Another busy morning with several things to be done. I doubt I’ll have much time for a serious post today.
We went with some friends to see Emmylou Harris last night at the Disney Concert Hall. She was magnificent, as always (this is the third time I’ve seen her play live.) As with the last time I saw her, she made explicit reference to her work on behalf of PETA and the Humane Society, and asked that her audience remember the animal victims of Katrina at Christmas. I clapped enthusiastically when she said this, and heard the young woman behind me mutter, "Oh come on and sing already." I resisted the urge to turn around and fix her with a baleful stare.
I’m fortunate, I suppose, in that for the most part, I share the politics of my favorite artists. The music I love most is folk/alt country/Americana; my musical idols range from Pete Seeger to Steve Earle to Dolly Parton and Emmylou. And though "pop" country has a reputation for flag-waving jingoism (think Toby Keith), the bluegrass/alt. country world is fairly consistent in its left-wing politics. It’s nice to both admire an artist’s music and his or her political stances, but it isn’t essential. I loved Merle Haggard, even if "Okie from Muskogee" was an appallingly reactionary song!
I thought a lot about Tookie Williams and his victims last night as I sat and listened to Emmylou. Since we were in downtown L.A. fairly late in the evening, I thought about the rumours I’d heard about gang violence and retaliation in the event that Tookie was actually executed. I was acutely aware of the comfort of my seat, and the expense of the ticket, and the heaviness in my belly from the pre-concert meal at a trendy restaurant. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a really visceral attack of "middle-class white guilt", but somehow, I felt it very strongly last night.
The solution to that feeling, I’ve come to believe, is not to sit and wallow in it, but get up and do stuff. And when I look at how much time my wife and I give in volunteering, and I look at the fact that we give a genuine tithe, I’m comforted that we are sharing our good fortune. But I also know I can do still more, and finding ways to do that will be one of my main goals for 2006.
In any event, Emmylou was magnificent. I sang "Boulder to Birmingham" all the way home last night, interspersing the lyrics with stream-of-consciousness prayers for those in harm’s way (especially in Iraq) and for those whose motives and actions I struggle to understand (like death penalty advocates and those who wear fur.)
“Middle-class”, Hugo? From what I read you grew up in Carmel in a family that is connected to teh Bohemiam Club. YOu write about how much you travel every where. You aren’t “middle class” even if you do teach at a JC.
And I’ve seen you with your wife. She looks like a supermodel. I wonder if your feminist allies know that she’s way younger than you and drop dead beautiful.
You are priveleged in ways you don’t even know, Hugoboy. And that means that what you say has very little weight.
Because feminists hate women if they happen to be young and good-looking? Or are men not allowed to marry young, good-looking women? I don’t follow.
Hugo,
I presume you grew up in an environment where you didn’t have to worry as a child about the roof over your head or food on the table. Correct me if I’m wrong. There’s no shame in that- you’re aware of your (good) situation, which frees your time to volunteer and do god work on behalf of lives that aren’t so fortunate.
Critical,
There’s nothing wrong with being well-off. There’s only something wrong with it if one does not appreciate it, one’s not willing to work for it, one’s not willing to be generous, if one feel that it is something they deserve no matter what, and if one feels that other people do not deserve to be comfortable. You seem to fit into the latter.
Feminists are a varied bunch. Don’t pigeonhole all of us into your little mental idea of what feminists are.
I *really* wish you hadn’t said that EmmyLou is part of PETA. I like her music. {sigh} I’m surprised that you support an organization that employs tactics such as these.
Cait, there are many things I don’t like about PETA’s tactics. There are many things I don’t like about the Episcopal Church, the Mennonite Church, the Kabbalah Centre, the Democratic Party, and plenty of other organizations. PETA gets a lot of flack, but they also do good concrete work. Every civil rights movement needs its “Malcolms and its Martins”, its moderates and its radicals. PETA is the “Malcolm”; the Humane Society the “Martin”. As the good Lord said, whoever is not against us is for us…
Critical, what the others said.
As the good Lord said, whoever is not against us is for us
PETA enthusiastically endorses a lot of foul messages about women, in the judgement of many reasonable feminists, and I remember a post here not so long ago where a lot of women pointed that out to you, with illustrative examples. Whether you think of women as “them” or as “us” is, I suppose, up to you.
I’m not even worried about PETA’s messages about women. Women are grown and have plenty of support networks to deal with PETA themselves. I am GRAVELY concerned with ANY organization that uses scare tactics with children.
PETA and the Humane Society are in two distinctly different categories. Your analogy, to me, is like saying that Al Qaeda is representative of Islam, when in fact it is a POLITICAL movement that likes to use religion as an excuse.
PETA uses extremely unethical practices. Not only do they use scare tactics for children (”Your Daddy kills fish. Don’t leave Daddy alone with your cat or dog.”), but they also employ euthanization, where actual RESCUE organizations find homes through adoption and/or foster care.
But no matter what the rest of their ethics are, the most troublesome for me are their tactics with children ages 6yo and up. Even Earth First *never* went to the extreme of terrorizing children.
Wholly apart from the PETA issues, I feel the need to make a point regarding “no-kill” v. “kill” shelters. The choice is not a simple one, even from an animal rights perspective. There is a finite amount of no-kill shelter space. When they are full, animals must be turned away, often to “kill” shelters — if they are lucky. A good friend of mine worked for a no-kill shelter, and sometimes when they were full, people seeking to surrender animals who were turned away at her shelter would take matters into their own hands. Animals were sometimes even tossed from moving cars on the road outside the shelter.
This kind of thing began to wear on her so much that she formed an organization to get at the root causes of pet overpopulation and pet surrender. It’s become a fantastic animal welfare resource in Indiana, and aggressively seeks to enable and complement the wonderful work that pet rescues and shelters do. I’d encourage any animal welfare enthusiast to take a look at their website, because it would be a great model for other areas.
As usual, because I’m a complete techno-doofus, I screwed up the link. It can be found at http://www.indiana-paw.com.
Trailhead, I fully understand that grave decision that must be made in the “kill” vs “no-kill” dilemma. It’s nothing new for farmers and ranchers.
Currently, we have a pup on our property that we’re trying to find a home for. He was given to us at the farmers market by someone in our area at whose property the pup had been dropped. The gentleman didn’t want to take him to the local “kill” shelter, so we brought him home with us to “foster” while we look for a home for him.
Problem is, he’ll chase my poultry if I let him loose. So until we find a good home for him, we have to keep him on a tie-down. If we let him run loose, we’ll have to kill him for killing the poultry and/or for ham-stringing the sheep and goats. (We raise pastured poultry, lamb, and goats for eggs and meat.) So we keep him on a tie-down away from the livestock until we can find him a home. (If you know anyone in Central Texas who’d like to adopt a heeler-cross pup, have them get in touch with me.)
Folks, I don’t give money to PETA. I don’t support all of their campaign tactics. But in the struggle for animal rights, we need all the allies we can get.
I think of the anti-war movement in Britain, where conservative Islamic mullahs marched alongside gay and lesbian activists. Normally, these two groups would have little common ground and would have trouble working together. But in the face of a truly monstrous injustice, they showed solidarity. I believe fur and factory farming constitutes such an injustice, worthy of creating a broad movement that can overlook the idiosyncracies of individual member organizations.