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Edina Debate 2k7 Sadagopal

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The order is 6 off, Inherency, Smart Power, Relations, AIDS ASPEC (84 words) 1. The Affirmative must specify specify the process process by which which the government government does does the plan, plan, they fail to specify an agent of action 2. Ground – the aff is an an incomplete incomplete policy without without an agent agent – specific specific ground ground is predicated predicated on on the agent agent 3. Real World World – no policy policy can be established established with an agent, agent, the Government Government isn’t isn’t a single single entity – this this is a full solvency takeout. 4. Plan Text Text Key – it’s the only only thing Neg can lock Aff into defending defending 5. Voting Issue Issue for fairness fairness and and educa education tion

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Edina Debate 2k7 Sadagopal

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T Disease (89 words) A. Interpr Interpretation etation --- public public health assistance assistance is limited limited to only treatment treatment of diseases diseases Schlosberg ’98 (Claudia, Partner – Blank and Rome, National Health Law Program, 1-12, http://www.healthlaw.org/library.cfm?fa=download&resourceID=67503&print) V. PUBLIC HEALTH ASSIST ASSISTANCE ANCE All aliens, regardless of immigration status, are eligible for public health assistance funded through sources other than the Medicaid program. The

public health assistance is limited to immunizations with respect to immunizable diseases and for testing and treatment of symptoms of communicable diseases whether or not such symptoms are caused by a communicable disease. As with emergency Medicaid, providers are not required to, and should not, verify the citizenship, nationality and immigration status of applicants for these se rvices. The above definition of public health assistance opens the door to a wide range of critical health services for immigrants and their families. Among the most important are : Immunizations for Children and Adolescents: All children and adolescents should be fully immunized according to the current standards of the Advisory Committ Committee ee on Immunization Practices; AIDS and HIV services and treatment including screening and diagnosis, counseling, testing and treatment provided with Ryan White Act or other non-Medicaid funds, Tuberculosis s services ervices including screening, Additionally, treatment of symptoms of a wide range of other  diagnosis and treatment. Sexually transmitted disease ( SDT) screening, diagnosis and treatment. Additionally, communicable diseases is also covered even if ultimately, a communicable origin is ruled out.

B. Violation Violation --- the Aff doesn’t doesn’t exclusively exclusively deal deal with disease disease C. Limits --- they exp explode lode the topic topic:: there are are an infinite number number of things things that might eventually eventually affect affect public health, meaning prevention interpretations unlimit the topic D. Voter fo forr fairness, fairness, education, education, and and jurisdiction. jurisdiction.

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Edina Debate 2k7 Sadagopal

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T SSA (98 words) A. Interp Interpre retat tation ion –  1. Public health health initiatives initiatives are are universal universal and and requires requires access access by the entire entire community community Costich, 02 Assistant Professor, Professor, Center for Health Services Management & Research and School of Public Health, University of  Kentucky (Julia, 90 Ky. L.J. 1043, “Legislating a Public Health Nightmare: The Anti-immigrant Anti-immigrant Provisions of the "Contract With America" Congress”, lexis) The American Academy of Pediatrics ("AAP") has consistently advocated the provision of health care to all children, regardless of their immigration status. The official AAP statement on this subject notes:

Public health initiatives  by intent and design are universal, and the protection of the public health requires access by the entire com commun munit ity y. Restrictions on access to services placed on immigrants would seriously limit the effectiveness of outreach, case finding, and prevention and treatment programs related to infectious diseases. Patients needing [*1065] prenatal care and family  planning services would similarly lose access to important preventive care, resulting in increased risks for poor pregnancy outcomes and the major long-term disabilities associated with such outcomes and their subsequent costs. Denying legal and illegal immigrants access to basic health care would not only deprive them of needed services but also disrupt the provision of services to other children by redirecting resources from providing services to sorting and enforcement of more restrictive eligibility standards.  115

2. Sub Sahara Saharan n Africa Africa means means a single single socioec socioecono onomic mic region region Dorraj, 95 Professor of comparative politics and international relations at Texas Christian University (Manochehr, The Changing Economy of the Third W World, orld, questia) The term sub- Saharan Africa  is used interchangeably with Africa to refer to the African countries south of the Sahara and north of the Republic of South Africa that

have come to be regarded as a single socioeconomic region

. This region possesses extensive similarities that constitute an optimal basis for a comparative study of this kind. Unlike their neighbors to the north and south, these countries had lived through generally similar forms of Western European colonialism. Their continuing attempts at postindependence nation building seem to have run into similar problems. The countries of the Mediterranean littoral ( Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt) and South Africa are explicitly excluded. Their religion, history, and socioeconomic culture disposes countries within this group to see themselves and to behave more as Middle East Arab countries than as African countries. South Africa's aggressive pursuit of apartheid until recently isolated it from the rest of the continent.

