Bobby McFerrin – Don’t Worry, Be Happy

I would encourage anyone interested in the vegan movement to get involved in any way that suits you: start a group, educate your neighbors, or join in social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. One of the difficulties, though, of being an online vegan with a voiced opinion is the negativity one may receive from others whose views diverge from yours. While one would hope that our shared commitment to a harm-free life, or as harm-free as possible, would be a tremendous unifying force, it often feels like all our repressed anger at the plight of animals somehow gets released within our movement. Despite our minority status in the world, we are not a cohesive group of folks. Being able to move beyond the mainstream thinking, to accept what is often painted as a radical lifestyle or an extremist political statement, means that by our very nature, we are an independent lot. We have failed to become properly socialized into accepting animals as things. We are sensitive and may easily empathize with other beings. Our filters, which might allow us to ignore what we know like so many others in order to remain comfortable and go about our daily lives, do not work that well. We see. We feel. We know.

Because of the overwhelming task of social change, of our desire to awaken the masses and eradicate speciesism, it is easy to get discouraged. Like in all families, our vegan family often gets the worst of it, for it is within that family that much of the stress and strain must be worked through. And like in all families, this causes the most distress for the most vulnerable among us. Our anger, which is a source of energy, may become toxic if not channeled properly towards solutions. If vegans cannot figure out how to live peacefully with other vegans, how can we ever begin the radical inclusion that Dr. Will Tuttle suggests, where animals are part of our consideration, how can we wrestle with that energy that gets released due to our frustration and personal injuries, and then direct it into positive action for animal liberation? If we really believe in non-violence and peace, how can we use those beliefs to increase the peacefulness of interactions within our movement?

Passive Violence 

Here is a clip from APM’s The Story with Dick Gordon, discussing what Arun Gandhi learned from his grandfather about passive anger and himsa.

APM The Story: Searching for Change

This is a brief clip from Arun’s interview with Dick Gordon and is part of a wonderful series called Searching for Change. You may find it available on iTunes.

This leads us to re-examine what we are doing to spread peace, to build a more peaceful world. Certainly, becoming vegan and letting go of the violent exploitation of others is part of the process. But if we are creating himsa to others by our very response to them, we are defeating some of the good we might achieve. Think of a teacher who wants to impart wisdom to others. An effective teacher does not become enraged when the student asks questions, or fails to agree with the teacher’s logic. They share what they are teaching and allow the student to absorb what they will. Force feeding, of any kind, is just another form of violence.

The solution-focused aspect of Arun’s anger journal is such an important idea. As a therapist, I often found people were afraid of their anger because they did not know what to do with it and it often became destructive when given free reign in their lives. If we think about anger as a signal, like an electrical impulse, we can begin to view it as empowering. But, when someone is snapping at our heels, we may fail to realize they are acting out of fear, and feeling threatened ourselves, snap back. Please listen to what Sri Raghuram of Yoga Bharati has to say regarding fear and himsa.

Sri Raghuram

Violence in Thought, Word, and Deed

One of the ways to disengage from online drama and dissension is to allow the other person to be responsible for their own illumination. If one leaves a comment that is respectful, realize the other person may or may not accept truth to be as you see it. The other person has an entire lifetime of  experiences that colors their perception of the world; you are only able to plant a tiny seed, and seeds take time to grow. Like with child-rearing, often the best we can do is model the behavior we wish to see. We may tell our children how to behave, but they learn far more from watching our own behavior in the world. Keep in mind, too, that online, many silent people may be reading the exchange and may be impacted by your ideas.  It always seems that there is much to be learned from dissenters, too. Recently I took part in a Facebook thread that was becoming challenging. It was only hours later that I was able to understand what the other person was trying to communicate. Part of the barrier was the tone of the other person’s post, and an equally large part was my own defensiveness in rushing to explain and protect a colleague that did not need me to defend them at all. If I had allowed the other person’s opinion to stand and let others read it, then they would be free to decide if it was a valid point or not.  I realized I had unintentionally caused himsa and vowed to be more cautious in the future.

Ravi Shankar

Here are a few word from Sri Swami Sivananda regarding the more subtle forms of himsa:

The vow of Ahimsa is broken even by showing contempt towards another man, by entertaining unreasonable dislike for or prejudice towards anybody, by frowning at another man, by hating another man, by abusing another man, by speaking ill of others, by backbiting or vilifying, by harbouring thoughts of hatred, by uttering lies, or by ruining another man in any way whatsoever. 

Harm Through Abuse and Neglect of Earth

There are other ways we may unknowingly generate himsa, too. If we fail to show concern for the earth, if we fail to recycle, or comsume too much of any resource, that is himsa. When we harm the earth, we also harm the inhabitants of the earth by destroying their home. Every purchase we make takes the resources of the earth for ourselves, but it is infrequent that we consider how this impacts those we do not know or see, those animals, both human and nonhuman, who are affected by our choices. There are many ways our lives may cause harm to others, and we cannot totally eradicate all of them, but still, we must do the best we can. Deepening my awareness of the breadth of himsa has helped me to view my own actions in a new light; and I hope it will help you as well. It takes pressure off your aim to change the world and instead emphasizes that which is within your control — your own behavior.

We do not all have the wonderful grandfather that Arun Gandhi had to guide us towards ahimsa, but we may all learn from the teachings that Arun is sharing around the world. It took sharp words from another person to awaken me to my own creation of himsa to others, however unintentionally. I thought because I did not believe in physical force, it meant I was non-violent; I thought I was supporting ahimsa. But once I realized the broader view of himsa, I realized I still had much work to do to become the person I wanted to be. Like Arun, there have been times I have wanted to fight back, even with words, in self-defense. Learning, instead, to redirect the energy towards something more positive, more solution-focused, will release much more energy for the things I think are significant in life. It also helps me to feel more peaceful  and empowered as well.

The Active Force of Ahimsa is Love

Ahimsa is not merely the passivity of avoiding physical force or hurtful words and actions. It is still more, an active role of love and forgiveness that should radiate from the being who practices and believes in it. In our western world, it may feel alien at times, since independence and exploration of the outer world has dominated our thinking, rather than introspection and interdependence. Looking at the world and all those who lives within her more holistically, we realize that we are like cells in a single organism, with each cell’s survival intimately connected with the wellbeing of those around us. Becoming more active in our understanding of Ahimsa requires some effort and much self-discipline.  This can have a positive impact on your advocacy, because your focus will remain on your own empowerment rather than an external focus on the actions of others. To have peace without, we must start with peace within. Learning to remain peaceful in light of disagreement is essential in world affairs, as well as within our homes, communities, and the vegan family itself.

 Peace by Asa

They may have the media, but we have the truth….

(Army Strong)

I recently heard about the collaboration of media and the Pentagon and realized these ties between media and poltics, media and corporations, media and power, run very deep. Here is a clip from Leonard Lopate about how the US military controls the message in Hollywoood films.

(Leonard Lopate’s Underreported)

Media can indeed be quite manipulative, and this kind of manipulation has proven successful. There are a lot of frustrated vegan advocates who are searching for an effective way to educate the public about speciesism and the plight of animals on this planet. I frequently see the anger seeping out on Facebook threads and in blog posts. Yet most of us, by far, were once consumers of animal products. Something happened and the light was turned on over our head, and illumination changed everything in our lives. It might help us understand those for whom the light never goes on if we understand some of the messages that we hear all the time that reinforce thinking animals are nothing more than commodities. Media is a powerful force. When we get frustrated with other people, keep in mind that many of us grew up hearing these kinds of messages on a daily basis.

(Oscar Meyer. Bordens, McDonalds, Velveeta)

Or more recently:

(Yoplait, Activa, Hillshire Farms)

Each of these ads is selling something more than their products; they are trying to offer strength, health, happiness, and comfort along with the product being sold. Here is one that is offering something else entirely:

(Pepsi)

The overt message is that drinking Pepsi makes you part of the the future, of the NOW generation, but there is another message, too. A young boy dressed and dancing like MJ backs into Michael Jackson himself, his eyes grow large, and suddenly the little boys are dancing with The Jackson Five – Pepsi can make your dreams come true! Skillfully crafted, I am sure that audiovisual delight kept the Pepsi cans dancing right off the shelves.

Dr. Roger Yates, a Professor of Sociology from Dublin and a fellow ARZone administrator, whose excellent blog is found at On Human Nonhuman Relations; along with Jordan Wyatt, Creator and Dictator for Life of the Invercargill Vegan Society and Purveryor Extraordinaire of CoexistingWithNonhumanAnimals, are going to discuss the power of media manipulation. Thank you Roger and Jordan for taking time to be on the show.

Discussion with Dr. Yates and Mr. Wyatt regarding media and the socialization of children

There has never been a better time to advocate for nohuman animals. While the monied interests may hold most of the media hostage, there are still independent media such as podcasts to tell their truth. Thank you for listening and I will see you next time!

Mad Men Theme

Related resources:

On Human-Nonhuman Relations – Dr. Roger Yate

Stanley Sapon and The Species Barrier Maintenance

Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals - Jordan Wyatt

Invercargill Vegan Society

 Leonard Lopate: Hollywood and The Pentagon

Iron Brion (see video clip at bottom of page) 

Price Tag by Xenia

Witnessing the Road to Health

I recently watched an inspirational film, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, about a successful man who had overindulged in all the wrong things and whose body was paying the price for his materialistic lifestyle. He was barely into midlife, but his body was bloated, diseased, and wearing out quickly. He was on several medications and he wanted to make radical changes, so he set about a raw juice fast for several weeks and dropped 90 pounds. On his journey he helped other people heal too, using the nutrients in plant foods to recover. Watching two of the men in this video transofrm from bodies with bellies hanging over their waistbands to fit, healthy, and active men was really moving to me.

