Animal Rights Community Online Blog

On another thread, Ante posted:-

At the same time, I like to say that, in my opinion, no one has the monopoly on ideas, animal rights, animal welfare, or animals period. Different people using the power of reasoning state their views and that's all. It's not any different when it comes to animal rights philosophy. Nothing is black and white, absolute and I don't think definition of animal rights is either. And I don't thing that anyone in particular should be appointed as the god of animal rights.

This raises questions that have interested me for a long time and I wonder if people might want to comment. For example, if we are looking for philosophical consistency, then the works of people such as Tom Regan, Gary Francione and Joan Dunayer are a good place to begin in terms of answering the Q above. [Please note at this point that philosopher and athour of Animal Liberation, Peter Singer, is not a rightist, despite being called the "father" of the AR movement].

Many animal activists over the years (I became campaigning in the late 1970s, been arrested, gone to prison, all of that) argue that they do not like using the language of rights to make their claims about how humans should treat nonhumans.

Some will say they oppose the notion of rights because it is too male or too upper class in terms of origin. Therefore, such people are often inspired by feminist and/or anarchist thinking. Such people will often use the label "animal liberationist" to describe themselves. Some, however, will be happy (or at least prepared) to call themselves animal rightists.

Then (fanfare and drumroll) we have the animal welfarists (this is where Peter Singer re-enters the picture).

There are different types of animal welfarists, from traditional ones to radical ones. Some I call abolitionist welfarists (like CIWF) who want to abolish some forms of "animal husbandry" but not necessarily others (the so-called 'humane' forms like 'free-range'). Some of these people call themselves animal rightists too - and they often say that philosophical differences are not important and even divisive. These are often the people who say "we are all on the same road".

Some say that, because they do the day-to-day "get your hands dirty" work in terms of animal protection - work at sanctuaries, demos etc - they should decide that "animal rights" is taken to mean. People like Francione and Dunayer say that these people think AR and radical animal welfarism is the same thing. Thinkers such as Lee Hall say that this explains why animal rights campaigns may "collapse" into animal welfarism. It explains (in part) why a once radical group (like PeTA) are now doing many welfare campaigns about the best way to end the lives of nonhuman individuals - they prefer gassing at the moment I believe.

SO - what you you think!! Who decides what AR is?

Rags.

That reminds me of the show mentioned in vegan freaks (the book). They had an American 'wife swap' and one women was a suburban vegan and the other was a deep south croc farmer living near the swamps. The show had the vegan women as really stuck up and would not even cook in the same pots and pans as the other family used, also she refused to cook veggie meals, but not fully vegan. She also shouted at their dog and slapped it for weeing on the floor. In comparison the croc farming women cooked vegan meals, ate them with the family and basically showed she could adapt well. So, what does this show? All vegans are stuck up pricks?? Well not really, but this seems to be the messege reinforced in the media, vegans fit a few sterotypes (or often a few at a time);

we are either 'hippy, sandel wearing tree hugging loonies
grave robbing, people killing, evil animal loving and human hating nutters
or we are totally unadaptable, stuck up pricks who cannot see their own faults

Now I know there are vegans like that, just as there are meat eaters like that and veggies, but the point is it is ONLY EVER those three sterotypes (or a mix of them) shown in the papers or media. Veganism is reinforced in the media as being something hard and totally not suited to any 'western country', which is rubbish.

Hi, I just joined this board. I am interested in the link between vegetarianism and anti-war/peace activism. It always bothers me to see a self-labeled "peace activist" sitting down to a meal of flesh from a murdered animal, that was bred as food in a pain factory. I know some zealous peace proponents that do this, while saying they want a non-violent world.

They claim to be teaching their children peace, but how can they, while serving murdered animals for dinner?

I just do not understood how you can stand for peace, and dine on the flesh of another being that died in agony and terror.

It seems incongruous to me.

What do you think?

Sharon wrote:  ‹ Select ›

The different religions, the different beliefs, etc...which is the "right" one?

