lol- katie

8/22/2019 lol- katie

1/47

1NC (1-off)Its not the destination that matters, but the journey. Its not about where you go, but how you

got there. One day we reach our goal, and now point with pride to the long travels we undertook

to reach it. IN fact, we were not even aware of traveling. But we got so far because we fancied atevery point that we were at home. And it is only at the end that we realize the entire time we

should have been singing. That the entire time we were traveling we should have been dancing.

I remember driving through New Vegas, staring out the windows of the truck as we bumpeddown a dusty desert road. Vast expanses of nothingness surrounded me, cracked earth and red

mesas blurred into a single waking dream. I could never really tell the exact moment when I fell

asleep: when reality stopped being real, when rationality got turned off and the sky started to

change colors. When the desert turned into oceans turned into people turned into laptopbacklights turned into kaleidoscopic visions. I blink my eyes and the world clicks:

Click.

Now Im on the deck of the Titanic.

Click.

Now Im the president, addressing the people.

Click.

Now Im in a debate round on cross x. A voice whispers into my ear:this life which you

dream must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more!1 It seems every time I

wake from a dream I find myself in another nightmare; always waking up, never awakening. Iopen my mouth but the only words I can find on my tongue are already gone, a figment of a

previous dream. Only a poem comes to my tongue, a poem that isnt mine, a poem I dreamt longago

if you were a gaspingNew Mexican wasteland

I would learn how to irrigate, and Id dig it

all myselfId dig it with my fingernails until they fell

off and

then Id use them as little shovels, Id drain

lake afterriver after

ocean to bring life to youand when it was all said and done, when I

was finally

satisfiedby your satisfaction,


2/47

1Friedrich Nietzsche, Demon parable

youd remind me how without thirst, there

would be no

pleasure in drinking. youd remind me of allof the animals

and plants and earthly cycles that have been

ruined bymy actions. you would remind me of how a life

full of

thirst might be

more meaningfulthan a life full of

drinking.2

In memoriam: deserts.

Hello: my name is debate, and Im depressed. I feel so bogged down by responsibilitiesas if I

HAVE to act a certain way. Im not really sure why it has to be me, you know? I just want to

have fun, I want to be free, but it seems like everyone is always breathing down my neck. Youhave to grow up to be a well respected man about town, you have to be important! You have

to be tidy and proper! Be predictable, people will like you more. I think in the end it is all the

same, just more and more responsibility thrown in my face. More and more things everyone tellsme to do or say or be: they always tell me to drink, never be thirsty the say. They treat me like

a wasteland: an emptiness, a void to be filled, a blank sheet to be drawn on.

Welcome to New Vegas: hear me gasp.I see rounds every year: debaters pull recycled expandofiles on the same old shit. This round was Shawnee mission west; you can bet money they readthe spending DA. South next round; same old ddev and wipeout blocks. SME MT round 3: the

1nc will be 3 Ts, The PIC, Wipeout, Nietzsche and politics. CCC after that; like I havent

heard THAT T Bases twelve thousand times. Millard next round; expect the unexpected. Its thesame routine, the same banal bullshit. Even when its wild and unpredictable its always part of

the plan. Its all so rational, so calculated, so mechanical and it makes me so goddamn sick. It

doesnt matter what happens, even if the plan is horrifying. For instance, if I say that tomorrow a

gang banger is going to get shot, or a truck full of soldiers is gonna get blown up, no one panicsbecause its all according to the plan.

3Dont trust whistles, nothing absurd: no garden walls.

Debate has become a church full of stale air: welcome to the cult of the rational and the Good,

the empire aligned against the forces of Evil and the insane. Anyone falling outside our plan:well, fuck em


3/47

2Ego Treadmill, Anna Victoria, Connecticut, published in TeenInk

3The Joker, The Dark Knight

4Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, pg. 158=59, 1980

Thejudgment of God, the system of the judgment of God, the theological system, is precisely the

operation of He who makes an organism, an organization of organs called the organism, because He

cannot bear the BwO, because He pursues it and rips it apart so He can be first, and have the organism

be first. The BwO howls: Theyve made me an organism! Theyve wrongfully folded me! Theyvestolen my body! The judgment of God uproots it from its immanence and makes it an organism, a

signification, a subject. It is the BwO that is stratified. It swings between two poles, the surfaces of

stratification into which it is recoiled, on which it submits to the judgment, and the plane of consistency

in which it unfurls and opens to experimentation4

I remember my first debate round: the day I learned the rules. Ive been told to conform, told to become

something Im not, a form I dont belong in, a body thats not mine. Little Gods are birthed on all sides:

the ballot, the judge, the preference sheet. Dont want to read the K in front ofthat guy. Dont say

fuck in front of her, shell knock your speaker points. Little body-snatchers throw me into alien forms.

Little words instill death in me. I have been ordered, controlled, cataloged and filed like a footnote:

footnote 233, they call me."

It's not up to you," said Kronman. "The discourse makes of you something.It makes of you something juridical. In your case, we just call it 233 for short."

"For short?" I saw a glimmer of hope. 233 was merely a mnemonic device. "Then I don't really have to

become 233?" I asked with renewed hope. "It's just a name, an address, a handle?"

"You're not paying attention. We call you 233 for short. But once the work is finished, that's all you are:

You are "233 for short.' You don't exist except in the mode of being-for-short. Think of it in Heideggerian

terms. Not so much being-there. But rather being-for-short. Nothing else is left of you."5

They tell me Ill be-for-short, nothing but a footnote at the bottom of the latest wiki page. Round 5,

UT. They tell me:You will be organized, you will be an organism, you will articulate your body

otherwiseyoure just depraved. You will be signifier and signified, interpreter and interpreted

otherwiseyoure just a deviant. You will be a subject, nailed down as one, a subject of the enunciation

recoiled into a subject of the statementotherwise youre just a tramp.6

In memoriam: debate.

First national tournament sophomore year: mall of America. Staring at the map which representsmaterial reality, always representing but never being. Never doing, the stupid purple sharpie dot

proclaims that I am here: but how can I ever be here if Im standing there. Moreover, how can I

be standing there if I am here?I wander over to a map, desperate to find an exit and a breath of air not laced with pastries, coffee,

perfume. He stared at it incredulously. His location was marked with a dot. That wasnt too confusingbecause the statement You are here, was rather explicit. He was more frightened by the virulent

purple sharpie underneath it. It boldly proclaimed in capital letters OR AM I? The question stared at

him, bored into his mind. The Pice de rsistance of his cultural encounter did nothing but provide his

brain with the mental dynamite to blow up his locked door of cultivated normalcy. He stared around

him more bewildered as if the surreal nature of his surroundings suddenly made sense. Sensory input

collapsed upon sensory input in a giant blur of constant stimulation. Something that catered to every

man-made sultry delight stretched out for him across the glass displays of the mall that made the mythic


4/47

markets of civilizations long past, mundane mortuaries. It was city in the truest sense, its artificial

existence. 7

5 - Pierre Schlag, Byron White Professor of Law at the University of Colorado, Summer 2004, Buffalo Law Review, 52 Buffalo L. Rev. 851

6Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, pg. 158-159, 1980

7Vincent Li, Mall Story

I am here. Am is an interesting word. How can I be here if I AM here, how can I be if I am? How can Ibe?

OR AM I?!

In memoriam: the map of the body.

When you will have made him a body without organs,then you will have delivered him from all his automatic reactions

and restored him to his true freedom.They you will teach him again to dance wrong side out

as in the frenzy of dance halls

and this wrong side out will be his real place.8

Wed like to think of ourselves sort of like starfish: not that my stomach comes out, but there are

definitely some similarities. We speak of sea monsters, defying time and space. Our politics is of

the brittlestarOf special interest is the information that the Brittlestar is a creature without abrain; it is simply a visualising apparatus, a metamorphosing optical system. As Barad forcefully

notes, 'there is no res cogitans agonizing about the postulated gap (of Its own making) betweenitself and res extensa. There is no optics of mediation, no noumena/phenomena distinction, noquestion of representation' (Barad in press). Instead, the Brittlestar is the model of intraaction,

constantly breaking off and regenerating its bodily boundaries as it enfolds bits of its

environment within itself and expels parts of its own body into the surrounding environment. Inthis way, the Br it tlestar cannot be said to exist as an autonomous enti typositioned inside a

spacetime frame of reference, neither that of a Euclidean container nor even that of a dynamical

manifold specified by classical science. There is no pre-existent container or manifold within

which the creature exists and moves along spacetime co-ordinates while its body is made andremade. Instead, the Brittlestar might be said to undergo what I would call a spatio-

temporalisation, what Barad refers to as 'space-time-matter-in the making.9

In memoriam: organisms.


