Tag Archives: compassion

LANGUAGE MATTERS VOL. 2 – Animals Aren’t “Voiceless”, We’re Just Not Listening

[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites.  Also, please read our Disclaimer regarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]

“Look into the faces.  Look behind their eyes.  They are not ‘voiceless’, they are talking to us with their eyes and their body language; they are screaming, we’re just not listening.  Be vegan.” – There’s An Elephant In The Room blog

No-nonsense and No Nonsense

I began writing this essay after spending several hours engaged in peaceful, positive conversations with non-vegans about the ethical reasons for living vegan at an Earth Day event at Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida.  As always at our Vegan Education Station, we employed no gimmicks, no tricks, no public theatrics, no graphic videos, no gruesome images, no bribery, no shaming, no intrusiveness, no deceptiveness and no coercion in our interactions with our interlocutors (these are all tactics we have observed being employed by animal welfare and animal “rights” organizations that consistently resist the idea of simply educating the public about veganism).  Rather, as always, we politely and patiently provided those who approached us with no-nonsense information about the consequences of their choices (that there is always a victim at the end of one’s choice to consume products of animal exploitation) and asked them to think from a perspective many of them admitted they’d never considered before.  Our conversations were respectful on both ends, even when we were challenged with the ubiquitous anti-vegan arguments such as “Lions eat other animals – are you gonna tell them to stop?” (“Lions are obligate carnivores and have no choice but to consume flesh – humans, on the other hand, have many other choices”), “But what if I was in an extreme situation and was starving?” (“You’re not experiencing either condition, so what’s stopping you now?”) and “How will I get my protein?” (click here to find out my answer).

Veganism equates to nonviolence and we approach vegan education in a clear, consistent non-threatening manner that is enlightening, effective and generally well-received.

New Kids, Same Block

The caption reads in part: “We had just left Everest Base Camp where we slept for the night, and headed to Mt Kala Patthar to hike to the summit (5,550m)… Within about 6/7 minutes we were hit with a blizzard, temperatures of -5 with wind chill and hard hitting snow, so we had to abandon – but we did manage to speak to 1 couple who took a card!”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Yes, when you want a neat photo, try “activism” at 18,000 feet – you’re guaranteed to reach (nearly) no one but you’ll look cool in the process!

In 2016, in what appears to be another in a countless series of attempts to reinvent the animal welfare wheel (one that’s been spinning ceaselessly – and going nowhere – for over 200 years), a group in Melbourne, Australia (now with international membership) calling itself Anonymous for the Voiceless began engaging in what their website describes as “street activism” in which “Cubes of Truth” are formed by individuals wearing Guy Fawkes masks who arrange themselves into a human square and hold laptops or other media devices playing videos depicting the inherent horrors of the animal agriculture industry.  I can identify with the idea of wanting to trigger, as their website suggests, “…curiosity and interest from the public” in an “…attempt to lead bystanders to a vegan conclusion through a combination of local standard-practice animal exploitation footage and conversations with a value-based sales approach”, as it’s not much different from the so-called “vegan” outreach in which I used to participate in Miami and other parts of South Florida, although we didn’t wear masks and only had a single video screen playing an endless loop of nauseatingly dreadful animal abuse.

I came to the understanding some time ago that our “vegan” outreach was anything but vegan, as we failed to deliver a clear, consistent message that all animal use is morally unjustifiable and instead offered passersby a confusing combination of vegan and vegetarian messaging through the videos we played and the litter-ature we handed to people whether they wanted it or not.

[It appears that “Cubes of Truth” are being staged in Miami, so it’s possible that the so-called “vegan” outreach mentioned above, soon to be featured in an upcoming essay here at The Turbulence of Dreaming, has morphed into this new version]

Here again is why I no longer believe in, support or engage in speciesist efforts such as these: my ten years of hands-on experience with this kind of activism has led me to the sad conclusion that such messaging, like all animal welfare messaging, misses the point entirely.  By focusing our activism on showing the public how awful non-humans are treated in the animal exploitation industries, we fail to make clear that all animal use is inherently unjust and this plays directly into – and tacitly reinforces –  a deeply speciesist cultural mindset that as long as we treat non-human individuals “humanely“, “kindly” and “compassionately” while we’re confining them against their wills and forcibly breeding them into existence for the express purpose of violently taking their lives to serve our desires, it’s acceptable in the end to kill them and consume their bodies, skins and secretions because, after all, they’re only “things” and objects to be used, not individuals.   By focusing on the symptoms (“cruelty“, “abuse”, “mistreatment”, etc.), we fail to address the problem, and the problem is not how we use animals to serve our own needs; the problem is that we use them at all.

Speaking of problems, here are several problems inherent in Anonymous for the Voiceless:

Problem – Animals Have Voices – We Just Refuse To Listen

“There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” – Arundhati Roy

Anonymous for the Voiceless’ implication that non-human individuals don’t have voices is not only incorrect, it’s also ableist.  Here’s why. 

Consider this from the May 2017 article On Ableism and Animals by Sunaura Taylor:

“The ableism embedded in animal-rights discourse is evident in a common rallying cry used by animal advocates.  To be a ‘voice for the voiceless’ is a sentiment with which many activists within advocacy communities identify.  It became common to use the biblical phrase ‘a voice for the voiceless’ to refer to animals after the publication of a poem written in 1910 by American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox…  this poem was radical in its acknowledgment of animal suffering.

