Instead of merely posting status updates on Facebook, I am now posting each apothegm, thought, observation, and witticism, here, as a Thought Of The Day.
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Today’s Thought:
Overturning Citizens United will do nothing more than return political bribery to 2010 levels. We need to ban private financing of campaigns and gifts to public officials. We need public campaign financing to wrest control of government from special interests. So long as Wall Street, the military-industrial complex, Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Pharma, etc, are able to bribe presidents, governors, and legislators, the oligarchy will rule the country.
Author’s Notes:
• I am unaware of any other blog with the Armory’s mission of radicalizing the animal movement. I certainly hope I am not alone, and that there are similar sentiments being expressed by comrades unknown to me.
If you know of other blogs dedicated to animal rights and the defeat of capitalism, please comment with a link.
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• Natasha Sainsbury, of Good Karma Graphic Design, has joined Armory of the Revolution as Editor, and is responsible for the transformation of the blog’s appearance. Visit and follow her blog V Kind.
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Armory of the Revolution 
Hi Roland,
I am confused by your comments in red below, in reference to the “radicalizing of the animal movement” and blogs dedicated to animal rights and the defeat of capitalism. Are you suggesting that animal rights groups are dedicated to the defeat of capitalism, or are those two separate topics? I am conservative and new to your blog, and not sure what your perspective is, or what you are trying to convey. Would you be kind enough to please clarify this for me?
Thank you very much!
Connie
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I am frequently asked why I am tying the fight for Animal Rights to attacks on capitalism.
Aren’t I making enemies of some who might otherwise join us?
Isn’t it a fool’s errand to try to end capitalism?
To answer those questions one must first appreciate the enormity of the problem faced by the Animal Rights movement. We are witness to an Animal Holocaust that is almost beyond comprehension. A billion animals per week die in slaughterhouses. Billions more die in the holds of factory ships, in laboratories, in nets, and millions are strangled, shot, trapped, bludgeoned, stabbed, poisoned and electrocuted.
Almost all of those are killed for profit.
Capitalism rewards cruelty and death. Businesses make money from animals. Meat, eggs, dairy, fur, leather, and animal entertainment (circuses, zoos, rodeos, aquatic parks, horse racing, dog racing, bullfights, canned hunting), as well as breeding domestic animals, the exotic pet trade, vivisection, etc.
The goal of the Animal Rights movement is to end the Animal Holocaust. A goal none of us will live to see occur. An end to animal agriculture would be required: an end to slaughter. Such an achievement is a hundred years away, if not centuries. And even then it can only be accomplished if we rid the world of the economic system which rewards and encourages the exploitation of animals: Capitalism,
In the short term, we may succeed in stopping whaling, sealing, banning puppy mills, kill shelters, horse slaughter, elephant and rhino poaching, etc, but unless we dismantle capitalism, 99% of animal cruelty, exploitation, and murder will continue unabated.
None of us in the Animal Rights movement expect to see capitalism end any time soon. That doesn’t mean an end to capitalism should not be a critical part of our long term agenda.
It surely must be.
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I’ve actually never understood how this ‘bribery’ thing works. Is it enforced by law that they HAVE to repay the favor somehow? To me, as an example, it would seem to be non-vegan to NOT accept a bunch of money from Big Ag if it’s stupid enough to offer it to me. Taking money away from their efforts to exploit, abuse and murder animals, and instead putting it towards efforts to help animals, to put it directly *against* Big Ag, would seem to be doubling down on the vegan mandate, and even poetically just.
Big Ag: Here, have a bunch of money. We’ll scratch your back, you scratch ours.
Me: Sure, sounds good! *Takes all the money.*
Big Ag: Hey, shoot down this bill that would obstruct our ability to oppress and kill animals.
Me: Nope.
Big Ag: But we gave you all that money!
Me: Yeah, how stupid do you feel now for that? Now I’m going to run a campaign to expose and destroy you with your own money. With enough left over to bomb your head office. With your own money. Fuck you.
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They wouldn’t give you any money in the first place! Lol!
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Wouldn’t that make having an anti-bribery policy pointless then? If accepting money doesn’t cause people to become corrupt, but simply reveals that they were already corrupt and known by the oligarchy to have already done them favors in the past? Since such people are already corrupt, they are going to be corrupt anyway, and such a policy will not prevent them from being corrupt but simply hide the evidence of their corruption, thus making it harder to detect and subsequently dispatch them.
It’s also a redundant policy for non-corrupt people, since they would never be offered a bribe in the first place. And even if they were offered money, it’s only a bribe if they actually give them something in return, which they are under no obligation to do, and would not do if they were not corrupt. In fact, I would imagine that the opposite would be true.
I don’t understand what money has to do with moral obligations and doing what you know is right, etc. It’s irrelevant how much money someone gives you, it doesn’t change the moral facts in the least and so cannot influence your decisions unless all you care about is money in the first place. And in that case, you would just take under the table bribes and continue doing other various corrupt things anyway, without a second thought. The bribes aren’t causing the corruption and bias, the corruption and bias are causing the bribes.
The notion that absolutely everybody somehow loses their mind and becomes a brainwashed zombie if someone else gives them money seems nonsensical to me. That everybody can be ‘bought’, and that means 100% of the time that EVERYBODY who receives a donation WILL be biased towards the donator in ALL circumstances… Somehow, by magic, I guess. Or some insane loophole in neurotypical human psychology that I am unaware of. Such a broad sweeping assumption can’t be true, and reflects a lot of bias and projection if you ask me. I personally feel zero sense of obligation to ignore logic towards anybody who does anything “for” me, and logical processes and facts themselves can’t be altered at all, by their very nature.
And unless some threat of violence or incarceration or something is directly forcing you to ‘repay’ something that was designated a gift, I can’t see why anybody ever would, and in my personal experience nobody ever has. In fact they do the opposite, intentionally going against your interests on principle so as to definitively assert that they aren’t influenced by your gifts. You’ve already got the money, for free, with no obligation to do anything in return. So you don’t, particularly if it goes against the ethical and logical mandate.
To me it seems like all such a policy does is hinder the detection of pre-existing corruption and prevent the morally obligatory thing to do (or at least the thing with the highest moral utility) which is to ‘accept’ a bribe from an evil oligarchy corporation etc, if ever offered (and if never offered, no need for such policies in the first place), and simply lie to them about pandering to their interests. Then you take some of their funding away that would otherwise go towards hurting animals and put it towards helping them instead. In effect, punish the corrupt for their corruption and naïve assumption that you would just do whatever they told you to just because they gave you some money.
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A specific example I am thinking of are the policies of the Humane Party and of Bernie Sanders not to accept donations from corporations. And I believe Bernie Sanders actually did receive one, but just sent it back along with a message to the effect of ‘nice try, but I can’t be bought’. Why not just accept the donation and send the same message? “Thanks for the money, dumbass. I still can’t be bought. You gave me cash for no reason.” Etc.
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Reblogged this on Species and Class.
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