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CP

Text the United States federal government should open its border toward the
United Mexican States unconditionally,
removing the need for visas all together and solving immigrition as a whole, as
well as the Otherization of the migrant

As with the past, the exclusion, segregation and alienation of the Mexicans is
due to the American unwillingness to simply encounter the Other. They simply
characterize the Other as inferior and dehumanize them, which turns into an
issue of de facto segregation. Immigration regulation cannot be solve due to
the deep rooted perceived inferiority of the migrants.
Astor 2009 (Avi, Post-Doc @ University of Michigan, later Pompeu Fabra University,
Department of Poltical and Social Sciences, Unauthorized Immigration, Securitization and the
Making of Operation Wetback, Latino Studies (2009) 7, 5/29, http://www.palgrave-
journals.com/lst/journal/v7/n1/full/lst200856a.html)

The practices of government agencies not only increased the number of undocumented
immigrants in the United States, but also worked to isolate them from the social and political
life of communities in the Southwest. A common practice of the INS was to disappear during
the harvest season and then to magically reappear once the harvest was over to apprehend
undocumented workers once their services were no longer needed (President's Commission on
Migratory Labor, 1951; Garca, 1980). Aside from exposing the INS to be a tool of grower
interests, this prevented immigrants from integrating into the social life of the communities in
which they resided. A study conducted in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas at the time
attests to the social isolation of the immigrant population in the Southwest. The sociologists
who conducted the study, Lyle Saunders and Olen Leonard (1976 (1951)), write that the typical
immigrant establishes few or no intimate ties of friendship except occasionally with other
wetbacks and has human contacts only with the group with whom he works and lives and with
the employer or foreman who hires him (p. 45). Immigrants often lived in makeshift camps
that were isolated from the rest of the community, or if they did manage to rent a place in town,
it was almost always in the Mexican sections, which were segregated from the Anglo
sections. During harvest season, when many immigrants were present, it was even common for
them to live out in the open due to their employers unwillingness to give them shelter.
Mexican immigrants were also excluded from recreational facilities and certain commercial
enterprises. A quote by a Texas politician exemplifies the attitudes that justified such
segregation: Although there is no discrimination in the Valley, of course there is segregation
in a few things, but that is for hygienic, not racial reasons. Spanish-speaking people live in
their own part of town and have their own businesses. They prefer it that way. They are
excluded from swimming pools and barber shops. The exclusion from pools is because it is not
possible to tell the clean ones from the dirty, so we just keep them all out. We just cant have
all those dirty, possibly diseased people swimming with our wives and children. (Saunders and
Leonard, 1976 (1951), p. 67) Through the practices of government agencies and social attitudes
regarding Spanish-speaking populations, Mexican immigrants were reduced to what Agamben
(1998) calls bare life. Lacking legal protection and political inclusion, immigrants had no
recourse for complaint when they were mistreated or underpaid. However, the absence of legal
protection and political inclusion alone does not explain why Mexican workers were so
frequently the objects of discrimination and abuse. Rather, it was their isolation from social
life that hindered general social awareness of the abuses they suffered and prevented people
from the communities in which they resided from seeing them as social beings, rather than
cheap labor or potential threats. The only advocate Mexican immigrants had was the Mexican
government. However, the relative weakness of the Mexican state and its poor bargaining
position made such advocacy ineffective (Calavita, 1992). Consequently, the welfare of Mexican
immigrants was completely at the discretion of their employers and others with whom they
interacted. This is well illustrated by Saunders and Leonard (1976 (1951)), as they write, During
the summer of 1950, the authors heard a good many accounts, pro and con, about the health
conditions and services available to wetbacks. They ranged from the quite callous account of
one farmer who playfully chased a wetback with a tractor, crushed his foot, and then turned
him over to the Immigration Service for return to Mexico, to humanitarian behavior of an
employer who paid medical bills averaging two hundred or more dollars each month for the
care of his wetback employees. (p. 48)
K
The importation and exportation of poor workers is a capitalist tool to
maximize profits
Beiter, Socialist Alternative: US, 06
(Greg, Socialist World, Global capitalism fueling poverty and immigration,
http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/2255, 1/5/2006, Accessed 7/2/13 EB)

