Another thrilling round of "Anarchism and Animal Rights

Ok, keep saying it and it'll be true! You wouldn't mind proving that to us would you, and in the meantime telling me how many companies produce safe drugs where A-testing would be used without using animals?

The statistics. remember...

what are you on duuuuude?

'Course I'm a student and I just about said that same thing to my boss. Why what do you do, work on libcom?

Err, I'm afraid that is true. Do you think animal testing was created merely to legitimise somebody's predilection towards animal cruelty? Do you honestly think that people would bother continuing with animal testing in the face of intimidation, violence and scare tactics by the animal rights fascists if they weren't doing something pretty fucking important? I say this to all animal rights activists everywhere: get a grip on reality.

Ghost, you brainwashed fool - it's very simple:

Labs are like concentration camps, and the scientists are like the SS, and they're like, animal torturing and murdering nazis, and there's capitalism, and like Smash HLS!!1!!11!11 Smash Capialism!!111!!!1!!

That is a complete assumption and I've already stated on atleast two occassions why things are so unwilling to change despite the fact that we could replace every animal testing lab with a humane and better equivalent...Animals are cheap, they comply to legal safety checks, they are tied up with the profit interests of scientists/breeders et al. and few have the compassion or progressive attitude to further an ethical alternative. Ofcourse the whole "alternative" word is dodgy since it implies that non-animal testing is secondary to the real thing -it is not. In many cases it meets the same functions and surpasses that in terms of focusing only on human beings.

volin there is no doubt alot of animal testing is superflous and tied into economic imperatives and sometimes outright dogmatism. However the problem is that animal testing is still very necessary for lots of vital research. Animal rights activists seem to think that we could magically get rid of all animal testing without serious implications, we can't, as simple as that.

Their hysterical tactics also do little to further the legitimate concerns regarding uneccesary animal suffering, not to mention give legitmitacy to repressive laws that will be used against industrial action.

this thread i aload of balls!

well that it maybe, but not as much as your shite attempt to gaelise your dirty anglo planter name.

Yes; "Most people are unaware of what an enormous business vivisection is. Vivisectors receive over 7 billion dollars in U.S. government grants every year. This grant money comes out of the pockets of U.S. taxpayers. To make matters worse, the vivisectors themselves decide which grant proposals will receive funding. Through the system of peer review, vivisectors submit grant proposals and sit on the same committees that approve such grants. In any other area this conflict of interest would not be allowed. In the self-monitored world of vivisection, it is simply business as usual. In addition to taxpayer-sponsored government grants, vivisectors also receive money from private charities. This money is donated by well-meaning people in the good faith that if will be spent on valid research...In addition to the vivisectors themselves, there are companies that profit from this system. Vivisection consumes approximately 100 million animals a year in the United States alone! The majority of these animals are purchased from animal breeders. Obviously, the profits to be made by breeding 100 million animals a year are enormous. There are also the makers of cages, restraining devices, surgical equipment, food and bedding material for the animals. The list goes on and on. The industry which profits from vivisection will do anything to hide its fraudulence from the public. Ironically, it is the very fact that people do not think of vivisection as an industry that keeps them from questioning its scientific validity. As long as the general public is unaware of the enormous profits to be made from vivisection, it does not question the motivations of the people who defend it."

You dont want to give examples, so I can respond? Go on, take your pick; AIDS, Cancer, Diabetes...

In many cases animal testing has been "magically" removed from the testing process in entire companies and organisations with no serious affects, largely the opposite. I've already mentioned one company but I can find others. The fact is, if funds, time and energy were put into the development and application of humane testing it would be possible to replace every example of animals in research. So yes it could.

"The public would like to believe that the medical research community would be open-minded, logical and willing to re-examine the theories on which their research is based. On close examination, it becomes apparent that just the opposite is true. Indeed, vivisection continues, to a large degree, simply because "that's the way it's always been done". Researchers and doctors are taught from day one of their training through vivisection, by teachers who were in turn taught the same way. The medical research community seems to have an unshakable tendency to continue an error once it has been accepted. Those doctors and researchers who do question privately are often unwilling to risk their careers, reputations and licenses by publicly opposing the status quo".

