Kinkaid+KS+–+Layne+Kirshon+&+Craig+Smyser+aff

Landmines Empathy Version was read.
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Kinkaid (All Teams) – Affirmative – Patents

OBSERVATION ONE: PATENT DISREGARD 21ST CENTURY PLANET EARTH: THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WORLDWIDE INFECTED WITH HIV HAS REACHED MONUMENTAL PROPORTIONS. THE WORD ‘EPIDEMIC’ IS NOW COMMONPLACE IN POLITICAL DISCUSSIONS. YET, MAGIC JOHNSON LOOKS HEALTHY AS EVER. THIS IS BECAUSE RECENT MEDICAL ADVANCES HAVE MADE POSSIBLE AMAZING TREATMENT OPTIONS WHICH CAN BLOCK THE TRANSMISSION THE VIRUS FROM MOTHER TO CHILD, PREVENT OR DELAY ITS DEVELOPMENT INTO AIDS, AND SIGNIFICANTLY PROLONG THE LIVES OF THOSE LIVING WITH IT. IRONICALLY, THOUGH, THE PLACES WHERE THESE DRUGS ARE MOST NEEDED ARE THE PLACES WHERE THEY ARE LEAST ACCESSIBLE. AND SO THE WORLD WATCHES IDLY AS MILLIONS ‐ LITERALLY MILLIONS ‐ OF PEOPLE DIE ANNUALLY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA FROM A CONDITION TOTALLY TREATABLE FOR NBA STARS. Fidler, Prof. of Law @ Indiana Univ, 2003. [David, “Racism or Realpolitik? U.S. Foreign Policy and the HIV/AIDS Catastrophe in Sub-Saharan Africa.” In Journal of Gender, Race, and Justice. Spring 2003 #7]

WHILE THE RACISM OF US FOREIGN POLICY IS MADE EVIDENT BY THE AIDS CRISIS, THIS IS NOT EXCLUSIVELY OR EVEN PRIMARILY A RACE ISSUE. RATHER THE IDEOLOGY WHICH DENIES AFRICANS ACCESS TO LIFE SAVING MEDICATIONS IS THAT OF CAPITALISM. AMERICAN PHARMACUETICAL COMPANIES MAKE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS EACH YEAR OFF OF THE SALE OF PATENTED ARVS. THE ECONOMIC RATIONALE ENTERED INTO BY THESE COMPANIES AND THE INSTITUTIONS THAT GOVERN THEM IS ONE THAT CONDEMNS ENTIRE POPULATIONS TO DEATH IN THE NAME OF PROFIT. THE LIVES OF AFRICANS LIVING WITH AIDS ARE JUST AS EXPENDABLE AS THE 18 MILLION DOLLARS THAT Pfizer CEO Henry McKinnell TAKES HOME EACH YEAR. LET US BE EXPLICIT, THERE IS NOTHING STANDING BETWEEN AFRICANS WITH AIDS AND ESSENTIAL MEDICATIONS BUT THE GREED OF BIG PHARMA AND THE GUTLESSNESS OF AMERICAN POLITICIANS. Adam Sitze, professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College. “Denialism.” The South Atlantic Quarterly 103.4 (2004) 769-811 WELL ISOLATE TWO IMPACTS: FIRST IS ETHICS. OUR OBLIGATION TO OTHERS PRECEDES ANY POLITICAL RATIONALITY. WE ARE OBLIGATED TO RESPOND PRECISELY BECAUSE OF OUR SITUATEDNESS WITH ALTERITY. GIVEN THIS, IT IS SIMPLY UNCONSCIONABLE TO ALLOW THE DEATHS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE FOR THE RUTHLESS PURSUIT OF PROFIT. Conceição Soares Assistant Professor in Business Ethics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Catholic University of Portugal, in 2k7 [“The HIV/AIDS crisis and corporate moral responsibility in the light of the Levinasian notions of proximity and the Third,” Business Ethics: A European Review 16.3, July 2007, p.278] THIS MEANS THAT SUBMITTING THE PLAN TO CALCULATION, ECONOMIC OR POLITICAL RATIONALITY IS A FORFEITURE OF ETHICAL OBLIGATION. WE ARE RESPONSIBLE, PRIMARILY, FOR OUR RELATIONSHIP TO THE OTHER. THIS MEANS THAT THE SUFFERING OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS DEMANDS OUR IMMEDIATE POLITICAL ATTENTION. THEIR DISADS CONDITION THIS RESPONSIBILITY WHICH EFFACES ETHICS. Conceição Soares Assistant Professor in Business Ethics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Catholic University of Portugal, in 2k [“The HIV/AIDS crisis and corporate moral responsibility in the light of the Levinasian notions of proximity and the Third,” Business Ethics: A European Review 16.3, July 2007, p.278] SECOND IS SACRAFICIAL KILLING. THE ECONOMICS OF THE STATUS QUO ROUTINELY SACRAFICE HUMAN LIFE FOR PROFIT. THIS VIOLENT MODE OF LIFE FEEDS ON THE DISPENSIBILITY OF THOSE ON THE MARGINS OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY FOR THE LUXURY OF THE SUBURBS. DARWINIAN THOUGH IT SOUNDS, THIS GAME OF SURVIVAL IS LESS LIKELY TO PRODUCE AN UBERMENCH THAN TO KILL THE ENTIRE WORLD UNDER THE AUSPICES OF SAVING IT. THE MASS SACRAFICE OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS IN AFRICA DEMONSTRATES THE GENOCIDAL TRAJECTORY OF CAPITALISM GENERALLY WHICH, LEFT UNDISTURBED, WILL SURELY RESULT IN COLLECTIVE SUICIDE. Santos, Director of Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra, 2003 [Boaventura de Sousa, “Collective Suicide?,” Bad Subjects #63, April, eserver.org/bs/63/santos.html]

