Evidence I Made 14

Some cards
I dont know what of this yall can use

But here it is if you want it
Also, I used to keep the cards I cut in the
same doc as cards that I stole liberated. So
there is a possibility that some of these are
not mine. sorry.

The following cards were made 2 years ago, so
theyre not optimal. But whatever. Skip forwards if
youre not interested

Quantum teleportation creates an acceptance of death
Cornwall 12 [Gordon Cornwall, Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Calgary in 1975, President of
Industrial Metrics Inc. 3-30-12 http://phantomself.org/parfits-retreat-we-are-not-human-beings/#more-
577]

In a new paper, We Are Not Human Beings, Derek Parfit argues that persons
are identically their conscious, thinking parts, which he identifies as their
cerebrums. This is a significant departure from the position he defended in
Reasons and Persons, that personal identity consists in non-branching
psychological continuity and connectedness with any cause: Our identity
over time just involves (a) Relation Rpsychological connectedness and/or
psychological continuity, either with the normal cause or with any cause, provided
(b) that there is no different person who is R-related to us as we once were. [Parfit,
1984, p 216] I call Parfits new view a retreat because it is a move away from
the radical insights about what we are which illuminated Reasons and
Persons, to a conservative account of persons as physical substances. I find the
move puzzling, because I cant see that Parfit is compelled to make it, and
disappointing, because it raises once again the fog of mysteries about persons
that looked well on their way to being dispelled. Parfits claim that persons are
their cerebrums has as a direct consequence that persons cannot survive
information-based teleportation. If I plan to be teleported to Mars, I
should accept that my replica on Mars will not be me, because my replicas
cerebrum is numerically different from my cerebrum. The cerebrum is a
body part, which, like any other ordinary material object, ceases to exist when it
is destroyed. Its replica on Mars is a different cerebrumhence, if Parfit is
right, a different person.

We cant predict what technological advances will be made in the future.

Cornwall 10 [Gordon Cornwall, Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Calgary in 1975, President of
Industrial Metrics Inc. November 2010 http://phantomself.org/human-replication-technology-update-2010-
replicating-the-brain/]

But one thing we know about the future is that barring massive
catastrophes unforeseen and unforeseeable progress will be made. Fifty
years ago, when I was twelve, my wifes iPad, with its internet connection,
would have seemed magical not metaphorically, but literally magical.
Computers in 1960 had vacuum tubes and punched-card readers; they occupied
large clean-rooms, and output text to line printers. The technical advances of the
past fifty years could not have been guessed at, let alone understood, by someone
with a 1960s engineering background trying to comprehend how an iPad responds
to questions typed into a Google search box. If Id witnessed a working,
internet-connected iPad in 1960, I couldnt have done much better than,
How about that crystal balls are flat!
Federal Funding in transportation R&D is key to innovation and competitiveness
Giuliano 12 (Professor at University of South Carolina, Senior Associate Dean for Research and Technology, Director of
METRANS transportation center, Ph.D. in Social Sciences, expertise in transportation policy, metropolitan special structure,
travel demand, and urban transportation, Genevieve, Why We Need University Transportation Research, Eno: Center for
Transportation, May 2012, http://www.enotrans.org/eno-brief/why-we-need-university-transportation-research)
Why do we need university transportation research? Why should the federal
government invest its scarce resources in universities? And when it does
invest in transportation R&D, why should those dollars go to universities, rather
than consultants or states? Those of us in the business of university research and
education believe that the answers to these questions are obvious, but those
outside the academy are not so sure. This article makes the explicit case for
university transportation research in all its forms, from long-term high-risk basic
research, to research aimed at short term, practical applications. Universities are
where basic science ideas find real-world applications I will begin with the
type of research that happens almost exclusively in universities and government
research laboratories: long-term, high-risk basic research. Because payoffs
are uncertain, basic research is not conducted within the R&D departments
of private firms, or by states, or by most federal mission agencies (e.g. U.S.
Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of Agriculture). The major
source of funding for basic research is the federal government (most notably
via the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health); this
federal role is justified by the benefits to the economy and society that a
robust basic research program generates. Without the support of federal
funding, little basic research would take place, eventually affecting U.S.
global competitiveness. Transportation is generally perceived as an applied
field. Is there an argument for long term, high-risk research in
transportation? Transportation is often the beneficiary of basic research in
science fields. Some of the best-known examples come from civil
engineering, the traditional home of transportation research. Civil
engineers developed bridge technology, tunneling technology and other
advances that contributed to the transportation revolution of the
nineteenth century.

Large scale death solves warming
Carnegie 11 Department of Global Ecology. January 20
th
2011

Stanford, CA Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes had an impact on the
global carbon cycle as big as todays annual demand for gasoline. The Black
Death, on the other hand, came and went too quickly for it to cause much of a blip
in the global carbon budget. Dwarfing both of these events, however, has been the
historical trend towards increasing deforestation, which over centuries has
released vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as crop and
pasture lands expanded to feed growing human populations. Even Genghis
Kahn couldnt stop it for long. Its a common misconception that the human
impact on climate began with the large-scale burning of coal and oil in the
industrial era, says Julia Pongratz of the Carnegie Institutions Department of
Global Ecology, lead author of a new study on the impact of historical events on
global climate published in the January 20, 2011, online issue of The Holocene.
Actually, humans started to influence the environment thousands of years
ago by changing the vegetation cover of the Earths landscapes when we
cleared forests for agriculture. Clearing forests releases carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere when the trees and other vegetation are burned or when they
decay. The rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide resulting from deforestation
is recognizable in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica before the fossil-
fuel era. But human history has had its ups and downs. During high-mortality
events, such as wars and plagues, large areas of croplands and pastures
have been abandoned and forests have re-grown, absorbing carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere. Pongratz decided to see how much effect these
events could have had on the overall trend of rising carbon dioxide levels. Working
with colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Germany and with
global ecologist Ken Caldeira at Carnegie, she compiled a detailed reconstruction
of global land cover over the time period from 800 AD to present and used a global
climate-carbon cycle model to track the impact of land use changes on global
climate. Pongratz was particularly interested in four major events in which large
regions were depopulated: the Mongol invasions in Asia (1200-1380), the Black
Death in Europe (1347-1400), the conquest of the Americas (1519-1700), and the
Fall of the Ming Dynasty in China (1600-1650). We found that during the short
events such as the Black Death and the Ming Dynasty collapse, the forest
re-growth wasnt enough to overcome the emissions from decaying
material in the soil, says Pongratz. But during the longer-lasting ones like
the Mongol invasion and the conquest of the Americas there was enough
time for the forests to re-grow and absorb significant amounts of carbon.
The global impact of forest re-growth in even the long-lasting events was
diminished by the continued clearing of forests elsewhere in the world. But in the
case of the Mongol invasions, which had the biggest impact of the four events
studied, re-growth on depopulated lands stockpiled nearly 700 million tons
of carbon absorbed from the atmosphere. This is equivalent to the worlds
total annual demand for gasoline today. Pongratz points out the relevance of
the study to current climate issues. Today about a quarter of the net primary
production on the Earths land surface is used by humans in some way, mostly
through agriculture, she says. So there is a large potential for our land-use
choices to alter the global carbon cycle. In the past we have had a
substantial impact on global climate and the carbon cycle, but it was all
unintentional. Based on the knowledge we have gained from the past, we are
now in a position to make land-use decisions that will diminish our impact
on climate and the carbon cycle. We cannot ignore the knowledge we have
gained.

Quantum teleportation allows paradox-free time travel without a black hole
MIT 10 [MIT Technology Review, July 19, 2010 http://www.technologyreview.com/view/419893/quantum-
time-machine-solves-grandfather-paradox/]
Now postselection gets even weirder thanks to some new ideas put forward
by Seth Lloyd at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a few
buddies. They say that if you combine postselection with another strange
quantum behaviour called teleportation and you can build a time machine.
Before we look at how this idea works, a quick reminder about quantum
teleportation. This uses the phenomenon of entanglement to reproduce in
one point in space a quantum state that previously existed at another
point in space. Lloyd and cos idea is to use postselection to make this process
happen in reverse. Postselection ensures that only a certain type of state can
be teleported. This immediately places a limit on the state the original
particle must have been in before it was teleported. In effect, the state of this
particle has travelled back in time. Whats amazing about this time machine is
that it is not plagued by the usual paradoxes of time travel, such as the
grandfather paradox, in which a particle travels back in time and some how
prevents itself from existing in the first place.
Lloyds time machine gets around this because of the probabilistic nature of
quantum mechanics: anything that this time machine allows can also happen with
finite probability anyway, thanks to these probabilistic laws. Another interesting
feature of this machine is that it does not require any of the distortions of
spacetime that traditional time machines rely on. In these, the fabric of
spacetime has to be ruthlessly twisted in a way that allows the time travel to occur.
These conditions may exist in the universes extreme environments such as
inside black holes but probably not anywhere else.

Subsidies to the oil industry from the USFG to oil industries can be up to
$1 trillion and possibly more. Lack of government transparency means
it always remain high.
Oil Change International 12 (Oil Change International is a research,
communication, and advocacy organization focused on exposing the true costs of
fossil fuels and facilitating the coming transition towards clean energy.)

In 2009, G20 leaders pledged to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. While this was an
historic commitment, very little concrete action has followed. Part of the reason for
this failure is that there is not clarity on how much of our money governments
provide in fossil fuel subsidies. As shown below, the total, global amount of fossil
fuel subsidies provided in 2012 is likely to be at least of a trillion dollars annually
$775 Billion. To help ensure we can reduce or eliminate these subsidies
successfully, we have to know how many of them there are. Governments need to
stop hiding their handouts to oil, gas and coal and come clean.The figures below
provide estimates of various groupings of subsidies, showing a range of existing
subsidies from at least $775 billion to perhaps $1 trillion or more in 2012. Greater
transparency would allow for more precise figures. No matter how conservatively
the numbers are calculated, eliminating global fossil fuel subsidies represent a
tremendous opportunity for increased efficiencies in spending, reductions in global
reliance on fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions, and sources of finance for
climate-related activities and other efforts. Some countries may choose to retain some
fossil fuel subsidies that they deem efficient. But regardless, both the subsidy and any
rationale for not removing it should still be revealed.
Oil spill in Nigeria just happened. They are common.
New York times 7-5 (By Sarah Kent and Benoit Faucon
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20130705-701521.html)
LONDON--Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) said Friday that a June incident on a pipeline operated by
its Nigerian joint venture resulted in the company's most significant oil spill in the country this
year. In a report published on the company's website, Shell said the June 19 incident released 2,699
barrels of oil into the environment, though it added that 1,881 barrels were burned off as a result of a
fire. Shell's Nigerian joint venture, Shell Petroleum and Development Co., said the June spill that forced
it to shut down its 150,000 barrel-a-day Trans Niger Pipeline was the result of oil theft. Shell had
initially said there was "practically" no spill as the oil had burned and said it had nothing more to
add when asked again about the spill Wednesday. Oil spills are common in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger
Delta both as a result of problems with aging infrastructure and the high incidence of oil theft that sees
criminals tap into pipelines to siphon off the oil.

The oil industry in Nigeria is causing starvation.
Daily Independent 10 (DEC 13 2010)
Bodo is an Ogoni community located in Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers
State. It has an estimated population of 69,000 people, which easily makes it the
largest indigenous community in the state. 'Bodo City' as it is fondly called, plays
host to the Anglo-Dutch super oil and gas major, Shell's 24 and 28 inch Trans-Niger
pipeline.
The people are predominantly fishermen and farmers, with a creek which serves
mainly for fishing and is also a travelling route to neighbouring communities like
Bonny, Andoni, Akwa Ibom State and Nigeria's neighbour, Cameroun. Over the
years this Ogoni community has suffered oil spillages that have led to the
devastation of their aquatic life and farmlands. Frequent spillage in the area, for
those who know better, is a serious threat to their health and food security. In
August 2008, the 24-inch Trans-Niger pipeline allegedly spilled a huge amount of
crude into the creek. Again in February 2009, it was discovered that the 28-inch
section of the pipeline spilled crude oil into the creek. The people
waited for Shell to pay compensation and clean up the environment but never got
any response from the company. The ubiquitous environmental field monitors of the
Environmental Rights Action (ERA) gathered that it took more than a year after the
incident and massive loss of livelihood for Shell to provide them a "few bags of
rice, beans and other food items." A boat ride on the Bodo Creek however, reveals
some huge devastation on the water. The ERA monitors who guided this reporter noted
that since the first and second spill, the entire creek was yet to be cleaned up. There
are terrible tales of frustration, agony, misery and starvation among the fishing
circles of Bodo. For instance, Peter Le-Ele, a community chief and fisherman had this to
say: "Our source of sustainable of livelihood used to be fishing and farming for
many years. Now it is difficult for fishermen to harvest fish because of the oil spill
in the community which has drastically reduced fish catch. The few remaining
fishermen can not get a single fish or any aquatic produce from the river.
Oil is the fuel of capitalism

Szesman 13 Imre Szeman is Canada Research Chair in Cultural
Studies and Professor of English, Film Studies and Sociology at the University of
Alberta. Jan/feb 2013. http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/commentary/what-the-
frack

There is a reason why oil gets the lions share of attention when it comes to the
global game of petrocarbon extraction. Through the multiple products into which oil is
refined, most important of which are gasoline and diesel, oil is the blood that animates
the body of capitalism. It is a substance necessary for economies to keep operating
and profits accruing, which is why access to it fuels so many geopolitical struggles
around the globe. The atrocities committed by major oil companies almost
everywhere they have set foot of which spills such as BPs recent debacle in the
Gulf of Mexico are but the tip of the iceberg draw public attention to the
consequences of living in oil societies, and so too to the full scale of our
dependence on the substance. And whether or not we believe tales of peak oil, as oil
gets harder to access and in shorter supply and so more expensive, the extent to
which oil and capitalism are tied together cannot help but make us sit up and pay
attention. Economist Jeff Rubin has recently argued that the unprecedentedly high price
of oil over the past decade is the primary reason why economies around the world have
found it difficult to recover from the 2008 crash.1 While the current price of around US$90
per barrel is well below its recent peak of $147 in July 2008, it is still exponentially higher
than the average $2 per barrel at which oil was priced during capitals massive
expansionary phase from the 1920s to the 1970s a virtually free form of energy with an
extraordinarily high ratio of energy returned on energy invested.

Fracking is a technique that has brought oil companies from all over the world to natural
gas.

frack

Shale gas can be found in pockets all over the world, including Argentina,
Australia, Canada, China, Mexico and South Africa. The extraction of natural gas
from shale has generated headlines in almost every one of these countries as a
result of the process used to gain access to it: hydrological fracturing, which is
more commonly referred to as fracking. A process developed in late 1940s but
only used widely in the last decade, fracking involves the injection of a mix of
water, sand and chemicals into the bore created to access the gas with enough
force and pressure to split the shale rock, and so make the gas recoverable. The
success of fracking as a means by which to access natural gas deposits that were
formerly thought to be inaccessible is connected with the concurrent development
of horizontal (as opposed to conventional, vertical) drilling, a process now carried
out in the field with relative ease. Horizontal drilling aided by fracking opened up
the natural gas fields of the Barnett Shale in northern Texas a decade ago. Since
then, oil and gas companies, small and large, have raced to gain access to the gas
trapped in the Bowland Basin in the UK and the Marcellus Shale in the north-
eastern USA, as well as many other places around the globe. Besides the profits
promised by control over all these new gas deposits, industry and government
have been quick to champion the other benefits produced by shale gas and
fracking. For countries such as the USA and the UK, there is the opportunity to
reduce dependence on foreign sources of petrocarbons and potentially to compete
again as a major energy exporter. Then there are also the supposed benefits to the
environment of putting more natural gas into the energy mix: lower emissions of
carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide than produced by either petrol or diesel. The fact
that natural gas is cheaper than using either of these fuels cant help but put smiles
on everyones faces. Or so industry and government might want us to believe.

We are becoming reliant on alternate forms of energy that are damaging.

frack

More and more, we are becoming reliant on unconventional forms of energy. Shale
gas is one such form, and not only because of the unusual processes required to
access it, but also because of the costs involved costs above and beyond the
mere dollar figures of setting up and manning a drill site. Fracking requires
enormous amounts of water - between 5 and 11 million litres for each well drilled (to
give some reference point, an Olympic-sized swimming pool contains 2.5 million
litres of water). There are now close to half a million active gas wells in the USA
alone that have been created through the use of fracking. Much of the water that
goes down into the wells comes back up, but a great deal of it also disappears
underground. As a result, the chemicals that are put into the mix to help shatter
the shale rock pollute both the water that returns and that which does not. The
image most commonly associated with fracking is a shocking one: water from taps
being set alight by a match. In the 2010 documentary Gasland, director Josh Fox
travels to the western USA to gain insight into the consequences of fracking in
order to help him decide whether he should accept an offer to lease his familys
land on the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania to a natural gas company. What he
finds startles him: reports of contaminated water and of chronic health problems
that lessees connect to the start of gas exploration on their land or on nearby
properties. The image of tap water being set on fire, which Fox witnesses in Weld
County, Colorado, also shows up in another recent documentary Cameron Esler
and Tadzio Richards Burning Water (2010) which probes the outcome of
EnCanas use of fracking to extract coal bed methane in southern Alberta. As in
the US documentary, those living in and around the extraction sites report all
manner of health problems after EnCana set to work, including skin burns from
their showers, where they previously had experienced no problems from their
water supplies. Water can do many things, including break rock apart. What it
should never do is catch fire; when and if it does, it a certain sign that something is
happening that should not be.
The instability of oil prices makes alternative energy policies unlikely.
Metcalf and Bordoff 9 Gilbert E. Metcalf is a Professor of Economics at Tufts University.
Jason E. Bordoff. Former Policy Director, The Hamilton Project. January 6, 2009.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2009/01/06-oil-cycle-bordoff.
Gas is cheap again, and that's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the drop in gas
prices from their summer peak of more than $4 per gallon has put about $300
billion back in the pockets of U.S. consumers. But lower prices, projected to drop to
$40 per barrel by the spring, also mean more driving and more oil consumption.
That will, in turn, send more dollars overseas, bolster nations that are hostile to
U.S. interests, and increase our economy's vulnerability to oil price shocks. Not to
mention that oil consumption contributes one-third of U.S. greenhouse-gas
emissions each year. Low oil prices also take the wind out of the sails of
alternative-energy ventures, which would be unfortunate because, while oil prices
are low right now, they won't stay that way. Once we move past the current global
recession, prices will shoot back up, thanks to the demand shock from rapid
economic growth and supply constraints caused by underinvestment. Tighter
supplies will also mean greater price volatility down the road. Faced with this
reality, policymakers need to take measures now, while prices are low, to
encourage both conservation and development of alternative energy sources. But
what are the options? A gasoline tax is a hard sell politically and ignores the 35
percent of oil consumed in the United States in forms other than gasoline.
Moreover, a gas tax won't directly reduce price volatility-it will only add to the pain
of the next oil price spike. Others have proposed a price floor on oil, but that has
an element of arbitrariness to it: There's no reason consumers should enjoy all the
benefits of market price declines until some random price point, and none of the
benefits beyond that point.

Secrecy and corruption dominates government energy policies.

Kaufmann 5-20 May 20, 2013Daniel Kaufmann is a nonresident senior fellow in the Global
Economy and Development program. His areas of expertise include public sector and regulatory
reform, development, governance and anti-corruption. Previously, he served as director at the
World Bank Institute, leading the work on governance and anti-corruption.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/05/22-oil-gas-mining-revenue-transparency-
kaufmann

Opacity still prevails in how natural resources are managed. This conspires against
economic development. The lives of over a billion citizens could be transformed if
their governments managed their oil, gas and minerals in a more open, accountable
manner. This emerges from the Resource Governance Index, released by the
Revenue Watch Institute at an event at Brookings last week. The Index measures
the transparency and accountability in the oil, gas and mining sector of 58
countries. Together these nations produce 85 percent of the worlds oil, 90
percent of diamonds and 80 percent of copper, generating trillions of dollars
annually. The in-depth analysis finds that over 80 percent of the countries fail to
meet satisfactory standards in how their natural resources are governed. In these
nations, opacity, corruption and weak processes keep citizens from fully benefiting
from their countries resource wealth, revealing a significant governance deficit.
There is hope, however. Some countries prove it is possible to lift the veil of
secrecy and meet higher standards of transparency and accountability. Eleven out
of the 58 countries received satisfactory scores overall, including emerging
economies in Latin America. By shedding light on reforming states as well as
lessons and solutions, we can reject the tired notion of the deterministic resource
curse.

Countries must act with caution In the use of their energy
resources.

Chatham House 12 (5-6 November 2012, Chatham
House http://www.chathamhouse.org/research/eedp/current-projects/governance-
challenges-emerging-oil-and-gas-producers)
There has been a strong demand in recent years for advisory on governance by
emerging producers, especially from countries with low institutional capacity and
little experience of how to manage petroleum resources. Of particular interest to
new producers and producers contemplating a reform of their petroleum sector is
advice from their peers on lessons learned. The Good Governance of the National
Petroleum Sector project's new phase is focusing on providing a forum for such an
exchange and producing a document with guidance for the governance of the
sector in countries attracting new investors interest in their petroleum sector.
These countries face a particular set of issues, as they move to draft contract
terms, regulations and laws to direct investment behaviour in their country, and set
up institutions that effectively control the actors involved in their nascent
petroleum sector. Many of these countries are creating national oil companies to
ensure national participation. For each decision, they have a confusing array of
options to choose from.

Oil demand rises uncontrollably from urbanization. All resources must be utilized.
Gordon 7-8 Deborah M. Gordon is a biologist at Stanford University. JULY 8, 2013 CNBC.
http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/07/08/brazilian-city-protests-and-next-global-oil-crisis/ge16
Moreover, a car-centered urbanization pattern multiplied over millions of
unnecessary trips drives oil development. The likely result is exploitation of all
available oil resources, making it hard to pick and choose so that the new oils with
the most damaging climate and local impacts remain in the ground. The current
record number of people moving to cities internationally increases needs and
demands for travel within and beyond them. On its current course, urbanization is
leading to greater oil consumption.

Oil resources in Latin America are unlikely to be developed. Nationalism and politics.

Gordon 7-8 Deborah M. Gordon is a biologist at Stanford University. JULY 8, 2013 CNBC.
http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/07/08/brazilian-city-protests-and-next-global-oil-crisis/ge16

These oil revenues will be significant given the nation's hundreds of billions of
barrels of as yet unexploited reserves. But development of these unconventional
ultradeep pre-salt oil and oil shale resources will be challenging. Investments can
be tied up due to resource nationalismsuch as when Petrobras (Brazil's
semipublic oil giant) prohibited other companies control by claiming sole operator
status. Politicians also disagree about how to divide oil royalties between states
with different resource holdings. Social contracts that keep petrol prices low to
fight inflation work at odds with efforts to check car ownership and effectively build
out public transportation.

Oil will not run out. It will change forms.
Gordon 12 MAY 3, 2012 Deborah M. Gordon is a biologist at Stanford University
http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/05/03/understanding-unconventional-oil/ao4f
Conventional oil production has peaked and is now on a terminal, long-run global decline. However,
contrary to conventional wisdom, which many embraced during back-to-back oil crises in the 1970s, oil
is not running out. It is, instead, changing formgeographically, geologically, chemically, and
economically. These dynamics point to a new reality. We are approaching the end of easily accessible,
relatively homogeneous oil, and many experts claim that the era of cheap oil may also be ending.1 The
realignment of world oil prices upward, settling above $100 per barrel over the past year, is spurring a
transformation of oil technology and markets. The oil industry is posting substantial profits, reinvesting
significant capital, and gaining new capacities to identify, probe, recover, and process oils that were
once unknown, inaccessible, unmanageable, or uneconomical. As such, oil corporations and national
oil companies are developing a wide array of new oils worldwide. Though they have been recognized as
new sources of petroleum, according to the U.S. Energy Department, unconventional oils have yet to be
strictly defined. In reality, new oils are emerging along a continuum from conventional crudes to
transitional oils to unconventional oils, with their classification varying according to the ease of
extraction and processing. While no two crudes and oil processes are identical, petroleum productsat
least for the time beingare expected to remain relatively unchanged in appearance and use despite
burgeoning changes in oil quality. That gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel will likely remain unchanged at the
pump will obscure the fact that oils are transforming upstream, with unintended societal
consequencesfrom increased climate forcing and groundwater contamination to forest destruction
and impacts on indigenous cultures.

The huge amount of oil resources in America need to be used. This requires government action

Gordon 12 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2012 Deborah M. Gordon is a biologist at Stanford
University

Technological breakthroughs in energy development are creating access to more
domestic oil and gas resources than at any time in U.S. history. Optimism about the
nations energy future is soaring as new opportunities emerge to obtain fuel from
previously untapped unconventional oil and gas. Using only known energy
development technologies, there is at least as much unconventional oil and gas
accessible today as there is conventional supply. U.S. net recoverable shale gas
reserves in particular have expanded from enough for about a decade to well over
one hundred years at current rates of consumption. Oil sources in the United States
and Canada are now estimated at over 3.5 trillion barrels. Recovering these new
oilsmany of them unconventional in either their makeup (such as oil sands) or
location (such as oil trapped in shale rock)is tied to the future price of oil. This
new oil and gas wealth presents the United States with a significant opportunity to
create jobs, stimulate its economy, reduce the trade deficit, and improve its global
economic competitiveness. However, realizing the full potential of these new
energy sources and reaping the short-term economic rewards of this energy
bonanza require presidential leadership and new policies. The highest levels of
government must prioritize efforts to address these public objectives while
ensuring market stability, protecting national security, and addressing climate
change.

Government action will be most effective if done now, before a crisis.
Gordon 12 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2012 Deborah M. Gordon is a biologist at Stanford
University

This rapid increase in diverse unconventional oil and gas resources, which are
found on federal and private lands, presents the United States with important new
energy choices. With this vast and varied array of oil and gas options comes the
need to prioritize prudently. Which resources merit early development, and which
energy sources need more assessment to manage safely? Which oil and gas
resources have the greatest climate tradeoffs? Which reserves are best saved for
future generations? Americas future security depends on selecting wisely in
exploiting this new oil and gas wealth. Undertaking that kind of planning in the
good times, and not in the midst of a crisis, opens up a whole new set of
possibilities. For example, resolving boundary disputes and oil and gas
development issues among countries bordering the Arctic Ocean in ways
consistent with the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
can preempt future conflicts in this new energy frontier. Americas leaders can take
the long view and work to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of public
lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. And a slower
economy takes the pressure off hasty oil and gas production decisions, opening
the door for prudent oversight before demands ramp back up. Thanks to this new
energy bonanza, U.S. leaders have the time to consider the wisest courses of
action. With more time and more energy resources, policymakers can choose how
much access to provide to public lands, which royalty rates to apply, which
infrastructure to permit, which global governance structures to put in place, and
which conditions to put on energy resource extraction. The pressure to rush
decisions is not a driving factor in the face of oil and gas abundance.

Human rights violations in Mexico are not being dealt with by their government.

Amnesty International 13 MARCH 5, 2013
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/mexico-still-waiting-for-real-
advances-on-human-rights-after-pena-nieto-s-first-100-days

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) As President Enrique Pea Nieto completes his first 100
days in office, the few human rights measures his government has taken on simply
do not match the gravity of Mexicos challenges.
Mexicos current administration is on an alarming trajectory of dj vu, said
Adotei Akwei, government relations managing director, Amnesty International
USA. Unless President Pea Nieto markedly deviates from his predecessor by
immediately implementing concrete measures to fully promote and protect human
rightssome of which hes already made a commitment to dothe consequences
may be unfathomable for an already devastated population. In December 2012,
Amnesty Internationals Secretary General Salil Shetty wrote to President Pea
Nieto to ask for immediate action on a range of serious human rights issues. To
date, there has not been a substantive response. The human rights organization
called for a radical change to both public security policies and practiceto ensure
the end of grave abuses such as torture, ill-treatment, enforced disappearances and
for perpetrators to face justice. Pea Nieto made commitments to carry out the
recommendations of the United Nations Committee on Torture in November 2012,
but so far, there is little evidence of action. While there has been some legislative
progress regarding a victims law, implementation still remains pending. In
addition, many thousands of victims of crime and human rights violations over the
last six years, including the thousands of disappeared and missing, remain without
access to justice and reparations. Mexican authorities are currently discussing
various policy reforms, but there is no evidence that the prevention of and
accountability for human rights violations are at the heart of these proposals.

Violence and organized crime in Latin America is not stoppable through police force

Brown 13 Survival: Global Politics and Strategy JuneJuly 2013 Vanda Felbab-Brown
is 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.
http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/survival/sections/2013-94b0/survival--global-
politics-and-strategy-june-july-2013-532b/55-3-13-felbab-brown-f504

Military conflicts around the world increasingly conjoin political violence, organised
crime and illicit economies. In many regions, domestic law-enforcement responses
to organised crime resemble warfare. Government suppression of urban crime and
rural instability in Latin America and South Asia, for example, progressively merges
police and military operations. In Mexico, Brazil and Central America, clashes
between criminals and the authorities often have the intensity of intra-state urban
conflict. Modern militaries were not designed or trained to deal with illicit
economies and organised crime. Nonetheless, the frequency and intensity of
international military action at the nexus of violent conflict and crime has increased
since the 1990s. Training police forces and devising responses to rising crime
have been a key feature, and deficiency, of the counter-insurgency effort in
Afghanistan. NATO works alongside the Chinese and Saudi militaries in anti-
piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia, in what would normally be regarded as law-
enforcement operations. Although criminals and militants often interact with illicit
economies in the same way, it is rare for such groups to merge into a homogenous,
monolithic entity. Rather, when a crimeterror or crimeinsurgency nexus
emerges, their interactions will be unstable. Accordingly, countering domestic
crime that threatens national security, or resolving military conflicts that involve
criminals and illicit economies, requires a complex, nuanced and carefully
calibrated response.

Narco-criminals hold extreme power in mexico.
The Military Balance 13 ( 14 March 2013. Chaper 8.
http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/military%20balance/issues/the-military-balance-
2013-2003/mb2013-08-latin-america-d5e2)
The most significant security problem for states in the Caribbean and Latin America
is the threat to law and order posed by transnational non-state groups engaged in
narcotics trafficking and other criminal activity. In 2012, for example, Mexico
remained gripped by the activities of narco-criminal organisations; according to
President Felipe Caldern, criminals there have started to control territories and
cities. In some states, the armed forces remained deployed on law-enforcement
tasks, and the effect that such deployments can have on the missions,
organisation and inventories of military forces as well as on their readiness to
undertake traditional tasks such as territorial defence or manoeuvre warfare
continued to provoke debate. Washington remained concerned about the drug
route linking cocaine producers in South America to the US via Central America,
where countries still lacked the capacity to effectively counter transnational
trafficking organisations. Central American nations have, however, looked to
improve domestic security capacities in recent years by developing military and
security capabilities such as moves to boost surveillance and policy
coordination through, for example, the Central American Integration System
(SICA). The Central American Security Commission a subsidiary body of SICA
with country representatives at the vice-ministerial level said in May that regional
police training and improvements to the justice system, prisons and intelligence
capacities would be the first areas addressed as part of SICAs anti-drug strategy.
US$80 million in funding support was to come from Spain and the EU.

Allowing Cuba easier access to oil reserves supports the tyrannical Castro rule, Cuban
democracy, and US well being.
Ros-Lehtinen 2012 (Ileana, US Representative, House Committee on foreign affairs archive,
Statement released after failure of PDVSA to produce commercially viable oil. Released November
5, 2012. http://archives.republicans.foreignaffairs.house.gov/news/story/?2620)
The Castro brothers third attempt at becoming oil tycoons has come up dry once again. The regimes latest efforts to
bolster their tyrannical rule through oil revenues was unsuccessful as Venezuelan state oil
company PDVSA admitted failure and closed its oil exploration operations off the coast of
Cuba, a U.S. designated State Sponsor of Terrorism. However, we must stay vigilant as the Cuban regime is
continuing its futile search for oil in coordination with Russias state-run oil company Zarubezhneft that
plans to begin drilling later this month in Cuban waters. The Obama Administrations lack of action towards the
communist regimes oil exploration efforts has placed the fragile marine environment and
economic well-being of the U.S. in the hands of the Castro brothers. Despite these blatant safety and
economic concerns, the Obama Administration sat idly by as the regime granted access to any able partner, including rogue
regimes, looking to make money off the backs of the Cuban people. The Administration must finally wake up and see the truth that
an oil rich Castro regime is not in our interests.

US Shale oil reserves are plentiful, but only viable through rapidly growing US technology,
eliminating the economic need for US-Cuban oil drilling.

Maugeri 2013 (Leonardo, Former oil industry executive, Roy Family Fellow, Geopolitics of Energy
Project, The Shale Oil Boom: A US Phenomenon,
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/23191/shale_oil_boom.html)

There are several issues in the current debate on the so-called U.S. tight and shale oil
revolution that contribute to reinforce extreme and seemingly irreconcilable attitudes. One of the central questions
revolves around the real potential of this revolution and can be formulated simply as follows: Is oil production from
shale formations just a temporary bubble or is it an event capable of significantly altering the U.S. and
possibly global energy outlook? This study addresses such questions on the basis of a general analysis of more than
4,000 shale wells and a much more focused analysis of 2,000 of these wells and cost along with the activities of about one hundred
oil companies involved in shale oil exploitation. The main results of such analysis are multifaceted. On one hand, the large
resource size and the ability of the industry to develop it through steady improvements in
technology dwarf earlier forecasts, suggesting the possibility that the United States may
become the largest global oil producer in just a few years. On the other hand, the unique
characteristics of shale oil, the drilling intensity in particular, make it extremely vulnerable to
both price drops and environmental opposition in new and populated areas. Drilling intensity is a key point in
order to understand the real evolution of shale oil (as well as shale gas) activity in the United States and its
flexibility e.g. the possibility to rapidly adapt to shifting circumstances. Given the early state of knowledge and technology, the U.S.
shale oil boom is mostly a function of bringing as many wells as possible on line, due to the dramatic decline in production that
follows the early months of activity with each new well. For example, by December 2012 it took about 90 new producing wells per
month just to maintain North Dakotas Bakken-Three Forks (the largest shale oil play so far in the United States) oil production of
770,000 barrels per day. Drilling intensity in U.S. shale oil plays skyrocketed from a few hundred
wells brought online (e.g., becoming productive) before 2011 to more than 4,000 in 2012 a figure
that outpaces the total number of oil and gas wells (both conventional and unconventional) brought
online in the same year in the rest of the world (except Canada). In the short- to medium-term (3 to 5
years), the correlation between drilling intensity and shale oil production will shape the
evolution of U.S. oil production more than any other factor. And because drilling intensity is largely a
function of the oil price, a significant dip in oil price may trigger a rapid twist in the
shale oil boom.

Our energy infrastructure is not stable. It is easily destroyed by climate change. Now is
key.
NyTimes 7-11 (July 11, 2013 JOHN M. BRODER. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/us/climate-
change-will-cause-more-energy-breakdowns-us-warns.html?_r=0)
The nations entire energy system is vulnerable to increasingly severe and costly weather events
driven by climate change, according to a report from the Department of Energy to be published on
Thursday. A Department of Energy report says severe weather is a growing threat to the power supply.
The blackouts and other energy disruptions of Hurricane Sandy were just a foretaste, the report says.
Every corner of the countrys energy infrastructure oil wells, hydroelectric dams, nuclear power
plants will be stressed in coming years by more intense storms, rising seas, higher temperatures
and more frequent droughts. The effects are already being felt, the report says. Power plants are
shutting down or reducing output because of a shortage of cooling water. Barges carrying coal and oil
are being delayed by low water levels in major waterways. Floods and storm surges are inundating
ports, refineries, pipelines and rail yards. Powerful windstorms and raging wildfires are felling
transformers and transmission lines. We dont have a robust energy system, and the costs are
significant, said Jonathan Pershing, the deputy assistant secretary of energy for climate change policy
and technology, who oversaw production of the report. The cost today is measured in the billions.
Over the coming decades, it will be in the trillions. You cant just put your head in the sand anymore.

2012 is hotter than any other year on record. This puts massive strain on energy infrastructure.

NyTimes 7-11 (July 11, 2013 JOHN M. BRODER. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/us/climate-
change-will-cause-more-energy-breakdowns-us-warns.html?_r=0)

The study notes that 2012 was the hottest year on record in the contiguous United
States, and last July was the hottest month in the United States since record
keeping began in 1895. The high temperatures were accompanied by record-setting
drought, which parched much of the Southwest and greatly reduced water available
for cooling fossil fuel plants and producing hydroelectric power. A study found that
roughly 60 percent of operating coal plants are in areas with potential water
shortages driven by climate change. Rising heat in the West will drive a steep
increase in demand for air conditioning, which has already forced blackouts and
brownouts in some places. The Energy Departments Argonne National Laboratory
found that air conditioning demand in the West will require 34 gigawatts of new
electricity generating capacity by 2050, equivalent to the construction of 100 power
plants. The cost to consumers will exceed $40 billion, the lab said. Mr. Pershing,
who joined the Department of Energy this year after serving for several years as the
State Departments deputy special envoy for climate change, said much of the
climate disruption was already baked into the system from 150 years of rising
levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. He said that the nation must continue
efforts to reduce climate-altering emissions, but that the impact of those efforts
would not be felt for years. In the meantime, Mr. Pershing said, cities, states and the
federal government must take steps to adapt and improve their resiliency in the
face of more wicked weather.

China is becoming increasingly interested in Latin America, Especially in the
hydrocarbon industry.

[Fleischman might be a crackpot. I dont know for sure.]

Fleischman 2-5 February 5, 2013, LUIS FLEISCHMAN is an adjunct
professor of sociology and political science at Florida Atlantic University Honors College.
China has conducted an economic foreign policy under the slogan of win-win.
This concept is based on the notion that Chinas investments abroad could help
Chinas growth as well as the infrastructure of the countries where Chinese
investments are pursued. As Elizabeth Economy has pointed out, in order to
advance its investments, mostly in countries that provide raw materials, China
includes broader trade and aid deals to promote the development of the recipient
countrys infrastructure. In Latin America, China is the third largest foreign investor,
mostly in the mining and hydrocarbon industry. Considering the broader picture, a
recent study by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
(ECLAC) predicts that China will become Latin Americas most important trading
partner within the next five years. ECLAC suggests the need for a more balanced
trade relationship as most of the exports out of Latin America are in the form of
raw materials (59%) with a high ratio of manufactured products coming from China
to Latin America. When China invests it secures an equity share of production on
terms comparable to other co-owners (mainly the host country). Likewise, China
usually makes a loan to the producer country in return for a purchase agreement.

Chinese companies working in Latin America have no respect for personal freedoms,
and are abusive to their employees.


Fleischman 2-5 February 5, 2013, LUIS FLEISCHMAN is an adjunct
professor of sociology and political science at Florida Atlantic University Honors College.

In fact, Chinese oil and mining companies have amongst the worst records in labor
rights, environmental responsibilities and transparency. In addition, these
companies only deal with high level government officials instead of with the local
population. President Correa, who in the past, fought Chevrons environmental
policies and pursued a big law suit against the company has not set up clear
guidelines on issues related to transparency or environmental issues. Chinese
companies are greedy and draconian in contrast to those companies linked to
members of the Organization for Economic Development (OECD), which is mostly
comprised of Western countries. OECD companies not only comply with
environmental and labor laws but also hold a permanent dialogue with local
communities and have an open transparent policy that prevents bribery and
corruption. However, Chinese companies do not always behave in a draconian way
unless the host country permits them to do so.The case of Peru provides an
instructive example as Barbara Kotschwar, Theodore Moran, and Julia Muir have
shown. A Chinese company, Shougang, won a bid to work in Peru in the
exploitation of steel. According to the agreement with the Peruvian government,
they were supposed to invest $150 million in the community over three years but
they failed to live up to this agreement. The company also fired Peruvian workers
and brought laborers from China. Furthermore, they forced Peruvian workers into
cramped living quarters in order that single family homes could be occupied by
multiple families or workers. Shougang also paid amongst the lowest wages and
fired workers without giving a reason. According to a report by the UN Refugee
Agency, the company forces its employees to renew their contracts and also
changes the companys trading name every six months in order to prevent the
workers from organizing. In addition, protests by workers were brutally repressed
by the police.

Anti-American sentiment is strong in Latin America.


Fleischman 12 https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2012/09/04/the-
importance-of-the-war-of-ideas/, LUIS FLEISCHMAN is an adjunct professor of
sociology and political science at Florida Atlantic University Honors College. September 4,
2012 The Importance of the War of Ideas

As anti-American feelings are being cultivated in large parts of Latin America, not
much attention is being paid to the potential consequences that this may eventually
have. Propaganda is easy to dismiss as non-sense. But propaganda can
unfortunately work. It is sometimes easy for those who are better informed to
disregard propaganda as being the work of fanatics whose discourse is so
ridiculous that nobody in his right mind would take it seriously. Yet, the effects of
propaganda are manifold. Often information that distorts reality can have harmful
repercussions. This is because when something is repeated so many times, there
is always the risk that such lies might perpetuate themselves. Since many
governments in the region are left-wing regardless of whether they are extreme or
moderate, anti-American prejudice is omnipresent.

Times new roman, and consequently the affs plan text, is not a font. Instead it is
apathy embodied as a typeface.
Typography for lawyers no date. Accessed 7-11-13. http://typographyforlawyers.com/a-
brief-history-of-times-new-roman.html
Yet its an open question whether its longevity is attributable to its quality or merely to its ubiquity.
Helvetica still inspires enough affection to have been the subject of a 2007 documentary feature.
Times New Roman, meanwhile, has not attracted similar acts of homage Why not? Fame has a dark
side. When Times New Roman appears in a book, document, or advertisement, it connotes apathy. It
says, I submitted to the font of least resistance. Times New Roman is not a font choice so much as
the absence of a font choice, like the blackness of deep space is not a color. To look at Times New
Roman is to gaze into the void. If you have a choice about using Times New Roman, please stop. Use
something else. See font recommendations for other options. Did you make your business cards
and letterhead at your local copy shop? No, you didnt, because you didnt want them to look
shoddy and cheap. If you cared enough to avoid the copy shop, then you care enough to avoid
Times New Roman. Times New Roman connotes apathy. You are not apathetic.

Political apathy kills democracy
NBC 12 19 Nov 2012 Too much democracy? Apathy triumphs as UK voters shun latest election. By
Peter Jeary. http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/19/15274479-too-much-democracy-
apathy-triumphs-as-uk-voters-shun-latest-election?lite

LONDON -- Democracy is a valuable commodity; revolutions are fought to win it,
lives are lost defending it, constitutions are written to enshrine it and billions of
dollars are spent making it mean something. However, an initiative in Britain to
extend the scope of democracy has met with an emphatic thumbs-down by the
electorate, raising questions about how the nation has its say in who-runs-what. On
Thursday, voters in England and Wales, with the exception of London, had the
opportunity to elect the first-ever Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC). These
new regional officials, paid upwards of $150,000 a year, have the power to set
policing budgets, fix priorities and hire and fire chief constables -- the most senior
officers in the force. But in the end, most people didnt bother to vote. Fewer than
one-in-six eligible voters cast their ballots, with none of the regions achieving even
a 20 per cent turn-out, according to data compiled by the Electoral Reform Society.
One polling station in Wales failed to have even a single voter cross its threshold.
Among those who did vote, the proportion of invalid ballots was three-times higher
than normally seen at a parliamentary election. The turnout was so low that the
Electoral Commission, the independent watchdog responsible for monitoring
British elections, announced an inquiry into just what went wrong, describing voter
apathy as a concern for anyone who cares about democracy."

Poverty in Mexico is ignored by governments and continues to grow.
Wittman 10 George H Wittman. He was the founding chairman of the National Institute for
Public Policy and is the author of There Was a Time, a fact-based novel about WWII OSS
activities in Indochina. The American Spectator. 7.9.10
Mexico is a mystery to most Americans and not unjustifiably. Millions of Mexican citizens have fled
north to the United States to escape poverty, crime, and all the akin problems associated with such
deprivation. Thats about all their hosts know about the land to the south that produces such misery.
The image of Mexico that both countries prefer to emphasize focuses on the luxury of its multi-billion
dollar resort industry a nation of blue tequila and bronzed beauties. Convenient but false. Part of
the reason for this pervasive ignorance is the diplomatic pretense to neighborliness. Whether
Democrat or Republican, politicians have been loath to characterize North Americas third world
neighbor as anything but an important developing nation and ultimately a U.S. ally. New presidents
meet, pledge to commit all energies to assist whatever matter is politically appropriate at the moment,
and go home announcing a new day has arrived in U.S.-Mexican relations. This ritual having been
accomplished, the Mexican leader implies in his national report of the meeting that he successfully went
chest-to-chest with the American president and made clear the needs and desires of his great country of
Spanish heritage. After that is completed, Mexico continues on its traditional way where the rich get
richer, the poor get poorer, and the drug-financed economy becomes even more
criminalized.

Poverty in Cuba is pervasive. The government is trying to hide it.

Oppenheimer 8 Andrs Oppenheimer is an Argentine journalist who resides in the United
States. He is the Latin American editor and syndicated foreign affairs columnist with The Miami
Herald. After 50 years, Cuba has little to show, 12.14.08
http://www.miamiherald.com/2008/12/12/810847/after-50-years-cuba-has-
little.html#storylink=cpy

Fifty years after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, the big question about the Cuban
revolution is not whether it was justified, but whether it was worth it. From all
available evidence, it wasn't. A dispassionate look into Cuba today shows that,
while the country has reduced the pockets of extreme misery that existed during
the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship, a majority of Cubans are poorer and have fewer
opportunities to improve their lives than they did five decades ago. Cubans today
have a pretty low per capita income compared with other Latin American nations.
They have fewer television sets, telephones, computers and cars relative to their
population than most Latin American countries, and the lowest percentage of
people with access to the Internet in the region, even below Haiti. And while Cuba
does well in literacy and infant mortality indicators, it does lousy in others. Cuba
has one of the highest suicide rates in the Americas. Before we get into my own
impressions from when I was a frequent visitor to the island in the early 1990s,
let's look at the facts. On the plus side, Cuba has a 99.8 percent adult literacy rate,
one percent higher than Trinidad and Tobago's, and an infant mortality rate of six
per 1,000 people, slightly lower than Chile's, according to the United Nations' 2008
Human Development Report. That makes it the country with the best adult literacy
and infant mortality rates in the region.But according to the U.N. 1957 Statistical
Yearbook, Cuba already ranked among the four most advanced Latin American
countries in literacy and caloric consumption rates that year, and had the lowest
infant mortality in the region. In other words, Cuba has gone up three places in the
literacy ranking, while retaining its status as the nation with the region's lowest
infant mortality rates. When it comes to personal income or standard of living
statistics, the U.N. Human Development Report -- the Cuban government's
favorite statistical source -- lists the island's per capita income at $6,000 a year,
although the figure is accompanied by an asterisk indicating that it's a Cuban
government estimate, and that ``efforts to produce a more accurate estimate are
ongoing.'' In fact, Cuba refuses to calculate its per capita income according to
international standards. The same thing happens with its poverty rates. Cuba
agrees to use world-accepted statistical methods in those areas where it does
well, such as heath and education, but refuses to do so in those areas where it
may not do that well. The U.N. report's world poverty rates table leaves Cuba's line
blank.
Chinese soft power is just peanuts to US soft power.
Isenberg 8 David Isenberg is the author of the book Shadow Force: Private Security
Contractors in Iraq, and is an expert on global soft power. This article appeared on Asia Times
Online on May 15, 2008. A Hard Look at Chinas Soft Power.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/hard-look-chinas-soft-power

Moreover, CRS found that Chinas soft power achievements such as disaster
relief assistance worldwide pale in comparison to those of the United States.
The soft power gains that China hopes to achieve are minimal compared to the
capacity and willingness of the United States to take on costly global tasks such as
international disaster aid. Nothing in Beijings current soft power approach
suggests it is willing to embrace such altruism, according to the study. But as
China has become more engaged in world affairs, it has also discovered that its
foreign entanglements may not always be popular at home or abroad.
CRS also found that Chinas cumulative stock of foreign direct investment (FDI)
worldwide amounted to just $73.3 billion at the end of 2006 - 0.58% of global FDI. In
addition, Americas private sector leaves a substantial global footprint sometimes
overlooked by those comparing only government directed overseas initiatives.
Aside from US business interests these include such diverse products as schools,
newspapers, journals, banks, movies, TV programs, novels, rock stars, medical
institutions, politicians, religious groups, and non-governmental organizations.

China used its energy contracts in Latin America to fuel its militarism

Isenberg 8 David Isenberg is the author of the book Shadow Force: Private Security
Contractors in Iraq, and is an expert on global soft power. This article appeared on Asia Times
Online on May 15, 2008. A Hard Look at Chinas Soft Power.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/hard-look-chinas-soft-power

The fact that China uses soft power does not, however, mean they are
disconnected form hard power goals. The study notes that in all three of the
regions Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa discussed,
where China is most active, access to energy resources and raw commodities to
fuel Chinas domestic growth plays a dominant role in Beijings activities. China has
oil and gas exploration contracts with Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela
and Cuba; oil contracts and pipeline deals are a major part of Chinas activities in
its relations with Central Asian states such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and
Chinas oil exploration interests extend to Burma, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Imports
of crude oil constitute the bulk of Chinas imports from African states.

China is growing economically and militantly.

Bandow 11 Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in foreign policy
and civil liberties. He worked as special assistant to President Reagan and editor of the political
magazine Inquiry. He is also the owner of magnificent facial hair. Accommodating China on the Rise. This
article appeared on China-US Focus on August 12, 2011.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/accommodating-china-rise
The international order is ever-changing. Sometimes the shifts are evolutionary. Chinas dramatic
reentry on the world stage looks more revolutionary. The U.S. should treat Beijings rise with special
care. Once a great empire, China fell into near terminal decline in the 19th century. The West exploited
it as an illimitable commercial market, little more. Despite its close proximity, Japan had scarcely more
regard for its populous neighbor. The 20th century saw war and revolution ravage this once proud
empire. Today, for the first time in hundreds of years, the Peoples Republic of China is fulfilling its
great potential. The PRC has surpassed Japan as the worlds second largest economy. Chinese
economic ties now outpace those of both Japan and the U.S. throughout East Asia. Beijing also is
entering markets in both Africa and South America. By some estimates the PRC could pass America
within the decade. Chinas economic growth has generated fears that Beijing will soon become a
military superpower as well. The PRCs military outlays are rising and China has grown more assertive
in setting its maritime policy and making territorial claims in the Near Seas. Moreover, anger over
U.S. arms sales to Taiwan led to suspension of bilateral military exchanges.

China is being unjustly demonized. There are no motivations for war.


Chinas economic growth has generated fears that Beijing will soon become a
military superpower as well. The PRCs military outlays are rising and China has
grown more assertive in setting its maritime policy and making territorial claims in
the Near Seas. Moreover, anger over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan led to
suspension of bilateral military exchanges. The result has been abundant fodder
for Americans inclined to demonize the PRC. Yet that is precisely the wrong
reaction. Neither nation, nor the world, can afford conflict between the two in the
coming years. In contrast, so much could be achieved through cooperation
between the worlds superpower and the worlds incipient superpower. As Adm.
Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote after returning from
his July visit to the PRC: Were both maritime nations with long coastlines and
economies dependent on unhindered trade. We both face threats of drug
trafficking, piracy and the movement of weapons of mass destruction. We both
want stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Pakistan. We both recognize the need
for coordinated international humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

US shouldnt view china as the enemy.


