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Feb. 29th, 2008 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionCapers in the Churchyard: Animal Rights Advocacy in the Age of Terror - Lee Hall. Fantastic book! Hall explains so clearly just what I find objectionable about certain strands of animal rights activism, & brings up a lot of things I hadn't thought of. For example, she offers a feminist critique of groups like the Animal Liberation Front:
The book focuses a lot on protests against vivisectionists Huntingdon Life Sciences. Protesters targeted not only HLS workers, but anyone tangentially connected to the company: their brokerage firm, delivery people who had HLS on their route, etc. Some of the suggested tactics from the website of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) include advertising a target's phone number as a taxi company; making threatening phone calls; & sending salespeople, pizzas, funeral services, & other things to their doors. A website also listed 151 target names & contact information; 21 of the targets were children.
The book's title comes from a case in England, where activists protesting a guinea pig farm (whose guinea pigs were sold to vivisectionists) stole a dead body--that of the mother-in-law of one of the farmers. Yep, GRAVE ROBBING as protest tactic. They also called the local pub & told them their beer would be poisoned, & did lots of other charming things. The farmers eventually went out of the guinea pig business (& went into dairy farming--not an improvement by animal rights standards).
But, as Hall points out, nothing was truly accomplished by this campaign. The guinea pigs supplied by the farm were immediately replaced by another source, the farmers were still in the animal exploitation business, the public was no more convinced that animal use was wrong, & the British government introduced more laws to curtail the activities of animal rights activists.
She also talks about Jerry Vlasak, a California doctor who told a Senate committee that lethal force would be morally justifiable as a tactic against vivisectionists. New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg, a member of the committee, was naturally appalled. And yet a few months before Vlasak's testimony, Lautenberg was much more supportive of protecting the right to protest for animal advocates--when speaking about the FBI's placing of "animal rights extremism" as one of its "highest domestic priorities," Lautenberg wondered if the FBI would classify anyone protesting legal policy as a terrorist: "'Right to Life? Sierra Club?... I'm a tree-hugger.'"
Hall also explains the welfare/rights divide in a way that is clear & sensible, & talks about how large welfarist advocacy groups try to play up small changes in the conditions of animals in order to keep money flowing in from donors:
She also analyzes groups like the ALF & concludes that, despite their militant posturing, their actions are welfarist, because they draw attention to the extreme abuses of labs like HLS, without criticizing the fact that there are animals in labs at all, for example. (& apparently the ALF requires its members to give up meat, but don't bother w/dairy--whoa.)
Hall's central point is that you can't terrorize people into changing: The grave-robbing incident "says the activists think the way to fix problems is to dominate, without comprehending that domination itself is what created the problem." People have to change on their own; they have to have their own revelations about altering their behavior, if we want to make any sort of widespread change in cultural views on the use of animals.
Most animal advocacy groups, Hall says, have put comparatively little resources into vegan education (as opposed to welfarist measures), & this is where the most potential for change actually lies, as a form of "animal-rights advocacy that's based on everyday living." Even better:
Breathless in Bombay - Murzban F. Shroff. This collection of short stories was, as they say, easier to admire than to like. It took me weeks to get through this book. I can see that Shroff is a good writer, in that he has some good turns of phrase & evocative descriptions & all that. But I found it really hard to empathize with, or care much about, any of his characters.
In a community [animal rights activism] that's thought to have a high female presence, showy male leadership is common. Indeed, if one consciously hoped to preserve an atmosphere that promotes male leadership, one might put a special premium on physical force and destructive displays. Consciously or not, that choice is made.(I was amused when she describes the hardcore music that many young activists like as "metal.")
The book focuses a lot on protests against vivisectionists Huntingdon Life Sciences. Protesters targeted not only HLS workers, but anyone tangentially connected to the company: their brokerage firm, delivery people who had HLS on their route, etc. Some of the suggested tactics from the website of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) include advertising a target's phone number as a taxi company; making threatening phone calls; & sending salespeople, pizzas, funeral services, & other things to their doors. A website also listed 151 target names & contact information; 21 of the targets were children.
The book's title comes from a case in England, where activists protesting a guinea pig farm (whose guinea pigs were sold to vivisectionists) stole a dead body--that of the mother-in-law of one of the farmers. Yep, GRAVE ROBBING as protest tactic. They also called the local pub & told them their beer would be poisoned, & did lots of other charming things. The farmers eventually went out of the guinea pig business (& went into dairy farming--not an improvement by animal rights standards).
But, as Hall points out, nothing was truly accomplished by this campaign. The guinea pigs supplied by the farm were immediately replaced by another source, the farmers were still in the animal exploitation business, the public was no more convinced that animal use was wrong, & the British government introduced more laws to curtail the activities of animal rights activists.
She also talks about Jerry Vlasak, a California doctor who told a Senate committee that lethal force would be morally justifiable as a tactic against vivisectionists. New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg, a member of the committee, was naturally appalled. And yet a few months before Vlasak's testimony, Lautenberg was much more supportive of protecting the right to protest for animal advocates--when speaking about the FBI's placing of "animal rights extremism" as one of its "highest domestic priorities," Lautenberg wondered if the FBI would classify anyone protesting legal policy as a terrorist: "'Right to Life? Sierra Club?... I'm a tree-hugger.'"
Hall also explains the welfare/rights divide in a way that is clear & sensible, & talks about how large welfarist advocacy groups try to play up small changes in the conditions of animals in order to keep money flowing in from donors:
Hens have been freed from their cages, and dear public, please don't ask whether they're still crammed into sheds, just eat, drink, and be merry -- and don't forget to donate. Mother pigs will be taken out of crates, great victory!; dear public, don't ask whether the industry had already resolved to do without the crates because they impede piglet survival rates, cutting into profit. Chickens will no longer be electrocuted; soon we'll gas them to death; there'll be a party on Friday.
She also analyzes groups like the ALF & concludes that, despite their militant posturing, their actions are welfarist, because they draw attention to the extreme abuses of labs like HLS, without criticizing the fact that there are animals in labs at all, for example. (& apparently the ALF requires its members to give up meat, but don't bother w/dairy--whoa.)
Hall's central point is that you can't terrorize people into changing: The grave-robbing incident "says the activists think the way to fix problems is to dominate, without comprehending that domination itself is what created the problem." People have to change on their own; they have to have their own revelations about altering their behavior, if we want to make any sort of widespread change in cultural views on the use of animals.
Most animal advocacy groups, Hall says, have put comparatively little resources into vegan education (as opposed to welfarist measures), & this is where the most potential for change actually lies, as a form of "animal-rights advocacy that's based on everyday living." Even better:
No one among us can be arrested for buying eggless noodles. Yet setting ourselves free from the social addiction to animal products is serious direct action. The nitty-gritty of a movement is not a matter of decrying things that those people do -- the terrible abuses, the torture photos of animal commerce -- but of challenging, and then transcending, the violence of the everyday.
Breathless in Bombay - Murzban F. Shroff. This collection of short stories was, as they say, easier to admire than to like. It took me weeks to get through this book. I can see that Shroff is a good writer, in that he has some good turns of phrase & evocative descriptions & all that. But I found it really hard to empathize with, or care much about, any of his characters.