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The Other Collateral Damage: Non-Humans

By Mickey Z.

05 December, 2013
World News Trust

Photo Credit: Mickey Z.

“You care more about animals than humans.”

This declaration/accusation is a common method of deflection employed by confused activists who still regularly support the exploitation, abuse, and murder of non-human earthlings.

Such a canard, to my ears, sounds no different than if someone had asked me if I care more about my circulatory system than my respiratory system. These misguided radicals are (perhaps knowingly) opting to misread the interdependence of nature.

They are also falling back on a classic bullshit excuse to explain away their inexplicable speciesism: “I love animals, but I’m too busy helping humans to get involved.”

(cough, cough)

Consider this: A few days after Hurricane Sandy hit the NYC area in October 2012, I caught a ride to Rockaway to help with the early relief efforts. After eating a vegan meal, packing some vegan food in my bag, and dressing in clothes not derived from animal sources, I spent a full day doing my best to help some fellow humans in need.

So, would anyone care to explain how my commitment to veganism and animal rights interfered with my human rights work?

Again: It’s a bullshit excuse from myopic activists who are willing to rail against “evil” corporations and politicians but stubbornly refuse to re-evaluate their own behavior.

That said, there is a human-animal dichotomy worth discussing -- in terms of activism -- but it has nothing to do with feeble excuse making. There’s a saying amongst animal liberationists: “The reason I dedicate myself to helping animals so much is because there are so many people dedicated to hurting them.”

Translation: Since animals can’t create social change, it’s our job to re-imagine and re-invent the dominant culture. In this sense, we are deeply obligated to all other species. Thus, as you struggle against oppression and repression, never forget: To animals, all humans are the NYPD, the NSA, the KKK. In the eyes of an animal, all humans are Nazis.

For example...

War is unhealthy for all species

On Feb. 13-14, 1945, Allied bombers laid siege to the German city of Dresden. Within the target zone was the Dresden Zoo, run by animal trainer Otto Sailer-Jackson. To help understand how deeply embedded the privilege of speciesism can be, take a moment to ponder the standing Nazi order that if human life was endangered, all carnivores must be shot.

Anyway, as the bombing commenced, Sailer-Jackson recalled the scene:

“The elephants gave spine-chilling screams. Their house was still standing but an explosive bomb of terrific force had landed behind it, lifted the dome of the house, turned it round, and put it back on again… The baby cow elephant was lying in the narrow barrier-moat on her back, her legs up to the sky. She had suffered severe stomach injuries and could not move.”

Three hippopotamuses were drowned when iron debris pinned them to the bottom of their water basin. In the ape house, Sailer-Jackson found a gibbon that, when it reached out to the trainer, had no hands, only stumps. Nearly 40 rhesus monkeys escaped to the trees but were dead by the next day from drinking water polluted by the incendiary chemicals.

For those animals that made it to the next day, the assault was far from over. A U.S. aircraft pilot came in low, firing at anything he could see was still alive. “In this way,” Sailer-Jackson explained, “our last giraffe met her death. Many stags and others animals which we had managed to save became victims of this hero.”

Modern day wars are no less lethal to non-human earthlings.

Shortly after the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq commenced, the Bahrain Gulf Daily News (April 18, 2003) reported that looters had emptied Baghdad Zoo of its animals “Monkeys, bears, horses, birds and camels have disappeared, carted off by thieves or simply left to roam the streets after their cages were pried open,” the paper reported. “More than 300 animals are missing -- only the lions and tigers remain.” And the big cats were starving.

Some five months later, parts of the zoo were back up and running. U.S. soldiers were partying with Iraqi police after hours. Here’s what happened next: “A group of U.S. soldiers in civvies arrived at the zoo to party, armed with guns and beer. Mendouh the tiger was shot in the head three times after injuring a soldier who was trying to feed it through the bars of its cage. Head keeper Adil Salman Musa said: ‘The tiger bit his finger off and clawed his arm. So his colleague took a gun and shot the tiger.’”

These non-human targets -- and tens of billions more each year -- have no say in how we humans behave yet they pay the highest cost of all. Therefore, if you’re guided by holistic compassion, it becomes your inescapable duty to defend the most perpetual and forgotten of victims.

A human culture more in tune with its natural surroundings would instinctively and reflexively choose cooperation over war and habitat conservation over animal prisons called zoos, so how about we let go of the excuses and choose evolution instead?

#shifthappens

Note: To continue conversations like this, come see Mickey Z. in person on Jan. 11 at Bluestockings Bookstore in NYC.

***

Mickey Z. is the author of 12 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on a couple of obscure websites called Facebook and Twitter. Anyone wishing to support his activist efforts can do so by making a donation here.

© WorldNewsTrust.com



 

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