Debate allows us to find comfort in distance from the problems that we address. The hypothetical nature of debate makes it easy to forget that there is a very real world out there. If we think of what is going on in MENA as a game, then we begin to filter our epistemologies through that game. A horrible story about virginity tests at an Egyptian protest becomes inherency for the affirmative. Hundreds of people dying in Syria last week was a good thing – it means the aff has more of an impact.
The way we play this game increases the propensity for disconnection, for traditional mental machines to begin epistemologically trivializing what should be stories that keep us up at night.
Thus, instead of turning toward our traditional argumentative comfort zones to distance ourselves from that which is disturbing, shocking, inspiring, and beautiful about the topic; Ryan and I choose to make this round – one of the last of the season and of my debate career – about giving-up on this fearful inclination to retreat to the theoretical.
Forget simulation of democracy assistance, lets DO IT.<ahem>
I got a “leave a name and number after the beep”
Kinda message
A wake you up outta yo sleep
Kinda message
Tryna chill, need to get on yo feet
Kinda message
Full of b/s, you are what you eat
Kinda message
By “you are what you eat”,
I mean you are what you buy into
You gotta guard ya heart
And keep a close eye on your mental
This world will leave you with no drive
Like a rental
People follow, but are no longer “lead”,
Broken pencil
Middle East, Northern Africa
Is where we see the problem
Bombs dropped on Homs
Assad is tryna solve em
But no shots are stopped
And no lives are saved
Until we fight power
With power
Give people the center stage
Im amazed
At all the ways
The US is in cahoots
Like when our money bought the guns
That sponsored Mubarak’s troops
Give people no right to live
They practice the right to die
Oppressed, hot like the 4th
Cuz they already know July
No lie
Imspittin truth
Fight thru it,
Im living proof
Send HIP HOP to the region
To re-empower the youth
Cynthia Schneider and Kristina Nelson 2008
(Cynthia P. Schneider (PhD Harvard, former ambassador, working at Georgetown now) and Kristina Nelson (PhD Berkeley, living in Cairo since 1983 doing consulting for local artists and donors), “Mightier than the Sword: Arts and Culture in the U.S.-Muslim World Relationship”, June, Brookings Institute Saban Center)
Arts and culture, …for nonprofit arts and media organizations.
I got a “leave a name and number after the beep”
Kinda message
A wake you up outta yo sleep
Kinda message
Tryna chill, need to get on yo feet
Kinda message
Full of b/s, you are what you eat
Kinda message
Im fareal when I tell you
This is no time to chill
Cuz if we’re not willing to do it
China or Russia will
You’re probably thinkin right now
“Are you serious? Why us?”
Debate cant send HIP HOP
This is gonna be too tough
But pushing limits, a must
Innovation is us
But we need people to say
<Ryan> “Ay, enough is enough”
Ayat al Cormezi
Arrested in Pearl Square
No beat behind it
But the spoken word was there
In rare form,
So therefore,
Im implored,
To do same.
What im seeing everyday
Is what I hear about in Bahrain
So we wont leave it alone
We’re meeting you in the middle
Hope I’m not making it hard
And I don’t fiddle with with riddles
Its simple.
Send HIP HOP
Send HIP HOP to the Master
Send HIP HOP to the Slave
Send it to the well-mannered
And the ones who wont behave
For some, its all they got
And they gon take it to the grave
By CHOICE or by FORCE
You gon hear what we gotta say
Robin Wright 2011
Robin B. Wright is an American foreign affairs analyst, and an award-winning journalist and author. “The Hip-Hop Rhythm of Arab Revolt: Muslim rappers have become a surprising source of dissent and protest”
7/23 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903554904576457872435064258.html?mod=lifestyle_newsreel
In November 2010, a young Tunisian… while she is performing.
Now, what kind of message
Should not be considered equal?
Any message not designed
To wake up a sleeping people
Cuz they poppin everybody
Bustin caps at the babies,
Slitting throats of the men
Droppin bombs on the ladies
Updates to Twitter
Picture to Book of Faces
It’s one thing to have a dream
But it’s another thing to chase it
Complacent and so detached
Discussions are sterilized
The standards for these discussions
Leave politics paralyzed
Society in demise
And I feel you more than you think
Whole block get sprayed up
Kill a 5 year old in her sleep
Government aint listening
Issues bigger than Michigan
Soon as you think they fixed it
They go around and they switch again
So you need a “a name and number after the beep”
Kinda message
Keep fightin even when you feel weak
Kinda message
The more they silence you, the louder you speak
Kinda message
Because its time to take it back to the streets
Kinda message
Send HIP HOP
T shell
Our interp - The Aff must performatively increase Democracy Assistance to the Middle East or North Africa. The body, not the plan, should be the focus of the debate.
B. Violation - The affirmative does not actually increase democracy assistance to MENA - they merely present a plan for how the USFG might increase democracy assistance.
C. Vote Neg
1. Presumption - The affirmative does nothing. Voting affirmative in this debate will not produce the advantages discussed.
2. Limits - There are an infinite amount of potential plans and policy proposals that the affirmative could fiat, but there are a limited amount of ways the bodies in this debate could increase democracy assistance.
3. Predictability - Our interpretation means the negative only has to defend what they, or the other team, does in the debate and not some random harm indentified like hegemony, economic collapse or whiteness. The USFG is inherently unpredictable. Body politics are not.
4. Education.
a. Topic Specific Education - Aff interpretation encourages bad debate, including conditionality, plan-inclusive counterplans, international fiat, process pics, and a host of other bad debates.
b. Activism good - plan focus requires that we invest our advocacy in bureaucratic institions as opposed to individuals. This agency displacement produces bad citizens who are slaves to the state.
5. Fairness
a. Ground - Aff interpretation destroys our disad ground based on individual action and force us to defend USFG inaction. They make it impossible to be negative.
b. Marginal voices DA - requiring a discussion of USFG policy instead of individual action marginalizes participants who’s views are not excluded from the policy making process. The impact is psychological violence and the refusal and subsequent death of the minority subject in debate.
These are all voting issues for obvious reasons.