About the time someone invited me to a raw food cafe in Dallas, I received a review copy of Ani Phyo’s Raw Food Essentials too. Simultaneously, I had been hearing about Green Smoothies seemingly everywhere, and about the high energy eating raw would give you. I checked out the menu at the raw food restaurant and was eagerly looking forward to indulging in this new type of food. Unfortunately, the outing ended up being at a Mexican restaurant in Dallas that offered vegan food – not a bad meal at all, but not quite as adventurous as what I was expecting.  After reading Ani’s book and trying out some of her recipes, I realized there was much more to this whole raw food phenomenon that I had previously considered. It was time to dive in.

Traveling the Road to Raw

One of the few requests I first had when becoming an admin at ARZone (Animal Rights Zone), a (dot)ning site that provides guest speakers from the AR community, forums, transcripts, videos and discussions, was to post one of my favorite recipes on a shared document to go to Lisa Viger at Raw on $10/Day (or less). I shared my carrot/beet/orange salad, which Lisa then turned into a beautiful breakfast beverage. Carolyn Bailey, the ARZone creator, had Lisa develop a recipe that children would like – and she came up with a Mango Ice Cream, sure to please without age restrictions.  Admins Tim Gier and Roger Yates both shared main course meals, with Tim sharing a Marinara recipe and Roger a spicy tofu dish. I tried both with good results, and perused Lisa’s blog further searching for more inspiration. It is a gorgeous food site, with a day’s worth of menus developed weekly.  One of the first things I decided to try was her Pad Thai, a lovely blend of raw “noodles” (created with a spiralizer) and a tangy peanut sauce for the topping. It is difficult to spend any time at all on Lisa’s blog without wanting to dive in and try something. I was held back only by the food I had on hand.

Since I knew that Lisa was a vegan, most likely an abolitionist, and a fan of ARZone, I thought it would be interesting to interview her for the Veganacious podcast, to possibly interest other people in her beautiful blog and an intriguing way of eating a very healthy plant-based, cruelty-free diet. Lisa even gives you the cost per day as well as the nutritional breakdown for each meal, as well as the day’s totals. She even adds helpful hints and beautiful photos to assist you in making these simple foods. I love produce and have always eaten a certain amount of raw food salads and vegetables, along with lots of fresh fruit so this seemed like a great place to discover a more innovative way of appreciating the bounty of plants.

Lisa Viger interview

Rawkin’ On

I am continually impressed with the generosity of so many of the vegans in our community who give of their time and talents to share with other humans and make life better for the animals and all beings on the planet. Lisa is certainly in that camp, a delightful woman who is a talented artist, a photographer, as well as a blogger, who shares her love and joy in discovering raw vegan food with the rest of us.

Another good source for information is Steve Prussack of Raw Vegan Radio. Steve has now joined forces with Will Tuttle in a program to promote veganism and health to the world through The World Peace Diet Facilitator Training program. Here is a clip from Steve’s radio show with some ideas about transitioning to raw foods and how such a change may help promote health.

 Raw Vegan Radio – Steve Prussack

This is just the beginning of one of many interviews Steve Prussack is doing to apprise us of information in the raw vegan movement. Personally, I have no plans to go 100% raw, but will embrace some of the wonderful recipes I have discovered over at Lisa’s blog. Being a vegan has opened up a celebratory world of life-affirming foods to me, and I hope this information about the raw vegan movement will only increase your own exploration of the bounty of the world. I just learned that animal products contain no fiber; is it any wonder that the world is so tied up in knots, pursuing those unhealthy lifestyles  based on the torment and suffering of fellow earthlings, rather than dancing through life with the colorful and delicious foods we were meant to enjoy?

Mission Impossible Theme

Creative Vegan Education Takes Many Forms

Sometimes it feels like Mission Impossible, this work of vegan education.  There are so many creative approaches to education of the public. There are forums such as Animal Rights Zone and Abolitionist Approach. There are lectures given on college campuses. There are those who maintain vegan cooking classes, recipe blogs and information sites. Some folks are setting up vegan information tables, while others attend farmer’s markets with leaflets in hands. Some have tried going door to door with the vegan message. Others create informative and creative vegan videos.  Some are creating animated films or documentaries, helping to familiarize people with those who are vegan or with vegan ideals. Some host vegan radio shows. Some write books on the subject and promote their books on television and at bookstores. Some challenge misinformation about veganism in the media.  Some have even tried using street theater and open rescue to highlight the plight of nonhuman animals.  Some folks travel with a message of peace, teaching the importance of veganism in the process. There are a number of abolitionist vegan groups and meetups that are beginning to surface, too. Some of us podcast and try to share information and encouragement in that way. There are lots of ways to get the message out, but it is becoming more and more apparent that the message needs to be received by people everywhere. It is not an easy assignment, this idea of vegan education and the forces are many.

As many kinds of creative education as exist, there are also as many obstacles. The rise of animal welfare agency approved so-called “humane animal products” allows some in the public to believe commodified animals lead idyllic lives. They casually omit the reality of the slaughterhouse where they all meet their cruel and vicious demise.

There are forces at work to marginalize or minimize the work of activists, calling them names like extremists. Imagine, those who want all beings treated nonviolently are extremists, whereas those who want to use their poor young bodies to make a quick buck are considered normal. Some strange world we live in, huh?

Abuse as a Business Model?

A recent article in Mother Jones (How The Meat Industry Turned Abuse Into A Business Model) highlighted the built-in cruelty of a system that pushes for extremes, leading to more demands on workers, faster slaughter times, and leaves animals fighting for their lives to be seen as the enemy. Workers are often paid per animal. They need the animals to die faster or at least to be disassembled more quickly, even if they are still alive and conscious throughout the process. Who needs anything badly enough to participate in this? Even the workers are exploited, suffering injuries, illness and even death.

What do these animal exploiters do to protect themselves from anyone who might be angry enough to take action against them? When one sees the world as there for personal use, well, one exploits still other animals, of course. Here is what Jim Hightower has to say:

Hightower Commentary clip (guard dogs)

The name of that article in Mother Jones? How The Meat Industry Turned Abuse Into A Business Model. Pretty ugly business, truly. No wonder they want to keep that curtain tightly closed.

The Spanish Twelve, SHAC, and Freedom of Speech

Recently, twelve activists from Animal Igualadad in Spain were arrested because they were researching the mink industry. In the United States, activists have been arrested for hosting a website that supported underground activism, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty.  The government was unable to capture those doing the actual underground work, so they went after the activists who voiced support for those trying to end animal exploitation. Extrapolating those who advocate for animal interests into acts of eco-terrorism has become Standard Operating Procdure in some quarters and nothing less than free speech is at risk. Governments have gone after those trying to protect the environment and those trying to protect animal beings. No matter where one stands on issues of direct action and illegal activities, we may all agree that our right to voice protest over the treatment of nonhuman animals is critical to educating the public. Take away free speech and the internet, and our voices will be of limited use.

I recently read Dara Lovitz’s book, Muzzling a Movement, which delineates the injustice of labeling animal activists terrorists, along with Will Potter’s book, Green Is The New Red. Most of us are aware that terrorists employ tactics of fear by striking at random targets. They use violence. Their goal is to create chaos and destabilize the governments of those they attack. They induce fear by killing random civilians. Animal and environmental activists, on the other hand, choose specific targets related to what they see as injustice. They do not use violence and have never caused the loss of life nor damaged property of anyone outside the animal or environmental exploiters. In fact, it is the animal and environmental exploiters who are usually the ones taking life unjustly. (Those involved in underground activities have used tactics such as arson to attack the financial viability of exploitive industries, but most social justice movements have those who chose tactics unappreciated by the majority. They have not, however, been labeled as terrorists.)

At stake is the well-being of multinational corporations and an international power grab. Such corporations have grown in strength during the last few decades to the point that they have almost no accountability.  Using their financial wealth, they buy their way into governments and put pressue on the officials they have bought to make certain they get their way. These bully tactics have caused the erosion of democracies around the globe. During a global recession, they cast themselves as the purveyor of jobs, thus the activists are erroneously painted as a threat to the global economy.  The fact that innocent beings are being tormented and killed is not of any significance to these folks. They need to keep the curtain closed so that more people do not find out what ugly business they purvey while keeping the heat on those that defend the innocent and try to open the curtain.

Environmental and Animal Activists as the Number One Domestic Terrorists

In the United States, we passed the Animal Enterprise Protection Act in 1992, followed by the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act of 2006.  Labeling activists as terrorists has serious consequences. Some have been forced into Communication Management Units, incarceration which further limits the activists’ ability to communicate with the outside world. They are unable after they serve their time to travel freely and remain on carefully scrutinized watch lists. Some of those so labeled have done nothing more than host websites or write slogans in chalk on the sidewalk.  These laws open up a loophole which means any effective advocacy which may hamper the ability of these corporations to make money exploiting animals might come under scrutiny and anyone supporting the actions of others who use direct action may be liable.  One only has to look at recent legislative attempts to make illegal any photographs taken at an animal enterprise to see to what extent animal exploiters are willing to go to protect their dirty business while sacrificing our liberties.

Here is a clip from an interview with Will Potter of Green Is The New Red blog and book fame:

Rabbi Moskow interview w/Will Potter Clip

Back to vegan education: it seems important that we learn what works most effectively in order to maximize our ability to spread the word about what is going on.  Filmmakers have helped with such exposes as Earthlings and The Animals Film. Undercover videos help, too, although there is the danger that the public will believe these are anamolies, not standard business practices. One need only look at the intense emotion elicited from the Four Corners film of cows slaughtered in Indonesia following live export to see that people initially look towards more humane practices rather than towards ending animal use. Is there a humane way to murder living beings? Even those who have witnessed lethal injection report it is horrific to watch. Killing is simply ugly business. Stealing one’s very life is the ultimate show of disrespect and injustice and there is no way to pretty that up or make it humane. Killing is killing.

Animal Rights Activism, in Context

A recent post, Rotten to the Core, by Dr. Roger Yates  of On Human Nonhuman Relations, states:

If new and recent  animal advocates could be transported back to the late 1970s and early 1980s just for a day or two, I think that they would see that things have changed and changed for the better.

Don’t think this is about complacency or sitting back – its about context.

We need to stay strong as activists of whatever stripe we chose to be. We need to work hard to maintain our freedom of speech and stand with those whose rights have been violated. And we need to make certain that we are free to continue providing as much vegan education as possible to the rest of the world. We need to seize every opportunity to highlight the plight of our fellow beings and awaken the sleeping majority to our natural connectivity with all other forms of life. Things are changing, even if entirely too slowly. As Dr. Yates said, its about context. We must remember that.

Vivos Inc. – underground hideouts for the wealthy (as referenced by Hightower Commentary)

Prelude – God Bless the Outcasts

Social acceptance is fluid. At one time, a Rubenesque figure was a sign of wealth and was most desirable. During the past century, thin was “in,” culminating in a model named Twiggy, all long, leggy and downright skinny, becoming an icon with rates of anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders soaring. Whatever is in, whatever is out, keeps changing — which is why it is best to just be who you are and accept yourself as is. No matter the criteria, it is always difficult to be part of the outgroup – rejected, disrespected, and despised. We all know the fear of being left out, uninvited, or unselected for the team. Even those of us who were part of the ingroup during our school days could see the cost for those who were on their own.

I remember during elementary school years feeling sorry for another little girl who was a bit of a misfit at school. Her parents forced her and her sister to dress in ways that hurt her socially — she had to wear sturdy shoes with socks and was not permitted to wear the kind of outfits that the rest of us wore. I remember jokes about her even then, that she would make someone a good wife someday because her mother had taught her to sew and cook, skills that were not appreciated on the playground. Because of my family situation, I was very sensitive to her as a member of the outgroup, so I took her under my own pitiful wing.  I knew it was going to hurt my social status, but she was really very nice and very decent. We never became friends, but I tried to look out for her at school and on the playground. She seemed very grateful. It pulled all kinds of emotion out of me at a time I when was much too young to understand anything about social norms or the potential cost of being an outcast.  I knew one thing for certain, though: it was very cold outside of the accepted social group.

SPQN podcast The Secrets of Harry Potter on the characters as outcasts

This is so true. How we speak matters and the language of speciesism is all around us. Treat someone “like a dog” or work “like a horse.”  Calling a living being an “it,” rather than a someone, all of this language helps to diminish our awareness of our collective beingness, but it does nothing to diminish the inherent worth of another being in reality.  And, as this clip stated, this unwillingness to really see another can begin very early, even on the playground.

For me, school was a reprieve was the difficulties I encountered at home. At school, I was somebody. At school, I felt loved by my friends, my teachers, my classmates. I was a bit of a tomboy which the boys appreciated, and I never minded a scraped elbow or a skinned knee. I could play a musical instrument and was an ace at dodgeball and foursquare. I started a club at school and we wore bright red sashes to prove we belonged.   Two little boys raced after school to see who would buy me an ice cream. Yup, in those days I was one lucky little girl. But to be honest, it didn’t last very long. And every day at 3:30, I knew I had to head home to face what was sure to be unpleasant. I often wondered if the girl I befriended had just the opposite experience, that she looked forward to heading home the same way I looked forward to school. Maybe her ingroup started where mine ended. That is the fluidiy of social norms.

My own mother felt a great deal of social ostracism for having a single mother who was enterpreneurial and ran her own business. I think she was just ahead of her time. When I was a child, it was a source of discrimination to have a single mother, but it was much worse for my mother when she was a child. By the time I followed the family pattern and became a divorced woman, things had changed considerably and sadly, broken families were the norm. Social norms change. One thing that does not change, though, is this: it is always easier to be part of the In Crowd.

In Crowd by Dobie Gray

Lessons Learned Early: Who Is In, Who Is Out

The problems with In Crowds, though, is that they require an outgroup to exist. But until we vegans are the norm, are we part of an outgroup? Probably not, since celebrities, public figures and talk show hosts all claiming the tag of vegan, or at least Veganish or Veganist. The truth is, we are part of the In Crowd as human beings.

The other morning I was in my garage working sorting things into different categories for our Animal Rights & Rescue group’s benefit, when a woman stopped by and asked me if we were going to have any furniture for sale. I came out to her car, and we chatted for a bit.  To my surprise, she was quite interested in veganism, although she immediately discussed eating salads and never mentioned anything at all about animals or their rights. I told her we would have outreach material available the day of the sale, and sure enough, she came and discussed further what she noticed when watching Kathy Freston recently on the Oprah show. While I found the slaughterhouse shown on that show to be a sanitized view, this woman nonentheless saw the animals waiting to be slaughtered, and it got to her — the reality of what meat means grabbed her and she could not turn away.  She took a couple of handouts and I told her I would help her in any way I could. This was good intersectionality, and I was happy to see her come to the sale strictly to discuss veganism. It made me realized that there is a growing snowball, picking up all kinds of folks, that is increasing the vegan portion of the population, picking up steam and converts as it grows and grows. No matter our artificial barriers within the movement or without, the snowball is growing larger. No wonder some folks are feeling a little threatened. Change is definitely in the air.

Last December, Psychology Today published an article by Dr. Susan Whitbourne, a tribute to John Lennon, entitled “Imagine There’s No Outgroup.”  In the article, Dr. Whitbourne notes the arbitrary nature of ingroup-outgroup status. She recalls those experiments done by Jane Elliott in a classroom in Iowa, where the blue eyed kids were pitted against the brown-eyed kids. When the power dynamic shifted, the new power group became just as unfair and cruel as the prior group had been. Ms. Elliott made eradicating outgroup status her life’s work. Dr. Whitbourne, thinking only of human interconnectivity in her article, relates, ”John Lennon had the right idea when he urged us to ignore the many artificial differences we create among ourselves.”  For those of us in the Animal Rights community, this includes dropping the interspecies barriers and welcoming other beings in, too. The trouble with an In Crowd is that it means, by definition, that other beings are excluded.

The In Crowd by Mitchel Musso

Part of learning who we are is figuring out where we belong, and it starts at a very early age, which is why I took a trip down memory lane a bit. The biggest outgroup we have right now in the entire world is that of the animals.  They are hardly a minority, but they have been completely exploited, disempowered, hidden and betrayed. Even cats and dogs, the ones we consider family members, are killed by us in the millions every year. In Dr. Roger Yates article To Change the World,* he states that speciesism is ”embedded into the collective consciousness about how nonhuman animals should be treated.” Anyone who has done any outreach knows how deeply those embedded values can appear, making it a challenge to constantly run up against defensiveness, marginalization, ridicule, and other tools of keeping the animals in outcast status.

Rationalized Conformity, Irrational Speciesism

A term used by sociologist William Whyte was “rationalized conformity,” which is what happens when individuals disagree with the norm but do not challenge the group. This often leads to a group’s inability to consider alternative courses of action and keeps the group feeling invulnerable.  The in group may also hold a shared stereotype of the outcast group.  You know, we vegans are a bunch of pasty faced, underweight, longhaired types who run around in Birkenstocks making the peace sign. Well, the peace sign is good – but most Birkenstocks are not even vegan!

One of the consequences that comes with being in the In Crowd, is that the outcast group can be perceived as a threat.  “We have to stick together or THEY will destroy us!” or something along those lines can be espoused, despite the inconsistency and idiocy of such statements.  Since we vegans align with the outcast group, the animals, we often receive some of the same disdain they receive, and for much the same reasons. We are perceived as a threat to the status quo, and the status quo enables those in the majority to a sense of entitlement without any commensurate responsibility.  I knew I was bucking the system when I defended that little girl in the schoolyard, but I have no regrets about it. Besides, any social stigma was short lived. I think about her now that I have done this podcast, and imagine she has had a good life, with solid family support and two concerned parents. At least, I hope she has, because what she experienced in the school yard was unkind and unfair and I probably didn’t do as much as I could have to change things. Luckily, social norms change. We are here to see that they do. So, whenever you get down, or feel like the burden of being in an outgroup is too difficult, remember It is the animals that are the outcasts; and remember that social norms change. Today’s outcast is often tomorrow’s leader, today’s leader is frequently tomorrow’s social outcast.  Things change.  And we must see that they do.

Right now there is no way to give comfort to any of those animals, to let them know that there are those of us that see them, who care about what they are feeling and want so badly to liberate them. We cannot stop it, yet we must. Luckily, social norms change and every vegan out there is helping make it happen. We must. The animals are waiting.

God Help The Outcasts by Bette Midler

*On Human-Nonhuman Relations

Keep on Driving by Justin McRoberts

Years ago, I worked in the field of traffic engineering as a technical support person. I did technical editing, designed all graphics on AutoCad for traffic studies, and logged the geometrics of intersections. What this meant was that I donned one of those orange vests with reflectors on them, took my wheel measuring tool, and marched in the middle of busy intersections in downtown Los Angeles. I would log the existing structure of the intersection – what type of traffic control it had, whether a stop sign, a four way signal, or something more complex that allowed for left turns only or whatever it might have been, the number of lanes, the left-turn or u-turn lanes and so on. This data was then taken back to the office and added to my library of graphics for use in traffic studies. For me, the challenge was to get the information without getting rundown by a fast moving vehicle.

Intersections in Animal Advocacy

Lately, I have been experiencing a dejá vu feeling about intersections. It is easy to feel like a fast moving vehicle is approaching from some unknown sector of the animal rights movement, before I can gather enough data to do any good. I’m learning to look in all directions before I move forward. Yes, the significance of intersections has been on my mind quite a bit.  Think about what happens in an intersection — cars that are moving in opposite directions suddenly meet for a brief period of time, stopped in a civilized fashion so that all may move more effectively on their own designated paths.  Suddenly, one vehicle headed north and one vehicle headed south share this brief time-out, locked into a common purpose of getting through the intersection without killing anyone heading east or west.  Sometimes, we have a green light, and breeze right through that shared intersection without even a thought to it; at other times we drum our fingers in impatiences as we are forced to yield to the traffic whipping through the intersection from side streets.  Each vehicle contains living beings with usually some singular purpose pushing them in a given direction: going to work, shopping, heading to the gym, picking up the kids, or maybe even driving to another intersection to measure the width of the streets.  We don’t usually think about one another when approaching intersections, so focused are we on our individual task and personal mandate.

