Vegan Trove Podcast Ep 22 and 23: VegFest UK London 2015 and Single-Issue Campaign Debate

Here is part 1. Here is Part 2.

I share some thoughts about one debate presentation at VegFest UK London 2015 by Tony Wardle, VIVA! UK about single issue campaigns.

Here’s the full debate on Youtube from London Veg Fest 2015 about single-issue campaigns and whether they take the animal rights movement forwards or backwards. There’s a very strong abolitionist vegan presentation.

Here’s the other debate from London Veg Fest 2015 on whether Ricky Gervais and Beyonce (and other celebrities) are confusing the “Animal Rights” movement.  A very strong abolitionist vegan presentation.

Here is a link to numerous abolitionist books.

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If you’re not vegan, please start here

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Thoughts about what veganism is and what it is not

Why do we need to be clear about what veganism is and promote it unequivocally?

Some people promote veganism as a diet. Veganism is much more than a diet.

Some people make films presenting veganism as a healthy diet and ignore the issue of animal ethics entirely. This could be likened to someone making a film about death camps and only focusing on the pollution caused by the smoke stacks.

Some people conflate veganism with vegetarianism.

Some people make moral distinctions between flesh and dairy and eggs, e.g “Meat-Free Mondays” “Fish-free Fridays” when in fact dairy, eggs, flesh and other animal products all involve torture and murder and all are equally morally problematic. In fact, dairy involves more harm and death than if one were eating flesh alone.

Some people promote “flexible veganism” which is where it’s morally acceptable to “cheat” (eat animal products or small amounts of animal products) when one is dining with non-vegans.

Many people are afraid to even mention the word vegan. They treat it like it is a dirty word, yet some claim they want the world to go vegan.

Some people promote Peter Singer as “father of the animal rights movement”. They promote his work even though Prof. Singer has demonstrated that he is not only a self proclaimed “flexible vegan”, but his work demonstrates that he regards nonhuman life as having lesser value than human life. Singer also makes clear his approach is not rights-based but that he is a utilitarian. That nonhuman animals (or humans) can be sacrificed for the “greater good” and that human good is worth more than the good of animals. Surprisingly he claims that sentient nonhumans are not forward-looking individuals with desires and interests like humans have and therefore their life does not morally matter the way human life does. That is clearly speciesist. Firstly, other animals do have interests, desires and preferences and they act on them. It is irrelevant whether their desires, behaviours, preferences and so forth are not the same as human desires, preferences and behaviours. Peter Singer has also claimed publicly that he thinks bestiality is acceptable in certain circumstances. So it is bewildering that anyone interested in the rights of  nonhumans would subscribe to and promote his work.

Some promote veganism as a way of “reducing cruelty”, not as the way of abolishing use. Veganism recognizes there is no such thing as non-abusive use. ALL use is abuse.

Some people exclude animal ethics entirely and promote it as a “cleanse”, as a health-kick, as “green” living, or as a way to lose weight.

Some people promote the idea that veganism is “daunting” “difficult” or “extreme”.

Some are careerists and use the plight of animals to sell books, increase their public profile and some even make six figure salaries even though they have stated publicly they have no interest in animal use ending.

Some people promote veganism as if it is all about us.

Some people hold “animal rights” conferences, and you would be hard-pressed to find a mention of veganism and if or when it is, it is distorted, anthropocentric and misrepresented.

Some people — who claim to be against animal “abuse” and claim to “respect” and “love” animals — do not see why they need to be vegan. They do not realize that one is not credible if one is a slave-owner calling for the end of slavery.

Some people promote violence against animal use industry and blame industry or capitalism for creating demand for animal use. Some who promote violence are not even vegan and state that veganism is not important. Some use movements to express their misanthropy. Firstly, violence is the problem not the solution. Second, industry and capitalism may increase demand to a small degree, but the real culprit is the speciesist non-vegan public that creates the demand for animal products and animal use and they should be our target audience.