Thus Ryan and I stand resolved that: The United States federal government should substantially increase AIDS essential medications to Sub Saharan Africa regardless of relevant patent law.

Observation 2: Disregarding Patents THE PLAN IS NOT MERELY A PRAGMATIC POLITICAL INTERVENTION, BUT AN EXPLOSIVELY REVOLUTIONARY ECONOMIC GESTURE. THE DEMAND FOR AIDS ESSENTIAL MEDICATION IS A DEMAND AGAINST THE PREDATORY MODEL OF CAPITALISM WHICH ENSURES THE DEATH OF MANY FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF A FEW. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST CORPORATE GREED AND FOR HEALTH IS BY DEFINITION A STRUGGLE AGAINST THE WORST EXCESSES OF CAPITAL. Adam Sitze, professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College. “Denialism.” The South Atlantic Quarterly 103.4 (2004) 769-811

THIS MEANS THAT THE PLAN SHOULD BE READ ACCORDINGLY. IT IS AN IDENTIFICATION WITH THE ABJECT: THOSE EXCLUDED FROM THE GLOBAL MARKETPLACE AND VICTIMIZED BY PRACTICES IT NATURALIZES. THIS IS OUR PRIMARY ETHICO-POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY: TO CONFRONT THE VIOLENCE OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM. THE IDEOLOGY OF CAPITALISM CURRENTLY STRUCTURES OUR PERCEPTION OF REALITY SUCH THAT A UNIVERSAL STRUGGLE AGAINST IT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE. THE CHALLENGE, THEN, IS TO IDENTIFY PARTICULAR EXCESSES OF CAPITALISM AND POLITICIZE THEM IN AN ACT OF UNIVERSALIZATION. PHARMACEUTICAL PATENTS ARE A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF THESE EXCESSES BECAUSE THEY AFFECT SO MANY AND ARE CONTROLLED BY SO FEW, EFFECTIVELY CONDEMNING MILLIONS TO DEATH. THE PLAN IS NOT JUST A PARTICULAR POLITICAL MANEUVER THEN. INVESTED IN IT ARE ALL THE STAKES OF A GLOBAL REVOLUTION AGAINST CAPITALISM AS WE KNOW IT. Daly, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University College Northampton, 2004. [Glyn, Conversations with Zizek, pp. 14-19]