5/47

8Antonin Artaud. 1947. Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings. To Have Done with the Judgment of God: A Radio Play University of California Press Berkeley Los Angeles

ISBN 0-520-06443-7 (paperback). Retrieved from: http://ndirty.cute.fi/~karttu/tekstit/artaud.htm.9 - Dorothea Olkowski Every One A Crowd, Making Room for the Excluded Middle Deleuze and Queer Theory . Edinburgh University Press, 2009, pg. 55-56

We speak of madness, and we speak madness: a language of Evil. You may ask us, What doesthe world of the critique look like? To that we respond HAVE YOU EVER DONE ACID?

The question is self-defeating and without purpose: we are rather like an M.C. Escher piece,

paradox stairs and monks traveling up and down at the same time, praying to a trickster-God.

Wed rather stay as children forever, playing on beaches and drawing maps with starfish. Wereturn debate in a regurgitated form: digested in the stomach of the brittlestar, in the stomachs of

men who know how to leave, to scramble the codes, to cause flows to circulate, to traverse

the desert of the body without organs. They overcome a limit, they shatter a wall, the capitalistbarrier. And of course they fail to complete the process, they never cease failing to do so. The

neurotic impasse again closes - the daddy-mommy of oedipalization, America, the return to the

native land - or else the perversion of the exotic territorialities, then drugs, alcohol - or worse

still, an old fascist dream. Never has delirium oscillated more between its two poles. But throughthe impasses and the triangles a schizophrenic flow moves, irresistibly; sperm, river, drainage,

inflamed genital mucus, or a stream of words that do not let themselves be coded, a libido that is

too fluid, too viscous: a violence against syntax, a concerted destruction of the signifier, non-

sense erected as a fl ow, polyvocality that returns to haunt all relations.10

In memoriam: the political.

In summary!

How much do you make

in that death factory

Severance owed

in the chamber of revolvers

Empty jails

fall from my scalp

Shake the globe and let me outIf still I can remember the day

That they took you from me

Seems like I've been running

from your trenchant memory

Harp sickle will warn me when it's over

'Cuz if heaven breathes

then someone trade places with me
http://ndirty.cute.fi/~karttu/tekstit/artaud.htmhttp://ndirty.cute.fi/~karttu/tekstit/artaud.htmhttp://ndirty.cute.fi/~karttu/tekstit/artaud.htm


6/47

'Cuz I dont want to tear feathers instead of rags

When do I get to see the body

preserved inside this grin

Sewn in the lips

where her last words

Ill be damned - I can still hear her laughing

Your angels have tangled their brass again

The comfort of doubt still it keeps you thin

And still I can remember the day

10 - Deleuze and Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, pg. 132-134

That they took you from me

Seems like I've been running

from your trenchant memory

Harp sickle will warn me when it's over

Does your temperature acheIs your glass about to break

Are you purple with current

Will you now become the servant

Gordian knots in the power lines

Saucer fills to empty with pesticide

Like the pharaohs of old

Bury me in gold

I'll make your son refuse to fight

in the stalk home setting that we provide

If your heart does cease to speak

My fingernail choirwill make your chalkboard sing11

We knew this day was coming, we prepared the eulogy:

In memoriam: sanity.

But lets get back to this dead-end point between Leibniz and Spinoza, to their inability to

imagine a politics of the empty sign and Cartesian coordinate, one day becomingrevolutionarywhat Im calling the conjunction of deterritorialization processes. I think its

impossible to sustain the sole promotion of the power sign for very long in the exclusive work of

reality* unless you topple over into archaization. So you need to come to terms with the

absurdity of the figure-signs deterritorializtion in its non-sense efficiency and logic. You needto come to terms with the fact that code surplus value is, ultimately, taken back under the wing of

a super revolutionary alliance machine of deterritorialized signs that can double and master the

set of all local power processes. To what extent is Spinozas God emptied of its substance? Is


7/47

this not just another assemblage of figure-sign flows leading to radical desubstantialization?

Permanent desubstantialization. It always has to happen all over again. Isnt the only way to

eliminate Absolute Knowledge, the Great Other and all the rest to have codes be invaded by

figure-sign cancer? The power sign - the sign-pointis continuously deterritorialized, it neverstops producing figure-signs, even trashy ones, and being axiomatized, evading signifying chains

paired with significations, andall thi s through a pure logic of non-sense.

12

11Luciforms, Mars Volta

12Guattari in 1970, The Anti-Oedipus Papers, pg. 262

We know its easy to get lost, but of all things to remember we must not forget ourselves. You

are here, here in this room, here in the political, here in space, here in the ocean, here on the

beaches, stick in hand, starfish staring into you: tides consuming you. We always have to begin

on this beach, with ourselves, with the here: where you are. Artaud puts it well: all writing is somuch pig shit - that is to say, any literature that takes itself as an end or sets ends for itself,

instead of being a process that "ploughs the crap of being and its language," transports the

weak, the aphasiacs, the illiterate. At leastspare us subl imation. Every writer is a sellout. Theonly literature is that which places an explosive device in its package, fabricating a counterfeit

currency, causing the superego and its form of expression to explode, as well as the market value

of its form of content.13

So come find us: well be out there in the desert, drawing maps in the sand dunes and holding

funerals for starfish. Come visit us, we would like to be alone with some company rather than

surrounded by ourselves. Dont worry about directions. Feel free to wander out there. Itshouldnt be too hard to find us because We are deserts, said Deleuze butpopulated by tribes,

flora and fauna. We pass our time in ordering these tribes, arranging them in other ways, getting

rid of some and encouraging others to prosper. And all these clans, all these crowds, do notundermine the desert, which is our very ascesis; on the contrary they inhabit it, they pass

through it, over it. In Guattari there has always been a sort of wild rodeo, in part directed

against himself. The desert, experimentation on oneself, is our only identity, our single chance

for all the combinations which inhabit us. (Deleuze and Parnet, 1977, 11) The individual hereis explicitly seen as multiple and political, and the process of subjectification is presented as

dynamic and continuing, never as something that has reached or could reach a satisfactory

conclusion. For Deleuze and Guattari living is always a process of becoming, never of

contemplating an achieved being.14


8/47

13 -Deleuze and Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, pg. 132-134

14Andrew Ballantyne, Tectonic Cultures Research Group at Newcastle University , "Deleuze and Guattari for Architects" 78-79


9/47

NFL 1AC


10/47

Contention 1 is Personal AgencyWoke Up Quick, At About Noon

Jus' Thought That I Had To Be In Compton Soon

I Gotta Get Drunk Before The Day Begins

Before My Mother Starts Bitchin About Ma FriendsAbout To Go And Damn Near Went Blind

Young Niggaz At The Path Throwin Up Gang Signs

Ran In The House, And Grabbed Ma Clip

Wit The Mack 10 On The Side Of Ma Hip

Bailed Outside And Pointed Ma Weapon

Just As I Thought The Fools Kept Steppin

Jumped In The Fo' Hit The Juice On Ma Ride

I Got Front Back, And Side To Side

Then I Let The Alpine Play (Play)

Pumpin New Shit By Nwa

It Was Gangsta Gangsta At The Top Of The List

Then I Played My Own Shit And It Went Somethin' Like ThisCruisin Down The Street In My Six-Fo''

Jockin The Bitches, Slappin The Hoes

Went To The Park To Get The Scoop

Knuckleheads Out There Cold, Shootin Some Hoops

A Car Pulls Up, Who Can It Be

A Fresh El Camino Rollin Kilo G

He Rolled Down His Window And He Started To Say

Its All About Makin That G.T.A.