A similar thing happens in animal rights activism.  Some of us are headed to a protest about an individual issue such as a protest against puppy mills or rodeos.  Others are moving towards a vegan sampling event, trying to educate and entice people  towards a vegan life.  For some of us, animal rights is a full-time and well-paid position, such as the administrators of large animal organizations like PETA or the Humane Society.  For others, it is a challenging role we pick up on the weekends, some of us bravely heading to the center of town to talk to people about the world of animals and why things need to change, or wearing an “Ask Me Why I Am Vegan” tee shirt, or handling out flyers after a concert. Some of us only enter that intersection via our keyboards or headphones, but we are traveling the same streets nonetheless.

Intersecting With Other Animal-Conscious People

Given this heightened awareness of the metaphor of intersectionality, it has seemed important to realize where I might be meeting other animal-conscious people in an intersection. This has become even more apparent due to the formation of a local group that includes both vegan and non-vegan members, with the caveat that all meetups will be only vegan in nature. During the formation of the group, I began developing collaborations with other rescue and animal-oriented groups in the general area.  One of the women  I talked to about our development of a Speaker’s Bureau mentioned that many people in the animal rescue community are not vegan or vegetarian and do not make the connection.  Here are people with a shared interest – the concern for animals – who are heading in another direction and may miss the vegan message entirely unless we can meet at the intersection.  The more the collaborations between our group and the other animal groups grows and develops, the more receptive the other groups may become. So far, the majority of people attending our meetups have been vegan, yet the conviviality between all of us has remained very high. Despite discussing our differences, we have been able to focus on the ways in which we share commonality.  Best of all, the health, energy, and enthusiasm of the attending vegans has done more to change hearts and minds of those in our group that are not yet vegan than we could do if we were strangers, without our shared values.

If Not For You by George Harrison

A New Look At Overlap

You have probably seen those diagrams of overlapping circles, where you diagram the people in your life regarding how much you share. A healthy marriage will have a lot of overlap but also a lot of unshared space, allowing each partner to develop their own individuality and interests which can then be shared with their partner.  Some friends may only share a single interest with us– for example, I used to have a running partner and our singular bond was a love of running. She would arrive every morning at 6:30 or so, encouraging me to be ready to brave the cold or rain and get moving on the mountain where we ran. The miles flew by more easily with the distraction of a shared conversation and over time, we got to know one another better. We really did not have much more than running in common initially, but it was a functional and positive link nonetheless, and one that grew stronger over time.

One of the organizers of a local wildlife rescue has already voiced a desire to attend one of our meetups, and I definitely want to learn more about the work they are doing.  Unlike those rescuing domesticates, the wildlife rescuers often have the added difficulty of terrifying the animals they are trying to help and endangering themselves, too. One of our members found a small, pink, very tiny body in her yard. She really had no idea who it was or where it belonged, but she investigated and ultimately saved this very tiny life. It was an abandoned baby squirrel and it survived, was returned to the wild, and still visits her occasionally today. You can see a YouTube video of this thriving squirrel on the blog.

Back to those circles: sometimes it is most difficult to maintain relationships when there is a lot of overlap, such as in a marriage. The overlap means there is a lot similar, so differences may become magnified.  We all know marriage is much more challenging than say, friendship, because of several factors. In a marriage, there is more invested, more intimacy, and more vulnerability.  So, too, in pursuits like vegan activism.  There is as much diversity among vegans as there is among most any other group, yet our expectations tend to be raised, so we can become more disappointed when the other party does not think like us in most ways. We just share the desire to stop commodifying animals, but how to get to a better world for all of us remains in question.

Change: Intersectional Thinking (Better Management podcast)

This sounds like the prefect time for creative vegan education and significant social change which may well utilize innovative techniques towards creating a new approach to living, towards compassion and respect for all beings. As a cognitive behavioral therapist, I know how difficult change can be even for those who desperately want to change. Imagine how much more difficult our task is as vegans to help others understand the need for a change they may not even want to make. But in the larger scheme of things, it is just another bump in the road.

Bump In The Road by Johnny Lang

While Mark Bittman is not a supporter of veganism by any means, he is a polished speaker who recently shared something that most animal rights folks would appreciate. He showed a picture of a beautiful black and white cow and then followed it with a graphic of an atomic bomb explosion — the mushroom shaped cloud — a good vehicle to get the attention of his audience.  Here is Mr. Bittman speaking at a TED conference – the intersection between technology, entertainment and design.

Mark Bittman on TED

Aikido Activism

Using the principle of Aikido Activism, I have attempted to use Mr. Bittman’s arguments, which are sound, to help us learn better vegan outreach, even though that was not Bittman’s purpose. He is only asking for a reduction in the consumption of animal products. It always amazes me that people who are knowledgeable about the negative impacts of animal commodifiation still cling so tenaciously to this outdated and cruel practices, trying to believe that there is such a thing as humane animal products, which is of course ridiculous. No animal who is commodified has any liberty. The humane meat myth is unfortunately one many people believe. But Bittman makes a few good points. He points out graphically the destructive capabilities of our current use of animals, he mentions the importance for human health of a plant based diet, and looks at the environmental impact of our current path. What he fails to mention, however, is the element of violence and the total immorality of exploiting and subjugating other beings and how that too has an impact. I liked his use of the beautiful gentle cow and the alignment with the violence of an atomic bomb – he has the idea of violence even though it is unstated in his presentation. Perhaps, a subconscious nod to how the violence against animals ultimately folds back upon us. He also mentions that the use of lists and statistics is mind numbing, and it is. People can feel overwhelmed when there are large numbers or overwhelming odds and mad elect to do nothing due to a sense of helplessness.

Intersectional Thinking And Positive Change

Intersectional thinking is an exciting new concept, one that has been successful in the past as well. Consider the educational gains made for generations now by Sesame Street using both entertainment and education, or the orthotic devices created when engineering and medicine collaborated. Research into psychology is also a proactive component in effective animal advocacy as we learn more about how people change and learn, too, and then help us to apply that to our own outreach.

A new era is required to meet the many demands on our planet, in order for life on this planet to even survive. We were warned decades ago by Chief Seattle that whatever we do to the animals, we do to ourselves. All things are connected. We can see this in practice today: we take the animals from their families, and our families begin to degrade. We fatten up the animals, and we suffer obesity. We stuff the poor farm animals with antibiotics and now have pernicioius infections that are resistant to all antibiotics. We unleash horrible, callous violence against animals and are ourselves forced to live on a violent, ever warring planet.

What will intersectional thinking add to the vegan movement? Here are some practical ways we can use those intersections to our advantage: hosting a vegan table at an environmental or vegetarian festival or event…..presenting a talk on animal rights and veganism at a progressive church…..collaborating with animal groups that are not yet vegan……requesting vegan options from non-vegan businesses and restaurants……collaborating on shared missions with other vegans…..listening to many ideas from many sources……brainstorming with those within other disciplines.

Promote Peace, Pause at Intersections

No matter how we approach the intersection, it is important to respect the rights of other drivers. Remember, it is going to take a multiplicity of ideas to effect the necessary change, to use creativity and compassion at this, the exact right time to do so. And it is important, as we learn, grow, and evolve, as we become better and stronger advocates, we keep on keeping on in our pursuit for justice for all beings. Remember to promote peace, keep on driving, and pause at the intersections!

Keep on Driving by Justin McRoberts

Under the Sea (Little Mermaid)

Most of us rarely think about life in the ocean – it is an unseen world for the most of us. Then we hear about millions of barrels of oil being spewed into the Gulf, and we realize on some small scale what must be going on in that unseen world. We see the occasional photo of an oil-soaked bird, a dolphin washed upon on shore dead, and feel a certain sadness.  But the reality below the waterline is beyond our comprehension. I remember when I was a small child out on a boat, asking where to put a small bit of trash. One of the men on board lalughed and said, “This is the world’s biggest trashcan all around you.” I thought it was shocking even then, but little did I realize how very destructive such an attitude would become. We have literally turned an entire world full of living beings into dead zones, plastic islands, trash barges, and a toxic soup. Maybe Nemo was our last attempt at interjecting light hearted fantasy into that mysterious world of the deep.

Discovery News – Quest

Some people believe the oceans will be completely fished to extinction by 2050, a datte that is growing ever nearer. It is astounding that his projection would garner so little attention as so many of us are busy burying our collective heads in the sand. As dismal as this scenario is for us, for aquatic animals it is even worse in the here and now. As humans develop ever more wasteful and productive means of quickly emptying the ocean of all life, as humans despoil and pollute her waters and pillage her bounty,the prospect of staying alive in the ocean means survivng a continual onslaught from floating plastics, to toxic oil spills to commercial overfishing. Amid all of this destruction is the disturbing element of bycatch, animals who are caught on longlines and in commercial fishing nets who are killed as a byproduct of commercial fishing. They are discards, not profitable and may be tossed back into the ocean, dead or alive. Unfortunately, many are severely injured and may be tossed back into a lingering death. Most will never again be part of the reproducing populations so needed to replenish the oceans with life itself. It is estimated that the number of marine animals callously killed as bycatch reaches into the billions each and every year.

Fish Are Friends Not Food (Nemo)

Most efforts to decrease the number of animals caught as bycatch emphasize release methods.  Some gill nets are clear filament and are invisible to all forms of marine life, as they are tossed out to sea to entrap as many animals as they can.  Some are bottom trawlers and are laid out to be later brought up quickly, ensnaring anyone unlucky enough to be in their vicinity. Longlines also catch many animals that are discarded. Birds, turtle, fish, dolphins, whales, sharks, seals and many other species of animals are killed by commercial fishing operations in numbers that are never calculated. If someone was devising a plan to wantonly destroy the ocean as quickly as possible, it is doubtful they could do a much better job than human beings are doing today, even as we face a growing human population and ongoing resource pollution, including waste from animal agriculture on such a scale that thousands of square miles of dead zones increase every year at the mouths of rivers like the Mississippi in the US and in other nations as well. While some fisheries have begun using things like Turtle Extruders which may allow some turtles to escape the nets, they will still spell death for most of the animals that are thus ensnared. It is enough to make you lose your vegan lunch. If you need a good cry, Google Bycatch Photos and weep. The losses are in the millions of metric tons, each and every year.

