1AC - Cap 1NC - DA - Truckers DA - Infrastructure Cap Good 1AR - All 2NR - DA - Infrastructure Cap Good 2AR - Case DA
Apple Valley
4
Opponent: Eden Prairie DT | Judge: Breigh Plat
1AC - Stock 1NC - CP - UBI DA - Inflation DA - Infrastructure 1AR - All 2NR - CP DA - Infrastructure Case 2AR - CP DA Case
Apple Valley
6
Opponent: Lexington AG | Judge: Gordon Krauss
1AC - Heg 1NC - UBI CP DA - Infrastructure Politics Heg Bad 1AR - Condo All 2NR - CP DA Case 2AR - Condo
Contact Information
1
Opponent: na | Judge: na
Contact Information
Glenbrooks
1
Opponent: Lexington AG | Judge: Julian Kuffour
1AC - Heg 1NC - T - Just CP - UBI DA - Reconciliation Heg Bad 1AR - All 2NR - CP DA Case 2AR - All
Glenbrooks
4
Opponent: Dwight-Englewood EK | Judge: Vishan Chaudhary
1AC - Big Tech 1NC - T - Unconditional Theory - Brackets CP - Ban LAW deployment DA - Reconciliation 1AR - All OCI on Brackets 2NR - CP DA OCI Case 2AR - OCIRVI
Glenbrooks
5
Opponent: Eagan AE | Judge: Indu Pandey
1AC - Terrorism 1NC - CP - Advantage vs Terror DA - Reconciliation Case 1AR - All 2NR - Case 2AR - Case
Glenbrooks
7
Opponent: Greenhill KD | Judge: Jacob Nails
1AC - Germany 1NC - Theory - Open Source Disclosure T - a CP - Police DA - Econ Case 1AR - All 2NR - Case 2AR - Case
Grapevine
5
Opponent: Marcus JR | Judge: Grant Brown
1AC - Butler 1NC - NC - Util DA - Infrastructure CP - Advantage vs 1AR - Spec Status All 2NR - All 2AR - Spec Status
Grapevine
4
Opponent: Strake Jesuit NW | Judge: Sreyaash Das
1AC - Pandemics w Tricks 1NC - DA - Infrastructure Case 1AR - Case 2NR - DA Presumption Underview
1AC - COVID Vaccines 1NC - T - Medicines = Plural T - Vaccines CP - Adv vs Vaccines DA - Infrastructure DA - Modi Adventurism Case 1AR - theory - Can't say T ow 1ar theoyr no rvis ci dtd condo all 2NR - theory stuff DA - infrastructure 2AR - cant say t ow 1ar theory no rvis ci dtd condo shell
Greenhill
1
Opponent: Harvard-Westlake OF | Judge: Mauchline, Rachel
1AC - COVID-19 Medicines 1NC - T - Vaccines CP - Advantage vs Vaccines DA - Infrastructure DA - Innovation Case 1AR - Condo All 2NR - CP DA - Infrastructure Case 2AR - Case CP DA
Greenhill
4
Opponent: Peninsula RM | Judge: Adam Torson
1AC - Vaccine Diplomacy 1NC - CP - Orphan Drugs CP - US Theory - Can't read 2 framing mechanisms case 1AR - condo all 2nr - condo infra disad case 2ar - case disad
Greenhill
6
Opponent: Strake Jesuit DL | Judge: Chris Theis
1AC - Kant 1NC - NC - Util v2 CP - US Vaccine Diplomacy DA - Infrastructure v2 Case 1AR - Pandemics Advantage cps must have solvency advocatesCP DA 2nr - all 2ar - cps must have solvency advocates
Greenhill RR
3
Opponent: Harrison AC | Judge: Kumail Zaidi, Holden Bukowsky
1AC - Biocolonialism 1NC - T - Framework Theory - Ev Ethics K - Set Col vs Disidentification 1AR - All 2NR - T - Framework 2AR - Case
Greenhill RR
4
Opponent: Sequoia AS | Judge: Austin Broussard, Gerard Grigsby
1AC - Euphoric TRIPS 1NC - T-Reduce T-Medicine CP - Legalize Cannabis DA - Infrastructure Case 1AR - Condo All 2NR - DA Condo Case 2AR - Case DA
Heart of Texas
1
Opponent: Austin SFA LS | Judge: Joseph Barquin
1AC - Academic Islamophobia Performance 1NC - Theory - Must Disclose Contact Info T - Framework 1AR - T Case 2NR - T Case 2AR - T Case
Heart of Texas
4
Opponent: Southlake Carroll PK | Judge: Annabelle Long
1AC - Jordan 1NC - T - IP for Medicine K - Settlerism v Jordan US-Russia War Good 1AR - All 2NR - T Case 2AR - Case T
Heart of Texas
5
Opponent: Immaculate Heart AW | Judge: Jeannine Lopez
1AC - CRISPR 1NC - T-Medicine CP - Patent Pools DA - Heg DA - Infra DeDev 1AR - All 2NR - CP DA- Infra Case 2AR - Case CP DA
Heart of Texas
Doubles
Opponent: Wenatchee JK | Judge: Chris Castillo, Derek Hilligoss, Annabelle Long
1AC - "Nearly All" Medicines 1NC - Theory - Must Spec Nearly All CP - Patent Pools DA - CRISPR Terror DA - Infrastructure 1AR - All 2NR - CP Infra Case 2AR - Case Terror DA
Heart of Texas
Octas
Opponent: Little Rock Central MG | Judge: JP Stuckert, Kristiana Baez, Dillon Johnson
1AC - Techno-Orientalism 1NC - T - Framework K - Settlerism Theory - Disclosure Case 1AR - All Condo 2NR - Disclosure Condo Case 2AR - Disclosure Case T
Meadows
1
Opponent: Ardsley KK | Judge: Gabriela Gonzalez
1AC - Deleuze 1NC - NC - Util DA - Infrastructure Case 1AR - All 2NR - DA NC Case 2AR - Case NC DA
Meadows
5
Opponent: Lexington CH | Judge: Jada Stinnett
1AC - Vaccine Imperialism 1NC - CP - Patent Pools PIC - US Vaccine Distribution DA - Infrastructure DA - Terror Case 1AR - Case All 2NR - DA - Infrastructure Case 2AR - Case DA
1AC - Insulin 1NC - T - Nebel K - Settlerism CP - UHC DA - Infrastructure Case 1AR - All Condo 2NR - CP DA Condo Case 2AR - Condo
Meadows
4
Opponent: Marlborough WR | Judge: Lena Mizrahi
1AC - COVID 1NC - T - Vaccines PIC - US Vaccine Diplomacy NC - Kant DA - Infrastructure 1AR - All Condo PICs bad 2NR - CP DA Theory stuff case 2AR - Case CP DA
To modify or delete round reports, edit the associated round.
Cites
Entry
Date
0 - Contact Information
Tournament: Contact Information | Round: 1 | Opponent: na | Judge: na Pre-Round:
Tournament: Heart of Texas | Round: 1 | Opponent: Austin SFA LS | Judge: Joseph Barquin Interpretation: the resolution should define the division of affirmative and negative ground. To clarify, the aff must defend a world where the member nations of the World Trade Organization have reduced intellectual property protections for medicine.
Resolved” means to enact by law. Words and Phrases ’64 (Words and Phrases; 1964; Permanent Edition) Definition of the word “resolve,” given by Webster is “to express an opinion or determination by resolution or vote; as ‘it was resolved by the legislature;” It is of similar force to the word “enact,” which is defined by Bouvier as meaning “to establish by law”.
Medicine is a substance used to treat something Merriam webster ND https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/medicineaaditg a substance (such as a drug or potion) used to treat something other than disease WTO is one of three major economic organizations in the world Krueger 2K Anne O. Krueger is a Research Associate in the NBER's Programs on International Trade and Investment and International Finance and Macroeconomics and a professor of economics at Stanford University. “International Economic Organizations, Developing Country Reforms, and Trade” https://web.archive.org/web/20170518033322/http://www.nber.org/reporter/winter00/krueger.html aaditg The three major international economic organizations are the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO emerged out of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1995; it is an arrangement across countries that serves as a forum for negotiations on trading rules as well as a mechanism for dispute settlements in trade issues.(1) By contrast, the World Bank and IMF deal with their member countries one at a time. They have little influence with industrial countries but can affect developing countries during times of economic crisis and when those countries seek additional foreign exchange resources. The origins and evolution of the three organizations are of considerable interest.(2) Perhaps even more important in light of the recent financial crises in Mexico, East Asia, and a few other countries, are the questions that arise about the current and future roles of the IMF and the World Bank. Vote neg: 1 procedural fairness – their interpretation eviscerates predictable limits – all negative strategy is premised off a stable reading of the resolution. The lack of a stable mechanism lets them radically re-contextualize their aff and erase neg ground via perms. Including their advocacy authorizes any methodology or orientation tangentially related to the topic, which renders research burdens untenable. That outweighs and precedes their offense – debate is a game that we’ve all chosen to participate in and requires effective negation. It makes no sense to skew a competitive activity in favor of one side. The frame for evaluating offense is that debate is a game and we’re all here to win – that means procedural questions come first. 2 Movement Building - a Debate over a controversial point of action creates argumentative stasis – that’s key to avoid a devolution of debate into competing truth claims which eviscerates the decision-making potential of debate Steinberg and Freeley, 13 David Director of Debate at U Miami, Former President of CEDA, officer, American Forensic Association and National Communication Association. Lecturer in Communication studies and rhetoric. Advisor to Miami Urban Debate League, Masters in Communication, and Austin, JD, Suffolk University, attorney who focuses on criminal, personal injury and civil rights law, Argumentation and Debate Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making, Thirteen Edition Debate is a means of settling differences, so there must be a difference of opinion or a conflict of interest before there can be a debate. If everyone is in agreement on a tact or value or policy, there is no need for debate: the matter can be settled by unanimous consent. Thus, for example, it would be pointless to attempt to debate "Resolved: That two plus two equals four," because there is simply no controversy about this statement. (Controversy is an essential prerequisite of debate. Where there is no clash of ideas, proposals, interests, or expressed positions on issues, there is no debate. In addition, debate cannot produce effective decisions without clear identification of a question or questions to be answered. For example, general argument may occur about the broad topic of illegal immigration. How many illegal immigrants are in the United States? What is the impact of illegal immigration and immigrants on our economy? What is their impact on our communities? Do they commit crimes? Do they take jobs from American workers? Do they pay taxes? Do they require social services? Is it a problem that some do not speak English? Is it the responsibility of employers to discourage illegal immigration by not hiring undocumented workers? Should they have the opportunity- to gain citizenship? Docs illegal immigration pose a security threat to our country? Do illegal immigrants do work that American workers are unwilling to do? Are their rights as workers and as human beings at risk due to their status? Are they abused by employers, law enforcement, housing, and businesses? I low are their families impacted by their status? What is the moral and philosophical obligation of a nation state to maintain its borders? Should we build a wall on the Mexican border, establish a national identification can!, or enforce existing laws against employers? Should we invite immigrants to become U.S. citizens? Surely you can think of many more concerns to be addressed by a conversation about the topic area of illegal immigration. Participation in this "debate" is likely to be emotional and intense. However, it is not likely to be productive or useful without focus on a particular question and identification of a line demarcating sides in the controversy. To be discussed and resolved effectively, controversies must be stated clearly. Vague understanding results in unfocused deliberation and poor decisions, frustration, and emotional distress, as evidenced by the failure of the United States Congress to make progress on the immigration debate during the summer of 2007.Someone disturbed by the problem of the growing underclass of poorly educated, socially disenfranchised youths might observe, "Public schools are doing a terrible job! They are overcrowded, and many teachers are poorly qualified in their subject areas. Even the best teachers can do little more than struggle to maintain order in their classrooms." That same concerned citizen, facing a complex range of issues, might arrive at an unhelpful decision, such as "We ought to do something about this" or. worse. "It's too complicated a problem to deal with." Groups of concerned citizens worried about the state of public education could join together to express their frustrations, anger, disillusionment, and emotions regarding the schools, but without a focus for their discussions, they could easily agree about the sorry state of education without finding points of clarity or potential solutions. A gripe session would follow. But if a precise question is posed—such as "What can be done to improve public education?"—then a more profitable area of discussion is opened up simply by placing a focus on the search for a concrete solution step. One or more judgments can be phrased in the form of debate propositions, motions for parliamentary debate, or bills for legislative assemblies. The statements "Resolved: That the federal government should implement a program of charter schools in at-risk communities" and "Resolved: That the state of Florida should adopt a school voucher program" more clearly identify specific ways of dealing with educational problems in a manageable form, suitable for debate. They provide specific policies to be investigated and aid discussants in identifying points of difference.To have a productive debate, which facilitates effective decision making by directing and placing limits on the decision to be made, the basis for argument should be clearly defined. If we merely talk about "homelessness" or "abortion" or "crime'* or "global warming" we are likely to have an interesting discussion but not to establish profitable basis for argument. For example, the statement "Resolved: That the pen is mightier than the sword" is debatable, yet fails to provide much basis for clear argumentation. If we take this statement to mean that the written word is more effective than physical force for some purposes, we can identify a problem area: the comparative effectiveness of writing or physical force for a specific purpose. Although we now have a general subject, we have not yet stated a problem. It is still too broad, too loosely worded to promote well-organized argument. What sort of writing are we concerned with—poems, novels, government documents, website development, advertising, or what? What does "effectiveness" mean in this context? What kind of physical force is being compared—fists, dueling swords, bazookas, nuclear weapons, or what? A more specific question might be. "Would a mutual defense treaty or a visit by our fleet be more effective in assuring Liurania of our support in a certain crisis?" The basis for argument could be phrased in a debate proposition such as "Resolved: That the United States should enter into a mutual defense treatv with Laurania." Negative advocates might oppose this proposition by arguing that fleet maneuvers would be a better solution. This is not to say that debates should completely avoid creative interpretation of the controversy by advocates, or that good debates cannot occur over competing interpretations of the controversy; in fact, these sorts of debates may be very engaging. The point is that debate is best facilitated by the guidance provided by focus on a particular point of difference, which will be outlined in the following discussion. TVA – a defend that patents are an Islamophobic extension of western orientalist systems on Southwest Asian countries and that the member nations of the WTO ought to get rid of those patents. c Solvency deficits to the TVA are neg ground – it proves there’s a debate to be had d SSD is good – it forces debaters to consider a controversial issue from multiple perspectives. Non-T affs allow individuals to establish their own metrics for what they want to debate leading to ideological dogmatism. Even if they prove the topic is bad, our argument is that the process of preparing and defending proposals is an educational benefit of engaging it. T first – 1 T indicts your reading of the aff in the first place, so it’s an evaluative mechanism to adjudicating substance of the 1AC. It’s silly nonsensical to leverage the aff against T since it presupposes that the aff is being won. 2 T is a question of jurisdiction- judges don’t have the jurisdiction to vote on a non-topical aff that hasn’t met the burden of proof of the resolution. 3 Topic ed – we only have 2 months to talk about the topic, but we can learn about the K outside of debate
10/16/21
1 - T - Framework vs Settler Dis-identification
Tournament: Greenhill RR | Round: 3 | Opponent: Harrison AC | Judge: Kumail Zaidi, Holden Bukowsky Interpretation: the resolution should define the division of affirmative and negative ground. To clarify, the aff must defend a world where the member nations of the World Trade Organization have reduced intellectual property protections for medicine. Resolved” means to enact by law. Words and Phrases ’64 (Words and Phrases; 1964; Permanent Edition) Definition of the word “resolve,” given by Webster is “to express an opinion or determination by resolution or vote; as ‘it was resolved by the legislature;” It is of similar force to the word “enact,” which is defined by Bouvier as meaning “to establish by law”. Reduce is to diminish Merriam Webster ND https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reduce aaditg to diminish in size, amount, extent, or number
Medicine is a substance used to treat something Merriam webster ND https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/medicineaaditg a substance (such as a drug or potion) used to treat something other than disease WTO is one of three major economic organizations in the world Krueger 2K Anne O. Krueger is a Research Associate in the NBER's Programs on International Trade and Investment and International Finance and Macroeconomics and a professor of economics at Stanford University. “International Economic Organizations, Developing Country Reforms, and Trade” https://web.archive.org/web/20170518033322/http://www.nber.org/reporter/winter00/krueger.html aaditg The three major international economic organizations are the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO emerged out of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1995; it is an arrangement across countries that serves as a forum for negotiations on trading rules as well as a mechanism for dispute settlements in trade issues.(1) By contrast, the World Bank and IMF deal with their member countries one at a time. They have little influence with industrial countries but can affect developing countries during times of economic crisis and when those countries seek additional foreign exchange resources. The origins and evolution of the three organizations are of considerable interest.(2) Perhaps even more important in light of the recent financial crises in Mexico, East Asia, and a few other countries, are the questions that arise about the current and future roles of the IMF and the World Bank.
Standards: 1 procedural fairness – their interpretation eviscerates predictable limits – all negative strategy is premised off a stable reading of the resolution. The lack of a stable mechanism lets them radically re-contextualize their aff and erase neg ground via perms. Including their advocacy authorizes any methodology or orientation tangentially related to the topic, which renders research burdens untenable. That outweighs and precedes their offense – debate is a game that we’ve all chosen to participate in and requires effective negation. It makes no sense to skew a competitive activity in favor of one side. The frame for evaluating offense is that debate is a game and we’re all here to win – that means procedural questions come first. TVA – Plan: The member nations of the World Trade Organization should eliminate patents on medicines based on Indigenous knowledge from patentability. IPW ‘06 Intellectual Property Watch quoting Debra Harry -- executive director of the Indigenous Peoples’ Council on Biocolonialism, and a member of the Paiute tribe in the United States, “Inside Views: Indigenous Groups Tell WIPO, ‘Don’t Patent Our Traditional Knowledge’”, https://www.ip-watch.org/2006/12/06/inside-views-indigenous-groups-tell-wipo-dont-patent-our-traditional-knowledge///pranav - Examples of medicines the plan would affect include reserpine, digitoxin, American ginseng medicines, Qualaquin, Neem, Turmeric, Aspirin, and many others. - The ev cites an actual joint statement from a tribal group - Ev also answers the “what if a company decides to j mass produce” question The joint statement of tribal group says: “Any attempt to develop IPR-based mechanisms to ‘protect’ IK indigenous knowledge actually poses much more threat to our knowledge, as a whole, than it can ever claim to prevent. Rather than protect, the imposition of IPRs over IK actually would serve to facilitate the alienation, misappropriation, and commercialization of IK.” “We believe patent applications that include or are based on IK should be specifically excluded from patentability. In IP terms, we’re sure you understand that these patent claims would fail to meet the test of innovation, novelty or inventiveness. But more importantly for Indigenous peoples, such patent claims should be denied because IK is in the Indigenous domain; that is, it is already under the jurisdiction of Indigenous legal systems, which protect the IK in perpetuity as the inherent and inalienable cultural property of Indigenous peoples. T first – 1 T indicts your reading of the aff in the first place, so it’s an evaluative mechanism to adjudicating substance of the 1AC. It’s silly nonsensical to leverage the aff against T since it presupposes that the aff is being won. 2 T is a question of jurisdiction- judges don’t have the jurisdiction to vote on a non-topical aff that hasn’t met the burden of proof of the resolution. 3 Topic ed – we only have 2 months to talk about the topic, but we can learn about the K outside of debate 4 Extra-topicality – even if the affirmative claims to advocate the resolution, they skirt discussion of its instrumental intent by arguing the benefits derived from their contextualized advocacy outweigh. 5 FX T – conceded violation – independent reason to reject them for limits – infinite possible actions that could lead to the rez which kills predictability and fairness.
9/16/21
1 - T - Framework vs Techno-Orientalism
Tournament: Heart of Texas | Round: Octas | Opponent: Little Rock Central MG | Judge: JP Stuckert, Kristiana Baez, Dillon Johnson Interpretation: the resolution should define the division of affirmative and negative ground. To clarify, the aff must defend a world where the member nations of the World Trade Organization have reduced intellectual property protections for medicine.
Resolved” means to enact by law. Words and Phrases ’64 (Words and Phrases; 1964; Permanent Edition) Definition of the word “resolve,” given by Webster is “to express an opinion or determination by resolution or vote; as ‘it was resolved by the legislature;” It is of similar force to the word “enact,” which is defined by Bouvier as meaning “to establish by law”. WTO is one of three major economic organizations in the world Krueger 2K Anne O. Krueger is a Research Associate in the NBER's Programs on International Trade and Investment and International Finance and Macroeconomics and a professor of economics at Stanford University. “International Economic Organizations, Developing Country Reforms, and Trade” https://web.archive.org/web/20170518033322/http://www.nber.org/reporter/winter00/krueger.html aaditg The three major international economic organizations are the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO emerged out of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1995; it is an arrangement across countries that serves as a forum for negotiations on trading rules as well as a mechanism for dispute settlements in trade issues.(1) By contrast, the World Bank and IMF deal with their member countries one at a time. They have little influence with industrial countries but can affect developing countries during times of economic crisis and when those countries seek additional foreign exchange resources. The origins and evolution of the three organizations are of considerable interest.(2) Perhaps even more important in light of the recent financial crises in Mexico, East Asia, and a few other countries, are the questions that arise about the current and future roles of the IMF and the World Bank. Medicine is a substance used for diagnosis, treatment, mitigation, or prevention of medical condition Hettiarachchi and Wijesinge 21, Charith, and Sanath WijesingheCharith Amidha Hettiarachchi* Visiting Scholar, Department of Public Health, Faculty of Heath, University of Technology Sydney, Australia and Post-Doctoral Scholar, Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka. PhD Researcher, Faculty of Law, school of Law, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia and Lecturer in Law, Department of Legal Studies, The Open University of Sri Lanka. “Food-Medicine Interface and Its Application in International Level, Comparative Jurisdictions and Sri Lankan Legal Context.” World Nutrition 12 (March 31, 2021): 103–11. https://doi.org/10.26596/wn.2021121103-111.//anop The definition of medicine stipulated in Therapeutic Goods Act of 1989 of New South Wales, Australia (Federal Register of Legislation, 2020) and the Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1940 of India and the Medicines Act of 1968 of United Kingdom (Legislation.Gov.UK, 2020) provides a similar meaning to that of the definition embodied in National Medicines Regulatory Authority Act of 2015 of Sri Lanka, irrespective of the different terminology used in those legislations. According to the National Medicines Regulatory Authority Act of 2015 of Sri Lanka, medicine includes ‘any substance or mixture of substances manufactured, sold, offered for sale or represented for use in the diagnosis, treatment, mitigation or prevention of disease, abnormal physical states or the symptoms thereof in man or animal; and restoring, correcting or modifying functions of organs in man or animal; a medicine or combination of medicine ready for use and placed on the market under a special name or in a characteristic form, both patent and non-proprietary preparations; a product made out of medicinal herbal extract; nutraceutical with therapeutic claims; and vaccines and sera, but does not include an Ayurvedic medicine or Homoeopathic medicine’ (Government Publication Bureau, 2015). Therefore, medicine is simply identified as a substance that used for diagnosis, treatment, mitigation or prevention of a medical condition. The Sri Lankan definition of medicine excludes Ayurveda medicines from its scope. Hence, Ayurveda medicines do not come under the purview of National Medicines Regulatory Authority Act of 2015 and but fall in the scope of Ayurveda Act of 1961. Vote Neg: 1 predictable limits – all negative strategy is premised off a stable reading of the resolution. The lack of a stable mechanism lets them radically re-contextualize their aff and erase neg ground via perms. Including their advocacy authorizes any methodology or orientation tangentially related to the topic, which renders research burdens untenable. That outweighs and precedes their offense – debate is a game that we’ve all chosen to participate in and requires effective negation. It makes no sense to skew a competitive activity in favor of one side. The frame for evaluating offense is that debate is a game and we’re all here to win – that means procedural questions come first. 2 Movement Building - a Debate over a controversial point of action creates argumentative stasis – that’s key to avoid a devolution of debate into competing truth claims which eviscerates the decision-making potential of debate Steinberg and Freeley, 13 David Director of Debate at U Miami, Former President of CEDA, officer, American Forensic Association and National Communication Association. Lecturer in Communication studies and rhetoric. Advisor to Miami Urban Debate League, Masters in Communication, and Austin, JD, Suffolk University, attorney who focuses on criminal, personal injury and civil rights law, Argumentation and Debate Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making, Thirteen Edition Debate is a means of settling differences, so there must be a difference of opinion or a conflict of interest before there can be a debate. If everyone is in agreement on a tact or value or policy, there is no need for debate: the matter can be settled by unanimous consent. Thus, for example, it would be pointless to attempt to debate "Resolved: That two plus two equals four," because there is simply no controversy about this statement. (Controversy is an essential prerequisite of debate. Where there is no clash of ideas, proposals, interests, or expressed positions on issues, there is no debate. In addition, debate cannot produce effective decisions without clear identification of a question or questions to be answered. For example, general argument may occur about the broad topic of illegal immigration. How many illegal immigrants are in the United States? What is the impact of illegal immigration and immigrants on our economy? What is their impact on our communities? Do they commit crimes? Do they take jobs from American workers? Do they pay taxes? Do they require social services? Is it a problem that some do not speak English? Is it the responsibility of employers to discourage illegal immigration by not hiring undocumented workers? Should they have the opportunity- to gain citizenship? Docs illegal immigration pose a security threat to our country? Do illegal immigrants do work that American workers are unwilling to do? Are their rights as workers and as human beings at risk due to their status? Are they abused by employers, law enforcement, housing, and businesses? I low are their families impacted by their status? What is the moral and philosophical obligation of a nation state to maintain its borders? Should we build a wall on the Mexican border, establish a national identification can!, or enforce existing laws against employers? Should we invite immigrants to become U.S. citizens? Surely you can think of many more concerns to be addressed by a conversation about the topic area of illegal immigration. Participation in this "debate" is likely to be emotional and intense. However, it is not likely to be productive or useful without focus on a particular question and identification of a line demarcating sides in the controversy. To be discussed and resolved effectively, controversies must be stated clearly. Vague understanding results in unfocused deliberation and poor decisions, frustration, and emotional distress, as evidenced by the failure of the United States Congress to make progress on the immigration debate during the summer of 2007.Someone disturbed by the problem of the growing underclass of poorly educated, socially disenfranchised youths might observe, "Public schools are doing a terrible job! They are overcrowded, and many teachers are poorly qualified in their subject areas. Even the best teachers can do little more than struggle to maintain order in their classrooms." That same concerned citizen, facing a complex range of issues, might arrive at an unhelpful decision, such as "We ought to do something about this" or. worse. "It's too complicated a problem to deal with." Groups of concerned citizens worried about the state of public education could join together to express their frustrations, anger, disillusionment, and emotions regarding the schools, but without a focus for their discussions, they could easily agree about the sorry state of education without finding points of clarity or potential solutions. A gripe session would follow. But if a precise question is posed—such as "What can be done to improve public education?"—then a more profitable area of discussion is opened up simply by placing a focus on the search for a concrete solution step. One or more judgments can be phrased in the form of debate propositions, motions for parliamentary debate, or bills for legislative assemblies. The statements "Resolved: That the federal government should implement a program of charter schools in at-risk communities" and "Resolved: That the state of Florida should adopt a school voucher program" more clearly identify specific ways of dealing with educational problems in a manageable form, suitable for debate. They provide specific policies to be investigated and aid discussants in identifying points of difference.To have a productive debate, which facilitates effective decision making by directing and placing limits on the decision to be made, the basis for argument should be clearly defined. If we merely talk about "homelessness" or "abortion" or "crime'* or "global warming" we are likely to have an interesting discussion but not to establish profitable basis for argument. For example, the statement "Resolved: That the pen is mightier than the sword" is debatable, yet fails to provide much basis for clear argumentation. If we take this statement to mean that the written word is more effective than physical force for some purposes, we can identify a problem area: the comparative effectiveness of writing or physical force for a specific purpose. Although we now have a general subject, we have not yet stated a problem. It is still too broad, too loosely worded to promote well-organized argument. What sort of writing are we concerned with—poems, novels, government documents, website development, advertising, or what? What does "effectiveness" mean in this context? What kind of physical force is being compared—fists, dueling swords, bazookas, nuclear weapons, or what? A more specific question might be. "Would a mutual defense treaty or a visit by our fleet be more effective in assuring Liurania of our support in a certain crisis?" The basis for argument could be phrased in a debate proposition such as "Resolved: That the United States should enter into a mutual defense treatv with Laurania." Negative advocates might oppose this proposition by arguing that fleet maneuvers would be a better solution. This is not to say that debates should completely avoid creative interpretation of the controversy by advocates, or that good debates cannot occur over competing interpretations of the controversy; in fact, these sorts of debates may be very engaging. The point is that debate is best facilitated by the guidance provided by focus on a particular point of difference, which will be outlined in the following discussion.
TVA – a The Vaccine Distribution – you can read an advantage about how IPR in the context of vaccines is used to justify threat construction around China because US pharma companies don’t want to give their secrets for producing vaccines to China in the fear of what they would do w it which is the techno orientalism they talk abt in the 1AC b Read a bio-orientalism aff – analyze the way in which patents are leveraged as an imperial tool to maintain biopolitical control over Asian bodies and defend the elimination of patents. c Solvency deficits to the TVA are neg ground – it proves there’s a debate to be had d SSD is good – it forces debaters to consider a controversial issue from multiple perspectives. Non-T affs allow individuals to establish their own metrics for what they want to debate leading to ideological dogmatism. Even if they prove the topic is bad, our argument is that the process of preparing and defending proposals is an educational benefit of engaging it. This takes out 1AC framing 3 – you can critically engage w the rez as the aff, you j have to defend the topic – we havent’ forced you to defend it in a certain way which solves.
T first – 1 T indicts your reading of the aff in the first place, so it’s an evaluative mechanism to adjudicating substance of the 1AC. It’s silly nonsensical to leverage the aff against T since it presupposes that the aff is being won. 2 T is a question of jurisdiction- judges don’t have the jurisdiction to vote on a non-topical aff that hasn’t met the burden of proof of the resolution. 3 Topic ed – we only have 2 months to talk about the topic, but we can learn about the K outside of debate 4 Extra-topicality – even if the affirmative claims to advocate the resolution, they skirt discussion of its instrumental intent by arguing the benefits derived from their contextualized advocacy outweigh. Drop the Debater – deters future abuse Competing Interpretations - 1 Reasonability causes a race to the bottom because debaters keep being barely reasonable 2 reasonability collapses bc we debate ab the specified briteline anyway
10/18/21
1 - Theory - Brackets
Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 4 | Opponent: Dwight-Englewood EK | Judge: Vishan Chaudhary Interp: Debater may not modify their evidence. To clarify, debaters may not strikethrough or delete words or characters, replace words with bracketed synonyms, bracket in words for grammatical reasons, edit their evidence for any other reason.
Violation: The NLRB ev is bracketed
Standards: 1 Academic integrity – modifying authors changes argument perception because it forecloses the possibility of authors to represent their own words, killing validity. That outweighs - Your role as an educator mandates that you enforce academic rules – just as a teacher would fail a paper that plagiarized, you should not vote for someone who used altered evidence. Academic rules are A) key to enforcing a norm of honesty instead of lying – this fosters a respectful and fair academic community B) Debate is an academic activity – academic honesty is a rule in every other academic area, so the same standards apply. 2 Ethical irresponsibility - If it is true that these authors have such problematic discourse, you should not be read these authors. Reading the evidence is still an endorsement that the author’s mindset is a cogent explanation of the world, but the author’s mindset are part of their worldview and permeate the advocacy of the affirmative – turns case. c/a paradigm issues
11/21/21
1 - Theory - Cant read 2 frameworks
Tournament: Greenhill | Round: 4 | Opponent: Peninsula RM | Judge: Adam Torson Interpretation – the affirmative debater may not read two mechanisms to evaluate offense in the 1AC. To clarify, you cant read a role of the ballot and a framework Violation – they defend util and a rob Pre round prep – it becomes atrocious when you don’t know if your offense will function under their framing which kills argument innovation against their affirmative – cx is too late to check bc pre-round prep is when the majority of 1nc strategic thinking is done. Shiftiness – a 2-1 skew in framing lets them to just reclarify whats offense or not under their framing till the 1AR which means they can de link all negative offense cuz its not part of their offense
Paradigm Issues: Drop the debater – they have a 7-6 rebuttal advantage and the 2ar to make args I can’t respond to, Use competing interps reasonability invites arbitrary judge intervention since we don’t know your bs meter, No RVIs –illogical – you shouldn’t win for being fair – it’s a litmus test for engaging in substance, Evaluate T before 1AR theory – norms – we only have a couple months to set T norms but can set 1AR theory norms anytime,
9/18/21
1 - Theory - Ev Ethics Paragraph Skipping
Tournament: Greenhill RR | Round: 3 | Opponent: Harrison AC | Judge: Kumail Zaidi, Holden Bukowsky Interp: debaters may not skip paragraphs or portions of literature in one piece of evidence and write “they add”. Violation – vats 1 does. Standards – academic integrity – ncentivizes debaters to ignore parts of ev that contradicts what’s cut which is a terrible norm – this is an independent reason to reject them and is the heighest layer – ethics violations frame how debater ought to operate. Education comes first – only terminal impact from debate. Dtd – k2 setting good norms Ci – reasonability causes a race to the bottom where debaters keep being marginally abusive and incentivizes judge intervention No rvi or cross application of case – 1 testing – indicts starting point – illogical u should be able to leverage it 2 logic – u don’t win for proving that ur evidence isn’t cheating – that should be a starting point
9/16/21
1 - Theory - Must Disclose Contact Info
Tournament: Heart of Texas | Round: 1 | Opponent: Austin SFA LS | Judge: Joseph Barquin Interp: all debaters competing at toc-bid distributing tournaments must disclose their contact information on the wiki.
Violation: screenshot proves they don’t have a school on the wiki, so there’s no way to contact them.
Standards: 1 pre-round prep – it’s impossible to construct an effective 1nc if I don’t know what the aff is beforehand – made even harder when I can’t even ask you questions about it – that’s an internal link to clash – independentl o/w bc they’re not even defending the topic– causes poor 1nc engagement which kills education and fairness. 2 no impact turns – I have not mandated that you disclose your arguments – I should be able to contact you before the round – you’ve signed up for a tournament where being able to use the wiki si the norm and you should abide by it Voter for edu – only terminal impact – voter for fairness – only thing in judges’ jurisdiction bc debate is a game
Ci: rtb – keep being marginally abusive, collapses – debate ab briteline Dtd – set a precedent – empirically proven on disclosure arguments No rvis – they’re silly and illogical
10/16/21
1 - Theory - Open Source Disclosure
Tournament: Heart of Texas | Round: Octas | Opponent: Little Rock Central MG | Judge: JP Stuckert, Kristiana Baez, Dillon Johnson Interpretation: Debaters must post links to all previous constructive speech docs read at the tournament at least 30 minutes prior to the round. To clarify, this means you must include all analytics, full text, underlining, and highlighting of all cards as read in round. Violation – Standards – 1 Debate resource inequities—you’ll say people will steal framework justifications or cards, but that’s good—it’s the only way to truly level the playing field for students such as novices in under-privileged programs. Antonucci 5 Michael (Debate coach for Georgetown; former coach for Lexington High School); “eDebate open source? resp to Morris”; December 8; http://www.ndtceda.com/pipermail/edebate/2005-December/064806.htmlnick a. Open source systems are preferable to the various punishment proposals in circulation. It's better to share the wealth than limit production or participation. Various flavors of argument communism appeal to different people, but banning interesting or useful research(ers) seems like the most destructive solution possible. Indeed, open systems may be the only structural, rule-based answer to resource inequities. Every other proposal I've seen obviously fails at the level of enforcement. Revenue sharing (illegal), salary caps (unenforceable and possibly illegal) and personnel restrictions (circumvented faster than you can say 'information is fungible') don't work. This would - for better or worse. b. With the help of a middling competent archivist, an open source system would reduce entry barriers. This is especially true on the novice or JV level. Young teams could plausibly subsist entirely on a diet of scavenged arguments. A novice team might not wish to do so, but the option can't hurt. c. An open source system would fundamentally change the evidence economy without targetting anyone or putting anyone out of a job. It seems much smarter (and less bilious) to change the value of a professional card-cutter's work than send the KGB after specific counter-revolutionary teams. 2 leads to higher quality engagement b/c I know exactly what the neg says which internal link turns the aff b/c it leads to net better discussion. This is especially true given that you did not disclose the offense of the NC—no way I can engage with it or contest it. 3 Evidence ethics – open sour4ce is the only way to verify before round that cards aren’t miscut – full text doesn’t solve since you could have highlighted unethically. That’s a voter – maintaining ethical ev practices is key to being good academics and we should be able to verify you didn’t miscut ev.
10/18/21
1 - Theory - Open Source v2
Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 7 | Opponent: Greenhill KD | Judge: Jacob Nails Interpretation: Debaters must post links to all previous constructive speech docs read at the tournament at least 30 minutes prior to the round on the 2021-2022 NDCA HSLD Wiki. To clarify, this means you must include all analytics, full text, underlining, and highlighting of all cards as read in round. Violation – Screenshots prove they haven’t disclosed anything from this tournament, but I have.
Standards – 1 Debate resource inequities—you’ll say people will steal framework justifications or cards, but that’s good—it’s the only way to truly level the playing field for students such as novices in under-privileged programs. Antonucci 5 Michael (Debate coach for Georgetown; former coach for Lexington High School); “eDebate open source? resp to Morris”; December 8; http://www.ndtceda.com/pipermail/edebate/2005-December/064806.htmlnick a. Open source systems are preferable to the various punishment proposals in circulation. It's better to share the wealth than limit production or participation. Various flavors of argument communism appeal to different people, but banning interesting or useful research(ers) seems like the most destructive solution possible. Indeed, open systems may be the only structural, rule-based answer to resource inequities. Every other proposal I've seen obviously fails at the level of enforcement. Revenue sharing (illegal), salary caps (unenforceable and possibly illegal) and personnel restrictions (circumvented faster than you can say 'information is fungible') don't work. This would - for better or worse. b. With the help of a middling competent archivist, an open source system would reduce entry barriers. This is especially true on the novice or JV level. Young teams could plausibly subsist entirely on a diet of scavenged arguments. A novice team might not wish to do so, but the option can't hurt. c. An open source system would fundamentally change the evidence economy without targetting anyone or putting anyone out of a job. It seems much smarter (and less bilious) to change the value of a professional card-cutter's work than send the KGB after specific counter-revolutionary teams. 2 leads to higher quality engagement b/c I know exactly what the neg says which internal link turns the aff b/c it leads to net better discussion. This is especially true given that you did not disclose the offense of the NC—no way I can engage with it or contest it. 3 Evidence ethics – open source is the only way to verify before round that cards aren’t miscut – full text doesn’t solve since you could have highlighted unethically. That’s a voter – maintaining ethical ev practices is key to being good academics and we should be able to verify you didn’t cheat
Voters – education - only terminal impact from debate – fairness – constitutive of the judge to decide the better debater Drop the debater
Doesn’t make sense because you were abusive out of round. 2. Sets a precedent that debaters cant run unfair arguments because they will be scared to lose. Competing interps
Reasonability causes a race to the bottom because debaters keep being barely reasonable, magnifying abuse. 2. Critical thinking –competing interps promotes in depth argumentation on theory which increases quality of clash. No RVIs
RVIs center the debate on theory instead of substance because it’s the only place the round can be decided. Outweighs on time frame; we only get two months to talk about the topic and on research - where the majority of debate education occurs 2. RVIs discourage checking abuse because debaters will be afraid to lose on theory
11/21/21
2 - K - Settlerism vs Dis-identification
Tournament: Greenhill RR | Round: 3 | Opponent: Harrison AC | Judge: Kumail Zaidi, Holden Bukowsky The 1AC is invested in a death drive to perfection that inevitably comes out of the gratuitous violence of Indigenous people. The state operates through a drive of eradicating the otherness of the other, which is constitutive of Native genocide. Young 17 (Bryanne Huston, Doctoral Student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill "Killing the Indian in the Child: Materialities of Death and Political Formations of Life in the Canadian Indian Residential School System," pp. 48-55) NIJrecut anop Whiteness, the Child, and the Logics of Futurity Against the politicized topographies and temporalities of indigeneity and race, I now move into a consideration of the contributions of psychoanalytic theory to the questions of politics and time presented thus far. The kinds of questions psychoanalysis is interested in asking, the registers upon which it performs analysis, and its unique emphasis on temporality, language, and difference provide an excellent conceptual apparatus through which we might begin to trouble/problematize stable, taken-for-granted oppositions between psychic and social, personal and political, self and other. Freud’s interest in time is evident in his work on the uncanny, and in his inaugural work on what we might now call trauma studies and conditions we now call post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For Freud, this theory of hysteria introduces a provocative temporality in which traumatic events reoccur, flashing up in perfect replication of themselves, as though happening again and again. In his diagnosis of so-called shell-shocked soldiers returning from World War I, Freud was keenly aware that time did not always progress along an even plane. Though Freud’s analysis of trauma is captivating and critically rich, it is not within my purview here to take on the full extent of this scholarship. Instead, what is most salient to my analysis are the capacities of psychoanalytic theory to move critique outside and beyond prevailing notions of time and narratives of progress that only mean moving forward. This chapter writes from a stance that views it as imperative that scholarship reaches beyond, and thinks outside, the paradigms that invented it. Psychoanalytic theory, with its idiosyncratic temporal logics—particularly in conjunction with Foucauldian theory—offers a productive and robust way to critique the continuing primacy of normative disciplines whose chronologics have historically warranted a politics that kills in the name of life. Such an approach allows us to hold in productive tension any definition of “the political” as stable and finite, with—as in the case of liberal political philosophy—the legally constructed “person” as its primary epistemological unit. This conceptual capacity of psychoanalysis, in turn, allows us to politicize a form of life and modality of corporeal personhood hitherto constructed as what, in Bataillean parlance, we might call colonialism’s accursed share—colonialism’s pure waste. Additionally, psychoanalytic notions of the death drive, whose proper movement is explicitly circular, allows us to begin to locate the child within logics of futurity, onto which is laminated a kind of indelible whiteness. For the purpose of my analysis I engage Lacanian psychoanalysis, limiting myself to a consideration of the structure of the drives and to a Lacanian conceptualization of language, and its role in the formation of self and the suturing of the psyche to sociality. Freud, as Teresa De Lauretis (2008) emphasizes, elaborated the death drive between the First and Second World Wars, in a Europe living “under the shadow of death and the threat of biological and cultural genocide” (1). Situating her analysis of the death drive in the contemporary moment, De Lauretis points to this contextual, historical darkening, writing: “I wonder whether our epistemologies can sustain the impact of the real … If I return to Freud’s notion of an unconscious death drive, it is because it conveys the sense and the force of something in human reality that resists discursive articulation as well as political diplomacy, an otherness that haunts the dream of a common world” (9). Using psychoanalysis as reading practice, Freud’s suspicion that human life, both individual and social, is compromised from the beginning by something that undermines it, works against it, is (darkly?) generative. The death drive indicates a tension bordering psychic and libidinal relations, which marks Freud’s radical break with Cartesian rationality and points to a negativity that counteracts the optimistic affirmations of human perfectability. This dimension of radical negativity cannot be reduced to an expression of alienated social conditions, nor is it entirely something the body does on its own. Theorized as the destruction drive, the antagonism drive, or sometimes, simply “the drive,” it is impossible to escape. In psychoanalytic theory, therefore, particularly in the clinical setting, the objective is not to overcome the drive, but rather to come to terms with it, in what Slovenian Lacanian psychoanalytic theorist Slavoj Žižek (1989) calls “its terrifying dimension” (4). It is a fundamental axiom of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory that attempts to abolish the drive antagonism are precisely the source of totalitarian temptation. Žižek writes: “The greatest mass murders and holocausts have always been perpetrated in the name of man as harmonious being, of a New Man without antagonistic tension” (5). So it is that one of Canada’s greatest atrocities— the genocide of its First Peoples—took place in the name of Canada itself, that sought progress and unification as a single body politic with claims on a shared futurity. The fulfillment of this destiny relied upon the negation of the other, the bad race, the dangerous race, the race that stood outside the purview of the norm and had no share in its time-zone, the ones called to live in the between space—as nobody. As the relatively more benign civilization policies failed to convert Aboriginal forms of life into separate but civilized, Christian communities on reserves, the federal government intensified its tactics. Policies became more aggressive. As these more aggressive policies (such as enfranchisement) also failed, the federal government intensified its tactics once again, escalating the stakes and the strategies towards the horizon of assimilation. This ‘doubling down’ in the face of failure is a primary trace effect of the death drive, and indeed, it is not unreasonable to argue that the federal government Indian policy has, since confederation, been death driven. Because the aim of fully eradicating the otherness of the other can only fail—in Freudian parlance, it cannot be mastered—the trajectory of the aiming turns in a circularity, orbiting around that which can never be had: perfection. Caught in death drive circularity, the aiming towards the objective (i.e. a unified body politic) authorizes, and indeed recruits, escalating violence in the interest of—finally—closing the open. For Žižek, this compulsive ‘doubling-down’ in the face of failure to arrive at the impossible horizon of perfection tips towards totalitarian temptation, which, he tells us, is implicated in the drive to unify a singular body politic, a new man without antagonistic tension. The drive aims for the return to a moment of unity before the intrusion of language and the entrance of the subject into what Lacan calls the Symbolic—the universe of symbols in which all human subjects share. Because this economy of signifiers operates through a modality of difference by association, on the premise that language does not reflect or carry within it universal a priori meaning, spirit, or Truth, signifiers are always and already sliding along a chain of signification that is never truly fixed. Rather, for Lacan, meaning is constructed through quilting points, durable concepts that affix ideas to their signifiers and which, in their durability, structure entire fields of meaning. For Lacan, subjects are formed by their entrance into this system of sliding difference from a pre-linguistic state retroactively constructed through nostalgic affective associations with unity, perfection, and completion. The loss or lack occurs in the imaginary, the order of presence and absence, and is formalized in the symbolic. This is experienced by the subject as a loss of that to which she/he can never again return, but for which she/he perpetually yearns, and toward which she/he perpetually moves. The circularity of movement toward this impossible horizon is precisely the movement of the drive. It is my argument that the concept of “the Indian” is a quilting point through which the field of politics in Canada is sutured into signification, a durable concept that organizes the meaning of nation, citizen, sovereignty, and subjecthood. Further, the hypoxic vision of national unity and a harmonious white(ned) citizenry is a movement propelled by the drive, a circularity impelled by the belief that what is lacking in the present can be made good in the future—an imaginary that activates/harnesses a kind of libidinal energy that is, by its very nature, inexhaustible. It matters, in the instance of the Canadian Indian Residential Schools and their mandate, that before child subjects enter into the structuration of language/the Symbolic, their bodies are already marked as disprized, abject, inscribed into the signification for, and, I argue, as, loss itself. As I have argued above, reading through psychoanalytic theory facilitates a conceptualization of subject-formation that includes the role of signification in the contouring of subject/ivities. This analytic rubric is importantly brought to bear in my analysis of “the child” the Canadian Indian Residential School System announces into presence: a child fundamentally and constitutively tied to a death whose temporal structure is always deferred, always impartial, always unfolding, and yet always still to be. Indeed, even in circumstances in which her/his mode of being in the world is not a deliberate practice of making- spectral, “the child” remains a notoriously ambivalent, slippery signifier. This plasticity—differently stated, this over-abundant availability of “the child” as concept—takes on an interesting significance within political thought, functioning not as that which is politicized, but as the signifier in whose name the political mobilizes itself. In this way, the child functions as the absolute outside to political thought and the logics of its temporality, functioning instead to condition its possibilities and organize, from beyond its borders, its spatial and temporal limits. An example of this conceptualization of the child as signifier—and certainly one of the more provocative articulations of this phenomena in the contemporary neoliberal moment—is the polemic Lee develops in his monograph No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. For Edelman, the Child—in its conflation with the kind of futurity toward which the teleology of (neo)liberal discourse is mobilized—is not simply important to contemporary politics, but is that which “serves to regulate political discourse itself” (ii). Indeed, as Edelman points out, “the figural Child alone embodies the citizen as ideal, entitled to claim full rights to its future share in the nation’s good, though always at the cost of limiting the rights ‘real’ citizens are allowed. For the social exists to preserve for this universalized subject, this fantasmatic Child, a national freedom more highly valued than the actuality of freedom itself” (ii). In Edelman’s polemic, it goes without saying that the figural child is a white child and that children of colour, children of mixed heritage, Indian children—within the Ideological State Apparatus of the Indian Residential Schools—far from carrying the over-abundant significance Edelman so adeptly parses, signify on only the most spectral of registers. This child, I argue, as a kind of spectral(ized) partial subject, instantiates a subjectivity simultaneously over-exposed to the political and over-determined by the word of the law, while barely accorded even the status of bare life. This is a subject that is hailed into a circularity of misrecognition in a relationship with death that is virtually inescapable. This relationship with death is the suture that connects this subject to the social. Edelman’s argument does not address racialized formations of self-hood, but is no less relevant to the argument I seek to develop here. Indeed, it is perhaps all the keener in what it omits—which is the child of color. This omission points to the level of signification and the way in which the whitened child is effortlessly lifted from the problematically raced body—the body whose racialized status is found problematic. This fantasy of purification through signification speaks, in ways that are eloquent and disturbing in equal measure, precisely the fantasy of the Canadian Indian Residential School System: that the body of the Indian could be left behind in a transcendent movement away from the vexatious quagmire posed by the Indian body toward the realm of what Kantian philosophy calls pure spirit, the realm of whiteness, purity, and hypoxic visions of what Edelman calls, “a national freedom more highly valued than the actuality of freedom itself” (ii). This fantasy of corporeal abandonment points to the latent desire of Western philosophical thought that seeks, through the disavowal of bodily finitude and a fetishization of the logos, access to purity of form, a fantasy that relegates, leaves trapped, the sometimes racialized, sometimes feminized other, mired in flesh and finitude from which it is allowed no escape. The Indigenous person, we remember from Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, is imagined as always already outside the teleology of history, already extinct. This way of understanding difference, through the rubric of historical progress, remains central to liberal and neoliberal political thought, economic practices, and policies in the current moment. Prising the child away from the Indian, meanwhile, continues to have important implications in the way we imagine colonial forms, not only of life, but also of death. Their strategy of disidentification is codeword for whiteness – it’s the lexicon of settler colonial violence Grande 2K (Sandy, Associate Professor of Education at UConnecticut, “American Indian geographies of identity and power: At the crossroads of indigena and mestizaje,” Harvard Education Review, Issue Number, No. 4, pp. 492-493)vikas Discussion The forces of identity appropriation, cultural encroachment, and corporate commodification pressure American Indian communities to employ essetialist tactics and construct relatively fixed notions of identity, and to render the concepts of fluidity and transgression highly problematic. It is evident from the examples above that the notion of fluid boundaries has never worked to the advantage of Indigenous peoples: federal agencies have invoked the language of fluid or unstable identities as the rationale for disman-tling the structures of tribal life and creating greater dependency on the U.S. government; Whitestream America has seized its message to declare open season on Indians, thereby appropriating Native lands, culture, spiritual practices. history, and literature; and Whitestream academics have now eployed the language of postmodern fluidity to unwittingly transmute centu-ries of war between Indigenous peoples and their respective nation-states into a "genetic and cultural dialogue" (Valle andTorres, 1995, p. 141). Thus, in spite of its aspirations to social justice, the notion of a new cultural democracy based on the ideal of mestizaje represents a rather ominous threat to American Indian communities. In addition, the undercurrent of fluidity and sense of displacedness that permeates, if not defines, mestizaje runs contrary to American Indian sensibilities of connection to place, land, and the Earth itself. Consider, for exam-ple, the following statement on the nature of critical subjectivity by Peter Mc-Laren: The struggle for critical subjectivity is the struggle to occupy a space of hope — a liminal space, an intimation of the anti-structure, of what lives in the in-between zone of undecidedability — in which one can work toward a praxis of redemption.... A sense of atopy has always been with me, a resplendent placelessness, a feeling of living in germinal formlessness.... I cannot find words to express what this border identity means to me. All I have are what Georgres Bastille (1988) calls mots glissants (slippery words). (1997, pp. 18-14) McLaren speaks passionately and directly about the crisis of modern society and the need for a "praxis of redemption." As he perceives it, the very possibility of redemption is situated in our willingness not only to accept but to flourish in the "liminal" spaces, border identities, and postcolonial hybridities that are inherent in postmodern life and subjectivity. In fact, McLaren perceives the fostering of a "resplendent placelessness" itself as the gateway to a more just, democratic society. While American Indian intellectuals also seek to embrace the notion of transcendent subjectivities, they seek a notion of transcendence that remains rooted in historical place and the sacred connection to land. Consider, for example, the following commentary by Deloria (1992) on the centrality of place and land in the construction of American Indian subjectivity: Recognizing the sacredness of lands on which previous generations have lived and died is the foundation of all other sentiment. Instead of denying this di-mension of our emotional lives, we should be setting aside additional places that have transcendent meaning. Sacred sites that higher spiritual powers have chosen for manifestation enable us to focus our concerns on the specific form of our lives.... Sacred places are the foundation of all other beliefs and prac-tices because they represent the presence of the sacred in our lives. They prop-erly inform us that we arc not larger than nature and that we have responsibili-ties to the rest of the natural world that transcend our own personal desires and wishes. This lesson must be learned by each generation. (pp. 278, 281) Gross misunderstanding of this connection between American Indian subjectivity and land, and, more importantly, between sovereignty and land has been the source of numerous injustices in Indian country. For instance, I be-lieve there was little understanding on the part of government officials that passage of the Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978) would open a Pandora's box of discord over land, setting up an intractable conflict between property rights and religious freedom. American Indians, on the other hand, viewed the act as a invitation to return to their sacred sites, several of which were on government lands and were being damaged by commercial use. As a result, a flurry of lawsuits alleging mismanagement and destruction of sacred sites was filed by numerous tribes. Similarly, corporations, tourists, and even rock climbers filed suits accusing land managers of unlawfully restricting access CO public places by implementing policies that violate the constitutional separation between church and state. All of this is to point out that the critical pro-ject of mestizaje continues to operate on the same assumption made by the U.S. government in this instance, that in a democratic society, human subjec-tivity — and liberation for that matter — is conceived of as inherently rights-based as opposed to land-based. To be fair, I believe that both American Indian intellectuals and critical theorists share a similar vision — a time, place. and space free of the compulsions of Whitestream, global capitalism and the racism, sexism, classism, and xenophobia it engenders. But where critical scholars ground their vision in Western conceptions of democracy and justice that presume a "liberated" self. American Indian intellectuals ground their vision in conceptions of sov-ereignty that presume a sacred connection to place and land. Thus, to a large degree, the seemingly liberatory constructs of fluidity, mobility, and trangression are perceived not only as the language of critical subjectivity, but also as part of the fundamental lexicon of Western imperialism. Deloria (1999) writes: Although the loss of land must be seen as a political and economic disaster of the first magnitude, the real exile of the tribes occurred with the d6struction of ceremonial life (associated with the loss of land) and the failure or inability of white society to offer a sensible and cohesive alternative to the traditions which Indians remembered. People became disoriented with respect to the world in which they lived. They could not practice their old ways, and the new ways which they were expected to learn were in a constant state of change because they were not a cohesive view of the world but simply adjustments which whites were making to the technology they had invented. (p. 247). In summary, insofar as American Indian identities continue to be defined and shaped in interdependence with place, the transgressive mestizaje functions as a potentially homogenizing force that presumes the continued exile of tribal peoples and their enduring absorption into the American "democratic" Whitestream. The notion of mestizaje as absorption is particularly problematic for the Indigenous peoples of Central and South America, where the myth of the mestizaje (belief that the continent's original cultures and inhabitants no longer exist) has been used for centuries to force the in-tegration of Indigenous communities into the national mestizo model (Van Cott, 1994). According to Rodolfo Stavenhagen (1992), the myth of mestiza-je has provided the ideological pretext for numerous South American gov-ernmental laws and policies expressly designed to strengthen the nation-state through incorporation of all "non-national" (read "Indigenous") ele-ments into the mainstream. Thus, what Valle and Torres (1995) previously describe as "the continent's unfinished business of cultural hybridization" (p. 141), Indigenous peoples view as the continents' long and bloody battle to absorb their existence into the master narrative of the mestizo. While critical scholars do construct a very different kind of democratic solidarity that disrupts the sociopolitical and economic hegemony of the dominant culture around a transformed notion of mestizaje (one committed to the destabilization of the isolationist narratives of nationalism and cul-tural chauvinism), I argue that any liberatory project that does not begin with a clear understanding of the difference of American lndianness will, in the end, work to undermine tribal life. Moreover, there is a potential danger that the ostensibly "new" cultural democracy based upon the radical mes-tizaje will continue to mute tribal differences and erase distinctive Indian identities. Therefore, as the physical and metaphysical borders of the post-modern world become increasingly fluid, the desire of American Indian communities to protect geographic borders and employ "essentialist" tactics also increases. Though such tactics may be viewed by critical scholars as highly problematic, they are viewed by American Indian intellectuals as a last line of defense against the steady erosion of tribal culture, political sover-eignty, Native resources, and Native lands. The tensions described above indicate the dire need for an Indigenous, revolutionary theory that maintains the distinctiveness of American Indians as tribal peoples of sovereign nations (border patrolling) and also encour-ages the building of coalitions and political solidarity (border crossing). In contrast to critical scholars McLaren and Kris Gutierrez (1997), who admon-ish educators to develop a concept of unity and difference as political mobili-zation rather than cultural authenticity, I urge American Indian intellectuals to develop a language that operates at the crossroads of unity and difference and defines this space in terms of political mobilization and cultural authen-ticity, thus expressing both the interdependence and distinctiveness of tribal peoples. The alternative is to refuse the affirmative’s endorsement of settler political selfhood. This isn’t “reject the aff”—it’s a micro-political process that destabilizes the settler psyche by breaking down the coherence of settler colonialism built through repetition. Debate is an ethical affirmation of a certain ideology. Voting neg forces a confrontation of the genocidal settlement, destabilizing the settler subject—that comes prior to evaluating the settler truth claims of the aff. Henderson 15 Henderson, Phil. (2015). Imagoed communities: the psychosocial space of settler colonialism. Settler Colonial Studies, 7(1), 40–56. doi:10.1080/2201473x.2015.1092194 JParkrecut anop At a distance, the duplicity here is quite strange. Lines are drowned, forests are cut, nets are stolen, because settlers know reflexively that they have a right – duty even – to shape the vacant land according to their collective and individual needs. Yet, the very things which they seek to remove should prove the falsity of terra nullius, as they evidence indigenous presence. The settler subject is able to gloss the violence of his actions so easily, however, because he is ultimately the product of, and dependent upon, a series of power relations that actively disappear indigenous peoples as active sovereign bodies. Within the psychosocial order of settler sovereignty, supported by the settler imago, these acts are understood as progressive or represent an adherence to the law, and become unreadable to the settler for what they are: the latest in a series of dispossessive acts. Destabilizing a dispossessive subject Not only does the concept of the spatial imago allow us to interrogate the formation of the settler as a subject, it also provides a powerful analytical tool to explain the extreme vitriolic reactions that indigenous peoples constantly face from settlers. Many point to racism as 10 P. HENDERSON Downloaded by New York University at 15:35 26 February 2016 the source of such reactions, and this is not without cause, as settlers have long imbibed a sense of racial and cultural superiority – particularly toward indigenous peoples. Despite these prejudices, however, Wolfe notes that the ‘primary motive’ of settler colonialism’s domination ‘is not race’ but ‘access to territory’. 63 Thus, inasmuch as the settler colonial imago validates access to territory by occluding indigenous sovereignty, the ongoing presences on and claims to the land by indigenous peoples trouble the settler imago and induce panic in settler subjects. Facing assertive indigenous presences within settler colonial spaces, settlers must answer the legitimate charge that their daily life – in all its banality – is predicated upon the privileges produced by ongoing genocide. The jarring nature of such charges offers an irreconcilable challenge to settlers qua settlers.64 Should these charges become impossible to ignore, they threaten to explode the imago of settler colonialism, which had hitherto operated within the settler psyche in a relatively smooth and benign manner. This explosion is potentiated by the revelation of even a portion of the violence that is required to make settler life possible. If, for example, settlers are forced to see ‘their’ beach as a site of murder and ongoing colonization, it becomes more difficult to sustain it within the imaginary as a site of frivolity.65 As Brown writes, in the ‘loss of horizons, order, and identity’ the subject experiences a sense of enormous vulnerability.66 Threatened with this ‘loss of containment’, the settler subject embarks down the road to psychosis.67 Thus, to parlay Brown’s thesis to the settler colonial context, the uncontrollable rage that indigenous presences induce within the settler is not evidence of the strength of settlers, but rather of a subject lashing out on the brink of its own dissolution. This panic – this rabid and insatiable anger – is always already at the core of the settler as a subject. As Lorenzo Veracini observes, the settler necessarily remains in a disposition of aggression ‘even after indigenous alterities have ceased to be threatening’. 68 This disposition results from the precarity inherent in the maintenance of settler colonialism’s imago, wherein any and all indigenous presences threaten subjective dissolution of the settler as such. Trapped in a Gordian Knot, the very thing that provides a balm to the settler subject – further development and entrenchment of the settler colonial imago – is also what panics the subject when it is inevitably contravened.69 We might think of this as a process of hardening that leaves the imago brittle and more susceptible to breakage. Their desire to produce a firm imago means that settlers are also always already in a psychically defensive position – that is, the settler’s offensive position on occupied land is sustained through a defensive posture. For while settlers desire the total erasure of indigenous populations, the attendant desire to disappear their own identity as settlers necessitates the suppression of both desires, if the subject’s reliance on settler colonial power structure is to be psychically naturalized. Settlers’ reactions to indigenous peoples fit, almost universally, with the two ego defense responses that Sigmund Freud observed. The first of these defenses is to attempt a complete conversion of the suppressed desire into a new idea. In settler colonial contexts, this requires averting attention from the violence of dispossession; as such, settlers often suggest that they aim to create a ‘city on the hill’. 70 Freud noted that the conversion defense mechanism does suppress the anxiety-inducing desire, but it also leads to ‘periodic hysterical outbursts’. Such is the case when settlers’ utopic visions are forced to confront the reality that the gentile community they imagine is founded in and perpetuates irredeemable suffering. A second type of defense is to channel the original desire’s energy into an obsession or a phobia. The effects of this defense are seen in the preoccupation that settler colonialism has with purity of blood or of community.71 As we have already seen, this obsession at once solidifies the power of the settler state, thereby naturalizing the settler and simultaneously perpetuating the processes of erasing indigenous peoples. Psychic defenses are intended to secure the subject from pain, and whether that pain originates inside or outside the psyche is inconsequential. Because of the threat that indigeneity presents to the phantasmatic wholeness of settler colonialism, settlers must always remain suspended in a state of arrested development between these defensive positions. Despite any pretensions to the contrary, the settler is necessarily a parochial subject who continuously coils, reacts, disavows, and lashes out, when confronted with his dependency on indigenous peoples and their territory. This psychic precarity exists at the core of the settler subject because of the unending fear of its own dissolution, should indigenous sovereignty be recognized.72 Goeman writes as an explicit challenge to other indigenous peoples, but this holds true to settler-allies as well, that decolonization must include an analysis of the dominant ‘self-disciplining colonial subject’. 73 However, as this discussion of subjective precarity demonstrates, the degree of to which these disciplinary or phenomenological processes are complete should not be overstated. For settler-allies must also examine and cultivate the ways in which settler subjects fail to be totally disciplined. Evidence of this incompletion is apparent in the subject’s arrested state of development. Discovering the instability at the core of the settler subject, indeed of all subjects, is the central conceit of psychoanalysis. This exception of at least partial failure to fully subjectivize the settler is also what sets my account apart from Rifkin’s. His phenomenology falls into the trap that Jacqueline Rose observes within many sociological accounts of the subject: that of assuming a successful internalization of norms. From the psychoanalytical perspective, the ‘unconscious constantly reveals the “failure”’ of internalization.74 As we have seen, within settler subjects this can be expressed as an irrational anxiety that expresses itself whenever a settler is confronted with the facts regarding their colonizing status. Under conditions of total subjectification, such charges ought to be unintelligible to the settler. Thus, the process of subject formation is always in slippage and never totalized as others might suggest.75 Because of this precarity, the settler subject is prone to violence and lashing out; but the subject in slippage also provides an avenue by which the process of settler colonialism can be subverted – creating cracks in a phantasmatic wholeness which can be opened wider. Breakages of this sort offer an opportunity to pursue what Paulette Regan calls a ‘restorying’ of settler colonial history and culture, to decanter settler mythologies built upon and within the dispossession of indigenous peoples.76 The cultivation of these cracks is a necessary part of decolonizing work, as it continues to panic and thus to destabilize settler subjects. Resistance to settler colonialism does not occur only in highly visible moments like the famous conflict at Kanesatake and Kahnawake,77 it also occurs in reiterative and disruptive practices, presences, and speech acts. Goeman correctly observes that the ‘repetitive practices of everyday life’ are what give settler spaces their meaning, as they provide a degree of naturalness to the settler imago and its psychic investments.78 As such, to disrupt the ease of these repetitions is at once to striate radically the otherwise smooth spaces of settler colonialism and also to disrupt the easy (re)production of the settler subject. Goeman calls these subversive acts the ‘micro-politics of resistance’, which historically 12 P. HENDERSON Downloaded by New York University at 15:35 26 February 2016 took the form of ‘moving fences, not cooperating with census enumerators, sometimes disrupting survey parties’ amongst other process.79 These acts panic the subject that is disciplined as a product of settler colonial power, by forcing encounters with the sovereign indigenous peoples that were imagined to be gone. This reveals to the settler, if only fleetingly, the violence that founds and sustains the settler colonial relationship. While such practices may not overthrow the settler colonial system, they do subvert its logics by insistently drawing attention to the ongoing presence of indigenous peoples who refuse erasure. Today, we can draw similar inspiration from the variety of tactics used in movements like Idle No More. From flash mobs in major malls, to round dances that block city streets, and even projects to rename Toronto locations, Idle No More is engaged in a series of micro-political projects across Turtle Island.80 The micro-politics of the movement strengthen indigenous subjects and their spatialities, while leaving an indelible imprint in the settler psyche. Predictably, rage and resentment were provoked in some settlers;81 however, Idle No More also drew thousands of settler-allies into the streets and renewed conversations about the necessity of nation-to-nation relationships. With settler colonial spaces disrupted and a relationship of domination made impossible to ignore, in the tradition of centuries of indigenous resistance, Idle No More put the settler subject into serious flux once more.