ALL OTHER POSTMODERN STRUGGLES ARE IRRELEVANT SO LONG AS CAPITALISM PROVIDES THE IDEOLOGICAL STAGE FOR THEIR PLAYING OUT. THE ONLY REAL UNIVERSAL POLITICAL OPTION IS TO POLITICIZE THE ECONOMY. THIS MAKES ALL OTHER LIBERATORY STRUGGLES POSSIBLE. Zizek, Prof of Sociology, Univ. of Ljubljana, 2004. (Slavoj, Ticklish Subject p. 356)

Kinkaid (All Teams) – Affirmative – Landmines

Observation 1: The forgotten epidemic The Greatest challenge to public health in sub-Saharan Africa is landmines. Landmines directly harm tens of thousands and the devastate African societies. Sarah Taylor of the land mine action information center states in 2002 [Journal of Mine Action Dec. 2002] 1/3 [Just three percent of all arable land in Angola is currently under cultivation… This is nearly impossible]

And, Africa is the most mined continent in the world. They lack resources to address The Hidden Plague. Oyugi 04 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kenya) [Africa remains the most mine-affected continent. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 22 countries are mine-affected…Some of the mine-affected States in the continent are among the world’s weakest economies]

And, US apathy is not accidental, rather, US has failed to assist in demining because those suffering, do not meet our narrow lens of national security. Kidd 04 (Acting Deputy Assitant Secretary for Politica-Military Affairs) [Thank you Colonel Jordan. I will now describe the overall US Humanitarian Mine Action Strategic Plan. It is designed to…and host nation’s own genuine commitment to helping to rid itself of its landmines.]

Contention 2 – Harms Scenario 1 – Mined Mayhem

Landmines cause mass suffering in Africa. They kill more than all weapons of mass destruction resulting in millions losing their lives, disease spread, and famine. Oppong and Kalipeni 03 (professor in department of geography at UNT and the later associate professor of geography and African studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) [Most of these victims are civilians killed or injured after hostilities have ended. Of the sixty-five countries reporting new landmine causalities...The increased frequency of blood transfusions facilitates the spread of syphilis, hepatitis, malaria, and HIV.]

Famine is an unnecessary massacre – we must take every step to challenge the conditions that cause hunger. Abadale 07 (Ramine, “Famine is an absurd Massace”, I’humanitie, May 5) [Jean Ziegler, main protagonist of Erwin Wagenhofer’s documentary ‘We feed the world,’ is also the Un Sepcial Rappoteur on the Right to Food and the…This is an absurd and useless massacre perpetrated by the world order of globalised financial capital.]

And, mines kill millions in Africa. The ! is staggering and outweigs all other weapons of mass destruction. It affects everyone in Sub-Saharan Africa. Day 98 (Sr. Lecturer, Public Health, University of Zimbabwe [An individual woman peasant farmer seeks to prepare her field for planting and loses a leg…have killed more people than all the cold war weapons of mass destruction combined.]

Scenario 2 – The camp

The scourge of landmines forces millions to flee fertile lands generating refugees, incubating disease, and causing wholesale displacement of populations. Oppong and Kalipeni 5 “The geography of landmines and implications for health and disease in africa: a political ecology approach” [As an environmental problem, landmines have profound medical and economic consequences…more than nine thousand cattle have been reported killed in minefields since 1980 in Zimbabwe, representing a loss of income of some Z$15 million]

Refugee camps become prisons of death. 3000 Refugees die a day while genocidal leaders profit form their suffering. Stevens 2006 “Jacob, New Left Review 42, November-December 2006 PRISONS OF THE STATELESS” [The new framework for dealing with large refugee crisis…For those who have followed the intensifying conflicts in Afghanistan, her optimism will not prove too infectious.]

