Category Archives: Animal Ethics

"Humane", Animal Ethics, Animal Rights, South Florida Vegan Education Group, Speciesism, Vegan, Vegan Education, Veganism, Welfarism

My Thoughts on Single-Issue Animal “Rights” Campaigns

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thoreau-branches-of-evil

[cover photo courtesy of Abolitionist Vegan Resources]

I had a light bulb moment one afternoon when thinking about welfarism vs. abolition.  I’m sure the idea was inspired by Professor Gary Francione’s work and exists in much simpler terms, but I suddenly saw it so clearly that I practically danced around the room:

When we educate a person that veganism needs to be the moral baseline for our treatment of individuals of other species and s/he stops eating animals and starts living vegan, that person pretty quickly ceases complicity in most of the atrocities and abuses that single-issue campaigns (SICs) focus on and will usually carry the vegan message to others, hence much is accomplished.  Conversely, when any of the donation-based welfarist groups I call Donations Over Animals educates a person that fill-in-the-blank-single-issue is wrong and leaves out the vegan education component (intentionally most of the time), that person might withdraw their support from that particular issue while remaining complicit in all the rest, hence nothing meaningful is accomplished and a valuable opportunity is wasted.

When it comes to SICs, my contention is that we are striking at the branches of a very diseased tree rather than at the root where the problem begins, and are therefore keeping the status quo rolling along.  Working to find acceptable ways to do unacceptable things normalizes the unacceptable things – namely, enslaving and commodifying animals to be used for food, clothing, entertainment, laboratory testing and human conveniences – and makes them seem acceptable.  Over the course of a decade of welfarist outreach, I’ve spoken with countless non-vegans who said the same thing – “Eating animals is fine, it’s normal.  I’m never gonna stop.  They shouldn’t abuse them, though.  That’s just wrong”.  If we focus our time, effort and energy on minimizing the discomfort of the animals who will ultimately be killed and eaten regardless of their comfort level, it only serves to make it even easier for people such as I’ve described (again, those were actual experiences and quotes) to keep on eating animals, drinking their secretions, wearing their skins and lining up for seconds, sometimes doubling their complicity in animal exploitation by, say, having a hot dog at the circus or a burger at the zoo.  If those people felt a twinge of conscience for a second about the abuses we showed them, that’s sure to be alleviated once the abuses seemingly stop or are at least reduced.  So it seems that when we work to reduce – but not eliminate – animal suffering (as is the hallmark of all the welfarist organizations), there’s an unintended consequence – non-vegans can keep eating and otherwise exploiting animals now with a clear conscience and no reason nor desire to ever stop.

From my perspective, that’s the opposite of progress.

Please read this wonderful essay from There’s an Elephant in the Room for what I consider to be a brilliant take on the issue:

My thoughts on petitions and single issues

Image courtesy of Vegan Trove (www.VeganTrove.com)
Image courtesy of Vegan Trove (www.VeganTrove.com)

I’ve been accused of having an all-or-nothing attitude of “you have to choose one or the other”, however that is not my attitude.   Each individual is free to do as they choose and will make the choice that best suits them, their morals and their ethics.  My belief after a decade of welfarism is that when we have the opportunity to choose to educate people about veganism as a moral imperative, then as vegans it is incumbent upon us to do so.   Educate one person to become vegan and you almost immediately eliminate support for literally dozens of animal exploitation issues.  Educate ten and you multiply the effect accordingly.  Conversely, educate one person that fur is bad (a popular SIC) and that person may or may not stop wearing fur, and probably won’t make the connection about other animals not used in the fur trade.  Which sounds more effective?  Once a person stops going to the circus… well… they stop going to the circus.  For most people, that’s pretty much where it ends:

“Look, people holding signs!  Losers!  Get a life! –> Huh?  What’s that sign say?  Circuses hurt elephants?  That can’t be! –> Oh, here’s some literature about circuses, hmm, maybe they’re right  –> Well, I don’t want elephants to be hurt… –> OK, I’ll stop supporting circuses –> I did a good thing! —–> We’re leaving, kids.  I’m hungry, I think we’ll stop on the way home for some cheeseburgers and milk (they’re elephant-free)”.  They don’t necessarily start living vegan or stop being complicit in any other form of animal exploitation, and why would they if no one has taken the time and effort to educate them properly?  And again, it’s my belief and observation that single-issue campaigns leave out the vegan piece almost entirely.  I can point to numerous publications and campaigns by PeTA, Mercy for Animals, Compassion Over Killing and Veg(etari)an Outreach (more like outrage…) that either don’t mention the word “vegan” at all or bury it so far in the conversation that it’s hardly noticeable.  After all, donation-based animal welfare corporations don’t want to alienate the donor base and risk losing the donor dollars that keep them in business and employed.  If they pooled their resources and put their focus, energy and money toward proper vegan education, they would eventually put themselves right out of business and that’s just not part of a sound corporate business model.

Keith in full welfare mode
Keith in full welfare mode, January 2009.

One of the SICs I worked on passionately for ten years, both through protests and legislative means, was Ringling Brothers and their treatment of elephants and other exploited circus animals (as can be seen in the photo above, not only am I foregoing any chance at vegan education in lieu of focusing on this single issue, I am also promoting not one but two welfarist organizations, Farm Sanctuary and Animal Rights Foundation of Florida.  I am not proud of this image).  When the news broke in 2015 that Ringling is planning to “retire” their performing elephants, everyone and their mother trumpeted “VICTORY!” from every available mountaintop.  I also thought we had achieved a victory – for about five minutes, until I looked a little more closely and saw the reality of the situation: Ringling has agreed to do nothing more than move their slaves off the road – years in the future – and back to their own breeding facility in Florida (it ain’t no sanctuary…) – the SAME facility in which these suffering individuals were tortured (Ringling calls it “training”), had their spirits broken as babies, were introduced to bull hooks and electric prods and completely subjugated to the will of men.  What kind of victory is that?  They’re returning to the exact location where their physical and psychological trauma was born, which is tantamount to sending a neglected foster child back home to her abusive foster parents except that, in the elephants’ case, they’ve been with their abusers the entire time.  Did anyone believe life was gonna get better for them once they returned “home”?  Oh, and Ringling is also going to loan them out to zoos (I believe that’s being done already) for breeding purposes, as they are still property to be used as Ringling sees fit, which continues their enslavement and brings in a new generation of slaves.  The slaves remain slaves – we just don’t get to see public displays anymore.  Also, Ringling is bringing other animals on the road to replace the elephants, so we’d better hurry and get out our markers and change our protest signs from elephants to camels.  This is not a victory – this is a ploy to appease some activists and remain profitable.  Ringling didn’t suddenly have a change of heart and realize that what they’ve been doing for over a hundred years is wrong. They just found a way to do damage control.  I never once saw anyone doing vegan education at a Ringling protest, as these events are simply not conducive to that happening.  When we did manage to turn people around from entering the circus, we can rest assured they simply went home a few hours earlier to the neighbor’s barbecue and stopped at McDonald’s on the way.  I find that kind of “victory” hollow at best and counterproductive at worst.

The distinction between abolitionism and welfarism was being made as far back as 1967 by H. Jay Dinshah
The distinction between abolitionism and welfarism was being made as far back as 1967 by H. Jay Dinshah

I’ve been told by animal welfarists that “there is room for us all”, which is almost an exact quote from a presentation I attended in 2009 by World Heavyweight Champion welfarist and consummate salesperson Wayne Pacelle, CEO of H$U$, “the nation’s largest and most effective animal protection organization” (I recall him using the phrase, “We’re a big tent movement”, which at the time I thought was great.  I washed it down with a cup of Every Little Bit Helps Kool-Aid).  This guy is head of an organization that, in the course of raking in hundreds of millions of dollars a year, offers bacon coupons(!!!) on their Facebook page, hosted an atrocity called “Hoofin’ It“, “a 4-night slaughter-fest dining event featuring a menu of cows, pigs, bison, and sheep” [description courtesy of Bob Linden](!!!!) and cozies up with animal agriculture/exploitation organizations while promoting countless SICs every year to make sure the animals their friends are going to kill, butcher and eat are comfy in their slave quarters beforehand.  Animal protection, my ass.  I can’t be the only one who finds those kinds of mixed messages maddeningly confusing, utterly disheartening and completely unacceptable, and yet the donations keep pouring in by the millions.

If we should be out protesting something, it should be against welfarist organizations like that, which gives us the perfect opportunity to blend protests and vegan education: “Hey, if you’re vegan, why are you picketing PeTA?”  “Because, while PeTA is pointing you in these fifteen directions, here’s the most important thing they’re NOT telling you: The simplest and most immediate action one can take to stop the violence, oppression and exploitation of the most vulnerable members of our global society – non-human individuals – is to start living vegan.  There are no valid reasons not to; there are only morally unjustifiable excuses to hide behind”.

