Totally Not Vegan #55

Today is [tag]World Vegan Day[/tag] and what better way to celebrate than to release another edition of the Carnival of Empty Cages? This edition of the carnival focuses a lot on being active in the struggle for animal rights. Fighting an uphill battle can be difficult. That’s why it is important for those that have been active to share their experiences - beginner and seasoned. I tried to pick posts that I felt gave practical skills and knowledge for staying healthy, active and effective.

This also means that I chose to highlight some posts that talk about the interconnectedness of struggle. If we are going to be truly effective as a global movement for compassion and justice, then we must learn to recognize how to work in solidarity with all such struggles and to incorporate those struggles into our daily activism.

I end the carnival on a lighter note, however. You’ll just have to read through to find out what it is.

Since it is World Vegan Day, lets start with an op-ed posted just this morning from Eric Prescott at An Animal-Friendly Life about celebrating the day.

November 1st is World Vegan Day, a time when millions of people around the world celebrate veganism, a way of living that seeks to eliminate the exploitation of animals for our own use. And what a lifestyle to celebrate! There are not many opportunities for the average person to make a difference in their world, but veganism is a powerful statement for peace that one can make at every meal. By removing the violence from our plates–meat, eggs and dairy products–we are consciously choosing to cultivate a more compassionate society, one in which animals’ interests are taken seriously. When we stop killing other individual sentient beings simply because we enjoy the taste of their flesh and secretions, we begin to see just how far the consequences of all our actions go.

Making Connections
To stay in the spirit of World Vegan Day, the next post, from SuperWeed, focuses on Animal Rights in South Africa, a book from South African author Michele Pickover.

If you’re not South African or even African, why should you read a book about animal rights in South Africa? Well, first of all, it’s always useful to find out how activists in other countries analyze and approach problems. And it’s always important to pay attention to South Africa, where post Apartheid democracy has been an object lesson in opportunity and challenge. Remember, it’s only been since 1994 that the black majority has had full rights. Contrary to the fearful predictions of some whites, that majority did not elect to retaliate for years of violent repression and discrimination, instead instituting a Truth and Reconciliation Commission specifically designed to promote healing within justice. Black-led South Africa was also the first country in the world to write equal rights for gay and lesbian citizens into its constitution.

squirrel gone wildIn Squirrels [and Black Men] Gone Wild, Sistah Vegan talks about how the magazine Outdoor Life seems to equate the hatred of squirrels with the hatred of Black and Latino men.

WHY THE HELL IN 2007, IS THIS CARTOON ALLOWED, WHEN THE UNDERLYING MESSAGE IS BOTH SPECIESIST AND RACIST? Is the implication that black and Latino men involved in thug and gangsta life (or maybe if they aren’t even involved in gangsta life, but by default “gone wild” because they are black and Latino in a white culture that constructs them as deviant “at birth) are “animals”? Is this why, when the cartoonist decided to illustrate a “humanoid” version of a squirrel “gone bad”, he can only think of his perception of the deviant a black or Latino male that could also invade the white family’s reality and attack them?

Gary Francione, Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach, is always good at cutting through the malarkey of moral disconnect. In his recent post, Equality and Similarity to Humans , he deconstructs the arguments of animal ethicists who still choose to create humanocentric hierarchies.

as I argued in my chapter in The Great Ape Project and as I have said repeatedly since then, the right to full membership in the moral community and the right not to be treated as property is dependent on only one characteristic—sentience. If a nonhuman is sentient, then we have a moral obligation not to treat that being as a resource or commodity. The fact that a dog may not have the same sort of reflective self-awareness that a chimpanzee has does not mean that the dog and the chimpanzee are not equal for the purpose of not having their fundamental interests in life and in not suffering disregarded if it benefits someone else to do so.

In her post, Blogging against abuse, a blog for hope, Deb at Invisible Voices writes beautifully about the interconnectedness of issues of abuse and how thinking big provides her with a sense of hope.

When we are born, we are not sexist, we are not racist, and we are not even likely to abuse or exploit other species. We have all witnessed the child’s wonder and awe at nature’s everyday miracles. A child committing animal abuse is seen as a future psychopath and/or sociopath. So what happens? How do we go from the innocent child to being sexist and racist and turning a blind eye to a variety of abuses in society and in our community?