The interp is that you should evaluate the 1AC as an object of study a Sociogeny – debate may not spill over to political change but it has the potential to reproduce affirmations and negations that trigger neurohcmeical responses via reward and punishment mechanisms privilege certain research methods as valuable in the way debaters view the world. b Objectivity – consequence based plan focus shifts the focus of debate from our investments in settler colonialism to a plan text, which is incoherent because debate is a communicative activity and their inter sidesteps discussions of genocide.
9/16/21
2 - K - Settlerism vs Techno-Orientalism
Tournament: Heart of Texas | Round: Octas | Opponent: Little Rock Central MG | Judge: JP Stuckert, Kristiana Baez, Dillon Johnson Indigeneity connotates a state of non-ontology allowing for the construction of the human that legitimizes its self into a history of elimination, jettisoned from or assimilated into the national body to cohere settler temporality Belcourt 16. Billy-Ray Belcourt is from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is a 2016 Rhodes Scholar and is reading for an M.St. in Women’s Studies at the University of Oxford. He was named by CBC Books as one of six Indigenous writers to watch, and his poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry, Red Rising Magazine, SAD Mag, mâmawi-âcimowak, PRISM International, and The Malahat Review. ("A POLTERGEIST MANIFESTO," 2016, Feral Feminism) vikas recut aaditg Admittedly, the feral is a precarious space from which to theorize, sullied with an injurability bound up in the work of liberal humanism as such, an enterprise that weaponizes a set of moral barometers to distribute ferality unevenly to differently citizened and raced bodies—ones that are too close for comfort and must be pushed outside arm’s reach. Perhaps ferality traverses a semantic line of flight commensurate¬ with that of savagery, barbarism, and lawlessness, concreting into one history of elimination: that is, a history of eliminating recalcitrant indigeneities incompatible within a supposedly hygienic social. The word savage comes from the Latin salvaticus, an alteration of silvaticus, meaning “wild,” literally “of the woods.” Of persons, it means “reckless, ungovernable” (“Savage”). In the space-time of settler states, savagery temporarily stands in for those subjectivities tethered to a supposedly waning form of indigeneity, one that came from the woods and, because of this, had to be jettisoned from or assimilated into the national body. Here is Audra Simpson on the history of Indian “lawlessness”: Its genealogy extends back to the earliest moments of recorded encounter, when Indians appeared to have no law, to be without order, and thus, to be in the colonizer’s most generous articulation of differentiation, in need of the trappings of civilization. “Law” may be one instrument of civilization, as a regulating technique of power that develops through the work upon a political body and a territory. (2014, 144) According to Simpson, the recognition of Indigenous peoples as lawless rendered them governable, motivating the settler state (here, Canada) to curate and thus contain atrophied indigeneities—and, consequently, their sovereignties, lands, and politics—within the borders of federal law (2014, 144-45). Similarly, in The Transit of Empire Jodi Byrd traces the epistemological gimmicks through which the concept of “Indianness” came to align with “the savage other” (2011, 27). For her, this alignment provided the “rationale for imperial domination” and continues to stalk philosophy’s patterns of thinking (ibid.). Simpson, writing about the Mohawks of Kahnawake, argues that “a fear of lawlessness” continues to haunt the colonial imaginary, thereby diminishing “Indigenous rights to trade and to act as sovereigns in their own territories” (2014, 145). We might take the following lyrics from the popular Disney film Pocahontas as an example of the ways indigeneity circulates as a feral signifier in colonial economies of meaning-making: Ratcliffe What can you expect From filthy little heathens? Their whole disgusting race is like a curse Their skin’s a hellish red They’re only good when dead They’re vermin, as I said And worse English settlers They’re savages! Savages! Barely even human. (Gabriel and Goldberg 1995) Savagery connotes a state of non-ontology: Indigenous peoples are forced to cling to a barely extant humanity and coterminously collapse into a putatively wretched form of animality. Savagery is lethal, and its Indian becomes the prehistoric alibi through which the human is constituted as such. Indigenous peoples have therefore labored to explain away this savagery, reifying whitened rubrics for proper citizenship and crafting a genre of life tangible within the scenes of living through that are constitutive of settler colonialism as such. These scenes, however, are dead set on destroying the remnants of that savagery, converting their casualties into morally compatible subjects deserving of rights and life in a multicultural state that stokes the liberal fantasy of life after racial trauma at the expense of decolonial flourishing itself. This paper is therefore interested in the subjectivities and forms of sociality that savagery destroys when applied from without, and the political work of appropriating that savagery in the name of decolonization. Ours is a form of indigeneity that hints at a fundamental pollutability that both confirms and threatens forms of ontology tethered to a taxonomized humanity built in that foundational episode of subjection of which Simpson speaks. I am suggesting that savagery always-already references an otherworld of sorts: there are forms of life abandoned outside modernity’s episteme whose expressivities surge with affects anomalous within the topography of settler colonialism. This paper is not a historicist or nostalgic attachment to a pre-savage indigeneity resurrected from a past somehow unscathed by the violence that left us in the thick of things in the first place. Instead, I emphasize the potentiality of ferality as a politics in a world bent on our destruction—a world that eliminates indigeneities too radical to collapse into a collective sensorium, training us to a live in an ordinary that the settler state needs to persist as such, one that only some will survive. This world incentivizes our collusion with a multicultural state instantiated through a myth of belonging that actively disavows difference in the name of that very difference. We are repeatedly hurried into a kind of waning sociality, the content and form of which appear both too familiar and not familiar enough. In short, we are habitually left scavenging for ways to go on without knowing what it is we want. Let’s consider Jack Halberstam’s thoughts on “the wild”: It is a tricky word to use but it is a concept that we cannot live without if we are to combat the conventional modes of rule that have synced social norms to economic practices and have created a world order where every form of disturbance is quickly folded back into quiet, where every ripple is quickly smoothed over, where every instance of eruption has been tamped down and turned into new evidence of the rightness of the status quo. (2013, 126) Where Halberstam finds disturbance, I find indigeneity-cum-disturbance par excellence. Halberstam’s “wild” evokes a potentiality laboured in the here and now and “an alternative to how we want to think about being” in and outside an authoritarian state (2013, 126-27). Perhaps the wild risks the decolonial, a geography of life-building that dreams up tomorrows whose referents are the fractured indigeneities struggling to survive a historical present built on our suffering. Ferality is a stepping stone to a future grounded in Indigenous peoples’ legal and political orders. This paper does not traffic in teleologies of the anarchic or lawless as they emerge in Western thought; instead, it refuses settler sovereignty and calls for forms of collective Indigenous life that are attuned to queerness’s wretched histories and future-making potentialities. Indigeneity is an ante-ontology of sorts: it is prior to and therefore disruptive of ontology. Indigeneity makes manifest residues or pockets of times, worlds, and subjectivities that warp both common sense and philosophy into falsities that fall short of completely explaining what is going on. Indigenous life is truncated in the biopolitical category of Savage in order to make our attachments to ourselves assimilable inside settler colonialism’s national sensorium. Settler colonialism purges excessive forms of indigeneity that trouble its rubrics for sensing out the human and the nonhuman. In other words, settler colonialism works up modes of being-in-the-world that narrate themselves as the only options we have. What would it mean, then, to persist in the space of savagery, exhausting the present and holding out for futures that are not obsessed with the proper boundary between human and nonhuman life? This paper now turns to the present, asking: what happens when indigeneity collides with queerness inside the reserve, and how might a feral theory make sense of that collision? Deadly Presents “I went through a really hard time… I was beaten; more than once. I was choked” (Klassen 2014). These were the words of Tyler-Alan Jacobs, a two-spirit man from the Squamish Nation, capturing at once the terror of queer life on the reserve and the hardening of time into a thing that slows down bodies and pushes them outside its securitized geographies. Jacobs had grown up with his attackers, attackers who were energized by the pronouncement of queerness—how it insisted on being noticed, how it insisted on being. When the dust settled, “his right eye had dislodged and the side of his faced had caved in” (ibid.). Settler colonialism is fundamentally affective: it takes hold of the body, makes it perspire, and wears it out. It converts flesh into pliable automations and people into grim reapers who must choose which lives are worth keeping in the world. It can turn a person into a murderer in a matter of seconds; it is an epistemic rupturing of our attachments to life, to each other, and to ourselves. It is as if settler colonialism were simultaneously a rescue and military operation, a holy war of sorts tasked with exorcising the spectre of queer indigeneity and its putative infectivity. I rehearse this case because it allows me to risk qualifying the reserve as a geography saturated with heteronormativity’s socialities. This is a strategic interdiction that destroys supposedly degenerative queer affect worlds, untangling some bodies and not others from the future. I don’t have the statistics to substantiate these claims, but there is an archive of heartbreak and loss that is easy to come by if you ask the right people. Indeed, what would such statistics tell us that we don’t already know? What would the biopolitical work of data collection do to a knowledge-making project that thinks outside the big worlds of Statistics and Demography and, instead, inside the smaller, more precarious worlds created in the wake of gossip? I worry about ethnographic projects that seek to account for things and theory in the material in order to map the coordinates of an aberration to anchor it and its voyeurs in the theatres of the academy. The desire to attach to a body is too easily energized by a biological reading of gender that repudiates the very subjects it seeks so desperately to know and to study. What about the body? I have been asked this question, again and again. A feral theory is something of a call to arms: abolish this sort of ethnography and turn to those emergent methodologies that might better make sense of the affects and life-forms that are just now coming into focus and have been destroyed or made invisible in the name of research itself. Queer indigeneity, to borrow Fred Moten’s description of blackness, might “come most clearly into relief, by way of its negation” (2014). Perhaps decolonization needs to be a sort of séance: an attempt to communicate with the dead, a collective rising-up from the reserve’s necropolis, a feral becoming-undead. Boyd and Thrush’s Phantom Past, Indigenous Presence thinks indigeneity and its shaky histories vis-à-vis the language of haunting, where haunting is an endurant facet of “the experience of colonialism” (Bodinger de Uriarte 2012, 303). But, for me, ghostliness is differentially distributed: some more than others will be wrenched into the domain of the dead and forced to will their own ontologies into the now. Perhaps the universalist notion that haunting is a metonym for indigeneity repudiates the very life-forms that it claims to include: those who are differently queered and gendered, and, because of this, haunt waywardly and in ways that cannot be easily predicted (Ahmed 2015). This paper thus takes an imaginative turn and proceeds with something of an incantation to summon the figure of the queer Indigenous poltergeist—the feral monster in the horror story of decolonization. Queer Indigenous poltergeists do not linger inaudibly in the background; we are beside ourselves with anger, we make loud noises and throw objects around because we are demanding retribution for homicide, unloved love, and cold shoulders. We do not reconcile; we escape the reserve, pillage and mangle the settler-colonial episteme. Our arrival is both uneventful and apocalyptic, a point of departure and an entry point for an ontology that corresponds with a future that has yet to come. Sometimes all we have is the promise of the future. For the queer Indigenous poltergeist, resurrection is its own form of decolonial love. The poltergeist is an ontological anomaly: a fusion of human, object, and ghost, a “creature of social reality” and a “creature of fiction” (Haraway 1991, 149). From the German poltern meaning “to make noise, to rattle” and Geist or “ghost,” it literally means “noisy ghost,” speaking into existence an anti-subjectivity that emerges in the aftermath of death or murder (“Poltergeist”). It is the subject of Tobe Hooper’s 1982 film Poltergeist, which tells a story of “a haunting based on revenge” (Tuck and Ree 2013, 652). The film’s haunting is a wronging premised on an initial wrong: the eponymous poltergeist materializes when a mansion is constructed on a cemetery—a disturbing of spirits, if you will. José Esteban Muñoz argues that “The double ontology of ghosts and ghostliness, the manner in which ghosts exist inside and out and traverse categorical distinctions, seems especially useful for… queer criticism” (2009, 46). In this paper, the poltergeist names the form which indigeneity takes when it brings queer matter into its folds. In other words, this essay evokes haunting as a metaphor to hint at the ways in which queerness was murderously absorbed into the past and prematurely expected to stay there as an effect of colonialism’s drive to eliminate all traces of sexualities and genders that wandered astray. The poltergeist conceptualizes the work of queer indigeneity in the present insofar as it does not presuppose the mysterious intentions of the ghost—an otherworldly force that is bad, good, and undetectable all at once. Instead, the poltergeist is melancholic in its grief, but also pissed off. It refuses to remain in the spiritual, a space cheapened in relation to the staunch materiality of the real, and one that, though housing our conditions of possibility, cannot contain all of us. We protest forms of cruel nostalgia that tether ghosts to a discarded past within which queer Indigenous life once flourished because we know that we will never get it back and that most of us likely never experienced it in the first place. We long for that kind of love, but we know it is hard to come by. I turn to the poltergeist because I don’t have anywhere else to go. Help me, I could say. But I won’t. Queer indigeneity, then, is neither here nor there, neither dead nor alive but, to use Judith Butler’s language, interminably spectral (2006, 33). We are ghosts that haunt the reserve in the event of resurrection. According to Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, a reserve is a “tract of land, the legal title to which is held by the Crown, set apart for the use and benefit of an Indian band” (“Terminology”). The “reserve system” is part of the dispossessory ethos through which the settler state reifies land as the sign of sovereignty itself, and thus effects the political death of indigeneity, decomposing it into nothingness, into contaminated dirt. Reserves are the products of imaginations gone wild; they are ruins that bear “the physical imprint of the supernatural” on arid land, on decaying trailers arranged like weathered tombstones (Tuck and Ree 2013, 653). They are borderlands that connote simultaneous possession and dispossession: they represent the collision between settler sovereignty (insofar as the Crown holds the legal title to the land) and indigeneity (pointing to a genre of life that is distinctly Indigenous). Reserves were—some might say they still are—zones of death that regulated and regulate the movements of Indigenous bodies, quarantining their putatively contaminated flesh outside modern life in order to preserve settler-colonial futurities. It is as if the reserve were a site of complete atrophy, where indigeneity is supposed to waste away or degenerate, where queerness has already bled out. Look at the blood on your hands! The queer Indigenous poltergeist, however, foregrounds what I call a “reserve consciousness” —an awareness of the deathliness of the reserve. A reserve consciousness might be a kind of critical phenomenology that, to use Lisa Guenther’s description of this sort of insurgent knowledge project, pulls up “traces of what is not quite or no longer there—that which has been rubbed out or consigned to invisibility” (2015): here, the so-called on-reserve Indian. It might be about becoming a frictive surface; by rubbing up against things and resisting motion between objects, we might become unstuck. Queer Indigenous poltergeists are what Sara Ahmed calls “blockage points”: where communication stops because we cannot get through (2011, 68). That is, queer indigeneity connotes an ethical impasse, a dead end that presents us with two options: exorcism or resurrection. If settler colonialism is topological, if it persists despite elastic deformations such as stretching and twisting, wear and tear, we might have to make friction to survive. I turn to the reserve because it is a geography of affect, one in which the heaviness of atmospheres crushes some bodies to death and in which some must bear the weight of settler colonialism more than others. The violence done to us has wrenched us outside the physical world and into the supernatural. Some of us are spirits—open wounds that refuse to heal because our blood might be the one thing that cannot be stolen. Does resistance always feel like resistance, or does it sometimes feel like bleeding out (Berlant 2011)? Feral Socialities I must leave the beaten path and go where we are not. Queerness, according to Muñoz, is not yet here; it is an ideality that “we may never touch,” that propels us onward (2009, 1). Likewise, Halberstam suggests that the presentness of queerness signals a kind of emerging ontology. He argues that failure “is something that queers do and have always done exceptionally well in contrast to the grim scenarios of success” that structure “a heteronormative, capitalist society” (2011, 2-3). For Muñoz, queer failure is about “doing something that is missing in straight time’s always already flawed temporal mapping practice” (2009, 174). We know, however, that this isn’t the entire story. Whereas Muñoz’s queer past morphs into the here and now of homonormativity’s carceral tempos, indigeneity’s queernesses are saturated with the trauma of colonialism’s becoming-structure. Queer death doubles as the settler state’s condition of possibility. Pre-contact queer indigeneities had been absorbed into colonialism’s death grip; however, this making-dead was also a making-undead in the enduring of ghosts (Derrida 1994, 310). If haunting, according to Tuck and Ree, “lies precisely in its refusal to stop,” then the queer Indigenous poltergeist fails to have died by way of time travel (2013, 642). Queer indigeneity might be a kind of “feral sociality”: we are in a wild state after escaping colonial captivity and domestication. When the state evicts you, you might have to become feral to endure. To be feral is to linger in the back alleys of the settler state. It is a refusal of settler statecraft, a strategic failing to approximate the metrics of colonial citizenship, a giving up on the ethical future that reconciliation supposedly promises. As an aside, I suspect that the settler state’s reconciliatory ethos is always-already a domesticating project: it contains Indigenous suffering within the spectacularized theatre of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, building a post-Residential School temporality in which Indigenous peoples have been repaired through monetary reparations and storytelling. In the melodrama of reconciliation, the settler state wins its centuries-long war against Indian lawlessness by healing Indigenous peoples of the trauma that blocked them from becoming properly emotive citizens. Queer indigeneity, however, escapes discursive and affective concealment and therefore the category of the human itself, disturbing the binary clash between the living and nonliving by way of its un-humanity, a kind of “dead living” whereby flesh is animated through death. Perhaps we must become feral to imagine other space-times, to imagine other kinds of queerness. If settler colonialism incentivizes our collusion with the humanist enterprise of multiculturalism (and it does), what would it mean to refuse humanity and actualize other subject formations? In other words, how do the un-living live? Here, I want to propose the concept of “Indian time” to theorize the temporality and liminality of queer indigeneity as it festers in the slippage between near-death and the refusal to die. Indian time colloquially describes the regularity with which Indigenous peoples arrive late or are behind schedule. I appropriate this idiom to argue that the presentness of queer indigeneity is prefigured by an escape from and bringing forward of the past as well as a taking residence in the future. To be queer and Indigenous might mean to live outside time, to fall out of that form of affective life. Indian time thus nullifies the normative temporality of settler colonialism in which death is the telos of the human and being-in-death is an ontological fallacy. It connotes the conversion of queer indigeneity into non-living matter, into ephemera lurking in the shadows of the present, waiting, watching, and conspiring. Where Jasbir Puar argues that all things under the rubric of queer are always-already calculated into the state’s biopolitical mathematic, queer indigeneity cannot be held captive because it cannot be seen—we are still emerging in the social while simultaneously altering its substance (2012). If decolonization is, according to Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s reading of Frantz Fanon, an “unclean break from a colonial condition,” perhaps the queer Indigenous poltergeist is feral enough to will a decolonial world into a future that hails rather than expels its ghosts (2012, 20). The queer Indigenous poltergeist might have nothing else to lose.
The alternative is to refuse the affirmative’s endorsement of settler political selfhood. This isn’t “reject the aff”—it’s a micro-political process that destabilizes the settler psyche by breaking down the coherence of settler colonialism built through repetition. Debate is an ethical affirmation of a certain ideology. Voting neg forces a confrontation of the genocidal settlement, destabilizing the settler subject—that comes prior to evaluating the settler truth claims of the aff. Henderson 15 Henderson, Phil. (2015). Imagoed communities: the psychosocial space of settler colonialism. Settler Colonial Studies, 7(1), 40–56. doi:10.1080/2201473x.2015.1092194 JParkrecut anop At a distance, the duplicity here is quite strange. Lines are drowned, forests are cut, nets are stolen, because settlers know reflexively that they have a right – duty even – to shape the vacant land according to their collective and individual needs. Yet, the very things which they seek to remove should prove the falsity of terra nullius, as they evidence indigenous presence. The settler subject is able to gloss the violence of his actions so easily, however, because he is ultimately the product of, and dependent upon, a series of power relations that actively disappear indigenous peoples as active sovereign bodies. Within the psychosocial order of settler sovereignty, supported by the settler imago, these acts are understood as progressive or represent an adherence to the law, and become unreadable to the settler for what they are: the latest in a series of dispossessive acts. Destabilizing a dispossessive subject Not only does the concept of the spatial imago allow us to interrogate the formation of the settler as a subject, it also provides a powerful analytical tool to explain the extreme vitriolic reactions that indigenous peoples constantly face from settlers. Many point to racism as 10 P. HENDERSON Downloaded by New York University at 15:35 26 February 2016 the source of such reactions, and this is not without cause, as settlers have long imbibed a sense of racial and cultural superiority – particularly toward indigenous peoples. Despite these prejudices, however, Wolfe notes that the ‘primary motive’ of settler colonialism’s domination ‘is not race’ but ‘access to territory’. 63 Thus, inasmuch as the settler colonial imago validates access to territory by occluding indigenous sovereignty, the ongoing presences on and claims to the land by indigenous peoples trouble the settler imago and induce panic in settler subjects. Facing assertive indigenous presences within settler colonial spaces, settlers must answer the legitimate charge that their daily life – in all its banality – is predicated upon the privileges produced by ongoing genocide. The jarring nature of such charges offers an irreconcilable challenge to settlers qua settlers.64 Should these charges become impossible to ignore, they threaten to explode the imago of settler colonialism, which had hitherto operated within the settler psyche in a relatively smooth and benign manner. This explosion is potentiated by the revelation of even a portion of the violence that is required to make settler life possible. If, for example, settlers are forced to see ‘their’ beach as a site of murder and ongoing colonization, it becomes more difficult to sustain it within the imaginary as a site of frivolity.65 As Brown writes, in the ‘loss of horizons, order, and identity’ the subject experiences a sense of enormous vulnerability.66 Threatened with this ‘loss of containment’, the settler subject embarks down the road to psychosis.67 Thus, to parlay Brown’s thesis to the settler colonial context, the uncontrollable rage that indigenous presences induce within the settler is not evidence of the strength of settlers, but rather of a subject lashing out on the brink of its own dissolution. This panic – this rabid and insatiable anger – is always already at the core of the settler as a subject. As Lorenzo Veracini observes, the settler necessarily remains in a disposition of aggression ‘even after indigenous alterities have ceased to be threatening’. 68 This disposition results from the precarity inherent in the maintenance of settler colonialism’s imago, wherein any and all indigenous presences threaten subjective dissolution of the settler as such. Trapped in a Gordian Knot, the very thing that provides a balm to the settler subject – further development and entrenchment of the settler colonial imago – is also what panics the subject when it is inevitably contravened.69 We might think of this as a process of hardening that leaves the imago brittle and more susceptible to breakage. Their desire to produce a firm imago means that settlers are also always already in a psychically defensive position – that is, the settler’s offensive position on occupied land is sustained through a defensive posture. For while settlers desire the total erasure of indigenous populations, the attendant desire to disappear their own identity as settlers necessitates the suppression of both desires, if the subject’s reliance on settler colonial power structure is to be psychically naturalized. Settlers’ reactions to indigenous peoples fit, almost universally, with the two ego defense responses that Sigmund Freud observed. The first of these defenses is to attempt a complete conversion of the suppressed desire into a new idea. In settler colonial contexts, this requires averting attention from the violence of dispossession; as such, settlers often suggest that they aim to create a ‘city on the hill’. 70 Freud noted that the conversion defense mechanism does suppress the anxiety-inducing desire, but it also leads to ‘periodic hysterical outbursts’. Such is the case when settlers’ utopic visions are forced to confront the reality that the gentile community they imagine is founded in and perpetuates irredeemable suffering. A second type of defense is to channel the original desire’s energy into an obsession or a phobia. The effects of this defense are seen in the preoccupation that settler colonialism has with purity of blood or of community.71 As we have already seen, this obsession at once solidifies the power of the settler state, thereby naturalizing the settler and simultaneously perpetuating the processes of erasing indigenous peoples. Psychic defenses are intended to secure the subject from pain, and whether that pain originates inside or outside the psyche is inconsequential. Because of the threat that indigeneity presents to the phantasmatic wholeness of settler colonialism, settlers must always remain suspended in a state of arrested development between these defensive positions. Despite any pretensions to the contrary, the settler is necessarily a parochial subject who continuously coils, reacts, disavows, and lashes out, when confronted with his dependency on indigenous peoples and their territory. This psychic precarity exists at the core of the settler subject because of the unending fear of its own dissolution, should indigenous sovereignty be recognized.72 Goeman writes as an explicit challenge to other indigenous peoples, but this holds true to settler-allies as well, that decolonization must include an analysis of the dominant ‘self-disciplining colonial subject’. 73 However, as this discussion of subjective precarity demonstrates, the degree of to which these disciplinary or phenomenological processes are complete should not be overstated. For settler-allies must also examine and cultivate the ways in which settler subjects fail to be totally disciplined. Evidence of this incompletion is apparent in the subject’s arrested state of development. Discovering the instability at the core of the settler subject, indeed of all subjects, is the central conceit of psychoanalysis. This exception of at least partial failure to fully subjectivize the settler is also what sets my account apart from Rifkin’s. His phenomenology falls into the trap that Jacqueline Rose observes within many sociological accounts of the subject: that of assuming a successful internalization of norms. From the psychoanalytical perspective, the ‘unconscious constantly reveals the “failure”’ of internalization.74 As we have seen, within settler subjects this can be expressed as an irrational anxiety that expresses itself whenever a settler is confronted with the facts regarding their colonizing status. Under conditions of total subjectification, such charges ought to be unintelligible to the settler. Thus, the process of subject formation is always in slippage and never totalized as others might suggest.75 Because of this precarity, the settler subject is prone to violence and lashing out; but the subject in slippage also provides an avenue by which the process of settler colonialism can be subverted – creating cracks in a phantasmatic wholeness which can be opened wider. Breakages of this sort offer an opportunity to pursue what Paulette Regan calls a ‘restorying’ of settler colonial history and culture, to decanter settler mythologies built upon and within the dispossession of indigenous peoples.76 The cultivation of these cracks is a necessary part of decolonizing work, as it continues to panic and thus to destabilize settler subjects. Resistance to settler colonialism does not occur only in highly visible moments like the famous conflict at Kanesatake and Kahnawake,77 it also occurs in reiterative and disruptive practices, presences, and speech acts. Goeman correctly observes that the ‘repetitive practices of everyday life’ are what give settler spaces their meaning, as they provide a degree of naturalness to the settler imago and its psychic investments.78 As such, to disrupt the ease of these repetitions is at once to striate radically the otherwise smooth spaces of settler colonialism and also to disrupt the easy (re)production of the settler subject. Goeman calls these subversive acts the ‘micro-politics of resistance’, which historically 12 P. HENDERSON Downloaded by New York University at 15:35 26 February 2016 took the form of ‘moving fences, not cooperating with census enumerators, sometimes disrupting survey parties’ amongst other process.79 These acts panic the subject that is disciplined as a product of settler colonial power, by forcing encounters with the sovereign indigenous peoples that were imagined to be gone. This reveals to the settler, if only fleetingly, the violence that founds and sustains the settler colonial relationship. While such practices may not overthrow the settler colonial system, they do subvert its logics by insistently drawing attention to the ongoing presence of indigenous peoples who refuse erasure. Today, we can draw similar inspiration from the variety of tactics used in movements like Idle No More. From flash mobs in major malls, to round dances that block city streets, and even projects to rename Toronto locations, Idle No More is engaged in a series of micro-political projects across Turtle Island.80 The micro-politics of the movement strengthen indigenous subjects and their spatialities, while leaving an indelible imprint in the settler psyche. Predictably, rage and resentment were provoked in some settlers;81 however, Idle No More also drew thousands of settler-allies into the streets and renewed conversations about the necessity of nation-to-nation relationships. With settler colonial spaces disrupted and a relationship of domination made impossible to ignore, in the tradition of centuries of indigenous resistance, Idle No More put the settler subject into serious flux once more.