I was once asked if I want a vegan world.  I do, absolutely.  That’s why I’m doing what I believe will have the greatest impact – clear, consistent, unequiVOCAL vegan education – and leaving behind that which I believe will not.

Keith Berger
Co-founder, South Florida Vegan Education Group

Live vegan.  Educate others.  Start now, here’s how:
How To Go Vegan
Be Fair Be Vegan
"Humane", Abolitionism, Animal Ethics, Animal Rights, South Florida Vegan Education Group, Speciesism, Vegan, Vegan Education, Veganism, Welfarism

“Vague-an” Outreach? Never. Abolitionism? Always.

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I have come to believe that, when it comes to veganism and animal rights, anything less than clear, consistent abolitionist vegan education fails to carry the message I find more important than any other – that living vegan is the simple action every individual can take right now to take a powerful and unequivocal stand against society’s continued commodification and exploitation of individuals of other species.  To take a welfarist approach – engaging in single-issue campaigns designed to lessen and regulate abuse rather than abolishing use – is, in my opinion, misguided and counter-productive to the achievement of the goal everyone in our “movement” purports to share: the end of animal exploitation.

Now, I know this can be an unpopular position to take amongst vegans and other animal rights activists, but try to bear with me for a few minutes if you will. Since this makes sense to me, it stands to reason it may make sense to some of you as well.
litter-ature-animal-adoption-fair-mfa-fresh
Mercy For Animals litter-ature at an animal adoption event

Prior to having this realization and still firmly believing I was doing what was best for the animals, I engaged in a host of animal welfare activities, including but not limited to: creating and signing petitions, attending demonstrations and protests, writing letters to editors, publishing articles and, perhaps most of all, public leafleting (or, as I now think of it, public littering.  As comedian Mitch Hedberg once said, “When someone hands you a flyer, it’s like they’re saying, ‘Here, you throw this away’.”).  
 
I’d like to discuss one particular piece of welfarist litter-ature: Compassionate Choices from Veg(etari)an Outreach (to understand why even the title is problematic and misleading, please read Colin Wright’s enlightening essay Why We Need Less Compassion in the Animal Rights Movement And Why Decreasing Cruelty and Suffering Is Not the Point of Veganism).

Lest anyone come under (or continue under) the false belief that this intentionally confusing and speciesist booklet espouses veganism or animal “rights”, please have a look at why that couldn’t be further from the truth. Feel free to read along here: http://www.veganoutreach.org/cc.pdf
  • On page 2, the first page of text: “Of course, the choice is up to you. Whether you decide to cut out meat entirely or just cut back, you can make a big difference for the world at every meal.” – presenting people with the “choice” to cut out/cut back on meat reinforces the speciesist ideas that a) exploiting animals is a personal choice (a choice ceases to be personal when said choice involves a victim, and the choice to exploit animals involves countless victims), so whatever one chooses is ok and b) there is a morally relevant difference between meat and other products of animal exploitation, which there is not.
  • Page 3: “When I learned how the animals suffer, I went vegetarian.” – why is “Vegan” Outreach promoting vegetarianism? Either they don’t understand the difference between the two or it’s time for a name change.
  • Page 4 contains a quote from a representative of the Humane Society of the United States, a self-proclaimed animal “protection” organization that sponsors events such as Hoofin’ It, which involved the slaughter and consumption of various species of animals. As the Denver Post reported, “A different hooved (sic) animal will be showcased each evening.”   Yes, this is the same H$U$ that also offered coupons for bacon on their Facebook page:

    hsus-bacon-coupon-2015

  • Page 6: “when people eat less meat, producers raise and kill fewer animals.” – again, they are promoting “less meat”, which is far different than seeking an end to animal exploitation.
  • Page 9: “it became an easy choice for me. If you choose to educate yourself, it’ll be an easy choice for you, too.” (a quote from Ellen DeGeneres, who is not vegan based on her self-reports that she eats secretions from “happy” chickens) – what is this vague “it”? Is “Vegan” Outreach afraid to use the word vegan in its own publication for fear that they may alienate their largely non-vegan donor base and lose their donor dollars (see below for more information on that topic)?
  • Page 10: “eating vegetarian or vegan” – even when they do use the word vegan, it is relegated to a subordinate position behind vegetarian. Perhaps they should rename the booklet “Vegan: The Second Best Choice”.
  • Also on page 10: “Many elite athletes and bodybuilders are vegetarian or vegan.” – again, vegan is the second choice behind vegetarian and offered as one of two dietary options, rather than as a moral obligation.
  • Page 11: “plant-based diet(s)” is mentioned twice, furthering the common misinterpretation of veganism as a dietary choice. Once again, meat is singled out: “…when I stopped eating meat” leaves dairy, eggs, honey and other products of animal exploitation out of the conversation and essentially speaks of a vegetarian diet as opposed to veganism.
  • Page 12: “Ask your server what dishes they could prepare for you without meat”, “Ask to substitute vegetables for meat in your favorite dishes” and “Order a few side dishes if there are no meatless meals” are among the list of restaurant ordering tips. Nowhere are dairy, eggs, honey or other animal products and secretions mentioned.
  • Page 15: The header reads “IT’S YOUR CHOICE” (see previous paragraph discussing page 2 and “choice”).

  • Also on page 15: Promotion of a “gradual transition to eliminating animal products” based on “research” is coupled with the speciesist idea that one should start by eliminating one type of animal (chickens) from one’s diet before eliminating others (cows and pigs) based on the idea that “many more chickens are killed to produce the same amount of meat as from cows and pigs”.  The reasoning behind this – to “prevent more animal suffering”.  This reinforces the notion that we should be concerned primarily about reducing suffering rather than ending the unjust use of non-human animals entirely, missing the point that veganism is about ending animal use, not reducing animal abuse.  Having met many people who have been “vegetarian” (by their own widely varying definitions) for anywhere from 20 to 40 years, it would seem that a “gradual transition” might keep one complicit in animal exploitation – and therefore directly responsible for continued animal suffering and death – for up to 4 decades, whereas a person who starts living vegan ends their complicity that day.

It is shameful that an organization calling itself “Vegan” Outreach would shy away from asking people to live vegan in a clear and coherent manner.  Instead, their literature reinforces the ideas that eating vegetarian is enough and that slavery is a personal choice.  If one’s goal is to convince people to take a strong and unyielding moral stance against the exploitation of vulnerable sentient individuals, it’s hardly a good idea to cater to and enable the inherent laziness and selfishness of the general public in an effort to achieve that goal.  Such a strategy is in itself lazy and disingenuous and simply will not work.  Conversely, if one’s goal is to maintain the status quo so the donor dollars keep rolling in, this strategy should be wildly successful – and it is: according to the most recent data available on Pro Publica’s Nonprofit Explorer, Vegan Outreach received contributions of $891,216 in 2013.  That’s nearly a million dollars that could have been used to engage the public in unequivocal vegan education… but was not.
In total, the word “vegetarian” appears 6 times in Compassionate Choices while “vegan” appears 11 times – twice as subordinate to vegetarian, four times on its own and five times simply in the name of the organization and a website they run (this is Marketing 101).  As a committed abolitionist vegan, not only will I never hand a Compassionate Choices (or other Vague-an Outreach) booklet to another human being again in my life, but I would rather not hold such a piece of purposeful disinformation in my own hand ever again… unless on my way to a shredder.
The literature I believe in and give to others today when I engage with them in one-on-one vegan education carries an unequivocal vegan message and can be found here:
Embracing Veganism
Respecting Animals Means Going Vegan
 
If you are not vegan, please consider going vegan and staying there.  It is the single best decision I ever made in my life, and my only regret is that I didn’t understand enough to make that decision sooner.  If you are vegan, please eschew participation with and support for animal welfare organizations and campaigns that profess to have the best interest of animals in mind, yet in reality exist to serve their own ends through self-promotion, donation solicitation and putting out small fires while ignoring the larger source of the fire.  Instead, please engage in clear, consistent, unequivocal vegan education that promotes veganism as the moral baseline for our treatment of individuals of other species.
As always, thank you for listening.
Peacelovevegan,
Keith Berger
Co-founder, South Florida Vegan Education Group

[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:
 
Abolitionism, Animal Ethics, Animal Rights, Cognitive dissonance, South Florida Vegan Education Group, Speciesism, Vegan, Vegan Education, Veganism, Welfarism

There Is Nothing So Stable As Change

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I caught a bit of an interview with comedian Cameron Esposito on NPR in March 2016.  I don’t know and therefore have no opinion on this person’s work, but something they said in relation to same-sex marriage really struck me.  Here’s the quote:

 

“The thing that I protest against the most or that upsets me the most is people that are unable to change.  I mean, we’re all just doing the best we can with the information we have up until that point, but when you’re given opposite information and you refuse to change or adjust, then I think that is a real problem…  It infuriates me because I believe that adults should be able to look at evidence and adjust their perspective.”
I can relate to this on several levels.  Here are two:

When I explain to non-vegans that there is no moral justification for using sentient individuals for reasons of pleasure, fashion, entertainment or other human conveniences and they proceed to either ignore the information, try to find holes in the logic or – worst of all – create bizarre counter-arguments to defend continuing their habits and traditions of unjustifiable animal exploitation, it is, to borrow Ms. Esposito’s phrase, “a real problem” and can at times be infuriating.

