Zoo Chimp “Santino” Makes Elaborate Human-Like Plots to Attack Humans

By Jennifer Viegas

Santino, a male chimp at a Swedish zoo, plays it cool before launching his surprise attacks on human visitors

“Santino,” a male chimpanzee at Furuvik Zoo in Sweden, is devising increasingly complex attacks against zoo visitors.

At first Santino was famous for throwing rocks and other projectiles at visitors who annoyed him. Now he has improved his technique, which requires spontaneous innovation for future deception. Researcher Mathias Osvath, lead author of a paper about Santino in PLoS ONE, explained what the clever chimp did:

“After a visitor group had left the compound area, Santino went inside the enclosure and brought a good-sized heap of hay that he placed near the visitor’s section, and immediately after that he put stones under it,” Osvath said.

“He also appeared to have placed projectiles behind, just before he went in after the hay. After this, he sat down beside the hay and waited. When the visitors came back, he waited until they were close by and, without any preceding display, he threw stones at the crowd.”

Santino calmly collected and fashioned missiles to hurl at zoo visitors

Osvath, who is the scientific director of the Lund University Primate Research Station Furuvik, and colleague Elin Karvonen noticed the behavior while studying the elderly chimp, who is the dominant male in his exhibit at the Swedish zoo.

The calculated surprise attacks on visitors demonstrate very advanced thinking usually only associated with humans.

Osvath said, “What is interesting is that he made these preparations when the visitors were out of sight, and also that he incorporated innovations into the behavior.”

“What makes this a bit special is that he actually had not experienced before what he seemed to anticipate,” Osvath added. “He, in a sense, produced a future outcome instead of just preparing for a scenario that had previously been re-occurring reliably.”

The researchers believe that the recombination of previous experiences coupled with innovation “is a good sign of the rather sophisticated foresight abilities in chimps.”

Santino has started a war with nosy tourists.

This comes very close to what is known as “theory of mind,” which is the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others, and to understand that others have thoughts, desires and more that are different from one’s own. Empathy, deception (as for Santino) and other qualities usually only reserved for humans can be linked to this process.

In terms of why the chimp wants to bother human zoo visitors, Osvath said that’s nothing new.

“A lot of great apes, especially dominant males, throw stuff at people at zoos,” he said. “And I would think that this is something that comes naturally to them when performing their dominance displays. These are often aimed at making other apes move out of the way and, in effect, accept him as the boss.”

“Humans at zoos don’t move out of the way, unless they get thrown at,” he continued. “Some apes throw sticks or feces, but Santino doesn’t have access to any good-sized sticks, and he really dislikes putting his fingers on gooey stuff, including feces.”

After observing the chimp for days, the scientists also suspect that Santino just also “finds it fun” to bug humans. He even appears to target certain people that perhaps really get on his nerves. The attacks are all the more successful because Santino plays it cool, holding back on posturing before whipping out the stone or other projectile.

Some of the stones which Santino the chimp used.

Michael Huffman of Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute has also studied chimp stone throwing, which he believes “may serve to augment the effect of intimidation displays.” He further thinks that research on the behavior could shed light on the evolution of stone tool use in humans.

Osvath additionally believes that the phenomenon taps into “one of the hardest questions in science: how matter (in this case the brain) can appear to be influenced by something that does not exist (the future). This is far from trivial.”

The Revolutionary Implications of Animal Standpoint Theory

by Steven Best

“Mankind’s true moral test … consists of its attitude toward those who are its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.” Milan Kundera

The complexity of historical and social dynamics can only be adequately grasped from a plurality of perspectives. These include critical approaches such as Marxism, feminism, and critical race/postcolonial studies, and environmental determinism. To determinants such as class, gender, race, and geography and climate we must also add the decisive influence of animals on human history — or, rather, human-animal relations and interactions — such as become clear through use of the animal standpoint.

