Making Connections
Veganism and Prison Abolition [The Vegan Ideal]
When I first started the Carnival of Empty Cages (in 2006, I think), I named it that for a reason. I told be to “think creatively about what cages we need to empty.” I did this because I wanted people to include prison abolition in this discussion, but I hoped folks would come to this conclusion on their own. Nine carnivals later and I am ecstatic to announce the first such post… AND it connects veganism! Thanks, Dani! Now the veil is lifted… I (and Deep Roots) want to have sincere dialog about prison abolition and how it relates to the abolition of all oppression and exploitation (this is why we table with prison abolition literature next to our AR lit).

Now’s the Time (No Time Like Now) [SuperWeed]
Pattrice has a great post about the food-feed-fuel conflict that is driving the global food crisis. I particularly like her conclusion that vegan advocates should seize the day to tout the cost efficiency of a vegan diet (while not ignoring the ethics, of course). The Vegan Ideal has a post on food distribution arguing that veganism must create a shift in power.

Mutt, Mulatto, Mule? [Vegans of Color]
Amalgamated looks at the history of the word mutt and shows how people of color are referred to as non-human animals and how non-human animals are considered lower than humans.

Call for Proposals: Coming Out for Animals [Queering Animal Liberation]
Kim Stallwood, pattrice jones, and Olivia Lane are putting together a book looking at the links between Queer identity/activism and animal liberation. This is the call for submissions. The deadline is August 30th.

There have been some criticisms of this call (hopefully constructive criticisms) from The Vegan Ideal and us here at Deep Roots.

Stupid Things Herbivore’s Say: Worry About Human Rights, Not Animal Rights [Vegan Soapbox]
Eccentric Vegan responds to the notion that worrying about animal rights and being vegan are wastes of time until all humans live in an egalitarian society.

Torture: It’s A Dog’s Life [The Vegan Ideal]
Dani talks about how torture techniques used on prisoners in the so-called “War on Terror” were developed on dogs in the 1970s. The posts then goes on to examine how the original research into these techniques should also be considered torture. Its quite simple really.

Alliance Building and Militarism [The Vegan Ideal]
I know, a lot of posts from The Vegan Ideal. What can I say, Dani does good work. This is about how PETA, in its denouncement of the military’s use of pigs as targets, fails to make an important alliance between the peace and animal lib movements.

Animals and the Environment
Environmental Protection and Animal Rights [Happy Vegetable]
The Happy Vegetable talks about the need for vegans to recognize that veganism is a great step for the environment, but its not enough.

Living a vegan lifestyle is your personal protest against animal cruelty. So don’t let it stop with what you put in your mouth or what you wear.

Deb at Invinsible Voices also had a couple of related posts including one on transitioning to a bicycle and another visual post this month showing the connections between animal rights and the environment.

Random Animal Rights Stuff
Animal Rights 101, part four: Property Status [An Animal-Friendly Life]
Despite wearing a cast, Eric managed to put together the four part in his introductory series to animal rights.

Unlike bicycles and all other inanimate objects, sentient animals do have interests that merit consideration, and this presents us with our problem: Because they are legally classified as property that humans may use as a means to any recognized end, just like inanimate objects such as bicycles, they are prevented from possessing any legal rights that would protect their interests.

On Honest Meat and Absent Referents [Animal Person]
Mary talks about what isn’t being talked about when animal exploiters refer to “production.” Ok, I’m a sucker for discussions on absent referents.

Woman Sentenced to 2 Years for Rescuing Dog, “Terrorists” Rescue More Animals in Retaliation [Green Is The New Red]
Will writes about a UK activist who was just sentenced to two years in prison for rescuing a dog after animal agencies wouldn’t respond to calls of abuse.

H Partners Dumps All HLS (LSR) Shares [Food Fight!]
Food Fight shares the good news that the second largest institutional investor in HLS (LSR), the largest contract animal testing company, has dropped their entire $22,452,000 HLS portfolio. It took less than a month and all SHAC had to do was basically ask. Maybe H Partners care about animal rights, maybe they were just scared to be a SHAC target. Who cares.