Americans obviously believe in their good intentions and in their nations policies.
However, it would help to step back and reverse the geopolitical map. Assume for a
moment that China was allied with states bordering the U.S.Mexico, Cuba, and
Canada, for instance. Assume that Chinese fleets roamed close to American
shores. And assume that Beijing insisted on its right to intervene in disputes
between Washington and Washingtons neighbors. Americans would not sit idly by.
Rather, they would do precisely what Beijing is doing, build a military capable of
deterring foreign intervention. The U.S. will remain largely impervious to attack
from China or any other nation. What Washington faces is a steady erosion of its
relative status. Americas ability to unilaterally reshape the international order,
maintain the global commons, and mandate geopolitical outcomes will ebb.
Especially when it comes to China. How the U.S. responds is critical. It could treat
the PRC as a putative enemy, initiate a massive arms build-up, and browbeat
allies into joining a policy of containment. Such an approach almost certainly
would failthe American people wont want to break an already weak economy
while Asian states wont want to become permanent enemies of their big neighbor.
Most important, treating China as an enemy likely would turn it into one, which
would be geopolitical folly on a grand scale.
Damn, that was some ugly formatting. Heres
some slightly better, if more useless cards:

Free discussion allows truth and positive ethics to exist in a society.
Cartwright 3 (William Cartwright, writer for Richmond Journal of Philosophy, autumn of 2003. John
Stewart Mill on Freedom of Discussion. http://www.richmond-
philosophy.net/rjp/back_issues/rjp5_cartwright.pdf AL)

Mill sets out his arguments for freedom of speech in chapter II of On Liberty . They are linked by a
common concern with truth. The general idea is that truth is a casualty of the suppression of free
discussion. In e ffect there are three arguments that are attached to three possible scenarios. In the
first you are to imagine that a majority who share a certain view seek to silence the minority who
disagree. You are further to suppose that the majority view is false, as it happens, and the minority
view is true . Mill argues that in these circumstances it is disastrous to silence the minority, disastrous
for the majority , that is, because there is now no means of releasing it from its belief in a falsehood.
If however the minority remains free to express its doubts about the majority view, then there is a
chance that the majority will be brought to see the falsity of its view. This is a powerful argument. The
second scenario is the same as the first ex cept that this time the majority view is true and the
minority view false. Here a concern for truth might seem to support silencing the minority since its
view is false. Suppressing falsehoods presumably supports truth. However Mill ingeniously denies this.
He argues that if the majority silences its opponents, it will never have to defend its belief and over
time will forget the arguments for it. But to have a belief without knowing the reas ons for it is no
way to hold a belief according to Mill. The belief ma y be true, but it is held as a prejudice. As well as
losing its grasp of the arguments fo r its belief, Mill adds that the majority will in due course even lose a
sense of th e real meaning and substance of its belief. What earlier may have been a vital belief will be
reduced in time to a series of phrases retained by rote. The belief will be held as a dead dogma rather
than as a living truth. Finally, beliefs held like this are extremel y vulnerable to serious opposition
when it is eventually encountered. They are more lik ely to collapse because their supporters do
not know how to defend them or even what they really mean. Mill thinks history repeatedly
demonstrates this process at work and offers Christianity as an illustrative example. By Christianity
Mill means the ethical core of the religion rather than its full apparatus of metaphysical belief s, and he
seems to think this ethical core is true. But by suppressing opposition to it ov er the centuries
Christians have ironically weakened rather than strengthened Christian belief, and Mill thinks this
explains the decline of Christianity in the modern world. Truth is, after all, a casualty of the suppression
of falsehood. Mills third scenario involves both parties of opinion, majority and minority, having a
portion of the truth but not the whole of it. He regards this as the most common of the three
scenarios, and his argument here is very simple. To enlarge its grasp of the truth the majority must
allow the minority to express its partially truthful view. These three scenarios exhaust for Mill the
possible permutations on the distribution of truth, and he holds that in each case the search for truth
is best served by allowing free discussion.

The complex interpreting of irony provides a more critical view of the issues than the
pointed rhetoric that is common in policy debate.
Hutcheon 95, Prof. of English @ University of Toronto, 1995 (Linda, Ironys Edge, p.10-11)

There is nothing intrinsically subversive about ironic skepticism or about any such self-questioning,
internally dialogized mode (LaCapra 1985: 119); there is no necessary relationship between irony
and radical politics or even radical formal innovation (Nichols 1981: 65). Irony has often been used to
reinforce rather than to question established attitudes (cf. Moser 1984: 414), as the history of satire
illustrates so well. And this, the transideological (White 1973: 38) nature of irony, is the focus of this
book: irony can and does function tactically in the service of a wide range of political positions,
legitimating or undercutting a wide variety of interests. It is this focus that has determined what, in
the Introduction, I called the scene of irony in this particular study. Ever since irony as a word and
concept came to the attention of ancient Greek culture, there have been arguments about how irony
works and what its scope is or could be. Does irony refer to a word with implied different meaning or
is it an entire manner of speaking? In other words, is it a trope or a figure? Could it be both? (See
Quintilian 1977:9.2.456.) My particular interest in the transideological politics of irony is what
suggested to me the need for an approach to irony that would treat it not as a limited rhetorical
trope or as an extended attitude to life, but as a discursive strategy operating at the level of
language (verbal) or form (musical, visual, textual). This choice of discourse as the scope and site of
discussion is also intended to ensure a consideration of the social and interactive dimensions of ironys
functioning, whether the situation be a conversation or the reading of a novel (Krysinski 1985: 1;
Warning 1982: 256). But who are the participants in this social act called irony? The party line says
that there is an intending ironist and her/his intended audiencesthe one that gets and the one
that doesnt get the irony. What do you do, then, with the obvious fact that ironies exist that are not
intended, but are most certainly interpreted as such? Similarly, there are ironies you might intend,
as ironist, but which remain unperceived by others. Ironys indirection complicates considerably
the various existing models of intersubjective communication between a speaker and a hearer (see
Hernadi 1988: 749; Adams 1985: 1). With irony, there are, instead, dynamic and plural relations
among the text or utterance (and its context), the so-called ironist, the interpreter, and the
circumstances surrounding the discursive situation; it is these that mess up neat theories of irony that
see the task of the interpreter simply as one of decoding or reconstructing some real meaning
(usually named as the ironic one) (Booth 1974; Karstetter 1964), a meaning that is hidden, but
deemed accessible, behind the stated one. If this were actually the case, ironys politics would be
much less contentious, I suspect. The major players in the ironic game are indeed the interpreter and
the ironist. The interpreter mayor may notbe the intended addressee of the ironists utterance,
but s/he (by definition) is the one who attributes irony and then interprets it: in other words, the one
who decides whether the utterance is ironic (or not), and then what particular ironic meaning it
might have. This process occurs regardless of the intentions of the ironist (and makes me wonder
who really should be designated as the ironist). This is why irony is risky business (Fish 1983: 176):
there is no guarantee that the interpreter will get the irony in the same way as it was intended. In
fact, get may be an inaccurate and even inappropriate verb: make would be much more precise.
As I will argue in Chapter 5, this productive, active process of attribution and interpretation itself
involves an intentional act, one of inference. The person usually called the ironist, though, is the one
who intends to set up an ironic relation between the said and the unsaid, but may not always succeed
in communicating that intention (or the relation). The complex reasons why this might occur form one
of the subjects of this book. Irony, then, will mean different things to the different players. From the
point of view of the interpreter, irony is an interpretive and intentional move: it is the making or
inferring of meaning in addition to and different from what is stated, together with an attitude toward
both the said and the unsaid. The move is usually triggered (and then directed) by conflictual textual or
contextual evidence or by markers which are socially agreed upon. However, from the point of view of
what I too (with reservations) will call the ironist, irony is the intentional transmission of both
information and evaluative attitude other than what is explicitly presented.

Irony forces the evaluator to contemplate the situation and context of the
communication.
Hutcheon 95, Prof. of English @ University of Toronto, 1995 (Linda, Ironys Edge, p.11-12)

The interpreter as agent performs an actattributes both meanings and motivesand does so in a
particular situation and context, for a particular purpose, and with particular means. Attributing
irony involves, then, both semantic and evaluative inferences. Ironys appraising edge is never
absent and, indeed, is what makes irony work differently from other forms which it might
structurally seem to resemble (metaphor, allegory, puns). As the second part of Chapter 2 explores, this
is the case whether its tone be gently teasing or devastatingly harsh, whether its inferred motive be
benign playfulness or corrosive critique. The semantic dimension of irony is difficult to treat in
isolation, without keeping not only one eye on the receiver, but the other on the surrounding
tension-filled environments (Collins 1989: 79). From the point of view of its discursive politics, the one
thing irony would not seem to be is what it is usually claimed to be: a simple antiphrastic substitution of
the unsaid (called the ironic meaning) for its opposite, the said (called the literal meaning)which
is then either set aside (Fish 1983: 189; Searle 1979b) or sometimes only partially effaced (Tittler
1984: 21). Once again, I think the political problems of irony would be relatively straightforward if this
were in fact the case. The third chapter will argue in detail that irony happensand that is the verb I
think best describes the process. It happens in the space between (and including) the said and the
unsaid; it needs both to happen. What I want to call the ironic meaning is inclusive and relational:
the said and the unsaid coexist for the interpreter, and each has meaning in relation to the other
because they literally interact (Burke 1969a: 512) to create the real ironic meaning. The ironic
meaning is not, then, simply the unsaid meaning, and the unsaid is not always a simple inversion or
opposite of the said (Amante 1981:81; Eco 1990: 210): it is always differentother than and more than
the said. This is why irony cannot be trusted (Kenner 1986: 1152): it undermines stated meaning by
removing the semantic security of one signifier : one signified and by revealing the complex
inclusive, relational and differential nature of ironic meaning making. If you will pardon the inelegant
terms, irony can only complexify; it can never disambiguate, and the frustration this elicits is among
the many reasons why it is difficult to treat the semantics of irony separately from its syntactics or
pragmatics (Plett 1982: 76), its circumstances (textual and contextual) or its conditions of use and
reception. The storyof both chapter and bookthus far, then: the attributing of irony to a text or
utterance is a complex intentional act on the part of the interpreter, one that has both semantic and
evaluative dimensions, in addition to the possible inferring of ironist intent (from either the text or
statements by the ironist). This study argues that irony happens as part of a communicative process;
it is not a static rhetorical tool to be deployed, but itself comes into being in the relations between
meanings, but also between people and utterances and, sometimes, between intentions and
interpretations. Like me, you will be able to provide many personal examples of the complexity of this process and the possible consequences of that
complexity, examples from your daily lives that vary from misfired quips to serious puzzlement over, say, an art exhibit you visit. I recall seeing the large-scale,
parodic paintings of Attila Richard Lukacs for the first time and, despite having read about his work (Dompierre 1989), I truly didnt know how to read the gay
artists large, irreverent tableaux that figure more or less naked skinheads within visual contexts borrowed from both Nazi iconography and the history of art. I knew
that the resulting clash of cultures and associations was almost invariably seen as ironic by reviewers, but I didnt know how to go about interpreting the specific
meaning of these ironies. For one thing, the cultural connotations of skinheads were plural and even contradictory for meand possibly for you too. Do you think of
racist violence and white supremacism? I did, especially in a contemporary German contextand, though Canadian, Lukacs lives and works in Berlin. Or are your
associations more with the rebellion born of the hopelessness of economic deprivation? As one critic put it: are they neo-nazis, proletarian heroes, gay-bashers or
available homosexuals? (R. Enright 1992: 14). Lukacs may insist on his intention to be critical: I know my work deals with elements of fascism but I think if anyone
with a two-bit mind looks at the work, he would see that its more of a comment against it (in R. Enright 1992: 25). Fascism, he says, is associated with violence,
power and evil; it is out there and has to be dealt with. And so it is. But how the resulting work is interpreted by viewers like me is not totally within the artists
control, whatever his intentions. Where one viewer saw criticality and radicalism (Dompierre 1989: 11) in his work, another saw it as part fetish arena, part
history painting (R. Enright 1992: 14).

Irony is a gun with bullets forged of unease.
Hutcheon 95, Prof. of English @ University of Toronto, 1995 (Linda, Ironys Edge, p. 14-15)

I should have thought that I was primed, in a way, to make irony happen in Lukacss work by the similarities between his
strategies (of size and choice of gaycoded intertexts) and those of other artists, such as photographers Yasumasa Morimura
and Evergon, who also recall the history of art in their work and, through ironic alterations, recode its gendered
representations in gay male terms. And, after all, the relation between irony and gay sensibility has been argued frequently
(see Sontag 1982: 10519; Pronger 1990: 104), though today some see the irony of camp as cheap, as more an excuse not
to grow up than any form of protest (Headlam 1993/1994: 88). It was the juxtaposition of the formal echoing of previous art
(some of it, like that of Caravaggio, with clear homosexual connotations) with the neo-Nazi associations of the subject matter
that proved intractable for me, however. What might indeed have been intended as ironic critique remained
for me merely ambiguous and unsettling, though none the less powerful for that. When the political
dimensions are as overt as they are in Lukacss even more recent homoerotic work which echoes the visual style of National
Socialist worker art, the potential problems that collect around attributing and intending irony are pretty evident, even if
they are also complex. But I think there are always going to be potential problems with any use of irony: between the
intended irony that goes unperceived and the unintended that becomes irony by being perceived, there is room for many kinds
and degrees of misunderstanding, misfire, and fizzle, as well as of understanding and complicity (Chambers 1990: 19). With
irony, you move out of the realm of the true and false and into the realm of the felicitous and infelicitousin ways that go well
beyond what is suggested by the use of these terms in speech-act theory (Austin 1975; Felman 1983; Pratt 1977). Irony
removes the security that words mean only what they say. So too does lying, of course, and that is why the ethical as well as
the political are never far beneath the surface in discussions of the use of and responses to irony. It has even been called a kind
of intellectual tear-gas that breaks the nerves and paralyzes the muscles of everyone in its vicinity, an acid that will corrode
healthy as well as decayed tissues (Northrop Frye, cited in Ayre 1989:183). Irony obviously makes people uneasy. It
is said to disavow (Kaufer 1981a: 25) and to devalorize (Ramazani 1988: 12), usually because it
distances. In fact, perhaps the most oft-repeated remark about ironymade both by those who
approve and by those who disapprove of itis about its emotional ethics, so to speak. They say that
it is a mode of intellectual detachment (Schoentjes 1993: 15386), that irony engages the intellect
rather than the emotions (Walker 1990: 24). But the degrees of unease irony provokes might
suggest quite the opposite. Irony is said to irritate because it denies us our certainties by unmasking
the world as an ambiguity (Kundera 1986: 134). But it can also mock, attack, and ridicule; it can
exclude, embarrass and humiliate. That too may irritate, and not at a terribly intellectual level either.
Yet, irony has consistently been seen as a favored trope of the intellectual and, therefore, a
commentator on Irish nationalism can assert that it is hard to summon much of it [irony] when you
have been blinded by a British army rubber bullet, and ask: How is such irony not simply to defuse our
anger? (Eagleton 1988: 8). But the very long history of ironys deployment in satire and invective
might suggest the possibility, less of a defusing, than of an engaging of precisely that anger. Irony
always has an edge; it sometimes has a sting (Gutwirth 1993: 144). In other words, this study argues
that there is an affective charge to irony that cannot be ignored and that cannot be separated from
its politics of use if it is to account for the range of emotional response (from anger to delight) and the
various degrees of motivation and proximity (from distanced detachment to passionate engagement).
Sometimes irony can indeed be interpreted as a withdrawal of affect; sometimes, however, there is a
deliberate engaging of emotion. As the final chapter will show, any use of irony or, for that matter, any
discussion of the politics of irony that ignores either ironys edge or this wide and complex range of
affective possibilities does so at its peril. Unlike synecdoche, say, irony always has a target; it
sometimes also has what some want to call a victim. As the connotations of those two terms imply,
ironys edge is often a cutting one. Those who might not attribute irony where it was intended (or
where others did) risk exclusion and embarrassment. In other words, even the simplest social dimensions of irony
frequently involve an affective component. And, of course, irony might be deemed appropriate only for certain topics or
certain audiences; it might not be accepted as fit for use in a particular place or at a particular time. Again, as the final
chapters examination of a contentious museum exhibition will illustrate, any such violation of (even unspoken) conventions
can also result in strong reactions with serious consequences. And yet, there are many situations in which it might actually be
prudent and tactful to use indirect forms of address like irony (Holdcroft 1976: 147), just as there are others in which they
would be provocative and transgressive.

When irony is ineffective it is because it isnt built along the borders of existing
discursive communities. By basing our irony on the conventions of debate, we connect
with the existing community.
Hutcheon 95, Prof. of English @ University of Toronto, 1995 (Linda, Ironys Edge, p. 17-18)

Whether you see the power of irony working to exclude and to put down or, instead, to create amiable
communities (Booth 1974: 28) between ironists and their intended audiences, the social nature of the
participation in the transaction called irony should not be ignored. From the point of view of the
intending ironist, it is said that irony creates hierarchies: those who use it, then those who get it and,
at the bottom, those who do not. But from the perspective of the interpreter, the power relations
might look quite different. It is not so much that irony creates communities or in-groups; instead, I
want to argue that irony happens because what could be called discursive communities already
exist and provide the context for both the deployment and attribution of irony. We all belong
simultaneously to many such communities of discourse, and each of these has its own restrictive
(Hagen 1992: 155) but also enabling communication conventions. To pick a few relatively innocuous
examples: the jokes shared by those who are parents are often lost on people like myself who do
not have children, and a lot of British political satire is baffling to me as a Canadian. This is not a
matter of in-group elitism; it is merely a matter of different experiential and discursive contexts. In a
way, if you understand that irony can exist (that saying one thing and meaning something else is not
necessarily a lie) and if you understand how it works, you already belong to one community: the one
based on the knowledge of the possibility and nature of irony. It is less that irony creates communities,
then, than discursive communities make irony possible in the first place. As later chapters will explore in
detail, the more the shared context, the fewer and the less obvious the markers needed to signalor attributeirony. The
multiple discursive communities to which we each (differently) belong cannot be reduced to any single component, such as
class or gender. They certainly involve openly held beliefs, but also ideologies, unspoken understandings, assumptionsabout
what is possible, necessary, telling, essential, and so onso deeply held that they are not thought of as assumptions at all
(Fish 1983: 190). Of course, things like class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual preference are involved, but so too are
nationality, neighborhood, profession, religion, and all the other micropolitical complexities of our lives to which we may not
even be able to give labels. The relational and dynamic model of overlapping discursive communities that will be suggested in
Chapter 4 is offered as a different way to address what is usually called interpreter competencea term which has, for me,
uncomfortable connotations which bespeak the exclusion (as this books epigraph by Palante shows) of those who cannot see
through to the depths (Chambers 1991: 53) of intended meaning or climb to the heights of superior knowledge (Booth
1974: 44). If, as psychologists (Winner 1988) assert, irony is learned at a young age, then how do you
explain the fact that young students, who speak the language of irony all the time (Chamberlain
1989: 102) and who see it in popular culture, fail to attribute and interpret it in literary texts studied
in the classroom? One way is to argue that it is, at least in part, a matter of different discursive
communities, and not a question of competence in the understanding of irony itself.

Its getting hot in here and its our fault.
Mcgrath 9-27(27 September 2013, 5:00. IPCC climate report: humans 'dominant cause' of warming.
Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News, Stockholm.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24292615)

A landmark report says scientists are 95% certain that humans are the "dominant cause" of global
warming since the 1950s. The report by the UN's climate panel details the physical evidence behind
climate change. On the ground, in the air, in the oceans, global warming is "unequivocal", it explained. It
adds that a pause in warming over the past 15 years is too short to reflect long-term trends. The panel
warns that continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all
aspects of the climate system. To contain these changes will require "substantial and sustained
reductions of greenhouse gas emissions". After a week of intense negotiations in the Swedish capital,
the summary for policymakers on the physical science of global warming has finally been released. The
first part of an IPCC trilogy, due over the next 12 months, this dense, 36-page document is considered
the most comprehensive statement on our understanding of the mechanics of a warming planet. It
states baldly that, since the 1950s, many of the observed changes in the climate system are
"unprecedented over decades to millennia". Each of the last three decades has been successively
warmer at the Earth's surface, and warmer than any period since 1850, and probably warmer than
any time in the past 1,400 years. "Our assessment of the science finds that the atmosphere and ocean
have warmed, the amount of snow and ice has diminished, the global mean sea level has risen and that
concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased," said Qin Dahe, co-chair of IPCC working group one,
who produced the report. Speaking at a news conference in the Swedish capital, Prof Thomas Stocker,
another co-chair, said that climate change "challenges the two primary resources of humans and
ecosystems, land and water. In short, it threatens our planet, our only home". Since 1950, the report's
authors say, humanity is clearly responsible for more than half of the observed increase in
temperatures. But a so-called pause in the increase in temperatures in the period since 1998 is downplayed in the report.
The scientists point out that this period began with a very hot El Nino year. "Trends based on short records are very sensitive to
the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends," the report says. Prof Stocker, added: "I'm
afraid there is not a lot of public literature that allows us to delve deeper at the required depth of this emerging scientific
question. "For example, there are not sufficient observations of the uptake of heat, particularly into the deep ocean, that would
be one of the possible mechanisms to explain this warming hiatus." "Likewise we have insufficient data to adequately assess
the forcing over the last 10-15 years to establish a relationship between the causes of the warming." However, the report does
alter a key figure from the 2007 study. The temperature range given for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, called
equilibrium climate sensitivity, was 2.0C to 4.5C in that report. In the latest document, the range has been changed to 1.5C to
4.5C. The scientists say this reflects improved understanding, better temperature records and new estimates for the factors
driving up temperatures. In the summary for policymakers, the scientists say that sea level rise will proceed at a faster rate than
we have experienced over the past 40 years. Waters are expected to rise, the document says, by between 26cm (at the low
end) and 82cm (at the high end), depending on the greenhouse emissions path this century. The scientists say ocean warming
dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for 90% of energy accumulated between 1971 and
2010. For the future, the report states that warming is projected to continue under all scenarios. Model simulations indicate
that global surface temperature change by the end of the 21st Century is likely to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius, relative to 1850.
Prof Sir Brian Hoskins, from Imperial College London, told BBC News: "We are performing a very dangerous
experiment with our planet, and I don't want my grandchildren to suffer the consequences of that
experiment."

Deforestation risks a pandemic
Ryan 97 Frank Ryan, MD, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1997, Virus X: tracking the new
killer plagues out of the present and into the future, p. 321 (HARVAF3076)

On the other hand, the mammals that took their origins there had, over these vast periods of time,
developed symbiotic relationships through coevolution with very many microbial forms of life. Today,
for example, every individual monkey, baboon, chimpanzee, and gorilla is carrying at least ten different
species of symbiotic viruses. While the situation in rodents, bats, and marsupials is not so well defined,
it is likely to be very similar. It is significant in this sense that Ebola, Marburg, and HIV all derived from
the African rain forest or its hinterland savannah. When scientists mark the epicenters of origin of newly
emerging virus infections on the global map, it is clear that almost all of these have emerged from these
formative biomes. And this means that interference with the rain forests, and deforestation in
particular, is the most dangerous activity with regard to the emergency of epidemic viruses.

Warming causes increased disease
McMichael 1Tony McMichael, Epidemiology Professor, London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine, 2001, Human Frontiers, Environments, and Disease: past patterns, uncertain futures, p. 301-2
(HARVAF3130)

It is a reasonable expectation that climate change, via a shift in background climate conditions, will
affect the spatial and seasonal patterns of the potential transmission of various vector-borne
infectious diseases. These would include malaria, dengue fever, the various types of viral encephalitis
(brain infection), schistosomiasis (or `bilharzia, spread by water-snails), leishmaniasis (spread by sand-
flies in South America and around the Mediterranean coast), onchocerciasis (West African 'river
blindness, spread by black flies) and yellow fever (also spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito). The key
phrase in this discussion is potential transmission. It is important to estimate how the intrinsic disease-transmission properties
of the world might alter in response to climate change. Indeed, such research is in the classic tradition of experimental science,
which seeks to hold everything else constant while estimating the effect induced by varying just one key factor. Such
estimations can be made in which climate change is that one key factor, as putative determinant of the future transmissibility
of infectious disease. Nevertheless, we know that the actual transmission of diseases such as malaria is, and will be, much
affected by economic and social conditions and by the robustness of public health defenses. Hence, we also need to develop
methods of modeling that incorporate other foreseeable contextual changes. This is a tall order, but we have no other way of
exploring the likely future risks of climate change to human health. The main anticipated impact of climate change on the
potential transmission of vector-borne diseases would be in tropical regions. In general, populations on the margins
of endemic areas in tropical and subtropical countries would be most likely to experience an increase in
transmission. Indeed, malaria is currently resurgent in many countries where, several decades ago, it
had been greatly reduced with vector control measures. Climate change may compound that process
" as it may also do with dengue fever. That disease, like malaria, has also increased substantially in
recent decades, and has done so particularly in Central and South America. This appears to reflect a
combination of increasing population mobility, urbanization, poverty and regional warming, along with a
slackening of mosquito control programs. Meanwhile, in temperate zones, climate change may also
affect diseases such as tick-borne viral encephalitis (which occurs in parts of Western Europe, Russia
and Scandinavia) and Lyme disease (discussed in some detail in chapter 4).

The gold standard is not legit. Stfu.
Hayek 77(F.A. Hayek, the most fracking amazing economist in all of ever. A Free Market Economic
system, A lecture delivered at the Gold and Monetary Conference, New Orleans, November 10, 1977.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2008/11/f-a-hayek/a-free-market-monetary-system/)

Now, fully to understand this, we must free ourselves from what is a widespread but basically wrong
belief. Under the Gold Standard, or any other metallic standard, the value of money is not really
derived from gold. The fact is, that the necessity of redeeming the money they issue in gold, places
upon the issuers a discipline which forces them to control the quantity of money in an appropriate
manner; I think it is quite as legitimate to say that under a gold standard it is the demand of gold for
monetary purposes which determines that value of gold, as the common belief that the value which
gold has in other uses determines the value of money. The gold standard is the only method we have
yet found to place a discipline on government, and government will behave reasonably only if it is
forced to do so. I am afraid I am convinced that the hope of ever again placing on government this
discipline is gone. The public at large have learned to understand, and I am afraid a whole generation of
economists have been teaching, that government has the power in the short run by increasing the
quantity of money rapidly to relieve all kinds of economic evils, especially to reduce unemployment.
Unfortunately this is true so far as the short run is concerned. The fact is, that such expansions of the
quantity of money which seems to have a short run beneficial effect, become in the long run the cause
of a much greater unemployment. But what politician can possibly care about long run effects if in the
short run he buys support? My conviction is that the hope of returning to the kind of gold standard
system which has worked fairly well over a long period is absolutely vain. Even if, by some international
treaty, the gold standard were reintroduced, there is not the slightest hope that governments will play
the game according to the rules. And the gold standard is not a thing which you can restore by an act
of legislation. The gold standard requires a constant observation by government of certain rules which include an
occasional restriction of the total circulation which will cause local or national recession, and no government can
nowadays do it when both the public and, I am afraid, all those Keynesian economists who have been trained in
the last thirty years, will argue that it is more important to increase the quantity of money than to maintain the
gold standard. I have said that it is an erroneous belief that the value of gold or any metallic basis determines
directly the value of the money. The gold standard is a mechanism which was intended and for a long time did
successfully force governments to control the quantity of the money in an appropriate manner so as to keep its
value equal with that of gold. But there are many historical instances which prove that it is certainly
possible, if it is in the self-interest of the issuer, to control the quantity even of a token money in such
a manner as to keep its value constant.

There is no justification of a national currency. This has only been promoted to fund
government expenditures. Never to provide a good currency.

My proposal is not, as I would wish, merely a sort of standby arrangement of which I could say we
must work it out intellectually to have it ready when the present system completely collapses. It is not
merely an emergency plan. I think it is very urgent that it become rapidly understood that there is no
justification in history for the existing position of a government monopoly of issuing money. It has
never been proposed on the ground that government will give us better money than anybody else
could. It has always, since the privilege of issuing money was first explicitly represented as a Royal
prerogative, been advocated because the power to issue money was essential for the finance of the
government-not in order to give us good money, but in order to give to government access to the tap
where it can draw the money it needs by manufacturing it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is not a
method by which we can hope ever to get good money. To put it into the hands of an institution
which is protected against competition, which can force us to accept the money, which is subject to
incessant political pressure, such an authority will not ever again give us good money.

