Speciesism: Left Out Of The Left Forum? Mickey Z.

Photo credit: Mickey Z.

Mickey Z. -- World News Trust

April 17, 2013

“Your old road is rapidly agin'/Please get out of the new one/If you can't lend your hand/For the times, they are a-changin'”

- Dylan

In 2010, I was part of an animal rights (AR) panel at the Left Forum (LF). To the best of my knowledge, this was one of the first -- if not, the first -- AR panels ever presented at the typically speciesist LF.

Also to the best of my knowledge, no such panel appeared in 2011 or 2012 but this year -- as the LF moves to a weekend in June -- I was surprised to receive an invitation to appear on panel called “Animal Liberation and Social Justice.”

As I strongly dislike appearing on panels in general and speaking at events with a mandatory entrance fee in particular, I had mixed feelings. But, knowing how the Left is still consciously and inexcusably ignoring reality on these issues -- even in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy -- I said “yes.”

Almost immediately came the news that: a) we were given a tentative time slot of 11 a.m. on Saturday, June 8; and, b) panelists also have to pay the entrance fee of $35 (or $20 for low income). For the record, I have no recollection of paying such a fee in 2010 but perhaps the panel organizer took care of this and didn’t tell me?

This situation got me wondering if the evening plenary speakers -- “stars” like Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, and Cornel West -- also have to pay to give the same old speeches and if Moore would be waiving any or all of his hefty speaker’s fee.

I contacted the organizer of the AR panel to let her know that I was “quite uncomfortable with all this.” Hey, I told her, if I had the chance to present this material (translation: if I had the chance to not tell the paying audience what they already know) at an evening plenary, sure, I might even do a fundraiser to pay for such an opportunity.

But instead, as I wrote, “We’re being asked to pay for the right to present crucial information. And we’re hoping that some non-converted lefties opt to pay to be indoors on a June Saturday at 11 a.m. and choose our panel out of the dozens of other options.”

I summed up by sharing an idea suggested to me by a fellow activist: let’s create a free, outdoor “Left Out Forum.”

After a couple of days, I received a reply simply informing me I had been replaced on the panel.

So, now my voice (and message) will not be heard at all at the LF while the usual suspects flaunt their speciesist privilege to an adoring -- and paying -- crowd.

Noam Chomsky
When I interviewed Chomsky in 2011, I talked about the concept of addressing the looming ecocide by downsizing industrial culture, to which he replied: “I don’t think that entails downsizing industrial culture. Rather, converting it to sustainable form to serve human needs, not private profit. For example high speed rail and solar technology do not downsize industrial culture.”

MZ: When I say “downsizing industrial culture,” I’m suggesting that any lifestyle based on relentless resource extraction is by definition, un-sustainable. So, I would counter that “serving human needs” is partly what got us in this mess in the first place. Considering that 80 percent of the forests have been destroyed and 90 percent of large fish in the ocean are already gone, maybe we need a more holistic perspective on “needs”?

NC: I’d still give the same answer. Human needs are served by a sustainable lifestyle, almost by definition, if humans include coming generations. And a shift to such technologies as high-speed rail instead of maximizing fossil fuel use, and solar energy, is not “relentless resource extraction.”

MZ: I guess what I mean is: what about non-human needs?

NC: I’m not sure what you mean by “non-human needs.” A functioning eco-system is a human need. Are you thinking of the needs of non-human animals? Say beetles? They’ll probably survive whatever we do to the eco-system.

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(insert long, deep sigh here)

Cornel West
When he’s not busy making excuses for his “dear brother” Barack Obama, West finds time to selectively explain, “what it means to be a leftist”:

"If you are concerned about structural violence, if you’re concerned about exploitation at the workplace, if you’re concerned about institutionalized contempt against gay brothers and lesbian sisters, if you’re concerned about organized hatred against peoples of color, if you’re concerned about a subordination of women, that’s not cheap PC chitchat; that is a calling that you’re willing to fight against and try to understand the sources of that social misery at the structural and institutional level and at the existential and the personal level. That’s what it means, in part, to be a leftist."

While I agree with all the above, West is not kidding when he uses the phrase “in part” in the latest sentence. Just a few of the many, many words missing from West’s leftist definition: environment, land base, eco-system, extinction, animals, animal liberation, climate change, factory farming, speciesism, ecocide.

When asked for more specifics, the esteemed Dr. West demonstrated his ability to bob, weave, and evade, before settling on the oldest AR canard/bullshit excuse in history: "I love animals but I'm too busy helping humans to get involved":

"I think there is, for me, no doubt that the life of a human being does have more value than a life of an amoeba," says West. "I believe that the life of my mother has much, much, much more value than the life of a fly. That does not mean that we are justified in crushing other sentient creatures. It does not mean that we are justified in systematically exploiting the mammals and animals. But, we must be candid and frank about the degree to which the lives of human beings can, in fact, be justified as having more value than the lives of certain other life forms. It is a hard question to you. We have to make hard judgments. They ought to be self-critical judgments that are open to revision. But, when there is so many fellow human beings, 1 billion living on one dollar a day, 2 billion living on two dollars a day, we cannot downplay their plight even as we support other life forms and attempt to protect other life forms, be they whales, be they penguins, be they dogs, or cats. The balancing of the animal rights movement with the human rights movement is a crucial one, and even the animal rights movement has to make certain kind of judgments about a variety of different life forms on the globe. The question is how to become ecumenical, to support as many life forms as possible without losing sight of the dignity of human beings."

Michael Moore
Moore is the a speciesist and damn proud it.

Around the time his film Bowling for Columbine was released, he publicly expressed his support for hunting: “When I was a kid [the NRA] was a gun safety and sporting organization that had a good purpose. It taught kids how to responsibly use rifles and shotguns for hunting.”

In his book, Dude, Where's My Country, Moore demanded we stop "carrying on about milk, no matter how bad it is for you.” Elsewhere in that book, the noted Democrat opined:

• "Animals don't have rights."
• "Humans need protein, and lots of it."
• "Put down those sprouts and pick up a T-bone!"
• "Vegetarianism is unhealthy."

Yet Moore is the star attraction of the Left Forum while I get booted off a Saturday morning panel for asking obvious questions.

Left Out
The Left Forum, under the guise of challenging capitalism, charges its panelists and guests while its star speakers not only ignore the No. 1 source of human-created greenhouse gases, they go as far as mocking anything to do with it.

Meanwhile -- elsewhere -- celebrity environmentalists like Al Gore and Bill McKibben meticulously keep their critiques well within accepted societal parameters -- ever careful to evade any and all examination of systemic structures, speciesist tendencies, and yeah, the number one source of human-created greenhouse gases.

The famous Left, the old Left, the obsolete Left -- whatever you wanna call ‘em -- has been and remains absent on the essential issues of animal rights, veganism, and eco-defense. This blind spot is not just inexcusable. It’s suicidal.

It’s also an opportunity…

When high profile lefties inevitably falter, we can be reminded that change never grows from the top-down. We don’t need leaders. We don’t spokesmen. We damn sure don’t need the Left Forum.

All we need is to occupy new eyes and rediscover the subversive pleasure of thinking for ourselves.

Surrender the privilege of speciesism, embrace empathy for all sentient beings, and allow compassion to guide your choices.

#shifthappens

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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.

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