Obstinate to the core

1213: 

A vegan’s conscience is outraged at the very idea of slavery and particularly the obstinacy of thought that we can’t survive unless we enslave animals.  It’s reminiscent of the ending of human slavery in USA when they predicted inevitable collapse of the cotton and sugar industries – but the industries survived and went on to thrive, and soon enough the idea of enslaving humans became repugnant and then illegal.  It could be the same regarding animal slavery.

It’s obvious to vegans that we can survive and thrive without eating animals or using by-products or co-products like leather.  We can also be happy and healthy without being clothed or entertained or medicated at the expense of animals.  But this is not necessarily obvious to most people.  It isn’t even taken seriously.  And that’s our great challenge.  Once we drop our animal dependency (and not until) we can then address the other major problems still facing the world, such as war, certain diseases, and much of the pollution and hunger crises facing the world.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy though is obstinacy.  It seems that we have serious but solvable problems being held back by a collective reluctance to deal with the matter of animal slavery.  Instead of cooperating with Nature we exploit it.  We have only ever known ourselves as masters of animals.  And we seem to have got away with it so far.  It’s rather the same with the danger climate change, where humans have been similarly exploitative of the planet’s resources - the thief has been located but hasn’t quite been caught yet.

An intelligent society is a compassionate society.  We can’t grow whilst human slavery exists; most civilised societies have learnt that lesson.  In the same way, the only chance humanity has of surviving and progressing is by giving up some our old ways, concerning dependency on animals.  Until we are prepared to give up bacon breakfasts, leather shoes, aquariums and many other goods and services provided by (stolen at the expense of) animals, were stuck where we are, facing all sorts of ethical and environmental problems.  The lot must go if we want to move on.

Freedom of speech

1212:

While we’re still able to speak out we should, while we still live in a land of free-speech.  If Animal Rights can be promoted as a valid non-violence-based protest movement, then once securely established, the authorities just might have something to worry about.  And the Animal Industries would certainly worry, if no one wanted their stuff any longer.

In these ‘early’ days of freedom-of-speech, we should be speaking up.  We can either quietly encourage people or shout from the rooftops – either way, if people are ever going to listen, they will listen because we have the courage of our convictions.  Our bravery, respect and outrage are our strengths, but we need quietness too - we need to listen and learn, to find out where other peoples’ head are, in order to see better  how to reach them.  It isn’t just a case of offering information but identifying what blocks people’s conscience and stops them thinking things out for themselves.

Opening our mouths is not yet a crime

1211: 

If major issues in our world are being trivialised or ignored, the issue of animal exploitation is a prime example.  We are encouraged, as if we were gullible idiots, to see a benign picture of a happy farm with animals living contented lives, in picturesque farm yards.  We’re tempted by the dishes cooked by TV chefs on cooking shows.  We’re impressed by supermarket promotions that let us believe that they are “caring-for-quality”. But we’ve been bombarded with the same tired message so often that we know it’s all phoney.

Some of us see through this and boycott animal produce by becoming vegan.  We don’t expect to win any battles by taking on the whole world - righting such a huge variety of wrongs is almost impossible, but boycotting is a start.  Vegans have a hard enough time of it just on a personal level, but when we question the efficacy of so much popular food and point an accusing finger at food producers, it must seem as though we’re trying to knock away the very cornerstone of our society.  That being said, if we weren’t completely ‘abolitionist’ then we wouldn’t be really saying very much at all.

Abolitionism might make the Animal Industry angry (which mightn’t be such a bad thing!) but as yet it doesn’t press any buttons with consumers.  Vegans aren’t considered a threat, so in Australia it isn’t yet a crime to ‘disparage food’, but in certain parts of America, disparaging certain foods in public IS a crime (and you can guess which foods they are!).  If what goes on behind the scenes were to be made public, or if science professors spoke about the health problems associated with meat-eating, then customers might withdraw their support of the Animal Industry.  But can you imagine such things happening?  Can you imagine what damage that would do to all the allied industries and the ripple effect that would have on the whole economy?

But this could be Industry paranoia.  The food habits of too many people are too deeply set.  Maybe people, if they knew what was happening to animals or what was in their food, would worry for five minutes, but I doubt if they would be touched sufficiently touched to change their eating habits.  If animal activists want to make an impact then at the very least we have to be abolitionist - completely clean.  And explain to those who are reluctant to accept what we are saying, that there is no prettier way of presenting our reasoning, for being abolitionists. 

Conscience

1210:

So, here we have it, the battle between body needs and conscience needs.  That battle in our decision making weighs some central values – either we decide in favour of our own sensual interest or we take the more difficult decision to aid our spiritual development.  Is the weaker choice a ‘satisfaction decision’ because it isn’t based on ethics?

         

In a subsistence environment, there is no choice to make, but no mistakes either.  But in our rich Western world there are so many temptations that we are seduced into making mistakes.  We follow what others do.  And the seductive element is that we act out of habit which requires minimum-thinking, and that appeals to our need to conserve energy, because it’s always the easiest way possible.

‘Was it for that’, that we humans were given such good brains?  To make things easier for us?

With our fine brains, we no longer need to question ‘normal practice’.  We no longer need to look at the rights and wrongs of things we do, because we know (as eager followers) that the normal way is the safe and easy way.  So, if food tastes good, we go for it.  It must be safe because we’ve been eating this way for the whole of our lives.  The lubricated wheels of habit, and doing what we’ve been taught to do, give life predictability – where food is concerned, as soon as temptation tickles our tummy, we roll over.

Vegans, marginalised and denied support, are considered weird because of the food we eat.  Outsiders assume that we deliberately deny ourselves the ‘normal’ pleasures of food because we’d rather stand out as being special.  We’d rather get off side with people, and being contrary for the sake of it.

