RE:Peter/Marcy/PETA ...

[Guest guest]

Back in the mid to late 19th century, some of the people fighting to

end slavery, allow women to vote, adopt a vegetarian diet, and

promote peace did see connections between emancipation, woman

suffrage, vegetarianism, and peace. The groups' memberships

overlapped.

 

I think that is true today as well, that once someone begins to

question the givens of their place and time, the questioning opens

their minds to related issues and enables them to see connections

between and common root causes of oppression and injustice and

exploitation.

 

I think that is why PETA, for instance, often rubs people the wrong

way: it tends to take a toddler/adolescent/immature point of view

that everything is black/white, right/wrong, us/them. Rather than try

to make connections or build bridges or forge relationships, it just

acts out and throws tantrums. It wants attention, it doesn't care

what it has to do to get attention, and it denies that it has ever

done anything wrong because it's oblivious to any collateral damage.

It's unfortunately a common stance of powerful interest groups these

days -- fundamentalists, certain governments...

 

 

At 8:10 PM +0100 7/24/07, metalscarab wrote:

>Hi Anouk

>

>Some fine points. I don't recall seeing any adverts from Amnesty

>International which commodify women, or any other human rights

>organisations.

>

>You've also reminded me of a comment on the Reclaiming Principles of Unity

>(basically a document which defines what those who identify with the

>Reclaiming tradition of Paganism believe): " Our feminism includes a radical

>analysis of power, seeing all systems of oppression as interrelated, rooted

>in structures of domination and control. " Sadly not everyone in Reclaiming

>extends that to animals, but some of us do! :-)