Vernon Coleman
ANIMAL RIGHTS -- HUMAN WRONGS

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Introduction

"Multitudes of human beings were systematically fattened for the carnivora. They were frequently forwarded to great distances by train, in trucks, without food or water. Large numbers of infants were constantly boiled down to form broth for invalid animals. In over-populous districts babies were given to malicious young cats and dogs to be taken away and drowned. Boys were hunted by terriers and stoned to death by frogs. Mice were a good deal occupied in setting mantraps, bated with toasted cheese, in poor neighbourhoods. Gouty old gentlemen were hitched to night-cabs, and forced to totter, on their weak ankles and diseased joints, to clubs, where fashionable young colts were picked up, and taken, at such speed as whipcord could extract, to visit chestnut fillies. Flying figures in scarlet coats, buckskins and top-boots were run down by packs of foxes that had nothing else to do. Old cock-grouse strutted out for a morning's sport, and came in to talk of how many brace of country gentlemen they had bagged. Gamekeepers lived a precarious life in holes and caves. They were perpetually harried by game and vermin; held fast in steel traps, their toes were nibbled by stoats and martens; and finally, their eyes picked out by owls and kites, they were gibbeted alive on trees, head downwards, until the termination of their martyrdom. In one especially tragic case, a naturalist in spectacles dodged about painfully among the topmost branches of a wood, while a orang-outang underneath, armed with a gun, inflicted on him dreadful wounds. A veterinary surgeon of Alfort was stretched on his back, his arms and legs secured to posts, in order that a horse might cut him alive for the benefit of an equine audience; but the generous steed, incapable of vindictive feelings, with one disdainful stamp on the midriff, crushed the wretch's life out."

Hamley (Our Poor Relations) Boston, 1872

I want to see an end to cruelty to animals. I want to see animal experiments stopped. I want to be alive to celebrate the end of hunting. I want to see abattoirs closed down and car parks full of animal transport lorries, engines dead and empty of terrified sheep, cows and other creatures. I want to see all the world's farmers concentrating on growing crops (with the wonderful side effect that world hunger will immediately end). I want all this to happen soon. I want it more than I want anything else in this life. I want it more than I want greater wealth or eternal life. If Aladdin appeared before me and gave me three wishes I would improve the odds by asking for the same thing three times: an end to all cruelty.

People have been fighting for animals for centuries. But nothing positive has happened. All that effort has been to no avail. I have an irrepressible, constant suspicion that animals are treated worse now than at any time in human history.

Part of the problem has, of course, been that there has been incessant in fighting within the pro-animal movement – largely, but not exclusively, through vanity and self interest.

This is in notable contrast to what has happened within the animal abuse industry, where there has been almost constant agreement and an enthusiasm about working together which should be envied by the pro-animal movement.

Ingenuity and Imagination

Farmers, scientists and others have shown appalling ingenuity and imagination in creating an apparently endless variety of ways to abuse the other creatures with whom we share this world.

The barbarism of the Roman circuses is as nothing compared to the barbarism of the modern vivisector's laboratory, the obscenity of the modern abattoir or the cruel indecency of today's animal factory.

Slavery has stopped. Women have been emancipated. Apartheid, in all its human forms, has been roundly condemned. But the abuse of animals has accelerated.

Making The Difference

I want to be alive to see an end to cruelty to animals. I want to know that I have been part of the final thrust which has made the difference. I want to know that I have made a difference.

Of course, I can't do anything by myself – any more than you can. But I believe that we can stop animal cruelty if we work together.

If we learn everything we can from history, study our opponents weaknesses and strengths, put aside all personal vanities (and have the courage to ignore those alleged animal supporters who take every opportunity to snipe and gripe at anyone who dares to try something new) then we will have a better chance of success than ever before.

If we sincerely and seriously want to stop animal cruelty we can.

But if we don't want it enough – and aren't prepared to put in the necessary effort – animals will continue to suffer for generations to come. Stopping the growth in cruelty to animals which has stigmatised this and previous generations, will become harder and harder with each year that passes.

Labour Boasts And Vote Winning Promises

Thousands of pro-animal campaigners put a great deal of faith in the Labour Party before the election of 1997.

Labour politicians had, for over a decade, never failed to boast about their own solid pro-animal credentials. They had condemned the Tories for failing to introduce legislation designed to help protect animals.

Before the 1997 general election the Labour Party made a number of very specific promises which were designed to attract and win the votes of animal lovers everywhere. They determinedly (and, it now seems, cold-bloodedly and cold-heartedly) set about winning the pro-animal vote by making a series of quite specific promises on a huge range of animal issues. In political terms these promises were made with ruthless efficiency.

The Labour Party promised that they would end hunting, they promised to stop the pointless and obscene official killing of badgers, they proposed a Royal Commission to investigate (and presumably expose) the scientific worthlessness of animal experiments and they promised a ban on testing weapons on animals. They promised that vivisectors would not be allowed to use monkeys. They promised an immediate ban on hunting on Forestry Commission and Ministry of Defence land.

These promises attracted many votes because the other two leading parties in Britain (the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrat Party) offered little or nothing to animal lovers. The Conservatives, the party of cruelty, had consistently encouraged the exploitation of animals for 'fun' and profit. They had even given the police new powers to subdue anyone daring to protest on behalf of animals. And the Liberal Democrats had little more to offer animal rights supporters.

The Betrayal

But animal loving supporters of the Labour Party were destined to be disappointed. As soon as they won power the Labour Party reneged on their promises; they betrayed the voters who had trusted them and they betrayed the animals for whom there had been no other hope.

In retrospect the Labour Party has done no more for animals than any other party would have done. In some ways they have done less. They allowed hunting on Ministry of Defence and Forestry Commission land to continue. They announced new government funded defence experiments on monkeys. They reneged on their promise to push through a ban on hunting. And instead of stopping the killing of badgers they increased government authorised badger killing.

And the Labour government has, of course, actively and specifically encouraged the police to suppress dissent and to stop critics reminding the world of their broken promises.

(It is perhaps relevant to point out that the Labour government has betrayed a good many other people in addition to animal campaigners. They have betrayed students, the old, gays, the disabled and all those small groups of people who cannot easily defend themselves or fight for themselves. They have, generally speaking, betrayed people who have one thing in common: little or no influence in the corridors of power. It is perhaps hardly surprising that they have betrayed animals who, after all, do not even have a vote. The Labour Party has broken its pre-election promises to millions. If it were not impossible to take a government to court the Labour Party would be defending several million lawsuits from aggrieved voters who wanted their votes back – and damages too.)

Anger And Frustration

When I began to write this book I was inspired to do so by a mixture of anger and frustration. I was angry at the way that the government had got into power through lying. I felt cheated. And I knew that many thousands of other pro-animal campaigners felt the same way.

I had, I confess, never believed the Labour Party's promises. Before the election I refused to support them or to encourage others to believe them. I was not convinced that the people who would be responsible for keeping the promises which were being made were honest and trustworthy. I felt that their desire for power was so great that they would do – and say – anything in order to win votes. I made all this clear in numerous newspaper articles.

But my scepticism did not alter the fact that the promises were made.

And I felt just as frustrated as the millions who had believed those promises, and who felt personally cheated and betrayed. My frustration has been enhanced by the fact that, for a variety of reasons, most of the British media has refused to report the Labour Party's failure to live up to its pre-election commitments.

On The Record

I originally intended to write a book to draw attention to the Labour Party's cold-hearted deceit in the hope that future voters would learn a lesson from what happened in 1997. I wanted to put on record exactly what had happened, and to encourage future voters to be cynical and cautious when faced with extravagant and convincing promises made by politicians desperately searching for power.

And I hoped that I would, perhaps, be able to offer a few answers and some advice learnt from these events.

I believe that ending the abuse of animals is the final challenge; the last main obstacle to civilisation. And I believe that in order to win the battle on behalf of animals those of us who care have to arouse massive public indignation.

Slavery was abolished because public outrage simply became too much for the politicians to withstand.

Similarly, animals will not get the rights they are entitled to until the mass of people are convinced by the evidence, or more likely their perception of the evidence, that the continued abuse of animals is unacceptable.

The Good News, The Bad News And The Bottom Line

The bad news is that the opposition to giving animals their freedom (and giving them back their basic rights) is supported by rich and powerful people and corporations who (largely for financial reasons) want to retain the status quo.

The good news is that those of us who want to see an end to animal abuse are in the majority. Most people want animal cruelty stopped.

It is true that modern pro-animal demonstrations do not attract vast numbers of people. One reason for this is that many caring people are now too frightened of the police to stand up in public for their principles. Turning up to a demonstration to protest about the way animals are treated requires a strong commitment as well as courage. It also takes up time and costs money. I am constantly surprised not by the fact that so few people turn up to protest about crimes against animals but that so many people are prepared to give up their time and spend their money for the privilege of being pushed around by often stony-faced police officers who sometimes seem to be enjoying the opportunity to use their muscles.

The bottom line is that in order to defend animals, and to gain for them their basic rights as sentient creatures, we have to change politics and change the way our modern society is organised.

Taking Back Power

Somewhere along the way this book changed direction.

Instead of being primarily concerned with the past (and the Labour Party's failure to fulfill its promises) the spirit of the book became primarily concerned with the future.

A book which had begun life as an angry and outraged attack on politicians who had broken their promises became a book in which I planned to offer new hope for the future – and a way forward out of the gloom.

Back in 1991, in a book now entitled How To Overcome Toxic Stress And The 21st Century Blues (published by the European Medical Journal) I explained that we have created a society over which human beings no longer have any effective control. We have disenfranchised ourselves. That book provided me with the philosophical basis upon which I could build my proposal for winning this battle.

The 21st Century Blues

In order to explain why our world is so uncaring, and why animal abuse is on the increase, I must first explain why and how we have become disenfranchised – and who (or, rather, what) has taken power over our lives. When you understand why we are disenfranchised, and why animal abuse is on the increase, you will also understand why our food and water are being polluted and why the air we breathe is becoming contaminated.

