark- able peacetimes that
precede the sudden, “seemingly unintelligible” outbreaks of mass violence.
Collective denial and misrecognition are
prerequisites for mass violence and genocide. But so are formal bureaucratic structures and professional roles. The practical
technicians of everyday violence in the backlands of Northeast Brazil (Scheper-Hughes, Chapter 33), for example, include the clinic doctors who
prescribe powerful tranquilizers to fretful and frightfully hungry babies, the Catholic priests who celebrate the death of “angel-babies,” and the
Everyday violence encompasses the
implicit, legitimate, and routinized forms of violence inherent in particular social, economic, and political
formations. It is close to what Bourdieu (1977, 1996) means by “symbolic violence,” the violence that is often “nus-recognized” for
municipal bureaucrats who dispense free baby coffins but no food to hungry families.
something else, usually something good. Everyday violence is similar to what Taussig (1989) calls “terror as usual.” All these terms are meant to
reveal a public secret - the hidden links between violence in war and violence in peace, and between war crimes and “peace-time crimes.”
Bourdieu (1977) finds domination and violence in the least likely places - in courtship and marriage, in the exchange of gifts, in systems of
classification, in style, art, and culinary taste- the various uses of culture. Violence, Bourdieu insists, is everywhere in social practice. It is
misrecognized because its very everydayness and its familiarity render it invisible. Lacan identifies “rneconnaissance” as the prerequisite of the
social. The exploitation of bachelor sons, robbing them of autonomy, independence, and progeny, within the structures of family farming in the
European countryside that Bourdieu escaped is a case in point (Bourdieu, Chapter 42; see also Scheper-Hughes, 2000b; Favret-Saada, 1989).
Following Gramsci, Foucault, Sartre, Arendt, and other modern theorists of power-vio- lence, Bourdieu treats direct aggression and physical
violence as a crude, uneconomical mode of domination; it is less efficient and, according to Arendt (1969), it is certainly less legitimate. While
power and symbolic domination are not to be equated with violence - and Arendt argues persuasively that violence is to be understood as a
failure of power - violence, as we are presenting it here, is more than simply the expression of illegitimate physical force against a person or
group of persons. Rather, we need to understand violence as encompassing all forms of “controlling processes” (Nader 1997b) that assault
basic human freedoms and individual or collective survival. Our task is to recognize these gray zones of violence which are, by definition, not
obvious. Once again, the point of bringing into the discourses on genocide everyday, normative experiences of reification, depersonalization,
institutional confinement, and acceptable death is to help answer the question: What makes mass violence and genocide possible? In this
volume we are suggesting that mass
violence is part of a continuum, and that it is socially incremental and
often experienced by perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders - and even by victims themselves - as
expected, routine, even justified. The preparations for mass killing can be found in social sentiments and institutions from the
family, to schools, churches, hospitals, and the military. They harbor the early “warning signs” (Charney 1991), the “priming” (as
Hinton, ed., 2002 calls it), or the “genocidal continuum” (as we call it) that push social consensus toward devaluing certain
forms of human life and lifeways from the refusal of social support and humane care to vulnerable “social parasites” (the nursing home
elderly, “welfare queens,” undocumented immigrants, drug addicts) to the militarization of everyday life (super-maximum-security prisons,
capital punishment; the technologies of heightened personal security, including the house gun and gated communities; and reversed feelings of
victimization).
Prefer this impact, two reasons:
structural violence is invisible and exponential
Nixon 11 (Rob, Rachel Carson Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Slow Violence and the
Environmentalism of the Poor, pgs. 2-3)
Three primary concerns animate this book, chief among them my conviction that we
urgently need to rethink-politically,
imaginatively, and theoretically-what I call "slow
violence." By slow violence I mean a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a
is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence
at all. Violence is customarily conceived as an event or action that is immediate in time, explosive and
spectacular in space, and as erupting into instant sensational visibility. We need, I believe, to engage a different kind of violence, a
violence that is neither spectacular nor instantaneous, but rather incremental and accretive, its calamitous
repercussions playing out across a range of temporal scales. In so doing, we also need to engage the representational, narrative, and
strategic challenges posed by the relative invisibility of slow violence. Climate change, the thawing cryosphere, toxic drift,
violence of delayed destruction that
biomagnification, deforestation, the radioactive aftermaths of wars, acidifying oceans, and a host of other slowly unfolding environmental
catastrophes present formidable representational obstacles that can hinder our efforts to mobilize and act decisively. The long dyings-the
staggered and staggeringly discounted casualties, both human and ecological that result from war's toxic aftermaths or climate change-are
underrepresented in strategic planning as well as in human memory. Had
Summers advocated invading Africa with
weapons of mass destruction, his proposal would have fallen under conventional definitions of violence
and been perceived as a military or even an imperial invasion. Advocating invading countries with mass forms
of slow-motion toxicity, however, requires rethinking our accepted assumptions of violence to include
slow violence. Such a rethinking requires that we complicate conventional assumptions about violence as
a highly visible act that is newsworthy because it is event focused, time bound, and body bound. We need to account for how the
temporal dispersion of slow violence affects the way we perceive and respond to a variety of social afflictionsfrom domestic abuse to posttraumatic stress and, in particular, environmental calamities. A major challenge is representational: how to devise
arresting stories, images, and symbols adequate to the pervasive but elusive violence of delayed effects. Crucially, slow
violence is often
not just attritional but also exponential, operating as a major threat multiplier; it can fuel long-term,
proliferating conflicts in situations where the conditions for sustaining life become increasingly but
gradually degraded.
causal linear IR predictions are inherently incomplete – epistemic uncertainty is the
defining principle of international politics
Hendrick 9 – PhD from Bradford U, contributor to Oxford University Press
(Diane, “Complexity Theory and Conflict Transformation: An Exploration of Potential and Implications”,
http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/confres/papers/pdfs/CCR17.pdf)
In international relations Neil E. Harrison makes the case for the value of complexity theory given the
unpredictability of events in world politics that has confounded expectations based on existing theories. While
there are various explanations proffered for this situation, Harrison
sees the tendency of current theories of world politics to
work with models of the social world that present it, for analytical purposes, as a simple system as fundamentally
misleading. In contrast to realism, that sees political behaviour being driven by essential human characteristics within fixed structures,
complexity theory sees world politics as a self- organising complex system in which macroproperties emerge
from microinteractions. It is precisely the interactions among interdependent but individual agents within the system that account for
the surprising
events that defy prediction through the simple models used at the moment. Harrison thus
takes the state as a system that is not closed but open to other natural and social systems: “defined as a political system, it
is open to technological, cultural and economic systems that influence political choices and processes.”
