[Marxism] Snapping at Vick about dog killing is hypocritical

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

While I don't approve of dogfighting, cock-fighting, prize-fighting
or other other professional public demonstrations of violence for
money, the lynch-spirit which is being generated against this guy
Micheal Vick, whom I'd never heard of before this business with 
dog-fighting, is quite amazing. It's yet another of those numerous
ways Black men in the United States are vilified by a culture which
demands that Black men be house-broken. It's the same as the Barry
Bonds thing. What the media hated about O.J. Simpson was that he
had enough money to hire an adequate defense team to be able to
achieve the "reasonable doubt" which is what the legal system is
supposed to require. Not a shadow of a doubt, a reasonable doubt.

We live in a society where so many people anthropomorphize their
pets. They have more active and more significant relationships in
the world with animals than they do with other human beings. I've
no big objection to pets, which provide simple company for many
people, and which provide some people with feelings of authority
and power. Ever watch the way people natter at their dogs? It's 
an indication of alienation between human beings, as far as I'm
concerned. 

Though it's not the ONLY problem, the color line remains at the
very center of the culture of this thoroughly racist society.


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
not a vegetarian, either.
===================================================================

Newsday.com
Snapping at Vick about dog killing is hypocritical
Les Payne

September 2, 2007

Ye gathered: Let us now hear a defense of Michael Vick in the court
of public opinion. It is from this part that the criminal pursuit has
been whipped into a frenzy, not by a jury of the athlete's peers but
by the media lathering up dog-lovers, so-called.

Transporting pit bulls across state lines to fight before gamblers -
the charge to which Vick pleaded guilty - is not the act that
inflames public rage. It is rather his presence at or near the
killings of eight dogs. Co-defendants paint a more colorful, though
not necessarily more accurate, account of the killings than Vick's
statement suggests. This scent of blood early on aroused dog-lovers
everywhere.

Their organized campaign, led by People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals, panicked Vick's would-be defenders, including the NFL and
his high-priced lawyers. And the uproar delighted detractors, joined
by the Atlanta Falcons, hoping now to get back millions of contract
dollars.

The presumably injured pit bulls were allegedly killed after losing
fights. Laying aside the gladiator aspect, these killings that
triggered such public furor are very common among dog owners. This
sad fact may be inconvenient, but it's nonetheless true.

Killing of the family dog, Canis lupus familiaris - or abandoning it
to animal shelters, which execute approximately 60 percent of their
charges - is carried out about 2 million times a year nationally,
according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals. This amounts to about 5,000 dogs killed each day and "one
every 16 seconds," according to The New York Times. The slaughter is
not just of elderly or stray mutts, the paper stated, with about 25
percent being healthy "purebreds: Boston terriers, border collies,
Pomeranians, standard poodles, etc."

Abandonment of the family pooch to the cages of the dog-lovers at the
shelter means likely execution. The ASPCA and the public accept this
extermination of dogs not as killing, or execution, but as "euthanasia." 
The condemned dogs -especially the young and healthy ones - know better.

"A lot of them start to vomit or soil themselves the minute they
enter the euthanasia room," said an animal behavior researcher quoted
in the Times magazine story. A "meat truck" from such a killing room
in Austin, Texas, was described as dumping its cargo of "shiny black
tied-off garbage bags" containing "lumps ... some with rigor mortis
and some - like the large, handsome, two-toned boxer mix that
[spilled] out of the tear in his bag and [slid] down the mound -
loose-limbed and floppy-eared, like deeply asleep dogs."

And why exactly are these dogs abandoned and killed?

The details vary from those alleged about Vick, but the motive is
basically the same: Owners subject their pets to death because they
disappoint their masters and become an inconvenience. Dog owners move
into smaller quarters with pet restrictions; some can't tame the
beast in their canine; others dare choose their new baby over a
jealous pet; more peculiar owners kill their dogs, or have them
killed, simply because they become "boring"; one owner mentioned in
the Times article gave up a dog whose coat didn't match the color of
some new furniture.

Such behavior, curious when detailed, seems to accept the fact that,
at bottom, dogs are indeed animals genetically engineered to suit the
needs and whimsy of humans. The larger, more aggressive breeds
maintain enough of their canine nature to get stressed out over
submitting to castration and 23-hour lockdowns in cramped quarters,
eating inert food from China and watching television.

Life as a gladiator, though illegal, may be preferable to pit bulls
that, like rottweilers, Dobermans, certain German shepherds and other
muscle dogs, have been bred over centuries for their aggressive
athleticism. Rather these jaws were rending dog flesh than the human
tissue that Southern sheriffs, drug pushers and Gestapo sadists
trained these breeds to rend.

Were we to strip the Vick case of its faux furor over dog killings,
envy of the superstar's richest-ever football contract and the
deep-seated bias attending black NFL quarterbacks in general, it
boils down to a first-offender engaged in a seedy, underground,
illegal sport. Contrary to the impassioned and uninformed responses
to Gallup polls, the 27-year-old Atlanta Falcons quarterback should
not serve a single day in prison - and he certainly should be allowed
to resume his football career.

Anything short of this is a miscarriage of justice and should weigh
heavily on the sentencing judge come Dec. 10 - as well as detract
from what passes for the competency of his high-priced attorneys.

Copyright  2007, Newsday Inc.

newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-oppayne5356334sep02,0,6933054.column

================================
WALTER LIPPMANN
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
writer - photographer - activist
http://www.walterlippmann.com
================================

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism