Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Let there be snark.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Let’s finish the job.

A consequence of cucumbers

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Faunasphere / Implacable

Implacable

by | 69 Comments

This post is in: 

There’s been a lot written about “resistance” lately, and I’m all for it, and of course it’s a wonderful topic for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

I’ve done my share, but never anything like what animal activist (and FOIA ninja) Ryan Shapiro describes:

My first arrest was at Ringling Brothers in 1997. We locked ourselves together using steel pipes to prevent the circus from getting the elephants into the auditorium. For a period of hours, our action shut down the circus (and led Ringling Brothers employees to position the elephants such that they urinated on us, resulting in us marinating in gallons of elephant urine both while locked down at the circus and then later in jail in Southeast DC).

Now, after 146 years of abducting, enslaving, and torturing animals for profit and amusement, Ringling Brothers is shutting down for good. I honestly can’t believe it. However Ringling Brothers’ PR team might spin this, there is simply no question that decades of aggressive animal rights activism of all sorts played a critical role in bringing this behemoth of cruelty to its knees. Amazing. We actually did it. We ended Ringling Brothers.

Now we need to end the rest as well. Whatever your style of activism, go do it. Do it now. Do it more. Do it better. Get the fuck out there and keep doing it. I’m so proud to be part of this great struggle for freedom and justice with all of you. Together we just killed a giant. Now on to the next. Animal liberation now.

The point is not to convince everyone to put their bodies literally right on the line (against animal exploiters or Trump or any other oppressor) like Shapiro and his colleagues did. (Although if you can, more power to you!) It’s to talk about implacability, which I think is a key ingredient of any resistance / revolution. Animal abusers and exploiters know we (the animal rights / animal liberation / vegan community) isn’t going away or relenting–in fact, that we’re just going to get stronger–and that gives us a lot of power.

It’s similar, really, to what I see in this community when a nonhuman or human community member needs help. The community galvanizes, everyone gets focused, people contribute their unique talents and resources, and the job gets done.

Looking forward to people’s thoughts about implacability and other aspects of resistance. One thing that helps is that you don’t focus too much on the opposition and how big and scary it is. You focus on the job, and on supporting your comrades.

Reader Interactions

69Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    However Ringling Brothers’ PR team might spin this, there is simply no question that decades of aggressive animal rights activism of all sorts played a critical role in bringing this behemoth of cruelty to its knees. Amazing. We actually did it. We ended Ringling Brothers.

    In a similar vein, I have every plan to force the sun to rise in the East tomorrow AM. And then take credit for it.

  2. 2.

    Hillary Rettig

    @Corner Stone: please see the quote by Kenneth Feld, chair of the company that owns Ringling, about how people’s attitudes have changed more in the past decade than in the past seventy or eight. (It was in my post just before this one.) That didn’t happen randomly.

  3. 3.

    Corner Stone

    @Hillary Rettig: It’s still just economics. People just don’t find it the same kind of entertaining they may have in the past. Hence the P/L ratio changes.
    I am skeptical it is a win for ethics as it is for business bottom lines.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    I think there could be an interesting discussion about to extent to which activists drive changing attitudes versus the extent to which activists reflect changing attitudes.

    But this is the internet…

  7. 7.

    Chip Daniels

    @Corner Stone:
    Its not as entertaining, BECAUSE of the years, decades, of constant hammering of the Conventional Wisdom/ Overton Window by animal rights activists.

    Decades ago, no one thought twice about keeping lions penned up in crates. Today its widely seen as horrific, and no one thinks forcing them to jump thru flaming hoops is amusing.

  10. 10.

    Corner Stone

    @Hillary Rettig: Maybe because they have 500 channels, an iPad with a universe attached, sportsball at your fingertips, and the people who used to be entertained as a child by spectacles such as elephants standing on two legs are all dying off and would rather take their grandkids to play golf in the sun or one of the four waterparks within 30 minutes drive?

  11. 11.

    Seth Owen

    I think it’s clear from related developments with Sea World and Internet criticism of African safari hunts and the like that societal attitudes towards animal exploitation are changing — at least in the West. Animal rights activists certainly played a role in this. Whether they deserve all the credit they are claiming can be debated, but I know that my own personal attitude has shifted. While I am sad that a 146-year-old institution is ending, I also recognize that I have no desire to bring my youngest child (12) to see the circus, something I didn’t think twice about when my oldest (now 33) was about the same age.

  14. 14.

    Corner Stone

    @MJS: “A role” sure, maybe. Claiming you got pissed on for years by elephants and now = WIN! seems a bit of a stretch, otherwise.