The phrase a ‘voice for the voiceless’–giving voice to a population that is unable to defend or speak for itself–inevitably conjures the sentiment in Wilcox’s poem: that the voiceless are physically unable to speak or help themselves… But [it] is wrong to suggest that animals are not telling us what they want…

Animals consistently voice preferences and ask for freedom. They speak to us every day when they cry out in pain or try to move away from our prods, electrodes, knives, and stun guns. Animals tell us constantly that they want to be out of their cages, that they want to be reunited with their families, or that they don’t want to walk down the kill chute. Animals express themselves all the time, and many of us know it. If we didn’t, factory farms and slaughterhouses would not be designed to constrain any choices an animal might have. We deliberately have to choose not to hear when the lobster bangs on the walls from inside a pot of boiling water or when the hen who is past her egg-laying prime struggles against the human hands that enclose her legs and neck. We have to choose not to recognize the preference expressed when the fish spasms and gasps for oxygen in her last few minutes alive. Considering animals voiceless betrays an ableist assumption of what counts as having a voice.

…When animal advocates describe animals as voiceless, even when it is meant simply as a metaphor, it gives power to those who want to view animals as ‘mindless objects.’ In the long run, activists will help animals more if we treat them as active participants in their own liberation–as the expressive subjects animal advocates know them to be–remembering that resistance takes many forms, some of which may be hard to recognize from an able-bodied human perspective.”

The compelling arguments made in Taylor’s article offer a new perspective on the idea of “a voice for the voiceless”, the very phrase I must admit I’d used to describe myself in the early days of my animal “activism”.  Having eloquently explained the ableism inherent in the phrase, Taylor has helped me understand the unsettling feeling I experience whenever I hear animal advocates refer to non-human individuals as “voiceless”.  I knew the idea was wrong, but I hadn’t considered that it also carries the weight of oppression.

Problem – Value-Based Selling = Selling Out Our Values

Prior to seeing the term on the Anonymous for the Voiceless website, I was unfamiliar with the idea of a “value-based sales approach”, which is defined as “the process of understanding and reinforcing the reasons why your offer is valuable to the purchaser“.    By definition, a value-based sales approach is about catering to the selfishness of the consumer to get them to agree that what you’re proposing will benefit them in some way.  Such an approach, in animal advocacy terms, would necessarily put the focus on the ancillary benefits of living vegan (i.e., personal health) and would fail to take into consideration and make primary what matters most – the value to the victims of continuing their lives free from use, commodification, exploitation and execution by humans.  To understand why such an approach is problematic from a vegan advocacy perspective, please consider this from a previous essay on this site:

“It can be argued that those who ‘go vegan’ for their own health and personal betterment – which really translates to adopting a plant-based diet, the definition of which is anybody’s guess these days – are essentially acting from the same place of selfishness that had them eating animals and their secretions to satisfy their own pleasure in the first place.  When that’s the case, there’s little to stop them from reverting back to their original selfish position of consuming products of animal exploitation (one supported and encouraged by mainstream speciesist society) and resuming their complicity in the violent oppression of non-human individuals, and this happens far too often.  Other than an alteration in diet, nothing’s changed for them in any meaningful and fundamental way.  There’s been no move from selfishness to selflessness, no firm and unwavering commitment to eschew participation in all forms of animal use and no realization that all of these constitute injustice.  Everything is still all about them, and the animal victims of human selfishness remain sadly overlooked.”

Problem – “We Hold An Abolitionist Stance…” But They Don’t

On the Anonymous for the Voiceless website, they loudly proclaim in all caps (like everything else on the page): “WE HOLD AN ABOLITIONIST STANCE ON ANIMAL EXPLOITATION.”  As an abolitionist vegan educator, I found this statement intriguing so I sought to find out whether their assertion holds up when put in the Reality Machine.

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Brain + critical thinking = Reality Machine

Here’s what I found with a minimum of investigation:

In a 2016 interview with Freedom of Species (a podcast website that features a mix of single-issue animal welfare campaigns and unequivocal vegan campaigns) Paul Bashir, co-founder and director of Anonymous For The Voiceless, is asked about the organization’s “abolitionist position” and has this to say about a “baby steps” approach to veganism, which would be in direct opposition to the abolitionist approach (I’ve italicized some notable quotes in the passage):

“We would never behave that way [promote incremental baby-step reduction efforts] in the face of any other injustice and therefore it is totally an injustice to expect that…in respect to veganism”.

He then draws analogies to human oppression and states that:

“Humans are animals and therefore the cruelty that we inflict on animals needs to be considered equally to the cruelty that’s inflicted on humans…  it is just as serious and it’s just as problematic and it’s just as much of an injustice, therefore, no, nobody should be cutting back, everybody should be realizing that this is outright insanity and we all need to just stop.  I refuse to compromise on that, on our values.  No science or any sort of rational experiment has ever compelled me, that I’ve ever come across, to believe that ‘baby steps’ works, that it gets people to go full-blown vegan… since we would never compromise on those other injustices that occur within our own species, we shouldn’t be doing that with non-humans.”

I will say that I’m in agreement with Bashir’s assertion that asking non-vegans to take baby steps toward living vegan is unacceptable, though I find the focus on “cruelty” to be problematic as I mentioned previously.