Oh no! You broke capitalism!

If we start on this soon we may indeed achieve a position in which at last capitalism is in a position to
provide itself with the money it needs in order to function properly, a thing which it has always been
denied. Ever since the development of capitalism it has never been allowed to produce for itself the
money it needs; and if I had more time I could show you how the whole crazy structure we have as a
result, this monopoly originally only of issuing gold money, is very largely the cause of the great
fluctuations in credit, of the great fluctuations in economic activity, and ultimately of the recurring
depressions. I think if the capitalists had been allowed to provide themselves with the money which
they need, the competitive system would have long overcome the major fluctuations in economic
activity and the prolonged periods of depression. At the present moment we have of course been led
by official monetary policy into a situation where it has produced so much misdirection of resources
that you must not hope for a quick escape from our present difficulties, even if we adopted a new
monetary system.

US Imperialism risks angering nuke-happy foreign countries
Freedburg 13 (No Longer Unthinkable: Should US Ready For Limited Nuclear War? By Sydney J.
Freedberg Jr. on May 30, 2013. Deputy editor of breakingdefence.com and expert on US defensive
strategy. http://breakingdefense.com/2013/05/30/no-longer-unthinkable-should-us-ready-for-limited-
nuclear-war/ AL)
AI FORCE ASSOCIATION HQ: For more than 60 years, most Americans have thought of nuclear weapons
as an all-or-nothing game. The only way to win is not to play at all, we believed, because any use of
nukes will lead to Armageddon. That may no longer be the game our opposition is playing. As nuclear
weapons proliferate to places that might not share our reluctance to use them in small numbers,
however, the US military may face a second nuclear age of retail Armageddon for which it is utterly
unprepared. Outside the US, both established and emerging nuclear powers increasingly see nuclear
weapons as weapons that can be used in a controlled, limited, and strategically useful fashion, said
Barry Watts, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, arguably the
Pentagons favorite thinktank. The Cold War firebreaks between conventional and nuclear conflict are
breaking down, he wrote in a recent report. Russia has not only developed new, relatively low-yield
tactical nukes but also routinely wargamed their use to stop both NATO and Chinese conventional
forces should they overrun Moscows feeble post-Soviet military, Watts said this morning at the
headquarters of the Air Force Association. Pakistan is likewise developing tactical nukes to stop Indias
much larger military. Iran seeks nuclear weapons not only to offset Israels but to deter and, in the last
resort, fend off an American attempt to perform regime change in Tehran the way we did in
Baghdad. The US Air Force and Navy concept of AirSea Battle in the Western Pacific could entail
strikes on the Chinese mainland that might provoke a nuclear response. Its precisely because US
conventional power is so overwhelming that the temptation to turn to nuclear weapons to redress
the balance is so irresistible.

Warming doesnt give a crap about the sun
Biello 11 (6-19-11 David Biello, journalist for scientific America. Sunspot-Related Cooling Can't Offset
Greenhouse Warming. http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=sunspot-related-
cooling-cant-offset-11-06-19 AL)
How much light the sun emits affects the Earth's weather and climate. And sunspotsdark dots on the
face of the great fusion reactor in the skydo alter the orb's output. So when solar scientists said last
week that sunspot cycles might be going into hibernation, the impact on our planet's climate became a
hot topic. Previous prolonged weakenings in the solar cycle may have launched mini-Ice Ages. An
example is the so-called Maunder Minimum in the 1600s and 1700s when the Thames River routinely
froze, something that never happens today. So if we're to face a temporarily cooler sun, maybe all those
greenhouse gases we've been putting into the atmosphere will keep us toasty? A cooler sun might
mean a drop in global average temperatures of at most 0.3 degree Celsius. But the carbon dioxide
already in the atmosphere today will add 0.6 degree Celsius to global average temperatures by the
end of the century. And more, since greenhouse gas emissions show no signs of diminishing. So the
slightly cooler sun won't counteract a much hotter Earth.
Heres where I gave up and it got weird

Philosophical discussion not based on toilet architecture fails to acknowledge the
differences between different national schools of thought.
Zizek 97 (Slavoj Zizek, philosopher and world-renown toilet expert. The Plague of Fantasies 1997. AL)
In a traditional German lavatory, the hole in which shit disappears after we flush water is way in front,
so that the shit is first laid out for us to sniff at and inspect for traces of some illness; in the typical
French lavatory, on the contrary, the hole is in the back - that is, the shit is supposed to disappear as
soon as possible; finally, the Anglo-Saxon (English or American) lavatory presents a kind of synthesis, a
mediation between these two opposed poles - the basin is full of water, so that the shit floats in it -
visible, but not to be inspected. No wonder that Erica Jong, in the famous discussion of different
European lavatories at the beginning of her half-forgotten Tear of Flying, mockingly claims: 'German
toilets are really the key to the horrors of the Third Reich. People who can build toilets like this are
capable of anything/ It is clear that none of these versions can be accounted for in purely utilitarian
terms: a certain ideological perception of how the subject should relate to the unpleasant excrement
which comes from within our body is clearly discernible -again, for the third time, 'the truth is out
there'.

Throwing around terms like Genocide is hurtful name-calling and hardly necessary.
Phauk 2000 (Genocide Is Such A Harsh Word, May 31, 2000; Gen. Myanaung Phauk, leader of
Burmese extermination of the Shan people. Written for Onion News Network.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/genocide-is-such-a-harsh-word,10797/ AL)
We're all adults here. Can we please conduct this U.N. tribunal without stooping to using that loaded,
pejorative term? Yes, as leader of the Kunhing military junta in Myanmar, I did call for the death of four
million people, all of whom just happened to be of Shan ethnicity. And, yes, a few of these Shanlet's
say 921,452died at the hands of my mercenary army. But are we really prepared to call it a genocide?
Come on, now. That's not the sort of word you just throw around. Granted, I did call for the Salween
River to run red with the blood of the Shan. But did I ever use the word genocide when I called for
Burmese, Chinese, and Karens to rise up against their Shan neighbors and rid the Earth of this mongrel
race? Of course not. If something that appears to resemble a genocide did occur at my hands in
Myanmar, that certainly was not my intention. Everything I did was in the name of working toward the
noble goal of redistributing all land and resources to their rightful, non-Shan ownersa land-distribution
system dating back to the 11th century Burmese kingdom of Bagan. Even "ethnic cleansing" has
become a dirty word nowadays. It's getting so that you can't work toward purification without
someone calling you the new Hitler. Sure, we've all heard the recording of my radio addresses and read
my statements in The Shan-Annihilation Press, in which I urged Burmese farmers to sharpen their
scythes, descend upon Taunggyi, and leave not a man, woman, or child standing. What does that prove?
So what if Taunggyi is the capital of the Shan state? Is everyone in Belgium a Belgian? True, it was the
Shan miners at Bawdwin who were seized and burned to death inside the shafts. And, yes, it was Shan
workers who were split throat-to-stomach and stacked up like cordwood in the smeltery at Namtu. But
to call these massacres? That's so extreme. Now, maybe if we'd descended upon a Buddhist temple full
of refugees in Keng Tung armed with machine guns and missiles, the tribunal could call it a massacre.
We all know that a single rocket launcher costs nearly 125,000 kyat around here. We used mere rifles
and bulldozers to kill the 13,000 in Keng Tung. As with most things, your opinion of my regime
depends entirely upon your perspective. Yes, there is proof of the live burial at Thayetwa and the fire
raids on the grade school in Syway, but you really had to be there to understand what went on. We have
a saying in Kunhing: "One man's torture center is another man's retreat where one is released from
the shame of being born into this world a Shan." Perhaps the lowest blow of all was when the U.N.
tribunal brought up my silly little nickname, "Ma-ubbin Toukka." Yes, technically, it does mean "one who
grinds human skulls into a fine powder with his boot." But the true spirit of it gets lost in the translation.
So how am I supposed to get a fair trial now? A person hears a phrase like "genocide," and they close
their minds to everything else. They completely ignore the fact that, even to this day, these agrarian curs
are marrying non-Shan. But all it takes is just one U.N. tribunal to scream "genocide," and you're
forever labeled a bloodthirsty mass-murderer. "Bloodthirsty"? Who does this sort of name-calling
benefit? Let's take one more look at this nebulous word "genocide," which is defined as "the
deliberate and systematic extermination of a national or racial group." Last time I checked, there were
still 2,623,947 Shan left in Myanmar. That doesn't sound like much of a genocide to me. Now, if you'd
be so kind as to leave me beperhaps until about, oh, September 2001I have some important
business to attend to.

The new 3 strikes genocide policy means there wont be retaliation until at least the
third major genocide.
ONN 11 (Onion News Network; International Criminal Court Announces New '3 Strikes' Genocide
Policy; Mar 30, 2011. http://www.theonion.com/articles/international-criminal-court-announces-new-3-
strik,19853/ AL)
In an effort to crack down on the systematic killing of entire races and ethnic groups, International
Criminal Court officials introduced a new "three strikes" policy Monday that mandates harsher
punishments for offenders receiving their third genocide conviction. "You get three chances, and that's
it," said ICC president Sang-Hyun Song, a judge with a reputation for being tough on genocide. "It
doesn't matter if you're slaughtering rival clans en masse, gassing your own people, or gunning down
all males over the age of 15 in front of their families and neighbors. If it's your third time, we're
throwing the book at you." According to the ICC, three-time perpetrators of genocide will face stiff
fines and have to issue formal public apologies, pending appeals.

Instant revolution: Just add FUN!
Hoffman 80 [Hoffman, Abbie. (1980). Soon to be a Major Motion Picture. Perigee. Accessed via the
anarchists library. Abbie Hoffman was a leader of the Youth International Party (the Yippies). He led
many serious political pranks such as electing a pig for president, throwing money into the NYSE to see
the brokers fight over it, and attempting (unsuccessfully) to levitate the pentagon. AL]

Lenin once wrote that art was counter-revolutionary because it showed beauty in the present, while
revolution promised beauty in the future. Its true that art-for-arts sake leads to performing modern
dance for Shahs and Sheiks or discussing sculpture at afternoon tea with the Rockefellers. Yet
creativity is needed to reach people snowed under by ruling-class images, and only artists can manage
the breakthrough. Artists are the collective eyes of the future. One of the worst mistakes any
revolution can make is to become boring. It leads to rituals as opposed to games, cults as opposed to
community and denial of human rights as opposed to In organizing a movement around art we not only
allowed people to participate without a sense of guilt but also with a sense of enjoyment. The use of
fun in struggle was a new notion. Even in Mississippi where we were truly frightened most of the time
with people shooting at us, living with the constant thought that we might lose our lives, it seemed like
people enjoyed their work. All I did was admit it felt good. Theres no incongruity in conducting
serious business and having fun. This pissed off the straight left no One of the principles of good
theater is not to overburden the audience with footnoted explanations of what they are seeing. In 1967
a picket sign saying end the was far more involving than one that said END THE WAR. People love
filing in the blanks and you could always count on straight people to stick to the core message. A
populist movement must allow people to define their own space, their own motives, to be their own
critics. A good explanation is no explanation, keeping your mouth shut a correct response. There was,
however, an even higher form of communication, since no response sounds the same as the
bureaucracys no comment. Street players have nothing to hide. The solution lies in the zen axiom: say
everything by saying nothing, remain silent by telling all. Any good Jewish comedian from Hillel to Don
Rickles knows what Im talking about. Partly truth, partly fiction, the put-on gets the job

Debaters are easily turned to the dark side.
Mitchel 98
The undercultivation of student agency in the academic field of argumentation is a particularly
pressing problem, since social theorists such as Foucault, Habermas and Touraine have proposed that
information and communication have emerged as significant media of domination and exploitation in
contemporary society. These scholars argue, in different ways, that new and particularly insidious
means of social control have developed in recent times. These methods of control are insidious in the
sense that they suffuse apparently open public spheres and structure opportunities for dialogue in
subtle and often nefarious ways. Who has authority to speak in public forums? How does
socioeconomic status determine access to information and close off spaces for public deliberation? Who
determines what issues are placed on the agenda for public discussion? It is impossible to seriously
consider these questions and still hew closely to the idea that a single, monolithic, essentialized "public
sphere" even exists. Instead, multiple public spheres exist in diverse cultural and political milieu, and
communicative practices work to transform and reweave continuously the normative fabric that holds
them together. Some public spaces are vibrant and full of emancipatory potential, while others are
colonized by restrictive institutional logics. Argumentation skills can be practiced in both contexts, but
how can the utilization of such skills transform positively the nature of the public spaces where
dialogue takes place? For students and teachers of argumentation, the heightened salience of this
question should signal the danger that critical thinking and oral advocacy skills alone may not be
sufficient for citizens to assert their voices in public deliberation. Institutional interests bent on shutting
down dialogue and discussion may recruit new graduates skilled in argumentation and deploy them in
information campaigns designed to neutralize public competence and short-circuit democratic
decision-making (one variant of Habermas' "colonization of the lifeworld" thesis; see Habermas 1981, p.
376-373). Habermas sees the emergent capacity of capitalist institutions to sustain themselves by
manufacturing legitimacy through strategic communication as a development that profoundly
transforms the Marxist political dynamic. By colonizing terms and spaces of public dialogue with
instrumental, strategically-motivated reasoning, institutions are said by Habermas to have engineered
a "refeudalization" of the public sphere. In this distorted space for public discussion, corporations and
the state forge a monopoly on argumentation and subvert critical deliberation by members of an
enlightened, debating public. This colonization thesis supplements the traditional Marxist problematic
of class exploitation by highlighting a new axis of domination, the way in which capitalist systems rely
upon the strategic management of discourse as a mode of legitimation and exploitation. Indeed, the
implicit bridge that connects argumentation skills to democratic empowerment in many
argumentation textbooks crosses perilous waters, since institutions facing "legitimation crises" (see
Habermas 1975) rely increasingly on recruitment and deployment of argumentative talent to
manufacture public loyalty.

Academia has rejected the Yippies due to its unconventional and decentralized mode
of protest.
Stephens 98 [Julie Stephens. She is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences and
Psychology at Victoria University. From the book Anti-Disciplinary Protest: Sixties Radicalism and
Postmodernism. 1998. Steal this book at libgen.info AL]
To return to an earlier point, these popular and theoretical explanations of the post-sixties era share a
concern with the most conventional forms of sixties radicalism. Only those actions which were
extensions of a traditional revolutionary perspective and aimed to convulsively overthrow State
power come into view. On the other hand, the challenges posed by the psychedelic wing of the
movement, by the counterculture or what Jerry Rubin called the 'Marxist acidheads',7 are either
marginalized, ignored altogether or relegated to the status of an amusing curiosity. The counterculture
as a phenomenon has generated a set of highly contested meanings which will be discussed in Chapter
1. According to Brent Whelan, it is less the case that the critics have forgotten the late sixties
counterculture but rather that 'they have actively rejected the object and excluded it from serious
consideration'.8 There are exceptions, notably Whelan's own fine analysis, but on the whole this
appears to be the case.9 In James Millers preface to the 1994 edition of Democracy Is in the Streets,
where he looks at the sixties from the perspective of the nineties, he acknowledges this process of
exclusion as one of the gravest omissions in his own text. Operating then with a consciously
conventional notion of politics, he comments that: 'Given the political focus of my narrative, it was all
but impossible to convey adequately the era's carnivalesque atmosphere of confusion - an air of chaos
that was depending on one's aspirations, either fearful or liberatory'.10 One of the purposes of this
book is to overcome such shortcomings and to rethink the connection between the so-called failure of
the sixties and the disenchantment with politics that is forever being held up as the prevailing cultural
mood of the late twentieth century." In an attempt to theorize the strain of sixties radicalism that
boasted no list of demands, no party, no aims and ideology, no leaders and no followers,121 focus on
the distinctive rituals and language of protest of the 'psychedelic Bolsheviks',13 who, according to
their own self-image, were beyond the picket sign because, in Jerry Rubin's memorable words: 'our
nakedness was our picket sign'.14 This will entail an examination of what I call an 'anti-disciplinary
polities', a language of protest which rejected hierarchy and leadership, strategy and planning,
bureaucratic organization and political parties and was distinguished from the New Left by its
ridiculing of political commitment, sacrifice, seriousness and coherence. The concept of an anti-
disciplinary politics refuses many of the problematic distinctions which shape the familiar paradigms of
the sixties, most notably the boundary between so-called political radicalism and cultural radicalism,
between the activist and the hippie. This sixties critique of the 'discipline' of politics will be detailed in
the first two chapters and is crucial to what follows.

Yippies rejected biopower before it was cool.
Stephens 98 [Julie Stephens. She is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences and
Psychology at Victoria University. From the book Anti-Disciplinary Protest: Sixties Radicalism and
Postmodernism. 1998. Steal this book at libgen.info AL]

In formulating a notion of an anti-disciplinary politics, an obvious reference point is Foucault. This
distinctive strain of sixties protest attempted to dismantle the discipline of traditional Left politics in
an almost Foucauldian sense. Just as Foucault problematized the binary division between resistance
and non-resistance - the possibility of saying that one thing was only of the order of 'liberation' and
another of the order of 'oppression'80 - so the sixties counterculture recognized the dangers inherent
in the normative criteria of a political program. As the outlaw manifestos of the sixties, cited in BAMN
(By Any Means Necessary), explained: 'there must not be a plan! as it is always the plan that has done
us in'.81 Foucault questioned any political program which presented itself as 'more rational, more
intelligent, and hence more acceptable and better than that of the prevailing regime'.82 The concept
of an anti-disciplinary politics has a certain affinity with Foucault s suggestion that modern society is a
'disciplinary society' where power circulates in other modes rather than solely through censorship,
exclusion, blockage or repression, and produces effects at the levels of knowledge and desire.83 In
numerous ways the sixties counterculture struggled to bypass what they saw as the disciplinary
mechanisms of power of the mainstream society mirrored in traditional methods of protest and
demonstration. However, Foucauldian critiques of resistance cease to be of relevance to the concept of
an antidisciplinary politics precisely at the point where the sixties counterculture retains a commitment
to an emancipatory logic despite its rejection of these disciplinary frameworks. The language of an anti-
disciplinary politics that prided itself on having no aims, no ideology, no party and no list of demands
was expressed and understood by a range of sixties movements. It can be heard loud and clear in a
variety of actions such as in the 'levitation' of the Pentagon, travel to India (or the consumption of
signs of 'India' in the West), marching in demonstrations holding signs which, instead of a slogan, had a
piece of fruit represented on them, throwing money on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange,
nominating a pig for President of the USA, or dressing in a guerrilla uniform complete with a toy M-16
while chanting 'OM' in a Chicago courtroom. These spectacles, discussed in subsequent chapters, throw
a different light on the relationship between sixties protest and what is generally held to be the current
mood of political quietism, disenchantment and despair. They lead to an alternative reading of the
connection between the sixties and contemporary political debates. Indeed, the post-sixties questioning
of the project of grand social transformation - coming from postmodern theorists but also from more
popular sources - can be traced as much to the success of this anti-disciplinary version of politics as to
the purported failure of sixties radicalism.

[ptx] non-unique: Congress preoccupied with blank legislation.
ONN 6-25 [The Onion, Congress Fiercely Divided Over Completely Blank Bill That Says And Does
Nothing Jul 25, 2013 http://www.theonion.com/articles/congress-fiercely-divided-over-completely-
blank-bi,33256/?ref=auto]
WASHINGTONA blank piece of legislation that says nothing, does nothing, and contains no text
whatsoever has been the source of heated debate in Washington this week, and has sharply divided
Congress along partisan lines, Beltway sources confirmed Thursday. Known as S.0000, the bill, which doesnt have
sponsors, co-sponsors, or an author, has reportedly drawn starkly contrasting opinions from legislators in both the Senate and
House of Representatives, and has paved the way for a major legislative battle in coming months. At a time when millions of
Americans are still struggling, we simply cannot afford this kind of devil-may-care federal policy, said Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-KY), angrily waving the blank stack of papers in front of reporters. We will not risk leading the American
people into further hardship simply so the Obama administration can once again do whatever they please, regardless of the
consequences. As it is now, the bill is both short-sighted and utterly irresponsible. Bill S.0000, which has sharply divided
lawmakers. Frankly, we need to get back to the negotiating table and make some major changes before members of my party
would even consider putting this up for a vote, McConnell continued. And if my friends on the other side of the aisle try push
it through, well, theyll pay the consequences at the ballot box. According to reports, 45 Democratic senators are in favor of
the billwhich contains no text whatsoeverwhile 41 Republicans are staunchly opposed. At least three Republicans,
including Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC), David Vitter (R-LA), and Susan Collins (R-ME), have said they would consider crossing the
aisle and backing the bill, an announcement that drew fierce criticism from GOP leadership and primary threats from members
within their own party. Republican critics told reporters that the wordless document would kill jobs and
force another round of big government policies upon the American people. Some Democrats said the
blank legislation doesnt go far enough, while a majority of party members accused the GOP of
willfully undermining the legislative process and being totally averse to any and all concessions.
Republican senators filibustered the up-and-down vote proposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
(D-NV) earlier in the week, and sources said todays cloture motion that would have forced S.0000 to a
vote also failed to pass. House Speaker John Boehner has already said the Senate version of the non-
legislation is dead on arrival in the House, and that the Republican majority would work together to pass
their own blank law. The truth is, Speaker Boehner doesnt have enough support in his own party, and
will need Democratic help to pass anything, said Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), adding that he firmly and
categorically stands behind many of the nonexistent measures in the bill. But once again, the GOP has
decided they would rather spread vicious lies about the effects of this legislation, and theyve
successfully created a panic that is completely unfounded. Americans cant afford to wait around any
longer. We need to get this done now. While lawmakers have overwhelmingly fallen along party lines,
several Democratic members of Congress who are up for reelection in 2014 have joined Republicans in
blasting the legislation, fearing that showing any kind of support for President Obama and his agenda
could lead to their ouster. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has said the bill, which would enact no changes of
any kind to either federal or statewide governments, is immoral, unconstitutional, and flies in the face
of states rights. President Obama, meanwhile, has heavily criticized Congress for its failure to vote on the
proposal. The inaction of Congress and the hyperbolic, ultra-partisan statements regarding this legislation, are
precisely why most Americans are frustrated with Washington, Obama told the assembled White House press
corps, adding that he is prepared to sign the empty sheet of paper into law as soon as it crosses his desk. Our
government representatives are putting politics ahead of the American people, and thats unacceptable. Though
some lawmakers remain optimistic over a future deal brokered between the two parties, many Capitol Hill insiders
said any future compromise is overwhelmingly unlikely. Essentially, there are two possible outcomes for this bill:
Itll either get completely gutted in committee, or itll be put up for a vote and then be swiftly killed, said
Washington Post national political correspondent Karen Tumulty, adding that to enact the bills total lack of
provisions would require heavy concessions from both sides of the aisle. But lets not beat around the bush
herethe midterm elections are right around the corner, and these legislators dont want to take a chance and do
anything that might cast them in a negative light before their constituents go to the polls. To be completely
honest, the best bet would be if Congress just waits until after 2014, breaks the bill up the into smaller parts and
tries to pass it piecemeal, Tumulty added. Or maybe they should just start from scratch.

[profanity in purple] Non-Unique: Now is unfortunately the best time to be black.
ONN 8-28 [Report: Now Sadly The Best Time In American History To Be Black Aug 28, 2013]
BOSTONDespite rampant cultural racism against African Americans in all aspects of American life,
discriminatory voting laws, and a vast gap in educational opportunities, there has, sadly, never been a
better time than 2013 to be black in America, a Tufts University study revealed Wednesday. We found
that its pretty heartbreaking that blacks today are much better off than theyve ever been, especially
because we still live in a country where racial equality remains more of an ideal than a reality, the
studys lead author Dr. Sam Porter said in regards to the report, which noted that, unfortunately,
African Americans have never had it better despite the fact that incarceration rates for blacks are
nearly six times that of whites and only 42 percent of black students who enter high school will
graduate. If you dont think about howfive decades after Martin Luther King Jr.s I Have a Dream
speechits perfectly legal in many parts of the country for police to detain and question a person just
because hes black, the findings are not as depressing. But then you do think about that, and then you
realize its pretty pitiful that what blacks are going through right now in America could be considered a
veritable heyday. The study went on to point out that, on an optimistic note, at least black people
arent worse off in 2013 than the nations women, who are just as fucked now as theyve ever been.

Non-unique: Wall Street ready to destroy the world again
ONN 13 *Financial Sector Thinks Its About Ready To Ruin World Again. Jun 18, 2013.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/financial-sector-thinks-its-about-ready-to-ruin-wo,32865/?ref=auto
AL]
NEW YORKClaiming that enough time had surely passed since they last caused a global economic
meltdown, top executives from the U.S. financial sector told reporters Monday that they are just about
ready to completely destroy the world again. Representatives from all major banking and investment
institutions cited recent increases in consumer spending, rebounding home prices, and a stabilizing
unemployment rate as confirmation that the time had once again come to inflict another round of
catastrophic financial losses on individuals and businesses worldwide. Its been about five or six years
since we last crippled every major market on the planet, so it seems like the time is right for us to get
back out there and start ruining the lives of billions of people again, said Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. We
gave it some time and let everyone get a little comfortable, and now were looking to get back on the old horse, shatter some consumer
confidence, and flat-out kill any optimism for a stable global economy for years to come. People are beginning to feel at ease spending money
and investing in their futures again, Blankfein continued. Thats the perfect time to step in and do what we do best: rip the heart right out of
the worlds economy. According to sources, the overwhelming majority of investment bankers are ready to get the ball rolling by approving
a host of complex and poorly understood debt-backed securities that are doomed to quickly default, as well as issuing startlingly high-risk loans
certain to drive thousands of companies into insolvency. Top-level executives also told reporters that when it comes to depleting the life
savings of millions of people and sending every major national economy into a tailspin, they feel refreshed and raring to go. The other
day I actually overheard someone on the sidewalk utter the words Im saving up for retirement, and
right away I thought to myself, Well, time to get down to work, said Morgan Stanley chairman James
P. Gorman, adding that the increasing number of individuals entertaining ideas of starting their own
businesses or buying houses was the financial sectors cue to set off another devastating global
recession. Were definitely thinking on a huge scale again, because we all really enjoy toying with the
livelihoods of millions of people overseas and forcing them to wonder why reckless, split-second
decisions made thousands of miles away dictate their whole countrys socioeconomic future. Plus,
itll be nice to finally wipe out the Euro once and for all this time, Gorman added. While most private equity firms,
investment banks, and hedge funds are reportedly still undecided on the precise route to take in order to torpedo the job market and crash all
international stock exchanges, sources confirmed they are nearly in position to resume gambling away trillions of dollars belonging to the
American populace. Weve got a lot of options on the table; its just a matter of picking which one we want to use to paralyze every single
sector of the world economy, said Capital One executive vice president Peter Schnall. We already burst the dot-com and housing bubbles, so
this time we can maybe mix it up by popping the education bubble and shattering the lives of everyone with outstanding student loans. Or
maybe well artificially inflate prices of stocks in social media companies and then pull the rug out, bankrupting every investor tied to
companies like Facebook and Twitter. Or do both. On second thought, maybe well wipe out the housing market again too, just for the hell of
it, Schnall quickly added. Might as well, right? According to a recent survey of Wall Street officials, 82 percent said they were excited to
shake off the rust and send the Dow and NASDAQ into another freefall. Additionally, 75 percent of respondents admitted they have been
champing at the bit for months to wholly undermine the nations local banks and money market accounts, leaving Americans too terrified to
leave their savings anywhere. Moreover, the chief financial officers from Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo
unanimously told reporters that it has been way too long since they last saw the utterly dejected faces of American families whose homes
had just been foreclosed on due to circumstances totally beyond their control. Now that the publics efforts to curtail
questionable Wall Street trading practices have all but ceased, its time for us to bring the world to its
knees again, said AIG CEO Robert Benmosche. There are still plenty of opaque financial derivatives,
high-frequency trading operations, and off-balance sheet transactions out there, all with virtually no
federal regulation. Trust me, we can definitely work with that. And if anything, we can always just lobby
for further concessions and deregulation in Washingtonwhich, by the way, is so, so easy to doand
then we can cause as much damage as we want. Added Benmosche, And while were at it, well make
sure we once again come away from this whole thing scot-free and far wealthier.