Recent years have seen a massive wave of immigration to the United States from the Third world, especially Latin America.
Politicians and corporate media personalities like CNNs Lou Dobbs continually attack these undocumented workers as illegal
aliens and criminals. The real criminals, however, are not immigrant workers, but the corporate
chieftains and politicians who, in their insatiable lust for profits, plunder the natural resources
of poor countries, set up sweatshops, and wage wars for oil and empire. It is their policies that create the
grinding poverty and social breakdown throughout the neo-colonial world which forces
millions to flee their home countries in search of work here. While U.S. corporations earn record profits,
128 million people in Latin America live on less than $2 per day (USAID.org). More than 130 million have no access to safe drinking
water, and only one in six persons enjoy adequate sanitation service (NACLA.org). Big business sets up shop in all corners of
the world, searching for the cheapest labor and slackest environmental regulations. They argue
that in a globalised world we need free trade and capital should be free to pick up and move
to any country with the best market conditions - yet they oppose the rights of workers to move to countries with
more favorable labor markets. The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, under Democratic
President Bill Clinton, allowed U.S. companies to massively step up their assault on working people
by laying-off unionized workers in the U.S. and setting up sweatshops across the Mexican
border. NAFTA has spelled a complete disaster for workers in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. U.S. workers have lost around
395,000 jobs, while their new jobs pay on average 23% less. Simultaneously, poverty has exploded in Mexico, with two-thirds of the
population now living on less than $3 per day. Millions of poor Mexican farmers have been driven into bankruptcy after being
forced to compete with subsidized U.S. agribusiness (which relies on the cheap labor of Mexican immigrants, who are often paid less
than minimum wage). Most immigrant workers dont want to leave their country of origin. They
would prefer to stay with their families, where they know the language and culture . The risks
they face coming to the U.S. are many: death in the desert, suffocation and starvation in shipping containers, or kidnapping and
exploitation by smugglers. Immigrants only come to the U.S. out of dire economic necessity. They
come hoping to make a better life for themselves and their families a goal they share in common with
U.S. workers. However, this goal comes in direct conflict with the logic of capitalism and the desire of big business to maximize
profits. We cant allow borders and nationality to divide us. In reality, workers of all countries have more in common with each
other than we do with the bosses in our own countries. Although a U.S. worker and Bill Gates are both U.S. citizens, their lives are
worlds apart. A U.S. worker and an immigrant worker are both likely living paycheck-to-paycheck, struggling to get by, while Mr.
Gates has billions of dollars to live in luxury. Our struggle is international, a struggle against corporations that seek to increase
profits by pitting workers in different countries against one another in a race to the bottom. If corporations can push down wages in
Mexico and China - or among immigrant workers in the U.S. - they are in a stronger position to demand U.S. workers make similar
concessions in order to compete. We see this playing out daily, from the auto industry to software development. On the other
hand, if workers in Mexico or China win higher wages and benefits, U.S. workers will be in a stronger economic position to demand
better wages and benefits here. Build the Latin American Labor Movement As long as massive poverty is the norm in the Third
world, no matter how many fences are built and laws are passed, millions of desperate workers will find a way into the U.S. and
other industrialized countries in search of a better life, and multinational corporations will want to outsource as many jobs as
possible to take advantage of cheap labor in poor countries. The only viable answer to this situation is building the labor
movement in Mexico and throughout Latin America to fight for decent jobs and living conditions. The U.S. labor movement needs an
internationalist outlook, with a policy of mobilizing its massive resources financial, human, and political to help build the
strongest possible workers movement in Mexico and Latin America. A fighting workers movement in Latin America will very
quickly come up against the narrow limits of capitalism in the neo-colonial world and the resistance of U.S. imperialism, as has
happened again and again. That is why the workers movement needs to be armed with a clear programme and strategy for
overthrowing capitalism and replacing it with socialism, where working people have democratic control of their workplaces and the
resources of their society. Rather than U.S. corporations exploiting their labor and resources to make mega-profits for their
owners, the workers of Latin America could use this wealth to create jobs, schools, hospitals, public services, and infrastructure.
The potential impact of such policies can be seen now in Venezuela, where the left-wing government of Hugo Chavez has used
Venezuelas oil revenue to benefit ordinary workers and peasants instead of enriching the elite, as was the tradition. However, the
Venezuelan revolution has unfortunately not yet gone all the way in decisively toppling capitalism and instituting democratic
socialism, which means these reforms are limited and precarious, as the Venezuelan capitalists and U.S. imperialism prepare for a
counter-revolution. International Socialism is the Solution While some claim that globalization is rendering the nation-state
obsolete, the reality is that capitalism needs national borders and nation-states. Corporate America uses the U.S. government to
assert its interests - thats why they spend so much money on lobbying and funding corporate politicians! Big business needs its
own nation-state and military to pursue its interests internationally against competitors, because it is in direct competition for the
worlds markets and resources. For example, U.S. capitalists engaged in a bitter dispute with their competitors in France,
Germany, Russia, and China over the invasion of Iraq. U.S. imperialism out-muscled these countries, and used its military might to
topple Saddams regime in an attempt to grab Iraqs oil and assert its power over the Middle East. Today we see sharpening trade
tensions between the U.S. and China and Europe. Simultaneously, big business needs a state apparatus police, military, courts,
jails, etc. - to prevent the working class and oppressed at home from rising up. Just look at the racist war on drugs that has
criminalized a generation of black and Latino youth, or the brutal state repression of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. The
nation-state, which at one point in history played a progressive role in developing the economy and society, has now become a
tremendous obstacle to the further development of society. With the development of global capitalism, our society and economy
are increasingly globally integrated. Problems such as poverty, war, and global warming are international and cannot be solved on a
narrow national basis. International coordination and planning is desperately needed. However, with capitalist nations constantly
divided by ruthless competition, genuine global cooperation is not possible. But there is a social force whose material interests
compel it to organize together on an international plane - the working class. The working class is economically and socially bound
together globally by capitalism. It is an international class that is united by common interests and faces a common enemy. In
taking power, the working class would be able to free the economy and society from the artificial confines of the national
boundaries capitalism has established. Instead, a democratic socialist plan would link together the U.S., Canada, and Mexico with the
rest of Latin America in a voluntary socialist confederation of the Americas to share our resources, knowledge, and technology. A
socialist confederation of the Americas would lay the foundation for decent living standards for working people across both
continents, while protecting our environment. People would no longer be forced to leave their homeland for economic reasons, and
free movement across borders would no longer be something to fear. Only through fighting for a socialist world can we end this
brutal capitalist system that pits workers against each other, seeks to take away our rights, and drives our living standards into the
ground. When the workers of the world unite, the only thing we have to lose is our chains.
We have an a priori ethical obligation to reject global capitalism capitalism
makes its victims anonymous, destroying the ability to find value in life
Zizek and Daly 4(Slavoj and Glyn, Conversations with Zizek page 18-19)
For Zizek, a confrontation with the obscenities of abundance capitalism also requires a
transformation of the ethico-political imagination. It is no longer a question of developing
ethical guidelines within the existing political framework (the various institutional and corporate ethical
committees) but of developing a politicization of ethics; an ethics of the Real.8 The starting point here
is an insistence on the unconditional autonomy of the subject; of accepting that as human
beings we are ultimately responsible for our actions and being-in-the-world up to and including
the constructions of the capitalist system itself. Far from simple norm-breaking or refining / reinforcing existing social protocol, an
ethics of the Real tends to emerge through norm-breaking and in finding new directions that, by definition,
involve traumatic changes: i.e. the Real in genuine ethical challenge. An ethics of the Real does not
simply defer to the impossible (or infinite Otherness) as an unsurpassable horizon that already
marks every act as a failure, incomplete and so on. Rather, such an ethics is one that fully accepts
contingency but which is nonetheless prepared to risk the impossible in the sense of breaking
out of standardized positions. We might say that it is an ethics which is not only politically motivated but which also draws its strength from the political
itself. For Zizek an ethics of the Real (or Real ethics) means that we cannot rely on any form of symbolic
Other that would endorse our (in)decisions and (in)actions: for example, the neutral financial data of the stockmarkets; the
expert knowledge of Becks new modernity scientists, the economic and military councils of the New World Order; the various (formal and informal) tribunals of political
correctness; or any of the mysterious laws of God, nature or the market. What Zizek affirms is a radical culture of ethical
identification for the left in which the alternative forms of militancy must first of all be militant
with themselves. That is to say, they must be militant in the fundamental ethical sense of not
relying on any external/higher authority and in the development of a political imagination that,
like Zizeks own thought, exhorts us to risk the impossible.