Becoming and Staying Active
In her post, Nurting activism, the ever insightful Pattrice Jones talks about the need for animal rights activists to stop for a moment and make sure we are taking care of our own animal rights.

As an activist, your most important tool is your body, including your brain. Can you imagine an auto mechanic bragging about leaving his tools out in the rain to get rusted and then trying to use them anyway? That’s what we do when we boast about going without sleep or skipping meals because we’re so hard at work. What we need to do instead is respect our tools. Eat well, get enough rest, stay hydrated (that’s the one I always forget), and don’t forget to breathe. Get some fresh air and exercise every day. (You can incorporate that into your activism by leafleting or doing some other activity that gets you walking around outside.) And don’t forget to give your body whatever (safe and consensual) pleasures it craves.

In his new column at Taste Better, Eric Prescott talks about the power of privilege and how once we have met our own needs, we then need to use our privileges to affect social change.

And that’s why I’m an activist. When I examine my needs, frivolous pastimes plunge way down the list of priorities. I don’t mean to suggest that compassionate people can never take a break and give their minds a genuine rest, but I do believe that filling one’s life with so much distraction that one is blinded to moral obligations is a major problem for so many privileged people in the world. For me, knowing that I’m in a position to effect positive changes in the world, I feel obligated to do what I can in that regard.

In Vegan FAQs, which is a great blog for new and non-vegans, drasch23 responds to a non-issue that many animal rights activists hear on a regular basis: I can’t worry about animals when so many people are suffering.

There is no reason that animal suffering and human suffering have to be separate. There is no reason that you cannot work towards ending both. In fact, if you look at the parallels between animal and human slavery, it doesn’t make sense to separate the two.

Continuing his series on advocating to free-rangers, Gary at Animal Writings published Organizations’ Message Part 2 and Sanctuaries as activism.

For meat-eaters, as well as lacto-ovo vegetarians, a visit to the animal sanctuary can be transformative. There is something about meeting the animals, seeing them close-up, watching them purposefully going about their days and expressing their personalities, that is not possible to convey in words or brochures, or even in a video.

Elaine Vigneault reminds us why it is so important for animal rights activists to create support networks in our lives. In her post, The Personal Is Political, Elaine shares a recent story about a group of ninth graders who talked to their class about vegetarianism and were subsequently taunted and then punished by the school administration.

Rather than remind the parents that a school is a place of learning, the administration turned on the advocates. According to McMahon’s mother, “They talked vaguely: ‘This will be a mark against you,’” and threatened to not allow the advocates to go on a class field trip later in the year, as punishment.

The harassment and unfriendly administration has led McMahon to leave the school altogether, and she will be home-schooled for the rest of the school year.

Issues
I’ve been a little annoyed by a lot of animal rights activists decrying of the surge of horse slaughtering in Mexico while ignoring the fact that there has been a similar increase in Canada. Eric Prescott doesn’t play the finger pointing game and, instead, promotes a bill in congress that would stop the exportat of horses for slaughter.Stop the export of horse slaughter.

Deb, at Invisible Voices, shares a humorous tale of how one person’s poor excuse for not going vegan provoked some further investigation into cell phones and birds. On a personal note, this reminded me of a time we were doing some street theater against hunting when someone came up and started yelling at us for driving. The ironic thing was that we had walked the three miles or so to where we were performing.

Animal Person Mary Martin chimes in on a couple of issues. The first of which is racing animals for entertainment (and the always original claim that dogs and horses just love to run), and the second is about the federal government’s killing of 1.6 million animals last year, including many endangered wolves, as a means of wildlife management.

Just for Fun
If you haven’t already seen it, you should check out the new online animated series, Tofu, the vegan zombie. The production put into this project is incredible.

Ryan over at The Veg Blog has put together a Triple Cookbook Review of The Vegan Family Cookbook, Vegan Success, and one of my old faves, Please Don’t Feed The Bears.

That wraps it up for this edition of the Carnival of Empty Cages. Don’t worry, it will be back next month, so be sure to submit your posts through the official form or by emailing me (chris [at] deeprootssanctuary.org). Hope you enjoyed it!