Confronting Capitalism: The New Politics of Animal Liberation (APV video)

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NonZeroSum
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Re: Confronting Capitalism: The New Politics of Animal Liberation (APV video)

Post by NonZeroSum »

DarlBundren wrote: Fri Apr 07, 2017 4:35 pmI am well aware of how industrial production works and I am sure her followers know a lot about the harms of capitalism too. What I would like her to do, though, is going beyond criticism and provide a solution to the problems she's talking about. She doesn’t.
She said in her talk, she supports the goals of the “Bernie Sanders campaign, the native lead movement at Standing Rock, the movement for immigrant rights and LGBTQ rights and the black lives matter movement”

Fairer taxes and supporting the middle class. Indigenous autonomy for different first nations to grant oil permits and others to not by their choosing, especially when it effects drinking water sources in which a majority non-native town had successfully lobbied for the pipeline to not run through their backyard. Fairer immigration controls and refugee quotas to have on board those people fleeing ISIS who can attest to their brutality and prevent further radicalization. Improved sex education and protection against LGBTQ discrimination. Police demilitarization, transparency and better training.

When Bernie was cheated out of the race, she put up an interview with a Humane Party supporter, to help make people aware of this vegan party they could lend critical support to, despite their shortcomings because it would be good to raise the platform of a third party explicitly for the animals in gov, potentially through strategic voting in safe states.

At the end of her “What do I think about a Resource Based Economy and TZM?” video she rejects ‘one size fits all’ prescriptive politics and talks about autonomous movements she likes that are taking abolitionist opportunities when they present themselves:
https://youtu.be/NEWfdYyVBYI?t=11m41s

She also said “…all the talks were around a common theme and we were sort of given the challenge to give a talk that addressed how times are changing and how like what this means for the vegan movement.” If you want to learn about specific intersectional animal rights groups like the ‘food empowerment project’ I would recommend “Intersections of Justice: Building an Inclusive Animal Rights Movement” by Christopher Sebastian:
https://youtu.be/VrlVQiSNNSs??t=15m43s
It's good that these arguments helped you to become a better vegan, man. I mean it. However, I think those ideas can be pretty damn dangerous too. Do we really need other guys like Zizek? Guys that are telling their (huge) audience that helping people is bad?
Because that is what they are saying: https://www.thersa.org/discover/videos/rsa-animate/2010/08/rsa-animate---first-as-tragedy-then-as-farce-

And it's not new. It's the age-old Marxist idea according to which improving the condition of the poor is helping the enemy, because, by being vegetarian and giving money to charities, we are delaying the revolution. To be honest, I'm surprised that A Privileged Vegan is vegan to begin with. I know some people who have used the same argument to justify their eating meat. I am glad she has taken a more moderate position.
That’s called slave morality, which is a pseudo-scientific universalist idea, which I know APV doesn’t believe in from their TZM video linked above, liberation theology has produced some positive results in Latin America though.

I get how that ethos would bother you, I’m constantly disappointed by the apathy I see when the two most unfavourable candidates in US history faced off, and in my friends when it came to Brexit and the last general election. An article from an academic Buddhist site I like visiting wrote in support of “the ensuing economic catastrophe [that] would greatly speed the radicalization of the increasingly impoverished majority.”

But there is also much to be said for Zizek’s critique of people buying moral complacency through ethical consumerism just as UV said and doing more harm than good in specific situations. He is not deriding the “. . .idiosyncrasy of some good guys [giving charity] here and there. . . I'm just saying that if all the cherished values of liberalism - I love them but the only way to save them is to do something more. . .” You’re still a shitty person if you don’t give to charity without doing that ‘something more’, he is just saying we’ve got locked into a system of moral complacency.

When I was doing solidarity work with refugees at the border I would see local people putting old jumpers in collection bins destined for Africa while African refugees were getting hypothermia sleeping rough on their own streets. [1][2] That’s an example of them doing their charitable lifestyle deed of recycling, without even realizing there were real people in their town they could lend solidarity to through organizations on the ground and form a real human connection in the process. [3][4]
2) I agree that ethical consumerism is not the most effective option we have got. Veganism is pretty good though.
Glad we can agree on that.

