• naheitzeg

    smithea1 thank you as always!

  • Bob Phillips great to see you Bob!! hope all is well with you!

    that is the right dream — for any time or place.. 

    Grateful always you’ve been freed — soon we must all be

  • Bob Phillips

    Hi Nancy and Kay,

    A rare Wednesday evening where I thought I might get to this in real time. And then password difficulties, followed by the slowest incoming email west of the Pacific.

    Anyway, it’s great to be here. I think I’ve probably written somewhere you folks could see it before about the dreams I used to have when I was in my cage. Envisioning myself at the local zoo, undoing the latches on the cages of the big cats, who paced as I did, back and forth, to and fro, on a very limited track.

    Three short paces this way, three short paces that, nervous system on fire, thoughts racing.

    Great metaphor tonight!

  • KayWhitlock

    We should all, at least symbolically, grab a rock and shatter the glass of our enclosures.

  • Animal Agency: Resistance, Rebellion, and the Struggle for Autonomy
    https://drstevebest.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/animal-agency-resistance-rebellion-and-the-struggle-for-autonomy/

    The history of capitalist accumulation is so much more than a history
    of humanity. Who built America, the textbook asks? Animals did.https://drstevebest.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/animal-agency-resistance-rebellion-and-the-struggle-for-autonomy/#_edn3
    As political agents, animals did not just labor and suffer mindlessly
    and helplessly, rather they frequently refused work and exploitation,
    at least past a given limit, and subsequent labor had to be negotiated
    in some way and to varying degrees. Increased production only meant
    increased resistance, especially notoriously stubborn and
    rebellion-prone animals such as donkeys. Hribal adds to an already rich
    account of animal resistance to human oppression, describing a wide
    range of animal resistance tactics from intentional sabotage and
    property destruction to revenge killing and popular violence.https://drstevebest.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/animal-agency-resistance-rebellion-and-the-struggle-for-autonomy/#_edn4
    Faking ignorance, rejection of commands, the slowdown, foot-dragging,
    no work without adequate food, refusal to work in the heat of the day,
    taking breaks without permission, rejection of overtime, vocal
    complaints, open pilfering, secret pilfering, rebuffing new tasks, false
    compliance, breaking equipment, escape, and direct confrontation, these
    are all actions of what the anthropologist James C. Scott has termed
    “weapons of the weak”…Hence, while rarely organized in their conception
    or performance, these actions were nevertheless quite active in their
    confrontation and occasionally successful in their desired effects. For
    our purposes, these everyday forms of resistance have not been
    historically limited to humankind — as each of the above listed methods
    have been used by other animals.
    Donkeys have ignored commands. Mules have
    dragged their hooves. Oxen have refused to work. Horses have broken
    equipment. Chickens have pecked people’s hands. Cows have kicked
    farmers’ teeth out. Pigs have escaped their pens. Dogs have pilfered
    extra food. Sheep have jumped over fences. Furthermore, each of these
    acts of resistance has been fully recognized by the farmer, owner,
    driver, supervisor, or manager as just that: acts of resistance.”