Problem – Organizational Speciesism

If Bashir, the group’s co-founder and director, truly believes that “nobody should be cutting back” and is honest when he says, “I refuse to compromise on that, on our values” and so on, then one has to wonder how it came to pass that rather than adopting a stance of unequivocally promoting veganism, Anonymous for the Voiceless instead prominently promotes on their website a three-week dietary “challenge” that, in addition to erroneously positioning veganism as a mere diet and something challenging to achieve, clearly promotes a baby-steps approach.  One needs only click the handy link to the Challenge22 (“Let’s try vegan!”) website to find that the FAQ page states that friends and families of those already vegan “…don’t have  to commit to being vegan for life, just agree to give it a try for 22 days.”  In fact, that appears to be all they ask of anyone as they offer “participants a free, supportive online framework for trying veganism for 22 days.”  The Challenge22 focus is clearly on “trying”, not committing to, a diet and lifestyle (as opposed to the ethical position that veganism is – “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose…”  Vegan Society 1979) as the participants have access to “culinary experts” and “certified dietitians who give nutritional advice”  so that they will be “equipped with nutritional information, cooking tips and recipes that enable them to maintain a healthy, tasty vegan lifestyle.”  There is no mention of abstaining from any of the other myriad forms of animal use nor any mention or indication of veganism as one’s personal commitment to justice and nonviolence toward non-human individuals.  One can only conclude from the information they provide that Challenge22 is far more committed to maintaining speciesism than it is to dismantling it through veganism.  They’re not “trying” to promote speciesism – they’re promoting it.

To understand why this is speciesist, one need only frame it in human terms – imagine an anti-spousal abuse organization promoting a platform for spousal abusers to take a few weeks vacation from beating their partners but not have to commit to such a drastic lifestyle change permanently.  Hard to imagine?  It ought to be, much as it should be hard to imagine that an organization seeking to create a vegan world would promote anything less than living vegan as far as possible and practicable, and yet Challenge22 is doing exactly that.

Here’s a 2017 quote from Bashir’s Deskgram page chronicling one interaction he’d had:

“They couldn’t believe how young animals were slaughtered in the meat, dairy and egg industries.  They were disgusted by the standard practices in free range farming.  They despised animal cruelty, like most people; and after 10 minutes of chatting they realized there was no way you can be a non-vegan and truly represent those values.  I told them about Challenge22+ and they said they’d do it.  Why and how.  In that order.”

I won’t belabor the aforementioned point about why focusing on the specifics of animal “cruelty” makes no sense from an abolitionist animal rights perspective, however I will point out that helping people realize they need to live vegan and then immediately directing them to a website that only asks people to “TRY vegan!” for 22 days is morally inconsistent.  “Give it a shot for a few weeks and see what you think” is not a clear vegan message.  It lets people off the moral hook and that’s unacceptable.  Bashir seems to agree with this concept and yet, puzzlingly, this is his tactic and that of his organization.

Is it possible that Anonymous for the Voiceless simply hasn’t found an online vegan resource that does better than asking non-vegans to become 3-week plant-based dieters?

“Get 22 days of full support: Challenge22.com” – Paul Bashir

I find it perplexing that Anonymous for the Voiceless, while claiming to be “abolitionist”, would promote organizations that equivocate about or entirely avoid the idea of veganism as a moral imperative… and allow their organizers to be similarly noncommittal:

In a January 2017 article in the Guardian, Matt Stellino, an Anonymous for the Voiceless co-organizer in Sydney Australia, comes across like someone who is as serious as anyone could be about wanting people to live vegan and yet, at the end of the article, the equivocation comes: “The kebab shop doesn’t have to close,” Stellino offers. “We just want falafels for everyone.”  That’s not asking for veganism.  That’s asking for plant-based options and, contrary to what some vegans assert, offering plant-based foods to non-vegans is not getting us closer to dismantling speciesism and ending animal use.  It merely adds more choices to the menu and further identifies veganism solely as a dietary option.

Problem – It Sounds Good, But What Does It Mean?

Every so often in the animal welfare sphere, a new organization arises promising a fresh and exciting “new” approach to “saving” or “sparing” animals, usually asking for volunteers to recruit members and needing large amounts of donations.  If this sounds suspiciously like the modus operandi of a multi-level marketing scam, there’s a good reason for that…  Notice that with such organizations the math involved in calculating the amount of “saved” or “spared” animals is always very fuzzy, but the math involved in calculating the amount of money needed in donations is always very clear.  I’m not sure whether Anonymous for the Voiceless is on the same level as the large, donation-based animal welfare corporations (yet), but I am curious about the math I’ve seen posted by them on various sites: “125,253 bystanders taking veganism/animal liberation seriously!”, “32,851 conversions!”  What exactly does it mean to “take veganism seriously” and at what point in the conversation does that become clear?  Does it mean they will start living vegan from that moment or is it just something now being considered by someone who hadn’t previously given it much, or any, thought?  And at what point in the conversation is a “conversion” recorded?  These seem like intangibles to me and the statistics carry more than a whiff of self-justification and marketing.

New Doesn’t Always Mean Better

It’s easy to be lured in by the shine and flash of the new, especially to those who see the injustice of animal use and feel a desperate desire to “do something“, but we need always remember the following:

  • A disease is not cured by merely exposing and treating its symptoms but rather by directly addressing the root cause that creates the symptoms.  This compelling essay from Gentle World entitled Are Anti-Cruelty Campaigns Really Effective? discusses the matter eloquently.  An excerpt:

“…a united front of widespread public education focused on why and how to become vegan would address the root of the exploitation problem by challenging not only all of our uses of animals, but our society’s decidedly speciesist attitude in and of itself.