In fact, we do it for the sake of the animals.  That is our main reason for taking such a bold step, out of animal compassion and a wish to do something better for the future of our world.  You might think we have other motives, like our wish to simply cut our food bills (it’s quite inexpensive to eat vegan food!!) or to eat healthier food, or to help reduce carbon emissions.  But whatever the reason, it’s our outrage over animal treatment that acts as our kick start.

The people we look up to, teachers, parents, doctors, VIPs, priests, rock stars, writers, academics – almost none of them stand up for animal rights.  Without leadership in our community we are led by commercial interests; conscience is no longer our guide.

Momentous

1209: 

For me, there’s nothing more momentous than barracking for an animal’s right to a life when it’s been enslaved.  A colder, more heartless thing one can’t imagine, than taking any sort of animal and caging it for life.  It would be kinder to cut its throat.  In the human world we only do that to the very worst criminals.  Nothing can justify doing harm to an animal, let alone torturing it for its whole life by robbing it of its freedom.  And yet we do.  And what’s worse, we think nothing of it.  That puts a rather nasty spin on human nature.  That says a lot about the quality of our relationship with the world we live in.

It all boils down to self-interest.  Humans think first of themselves,  as if nothing is as important as human benefit even when it involves the very worst cruelty.  Most humans don’t give much thought to anything unless it concerns ‘my own life’.  To them, liberating animals doesn’t even enter the equation, since the animal trade is so entrenched in our culture.

At first glance, ‘animal activism’ looks like an absurdity; the habit of caging animals - why would we try to interfere with that?  But some of us, unphased by our appearance, still want to interfere, to bring all the horror of it to light, to show the ugliness of it.  We want to set off a new way of thinking.  The way we see animals, as if they are play things for humans or as machines for producing food and clothing for us, suggests that the human needs to aspire to a much higher plane of consciousness.

         

What is the purpose of human life if not for us to connect with other people and the world around us, to discover and be proud of a much truer manifestation of human nature?

The school teacher, inspired by this need to ‘connect’, takes her students to the zoo, but by taking them she implies approval of that particular institution.  How then does she react when the children kick up a fuss about the caging of animals?  What can she say?  Behind her stands an institution which promotes itself as the ‘good guy’, as a conservation centre for endangered species.  She explains that to her students, the means justifying the end.

So, when they ask questions about the quality of life for the individual animal who is forced to live in this imprisoned state, what can she say?  She may talk of ‘the need for individuals to suffer for the sake of the long term survival of their species’.  But that wouldn’t make sense in the case of almost every exhibited animal in the zoo, which is NOT a member of an ‘endangered species’.  It’s more likely that she hasn’t seen anything more than a need for her students to ‘connect’ with animals. 

A hunter, who professes his love of nature, explains that his way of connecting with the animals is to kill them, not for food but for sport.  His ‘love’ is a smoke-screen behind which he can continue to have his fun.  And of course that’s not much of a justification at all.  It wears thin for many ex-hunters who now do their shooting only with a camera; their need to connect and their love of nature now finds a more positive outlet.

But back to the teacher and her group visiting the zoo - would ‘people wanting to connect’ be the primary reason people go to where animals can be found, either in the wild or in captivity?  Is that why people go to the zoo?  Do we feel ‘bigger’ when we hunt and kill and hang the wild lion’s head on a trophy wall? Maybe we don’t visit the zoo to revel in the animals’ discomfort, but at the same time we don’t go there to empathise with them either.  We don’t see the captive lion and wonder how the lion feels, instead we say “who cares what the lion feels?”

How can we do something which hasn’t been thought through empathetically?  In today’s supposedly consciousness-raised atmosphere, why is an animal’s perspective not relevant or important?  If we can accept that zoo-prisons are okay places to visit, isn’t that rather worrying?  Isn’t that a very one-sided and unconvincing form of connectiveness? 

Queering the pitch

1208: 

The real friction between non-vegans and vegans is that what they relish we avoid.  Non-vegans still enjoy animal foods and wearing animal clothing.  Vegans avoid all of that like the plague.  Non-vegans have to keep their mouths shut about the violence, whereas vegans can speak-out about the injustice of violent animal treatment.

The main difference between us concerns sentience - most people probably don’t even know what the word means.  If they do, they don’t see that it has any great significance.  Vegans know the word very well, because we’re sensitive to the plight of sentient, domesticated animals.  To us, the mistreatment of an innocent, sentient creature is obscene.

Human nature has been moulded by the availability of animals and centuries of traditional exploitation.  Animals that are in any way useful to humans have been brought into slavery, and for some unfathomable reason, omnivores don’t think this is bad.  And even if they do, they’re used to squashing that thought, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to be omnivores any longer.

         

Omnivores have to sit in the ‘quiet corner’.  The only satisfaction for them is to take full advantage of what’s on offer, and draw as much present-time enjoyment as possible, even though they know it will mean chronic stomach and digestive problems later in life.

If you still eat animal produce, you might not realise the dangers earlier in your life but later, with the onset of all sorts of bodily illnesses, you’ll see how you’ve been wrecking your metabolism, as if by slow self-poisoning.  And what a waste, to disqualify your body from working properly for the sake of the gluttonous pleasures of eating what you fancy.  And on top of this you’ll be denying yourself the chance to be an agent of peace in the world.  It seems sad, to hold back on both counts because of a food attachment or a need to see your feet clad in animal skin.

To a greater or lesser degree, most people have got blood on their hands and plenty of poison in their bodies.  Most are bruising their very souls, simply by ingesting animals’ body-parts on a daily basis.  By consuming the concentrated toxins from these foods, plus the adrenaline from the fear-surge at the time of an animal’s execution, our immune systems don’t stand a chance.  Vegans would say it’s much wiser (and kinder) to keep off the stuff and maintain good health and a clear conscience.