If we look at history from the animal standpoint — that is, from the crucial role that animals have played in human history and the consequences of human domination of nonhuman animals — we can glean new and invaluable insights into psychological, social, historical, and ecological phenomena, problems, and crises. I use the animal standpoint to shed new light on the origins, dynamics, and development of dominator cultures and dysfunctional power systems that structure our relationships to one another, to other species, and to the natural world in hierarchical rather than complimentary terms.

Animal standpoint theory looks at the crucial role animals play in sustaining the natural world and shaping the human world in co-evolutionary relations with human beings. While animals have played a crucial positive role in shaping human psychology and social life, they have not always been willing partners. Yet even though human domination of animals is a negative phenomenon, it is nonetheless equally if not more profound and a determinant force in history. A main thesis of animal standpoint theory is that animals have been key shaping forces of human psychology, social life, and history overall, and that in fundamental ways, the domination of humans over animals underpins the domination of humans over one another and of humans over nature.

This approach stresses the systemic consequences of human exploitation of animals, the interrelatedness of our fates, and the profound need for revolutionary changes in the way human beings define themselves and relate to other species and the earth. While useful results have come from the arid scholastic field of “animal studies,” I am not interested in the sterile theory-for-theory’s-sake approach, but rather in mining new histories and theories for their practical implications and can revolutionize human existence. Unlike the largely apolitical field of “human-animal studies,” the animal standpoint is no more “neutral” or “objective” in relation to animals than Marx’s work was toward the working class or the Frankfurt School’s critical theory was to oppressed and suffering peoples. It is an ethically and politically engaged viewpoint that condemns the exploitation and slaughter of animals, and promotes the total emancipation of animals from all forms of human enslavement and domination, which demands revolutionizing  capitalism and dismantling, hierarchical societies, and dominator cultures. The animal standpoint is vital to a total liberation politics that promotes human, animal, and earth liberation as inseparably related struggles that need to unite against common enemies such as capitalism and the state. It advocates an alliance politics in which different radical movements work together toward the positive goal of shifting the dominant paradigms from hierarchy to equality, from growth to sustainability, from alienation to harmony, and from violence to peace.

This essay explores the animal standpoint in three different dimensions: (1) for the light it sheds on historical dynamics, the origin and development of dominator cultures, and current global, social, and ecological crises; (2) for its power to undermine speciesism, advance egalitarian arguments and liberation ethics, and debunk persistent myths in the inherent goodness of human nature; and (3) for its ability to expose the speciesist logic of pacifism and validate militant direct action tactics in defense of animals and the earth.[1]

 

Update on Camille Marino: Crossing the Rubicon

Defying Wayne State University ban against setting foot on campus property, May 2,2012

Sunday May 6th, 4 pm

I just talked to Camille on the phone and wish on behalf on myself and her to convey the following:

She is fine, despite having endured great deprivation that includes denying her necessities such as vegan food (she was given 1 to 2 peanut butter&jelly sandwiches a day), reading material, and glasses. She was released the other day only to be re-arrested while they cooked up other charges against her. They are not only throwing the proverbial book at her, but the entire 100 volume series, and she is now facing charges that could earn her 10 years in jail! Repression has reached a point one faces less penalty working in the underground! She is, however, expected to be bailed out tomorrow and free until her next trail hearing.

That said, we both wish to underscore this: The charges against her for making threats against O’Leary are flimsy and weak. The real “threat” she makes is only in her legal mode of activism. This harsh state reaction is to be expected; this is a war, with the state and animal exploitation complex on one side and animal activists on the other.  The stakes are nothing less than the future of the planet. Vegans and animal liberationists are vital to any chance we have of winning this war, whether humanist pseudo-progressives or even vegans and animal activists themselves realize it or not.

Part of the war is a psychological war of intimidation, but she is not intimidated and it is CRUCIAL that we are not either. Everything Camille has done to advance the cause of animal liberation, anti-vivisection, and freedom of speech will be squandered to the extent anyone reacts with fear to the state repression targeting her, and grows more timid rather than emboldened.

