MICROEDITORIALS

ROLAND VINCENT
Special Editor, Ecoanimal & Socialism Questions

Except for token measures, expect no real relief for animals from the GOP.

Animal Rights is ALL about politics!

Just as slavery was all about politics!

The same political, social,  religious and economic issues drove slavery as now drive animal exploitation. Slavery was defended as commanded by God from pulpits across the country. It was defended by Conservatives (then the Democrats) in state legislatures in the North and South. Powerful agricultural interests predicted economic collapse is slavery were to be abolished!

It is absurd to suggest that slavery would have been defeated by ignoring politics! It took politics, riots and war —with the clash of massive armies—to bring an end to slavery.

It will require more to establish Animal Rights!

Animal Rights is not compatible with politics as usual. We cannot  bring about Animal Rights by supporting this Democrat or that Republican!  Ridiculously unimportant issues cannot drive our votes or divert our attention.

Stunned hog on the conveyor of death. Who gave us the right? 

Animal Rights will require the end of capitalism as we know it. Hardly a conservative position! You won’t  find a single Republican who will agree! Nor will most Democrats. But those that will agree are ALL radicals and liberals!

Both Democrats and Republicans can be sell-outs to corporate lobbyists and their bagmen. The difference between the Democratic and Republican parties is simple: Republicans don’t have Liberals!*

And you don’t think Animal Rights is a political issue? If you vote for a Republican you are placing an enemy of animals in a position of power over them! You may be doing the same voting Democrat, but there is an excellent chance you will not be! Read on.

For several years I have made it my mission to expose Conservative legislators for the enemies of animals that they are.
The task is not difficult. Their record of acting as enablers and apologists for the animal exploitation industries is public.
Conservative legislators are the mouthpieces for Big Ag, Big Pharma, and Big Oil, which murder billions of animals each year.

Democrat leadership: not the answer

Curiously, there are animal activists who consider themselves to be Conservatives. They may be Conservatives for any number of reasons: Don’t like to pay taxes? Don’t like people of color? Don’t like gay people? Want to carry their guns around? Don’t like abortion? Etc?

Whatever the reasons, they are more important to them than are the animals, because the party and politicians they support are working to hurt animals and to protect those who hurt animals.

A common retort I hear when pointing out these truths, is that Democrats do it, too. And that is their defense? Others are equally reprehensible?

Democrats can be as heartless as Republicans, true.
But Democrats have Liberals, whereas the Republican Party does not.

And it is Liberals, at least those on the Far Left, the real left, who are most likely to oppose business influence in government, business money in politics, business control of regulatory agencies, and business profiting on the exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals.

The Democratic Party is not the answer for animals.
The Left Wing of the Democratic Party —and the Left, in general—is the answer.

____________

* Broadly understood, meaning people who genuinely abhor conservative positions.

MICROEDITORIALS

ROLAND VINCENT
Special Editor for Ecoanimal and Socialist Questions

Animal Rights is the most radical social and political idea in human history. It flies in the face of thousands of years of religious practices and beliefs! It defies human self-interest, arrogance, cruelty and bigotry. Animal Rights re-defines what it means to be a human being. It is the closest people have ever come to being fully spiritual, caring and compassionate creatures.

It is a philosophy more radical than democracy. More radical than ending human slavery! More radical than any religion. More radical than any concept in history.

Animal Rights is the radical notion that animals have as much right to be on this planet as humans have. As much right to live. The rights not to be exploited, enslaved or murdered. The same rights we as humans declare for ourselves.

Having compassion for animals is not the same as supporting animal rights. Just as having compassion for children is not the same as supporting human rights.

Loving your dog or cat has nothing to do with Animal Rights. Even Hitler loved his German Shepherds. I’m sure people who shoot cows in the head all day long or slit the throats of sheep and pigs have dogs at home who are like family!

To embrace Animal Rights one must reject the notion that animals are property, or that we have the right to exploit or enslave or murder them! This flies in the face of conservative dogma that private property is sacred, the Holy Grail of conservatism.

∞

What changes would be required to achieve our goal?
Nothing less than a quantum shift in law, government, and politics.

For animals’ rights to be assured, owning them must be prohibited! Radical changes in government would be required! Governments would have to guard animals’ interests even more zealously than peoples’ interests since animals are literally voiceless in the social and political sense. Intentional harm to all animals would be crimes, just like intentional crimes against humans.

It would mean the end of capitalism as we know it. The end of profitting on animal exploitation, suffering and death. The end of animals as food, clothing, testing subjects, and entertainment. No more hunting, rodeos, sea parks, or bullfighting. No cat or dog death camps, no factory farms, slaughterhouses, horse racing, or obscene fur coats.

In short, we’re talking about changing civilization as we know it.

Rather far from our present circumstances. And hardly likely to be embraced by moderates, let alone conservatives.
But the irrefutable morality is there for anyone honest enough to see it.

Roland Vincent, a dedicated socialist and animal liberationist hopes that eventually both camps will see the wisdom of working together to displace and bury capitalism and all conservative claptrap currently enslaving humanity. 

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MONTE MORIN, The LA Times
SUGGESTED BY GLORIA STEVENSON

If the notion of biting into a hamburger made from lab-cultured stem cells doesn’t make your mouth water, perhaps your brain can find it appetizing.

That’s the view of two Dutch professors who argue that meat grown in enormous test tubes, or bioreactors, can provide an ever more prosperous world with a plentiful, environmentally friendly and humane source of protein.

Cultured meat, they say, is the food of the future.

“Rising global demand for meat will result in increased environmental pollution, energy consumption and animal suffering,” the Wageningen University professors wrote Tuesday in the journal Trends in Biotechnology.

“As large parts of the world become more prosperous, the global consumption of meat is expected to rise enormously in the coming decades,” they wrote.

This growing demand for meat necessitates a “protein transition,” according to bioethicist Cor van der Weele and bioprocessing engineer Johannes Tramper. This transition will probably involve substituting some vegetable products for meat, keeping fewer animals on factory farms and possibly eating insects.

The authors envision a day when “every village” maintains a cultured meat facility in which muscle stem cells from pigs, cows, chicken, fish or any other animal are allowed to grow and reproduce in 5,200-gallon processing tanks.

The reproducing cells are suspended in a growth medium that provides them with nutrition, while mechanical paddles agitate the solution.

When the cell population reaches the desired density — perhaps in a month, the authors say — an enzyme and binding protein are added to the solution. At that point, the agitation stops and the tissue cells form small clumps and settle to the bottom of the tank.

Finally, the authors say, the tank is drained of the growing medium and the remaining “meat slurry” is pressed into a mincemeat-type cake and sold.

If the idea sounds far-fetched, consider the 2003 art project in which cultured frog meat was served as the cell-donor frog looked on, Van der Weele says.

“A tentative life-cycle analysis estimated that if cultured meat can be grown on a medium of algae, energy use will not be reduced dramatically, but greenhouse-gas emissions, land use and water use will: by more than 90% compared to European beef,” the authors wrote.

The system envisioned by the authors would be capable of producing roughly 28 tons of meat a year, assuming there was no waste, and could feed more than 2,500 people in that time, they said.

Of course, there are some very real economic and technological hurdles facing in vitro meat. The cost of the growth medium would directly affect the cost of the meat product, and producers would have to establish robust, continuous stem cell lines.

And then, of course, there’s the issue of whether people want to eat it.

“The cells have to be concentrated to minced-meat density and structured into a texture that is appetizing and with good mouth feel,” the authors wrote.

“Although the potential advantages of cultured meat are clear, they do not guarantee that people will want to eat it,” they wrote.