neolib K.docx - 1nc shells Green shell The 1AC is grounded...

Unformatted text preview: 1nc shells Green shell The 1AC is grounded in an epistemology of green governmentality – making extinction inevitable and foreclosing alternatives Parr 2016 – teaches sociology @ U of Cincinnati, UNESCO co-chair of water Adrian, “The how and for whom of green governmentality” in Green Growth: Ideology, political economy and alternatives, Zed Books, p. 85-86 Joining resilience to inclusive green growth morphs the political subjectivity of resistance into one of adaptation. Instead of a politics that demands more of our politicians and political institutions and which imagines alternatives to what currently exists, we are left with a fragmented social field of individual agents responsible for their own future in the face of a hostile reality, absorbing the multiplicity of threats that come their way. Resigned to a 'catastrophic imaginary' that accepts the definition of life as one big endless disaster zone, succumbing social life to the limited political horizon that insists the only road through the rubble is to try to render subjects more secure in an increasingly precarious world, only creates a deeply depoliticized subject. For it means we surrender ourselves to the prospect of living dangerously and along with it we strip transformative politics of its affirmative and creative pulse.4s In this way, the model of inclusive green growth constitutes a system of green governmentality. Green governmentality, in the way I am using the term, refers to a neoliberal rationality that treats the environmental crisis as a new politics of truth, one that then legitimizes the expansion of governance into new areas of mediation, legalization, management and supervision. One such example would be the wave of new political protagonists entering the realm of governance, such as community groups, non-governmental organizations, non-profits and religious institutions. These politically informal strategies of government have gone on to reshape social relations by obscuring the difference between economic and political power. Indeed, in the World Bank's working paper on green growth the authors clearly state: 'growth does not cause inequality - policies do.'46 This conclusion not only protects the economic sphere from criticism by clearly pointing the finger of blame in the direction of government; it also rests upon a false distinction between the economic and political spheres, one that is arguably an effect of neoliberal governmentality. Green governmentality uses a variety of policy instruments ranging from price-based mechanisms along with 'norms and regulation, public production and direct investment, information creation and dissemination, education and moral suasion'.47 The easy conflation of an economically rational view of the individual with a morally responsible one is telling indeed. The focus on priming individuals to accept green growth policies through educational outreach and moral suasion transfers responsibility for the risks arising from living in polluted environments and the economic hardships non-elite members of society incur as the economy slows. Although neoliberal governmentality has comfortably adapted to the once challenging demands of environmental and social justice concerns, it is nevertheless important to reflect upon how this runs along a very different current to that of the more activist strains of the environmental and social justice movements. The leitmotif of governance in inclusive green growth theory and practices recognizes the significant role government activities, rationalities and practices play in reconfiguring subjects away from a collectivist political subjectivity in solidarity with others, into a competitively resilient subject whose independence is achieved at the expense of another's autonomy. Green governmentality aspires to produce a competitive social configuration made up of a potpourri of resilient subjects. This simply reinstates neoliberalism as the horizon of socio-environmental politics , rejecting alternative political agendas and experiments that form solidarities across different political lines in an effort to institute emancipatory political agendas. For these reasons, green governmentality fails to tackle the deeper political struggles ensuing between the public and private sectors. At the heart of that struggle is the problem of neoliberal governance whereby vested interests and relations of power orient how society is organized, complemented by a logic of competition governments employ to ensure capital functions as capital. In addition to economic factors, environmental harms are aggravated by deeply compromised political process. The neoliberal demand for less government intervention is indeed a demand for more government manipulation of the market so as to skew the market mechanism in favour of powerful interest groups. In this regard the ideological work of neoliberal rhetoric comes from the way in which it effectively conceals this contradiction. In the same vein, inclusive green growth embraces government involvement in greening national economies, all the while ignoring how power shapes governance the world over. Predictably, under these circumstances green growth will never become inclusive. This is because the dominant political modality is depoliticizing. At its core, inclusive green growth is an economic outlook that presents an important alternative to high carbon emitting and polluting practices associated with business as usual, offering forth an environmentally friendly economy powered by renewable energy, clean and efficient technologies, natural resource conservation, and green goods and services. However, the focus on using market mechanisms and the principle of economic efficiency to solve the problem of rising global greenhouse gas emissions, environmental degradation and inequitable social relations overlooks the myriad ways in which power, privilege and influence intersect across a variety of socio-political scales. The prevailing obedience to a logic of competition and a political modality of neoliberal governance that demands nothing but endless servitude to capital accumulation is intensifying global inequity and environmental degradation. Rather than gently poking the bear of Capital with an economic stick, choosing to engage with its competitive logic by using neoliberal governance as the primary strategy to overcome social and environmental problems, we need to poke the bear harder and with a bigger political stick. Namely, we need to acknowledge Capital as its own animal with its own internal logic of competition that allows capital to function as capital. So while we need to continue engaging with the bear in order to diffuse the growing power and influence of elites over whom governments speak for, two effects of which are environmental degradation and growing inequity, we cannot afford to underestimate the political depth of the problem as one involving how governments speak to the beat of a neoliberal drum. At the risk of sounding prophetic, social and environmental movements certainly have their work cut out for them. They need to speak both more loudly and more strategically, re-imagining how politics works, creating and testing alternative political paradigms that are both practical and utopian, and inventing unusual political trajectories that move in ways that are as equally supple as neoliberal governance so as to successfully fend off appropriation by the very forces they are trying to surmount. Normalization DA – The plan is spun as a sign of normality for the rising fascism of the Trump regime through falsely re-assuring words that the world has not ended – institutional engagement WILL NOT save us, merely greasing the wheels for a rapid autocratic takeover of the United States. The plan is like Clinton’s concession speech, whitewashing the erstwhile destruction of the democracy all of their evidence presumes and paving the way for genocide – this normalization should be rejected as an ethical decision rule. Anything else creates the conditions for unending war internationally and at home. Only a re-invigorated attempt to imagine the future away from the confines of neoliberalism OR white nationalism can create a true path forward. Gessen 11/10. Masha Gessen, world-famous Russian and American journalist, author, and activist noted for her opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin, “Autocracy: Rules for Survival,” The New York Review of Books, November 10, 2016, , accessed November 13, 2016 Rule #2: Do not be taken in by small signs of normality. Consider the financial markets this week, which, having tanked overnight, rebounded following the Clinton and Obama speeches. Confronted with political volatility, the markets become suckers for calming rhetoric from authority figures. So do people. Panic can be neutralized by falsely reassuring words about how the world as we know it has not ended. It is a fact that the world did not end on November 8 nor at any previous time in history. Yet history has seen many catastrophes, and most of them unfolded over time. That time included periods of relative calm. One of my favorite thinkers, the Jewish historian Simon Dubnow, breathed a sigh of relief in early October 1939: he had moved from Berlin to Latvia, and he wrote to his friends that he was certain that the tiny country wedged between two tyrannies would retain its sovereignty and Dubnow himself would be safe. Shortly after that, Latvia was occupied by the Soviets, then by the Germans, then by the Soviets again—but by that time Dubnow had been killed. Dubnow was well aware that he was living through a catastrophic period in history—it’s just that he thought he had managed to find a pocket of normality within it. Rule #3: Institutions will not save you. It took Putin a year to take over the Russian media and four years to dismantle its electoral system; the judiciary collapsed unnoticed. The capture of institutions in Turkey has been carried out even faster, by a man once celebrated as the democrat to lead Turkey into the EU. Poland has in less than a year undone half of a quarter century’s accomplishments in building a constitutional democracy. Of course, the United States has much stronger institutions than Germany did in the 1930s, or Russia does today. Both Clinton and Obama in their speeches stressed the importance and strength of these institutions. The problem, however, is that many of these institutions are enshrined in political culture rather than in law, and all of them—including the ones enshrined in law—depend on the good faith of all actors to fulfill their purpose and uphold the Constitution. The national press is likely to be among the first institutional victims of Trumpism. There is no law that requires the presidential administration to hold daily briefings, none that guarantees media access to the White House. Many journalists may soon face a dilemma long familiar to those of us who have worked under autocracies: fall in line or forfeit access. There is no good solution (even if there is a right answer), for journalism is difficult and sometimes impossible without access to information. The power of the investigative press—whose adherence to fact has already been severely challenged by the conspiracy-minded, lie-spinning Trump campaign—will grow weaker. The world will grow murkier. Even in the unlikely event that some mainstream media outlets decide to declare themselves in opposition to the current government, or even simply to report its abuses and failings, the president will get to frame many issues. Coverage, and thinking, will drift in a Trumpian direction, just as it did during the campaign—when, for example, the candidates argued, in essence, whether Muslim Americans bear collective responsibility for acts of terrorism or can redeem themselves by becoming the “eyes and ears” of law enforcement. Thus was xenophobia further normalized, paving the way for Trump to make good on his promises to track American Muslims and ban Muslims from entering the United States. Rule #4: Be outraged. If you follow Rule #1 and believe what the autocrat-elect is saying, you will not be But in the face of the impulse to normalize, it is essential to maintain one’s capacity for shock. This will lead people to call surprised. you unreasonable and hysterical, and to accuse you of overreacting. It is no fun to be the only hysterical person in the room. Prepare yourself. Despite losing the popular vote, Trump has secured as much power as any American leader in recent history. The Republican Party controls both houses of Congress. There is a vacancy on the Supreme Court. The country is at war abroad and has been in a state of mobilization for fifteen years. This means not only that Trump will be able to move fast but also that he will become accustomed to an unusually high level of political support. He will want to maintain and increase it—his ideal is the totalitarian-level popularity numbers of Vladimir Putin—and the way to achieve that is through mobilization. There will be more wars, abroad and at home. Rule #5: Don’t make compromises. Like Ted Cruz, who made the journey from calling Trump “utterly amoral” and a “pathological liar” to endorsing him in late September to praising his win as an “amazing victory for the American worker,” Republican politicians have fallen into line. Conservative pundits who broke ranks during the campaign will return to the fold. Democrats in Congress will begin to make the case for cooperation, for the sake of getting anything done—or at least, they will say, minimizing the damage. Nongovernmental organizations, many of which are reeling at the moment, faced with a transition period in which there is no opening for their input, will grasp at chances to work with the new administration. This will be fruitless—damage cannot be minimized, In an autocracy, politics as the art of the possible is in fact utterly amoral. Those who argue for cooperation will make the case, much as President Obama did in his much less reversed, when mobilization is the goal—but worse, it will be soul-destroying. speech, that cooperation is essential for the future. They will be willfully ignoring the corrupting touch of autocracy, from which the future must be protected. Rule #6: Remember the future. Nothing lasts forever. Donald Trump certainly will not, and Trumpism, to the extent that it is centered on Trump’s persona, will not either. Failure to imagine the future may have lost the Democrats this election. They offered no vision of the future to counterbalance Trump’s all-toofamiliar white-populist vision of an imaginary past. They had also long ignored the strange and outdated institutions of American democracy that call out for reform—like the electoral college, which has now cost the Democratic Party two elections in which Republicans won with the minority of the popular vote. That should not be normal. But resistance—stubborn, uncompromising, outraged—should be. neolib causes extinction and dehumanization Nhanenge 7 [Jytte Masters @ U South Africa, “ECOFEMINSM: TOWARDS INTEGRATING THE CONCERNS OF WOMEN, POOR PEOPLE AND NATURE INTO DEVELOPMENT] There is today an increasing critique of economic development, whether it takes place in the North or in the South. Although on average generates the world more and more wealth, the riches do not appear to "trickle down" to the poor and improve their and economic inequality is growing . Despite the existence of development aid for more than half a century, the Third World seems not to be "catching up" with the First World . Instead, militarism, dictatorship and human repression is multiplied. Since the mid 1970, the critique of global economic activities has intensified due to the escalating deterioration of the natural environment . Modernization, industrialisation and its economic activities have been directly linked to increased scarcity of natural resources and generation of pollution, which increases global temperatures and degrades soils, lands, water, forests and air . The latter threat is of great significance, because without a healthy environment human beings and animals will not be able to survive. Most people believed that modernization of the world would improve material well-being for all. However, faced with its negative side effects and the real threat of extinction, one must conclude that somewhere along the way "progress" went astray. Instead of material plenty, economic development generated a violent, unhealthy and unequal world. It is a world where a small minority live in material luxury, while millions of people live in misery. These poor people are marginalized by the global economic system . They are forced to material well-being. Instead, poverty survive from degraded environments; they live without personal or social security; they live in abject poverty, with hunger, malnutrition and sickness; and they have no possibility to speak up for themselves and demand a fair share of the world's resources. The majority of these people are women, children, traditional peoples, tribal peoples, people of colour and materially poor people (called women and Others). They are, together with nature, dominated by the global system of economic development imposed by the North. It is this scenario, which is the subject of the dissertation. The overall aim is consequently to discuss the unjustified domination of women, Others and nature and to show how the domination of women and Others is interconnected with the domination of nature. A good place to start a discussion about domination of women, Others and nature is to disclose how they disproportionately must carry the negative effects from global economic development. The below discussion is therefore meant to give an idea of the "flip-side" of modernisation. It gives a gloomy picture of what "progress" and its focus on economic growth has meant for women, poor people and the natural environment. The various complex and inter-connected, negative impacts have been ordered into four crises. The categorization is inspired by Paul Ekins and his 1992 book "A new world order; grassroots movements for global change". In it, Ekins argues that humanity is faced with four interlocked crises of unprecedented magnitude. These crises have the potential to destroy whole ecosystems and to extinct the human race. The first crisis is the spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, together with the high level of military spending. The second crisis is the increasing number of people afflicted with hunger and poverty. The third crisis is the environmental degradation. Pollution, destruction of ecosystems and extinction of species are increasing at such a rate that the biosphere is under threat. The fourth crisis is repression and denial of fundamental human rights by governments, which prevents people from developing their potential. It is highly likely that one may add more crises to these four, or categorize them differently, however, Ekins's division is suitable for the present purpose. (Ekins 1992: 1). Vote neg to refuse the neoliberal paradigm. Critique is a political choice. Hay, PHD POLSIS, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham 2004 (Colin, Economy and Society Volume 33 Number 4 November 2004: 500-527 p.523-4) Accordingly, however depoliticized and normalized neoliberalism has become, it remains a political and economic choice, not a simple necessity. This brings us naturally to the question of alternatives. A number of points might here be made which follow fairly directly from the above analysis. First, our ability to offer alternatives to neoliberalism rests now on our ability to identify that there is a choice in such matters and, in so doing, to demystify and deconstruct the rationalist premises upon which its public legitimation has been predicated. This, it would seem, is a condition of ...
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