This is a video recording of the talk I gave in the opening plenary panel at the US National Animal Rights Conference, on July 10, 2014. I was asked to speak on the meaning of animal rights, and I contrasted it to animal welfare, contextualized both in the setting of modern capitalism, and underscored the subversive and revolutionary nature of animal rights. I hope you enjoy it.
[…] By Dr. Steven Best […]
[…] Marino eventually would move on to other things, but she hasn’t. For example, Marino tried to get my recent talk about animal rights at the July 2014 AR2014 conference in LA canceled, and, after it was apparent […]
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Fuck this corrupt, omnicidal, nihilistic, corporate-controlled, fascist world-system; you don’t reform evil, you destroy it. Not a chance in hell to create a culture of life until we destroy the culture of death. Disease has consumed the entire body of civilization. We live among ruins, we inhabit a graveyard, an apocalyptic wasteland strewn with corpses, carrion, and zombies.
We need to focus like a laser beam on a grim truth: whatever the gains of a worldwide environmental and animal rights movements throughout the last four decades, they have nonetheless continued to lose ground in the battle to save biodiversity, to stop or even slow down the destruction of the rainforests, topsoil, coral reefs; to prevent ever-worsening resource wars; to end the blatant and open war and Holocaust against nonhuman animals; and to come to grips with the immanent catastrophe of climate change in our minds let alone our policies and actions.
From Athens to Paris to Brazil, there is growing realization that politics as usual just won’t cut it anymore. We will always lose if we play by their rules rather than invent new forms of struggle, new social movements, and new sensibilities. The defense of the earth requires immediate and decisive action: logging roads need to be blocked, driftnets need to be cut, and cages need to be emptied. But these are piecemeal and reactive measures, and in addition to these tactics, radical movements and alliances must be built that unites struggles on behalf of humanity, nonhuman animals, and the earth in a politics of total liberation.
Resistance is the oxygen of the future. Live to resist, resist to live.
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Reblogged this on Fahrenheit 451 Used Books and commented:
Progressive Books & Blogs fah451bks.wordpress.com
Right On Dr. Best!
Applauding loudly. Steve you are a mensch.
Excellent, as ever, and brilliant communication skills – you don’t frighten people away, and definitely hold their interest and prompt further thought. A lot of people have commented on this talk and I just wish that they would voice those positive comments here. The ‘truth’ is out there Steve. And is in alignment with yourself!
I speak as I find and have found Steve Best to be one of the most sincere, dedicated and effective activists I have met…
This talk is a clear and perfect example of your brilliance and passion.
Your work speaks volumes and is invaluable to a world in total crisis. You are a gem! May you always continue on your journey of bringing the truth to light. I am so proud and honored to know you, you inspire me everyday.
Your speech as always was powerful and enlightening.The dedication,kindness,sympathy,tenderness and courage you have for the helpless leave a deep sacred impression in my soul
Steve, you deserve a medal – nay, ten. In the “first” world country of Australia, thousands of kangaroos are slaughtered every night and joeys in the pouch are bashed or stomped on. Joeys at foot who escape, die of cold or starvation or are devoured by wild dogs.
Australia’s diabolical trafficking in live animals is a horrendous nightmare and a cause for insomnia. Livestock exported to the Middle East and South East Asia are tormented and tortured. Any critter than can hobble aboard the ships that fly the flags of convenience and spew filthy bunker fuel across the oceans, are cash cows for sadists.
Some 2.6 million critters have been dumped overboard, unable to endure passage on the high seas. In the destination countries, eyes and flanks of hapless animals are stabbed, tails broken and electric prods shoved up the anuses and on the genitals of bellowing beasts. Meanwhile mobs run amok, salivating, jeering and baying for the blood of terrified critters. This atrocity is a state-corporate crime against animals and an unwitting public that was duped for some three decades yet the carnage continues. All hail to the whistle-blowers though they remain impotent in the face of evil. I am truly ashamed to call myself an Aussie.
http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/revealed-the-real-conditions-on-live-export-ships/
http://banliveexport.com/investigations/
Shed tears of inspiration at times, got up and shouted at other times. You’re the most prescient intellectual of our time, fuck Chomsky or Hedges, you’re on the boat.