Strange And Difficult Times

We live in strange, difficult and confusing times. In some ways – largely material – we are richer than any of our ancestors. In other ways – largely spiritual – we are infinitely poorer. Most of us live in well equipped homes that our great grand parents would marvel at. We have access to water at the turn of a tap. (Sadly, the water is deteriorating in quality and is now undrinkable.) At the flick of a switch we can obtain light to work by and heat to cook by. We have automatic ovens, washing machines, tumble driers, dish washers, food blenders, vacuum cleaners, television sets, video recorders and a whole host of other devices designed either to make our working lives easier or our leisure hours longer or more enjoyable. We can travel thousands of miles in a matter of hours.

We are surrounded by the gaudy signs of our wealth and the physical consequence of human ambition and endeavour, but loneliness, unhappiness, anxiety and depression are now commoner than at any previous time in our history. Never before has there been so much sadness, dissatisfaction and frustration as there is today. The demand for tranquillisers and sleeping tablets has steadily increased as our national and individual wealth has increased.

We have access to sophisticated communications systems and we have far more power over our environment than our ancestors ever had and yet we are regularly reminded of our vulnerability and our dependence on the system we have created.

Most important of all is the fact that although we are materially wealthy we are spiritually deprived. We have conquered most of our planet, and some of the space which surrounds it, but we are woefully unable to live peacefully with one another. The more control we have over our environment the more damage we do to it. The more successful we become the more miserable we are. The more we learn the more we forget about our duties and responsibilities to one another.

As manufacturers and advertisers have deliberately translated our wants into needs so we have exchanged generosity and caring for greed and self concern. Politicians and teachers, scientists and parents have encouraged each succeeding generation to convert simple dreams and aspirations into fiery no-holds-barred ambitions. In the name of progress we have sacrificed goodwill, common sense and thoughtfulness. The gentle, the weak and the warm hearted have been trampled upon by hordes who think only of the future. Our society is a sad one; the cornerstones of our world are selfishness, greed, anger and hatred.

During the last fifty years or so we have changed our world beyond recognition. With the aid of psychologists, clever advertising copywriters have learned to exploit our weaknesses and our fears and our natural apprehensions to help create demands for new and increasingly expensive products. Tradition, dignity, craftsmanship, values and virtues have been pushed aside in the search for greater productivity and profitability.

It is hardly surprising that all these changes have produced new stresses and strains. The pressures to succeed, to conform and to acquire ensure that the base levels of daily stress are fixed at dangerously high levels.

For twenty years it has been recognised that stress plays a vital part in the development of most illnesses but today the fastest growing illness in the world is something which I now call 'The 21st Century Blues' – a largely unrecognised problem that already affects one person in three and is spreading rapidly. The 21st Century Blues is caused by 'toxic stress'.

Toxic stress is far more destructive than ordinary stress. It is created – often deliberately – by politicians, lawyers and advertisers and it is the cause of much bitterness and many frustrations. It is the cause of the deep sense of ill defined, inexplicable despair that is typical of victims of The 21st Century Blues.

Toxic stress is the type of stress that is produced by advertisements which make you feel incompetent or inadequate ("You're a failure if you can't afford to dress like this." "You're a terrible parent if you don't buy X or Y for your children.") and it is the type of stress that is produced by lawyers who create laws which mean that however just your cause may be you won't be able to win.

The Perils Of Progress

Much of the stress from which we all suffer is created by our constant determination to progress. Our dedication to progress is one of the reasons why we have lost control of our world.

Without so much progress we would have more time to enjoy our world and our lives; without so much progress we would be better able to find happiness, contentment and stability.

But without progress industry would slow down, economic growth would be stifled and society would stand still. And that would not suit society at all. This is significant because it explains how we have created a world and a society which now control us. For the first time in history our present and our future are controlled not by us, not by our "leaders', but by a social structure which we have devised. Our institutions and multinational corporations need progress in order to create and gain more power. The power in our world is now vested in the institutions themselves; it is the structure of our society which controls us.

Those who work for the institutions which rule our lives tell us that progress is essential but they are lying. They tell is that it is impossible to halt progress but they are lying. What they really mean is that progress is good for business, or that progress offers some advantage in terms of money or power to the part of the social structure to which they are tied. Progress is, ironically, essential to the strength of the status quo.

Most people who work for institutions and multinational corporations will insist that progress means "better'. It doesn't. Progress means that people have to work harder and take life more seriously and it means more stress. Progress means that things become more complicated and more likely to go wrong. Progress means that the things which you bought yesterday (and were happy with until the advertisers convinced you that they were out of date) are useless within months. Progress means that new is always better and that the future is always going to be better than the past.

Progress means that more and more people have to exchange a rich and varied, wholesome and healthy lifestyle for one which is hollow and filled with despair and loneliness. Progress means deprivation for people but strength for our social structures. Progress means that the jobs people do become more boring and less satisfying. Progress means more power to institutions and to machines and computers. Progress means more stress, more destruction, more misery and more tedium. And progress means more cruelty to animals and more damage to our planet.

Are people wiser, happier and more contented now that electric toothbrushes are available? Are faster cars more satisfying than old ones? Are people more at peace than their ancestors now that the compact disc player has been invented?

The truth about progress is something of a compromise. Some advances are good. Some new technology is helpful and does improve the quality of our lives. Some new developments reduce pain, suffering and stress.

But society isn't interested in compromise. Society needs uncontrolled progress in order to grow. And the people who acquire their power and their status and their wealth from society's institutions do what they are expected to do. Our world is no longer controlled by people. It is controlled by the structure that we created.

The truth is that progress can be a boon as well as a burden. It would be as stupid to claim that all progress is bad as to claim that all progress is good. Progress is good when we use it rather than allow it to rule our lives. Progress is neither good nor bad unless we make it so.

But we no longer choose between those aspects of progress which can be to our benefit and those which may be harmful. Now that we no longer control our world we are forced to accept all progress whether we want it or not.

The Hidden Price Of Education

We are taught to take education seriously. We are told that the quality and extent of our education will shape and govern our lives. We are told that if we work hard at school and at college then we will reap the benefits later.

"Study hard, pass your examinations and you will obtain a better job, earn more money and be able to enjoy a more luxurious lifestyle than those who spurn their educational opportunities."

How many children hear that each year? It is the standard stuff of school speech days.

What we are told may, to some extent, be true. But we are never told the real price that we will have to pay for our years of education. We are never told the spiritual price that society expects us to pay in return for having our lives "shaped and improved'.

To understand the potential costs to the spirit and the soul it is necessary to understand the purpose of the education society offers us all. We must understand what our society stands to gain from the deal we are offered.

Nothing that society offers ever comes free and an education is certainly no exception. Society doesn't want to educate us so that we become more thoughtful, more creative or wiser individuals. Society doesn't want to broaden our horizons or enhance our sense of vision. Society doesn't want to instill passion in us (that can be troublesome and inconvenient) and it doesn't want us to know how to think for ourselves (that can be costly and disruptive).

What society really wants is obedience.

Society knows that the obedient will work hard without question. Society knows that the obedient can be relied upon to do work that is dull, repetitive and possibly even dangerous. Society knows that the obedient are unlikely to be troubled by spiritual or moral fears. Society knows that the obedient will fit neatly into whatever hierarchy may exist and society knows that the obedient will always put loyalty above honesty and integrity.

The obedient are always prepared to do what others tell them to do. And the obedient are allowed to climb higher up the ladder. But because they are obedient they always do what they are told – however high they climb. The obedient obey the boss, the politicians, the administrators and the bureaucrats. Most of all the obedient are aware of, and obey, the needs of the institution for which they work.

The obedient also become good and reliable customers.The obedient obey the advertisers and buy things that they don't need. By doing so they help society to evolve and stay strong. The obedient accept shoddy workmanship and unreliability without complaint. They accept new fashions as necessary and they buy new clothes and new cars when society wants them to buy those things – not when they need them. The obedient customer is a passive customer and the passive customer is the best customer.

Think back to your own education and you'll see how important obedience was. With some honourable exceptions most courses which involve a textbook and a teacher, and conclude with an examination, are designed to prevent thought and to encourage obedience. "The best part of every man's education, is that which he gives to himself," wrote Sir Walter Scott. But today we are taught to think of education as something that starts when we begin school and ends when we leave. Society doesn't want us to think for ourselves.

One aim of a modern education is to harness the minds of the imaginative or potentially disruptive. Such individuals are dangerous to a smooth running society.

Society's schoolteachers – the handmaidens of the system – are prepared and willing to manipulate the minds of the young because that is what society expects them to do in return for their own status in society.

Education, the most fundamental force of all, is designed to help produce a neat and layered world. But the price we pay for our education is a high one. And the more successful our education is in society's terms (and the higher our subsequent position in the meritocracy) the greater the price we must pay.

Your choices – or the choices that society helped you make – will have strictly defined the boundaries of your life. You may be better rewarded (in material terms) than many of those who were less capable of satisfying the system but the price you pay will be high too. The price you pay for educational success is intellectual constraint. You may pay for your success with your freedom. You may pay for your success with guilt, frustration, dissatisfaction and boredom.

The modern educational system is designed to support the structure of our society but it is also a major force in the development of stress and misery.

If it is true that our schooldays are the happiest days of our lives it is because by the time we leave school freedom is, for most of us, nothing more than a faint memory.

Regular, mass-market schooling for everyone was originally a by product of the industrial revolution. Prior to the industrial revolution most people lived in villages and hamlets and only a relatively small percentage of the population lived in towns and cities.

The first factories and industrial towns developed in England when industrial machinery such as spinning wheels, which had been installed in cottages, barns and village halls, were smashed by the Luddites; rebellious workers who believed that the introduction of machinery threatened their livelihoods. As a direct result of the Luddite activities the machine owners put their replacement equipment into specially-built 'factories' so that they could be protected against vandalism.