(Harrison, 2006 p. 8) The state is also influenced by other states and by numerous transboundary interactions between
major corporations,
NGOs, terrorist groups, etc. In such complex systems it is not possible to trace
linear causal links : “Despite occasional attempts to bring in domestic politics the state is usually modelled as a unit with exogenous
identity and objective interests. This greatly reduces the range of possible causal explanations for any perceived social event, simplifying causal
analysis and hypothesis generation and testing.” (Harrison, 2006 p. 11) It is a disconcerting fact that outcomes
may have multiple
causes and that in different contexts, historically or spatially, the same cause may lead to different outcomes. This cannot
be captured by the over-simplified models of international systems. Given the multiple, mutually influencing interactions within social systems
it is necessary to look to the evolution of the system rather than to individual events when seeking the causes of observed effects. Complexity
theory focuses on processes and relations between components, or in the case of social systems, agents, rather than the components
themselves. In a similar criticism to that of Walby, Harrison points to the tendency of theories in international relations to focus on one level of
analysis and to present competing theories based on these. Where systems are theorised, they are limited by being presented as nested.
Harrison notes that the impact of positive feedback in systems has been acknowledged: “ ‘(I)ntra-national and inter-national events all impinge
on one another in a cyclical and ongoing process within which the self-aggravating propensities frequently exceed the self-correcting ones by an
unacceptably large amount’ (Singer 1970, 165) thus national elites use rhetoric for domestic political consumption that can incite potential
enemies, the public and military desire the psychological comfort of discernible superiority, media amplify inter-nation conflicts, and the
benefits of participation in the ideological mainstream preserve the distribution of power and inhibit changes in the historic patterns that
transform inevitable conflicts into costly rivalries.” (Harrison, 2006 p. 28) While Walby refers to examples of the importance of the notion of
path dependence with reference to differences in development between countries, Harrison sees its relevance at the level of the international
state system. Thus development through time is not wholly random and there are limits or constraints created by the prior development of the
system that restrict the possible options for change. In this way the international system may change its structure without becoming another
system and here Harrison brings the example of the Cold War. While it is true that the Cold War was produced by historical interactions, it is
still not possible to claim that it was an inevitable effect of historical causes. The
introduce unpredictability
myriad microinteractions
that occurred
into development, especially given the above-mentioned possibility of positive feedback. Harrison is
optimistic with regard to the gains from the application of complexity theory to world politics in theoretical but also in policy terms: “This
ontological shift from simple to complex systems opens new paths to knowledge and understanding yet incorporates much current knowledge;
it validates novel research methods; and theories founded in this approach will generate radically different solutions to policy problems.”
(Harrison, 2006 p. 2)
this makes their impact calculus based on try or die completely worthless
Brown 11 – professor @ Naval Postgraduate School
(Gerald, “Making Terrorism Risk Analysis Less Harmful and More Useful: Another Try,” Risk Analysis Vol.
31, Issue 2)
5. Better risk analysis is easy. We have tried, by exposition and example, to show that correctly applying existing techniques of applied
probability, modeling, and optimization can provide useful insights for guiding effective allocation of limited defensive resources.
Unfortunately, feeding expert judgments into the Risk = Threat x Vulnerability x Consequence framework is
not how to do it —for example, because the framework omits crucial information needed to predict
and manage risks (such as correlations among terms, or bang-for- the-buck information about risk reductions achieved by
implementing different subsets of possible actions); because its
key terms are not well defined
(Cox 2008); because our
experts often lack the information needed to provide useful estimates , even if the concepts made sense; and
because the framework has never been shown to produce good results (e.g., better than random).
Better risk analysis is easy, but requires replacing the TVC approach with more useful analyses.
Movements against neolib now---only way to stop extinction from ecological collapse,
authoritarianism, and resource conflict
Vandana Shiva 12, founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, Ph.D. in
Philosophy from the University of Western Ontario, chairs the Commission on the Future of Food set up
by the Region of Tuscany in Italy and is a member of the Scientific Committee which advises President
Zapatero of Spain, March 1, 2012, “Imposed Austerity vs Chosen Simplicity: Who Will Pay For Which
Adjustments?,” online: http://www.ethicalmarkets.com/2012/03/01/imposed-austerity-vs-chosensimplicity-who-will-pay-for-which-adjustments/
The dominant economic model
based on limitless growth on a limited planet is
leading to an overshoot of the human
use of the earth’s resources. This is leading to an ecological catastrophe . It is also leading to intense and
violent resource grab of the remaining resources of the earth by the rich from the poor. The resource grab is an
adjustment by the rich and powerful to a shrinking resource base – land, biodiversity, water – without
adjusting the old resource intensive,
limitless growth paradigm to the new reality. Its only outcome can be ecological scarcity for the poor in the short term, with deepening
poverty and deprivation. In the long run
it means the extinction of our species , as climate catastrophe and
extinction of other species makes the planet un-inhabitable
for human societies. Failure
to make an
ecological adjustment to planetary limits and ecological justice is a threat to human survival . The Green
Economy being pushed at Rio +20 could well become the biggest resource grabs in human history with corporations appropriating the planet’s green wealth, the
biodiversity, to become the green oil to make bio-fuel, energy plastics, chemicals – everything that the petrochemical era based on fossil fuels gave us. Movements
worldwide have started to say “No to the Green Economy of the 1%”. But
an ecological adjustment is possible, and is happening .
