Marxist Animalism
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No problem, John. We wouldn't be socialists if we had thin skins. But further to my post on new research on animal communication and language is this follow-up article with other links to read http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/call-of-the-wild-how-science-is-learning-to-decode-the-way-animals-communicate-10365407.htmlBut just to let you know i am preparing an article that is critical of many animal welfare organisations that place nature conservation above the needs of powerless people and are accomplices of dictatorial regimes (such as the RSPB support for the Chagos Marine Reserve.)..but for now it is presently a work in progress.
As anti-vivisectionist, I also am wary of such organisations. See http://blatantpropaganda.org/public_html/propaganda/articles/animal_rights_fraud_bavap1.html and its Part Two as well.As a socialist, I know too that antivivisectionism as a reform movement is futile. Only the establishment of world socialism will free humans to engage democratically and in an informed manner on ethology, vivisection, and all these issues. The only real way to help suffering animals, whether human ones or not, is to hasten socialism! (And that`s regardless of what individual socialists today might think. Socialism will free ALL to debate FREELY and in the interests of all.)
Two new books out, and reviewed splendidly in the TLS:The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cultural-Lives-Whales-Dolphins/dp/0226895319/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436012931&sr=1-1&keywords=the+cultural+lives+of+whales+and+dolphinsReviewed as "In Communal Waters" (TLS June 26th).The Soul of an Octopus http://www.amazon.co.uk/Soul-Octopus-Surprising-Exploration-Consciousness/dp/1471149382/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436013611&sr=1-1&keywords=the+soul+of+an+octopusReviewed as "Fish Stress" (TLS June 19th.)
I don't know if it is an urban legend i picked up but i often use the fact that in animal intelligence tests, the octopus result is higher than a dogs but because of anthropomorphic reasons we only relate to the dog and not the more alien features of the octopus …But i often at the same time claimed lobsters mate for life so when people ate lobsters they were destroying a spouse's happiness…but i was wrong about that one ..they don't …just a bit chit chat
In case you have not read this, John, it may help your case http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf
Quote:"We declare the following: “The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.”http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/gorillas-are-showing-signs-of-learning-to-talk-say-researchers-10456969.html?icn=puff-image-10Researchers have identified speech patterns in a gorilla, previously thought to be impossible for apes.
Except this is the same old arrogant error: that other animals have to be proven to approach things in our way, i.e. our form of language, in order to have worth!They have their own worth, as themselves, not as stepping-stones "toward" us!
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/"The view of nature attained under the domination of private property and money is a real contempt for, and practical debasement of, nature; in the Jewish religion, nature exists, it is true, but it exists only in imagination. It is in this sense that [in a 1524 pamphlet] Thomas Münzer declares it intolerable“that all creatures have been turned into property, the fishes in the water, the birds in the air, the plants on the earth; the creatures, too, must become free.”…"
This is fantastic! I didn`t know this about Muenzer.When George Adamson was buried, a ribbon blew away in the wind. A lion retrieved it and brought it back to the grave! In the next few days lions brought branches and laid them on the grave!!
When debating those who promote alternative medicine against science and evidence based medical treatment, i frequently refer to Traditional Chinese Medicine and ask why they remain silent on elements in those. I ask about the use of animal parts that lead to animal cruelty. I often ask if tiger testicles are found to be a medical cure for certain ailments would those into alternative medicine advocate factory-farming of tigers to obtain that cure. Usually i am ridiculed at suggesting such a possibility.https://news.vice.com/article/bear-bile-farms-in-vietnam-are-making-animals-blind-sick-and-obese
Quote:Seven hundred bears have died this year on bear bile farms in Vietnam, due to starvation or infection, according to Animals Asia. Jill Robinson, founder of the organization, estimates that more than 12,000 bears are kept on bear bile farms in China and Vietnam. "The extraction of bear bile from live bears causes unimaginable suffering and long term health problems," she said.Animals Asia conducted a survey in 2011 of 60,000 traditional medical practitioners in Vietnam. Forty percent of them said they prescribe bear bile for serious aliments such as liver cancer, and for less serious ailments such as sore throat, bruising, muscle ailments, and fever. Something to cite when you next get into an encounter with a health "crank" who claims the moral high ground.
One will find in this day and age that this bogus medicine is just as much about money as is most of the bogus medicine that makes up the conventional vivisectionist "science".The true moral high ground is to oppose all of this capital-induced phenomena!Signed John Oswald, a socialist crank.
"I really have no patience with people who maintain that an animal`s life and actions are governed by pure instinct and conditioned reflexes. Nothing except reasoning powers can explain the careful strategy used by a pride of lions in hunting, and the many examples we have had from Elsa of intelligent and thought-out behaviour." – George Adamson.Because of capitalism, we humans are missing out, among everything else, on a wealth of pleasurable experience via profound and sensitive relationships with other species. Witness all the findings of ethology in recent years, which were pioneered by the Adamsons in Kenya and continued via the work of numerous individuals ever since.Authors and scientists (real ones!) to consult include Jane Goodall, Marc Bekoff, Tony Fitzjohn, Gareth Patterson, Jeffrey Masson, Charlotte Uhlenbroek, David Attenborough, and many others.
I hope you are still visiting the forum, John, because i thought you might like to know of this announcementSpecies and Class seeks to be a group blog that explores the animal-human relationship from socialist or anarchist perspectives, and we're looking for writers. You can write pretty much about anything, so long as it has a class angle and a species angle. If you need them, here are a few topic ideas:http://speciesandclass.com/2014/07/24/topic-lists-combined-updated/If you are interested in writing for us, please get in touch:http://speciesandclass.com/contribute/
Thank you for this, and here is the reply I have made to Speciesism & Class`s invitation:- Hello, and thank you for your invitation to write for you, via the SPGB Forum, where I am a contributor under the name of John Oswald, in honour of my hero of that name, who was killed in 1793.I feel it is important that socialists and anarchists, many of whom I have found online to be ferociously human supremacist, learn something of modern ethology and recognise how limited they are being.
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