The army wants to invade someplace tropical next. CP gives political capital.
ONN 3 [Soldier Hoping We Invade Someplace Tropical Next Jul 2, 2003 AL]
BAGHDAD, IRAQSgt. Daniel Marshall, a member of the Army National Guard's 501st Infantry, is
hoping that the next place he is ordered to invade has a tropical climate. "I'm proud to have served
my country here in the Iraqi desert, but it sure would be nice if we got into a conflict with someplace
nice," Marshall said Tuesday. "With any luck, President Bush is thinking about shocking-and-awing
Cuba nexta little deep-sea fishing would really boost the morale of my men." Marshall said he is "so
jealous" of his uncle Stephen, who got to invade Grenada in 1983.

Nobody wants to talk about politics. Dont be that guy.
ONN 8 [Nation Agrees Not To Talk About Politics Apr 18, 2008 AL]
WASHINGTONAfter months of fevered and contentious political discourse, the U.S. populace
unanimously agreed Monday that, before somebody gets upset and things get out of hand, it would
be better to just stop talking about politics altogether. Designed to reverse the trend of heated
discussions on topics ranging from the Democrats' shifting stance on NAFTA to Sen. John McCain's
support for the Iraq War, the nationwide change in subject is effective immediately. The White House
will not even be mentioned for at least six months. "There's no point getting the country all riled up
talking about politics, especially right before a big election like this," 43-year-old Pittsburgh resident Eric
Daniels said. "With terrorism and the economy and all these other problems on our minds, nobody
wants to talk about which candidate can best restore faith in America both at home and abroad."
"Baseball season just started," Daniels added. "How about them Pirates?" The decision by all
301,139,947 U.S. citizens to talk about something else is expected to last the more than six months
leading up to the presidential election on Nov. 4. During that time, the nation has agreed to supplant all
lively debates and impassioned arguments about politics with topics such as movies, music,
summertime, and, in some rare cases, personal matters like family, relationships, and feelings.
Anything, Americans strongly reiterated, so long as it is not politics. A Zogby International poll
conducted last week reflected the country's distaste for political debate. When asked if they preferred the
Republican emphasis on national security or the more Democratic commitment to domestic issues, 73 percent of respondents
agreed to disagree on the matter and just leave it at that; 16 percent called the topic of Obama versus Clinton "touchy" and not
worth talking about if it could offend someone; and 11 percent said that for the sake of everyone having a good, hassle-free
year, it is probably best to just let it go and not worry about who the 44th president will be. In addition, nine out of 10
Americans polled stressed that with the dollar's poor performance and record-high gas prices, this is neither the time nor the
place to be talking about politics in the first place. "If people need to talk about Hillary Clinton's health care proposal, I hope
they have the decency to let me know so I can go somewhere else first," Jacksonville, FL resident Katherine Watson, 37, said.
"Or at least make the conversations more interesting. Maybe talk about Barack Obama's smile or John McCain's weird shoulder
thing." Citizens have also reportedly experienced much less tension in the nation since the ban was instated. Moreover,
millions have expressed relief and enthusiasm that, given the backgrounds of the candidates in this
election, the injunction has led to a drop in awkward discussions of race, gender, and age. "Yesterday I
had a wonderful, hour-long conversation about how crazy [contestant] Andrew [D'Ambrosi] on Top Chef is, but at least he adds
an interesting dynamic to the show," Deirdre Miles, 26, of Sacramento said. "It was such a relief to know that nobody would be
bringing up superdelegates, the Pennsylvania primary, or John McCain's comment about having our troops in Iraq for the next
100 years. I've got two brothers fighting over there, so that is the last thing I want to think about right now." Even as the
country braces for a potential recession, a number of media outlets claim that the injunction on talking politics could be a boon
to business. With television, newspapers, and radio stations all forced to cover only sports and entertainment, ad revenue and
ratings are expected to soar in every major market nationwide. For their part, politicians have largely been
supportive of the move. "The president is proud that the American people have come together on such
an important issue," White House press secretary Dana Perino told reporters at a briefing Tuesday. "He
supports their decision wholeheartedly, and thinks U.S. citizens should focus on relaxing and having a
good time in the upcoming months." Added Perino, "We'll take care of the politics for you." Though the
moratorium will likely be lifted after the election, the 1984 agreement between Americans to avoid
discussing religion has been extended until 2024.

Waterboarding in Guantanamo bay is wasteful and immoral.
ONN 7 [Conservation Group Condemns Waterboarding As Wasteful Dec 4, 2007 AL ]
WASHINGTONNational Water Watch, a Washington-based conservation group, criticized the
government's use of waterboarding Monday, calling the practice of stuffing a cloth into a detainee's
mouth, immobilizing him, and pouring water over his face and body to simulate the sensation of
drowning "a tragic waste of resources." "The idea that the United States could condone the
despicable act of squandering several pitchers of water is shameful," NWW spokesman Gregory
Hammil said. "It is amoral, unconscionable, and in direct opposition to all internationally recognized
water- saving techniques." Hammil recommended the government switch to more eco-friendly means
of enhanced interrogation, such as waterboarding with a return-hose device in order to reuse old water,
or simply beating suspected terrorists to a bloody pulp.

[profanity] Philosophy students need to shut the fuck up
ONN 5 [Guy In Philosophy Class Needs To Shut The Fuck Up Sep 28, 2005 AL]
ANOVER, NHAccording to students enrolled in professor Michael Rosenthal's Philosophy 101 course
at Dartmouth College, that guy, Darrin Floen, the one who sits at the back of the class and acts like he's
Aristotle, seriously needs to shut the fuck up. Floen (inset) is known to make his insufferable comments
during class at Thornton Hall. His fellow students describe Floen's frequent comments as eager,
interested, and incredibly annoying. "He thinks he knows about philosophy," freshman Duane Herring
said. "But I hate his voice, and I hate the way he only half raises his hand, like he's so laid back. We're
discussing ethics in a couple weeks, but I don't know if I can wait that long before deciding if it's
morally wrong to pound his face in." "Today he was going on and on about how Plato's cave shadows
themselves represent the ideal foundation of Western philosophical thought," said freshman Julia Wald
moments after class let out Monday. "I have no idea what Plato's ideal reality is, but I bet it doesn't
include know-it-all little shits." Wald added: "If he uses the word 'dialectical' one more time, I'm going
to shove my copy of The Republic down his throat." Although he demonstrated a familiarity with Peter
Singer's view on famine relief during a discussion of John Locke's theory of property, Floen is reportedly
unfamiliar with the theory of cramming it for a change and giving someone else a chance to speak. "Just
last week Professor Rosenthal was talking about Russell's Paradox, and that jackass starts going off: 'But
what about Heraclitus' aphorism: Everything flows, nothing stands still?'" classmate James Luers said.
"At first I was like, 'That's totally irrelevant,' but then I was like, 'Well, actually, it does apply to the
nonstop flapping of your trap.'" Among the 40 students who regularly attend Philosophy 101, the one
who has endured the most suffering is freshman William Deekes. "Some people know Darrin as just 'that
guy in philosophy class who needs to shut the hell up,'" Deekes said. "I, however, also know him as 'the
douche in African history who seriously needs to chill' and 'the a-hole in environmental sciences who
could really use a girlfriend.'" "I enrolled in this course because I was fascinated by the question of
God," said sophomore Miriam Blank. "After spending six hours a week in the same room as that
unbearable windbag, I think I have my answer. Life is as long as it is cruel." The outspoken student has
not gone unremarked by the course's professor. "Mr. Floen is a valuable contributor to our in-class
discussions," Rosenthal said. "His tendency to question and challenge everything before him captures
the very essence of philosophy itself." Rosenthal added: "Having said that, I do wish he would
occasionally do me the valued service of shutting his damn cake hole."

Alt cause to warming Al Gore causes global warming to boost Inconvenient Truth
profits.
ONN 6 [Al Gore Caught Warming Globe To Increase Box Office Profits Dec 18, 2006 AL]
Dozens of eyewitness reports indicated that former vice president Al Gore deliberately attempted to
raise the earth's temperature in order to boost box office receipts for An Inconvenient Truth, his
documentary film about global warming that was released in May. "We have accounts from concerned
citizens that Mr. Gore purchased a Cadillac Escalade SUV several months before [his film] opened in
theaters," said Kimberly Blume, spokeswoman for the California-based environmental group Friends Of
The Earth. "Not only did Mr. Gore use his new gas-guzzler to make short trips to the grocery store, he
also left the vehicle running 24 hours a day in the driveway of his Tennessee home with the air-
conditioning on full-blast." In the weeks following the film's release, witnesses reported additional
sightings of Gore engaging in activities such as discharging can after can of 1980s-era, CFC-laden
aerosol into the air, and single-handedly clear-cutting over 6,000 acres of Amazon rain forest. Gore is
also rumored to have set a four-acre tire fire outside Akron, OH, and ordered his Secret Service detail to
shoot on sight anyone who attempts to put it out. "It's sad to see a man we thought was a passionate
defender of the environment despoiling it for his own monetary gain," Blume said. Blume said that she
and many environmentalists had momentarily expressed relief in late November when Gore appeared
to cease his months-long practice of dismantling old refrigerators in order to release ozone-destroying
freon into the atmosphere. Blume soon learned, however, that Gore had resumed the activity in
Antarctica, where the earth's ozone layer is most fragile. Environmental groups have called for the
federal government to step in and put a stop to Gore's actions, but officials say they do not have the
power to stop him. "There is no legal recourse anyone can take against the former vice president,"
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson said. "Mr. Gore is well within the
emissions standards set by the current administration." By year's end, Gore failed to slow his assault on
the planet's delicately balanced climate systems. Satellite surveillance revealed what many believe to be
a snowshoed Gore jumping up and down on an ice shelf in Greenland, chainsawing glaciers in the
Alaskan wild, and urinating in the Gulf Stream waters off the coast of Newfoundland.

There are terrorists in Mexico
Darby 13 [Hezbollah Joining Cartels in Mexico's War. Brandon Darby is an American activist and
informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2 Jan 2013. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-
Peace/2013/01/01/Hezbollah-Joining-Cartels-in-Mexico-s-War AL]
The House Committee on Homeland Security released a November 2012 report that reveals Islamic
terror organizations and networks are indeed exploiting profits from narcotics, and the ease of
weapons attainment, and the vast technological abilities of Mexican and other southern cartels that are
thriving in Mexicos lawlessness, along with other southern regions. The report, titled A Line In The
Sand: Countering Crime, Violence, and Terror at the Southwest Border, details the growing involvement
of Iran and Hezbollah in Mexico and other countries south of the southern US border. In 2006, the
Subcommittee reported on the presence of both Iran and Hezbollah in Latin America. Since then, that
presence has continued to grow with Iran now having embassies in 11 Latin American countries that
include Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Nicaragua and Uruguay. This unsettling trend was the reason for a
Subcommittee-led Congressional Delegation to Latin America in August 2012. The Delegation traveled to
Mexico, Colombia, Paraguay, Argentina, as well as the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of Brazil, Paraguay and
Argentina, for a first- hand assessment of the increasing threat posed by Iran and Hezbollah in Latin
America. After conferring with U.S. officials, foreign leaders and other experts within these countries,
the Subcommittee has concluded that Iran and Hezbollah pose a threat to the entire Western
Hemisphere including the United States and our Southwest border. These new revelations add further
concern to US safety when coupled with the December 2011 indictment of Lebanese drug lord Ayman
Juma. The indictment revealed Juma was a go-between for Hezbollah and the Mexican Los Zetas
cartel. Jumas indictment showed that 85 tons of cocaine had been delivered into the US by Juma for
the Los Zetas. Juma had laundered $850 million for the cartel, of which he received approximately 12%
in commissions. The commissions were then given to Hezbollah to fund terrorism.

Human rights violations are built into Cuban law.
HRW 8 *Cuba: Fidel Castros Abusive Machinery Remains Intact Major Obstacles Remain for Human
Rights February 19, 2008. Human rights watch. http://www.hrw.org/news/2008/02/18/cuba-fidel-
castro-s-abusive-machinery-remains-intact AL]

Despite Fidel Castros resignation today, Cubas abusive legal and institutional mechanisms continue to
deprive Cubans of their basic rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The counterproductive US
embargo policy continues to give the Cuban government a pretext for human rights violations. Even
if Castro no longer calls the shots, the repressive machinery he constructed over almost half a century
remains fully intact, said Jos Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. Until that
changes, its unlikely there will be any real progress on human rights in Cuba. For almost five decades,
Cuba has restricted nearly all avenues of political dissent. Cuban citizens have been systematically
deprived of their fundamental rights to free expression, privacy, association, assembly, movement,
and due process of law. Tactics for enforcing political conformity have included police warnings,
surveillance, short-term detentions, house arrests, travel restrictions, criminal prosecutions, and
politically motivated dismissals from employment. Cubas legal and institutional structures have been
at the root of its rights violations. The rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly,
movement, and the press are strictly limited under Cuban law. By criminalizing enemy propaganda, the
spreading of unauthorized news, and insult to patriotic symbols, the government curbs freedom of
speech under the guise of protecting state security. The courts are not independent; they undermine
the right to fair trial by restricting the right to a defense, and frequently fail to observe the few due
process rights available to defendants under domestic law.

Ukranian attack dolphins have escaped and are armed. The plan prevents them from
being bounty hunted. More probable than plans impact.

Pikington 3-16 [3-16 Karl Pilkington. http://gawker.com/5990158/military-dolphins-with-frickin-
guns-attached-to-their-heads-have-gone-missing-in-the-black-sea]
Ukraines navy has reportedly put out an APB for three dolphins that have gone missing in the Black
Sea of the coast of Crimea. Oh, did I mention these are military dolphins who have been trained to kill
enemy divers and may have had firearms and knives strapped to their bodies at the time of their
escape? Experts believe the three bulls had likely fallen under the spell of nearby females, and were
driven away from the training grounds by their biological urges. A document provided to a local media
outlet by an anonymous source appears to show the dolphins had a special firearms kit attached to
their heads at the time, but both the Ukrainian Navy and the State Oceanarium have denied this claim.
The Russian International News Agency (or RIA Novosti) has countered the officials denial by noting that
the same officials previously denied the revival of a Soviet-era military program aimed at training
dolphins to disarm mines and eliminate waterborne enemies of the State with extreme prejudice.

The dangerous people at gitmo would be tried and convicted in our courts. The innocent
ones could go home.
Wilner 11-13 (Thomas B Wilner for Warscapes, part of the Guardian Africa Network,
theguardian.com, Wednesday 13 November 2013. Thomas B Wilner is head of the International Trade &
Investment Practice at Shearman & Sterling LLP in Washington, DC. He is counsel of record to detainees
in Rasul v Bush, decided in June 2004, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the detainees have the
right to habeas corpus, and counsel of record in Boumediene v Bush, decided in June, 2008, in which the
Supreme Court held that the Guantnamo detainees' right to habeas corpus is protected by the US
Constitution http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/13/guantanamo-bay-missing-point AL)
The article also repeated another myth - that there are some "four dozen men [at Guantnamo]
deemed too dangerous to release but who are ineligible for trial because evidence against them is
inadmissible." That line has been repeated time and again by the press, and never examined. It is
simply not true. The government's basis for detaining each of the men at Guantnamo is now publicly
available on WikiLeaks. Members of the press can examine the evidence themselves. They should.
There are clearly some bad guys down there - generally acknowledged now as fewer than 20. These
men can all be tried. The only thing preventing their conviction is the Military Commission System
itself, which is totally untested and ineffective. They would all have been convicted long ago in our
federal courts. An examination of the government's basis for detaining the other men at Guantnamo
shows that the reason they can't be tried is not because the evidence against them is inadmissible,
but simply because it is so flimsy and speculative that it would be laughed out of any federal court in
the country.

Most prisoners at Guantanamo bay have done no wrong, but are still kept there.
Wilner 11-13 (Thomas B Wilner for Warscapes, part of the Guardian Africa Network,
theguardian.com, Wednesday 13 November 2013. Thomas B Wilner is head of the International Trade &
Investment Practice at Shearman & Sterling LLP in Washington, DC. He is counsel of record to detainees
in Rasul v Bush, decided in June 2004, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the detainees have the
right to habeas corpus, and counsel of record in Boumediene v Bush, decided in June, 2008, in which the
Supreme Court held that the Guantnamo detainees' right to habeas corpus is protected by the US
Constitution http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/13/guantanamo-bay-missing-point AL)

Meanwhile, last Sunday, CBS News' 60 Minutes included a piece by Leslie Stahl on Guantnamo that
focused on whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and other
accused terrorists at Guantnamo, could get fair trials. It discussed, for example, whether the
confessions made by these men long after their torture had ended could be admitted into evidence in
their Military Commission trials. These may be important issues for the Guantnamo detainees who will
be tried, but that is only 10 to 15 percent of the detainees there. The overwhelming majority of the
detainees are not accused of terrorism and will never be charged or tried. In fact, more than half of
them 84 of the 164 still there were cleared for release almost four years ago by a special task force
made up of the nation's top law enforcement, intelligence and security officials. Yet, they remain
imprisoned. During Stahl's walk-and-talk through a cell block at Guantnamo, one of the detainees
dramatically yelled out: "Please, we are tired. Either you leave us to die in peace or tell the world
the truth. Let the world hear what's happening." CBS didn't identify that prisoner, and apparently
didn't try to learn why he said what he did. The prisoner was Shaker Aamer, a Saudi citizen and, before
his incarceration, a permanent resident of Britain. He was cleared for release not only by the special task
force four years ago, but even earlier by the Bush Administration. He has been imprisoned at
Guantnamo now for almost 12 years, more than half of that time after he had been cleared. That is
the real tragedy of Guantnamo - not how we try those few who will be charged, but why we
continue to hold the many others who will never be charged and have been cleared. The press should
do a story on that.

Torture and force-feeding continues in Guantanamo bay.
Truthout 11-9 [Truthout is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to providing independent news
and commentary on a daily basis. 09 November 2013 By Adam Hudson. http://truth-
out.org/news/item/19846-amid-lingering-hunger-strike-guantanamo-abuses-press-on AL]
During the summer, the Guantanamo hunger strike and use of force-feeding put the US naval base in
Cuba back into headlines. The strike even prompted President Barack Obama to reiterate his promise to
close the prison. However, an official "end" to the hunger strike last month, coupled with the
government shutdown and fiscal fights in Congress, made Guantanamo virtually invisible from public
attention as it was before. Despite lax attention, the system that made Guantanamo so odious
continues. The US military says the hunger strike at Guantanamo, which lasted more than six months
and aimed to end the injustices within the prison, is officially over. The military has stopped issuing
daily updates of the number of strikers. The Miami Herald, however, hasn't stopped. According to its
numbers, 14 are still on hunger strike, all of whom are being force-fed. Force-feeding involves shoving
a tube up a person's nose and down into their stomach to feed them. Doctors and human rights
advocates say the process violates medical ethics and amounts to torture. One of the remaining
hunger-strikers, Moath al-Alwi, a Yemeni national who has been in Guantanamo since 2002, is one of
the four dozen prisoners designated for indefinite detention. He wrote an article that was published in
Al-Jazeera America and translated into English from Arabic by his attorney Ramzi Kassem. Al-Alwi writes
that he still is being force-fed, which gives him "bouts of violent vomiting" and "sharp pains in my
stomach and intestines." He says the "U.S. military prison staff's intent is to break our peaceful hunger
strike." Like many prisoners, al-Alwi has been subjected to invasive body searches by prison guards. Al-
Alwi explained that some prisoners ended their hunger strike because of the "brutal force-feeding
practices and the cruel punishment inflicted by the prison guards and military medical staff." Others
did so because they wanted to give Obama more time to close the prison. Some of the remaining
strikers weigh as little as 67 pounds. Despite this, al-Alwi proclaims, "We will remain of hunger strike.
We pray that the next thing we taste is freedom. ... May God continue to sustain us all until we achieve
our goal of justice."

They are unnecessarily detained and will not go to terrorism if released.

Presently, 164 people are detained in the Guantanamo prison, most of whom are low-level fighters
captured overseas. Of those, 84 are cleared for release, more than four dozen are being held
indefinitely - deemed too difficult to prosecute because there is not enough evidence to try them or
evidence is inadmissible because it was produced through torture. Yet the government considers
them too dangerous to release, and about 20 can be "realistically prosecuted," according to
Guantanamo chief prosecutor Brig. Gen. Mark Martins. According to the New America Foundation, the
recidivism rate of Guantanamo detainees is around 4 percent, meaning very few detainees return to
militant activities once released.

Obama walks the walk but doesnt talk the talk

Despite Obama's pledge to "close" Guantanamo, the rhetoric obscures his actual policy. In May 2009,
months after stepping into office, the Obama administration endorsed indefinite detention of
Guantanamo detainees, earning the consternation of human rights groups who took his pledge to
close Guantanamo seriously. Months later, Obama ordered the federal government to purchase a
prison in Thomson, Illinois, to hold Guantanamo transfers. Indefinite detention (sometimes also called
administrative or preventive detention) is when a government or law enforcement agency incarcerates
a person without a trial for an indefinite amount of time - days, weeks, months, even years. Under
international human rights law, this practice is illegal. However, many states practice indefinite
detention. Israel indefinitely detains Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. China, Syria, Malaysia,
Singapore and the United Kingdom have indefinite detention laws, as well. The United States embraced
indefinite detention once the war on terror began as a means to imprison suspected terrorists captured
around the world. In 2012, the Obama administration signed the National Defense Authorization Act
(NDAA), which contains sections (1021 and 1022) allowing the US military to indefinitely detain
anyone, including US citizens who are "a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban or
associated forces." Obama reauthorized the government's indefinite detention powers when he signed
the 2013 NDAA. Thus, Obama's plan to "close" Guantanamo means transferring the system of indefinite
detention from the US penal colony in Cuba to American soil.

AUMF legally justifies Gitmo.

Guantanamo detainees are held under a quasi prisoner-of-war status in the global war on terror. The
legal underpinning of that is the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), a bill passed by
Congress after 9/11 that allows the United States to use military force against those who "planned,
authorized, committed or aided" the 9/11 terrorist attacks or are suspected of plotting new ones. This
makes the AUMF the legal linchpin for, or declaration of, the global war on terror. It's been used by
former President George W. Bush and Obama to justify the war in Afghanistan and covert actions,
including drone strikes, in Pakistan. But the Obama administration has stretched it to include
"associated forces," those with a "co-belligerent" relationship with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, even if
such "associates" did not exist when 9/11 happened. Should the war in Afghanistan - or broader war
on terror - end, then that makes it hard to detain people, captured from countries such as Afghanistan
or Yemen, as "belligerents" or "enemy combatants.

We are using Yippie protest to turn debate on itself.
Chapman 9 [Chapman University Historical Review, Vol 1, No 1 (2009) Ashley Duree. Greed at the New
York Stock Exchange and the Levitation of the Pentagon: Early Protest Theatre by Abbie Hoffman and
Jerry Rubin. http://journals.chapman.edu/ojs/index.php/VocesNovae/article/view/22 AL]

Julie Stephens, in her book Anti-Disciplinary Protest: Sixties Radicalism and Postmodernism, developed
the concept of anti-disciplinary politics in order to identify a type of protest that rejected leadership
and political organization but also ridiculed seriousness, coherence, and political commitment.[47]
Stephens argued that the Yippies had been largely marginalized in the discourse pertaining to the
sixties, partly due to the way their combination of political and cultural radicalism went against the
stereotypical distinction between the activist and the hippie.[48] Hoffman and Rubin protested in a way
that reflected their cultural radicalism. They actually chose to engage themselves with the very
American symbols they were protesting rather than simply reject them. By dropping dollar bills onto
the floor of the Stock Exchange, and subsequently burning money on the street outside, they took the
chief symbol of the American economy and politically protested in a culturally radical fashion. A
similar observation can be made regarding the choice to storm the Pentagon, the attempt to infiltrate it,
and Hoffman's intent to levitate it. While protesting the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War,
the March on the Pentagon went beyond a mere political statement. The motivations to protest were
highly influenced by a cultural radicalism that led, for example, to Hoffman's desire to levitate the
Pentagon.

