I’m with Stupid
13 August 2008

Every so often, kind readers or listeners will forward us particular bits of the news that make me wish that I had nothing to do with the so-called animal “rights” movement (when it comes down to it, it really seems to be a movement that is less about rights and more about humane treatment). Here are 3 things that are not only embarrassing for us as animal rights activists, but damaging to our overall message and potential impact:

1. PETA ad compares Greyhound bus attack to slaughtering animals

Playing off of the heinous stabbing-decapitation death aboard a Greyhound bus in Canada, PETA came up with an ad comparing the suffering of the decapitated passenger to the suffering that animals experience in slaughter. While there is little doubt that animals do suffer significantly during slaughter, the subject of this ad makes PETA not only appear to be completely fucking bonkers, but also insensitive to the plight of human suffering. It drives home the idea that any and all animal rights activists focus on animal suffering to the exclusion of all other suffering. None of this does the animal rights movement on the whole any favors, and PETA gets what PETA always wants: attention. The question is, at what cost?

2. PETA wants to advertise vegan message on border fence

Speaking of PETA’s stupidity, we again see them riding the coattails of another current news item in a desperate attempt to draw attention to themselves. This time around, PETA wants to put up billboards near the US border with Mexico that say “If the Border Patrol doesn’t get you, the chicken and burgers will—go vegan.” In the article linked above, PETA tries to play this off as concern that the undocumented workers from Mexico will be leaving behind a relatively healthier diet in favor of the standard American fast food fare. While there may be something to this on a factual basis, it stretches the bounds of rational comprehension to imagine that PETA actually cares about the well being of undocumented immigrants. As far as I can tell, they care about one thing and one thing only: shamelessly forcing themselves into the spotlight, so much so that any message that they originally had about animals or vegetarianism is lost.

3. Firebombings at Homes of 2 California Researchers

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — The police and federal authorities are investigating firebombings at the homes of two researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The attacks, which the university described as “antiscience violence,” occurred nearly simultaneously before dawn on Saturday, just days after the police in Santa Cruz discovered pamphlets in a coffee shop warning of attacks against “animal abusers everywhere.” The pamphlets included the names, addresses and other personal information of several researchers at the university, according to a news release put out on Friday by the university.

In my book Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights, I discuss why violent property destruction is a poor solution to the problem of animal exploitation. First and foremost, it makes animal rights activists look like hypocrites. If we claim to care about “life,” there’s certainly no point in doing things that threaten human life. As I wrote in the book:

Today, most people see the violence and torture done for their palates as absolutely acceptable: animal exploitation is the norm, despite the contradictions inherent in it. Given how overwhelmingly strong the societal currents run against treating animals as anything more than commodities and property, the kind of change we need will require more than violence, more than property destruction, and certainly more than a re-creation of the exploitative dynamics that got us here to begin with. If we are to ever win or advance, we must do so by changing the social relations that are at the heart of the problems we face. If we re-create those damaging social relations by relying on the dominance and oppression of violence, we are essentially doing nothing but deepening the problem we are, more often than not, claiming to fight.

In short, we can’t force people to make decisions about morality while they’re staring down the barrel of a gun (or on the receiving end of a bomb). We have to do the hard and often inglorious work of creating a broad-based social movement that will call into question the speciesist dynamics that underlie our social and cultural norms. Bombs or guns or violence or completely shameless attention whoring cannot achieve this, ever.

  Posted by Bob Torres    Permalink    Filed under: Hell Is Other PeopleNewsStupid Welfarists
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