I suppose it’s safe to say that by being vegan, we automatically avoid most of the crap foods on the market, which means we are no longer living under a tastebud dictatorship.

But it’s not only food but shoes and zoos and thousands of other goods and services provided by our animal slaves, that is doing us so much harm.  By using animals, we lose our best chance for a truly meaningful spiritual life.  We run the risk of dying unfulfilled.  And also, on a daily basis, we risk suffering the discomfort of a continually dodgy stomach.

Animal ‘use’ is always abuse

1207: 

If we aren’t ready to move on, towards being vegan, we must settle for being lumped in with the meat heads - if we’re animal consumers we can’t condemn their abuse.  If you don’t eat meat but still use animal by-products, you’re still involved in the same level of cruelty*.  Look at egg-laying hens, for example, and what they have to suffer: eating eggs condones their suffering.  Even if ‘free-range’, we still condone their eventual execution in the most unimaginably cruel conditions. (*Reading this back, I don’t think there’s any other way of putting this, even though anyone who is NOT vegan will probably react badly to what I’ve said.  But it still needs to be said and I doubt if anyone could suggest that it’s not true).

If you’re not vegan you can hardly become an advocate for animal rights, unless you don’t mind being thought of as being hypocritical.  By the same token, the onus is on vegans to take up animal-advocacy and that means being squeaky clean ourselves - it all comes down to this: if you can’t buy cruelty-free you shouldn’t buy at all.

If you aren’t vegan you can’t play a meaningful part in animal liberation, let alone the awakening of non-violent consciousness.

If you’re a kind and gentle person but have had to rule yourself out of the ‘liberation process’, you might feel marooned without any meaning left in life, simply because you continue to act against your own best instincts, as if you are subservient to The System.

If we can’t leave animal food alone and if we’re unable to condemn it because we also condone it, we’re effectively hand-tied.  Most people are still falling into the arms of what they know best, the-traditional-way, the common practice.  It leaves us without any escape, without any realistic future prospect of being able to expound on how the future should be.  We can only  divert ourselves with entertainment and eating.

The energy expended on seeking pleasure could be used to help end waste and cruelty.  But by doggedly remaining an omnivore, we block any better source of satisfaction.  If we don’t advocate for animals (and we at least owe them that!) we’re effectively taking the part of ‘gaoler’.  We exchange ethics for enjoyment.  We retreat into the juvenile state, forever searching for fun, which is a poor substitute for meaningful, passionate and ethical activity.

Imagine then, at the end of each day, having a different sort of feeling - a feeling that we couldn’t have done better with our day, not only by lessening our carbon footprint but also by doing whatever we can to minimise harm. 

Want to be special

1206: 

Instead of being judgemental of others, I would rather look for ways in which another person is special, even great.  I choose to go looking for it, and I see it in them because I can’t miss it, because it’s there.  But if you don’t consciously go looking for it, then it goes unnoticed.

It’s very different to believing of ourselves that we are special.  And to use that as an excuse to do as we like.  And that might be our biggest problem, because we each want to be special, to be better or more outstanding than others, as famous people often seem to be and believe themselves to be.  We all know that famous people are few in number, whereas the not-famous are many.  Perhaps our wish for specialness is a tilt at immortality and a wanting to be remembered, as if that could make us happy.  And that ends up as being vanity gone crazy!

Children these days are told they are special and when they find out they aren’t, that they’ve been lied to and that they really have to earn any form of greatness, they lose sight of it.  As we grow up we eventually settle for conformity.  Whatever greatness we might have in us is allowed to wither and become meaningless.  If we cling onto the idea of unearned specialness, it becomes narcissistic, and then frustration hits back at us and we lose sight of our more impressive attributes.  We become uncertain of ourselves and all we ever see are our past mistakes.  We say to ourselves, “I wouldn’t have done that if I were really great”. “Truly great people are not like me”, and, “I can’t identify with their greatness because it’s too different to anything I can see in myself”.

         

When kids are asked what they want to be when they grow up they often say “famous”, which probably means they just want to be thought of as ‘great’, in order to feel special.

         

The hum drum world might not recognise us because we’re not rich or worthy.  We come to believe that we don’t deserve to be rewarded for who we are: if I am nothing, and have nothing, it’s because I’m not special enough.  And so eventually we give up on our own greatness and try to emulate those who seem ‘much greater than me’.  We lose touch with our own original thinking (based on instinct and personal experience) and say, “If ‘they’ do it, then it must be okay for me to do it”.  But, as it happens, the ‘emulated ones’ might not be very great at all.  Looked at closely, they might not be setting much of an example at all.

         

So we take the kids to the zoo, and parade them in front of majestic lions which are kept locked behind bars.  We say “me human: you animal; me great: you nothing but banged up prisoners”.  It doesn’t make us feel ‘great’ but at least, in the eyes of our children who we’ve taken to the zoo, it makes us feel a whole lot better about ourselves.  We’re momentarily popular with the kids.  For the moment, we’re ‘special’ to them.  But it doesn’t prove anything, since we still don’t see the specialness in ourselves. 

Abolitionism

1205: 

The very idea of putting another human into slavery is abhorrent but we do it to animals without a second thought.  We empathise with other humans because they’re just like us, but animals aren’t anything like us, so we don’t see them as individuals, we only see them collectively.  Each one is simply part of a whole and not much more.  They’re furniture - either beautiful to look at or useful, but of no importance beyond that.  An animal doesn’t even have a soul, or so we say!