These refugees are denaturalized and exposed to the barest of life outside of the nation state. This attempt to deny the value of life to refugees is the root of Nazi genocide and racist eugenics. We must infuse our humanitarian ethic with politics in order to eliminate the state of exception inherent in the refuge camps. Giorgio Agamben 98 “professor of philosophy, university of Verona, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life” [If refugees (whose number has continued to grow in our century…either in the state order of in the figure of human rights.] THE PLAN: THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHOULD SUBSTANTIALLY INCREASE ITS DEMINING PUBLIC HEALTH ASSISTANCE TO SUB-SAHARN AFRICA BY PROVIDING NECESSARY FINANCIAL AND LOGISTICAL SUPPORT.

Contention 3 – Solvency

The united states is the best and only agent for demining in Africa. The US empirically succeeds at demining, but the US needs to fully commit to the entire region. Kindig, 02 “Sarah E., James Madison University Fellow office of humanitarian demining programs, US department of state” 3 pg. card [The united state’s government’s Humanitarian Demining Program seeks to relieve human suffering…to sustain economies and provide holistic health care to thousands of landmine survivors. Their fear has been replaced by hope.]

2nd The US holds exclusive rights to the only successful demining technology – quadruple resonance is key. Turner and Williams 06 (Dr. Peter and Caroleen L, Senior Engineer and Director, Government Relations, GE Security Magnetics Center of Excellence, Quantum Magnetics, Inc. Journal of Mine Action, “QR Hits a Homerun: Landmine-Detection Systems based on quadruple resonance technology show progress” issue 9.2 Feb.) [This study explains how quadruple resonance technology…real landmines from clutter would be welcome to deminers, soldiers and citizens alike.]

3rd US deminers train indigenous populations which establishes bonds of trust and empathy necessary to stop violence. Huntington 2000 (NCAFD project director on US National Security and Landmines, December, Patricia S.) [Humanitarian mine clearance is the first step in the development of war-torn…establish important bonds of trust with those who have come to their homeland to assist them.]

4th US Assistance is the only comprehensive program that is effective with different languages, cultures, and countries. Repass 2000 (Deborah, Star Mountain demining support company, “Demining Support System: Field Support for Humanitarian Demining Missions Overseas” – DISAM Journal, winter) [Star mountain first developed the demining support system as a “proof of concept” for the US Navy Office of Special Technology…and create customized maps with the system’s GIS functionality.]

5th US leadership is key – other nations will only stop using landmines if the US sends a message against mines. Social Justice News, 2004 (March, “US Plans Continued Use of Landmines”) [Though there are some positive aspects of this policy…should stop using them]

OUR AFFIRMATIVE SERVES AS A CONDUIT TO EMPATHIZE WITH THE VICTIMS OF LANDMINES AND UNEXPLOEDED ORDINANCES—ONLY BY RECOGNIZING THE US COMPLICITY WITH LANDMINES CRISIS CAN WE BEGIN TO IDENTIFY WITH THE OTHER AND DEHUMYNIZATION Robert Jensen March 02 “It is my experience that people can feel…will choose to know, to feel, and to act”

Kinkaid (All Teams) – Affirmative – Sex Workers/PLO

Observatioin One Inherency

The United States conditions its public health assistance to Sub Saharan Africa based on the attempt to exclude those who work with or materially support sex work. This exclusion denies funding to empirically successful programs COHEN 2005 [Susan A., Director of Government Affair at the Guttmacher Institute, March 2005, “Ominous Convergence: Sex Trafficking, Prostitution and International Family Planning”, The Guttmacher Report on Public Policy 8(1). http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/08/1/gr080112.html]