Some people promote animal welfare “reform” and mistakenly believe this is the way to end animal use. Some are pessimistic and think “reform” is the best that can be achieved and that animal use will never end. They claim they are “doing something” for animals and they claim promoters of veganism (abolitionists) are doing nothing for animals. The truth of the matter is promoting welfare “reform” is wheel-spinning and speciesist. There’s been 200 years of animal welfare and animals are used in more horrific ways and in greater numbers than ever before. Promoting welfare “reform” is not only speciesist and misguided, but at best, does little to nothing to help animals. Animal welfare “reform” helps industry become more profitable; increases demand for animal products; soothes the conscience of the nonvegan public; and further entrenches animals in the property paradigm. “Reform” only goes as far as to serve industry’s profitability. Only the animals lose. What non-abolitionists do not realise is that if they promoted veganism to end animal use, industry would respond by implementing their reform demands anyway.

Some people promote endless speciesist single issue campaigns (whales, dolphins, seals, fox hunting, wolves, fur etc) promoting the idea to the non-vegan public that one form of animal use is worse than another. ALL forms of animal use are equally morally problematic. No one species is more important than another. Single issue campaigns fetishize certain species. And one will never find any mention of veganism in any SIC alerts. Why? Because large animal orgs do not have veganism as their moral baseline. They use SICs as fund-raisers and they do not want to challenge their non-vegan donor base. In fact many large animal organisations are partners with industry.

Some people think that abolitionists and those who promote welfare reform are part of the same movement and that promoting regulation of animal exploitation will lead to the end of exploitation. No. Abolitionist veganism and the “humane” use movement (those who promote welfare reform and the idea that there’s such a thing as “compassionate” animal use and “happy animal products”)  are two separate and opposing movements.

Some people think lobbying government and trying to change laws will help bring about the end of animal use or at least improve the plight of animals. They spend a great deal of time and financial resources trying to appeal to non-vegans who work in these government departments. Government benefits financially from animal use industry so any efforts to change laws or bans will be mostly futile. This is all time and money they could spend promoting veganism to the public. Oft times these people who are advocating for changes in laws are not themselves vegan and if they are vegan, they don’t realise that while the public is speciesist (while they are eating, wearing and using animals), “bans” will be overturned. When a ban comes into being, animal use industry moves off-shore to countries which have even poorer welfare laws. Welfare laws will always fall well short of being any benefit to nonhumans because welfare “reform” laws will only protect animals insofar as industry remains profitable. Animal’s interests are of no concern to industry.

Some people get side-tracked and caught up in personality conflicts, egos, flame wars and so forth. Veganism gets tied into and associated with certain personalities and the public start to associate veganism with drama, flame-wars and conflict. This can repel people from investigating veganism further.

Some people forget that veganism transcends politics and religion and that veganism is best presented in a secular way. Some people present the idea that one cannot be an abolitionist vegan if one holds religious beliefs. The idea that one should present it in a secular fashion should not be taken to mean that one cannot also hold spiritual views or that spiritual views may not be a major motivating factor for some people.

These are just a few of the problems facing abolitionist vegan movement. We need to be clear what veganism is and we need to understand why it is so important to promote it unequivocally, otherwise we confuse the public and reinforce speciesism. The non-vegan public will always default to the welfare paradigm and they will always fetishize certain species and use others as property as long as they are speciesist. The only way animal use will end is to address the public’s speciesism though nonviolent vegan education.

Veganism is a nonviolent grassroots political movement. It has no leader. It is not a charity. Veganism is the recognition of the moral personhood of nonhuman animals and it is a rejection of the property status of animals.

Not vegan? Please start here http://www.vegankit.com

For more information Freedom’s New Frontier: A Guide to Animal Rights

Podcast: “Vegan Education and Doing Nothing” by Timothy E. Putnam

Please listen to this podcast by Tim E Putnam from his webpage under construction “Advocating Veganism“. The title of this podcast is “Vegan Education and Doing Nothing” http://www.advocatingveganism.org/VeganEducationandDoingNothing.mp3

The futility and speciesism of Australia’s “Ban Live Export” campaign

Last night I had a brief and unsurprisingly futile “discussion” on Twitter with an Australian who has set up an account for the specific purpose of promoting the “Ban Live Export” campaign. Unsurprisingly he/she was not promoting veganism.

There’s been a resurgence of the “Ban Live Export” (BLE) campaign in recent months. This campaign has been going for decades now. Please excuse my cynicism, but this ongoing futile campaign is a staple and a great fundraiser for many large Australian animal organisations. “Animals Australia” is such an organisation. Animals Australia is an “animal protection” organisation which — not unlike other “animal protection” organisations — does not have veganism as its moral baseline and promotes “humane” use and “humane” murder.

I have no doubt that the Animals Australia directors mean well, but they are not motivated by a fundamental moral justice to end animal use. Their mission is to “reduce animal suffering” by making animal use and murder more “humane”.

image kindly provided Liz Collins

Animals Australia is a “humane” use (new welfarist) organisation and through its “Ban Live Export” campaign has been promoting a solution — to murder nonhuman animals in Australia instead of exporting them to Indonesia to be murdered. Apparently Animals Australia believes — as does its supporters — that Australia has “humane” slaughterhouses. Really?  Anyone who has ever visited a slaughterhouse anywhere in the world knows they are all horror houses.

In 2003 Tom Hannan, Federal Secretary
Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union wrote:

Since the 1970’s the meatworkers union has opposed live exports on the basis of its destruction of Australian jobs, its inhumane treatment of the animals and the decimation of the meat processing industry.

The Australian Meatworkers Union are very happy to join with Animals Australia at protest events and they do. This should tell us something is very obviously wrong from a perspective of ending animal use. The AMU are happy because if Animals Australia’s “Ban Live Export” campaign is successful, this will mean more work for Australian slaughterhouse workers and Australian slaughterhouses. As is the case with all large animal organisations, Animals Australia has become partners in exploitation by partnering up with industry. Not only does the BLE campaign explicitly promote increasing the murder of nonhuman animals in Australia, it does so –at least in part — through implicit appeal to motives of nationalism, racism, and religious intolerance.

Unsurprisingly there’s not one mention of veganism anywhere in this campaign. In fact, Animals Australia has done its best to avoid promoting veganism in all its campaigns. In their BLE campaign it has specifically asked vegans (who went to the a rally and who were not AA supporters) to not to hand out vegan literature at their protest rallies.

Once again the animals lose.

Sadly, speciesist single issue campaigns such as BLE say to the public that one form of animal exploitation is worse than other forms. BLE campaign says to the public that we can “fix this” situation by murdering animals here in Australia instead of overseas and that it’s morally acceptable to use animals as resources as long as it is done “humanely”.  If BLE is successful (which is highly unlikely because live export is so profitable for the Australian government), it will soothe the public’s conscience by leading them to believe that the answer is “better treatment”, not that we should go vegan and end animal use. The “humane” use animal movement (all large animal orgs worldwide) is speciesist and confused and continues to confuse and reassure the speciesist public.

“Humane” slavery is not what we should be aiming for, because there’s no such thing. If we believe in justice and nonviolence, then the end of slavery is what we should unequivocally promote and by that, I mean we should promote clear and consistent veganism.

Today I decided to visit the Ban Live Export Facebook page to leave a comment which I’ve edited slightly:

Someone said to me last night on Twitter that being vegan is too “radical”. But I say the ONLY response to this and other forms of animal use is to become vegan and educate others to do so. Creative, nonviolent vegan education is the answer.

We need to understand while animals are chattel property it will not matter how many single issue campaigns animal groups pursue. It is speciesist and counter-productive to promote them. ALL use is abuse. There is no such thing as non-abusive use.

Ban Live Export campaigns have been going for decades now without success. What does that tell us? It tells us that animal use will continue while the public is speciesist and while the public continue to think that other animals are resources, property and “things”. In other words, animal use will continue while we have a non-vegan public. Even if a “ban” on live export to Indonesia is successful, what will happen is some other country will fill the demand, but animal use will continue.

