Interesting post. Although it is true that animals are sometimes treated better
than humans, at least the unemployed are not put down if they can't find a boss
who will adopt them within a few weeks. I guess that is partly because the reserve
army of unemployed serves a capitalist function whereas surplus cats and dogs do
not-- although I gather that the homeless in some cities haven't much higher
status than stray cats.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> At 12:18 AM 1/15/99 -0600, Ken Hanley wrote:
> >P.S. Isn't attitude towards animals an indication of attitude towards people?
> >My sister-in-law broke off an engagement when her fiancee tried to run down a
> >rabbit with his pickup. The person she married also thought that was an
> >unforgivable act. There is no doubt she made the right choice in my mind.
> >
>
> Hmm.... In the US of A animal rights organizations enjoy the public benefit
> (i.e tax exempt) status that is not available to worker rights
> organizations, i.e. unions which the warlocks of the conventional economic
> wisdom portray as "wage cartels."
>
> Someone from Orange County, CA once wrote a letter to the LA Times editor
> (if memory serves) bitterly complaining about experiments on animals, and
> proposed to use welfare recipients to that end instead. That, of course
> brings to mind .... well let's leave German shepherds and their masters
> alone and concentrate on the vicissitudes of human-animal relationship
> instead.
>
> Methinks, negative attitudes toward animals is for the most part a "male
> thing." Most men are contemptible pieces of excrement who try to show off
> their dubious power and virility by the proverbial "kicking the dog" --
> violence directred at those who are weaker than themselves and whose butt
> they can kick with impunity. That explains the propensity towards sports,
> hunting, and bombing Third World countries, popular among males of all
> classes. I think your sister-in-law immediately sensed that logic in her ex
> fiance's behavior - she knew she was basically next in line.
>
> Even though males of all classes use aniamls as objects to show off their
> status, power, and virility, there seems to be something very peculiar in
> the way upper class males use animals to that end. They often show that
> "their own" animals have a higher status than humans of lower classes.
> European patricians and statesmen were quite good at that - see for example
> George Orwell's essay "Marrakech" describing the ritual of British
> colonialists feeding zoo animals amids crowds of hungry Arab beggars.
>
> That may explain why the mandarins of the US business class -- and the
> middle classes as well - show more compassion toward animals than toward
> the laboring and lumpenproletarian classes.
>
> Regards,
>
> Wojtek