This ecological adjustment involves seeing ourselves as a part of the fragile ecological web, not outside and
above it, immune from the ecological consequences of our actions. Ecological adjustment also implies that we see ourselves
as members of the earth community, sharing the earth’s resources equitably with all species and within the human community. Ecological adjustment
requires an end to resource grab, and the privatization of our land, bio diversity and seeds, water and atmosphere. Ecological adjustment is based
on the recovery of the commons and the creation of Earth Democracy. The dominant economic model based on resource
monopolies and the rule of an oligarchy is not just in conflict with ecological limits of the planet . It is in conflict
with the principles of democracy , and governance by the people , of the people, for the people. The adjustment
from the oligarchy is to further strangle democracy and crush civil liberties and people’s freedom . Bharti
Mittal’s statement that politics should not interfere with the economy reflects the mindset of the oligarchy that democracy can be done away with. This antidemocratic adjustment includes laws like homeland security in U.S., and multiple security laws in India. The calls for a democratic adjustment from below
are witnessed worldwide in the rise of non-violent protests, from the Arab spring to the American autumn of “Occupy” and the Russian winter
challenging the hijack of elections and electoral democracy. And these movements
for democratic adjustment are also
rising everywhere in response to the “austerity” programmes
imposed by IMF, World Bank and financial institutions
which created the financial crisis. The Third World had its structural Adjustment and Forced Austerity, through the 1980s and 1990s, leading to
IMF riots. India’s structural adjustment of 1991 has given us the agrarian crisis with quarter million farmer suicides and food crisis pushing every
4th Indian to hunger and every 2nd Indian child to severe malnutrition; people are paying with their very lives for adjustment imposed by the
World Bank/IMF. The trade liberalization reforms dismantled our food security system, based on universal PDS. It opened up the seed sector to
seed MNCs. And now an attempt is being made through the Food Security Act to make our public feeding programmes a market for food MNCs.
The forced austerity continues through imposition of so called reforms, such as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in retail, which would rob 50
million of their livelihoods in retail and millions more by changing the production system. Europe started having its forced austerity in 2010.
And everywhere there are anti-austerity protests from U.K., to Italy, Greece, Spain, Ireland, Iceland, and Portugal. The banks which have
created the crisis want society to adjust by destroying jobs and livelihoods, pensions and social security, public services and the commons. The
people want financial systems to adjust to the limits set by nature, social justice and democracy. And the
precariousness of the living conditions of the 99% has created a new class which Guy Standing calls the “Precariate”. If the Industrial Revolution
gave us the industrial working class, the proletariat, globalization and the “free market” which is destroying the livelihoods of peasants in
India and China through land grabs, or the chances of economic security for the young in what were the rich industrialized countries, has
created a global class of the precarious. As Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich have written in “The making of the American
99%”, this new class of the dispossessed and excluded include “middle class professional, factory workers, truck drivers, and nurses as well as
the much poorer people who clean the houses, manicure the fingernails, and maintain the lawn of the affluent”.
Forced austerity
based on the old paradigm allows the 1% super rich, the oligarchs, to grab the planets resources while pushing
out the 99% from access to resources, livelihoods, jobs and any form of
freedom,
democracy and economic
security. It is often said that with increasing growth, India and China are replicating the resource intensive and wasteful lifestyles of the Western countries. The
reality is that while a small 3 to 4% of India is joining the mad race for consuming the earth with more and more automobiles and air conditioners, the large majority
of India is being pushed into “de-consumption” – losing their entitlements to basic needs of food and water because of resource and land grab, market grab, and
destruction of livelihoods. The hunger and malnutrition crisis in India is an example of the “de-consumption” forced on the poor by the rich, through the imposed
austerity built into the trade liberalization and “economic reform” policies.
and the new movements of the 99%, the
There is another paradigm emerging
which is shared by Gandhi
paradigm of voluntary simplicity of reducing one ecological foot print while increasing
human well being for all. Instead of forced austerity that helps the rich become super rich, the
powerful become totalitarian, chosen simplicity enables us all to adjust ecologically, to reduce over
consumption of the planets resources, it allows us to adjust socially to enhance democracy and it creates a
path for economic adjustment based on justice and equity. Forced austerity makes the poor and working
families pay
for the excesses of limitless greed and accumulation by the super rich. Chosen simplicity stops
these excesses
and allow us to flower into an Earth Democracy where the rights and freedoms of all species and all people are protected and respected.
Autonomous resistance outside the law is empirically successful in challenging
neoliberalism and state control
Pickerill and Chatterton 2006 - Leicester University AND Leeds University (Jenny and Paul, “Notes
towards autonomous geographies: creation, resistance and self-management as survival tactics”
Progress in Human Geography30, 6 (2006) pp. 730–746)
We have coined the term ‘autonomous geographies’ as part of a substantive and linguistic intervention, responding to multiple crises. We make
no excuses for this; calling forth autonomy does not simply lead to concrete solutions to change the world. Nor is the term a panacea; to offer it
as such would sustain the problems of blueprints which plague the contemporary world. However, autonomous
geographies are
part of a vocabulary of urgency, hope and inspiration, a call to action that we can dismantle wage labour, the
oil economy, or representative democracy, and that thousands of capable and workable micro-examples exist. A focus on
autonomy is simultaneously a documentation of where we are, and a projection of where we could be. As a narrative of realism and idealism,
this paper – and our research – is an attempt to document radical and workable ‘futures in the present’ (Cleaver, 1993) and to find escape
routes out of this capitalist existence (Gibson-Graham, 1996). The paper’s objectives are threefold. First, in order to understand autonomy’s
importance, we need to explore its usage, meanings and widespread practices in activists’ everyday activities. Second, we discuss how
autonomy can facilitate a more nuanced understanding of anti-capitalist movements. Finally, a
politics of hope infuses this paper;
making autonomous geographies comprises important moments of resistance. Autonomous practices
have already resulted in real changes for some participants
– for example, social
centres’ provision of
space and food, and survival strategies in Argentina (Chatterton, 2005). Beyond examples of success, we look further
than constrained pragmatic visions and ‘interrupt space and time . . . to open up perspectives on what
might be’
(Pinder, 2002: 229). Our
focus on autonomy is an attempt to clarify what can seem a diffuse concept, and a way to
explore the materialization of utopian visions. First, autonomy has become one of the hallmarks of
varied activism, forming part of the alter-globalization movements which seek to challenge, disrupt, and
reimagine our understandings of political, economic and cultural processes (Featherstone, 2003). Alter-
globalization is the preferred term as it emphasizes anti-capitalist and social justice movements’ creativity, celebrating the movement’s
transnationality and their solidarity networks. This
multiscalar and multifaceted activism manifests itself through
global and regional convergences (such as People’s Global Action meetings or large-scale demonstrations coinciding with
ministerial meetings of the G8, the World Trade Organization or the European Union), through localized autonomous spaces and
alternative processes (such as social centres, eco-villages, alternative currencies, food production, housing cooperatives and self-education),
and experiments in non-hierarchical organization and consensus-based decision-making. Most importantly, we
explore the role of
everyday practices in these movements’ constitution, as they work alongside – indeed comprise vital building
blocks for
– mass protests. Second, a
growing critique of movements’ failure to suggest, or indeed deliver,
workable alternatives stems from autonomous activists’ reluctance to build permanent organizations,
formulate strategies, or adopt traditional representative structures. Hence, the mainstream media often treat
them inaccurately, seeking the familiarity of spokespeople, manifestos and organizational coherence. Some scholars have also critiqued
their localization, arguing that local responses are inadequate to challenge globalization (Bauman, 2002; Peck and Tickell, 2002; Cameron and
Palan, 2004). To clarify, we
propose to use the concept of autonomous geographies to understand alterglobalization movements as a progressive politics, not grounded through a particular spatial strategy but
as a relational and contextual entity drawing together resistance, creation and solidarity across multiple
times and places. We begin by defining autonomy. First, autonomy is a contextual and situated tendency which has many trajectories.