Similarly, in over 20 years of working professionally to help people who suffer from addictions understand the benefits of living a clean/sober/recovering life (as opposed to living a life wherein one descends into an ever-deeper and ever-darker hell of one’s own construction) and offering them the tools they’ll need to build such a life and instructing them in how to use those tools, it can be frustrating to see them choose to continue using their old tools rather than the new tools while knowing full well that their “best” thinking got them into the terrible trouble they’re now in and that to keep moving in that direction will have potentially deadly consequences.  One of the most brilliant therapists I’ve ever had the pleasure to know, the late Angelo Castiglione, used to say, “Addiction is a disease that resists its own recovery”.  Sadly, I’ve found this to be the truth.

I’ve long noticed a correlation between the defense mechanisms used by addicts to protect their maladaptive behaviors (y’know, those quirky li’l behaviors they exhibit like, say, coping with “stress” by shooting heroin in their neck – that falls under “recreational use”, right? – or drinking three bottles of wine in one evening to “take the edge off” – believe me, somewhere in the middle of the first bottle, those edges are as smooth as a cue ball) and those used by non-vegans to protect their use of products of animal exploitation.  These include, but are not limited to: rationalizing, justifying, minimizing, intellectualizing, blaming, shaming, deflecting, avoiding and the granddaddy of them all, DENIAL (here’s my favorite acronym for denial: Don’t Even Notice I Am Lying).  I see them all used by members of both groups all the time.   Am I saying that those who consume animals and their secretions are addicted to those substances?  Not necessarily, as I don’t definitively know that to be the case, but when confronted with the idea that what they’ve been doing all their lives – engaging in behaviors taught to them by their well-meaning parents and viewed as “normal” (which we all know is just a setting on a washing machine) by the society in which they live – cannot be morally justified, their first instinctive response to the cognitive dissonance they now feel is to fight to protect themselves from what they perceive to be an attack on their character and an attempt to cause them shame and to… (gulp!) … change.

When I engage in vegan education, it is not my intention to shame anyone about their behavior.  In my opinion, there should be no shame in engaging in behaviors one truly does not know are wrong or harmful to others or themselves.  That is simple ignorance born of a lack of education in a particular area and aided by ongoing campaigns of targeted misinformation designed to maintain and deepen such ignorance on a mass scale.  When this happens, one is, in a sense, a victim.  However, when one engages in willful ignorance – learning the truth about one’s complicity in the exploitation of the vulnerable and purposely choosing to ignore it and take no meaningful action to change – I believe that a feeling of guilt is appropriate and necessary because, when one does this, one is indeed guilty of victimizing others.  Brené Brown, Ph.D. and other psychologists have shown that feelings of guilt can and often do lead to positive changes in behaviors and attitudes and that guilt is actually a healthy emotion: “I now know I’ve been behaving in ways that conflict with my core values and beliefs and feel badly about my behavior.  From now on, I will behave differently and live, as best I can, in congruence with my morals and ethics.”  Cessation of guilt-inducing behavior leads to, as you might imagine, a reduction in guilt and, as an added bonus, increased self-esteem.  Plus, to put it bluntly, when individuals start living vegan, they stop paying people to kill innocent beings.  What could ease one’s guilt and restore one’s self-esteem better than ceasing to hire hit men to kill babies (yes, most of the animals used by humans for food are killed within the first months of their lives) and adults and entire families for no good reason?

The night I made the decision to start living vegan, I experienced that same moment of cognitive dissonance that others feel, and I chose what I felt, and still feel, is the only acceptable path.  Here is an excerpt about that very moment from another essay of mine:

 

“At that moment, when my closed mind opened, the light inside turned on and my heart spoke louder than my stomach, I knew I had been changed forever and that I could no longer participate in the system I now understood for what it was.  It was then that I began to live vegan – to eschew, wherever possible, the use of products of animal exploitation and to educate others where and when I could about how they too could stop promoting this injustice.  I hadn’t known till then that there was another choice available – a choice to live a vegan life – and once I knew, I couldn’t un-know.”

 

Ms. Esposito said that what is most upsetting is “people that are unable to change”, however for me it is people who are unwilling to change. We all have the capacity to change; some of us simply refuse to do so, even when presented with evidence that change is, if not required, then certainly a really, really good idea.  Changing from using vulnerable beings for one’s own selfish pleasures as a non-vegan to living vegan spares the lives of others, improves one’s own life and make the world in general a better place.  These are not opinions – these are immutable facts that it makes no sense to deny.  But, as is the case with addiction, denial is not about what makes sense.  It is about what makes us comfortable, or at least not uncomfortable, and there is a sad comfort in that which we know and have gotten used to.

Do I find this, as Ms. Esposito does, infuriating?  I have, but it’s rare that I feel such exasperation these days.  Instead, I make a point of remembering that I, too, have had plenty of personal experience with being unwilling to act appropriately on new information, which makes it difficult for me to resent others when they act as I did.  I have at times been unwilling to change, but more than willing to keep myself in the dark and refuse to see the light for fear that facing the truth might hurt me in some way… because being non-vegan is “all about me” and living vegan is all about them, the non-human victims of human violence and oppression.  Admitting to and reminding myself that I was among the unwilling allows me to remain (somewhat) calm and rational when discussing veganism with non-vegans, an approach I find to be much better received and far more effective than any vitriolic rant, verbal fisticuffs or fusillade of finger-pointing.

I’d like to say I wish everyone would live vegan, as I believe it’s the key to a better, healthier, more peaceful world, but wishing won’t get us there.  As I first heard via Stephen King, “Wish in one hand, shit in the other.  See which one fills up first.”  On the other (non-shit-filled) hand, what will get us there is clear, consistent, unequiVOCAL vegan education.

Things have gotten shitty enough in our global society, so I’m not content to simply wish for this critical paradigm shift to happen.  I and my organization, South Florida Vegan Education Group, will continue to engage in abolitionist vegan education and ask that you join us.

From my heart to yours, thank you for listening.

Keith Berger

10/14/2016

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

www.HowToGoVegan.org
www.VeganEducationGroup.com
www.BeFairBeVegan.com

Photo courtesy of www.VeganTrove.com
Abolitionism, Animal Ethics, Animal Rights, Dairy, Eggs, Nonviolence, South Florida Vegan Education Group, Speciesism, Vegan, Vegan Education, Veganism, Violence

Open Minds, Open Hearts – An Open Letter To Non-Vegans

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My name is Keith and I hope you’ll read this essay.

You are not here by accident, mistake or coincidence.  There is a reason you have found this page.  I’m asking your attention for only a few minutes and hoping you’ll seek to answer the three questions at the end of this essay.

What is it that opens a closed mind and lets in the light?  What image, word or sound softens a heart hardened by societal norms, traditions and expectations and allows fairness and justice to flow?  What is the catalyst for one person to change?

I’d like to tell you mine.

I was a staunch meat, dairy, egg and honey eater from as far back as I can remember.  I wore leather, wool, silk and used other products derived from the bodies of animals.  I used products that involved animal testing and contained animal secretions.  I enjoyed various forms of entertainment that involved the use of animals.  In short, I did what it seemed everyone around me did – the things society taught me were acceptable – and I did these things without a second thought.  When I was too ignorant to know that McDonald’s “food” ought to have quote marks around it, I would routinely order 2 Big Macs, a 20-piece McNugget and a chocolate milkshake and have one Big Mac devoured by the time my lunch companions reached the table with their orders.  I ate at every steakhouse I could find, identified my mom’s pork chops as my favorite food on the planet and greedily consumed every type of animal flesh that came my way, from alligator to ostrich, never once giving a second thought to what the consequences of this type of blind consumption were to my health, the health of the planet and – least of all but most importantly – the freedom and lives of the animals I was eating.  After all, they were already dead, so I had no part to play in any of that… right?

I mean, it’s not as if my consumption of and demand for animal products for eating, wearing and other uses was a direct contributing factor in supporting a worldwide system of unjust animal enslavement, abuse, torture, suffering, neglect, indignity and, ultimately, the mercilessly brutal taking of their lives… right?


Wrong.

