I’m a big proponent of the reevaluating of your causes and questioning why people want you to do certain things.

I think you always have to think in a universal long-term way (if you have the luxury to do so.)

I think many people have become very short sighted in regards to their causes, if you can’t discuss your beliefs and be critical of yourself then how are you going to do anything? How are you going to change anything?

I think the average person is willing to try and listen as much as the person who is trying to tell them something would listen to them if the situation was reverse.

I think that most people are more than decent. I think that most people are good. I think that in general there are very few assholes out there, but those few have a lot of power and they love for people who are at the bottom (cashing a check, making less than 100 k a year, because in the bigger picture there isn’t that much difference between 20k and 70k, a bigger house, a bigger car, but not that much of a difference) fight. They love for us to be suspicious of one another. They love for us to spend time on mickey mouse issues when it’s the few very rich which is causing all of the misery on the rest of us.

I would never tell an individual person on a personal level to do anything. It’s not my place, but institutions and very rich people I will never stop trying to annoy the crap out of them, because while it may be a totally pointless exercise at least I am aiming at the correct target.

Browne

The class blinders of most of the veg movement (especially groups like PETA) is quite unfortunate, considering they could have many more allies if they weren’t so stuck in their middle class ways. And their shriek method of trying to convince people against eating animals; that guilt shit just doesn’t work in the long run. And it’s not gonna work in convincing others not to have pets either.

I could live without my current cat, but man am I looking forward to having chickens again! And eating they’re eggs! Yeah, maybe that’s messed up but its true. One thing I’ve learned to accept are contradictions: you can strive for an ideal but it’s useful to also make room for the compromise. The slow introduction to an idea tends to go over better than the abrupt challenge.

But I’ll shut up now.

Now I think that is a bit of an exaggeration (your statement in regards to my assertion that pet ownership is bad,) but I like the spirit in which you state it.

“Since you find rescue so wrong, what do we do with unwanted pets?” pitbullgirl

Ok now the point of what I was saying was I think the story of the poor little animals wasn’t about poor little animals, but since I brought up the pet ownership thing, fine I’ll entertain that, since it bothers me when people avoid my obvious concerns and keep in mind I care…

I think the idea of rescue in it’s current form is misguided. I think that the first thing rescues should stop doing is giving pure breed dogs branding. They shouldn’t have pitbull rescues, but big dog rescues, take the glamour and status out of owning a particular breed of animal.

If you love an animal don’t describe it like a freakin purse.

If you adopt a kid you don’t call it your little ethiopian baby, you call a baby, a baby, not trying to compare people with animals, but people who are into animal rights do think people are like animals, so what’s up with the inconsistency?

The second thing they should do is actively make laws to stop the breeding of pure breed dogs (”reputable” rich people breeders included), which is not something animals do naturally. Wild dogs don’t discriminate in regards to breeds, maybe size, but the purebreed thing, that’s strictly a human thing.

There should be no pure breed dogs walking around and when you talk about your dog like “my collie” “my poodle” “my beagle” you encourage the very thing that encourages puppy mills, unwanted pets and bad situations.

The idea that you can adopt out every dog is crazy, but you can stop the breeding of dogs if you make breeding of dogs in all forms illegal.

The organizations that has those dog contests, that should be dismantled.

The organization that decides what breed is pedigree and what breed is defective, that should be dismantled.

That’s what bringing about unwanted dogs, the marketing of them as things. The marketing of them as cool things.

Of course making laws about the guy that ties up his dog in the backyard (and does lots of other annoying things to the newly gentrified residents) is alot easier, even if it’s doing way less than taking the above measures would do.

And cats…I don’t think cats want to live with human beings. I don’t think cats like being with humans. I don’t think cats are all that domesticated and I think cats would be happy if they could live in some kind of reserve without intervention from human beings.

If you have a dog now, I guess you’ll just have to keep them, but in 20 years we could end the marketing of pets as things.

Browne

I don’t have pit bulls to show how rich I am or to protect my shit. They just happen to be the dogs that get thrown away the most and make up the greatest percentage of dogs killed in shelters. I didn’t buy them from an ad in the Pennysaver when they were puppies, I got them on the other end when they were on their way to the kill room.

And I’ve met people before who have the belief that all rescue and keeping of animals is bad and that my dogs would be better off dead than living with me or anyone else who would take them in. And they were all white lady PETA supporters from Santa Monica and the leafier parts of Pasadena. A few of them were part-time vegans too!

Luckily, where I live I don’t have to deal with that ivory tower I’m (theoretically, of course) veganer than you are bullshit. So while I appreciate how “hardcore” (as much as ranting on a blog can be considered hardcore)your beliefs are, just realize they aren’t all that original. PETA shares your opinion that all pet ownership is wrong. Sure, they go out and target some dude selling turtles in the street and send open letters to Paris Hilton (yes! yes! rich people with little dogs is wrong! thank you!) and you admittedly do nothing except repeat it over and over again a blog, but the core belief is the same.

Bait taken. That was fun! I’m done though because I’m having flashbacks to the time some kid at a vegan restaurant tried to pull me into a Peter Singer circle jerk and anyway I have a tiny get-together to plan because it has been a year since Bootsy, a dog I’m oppressing by letting live with me, was pulled out of North Central on the very day he was due to get shot up with Fatal Plus. We celebrate life (and beer and soyrizo).

you do realize that these pets have been domesticated (look it up) for TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS, correct? Dogs, for example, were domesticated about 20,000 years ago. It’s not like we can just release them back into the wild at this point.

So what do you geniuses propose we do with them all?

That’s what I’m talking about the hypocrisy of the whole thing, the inauthenticity of the matter. It’s not about animals it’s about class.

It’s about “you people make our city look bad” and I think that was the main point of the article in the downtown news, but yet no one calls out anna scott on that little detail.

Why is it ok for this person to own a little dog, but it’s wrong for this person to own a chicken. What’s the difference? Is there a difference? If one is wrong the other is wrong. How dare some humans think their ownership of another living being is superior to someone else. A leash is a leash.

It’s odd how certain people are always wrong and horrible and others are ok, because they call what they do “rescue” or they have a “permit.”

For instance little brown kids do graffiti and they do jail time ala chaka a little rich white kid does graffiti you’re an artist, you’re shepard fairey.

I’m sick of people using working class people to prove a point, because it’s fucking easy. It’s not about animals and it’s not doing anything, but giving corporate assholes what they want.

Us and people like us to go away.

And regards to me starting a movement to stop pet ownership, no, that’s not what I’m doing. If someone writes an editorial type article about something they are part of without stating it that would be called not having integrity. I have integrity.

I’m not part of anything, but this blog (and mine.)

I’m not a pr/marketing blogger, I’m an observe the city and talk about it blogger.

Browne

I appreciate your opinion, I agree with you on more than it probably looks like I do. Is this just a rant though or is this–the prohibition of pet ownership– something you’re working on? I ask because its not my area of activism but I’ve heard vaguely of some legislation trying to knock out the legal definition of pets as property via the lawsuit fallout from the tainted pet food thing last year. We’ve got a long way to go though considering that it’s still socially acceptable in most circles to buy an animal from a breeder or pet store.