To illustrate the point, it’s helpful to consider the analogy of a tree. The animal exploitation tree can be divided into several sections, including the roots, trunk, and branches.

The roots of the tree – mostly hidden underground – represent our society’s underlying speciesism; the cultural prejudice against all animals (other than humans) that makes it possible for us to ignore the basic needs of others in favor of our own trivial desires. Speciesism, like racism, sexism, and other oppressive cultural prejudices, ignores morally relevant characteristics (such as the fundamental interests of the oppressed or exploited), in favor of morally irrelevant characteristics (such as membership of a species, race, sex, and so on).  When we eliminate speciesism (individually or as a group), we respect the interests of individual members of other species sufficiently to take those interests into account with our own, and everyone else’s interests. The behavioral result of such respect is veganism – avoiding animal products and uses in our lives as much as is reasonably possible.”

  • It makes no sense, is counterproductive and is unethical to engage in one or more forms of violent, systematic, exploitative oppression while working to end another.  It is particularly counterproductive to engage in the same form of exploitation – in the case of Anonymous for the Voiceless, speciesism – one is trying to end.

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And The Reality Machine Says…

By applying critical thinking rather than taking everything at face value and accepting words that don’t match actions, it becomes clear that Anonymous for the Voiceless is, sadly, not only engaging in ableism by portraying non-human individuals as “voiceless” but also promoting speciesism through their focus on animal “cruelty” and their affiliation with speciesist organizations such as Challenge22.

Therefore, while it seems to me that Mr. Bashir is a committed animal activist and appears to want to help end all animal exploitation, the organization he’s co-founded has unfortunately strayed from their stated “abolitionist stance” and landed deeply in animal welfare territory.

The Simple Solution – Vegan Education

If you oppose at least one form of violent oppression because you recognize it is morally wrong, then to live in integrity requires opposing all forms of violent oppression because they are all morally wrong.  Speciesism, simply by virtue of having the largest number of victims and the highest ever-increasing death toll worldwide, is the most egregious form of violent oppression our world has ever known.  It’s time to dismantle speciesism, and the way to do that, again, is through living vegan and educating others to live vegan.

Animals are not voiceless and truth doesn’t come in cubes.  There are no masks or laptops required to educate others about veganism.  If you want to dismantle and end speciesism, carry the vegan message of nonviolence and justice for non-humans by speaking your truth clearly, consistently and directly with words, not theatrics.  Provide the public with the simple, logical idea that when you realize it’s wrong to hurt, steal from and kill vulnerable individuals for your personal pleasure and satisfaction, the only rational and just response is to live vegan.

[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites.  Also, please read our Disclaimer regarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]

Dismantle speciesism.  Live vegan.  Educate others.
 
Start now, here’s how:
 

Multi-Level-Manipulation on Welfare Wednesday!

[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites.  Also, please read our Disclaimer regarding external sites, organizations, individuals, etc.]

Co-written by Keith Berger and Elena Brodskaya

Wednesday Morning at 7 o’clock As the Day Begins

On Wednesday 11/8/2017 over an 8-hour span, I once again received back-to-back emails from not one, not two, not three, not four… ok, four of the major animal welfare (not rights, mind you – welfare) organizations with similarly-themed messages of how to be more “compassionate” around the upcoming holidays.  In fact, two of the emails had the word “compassion” and “compassionate” in the subject line:

Receipt of such emails all in one day is a common occurrence for me, and it’s no coincidence such email solicitations always arrive just before payday – I’m sure there are studies proving this is the optimal time to send donation requests – as handy reminders of the stellar work they’re doing that only their dedicated and knowledgeable staff and volunteers can do (undercover “cruelty” investigations, “pressuring” non-vegan restaurant chains to add plant-based options, throwing self-congratulatory parties)… and only with my donations.  I’ll offer a brief look at the content of the emails.

What’d I Say?

Mercy for Animals (MFA) informed me that “Animal torture has been exposed inside yet another government-owned slaughterhouse…” and that “unthinkable cruelty” was happening before slaughterhouse workers were “…stringing [pigs] upside down and cutting open their throats” which, if I’m not mistaken, is how they’re generally slaughtered.  The assured me that I can “make a difference” by “making a special donation today as part of the Million-Dollar Challenge” and by taking the “Veg Pledge”… which unfortunately does not equate to living vegan.  In fact, they make a vague suggestion (see below) to “choose compassionate vegan alternatives” (which, I suppose, could be added to any meal right alongside the animal flesh and secretions that might already be there.  That may make it different, but it certainly doesn’t “make a difference”) while offering a VEGETARIAN Starter Guide,  furthering the time-honored animal welfare tradition of conflating vegan and vegetarian as if there are one and the same.

“The best way to help cows, pigs, and other farmed animals is simply to choose compassionate vegan alternatives.  Sign up here to get your free Vegetarian Starter Guide, meat-free recipes, news, and tips.”

 

Compassion Over Killing (COK) invited me to “celebrate compassion!” at their event costing $100-150 per ticket, which I wouldn’t be interested in doing even if it were free and happening next door to my house (since they’re actually just celebrating themselves as a corporation).  When they start talking about justice, I’ll start celebrating, albeit warily as I try to figure out what their angle is.  Much like MFA, they did offer me another opportunity to “…still lend your support to help us continue our life-saving work for animals in the year ahead.  Please donate now!  All donations through December 31 will be matched dollar-for-dollar!”