We use fun as a weapon to hijack the machine of debate the Yippies threw handfuls of
money into the NYSE to hijack the media.
Jerry Rubin. http://journals.chapman.edu/ojs/index.php/VocesNovae/article/view/22 AL]

Hoffman's interest in Artaud led to his first "nontraditional organizing venture"-dropping money on
stockbrokers at the New York Stock Exchange.[56] Although Abbie Hoffman became a notable figure in
the media in 1968, he made an effort to retain his anonymity at the New York Stock Exchange protest by
theatrically giving his name as Cardinal Spellman while his friend Jim Fouratt gave his name as George
Metesky.[57] Hoffman initially gave fake names for fun and said, "I'm a revolutionary artist. Our
concept of revolution is that it's fun."[58] When asked how fun found its way into his concept of
revolution, he responded that he was motivated by the fact that if fun could be redefined as a form of
fighting for what you believed in and fighting for the future, a tremendously powerful weapon would
thereby be created.[59] Jack Hoffman, Abbie's brother, wrote that "the point, as [Abbie] saw it, was
reaching people, and if actions could be conceived in a way that would attract media attention, that
meant you reached more people."[60] The exact chain of events leading up to, and through, the New
York Stock Exchange demonstration cannot be determined with much accuracy. In their own books,
Rubin and Hoffman were in complete control of their own history through the events they had carefully
planned, but they were more likely manipulating history than faithfully recording it. In examining their
descriptions and recollections of that demonstration, Hoffman and Rubin recognized the influence that
they could have upon society, as well as on their own history. In Revolution for the Hell of It, Hoffman
admitted that at first he thought throwing money onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange was
"just a minor bit of theatre."[61] Already known for publicly burning money, he did this again outside
the Stock Exchange after he and his fellow activists had been thrown out. What actually happened
inside is open to conjecture. As Hoffman noted, "it was the perfect mythical event, since every
reporter, not being allowed to actually witness the scene, had to make up his own fantasy."[62] While
Hoffman pointed out the myths present in the news coverage of the event, he personally engaged in the
creation of more myths in his own narrative, and these myths became a reality for the counterculture.
He wrote that the stockbrokers "let out a mighty cheer" when the money began to fall around them,
and booed when the guards began to push him and his comrades around.[63] He also claimed not to
have alerted the press, yet reporters were waiting to capture photos of the young hippies' antics
outside. This denial was probably just one more bit of mythmaking since he famously urged other
radicals to "just do your thing; the press eats it up. MAKE NEWS."[64] Hoffman and his companions-or
"George Metesky & friends"-were revealing a new and highly politicized hippie counterculture.[65] In
the New York Times, the demonstrators were labeled as hippies, with reporter John Kifner noting that
some "disguised themselves with haircuts, jackets and ties"-a kind of costume.[66] Despite the
supposed absence of reporters in the visitor's gallery, Kifner managed to set a scene of stockbrokers
eliciting a few smiles and kisses, but mostly jeers, shouts and shaken fingers at the demonstrators.[67]
Phrases such as "loving gesture" and "it's the death of money" in Kifner's article demonstrated the
reliance on symbols of love and freedom in order to comprehend the main aim.[68] The New York Times
noted that although one hippie claimed to have dropped $1,000, observers said it was more like thirty
to forty $1 bills.[69] This is an example of the press attention that Rubin and Hoffman disliked. They
wanted the reports to sensationalize their actions, rather than investigate details, in order to create
more of a spectacle. This, however, became a much larger feature of the Yippie movement in later
years-for in 1967, Rubin and Hoffman had just met and were merely beginning their work together.
Kifner devoted the last quarter of his article to the details of other court cases involving hippies. The
three people he discussed were charged with such crimes as assault, resisting arrest, and disorderly
conduct. It is interesting to note how, despite the lack of police involvement or criminal behavior
involved in the Stock Exchange demonstration, the story about Hoffman and his companions was quickly
followed up by an ending that in essence made a statement regarding the criminal behavior of hippies.
The fact that the distinction between hippies and those who would become Yippies was not yet made,
made it difficult for Hoffman and Rubin to garner media attention for their antics because they were
seen merely as hippies. If Rubin had not been pronounced the project director for the National
Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, he would have been virtually unknown by journalists on the
East Coast, and may not have garnered much press attention at all. In Rubin's book, Do It!, his
description of the event includes a quotation from a New York Times article three weeks after the
demonstration which announced that the Stock Exchange had installed bullet proof glass and a metal
grillwork ceiling as a security measure.[70] These two men were keenly aware of their capacity to
make news and write their own history. It was the easiest way to reach a national audience; all that
had to be done was to act. The myth that was created that day, in part because reporters were not let
into the gallery, was established by the newspapers and television media, but also helped by Rubin and
Hoffman's own published works. The accounts of the event in Hoffman's Revolution for the Hell of It and
Rubin's Do It! are similar in certain details, and aimed to promote their style of demonstration through
theatre and action. With the statement, "we introduce a little reality into their fantasy lives," Rubin
suggested that dropping money over the stockbrokers' heads was an exercise aimed at offering an
interruption of the day-to-day fantasy with a spurt of spontaneous action.[71]

Framing crazy onion articles as real debate cards is a form of direct action just like
books published by yippies.
Jerry Rubin. http://journals.chapman.edu/ojs/index.php/VocesNovae/article/view/22 ]
Note to self: find the part of Do It! that talks about language to do what this card does.
Note to opponents: You should read Rubins Do It! and Hoffmans Steal this Book. Also, lookin good, did
you get a haircut or something?

As Ashe described, "Sixties Youth in America were vocally renouncing both writing and speech in favor
of a still more immediate form of communication-direct action."[81] This direct action is in contrast to
the counterculture's "legendary" emphasis on passivity and "non-linear expressiveness."[82] Although
Rubin wrote Do It! while vocally advocating for pure and direct action, his text called for its readers to
act in what he called a "do-it-yourself revolution."[83] In addition, Ashe observed, "Rubin...gives the
impression that the scripts in his street theater call almost exclusively for adlibbing."[84] Therefore,
although Rubin may have chosen to use speech and the printed word in a contradictory sense in light of
his promotion of direct action, he used that language to call for action from his readership. In an
attempt to understand Rubin's desire to write a book, Ashe argued that authorship offered a high
amount of control in the telling of his story as opposed to, for example, "the cultivation of high-profile
television coverage."[85] Rubin wanted to spread the "Scenarios of the Revolution"[86] and the most
practical way was through text. But what a text it was! His book Do It! combines standard size and
format written material, along with photographs, drawings, and in many cases enlarged and bolded
text to engage the reader with the content of the book. Ashe described this presentation as an "attack
[on] the very appearance of the traditional printed text," which is in line with Rubin's more general
"assault" on language in Do It!.[87] Citing the "series of tropes" employed in the book's head note, its
introduction, and on its back cover, Ashe argued that Rubin sought "to reconstitute the text as direct
action, to deny its status as inert book."[88] Was Rubin contradictory? It is no matter, as Rubin
asserted, "we are a living contradiction, because we're yippies."[89] The contradiction present between
Rubin's decision to write a book and the Yippies' direct call to action is merely an example of Rubin's
aforementioned statement of being a "living contradiction." Hoffman and Rubin played an integral role
in controlling their own history by writing their own books and accounts of events. Ashe observed that
the authors in the youth movement "conceived of history as an ongoing narrative...and attempted to
write themselves and their Movement into history by assuming control over these narratives."[90]
Rubin and Hoffman seized control of history by writing books and creating news, and this was a kind of
direct action.

Yippies summary
Thomas 8 (Tommy T. Thomas. July 7, 2008. Thomas isnt a real person PSYCH! The article is from a pbs
documentary about the yippies called the Chicago 10 so do a google search if you want to find it. I made
up Tommy T. Thomas because thats what the yippies would do and I want to know if anyone actually
reads these citation things. Either way, it makes the round more interesting. Yolo.
RISE UP AND ABANDON THE CREEPY MEATBALL! AL)
Officially founded by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin in January 1968, the Youth International Party, or
Yippies, were a countercultural group that briefly gained fame as a part of American activism. The
groups trademark was their theatrical style; the Yippies parlayed anti-authoritative dissent and
subversion into surrealism, spontaneity, mischief, and performance. The very public and prank-based
display of the Yippies political actions led them to become a media favoritein fact, Yippie leaders
often used their stunt-oriented protests to successfully attract press coveragebut the group was also
criticized for focusing on large-scale public disobedience and ignoring traditional forms of community
organizing and direct protest. The Yippies themselves, however, believed that culture and politics were
inexorably intertwined. Photo of a group of young people holding signs and flags and dressed in
costumes, including a white sheet and a ballot box. The group was borne out of the anti-war movement
of the late 1960s, which in turn was rooted in the civil rights-oriented movement prevalent in the earlier
half of the decade. Hoffman and Rubin, both long-time members of other New Left activist
organizations, stressed Yippie-style politics in their anti-war and anti-capitalist work. The groups high-
profile members, who were mostly white radicals, also included writers like Allen Ginsberg and
musicians like Country Joe and the Fish, further emphasizing its artistic connections. *Hoffman+ said
that politics had become theater and magic, basically, that it was the manipulation of imagery through
the mass media that was confusing and hypnotizing the people in the United States, making them
accept a war which they really didn't believe in. Allen Ginsberg Photo of a group of young people
standing behind a long bar, one holding a sign that reads Yippie Power. Famed Yippie actions included
an exorcism and attempted levitation of the Pentagon during the anti-war March on the Pentagon in
October 1967, which Jerry Rubin later said was the linchpin for Yippie politics. That same year, Abbie
Hoffman and other Yippies, in a form of guerilla theater, dropped hundreds of dollar bills into the New
York Stock Exchange, effectively closing the floor as stockbrokers fought for the money. The 1968
Chicago Democratic Convention served as a moment in the sun for the Yippies, who staged their own
theatrical protest in the midst of numerous other activist groups planned demonstrations and
increasing factionalism. Using media attention to spread rumors, such as the assertion that Chicagos
water was being laced with LSD, the Yippies enacted the carnivalesque Festival of Life in Lincoln Park,
nominating a pig named Pigasus as their presidential nominee. Police forces were called in to break up
the event, which spiraled into violence, riots and the eventual arrest and trial of Hoffman, Rubin, and
members of other groups including the Black Panther Party, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
and the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (known as the MOBE). Photo of
five packaged Abbie Hoffman dolls. The red, white and blue package reads Abbie, written over a photo
of Hoffman. Abbie Hoffman dolls Following the trial, Hoffman and Rubin became worldwide
personalities, countercultural icons and best-selling authors. The Yippies as an organization ceased to be
a widespread movement, although the groups name and spirit lives on. So-called second-wave
Yippies have continued to publish protest newspapers, stage marijuana smoke-ins and plan other
political protests, including actions at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. The Yippies have even
established a Yippie Museum in New York City.

The recession hit ninjas harder than most and the ninja shadow economy still hasnt
recovered.
Miagi 12 [Mister Miagi is a master of Karate. Published in the silent economist magazine. Lol. Miagi
isnt a real person. The article is from a croud sources satirical news site. It was published by a user
named paul. Heres a link. http://www.badeconomy.ca/finance/267-ninjas-affected-by-bad-economy if
you want you can turn on internet to review that our source is legit. RISE UP AND ABANDON THE
CREEPING MEATBALL]
With lots of companies strapped for cash, the trickle-down economy has even reached a type of
assassin originally from Japan, known as ninjas. The demands for assassinations, and various covert
activities that the average ninja specializes in, has remained low for the past year and a half. A number
of ninjas in Japan were incorporated into the Japanese Secret Service, and are thus subject to public
spending cuts in Japan as the country struggles with huge debts. Unfortunately, layoffs for a ninja are
usually fatal. The cost of supplies for ninjas has been increasing over the past years. For example,
shuriken are those pointed star things that are thrown at a victim. To be a ninja, you don't have the time
to stop and collect all the shuriken you have thrown, you have to get in, make a clean kill and get out
undetected. So replacing shuriken is a regular monthly expense. Ninjas typically charge a flat rate in
gold for an assassination, not thinking about the fluctuations in the price of gold due to the economy.
Therefore ninjas are open to changes in the commodity index. And since, assassination is not a legally
recognized profession in most countries, the average ninja cannot put the cost of consumable supplies
as a deduction on their tax return. They cannot get a clothing allowance for their black uniforms, or
deduct the cost of cleaning their victims blood off either. Strangely enough, the IRS expects ninjas to
declare their income from assassinations and such as 'consulting income' and pay tax on it. This hardly
seems fair! Some people have suggested that the government offer some kind of training program to
help ninjas find alternative forms of work, but so far it has fallen on deaf ears. It is not easy for ninjas to
get a loan to cover their operating costs during this economic down time. When a ninja goes into a
bank, they often get mistaken for bank robbers, what with the black ninja uniform and a mask and all.
Even if they make it past getting arrested or shot by an over zealous bank security guard, getting a
loan is next to impossible. Let me explain further. The housing crisis was caused by no documentation
or stated income mortgage loans which were affectionately known as ninja loans. Many of these loans
were based on unsubstantiated lies from either the applicant, the mortgage broker or both. The lender
that ultimately approved the loan did so without exercising due diligence to ensure that the applicant
could afford the mortgage. So, imagine if a real ninja walks into a bank and asks for a ninja loan, they are
likely to be mistaken for these kind of loans, which are now outlawed. So as a ninja, getting a loan is
harder than catching a poison tipped dart in your teeth while doing a back flip with a half twist.

Debate conventions shapes truth
Shanahan 88 [Bill Shanahan, Wake Forest University. 1988.
http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/Shanahan1988Retirement.htm AL]

Paul Peyerabend diagnosed a dangerous disease insinuating itself into science In the middle part of this
century, intellectual stagnation. Stagnation of the sort that threatened to destroy the very fabric of
science as a way of knowing. Feyerabend believed those engaged in the practice of science had become
so ingrained in their specific approach to science they were no longer willing to consider any other
viewpoint. The particulars of Feyerabend's claims against science are not relevant to this discussion, nor
his attitudes regarding "political" anarchy. Still, a Feyerabendian solution might offer a cure for the
malaise affecting competitive debate today. Before proceeding, clarification of key concepts might
prove useful. Feyerabend refers to science as an epistemology, as a way of knowing. Epistemology can
be defined variously. For our purposes, epistemology refers to one of the ways In which an individual
gains knowledge about reality. This definition of epistemology contains several basic assumptions (e.g.,
the existence of individuals and of reality). The veracity of these assumptions remains to be seen.
Nonetheless, the definition provides a beginning point for a discussion about the nature of debate.
Refutation of the assumptions simply enacts the danger of blindly adhering to any one cosmology, or
world view. I choose cosmology as a descriptive of the whole web of high-level background theories
which make up an individuals perception of reality. World view is too limiting conceptually, focusing on
the existence of a world. Cosmology, instead, shifts the focus away from "the world" and allows a focus
on world, individual, or something else. I will develop and define the "Feyerabendian solution"
throughout the article. Debate often is an epistemology for debaters, especially debaters who stay with
the activity for a long time. The epistemological function of debate refers to the ability of debate to
shape and influence the way in which individuals gain knowledge about reality. The very nature of
"truth" and "facts," and how they are obtained, implicated in many ways by debate. Evidence
occupies one of the cherished spots in debaters' theories of truth. Disputes are resolved by calls to
authority in the form of published comments about the dispute. Credibility is questioned according to
for whom a publication is written. Institutional affiliation is often the sole determinant of an
individuals integrity, or lack thereof. Disputants sometimes construct "stories" from the evidence and
the truth of the stories is evaluated by impartial judges according to a variety of idiosyncratic methods.
Other times, disputants neglect to create and/or convey any type of explanation and the idiosyncrasies
of the judges are magnified. One of the commonalties of these idiosyncrasies, however, is still the
emphasis on appeals to written authority in deciding for whom to vote. Although debaters do not
believe necessarily the specific truths of a particular debate, methods of achieving truths are
entrenched.

We need to learn to diversify our argumentational strategies if we are to be persuasive
to outsiders

Next, argumentation is the focal point of advocacy in most debates. Other persuasive appeals
available to the advocate are all but ignored, resulting in a conceptual distortion of advocacy. Debate
participants often approach non-debate situations from the same advocatory perspective: rational
argument is the most effective persuasive appeal. Unfortunately, individuals without similar
backgrounds do not adhere to the same persuasive theories. How many times have you been involved
in a discussion with a non-debater only to have the conversation abruptly terminated with words to
the effect of "I won't argue with you, you're a debater?" The label "debater" lingers with an a most
palpable distaste on their lips. One could simply explain this reaction away with some elitist
rationalization such as an unwillingness or inability on their part to just listen. Actually, displeasure with
"debate" tactics is due to a different way of viewing reality. Many people simply are not persuaded by
argument and even less so by nebulous references to evidence. Persuasive diversification better
equips individuals to deal with cosmological different, not inferior, groups of individuals.

Independent examination of evidence is vital to debaters personal autonomy.

Next, calls to authority carry epistemological weight when evaluating arguments; that is, evidence is
the major tool for establishing truth in a debate round. While certainly not a "rule" of debate, the
reliance on evidence is not likely to be reduced at any foreseeable point in the near future. My
argument here is not that reliance on calls to printed authority is either always desirable or
undesirable. Rather, nearly universal, unquestioned acceptance of the need for evidence by
participants is not intellectually healthy. Debaters and judges at least need to examine debate's
emphasis on these calls as epistemologically superior, even if examination results in a reaffirmation of
the need for evidence. The act of examination enhances participant decision-making by maximizing
personal autonomy. Autonomy is essential to the development of a healthy intellect capable of
guarding against the insidious and destructive intrusion of hierarchical dictates.

The intellectual stagnation of debate prevents creative thinking for debaters. We need
to shake it up.

Last, the array of cosmological assumptions underlying debate are accepted almost without question
by the debate community vis--vis a non-critical call to tradition. Debate on both the high school and
college level has donned cosmological blinders. Debates have been conducted roughly the same
fashion for many years. Formats have changed nominally. Although specific practices may have
changed (e.g., speaking rates, division of speaker responsibilities, amount of evidence introduced),
debates are basically policy discussions5 based on some type of rational6 decision-making. A potential
result of this cosmological quiescence is a concomitant effect on critical thinking skills and debaters'
subsequent subjective assessment of debate, "That it [debate] developed far more than any other
experience your [former NDT participant respondents to the Matlon and Keele questionnaire] critical
thinking, research, and advocacy skills.7,8,9 Even a brief report of the results of that questionnaire is
extremely revealing. Debaters, at least former NDT participants, believe the ends of debate are critical
thinking, research, and advocacy. Yet, critical thinking occurs only within the constraints of a specific
cosmology. Such a narrow interpretation of critical thinking is symptomatic of the malaise affecting
debate today. Debate has become so enmeshed in its own cosmology that critical thinking no longer
involves the questioning and comparison of cosmological assumptions. Instead, critical thought is
permissible only within the framework of a particular cosmology. Advocacy is hampered by a similar
conceptual narrowness. As mentioned earlier, advocacy for debaters entails argument. If a desirable
end of debate Is advocacy, perhaps debate should cull a more complete advocatory reserve from
which debaters can choose. Research as a goal obviously is an outgrowth of the evidentiary focus of
debate. Research was not set out as one of the aims of debate. Instead, debate became immersed in the
epistemic function of evidence and, as a result, pointed to research skills in order to justify that
immersion. Research skills may indeed be a noble aspiration for debate. Debaters should,
nonetheless, determine the desirability of this aspiration. Cosmological quiescence inevitably ends in
intellectual stagnation and stagnant pools are often the breeding ground for dangerous diseases.
Cosmology consists of an interwoven, Interdependent assemblage of high-level background theories
(e.g., epistemology, axiology, methodology). Alteration of one theory directly implicates other
theories in the cosmological web. Restructuring one's axiology, or value system, might include an
epistemic change. For example, If research were devalued as an end for debate, evidence might not be
the primary method for resolving disputes. Similarly, If fairness were not revered by debaters, new
arguments in rebuttals might not be prohibited. If debate were a truth-seeking enterprise, Interaction
by the judge might become a necessary part of debate's methodology. Manipulation of any of the
cosmological threads of debate sends vibrations throughout Its entire cosmological web. Debate is in
need of a good cosmological shake. The stagnation referred to earlier has reached monumental
proportions. Debaters are inculcated into the debate cosmology through a diverse system of classes,
summer workshops, tournaments, propoganda,10 and the subtle insinuation of practices between
and among levels of debate. Inculcation of young debaters occurs from the very beginning of their
exposure to the activity. Rules are dictated. Appropriate dress and decorum is prescribed. Acceptable
in-round practices are delineated. Inexperienced, as well as older, debaters are chastised and
penalized for non-conformity. New ideas are viewed with distrust and often blocked by hierarchical
dictates from governing bodies. Intellectual freedom is, on one hand, praised and encouraged, while
rules are promulgated and implemented to effectively prohibit that freedom. Examples of these rules
include restrictions on revelation of decisions by judges, designation of certain arguments (such as
topicality) as "voting issues," and interference with the decision by judges to examine evidence after a
debate. No level of debate is immune to this virus that attacks the intellectual capacity of an
individual. Rules are not the sole impediment to cosmological enlightenment, however. A lack of
vision is plaguing debate. Participants are unable to see beyond the present incarnation of debate.
Debate itself is inflicting this myopia. Debate desperately need a dose of cosmological medicine.

Now is the time to test alternate epistemologies.

Before proceeding to a description of one particular brand of that medicine, I will offer a justification of
debate as an appropriate recipient of said dose. Debate is a risk-free environment. There are certain
competitive risks, of course. Teams might lose ballots. Compared to the difficulties associated with
cosmological alteration in the real-world,"11 competitive risks are less than compelling. Debate allows
for the suspension, and subsequent examination, of reality. We are able to consider the implications
of our choices in a vacuum, without the fear of reprisals from outside sources. The decision to adopt a
non-scientific approach to medicine involves many risks, from scorn to physical well-being. A rejection of
rationalism as a guiding force in everyday affairs entails a great deal of uncertainty (perhaps by
definition) and potential turmoil. Debate provides an excellent forum for testing cosmologies, virtually
without risk.

Debates fixed rules and procedures ruin critical thought and individual choice.

As demonstrated, cosmology can be bound by rules. Such cosmological bondage stifles Individual
creativity and autonomy. Individuals develop more fully when allowed to question the assumptions
and underpinnings of their reality. Beyond this questioning, Individuals must be allowed to choose a
path appropriate for them. Without this choice, intellectual activity becomes empty and stilted.
Cosmological bondage does more than just prescribe and control individual action; it affects the very
nature of critical thought. The intellect is conditioned to accept hierarchy and proceed according to
acceptable norms. The havoc wreaked is monumental. Debaters function at tournaments as if on
auto-pilot. They engage in routinized recitation by rote. The mechanics of their routine have been
etched in stone long before they even heard of debate. Debate is complacent and should shake off the
cosmological bonds presently preventing It from tapping a vast reservoir of potential.

Thor is the worst marvel character. The aff needs to be more Loki
Hiddleson 13 [Tom hiddleson, long-time hater of Chris Hemsworth. The actual source is
Evankirby.wordpress.com. 11.29.13 https://evankirby.wordpress.com/2013/11/29/thor-the-dark-world-
review/ AL]
Thor is the worst Marvel character. Like, Im talking in the film version of Marvel prescience, Im sure
there are worse comic characters, but as far as fielded film characters, oh boy is he bad. The first Thor
movie wasnt any good, its cliche, simple and just flat-out boring. The sequel only manages to further
these claims. I hate to keep harping on the current state of Marvel films (alright, I do), but theyre
seriously making the same formulaic movie after movie, knowing that kids and fanboys alike will still
show up for $100 million + opening weekends, and theyll still feed the disease. I mean, theyre not bad
movies, per se, theyre just incredibly average, trite and cliche movies which copy beats of action and
blockbuster films weve seen for the past 30-40 years, just with superheroes plugged in. It makes me
sad. Were in a position of film right now where superhero movies are the be all and end all, and theres
so much that could be done with them. I know they want to keep them as generic and down the middle
as possible in order to appeal to a mass audience, but we dont have to have the same film every time.
I know many people hated the Watchmen adaptation, not me, I goddamn loved it, and thought it tried
mightily to combine the commercialism or popularity of our current image of superheroes, with an
actual thought-provoking film, that yes, had fighting scenes, but was more than just showdowns with
such-and-such villain. Thats why its hard for me to really get excited about superhero movies anymore,
especially at my old age of 21-year-old. A decade ago? Of course, but now, not so much. Really the only
reason I actually watch these movies anymore is to keep up with the cultural zeitgeist, which know
that I think about it is a pretty sad reason to watch a movie. Hey, but Tom Hiddleston, am I right? Hes
really the only good thing to come out of these movies. Let me clarify, though, its not Loki whos great,
oh no, hes a pretty terrible character, but rather Hiddlestons performance. Hiddleston is legitimately
funny and engaging in his pseudo-villainy as opposed to the forced hilarity of Thor trying to adapt to
Earth customs, lmao so funny. Hiddleston is the holographic card among a bunch of Bulbasaur
Pokemon cards, he makes everything better and at the end of things is the only reason to tune in. So,
basically what Im saying is that the Loki spin-off movie cant come soon enough.

MANETs can create networks among citizens w/o internet access.
IEEE 11 [Institute of electrical and electronic engineers. 26 July 2011. Ritchie S. King, Reporter. Building
a Subversive Grassroots Network http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/building-a-subversive-
grassroots-network AL]

Fortunately, in a world full of hackers, technology is hard to control, even for autocrats. Hackers are
creating a way for citizens to build their own communication networks from the ground up, using
computers, cellphones, and wireless routers. Such networkscalled mobile ad hoc networks, or
MANETswould circumvent centralized communication hubs, enabling users to talk and share
information in the face of a shutdown. The Open Technology Initiativepart of the public-policy think
tank New America Foundationrecently received a US $2 million grant from the Department of State to
help coordinate its MANET development effort, called Commotion Wireless. The organizations goal is to
get MANET technology ready for use in areas that have oppressive regimes. The project should be
completed by the end of next year, according to Sascha Meinrath, the initiatives director. While
Commotion has only four full-time team members, it relies on some programming (some of which it
pays for) from the open-source community. "For us, this is about a call to action," Meinrath says.
Commotions ultimate vision is to build software packages for cellphones, laptops, and wireless routers
that would be able to create both Wi-Fi and cellular networks on the fly. Once a network is
established, even people who havent installed the software could connect. And if any node in a Wi-Fi
network is connected to the Interneta router with a directional antenna has a range that is tens of
kilometers and could easily cross a borderthen everyone in the network would have access. The
software packages could come in a number of physical forms, according to Meinrath: CDs, thumb drives,
SD cards. And when the network is up, MANET software could be transferred using Bluetooth or
downloaded from the network itself. "So many vectors could be used to spread it that a regime stands
no chance of stopping them all," Meinrath says. A MANET isnt just a network of high-tech walkie-
talkies; devices need to do more than communicate directly with one another. Any two connected users
need to be able to share information, even if one of them is in Tahrir Square and the other is on the
outskirts of Cairo and their devices are mutually out of range. That means every computer and
cellphone node in a MANET has to double as a router, relaying information on behalf of other users so
data can hop all the way across the network. To do that effectively, the network has to know the best
path between any two devices, something that changes as people move around. There are plenty of
protocols already in use that tell devices how and where to relay information. For instance, the
Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol, which Commotion plans on employing, is currently being
used in a grassroots MANET called FunkFeuer, based in Vienna. FunkFeuer is a network of 500 devices
most of them dedicated wireless routers on rooftopsand was created by tech-savvy citizens as a test
network for OLSR. "Weve made it massively scalable," says Aaron Kaplan, one of the founders of
FunkFeuer. "Weve been using it to have a community wireless network, and its been running very
well." OLSR works by telling each device in the network to send out a "hello" signal to all the other
devices in range. That way, a given device is introduced to all of its neighbors. Then each device sends
out the list of these neighborsa kind of neighborhood map (though one that doesnt have exact
geographic information). The protocol takes all the neighborhood maps from all the devices and
combines them into an overall network map, refreshing about every 2 seconds.

