On July 12, 2011, the Center for Biological Diversity struck a historic legal settlement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, requiring the agency to make initial or final decisions on whether to add hundreds of imperiled plants and animals to the endangered species list by 2018. The Endangered Species Act is America’s strongest environmental law and surest way to save species threatened with extinction.
Yvonne: finally safe. But untold millions of her kind do not escape their brutal fate.
Editor’s Note: It’s usually one of the telltale signs of a conservative character—the natural reverence for tradition.
Problem is, most traditions are bad, often disgusting historical anachronisms, respectable cruelties whose only value is to please the most backward or powerful sections of the populace, regrettably in many cases, the vast majority. Thus, it’s no accident that the most backward regions of the world are still firmly ruled by tradition, places where profound inequality is accepted as normal and immutable, and where women are still treated as chattel, and gay people subject to macabre persecution. Yet the so-called “advanced, developed world” (especially the United States), while thinking itself different and superior, still carries quite a baggage in this regard, notably the mental rot of dominionistic religion, the undeserved respect for nobility and its myriad accoutrements, and a host of other reactionary, cowardly, and unexamined values and beliefs that should bring shame to any culture but which remain in place because those who should wash away such practices—especially the media and political leaders— do not dare risk losing political popularity.
Editor’s Note: This is a slightly revised version of an original piece filed by our Science & Ecoanimal Issues editor, Anthony Marr, in 2009. His views are bound to prove controversial even among our audience, but whatever quibbles we may have about historical or other points he raises, we’re in complete agreement with his views on the ecoanimal crisis and its man-made causes.
By Anthony Marr
Marr and friend, in back.
I was born in China during the Japanese invasion which murdered some 20 million Chinese civilians. My mother was almost captured as a “comfort woman”, i.e. a sex slave to be eventually killed when used up. Had this happened, I wouldn’t be here writing this essay.
So right off the bat, I was born to think that Japan was anything but great. And though after the war I tried to forgive and forget, Japan turned the same blood-lust against the whales and dolphins, which has kept me seething. No, Japan is not a great nation, not by a long harpoon shot. They do make great motorcycles at an affordable price, though, I’ll grant them this.
BY THOMAS RIGGINS, People’s World
I THINK WE ALL KNOW, or should know, that there is something wrong with killing animals for their meat. Modern science has shown that animals have both sentience and consciousness, feel pain and experience an emotional life. From insects to us there is a great chain of awareness that we, who claim to be at the top of the chain, should respect as much as possible.
Like the Morlocks in H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, our behavior is much to be regretted and we are under an obligation to model ourselves after our future, hopefully, Eloi incarnations. (The Morlocks and the Eloi were the cannibalistic human mutants and the gentle veggie-eating humans of the future, respectively, in the book.) We are also obligated politically to strive towards a world where the exploitation of humans by other humans comes to an end – and beyond that the exploitation and infliction of suffering on our fellow creatures in general.