B. Violation Violation – the aff aff doesn’t doesn’t act towards towards all of sub Saharan Saharan Africa

C. St Stan anda dard rdss 1. Limits – their interpretation unlimits unlim its the topic – we have to research 48 times as many affs – one for every single country. 2. Ground – it’s impossible for the negative to get generics that link to tiny countries – core negative generics require a large mechanism to overcome the uniqueness problems with status quo aid. D. Cros Crosss appl apply y voter voterss

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Edina Debate 2k7 Sadagopal

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Justification (100 words) A. Interp Interpre retat tation ion It is the burden of the Aff to prove every word in the resolution true B. Viola iolati tion on The affirmative fails to justify the words United States in the resolution because there is no reason in the 1AC why another nation couldn’t take action. C. St Stan anda dard rdss 1. Prima Facie Burden – if the Aff cannot prove that each word is necessary nec essary,, than it proves the null hypothesis that we shouldn’t do the resolution. 2. Fairness Fairness – if the Aff does does not have to affirm affirm the resolut resolution, ion, than they they can run almost almost any abusive abusive case, exploding Aff ground. D. Voter for jurisdic jurisdiction tion.

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Tradeoff (222 words) The budget is set and Congress will require tradeoffs for new spending We Measure Success?”, Global Health Policy Blog, Sessions, 06 - analyst at the Centre for Global Development (Myra, Blog – “The PMI Turns One - How Will We 7/6, http://blogs.cgdev.org/globalhealth/2006/07/the_pmi_turns_o.php) Myra comments: It is clearly true that the PMI has helped increase international attention to malaria a nd has transformed a notoriously underunder-funded funded and underappreciated area of US foreign assistance for global health. However, measuring the success of this initiative should not be confined to a discussion of health outcomes and implementation strategies, although these elements are crucial. E valuators should also look at the a id mechanism itself: is this model effective? What are the tradeoffs for those countries that receive the concentrated funding and those who don't?

What are the trade-offs for US global health and foreign

assistance overall? Are the gains that are made cost-effective? What we need going forward is increased transparency in decision-making processes, including country selection, as well as better public knowledge about the inputs and results. We also need an understanding that this is a new and different way of doing business - a grand experiment in foreign aid - and one that needs healthy scrutiny from time to time. COMMENTS For me, one of the most encouraging parts of the PMI is its effort to involve the host government and other development partners from the initial stages of program planning. Hopefully, early success using this more inclusive model will have spillover effects to other USAID programs. Myra - when you ask about the possible tradeoffs for global health, what exactly are you referring to? Do you believe PMI spending is crowding out other potential health spending? Posted by: Michael Bernstein at July 6, 2006 02:04 PM

Thanks for the comment and question, Michael. I have not done the analysis of the data to see if the PMI is having a negative impact on the funding levels of other  health initiatives-- and given all of the other changes in the US foreign assistance budget I am not sure it would ever be possible to isolate the impact of the PMI. However, during a recent CGD event, Congressman Kolbe talked at length about the future challenges in maintaining foreign assistance funding levels in light of  increasing domestic federal expenditures. Mark Lippert, the Director of Foreign Policy for Senator Barak Obama also touched on this key issue at an April CGD event about the future of MCA. The message from each of these speakers was that funding levels for any particular initiative or priority should be looked at in the broader 

appropriations process is essentially a zero-sum game full of trade-offs . In today's tight budget climate, I think that there is no doubt that funding for the PMI and other new intiatives will detract from real or potential funding for other areas of the foreign aid budget -- and that that reality should be a part of the conversation about the successes a nd opportunities of the context-- and that the

initiatives.

USAID programs in Latin America are the lowest priority – it is funded now but will be cut to make up for the plan Sanchez, 06 (Marcela, “Linking foreign aid and security”, San Diego Tribune, 1/28, http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/ http://www.signonsandiego.com /uniontrib/20060128/news_ 20060128/news_lz1e28sanchez.html lz1e28sanchez.html Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week announced that the U.S. diplomatic corps would be repositioned to more volatile countries, with foreign aid gaining new  prominence and focus within the administration, all to ensure long-term U.S. security. These changes, part of her new vision of “transformational diplomacy diplomacy,” ,” are based on the notion that the greatest threat to U.S. security comes from within states that have failed, not from states at war with each other.

Aid experts inside and outside the government worry that making U.S. security interests the litmus test for foreign assistance will put USAID programs at risk, particularly those in Latin America . Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., who as chairman of the House foreign operations subcommittee has long had a leading role in determining d etermining levels of U.S. foreign aid, warned that

the agency could lose its policy

direction as its mission changed “from one of poverty alleviation and economic development ... (to one) much more narrowly focused on our national security objectives

With the exception of Colombia, U.S.

aid to Latin America has been declining

 plan, the region would seem to be even less which are more likely breeding grounds for Islamic terrorists.

