> >A remarkable development in late capitalism is that a good number of
>>humans have come to fight for "animal rights," going further than
>>feeding, cleaning, & taking care of litter-boxes.
>>
>>John Sobotkowski, "Protesters Claim OSU Cat Research Inhumane," _The
>>Lantern_ 8 March 2001 at
>><http://www.thelantern.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=53700>.
>>
>>Yoshie
>
>The problem with this sort of thing is that it overlaps with more
>legitimate concerns about fox-hunting, bullfighting, dolphins or tortoises
>getting trapped in commercial fishing nets, destruction of the habitat of
>pandas and orangutans, etc. It also does not address the question of how
>livestock, including the calves that become veal, are subject to the most
>incredible kind of abuse in order to satisfy the demand for meat. If
>animals were raised in free range conditions, I suspect that
>foot-and-mouth, mad cow, e-coli etc. would be less of problem.
>
>It also seems questionable whether rabbits, for instance, should be
>tortured in order to perfect mascara or some such thing. I strongly suspect
>that much animal testing in laboratories is overdone. For the People for
>the Ethical Treatment of Animal's views on vivesection, etc., which I do
>not necessarily endorse, go to: http://www.peta.com/fp/viv.html
>
>Louis Proyect
>Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Generally speaking, youths in "animal rights" movements -- even those
who also come out for strike support, anti-imperialist demos, etc. --
don't think that it is necessary to abolish capitalism in order to
make humane treatment of animals possible on a wider scale (instead
of just trying to stop this or that animal experiment, which may or
may not be necessary), to say nothing of thinking about how to go
about it. Marxism is not on their intellectual (much less political)
horizon at this moment. Therefore, they don't make a distinction
between necessary and unnecessary animal experiments. Some of them
claim to be "anarchists," but they don't seem very well acquainted
with the anarchist tradition either. If a few of them graduate to
anarcho-syndicalism or something like that, it might be a step
forward.
If Marxists succeed in making Marxism popular again, the ideology of
"animal rights" probably will become obsolete.
Yoshie
