The academic discussion about animal concerns and where they meet human interests, is so detached from the reality of Animal Rights, that the discourse of these kind of animal ethicists seems in the core substance no more but a blast of sophist lapses branching out on a subject matter here only for secondary purposes but not because of Animal Rights themselves. What I think of are the heady discussions lead academically on the subjects of speciesism and anthropocentrism. Things may sound good, yet little way is given to nonhuman Animal Rights terms which would leave space for a nonhuman animal autonomy protecting against the human definition of “self” and “other”.

If we had a similar phenomenon in the academic discussion in regards to Human Rights, we would find ourselves in a futuristic soulless science fiction setting, where humans are no more but calculable sources to serve the interest of a hole.

The terms needed for and relevant to Animal Rights become politically practically useless when taken only to their abstract side and not to the side where a term is instilled with the aspects relating to the practical side of life – life’s daily political questions, that are concerned with environmental questions and the questions relating to Animal Rights concerns.

The worst form of an abstraction would be to go back to point zero and ask: what are Animal Rights again and which animals should have what exact rights. From an Animal Rights standpoint we take Animal Rights as a given ethical imperative and prerequisite. Similar to the understanding of RIGHT in Human Rights, my right is not dependent on any holy issue or on any group’s decision to grant me rights or even on the evolutionary side of being a humanoid. The sheer fact of existence grants the right that will take its own shape in the individual, and of course rights do conflict, and still we should try to live peacefully if we want to or if we can.

Political Animal Rights

So far we haven’t gained as much and enough political momentum as is needed in the inner national and supra-national political settings that constitute themselves with the political party systems, umbrella orgs, lobbyism driven by economical factors, NGOs, philanthropists and yes even grassroots work that we do in our communities directly or over the internet.

To rely on the possibility that academic discussion would take us any further with the needed political momentum for the Animal Rights movement, and how general society perceives the question of Animal Rights and how AR can go together with Human Rights, will be a long and disappointing wait.

Academia coins terms, but these terms become shallow after they go through the entire digestive system of the typical academic brain.

Which terms would we need, however?

We need to fill the space of the Animal Rights discussion basically with the same soul, with the same concern, idea, words, deeds …  such as we apply to our own concerns. Theories have their good, but the practice of life that in the end of the day makes up our political side of life, needs the individual strength of thought and deed.

We are able to talk about our own concerns, and we are also able to talk about the concerns of our fellow animal friends.

However some birthhelpers who are perhaps a couple of eons too late are fighting for their new inventions of the wheel notwithstanding. Ok, what I’m talking about is the question of the futile fight of humans against their own perpetually continued ANTHROPOCENTRISM.

A lot of focus is currently set by the AR community on just that impotant question, which is good and a thing to do overdue because it helps you see reality clearer. Reality about the political implications of Animal Rights for Human Rights and Earth Rights mostly, I believe.

But what exactly is anthropocentrism?

Also … Why is a term chosen that strictly seems to omit the animal nature connection as the KEY point and only focuses on the human towards animal relation in a critical way though. What about that, what completely stands out of the reach of us the anthropos??? Ok, so we see the question at stake here is the perspective, we want to avoid looking at the world from a strictly homocentric viewpoint. But how far do we have to go with that.

I was recently criticised for criticising an AR advocate who is against anthropocentrism and who claims that Animal Rights find a reasonable argument in the similarities between beings – humans and nonhuman animals that is. This is an old string of argumentation when animal acvocacy issues are being discussed. But: do we want to land at comparative studies where we check one brain against the other to find out how much rights you should be entitled to be granted? Well, the amount of speciesism in the enlightened field of AR advocates is just plain tiresome. I just stop this rant at this point and ask you to continue it on your own behalf if you will.

Turtle rescue

• http://www.seaturtlefoundation.org/
• http://turtles.bequia.net/
• http://www.seaturtlehospital.org/
• http://tatturtlesanctuary.com/
• http://www.turtlerescues.com/
• http://ottawaurbanturtlesanctuary.ca/

Visit more places online even http://bit.ly/turtle_sanctuary

In 2010, a pregnant Holstein cow escaped her pen during the California State Fair. State Fair police chased the frightened animal down in a large SUV. They shot her multiple times, killing her. The cow was part of the Nursery Exhibit, in which heavily pregnant cows, pigs, sheep, and goats give birth in front of an audience … READ MORE ABOUT THIS CASE AND PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION.