         

We’re so used to seeing animals in paddocks in the countryside or in cages at the zoo (both animal prisons) that we see it as normal, needing no further thought. In fact we equate the countryside scene and zoo ‘exhibits’ with places that are fun to go to. Kids love to see the animals. They ask to go. Adults won’t tell them there’s anything wrong with these places. Is it any wonder that abolitionism has to exist, to prick our consciences concerning these imprisoned animals?

         

In some ways our attitudes have been high-jacked - our thoughts are no longer our own, they’re formed for us by those who want our custom for their highly dubious practices. It’s rather frightening to think that almost all adults in every country of the world (and this includes our mothers, friends, doctors, our teachers, priests, politicians and just about everyone) have lost touch with their very souls, since each person’s attitude has been manipulated by vested interests.

         

It’s come to this - we accept the worst thing imaginable - the torture and murder of animals. We accept it as being okay. But, in reality, it’s rather like thinking child-molesting is okay when everyone knows it’s a crime.

Animals-in-slavery number twice that of humans. They’re our slaves. We’re used to that idea, until we sit down and try to imagine a human being deliberately hurting even one them. Wow! Actually involved in the slaughter of one innocent animal – none of us could do it in cold blood. And yet we are willing to appoint a proxy to do that very thing for us, so that we can eat the dead creature.

But to say this is to denigrate virtually everyone on Earth. So unusual is this accusation that it makes me simply seem angry with the world, as if I’m standing in the middle of a hundred thousand football fans and shouting at them, “Football stinks”.

         

What Animal Rights advocates are saying looks like one

gigantic insult, levelled at the hugest number of people imaginable.

         

So, I’m trying to turn that around by saying, “Yes, it’s wrong, it’s all so unnecessary. The enslaving and abuse of animals ought to stop ...”, but I know this won’t go down too well with very many people. So, I must come up with something more optimistic – perhaps I can put it another way.

The meat-eating, zoo-visiting, ethically-challenged person is a mix. In many ways, not necessarily in the same way, we are all a mix. It’s not about who is better than the other, it’s just that we each have sensitivities in different areas, and those who’re sensitive to the animals’ plight might be less sensitive in some other areas. None of us can afford to be smug. 

A whole new world

1204: 

If we represent the interests of animals it follows that our place is with those without vested interests in exploiting them.  They’ll be more likely to listen to what we have to say, who’ll still think their food tastes good, but be more open to the suggestion, that other tastes and textures and richness exist in plant-based foods.  On that basis alone, they may be willing to listen, and once they know a few central facts, then it’s up to them to shop around and try new things.

It’s perhaps the first time the ethical dimension to shopping is going to be considered.  And when people realise, to their amazement, that non-animal foods are good to eat, or in fact better to eat, they become open to eating ‘vegan’ all the time. Just by redesigning meals around a different basis, gradually a whole new food repertoire is formed. But it starts with a willingness to reach for different products on the supermarket shelves, and even branching out into reading different cookery books and seeing what’s on offer outside the confines of the supermarket, butchers and fish shops. There’s a whole different world out there, and not until we see a reason to explore will a replacement diet occur to us.

Pleasure-heads

1203: 

Those who make a living out of animals aren’t likely to recognise animal rights. But for those consumers who don’t, who’re simply held by their food preference, there’s some hope.  And it’s from these people that the Animal Rights Movement potentially finds its support.

         

Those involved in the Animal Industry probably dislike vegans and the A. R. Movement because of the potential threat we pose to their livelihoods.  They’re not only committed meat-eaters themselves but they get their wages from the Industry.  To them, animals are economic concerns not ethical challenges.  It’s bank accounts before moral accountability, pragmatics before ideals.

People who are more sympathetic to the liberation of animals, despite having a foot in both camps, are the ones we try to persuade.  We suggest they boycott what the other lot sells.  Change is very slow, but the tide is turning towards ethics (compassion for animals) and nutritious food.  Perhaps a better-informed, more sophisticated customer is these days less attracted to what’s on offer, because it’s looking dodgy on all counts.

         

Whilst vegan principle and talk of animals having rights is not good for the Animal Industry, it’s what is perhaps catching people’s attention. People are becoming more conscious of health and compassion, but perhaps also, they’re getting weary of hedonism and wary of attractive-looking animal products. It’s as if, today, whilst we might seek pleasure, we can see that all that’s on offer is a ‘seconds-world’ pleasure, tasteless hamburgers spruced up with artificial flavourings, anaemic eggs, bland cheese, pale imitations of what they were. It’s much duller food, the result of our squeezing the life out of the animal-machine; we know that ill-health and horror-stories about animal-torture aren’t going to go away. And if we don’t change for ethical reasons then surely economic and ecological factors will eventually force us.

         

While the majority of people continue to consume their favourite foods, it’s as if they’re maintaining a protective shield around it, clinging on to what they once enjoyed but now far less so. 

The disconnect

1202: 

Because the law allows us to exploit animals, it never becomes a crime, whether it’s zoo-caging of exotics, vivisecting mice or factory farming pigs.

There’s a ‘disconnect’ between our own inner beauty and our baser food cravings.  Animal food is endemic to a lifestyle to which most people are addicted.  The popular animal-based foods are as attractive to the educated rich as they are to the uneducated poor.  As a result of our upbringing, most people have been seduced by their foods’ blood-salt-sugar-texture content.

Our number one impulse is to enjoy our food.  We want it to be both nutritious and enjoyable.  But we can do without the guilt. We need to justify eating ‘that type of food’, but there’s really no need to,  since any ‘normal food’ is, by definition, always going to be  socially acceptable; if we can afford to buy it, we can eat what we like and never have to justify ANY of it to anybody.  It seems that, for almost all people, the (ethical) provenance of our food is not a problem.  It needn’t bother us.

