Slow and Steady…

When I was in debate in high school, one test a team could run to try to prove whether a plan did or did not fall under the year’s topic resolution was called the vacuum test. I’ve recently been wondering whether APPS would pass some variation of this.

What is the vacuum test? Here’s an example. One year the resolution was to substantially change U.S. foreign policy with Russia. Our plan that year was to stop NATO expansion to the Baltic states, I believe. This was clearly not topical! Or rather, it was effectually topical: it did change U.S. foreign policy toward Russia, but not directly. Rather, it relied on the effect of the plan (stopping NATO expansion) to affect Russia. Luckily we were good, b/c this is generally a vulnerability in policy debate. Why would we open ourselves to such a weakness? Our evidence suggested an expansion of NATO would trigger nuclear war between Russia and the United States. Ahh the memories!

Anyway, an opposing team would sometimes run the vacuum test and ask, “In a world without Russia (cue the movie trailer music), would the plan exist?” The answer was yes, indicating we were topical by effects. For plans that were directly topical, the answer would be no. Example: The Nunn-Lugar legislation that would take U.S. and Russian nukes off of hair-trigger alert would clearly not exist without Russia.

Anyway, all this is to say, I wonder if APPS would pass some variation of the vacuum test. Disregarding any issue with names or labels at this point, I’ve been wondering what we would look like if we took away parecon and parsoc as a focus.

If parecon didn’t exist, if participatory society didn’t exist, would there still be a reason for us to hang around? Is our only goal to work directly on parecon? Is there room within APPS to be focused on movements first, strategy first, with the effect on parecon and parsoc vision and organizing coming only indirectly, as a result of what we do in terms of “real” organizing, such as working within issue- and community-based groups, building networks and relationships amongst activists, and so on?

I ask the question less to address whether we’d be parsoc-y enough to remain within the PPS umbrella of groups, and more to look at whether we can go at this thing from another angle; still concerned about figuring out what we want and how to get there, just not in that order.

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