A few statistics from the World Wildlife Fund:

• Over 300,000 small whales, dolphins, and porpoises die from entanglement in fishing nets each year, making bycatch the single largest cause of mortality for small cetaceans and pushing several species to the verge of extinction.
• Over 250,000 endangered loggerhead turtles and critically endangered leatherback turtles are caught annually on longlines set for tuna, swordfish, and other fish, with thousands more killed in shrimp trawls.
• 26 species of seabird, including 23 albatross species, are threatened with extinction because of longlining, which kills more than 300,000 seabirds each year.
• 89 per cent of hammerhead sharks and 80 per cent of thresher and white sharks have disappeared from the Northeast Atlantic Ocean in the last 18 years, largely due to bycatch.
• Shrimp trawlers catch as many as 35 million juvenile red snappers each year in the Gulf of Mexico, at least they did  before the oil spill there, enough to have an impact on the population.
• Billions of corals, sponges, starfish, and other invertebrates are caught as bycatch every year.

Deep Blue Sea, Snatam Kaur

In just one year, 1992, a single French tuna fishery noted the following bycatch in 25% of their vessels: 330 striped dolphin, 114 common dolphin, 13 long finnned pilot whales, 10 bottlenose dolphins, 1 Russo’s dolphin, 1 sperm whale, and 2 fin whales. This is a statistic from the Fisheries and Aquatic Department in the UK and is not meant to single out the French. Such statistics are found around the globe and represent a true and utter decimation of ocean life, yet we continue to go on our way, decimating sea life, year after year.

Discovery News Seaturtle Report – Turtles as Bycatch

In the eastern Mediterranean, a monk seal which was found that had died with osteoporosis. The young female was only half its normal weight and its bones were light and brittle. Instead of the usual spoils of fish and other marine animals inside its stomach, it had only sea sponges, sea grass and parasites. There is the primary and unnecessary loss of life that comes from the coveted marine life sought after my mankind, but there is also a secondary loss of life through bycatch and finally, through the devastation of the natural marine environment, leaving some poor animals like this monk seal to try surviving in damaged habitat without anyplace left to hunt or forage for decent food. The mercury levels in many animals is so high that it has been determined to be toxic for human consumption — and not healthy for the animals either. Some animals are killed outright because they need to feed off of fish, such as the dolphin slaughter in Taijii Japan, popularized by the recent documentary film, The Cove.

CITES is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and will be sited in a few of the following examples of bycatch disasters:

• Seabirds pay a very high price. Albatross are down 65% over the past 65 years, and are now declining further by 4% annually.
• Olive Riddleys, the second smallest turtles, are losing their lives with longlines.
• The Monk Seal, once exploited for oil, are now losing the battle for existence due to loss of habitat and overfishing.
• The Vaquita, a CITES  endangered cetacaen, is now down to only a few left, less than 200. Gillnets are the biggest threat to these animals. Now, more ar dying as bycatch than there are new births to replace them. They are near extinction.
• Another CITES animal is the Dugong near Northern Australia.  Because they survive on seagrass found near shore, they often drown in fishing gear. They are also near extinction.
• Common Murie account for a high level of bycatch: nine thousand per year in the Baltic Sea, 22,000 off Newfoundland. Gillnets are a big threat to these creatures, resultin gin s\a high mortality rate.  Worse still, their habitat is shrinking rapidly, limiting their chance to stage a comeback.
• The North Atlantic Right Whales have been depelted by years of whaling. In the East North Atlantic, they are already believed extinct with only a few remaining in the Western NA.
• The Australian Sea Lion was hunted through the twentieth century and is now listed as threatened. Gillnets and lobster traps are part of the dangers that claim so many of these anima lives.
• Scientists fear that the Northern Right whales, some Humpback whales and quite a number of other endangered stocks of smaller and larger whales, such as the Irrawaddy dolphins in the Philippines (approximately 50 animals), Hector’s dolphins from New Zealand (approximately 100 animals), the La Plata dolphins from South America or the Vaquita porpoises in the Gulf of California (scarcely 500 animals) and some porpoises will soon be extinct, despite the fact that they are no longer hunted.
• An added problem for many animals, such as the dolphins in the Black Sea and the West Pacific (Korean) grey whales, is the almost complete destruction of their habitat.
• Harbour porpoises in the Baltic Sea provide another sad story. The approximately 1.60-metre-long, snub-nosed, black and white porpoises suffer particularly from gill net fishing (for cod and flatfish) and drift net fishing (for salmon and cod).

Discovery clip – Bycatch

Marine animals also have to overcome other manmade disasters on a daily basis. There is the oil that has been spilled over the past several years into their habitat, made worse by the addition of disbursements; there is the routine leakage of toxic substances from maintenances of large ships, the large amount of plastics gathering in the oceans, the runoff from animal agriculture, chemicals and other toxins. Elliott Norse, President of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute of Washington, checked 300 Albatross chicks on Midway Island, 1600 km from the nearest land. Each chick had plastic in its stomach.The amount of animal suffering caused by man is beyond comprehension. We have invaded, polluted, pillaged, and destroyed. Until there are enough people who respect all forms of life, these problems will continue unabated.  If you are not vegan, please go vegan. If you are already vegan, please spread the word about these unseen animals that are paying such a hugge price for our hubris and our folly.

Sea Noises, Dr. Roger Payne

WWF Bycatch News

  ]]> http://veganacious.com/2011/03/11/podcast-26-bye-bye-bycatch/feed/ 0 http://veganacious.com/2011/02/28/podcast-25-declawing-the-cat/ http://veganacious.com/2011/02/28/podcast-25-declawing-the-cat/#comments Mon, 28 Feb 2011 18:50:03 +0000 veganacious http://veganacious.com/?p=8095

Circle of Life (The Lion King)

Some vegans promote the saying, taken from the peace ideals of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, The World is Vegan is you Want It. But what would a vegan world really mean? Would obligate carnivores somehow be banned or executed? Would there be islands of natural habitat that would permit all animal species to live in a functional biosphere without human intervention? How would those areas of habitat be demarcated? Would humans avoid entering into such areas, or would they dominate and control them? What about domesticates like cats and dolphins? Who has the right to live in the new vegan world? Even now, these are sticky issues that plague many vegans and vegan sanctuaries. I know some vegans will no longer adopt cats because of their need for animal products. While some vegans have transitioned their cats successfully to an all vegan diet, others have had little luck and have reverted back to standard cat food, deeply troubling the conscience of these vegans. Some vegan sanctuaries are refusing the big cats entrance because there is no way to feed these animals without sacrificing their vegan ideals. Such life and death decisions are deeply concerning. What will a vegan world really mean?

Rejection of Predators by Vegans?

I recently saw on a forum a long time vegan stating that only vegan animals were worthy of our favor. What about some of the other carnivores, such as dolphins, who are already captive? With diminishing ocean life, would rehabilitating the captive dolphins to the wild be feasible? As human population reaches its projected height at about nine billion souls, the dwindling of natural resources, lack of water, increasing climate instability, and international conflicts will all become challenges that may pull attention away from saving animal lives. Long ago, Chief Seattle was alleged to have said: What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected. The natural world seems designed to balance ecosystems, with carnivores living on the weak, the infirm, and the elderly.  This order kept animal populations healthy and in check and culled out those who were unable to survive. Without that balance, what would become of a vegan world?

Healing Drums

One hundred years ago, in 1911,  another transitional age was moving into the area called Lassen Peak in Northern California, where Native Americans once lived in harmony with nature.  Continually pushed back by the advancement of human populations, hastened by the Gold Rush encroaching on and destroying their living space, the Yahi tribe was finally limited to only a few members, clinging precariously to life deep within a canyon.  One by one, as they died, only one man remained — Ishi, the emaciated sole survivor of his tribe, finally left his homeland and walked into the White Man’s world, was taken and became a living anthropology museum exhibit at the University of California at Berkeley. Ishi lived his last few years as a paid research assistant, as he taught those around him about his previous existence. Ishi had spent most of his life in hiding, simply trying to survive and avoid capture, following massacres of most of his family by US forces and cattlemen. In the end, he witnessed something most of us hope to never live to see: the total extinction of his people and their way of life. Ishi died around 1916, living in captivity only a few years, and dying at about age 54. Some of what he experienced must be a mirrored experience for many nonhuman animals today, as their habitat continues to shrink, their area for migrating, hunting, and foraging becomes severely truncated, and the ongoing press of rising human populations threatens their families and their very lives. Many species of animals are becoming extinct because of man’s short-sightedness and inability to live peacefully with the natural world.

What is the Human Role in Animal Survivability?

I once was privileged to attend a lecture on Raptor Rescue, people who work to save the birds of prey. Attending the lecture were birds who had been savaged for sport: a gorgeous hawk with only one wing, a crippled falcon, and various other birds that could no longer fly or hunt, but were used for educational purposes. What is the fair thing to do if one finds an injured bird of prey? Should they be killed in order to stop ingestion of other animals? If they are allowed to live, who or what would they feed upon? These days, I would object to them being used at all, even for educational purposes, but I am still not certain what is fair and just in these kinds of situations. Education is certainly needed to change the hearts and minds of most humans, but there are troubling questions that require discussion of the human role in preserving animal life.

