Government and Animal Rights

[Brandon Becker]

This is a must read for anyone who cares about humans, other animals, the planet, justice, liberty, autonomy, etc:
http://www.rpaforall.org/factsheet9.html

The first paragraph:
"In every area where government is failing - human physical & mental health, ecology, climate, food safety, violence, war, poverty - inhumane treatment of nonhuman animals - human use, ownership and destruction of other animals - is a root cause of the big problems, and humane treatment offers the best solution. The Framers of the Constitution sought to establish justice, promote the general welfare, provide for the common defense, and secure the blessings of liberty to the people and their posterity. Government is not fulfilling those purposes today. One reason is the failure to extend basic rights to nonhuman animals. None of the Constitution's purposes is likely to be fulfilled until all sentient beings have rights that protect their basic interests in personal and ecological sovereignty."

[Tim Gier]

Hi Brandon,
Thanks for posting the article. I just finished reading David Nibert's excellent book Animal Rights / Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation. This quote from the article you've posted seems to agree with Nibert's thesis:

"Consumer culture - driven by the industry-government-media complex to benefit short-term private money interests over the long-term public interest - locks people into pseudo-choices that harm people and other animals alike."

It is the drive to produce material profits - the quest for personal enrichment - at the expense of all others that is at the root of the problem. The tension is created because each of us desires for our lives to be materially better in meaningful ways - none of us want to be hungry, and all of us want to have the best medical care. Those things are material goods which we are increasingly relying on technology (i.e. the "unnatural") to provide. How do we balance each of our personal needs for those kinds of profitable material things with the overall need for respect and mutual benefit? Nibert believes that corporate capitalism cannot allow for such respect and mutual benefit because by design capitalism sacrifices those things on the altar of base material gain. According to him, we will never end the exploitation and oppression of devalued others until we abandon capitalism.

[Tim Gier]

I agree with you Roger

[Tim Gier]

And probably a last ;-)