10/18/21
3 - NC - Util
Tournament: Grapevine | Round: 5 | Opponent: Marcus JR | Judge: Grant Brown The standard is minimizing material violence. 1 Personal identity reductionism is true – if the hemispheres of my brain were transplanted into 2 different people, neither would be me. Parfit 84. Derek Parfit 1984, “Reasons and Persons”, Oxford Paperbacks It is in fact true that one hemisphere is enough. There are many people who have survived, when a stroke or injury puts out of action one of their hemispheres. With his remaining hemisphere, such a person may need to re-learn certain things, such as adult speech, or how to control both hands. But this is possible. In my example I am assuming that, as may be true of certain actual people, both of my hemispheres have the full range of abilities. I could thus survive with either hemisphere, without any need for re-learning.¶ I shall now combine these last two claims. I would survive if my brain was successfully transplanted into my twin's body. And I could survive with only half my brain, the other half having been destroyed. Given these two facts, it seems clear that I would survive if half my brain was successfully transplanted into my twin's body, and the other half was destroyed.¶ What if the other half was not destroyed? This is the case that Wiggins described: that in which a person, like an amoeba, divides.40 To simplify the case, I assume that I am one of three identical triplets. Consider¶ My Division. My body is fatally injured, as are the brains of my two brothers. My brain is divided, and each half is successfully transplanted into the body of one of my brothers. Each of the resulting people believes that he is me, seems to remember living my life, has my character, and is in every other way psychologically continuous with me. And he has a body that is very like mine.¶ This case is likely to remain impossible. Though it is claimed that, in certain people, the two hemispheres may have the same full range of abilities, this claim might be false. I am here assuming that this claim is true when applied to me. I am also assuming that it would be possible to connect a transplanted half-brain with the nerves in its new body. And I am assuming that we could divide, not just the upper hemispheres, but also the lower brain. My first two assumptions may be able to be made true if there is enough progress in neurophysiology. But it seems likely that it would never be possible to divide the lower brain, in a way that did not impair its functioning.¶ Does it matter if, for this reason, this imagined case of complete division will always remain impossible? Given the aims of my discussion, this does not matter. This impossibility is merely technical. The one feature of the case that might be held to be deeply impossible—the division of a person's consciousness into two separate streams—is the feature that has actually happened. It WOULD have been important if this had been impossible, since this might have supported some claim about what we really are. It might have supported the claim that we are indivisible Cartesian Egos. It therefore matters that the division of a person's consciousness is in fact possible. There seems to be no similar connection between a particular view about what we really are and the impossibility of dividing and successfully transplanting the two halves of the lower brain. This impossibility thus provides no ground for refusing to consider the imagined case in which we suppose that this can be done. And considering this case may help us to decide both what we believe ourselves to be, and what in fact we are. As Einstein's example showed, it can be useful to consider impossible thought-experiments.¶ It may help to state, in advance, what I believe this case to show. It provides a further argument against the view that we are separately existing entities. But the main conclusion to be hdrawn is that personal identity is not what matters.¶ It is natural to believe that our identity is what matters. Reconsider the Branch-Line Case, where I have talked to my Replica on Mars, and am about to die. Suppose we believe that I and my Replica are different people. It is then natural to assume that my prospect is almost as bad as ordinary death. In a few days, there will be no one living who will be me. It is natural to assume that this is what matters. In discussing My Division, I shall start by making this assumption.¶ In this case, each half of my brain will be successfully transplanted into the very similar body of one of my two brothers. Both of the resulting people will be fully psychologically continuous with me, as I am now. What happens to me?¶ There are only four possibilities: (1) I do not survive; (2) I survive as one of the two people; (3) I survive as the other; (4) I survive as both.¶ The objection to (1) is this. I would survive if my brain was successfully transplanted. And people have in fact survived with half their brains destroyed. Given these facts, it seems clear that I would survive if half my brain was successfully transplanted, and the other half was destroyed. So how could I fail to survive if the other half was also successfully transplanted? How could a double success be a failure?¶ Consider the next two possibilities. Perhaps one success is the maximum score. Perhaps I shall be one of the two resulting people. The objection here is that, in this case, each half of my brain is exactly similar, and so, to start with, is each resulting person. Given these facts, how can I survive as only one of the two people? What can make me one of them rather than the other?¶ These three possibilities cannot be dismissed as incoherent. We can understand them. But, while we assume that identity is what matters, (1) is not plausible. My Division would not be as bad as death. Nor are (2) and (3) plausible. There remains the fourth possibility: that I survive as both of the resulting people.¶ This possibility might be described in several ways. I might first claim: ‘What we have called “the two resulting people” are not two people. They are one person. I do survive this operation. Its effect is to give me two bodies, and a divided mind.’¶ This claim cannot be dismissed outright. As I argued, we ought to admit as possible that a person could have a divided mind. If this is possible, each half of my divided mind might control its own body. But though this description of the case cannot be rejected as inconceivable, it involves a great distortion in our concept of a person. In my imagined Physics Exam I claimed that this case involved only one person. There were two features of the case that made this plausible. The divided mind was soon reunited, and there was only one body. If a mind was permanently divided, and its halves developed in different ways, it would become less plausible to claim that the case involves only one person. (Remember the actual patient who complained that, when he embraced his wife, his left hand pushed her away.)¶ The case of complete division, where there are also two bodies, seems to be a long way over the borderline. After I have had this operation, the two ‘products’ each have all of the features of a person. They could live at opposite ends of the Earth. Suppose that they have poor memories, and that their appearance changes in different ways. After many years, they might meet again, and fail even to recognise each other. We might have to claim of such a pair, innocently playing tennis: ‘What you see out there is a single person, playing tennis with himself. In each half of his mind he mistakenly believes that he is playing tennis with someone else.’ If we are not yet Reductionists, we believe that there is one true answer to the questionwhether these two tennis-players are a single person. Given what we mean by ‘person’, the answer must be No. It cannot be true that what I believe to be a stranger, standing there behind the net, is in fact another part of myself. That justifies util. Gruzalski 86. Bart Gruzalski 86 UChicago, “Parfit's Impact on Utilitarianism”, Ethics, Vol. 96, No. 4, July 1986. Parfit concludes his discussion of distributive moral principles by claiming that, “when we cease to believe that persons are separately existing entities, the Utilitarian view becomes more plausible. Is the gain in plausibility great, or small? My argument leaves this question open” (p. 342). In contrast, I have argued that the Reductionist View strongly supports the utilitarian account of desert and distributive justice. The argument has two aspects. One is the recognition of the utilitarian emphasis on secondary rules, including principles of distributive justice and policies of desert. These rules, principles, and policies are treated within the utilitarian account as if they have self-standing, whereas in fact they are justified on the principle of utility which alone has self-standing within the utilitarian program. The other aspect of the argument involves the recognition that the utilitarian’s dual treatment of secondary principles dovetails with the dual account of the nature of persons on the Reductionist View: persons exist, yet their existence just involves bodies and interrelated mental and physical events, and a complete description of our lives need not claim that persons exist. Furthermore, a body, brain, and interrelated series of mental and physical events are more fundamental and basic than the person whose existence just consists in them, much as the citizens and the territory are more fundamental and basic than the nation whose existence just consists in them. This corresponds precisely with the utilitarian account, for utilitarianism treats persons as fundamental and separate existents, while grounding this treatment on the impersonal elements of pain, suffering, happiness, and contentment. Because util-itarianism accurately reflects in this way the true nature of persons, it is much more plausible than has been previously recognized. In addition, since many of the current competitors to utilitarianism presuppose that the person is separate from the body, brain, and interrelated mental and physical events, it follows that these views err by being too personal and are therefore implausible. It follows that when we cease to believe that persons are separately existing entities, utilitarianism becomes significantly more plausible than any of its person-centered theoretical competitors. 2 Actor Spec— States must use util. Any other standard dooms the moral theory Goodin 90. Robert Goodin 90, professor of philosophy at the Australian National University college of arts and social sciences, “The Utilitarian Response,” pgs 141-142 RS My larger argument turns on the proposition that there is something special about the situation of public officials that makes utilitarianism more probable for them than private individuals. Before proceeding with the large argument, I must therefore say what it is that makes it so special about public officials and their situations that make it both more necessary and more desirable for them to adopt a more credible form of utilitarianism. Consider, first, the argument from necessity. Public officials are obliged to make their choices under uncertainty, and uncertainty of a very special sort at that. All choices – public and private alike – are made under some degree of uncertainty, of course. But in the nature of things, private individuals will usually have more complete information on the peculiarities of their own circumstances and on the ramifications that alternative possible choices might have for them. Public officials, in contrast, are relatively poorly informed as to the effects that their choices will have on individuals, one by one. What they typically do know are generalities: averages and aggregates. They know what will happen most often to most people as a result of their various possible choices, but that is all. That is enough to allow public policy-makers to use the utilitarian calculus – assuming they want to use it at all – to choose general rules or conduct. 3 Extinction comes first under any framework. Pummer 15 Theron, Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy at St. Anne's College, University of Oxford. “Moral Agreement on Saving the World” Practical Ethics, University of Oxford. May 18, 2015 AT There appears to be lot of disagreement in moral philosophy. Whether these many apparent disagreements are deep and irresolvable, I believe there is at least one thing it is reasonable to agree on right now, whatever general moral view we adopt: that it is very important to reduce the risk that all intelligent beings on this planet are eliminated by an enormous catastrophe, such as a nuclear war. How we might in fact try to reduce such existential risks is discussed elsewhere. My claim here is only that we – whether we’re consequentialists, deontologists, or virtue ethicists – should all agree that we should try to save the world. According to consequentialism, we should maximize the good, where this is taken to be the goodness, from an impartial perspective, of outcomes. Clearly one thing that makes an outcome good is that the people in it are doing well. There is little disagreement here. If the happiness or well-being of possible future people is just as important as that of people who already exist, and if they would have good lives, it is not hard to see how reducing existential risk is easily the most important thing in the whole world. This is for the familiar reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. There are so many possible future people that reducing existential risk is arguably the most important thing in the world, even if the well-being of these possible people were given only 0.001 as much weight as that of existing people. Even on a wholly person-affecting view – according to which there’s nothing (apart from effects on existing people) to be said in favor of creating happy people – the case for reducing existential risk is very strong. As noted in this seminal paper, this case is strengthened by the fact that there’s a good chance that many existing people will, with the aid of life-extension technology, live very long and very high quality lives. You might think what I have just argued applies to consequentialists only. There is a tendency to assume that, if an argument appeals to consequentialist considerations (the goodness of outcomes), it is irrelevant to non-consequentialists. But that is a huge mistake. Non-consequentialism is the view that there’s more that determines rightness than the goodness of consequences or outcomes; it is not the view that the latter don’t matter. Even John Rawls wrote, “All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account in judging rightness. One which did not would simply be irrational, crazy.” Minimally plausible versions of deontology and virtue ethics must be concerned in part with promoting the good, from an impartial point of view. They’d thus imply very strong reasons to reduce existential risk, at least when this doesn’t significantly involve doing harm to others or damaging one’s character. What’s even more surprising, perhaps, is that even if our own good (or that of those near and dear to us) has much greater weight than goodness from the impartial “point of view of the universe,” indeed even if the latter is entirely morally irrelevant, we may nonetheless have very strong reasons to reduce existential risk. Even egoism, the view that each agent should maximize her own good, might imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. It will depend, among other things, on what one’s own good consists in. If well-being consisted in pleasure only, it is somewhat harder to argue that egoism would imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk – perhaps we could argue that one would maximize her expected hedonic well-being by funding life extension technology or by having herself cryogenically frozen at the time of her bodily death as well as giving money to reduce existential risk (so that there is a world for her to live in!). I am not sure, however, how strong the reasons to do this would be. But views which imply that, if I don’t care about other people, I have no or very little reason to help them are not even minimally plausible views (in addition to hedonistic egoism, I here have in mind views that imply that one has no reason to perform an act unless one actually desires to do that act). To be minimally plausible, egoism will need to be paired with a more sophisticated account of well-being. To see this, it is enough to consider, as Plato did, the possibility of a ring of invisibility – suppose that, while wearing it, Ayn could derive some pleasure by helping the poor, but instead could derive just a bit more by severely harming them. Hedonistic egoism would absurdly imply she should do the latter. To avoid this implication, egoists would need to build something like the meaningfulness of a life into well-being, in some robust way, where this would to a significant extent be a function of other-regarding concerns (see chapter 12 of this classic intro to ethics). But once these elements are included, we can (roughly, as above) argue that this sort of egoism will imply strong reasons to reduce existential risk. Add to all of this Samuel Scheffler’s recent intriguing arguments (quick podcast version available here) that most of what makes our lives go well would be undermined if there were no future generations of intelligent persons. On his view, my life would contain vastly less well-being if (say) a year after my death the world came to an end. So obviously if Scheffler were right I’d have very strong reason to reduce existential risk. We should also take into account moral uncertainty. What is it reasonable for one to do, when one is uncertain not (only) about the empirical facts, but also about the moral facts? I’ve just argued that there’s agreement among minimally plausible ethical views that we have strong reason to reduce existential risk – not only consequentialists, but also deontologists, virtue ethicists, and sophisticated egoists should agree. But even those (hedonistic egoists) who disagree should have a significant level of confidence that they are mistaken, and that one of the above views is correct. Even if they were 90 sure that their view is the correct one (and 10 sure that one of these other ones is correct), they would have pretty strong reason, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, to reduce existential risk. Perhaps most disturbingly still, even if we are only 1 sure that the well-being of possible future people matters, it is at least arguable that, from the standpoint of moral uncertainty, reducing existential risk is the most important thing in the world. Again, this is largely for the reason that there are so many people who could exist in the future – there are trillions upon trillions… upon trillions. (For more on this and other related issues, see this excellent dissertation). Of course, it is uncertain whether these untold trillions would, in general, have good lives. It’s possible they’ll be miserable. It is enough for my claim that there is moral agreement in the relevant sense if, at least given certain empirical claims about what future lives would most likely be like, all minimally plausible moral views would converge on the conclusion that we should try to save the world. While there are some non-crazy views that place significantly greater moral weight on avoiding suffering than on promoting happiness, for reasons others have offered (and for independent reasons I won’t get into here unless requested to), they nonetheless seem to be fairly implausible views. And even if things did not go well for our ancestors, I am optimistic that they will overall go fantastically well for our descendants, if we allow them to. I suspect that most of us alive today – at least those of us not suffering from extreme illness or poverty – have lives that are well worth living, and that things will continue to improve. Derek Parfit, whose work has emphasized future generations as well as agreement in ethics, described our situation clearly and accurately: “We live during the hinge of history. Given the scientific and technological discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fast. We shall soon have even greater powers to transform, not only our surroundings, but ourselves and our successors. If we act wisely in the next few centuries, humanity will survive its most dangerous and decisive period. Our descendants could, if necessary, go elsewhere, spreading through this galaxy…. Our descendants might, I believe, make the further future very good. But that good future may also depend in part on us. If our selfish recklessness ends human history, we would be acting very wrongly.” (From chapter 36 of On What Matters) 4 Pleasure and pain are intrinsic value and disvalue. Blum et al. 18 Kenneth Blum, 1Department of Psychiatry, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Dayton VA Medical Center, Wright State University, Dayton, OH, USA 2Department of Psychiatry, McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL, USA 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA 4Division of Applied Clinical Research and Education, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA 5Department of Precision Medicine, Geneus Health LLC, San Antonio, TX, USA 6Department of Addiction Research and Therapy, Nupathways Inc., Innsbrook, MO, USA 7Department of Clinical Neurology, Path Foundation, New York, NY, USA 8Division of Neuroscience-Based Addiction Therapy, The Shores Treatment and Recovery Center, Port Saint Lucie, FL, USA 9Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary 10Division of Addiction Research, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC. North Kingston, RI, USA 11Victory Nutrition International, Lederach, PA., USA 12National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC., USA, Marjorie Gondré-Lewis, 12National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC., USA 13Departments of Anatomy and Psychiatry, Howard University College of Medicine, Washington, DC US, Bruce Steinberg, 4Division of Applied Clinical Research and Education, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA, Igor Elman, 15Department Psychiatry, Cooper University School of Medicine, Camden, NJ, USA, David Baron, 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, Edward J Modestino, 14Department of Psychology, Curry College, Milton, MA, USA, Rajendra D Badgaiyan, 15Department Psychiatry, Cooper University School of Medicine, Camden, NJ, USA, Mark S Gold 16Department of Psychiatry, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA, “Our evolved unique pleasure circuit makes humans different from apes: Reconsideration of data derived from animal studies”, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 28 February 2018, accessed: 19 August 2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6446569/, R.S. Pleasure is not only one of the three primary reward functions but it also defines reward. As homeostasis explains the functions of only a limited number of rewards, the principal reason why particular stimuli, objects, events, situations, and activities are rewarding may be due to pleasure. This applies first of all to sex and to the primary homeostatic rewards of food and liquid and extends to money, taste, beauty, social encounters and nonmaterial, internally set, and intrinsic rewards. Pleasure, as the primary effect of rewards, drives the prime reward functions of learning, approach behavior, and decision making and provides the basis for hedonic theories of reward function. We are attracted by most rewards and exert intense efforts to obtain them, just because they are enjoyable 10. Pleasure is a passive reaction that derives from the experience or prediction of reward and may lead to a long-lasting state of happiness. The word happiness is difficult to define. In fact, just obtaining physical pleasure may not be enough. One key to happiness involves a network of good friends. However, it is not obvious how the higher forms of satisfaction and pleasure are related to an ice cream cone, or to your team winning a sporting event. Recent multidisciplinary research, using both humans and detailed invasive brain analysis of animals has discovered some critical ways that the brain processes pleasure 14. Pleasure as a hallmark of reward is sufficient for defining a reward, but it may not be necessary. A reward may generate positive learning and approach behavior simply because it contains substances that are essential for body function. When we are hungry, we may eat bad and unpleasant meals. A monkey who receives hundreds of small drops of water every morning in the laboratory is unlikely to feel a rush of pleasure every time it gets the 0.1 ml. Nevertheless, with these precautions in mind, we may define any stimulus, object, event, activity, or situation that has the potential to produce pleasure as a reward. In the context of reward deficiency or for disorders of addiction, homeostasis pursues pharmacological treatments: drugs to treat drug addiction, obesity, and other compulsive behaviors. The theory of allostasis suggests broader approaches - such as re-expanding the range of possible pleasures and providing opportunities to expend effort in their pursuit. 15. It is noteworthy, the first animal studies eliciting approach behavior by electrical brain stimulation interpreted their findings as a discovery of the brain’s pleasure centers 16 which were later partly associated with midbrain dopamine neurons 17–19 despite the notorious difficulties of identifying emotions in animals. Evolutionary theories of pleasure: The love connection BO Charles Darwin and other biological scientists that have examined the biological evolution and its basic principles found various mechanisms that steer behavior and biological development. Besides their theory on natural selection, it was particularly the sexual selection process that gained significance in the latter context over the last century, especially when it comes to the question of what makes us “what we are,” i.e., human. However, the capacity to sexually select and evolve is not at all a human accomplishment alone or a sign of our uniqueness; yet, we humans, as it seems, are ingenious in fooling ourselves and others–when we are in love or desperately search for it. It is well established that modern biological theory conjectures that organisms are the result of evolutionary competition. In fact, Richard Dawkins stresses gene survival and propagation as the basic mechanism of life 20. Only genes that lead to the fittest phenotype will make it. It is noteworthy that the phenotype is selected based on behavior that maximizes gene propagation. To do so, the phenotype must survive and generate offspring, and be better at it than its competitors. Thus, the ultimate, distal function of rewards is to increase evolutionary fitness by ensuring the survival of the organism and reproduction. It is agreed that learning, approach, economic decisions, and positive emotions are the proximal functions through which phenotypes obtain other necessary nutrients for survival, mating, and care for offspring. Behavioral reward functions have evolved to help individuals to survive and propagate their genes. Apparently, people need to live well and long enough to reproduce. Most would agree that homo-sapiens do so by ingesting the substances that make their bodies function properly. For this reason, foods and drinks are rewards. Additional rewards, including those used for economic exchanges, ensure sufficient palatable food and drink supply. Mating and gene propagation is supported by powerful sexual attraction. Additional properties, like body form, augment the chance to mate and nourish and defend offspring and are therefore also rewards. Care for offspring until they can reproduce themselves helps gene propagation and is rewarding; otherwise, many believe mating is useless. According to David E Comings, as any small edge will ultimately result in evolutionary advantage 21, additional reward mechanisms like novelty seeking and exploration widen the spectrum of available rewards and thus enhance the chance for survival, reproduction, and ultimate gene propagation. These functions may help us to obtain the benefits of distant rewards that are determined by our own interests and not immediately available in the environment. Thus the distal reward function in gene propagation and evolutionary fitness defines the proximal reward functions that we see in everyday behavior. That is why foods, drinks, mates, and offspring are rewarding. There have been theories linking pleasure as a required component of health benefits salutogenesis, (salugenesis). In essence, under these terms, pleasure is described as a state or feeling of happiness and satisfaction resulting from an experience that one enjoys. Regarding pleasure, it is a double-edged sword, on the one hand, it promotes positive feelings (like mindfulness) and even better cognition, possibly through the release of dopamine 22. But on the other hand, pleasure simultaneously encourages addiction and other negative behaviors, i.e., motivational toxicity. It is a complex neurobiological phenomenon, relying on reward circuitry or limbic activity. It is important to realize that through the “Brain Reward Cascade” (BRC) endorphin and endogenous morphinergic mechanisms may play a role 23. While natural rewards are essential for survival and appetitive motivation leading to beneficial biological behaviors like eating, sex, and reproduction, crucial social interactions seem to further facilitate the positive effects exerted by pleasurable experiences. Indeed, experimentation with addictive drugs is capable of directly acting on reward pathways and causing deterioration of these systems promoting hypodopaminergia 24. Most would agree that pleasurable activities can stimulate personal growth and may help to induce healthy behavioral changes, including stress management 25. The work of Esch and Stefano 26 concerning the link between compassion and love implicate the brain reward system, and pleasure induction suggests that social contact in general, i.e., love, attachment, and compassion, can be highly effective in stress reduction, survival, and overall health. Understanding the role of neurotransmission and pleasurable states both positive and negative have been adequately studied over many decades 26–37, but comparative anatomical and neurobiological function between animals and homo sapiens appear to be required and seem to be in an infancy stage. Finding happiness is different between apes and humans As stated earlier in this expert opinion one key to happiness involves a network of good friends 38. However, it is not entirely clear exactly how the higher forms of satisfaction and pleasure are related to a sugar rush, winning a sports event or even sky diving, all of which augment dopamine release at the reward brain site. Recent multidisciplinary research, using both humans and detailed invasive brain analysis of animals has discovered some critical ways that the brain processes pleasure. Remarkably, there are pathways for ordinary liking and pleasure, which are limited in scope as described above in this commentary. However, there are many brain regions, often termed hot and cold spots, that significantly modulate (increase or decrease) our pleasure or even produce the opposite of pleasure— that is disgust and fear 39. One specific region of the nucleus accumbens is organized like a computer keyboard, with particular stimulus triggers in rows— producing an increase and decrease of pleasure and disgust. Moreover, the cortex has unique roles in the cognitive evaluation of our feelings of pleasure 40. Importantly, the interplay of these multiple triggers and the higher brain centers in the prefrontal cortex are very intricate and are just being uncovered. Desire and reward centers It is surprising that many different sources of pleasure activate the same circuits between the mesocorticolimbic regions (Figure 1). Reward and desire are two aspects pleasure induction and have a very widespread, large circuit. Some part of this circuit distinguishes between desire and dread. The so-called pleasure circuitry called “REWARD” involves a well-known dopamine pathway in the mesolimbic system that can influence both pleasure and motivation. In simplest terms, the well-established mesolimbic system is a dopamine circuit for reward. It starts in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the midbrain and travels to the nucleus accumbens (Figure 2). It is the cornerstone target to all addictions. The VTA is encompassed with neurons using glutamate, GABA, and dopamine. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is located within the ventral striatum and is divided into two sub-regions—the motor and limbic regions associated with its core and shell, respectively. The NAc has spiny neurons that receive dopamine from the VTA and glutamate (a dopamine driver) from the hippocampus, amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex. Subsequently, the NAc projects GABA signals to an area termed the ventral pallidum (VP). The region is a relay station in the limbic loop of the basal ganglia, critical for motivation, behavior, emotions and the “Feel Good” response. This defined system of the brain is involved in all addictions –substance, and non –substance related. In 1995, our laboratory coined the term “Reward Deficiency Syndrome” (RDS) to describe genetic and epigenetic induced hypodopaminergia in the “Brain Reward Cascade” that contribute to addiction and compulsive behaviors 3,6,41. Furthermore, ordinary “liking” of something, or pure pleasure, is represented by small regions mainly in the limbic system (old reptilian part of the brain). These may be part of larger neural circuits. In Latin, hedus is the term for “sweet”; and in Greek, hodone is the term for “pleasure.” Thus, the word Hedonic is now referring to various subcomponents of pleasure: some associated with purely sensory and others with more complex emotions involving morals, aesthetics, and social interactions. The capacity to have pleasure is part of being healthy and may even extend life, especially if linked to optimism as a dopaminergic response 42. Psychiatric illness often includes symptoms of an abnormal inability to experience pleasure, referred to as anhedonia. A negative feeling state is called dysphoria, which can consist of many emotions such as pain, depression, anxiety, fear, and disgust. Previously many scientists used animal research to uncover the complex mechanisms of pleasure, liking, motivation and even emotions like panic and fear, as discussed above 43. However, as a significant amount of related research about the specific brain regions of pleasure/reward circuitry has been derived from invasive studies of animals, these cannot be directly compared with subjective states experienced by humans. In an attempt to resolve the controversy regarding the causal contributions of mesolimbic dopamine systems to reward, we have previously evaluated the three-main competing explanatory categories: “liking,” “learning,” and “wanting” 3. That is, dopamine may mediate (a) liking: the hedonic impact of reward, (b) learning: learned predictions about rewarding effects, or (c) wanting: the pursuit of rewards by attributing incentive salience to reward-related stimuli 44. We have evaluated these hypotheses, especially as they relate to the RDS, and we find that the incentive salience or “wanting” hypothesis of dopaminergic functioning is supported by a majority of the scientific evidence. Various neuroimaging studies have shown that anticipated behaviors such as sex and gaming, delicious foods and drugs of abuse all affect brain regions associated with reward networks, and may not be unidirectional. Drugs of abuse enhance dopamine signaling which sensitizes mesolimbic brain mechanisms that apparently evolved explicitly to attribute incentive salience to various rewards 45. Addictive substances are voluntarily self-administered, and they enhance (directly or indirectly) dopaminergic synaptic function in the NAc. This activation of the brain reward networks (producing the ecstatic “high” that users seek). Although these circuits were initially thought to encode a set point of hedonic tone, it is now being considered to be far more complicated in function, also encoding attention, reward expectancy, disconfirmation of reward expectancy, and incentive motivation 46. The argument about addiction as a disease may be confused with a predisposition to substance and nonsubstance rewards relative to the extreme effect of drugs of abuse on brain neurochemistry. The former sets up an individual to be at high risk through both genetic polymorphisms in reward genes as well as harmful epigenetic insult. Some Psychologists, even with all the data, still infer that addiction is not a disease 47. Elevated stress levels, together with polymorphisms (genetic variations) of various dopaminergic genes and the genes related to other neurotransmitters (and their genetic variants), and may have an additive effect on vulnerability to various addictions 48. In this regard, Vanyukov, et al. 48 suggested based on review that whereas the gateway hypothesis does not specify mechanistic connections between “stages,” and does not extend to the risks for addictions the concept of common liability to addictions may be more parsimonious. The latter theory is grounded in genetic theory and supported by data identifying common sources of variation in the risk for specific addictions (e.g., RDS). This commonality has identifiable neurobiological substrate and plausible evolutionary explanations. Over many years the controversy of dopamine involvement in especially “pleasure” has led to confusion concerning separating motivation from actual pleasure (wanting versus liking) 49. We take the position that animal studies cannot provide real clinical information as described by self-reports in humans. As mentioned earlier and in the abstract, on November 23rd, 2017, evidence for our concerns was discovered 50 In essence, although nonhuman primate brains are similar to our own, the disparity between other primates and those of human cognitive abilities tells us that surface similarity is not the whole story. Sousa et al. 50 small case found various differentially expressed genes, to associate with pleasure related systems. Furthermore, the dopaminergic interneurons located in the human neocortex were absent from the neocortex of nonhuman African apes. Such differences in neuronal transcriptional programs may underlie a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders. In simpler terms, the system controls the production of dopamine, a chemical messenger that plays a significant role in pleasure and rewards. The senior author, Dr. Nenad Sestan from Yale, stated: “Humans have evolved a dopamine system that is different than the one in chimpanzees.” This may explain why the behavior of humans is so unique from that of non-human primates, even though our brains are so surprisingly similar, Sestan said: “It might also shed light on why people are vulnerable to mental disorders such as autism (possibly even addiction).” Remarkably, this research finding emerged from an extensive, multicenter collaboration to compare the brains across several species. These researchers examined 247 specimens of neural tissue from six humans, five chimpanzees, and five macaque monkeys. Moreover, these investigators analyzed which genes were turned on or off in 16 regions of the brain. While the differences among species were subtle, there was a remarkable contrast in the neocortices, specifically in an area of the brain that is much more developed in humans than in chimpanzees. In fact, these researchers found that a gene called tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) for the enzyme, responsible for the production of dopamine, was expressed in the neocortex of humans, but not chimpanzees. As discussed earlier, dopamine is best known for its essential role within the brain’s reward system; the very system that responds to everything from sex, to gambling, to food, and to addictive drugs. However, dopamine also assists in regulating emotional responses, memory, and movement. Notably, abnormal dopamine levels have been linked to disorders including Parkinson’s, schizophrenia and spectrum disorders such as autism and addiction or RDS. Nora Volkow, the director of NIDA, pointed out that one alluring possibility is that the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a substantial role in humans’ ability to pursue various rewards that are perhaps months or even years away in the future. This same idea has been suggested by Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University. Dr. Sapolsky cited evidence that dopamine levels rise dramatically in humans when we anticipate potential rewards that are uncertain and even far off in our futures, such as retirement or even the possible alterlife. This may explain what often motivates people to work for things that have no apparent short-term benefit 51. In similar work, Volkow and Bale 52 proposed a model in which dopamine can favor NOW processes through phasic signaling in reward circuits or LATER processes through tonic signaling in control circuits. Specifically, they suggest that through its modulation of the orbitofrontal cortex, which processes salience attribution, dopamine also enables shilting from NOW to LATER, while its modulation of the insula, which processes interoceptive information, influences the probability of selecting NOW versus LATER actions based on an individual’s physiological state. This hypothesis further supports the concept that disruptions along these circuits contribute to diverse pathologies, including obesity and addiction or RDS.
9/12/21
NovDec - CP - Advantage vs Terror
Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 5 | Opponent: Eagan AE | Judge: Indu Pandey The United States federal government should substantially improve training programs for allied militaries and partner sub-state groups with extreme vetting and have the president of the United States issue a public statement encouraging state and local officials to expand work with Muslim communities.
Improved training programs assist foreign countries in combatting global terrorism and Biden’s statement would decrease radicalism – assumes Trump policies Byman 2-16. Daniel Byman is a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, where his research focuses on counterterrorism and Middle East security “What Trump should do about terrorism (but probably won’t),” 2-16-2017, Brookings Institute, URL: https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/what-trump-should-do-about-terrorism-but-probably-wont//vikas Since the start of his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump has repeatedly warned about “a major threat from radical Islamic terrorism,” and he has tweeted (and Twitter is the forum used for all serious discussions of policy) as follows: And while foreign policy in general got little attention in his “America First” inaugural speech, Trump did single out counterterrorism, promising to “unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth.” Since taking power, Trump has justified an exclusionary executive order on visas and refugees (not, he claims, a Muslim ban) in the name of fighting terrorism, and on his watch, the military conducted a raid in Yemen that led to the death of one U.S. Navy SEAL and more than 20 civilians, including children. So it is safe to say that under Trump, terrorism will remain at the top of the U.S. national security agenda. Assessing the danger of terrorism is difficult, because so much varies by region. At home, only 94 Americans have died from jihadist attacks since 9/11—far fewer than experts (including myself) anticipated in the scary weeks after 9/11. Indeed, although it often goes unmentioned, but before Omar Mateen killed 49 people at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, right-wing terrorists had killed more Americans in the post-9/11 era than had violent Islamist radicals. The public’s perception of the danger of terrorism is far worse than the reality. Even after fifteen years of a relentless global counterterrorism campaign, 40 percent of Americans believe the ability of terrorists to launch a major attack on the United States is greater than it was at the time of the 9/11 attacks, and another 31 percent believe it is simply the same. There is no evidence for either of these propositions. Some of this misperception stems from the post-9/11 media environment. After the towers fell, reporting of terrorist plots, let alone actual attacks, has skyrocketed, particularly if the perpetrators have even weak connections to jihadist groups like al Qaeda or its even more evil spinoff, the Islamic State. The globalization of media meant that Islamic State attacks in Dhaka or al Qaeda attacks in Bali receive considerable press coverage, to say nothing of the attacks in even more relatable and accessible locales in Europe. All of this makes Trump’s claim that the media have neglected terrorism seem bizarre to terrorism experts, where the normal complaint is that the media do the terrorists’ job for them by giving them so much free publicity. Indeed, although the terrorism problem in Europe is more severe than that facing the United States, it too has not surged dramatically compared to past decades. The 1970s and 1980s saw many attacks. Recent years have seen bloody and horrific attacks, like the 2015 shootings and bombings in Paris that killed 130 people—but 1988 saw 440 people die, most of whom perished when Libyan agents bombed Pan Am 103. The political impact in Europe and the United States is far greater than the danger to citizens’ lives. Trump scored many points playing up the threat of Muslim immigrants and Syrian refugees, with the terrorism danger (despite being low to nil statistically) looming in the background. In Europe the politics are even nastier, and in a span of a few short years xenophobic movements have gained extraordinary popularity and influence almost everywhere. Across the continent and often regardless of domestic economic stability or even ethnic diversity, European nations have experienced a surge of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, nationalism. While the American public has an exaggerated sense of the terrorism threat, there has been a real surge in violence outside the West. Terrorism has exploded throughout much of South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Terrorist groups have eagerly exploited and exacerbated the security vacuum created by the civil wars that have killed more than one hundred thousand in Afghanistan, tens of thousands in Pakistan, tens of thousands in Nigeria, thousands in Yemen, thousands in Libya, and hundreds of thousands in Syria. Countries like Turkey, Mali, Lebanon, and others near these hotbeds have also suffered from spillover violence. Far more than domestic attacks, the real danger to U.S. interests is in Muslim parts of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Stability and governance in many countries have collapsed and they are under strain in others. This wave of instability and the terrorist violence it spawns have an impact beyond the immediate human cost. They have geopolitical implications as threatened states fearfully react, with countries like Saudi Arabia intervening in the quagmire of Yemen’s civil war and as regional tension with Iran more generally escalate. The threat of terrorism also enables repressive U.S. partners to resist pressure for political reform—an example here being Egypt’s claim that all forms of religious opposition are linked to terrorism. The U.S. response focuses on part of these dangers, but only in part. The post-9/11 efforts developed by the Bush administration and continued under the Obama administration have resulted in an effective combination of global intelligence gathering, security service disruption, and targeted strikes (particularly by drones) that has taken a real toll on terrorist groups, especially al Qaeda. For partner countries with stable governments, the United States partners with local security services to monitor, detain, arrest, and jail suspected terrorists. In less stable places like Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, targeted killing of terrorist leaders eliminates critical bomb-makers and logisticians, while those that survive are forced into hiding. Indeed, the success of these counterterrorism efforts has contributed to the recent push by al Qaeda and now the Islamic State to encourage lone wolves. This approach, however, is less effective when jihadists control territory, and here is where the Obama administration often came up short. In areas where civil wars rage, the United States will have to step up and improve training programs for allied militaries and partner sub-state groups. We need more competent good guys—or at least more competent less-bad guys—to push back the Islamic State and other groups on the ground and ideally hold the territory against any renewed attacks or guerrilla operations. It is easy to recommend this policy; the difficulty inevitably lies in its execution. Military training programs in Syria and Iraq have often failed disastrously. In both countries, despite months or even years of training, U.S.-trained forces repeatedly fled before the enemy (or, in Syria, sometimes even before). When the Islamic State took Mosul in June 2014, it only took perhaps 1,000 fighters to force 30,000 well-armed Iraqi forces to abandon the city, leaving behind massive stockpiles of sophisticated equipment, small arms, and ammunition for their jihadist foes. Starting small is vital. From small unit leaders through to senior officers, the United States will need to carefully vet—here’s a place where “extreme vetting” may be a good idea—the personnel in its training programs. The second critical factor is improving governance. Instead of funding large financial aid packages or pushing expansive democratization programs, the U.S. should first focus on minimizing corruption and assisting in basic service provision. At the same time as the Trump administration should try to rectify past failures, it must also be willing to exploit the Obama administration’s quite real successes. The United States must also be prepared for the full collapse of the so-called caliphate, which has steadily lost ground and seen its recruitment of foreign fighters and funding dry up. Assuming it continues to lose territory, many of its local fighters will go underground or return home. For the thousands of foreigners returning home or moving somewhere else, at least some among them will decide to continue the fight at home or wherever the opportunity arises. As it suffers further losses, the Islamic State itself will encourage more lone wolves to maintain its image and remain relevant to both its supporters and enemies. The fall of Raqqa, albeit an important accomplishment, will not mark final victory. The United States, however, cannot and should not be everywhere. It will be crucial that the new president delineates between areas of strong interest and interests that are peripheral. Some areas are often better left to allies (and yes, allies are important): France, for example, can continue to take the lead in much of North and West Africa. In an ironic twist, it could prove more challenging for the new president to navigate domestic waters than the shoals of the Middle East, and here I worry that the new president will make things worse. The first problem is institutionalization. Under both Bush and Obama, new and controversial counterterrorism instruments—targeted killings, increased domestic surveillance, aggressive FBI sting operations, detention without trial, and so on—are at the heart of U.S. counterterrorism efforts. In addition, the United States is bombing the Islamic State in Iraq and definitely in Syria with only less than clear legal justification. Since 9/11, counterterrorism policy has been largely the province of the executive branch, with some modification by the courts and some by Congress. Despite its interventions in the interrogation and detention debates, Congress, perhaps the most important branch in the long-term, has been conspicuously absent under both parties’ leadership. The dearth of public debate and legislation, regardless of your opinion about the policies in question, has created the current environment where either government lawyers can be forced into legalistic gymnastics trying to justify programs or operations become unnecessarily restricted for lack of clear authority. The proper participation of Congress in the policy process will put the executive branch and the courts on a sounder footing and ensure longer-term planning necessary for programs develops properly. Trump, however, so far seems skeptical on divided government and the separation of powers. The unrealistic domestic assessment of the terrorism threat reflects another serious counterterrorism failure: resilience. President Obama had tried repeatedly to talk down the threat, starting with a landmark speech in 2013 in which he described al Qaeda as on “the path to defeat” and noting that another 9/11 is unlikely. He was right. But the rise of the Islamic State and its high-profile atrocities have fostered the perception that the terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland has skyrocketed. Public polling and the election rhetoric seem to demonstrate definitively that Obama’s efforts to build resilience failed. It remains easy for a terrorist group, or even some lucky amateurs, to sow fear and disrupt the nation with even minor attacks—the Boston Marathon bombings, which killed three people, resulted in the shutdown of an entire metropolitan area and impacted the whole country. Another unfortunate consequence of this election is the real risk to one of America’s greatest counterterrorism successes: integration of immigrant communities. In contrast to Europe, the American Muslim community is remarkably well integrated and regularly cooperates with law enforcement. Ideally, the new president would press state and local officials to continue and expand their work with Muslim communities, not just to stop radicalism in their ranks but also to protect them from right-wing extremists. Besides being the right thing to do, good law enforcement relations with Muslim Americans, especially in an atmosphere in which many face daily security threats, will help ensure that radicalization remains low and that if and when it occurs, the community is comfortable with and motivated to cooperate with law enforcement. We all know this is unlikely, and in fact Trump is likely to further alienate this community. Nor will the damage go away once Trump leaves office. Regrettably, the demonization of the American Muslim community Trump has unleashed—and which is so unlike the behavior of President Bush—will endure with potentially serious counterterrorism (and more broadly social and moral) implications. Now that this door is open (or maybe off its hinges) it seems likely other politicians will be tempted to walk through.
11/21/21
NovDec - CP - Ban LAW Deployment
Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 4 | Opponent: Dwight-Englewood EK | Judge: Vishan Chaudhary CP Text: States should ban the deployment of Lethal Autonomous Weapons. HRW ’20 Human Rights Watch, “Stopping Killer Robots”, 08-10-2020, https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/08/10/stopping-killer-robots/country-positions-banning-fully-autonomous-weapons-and//pranav Weapons systems that select and engage targets without meaningful human control are unacceptable and need to be prevented. All countries have a duty to protect humanity from this dangerous development by banning fully autonomous weapons. Retaining meaningful human control over the use of force is an ethical imperative, a legal necessity, and a moral obligation.
11/21/21
NovDec - CP - Police
Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 7 | Opponent: Greenhill KD | Judge: Jacob Nails CP Text: A just government ought to recognize an unconditional right of all workers except police to strike. The inclusion of the police into the right to strike erases difference – the essence of a cop is to practice brutality and crackdowns strikes Marcy ’15 Sam, “The year of the pig: Should workers support police strikes?”, 01-08-2015, https://www.workers.org/2015/01/17782///pranav Are strikes by the police to be regarded approximately the same way as strikes by ordinary workers? A reading of the treatment accorded to the New York police strike by the Daily World (the paper of the Communist Party which professes to be Marxist-Leninist) clearly conveys this impression. A column by George Morris, the Daily World’s labor analyst, waxes eloquent about the cops’ strike and says “it is in the spirit of rebellion we see everywhere today as in unions against the long entrenched bureaucracy.” He further says that the cops are “beginning to see themselves as in much the same position as other city employees and workers.” Finally, he admonishes his readers that “fire should not be blunderbussed against all on the police force.” You see, the way to look at it is that there are good cops and bad cops, just like there are good capitalists and bad ones. We must assume then, that there are good storm troopers and bad ones if we use the logic of George Morris. In this way, Morris substitutes bourgeois morality for Marxist analysis of class antagonisms and contradictions between class groupings. The cops’ strike is not an isolated phenomenon. There is one in progress right now in Milwaukee. Earlier there were strikes or stoppages in Detroit and Youngstown, Ohio. Strike preparations are underway in perhaps a dozen other cities throughout the country. It is therefore necessary and in the vital interests of the working class to restate the fundamental position of revolutionary Marxism on this crucial question. Should strikes of cops be treated on an equal level with workers’ strikes? Emphatically, no! A striking worker and a striking police officer may on the surface appear to have the same immediate aims — to get higher pay and better conditions for themselves. But this is to take an extremely narrow and superficial view of their apparently similar situations. The truth, however, is that there is objectively speaking not a shred of class identity between workers and the police. The fundamental interests of the workers are diametrically opposed to those of the police and are absolutely irreconcilable with them. Producers or parasites? A worker is, above all, a producer. The police officer is a parasite who lives off what the worker produces. No truer words could be said! All the material wealth which is now in the possession of the capitalist class was produced by the workers. When a worker goes out on strike she or he is merely trying to retrieve a portion of the wealth which her or his labor power produced. The worker gets back in the form of wages only a portion of what he or she produces. The rest is what the capitalist class retains in the form of profit (really the unpaid labor of the workers). The gross national income of the U.S. last year reached the astronomical sum of one trillion dollars. It was all produced by workers: Black, Brown, white, men and women and even children. The struggles of all the workers, insofar as their immediate demands are concerned, are merely to retrieve a larger portion of this wealth which they produced for the bosses and which the bosses keep for themselves. Contribute nothing to social wealth What have the cops contributed to the production of this unprecedented amount of wealth? Nothing at all. In fact, their principal function is to guard the wealth for the capitalists, protect their monopolist profits from the demands of the workers. Even as the New York cops were out on strike, their emergency crews were busily clubbing the heads of striking telephone workers. That’s the very essence of a cop: to crack the heads of strikers and practice the most inhuman brutality against the Black, Puerto Rican and Chicano/a communities. A cop is a mercenary hired by the capitalist class through their agent (the city government) to keep the mass of the workers and the oppressed in complete subjection. They utilize all the forces and violence at their disposal whenever the masses rise up in rebellion against the unendurable conditions imposed by the master class. The police are the most parasitic social grouping in society. When they work — if that’s what it can possibly be called — their labor is directed against the workers and oppressed. Graft, corruption, intimate collaboration with all sorts of underworld figures and enterprises such as gambling, narcotics and a thousand other shady businesses — that’s what cops are really engaged in. They are utterly inseparable from crime and corruption itself. One could not exist without the other. Both are nourished and supported by the nature of the capitalist system itself. To put the police on a par with the workers is to erase the difference between the persecutors and their victims. Leyton doesn’t say anything that takes out the pic – it j warrants why opting-out is bad, but not RTS not applying to a specific industry.
11/21/21
NovDec - CP - UBI
Tournament: Apple Valley | Round: 4 | Opponent: Eden Prairie DT | Judge: Breigh Plat CP: The United States Congress should repeal welfare and transfer programs, including but not limited to Social Security and Medicare and repeal base-narrowing features of the individual income tax system. The United States Department of Health and Human Services should provide a basic-income guarantee of $13,788 to individuals age 18 or older in the United States and provide a basic-income guarantee of $6,894 to individuals under the age of 18 in the United States.
Replacing welfare and tax breaks with a basic income solves inequality and is completely revenue-neutral Jensen et al 17 (Matthew, William Ensor, Anderson Frailey, Amy Xu, founding director of the Open Source Policy Center (OSPC) at AEI, which makes critical policy simulation models AND research associates at American Enterprise Institute, May, “A Budget-Neutral Universal Basic Income”, https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/UBI-Jensen-et-al-working-paper.pdf, Aly M) Reform We model a policy reform that repeals most welfare and transfer programs (benefit programs) and basenarrowing features of the individual income tax system in favor of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). The UBI is calibrated to neutralize the budgetary effect of the reform including taxes collected on UBI income, which would be taxable. Individuals under 18 receive a UBI that is one-half of that received by individuals 18 and over. This reform repeals 20 benefits programs, which are listed in Appendix A. A selection of major benefits programs—Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Veterans Benefits (VB), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI)—are modeled using Transfer Augmentation Model (C-TAM), and the benefits totals are assigned to individuals in the Current Population Survey (CPS). Benefit payments for these programs total $2.17 trillion in 2014. We also repeal many smaller programs using total outlays reported by the Office of Management and Budget. Payments for these programs total just over $366 billion. In the distributional analysis later in this paper, we assume the distribution of the nonmodeled programs matches that of a subset of the modeled benefits: Medicaid, VB, SNAP, and SSI. Combined, the repeal of these programs frees up $2.54 trillion for a UBI in 2014. The reform also repeals 23 provisions in the federal individual income tax code, listed in Table 1, which we model with Tax Calculator and Tax Data. In total, the base-broadening tax reform increases tax liabilities by $649 billion in 2014. We do not repeal several provisions because of lack of data, including the exclusion for employer-provided health insurance. Results Together, repealing the benefit programs and tax reform frees up $3.21 trillion for a UBI. After accounting for the additional revenue gained by making the UBI taxable, this is sufficient to finance a UBI of $13,788 for individuals 18 or older and $6,894 for individuals under 18.
Basic income removes inequality as an economic possibility Santens 1/15 (Scott, founding member of the Economic Security Project, an adviser to the Universal Income Project, a founding committee member of Basic Income Action, committee member of the US Basic Income Guarantee Network, 2017, “Why we should all have a basic income”, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/why-we-should-all-have-a-basic-income/, Aly M) Humans need security to thrive, and basic income is a secure economic base – the new foundation on which to transform the precarious present, and build a more solid future. That’s not to say it’s a silver bullet. It’s that our problems are not impossible to solve. Poverty is not a supernatural foe, nor is extreme inequality or the threat of mass income loss due to automation. They are all just choices. And at any point, we can choose to make new ones. Based on the evidence we already have and will likely continue to build, I firmly believe one of those choices should be unconditional basic income as a new equal starting point for all.
11/6/21
NovDec - DA - Inflation
Tournament: Apple Valley | Round: 4 | Opponent: Eden Prairie DT | Judge: Breigh Plat Best studies conclude inflation is expected to level out and is transitory – err neg other predictions are based off intuitions and have bad track records. Mark Hulbert 10/26 , Why These Economists Aren't Worried About Inflation. Barrons (10-26-2021) https://www.barrons.com/articles/inflation-economists-51635264860?tesla=y//anop The consumer price index is likely to rise next year by about 3—and perhaps even less. If so, of course, inflation in 2022 could be much less the 5.4 rate at which the CPI has risen over the past 12 months. This rosy projection comes from the inflation models that have the best historical track records, according to a new study. Focusing on the models with the best track records would seem to be an obvious approach to the debate over whether inflation’s recent spike is transitory. But surprisingly few commentators have done so. Many appear to have instead based their projections on little more than intuitions and hunches, picking and choosing among the myriad pieces of available economic data and anecdotal evidence to find what supports their prior beliefs. Their approach, in effect, is: “Here’s the conclusion on which I will base my facts.” The new study that instead focuses on historical track records is written by two economists at the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, Randal Verbrugge and Saeed Zaman. Their study is entitled “Whose Inflation Expectations Best Predict Inflation”? (Note that the conclusions of their study are theirs, they write, “and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.”) After studying a number of competing models, the economists found that the models based on the forecasts of “professional economists and businesses have tended to provide more accurate predictions of future inflation than the models based on expectations of households and of financial market participants.” That’s good news because households are among those who currently believe that inflation’s recent spike will be more than transitory. Consider the University of Michigan’s Survey of Consumers, which finds that consumers on average expect the CPI to rise 4.7 over the coming year. That’s only slightly below the 5.4 rate at which the CPI has risen over the trailing year. In contrast, consider the much lower projections of three models that are based on the forecasts of professional economists and businesses: The quarterly survey of 36 professional economic forecasters conducted by the Philadelphia Fed. Their latest median forecast for the CPI’s increase in 2022 is 2.4—barely half that of consumers’ expectations. Wolters Kluwer Blue Chip. The median of their 2022 CPI forecasts is for an increase of 3.3. That’s higher than in the Philadelphia Fed’s survey, but still a lot lower than the CPI’s trailing 12-month increase. The Atlanta Fed each month surveys approximately 300 businesses in the Southeast U.S., asking for their inflation expectations for the subsequent year. The consensus expectation in the latest such survey is an increase of 3.1. The average of these three projections is below 3. In an email, Dr. Zaman mentioned another inflation model whose record in their study was almost as good. This additional model, which was devised a number of years ago by the Cleveland Fed, has a number of inputs, including Treasury yields, surveys of professional forecasters, and inflation swaps (derivatives in which one party to the transaction agrees to swap fixed payments in return for payments tied to the inflation rate). This model is currently forecasting that the CPI over the next 12 months will rise 1.8. There’s no guarantee that any of these models’ projections will be accurate, needless to say. But if you believe that inflation will be much higher, the burden of proof is on you to both codify the model on which your belief is based and document that it has a superior historical record. It’s not good enough simply to refer to potentially inflationary factors like supply-chain bottlenecks , higher energy prices, increased government borrowing, or the (hopefully) imminent end of pandemic-induced dampers on economic activity. Those factors are also being taken into account by the professional economists, forecasters, and businesses whose median projections came out ahead in this new study’s performance ranking. And yet they, on balance, are still in the “inflation is transitory” camp. What about the “break-even inflation rate“—the inflation model that is referred to most often in the financial press? It measures the difference between the yields on nominal Treasuries and those of Treasury inflation-protected securities, or TIPS, of similar maturities. It’s referred to as the break-even rate because it is the future inflation rate that would mean the total return from investing in TIPS today would be identical to that from buying nominal Treasuries. But, as Dr. Verbrugge said in an email, “Breakevens are notoriously poor predictors of inflation, compared to these other measures” that their study found to have decent track records. The plan spurs persistent inflation – unions realize they are disenfranchised but have a unique opportunity to rebuild into disruptive strikes. Liz Peek 21 Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim and Company, Biden's Big Labor policies will create next round of inflation. The Hill. (10-22-2021) https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/577933-bidens-big-labor-policies-will-create-next-round-of-inflation//anop Americans blame President Biden for rising inflation; it could get worse. The administration’s big-spending policies and inability to cure our supply chain woes have driven prices higher. In addition, Biden’s generous handouts and vaccine mandates have pushed workers to the sidelines, making it difficult to fill jobs and raising costs even further. But it is Biden’s enthusiasm for Big Labor that is going to make matters worse. We are now entering a new phase of inflation pressures. A rising cost of living is pushing workers to demand higher wages, which in turn prompts companies to raise prices even more, igniting an unholy cycle that penalizes everyone. ADVERTISEMENT Unions, cheered on by Biden’s White House, have decided to take advantage of this moment. Labor strikes are on the increase, which will lead to higher wages, take workers offline and make it even harder to get goods to customers. Those bare shelves popping up around the country may just be a teaser for what comes next. A wage-price spiral is the phenomenon that causes inflation to become “persistent” and not “transitory.” This is what Democrats will bring to the 2022 midterm elections. A recent Morning Consult/Politico poll found that 62 percent of registered voters, including 61 percent of independents and even 41 percent of Democrats, blame Biden’s policies for soaring inflation. With prices rising at the fastest rate in 13 years, less than half of those surveyed attribute the increase to Americans returning to pre-pandemic behavior. Though the policies that contributed to price hikes on everything from rents to gasoline to chicken were not specified in this poll, other surveys have found voters pinning rising inflation on Democrats’ big spending programs, such as the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. That is one reason (along with a healthy survival instinct) that moderate Democrats are now slow-walking Biden’s $3.5 trillion “social infrastructure” bill. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg acknowledged the connection the other day, when he shirked responsibility for port delays and trucker shortages by arguing that we don’t have just a supply problem but also a demand problem. Buttigieg is correct. With Congress authorizing an unprecedented $5 trillion in “relief” spending over the past two years and with the Federal Reserve pumping trillions into the money supply, the country is awash with money. Put most simply, there is too much money chasing too few goods. As a consequence, prices in September rose 5.4 percent from the year before, faster that the growth in wages, which increased 4.6 percent. Over the past year, real average hourly wages are down almost one percent. Workers are falling behind, and they know it. Unions have taken notice and decided that this is the time to begin rebuilding their ranks among private companies. Only 6.3 percent of private-sector workers today belong to unions, a massive drop from 12 percent in 1990. Clearly, labor leaders would like to reverse that trend. With the nation short of workers, this may be the perfect time to do so. Just recently, 10,000 United Auto Workers at tractor manufacturer John Deere went out on strike for the first time in three decades, while 31,000 employees at Kaiser Permanente are also staging a walkout. Some 1,400 workers at cereal-maker Kellogg are striking. All in, there have been 12 strikes of 1,000 workers or more so far this year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and a total of 178 work stoppages. Those figures are way above 2020 totals, but about the same as in 2018 and 2019. My guess: We’re in the early innings. Workers are aware that they have leverage, and union leaders know there is a pro-Big Labor president in the White House. Early in his tenure, Biden posted a message about workers’ right to organize and the virtues of collective bargaining on Twitter that many saw as encouraging employees at an Amazon facility in Alabama to vote in favor of forming a union. It was an unprecedented intrusion by a president into such contests. As it happened, Biden’s push failed when workers overwhelmingly defeated the organizing effort. President Biden has gone further, inserting into his stimulus bills pro-union items like making union dues deductible and requiring that federal funds flow predominantly to union shops. As important, he has packed the National Labor Relations Board with former union lawyers committed to advancing the cause. Politico reports that the agency’s expected rulings could “serve as a backdoor for enacting provisions … that would vastly expand workers’ ability to join unions in potentially the most important overhaul of U.S. labor law since the 1940s.” Organizing gig workers is one of the new board's top ambitions. The Los Angeles Times affirms: “Biden has put unions at the center of policy — viewing them as vehicles not only to rebuild middle-class jobs but also to address climate change and racial and gender inequity.” The John Deere workers rejected a contract that would have awarded raises of 5 percent to 6 percent and offered another 3 percent wage hike in 2023 and 2025. Deere’s employees are emboldened by the company’s current profitability and the struggle to hire new employees. Most likely, workers elsewhere will follow suit. We have not seen a wave of disruptive labor strikes for many years. For the past two decades globalization put a lid on the demands of workers who were wary of shipping jobs overseas, and the Great Recession crimped corporate profits. ADVERTISEMENT White House 'confident' Manchin will back reconciliation framework Only 35 percent say US economy doing well: poll Biden’s pro-union efforts could win back some of those blue-collar workers who defected to Donald Trump in 2016, but the president’s encouragement of Big Labor will surely lead to higher wages. Those pay hikes will spur even higher inflation; it will be hard to stop the merry-go-round. It will also be hard for Biden and his fellow Democrats to escape responsibility for what many voters consider the country’s number one problem: inflation. Excess inflation causes collapse – destroys savings of millions of households. Jo Harper 21 Jo Harper is a freelance British journalist based in Warsaw, writing for the BBC, Politico, Deutsche Welle and others. How big a threat is inflation? – DW – 07/30/2021. dw (7-30-2021) https://beta.dw.com/en/how-big-a-threat-is-inflation/a-58653487//anop Many economists advocate a middle-ground of low to moderate inflation of around 2 per year. When inflation breaches that figure some benefit and others lose out. Inflation is usually considered a problem when it goes above 5, Brigitte Granville, a professor of economics at Queen Mary University, London, told DW. If inflation causes a currency to decline, then it can benefit exporters by making their goods more affordable when priced in other currencies. People with assets that are priced in a particular currency, like property or commodities, may like to see some inflation as that raises the price of their assets. Inflation can also increase profit margins and reduce debt in real terms. It can benefit borrowers because the inflation-adjusted value of their outstanding debts shrinks. However, higher inflation tends to harm savers as it erodes the purchasing power of the money they have saved. People holding assets denominated in currency, such as cash or bonds, may also not like inflation, as it erodes the real value of their holdings. Moreover, if central banks felt obliged to tighten monetary policy to check rising prices, it could cause a sharp correction in financial markets, which have been pumped up by a decade of QE-style liquidity injections. "Millions of middle-class households which have been placing increasing proportions of their savings in mutual funds invested in equities would suffer," Granville says. However, inflation of 3 or 4 could be positive for many economies at the moment. There are economists who argue strongly that it would reduce the debt overhang in real terms, for example. Recuperating growth is key to international cooperation to solve multiple existential threats Haass 17 Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, previously served as Director of Policy Planning for the US State Department (2001-2003), and was President George W. Bush's special envoy to Northern Ireland and Coordinator for the Future of Afghanistan. “A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order” published January 10, 2017 A large portion of the burden of creating and maintaining order at the regional or global level will fall on the United States. This is inevitable for several reasons, only one of which is that the United States is and will likely remain the most powerful country in the world for decades to come. The corollary to this point is that no other country or group of countries has either the capacity or the mind-set to build a global order. Nor can order ever be expected to emerge automatically; there is no invisible hand in the geopolitical marketplace. Again, a large part of the burden (or, more positively, opportunity) falls on the principal power of the day. There is more than a little self-interest at stake. The United States cannot remain aloof, much less unaffected by a world in disarray. Globalization is more reality than choice. At the regional level, the United States actually faces the opposite problem, namely, that certain actors do have the mind-set and means to shape an order. The problem is that their views of order are in part or in whole incompatible with U.S. interests. Examples would include Iran and ISIS in the Middle East, China in Asia, and Russia in Europe. It will not be an easy time for the United States. The sheer number and range of challenges is daunting. There are a large number of actors and forces to contend with. Alliances, normally created in opposition to some country or countries, may not be as useful a vehicle in a world in which not all foes are always foes and not all friends are always friendly. Diplomacy will count for a great deal; there will be a premium on dexterity. Consultations that aim to affect the actions of other governments and their leaders are likely to matter more than negotiations that aim to solve problems. Another reality is that the United States for all its power cannot impose order. Partially this reflects what might be called structural realities, namely, that no country can contend with global challenges on its own given the very nature of these challenges. The United States could reduce its carbon footprint dramatically, but the effect on global climate would be modest if India and China failed to follow suit. Similarly, on its own the United States cannot maintain a world trading system or successfully combat terrorism or disease. Adding to these realities are resource limits. The United States cannot provide all the troops or dollars to maintain order in the Middle East and Europe and Asia and South Asia. There is simply too much capability in too many hands. Unilateralism is rarely a serious foreign policy option. Partners are essential. That is one of the reasons why sovereign obligation is a desirable compass for U.S. foreign policy. Earlier I made the case that it represents realism for an era of globalization. It also is a natural successor to containment, the doctrine that guided the United States for the four decades of the Cold War. There are basic differences, however. Containment was about holding back more than bringing in and was designed for an era when rivals were almost always adversaries and in which the challenges were mostly related to classical geopolitical competition.1 Sovereign obligation, by contrast, is designed for a world in which sometime rivals are sometime partners and in which collective efforts are required to meet common challenges. Up to this point, we have focused on what the United States needs to do in the world to promote order. That is what one would expect from a book about international relations and American foreign policy. But a focus on foreign policy is not enough. National security is a coin with two sides, and what the United States does at home, what is normally thought of as belonging to the domestic realm, is every bit as much a part of national security as foreign policy. It is best to understand the issue as guns and butter rather than guns versus butter. When it comes to the domestic side, the argument is straightforward. In order to lead and compete and act effectively in the world, the United States needs to put its house in order. I have written on what this entails in a book titled Foreign Policy Begins at Home.2 This was sometimes interpreted as suggesting a turn away from foreign policy. It was nothing of the sort. Foreign policy begins at home, but it ends there only at the country’s peril.3 Earlier I mentioned that the United States has few unilateral options, that there are few if any things it can do better alone than with others. The counterpart to this claim is that the world cannot come up with the elements of a working order absent the United States. The United States is not sufficient, but it is necessary. It is also true that the United States cannot lead or act effectively in the world if it does not have a strong domestic foundation. National security inevitably requires significant amounts of human, physical, and financial resources to draw on. The better the United States is doing economically, the more it will have available in the way of resources to devote to what it wants and needs to do abroad without igniting a divisive and distracting domestic debate as to priorities. An additional benefit is that respect for the United States and for the American political, social, and economic model (along with a desire to emulate it) will increase only if it is seen as successful. The most basic test of the success of the model will be economic growth. U.S. growth levels may appear all right when compared with what a good many other countries are experiencing, but they are below what is needed and fall short of what is possible. There is no reason why the United States is not growing in the range of 3 percent or even higher other than what it is doing and, more important, not doing.4
11/6/21
NovDec - DA - Infrastructure
Tournament: Apple Valley | Round: 2 | Opponent: Cooper City NR | Judge: Lala Diallo Reconciliation passes now - Biden PC is key to getting democratic skeptics on board, but it’s tentative Cochrane and Weisman 11/05 Emily Cochrane - correspondent based in Washington. She has covered Congress since late 2018, focusing on the annual debate over government funding and economic legislation, ranging from emergency pandemic relief to infrastructure, Jonathan Weisman - congressional correspondent, veteran Washington journalist and author of the novel “No. 4 Imperial Lane” and the nonfiction book “
Semitism
: Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump.” His career in journalism stretches back 30 years, “Live Updates: House Democrats Push Toward Votes on Biden’s Agenda”, 11-05-2021, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/05/us/biden-spending-infrastructure-bill//pranav At the White House, Mr. Biden called on lawmakers to pass the legislation. “I’m asking every House member, member of the House of Representatives, to vote yes on both these bills right now,” the president said. Spooked by Tuesday’s electoral drubbing, Democrats labored to overcome concerns among moderates about the cost and details of a rapidly evolving, $1.85 trillion social safety net and climate plan and push it through over unified Republican opposition. They also hoped to clear a Senate-passed $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill — the largest investment in the nation’s aging public works in a decade — for Mr. Biden’s signature. Top Democratic officials said they were confident they could complete both measures by day’s end, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and her team continued to haggle with holdouts. Several moderates were pushing for more information about the cost of the sprawling plan, including a nonpartisan analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, the official scorekeeper responsible for calculating the fiscal impact of the 2,135-page legislation. “I think everyone’s waiting for the C.B.O. to do their job,” said Representative Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, speaking to reporters on Friday morning as he left Ms. Pelosi’s office, where White House officials were also meeting on next steps. But Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, said the cost estimate would not be ready by the end of the day, and a person familiar with the discussions said a score from the budget office was weeks away from completion. “We’re working on it,” Mr. Hoyer said. Ms. Pelosi spent much of the day on Thursday buttonholing lawmakers on the House floor to try to corral support for the social policy bill, which includes monthly payments to families with children, universal prekindergarten, a four-week paid family and medical leave program, health care subsidies and a broad array of climate change initiatives. Mr. Biden and members of his cabinet worked the phones to win over Democratic skeptics. With Republicans united in opposition, Democrats could afford to lose as few as three votes from their side. As Democrats labored to unite their members behind the bill, Republicans sought to wreak procedural havoc on the House floor, forcing a vote to adjourn the chamber that leaders held open for hours to buy time for their negotiations. While the Senate approved the $1 trillion infrastructure bill in August, the measure has stalled as progressives have repeatedly refused to supply their votes for it until there is agreement on the other bill. Business lobbying backlash ensures Sinema flips – empirics prove she doesn’t like similar bills Duda ’21 Jeremy, Prior to joining the Arizona Mirror, he worked at the Arizona Capitol Times, where he spent eight years covering the Governor's Office and two years as editor of the Yellow Sheet Report, “Business groups urge Kelly, Sinema to oppose pro-union PRO Act”, 08-30-2021, https://www.azmirror.com/2021/08/30/business-groups-urge-kelly-sinema-to-oppose-pro-union-pro-act///pranav Business groups publicly called on Democratic U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema to oppose a sweeping piece of pro-organized labor legislation that would wipe out Arizona’s “right-to-work” law that prohibits mandatory union membership. At a press conference at the office of the Arizona chapter of the Associated General Contractors near the state Capitol on Monday, leaders of several business groups warned that the Protecting the Right to Organize Act — or PRO Act, as it’s more commonly known — would undermine Arizona’s recovery from the economic slump it faced last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, undermine the “gig economy,” jeopardize secret ballots in union organization votes, give unions access to confidential employee information and strip Arizonans of their right not to join a union. The bill would allow unions to override right-to-work laws and collect union dues from non-members who still benefit from collective bargaining. It would also prohibit company-sponsored meetings to urge employees against unionizing, define most independent contractors as employees, protect employees who are attempting to unionize from being fired and allow unions to engage in secondary strikes in support of other striking workers, among other provisions. “We want to thank and tell Senator Sinema and Senator Kelly that we appreciate them for not signing on as co-sponsors to the PRO Act, because if they were to change their opinions, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer will put this up for a vote,” said Danny Seiden, president and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Kelly and Sinema are two of only three Senate Democrats, along with Virginia’s Mark Warner, who haven’t co-sponsored the bill or thrown their public support behind it. Kelly last month told the Huffington Post that he opposes the independent contractor provision, but that he supports the “overall goals” of the legislation. Sinema is widely known as a holdout on the Democratic side and hasn’t supported the PRO Act, but spokesman Pablo Sierra-Carmona indicated that she hasn’t made up her mind, and that she won’t do so unless and until it comes up for a vote in the Senate. They lash out against Reconciliation – it includes similar provisions FURCHTGOTT-ROTH 10/09 Diana, former acting assistant secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, is adjunct professor of economics at George Washington University, “Democrats can't pass the PRO Act, so it's buried in the reconciliation bill”, 10-09-2021, https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/575992-dems-cant-pass-the-pro-act-so-its-buried-in-the-reconciliation-bill//pranav Union membership has been declining for decades as workers find better uses than union dues for their hard-earned dollars. But union bosses and their supporters are trying to change the law to force hard-working Americans into unions. How? Through the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act), a bill that would expand the power of union leaders at the expense of workers. After sailing through the House, the PRO Act now appears stalled in the Senate and Democrats are trying to slip some PRO Act provisions into a massive reconciliation bill. American workers are wise to turn down union membership. Union pension plans are in trouble. In 2020, the Labor Department listed 121 union plans in critical status, defined as less than 65 percent funded, and 61 in endangered status, with less than 80 percent funded. Unions desperately need new workers to join, because they pay contributions for many years without withdrawing money. Most recently, Amazon workers in Alabama resoundingly rejected efforts by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store International Union to organize their plant, with more than 70 percent of workers voting against the union. The union’s plan was in critical status between 2015 and 2019, and the Labor Department informed the plan’s administrators that it had to be reorganized by reducing benefits and increasing contributions. Union leaders and their allies on Capitol Hill believe the way to increase membership after decades of decline is to pass elements of the PRO Act through reconciliation. Unlike the PRO Act, which needs 60 votes in the Senate to enable it to move to President Biden’s desk for signature, the reconciliation bill, which deals with taxes and spending, needs only a simple majority. So via a massive reconciliation bill, congressional Democrats are trying to move some labor union provisions of the PRO Act by arguing they are actually revenue raisers. Reconciliation is k2 stopping existential climate change – warming is incremental and every change in temperature is vital Higgins 8/16 Trevor, Senior Director, Domestic Climate and Energy, “Budget Reconciliation Is the Key to Stopping Climate Change”, 08-16-2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2021/08/16/502681/budget-reconciliation-key-stopping-climate-change///pranav The United States is suffering acutely from the chaotic changes in climate that scientists now directly attribute to the burning of fossil fuels and other human activity. The drought, fires, extreme heat, and floods that have already killed hundreds this summer across the continent and around the world are a tragedy—and a warning of worsening instability yet to come. However, this week, the Senate initiated an extraordinary legislative response that would set the world on a different path. Enacting the full scope of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda would put the American economy to work leading a global transition to clean energy and stabilizing the climate. A look at what’s coming next through the budget reconciliation process reveals a ray of hope that is easy to miss amid the fitful negotiations of recent months: At long last, Congress is on the verge of major legislation that would build a more equitable, just, and inclusive clean energy economy. This is our shot to stop climate change. Building a clean energy future must start now Until the global economy stops polluting the air and instead starts to draw down the emissions of years past, the world will continue to heat up, blundering past perilous tipping points that threaten irreversible and catastrophic consequences. Stemming the extent of warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius rather 2 degrees or worse will reduce the risk of crossing such tipping points or otherwise exceeding the adaptive capacity of human society. Every degree matters. Stabilizing global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius starts with cutting annual greenhouse gas emissions in the United States to half of peak levels by 2030. This isn’t about temporary offsets or incremental gains in efficiency—it’s about the rapid adoption of scalable solutions that will work throughout the world to eliminate global net emissions by 2050 and sustain net-negative emissions thereafter. Building this better future will tackle climate change, deliver on environmental justice, and create good jobs. It will give us a shot to stop the planet from continuously warming. It will alleviate the concentrated burdens of fossil fuel pollution, which are concentrated in systemically disadvantaged, often majority Black and brown communities. It will empower American workers to compete in the global clean energy economy of the 21st century. There is no time to lose in the work of building a clean energy future.
