Marxist Animalism
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alanjjohnstone wrote:This short video (with no commentary) brings home the industrialisation of the meat business. http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/without_saying_a_word_this_6_minute_short_film_will_make_you_speechless/
That's really sad, especially the part at the beginning with the chickens. I've watched videos on YouTube about industrial farming and that's the main reason why I hardly eat meat anymore. Humans are not the only animals that have nervous systems and feel pain. There has to be a better way of killing chickens, pigs, cows, etc. for food.Here are two videos which show that industrial farming of chickens is bad for the birds and bad for the consumer:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE9l94b3x9Uhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD4kpLiA2Qo
Just got back from an Indian restaurant where I ordered "non vegetarian thali". What's the world coming to when normal food is described as "non-vegetarian"?
Depend where you live, ALB, what is considered normal food and insist on authentic Indian. Thalis are traditionally vegetarian and they are very regional. ….It is a lunchtime meal, not an evening or breakfast oneRestaurants are usually described as Pure Veg to meet with the requirements of Jain religion, all others are Non-Veg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country#IndiaMy Thai partner had ants-eggs, today and relished it, freshly obtained from a tree-top ant-nest…I passed on it …but what's "normal?"…a vegan omelette?http://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-food/how-to-make-a-vegan-omelette/
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-32965554Each year during summer solstice, it's thought that 10,000 dogs are cooked and eaten in Yulin, in Guangxi province in southern China, as part of the city's yearly dog meat festival. Dogs are regularly eaten in Asia (during the World Cup, Korea stopped restaurants from serving it.)Not sure why they single out this festival and not, for instance, turkeys at Christmas and Thanksgiving festivals. I know of neighbours, who dog-owners and dog-lovers themselves, who eat dog because it is a budget meat protein. Problem is much of the meat are from rounded up strays, so many are diseased and infected with parasites. I'm not sure cooking completely eradicates and cross-contamination with kitchen utensils is probably high. Occasionally the TV will carry footage of the illegal transportation of dogs caged like battery-hens.
Dogs, whether for dinner or display, are often treated as just another commodity in a world where everything is for sale:Bred for looks, not health, many purebred dogs are drawn from a genetic wading pool that might have been designed by a cabal of Ralph Lauren, Dr. Frankenstein, Walt Disney and David Koch. Even socially aware consumers who sneer at $5,000 designer purses, and animal defenders who deplore the cruelties of commercial livestock production, buy into trendy canines. Purebreds are commodities like any other luxury good, and breeding them is big business. Registered golden retrievers go for up to $3,000, English bulldogs for $9,000, and a Cavalier King Charles spaniel can cost $14,000, almost as much as a Honda Fit. But neither price, pedigree nor being loved like a member of the family can shield a dog from the pain, breathing difficulties, cancer, panoply of debilitating genetic disorders, mental illness, crippling physiognomy and shortened life span that disproportionately plague purebreds…http://inthesetimes.com/article/17910/bred-to-death
Lets get rid of pets – eat the doghttp://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/pets-leave-huge-carbon/1893368.htmlOwning a Great Dane can hurt the environment more than driving the SUV.(But i always wonder about all those bodies and remains of murder victims that are found by a person walking the dog …)
Couldn't resist posting this article on what could be called a form of self-cannibalismhttp://www.newsweek.com/does-eating-your-placenta-have-any-health-benefits-339603
On the subject of dogs (and cats), there's this classic from Steve Coleman:http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/dogs-cats-wage-slaves.html
alanjjohnstone wrote:Lets get rid of pets – eat the dogWhat a stupid thing to say, and no doubt intended to bait those of us with a wider sense of kinship than you have.The dog-meat industry in Asia is a so-called "stressed meat" industry. This means the dogs are deliberately and lengthily tortured (blow-torched, bones broken, suspended) prior to death.I do not share the self-congratulatory attitude of animal rights patriots in the West, pointing at "foreigners" in the treatment of fellow animals. I know the West is far guiltier, in that it perpetrates its horrors – far worse than in more primitive cultures – behind the locked doors of institutions. But even so, you have shown yourself to be callous and stupid.In fact, this is the type of callousness and baiting of those of us with a wider sphere of compassion that made me leave the Party before. If this is what certain members come down to, then it`s no wonder you alienate younger workers struggling to understand society! Shame on you!