Since public transport did not exist this, inevitably, meant that the people who were going to work in those factories had to be housed nearby. In this way the first new, purpose-built industrial towns developed.

The first schools were built not to educate or to inform but because unless some provision was made for looking after children factory owners could not employ women as well as men. The development of the first towns had meant that family units had been splintered and it was no longer possible for young parents to turn to their own parents for help and support.

Either by purpose, design or simple good fortune it was quickly discovered that the development of formal schooling had an additional benefit. Employers found that children who got into the habit of attending a school for regular hours during the day adapted more readily to work in a factory. Many of their parents, who had been brought up working as farm labourers, found factory work, hours and discipline difficult to get used to. Children who were accustomed to school work, hours and discipline had no such problems.

Today, a formal education is still primarily designed to occupy pupils, to keep them busy and out of mischief, and to prepare them for an ordinary working life. Very little of the tedious by rote learning which goes on in schools has any practical purpose. Children are taught algebra, trigonometry and Latin – and then subjected to examinations designed to find out how well they have absorbed the entirely useless material they have been taught. The aim is to not to teach or impart learning but to produce school leavers who will feel comfortable with the standard working ritual of modern life.

Schooling is a disciplinary activity rather than an educational one (although the latest and most fashionable educational methods – those which are designed to educate without work, study, labour or pain – fail even to instil discipline into pupils). Students are certainly not given information which will enable them to live independent lives. They are taught how to satisfy society's demands for them, rather than taught how to think. Children should be taught the importance of honesty, trust and loyalty. They should be taught to honour the rights of all other creatures. They are, instead, taught the importance of punctuality and blind obedience.

Stop and think about it: why would society want to teach young people how to think for themselves?

People who can think for themselves are likely to be a nuisance rather than an asset to a closely structured society which depends more on discipline and routine than on innovation or imagination.

Students, at schools, colleges and universities, are trained to do as they are told. Is it is for this reason that rules play such a crucial part in all educational establishments. Learning to obey the rules, and do as you are told, is a more important part of most educational establishments than learning to create or to question. Most education and training is designed to make sure that people do not maximise or optimise their own skills but that they accept whatever life or fate offers.

The 'society' which we have created, which now has a purpose and an agenda of its own, does not want thinking citizens. People who think are likely to threaten the status quo.

There are many citizens in our society who believe (with apparent sincerity) that once their formal education is over they can stop learning. They assume that when they leave school, college or university they do so as educationally complete individuals, and that they can, from that point in their lives onwards, stop expanding, exploring and discovering.

This is no accident. It is exactly what 'society' wants.

The Pressure of Advertising

Whatever else you do with your life you will always be a consumer. To the multinational corporations which make items as varied as motor cars, refrigerators, underwear, indigestion remedies, biscuits, coat hangers and kitchen sinks you are a consumer.

In order to persuade you to become a customer the people who provide these products and services spend considerable amounts of money on trying to convince you that their products are better than anyone else's.

Every day your custom is solicited in a thousand different ways – some crude and some subtle. Every day you are bombarded with advertisements telling you to buy one of these and begging you to buy some of those and explaining why your life will be incomplete if you do not spend your money on a little of this and a little of that.

The professionals who prepare advertisements know very well that in order to succeed in the modern market place they must create new needs; they know that their advertising must, through a mixture of exaggeration and deceit (and through exploiting natural fears and weaknesses) create wants and desires, hopes and aspirations and then turn those wants, desires, hopes and aspirations into needs.

Multinational corporations (and their advertising agencies) know that it is impossible to sell anything to a satisfied man. But, in order to keep the money coming in (and to keep the corporate beast satisfied) the advertising agencies must constantly encourage us to buy. They constantly need to find better ways to sell us stuff that we do not really need.

Any fool can sell a product or a service that people need. If your shoes wear out then you will buy new ones or have the old ones repaired. If you are hungry and there is only one restaurant for miles then that restaurant will get your service. If you car is about to run out of petrol then a garage doesn't need to offer you free tumblers or a money off voucher for a car wash in order to win your custom.

As far as the multinational corporations are concerned the trick is to get you to buy shoes when you don't need new shoes and to buy shoes that are more expensive than they need be; to buy food when you are not hungry and to fill your car with petrol long before its tank is empty simply because you are attracted by the offer that accompanies a particular brand of fuel.

The multinational corporations want to turn your most ephemeral wants into basic needs. In order to do this their advertising agencies use all their professional skills to make you dissatisfied with what you already have. They need you to be constantly dissatisfied and frustrated. Modern advertising is a scientifically based creative art which is designed to raise the intensity of your desires and build your dissatisfaction and your fears. The advertising copywriter is hired to create unhappiness.

Multinational corporations want to take away your appreciation of the simple things in life because they know that there is more profit in making things more complicated, more expensive and more unreliable. They want you to be in so much of a hurry that you eat instant foods rather than growing and preparing your own vegetables. They want you to ride in a car rather than walk or ride a bicycle. They want to make you feel guilty if you don't smell right or don't buy the right breakfast cereal for your children. They want you to feel a failure if you don't have the latest clothes on your back and the latest gadgets in your home. Their advertising is most successful when it persuades you to forget your real needs and to replace them with wants.

Even if you don't have the money to spend on new cars, kitchen furniture, clothes and other goods so cleverly advertised you will not escape. Advertising, designed to inflame your desires, will show you services you cannot buy and things you cannot have. It will create wants and then turn those wants into needs. Advertising creates frustration and disappointment, envy and dissatisfaction. If you are too poor to buy the things which are advertised you will never discover that the products on offer are unlikely to satisfy the promises made for them.

In the hands of the multinational corporations (and their human slaves) advertising is the symbol of modern society; it frequently represents false temptations, hollow hopes and unhappiness and disenchantment; it often inspires values which are based on fear and greed. In short, the multinational corporations deliberately use advertising to make people disatisfied and unhappy.

How Fear Creates Stress

Your ancestors lived in a world about which they understood very little and where they were constantly in danger. They had many things to be afraid of: death, pain, starvation and being eaten alive by wild animals to mention but four.

We, in contrast, should lead relatively fear-free lives.

But all the evidence firmly shows that fear plays a much bigger part in our lives than it ever played in the lives of our ancestors.

Why?

Probably because society (our unseen controller) needs us to be frightened. Fear is a powerful driving force which helps to push us forwards. Fear encourages us to accept things we do not like, to do work we do not enjoy and to spend money on things we neither want nor need. Fear cripples us but keeps us compliant. Fear is one of the most potent of all forces and it used to control us and to manipulate our emotions.

Consider health for example.

You are encouraged to worry about your health in a thousand separate ways. Listen to the experts arguing about what is bad for you and you will soon feel twinges of fear nibbling at you. Most of the time your fears are created and maintained by people who have a vested, commercial interest in exploiting your fears so that they can sell you something.

The companies which make caffeine-free coffee tell you the virtues of drinking caffeine-free coffee – and warn you of the hazards of drinking ordinary coffee. The people who make low-fat products warn you of the hazards of eating high-fat products. Companies selling herbal remedies tell you how dangerous doctors can be. Companies making sweeteners warn you of the dangers of eating sugar. Companies involved in the marketing or distribution of sugar warn you of the danger of sugar substitutes. Lobbyists, marketing experts and spin doctors all distort the truth in order to promote a particular message, create a special type of fear and sell a product.

Fear is everywhere and is constantly used by people who want to manipulate you. Fear isn't just used by the multinational corporations. Politicians and police chiefs frighten you about street violence in order to encourage you to give them more power. Politicians make you frightened of your enemies abroad for the same reason. (These days when politicians find themselves under pressure at home they invariably start a war abroad. Margaret Thatcher discovered the electoral value of a war when the Falkland's conflict helped her win an election. Was it a complete coincidence that Bill Clinton sent American aeroplanes to bomb Iraq just at the same time that his peers were discussing whether or not he should be impeached?) Television and radio means that you can be frightened more speedily and more effectively than ever before. Fear helps our society to sustain itself and to increase its power.  

We Have Lost Control

Science fiction writers have, in the past, written about a future in which man loses power over his world because computers and robots have taken control. That hasn't happened. But we have, unthinkingly and unknowingly, lost power in a quite different way. We have lost power, and handed over control of our lives to an untouchable, nebulous, almost indefinable force. We have handed over control to institutions, organisations and multinational corporations which use our educational system to teach us to obey authority and which skilfully use advertising to create needs and fears.

If you carefully examine the way the world is being run at the moment you could reasonably come to the conclusion that most multinational corporations, and most governments, are more or less exclusively controlled by ruthless, James Bond villain style psychopathic megalomaniacs.

What other explanation could there be for the fact that drug companies make and sell drugs which they know are both dangerous and ineffective? What other explanation could there be for the fact that food companies make and sell food which they must know causes cancer and contains very little of nutritional value? What other explanation could there be for the fact that arms companies sell products deliberately designed to blow the legs off small children? What other explanation could there for the fact that tobacco companies continue to make, promote and sell products which they know kill a high proportion of their customers? And what other explanation could there possibly be for the fact that bureaucrats, civil servants and politicians allow all this to happen?

There is another explanation for all these things.

For the very first time in history the main opponents of justice and fair play, the proponents of abuse and tyranny, have no human form. We have created new monsters: new monsters which we cannot see or touch. (We cannot see or touch them for the excellent reason that they do not exist in reality).

For the first time in history we have succeeded in creating a world, a society, which now exists solely to defend, protect and develop itself. We have created a society whose institutions have acquired power of their own. These institutions – governments, multinational corporations, multinational bureaucracies and so on – now exist solely to maintain, improve and strengthen themselves. These institutions have their own hidden agendas and the human beings who work for them may think that they are in control but they aren't.