This fierce repression is the inevitable consequence of effective activism that threatens a multi-billion dollar industry that depends on the slavery and death of hundreds of millions of animals. There are few foes more powerful than the pharmaceutical and vivisection industry, especially when backed by the coercive apparatus of the state. Camille has defiantly and single-handedly taken this on in a way few have dared to do, and we must draw from her courage, inspiration, and example. We must continue to support her morally and financially, as her legal fees continue to mount, and we must all escalate, not scale back, our own activism and battles.

There is no easy way to animal liberation other than through the brick wall of state repression. We must cross the Rubicon. Camille and countless other activists have already done so, and are waiting for us all on the other side. Their hand is extended to help us; grab it and leap to the other side, leaving your fears behind.

Camille Marino Support Page

Sybelle Foxcroft: Activist Extraordinaire Fighting on the Front Lines of Species Extinction

One of my favorite activists ever is Sybelle Foxcroft, who lives in Melbourne, Australia. Sybelle is a fearless defender of animal rights, working specifically in the area of wildlife protection and education. She has done a number of amazing projects, including her expose of the cruelties Buddhist monks (!) inflict daily on the tigers imprisoned as spectacles in one of Thailand’s most popular tourist stops, Tiger Temple. She documented this farce and tragedy on film (for the first of many installments online, see here) and wrote a spellbinding book, entitled,  Behind the Cloak of Buddha: A True Story of Endurance.

Sybille runs an amazingly informative website, called cee4life, and she is currently involved in a hugely important project, whereby she blends diplomacy and no-bullshit accountability to force the huge paper company, Asian Pulp and Paper (APP), to adopt more sustainable and environmentally sensitive approaches to their hitherto unbridled exploitation of Sumatran rainforests. Those quick to denounce this as meaningless reform, collaborationism, or greenwashing do not know Sybelle Foxcroft, nor do they understand the realities of corporate exploitation of Sumatra’s rainforests enough to recognize a strategically sound strategy to salvage habitat and wildlife in this beautiful country. 

As Sybelle explains, by way of introducing a video she just shot that depicts the plight of ecosytems and animals in Sumatra: “There is a massive loss of species occuring around our earth. Something has to be done. One of the areas under severe threat is Sumatra. Deforestation is a major threat. APP has been under fire from large conservation orgs regarding their forestry practices. And while the big orgs and company fight, the critically endangered Sumatran Tiger, Elephant, Rhino, and many other species are being hunted on the ground. We must try something to save these animals. Cee4life met with APP. Here is a look into the areas of Sumatra, the animals, and the hope of implementing a protection area. If you want to save wildlife in these devastating times, you do what it takes to save them. Controversial, maybe from the human point of view, but from the animals, much needed help.”

Take the time to watch this fascinating video and to explore the great work this tireless and dedicated activist has done for animals throughout the world. Do all you can to support her vital work.

For Those Who Suffer: The Wisdom and Struggle of Friedrich Nietzsche

alternate link

Recommended:

Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil (video)

Earth Faces a Century of Disasters, Report Warns

The Guardian, April 25, 2012

World population will reach 9 billion by 2050

World population needs to be stabilised quickly and high consumption in rich countries rapidly reduced to avoid “a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills”, warns a major report from the Royal Society.

Contraception must be offered to all women who want it and consumption cut to reduce inequality, says the study published on Thursday, which was chaired by Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston.

The assessment of humanity’s prospects in the next 100 years, which has taken 21 months to complete, argues strongly that to achieve long and healthy lives for all 9 billion people expected to be living in 2050, the twin issues of population and consumption must be pushed to the top of political and economic agendas. Both issues have been largely ignored by politicians and played down by environment and development groups for 20 years, the report says.

“The number of people living on the planet has never been higher, their levels of consumption are unprecedented and vast changes are taking place in the environment. We can choose to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption … or we can choose to do nothing and to drift into a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills leading to a more unequal and inhospitable future”, it says.

At today’s rate of population increase developing countries will have to build the equivalent of a city of a million people every five days from now to 2050, says the report. “Global population growth is inevitable for the next few decades. By 2050, it is projected that today’s population of 7 billion will have grown by 2.3 billion, the equivalent of a new China and an India.”

But the sheer number of people on earth is not as important as their inequality and how much they consume, said Jules Pretty, one of the working group of 22 who produced the report. “In material terms it will be necessary for most developed countries to abstain from certain sorts of consumption, such as CO2. You do not need to be consuming so much to have a long and healthy life. We cannot conceive of a world that is going to be as unequal as it is now. We must bring the 1.3 billion people living on less than a $1.25 a day out of absolute poverty. It’s critical to slow population growth in those countries which cannot keep up with services.”

The report gives the example of Niger in West Africa which has increased life expectancy in the past 30 years but is doubling population every 20 years. “Even assuming its total fertility rate (Tfr) falls to 3.9 by 2050, which may be optimistic, the population will grow from 15.5 to 55.5 million by 2050. A future in which population increase outstrips the production of food and other necessities of life is a real possibility for Niger. It is difficult to see a bright future for the country without sharp reductions in fertility and population growth together with increased investment in health and education,” it said.

Most of the global population growth in the next century will come from the 48 least developed countries, of which 32 are in Africa, said Ekliya Zulu, one of the authors and president of the Union for African Population studies. “Taking Africa alone, the population will increase by 2 billion this century. If we fail and fertility levels do not go down to 2.1, (from 4.7 now) the population [there] may reach 5.3 billion. When we slow down population growth we empower women and provide more money for least developed countries to invest in education. The majority of women want fewer children. The demand to reduce fertility is there”, he said.

The authors acknowledge that it would take time and massive political commitment to shift consumption patterns in rich countries, but believe that providing contraception would cost comparatively little. “To supply all the world’s unmet family planning needs would be $6-7bn a year. It’s not much. It’s an extremely good investment, extremely affordable. To not provide family planning is an infringement of human rights”, said Sulston.

The authors declined to put a figure on sustainable population, saying it depended on lifestyle choices and consumption. But they warned that without urgent action humanity would be in deep trouble. “The pressure on a finite planet will make us radically change human activity”, said Pretty.

“The planet has sufficient resources to sustain 9 billion, but we can only ensure a sustainable future for all if we address grossly unequal levels of consumption. Fairly redistributing the lion’s share of the earth’s resources consumed by the richest 10% would bring development so that infant mortality rates are reduced, many more people are educated and women are empowered to determine their family size – all of which will bring down birth rates”, said an Oxfam spokeswoman.

Related News

“Civilisation faces ‘perfect storm of ecological and social problems’”

Paul Ehrlich on depopulation: “We’re going to go over the top” (audio)

Last Call at the Oasis — New Documentary on Global Water Shortage Crisis

Developed, financed and executive produced by Participant Media, the company responsible for AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, FOOD, INC. and WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN”, LAST CALL AT THE OASIS presents a powerful argument for why the global water crisis will be the central issue facing our world this century.

Illuminating the vital role water plays in our lives, exposing the defects in the current system and depicting communities already struggling with its ill-effects, the film features activist Erin Brockovich and such distinguished experts as Peter Gleick, Alex Prud’homme, Jay Famiglietti and Robert Glennon.

 

http://www.lastcallattheoasis.com/
https://www.facebook.com/lastcallattheoasis

Breaking News! Marino Defies Ban, Stages CD at WSU, Refuses To Be Silenced! (UPDATED)

NOTE: Updates posted at the end of this article

by NIO Michigan, May 2, 2012, 10:30 am

A campaign against Canine Killer Donal O’Leary has just kicked off on the Wayne State University campus where a protest is in progress at the Gullen Mall.

O’Leary is a “researcher” who buys dogs that have been rescued by pounds through Class B dealers and proceeds to mercilessly torture them to death. We are currently working on getting the Wayne County District Attorney to file criminal animal abuse charges against him.

In October, this vivisecting parasite had the courts issue him a Personal Protection Order against Camille Marino to compel her to remove his information from the NIO website and thereby surrender her First Amendment Rights. Marino was vocal in her disgust for him and, apparently, the judge in the case — who happens to be a Wayne State alum (!) — conspired with O’Leary to silence her. In conjunction with the PPO, Wayne State banned Camille from campus.