[Chorus:]

Coz The Boys In The Hood Are Always HardYou Come Talkin That Trash, We'll Pull Ya Card

Knowin' Nutin In Life But To Be Legit'

Dont Quote Me Boy Coz I Aint Said Shit

[Scratches] Yo Man

"Get The Fuck Out"

[Scratches] Pump That Beat

"Muthafucka, Say What"

Down On B's Is The Place To Give Me The Pace

He Said Ma Man J.D. Is On Freebase

The Boy J.D. Was A Friend Of Mine

'till I Caught Him In My Car Tryin To Steal The Alpine

Chased Him Down The Street To Call A Truce

The Silly Muthafucka Pulls Out A Deuce Deuce

Little Did He Know I Had A Loaded 12 Guage

One Sucker Dead, L.A. Times Front Page

[Chorus:]


11/47

Coz The Boys In The Hood Are Always Hard

You Come Talkin That Trash, Well Pull Ya Card

Knowin' Nutin In Life But To Be Legit'


[Scratches] "Yo Leroy"

[Scratches] "Beer Drinkin Breath Stinkin Sniffin Glue"

Bored As Hell And I Wanna Get Ill

So I Went To A Spot Where Ma Homeboys Chill

The Fellas Out There Makin Dat Dollar

I Pulled Up In Ma 6 Fo' Impala

They Greet Me Wit A 40 And I Start Drinkin

And From The 8 Ball, My Breath Starts Stinkin

Left To Get Ma Girl To Rock That Body

Before I Left, I Hit The Bac-Ardi

Went To Her House To Get Her Out Of The Pad

Dumb Hoe Said Somethin That Made Me MadShe Said Somethin That I Couldnt Believe

So I Grabbed The Stupid Bitch By Her Nappy-Ass Weave

She Started Talkin Shit, Wouldnt You Know

Reached Back Like A Pimp, Slapped The Hoe

Her Father Jumped Up And He Started To Shout

So I Threw A Right Cross And Knocked His Old-Ass Out

[Chorus:]



Knowin' Nutin In Life But To Be Legit'Dont Quote Me Boy Coz I Aint Said Shit

[Scratches] "Who Do U Think You Are Mr. Big Stuff"

[Scratches] "Rock This Muthafucka Like The Hard 3 Tha Hard Way"

I'm Rollin Hard, Now Under Control

Then Wrapped The 6 Fo' Round A Telephone Pole

I Looked At Ma Car And I Said "Oh Brother"

I'll Throw It In The Gutter And Go Buy Another

Walkin Home And I Seen The G Ride

Now Cat Is Drivin, Kilo On The Side

As They Busted A U, They Got Pulled Over

A Undercover Cop In A Dark Green Nova

Cat Got Beat For Resistin Arrest

He Socked A Pig In The Head For Rippin His Guess

Now G Is Caught, For Doin The Crime

Fourth Offense On The Boy, He'll Do Some Time

[Chorus:]


12/47



Knowin Nutin In Life But To Be Legit'


[Scratches] L.A. Playa

[Scratches] Big Drum Beater

I Went To Get Them Out But There Was No Bail

The Fellas Caused A Riot In The County Jail

Two Days Later In Municipal Court

Kilo G On Trial Cold Cut A Fart

Obstruction Of The Court Said The Judge

On A Six Year Sentence, Ma Man Didnt Budge

Baliff Came Over To Turn Him In

Kilo G Looked Up And Gave A Grin

He Yelled Out Fire, Then Came Suzie

The Bitch Came In With A Sub-Machine UziPolice Shot The Bitch But They Didnt Hurt Her

Both Upstate For Attempted Murder

[Chorus:]



Knowin Nutin In Life But To Be Legit'



13/47

The status quo is fucked up yo (inherency/harms)First off say peace to Pine Ridge

Shame at all the damage that the white man wine did

Ghost Dance, Trail of Tears, 5 million beers a year

And all that other crime didMore peace to the teachers of blind kids

To rebels in small cells keeping their mind big

Say everything's hostile

Suicide bombers and prosperity gospels, emaciated models

With cocaine and blood pouring out their nostrils, they got to

Just to stay awake on the catwalk of life where everybody watch you

Straight hair, high heels and a handbag

Crucifixes, racism and a land grab

Katrina, FEMA trailers, human body sandbags

A peace sign and a pants sag

A money toss cause a 9 stripper mad dash

A friend request following the hash tagNow everybody want it like the last laugh

A Michael Jackson jacket or a Daft mask

Purple Jordans or the mixed girl in your math class

Stable is when the Ba'ath had Baghdad

But corporate jets really had to have that gas bad

War and they hope they all fall from the ratatat

Cause that's just more dinosaur for the Cadillac

[Hook]

Live from the other side what you see

A bunch of nonsense on my TVHeaven on Earth is what I need

But I feel I'm in Hell every time I breathe

Reporting live from the other side what you hear

A bunch of nonsense all in my ear

Rich man, poor man, we all gotta pay

Cause freedom ain't free, especially 'round my way

[Verse 2]

And we marvel at the state of Ottoman

Then turn around and treat Ghana like a garbage can

America's a big motherfuckin' garbageman

If you ain't know, you're part and parcel of the problem

You say no you ain't, and I say yes you is

Soon as you find out what planned obsolescence is

You say no they didn't, and I say yes they did

The definition of unnecessary-ness

Manifested

Say that we should protest just to get arrested

That goes against all my hustling ethics


14/47

A bunch of jail niggas say it's highly ineffective

Depart from Martin, connect on Malcolm X tip

Insert Baldwin to similar the separate

To me, the truth is more fulfilling than a meth hit

Or finding really fast internet to have some sex with

It's all one song short of a set list

Couple croissants shy of a continental breakfast

Or blowing out your birthday candles just to make a death wish

So absurd, word to Chief Bone Necklace

Down at the Lakota Sioux Casino

A whole culture boiled down to giving you pokeno

I go as left as a heart in the chest

Cause the Horn of Africa is now starving to death

[Hook]

[Verse 3]

An all white Los Angeles, the dream of Mr. ChandlerHope and pray they take Columbus day up off the calendar

South Central an example of God's gifts

So shout to all the mothers raising babies in SPA 6

The projects of Oakland city, Detroit ghost towns

Monopolies on poverty where D-boy coke bound

Its parts of Manila like the video for "Thriller"

But the US Embassy is reminiscent of a villa

If poverty is chocolate and privilege vanilla

Then whats the flavor of the Sunday preachers pedophilia

Cash rules everything around these niggas

As classrooms everywhere around me witherHither you can be Mr. Burns or Mr. Smithers

The tyrant or the slave but nowhere in the middle

Of the extremes of Americas dream

Freud fighting Neo, Freddy Krueger refereeing, now


15/47

Reject debate for true freedom (solvency)Everybody knows that they're guilty

Everybody knows that they've lied

Everybody knows that they're guilty

Resting on their conscience eating their insideIt's freedom, said it's freedom time now

It's freedom, said it's freedom time now

Time to get free, oh give us yourselves up now

It's freedom, said it's freedom time

[First and only verse]

Yo, there's a war in the mind, over territory

For the dominion

Who will dominate the opinion

Skisms and isms, keepin' us in forms of religion

Conformin' our vision

To the world churches decisionTrapped in a section

Submitted to committee election

Moral infection

Epidemic lies and deception

Insurrection

Of the highest possible order

Destortin' our tape recorders

From hearin' like under water

Beyond the borders

Fond of sin and disorder

Bound by the strategyIt's systematic depravity

Heavy as gravity

Head first in the cavity

Without a bottom

A faith, worse than Saddam

Once got him

Drunk of the spirits

Truth comes, we can't hear it

When you've been, programmed to fear it

I had a vision

I was fallin' in indecision

Apollin', callin' religion

Some program on television

How can dominant wisdom

Be recognized in the system

Of Anti-Christ, the majority rules

Intelligent fools

PhD's in illusion

Masters of mass confusion


16/47

Bacholors in past illusion

Now who you choosin'

The head or the tail

The bloodshed of male

More confidence in the tale

Conference is in Yale

Discussin' doctrines of Baal

Causin' people to fail

Keepin' the third in jail

His word is nale

Everything to the tree

Severing all of me from all that I used to be

Formless and void

Totally paranoid

Enjoy darkness as the Lord

Keepin' me from the sword

Block for mercy

Bitter than purgatoryHungry and thirsty

For good meat we would eat

And still, dined at the table of deceit

How incomplete

From confrontation to retreat

We prolong the true enemys defeat

Death to the ascendancy

Causin' desperation to get the best of me

Punishment 'til there was nothing left of me

Realizin' the unescapable death of me

No options in the valley of decisionThe only doctrine, supernatural circumcision

Inwardly, only water can purge the heart

From words that fiery darts

Thrown by the workers of the arts

Iniquity, shapen in

There're no escapin' when

You're whole philosophy is paper thin

In vanity

The wide road is insanity

Could it be all of humanity

Picture that

Scripture that

The origin of a man's heart is black

How can we show up for

An invisible war

Preoccupied with a shadow, makin' love with a whore

Achin' in sores

Babylon, the great mystery

Mother of human history


17/47

System of social sorcery

Our present condition

Needs serious recognition

Where there's no repentance there can be no remission

And that sentence, more serious than Vietnam

The atom bomb is Saddam and Minister Farakkhan

What's goin' on, what's the priority to you

What authority do we do

When the majority hasn't a clue

We majored in curses

Search the chapters, check the verses

Recapture the land

Remove the mark from off of our hands

So we can stand

In agreement with his command

Everything else is damned

Let them what is understand

Everything else is damned, let them with ears understand

[Singing Chorus]



It's freedom, I'ma be who I am

It's freedom time, said it's freedom time

Everybody knows that they've lied

Everybody knows that they've perpetrated inside

Everybody knows that they're guilty, yes

Resting on their conscience eating their insides

Get free, be who you're supposed to beFreedom, said it's freedom time now

Freedom, said it's freedom time

Freedom, freedom time now


18/47

Ptx


19/47

No P.C.

