Up against a wall

1124: 

The reason I get angry about this whole ‘animal thing’ is because people are so reluctant to change.  The disappointment and cringe I feel is not just because they’re oblivious to the suffering-of-animals, but for continually missing the opportunities afforded by change.  They continue to eat rubbish foods, continue to get ill, continue to hold violent attitudes … and it seems such a waste of personal potential.

Vegans who are active in Animal Rights invest their free time to fight for a great cause.  It’s a big investment.  So, when I think I’m getting somewhere and hit another disappointment, I never seem to get used to it.  I don’t see it coming.  Overall, the most depressing thing I experience is that no one is taking a blind bit of notice of what animal advocates are saying.  It’s not deafness, it’s reluctance.  There’s a reluctance to talk or discuss things like this, in case one rocks the boat - for why would good friends want to risk blowing it, by speaking their minds (notably, about my vegan views)?

Beyond all else, everyone values affection and friendship. Intimacy allows good friends to talk freely about anything … unless it’s ‘animals’.  Other that the cute-and-cuddly, ‘animals’ are not a topic of conversation.  This is a subject known for bringing up deep issues, and because ‘abolitionist’ arguments can be so razor sharp, people know there’s a risk of blowing a whole friendship ... over careless ‘animal talk’.  All it takes is one comment.

Which is why I prefer NOT to try converting friends – they know I won’t be able to resist a dig ... and if my timing is out or I don’t round things off properly it goes down badly, particularly badly with close friends who already know where I stand on ‘the animal-thing’.

Friends are a precious commodity - I try not to go around losing them.  Animal Rights is especially dangerous for that, in an ‘if-you’re-not-with-me-you’re-against-me’ sort of way.  So, I prefer to talk outside, in the public arena, where I can speak more freely, knowing that it’s okay for me to get knocked down by people who aren’t close friends.  My ego doesn’t bruise as badly ‘out there’, where it’s better for me for getting myself hardened-up.

Everything vegans stand for (the principle of plant-based diets, animal rights, non-violence) is purposely down-played by Society.  It’s given minimal press coverage.  If we try to bring issues to public attention we’re prevented.  We have to stand by, in silence, allowing blatant misinformation to mould even the minds of our best friends.  After forty years of substantial exposure to Animal Rights, I still can’t see much momentum building.  I don’t see any real sign of people questioning or challenging what they’ve been taught.  It seems zombie-ish to me.

Animal Rights has an important job to do.  We are compelled to speak up insistently about slavery, captivity, killing and in some cases animal torture.  We shouldn’t have to.  But it’s all happening so routinely that it is becoming the accepted norm.  It’s explained as ‘pragmatic reality’ - the Animal Industries do the deed, then, at one stage removed, the compliant consumer supports it.  Although affecting fewer total animals, it’s even worse in the vivisection laboratory, where animals are being used for experimentation.  Again, a blind-eyed compact exists, where the tick of approval is given by the consumer.

I think it’s likely people are so weighed down with food junk and so groggy with tiredness from eating too much of it, plus the subconscious guilt of it all, that they can’t any longer face-up to a major shift of consciousness, however beneficial it might seem to them.

Having said that, I realise that beyond the 99% of whacked-out consumers is the other 1% - the hands-on people, the most outrageous of whom profit from harming creatures.  They put it out that animals don’t really feel pain, which makes what they do to them not worth worrying about.  For example, someone who takes an immobilised and terrified rabbit and squirts corrosive chemicals into its eye, to test shampoos for eye safety.  This animal doesn’t stand a chance.  They can’t do anything to protect themselves from this sort of torture.

Whether the suffering takes place on a vivisector’s slab or on a farm or in the abattoirs, the coldness with which animals are treated is a frightening reflection on human nature.  What routinely happens to billions of them is something no sentient creature should have to experience, and no human should be capable of inflicting.  The perpetrator is not only insane to do it but dangerously insane for trying to influence ordinary people to think that what they do is acceptable.