You seem to overlook all my contributions to this thread and are having a knee-jerk reaction to purposefully provocative comment that is fully justified.It is a pun on the title of the book quoted in the link I provided “Time To Eat The Dog: The Real Guide To Sustainable Living” by Brenda and Robert Vale, who analysed the ingredients of pet food to estimate common pets' eco-footprint. Their study – featured in New Scientist.I have already drawn attention to the Asian dog-meat industry in an earlier post but as you say, why it should attract more protest rather than the industrial production of pig-meat or chicken is rather hypocritical?i know first hand of the cruelty to stray dogs in India, (knowing volunteers with ARK…Animal Rescue Kerala) and then now in Thailand.I have had neighbours who regularly eat dog and i have seen poor migrants from Cambodia cooking and eating rat as well. The preponderance of dog-eating is not in fancy restaurants. Halbeath followed up by making the valid point that the pedigree dog industry has become an immensely profitable industry despite producing dog breeds with in-bred genetic problems. Puppy farming has become a scourge for the RSPCA. Many compassionate animal lovers hope for the end of this sentimental attachment to pets and seek to hasten its demiseIn the UK to produce the cat-litter has ecologically damaged local communities with their clay pit workings. The RSPB make annual reports on the destruction of wild bids by domestic pet cats that is on par with any pesticide pollution. To satisfy home design aquariums have become a furniture fitting but to stock them tropical fish are trafficked illegally.Supposed animal lovers are callous. I speak as someone who has three dogs and now a new kitten, all unwanted from the street and were doomed to suffer a short unpleasant and unhealthy life. But such individual sentimental acts of compassion is no solution to the problems and the rabies that is epidemic in many parts of the world.
John Oswald wrote:In fact, this is the type of callousness and baiting of those of us with a wider sphere of compassion that made me leave the Party before. If this is what certain members come down to, then it`s no wonder you alienate younger workers struggling to understand society! Shame on you!I think, John, that this sort of insensivity is confined to a very small number of members who not only delight in baiting "those of us with a wider sphere of compassion", but also have overly inflated opinions of themselves and the extent to which they think the rest of us are remotely interested in what they have to say. Frankly, we're not.
When a member of the Socialist Party deigns to pay attention to the views and opinions of another member then i have to wonder what great insights and knowledge he or she hold that cannot be improved or modified by any discussion or debate (which also he or she declines to share) and when that member has the self-inflated importance to use the plural "we" as if he or she talks for and on behalf of all of the party and not merely present a personal perspective, then i believe that member presumes far too much.My compliance to moderation guidelines means i can't express my response as i wish with a two-word bluntness, the first word having four letters and the second word being OFF.
Very well, Alan.Of course animal rights is not the solution to the ills afflicting us, both nonhuman or human; socialism is.You will know, then, that deeply rewarding relationships can exist between humans and nonhumans. The death of my dog last year continues to grieve me, whereas my father`s death this year does not (although it saddens me). My father had left my life years before due to his long illness; my dog was still fairly young and succumbed to distress, re: a spinal disorder.I make no apologies for my feelings, since we are not responsible how we feel. Why would love for a nonhuman be construed as silly sentimentality and for a human something else?I have accepted the Party`s speciesism, and decided that does not prevent me being a member, since it is SOCIALISM which must be worked toward. That doesn`t mean I must change my views on fellow animals and cross-species kinship.The establishment of socialism will end the profit system. This won`t mean the end of meat-eating and, frankly, I`m not that much bothered by that; but it will end profit-rooted atrocities such as vivisection, and the profit-based pet industry. That doesn`t mean individuals won`t choose to share life with dogs, who have shared our lives since prehistory.I do think the notion of "pets" will disappear, and a good job too! But inter-species friendship is something else. Unfortunately, under capitalism, like so many things we are compelled to adhere to, we have to adhere to conventions of ownership and psychology which see nonhumans as property. But we can despise these conventions.I would not buy a "pet", but I, too, have "adopted" a cat, as I did my dog, who was in dire straits and a stray.Best wishes.
John, I certainly don't disagree about the deep emotional bonds that can be made by having an animal as a companion. The benefits of such relationships are reciprocal. I am always reminded that one of the early signs of a psychopath are expressions of cruelty to animals at a young age, whereas for others, caring for an animal can deepen feelings we have for all living things. Paradoxically, the fact that i have had to get the vet to put down animals in the past, has made me somewhat an advocate for human euthanasia too.
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