The alternative is to vote neg to analyze the affirmative through a historical
materialist method to reveal the exploitative nature of capitalism

Endorsing the negative project of historical totalizing is the only way to
recognize the continuity of class domination.
San Juan 6 (Epifanio, Jr., Fulbright Lecturer in American Studies at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, Crisis and
Contradiction in Globalization Discourse
http://www.redcritique.org/WinterSpring2006/crisisandcontradictioninglobalizationdiscourse.htm) APB

In order to probe and analyze the multilayered contradictions of any phenomenon, we need to apply
the principle of historical totalizing: connecting spheres of culture, ideology, and politics to the
overarching structure of production and reproduction. This is axiomatic for any historical-
materialist critique. Consequently, the question of cultural identity cannot be mechanically divorced
from the historically determinate mode of production and attendant social relations of any given
socioeconomic formation. What is the point of eulogizing hybrid, cyborg-esque, nomadic global
citizenseven fluid, ambivalent "subject positions" if you likewhen the majority of these
postmodernized creatures are dying of hunger, curable epidemics, diseases and psychosomatic illnesses
brought about precisely by the predatory encroachment of globalizing transnational corporations, mostly
based in the U.S. and Western Europe? But it is not just academic postmodernists suffering from the virus of pragmatist metaphysics
who apologize for profit-making globalization. Even a latterly repentant World Bank expert, Joseph Stiglitz, could submit in his well-
known Globalization and Its Discontents, the following ideological plea: "Foreign aid, another aspect of the globalized world, for all
its faults still has brought benefits to millions, often in ways that have almost gone unnoticed: guerillas in the Philippines were
provided jobs by a World Bank financed-project as they laid down their arms" (Stiglitz 420). Any one slightly familiar with the Cold
War policies of Washington vis--vis a neocolony like the Philippines knows that World Bank funds were then used
by the U.S. Pentagon to suppress the Communist Party-led peasant rebellion in the 1950s against the
iniquitous semi-feudal system and corrupt comprador regime (Doty; Constantino). It is globalization utilized to maintain
direct coercive U.S. domination of the Philippines at a crucial conjuncture when the Korean War was mutating into the Vietnam War,
all designed to contain "World Communism" (China, Soviet Union). Up to now, despite nationalist gains in the last decade, the
Philippine government plays host every year to thousands of U.S. "Special Forces" purportedly training Filipino troops in the war
against "terrorism"that is, against anti-imperialist forces like the Communist Party-led New People's Army and progressive
elements of the Moro Islamic National Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front (International Peace Mission). One
needs to repeat again that the present world system, as Hugo Radice argues, remains "both global and national", a contingent and
contradictory process (4). Globalization dialectically negates and affirms national entitiespseudo-nations as well as those peoples
struggling for various forms of national sovereignty. While a universal "free market" promoted by TNC triumphalism is
deemed to be homogenizing and centralizing in effect, abolishing independent states/nationalities, and
creating a global public sphere through juxtaposition, syncretic amalgamation, and so on, one perceives a counter-current of
fragmentation, increasing asymmetry, unbridgeable inequalities, and particularistic challenges to neoliberal
integrationincluding fundamentalist political Islam, eco-terrorism, drugs, migration, and other movements of "barbarians at the
gates" (Schaeffer). Is it a question of mere human rights in representation and life-style, or actual dignity and justice in the everyday
lives of whole populations with singular life-forms? Articulating these historical contradictions without
theorizing the concept of crisis in capital accumulation will only lead to the short-circuiting
transculturalism of Ashcroft and other ideologies waging battle for supremacy/hegemony over
"popular common sense" imposing meaning/order/significance on the whole globalization process
(Rupert). Indeed, academic inquirers of globalization are protagonists in this unfolding drama of universalization under duress. One
may pose the following questions as a heuristic pedagogical maneuver: Can globalized capital truly universalize the
world and bring freedom and prosperity to everyone, as its celebrants claim? Globalization as the
transnationalized domination of capital exposes its historical limit in the deepening class
inequality in a polarized, segregated and policed world. While surplus-value extraction in the
international labor market remains basic to the logic of accumulation, the ideology of neoliberal
transnationalism has evolved into the discourse of war on terrorism ("extremism") rationalized as
"the clash of civilizations". Contradictions and its temporary resolutions constitute the imperialist
project of eliding the crisis of unilateral globalism. A historical-materialist critique should seek to
highlight the political economy of this recolonizing strategy operating in the fierce competition of the ruling
classes of the U.S., Japan, and Europe to impose hegemonic control in an increasingly boundary-destroying
space and continue the neocolonial oppression of the rest of the world. What is needed is a radical
critique of the ideology of technological determinism and its associated apologetics of the
"civilizing mission", the evangelism of "pre-emptive" intervention in the name of Realpolitik
"democracy" against resistance by workers, peasants, women, indigenous communities (in Latin
America, Africa, the Philippines and elsewhere [see Houghton and Bell; San Juan, "U.S. Imperial Terror"]), and all the
excluded and marginalized peoples of the planet.
Otha K
The affirmatives framing of economic engagement as a security issue and an
existential threat depoliticizes its violent implementationmilitarized violence
becomes normalized

Phillips 2007 (Nikola, Prof. of Polit. Econ. @ Univ. of Sheffield, The Limits of
Securitization: Power, Politics and Process in US Foreign Economic Policy, Government and
Opposition 42:2)