But it does bother some children.  When kids first find out about bacon being from a pig or tender mutton being from a lamb, it can be deeply disturbing. I doubt if most sensitive kids ever get their head around that one because they see a mighty contradiction. The contrast between displays of adult-love and adult-cruelty, in regard to food-animals, must be very confusing.  To children farm animals are no different to their own pets at home.  As kids grow older and these conflicts become clearer they are torn between their salivating tastebuds, at smelling breakfast bacon cooking, and concern for ‘what is happening to the pig’ when their fried bacon is part of a pig.

As usual, reality wins out in the end; kids realise that they mustn’t complain.  If they don’t do what they’re told, they starve ... or, more realistically, they’re denied lots of yummy things that kids like.  Children are bribed with food.  They’re indoctrinated, from birth, to conform to a ‘meat-and-two-veg’ diet.  They must conform, otherwise their carers are put to all sorts of inconvenience.

Ethics.  Isn’t it better to ignore ethics and simply enjoy the food we’re given?

Duped

1201: 

Even though conspiracy theories abound and we laugh at them and call them preposterous, somewhere in our mind we suspect we really are all being taken for a ride.

Those with vested interests, whose livelihoods depend on us buying the products of the Animal Industry, they neither care about animals nor our conscience.  They’re buoyed by politicians, media and scientists.  They know not to bite the hand that feeds them.  As shareholders in the Animal Industry, they appreciate what their backers do for them.

It’s all a matter of mutual benefit, with each playing into the others’ hands, to conspire against the consumer.  If they’re peddling unhealthy food, we the public are led to believe it’s NOT harmful.  We believe what we want to believe.  And they must be sure that if there’s any cruelty to animals that we, the public, will raise no objection.

The consumer has a choice, albeit seemingly difficult.  We would all like to do the right thing, but we have no incentive to choose wisely.  The trouble is that it’s too tempting simply to follow the lead of others, and need make NO major lifestyle changes.  We stick to the same food we’ve always eaten, buy leather shoes just as we’ve always done.  Since there’s nothing illegal in the Industry’s methods of treating animals, it follows that there’s nothing immoral in buying animal-harming or health-damaging products.  Consequently the chief animal abusers are getting richer by the minute.

But the strangest thing is this - these same people are falling on their own swords.  The profiteers of the industry are wealthy enough to eat ‘well’ and usually that means eating all the richest food and, you’ve guessed it, that includes a lot of animal product.  It’s ironic that the same animals that provide their wealth break their health.

The big question is, why don’t they avoid these foods?  You’d think they’d be advised by their own well-informed food scientists.  These highly trained men and women would almost certainly know the dangers associated with animal foods, but if they do they’re not telling their sponsors about it.

Health concerns aside, you’d think the spiritual leaders would warn people.  You’d think they’d pounce on the opportunity, using the horror stories of animals on farms and in abattoirs to show up the folly and wickedness of using animals the way we do.  They could so easily show the spiritual damage it’s all having on us, and our need to change what we do in order to save our souls.  But no.  Nothing is said.  Perhaps our leaders’ reputations rely too much on conformity.  To be a whistle-blower on animal issues spells anything from loss of popularity to social suicide.

For many reasons conformity is essential.  If anyone in the Establishment spoke up, there’d be hell to pay - the scientists would lose their grants, the politicians their pre-selections and the priests their parishes, which is why no one’s rushing to speak-up.  No one who isn’t already a vegan is willing to represent animal interests or promote vegan principles.  Perhaps that’s because they all still eat meat, and any preaching of what they don’t practise themselves would prove another, perhaps bigger problem for them.

So, the habit of using animals continues, with the authorities giving the general public the wink and consumers numbing their feeling for these ‘edible animals’ by refusing to look at what’s going on. 

Between a rock and a hard place

1200: 

The horror stories about animals in farms and abattoirs horrify and confront all sensitive people, whether vegan or not. But for omnivores it’s a  mixed message. “I love animals but I’m afraid of finding out too much.”          

As soon as we know what’s happening ‘down on the farm’ we realise that it implicates just about everyone, because of what we eat. We’re all connected, some more than others, in something so routine that it seems futile to try to fight it, especially when it seems that most people are far too cold-hearted to care. Most people just don’t want to know, the animal-holocaust being a daily event but out of sight and therefore out of mind. However horrific it is, it doesn’t make most-people step away from their eating habits.

Vegans, perhaps more horrified and better informed, have stepped away. As a vegan I, personally, would like to see people better informed, leading them to re-examine their values and change their priorities. A big task!

To be an animal activist means you probably have to act solo, in defiance of family, friends and social pressure. To act independently takes courage.  Some would say animal-activism is an impossible dream. But so what? What else can you do but try to change things?

Farm animals (‘food animals’) are badly used, and we all know it. But even though every educated adult, in every part of the world, possibly feels some guilt about it, they might not deem it important enough to make changes to the way they live. The reasoning behind inaction, on the part of almost every person, is the never-ending question vegans contemplate. Until we unlock that particular mystery - why some do respond, why some don’t - our way forward won’t be clear.

If you DO act, if you do respond, your life changes quite dramatically. By being an advocate for the ‘abolition-of-animal-slavery’, one is marked-out as an ‘all or nothing abolitionist’. And since you can’t be a little bit abolitionist any more than a woman can be a little bit pregnant, once you’ve said “I’m vegan-on-principle”, in reality there’s no going back. Only when you’ve faced your cravings can you step out of one world and into another. I don’t mean there’s a Vegan Club-of-Paradise, I mean ‘step-out’ mind-wise, with an altered perception of on the shopping list. 

