an argument for animal testing
Dec 18 2004 16:50
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/3853581.stm
it seems to me that the arguments in favour of testing on animals in order to save human lives are becoming more compelling...
are the anti civilisation barbarians of the AR/primmo movements completely blind to the benefits of technology? why can they not realise that it is capitalism that is the enemy not technology? are they mentally ill? why is it that arguing with the misanthropes of the animal rights and primitivist groups is like eating soup with a fork? they seem wilfully blind to logic
what can be done?
Dec 18 2004 17:03
#2
JDMF I would like to hear a coherent and logical argument against animal testing, not based on discrediting the BBC.
Dec 18 2004 17:04
#3
kalabine wrote:
[url]why can they not realise that it is capitalism that is the enemy not technology? are they mentally ill? why is it that arguing with the misanthropes of the animal rights and primitivist groups is like eating soup with a fork? they seem wilfully blind to logic
Where's this come from 
Is this some back-blast from an ongoing debate? Taken on it's own it just looks like you're ranting.
JDMF has given lots of good, class-based and rational arguments against animal testing -- are you saying he's 'mentally ill'? If you're talking about some poster(s) in particular say so, otherwise your arguments sound irrational and knobbish.
FFS I've met both the posters above and think they're both sound as fuck. Is enrager.net unintentionally dividing good people?
Dec 18 2004 18:56
#4
Obviously i think the Animal Rights movement are largely irrational, and would not want to be associated with those assholes. But its not some black and white issue we're dealing with here. And I don't see how cheerleading the corporations involved in seting up that centre does any good, their boards of executives don't have the betterment of humanity in mind, shockingly enough, they're only intyerested in profit 
(would you beleive it 
)
Moving on then, you might want to look at the economics of gene testing, the prioritisation of research, who this gene research is benefitting and so on. These corporations rip off the third world on a daily basis and are the same assholes who stifled research before, and have kept anti-biotics as the ''only'' medical option, when its fairly obvious that viral based medication, developed in russia and eastern europe with russias huge state budget in the 80's, could easily be used to combat bacterial infections without having to worry about the inevitable creation of anti-biotic resistant strains of bacterial infection that have rapidly begun to emerge.
The only way forward is to
a) completely ignore the AR movement as pseudo-primmos, misanthropes and lunatics.
b) try and present an arguement that ptesent a materialist operspective set in between the hippie idealist bollocks of the AR lot and the ''ooh we're so progressive'' lies of the pharmaceutical corporations
Personally i'm going with (a), because there are more important issues in the world than a few mice and some AR loons.
Dec 18 2004 20:08
#5
cantdocartwheels wrote:
Personally i'm going with (a), because there are more important issues in the world than a few mice and some AR loons.
I almost forgive you for selling out hardcore.
Dec 18 2004 20:33
#6
Firstly, "Animal Rights" is crap as a concept, we should be interested in "Animal Liberation"
kalabine wrote:
why can they not realise that it is capitalism that is the enemy not technology?
Not everyone comes from the viewpoint that technology is neutral. There are wider issues as to how and for what purpose technology is developed.
Dec 18 2004 20:34
#7
Alan_is_Fucking_Dead wrote:
cantdocartwheels wrote:
Personally i'm going with (a), because there are more important issues in the world than a few mice and some AR loons.I almost forgive you for selling out hardcore.
What? Is cantdofuckall also some young punk kid who has since "seen the light"?
Fuck, i need to find another forum...
Dec 18 2004 20:36
#8
and JDMF, do you ever stop whining, seriously, get a fucking sense of humour for christs sake
i have this worrying mental image of you sitting their on christmas day writing some serious activist response to something on indymedia
anyways i'm no punk kid, i'm just a geek, as you might have guessed, this being the INTERNET afterall
john
Dec 18 2004 20:44
#9
so which part was humour? That you could have been into hardcore, or me saying that are you are some punk kid? 
I am keeping my fingers crossed that the joke was this:
Quote:
would not want to be associated with those assholes.
???
Dec 18 2004 21:07
#10
JDMF wrote:
so which part was humour? That you could have been into hardcore, or me saying that are you are some punk kid? ;)
I wish i had been a punk kid, sadly i spent my schooldays playing geeky boardgames and RPG's.
Quote:
would not want to be associated with those assholes.
Ok its a generalisation, but seriously the most extreme elements of the AR movement, ie the anti-huntingdon life sciences lot, are a bunch of assholes. And don't try to pretend they aren't, i mean why else would you spend your life worrying about a cuouple of stupid mice unless you were a fucking asshole.