I now believe that the biggest threat to the survival of the human race (and the planet upon which we live) comes not from the atomic bomb, or the fact that we are steadily destroying the very fabric of our world by polluting our seas, our rivers, the air we breathe and even the space which separates us from other planets, but from the fact that we have created a social structure in which we, as human beings, now exist as mere drones. It is this new social structure which is pushing us along at a great speed and 'forcing' us not only to destroy our environment but also to abandon all those moral and ethical values which it is reasonable to expect to be fundamental in a 'civilised' society.

It may be a little difficult to accept the concept of institutions having agendas of their own but the reality is that this is exactly what has happened.

The people who appear to run large institutions, and who themselves undoubtedly believe that they are in charge, are simply institutional servants.

Consider, for example, the chairman and directors of a large multinational pharmaceutical company. These well paid men and women will regard themselves as being responsible for the tactics and strategy followed by the company for which they work. But in reality it is the company itself – an institution which only really exists on paper – which is in real control.

Every multinational company has a constant thirst for cash. In order to satisfy bankers, brokers and shareholders companies need to produce quarterly figures which show a nice big, fat profit on the bottom line.

The people who work for our imaginary drug company may think that they are in control but in reality they aren't. The directors have to do what is in their company's best interests. If they don't then their company will falter and that can't be allowed to happen. The company, the unimaginably powerful corporate demon, must come first.

So, for example, if the directors find that one of their products causes lethal side effects they may, as human beings, feel ashamed about this. Individually the directors may want to withdraw the drug immediately and to apologise to the people who have been injured by their product. But this course of action would not be in the company's best short term interests. Withdrawing the drug would doubtless cost the company money. Research and development costs would have to be written off. And apologising would expose the company to lawsuits. So the directors, acting in the company's best interests, must keep the drug on the market and deny that there are any problems. In these circumstances the company (a non-human entity which only exists on paper) is in control. The decisions are made not in the interests of people (whether they be customers or directors) but in the interests of the corporate "being'.

The problem is compounded by the fact that, big as they are, multinational companies have no souls and no sense of responsibility. Moreover, they never think beyond the next set of quarterly figures; they are ultimately ruthless and (since they are inanimate and bloodless) utterly "cold blooded', but they are also ultimately short sighted. Big institutions, like computers, are inherently, irretrievably, stupid. They do not realise that their behaviour will, in the long run, lead to their total destruction – partly because it will annoy and alienate their customers and partly because it will eventually result in the deaths of many of their customers.

By and large, the men and women who run large drug companies, arms companies, food companies and genetic engineering companies don't really want to destroy the world in which we all live. They know that their families have to breathe the same air as you and I. They know that they too need good food, clean drinking water and a healthy environment.

However, despite the evidence being to the contrary the people who run these companies probably think that they are doing good and useful work. They have denied the truth to themselves in order to avoid coming face to face with a reality which would probably drive them insane if they accepted it. It is only through denial and self deceit that most of the men and women who work for tobacco companies can continue to sell a product which causes so much misery and so much death. Adolf Hitler killed fewer people than the big tobacco companies have killed. But I doubt if many of the people running big tobacco companies think of themselves as evil.

I have met men and women who run large organisations (such as drug companies). Some recognise that what they are doing is immoral and they excuse themselves with such trite and shallow phrases as "If I didn't do it someone else would" and "I've got to pay the mortgage". These are, of course, variations on the same excuses favoured by the men and women who operated the gas chambers during the second world war. (The brighter and more sensitive individuals usually see through these excuses in the end; they often become depressed.)

But many men and women who work for drug companies quite honestly and sincerely believe that they are doing useful and indeed valuable work. They have become so deeply institutionalised, and are driven so completely by the needs of the corporate beast, that they genuinely feel no shame about what they do. They have rationalised their actions and denied to themselves the truths which are apparent to outside observers.

Occasionally, this constant denial and self deceit breaks down and absurdities appear. For example, British Members of Parliament have, as members of an institution, consistently voted to allow multinational corporations to pollute our drinking water and to tamper with and pollute our food. And yet MPs themselves, as individuals, are so conscious of the value of the pure food and clean drinking water that in the House of Commons they have arranged to be given spring water to drink and to be fed on organic food which has not been genetically modified. The men and women who vote to allow our water to be polluted and our food to be genetically modified are voting as representatives of institutions rather than as representatives of people. They know that they are creating a world in which the food is unfit to eat and the water unfit to drink. But they can't stop it happening because they are operating for the benefit of institutions rather than people.

Suppressing The Truth

The huge organisations which now run the world have developed identities, strengths, purposes and needs of their own. And in order to continue to grow in size and in strength those organisations need to ignore or suppress as much of the truth as they can – and to ignore the truths which they cannot suppress. Obviously, the people who work for those institutions must also ignore and suppress the unpalatable truths (and they must find ways to hide from the reality of what they are doing).

How else can anyone explain the fact that the (supported by politicians) huge corporations have decided to continue to damage the ozone layer – despite knowing the consequences? How else can anyone explain the fact that because antibiotics are being consistently and deliberately and knowingly used irresponsibly infectious diseases are once again a major cause of death? How else can anyone explain the fact that genetic engineers are creating foods which may or may not be safe to eat? How else can anyone explain the fact that drug companies keep on producing – and selling – products which do more harm than good?

The industrialists, the politicians and the administrators who allow these things to happen are just as vulnerable to the consequences of their actions as you and I. They – and their families – cannot buy immunity to the problems which they are creating.

The amoral but all powerful institutions we have created are not responsible for all the horrors of our world, of course. They are certainly not responsible for all the awful things we do to animals. Men and women who hunt, for example, do not hunt because they are forced to do so by an institution. They hunt because they obtain pleasure from killing and they have failed to recognise the pointless, cruel barbarism of what they do. But a very high percentage of the cruel things which we do to animals are a result of institutional needs.

For example, the continued survival of the meat trade is a result of the fact that the demands and needs of meat producing, packaging and marketing institutions have taken precedence over health and moral concerns and now have control over our lives. It has been known for decades that meat causes cancer (and a whole host of other deadly disorders). And it has also been known that if people became vegetarian and stopped eating animals world hunger would be a thing of the past simply because our resources could be used more productively. There is no question that every human being in the world would benefit if meat eating stopped. No meat industry spokesmen would dare to debate this issue in public because they would inevitably lose.

But many large and profitable companies would go out of business if people no longer ate meat. And so the needs of the institutions take precedence over the needs of the people.

The selfish, self-centered, amoral materialism which has characterised political life for the last few decades, and which has simultaneously accompanied a downfall in morality, can no longer be seen as just another unfortunate blip in human development. The horrors of today will not be easily conquered, and will not be conquered at all unless we acknowledge the breadth and depth of the exceptional problem we now face.

Some years ago Dr Albert Schweizer saw the first signs of what has happened. "Another hindrance to civilisation today," he wrote, "is the over-organisation of our public life. While it is certain that a properly ordered environment is the condition and, at the same time, the result of civilisation, it is also undeniable that, after a certain point has been reached, external organisation is developed at the expense of spiritual life. Personality and ideas are often subordinated to institutions, when it is really these which ought to influence the latter and keep them inwardly alive."

We cannot trust our existing politicians, or the systems which they wrongly believe they control, and so what is the point of trying to persuade them to do what we want them to do – and what is right?

I have come to the conclusion that we have only one option: to take back the political power which is rightfully ours. If we are to change our world, and to replace greed and deceit with truth, kindness and courtesy we have to take action. Nothing will happen unless we want it to happen – and then make it happen. If we are to re-introduce a sense of morality into our world, and end cruelty to people and animals, we have to take back power from the institutions which now rule our lives. If we are going to take back power from the weak, spineless and unthinking politicians and corporate yes-men who serve our controlling institutions with such uncritical faithfulness we have to create our own political force. If we are to end animal cruelty then we have to recreate the way our world is run. We need a political revolution.

And that is what this book is all about.

Vernon Coleman, Devon 1999

Part One:

Abuse And Hypocrisy

"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mythical concept of animals...We patronise them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they moved finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth. "

Henry Beston

Chapter One:

The Final Outrage

I like animals. Most of them are more intelligent, more charming, more faithful and more fun than most people and all Conservatives.

Animals were not made for human beings to use any more than women were made for male amusement, or black people were made to work for white people. The struggle for freedom for animals is as important a struggle as any struggle ever fought. Animal abuse is the last great outrage and yet most people are so accustomed to the excruciating suffering of animals that they take little or no notice. They comfort themselves with the false belief that animals have no feelings and, therefore, do not suffer.

Animals – and other non-human creatures – are treated with no more respect than grass, rocks or ripples on a pond. Non-human creatures are regarded as outsiders with no rights other than to serve our human purposes. They may be (and are) beaten, tortured, humiliated, maimed, starved, imprisoned, robbed of their dignity, chased and killed for fun, boiled or skinned alive, eaten and generally abused. Non-human creatures – however wise, however sensitive – are regarded as mere commodities, to be bought and sold like oranges or gold or ears of wheat. Humans seem to take a perverted delight in thinking of new ways to abuse the inhabitants with whom they share this planet.

Signposts To The Nature Of The Human Spirit

People are at their truest when treating animals. The man who is a bully to other human beings will bully his dog. The man who is kind to animals will be kind to people. The way we treat animals provides signposts to the nature of the human spirit.

Many people refer to the animals with whom they share their homes as 'pets' but I sdo not like the image it portrays. Animals are not pets and we do not own them. We share a world together, that is all. We give and we receive.

The animal abusers rule in our society because they are violent and aggressive people. Their illusions and prejudices dominate our society. The rude, the selfish, the ruthless, the bigoted, the cruel, the intolerant, the hard hearted, the hateful and the savage have conquered the earth. The world is divided into two sorts of people: the sensitive and the insensitive. The sensitive suffer for everyone. They don't hurt other creatures but they suffer the pain for the harm done by the insensitive. Hunters, vivisectors, butchers and so on are the insensitive, brutal barbarians of our society.