.”

significantly since the end of the C old War. War. Under the new

a priority, slipping well behind the Middle East, Southeast Asia and even Africa,

Rice's “transformational diplomacy,” however, does not necessarily spell the demise for aid to Latin America.  Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development, believes Rice's plan reinvigorates development, the core mission of USAID, by making it “a national security imperative.” Indeed, Rice herself argues for development, only her emphasis is on U.S. security, not poverty alleviation. “Our foreign assistance must help people get results,” Rice said in a speech last week. “The resources we commit must empower developing countries to strengthen security, to consolidate democracy, to increase trade and investment, and to improve the lives of their   people.”

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Edina Debate 2k7 Sadagopal __ / __ USAID in Latin America is key to preventing Amazon deforestation Administrator, Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, USAID (Adolfo, "Foreign Assistance Priorities for the Western Hemisphere," Franco, 04 - Assistant Administrator, 3/2,  3/2, http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/040302fran.htm ) Overall, USAID is programming its development assistance in the LAC region to help our trading partners to prepare for trade negotiations, and implement trade agreements. Additionally Additionally,, USAID-supported programs help to ensure that all USAID investments in areas such as s mall business development and rural diversification maximize the economic growth and poverty reduction benefits from their participation in free trade.

USAID is implementing the President's Initiative against Illegal Logging, which seeks to address the negative impacts of the illegal timber trade on economic, social, and political stability. In Peru, where illegal loggers have developed a symbiotic relationship with resurgent terrorist groups groups in remote areas, USAID is supporting national efforts to enforce laws and regulations related to protected a reas, assisting communities to manage forests and certify wood  products, and promoting alliances with U.S.-based mahogany retailers and Peruvian mahogany exporters. In Brazil's Amazon Basin, a largely unexplored  biodiversity treasure, USAID is helping to develop management systems that maintain a balance between development and protection of natural resources. Other 

USAID programs have contributed to the conservation of millions of hectares of land and passage of key laws such as the Special Law for the Galapagos. USAID's sustained support helped develop sustainable timber harvest, and reduced significantly the rate of  deforestation in several South American protected reserves. Amazon deforestation causes extinction Takacs, 1996 - teaches environmental humanities (history, (history, ethics, justice, justice, politics) in the Institute for Earth Systems Science and Policy at California State

(David,

“The Idea of Biodiversity Biodiversity:: Philosophies of Paradise,” 1996, pg. 200-201) So biodiversity keeps the world running. It has value and of itself, as well as for us. Raven, Erwin, and Wilson oblige us to think about the value of biodiversity for our  own lives. The Ehrlichs’ rivet-popper rivet-popper trope makes this same point; by eliminating rivets, we play Russian roulette with global ecology and human futures: “It is likely that destruction of the rich complex of species in the Amazon basin could trigger rapid changes in global climate patterns. Agriculture remains heavily dependent on stable climate, and human beings remain heavily dependent on food. By the end of the century the

 perhaps a million species in the extinction of  perhaps Amazon  basin could have entrained famines in which a billion human beings per ished. And if our species is very unlucky, the famines could lead to a thermonuclear war, which could extinguish civilization .” 13 Elsewhere Ehrlich

uses different particulars with no less drama.

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CP (240 words) Counterplan Text: Text: The Supreme Court of the United States should grant certiorari to the next available test case and rule that the office of President of the United States is unconstitutional on the grounds that it violates the 4th amendment of the Constitution, and that all powers of the President be divested to Congress. Observation 1: the counterplan is mutually exclusive. The Aff plan relies on action by the President, either for enforcement, creation of the plan itself, or to sign the bill into law. Observation 2: the counterplan is not topical Observation 3: Solvency The president is the root cause of all problems including the Vietnam and Civil Wars Randall Everson , staff writer, 12/14/06, “The Last Thing America Needs Is Another President”, The Onion, Vol. 42, Issue 50, p.9 Before we get sucked into another whole rigmarole about national parties narrowing down their their primary fields to select a nominee they hope appeals to the broadest cross-section of Americans, it's time to realize that the presidency itself is the real problem, and we need a change. Think about it. When have we ever not had a president? Never. Not since we ratified the Constitution and established ourselves as a democratic republic, anyway, and that's more than enough time to see that presidents

do America more harm than good.  —Vietnam, nam, the Great Depression, Prohibition. In every case, without fail, we have Take all the worst periods in American history —Viet had a president as the head of state. Who has signed every single bad bill into law? A president. What about the president who got us into the Civil War? War? He was a president through and through, just like the rest of the presidents. The truth is, you look at every major crisis, flu epidemic, and time of civil strife, and who has been sitting in the Oval Office? A damn president. The presidency is out of hand in the status quo which will lead to a nuclear holocaust Llewellyn H. Rockwell, President of the Mises Institute, Speech at the John Randolph Club, 10/8/96, http://lewrockwell.com/rockw http://lew rockwell.com/rockwell/prez.htm ell/prez.htmll

