Bergus-Gaffney Aff

1ac

Contention One: Nuclear Head Games

9/11 represents a traumatic rupture in narratives of US omniscience. Trauma has been predominantly disavowed in favor of the re-assertion of US primacy that collapses political time to repeat terrorist threat ad infinitum
Nichols 07 [Bill, Professor of Literature at San Francisco State University, “The Terrorist Event,” Comparative Literature and Culture 9.1; 2007. Scholar. uo-tjs]

What happened on September 11 began  [...] to fit their adaptation here).

Nuclear power and terrorism have become conceptually linked – this traumatic affect determines public reaction to nuclear power
Slovic ‘06 [Peter, Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon, “What’s Fear Got to Do with It? It’s Affect We Need to Worry About,” MISSOURI LAW REVIEW Vol 69, LN. uo-tjs]

Imagery associated with a given risk  [...] societal behavior over the next century.

Nuclear disaster heralds an array of threats outside the descriptive powers of language and prediction—We compulsively look to precursor events to avoid the deadlock. The unspeakable horror of radioactivity has reduced us to a state of living death.
Van Wyck 05 [Peter C., Professor of Communications and Media Studies at Concordia University, Signs of Danger: Waste, Trauma, and Nuclear Threat, University of Minnesota Press. 2005. p.105-107. uo-tjs]

So to all of the other  [...] began, and when it ended.

Contention Two: Confronting Trauma

There are three different reactions to foundational despair hailed by the traumatic event of nuclear disaster: one either disavows the significance of the event, obsesses over the threats associated with it, or works through the trauma by developing a system of meaning around it
Van Wyck 05 [Peter C., Professor of Communications and Media Studies at Concordia University, Signs of Danger: Waste, Trauma, and Nuclear Threat, University of Minnesota Press. 2005. p.116-119. uo-tjs]

The real's relationship to ecological threat  [...] , "Mother" earth.

Disavowal of the trauma of modernity ensures continued brutal warfare—realpolitik is outmoded as conflict is increasingly enacted irrationally outside of self interest—only the Aff gives proper explanation
McAfee 08 [Noelle, Associate Research Professor of Philosophy and Conflict Analysis at Emory University, Democracy and the Political Unconscious (New Directions in Critical Theory), 2008. Columbia University Press. p. 28-30. uo-tjs] 

Modernity's traumas are many, more  [...] . <28-30>

Hyperarousal is predicated on chronic presentation of threats – this ushers in authoritarianism and makes policy failure inevitable.
Bloom 09 [Sandra, M.D. and Practicing Psychiatrist, “An Elephant in the Room: The Impact of Traumatic Stress on Individuals and Groups,” in The Trauma Controversy: Philosophical And Interdisciplinary Dialogues, Eds. Kristen Golden & Bettina Bergo, State University of New York Press. p. 155-156. uo-tjs]

Group responses to stress are measures  [...] punished. <155-156>

Hyperarousal is exemplified by a dispute over whether Environmental Impact Statements should include a successful terrorist attack on nuclear power. This default to “worst case” scenario analysis forces the NRC and the Courts to consider every theoretical threat a real danger and prevents nuclear power licensing and relicensing.
Briggs 11 [Alexander T; J.D. Candidate 2012, Seton Hall University School of Law; “Managing the Line Between Nuclear Power and Nuclear Terror: Considering the Threat of Terrorism as an Environmental Impact,” Seton Hall Circuit Review; 8 Seton Hall Cir. Rev. 223; Lexis. uo-tjs]

The NRC first rejected the requirement  [...] the NRC and plant operators.

Thus, the plan: The United States Supreme Court should affirm the Third Circuit Court decision in New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection v. United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

AND, Supreme Court ruling against the inclusion of terrorism is critical to confronting nuclear hyperarousal in the case of energy policy
Briggs concludes…

Until this problem is resolved,  [...] and its citizens to unnecessary threats.

Part Three – The Analyst’s Couch

You should take up the position of the analyst and put the debaters on the couch – this allows us to question dominant discourses that actively produce threat and produce policy failure.
Bracher 94 [Mark, Associate Professor of English and associate director of the Center for Literature and Psychoanalysis at Kent State University, “On the Psychological and Social Functions of Language: Lacan's Theory of the Four Discourses,” Lacanian Theory of Discourse Subject, Structure, and Society Edited by Mark Bracher et al, 123-128. uo-tjs]
The Discourse of the Analyst It  [...] currents of which we are ignorant.

Debate is an imaginary space that enables a homeopathic repetition of and confrontation with trauma in an analytical state. The 1AC is an act of letting go of our fear and openness to our nightmares – this is key to sublimate trauma – otherwise that trauma will re-emerge in violent and uncontrollable impulses of drive.
Van Wyck 05 [Peter C., Professor of Communications and Media Studies at Concordia University, Signs of Danger: Waste, Trauma, and Nuclear Threat, University of Minnesota Press. 2005. p.133-135. uo-tjs]

If we are to say that  [...] clean and safe nuclear future).

Our discursive commitments are paramount – sublimation of trauma can only occur through the articulation of intersubjective spaces that refigure the public sphere as a collective and therapeutic space.
McAfee 08 [Noelle, Associate Research Professor of Philosophy and Conflict Analysis at Emory University, Democracy and the Political Unconscious (New Directions in Critical Theory), 2008. Columbia University Press. p. 22-24. uo-tjs]
One of my central premises is  [...] . <pg 22-24>

This has several implications for impact evaluation – 

First, you should frame this debate through the understanding that despair is foundational. The only relevant question is how you respond to trauma.
Pollock 09 [Griselda, Professor of the Social & Critical Histories of Art at the University of Leeds, “Art/Trauma/Representation”, Parallax Vol 15 No 1; pp. 40-54. uo-tjs]

To proceed into this terrain [...] sharing the events and encounters.12

Second, we should roleplay our descent into catastrophe – this act mediates and transforms our relationship with trauma.
Van Wyck 05 [Peter C., Professor of Communications and Media Studies at Concordia University, Signs of Danger: Waste, Trauma, and Nuclear Threat, University of Minnesota Press. 2005. p. 137-138. uo-tjs]

The virtual is just the shifter  [...] and therefore perhaps even more faithful.

