|
|
Now that we’re home, there’s lots to do to follow up on the campaigns from the groups at AR2009. I’ll continue to update our main site, Peace and Justice for Animals, with details, but in the meantime, I’ll set out a few items here. (We don’t have any paid staff, so I need to do all this while holding down a regular job.)
We realized at the wildlife discussions that even activists, not to mention the general public, are unaware of USDA Wildlife Services, the government’s wildlife killing campaign. (Why do they call it “services”? Ask your local rancher what “service” means.) Like most federal websites, it’s difficult to navigate. Wildlife Services is under APHIS, the branch of USDA also charged with enforcing the Animal Welfare Act. You can pull up reports about what your state agency is doing at http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/.
Prior to this conference we had been frequent consumers of EarthBalance. We found out from Rainforest Action Network that EarthBalance is made from rainforest-destroying palm oil. To make matters worse, the palm oil comes from the notorious chemical company Cargill. We’ll be going back to using olive oil, which is simpler and healthier anyway than using processed products, even if they’re vegan.
We thought we were going to have to campaign to get the Cove shown here in Santa Fe. Fortunately, the Cove website already lists a scheduled screening. At least that’s one less thing to do!
Thanks to Vegan Soapbox for including this blog in the list of AR2009 blogs.
<!– @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>
Capt. Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd had the opportunity to express his views at the Saturday afternoon workshop on Direct Action. Starting from Woody Allen’s dictum that 80% of success is showing up, he explained the need for persistence in any campaign to stop animal exploitation. The objective of any campaign is economic, as this is the only thing that corporations and governments understand. Sea Shepherd is not concerned if people criticize their actions, as they work for whales, not for people. The Sea Shepherd has never harmed any person, but is regarded as violent because it challenges the dominant paradigm of anthropocentrism, which sees the world from a humanist perspective. Yet even from that humanist perspective, there is no more important task than stopping the loss of species diversity, which threatens the existence of human society.
In a media-dominated society, Watson proudly takes on the pirate mantle. It takes a pirate to stop pirates. Pirates get things done.
This is a the first of a post from the Animal Rights 2009 conference in Los Angeles.
The Friday evening plenary session showed a false dichotomy at this conference between abolitionists and reformers regarding issues such as California’s Proposition 2, which seeks to provide somewhat more humane conditions for battery chickens. The abolitionists argue that it is morally impermissible to support any campaign which condones animal exploitation. The reformers argue that the path to animal liberation must begin with small steps within the legal system.
Although some at this conference speak of a movement, there is no animal rights movement in the sense of a movement for the social change needed to liberate animals from exploitation. Neither a moralistic nor a legalistic approach is sufficient to build a movement for social change.
Earlier in the day, a workshop on direct action pointed to some of the ways to build a true animal liberation movement. Darius Fullmer, recently released from prison for his work in support of SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty), had no interest in moral or legal definitions of what is “acceptable.” Peter Hammarstedt of Sea Shepherd saw direct action as both a way to express empathy toward nonhuman animals and a way to reach violence-obsessed infotainment media. Camille Hankins of Win Animal Rights explained the various forms of direct action, many of which are completely legal.
Many people are drawn to animal issues in general, and this conference in particular, from seeing the portrayal of the Sea Shepherd on Animal Planet’s Whale Wars. Direct action campaigns such as SHAC and Sea Shepherd, not only provide direct help to animals in need now, but also build a movement capable of ending animal exploitation for good.
The New Mexico Game & Fish Department, not so fondly known to activists as Maim & Squish, killed a mountain lion last week. The mountain lion was found near the residential area of Eldorado in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, where Peace & Justice for Animals is based. According to the Maim & Squish news release: “The initial plan was to release the cougar in the Jemez Mountains, but it was euthanized after the
Department determined that it was too dangerous to be released.”
Apparently the so-called biologists (better described by Capt. Paul Watson’s term biostitutes) determined that the mountain lion was too wild to be released into the wild. Perhaps the mainstream animal protection and environmental groups which have been supporting Maim & Squish’s “reasonable” mountain lion hunt will now reconsider their collaboration with the serial killers.
Peace & Justice for Animals does not regard the killing of healthy wild animals as “euthanasia.” We condemn the murder of the mountain lion.
|
|