The animal abusers are the ultimate narrow-minded, tunnel-visioned provincials; full of arrogance and misconceptions. Savage tribes were provincial in that they regarded all strangers as barbarians to be robbed or eaten or both. Today the animal abusers are the ultimate provincials. They do not see or accept that we do not have unique rights over the world but must share it with those other creatures who live upon it.

Prejudices – Ancient And Modern

Back in Roman times any non Roman who committed a heinous crime against a Roman would be executed. If a slave trod on his master's foot he would lose his head. But a Roman could commit any crime against a non-Roman without fear of retribution. This happened because the Romans saw themselves as the centre of the universe.

The Greeks felt much the same as the Romans did in that a Greek could do more or less what he liked to a slave but a slave would be punished severely if he offended a Greek.

And the same is, of course, true of the Jews.

The Romans, the Greeks and the Jews (and many other groups of people) behaved in this way because they had not grown out of their primitive, barbaric view of the world. They never really imagined that their victims could suffer in the same way that they could. They did not think of their victims as having senses, or of being capable of thought. A slave was much like a sandal – something to be bought, used and thrown away when no longer wanted.

In modern times white Americans, South Africans and Australians have all behaved in the same way when dealing with black people. They behaved in this way partly because they had not evolved away from their barbaric origins and partly because white men and women felt that to give black people rights would be economically inconvenient. They protected themselves against the absurdity of this crass reasoning by refusing to acknowledge that black people could think, or reason or suffer.

And, of course, for centuries men of all races have behaved in a similar way towards women – refusing to give them equality for many years and arguing that this was excusable because women were not equal.

Blind Egoists

The way in which human beings now exploit and abuse animals (and other living creatures) is no different in principle to the way in which the Romans treated their slaves, the Americans treated non-white races and the Victorian Englishman treated 'his' women.

In every case the underlying problem is the same: the exploiters see the world from a provincial, small minded standpoint. Those who exploit have inherited from barbarians and savages the utterly self centered belief that they – and they alone – are blessed with wisdom and imagination. They are narrow-minded, bigoted bullies, blind egoists who cares only about themselves and their own tiny world. And they try to support their bigotry and their prejudices with pseudo-scientific nonsenses which bear no resemblance to the truth.

The black man was regarded as having no rights other than to serve the white man. The sheep is regarded as having no rights other than to serve mankind.

People who like animals, and who have been sickened by the barbaric way evil-spirited farmers, tyrannical scientists and other barbarians exploit them, have been campaigning against the establishment and for animal rights for a long, long time. Two and a half thousand years ago Buddha taught that it is as bad for a man to murder a sheep as to murder his father. ("Both equally love life and fear death. In this there is no difference.") After all murder is murder is murder is murder.

Those who love animals are widely regarded (particularly by politicians, scientists and pseudo-intellectuals) as irrational, sentimental, Bambi-hugging bunny lovers. The gentle and the humane have for too long been regarded as merely weak and ineffectual.

The laws and regulations which currently exist to 'protect' animals are conveniently designed so as not to inconvenience humans. The laws and regulations governing the use of animals in experiments are so weak and ineffectual, and so poorly policed, that they might as well not exist. The laws authorise cruelty and oppression more than they try to prevent it. Our laws relating to animals are a sheer disgrace. Experimenters can cause whatever pain they like to animals as long as the cage in which the tortured animal will be imprisoned afterwards is a certain modest size. To make life easy for the animal abusers there are so many exceptions to the rules, and so few 'checks' to make sure that the rules are being obeyed, that even the regulations which do exist are little more than cosmetic in nature.

Laws which exist to stop hunters shooting animals are usually only there to make sure that the animals in question are not wiped out completely. (Although in France recently when hunters were asked whether or not they would approve of a ban on hunting during "la periode de reproduction animale" a headline in the newspaper Le Monde announced that only 79% of hunters would agree to respect a ban during this period.

No one seemed perturbed, surprised or even alarmed by the fact that if you look at this survey the other way it shows that 21% of hunters are so short of functioning cerebral tissue that they wanted to continue to kill animals during the breeding season too. The hunters did not even understand that if you stop animals from breeding you soon won't have any animals left at all.)

The Barbaric (And Hypocritical) British

As a nation the British pretend to like animals. Britons often claim that they love animals – and attack foreigners for being cruel.

But, by and large, the British have nothing to be proud of. The British claim to be deeply offended when they read about the nasty Spanish mistreating donkeys or chasing bulls through their streets. They moan about the way Asians eat dogs. And they whinge when they see photographs of Canadians killing baby seals.

But the British are no better than these barbaric and ignorant foreigners. Britons treat animals with just as little respect as the citizens of any other country. They slaughter them for food. They persecute and torture them for their amusement and entertainment and they subject them to the most hideous atrocities in the false name of science.

The British are, in truth, just as barbaric as the Spanish, the Chinese, the Canadians and the Asians.

In a way, British animal abusers are worse for they are hypocrites: they claim to love animals.

Vivisectors are the ultimate hypocrites. Some, who perform viciously brutal experiments on animals, claim to have family pets which they love. Would those who perform and support animal research donate their own pets for laboratory research? If not – why not?

Hunters claim to love animals. So do farmers. But how can any of these possibly have any understanding of the meaning of the word "love'?

Here are just a few examples of the cruel way animals have been treated over the years in Britain.

• A magistrate claimed that although it was cruel to ride a horse to death while hunting it was not cruel to ride it until it was so exhausted that it died fifteen minutes later.
• A man in Yorkshire ate a live cat in 15 minutes.
• Men used to entertain themselves at travelling fairs by clipping the wings of a cock sparrow, putting the bird into the crown of a hat and then trying to bite its head off with their arms tied behind their backs.

• A man ate five live fox clubs for £50.

• Jockeys have been known to 'spur' their mounts so savagely that the animal's entrails were visible at the winning post.
• A popular public school 'sport' involved tying an owl onto a duck's back and sending a dog to swim after the pair. When the dog got close the duck would dive – causing the owl to claw it. The 'game' was over when the owl drowned and the duck was captured.
• The traditional Scottish game of goose-pulling consists of greasing a live goose and hanging it upside down from a gallows. Horsemen then try to pull off the goose's head.
• In Wiltshire geese being fattened up for the table have been nailed to the floor to prevent them taking exercise – the nails were hammered through the webs of their feet.
• 'Throwing at cocks' is an ancient British Shrove Tuesday pastime. A cock is tied to a stake and given as a prize to the first person to kill it with stones or sticks. (If the birds leg was broken a splint would be attached so that the bird could continue standing.)
• The traditional British game of 'cat in the barrel' involved suspending a cat in a barrel half full of soot, knocking out the bottom of the barrel and then chasing and killing the blackened, blinded cat.
• Horse traders have been known to insert a piece of broken glass between the hoof and shoe of the good leg of a lame horse – thus disguising the horse's lameness.
• One London woman wore a dress trimmed with the plumages of 800 canaries.
• Children to use tie string to the legs of sparrows and 'fly' them as kites.
• Britons have improved the singing of song birds by blinding them with red hot needles or by splitting their tongues.
• At the Tower of London menagerie visitors used to be able to save on the cost of admission by bringing with them a live cat or dog and then pushing the animal between the bars for tigers or lions to eat.
• Hunters have been known to dislocate the joints of a deer so that the hunt would have a better chance of being successful. A crude alternative was to chop off one of the deer's feet and then make it run.
• Researchers have been giving mice large cancerous tumours since 1911. (And just what headway has been made in the war against cancer as a result of all that pain and suffering?).
• Scientists pushed fine polythene tubes into rats' brains. They then put balloons into the rats' brains and blew them up. They found small balloons did not produce as much damage as big balloons.
• The traditional British way to teach bears to 'dance' was to put them into a tub with a metal bottom and to light a fire underneath. Naturally, the bears moved from one foot to another as the metal got hotter. Bears which tried to climb out were bludgeoned with a club.
• The popular British field sport of badger digging involves digging into a badger's home. When a badger is caught it is killed by being shot or hit on the head with a spade.

  Anyone who wants to know more about the way the British have treated animals should read All Heaven in a Rage by E.S.Turner (published by Centaur Press).

   

  Chapter Two:

  Three Varieties Of Abuse

  Animals are sensitive and emotionally labile creatures who experience the same kinds of feelings that humans experience: happiness, sadness, hope, fear, love, compassion and shame.

  Cruelty to animals is a moral and ethical outrage; it is the greatest crime of our time. And yet animals are abused today in three main ways: the meat industry, vivisection and hunting.

   

  The Meat Industry

  Britons breed animals, stuff them into lorries and carry them for days without providing anything for them to eat or drink.

  We cage them in tiny boxes, move them about soaked in their own urine and knee deep in their own excrement, scare them senseless and then slit their throats and eat them – tonsils, intestines, shit and all.

  Next time you're on a journey keep an eye open for a lorry taking animals to a slaughterhouse. It doesn't matter where you are, where you've been or where you are going – the movement of animals is now big business. All over Britain animals are constantly on the move.

  There probably won't be anything printed on the side of the lorry to tell you what is in inside, but the lorry will have wooden, slatted sides and through the gaps you will be able to see the terrified faces of cows, sheep, chickens and other living creatures being transported from farm to abattoir. There may be a leg or two sticking out in between the slats because the animals will have almost certainly been herded into lorries without either respect or care.

  The lambs and calves crammed into transporter lorries are just as terrified as any child would be under those circumstances. Their mothers are just as much in mourning as any mother would be. When slaves were transported from one nation to another they were branded and herded into overcrowded containers. We do the same thing with animals today.

  The animals are crammed into the lorries so tightly that if they get stuck in a difficult position they have to stay that way until the journey stops many hours or even days later.