Totem Dance

There are traits among predatory animals that are magnificent. The vision of a raptor is keen and awe inspiring. The grace of a snake, the majesty of a lion, the ability to leap and pounce of a tiger, the bravery and determination of the wolf, the power of a bear, the perseverance of a penguin, the poetry of a seal in water, the loyalty of a dolphin — these animals are all predators, all must hunt to survive. Yet somehow, it seems to me, the world would be greatly diminished without their presence here. As part of the reverence for other forms of life, these lives too must be considered and respected. It is when they are held captive, or are domesticated, that these questions sting us most sharply. It appears that humans will have to make some changes to save any aspect of nature and to preserve as many animals as possible.

Declawing the Cat As Metaphor for Man’s Assault on Nature

Consider the cat.  Humans love their soft fur, their ability to clean themselves, their warmth when they curl up, and their contented sounds of purring as they snuggle on our laps. But less desirable in the domestic cat is their ability to claw furniture, draperies, and occasionally, human friends.  Some people have their cats declawed, trying to save only the part of the cat they like, then discarding the rest. But sadly, not only is this such a painful operation that many vets refuse to perform it, it leaves the declawed cat completely vulnerable, separating him or her from their only protection, their only way to quickly scale a tree or to strike out at an opponent, or to capture a small animal for a meal. By declawing the cat, we are rejecting an elemental part of the cat. Given that there are many animals who do not have claws, this seems particularly troublesome, as if we could design our very own animals to suit our specifications. And this is actually going on in the natural world, too, in our assault upon it — we are taking species that are near extinction, then self selecting for traits, and breeding them to create designer exotic pets.  These animals have not evolved naturally in order to strengthen their survivability, but have been bred for short-term gain, for appearances, often at the expense of the animal’s body integrity. Just look at the mess we have made with dog breeding to see where this leads: some dogs have difficulty breathing, others have eyes that pop out of their heads easily, others have hip problems, and so on and so on. Human intervention has been a disaster for many animal species. Can we leave nature alone? Can we as vegans appreciate the hunters among us, not the human type but those who live in nature and must hunt for survival?

Hungry Like A Wolf by Duran Duran

Predatory Animals in Sharp Decline

Commercial fishing is threatening dolphin survivability. Lions have experienced a marked decline in the last twenty-five years, down to only about 15% of their former population and only a small number compared to precolonial times.  Penguins have decreased in population by over 50% in only the last fifty years. With tigers becoming fewer and fewer, some poachers are resorting to leopard hunting, despite the dangerous decrease in leopards as well. Some scientists are breeding panthers to improve their chance of survival, but habitat preservation is paramount for all of these animals. Seals are declining at an alarming rate, believed due to pollution, climate change, and decrease in food sources. African birds of prey are decreasing, believed due to the commerical bushmeat trade. The war on wolves has been wreaking havoc on ecosystems, according to recent research, as smaller predators attempt to take over the natural balance of nature. Predator fish are also in sharp decline, competing with commercial fishing habits that use nets to scoop up every kind of marine animals–many who are considered bycatch and are simply tossed aside. Pandas, Polar Bears, and the Grizzly are all suffering population decline and stress. ”I’ve never seen bears hungry in the fall before, but last year they were starving,” said British Columbian wildlife guide and photographer Doug Neasloss. “I noticed in the spring there weren’t as many bears coming out, but I felt it was premature to jump to conclusions.” But now, he said, “there just aren’t any bears. It’s scary.” Whale populations as well as many other marine animals have also continued to decline due to human intervention and the resultant collapse of the marine food system.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Tokens

Declawing a cat is tantamount to amputating the outermost joint of each one of your fingers. There are numerous images on the web about the horrific practice, and one vet said he would not do it for any amount of money, others will not do all four feet. There is a very high incidence of complications. Some cats are unable to walk properly, others suffer extreme and excruciating pain. There is something that is patently unfair about debarking a dog or declawing a cat; it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the very dogness or catness of the animals, a rejection of the innate characteristics of the animal and their place in nature.  These practices leave the animal unable to be their most basic and fundamental selves and leave them even more vulnerable to the whims of unreliable human beings. As vegans or people who care about the animal lives, it is important that we do not tolerate such mutilations.  Declawing the cat is a metaphor for what we have done to our fellow earthlings. The root question is this: is there going to be room on the ark for the cat, or any other predator?

Man is Only A Strand in the Web of Life

Back to Chief Seattle, he also is reported to have said: Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. We all know what the current situation is with respect to that web of life and what is happening to animals. If you do not, please listen to podcast, research on the web, or watch films such as Earthlings, go to AbolitionistApproach.com.  But here is the question we need to ask: what kind of web do we want in the future?  What is our appropriate role as a strand within that web? Do we, as merely a strand in the web, have the right to select for only herd animals, only vegan animals?  If we want to build a just planet based on nonviolence, how will we approach carnivores? Whatever you think is just, one thing is certain: It is inherently unjust to declaw the cat!

For further viewing:

Whale of a Decline

Decline of Large Raptors

Grizzlies Starve in Canada

Penguin Decline

Tiger Decline Leads to Leopard Poaching

Seals in Sharp Decline

Whenever two people decide to live together, there are bound to be fights. The deeper the passion, the stronger the emotions that may arise during disagreements. With both people coming from different family cultures and life experiences, it would be impossible for them to agree on everything that will happen during their cohabitation. While old wounds and vulnerabilities are sure to surface, a few simple rules can help keep things more productive and less toxic. Love should never be blood sport.

The same might be said of animal activism. Passions are strong, with many people believing absolutely that their way is the only way to help animals. When this becomes too deeply ingrained, too rigid, so that other voices are tuned out and dismissed, there is no way for divergent opinions to become voices towards solution.  The path becomes more important than the arrival and anyone seen as deviating from the path becomes “the enemy” with disastrous consequences. A sure sign of this is when discussions  and blogposts degrade into sarcasm, namecalling, condescension, mimicry, ridicule, and atttacks on personal characteristics, as well as rudeness and labeling. It is not acceptable behavior, and it is not a move towards peace. Fighting and disagreeing are fine, but let’s learn to do so appropriately. You cannot start a peace movement with a sledgehammer.

Okay, you can put on your boxing gloves, but no hitting below the belt. Here are a few ideas to keep our fighting fair:

1. Stick to the issue – no deviating into sidebars or bringing up other points of contention. Make certain your points are based on a solution-focused search, not based on prior history or personal characteristics of the other person. If you are filled with seething resentment, it is time to discover why – it may have nothing to do with the current issue, and it may not be an opportune time to engage in a discussion.
2. No namecalling. This lowers the bar into emotional assault. If we want to fight for justice, we need to be fair ourselves. (We all fail at times.) This means stop with the labeling. None of us are that one-dimensional. As Kierkegaard said, “When you label me, you negate me.”
3. Stay current. No bringing up issues from the past. If you are upset with someone who seems to be promoting a campaign which you think is harmful, tell them why. But do not get into what they did that you disliked yesterday or how their stand on another topic has offended you. State your case; then let them make their own decision as to whether they agree or not. Even if they continue to support the cause you dislike, you may have planted some seeds. Let’s grow ideas, not pain.
4. Stay positive. Start out with the points with which you agree, if there are any. Commend what you can commend; this will help highlight where you diverge. Here’s an example, ‘It sounds to me like you really care or think your are caring about animals, but when you purchase items that cause animals to be imprisoned and ultimately slaughtered, it seems in conflict with those  cares.” Sometimes a specific example will help someone understand your position more than a theoretical point.
5. Be specific. Offer solutions, not complaints.  It is much more helpful to ask for something specific, rather than just complain about someone’s behavior or affiliations. “Please cap the toothpaste” is more likely to achieve behavioral change than “You disgusting excuse of a human being, you make a mess wherever you go.” Realize, though, it is the other person’s decision to make whether to change or not, not yours.
6. Remain open to possibilities.  Even great people change and grow, shifting positions as they learn more about a given issue. Allow this for others, too. We cannot spread peace if we are spreading dissension. Keep open to possibilities. Help people learn; don’t just fight with them.
7. Learn to collaborate, not sell out your values.  I used to work in a locked facility for youth ages 11 to 18 as part of the local juvenile justice system.  After entering the facility, it became apparent to me that there was a lot of tension between the facility staff and the mental health staff. I noticed that the therapists would often violate security measures, like holding the door open for someone, rather than immediately closing the doors to keep the facility secure. Likewise, the security staff had no understanding of the mandate for confidentiality and the process of the work we were actually doing to heal and empower the children. I suggested to the administration that cross-training might help ease tensions, and it did. The security staff ultimately became my best source of information once they learned I had a receptive ear. They would share things they witnessed during family visits or point me to information I might otherwise overlook that proved to be the single most positive source of information for helping in that child’s growth. Later, when I began managing forensic programs, I worked closely on multiagency collaborations with some of the same people. I learned from these experiences that it is important to be able to work with those with whom you disagree.
8. Listen, don’t just preach  - listening in an active state is just as important as talking. Maintain a balance between the two. No one wants to be assaulted with someone else’s viewpoints. If people are telling you that veganism is too hard, listen to why they feel that way.  And then share your own experiences; some of us find it difficult in relationships, or with family, or in social situations. Let that person know how you overcame those situations and why you now see it as easy. Compare and contrast the minor inconvenience or effort with what the animals go through and why in contrast, you find this small thing so easy in comparison. Then offer to help them in their process. Stay open to receiving information.
9. Respect your opponent’s potential for growth, even if you do not respect their behavior.  ”Hating” everyone with whom you disagree does not promote peace, it promotes polarization. A look around at the current political climate reflects this. If you alienate anyone, you may lose any future chance to educate them and win them to your side. Pull on your own personal evolution to realize that other people have the same potential to change and grow that you have.
10. Forgive. Remember the saying,”‘Comprendre, c’est pardoner.”  To understand, is to forgive. We all need to be forgiven and we all need to forgive others. Understanding, while difficult at times, heals. Even those who lost their entire families in genocide (Holocaust, Rwanda)* have been able to forgive those who cost them so much. I don’t know how they have been able to do it, but they have. They noticed that those unable to forgive get stuck and were unable to heal. Forgive, so you can move forward.
11. No bullying.  This means no using your position, your popularity, your power, your collective might, your friendship, your affiliations, to get what you want in a fight. No intimidation. When working with teens, people can often get into power plays, where they try to force their will on the child. In the long run, this always fails. Give the child information and allow them to make good decisions, letting them clearly see the consequences. Use the same tactic in your advocacy. Your respect for others will win more to your cause than all your truths.
12. Save the baby! - Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Often, someone may have a nugget of wisdom somewhere in their argument. Save the baby, toss out the dirty bathwater, and continue on your path, but with respect for that one thing you took away from the encounter. For example, when someone talks about the importance of making veganism inclusive, rather than exclusive, they are discussing perceptions that some people feel marginalized and excluded. That is important information and something we should all consider. It is about how people feel, not just what they believe.
13. Can control issues – People get frustrated when they try unsuccessfully to force others to their point of view. It often just alienates the other person, who rightly senses there is no openness, but rather a rigid demand for uniformity in thinking. I know I have been accused, unfairly, of all kinds of motives and poor judgment by people who were displaying pretty shabby behavior and poor judgment themselves. Make your case and give the other person room to decide how to respond. Not everyone thrives on the fine points of theoretical arguments or thinking in terms of absolutes.
14. Apologize. Accept that, at times,  you will be wrong.  We see things only through our own eyes, but the view looks differently from another’s perspective. If you are unwilling to try to see what they are seeing, you will be unable to help them see your own vista. Sharing perceptions may give birth to something positive – a collaboration, a new understanding, a new outlook. Recently, in my attempt to defend a respected colleague in animal advocacy, I thought I was being neutral — but the other person felt attacked. I apologized, because that was not my intent. It was my own failing and something I need to constantly challenge within myself. Please do so, too.
15. Say no to Snark – Snark may make you feel powerful and self-righteous, but it only spreads dissension. I have had to re-record parts of my podcasts when I decided the tone was not what I intended, or might be misconstrued. It is easy to let your anger out at those we perceive to be harming our fellowing beings, but it does not help the cause. Direct attacks on ideas are fine, but they should never be directed at an individual — even the one that generated that idea.
16. Let go – You can’t win them all, so learn to walk away. If you hold too tightly to someone, they cannot breathe; they gasp, they fight to get away from you, and may suffocate. So, too, with ideas – be open to changing daily.  What you perceive on a given Monday is subject to your experiences on Tuesday.  Wednesday, you are a different person than you were on Monday, due to new experiences, new information, new relationships.  Reassess things. Gary Francione used to work with PETA; he no longer supports that organization due to changes within the organization and changes within himself. Each of us has the right to follow our own paths on our own timeframe. If indeed you hold the truth with a Capital “T” – then your views will not change and more and more people will join you. If you fail either in what you propose, or in how you propose it, then you need to be able to respond to people’s perception of you, not just your message. People need space in which to breathe.