The presidency is seemingly bound by law, but in practice it can do just about anything it pleases . It can order up troops anywhere in the world, just as Clinton bragged in his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention. It can plow up a religious community in Texas Texas and  bury its members because theysmoke. got on somebody's nerves at the Justice Department. It can tap our phones, read our mail, watch our bank accounts, and tell us what we can and cannot eat, drink, and

The presidency can break up businesses, shut down airlines, void drilling leases, bribe foreign heads of state or arrest them and try them in kangaroo courts, nationalize land, engage in germ warfare, firebomb crops in Columbia, overthrow any government anywhere, erect tariffs, round up and discredit any public or private assembly it chooses, grab our guns, tax our incomes and our inheritances, steal our land, centrally plan the national and world economy, and impose embargoes on anything anytime. No prince or pope ever had this ability ability.. But leave all that aside and consider this nightmare. The

presidency has the power to bring about a nuclear holocaust with the  push of a button. On his own initiative, the president can destroy the human race . One man can wipe out life on earth. Talk about  playing God. This is a grotesque evil . And the White House claims it is not a tyranny? If the power to destroy the entire world isn't tyrannical, I don't know what is. Why do we put up with this? Why do we allow it? Why isn't this power immediately stripped from him?

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Edina Debate 2k7 Sadagopal

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Inherency (73 words) 1. Cross-apply Cross-apply KCCI 3-13 3-13 from the the 1AC, aid being being given now now – means Frazer Frazer 12-12 12-12 is non-inheren non-inherent. t. There’s no reason to do the plan if aid is being given already. 2. Plan flaw – 1AC 1AC cross-x cross-x says they they defend US giving giving it’s it’s public health health assistance, assistance, but this this is grammatically incorrect thatHold the US doesn’t provide any assistance. functionally solve any of in case. them to their cross-x and grammar. grammar.This means the plan cannot

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Edina Debate 2k7 Sadagopal

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On Smart Power (324 words) 1. Soft Power Power doesn’t doesn’t matter matter because because bush bush won’t won’t use it it Prague Post - 2004 [“From resentment to hatred”, December 9, lexis, farhan] The Bush administration continues

to dismiss the relevance of soft power, with Bush only making small gestures of 

toward the United Nations. Moreover, Moreover, the postwar chaos is nowhere near an e nd. While power has been handed over to a sovereign government

reconciliation and elections are scheduled for January, U.S. troops continue to bear the responsibility for restoring law and order. Most importantly,, the Bush administration has massive political interests at stake. So the occupation continues and the world becomes increasingly divided and bellicose. importantly That, indeed, is a deeply worrying scenario.

2. Hegemony is is collapsing collapsing now, now, and cannot cannot be sustained—tryi sustained—trying ng to maintain maintain hegemony hegemony is impossible impossible and causes conflict Parag Khanna, senior research fellow in the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation, 1/27/08, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/magazin http://www.nytimes.com/2008 /01/27/magazine/27world-t.html e/27world-t.html, Preview of the book “The Second World: Empires and Influence in the N ew Global Order”.

The rise of China in the East and of the European Union within the West has fundamentally altered a globe that recently appeared to have only an American gravity — pro or anti. As Europe’ Europe’ss and China’s spirits rise with every move into new domains of influence, America’s spirit is weakened. The E.U. may uphold the principles of the United Nations that America America once dominated, but how much longer will it do so as its own social standards rise far above this lowest common denominator? And why should China or other Asian countries become “responsible stakeholders,” in former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick’s words, in an American-led international order when they had no seat at the table when the rules were drafted? Even as America stumbles back toward multilateralism,

others are walking away from the American game and playing by their own rules. The self-deluding universalism of  the American imperium — that the world inherently needs a single leader and that American liberal ideology must be accepted as the basis of global order — has paradoxically resulted in America quickly becoming an ever-lonelier superpower. Just as there is a geopolitical marketplace, there is a marketplace of models of success for the second world to emulate, not least the Chinese model of economic growth without political liberalization (itself an affront to Western modernization theory). As the historian Arnold Toynbee observed half a century ago, Western imperialism united the globe,  but it did not assure that the West would dominate forever — materially or morally. Despite the “mirage of immortality” that afflicts global empires, the only reliable rule of history is its cycles of imperial rise and decline, and as Toy Toynbee nbee also pithily noted, the only direction to go from the apogee of power is down. The web of 