  15. 15.

    Hillary Rettig

    @Baud: i think history would argue against that. circuses have been around since Rome, at least. but within decades of a truly organized resistance, the biggest one folds? i find it hard that that would be a coincidence.

    also, if activists didn’t change the prevailing attitudes, then what did?

    also hoping to broaden the discussion more to general issues of resistance.

  18. 18.

    PhoenixRising

    Today, if you want to see cruel, small humans abuse those who they perceive as more powerful and majestic than they feel, you don’t need to pay a circus–just log on to Twitter.

    Seriously, though, this question of how social attitudes change in response to activists interfering with the 80% who don’t give a damn either way is…an important one. Highly recommend ‘This Is An Uprising’ for those thinking about what kinds of resistance are worthwhile. Spoiler: Start small, ridicule the powerful and corrupt, use non-violence as a tactic not a belief set, give neutral citizens easy ways to opt in, train anyone who shows interest, and be willing to reduce your demands to the lowest level coherent with the truth.

    Ask John Lewis for details. On Twitter.

  20. 20.

    Corner Stone

    @Chip Daniels:

    Decades ago, no one thought twice about keeping lions penned up in crates.

    I did. Scared the shit out of me. I still squee when I see the video of that lion trying to attack the seated woman through the glass who just wants a picture.
    Yikes!

  21. 21.

    PhoenixRising

    @Hillary Rettig:

    circuses have been around since Rome, at least. but within decades of a truly organized resistance, the biggest one folds?

    The same trends in communication/publishing that drove the collapse in demand for live animal abuse also made it practical for the handful of humans willing to become ‘animal rights activists’ to find one another and position themselves to catch a wave, is equally valid.

  22. 22.

    Yutsano

    @Seth Owen: The notion of the circus is also changing. To wit: Cirque du Soleil was founded to be a circus that intentionally used no animals. Their shows are thriving.

    Even in Asia the attitude is changing. Although I’m reluctant to call Shen Yun a circus.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    @Hillary Rettig: The world has changed rapidly in the last 50 years, more so than at any other time in human history, so citing the long history of circuses doesn’t answer the question I asked.

  25. 25.

    pamelabrown53

    My opinion, Hillary, is that “implacability” is how we lose. Maybe I’m conflating “implacability” with “purity”. Plus the lack of prioritization. IMHO, single issue, mainly white male activists, overpower and doom coalitions to fail.

    Bottom line, we on the left, plus us yellow dogs, must learn how to clobber this propensity to view a political lens via a single issue. This single issue propensity, keeps us divided and losers.

    Sorry, Hillary, if I misconstrued your post: you seem to be a thoughtful, caring person.

  27. 27.

    Corner Stone

    @MJS: You read it again, you fucking non-circus clown:

    there is simply no question that decades of aggressive animal rights activism of all sorts played a critical role in bringing this behemoth of cruelty to its knees. Amazing. We actually did it. We ended Ringling Brothers.

  28. 28.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    I think there could be an interesting discussion about to extent to which activists drive changing attitudes versus the extent to which activists reflect changing attitudes.

    There’s definitely a feedback effect. The activists would never get any traction if there weren’t some public support for their position to start with, but the presence of activists helps to push public opinion further in the direction it was already trending. I think LGBTQ activism is a good example. There were gay rights activists for a long time, but it wasn’t until the AIDS epidemic forced a lot of gays out of the closet and into public consciousness that public opinion really started to change. Once the activists got some positive public attention, though, they’ve been able to push public opinion far further than it ever would have gone without them, to the point that letting transgender students use the bathroom of their presented gender is a winning issue for the Democrats.

  29. 29.

    Corner Stone

    “Now you listen to me, you fucking fireball in the sky! You are going to get your lazy ass up in the morning and break dawn over the Eastern skyline. You fucking hear me?! You’re going to do it or else. Or else I am going to chain myself to a tree facing East until you do what I command! And I am going to keep saying this same exact damned demand every night for the rest of my life! You got that, you fiery piece of shit!”

  30. 30.

    geg6

    @Hillary Rettig:

    Well, I’d say that there are a zillion other ways to entertain oneself now compared to the late 1800s through the 1970s. Sure, a lot of people went for the elephants, but RB and BB were having financial difficulties long before the elephants went away.

  32. 32.

    Larkspur

    @Corner Stone: I’m still scared of stuff from the old Tarzan movies, like quicksand, snakes, and yeah, lions. You know, they don’t re-run those movies much any more. A staple of my childhood, gone. Economics, I guess.