Is this more about animal rights than human health? "Vivisection is a human health issue. It is not an "animal-rights" issue. Vivisection must be abolished because of the harm it does to people. By constantly debating the issue with "animal-rights" activists who do not comprehend the scientific issue, vivisectors make the public believe that there are no scientific challenges to vivisection. This is blatantly untrue. In addition to the eminent doctors and scientists whose opposition to vivisection you have already read, there have been countless others. Prof.Robert Mendelsohn, M.D., taught and practiced medicine for over 30 years. During that time he had been the National Director of Project Head Start's Medical Consultation Service, Chairman of the Medical Licensing Board for the State of Illinois, Professor of Preventive Medicine at the University of Illinois, and recipient of numerous awards for excellence in medicine and medical instruction. He was also the author of The People's Doctor newsletter and several best-selling medical books. In a 1986 interview, Dr.Mendelsohn stated: "The reason why I am against animal research is because it doesn't work. It has no scientific value. One cannot extrapolate the results of animal research to human beings, and every good scientist knows that... As far as I am concerned, I have to be opposed to quackery; since animal experiments have no validity and since they lead to quackery in medicine, I have to be opposed to animal experiments as a scientist." [Mendelsohn, 1986]

G.H. Walker, M.D., doctor at the Royal Hospital and the Children's Hospital in Sunderland, England, wrote in 1933: "My own conviction is that the study of human physiology by the way of experiments on animals is the most grotesque and fantastic error ever committed in the whole range of human intellectual activity." [Walker, 1933, p.335]

Sir George Pickering, Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, wrote in 1964: "The idea, as I understand it, is that fundamental truths are revealed in laboratory experimentation on lower animals and applied to the problems of the sick patient. Having been myself trained as a physiologist, I feel in a way competent to assess such a claim. It is plain nonsense." [Pickering, 1964, pp.1615-1619]

Recently more and more doctors have formed organizations that oppose vivisection on scientific grounds. These honest, courageous doctors wish to rid their profession of the unscientific practice which keeps us from obtaining our health care goals. These groups include: International League of Doctors for the Abolition of Vivisection (ILDAV) , Doctors in Britain Against Animal Experimentation (DBAE) and League of German Doctors Against Vivisection. The vivisection industry has managed, with the help of the media, to ignore these scientific challenges. The reason for this is obvious: they know that they cannot defend vivisection scientifically."

yes but you can't use those arguments against all vivesection, i mean there are a few chemicals which won't show adverse effects on other animals whilst they will on humans but there are far more chemicals that will show adverse affects in both.

are you just fucking thick or do you actually have a mental disorder?

i refer you again to this very thread

Ghost of the revolution wrote ''I am a biologist. I have recently been researching developments in treatments for viral infections (bird flu, HIV, stuff like that). One of the most promising treatments for HIV may be able to eliminate the virus from a sufferer completely, even a patient only months from death. This treatment could be on the shelves inside 10 years, thereby saving an incalculable number of lives in Africa and throughout the world. Development of this technique has required modification of the HIV virus to infect mice, and deliberate infection of mice with the virus. I invite those who say that animal testing is never justified to get on the next bus to Africa and personally explain to everybody there who is HIV+ that, whilst we could have cured them all at the cost of a few mice, we've voted in favour of the mice on this one.

I would like to add that I will personally administer an extremely severe kicking to anybody who tries to prevent this research on 'ethical grounds'.''

Do we really have to go over this again? Just face it, you know next to nothing about he medical testing you are claiming to be an authority on, your views are fucking irrational anti-working class shite and when it comes down to it yourpraxis amounts to mindlessly screaming at people that the food they're eating is ''mctesticle'' or something or just endlessly repreating moralist arguements.

Seriously, you lost the argument several pages ago, just be quiet for a change.

