Marxist Animalism
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John Oswald wrote:Do you really think capitalism is interested in your health?
Well yes to a certain extent. There's no surplus value to be extracted from the ill and infirm..Do you think "alternative" medicine is not a capital generating business?I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
John Oswald wrote:ALB, how does one isolate a quote here from a longer piece to reply to?This is really one for Admin but what you do is you open the passage you want to isolate with quote in square brackets [quo..] and close it with /quote in square brackets [/quo…]. You can also check whether you've done it right by clicking "Preview".Thanks for the book. It's going into the Party's lending library at Clapham High Street.I'm replying separately about whether or not other animals than humans have "reason" (I don't think they do, at least not in the same sense as humans do).
The only extant species capable of abstract thinking, i.e of thinking about something in the absence of the thing thought about, is homo sapiens. Humans do this by means of symbols (words). Thinking with abstract symbols is what was once called "reason". To claim that this does not make us "special" is a silly example of "speciousism".The fact remains that this means that we are the only animal species capable of establishment socialism (George Orwell's Animal Farm is good, very good, but should not be taken literally) and so of improving the lot of other animals. Like it or not, they do depend on us for this.What I've been trying to do, incidentally, is to find a theory for not being cruel to other animals that does not involve "anti-speciesism", vegetarianism or utilitarianism. In practice, though, I think most people accept this without the need to theorise about it.
Alternative medicine is a capital generating business, but nowhere near the multi-billion dollar capital generating business that is the petro-chemical, medical and vivisection combine.Socialists who do not appreciate this are in my opinion very naive, and ought to know better. You can educate yourself by reading Hans Ruesch`s expose, NAKED EMPRESS and the link I gave giving a succinct history.Capitalists are the masters of society, which doesn`t mean they are necessarily bright. Immediate capital accumulation is what interests them far more than the long-term prospects of workers getting sick. Many things are bad for the health, but that doesn`t stop them being marketed." Prescription drugs are now killing far more people than illegal drugs, and while most major causes of preventable deaths are declining, those from prescription drug use are increasing, an analysis of recently released data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by the Los Angeles Times revealed.The Times analysis of 2009 death statistics, the most recent available, showed:For the first time ever in the US, more people were killed by drugs than motor vehicle accidents37,485 people died from drugs, a rate fueled by overdoses on prescription pain and anxiety medications, versus 36,284 from traffic accidentsDrug fatalities more than doubled among teens and young adults between 2000 and 2008, and more than tripled among people aged 50 to 69"http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/26/prescription-drugs-number-one-cause-preventable-death-in-us.aspxand numerous other evidence which can be googled.
"I have never known a single good surgeon who had learned anything from vivisection." – Dr. Abel Desjardins, president of the Society of Surgeons of Paris."My own conviction is that the study of human physiology by way of experimentson animals is the most grotesque and fantastic error ever committed in the whole range of human intellectual activity." – Dr. G>F> Walker, Medical World, Dec. 8th, 1933."The wasted time and energy over the modern lines of cancer research are greatly to be deplored. We are sorry to think that so many able research workers are being tricked into believing that the cause and cure of cancer will be discovered by animal experiments. "- Medical Times."As the years pass, cancer seems to be on the increase. The search for the cause has up til now met with a very poor result, largely owing to the fact that cancer research has been and is being conducted on laboratory animals." – Medical Review."It is not possible to apply to the human species experimental information derived from inducing cancer in animals." – Dr. K. Starr, Hon. Dir. of the special unit for investigation and treatment of cancer for the New South Wales Cancer Council."Another basic problem which we share as a result of the regulations is an unscientific preoccupation with animal studies. Animal studies are done for legal reasons and not for scientific reasons." – Dr. J>D> Gallagher, Dir. Medical Research, Lederle Laboratories."We are sorceror`s apprentices, esp in the scientific field. We boast of discoveries which poison us. I think future generations will need much time and courage to get rid of the disastrous consequence of our research" – Prof. P. Lepine, head of Pasteur Ins. bacteriology dept.(Only socialism will provide the chance to undo what is dangerous and pointless for human health, and free real science for the first time, independent of the profit motive)."The idea, as I understand it, is that fundamental truths are revealed in laboratory experimentation on lower (sic!) animals and then applied to the problems of the sick patient. Having been myself trained as a physiologist, I feel competent to assess such a claim. It is plain nonsense." – Sir George Pickering, Regius Prof. Med. Univ. Oxford, British Medical Journal."…all animal experiments are scientifically indefensible. … They only serve as an alibi for the drug manufacturers, who hope to protect themselves thereby." – Dr. H. Stiller and Dr. M. Stiller, Tierversuch und Tierexperimentator, Munich, 1976.".Normally,.. animal experiments not only fail to contribute to the safety of medications, but they even have the opposite effect." – Prof. Dr. K. Fickentscher, Pharm. Ins. Univ. Bonn, Diagnosen, March 1980."I gave up on the polio vaccine when Jonas Salk showed that the best way to catch polio in the United States was to be near a child who recently had taken the Sabin vaccine." – Prof. R.S. Mendelsohn, 1984.“Humans–who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals–have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and “animals” is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them–without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeeling toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious.They are just too much like us”. – Carl Sagan.