In 2004 when my cousins sat me down to eat a delicious home-cooked vegan meal and watch Peaceable Kingdom, a beautiful documentary that gently challenged me to examine my beliefs about animals – only hours before which I had defiantly declared, “I’m not drinking your vegan Kool-Aid, so don’t get your hopes up” – I became aware in 70 minutes of what I’d been blind to my entire life: I was complicit in a well-hidden, cruelly concealed worldwide atrocity that was, to my mind and the minds of many others (including Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer) nothing short of an animal holocaust [noun – “destruction or slaughter on a mass scale”; Middle English: from Old French holocauste, via late Latin from Greek holokauston, from holos ‘whole’ + kaustos ‘burned’] bearing similarities to the human Holocaust including but not limited to the stark, overcrowded housing conditions, merciless brutality and the increasingly efficient methods of killing, but differing wildly in terms of sheer numbers.  In fact, there are six million animals slaughtered for food globally every hour of every day.  Six million per hour – the equivalent of the estimated death toll of Jewish people in the human Holocaust every… sixty…minutes.

I had no idea, on any conscious level, that nearly 10 billion land animals and countless sea animals are killed for food every year in the country I call home and in even greater numbers abroad.  I had no conscious awareness that my choices about the food I ate, the clothes I wore and the products I used were directly responsible for the unimaginable suffering and death of countless individuals of other species.  At the end of the film, I had cried more than once and could only sit and mutter, “I had no idea… I had no idea…” and desperately wonder what I could do to stop supporting this nightmare.  The answer was simple – start living vegan.  Change what I can where I stand, right now.

In truth, it wasn’t the sheer numbers that affected me – it was the individuals.  I can’t imagine what six million or ten billion of anything actually looks like, but looking into the terrified eyes of one calf being torn away forever from her mother, one pig in the slaughter line watching his companions hung by their feet and having their throats slit, one baby chick having her beak seared off with a hot blade, one dog being skinned – ALIVE – and thrown in a pile of dying, mutilated dogs, one cow struggling valiantly to evade the man trying to shoot her in the head with the captive bolt gun… that’s what haunted me.  The eyes.

cow-eye

Eyes like yours and mine.  Eyes that rolled in their sockets in pain and anguish.  Eyes that screamed and cried and pleaded.  Eyes that, if they could speak in words, would say, “Why are you doing this to me?  What have I done?  I don’t understand.  Please stop.  You don’t have to do this”.  And though there were no words, I understood the language conveyed by those eyes and I could not pretend to not understand.  I saw the pain, I saw the fear, I saw the misery, I saw the hope and the life drain from those eyes, I saw defeat… and I was affected.

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At that moment, when my closed mind opened, the light inside turned on and my heart spoke louder than my stomach, I knew I had been changed forever and that I could no longer participate in the system I now understood for what it was.  It was then that I began to live vegan – to eschew, wherever possible and practicable, the use of products of animal exploitation and to educate others where and when I could about how they too could stop promoting this injustice.  I hadn’t known till then that there was another choice available – a choice to live a vegan life – and once I knew, I couldn’t un-know.

This footage is not graphic, but it tells a haunting story in three and a half minutes:

My only regret about living vegan is that I didn’t have – or didn’t pay attention to – information that would have gotten me there sooner.

Veganism is a way of living that affords other individuals the dignity, freedom and right to live their lives free from intentional harm and from being treated as the property of others.  It is the spiritual principle of Live and Let Live extended beyond one’s own species.  It is a selfless act in a world overrun with selfishness.  It is putting aside one’s entitlement in favor of allowing other individuals to enjoy life in their own ways.  It is stepping out of an ego-driven, fear-based life into the light of Love.  It is the conscious choice to stop hurting others and, in so doing, to stop hurting oneself and the world we all share.  It is a social justice movement that aims to bring an end to the most violent, egregious and deadly form of oppression on the planet: speciesism.

Speciesism, analogous with racism and sexism, can be defined as a double standard created by humans placing higher moral value on some individual animals over other individual animals, based solely on the morally irrelevant criterion of species membership.

vegan-superior-michele-mccowanVeganism is not some sort of moral “high ground”, but rather a recognition of and respect for equality between individuals.  As my friend Michele McCowan so eloquently put it, “I don’t feel superior because I’m vegan.  The truth is I am vegan because I don’t feel superior to others.”

To define veganism as simply as possible, I take you to the source:

“The word ‘veganism’ denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.” – Vegan Society, 1979

Now that you’ve read what might be some new information (or had some existing information reinforced), I ask you to answer the following three questions:

What is it that might open your mind and let in the light?  What image, word or sound might soften your heart and allow fairness and justice to flow?  What might be your catalyst for change?

If you have even the slightest interest in living vegan or learning more about veganism, here are great places to start:

www.BeFairBeVegan.com
www.HowToGoVegan.org

From my heart to yours, thank you for listening.

Peacelovevegan,

Keith Berger

Co-founder, South Florida Vegan Education Group

[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:
 
Abolitionism, Animal Ethics, Animal Rights, Nonviolence, South Florida Vegan Education Group, Speciesism, Vegan, Vegan Education, Veganism, Welfarism

Essay – I’m An Abolitionist Vegan

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This is a slightly edited version of my submission in 2015 for a collection of essays being compiled and edited for publication by my friend and long-time vegan Butterflies Katz.  The topic I chose is I’m An Abolitionist Vegan.

I’m an abolitionist vegan , but that wasn’t always the case.

For the first 36 years of my life, I did as those around me did – I engaged in the daily consumption of products of animal exploitation.  I thought nothing of eating dead and dismembered animals, swallowing their secretions, wearing their skins and enjoying various forms of entertainment their use provided.  I mean, it wasn’t as if my demand for animal products was a direct contributing factor in supporting a worldwide system of animal enslavement, injustice, suffering, neglect and, ultimately, the mercilessly brutal taking of their lives… right?

Wrong.

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Once exposed to the truth of the system I’ve just described, I was horrified and desperately wanted to “do something” to end these horrors, so I engaged in what I thought was effective animal “rights” activism through animal welfare organizations and their single-issue campaigns.  I was unknowingly caught in a wave of welfarism that often had little or nothing to do with promoting veganism.  Organizations spoke about compassion and I couldn’t articulate then that the problem isn’t a lack of compassion but rather the presence of injustice.  They promoted “incremental changes” and said “every little bit helps”, so I bought into the defeatist attitude that “the world will never go vegan, so let’s make the cages more comfortable”.  I know now that when we advocate for anything less than living vegan, we engender, foster and promote speciesism.

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After a decade of welfarism, I learned of the abolitionist approach to animal rights and my entire perspective changed.  The unassailable logic and clarity of Professor Gary L. Francione’s ideas rang true and helped me understand that clear, consistent vegan education is the most effective way to bring justice to animals by working to give them the right not to be used or abused by humans as disposable, replaceable resources and commodities.

[It is important to note that, while it’s true that my first exposure to abolitionism was through Francione’s work from the 1990s to present, the idea of nonviolent abolitionism, as directly opposed to welfarism, was being developed in relation to veganism and animal rights as far back as 1967 with the publication of Out of the Jungle by H. Jay Dinshah, founder of the American Vegan Society.]

abolitionist-dinshah-1967

(please see our disclaimer about the mention of groups, individuals and organizations)

When we have the opportunity to educate people about veganism as the moral baseline for our treatment of individuals of other species, then as vegans I feel it is incumbent upon us to do so, unflinchingly and unequivocally, and here’s why:  Convince one person to become vegan and you immediately eliminate support for dozens of animal exploitation issues.  Convince ten and you multiply the effect accordingly.  Conversely, convince one person that, for example, circuses are cruel (but not discuss veganism) and s/he may leave the circus… only to arrive two hours earlier at the neighbor’s barbecue and feast on slaughtered animals, never making the connection between the elephant under the big top and the burger on their plate.  Which approach sounds more effective?  Which approach leads to an internal ethical shift?  Which approach leads us in the direction in which we want to go?

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I choose the abolitionist approach.  I am an abolitionist vegan.