Hog Wrestling in Wisconsin [Veg Blog]
Ryan talks about an annual hog wrestling event in Wisconsin (complete with disturbing picture) and why no amount of claims cannot make such events humane. Kelly at Smite Me! also wrote a little more in depth about the hog wrestling event.

William Saletan: The new hierarchy of GAP [An Animal-Friendly Life]
Eric responds to the Spanish parliament’s decision to extend the right to life and freedom to great apes. His conclusion is beautiful:

Animal activists often take approaches like GAP to be tactical means to the end of extending rights to all animals some day (as points of spears and such), but this kind of thinking misses the mark. We don’t need to extend the hierarchy, we need to erase that hierarchy entirely

Shouldn’t we simply avoid cruelty? [That Vegan Girl]
Alex writes about how we do not avoid certain actions because those actions are considered cruel (or because laws tell us not to), but rather because ethical imperatives stop us.

It’s not euthanasia! [That Vegan Girl]
Alex explains that using “euthanasia” to describe the process of killing animals in shelters is a misnomer. Thanks, Alex! The misuse of the term euthanasia is a pet peeve of mine.

The motive of the person who commits an act of euthanasia is to benefit the one whose death is brought about. The individual who is suffering has an exceedingly poor quality of life, for example, and is, therefore, the direct object of concern.

I decided not to break the posts into categories this edition because there were a lot of posts that didn’t easily fit into a box. I guess that’s a downside to seeing the interconnectedness of everything:)

Animal Rights 101 [An Animal-Friendly Life]
Eric Prescott has started a series of posts to introduce people to the fundamentals of the abolitionist approach to animal rights. The series now consists of three parts. Part One: The Need talks about why we need to clearly define animal rights. The second part, Rights, breaks down the differences and connections between legal and moral rights. And part three, Animal Rights, delves into the notion of sentience and the basis of equal consideration.

With greater clarity, precision, and stronger claims-making, our movement will be more coherent as it strikes at the roots of animal exploitation, rather than spending vast resources on efforts for nonhuman beings that on the surface seem good, but which ultimately do very little for them individually and may well further entrench their status as property for humans to use for the foreseeable future.

Veganism, Privilege and Liberation [The Vegan Ideal]
Dani, at The Vegan Ideal, writes about veganism as an ideology of liberation that renounces human privilege.

Theory and practice are one; you can’t “renounce absolutely … the right to use” without, at the same time, renouncing the actual use and the benefits of that use.

Full Frontal Factory Farming [Elaine Vigneault]
Many of us radicals and progressives have challenged PETA’s use of women in their campaigns. This is an excellent post from Elaine that challenges us to take a closer look at what is going on with these demonstrations and to open our minds to the idea that perhaps PETA may have a feminist perspective after all.

Speciesism: It’s Only Human [The Vegan Ideal]
The thing I like most about this post is that you could easily substitute some words and be talking about ableism, classism, racism, sexism, sizism or any other systematic oppression. Dani wrote a good follow-up, too, called Challenging the Structure of Nonhuman Oppression.

PPS Calls for Change in Direction of Vegan Advocacy [Animal Person]
Mary Martin, of Animal Person, toots the horn of the Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary and breaks down why the change in vegan advocacy is essential. Be sure to check out the original article from PPS, too.

if you believe there’s no such thing as humane farming, you do your own message a disservice by using “factory farming” as your descriptor because that creates an opening for the acceptance of an alternative.

On Speciesism, the ALF and the Media [Animal Person]
Mary sets a great example with this post. She opens her mind to the possibility of expanding definitions and encouraging new tactics in the name of strengthening strategies for an end goal: animal liberation. She also does a great job at address the concern of “negative media image” of ALF actions hurting the animal rights cause. And if that post wasn’t enough, she has a great follow-up responding to the backlash.

When one claims to be against speciesism, but would use certain tactics in the service of humans but not nonhumans, I have no choice but to say that’s a profound contradiction (a.k.a., hypocrisy).

Robot Monkeys [The PETA Files]
Grace gives us a perfect example of unnecessary animal testing. While the implications of a prosthetic limb can prove to be helpful to amputees, the argument for using monkeys in the experiment becomes morally bankrupt when it is leaked that the study has already been conducted… with humans.

The electrodes in the monkeys’ brains were attached to a computer, and the computer was attached to a robotic arm. The vivisectors restrained the monkeys’ arms and had the animals use their thoughts to move the robotic arm to their mouths so that they could get the food.

Earth Balance, palm oil, rainforests and RAN [Invisible Voices]
Deb over at Invisible Voices openly shares her struggle with coming to terms about the fact that the beloved vegan butter, Earth Balance, kills animals by destroying habitat, not to mention displacing communities, exploiting workers, and killing other species. Not that palm oil is particularly insidious (as Deb admits in the comments), environmental destruction is a part of industrial farming, but there is an active campaign to stop the deforestation caused by palm oil.

Every time I turn around, I’m reminded about how intertwined these issues are. Social justice, environmental protection, animal rights. Palm oil is a hat trick of issues, and it is something we all need to pay attention to.

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.

In 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!

With this edition of the Carnival of Empty Cages, we announce that the Deep Roots blog will now be the permanent host of the carnival and that the carnival will be published on a monthly basis! Please help spread the word about the animal lib blogosphere by submitting posts to future editions of the carnival and linking back to us. Enjoy!

Connecting Oppression

In his post Is Heterosexism Different?, Gary Francione talks about the links between [tag]speciesism[/tag] and [tag]heterosexism[/tag] by responding to the following question that he received:

I understand that speciesism is problematic because it is like racism and sexism because it attaches a negative value to species in the same way that racism attaches a negative value to race or sexism attaches a negative value to the status of being a woman. But you also often liken speciesism to heterosexism and I think that there is a difference here because unlike race or sex, which have no inherent moral value, sexual relations between members of the same sex may be considered as immoral because such conduct is not natural.

Sistah Vegan discusses a challenge to PETA’s Animal Liberation Project and the [tag]animal rights[/tag] movement as a whole in the post Unresolved Trauma from Experiencing Racism (and not experiencing it). The post talks about the balance of connecting issues of speciesism and racism while also dealing with the triggers and trauma from generations of racism (and being compared to animals).

Focusing on PETA’s attack of Michael Moore and fat people in general, Ryan at Veg Blog discusses Anti-Fat Sentiment in Animal Rights.

Sometimes its the comments section of a post that interest me most. Such is the case with the post Confessions of a (former) breeder at Invisible Voices. About halfway down the comments section, Pattrice Jones initiates a great dialogue about reproductive freedom and how it connects the liberation of humans and non-human animals.

Of Human and Non-Human Animals reminds us that meat isn’t just bad for animals, its also the most danger industry for human workers.

Few people realize that, in a country like the USA, meatpacking is the most dangerous occupation.

In the year 2000, about 25 percent of all employees of American meatpacking plants had non-fatal occupational injuries or job-related illnesses: that is as many as 4 times the national average for all private industry sectors.

I had planned to write a post for this carnival critiquing PETA’s recent State of the Union video, which features a woman stripping (eventually to the point of full frontal) while talking about PETA’s campaigns, but alas Gary Francione beat me to the punch. Nothing wrong with that, though, as Gary has done a wonderful job at highlighting what is so wrong with PETA’s pornography.

First, these campaigns commodify a traditionally disempowered group (women) as a supposed means to the end of helping another disempowered group (nonhumans). But what sense does it make to say that we should treat one group instrumentally in order to help another group? It does not make any sense whatsoever. Indeed, by encouraging the public to see women as objects, PETA merely ensures that people will continue to see nonhumans as objects. As long as we continue to treat women like meat, we will continue to treat nonhumans as meat.

Animals as Food

Bruce Friedrich over at the Huffington Post write about a growing trend among “conscious consumers”: [tag]humane meat[/tag]. Friedrich, however, boils the topic down to one question: would you (as a compassionate consumer) be be willing to cut an animal’s throat?

With 111 shark species on the World Conservation Union’s Red List, the issue of shark protection is starting to become popular these days. Anita Wolff at Britannica Blog published a post about the shark’s deadliest predator: humans.

Another post, or rather a series of posts, dealing with “compassionate consumers” is Animal Writings’ three-part series on Advocating to Free-Rangers. In part one of the series, entitled Understanding Why They Buy Free-Range/Cage-Free, Gary shares his observations about the ethical basis (even if weak) for why people choose free-range or cage-free eggs. Part two, Leveraging Their Consciences to Get Them Closer to Veganism, deals with using that ethical basis as a way to push their logic a little further towards a more compassionate living standard. And part three, Organizations’ Message, discusses the need for organizations (and individual vegans) to really focus on getting the most out of their messaging with regards to promoting veganism as an ethical living standard.

Gregory McNamee at Britannica Blog has a post about Horse Slaughter in America. Although miniscule in comparison to the slaughter of chickens, cows, and pigs, the number of horses slaughtered in the U.S. for food in 2006 was around 100,000. This post discusses why we are slaughtering horses for food and what we can do to stop it.

Animal Rights and the Environment

Pattrice Jones’ post entitled Drought and Despair takes the issue of drought and uses it to connect struggles of liberation and personal mental health.

Animal liberationists often talk about how the best thing you can do for the environment is to go vegan. Invisible Voices published a post (Environmentalism: Part of Animal Rights) along these lines, but highlighting how many of our environmentally destructive patterns are antithetical to animal liberation.

Gary at Animal Writings has a short and simple Two Simple Ways to Help Birds. After all, wild birds deserve the right to a home and food, too.

Veganism, Speciesism, Abolition and Animal Rights

It seems more and more discussion is being heard about why [tag]veganism[/tag] must be at the root of any movement for animal rights. The Garys have both weighed in on this topic. Gary at Animal Writings writes about why he is vegan to reduce animal suffering and Gary Francione writes that veganism is the fundamental principle of abolitionism.

For new vegans, Ryan at The Veg Blog has some good tips on label reading for beginners. He also compiled a list of 10 Ways To Be A Kick-Ass Vegan.

Jenna, over at VeganFreaks, has a very interesting and compelling argument against speciesism using the notion of semiotic communication as one way to point out the sentience of non-humyn animals. Along that same line of thought, Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary has a post about pig love and sentience.

Eric at An Animal-Friendly Life writes about the Language of Liberation

Well-chosen words hold the secret to liberating animals, those who cannot speak for themselves. How? Because emancipation begins in the mind. We can physically rescue as many individual nonhuman animals as we want, but the only way to truly achieve lasting liberation for all nonhuman beings is to first alter the mindset, or attitudes, of a meaningful percentage of those responsible for their exploitation.

Another post from superblogger Ryan discusses a key reason as to Why We Need to Rethink Welfare – we’re doing the industry’s marketing for them.

Animal Person has a post fisking a New York Times article on Nonhumans as Property. Mary points out that it is this status as property that needs the full attention of animal rights advocates.

Randomness

Invisible Voices has a really nice and important post sparked by Pattrice Jones’ book Aftershock.

I wouldn’t have ever described myself as someone dealing with trauma, and my activism tends to be low-key, low-risk. Yet we all deal with the repeated trauma of facing what goes on in this world, to humans and non-humans, as we work to enact change. It doesn’t have to be something as obvious as being beaten by the police or rescuing animals at our own peril to put us in the position of dealing with trauma. And burnout.

Will Potter writes about an odd case where Death Threats to Biologists “Not Necessarily a Crime”. It is, of course, another example of double standards.

Last but certainly not least, Britannica Blog has yet another post dealing with animal exploitation. This one, The Bull Market in Bear Parts, talks about the growing trade in bear parts as medicine and how this is leading to the “farming” of bears.

Well, that’s it for this edition. I know its all a little overwhelming, but there was a lot of catching up to do. Please be sure to submit your post (or any other great animal lib related posts you like) at http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_197.html. The next edition of the carnival will be posted at the beginning of November, so be sure to get your submissions in before the end of the month.