Spirit Airlines has admitted that it gave confusing info to a woman flying from college to South Florida with her emotional support hamster. The airline told her it was OK to bring her hamster with
her on board the aircraft after she called several times in advance to check. However, when she
arrived in the airport, staff told her she couldn’t bring her hamster, Pebbles, on board, and allegedly
advised her to let the animal loose outside the airport or flush him down the toilet. With no option to
cancel the flight or give the hamster to a friend, the woman faced the terrible choice of letting her pet fend for itself outside, or ending the pet’s life. She chose the latter.
This is a story that will surely strike fear and sadness into the hearts of people traveling with
emotional support animals. In general, emotional support animals are allowed to travel by air. Of
course, people’s right to travel with these animals has to be balanced with considerations for the
safety of other passengers, and as emotional support animals aren’t trained there can be concerns
about other passengers. Because of this, unlike service animals, who are specially trained for
specific purposes, emotional support animals aren’t always allowed in public places. This leaves
animals like Pebbles vulnerable to harm where there are grey areas between federal law and an
airline’s policy. If an airline can’t make a determination about whether an animal can fly until the last minute, the animals could fall victim to the kind of tragic circumstances that befell Pebbles. Guidelines and policies need to be clearer to protect emotional support animals like Pebbles who are traveling with their owners.
Read more and share the news: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article198971069.html
If ever there was an obvious target for animal rights activists, the Yulin Dog Festival is it. The festival is a display of barbaric cruelty, with dogs and cats kept in cages (some stolen pets), and tortured to “improve” the taste of the meat. This is a cause that has drawn an immense level of public outcry, especially in the West. These voices (including the late Carrie Fisher and Ricky Gervais) are strident in criticizing the festival for its pure cruelty and senselessness. Of course, this criticism is right: boiling and skinning live animals is intensely cruel and violent. Still, Western critics in particular give local supporters of the festival a rallying cry by being “concerned” members of a public that happily kills and eats other kinds of animals. The shock value of the festival to Westerners can be disingenuous – when the shock of the festival lies in the type of animals that are killed – cats and dogs, rather than that they are barbarically killed. The fact that some of these animals are stray pets is an awful tragedy. But activism against animal cruelty needs to rest on more than disapproval of killing cats and dogs. It needs to stop inhumane killing, find an alternative to cultural practices that glorify bloodshed, and ultimately, end the widespread practice of eating meat. Eating a “bloody steak” or burger exists on the same spectrum that the Yulin Dog Festival does – a totally artificial belief that violence somehow makes our food more life-giving. Locals feel offended that Westerners fail to understand how the poverty of the region apparently contributes to the dogmeat industry.
Without making excuses for the festival, it might be possible to use it as a rallying point to do more in your animal rights activism. If you protest the festival because of the killing of family pets, but eat meat, consider that all life is precious and think about reducing or cutting out your meat consumption. If you protest the festival and have no interest in supporting human or workers’ rights in your home country or abroad, consider whether you are contributing to a problem where violent and impoverished lives form people capable of doing violence to animals. If violence can teach us anything it is that all life is connected. The chain in which people do violence to each other and animals can also become a chain of understanding, care and support if actions are taken that are mindful, peaceful and connected.
To protest the Yulin Dog Festival, read, share and sign the petition – and commit to a non-violent lifestyle!
Further Reading:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/968244/yulin-dog-meat-festival-Peter-Li-days-numbered
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/yulin-dog-meat-festival-china-animal-rights-chinese-culture-western-interference-a7800416.html
Can art indifferently observe animal cruelty? The question came up this fall in a couple of ways. For a start, the Guggenheim withdrew three pieces from its show “Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World”, due to protests from animal rights activists. The most controversial piece, “Theater of the World” was a domed menagerie of insects and lizards preying on each other. These predators and prey were deliberately rounded up from New York pet shops and set upon each other until the weaker animals were dead.