Vegan Outreach asked me to sign a petition asking a non-vegan pizza company to add “a delicious vegan cheese pizza” to their menu and “Heck—throwing in a few toppings like meatless pepperoni or savory sausage crumbles would be even better!”  They also reminded me that they’re “…working to expose and end cruelty to animals through the widespread distribution of our booklets promoting plant-based eating and compassion for animals” (again with the compassion…).  Rather than promoting “plant-based eating”, a concept so vague that it’s anybody’s guess as to what it means and can actually be defined as eating salads with animal flesh and secretions on top (“Well, it is plant-based…”), is it unreasonable to expect that a corporation called Vegan Outreach might promote, say, veganism?

Lastly, before offering a Meatout Monday recipe, Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) reminded me that Thanksgiving is “the perfect opportunity to share a compassionate meal with friends and family” (more compassion – yay!!!).  They suggested I “invite others to experience how amazing a vegan meal is for your health, the environment, and of course for the animals!”  In the spirit of consistently putting animals last on the list of reasons not to eat animals, they go on: “Whether you’re looking to improve your health, are environmentally-conscious, or truly care about the animals*, the holidays are the perfect time to celebrate life together over a delicious, plant-based meal” (ah, plant-based!).  They also offer a pledge to “go vegan for Thanksgiving”, as if abstaining from products of animal exploitation for one meal or even one entire day equates to embracing veganism.  Once again, a major animal welfare corporation muddies the waters and erroneously equates eating one plants-only meal with living vegan.

Who’s to Blame?

I want to be clear that I find no fault with those who operate at the volunteer levels of these MLM (Multi-Level-Marketing-Manipulation)-style welfare corporations, as I am sure that they, just like me,  join the ranks in hopes of making real change for animals with a corporation that purports to be doing exactly that, since the idea of taking on such tasks individually seems overwhelmingly daunting and often leads to feelings of despair and hopelessness.  Enter the smooth and seductive siren song of the large animal welfare corporation(s) to offer comfort, community and a cure – “Join us and help the animals!  Be a voice for the voiceless and stand with like-minded people who are already working to solve the problem of animal cruelty/abuse!”.  I know that I was once brainwashed and beguiled by the manipulative messaging of MFA, COK, PeTA, H$U$ and the like and would have continued engaging with, supporting and promoting them and their single-issue campaigns had I not been shown the hypocrisy, ineffectiveness and counterproductiveness of their methods and messaging.  Just as with other multi-level marketing or pyramid scheme models, eager volunteers are recruited by those in higher positions or at the same level but with time in the organization and used to bring in more recruits and/or solicit donations, in this case through handing out free organization literature and/or convincing people to join email lists, both of which do provide information about the plight of animals and welfare reforms but are ultimately mechanisms for bringing in donor dollars.

Essentially, these very organizations operating under the pretense of working to stop the exploitation of non-humans are engaging in the exploitation of the humans they enlist to perform for low or no pay in the service of increasing the organization’s financial bottom line.  Volunteers and low-level employees are used for their time, energy and effort in such areas as fundraising, undercover investigations and member recruitment while being inculcated with the false belief that the corporation they serve is working to create a better world for animals.  Meanwhile, millions in donor dollars and grants roll in each year, salaries are paid to those in higher positions, careers are solidified, agendas are furthered… and animals remain property to be used, discarded and replaced despite all the “critical”,  “eye-opening”, “groundbreaking”, “life-saving” work supposedly being done on their behalf.

I observed this phenomenon in action during set-up at a South Florida “veg” fest in fall 2016.  While strolling past the Mercy for Animals table, I observed the MFA coordinator (someone I know and with whom I have interacted – a sort of local animal welfare “star” – but whose identity I will not reveal) pointedly instructing the lower-level volunteers that they need to focus on getting people to join the MFA email list: “Sign-ups, sign-ups, sign-ups!!!  At an event like this, we should be able to get at least [inaudible something-hundred number] new sign-ups.”  Since fall is the season for year-end fundraising, dollar-for-dollar matching and million-dollar challenges, the push to focus on email “sign-ups” rather than engaging with and educating the public was not surprising.  The coordinator’s forceful tone of voice seemed to indicate that obedience to this directive was not open for debate.

In the eyes of the animal welfare corporations, every person is a potential donor, and the more people who are reached by email, snail mail, street “activism”, college leafleting, social media and other methods, the deeper the potential donor pool.  Slick and glossy publications, videos and emails are carefully crafted to tug at both heartstrings and purse strings.  Note the use of evocative and melodramatic language in this email donation plea received 11/9/2017.  One can almost hear the minor-key string section playing in the background while the somber narrator intones:

“Suffering animals—like Clara and Max—need you to act now.

When our brave undercover investigator met Clara at a Hormel pork supplier earlier this year, the gentle and intelligent pig was pregnant and forced to live in a gestation crate so small she couldn’t even turn around. Once Clara gave birth, all her babies, including little Max, were taken away from her and mutilated without painkillers. 

Your compassion enables MFA to continue speaking out for defenseless animals and put an end to cruel practices like tail docking, castration, and cramming animals into tiny cages. 

