Spartacus for Puppies
We have become a culture of women
--Clever Fritz
I've lost and found, it's my final mistake
She's loving by proxy, no give and all take
--I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight, Cutting Crew
I've lost and found, it's my final mistake
She's loving by proxy, no give and all take
--I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight, Cutting Crew
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
--Once in a Lifetime, Talking Heads
__________
Michael Vick, Atlanta Falcon's quarterback, has been indicted for running a dogfighting ring after 55 pit bulls in varying states of distress were found recently on his property (Vick Case Sheds Light on Dogfighting.)
Vick's ring, like most others, was found by accident. Police were on site investigating a drug-related charge against one of his relatives when they found the dogs.
Eric Sakach, West Coast regional office director for the Humane Society of the United States, who has been investigating dogfighting for about 30 years, estimates 40,000 people may be involved in the blood sport nationwide. Though traditionally associated with rural settings, Sakach says the biggest growth is at the "street level," in cities.
". . . gangs are increasingly engaging in dogfighting. "Instead of those guys getting in a fight and police getting called, they'll fight their dogs instead," Hunt says.
Brave men. Which leads me to include one response left on the aol message boards to the story below, sans editing:
fritzzwicky4 01:42:40 PM Jul 19 2007
"man you people have no clue.no wonder we the most powerful nation in the world cant beat a bunch of rag heads in a war .we have become a culture of woman . i love the people who set with a big helpling of fried chicken or steak and tells me how cruel i am for fighting dogs. hahaha. . . ."Clever Fritz sees analogy between the wimpifying of our nation and the loss of taste for brutal entertainment like dogfighting. What emerges is his belief that it is more glorious to allow the dog to fight--and then killing him when "he is not game enough to go on"--than to disallow an animal to compete in competitions at all.
Upon arriving in this Deep South college football town, I remember my horror one game day on hearing a group of men asking, "Well, do you s'pose our nig---s will beat your nig---s today?" It is a mean, ugly, proprietary, slave-owner mentality, and it can be propagated by folks of any race, upon beasts of any species. It is an equal-opportunity vulgarity. Once infected with such decay of soul, no living creature is immune from exploitation by such an individual.
Welcome to the martial mindset of the 21st century. Strength=unthinking brutality. You're unworthy unless you die and come back on your shield. Except the men talking big, aren't the men dying big. Machismo by proxy. Will we never escape this brutality.
Same as it ever was.
--Lisa
Labels: culture of women, dog fighting, Michael Vick
posted by rangeragainstwar at 8:02 PM
14 Comments:
"Welcome to the martial mindset of the 21st century."
Yeah well science teaches us that we can do what we like to animals. Feelings are not scientific....Bloody Descartes and his buddies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes
No, I'm not religious but I think feeling is the opposite to what we're taught. I think it's the bottom line in all of nature.
"Cats foot iron claw
Neuro-surgeons scream for more
At paranoias poison door.
Twenty first century schizoid man.
Blood rack barbed wire
Polititians funeral pyre
Innocents raped with napalm fire
Twenty first century schizoid man.
Death seed blind mans greed
Poets starving children bleed
Nothing hes got he really needs
Twenty first century schizoid man."
"Twenty first century schizoid man"
By King Crimson
Dave,
It is hard to imagine vivisection, isn't it? Apt choice of lyrics--I was just looking at King Crimson's "Elephant Talk" lyrics earlier tonight.
How could we bear our actions, if we were taught to feel? Big changes would have to occur.
I will add the following, from Dostoevsky:
"Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, don't harass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent.
"Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you - alas, it is true of almost every one of us!"
--Lisa
Sure is hard to imagine vivisection. How stupid can we be?
Elephant talk, what a wonderful song. And what a beautiful quote from Dostoevsky. Thanks for that. It's dang hard to find people who agree with those sentiments these days. And someone who likes King Crimson to boot!
I'm actually quite speechless. I think I'll just shut up and go read some more.
Dave
Thanks for the kind words, Dave. I hope there are more of us out there than we think.
If only people would slow down a bit, stop running hither and thither to find their Xbox, they might see what truly matters, and cause less damage.
As many great thinkers have said, we must be the change we wish to see manifested in the world. Violence stops within each individual--it is a choice. And I have some odd metaphysical idea that if enough people shift to kindness, we will reach some critical mass of sentiment where a societal shift could occur. A tipping point.
I'm not utterly naive, but one can always hope. . .
--Lisa
Yeah, hope is good. The idea of hope is actually quite new to me. Considering world politics it only struck me recently that along side the networks of criminals who perpetuate this "world at war" there are networks of good, intelligent people in positions of power as well. This gave me some hope.
