The Art of War
“Although animal use, like war, comes packaged as an eternal violence . . . advocates are not obliged to consider the animal rights movement a war . . . .Copying the activity of warmakers or soldiers, forcing people to behave or not to behave in certain ways—this perpetuates the paradigm of daily social control by some authoritative force.” Lee Hall, Capers in the Courtyard
“Right now we’re in the early stages of World War III. It’s the war to save the planet. [Direct] action will be getting stronger. Eventually there will be open war.” Paul Watson
Perhaps there is no better sign of a mystical holism that erases ineliminable differences and conflicts than Hall’s attempt to expunge the category of “enemy” from our thinking and to reduce the concept of war to a macho projection or internalized ideology of authoritarian state power systems. Hall entreats us not only to “love thy enemy” but to deny one has enemies at all. An “enemy” is a person, group, or nation that is intent on exploiting another person, group, or nation. Enemies are power forces that threaten survival and must be acknowledged as threats to freedom or life for self-preservation. The concept of enemy thus alerts one to a real danger to one’s existence and dispels any illusion of peace or rapprochement.
Throughout history humanity has waged a permanent war of extermination. As Ronnie Lee, founder of the ALF, put it: “We have been at war with the other creatures of this Earth ever since the first human hunter set forth with spear into the primeval forest. Human imperialism has everywhere enslaved, oppressed, murdered, and mutilated the animal peoples. All around us lie the slave camps we have built for our fellow creatures, factory farms and vivisection laboratories, Dachaus and Buchenwalds for the conquered species. We slaughter animals for our food, force them to perform silly tricks for our delectation, gun them down and stick hooks in them in the name of sport. We have torn up the wild places where once they made their homes. Speciesism is more deeply entrenched within us than even sexism, and that is deep enough.”
A war is a violent conflict between two parties, either through a clash of interests or aggressive act on one party’s part. Wars preempt or preclude dialogue and negotiation such that differences are settled through violence. Just as wars can break out between any type of human group, so humans can wage war against other animals through perpetual violence and assault.
Wars are no more limited to intrahuman dynamics than are rights, nor do they need involve two “rational” (a most ironic alleged attribute in this case) and consenting parties, or a condition where each group is capable of fighting back or of self defense in any significant and organized way. Thus, it seems to make perfect sense to agree with Ronnie Lee that humanity indeed has waged a protracted war against nonhuman animals in the most brutal way; in fact this is the most barbaric, prolonged, and costly war in the history of the planet, and continues to be. Whereas some animal species are captive slaves bred for exploitation and profit, others are hunted and massacred into oblivion.
On the TPC comment thread, Derek Oatis doesn’t challenge the use of the term “war” so much in this context as he problematizes the implications of framing the conflict in these terms. Oatis tries to pin us with a slippery slope fallacy, such that those taking up battle against corporate exploiters with whom they have no illusion of placating are committed to carrying out a firefight with virtually the entire population except a miniscule population of vegans, a blade of grass in the forest of humanity. Oatis writes: “It seems to me inaccurate and perhaps disingenuous to claim that ALF or SHAC’s 'war’ is in anyway limited in scope …Unlike the civil rights movement or other human liberation moments, I’m not sure what sense it makes to start a 'war’ when the other side is just about everyone on the planet …if nearly all people are speciesist, and nearly all in the US consume meat — or 'humane meat’ for the 'conscionable and “aware’ – why aren’t we attacking our speciesist, carnivorous colleagues, family members, friends, and neighbors? Doesn’t the war move from corporate headquarters, university science labs, fur farmers to neighborhood communities?”
As we noted above, we recognize that many individuals can potentially be persuaded to become vegans and animal rights proponents, like we were. The movement is full of examples of people who were former factory “farmers” (Howard Lyman), hunters (Steve Hindi), vivisectors (Don Barnes), and so on. But there is an important distinction – missed by single-issue fetishists like Karen Dawn who want to open up the animal protection movement to embrace anyone and everyone, including “compassionate conservatives” and the far right – between changeable individuals and inflexible institutions and corporations whose bottom line depends on torture, bloodshed, and mass murder. As a movement, we need to continue to focus our direct action efforts on the moneyed interests that perpetrate institutionalized violence on non-human animals en masse. To suggest that those who engage in violent action against the state will shift their focus and start bombing grandma’s kitchen because she has hamburger in her freezer is a reductio ad absurdum at its worst.