Third, embracing our vulnerability to imagined horror and violence creates narratives that reformulate community on the basis of ethical precariousness
Kohlke 11 [Marie-Luise, “Sublime Violations: Trauma Literature and the Search for Transcendence through Violence” Creating Destruction: Constructing Images of Violence and Genocide, p. 149-151. uo-tjs]

The traumatic sublime offers its readers  [...] us. <149-151>

Last, affirming negativity is key – no large-scale political change can happen without a confrontation with trauma
Sjöholm 05 [Cecilia, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature at Sodertorn University College, Sweden, Kristeva and the Political, 2005. uo-tjs] 

The sémanalyse is aiming to distil  [...] term negativity will be elucidated. 

2ac/1ar ev

First, only psychoanalysis addresses the gaze of the Other which makes it possible for the subject to engage the state as a single entity—psychoanalysis is key to interrupt the daily practice and exposure of the state as a myriad of representations
Dean ‘05 [Jodi, “Enjoyment as a Category of Political Thought.” Annual Meeting of American Political Science Association, September 2005, jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/files/aspa_05_enjoyment.doc, uo-tjs] 

Zizek also differs from Foucault with  [...] of activities the subject can undertake.

Second, without analysis, policymaking is doomed to failure at the hands of it’s own fantasies.
Fotaki, ‘10 [Marianna, Organization Studies Group, Manchester Business School, “Why do public policies fail so often? Exploring health policy-making as an imaginary and symbolic construction,” Organization 17(6) pp. 703-720, Sage, p. 713-716. uo-tjs]

So far, I have suggested  [...] and being in organizations and society.

Evaluate ontology first because your horizon of meaning renders all ensuing action possible

Zizek '92 [Slavoj, Doesn't like sharing Chinese food, Enjoy Your Symptom! Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out, New York City: Routledge, 1992, 53-4. uo-tjs]

In other words, Hegelian " [...] the universe of symbolic necessity.

Rational deliberation in the public is a myth—political motivations are achieved by sharing experiences

McAfee ‘08 [Noelle, Associate Research Professor of Philosophy and Conflict Analysis at Emory University, Democracy and the Political Unconscious, Columbia University Press, p. 90-91. uo-tjs]

My sense—based on much  [...] we move from helplessness to independence. 

The norms you construct to protect good debate end up limiting participation to the point that debate becomes foreclosed; engendering meaningless exchanges amongst the like-minded—this does violence to dissident voices

Judith Butler, Professor of Gender, Rhetoric, Philosophy and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. 2004. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. Pg xix. wku-tjs

Dissent and debate depend upon the  [...] a fugitive and suspect activity.

And the virtual character of threats takes out your causality arguments – moments are retroactively charged with significance as a means to avoid fear that is of an ontological character – ontology is first and your scenarios are wrong.
Mertz ‘99 [David; THE SPECULUM AND THE SCALPEL: THE POLITICS OF IMPOTENT REPRESENTATION AND NON-REPRESENTATIONAL TERRORISM; dissertation for PhD Philo @ U Mass Amherst; Scholar. uo-tjs]

At the first level, that  [...] . <103-104>

And succumbing to anxiety causes crisis escalation
Stein ‘04 [Mark; “The critical period of disasters: Insights from sense-making and psychoanalytic theory”; Human Relations 2004 57: 1243; SAGE/Scholar. uo-tjs]

The study of anxiety has long  [...] , 1989; Stein, 2003).

We carry out wars and pre-emptive assaults as a disavowal of trauma. It is the belief in the fantasy of US hegemony and control that causes unspeakable acts in its name and perpetuates a repetition compulsion that is the root of ongoing war

McAfee ’08 [Noelle, Associate Research Professor of Philosophy and Conflict Analysis at Emory University, Democracy and the Political Unconscious, Columbia University Press. p. 74-75. uo-tjs]

In Derrida's view, even just  [...] ibid.). <74-75>

Massive nuclear incentives just passed
Yurman ’12 (Nuclear energy R&D budgets spared major cuts Posted on January 5, 2012 by dyurman| 3 Comments Congress trims funding while adding new priorities By Dan Yurman Dan Yurman, nuclear blogger Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy, and is a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe.

A Congress that has public approval  [...] fast reactor work scope. 

They’ve missed the point the issue is hardly who enforces the plan but how we orient ourselves toward the institutions in the first place. The aff is less about court action and more about our confrontation with trauma—the CP is a political gesture par excellence. The calculated attempt to avoid disaster and “solve” better effaces the act of its sponteniet and radical nature making it only another symbolic compromise
Tuhkanen ‘03 [Mikko, “Review: Antigones Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death by Judith Butler,” UMBR(a): A Journal of the Unconscious, pp. 140-4. uo-tjs]

To that of the real,  [...] scholarship, it is somewhat problematic.

Particularity: Their reduction of the plan to its particular content denies its universal dimension—this leads to violent outbursts in an effort to reclaim universal politics

Žižek ‘99 [Slavoj, Senior Researcher at Institute for Social Studies, Ljubliana and Badass, The Ticklish Subject: the absent centre of political ontology, New York: Verso, 1999, 203-5. uo-tjs]

Let us recall the standard example  [...] expression to the dimension beyond particularity.

Perm: Do both—plan and counterplan deliver a double blow to the symbolic order.