With you by our side, we’ll conduct even more eye-opening undercover investigations like the just-released footage captured at a Mexican slaughterhouse. We’ll also pressure more of the largest food companies to end the worst forms of abuse in their supply chains, and we’ll inspire millions of people to leave animals like Max and Clara off their plates for good. 

I know that it breaks your heart to see and hear about such horrific animal abuse. That’s why I’m asking you to please help MFA make 2018 our most impactful year yet.  Together, we can end this cruelty and create a kinder world for all animals.”

 
Nathan Runkle
 
Sincerely,
Nathan Runkle 
President
Max!!! Clara…?

In the Multi-Level-Manipulation world of animal welfare corporations, low-level employees and volunteers are manipulated into reaching out to the public who are in turn manipulated by the materials to which they are exposed, and the money flows steadily in.  Employees and volunteers believe they are helping the public learn that animal abuse exists (as if they didn’t already know this) and the donating public come to believe that by “doing something” and donating to animal welfare organizations, they are discharging their moral responsibility toward animals, and this idea is cosigned by the organization’s literature that suggests they shouldn’t take “drastic” steps like, for example, living vegan.

If the animal welfare corporations were to stop their single-issue campaigns and put their formidable resources into unequivocally educating the public about veganism as our moral obligation toward non-human individuals and providing support for new vegans, we would move quickly toward abolishing the property status of animals, demand for products of animal exploitation would dramatically decrease…  and they would soon find themselves out of work as the paradigm shifted and the status quo changed, leaving them with no “horrific” cruelty to reduce or “worst” abuses to end, making it nearly impossible to make convincingly dramatic pleas for continued donations.  For this reason, it has never been in the best interest of animal welfare organizations to work in the true best interests of animals, but rather in what they tell us are the best interests of animals.  For this reason, they will continue to partner with animal exploiters to ensure there is a steady supply of cruelty to reduce, abuses to end and single-issue campaigns to wage as mechanisms for soliciting a steady supply of donor dollars to keep themselves salaried and in business.

Why in the World…?

Now, in case anyone’s wondering why I’m still getting emails from groups like this long after putting my welfare days behind me,  please allow me to explain:

I keep myself on several animal welfare email lists (though not PeTA or The Humane League – I do have standards…) so I can see what Big Welfare’s latest shenanigans are and to watch with mild amusement as they continue to pretend they’re all separate organizations rather than one large vomitous mass corporation, dividing up single-issue campaigns based on which seems to fit which brand and will result in the largest number of donor dollars, tremendous grants and the furthering of careers for those at the highest levels of each corporate entity.

Who’s Down With OPP?

On the subject of grants, I am mortified as I look at this page I inadvertently found detailing the sheer numbers of dollars (roughly $16 million per year in 2016 and 2017) being lavished by the Open Philanthropy Project upon organizations under the rather vague heading of “Farm Animal Welfare”, about which OPP states:

“Billions of animals each year are treated cruelly on factory farms.  We believe that raising awareness of current practices and pushing for reform could reduce animal suffering by enormous amounts, yet we see relatively little attention on this issue from major animal welfare groups.”

“Relatively little attention… from major animal welfare groups”?  Relative to what???  That’s essentially the entire focus, theme song, parade route and lifeblood of every major animal welfare group, and it goes like this – farmed animals endure horrific, torturous cruelty every day of their short lives en route to being slaughtered for human consumption [TRUE], so we need to do something/anything – usually involving “compassion” and/or some sort of weak legislation making a horrible situation slightly less horrible – to reduce the cruelty/suffering/abuse and ensure they’re treated humanely before they’re killed [FALSE].

Why, if the stated problem is true, do I contend the proposed solution is false?

Because the idea – and the entire animal welfare philosophy dating back over 200 years – is predicated on a false premise.  That false premise rests on the notion that non-human individuals are destined to die to satisfy human pleasure, comfort and convenience no matter what we do, therefore the best we can ever hope to do is to make conditions better (more “humane”/less “cruel”) for them along the way.  If we believe that to be the truth, then we can only keep trying to make the inhumane a little more humane for these pathetic, hopeless, condemned beings… and, if that’s our position, then why bother living vegan by taking the moral stance of refusing to participate in any and all forms of animal use wherever possible and practicable?  Doesn’t it now become permissible to eat, wear and otherwise use non-humans now and then (or why not all the time?) since we’re all working to ensure that these things happen in the nicest ways possible?  I mean, as long as they’re treated well and killed humanely…

So if the problem is true, what then is the solution and how is it being achieved?

The solution is to change the current paradigm that allows for and demands that animals be considered property and be objectified and commodified for use as disposable, replaceable human resources.  This is being achieved through dismantling speciesism, and the method by which that’s occurring is twofold:

  1. If we believe, as any non-psychopath does, that it’s morally unjustifiable to hurt and kill vulnerable individuals to satisfy our personal pleasures and desires, and we come to understand that the most vulnerable members of our global society are, without exception, the non-human individuals we call animals, then our only reasonable response is to immediately stop participating in and benefitting from systems of oppression that result in the unnecessary harm and death of these sentient beings.  We stop paying others to do what we know is wrong, and we stop doing it ourselves.  In short, we start living vegan.

