Planet Debate 2011 September/October l-d release Animal Rights
AT: “Human Suffering Higher Priority”
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AT: “Human Suffering Higher Priority”HUMAN SUFFERING IS NOT AN EXCUSE TO IGNORE ANIMAL SUFFERING Jane Goodhall, World Renowned Expert on Chimpanzees, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 14-5 Finally, there is a growing concern for the plight of nonhuman animals in our society. But those who are trying to raise levels of awareness regarding the abuse of companion animals, animals raised for food, zoo and circus performers, laboratory victims and so on, and lobbying for new and improved legislation to protect them, are constantly asked how they can devote time and energy, and divert public monies, to “animals” when there is so much need among beings. Indeed, in many parts of the world humans suffer mightily. We are anguished when we read of the millions of starving and homeless people, of police tortures, of children whose limbs are deliberately deformed so that they can make a living from begging, and those whose parents force them—even sell them—into lives of prostitution. We long for the day when conditions improve worldwide—we may work for that cause. But we should not delude ourselves into believing that, so long as there is human suffering. Who are we to say that the suffering of a human being is more terrible than the suffering of a nonhuman being, or that it matters more? AT: “Animal Rights Prop up Capitalism”TURN-COMMODIFICATION OF NONHUMAN ANIMALS IS AKIN TO CAPITALIST EXPLOITATION OF WORKERS Ted Benton, Professor of Sociology, University of Essex, 1996, Animal Rights: the changing debate, ed. Robert Garner, p. 19 However, one of the key themes in this approach I hope to outline in what follows, is that the politics of animal rights and welfare is much more indissolubly intertwined with other issue than this simple human/animal opposition supposes. The subjection of animals to intensive production regimes, and their extensive use of experimental subjects for commercial purposes are both forms of social practice in which the needs of living beings are systematically overridden. What I have elsewhere called the “intentional structure” of such practices as these is one in which animals are treated as means to socially established ends, not as “ends in themselves”, nor as beings whose own ends or preferences need to be taken into account. There is a clear parallel here, with a fairly standard socialist moral critique of the treatment of wage-workers in capitalist industry, according to which workers are estranged from their own life-activity, and reduced to the status of a mere commodity. Of course, the analogy is not complete, since the commodity-status of the worker lasts as long as the working day, and leaves open the possibility of a more autonomous period of “free time” for reproduction, recreation and consumption. Many socialists and feminists would, of course, question the character of these activities, too. However, the formal distinction remains. The commodification of the lives of nonhuman animals in these regimes is more fully realized, though, arguably, qualitatively comparable with that imposed on human wage-workers.
Karen Armstrong, “BOOKS: END OF A BEDROOM FARCE”, The Independent, May 19, 2001, FEATURES; Pg. 9, lexis A watershed occurred in November 1999 in "the Battle of Seattle", when protesters demonstrating against unfettered capitalism and promoting environmentalism, animal rights, and support for exploited workers, caused leaders to abandon the summit meeting of the World Trade Organisation. AT: “Animal Rights Prop up Capitalism”TURN AND ALTERNATIVE DOESN’T SOLVE- Empirically animal rights activists oppose capitalism and solve better for it than philosophical viewpoints JOHN PLENDER, “Walking with animals, learning new tricks Defenders of animal rights are mastering the arts of 'econo-terrorism' and beating the capitalist Goliaths”, Financial Times, March 17, 2001, London Edition 1, FRONT PAGE - WEEKEND FT ; Pg. 1 Yet perhaps the most interesting development in relations between the mammals is the way a tiny group of British animal rights activists is succeeding against capitalism where Karl Marx, the Baader-Meinhof Gang and the Red Brigades failed. Barclays, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse First Boston, HSBC, Phillips & Drew, West LB Panmure, Royal Bank of Scotland - a veritable roll call of financial Goliaths have been humbled by a bunch of Davids in balaclavas. Confronted with the threat of violence by thuggish animal lovers, these powerful institutions have all stopped providing financial services to Hunting-don Life Sciences, the UK animal testing company, or to its shareholders. Some claim their exit was due to concern for their employees; others acted on purely commercial grounds. Whatever their motives, it is probable that Huntingdon would now be bankrupt without the bold intervention of a singular-sounding US investment bank called Stephens. no link and turn- At the Core of Animal Rights Activism is the opposition to capitalism as an enemy to diversity MICHAEL VINEY, “Have we killed off nature?”, The Irish Times, December 11, 1999, CITY EDITION; WEEKEND; ANOTHER LIFE; Pg. 76 They would like to live as if nature had its own intrinsic worth. The "deep ecology" activists who were among those causing ructions at the World Trade Organisation conference in Seattle last week are on the radical wing of such a view. Along with specific concerns about logging and animal rights, they see the free-trade policies of transnational capitalism as an enemy of human diversity - of small, regional economies and minority cultural traditions. They are heirs to the ideas of Arne Naess, the Norwegian professor who coined the term "deep ecology" 25 years ago. His principles were in tune with American Green thinkers such as Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, and have helped to shape the "eco-ethics" platform shared by a growing number of European scientists. A central conviction is that human populations must be reduced to the carrying capacities of the ecosystems in which they live - a discipline that applies to every other species on Earth MUST PIERCE THE HEGEMONIC OPPRESSION OF CAPITALISM BY WORKING TO END THE DAY-TO-DAY VIOLENCE AGAINST ANIMALS David Nibert, Professor of sociology, Wittenburg University, 2002, Animal Rights/Human Rights: entanglement of oppression and liberation, p. 254 The beginning of concerted political action by those on the Left and those working for the liberation of other animals, and the growing ability of hundreds of thousands around the world to see through the hegemonic legitimations for oppression, should give hope to all those determined to make plain the often invisible oppression of other animals and devalued humans and to reduce, if not eliminate, that oppression in the twenty-first century. We need to dedicate ourselves to stopping twenty-first century versions of the Hinckley and Panzos massacres and the countless day-to-day attacks and routine killings of the most vulnerable. This requires an understanding of the ways in which the oppression of so many groups and other animals are intertwined and interdependent, of the fundamental economic basis of oppression—and of the ultimate necessity of building a true political and economic democracy. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 1.43 Mb. Share with your friends:
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