Obama has zero political capital his efforts can only hurt the chances of passage

Wall Street Journal, June 2, 2013, Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard, TheDecline of the Obama Presidency, 6/2/2013,

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324412604578519482313147400.html Now, six months later, the Obama administration is in an unexpected and sharp state of decline. Mr. Obama has little

influence on Congress. His presidency has no theme. He pivots nervously from issue to issue. What

there is of an Obama agenda consists, at the moment, of leftovers from his first term or proposals that he failed to

emphasize in his re-election campaign and thus have practically no chance of passage. Congressional Republicans

neither trust nor fear the president. And Democrats on Capitol Hill, to whom Mr. Obama has never been close, have

grown leery of him. In the Senate, Democrats complain privately about his interference with the biggest domestic policy matter of 2013,

immigration reform. His effect, the senators believe, can only be to weaken the fragile bipartisan coalition for

reform and make passage of major legislation more perilous. The Obama breakdown was not caused by the trio of scandalsIRS, JusticeDepartment, Benghazinow confronting the president. The decline preceded them. It's the result of what Mr. Obama did in his first term, during the campaign and in the two months

following his re-election. But the scandals have worsened his plight and made recovery next to impossible. To be clear, the two problemsthe decline and the scandalsare different matters.

The scandals have not been linked directly to the president. They are vexing to the administration, but they are not the source of its current impotence. Instead, Mr. Obama's power and

influence have been sapped as a direct result of his own choices and decisions. He also suffers from shortcomings normal to a second term, such as a new, less able team of advisers and

cabinet members and the arrogance fed by an impressive re-election. In his first term, when Democrats controlled the House and Senate, Mr. Obama ignored Republicanshe didn't needtheir votes to pass the $800 billion stimulus, the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) and Dodd-Frank, with its fresh wave of Wall Street regulations. Then, after Republicans captured the

House in the 2010 midterm election, his efforts to reach agreements with them proved futile. Why did Mr. Obama fail at compromise? For one thing, he is rarely able to mask his contempt for

Republicans, especially those with conservative views. For another, he began to question Republicans' motives, insisting publicly that their paramount goal in Washington is to protect the rich

from higher taxes. As a tactic for encouraging compromise, his approach was counterproductive. Robert Merry, the editor of the National Interest magazine and a longtime Washington

journalist, recently pinpointed a bigger reason for the impass e after 2010: "It is a deadlock born largely of the president's resolve to push an agenda for which he has no clear national

consensus." In other words, Mr. Obama is too liberal to find common ground with Republicans. The spending cuts he offers are illusory, the tax increases specific. Then, after the November

election, Mr. Obama spurned conciliation. He upped the ante, calling for higher spending, a new economic stimulus and an increase in the debt limit without congressional approval. Senate

GOP Leader Mitch McConnell laughed out loud when he heard the proposal. Mr. Obama used his last bit of leverage to prevail over Republicans in the fiscal-cliff budget negotiations late last

year. With the Bush-era tax cuts due to expire Dec. 31, the president forced Republicans to accept a hefty tax hike on the top 2% of wage earners. His short-term victory has had long-term

political consequences. Republicans vowed to oppose new tax increases, which ruled out a "grand bargain" to reduce the deficit and national debt. The exclusion of Republicans from a role in

crafting ObamaCare has also backfired. By failing to ensure that the GOP had some influence on the health-care law, the president gave them no reason to support its implementation. With

ObamaCare more unpopular than ever, House Republicans voted last month to repeal it. The vote was largely symbolic, but it was telling that two Democrats joined the effort. Short of repeal,

Republican elected officials across the country are committed to making the law's implementation, beginning this year, as difficult as possible. Nor is tax reform likely to get anywhere this year

or next despite Mr. Obama's support, at least rhetorically, for the idea. He wants to eliminate tax preferences and loopholes so the government can collect more revenue. To win those

changes, though, he would need make a bargain with Republicans, offering to cut tax rates, including the top rate on individual income, to generate faster economic growth. That clashes with

Mr. Obama's zeal for higher taxes on the well-to-do. Faced with such obstacles, the president could focus instead on his own domestic agendaif he had one. He doesn't. He's paying the price

for a re-election campaign that was based on attacking his opponent, Mitt Romney, and not much else. In the president's State of the Union address in February, he endorsed a $9 minimum

wage and universal prekindergarten for 4-year-olds, but those proposals lack a popular mandate. If he had campaigned for them last year, they might have better prospects now. More

often than not, presidents focus on foreign policy in their second terms. But Mr. Obama's practice is to downgrade foreign policy in favor of

domestic concerns. Where he has sought to restrain foreign governmentsRussia, Iran, North Koreahe has been unsuccessful. His speech inMay on national security and the terrorist threat revived an issue from his 2008 campaign, the closing of the terrorist prison at Guantanamo

Bay. The chance that will happen is slim. He is also pushing two leftovers from his first year in office, immigration reform and gun control.

What's striking about Mr. Obama's handling of both is his complete absence of influence. On gun

control, his speeches had zero impact. On immigration, his influence is entirely negative. He can

impede a bill. He cannot aid its passage . All this has left Mr. Obama in a state of weakness. And Democrats are increasingly

blaming him. Doug Sosnik, a former senior adviser in the Clinton White House, wrote in a memo last month that Mr. Obama's re-election "was

a great political achievement, but the fact that he didn't set out a clear policy agenda for a second term left him without a clear mandate to

govern over a politically divided Congress." Mr. Sosnik, who is now a consultant to the National Basketball Association, added: "There's not

a single member of either party [in Congress] who fears paying a political price for not falling in line

with the President, making it even more difficult to get members to cast difficult votes." Mr. Obama's toppriority now is winning the House in 2014 while retaining control of the Senate. "I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that we've got

Nancy Pelosi back in the speakership," he said last week at a Democratic fundraiser in Chicago. In Mr. Obama's case, "everything" is unlikely tobe enough.


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Econ


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High Now

Econ High now

Reuters June 7, Jason Lange, staff writer, Pickup in hiring points to U.S. economic resilience,

6/7/2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/07/us-usa-economy-idUSBRE95607O20130607Employers stepped up hiring a bit in May in a show of economic resilience that suggests the FederalReserve could begin to scale back its monetary stimulus later this year. The United States added 175,000 jobs

last month after adding only 149,000 in April, the Labor Department said on Friday. The pick up in hiring came despite tax

hikes and sweeping budget cuts earlier in the year. The unemployment rate ticked up a tenth of a point to 7.6 percent,

which economists called encouraging because more Americans were began to hunt for jobs. "The labor market continues totrudge forward," said Jim Baird, an investment officer for Plante Moran Financial Advisors in Kalamazoo, Michigan.


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Low Now

Claims of economic improvement are faulty: the economy is badMoore, June 7, Heidi, May jobs report gains mask the U.S. economys weak, uneven recovery, TheGuardian, 6/7/2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/07/may-jobs-report-

economy-recovery And there are reasons why May's job gains themselves are less than totally satisfying. Many of the gains were

largely in low-paying retail positions, which the economy has been adding at roughly twice the rate of

middle-class jobs. Better-paying sectors like manufacturing are still suffering. Overall, the economy has lostroughly 8.8 million jobs since 2008; it has replaced less than one quarter of those since. We haven't come anywhere near closing the gap with

employment in 2007, before the crisis ravaged the picture. The unemployment rate for women, for instance, declined to 6.5% this month but

still towers above the 4.5% it was in 2007, according to the National Women's Law Center. Other measures of "recovery" prove

untrustworthy. The much-ballyhooed increase in household wealth recently was primarily due to rising

house prices and only 19% of home sales are to first-time homebuyers; the rest are primarily going to Wall Street. Even if

one chooses to be optimistic about the numbers, Paul Edelstein and Stephanie Karol of IHS Global Insight indicated that the continuing pushfrom austerity will destroy whatever small gains we are likely to make: "The likelihood that this pace of jobs growth will

persist in the face of the spending sequester, however, is unlikely." For these reasons and more, the monthly numbers

are misleading, and optimism is often swiftly punished. It's important to look at long-term measures of of the

economy's health. Those have not been encouraging at all: the average US household has regained

just 45% of the wealth it lost during the recession, according to the St Louis Federal Reserve. "It's not a recovery,"

wrote Edward Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, this week. "It's not even normal growth. It's bad." That is an ugly realitycheck, but it's better than living in a delusion. It's that delusion that allows Congress and CEOs to continue to ignore the problem of joblessness.


