We shall not be moved

Ever since Edmund Burke called the ruckus crowd of England a "swinish multitude" there has been a push from the masses to bite back. See, for example, "Pigs' meat: or, lessons for the swinish multitude" (1793) by Thomas Spence. There is even a Spence "Pigs' Meat" coin/token "For the Rights of Man" from 1795. (Yes, Hardt and Negri are late to the multitude game.)

Things get tricky next; follow me on this: the American slave song "We shall not be moved" was once inscribe across the neck of a Sussex pig Rye pottery piece (circa 1900). Why? Because, as the lovely man on the BBC Antiques Road Show explains "everyone knows the Sussex pig will not be moved"! (See episode: Antiques are examined at Highcleare Castle in England. Also, here is a contemporary Sussex Pig from Rye pottery). The pottery piece is often used as a drinking jug--alcohol optional. So, here we have the inebriated masses--the swinish multitude--drinking from their pigs' meat pig jars inscribed with "we shall not be moved" echoing slave songs.

God Proposes, Man Disposes (Sir Edwin Landseer)

Cover for the Animal Revolution book ("to come") & or its album cover. Who will construct the anthem for the revolution? what non-human sounds are to be played? [cue Lovecraft's Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! from At the Mountains of Madness which he takes from Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym].

Olympics and Animality

Okay, folks, the Vancouver Olympics 2010 is surrounded with Orcas including the mascot and inspiration for the medals. We want to contemplate the otherness of the animal and its aura. Techne (digital imaging) enhances the contmplation: "the eyes of the world watched as northern lights, polar bear and a pod of orcas, who magically appeared when the floor appeared to crack like ice, transforming to ocean, became a spectacle to behold."

The opening speeches are redolent with rhetoric about global peace and unity. Not included in this is the violence of domestication and training of wild animals. Indeed as essays in Zoontology explain, animals are subject to Foucaultian control just as humans are. Hey Phelps, want to compete with an Orca? The point being, animals are not part of the games and if they were, they would overturn human supremacy.

from William Blake's Milton

terrific Lions & Tygers sport & play/ All Animals upon the Earth, are prepard in all their strength/ To go forth to the Great Harvest & Vintage of the Nations.