The Sour Face of Animal Rights

An incoming link to TSR led me to discover a fringe animal rights group called "Negotiation is Over."  Nothing like advertising your lack of civility and reason!  Most people would not be proud of such shortcomings but I guess some wear their bitterness as a badge.  The website is a soupy mixture of communism, terrorism advocacy and "animal liberation."

Power to the cockroaches!

Just a sample of their manifesto:

We form this new group out of the need for a radical social approach to veganism and animal rights that transcends bourgeois liberalism; the need for a global Left that renounces speciesism and all other ancient and lingering prejudices and forms of oppression; the need for post-hierarchical worldviews and democratic and ecological societies; and the need for total liberation and revolutionary transformation.

Good Lord, it must be exhausting to be one of these non-negotiators.  So many things to be against, and so much to transcend, liberate, transform, etc.  It's a tough row to hoe, trying to erase human history and remake the planet by blogging.   

I wonder if these people have any joy in life, with the world being such an oppressive place and all.  Their website is dark and angry.  I know a few liberals who have some sense of humor but I guess the further left you go the more dour and humorless you have to be.

I'm guessing that "Negotiation is Over" will never really blossom beyond the ivory tower into a popular movement.  Unless you are trying to elicit blank stares, you need a rallying cry a bit more interpretable than "Join us in a radical social approach to veganism and animal rights that transcends bourgeois liberalism!"  That's a bit much.  "Hope and change" is more on the popular level (but just as meaningless).

Every trapper I know is a sensible person, willing to talk and debate, and able to appreciate what's good in the world.  I never met a militant trapper who angrily tries to force his way of life on others or advocate terrorism.  Evidently our biggest assets in the ongoing "animal rights" debate are the qualities of civility and reason.  If the other side lacks even these, maybe it's all we need to win.

So, stay reasonable, friendly and open-minded.  It's always the best bet.