In the commendable and necessary efforts to explain the shifts in US engagement in the world that have occurred under the Bush
administration, there has been a marked tendency to perceive security as the dominant concern
driving this engagement, and as representing an overarching force that brings together all other
policy areas for its purposes. This proposition has been extended to the realms of both
globalization and foreign economic policy, notably with the application of the notion of securitization developed by
Barry Buzan, Ole Wver and Jaap de Wilde.24 They define a case of securitization as occurring when a
securitizing actor uses a rhetoric of existential threat, and thereby takes an issue out of what
under those conditions is normal politics . In other words, if by means of an argument about the
priority and urgency of an existential threat the securitizing actor has managed to break free of
procedures or rules by which he or she would otherwise be bound, we are witnessing a case of
securitization. 25 Securitization, in this sense, is not only about the deployment of the rhetorical
device of security and the location of policy discourse within that framework, but also about the
capacity thereby to achieve a disruption to the normal rules, practices and politics of policy-
making . Taken to the sphere of foreign economic policy, securitization has thus been formulated as a process by which the
securitising actors. . . . have sought to treat economic policy in a manner different to the normal
rules and practices of economic policy making and implementation. 26 The resulting framing
of globalization and foreign economic policy as national security issues, the linking of
economic policy to overarching security objectives and the political legitimization of policy
initiatives on that basis are considered to be the hallmarks of the contemporary foreign
economic engagement of the USA. Both globalization and US foreign economic policy (although
the two terms are often, problematically, used interchangeably) are thus understood to have become, in essence,
security issues and avenues by which a securitization of the world order is pursued by US
governments. While it is readily conceded in these analyses that a nexus between economic and security policies was evident
before 9/11, nevertheless it is the central positing of a correlation between the degree of global military
dominance exercised by the USA, the extent of the new unilateralist inclination and the
deployment of economic policy as an arm of security policy27 that is directly consistent with the argument
that the post-9/11 world is qualitatively distinctive in the extent of this capturing of economic policy by the exigencies of security
strategies.
The Impact is the normalization of war-globalized securitized empire makes war
inevitable and estranges peace
Hardt and Negri 04 (*Michael, Professor of Literature and Italian, Duke University, Ph.D in
Comparative Literature, University of Washington, and *Antonio, Former professor in State
Theory, Padua University, Multitude, 3-5, jbh)
The world is at war again, but things are different this time. Traditionally war has been
conceived as the armed conflict between sovereign political entities, that is, during the modern
period, between nation-states. To the extent that the sovereign authority of nation-states, even
the most dominant nation-states, is declining and there is instead emerging a new
supranational form of sovereignty, a global Empire, the conditions and nature of war and
political violence are necessarily changing. War is becoming a general phenomenon,
global and interminable. There are innumerable armed conflicts waged across the globe
today, some brief and limited to a specific place, others long lasting and expansive.' These
conflicts might be best conceived as instances not of war but rather civil war. Whereas war, as conceived traditionally by
international law, is armed conflict between sovereign political entities, civil war is armed conflict between sovereign
and/or nonsovereign combatants within a single sovereign territory. This civil war should be understood now
not within the national space, since that is no longer the effective unit of sovereignty, but across the
global terrain. The framework of international law regarding war has been undermined.
From this perspective all of the world's current armed conflicts, hot and coldin Colombia,
Sierra Leone, and Aceh, as much as in Israel-Palestine, India-Pakistan, Afghanistan, and
Iraqshould be considered imperial civil wars , even when states are involved. This does not mean that
any of these conflicts mobilizes all of Empireindeed each of these conflicts is local and specificbut rather that they
exist within, are conditioned by, and in turn affect the global imperial system. Each local war
should not be viewed in isolation, then, but seen as part of a grand constellation, linked in
varying degrees both to other war zones and to areas not presently at war. The pretense to
sovereignty of these combatants is doubtful to say the least. They are struggling rather for
relative dominance within the hierarchies at the highest and lowest levels of the global
system. A new framework, beyond international law, would be necessary to confront this
global civil war. 2 The attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, did not create or
fundamentally change this global situation, but perhaps they did force us to recognize its generality. There is no
escaping the state of war within Empire, and there is no end to it in sight. The situation was
obviously already mature. Just as the "defenestration of Prague" on May 23, 1618, when two regents of the Holy Roman
Empire were thrown from a window of the Hradcany castle, ignited the Thirty Years' War, the attacks on September 11
opened a new era of war. Back then Catholics and Protestants massacred each other (but soon the sides became confused),
and today Christians seem to be pitted against Muslims (although the sides are already confused). This air of a war of
religion only masks the profound historical transformation, the opening of a new era. In the seventeenth century it was
the passage in Europe from the Middle Ages to modernity, and today the new era is the global passage from modernity
to postmodernity. In this context, war has become a general condition: there may be a cessation of
hostilities at times and in certain places, but lethal violence is present as a constant
potentiality, ready always and everywhere to erupt . "So the nature of War," Thomas
Hobbes explains, "consisteth not in actuall fighting; but in the known disposition thereto,
during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary." 3 These are not isolated wars,
then, but a general global state of war that erodes the distinction between war and
peace such that we can no longer imagine or even hope for a real peace.

Vote negative to reject the affirmatives hegemonic truth regime
US neo-imperialism sustains itself by controlling the boundaries of knowledge.
Only exposing the epistemic violence of imperialism can offer ways of knowing
that counteract the violence and elitism of their thought production.
McLaren and Kincheloe in 5 (Peter Professor of Education, Graduate School of Education
and Information Studies @ UCLA and Joe, professor and Canada Research Chair at the Faculty of
Education, McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Sage Handbook of Qualitative
Research, Third Edition, Eds Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln)
In this context, it is important to note that we understand a social theory as a map or a guide to the social sphere. In a
research context, it does not determine how we see the world but helps us devise questions and strategies for exploring it.
A critical social theory is concerned in particular with issues of power and justice and the ways that the economy; matters
of race, class, and gender; ideologies; discourses; education; religion and other social institutions; and cultural dynamics
interact to construct a social system (Beck-Gernsheim, Butler, & Puigvert, 2003; Flccha, Gomez, & Puigvert, 2003). Thus, in
this context we seek to provide a view of an evolving criticality or a reconceptualized critical theory. Critical theory is never
static; it is always evolving, changing in light of both new theoretical insights and new problems and social circumstances.
The list of concepts elucidating our articulation of critical theory indicates a criticality informed by a variety of discourses
emerging after the work of the Frankfurt School Indeed, some of the theoretical discourses, while referring to themselves
as critical, directly call into question some of the work of Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse. Thus, diverse theoretical
traditions have informed our understanding of criticality and have demanded understanding of diverse forms of oppression
including class, race, gender, sexual, cultural, religious, colonial, and ability-related concerns. The evolving notion of
criticality we present is informed by, while critiquing, the post-discoursesfor example, postmodernism, poststructuralism,
and postcolonialism. In this context, critical theorists become detectives of new theoretical insights, perpetually searching
for new and interconnected ways of understanding power and oppression and the ways they shape everyday life and
human experience. In this context, criticality and the research it supports are always evolving, always encountering new
ways to irritate dominant forms of power, to provide more evocative and compelling insights. Operating in this way, an
evolving criticality is always vulnerable to exclusion from the domain of approved modes of research. The forms of social
change it supports always position it in some places as an outsider, an awkward detective always interested in
uncovering social structures, discourses, ideologies, and epistemologies that prop up both
the status quo and a variety of forms of privilege. In the epistemological domain, white, male,
class elitist, heterosexist, imperial, and colonial privilege often operates by asserting the power to
claim objectivity and neutrality. Indeed, the owners of such privilege often own the
"franchise" on reason and rationality. Proponents of an evolving criticality possess a
variety of tools to expose such oppressive power politics. Such proponents assert that critical theory is
well-served by drawing upon numerous liberatory discourses and including diverse groups of marginalized peoples and
their allies in the nonhierarchical aggregation of critical analysts {Bello, 2003; Clark, 2002; Humphries, 1997). In the
present era, emerging forms of neocolonialism and neo-imperialism in the United States
move critical theorists to examine the wavs American power operates under the cover of
establishing democracies all over the world. Advocates of an evolving criticality argueas
we do in more detail later in this chapterthat such neocolonial power must be exposed so it can
be opposed in the United States and around the world. The American Empires
justificatio n in the name of freedom for undermining democratically elected
governments from Iran (Kincheloe, 2004), Chile, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to Liberia (when its real purpose
is to acquire geopolitical advantage for future military assaults, economic leverage in
international markets, and access to natural resources ) must be exposed by critical-ists
for what it isa rank imperialist sham (McLaren, 2003a, 2003b; McLaren & Jaramillo, 2002; McLaren &
Martin, 2003). Critical researchers need to view their work in the context of living and working in a nation-state with the
most powerful military-industrial complex in history that is shamefully using the terrorist attacks of September 11 to
advance a ruthless imperialist agenda fueled by capitalist accumulation by means of the rule of force (McLaren &
Farahmandpur,2003). Chomsky (2003), for instance, has accused the U.S. government of the "supreme crime" of preventive
war (in the case of its invasion of Iraq, the use of military force to destroy an invented or imagined threat) of the type that
was condemned at Kuremburg. Others, like historian Arthur Schlesinger (cited in Chomsky, 2003), have likened the invasion
of Iraq to Japan's "day of infamy'' that is, to the policy that imperial Japan employed at the time of Pearl Harbor. David G.
Smith (2003) argues that such imperial dynamics are supported by particular epistemological
forms. The United States is an epistemological empire based on a notion of truth that
undermines the knowledges produced by those outside the good graces and benevolent
authority of the empire. Thus, in the 21 st century, critical theorists the mode and relations of
capitalist production and imperialist conquest (whether through direct military
intervention or indirectly through the creation of client states) but also the
epistemological violence that helps discipline the world Smith refers to this violence as a
form of "information warfare" that spreads deliberate falsehoods about countries such as Iraq and
Iran. U.S. corporate and governmental agents become more sophisticated in the use of
such episto-weaponry with every day that passes. Obviously, an evolving criticality does not
promiscuously choose theoretical discourses to add to the bricolage of critical theories. It is highly suspicious as
we detail laterof theories that fail to understand the malevolent workings of power, that fail
to critique the blinders of Eurocentrism, that cultivate an elitism of insiders and outsiders,
and that fail to discern a global system of inequity supported by diverse forms of ideology
and violence. It is uninterested in any theoryno matter how fashionablethat does not directly
address the needs of victims of oppression and the suffering they must endure. The
following is an elastic, ever-evolving set of concepts included in our evolving notion of criticality. With theoretical
innovations and shifting Zeitgeists, they evolve. The points that are deemed most important in one time period pale in
relation to different points in a new era. <P306-307>
Ag
Water shortage makes food insecurity inevitable
World Link Reader, 9
[8-9, University of San Diego, Causes of Food Insecurity,
http://sites.sandiego.edu/wl_reader/toc/2010-reader/chapter-4-food-security/causes-of-food-
insecurity/, accessed 7-12-13, HG]

