On the subject of Animal Rights ...

This subject causes indignation and embarrassment to most omnivores. They don’t like responding to it. But some do. They even turn vegan. Some, who’ve been vegan a while, try to start a revolution with it and others don’t go quite that far. This subject, rejected or embraced, is quite hot. It stirs something.
Excluding very few ‘from-birth’ vegans, all of us have, at some stage, been omnivores. We can’t get too high and mighty about our present views because, once upon a time, we each had our own ‘good reasons’ for resisting ‘compassionate arguments’. We were condoners of the exploiters and we practised animal-eating.
Then, one day, something happens and we make a move, leaving behind those for whom that same thing doesn’t happen. Even when these people know about animal exploitation they don’t take veganism seriously because they’re reluctant to turn into herbivores.
So the jump to herbivore, for whatever reason, is such a major departure that most people think those who jump are mad. But after 70 years of research it’s been proved safe. Since back then, at the start of veganism (which incidentally coincided with the start of factory farming), so much has been discovered, and yet there are still pitifully small numbers of vegans and still large numbers of executed-animals being consumed by a vast majority of people.
In reply to vegan arguments, most omnivores don’t, won’t or can’t agree with us. When vegans realise how reluctant people are we get frustrated. We lose patience. Our lack of patience shows and puts people off finding out what we’ve got to say. And that’s the tragedy. Our losing patience, losing faith in people. And that’s why we should be practising the art of patience, with the rigour of a track-athlete. Patience is a must because of the magnitude of what we’re attempting to pull off here.
In our Western societies, even in UK where there is a sizable vegan presence, we can see no BIG change in public attitude. (The papers aren’t supportive, the media in general is not making this into an ‘interesting subject’, teachers aren’t teaching it and priests aren’t preaching it). The concept of veganism, in combination with animal rights, is thoroughly ignored, even by the most educated and economically well-off people. That’s depressing ... but we can’t afford to get bitter or people-hating about it. Instead we need to enjoy acting constructively and persist with “what feels right to do”. Hold that thought.
Forecasting: it could go either way. There will either be a growth of violence in society or a growth of non-violence. It’s a big question. Optimists sticks to the latter prediction.
No one is actually welcoming greater violence in our society and yet we do give in to it. We accept that it “probably comes with the territory” - the big temptation is violence-produced food product. This is where most of our violence comes from, in condoning it and by being physically poisoned by it. It’s concealed in many ways but the food, the cruelty is kept from us as far as possible ... so our animal food doesn’t look violent because there’s nothing about it to indicate the suffering behind it. It’s hidden. There’s no recognition of the animal in the clean plastic trays of ex-sanguine-ated, headless, footless and de-gutted body-parts. There’s no reminder of the food’s real origin. The propaganda does the rest ... so, to omnivores this is just food and it looks a lot better than a vegan ‘rabbit diet’.
Animal-based food, for omnivores, is simply a sensory matter. It’s cuisine with no strings attached. For the average omnivore there’s nothing quite like meat, cheese and eggs and all their derivatives. Okay, there’s not much more you can say about food, but the other problem we have about this whole subject is how to discuss it, how not to taboo it.
Slowly the issues are emerging. Vegans are asking a few piercing questions. (So are vegetarians who are concerned about animal welfare, although it’s arguable that they have any right to speak on the animals’ behalf, since they have double standards - they still eat them or their deadly by-products).
The taboo surrounding animal-use protects people to some extent but the lingering question remains (and already haunts many animal-eaters) - how cold hearted have humans become? Can we help to support what they do to animals and can we continue to enjoy eating them?