Think the workers who are having health problems should take up the offer of a head transplant? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGpmTf2kOc0
Quote:As the only consciously-acting life-form within the biosphere, humans ought to act as the biosphere's "brain", consciously regulating its functioning in the interest of present and future generations.I just read this articlehttp://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/21/-sp-why-cant-worlds-greatest-minds-solve-mystery-consciousnessWhen it comes to consciousness, they now discuss a vacumm cleaner posses it. Now i'm in the realms of absolute bewilderment previously reserved for those quantum physics theories. But i suppose the crux is …not so much possessing consciousness but as ALB says…actually being able to act upon it…my toaster might be able to interpret the world but can it change it?
John, you may be interested in this article if you haven't already read it.http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/20/dining/animal-welfare-at-risk-in-experiments-for-meat-industry.html?_r=1
Quote:the center’s drive to make livestock bigger, leaner, more prolific and more profitable can be punishing, creating harmful complications that require more intensive experiments to solve… the production of meat is a rough enterprise. Yet even against that reality — raising animals to be killed, for profit — the center stands out. Some of its trials have continued long after meat producers balked at the harm they caused animals….Ranchers commonly shelter ewes giving birth in special barns, which cost money to build, maintain and staff. So the center began sending pregnant sheep out to open pastures in hopes of identifying those that would nurture their babies despite severe weather and predators.Every single minute four animals die of starvation.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22935692
In the UK, I`ve read an animal dies in a vivisection lab every eight seconds. In Japan I think it`s every two seconds, and in the USA, I think, every second. (This may need checking). http://www.vivisectioninformation.com/index.php?p=1_76_updated-how-many-animals-are-usedBut vivisection ought not to be here under "Marxist Animalism", as it`s a human issue. That`s my fault. The trouble with the animal rights anti-vivisectionists is that they play right into the hands of the pro-vivisectionists. They ought to campaign, instead, (firstly, for socialism, of course, but bringing vivisection in as part and parcel of capitalism) solely on the basis of THE HUMAN VICTIMS of vivisection. I would hazard a bet that, if they did, the pro-vivisection opposition to them would intensify in ferocity a thousandfold!"Animal Rights people who wander off on tangent issues about animal cruelty and welfare fall straight into the trap the pro-vivisectionists set for them. The animal rightists (sic!) let off intellectual "smoke-clouds" with their ethical/moral debates. This is what the Drug and Chemical industries want them to do. These smoke-clouds distract public attention away from the fact that large numbers of people are being injured and killed each year by a fraudulent and commercial medical system. A system based on unscientific methods, including animal research." http://www.MedicineKillsMillions.comWith regard to speciesism and anti-speciesism, I leave it here on the understanding that the Socialist Party, as a Marxist party, is avowedly speciesist. If you are opposed to wanton cruelty, that is enough for me. I can live with that, because, although an anti-speciesist, I am also a socialist by your understanding, and that political objective must be your priority. I accept that. However, I would ask that, in the future, when you praise Stephen Jay Gould`s evolutionism, you qualify, for the sake of consistency, by stating you do not agree with his view of humans just being one life-form in a bush of life-forms whom they, humans, ought to recognise as fellow beings, neither above nor beneath us. Thank you.
Perhaps vivisection is unenessary I really don't know enough to know either way, but linking to anti-vaxxer crank science conspiracy theory websites isn't doing your case much good…
Of course these people are not socialists. However, the vivisection fraud ought to be staring you socialists in the face, being socially-economically aware, and historically aware. Not all sites are what you would deem "cranky". How abouthttp://www.pcrm.orghttp://www.dlrm.orghttp://www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr
I don't know. I really don't have the time to look into it..Incedentatlly though Ben Goldacre's book "Bad Science" is one of my favourites, I keep meaning to read the sequel "Bad Pharma"..
Found this podcast in my RSS feed today pretty much covers all the issues surrounding "Speciesism" it's pretty good..http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/the-tommy-dilemma3a-animal-right-or-human-privilege3f/5960902
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