Silence and scandal

Are we concerned about the way people are being kept misinformed today? … information isn’t prohibited or censored, but there’s a silence surrounding some things, particularly the animal scandal. Indeed the silence is so complete about animal exploitation that even the most outrageous aspects go unreported. People are ‘protected’ from knowing the truth - that animals are being attacked on a massive scale, everyday and everywhere. And because the media is weak there are no channels of communication open to us, to keep people informed about the scandal. The authorities try to give the impression that nothing bad is actually happening. It might seem incredible that educated and otherwise well informed people go along with the deception, but how is anyone supposed to be sure who to believe these days?
I suspect it’s the ordinary people, informed or otherwise, who’ll be most outraged when they eventually learn what’s going on. Once they realise they’ve been ‘protected from information’ they will almost certainly look around for a brave journalist, who can reveal the scale of animal cruelty and report what’s going on. And from the report the true scandal will appear.
Here are some possibilities, some ‘coulds’.
A scandal could stimulate an enquiry, which could take on a momentum of its own. A cover up of facts is something, once rolling, the media could lap up. Although animal cruelty might constitute the original scandal it’s more likely that the scale of the cover up could be the bigger story. It might start with uncovering the disastrous health consequences of animal food but, because of the added cruelty factor, it may take on the proportions of a scandal and be far too much to sweep under the carpet. Out of this could come a determination to clean up the mess, once and for all. To keep us all in the dark over our food and the sorts of places our foods come from it is a gap in our education we’d not want to pass on to future generations. The prospect for any of us to be ‘information protected’ is as frightening as the cruelty itself – people would have to come to the conclusion that humans can’t be trusted around animals. On realising this we let the animal industries go bust, and then look at alternative approaches. Which is where vegans would have to ‘be available’ with some useful information to help people make a practical transition. At this point that’s the last thing vegans need to be - angry.
Instead of feeling angry at people’s behaviour now, vegans need to look ahead, to be in the best position to alert people, inform them, answer their questions and provide practical assistance. As vegans we might want it all to happen now, but in reality it will take time during which many things have to happen. Veganism must seem significant before our brave and talented journalists could sell their story. We can’t hurry the process by going up to people and shaking them … much as we might like to. So, how do we set the approach roads so that those who are interested will feel safe? And other people, who might be hostile are given the best chance to understand what is happening? If we seem helpful we’ll be listened to. If we appear angry we’ll frighten people away.