Water is an essential part of life; one example of this importance is that it is critical for
growing crops. Since early this millennium, the planet has experienced water shortages which in
turn cause less harvest for farmers. As examined by this article, the water deficit varies by
country and has lasting effects far into the future of agriculture. Writer Lester R. Brown
evaluates the causes of emergency water shortage, as well as its devastating effects on the
world. It also provides statistics to those interested in the environmental portion of food
insecurity.


Alt cause to ag collapseBee shortages prevent pollination
Grossman 13
(Elizabeth, Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Declining Bee Populations Pose
A Threat to Global Agriculture pg online at
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/declining_bee_populations_pose_a_threat_to_global_agriculture/2645///sd)
One of every three bites of food eaten worldwide depends on pollinators, especially bees, for a
successful harvest . And in the past several months, a scramble in Californias almond groves has given the world a taste of
what may lie in store for food production if the widespread and still puzzling decimation of bee colonies continues. For much of
the past 10 years, beekeepers, primarily in the United States and Europe, have been reporting annual hive losses
of 30 percent or higher, substantially more than is considered normal or sustainable. But this winter, many U.S.
beekeepers experienced losses of 40 to 50 percent or more, just as commercial bee operations prepared to
transport their hives for the countrys largest pollinator event: the fertilizing of Californias almond trees. Spread across 800,000
acres, Californias almond orchards typically require 1.6 million domesticated bee colonies to pollinate the
flowering trees and produce what has become the states largest overseas agricultural export. But given
the widespread bee losses to so-called colony collapse disorder this winter, Californias
almond growers were able to pollinate their crop only through an intense, nationwide push to cobble
together the In the long run, if we don't find some answers, we could lose a lot of bees, says one expert. necessary number of
healthy bee colonies. Other crops dont need as many bees as the California almond orchards do, so shortages are not yet
apparent, but if trends continue, there will be, said Tim Tucker, vice-president of the American Beekeeping Federation and owner
of Tuckerbees Honey in Kansas, which lost 50 percent of its hives this past winter. Current [bee] losses are not
sustainable. The trend is down, as is the quality of bees. In the long run, if we dont find some answers, and the
vigor continues to decline, we could lose a lot of bees. The gravity of the situation was underscored on Monday, when the
European Commission (EC) said it intended to impose a two-year ban on a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, now the
worlds most widely used type of insecticide. Neonicotinoids are one of the leading suspected causes of
colony collapse disorder, and the European Commission announced its controversial decision three months after the
European Food Safety Agency concluded that the pesticides represented a high acute risk to honeybees and
other pollinators. The EC action will restrict the use of three major neonicitinoids on seeds and plants attractive to bees, as
well as grains, beginning December 1. I pledge to my utmost to ensure that our bees, which are so vital to our
ecosystem and contribute over 22 billion Euros [$29 billion] annually to European agriculture, are protected,
said European Union Health Commissioner Tonio Borg. The EC action comes as scientists and regulators have grown
increasingly concerned about the impact of colony collapse disorder on the worlds food supply,
given that the majority of the planets 100 most important food crops depend on insect
pollination . A recent international study of 41 crop systems on six continents showed that healthy populations of
wild bees are key to successful yields of crops ranging from pumpkins to grapefruit. Relying solely
on domesticated honeybees could ultimately put those crops at risk, scientists say. Wild bees also have been declining in many
places. No one investigating the issue is suggesting that neonicotinoids are the sole cause of current bee declines. Tucker, other
beekeepers, and entomologists say that the cause of colony collapse disorder is likely a combination of factors that includes the
widespread use of pesticides and fungicides, as well as the spread of viral pathogens and parasitic mites in beehives. While mites
and diseases have long been known to cause significant declines in domesticated bee populations, no single pathogen or parasite,
say entomologists, appears to sufficiently explain the current rate of hive collapse. A recent study that found unprecedented levels
of agricultural pesticides some at toxic levels in honeybee colonies is prompting entomologists to look more closely at the role
of neonicotinoids in current bee declines. No one is suggesting that neonicotinoids are the sole cause of current bee declines. Some
studies have indicated that neonicotinoids can lead to a sharp decline in queen bees in colonies and can also interfere with the
ability of bees to navigate back to their hives. James Frazier, a professor of entomology at Pennsylvania State University, said more
research needs to be conducted into whether neonicotinoids, particularly in combination with other pesticides, may suppress the
immune system of bees at sub-lethal levels, enabling diseases to take hold. This is uncharted territory, said Purdue University
associate professor of entomology Christian Krupke. Weve never done pest management like this before. While not downplaying
neonicotinoids as a potential culprit, Eric Mussen, an apiculturiust at the University of California, Davis, noted that the case against
these pesticides is not clear-cut. For example, honeybees are apparently doing fine in Australia, where neonicotinoids are widely
used and varroa mites are not a problem. Neonicotinoid use is common in Canada, but colony collapse disorder is not significantly
affecting hives there. University of California Honeybees are brought in to pollinate onion crops at a
California farm. In the U.S., several national environmental advocacy organizations and commercial beekeepers filed suit in
March against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its conditional registration of certain neonicotinoids, contending
that the agency did not properly ensure environmental health protections, particularly with respect to pollinators. The EPA is now
reviewing its registration of neonicotinoids and has accelerated the review schedule due to uncertainties about these pesticides
and their potential effects on bees. The agency said in an email that it is working with beekeepers, growers, pesticide
manufacturers, and others to improve pesticide use, labeling, and management practices to protect bees and to thoroughly evaluate
the effects of pesticides on honeybees and other pollinators. As part of these efforts, the EPA is working with pesticide and
agricultural equipment manufacturers to reduce the release of neonicotinoid-contaminated dust during planting a time when
commercial bees are likely to encounter the insecticide. In the U.S., neonicotinoids are currently used on about 95 percent of corn
and canola crops; the majority of cotton, sorghum, and sugar beets; and about half of all soybeans. Theyre also used on the vast
majority of fruit and vegetable crops, including apples, cherries, peaches, oranges, berries, leafy greens, tomatoes, and potatoes.
Neonicotinoids are also applied to cereal grains, rice, nuts, and wine grapes. Charles Benbrook, research professor at Washington
State Universitys Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, has estimated that neonicotinoids are used on
approximately 75 percent of the acres devoted to these crops in the U.S. They are also widely used on landscaping plants and urban
trees and in numerous home garden pest-control products all in places frequented by bees, domesticated and wild. There is
no place to go hide, says New York beekeeper Jim Doan, a director of the American Beekeeping Federation. The
outlook is not good.



Four alt causes to food prices
Timmer 8
Peter, Professor of Development Studies, PhD, at Harvard University. Dean of the Graduate
School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at UCSan Diego. Key advisors for the World
Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development. Causes of High Food Prices in ADB
Economics
Working Paper Series. October. Pg online at
http://econ.tu.ac.th/archan/rangsun/ec%20460/EC%20460%20Readings/Global%20Issues/Food
%20Crisis/Food%20Price/Causes%20of%20High%20Food%20Prices.pdf//sd)
Three fundamental factors, all interrelated, combined to drive up food prices. First, rapid economic
growth, especially in the PRC and India, put pressure on a variety of natural resources such as oil, metals,
timber, and fertilizers. Demand simply increased faster than supply for these commodities. Second, a
sustained decline in the dollar since mid-decade added to the upward price pressure on dollar-
denominated commodity prices directly, and indirectly fueled a search for speculative hedges
against the declining dollar. Increasingly from 2006, these hedges were found first in petroleum, then in other widely
traded commodities, including wheat, corn, and vegetable oils. Third, the combination of high fuel prices and
legislative mandates to increase production of biofuels established a price link between fuel
prices and ethanol/biodiesel feed stockscorn in the US and vegetable oils in Europe. Because of intercommodity linkages in
both supply and demand, food prices now have a floor established by their potential conversion into
biofuel. These linkages are not always tight or effective in the short runrice and corn prices can be disconnected for some time,
as the discussion above indicated (and as the Granger causality results in Appendix 3 demonstrate quantitatively). But the long-run
forces for substitution in both production and consumption are very powerful. If high fuel prices are here to stay, high
food prices are, too. To complicate matters, in the short to medium run, the specifics of individual commodity dynamics can
produce divergent price paths. Rice is the clearest example, as large Asian countries act for their own short-run political interests
with little or no regard to consequences for the international market or traditional trading partners. Without significant hope for
binding international agreements between rice exporters and importers, this source of unique instability seems likely to last a long
time.



Decline wont cause war
Robert Jervis 11, Professor in the Department of Political Science and School of International and Public
Affairs at Columbia University, December 2011, Force in Our Times, Survival, Vol. 25, No. 4, p. 403-425
Even if war is still seen as evil, the security community could be dissolved if severe conflicts of interest were to arise. Could the more peaceful world
generate new interests that would bring the members of the community into sharp disputes? 45 A zero-sum sense of status would be one example,
perhaps linked to a steep rise in nationalism. More likely would be a worsening of the current economic difficulties, which
could itself produce greater nationalism, undermine democracy, and bring back old-fashioned beggar-thy-neighbor economic policies. While these
dangers are real, it is hard to believe that the conflicts could be great enough to lead the members of the
community to contemplate fighting each other. It is not so much that economic interdependence has proceeded to the point where
it could not be reversed states that were more internally interdependent than anything seen internationally have fought bloody civil wars. Rather it is
that even if the more extreme versions of free trade and economic liberalism become discredited, it is hard to
see how without building on a pre-existing high level of political conflict leaders and mass opinion would
come to believe that their countries could prosper by impoverishing or even attacking others. Is it possible that problems will
not only become severe, but that people will entertain the thought that they have to be solved by war? While a pessimist could note that this argument
does not appear as outlandish as it did before the financial crisis, an optimist could reply (correctly, in my view) that the very fact that we have
seen such a sharp economic down-turn without anyone suggesting that force of arms is the solution shows that even if
bad times bring about greater economic conflict, it will not make war thinkable .



