Copy Editing for Total Liberation (Until Every Cage is Empty) | Mickey Z.

Photo credit: Mickey Z.

Mickey Z. -- World News Trust

Feb. 13, 2013

Almost everywhere I look, I witness radicals and revolutionaries participating in, exploiting, and sanctioning the illusory privileges of speciesism.

For example, I was recently part of a panel of seven people, discussing climate change, fracking, tar sands, eco-defense, and more at a NYC event. Outside of a tangential reference to not being able to eat “mutated” fish, I was the only person -- all night -- that used the word “animals” in my presentation. The word “pizza,” however, was uttered by a fellow panelist -- without a hint of irony.

In the face of such denial and hypocrisy, I got the idea to perform some subtle copy editing on the following quotes and, well, just let ‘em sink in…

===

“Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everything is war.”
(Bob Marley)

Minor edit:

“Until the philosophy which holds one species superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everything is war."

===

“Visionary feminism is a wise and loving politics. It is rooted in the love of male and female being, refusing to privilege one over the other. The soul of feminist politics is the commitment to ending patriarchal domination of women and men, girls and boys. Love cannot exist in any relationship that is based on domination and coercion. Males cannot love themselves in patriarchal culture if their very self-definition relies on submission to patriarchal rules. When men embrace feminist thinking and practice, which emphasizes the value of mutual growth and self-actualization in all relationships, their emotional well-being will be enhanced. A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving.”
(bell hooks)

Minor edit:

“Visionary liberation is a wise and loving politics. It is rooted in the love of all beings, refusing to privilege one over the other. The soul of liberation politics is the commitment to ending speciesist domination of non-humans. Love cannot exist in any relationship that is based on domination and coercion. Humans cannot love themselves in speciesist culture if their very self-definition relies on submission to speciesist rules. When humans embrace revolutionary thinking and practice, which emphasizes the value of mutual growth and self-actualization in all relationships, their emotional well-being will be enhanced. A genuine revolutionary politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving.”

===

“I grew up in traditional black patriarchal culture and there is no doubt that I’m going to take a great many unconscious, but present, patriarchal complicities to the grave because it so deeply ensconced in how I look at the world. Therefore, very much like alcoholism, drug addiction, or racism patriarchy is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it. ”
(Cornel West)

Minor edit:

“I grew up in traditional speciesist culture and there is no doubt that I’m going to take a great many unconscious, but present, speciesist complicities to the grave because it so deeply ensconced in how I look at the world. Therefore, very much like alcoholism, drug addiction, or racism, speciesist is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it. ”

===

Of course, some words of liberation require only pronoun-related edits:

James Baldwin sez: “Whoever debases others is debasing himself.”

#shifthappens

Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.

© WorldNewsTrust.com -- Share and re-post this story. Please include this copyright notice and a link to World News Trust.