11/6/21
NovDec - DA - Infrastructure V2
Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 4 | Opponent: Dwight-Englewood EK | Judge: Vishan Chaudhary Reconciliation passes now – it’s in the senate, but Manchin and Sinema are tentative about the legislation that passed the House. Snell 11/19 Kelsey, Congressional correspondent for NPR, “The House passes a $2 trillion spending bill, but braces for changes in the Senate”, 11-19-2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/11/19/1056833510/the-house-passes-a-2-trillion-spending-bill-but-braces-for-changes-in-the-senate//pranav The House voted on near-party lines Friday morning to approve a roughly $2 trillion social and climate spending package, ending months of squabbles among Democrats over the details of the far-reaching measure. The vote was 220-213, with one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, joining all Republicans in opposition. The legislation is meant to fulfill many of President Biden's promises during the 2020 campaign, including plans to address climate change and provide a stronger federal safety net for families and low-income workers. "We have the Built Back Better bill that is historic, transformative and larger than anything we have ever done before," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said on the House floor. "If you're a parent, a senior, a child, a worker, if you are an American ... this bill's for you and it is better." House Democrats overcame internal divisions over the cost and scope of the spending package, but the fight will continue as the bill heads to the Senate for revisions. The vote was delayed after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., spoke all through the night — for more than eight hours. His speech decried Democrats' spending plans, but also veered to subjects including China and border security. "Never in American history has so much been spent at one time," he said. "Never in American history will so many taxes be raised and so much borrowing be needed to pay for all this reckless spending." Biden praised House passage of the bill, noting it was the second time in two weeks that the chamber moved two "consequential" pieces of his legislative agenda, referencing the new infrastructure law. He described the vote as a "giant step forward in carrying out my economic plan to create jobs, reduce costs, make our country more competitive, and give working people and the middle class a fighting chance." What's in the measure The legislation includes: $550 billion to address climate change through incentives and tax breaks; funding to extend the expanded, monthly child tax credit for one year; housing assistance, including $150 billion in affordable housing expenditures; expansions to Medicaid and further assistance to reduce the cost of health care premiums for plans purchased under the Affordable Care Act; four weeks of paid family and medical leave; funding for universal pre-K for roughly 6 million 3- and 4-year-olds; a provision to allow Medicare Parts B and D to negotiate prices directly with drug manufacturers on certain drugs and cap out-of-pocket spending for seniors at $2,000 per year; a $35 cap on monthly insulin expenses. The spending is mostly offset with taxes on the wealthy and corporations, including: a 5 surtax on taxpayers with personal income above $10 million, and an additional 3 added on income above $25 million; a 15 minimum tax on corporate profits of large corporations that report more than $1 billion in profits; a 1 tax on stock buybacks; a 50 minimum tax on foreign profits of U.S. corporations. House Democrats unite after months of fighting Moderate Democrats ultimately voted for the legislation after concerns that estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office would show the measure to be more costly than leaders have projected. Ultimately, the CBO found the bill would cost the federal government $367 billion over the next decade, "not counting any additional revenue that may be generated by additional funding for tax enforcement." Many Democrats, including the White House, argue that when that is taken into account, the measure would pay for itself. Members of the fiscally moderate New Democrat Coalition endorsed the legislation ahead of the final cost estimates. Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., said the official estimates don't take into account extra revenue from increased tax enforcement — or the broader economic benefits of the legislation. "When discussing the importance of the bill, we also have to talk about the costs that would be incurred if we don't pass this bill," Schneider said on a call with reporters. "The cost of inaction is simply too high, and it can only be headed off if we act now." For progressive Democrats, the vote fulfills a promise from Biden and House leaders not to neglect policies that have energized the left wing of their party. Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus set aside major demands throughout the negotiations, including more spending and plans for aggressive changes to the nation's health care system, in order to reach an agreement that satisfied the full caucus. Senate hurdles could drag on for weeks The House vote is just the latest step in a lengthy process that will almost certainly involve further changes to the bill. Centrist Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., have each expressed concerns about the House version of the legislation. Manchin is particularly opposed to a provision that would provide four weeks of paid family and medical leave for most workers. Sinema's objections are less clear but Democrats need both lawmakers on board in order for the legislation to pass. It is unclear how long it would take for senators to work out their disagreements and finalize the legislation. Once that work is done, the Senate would have to start a lengthy process to vote on the bill using the budget reconciliation process that would allow the bill to be passed in the Senate with 50 votes, rather than the 60 votes needed for most legislation. Pelosi told reporters on Thursday that Senate staff have already completed a necessary step to ensure the legislation meets the basic requirements to avoid a Republican filibuster. But the process still has several steps, including a series of unlimited amendment votes known as a vote-a-rama. Biden PC is key to getting democratic skeptics on board, but it’s tentative Cochrane and Weisman 11/05 Emily Cochrane - correspondent based in Washington. She has covered Congress since late 2018, focusing on the annual debate over government funding and economic legislation, ranging from emergency pandemic relief to infrastructure, Jonathan Weisman - congressional correspondent, veteran Washington journalist and author of the novel “No. 4 Imperial Lane” and the nonfiction book “
Semitism
: Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump.” His career in journalism stretches back 30 years, “Live Updates: House Democrats Push Toward Votes on Biden’s Agenda”, 11-05-2021, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/05/us/biden-spending-infrastructure-bill//pranav At the White House, Mr. Biden called on lawmakers to pass the legislation. “I’m asking every House member, member of the House of Representatives, to vote yes on both these bills right now,” the president said. Spooked by Tuesday’s electoral drubbing, Democrats labored to overcome concerns among moderates about the cost and details of a rapidly evolving, $1.85 trillion social safety net and climate plan and push it through over unified Republican opposition. They also hoped to clear a Senate-passed $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill — the largest investment in the nation’s aging public works in a decade — for Mr. Biden’s signature. Top Democratic officials said they were confident they could complete both measures by day’s end, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and her team continued to haggle with holdouts. Several moderates were pushing for more information about the cost of the sprawling plan, including a nonpartisan analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, the official scorekeeper responsible for calculating the fiscal impact of the 2,135-page legislation. “I think everyone’s waiting for the C.B.O. to do their job,” said Representative Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, speaking to reporters on Friday morning as he left Ms. Pelosi’s office, where White House officials were also meeting on next steps. But Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, said the cost estimate would not be ready by the end of the day, and a person familiar with the discussions said a score from the budget office was weeks away from completion. “We’re working on it,” Mr. Hoyer said. Ms. Pelosi spent much of the day on Thursday buttonholing lawmakers on the House floor to try to corral support for the social policy bill, which includes monthly payments to families with children, universal prekindergarten, a four-week paid family and medical leave program, health care subsidies and a broad array of climate change initiatives. Mr. Biden and members of his cabinet worked the phones to win over Democratic skeptics. With Republicans united in opposition, Democrats could afford to lose as few as three votes from their side. As Democrats labored to unite their members behind the bill, Republicans sought to wreak procedural havoc on the House floor, forcing a vote to adjourn the chamber that leaders held open for hours to buy time for their negotiations. While the Senate approved the $1 trillion infrastructure bill in August, the measure has stalled as progressives have repeatedly refused to supply their votes for it until there is agreement on the other bill. Business lobbying backlash ensures Sinema flips – empirics prove she doesn’t like similar bills Duda ’21 Jeremy, Prior to joining the Arizona Mirror, he worked at the Arizona Capitol Times, where he spent eight years covering the Governor's Office and two years as editor of the Yellow Sheet Report, “Business groups urge Kelly, Sinema to oppose pro-union PRO Act”, 08-30-2021, https://www.azmirror.com/2021/08/30/business-groups-urge-kelly-sinema-to-oppose-pro-union-pro-act///pranav Business groups publicly called on Democratic U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema to oppose a sweeping piece of pro-organized labor legislation that would wipe out Arizona’s “right-to-work” law that prohibits mandatory union membership. At a press conference at the office of the Arizona chapter of the Associated General Contractors near the state Capitol on Monday, leaders of several business groups warned that the Protecting the Right to Organize Act — or PRO Act, as it’s more commonly known — would undermine Arizona’s recovery from the economic slump it faced last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, undermine the “gig economy,” jeopardize secret ballots in union organization votes, give unions access to confidential employee information and strip Arizonans of their right not to join a union. The bill would allow unions to override right-to-work laws and collect union dues from non-members who still benefit from collective bargaining. It would also prohibit company-sponsored meetings to urge employees against unionizing, define most independent contractors as employees, protect employees who are attempting to unionize from being fired and allow unions to engage in secondary strikes in support of other striking workers, among other provisions. “We want to thank and tell Senator Sinema and Senator Kelly that we appreciate them for not signing on as co-sponsors to the PRO Act, because if they were to change their opinions, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer will put this up for a vote,” said Danny Seiden, president and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Kelly and Sinema are two of only three Senate Democrats, along with Virginia’s Mark Warner, who haven’t co-sponsored the bill or thrown their public support behind it. Kelly last month told the Huffington Post that he opposes the independent contractor provision, but that he supports the “overall goals” of the legislation. Sinema is widely known as a holdout on the Democratic side and hasn’t supported the PRO Act, but spokesman Pablo Sierra-Carmona indicated that she hasn’t made up her mind, and that she won’t do so unless and until it comes up for a vote in the Senate. Labor reform saps PC – empirically prove with Obama, corporate opposition, and Democratic resistance Leon 21 Luis Feliz Leon, 01-06-2021, “"If we want it, we’re going to have to fight like hell for it" - Labor faces an uphill battle to pass the PRO Act,” Strike Wave, https://www.thestrikewave.com/original-content/labor-faces-uphill-battle-to-pass-pro-act/SJKS The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which died in the Senate during President Barack Obama’s first term, had similar potential to increase union membership, as it would have enabled workers to get union representation if a majority signed union cards (“card check”) rather than through an election. It died because Obama was unwilling to put political capital behind it to overcome opposition from Republicans and center-right Democrats. “EFCA was very close to becoming law. At the end of the day, in my view, the Obama administration did not put the necessary political capital into securing its passage,” said EPI's McNicholas. “The Obama administration decided to focus on ‘bipartisan’ and ‘reach across the aisle’ type solutions to the 2008 financial crisis, and thus didn't care about EFCA in the face of the anti-EFCA mobilization by strong ‘antis’ like the Chamber of Commerce,” says Susan Kang, a professor of political science at John Jay College who studies political economy, labor, and human rights. “Basically, labor was swept aside by the Obama administration … at the exact moment when he had the strongest mandate and political capital.” Another issue, said Patrick Burke, an organizer with United Auto Workers Local 2322 in Massachusetts, was that EFCA's card-check provisions, when framed as a replacement for elections, “became very easy to demonize and difficult to explain to people not already familiar with labor law.” “The short story is that the EFCA was doomed from a few moderate Dems not being willing to go through with card check once actually in power to enact it. The long story is that the labor movement's disappearance from the ‘adult table’ of Democratic politics has cyclical downward effects. They're less able to convince Dems to go out on the limb for them and to prioritize their legislative requests,” said Brandon Magner, a labor lawyer in Indiana. Despite a history of betrayal and rejection, labor and immigrant rights organizations, coalesced around Biden, a self-professed “union guy,” after the primaries and helped deliver him to the White House in the hope that doing so would lead to executive action on immigration and labor law reform. “We call on Congress to pass and Biden to sign the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act early in 2021 to make sure every worker who wants to form or join a union is able to do so freely and fairly,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement after the election. But union organizers, researchers, and labor lawyers see dim prospects for winning significant labor reform during the Biden administration. “The PRO Act is obviously dead in the Senate unless Mitch McConnell gets knocked into the minority, but I don't see it being passed without full-throated support for gutting the filibuster from Biden, Harris, Schumer, Durbin, and more,” said Magner, the labor lawyer, adding that “the history of failed labor law reform efforts indicates you need 60 votes to pass anything.” That is particularly true of Democrats in “right-to-work” states like South Carolina where U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham was a reliable opponent in the House. But the greatest liability might be Biden himself. “The few times that Biden met McConnell at the negotiating table during the Obama years, McConnell left with Biden’s wallet,” dryly observed The Intercept’s Ryan Grim. “Even if the Democrats capture the Georgia Senate seats, their margin will be too small to overcome a Republican filibuster or, if they change the rules, more than one Democrat will break ranks, and no Republicans will support the act,” said Friedman. Even if Biden were to somehow outmaneuver McConnell’s chicanery, there would be fierce opposition to contend with on the corporate side from the likes of Americans for Tax Reform, which has used Georgia runoff elections as an opportunity to fearmonger on the PRO Act, and, when backed against the wall, Biden may revert to his timeworn moderate instincts and not go to bat for labor reform unless forced to. “Prospects for major labor law reform under the Biden administration are directly tied to unions’ and union federations’ willingness to hold the administration’s feet to the fire. They are not going to do it on their own – if we want it, we’re going to have to fight like hell for it,” said Pitkin, the former UNITE HERE organizer. “The biggest question is whether there is enough street heat and organizing to prioritize legislation like this," said Burke, the UAW organizer. “Workers in motion spur labor-law reforms, not the other way around.” They lash out against Reconciliation – it includes similar provisions FURCHTGOTT-ROTH 10/09 Diana, former acting assistant secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, is adjunct professor of economics at George Washington University, “Democrats can't pass the PRO Act, so it's buried in the reconciliation bill”, 10-09-2021, https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/575992-dems-cant-pass-the-pro-act-so-its-buried-in-the-reconciliation-bill//pranav Union membership has been declining for decades as workers find better uses than union dues for their hard-earned dollars. But union bosses and their supporters are trying to change the law to force hard-working Americans into unions. How? Through the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act), a bill that would expand the power of union leaders at the expense of workers. After sailing through the House, the PRO Act now appears stalled in the Senate and Democrats are trying to slip some PRO Act provisions into a massive reconciliation bill. American workers are wise to turn down union membership. Union pension plans are in trouble. In 2020, the Labor Department listed 121 union plans in critical status, defined as less than 65 percent funded, and 61 in endangered status, with less than 80 percent funded. Unions desperately need new workers to join, because they pay contributions for many years without withdrawing money. Most recently, Amazon workers in Alabama resoundingly rejected efforts by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store International Union to organize their plant, with more than 70 percent of workers voting against the union. The union’s plan was in critical status between 2015 and 2019, and the Labor Department informed the plan’s administrators that it had to be reorganized by reducing benefits and increasing contributions. Union leaders and their allies on Capitol Hill believe the way to increase membership after decades of decline is to pass elements of the PRO Act through reconciliation. Unlike the PRO Act, which needs 60 votes in the Senate to enable it to move to President Biden’s desk for signature, the reconciliation bill, which deals with taxes and spending, needs only a simple majority. So via a massive reconciliation bill, congressional Democrats are trying to move some labor union provisions of the PRO Act by arguing they are actually revenue raisers. Reconciliation is k2 stopping existential climate change – warming is incremental and every change in temperature is vital Higgins 8/16 Trevor, Senior Director, Domestic Climate and Energy, “Budget Reconciliation Is the Key to Stopping Climate Change”, 08-16-2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2021/08/16/502681/budget-reconciliation-key-stopping-climate-change///pranav The United States is suffering acutely from the chaotic changes in climate that scientists now directly attribute to the burning of fossil fuels and other human activity. The drought, fires, extreme heat, and floods that have already killed hundreds this summer across the continent and around the world are a tragedy—and a warning of worsening instability yet to come. However, this week, the Senate initiated an extraordinary legislative response that would set the world on a different path. Enacting the full scope of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda would put the American economy to work leading a global transition to clean energy and stabilizing the climate. A look at what’s coming next through the budget reconciliation process reveals a ray of hope that is easy to miss amid the fitful negotiations of recent months: At long last, Congress is on the verge of major legislation that would build a more equitable, just, and inclusive clean energy economy. This is our shot to stop climate change. Building a clean energy future must start now Until the global economy stops polluting the air and instead starts to draw down the emissions of years past, the world will continue to heat up, blundering past perilous tipping points that threaten irreversible and catastrophic consequences. Stemming the extent of warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius rather 2 degrees or worse will reduce the risk of crossing such tipping points or otherwise exceeding the adaptive capacity of human society. Every degree matters. Stabilizing global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius starts with cutting annual greenhouse gas emissions in the United States to half of peak levels by 2030. This isn’t about temporary offsets or incremental gains in efficiency—it’s about the rapid adoption of scalable solutions that will work throughout the world to eliminate global net emissions by 2050 and sustain net-negative emissions thereafter. Building this better future will tackle climate change, deliver on environmental justice, and create good jobs. It will give us a shot to stop the planet from continuously warming. It will alleviate the concentrated burdens of fossil fuel pollution, which are concentrated in systemically disadvantaged, often majority Black and brown communities. It will empower American workers to compete in the global clean energy economy of the 21st century. There is no time to lose in the work of building a clean energy future.
11/21/21
NovDec - T - Just
Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 1 | Opponent: Lexington AG | Judge: Julian Kuffour Interpretation: the affirmative must defend that only just governments ought to recognize the right to strike Just governments respect liberties Dorn 12 James A. Dorn, Cato Journal, "The Scope of Government in a Free Society", Fall 2012, https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2012/12/v32n3-10.pdf If laws are just, liberty and property are secure. The most certain test of justice is negative—that is, justice occurs when injustice (the violation of natural rights to life, liberty, and property) is prevented. The emphasis here is on what Hayek (1967) called “just rules of conduct,” not on the fairness of outcomes. No one has stated the negative concept of justice better than the 19th century French classical liberal Frederic Bastiat (1850 1964: 65): When law and force confine a man within the bounds of justice, they do not impose anything on him but a mere negation. They impose on him only the obligation to refrain from injuring others. They do not infringe on his personality, or his liberty or his property. They merely safeguard the personality, the liberty, and the property of others. They stand on the defensive; they defend the equal rights of all. They fulfill a mission whose harmlessness is evident, whose utility is palpable, and whose legitimacy is uncontested. In short, the purpose of a just government is not to do good with other people’s money, but to prevent injustice by protecting property and securing liberty.
Violation—the US is not just - their court system is racist. Nellis, Ph.D., 18, Report to the United Nations on Racial Disparities in the U.S. Criminal Justice System, https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/, Sentencing Project, The United States criminal justice system is the largest in the world. At yearend 2015, over 6.7 million individuals1) were under some form of correctional control in the United States, including 2.2 million incarcerated in federal, state, or local prisons and jails.2) The U.S. is a world leader in its rate of incarceration, dwarfing the rate of nearly every other nation.3) Such broad statistics mask the racial disparity that pervades the U.S. criminal justice system, and for African Americans in particular. African Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, and they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences. African-American adults are 5.9 times as likely to be incarcerated than whites and Hispanics are 3.1 times as likely.4) As of 2001, one of every three black boys born in that year could expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as could one of every six Latinos—compared to one of every seventeen white boys.5) Racial and ethnic disparities among women are less substantial than among men but remain prevalent.6) The source of such disparities is deeper and more systemic than explicit racial discrimination. The United States in effect operates two distinct criminal justice systems: one for wealthy people and another for poor people and people of color. The wealthy can access a vigorous adversary system replete with constitutional protections for defendants. Yet the experiences of poor and minority defendants within the criminal justice system often differ substantially from that model due to a number of factors, each of which contributes to the overrepresentation of such individuals in the system. As former Georgetown Law Professor David Cole states in his book No Equal Justice,
Vote Neg – 1 Precision — anything else justifies the aff arbitrarily jettisoning words in the resolution at their whim which decks negative ground and preparation because the aff is no longer bounded by the resolution. 2 Limits – there are 200 governments in the world – letting them pick an unjust one which explodes limits via infinite permutations of governments. Kills neg ground bc we have to prep every government including local and unrecognized governments, but they can cherry pick unjust governments which kills clash. That’s an internall ink to fairness and education – they’re voters per the 1ac. 3 CI – T is a binaristic question – ur either topical or ur not. 4 No rvis – it’s illogical – you shouldn’t win for proving ur topical
11/20/21
NovDec - T - Unconditional
Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 4 | Opponent: Dwight-Englewood EK | Judge: Vishan Chaudhary Interpretation: The affirmative must defend an unconditional right to strike. This means that the Affirmative must defend that anyone regardless of job or occupation has a fundamental right to strike. Merriam Webster ND, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unconditionalsid not conditional or limited : ABSOLUTE, UNQUALIFIED “Unconditional” necessitates the absence of narrowing restrictions. US Legal ‘ND (US Legal; dictionary of legal terms of art; US Legal; “Unconditional Law and Legal Definition”; https://definitions.uslegal.com/u/unconditional/; Accessed: 10-30-2021; AU) Unconditional means without conditions; without restrictions; or absolute. For instance, unconditional promise is a promise that is unqualified in nature. A party who makes an unconditional promise must perform that promise even though the other party has not performed according to the bargain. Violation – They only grant the Right to Strike to agricultural workers. That by definition is a condition since they condition the right to strike on a particular occupation. Jensen ’18 (Eric; co-director of the Stanford Rule of Law Program, in collaboration with USAID, The Asia Foundation, and Stanford Law School; April 2018; “Introduction to the Laws of Timor-Leste”; Stanford Law School; https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Timor-Leste-Constitutional-Rights.pdf; Accessed: 10-30-2021; AU) If individuals want to defend their rights at work, the Constitution gives them the right form trade unions and to strike. Individuals are free to join and participate in professional associations that are peaceful. This includes trade unions. Individuals in trade unions have a right to organize their unions independent of the government or their employers. Trade unions should be free and independent, and individuals have the right to set the unions’ internal structure freely. Independent trade unions are important to allow individuals to organize with other workers to collectively defend their interests and their rights. It is important that they are independent so that they reflect the individuals’ interests and not the employer’s or the government’s interests. Individuals have the right to strike. If they feel that their employer is not respecting their rights or interests, employees can refuse to work in protest. The Constitution creates a duty that during a strike, the employer still has to maintain equipment and provide for safety. Individuals’ right to strike is limited by the law. The Constitution states that the right to strike is conditional on the strike being compliant with legal regulations that the government creates. This means that the government can pass laws that limit when and how individuals can exercise their right to strike. The right to strike is important to give individuals the power to defend their labor rights. Vote Neg – 1 Limits – there are endless conditions the aff can place on the right to strike – i.e based on occupation, national holidays, location of strike, etc. That makes the topic untenable since the Aff can just infinitely specify any condition or permutation of conditions which makes predictable preparation and in-depth clash impossible. 2 Neg Ground – specifying scenarios lets affs spike out of core, reduction-based disads like Bizcon and Small Businesses. Links are already non-existent on this topic – letting affs impose restrictions on RTS makes it even narrower. 3 TVA – Defend an unconditional RTS in the US.
Drop the Debater – 1 sets a precedent that debaters wont be abusive 2 DTA is the same since you drop the aff
Voters: 1 Fairness – constitutive to the judge to decide the better debater, only fairness is in your jurisdiction because it skews decision making 2 Education – the only portable education from debate that we care about
Competing Interps - T is a binaristic question, you’re either topical or ur not No RVI – yiou shouldn’t win for being topical
11/21/21
SeptOct - CP - Advantage vs Butler
Tournament: Grapevine | Round: 5 | Opponent: Marcus JR | Judge: Grant Brown CP Text: The member nations of the World Trade organization should give everyone adequate health care. Solves the first contention – ww is blue 1AC Forman 07 Trade Rules, Intellectual Property, and the Right to Health From: Ethics and International Affairs By: Lisa Forman Fall 2007 Given the adverse health impacts of the intellectual property protections contained in these free-trade agreements, why do countries consent to entering them at all? On the one hand, it is not surprising that governments may favor economic growth over critical health investments, especially considering how routinely health systems are underfinanced and how access to health care for marginalized and poor populations is so often neglected in both rich and poor countries.30 Governments may also assume that the aggregate economic benefits of these trade agreements outweigh and indeed justify any restrictions in access to medicines that they may cause. At the same time, trade negotiators may simply lack knowledge of the health implications of higher levels of intellectual property protection. There is, however, a degree of coercion that may accompany the finalization of these agreements. Peter Drahos suggests that developing countries have little room to refuse bilateral agreements, as trade negotiations take place alongside actual or threatened unilateral trade sanctions.32 Debates about the economic benefits of trade aside, from a human rights perspective sacrificing access to essential medicines for the poorest (those who most assuredly will be affected) in the service of broader economic growth is not an acceptable trade-off. Nor should it be a necessary trade-off. In Peru recently, largely due to the advocacy of Paul Hunt, the UN Special Rapporteur on Health, the government conducted an assessment of the potential impact of a free-trade agreement being negotiated with the United States. The assessment indicated that the agreement would limit access to medicines for approximately 700,000 people, and the government accordingly recommended implementing a fund from industries that would profit from the agreement to supplement this shortfall.33 While the Peruvian experience suggests that governments can mitigate the restrictive impact of trade rules on medicines access at the domestic level, impact assessments cannot directly challenge the injustices inherent in the current trade regime on medicines. Free-trade agreements and corporate and governmental challenges effectively turn TRIPS rights into powerful corporate entitlements that can be only rarely limited. This not only perpetuates the inaccessibility of present medicines but excludes poor people from accessing new therapeutic advances. INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS ON HEALTH Since the global imposition and enforcement of stringent patent rights play a direct role in the high loss of life due to inaccessible medicines, such a system should be justifiable not simply from the perspective of intellectual property rights but from the perspective of human rights law. Access to essential medicines is a fundamental human rights claim under the rights to health and life.34 In accordance with international human rights law, it should therefore be seen as a core human rights entitlement to receive minimally adequate health care. Under these rights, governments have a range of duties with regard to medicines, which include, inter alia, ensuring the affordability of essential medicines and preventing restrictions on access. In this light, government use of TRIPS flexibilities to provide access to lifesaving medicines should be seen as necessary to fulfill their duties under rights to health and life. In cases where the adoption of patent provisions in TRIPS-plus free-trade agreements will result in the loss of life due to limited access to lifesaving drugs, this action should be seen as a violation of these duties. Support for the idea that the enforcement of trade-related intellectual property rights may violate human rights is found in the work of Thomas Pogge. Pogge argues that those who uphold social rules, such as trade and economic policies, can violate human rights when these rules 'Joreseeably and avoidably deprive human beings of secure access to the objects of their human rights."35 Pogge argues that the present international patent system fulfils these conditions. Solves 2nd contention – ww is blue 1AC Baker 13 AFRICAN HUMAN RIGHTS LAW JOURNAL * BA (UDW), BProc (UNISA), LLM (UDW), LLD (UKZN); vawday@ukzn.ac.za BA (Harvard), JD (Northeastern); b.baker@neu.edu (2013) 13 AHRLJ 55-81 Achieving social justice in the human rights/intellectual property debate: Realising the goal of access to medicines Yousuf A Vawda* Associate Professor of Law, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Brook K Baker Professor of Law, Northeastern University, Boston MA, USA; Honorary Research Fellow, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa The increasing privatisation of knowledge and the products of knowledge have been a significant feature of the capitalist system from its earliest phases. It was typified by the ‘enclosure movement’,106 the design to fence off public spaces and bring them under private ownership and control. This culminated in according proprietary status to the products of the intellect – the recognition of intellectual property rights. In more recent times, the harmonisation and integration of intellectual property rights, through institutions such as the WIPO and WTO, signify a new wave of the enclosure movement, with intellectual property right protection now having a global reach. Protagonists of this approach have argued that the new property regime has given rise to ‘unparalleled expansion of productive possibilities’.107 But for whose benefit? Life-saving medicines and medical devices, critical to the health and well-being of individuals and societies alike, have not escaped appropriation as private assets. Medicines are thus often viewed as private commodities because of various factors, including, amongst others: • Reigning bioethical models with their focus on patient autonomy have emphasised individual aspects of health care, reinforced by the fact that medicines are privately consumed.108 • The market pre-selects consumers of highly-priced medicines, by excluding those individuals who cannot afford them. But medicines are – at least partially – public goods in the sense that they have significant implications for public health, are also global in their development and impact, and are prone to regulation in their development, manufacture, allocation and use.109 The public dimensions of medicines are well known, directly from their role in public health vaccination measures, as well as in the treatment of epidemic and endemic diseases. The public dimension also entails the public consequences emanating from choices made in research and development of new medicines, and the profiteering surrounding lifestyle drugs which draws resources away from research into socalled ‘neglected’ diseases. In contrast to private goods, ‘public goods’ are goods that are essentially social in character, even though (like medicines) they may be intended for private consumption.110 Public goods also often have positive externalities, meaning that their broad accessibility and use benefit the public at large, not just those who use them. This public benefit is most obvious in the instance of vaccination, where herd immunity develops because of wide diffusion. However, the same dynamic can be seen with respect to the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. Indeed, because healthier populations have increased capacity in the economic, cultural, political and self actualising sphere, there are positive externalities for treating chronic and even temporary disease conditions. Medicines, therefore, cannot merely be regarded as private goods. Drug development itself has assumed a global character. It may be true that most innovation in this area emanates from laboratories in developed countries. However, developing countries make a significant contribution to the development of medicines in several ways, including sharing knowledge of indigenous plants and their properties, and controversially, being involved as research participants in clinical trials for medicines, from which they sometimes may not themselves benefit.111 A major change in the recent discourse on global health concerns the ‘framing, norms, and policy approaches to addressing the problem of globally inequitable access to drugs, diagnostics, vaccines and other health technologies’.112 This development is due, in no small part, to the global political and social mobilisation on the issue of access to affordable anti-retrovirals, which has fomented a re-think of the traditional approaches to understanding medicines as private goods, has focused attention on the global demand for access to health technologies for all (as opposed to merely ‘neglected’ diseases), and has highlighted the need for new, more inclusive governance mechanisms to manage pharmaceutical and related innovation.113
9/12/21
SeptOct - CP - Advantage vs Cannabis
Tournament: Greenhill RR | Round: 4 | Opponent: Sequoia AS | Judge: Austin Broussard, Gerard Grigsby CP Text: The member nations of the World Trade Organization should legalize cannabis.
9/17/21
SeptOct - CP - Advantage vs Vaccines
Tournament: Grapevine | Round: 2 | Opponent: Lexington BF | Judge: Samantha Mclaughlin The United States should: - substantially increase production and global distribution of the COVID-19 Vaccine - cooperate with allies to achieve increased production and global distribution of the COVID-19 Vaccine. Solves heg – us intervenes in vaccine diplomacy better than the aff bc it looks like follow on w the other wto countries Solves developing econs – gives them vaccines Solves credibility – resolves covid which the wto is struggling with That solves better – IP rights don’t hinder vaccine cooperation, but manufacturing capacity is the current constraint. Hans Sauer 6-17 (Deputy General Counsel, Biotechnology Industry Organization.) “Web event — Confronting Joe Biden’s proposed TRIPS waiver for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments” https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/210617-Confronting-Joe-Bidens-proposed-TRIPS-waiver.pdf?x91208andx91208 TDI But contrary to what Lori said, there are genuine real problems in the supply chain that are not caused by patents, that are simply caused by the unavailability and the constraints on existing capacity. There is in this world such a thing as maxed-out capacity that just can’t be increased on a dime. It’s not all due to intellectual property. This is true for existing vaccines as well as for vaccine raw materials. There are trade barriers. There are export restrictions that we should all be aware of and that we need to work on. And there are very real political, I think, interests in finding an explanation for how we got to this place that absolve governments around the world from their own policy decisions that they made in the past. In the United States, again, it was the declared policy of the previous administration, as well as this one, that we would vaccinate healthy college kids and go all down the line and offer a vaccine to everybody who wants it before we start sharing any with grandmothers in Burkina Faso. That was the policy. You can agree with it or disagree with it, but that was policy. We had export restrictions in place before a lot of other countries did. And that, too, contributed to unequal access of vaccines around the world. Another thing that was predictable was that politicians and governments around the world who want to be seen as proactive, on the ball, in control, for a long time were actually very indecisive, very unsure about how to address the COVID problem, which has so many dimensions. Vaccines are only one of those. But with respect to vaccines, not many governments took decisive action, put money on the table, put bets on multiple horses, before we knew whether these vaccines would work, would be approved. And it was governments in middle-income countries who now, I think, justifiably are concerned that they’re not getting fast enough access, who didn’t have the means and who didn’t have the decision-making structure to place the same bets on multiple horses, if you will, that were placed in the relatively more wealthy, global North and global West. But there is, I think, a really good and, with hindsight, predictable explanation of how we got to this place, and I think it teaches us something about how to fix the problem going forward. So why will the waiver not work? Well, first of all, with complex technology like vaccines, Lori touched on it, reverse engineering, like you would for a small molecule drug, is much more difficult if not impossible. But it depends very much more than small molecule drugs on cooperation, on voluntary transfer of technology, and on mutual assistance. We have seen as part of the pandemic response an unprecedented level of collaborations and cooperation and no indication that IP has stood in the way of the pandemic response. The waiver proponents have found zero credible examples of where IP has actually been an obstacle, where somebody has tried to block somebody else from developing a COVID vaccine or other COVID countermeasure, right? It’s not there. Second, the myth of this vast global capacity to manufacture COVID vaccines that somehow exists out there is unsubstantiated and frankly, in my opinion, untrue. But there is no such thing as vast untapped, idle capacity that could be turned around on a dime to start making COVID vaccines within weeks or even months. This capacity needs to be built; it needs to be established. And at a time when time is of the essence to beat this pandemic, starting capacity-building discussions is helpful, but it won’t be the answer to beat this pandemic. It will be the answer if we do everything right to beating the next pandemic. And if we learn any lesson of this, and then I will stop, is that the COVID waiver as well as the situation in which we find ourselves — if anything, it’s a reminder that we definitely have to take global capacity-building more seriously than we did in the past. That is true for the global North, as well as for middle-income countries — all of whom have to dedicate themselves much more determinedly to pandemic preparedness. And there’s a need to invest both in preparedness and in public health systems that hasn’t happened in the wake of past pandemic threats. This is what we will need to do. We will need to reduce export restrictions, and we will need to rededicate ourselves to preparing for the next pandemic. As far as this pandemic goes, there are 11 vaccines around the world that are already being shot into arms, only four of which come from the global North. How many more vaccines do we want? I don’t know, maybe 11 is enough if we start making more of them. But there are manufacturers around the world who know how to do this — including in China, including in India, and including in Russia. All developed their homegrown vaccines, apparently without interference by IP rights, right? So let’s make more of those. I think that’s going to be the more practical and realistic answer to solving the problem. And we need to lean on governments to stop export controls and to dedicate themselves to more global equity. Unilateral US action is necessary to combat Chinese and Russian vaccine diplomacy – they’re establishing spheres of influence because of few vaccines in developing countries – collapses the LIO. Carman and Carl 21. (Ezequiel Carman is an Argentine lawyer and global health and trade policy consultant. Previously, he served as a legal advisor to the Ministry of Justice of Buenos Aires, an assistant professor of international public law at the Universidad Católica Argentina, and a research assistant at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. Joseph Carl is a graduate of Liberty University, where he studied international relations and strategic international studies. He has worked for the U.S. Department of State and the Heritage Foundation) “A U.S. vaccine diplomacy strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean,” The Global Americans, June 15, 2021. https://theglobalamericans.org/2021/06/a-u-s-vaccine-diplomacy-strategy-for-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/ TDI Once again, history seems to be repeating itself. The United States, along with the world’s other rich and mostly Western countries, continue to be accused of hoarding medical supplies, having purchased one billion surplus vaccine doses (more than is required to vaccinate their citizens). In their absence, China—and, to a lesser extent, Russia—have rushed to take advantage of the vaccine gap in the Global South, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. A lack of leadership from Washington in sharing vaccines and their intellectual property (IP) earlier in the pandemic has allowed its geopolitical competitors to take advantage of Latin America’s desperate need to acquire scarce vaccines. Although the region represents only eight percent of the global population, it has experienced nearly one-third of all COVID-19 deaths. Historical precedent demonstrates this is not the first time that Washington’s international moral standing has been damaged during a global health crisis, due to the lack of political will to share lifesaving drugs and other vital resources. However, this time around, unlike in such past episodes, there will be concrete geopolitical consequences to Washington’s inaction. In recent years, the U.S. has lost significant political and economic influence among its southern neighbors; without swift remedial action, its geopolitical rivals may cement such losses through their campaigns of vaccine diplomacy. To rebuild its influence in the region, Washington will need to muster the political will to increase Latin America and the Caribbean’s access to vaccines and develop a sound strategy for its own vaccine diplomacy. Already, some countries in the region have been sufficiently strong-armed by other global powers, the implications of which could be damaging for U.S. interests. As the world transitions into the next stage of the pandemic, those nations that continue to be most ravaged by COVID-19 will likely continue to remember which countries provided them with aid and succor in their time of need. History repeats itself In 1981, the first cases of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) were reported; the following decade was defined by a devastating global AIDS epidemic (which would eventually be recognized as a pandemic). Analogous to how Latin America and the Caribbean have borne disproportionately the burden of COVID-19, Africa was hit hardest by the AIDS epidemic. Many parallels can be drawn between the international handlings of both the COVID-19 and AIDS pandemics. By the late 1980s, once antiretroviral therapies (ARV) were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), AIDS deaths in the U.S. began to decline immediately. Nevertheless, high levels of AIDS-related deaths in Africa continued for another decade. Africa’s enduring fight against AIDS was largely due to the cost of ARVs, which, at the time, were priced at USD $10,000 per person annually—completely out of reach for most developing countries. Pharmaceutical companies argued that the drug’s high selling price was necessary to procure a return on its investment in the research and development (RandD) of the ARV, and that pricing the drugs at a marginal cost would maximize consumer surplus while also halting future development in the industry. When pricing a drug, a pharmaceutical company needs to factor-in several costs: 1) the cost of RandD for drugs that never enter the market; 2) clinical trials necessary to comply with regulatory requirements; 3) and the marketing cost of promoting the new drug. While the original price of the patented ARV was USD $10,000 per patient per year, the price of the generic version, manufactured by the Indian pharmaceutical company Cipla, was only USD $1.00 per day. During the AIDS pandemic, since many developing countries were members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), they were forbidden from importing generic pharmaceutical products because in order to maintain compliance with regulations imposed by the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) agreement. Western pharmaceutical companies—the owners of the IP rights for the medications—blocked access to generic ARV drugs out of fear that the importation of these generic alternatives would ultimately threaten their net profitization. Despite the protests of the pharmaceutical industry, India and South Africa continued to compete with and defy the U.S. and the WTO (a body in which powerful industrialized economies—those of the U.S., Europe, and Japan—wield disproportionate influence). Drug companies eventually sued to keep lifesaving therapies out of the hands of dying AIDS-sufferers in Africa, a state of affairs that engendered a forceful reaction from international activists. After years of political pressure, Washington was forced to yield, eventually pushing for the relaxation of stringent IP protections for ARVs, making generic versions of the drugs more accessible and affordable. Despite its eventual concession, the perception that the U.S. had fought bitterly to prioritize pharmaceutical company profits over human lives in the Global South only helped bolster negative narratives surrounding the Western superpower. However, unlike the unipolarity that characterized the 1990s and early 2000s, the U.S. is no longer the only global superpower, and the humanitarian decisions it makes now—during a new global health crisis—have the potential to be hugely consequential for the country’s influence and image. Similar to its trajectory at the height of the AIDS crisis, Washington only recently voiced its desire to back the WTO patent waiver proposal, having come under tremendous international pressure. Granted, the U.S. backed a patent waiver for COVID-19 vaccines much faster than it did for ARVs in the 1980s. However, having been presented with a rare opportunity to make amends for past moral missteps—by eliminating vaccine IP protections to ensure that affordable, generic versions of COVID-19 vaccines could be manufactured en masse around the world—the U.S. once again hesitated, limiting opportunities for developing nations to recover from the pandemic and again amplifying criticisms of the United States. Backed by over 100 developing countries, India and South Africa are once again leading the current fight to eliminate IP protections. India and South Africa filed a waiver with the WTO requesting a temporary suspension of patent obligations under TRIPS (Sections 1, 4, 5, and 7 of Part II) so that developing countries can access vaccines in a timely manner. The intent of this effort is to boost domestic manufacturing capacity by facilitating the widespread production of generic versions of COVID-19 vaccines, evening the odds with respect to global vaccine procurement and accessibility. The waiver would also allow developing countries to procure vaccines more expeditiously, either by producing them themselves or by streamlining the cumbersome institutional and legal requirements of importing pharmaceutical products from other countries that possess the necessary manufacturing capacity. After months of pushback from activists and political leaders, the U.S. finally expressed its support for patent waivers, with several key Western powers (notably France and the European Union (EU)) following suit. However, Germany—a major political player in the patent waiver debate due to its powerful pharmaceutical sector—continues to oppose the move. Other European countries remain similarly split on the patent waiver proposal, reflecting the fact that any patent waiver proposal will still requires extensive negotiation (in order for it to be accepted, there must be unanimous consent among WTO members). Political leaders and activists continue to call on the West to support the waiving of IP protections, noting that current projections anticipate that wealthy countries will be able to immunize their entire populations by the end of 2021, while developing countries will only see the same results in the next three to four years. Unlike the AIDS pandemic, COVID-19 has generated not only massive medical concerns, but also a global economic crisis: vaccination campaigns in richer countries have already allowed them to begin to rebuild their economies, while mass unemployment and lockdowns continue to strangle the economies of many developing nations. Increasing the supply and accessibility of vaccines in the developing world will undoubtedly facilitate a faster, and more equal, economic recovery. Continuing to allow the virus to spread unencumbered throughout the Global South, however, will only increase the likelihood of further viral mutations, possibly jeopardizing the efficacy of existing vaccines and further perpetuating already grave economic and medical concerns. Washington’s initial unwillingness to cross the pharmaceutical industry has undeniably damaged the moral standing of the United States. Moreover, this decision also created a humanitarian void eagerly filled by Beijing and Moscow, as they actively seek to position themselves as the benefactors of the most COVID-19-stricken region of the world: Latin America and the Caribbean. To date, Russian and Chinese vaccine diplomacy have already led to economic, diplomatic, and political losses being felt by Washington; this trend, if allowed to continue, will only further limit U.S. regional influence with its neighbors to the south. A lack of strategy and political will In the absence of an effective vaccine diplomacy strategy from Washington, and with the perpetuation of its current nationalistic vaccine policy, some of the pharmaceutical companies that the U.S. so readily protects have pushed countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean into the waiting arms of Beijing and Moscow. While some Latin American countries have received a few vaccines from Western companies, most nations in the region continue to struggle to obtain doses. Pfizer, a U.S. pharmaceutical company, was accused of bullying Latin American countries during vaccine procurement negotiations, using its own leverage to attempt to force desperate nations to offer sovereign assets—such as their embassies—as collateral. Pfizer’s efforts resulted in a lost deal with Argentina, which has continued to grow increasingly closer to China. While the U.S. possesses a surplus of COVID-19 vaccines, it has failed to develop an effective, far-reaching donation strategy. Only recently did the Biden administration announce its plans to ship 80 million vaccines—a small portion of its surplus supply—abroad. Of the initial 25 million doses destined to be distributed internationally, 19 million will be donated to the largely mismanaged UN-backed COVAX program, with only six million of these COVAX doses designated for Latin America and the Caribbean. In comparison, China alone has donated or sold over 165 million vaccines to Latin America, with countries like Chile and Uruguay having vaccinated 80 and 63 percent of their populations, respectively, with Chinese vaccines. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden previously donated a total of 4.2 million AstraZeneca vaccines to Canada and Mexico, the first vaccines that the U.S. had sent abroad. Still, this relatively modest donation was preceded by repeated calls from prominent Latin American leaders for President Biden to donate vaccines to U.S. allies in Latin America. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) was notably rebuffed in his request for shipments of U.S. vaccines, being told by the Biden administration that it was prioritizing the vaccination of the American public (despite the fact that Washington had already bought enough vaccines to inoculate the entire U.S. population several times over). Colombia President Iván Duque of Colombia, a country that is a key regional ally, has also called for the Biden administration to aid countries in the Western Hemisphere that are struggling to procure vaccines. By contrast, some Latin American officials have described easier negotiations, cheaper prices, and overall better terms in their successful agreements with Russia and China. Last year, for example, Beijing offered a USD $1 billion loan to Latin American nations to help finance their purchasing of Chinese-made vaccines—an offer that was well-received by recipient countries. Due to a lack of vaccine support and assurance from Washington, countries are growing closer to Beijing and Moscow, succumbing to rival geopolitical powers that do not align with the diplomatic and economic interests of the United States.
9/13/21
SeptOct - CP - Orphan Drugs
Tournament: Greenhill | Round: 4 | Opponent: Peninsula RM | Judge: Adam Torson Counterplan Text - The member nations of the World Trade Organization should - eliminate intellectual property protections for medicines except for orphan drugs. - prioritize distribution of orphan drugs to the Global South. Orphan drug legislation is specifically key to stimulate research into rare diseases Horgan et. al 20 D, Moss B, Boccia S, Genuardi M, Gajewski M, Capurso G, Fenaux P, Gulbis B, Pellegrini M, Mañú Pereira M, M, Gutiérrez Valle V, Gutiérrez Ibarluzea I, Kent A, Cattaneo I, Jagielska B, Belina I, Tumiene B, Ward A, Papaluca M: Time for Change? The Why, What and How of Promoting Innovation to Tackle Rare Diseases – Is It Time to Update the EU’s Orphan Regulation? And if so, What Should be Changed? Biomed Hub 2020;5:1-11. doi: 10.1159/000509272 https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/509272#sid The European Union’s (EU) Regulation (EC) No. 141/2000 on orphan medicinal products (OMPs) (referred to as “the regulation” in this paper) states that “patients suffering from rare conditions should be entitled to the same quality of treatment as other patients,” and concludes that “it is therefore necessary to stimulate the research, development and bringing to the market of appropriate medications by the pharmaceutical industry” 1. Rare diseases had already been identified as a priority area for Community action within the framework for action in the field of public health 2, and the regulation’s stated aim is – “to provide incentives for the research, development and placing on the market of designated orphan medicinal products.” It set up a mechanism to ensure that “orphan medicinal products eligible for incentives should be easily and unequivocally identified,” with the condition that “objective criteria for designation should be established” 3. The core incentive of the regulation is the granting of 10 years (+2 years for paediatric orphan medicines) of marketing exclusivity and a range of financial and scientific provisions granted via the European Medicines Agency to support product development and application for Marketing Authorisation. Nearly two decades later, the success of the measure has been demonstrated. Investment both from public research funders and from companies of all sizes in rare disease research has resulted in the approval of more than 150 orphan drugs – compared with just eight therapies for rare diseases available before the adoption of the regulation. That translates into a lot of patient benefit. With clinical research stimulated by the legislation, the EU sees some 2,000 clinical trials providing still more innovation or hope for treatments in the current RandD pipeline 4. But over the intervening years, the limitations in the functioning of the legislation have become apparent too, and these merit attention if the beneficial effects for patients and caregivers are to be maximised 5. This paper explores the successes and limitation of both the regulation and its implementation mechanisms in the current regulatory context, and suggests some improvements that could maximise its benefits and boost rare disease research even further. The discussion needs to be precise if it is to be effective. Review of the functioning of the regulation may coincide with a period of more intense scrutiny and concerns over containing the rise of expenditure to ensure sustainability of healthcare systems, with a particular focus on expensive innovation which are often developed within the orphan conditions. While there is undoubted importance in the wider but distinct debate over healthcare costs, it does not bear directly on reviewing the orphan medicines regulation 6. At the same time, economic questions do, however, have relevance to the debate on orphans, since patients’ access to the medicines that become available is conditioned by the national arrangements for reimbursement or listing of products: there is an increasing tension between the potential access to agents that can modify or even cure rare diseases, and the models for reimbursement available to European payers. Part of this hesitancy can be ascribed to the novelty of the challenges presented by many innovative treatments, which by their nature present unknowns to payers. Clearly, there is also a need to deal with uncertainty with regard to value demonstration, especially when value or values are perceived not to be sufficiently demonstrated. The risk is that such powerful economic reservations can have a cumulative negative impact on the motivation for pursuing research into rare disease treatments – thus running counter to the guiding principle of the legislation itself 7. Current value assessment rules across Europe for orphan drugs remain largely inadequate and can become a real fourth hurdle to effective patient access to those treatments 8. The regulation’s stimulation of new product development has also helped promote the development of EU biotech companies. The last two decades have witnessed the emergence of more than 150 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) focusing on rare diseases. No wonder that one of the prominent Members of the European Parliament over this period, Francoise Grossetête, emphasised the importance of the regulation in addressing “real medical needs” and generating “therapeutic breakthroughs” 9. The underlying strength of the concept of providing incentives for RandD in areas of unmet need is confirmed by the fact that Germany and other Member States are now exploring whether OMP-type incentives could contribute to solving the major risks of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), through promoting development of new anti-bacterials even where simple market economics do not provide sufficient motivation for investment 10. Thanks to increased investments and the associated efforts thus made possible, some rare diseases now benefit from effective treatments. There are leading examples in the area of haemophilia, paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria (PNH), and some lysosomal storage diseases such as Gaucher. The full list of conditions for which “orphans medicines” have been launched in Europe is too extensive to reproduce here, but by way of illustration it ranges from rare cancers to rare variants of common diseases (pulmonary hypertension, neonatal diabetes) and to rare congenital, mostly childhood-onset disorders (Gaucher, cystinosis, inherited hyperammonaemias) 11. However, these tales of success should not lead to any delusions that the process has been – or is becoming – easy. Successes in developing innovative treatments are hard-won. Without consistent and determined effort, innovation does not happen – and innovation in rare diseases is all the more challenging. The key elements of the innovation process are well documented, but the nature of the challenges is perhaps not always fully appreciated by those outside the healthcare sector, being seen as costs and not as investments. Rare diseases are categorized as “orphan diseases” because their occurrence in a small number of patients means that, despite apparent high unmet medical need, there is limited scientific understanding, making it difficult to justify the development risk and investment to develop new treatments. The OMP regulation was developed explicitly to support efforts in this field of innovation 12. Rare diseases disproportionately affect people of color RDDC, No Date (RDDC, No Date, accessed on 9-6-2021, Rare Disease Diversity Coalition, "Charting thePath Forwardfor Equity inRare Diseases", https://3hqwxl1mqiah5r73r2q7zll1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/RDDC_Path_Forward_Final.pdf)//sid While the rare disease community continues to face hurdles generally, people of color face additional hurdles in their quest for care . Barriers to diagnosis and treatment for people of color often have deadly consequences . Flaws across the entire system have a compounding effect on the care that Black, Native American, Hispanic, Asian, and Pacific Islander Americans with rare diseases receive . Americans of color continue to be underrepresented in genome-wide association studies and clinical research trials, leading to a lack of understanding about effective treatments, particularly in diverse populations . Despite making up more than 38 percent of the U .S . population, people of color comprise only 16 percent of research study participants .20 On the patient side, people of color are less likely to have affordable access to health care and rare disease experts .21 To make matters worse, some rare diseases disproportionately impact people of color . For instance, sarcoidosis, sickle cell anemia, thalassemia, and some forms of lupus are known to affect minority populations at higher rates than the general population .22 And implicit bias particularly harms people of color with rare diseases .23
9/18/21
SeptOct - CP - Patent Pools
Tournament: Heart of Texas | Round: 5 | Opponent: Immaculate Heart AW | Judge: Jeannine Lopez CP Text: Member nations of the World Trade Organization should create patent pool licensing platforms for genomic medicines.