  2. We make a point of educating others to live vegan, and we do this by engaging in clear, consistent, unequivocal vegan education advocacy at every available opportunity, whether one-on-one, in groups, in person, online, over the phone or through any other creative means at our disposal.  This does not mean simply handing a brochure, pamphlet or flyer containing vegan information to every passerby (coupled with a cheery “Go vegan!”) and hoping they a) read the material, b) are moved by it and c) decide to start living vegan and have some understanding as to how to do that.  We would no sooner expect this to be an effective form of vegan advocacy as we would expect that, by handing astrophysics textbooks to random strangers and saying “Go astrophysicist!”, they will go home and become astrophysicists… and yet, this is a stock in trade method used by most animal welfare groups.  Rather, this means taking whatever time one can to engage others in calm, rational, educational conversations, asking effective questions and answering those we are asked to the best of our abilities.  It also means directing non-vegans to solid, unequivocal vegan resources online and in print (please see our Downloadable Vegan Content, Online Vegan Resources and Recommended Reading sections for excellent information).

While single-issue campaigns and the welfare corporations behind them may seem attractive on the surface, all one needs to do is apply a bit of critical thinking to conclude that they are speciesist in nature and ultimately counterproductive to the cause of abolishing animal use, and there is nothing attractive about that or about engaging in the exact form of oppression one claims to be working to eradicate.

[*a quick note on language and perception – when we talk about “the animals” as opposed to “animals”, we are defining non-humans as  groups (i.e.; herds, flocks, schools) devoid of personalities or other markers of individuality rather than framing them as the individuals they truly are.  This results in devaluation and depersonalization, making true empathy for them as individuals that much more difficult to achieve in the minds and hearts of those who have long been trained to view and treat them as mere objects to be used, discarded and replaced.  This can make our vegan advocacy even more challenging, so once again it behooves us to be mindful of the words we choose and the language we use.]

Dismantle speciesism.  Live vegan.  Educate others.
 
Start now, here’s how:
 

Compassion Over Killing and Their Timeshare Approach To Animal Rights

 

Follow Your Morals… For A Few Days A Year

I received a marketing email recently from animal advocacy group Donations Over Animals Compassion Over Killing asking me to “Take the 7-Day VegPledge“.  They state they are “empowering thousands of people to pledge to choose vegetarian foods for at least seven days” (as if anyone needs to be “empowered” to choose to eat vegetables), making the case that, since there are …”52 weeks in a year… Why not make one of them meat-free?” and that “Every time we choose a meat-free meal, we can protect our health, the planet, and animals!”  As usual, the animals have been placed last on the list behind human self-interests.

The Problem

When we put COK’s “VegPledge” message in the Reality Machine, here’s what we see:

Asking people to go “meat-free” one week out of 52 is the equivalent of asking them to cease their complicity in only one form of animal exploitation 1.9% of the year, leaving the door open to continuing to consume animal flesh (and seceretions) the other 98.1% of the year.  I’ve heard of picking low-hanging fruit, but this fruit’s already fallen off the tree and is rotting on the ground.

To the question of “Why not make one [week] meat-free?”, I would answer that COK hasn’t provided a compelling reason to do so.  Positioning VegWeek primarily as “a way to discover the many benefits and flavors of vegetarian eating”, promising enticements like “lots of deals, discounts — and you might win prizes”,  calling it “a simple way each of us could help the protect the planet”, providing a list of celebrities and politicians who are “touting the many benefits of choosing more plant-based meals” and asking people to “Join the Fun” deftly omits the only reason that truly matters: the violent victimization of billions, if not trillions, of sentient beings every year to satisfy human pleasure, comfort and convenience.

Does COK believe that asking non-vegans to go “meat-free” seven days out of the year (which tacitly condones the consumption of animal flesh the other 358 days per year) is bringing us closer to the abolition of animal exploitation?  It’s not as if the animals currently confined and scheduled for execution so that their bodies can be disemboweled, dismembered and distributed for sale in neat packages will be spared that fate when some unknown number of people take a one-week meat vacation this April.  The results will be the same as if it never happened – all those animals will die and be eaten soon enough (and then be replaced by other animals forcibly bred into existence for commodification and consumption), and most likely by the same people who didn’t eat them that week.  To believe otherwise is to employ a form of magical thinking that is counterproductive to the cause of eliminating the violent oppression of non-human animals.

[For a deeper look at the idea of magical thinking as it relates to animal advocacy and vegan education, please read this essay from HumaneMyth.org]

Once again, with this blatantly speciesist campaign (if the victims were human, no advocacy group would dare encourage a 0.019% effort in helping end their oppression), an organization that appears on the surface to have the best interests of non-human animals in mind fails to take into account the myriad ways these individuals are exploited other than for “meat”, such as for clothing, entertainment, medical testing.  Further, asking non-vegans to go “meat-free” may do more harm than good as it has been shown that people who give up meat for a short time tend to increase their consumption of animal secretions such as dairy and eggs to offset their deprivation of meat through that time period.  Here is a quote connecting “meatless” campaigns and rises in egg demand and consumption from a 2015 interview on the Diane Rehm show (the specific audio clip comes at about 43:23, a courtesy for those who don’t want to sit through listening to rationalizations and justifications about eggs and “welfare”):

“Just back to that other question about the ‘Meatless’.  One of the reasons why the egg industry and demand is going up is because a lot of the families, like one day a week, are having meatless dinners and they’re substituting eggs for that meatless meal, so that’s another good reason why the egg consumption is going up in this country.” –  Paul Sauder, president of Sauder Eggs, chairman of the American Egg Board and a board member of United Egg Producers

Interestingly, if that’s the effect of only one meatless meal per week, the net effect of an entire meatless day (3-5 meals?) such as on Meatless Monday or an entire meatless week would be to cause an even greater increase in egg consumption.

