Re: Anti-immigration assumptions

Dear Andy,

I'm not so sure if I agree with you on the "fallacy of counterposing
anthropocentrism to
ecocentrism" as you state it. In my opinion it is not merely 'academic
poistering' but it is crucial to both a way of life and praxis in the 'real
world' outside of our ivory towers.
You state that it is our priority "to save people from the calamity we face
in the pending ecological holocaust to save the planet". What about
'non-human animals' to put it in non-anthropocentric language? Apparently
they do not appear in your 'progressive' agenda. The environment has to be
saved only because otherwise humans will not survive...
and you continue: "people come first (only because putting people first
means saving the planet from capitalism)". Why so? Why not put non-human
animals or the environment first (to save it from human destruction
altogether).
I may be wrong, but I fear there is much hidden speciesism in your line of
thought (cf. R. Ryder "Animal Revolution. Changing Attitudes Towards
Speciesism" Basil Blackwell, Cambridge, 1989).
To give one example of non-human animal suffering in a human made world:
the imprisonment of animals, the overcrowding during transportation, the
smuggling, the selling at auctions, the chaining, the whipping, beating and
branding of sentient beings is evidence that the slave trade of animals is
very similar to that of the slave trade of humans (cf. Spiegel Marjorie
"The Dreaded Comparison. Human and Animal Slavery" Mirror Books, New York,
1989).
Not recognizing the similarities between speciesism  and racism or between
speciesism and sexism for that matter (cf. Carol Adams "The Sexual Politics
of Meat. A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory" The Continuum Publishing
Co, New York, 1999) for her attempts to highlight the 'interlocking
oppressions of sexism and speciesism) would, in my opinion, be a
fundamental mistake inherent to any strategy which may call itself
'progressive' but is only 'progressive' for human animals, and not for
non-human animals or the surrounding ecosystem in which they both are
imbedded. Man is after all NOT the measure of all things. 

kind regards,

eric mielants
soc. dept.
suny-binghamton