“Get political for animals” has become a common rallying
cry. But all activity aimed at changing the human/nonhuman-animal
relationship is political by definition. “Get political” fails to clarify
what kinds of political activity activists should pursue if they seek to
establish nonhuman animals’ basic rights in law and custom to ensure the
wellbeing of the greatest number of animals over the most possible time
and space. “Political” as used to rally activists usually refers only to
official legislative and electoral politics, sometimes administrative – a
deficient meaning of “political” popularized by the mass media.
“Political” activity under that definition usually does
not advance animal rights but animal “welfare” through regulation of
animal-exploiting activities. Regulating animal exploitation promotes
exploitation and bolsters its age-old appearance of legitimacy. That makes
establishing the basic right not to be exploited or harmed for human
purposes much more difficult. Animal-exploiting industries and
institutions that support them typically say they advocate or teach
“animal welfare” and that “animals have no rights.” So it is crucial that
people seeking to establish animals’ rights “get political” by working for
incremental changes that eventually will establish rights and avoid
wasting good intentions and available advocacy time on activities that
cannot establish rights and therefore benefit animal-exploiting and
abusing industries, not the animals.
The word “political” comes from the Greek politikos – of a
citizen. When we exercise our citizenship rather than merely act on a
personal level as “consumers,” audiences, or powerless subjects, we are
acting politically. When we tell others why it is important to purchase
only cruelty-free items or minimize resource use to help protect the
animals’ ecosystems, we are getting political. When we inform officials
and civic leaders of the need to establish the basic rights of nonhuman
animals, we are getting political – regardless of any related legislation.
To succeed, activists aiming to establish nonhuman
animals’ basic rights and end animal exploitation must (1) distinguish
between political activities that can and cannot eventually lead to
abolition of animal exploitation and abuse; (2) direct our political
activities toward the eventual abolition of animal exploitation and abuse,
not toward regulations that promote exploitation by falsely certifying
them as “humane” or “healthy” or “non-polluting;” and (3) be informed,
creative, aggressive, respectful educators.
I’ll briefly outline those three aspects of animal rights
political activity – giving just a few of many possible examples – and
then recommend a few of the many books that elaborate skillfully on these
matters. I hope this will assist activists who wish to establish the
rights of nonhuman animals.
Having advocated on behalf of animals full-time for more
than 15 years, having learned about and worked to some extent to end just
about every kind of animal abuse and exploitation, and having put
countless hours into most available strategies and tactics, I find these
distinctions more important now than ever before. I have put in far fewer
years than some other dedicated people, but enough to gain a reliable
perspective, particularly being willing to explore the relevant facts
about my own acts and omissions. I can now see that some efforts in which
I have been involved in the past, though undertaken out of concern for
animals’ wellbeing, had no potential to advance animal rights, even though
I think of my goal as being to establish those rights. Some of those
activities might even have increased the obstacles to animal rights.
After much thought, research, and consulting, I designed
Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc. (RPA), and its campaigns to advance
rights and to avoid languishing and forcing the animal to languish longer
than necessary in measures merely aimed at “helping” animals or “showing
that we care” about animals. That is not to say RPA holds the answers and
no one else is advancing animal rights. But recognizing and acting on
important distinctions is crucial to animal rights as to any social
movement. Most human beings care about nonhuman animals; helping them has
been part of human society from time immemorial; and they have no rights.
That tells us a lot.
Distinguish abolitionist political activities from merely
regulatory political activities. Here are a few actual and hypothetical
examples that illustrate this point. The reasoning summarized in the first
example is similar for those that follow. Opportunities to take political
action for animal rights are infinite. The basic principal is that
prohibitions can lead to abolition and regulations cannot. Reasons for
this are many, and some exceptions may be discovered, but remember:
officials never risk their careers for nonhuman animals’ wellbeing; they
swear to uphold the Constitutions of the United States and of individual
states in which they serve, and those documents do not mention nonhuman
animals or their ecosystems; and what I call the industry-government-media
complex ensures that nonhuman animals exploited or abused for human
purposes can never have protections that can only come with basic rights.
Cannot advance rights: promoting legislation to cover
chickens, turkeys, and other “poultry” under the Humane Slaughter Act or a
similar law. Millions of the mammals already covered by the Act have been
dismembered and skinned while fully conscious. The Act promotes meat
eating by promoting the false beliefs that such a thing as humane
slaughter can occur and that the government is ensuring that animals
killed to be eaten by humans do not suffer. Even strict enforcement –
impossible, since industry wields the bulk of control – would establish no
rights: The non-basic “right” to be rendered unconscious before one’s
throat is slashed is meaningless without the basic right not to be bred
and raised to be eaten by humans in the first place.