If you'd actually read my post, you'd have seen that i took a midlde ground here, and was trying to point out that animal testing is bad science in a lot of cases, or prioritises profit over scientific progress, but that i just didn't think it was something to oppose at all, but anyways, whatever.
john
Dec 18 2004 21:16
#11
cantdocartwheels wrote:
i have this worrying mental image of you sitting their on christmas day writing some serious activist response to something on indymedia
OK that's it, I've forgiven you.
Dec 18 2004 21:18
#12
JDMF - 99% of anarchists have had a punk phase. It's just how it is. I'm still in mine, and have no intentions of leaving it. In fact, at some hardcore shows they have PETA and HSA stalls, so maybe your shallow politics are more at home here than you think. 
Dec 18 2004 22:46
#13
alan, your percentages may be true of your little group (which would explain a lot about how nice you guys are, bit like crackfixpropaganda, but just from the class angle), but i've been involved in anarchist politics in many countries and punks, though a big group, they are not a majority, fuck that, i wouldn't have got involved in the first place if they were 
Dec 18 2004 22:48
#14
Actually guys, have your sandbox to yourselves. I'll rather spend more time on my powerlifting boards
Be good.
Dec 18 2004 23:05
#15
JDMF wrote:
alan, your percentages may be true of your little group (which would explain a lot about how nice you guys are, bit like crackfixpropaganda, but just from the class angle), but i've been involved in anarchist politics in many countries and punks, though a big group, they are not a majority, fuck that, i wouldn't have got involved in the first place if they were :)
Yes because alan was actually analysing the global anarchist movement wasn't he 
and not just making jokes about the sort of silly hair styles demonstrated at the UK anarchist book fair...
So you don't like a few smelly punk kids smoking too much pot or going out dancing on a saturday night liek the rest of us or possibly having stupid hair, but are content with hanging around 40 year old misanthropic lunatic animal rights actvists, foaming at the mouth and spray painting ''paedophile'' on someones car because he works as a lab asistant. Well that makes a lot sense doesn't it.
john
Dec 19 2004 14:28
#16
enrager again shows it's massive usefulness as a networking resource
Dec 19 2004 18:12
#17
Lazlo_Woodbine wrote:
enrager again shows it's massive usefulness as a networking resource
You'd perhaps have a point, if you didn't think we should 'network' with primmos.
Dec 19 2004 19:26
#18
Try to address the issue actually at hand.
JDMF is fucked off with this site not because of the politics -- he shares the class based approach of most of us here -- but because of the consistently nasty tone of the 'arguments'.
Is this a problem for you?
Dec 19 2004 20:26
#19
There doesn't seem to be much in the way of convincing arguments for animal testing - certainly not enough to justify the scale of pain and suffering endured by animals in the name of "science". Many animals used for testing react completely differently to humans - a cupful of lemon juice is apparently enough to kill a cat, strychnine doesn't kill monkeys but does people and on mice morphine has the opposite of the calming, anaesthetising effect it has on humans. It seems to me that animal testing is just a cheaper, easier way for corporations to prove their products are safe than the alternatives - its fundamentally an issue of capitalism, not luddites against progress.
A drug like thalidomide was tested on animals for years before it was judged safe for humans - do you remember how that one ended up? The use of certain cardiac drugs were delayed for years because they were tested on dogs - it sent their blood pressure dangerously high, but was actually completely beneficial to humans. Animal testing is fundamentally bad science.
Dec 19 2004 21:50
#20
Lazlo_Woodbine wrote:
Try to address the issue actually at hand.JDMF is fucked off with this site not because of the politics -- he shares the class based approach of most of us here -- but because of the consistently nasty tone of the 'arguments'.
Is this a problem for you?
yes, because we're not hippies, sure some people overstep the mark a bit, but for fucks sake i don't see why we should be ''nice'' to primitivists, they are isolated weirdoes, what use could they be.
john
Dec 19 2004 22:00
#21
cantdocartwheels wrote:
yes, because we're not hippies, sure some people overstep the mark a bit, but for fucks sake i don't see why we should be ''nice'' to primitivists, they are isolated weirdoes, what use could they be.
No, try to argue the issue in hand, not what you want the issue to be. JDMF and people like him are not primitivists, he and I are class based anarchists with politics very similar to your own.