Turn-
High food prices are spurring investment in Russian agany slip in prices
collapses the industry and turns case
Vasilyeva 8
(Nataliya, Russian agricultural leadershipround table presenter, AP, Russian farming: from
basket case to breadbasket pg online at
http://themoscownews.com/business/20080919/55347483.html)
An American-made combine harvests barley doing the job of five Soviet tractors on this patch of the
"Black Earth" region - a glimpse into changes sweeping Russian agriculture that have raised
hopes of transforming a once backward industry into a breadbasket. Lured by soaring food
prices, corporations - both domestic and foreign - have been snapping up land in this fertile
region the size of France, replacing inefficient Soviet-style collective farming with modern farming
techniques and economies of scale. "Foreigners who come here get astonished at the gleaming black earth," said Viktor
Karnushin, head of a local subsidiary of Sweden's Black Earth Farming corporation - one of the biggest foreign players in Russian farming. Russian government
officials recently announced plans to transform the country into the world's leading grain
exporter within five years. While there are skeptics, Natasha Zavozdina at investment bank Renaissance Capital said the target is realistic. "With $70 billion
(1.8 trillion RUB) investment within 5 or 7 years... the goal will be achieved," she said. "As long as production is profitable, public and
private investment will be flowing in." Meanwhile, the Kremlin plans to form a state trading company
to broker about half of the country's millions of tons of grain exports, expanding its control of who buys Russia's cereals
and how much they pay for them. That has led to concern abroad that Russia may use its grain as it uses its
control of the nation's enormous oil and natural gas wealth - as leverage for diplomatic and
political goals. There's lots of room for Russia to ramp up its farm production. Russia is the
globe's largest country geographically, and has almost one hectare out of every ten of the world's arable land. According to analyst estimates,
the Soviets farmed 314 million acres of Russian land in 1985. But in 2007, Russian farmers cultivated only 190 million acres - a 40
percent drop. Much of Russia's land is marginal and millions of acres of farmland are located far north in areas with short growing seasons. But the Black Earth region stretching
across Southern Russia and neighboring Ukraine is some of the most fertile land in Europe. Much of Russia's fertile land was abandoned
after the Soviet collapse, as thousands flooded into urban areas, and investors see an
opportunity. The government launched an agricultural renovation program in 2001 that restricted farm imports,
reduced taxes, subsidized loans and provided farmers with cheap equipment leasing. Rising food prices have done the rest. Production
and investment have been on a steady rise in the past five years although many farms are far
from Western standards of efficiency. This year's wheat crop is widely forecast to be the highest since 1978. Ivan Nikolaev of Renaissance Capital
sees Russia as the world's biggest grain exporter, second only to the United States, in five years. "The government has created a very
favorable investment climate," Nikolaev said. Viktor Gulov, director general of Agrolipetsk, one of Black Earth Farming's subsidiaries, said Russian
farming has great growth potential, while "the West has already hit the ceiling in terms of harvest volume and arable land areas." Investors paid relatively
little attention to Russian agriculture in the 1990s because of low food prices and the lure of quicker profits in other areas,
including energy and metals. But that has changed. Foreign investment in Russian agriculture and forestry
nearly tripled between 2005 and 2007, from $158 million (4 billion RUB) to $468 million (12 billion RUB), according to the national statistics agency. Russian
farming seems poised to boom even without bringing many more fields into production. In Soviet times,
Karnushin said, farmers were lucky to get 2.5 tons of wheat out of a hectare (about 2.5 acres) of land. Using modern technology and farming
methods, his company today expects to harvest at least five tons of wheat out of the same plot,
he said. There are obstacles to agricultural development here. One is a lack of roads and infrastructure to transport goods to market, which may soon become a major drag on
the sector's development. A recent slip in commodities prices can also leave some of the investors
disappointed . Declining prices will show the real commitment of the investors who were
hoping to reap sizable profits every year, said Andrei Sizov from the Moscow-based SovEcon consultancy.



Mech
Their Payne evidence indicates consolidation is already occurring-takes out
solvency because their evidence indicates lack of labor causes mechanization-
not that itll be reverse casual.
Farm subsidies make consolidation inevitable
Riedl 07 Brian M. Riedl is Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic
Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. (How Farm Subsidies Harm Taxpayers, Consumers, and Farmers, Too, June 20, 2007,
Heritage, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/06/how-farm-subsidies-harm-taxpayers-consumers-and-farmers-too,
Callahan)
Driving Small Farmers out of Business. Farm subsidies are promoted as assistance to family farmers. In reality, they finance
the demise of family farms and prevent young people from entering farming. Economists estimate that
subsidies inflate the value of farmland by 30 percent. High farmland prices make starting a farm
prohibitively expensive for younger people, who would also have other expenses, including
buying expensive equipment, seeds, and pesticides. With young farmers unable to enter the industry, the
average age of farmers has increased to 55.[20] Because agribusinesses are already the most profitable, they
often use their enormous farm subsidies to buy out smaller family farms. In what has been called the
"plantation effect," family farms with less than 100 acres are being bought out by larger
agribusinesses, which then convert them into tenant farms. Three-quarters of rice farms have already become
tenant farms, and other types of farms are trending in that same direction.[21] Since 1945, the number of farms has dropped by
two-thirds, and the average farm size has more than doubled to 441 acres.[22] This consolidation is not necessarily
harmful and may improve efficiency. Large agribusinesses are not villainous. They often succeed
because they can produce large quantities of food at low prices. Furthermore, the blame for the tilted distribution of
farm subsidies lies with Congress, which writes the laws, rather than with the agribusinesses
that cash the checks that they receive because of those laws. Nevertheless, taxpayers should not be required
to finance this consolidation through farm subsidies. By raising land values and financing consolidation, farm subsidies drive
out existing small farmers and prevent new farmers from entering the industry.

Famine doesnt cause war ---- it makes people too hungry to fight
Barnett in 00 (Jon, Australian Research Council fellow and Senior Lecturer in Development
Studies @ Melbourne U. School of Social and Environmental Enquiry, Review of International
Studies, Destabilizing the environment-conflict Thesis, 26:271-288, Cambridge Journals
Online)