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

Be Fair Be Vegan
How To Go Vegan podcast
www.facebook.com/VeganEducationGroup

Animal Ethics, Animal Rights, Speciesism, Uncategorized, Vegan, Vegan Education, Veganism, Welfarism

No More “Putting Ethics Aside”, Please

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Image courtesy of VeganTrove.com
I want to briefly discuss my thoughts about a disturbing phrase I’ve been hearing far too frequently in conversations about veganism.                                                                                                                                                                
I’d like to see those on both sides of the conversation stop saying “putting ethics aside” when the primary and truly critical issue at hand is an ethical one.  When used by vegans (probably at the point that they feel they are losing the ethical argument and need to hurriedly switch gears), this imprudent tactic derails any opportunity to drive home the only argument for veganism that truly matters – if one believes that non-human individuals matter morally and that it is wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering and death on them, then the only logical response is to start living vegan immediately.  Once this primary area of concern has been temporarily dismissed so as to focus on secondary and tertiary matters (examples of which are named below), it is extremely difficult and highly unlikely that it can be revisited with the same power it would have had prior to it being, in effect, intentionally minimized.  When used by non-vegans, it’s an indication that they are experiencing cognitive dissonance triggered by the ethical dilemma being brought to their attention – namely that their behaviors are incongruous with their beliefs – and it is employed as an avoidance mechanism.  It is tantamount to saying, “I don’t want to look at that… so let’s look at this instead while I conveniently forget what it is we were looking at.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
When we “put ethics aside” in almost any situation, we open the door to a myriad of problems, and one need only look at modern political systems to see examples of this in abundance and to observe the negative consequences of taking such an action.  The “putting ethics aside” point in the vegan conversation is usually followed by some discussion about diet, personal health and/or the environment.  Specific to veganism and animal rights, “putting ethics aside” trivializes the injustices inherent in animal exploitation by intentionally overlooking them and starts to frame animal exploitation as a matter of personal choice, which it is not.  Any choice ceases to be “personal” once that choice involves a victim.  This is precisely why laws protect victims of crimes (ostensibly, anyway) and disallow “It was my personal choice to kill that guy, so I’m not guilty!” as a valid legal defense.
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I couldn’t imagine, in situations where the victims were human, anyone saying, “Putting ethics aside, it’s better not to intentionally run someone over with your car because that would cause your insurance to go up and you’d have to pay for some costly auto repairs, not to mention the personal inconvenience of having to clean blood off your bumper.  On the other hand, putting ethics aside again, you could always rob a bank to get the money to pay for all that, provided you don’t get caught, and maybe get rich in the process!”  Such statements shift the focus from an examination of the harm that would befall the potential victim(s) in favor of focusing on the benefits that stand to be gained by the potential perpetrator (in this case, the benefits include the avoidance of negative consequences and a potential financial windfall at the expense of others).  Sadly, when the victims are non-human individuals, speciesism tends to be the default position.  For those unfamiliar with the word, here’s a definition:      
                                                                  
Speciesism (spe·cies·ism) – noun – by analogy with racism and sexism, an unjust double standard placing higher moral value on some individual animals over others, based solely on the morally irrelevant criterion of species membership.                                                                                                                                                                                      
For those of you who are vegan and choose the “putting ethics aside” angle in your advocacy, please ask yourself why you do that.  Why would one make the choice to forego one powerful argument in favor of several weaker ones?  My guess is it’s due to a lack of information, confidence or experience.  I would like to offer the following suggestions to assist with these issues.
  • Please don’t promote, follow or support the large, self-serving, donation-based animal welfare organizations (Vegan Outreach, Mercy for Animals, Compassion Over Killing, H$U$, PeTA and the like) that purport to have the best interests of animal in mind yet make their livings by creating and supporting speciesist single-issue campaigns that intentionally put ethical veganism last in favor of diet, harm reduction and other issues that muddy the waters.  They will sell the idea that clear, consistent vegan education is a less effective advocacy tool than the ones their brand offers, just as any company marketing their wares will sell the idea that their product is the best and all others are obviously inferior, with charts and graphs to back up their assertions.  The world is full of con artists, and the animal welfare organizations certainly seem to have more than their fair share in key public outreach positions.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
  • Since, as mentioned previously, the ethical argument is the only argument for veganism that truly matters, please do all you can to strengthen your working knowledge of the ethical reasons for living vegan.  Join an upcoming online reading group offered by International Vegan Association, an invaluable resource for any vegan advocate of any experience level.  Read abolitionist vegan essays here (and here and here – if you need more and can’t find them, contact me and I’ll guide you), listen to abolitionist vegan podcasts and find other experienced abolitionists with whom you can share advocacy tips and ideas.  This will strengthen your ability to confidently advocate in unequivocal terms for veganism, rather than having to sidetrack both yourself and the non-vegans to whom you’re speaking with tangential matters like diet, health and the environment.  People who “go” vegan for dietary or health reasons tend to “go” back to their old eating habits once they’ve met their weight-loss goals or their health issues have resolved, while those who live vegan for ethical reasons tend to continue living vegan, as personal ethics are not normally subject to change on a whim.  I can’t think of anyone I know who’s truly “vegan for the environment” (plant-based maybe, but not vegan by definition) and if I did, my guess is they’d cheerfully go back to consuming products of animal exploitation if there were a way to do so in an ecologically-conscious manner.  George Carlin, not vegan but a person of masterful insight into human nature, spoke eloquently of such individuals:                                                                                                                                                                             “I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren’t enough bicycle paths.  People trying to make the world safe for their Volvos.  Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet.  They don’t care about the planet.  Not in the abstract they don’t.  You know what they’re interested in?  A clean place to live.  Their own habitat.  They’re worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced.  Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
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“Putting ethics aside” is a step onto a very slippery slope that inevitably leads to tragic ends.  Let’s stay on solid ground and keep our ethics where they need to be – in front of our behaviors, not put aside where they can be mislaid or forgotten about altogether.

[I encourage all readers to click the blue links embedded in this essay and explore the information on those sites.]

Dismantle speciesism.  Live vegan.  Educate others.
 
Start now, here’s how:
 
Abolitionism, Animal Ethics, Animal Rights, Arguments against veganism, Cognitive dissonance, Heterosexism, Intersectionality, Nonviolence, Racism, South Florida Vegan Education Group, Speciesism, Vegan, Vegan Education, Veganism, Violence

On Cognitive Dissonance, Denial and Selfishness

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Would those who argue against veganism (and therefore, by default, in favor of speciesism) be just as quick to argue in favor of racism, sexism, heterosexism or some other form of oppressive injustice involving human victims if perpetuating that particular form of injustice personally benefited them in some way, as does continuing to consume products of animal exploitation?

Fighting against any moral and ethical stance that works toward ending the exploitation of a group, the abolition of which threatens one’s personal pleasure, comfort and convenience (and always at the expense of the exploited group), exposes a perverse form of selfishness on the part of the defender(s) of the exploitation.

vegan-compartmentalizationCognitive dissonance (the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual when confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values) can make it difficult to accept certain truths, but denial of reality never actually changes reality.  Rather, it creates a false premise upon which to predicate one’s behavior and takes one further from the truth of a situation, always with deleterious effects to oneself and others.

Personally, when I was presented with overwhelming evidence that my behavior as a non-vegan was directly contributing to a system of animal slavery, exploitation and needless death (in essence, an animal holocaust claiming billions, and possibly trillions, of sentient beings every year), I took an immediate and unequivocal stand against this injustice and started living vegan within the hour.  It was the only direction that made sense to me, the only way of living I could live with and the single best decision I’ve ever made in my life.  The “transition” was fairly simple and living vegan quickly became, as vegan educator Elena Brodskaya put it, “…not second or third nature, but just Nature”.

It would save an abundance of time and energy – as well as countless lives – if those who oppose veganism would cease their mental and ethical gymnastics, stop trying to find, in the words of the Roman philosopher Seneca, “a right way to do the wrong thing” and just start living 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.]

Keith Berger and Elena Brodskaya – co-founders, SFVEG
Dismantle speciesism.  Live vegan.  Educate others.
 
Start now, here’s how:
 
Animal Ethics, Nonviolence, South Florida Vegan Education Group, Vegan, Vegan Education, Veganism, Welfarism

If You Are New To South Florida Vegan Education Group, Please Start Here

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We at South Florida Vegan Education Group believe that clear, consistent, unequivocal vegan education is the only advocacy method that will successfully bring about the changes for the animals’ lives that we seek in the world.  We believe in creating a peaceful, fair and just world for all beings, regardless of species, through veganism.  We are passionate about empowering individuals with the knowledge that veganism is the primary means of dismantling speciesism and achieving the abolition of animal enslavement, exploitation and execution for human pleasure and convenience, and we do this in a unique way that challenges the status quo of the animal “welfare” movement (and the animal exploiters with whom they purposely partner) as it continues to focus on everything but veganism in order to maximize each other’s profits and keep the wheels of animal agriculture turning.

For anyone who’s new to our page and our group (or for long-timers who haven’t read this yet), we ask that you please read the following:

Having been involved in numerous animal “rights” campaigns over the past decade or more, we find ourselves turned off by these money and membership-driven organizations promoting small “victories” while purposely not focusing on veganism, which is the key to addressing the root of the problem (as opposed to flailing away at the myriad branches of specific abuses growing in every direction).  We can no longer support the big, donation-based, so-called Animal “Rights” organizations in good conscience (their idea of “rights” is actually welfare and “harm reduction”), as our blinders have been lifted and we can see clearly how ineffective their approaches are other than to maintain the status quo that allows – and demands – that non-human individuals be used as disposable, replaceable human property.  The Single Issue Campaigns (SICs) promoted by every major animal welfare organization have not been effective in the past; in fact, they have been hurting the very movement they purport to be championing for over two hundred years!