  Imagine how you would feel if you had to travel for 24 hours with one of your legs sticking out through your a slightly open car window. Imagine it. Think about it. The horror in these transporters is so great that the spiritual stench of it clings to the woodwork and the metalwork. If you are sensitive to animals you can feel and hear the pain and the fear whenever one of these trucks comes near. While travelling recently I stopped at a petrol station where an animal transport lorry was parked. As I got out of my car I heard the plaintive, heart wrenching cries of the sheep inside it. I filled my tank, paid at the kiosk and then felt myself drawn irresistibly, and against my will, towards the lorry. To my astonishment when I looked inside the lorry was empty. The cries I had heard had been real. But there were no animals in the lorry.

  To make matters worse the animals being transported invariably travel in tiers. The more animals you can cram into a lorry the bigger the profit will be. And although animals aren't usually fed or watered while they are travelling animals, like all living creatures, need to pass urine and faeces from time to time. In a way the animals on the top tier are relatively lucky, I suppose. The animals underneath are constantly showered with urine and faeces raining down upon them from the terrified creatures above them.

  Moving and killing animals is big business but it is also a truly barbaric business. Animals die, unattended and uncared for where they have fallen. Some sheep freeze to death in winter and some die from heat exhaustion and thirst in summer. As long as the numbers who die don't rise so high that the transportation process becomes unprofitable no one cares.

  Animals may be moved about many times – so that farmers, transport people and meat companies can make money from cross border subsidies. Animals are shipped from steel pen to auction house to steel pen to slaughterhouse. Thousands of animals die from "shipping fever'. Sheep and lambs are so stressed that they collapse and die. Chickens are packed into tiny cages. Pigs have their tails cut off (without an anaesthetic, of course) to prevent stress induced tail biting. Animals shipped to the Middle East are eventually killed in a brutal ritualistic style of slaughter.

  The people who are involved in moving and killing animals are truly the dregs of our society. These are the sort of people who would have happily operated German gas chambers during the Second World War.

  250,000 Murders Every Hour

  Animal transport is big business because approximately 2,000,000 animals are murdered every working day in British abattoirs. That's 250,000 murders every hour, 4,167 murders every minute and 69 murders every second.

  Animals are supposed to be stunned before they are killed – so that they aren't conscious when their throats are cut. But stunning is a pretty ineffective business. The people who do it aren't trained – not, at least, in a way that I would regard as proper training – and too many animals are conscious and terrified when they are killed. (It is surely not irrelevant that more than half the abattoir owners in Britain have a criminal record.)

  Moreover, there is now evidence to show that the electric shock which is allegedly used to knock animals unconscious may fail to work properly. Even after they have been stunned animals do feel intense pain. They are paralysed. But they can feel pain.

  Even if stunning worked well not all animals would benefit for not all animals are stunned before killing.

  The law allows Jews to slaughter all the animals they kill without stunning them first. It is called ritual slaughter. Some ritual. Think about this: the animals killed for consumption by Jews are quite conscious when their throats are cut. This is such a barbaric ritual that I'm surprised there isn't someone dancing around in war-paint and feathers while the killing is being done. In Britain around 60,000 cows and calves, 30,000 sheep and lambs and 2,500,000 hens are killed by Jewish slaughterers every year. Since not all the meat obtained from killing animals the Jewish way is eaten by Jews the meat which is left over can be sold for ordinary consumption. So, whether you are Jewish or not, if you eat meat there is a good chance that the meat you buy comes from an animal which was killed in this truly cruel barbaric way.

  How Jews can support what happens in slaughterhouses in their name I do not understand. I cannot imagine that any god could possibly condone such activities.

  (This has, incidentally, absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with race or religion. I will probably be accused of being anti semitic by bigots who do not understand that my objection to ritual slaughter has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with respect for animals.)

  "It is often said that if slaughterhouses were made of glass most people would be vegetarians," wrote Jeffrey Masson and Susan McCarthy in their vitally important book When Elephants Weep, adding that: "If the general public knew what went on inside animal experimentation laboratories, they would be abolished."

  But, as Masson and McCarthy point out slaughterhouses are virtually invisible because that is what the public want. People know what goes on inside abattoirs but they do not want to be reminded of the horrors perpetrated in their name.

   

  Enough To Make You Proud

  Imagine.

  You are taken from a field where you are living with your family. You are separated from your surroundings and your loved ones and you are crammed into a lorry. You are then driven for hours in discomfort, without food or water and in a constant rain of urine and faeces to a slaughterhouse. There are you kept waiting – afraid and uncertain.

  Finally, you are taken into a blood stained building where your throat is cut. You then slowly bleed to death, terrified, confused, and in pain. It may take you minutes to die.

  Doesn't it all make you proud to be human. Proud to a member of the Master Species?

   

  Brutal, Crude And Merciless

  The butcher's shop is the ultimate human disgrace; as much an indignity to man himself as it is to the slaughtered creatures whose blood decorates its every surface; their skinless corpses hung, as though with pride, from hooks in the window.

  Walking past a window in which skinned corpses are displayed is nauseating. Every sensitive council should immediately pass a law insisting that butchers cover up their windows and serve their awful wares behind closed doors.

  I have no doubt that if there was a market for such delicacies the crude, ruthless and mindless 'people' who operate and work in these shops would happily sell babies' brains, young boys' hearts, breasts sliced from teenage girls' bony chests and feet hacked from young mothers. Butchers are, inevitably, a hard-hearted group: insensitive and bloodthirsty, with no redeeming features. Given half a chance they would happily sell the corpses of the elderly, brought fresh from the killing rooms of hospitals and hospices in their neighbourhood. Jean Jacques Rousseau, the French philosopher, argued that butchers (whose daily trade is death and who cannot, therefore, be regarded as being blessed with the normal quota of compassion) should not be allowed to sit on juries or testify in court.

  Butchers are a dying breed. Good riddance to them all.

  Farming, too, is a brutal, crude, merciless business.

  Chicks never see a hen and hens are kept in tiny battery cages. (Those who eat eggs often argue that hens lay more eggs than they can hatch. But hens exhaust themselves by laying so many eggs simply because their eggs are taken away from them.) Dairy cows are artificially inseminated. As soon as they give birth their calf is ripped away from them. Calves are kept chained in tiny stalls and fed on a chemical rich diet for veal production. The mother's milk is sucked out along rubber tubes and sold by the massive dairy industry.

  Farmers defend the practice of taking milk from cows by arguing that without its calf the cow has milk to spare. They do not question their right to take the calf from the cow. They argue that the calf can be given other food. They do not understand that no milk is as good for a calf as its mother's milk. They continue to pump the milk out of the cow until the poor creatures becomes weakened and exhausted.

  Sheep are forced to breed at an unusual and unhealthy rate so that their lambs can be sold for extra profit. And sheep are shorn not only in the early summer (when they may be hot and uncomfortable and welcome a few months without a heavy fleece) but also, quite cruelly, during the winter when they need the warmth their own wool provides.

   

  A Contemptible Breed

  Like many sentient individuals I loathe farmers. I regard them as a contemptible breed with more front than Blackpool and with as poorly developed a sense of personal responsibility as modern politicians.

  When, entirely through own stupidity and greed, they created the Mad Cow crisis their instinctive reaction was not to apologise to their customers, or to wring their hands and beg forgiveness, but to demand compensation from the government.

  The Mad Cow scandal should have awakened us all to the fact that most farmers – like the rest of the huge army of slimy good for nothings involved in the dead animal business – are pustulant, crooked, self-centered, stupid and greedy, concerned only with their own profits.

  But the eternally damned farmers are so skilful at manipulating politicians and the media that they have actually managed to make many people feel sorry for them.

  Open your newspaper or turn on your television set and you will probably discover that the farmers, the butchers and the abattoir workers are, yet again, bleating about financial losses, redundancies and bleak futures.

  "We have screwed up yet again so you will have to give us money to make sure that we don't suffer financially" is the oft repeated communal cry from terror stained farmyards all over the nation.

  And the government, accustomed to handing out taxpayers' money to rich farmers, immediately complies.

  "Whoops, oh dear," the politicians cry. "How terrible for you. How much money would you like? Will it be all right if we send round a lorry load of the stuff on Thursday?"

  "Send the lorry direct to the bank," say the farmers wearily. "We can't be bothered to handle it ourselves."

  You will, of course, have noticed that the individuals who contracted Mad Cow Disease were not offered compensation by the government or the farmers.

  And no one will be more surprised than I am if their families ever receive any compensation.

  (In late 1998 the British Labour government announced that it was going to give farmers another £100 million in compensation. This time much of the money was intended for hill farmers who were said to be 'suffering' because the lambs they were forcefully taking from their mothers and selling were fetching just 25 pence in livestock markets. It is difficult to understand why the Labour government should feel this need to compensate farmers rather than to suggest that they might be better occupied finding some other more gainful and less barbaric form of employment.)

   

  Manipulative Money Grubbers

  For years now farmers, and others involved in the meat business, have taken risks with the lives of those who buy their products simply to make an extra few billion pounds profit.

  It was the farmers – manipulative money grubbers that they are – who chose to feed their animals with the food which created the problem. Years ago those in the animal murdering business could have protected themselves – and the meat eating world – from the horrors of Mad Cow Disease. They could have taken tougher, stricter action. But they didn't. They – and the government – falsely insisted that there wasn't a problem.

  Even if they didn't know for certain that there was a problem coming (and I think they should have known) they should have realised that there was a big risk.

  What would happen if any other businessman cut corners, took risks with his customers' lives and caused widespread panic and chaos? Would he expect his customers to pay for all his losses and give him compensation to make sure that he didn't lose any money? Or would he start looking for a sharp lawyer to protect him against the lawsuits that he knew would soon start thudding through his letterbox?

  Why are farmers (and the rest of the meat industry) treated in such a special way? Why were the people in the animal murdering business pitied during and after the Mad Cow Disease fiasco? Why did the taxpayer have to help them out? Why did you and I have to fork out our hard earned cash to pay for their greed inspired error? In short, why, in the name of a blood soaked abattoir worker's apron, were Britain's farmers given compensation for this self created problem?

