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I believe animals have as much right to life as do humans.

I do not believe animals should be bought, sold, owned, bred, imprisoned, enslaved, killed, or consumed.

I believe animals should have the same rights to liberty and to freedom from abuse and cruelty as we humans claim for ourselves.

Oddly, this is a position rejected by almost all of humanity.

Most people have no objections to enslaving animals. No objections to torturing them. No objections to murdering them or to eating their flesh.

Industrialized slaughter practices in the US mean that 7% of cows, steers, and calves are still conscious when their legs are cut off with chainsaws.

Most Americans have no clue, but those that do seem not to care.

Pigs and chickens are boiled alive in US slaughter houses.

American consumers do not give a shit.

Nine billion animals every year die on the killing floors of US slaughterhouses.

Sixty billion die on slaughterhouse floors around the world.

That works out to a Nazi Holocaust every hour of every day of every year.

To oppose the horrors means one is standing against most of the human race.

Standing against every government on Earth. Against all the major religions, and most of the minor ones.

Indeed, believing that animals have rights that should be recognized and protected by governments is the most radical idea in human history.

And while such an idea seems logical and compassionate to those who espouse Animal Rights, it is the most seditious concept ever advanced in defiance of human civilization.

Most people who advocate for the rights of animals seem not to fully comprehend how radical their positions are.

Consider: Animal Rights challenges the beliefs of every major religion. It repudiates Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Animals Rights would require an overhaul of every legal system in the world. It would bring down every government on Earth.

Animal Rights would dismantle human civilization.

Hard to come up with a more radical concept.

Animal Rights makes the most radical political positions seem conservative in comparison.

Indeed, Animal Rights advocates are substantially to the left of Marx and Lenin.

Animal Rights requires the destruction of capitalism, as it is the profit motive which is responsible for most animal cruelty and exploitation. There are those who argue that human slavery ended without requiring the end of capitalism, and that animal ownership and enslavement could similarly be brought to an end under capitalism. That argument ignores the stark differences between human and animal bondage. Only a tiny fraction of the populace owned slaves. Abolition impacted very few people, while animal slavery and animal consumption is practiced by almost everyone.

Saving animals is not a goal of socialism. Saving animals is a by-product of socialism. Saving animals is not a bit intentional, but is a function of socialist economics.

Capitalism rewards exploiting animals, rewards raising and murdering them. Capitalism bestows profits upon those who increase production and consumption of anything. Including animals.

Socialism removes profits from the equation.

Socialists are no more sensitive to the plights of animals than are other people. But socialism as a system destroys fewer animals than does capitalism. This simple fact should militate for every animal activist, every animal lover, every rescuer, every compassionate human being, every vegan, to become a socialist revolutionary.

As long as there are profits to be made on the enslavement, exploitation, and murder of animals, enslavement, exploitation and murder will continue.

Profits are responsible for almost all the animal cruelty on Earth. Businesses are protected in committing their horrors by governments and the law.

Efforts to promote compassion and veganism cannot change human nature or human behavior.

Only the force of government can protect animals.

And the only governments which might be disposed to protecting animals are socialist governments. Human rights and social justice are basic elements of socialism. Animal Rights are more likely to be embraced by socialist governments than by capitalist ones.

But even socialist governments indifferent to animals would be far more humane than are capitalist governments.

My support of socialism is directly related to the mechanical effect of economics on animal production, exploitation, and consumption. Socialist societies murder and consume half the animals, per capita, as do capitalist societies. The combined effect of removing profit from production, centrally planned and regulated industry, bureaucratic inefficiency, etc, means fewer animals are bred, murdered, and butchered. On a global scale, socialism would mean 30 BILLION fewer animals dying each year on slaughterhouse floors than are murdered now. It would mean one and a quarter TRILLION fewer sea creatures killed each year.

And this would be under socialist societies which did not care a whit about animals. The effect of socialist economics alone would save more lives than thirty thousand of our current animal movements.

I arrive at that figure because over the last 50 years the animal movement has been responsible for saving the lives of a mere million or so animals per year. To have the same effect on reducing animal murder as socialism would have, we would need to be 30,000 times bigger than we are as a movement. Each and every animal activist, rescuer, adopter, transporter, donor, crossposter, emailer, protester, letter writer, phone caller, voter, would need to be multiplied by 30,000!

Capitalist apologists observe that the left is as indifferent to animal suffering as is the right. That is somehow supposed to militate for capitalism? Capitalism is the most evil force ever unleashed by humans. It institutionalizes the basest of human behaviors and instincts, and suppresses the essence of all that is admirable in our species.

The future of humanity, if there is to be one, must be a socialist future. Not because socialism is a more moral system than is capitalism (which it is), but because capitalism will eventually destroy the environment, extinguishing humans, animals, oceans, rivers, rainforests, and the very air we all breathe.

Advocates for animals must join in broad coalitions with advocates for social and economic justice in working toward social revolution.

We must end the economic and legal systems which fuel and protect the Animal Holocaust.

It may come about by violent revolution or through political action. But the Animal Holocaust will never end through private action or recruiting vegans and activists. Our current course of action is ineffective, counter-productive, and doomed to failure.

Socialism is the only hope for animals, short of human extinction

Reaction to my contention that Animal Rights will only be won through revolution has been mixed, but much more positive than I had expected.

This is indicative of either a growing sophistication of Animal Rights activists or that the ranks of activists are swelling with those possessed of political acumen. Making my assertions even a few years ago would have elicited far different comments.

Negative criticism was dwarfed by positive responses, although that is hardly a scientific measure. Of the negative remarks a common theme emerged: Current and recent socialist societies were as brutal to animals as any capitalist ones, the logical conclusion then drawn being that the problem is people, or technology, or civilization, or something other than an economic system.

This is also the general rationale proffered by those Animal Rights activists who choose to remain apolitical. The usual canned response is that there is no difference between liberals and conservatives on animal issues.

I believe socialism to be the only economic system that has a chance of embracing Animal Rights. And that is because socialism offers no incentives to exploit, enslave, or murder animals.

Unlike capitalism, socialism embraces a moral worldview. A moral compass suggests that the potential to extend compassion to animals is much more likely under socialism than it would be under a system which is immoral to its core.

Those on the political left have championed every advance in education, in democracy and freedom, in human rights. They have fought for the poor, the disenfranchised, and the exploited. In opposition to them on all these concerns have been conservatives, who always defend the status quo.

The liberals of 200 years ago fought against slavery but they were not ready to embrace racial equality. One planning on ending segregation would have found little support for the idea amongst 19th Century liberals. But it is quite obvious that liberals would have been the target audience for integration long before they embraced the cause, as it was a position naturally growing out of their social worldview.

Similarly, while it is true that today’s socialists and liberals have abysmal records on animal issues, we should not extrapolate those positions into the future. They are much more likely to embrace Animal Rights in the future than are conservatives.

Evolving standards of decency, senses of compassion, and perceptions of justice all drive society to embrace an expanding circle of concerns about oppression, inequities, intolerance and exploitation.

Over time, the entire body politic moves ever to the left. Today’s conservatives are more liberal than were the liberals who ended slavery.

Tomorrow’s conservatives will be left of today’s liberals.

Editor’s Notes:

• I am unaware of any other blog with the Armory’s mission of radicalizing the animal movement. I certainly hope I am not alone, and that there are similar sentiments being expressed by comrades unknown to me.

If you know of other blogs dedicated to animal rights and the defeat of capitalism, please comment with a link.

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