Please read the following two essays:

My Thoughts on Petitions and Single Issue Campaigns

My thoughts on single-issue animal rights campaigns

It seems that more and more advocates are focusing their time and energy on animal hackingwelfare and abuse “reduction” – while animals remain enslaved in a food/entertainment/fashion/science lab industry – rather than focusing on achieving animals rights through promoting veganism as the moral baseline for our treatment of individuals of other species.  There is a huge difference between the two.  Welfarists celebrate hollow “victories” like bigger cages or one species’ “retirement” from the circus (only to be replaced by another species) while the vegan movement seeks to focus on clear, consistent, unequivocal vegan education.

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How You Can Help Our Education Efforts

South Florida Vegan Education Group is raising funds to cover printing, travel and entry costs for participation in numerous events in Florida which will help us provide important education to people across the state and beyond.  We feel it is crucial that there be a clear and consistent vegan message at events such as these.  By directly engaging with the public, our group provides such a message in an unequivocal manner.  To make a secure, tax-deductible online donation, please click here.

For more information on veganism, please visit:

HowToGoVegan.org
BeFairBeVegan.com

South Florida Vegan Education Group is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.  All donations are tax-deductible.

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Yes, “Cruelty” is the Problem, But Not In the Way You Might Be Thinking

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[Updated 8/8/2017]

If you’re of the opinion that we need to hammer home the gruesome details of animal “cruelty” in order to be effective in our vegan advocacy, I’d like to offer a different opinion.

Taking the road less traveled

On August 14, 2016 at the Fort Lauderdale Animal Adoption Fair, a young man named Celso approached me at the SFVEG Vegan Education Station and asked,

“So, can you educate me?”  I said, “Sure!  What would you like me to educate you about?”  He replied, “Dairy” and, rather than launching into a blood-and-guts crash course about the horrors of the dairy industry, I asked him, “Why don’t you tell me what you think you know about dairy production?”  He began to explain to me, quite accurately, about some of those horrors, indicating he was already aware of the standard abuses inherent in dairy production and went on to tell me he was still unwilling to give up consuming dairy due to “personal pleasure preferences” (his term).  This indicated to me that he was unmoved by what he already knew about the “cruelty” he was supporting and was able to compartmentalize this knowledge and justify that it wasn’t an important situation he needed to address and take a stand against – just as countless other non-vegans do every single day.  Does this make him a “bad” person, a sociopath or a psychopath?  No, at least not by that benchmark.  This makes him “normal” by society’s standards… and it also makes him reachable.

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SFVEG Vegan Education Station – Fort Lauderdale Animal Adoption Fair 8/14/16

This is the point in many conversations between vegans and non-vegans where vegans will dig their heels in and try to drive the “cruelty” argument deeper, sharing gory details and horrific stories, often backing these up with graphic images and terrifying videos while overlooking the reality that this person already knows and hasn’t stopped despite that knowledge, so heading down that path will likely be ineffective.  Many times in many conversations when I used the approach of, “I know you think you know, but you really have no idea – here, let me show you what’s really going on”, I’m met with a dismissive “I don’t wanna know” and it’s game over.  It’s very hard to win someone back when they’ve been driven away, and I feel we need to engage, not outrage, those we wish to educate about veganism.  Here’s how I reached Celso:

I validated that what he knew about dairy was accurate and briefly touched on a couple of pieces he didn’t know (the fate of dairy calves and their permanent separation from their mothers shortly after birth) but I quickly steered the conversation to animal use rather than abuse to refocus on justice.  I guided him to find his own answers by helping him make the ethical connection between veganism and fundamental justice.  I could see the switches switch and the light go on when I pointed to a nearby person and asked Celso, “If that person had something you wanted because it would give you pleasure, would it be ok for you to just take it from her?”  He answered, “No”.  I asked whether it would be ok to take her children from her and he answered, “No” again.  I explained that the only difference between the woman in question and a non-human individual is an arbitrary distinction based on species membership and that these situations represent equal injustices for both groups.  By the end of our conversation (15 minutes or less), he had fist-bumped me twice and thanked me three times “for educating me and taking the time to give me information that is more valuable than I can tell you”.  I gave him information to take with him that will help reinforce our conversation.  Another new vegan is born through clear, consistent vegan education!

Changing the conversation

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.

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HowToGoVegan.org – A Comprehensive Vegan Podcast

From the episode entitled “Humane”: What’s In a Word? on the excellent podcast site How To Go Vegan:

“We tend to only talk about ‘humane’ in relation to humans when we talk about imprisonment, euthanasia, solitary confinement, detention, or killing people.  When we hear the word ‘humane’, we should expect that the outcome for those involved will, no matter what transpires, be less than desirable and will involve some suffering and injustice at best. In the case of sentient animals, our application of what we believe is ‘humane’ for them, if applied to humans, would be considered torture.  In other words, any time that word humane is uttered, it’s almost always the case that something morally questionable and possibly unjust is going to follow, whether it’s execution, refugees, interrogation techniques, asylum seeker detention centres, industrial prisons, or in this case, the animal industry and regulation of animal exploitation.  We know that it will ultimately mean suffering for someone.”

I can’t count the number of times people have said to me, “As long as the animals are slaughtered ‘humanely’, I have no problem eating them, but some of what I’ve seen in those videos is really cruel, so we should at least stop that“, strongly indicating they believe there are acceptable levels of what some might call “cruelty”.  This plays directly into animal welfare campaigns such as Whole Foods’ “5-STEP® ANIMAL WELFARE RATING – Your way of knowing how the animals were raised for the meat you are buying”, which reinforces the “acceptable cruelty” idea and the myth that there is such a thing as “humane” slaughter.  When I make the statement to a non-vegan that it is morally unjustifiable to use any sentient individual, be they human or non-human, as a disposable, replaceable commodity/thing/resource for someone else’s pleasure, entertainment, comfort or convenience, (which covers about 99.9% of all animal use by humans) and demonstrate that this is analogous to racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression in which one group dominates, devalues and disenfranchises another to the benefit of the victimizers and the detriment of the victims, they seem to grasp and understand the idea quickly and clearly.  When I further explain to non-vegans that if they believe these forms of oppression are wrong and don’t support them when the victims are humans, they are demonstrating a lack of integrity – and engaging in speciesism – by supporting the same oppressions when the victims are non-human, they begin to understand that to live in integrity is to live vegan.

I believe the word “cruelty” is too broad and subjective a word to use in a vegan advocacy context and therefore causes unnecessary confusion.  When lives are at stake, which they are here by the trillions, I feel we all need to be as clear and consistent as possible in conveying the message of veganism so we maximize the impact we desire to make while using the least amount of time, energy and resources as possible.

A word from our President

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Elena Brodskaya, co-founder and President of South Florida Vegan Education Group says:

“Talking about cruelty in one’s advocacy is irrelevant because it is synced to emotion, a dangerous territory evoking words like ‘compassion’ and ‘kindness’ in its wake.  An emotional approach has never helped the animals (nor people, for that matter) and never turned anyone vegan, including myself.  Animal rights are about justice, not compassion.   Compassionate people who oppose cruelty are the ones who will sooner donate to a welfare organization than make the connection and change their belief system.   ‘Cruelty’ implies that we ‘need to do something’ to better the industry practices and not go vegan in order to abolish the industry altogether.   Just yesterday I was witness to someone who said he will never, ever go vegan because it’s not a moral issue, however he agrees that we shouldn’t treat animals with cruelty.  Such a backward stance in one’s morals indicates that as Animal Rights Advocates we are not focused on full abolition, but just on eliminating cruelty, thus subliminally giving a green light to everyone to still kill and eat flesh and rape juice.  Abolition seeks to eliminate the use of animals, not to treat them nicely until they are killed.“

The operative words in unequivocal vegan advocacy should not be “cruel” and “cruelty” but “unjust” and “injustice”.  Even if the non-consensual uses of vulnerable individuals in question were devoid of discomfort and injury, they remain unjust.  This is why veganism is indeed a social justice movement and not, as it is often mislabeled, a diet, lifestyle, trend or cult.

Experience matters

Drawing from my own experiences, I will say that it was a combination of logic and emotion that compelled me to start living vegan: I saw horrific atrocities in a semi-graphic video depicting animal abuse on factory farms —> I realized my complicity in said atrocities —> I realized that I don’t support human slavery, so it makes no sense for me to continue supporting non-human slavery now that I know this is what I’m doing, and I began living vegan right then and there.  The entire experience occurred over 70 minutes, but the logical piece took mere seconds: “This is slavery… I don’t support slavery… I’m done.”

From there, I firmly believed that any and every person to whom I showed the same video would begin living vegan immediately afterward, just as I had, because they would have the same emotional/logical response to the information that I’d had.  I mean, how couldn’t they, right?

Wrong.