globalization now has three spiders. What makes America unique in this seemingly value-free contest is not its liberal democratic ideals — which Europe may now represent better than America does — but rather its geography. America is isolated, while Europe and China occupy two ends of the great Eurasian landmass that is the perennial center of gravity of geopolitics. When America dominated NA NATO TO and led a rigid Pacific alliance system with Japan, South Korea, Australia Australia and Thailand, it successfully managed the Herculean task of running the world from one side of it. Now its very presence in Eurasia is tenuous; it has been shunned by the E.U. and Turkey, Turkey, is unwelcome in much of the Middle East and has lost much of East Asia’s confidence. “Accidental empire” or not, America

must quickly accept and adjust to this reality. Maintaining America’s empire can only get costlier in both blood and treasure . It isn’t worth it, and history promises the effort will fail. It alread already y has. Would the world

not be more stable if America could be reaccepted as its organizing principle and leader? It’s very much too late to be asking, because the answer is unfolding befor beforee our  eyes. Neither China nor the E.U. will replace the U.S. as the world’s world’s sole leader; rather all three will constantly struggle to gain influence on their own and balance one another. Europe will promote its supranational integration model as a path to resolving Mideast disputes and organizing Africa, while China will push a Beijing consensus based on respect for sovereignty and mutual economic benefit. America must make itself irresistible to stay in the game.

3. Humanitarian Humanitarian assistance assistance cannot overcome overcome Guantanamo—Bush Guantanamo—Bush policies must be changed changed Glow,, http://www http://www.tompaine.com/arti .tompaine.com/articles/2006/06/05 cles/2006/06/05/americas_fading_glo /americas_fading_glow.ph) w.ph) [Bapodra] (John Brown, Foreign Service Officer, 6/05/06 , America's Fading Glow First, the

U.S. must drastically modify its foreign policy from top to bottom so that it is more in tune with the aspirations of the rest of the world. The underpinning of Bush’s foreign policy— the the so-called “war on terror”— must must be abandoned, and its macabre manifestations, such facility, should be terminated. Second, given the difficulty of achieving the first goal under present leadership, Americans as the Guantanamo detainee facility, must show other nations that we no longer tolerate Bush’s travesties , either at home or abroad. If we say “no” to Bush loud and clear through our votes and grass roots protests, it will be a significant step in hearing from abroad that “America, we are with you once again.” Finally—and this, regrettably,, will also have to wait for a new administration with a vision of life that goes beyond the provincial and evangelical—our public diplomacy must be regrettably rejuvenated with ground-breaking cultural cultural and educational programs that show the United States in all its infinite artistic and creative variety variety.. With these kinds of  changes, the rest of the world will know that we intend to renew our membership in the family of humanity.

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Edina Debate 2k7 Sadagopal

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4. Repr Repres esen enta tati tion onss of American hegemony legitimize constant and total war against an endless succession of arbitrary Others. Badiou 02 (Alain Badiou, Professor of Philosophy, International College of Philosophy - Paris, PHILOSOPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS OF SOME RECENT FACTS, 2002, lexis) My thesis is that, in the formal representation it makes of itself, the American imperial power privileges the form of war as an attestation - the only one - of its existence. Moreover, one observes today that the powerful subjective unity that cames (away) the Americans in their

desire for vengeance and war is constructed immediately around the flag and the army. The United States has become a hegemonic power in and through war: from the civil war, called the war of Secession (the first modem war by its industrial means and the number of deaths); then the two World

Wars; and finally the uninterrupted continuation of local wars and military interventions of all kinds since the Korean War up until the present ransacking of  Afghanistan, passing via Lebanon, the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Vietnam, Libya, Panama, Barbados, the Gulf War War,, and Serbia, not to mention their persistent support for Israel in its war without end against the Palestinians. Of course, one will hasten to add that the US won the day in the Cold W War ar against the USSR on the terrain of military rivalry (Reagan’s Star Wars Wars project pushed the Russians to throw in the towel) and are understood to be doing the same tbing against China by the imposition of an exhausting armament race (that is the only sense of the pharaoh-like anti-missile anti-missile shield project) by means of which one hopes to discourage any project of great magnitude. This should remind us, in

these times of economic obsession that in the last instance power continues to be military . Even the USSR, albeit it ruined insofar as it was considered as an important military power (and above all by the Americans), continued to co-direct the world. Today the US has the monopoly on the aggressive financial backing of enormous forces of destruction, and does not hesitate to serve itself with them And the consequences of that can be seen, including (notably) in the idea that the American people has of itself  and of what must be done. Let’s hope that the Europeans ~ and the Chinese - draw the imperative lesson from the situation: servitude is promised to those who do not watch carefully over their m e d forces. Being forged in this way out of the continual barbarity of war - leaving aside the genocide of the Indians and the importation of  tens of millions of black slaves