____________________

References:

1. An experience with solidarity activism
- http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3019&p=29886
2. Hypothermia in the jungle & squat raid in town
- https://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/hypothermia-in-the-jungle-squat-raid-in-town/
3. Charity or Solidarity?
- http://davidcharles.info/2015/06/charity-or-solidarity/
4. From “refugee” to “migrant” in Calais solidarity activism: Re-staging undocumented migration for a future politics of asylum:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241104502_From_refugee_to_migrant_in_Calais_solidarity_activism_Re-staging_undocumented_migration_for_a_future_politics_of_asylum
No Borders’ testimony strives to expose the “miscounts” which allow the discriminatory functions of border controls to pass unnoticed. I call this emphasis on “framing” a politics of spectacle, to contrast it with the humanitarian politics of providing sanctuary for those afflicted (see Darling, 2010). The spectacle is effectively an intervention into collective forms of ethos it throws into question a particular partitioning of the social, or boundaries between those who are allotted ethical responsibility, and those expected to gratefully receive it. In practice, this stance could not but affect No Borders’ own conception of their activism. Through dialogue with migrants activists confronted gaps between their own assumptions about politics for example, that migrants understood themselves as political activists, and would rather claim a borderless citizen-ship than a particular nationality. I consider the collaborative forms of politics resulting from these encounters a recount or a call for a continuous recount, since they attend reiteratively to the partiality of particular counts. This distinguishes the solidarity ethos as a set of habits of attention, and of action based on attention, which precede the attachment to a particular count. It is an ethic of ethical disturbance, which allots political listening to new priority over political speech.

Across the months I observed No Borders’ activity the practice of this tactic visibly altered the kind of testimony produced by the network. For example, activists experimented with using their bodies to interrupt the perception of a scene making noise to make sure that the habitual arrest of migrants could not occur unnoticed; or standing by passively, constituting an audience to whom police must also be accountable. One instance was described by Nicole, an activist involved in producing alternative media about Calais: a raid on migrants was taking place outside an internet shop, just as a tourist “mini-train” stopped outside a nearby church. Whilst the riot police were “beating up” migrants, tourists continued taking pictures, apparently oblivious to the scene. Articulating her disbelief, Nicole reported that when she shouted people noticed, and began to protest themselves. She noted a growing conviction that the key element of solidarity activism is becoming “receptive”, and fostering a broader culture of receptivity. Rather than setting the political agenda, this ethos demands that individuals be moved by their experience, and allow this affectedness to address the norms inflecting shared ordinary reactions. Some described this tactic simply as “witnessing,” even suggesting that embodiments of witnessing might replace the humanitarian emphasis on testimony. A male interviewee, involved in planning initial visits to Calais used this term for the practice of following riot police to document, and where necessary intervene in, their interactions with the migrants. On one memorable occasion he states how:

Then some of us, with papers and light-coloured skin, were able to shout. This act of declaring one ’s presence at the scene – a “hey!” - is political according to Rancière, not in the sense of the content of the shout, for this would emphasis the No Borders activist as a political speaker. Rather it is political in that it addresses the framing of the scene, engaging the way that migrants’ speech is perceived only as noise by the police and wider public. The critical political point here is not, therefore, that the actions of No Borders’ activists “politicise” the actions and claims of migrants, but that such tactics address the conditions of speech and listening which constitute lines of separation between migrants, citizens and activists. This evidence forms of activism which not only challenge security practices for what they exclude, but which continually reconsider what is inside a collective ethos, or ethic of responsibility. It can be enacted by anyone; a No Borders activist, a migrant, a French citizen, but it speaks back above all to one’s own partisanship in relation to such categories. Further, such definition casts the solidarity ethos as an ethos of audiencing rather than of performing; a politics which calls the count of the situation itself into question, rather than re-presenting what has been counted out.
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DarlBundren
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Re: Confronting Capitalism: The New Politics of Animal Liberation (APV video)

Post by DarlBundren »

NonZeroSum wrote: Fairer taxes and supporting the middle class.

Improved sex education and protection against LGBTQ discrimination.

Police demilitarization, transparency and better training.
Those are all things that should be discussed. Any links?