When the Guggenheim withdrew the exhibits, some groups raised concerns about free speech. But though art may use living people and even animals to express its ideas, the idea of “free speech” breaks down when living creatures are harmed and cannot give their consent. The philosophy behind all animal cruelty is the idea that animals are objects for human use, rather than living, sentient creatures. Anyone should be free to represent animals through art or create animal-themed art, but harming animals for the sake of art should be no more acceptable than treating the subjects or models of paintings and photos poorly. The media tiptoed around the issue and the Guggenheim made no mention of ethical principles when they withdrew the exhibits. The Guggenheim stated that they were withdrawing the exhibits for the safety of staff in the face of threats from extremists. The wellbeing of the animals was not mentioned.
At London Fashion Week, protests drew attention to the use of fur in fashion. It may not be as acceptable to wear fur coats these days, but smaller items like hats, bags and jewelry are often trimmed with fur. The practice of sheep-shearing has also been debated as a venue for cruelty. Although it has been depicted as just a “haircut”, videos have shown animals are treated with terrible cruelty in some cases.
Then there is art that is ostensibly made for the purposes of showing animal cruelty to the world. “The Women Who Kill Lions” followed female hunters of big game. Instead of protecting big cats and wildlife however, it focused on the shock value of female hunters shooting big game. Even if the documentary makers set out with good intentions, it’s worth asking questions about whether art can represent animal cruelty and not intervene to protect animals. Can there be any venue where animal cruelty is just academic or aesthetic? Maybe for the consumers of art, but not for the animals who suffer.
Our world will only change if YOU change your behavior everyday. Most people unwittingly participate in a cycle of violence, hate, and torture everyday, through complacence and self-deception. Just because you are a good friend, father, spouse and worker does not make you a fully individualized, autonomous, moral, and responsible human being. That is the deception of a rights-based approach to duty and the kind of egocentric, competitive self-structure that animates it. To change this world, you MUST seek out violence and change it. You MUST seek out suffering and heal it. You MUST terminate your complacency, and a law-based platform for your moral life. You must dig deeper, and commit to a covenant that protects all life through new conceptions of responsibility and solidarity. You must hold yourself more accountable than anyone else, and most accountable of all. It is only in this way that we can overcome the violence and the deception of our current human anthropology. We can do better, but it rests on your commitment to change yourself. Contact me if you want to talk about it. The Non-Violent Life Project. ~ KCB
Kevin Boileau
There comes a time in your life when you must risk all to do what is right no matter what the consequences are to yourself. I am well-established scientist, psychoanalyst, lawyer, and mediator. I co-manage an animal rights organization. I write recondite theory about the self, society, and culture. But I am done with any remnant of passivity, at all risk to my good career and to my self interest. I am also done with being politically correct. On Tuesday night, the Chinese beat thousands of dogs, stabbed them, ripped their skin off, and boiled or torched them to death, while they were alive and sentient. Today they will do the same during a 10 day long dog meat festival. In North America, today we will do this to horses, pigs, cows, and chickens, with the same level of torture and violence. This is morally unjustifiable in every conceivable world, and it shows the illogic of moral relativism. I reject this behavior absolutely. I will no longer buy any products from China. I will no longer buy any products from North America if they are associated with torture and violence. I also ratify that I am 100% vegan. Please join me. The voiceless are struggling in the boiling water as I write. ~ KCB
Kevin Boileau
At our psychoanalytic research institute, we have a growing understanding concerning sadistic impulses in some humans and the lack of empathy in others. We also see high correlations between human violence and violence toward animals. No one can rationally dispute that fur-bearing animals have nervous systems and can, therefore, feel pain; nor can one rationally dispute that fur-bearing animals have life algorithms that exclude being trapped and murdered by humans. We have irrefutable evidence that some fur trappers enjoy watching animals suffer while caught in the steel jaws of their merciless traps. They’ve even been known to spit on them, jeer at them, and kick them before they suffocate or shoot them. These are the same humans who find justifications to sadistically harm domestic animals and other humans. In the case of trappers who are not sadists but who lack empathy, we see a different kind of human. This is a trapper who can watch a trapped animal suffer and die without empathy. Because of correlations between how we treat sentient non-humans and how we treat other humans, we find these very same humans showing a lack of empathy toward humans. Sentient non-humans suffer just like humans do although we can avoid it, deny it, or deceive ourselves by using euphemistic, sanitized language, i.e., “harvesting animals.” In short, if a trapper has a choice about how he interprets an animal’s suffering, it is difficult to justify such lack of empathy or sadism. On the other hand, if the trapper does not have such a choice, then it may be true that he is representative of a lower form of humanity.
