Tampa Prep 2009-2010 Impact Defense File
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- AT: Dehumanization
Ext #2 – Alt CauseAlt cause – agriculture World Rainforest Movement 98: What are underlying causes of deforestation? http://www.wrm.org.uy/deforestation/indirect.html The most important direct causes of deforestation include logging, the conversion of forested lands for agriculture and cattle-raising, urbanization, mining and oil exploitation, acid rain and fire. However, there has been a tendency of highlighting small-scale migratory farmers or "poverty" as the major cause of forest loss. Such farmers tend to settle along roads through the forest, to clear a patch of land and to use it for growing subsistence or cash crops. In tropical forests, such practices tend to lead to rapid soil degradation as most soils are too poor to sustain agriculture. Consequently, the farmer is forced to clear another patch of forest after a few years. The degraded agricultural land is often used for a few years more for cattle raising. This is a death sentence for the soil, as cattle remove the last scarce traces of fertility. The result is an entirely degraded piece of land which will be unable to recover its original biomass for many years. It is a major mistake to think that such unsustainable agricultural practices only take place in tropical countries. Many parts of North America and western Europe have become deforested due to unsustainable agriculture, leading to severe soil degradation and in many cases abandonment of the area by the farmers. Logging World Rainforest Movement 98: What are underlying causes of deforestation? http://www.wrm.org.uy/deforestation/indirect.html In other countries, clearcut logging practices have been the main reason for forest loss. In the early nineties, Canada and Malaysia were famous examples of countries where logging companies ruthlessly cleared mile upon mile of precious primary forests. Here too, the historical perspective should not be overlooked. Countries like Ireland and Scotland used to be almost entirely forested, but were nearly completely cleared under British rule to provide timber for English shipbuilders. Today, logging still forms the most important direct threat to forests in regions like the Guianan shield (stable area of low relief in the Earth's crust), Central Africa, East Siberia and British Columbia. Consumption World Rainforest Movement 98: What are underlying causes of deforestation? http://www.wrm.org.uy/deforestation/indirect.html It should be emphasized that it is seldom the production of food for the poor which causes deforestation, as the largest areas of forests converted to other uses are currently being dedicated to the production of cash crops and cattle. These products, which vary from coffee and beef to coca and soy bean, are in many cases almost exclusively produced for export markets in OECD countries. It is absurd to defend the production of these goods with arguments about food security, as some governments and international institutions (including the FAO) do, since Northern countries have excessively high levels of consumption. Under the current free-trade oriented ideology, the standard solution of institutions like the International Monetary Fund for these problems is increasing exports, instead of decreasing imports. Meanwhile, it is the import of luxury goods for the wealthy, as well as weapons, which tend to lie at the roots of trade balance and balance of payments distortions, both in industrialized and in low income countries. One of the major contributory factors in deforestation is the failure of macro-economic bodies like the Bretton Woods Institutions to recognize this relationship between consumption patterns and macro-economic problems. Military World Rainforest Movement 98: What are underlying causes of deforestation? http://www.wrm.org.uy/deforestation/indirect.html Weapons imports constitute an important socio-economic, and thus ecological burden in many countries. Every dollar spent on weapons is one dollar less spent on education, health-care, sustainable technology development and sustainable development in general. It is also one dollar on the wrong side of the balance of payments. The export of weapons constitutes big business for many - particularly Northern - countries. Naturally, war and violence themselves place a major direct and indirect burden upon forests. In some cases, the military have direct interests in logging concessions or the production of cash-crops like coca. The influence of the military on governmental policies in many countries is profound. For the military, the inaccessibility of forests is a strategic problem. Indigenous peoples and other isolated groups of society can pose a threat. Opening up the forest and stimulating migration of people from the centre of the country to these isolated areas serves a strategic purpose. Oil and mineral exploitation within the nation is strategically important, even when one has to attract foreign companies with conditions which allows all profits to flow out of the country. More indirectly, the continuing dominance of Cold War mentalities cause some of the world's macro-economic institutions to be so ruthlessly free-market oriented. Despite these obvious and not-so-obvious relationships, there seems to be a strong taboo on discussing the influence of the military on deforestation and other social and ecological problems. Clear figures are absent and little research has been done. AT: Dehumanization1. Otherization has existed for centuries – impacts empirically denied, and Native Americans and Hispanics aren’t otherized. Thomas, Professor, Gov, Politics, Global Studies, 08 (George Thomas, Professor, School of Government, Politics, and Global Studies, Ph.D, Stanford University, author, 8/22/08, “The Ugly Underside of an Ugly Underside,” http://www.wemagazine.org/the-ugly-underside-of-an-ugly-underside/) About a decade ago a “Pacific Rim” candidate for political office – I have forgotten who it was, where, and for what office – took a Democratic candidate to task for his failure to broaden the racial discourse to include mention of minorities other than the usual black vs. white. Gypsies in Europe (called “Rom” in polite company) have endured “otherization” for so long and so pervasively that even well-positioned social scientists dismiss Rom studies to be less-than-legitimate. (For color-conscious bigots out there, many European terms for the Rom/Gypsies translate as “black,” for hair color). American “Otherization” survived a long history as well. Slaves were taken in war, and people were respected or deprived on the basis of language and custom. It wasn’t until the Anglicization of North America that skin color became the primary criterion for how humans were classified and cubby holed. Today’s Hispanic population and, for that matter, other Native American descendants, cannot be placed in one such hole, whether pigeon or cubby. North American Indians have issues different from those to the south. Additional issues stemming from the reservation system suggest deep-seated internal conflict between the need to marginalize Indians while simultaneously providing real estate and special government support. Others in society, black, white, Hispanic, or other “others,” adopt the Hollywood stereotype toward reservation Indians with many of the expected non-complimentary generalizations. And of course Mexican-Americans exchange ridicule with Dominicans, Cubans and Puerto Ricans, and the love fest parties on. 2. Holocaust was epitome of dehumanization – impacts empirically denied. 2. Each group of “other” otherizes one another, contributing to an unbreakable cycle. Thomas, Professor, Gov, Politics, Global Studies, 08 (George Thomas, Professor, School of Government, Politics, and Global Studies, Ph.D, Stanford University, author, 8/22/08, “The Ugly Underside of an Ugly Underside,” http://www.wemagazine.org/the-ugly-underside-of-an-ugly-underside/) It remained for the special social histories of the United States for the symbiotic cycle of bigotry to be completed. Today, blacks, Hispanics, white supremacists and…. Who have we left out unintentionally? exchange ideas for use in ridiculing some other “other.” Indeed if one reads classic studies of (or has actual experience observing) “The Nature of Prejudice” at work, one sees that our neighbors often operate by means of social defenses developed through generations. I have heard many Hispanic Texans fight back against exclusionary American Black politics. Some of my Hispanic relatives hold advanced degrees and have successful law practices, yet refuse to vote Obama based solely on race. Some Hispanic declarations against Obama sound every bit as racist as the Jim Crow sentiments reminiscent of the worst of deep southern white supremacy. 3. The law is inherently dehumanizing. Working through the government cannot solve dehumanization. Morrison, J.D., Boston College Law School, 06 (Steven R. Morrison, J.D., Boston College Law School, Criminal Law, Fall 06, Dartmouth Law Journal, “Dehumanization and Recreation: A Lacanian Interpretation of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, pp. 108-109, http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=steven_morrison) Lacan clearly suggests that the law tends to dehumanize people and recreate them as less than human but more suitable for governance. Marvin Frankel has described the "gross evils and defaults in what is probably the most critical point in our system of administering justice, the imposition of a sentence." Frankel goes on to assert a need to "humanize criminal sentencing." He calls to Lacan in stating that "the Guideline range is not sufficiently broad to accommodate relevant differences among offenders. The judge’s power to depart therefore became the crucial mechanism for avoiding undue rigidity." This argument derives from Lacan’s notion of law that "universalizes significations," meaning that law does away with individuality. It ignores individual uniqueness and instead installs a system with a philosophy of human sameness, a kind of blind equality. The FSG thus, by universalizing the offender, become "offensive to the whole notion of human dignity" by ignoring the offender’s personal characteristics. 4. War is dehumanizing to the aggressors, turning the case. Shahabi, Political activist, 08 (Mehrnaz Shahabi, Political activist, anti-war campaigner, translator, 4/25/08, http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/4753) The shameful exposition by the American presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton, of her mass genocidal intentions towards Iranians was tragic proof of the dehumanising impact of warmongering on an elite western mind. It is said that humanity is the first casualty of war and this has been starkly clear, not only in the murderous boasting of the presidential candidate's preparedness to "totally obliterate" an entire nation, to prove her appeal as the American president, but worse still, in the meek and acquiescent response or no response at all of the western mainstream journalists, politicians and intelligentsia. Directory: files -> documents documents -> North Mankato Taylor Library documents -> In the Red and Brown Water documents -> - documents -> I. Disaster Summary Sheet II. 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