Solves the first advantage Their author Stramiello 18 (Michael, PhD, an intellectual property litigation associate in Washington, DC. His practice focuses on the life sciences industry) “CRISPR: The New Frontier of Biotechnology Innovation” American Bar Association, Jan/Feb 2018. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/intellectual_property_law/publications/landslide/2017-18/january-february/crispr-new-frontier-biotechnology-innovation-digital-feature///pranav As CRISPR marches on, there may be an elegant solution for making it widely available without government intervention in licensing: patent pools. These joint licensing platforms enable owners to combine their IP rights into bundles that are made accessible, nonexclusively, to a broad range of users via a single transaction with predictable terms. As a result, licensors and licensees can concentrate on innovation and commercial development, respectively, while minimizing transaction costs and litigation risk.32 This model was popularized in the 1990s, when the consumer electronics industry adopted it to facilitate deployment of the MPEG-2 digital video standard, which has yielded about $5 trillion in worldwide product sales since 1997.33 A key coordinator of that effort, MPEG LA LLC, now invites CRISPR/Cas9 patent holders to participate in their own pool. MPEG LA has been gauging interest from CRISPR rights holders since at least April 2017.34 Broad and Rockefeller University announced that they had submitted nearly two dozen “key CRISPR-Cas9 patents,”35 from 10 families, “for evaluation of eligibility to participate in discussions facilitated by MPEG LA regarding creation of a CRISPR Joint Licensing Platform.”36 UC reportedly has no plans to follow suit, citing potential conflicts with its existing licenses.37 The effect that pooling would have on such arrangements may remain unclear until contributors finalize pool terms, which could take years. Early efforts might focus on pooling foundational patents, and there has also been speculation about specialized pools geared toward particular CRISPR applications (e.g., agriculture and industrial biotechnology).38 Pooling may prove to be more of a challenge with respect to human therapeutics, a field where rights holders typically expect exclusivity as a reward for their enormous investment in rigorous clinical trials.
10/17/21
SeptOct - CP - UHC
Tournament: Meadows | Round: Doubles | Opponent: Millard North NL | Judge: Claudia Ribear, Kabir Dubey, Heaven Montague The United States should implement a universal healthcare system including free insulin. Implementing a UHC system gets insulin to the uninsured Goozner PhD 20 Merril Goozner (PhD and literally wrote the book on overpriced drugs, called “The 800$ pill), Winter 2020, "Insulin Should Be Free. Yes, Free.," Democracy Journal, https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/55/insulin-should-be-free-yes-free/ AW Later in the year, on the eve of the second Democratic Party debate, Senator Bernie Sanders, who has made Medicare-for-All his signature policy proposal, took a busload of diabetics to Canada to purchase insulin that is one-tenth the United States price. Sanders’s single-payer system would go beyond negotiating lower prices as is done in Canada and other industrialized nations. It would completely eliminate the copays and deductibles that stand in the way of many patients—including some who are well-insured—getting the medications they need. That our health-care system fails to provide essential medicines to people who face immediate death or injury without them is morally outrageous. The pricing and access policies of profit-seeking drug companies also make that failure quite literally a human rights violation. Those companies—and the government that fails to control them—are flagrantly ignoring the World Health Organization’s constitution, which calls “the highest attainable standard of health a fundamental right of every human being.” The document, which the United States signed in 1946, also says that “understanding health as a human right creates a legal obligation on states to ensure access to timely, acceptable, and affordable health care of appropriate quality.”
10/31/21
SeptOct - CP - US
Tournament: Greenhill | Round: 4 | Opponent: Peninsula RM | Judge: Adam Torson CP Text: The United States should increase intellectual patent protections for medicines. The member nations of the World Trade Organization except for the United States ought to eliminate patent protections for medicines. The United States should: - substantially increase production and global distribution of the COVID-19 Vaccine - cooperate with allies to achieve increased production and global distribution of the COVID-19 Vaccine.
That solves better – IP rights don’t hinder vaccine cooperation, but manufacturing capacity is the current constraint. Hans Sauer 6-17 (Deputy General Counsel, Biotechnology Industry Organization.) “Web event — Confronting Joe Biden’s proposed TRIPS waiver for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments” https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/210617-Confronting-Joe-Bidens-proposed-TRIPS-waiver.pdf?x91208andx91208 TDI But contrary to what Lori said, there are genuine real problems in the supply chain that are not caused by patents, that are simply caused by the unavailability and the constraints on existing capacity. There is in this world such a thing as maxed-out capacity that just can’t be increased on a dime. It’s not all due to intellectual property. This is true for existing vaccines as well as for vaccine raw materials. There are trade barriers. There are export restrictions that we should all be aware of and that we need to work on. And there are very real political, I think, interests in finding an explanation for how we got to this place that absolve governments around the world from their own policy decisions that they made in the past. In the United States, again, it was the declared policy of the previous administration, as well as this one, that we would vaccinate healthy college kids and go all down the line and offer a vaccine to everybody who wants it before we start sharing any with grandmothers in Burkina Faso. That was the policy. You can agree with it or disagree with it, but that was policy. We had export restrictions in place before a lot of other countries did. And that, too, contributed to unequal access of vaccines around the world. Another thing that was predictable was that politicians and governments around the world who want to be seen as proactive, on the ball, in control, for a long time were actually very indecisive, very unsure about how to address the COVID problem, which has so many dimensions. Vaccines are only one of those. But with respect to vaccines, not many governments took decisive action, put money on the table, put bets on multiple horses, before we knew whether these vaccines would work, would be approved. And it was governments in middle-income countries who now, I think, justifiably are concerned that they’re not getting fast enough access, who didn’t have the means and who didn’t have the decision-making structure to place the same bets on multiple horses, if you will, that were placed in the relatively more wealthy, global North and global West. But there is, I think, a really good and, with hindsight, predictable explanation of how we got to this place, and I think it teaches us something about how to fix the problem going forward. So why will the waiver not work? Well, first of all, with complex technology like vaccines, Lori touched on it, reverse engineering, like you would for a small molecule drug, is much more difficult if not impossible. But it depends very much more than small molecule drugs on cooperation, on voluntary transfer of technology, and on mutual assistance. We have seen as part of the pandemic response an unprecedented level of collaborations and cooperation and no indication that IP has stood in the way of the pandemic response. The waiver proponents have found zero credible examples of where IP has actually been an obstacle, where somebody has tried to block somebody else from developing a COVID vaccine or other COVID countermeasure, right? It’s not there. Second, the myth of this vast global capacity to manufacture COVID vaccines that somehow exists out there is unsubstantiated and frankly, in my opinion, untrue. But there is no such thing as vast untapped, idle capacity that could be turned around on a dime to start making COVID vaccines within weeks or even months. This capacity needs to be built; it needs to be established. And at a time when time is of the essence to beat this pandemic, starting capacity-building discussions is helpful, but it won’t be the answer to beat this pandemic. It will be the answer if we do everything right to beating the next pandemic. And if we learn any lesson of this, and then I will stop, is that the COVID waiver as well as the situation in which we find ourselves — if anything, it’s a reminder that we definitely have to take global capacity-building more seriously than we did in the past. That is true for the global North, as well as for middle-income countries — all of whom have to dedicate themselves much more determinedly to pandemic preparedness. And there’s a need to invest both in preparedness and in public health systems that hasn’t happened in the wake of past pandemic threats. This is what we will need to do. We will need to reduce export restrictions, and we will need to rededicate ourselves to preparing for the next pandemic. As far as this pandemic goes, there are 11 vaccines around the world that are already being shot into arms, only four of which come from the global North. How many more vaccines do we want? I don’t know, maybe 11 is enough if we start making more of them. But there are manufacturers around the world who know how to do this — including in China, including in India, and including in Russia. All developed their homegrown vaccines, apparently without interference by IP rights, right? So let’s make more of those. I think that’s going to be the more practical and realistic answer to solving the problem. And we need to lean on governments to stop export controls and to dedicate themselves to more global equity.
9/18/21
SeptOct - DA - Infrastructure
Tournament: Grapevine | Round: 2 | Opponent: Lexington BF | Judge: Samantha Mclaughlin Infrastructure passes now with limited corporation support, but increased big Pharma backlash causes it to fail Waldman 8/31 Paul, opinion writer for the Plum Line blog. Before joining The Post, he worked at an advocacy group, edited an online magazine, taught at university and worked on political campaigns. He has authored or co-authored four books on media and politics, and his work has appeared in dozens of newspapers and magazines. He is also a senior writer at the American Prospect, “Opinion: Democrats, don’t knuckle under to corporations on the reconciliation bill”, 08-31-2021, Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/31/democrats-dont-knuckle-under-corporations-reconciliation-bill///pranav The infrastructure bill that passed the Senate and awaits action in the House was in some ways a model of bipartisanship, supported by some Republicans as well as all the chamber’s Democrats, and given a boost from traditionally Republican business groups. That wasn’t a surprise; big corporations need infrastructure to do business. If the government pays for better roads, a more resilient electrical grid and wider availability of broadband, it’ll probably help the bottom line. But what happens when the government suggests addressing Americans’ needs and asks those corporations to help pay for it? This is what happens: A torrent of political groups representing some of the country’s most influential corporations — including ExxonMobil, Pfizer, and the Walt Disney Company — is laying the groundwork for a massive lobbying blitz to stop Congress from enacting significant swaths of President Biden’s $3.5 trillion economic agenda. The emerging opposition appears to be vast, spanning drug manufacturers, big banks, tech titans, major retailers and oil-and-gas giants. In recent weeks, top Washington organizations representing these and other industries have started strategizing behind the scenes, seeking to battle back key elements in Democrats proposed overhaul to federal health care, education and safety net programs. This campaign will have lots of behind-the-scenes pressure: Together, these companies employ a group of lobbyists that are approximately equal in number to China’s People’s Liberation Army — as well as online and TV ads coming to a screen near you. So Democrats should now ask themselves: What are we doing here? As in, why did we decide to run for Congress? Because there are some moments that test your resolve, in which you have to ask what the purpose of public service is, and whether it’s more than just staying in your job for as long as possible. There are disagreements among Democrats about what should be in the final bill, and it’s almost certain that these corporations will have some success in stripping away some provisions they find threatening. There’s an increase in the corporate tax rate (though under every proposal, it would still be less than before the 2017 Republican tax cut). There’s money to boost Internal Revenue Service enforcement of existing tax laws, which the people who run corporations don’t like; an overstretched, overworked IRS that can’t manage to audit the super-rich is just how CEOs like things. Perhaps most threatening is the proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate prices for prescription drugs, as they are currently barred by law from doing. Democrats insist that change would pay for much of the trillions of dollars in new and beefed-up social programs this bill creates. Big Pharma hates the plan – empirics – err neg our ev literally cites their press releases PhRMA ’21 The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) represents the country’s leading innovative biopharmaceutical research companies, which are devoted to discovering and developing medicines that enable patients to live longer, healthier and more productive lives. Since 2000, PhRMA member companies have invested nearly $1 trillion in the search for new treatments and cures, including an estimated $83 billion in 2019 alone, “PhRMA Statement on WTO TRIPS Intellectual Property Waiver”, 05-05-2021, https://www.phrma.org/coronavirus/phrma-statement-on-wto-trips-intellectual-property-waiver//pranav WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 5, 2021) – Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) president and CEO Stephen J. Ubl made the following statement after the United States Trade Representative expressed support for a proposal to waive patent protections for COVID-19 medicines: “In the midst of a deadly pandemic, the Biden Administration has taken an unprecedented step that will undermine our global response to the pandemic and compromise safety. This decision will sow confusion between public and private partners, further weaken already strained supply chains and foster the proliferation of counterfeit vaccines. “This change in longstanding American policy will not save lives. It also flies in the face of President Biden’s stated policy of building up American infrastructure and creating jobs by handing over American innovations to countries looking to undermine our leadership in biomedical discovery. This decision does nothing to address the real challenges to getting more shots in arms, including last-mile distribution and limited availability of raw materials. These are the real challenges we face that this empty promise ignores. “In the past few days alone, we’ve seen more American vaccine exports, increased production targets from manufacturers, new commitments to COVAX and unprecedented aid for India during its devastating COVID-19 surge. Biopharmaceutical manufacturers are fully committed to providing global access to COVID-19 vaccines, and they are collaborating at a scale that was previously unimaginable, including more than 200 manufacturing and other partnerships to date. The biopharmaceutical industry shares the goal to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible, and we hope we can all re-focus on that shared objective.” They lash out against infra and use COVID clout to kill it – they have public support, and a win now postpones reform indefinitely which turns case Fuchs et al. 09/02 Hailey Fuchs attended Yale University and was an inaugural Bradlee Fellow for The Washington Post, where she reported on national politics, Alice Ollstein is a health care reporter for POLITICO Pro, covering the Capitol Hill beat. Prior to joining POLITICO, she covered federal policy and politics for Talking Points Memo, Megan Wilson is a health care and influence reporter at POLITICO, “Drug industry banks on its Covid clout to halt Dems’ push on prices”, 09-02-2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/02/drug-prices-democrats-lobbying-508127//pranav As Democrats prepare a massive overhaul of prescription drug policy, major pharmaceutical companies are mounting a lobbying campaign against it, arguing that the effort could undermine a Covid fight likely to last far longer than originally expected. In meetings with lawmakers, lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry have issued warnings about the reconciliation package now moving through both chambers of Congress that is set to include language allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of some drugs, which could generate billions of dollars in savings. In those conversations, K Street insiders say, lobbyists have explicitly mentioned that the fight against the coronavirus will almost certainly extend beyond the current surge of the Delta variant. And they’re arguing that now isn’t the time to hit the industry with new regulations or taxes, particularly in light of its successful efforts to swiftly develop vaccines for the virus. “For years, politicians have been saying that the federal government can interfere in the price of medicines and patients won’t suffer any harm,” said Brian Newell, a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, in a statement. “But in countries where this already happens, people experience fewer choices and less access to prescription medicines. Patients know if something sounds too good to be true, then it usually is.” The escalating warnings from the pharmaceutical industry are part of what is expected to be one of the more dramatic and expensive lobbying fights in recent memory, and a heightened repeat of the industry’s pushback to actions by former President Donald Trump to target drug prices. The proposal now under consideration in Democrats’ reconciliation package could save the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars by leveraging its ability to purchase prescription drugs, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office. Without those funds, Democrats won’t be able to pay for the rest of the health care agenda they’ve promised to voters, including expansions of Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare. But the plan has political power as more than a revenue raiser. Party leaders — from President Joe Biden to Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — are touting it as one of the most important components of the $3.5 trillion package, with the potential to lower out-of-pocket health spending for tens if not hundreds of millions of people. Outside advocates have also zeroed in on it as the most consequential policy fight on the horizon. “This is the best chance that we have seen in a couple of decades to enact meaningful reforms to drug pricing policy in the United States that will lower the prices of prescription drugs, and it’s very clear that the drug companies are going all out to stop it,” said David Mitchell, founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs. “This is Armageddon for pharma.” Progressive Democrats and their outside allies believe they’re closer than they’ve been in decades to imposing some price controls, and worry that failure to do so this year will delay progress indefinitely given the possibility of the party losing one or more chambers of Congress in the 2022 midterms. In April, the House passed a fairly aggressive version — H.R. 3 (117) — though a handful of moderate Democrats friendly to the industry have threatened to block it when it comes back to the floor for a vote later this fall. Leadership has largely shrugged off this threat, banking on the fact that the most vulnerable frontline Democrats are vocally in favor of the policy, while most of the dissenters sit in safe blue districts. The Senate is designing its own version, outlined by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in June, as a middle ground between HR3 and the more narrow, bipartisan bill he and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) put forward last Congress. A senior Senate Democratic aide confirmed to POLITICO that the bill is nearly complete and that they’re in the process of shopping it around to undecided senators to make sure it has enough support to move forward in the 50-50 upper chamber. “It makes sense to get buy-in before releasing it rather than releasing it with fingers crossed and then tweaking it once members complain,” the aide said. But the reform push is coming at a time when the pharmaceutical industry is working hand-in-hand with government officials to combat the pandemic and enjoying a boost in public opinion as a result, even as drug costs continue to rise. The companies claim that fundamental changes to their bottom line — in addition to the Medicare provision, the reconciliation bill will likely raise corporate tax rate significantly, as high as 28 percent (a jump of 7 percentage points) — will threaten its current investments in research and development at a historically critical juncture. With the final draft of the bill expected in the coming weeks, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the lobbying arm of the pharmaceutical industry, is taking its case public. The group has recently spent at least seven figures on ads pressuring Congress not to change Medicare drug policy. Big pharma always wins – independently kills aff solvency bc it causes the plan to be watered down so much that de facto monopolies can survive Florko and Facher ‘19 Nicholas Florko is a Stat News Washington correspondent and Lev Facher is Stat News health and life sciences writer, “How pharma, under attack from all sides, keeps winning in Washington”, 07-16-2019, Stat News, https://www.statnews.com/2019/07/16/pharma-still-winning///pranav It does not seem to matter how angrily President Trump tweets, how pointedly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lobs a critique, or how shrewdly health secretary Alex Azar drafts a regulatory change. The pharmaceutical industry is still winning in Washington. In the past month alone, drug makers and the army of lobbyists they employ pressured a Republican senator not to push forward a bill that would have limited some of their intellectual property rights, according to lobbyists and industry representatives. They managed to water down another before it was added to a legislative package aimed at lowering health care costs. Lobbyists also convinced yet another GOP lawmaker — once bombastically opposed to the industry’s patent tactics — to publicly commit to softening his own legislation on the topic, as STAT reported last month. Even off Capitol Hill, they found a way to block perhaps the Trump administration’s most substantial anti-industry accomplishment in the past two years: a rule that would have required drug companies to list their prices in television ads. To pick their way through the policy minefield, drug makers have successfully deployed dozens of lobbyists and devoted record-breaking sums to their federal advocacy efforts. But there is also a seemingly new strategy in play: industry CEOs have targeted their campaign donations this year on a pair of vulnerable Republican lawmakers — and then called on them not to upend the industry’s business model. In more than a dozen interviews by STAT with an array of industry employees, Capitol Hill staff, lobbyists, policy analysts, and advocates for lower drug prices, however, an unmistakable disconnect emerges. Even though Washington has stepped up its rhetorical attacks on the industry, and focused its policymaking efforts on reining in high drug prices, the pharmaceutical industry’s time-honored lobbying and advocacy strategies have kept both lawmakers and the Trump administration from landing any of their prescription-drug punches. “Big Pharma has replaced Big Tobacco as the most powerful brute in the ranks of Washington power brokers,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a statement to STAT. Durbin, who recently saw the industry successfully oppose his proposal to curtail some of the industry’s patent maneuvering, added that, “Pharma’s billions allow them to continue to rip off American families and taxpayers.” The industry doesn’t get all the credit; it has also benefited from a fractured Congress and discord between President Trump’s most senior health care advisers. PhRMA, the drug industry’s largest lobbying group here, declined to comment for this article. But industry leaders have broadly argued against efforts to rein in the industry’s practices in terms of price hikes and patents, making the case that that could irreparably stifle medical innovation. The battle is far from over, and industry representatives and lobbyists are quick to hypothesize that the worst, for them, is yet to come. They point to several ongoing legislative initiatives, including in the Senate Finance Committee, that could take more concerted direct aim at their pricing strategies in Medicare. They’re waiting, too, to see if House Democrats can cut a drug pricing deal with the White House to empower Medicare to negotiate at least some drug prices. Another pending regulation, loathed by drug makers, might tie their pricing decisions in Medicare to an index of international prices. They’ve also bemoaned the Trump administration’s decision last week to abandon a policy change that would have ended drug rebates — which, the pharmaceutical industry has said, could have given drug makers more space to lower their prices voluntarily. “We’re getting killed!” one pharma lobbyist told STAT. Of course, the Trump administration’s supposedly devastating decision to abandon that proposal simply maintains the status quo. “Big Pharma has replaced Big Tobacco as the most powerful brute in the ranks of Washington power brokers.” n Valentine’s Day, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) enjoyed a showering of love that is familiar in Washington: a flood of campaign contributions, many at the federal limit of $2,800 for a candidate or $5,000 for an affiliated political committee. One donation came from Pfizer’s CEO, Albert Bourla, who donated $5,000 to Tillis and another $10,000 to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and associated campaign committees. Another came from Kenneth Frazier, the top executive at Merck. The Tillis campaign committee eventually cashed checks from CEOs and other high-ranking executives at those companies as well as Amgen, Eli Lilly, Sanofi, and Bristol Myers-Squibb, plus two high-ranking officials at the advocacy group PhRMA. Six lobbyists at one firm that works with PhRMA, BGR, also combined to contribute $100,000 to a bevy of Republican lawmakers and the party’s campaign arms. Tillis raised an additional $64,500 from drug industry political action committees in the past quarter, according to disclosures released on Monday. A Pfizer spokeswoman declined to comment about Bourla’s contributions, and representatives for the other companies did not respond to STAT’s request for comment. Tills was one of few individual lawmakers — in many cases, the only one — to whom the executives had written personal checks during the current election cycle. While drug industry CEOs frequently contribute to political committees for congressional leadership, the breadth of executives who donated Tillis specifically is notable, particularly considering his outspoken role on pharmaceutical industry issues. While lobbyists pushed back on the notion that campaign contributions directly influence votes, the donations targeted so specifically to a particular candidate could be seen as a prime example of Washington’s system for rewarding loyalty and how industries protect their interests. The same PhRMA PAC that donated to Tillis has given generously in recent years: nearly $200,000 in the 2018 campaign cycle, roughly 58 of which was targeted toward Republicans. Drug industry PACs donated $10.3 million in total in that cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The figure two years before was even higher: a total of $12.2 million from industry-aligned PACs alone. It is no accident that the pharmaceutical industry has maintained its reputation among the nation’s most powerful lobbies, said Sheila Krumholz, the executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, an organization that tracks political influence. “Their access and influence goes beyond this Congress or even the administration,” Krumholz said in an interview, adding that she “was struggling to think of evidence” it had waned. Pharma has a reputation here for winning on policy — often thanks to the lawmakers who are among the biggest recipients of the millions that drug corporations, employees, and the industry political arms donate each year. Even as the rhetoric has escalated, the industry has quietly worked to insulate itself from any major legislative changes. Take, for example, a recent about-face from Cornyn, the Texas Republican who took in some campaign cash alongside Tillis. As recently as February, Cornyn seemed to be positioning himself as a rare Republican figurehead for anti-pharma congressional wrath. At a widely publicized hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, he went head-to-head with AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez, pressing him to explain why the company had filed more than 100 patents on its blockbuster arthritis drug Humira. Cornyn introduced legislation soon after the skirmish to crack down on patent “thicketing,” a term for a drug company tactic to accumulate tens, if not hundreds, of patents to shield a drug from potential generic competition. Pharma sprung into action. They recruited congressional allies, including Tillis, to pressure Cornyn to significantly rework the bill, and they succeeded. The version of the bill that eventually cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee was stripped of language that would have empowered the Federal Trade Commission to go after patent thicketing. Instead, the bill limited how many patents a drug maker could assert in a patent lawsuit. The new version of the bill lost “a lot of teeth” and “solves a narrower problem in a narrow way,” advocates told STAT when the change was first introduced. It is far from the only example of the industry’s aggressive interventions to water down legislation. “In lots of ways they’re like the National Rifle Association, because they have an incredible power to squash out any negative opinion, nor to feel any of the ill effects of those things,” said Pallavi Damani Kumar, an American University crisis communications professor who once worked in media relations for drug manufacturers. “It just speaks to how incredibly savvy they are.” Pharmaceutical industry lobbyists also successfully fought to keep another anti-drug industry patent proposal from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) out of a bipartisan drug pricing package moving through the Senate HELP Committee. The legislation would have allowed the FDA to approve cheaper versions of drugs, even when the more expensive product was protected by certain patents. Cassidy’s proposal never even made it into the HELP package. As the lobbyist who bemoaned the withdrawal of the rebate rule put it, Cassidy “simmered down” in the face of industry pressure. In recent weeks, the industry had targeted Cassidy in particular, in recent weeks, for fear he would break with many of his GOP colleagues to support a cap on some price hikes for drugs purchased under Medicare, a proposal so far pushed only by Democrats. “Sen. Cassidy doesn’t care what lobbyists think — he is going to do what’s best for patients,” said Ty Bofferding, a Cassidy spokesman. “Sen. Cassidy fought for the committee to include the REMEDY Act in the package, despite strong opposition from the pharmaceutical industry.” The committee eventually included half the bill’s provisions, he added, as well as four other pieces of legislation meant to prevent the industry from taking advantage of the patent system. The drug industry also notched a win by watering down another proposal in that package from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) that would have blocked drug makers from suing over patents they didn’t disclose to the FDA. The version of the bill that actually made it into the package doesn’t block drug makers from suing, but instead directs the FDA to create a public list of companies that fail to disclose their patents. “This change is a big win for drug makers,” Michael Carrier, a Rutgers University professor and expert on patent gaming, told STAT. “Shaming is something drug makers don’t seem worried about.” Matthew Lane, the executive director of the Coalition Against Patent Abuse, likewise added that the altered bill “doesn’t seem to be doing much anymore.” Not all of the pharma-endorsed changes, however, are self-serving. Patent experts and federal regulators too had raised concerns with some of the bill being proposed. Cornyn’s patent bill was particularly controversial. “These provisions encourage ‘fishing expeditions’ by zealous bureaucrats, politically motivated by the popularity of efforts to reduce drug prices and garner the political benefits of being seen to be pursuing these ends,” Kevin Noonan, a patent lawyer at McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert and Berghoff wrote in a recent blog post, referring to the original Cornyn bill. Drug-pricing advocates said lobbyists have even managed to convince lawmakers to introduce some legislation they say has explicitly favored the drug industry, including intellectual property-focused legislation that would allow drug makers to patent human genes. That particular bill would “undo the bipartisan effort underway to fix pharma’s exploitation of the patent system,” said the Coalition Against Patent Abuse. And they were far from the only group raising concerns. The American Civil Liberties Union and more than 150 other groups wrote to lawmakers last month opposing the bill. Pharma’s list of policy victories goes on: Drug companies and allied patient groups forced the Trump administration to back off a proposal to make relatively minor changes to Medicare’s so-called protected classes policy. Currently, Medicare is required to cover all drugs for certain conditions, including depression and HIV. The Trump administration proposed in November that private Medicare plans should be able to remove certain drugs in those classes from their formularies, if the drugs were just new formulations of a cheaper, older version of the same drug, or when a drug spiked in price. But drug industry opposition helped convince the administration to spike that effort. A week ago, the industry struck its biggest blow yet. Three of the country’s largest pharmaceutical companies —Amgen, Eli Lilly, and Merck — prevailed in a lawsuit to strike down a Trump administration requirement that they disclose list prices in television advertisements. The lack of congressional action — despite the Democratic enthusiasm and bipartisan appetite — is still further evidence of industry’s ability to stave off defeat. As the dozens of Democrats running for president ramp up their anti-pharma rhetoric, both Trump and progressives have begun to fret that Washington’s efforts have proven to be all bark and no bite. With two weeks remaining before the August recess and an escalating 2020 campaign, some advocates fear that the window for bold action is closing quickly. “It’s appalling that we are six months into this Congress and we haven’t seen meaningful legislation passed on American’s number one issue for this congress,” said Peter Maybarduk, who leads drug-pricing initiatives for the advocacy group Public Citizen. “Congress needs to get its act together.” Infra’s k2 stopping existential climate change – warming is incremental and every change in temperature is vital Higgins 8/16 Trevor, Senior Director, Domestic Climate and Energy, “Budget Reconciliation Is the Key to Stopping Climate Change”, 08-16-2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2021/08/16/502681/budget-reconciliation-key-stopping-climate-change///pranav The United States is suffering acutely from the chaotic changes in climate that scientists now directly attribute to the burning of fossil fuels and other human activity. The drought, fires, extreme heat, and floods that have already killed hundreds this summer across the continent and around the world are a tragedy—and a warning of worsening instability yet to come. However, this week, the Senate initiated an extraordinary legislative response that would set the world on a different path. Enacting the full scope of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda would put the American economy to work leading a global transition to clean energy and stabilizing the climate. A look at what’s coming next through the budget reconciliation process reveals a ray of hope that is easy to miss amid the fitful negotiations of recent months: At long last, Congress is on the verge of major legislation that would build a more equitable, just, and inclusive clean energy economy. This is our shot to stop climate change. Building a clean energy future must start now Until the global economy stops polluting the air and instead starts to draw down the emissions of years past, the world will continue to heat up, blundering past perilous tipping points that threaten irreversible and catastrophic consequences. Stemming the extent of warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius rather 2 degrees or worse will reduce the risk of crossing such tipping points or otherwise exceeding the adaptive capacity of human society. Every degree matters. Stabilizing global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius starts with cutting annual greenhouse gas emissions in the United States to half of peak levels by 2030. This isn’t about temporary offsets or incremental gains in efficiency—it’s about the rapid adoption of scalable solutions that will work throughout the world to eliminate global net emissions by 2050 and sustain net-negative emissions thereafter. Building this better future will tackle climate change, deliver on environmental justice, and create good jobs. It will give us a shot to stop the planet from continuously warming. It will alleviate the concentrated burdens of fossil fuel pollution, which are concentrated in systemically disadvantaged, often majority Black and brown communities. It will empower American workers to compete in the global clean energy economy of the 21st century. There is no time to lose in the work of building a clean energy future.
9/13/21
SeptOct - DA - Infrastructure v2
Tournament: Greenhill | Round: 6 | Opponent: Strake Jesuit DL | Judge: Chris Theis Reconciliation passes now with limited corporation support, but increased big Pharma backlash causes it to fail Waldman 8/31 Paul, opinion writer for the Plum Line blog. Before joining The Post, he worked at an advocacy group, edited an online magazine, taught at university and worked on political campaigns. He has authored or co-authored four books on media and politics, and his work has appeared in dozens of newspapers and magazines. He is also a senior writer at the American Prospect, “Opinion: Democrats, don’t knuckle under to corporations on the reconciliation bill”, 08-31-2021, Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/31/democrats-dont-knuckle-under-corporations-reconciliation-bill///pranav The infrastructure bill that passed the Senate and awaits action in the House was in some ways a model of bipartisanship, supported by some Republicans as well as all the chamber’s Democrats, and given a boost from traditionally Republican business groups. That wasn’t a surprise; big corporations need infrastructure to do business. If the government pays for better roads, a more resilient electrical grid and wider availability of broadband, it’ll probably help the bottom line. But what happens when the government suggests addressing Americans’ needs and asks those corporations to help pay for it? This is what happens: A torrent of political groups representing some of the country’s most influential corporations — including ExxonMobil, Pfizer, and the Walt Disney Company — is laying the groundwork for a massive lobbying blitz to stop Congress from enacting significant swaths of President Biden’s $3.5 trillion economic agenda. The emerging opposition appears to be vast, spanning drug manufacturers, big banks, tech titans, major retailers and oil-and-gas giants. In recent weeks, top Washington organizations representing these and other industries have started strategizing behind the scenes, seeking to battle back key elements in Democrats proposed overhaul to federal health care, education and safety net programs. This campaign will have lots of behind-the-scenes pressure: Together, these companies employ a group of lobbyists that are approximately equal in number to China’s People’s Liberation Army — as well as online and TV ads coming to a screen near you. So Democrats should now ask themselves: What are we doing here? As in, why did we decide to run for Congress? Because there are some moments that test your resolve, in which you have to ask what the purpose of public service is, and whether it’s more than just staying in your job for as long as possible. There are disagreements among Democrats about what should be in the final bill, and it’s almost certain that these corporations will have some success in stripping away some provisions they find threatening. There’s an increase in the corporate tax rate (though under every proposal, it would still be less than before the 2017 Republican tax cut). There’s money to boost Internal Revenue Service enforcement of existing tax laws, which the people who run corporations don’t like; an overstretched, overworked IRS that can’t manage to audit the super-rich is just how CEOs like things. Perhaps most threatening is the proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate prices for prescription drugs, as they are currently barred by law from doing. Democrats insist that change would pay for much of the trillions of dollars in new and beefed-up social programs this bill creates. Big Pharma hates the plan – empirics – err neg our ev literally cites their press releases PhRMA ’21 The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) represents the country’s leading innovative biopharmaceutical research companies, which are devoted to discovering and developing medicines that enable patients to live longer, healthier and more productive lives. Since 2000, PhRMA member companies have invested nearly $1 trillion in the search for new treatments and cures, including an estimated $83 billion in 2019 alone, “PhRMA Statement on WTO TRIPS Intellectual Property Waiver”, 05-05-2021, https://www.phrma.org/coronavirus/phrma-statement-on-wto-trips-intellectual-property-waiver//pranav WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 5, 2021) – Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) president and CEO Stephen J. Ubl made the following statement after the United States Trade Representative expressed support for a proposal to waive patent protections for COVID-19 medicines: “In the midst of a deadly pandemic, the Biden Administration has taken an unprecedented step that will undermine our global response to the pandemic and compromise safety. This decision will sow confusion between public and private partners, further weaken already strained supply chains and foster the proliferation of counterfeit vaccines. “This change in longstanding American policy will not save lives. It also flies in the face of President Biden’s stated policy of building up American infrastructure and creating jobs by handing over American innovations to countries looking to undermine our leadership in biomedical discovery. This decision does nothing to address the real challenges to getting more shots in arms, including last-mile distribution and limited availability of raw materials. These are the real challenges we face that this empty promise ignores. “In the past few days alone, we’ve seen more American vaccine exports, increased production targets from manufacturers, new commitments to COVAX and unprecedented aid for India during its devastating COVID-19 surge. Biopharmaceutical manufacturers are fully committed to providing global access to COVID-19 vaccines, and they are collaborating at a scale that was previously unimaginable, including more than 200 manufacturing and other partnerships to date. The biopharmaceutical industry shares the goal to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible, and we hope we can all re-focus on that shared objective.” Plan requires significant PC which Biden can’t afford to spend– Pharma, GOP, allies, and long negotiations. Bhadrakumar ’21 M.K., Retired Ambassador; Columnist for Hindu and Deccan Herald Indian newspapers, Rediff.com, Asia Times and Strategic Culture Foundation, Moscow Previous positions: career diplomat for 30 years in the Indian Foreign Service: served in the Indian Embassy in Moscow (1975-1977; 1987-1998); Under Secretary (1977-1979), Joint Secretary (1992-1995), Director (1989-1991), Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan Division and Kashmir Unit, Foreign Ministry; held posts in the Indian Missions in Bonn, Colombo, Seoul; Charge d’Affaires, Indian embassies in Kuwait and Kabul; Acting/Deputy High Commissioner in Islamabad; Ambassador to Turkey and Uzbekistan., “Biden’s Decision on TRIPS Waiver is Political Theatre”, 05-08-2021, https://www.newsclick.in/biden-decision-TRIPS-waiver-political-theatre//pranav The US pharmaceutical industry and congressional Republicans have already gone on the offensive blasting Biden’s announcement saying it undermines incentives for American innovation. Besides, the argument goes, even with the patent waiver, vaccine manufacturing is a complex process and is not like simply flipping a switch. Sen. Richard Burr, the top Republican on the US Senate Health Committee, has denounced Biden’s decision: “Intellectual property protections are part of the reason we have these life-saving products; stripping these protections only ensures we won’t have the vaccines or treatments we need when the next pandemic occurs.” The Republican senators backed by Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Banks propose to introduce legislation to block the move. Clearly, Biden would rather spend his political capital on getting the necessary legislation through the Congress to advance his domestic reform agenda rather than spend time and energy to take on the pharmaceutical industry to burnish his image as a good Samaritan on the world stage. Conceivably, Biden could be counting on the “text-based negotiations” at the WTO dragging on for months, if not years, without reaching anywhere. The US support for the waiver could even be a tactic to convince pharmaceutical firms to back less drastic steps, like sharing technology and expanding joint ventures, to quickly boost global production. So far, COVID-19 vaccines have been distributed primarily to the wealthy countries that developed them, while the pandemic sweeps through poorer ones, such as India, and the real goal is, after all, expanded vaccine distribution. Biden is well aware that there will be huge opposition to the TRIPS waiver from the US’ European allies as well. The British press has reported that the UK has been in closed-door talks at the WTO in recent months along with the likes of Australia, Canada, Japan, Norway, Singapore, the European Union and the US, who all opposed the idea. They lash out against infra and use COVID clout to kill it – they have public support, and a win now postpones reform indefinitely which turns case Fuchs et al. 09/02 Hailey Fuchs attended Yale University and was an inaugural Bradlee Fellow for The Washington Post, where she reported on national politics, Alice Ollstein is a health care reporter for POLITICO Pro, covering the Capitol Hill beat. Prior to joining POLITICO, she covered federal policy and politics for Talking Points Memo, Megan Wilson is a health care and influence reporter at POLITICO, “Drug industry banks on its Covid clout to halt Dems’ push on prices”, 09-02-2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/02/drug-prices-democrats-lobbying-508127//pranav As Democrats prepare a massive overhaul of prescription drug policy, major pharmaceutical companies are mounting a lobbying campaign against it, arguing that the effort could undermine a Covid fight likely to last far longer than originally expected. In meetings with lawmakers, lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry have issued warnings about the reconciliation package now moving through both chambers of Congress that is set to include language allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of some drugs, which could generate billions of dollars in savings. In those conversations, K Street insiders say, lobbyists have explicitly mentioned that the fight against the coronavirus will almost certainly extend beyond the current surge of the Delta variant. And they’re arguing that now isn’t the time to hit the industry with new regulations or taxes, particularly in light of its successful efforts to swiftly develop vaccines for the virus. “For years, politicians have been saying that the federal government can interfere in the price of medicines and patients won’t suffer any harm,” said Brian Newell, a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, in a statement. “But in countries where this already happens, people experience fewer choices and less access to prescription medicines. Patients know if something sounds too good to be true, then it usually is.” The escalating warnings from the pharmaceutical industry are part of what is expected to be one of the more dramatic and expensive lobbying fights in recent memory, and a heightened repeat of the industry’s pushback to actions by former President Donald Trump to target drug prices. The proposal now under consideration in Democrats’ reconciliation package could save the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars by leveraging its ability to purchase prescription drugs, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office. Without those funds, Democrats won’t be able to pay for the rest of the health care agenda they’ve promised to voters, including expansions of Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare. But the plan has political power as more than a revenue raiser. Party leaders — from President Joe Biden to Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — are touting it as one of the most important components of the $3.5 trillion package, with the potential to lower out-of-pocket health spending for tens if not hundreds of millions of people. Outside advocates have also zeroed in on it as the most consequential policy fight on the horizon. “This is the best chance that we have seen in a couple of decades to enact meaningful reforms to drug pricing policy in the United States that will lower the prices of prescription drugs, and it’s very clear that the drug companies are going all out to stop it,” said David Mitchell, founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs. “This is Armageddon for pharma.” Progressive Democrats and their outside allies believe they’re closer than they’ve been in decades to imposing some price controls, and worry that failure to do so this year will delay progress indefinitely given the possibility of the party losing one or more chambers of Congress in the 2022 midterms. In April, the House passed a fairly aggressive version — H.R. 3 (117) — though a handful of moderate Democrats friendly to the industry have threatened to block it when it comes back to the floor for a vote later this fall. Leadership has largely shrugged off this threat, banking on the fact that the most vulnerable frontline Democrats are vocally in favor of the policy, while most of the dissenters sit in safe blue districts. The Senate is designing its own version, outlined by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in June, as a middle ground between HR3 and the more narrow, bipartisan bill he and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) put forward last Congress. A senior Senate Democratic aide confirmed to POLITICO that the bill is nearly complete and that they’re in the process of shopping it around to undecided senators to make sure it has enough support to move forward in the 50-50 upper chamber. “It makes sense to get buy-in before releasing it rather than releasing it with fingers crossed and then tweaking it once members complain,” the aide said. But the reform push is coming at a time when the pharmaceutical industry is working hand-in-hand with government officials to combat the pandemic and enjoying a boost in public opinion as a result, even as drug costs continue to rise. The companies claim that fundamental changes to their bottom line — in addition to the Medicare provision, the reconciliation bill will likely raise corporate tax rate significantly, as high as 28 percent (a jump of 7 percentage points) — will threaten its current investments in research and development at a historically critical juncture. With the final draft of the bill expected in the coming weeks, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the lobbying arm of the pharmaceutical industry, is taking its case public. The group has recently spent at least seven figures on ads pressuring Congress not to change Medicare drug policy. Big pharma always wins – independently kills aff solvency bc it causes the plan to be watered down so much that de facto monopolies can survive Florko and Facher ‘19 Nicholas Florko is a Stat News Washington correspondent and Lev Facher is Stat News health and life sciences writer, “How pharma, under attack from all sides, keeps winning in Washington”, 07-16-2019, Stat News, https://www.statnews.com/2019/07/16/pharma-still-winning///pranav It does not seem to matter how angrily President Trump tweets, how pointedly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lobs a critique, or how shrewdly health secretary Alex Azar drafts a regulatory change. The pharmaceutical industry is still winning in Washington. In the past month alone, drug makers and the army of lobbyists they employ pressured a Republican senator not to push forward a bill that would have limited some of their intellectual property rights, according to lobbyists and industry representatives. They managed to water down another before it was added to a legislative package aimed at lowering health care costs. Lobbyists also convinced yet another GOP lawmaker — once bombastically opposed to the industry’s patent tactics — to publicly commit to softening his own legislation on the topic, as STAT reported last month. Even off Capitol Hill, they found a way to block perhaps the Trump administration’s most substantial anti-industry accomplishment in the past two years: a rule that would have required drug companies to list their prices in television ads. To pick their way through the policy minefield, drug makers have successfully deployed dozens of lobbyists and devoted record-breaking sums to their federal advocacy efforts. But there is also a seemingly new strategy in play: industry CEOs have targeted their campaign donations this year on a pair of vulnerable Republican lawmakers — and then called on them not to upend the industry’s business model. In more than a dozen interviews by STAT with an array of industry employees, Capitol Hill staff, lobbyists, policy analysts, and advocates for lower drug prices, however, an unmistakable disconnect emerges. Even though Washington has stepped up its rhetorical attacks on the industry, and focused its policymaking efforts on reining in high drug prices, the pharmaceutical industry’s time-honored lobbying and advocacy strategies have kept both lawmakers and the Trump administration from landing any of their prescription-drug punches. “Big Pharma has replaced Big Tobacco as the most powerful brute in the ranks of Washington power brokers,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a statement to STAT. Durbin, who recently saw the industry successfully oppose his proposal to curtail some of the industry’s patent maneuvering, added that, “Pharma’s billions allow them to continue to rip off American families and taxpayers.” The industry doesn’t get all the credit; it has also benefited from a fractured Congress and discord between President Trump’s most senior health care advisers. PhRMA, the drug industry’s largest lobbying group here, declined to comment for this article. But industry leaders have broadly argued against efforts to rein in the industry’s practices in terms of price hikes and patents, making the case that that could irreparably stifle medical innovation. The battle is far from over, and industry representatives and lobbyists are quick to hypothesize that the worst, for them, is yet to come. They point to several ongoing legislative initiatives, including in the Senate Finance Committee, that could take more concerted direct aim at their pricing strategies in Medicare. They’re waiting, too, to see if House Democrats can cut a drug pricing deal with the White House to empower Medicare to negotiate at least some drug prices. Another pending regulation, loathed by drug makers, might tie their pricing decisions in Medicare to an index of international prices. They’ve also bemoaned the Trump administration’s decision last week to abandon a policy change that would have ended drug rebates — which, the pharmaceutical industry has said, could have given drug makers more space to lower their prices voluntarily. “We’re getting killed!” one pharma lobbyist told STAT. Of course, the Trump administration’s supposedly devastating decision to abandon that proposal simply maintains the status quo. “Big Pharma has replaced Big Tobacco as the most powerful brute in the ranks of Washington power brokers.” n Valentine’s Day, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) enjoyed a showering of love that is familiar in Washington: a flood of campaign contributions, many at the federal limit of $2,800 for a candidate or $5,000 for an affiliated political committee. One donation came from Pfizer’s CEO, Albert Bourla, who donated $5,000 to Tillis and another $10,000 to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and associated campaign committees. Another came from Kenneth Frazier, the top executive at Merck. The Tillis campaign committee eventually cashed checks from CEOs and other high-ranking executives at those companies as well as Amgen, Eli Lilly, Sanofi, and Bristol Myers-Squibb, plus two high-ranking officials at the advocacy group PhRMA. Six lobbyists at one firm that works with PhRMA, BGR, also combined to contribute $100,000 to a bevy of Republican lawmakers and the party’s campaign arms. Tillis raised an additional $64,500 from drug industry political action committees in the past quarter, according to disclosures released on Monday. A Pfizer spokeswoman declined to comment about Bourla’s contributions, and representatives for the other companies did not respond to STAT’s request for comment. Tills was one of few individual lawmakers — in many cases, the only one — to whom the executives had written personal checks during the current election cycle. While drug industry CEOs frequently contribute to political committees for congressional leadership, the breadth of executives who donated Tillis specifically is notable, particularly considering his outspoken role on pharmaceutical industry issues. While lobbyists pushed back on the notion that campaign contributions directly influence votes, the donations targeted so specifically to a particular candidate could be seen as a prime example of Washington’s system for rewarding loyalty and how industries protect their interests. The same PhRMA PAC that donated to Tillis has given generously in recent years: nearly $200,000 in the 2018 campaign cycle, roughly 58 of which was targeted toward Republicans. Drug industry PACs donated $10.3 million in total in that cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The figure two years before was even higher: a total of $12.2 million from industry-aligned PACs alone. It is no accident that the pharmaceutical industry has maintained its reputation among the nation’s most powerful lobbies, said Sheila Krumholz, the executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, an organization that tracks political influence. “Their access and influence goes beyond this Congress or even the administration,” Krumholz said in an interview, adding that she “was struggling to think of evidence” it had waned. Pharma has a reputation here for winning on policy — often thanks to the lawmakers who are among the biggest recipients of the millions that drug corporations, employees, and the industry political arms donate each year. Even as the rhetoric has escalated, the industry has quietly worked to insulate itself from any major legislative changes. Take, for example, a recent about-face from Cornyn, the Texas Republican who took in some campaign cash alongside Tillis. As recently as February, Cornyn seemed to be positioning himself as a rare Republican figurehead for anti-pharma congressional wrath. At a widely publicized hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, he went head-to-head with AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez, pressing him to explain why the company had filed more than 100 patents on its blockbuster arthritis drug Humira. Cornyn introduced legislation soon after the skirmish to crack down on patent “thicketing,” a term for a drug company tactic to accumulate tens, if not hundreds, of patents to shield a drug from potential generic competition. Pharma sprung into action. They recruited congressional allies, including Tillis, to pressure Cornyn to significantly rework the bill, and they succeeded. The version of the bill that eventually cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee was stripped of language that would have empowered the Federal Trade Commission to go after patent thicketing. Instead, the bill limited how many patents a drug maker could assert in a patent lawsuit. The new version of the bill lost “a lot of teeth” and “solves a narrower problem in a narrow way,” advocates told STAT when the change was first introduced. It is far from the only example of the industry’s aggressive interventions to water down legislation. “In lots of ways they’re like the National Rifle Association, because they have an incredible power to squash out any negative opinion, nor to feel any of the ill effects of those things,” said Pallavi Damani Kumar, an American University crisis communications professor who once worked in media relations for drug manufacturers. “It just speaks to how incredibly savvy they are.” Pharmaceutical industry lobbyists also successfully fought to keep another anti-drug industry patent proposal from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) out of a bipartisan drug pricing package moving through the Senate HELP Committee. The legislation would have allowed the FDA to approve cheaper versions of drugs, even when the more expensive product was protected by certain patents. Cassidy’s proposal never even made it into the HELP package. As the lobbyist who bemoaned the withdrawal of the rebate rule put it, Cassidy “simmered down” in the face of industry pressure. In recent weeks, the industry had targeted Cassidy in particular, in recent weeks, for fear he would break with many of his GOP colleagues to support a cap on some price hikes for drugs purchased under Medicare, a proposal so far pushed only by Democrats. “Sen. Cassidy doesn’t care what lobbyists think — he is going to do what’s best for patients,” said Ty Bofferding, a Cassidy spokesman. “Sen. Cassidy fought for the committee to include the REMEDY Act in the package, despite strong opposition from the pharmaceutical industry.” The committee eventually included half the bill’s provisions, he added, as well as four other pieces of legislation meant to prevent the industry from taking advantage of the patent system. The drug industry also notched a win by watering down another proposal in that package from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) that would have blocked drug makers from suing over patents they didn’t disclose to the FDA. The version of the bill that actually made it into the package doesn’t block drug makers from suing, but instead directs the FDA to create a public list of companies that fail to disclose their patents. “This change is a big win for drug makers,” Michael Carrier, a Rutgers University professor and expert on patent gaming, told STAT. “Shaming is something drug makers don’t seem worried about.” Matthew Lane, the executive director of the Coalition Against Patent Abuse, likewise added that the altered bill “doesn’t seem to be doing much anymore.” Not all of the pharma-endorsed changes, however, are self-serving. Patent experts and federal regulators too had raised concerns with some of the bill being proposed. Cornyn’s patent bill was particularly controversial. “These provisions encourage ‘fishing expeditions’ by zealous bureaucrats, politically motivated by the popularity of efforts to reduce drug prices and garner the political benefits of being seen to be pursuing these ends,” Kevin Noonan, a patent lawyer at McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert and Berghoff wrote in a recent blog post, referring to the original Cornyn bill. Drug-pricing advocates said lobbyists have even managed to convince lawmakers to introduce some legislation they say has explicitly favored the drug industry, including intellectual property-focused legislation that would allow drug makers to patent human genes. That particular bill would “undo the bipartisan effort underway to fix pharma’s exploitation of the patent system,” said the Coalition Against Patent Abuse. And they were far from the only group raising concerns. The American Civil Liberties Union and more than 150 other groups wrote to lawmakers last month opposing the bill. Pharma’s list of policy victories goes on: Drug companies and allied patient groups forced the Trump administration to back off a proposal to make relatively minor changes to Medicare’s so-called protected classes policy. Currently, Medicare is required to cover all drugs for certain conditions, including depression and HIV. The Trump administration proposed in November that private Medicare plans should be able to remove certain drugs in those classes from their formularies, if the drugs were just new formulations of a cheaper, older version of the same drug, or when a drug spiked in price. But drug industry opposition helped convince the administration to spike that effort. A week ago, the industry struck its biggest blow yet. Three of the country’s largest pharmaceutical companies —Amgen, Eli Lilly, and Merck — prevailed in a lawsuit to strike down a Trump administration requirement that they disclose list prices in television advertisements. The lack of congressional action — despite the Democratic enthusiasm and bipartisan appetite — is still further evidence of industry’s ability to stave off defeat. As the dozens of Democrats running for president ramp up their anti-pharma rhetoric, both Trump and progressives have begun to fret that Washington’s efforts have proven to be all bark and no bite. With two weeks remaining before the August recess and an escalating 2020 campaign, some advocates fear that the window for bold action is closing quickly. “It’s appalling that we are six months into this Congress and we haven’t seen meaningful legislation passed on American’s number one issue for this congress,” said Peter Maybarduk, who leads drug-pricing initiatives for the advocacy group Public Citizen. “Congress needs to get its act together.” Infra’s k2 stopping existential climate change – warming is incremental and every change in temperature is vital Higgins 8/16 Trevor, Senior Director, Domestic Climate and Energy, “Budget Reconciliation Is the Key to Stopping Climate Change”, 08-16-2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2021/08/16/502681/budget-reconciliation-key-stopping-climate-change///pranav The United States is suffering acutely from the chaotic changes in climate that scientists now directly attribute to the burning of fossil fuels and other human activity. The drought, fires, extreme heat, and floods that have already killed hundreds this summer across the continent and around the world are a tragedy—and a warning of worsening instability yet to come. However, this week, the Senate initiated an extraordinary legislative response that would set the world on a different path. Enacting the full scope of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda would put the American economy to work leading a global transition to clean energy and stabilizing the climate. A look at what’s coming next through the budget reconciliation process reveals a ray of hope that is easy to miss amid the fitful negotiations of recent months: At long last, Congress is on the verge of major legislation that would build a more equitable, just, and inclusive clean energy economy. This is our shot to stop climate change. Building a clean energy future must start now Until the global economy stops polluting the air and instead starts to draw down the emissions of years past, the world will continue to heat up, blundering past perilous tipping points that threaten irreversible and catastrophic consequences. Stemming the extent of warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius rather 2 degrees or worse will reduce the risk of crossing such tipping points or otherwise exceeding the adaptive capacity of human society. Every degree matters. Stabilizing global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius starts with cutting annual greenhouse gas emissions in the United States to half of peak levels by 2030. This isn’t about temporary offsets or incremental gains in efficiency—it’s about the rapid adoption of scalable solutions that will work throughout the world to eliminate global net emissions by 2050 and sustain net-negative emissions thereafter. Building this better future will tackle climate change, deliver on environmental justice, and create good jobs. It will give us a shot to stop the planet from continuously warming. It will alleviate the concentrated burdens of fossil fuel pollution, which are concentrated in systemically disadvantaged, often majority Black and brown communities. It will empower American workers to compete in the global clean energy economy of the 21st century. There is no time to lose in the work of building a clean energy future.