With your critical mass idea you are talking about subjective experience as if it is something real. Not very scientific. I like that.
dave,
Yeah--hope, charity, love--these are good things (at the risk of sounding Martha Stewart-esque!) And subjective experience is real, though it may lack an objective, quantifiable existence. I love science, but it can't tell us everything.
There are more things in heaven and earth. . .
I love science as well. I just wish people would wake up to how irrational the Cartesian split was. How can anything that exists not be part of science?
And don't mention the word "epiphenomena" to me, it makes me mad. I believe the cell is not an accident and is as natural as an atom. Of course most scientists would think this idea automatically implies I have a belief in one of our religions. This is unfortunate.
The cell is allot more than a bunch of atomic vectors, therefore we should be kind to each other. Nup, just doesn't stand up in court does it. I'll work on it.
Dave,
Doesn't matter if it stands up in scientific court; they've righted themselves more than once, as I recall.
I am with you 100% on the arbitrariness of the Cartesian duality. The cell is as integral and foundational as the atom. I am no religionist; too often, religion is a hateful and divisive institution. Though there is wisdom everywhere, theology included.
One can have ecstatic moments of moments of divinity--of divination, where one sees the underlying connectivity. You don't need drugs to apprehend this.
We keep trying to get back to it--some go to church, others strive through technology for this higher connection.
I am highly allusive in my thinking, because all is one, far I can see. No brain/body duality. All these stupid schisms are man-imposed.
Unless one is psychotic or masochistic, the only sensible stance is kindness.
L.
Lisa,
I'm glad you agree on the status of the cell. Dang that's a hard one for allot of people to grasp, though it seems so simple.
From the looks of things we are not going to disagree about many things. I'm very glad to have stumbled apon this blog. The Ranger and yourself are really on to it as they say.
I must say goodnight as it's 4:30 AM here in Australia and I'm a little sleepy.
Bye for now,
Dave
dave,
Pleased to have you along for the ride. I believe in serendipity, so you're here for a reason.
Please don't hesitate to bring up any topics, no matter how seemingly tangential.
cheers, mate,
Lisa
Yes indeed, Lisa.
People use cruel demonstrations of unequal matches of force, and then argue that they are just "showing strength."
Clever Fritz's only semi-accurate statement about us being a "nation of woman" (sic) is that the notion that physical violence is a show of strength is something that female victims of physical abuse from boyfriends or husbands (or fathers, or brothers, or uncles) use that rationalization to keep loving the person who beats them. It is a type of defect in perspective, caused by the psyche's impulse toward self-preservation.
But that goes NOwhere in explaining Michael Vick.
What explains Michael Vick is a childhood spent in cruel circumstances, a situation that taught him that physical violence and cruelty are strengths. I shudder to imagine what his childhood was like. Yet that doesn't excuse his behavior.
It's quite sociopathic and I would argue, dangrously criminally insane, to raise dogs for slaughter-as-entertainment.
Yet the NFL will not do anything to Vick. It may even give him a raise, seeing how there's all this media attention during the off-season.
Sean,
I thank you for your comment, and esp. the bit about how women rationalize abuse at the hands of a partner. It is a mistaken notion of strength that allows for the justification.
Not only do we rationalize his misplaced strength ("He doesn't know his own strength; he is passionate, and does not know how to express his overwhelming feelings), but we rationalize our persistence as strength.
Sometimes our egos even allow us to inflate our sense of power, imagining that we are trumping his abusive power by enduring. It is the "last man standing" ethos.
Man perpetrates violence and spreads division whenever he affiliates, it seems. Power is the ugly universal directing this oppression, I think.
Germaine Greer said women do not know the extent to which men hate them. I know this is not true for all men, but what we do not understand, we fear or hate. That is a natural response. Men like Mr. Vick do not strike me as great communicators.
True engagement doesn't seem to come easily between the sexes. Women are taught to dissemble early on and to feather their bed; men are taught to put feathers in their cap.
L.
dave,
Jim sending: Ranger has never met an Aussie that he didn't like.
I rubbed shoulders with Aussie troops in Nui Dat in RVN 1970 and was always impressed with their soldierly conduct and can-do attitude.
In Ranger's town, 63% of the population are minorities.
Several years ago the city pledged funds to train young black men to box and compete statewide. The coach told Ranger this was a confidence-building move.
Forget money attached to literacy programs, or anything on the creative level. As a culture, we encourage the brute and the physical as a means of overmastery, and certainly as a way for minorities to escape a dire home life.
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