Why do you think he and I are fucked off with the arguments and flaming that happen on this site? I think they are dividing us unneccessarily. What do you think?
Dec 19 2004 22:29
#22
JDMFs a primitivist
that is truely the funniest screwed up thought that passes for logic i've ever seen on enrager
Dec 19 2004 22:40
#23
Lazlo_Woodbine wrote:
cantdocartwheels wrote:
yes, because we're not hippies, sure some people overstep the mark a bit, but for fucks sake i don't see why we should be ''nice'' to primitivists, they are isolated weirdoes, what use could they be.No, try to argue the issue in hand, not what you want the issue to be.
damn
Quote:
JDMF and people like him are not primitivists, he and I are class based anarchists with politics very similar to your own.Why do you think he and I are fucked off with the arguments and flaming that happen on this site? I think they are dividing us unneccessarily. What do you think?
I agree there are times when people overstepped the mark, but the mods did their job and clamped down on it a bit. For the most part the flaming by others was only directed at primitivists, who as far as i'm concerned SHOULD be driven out of the anarchist movement.
As for the rest of us, well if you can't take a proper arguement on an internet forum, then what sort of activist are you, how are you going to go out and argue your ideas if when someone ''flames'' you on some lousy internet board you can't defend yourself properly and run off.
Ok i'm very very sorry for calling militant AR activists a bunch of insane isolated misanthropic reactionary weirdos who froth at the mouth over a few dead mice, over the space of a few threads. I'm sure i'll try not to do it again.
I'll stick to calling them ''wrong'' instead yes?
john
Dec 19 2004 22:41
#24
lucy82 wrote:
JDMFs a primitivistthat is truely the funniest screwed up thought that passes for logic i've ever seen on enrager
i was talking about primmos in general, not about JDMF
Dec 19 2004 22:53
#25
lazlo said:
Quote:
JDMF is fucked off with this site not because of the politics -- he shares the class based approach of most of us here -- but because of the consistently nasty tone of the 'arguments'.
you said
Quote:
for fucks sake i don't see why we should be ''nice'' to primitivists, they are isolated weirdoes, what use could they be.
Quote:
in response.
which implies JDMF is a primitivist, hence my response.
and what is this?
Quote:
If you can't take a proper arguement on an internet forum, then what sort of activist are you, how are you going to go out and argue your ideas if when someone ''flames'' you on some lousy internet board you can't defend yourself properly and run off.
are we all now supposed to cut our activist teeth on surviving flame wars? how fucked is that?
speaking as granny anarchy with a touch of humour here:
john, have you been drinking?
Dec 19 2004 23:07
#26
[quoteJi was talking about primmos in general, not about JDMF
fair enough but thats your edited response. originally you asked where JDMF had been called a primmie, so i answered. just saying cause otherwise my response makes no sense
Dec 19 2004 23:29
#27
Scientific researchers don't test because it's safer, they test because it's required by UK law. There have been several highly damaging cases just recently for Astrazeneca and GSK because their new products (which have passed every test) have been having unforseen side-effects or just plain don't work.
If anyone reads the business pages, they may have noticed the planned withdrawl of Astrazeneca's highly profitable new lung cancer drug (135 million profits thus far) because in recent independent tests it had no more effect on the human body than the placebo. This despite it passing the animal testing stage with flying colours (it was touted as a wonder drug at that stage).
The UK government meanwhile have a vested interest in keeping animal testing going and indeed human testing, as it is a huge industry keeping large numbers of people in work, gives them massive leverage over drugs companies that they otherwise wouldn't have and up until recently gave up enormous profits.
Having said that, the UK is one of the few places in the world which actually bothers to regulate the treatment of animals in testing. What is done overseas is a thousand times worse. Ever time animal rights activists drive a testing (or indeed any other animal slaughter business) overseas it guaruntees not that the animals will be better treated, but that they will go through horrors unimaginably worse than before.
Dec 19 2004 23:31
#28
cantdocartwheels wrote:
well if you can't take a proper arguement on an internet forum, then what sort of activist are you, how are you going to go out and argue your ideas if when someone ''flames'' you on some lousy internet board you can't defend yourself properly and run off.
The arguments we're having on here are much worse than stuff that happens in real life -- people casually abuse anarchists with similar politics -- that doesn't usually happen. It's a fucked up way for things to go if you want to build an anarchist community based on mutual respect.
cantdocartwheels wrote:
Ok i'm very very sorry for calling militant AR activists a bunch of insane isolated misanthropic reactionary weirdos who froth at the mouth over a few dead mice, over the space of a few threads. I'm sure i'll try not to do it again.I'll stick to calling them ''wrong'' instead yes?