Here’s the empirical evidence from my experience: not one person I showed the video to (without any accompanying education) decided to live vegan.  Not one.  In fact, to my knowledge, none of them have changed anything about their attitudes and habits when it comes to animal exploitation.  The appeal to emotion simply didn’t cut it, as each person comes from their own perspective on what’s “cruel” and what’s “not so bad”, and what’s unacceptable to one person is acceptable to another.

For the next ten years, fueled mainly by my emotional response to what I’d seen, the focus of my advocacy efforts was on anti-cruelty campaigns and I missed many opportunities to engage the public in direct, honest, unequivocal vegan education because such campaigns, by their very design, avoid focusing on veganism.  When I finally came to understand how ineffective, counterproductive and speciesist these campaigns and the organizations that create them are, my focus shifted to where it would have been best all along.

[A brief side note on the use of graphic imagery in vegan advocacy: “Cruelty” videos and images are certainly compelling and can drive people to action, but humans have built-in forgetters for trauma, so those images and the feelings they elicit in those moments can and often do fade… and when they fade, there’s not much to stop them from going back to consuming non-human animals and their secretions unless they’ve come to believe that it is fundamentally morally unjust to use non-human animals for one’s pleasure.  Once a person understands that it’s our moral obligation to not treat individuals of other species as human property and that to do so is to engage in and support slavery, there’s an internal shift that generally doesn’t un-shift.  Conversely, when people convince themselves that somehow, somewhere, things in the animal agriculture industry are nicer than the graphic images they’ve been shown (which they may believe are anomalies at the extreme end of the “cruelty spectrum”), they will seek out “humane” animal products.  “The reason that cruelty videos can be detrimental to an animal rights organization’s mission is that such videos inherently focus on treatment, not use, even though the cruel treatment is an inevitable symptom of the disease of use.  By focusing on treatment, such videos do not suggest that use ought to end, but that use ought to be regulated.” – UVE Archives, On Cruelty Videos ]

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In my experience, the logical appeal is a different story with a different ending .  Most people have at least a rudimentary understanding (if not more) that something horrific has to happen for a vibrant, living individual to end up drained of blood and life and cut into pieces to be eaten, and yet they continue to consume these individuals with no apparent emotional distress (when confronted with this in my pre-vegan days, I used to rationalize “This cow’s already dead, so what’s the problem?” and devour my steak, etc.).  When individuals are presented with the simple, logical question “Do you believe it’s wrong to cause unnecessary suffering and death to animals for reasons of pleasure, entertainment, comfort or convenience?” (almost all will agree that this is wrong) and then informed that these uses, which are tantamount to slavery (something they would never support were the enslaved individuals human), account for nearly 100% of our society’s animal use, they get the point fairly quickly and start to understand the issue on a level deeper than fleeting emotion.

When we focus on specific cruelties and treatment, this leads to more campaigns for animal welfare rather than the abolition of animal use and a call to justice.

One need only look at the past 200+ years of animal welfare and the infinitesimal “gains” that have been made at that glacial pace (if the fact that more animals are dying in more horrific ways at the hands of humans than ever before in human history can be called a “gain”) to see that the welfare approach to harm reduction simply isn’t going to achieve the goal of ending animal use.  One need only look at the large, donation-based animal welfare organizations and the verbiage they use, even in their names – mercy, compassion, treatment, cruelty, humane – to see how such words again lead down the road to welfare and harm reduction rather than to justice and an end to use.

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All of these organizations appeal to emotions with undercover videos, exposés of “cruelty” and so on, and claim “victory” whenever they and some animal exploiters join forces to compromise on a supposed “improvement” in conditions for those they enslave, i.e.: going “cage-free” nine years down the road. That may arguably reduce the “cruelty”, but it doesn’t lead toward the necessary paradigm shift to abolish the property status of animals.  Rather, the idea that it’s ok to use animals so long as it’s done “less cruelly” is reinforced and driven deeper into the public psyche.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

If the change we wish to see is merely harm reduction, then appeals to emotion will certainly achieve that limited goal, as history has taught us since this has been the case for as long as animal welfare campaigns have been happening (two centuries and counting is a long time to keep advocating for incremental changes).

If our goal is to change the current paradigm so that non-humans cease to be treated as disposable objects for humans to use, then we must appeal to people’s sense of justice through clear, consistent education focusing on veganism as the moral baseline for our treatment of individuals of other species.

Tugging at heartstrings, while effective on some levels, is ultimately a manipulative device.  Solid, direct vegan education is a much more honest approach that leads to a deep and lasting change.

The bottom line needs to be that if we believe it’s wrong/morally unjustifiable to cause unnecessary suffering and death to non-humans for reasons of pleasure, entertainment, comfort and convenience (I frequently  remind non-vegans that even the “kindest” slave owner is still a slave owner), then the right thing to do – the morally just thing to do – is to start living vegan and stop being complicit in all forms of animal exploitation, not just the ones some people define as “cruel”.  Not everyone agrees on what constitutes cruelty and many people see it as a matter of degrees (horribly cruel, really cruel, somewhat cruel, kinda cruel, not all that cruel so therefore acceptable), and this leads to “humane” this and “cage-free” that and we’re right back to the oumoded, counterproductive 19th-century animal welfare model.

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Humans have an uncanny ability to turn off and/or compartmentalize their emotions whenever those emotions run counter to them getting their desires met, whether it be in the consumption of animal products, or rape, or war, or most any violent act.  Unless one is socio- or psychopathic (or severely cognitively impaired), everyone knows all those acts of violence constitute “cruelty”, and yet they continue to happen because humans find ways to minimize, justify, rationalize and deny the consequences of their actions to suit their perceived “needs”.

Logic over emotion

Here’s an unflinchingly honest account of one person’s commitment to the ethical principles of veganism, from my friend and fellow vegan advocate Andy Williams:

“Emotions are fickle things.  If one bases their actions on an emotion, those actions will change when the the emotion fades.  Think back to your first love.  Think of how strong those emotions were.  Are you still in love with that person?  How many people stay with their first love their entire lives?
Sadly, I’ve seen so many people enter into the world of veganism all fired up and filled with enthusiasm.  These people had a true feeling of concern, based on their emotional reaction to the plight of animals.  They were charged up.  They were going to change the world!  However, once the practical implications set in, many found it difficult to maintain their original vigor.  Eventually, one discovers that you actually have to exert a small amount of effort in the process of obtaining your daily food.  One discovers that you can no longer purchase your favorite and familiar products.  One discovers that friends and family will do everything possible to shun you and discourage your actions.  These setbacks have an enormous emotional impact, and many times this is where the cracks start to form.
A person beset with a whirlwind of mixed emotion has no choice but to start bargaining.  Something inevitably has to go.  Will it be the comfort of friends and family?  Will it be the convenience of brain-dead living?  Or will it be this new flame?  In far too many cases, I’ve seen an untempered leap into veganism eventually melt into mere welfarism.  “I really care about these animals, so I’m only going to eat cage free eggs” and “it’s a step in the right direction at least”, and all of the other rationalizations that I’m sure you’ve heard countless times.  People can satisfy their cloying emotional states by taking actions that offer little to no material relief to the animals that they claim to carry so much concern for.
Without the clear understanding of basic concepts like justice and autonomy, then anything goes.  Conversely, when one internalizes the fact that any and all use of animals by humans is wrong, then nothing can shake that foundation.
I myself suffered enormously when first going vegan.  I was still living at home.  My parents saw my decision as a fundamental attack against everything they believed in.  One day, I came home to find the locks changed and all of my possessions on the porch.  I was shocked.  I really had nowhere to go.  I had nowhere to store my belongings.  I lost everything.  I had to drop out of school.  I became homeless.  This was an extremely emotionally devastating experience, but even then, I knew that our actions toward non-human animals should not be based on emotion, but on logical principles.  Animals deserve justice regardless of how it affects us emotionally, and regardless of how difficult it may be.  I was looking at death straight in the face and never compromised an inch.  I can’t say the same for all the sad souls who have come and gone because they did not understand that all use is abuse and our own personal circumstances should not dictate our actions toward animals.”

Like it or not, each of us has a finite amount of time, energy and resources to spend on our advocacy efforts.  Let’s employ those resources in the most effective way we can by engaging in direct, honest vegan education focusing on the fact that all animal use for human gain is exploitative no matter the perceived level of “cruelty” in any particular form of use.  Let’s stay away from confusing words like “cruelty”, “humane”, “treatment” and “abuse” and remember that what we’re working for are justice and an end to use.

[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.]

Keith Berger and Elena Brodskaya – co-founders, SFVEG
Dismantle speciesism.  Live vegan.  Educate others.
 
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"Humane", Abolitionism, Animal Ethics, Animal Rights, Cultured Meat, Dairy, Eggs, South Florida Vegan Education Group, Speciesism, Vegan, Vegan Education, Veganism, Welfarism

Cultured Meat Club (Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?)

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cultured meat 005 question mark

A friend recently suggested I might like a Facebook page devoted to an organization whose goal is to create lab-grown, or cultured, meat.  That friend was wrong.

