On Humanism, Elitism and Elephants

Steve Best has the gift of rant. I thought I was an expert ranter until I started reading his writing.

But he also has the gift of not ranting, and presenting incisive arguments against violence. In "The Killing Fields of South Africa: Eco-Wars, Species Apartheid, and Total Liberation," in today's Cyrano's Journal Online, Best writes about the brutal slaying of elephants in South Africa and the political, social and economic climates that make the carnage possible.

It's a lengthy article, and it puts another nail in the coffin of my hope for capitalism (and let me be clear that I've never been an advocate of Milton Friedman/Chicago School/privatization/deregulation/free trade/cuts to government spending), but that hope's not dead yet.

The core of this article, like many other Best articles, is the necessity for alliance politics and viewing speciesism as part of a larger problem that must be tackled at its roots.

I'd list quotes, but there are too many (the response to animal rights activists as "Western elitists" who have the luxury to worry about animals is particularly helpful to me, as I am frequently confronted with that accusation).

Give it a read. You might be surprised by how much you see your values and thinking reflected in his.