We need to understand and promote the position that there’s no such thing as “humane” murder, whether it be in Australia or Indonesia or anywhere and even if there were such a thing as “humane” use or “humane” murder, it would still be unjust. The issue isn’t HOW we use animals, but THAT we are use them that is the problem.

The only way to end the torture and murder of 56 billion other animals (not including sea animals) each year globally is for us to stop eating, wearing and using nonhuman animals and that means every person on this Ban Live Export page needs to go vegan and educate the public to do so as well. If we truly believe in justice and nonviolence, then we must be vegan. If we are not vegan, then we are participating in unspeakable violence that is happening to 100s of millions of nonhumans each day. We must “be the change” as Gandhi said. We must be nonviolent in our own lives and avail justice to nonhumans that we would want for ourselves.

I urge you to please consider this and stop promoting speciesist single issue campaigns. Please promote veganism instead.

Not vegan? Start here on this site and on LiveVegan

Please remember if you are not vegan, please go vegan. It’s easy. It’s better for your health, and for the planet (because animal use is an ecological nightmare) and most importantly, it’s the morally right and just thing to do.

“Animal Rights: Persistence in the Struggle for Justice”

Animal Rights: Persistence in the Struggle for Justice

“I found the minds of the people strangely indifferent to the subject of slavery. Their prejudices were invincible—stronger, if possible, than those of the slaveholders. Objections were started on every hand; apologies for the abominable system constantly saluted my ears; obstacles were industriously piled up in my path… What was yet more discouraging, my best friends—without an exception—besought me to give up the enterprise! It was not my duty (they argued) to spend my time, and talents, and services, where persecution, reproach and poverty were the only certain reward. My scheme was visionary—fanatical—unattainable… But opposition served only to increase my ardor, and confirm my purpose.”

~ William Lloyd Garrison (July 14, 1830)

We live in a world where the vast majority of people consider it perfectly acceptable to oppress and exploit other animals, despite the fact that we have no moral justification for doing so. Every year in the United States, approximately ten billion land animals are killed, after being intentionally bred and enslaved, all for human gain. Worldwide, the numbers equal approximately 56 billion annually. When we count animals who live in water, there are tens or hundreds of billions more every year.

All of these animals are as innocent as children, but we treat them as though being born as a member of a different species is a crime worthy of life in prison, often accompanied by torture, ending with the death penalty. In fact, for the vast majority of them, the lives they are forced to live are so unbearable that premature death – itself a severe harm – might conceivably serve as some kind of merciful release from a life of physical, psychological and emotional suffering.

Widespread veganism is the only hope these nonhuman beings have for emancipation from their brief, brutal existence. Such a fundamental change in our society will only be brought about by a radical moral paradigm shift similar to those which resulted in the abolition of human chattel slavery and the voting rights of women.

Moral paradigm shifts, however, do not cause themselves. They are caused by small groups of people within society – always considered “radical” in their own time – who persistently educate others over decades about why change is necessary. Indeed, William Lloyd Garrison founded The Liberator, a weekly anti-slavery newspaper, in 1831, and it wasn’t until after 34 years and the bloodiest war on United States soil* that slavery was finally abolished in 1865. Similarly, the women’s suffrage movement’s first well-known spokesperson was John Stuart Mill in 1865, but women were not permitted to vote until 1918 in the United Kingdom, and 1920 in the United States.

 * Note that William Lloyd Garrison, the authors of this article, and the abolitionist approach to animal rights reject violence, and support only non-violent education and reasoned dialogue as a means to social justice, regardless of the cause.

In their efforts to educate and to engage in civil disobedience in the name of noble causes, abolitionists and suffragists endured ridicule, anger, imprisonment, and death threats, both from the establishment itself, and also from counter-movements made up of citizens with an interest in maintaining the current situation.

Nobody minded a quiet abolitionist or suffragist. Respecting “everyone’s personal choice” with deferent silence was deemed “moderate and respectable” by those vested in the status quo. Challenging the injustice with moral education was called “self-righteous,” “offensive,” “extremist,” and “off-putting.”