  33. 33.

    Mnemosyne

    I know you didn’t mean it this way, Hillary, but after having seen a speech yesterday by Leatha Davis (née Letha Mae Stover) about how she was beaten and teargassed on the Edmund Pettis Bridge, I can’t help being a little offended at the comparison between the Civil Rights Movement and animal rights activists. It’s great that animals are being less exploited, but this year, hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens were denied the right to vote that Mrs. Davis almost died fighting for, and the thing that’s so important to you on Martin Luther King Jr. Day that you had to write two back-to-back posts on it is circuses and elephants?

  34. 34.

    Baud

    @Roger Moore: That’s my guess. I think too often it’s presented as black and white or a straight line. I think reality is more complex, but I don’t feel like I understand enough about the dynamics.

  36. 36.

    Hillary Rettig

    @pamelabrown53: appreciate your comment. Purity is a pretty loaded word. I think we need clarity on whatever our goal is and to not be afraid to take positions others think are extreme if they are just. and not just because they are just but because we will always get less than what we ask for.

    strategically, of course, there will always have to be compromise.

  37. 37.

    Hillary Rettig

    @Mnemosyne: (1) as Baud pointed out, no one else was posting. and (2) I can, and plenty of people do, support freedom for humans as well as animals. I’m sorry you were offended, and hope you get a post more to your liking soon.

  38. 38.

    PhoenixRising

    @pamelabrown53:

    we on the left, plus us yellow dogs, must learn how to clobber this propensity to view a political lens via a single issue.

    That depends. If your single issue is ‘ending apartheid/Jim Crow’, ‘legal equality for same-sex couples’, or ‘access to medical contraception’, single-issue appears to work.

    So if your point is that demonstrations of support for the ACA should not include giant puppets or signatures to Free Mumia, I think that was proven out with the media narrative about yesterday’s actions (mostly positive, entirely on-point, lots of example stories of why repeal will destroy families physically and/or financially).

    If your idea is that only the single issue you deem worth fighting for should be addressed with certain high-stakes tactics, I’m afraid your application for emperor of the left has been rejected due to lack of qualifications.

    What it means to be a progressive cannot be that ‘important’ issues are chosen by the few for the many; it must instead be that any issue you personally are willing to get off your ass for, you have the responsibility to find 9 people who agree with you and choose or create the organization that can help you determine tactics and proximity to power.

  42. 42.

    PhoenixRising

    @Mnemosyne: The second includes an invitation–which few are accepting–to have an informed exchange of views on what will be effective resistance to a much harsher and more cruel government starting on Friday. Due in part to, per your point, effective voter suppression in the last election.

    So…what are your ideas about how to determine which tactics and specific forms of state oppression are worth engaging?

  43. 43.

    Roger Moore

    @Hillary Rettig:
    I think it’s helpful for any movement to have both scary and respectable faces. FDR was able to get the ultra-rich to accept a lot more than they might have by presenting himself as the only thing standing between them and communist revolution. The important part is for the two faces to recognize that they share enough common goals to have a common enemy. It’s when the two faces each decide that the other is the true enemy that they dissolve into infighting and achieve nothing.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @Hillary Rettig:

    I’m sorry you were offended

    How nice, a non-apology. I hope you eventually decide that making sure your fellow citizens in Michigan are allowed to vote is at least as important as animal rights.

  50. 50.

    Wallis Lane

    “For a period of hours, our action shut down the circus (and led Ringling Brothers employees to position the elephants such that they urinated on us)”

    Given the recent dossiers, I imagine the same thing would happen at a blockade of the Trump inauguration.

  53. 53.

    Hillary Rettig

    Just a note to let everyone know I’m leaving the thread, and will check in later. Appreciated the comments!

  54. 54.

    Chip Daniels

    What makes this an important point is that often protests get downplayed in favor of the argument, bandied about that larger global or demographic changes will “naturally” change through attrition.
    Although this does happen, it can also lull us into a false complacency wrt to racism and misogyny as the recent election attests.

    While circuses are dying out, dogfighting and cockfighting still persist, and the appetite for cruelty and callous disregard for the plight of animals has not been extinguished.

  56. 56.

    PhoenixRising

    @Mnemosyne: That’s…not an idea. That’s an action, and clearly one you think is well-chosen. As a courtesy, because I have some fucking manners, I’m not going to offer you my feedback on whether that organization has a history of effective action.

