No thanks - not if you’re vegan

“Someone at the door”- and another voice from inside, “Tell ‘em to piss-off if they’re Jehovah’s Witnesses”.
It’s not much different for vegans trying to get a toe hold on the private beliefs of omnivores. We know they want us to piss off and indeed can see why - we vegans are distasteful people. We stir. But as people we needn’t be distasteful nor in fact give them any excuse to dislike us. They may dislike the message but not the messenger.
We all feel distaste but perhaps we should reserve it for the animal industry - for their cruelty but mainly for their use of sophisticated methods to hook people on their ‘stuff’. Misinformation is everywhere, poured out in messages on air and in the print media. This distaste we all feel, it may be undefined but unless you’re moving towards becoming a vegan you won’t want it to be defined.
We’re putting things off in a very weird way, we humans. It was never just a matter of “not knowing” about this - we’ve known about it since the 1970s. And it’s clear to everyone that things have gotten much worse since then. It’s diabolically worse now than it was a quarter of a century earlier, and then it was worse than the post 45 war period. We knew a vegan diet could work, we therefore knew from then, especially since the seventies, all about it, but still we’ve delayed. Over fifty years.
The question is why? If we can discover the answer to this we’ll know what we’ve always been afraid of. And then presumably we can vanquish the demon.
Vegan diets, post mid-1940s, were soon enough scientifically approved. Now, half a century later, we’re still not getting it. We’re still ignoring it in the vain hope that it will go away … or something. If in our daily life we do get round to thinking about it we might do well to look deep. To see beyond the superficial.
This whole Animal Rights and Vegan thing was never going to be a list of platitudes from a whingeing mob, but an intelligent argument presented by caring-, thinking-people. In our heart of hearts I think all people realise that this is a major statement of our time. But we’ve a way to go.
Before all this can happen there’s a trail of communicators, advocates and activists who make it their business to process information. But, for them it was never going to be straight forward. After hammering at the door and wrapping at the window and never getting inside we know it’s more than just disseminating information. It includes the settling of old scores and generally re-learning how to get on with people, people who disagree with you (which is just about everyone!!). Our job, as vegans, is surely to fix this approach-thing first. And funnily enough we may be in the best position to do just that. By trying to communicate bits and pieces of our ‘message’ with the emphasis on being NOT PUSHY, we allow the no-use-animal idea to take shape in people’s minds.