Take, for example, the following quote from 1847, in which human slavery proponent Joseph W. Lesesne criticizes anti-slavery advocates and the abolitionist movement:

 “[The abolitionists’] conduct has been most atrocious. No language is strong enough to denounce it. The shameless impudence with which they have trampled the Constitution under their feet, and their mean and despicable contrivances to deprive us of our Slave property ought to be held up to the scorn of the whole Union.”

The more direct and unequivocal an advocate’s position, the more resistance he or she encountered.

And so it is with vegans today. Despite the fact that we stand so clearly on the side of justice for all sentient beings, we can expect to encounter resistance most of the time. As strong vegan educators and advocates, we can expect to be dismissed, ignored, misrepresented, and to be subjected to whatever treatment those opposing us believe would be most effective at discouraging our efforts. Recognizing and accepting this situation for what it is, and realizing that other successful social justice movements faced similar resistance and criticism over spans of decades, can help us persist in our efforts over decades as well.

Aside from simply being on the justifiable side of a cause, a major reason that social justice movements of the past succeeded was persistence. Realizing that even the most effective vegan advocacy will take decades, rather than months or years, to have its intended goals achieved can give us the perspective we need to ultimately succeed by avoiding the burnout that comes with obsessive activity, unrealistic expectations, and a short-sighted focus on short-term results. We should recognize that it might sometimes be beneficial to take a break and recharge our batteries,  and that, alongside our personal advocacy, it’s important that we also strive for physical, mental and emotional health, so that we can be as effective as possible in our efforts to educate and inspire others.

So let us relentlessly persist in the struggle for justice at a pace we can maintain for as long as is necessary. Let us not measure our progress in insignificant welfare “victories”, which, during the short time they last, only serve to perpetuate the exploitation paradigm and make consumers feel better about their purchases of animal products. Let us instead measure progress in terms of the increasing number of ethical vegans, the decreases in animal product consumption, the increases in vegan alternatives, and the gradual transformation of the collective consciousness, which, only 65 years ago, didn’t even have a word to describe someone as being ‘vegan’.

Over time, the irrepressible power of justice will prevail, as we overcome the shameful prejudice and despicable discrimination that attempts to justify and maintain the moral status of animals as economic property and tradable commodities. Until that day comes, let whatever opposition comes our way serve only to increase our ardor, and confirm our purpose.

Drawing on the wisdom of another of the great voices of the anti-slavery movement of the 1800s, Frederick Douglass,

 “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without plowing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

Dogs, cats, and single issue campaigns

A vegan on Facebook kindly contacted me privately today suggesting I take a look at a site which promotes rights for dogs and cats. This is my edited response to him.
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Thanks for sharing this link, but as much as Nathan Winograd tries to promote the rights of cats and dogs, I don’t believe he promotes veganism to end the property status of animals, does he? And while he doesn’t promote veganism, he is just putting band-aids on a haemorrhaging wound.

While animals are legally property, it will not matter what laws are introduced for dogs and cats (or any animal). Laws and bans will always be overturned or abused or there will be loopholes in the law that humans will exploit because human interest will always trump the interests of nonhumans. The same problems arise with any law regarding any species.  There will be no lasting change or any effective ban while animals are still legally property. And with free trade as it is today, bans are useless because animal use industries will just move to another country where the “welfare” laws are poorer and more lax.

The problem with single issue campaigns (SIC) is that SICs highlight and fetishize one species over another. SICs say to the public that — in this case — cats and dogs are more important than other animals. SICs say that one form of animal use is worse than other forms. This is not true. All are equally morally problematic. There are many non-vegans who would do anything for cats and dogs but discount the interests of pigs, sheep, cows and so on. So vegans should avoid promoting single issue campaigns. We need to promote veganism instead which includes all animals. We need to promote the adoption of animals in shelters as well as supporting “trap neuter and return” campaigns etc.

The important point I’m trying to make is that we need to end domestication of nonhumans and end the property status of animals through creative, nonviolent vegan education — not through speciesist single issue campaigns— thereby ending not only the millions of healthy animals who are killed each year in “shelters” worldwide and abused and killed each year by humans. but all torture and murder of all animals from all species.