Can advance rights: working to end publicly funded support
of the flesh, milk, and egg industries. Those industries would not, or
would barely, survive without subsidies – school lunches and breakfasts
loaded with animal products, school and other “educational” programs
training and indoctrinating for the industries, and more. Ideologies and
food choices are in significant part economically determined, so
skyrocketing “hamburger” prices and plummeting “dairy” profits will bring
significant advances. Incremental change will occur as one by one the
thousands of institutions benefiting the industries with public funds stop
doing so. Educating about animal rights (not merely about animal
suffering) also brings incremental change in the process of achieving the
objectives as informed citizens, officials, and others are crucial to
establishing rights or allowing them to be established.
Cannot advance rights: regulations requiring “adequate
food, water, and shelter” for “gamecocks” in the few states that still
allow cockfighting, with special officers appointed to enforce them.
Can advance rights: banning cockfighting in the few states
that still allow it, banning all breeding, transport, and sale of
“gamecocks,” and making violations of these laws felonies allowing for
severe penalties so prosecutors will take a serious interest in
prosecuting these crimes.
Cannot advance rights: raising a state’s minimum hunting
age.
Can advance rights: informing officials, conservationists,
and others about the need for ecosystem-based land-use policies and an end
to hunting and trapping as “wildlife management.”
Direct political activities toward abolition. As animal
rights activists, whether we initiate campaigns ourselves, organize our
own educational activities, or agree to take part in campaigns or
educational activities initiated by others, we can usually assess fairly
easily whether we are advancing animal rights or promoting regulation and
further legitimizing animal exploitation and abuse. We needn’t feel
compelled to heed the urgent demands of every action alert we receive or
to leap into action every time we learn of yet more horrible abuses of
nonhuman animals. (Of course, that in no way condones turning our backs on
animals whose plight we can alleviate personally.)
If achieving a political activity’s stated objective would
not prohibit any animal exploitation or abuse, it is probably not an
animal rights political activity. If a proposed change has the support of
the abusing industry, challenge any claim that it is an animal rights
demand – industries or businesses do not lobby to shut themselves down.
Sometimes companies give the appearance of fighting
proposed changes that would not even hurt their bottom lines and
definitely do not advance animal rights – so shareholders and other
constituents or allies won’t think they “caved in to animal rights
activists” and so the public will believe the new practices, once
implemented, really make a difference for the animals they freely continue
to abuse because the change is not a meaningful one. That impression is
bolstered by activists’ exuberant “victory” announcements that function as
free advertising for abusing businesses. Such efforts are not
abolitionist; they do not advance animal rights.
To realize how long it will take to achieve the very big
victories that will truly indicate humanity acknowledges and is
establishing the animals’ rights, it helps to understand how enormously
powerful are large industries and companies under the capitalist system,
industry’s grip on government authority, industry’s and government’s grip
on the mass media from which most people get most of what they suppose is
information, the power and insidiousness of entrenched speciesist ideology
and arrogant forms of humanist ideology, and most human beings’ drives to
get through another day alive, maintain possession of what they have,
obtain more of something whether it is of real or illusory value, avoid
ridicule or rejection, and maintain a sense of belonging.
Comprehending those facts does not excuse animal abuse or
exploitation and can help us appreciate the nature of the struggle for
animal rights, its likely duration, and why it is crucial to adhere to an
undisguised, uncompromising animal rights agenda, whatever the short-term
odds. For those same facts indicate that – with 6.4 billion people on
Earth and counting – if we do not secure rights for nonhuman animals,
absolute boundaries beyond which human beings may not tread with respect
to the animals regardless of how much anyone does or doesn’t “care” about
them, virtually all animals’ chances for decent lives eventually will be
nil.
Be informed, creative, aggressive, respectful educators.
“To educate,” from the Latin ex ducere, means to lead forth. Education is
distinct from training, indoctrination, and other activities often
confused with education. Years of animal advocacy and day-to-day
experience tell me very few people yet know what animal rights means.
True, human rights are widely established even though they’re poorly
understood too. But even many officials, reporters, and other people
involved in public affairs know none of the most basic facts of animal
rights, typically confusing rights with animal “welfare” activities or any
protest at all against animal abuse.