Eating out

1199: 

I go to peoples’ places and I’m offered the usual snacks and drinks. And mostly I simply say, “No thanks”.

         

‘Stunned’ is the best word to describe the reactions I often get.  Too often, I’m met with utter incomprehension, like when I decline some ‘cheesy-thing’ on a plate, which everyone else has dived for.

If pressed, as soon as I give my reason, I’m labelled as being a bit weird.  At a social event, someone might race around, to find me something I can eat.  But most people are defenders of ‘the faith’, and secretly resent my finicky eating habits, for that’s what they turn this into.

From what could be a simple “ah, you’re vegan” and a recognition of the compassion-angle I’m taking, I get the other extreme - irritation, at my being ‘fussy about food’.  I don’t get asked why I’m fussy, since that would be stepping into a dangerous area. On some level they can guess that cheese probably falls into a grey area, and that cheese and dairy and cows and cruelty might be connected; and that this is something of a problem that I might want to mention, given half the chance.

They know to steer clear. Either there’s a danger that I’ll make them feel uninformed or unethical. Mostly, they suspect it’s a health issue, and something to do with nutrition. They might expect me to lecture them about animal-food containing too much fat or sugar or being too high in protein and therefore harmful to health, etc. What they may NOT expect is the Animal Rights-angle, making them feel profoundly uncomfortable.

So, as a vegan, refusing foods that everyone else enjoys, makes me seem like a threatening influence, which is why I’m not often asked out to eat.

Ouch! And if I’m ever asked for my reasoning behind my food choices I simply come across as a social pariah. I’ll never be the one to bring the subject up. But if others do comment then I’ll pursue it. But my reply won’t be lengthy, in order to avoid losing their interest. It’s easy to become a bore on the matter.

For my part I don’t see myself as a punch-bag, I wouldn’t let anyone get away with saying something outrageously anti-animal.  However, releasing too much, too emotionally, is a trap. My incredulity (I never cease to be amazed!) can’t be shown, on any account.

When we’re amongst omnivores, we know that they know we know - that their foods make them fat, and it encourages high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and sometimes cancer. For them the very idea of discussing this is out of the question.

If I’m going to talk about all this (even getting close to a point where the subject is about to be raised) I need to know if that person is willing to hear what I have to say, and that means I need to know something about that person - that they can take it, and that they have faith in me not to want to make them feel uncomfortable.

I must have up my sleeve something to catch attention. I’m in the business of selling veganism, trying to make it irresistible, and therefore so attractive that they must TRY it. And in trying it, of course, I expect they might become hooked.

For the advocate, full of good intention, the traps are, in order of appearance: it’s too easy to show off; it’s too easy to make sweeping statements; it’s too easy to be outrageous, and it’s too easy to win the argument. At this early stage in Animal Rights consciousness we probably don’t need to draw that much fire. We don’t need to make it too easy, for anyone listening, to change the subject. It’s often the case that we can be drawn into and get bogged down in fine details, because it too nicely avoids dealing with ‘more uncomfortable matters’.

As animal activists we won’t be able to satisfy every inquirer’s questions about diet and nutrition and health, although we should try. We now know that science is arguing both health and environmental advantages for eating animal-based foods and for keeping animals intensively for their lower carbon emissions. So, I reckon my best approach is to appeal to the heart.

Our job, as vegans, is to assure people of the general safety and health of a plant-based diet, and then move on to explain all that stuff about how animals are treated as machines, etc, sprinkling into the mix the fun of being a vegan. Our final point being that there’s great self-advantage.  The main attraction boils down to this: “You’d be mad not to try”

Popular poisons

1198:

Animal foods are popular even though they’re harmful to health. Because people like the taste of them and because they’re easy to find, people love them.  No, they aren’t necessarily cheap but there’s a great variety to choose from ... and best of all you can eat them straight from the fridge or at least, they don’t need much preparation. That’s a big selling point.

Supply follows demand and demand responds to supply. To  clinch the matter, certain ingredients like milk or egg products are subsidised.  And these ingredients cream-ify, enrich and bulk out foods, making them taste rich and substantial ... and they’re cheap enough for everyone to buy, so they’re mass produced for mass consumption.

What is particularly good about animal foods is that they provide us with an instant sensation.  In savoury foods it’s the blood or saltiness, and in non-savoury there’s sugar plus other flavourings, making food taste delicious.  Animal foods seduce.  This is food we crave.

         

Our love affair with animal foods has never really diminished (despite the recent strong vegetarian drive in our society) mainly because more animal by-products are used in popular food items than even meat.  So, even with the absence of meat, for so called vegetarians, there are still cheeses, creams and egg additives.  They’re the ones which keep us hooked.  Every form of exotic cheese, for instance, has been developed (over centuries), to titillate the palate.  

The food manufacturers have used every device imaginable to lure us.  And we respond by buying.  The more sold, the easier to create ever more variations on a theme.  These foods will always maintain people’s interest.  Popular products (eaten from early childhood, advertised constantly throughout our life, with family pressure reinforcing eating habits) become as important to our daily life as fresh air.  And as pleasurable.  People can’t contemplate life without them, since these products are present at just about every meal.  A omnivore friend of mine says the omnivore hears what we say, is stunned, then forgets everything they’ve heard; they quickly go back to their old ways.

         

Drip by drip these are the foods that imprint on our minds and slowly poison our bodies.

“And unless a million vegans appear on my doorstep, to persuade me otherwise, I’m not going to change ... well, not on this matter anyway.  No way will I give up cheese, omelettes, cream-on-everything and my favourite chocolates.  NO way!”