9/19/21
SeptOct - DA - Infrastructure v3
Tournament: Heart of Texas | Round: 5 | Opponent: Immaculate Heart AW | Judge: Jeannine Lopez Soviet Union. 4 Biden PC is key to getting Manchin and Sinema on board and he won’t give up – it’s try or die and the margin of error is literally 0. Strauss 10/13 Daniel, Staff Writer @ The New Republic, “Has the Time Come for Biden to Knock Some Heads on Capitol Hill?”, 10-13-2021, https://newrepublic.com/article/163982/biden-reconciliation-cost-democrats//pranav At the same time, though, the White House has moved to a different phase of negotiations. Susan Rice, the director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, has become more visible in negotiations on the Hill, oftentimes spotted going in and out of meetings with White House National Economic Council director Brian Deese. Rice, according to multiple administration officials, has been involved in the reconciliation package talks for months, and lawmakers have looked to her as one of the point people within the administration on topics that fall under the DPC’s purview: Health care, childcare, housing. Deese and Rice have been “tag teaming” those meetings, one administration official said. “It’s just that as the negotiations have come to a head, she’s become a little more visible,” the official added. But veterans of past major Democratic policy battles warn about the limits of a White House that throws up its hands and says enough is enough. The White House has already gone out to the states, looking to rally support among the broader public by having Biden himself stump in key congressional districts. He has also used the power of the Oval Office to try to win over lawmakers like Sinema and Manchin. “Having dealt with situations like this, there is a point where the administration really doesn’t have a lot of leverage,” said former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. “They can use the media. They can use the president’s Oval Office presence to bring people down and persuade as much as they can, but ultimately there isn’t a lot of leverage, and when you’re at 50–50 and almost 50–50 in the House, every person is in a position to veto a particular proposal.” But Daschle said, so far, the White House has played its hand well in the negotiations. “I think the administration has played it about right. They’ve got to give the leaders enough flexibility,” Daschle said. Phil Schiliro, who served as the White House director of legislative affairs during Barack Obama’s presidency, stressed that right now the White House is in the common-ground phase of negotiating with lawmakers. “It really is about trying to find the opportunities to reach common ground, and that’s just a process,” Schiliro said. Still, increasingly, Democrats are having to face picking one of two choices: spending less or including fewer programs in a domestic policy package they hoped just about every Democrat running in 2022 could run on. “Here, I don’t know that there’s any magic to any number, as much as there’s getting the policies right,” Schiliro said. Publicly, the White House is trying to exude calm. Its latest deadline for moving a package forward is still a few weeks away. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday that Biden’s role, right now, as he remains very involved in negotiations, is “to find common ground so that we can move forward with an agenda that the American people demand we pass.” Privately, though, the White House and Washington Democrats in general know they’re fast approaching a different deadline—the moment when someone is going to have to come out and say whether to shrink the overall spending and duration of the package or include fewer programs. That is the only way for Democrats to win over the members they need to pass anything at all. The only Democrat with the necessary stature and the ear of the people who matter most to make that call is the president. Biden was the one who promised to unite as much of Congress as possible behind as large a domestic policy agenda as anyone in Washington had ever seen. Now he has to cut it. Big Pharma hates the plan – empirics – err neg our ev literally cites their press releases PhRMA ’21 The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) represents the country’s leading innovative biopharmaceutical research companies, which are devoted to discovering and developing medicines that enable patients to live longer, healthier and more productive lives. Since 2000, PhRMA member companies have invested nearly $1 trillion in the search for new treatments and cures, including an estimated $83 billion in 2019 alone, “PhRMA Statement on WTO TRIPS Intellectual Property Waiver”, 05-05-2021, https://www.phrma.org/coronavirus/phrma-statement-on-wto-trips-intellectual-property-waiver//pranav WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 5, 2021) – Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) president and CEO Stephen J. Ubl made the following statement after the United States Trade Representative expressed support for a proposal to waive patent protections for COVID-19 medicines: “In the midst of a deadly pandemic, the Biden Administration has taken an unprecedented step that will undermine our global response to the pandemic and compromise safety. This decision will sow confusion between public and private partners, further weaken already strained supply chains and foster the proliferation of counterfeit vaccines. “This change in longstanding American policy will not save lives. It also flies in the face of President Biden’s stated policy of building up American infrastructure and creating jobs by handing over American innovations to countries looking to undermine our leadership in biomedical discovery. This decision does nothing to address the real challenges to getting more shots in arms, including last-mile distribution and limited availability of raw materials. These are the real challenges we face that this empty promise ignores. “In the past few days alone, we’ve seen more American vaccine exports, increased production targets from manufacturers, new commitments to COVAX and unprecedented aid for India during its devastating COVID-19 surge. Biopharmaceutical manufacturers are fully committed to providing global access to COVID-19 vaccines, and they are collaborating at a scale that was previously unimaginable, including more than 200 manufacturing and other partnerships to date. The biopharmaceutical industry shares the goal to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible, and we hope we can all re-focus on that shared objective.” They lash out against infra and use COVID clout to kill it – they have public support, and a win now postpones reform indefinitely which turns case Fuchs et al. 09/02 Hailey Fuchs attended Yale University and was an inaugural Bradlee Fellow for The Washington Post, where she reported on national politics, Alice Ollstein is a health care reporter for POLITICO Pro, covering the Capitol Hill beat. Prior to joining POLITICO, she covered federal policy and politics for Talking Points Memo, Megan Wilson is a health care and influence reporter at POLITICO, “Drug industry banks on its Covid clout to halt Dems’ push on prices”, 09-02-2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/02/drug-prices-democrats-lobbying-508127//pranav As Democrats prepare a massive overhaul of prescription drug policy, major pharmaceutical companies are mounting a lobbying campaign against it, arguing that the effort could undermine a Covid fight likely to last far longer than originally expected. In meetings with lawmakers, lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry have issued warnings about the reconciliation package now moving through both chambers of Congress that is set to include language allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of some drugs, which could generate billions of dollars in savings. In those conversations, K Street insiders say, lobbyists have explicitly mentioned that the fight against the coronavirus will almost certainly extend beyond the current surge of the Delta variant. And they’re arguing that now isn’t the time to hit the industry with new regulations or taxes, particularly in light of its successful efforts to swiftly develop vaccines for the virus. “For years, politicians have been saying that the federal government can interfere in the price of medicines and patients won’t suffer any harm,” said Brian Newell, a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, in a statement. “But in countries where this already happens, people experience fewer choices and less access to prescription medicines. Patients know if something sounds too good to be true, then it usually is.” The escalating warnings from the pharmaceutical industry are part of what is expected to be one of the more dramatic and expensive lobbying fights in recent memory, and a heightened repeat of the industry’s pushback to actions by former President Donald Trump to target drug prices. The proposal now under consideration in Democrats’ reconciliation package could save the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars by leveraging its ability to purchase prescription drugs, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office. Without those funds, Democrats won’t be able to pay for the rest of the health care agenda they’ve promised to voters, including expansions of Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare. But the plan has political power as more than a revenue raiser. Party leaders — from President Joe Biden to Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — are touting it as one of the most important components of the $3.5 trillion package, with the potential to lower out-of-pocket health spending for tens if not hundreds of millions of people. Outside advocates have also zeroed in on it as the most consequential policy fight on the horizon. “This is the best chance that we have seen in a couple of decades to enact meaningful reforms to drug pricing policy in the United States that will lower the prices of prescription drugs, and it’s very clear that the drug companies are going all out to stop it,” said David Mitchell, founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs. “This is Armageddon for pharma.” Progressive Democrats and their outside allies believe they’re closer than they’ve been in decades to imposing some price controls, and worry that failure to do so this year will delay progress indefinitely given the possibility of the party losing one or more chambers of Congress in the 2022 midterms. In April, the House passed a fairly aggressive version — H.R. 3 (117) — though a handful of moderate Democrats friendly to the industry have threatened to block it when it comes back to the floor for a vote later this fall. Leadership has largely shrugged off this threat, banking on the fact that the most vulnerable frontline Democrats are vocally in favor of the policy, while most of the dissenters sit in safe blue districts. The Senate is designing its own version, outlined by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in June, as a middle ground between HR3 and the more narrow, bipartisan bill he and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) put forward last Congress. A senior Senate Democratic aide confirmed to POLITICO that the bill is nearly complete and that they’re in the process of shopping it around to undecided senators to make sure it has enough support to move forward in the 50-50 upper chamber. “It makes sense to get buy-in before releasing it rather than releasing it with fingers crossed and then tweaking it once members complain,” the aide said. But the reform push is coming at a time when the pharmaceutical industry is working hand-in-hand with government officials to combat the pandemic and enjoying a boost in public opinion as a result, even as drug costs continue to rise. The companies claim that fundamental changes to their bottom line — in addition to the Medicare provision, the reconciliation bill will likely raise corporate tax rate significantly, as high as 28 percent (a jump of 7 percentage points) — will threaten its current investments in research and development at a historically critical juncture. With the final draft of the bill expected in the coming weeks, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the lobbying arm of the pharmaceutical industry, is taking its case public. The group has recently spent at least seven figures on ads pressuring Congress not to change Medicare drug policy. Big pharma always wins – independently kills aff solvency bc it causes the plan to be watered down so much that de facto monopolies can survive Florko and Facher ‘19 Nicholas Florko is a Stat News Washington correspondent and Lev Facher is Stat News health and life sciences writer, “How pharma, under attack from all sides, keeps winning in Washington”, 07-16-2019, Stat News, https://www.statnews.com/2019/07/16/pharma-still-winning///pranav It does not seem to matter how angrily President Trump tweets, how pointedly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lobs a critique, or how shrewdly health secretary Alex Azar drafts a regulatory change. The pharmaceutical industry is still winning in Washington. In the past month alone, drug makers and the army of lobbyists they employ pressured a Republican senator not to push forward a bill that would have limited some of their intellectual property rights, according to lobbyists and industry representatives. They managed to water down another before it was added to a legislative package aimed at lowering health care costs. Lobbyists also convinced yet another GOP lawmaker — once bombastically opposed to the industry’s patent tactics — to publicly commit to softening his own legislation on the topic, as STAT reported last month. Even off Capitol Hill, they found a way to block perhaps the Trump administration’s most substantial anti-industry accomplishment in the past two years: a rule that would have required drug companies to list their prices in television ads. To pick their way through the policy minefield, drug makers have successfully deployed dozens of lobbyists and devoted record-breaking sums to their federal advocacy efforts. But there is also a seemingly new strategy in play: industry CEOs have targeted their campaign donations this year on a pair of vulnerable Republican lawmakers — and then called on them not to upend the industry’s business model. In more than a dozen interviews by STAT with an array of industry employees, Capitol Hill staff, lobbyists, policy analysts, and advocates for lower drug prices, however, an unmistakable disconnect emerges. Even though Washington has stepped up its rhetorical attacks on the industry, and focused its policymaking efforts on reining in high drug prices, the pharmaceutical industry’s time-honored lobbying and advocacy strategies have kept both lawmakers and the Trump administration from landing any of their prescription-drug punches. “Big Pharma has replaced Big Tobacco as the most powerful brute in the ranks of Washington power brokers,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a statement to STAT. Durbin, who recently saw the industry successfully oppose his proposal to curtail some of the industry’s patent maneuvering, added that, “Pharma’s billions allow them to continue to rip off American families and taxpayers.” The industry doesn’t get all the credit; it has also benefited from a fractured Congress and discord between President Trump’s most senior health care advisers. PhRMA, the drug industry’s largest lobbying group here, declined to comment for this article. But industry leaders have broadly argued against efforts to rein in the industry’s practices in terms of price hikes and patents, making the case that that could irreparably stifle medical innovation. The battle is far from over, and industry representatives and lobbyists are quick to hypothesize that the worst, for them, is yet to come. They point to several ongoing legislative initiatives, including in the Senate Finance Committee, that could take more concerted direct aim at their pricing strategies in Medicare. They’re waiting, too, to see if House Democrats can cut a drug pricing deal with the White House to empower Medicare to negotiate at least some drug prices. Another pending regulation, loathed by drug makers, might tie their pricing decisions in Medicare to an index of international prices. They’ve also bemoaned the Trump administration’s decision last week to abandon a policy change that would have ended drug rebates — which, the pharmaceutical industry has said, could have given drug makers more space to lower their prices voluntarily. “We’re getting killed!” one pharma lobbyist told STAT. Of course, the Trump administration’s supposedly devastating decision to abandon that proposal simply maintains the status quo. “Big Pharma has replaced Big Tobacco as the most powerful brute in the ranks of Washington power brokers.” n Valentine’s Day, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) enjoyed a showering of love that is familiar in Washington: a flood of campaign contributions, many at the federal limit of $2,800 for a candidate or $5,000 for an affiliated political committee. One donation came from Pfizer’s CEO, Albert Bourla, who donated $5,000 to Tillis and another $10,000 to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and associated campaign committees. Another came from Kenneth Frazier, the top executive at Merck. The Tillis campaign committee eventually cashed checks from CEOs and other high-ranking executives at those companies as well as Amgen, Eli Lilly, Sanofi, and Bristol Myers-Squibb, plus two high-ranking officials at the advocacy group PhRMA. Six lobbyists at one firm that works with PhRMA, BGR, also combined to contribute $100,000 to a bevy of Republican lawmakers and the party’s campaign arms. Tillis raised an additional $64,500 from drug industry political action committees in the past quarter, according to disclosures released on Monday. A Pfizer spokeswoman declined to comment about Bourla’s contributions, and representatives for the other companies did not respond to STAT’s request for comment. Tills was one of few individual lawmakers — in many cases, the only one — to whom the executives had written personal checks during the current election cycle. While drug industry CEOs frequently contribute to political committees for congressional leadership, the breadth of executives who donated Tillis specifically is notable, particularly considering his outspoken role on pharmaceutical industry issues. While lobbyists pushed back on the notion that campaign contributions directly influence votes, the donations targeted so specifically to a particular candidate could be seen as a prime example of Washington’s system for rewarding loyalty and how industries protect their interests. The same PhRMA PAC that donated to Tillis has given generously in recent years: nearly $200,000 in the 2018 campaign cycle, roughly 58 of which was targeted toward Republicans. Drug industry PACs donated $10.3 million in total in that cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The figure two years before was even higher: a total of $12.2 million from industry-aligned PACs alone. It is no accident that the pharmaceutical industry has maintained its reputation among the nation’s most powerful lobbies, said Sheila Krumholz, the executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, an organization that tracks political influence. “Their access and influence goes beyond this Congress or even the administration,” Krumholz said in an interview, adding that she “was struggling to think of evidence” it had waned. Pharma has a reputation here for winning on policy — often thanks to the lawmakers who are among the biggest recipients of the millions that drug corporations, employees, and the industry political arms donate each year. Even as the rhetoric has escalated, the industry has quietly worked to insulate itself from any major legislative changes. Take, for example, a recent about-face from Cornyn, the Texas Republican who took in some campaign cash alongside Tillis. As recently as February, Cornyn seemed to be positioning himself as a rare Republican figurehead for anti-pharma congressional wrath. At a widely publicized hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, he went head-to-head with AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez, pressing him to explain why the company had filed more than 100 patents on its blockbuster arthritis drug Humira. Cornyn introduced legislation soon after the skirmish to crack down on patent “thicketing,” a term for a drug company tactic to accumulate tens, if not hundreds, of patents to shield a drug from potential generic competition. Pharma sprung into action. They recruited congressional allies, including Tillis, to pressure Cornyn to significantly rework the bill, and they succeeded. The version of the bill that eventually cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee was stripped of language that would have empowered the Federal Trade Commission to go after patent thicketing. Instead, the bill limited how many patents a drug maker could assert in a patent lawsuit. The new version of the bill lost “a lot of teeth” and “solves a narrower problem in a narrow way,” advocates told STAT when the change was first introduced. It is far from the only example of the industry’s aggressive interventions to water down legislation. “In lots of ways they’re like the National Rifle Association, because they have an incredible power to squash out any negative opinion, nor to feel any of the ill effects of those things,” said Pallavi Damani Kumar, an American University crisis communications professor who once worked in media relations for drug manufacturers. “It just speaks to how incredibly savvy they are.” Pharmaceutical industry lobbyists also successfully fought to keep another anti-drug industry patent proposal from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) out of a bipartisan drug pricing package moving through the Senate HELP Committee. The legislation would have allowed the FDA to approve cheaper versions of drugs, even when the more expensive product was protected by certain patents. Cassidy’s proposal never even made it into the HELP package. As the lobbyist who bemoaned the withdrawal of the rebate rule put it, Cassidy “simmered down” in the face of industry pressure. In recent weeks, the industry had targeted Cassidy in particular, in recent weeks, for fear he would break with many of his GOP colleagues to support a cap on some price hikes for drugs purchased under Medicare, a proposal so far pushed only by Democrats. “Sen. Cassidy doesn’t care what lobbyists think — he is going to do what’s best for patients,” said Ty Bofferding, a Cassidy spokesman. “Sen. Cassidy fought for the committee to include the REMEDY Act in the package, despite strong opposition from the pharmaceutical industry.” The committee eventually included half the bill’s provisions, he added, as well as four other pieces of legislation meant to prevent the industry from taking advantage of the patent system. The drug industry also notched a win by watering down another proposal in that package from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) that would have blocked drug makers from suing over patents they didn’t disclose to the FDA. The version of the bill that actually made it into the package doesn’t block drug makers from suing, but instead directs the FDA to create a public list of companies that fail to disclose their patents. “This change is a big win for drug makers,” Michael Carrier, a Rutgers University professor and expert on patent gaming, told STAT. “Shaming is something drug makers don’t seem worried about.” Matthew Lane, the executive director of the Coalition Against Patent Abuse, likewise added that the altered bill “doesn’t seem to be doing much anymore.” Not all of the pharma-endorsed changes, however, are self-serving. Patent experts and federal regulators too had raised concerns with some of the bill being proposed. Cornyn’s patent bill was particularly controversial. “These provisions encourage ‘fishing expeditions’ by zealous bureaucrats, politically motivated by the popularity of efforts to reduce drug prices and garner the political benefits of being seen to be pursuing these ends,” Kevin Noonan, a patent lawyer at McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert and Berghoff wrote in a recent blog post, referring to the original Cornyn bill. Drug-pricing advocates said lobbyists have even managed to convince lawmakers to introduce some legislation they say has explicitly favored the drug industry, including intellectual property-focused legislation that would allow drug makers to patent human genes. That particular bill would “undo the bipartisan effort underway to fix pharma’s exploitation of the patent system,” said the Coalition Against Patent Abuse. And they were far from the only group raising concerns. The American Civil Liberties Union and more than 150 other groups wrote to lawmakers last month opposing the bill. Pharma’s list of policy victories goes on: Drug companies and allied patient groups forced the Trump administration to back off a proposal to make relatively minor changes to Medicare’s so-called protected classes policy. Currently, Medicare is required to cover all drugs for certain conditions, including depression and HIV. The Trump administration proposed in November that private Medicare plans should be able to remove certain drugs in those classes from their formularies, if the drugs were just new formulations of a cheaper, older version of the same drug, or when a drug spiked in price. But drug industry opposition helped convince the administration to spike that effort. A week ago, the industry struck its biggest blow yet. Three of the country’s largest pharmaceutical companies —Amgen, Eli Lilly, and Merck — prevailed in a lawsuit to strike down a Trump administration requirement that they disclose list prices in television advertisements. The lack of congressional action — despite the Democratic enthusiasm and bipartisan appetite — is still further evidence of industry’s ability to stave off defeat. As the dozens of Democrats running for president ramp up their anti-pharma rhetoric, both Trump and progressives have begun to fret that Washington’s efforts have proven to be all bark and no bite. With two weeks remaining before the August recess and an escalating 2020 campaign, some advocates fear that the window for bold action is closing quickly. “It’s appalling that we are six months into this Congress and we haven’t seen meaningful legislation passed on American’s number one issue for this congress,” said Peter Maybarduk, who leads drug-pricing initiatives for the advocacy group Public Citizen. “Congress needs to get its act together.” Infra’s k2 stopping existential climate change – warming is incremental and every change in temperature is vital Higgins 8/16 Trevor, Senior Director, Domestic Climate and Energy, “Budget Reconciliation Is the Key to Stopping Climate Change”, 08-16-2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2021/08/16/502681/budget-reconciliation-key-stopping-climate-change///pranav The United States is suffering acutely from the chaotic changes in climate that scientists now directly attribute to the burning of fossil fuels and other human activity. The drought, fires, extreme heat, and floods that have already killed hundreds this summer across the continent and around the world are a tragedy—and a warning of worsening instability yet to come. However, this week, the Senate initiated an extraordinary legislative response that would set the world on a different path. Enacting the full scope of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda would put the American economy to work leading a global transition to clean energy and stabilizing the climate. A look at what’s coming next through the budget reconciliation process reveals a ray of hope that is easy to miss amid the fitful negotiations of recent months: At long last, Congress is on the verge of major legislation that would build a more equitable, just, and inclusive clean energy economy. This is our shot to stop climate change. Building a clean energy future must start now Until the global economy stops polluting the air and instead starts to draw down the emissions of years past, the world will continue to heat up, blundering past perilous tipping points that threaten irreversible and catastrophic consequences. Stemming the extent of warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius rather 2 degrees or worse will reduce the risk of crossing such tipping points or otherwise exceeding the adaptive capacity of human society. Every degree matters. Stabilizing global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius starts with cutting annual greenhouse gas emissions in the United States to half of peak levels by 2030. This isn’t about temporary offsets or incremental gains in efficiency—it’s about the rapid adoption of scalable solutions that will work throughout the world to eliminate global net emissions by 2050 and sustain net-negative emissions thereafter. Building this better future will tackle climate change, deliver on environmental justice, and create good jobs. It will give us a shot to stop the planet from continuously warming. It will alleviate the concentrated burdens of fossil fuel pollution, which are concentrated in systemically disadvantaged, often majority Black and brown communities. It will empower American workers to compete in the global clean energy economy of the 21st century. There is no time to lose in the work of building a clean energy future.
10/17/21
SeptOct - DA - Infrastructure v4
Tournament: Meadows | Round: 5 | Opponent: Lexington CH | Judge: Jada Stinnett Biden PC is key to getting Manchin and Sinema on board – continued negotiations tentatively get their votes – it’s try or die for Tuesday’s vote Edmondson and Cochrane 10/24 Catie Edmondson is a reporter in the Washington bureau of The New York Times, covering Congress, Emily Cochrane is a correspondent based in Washington. She has covered Congress since late 2018, focusing on the annual debate over government funding and economic legislation, ranging from emergency pandemic relief to infrastructure, “Biden Meets With Manchin and Schumer as Democrats Race to Finish Social Policy Bill”, 10-24-2021, New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/24/us/politics/biden-manchin-schumer-spending-bill.html//pranav WASHINGTON — President Biden huddled with key Democrats on Sunday to iron out crucial spending and tax provisions as they raced to wrap up their expansive social safety net legislation before his appearance at a U.N. climate summit next week. Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said Democrats were close to completing the bill, displaying confidence that the negotiations over issues like paid leave, tax increases and Medicare benefits that have bedeviled the party for months would soon end. “We have 90 percent of the bill agreed to and written. We just have some of the last decisions to be made,” Ms. Pelosi said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that she hoped to pass an infrastructure bill that had already cleared the Senate and have a deal in hand on the social policy bill by the end of the week. “We’re pretty much there now.” Her comments came as Mr. Biden met with Senators Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, one of the critical centrist holdouts on the budget bill. The White House called the breakfast at Mr. Biden’s Wilmington home a “productive discussion.” For weeks, intraparty divisions over the scope and size of their marquee domestic policy plan have delayed an agreement on how to trim the initial $3.5 trillion blueprint Democrats passed this year. In order to bypass united Republican opposition and pass the final bill, Democrats are using an arcane budget process known as reconciliation, which shields fiscal legislation from a filibuster but would require every Senate Democrat to unite behind the plan in the evenly divided chamber. The party’s margins in the House are not much more forgiving. Facing opposition over the $3.5 trillion price tag, White House and party leaders are coalescing around a cost of up to $2 trillion over 10 years. They have spent days negotiating primarily with Mr. Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona and another centrist holdout. House Democratic leaders hope to advance both a compromise reconciliation package and the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package. Liberals have so far balked at voting on the bipartisan deal until the more expansive domestic policy package — which is expected to address climate change, public education and health care — is agreed upon. But Democrats are facing a new sense of urgency to finish the legislation before Mr. Biden’s trip to a major United Nations climate change conference, where he hopes to point to the bill as proof that the United States is serious about leading the effort to fight global warming. “The president looked us in the eye, and he said: ‘I need this before I go and represent the United States in Glasgow. American prestige is on the line,’” Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who met with Mr. Biden last week at the White House, said on “Fox News Sunday.” Democrats are also increasingly eager to deliver the bipartisan legislation to Mr. Biden’s desk before elections for governor in Virginia and New Jersey on Nov. 2, to show voters the party is making good on its promise to deliver sweeping social change. And a number of transportation programs will lapse at the end of the month without congressional action on either a stopgap extension or passage of the infrastructure bill, leading to possible furloughs. Big Pharma hates the plan – empirics – err neg our ev literally cites their press releases PhRMA ’21 The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) represents the country’s leading innovative biopharmaceutical research companies, which are devoted to discovering and developing medicines that enable patients to live longer, healthier and more productive lives. Since 2000, PhRMA member companies have invested nearly $1 trillion in the search for new treatments and cures, including an estimated $83 billion in 2019 alone, “PhRMA Statement on WTO TRIPS Intellectual Property Waiver”, 05-05-2021, https://www.phrma.org/coronavirus/phrma-statement-on-wto-trips-intellectual-property-waiver//pranav WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 5, 2021) – Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) president and CEO Stephen J. Ubl made the following statement after the United States Trade Representative expressed support for a proposal to waive patent protections for COVID-19 medicines: “In the midst of a deadly pandemic, the Biden Administration has taken an unprecedented step that will undermine our global response to the pandemic and compromise safety. This decision will sow confusion between public and private partners, further weaken already strained supply chains and foster the proliferation of counterfeit vaccines. “This change in longstanding American policy will not save lives. It also flies in the face of President Biden’s stated policy of building up American infrastructure and creating jobs by handing over American innovations to countries looking to undermine our leadership in biomedical discovery. This decision does nothing to address the real challenges to getting more shots in arms, including last-mile distribution and limited availability of raw materials. These are the real challenges we face that this empty promise ignores. “In the past few days alone, we’ve seen more American vaccine exports, increased production targets from manufacturers, new commitments to COVAX and unprecedented aid for India during its devastating COVID-19 surge. Biopharmaceutical manufacturers are fully committed to providing global access to COVID-19 vaccines, and they are collaborating at a scale that was previously unimaginable, including more than 200 manufacturing and other partnerships to date. The biopharmaceutical industry shares the goal to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible, and we hope we can all re-focus on that shared objective.” They lash out against infra and use COVID clout to kill it – they have public support, and a win now postpones reform indefinitely which turns case Fuchs et al. 09/02 Hailey Fuchs attended Yale University and was an inaugural Bradlee Fellow for The Washington Post, where she reported on national politics, Alice Ollstein is a health care reporter for POLITICO Pro, covering the Capitol Hill beat. Prior to joining POLITICO, she covered federal policy and politics for Talking Points Memo, Megan Wilson is a health care and influence reporter at POLITICO, “Drug industry banks on its Covid clout to halt Dems’ push on prices”, 09-02-2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/02/drug-prices-democrats-lobbying-508127//pranav As Democrats prepare a massive overhaul of prescription drug policy, major pharmaceutical companies are mounting a lobbying campaign against it, arguing that the effort could undermine a Covid fight likely to last far longer than originally expected. In meetings with lawmakers, lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry have issued warnings about the reconciliation package now moving through both chambers of Congress that is set to include language allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of some drugs, which could generate billions of dollars in savings. In those conversations, K Street insiders say, lobbyists have explicitly mentioned that the fight against the coronavirus will almost certainly extend beyond the current surge of the Delta variant. And they’re arguing that now isn’t the time to hit the industry with new regulations or taxes, particularly in light of its successful efforts to swiftly develop vaccines for the virus. “For years, politicians have been saying that the federal government can interfere in the price of medicines and patients won’t suffer any harm,” said Brian Newell, a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, in a statement. “But in countries where this already happens, people experience fewer choices and less access to prescription medicines. Patients know if something sounds too good to be true, then it usually is.” The escalating warnings from the pharmaceutical industry are part of what is expected to be one of the more dramatic and expensive lobbying fights in recent memory, and a heightened repeat of the industry’s pushback to actions by former President Donald Trump to target drug prices. The proposal now under consideration in Democrats’ reconciliation package could save the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars by leveraging its ability to purchase prescription drugs, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office. Without those funds, Democrats won’t be able to pay for the rest of the health care agenda they’ve promised to voters, including expansions of Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare. But the plan has political power as more than a revenue raiser. Party leaders — from President Joe Biden to Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — are touting it as one of the most important components of the $3.5 trillion package, with the potential to lower out-of-pocket health spending for tens if not hundreds of millions of people. Outside advocates have also zeroed in on it as the most consequential policy fight on the horizon. “This is the best chance that we have seen in a couple of decades to enact meaningful reforms to drug pricing policy in the United States that will lower the prices of prescription drugs, and it’s very clear that the drug companies are going all out to stop it,” said David Mitchell, founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs. “This is Armageddon for pharma.” Progressive Democrats and their outside allies believe they’re closer than they’ve been in decades to imposing some price controls, and worry that failure to do so this year will delay progress indefinitely given the possibility of the party losing one or more chambers of Congress in the 2022 midterms. In April, the House passed a fairly aggressive version — H.R. 3 (117) — though a handful of moderate Democrats friendly to the industry have threatened to block it when it comes back to the floor for a vote later this fall. Leadership has largely shrugged off this threat, banking on the fact that the most vulnerable frontline Democrats are vocally in favor of the policy, while most of the dissenters sit in safe blue districts. The Senate is designing its own version, outlined by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in June, as a middle ground between HR3 and the more narrow, bipartisan bill he and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) put forward last Congress. A senior Senate Democratic aide confirmed to POLITICO that the bill is nearly complete and that they’re in the process of shopping it around to undecided senators to make sure it has enough support to move forward in the 50-50 upper chamber. “It makes sense to get buy-in before releasing it rather than releasing it with fingers crossed and then tweaking it once members complain,” the aide said. But the reform push is coming at a time when the pharmaceutical industry is working hand-in-hand with government officials to combat the pandemic and enjoying a boost in public opinion as a result, even as drug costs continue to rise. The companies claim that fundamental changes to their bottom line — in addition to the Medicare provision, the reconciliation bill will likely raise corporate tax rate significantly, as high as 28 percent (a jump of 7 percentage points) — will threaten its current investments in research and development at a historically critical juncture. With the final draft of the bill expected in the coming weeks, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the lobbying arm of the pharmaceutical industry, is taking its case public. The group has recently spent at least seven figures on ads pressuring Congress not to change Medicare drug policy. Specifically, they flip Sinema – she’s in their pocket Perez and Sirota 10/08 Andrew Perez - Senior editor and reporter at The Daily Poster covering money and influence, David Sirota - Journalist. Denverite. Founder of The Daily Poster. Editor at Large of Jacobin. Columnist at The Guardian, ““They Pick The One””, https://www.dailyposter.com/they-pick-the-one///pranav “The pharmaceutical lobby is very savvy,” Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said earlier this week during a Daily Poster live chat. “They pick the one or two people they need to block things, on the relevant committees or at the relevant time." “It may differ from congress to congress,” explained Khanna, who is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “We try to get 90-95 percent of the caucus. They are focused not on 90 percent, but the blockers.” In the current Congress, Big Pharma appears to have zeroed in on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., as one of their lead obstructionists to help kill or gut Democrats’ drug pricing plan. In the 2020 election cycle, pharmaceutical political action committees suddenly funneled more money to her than they did the whole six years she served in the U.S. House. Pharmaceutical companies can charge up to four times as much in the United States for name-brand pharmaceuticals than in other countries, in part because Congress barred Medicare from using its bulk purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. President Joe Biden and most Democrats support lifting that prohibition in their reconciliation legislation, a move that would save hundreds of billions of dollars — but Sinema has emerged as the party’s most prominent opponent to the plan. Her heel turn on drug pricing is a dramatic shift. A one-time progressive activist, Sinema campaigned on lowering drug prices in her 2018 Senate race, and she was still calling on Congress to address rising drug costs as recently as last year, boasting on her Senate website that she was fighting to “ensure life-saving drugs” would be more affordable. But it’s clear now the pharmaceutical industry has been courting Sinema for some time. Indeed, in March 2021, as pharmaceutical PAC money was flooding into her campaign coffers, drug lobbyists were already bragging to Beltway reporters that they may have found their lead blocker in Sinema. Infra’s k2 stopping existential climate change – warming is incremental and every change in temperature is vital Higgins 8/16 Trevor, Senior Director, Domestic Climate and Energy, “Budget Reconciliation Is the Key to Stopping Climate Change”, 08-16-2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2021/08/16/502681/budget-reconciliation-key-stopping-climate-change///pranav The United States is suffering acutely from the chaotic changes in climate that scientists now directly attribute to the burning of fossil fuels and other human activity. The drought, fires, extreme heat, and floods that have already killed hundreds this summer across the continent and around the world are a tragedy—and a warning of worsening instability yet to come. However, this week, the Senate initiated an extraordinary legislative response that would set the world on a different path. Enacting the full scope of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda would put the American economy to work leading a global transition to clean energy and stabilizing the climate. A look at what’s coming next through the budget reconciliation process reveals a ray of hope that is easy to miss amid the fitful negotiations of recent months: At long last, Congress is on the verge of major legislation that would build a more equitable, just, and inclusive clean energy economy. This is our shot to stop climate change. Building a clean energy future must start now Until the global economy stops polluting the air and instead starts to draw down the emissions of years past, the world will continue to heat up, blundering past perilous tipping points that threaten irreversible and catastrophic consequences. Stemming the extent of warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius rather 2 degrees or worse will reduce the risk of crossing such tipping points or otherwise exceeding the adaptive capacity of human society. Every degree matters. Stabilizing global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius starts with cutting annual greenhouse gas emissions in the United States to half of peak levels by 2030. This isn’t about temporary offsets or incremental gains in efficiency—it’s about the rapid adoption of scalable solutions that will work throughout the world to eliminate global net emissions by 2050 and sustain net-negative emissions thereafter. Building this better future will tackle climate change, deliver on environmental justice, and create good jobs. It will give us a shot to stop the planet from continuously warming. It will alleviate the concentrated burdens of fossil fuel pollution, which are concentrated in systemically disadvantaged, often majority Black and brown communities. It will empower American workers to compete in the global clean energy economy of the 21st century. There is no time to lose in the work of building a clean energy future. Have a high threshold for climate skep—their ev is silly propaganda Santos and Feygina 17 Jessica M. Santos SCHOOL OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 and CLIMATE CENTRAL, PRINCETON, NJ. Irina Feygina CLIMATE CENTRAL, PRINCETON, NJ. “Responding to Climate Change Skepticism and the Ideological Divide.” Michigan Journal of Sustainability 5, no. 1 (2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/mjs.12333712.0005.102.~Anop How can we make sense of skepticism in response to an urgent threat that may destroy civilization as we know it? Central to understanding climate skepticism is the psychological process of motivated reasoning—the unconscious process of making conclusions, developing preferences, or making decisions in ways that are influenced by, and often aim to align with, an individual’s needs, goals, beliefs, and desires (Kunda 1990). Motivated reasoning affects information processing and can result in ignoring, discounting, misunderstanding, or biasing information that conflicts with existing beliefs and attitudes, or to strengthening these despite the inconsistent nature of the information (Redlawsk 2002). Motivated reasoning serves to protect and maintain an individual’s beliefs, attitudes, worldviews, and perception of self (i.e. Dunning 1999; Lewandowsky and Oberauer 2016; Taber and Lodge 2006). In the domain of political decision-making, motivated reasoning is at play when voters support a policy if it is endorsed by their political party (Peterson et al. 2013), even if they would otherwise oppose it (Bolsen, Druckman, and Cook 2014). Similarly, presenting voters with negative information about their preferred candidate gives rise to stronger, rather than weaker, support (Redlawsk 2002). Individuals of both political parties are affected by motivated reasoning (e.g. Kahan 2013; Leeper and Slothuus 2014; Taber and Lodge 2006). Motivated reasoning is also at play in how people process and respond to scientific information about climate change. Conservative individuals who follow science news are less likely than their liberal counterparts to support climate change mitigation policy (Hart, Nisbet, and Myers 2015), while individuals who are motivated to reject scientific results due to partisanship are more likely to do so if they are educated and scientifically literate (Lewandowsky and Oberauer 2016). These findings suggest that presenting people with information about climate change are by no means sufficient to convince them of its reality, and that these effects are not ameliorated, but rather exacerbated, by education. Motivated reasoning underlies many mechanisms that contribute to climate change skepticism, discussed next.
10/31/21
SeptOct - DA - Innovation Hegemony
Tournament: Greenhill | Round: 1 | Opponent: Harvard-Westlake OF | Judge: Mauchline, Rachel America’s maintaining hegemony and countering China’s rise through “counter-punching” strategies, but sustained innovation and private sector investment are key – reject “US declining now” args – the US has historically punched over its weight whenever it’s challenged Harr 8/3 Scott, Army Special Forces Officer and Ph.D. Candidate at the Helms School of Government, Liberty University. He holds an undergraduate degree in Arabic Language Studies from West Point and a Master’s degree in Middle Eastern Affairs from Liberty University. A trained Arabic and Farsi speaker with over four years of cumulative deployment time in the Middle East, his work has been featured in The Diplomat, RealClearDefense, The Strategy Bridge, Modern War Institute, Military Review, The National Interest, and Joint Force Quarterly among other national security-focused venues, “By Avoiding Arms Races, America Can Counter China’s Rise”, 08-03-2021, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/avoiding-arms-races-america-can-counter-chinaE28099s-rise-191094//pranav Rather than falling into the power projection arms race “trap“ that China desires, U.S. competitive strategies addressing China should adopt a framework based on “counter-punching.” As its name suggests, the counterpunch incorporates both defensive (“counter”) and offensive (“punch”) elements. Additionally, it is an adaptive maneuver that requires disciplined understanding and controlled strength that, effectively employed, offers better alternatives towards protecting and preserving U.S. power in the face of challenges from China. The defensive element of an American counterpunch towards China involves adopting military restraint and a revamped examination of deterrence. Classic deterrence strategy involves presenting the credible threat of force to adversaries to create undesirable risks for would-be aggressors. The key to deterrence, as Kenneth Waltz famously argued, is determining how much deterrence is “enough” to dissuade aggressors. That is, deterrence does not necessarily require the presentation of power projection assets capable of completely destroying an adversary, but only enough assets to make the risks of aggressive behavior not worth the projected losses involved. Seen in this light, a strategy that diligently examines how much deterrence is “enough” potentially eliminates the impulse to sustain the ever-increasing stakes in costly arms races while, critically, offering a chance to reinvest excess “deterrence” resources into areas that will preserve and protect U.S. power. The national resources freed up by foregoing an arms race with China represent the potent offensive element of the counterpunch. These resources can be reinvested in other areas such as the private sector which, besides being the hallmark of American prosperity and thus the critical reason for protecting American power in the first place, has historically played a decisive role in the United States’ successful war efforts. Buoyed by a strong and vibrant private sector where the United States remains a desirable global hub for innovation and technology, the needed capabilities for war (or intense competition) can be adaptively produced and rapidly called forward to tip the competitive (or combative) scales towards victory when required. Of course, the “punch” loses its effectiveness without clearly articulated triggers for employment. If China seeks to induce the United States into an uncontrolled arms race, then the current U.S. obsession with China—which seems to interpret every Chinese action in any sphere as a threat requiring a U.S. response—must be viewed as very encouraging in Beijing. An effective U.S. counterpunch requires clearly defined red lines that regulate and set behavior expectations between great powers and indicate when a Chinese competitive action warrants a U.S. response. Detractors of the counterpunch framework will immediately note the call for military restraint and interpret it as a reactive recipe for military weakness at precisely a time requiring proactive military strength. But military restraint does not imply weakness any more than eating fewer calories implies malnutrition. It simply means making smarter decisions that play to U.S. strengths and away from Chinese strategy. It also entails properly viewing the risks inherent in competition with China. The counterpunch skeptic incorrectly perceives greater risks in short-term military restraint (traded for economic investment and fortification) than in long-term arms races (traded for potential economic collapse). The counterpunch skeptic also fails to appreciate the United States’ historic strengths in adopting this approach. In fact, America has demonstrated exceptional skill as an adaptive counter-puncher—reacting and adapting to adversity and setbacks to rise above them and create positive effects preserving U.S. power and ideas. U.S. institutions have counter-punched their way to success in the political (from the failed Articles of Confederation to the Constitution), social (from abhorrent slavery to civil rights), and military (from disastrous Pearl Harbor to WWII victory) arenas to produce the stable and prosperous nation that exists today. As John Mearsheimer points out, China has the population size and economic capacity (the “sinew of power”) to pose unique and unprecedented challenges to U.S. power. Additionally, wasteful military exploits—often employed as a means of competing with rivals—have contributed to bringing down world powers again and again throughout history. China understands this apparent axiom and has woven its truth into its competitive strategy to displace the United States as the world’s preeminent power in the twenty-first century. U.S. competitive strategy against China must, therefore, resist the powerful (but seemingly prudent) urge to continually increase the stakes projecting power against China. Rather, the United States needs to adopt a disciplined counterpunch framework focused on protecting and preserving (not projecting) power. This framework leverages the elements of a successful counterpunch: it demonstrates a superior understanding of adversary strategy (China’s desire to economically exhaust the United States with power projection), it leverages smart defensive elements (adopting only “enough” deterrence to influence China’s actions), and it fortifies conditions of economic strength to ensure offensive actions can be brought to bear when required in competition or conflict (re-investing resources into a globally-leading private sector). Employing a counterpunch framework asks Americans to trust its institutions—which is a difficult task in the face of a rising China. But the ask is not for blind trust. As a country with less than one-sixth of the world’s population, the United States as a superpower has been punching above its weight for decades and has historically counter-punched successfully to muster adaptive and superlative responses whenever challenged with adversity. America must follow these historical impulses to remain a superpower in the twenty-first century. The 1AC’s reduction of IPP for COVID vaccines is America “handing over its crown jewels” to competing nations by disincentivizing record setting innovation that causes spillover to other fields and destroys American hegemony. Iancu 8/11 Andrei, American-Romanian engineer and intellectual property attorney, who served as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office from 2017 to 2021, “Biden is trying to undermine America's world-leading IP protections”, https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/11/biden-is-trying-to-undermine-americas-world-leadin///pranav In May of this year, the Biden administration announced its support for a proposal at the World Trade Organization that would allow other countries to seize American intellectual property on COVID-19 technologies, including vaccines. On cue, those countries promptly modified their ask. Whereas the original proposal called for the waiver to last a limited number of years, the new proposal makes the waiver effectively permanent. And why not? If America is willing to hand over its crown jewels, it might as well demand to keep them forever. As a former Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, I know that America’s world-leading IP protections laid the foundation for our economic success and technological prowess. And as an immigrant from a communist nation, I know all too well how disrespect for private property rights undermines innovation and saps economic vitality. Since the Founding Fathers, Americans have understood that private property extends well beyond land, buildings, factories, and machines. The real source of America’s power and promise are ideas. Walls, locks, or guards can protect physical property, but the implementation of ideas — new songs, artificial intelligence, or medicines — requires special protections and trust in the rule of law. That’s why the Founders included intellectual property rights in the Constitution — in the form of an “exclusive right” for authors and inventors — to “promote the progress of science and useful arts.” Indeed, this is the only time the word “right” appears in the Constitution (amendments aside). The Founders knew that only the rule of law, and our respect for it, can protect and enable the development of these ideas. Yet, President Biden undermined that respect by signaling his support for the appropriation of America’s intangible assets. In doing so, he jeopardized America’s uniquely successful intellectual property system. The history of our nation — indeed, much of the history of the world — since 1789 has been the revolution in knowledge led by American ingenuity in agriculture, industry, medicine, and information technology. Progress like this does not just happen. Indeed, it didn’t, for the millennia of the entire human history until our nation’s founding a couple of hundred years ago! It’s not a coincidence that the last two centuries of uninterrupted, IP-driven innovation — up to and including the miraculous creation in a record time of the Covid vaccines themselves — began when one nation finally committed itself to protect intangible assets as much as physical property. The reason is simple: knowledge is cumulative. Every new discovery becomes the basis for new research. The revolutionary mRNA technology behind Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines is, in fact, an evolutionary iteration of previous — patented — breakthroughs over the last two decades. Sen. Bernie Sanders, among others, turns up his nose at all this science, history, and progress. Like President Biden, he supports waiving vaccine patents because, he says, “We need a people’s vaccine, not a profit vaccine.” Ignore for a moment that many companies have agreed to sell their vaccines at non-profit prices for the duration of the pandemic, or that the vaccines are completely free for all patients at pharmacies nationwide, or that the federal government pays $19.50 per Pfizer dose, about $15 per Moderna dose, and $10 for the Johnson and Johnson shot — less than the cost of a pizza for medicines that are saving millions of lives and restoring our economy. Instead, focus on the fact that intellectual property protections enabled the creation of “people’s vaccines” in the first place. The choice isn’t between cheap vaccines and even cheaper vaccines — it’s between shots that are protected by strong IP laws or no shots at all. The same goes for every industry. If President Biden doesn’t protect the IP behind new vaccines, investors and inventors will ask, what other technologies are next? Will similar takings be imposed on climate change technologies, for example? Food processing? Essential semiconductor technologies? Companies will scale back investments in medical devices, microchips, energy, and everything in between if they think the U.S. Government might waive IP protection after the fact so that others may copy their inventions with impunity. Of immediate concern is the need for more treatments for Covid-19, especially as the pandemic keeps raging with new variants. Knowing that their IP may be appropriated as soon as it is developed, private industry — especially start-ups and smaller businesses that depend heavily on outside capital — may not invest the resources necessary to develop these new technologies that are desperately needed right now. Here’s the reality: remove patents and other forms of intellectual property, and private-sector investment in innovation dries up. The government will then try to step in to fill the gap, inefficiently as always. Like the taking of factories to nationalize industry, this taking of intellectual property is effectively the nationalization of our innovation economy. The result will be the same as in every other socialist regime that nationalized its industries: the kind of poverty, corruption, and misery that my family escaped from decades ago. American innovation has cured diseases, enabled human flight, led to the development of computers, and made our nation the envy of the world. Waiving intellectual property rights could forfeit it all. Only U.S. hegemony prevents global instability---alternatives can't maintain peace Haass, 17 - President of the Council on Foreign Relations (Richard, "Who Will Fill America’s Shoes?," Project Syndicate, 6-24-2017, https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/global-leadership-successor-to-america-by-richard-n~-~-haass-2017-06) Still, a shift away from a US-dominated world of structured relationships and standing institutions and toward something else is under way. What this alternative will be, however, remains largely unknowable. What we do know is that there is no alternative great power willing and able to step in and assume what had been the US role. China is a frequently mentioned candidate, but its leadership is focused mostly on consolidating domestic order and maintaining artificially high economic-growth rates to stave off popular unrest. China’s interest in regional and global institutions seems designed mostly to bolster its economy and geopolitical influence, rather than to help set rules and create broadly beneficial arrangements. Likewise, Russia is a country with a narrowly-based economy led by a government focused on retaining power at home and re-establishing Russian influence in the Middle East and Europe. India is preoccupied with the challenge of economic development and is tied down by its problematic relationship with Pakistan. Japan is held back by its declining population, domestic political and economic constraints, and its neighbors’ suspicions. Europe, for its part, is distracted by questions surrounding the relationship between member states and the European Union. As a result, the whole of the continent is less than the sum of its parts – none of which is large enough to succeed America on the world stage. But the absence of a single successor to the US does not mean that what awaits is chaos. At least in principle, the world’s most powerful countries could come together to fill America’s shoes. In practice, though, this will not happen, as these countries lack the capabilities, experience, and, above all, a consensus on what needs doing and who needs to do it. Goes nuclear---extinction Thomas H. Henricksen 17, emeritus senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, 3/23/17, “Post-American World Order,” http://www.hoover.org/research/post-american-world-order The tensions stoked by the assertive regimes in the Kremlin or Tiananmen Square could spark a political or military incident that might set off a chain reaction leading to a large-scale war. Historically, powerful rivalries nearly always lead to at least skirmishes, if not a full-blown war. The anomalous Cold War era spared the United States and Soviet Russia a direct conflict, largely from concerns that one would trigger a nuclear exchange destroying both states and much of the world. Such a repetition might reoccur in the unfolding three-cornered geopolitical world. It seems safe to acknowledge that an ascendant China and a resurgent Russia will persist in their geo-strategic ambitions. What Is To Be Done? The first marching order is to dodge any kind of perpetual war of the sort that George Orwell outlined in “1984,” which engulfed the three super states of Eastasia, Eurasia, and Oceania, and made possible the totalitarian Big Brother regime. A long-running Cold War-type confrontation would almost certainly take another form than the one that ran from 1945 until the downfall of the Soviet Union. What prescriptions can be offered in the face of the escalating competition among the three global powers? First, by staying militarily and economically strong, the United States will have the resources to deter its peers’ hawkish behavior that might otherwise trigger a major conflict. Judging by the history of the Cold War, the coming strategic chess match with Russia and China will prove tense and demanding—since all the countries boast nuclear arms and long-range ballistic missiles. Next, the United States should widen and sustain willing coalitions of partners, something at which America excels, and at which China and Russia fail conspicuously. There can be little room for error in fraught crises among nuclear-weaponized and hostile powers. Short- and long-term standoffs are likely, as they were during the Cold War. Thus, the playbook, in part, involves a waiting game in which each power looks to its rivals to suffer grievous internal problems which could entail a collapse, as happened to the Soviet Union.