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Transportation


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Surface Transportation

The need for investment is exaggeratedtheir evidence doesnt take into account

recent driving trends

Holeywell, May 17, Ryan, Infrastructure Must Reads: U.S. Transportation Policymakers IgnoreDrivings Decline, Governing, 5/17/2013, http://www.governing.com/blogs/fedwatch/gov-

infrastructure-must-reads-federal-transportaion-policymakers-ignore-decline-driving.html

Transportation policymakers are continuing to project big increases in driving, despite evidence that

Americans are driving less, according to a new study by U.S. PIRG. In 2007, the total vehicle miles driven in

America peaked. That's not a new revelation. But officials at U.S. PIRG say that federal officials haven't recognized the

new normal when it comes to driving trends, and aren't considering the fact that the trends that led to a driving

boom for the last six decades no longer exist. Those include cheap gas, the growth of suburbia, the entrance of millions of women into

the workforce and a quickly expanding labor force due to the baby boom generation. Today, Americans are showing a growing

interest in other modes of transportation, and millennials in particular are showing a predilection for living in urban

areas where they won't need to drive vast distances to commute. Yet U.S. PIRG officials say federal planning

documents continue to predict big increases in driving despite evidence to the contrary. "A lot ofDOTs are still [saying] 'what was the average for the last decade -- let's assume that,'" says PhineasBaxandall, senior policy analyst at U.S. PIRG.


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Active Transportation

States like Colorado are already increasing funding for active transportation local

decision making solves best

Schmitt, April 25, 2013, Angie, In Colorado, a Big Legal Victory for Active Transportation Funding,DC Streets Blog, 4/25/2013, http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/04/25/in-colorado-a-big-legal-victory-for-

active-transportation-funding/But thanks to the efforts of a broad coalition in Colorado, the number of states with constitutional restrictions on sustainable transportation

spending is about to fall to 21. Governor John Hickenlooper will sign a bill tomorrow that opens up $250

million a year in state gas tax revenue to walking, biking, and transit projects. Colorado-based transit

and environmental advocates found a way to overcome the ban without the monumental effort and expense of a statewide

referendum. And theyre eyeing six other states around the Southwest with hopes for a repeat or two.Colorados constitutional amendment passed in 1935 states that gas tax revenues and vehicle registration fees can only be spent on

highways and bridges. To make matters worse, the state had always depended on a narrow reading ofthe term highways to exclude local

roads, sidewalks, and bike infrastructure, as well as transit. Rather than try to overturn the rule, advocates in Colorado simply challenged the

way it was being interpreted, said Will Toor, a former mayor of Boulder who helped lead the campaign as director of transportation at the

Southwest Energy Efficiency Project. Fifteen years ago, a group of us began making the argument that that was really an inappropriately

narrow interpretation, said Toor. There are other places in the constitution that describe railroads as highways of the state. In 2009, acoalition of transit advocates had a small breakthrough. The Colorado legislature wanted to pass a new vehicle registration fee, but lawmakers

needed the political support of transit advocates. The transit coalition was able to win a small, but important, fraction of the funding for transit

just $15 million out of $1.2 billion. That established the precedent that the legislature had more broadly interpreted the restriction, Toor

said. That was the impetus for Colorado Senate Bill 48, which the governor is due to s ign tomorrow. Crucially, transit and

environmental advocates framed SB 48 as an issue of local control, not a campaign to boost transit

spending, says Toor. When theyve tried to frame it as a transit issue in the past, its been extremely controversial, said Toor. This time,

the law simply allows $250 million the share of statewide gas tax revenues that is directed to local communities each year

to be spent on transit, biking, and walking. It does not require communities to spend it that way. The message was that the

people that best understand the transportation needs are the ones that are the closest, said Toor.

Shouldnt they been able to spend these dollars on what they see as their highest and best needs?


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China relations


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High Now

US China relations high now recent talks

AP June 7, 2013, Xi Says World Benefits from US-China Relations, The Associated Press,

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_23415494/xi-says-world-benefits-from-us-china-relationsChinese President Xi Jinping (shee jihn-peeng) says he's meeting with President Barack Obama to chart the

future of China's relationship with the U.S. Xi says the world has reaped huge benefits from the

relationship between the two countries. Speaking through a translator, Xi says the two countries must think creatively and act

energetically when it comes to their relationship. He's calling for more exchange on economic stability and

international challenges. Xi says he's confident the meeting will inject fresh momentum into the

relationship. Xi spoke as Obama welcomed him to a sprawling desert estate in California for two days of talks on high-stakes issues,including cybersecurity and North Korea's nuclear threats. It's the first meeting between the two leaders since Xi took office in March.

China-US relations are increasing now

Xinhua, June 9, 2013, Xi voices confidence in China US cooperation, ECNS,http://www.ecns.cn/2013/06-09/67863.shtml

Chinese President Xi Jinping said in Palm Springs on Saturday that he is fully confident that there is a broad

prospect for cooperation between China and the United States. Xi made the remarks when meeting with CalifornianGovernor Edmund Brown shortly before wrapping up a two-day meetings with his US counterpart Barack Obama. The two presidents met twice

and took a walk together over the weekend at Sunnylands, a 200-acre picturesque estate in the Californian city of Rancho Mirage. Xi thanked

Brown and other state officials for their hospitality and arrangements in hosting the face-to-face meeting between him and Obama, the first

since the two countries completed their latest leadership transitions. Xi told Brown that he and Obama had in-depth, sincere

and candid discussions on bilateral relations as well as international and regional issues of common

concern, and reached important consensus. Both sides agreed to build a new type of major country relationship

based on mutual respect, mutual benefits with win-win results and laid out a comprehensive

blueprint for the future development of bilateral ties, Xi said. Speaking positively of the achievements and efforts made byCalifornian state government in promoting cooperation and exchanges with China, Xi said local-level cooperation can consolidate societal basis

for China-U.S. relations. Both China and the United States have been making structural adjustments, maintaining

economic growth and increasing employment, which provide numerous opportunities for

cooperation, Xi said. China is willing to expand economic cooperation and two-way investment with California and strengthen cooperationwith the state in such fields as clean energy, information technologies, infrastructure construction and culture industries. Brown said it is an

honor of California to host the meetings between the Chinese and US presidents. He said the world needs China and the United States to build

a new type of major country relationship, which is in the fundamental interests of the two countries and their people. California wants to

strengthen cooperation and exchanges with China to make greater contribution to the development of U.S.-China relations, the governor said.

U.S. - China relations stable upcoming talks and cooperation on North Korea and

cyber security

Gross, June 4, Donald, senior associate at the Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic andInternational Studies (CSIS) and former State Department official, Creating a New Model for U.S.-China

Relations at the Obama-Xi Summit, The Huffington Post, 6/4/2013,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donald-gross/creating-a-new-model-for-_b_3383480.html

This week's summit meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama offers a

historic opportunity to improve U.S.-China relations - but only if both sides frankly discuss the critical issues now dividing

them and lay the basis for an ongoing process of mutual threat reduction. Fortunately, there is one major area where the two leaders

have already found common ground and can move the relationship forward - countering the nuclear threat from

North Korea. To their credit, Obama administration officials are approaching the summit in a positive frame of mind.

National Security Advisor Tom Donilon told President Xi during a late May meeting in Beijing that President Obama is "firmly committed


28/47

to building a relationship defined by higher levels of practical cooperation and greater levels of trust,

while managing whatever differences and disagreements might arise between us." Secretary of Defense ChuckHagel emphasized last Saturday that Washington seeks more transparency in dealing with China on cyberespionage as well as other pressing

issues. As he put it, "you have to talk to each other, be direct with each other, be inclusive." President Xi told Donilon in Beijing that the

"current China-U.S. relationship is at a critical juncture" where both sides must now "build on past successes and open up new dimensions for

the future." He called for the two countries to explore "a new type of great power relationship." Donilon responded to Xi's suggestion by

emphasizing that an "essential part of building a new model for relations between great powers is ensuring we have a healthy, stable and

reliable military to military relationship." So both governments are making the right noises and raising expectations thatthe summit will yield concrete positive results.One mutually beneficial measure has already come out

of the pre-summit discussions, as reported by the New York Times - the U.S. and China have agreed on holding

regular, high-level talks with the goal of setting "standards of behavior for cybersecurity and

commercial espionage."