- the US quite naturally considers that the only riposte worthy of them is a spectacular

staging of power. Truly speaking, the adversary matters little and may be entirely removed from the initial crime. The pure capacity to destroy this or that will do the job, even if at the end what is left is a few thousand miserable devils or a  phantomatic “government.” Provided, in sum, that the appearance of victory is overwhelming, any war is convenient. What we have here (and will also have if the US continues in Somalia and in Iraq etc.) is war as pure form, as the theatrical (“Terrorism”) rism”) in its essence vague and elusive. The war against nothing; itself removed from the very idea of war. capture of an adversary (“Terro

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On Relations (384 words) 1. Economic collapse collapse is coming with the the current current recession recession and we should should let it – collapse now prevents prevents extinction later Dr. Glen Barry, Ph.D. in " Land Resources" from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Masters of Science in "Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development", 1/14/08, “Economic Collapse And Global Ecology”, Counter Currents, http://www.countercurrents.o http://www.countercurrents.org/barry1401 rg/barry140108.htm 08.htm Humanity and the Earth are faced with an enormous conundrum -- sufficient climate policies enjoy political support only in times of rapid economic growth. Yet Yet this

growth is the primary factor  driving greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental ills . The growth machine has pushed the planet well beyond its ecological carrying capacity, and unless constrained, can only lead to human like the one now looming in the United States, it becomes more difficult extinction and an end to complex life . With every economic downturn, like and less likely that policy sufficient to ensure global ecological sustainability will be embraced. This essay explores the possibility that from a biocentric viewpoint of  needs for long-term global ecological, economic and social sustainability; sustainability; it would be better for the economic collapse to come now rather than later. Economic

growth is a deadly disease upon the Earth, with capitalism as its most virulent strain. Throw-away consumption and explosive population growth are made possible by using up fossil fuels and destroying ecosystems. Holiday shopping numbers are covered by media in the same breath as Arctic ice melt, ignoring their deep connection. Exponential economic growth destroys ecosystems and pushes the biosphere closer to failure . Humanity has proven itself unwilling and unable to address climate change and other environmental threats with necessary haste and ambition. Action on coal, forests,  population, renewable energy and emission reductions could be taken now at net benefit to the economy. Y Yet, et, the losers -- primarily fossil fuel industries and their   bought oligarchy -- successfully resist futures futures not dependent upon their deadly products. Perpetual economic growth, and necessary climate and other  economy, ecological policies, are fundamentally incompatible . Global ecological sustainability depends critically upon establishing a steady state economy, whereby production is right-sized to not diminish natural capital. Whole industries like coal and natural forest logging will be eliminated even as new opportunities emerge in solar energy and environmental restoration. restoration. This critical transition to both economic and ecological sustainability sustainability is simply not happening on any scale. The challenge is how to carr y out necessary environmental policies even as economic growth ends and consumption plunges. The natural response is going to be liquidation of even more life-giving ecosystems, and jettisoning of climate policies, to vainly try to maintain high growt growth h and personal consumption. We know that humanity must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% over coming decades. How will this and other necessary climate mitigation strategies be maintained during years of  economic downturns, resource wars, reasonable demands for equitable consumption, and frankly frankly,, the weather being more pleasant in some places? If efforts to reduce emissions and move to a steady state economy fail; the collapse of e cological, economic and social systems is assured. Bright greens take the continued existence of a habitable Earth with viable, sustainable populations of all species including humans as the ultimate truth and the meaning of life. Whether this is possible in a time of  economic collapse is crucially dependent upon whether enough ecos ystems and resources remain p ost collapse to allow humanity to rec over and reconstitute

It may be better for the Earth and humanity's future that economic collapse comes sooner rather than later, while more ecosystems and opportunities to return to nature's fold exist. Economic collapse will be deeply wrenching -sustainable, relocalized societies.

 part Great Depression, part African famine. There will be starvation and civil strife, strife, and a long period of suffering and turmoil. Many will be killed as balance returns to the Earth. Most people have forgotten how to grow food and that their identity is more than what they own. Y Yet et there is s ome justice, in that those who have lived most lightly upon the land will have an easier time of it, even as those super-consumers living in massive cities finally learn where their food comes from and that ecology is the meaning of life. Economic collapse now means humanity and the Earth ultimately survive to prosper again . Human suffering -- already the norm for many many,, but hitting the currently materially affluent -- is inevitable given the degree t o which the planet's carrying capacity has been exceeded. We

are a couple decades at most away from societal strife of a much greater magnitude as the Earth's biosphere fails. Humanity can take the bitter medicine now, and recover while emerging better for it; or our total collapse can be a final, fatal death swoon. A successful revolutionary response to imminent global ecosystem collapse would focus upon bringing down the Earth's industrial economy now. As society continues to fail miserably to implement necessary changes to allow creation to continue, maybe the best strategy to achieve global ecological sustainability is economic sabotage to hasten the da y. It is more fragile than it looks.