9/18/21
SeptOct - DA - Modi Adventurism
Tournament: Grapevine | Round: 2 | Opponent: Lexington BF | Judge: Samantha Mclaughlin India’s COVID crisis has killed Modi’s appetite for international adventurism, but increasing vaccine production reverses the trend. Singh ’21 (Sushant; senior fellow with the Centre for Policy Research in India; 5-3-2021; “The End of Modi’s Global Dreams”; Foreign Policy; https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/03/india-vishwaguru-modi-second-wave-soft-power-self-sufficiency/; Accessed: 8-27-2021) India’s prime minister advanced a muscular foreign policy, but his mishandling of the pandemic is an embarrassing step back. In December 2004, when an earthquake and tsunami struck Asia, then-Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh decided it was high time for India to stop accepting aid from other countries to deal with disasters and rely on itself instead. “We feel that we can cope with the situation on our own,” he said, “and we will take their help if needed.” It was a pointed political statement about India’s growing economic heft, and it wasn’t the last. Singh’s government offered aid to the United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and to China after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Seen as a matter of national pride, an indicator of self-sufficiency, and a snub to nosy aid givers, the practice continued under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi despite pressure to change course during floods in the southern state of Kerala in 2018. Modi, who has consistently campaigned on virulent nationalism captured by the slogan “Atmanirbhar Bharat” (or self-reliant India), has been forced to abruptly change policy. Last week, with images of people dying on roads without oxygen and crematoriums for pet dogs being used for humans’ last rites as the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed the country, his government accepted offers of help from nearly 40 other nations. Its diplomats have lobbied with foreign governments for oxygen plants and tankers, the arrival of medicines, and other supplies hailed on social media. “We have given assistance; we are getting assistance,” said Harsh Vardhan Shringla, the country’s top diplomat, to justify the embarrassing U-turn. “It shows an interdependent world. It shows a world that is working with each other.” The world may be working with each other, but it is not working for Modi in the realm of foreign policy. Rather, this is a moment of reckoning, triggered by the rampaging coronavirus. After seven years as prime minister, Modi’s hyper-nationalistic domestic agenda—including his ambition of making the country a “Vishwaguru” (or master to the world)—now lies in tatters. India, which has been envisaged since former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration became the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue’s lynchpin and focused other efforts in the Indo-Pacific strategy to counter China, will have to work harder to justify that role. Meanwhile, China has redoubled its efforts in India’s neighborhood since the second wave began, strengthening its existing ties with South Asian countries and contrasting its strength and reliability with India’s limitations. No doubt, New Delhi will be able to regain a certain sense of normalcy in a few months, but the mishandling of the pandemic has dealt it a weaker hand in ongoing backchannel talks with Islamabad and border negotiations with Beijing. But even longer-lasting damage has been done to India’s soft power, which was already dented under Modi’s authoritarian regime. This is a big problem for the government as it was soft power that allowed New Delhi to assert itself for a seat at the global high table to begin with. Front page images and video clips of constantly burning pyres and dying patients may recede from the foreground with time, but rebuilding India’s diplomatic heft and geopolitical prominence will need more than the passage of months and years. It will take a concerted effort, and S. Jaishankar, Modi’s chosen man to be India’s foreign minister, has so far appeared unequal to the task. In March, when the second wave of the pandemic started unfolding in India, Jaishankar’s ministry was busy issuing official statements and organizing social media storms against popstar Rihanna and climate change activist Greta Thunberg. On Thursday, at the peak of the health crisis, Jaishankar’s focus in a meeting with all the Indian ambassadors to various global capitals was on countering the so-called “one-sided” narrative in international media, which said Modi’s government had failed the country by its “incompetent” handling of the second pandemic wave. Until recently, Jaishankar was also the most enthusiastic promoter of the government’s Vaccine Maitri (or “Vaccine Friendship”) program, under which New Delhi supplied around 66.4 million doses of the India-made AstraZeneca vaccine to 95 countries in packing boxes marked prominently with large pictures of Modi. These vaccines were either commercially contracted, given as bilateral grants, or transferred under the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) scheme for poorer countries. Meanwhile, India’s own vaccination rollout has been dismal. Around 2 percent of Indians have been fully vaccinated, despite the country being the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturer—a misstep that has emerged as one of the key culprits for India’s uncontrolled second wave. Having exported doses in a quest for personal glory, Modi is now awaiting 20 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from the United States after abruptly reversing 16 years of policy, as indicated in its disaster management documents, against accepting bilateral aid. It is bad enough that India is getting help from traditional partners like the United States and Russia, but it is also accepting supplies coming from China, with which India’s relationship has been increasingly strained under Modi. And it must have been particularly galling to the prime minister that even Pakistan made an offer to help with medical supplies and equipment. So woeful is India’s situation that it has started importing 88,000 pounds of medical oxygen daily from the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. Most Indians acknowledge their country was in an economic recession last year, and accepting bilateral aid is more of a compulsion than a choice. But how will they reconcile that with the fact that work on a $2 billion project to reconstruct a government office complex in the national capital, including building a new residence for Modi, continues unabated as an “essential service” during the pandemic? Modi boasted of having made India a Vishwaguru and personally enhancing national prestige through his numerous global trips. His ultranationalist supporters had started assuming India was already a global power in the same league as the United States and China. This feeling tied in with his domestic political positioning. Hindutva, or homogenized Hindu nationalism, was offered as the ideology that had made this supremacy possible. But now Modi’s supporters find their dreams of a global power shattered. They must instead confront the harsh reality of being citizens of a so-called “third world country,” which is dependent once again on the largesse of others. As the Indian economy continues to be hammered by the pandemic, there is little Modi can offer economically to his base. The edifice of nationalist pride, prestige, and global respect built by Modi on his so-called foreign-policy prowess has been demolished by the pandemic. The pandemic has hurt India in other ways too. Australia, a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (or Quad), has imposed a ban on its citizens from returning home, threatening five-year prison sentences, if they have spent time in India. In its first leaders’ summit in March, the grouping decided to provide a billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to the Indo-Pacific region by 2022. The vaccines were to be produced in India, funded by the United States and Japan, and distributed by Australia, in what was seen as the showpiece initiative to move the Quad away from its security-centric approach and soften its reputation as an anti-China grouping. With India struggling to produce vaccines for its own citizens hit by the pandemic, it is unlikely the Quad will be able to keep its scheme on schedule. In the bargain, New Delhi’s position as the lynchpin of the Quad stands considerably diminished. If India stumbles, the American dream of the Quad can never become a reality. Beijing has already moved in to take advantage of India’s misfortune to strengthen its ties with other South Asian countries. Last Tuesday, the Chinese foreign minister held a meeting with his counterparts from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka for cooperation against COVID-19. India was absent from the meeting. And although Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka have received some vaccine supplies from India and expect more, these countries are now looking toward Beijing for doses after New Delhi failed to keep up its commercial and COVAX commitments. In the race between the two Asian giants to be an attractive and reliable partner in South Asia, India seems to have finished behind China. China has also pressed its advantage along its restive border with India. After an initial disengagement in Ladakh, India, China refused to pull back any further from other Indian-held territories it had moved into last summer. It stonewalled Indian attempts to discuss these areas in the last round of talks between the two sides, and it has constructed permanent military infrastructure and deployed troops close to the disputed border. If there were ever a time for India to demonstrate its strength, it would be now. But the second wave of COVID-19 has forced the opposite. A similar impact will be felt during New Delhi’s ongoing backchannel talks with Islamabad, where Pakistan will likely try to take full advantage of any chinks in India’s armor. India cannot afford to walk away from those talks as it has already been forced to engage with Islamabad due to its own inability to handle a two-front threat from China and Pakistan. An economy and a country ravaged by the pandemic makes the dual threat an even more challenging proposition for India—and hands Pakistan an unexpected advantage in the talks.
Modi’s domestic support sets the course for his international policies – trust in his administration directly translates into Indian adventurism. Mishra et al. ’16 (Atul; contributor to the Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre; January 2016; “The evolving domestic drivers of Indian foregin policy”; Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre; https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/195766/f9f6e4b3e8a2c703364e7fb102dbf413.pdf; Accessed: 8-28-2021) To inform answers to these questions, five broad categories of domestic influence that currently influence evolving Indian foreign policy decision-making processes are explored below: simple majority politics, the symbolism of Indian aspirations, the factor of Modi’s personality, regional states’ influence and business interests. Firstly and most simplistically, the BJP’s simple majority means a government that in theory is less constrained by regional political forces or alliance partners that can bring coalition politics to a grinding halt. Policy is then by definition allowed to be more rational and predictable in both the domestic and international environments. A related factor is that few in the BJP are seen to be able to challenge either Modi or BJP president Amit Shah. Like a other party in India, the BJP has disgruntled elements, but they are unlikely to cause serious foreign policy disruptions in the short term.8 As a result, the party’s projection of corporate unity and its marginalising of rebellious leaders can be expected to continue, especially given India’s need for sustained economic growth and social development. This basic current political reality has set the stage for confronting the issues that the Modi government was elected to deal with. Secondly, the symbolism of aspiration has acquired great substance through Modi. There has been a long-standing practice of paying occasional lip service to traditional Indian principles of foreign policy such as non-alignment, morality and human rights. But under Modi the hesitancy about India projecting itself as an aspirational and even aggressive international power is disappearing. For example, the BJP has sought to replace the five traditional international principles of panchsheel (a term associated with Buddhism) with the five new pillars of panchamrit or “five nectars” (a term unambiguously associated with Hinduism). These are: dignity, dialogue, security, shared prosperity and culture.9 While panchsheel sought to combine and balance the values of India and those of the West, panchamrit calls to mind the emphasis on non-West- ern, “Asian values” that do not necessarily fit well with the values of open, searching and public criticism, social equality, and radical dissent in politics. Further, Modi promises that India will now be guided by the “Three Cs” in its international relations: culture, commerce and connec- tivity (Economic Times, 2014). This is typified by the govern- ment’s unapologetic use of its religious and cultural resources – primarily Hinduism – as elements of soft power on the international stage.10 The declaration that June 21st would be International Yoga Day and Modi’s numerous religious/cultural gestures during his overseas visits support this perspective. Thirdly, the personality factor has returned to the centre of Indian diplomacy. Modi has recast Indian foreign policy in a vigorous and purposive – and above all personal – light. His image is that of a simple and hardworking man who is clearheaded, decisive, and incorruptible. Like neoliberal leaders of China (primarily the late Deng Xiaoping) and Singapore (the late Lee Kuan Yew), he has been described as a pragmatist. Although the term is ephemeral and something of a misfit (principally because Modi is economi- cally and politically ideological), it has been used to positively describe his business-like attitude to foreign affairs. He lends a personal touch to relations with powers greater than India, as was evident in the way India hosted U.S. president Barack Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinping,11 giving the impression that all the parties involved are at the same level and thus hiding power disparities. Modi breaks protocol, becomes informal when the occasion demands, and ably sells India as an investment and cultural destination. Although previous Indian leaders have historically promoted business with “strong” leaders whose democratic credentials are suspected by the international community, Modi has prioritised economic interests rather than democratic ideals and is at ease with such leaders. Finally, unlike other Indian leaders who conducted themselves in deference to established Indian traditions on international conduct built over decades, Modi comes across as unburdened by this legacy. He is neither understated nor regards himself as the leader of a post- colonial country who is conscious of his country’s lack of international clout. He has positioned himself as the leader of a young, aspiring country that has much to offer in terms of culture and human potential.
9/13/21
SeptOct - K - Settlerism vs Insulin
Tournament: Meadows | Round: Doubles | Opponent: Millard North NL | Judge: Claudia Ribear, Kabir Dubey, Heaven Montague Indigeneity connotates a state of non-ontology allowing for the construction of the human that legitimizes its self into a history of elimination, jettisoned from or assimilated into the national body to cohere settler temporality Belcourt 16. Billy-Ray Belcourt is from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is a 2016 Rhodes Scholar and is reading for an M.St. in Women’s Studies at the University of Oxford. He was named by CBC Books as one of six Indigenous writers to watch, and his poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry, Red Rising Magazine, SAD Mag, mâmawi-âcimowak, PRISM International, and The Malahat Review. ("A POLTERGEIST MANIFESTO," 2016, Feral Feminism) vikas recut aaditg Admittedly, the feral is a precarious space from which to theorize, sullied with an injurability bound up in the work of liberal humanism as such, an enterprise that weaponizes a set of moral barometers to distribute ferality unevenly to differently citizened and raced bodies—ones that are too close for comfort and must be pushed outside arm’s reach. Perhaps ferality traverses a semantic line of flight commensurate¬ with that of savagery, barbarism, and lawlessness, concreting into one history of elimination: that is, a history of eliminating recalcitrant indigeneities incompatible within a supposedly hygienic social. The word savage comes from the Latin salvaticus, an alteration of silvaticus, meaning “wild,” literally “of the woods.” Of persons, it means “reckless, ungovernable” (“Savage”). In the space-time of settler states, savagery temporarily stands in for those subjectivities tethered to a supposedly waning form of indigeneity, one that came from the woods and, because of this, had to be jettisoned from or assimilated into the national body. Here is Audra Simpson on the history of Indian “lawlessness”: Its genealogy extends back to the earliest moments of recorded encounter, when Indians appeared to have no law, to be without order, and thus, to be in the colonizer’s most generous articulation of differentiation, in need of the trappings of civilization. “Law” may be one instrument of civilization, as a regulating technique of power that develops through the work upon a political body and a territory. (2014, 144) According to Simpson, the recognition of Indigenous peoples as lawless rendered them governable, motivating the settler state (here, Canada) to curate and thus contain atrophied indigeneities—and, consequently, their sovereignties, lands, and politics—within the borders of federal law (2014, 144-45). Similarly, in The Transit of Empire Jodi Byrd traces the epistemological gimmicks through which the concept of “Indianness” came to align with “the savage other” (2011, 27). For her, this alignment provided the “rationale for imperial domination” and continues to stalk philosophy’s patterns of thinking (ibid.). Simpson, writing about the Mohawks of Kahnawake, argues that “a fear of lawlessness” continues to haunt the colonial imaginary, thereby diminishing “Indigenous rights to trade and to act as sovereigns in their own territories” (2014, 145). We might take the following lyrics from the popular Disney film Pocahontas as an example of the ways indigeneity circulates as a feral signifier in colonial economies of meaning-making: Ratcliffe What can you expect From filthy little heathens? Their whole disgusting race is like a curse Their skin’s a hellish red They’re only good when dead They’re vermin, as I said And worse English settlers They’re savages! Savages! Barely even human. (Gabriel and Goldberg 1995) Savagery connotes a state of non-ontology: Indigenous peoples are forced to cling to a barely extant humanity and coterminously collapse into a putatively wretched form of animality. Savagery is lethal, and its Indian becomes the prehistoric alibi through which the human is constituted as such. Indigenous peoples have therefore labored to explain away this savagery, reifying whitened rubrics for proper citizenship and crafting a genre of life tangible within the scenes of living through that are constitutive of settler colonialism as such. These scenes, however, are dead set on destroying the remnants of that savagery, converting their casualties into morally compatible subjects deserving of rights and life in a multicultural state that stokes the liberal fantasy of life after racial trauma at the expense of decolonial flourishing itself. This paper is therefore interested in the subjectivities and forms of sociality that savagery destroys when applied from without, and the political work of appropriating that savagery in the name of decolonization. Ours is a form of indigeneity that hints at a fundamental pollutability that both confirms and threatens forms of ontology tethered to a taxonomized humanity built in that foundational episode of subjection of which Simpson speaks. I am suggesting that savagery always-already references an otherworld of sorts: there are forms of life abandoned outside modernity’s episteme whose expressivities surge with affects anomalous within the topography of settler colonialism. This paper is not a historicist or nostalgic attachment to a pre-savage indigeneity resurrected from a past somehow unscathed by the violence that left us in the thick of things in the first place. Instead, I emphasize the potentiality of ferality as a politics in a world bent on our destruction—a world that eliminates indigeneities too radical to collapse into a collective sensorium, training us to a live in an ordinary that the settler state needs to persist as such, one that only some will survive. This world incentivizes our collusion with a multicultural state instantiated through a myth of belonging that actively disavows difference in the name of that very difference. We are repeatedly hurried into a kind of waning sociality, the content and form of which appear both too familiar and not familiar enough. In short, we are habitually left scavenging for ways to go on without knowing what it is we want. Let’s consider Jack Halberstam’s thoughts on “the wild”: It is a tricky word to use but it is a concept that we cannot live without if we are to combat the conventional modes of rule that have synced social norms to economic practices and have created a world order where every form of disturbance is quickly folded back into quiet, where every ripple is quickly smoothed over, where every instance of eruption has been tamped down and turned into new evidence of the rightness of the status quo. (2013, 126) Where Halberstam finds disturbance, I find indigeneity-cum-disturbance par excellence. Halberstam’s “wild” evokes a potentiality laboured in the here and now and “an alternative to how we want to think about being” in and outside an authoritarian state (2013, 126-27). Perhaps the wild risks the decolonial, a geography of life-building that dreams up tomorrows whose referents are the fractured indigeneities struggling to survive a historical present built on our suffering. Ferality is a stepping stone to a future grounded in Indigenous peoples’ legal and political orders. This paper does not traffic in teleologies of the anarchic or lawless as they emerge in Western thought; instead, it refuses settler sovereignty and calls for forms of collective Indigenous life that are attuned to queerness’s wretched histories and future-making potentialities. Indigeneity is an ante-ontology of sorts: it is prior to and therefore disruptive of ontology. Indigeneity makes manifest residues or pockets of times, worlds, and subjectivities that warp both common sense and philosophy into falsities that fall short of completely explaining what is going on. Indigenous life is truncated in the biopolitical category of Savage in order to make our attachments to ourselves assimilable inside settler colonialism’s national sensorium. Settler colonialism purges excessive forms of indigeneity that trouble its rubrics for sensing out the human and the nonhuman. In other words, settler colonialism works up modes of being-in-the-world that narrate themselves as the only options we have. What would it mean, then, to persist in the space of savagery, exhausting the present and holding out for futures that are not obsessed with the proper boundary between human and nonhuman life? This paper now turns to the present, asking: what happens when indigeneity collides with queerness inside the reserve, and how might a feral theory make sense of that collision? Deadly Presents “I went through a really hard time… I was beaten; more than once. I was choked” (Klassen 2014). These were the words of Tyler-Alan Jacobs, a two-spirit man from the Squamish Nation, capturing at once the terror of queer life on the reserve and the hardening of time into a thing that slows down bodies and pushes them outside its securitized geographies. Jacobs had grown up with his attackers, attackers who were energized by the pronouncement of queerness—how it insisted on being noticed, how it insisted on being. When the dust settled, “his right eye had dislodged and the side of his faced had caved in” (ibid.). Settler colonialism is fundamentally affective: it takes hold of the body, makes it perspire, and wears it out. It converts flesh into pliable automations and people into grim reapers who must choose which lives are worth keeping in the world. It can turn a person into a murderer in a matter of seconds; it is an epistemic rupturing of our attachments to life, to each other, and to ourselves. It is as if settler colonialism were simultaneously a rescue and military operation, a holy war of sorts tasked with exorcising the spectre of queer indigeneity and its putative infectivity. I rehearse this case because it allows me to risk qualifying the reserve as a geography saturated with heteronormativity’s socialities. This is a strategic interdiction that destroys supposedly degenerative queer affect worlds, untangling some bodies and not others from the future. I don’t have the statistics to substantiate these claims, but there is an archive of heartbreak and loss that is easy to come by if you ask the right people. Indeed, what would such statistics tell us that we don’t already know? What would the biopolitical work of data collection do to a knowledge-making project that thinks outside the big worlds of Statistics and Demography and, instead, inside the smaller, more precarious worlds created in the wake of gossip? I worry about ethnographic projects that seek to account for things and theory in the material in order to map the coordinates of an aberration to anchor it and its voyeurs in the theatres of the academy. The desire to attach to a body is too easily energized by a biological reading of gender that repudiates the very subjects it seeks so desperately to know and to study. What about the body? I have been asked this question, again and again. A feral theory is something of a call to arms: abolish this sort of ethnography and turn to those emergent methodologies that might better make sense of the affects and life-forms that are just now coming into focus and have been destroyed or made invisible in the name of research itself. Queer indigeneity, to borrow Fred Moten’s description of blackness, might “come most clearly into relief, by way of its negation” (2014). Perhaps decolonization needs to be a sort of séance: an attempt to communicate with the dead, a collective rising-up from the reserve’s necropolis, a feral becoming-undead. Boyd and Thrush’s Phantom Past, Indigenous Presence thinks indigeneity and its shaky histories vis-à-vis the language of haunting, where haunting is an endurant facet of “the experience of colonialism” (Bodinger de Uriarte 2012, 303). But, for me, ghostliness is differentially distributed: some more than others will be wrenched into the domain of the dead and forced to will their own ontologies into the now. Perhaps the universalist notion that haunting is a metonym for indigeneity repudiates the very life-forms that it claims to include: those who are differently queered and gendered, and, because of this, haunt waywardly and in ways that cannot be easily predicted (Ahmed 2015). This paper thus takes an imaginative turn and proceeds with something of an incantation to summon the figure of the queer Indigenous poltergeist—the feral monster in the horror story of decolonization. Queer Indigenous poltergeists do not linger inaudibly in the background; we are beside ourselves with anger, we make loud noises and throw objects around because we are demanding retribution for homicide, unloved love, and cold shoulders. We do not reconcile; we escape the reserve, pillage and mangle the settler-colonial episteme. Our arrival is both uneventful and apocalyptic, a point of departure and an entry point for an ontology that corresponds with a future that has yet to come. Sometimes all we have is the promise of the future. For the queer Indigenous poltergeist, resurrection is its own form of decolonial love. The poltergeist is an ontological anomaly: a fusion of human, object, and ghost, a “creature of social reality” and a “creature of fiction” (Haraway 1991, 149). From the German poltern meaning “to make noise, to rattle” and Geist or “ghost,” it literally means “noisy ghost,” speaking into existence an anti-subjectivity that emerges in the aftermath of death or murder (“Poltergeist”). It is the subject of Tobe Hooper’s 1982 film Poltergeist, which tells a story of “a haunting based on revenge” (Tuck and Ree 2013, 652). The film’s haunting is a wronging premised on an initial wrong: the eponymous poltergeist materializes when a mansion is constructed on a cemetery—a disturbing of spirits, if you will. José Esteban Muñoz argues that “The double ontology of ghosts and ghostliness, the manner in which ghosts exist inside and out and traverse categorical distinctions, seems especially useful for… queer criticism” (2009, 46). In this paper, the poltergeist names the form which indigeneity takes when it brings queer matter into its folds. In other words, this essay evokes haunting as a metaphor to hint at the ways in which queerness was murderously absorbed into the past and prematurely expected to stay there as an effect of colonialism’s drive to eliminate all traces of sexualities and genders that wandered astray. The poltergeist conceptualizes the work of queer indigeneity in the present insofar as it does not presuppose the mysterious intentions of the ghost—an otherworldly force that is bad, good, and undetectable all at once. Instead, the poltergeist is melancholic in its grief, but also pissed off. It refuses to remain in the spiritual, a space cheapened in relation to the staunch materiality of the real, and one that, though housing our conditions of possibility, cannot contain all of us. We protest forms of cruel nostalgia that tether ghosts to a discarded past within which queer Indigenous life once flourished because we know that we will never get it back and that most of us likely never experienced it in the first place. We long for that kind of love, but we know it is hard to come by. I turn to the poltergeist because I don’t have anywhere else to go. Help me, I could say. But I won’t. Queer indigeneity, then, is neither here nor there, neither dead nor alive but, to use Judith Butler’s language, interminably spectral (2006, 33). We are ghosts that haunt the reserve in the event of resurrection. According to Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, a reserve is a “tract of land, the legal title to which is held by the Crown, set apart for the use and benefit of an Indian band” (“Terminology”). The “reserve system” is part of the dispossessory ethos through which the settler state reifies land as the sign of sovereignty itself, and thus effects the political death of indigeneity, decomposing it into nothingness, into contaminated dirt. Reserves are the products of imaginations gone wild; they are ruins that bear “the physical imprint of the supernatural” on arid land, on decaying trailers arranged like weathered tombstones (Tuck and Ree 2013, 653). They are borderlands that connote simultaneous possession and dispossession: they represent the collision between settler sovereignty (insofar as the Crown holds the legal title to the land) and indigeneity (pointing to a genre of life that is distinctly Indigenous). Reserves were—some might say they still are—zones of death that regulated and regulate the movements of Indigenous bodies, quarantining their putatively contaminated flesh outside modern life in order to preserve settler-colonial futurities. It is as if the reserve were a site of complete atrophy, where indigeneity is supposed to waste away or degenerate, where queerness has already bled out. Look at the blood on your hands! The queer Indigenous poltergeist, however, foregrounds what I call a “reserve consciousness” —an awareness of the deathliness of the reserve. A reserve consciousness might be a kind of critical phenomenology that, to use Lisa Guenther’s description of this sort of insurgent knowledge project, pulls up “traces of what is not quite or no longer there—that which has been rubbed out or consigned to invisibility” (2015): here, the so-called on-reserve Indian. It might be about becoming a frictive surface; by rubbing up against things and resisting motion between objects, we might become unstuck. Queer Indigenous poltergeists are what Sara Ahmed calls “blockage points”: where communication stops because we cannot get through (2011, 68). That is, queer indigeneity connotes an ethical impasse, a dead end that presents us with two options: exorcism or resurrection. If settler colonialism is topological, if it persists despite elastic deformations such as stretching and twisting, wear and tear, we might have to make friction to survive. I turn to the reserve because it is a geography of affect, one in which the heaviness of atmospheres crushes some bodies to death and in which some must bear the weight of settler colonialism more than others. The violence done to us has wrenched us outside the physical world and into the supernatural. Some of us are spirits—open wounds that refuse to heal because our blood might be the one thing that cannot be stolen. Does resistance always feel like resistance, or does it sometimes feel like bleeding out (Berlant 2011)? Feral Socialities I must leave the beaten path and go where we are not. Queerness, according to Muñoz, is not yet here; it is an ideality that “we may never touch,” that propels us onward (2009, 1). Likewise, Halberstam suggests that the presentness of queerness signals a kind of emerging ontology. He argues that failure “is something that queers do and have always done exceptionally well in contrast to the grim scenarios of success” that structure “a heteronormative, capitalist society” (2011, 2-3). For Muñoz, queer failure is about “doing something that is missing in straight time’s always already flawed temporal mapping practice” (2009, 174). We know, however, that this isn’t the entire story. Whereas Muñoz’s queer past morphs into the here and now of homonormativity’s carceral tempos, indigeneity’s queernesses are saturated with the trauma of colonialism’s becoming-structure. Queer death doubles as the settler state’s condition of possibility. Pre-contact queer indigeneities had been absorbed into colonialism’s death grip; however, this making-dead was also a making-undead in the enduring of ghosts (Derrida 1994, 310). If haunting, according to Tuck and Ree, “lies precisely in its refusal to stop,” then the queer Indigenous poltergeist fails to have died by way of time travel (2013, 642). Queer indigeneity might be a kind of “feral sociality”: we are in a wild state after escaping colonial captivity and domestication. When the state evicts you, you might have to become feral to endure. To be feral is to linger in the back alleys of the settler state. It is a refusal of settler statecraft, a strategic failing to approximate the metrics of colonial citizenship, a giving up on the ethical future that reconciliation supposedly promises. As an aside, I suspect that the settler state’s reconciliatory ethos is always-already a domesticating project: it contains Indigenous suffering within the spectacularized theatre of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, building a post-Residential School temporality in which Indigenous peoples have been repaired through monetary reparations and storytelling. In the melodrama of reconciliation, the settler state wins its centuries-long war against Indian lawlessness by healing Indigenous peoples of the trauma that blocked them from becoming properly emotive citizens. Queer indigeneity, however, escapes discursive and affective concealment and therefore the category of the human itself, disturbing the binary clash between the living and nonliving by way of its un-humanity, a kind of “dead living” whereby flesh is animated through death. Perhaps we must become feral to imagine other space-times, to imagine other kinds of queerness. If settler colonialism incentivizes our collusion with the humanist enterprise of multiculturalism (and it does), what would it mean to refuse humanity and actualize other subject formations? In other words, how do the un-living live? Here, I want to propose the concept of “Indian time” to theorize the temporality and liminality of queer indigeneity as it festers in the slippage between near-death and the refusal to die. Indian time colloquially describes the regularity with which Indigenous peoples arrive late or are behind schedule. I appropriate this idiom to argue that the presentness of queer indigeneity is prefigured by an escape from and bringing forward of the past as well as a taking residence in the future. To be queer and Indigenous might mean to live outside time, to fall out of that form of affective life. Indian time thus nullifies the normative temporality of settler colonialism in which death is the telos of the human and being-in-death is an ontological fallacy. It connotes the conversion of queer indigeneity into non-living matter, into ephemera lurking in the shadows of the present, waiting, watching, and conspiring. Where Jasbir Puar argues that all things under the rubric of queer are always-already calculated into the state’s biopolitical mathematic, queer indigeneity cannot be held captive because it cannot be seen—we are still emerging in the social while simultaneously altering its substance (2012). If decolonization is, according to Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s reading of Frantz Fanon, an “unclean break from a colonial condition,” perhaps the queer Indigenous poltergeist is feral enough to will a decolonial world into a future that hails rather than expels its ghosts (2012, 20). The queer Indigenous poltergeist might have nothing else to lose. The aff’s analysis of health overlooks structures of white supremacy and settler colonialism dictating healtb conditions for indigenous people which turns the case. Kashyap 20 Monika Batra Kashyap is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Seattle University School of Law, Ronald A. Peterson Law Clinic. J.D., University of California Berkeley School of Law. November 2020 California Law Review “U.S. Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and the Racially Disparate Impacts of COVID-19” https://www.californialawreview.org/settler-colonialism-white-supremacy-covid-19/aaditg A settler colonialism framework recognizes that the United States is a present-day settler colonial society whose laws, institutions, and systems of governance continue to enact an ongoing “structure of invasion” that persists to this day.55 ... Scholars across multiple disciplines have turned towards using a settler colonialism framework in their analyses to broaden understandings of how systems of subordination are structured in the United States.66 ... A framework of settler colonialism understands that the three foundational processes upon which the United States was built—Indigenous elimination, anti-Black racism, and immigrant exploitation—are ongoing processes that continue to shape present-day systemic inequities.77 In other words, a settler colonialism framework acknowledges the endurance of three ongoing “strategies of colonization” that continue to maintain settler colonialism’s structure of invasion: 1) strategies of elimination targeting Indigenous peoples; 2) strategies of subjugation targeting Black people (anti-Black racism); and 3) strategies of exploitation and exclusion targeting immigrants of color.88 ... Moreover, a settler colonialism framework acknowledges that the ongoing strategies of colonization continue to be fueled, enabled and bolstered by an elaborate set of racial logics that Andrea Smith describes as the “logics of White supremacy.”99 ... Smith argues that White supremacy in the U.S. context is enacted through three primary interrelated logics: 1) the view of Indigenous people as necessarily disappearing;1010 ... 2) the view of Black people as enslavable;1111 ... and 3) the view of immigrants of color as inferior and permanent “threats to the empire” who must either be exploited or excluded.1212 ... While the manifestations of these White supremacist logics may change over time, “they remain as persistently present today as they were five hundred years ago.”1313 This Essay will connect the persistent strategies, logics, and identities created by settler colonialism to the disparate health impacts of COVID-19 in Indigenous, Black, and immigrant of color communities in the United States. By offering a framework that uncovers the root causes of ongoing patterns of systemic oppression, this Essay hopes to inspire reform efforts that seek to alter such patterns by advancing reform efforts that are grounded in truth, justice, and reconciliation. I. Strategies of Indigenous Elimination: The Impacts of COVID-19 on Indigenous Communities Settler colonialism has eliminated Indigenous peoples in the United States through a host of strategies meant to obtain and maintain territorial control of the settler state.1414 As historian Patrick Wolfe explains, settler colonialism “requires the elimination of the owners of that territory, but not in any particular way.”1515 Elimination strategies employed by settler colonialism include genocidal violence, biological warfare through the introduction of infectious diseases, forced removal and relocation, confinement to reservations, child abduction, religious conversion, forced resocialization in residential boarding schools, and intricate biological and cultural assimilation programs that strip Indigenous people of their culture and replace it with settler culture.1616 White supremacist logics support the idea that Indigenous people are “nonhuman wild savages unsuited for civilization” who must therefore be eliminated, rendered expendable, or made invisible in order to justify dispossessing them of their lands.1717 ... These logics continue to underpin the removal of Indigenous people from settler spaces in both literal and conceptual ways.1818 ... For example, despite the fact that Indigenous peoples are killed in police encounters at a higher rate than any other racial or ethnic group, these deaths rarely gain the national spotlight, and are instead rendered invisible.1919 ... Moreover, contemporary popular narratives that designate European settlers as the “founding fathers” and refer to the United States as a “nation of immigrants” erase the existence of Indigenous peoples and render them invisible.2020 ... Another significant way in which settler colonialism’s ongoing strategy of Indigenous elimination manifests today is through devastating health disparities in Indigenous communities, which result in higher death rates for Indigenous peoples.2121 ... Important medical research implicates settler colonialism in contributing to poor health outcomes and high mortality rates in Indigenous communities in the United States.2222 ... This research highlights the devastating health impacts resulting from the brutal dispossession of traditional lands, the forced relocation to unproductive and polluted lands contaminated by heavy metals and industrial waste, the introduction of infectious settler diseases, and the introduction of harmful substances such as tobacco and alcohol.2323 ... This research also affirms a report previously published by the World Health Organization finding that Indigenous health is significantly affected by factors related to loss of language and connection to the land, environmental deprivation, and spiritual, emotional, and mental disconnectedness resulting from the loss of Indigenous traditions, culture, and identity.2424 ... The research concludes that these “oppressive factors” caused by colonialism perpetuate “severe inequalities in Indigenous health status, unsatisfactory disease and vital statistics, impaired emotional and social wellbeing, and poor prospects for future generations.”2525 Indigenous Health Part 1, supra note 22, at 66. The devastating health impacts resulting from settler colonialism’s strategy of Indigenous elimination have led to disproportionately high rates of pre-existing health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease2626 ... that put Indigenous peoples at a higher risk of death by COVID-19.2727 ... And historical and structural inequities in federal funding—such as lack of support for municipal plumbing systems—have further exacerbated the health disparities that put Indigenous peoples at higher-risk in the COVID-19 crisis.2828 ... For example, 40 percent of Navajo households do not have access to running water, making it difficult to comply with handwashing recommendations.2929 ... As a result, Indigenous communities who were previously decimated by the imposition of settler diseases such as measles, whooping cough, small-pox, influenza, and tuberculosis continue to be eliminated by health disparities that make them disproportionately vulnerable to a new disease: COVID-19.3030 ... Today, Indigenous peoples in the United States are dying 3.2 times the rate of White people as a result of COVID-19.3131 The alternative is refusal – a political depression that recognizes reconciliation will never be enough and creates harmful optimism to the political. Instead, embrace an affective pessimism that grounds alternative futures. The question is not whether Native people want the world, but if the world wants Native people Belcourt 2016 (Billy-ray Belcourt is from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is a 2016 Rhodes Scholar and is reading for an M.St. in Women's Studies at the University of Oxford. He was named by CBC Books as one of six Indigenous writers to watch,Political Depression in a Time of Reconciliation, Jan 15, 2016, http://activehistory.ca/2016/01/political-depression-in-a-time-of-reconciliation/)//NotJacob//recut anop It’s tough: knowing that you might not get the world you want and the world that wants you back, that your bones might never stop feeling achy and fragile from the wear and tear of mere existence, from the hard labour of getting through the day. Ours are bodies that have been depleted by time, that have been wrenched into a world they can’t properly bend or squirm into because our flesh is paradoxically both too much and not enough for it. In the wake of both eventful and slowed kinds of premature death, what does it mean that the state wants so eagerly to move Indigenous bodies, to touch them, so to speak? Reconciliation is an affective mess: it throws together and condenses histories of trauma and their shaky bodies and feelings into a neatly bordered desire; a desire to let go, to move on, to turn to the future with open arms, as it were. Reconciliation is stubbornly ambivalent in its potentiality, an object of desire that we’re not entirely certain how to acquire or substantiate, but one that the state – reified through the bodies of politicians, Indigenous or otherwise – is telling us we need. In fact, Justice Murray Sinclair noted that the launch of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report on December 15, 2015, puts us at the “threshold of a new era in this country.”1 I am interested in how life might be lived willfully and badly in the face of governmental forms of redress when many of us are stretched thin, how reconciliation, though instantiating a noticeable shift in the national affective atmosphere,2 doesn’t actually remake the substance of the social or the political such that we’re still tethered to scenes of living that can’t sustain us. What I am trying to get at is: reconciliation works insofar as it is a way of looking forward to being in this world, at the expense of more radical projects like decolonization that want to experiment with different strategies for survival.3 This way of doing things isn’t working and, because of that, optimism is hard to come by. According to cultural theorist Ann Cvetkovich, political depression emerges from the realization “that customary forms of political response, including direct action and critical analysis, are no longer working either to change the world or to make us feel better.”4 It is the pestering sense that whatever you do, it won’t be enough; that things will continue uninterrupted, teasing you because something different is all you’ve wanted from the start. To be politically depressed is to worry about the temporal reach of neoliberal projects like reconciliation, to question their orientation toward the future because the present requires all of your energy in order to feel like anything but dying. Political depression is of a piece with a dispossessory enterprise that remakes the topography of the ordinary such that the labour of maintaining one’s life becomes too hard to keep up. We have to wait for the then and there in the here and now; how do we preserve ourselves until then? As Leanne Simpson points out, reconciliation has been reparative for some survivors, encouraging them to tell their stories, to keep going, so to speak.5 But, what of the gendered and racialized technologies of violence that created our scenes of living, scenes we’ve been forced to think are of our own choosing? Optimism for the work of reconciliation disappeared in the face of multiple crises: of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, of HIV infection rates, of mass incarceration, of diabetes, of suicide. Reconciliation, at once a heuristic and a form of statecraft, fakes a political that doesn’t actually exist as such, one that not only presupposes that we – Indigenous peoples, that is – are willing to stay attached to it, but that we are already folded into it, that we’ve already consented to it. What does it mean, for example, to consent to a nation-to-nation relationship if there are no other options to choose from? Reconciliation wants so badly to be a keyword of sorts, to contain so much inside its semantic confines, to be “wide-reaching in its explanatory power.”6 I’m not surprised things have started to leak all over the place. Decolonization might need something of an affective turn: I think there are ways of being attuned to our bodies such that we can gauge if our visceral responses are trained or not, parasitic or not. In short: what do our tears signal, what do his – Justin Trudeau’s – signal? We cry because pain holds our world together. I don’t want pain to hold our world together anymore. Perhaps admitting we are politically depressed is one of the most important things we could do in this day and age. When survival becomes radical and death becomes part and parcel of the ordinary itself, political depression might be our only point of departure. But, political depression is also about dreaming up alternatives that can sustain your attachments to life. Cvetkovich reminds us that we need “other affective tools for transformation” because hope and blind allegiance have failed too many of us too often.7 I am interested in the generative work of pessimism, how being fed up propels us onward, and keeps us grounded in the now, such that we can make it to the future, even if that’s just tomorrow. As Kim TallBear put it, we’ve been living in a post-apocalyptic world (in its ecological ruins and in the face of its crisis-making politics) for quite some time,8 one that exhausts our bodies to the point of depression and death and one that slowly removes us from the non-normative or the astray.9 We are stuck in the thick of things, left clinging to an impasse without an exit strategy. We might need reconciliation today, but Indigenous peoples need a more capacious world-building project for tomorrow, one that can bear all of us and the sovereignties built into our breathing. We should not be asked: do you want the world today? Instead, we should be asking: does the world want us?
10/31/21
SeptOct - K - Settlerism vs Jordan
Tournament: Heart of Texas | Round: 4 | Opponent: Southlake Carroll PK | Judge: Annabelle Long Indigeneity connotates a state of non-ontology allowing for the construction of the human that legitimizes its self into a history of elimination, jettisoned from or assimilated into the national body to cohere settler temporality Belcourt 16. Billy-Ray Belcourt is from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is a 2016 Rhodes Scholar and is reading for an M.St. in Women’s Studies at the University of Oxford. He was named by CBC Books as one of six Indigenous writers to watch, and his poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry, Red Rising Magazine, SAD Mag, mâmawi-âcimowak, PRISM International, and The Malahat Review. ("A POLTERGEIST MANIFESTO," 2016, Feral Feminism) vikas recut aaditg Admittedly, the feral is a precarious space from which to theorize, sullied with an injurability bound up in the work of liberal humanism as such, an enterprise that weaponizes a set of moral barometers to distribute ferality unevenly to differently citizened and raced bodies—ones that are too close for comfort and must be pushed outside arm’s reach. Perhaps ferality traverses a semantic line of flight commensurate¬ with that of savagery, barbarism, and lawlessness, concreting into one history of elimination: that is, a history of eliminating recalcitrant indigeneities incompatible within a supposedly hygienic social. The word savage comes from the Latin salvaticus, an alteration of silvaticus, meaning “wild,” literally “of the woods.” Of persons, it means “reckless, ungovernable” (“Savage”). In the space-time of settler states, savagery temporarily stands in for those subjectivities tethered to a supposedly waning form of indigeneity, one that came from the woods and, because of this, had to be jettisoned from or assimilated into the national body. Here is Audra Simpson on the history of Indian “lawlessness”: Its genealogy extends back to the earliest moments of recorded encounter, when Indians appeared to have no law, to be without order, and thus, to be in the colonizer’s most generous articulation of differentiation, in need of the trappings of civilization. “Law” may be one instrument of civilization, as a regulating technique of power that develops through the work upon a political body and a territory. (2014, 144) According to Simpson, the recognition of Indigenous peoples as lawless rendered them governable, motivating the settler state (here, Canada) to curate and thus contain atrophied indigeneities—and, consequently, their sovereignties, lands, and politics—within the borders of federal law (2014, 144-45). Similarly, in The Transit of Empire Jodi Byrd traces the epistemological gimmicks through which the concept of “Indianness” came to align with “the savage other” (2011, 27). For her, this alignment provided the “rationale for imperial domination” and continues to stalk philosophy’s patterns of thinking (ibid.). Simpson, writing about the Mohawks of Kahnawake, argues that “a fear of lawlessness” continues to haunt the colonial imaginary, thereby diminishing “Indigenous rights to trade and to act as sovereigns in their own territories” (2014, 145). We might take the following lyrics from the popular Disney film Pocahontas as an example of the ways indigeneity circulates as a feral signifier in colonial economies of meaning-making: Ratcliffe What can you expect From filthy little heathens? Their whole disgusting race is like a curse Their skin’s a hellish red They’re only good when dead They’re vermin, as I said And worse English settlers They’re savages! Savages! Barely even human. (Gabriel and Goldberg 1995) Savagery connotes a state of non-ontology: Indigenous peoples are forced to cling to a barely extant humanity and coterminously collapse into a putatively wretched form of animality. Savagery is lethal, and its Indian becomes the prehistoric alibi through which the human is constituted as such. Indigenous peoples have therefore labored to explain away this savagery, reifying whitened rubrics for proper citizenship and crafting a genre of life tangible within the scenes of living through that are constitutive of settler colonialism as such. These scenes, however, are dead set on destroying the remnants of that savagery, converting their casualties into morally compatible subjects deserving of rights and life in a multicultural state that stokes the liberal fantasy of life after racial trauma at the expense of decolonial flourishing itself. This paper is therefore interested in the subjectivities and forms of sociality that savagery destroys when applied from without, and the political work of appropriating that savagery in the name of decolonization. Ours is a form of indigeneity that hints at a fundamental pollutability that both confirms and threatens forms of ontology tethered to a taxonomized humanity built in that foundational episode of subjection of which Simpson speaks. I am suggesting that savagery always-already references an otherworld of sorts: there are forms of life abandoned outside modernity’s episteme whose expressivities surge with affects anomalous within the topography of settler colonialism. This paper is not a historicist or nostalgic attachment to a pre-savage indigeneity resurrected from a past somehow unscathed by the violence that left us in the thick of things in the first place. Instead, I emphasize the potentiality of ferality as a politics in a world bent on our destruction—a world that eliminates indigeneities too radical to collapse into a collective sensorium, training us to a live in an ordinary that the settler state needs to persist as such, one that only some will survive. This world incentivizes our collusion with a multicultural state instantiated through a myth of belonging that actively disavows difference in the name of that very difference. We are repeatedly hurried into a kind of waning sociality, the content and form of which appear both too familiar and not familiar enough. In short, we are habitually left scavenging for ways to go on without knowing what it is we want. Let’s consider Jack Halberstam’s thoughts on “the wild”: It is a tricky word to use but it is a concept that we cannot live without if we are to combat the conventional modes of rule that have synced social norms to economic practices and have created a world order where every form of disturbance is quickly folded back into quiet, where every ripple is quickly smoothed over, where every instance of eruption has been tamped down and turned into new evidence of the rightness of the status quo. (2013, 126) Where Halberstam finds disturbance, I find indigeneity-cum-disturbance par excellence. Halberstam’s “wild” evokes a potentiality laboured in the here and now and “an alternative to how we want to think about being” in and outside an authoritarian state (2013, 126-27). Perhaps the wild risks the decolonial, a geography of life-building that dreams up tomorrows whose referents are the fractured indigeneities struggling to survive a historical present built on our suffering. Ferality is a stepping stone to a future grounded in Indigenous peoples’ legal and political orders. This paper does not traffic in teleologies of the anarchic or lawless as they emerge in Western thought; instead, it refuses settler sovereignty and calls for forms of collective Indigenous life that are attuned to queerness’s wretched histories and future-making potentialities. Indigeneity is an ante-ontology of sorts: it is prior to and therefore disruptive of ontology. Indigeneity makes manifest residues or pockets of times, worlds, and subjectivities that warp both common sense and philosophy into falsities that fall short of completely explaining what is going on. Indigenous life is truncated in the biopolitical category of Savage in order to make our attachments to ourselves assimilable inside settler colonialism’s national sensorium. Settler colonialism purges excessive forms of indigeneity that trouble its rubrics for sensing out the human and the nonhuman. In other words, settler colonialism works up modes of being-in-the-world that narrate themselves as the only options we have. What would it mean, then, to persist in the space of savagery, exhausting the present and holding out for futures that are not obsessed with the proper boundary between human and nonhuman life? This paper now turns to the present, asking: what happens when indigeneity collides with queerness inside the reserve, and how might a feral theory make sense of that collision? Deadly Presents “I went through a really hard time… I was beaten; more than once. I was choked” (Klassen 2014). These were the words of Tyler-Alan Jacobs, a two-spirit man from the Squamish Nation, capturing at once the terror of queer life on the reserve and the hardening of time into a thing that slows down bodies and pushes them outside its securitized geographies. Jacobs had grown up with his attackers, attackers who were energized by the pronouncement of queerness—how it insisted on being noticed, how it insisted on being. When the dust settled, “his right eye had dislodged and the side of his faced had caved in” (ibid.). Settler colonialism is fundamentally affective: it takes hold of the body, makes it perspire, and wears it out. It converts flesh into pliable automations and people into grim reapers who must choose which lives are worth keeping in the world. It can turn a person into a murderer in a matter of seconds; it is an epistemic rupturing of our attachments to life, to each other, and to ourselves. It is as if settler colonialism were simultaneously a rescue and military operation, a holy war of sorts tasked with exorcising the spectre of queer indigeneity and its putative infectivity. I rehearse this case because it allows me to risk qualifying the reserve as a geography saturated with heteronormativity’s socialities. This is a strategic interdiction that destroys supposedly degenerative queer affect worlds, untangling some bodies and not others from the future. I don’t have the statistics to substantiate these claims, but there is an archive of heartbreak and loss that is easy to come by if you ask the right people. Indeed, what would such statistics tell us that we don’t already know? What would the biopolitical work of data collection do to a knowledge-making project that thinks outside the big worlds of Statistics and Demography and, instead, inside the smaller, more precarious worlds created in the wake of gossip? I worry about ethnographic projects that seek to account for things and theory in the material in order to map the coordinates of an aberration to anchor it and its voyeurs in the theatres of the academy. The desire to attach to a body is too easily energized by a biological reading of gender that repudiates the very subjects it seeks so desperately to know and to study. What about the body? I have been asked this question, again and again. A feral theory is something of a call to arms: abolish this sort of ethnography and turn to those emergent methodologies that might better make sense of the affects and life-forms that are just now coming into focus and have been destroyed or made invisible in the name of research itself. Queer indigeneity, to borrow Fred Moten’s description of blackness, might “come most clearly into relief, by way of its negation” (2014). Perhaps decolonization needs to be a sort of séance: an attempt to communicate with the dead, a collective rising-up from the reserve’s necropolis, a feral becoming-undead. Boyd and Thrush’s Phantom Past, Indigenous Presence thinks indigeneity and its shaky histories vis-à-vis the language of haunting, where haunting is an endurant facet of “the experience of colonialism” (Bodinger de Uriarte 2012, 303). But, for me, ghostliness is differentially distributed: some more than others will be wrenched into the domain of the dead and forced to will their own ontologies into the now. Perhaps the universalist notion that haunting is a metonym for indigeneity repudiates the very life-forms that it claims to include: those who are differently queered and gendered, and, because of this, haunt waywardly and in ways that cannot be easily predicted (Ahmed 2015). This paper thus takes an imaginative turn and proceeds with something of an incantation to summon the figure of the queer Indigenous poltergeist—the feral monster in the horror story of decolonization. Queer Indigenous poltergeists do not linger inaudibly in the background; we are beside ourselves with anger, we make loud noises and throw objects around because we are demanding retribution for homicide, unloved love, and cold shoulders. We do not reconcile; we escape the reserve, pillage and mangle the settler-colonial episteme. Our arrival is both uneventful and apocalyptic, a point of departure and an entry point for an ontology that corresponds with a future that has yet to come. Sometimes all we have is the promise of the future. For the queer Indigenous poltergeist, resurrection is its own form of decolonial love. The poltergeist is an ontological anomaly: a fusion of human, object, and ghost, a “creature of social reality” and a “creature of fiction” (Haraway 1991, 149). From the German poltern meaning “to make noise, to rattle” and Geist or “ghost,” it literally means “noisy ghost,” speaking into existence an anti-subjectivity that emerges in the aftermath of death or murder (“Poltergeist”). It is the subject of Tobe Hooper’s 1982 film Poltergeist, which tells a story of “a haunting based on revenge” (Tuck and Ree 2013, 652). The film’s haunting is a wronging premised on an initial wrong: the eponymous poltergeist materializes when a mansion is constructed on a cemetery—a disturbing of spirits, if you will. José Esteban Muñoz argues that “The double ontology of ghosts and ghostliness, the manner in which ghosts exist inside and out and traverse categorical distinctions, seems especially useful for… queer criticism” (2009, 46). In this paper, the poltergeist names the form which indigeneity takes when it brings queer matter into its folds. In other words, this essay evokes haunting as a metaphor to hint at the ways in which queerness was murderously absorbed into the past and prematurely expected to stay there as an effect of colonialism’s drive to eliminate all traces of sexualities and genders that wandered astray. The poltergeist conceptualizes the work of queer indigeneity in the present insofar as it does not presuppose the mysterious intentions of the ghost—an otherworldly force that is bad, good, and undetectable all at once. Instead, the poltergeist is melancholic in its grief, but also pissed off. It refuses to remain in the spiritual, a space cheapened in relation to the staunch materiality of the real, and one that, though housing our conditions of possibility, cannot contain all of us. We protest forms of cruel nostalgia that tether ghosts to a discarded past within which queer Indigenous life once flourished because we know that we will never get it back and that most of us likely never experienced it in the first place. We long for that kind of love, but we know it is hard to come by. I turn to the poltergeist because I don’t have anywhere else to go. Help me, I could say. But I won’t. Queer indigeneity, then, is neither here nor there, neither dead nor alive but, to use Judith Butler’s language, interminably spectral (2006, 33). We are ghosts that haunt the reserve in the event of resurrection. According to Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, a reserve is a “tract of land, the legal title to which is held by the Crown, set apart for the use and benefit of an Indian band” (“Terminology”). The “reserve system” is part of the dispossessory ethos through which the settler state reifies land as the sign of sovereignty itself, and thus effects the political death of indigeneity, decomposing it into nothingness, into contaminated dirt. Reserves are the products of imaginations gone wild; they are ruins that bear “the physical imprint of the supernatural” on arid land, on decaying trailers arranged like weathered tombstones (Tuck and Ree 2013, 653). They are borderlands that connote simultaneous possession and dispossession: they represent the collision between settler sovereignty (insofar as the Crown holds the legal title to the land) and indigeneity (pointing to a genre of life that is distinctly Indigenous). Reserves were—some might say they still are—zones of death that regulated and regulate the movements of Indigenous bodies, quarantining their putatively contaminated flesh outside modern life in order to preserve settler-colonial futurities. It is as if the reserve were a site of complete atrophy, where indigeneity is supposed to waste away or degenerate, where queerness has already bled out. Look at the blood on your hands! The queer Indigenous poltergeist, however, foregrounds what I call a “reserve consciousness” —an awareness of the deathliness of the reserve. A reserve consciousness might be a kind of critical phenomenology that, to use Lisa Guenther’s description of this sort of insurgent knowledge project, pulls up “traces of what is not quite or no longer there—that which has been rubbed out or consigned to invisibility” (2015): here, the so-called on-reserve Indian. It might be about becoming a frictive surface; by rubbing up against things and resisting motion between objects, we might become unstuck. Queer Indigenous poltergeists are what Sara Ahmed calls “blockage points”: where communication stops because we cannot get through (2011, 68). That is, queer indigeneity connotes an ethical impasse, a dead end that presents us with two options: exorcism or resurrection. If settler colonialism is topological, if it persists despite elastic deformations such as stretching and twisting, wear and tear, we might have to make friction to survive. I turn to the reserve because it is a geography of affect, one in which the heaviness of atmospheres crushes some bodies to death and in which some must bear the weight of settler colonialism more than others. The violence done to us has wrenched us outside the physical world and into the supernatural. Some of us are spirits—open wounds that refuse to heal because our blood might be the one thing that cannot be stolen. Does resistance always feel like resistance, or does it sometimes feel like bleeding out (Berlant 2011)? Feral Socialities I must leave the beaten path and go where we are not. Queerness, according to Muñoz, is not yet here; it is an ideality that “we may never touch,” that propels us onward (2009, 1). Likewise, Halberstam suggests that the presentness of queerness signals a kind of emerging ontology. He argues that failure “is something that queers do and have always done exceptionally well in contrast to the grim scenarios of success” that structure “a heteronormative, capitalist society” (2011, 2-3). For Muñoz, queer failure is about “doing something that is missing in straight time’s always already flawed temporal mapping practice” (2009, 174). We know, however, that this isn’t the entire story. Whereas Muñoz’s queer past morphs into the here and now of homonormativity’s carceral tempos, indigeneity’s queernesses are saturated with the trauma of colonialism’s becoming-structure. Queer death doubles as the settler state’s condition of possibility. Pre-contact queer indigeneities had been absorbed into colonialism’s death grip; however, this making-dead was also a making-undead in the enduring of ghosts (Derrida 1994, 310). If haunting, according to Tuck and Ree, “lies precisely in its refusal to stop,” then the queer Indigenous poltergeist fails to have died by way of time travel (2013, 642). Queer indigeneity might be a kind of “feral sociality”: we are in a wild state after escaping colonial captivity and domestication. When the state evicts you, you might have to become feral to endure. To be feral is to linger in the back alleys of the settler state. It is a refusal of settler statecraft, a strategic failing to approximate the metrics of colonial citizenship, a giving up on the ethical future that reconciliation supposedly promises. As an aside, I suspect that the settler state’s reconciliatory ethos is always-already a domesticating project: it contains Indigenous suffering within the spectacularized theatre of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, building a post-Residential School temporality in which Indigenous peoples have been repaired through monetary reparations and storytelling. In the melodrama of reconciliation, the settler state wins its centuries-long war against Indian lawlessness by healing Indigenous peoples of the trauma that blocked them from becoming properly emotive citizens. Queer indigeneity, however, escapes discursive and affective concealment and therefore the category of the human itself, disturbing the binary clash between the living and nonliving by way of its un-humanity, a kind of “dead living” whereby flesh is animated through death. Perhaps we must become feral to imagine other space-times, to imagine other kinds of queerness. If settler colonialism incentivizes our collusion with the humanist enterprise of multiculturalism (and it does), what would it mean to refuse humanity and actualize other subject formations? In other words, how do the un-living live? Here, I want to propose the concept of “Indian time” to theorize the temporality and liminality of queer indigeneity as it festers in the slippage between near-death and the refusal to die. Indian time colloquially describes the regularity with which Indigenous peoples arrive late or are behind schedule. I appropriate this idiom to argue that the presentness of queer indigeneity is prefigured by an escape from and bringing forward of the past as well as a taking residence in the future. To be queer and Indigenous might mean to live outside time, to fall out of that form of affective life. Indian time thus nullifies the normative temporality of settler colonialism in which death is the telos of the human and being-in-death is an ontological fallacy. It connotes the conversion of queer indigeneity into non-living matter, into ephemera lurking in the shadows of the present, waiting, watching, and conspiring. Where Jasbir Puar argues that all things under the rubric of queer are always-already calculated into the state’s biopolitical mathematic, queer indigeneity cannot be held captive because it cannot be seen—we are still emerging in the social while simultaneously altering its substance (2012). If decolonization is, according to Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s reading of Frantz Fanon, an “unclean break from a colonial condition,” perhaps the queer Indigenous poltergeist is feral enough to will a decolonial world into a future that hails rather than expels its ghosts (2012, 20). The queer Indigenous poltergeist might have nothing else to lose.