We are concerned with movements that seek freedom and connection beyond nation states,
international financial institutions, global corporations and neoliberalism – what we might otherwise call global anticapitalism. Second, autonomy is a sociospatial strategy, in which complex networks and relations are woven between many autonomous
projects across time and space, with potential for translocal solidarity networks. Third, the interstitial nature of autonomy means the lack of an
‘out there’ from which to build autonomy, hence creating a constant interplay between autonomous and non-autonomous tendencies. Fourth,
autonomy is resistance and creation, a tendency that proposes but also refuses. Finally, autonomy
is praxis, a commitment to
the revolution of the everyday .
Their claims to political engagement through the legalization debate validates the
sovereign’s ability to draw lines and constitute appropriate political activity that
always forecloses change – only an approach focused on self-creation outside the
state allows true political engagement
Edkins and Pin-Fat 2005 (Jenny and Veronique, “Through the Wire: Relations of Power and
Relations of Violence” Millennium)
Conclusion We have traced how sovereign power, that form of rule that today pervades the globe, produces bare life as the
form of life under its sway. We have argued here that, despite appearances, sovereign power is most
productively considered not as a form of power relation but rather as a relationship of violence. In that it
seeks to refuse those whose lives it controls any politically valid response, it operates as a form of technologised administration. A power
relation is one that is invariably accompanied by resistance: the subjects it produces are party to the relation, and their resistance is a necessary
component of what is happening. Sovereign
power on the other hand, with its production of bare life, not political
subjects, attempts to rule out the possibility of resistance. A properly political power relation is not practicable in those
circumstances. What this tells us is that to contest sovereign power we need something different. In challenging sovereign power
we are not facing a power relation but a relationship of violence, one that denies a political voice to the
form of life it has produced. Resistance such as would be possible from within a power relation, and indeed
as an inherent part of it, cannot take place. Other forms of opposition must be found, forms that seek to reinstate a
properly political relationship. Two strategies of contestation were suggested: a refusal to draw lines and an assumption of bare life.
First, the refusal. The drawing of lines between forms of life is the way in which sovereign power produces
bare life. That drawing of lines must be refused, wherever the lines are drawn. Negotiating the precise location of
the lines remains within the violence of sovereign power. A refusal to draw any line between forms of life, on the other hand,
takes away the ground upon which sovereign power is constituted . Second, the assumption. When life is
produced as bare life it is not helpful for that life to demand its reinstatement as politically qualified life.
To do so would be to validate the very drawing of lines upon which sovereign power depends and
which produces life as bare life in the first place . An alternative strategy is the taking on or what we
have called the assumption of bare life. Through this strategy the subject at one and the same time both
acknowledges its status as nothing but life and demands recognition as such . It refuses the distinction between
bare life and politically qualified life. As is apparent, the
two strategies are at heart the same. Both seek to overturn
the denial of politics that has taken place under biopolitics and to reinstate properly political power
relations, with their accompanying freedoms and potentialities. We have discussed an example of what such
contestation of sovereign power might look like. Practices that challenge or refuse sovereign power are
apparent in many locations: whether in hunger strikes or street demonstrations, creative ways of provoking sovereign
power and embroiling it into a political or power relation have been and are being found, through the
wire.
CP – Mexico Coop
Severs – reject because it makes counterplans impossible and proves aff action isn’t
sufficient. Should requires immediacy
Summer 94 (Justice, Oklahoma Supreme Court, “Kelsey v. Dollarsaver Food Warehouse of Durant”,
http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/DeliverDocument.asp?CiteID=20287#marker3fn14)
The legal question to be resolved by the court is whether the word "should" in the May 18 order
connotes futurity or may be deemed a ruling in praesenti. The answer to this query is not to be divined
from rules of grammar; it must be governed by the age-old practice culture of legal professionals and its
immemorial language usage. To determine if the omission (from the critical May 18 entry) of the turgid phrase, "and the same
hereby is", (1) makes it an in futuro ruling - i.e., an expression of what the judge will or would do at a later stage - or (2) constitutes an in in
praesenti resolution of a disputed law issue, the trial judge's intent must be garnered from the four corners of the entire record.16 ¶5 Nisi prius
orders should be so construed as to give effect to every words and every part of the text, with a view to carrying out the evident intent of the
judge's direction.17 The order's language ought not to be considered abstractly. The actual meaning intended by the document's signatory
should be derived from the context in which the phrase to be interpreted is used.18 When applied to the May 18 memorial, these told canons
impel my conclusion that the judge doubtless intended his ruling as an in praesenti resolution of Dollarsaver's quest for judgment n.o.v.
Approval of all counsel plainly appears on the face of the critical May 18 entry which is [885 P.2d 1358] signed by the judge.19 True minutes20
of a court neither call for nor bear the approval of the parties' counsel nor the judge's signature. To reject out of hand the view that in this
context "should" is impliedly followed by the customary, "and the same hereby is", makes the court once again revert to medieval notions of
ritualistic formalism now so thoroughly condemned in national jurisprudence and long abandoned by the statutory policy of this State.
[Continues – To Footnote] 14 In
praesenti means literally "at the present time." BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 792 (6th Ed. 1990). In legal
is presently or immediately effective, as opposed to something that will or
would become effective in the future [in futurol]. See Van Wyck v. Knevals, 106 U.S. 360, 365, 1 S.Ct. 336, 337, 27 L.Ed. 201 (1882).
parlance the phrase denotes that which in law
Leaks – Mexico will find out our intentions from those who oppose Obama
Washington Post 09 (Michael Gerson- November 20, 2009, Obama the undecider, lexisnexis)
Gates said he is "appalled by the amount of leaking that has been going on," which would be, if the culprits are discovered,
"a career-ender." Obama recently added, "I think I am angrier than Bob Gates about it." They should be appalled and angry at the process they
created -- as should the rest of the country. Sometimes government leaks are self-serving, reflecting the powerful passion
of midlevel functionaries to appear in the know. But leaks in this process have been attempts to rig the outcome
of a national security decision. This summer, nameless White House officials began leaking their skepticism of plans for troop increases.
