If the political ‘left’ is serious about democracy, animal rights must become a core issue
The US government, at the behest of corporate influence, has spent the last three decades tarnishing animal activists fighting animal agriculture industries as domestic terrorists, not because they pose a threat to people’s lives, but because of the threat they pose to profits. They’ve been able to do this, in part, because progressives have too often overlooked the misdeeds of animal industries while buying into the image of animal activists as fringe and extreme. For progressive movements to win, they need to incorporate animal rights because animal issues are invariably connected to other critical issues, such as climate change, public health, and corporate power.
ASTRA TAYLOR: For decades, animal industries, including meat, dairy, and commercial fishing, have been working successfully to undermine democracy and government oversight in order to boost their bottom lines. The US government, meanwhile, at the behest of corporate influence, has spent the last three decades tarnishing animal activists fighting these industries as domestic terrorists, not because they pose a threat to people’s lives (no humans have ever been killed as a result of animal activism) but because of the threat they pose to profits.
They’ve been able to do this, in part, because progressives have too often overlooked the misdeeds of animal industries while buying into the image of animal activists as fringe and extreme — as people who would care more about herrings’ lives than fishermen’s livelihoods. This image, however, is taken straight from the animal industries’ playbook. For decades, corporate actors have worked covertly to divide the animal movement from other progressive causes in order to conquer it…
In the late 1980s, for example, the American Medical Association (AMA) promoted a strategy to isolate and derail animal rights activists in order to halt their progress and growing popularity. As Sunaura Taylor, one of the authors of this piece, details in her book Beasts of Burden, the AMA organized a movement of disabled and ill people to promote animal testing — a movement countered by a grassroots group of disabled and ill activists who objected to animal research. The AMA plan, which was never meant to be public, stated, “To defeat the animal rights movement, one has to peel away the outermost layers of support and isolate the hard-core activities from the general public and shrink the size of the sympathizers.”
To build a successful progressive movement, one that can challenge animal industries’ extraordinary corporate malfeasance, the left needs to resist this strategy of divide-and-conquer. By treating concern for non-human animals as a fringe issue, progressives may actually be undermining many of the causes they care about, while also inadvertently emboldening the right and abetting the further erosion of democracy, including attacks on the regulatory state.
It’s often said in animal rights circles that the movement needs buy-in from the broader left to succeed. We agree, but we also believe the reverse is true: For progressive movements to win, they need to incorporate animal rights. Expanding our circle of concern beyond our species will help progressives address many of the urgent challenges of our day, from tackling climate change and protecting public health to reining in corporate power and preserving civil liberties, because animal issues are invariably connected to all of these causes. Given all that is at stake, the left must grow the circle of animal sympathizers before it’s too late. SOURCE…
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