'Low, Dishonourable and Cowardly'

For three years I worked at a national nonhuman animal advocacy organization that was campaigning to end the aerial massacring of wolves in Alaska. This is just one of the Alaskan government's many campaigns to control, manage, or eliminate native nonhuman animals. As the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin has the power to end these violent programs. As governor, Palin is actively supporting and promoting these violent programs. So I think it is significant that the acceptance speech Palin gave last night at the Republican National Convention was written by former Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully.

Since the publication of his book Dominion, Scully has made a name for himself as an advocate for nonhuman animals. He has been called an "animal rights" activist and a "vegan," although his position on nonhuman animals support neither. Once the speech writer of George W. Bush, Scully is now working for John McCain. As such, he is the person in charge of putting the words in Palin's mouth that the McCain campaign hopes will help get them elected.

A few years ago Scully attacked the working-class fishermen of Newfoundland who take part in the annual slaughter of seals, calling the workers: "low, dishonourable and cowardly." Scully had nothing to say about the capitalist system and its devastating effects on the people of Newfoundland.

In her essay "Homophobic Workers or Elitist Queers?" in Queerly Classed (South End Press, 1997), Joanna Kadi writes about the classism of people like Scully who attack the fishermen who participate in the annual slaughter of seals:

I vividly remember activists targeting Newfoundland fishermen who clubbed baby seals to death. An ardent supporter of animal liberation and a longtime vegetarian, I hated what happened to the seals. Just as I hated what happened to the fishermen. I have visited Newfoundland and seen the poverty, I had no quarrel with the fishermen. Why didn't the activists challenge the people who had the power to change the situation?

This problematic politic reinforces a viewpoint traditionally fostered by the ruling class – that of stupid, unenlightened, backward workers. Now middle-class activists reinforced and strengthened this belief. In the peace movement, activists denounced workers for taking jobs at munitions plants. In the environmental movement, activists denounced selfish loggers for not caring about the spotted owl. I rarely heard owners criticized and called to account.

So while Scully pens editorials attacking workers slaughtering nonhuman animals in Canada, he also pens the speech promoting the very person who can, but refuses to end these types of nonhuman massacres as they are executed under Alaskan government programs. If anyone is "low, dishonourable and cowardly," it is Matthew Scully; a well-paid, professional speechwriter who pens a speech promoting someone who is directly responsible for the destruction of communities of nonhuman animals and calling for the corporate colonization of the land these nonhuman communities depend on.