Advocates: Flow Like A River

There is a frailty built into fundamentalist thinking, and a dangerous one. It becomes about a rigid adherence to a belief or set of beliefs. Life is about flexilibity and change. It says in the Tao Te Ching:

Yield and overcome; bend and be straight.
Empty out and be full; wear out and be renewed.
~ verse 22, Lao Tzu

Think of one of the strongest elements – water.  Water can be gentle and beautiful, but it can also be powerful and destructive – the difference between a gentle brook and the might and power of a tsunami.  Water flows around things, but it also picks up things, moves those things within it – twigs, leaves, animals join it in is journey. The water in a river never bulldozes, but accommodates and quite often, grows in power and strength as it is joined by other tributaries and creeks. It then joins the ocean, and becomes a mere trickle in the scheme of things. Still, without the journey of the river to the ocean, the movement of water that sustains all life would not be possible.

Be like that river, depositing ideas and knowledge on the shores of other thinkers, and gather up strength in those who wish to join you. Like a river, we must think about the whole picture, not just our small place within the pattern.

17. Use Aikido Advocacy.  When I took street fighting from the local police department, they said I was the student most likely to be attacked, because I was small and appeared vulnerable.  When I then went on to take a class iin Aikido, my size was no barrier. Aikido is all about using the other person’s strength in self-defense. For example, rather than pulling back when someone grabs you by the arm, you would not fight the hold at all, but would move into that person, using their strength in a cooperative way to maintain your own position.

Change the Perception of Abolitionist Animal Activists

I know some people hearing this may perceive that I am suggesting we soften the message, but that is not what I am saying at all.  I am one person that is getting tired of being called divisive, self-righteous, and destructive and I want to do something to change those perceptions. I know those perceptions are there for a reason. There has been a bunker mentality that has kept some of us vegans behind the barriers we have created, where we feel safe, surrounded by like thinking people. We hear the excuse governments give all the time: we have to make war to keep the peace. But you cannot gain peace by lobbing grenades at your opponents.  I hope you will consider following some of these fair fighting concepts too, so our movement can truly be about peace and justice for all beings on our fragile planet. Remember it is not just about ideas, but about perceptions and how me make people feel. Fight the good fight, but please, do so fairly and spread the peace. Otherwise, people are going to be singing this same old song about us. You know what song I mean……

Music on this podcast was: Forget You by Glee; Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer; Peter Wolf’s Growing Pain, Tina Turner’s I Don’t Want to Fight Anymore, Ingrid Michaelson’s The Way I am, Jordan Sparks’ No Air, Stevie Wonder’s You Haven’t Done Nothin,’ The Beatles Martha.

Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro

I can feel the winds of change in the atmosphere. Omnivore, locavore, retrovore, flexitarian, vegetarian, vegan, nutritarians, fruitarians, primativists, hunter-gatherers, paleos, backyard chickens, free range eggs, happy meat that is desperately unhappy, homegrown, butcher your own, farmer’s markets, food co ops and a host of other food fads and frauds are on the horizon.  Even Walmart is getting into the action, promising to make their food healthier and to provide heatlhy fresh foods to what they call food deserts, parts of the globe that are underserved communities. Of course, this would mean more WalMarts, too. What is sustainable and what is pure faddist? What is an honest attempt at ethics at what is just a fraud? How can a vegan advocate respond to these many distractions from what we already know works in the areas of morality, health, sustainability, global warming, and nonviolence? This podcast will look at a few of these food fads and see how they impact human and nonhuman animals, and how they impact the forward momentum of the abolitionist vegan movement.

We all learned not long ago that Omnivore’s have a Dilemma, thanks to Michael Pollan. Looking at the source of the few foods upon which we have become dependent, Pollan researches the genesis of our diets from food science labs to factory farms, from organic growers to foragers and hunters. Pollan has noted that Americans eat about two hundred pounds of animal flesh each year – twice the global average. That’s a lot of animals….

Shift in the Winds by Keith Hintons

Michael Pollan speaks at UC Davis

Flexitarians and Meat-Free Mondays

Then there is Mark Bittman, foodie and cookbook author who believes in flexitarianism. Despite the fact that detrimental impact of animal agriculture on the environment is well accepted at this point, Bittman, rather than espousing a healthy vegan diet, moves to promoting his “Vegan til  Six” idea. He was quoted in a NY Times article,

I decided to do this sort of “vegan till 6” plan. I didn’t have huge thoughts or plans about it. I just thought it was worth a try. Within three or four months, I lost 35 pounds, my blood sugar was normal, cholesterol levels were again normal … and my sleep apnea indeed went away. All these good things happened, and it wasn’t as if I was suffering so I stayed with it…. The animals he consumes are still suffering.Those who go vegan for other than ethical reasons often do not stay with it and do not even follow the advice of their physicians to eat a vegan diet. The problem with these campaigns is that they seem to spend precious time and resources on things that won’t significantly help nonhuman animals and help the human animals feel better about condemning animals to brief horrific lives and torturous deaths. Worse yet, when so-called animal protection organizations jump on the band wagon, they give credence to those who commodify animals and spread the very false notion that these campaigns are morally significant or will allow people to continue consuming animals with a clear conscience. There has recently been a spate of people returning to eating more meat due to the humane certification allowing them feel they are doing something ethical when they are not. Be wary of such deception.

Along with this philosophically weak idea of reducing meat consumption came Paul McCartney and the Meat Free Mondays campaigns. Time to give up those animal products Sir Paul, they seem to be clouding your judgment!

Jordan Wyatt of Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals; Paul McCartney singing Meat Free Monday

Nutritarians and Locavores

Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s book, Eat for Health, works towards achieving a diet of densely nutritious foods in every bite. While it does limit animal products to the very top of their food pyramid, it still leaves a good amount of blood and suffering, violence and domination, as part of the equation.  “..A nutritarian is a person who strives for more micronutrients per calorie in their diet-style.” Brendan Brazier has also looked at incorporating densely nutritious foods into diets for endurance athletes like himself and others, but he was able to do so with a vegan diet.

Another eating fad are those who believe optimal health can be achieved and the planet saved with a return to the hunter-gatherer state of being. Lierre Keith mentions this in her book, The Vegetarian Myth, as she looks at the importance of the grasslands.  Of course,consuming grass-fed beef has a couple of major problems – one, it kills animals and there is no humane way to murder; and two, it is unsustainable on a scale necessary to feed the people now living on the earth. Lierre Keith suggests that the earth could only support about 300 million people optimally. Who is going to be first to volunteer jumping off?

The Future by Leonard Cohen

A significant movement started just a few years ago is the Locavore movement, who advocate for eating what is possible to be grown within 100 miles of where you live in order to reduce the carbon footprint of our food. From the website Locavore:

Our food now travels an average of 1,500 miles before ending up on our plates. This globalization of the food supply has serious consequences for the environment, our health, our communities and our tastebuds. Much of the food grown in the breadbasket surrounding us must be shipped across the country to distribution centers before it makes its way back to our supermarket shelves. Because uncounted costs of this long distance journey (air pollution and global warming, the ecological costs of large scale monoculture, the loss of family farms and local community dollars) are not paid for at the checkout counter, many of us do not think about them at all.