In response to protests, Venezuela has been shutting down internet access.
EFF 2-20 [Electronic Frontier Foundation. Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional
Blackout. Danny O'Brien, Activist and founder of the Open Rights Group.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/02/venezuelas-net-crackdown-escalates AL]
For the last month, Venezuela has been caught up in widespread protests against its government. The
Maduro administration has responded by cracking down on what it claims as being foreign
interference online. As that social unrest has escalated, the state's censorship has widened: from the
removal of television stations from cable networks, to the targeted blocking of social networking
services, and the announcement of new government powers to censor and monitor online. Last night,
EFF received reports from Venezuelans of the shutdown of the state Internet provider in San
Cristbal, a regional capital in the west of the country. The censorship began early last week when the
authorities removed a Columbian news network, NTN24, from Venezuelan cable, and simultaneously
published a reminder that TV stations could be in violation of a law that forbids the incitement or
promotion of "hatred", or "foment citizens' anxiety or alter public order." Venezuelan Internet users on
a variety of ISPs lost connectivity last Thursday to an IP address owned by the content delivery network,
Edgecast. That address provided access to, among other services, Twitter's images at pbs.twimg.com. A
separate block prevented Venezuelans from reaching the text hosting site, Pastebin. No official
explanation for the loss of access to these general purpose communication platforms was given by
either the government or the ISPs (the country's largest ISP, CANTV, is government-owned). Twitter
later reconfigured their services to point to another IP in response to Venezuelan complaints,
bypassing the block. Twitter also communicated to users in Venezuela how to use Twitter using SMS, in
anticipation of further Internet interruptions. William Castillo, the director of CONATEL, the country's
media regulator, later claimed that Internet censorship was necessary to fight off online attacks. He said
that his organization had blocked several links "where public sites were being attacked." Last week also
saw the Venezuelan government prepare more systematic monitoring and blocking online. The
country's official gazette published last Thursday the details of a new government institution, CESPPA
("The Strategic Center for Security and Protection of the Country"). Among its broad powers, CESPPA
can unilaterally classify and censor any information it sees as a threat to national security. Its structure
includes two new Directorates: the Directorate of Information and Technology Studies, which will be in
charge of "processing and analyzing information from the web"; and the Directorate for Social Research,
intended to "neutralize and defeat destabilization plans against the nation". The Center will also provide
for a network of situation rooms to be placed in all public institutions (the state ISP, CANTV, is defined as
a public institution). When first announced in October, CESPPA was criticized for being an
unconstitutional attack on press freedom. With its new details revealed, it's clear that it will also have
a wide mandate to monitor and control all online communications in the defence of the state. Even
before CESPPA can flex its new powers, however, the Venezuelan government appears to have taken
the most drastic step yet against its citizens' free expression online. Starting late Tuesday night, reports
reached EFF of the shutdown of CANTV's Internet access in areas of San Cristbal, the capital of the
state of Tchira, and one center of the protests. Venezuelan technologists have been organizing online
to spread information about bypassing censorship and restoring connectivity via the Twitter account
@accesolibreve.

Things in Venezuela are heating up. Police brutality, censorship, suspension of habeas
corpus.
Human Rights Watch 2-21 [Venezuela: Violence Against Protesters, Journalists. Human Rights
Watch, non-profit organization created to provide unaltered information about human rights abuses
globaly. http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/21/venezuela-violence-against-protesters-journalists AL]

(New York) Venezuelan security forces have used excessive and unlawful force against protesters on
multiple occasions since February 12, 2014, including beating detainees and shooting at crowds of
unarmed people, Human Rights Watch said today. The government has censored the news media,
blocking transmission of a TV channel and threatening to prosecute news outlets for their coverage of
the violence. President Nicols Maduro announced on February 20, 2014, that he had begun
proceedings to take CNN off the airwaves in Venezuela, and a press workers union reported on February
21 that the government had cancelled the credentials of CNNs Caracas correspondent. Journalists and
human rights defenders have reported being subject to acts of violence and intimidation by
government agents or supporters. The Venezuelan government has openly embraced the classic
tactics of an authoritarian regime, jailing its opponents, muzzling the media, and intimidating civil
society, said Jos Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. At least three
demonstrators have been shot dead, and scores have been injured since February 12. The Maduro
government has blamed opposition leaders for the violence. Leopoldo Lpez, one of the most
prominent opposition figures, was arrested on February 18, and a judge ordered his pretrial detention
on February 20. An arrest warrant has also been issued for Carlos Vecchio, another leader of Lpezs
political party, according to news reports. The government has yet to present credible evidence linking
either man to any crime.

Journalists are unable to operate safely in Venezuela.
Human Rights Watch 2-21 [Venezuela: Violence Against Protesters, Journalists. Human Rights
Watch, non-profit organization created to provide unaltered information about human rights abuses
globaly. http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/21/venezuela-violence-against-protesters-journalists AL]

Journalists covering the protests and related violence have reported that both security forces and pro-
government demonstrators have detained and physically assaulted them since February 12. Public
Space (Espacio Pblico), a nongovernmental organization that monitors media freedom in Venezuela,
has documented 17 cases in which journalists were detained or assaulted, or both between February 12
and 16. These include: Rafael Hernndez, a photographer for the magazine Exceso, who reported that
members of the investigative police (Cuerpo de Investigaciones Cientficas Penales y Criminalsticas,
CICPC) detained him on February 12 after he took a picture of a police officer beating a woman.
Hernndez was held for nine hours and beaten repeatedly by CICPC officers, Public Space reported.
The police confiscated his camera. Juan Pablo Bieri, a Colombian journalist with the TV news channel
Red Ms Noticias, reported that the National Guard detained him on February 16, and held him for an
hour inside a military vehicle, where they interrogated and beat him. Mariana Cadenas, a reporter
from the international news agency Agence France-Press, told Human Rights Watch that on February
12, a man dressed in red took her video camera, in which she had images demonstrators being
detained and beaten. The man and approximately 10 others with him shouted at her, accusing her of
being a fascist and a coup-plotter. She said that approximately 40 members of the National Guard
30 meters away saw the incident and did not react. When she asked them for help, they refused, and
one said: Didnt you know what you were exposing yourself to when you came here?

Maduro is blocking the websites and online services used to organize the protests.
WSJ 2-21 [Wall Street Journal. Twitter, Other Apps Disrupted in Venezuela Amid Protests. Loretta
Chao, Brazil based reporter.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303775504579397430033153284 AL]

The Venezuelan government, besieged by nationwide protests, appears to have stepped up its
censorship of Internet services used by demonstrators and sites that have criticized the government
response to the unrest, technology firms and researchers said. Dozens of websites including
Pastebin.com, which protesters used to share photos, have been blocked in Venezuela, according to
Herdict, an initiative under Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society that collects data
on Internet filtering. Such blocks are usually carried out by local Internet service providers, which
interrupt the connections between users' computers and the servers that host the websites or services
they are using. Twitter and Zello, a walkie-talkie application that protesters have been using to
communicate via smartphones, have also been targeted, both firms said.

Reporters are being kicked out of Venezuela. Only the internet can keep people
informed.
WSJ 2-21 [Wall Street Journal. Twitter, Other Apps Disrupted in Venezuela Amid Protests. Loretta
Chao, Brazil based reporter.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303775504579397430033153284 AL]

Many Internet users in Venezuela say they depend on the Web for news of the escalating protests
against the government of President Nicols Maduro. On Friday, the government revoked work
permits for CNN after Mr. Maduro lashed out at the U.S. cable channel for producing what he saw as
skewed coverage. A week earlier, Colombia-based private TV station NTN24 was taken off the air
while covering the protests. The station has continued posting videos on Google Inc. 's YouTube, to
which access remained unhampered as of Friday afternoon. Meanwhile, the human-rights arm of the
Organization of American States in Washington published a statement Friday condemning reports that
journalists have been physically assaulted and otherwise harassed by members of the police and
military.

These initiatives allow people to freely fight against their governments
New York Times 11 [New York Times. U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors. June 12,
2011. By JAMES GLANZ and JOHN MARKOFF.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/world/12internet.html?_r=1 AL]

The new initiatives have found a champion in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose
department is spearheading the American effort. We see more and more people around the globe
using the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest
against injustice and seek to realize their aspirations, Mrs. Clinton said in an e-mail response to a
query on the topic. There is a historic opportunity to effect positive change, change America
supports, she said. So were focused on helping them do that, on helping them talk to each other, to
their communities, to their governments and to the world. Developers caution that independent
networks come with downsides: repressive governments could use surveillance to pinpoint and arrest
activists who use the technology or simply catch them bringing hardware across the border. But others
believe that the risks are outweighed by the potential impact. Were going to build a separate
infrastructure where the technology is nearly impossible to shut down, to control, to survey, said
Sascha Meinrath, who is leading the Internet in a suitcase project as director of the Open Technology
Initiative at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan research group. The implication is that this
disempowers central authorities from infringing on peoples fundamental human right to
communicate, Mr. Meinrath added.

Protestors need a way of getting information to the outside world
New York Times 11 [New York Times. U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors. June 12,
2011. By JAMES GLANZ and JOHN MARKOFF.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/world/12internet.html?_r=1 AL]

Creating simple lines of communication outside official ones is crucial, said Collin Anderson, a 26-year-
old liberation-technology researcher from North Dakota who specializes in Iran, where the government
all but shut down the Internet during protests in 2009. The slowdown made most circumvention
technologies the software legerdemain that helps dissidents sneak data along the state-controlled
networks nearly useless, he said. No matter how much circumvention the protesters use, if the
government slows the network down to a crawl, you cant upload YouTube videos or Facebook
postings, Mr. Anderson said. They need alternative ways of sharing information or alternative ways
of getting it out of the country.

Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. Hes also the author of The Naked Future: What
Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, 2014

The success of the cyberwar influences the success of the protests
Tucker 2-24 [Patrick Tucker, technology editor for Defence One. Defence One is a news and analysis
group focusing on National Security and Foreign Relations. Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The
Futurist, where he served for nine years. This Is the App Thats Fueling the Uprising in Venezuela. 9:30
AM February 24, 2014. http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/02/app-s-fueling-uprising-
venezuela/79240/?oref=d-interstitial-continue&_ga=1.83486742.1845516870.1392940507 AL]

Despite the efforts of the Maduro government, protests in Venezuela are continuing and so are
downloads of Zello, one fueling the other. Its a cycle thats reminiscent of the very early days of the
Arab Spring in 2010 and 2011, in which students and other protestors used social networks like Twitter
and Facebook to help organize, promote and communicate through protests, eventually forcing the
ouster of nondemocratic governments in places like Tunisia and Egypt. The lesson from the events in
Tunisia in particular seemed to be that when you combine an educated student class with the power
of social networks and press the return key, the outcome can be democracy. But when the machine
malfunctions, the result can look like a protracted war with the potential to embroil U.S. forces. The
protests in Libya, in contrast, resulted in a civil war costing more than $1 billion to the U.S. and NATO.
When the machine breaks down completely, the result looks like Syria, or possibly Iran, where the
regime has been extremely successful shutting the opposition out of the Internet. To Moore,
Venezuela looks like digital trench warfare with governments working feverishly to outmaneuver
software makers and vice versa.

The Zello app isnt working anymore. The protestors need an independent network

In emails, multiple protestors said that they saw Zello as an essential tool for coordinating movement,
collecting intelligence on the location of government forces, and organizing responses. In other words,
Zello has clear military potential. The company reports that it has received interest from the U.S.
National Guard and the U.S. United States Army Reserve Command But Zello, which has been
downloaded more than 600,000 times in Venezuela in just a few days, has seen multiple uses, some of
these extend beyond calling for marches and launching maneuvers to evade the authorities. They
include organizing guarimbas, blockades of burning trash, to thwart National Guard and police
movements. The erection of the guarimbas represents a clear escalation in protestor tactics away from
simple peaceful marches and some report that the blockades have contributed to the casualty count,
which officially hit 11 over the weekend. The use of guarimbasis controversial among the protestors and
has been met with extremely harsh responses from troops as demonstrated in this video. The openness
of the Zello platform explains why its become so useful across Venezuela, but this ease of use has also
led to a digital fog of war with confusion about who is using the network for what purpose. According
to protestors, the government and government-supporting militia groups, or colectivos, will listen in
on protestor channels on Zello to get information about upcoming movements or marches, distribute
disinformation, or learn the identities of people on the other side. This has led to calls from protestor
groups on Twitter to abandon use of the walkie-talkie app.

Commercial VPN encryption can only do so much. Venezuela needs an independent
network.

TunnelBears encryption service hides the way the user is accessing the Internet, what websites he or
she is visiting and what is being downloaded. It offers whats called a virtual private network, or VPN,
within a larger Internet service provider. (Another example is TOR.) When a VPN is working, it functions
as an invisibility cloak. In Venezuela, its allowing people to access banned Web sites and apps, such as
Zello. TunnelBear offers a free service for moderate data usage and two other plans for more heavy
usage. In response to user demand, the company has made TunnelBear completely free inside
Venezuela. @fbajak @Zello TunnelBear should unblock Zello for iPhone and Android. We are currently
providing free service to #Venezuela #censura TunnelBear (@theTunnelBear) February 21, 2014 The
decision was not an easy one. When you decide to open up your network for free, theres financial
decisions at play. Theres emotional decisions at play. You open your inbox on a Friday morning and you
see dozens of stories of people requiring assistance, Dochuk said. Well support these efforts where
we can, but its by no means full proof. Dochuk, like Moore, has no direct interest in Venezuelan
politics. But hes opposed to censorship on principle. And TunnelBear already had a lot of users in
Venezuela. When he heard that the government was trying block Internet access, he knew that he had
to make the service free where it was needed most. But the company would really prefer not to get
overly involved in conflict areas, and so the rising death toll in Venezuela is worrisome. Also, he knows
that theres only so much an encrypted network can do. In places where government censorship
operations are sophisticated, like in China, Syria or Iran, TunnelBear is non-existent. (Dochuk
recommends users in these countries try TOR.)

The future of venezuela depends on the availability of networks

The national security implications of app wars in conflict areas cant be understated. Whether
Venezuela will follow the path of Tunisia, Libya, Syria or Iran remains to be seen. The outcome
depends on multiple factors. But one is how well different sides in the emerging conflict leverage
technologies like Zello and TunnelBear to achieve their objectives. Though it sounds hyperbolic, the
future of Venezuela, and U.S. involvement in that country, may depend on which side makes better
use of this sort of technology in the coming days and weeks. Dochuk is guardedly optimistic.

Venezuelas Economy is trash.
Ferdman 2-24 [Roberto Ferdman is a reporter at Quartz, focusing on Latin American business and
economics. He also spends a portion of his time as part of Quartzs ideas team. Venezuelas real inflation
may be six times the official rate. 2-24-14 http://qz.com/180390/venezuelas-real-inflation-may-be-six-
times-the-official-rate/#/h/49440,1,3/ AL]

Among the complaints of the Venezuelans that have taken to the street by the tens of thousands over
the past couple weeks is the governments inability to stem high inflation. Its easy to see why people
are angry; official figures put the countrys annualized inflation rate at 56%, which is among the
highest in the world. And theres reason to believe even that high number is a drastic underestimate
of Venezuelas actual inflation rate. The problem with Venezuelas official rate is that it doesnt account
for the countrys highly active black market, according to Johns Hopkins economics professor Steve
Hanke. Venezuelas shortage index, which tracks the percentage of basic goods in short supply, is
approaching 30%meaning that well over a quarter of the things Venezuelans want to buy, they cant
easily find. The current list includes flour, corn, butter, eggs, and even toilet paper. Government
controls have been put in effect to artificially keep prices low, but they have had the opposite effect
of discouraging production and exacerbating the shortages. + It also doesnt help that Venezuelas
currency, the Bolivar, has plunged since president Nicolas Maduro took office, which is making
Venezuelans reluctant to hold onto the local currency, instead stashing away foreign currencies such as
US dollars. + The result is that almost anything one can buy on the open market can be turned around
at a higher price, often in US dollars, on the black market. The prices in the economy are much, much
higher than the controlled prices being used by the government, Hanke said. The inflation rate is
much higher than anyone is projecting. Its in the triple digits. According to the Cato Institutes
troubled currencies project, which estimates the inflation implied by a countrys black market prices,
Venezuelas rate was 330% as of last week, or nearly six times the official figure. + Whether protests,
which have used roadblocks as a means of disruption, will worsen Venezuelas economic woes remains
to be seen. But theres at least the potential for such tactics to exacerbate the countrys shortages. The
protests will probably worsen them marginally, Hanke said. But the economy is so messed up that it
may not even be that noticeable.

Ad Hoc Networks can get people internet access without using government controlled
infrastructure.
Buruhanudeen et al. 7 [Shafinaz Buruhanudeen, Mohamed Othman, B. M. Ali. All of the University
of Malaysia. Existing MANET routing protocols and metrics used towards the efficiency and reliability.
2007. http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Publication/12806703/existing-manet-routing-
protocols-and-metrics-used-towards-the-efficiency-and-reliability-an AL]
A wireless ad hoc network is a collection of two or more devices/ nodes or terminals with wireless
communications and networking capability that communicate with each other without the aid of any
centralised administrator. Each node in a MANET (Mobile Ad Hoc Network) functions as both a host
and a router. The network topology is in general dynamic, because the connectivity among the nodes
may vary with time due to node mobility, node departures and new node arrivals. Hence, there is a need
for efficient routing protocols to allow the nodes to communicate. This paper gives a state-of-the-art
review on the existing routing protocols of MANET and the important routing metrics required in
evaluating the performance of the protocols in terms of reliability and efficiency.2

American attention is zero sum. American journalists are not reporting Venezuela. We
need internet to shift opinion towards Venezuela.
Taylor 2-24 [Adam Taylor is a writer on foreign affairs for the Washington Post. Amid the coverage of
Ukraine, is a crisis in Venezuela being ignored? 2-24-14 3:30.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/02/24/amid-the-coverage-of-ukraine-is-
a-crisis-in-venezuela-being-ignored/ AL]
Over the weekend, the situation in Ukraine became one of the biggest stories on the planet. On both
Saturday and Sunday, stories from the protest-wracked nation ran above the fold on the front page in
the print edition of The Washington Post. The dramatic story also appeared on the top of the New York
Times' front pages. It appeared to be a major story for almost all news outlets. What was going on in
Ukraine was clearly momentous. On Saturday, Viktor Yanukovych had fled the capital, his extravagant
home now open for the world to see, while his rival Yulia Tymoshenko was released from prison and
vowed to run in newly announced elections. The situation is by no means resolved, but it did look like a
real breakthrough for the Euromaidan protests. Ukraine wasn't the only news story in the world,
however. On the surface of it, there is a similar situation brewing in Venezuela, and some people are
beginning to wonder whether it is getting enough attention. "Is Venezuela burning while world watches
Ukraine?"asked the United Kingdom's Channel 4News, while Voxxi, a news source dedicated to serving
America's Latino community, wrote Monday that Venezuela's violence was "missing from U.S. media
coverage." At The Post, we have been specifically called out for not featuring more Venezuela coverage:
Another day, another GLARING omission of #Venezuela in US English-language media. Wake up!
#SOSVenezuela pic.twitter.com/ipM3E2E6Nn Gabriela Domenzain (@GabiDomenzain) February 22,
2014 There's no question that the protests in Venezuela are important: According to the latest figures,
at least 12 people have died and there are few signs that the violence will end anytime soon. What's
more, there are other hot spots around the world right now: My colleague Anup Kaphle recently pointed
out that violent protests have occurred in countries such as Bosnia, Thailand and Guinea, among others.
It sadly goes without saying that awful situations persist in a number of other regions, not least Syria.
The worrying conclusion here is that perhaps American appetite for international news is a zero-sum
game: Ukraine is simply taking up too much attention for Venezuela to make headlines. Could that
possibly be true? Let's consider it. Is Ukraine really getting more attention than Venezuela? It's a little
hard to accurately measure this, so let's look at two specific examples. As I mentioned above, there was
no mention of Venezuela on either The Washington Post's or the New York Times' front pages this
weekend. A search of LexisNexis on Monday morning found there were 10 articles in The Post that
featured the word "Venezuela" either in the title or lead paragraphs during the past week; the same
search for "Ukraine" returned 28 results. The same search for the Times returned 13 for "Venezuela"
and 25 for "Ukraine." That doesn't mean that no one is talking about Venezuela, of course. Data from
social media monitoring Web site Topsy shows that the number of tweets related to Venezuela's
protests have surpassed the number of tweets related to Ukraine's protests at some points over the
past month. In total, Venezuela appears to be winning the social media battle, though it is possible
that this is due to differences in language or script. It's a good question. The most obvious is very
practical: There's a limited amount of space in a newspaper, especially on the front page. A huge
amount of things are happening in the world on any given day, and a newspaper doesn't have the space
to publish everything, especially on the front page. Economic factors are a concern, too: Foreign
reporting is expensive and news outlets do not have an infinite amount of money. The past few weeks
have been full of very important foreign news, and this has led to some difficult decisions. It almost
certainly would have been amiss to not include the arrest of alleged Mexican drug lord Joaquin El
Chapo Guzman on the front page this weekend, for example, and as hard as foreign correspondents
work, they simply can't be in two places at once. There are other factors at work here, though. The
Euromaidan protests made headlines this weekend because they caused serious changes within the
country, but they only did this after almost three months of protests. Euromaidan began Nov. 21, 2013,
and gradually grew in both size and severity. The response to protests in Venezuela may have been
brutal, but they only began in earnest at the beginning of February. In more morbid terms, Ukraine's
total body count is almost 10 times that in Venezuela. For confusing events in far-away places, there
often seems to be a "tipping point" beyond which the average U.S. reader finally becomes interested.
It could be that Venezuela hasn't reached it yet.

Ad Hoc Networks work in times of crisis.
June 13 [Laura June is the Features Editor at The Verge. Before joining The Verge in May, 2011, she
was the Special Content Editor at Engadget. Former FCC chairman Genachowski calls for emergency ad
hoc network in Boston. June 6, 2013. The Verge. http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/6/4403274/former-
fcc-chairman-genachowski-calls-for-emergency-ad-hoc-network-in AL]
Additionally, they argue that laptops and smartphones two-way radios could be bound together in ad
hoc networks, creating usable service "even if no one within it had access to the broader Internet."
For example, they argue, "imagine seeing your phones signal bars drop to zero. Instead of "No
service," the phone could fall back to "Connected to local network." In a crisis, Genachowski and
Zitrain write, such limited access to texting or Facebook could be critical. "Natural disasters and crises
aren't going to go away," they conclude, adding that the proposals they're making will not preclude the
need for the FCC, other agencies, and the private sector to continue to work towards fully functional,
scalable solutions. But, they argue, " mainstream consumer hardware and software can become a
foundation for resilient interaction among people during a crisis and an innovative part of the solution
to this very real challenge." Genachowski stepped down from his position as chairman of the FCC in
mid-May after holding the position for four years.

The Chaves regime controls what the media shows. This renders free speech impossible
Greene 10 [December 22, 2010. CNN. Richard Allen Greene joined the Politico from the BBC News
website, where he was Washington correspondent until March 2007. He launched the sites coverage of
the 2008 presidential election with a roundup of leading candidates back in May 2006.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/12/22/venezuela.media.laws/ AL]

New laws governing radio, television and the internet in Venezuela "could be very dangerous," anti-
censorship campaigners warned Wednesday, two days after the controversial laws passed. "It could be
a license to crack down on any kind of dissent in the media," said Padraig Reidy of Index on Censorship,
a leading British freedom-of-speech organization. And because the laws are ambiguous, they "can chill
legitimize activities exercised by minority groups, human rights organizations, dissidents, protesters.
Those activities are essential to democracy," said Katitza Rodriguez of the Electronic Frontier
Foundation. The Venezuelan National Assembly approved changes to the Organic Telecommunications
Law and the Social Responsibility on Radio and Television Law on Monday. The social responsibility law
explicitly states that no broadcaster or internet provider can broadcast things that incite hatred, cause
"anxiety or unrest among the public order" or promote the assassination of leaders. Under the law,
internet providers must have mechanisms that, at the request of telecommunications regulator, could
restrict messages and access to websites that break laws. Providers could be fined if they are found to
be in violation of the rules. The goal of the law is to establish "social responsibility" in those who
provide, television, radio and internet service. The law affects all text, images, sound or context sent or
received in Venezuela. Reidy, the news director of the Index on Censorship, expressed concern about
how the law is written. "What particularly worries me is that the phrasing (of the law) is so broad -- lines
about 'fomenting anxiety' and 'altering public order,' " he said. "What exactly does altering public order
mean? Does it mean trying to put alternative views to the government's? That could be very
dangerous," said Reidy. "Venezuela has independent media which is openly hostile to the government.
They should have a right to be openly hostile," he said Reidy. Rodriguez, the international rights director
of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has other worries as well. She's concerned that internet service
providers can now be penalized for material people upload to websites they host. "These measures are
very bad for freedom of expression. They affect the work of dissidents, of human rights activists on
the ground trying to mobilize a campaign," she said. And the law can encourage internet service
providers to bar users from posting their own videos, photos, links or comments so the companies
hosting them don't run afoul of the law, she said. They might start monitoring communications to
protect themselves, she said. "Internet intermediaries will be forced by fear of liability to monitor or
surveil all communications passing through their networks and platforms, and might design their
technologies to restrict their users from uploading certain sorts of content," she said. "This, in turn, will
limit citizens' freedom of expression and violate their privacy," she warned.