Shut the fuck up you moaning old hag, I've already rebuked your written crap and you reply by saying I have a mental disorder? Not only is that sick it speaks volumes about your own arguments, mindset and ability to empathise with others. And I've "lost"?! If that's down to a sad clique of old libcomers passing out judgement when they never really contribute to a rational discussion anyway; boo-hoo. No offence, but no I've heard your "arguments" before.

What the fuck would you know? Most people I meet involved with and fighting for animal rights ARE working class, and what's more they share the exact same feelings and passion for change when it comes to human poverty and powerlessness as they do for animals and the environment.

No I wasn't really joking there, but then it can be amusing knowing that people like you are munching on reclaimed anus...the bigger picture isn't quite so funny.

it's true about Mctesticle burgers, which is why being vegetarian and opposed to animal liberation is so satisfying

Not as satisfying as devouring the flesh of beasts and knowing how much it upsets loads of vegans.

why would you care if meat is made of animal testicles, what does that matter? I can't remember ever caring abouyt that sort of nonsense. To be fair tho the reason i wouldn't a beef burger myself is coz i quite simply don't trust much beef or lamb any more, none of my familty ever did and i guess i picked up the habit.

Oh and just to clarify yeah i'm veggie aswell, slthough admittedly a somewhat lapsed one, i also think animal testing isn't monitored well enough, and that animal welfare is a genuine moral issue, however, you violin, are a fucking nutjob.

Yeah I'm terribly upset...

Animal Welfare means shit to the system of animal exploitation, it is the equivalent of a "kinder capitalism" where the exact same suffering and oppression is perpetuated but with atleast half-hearted attempts to quell the consciences of a few. In reality it means bugger all, you know chickens kept in crowded in barns all their short lives can be called "free range"? that it is "animal welfare" measure to give factory farmed animals bigger cages? Or indeed that it's kind on animals being tested in labs to have a vet on call? These are completely absurd means of ensuring the well-being of an animal but that's only because there is a massive paradox in the animal welfare position; the very well-being of an animal is not compatible with them being used, abused or treated like a commodity for our own benefit -such as they are.

again, your comparing animals to humans, when will you learn that humans are simply better than animals, simple as. Also animals can't liberate themsleves, so its a ridiculous comparison in a lot of ways.

well exactly, they don't, which is why i don't confuse animal welfare and libertarian socilaism, unlike you and violin, who for some insane reason seem to think the two are somehow synonymous

So animals dont suffer? massively, systematically and needlessly?

With respect; you're a dick.

what?

I think morality and ethics play a part in everything we do, and so they should. By that I dont mean some slave morality, that keeps everyone in check and conformity, I mean a general understanding and empathy for those other than yourself. And I cant speak for october but yah, animals play a bloody big part in my anarchism because they play a bloody big part in the world -and that's what I want to change.

that's no argument at all OL - disabled people, babies etc are not a seperate species, they are part of the human species that as a whole are capable of winning, sustaining and enjoying total self liberation - animals are not

Hi

Hang in there Kalabine, you're holding the fort well.

I’d like to suggest an non-altruistic approach to politics. I don't care about protecting the vulnerable and oppressed for its own sake.

I want a self-managed society, democratic and prosperous, because it maximises my authentic leisure. I’m not sure what drives that, there’s a very complicated question of ethics and evolutionary psychology within this discussion. Having said that, the traditional notions of the selfishness of the evolutionary prerogative and its associated Smithsonian polemic strike me as absurd as the victim mentality crippling some of its detractors.

‘xactly. But I’m not so pessimistic about seeing the first parts of this project underway before I die.

Peace and Love

Chris

*blink*

Hi

*blink* *blink*

Peace and Love

Chris

non altruistic politics is right, i'm not an anarchist because i feel sorry for poor 'brown' people in the 'third' world - but because i want to live in a sustainable self organised society of freedom and equality - because it will benefit me, rational self interest, or enlightened self interest if you like - through anarchism i have realised that the only way for me to enjoy a free life is if everyone else can as well - solidarity with others will hopefully hasten the day we achieve that society

Hi

The task of bovine emancipation must be the task of the bovines themselves.

Peace and Love.

Chris