One group of people Responsible Policies for Animals
chooses to educate are land-grant university (LGU) presidents and others
associated with LGUs – RPA’s 10,000 Years Is Enough campaign aims to end
our LGUs’ support of the flesh, milk and egg industries. Another group is
officials of the National Association of Realtors and other
representatives of industries responsible for wildlife destruction from
suburban sprawl – RPA’s This Land Is Their Land campaign aims to reduce
the impact of poor land use and automobile dependency on wildlife since
they kill and harm far more animals than hunting and trapping do.
Recently, I met with and gave educational presentations to
my state representative, a conservation class at the University of
Delaware, and the Greater Glenside Chamber of Commerce, RPA’s local
chamber, with a high-school business class attending the Chamber’s monthly
meeting and a local television station taping the proceedings. To the
representative and the groups, I gave and explained, among other things,
the 1990 Declaration of the Rights of Animals – a political document if
ever there was one! – endorsed by 42 organizations on the occasion of the
June 10, 1990, March for the Animals in Washington, D.C. – definitely a
political event!
It was absolutely clear that those I spoke to lacked any
understanding of animal rights. One obvious clue: questions such as,
“Would you accept changes in the LGUs so that they only taught sustainable
animal agriculture?” Answering “yes” would mean I am not advocating for
animal rights or am confused about what animal rights is. We must answer
“no” and explain that such changes would not give the animals any rights
and would perpetuate their exploitation and abuse.
RPA specifically works to educate those we call
influential people, thinking them more likely than others to spread the
word even if they initially oppose animal rights and that the better they
understand animal rights and experience respect from animal rights
activists, the more likely they and others in their milieus will allow
animal rights to become established. Some people’s not rigidly opposing
animal rights will help more than some other people’s actively advocating
for animal rights. But educational opportunities abound. Everyone we know
is associated with groups of people who lack understanding of animal
rights, who think animal rights is all about taking away favorite foods,
undermining biomedical research, and the like. Our government officials
must become educated about animal rights regardless of their interest or
lack of interest. Educating is getting political for the animals and
bringing incremental change.
Divisive? Unfortunately, some animal advocates describe as
“divisive” the discussion of which this article is a part. The incorrect
assumption seems to be that activists who believe in and want to be sure
to advance animal rights and avoid putting their energy into activities
that don’t do that are threatening the supposed unity of a vaguely defined
“animal movement” or “animal protection movement.” The animal rights
movement arose because the animal welfare movement cannot provide true
welfare – wellbeing. The animals’ wellbeing has continued to diminish
while many people who believe in animal rights as an ideal nevertheless
pursue activities that cannot possibly lead to the establishment of animal
rights in law and custom akin to human rights. It makes no sense to speak
of unity or division between movements that do not share the same goal.
Little can be more divisive than separating our actions
from our beliefs and goals or words from their true meanings. If an
organization urges us to “get political for the animals” and does not make
a convincing case that the proposed activity will advance rights and not
just more regulation, we must assume it is not an animal rights activity
and act accordingly. Though I think it is a mistake to form a narrowly
consistent “unified front,” we can keep the animal rights movement unified
in pursuing with expertise and conviction countless political activities
that can advance animal rights. It is truly divisive to tell people animal
rights is “utopian” or “impractical” or that there is no “realistic” way
to pursue the goal other than more animal “welfare.”
Unite knowledge, theory, and action. These are a few of
many fine books that explain animal rights, rights generally, speciesism,
dynamics of oppression, key differences between animal rights and animal
“welfare,” how to identify true animal rights activities, workings of the
industry-government-media complex, and related matters:
* Carol J. Adams – The Sexual Politics of Meat: A
Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory
* Sharon Beder – Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism
* Alan Dershowitz – Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of
Rights
* Joan Dunayer – Speciesism
* Lawrence Finsen and Susan Finsen – The Animal Rights Movement in
America: From Compassion to Respect
* Gary L. Francione – Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal
Rights Movement.
* William Greider – The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral
Economy
* Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky – Manufacturing Consent: The Political
Economy of the Mass Media
* Joel Kovel – The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of
the World?
* Marion Nestle – Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences
Nutrition and Health
* David Nibert – Animal Rights/Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression
and Liberation
* Michael Parenti – Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment
* Michael Parenti – Democracy for the Few
* Tom Regan – The Case for Animal Rights
* Henry S. Salt – Animals’ Rights Considered in Relation to Social
Progress
* Paul H. Weaver – News and the Culture of Lying: How Journalism Really
Works
** David Cantor is executive director of Responsible
Policies for Animals, Inc. --
www.RPAforAll.org.
Go on to An El Paso
MeatOut with Dreams of Austin by Greg Lawson
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