OpEds
ROLAND VINCENT
Special Editor, Ecosocialism & Animal Rights
Many, if not most, people will do anything for money.
For profit.
It’s why atrocities happen, Holocausts occur, wars are fought.
It is why there are union busters, climate deniers, slaughterhouse workers, executioners, lobbyists, Conservative politicians.
Why corporations can exploit people and the Environment.
Because people can be bought.
As long as there are people, and a system which allows corporations to buy them, we will have animal exploitation on an abysmal scale.
The ongoing Animal Holocaust is almost totally the product of businesses seeking profit. It is carried out by people who value money more than life or compassion. It is justified as freedom, free-enterprise, job creation, capitalism.
And it is expected to flourish and hugely increase over the coming years.
That is because the population is increasing.
The marketplace is being flooded with new consumers.
Customers.
People who will buy more animal products because business is programming them to want them.
Creating demand.
And this is despite all we are doing in the Animal Rights movement.
The animals are losing.
They are losing to greed, to profit, to businesses, to capitalism.
And what of all of our attempts to end cruelty by legal means?
Those attempts at new laws or changes in public policy are blocked by people who are bribed by corporate interests.
You know who they are.
They are the Conservatives. The Republicans. And most Democrats.
They are as much the enemies of animals as the thugs who come at them with stun guns, knives, ropes, and bone saws.
These are not people with whom we merely disagree.
They are our enemies. And we are theirs. What’s more, they are also the enemies of the planet itself, and 99% of the human population.
But the problem is not this or that specific politician. It’s a rotten system in which business values dominate all social interaction.