The ISPs are in Maduros pocket.
Otis 13[John Otis, CPJ's Andes correspondent for the Americas program, works as a correspondent for
Time magazine and the Global Post. He authored the 2010 book Law of the Jungle, about U.S. military
contractors kidnapped by Colombian rebels, and is based in Bogot, Colombia. CPJ is the committee to
protect journalists, a non-profit to protect the rights of journalists abroad. Venezuela forces ISPs to
police Internet. December 12, 2013. https://www.cpj.org/internet/2013/12/venezuela-forces-isps-to-
police-internet.php AL]

The concept of network neutrality holds that all Internet traffic should be treated equal and that
Internet Service Providers, or ISPs, should serve as free-flowing gateways for information rather than
as filters. But in politically polarized Venezuela, neutrality is an increasingly rare commodity and now
ISPs are feeling the heat. The socialist government of President Nicols Maduro is forcing ISPs to act as
Internet policemen. Through currency controls, the Maduro administration is also restricting their access to dollars, which ISPs require
to upgrade services and keep abreast of technological changes. ISPs are not even allowed to raise their monthly fees to keep up with galloping
inflation. "Venezuela is no Disneyland," one frustrated ISP executive told CPJ. ISPs have come under increased scrutiny as Venezuela's economy
has gone into a tailspin. Amid skyrocketing inflation, shortages, and other economic woes, the U.S dollar now trades on the black market for 10
times the official rate of 6.3 bolivars per dollar. Many people track this parallel market via websites such as www.dolartoday.com, which is
based in Miami. But President Maduro claims currency speculation is part of an "economic war" being waged against his government. Last
month, the telecommunications regulator CONATEL began ordering ISPs to block websites that provide the black market exchange rate. So
far, ISPs have restricted access to more than 100 URLs. The order was based on Venezuela's 2004 media law which makes
it illegal to disseminate information that could sow panic among the general public. ISPs must comply within 24 hours or face sanctions, which
could include the loss of their concessions. "Of course we don't like it," said the ISP executive. "But for me to defy this would mean to lose the
company." The government claims publishing the black market exchange rate encourages shopkeepers to raise prices. That undermines
government efforts to rein in inflation, which at 54 percent annually is one of the highest rates in the world. But media analysts are alarmed.
Amid government pressure, self-censorship, and the sales of traditional Venezuelan media companies--like Globovision and Cadena Capriles--to
owners friendly towards the government, many newspapers, TV, and radio stations no longer provide in-depth coverage of state entities and
officials. Social media, blogs and other Internet sites are now the go-to places for critical news about the government, according to Carlos
Correa, who directs Espacio Publico, a Caracas NGO that focuses on free speech issues. Correa and others fear that cutting off access to
exchange-rate websites is the first step towards a broader blockade of information that reflects badly on the Maduro administration. "Right
now it is dolartoday.com but tomorrow it could be a Website that reports on government corruption," William Pea, editor of the Caracas
newsletter Inside Telecom, told CPJ. "This is a very grave matter. It violates the principle of Internet freedom and the legacy of neutrality."
Under pressure from CONATEL, the Venezuela version of www.tucarro.com, which allows people to buy and sell used cars, deleted automobile
prices which had been listed in bolivars indexed to the black market exchange rate. Pedro Maldonado, the director general of CONATEL,
strongly defended the government's action. "The people who operate these websites are political actors who are linked to the opposition and
who are trying to create grave economic distortions," Maldonado told reporters last month. Yet the blockade is full of holes. Dolartoday.com
and other sites often change their addresses by adding a dot or a dash and then inform the public via Twitter. In response, Maldonado, on Nov.
19, sent a letter to Twitter asking the San Francisco, Calif.-based company to block such information. Twitter ignored the request. Another
target has been Bitly, the popular site for shortening URL addresses to make it easier to send them as
links via social media. CANTV, the government-run ISP, which dominates the market for residential
Internet users, has blocked the site though it is available on other Venezuelan ISPs. Another Caracas ISP
executive said CONATEL'S strategy is to wear down Internet users so they eventually give up looking for information the government deems
subversive. Besides serving as part-time censors, Venezuelan ISPs are being squeezed in other ways. For example, access to dollars at the
official exchange rate is strictly controlled by the government. Dollar allowances for ISPs keep shrinking which makes it harder to import
materials and technology to upgrade services. Such restrictions often force importers to purchase far more expensive dollars on the black
market in order to make overseas purchases. According to Venezuela's Chamber of Telecommunications Service Companies, its affiliates
received just $28 million at the official exchange rate this year, down from $377 million in 2012. During that same period, the official
government dollar allowance for affiliates of CANAEMTE, an industry group for Venezuelan firms that build telecom infrastructure, fell from $46
million to $6 million. Meanwhile, the government has allowed ISPs to make only miniscule increases to their
monthly fees despite soaring inflation. All this means Venezuela has one of the slowest Internet
download speeds in the world. But given the government's growing paranoia over information
available on the Internet, that may not change anytime soon. The Caracas ISP executive said his
company has decided that it's better to play by the government's rules in order to continue providing
Internet service. But, he added: "They really have the noose around our necks."

Maduros election was totally rigged use of government funds, controlled media, and
scare tactics.
Sanchez 13 [Fabiola Sanchez, Venezuelan correspondent for the Assosiated Press.
In Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro Can Count On Chavez's Well-Greased Vote Machine. 04/12/13
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/12/venezuela-nicolas-maduro-chavez-
election_n_3072374.html AL]
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Socialist party activist Rodolfo Sanchez is all nervous energy as he mounts the impossibly steep streets of his
impoverished hillside neighborhood. With days to go before Sunday's election to replace Hugo Chavez, it's his job to get out the maximum vote
for the late president's hand-picked successor. Sanchez chats with a microbus driver who will be part of a network of several dozen public
transport vehicles designated to deliver nearly 5,000 people to polling stations. Each bus, he explains, will have signs with the names of voting
centers so people know which one to board. Sanchez is just one cog in the vast, well-greased get-out-the-vote
machinery Chavez built during 14 years in power. The man Chavez tapped to succeed him, Nicolas
Maduro, had plenty of practice fine-tuning it over the years as a trusted lieutenant. Now, Maduro is
interim president and counting on the machinery, along with powerful, pervasive state media, to
compensate for votes the ruling party is expected to lose over disappointment with double-digit
inflation, food shortages, worsening power outages and rampant kidnapping and murder. The latest
polls favor Maduro but indicate his lead has narrowed. Brigades of civil servants and recipients of
government largesse are allegedly pressed into the electoral army. There are motorcycle bands, soup-
kitchen and day-care mothers and an untold number of state employees who openly campaign
outside their offices. Across the nation, government vehicles cruise streets blasting salsa music and
distributing campaign literature. Campaign billboards festoon the roofs of government buildings. The
vote-impelling army officially numbers 200,000, but with nearly 2.7 million state employees is likely
far higher. In October, it helped raise voter turnout to an impressive 81 percent from 75 percent in
Chavez's 2006 presidential victory. Cynthia Arnson of the Woodrow Wilson think tank in Washington,
D.C., calls the ruling socialists' get-out-the-vote efforts atypical for a democracy. "Maduro can draw on a
Chavista base that has received huge benefits from the state and can be mobilized quickly, and there
has been a complete blurring of the resources of the state with the resources of the campaign," she
said. "It's not just the party machine. It's the entire apparatus of the state than can be deployed." The
grassroots Chavista get-out-the vote structure is called "One for 10:" Participants are responsible for
getting 10 people to the polls. The opposition claims state employees are strong-armed into
participation, as are many of the hundreds of thousands of people enrolled in an array of programs
known as "missions" that provide the poor with housing, food, medical care and other services. Many
enrollees are genuine Chavez loyalists. But to make sure they vote, the government carefully compiles
their personal information: addresses, telephone numbers, names of relatives. Sanchez, for example,
has a detailed census of his El Atlantico neighborhood. "We know where our comrades vote, whether
or not they are party militants. We know everything about our community," he said. Chavistas deny the
allegations of coercion. "Nobody was forced to come here. We came because our revolutionary conscience tells us Maduro is the only one who
can guarantee we won't lose everything our comandante Hugo Chavez created," said Maria Araque, a 23-year-old student who came from the
western state of Zulia for his final campaign rally Thursday. But backers of opposition candidate Henrique Capriles say the elections are patently
unfair because the government draws on Venezuela's vast oil wealth to pay its campaign bills. "It's not a simple electoral fight. It's an epic
battle," said Carlos Ocariz, Capriles' campaign director. Chavismo is built on a with-us-or-against-us credo, the opposition alleges. For evidence,
it points to the unconstitutional pledge of support Maduro received, just hours after Chavez's March 5 cancer death, from the head of an
institution purportedly neutral: the military. Defense Minister Diego Molero's vow was followed last week by Maduro's urging of Venezuela's
military brass, at a public meeting, to remain loyal to Chavez's legacy. Opposition lawmaker Alfonso Marquina claimed last
month to have obtained a 100-page government document describing how the National Guard would
be deployed across the country to mobilize the Maduro vote. He said he gave the document to the National Electoral
Council. National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello of the ruling party called the allegations "ridiculous," denying the document's existence.
The Associated Press tried repeatedly to reach Marquina but he didn't respond to phone calls or text messages. In the days before the election,
employees of the Industry Ministry, wearing shirts emblazoned with its name, sat at a table outside their Caracas offices handing out campaign
literature and listening to music. A similar scene played out at the headquarters of the government tax agency, the Seniat. Maduro has held
campaign rallies and marches with employees from the state-run oil, electrical and telecommunications companies. The opposition says
the workers fear losing their jobs if they don't play along. At a march for Capriles last weekend, a 46-
year-old housewife cheerfully launched into litany of complaints against the government as she bought
campaign buttons and whistles from a vendor. But her face tensed when she realized her name could
appear in print. "My husband works for PDVSA," as a security guard, she said, referring to the state-run
oil company. "They have to wear red and they can't say anything against the government." Her spouse
"will vote for Maduro because it's not worth losing his job over a vote." A worker at a hydroelectric
plant in the eastern city of Ciudad Guayana, Giovanni Rinaldi, told the AP on Thursday that he was fired
the previous day after posting to Twitter a photo of an electric company vehicle being used to distribute
Maduro campaign material. He was fired for alleged sabotage of the power grid, which he called a false
pretext. Under Chavez, the government built a network of state-run media that includes four
television channels and the regional news network Telesur. It saturates Venezuelans with pro-
government messages, pre-empting all airwaves to showcase Maduro and his government while
virtually ignoring Capriles unless to malign him or accuse his aides of hatching destabilizing conspiracies.
The Capriles campaign has even less money than it did in October, due to harassment by government
prosecutors, campaign officials say. Ocariz said it would nevertheless mobilize about 200,000 volunteers
for its election day get-out-the-vote effort. At every campaign appearance and in TV spots, Capriles
assures voters that their vote is secret and the government has no way of knowing how they vote. He
says no one will be fired if they vote for him. One pro-government vote-marshaling component is the
12,000-member of the Socialist National Front of Motorcycle Riders. Such groups have become
ubiquitous and are intimidating to the opposition. Their red-clad riders roar through Caracas in packs.
On Monday night, men on motorcycles attacked opposition students staging a hunger strike in a
Caracas plaza, injuring several people with sticks, stone and bottles. Maduro promised an investigation,
but said the motorcyclists were probably government opponents disguised as Chavistas. In a second, similar
incident, red-shirted men on motorcycles, faces covered with red bandanas, attacked opposition activists at a midweek Capriles
march in the western state of Merida. Roman Catholic archbishop, Rev. Baltazar Porras, told the AP that a group of marchers
were chased down by the riders as they tried to shelter in his residence. Beaten and shoved, they pushed the gate to the
archbishop's palace down on three people. None, he said, were seriously injured.

Even while cheating, he only barely won. This result enrages the majority of citizens and
symbolizes the death of Venezuelan democracy.
Guardian 13 [Virginia Lopez in Caracas and Jonathan Watts, Latin America correspondent
theguardian.com, Monday 15 April 2013 01.09 EDT. Nicols Maduro declared Venezuela election winner
by thin margin. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/15/nicolas-maduro-wins-venezuela-
election AL]
The first presidential vote of the post-Chvez era resulted in turmoil on Sunday night after the
declaration of a razor-thin win for the ruling party candidate Nicolas Maduro left an enraged
opposition declaring fraud and demanding a recount. According to the Central Electoral Commission,
Venezuelan voters narrowly endorsed Hugo Chvez's choice of Maduro as his successor with a less
than two percentage point margin over his rival, Henrique Capriles. The former trade union negotiator
immediately declared victory. "I'm here to assume my responsibility with courage ... The fight continues!" Maduro, 50, told a
rally. Although Chvistas in central Caracas launched fireworks and honked their car horns in celebration, the tiny margin
shocked many aides, who had been expecting the double-digit victory predicted by most polls up until a week ago. At
Miraflores, the presidential palace, Maduro addressed a crowd of supporters who had previously welcomed Chvez's election
victories at the same venue. Flanked by his wife, son and government officials, Maduro proclaimed a new era in the "Bolivarian
Revolution" began by his predecessor and said his victory was further proof that Chvez "continues to be invincible, that he
continues to win battles". Maduro claimed he was the target of a "dirty war". "There is an international operation to attack
Venezuelan democracy," he said. "I will show no weakness against those who meddle with this country's sovereignty." How he
will rule with such a narrow majority will be a key question. Maduro said Capriles had called him before the results were
announced to suggest a "pact" but that he had refused. Capriles said he would never make a pact with "the illegitimate" and
declared himself ready to fight against electoral abuse. Speaking to supporters but addressing Maduro, he said: "You and your
government are the big losers of this process. We will not recognise the results until every single vote is counted one by one ...
Every box, every vote must be counted." Membership of the electoral commission is skewed towards the
ruling party and many Capriles supporters felt cheated. In the suburbs, where his backing is strongest,
protesters banged pots and pans in anger. Their options, however, are limited. Venezuela now faces a
difficult period with a new president who must assert control with a small and contested mandate even
as he addresses chronic problems of inflation, high crime rates, crumbling infrastructure and an over-
reliance on oil exports. Chvez's death from cancer in March sparked the race for a successor, which
came six months after Chvez won the previous presidential election. In his last address to the nation
before undergoing emergency surgery the former president urged Venezuelans to vote for Maduro if he
failed to recover. Millions appeared to have taken his words to heart in Sunday's election. Maduro won
with 7,505,338 votes or 50.66% and Capriles had 7,270,403 or 49.07%.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/28/us-venezuela-protests-idUSBREA1R14P20140228
(Reuters) - Imprisoned Venezuelan protest leader Leopoldo Lopez scoffed on Friday at President Nicolas
Maduro's efforts to open talks with opponents and businessman after a month of demonstrations and
violence that have killed at least 17 people. Maduro, 51, seems to have weathered the worst of an
explosion of protests against his socialist government that exposed deep discontent with Venezuela's
economic problems and brought the nation's worst unrest in a decade. Some students are still setting
up roadblocks and clashing with police in Caracas and western Tachira state. But numbers have
dropped, and many Venezuelans have begun heading for the beach to enjoy a long weekend for Carnival
celebrations. To try to defuse the crisis further, Maduro and his top officials have been holding talks with
business leaders and some anti-government politicians, though the main opposition figureheads such as
Henrique Capriles have boycotted that. Lopez, a hardline opposition leader arrested on charges of
fomenting violence, said Maduro's talk of dialogue was a hypocritical tactic intended to deflate the
protests while failing to address the real problems behind them. "'The dialogue' is a tactical retreat, as
a result of the pressure in the streets. It's not real conviction," Lopez said in a message from Ramo
Verde prison given to his wife who Tweeted it via her husband's account @leopoldolopez. "Maduro's
dialogue is: 'come to Miraflores (presidential palace) and while I speak to the nation, I pursue, kill and
repress in the streets'." More people were injured on Thursday night as riot police used teargas
against masked and stone-throwing students trying to block a major highway in Caracas. Handfuls of
demonstrators blocked several roads again on Friday morning. More than 250 people have been
injured around Venezuela this month, and another 500 or so arrested, authorities said. The prosecutor
general told local media 17 people had died, the latest victim shot clearing up a barricade in Carabobo
state. Of those, 55 remain behind bars. They are mostly protesters, but include seven intelligence agents
and security officials accused in the shooting of two people in downtown Caracas after a February 12
rally that sparked the worst trouble. The president says that about 50 people have died in total due to
the protests, but that includes indirectly linked cases such as people unable to reach hospitals due to
blocked roads. "STAYING ON THE STREET" "The student movement is staying on the streets because of
all our friends in jail simply for protesting," said Andres Miranda, a 27-year-old economy student,
speaking after clashes late on Thursday in the affluent El Rosal district of Caracas. The students are
calling for a major march on Sunday. Activists on both sides were trying to score points over Carnival by
posting photos of either empty or overflowing Caribbean beaches - with few clues as to when the
pictures were taken or, often, where. Tourism Minister Andres Izarra and other government supporters
packed their Twitter feeds with pictures of holidaymakers at beaches or beauty spots like Angel Falls in
an attempt to show that the protests were over. Opposition activists, however, posted photos of other
deserted-looking beaches to try to show that Venezuelans were not in a holiday mood given recent
events. "Not a soul at this time," said one photo doing the rounds of a beach in Anzoategui province.
With local TV barely covering the unrest on the streets in recent weeks, Venezuelans have been
turning to social media for news. But a plethora of falsified images, some showing police fighting with
protesters in countries as far away as Bulgaria or Egypt, have also been doing the rounds. The nation is
essentially on holiday until next Thursday. Maduro brought forward the long weekend for Carnival,
then Wednesday will see national commemorations for the anniversary of late socialist leader Hugo
Chavez's death. Ten months after his narrow election win to succeed his mentor, Maduro has
consolidated his leadership of the ruling Socialist Party but failed to make much headway on
Venezuela's rampant violent crime or nagging economic problems. Annual inflation of more than 56
percent and shortages of basic products ranging from milk and flour to toilet paper and medicines are
afflicting all Venezuelans whatever their political convictions. Analysts say that while this round of
protests may die down, the economy will remain Maduro's biggest headache. Business leaders have
been urging him to reform the statist economic model established by Chavez during his 14-year rule.
The United Nations again called for dialogue and an end to violence in Venezuela on Friday. "The
inflammatory rhetoric from all sides is utterly unhelpful and risks escalating the tense situation in the
country," U.N. human rights commissioner Navi Pillay said, calling for an independent investigation into
the deaths. "It is time for all sides to move beyond verbal aggression and towards meaningful dialogue.
This crisis will only be resolved if the human rights of all Venezuelans are respected." U.S. Secretary of
State John Kerry said he was discussing with Colombia and other nations the possibility of international
mediation in Venezuela.

Any difference of opinion among the opposition is inconsequential
Cawthorn 2-27 [Andrew, Reuter reporter following the Venezuela story. Venezuela unrest shakes up
opposition. Feb 27, 2014 2:58pm EST. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/27/us-venezuela-
opposition-capriles-idUSBREA1Q1MA20140227 AL]
"We must not be scared of differences. Unity can't be a straitjacket," Capriles told Reuters in an
interview at his office in Caracas. "Nicolas is desperate ... We're seeing the last kicks of a drowning
man. He wanted to copy Chavez but he's a really bad copy, he has failed." Focusing on the Capriles-
Lopez split in the opposition would not only play into Maduro's hands but is also irrelevant given
Venezuelans' grave day-to-day problems, he said. "It's a false dilemma people are trying to create in
the heart of the opposition. To try and turn the opposition debate into who is the leader makes a
mockery of the historic moment the nation is going through."

The holiday isnt stopping the resistance
Cawthorn and Wallace 2-27 [Andrew and Daniel. Both reporters from Reuters focusing on the
story in Venezuela. Thu Feb 27, 2014 10:21pm EST. Carnival holiday may take heat out of Venezuela
crisis. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/28/us-venezuela-protests-idUSBREA1Q1TQ20140228
AL]
In familiar scenes from the last two weeks, when one group of demonstrators tried to block a major
six-lane highway that runs nearby, security forces fired teargas to disperse them. "We love a long
weekend, but things have changed ... we're tired of the shortages, the delinquency, the abuse," said
40-year-old travel agent Jennifer Diaz. "They can declare holidays all year long, but we're going to stay
in the streets." In the city center, red-clad Maduro supporters rallied in remembrance of deadly price
riots 25 years ago, which the president says helped propel Chavez to power a decade later. The students
want Maduro to quit over grievances ranging from high inflation and shocking crime rates to
shortages of basic food and alleged repression of political rivals.

The revolts in Venezuela is going full swing.
Cawthorn and Wallace 2-27 [Andrew and Daniel. Both reporters from Reuters focusing on the
story in Venezuela. Thu Feb 27, 2014 10:21pm EST. Carnival holiday may take heat out of Venezuela
crisis. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/28/us-venezuela-protests-idUSBREA1Q1TQ20140228
AL]
About 150 people have been injured during the two-week crisis, and more than 500 people arrested,
authorities say. Of those, 55 remain behind bars. They are mostly protesters, but include seven
intelligence agents and security officials accused in the shooting of two people in downtown Caracas
after a February 12 rally that sparked the worst trouble. The government says that about 50 people
have died in total due to the protests, including indirectly linked cases such as people unable to reach
hospitals due to blocked roads. The country's volatile western region, in the Andean foothills on the
Colombian border, has seen the worst unrest, with protesters and security forces facing off day after
day. In one middle-class neighborhood of San Cristobal city, a Reuters reporter watched demonstrators
reinforcing a barricade on Thursday, winding wire around tree branches to strengthen the structure of
chain-link fencing and corrugated metal sheets. "How long are we going to let them abuse us?" said
one man, his shirt tied around his face.

The protests are still going strong in Venezuela. The new holiday hasnt stopped the
protesters.
AP 2-28 [Associated Press. Unrest In Venezuela Continues As Anniversary Of Hugo Chvez's Death
Approaches. Published February 28, 2014. Accessed via Fox News Latino.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2014/02/28/unrest-in-venezuela-continues-as-anniversary-
hugo-chavez-death-approaches/ AL]
The start of a weeklong string of holidays leading up to the March 5 anniversary of former President
Hugo Chvez's death did not completely pull protesters from the streets Thursday as the government
apparently hoped. Hundreds of students rallied on a leafy street in east Caracas demanding an end to
the government crackdown on protests and the release of those jailed in recent weeks. When some of
the protesters later moved toward a major highway, government security forces fired with tear gas. In
Valencia, about 105 miles west of the capital, protesters manned burning street barricades and
clashed with police. President Nicols Maduro announced this week that he was adding Thursday and
Friday to the already scheduled long Carnival weekend that includes Monday and Tuesday off, and many
people interpreted it as an attempt to calm tensions. Thursday's student protest was intended to send
the government a message that demonstrators would not be distracted by a vacation. "They want to
demobilize us with this decree that joins Carnival with these two days commemorating the Caracazo,"
said student leader Juan Requesens, using the common term for a wave of anti-government protests in
1989. "Maduro is mistaken," he added. "We're going to continue in the street, we're not going to leave
our democratic fight for six days at the beach"

Things in Venezuela are heating up. *Shits about to go down.+
Mena 5:00 AM [Mery Triny Mena is a reporter covering the Venezuelan protests. Venezuela's
growing middle-class revolt. Mary Triny Mena, special to, CBC News Posted: Mar 01, 2014 5:00 AM ET.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/venezuela-s-growing-middle-class-revolt-1.2555786 AL]
On Monday, Venezuelans woke up to find barricades of pipes, trash and branches burning in the
streets. Improvised roadblocks, cutting off neighbourhoods from each other and from the central core
of certain cities, appeared simultaneously in eight states of Venezuela, most of them in middle-class
areas, and show no signs of letting up. Even the start of a week-long national holiday on Thursday, to
culminate in the March 5 anniversary of former president Hugo Chavez's death from cancer, has not
stopped the demonstrations or the government's tear-gas response. Carnival won't stop
demonstrations, protestors say What began almost a month ago as a student protest over a sexual
assault in the western state of Tchira has now spread throughout the country and into the wealthier
communities where people are fed up with rampant crime, a shortage of things like toilet paper and
inflation running at over 50 per cent. Maria Lopez, a 37-year-old accountant, explained the reasons why
she joined the students. "I'm tired of queuing to buy, I'm tired of kidnappings and the violence that
continues each day." Nancy Garcia, a college professor, said that her two children came out to protest,
and after seeing what happened to other young students she decided to join as well. A demonstrator
wearing painted stripes that represent Venezuela's national flag attends a rally with humans rights
activist in Caracas, Venezuela, Feb. 28. The start of a weeklong string of holidays leading up to the March
5 anniversary of former President Hugo Chavez's death has not completely pulled demonstrators from
the streets as the government apparently hoped. 1 of 20 The month-long clashes between, initially, the
student demonstrators and the security forces of President Nicolas Maduro have left, as of Friday,17
people dead directly from the violence and over 260 injured, the government said. But to get the full
idea of how ubiquitous these protests have become, look at Altamira, a small but wealthy enclave in the
capital Caracas that has become a hotbed of opposition activism. Just a few steps separates the
Canadian Embassy in Caracas from Altamira Square, the place that, for almost three consecutive weeks,
has been a centre of protest, tear gas and demands by students and middle-class professionals alike. On
the wall of the embassy is a hand-painted "No to dictatorship" that stands like a silent witness to the
struggles of the day. Neighbour against neighbour In Caracas, the road blocks have left some neighbourhoods entirely cut off from the
rest of the city, and they have divided the country as well neighbour against neighbour in some instances. Those taking over the streets say
they are doing this because they have nowhere else to raise their grievances. But the tactic is not sitting well with everyone. "It's not fair the
closing of the streets," says Ligia Alvarez, 62. "I agree with the demonstrations. But what is the point if we are hostages in our own homes." The
fact that these demonstrations are mostly taking place in wealthier neighbourhoods is also pitting rich against poor to some extent. "There is a
little group, a little rich group, but they are not the majority," says Omar Gutierrez a resident of Petare, one of Caracas's toughest slums. "We
want peace and quiet and move forward with this government that has brought us prosperity." VENEZUELA-PROTESTS/ Venezuela's President
Nicolas Maduro gestures to his red-shirted supporters during a rally in Caracas on Feb. 18. Tens of thousands of opposition protesters also
flooded the streets of Venezuela's capital that day after troops arrested opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez. (Reuters) The wealth gap in this
county is the dividing line that brought the late Hugo Chavez and his Bolivarian Revolution to power 15 years ago. It is a revolution his chosen
successor, Maduro, is hoping to continue. But he won a six-year term last April with only 50.6 per cent of the vote, just beating out Governor
Henrique Capriles at 49.1 per cent, and it seems clear that the election battles are nowhere near being resolved. President Maduro has
denounced the protests, the worst since he took power 11 months ago, as "a fascist coup d'etat," and
has been blaming his traditional enemies, Washington and former Colombian president lvaro Uribe,
for stirring things up. For his part, Uribe has called the government crackdown as bad as what is taking
place in Syria. Shuttering the media The government is also cracking down on the media. National
television is not showing many of the disturbances. And the signal from international news network
NTN24, based in Colombia, was shut off national subscription television by direct order of Maduro
himself. He has also taken legal action to boot CNN, one of the few North American outlets in
Venezuela, out the country and restrict its reporting. Two weeks ago, following some of the worst of the
initial violence, Twitter reported that the government was blocking some of the images being tweeted
by its users. The government denied the accusation. Twitter penetration in Venezuela is the fourth-
highest in the world. According to the human rights group Foro Penal Venezolano, 732 people have
been arrested across the country and 33 tortured.

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