The nonhuman animal advocacy movement is at a crucial crossroads where truly it is now do or die. In the early 1980s, a new animal rights movement glowed bright with potential; in just a few years, however, the light faded to black as corruption, opportunism, and bureaucracy snuffed out the promise of genuine change. As they evolved, it became increasingly obvious that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and other groups emulated the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to become corporate behemoths and mainstream machines. Increasingly co-opted and compromised, animal rights groups frequently worked with, rather than against, the exploitation industries in order to regulate, not eliminate, the ongoing nonhuman animal holocaust.
In the last decade, for instance, PETA pressured McDonalds, Burger King, and KFC to increase cage size and adopt ‘less cruel and more profitable’ slaughter methods, while HSUS aggressively campaigned for ‘humane meat’ and ‘cage-free eggs.’ These groups ultimately serve corporate exploiters’ interests and champion capitalist principles generally.
The author is Dr. Steven Best from the University of Texas at El Paso. His classes must be lots of fun.
Animal rights is inherently a more-extreme-than-thou pissing contest for religious fanatics, but there’s any number of legitimate causes that are repeatedly hijacked by “anti-capitalist” lunatics. Sometimes people actually want equality for blacks or gays, or clean water, and aren’t using those issues as pretexts to build a coalition of the disgruntled and implement communism. The left-wing activists who repeatedly try to take over every single movement to that end can easily forget that.
If you thought PETA was extreme, you haven’t heard what Steven Best has to say about “total animal liberation”.
“Let every motherfucker who shoots animals be shot; Let every motherfucker who poisons animals be injected with a barrel of battery acid; Let every motherfucking vivisector be vivisected and thrown away like the shit they are,” he wrote in 2011. “May this upside down world be set right … and the human voice never again be heard.”
While intimidating and threatening violence (excuse me, the Movement calls it "extensional self-defense) against animal researchers are tactics embraced by Best, it was a different story when he claimed a woman (and former ally) was stalking and threatening him.
*"In 1999, (Animal Liberation Front) activists became involved in the international Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) campaign to close Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe’s largest animal-testing laboratory. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors U.S. domestic extremism, has described SHAC’s modus operandi as “frankly terroristic tactics similar to those of anti-abortion extremists”.[67] ALF activist Donald Currie was jailed for 12 years and placed on probation for life in December 2006 after being found guilty of planting homemade bombs on the doorsteps of businessmen with links to HLS.[68] HLS director Brian Cass was attacked by men wielding pick-axe handles in February 2001, an attack so serious that Detective Chief Inspector Tom Hobbs of Cambridgeshire police said it was only by sheer luck that they were not starting a murder inquiry…
Also in 1999, a freelance reporter, Graham Hall, said he had been attacked after producing a documentary critical of the ALF, which was aired on Channel 4. The documentary showed ALF press officer, Robin Webb, appearing to give Hall—who was filming undercover while purporting to be an activist—advice about how to make an improvised explosive device, though Webb said his comments had been used out of context. Hall said that, as a result of the documentary, he was abducted, tied to a chair, and had the letters “ALF” branded on his back, before being released 12 hours later with a warning not to tell the police.[71]
In June 2006, the ALF claimed responsibility for a firebomb attack on UCLA researcher Lynn Fairbanks, after a firebomb was placed on the doorstep of a house occupied by her 70 year-old tenant; according to the FBI, it was powerful enough to have killed the occupants, but failed to ignite. The attack was credited by the acting chancellor of UCLA as helping to shape the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. Animal liberation press officer Jerry Vlasak said of the attack: “force is a poor second choice, but if that’s the only thing that will work … there’s certainly moral justification for that.”[72][73][74] As of 2008, activists were increasingly taking protests to the homes of researchers, staging “home demonstrations”, which can involve making noise during the night, writing slogans on the researchers’ property, smashing windows, and spreading rumors to neighbors."*
Not sure which organization he belonged to but I watched a documentary once about one of these radical animal rights groups that promoted killing people that hurt animals and they had an interview with a medical doctor that worked in an ER whose identity was kept secret and belonged to the organization. It was shocking hearing the doctor who saves human lives saying he would be willing to kill people that hurt animals.
If Dr. Steven 2nd-Best truly believes that the human voice should never be heard, he should start by silencing his own. Perhaps, permanently? His choice.