2. Your oil shocks shocks argument argument is not unique – oil prices prices have climbed climbed over $100 $100 a barrel in recent recent months months 3. Your Speice Speice evidence evidence assumes assumes a terrorist terrorist attack attack against against the US, not against against Nigeria Nigeria which is what what the Brown evidence talks about 4. Speice assumes assumes a nuclear nuclear terrorist terrorist attack attack – Brown Brown doesn’t doesn’t assume terrorist terroristss with nukes. nukes. 5. Etzione actually actually says that we don’t don’t have to fear fear a nuclear nuclear terrorist terrorist attack attack from from Nigeria

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6. The rhetoric rhetoric of “terror” “terror” is discursive discursive terrorism, terrorism, fueling fueling the cycle cycle of violence violence it purports purports to indict. indict. Kapitan 03 (Tomis Kapitan, Professor of Philosophy, Northern Illinois University, TERRORISM AND INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE, 2003, lexis) ‘terrorist’ rhetoric actually increases terrorism in four distinct ways. First, it magnifies the effect of  terrorist actions by heightening the fear among the target population. If we demonize the terrorists, if we portray them as arbitrary and irrational beings with a “disposition toward unbridled violence,” then we More dramatically, the

are amplifying the fear and alarm generated by terrorist incidents . Second, those who succumb to the rhetoric contribute to the cycle of revenge and retaliation by endorsing terrorist actions of their own government, not only against those who commit terrorist actions, but also against those populations from whose ranks the terrorists emerge, for the simple reason that terrorists are frequently themselves civilians, living amid other civilians not so engaged. The consequence has been an increase in terrorist violence under the rubric of ‘retaliation’ or ‘counter-terrorism’ Third, short of genocide, a violent response is likely to stiffen the resolve of those from whose ranks terrorists have emerged, leading them to regard their foes as people wbo cannot be reasoned with, as people who, because they avail themselves so readily of the ‘terrorist’ rhetoric, know only the language of force. As long as they perceive themselves to be victims of intolerable injustices injustices and vie w their oppressors as unwilling to arrive at an acceptable compromise, they are likely to answer violence with more violence. Fourth, and most insidiously, insidiously, those

who employ the rhetoric of  ‘terrorism’ for their own political ends, are encouraging actions that they understand will generate or sustain further violence directed against civilians. Inasmuch as their verbal behavior is intended to secure political objectives through these means, then it is an instance of terrorism just as much as any direct order to carry out a bombing of civilian targets. in both cases, there is purposefid verbal action aimed at bringing about a particular result through violence against civilians .

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Edina Debate 2k7 Sadagopal

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AIDS (384 words) 1. Local Local people people won't go for for treatme treatment nt due to shame shame of having having AIDS Volunteer and anthropolo anthropologist gist [Saral, Public Interest. "My time in the Peace Corps, Iss. 142; Waldorf 2001 –Former Peace Corps Volunteer

pg. 72, 11 pgs, proquest,

JB] Problems also occurred under many volunteer doctors from Europe, who often served as heads of district hospitals. Feeling marginalized and unsupported, unsupported, several colleagues decided to move their AIDS activities from the hospitals to community locations, saying it brought AIDS education and services closer to the people. In theory it sounded good, but in practice most of these community-housed AIDS programs died when the volunteers left and were not replaced. Moreover, the

cultural climate in the villages, which attached great shame to having or being thought to have HIV or AIDS, meant that many people loathed to come to a public place where their neighbors would know who had what disease or  who took what test. These community-based efforts attracted many local volunteers but seldom any clients.

2. At best best they only solve solve AIDS in in Nigeria, Nigeria, this this means means a. They don’t don’t solve solve the Mathiu Mathiu impact impact since since AIDS AIDS exists exists elsewhe elsewhere re b. They don’t even solve in Nigeria, since since AIDS will just spread spread back back into the the country country 3. Emperically disproven disproven – AIDS has existed existed for decades, decades, no timeframe timeframe for when when extinction extinction will happen happen 4. AIDS AIDS won’t won’t cause cause exti extinct nction ion The New Republic in ’95 (Malcolm Gladwell, “Plague Year, July, L/N) Some of the blame for this transformation clearly belongs with aids, the epidemic that has more or less shattered the public's confidence in the power of science. But

AIDS has never been seen as a threat to the entire species. In fact, aids is exactly the opposite of the kind of  random, uncontrollable epidemic that seems to have now seized the popular imagination. The truth is that it is very hard to find an adequate explanation for the current American obsession. Joshua Lederberg's Lederberg's comment that we are worse off today than a century ago is proof only that he is a better student of microbiology than of history.