US-Sino relationship has long term stability: both sides want cooperation

Global Times, June 7, 2013, Milestone expected in US-Sino ties, 6/7/2013,http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/787416.shtml#.UbKW9Zz4IZ0 Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart Barack Obama are scheduled to meet this

afternoon, local time. This meeting has already drawn unprecedented attention around the world. It represents not only aconversation in which both leaders can exchange ideas on important global issues, but also puts forward a glimpse of what

China's future might look like when it catches up with the US. China is approaching the US in terms of nationalstrength. This will also be among the most significant factors that impact international politics in the future. The question of whether the two

countries will step out of the box and create a new era of peaceful competition instead of tragic confrontation has become a major test for both

countries and even the rest of the world. First, public opinion in the US, even around the globe, is getting used to China's

rise in power. This inevitable trend, which has been foreseen by many people around the world, is also starting to not be seen by so many

Western people as "dreadful." Second, most Western countries are not happy that China is catching up with the US, but they

disagree with the idea of following the US to contain China at all costs. Peace is what most people are

expecting, so taking the high risk of confronting China goes against their will.Third, the Chinese

people are looking forward to China's peaceful rise. Challenging the US or staging a cold war with it is

not what they envision. What they are expecting is a long-term Sino-American relationship where

peaceful competition and cooperation coexist. The forthcoming years are crucial to this process, which hopefully willlead to irreversible stability . Both Chinese and American leaders have the power to direct the future of world political civilization.

They are carrying the hopes of turning a new leaf in international politics, ending zero-sum games among major powers.


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Tension now

Chinas relationship with the U.S. is as sweet and sour as their chicken tensions

inevitable

USA Today, June 5, 2013, Calum MacLeod, For China, summit with Obama more a meeting ofequals, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/06/05/china-obama-summit-

california/2391823/Over a year ago, then Chinese vice president Xi Jinping visited Washington to defend China's record on human rights, unfair trade practices and

aggressive moves against U.S. allies in Asia. Now President Xi Jinping returns to the United States as head of China's Communist party, its army

and its state, and there will likely be no apologies for China's actions when Xi meets with President Obama on Friday . The two nations

share "a sweet and sour relationship," said Sun Zhe, director of the Center for Sino-U.S. Relations at Qinghua University in

Beijing. "The sweet, promising part is that both countries really emphasize working together, and that

it's a very important relationship" that has survived decades of confrontations, Sun said. On the sour

side, both "have some sort of political correctness, feel their way of doing business is correct and use

their moral standards to judge the other." Xi Jinping heads a nation fast swelling into superpower status. As its industrial basekeeps expanding, China increasingly looks to buy U.S. companies rather than invite them to operate here, such as its recent $4.7 billion

purchase of Smithfield Foods Inc. Its military has become more expansionist, sending ships well into the Pacific to claim as its own hundreds of

thousands of square miles of resource rich waters that U.S. friends such as Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines say belong to them. Yet at home,

it feels the need to repress segments of society to the point where its censors find it necessary to block out the words "today" and "tomorrow"

to stop Internet users from discussing the anniversary of the June 4, 1989, massacre in Tiananmen Square. China's Communist authorities

remain scared of their own people and recent history even as they boast of a newly earned global confidence and influence. That attitude is

well represented by Xi, 59, who will stop by California on Friday for a two-day "shirt-sleeves" summit with Obama following recent visits to

world capitals in Africa, Europe and Latin America. As the leaders of the world's top two economies, Xi and Obama have many issues that divide

the nations. But the scheduled six hours of meetings at the Sunnylands desert retreat in Rancho Mirage will probably end up being more about

building closer personal ties during meals and walks. Though the United States has many items on its agenda, China

has signaled it has no interest in satisfying them. High on the agenda for the U.S. side will be

cybersecurity after several reports of state-sponsored Chinese cyberattacks against U.S. government, commercial

and civil organizations. But Beijing denies responsibility and also claims it is the victim of such attacks. China'stop Internet security official Huang Chengqing said he has "mountains of data" about U.S. cyberattacks on China, the China Daily newspaper

reported Wednesday. Many analysts expect Xi to talk in broad terms about two of his major political concepts the "China dream"

and the need for a "new type of great power relationship" between the United States and China. "I hope(Obama) avoids signing on to 'a new type of great power relationship,'" wrote Andrew Nathan, a China expert at Columbia University, on the

Asia Society's ChinaFile website. "This is Chinese code for the U.S. pre-emptively yielding to what China views as

its legitimate security interests." Chinese academics says the United States must view the world and China differently to avoidconflicts. This summit and future ones, "must address this difficult relationship how China can rise peacefully without being very coercive, and

only a little aggressive, and how America can accept China as No. 1," said Shen Dingli, an international relations expert at Shanghai's Fudan

University. "By visiting America without asking for protocol, Xi shows China wants to stabilize the relationship," he said. "But as long as

China grows faster than the U.S., the relationship will get worse." When China surpasses U.S. GDP at some pointunder Obama's successor, it will be the first time the USA has been eclipsed by another nation in 70 years, Shen said. "China's rise is peaceful,

so the USA can't launch a war to stop China's rise, America must accept it." The two presidents' meeting "will be important but not historical,

and can quickly be forgotten in three months," he said. The summit has received little attention in everyday China. On China's social media

sites, the talk is all about a deadly fire that killed more than 100 poultry farm workers in the latest example of poor workplace safety. Another

popular topic is Xi Jinping's fashion-savvy wife Peng Liyuan, a singing star and a first lady of unusually high profile for China. "I heard about the

summit on the TV news but it doesn't interest me," said Zhang Wenchang, who runs a painting store in Beijing. "I don't think meetings

can solve disputes. It's interests that matter. China and the USA are competitors and have different

views of their interests," he said. "China won't get much from talking with Obama. But there's a lot of mess back home that needs tobe handled."


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No War

No chance of US-China conflict too economically dependent

Feldman, June 2, Noah, professor of constitutional and international law at Harvard, The Coming

Cool War With China, Bloomberg, 6/2/2013, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-02/the-coming-cool-war-with-china.htmlThe juxtaposition of rising tensions over cyber-attacks and the pork cooperation perfectly captures the paradoxical state of Chinese-U.S.

relations -- and explains why officials on both sides are struggling to come up with a new conceptual framework to understand the change.

Never before has a rising power been so economically interdependent with the nation challenging it.

The ties go beyond the U.S.s 25 percent market share for Chinese exports or Chinas holdings of 8

percent of the outstanding U.S. national debt. They include about 200,000 Chinese studying in the U.S.

and perhaps 80,000 Americans living and working in China. The combination of geopolitical competition andeconomic

interdependence sets the terms for the struggle that wont be a new Cold War so much as a Cool War.If the Soviet Union and the

U.S. avoided all-out conflict because of mutually assured nuclear destruction, the relations between

China and the U.S. today could be defined by the threat of mutually assured economic destruction.

The economic costs of violent conflict would be incalculably large.


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Infr. Investment Key

Chinese investment in US infrastructure is key to US-China relations

China Daily, June 7, 2013, Cai Chunying, Top China Expert Wishes Big for Summit, China Daily,6/7/2013, http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2013-06/07/content_16583636.htmLongtime China hand Chas Freeman, the principal American interpreter during Nixon's 1972 groundbreaking China visit, has big wishes for the

Xi-Obama meeting. "I really think the framework we are operating within is pretty near the end of its useful

life," Freeman told China Daily. "I hope they will have a strategic discussion in which they will talk about the

new framework for US-China relations that Mr Xi proposed when he talked about 'a new type of great power relationship'. "Weneed to come up with something new to reflect the tremendous interdependence between the two countries economically and the strength

that exists between us politically and in the military sphere," he added. Freeman became the deputy chief of mission at the newly-established

American embassy in Beijing after China and US normalized relations in 1979. He later served as director of China affairs and then deputy

assistant secretary at the US State Department in the 1980s. He is now the chair of the consultancy company Projects International, which

facilitates international business ventures. Planning an informal meeting for Xi's first US visit since he became the Chinese president in March is

wise, Freeman said. The private meeting will take place in Rancho Mirage at the Sunnylands estate, once owned by the late publishing tycoon

Walter Annenberg. "The invitation to Mr Xi reflects the sense that we need to get beyond the often stereotypical exchanges that have occurred

in the past, and there really needs to be more time spent between these two very important world leaders than the usual meetings allow. "One

of the reasons this meeting is taking place is the sense that Mr Xi is able and willing to discuss things informally," he said. "That's a good way to

make progress." Freeman believes China and the US share much common ground, and the key barrier for them is

a lack of mutual trust and confidence. "We need to do things, and we need to think of things, that can provide that kind of trust

and confidence," Freeman said. Mutual investment will also be an essential part of the long-term strategic

framework of US-China relations, he said. Both sides should "reach an agreement in which China might

invest heavily in rebuilding US infrastructure , which will enable China to take its excess holdings of

dollars and turn them into concrete profit-producing investment and would help the US recover

economically," he said. On looming-large trade issues, Freeman urged the two leaders to "think about pledging not to pursue free trade orother agreements that would exclude each other".