Please note that until they had her arrested at a University of Florida protest on February 4, jailed for a month, and extradited to Detroit in early March, she had never set foot in the state of Michigan. She has since been out on bond awaiting trial on June 18 where she will challenge three counts of criminal contempt. Her attorneys, Matt Savich and Michael Cafferty, will argue that the PPO was issued in violation of Marino’s First Amendment rights because her speech in question is Constitutionally-protected.

Queenie was tortured to death by Donal O’Leary

  

For Queenie (and the hundreds of other dogs tortured and betrayed by Wayne State University)

 In conjunction with our protest, Camille made a surprise appearance on the WS campus today and locked herself down to a building in bold violation of her bond and in active defiance of the Wayne State ban and the PPO. O’Leary has afforded her a degree of media attention and we all intend to fully exploit it and direct it squarely back at his blood-soaked visage and sociopathic “science.” Abusers fear exposure and we are all more than happy to provide it.

In a statement issued moments ago regarding her lockdown and rejection of a court order to stay off WSU campus, meaning probable imprisonment in Detroit until her court date six weeks away, Marino said:

“I am wholly aware of what I am doing and the potential consequences on my defiant actions. I enthusiastically assume whatever risk is necessary to tear down the walls of secrecy behind which abusers murder in peaceful anonymity. It’s time for activists to rise up and bring the war to the enemy’s doorsteps. It is time to disobey and defy unjust laws and stop tolerating the intolerable. It’s time to put words into action and our freedom and bodies on the line.”

When we are repressed and silenced, the only response is to escalate our struggle and to get louder. O’Leary wanted our attention and now he’s got it, along with more scrutiny and criticism of his heinous “research” than ever before.

UPDATES

 

“Banned animal-rights activist chains herself to campus library,” Detroit Free Press, May 2, 2012

“Animal Rights Activist Who Promotes Violence Arrested in Detroit,” May 3, 2012, Southern Poverty Law Center (More “progressive” blogging from the leftists you love to hate at SPLC. Donal O’ Leary is respectfully dignified as a serious “cardiovascular researcher” (rather than a serial dog murdered, sociopath, and pseudo-scientist) and Camille Marino is portrayed as a “terrorist” rather than champion of real science, animal liberation, and free speech. How typically pathetic reporting from the journalistic hacks and ideologues at SPLC, servants to their corporate-state masters and pimps for the FBI. Thank you Leah Nelson for more brilliant, professional, balanced, and unbiased reporting; your check from O’Leary and Big Pharma is in the mail).

Relevant Information:

Donald O’Leary, Sociopath, McCarthyite, and Serial Dog Killer

office phone: 313-577-9074; office email: doleary@med.wayne.edu

Alan Gilmore WSU president (office) 313-577-2230
WSU public relations: 313-577-2150 (email: mlockwood@wayne.edu)

Greenhill Update #2

Green Hell: Breeding Suffering and Death for Profit

On April 28, in Montichiari Italy, at 16: 15, in broad daylight, amidst a crowd of over 1,000 protestors, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) of Italy broke into the compound of Green Hill laboratory animal breeders and liberated 27 beagles. It was a bold, brazen, defiant, act; but it was also risky and dangerous. And while some (animal) prisoners were freed, other (human) prisoners were taken. To understand their motivation, one must understand the banality of evil that unfolds day after day, hidden from sight, in the grim buildings of Green Hill.

Green Hill breeders is owned by an American firm, Marshall BioResources. Marshall is the largest breeder of dogs for the vivisection industry in the world, and one of its standard “products” is the “Marshall beagle” Not known for compassion or mercy for the innocent and defenseless, beagles are singled out for sadistic violence by the vivisection industry precisely because they are so loving, kind, and docile. with the purchase of Green Hill as the European headquarters and the construction of a huge farm in China, Marshall is pursuing a plan of expansion and market monopoly.