Considerable attention has been paid to the links between population, the environment and conflict. The standard argument is that
population growth will overextend the natural resources of the immediate environs, leading to deprivation which, it is assumed, will
lead to conflict and instability either directly through competition for scarce resources, or indirectly through the generation of
environmental refugees. For example, according to Myers: so great are the stresses generated by too many people making too
many demands on their natural-resource stocks and their institutional support systems, that the pressures often create first-rate
breeding grounds for conflict.37 The ways in which population growth leads to environmental degradation are reasonably well
known. However, the particular ways in which this leads to conflict are difficult to prove. In the absence of proof there is a negative
style of argumentation, and there are blanket assertions and abrogations; for example: the relationship is rarely causative in a direct
fashion, but we may surmise that conflict would not arise so readily, nor would it prove so acute, if the associated factor of
population growth were occurring at a more manageable rate.38 It is possible though, that rather than inducing
warfare, overpopulation and famine reduce the capacity of a people to wage war. Indeed, it is
less the case that famines in Africa in recent decades have produced first rate breeding grounds
for conflict; the more important, pressing, and avoidable product is widespread malnutrition
and large loss of life.
Biodiversity levels are higher than any time in planetary history -- loss is
inevitable, impossible to forestall, and doesnt cause catastrophe -- its a
natural part of ecosystem evolution.
NPR 07 (North Pacific Research, The Myth of Biodiversity, 5/30/2007,
northpacificresearch.com/downloads/The_myth_of_biodiversity.doc)//EM
Change is a vital part of the environment. A successful species is one that can adapt to the
changing environment, and the most successful species is one that can do that for the longest
duration. This brings us back to the cockroach and the shark. This of course dethrones egotistical
homosapien-sapiens as gods finest creation, and raises the cockroach to that exalted position. A
fact that is difficult for the vain to accept. If humans are to replace the cockroach, we need to use
our most important adaptation (our brain) to prevent our own extinction. Humans like the Kola
bear have become over specialized, we require a complex energy consuming social system to
exist. If one thing is constant in the universe, it is change. The planet has change significantly
over the last 4 billion years and it will continue to change over the next 4 billion years. The
current human scheme for survival, stopping change, is a not only wrong, but futile because
stopping change is impossible. Geologic history has repeatedly shown that species that become
overspecialized are ripe for extinction. A classic example of overspecialization is the Kola bears,
which can only eat the leaves from a single eucalyptus tree. But because they are soft and furry,
look like a teddy bear and have big brown eyes, humans are artificially keeping them alive.
Humans do not have the stomach or the brain for controlling evolution. Evolution is a simple
process or it wouldnt function. Evolution works because it follows the simple law: what works
works, what doesnt workgoes away. There is no legislation, no regulations, no arbitration, no
lawyers, scientists or politicians. Mother Nature has no preference, no prejudices, no emotions
and no ulterior motives. Humans have all of those traits. Humans are working against nature
when they try to prevent extinctions and freeze biodiversity. Examine the curve in figure one, at no time since
the origin of life has biodiversity been constant. If this principal has worked for 550 million years on this planet, and science is
supposed to find truth in nature, by what twisted reasoning can fixing biodiversity be considered science? Let alone good for the
environment. Environmentalists are now killing species that they arbitrarily term invasive, which are in reality simply better adapted
to the current environment. Consider the Barred Owl, a superior species is being killed in the name of biodiversity because the Barred
Owl is trying to replace a less environmentally adapted species the Spotted Owl. This is more harmful to the ecosystem because it
impedes the normal flow of evolution based on the idea that biodiversity must remain constant. Human scientists have decided to take
evolution out of the hands of Mother Nature and give it to the EPA. Now there is a good example of brilliance. We all know what is
wrong with lawyers and politicians, but scientists are supposed to be trustworthy. Unfortunately, they are all to often, only people who
think they know more than anybody else. Abraham Lincoln said, Those who know not, and know not that the know not, are fools
shun them. Civilization has fallen into the hands of fools. What is suggested by geologic history is that the world has more
biodiversity than it ever had and that it may be overdue for another major extinction.
Unfortunately, today many scientists have too narrow a view. They are highly specialized. They
have no time for geologic history. This appears to be a problem of inadequate education not
ignorance. What is abundantly clear is that artificially enforcing rigid biodiversity works against
the laws of nature, and will cause irreparable damage to the evolution of life on this planet and
maybe beyond. The world and the human species may be better served if we stop trying to
prevent change, and begin trying to understand change and positioning the human species to that
it survives the inevitable change of evolution. If history is to be believed, the planet has 3 times
more biodiversity than it had 65 million years ago. Trying to sustain that level is futile and may
be dangerous. The next major extinction, change in biodiversity, is as inevitable as climate
change. We cannot stop either from occurring, but we can position the human species to survive
those changes.

SOlvz
Plan doesnt solve labor shortages
Plumer 13 Brad Plumer is a reporter at the Washington Post writing about domestic policy, particularly energy and
environmental issues. (Were running out of farm workers. Immigration reform wont help. January 29, 2013, Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/29/the-u-s-is-running-out-of-farm-workers-immigration-reform-
may-not-help/, Callahan)
For years, one of the groups pushing hardest for immigration reform has been the U.S. food industry. Farmers have long
grumbled about a shortage of labor, and theyve asked for policies that make it easier to hire
foreign workers from places like Mexico. But looser immigration laws may not be able to keep
our food cheap forever. A recent study suggests that U.S. farms could well face a shortage of low-cost
labor in the years ahead no matter what Congress does on immigration . Thats because Mexico is
getting richer and can no longer supply as many rural farm workers to the United States. And it
wont be nearly as easy to import low-wage agricultural workers from elsewhere. For decades, farms
in the United States have relied heavily on low-wage foreign workers mainly from Mexico to work their fields. In 2006, 77
percent of all agricultural workers in the United States were foreign-born. (And half of those foreign workers were undocumented
immigrants.) All that cheap labor has helped keep down U.S. food prices, particularly for labor-intensive fruits and vegetables. But
that labor pool is now drying up. In recent years, weve seen a spate of headlines like this from CNBC: California Farm
Labor Shortage Worst Its Been, Ever. Typically, these stories blame drug-related violence on the Mexican border or tougher
border enforcement for the decline. Hence the call for new guest-worker programs. But a new paper from U.C. Davis
offers up a simpler explanation for the labor shortage. Mexico is getting richer. And, when a
country gets richer, its pool of rural agricultural labor shrinks. Not only are Mexican workers shifting
into other sectors like construction, but Mexicos own farms are increasing wages. That means U.S.
farms will have to pay higher and higher wages to attract a dwindling pool of available Mexican
farm workers. Its a simple story, says Edward Taylor, an agricultural economist at U.C. Davis and one of the studys authors.
By the mid-twentieth century, Americans stopped doing farm work. And we were only able to avoid a farm-labor crisis by bringing
in workers from a nearby country that was at an earlier stage of development. Now that era is coming to an end. Taylor and his co-
authors argue that the United States could face a sharp adjustment period as a result. Americans appear
unwilling to do the sort of low-wage farm work that we have long relied on immigrants to do. And, the paper notes, it may be
difficult to find an abundance of cheap farm labor anywhere else potential targets such as
Guatemala and El Salvador are either too small or are urbanizing too rapidly. So the labor
shortages will keep getting worse . And that leaves several choices. American farmers could simply stop growing crops
that need a lot of workers to harvest, such as fruits and vegetables. Given the demand for fresh produce, that seems unlikely.

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