A human being ran over, annihilated, and recklessly ended the life of a precious baby grizzly, Snowy. We still grieve for him and for his Mum. We offer this poem to both of them, and to all grizzlies, and grizzly lovers. We join in their sacred spirit, and will always look for Snowy’s return.
To Snowy (KCB June 27, 2016)
Follow, Following, Followed
Dawn breaking in your heart
Night’s ending
A recollection of dreams
When spring came, the sun
And joys unending
Then, terror came, the humans
Pain. Blackness.
Mother calling
Follow, Following, Followed.
We are scientists, manage an animal rights mediation/law practice, study innovative forms of conflict resolution, and can no longer stay silent about the unjustified genocide being committed against the Profanity Peak Wolf Pack. There were and are at least three non-violent solutions to this problem, and yet, Washington State officials continue to choose the violent destruction of an endangered species while weak-minded Wolf Advisory members look on and watch. We find the actions of the state and the Wolf Advisory Committee to be both morally unjustified and intellectually witless. We experience their behavior as vile, juvenile, and reckless, and will not support it.
We were quietly associated with the proposed rescue of the surviving wolves by a California wolf sanctuary. In the sanctuary’s plan, the State of Washington would not have had to do or pay anything, and the wolves would have been flown to safety in California. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife rejected the rescue plan, arguing that it was not practicable, and, instead, opting to sanction the murder of the wolves in conjunction with U.S. Wildlife Services (the sadistic murderous agency that it is). We were just informed that they murdered another adult wolf from the pack, and therefore, we are contributing our perspective under the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The gray wolves are ostensibly protected by the Endangered Species Act. The Profanity Pack lives in one of the most remote regions of the United States. They don’t bother any human population except for one. This is a powerful ranching family in Eastern Washington who rents PUBLIC LAND for cattle grazing in order to increase its profits. Because the wolf pack has apparently attacked the cattle, and because the Wolf Advisory Committee has foolishly created a murder protocol, men from U.S. Wildlife Services have, and still are, murdering this wolf pack instead of seeking rational, non-violent, and non-murderous solutions.
It may interest some of you readers that, according to some accounts, U.S. Wildlife Services regularly murders millions of animals each year on PUBLIC LANDS, and this is by shooting, poisoning, trapping and other heinous and cruel methods. In our professional community we wonder what could motivate such violent behavior. We are intrigued about the kind of person who seeks out jobs that permit this kind of violent jouissance (which, incidentally, is analogous to “crushing” innocent puppies). We speculate that there is sexual dysfunction or personality disorder involved in such profound levels of violence against defenseless animals who live on PUBLIC LAND.
There is much scientific and practical debate about how to prevent wolves from killing livestock. WSU PhD-level researchers have empirical evidence that they believe can greatly decrease depredations but WSU administration has rebuked these statements, apparently to side with the Wolf Advisory Group’s murder protocol. It is interesting that we have not heard from these researchers since they were hushed up by officials from the university. There are also other researchers across the U.S. who argue that there are ways to prevent these depredations, but some misguided wildlife workers avoid this discussion and instead focus on arguing that “lethal removal” is necessary sometimes. This scientific debate will not yet solve this issue, therefore, leaving us with the moral and practical dimension. Again, we see three non-violent solutions.