Then Gen. Stanley McChrystal's assessment, calling for a more troop-intensive counterinsurgency strategy, was leaked. Then a leak of internal
government reviews on the poor state of the Afghan military and police forces. Then a leak from "informed sources" that Obama had settled on a
troop increase of 34,000. Then the leak that Obama had rejected all the military options on the table and was insisting on refinements. Then the
leak of two classified cables from Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, which cautioned against troop increases, leaving McChrystal, according to another
nameless source, feeling "stabbed in the back." The Afghan policy process has resulted in more leaks than Oktoberfest. Leaks are a form of
disloyalty -- an
attempt to box in the president of the United States, a mini-coup in which unelected officials attempt
to substitute their judgment for the president's. Leaks increase tension and anger, then leave the losing side in a debate
publicly humiliated and perhaps alienated from the outcome. Depending on that outcome, Obama will be vulnerable to charges of buckling to
military pressure or disregarding the advice of his commanders.
The regulations the plan puts in place will be distinct from what Mexico wants. Proves
unilateralism or severance
Bender 12, Law prof at Seattle (Steven, Run for the Border: Vice and Virtue in U.S.-Mexico Border
Crossings, pg. 189)
Addressed previously are a variety of cross-border differences in law that have affected border crossings. Some are
very subtle, such as the lower property tax rate structures in Mexico, in relation to most U.S. jurisdictions, that add to the appeal of a Mexican
retirement or second home. Others are more substantial, such as Mexico’s lower drinking age and its abolition of the death penalty, the latter
in contrast to its resilience in most U.S. jurisdictions. Almost across
issues engaged in this text. Examples
the board Mexico offers less strict regulation on the
include capital punishment, drug possession, the minimum drinking age, the age of
sexual consent, and prostitution. In contrast, Mexican
law is more resolute than U.S. law with regard to abortion and
gun control. The two countries may also articulate similar laws on many subjects in terms of strictness,
yet they may differ substantially in their rigor of enforcement in large measure due to corruption engrained in Mexican
government.
Drug trafficking (historically, at least) and environmental regulation of borderlands factories are the two areas that
stand out here. As demonstrated above, many varieties of border crossings are spurred by prohibitions in the country of departure where
the destination country permits the activity or at least offers a semblance of tolerance. Ironically, immigration north for economic advantage
breaks this mold—labor of course is legal in Mexico, and Mexico supports its emigrants to the United States who migrate to pursue an
American dream. In contrast, the United States criminalizes their unauthorized entry, regardless of the immigrant’s virtuous purpose. For
undocumented immigrants, then, legality flows in the opposite discussion in this chapter thus assumes the dynamic in which the border crosser
aims to escape, rather than invoke, some more stringent law. Any consideration of U.S.-Mexico cross-border law differences must take account
of the potentially equal import of interstate differences within the United States. For example, consider the many legal subjects addressed
above. Regarding marijuana possession, apart from federal regulation, with Arizona’s Proposition 203 in 2010 and Delaware’s legislation in
2011, 16 states now authorize medicinal marijuana possession of some form, while others have significantly decriminalized possession for any
purpose. Sixteen states have abolished the death penalty. Prostitution is legal in much of Nevada. Gambling is lawful in Nevada and at tribal
casinos throughout the United States. Revelers in Las Vegas can order drinks around the clock with no last call. The age of sexual consent varies
across the United States—in most states that age is 16, while in others it is as old as 18. 1 Certain states regulate gun purchases more rigorously
than others. Before Roe v. Wade , states varied more widely than today in abortion allowances, and before the advent of no-fault divorce some
states such as New York offered extremely limited grounds for divorce. These interstate differences in law sometimes prompt interstate travel.
For example, before federal law coerced states into raising the minimum drinking age, familiar party routes emerged from strict to more lenient
states. In particular, I remember summer weekend trips to Idaho, once a haven for Washington and Oregon youth with its lower drinking age of
19. Some legal differences are less likely to trigger interstate travel for purposes of eluding a stricter state. For example, it is unlikely that a
serial killer would gravitate toward a state without capital punishment in order to carry out his or her grisly agenda (which says something
about the minimal deterrence effect of capital punishment). In sum, given the permissibility in many states of vice tourism in the areas
mentioned above, often there is no need for U.S. residents to head for Mexico to satisfy their urges. Similarly, an illicit market exists in the
United States for much of what prompts vice tourism into Mexico. During Prohibition, U.S. drinkers situated far from the borderlands
frequented local speakeasies for their hard alcohol. Today’s youth, unable to drink legally, either purchase fake identification, obtain alcohol
from older friends or family, or purchase an alternate substance, particularly marijuana that in many locations is easier than alcohol for
youngsters to procure and secret away. No doubt a baggie of marijuana is easier to conceal from one’s parents and authorities than a case of
beer. Before legalization, abortions were available in clandestine venues throughout the United States. The outlawing of gambling (aside from
state-sponsored lotteries) in most U.S. jurisdictions has no impact on informal gambling through weekend card games and sports betting pools.
Johns seeking prostitutes need not cross the border, or even venture across state lines to a Nevada brothel. By means of Internet sites or by
frequenting a local massage parlor or escort service, customers can readily engage prostitutes in most U.S. cities. Although less apparent, child
sex can be found, too, in U.S. locations. While perhaps produced more often in Mexican locations, child pornography might be viewed over the
With these practical circumstances in mind, consider the options for crossborder lawmaking. As now, Mexico and the United States could legislate independently of one another,
marching to their own regulatory drums. Conversely, the two countries could aim to synchronize all their
laws, particularly in areas that affect border crossings. A middle ground would be to revisit each set of laws in light of crossInternet from any U.S. computer.
border traffic and the growing alliances and cultural connections between the two countries and evaluate each law individually in terms of the
advantages and drawbacks of synchronizing the two legal regimes. The same approach could apply to new policymakers would best undertake
this policy analysis and recommend synchronization as appropriate.