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5. The Affirmative’s Affirmative’s apocalypt apocalyptic ic representatio representations ns of AIDS make it seem seem imaginary imaginary by numbing numbing us to disasters – Apocalypse becomes perpetual, inscribed into everyday life Sontag 1988 - Professor of Religion at Columbia University [Susan, Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and its Metaphors, Anchor Books, Published by Doubleday]JB claims that are a familiar part of  The survival of the nation, of civilized society, of the world itself  is said to be at stake— claims building a case for repression. (An emergency requires “drastic measures,” et cetera.) The end-of-the-world rhetoric that AIDS has evoked does inevitably build such a case. But it also does something else. It offers a stoic, finally numbing contemplation of catastrophe. The eminent Harvard historian of science Stephen Jay Gould has declared that the AIDS pandemic may rank with nuclear weaponry “as the greatest danger of  our era.” But even if it kills as much as a quarter of the human race—a prospect Gould considers possible—“there will still be plenty of us left and we can start against

.” Scornful of the jeremiads of the

moralists, a

rational and humane scientist proposes the minimum consolation: an apocalypse that doesn’t have any meaning. AIDS is a “natural phenomenon,” not an event with moral meaning. Gould point out; “there is no message in its spread.” Of course, it is monstrous to attribute meaning, in the sense of moral judgment, to the spread of an infectious disease. But perhaps it is only a little less monstrous to be invited to contemplate death on this horrendous scale with equanimity. equanimity. Much of the well-intentioned public public discourse in our time expresses a desire to be candid about one or another of the various dangers which might be leading to all-out catastrophe. And now there is one more. To the death of oceans and lakes and forests, the unchecked growth of populations in the poor part of the world, nuclear accident like Chernobyl, the puncturing and depletion of the ozone layer, the perennial threat of nuclear confrontation between the superpowers or nuclear attack by one of the rogue states not under superpower control— to to

all these, now add AIDS.  In the countdown to a millennium, a rise in apocalyptic thinking may be inevitable. Still, the amplitude of the fantasies of doom that AIDS has inspired can’t be explained by the calendar alone, or even by the very real danger the illness represents. There is also the need for an apocalyptic scenario that is specific to “Western” society, and perhaps even more so the United States. (America, as someone has said, is a nation with the soul of a church—an evangelical church prone to announcing r adical adical endings and brand-new beginnings.) The taste for worst-case scenarios reflects the need to master fear of what is felt to be uncontrollable. It also expresses an imaginative complicity with disaster. The sense of cultural distress or failure gives rise to the desire for a clean sweep, a tabula rasa. No one wants a plague, of course. But, yes, there would be a chance to being again. And beginning beginning again—that is f, very American, too. Aids may be With the inflation of apocalyptic rhetoric has come the increasing unreality of the apocalypse. A permanent modern scenario: Apocalypse looms…and it doesn’t occur. And it still looms. We seem to be in the throes of one of  the modern kinds of apocalypse . There is the one that’s not happening, whose outcome remains in suspense the missile circling the earth above our hear, with a nuclear payload that could

extending the propensity for becoming inured to vistas of global annihilation which the stocking and brandishing of nuclear arms has already promoted.

ones that are happening, and yet seem no to have (so far) the most feared consequences—like the astronomical Third World World debt, like overpopulation, like ecological blightl or that happen and then (we are told) didn’t happen—like the October 1987 stock market collapse, which was a “crash,” like the one in October 1929, and was not. Apocalypse is now a long-running serial: not “Apocaly “Apocalypse pse Now” by “Apocalypse From Now On.” destroy all life many times over, that haven’t (so far) gone off. And there are

Apocalypse has become an event that is happening and not happening. It may be that some of the most feared events, like those involving the irreparable ruin of the environment, have already happened. But we don’t know it yet,  because the standards have changed. Or because we do not have the right indices for measuring the catastrophe. Or simply because this is a catastrophe in slow motion. ( Or feels as if it is in slow motion, because we know about it, can anticipate it, and now have to wait for it to happen, to catch up with what we think we know.)

Modern life

accustoms us to live with the intermittent awareness of monstrous, unthinkable—  but we are told, quite probable—  disasters. Every major event is haunted, and not only by its representation as an image  (an old doubling of reality now, which begain in 1839, which the invention of the camera). Besides the photographic or electronic simulation of events, there is also the calculation of the eventual outcome. Reality has bifurcated, into the real thing and an alternative version of it , twice over. There is the event and its image. And there is the event and its projection. But as real events often seem to have no more reality for people than images, and to need the confirmation of their images, so our reaction to events in the present seeks confirmation in a mental outline with appropriate computations, of the event in its projected, ultimate form.

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