Well I'd like to belive you, except you seem to be pouting rather than actually apologising here.
What I'm asking you to do is to try to understand what attracts so many class-based anarchists to animla liberation campaigns and to try to have some analysis that doesn't lead you to dismiss them out of hand.
What do you say to that -- is that a reasonable thing to ask?
Dec 19 2004 23:33
#29
Lazlo_Woodbine wrote:
cantdocartwheels wrote:
well if you can't take a proper arguement on an internet forum, then what sort of activist are you, how are you going to go out and argue your ideas if when someone ''flames'' you on some lousy internet board you can't defend yourself properly and run off.The arguments we're having on here are much worse than stuff that happens in real life -- people casually abuse anarchists with similar politics and misunderstand each other on purpose in order to make a rhetorical point that looks good on the screen. FFS you know full well that JDMF and many others aren't 'primitivists' and in a normal debate you'd be addressing our political points, rather than just slapping labels on us. In real life debates that doesn't usually happen, unless you're confronted with a ranting conservative or someone else with diametrically opposed politics.
It's a fucked up way for things to go if you want to build an anarchist networking on line community based on mutual respect.
cantdocartwheels wrote:
Ok i'm very very sorry for calling militant AR activists a bunch of insane isolated misanthropic reactionary weirdos who froth at the mouth over a few dead mice, over the space of a few threads. I'm sure i'll try not to do it again.I'll stick to calling them ''wrong'' instead yes?
Well I'd like to belive you, except you seem to be pouting rather than actually apologising here.
What I'm asking you to do is to try to understand what attracts so many class-based anarchists to animla liberation campaigns and to try to have some analysis that doesn't lead you to dismiss them out of hand.
What do you say to that -- is that a reasonable thing to ask?
Dec 20 2004 00:04
#30
Lazlo_Woodbine wrote:
cantdocartwheels wrote:
well if you can't take a proper arguement on an internet forum, then what sort of activist are you, how are you going to go out and argue your ideas if when someone ''flames'' you on some lousy internet board you can't defend yourself properly and run off.The arguments we're having on here are much worse than stuff that happens in real life -- people casually abuse anarchists with similar politics -- that doesn't usually happen. It's a fucked up way for things to go if you want to build an anarchist community based on mutual respect.
Whats wrong with healthy self-criticism. The arguments we have on enrager provoke people into bothering to post more, and in bothering to make the arguements. If it was all just hippy chin stroking noone would post.
Quote:
cantdocartwheels wrote:
Ok i'm very very sorry for calling militant AR activists a bunch of insane isolated misanthropic reactionary weirdos who froth at the mouth over a few dead mice, over the space of a few threads. I'm sure i'll try not to do it again.I'll stick to calling them ''wrong'' instead yes?
Well I'd like to belive you, except you seem to be pouting rather than actually apologising here.
For crying outloud it was a joke, what is wrong with you people
Quote:
What I'm asking you to do is to try to understand what attracts so many class-based anarchists to animla liberation campaigns and to try to have some analysis that doesn't lead you to dismiss them out of hand.
Stop saying ''so many'', its as ridiculous as when you claimed hunt sabbers were a ''social movement'', militant AR activists are clearly a tiny minority.
I have no idea what attracts them to animal rights, why would a class based activist side with grpups who intend to attack lab assitants at vivisection research labs. And why would a class based activist spend time and effort backing a pointless distraction from working class struggle like toffbusters.
I mean coming up to the election next year, yheres a war going on hundreds of local struggles, the rise of the fash, and you worry about some mice, why? who in reality is supposed to be caring about this apart from a couple of activists?
Quote:
What do you say to that -- is that a reasonable thing to ask?
No, but i will tone down the bashing of AR activists a little, because i admit i was ranting in this thread, although to be fair had you actually read my first post and compared it to the one that started the thread, you'd have seen that i was taking the middle ground...
john
You could start by looking into the subject rather than believing what corporate press has to say about the subject.
Then secondly you could try to tone down your hysterical anti-animal stance and perhaps listen to some of the arguments what have been given to you.
Thirdly, you could try to stop using the easy, but silly, fallacy of taking the worst example, in this case you use primitivists, as your argument agains the whole issue of animal abuse. you could compare it to someone using primmies as an example to be against anarchism as a whole, same difference.