NonZeroSum wrote:When Bernie was cheated out of the race, she put up an interview with a Humane Party supporter, to help make people aware of this vegan party they could lend critical support to, despite their shortcomings because it would be good to raise the platform of a third party explicitly for the animals in gov, potentially through strategic voting in safe states.
I am not sure if this is effective or not.
NonZeroSum wrote:But there is also much to be said for Zizek’s critique of people buying moral complacency through ethical consumerism just as UV said and doing more harm than good in specific situations. 
And I agree with that. But it's not enough to tell people to avoid moral complacency, especially if you then go on and give them your 'the worst slaveholders were those that were kind to their slaves' talk.
NonZeroSum wrote: When I was doing solidarity work with refugees at the border I would see local people putting old jumpers in collection bins destined for Africa while African refugees were getting hypothermia sleeping rough on their own streets. [1][2] That’s an example of them doing their charitable lifestyle deed of recycling, without even realizing there were real people in their town they could lend solidarity to through organizations on the ground and form a real human connection in the process.
The problem is that most people have a fixed 'quota of altruism'. If they give one dollar to the beggar down the street, they have probably done their good deed of the day. But, if you have a limited amount of help to give, you should question the effectiveness of your effort. And the truth is that your money would do more good if it were given to top-ranked charities http://www.givewell.org/

I know that this would not satisfy many of those who would like to help with their hands, but if you are neither a doctor nor a researcher, chances are that the best way for you to do good is through donations.

Let me add another thing. Personally, I would advise most people against being involved in face-to-face altruism. Most of us are pretty bad at dealing with such situations. I have touched upon that here: http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3045
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Re: Confronting Capitalism: The New Politics of Animal Liberation (APV video)

Post by NonZeroSum »

DarlBundren wrote: Sat Apr 08, 2017 9:07 amThose are all things that should be discussed. Any links?
Fairer taxes and supporting the middle class.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders_presidential_campaign,_2016#Economics
A cornerstone of Sanders's campaign was to fight the decreasing income of the middle class and the increase of wealth inequality:

"What we have seen is that while the average person is working longer hours for lower wages, we have seen a huge increase in income and wealth inequality, which is now reaching obscene levels. ... This is a rigged economy, which works for the rich and the powerful, and is not working for ordinary Americans ... You know, this country just does not belong to a handful of billionaires."
- Bernie Sanders

In July 2015 Sanders introduced legislation that would incrementally increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by the year 2020. On November 10, 2015, Sanders joined striking Senate cafeteria workers at a "Fight for $15" rally in Washington DC and voiced support for the movement.
Improved sex education and protection against LGBTQ discrimination.

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/news/2013/06/21/67411/lgbt-inclusive-sex-education-means-healthier-youth-and-safer-schools/
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/07/15/lgbt-sex-education-in-schools-could-lead-to-lower-hiv-rates-and-happier-students/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Kingdom

Police demilitarization, transparency and better training.

http://blacklivesmatter.com/find-chapters/
https://policy.m4bl.org/
https://policy.m4bl.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/End-Crimilization-of-Youth-Policy-Brief.pdf
https://policy.m4bl.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Demilitarization-of-Law-Enforcement-Policy-Briefs.pdf
https://www.joincampaignzero.org/#action
http://www.vox.com/2015/8/21/9188729/police-black-lives-matter-campaign-zero
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_Zero#Campaign
Campaign

Arriving on the heels of protests in Ferguson, New York, Baltimore, and elsewhere over cases of civilians being killed by police officers, Campaign Zero in August 2015 was launched as a "data-driven platform" with the goal of ending police brutality.[19][20] The same team had created the project MappingPoliceViolence.org four months prior, which tracked and mapped incidents of police violence.[21]

In November 2015, the campaign released its first research report, which examined the use of body cameras in police forces in 30 cities and the fairness, transparency, privacy, and accountability associated with body camera policies.[22] Data about the policies of 17 cities is maintained on a live spreadsheet.[23]

In December 2015, the campaign released a second report, a review of police union contracts in 81 cities, along with an associated campaign called "Check the Police" that seeks to mobilize activists to pursue changes in such contracts.[24][25] The report examined ways in which union contracts delay interrogations, allow officer personnel files to be erased, disqualify complaints, and limit civilian oversight.[26] An actively updated database of contracts and analysis is maintained by the campaign online.[27] In June 2016, the campaign continued its work on police union contracts with the release of its third report, "Police Union Contracts and Police Bill of Rights Analysis."[28] This report focused on use of force policies and evaluated protections in those policies for civilians.[28][29]