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Deficit Reduction Key

Failure to reduce the U.S. deficit destroys U.S.-China relations

Prasad 2012, Eswar,Senior Professor of Trade Policy at Cornell and Researcher Associate at the

National Bureau of Economic Research,

holds the New Century Chair in International Economics,previously head of the Financial Studies Division and the China Division at the IMF, The U.S.-ChinaEconomic Relationship: Shifts and Twists in the Balance of Power, Brookings, 2/25/2012,http://www.brookings.edu/testimony/2010/0225_us_china_debt_prasad.aspx

The question remains whether the U.S. is gaining sufficient leverage from its importance to the Chinese economy and its initiatives to give

China a more prominent place on the world stage. Indeed, the shifting narratives noted earlier seem to have put the U.S. administration on the

defensive in its dealings with China. Here are some steps the Obama administration needs to take to rebalance this

relationship: Get real on deficit reduction. The simple reality is that the U.S. has to summon the political will to decisively tackleits mammoth budget deficit and rising public debt, which have contributed to its current account deficits and dependence on funds flowing in

from the rest of the world. Otherwise, the U.S. will become increasingly vulnerable to external influences. In the absence of a clear

commitment and a credible plan to bring down the deficit through a combination of revenue increases and

expenditure reductions, the U.S. will face a worsening balance of power in its relationship with China.

Be more assertive in this bilateral relationship. My view is that mollification of China on economic and political issues is no longer the rightapproach. The administrations actionsincluding certain statements by Secretary Geithner and Secretary Clinton during their respective visits

to Beijinghave fed into the perception that the U.S. is on the defensive in this bilateral relationship. On human rights issues, in particular, the

U.S. cannot be seen to be backing down as a result of economic pressures. Elicit the support of other emerging markets and developing

countries in influencing Chinese currency and other economic policies. Rather than focusing on the effects of Chinas currency on the U.S.-China

bilateral trade balance, the implications of Chinas currency policy for its own economic stability and those of other emerging markets should be

highlighted. Greater currency flexibility could have considerable long-term benefits for China by allowing its monetary policy to become more

independent, reducing its dependence on exports and rebalancing its economy towards domestic consumption. This would be good for Chinas

growth and would also make a useful contribution to the stability of the international financial system.[10] It would also ease the pressure on

other emerging markets that are facing a dire loss of competitiveness relative to China if their currencies appreciate while Chinas doesnt,

complicating their macroeconomic policy management. Continue to foster high- level engagements among leaders of the two nations through

the Strategic and Economic Dialogue and other avenues. Building up trust at these higher levels will be important to ensure that low-level

disputes with minor direct ramifications dont spin out of control as pandering to domestic constituencies could lock the two nations into a

cycle of confrontation that escalates disputes to a more damaging level. Setting the China-U.S. relationship on an even keel

is important not just for the principals but also for the broader world economy as the cooperative or

conflicted nature of this relationship will set the tone for progress on a number of multilateral issues,including global macroeconomic stability, reform of the international monetary system and tackling

climate change.
http://www.brookings.edu/testimony/2010/0225_us_china_debt_prasad.aspxhttp://www.brookings.edu/testimony/2010/0225_us_china_debt_prasad.aspx


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Russian Relations


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High Now

US-Russia relations high now: Obama quietly pursuing cooperative measures

Mankoff, June 6, Jeffrey, deputy director and fellow with the Center for Strategic and InternationalStudies Russia and Eurasia Program, US-Russia ties: better than you think, CNN, 6/6/2013,

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/06/u-s-russia-ties-better-than-you-think/ Faced with an increasingly complex international environment, President Barack Obama is quietly re-emphasizing one of the main

priorities of his first term: trying to build a cooperative relationship with Russia. This may come as a surprise after all,

the atmosphere between the two countries has been decidedly frosty the past year. But although the high-profile outreach of

the first-term reset may have been set aside, the Obama administration has been pursuing low key,

concrete cooperation on issues ranging from Syria to Afghanistan to counter-terrorism. And, freed from the

political baggage surrounding the reset, such cooperation is likely to prove more sustainable and more effectiveat advancing U.S. interests.Obamas first term got off to a good start. Washington and Moscow agreed to cut their nuclear forces under the New START agreement, and Russia alsoprovided logistical support for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, at the United Nations, Russia supported Iran sanctions and ultimately acquiesced to U.S. requests for intervention in

Libya. This cooperation was symbolized by the bright red (but mistranslated) reset button that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented to her Russian counterpart in Geneva in 2009. As

several of Obamas other first term international initiatives fell by the wayside, the U.S.-Russia reset became one of his highest profile foreign policy achievements. But this made the reset

vulnerable when the political winds in Moscow and Washington shifted. Disputed Russian parliamentary elections in December 2011 brought massive protests into the streets of Moscow.

Russias presidential transition six months later saw Vladimir Putin replace Dmitry Medvedev, with whom Obama had developed a close working relationship. Not only did Putins previous

tenure in the Kremlin coincide with a worsening of U.S.-Russian relations (culminating with the August 2008 war in Georgia), but the returning president now turned to anti-American populism

to shore up his tenuous legitimacy. This included unprecedented harassment of new U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul, previously the architect of the reset at the White House. Putins newgovernment also cracked down on civil society groups, especially those with ties to the West. USAID was expelled, and NGOs receiving funds from abroad were required under a new law to

register as foreign agents. The U.S. Congress, meanwhile, was working to pass a bill imposing visa and financial sanctions on Russian officials implicated in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a

lawyer investigating a tax fraud scheme implicating several high-ranking figures when he was arrested and subsequently died in prison. Though the Obama administration believed that the so-

called Magnitsky Act was unwise (and duplicated steps it was already taking), its options were constrained by the bills bipa rtisan support on Capitol Hill and election year politics, including

Republican Party nominee Mitt Romneys invocation of Russia as Washingtons number one geopolitical foe. Making matters worse was the escalating crisis in Syria, where U.S. demands for

the departure of President Bashar al-Assad ran headlong into Russian support for a strategic ally and opposition to foreign intervention, despite a mounting humanitarian disaster. In the

last few weeks, Russias very public expulsion of an American diplomat accused of espionage has contributed further to the

perception of crisis in U.S.-Russian relations. Behind the scenes though, Obama has sought to boost

cooperation, and early indications are that these efforts are succeeding. He announced the

cancellation ofphase 4 of the planned U.S. missile defense system in Europe, and limited the application of the

Magnitsky law to a small number of fairly minor officials. U.S. National Security Advisor Tom Donilon then traveled to Moscow carrying a

letter from Obama to Putin laying out new initiatives for cooperation, including heightened transparency on

U.S. missile defense plans, further nuclear reductions, a new communication channel between the U.S. vice president

and the Russian prime minister, and the creation of a secure video link for communications between the White House and Kremlin. Putinand Secretary of State John Kerry then agreed to co-sponsor a conference seeking a negotiated end to the

bloodshed in Syria. Donilons counterpart Nikolay Patrushev was just in Washington, with a letter from Putin emphasizing the need tofind an agreement on missile defense. This diplomatic activity underscores Obamas recognition that Russian cooperation is necessary on

several issues that will shape his legacy. The Boston Marathon bombing brought a renewed focus on the need for

cooperation between intelligence services to counter terrorism. Russian intelligence and logistical cooperation will beespecially critical during and after the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. While prospects for Syrias future remain very uncertain,

U.S.-Russian cooperation represents the only plausible path to a negotiated end to the conflict (despite al-Assads statement implying that he

had received advanced S-300 air defense units from Moscow, Putin told European Union leaders this week that Russia had in fact suspended

their delivery).

Boston marathon inspires renewed demand for US-Russia cooperationFAS, June 4, Katie Colten, Call to Action: US and Russian Relations, Federation of AmericanScientists, 6/4/2013, http://blogs.fas.org/blog/2013/06/call-to-action-u-s-and-russian-relations/

This week, members of a Congressional delegation are visiting Moscow to investigate the background of

the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. Two members of the delegation, Republican Congressmen Dana

Rohrabacher of California, and Steve King of Iowa, broke from their partys anti- Russia stance and called for closer

collaboration with Russian colleagues on matters of intelligence and counterterrorism. Mr. Rohrabacher

said,I would say both the Obama administration as well as the Republican administration before Obama that we have allowed


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attitudes, maybe the attitudes from the cold war, to remain in place that have prevented a level of

cooperation that is justified. FAS applauds Mr. Rohrabacher and Mr. King for their support of increased cooperation between theUnited States and Russian officials in matters of international security, and their ability to look past Cold War thinking and work with Russia on

issues of mutual concern. It is our hope that the support of Mr. Rohrabacher and Mr. King will encourage members of Congress to reevaluate

their position on Russia and U.S. relations, including the reductions of nuclear stockpiles in both countries.


