Commentary written by Vi Ransel and edited by Jason Miller
Verse by Vi Ransel
Thomas Paine's Corner
http://www.bestcyrano.org/...
It seems you’ve been able to unite liberals, progressives, conservatives, libertarians and even whacka-wacka Americans not in a righteous condemnation of the Iraq War, illegal dictatorial legislation, the wealth gap, lack of health care, vote fraud, dumbed down education, a bought-off/wholly-owned media and Congress, but simply by reminding them of where the meat they eat comes from. Would that we could inspire such passion over any of the aforementioned topics!
And while comments on well-reasoned pieces by eminent authors such as Chalmers Johnson are slim to none, DEAD ANIMALS (http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=176) got 29 comments - some VERY scary, many of them cartoons of hysteria and caricatures of sentient debate - on its first day up. (at 54 today)
While the author does drive himself right over that cliff of "going-so-far-you-have-a-hard-time-getting-anybody-to-go-along-with-you", most of us probably agree that concentration camps and torture are wrong in any context, that mistreatment of the least of us leads inevitably to mistreatment of the rest of us and has nothing at all to do, ultimately, with meat, the food chain or population growth, but the ethics (or the lack of) on which we base our actions and the fully-aware acceptance, or denial, of what is being done in our name.
The once genetically mechanical institution of a pecking order based on the infliction of pain allows even those of us at the "pinnacle" of neo-cortical brain mass development to pretend we can’t do otherwise. It’s "natural". In other words, the DNA made me do it. And it all leads back to the same place, the concentration camp, because "some animals are more equal than others."
Consider the inextricable link between the evils of speciesism and those of racism, eugenics, and exceptionalism:
The Pecking Order
Pick
a distinguishing
characteristic
like ————–Black.
Almond eyes. Foreign
accent. Begin to attack.
Label them "other",
not people at all.
Ignore them. Abhor
them. Push them to the wall.
The more
differences they
have, the lower their
worth. Heaven help
them if covered with
scales, feathers or fur.
Because the more
visible the difference, the
worse off they’ll be. That’s
segregation, designation
to "le caste poverty".
It’s about having your
cake and eating everyone
else’s, too. The Perpetrators
of Poverty have their
eyes on you!
But you’re not worried
’cause your difference can’t
be seen from afar. Vell,
dollink, zey haff vays to
tell you apart. Remember
those armbands with six-
pointed stars and get up off
your ass before it gets that far!
"Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight."
Because, indeed, it may one day be your own.
(posted with the author's permission)