Actually, the ALF targets producers, owners, researchers, and others more or less directly involved in the exploitation of animals, thereby keeping a fairly narrow and well-defined target range. The brilliance of SHAC, however, is that it broadened the circle to encompass “non-combatant support personnel” by instigating direct action against employees and suppliers to a corporation as well as against the corporation itself. This far broader target area thus diffused responsibility for oppression to a far wider circle of people, and riled the dragon of the corporate-state complex which fought back with heavy jail penalties for “harassment” and “stalking,” and related charges not commonly meted out to even to the ALF. Although they broaden the meaning of “non-combatants” in a “just war,” SHAC targets only those who are involved with companies that provide services to HLS, and while their targets are many they are neither amorphous nor arbitrary, and certainly have not spilled over into battle with flesh-eaters in restaurants and family homes.
In a wild disanalogy, Oatis goes on to write, “The way this 'war’ is described by Best/Miller sounds a hell of a lot like George Bush’s war on terror. That plan was ‘let’s just start killing Midwestern looking folks’, screw any sort of strategy.’” Bush’s “war on terror” is propaganda cover for imperial invasions for resources and geopolitically strategic positions. It also sets up terrorism as a scapegoat to replace communism, a scapegoat the US needs to rationalize the perpetuation of the leviathan military-industrial-academic complex. In the war on terror, nearly anyone can be labeled a terrorist and tortured accordingly. In contrast to this moral abomination, the war to defend nonhuman animals and to end the genocide against them is just and has no hidden agenda. The enemy is distinctly defined; the tactics don’t create millions of innocent victims (there is no “collateral damage”); in fact, thus far even the most militant direct activists have not killed a single human being.
We of course have a significant problem comparing Bush with animal liberationists, but Oatis makes this important qualification and observation for us: “Direct action is not necessarily (as Lee Hall would have us believe) a means of degrading the ‘other side.’ Direct action can be a way of communicating that our commitment and our passion are as deep as any other’s and that we are willing to put our own safety and freedom on the line. Within a certain context, this is an expression that can earn respect, even from those that do not agree with us. And respect is how to begin a dialogue.”
Direct action does make the movement more respectable to the opposition because it demonstrates courage and a high degree of dedication. It is also empowering in that we are not waiting for someone else such as legislators to take the action for us— in the vast majority of cases they will not; we seize the initiative ourselves. As American anarchist and feminist writer Voltairine de Cleyre (1866-1912) put it, “Direct action is always the clamorer, the initiator, through which the great sum of indifferentists become aware that oppression is getting intolerable.”
But Oatis only goes so far in agreeing with us, adding: “as I have stated, although I largely agree with the criticisms of Ms. Hall and her work I also believe that non-violence is the only acceptable means of activism.” Here we see Oatis lapse into the same dogmatic quicksand that immobilizes Hall and Francione
The pacifist position flies in the face of all known empirical dynamics of struggle. Bea Elliott captured this point well in a thoughtful comment on Mary Martin’s site: “An inevitable increase in direct action is a certainty… How can it not be? As things progress in social awareness, the opposing side will of course, be compelled to defend their 'rights’ still. Confrontations will escalate in frequency and in degree. We are after all, going up against ancient institutions and modern economics. Nothing short of Revolution is at hand. But as Cudahy said, timing and numbers are critical. We must, through vegan education and information based activism, increase public awareness that our 'platform’ is based on 'less harm’ and not more. We must change a cultural view that sees Animal Rights not as radical but rational. We shouldn’t jeopardize the goal of abolitionism by premature or 'unpopular’ strikes… And I agree with [commenter] Elaine that for now, open rescue [freeing animals from cages without hiding one’s identity or destroying property] has the most positive influence and is of help to all… But I can envision a time, when different lines are drawn. I think it’s important for the most passive vegan among us to realize and prepare for more physical activities as circumstances will necessitate. We may for a time continue to (nicely) invite the public to look at the emperor… and to look into the mirror. But, at some point - there will be resistances that will not be conquered unless we are wiling to opt for all strategies. I think it’s naive to think that this 'war’ of ideology will not eventually include grand-scale counter 'violence.’ As for fighters who have awareness of this battle ahead, and who act in justified desperation now, how can one possibly not cheer them on?”[35]
The China Syndrome
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