    Because some considerations override manners, I’m also going to leave this for your reflection: Identity policing, in the form of auditing others’ priorities for actions, is a recipe for failure and a tool wielded by the insecure and inexperienced who are worried that they aren’t doing it right.

    Once you’ve had more time in grade, this urge to correct those who are acting to resist state oppression but not the way you prefer will pass. Or you will quit. I sincerely hope you work your way through it–it’s an ineffective technique to draw other like-minded people to your priorities, and you’re smart, so I believe in you.

  58. 58.

    raven

    Do me a favor asshole, I’ll keep ignoring you and you keep ignoring me. It hasn’t meant shit to me in over a year and you have your little fucking fan club here so play with them.

  61. 61.

    Chip Daniels

    @Mnemosyne:
    I don’t know that its worthwhile to see a circus post as oppositional to an MLK post.

    The underlying idea here is that protests work, even when they are awkward, uncomfortable, divisive and without immediate results. Kind of like the civil rights marches themselves.

    If I recall right, MLK had plenty of critics who wanted him to work more quietly, be less strident and divisive.

  62. 62.

    chopper

    @Corner Stone:

    because if all sorts of non-animal circuses were also in the shitter, the idea that people are staying home with their ipads and football and shit makes more sense than if all the non-animal circuses are going gangbusters and the ones like B&B are seeing a huge drop in attendance.

  63. 63.

    Miss Bianca

    @chopper:I don’t know if Cirque du Soleil, for example, is seeing expanding or delcining attendance, but social circus , which i mentioned on the previous thread, is growing all over the world. More and more kids – and older folks – are becoming circus performers in their own communities, and making connections all over the country and the world for community organization and social change. it’s a happening thing!

  64. 64.

    Mnemosyne

    @Hillary Rettig:

    I had to walk away for a few minutes to calm down, so let me put this another way:

    In the alternate universe where we are all celebrating Hillary Clinton’s inauguration as our first woman president, this would be unalloyed good news. In the world we actually live in, where thousands of Americans are going to die after their health care is taken away because we failed to make sure that our fellow Americans could vote, it seems like cold comfort. YMMV, of course.

    @PhoenixRising:

    Ringling Brothers was practicing state oppression?

    That’s the other part of my skepticism here: corporations can be pressured in ways that the government can’t, so I’m not sure that the pressure tactics that worked to change a for-profit company will be equally successful against an oppressive government.

  65. 65.

    Mnemosyne

    @Chip Daniels:

    The underlying idea here is that protests work, even when they are awkward, uncomfortable, divisive and without immediate results. Kind of like the civil rights marches themselves.

    Protests work when the people you’re pressuring are responsive to public pressure. I am skeptical that a repressive government will be responsive to the same tactics that a for-profit company is. Again, YMMV.

  66. 66.

    Chip Daniels

    @Mnemosyne:
    All repressive government are wildly popular.

    If that sounds Slatian contrary, it shouldn’t be.

    Hitler, Stalin, Pinochet, all had a base of enthusiastic supporters who could overwhelm the opposition.

    So their policies never hurt the base, much, but targeted the opposition.

    Protests aren’t aimed at the hard core base the 27% ers, but at the squishy middle, the good Germans and professional class who might support the regime, but can be swayed.

    MLK targeted not the Klansmen, but the soft white middle class who prided themselves on broadmindedness and magnanimity, and were responsive to shame.

  67. 67.

    Mnemosyne

    @Chip Daniels:

    MLK targeted not the Klansmen, but the soft white middle class who prided themselves on broadmindedness and magnanimity, and were responsive to shame.

    And those soft white middle-class people called their Democratic congressmen, who crafted legislation with a Democratic president and got it passed.

    How much civil rights legislation got passed and signed under W with a Republican Congress?

  69. 69.

    Corner Stone

    @chopper: I am not sure how you would be able to make a like to like comparison of animal circus to non-animal circus. The environment, the skill levels, the music, the pageantry, the story arc. There does not seem to be a way to say “that one has lions – it is failing. that one has tiny gymnasts – it is expanding. we have our answer!”
    Some set of people buying the tix may not even consciously take into consideration the health or treatment of kept performing animals. I just think it’s a complex set of economics that drive the slowing down and closing of Ringling et al, and most likely not a set of consumers growing a conscience over time due to activism.
    As an anecdote, I went to an animal circus once when I was young. Hated it. When asked if I wanted to return I said “Never”. I doubt it was due to animal welfare concerns but suspect rather that I hated the whole experience and preferred to play catch in the yard.
    I think the animal circus is just part of a time that has past.

Comments are closed.