Labelling

1197: 

We are all consumers and we all need help to make the right decisions.  One big help would be clear labelling of products - if something edible is suitable-for-vegans then a label stating as much makes shopping easier.  And incidentally it’s also a great advert for vegan food, although it’s likely to be the very reason they don’t do it!

It’s common in other countries but not in Australia. “Suitable for vegans”.  When I want to buy a food product with several ingredients, I want to be sure it’s free of cruelty-products.  And if it is, then I want to support that food company.

         

Government has legislated that all food-goods must contain ingredients lists.  That’s good.  I go into a food store with my reading glasses in hand, ready to examine the microscopic print in the ingredient-list, to catch any listed animal product.  But it’s not that straight forward.  I have to know that albumen is from eggs, that whey is from milk and gelatine is from hoofs, and there are many more sneaky terms used to hide abattoir items.  If the product doesn’t contain anything objectionable, if it’s ‘vegan’, then I want them to make it clear, and better still put a tick next to the word ‘vegan’, on the front of the packaging.

           

We need good labelling so that we can make informed choices.  If we’re eating food from abattoirs or using the co-products or by-products of animal farming, or ingredients containing these products, it should be clearly stated.  We have the right to know what we are putting into our bodies, or come to that, what product has been used to make the shoes we put on our feet.

Vegans (and that includes me who is too lazy to follow my own advice), should write letters and bombard the product manufacturers with emails, texts, tweets, anything.  And if they do make vegan-suitable products we should be writing to them to say “Thank you”.  We should be telling them that we appreciate their ingredients, and ask them to label their products “vegan friendly”, or some such.

I am lazy.  I’m forgetful too.  Struggling with ‘ingredients’ printed in font size 4, I realise too late I’ve forgotten my glasses, so of course I can’t read the damned ingredients list anyway.  This is where I have to refrain from buying something ... because I’m not sure what’s in it.  The trap, for me, is pretending I didn’t notice what was in fact in-evidence, for all good eyes to see.  It’s the same sort of pretending that I find myself criticising omnivores of doing! 

How to meet

1196:

Even though we are up against the very worst levels of indifference, an almost total lack of responsibility towards the weak, and an acceptance of a very damaged future, all this shouldn’t make us pessimistic.  It’s the ultimate challenge, to face each other and yet not go to war against each other. It’s as if we are the victims of a divide and rule system, designed to keep us at each other’s throats, to keep us bickering and weakened.

Our non-acceptance of each other’s views easily turns into a non-acceptance of each other as whole persons.  Dislike and disapproval turn into ‘dismiss and destroy’.  We bully in order to win, but why?  There’s nothing to win.  There’s something to lose though, by spoiling the one chance we have of coming together.

Pessimism keeps us weak and at war with one another. It’s no different to the dysfunction in homes where the dominant adult goes ‘over the top’ with the submissive child.  The adult shows disapproval of a child (for behaving badly), ignoring the fact that this young person is handicapped by their own inexperience of life.  By giving the child a sense that they are lesser, because of their behaviour, we cause separation; the attempt to exert pressure on them, to bring about better behaviour, strays into non-acceptance of the whole person.  It then becomes really destructive. Both parties recognise something is badly failing, that a faith is being broken, that things aren’t progressing positively.  And the further we go with it the less chance there is to restore balance.  There’s pessimism (between adult and child).  Even violence creeps in.  There’s a feeling of being overwhelmed, like something is irrevocably failing, that a profound faith is being shattered.  And pessimism is all we can hold onto.  We abort on each other.  Many parents give up on their kids, and vice versa.

         

If we can stay optimistic through thick and thin, we can break the victim mould.  We can insist on forging a positive reality.  When we see violence, we then also see it giving way to non-violence, setting itself up, as it were, for a break through.  The optimist actively avoids the trap of separation by never letting go of the positive.

         

As an example: If I predict that the value of my house will drop because Abdullah has moved in next door, I am a pessimist; the optimist would see things differently – their value system would be based on the need to make friends with Abdullah.  And then, as it turns out, this good neighbour becomes a great asset.  While the pessimist sees only gloom, the optimist sees Abdullah to be the one person who can lift the gloom.  What better aim could there be than to focus on changing things for the better, moving towards the integration of different cultures, building the global village.  If we bring this about it will simply be because we are capable of it.

         

Ideally we live together in one garden, where cats and cabbages and kids all rub along nicely together.  In a future world, there won’t be any need to hurt those weaker than ourselves, to make us feel stronger.  And there will be no reason to eat pigs or milk cows or kill chickens.  If we are up to date with what’s happening in our world, we would already know that being vegan and having a plant-based food and clothing regime is possible and efficacious in every possible way.

If we accept that, then, it’s just a stroll along the garden path of the future, to where all this becomes natural and fashionable.  And normal.

Arguments

1195: 

When there’s a controversial subject like Animal Rights, we can’t very easily discuss the pros and cons, mainly because there are so few pros.  We argue about it, sure, but get nowhere - this is usually a good example of how we relate ‘toxically’ with each other.

Instead of discussing things rationally, allowing even the least well-formed opinions to be considered, we fight.  Our feelings get bruised, egos get hurt, and we end up ‘not-speaking’.  How many carnivores do we know who are not into discussing this subject with us?  How many times do we feel as though we want to win at any cost, ending up with ‘them’ not liking ‘us’ for the way we argue our case?

Of course, none of this might matter, if we could let it all float over us.  If we could accept that: “what others think about us is none of our business”, then, we’d almost welcome the opposition with which they provide us.  For at least it’s better than indifference and apathy.  It’s often good to have something to spar over.  But here’s the trick of it.  It’s when we disagree and break that bond we’ve always had with a person, when we start to get ‘personal’, that things get out of hand.  We bring in emotions best left out of the picture, best left out of friendships, where even a momentary wobble in connection is hinting of possible collapse.