Reception

Because many of the policies Campaign Zero recommends are already in place in some police departments, Slate contributor Ben Mathis-Lilley has said that with the launch of its site, Campaign Zero "is saying to mainstream politicians: Here are some products that have been sold before—now do your job."[30] Harold Pollack has stated that the document in which the campaign announced its proposals is "a very useful and professional document", and that certain proposals it made, such as increasing police diversity and reducing the use of monetary punishments to raise revenue, seemed "particularly smart."[3]

On January 19, 2016, it was ranked as one of 20 tech insiders defining the 2016 United States presidential election by the staff of Wired.[31]
DarlBundren wrote: Sat Apr 08, 2017 9:07 amThe problem is that most people have a fixed 'quota of altruism'. If they give one dollar to the beggar down the street, they have probably done their good deed of the day. But, if you have a limited amount of help to give, you should question the effectiveness of your effort. And the truth is that your money would do more good if it were given to top-ranked charities http://www.givewell.org/

I know that this would not satisfy many of those who would like to help with their hands, but if you are neither a doctor nor a researcher, chances are that the best way for you to do good is through donations.

Let me add another thing. Personally, I would advise most people against being involved in face-to-face altruism. Most of us are pretty bad at dealing with such situations. I have touched upon that here: http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3045
I feel like we're more or less saying the same thing, I just think you’re discounting the non-zero sum relationships of solidarity on both parties when community building e.g. supporting your community allotment as a green space good for the environment and your mental and physical health.

Donating to your voluntary food bank because you’re aware from friends and later news reports of them going out of stock due to government cuts on welfare, before it made it on any top-ranked charity list.

Some of this stuff is knowing the best way to give to charity, like not sending a jumper that costs more money and fuel to transport than you could pay for a locally produced jumper in that country. But other than that, it is a decentralized knowing where the greatest problems are in your own community and making it better.

As for not being a doctor or a researcher, I'm a big supporter of science 'gamifying' some of it's problems to citizens when it's over-saturated with data that even the best computer programmer cant manage. That and more environmental research eco-tourism possibilities e.g. to have volunteers involved in collecting data on sea-turtles and ways to protect their eggs.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8zVkVNs49Y&t=105s
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Re: Confronting Capitalism: The New Politics of Animal Liberation (APV video)

Post by DarlBundren »

Thanks for the links. I don't want to derail the thread, so if we want to talk about that stuff, we should probably start another one.
Donating to your voluntary food bank because you’re aware from friends and later news reports of them going out of stock due to government cuts on welfare, before it made it on any top-ranked charity list.

Some of this stuff is knowing the best way to give to charity, like not sending a jumper that costs more money and fuel to transport than you could pay for a locally produced jumper in that country. But other than that, it is a decentralized knowing where the greatest problems are in your own community and making it better.
Donating to food banks is generally fine, since most of that food would not make it to Africa anyway. The same could be said for donating blood or leafleting. It's not always like this, though. Sometimes you have a choice to make. You can benefit people in the poorest countries of the world by about 100% the amount by which you could help people in Europe or the U.S. Not only people in the latter countries are richer, but the same amount of money is far more effective in other, poorer places. What we should focus on, that is, is the expected impact achieved per dollar/time. If you don't have much money, for example, (in addition to being vegan) you could promote effective altruist ideas on social media But, if you have some money to spend, then you should consider something like the Against Malaria Foundation.The cost to purchase and distribute a long-lasting insecticide-treated net is only $4.35 in Malawi. That's cheaper than a cheeseburger in my country. So if you have to choose between giving someone a cheeseburger or giving that amount of money to the AMF, I think it's pretty clear what you should do.
As for not being a doctor or a researcher, I'm a big supporter of science 'gamifying' some of it's problems to citizens when it's over-saturated with data that even the best computer programmer cant manage. That and more environmental research eco-tourism possibilities e.g. to have volunteers involved in collecting data on sea-turtles and ways to protect their eggs.
Volunteers are fine.I am only saying that people should try to build up as many skills as possible before transitioning to work for a charity (or even start their own business), and that many of them would probably help more by having a good job (here). Face-to-face altruism is tough, not everyone can (or should) do it. As I have said, there are various ways to help, but some are simply more effective than others.

GiveWell is a non-profit charity evaluator solely dedicated to finding out the most cost-effective charities out there. That's their job, it's what they do. As such, I think it is a pretty valuable resource. If you take a look at their site, they explain why it is so difficult to find an effective charity and why a lot of mainstream associations are not as good as we think they are.
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