Which is the right one? Simple: Every one and none. You can learn from all religions, but only if you are mature enough to acknowledge that religious books are written by men and are not infallible. So if you are capable of acknowledging that you will find mistakes in any religion, and some truth in all, you'll be fine.

As to whether there is a god or not, what does it matter? Live your life trying to do good and as little harm as possible, and you'll be happy. Then, when you die, there are three possibilities:

1. There is no afterlife, in which case, it is futile worrying about what happens after you die.

2. There is re-birth, in which case, life goes on.

3. There is heaven, in which case a good person will go there no matter his/her religion. In any case, I find it very hard to believe that a just and kind god would punish anyone for eternity. I know I wouldn't do that, and god is supposed to be kinder.

Well, that is my opinion, anyway...no offense intended to anyone who disagrees.

Animal Rights activists MUST be at the vanguard of human rights, peace, justice etc.
That means: no Racism, no homophobia, no religious bigotry etc etc...
We MUST leave these stupidities to the masses and reject all these forms of outdated mass thinking.
If those of us who have rejected the staus quo of the use and abuse of animals don't- then who will?
We can't leave it the hunters, vivisectors, fast food junkies etc etc.
As part of our rejection of animal cruelty we are used to resisting/fighting/challenging the status quo.
Now the situation is CRITICAL.
Watch:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8810949184378664013&q=occult
Support all resistance movements and liberation movements
Human, animal, environmental.
To do otherwise is to give support to the abusers.

I dont see why the internet is supposedly such a poor way of protesting against animal abuses ? Here are some of my reasons:

1) Your opinions are available for anyone around the WORLD to view, you have a potential audience of BILLIONS - something that cannot be achieved by a local street protest.

2) Your written word is immortalised on websites such as this, so many people around the globe can read about your ideas many years after you have written it - the "on the street" protest is over in a few hours, and media will usually either belittle or ignore your message anyway.

3) The increasing passtime of many people is "web surfing", so as more of us become internet savy the online protest is an increasingly effective way of reaching others in the safety of their own homes where they have the opportunity to consider the arguments at hand without feeling threatened - as passes by often do during street protests. Therefore you alienate less people also.

4) There is more opportunity online to provide extra information, pictures, references and other helpful resources that wouldnt be appropriate to bring to an "on the street" protest - those who are interested in your cause can spend as long as they like reasearching it online whilst maintaining their privacy. The street protest can be too confronting for many people, so they just steer clear.

Im not saying that protesting on the streets is pointless - those who do it should be commended and its a very valid way of getting some excellent exposure - but in this day and age of the computer I think that you have underestimated just what online discussions can achieve. The added bonus is that you have the wonderful support of a like-minded online community to share your ideas with, back you up and keep you strong!

Hi, everyone. I just joined this forum, and the topics I've read seem quite interesting so far, so I suppose I'll try to stay an active member here. Excuse my lousy English though--it's not my primary language

I've recently been doing a little research, and now that I'm a little bit more aware of all the cruelty done to animals for food, clothes, etc., I'm willing to become vegan.

I just need a little motivation. I live in a non-vegan household, and being vegan is is looked down upon by my parents and siblings because they think it's an unhealthy lifestyle. I've tried becoming vegetarian before, but I didn't take it too seriously and didn't like veggies too much (I do now), and my parents convinced me to start eating meat again anyway. Now that I want to become vegan, I'm taking this seriously. So... can anyone give me as many reasons to become vegan? Any health risks (i.e. calcium/iron/protein/etc. deficiencies)? What should I do or say if my family still doesn't approve of this? I'm just not too sure on how to get started.

I almost never eat meat, but I'd have to give up milk products, which I absolutely love (if you know of any alternatives to milk, please tell me). I don't know much about animal clothing though, and even less about "hidden" animal ingredients that I should watch out for =/ So... any information you can give me would be very appreciated.

Grrrrr. I just walked out of another movie. It was Oldboy (2003, Korean) which won a mess of awards at the Cannes Film Festival & got rave reviews. The movie itself may have been ok, but 45 mins into it we see a guy eating a live squid. That was enough for me. Later I did some research and found out that it was a real squid (actually 4 of them. The bastards couldn't get it right in one take).