"Marshall BioResources provides purpose bred beagles, mongrels, hounds, ferrets and Gottingen minipigs for biomedical research worldwide."

Green  Hill  is a facility that breeds dogs and other animals as the raw materials for vivisection laboratories to experiment on, to torture, and then to kill once their purposes have been served. Like every other breeder and supplier, Green Hill therefore prospers from misery and thrives on death. It exploits mothers to breed babies, which it then take away to torture and kill. Green Hill is the largest beagle breeding facility in Europe, and is currently estimated to have at least 2,500 adult dogs and countless litters of puppies-5,000 dog on site. The prisoners of Green Hill live in cages, row upon row, all enclosed in buildings devoid of open space, fresh air, and natural light. This is but a purgatory for the hell of laboratories awaiting them.

Each month more than 250 dogs are shipped to clients that include universities, pharmaceutical companies, and chemical testing giants including the notorious Huntingdon Life Sciences, one of the largest laboratory torture centers in Europe. As a special service to its customers, Green Hill will cut or remove the vocal cords of dogs so that vivisectors never have to hear the cries of their victims.

Another Victim of Vivisection: Medical Progress in the 21st Century

Blitz Green Hill!

On April 28, a 1000 people from across northern Italy converged on Green Hill, entering the compound after evading a cordon of police. Some activists had been there before, when, on October 14, 2011, a small group of Italian activists occupied the roof of the beagle delivery unit at Green Hill.

Occupation of Green Hill, October, 2011

Dozens of protesters broke through or climbed over a steel fence, entered the property, infiltrated one of the breeding kennels, and grabbed 1 adult female beagle and about 30 puppies. The dogs were handed over the fence to the loving hands of waiting comrades, to be taken to loving volunteer homes, creating one of the most remarkable pictures of resistance in some time. Some protesters stated, however, that “all the animals had a strong smell of urine, and one puppy about 8 months old, has an incision that runs the full length of his abdomen,” an obvious sign it had already been experimented on.

While the dogs were rushed away, police broke through the barricade of protesters and arrested 12 activists. On April 30, the Green Hill 12 were released, as they await trial for “robbery” and whatever charges the vivisection industry and state throws at them. For now, they have only been ordered to stay out of Montichiari for two years.

Police also recaptured 3 puppies, brought them to various stations, and called Green Hill to arrange their return to the hell from which they enjoyed only a brief reprieve. Green Hill, however, responded that they had no use for the animals, given possible contamination once removed from their isolation in sterile laboratory cages. It appears, however, that they did take the animals, who for all intents and purposes are again targeted for torture and death.

While speciesist institutions and the law may define animals as nothing but property and resources to exploit for any purposes, clearly the more than two dozen dogs shuttled out of Green Hill were liberated, not stolen, as they were no one’s to own in the first place. The only thieves in this scenario own, operate, and labor for the vivisection-industrial complex. This nefarious institution initiates life only to end it in death, it steals babies from mothers, it takes away every pleasure or satisfaction that is animals’ inherent right to enjoy.

A Watershed Action

Despite the arrest of a dozen activists, and return of 7 or so dogs to death row, it would be absurd to criticize the action of April 28, 2012 as a “failure, “counter-productive,” or even as “violent” (!) — as “animal advocate” victims of the Stockholm Syndrome and pacifists who speak in the voice of the State superego would argue (see for instance, the ignorance paraded on the HSUS Genesis Awards forum: (http://genesisawards.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=7833). Tell 27 dogs who will never again be tortured and will now come to know joy rather than misery, freedom rather than slavery, that the action was a “failure” or error. Tell it to the Green Hill 12, all of whom knew the risks they were taking and will now assume the responsibility, as they have also earned world respect and merit full and constant support.

No, the April 28 raid on Green Hill was a clear victory and qualitatively advanced the Italian direct action tradition a giant leap forward. More generally, along with amazing Chinese activists who repeatedly have stopped trucks carrying hundreds of dogs to the slaughterhouse in order to liberate their captives, they have inspired countless thousands of people throughout the world. All those involved in this action have put the resistance and fighting spirit back into the meaning of animal rights, which means those who advocate for animals have a solemn DUTY to actively LIBERATE them by any means necessary.