  If the weather is bad does the government bale out the tourist industry? If village shops are put out of business by new superstores are they compensated? (These are, you will note, not problems which are self created. But nor are these industries which cause mass murder. Inexplicably, it seems that governments prefer to help an industry which causes its own problems and is responsible for an uncountable number of deaths.)

  If you buy a lottery ticket and you don't win do you expect the government to refund your stake money? If your house is worth less than you paid for it a few years ago are you going to go running to the Exchequer for financial help?

  The farming industry created Mad Cow Disease by turning herbivores into carnivores (actually, into cannibals). It was their financial problem – not ours. But the animal abusers have a huge amount of power over the current political system.

   

  Ignorance, Stupidity And Greed

  Apart from trying to feed us beef, milk and lamb contaminated with Mad Cow Disease our farmers have been working hard to ensure that our meat contains plenty of chemicals, drugs and hormones, that many of our eggs are infected and that just about everything that comes fresh from the farm will be contaminated with chemical sprays, fertilizers and pesticides.

  The overuse of antibiotics on farms has helped create a world in which infections are now rapidly increasing.

  I also believe that the reckless use of other drugs and hormones has contaminated farm products for decades. The over use of fertilisers, pesticides and other chemicals has polluted our water supplies and poisoned thousands of consumers.

  (There is some irony in the fact that although the tobacco industry has had to put warnings on its products, farmers – the other major cause of cancer in our modern society – just get bigger and bigger subsidies.)

  By getting rid of hedgerows and spraying their deathly crops with chemicals farmers have managed to do probably irreparable damage to our bird life.

  So, it is clear, if you want to win government support you simply have to screw up people's health, kill millions of animals in as cruel a way as possible and cause probably irreparable damage to the environment. Politicians will then give you whatever you ask for.

  Today, farmers are messing around with genetically manipulated animals and crops because they see more ways to increase their profits. They don't give a damn that they are playing a dangerous game and that they are likely to produce permanent and terrifying changes in our world. Farmers don't give a fig for your health or your children's health. All they care about is profits.

   

  A Doomed Trade

  The meat trade is doomed. There is now 22 carat gold evidence available to show that people who eat meat are far more likely to get cancer and die young.

  (Indeed, since it is impossible to be sure that the animal the meat eater consumes doesn't itself have cancer there is a good chance that the nice juicy steak into which the meat eater tucks with such relish could well contain a nice juicy lump of cancer in the middle of it. "How do you like your cancer cooked, sir?" "Mustard with your fried cancer, madam?")

  Eating meat is bad for you and bad for the rest of the world too. When the meat trade is finished there will never again be any need for human beings to starve. Feeding cattle uses up vast quantities of grain and good land and meat eaters are directly responsible for the starving millions in Africa and Asia.

  Perhaps, in a few years time restaurants will have meat eating sections and vegetarian sections in the same way that they now have smoking and non smoking sections. The meat eaters will be crammed at the back in dark and dingy corners.

  Meanwhile, those of us who want to change the world, should remind meat eaters that if they eat bits of animal flesh they cannot be practising Christians, Catholics or Jews. (The bible says: "flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." Does anyone seriously believe that even the barbaric Jewish method of killing can empty every drop of blood from an animal's body?).

  Abuse In The Name Of Science

  We also abuse animals in the name of science.

  Every thirty seconds another thousand animals are tortured to death in laboratories around the world. Cats, kittens, puppies, dogs, monkeys, rats, hamsters: you name the species they torture it and kill it. How much difference is there between performing an experiment on a primate and performing the same experiment on a child?

  The scientists who perform animal experiments, and their supporters, claim that what they do helps human beings. This is, of course, a lie. The evidence shows quite clearly that no animal experiment ever helped a human being. Moreover, animals are so completely different to people that experiments on animals are dangerously misleading. I find it impossible to escape the conclusion that thousands of experiments have been conducted on animals for money, personal advancement or intellectual curiosity.

  It is disingenuous to claim that scientists are any different to barbarians watching cock-fighting, bull-fighting or other spectacles of abuse. What difference is there between those who torment animals in the name of science and the sort of people who abuse children, beat their wives or bully the weak.

  Drug companies use animal experiments to get new products on the market without testing them properly. If tests show that a new drug causes cancer in five animal species the company will dismiss the evidence as irrelevant – because animals are different to people. But, apparently without embarrassment or shame, they will then use the one experiment which shows that their new drug doesn't cause cancer in a sixth species to get their product on the market.

  (Cosmetic companies use animals in a variety of ways. Countless rabbits have had chemicals dropped into their eyes in pointless and unnecessary 'toxicity' tests. But it is in so-called 'medical research' that animals are most widely used. And it is 'medical research' which so often provides the excuse for the terrible things researchers do to animals.)

  Primates are killed so that hunters can capture their infants and sell them to British vivisectors who are paid with money contributed by British taxpayers.

  Special breeding facilities produce millions of mice, rabbits, rats, cats and other animals. The animals are kept in small, sterile cages – separated from one another's comfort.

  The people who perform experiments on animals are largely incompetent and stupid. Their experiments are always worthless and often badly done. Successive Home Secretaries have protected vivisectors by claiming that all applications for licences to experiment on animals should be treated as "confidential'. The result has been that those who oppose animal experiments have never had the opportunity to question the validity of experiments before they have started.

  It is hardly surprising that, with drug companies relying so heavily on animal experiments, one in six people in hospital are there because they have been made ill by doctors.

  Vivisectors receive vast amounts of money (much of it provided by from drug companies but a good deal of it provided by the government) but have produced consistently worthless results. The only consistent factor about animal experiments is their pointlessness.

  Some years ago I conducted a survey of British doctors which showed a great scepticism about, and disapproval of, animal experiments. Here is a summary of the results of that survey:

  • 88% of doctors agreed that laboratory experiments performed on animals can be misleading because of anatomical and physiological differences between animals and humans.
  • 81% of doctors agreed that they would like to see scientists trying harder to find alternatives to animals for testing drugs and cosmetics.
  • 51% of doctors agreed that patients would suffer fewer side effects if new drugs were tested more extensively on human cell and tissue cultures.
  • 69% of doctors agreed that too many experiments on animals are performed.

  Despite many claims to the contrary, vivisectors regularly break guidelines for animal care. I have in my possession a photograph of a monkey in a laboratory which has the word 'crap' written on its forehead. Vivisection is nothing more than a form of pseudoscientific black magic whose practitioners have promised much but who have in reality constantly obstructed medical progress. It is no coincidence that vivisectors frequently refer to the animals they torture and kill as being 'sacrificed'.

  I believe that vivisectors – and there are 20,000 in Britain alone – are the sort of people who have in the past enjoyed experimenting on blacks or Jews. If society currently allowed it I have no doubt that vivisectors would happily take Jews and the mentally ill into their laboratories instead of (or, as well as) baboons and chimpanzees.

  What difference is there in the mental make up of a serial murderer and a vivisector. And yet vivisectors often expect, claim (and receive) respect in our society. Those who oppose vivisection are expected to prove that animal experiments are unnecessary and without scientific value. In any sane and just world it would be the job of the vivisectors to prove that their work was essential and valuable. (Something they would not, of course, be able to do.)

  The vivisectors' entirely false claims that their barbarous and merciless experiments are of value (and their utterly immoral argument that the end justifies the means) are accepted without question because to question them would be to force ourselves to face difficult and painful truths.

  Vivisection is totally supported by just about every section of the British establishment. Organisations which oppose vivisection are denied charitable status whereas organisations which have charitable status, and can, therefore, claim all the associated tax benefits, are allowed to campaign vigorously for vivisection – and perform vivisection too!. What sort of world is it which gives special charitable status to organisations which abuse animals and yet denies charitable status to organisations which want to save animals?

  I've been arguing for a complete ban on animal experiments for years. The supporters of vivisection now refuse to debate with me for one very simple reason: they always lose. In the autumn of 1998 I began a guest appearance on a two hour long nationwide radio programme by challenging vivisectors and vivisectionists to name one disease for which a cure had been found through vivisection. Despite the fact that many vivisectionists telephoned the programme not one managed to come up with a disease which for which vivisection had been an essential or integral part of the research process. I wasn't surprised. Vivisection is useless, always has been useless and always will be useless.

  I loathe and despise scientists who perform animal experiments. I think they are truly beyond understanding, forgiveness or redemption. I believe they are the grown up, authorised versions of those evil eyed, spotty faced children who somehow obtain warped, distorted pleasure from pulling the wings off flies or peppering passing cats with airgun pellets.

  Who, other than vivisectors, could argue that animals do not cry or moan or whimper in pain but are merely "vocalising'.

  How could any sane, sentient being not feel disgusted by what goes on in animal research laboratories? There can be no moral or ethical justification for the legalised mayhem which, worldwide, results in the slow, painful destruction of around 1,000 dogs, cats, kittens, puppies, monkeys, rabbits and other animals every thirty seconds. In Britain, where nearly 3 million experiments are performed every year on cats, kittens, dogs, puppies and other animals there are just 21 inspectors to make sure that vivisectors obey what rules exist about animal treatment.

  The Home Office claims that the effectiveness of this tiny group of inspectors: "depends upon ability to gain the respect and cooperation of the scientific community as, to function, inspectors must have unfettered access to the current and future plans of scientists".

  This seems as odd to me as a statement that the effectiveness of the police: "depends upon the ability to gain the respect and cooperation of the criminal community as, to function, inspectors must have unfettered access to the current and future plans of criminals".

  Why, I wonder, should vivisectors, arch animal abusers, be treated with such tenderness?

   

  A Hollow Excuse

  The excuse which is always offered for this evil business is that animal experiments help doctors treat human patients more effectively.

