From: "Dave Coull" <coull2-AT-btinternet.com> Subject: RE: Ann Hansen talks shite Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 09:55:27 -0000 Chucko wrote > Many anarchists are drawn to animal rights > for different reasons "Rights" are things that people claim, and which people, through getting together with other people, assert in practice. Like I said >> there is a major difference between, on the one hand, >> "animal rights", and, on the other hand, "women's rights" >> or "queer rights". The major difference is that _women_ >> initiated the women's rights movement. WOMEN took direct >> action in support of (for instance) their right to vote. >> The same applies to queer rights. Homosexuals took direct >> action to assert their rights. But most animals are quite >> incapable of understanding the concept of "rights". In fact, >> most animals are quite incapable of understanding the concept >> "animals". If you take a cat and a dog, for instance, they >> are incapable of understanding the idea that together they >> form a class which is oppressed by humans. Now, this is >> not to deny that animals _are_ oppressed by humans. As >> a matter of fact I am all in favour of compassionate treatment >> of animals. But that is a different matter from "rights". >> Rights are something you fight for. When Tom and Jerry >> (and Fido) all band together and take collective action, >> not in a cartoon but in real life, I will believe in >> "animal rights". So anarchists who talk in terms of "animal rights" have cotton wool where their brains should be. > I don't see that animal rights is an essential aspect > of anarchism, but it is an important issue to anarchists > in the movement. It is important to some of the more woolly-minded anarchs, from middle class backgrounds, in North America and the UK. But even in these regions it is a minority interest, and as for anarchists in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, this is a _very_ low priority. > Since anarchism does change over time and isn't some bible > with gospels according to Bakunin, Proudhon, Kropotkin, > and Goldman Look, I don't give a shit about that elitist Bakunin, or that racist Proudhon, or the warmonger Kropotkin. You are erecting a straw man to try to make _your_ thinking seem "original". Well, it isn't. In all the years I have been reading stuff you have sent, I have never once known you to come out with one single thing that caused me to say "Wow! I never thought of it like that before!" > we have to accept that anarchism will include new things > that may not be of interest to all of us. No we don't. I accept that a small minority of anarchs from more privileged backgrounds in more "developed" countries have woolly-minded ideas about animal rights. But they have these woolly-minded thoughts _despite_ being anarchs, and not as a _part_ of being anarchs. Dave Coull
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