Italian liberationists have awoken a pacified movement which has lost its nerve and cowers in fear of state repression for advancing the general cause of freedom and the struggle for moral progress. They have shed a critical light on the vivisection industry and no doubt have raised consciousness of the horrors and fraud of animal experimentation to a worldwide audience of people blissfully ignorant of the suffering and death that goes into every product, noxious chemical, and drug tested for market sales. They have reminded us what it is to be bold, they have breathed life back into a moribund movement that the planet and all its life forms cannot survive without.

This Green Hill beagle is now safe and will never again be hated and tortured, only loved and comforted.

  

5 of the lucky puppies freed in the Green Hill rescue

Resources and Information

View pictures of the Green Hill action and liberated prisoners here and here.

View media video here.

View Italian newspaper coverage here, here, and here.

View US and other English language stories here and here.

For excellent coverage and updates, see the Occupy for Animals site.

For a partial list of animal advocacy groups and the recent history of animal rights/liberation actions in Italy, see here.

A.L.F FRONTE LIBERAZIONE ANIMALE ITALIA

Occupy Green Hill

Actions and Events

International Day of Action to Close Down Green Hill (Tuesday, May 8)

Support the ban on breeding vivisection animals in Italy (May 8)

Bohemian Passivism – A Critique of Ineffective Resistance

Slingshot, Issue #107

By Legion

For many radicals in the united states, creating an alternative subculture or lifestyle is the preferred choice of resistance to the effects of capitalism.* From greed to over consumption, from destruction of the environment to worker exploitation, a solution will occur with a simple process of alternative consumption or lifestyle. Daily consumers are convinced that where they spend their dollar counts in supporting various causes, or in not supporting others. I maintain this as a liberal (or, more precisely, the left wing of capital) option. Dropout culture, freeganism, veganism, bike culture and other personal boycotts of products still remain as supposedly essential to any resistance.**

The intention of these personal boycotts is to create resistance by not participating in the capitalist system. However, I believe this to be similar to other liberal concepts of change. Change is not something structural and based on generalized revolt, rather it is a result of conscientious consumption of alternative-looking products. Whether found in a dumpster or bought at a liberally conscious store, the same process is at work; consumption based on our current economy. You cannot buy capitalism away or garden it away — just as you can’t dumpster it out of existence, ride away from it on a bicycle, or compost it. Revolutionary change must be a qualitative shift in economic organization through generalized revolutionary consciousness and action, through revolutionary praxis.

All of these different ways of surviving within capitalism are not to be glorified or denounced. They are just ways to free up resources or relief of self-induced guilt. We need to use any resources we have and/or acquire to create resistance without limiting ourselves with consumer ethics (or lack of). These lifestyles can never be revolutionary because they rely on capitalism for their own existence.

Additionally, by focusing on alternative consumption habits within capitalism, one puts the blame of the problem on people who have no control of how those products are produced. Those who are simply trying to survive in this fucked up economic system and who couldn’t care less if they purchase X amount of product A or Y amount of product B. When we make judgments on others for their lack of cliquish boycotting, we are doing the work of capital to keep us divided in our resistance and focused on our consumption. This self-inflicted guilt is pacifying any real resistance beyond the constraints of ethical consumption. It is to the advantage of power and capital to have the blame diverted onto the working class, who have to buy fucked up products because they get shit for pay. It is important to live without guilt in personal consumption because the only choices we have are defined by capitalism. Until we bring some kind of revolutionary change, we will have no other choices. To think we have a choice is delusional.

Not only is boycotting non revolutionary, it is counter-revolutionary. It does nothing except obscure the many problems we face as it is structurally connected to an underlying whole. Due to a lack of theoretical commitment, our social confusion about what constitutes being radical and/or pro-revolutionary leads to our implicit assumption that we can have a consumer-driven revolution. There is no anti-capitalist negation in that sentiment and as such, it can only confuse potential militants away from revolutionary understanding. There are only two ways out of capitalism — revolution or death.