1NR
CP – Mexico Coop
Mexico has concerns about legalization but would agree to a synchronized effort with
the US
Reuters 14 (8/8/14, Mexican president hints may be open to change in marijuana laws,
www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/08/us-mexico-drugs-idUSKBN0EJ0UE20140608)
Mexico and the United States cannot pursue diverging policies on marijuana legalization, Mexican
President Enrique Pena Nieto was quoted as saying on Sunday, hinting he may be open to following the lead taken by
some U.S. states in changing drug laws. Political pressure has grown in Mexico to take a more liberal stance
on marijuana since Washington and Colorado decided to legalize possession and sale of the drug for recreational use in 2012. Other U.S.
states plan votes soon. Marijuana, along with contraband like cocaine and crystal meth, has been a major source of income for violent drug
cartels responsible for thousands of deaths in Mexico in recent years. Proponents of reform say legalizing marijuana would both reduce the
gangs' economic power and help generate more tax revenue. Pena Nieto
says he is in favor of debating the issue despite
personal misgivings about legalizing cannabis, and lawmakers say Mexico cannot be out of step for ever
with the United States, the principal buyer of illicit drugs that cross the border. In an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais, Pena
Nieto said legalization of marijuana was a "growing phenomenon" and that the policies followed in the last 30 to 40 years had only led to more
consumption and more production of drugs. "Therefore it's a failed policy," he told the newspaper. "It needs to be reviewed. I repeat, I'm not in
favor of legalization, this is a personal conviction. But we can't continue on this road of inconsistency between the legalization we've had in
some places, particularly in the most important consumer market, the United States, and in Mexico where we continue to criminalize
production of marijuana," he added. His
comments offered encouragement to supporters of change in Mexico,
where polls have for years shown a majority of the population opposes outright legalization of
marijuana.
Mexico has concerns about legalization but would agree under the counterplans
conditions
Business Week 14 (9/22, Mexico President Says He’s Against Legal Marijuana Sales,
www.businessweek.com/news/2014-09-22/mexico-president-says-he-s-against-legal-marijuana-sales)
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said that he’s against the legalization of marijuana as Latin American leaders
debate drug policies, saying it would open the door to increased harm from narcotics. The Western hemisphere needs a broad
debate regarding the legality of marijuana, Pena Nieto said in a television interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New
York. Cannabis is legal for recreational use in Washington and Colorado and allowed for medicinal purposes in 23 U.S. states and the nation’s
capital. Uruguay last year legalized marijuana sales. “I personally am against the legalization,” the 48-year-old president said. Legalizing
marijuana would be “opening the door to a large intrusion of drugs that is very damaging to the population.” Uruguay last year made sales of
marijuana legal and leaders or former leaders in Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Ecuador and Belize have said legalization should be debated.
Officials from the 35 members of the Organization of American States met in Guatemala City last week to discuss counter-narcotics policies in
the region. “I’m
in agreement that we need to have a large debate in the hemisphere about the policies for
this area, whether it’s to tolerate or to legalize or to simply take a hemispherical definition,” Pena Nieto
said. Fresh Debate In a report published this month, Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos, who once led security operations supported by
the U.S.-funded “Plan Colombia” counter-narcotics program, called for a fresh debate over how to fight illegal drugs. The U.S., which backed an
$8 billion effort to fight drug-smuggling rebels in Colombia and funds interdiction and alternative crop programs across the hemisphere, has
seen its historic position against legalization undermined by voter-backed referendums in states supporting marijuana sales. U.S. funding for
anti-narcotics operations in Latin America and the Caribbean could fall by as much as 29 percent in 2015, including cuts to security initiatives
such as Plan Colombia, the Merida Initiative for Mexico and the Central American and Caribbean Regional Security Initiatives, according to a
report this month by the Congressional Research Service. “The world needs to discuss new approaches,” he wrote in the
report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, whose members include former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and former
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. “ If
will welcome it.
that means legalizing, and the world thinks that’s the solution, I
Hemispheric dialogue and coordination with the US can overcome Mexico’s concerns
Latin Times 14 (6/14, Will Mexico Legalize Weed? President Enrique Peña Nieto Calls For ‘Debate’ On
‘Inconsistent’ US Policies, www.latintimes.com/will-mexico-legalize-weed-president-enrique-penanieto-calls-debate-inconsistent-us-181934)
Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto told Spanish newspaper El Pais in an interview last week that while he did not personally
believe that marijuana should be legalized -- citing the “gateway” myth as reason for his opposition -- he also saw US-sponsored drug
policies in Latin America as “failed” and pointed to inconsistent US laws at the federal and state levels in
calling for a review of policies. “I think that this is an issue of inconsistency, of incongruence, and it’s a policy
which obviously has to be reviewed,” he said. “ The determinations made on this policy have to be
hemispheric .” “The US has a key role to play in this,” the Mexican president went on. “It would seem that it hasn’t tried to
take the bull by the horns, so to speak. But it will have to do so ... Today, although it’s more or less illegal and prohibited, we see that in various
countries, it’s not so illegal. We see that within the region, in Uruguay, it’s been approved. We see that that hasn’t had any effect on diplomatic
relations, on the order of the universe, either.”
Nieto is against legalization and would only accept it in the context of a larger
hemispheric effort like the counterplan
Business Week 14 (9/22, Mexico President Says He’s Against Legal Marijuana Sales,
www.businessweek.com/news/2014-09-22/mexico-president-says-he-s-against-legal-marijuana-sales)
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said that he’s against the legalization of marijuana as Latin American leaders
debate drug policies, saying it would open the door to increased harm from narcotics. The Western hemisphere needs a broad
debate regarding the legality of marijuana, Pena Nieto said in a television interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New
York. Cannabis is legal for recreational use in Washington and Colorado and allowed for medicinal purposes in 23 U.S. states and the nation’s
capital. Uruguay last year legalized marijuana sales. “I personally am against the legalization,” the 48-year-old president said. Legalizing
marijuana would be “opening the door to a large intrusion of drugs that is very damaging to the population.” Uruguay last year made sales of
marijuana legal and leaders or former leaders in Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Ecuador and Belize have said legalization should be debated.
Officials from the 35 members of the Organization of American States met in Guatemala City last week to discuss counter-narcotics policies in
the region. “I’m
in agreement that we need to have a large debate in the hemisphere about the policies for
this area, whether it’s to tolerate or to legalize or to simply take a hemispherical definition,” Pena Nieto
said. Fresh Debate In a report published this month, Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos, who once led security operations supported by
the U.S.-funded “Plan Colombia” counter-narcotics program, called for a fresh debate over how to fight illegal drugs. The U.S., which backed an
$8 billion effort to fight drug-smuggling rebels in Colombia and funds interdiction and alternative crop programs across the hemisphere, has
seen its historic position against legalization undermined by voter-backed referendums in states supporting marijuana sales. U.S. funding for
anti-narcotics operations in Latin America and the Caribbean could fall by as much as 29 percent in 2015, including cuts to security initiatives
such as Plan Colombia, the Merida Initiative for Mexico and the Central American and Caribbean Regional Security Initiatives, according to a
report this month by the Congressional Research Service. “The world needs to discuss new approaches,” he wrote in the
report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, whose members include former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and former
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. “If
that means legalizing, and the world thinks that’s the solution, I will
welcome it.