From the Western Enlightenment, we are indoctrinated to believe that humans are superior to all other species on this planet, and therefore of greater worth. This means that in cases of conflict between humans and animals, humans will always win in the end. In logic classes, we teach this as the “begging the question” fallacy. It is an un-thoughtful, non-reflective, and non-critical assumption that we make by fiat. In this case, it operates against the wolves, even though they are protected under the Endangered Species Act. In contemporary times, because every aspect of the planet is commodified through capitalism, every single item is assigned a value. Every human. Every animal. Everything has a value that is measured in terms of macro-economic and micro-economic financial systems. The wolves (as a group “thing”) are simply assigned a value that is less than that of a ranching family’s interests in money because it has rented out PUBLIC LANDS, and its interest in money is viewed as a greater value than the wolves’ interest in their lives. Let’s review this: In this case, we value a private landowner’s interest in money as greater than a wolf pack’s interest in its survival. We also want to respect a cattle-owner’s right to murder his cattle but curiously choose not to pay him off for his losses, and instead choose to murder, in part because of our need for revenge.
We suggest that the Wolf Advisory Board consider the following 6 axioms as its members continue to deliberate about the value of the lives of the wolves, for they reveal an ongoing human anthropological mistake, and one that we ought to take seriously. First, we must dismiss the notion that humans are better, of more worth, or higher on a value scale. We must substitute it with a new axiom of ontological parity. Second, we must agree that in principle that most of us have little knowledge about the whole: about how all beings, processes, and structures work together in an ecosystem. We substitute it with a new axiom of rigorous inquiry. Third, we must accept a new Archimedean point. We cannot pretend to be at the center of the universe or the planet earth. This means that we must render an accounting of all life forms, including ours, holding that all living beings have equal interests and rights. We must, therefore, have an axiom that recognizes we play a part in the whole but are not the whole, and that we must mediate and weigh our interests relative to those of other life forms. Fourth, we must recognize that all life forms come from the same source. This leads us to the reconstituted notion of solidarity. This is a trans-human notion that includes the human equally with all other life forms. Fifth, we must acknowledge and accept a new depth and breadth of our responsibility to others, including humans, other sentient life forms, additional life forms, and the environment in general. Sixth, we must work diligently to formulate and articulate a new philosophical anthropology for human beings. This means we must strive for new meaning and understanding of the world and our place within it. This is neither the autonomous subject nor the heteronomous subject but it is a new human. This re-formulates the reality principle.
Let us discuss these axioms together. Presently, our collective view focuses on human desire in which there is an implied and sometimes stated thesis that the world revolves around the interest of humans. In this view, other life forms have lesser value; we wouldn’t want to argue that they have no value but to say “lesser” still gives us the same power to torture and destroy them, these other life forms. It actually goes even further than this: humans are so caught up in their desires, which creates a certain form of the way we see and perceive, that they most often just ignore the interests of other life forms. Because they ignore other life they don’t even consider the real interests of these other life forms, passing them off as “wildlife,” or “wild animals,” without natural rights to be left alone by humans. In our view, this is an unreflective life project with unreflective opinions. By definition an unreflective opinion is uncritical: it lacks thought. Our intent is to interrogate this uncritical state in such a way that we deepen our understanding of it.
