Are you boycotting Lush?

[MookySpinge]

I am, but wondered what the rest of you think of their decision to support Hunt Sabs - feel it is on a par with any other terrorist group personally. Should probably do a link but iPhone is behaving badly at the moment.

Well, quite.

All the 'Hunt Sabs are terrorists & criminals' nonsense suffers something of a system fail when you begin to get your head round precisely how much respect the hunt lobby have for the law.

Admittedly the only time I went sabbing, some 20 years ago & with a Uni-based group, we got the minibus stuck in a ditch & the hunt followers kindly pulled us out with a tractor. Not sure which side had the greater concentration of braying numpties that day.

I think the fact that hunts still go in is evidence of the fact that the Labour government never cared about foxes. It was a Law which used up far too much time prevting other important matters being dealt with. It also allowed a Labour government to play the class card and appease (unsuccessfully) te labour left as it chased after middle England.

If Lush felt this strongly about hunting, and I think the company may do, there are other groups they could donate to.

totally agree with Jasper on the nutters front!

My local Lush is in a very pro hunting area - it'll be interesting to see what happens!

On a lighter note, I wonder whether people who use lush curly wurly - a truly excellent product for curly hair - might just make an exception! (just for that product of course )

However, I wonder if many of hunting folk actually do frequent all those shops, institutions and establishments (national trust, RSPB etc) who disagree with hunting.......

(from a a poster whose family all hunt shoot and fish!)

Please don't flame me anti-hunters - it's not me that hunts, just DFamily.

I haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if I'm repeating something,, but I think we have to look at the Law, and see who is breaking the Law.

FWIW this logic of "Oh hunt sabs are OK, it's all right to support them, they protect the fluffy bunny wunnies" etc, is flawed.

Can we apply this logic to doctors who carry out abortions - are we going to turn a blind eye to those who gun them down, because we don't agree with the Law that allows abortion?

The Law is the Law. If you don't like the laws, whatever they're about, then lobby to have them changed, and use your vote.

Partaking in an illegal activity, whatever it is, is a criminal offense.

That is a fact.
Whether it's the murder of a doctor / nurse who preforms/ assists legal abortions,
or the murder or criminal damage, GBH or aggravated assault against those those who partake and participate in legal hunts.

If you break the Law, you are committing a crime. If you support those who break the law, you show you have no respect for the Law and those who vote for those Laws, which in a democracy, is everybody.

I think Lush should rethink their support of criminals. I mean whoever are next on the list? Those Doctors?

'haven't read the whole thread'

Fair enough...it's late & all that.

'but I think we have to look at the Law, and see who is breaking the Law.'

Let's do that then.

zazen - hunting is illegal.

Protesting against illegal activity is not 'participating in an illegal activity'.

It's quite understandable tbh that you might have missed the minor fact that HUNTING IS ILLEGAL.

Because it's still bloody going on.

Are Sabs not linked to SHAC (stop Huntingdon animal cruelty) who were imprisoned for their illegals acts in the names of animal rights.

Sorry - I'm not in the UK and Lush has some shops here in Ireland. Hunting and shooting and fishing are legal in this jurisdiction.

Criminal damage, assault, GBH, manslaughter and murder are illegal in most countries though.

So I suppose hunt sabs are criminals if they partake in these activities.

Arrest the lot of em!

illegal hunting is illegal - there are a number of forms of legal hunting permitted under the Hunting Act. Despite a number of cases coming to court, there have been no convictions and there are no more cases pending.

I completely agree that illegal hunting should be stopped - but how much persecution should hunts operating legally be subjected to (by non-public groups such as hunt sabs) in an effort to acheive that?

And arrest the hunt participants, if it's been made illegal in the UK!

Sorry I keep clicking instead of return - tis late!

I thought I had heard that some hunting was legal in the UK, Tangle.

I really do feel that people should obey the Law, all the Laws, not just the ones they like best, and which suit their world view.

Hunting Act 2004

I agree, zazen - you don't get to pick and choose which laws you want to obey.

Oh - and you can add trespass to your list. Not as serious as some of the others, but still an illegal act...

OFGS

As someone who grew up in a country badly affected by terrorism it's somewhat insulting to hear the same term used about a bunch of hunt sabs. One death? Tragic, but it was hardly part of the hunts sabs' policy. And if memory serves hunt saboteurs have been killed in the past too?

Do any of you actually live in the countryside??

I am not sure that you mean me Drayford, but yes I do if only for just over a year.