The OAS has been pushing a hemispheric dialogue on legalization – the only foot
dragger has been the US
Time 13 (5/22, OAS to White House and Hemisphere: It’s High Time to Consider Legalizing Pot,
world.time.com/2013/05/22/key-regional-organization-pushes-white-house-to-debate-legalizing-pot/)
On the Latin American street, the Organization of American States has always borne a reputation, often undeserved, as Washington’s lackey.
But the
OAS, based in Washington, just sent the western hemisphere a message the White House would rather not hear:
It’s time to seriously discuss legalizing marijuana as one means of reducing harrowing drug violence. That conclusion,
from a study presented last Friday in Bogotá, Colombia, by OAS Secretary-General José Miguel Insulza, is one that a
growing number of Latin American governments — including Uruguay, which might legalize marijuana this year — are
urging the Obama Administration to accept. Having the motion seconded by Washington’s “lackey” makes it harder to ignore.
But even as Insulza and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos were hailing the OAS report last week, something else was brewing in Bogotá
that could further undermine resistance to pot legalization. The Colombian capital is about to start a program that uses marijuana to wean
junkies off bazuco, a cheap but fiercely addictive cocaine paste. It will mark one of the largest experiments to determine if marijuana — which
legalization opponents still insist is a “gateway” to harder drugs like cocaine and heroin — is in reality an “exit” drug. If so, it will only serve to
reinforce the argument, mentioned by the OAS study, that marijuana is a relatively benign drug, far more comparable to alcohol than it is, say,
to crystal meth. As Miami Herald South America correspondent Jim Wyss recently wrote from Bogotá, “For the most desperate [bazuco] users,
the cannabis cure may be the only way out.” Or as one social worker told Wyss, “We want people to quit a substance that is very, very
damaging and transition to something less dangerous and which will allow them to function in society.” Critics say the effort will just turn
bazuco zombies into potheads. But for years now, similar projects in countries like Brazil, Jamaica and most recently Canada have indicated that
marijuana is in fact an effective exit drug. In British Columbia last fall, a team of U.S. and Canadian addiction researchers determined that
“clinical trials on cannabis substitution for problematic substance abuse appear justified.” That doesn’t mean we should all start smoking herb
like Harold and Kumar. The fact that a glass of hot bourbon can relieve common cold symptoms doesn’t mean we should all start drinking
Manhattans, either. But affirming marijuana as an exit drug would lead us to reconsider one of modern society’s most glaring double standards:
booze good, pot bad. It would reinforce the notion that moderate marijuana use is not more perilous than moderate alcohol consumption.
According to studies, in fact, pot smoking in some cases can be a preferable alternative to drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco. So why do we
waste so many resources (almost $10 billion each year in the U.S. alone) as well as lives hunting down marijuana users and sellers? The OAS’s
$2 million report “The Drug Problem in the Americas” seems to ask the same thing. It is not an outright call for marijuana legalization. It is, as
Insulza said in Bogotá, “the beginning of a long-awaited discussion” about “more realistic [drug war] policies.” Most
Latin American
leaders — whose countries suffer the bloody brunt of the largely failed U.S.-led drug war — already
made it clear to President Obama at last year’s Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, that it’s high time to ask
whether marijuana legalization might help reduce drug cartel revenues and therefore drug cartel mayhem. (Studies
indicate it could rob Mexico’s narco-mafias of a third of the estimated $30 billion they rake in each year.) Insulza acknowledged the current
“disposition” throughout the Americas to “deal with the legalization issue,” and he called for “greater
flexibility” on the part of nations like the U.S. The 400-page OAS study itself concludes that trends in the hemisphere
“lean toward decriminalization or legalization of the production, sale and use of marijuana. Sooner or later, decisions in this area will
need to be taken.” Santos, who is widely considered Washington’s closest ally in Latin America today, has not yet endorsed legalization, but he
said the
report should help drug-war battered countries like his “seek better solutions” than the
conventional interdiction strategy Washington still pushes. Former presidents of three of Latin America’s largest economies —
Brazil, Mexico and Colombia — have jointly called for marijuana legalization. In the U.S., the states of Washington and Colorado last fall voted
to legalize pot. Now that the OAS has joined that chorus, both the White House and the U.S. Congress need to join the discussion with more
open ears.
DA – Mexico Coop
Impossible to predict the effect of legalization on cartels – US/Mexico security
cooperation key to prevent possibilities for violence
Murray 11, Elliott School of International Affairs/Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission
(Chad, Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations and Marijuana: The Potential Effects of U.S. Legalization,
https://elliott.gwu.edu/sites/elliott.gwu.edu/files/downloads/acad/lahs/mexico-marijuana-071111.pdf)
Violence could increase. The most important long-term indicator by which to measure the effects of
legalization on Mexican DTOs is the level of violence. While expert testimony throughout our project
made it clear that in the short term violence would probably increase this is not necessarily true for the
medium or long term. If the loss of marijuana revenue legalization would cost the Sinaloa cartel enough
to prevent it from continuing its aggressive policy of expansion across Mexico this would certainly be a
positive development, as it would lead to less clashes with other DTOs over transport corridors into the
United States and perhaps a return to the truces that were largely in effect for much of the 1990s and
early 2000s among the major DTOs. However, it must be acknowledged that any predictions about the
future, despite the testimony to support such predictions are in their very nature mere speculation. It is
impossible to predict whether the legalization of marijuana will have a definite effect on these two DTOS
with any certainty. However if the history of drug trafficking tells us anything it is that you cannot
remove a revenue source that supplies as much as half of an organizations income without having a
major effect on that organization. The question is will the Mexican and American governments be
able to exploit these effects quickly or will these DTOs simply regroup and continue trafficking other
drugs . In any event the legalization of marijuana will, according to numerous experts, force these DTOs
to stop trafficking by making it unprofitable to do so. Thus, the question policymakers may want
to ask is “if we can deny traffickers the ability to profit off the sales of marijuana, how
can we take advantage of that opportunity?”