Unfortunately, following this comment site goes on to equate chickens and onions both as food sources. This movement started in the San Francisco Bay area of Northern California in the US – an area that has a wide array of food sources available. The idea of limiting the transport of our fruits, vegetables and legumes or grains makes perfect sense, but to speak of sustainability without addressing the environmental impact of any form of animal agriculture seems less reasonable.If all people tried to become Locavores, they would soon start scurrying to those areas with good soil – hard to find as we deplete the topsoil at seventeen times the rate at which we regenerate it.  While eating produce grown locally is a good idea, it is not possible for all people, nor is it likely to become so. By the way, Locavore was the word of the year for 2007; guess what it was for 2006?  Yup, Podcast!

Backyard Chickens and Farmer’s Markets

An offshoot of the locavore movement is the backyard chicken movement..  But many people are discovering that there is more to chickens than they knew. There are several sites online to assist the hopeful tender of chickens.  One of the recommendations I read in one of their forums is do NOT name the chickens; it makes it too hard to “harvest” them — and we all know what that kind of harvesting looks like. In case you don’t, they even offer photos of the bloody process of separating a chicken from his or her life and his or her head. People think this is a good lesson for the kiddies? Of course the children are objecting to the pending murder of their chicken friends; if only the adults would really understand what the children recognize – that they are chicken persons, not a thing or plant to be harvested. May I suggest a cashew dal? Quite delicious, simply rice, lentils, spices with toasty cashews added in. And no one gets hurt. And rescued chickens that have names and are allowed to live like chickens – that, too is another matter altogether.

The growth of local farmer’s markets has been taking off in certain parts of the globe. These markets allow local producers to sell some of their produce to their own community. Some Farmer’s Markets include music, baked goods, nuts, jams, and an assortment of other offerings. Unfortunately, some now offer grass fed beef, lamb, honey, chickens and free range eggs. Often these goods are more expensive than the mass produced type of vegetables and fruits, but they are often of a superior quality as well. Some cities even have community gardens to allow local residents to farm their own produce on shared land.  Los Angeles had quite a wonderful community garden several years ago, until the city’s financial needs trumped the needs of the community and the land was sold. A film was even made about the meaning it had and the improvement in people’s diets that this small bit of land impacted. The land in question was laying fallow and overgrown – it was an industrial lot that was not being used and was eventually sold. Sadly, with governments of every size and stripe being over budgeted, it would be hard to maintain many of these programs when governmental entities are busy selling off things like their own parking meters to foreign enterpreneurs for a quick dollar.

Paleos, Hunter-Gatherers, and Neo Butchers

In a sentimental look backwards to our ancient ancestors, a group of adults are reverting to primativism and the Paleo diets. These diets are meant to mimic what our ancestors ate before the agricultural transformation — they are part of the hunter-gatherer movement. I don’t know about you, but I do not want to mimic ancient ancestors – their sense of fashion was pretty limited, and have you seen their dental hygiene? Dentists are really important to me. Also, they only lived a few years from what I have heard. This is a diet that relies heavily on meat, fish and produce, with no grains whatsoever. In one segment I heard on one of their podcasts, a devotee was asking why his libido was so down and this guy was only in his early thirties.  Another caller mentioned having difficulty with low energy – she was feeling like she was going to drop over all the time. Other mentioned having problems with their breath from ketosis. Not too enticing to me. On the positive, these grain free, high protein diets reportedly get rid of many diseases and induce weight loss. Might also be good for birth control from what I was hearing. Robb Wolf, a research biochemist, is the author of the Paleo Solution; his website is filled with photos of bodybuilders and rock hard abs. The health of the environment or her various life forms is ominously absent. One Paleo conversion could easily wipe out the benefit of one vegan – luckily, this is not yet a very large part of the recent crop of food fads. Let’s check back and see how their kidneys and hearts are doing a few years down the road. They are having an impact on some vegetarians, though. Here is a clip from The Paleo Solution:aa

The Paleo Solution – Robb Wolf and Andy Dees

Along with the Paleos, are people who want to butcher their own meat. Some folks believe that being part of the process of death somehow excuses them from responsibility for unnecessary death.  Whether an animal is killed in an abattoir or in the back of the barn on a small farm, death is death and killing is killing; it is never anything but despicable when it comes to the unnecessary deaths of other beings. We all know that eating animals and using their body parts is damaging our health and our planet, not to mention what it does to the force of violence in the world. Let’s move forward in our evolution. This elevating the killing of animals to some sort of time honored tradition becomes just another excuse to keep the blood flowing. Traditions are important, but the times, they are a changin’.

Bob Dylan – The Times The Are A Changin’

Heritage Foods and the Slow Food Movement (Terra Madre)

Heritage foods are another trending topic.  With massive agricultural industries taking over from smaller producers, the biological diversity that once kept the world safe has been pretty well eradicated. Some folks are working hard to bring back some of these so-called Heritage breeds, whether from seeds or animals.  It has been estimated that 1500 breeds of farm animals are now near extinction. Many of us vegans would like to see all animals freed from the term “farm” unless it is coupled with the term “sanctuary.” When it comes to produce, many plants and trees have been hybridized to increase shelf life and transportability; in other words, to maximize profit. There now exists seed conservancies, seed banks, and seed exchanges.  There are also well protected underground seed storage facilities, created in an attempt to protect some biodiversity should the world undergo any possible nuclear or other catastrophe.

The increasing control of multinational corporations like Monsanto poses a danger to our food supply and our farmlands. They have GMOs that do not need to be identified to the consumer and have formulated seeds that, even if only carried by the wind, they can then lay claim to on other people’s lands. Many farmers have gone out of business due to lawsuits by these major agricultural industries. In truth, we are nearly all under their collective umbrella and are becoming increasingly dependent on their disturbing practices. Their chosen mono crops are limiting our safety and our options.

Terra Madre and the slow food movement – 1300 chapters in 153 countries. Their missions is to support preservation of traditional foods and ways of eating. While this is a noble goal in many areas, in some ways it flies in the face of practical veganism. Some cultlures have cruelly used animals as a food source. Even now when doing so is counterproductive and unsustainable, tradition is often given as an excuse to continue these types of practices. If the Terra Madreans would take the good and extract it from the unreasonable and immoral, they would have much to commend them. They are an alternative voice that is definitely gaining momentum and quietly trying to effect a revolution in how we eat and live. From a Slow Food website:

A non-profit member-supported association, Slow Food was founded in 1989 to counter the rise of fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.

The official economic arrangements and the laws that enforce them ensure that hungry and homeless people will be plentiful amid plenty. The shadow system provides soup kitchens, food pantries, and giveaways, takes in the unemployed, evicted, and foreclosed upon, defends the indigent, tutors the poorly schooled, comforts the neglected, provides loans, gifts, donations, and a thousand other forms of practical solidarity, as well as emotional support. In the meantime, others seek to reform or transform the system from the inside and out, and in this way, inch by inch, inroads have been made on many fronts over the past half century.

I love what that says about the shadow system.  Sounds a bit more hopeful than the system that is blocking the sun. Here is a clip from the Terra Madreans:

BBC episode – Terra Madre (DocArchive)

Looking Forward: Veganism is the Answer!

We often hear that with one pending crisis after another, people will return to primitive methods of survival and will fight one another in brutal fashion. Maybe, but that is not what recent history has shown us. During the Katrina catastrophe here in the States, there were few such incidents, and hundreds of incidents of people reaching out to help their neighbors.  Here is a quote from the Slow Food site by Rebecca Solnit:

Here’s the surprise though: in such situations, most of us fend for each other most of the time — and beautifully at that. Perhaps this, rather than (human) nature red in tooth and claw, is our original nature. At least, the evidence is clear that people not only behave well, but take deep pleasure in doing so, a pleasure so intense it suggests that an unspoken, unmet appetite for meaningful work and vibrant solidarities lives powerfully within us. Those appetites can be found reflected almost nowhere in the mainstream media, and we are normally told that the world in which such appetites might be satisfied is “utopian,” impossible to reach because of our savage competitiveness, and so should be left to the most hopeless of dreamers.

It seems a positive that this slow food movement is looking to the shadow side, the hidden parts of human behavior, to forge a new order. It rails against being called hopeless, because it keeps finding evidence for just the contrary. Those of us who care deeply about the lives of animals are part of this move. Maybe all of us contrarians should join forces. What is a contrarian? In common usage, it means someone who invests in stocks when others are selling and sells when others are buying. Vegans are somewhat like those contrarians — we do not buy into the values of the macroculture and really believe in the very best of human nature despite knowing better than anyone else the very worst that such a nature might produce in the realm of cruelty and domination.

As you can tell from this show, some of these food movements are deceptive; some offer ideas that may indeed help preserve food sourcing that has integrity and sustainability in part. One thing, though, no one can really dispute if they read or listen to what is happening in the world: the best single thing you can do for all the beings on this earth is to go vegan. Not one of these other fads can make the same claim.

We have two choices: one is to do nothing, stick our collective heads in the sand and enjoy our lives while we may.  The other is to take action, become a radical realist and quit raping the earth and her animals. The choice is ours. Don’t be distracted by the foodies, the fads or the frauds. Vegan is the real deal, based on an ethical philosophy of nonviolence. Veganism is not about a dietary principle, though; it is about a fundamental belief in respect for other beings and the need for justice for all, and that includes all other animals, too.

One thing seems apparent after researching all the new food fads – people are searching for something new when it comes to food production and lifestyle, and that is good news. The way most of us have been eating and living has not been enhancing healthy lives or a healthy planet. The good news is that veganism provides a simple, clear answer to saving the planet, our health, and our fellow beings. Once you see what has been happening in the world to other forms of life, it is an easy decision to make. Embrace veganism, practice peace.

Everybody’s Changing – Keane

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Part-Time Vegetarians – Flexitarians

Vegan Before Dinnertime – Mark Bittman

Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals

Dr. Furhman and Nutritarianism

Slow Food article by Robin Solnit

Hippy-Dippy Soft-Brained Butchery

Paleo Solution