Because I do not support this idea, I won’t link to that page lest anyone think I’m in favor of it (there are several players in that market – my opposition is not to any specific organization but to the idea itself as I will make clear in this essay).  However, I would like to share my thoughts on lab-grown/cultured/“clean” meat and welcome comments and conversation on the subject.  For simplicity’s sake, I will refer to this product throughout as “cultured meat”.

I see the cultured meat endeavor as problematic in several ways (this is not a comprehensive list by any means).

  1. The current process for creating cultured meat involves the use of fetal calf serum, a product obtained by sticking a needle in the still-beating heart of calf fetuses removed from cows who were pregnant at slaughter (though one potential manufacturer says they’re seeking plant-based alternatives to this gruesomeness).  Therefore, this is just another by-product of the exploitative dairy industry and not something I would remotely support.  Also, if some companies eventually use plant-based sources but others continue using fetal calf serum, there’s really no telling which cultured meat is ending up on the consumer’s plate.
  2. While it’s true that cultured meat could become an available alternative to the traditional consumption of animal corpses (once it passes the point of being a mere novelty item, if that even happens), this a) does nothing to educate the public that meat and all other animal flesh and secretions are an unnecessary inclusion in human diets and b) helps maintain the status quo and reinforces the paradigm that sees non-human individuals as “things” (objectification) and demands they be enslaved and used as human resources for their bodies and secretions.
  3. The availability of cultured meat does not mean that people will automatically choose to consume it and eschew traditionally-obtained meat just because it’s there.  Non-vegans already look askance at vegan food – fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, seeds, legumes – and think what we eat is weird even though it’s the most natural stuff in the world.  Do we really think these same people who handle tofu like they’re trying to defuse a bomb are going to embrace “meat” made in a laboratory or some other industrial setting?  As far back as 2013, the animal agriculture industry was already coming up with propaganda designed to shame “real men” into continuing to eat yummy slaughtered animals and not something grown in a Petri dish (the linked article contains the first use I’ve ever seen of the euphemism “live beef animal”.  They could’ve saved keystrokes and some of my brain cells by simply saying “cow”.  Talk about the language of denial…).
  4. For those non-vegan consumers who do decide they enjoy cultured meat because its texture and taste are similar to traditional meat, what happens when they go shopping or out to eat and the establishments are fresh out of cultured meat, as is bound to frequently happen?  Do you think they’re going to order a nice vegan entree instead… or will they opt for a traditional hamburger, steak, pork chop or chicken breast since this is what they’re used to?  Because no one educated them about veganism since organizations were too busy trying to make the unacceptable acceptable by creating meat-that-isn’t-meat-but-is-really-meat-but-sorta-isn’t-really-meat-but-is-just-like-meat-but-oh-I-give-up, these consumers will continue purchasing someone’s slaughtered remains and again create demand for the continued exploitation and execution of vulnerable individuals of other species.

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The image above illustrates two problems with cultured meat.  One is that without a change in the public mindset and attitude toward the use of non-human individuals as “things” to satisfy their desires (said change can be achieved through vegan education), cultured meat will often be passed up in favor of society’s traditional consumption of animal flesh.  Another is evident in the “How It Works” diagram in which we see that “Tissue is taken from animal’s muscle”, reinforcing the idea yet again that it is morally acceptable to take that which does not belong to us, in this case a part (size notwithstanding) of a nonconsenting individual’s body to serve our own purposes.  Even young children understand intuitively that when something of theirs is taken without their consent, something unfair has happened.  It is a sad indictment of our society that when the majority of these children become adults, they will not only accept larger injustices but promote, condone and profit from them despite intuitively knowing that such actions are morally unjustifiable.

In a sense, cultured meat is to traditional meat what methadone is to heroin – a healthier-seeming (on the surface, anyway) alternative promoted as a harm-reduction solution while in reality just creating its own new set of problems.  As anyone who’s detoxed from both heroin and methadone will attest, methadone is harder to kick by far (with nearly 40 known withdrawal symptoms that last… and last… and last…) and just another substance on which to form a dependency.  Doesn’t it seem logical to avoid the potential negative consequences of both by not using either when there’s absolutely no reason to have them in one’s body in the first place?

There is one particular organization promoting cultured meat (again, I refuse to post a link here and risk even inadvertently promoting such a thing, but feel free to contact me for details if you’d like) co-founded by silver-tongued, supposedly “vegan” hucksters whose combined resumes offer a road map through the very heart of Animal Welfareland, if such organizations even have hearts.  These individuals are standing on the ground floor of what may end up being a very lucrative venture, one that will at best do absolutely nothing to further the cause of justice for non-human animals and at worst set the cause back immeasurably.  Where it will be productive  is in lining their pockets, as they seem to have found a way to become rich(er) at the expense of the animals they purport to want to help.  Here’s what one of the co-founders had to say on the subject:

“…we don’t necessarily need to convince people to make decisions based on ethics if we can simply make products that taste as good, cost less, and are equally convenient.”

Uh… I’m sorry… what???  Are you saying we need to put ethics last behind trivial desires like palate pleasure, personal finances and convenience?  Why, that sounds a lot like the reasons people choose to consume products of animal exploitation in the first place!  And if you believe that people are going to start living vegan simply because you provide them with great tasting alternatives, you’re in denial so deep you’re drowning in it.  So, where do the animals figure into this agenda of yours?

“…making a positive difference for the environment, their own health, and animals.” “…a big win for consumers, for our planet, and for animals.” “…people who are devoting their entire lives to alleviating global poverty or saving the world from the effects of climate change or helping animals.”

Ah, I see – the animals come last, as I would expect from someone whose behavior has reeked of speciesism for as long as I can remember.  Tell me – since you’ve spent decades working for organizations that are supposedly devoted to animal rights, wouldn’t you agree that the animals’ need for justice is of paramount importance and the rewards we receive by abstaining from animal exploitation are simply positive side effects of finally doing the right thing and not a goal in and of themselves?

“…if we don’t eat animals, we’re likely to live longer and better lives…” “…not eating animals, which is good for their health, will have an immediate and positive effect on our health, too.”

Hmm, guess not. That’s an amazing piece of understatement, by the way, that “…not eating animals… is good for their health”.  If anything ever went without saying, it would be that.  Alright then, what exactly is your focus?

“The [organization] is focused on using markets and technology to compete with animal-based meat, dairy, and eggs.”
“Perhaps most critically, I believe that compassion for other animals, which is perhaps best exhibited by refusing to consume them, will lead to a deeper spiritual health and a clearer conscience, which will also improve our mental and emotional health.”

“Perhaps” twice in the same sentence?  That’s equivocation followed by equivocation.  If you were on trial and refused to take a stand twice, I believe you’d be held in contempt of court.  As for the “clearer conscience”, I have to wonder how clear one’s conscience could be when one purposely chooses personal profit over ethics.  I do understand how you, as a career speciesist, would mistake injustice for a lack of compassion and how that would leave you confused as to what a refusal to consume animals (and their secretions, which you seem to have overlooked) signifies.  The welfarist statement you’ve made that “compassion for other animals… is perhaps best exhibited by refusing to consume them” would indicate that you believe there is a spectrum of other, not-quite-best-but-still-acceptable methods of showing “compassion”, such as increasing the size of cages in which non-human individuals are confined against their wills, more “humane” slaughter techniques and other “improvements” (alterations, really) in animal slavery that simultaneously help maximize profits for suppliers and maximize donations for animal welfare groups.  Not unexpectedly, these are the types of campaigns in which the groups for whom you’ve worked specialize.  Statements like this clearly identify the problem with focusing on “compassion” and animal abuse rather than justice and animal use, and equivocation naturally follows.  What also naturally follows is that individuals with such attitudes would gravitate toward, work for and create organizations that reflect a similar misunderstanding of the problem and its solution.  After all, water seeks its own level and like attracts like.

It’s well past time we stopped looking for every way in the world to get people to stop exploiting non-human animals a little bit at a time (a position and strategy that would rightly be seen as completely unacceptable if the exploited victims were human) and discounting the one that’s actually most effective – clear, consistent, non-violent vegan education.  It works.

The simplest and most immediate action one can take to stop the violent oppression and exploitation of the most vulnerable members of our global society – non-human individuals – is to start living vegan.  There are no valid reasons not to; there are only morally unjustifiable excuses to hide behind.

Here are links to a two-part podcast (approximate duration 23 minutes) and one other from Vegan Trove that delves deeper into the problems with this idea:

 Clean Meat” Part 1: Some Ethical Considerations

“Clean Meat” Part 2: Some Practical Implications and Unforeseen Outcomes”

The Science of “SuperMeat” : If It Sounds Too Good To Be True, It Probably Is | Vegan Trove

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

HowToGoVegan.org

www.VeganEducationGroup.com