  "If it's the health of my kid or the lives of a thousand cats and dogs then the dogs and cats have to be sacrificed," said one young father I know.

  "Why would scientists do animal experiments if they weren't useful?" demanded a misguided young mother. "I don't want to know what they do," she added quickly. "But I'm sure they wouldn't do what they do if it wasn't necessary."

  Those who believe that animal experiments are useful exhibit a rather pathetic mixture of ignorance and naivete. They don't want to know the facts because the facts are too awful to contemplate.

  Ignorance And Naivety

  The ignorance and naivety is widespread.

  One BBC producer refused to broadcast an interview in which I had described experiments involving dogs. "They didn't use dogs," the producer apparently said after talking to the people who had done the experiments. "They only used dog tissue."

  The sad and savage but, I believe, undeniable truth is that no experiment performed on an animal has ever saved a human life. Animal experiments are so unreliable that no doctor with a brain larger than a pea would ever trust any so called evidence obtained by an animal researcher.

  On the contrary, I believe that animal experiments are not only entirely useless but that they are a major cause of human illness, misery and death.

  The evidence for these stout and possibly startling assertions is not difficult to find.

  I can give you the names of dozens of frequently prescribed drugs – widely used around the world – which are known to cause cancer or other serious diseases when given to animals.

  But this evidence is ignored because doctors know damned well that the fact that a drug causes cancer in an animal has no relevance to human beings.

  When a drug company tests a new drug on animals it does so because it cannot lose.

  If the experiment shows that the drug does not kill the animal the drug company can claim that its tests have shown the drug to be safe.

  On the other hand if the experiment shows that the drug does kill the animal the drug company will dismiss the research evidence on the grounds that animals are different to people.

  The drug companies win every time. People (and the animals, of course) are the innocent losers.

  Animal experiments are done because they are useful – to the drug companies not people. Animal experiments give drug companies no-lose evidence which will be accepted by governments around the world.

  Drug companies know that extensive testing on human beings would be costly and time consuming. More important: many new drugs would never obtain a licence for widespread use if the pre-launch tests on people were too extensive (because dangerous and possibly lethal side effects would undoubtedly be discovered at at an embarrassingly early stage).

  If animal experiments were banned the drug companies would lose billions of pounds a year in lost revenue.

  The thousands of scientists who perform and support animal experiments will deny all this, of course.

  What else are they to do?

  You can hardly expect them to admit that their evil but well paid work is inspired by corporate greed and self interest rather than more noble motives.

  The fact is that they do not have the strength of spirit to turn their backs on the big money offered by the drug companies. And many know that if they admit that animal experimentation is flawed beyond redemption they will be admitting that they have wasted their lives.

  Some of them undoubtedly want to believe their own propaganda. Those who possess some vestige of a conscience probably only sleep by denying to themselves the horror of what they do.

   

  Scorned, Laughed At, Ruined And Imprisoned

  History is full of examples of original thinkers who have been scorned, laughed at, ruined and imprisoned for daring to be creative and original and (most heinous a crime of all) for having the temerity to question (and therefore threaten) the status and authority of the establishment.

  Socrates was condemned to death for being too curious. Dante was condemned to be burned at the stake. The works of Confucius were still banned in China two and a half thousand years after his death. Spinoza was denounced for being independent and every schoolchild knows about Galileo's battles with the Church. Paracelsus was the greatest influence on medical thinking since Hippocrates but the establishment regarded him as a trouble maker and persecuted him all around Europe. (He is still regarded with considerable fear and distaste by the medical establishment which, on the whole, prefers not to acknowledge his existence or his importance).

  Semmelweiss, the Austrian obstetrician was ostracised by the medical profession for daring to criticise filthy medical practices. Thoreau was imprisoned for sticking to his ideals. Wilbur and Orville Wright were dismissed as hoaxsters by the Scientific American, the US Army and most American scientists. When Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X rays his achievement was described as an elaborate hoax by one of Britain's most eminent scientists.

  The relationship between a diet low in vitamin C and the development of scurvy was first described in 1636 by John Woodall. James Lind reintroduced the idea in 1747 but it wasn't until 1795 that the British Admiralty decreed that lemon juice should be part of every sailor's diet. Only God can possibly know how many sailors died as a result of this appalling example of cooperative prejudice.

  The inventors of turbine power, the electric telegraph, the tank, the electric light, television and space travel were all laughed at or ignored by the scientific establishment. William Reich's books were burned by the Nazis in the 1930s and by the American government in the 1950s. (The Federal Food and Drug Administration was still burning his books in 1960).

  More recently Dr Dean Ornish, was who responsible for devising a safe, effective treatment programme for heart disease that depends upon a vegetarian diet, exercise and relaxation was denied funds by the American National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association.

  The irony about science (which is ostensibly a search for new truths) is that most members of any scientific establishment seem dedicated to opposing real progress and suppressing original thought. There is room for original thought and originality in most areas of intellectual thought except science; the one area which one might suppose would depend almost exclusively upon original thinking.

  One can attack existing political or economic theories with some freedom but any scientist with a new and original idea is likely to be regarded as a dangerous crank rather than an original scientist whose ideas may be worth evaluation.

  When I said on the radio recently that I thought that it was vital to maintain an open mind another panellist on the same programme commented that in his view: "Open minds are empty minds."

  This grossly prejudiced viewpoint is quite common among many of the world's best known scientists and, together with a misplaced sense of professional loyalty, helps to explain why the vast majority of new and original ideas are dismissed out of hand, and their authors sneered at and dismissed as cranks and nutcases.

  Anyone who opposes the use of animals in experiments will be marginalised and dismissed as out of step with the scientific establishment. The fact that the scientific evidence shows, without any doubt whatsoever, that animal experiments are entirely worthless, does not seem to be regarded as relevant by the illogical and prejudiced supporters of vivisection. They have each taken their thirty pieces of silver and are loyal to their paymasters.

   

  More Than Just An Evil Abuse

  Animal experimentation is the most evil manifestation of animal abuse. Even if it were useful I would oppose it on moral and ethical grounds.

  But animal experimentation is more than just an evil abuse of animals (terrible though that is). It is one of the main reasons why doctors are now as big a cause of illness and death as are cancer and heart disease. Animal experiments are not merely part of a major scientific cock up. They are part of a huge, international conspiracy. The aim is simply to make money. And the price – the lives of millions of animals and people – is considered acceptable. Remember: animal experiments kill people as well as animals.

  (It is interesting to note that animal experiments may sometimes be performed in order to enable companies to continue damaging human beings. For example, dogs, who would never voluntarily choose to do anything so stupid and self-damaging, were forced to smoke cigarettes in bizarre and utterly pointless experiments. I have a suspicion that these experiments were done to show that the tobacco companies were generously using their own money in order to investigate the links between tobacco and cancer while at the same time holding back the moment at which it would have to be admitted that tobacco did cause cancer in humans. Animal experiments are often used in this way.)

  Those who support the use and abuse of animals in the name of science will, it seems, stop at nothing.I have spent most of my life campaigning against injustices to human beings and animals and have become accustomed to attempts at intimidation but none of my campaigns have ever attracted quite so much violent, uncontrolled, snarling hostility as my campaign to stop animal experiments.

  I oppose the use of animals in laboratory experiments – one of the great growth industries of our time – for numerous reasons.

  I believe with all my heart and soul that animal experiments are morally, scientifically and ethically wrong. What right can scientists possibly have to torture, burn and cut animals of other species? What excuse can there be for such obscene cruelty?

  We should never forget that in the false name of science one thousand kittens, cats, puppies, dogs, monkeys, rabbits and other animals are tortured and murdered every thirty seconds. They are isolated, subjected to agonising pain, ignored, maltreated and left to die in laboratories around the world. By any standards of morality this must be wrong.

  It is all made worse by the fact that animal experiments are totally useless and of no use to anyone concerned with scientific truth. If vivisection were stopped tomorrow it would never be introduced again because no one would ever be able to find an argument supporting its introduction. Animal experiments are so barbaric and so unsupportable on moral, ethical, scientific or medical grounds that once they are stopped no one will ever dream of letting them start again. Vivisection is the greatest abuse of our time and I find it difficult to understand the minds of those who practise and support this evil activity.

  The only reason that vivisection has not yet been stopped is that the battle of words has to be fought not just against waves of commercially sustained prejudice but also against apparently endless seas of ignorance and indifference.

  Animal experiments are done in our names. Those who have done nothing to stop this evil, barbaric and pointless cruelty do not deserve to sleep at night.

  How We Can Really Learn From Animals

  Animals can help doctors save human patients. But through observation – not experimentation. Many vertebrates – including monkeys, pigs and elephants, use plants as medicines as well as food. Sick animals seek out and eat plants which they know will help them; they eat some plants, they hold others in their mouths (doctors call it buccal absorption) and they rub yet others onto their skin (doctors call that topical application).

  Ethiopian baboons who are at risk of developing schistosomiasis eat fruits, which are rich in a potent antischistosome drug. Chimpanzees in Tanzania use a herb which has a powerful antifungal, antibacterial and antinematode activity. If they just ate the herb it wouldn't work because the valuable compound would be destroyed by stomach acidity. So they hold the leaf in their mouths in the same way that angina patients are encouraged to hold glyceryl trinitrate in their mouths to expedite absorption. Kodiak bears apply a drug topically which helps to kill parasites. They scratch the root into their fur. European starlings combat parasitisation to their nests by fumigating incubating eggs. Lethargic chimps with diarrhoea treat themselves with a herb. Howler monkeys use herbal medicines to control birth spacing and to determine the sex of their offspring.

  We can learn an enormous amount by watching other animals.

  But instead of watching these sensitive, intelligent and thoughtful creatures the vandals in white coats cage them, torture them and kill them with all the scientific sense of youthful hooligans tearing the wings off butterflies.

  In a generation or so our descendants will look back at the vivisectors and wonder not just at the sort of people they were, but at the sort of people we were to let them do what they did.