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Low Now

US Russian relations are struggling and will not improve soon

English News, May 28, 2013, Russian senior diplomat says ties with U.S. not to improve soon,

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-05/28/c_132414943.htm Russia does not expect its relations with the United States to improve dramatically in the near future,Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Tuesday. Speaking in an interview with the Voice of Russia radio, Ryabkov cited

the two countries' problems in trade and regional security as well as the recent controversy over

adoption. "We know the position of our U.S. partners perfectly, and we present our position thoroughly. We try to find an opportunity to

bring these positions closer," Ryabkov said. The current trade volume between the two countries was "ridiculously

low," he said, noting that the United States is not among Russia's top five trading partners . In particular,

Ryabkov lamented the lack of full-scale negotiations over the missile defense issue. He urged Washington towithdraw its tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, saying their presence is a strategic threat for Russia. Moscow has been ready to advance its

relations with Washington, and contacts between the two sides, including at the top level, have been on the rise, he said. "This is a good sign,"

Ryabkov said.


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Soft Power


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High Now

Soft power highShaq (but seriously dont read this card)

Gray May 20, Kevin, Laughing, tweeting and eating: the softpower of Shaquille ONeal, Smart

Planet, May 20, 2013, http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/big-story/laughing-tweeting-and-eating-the-soft-power-of-shaquille-oneal/421When Amy Jo Martin started Digital Royalty, her social media marketing company, in 2009, she had one goal: take the soft power influence of

professional star athletes their unshakable hold on their fans emotions and turn it into hard cash. Over the past several years,

the idea of soft power has gained currency with political theorists. It is a way to describe a nations

ability to persuade others to do what it wants without the hard power of force, threats or bribery. It

includes culture, trade, diplomacy and engagement. The theory, long associated with the persuasive arts of marketing andadvertising, has likewise gained traction and urgency among the worlds largest consumer brands and their well-paid spokespeople as they

navigate the fickle world of social media. Its no longer enough to slap a logo on a Super Bowl ad or to pitch a pair of Nikes in a magazine.

Witness Martins first big project: a guy named Shaquille ONeal. When ONeal retired from the NBA in 2011, he announced it in aTwitter-linked video that went viral in minutes. As he plotted his post-career livelihood, inviting 30 brand executives to his Orlando home a

month later, ONeal made it clear to the folks from Oreo, TNT and Toys R Us that he didnt plan to just rely on a SportsCenter gig to remain

relevant to his fans. Instead, he would talk directly to them, becoming his own soft power media channel. Martin

knew the way to do this was through Shaqs massive fan base on Twitter. With 4.3 million followers, Shaq is among the most prolific jocks onthe 140-character court. Over the past several years, tweeting a product plug has become a staple of many top athletes endorsement deals,

right alongside TV commercials, print ads and trade-show appearances. There is also a growing pay-per-tweet market one-off product shout-

outs that can earn a player $20,000 a pop depending on his audience size. Guys like former New England Patriots wide receiver Chad Johnson

(4.8 million Twitter followers) pull down a reported $5 million a year doing this. Martin, however, dislikes this model. Youre not engaging with

fans, so theres no real influence there, she says. So she encouraged ONeal to build his personal brand by sharing genuine details of his life or

his take on the previous nights basketball games directly with his fans. He could then build endorsement deals around that soft power center,

which would be stickier. ONeal shoots 15-second videos of himself doing stunts for fans and integrating product pitches into his day-to-day

life. I never say, Go buy this on my Twitter, Shaq told me shortly after his retirement. I make people laugh, I inspire people. I have a deal

with Oreos. I do a shout-out saying, Im eating Oreos. How many can I eat in 15 seconds? And that makes you laugh, you talk about Oreos and

then 10 percent of the 4 million people go buy Oreos. Shaq makes $15 million a year on traditional endorsements, but these blasts earn him

an extra $5 million. In the process, he not only cements the brands credibility, he creates a bond with fans and builds his post-career financial

longevity. As the concept of soft power has spread from academia to the boardroom and even to the locker

rooms of professional sports it has spawned an innovative generation of business thinkers like Martin and DIY pitchmen like

ONeal, whose Web site, with its interactive March Madness polls, its Original SoupMan sweepstakes

on Facebook (Win a soup with Shaq!) and its banner ads for his personal designer jewelry collection at

Zales, is a study in the nexus of soft powerand marketing. ONeals brand, honed over a 19-year NBA career, is one of the bestmanaged and most authentic in the social media realm. It is never put on autopilot, like a lot of celebrities and athletes, where Tweeting a

bunch of pitch-speak is no different than blasting out junk mail. Martin advises brands on this same model. A lot of corporate brands we work

with, they have well-known logos, Martin says. With social communication, its important to humanize the experience with an audience no

matter who they may be. Humans connect with humans, not with logos.

U.S. soft power high now making progress on multiple global fronts

Politico 4/30, General David Petraeus, retired from the Army in 2011 after commanding U.S. andcoalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and director of the CIA from September 2011 to November

2012, and Michael OHanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Fund dont cut US soft

power, Politico, April 30, 2013, http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/david-petraeus-defense-diplomacy-soft-power-90781_Page2.html Such an outcome would be bad for our nations security. As each of us has testified on Capitol Hill in past years, Americas ability to protect

itself and advance its global interests often depends as much on its softer poweras it does on our nations armed forces. For example,though Latin American countries were themselves primarily responsible for their progress, the headway many of them made in stabilizing their

countries in recent years has been a big plus for American security, too and American aid had a role in that progress. That is part ofwhy we have supported a budget deal that would repeal sequestration and achieve most further deficit reduction through savings in

entitlement spending with similar increases in revenue generation. Implicit in our approach was the thinking that lawmakers should avoid the

temptation to gut foreign aid just because it generally lacks a strong constituency in the United States. Americas spending on


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development and diplomacy and security aid the so-called 150 account has strengthened under Presidents

George W. Bush and Barack Obama. That has been a positive and long overdue development. Funds for diplomacy and developmentwere starved in much of the 1990s. Some of the reductions in that earlier period were warranted, admittedly, as aid then was not always as

productive as it might have been. Today, we are arguably doing a good deal better. Various forms of development

assistance and aid have, in fact, produced impressive results on a host of fronts in recent years. The

Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a major initiative of Presidents Bush and Bill Clinton and now President Obama,

has played a significant role in helping to turn the tide against the HIV/AIDS epidemic even if more work

remains to be done. Development assistance has also helped more than 600 million people move out of

extreme poverty, achieving one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals several years

before the 2015 target date. Moreover, as John Podesta has recently written, in this century alone, aid has helped reduce the globalchildhood mortality rate by one-third impressive, even if only halfway toward the U.N. goal for 2015. The maternal mortality rate has been

reduced by almost half, as well. And progress has been seen in other sectors such as agriculture, energy and

other realms, including many in the combat zones where each of us spent considerable time in the past decade. America deserves

considerable credit for much of this progress, as the U.S. is the worlds largest aid contributor, at roughly$30 billion in 2012. The United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan round out the rest of the top five donors, each providing from $10 billion

to $15 billion a year. But relative to our economys size, America does not do more than its fair share; it provides just 0.19 percent of gross

domestic product in development aid, similar to Japans level but less than half that of the three big European donors listed above, and less

than a third the U.N. goal of 0.7 percent of GDP. Private donations improve our net national position somewhat, but only to an extent. The

State Department budget is still less than 5 percent of the militarys and the number of Foreign Service officers worldwide is less than half

the number of soldiers in a single Army division.

U.S. soft power high now its now more reliant on U.S. private industry

Forbes 2012, Jennie S. Bev, regular columnist to Forbes Indonesia, The Jakarta Post, and StrategicReview, and an Associate Partner of Fortune PR Indonesia The Power of American Soft Power, May

23, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/85broads/2012/05/23/the-power-of-american-soft-power/

The world was so shocked with the fall of USA, that its gradual rise hasnt yet created a lasting mental image. Good news, American soft

power is more powerful than any fiscal policy and political maneuver. Joseph Nye of Harvard University KennedySchool of Government says soft power refers to the ability to get through attraction rather than coercion or payments. By to get it means to

receive favorable treatments based upon attractiveness of a countrys culture, ideals, and policies. For instance, inspired by TV series about

medical doctors, some children in Taiwan aspire to study medicine at an American university. Infatuated by the idea of a fair trial, an Indonesian

dissident aspires to become a lawyer. Soft power can be hardcore power. And the American brand is still the

best out there. Also, thanks t

lol- katie

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