1) Support for the war on drugs – Legalization makes the US look hypocritical and
delegitimizes Mexico’s efforts against the DTO’s which spills over to undermine the
entire defense relationship – that’s the 1NC Murray and Downie evidence and this
card
Murray 11, Elliott School of International Affairs/Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission
(Chad, Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations and Marijuana: The Potential Effects of U.S. Legalization,
https://elliott.gwu.edu/sites/elliott.gwu.edu/files/downloads/acad/lahs/mexico-marijuana-071111.pdf)
Relations between the two countries have been terse ever since Wikileaks revealed that Ambassador
Pascual wrote that he did not believe that President Calderón could win the war on drugs. This caused
such strife that Ambassador Pascual resigned in March 2011. President Calderón has been dedicated to
helping Mexico combat drugs, and he was unwilling to allow a U.S. Ambassador to openly criticize his
efforts. If President Calderón was this forceful of the Wikileaks incident, the legalization of marijuana in
the U.S. would likely be trying on the bilateral relationship. How far this distancing would go is up for debate, given
Mexico‟s dependence on U.S. trade and counter-narcotics aid programs. Were President Calderón no longer in office and U.S. states legalized
marijuana, the effects would likely to be similar, although maybe not as severe. If the PRI were to return to power, it is likely that they
would begin to distance themselves from the United States, as they did in the past. The PRI preferred to handle DTOs
through a series of tacit agreements that maintained order instead of collaborating with the U.S. In this sense, the fallout between the United
States and Mexico might not be as severe, but it is likely that Mexico
would still publically reprimand the United States‟
actions. Either way, the legalization of marijuana in the United States would harm U.S.-Mexico relations and
the United States should consider the repercussions before initiating policy reform.
2) Unilateralism – it foments a Mexican backlash and makes security cooperation
impossible. That’s the 1NC Reich and Galeotti cards on the counterplan and this card
Reich 13, Professor of Global Affairs and Political Science (Simon, The Paradox of Unilateralism:
Institutionalizing Failure in U.S.-Mexican Drug Strategies, NORTEAMÉRICA, Año 8, número 2, juliodiciembre)
Basing policy on both the principle of international sovereignty and also operational interdependent sovereignty is more likely to bring
favorable results. The reason is that effective cooperation requires
that certain conditions be in place that
overcome transaction costs and lead to efficiency gains. We elaborate the conditions below. When the conditions
are met, cooperation is more likely to be effective, as reflected in the cases listed in the top right hand box. The first
condition is the existence of mutual interest in the administration of any program. This is not the same
thing, of course, as having the same interest. But any program where Mexican authorities see no clear
and significant reason for action is doomed to failure. Second, communication and coordination are
essential. Programs must be coordinated not only across national sovereign jurisdictions but also within
national administrative jurisdictions to avoid contradictory initiatives and to ensure that trust is not
subverted. With so many federal agencies involved in drug interdiction in Mexico, it is easy –if not inevitable–
for individual agencies to pursue policies that contradict the efforts of other agencies, undermining
cross-border efforts at cooperation and adopting unilateral strategies to protect secrecy. Third,
institutionalization (that is, regularization of agreements, contacts, and communication between
agencies and officials such as the High Level Consultative Group) is important because it commits bureaucratic
personnel to regular interaction with counterparts across the border, provides continuity, and
overcomes shifts in political priorities (Aspinwall, 2009). Committing senior personnel to consultation
increases each side’s stake and locks in stakeholders from both countries. Finally, capacity-building
facilitates cooperation because it increases and “tunes” skill levels. This can occur through the provision of resources
and new technologies, such as equipment. It also occurs through training exercises, secondments, and placements, where personnel from one
side are implanted in the other (Aspinwall 2013). The application of new technologies and skills can generate mutual interest, and thus may
help overcome prior coordination problems. If
these four conditions are met, a virtuous circle is created by
expanding the area of mutual interest, engendering greater trust. This leads to higher levels of
legitimacy on both sides and can strengthen executives against domestic veto players. These
conditions , although rare, are impossible to meet in the context of unilateral approaches . The cases that follow
systematically consider these conditions in the context of different policy initiatives and examine the regulations that they generated. The
requirements of a single article preclude us illustrating each case outlined in Figure 2. We therefore confine ourselves to examining one case in
each box, leaving the remainder for a future, more detailed study.
Defense cooperation supported by both sides and successful now
Seelke 14, Specialist in Latin American Affairs at CRS (Clare, 4/8. U.S.-Mexican Security Cooperation:
The Mérida Initiative and Beyond, fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41349.pdf
U.S.-Mexican security cooperation increased significantly as a result of the development and
implementation of the Mérida Initiative, a counterdrug and anticrime assistance package for Mexico and Central America first
funded in FY2008. Whereas U.S. assistance initially focused on training and equipping Mexican counterdrug forces, it now places more
emphasis on addressing the weak institutions and underlying societal problems that have allowed the drug trade to flourish in Mexico. The
Mérida strategy now focuses on (1) disrupting organized criminal groups, (2) institutionalizing the rule of law, (3) creating a 21st century border,
and (4) building strong and resilient communities. As part of the Mérida Initiative, the Mexican government pledged to intensify its anticrime
efforts and the U.S. government pledged to address drug demand and the illicit trafficking of firearms and bulk currency to Mexico. Inaugurated
in December 2012, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto
has continued U.S.- Mexican security cooperation, albeit
with a shift in focus toward reducing violent crime in Mexico. The Interior Ministry is now a primary entity through which Mérida training
and equipment requests are coordinated and intelligence is channeled. The Mexican government has requested
increased assistance for judicial reform and prevention efforts, but limited U.S. involvement in some law enforcement and intelligence
operations. Despite those restrictions, U.S.
intelligence helped Mexican marines arrest the leader of the Los Zetas
criminal organization, Miguel Angel Treviño Morales in July 2013. U.S. surveillance equipment, intelligence, and law
enforcement agents also helped the Mexican marines find and arrest Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán—the
world’s most wanted drug trafficker—in February 2014. The 113th Congress is likely to continue funding and
overseeing the Mérida Initiative and related domestic initiatives. From FY2008 to FY2014, Congress appropriated about
$2.4 billion in Mérida Initiative assistance for Mexico, including some $194.2 million provided in the FY2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act
(P.L. 113-76). As of March 2014, more than $1.2 billion of Mérida Initiative assistance had been delivered. The Obama Administration asked for
$115 million for Mérida in its FY2015 budget request.