It’s also interesting to note that the first person to “officially sign up” for COK’s 7-Day Pledge in 2009, US Congressman Jamie Raskin, is still not even vegetarian 8 years later:

“Energized by his now mostly vegetarian diet [italics added], which he refers to as ‘aligning my morals with my menu,’ Rep. Raskin continues to encourage others to make kinder, greener, and healthier food choices — and he’s helped VegWeek expand to reach thousands of people nationwide.”

One has to wonder why it takes 8 years (or longer, based on the many non-vegans I keep meeting who’ve been some version of vegetarian for 2, 3 and 4 decades) to align one’s morals and behaviors and whether the “thousands” who have been reached have embarked on similar glacially-paced “journeys”.  Could part of the problem be COK’s (and the other large animal welfare organizations’) intentional avoidance of promoting a clear, consistent message that veganism is our minimum moral obligation to the non-human individuals with whom we share this planet?  From a business standpoint, such a strategy makes perfect sense as it helps to maximize donations from largely non-vegan donor bases by not asking them to live vegan and allowing them to erroneously feel they’ve discharged their moral responsibilities toward animals by sending money, signing petitions and, in the case of this campaign, taking a week or so off from paying people to exploited and kill vulnerable animals.

In Their Own Words

From the COK website:

“Compassion Over Killing (COK) is a national nonprofit 501(c)(3) animal advocacy organization headquartered in Washington, DC, with an additional office in Los Angeles, CA.  Working to end animal abuse since 1995, COK focuses on cruelty to animals in agriculture and promotes vegetarian eating as a way to build a kinder world for all of us, both human and nonhuman…”

From my essay on the use of the word “cruelty” in animal advocacy:

When we talk about “cruelty”, the conversation becomes about treatment and abuse, rather than use which ultimately is the issue that needs addressing.  I stay away from the word “cruelty” in my vegan advocacy for the simple reason that people will define the word in whatever way they see fit in order to justify their continued use of products of animal exploitation.  One person’s definition of “cruelty” often differs from the next, which leads to the ideas of “humane” treatment, “humane” slaughter, “free range” and other fantasies the animal agriculture marketing machine foists on the public as some sort of reality.

Non-Profit ≠ Non-Wealthy

More from the COK website:

“Despite our small staff and limited budget, COK’s innovative, cost-effective campaigns are having a tremendous impact.”

According to readily available information, COK’s average total revenue for 2011-2015 was $920,935.80.  Perhaps we have differing definitions of “limited”, with mine being considerably under a million dollars annually (by contrast, my non-profit vegan education group received $2615.06 in contributions in 2016, a difference of $918,320.74, which must be the price of choosing to carry a morally consistent message).

 

Not surprisingly, the metrics for tracking COK’s “tremendous impact” are, well, “not available”, according to their profile page on nonprofit tracker guidestar.org:

2. What are the organization’s key strategies for making this happen?
Not available.
3. What are the organization’s capabilities for doing this?
Not available.
4. How will they know if they are making progress?
Not available.
5. What have and haven’t they accomplished so far?

Not available.

Living Ethically From Weak To Weak(er)

steven wright quote-i-went-down-the-street-to-the-24-hour-grocery-when-i-got-there-the-guy-was-locking-the-front-steven-wright-202303

Perhaps if everyone follows COK’s model and spends each of 52 weeks per year taking one week off from a specific form of animal exploitation (let’s say Meat-Free Week followed by Dairy-Free Week followed by Egg-Free Week followed by Honey-Free Week followed by Leather-Free Week followed by Wool-Free Week followed by Silk-Free Week followed by Zoo-Free Week followed by Circus-Free Week followed by Medical Testing-Free Week… ok, we may need to add more weeks to the year), then each of us can say “I’m vegan… but not all at once”.

And so, a new era begins – the Timeshare Approach to Animal Rights!  Here’s how it works:

Theoretically, if Compassion Over Killing can convince every non-vegan to coordinate with 51 other non-vegans to each take a yearly rotating one-week shift in the specific “Fill-in-the-blank-form-of-animal-oppression-Free Week” in which they feel most comfortable participating (the one that takes the least amount of energy, commitment and inconvenience while bringing them the most personal benefit), it would almost be as if they successfully created one actual full-time vegan*!  Huzzah!

[*I say “as if” because an actual vegan is someone who takes an unwavering ethical stand against the exploitation of non-humans, not someone who takes a few days off here and there as part of someone else’s dilettante effort at “helping animals”]

The Solution

Or we can simply say no to animal exploitation in all its forms and manifestations by making the commitment to live vegan and then educate others clearly, consistently and unequivocally about veganism as the non-negotiable moral baseline for our behaviors toward sentient non-human individuals.  Doesn’t that sound less complicated and far more efficient than making 52 (or more) behavior changes every year and remaining complicit in the oppressions we claim to oppose?

I’ve been living vegan for about 4476 days now, which is the equivalent of about 639 “7-Day” blocks in a row, and my only regret is that I didn’t start sooner.  I’m fully convinced that if someone had clearly explained the ethical components of veganism to me sooner, I would have.

ethical-position-002-bfbv

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Live vegan.  Educate others.  Start now, here’s how:

VeganEducationGroup
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