Systems of knowledge serve to institute and replicate settler colonialism — the human is a storytelling species and knowledge systems are always already being chartered through the replication of sociogenic codes Wynter and McKittrick 15. Sylvia Wynter is a Professor Emerita at Stanford University. Katherine McKittrick is a professor in Gender Studies at Queen's University. She is an academic and writer whose work focuses on black studies, cultural geography, anti-colonial and diaspora studies, with an emphasis on the ways in which liberation emerges in black creative texts. (Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis, Duke University Press, 2015) vikas To resolve the aporia of this cognitive dilemma, I turn again to Césaire’s proposed new and hybrid bios / mythoi science of the Word. Here because, as he proposed, and as earlier cited, the study of the Word / the mythoi will now determine the study of the bios / of the brain, and this will thereby enable us to gain an external (demonic ground) perspective on the always already storytellingly chartered / encoded discursive formations / aesthetic fields, as well as of, co- relatedly, our systems of knowledge. And, with this gain insight into how these systems of knowledge, each together with its genre- specific “truth of solidarity,” all institute and stably replicate our genres of being hybridly human with the also communitarian viability of each respective societal order. Yet with all of the above—including, in macro terms, the instituting of our contemporary secular and “single model” liberal (now neoliberal) monohumanist Western / Westernized transnational world system—what again must be emphasized is that the respective “truths” of their knowledge systems are always already prespecified by our storytellingly chartered sociogenic replicator code of symbolic life / death, its Word and / or Bateson- type “descriptive statement” as rigorously discursively elaborated by its “status quo system of learning” and its overall epistemological order. This order circularly ensures that each such genre- specific regime / program of truth, will law- likely function to semantically- neurochemically induce the performative enactment of our ensemble of always already role- allocated individual and collective behaviors within the reflexly and subjectively experienced terms of a cognitively closed, thereby genre- specific and fictively eusocializing, autonomously functioning, higher- level living autopoietic system. Cosmogonies of Our Planetary Life and Our Chartered Codes of Symbolic Life and Symbolic Death: Fictively Induced Modes of Inter- Altruistic Kin Recognition and Auto- Instituted Pseudospeciated Mode of Kind KM: Here Wynter elaborates on storytelling beginnings and cosmogonies. She returns to her extension of Frantz Fanon’s conception of our being hybridly human, both bios and mythoi, in order to address the unsolved phenomenon of human consciousness. She explores how our chartering / encoding genre- specific cosmogonies provide the narrative source of our fictively eusocializing subjectivities, thus enabling us to be reborn- through- initiation as always already sociogenically encoded inter- altruistically kin- recognizing members of each referent- we. At the same time, however, the law- like reification of each fictively induced and subjectively experienced order of consciousness of each referent- we is, itself, absolutized by what Wynter identifies as the law of cognitive closure. SW: Fanon put forward the idea of our skin / masks, thereby of the hybridity of our being human, in 1952. Crick and Watson cracked the genetic code in 1953. Now, I argue that Fanon’s masks enact a “second set of instructions”: that of the sociogenic code of symbolic life / death. Further, within the overall enactment of each such “second set of instructions,” the ism of gender is itself—while only one member class—a founding member class. Gender is a founding member because in order to auto- institute ourselves as subjects of a genre- specific referent- we, we must, first, co- relatedly and performatively enact each such code’s “second set of instructions” at the familial level, in terms of our gender roles. We know of this brilliant concept of the performative enactment of gender from Judith Butler.60 I am suggesting that the enactments of such gender roles are always a function of the enacting of a specific genre of being hybridly human. Butler’s illuminating redefinition of gender as a praxis rather than a noun, therefore, set off bells ringing everywhere! Why not, then, the performative enactment of all our roles, of all our role allocations as, in our contemporary Western / Westernized case, in terms of, inter alia, gender, race, class / underclass, and, across them all, sexual orientation? All as praxes, therefore, rather than nouns. So here you have the idea that with being human everything is praxis. For we are not purely biological beings! As far as the eusocial insects like bees are concerned, their roles are genetically preprescribed for them. Ours are not, even though the biocentric meritocratic iq bourgeois ideologues, such as the authors of The Bell Curve, try to tell us that they / we are.61 So the question is: What are the mechanisms, what are the technologies, what are the strategies by which we prescribe our own roles? What is common to all are cosmogonies and origin narratives. The representations of origin, which we ourselves invent, are then retroactively projected onto an imagined past. Why so? Because each such projection is the shared storytelling origin out of which we are initiatedly reborn. In this case we are no longer, as individual biological subjects, primarily born of the womb; rather, we are both initiated and reborn as fictively instituted inter- altruistic kinrecognizing members of each such symbolically re- encoded genre- specific referent- we. This is to say we are all initiatedly reborn—renatus in Saint Thomas Aquinas’s Christian term—to subjectively experience ourselves as subjects of the same encoded symbolic life kind. Why this imperative? Because for all genre- specific subjects who are reborn from the same eusocializing origin myth and / or cosmogony, their genetically encoded individual biological life and its attendant imperative of naked self- preservation must at the same time be, via initiation, aversively experienced as symbolic death. 62 This is the concomitant condition of inducing in all subjects the mimetic desire for the group- collective symbolic life of its genre- specific referent- we, its fictive mode of pseudospeciated kind. The centrality of the ritually initiated and enacted storytelling codes, and thus their positive / negative, symbolic life / death semantically- neurochemically activated “second set of instructions,” emerges here: these codes are specific to each kind. The positive verbal meanings attributed to their respective modes of kind are alchemically transformed into living flesh, as its members all reflexly subjectively experience themselves, in the mimetically desirable, because opiate-rewarded, placebo terms of that mode of symbolic life prescribed by the storytelling code. This at the same time as they subjectively experience their former “born of the womb” purely biological life as mimetically aversive, because they are doing so in now opiate- reward- blocked symbolic death, nocebo terms.63 For the preservation of which of these lives, then, do you think wars are fought? In the wake of the answer to the above, we see our chartering cosmogonies as being isomorphic with what we now define as our “cultures”— in both cases we are talking about our hybrid sociogenic codes and their “second set of instructions.” These are codes that are even able to override where necessary—this with respect to our auto- instituted, non– genetically restricted fictive modes of eusociality—the first set of instructions of our own dna (unlike as is the case with all other primates). The logical corollary is this: our modes of auto- institution, together with their initiatory rituals of rebirth—as iconized by the ritual of Christian baptism—are indispensable to the enacting of the human as the only living species on Earth who is the denizen of its third and hybrid bios / mythoi level of existence! Our mode of hybrid living being alone—this together with our also hitherto always genre- specific bios / mythoi enacted orders of supraindividual consciousness—is thereby to arrive on the scene all at once! With the Big Bang of the biomutational Third Event! So you see now why we still can’t solve the problem of consciousness? In spite of the most dedicated efforts of natural scientists, brain scientists, and philosophers? For what becomes clear here is that our human orders of consciousness / modes of mind cannot exist outside the terms of a specific cosmogony. Therefore, human orders of consciousness / modes of mind cannot preexist the terms of the always already mythically chartered, genre- specific code of symbolic life / death, its “second set of instructions” and thus its governing sociogenic principle— or, as Keith Ward puts it, its nonphysical principle of causality.64 To give an example: here we are, we are talking and thinking. We are, in fact, reflexly talking and thinking in terms of Darwin’s biocosmogonically chartered definitive version—in The Descent of Man (1871)—of the British bourgeoisie’s ruling class’s earlier reinvention of Man1’s civic humanist homo politicus as that of liberal monohumanist Man2 as homo oeconomicus, together with its now fully desupernaturalized sociogenically encoded order of consciousness. These are the very terms, therefore, in which we ourselves, in now historically postcolonial / postapartheid contexts, are. If in our case, only mimetically so! This at the same time as we are also struggling to think outside the limits of the purely biocentric order of consciousness that is genre- specific to the Western bourgeoisie’s homo oeconomicus. But it’s extremely difficult to do, right? You know why? Because Darwinism’s powerful, seductive force as a cosmogony, or origin narrative, is due to the fact that it is the first in our human history to be not only part myth but also part natural science. In fact, this mutation—the part myth / part natural science workings of Darwinism—draws attention to Darwin’s powerful neoMalthusian conceptual leap.65 A leap by means of which—over and against Cardinal Bellarmine—Darwin was to definitively replace the biblical Cre- ation account of the origin of all forms of biological life, including the major bios aspect of our being hybridly human, with a new evolutionary account. Why, then, say that this Darwinian account is only part science? Biologist Glyn Isaac, in his essay “Aspects of Human Evolution” (1983), provides the answer. Isaac makes us aware of the ecumenically human trap into which Darwin had also partly fallen: Understanding the literature on human evolution calls for the recognition of special problems that confront scientists who report on this topic. Regardless of how the scientists present them, accounts of human origins are read as replacement materials for genesis. They fulfill needs that are reflected in the fact that all societies have in their culture some form of origin beliefs, that is, some narrative or configurational notion of how the world and humanity began. Usually, these beliefs do more than cope with curiosity, they have allegorical content, and they convey values, ethics and attitudes. The Adam and Eve creation story of the Bible is simply one of a wide variety of such poetic formulations. . . . The scientific movement which culminated in Darwin’s compelling formulation of evolution as a mode of origin seemed to sweep away earlier beliefs and relegate them to the realm of myth and legend. Following on from this, it is often supposed that the myths have been replaced by something quite different, which we call “science.” However, this is only partly true; scientific theories and information about human origins have been slotted into the same old places in our minds and our cultures that used to be occupied by the myths. . . . Our new origin beliefs are in fact surrogate myths, that are themselves part science, part myths. 66 So the trap, you see, is that of the paradox that lies at the core of our metaDarwinian hybridity. For what I’m saying is that as humans, we cannot / do not preexist our cosmogonies, our representations of our origins—even though it is we ourselves who invent those cosmogonies and then retroactively project them onto a past. We invent them in formulaic storytelling terms, as “donor figures” or “entities,” who have extrahumanly (supernaturally, but now also naturally and / or bioevolutionarily, therefore secularly) mandated what the structuring societal order of our genre- specific, eusocial or cultural present would have to be.67 As the French cultural anthropologist Maurice Godelier also makes clear, with respect to the above: we, too, hitherto have also systematically kept the reality of our own agency—from our origins until today—opaque to ourselves. 68 Thus all our humanly invented chartering cosmogonies, including our contemporary macro (monohumanistic / monotheistic) cosmogonies, are law- likely configured as being extrahumanly mandated.69 All such sacred theological discourses ( Judaism, Islamism, Christianity, for example) continue to function in the already theo- cosmogonically mandated cognitively closed terms that are indispensable to the enacting of their respective behavior- inducing and behavior- regulatory fictively eusocializing imperative. This is especially apparent, too, in the secular substitute monohumanist religion of Darwin’s neo- Malthusian biocosmogony: here, in the biocosmogony of symbolic life / death—as that of selection / dysselection and eugenic / dysgenic codes—the incarnation of symbolic life, will law- likely be that of the ruling- class bourgeoisie as the naturally selected (eugenic) master of Malthusian natural scarcity. With this emerges, cumulatively, the virtuous breadwinner, together with his pre- 1960s virtuous housewife, and, corelatedly, the savvy investor, the capital accumulator, or at least the steady job holder.70 In effect, wealth, no longer in its traditional, inherited freehold landowning form, but in its now unceasingly capital- accumulating, global form, is itself the sole macro- signifier of ultimate symbolic life. Symbolic death, therefore, is that of having been naturally dysselected and mastered by Malthusian natural scarcity: as are the globally homogenized dysgenic non- breadwinning jobless poor / the pauper / homeless / the welfare queens. Poverty itself, therefore, is the “significant ill” signifier of ultimate symbolic death and, consequently, capital accumulation, and therefore symbolic life signifies and narrates a plan of salvation that will cure the dysselected significant ill! The systemic reproduction of the real- life categories of both signifiers are indispensable to the continued enactment of the ruling - class bourgeoisie’s governing code of symbolic life / death and the defining of liberal (now neoliberal) monohumanist Man2. This now purely secular coding of life / death is itself discursively—indeed rigorously—elaborated bioepistemologically, on the model of a natural organism, by the disciplines of our social sciences and humanities, together with their respective genre- specific and ethno- class truths of solidarity.71 Consequently, within the laws of hybrid auto- institution and / or pseudospeciation the (humanities and social science) disciplinary truths of solidarity enact their biocosmogonically chartered sociogenic code of symbolic life / death, also imperatively calling to be discursively elaborated in cognitively (cum psychoaffectively / aesthetically) closed terms. The 1AC’s appeal to innovation and western imperial science under the justification of inequality is grounded in the “jungle” functioning through a logic of biocolonialism Barker 19 Clare Barker is a an Associate Professor in English Literature (Medical Humanities) Their Areas of expertise : postcolonial literature; indigenous literature; disability studies; medical humanities. “Biocolonial Fictions: Medical Ethics and New Extinction Discourse in Contemporary Biopiracy Narratives”https:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7116577/pdf/EMS109293.pdf aaditg The age of big pharma, population genetics, and global health initiatives that transcend national borders has ushered in new forms of extractivism that consist of mining the bodies of Indigenous people, their medicinal plants, and their traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) for their pharmacological potential. These new forms of scientific endeavour echo and reconfigure the colonialist appropriations of the past. As scholar and activist, Vandana Shiva, writes, ‘the colonies have now been extended to the interior spaces, the “genetic codes” of life-forms from microbes and plants to animals, including humans’.1 Shiva terms the expropriation of Indigenous biological resources ‘biopiracy’, while other activists and critics apply the broader term ‘biocolonialism’ to the range of practices that extend colonialist logic to the acquisition of human and plant organic materials, genetic ‘data’, and medicinal knowledge. This term in particular highlights the marked continuities between European colonialist practices of land and resource appropriation and the research practices within what Laurelyn Whitt calls the ‘new imperial science’, which, ‘marked by the confluence of science with capitalism’ and acting ‘in the service of western pharmaceutical … industries’ (among others), ‘enables the appropriation of indigenous knowledge and resources at a prodigious and escalating rate’.2 The logic of biocolonial extractivism operates through a reorientation of the temporal formations of settler colonialism, which equate settler practices with development and consign Indigenous peoples to the past. The land dispossessions of the colonial era were facilitated by powerful narratives of inevitable Indigenous extinction: ‘vanishing Indians’, Maori and Aboriginal ‘dying races’. As critics have shown, contemporary biocolonialist initiatives operate on similar assumptions, under which indigenous biospecimens must be preserved and biological data acquired before they vanish forever. Joanna Radin demonstrates that, since the mid-twentieth century, the ability to freeze and store blood and other organic samples has ‘emerged as a potentially powerful strategy for preserving fragments of a world that appeared to be increasingly in flux’. It enables ‘biological material to be studied in the present and especially in the future’, when (whether due to genetic admixture, European diseases, or environmental damage produced by the industrialized global North) ‘the individuals from whom it had been extracted were expected to have disappeared or changed beyond recognition’.3 In this article, I explore the intertwined relationship between medical research ethics and the logic and ideology of biocolonialism as it is represented in two contemporary American novels, Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder (2011) and Hanya Yanagihara’s The People in the Trees (2013). These novels depict ‘medical adventurers’4 undertaking biocolonialist excursions into the remote jungles of, respectively, the Amazon and the Pacific, and are centrally concerned with the methods and infrastructure of biomedical and pharmaceutical research. In both cases, the fictional scientists’ ethically problematic research practices implicate them in what Pauline Wakeford calls ‘two entangled narratives of death and disappearance: the grand récits of wildlife extinction and the vanishing Indian’.5 I focus in particular on how these texts, by presenting us with fictional bioethical quandaries related to human longevity and reproduction, engage with the new formulations of extinction discourse produced by the life sciences. Patrick Brantlinger asserts that colonial ‘extinction discourse was performative in the sense that it acted on the world as well as described it’.6 State of Wonder and The People in the Trees both imagine biological discoveries with the potential to extend human lifecycles, but these research endeavours are steeped in extinctionist ideology and themselves set in motion the decimation of previously thriving Indigenous communities. Aspirational narratives of ‘eternal life’ (in Yanagihara) and ‘world health’ (in Patchett) are underpinned by the knowledge that these communities, reframed as research subjects, are likely to vanish in the wake of what Warwick Anderson calls ‘scientific colonialism’, along with their unique ecosystems.7 The different narrative temporalities of these texts – Patchett’s anticipating a significant breakthrough in global health, Yanagihara’s narrated retrospectively from a position of irreversible loss – produce divergent valuations of human and nonhuman lives and different perspectives on the ethics of biopiracy, as I shall discuss. But in reading them together, I demonstrate how fictional engagements with biocolonial science illuminate the continuities between colonial-era extractivism and contemporary research practices. In their temporal reorientations and their ability to imagine actual and potential acts of extinction, these texts resituate extinction discourse squarely within the context of twentieth- and twenty-first-century bioscientific experimentation. State of Wonder follows Marina Singh, a pharmacologist for a multinational pharmaceutical corporation, Vogel, on her expedition into the Amazon to investigate the death in the field of her colleague, Anders Eckman, and to assess the progress of a senior scientist, Annick Swenson, who is developing a fertility drug for Vogel while living with a remote tribe, the Lakashi. Swenson has discovered that the Lakashi women’s practice of chewing bark from a particular local tree (the Martin tree) not only alters their reproductive chemistry, allowing them to conceive and give birth into their seventies and eighties, but also inoculates them against malaria. Alongside their work on the fertility drug, Swenson and her team are surreptitiously developing a malaria vaccine at Vogel’s expense, which will have little appeal logic tied up with numerous contemporary research initiatives, particularly the Human Genome Diversity Project. See, for example, to company shareholders even though it ‘will have enormous benefits to world health’, since ‘the people who need a malarial vaccine will never have the means to pay for it’.8 As the narrative unfolds, the protection of the Lakashi, their lifeways, and their environment is pitted against this urgent global health imperative to save the lives of the ‘eight hundred thousand children’ who, as Swenson tells Marina, ‘die every year of malaria’ in the so-called ‘Third World’.9 The People in the Trees is framed as the memoirs of Norton Perina, a ‘renowned immunologist’ who, as a young doctor in 1950, joins an anthropological expedition to U’ivu, a fictional Micronesian state.10 Along with his anthropologist colleagues, he ‘discovers’ a ‘lost tribe’ living on the island of Ivu’ivu whose ritual ingestion of a sacred turtle endemic to the island, the opa’ivu’eke, causes extended longevity, with some tribe members apparently living for several hundred years. Perina’s research on this phenomenon earns him a Nobel Prize for Medicine, but also kickstarts a rapid process of biocolonial incursion on this island that has ‘never before been colonized’, beginning with pharmaceutical companies, seeking to develop ‘age-retarding drugs, … anti-aging skin creams, and elixirs to restore male potency’, ‘swarming throughout Ivu’ivu on the hunt for the opa’ivu’eke’.11 It results in the extinction of the turtle, the razing of the island, and the decimation of the Ivu’ivuan community through an accelerated experience of the impacts of colonization, including forced displacement, alcoholism, and disease. Both texts emphasize the overdetermination of their respective jungle environments by longstanding colonialist tropes of exotic difference that are inflected by bioscientific discourse. The Pacific island, as Elizabeth DeLoughrey has demonstrated, has long been figured as a remote, ‘hermetically sealed laboratory’, ‘deemed ahistorical and isolated’ from modernity and therefore ideal for experimentation in anthropology, ecology, and nuclear science.12 The Amazon, meanwhile, is imagined as what Veronica Davidov terms a ‘pharmacopia’ that holds within its rich ecosystems ‘fantastic cures for illnesses that defy the capacities of the Western pharmaceutical industry’, or, as Dr Swenson puts it in State of Wonder, ‘some sort of magical medicine chest’.13 Under the globalized conditions of the biomedical and pharmaceutical industries, the jungle spaces outside the West are vulnerable to exploitation due to their construction as ‘global commons’ or ‘global resource frontiers’ available to be harvested for their medical riches.14 As Swenson asserts in an unapologetic utilization of extractivist rhetoric: ‘there is much to be taken from the jungle’.15 Through their focus on the activities of life scientists in the interconnected fields of big pharma and global health, both novels appear to offer a critique of the impacts of biocolonialism on Indigenous people and the ecosystems in which they exist. But, as I will show, Perina’s retrospective narration in The People in the Trees brings into critical focus the extinctionist logic of biocolonial science, while State of Wonder’s anticipatory positioning is ultimately bound up with the future-oriented rhetoric used to justify much exploitative and damaging scientific research. The alternative is refusal – a political depression that recognizes reconciliation will never be enough and creates harmful optimism to the political. Instead, embrace an affective pessimism that grounds alternative futures. The question is not whether Native people want the world, but if the world wants Native people Belcourt 2016 (Billy-ray Belcourt is from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is a 2016 Rhodes Scholar and is reading for an M.St. in Women's Studies at the University of Oxford. He was named by CBC Books as one of six Indigenous writers to watch,Political Depression in a Time of Reconciliation, Jan 15, 2016, http://activehistory.ca/2016/01/political-depression-in-a-time-of-reconciliation/)//NotJacob//recut anop It’s tough: knowing that you might not get the world you want and the world that wants you back, that your bones might never stop feeling achy and fragile from the wear and tear of mere existence, from the hard labour of getting through the day. Ours are bodies that have been depleted by time, that have been wrenched into a world they can’t properly bend or squirm into because our flesh is paradoxically both too much and not enough for it. In the wake of both eventful and slowed kinds of premature death, what does it mean that the state wants so eagerly to move Indigenous bodies, to touch them, so to speak? Reconciliation is an affective mess: it throws together and condenses histories of trauma and their shaky bodies and feelings into a neatly bordered desire; a desire to let go, to move on, to turn to the future with open arms, as it were. Reconciliation is stubbornly ambivalent in its potentiality, an object of desire that we’re not entirely certain how to acquire or substantiate, but one that the state – reified through the bodies of politicians, Indigenous or otherwise – is telling us we need. In fact, Justice Murray Sinclair noted that the launch of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report on December 15, 2015, puts us at the “threshold of a new era in this country.”1 I am interested in how life might be lived willfully and badly in the face of governmental forms of redress when many of us are stretched thin, how reconciliation, though instantiating a noticeable shift in the national affective atmosphere,2 doesn’t actually remake the substance of the social or the political such that we’re still tethered to scenes of living that can’t sustain us. What I am trying to get at is: reconciliation works insofar as it is a way of looking forward to being in this world, at the expense of more radical projects like decolonization that want to experiment with different strategies for survival.3 This way of doing things isn’t working and, because of that, optimism is hard to come by. According to cultural theorist Ann Cvetkovich, political depression emerges from the realization “that customary forms of political response, including direct action and critical analysis, are no longer working either to change the world or to make us feel better.”4 It is the pestering sense that whatever you do, it won’t be enough; that things will continue uninterrupted, teasing you because something different is all you’ve wanted from the start. To be politically depressed is to worry about the temporal reach of neoliberal projects like reconciliation, to question their orientation toward the future because the present requires all of your energy in order to feel like anything but dying. Political depression is of a piece with a dispossessory enterprise that remakes the topography of the ordinary such that the labour of maintaining one’s life becomes too hard to keep up. We have to wait for the then and there in the here and now; how do we preserve ourselves until then? As Leanne Simpson points out, reconciliation has been reparative for some survivors, encouraging them to tell their stories, to keep going, so to speak.5 But, what of the gendered and racialized technologies of violence that created our scenes of living, scenes we’ve been forced to think are of our own choosing? Optimism for the work of reconciliation disappeared in the face of multiple crises: of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, of HIV infection rates, of mass incarceration, of diabetes, of suicide. Reconciliation, at once a heuristic and a form of statecraft, fakes a political that doesn’t actually exist as such, one that not only presupposes that we – Indigenous peoples, that is – are willing to stay attached to it, but that we are already folded into it, that we’ve already consented to it. What does it mean, for example, to consent to a nation-to-nation relationship if there are no other options to choose from? Reconciliation wants so badly to be a keyword of sorts, to contain so much inside its semantic confines, to be “wide-reaching in its explanatory power.”6 I’m not surprised things have started to leak all over the place. Decolonization might need something of an affective turn: I think there are ways of being attuned to our bodies such that we can gauge if our visceral responses are trained or not, parasitic or not. In short: what do our tears signal, what do his – Justin Trudeau’s – signal? We cry because pain holds our world together. I don’t want pain to hold our world together anymore. Perhaps admitting we are politically depressed is one of the most important things we could do in this day and age. When survival becomes radical and death becomes part and parcel of the ordinary itself, political depression might be our only point of departure. But, political depression is also about dreaming up alternatives that can sustain your attachments to life. Cvetkovich reminds us that we need “other affective tools for transformation” because hope and blind allegiance have failed too many of us too often.7 I am interested in the generative work of pessimism, how being fed up propels us onward, and keeps us grounded in the now, such that we can make it to the future, even if that’s just tomorrow. As Kim TallBear put it, we’ve been living in a post-apocalyptic world (in its ecological ruins and in the face of its crisis-making politics) for quite some time,8 one that exhausts our bodies to the point of depression and death and one that slowly removes us from the non-normative or the astray.9 We are stuck in the thick of things, left clinging to an impasse without an exit strategy. We might need reconciliation today, but Indigenous peoples need a more capacious world-building project for tomorrow, one that can bear all of us and the sovereignties built into our breathing. We should not be asked: do you want the world today? Instead, we should be asking: does the world want us?
10/17/21
SeptOct - NC - Kant
Tournament: Meadows | Round: 4 | Opponent: Marlborough WR | Judge: Lena Mizrahi The meta-ethic is practical reason— 1 Inescapability— I can question why to follow or the validity of an ethical theory, which concedes the authority of reason as if I question reason, I use reason to question. Outweighs on validity—any other truth risks falsity Reality may be fake, our experiences may be arbitrary, and experience may be descriptive not normative, but questioning the validity of reason requires reason, conceding its validity. Any other ethic begs the question of why, meaning it’s arbitrary and nonbinding 2 Action theory— Only reason can explain why we take transitional action to an overall end. For example, setting the end of tea provides me a reason to unify the necessary actions to produce tea, like getting a pot, filling it with water, etc. Any other explanation fails since it can’t give meaning to why we take transitioning action – freezing action. 2 Impacts— a That’s a side constraint on the AC—ethics is a guide to action so it must appeal to a structure of action. b Bindingness—reason is intrinsic to actions since only it can provide value to transitioning action, which justifies universality That justifies universality— If we are all reasoners, we must all be able to determine if an action is good. An action that maximizes my freedom at the cost of others then would have to be recognized as good by everyone, but that leads to a contradiction where everyone takes other’s freedoms to maximize theirs, making it impossible to reach my end Thus, the standard is respecting a system of inner and outer freedom
Now Negate: Reducing IP law uses people as a means to an end violating their freedom. Kornyo, 14 (Emmanuel Kornyo, 9-11-2014, accessed on 8-14-2021, Journals.library.columbia, "Patent Protection and the Global Access to Essential Pharmaceuticals during Patent Infringements under TRIPS| Voices in Bioethics", https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/bioethics/article/view/6467)WWPP When I think of a categorical imperative I know at once what it contains. For, since the imperative contains, beyond the law, only the necessity that the maxim be in conformity with this law, while the law contains no condition to which it would be limited, nothing is left with which the maxim of action is to conform but the universality of a law as such ... There is, therefore, only a single categorical imperative and it is this: act only in accordance with thatmaxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.xiv In addition, the principle of deontology imposes an obligation on all people to never use another human being as a means to attain an end. In other words, the end does not justify the means. Hence, in dire humanitarian crises such as the HIV case, by breaking the patent, the government of these countries “used” the intellectual property of these patents to attain their own local or national needs. One cannot use the larger interest of the population to the exclusion of the investors or patent holders who have rights as well.xv
No kant affirms args – functionall a 1ar add on which makes negating impossible – forces 2nr to split and spend time answering a NEW advantage – also incentivizes affs to kick case and just read new offense. Independently all of their kant affirms args will j be based on conseqeunces which isn’t kant offense. No new 1ar framework – they didn’t read one in the 1ac, they don’t get one in the 1ar – incentivizes affs to read new 1ar frameworks that exclude all neg offense which makes it impossible to negate.
11/3/21
SeptOct - T - For Medicine vs Data Exclusivity
Tournament: Heart of Texas | Round: 4 | Opponent: Southlake Carroll PK | Judge: Annabelle Long Interpretation: Intellectual property for medicine only refers to patents. Oxfam Oxfam is a British founded confederation of 20 independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International. It is a major nonprofit group with an extensive collection of operations, “Intellectual property and access to medicine”, No Date, https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/issues/economic-well-being/intellectual-property-and-access-to-medicine///pranav - Independently – becomes an alt cause to plan solvency Intellectual property (IP) has different forms; in the case of access to medicines, we are talking about patents. Patents are a public policy instrument aimed at stimulating innovation. By providing a monopoly through a patent—which gives inventors an economic advantage—governments seek to provide an incentive for RandD. At the same time, the public benefits from technological advancement. Violation: Data exclusivity is IP on data from clinical trials, not on the medicine itself and is distinct from patent protection. 1AC Thrasher ’21 Rachel, received a JD and a master’s degree in international relations, both from Boston University. She works on policy issues related to trade and investment agreements, trade law and development, economic relations between developing countries, and multilateral environmental agreements. She is the co-editor, alongside former Pardee Center Director Adil Najam, of a Pardee-sponsored book titled The Future of South-South Economic Relations. She teaches a course on trade and development at the Pardee School of Global Studies and continues to research areas of trade and investment agreements and their impact on development policy as part of the Global Economic Governance Initiative at Boston University, “Chart of the Week: How Data Exclusivity Laws Impact Drug Prices”, 05-21-2021, https://www.bu.edu/gdp/2021/05/25/chart-of-the-week-how-data-exclusivity-laws-impact-drug-prices///pranav Data exclusivity is a form of intellectual property protection that applies specifically to data from pharmaceutical clinical trials. While innovator firms run their own clinical trials to gain marketing approval, generic manufacturers typically rely on the innovator’s clinical trials for the same approval. Data exclusivity rules keep generic firms from relying on that data for 5 to 12 years, depending on the specific law. Data exclusivity operates independently of patent protection and can block generic manufacturers from gaining marketing approval even if the patent has expired or the original pharmaceutical product does not qualify for patent protection. Vote neg for limits – their interp explodes the topic to intellectual property protections on things other than medicine – that includes food, music, clinical trials, and more, all with distinct scenarios and no unified neg ground which makes pre-round prep impossible, killing clash. That controls the internal link to education – only terminal impact in debate and fairness – only thing under the judge’s jurisdiction. CI: 1 rtb – debaters keep being marginally abusive 2 collapses – debate ab specified briteline
No rvis – silly and illogical – shouldn’t iwn for proving ur topical
10/17/21
SeptOct - T - Medicine vs CRISPR
Tournament: Heart of Texas | Round: 5 | Opponent: Immaculate Heart AW | Judge: Jeannine Lopez Interpretation: Medicine is a substance used for diagnosis, treatment, mitigation, or prevention of medical condition Hettiarachchi and Wijesinge 21, Charith, and Sanath WijesingheCharith Amidha Hettiarachchi* Visiting Scholar, Department of Public Health, Faculty of Heath, University of Technology Sydney, Australia and Post-Doctoral Scholar, Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka. PhD Researcher, Faculty of Law, school of Law, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia and Lecturer in Law, Department of Legal Studies, The Open University of Sri Lanka. “Food-Medicine Interface and Its Application in International Level, Comparative Jurisdictions and Sri Lankan Legal Context.” World Nutrition 12 (March 31, 2021): 103–11. https://doi.org/10.26596/wn.2021121103-111.//anop The definition of medicine stipulated in Therapeutic Goods Act of 1989 of New South Wales, Australia (Federal Register of Legislation, 2020) and the Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1940 of India and the Medicines Act of 1968 of United Kingdom (Legislation.Gov.UK, 2020) provides a similar meaning to that of the definition embodied in National Medicines Regulatory Authority Act of 2015 of Sri Lanka, irrespective of the different terminology used in those legislations. According to the National Medicines Regulatory Authority Act of 2015 of Sri Lanka, medicine includes ‘any substance or mixture of substances manufactured, sold, offered for sale or represented for use in the diagnosis, treatment, mitigation or prevention of disease, abnormal physical states or the symptoms thereof in man or animal; and restoring, correcting or modifying functions of organs in man or animal; a medicine or combination of medicine ready for use and placed on the market under a special name or in a characteristic form, both patent and non-proprietary preparations; a product made out of medicinal herbal extract; nutraceutical with therapeutic claims; and vaccines and sera, but does not include an Ayurvedic medicine or Homoeopathic medicine’ (Government Publication Bureau, 2015). Therefore, medicine is simply identified as a substance that used for diagnosis, treatment, mitigation or prevention of a medical condition. The Sri Lankan definition of medicine excludes Ayurveda medicines from its scope. Hence, Ayurveda medicines do not come under the purview of National Medicines Regulatory Authority Act of 2015 and but fall in the scope of Ayurveda Act of 1961. Prefer: Real world education: our definition is used by five different countries in WTO – more internationally recognized – outweighs because WHO is an international organization. Violation: crispr isn’t a “substance”, it’s a technique which is distinct. Khatri ’19 Minesh, assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and is board certified in nephology and internal medicine. He received his medical degree from Duke University, completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Washington, and completed a nephrology fellowship at Columbia University.Khatri is an author of numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals and a member of leading medical societies in internal medicine and nephrology. Aside from taking care of patients, Khatri is also actively involved in medical education, “What Is CRISPR?”, 10-14-2019, https://www.webmd.com/cancer/guide/crispr-facts-overview//pranav CRISPR isn’t a drug. It’s a technique. The goal is to cut out and fix glitches in your genes that threaten your health. Although it’s not the first gene-editing method scientists have tried, it’s the simplest, fastest, and most accurate. And that makes it a game-changer. CRISPR is short for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat.” It’s a bit of DNA that scientists first noticed in the immune system of bacteria. That inspired the gene-editing technique that everyone now calls CRISPR. Those bacteria use CRISPR like a “Most Wanted” list. When a virus attacks, the bacteria memorize the virus’s DNA and file its profile in their CRISPR. If that same virus attacks again later on, the bacteria pull up its file in CRISPR and copy it. That copy acts like an assassin: It hunts down the virus and cuts its DNA to destroy it. Sfera is about a drug CRISPR CREATED which is distinct from CRISPR being a drug itself. Standards: 1 limits – their model explodes the topic into the fringes of what can promote health, such as medical tech, toiletries, and food. 2 impacts: a engagement – explodes affs which creates unfair prep burdens where neg doesn’t have predictable ground to all affs – results in neg reading generics which always lets aff win and kills well-researched clash. Clash o/w – it’s the only thing unique to debate. Ground outweighs on sequencing– pre-round prep controls the i/l to in round abuse
b topic lit – they shift to discussions outside of public health. Kills quality of clash because it’s not the core of the topic lit and current events. Outweighs – even if they can increase clash, there’s no application of it
10/17/21
SeptOct - T - Medicine vs Cannabis
Tournament: Greenhill RR | Round: 4 | Opponent: Sequoia AS | Judge: Austin Broussard, Gerard Grigsby Interp – “medicines” prevent, diagnose, or treat harms MRS 20 (MAINE REVENUE SERVICE SALES, FUEL and SPECIAL TAX DIVISION) “A REFERENCE GUIDE TO THE SALES AND USE TAX LAW” https://www.maine.gov/revenue/sites/maine.gov.revenue/files/inline-files/Reference20Guide202020.pdf December 2020 SS Medicines means antibiotics, analgesics, antipyretics, stimulants, sedatives, antitoxins, anesthetics, antipruritics, hormones, antihistamines, certain “dermal fillers” (such as BoTox®), injectable contrast agents, vitamins, oxygen, vaccines and other substances that are used in the prevention, diagnosis or treatment of disease or injury and that either (1) require a prescription in order to be purchased or administered to the retail consumer or patient; or (2) are sold in packaging.
Violation – Interpretation: Medicine is a drug used in prevention Lexico ND (Lexico dictionary) https://www.lexico.com/definition/medicine BC The science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease (in technical use often taken to exclude surgery) ‘he made distinguished contributions to pathology and medicine’ A drug or other preparation for the treatment or prevention of disease. ‘give her some medicine’ To be a medicine a substance must meet FDA standards FDA no date https://www.fda.gov/industry/regulated-products/human-drugs What is a drug? The FDA defines a drug, in part, as “intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease” and “articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals.” Refer to section 201(g) of the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDandC Act). The definition also includes components of drugs, such as active pharmaceutical ingredients. If you are unsure if your product is a drug or a cosmetic, visit the Is It a Cosmetic, a Drug, or Both? (Or Is It Soap?) page for more information. What drug requirements are verified at the time of importation? Imported drugs must meet FDA’s standards for quality, safety and effectiveness. FDA will verify compliance with the following requirements as applicable: Registration Listing Drug application Drug labeling Drug current good manufacturing practices (cGMPs) Cannabis isn’t a medicine – they are conflating having medicinal properties with medicines CDC ND (Center for the Disease Control and Prevention) “Is marijuana medicine?” https://www.cdc.gov/marijuana/faqs/is-marijuana-medicine.html BC Is marijuana medicine? The marijuana plant has chemicals that may help symptoms for some health problems. More and more states are making it legal to use the plant as medicine for certain conditions. But there isn’t enough research to show that the whole plant works to treat or cure these conditions. Also, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)External has not recognized or approved the marijuana plant as medicine. Because marijuana is often smoked, it can damage your lungs and cardiovascular system (e.g., heart and blood vessels). These and other damaging effects on the brain and body could make marijuana more harmful than helpful as a medicine. Another problem with marijuana as a medicine is that the ingredients aren’t exactly the same from plant to plant. There’s no way to know what kind and how much of a chemical you’re getting. Cannabis isn’t a medicine – Madras 16 (Bertha, Madras is a professor of psychobiology in the Department of Psychiatry and the chair of the Division of Neurochemistry at Harvard Medical School, Harvard University; she served as associate director for public education in the division on Addictions at Harvard Medical School.) “Opinion: 5 reasons marijuana is not medicine” The Washington Post, 4/29/2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/04/29/5-reasons-marijuana-is-not-medicine/ BC Yet unlike drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration, “dispensary marijuana” has no quality control, no standardized composition or dosage for specific medical conditions. It has no prescribing information or no high-quality studies of effectiveness or long-term safety. While the FDA is not averse to approving cannabinoids as medicines and has approved two cannabinoid medications, the decision to keep marijuana in Schedule I was reaffirmed in a 2015 federal court ruling. That ruling was correct. To reside in Schedules II-V and be approved for diagnosing, mitigating, treating or curing a specific medical condition, a substance or botanical must proceed through a rigorous FDA scientific process proving safety and efficacy. Not one form of “dispensary marijuana” with a wide range of THC levels — butane hash oil, smokables, vapors, edibles, liquids — has gone through this rigorous process for a single medical condition (let alone 20 to 40 conditions). To approve a medicine, the FDA requires five criteria to be fulfilled:
The drug’s chemistry must be known and reproducible. Evidence of a standardized product, consistency, ultra-high purity, fixed dose and a measured shelf life are required by the FDA. The chemistry of “dispensary marijuana” is not standardized. Smoked, vaporized or ingested marijuana may deliver inconsistent amounts of active chemicals. Levels of the main psychoactive constituent, THC, can vary from 1 to 80 percent. Cannabidiol (known as CBD) produces effects opposite to THC, yet THC-to-CBD ratios are unregulated. 2. There must be adequate safety studies. “Dispensary marijuana” cannot be studied or used safely under medical supervision if the substance is not standardized. And while clinical research on long-term side effects has not been reported, drawing from recreational users we know that marijuana impairs or degrades brain function, and intoxicating levels interfere with learning, memory, cognition and driving. Long-term use is associated with addiction to marijuana or other drugs, loss of motivation, reduced IQ, psychosis, anxiety, excessive vomiting, sleep problems and reduced lifespan. Without a standardized product and long-term studies, the safety of indefinite use of marijuana remains unknown. 3. There must be adequate and well-controlled studies proving efficacy. Twelve meta-analyses of clinical trials scrutinizing smoked marijuana and cannabinoids conclude that there is no or insufficient evidence for the use of smoked marijuana for specific medical conditions. There are no studies of raw marijuana that include high-quality, unbiased, blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled or long-duration trials. 4. The drug must be accepted by well-qualified experts. Medical associations generally call for more cannabinoid research but do not endorse smoked marijuana as a medicine. The American Medical Association: "Cannabis is a dangerous drug and as such is a public health concern"; the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: "Medicalization" of smoked marijuana has distorted the perception of the known risks and purposed benefits of this drug;" the American Psychiatric Association: "No current scientific evidence that marijuana is in any way beneficial for treatment of any psychiatric disorder ‚Ķ the approval process should go through the FDA." 5. Scientific evidence must be widely available. The evidence for approval of medical conditions in state ballot and legislative initiatives did not conform to rigorous, objective clinical trials nor was it widely available for scrutiny. Negate – 1 Limits – their model explodes it to medical devices, home remedies, anything that remotely treats and more – only our definition creates a reasonable caselist for medicines while they make prep impossible and wreck engagement 2 Precision – MRS is a legal definition of medicines from codified law and has intent to define which proves we’re right and consistent with topic lit
9/17/21
SeptOct - T - Reduce
Tournament: Greenhill RR | Round: 4 | Opponent: Sequoia AS | Judge: Austin Broussard, Gerard Grigsby Interp – reductions are permanent Reynolds 59. Judge (In the Matter of Doris A. Montesani, Petitioner, v. Arthur Levitt, as Comptroller of the State of New York, et al., Respondents NO NUMBER IN ORIGINAL Supreme Court of New York, Appellate Division, Third Department 9 A.D.2d 51; 189 N.Y.S.2d 695; 1959 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 7391 August 13, 1959) Section 83's counterpart with regard to nondisability pensioners, section 84, prescribes a reduction only if the pensioner should again take a public job. The disability pensioner is penalized if he takes any type of employment. The reason for the difference, of course, is that in one case the only reason pension benefits are available is because the pensioner is considered incapable of gainful employment, while in the other he has fully completed his "tour" and is considered as having earned his reward with almost no strings attached. It would be manifestly unfair to the ordinary retiree to accord the disability retiree the benefits of the System to which they both belong when the latter is otherwise capable of earning a living and had not fulfilled his service obligation. If it were to be held that withholdings under section 83 were payable whenever the pensioner died or stopped his other employment the whole purpose of the provision would be defeated, i.e., the System might just as well have continued payments during the other employment since it must later pay it anyway. The section says "reduced", does not say that monthly payments shall be temporarily suspended; it says that the pension itself shall be reduced. The plain dictionary meaning of the word is to diminish, lower or degrade. The word "reduce" seems adequately to indicate permanency. Aside from the practical aspect indicating permanency other indicia point to the same conclusion. From 1924 (L. 1924, ch. 619) to 1947 (L. 1947, ch. 841) a provision appeared in the Civil Service Law which read substantially as follows: "If the pension of a beneficiary is reduced for any reason, the amount of such reduction shall be transferred from the pension reserve fund to the pension accumulation fund during that period that such reduction is in effect." (See L. 1924, ch. 619, § 2 Civil Service Law, § 58, subd. 4; L. 1947, ch. 841 Civil Service Law, § 66, subd. e.) This provision reappears in the 1955 Retirement and Social Security Law as subdivision f of section 24. This provision is useful for interpretative purposes. Since it prescribes that moneys not paid because of reduction should be transferred back to the accumulation fund the conclusion is inescapable that such reductions were meant to be permanent. If temporary suspensions were intended this bookkeeping device would result in a false picture of the funds, i.e., the reserve fund would be depleted when it would contain adequate funds to meet eventual payments 57*57 to present pensioners. Likewise, the accumulation fund would be improperly inflated with respect to the present pensioners. Section 64 of the Retirement and Social Security Law (§ 85 under the 1947 act) provides that any disability pension must be reduced by the amount payable pursuant to the Workmen's Compensation Law if applicable. In Matter of Dalton v. City of Yonkers (262 App. Div. 321, 323 1941) this court interpreted "reduce" to mean "offset" in holding that under then section 67 (relating to Workmen's Compensation benefits as do its successors sections 85 and 64), pensions were to be offset by compensation benefits. This is merely another indication that "reduce" means a diminishing of the pension pursuant to a given formula rather than a mere recoverable, temporary suspension during the time other benefits or salaries are being received by the pensioner. (Also, cf., Retirement and Social Security Law, § 101 § 84 under the 1947 act.)
Violation –
Negate – 1 Limits and topic lit – their model allows adding on infinite random suspensions to IP protections, anything from conditioning IP protections on human rights to monopolistic tendencies – the core of the debate is reducing IP protections, not temporarily suspending them 2 Precision—they justify the aff arbitrarily doing away with words in the resolution – nothing stops them defending telemedicine or big pharma bad next
Voters: Fairness and education are voters – debate’s a game that needs rules to evaluate it and education gives us portable skills for life like research and thinking. Precision o/w – anything else justifies the aff arbitrarily jettisoning words in the resolution at their whim which decks negative ground and preparation because the aff is no longer bounded by the resolution. Drop the debater – a) they have a 7-6 rebuttal advantage and the 2ar to make args I can’t respond to, b) it deters future abuse and sets a positive norm. Use competing interps – a) reasonability invites arbitrary judge intervention since we don’t know your bs meter, b) collapses to competing interps – we justify 2 brightlines under an offense defense paradigm just like 2 interps. No RVIs – a) illogical – you shouldn’t win for being fair – it’s a litmus test for engaging in substance,
b) norming – I can’t concede the counterinterp if I realize I’m wrong which forces me to argue for bad norms, c) baiting – incentivizes good debaters to be abusive, bait theory, then collapse to the 1AR RVI, d) topic ed – prevents 1AR blipstorm scripts and allows us to get back to substance after resolving theory
9/17/21
SeptOct - T - Vaccines
Tournament: Grapevine | Round: 2 | Opponent: Lexington BF | Judge: Samantha Mclaughlin Interp – “medicines” treat or cure, whereas vaccines prevent – o/w on specificity since it’s about the COVID vaccine Vecchio 7/22 (Christopher Vecchio, CFA, Senior Strategist 7-22-2021, “Delta Variant Concerns Won't Cripple Markets, US Economy“, DailyFX, accessed: 8-9-2021, https://www.dailyfx.com/forex/video/daily_news_report/2021/07/22/market-minutes-delta-variant-concerns-wont-cripple-markets-us-economy.html) ajs Let’s stick to the facts. The COVID-19 vaccines are not medicines, which by definition “treat or cure diseases.” Vaccines “help prevent diseases,” an important distinction. Why does this matter? Because data coming out of some of the world’s developed economies with high adult vaccination rates suggest that the vaccines are working as intended: tail-risks have been reduced, with hospitalizations and deaths falling relative to the recent spike in infections (which have been occurring primarily among the unvaccinated at this point). Put another way, vaccines are like a Kevlar vest for the immune system; while they don’t make you bulletproof, they dramatically increase the odds of surviving an adverse event.s Violation – their advantage area is about vaccines which means either a. they solve nothing and vote neg on presumption because vaccines aren’t “COVID-19 medicines” or b. they violate
Negate – 1 Limits – expanding the topic to preventative treatment or medical interventions allows anything from surgery to medical devices to education strategies or mosquito repellent to prevent malaria. Destroys core generics like innovation which are exclusive to disease curing – core of the topic is about proprietary information.
Voters: Drop the debater – they have a 7-6 rebuttal advantage and the 2ar to make args I can’t respond to, Use competing interps reasonability invites arbitrary judge intervention since we don’t know your bs meter, No RVIs –illogical – you shouldn’t win for being fair – it’s a litmus test for engaging in substance, Evaluate T before 1AR theory – norms – we only have a couple months to set T norms but can set 1AR theory norms anytime,
9/13/21
SeptOct - Theory - Cant specify medicines
Tournament: Grapevine | Round: 2 | Opponent: Lexington BF | Judge: Samantha Mclaughlin Interpretation: The aff may not defend WTO member nations reducing intellectual property protections for a subset of medicines.
Violation – they only defend COVID-19 medicines
Vote neg: 1 Limits – you can pick anything from COVID vaccines to marijuana to random biotech to insulin treatments and there’s no universal disad since each one has a different function and implication for health, tech, and relations – explodes neg prep and leads to random medicine of the week affs which makes cutting stable neg links impossible. PICs don’t solve – it’s absurd to say neg potential abuse justifies the aff being flat out not T, which leads to a race towards abuse. Limits key to reciprocal engagement since they create a caselist for neg prep. 2 TVA – read the aff as an advantage to a whole rez aff.
9/13/21
SeptOct - Theory - Nearly All
Tournament: Heart of Texas | Round: Doubles | Opponent: Wenatchee JK | Judge: Chris Castillo, Derek Hilligoss, Annabelle Long Interp: if the affirmative specifies “nearly all medicines”, they must clarify what “nearly all” means in the 1AC Violation: They didn’t.
Vote neg for pre-round prep: makes it impossible to construct an effective 1nc pre-round bc I don’t know what medicines the aff actually defends, so I can’t cut new disad links – CX is too late bc the majority of prep time is pre-round + it’s not enough time to cut new links and redo the 1nc – voter for fairness and education. Frame through competing interps: 1 reasonability causes a race to the bottom where debaters keep being marginally abusive 2 collapses bc we debate ab a specified briteline 3 controls the internal link to substance ed – only through enacting effective norms can we have good substance debates