Anyway, if you're like me, you're probably sick of being blindsided by this sort of stuff. So maybe it would be helpful if we listed the movies where animals were killed/tortured in real life. I know a few:

Apocalypse Now
a buffalo is partially beheaded and then hacked to death

Cannibal Holocaust
too many killings to list

Andrey Rublyov (critically acclaimed Russian film by Tarkovsky)
a horse is shot in the neck and thrown down a flight of stairs

The Godfather
The horse head is REAL.
(what is it with Francis Ford Coppola & animals??)

Manderlay
donkey is killed. I heard the scene was cut because of all the bad press.
(as if that suddenly makes the movie OK)

Those are all the ones I can think about atm. Does anyone else know of any? I'm sick of wasting my $$$

Tourterelle wrote:  ‹ Select ›

There is a growing concensus that animal testing is pretty useless and even gives harmful results at times. Somewhere on this forum there is a very long list of quotes by doctors and scientists who are now opposed to animal testing. I can't remember offhand where it is, but perhaps you or someone else can find it.

I am going to post them again because this is the information that those who profit from animal torture don't want the public to know because that is what would bring about the end for vivisection.

Less than 2% of human illnesses (1.16%) are ever seen in animals. Over 98% never are.
At least 50 drugs on the market cause cancer in lab animals. They are allowed because it is admitted that animal tests are not relevant.
When asked if they agreed that animal experimentation can be misleading because of anatomical and physiological differences between animals and humans, 88% of doctors agreed.
Rats are 37% effective in identifying what causes cancer in humans. Flipping a coin would be more accurate.
According to animal tests lemon juice is deadly poison, but arsenic, hemlock and botulin are safe.
40% of patients suffer side effects as a result of prescription treatment.
Over 200,000 medicines have been released most of which are now withdrawn. According to the World Health Organisation, 240 medicines are ‘essential’.
Thousands of drugs passed safe in animals have been withdrawn or banned due to their effect on human health.
Aspirin fails animal tests, as do digitalis (heart drug), cancer treatments, insulin (causes animal birth defects), penicillin and other safe medicines. They would be banned if results from animal experimentation were accurate.
When the producers of thalidomide were taken to court, they were aquitted after numerous experts agreed animal tests could not be relied on for human medicine.
At least 450 methods exist with which we can replace animal experiments.
Morphine puts humans asleep but excites cats.
95% of drugs passed by animal tests are immediately disgarded as useless or dangerous to humans.
One is six patients in hospital are there because the drug they have taken had been passed safe for us on humans after animal tests.
Worldwide, at least 22 animals die every second in labs. In the UK one animal dies every five seconds.
The contraceptive pill causes blood clots in humans but it had the opposite effect in dogs.
We use aspirin for aches and pains. It causes birth defects mice, rabbits and rats.
Researchers refused to believe that benzene could cause cancer in humans because it failed to in animal tests.
Dogs failed to predict heart problems caused by the cardiovascular drugs encainide and flecainide, which led to an estimated 3,000 deaths in the USA.
Heart by pass surgery was put on hold for years because it didn’t work on dogs.
If we had relied on animal tests we would still believe that humans don’t need vitamin C, that smoking doesn’t cause cause cancer and alcohol doesn’t cause liver damage.
It was denied for decades that asbestos caused disease in humans because it didn’t in animals.
Polio researchers were mislead for years about how we catch the disease because they had experimented on monkeys.
As one researcher points out, “the ultimate dilemma with any animal model of human disease is that it can never reflect the human situation with complete accuracy."

http://www.shac.net/SCIENCE/facts.html

Some time ago someone asked where the chat room had gone to, so I'll give it another try.

I've just installed a new one at
http://www.animalsuffering.com/chat/index.php

Give it a try and let me know if you would use it.
When you see other members are online just go to the Chat Room and talk live!
Or go already and wait till someone else joins you.

The Chat Room is also available for guests.

If it is a success I'll integrate it with the forum so you can use the same username etc...