By living out this attitude and worldview of: “subject the earth to your will and exploit it to your needs”, nonhuman animals are automatically put either into the position of being degradable and exploitable, subjectable, or they are seen as parasitical, just barely allowed to enter the human garden eden, so one could say.

This is a long subject and it came to my mind quite clearly today … ,so, well I wanted to quickly note it down. I am gonna write more about this angle of homocentrism later, of course.

Homocentrism makes blind to perspectives that don’t serve the “human interest”.

The human continuum with its cultural values is not necessarily one, and can’t necessarily be unified with its diverseness.

Every individual has the right to hold her or his own views.

Thus I can be for Animal Rights INASMUCH as I can be for Human Rights, for example.

No philosophical school can propose me their argumentation as valid IF it asks me to see nonhuman animals other than I see them now as an Animal Rights person.

Philosophy should stay out of attributing different “life forms” with their labels of value or meaning.

Otherwise philosophy becomes as bad as how religions function – as doctrines based on belief. Homoncentrists believe that nonhuman animal life matters less than human life,  and they believe that the world relevant to nonhuman animals and the systems meaningful to nonhuman animals life must not be regarded as a complete world in its own rights in their own terms.

It seems to be enough today to eat veggies for a day or adopt the vegan or vegetarian lifestyle for a period of time and then go round pose as a post-vegan informer of a real truth about “meat”-eating or hunting or any other speciesist and non-vegan-compatible action.

When we think about the ideally vegan world, with a vegan society, and I really mean a society with society here, then we don’t think about the ideology of speciesism and how that is installed in our societies, most likely anywhere today on the globe.

Veganism is a moral education to some extent, but morals don’t create legally binding rules.

If human rights were dependent on the moral understanding of people alone, we’d still have torture and killing all around pretty much I think. We as ethical vegans should not overlook the dangers of speciesism. When we ask people to go vegan, we should bear in mind that the “habit” of “meat”-eating didn’t start just because the humans of the past just happened to be speciesist. The human past evolved from being speciesist to still being speciesist exactly on the grounds of held views, beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, philosophies.

Changing the lifestyle only does not go deep enough. One or more thousand years of deeply embedded ways of thinking within a society have to be changed, both on the individual and on the societal level. And the tragic thing with speciesism is, that humans built their understanding of what humanity means mainly on the basis of considering nonhuman animal life as a “lower” life form in a comparative measure to their own life form of being > HOMO SAPIENS.

What we as ethically driven vegans are asking for is a revolution. This encompasses a change in behaviour most of all firstly, but inasmuch it needs a change in thinking – well of course! And that’s where the question about what that cult of flesh is sets in.

I recently had this short exchange on diaspora that I want to close this blog entry with. It’s about just some examples of vegans-turned-animalkiller.

this year is gonna be amazing. AR is strong and will get even stronger. Veganism is a must by now, yeah and even the moral “musts” take till they take over a world with 7 billion humans. This is no utopic talk, this is the evolution of revolution … .

A HAPPY AND CREATIVE 2012 TO ALL THE GOOD MINDED FRIENDS

First: preparing foods is an important part of learning about foods and their nutritional values.
Secondly, vegan foods should be affordable; a lot of those nice and tasty convenience foods tend to cost more than we should or can spend on our daily eating habits.

If we want to inform others about our vegan lifestyle, we should keep in mind that many people can’t spend tons of money on foods and we should gain ourselves and pass on an informed healthy eating plan.

I myself just started a recipe site, mainly cos of the reason that I want to spread the idea of understanding vegan cooking as something basic and healthy in it’s very straight and pure form.

Learning how to use herbs and spices, using staple foods to get the right nutritional benefits that a vegan diet should ideally entail. Learning about how to prepare foods in a reasonable way, that’s what i think needs some focus.

My recipe site is in German (the link to it is on the right sidebar), but maybe some of you guys get the idea also and share it.

Finally:

some people think they should put as much money as possible into supporting vegan products and companies. Sure, but supporting sanctuaries still ought to have the highest priority before anything else.