One may respond that a result of lifestyle boycotts is that you don’t have to work as much and, hence, are not producing the surplus necessary for capital reproduction. This is a problem because one does not take this position from a bird’s eye view. Not working is an impossibility for most people. Only a select minority can survive without working. This is not practical anti-capitalism, it is just temporary survival for a minority, with no threat to the whole problem of capital. Unless it is generalizeable (such as the case of generalized abandonment of work), it does not have the potential to cause structural change. Additionally, the surplus thrown out is nowhere near enough in volume to feed, clothe, or house the entirety of people. Most necessities must be produced, as they don’t materialize in dumpsters. That is why it will not sustain any type of revolt. This reality is often ignored by people in all likelihood because they secretly or unconsciously wish to keep the surplus for themselves, while living off the system and contributing less than average.

If this is the case, not only is alternative consumption misguided, it is actively co-opting any sort of actual resistance into a liberal understanding of the world, and potentially making the most militant of us into passive critics. This backs up our claim that alternative consumption and boycotting are not revolutionary and/or pro-revolutionary. They lead us into passivity with the system because we have found a nice escape. Just as the addict is able to coexist with daily misery, the radical is able to coexist with capital.

This passivity seems to have leeched into our lives where we reproduce the same behaviors and repeat the same seemingly-radical slogans while showing nothing of substance. Our easy survival off surplus production then contributes to our complicit apathy of the world. We forget in our privilege what we are against because we have no material connection to our suffering and exploitation, hence, the lack of need for struggle. Our very boycotting-as-struggle results in a boycott of struggle leading to pathetic notions of waiting for the “end” in whatever manifestation. To take the stance that pushing for anti-capitalist resistance and anti-hierarchical struggle is of no importance while waiting for the revolution and/or Armageddon and/or peak oil and/or global disaster and/or 2012, is a very privileged stance. We who are in prison, who are being deported, who are being shot, starving, suffering from mental illness, domestic violence, rent, bombs, torture, debt, assimilation, gentrification, rape, assault, houselessness, enslavement, etc. cannot simply wait idle for things to get better. To be passive to our oppression is to allow our world and its entire constituency — including ourselves, to be exploited, while apathetically waiting for some hypothetical end which may never come. None of us are free until all of us are free.

In conclusion, the best personal boycott that you can do is to kill yourself, and that won’t change anything.

In Death and Suffering,

We are Legion for we are everywhere.
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*For my purposes, I define capitalism as a specific stage in a commodity-producing society characterized by exploitation of those who work for wage-labor by the purchaser of their labor-power (or capitalist) selling the workers product/service for more than their wage. This mode of exploitation is the form of social surplus production/appropriation in capitalism. That surplus produced by the workers self-expands through re-investment in machines, factories, or other financial assets, taking over new industries and countries providing the system with the need for competition and perpetual growth. Everything else falls into place in attempts to maintain this from the existence of the state to contain revolutionary class conflict or brutally expand markets to the non-capitalist world through warfare to financiers simply moving around money while skimming off extra into their pockets. This is the current economic system of united states and the rest of the colonized world. This means I define capitalism as based off of work. It is necessary to add that I do not define capitalism as mere greed or the profit motive as many do. These are merely bad manners in which capitalism expresses itself.

**For this article, we will define important terms as follows in order to avoid arguing semantics and confusing, implicit assumptions.

Freeganism – The practice of buying less for whatever reason as a response against the harmful effects of capitalism through some subversive means such as primarily dumpster diving, minor theft, road kill diets, squatting, charities, alternative “green” transportation (biking, vegetable oil fuel, train hopping)

Dropout culture – Not wanting to participate in the ‘system’ and, consequently, buying less or looking for other means of survival ‘outside’ the ‘system’.

Veganism – Boycotting animal products and by-products for ethical, dietary, environmental, or any other reason.