On Bob Herbert and Direct Action

Something interesting happened when I read New York Times columnist Bob Herbert's article about the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., called "Anger Has Its Place." Allow me to jump down to the paragraph that startled me into forced contemplation for several reasons:

Black people need to roar out their anger at such treatment, lift up their voices and demand change. Anyone counseling a less militant approach is counseling self-defeat. As of mid-2008, there were 4,777 black men imprisoned in America for every 100,000 black men in the population. By comparison, there were only 727 white male inmates per 100,000 white men.

While whites use illegal drugs at substantially higher percentages than blacks, black men are sent to prison on drug charges at 13 times the rate of white men.

Most whites do not want to hear about racial problems, and President Obama would rather walk through fire than spend his time dealing with them. We’re never going to have a serious national conversation about race. So that leaves it up to ordinary black Americans to rant and to rave, to demonstrate and to lobby, to march and confront and to sue and generally do whatever is necessary to stop a continuing and deeply racist criminal justice outrage.

I don't disagree with Herbert, but what if I wrote:

Most people don't want to hear about the capacity of nonhumans to experience pain, pleasure, boredom or frustration, and President Obama would rather walk through fire than do anything other than acquire a pure breed puppy or pardon a turkey on Thanksgiving (though that one remains to be seen). We're never going to have a serious national conversation about the rights of sentient nonhumans. So that leaves it up to ordinary Americans to rant and to rave, to demonstrate and to lobby, to march and confront and to sue and generally do whatever is necessary to stop a continuing and deeply speciesist social justice outrage.

Again, I don't agree with Herbert, but I also think that his sentiments apply to another struggle that isn't as different or separate as many would like to believe. What Herbert wrote is about justice that is long overdue and I doubt anyone will call him a terrorist.

I look forward to the day the paragraph I wrote can be published in the New York Times, and not result in accusations of terrorism, fanaticism, extremism or inciting people to violence.

Comments

[nemo]

I'm a bit confused. You stated above "I don't disagree with Herbert, but what if I wrote:"

and than said,

"Again, I don't agree with Herbert, but"

So which is it? Do you agree with Herbert or not?

[mary]

I don't disagree, but I'd add speciesism to racism as being an outrage and in need of action.

[Brandon Becker]

Exactly, we need agitation for emancipation!

Written 9 years ago by COK in The Abolitionist, but the words ring true greater than ever today:
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A Call for a Greater Sense of Urgency

http://www.cok.net/magazine/10/1.php

With the passing of the year 2000, the American animal rights movement enters its third decade as an organized struggle. As those who objectively assess the situation realize, during the past 20 years, the plight of animals in America has steadily grown worse. Indeed, more animals than ever before are killed in the U.S. annually, and the tortures inflicted upon these animals are more unconscionable than ever before.

Of course, this is not to say that the movement has achieved nothing. It is almost certain that without our presence, animals in America would be even worse off than they are today. Moreover, the national awareness of the animal rights philosophy is vastly greater than it was in 1980.

As we've placed the issue of animal rights into society's consciousness; as we've demonstrated to the nation that a growing segment of the population refuses to remain tyrants over other species any longer, the time has now come to begin improving the plight of animals in America.

The animal exploitation industries' only hope for survival is for us to remain docile and complacent. When we sit back idly and just wish for the meat, egg, and dairy industries to disintegrate, they're assured that the status quo will not be altered, that animals will continue to be regarded as the chattel property of humans who can use them for whatever purposes they deem desirable. As Thoreau wrote, "Dissent without resistance is consent."

Confronting Our Disadvantage

Unlike most other social justice struggles, it is not our freedom for which we fight. Rather, we fight to lift out of slavery billions of individuals who can't consciously participate in the movement. Since we aren't the ones suffering the intense confinement of factory farms, since we aren't the ones losing our lives in slaughterhouses, it is all too easy to lose the sense of urgency that our movement would have if nonhuman animals could join us and tell us their ideas about strategies for success.

Only when we mentally place ourselves in the "shoes" of those we fight for will we realize just how urgent the situation really is. Only when we imagine being that animal hanging upside on a slaughter line, watching those before you murdered, will we begin to realize that animal rights truly is the moral imperative of our time.

While no one expects animal liberation to be achieved overnight, we should expect that we're going to have to work harder in the next decade than we have in the past, since it's obvious that animals can't keep on waiting. For them, it is literally a matter of life or death.

It is essential that we renew and increase our efforts to free nonhuman animals from the shackles of human tyranny. Now more than ever, we must devote ourselves fully to building a more compassionate world for all of us who live here. The holocaust that claims the lives of billions upon billions of animals in the U.S. each year will only cease when enough caring people decide they're willing to do what it takes to end it.
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[Beaelliott]

Ah... and here we go again, chasing that bright illusive butterfly of justice. And I

know we must keep our efforts peaceful... And convert the unwilling masses to a

clearer way of thinking with reason and truth. And we must sway economic forces with the "demand" of vegan products.

If there was a level or fair playing (fighting) field - it might not seem like such an

enormously impossible challenge. But I've personally been assaulted for "veggie" bumper stickers. And last I checked one channel ran 18 ads in a half hour for foods made from animals - Along with ones to see the enslaved dolphins at SeaWorld... So MSM news avoids reporting on small (controversial) animal rights issues - It stands too much to loose in the way of it's sponsors.

There is no "reality" in the market dealing with animals as "commodities" either. If the industry suffers a slump - Even perhaps a decline in "demand". No big deal. The government will step in with a buy-out program, cushioning the blow till a recovery. If your industry is animal agriculture... and you are contaminating ground water from your operation - No big deal. The EPA will give you special dispensation. If you run out of land to graze your cattle - No big deal. The BLM will offer you public land for pennies an acre. If drought conditions caused thousands of livestock deaths - No big deal. There's a bailout for that too. And if another country does not want your product... The fed will step in and negotiate the way for you.

Want to know how to make your "product" more efficient or cheaper or "better"? Each has a grant to allow this to be so as well.

I don't understand, and I wish someone would tell me... How is it we are supposed to (peacefully) "do what it takes" - when our own government is the industry's "best customer", literally feeding an army with subsidized "cheap" meat? I just don't know how "justice" can be gotten when there is such an inequitable system?

Oh... and nothing to do with something as "trivial" as animal rights... The industry has even managed to shut down human rights... Property and free speech rights specifically. In regards to the way the animal business operates in Iowa - people who are directly affected by the filth of a CAFO have absolutely no say in whether or not these "facilities" are allowed to be built.

http://www.bleedingheartland.com/diary/2935/action-help-preserve-public-input-on-cafos

With such a stacked deck - I'm beginning to believe that one must make their own "justice" and do *whatever* it takes.

[Beaelliott]

... Like I was saying - the animal industries don't even respect human rights:
http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/08/boss-hogs-attempted-regulatory-coup-in-north-carolina.html

And with this much corruption... we are going to seek justice with cupcakes - this I've gotta see.