If the reader looks at these six axioms as a whole she can see that there is an isomorphism between individual narcissism (disregarding the Other human) and cultural/species narcissism (disregarding other life forms). Both include the same preoccupation with self or culture, and both ignore or actively trounce on the interests of Others. Moreover, we can see that there is an over-reliance on the law, i.e., in this case, the murder protocol (for lethal removal). An over-reliance on the law is a retreat to the familiarity of the superego position, i.e., the dominant proscriptions of one’s society and culture. This is a denial of the transcendent in both the individual and in the social elements of a culture. There is also a compulsion to rely on the words used to taxonomically differentiate one type of being from another, which includes different levels of ontological value, rights, and protections. For example, in most jurisdictions wild animals are considered things/property, and become personal property once they are taken from the forest. Because “property” and “things” do not enjoy due process rights, we therefore, allow the human taker to do anything he wants to the “property.” Analogously [and curiously], there are historical examples amongst humans, in cases of race and gender, in which different categories of humans were assigned different value, and some counted as “property.” It is the same kind of thinking. Although this is a change in name, it is not necessarily a change in action although this might be the first step in a long-term, developmental process of change.
We believe that conservation groups that are involved on the Wolf Advisory Board are so grateful to be allowed a voice at the table with state authority and with ranching money that they are afraid to take a truly protective stance for the sake of endangered wolves. We read many Internet entries about how “sad” they are and how “tragic” this is, but see nothing of advocacy and real solidarity. It is disappointing that such a weak group of people is in charge of making such important decisions. At the end of the day, we think they are pansies. As far as ranchers go, we believe that they don’t really understand the meaning of their despicable behavior. They are just doing their jobs, continuing to support false beliefs about the nature and value of wolves, and the value of the production of beef. Unfortunately, they don’t yet understand that we cannot sustainably feed a growing human population on a meat diet—or they don’t care. Right now, the expansion of cattle grazing is colliding with many other interests. For example, the BLM’s round-up of wild horses is due in great part to the interests of ranchers in more grazing land. Even more importantly, perhaps, is the inefficient use of water and other resources to feed cattle that the ranchers eventually murder themselves. It also causes a significant amount of environmental pollution. Do the comparative mathematical analysis like we have done. It is simply a poor use of resources, is not sustainable, and causes governmental bureaucracies to make irrational judgments about the lives of so-called “protected” species. One can easily see how this is an example of the “great hierarchy of being” thinking that we inherited from Christianity and from European Enlightenment philosophy—thinking that in the end destroys wolves (and other species). Finally, we think that the bureaucratic group that is overseeing this operation from Olympia is an example of the worst kind of human being: callous, heartless, un-reflective, and unwilling to consider at least three non-violent solutions that are obvious. People from our community wonder what kind of inducements trigger such behavior.
The fact of the matter is that we live in a violent world, and here we are, justifying a murder protocol just like Hitler’s group did in Germany, as many administrative workers processed these murders just like the Wolf Advisory group, and both the state and federal agencies that are responsible for the savagery. Humans pride themselves as being rational and intelligent, but here we are, admitting that we cannot come up with a non-violent solution and that we have to murder wolves—and wolf pups—by taking a rifle to them. Yet, the truth is that we had and have non-violent solutions. It was rejected by callous bureaucrats in Olympia who prefer ranching interests over the lives of individual members of an endangered species. Anyone who was involved in drafting this murder protocol, and anyone who either ordered the murders, or who carried them out, should be ashamed of themselves. You are neither intelligent nor moral. You represent the violence in humanity, and the lack of regard for other sentient beings either directly or by complicit passivity. You also lack creative problem-solving skills or worse yet, allowed yourselves to become besotted by “bureau-speak.” We can only hope for a natural justice that compensates for your insane belief that only human beings have natural rights.
The three non-violent options are to collar the cows, move the cows and pay the rancher money, or rescue the remaining wolves. In addition, there are at least three truths of the matter. First, there is no other place for the wolves to go than where they are (other than by rescue). Second, in our collective knowledge, the pups are just as innocent as the puppy you brought home for your kids. Imagine some bureaucratic cretin taking a shotgun to your puppy’s face. Three, it is still an option to rescue the remaining wolves. We are betting that the Wolf Advisory Board remains passive and that the scurrilous demagogues in Olympia maintain their murderous, violent, vile campaign. Why? This is the most puzzling question of all.
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