I imagine that if you're involved with SHAC, you'd probably be anti-hunting.

Equally, I would have thought that a lot of people who abhor hunting would find Huntingdon Life Sciences fairly repugnant. I know I do.

I'm not in any way linked to either group, so I've no idea if there are any organised links between them.

'SHAC' haven't been 'imprisoned' btw. There are members of SHAC who are currently in jail for breaking the law 'in the name of animal rights', but the organisation is still campaigning quite legally & properly.

From a personal standpoint - & I'm not referring to SHAC here - I think that some campaigners for animal rights do their cause absolutely no favours - to cite a famous example, fur farming is pretty unpleasant, but 'releasing' mink into the wild in the UK is monumentally fuckwitted.

So no, I don't think you can make a simplistic equation of 'hunt sabs are in bed with animal rights "terrorists"'.

Caring about the way we treat animals is an extremely broad church, with a massive range of beliefs re both 'what is cruel & unacceptable?' & 'what methods are acceptable to get our views across?'

One thing you will find most people who campaign against animal cruelty agreeing on is the utterly repellant nature of fox hunting with dogs.

I know, I really find it hard to understand the mentality of those who ignore Laws and facts, because they just feel "it's not fair" or "it's not how I feel" or some such emotional twaddle.

It's just so, erm, post modern.... and frankly, lazy... sigh

I mean if you don't like a law, lobby to get it changed, and use your vote. It's simple really.
Otherwise just get an AK47 and gun down those who disagree. Or join the Taliban / christian fundies, or wherever the flavour takes you today.

Zazen you're not the most reasoned arguer, are you? Trying to change laws because you feel something isn't "fair" might be "emotional twaddle" to you, but to others it is a quest for justice that inspired the likes of Martin Luther King. Perhaps with regard to hunting some people feel a frustration that they HAVE lobbied etc, got the law changed, and yet still the issue rumbles on.
Did someone honestly roll out the old chestnut of whether we live in the country or not? sigh.

raven I did think that the same people were involved in the set up of the groups, but I have plucked that from thin air so could be wrong. I did mean members rather than the whole group sorry, but it is 2 in the morning. My damned tablets won't let me sleep.

I totally agree that caring about the way we treat animals is a broad church as I do care about animals and have in the past as a student been involved in action. My mind is not certain on hunting. We fish as a family and would kill an animal to eat it.

As a student I was involved in anti hunting action but tbh that was as much about a hot headed working class girl wanting to get one over on the toffs, and from talking to my friends now we are a little older many of us see it that way.

As someone who has lived in a town and now lives somewhere rural, it is hard for people in a town to get rural life. I am still learning. That does not mean of course that people are not entitled to their view. I just know my mind has been changed on lots of things. I was until a few years ago fiercely anti hunting.

I don't know if I'm the most reasoned arguer TheIggorcist, sure lobbying starts with emotion, but emotion does not equal lobbying does it?

I mean there's a process, and it doesn't involve murdering people, just because you "feel" you are right.

That path leads to doctors being gunned down.

I find it quite easy to understand the mentality of say, the suffragettes, or the American Civil Rights Movement, though , zazen.

Non-violent protest is one way of lobbying to get laws changed. Bit baffled by your assertion that this somehow equates to laziness. I'd say it's fairly active engagement with an issue.

Anyway. Too many loopholes in the 2004 Act, yes, definitely. We've still got scumbags ripping animals into pieces fun, & doing it either 'legally' or without much in the way of hindrance by the police.

But the point of legislation is more that it reflects the default view of those of the electorate who aren't directly affected.

Hunting isn't socially sanctioned any more. It's seen for what it is - hurting something small & frightened for fun.

Seems a stupid and provocative action to me, plenty of other groups they could have picked to support which don't break the law and do help to protect animals.

I'm not pro hunting, but I don't see any particular reason to think of foxes as in need of protection. Foxes don't just eat an occasional duck/hen, and they certainly don't kill several at a time so they have something to eat later, as they don't take the "spares" with them, and rarely return except to kill again. My parents live in farm country (not an area with a hunt though, too poor) and the local farms have problems with foxes as it is not at all unusual for them to kill lambs. The local farm children showed us a few corpses with chunks missing last spring. To really control the fox population we really should reintroduce a higher predator (wolves would be the obvious choice).

On the other hand urban foxes certainly do not run from people. They give you a bit of a look and then trot off, with no sign of stress at all.

Finally do people really shop in Lush shops? I have to cross the road by the shops because the smell from them really makes me quite ill.