And, Federal Courts have upheld the Pledge Lynch 2007 [Andrea—four years in the communications program of the International Women’s Health Coalition, where she worked to build global support for sexual and reproductive health rights through developing resources for activists in Africa, Asia, and Latin America while building awareness of how US policies effect women, RH Reality Checks Blog, http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2007/03/05/reattaching-the-strings-to-u-s-funding-for-global-hiv-aids-prevention]

And, this reaction to AIDS serves imperialist and discriminatory agendas that deny agency to “at risk groups” in Africa Freiberg 1991 [Allison, University of Washington, “Of AIDS, Cyborgs, and Other Indiscretions: Resurfacing the Body in the Postmodern.” PostModern Culture 1.3]

CONTENTION TWO HARMS

The Anti Prostitution Pledge is detrimental to public health assistance in Sub Saharan Africa. Without access to resources, sex workers are subject to rampant human rights abuses and are driven underground

Letter to President Bush Opposing Mandatory 'Anti-Prostitution Pledge,' May 18, 2005 [“U.S.: Restrictive Policies Undermine Anti-AIDS Efforts, Letter to President Bush Opposing Mandatory 'Anti-Prostitution Pledge,' which Threatens Lives of Sex Workers and Trafficking Victims,” http://hrw.org/campaigns/hivaids/hiv-aids-letter/]

And, the conditions of funding by the US creates a climate of discrimination and exclusion against sex workers pushing them underground into unsafe practices Jordan 2007 [Ann, Director of the Initiative Against Trafficking in Persons, Global Rights Before the House Subcommittee on Border, Maritime, and Global Counterterrorism, March 20, 2007, http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20070320165954-38416.pdf]

And Human suffering hangs in the balance. The racist and sexist exclusion of sex workers from political rights threatens exclusion, genocide, and the worst forms of political violence based upon ostracization from politics and economic participation. We have an obligation to offer hospitality to the marginalized as an act of solidarity Duarte 2005 [Andre, Prof. of Philosophy @ Universidade Federal do Parana, Curitiba, Brazil: http://hannaharendt.net/research/biopolitics.html, Final Version April 27th]

As we know, Hannah Arendt is among those very few thinkers….of extending hospitality and solidarity towards others.

THUS:

THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHOULD PROVIDE NECESSARY FUNDING AND PUBLIC HEALTH ASSISTANCE TO NON GOVERMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS THAT ARE EXCLUDED DUE TO THEIR SUPPORT FOR AND ADVOCACY OF PROSTITUTION IN SUB SAHARAN AFRICA

Contention Three Solvencey

1ST The US is key. Without an increase in funding NGOs won’t accept other agents Kinney 2006 [Ph.D. Candidate, Jurisprudence & Social Policy, UC Berkeley, 2006 [Edi, “RECENT DEVELOPMENT: Appropriations for the Abolitionists: Undermining Effects of the U.S. Mandatory Anti-Prostitution Pledge in the Fight Against Human Trafficking and HIV/AIDS,” Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice 21, lexis (158)]

2nd Only an Increase in public health assistance can overcome the shallow sentimentality of the status quo. The discursive power of the plan leads to real changes in the lives of the excluded. Yamin 1996 [Alicia, J.D from Harvard Law, board member of Physicians for Human Rights, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Human Rights Quarterly 18.2 (1996) 398-438]

The value of employing a rhetoric of rights in the campaign….the meaning and potentialities of their lives within society.

Third, Ending the Exclusion of sex workers mobilizes larger struggles against oppression of the working poor. The plan has a global effect. Kempadoo 1997 [Prof. UC Boulder. http://www.lolapress.org/artenglish/kempe9.htm. May 1997]

The Impact is staggering as 1/5 of the world suffers from the denial of health. Rights key to empowerment Shah 1999 [Sheetal B, Shah, JD Candidate 1999, Vanderbilt, BA University of Michigan, 32 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 435, p. lexis]

The reality that one fifth of the world’s population….to live with human dignity.