It’s a matter of steering clear of that ‘line’; when we sense that a certain line has been crossed and NOTHING can repair the damage of it.  A whole friendship can end when we get judgemental, self-defending or start to take umbrage.

         

The wall

1194:

In promoting Animal Rights, we are facing a wall.  But this might not be so big.  Not as big in space as in time.  This might be a slow wall, not a big wall.  Or what we might perceive to be a mountain range to be crossed, but in reality merely a small set of hills which appear to be big.  Slow-hills, to be climbed as if treading over boggy ground.  Forward progress is best achieved by softness of tread.

Animal Rights and ‘going-vegan’ need to insinuate themselves into people’s psyches, almost as smoothly as water passes over a stone to refine it into sand.  It seems that we can only influence outcomes by way of continuous, slow and patient attrition.

Ach! you say.  That’s too slow for me!!  Me too.  But we’re dealing with the will of the people, individuals’ determination to make their own decisions.  Big changes may come fast, but I doubt it, not when it comes to food-beliefs and the sacredness of an individual’s right to make decisions.  Change might not be coming from that direction anyway.  It might be quick for other reasons, but we must be prepared for either eventuality, when it comes to animal-using.  And if change is going to be slow, then it hinges on the reasons why one either becomes vegan, or decides not to be.

If you’re one of those who decides to try being vegan then you might ask yourself if you’ll have enough motivational oomph to stick with it, and work to help lay foundations stones?  But, you say, it sounds like featureless work.  So why be drawn into this?

Is it a trick of the light that makes us see only the most obvious reasons for doing things?  What seems so at first may not necessarily be so.  Physical energy from plant-based foods is assured, but motivationally, where veganism scores highest, is that spiritually there’s something very uplifting in following vegan principle - one particular weight is lifted, allowing us to feel what few others can possibly feel, that one is at peace with one’s world.  Maybe for you it is a eureka feeling.  Vegan principles give vegans a clarity of purpose, a clearing of doubt and a certainty of direction.  There’s stimulation enough to pursue one big inspiration - the liberation of animals.  To know there’s enough stimulation/motivation there to work with, is based not on an enhanced sense of duty, or love or compassion, or even empathy.  The oomph comes from interest.  This subject is stimulating in the same way an almost unsolvable theorem is - we are in it for the challenge of ‘it’.  The direction of moving towards an ideal.

For the non-idealist, they’ll always go for personal pleasure.  They won’t work on ideals.  But they might seem okay about us being different.  They’ll even think it’s cool if we want to talk about animals, although not best-pleased.  However, in general, they’re happiest if we’d move away.

Meeting the Adversary

1193:

Communication is the trickiest thing.  It can be so wonderful when it works and so awful when it goes pear-shaped.  Getting shitty with someone, turning the mood, separating even momentarily - Is that, somehow, ‘breaking every rule of friendship in the book’?  I mean getting ‘shitty’ with someone, going suddenly hard on someone.

 The kids at home.  The switch of tone in the voice of a parent who sees danger or rule-breaking coming up. Switching from affection, intimacy and love, and going in sharply.  “No”, or “Stop”.  It’s okay between kids and grown ups. It’s much less okay between adult and adult.

It happens most when dealing with differing viewpoints, and, for example, my becoming brittle when I feel aggrieved.  Feeling aggrieved isn’t the problem, just don’t show it, I often find myself saying, in my head.  By showing it (by noticeably changing my mood) it’s as if I’m casting a blow at a person’s head.  It could be a king-hit.  It could fracture friendship.

In other words, taking the hard, defensive way isn’t the most intelligent way to go, since it shows up our own deep-seated lack of self-confidence.

The Buddhists are always talking about the ego - and it’s never truer that in the Animal Rights Activist’s camp.  When we plump up our ego to defend our views, what is it we’re really defending?  Are we not so much defending the animals as defending ‘my stand on this issue’.  I don’t want to appear wrong, or stupid or violent. All this defensiveness is a green light for my ego to stomp in and make me look foolish.

Whether we are the givers-out of value-judgements or recipients of them, we usually react badly to being thought badly of.  And that reaction marks the start of things going wrong, communication-wise.  We begin to resort to ‘short tactics’.  We make the most sweeping generalisations and we use dodgy statistics and subjectivities to exaggerate the separation between us, to give ourselves a surer sense of being right.   And that’s a long way from having an intelligent exchange of views.   This is ‘how not to meet’ our adversaries.

Pragmatism versus Idealism

1192: 

Edited by CJ Tointon

Take the pastoralist or the factory farmer.  They’re in a big-bucks business.  They boost the country’s economy and are rewarded for their efforts. By dint of their 'good works' (feeding the masses) they are respected.  They may be profiteering pragmatists, but they provide. They fill the shops with 'goodies'.  We approve of them whenever we buy from them.       

By contrast, the Idealist is left out in the cold. I have this image of a shivering Ideal, outside the frosty window, trying to explain to the warm and comfortable people inside. “Idealism is valid”.  And no one can hear, since they take no notice. They don’t believe in Ideal’s existence, let alone see anything worth discussing.  The idealist is given no encouragement.  There’s little interest, and even if there’s no hostility, there’s lots of indifference.  And there may be insults.      

Vegan Activists - we’re not many yet (and most people know it, and how they know it!!).  With few ‘idealistic animal-advocates’ about, it’s open slather for insults.  It’s quite safe to say anything to us and get away with it. (It’s always safe to insult a ‘peacenik’ because you know they won’t try to hit back!).  

You can always tell a proud carnivore - they reckon that if you think it, then you say it!  About vegans like me, it’s standard issue to call me a 'bleeding heart' or tell me I’m being 'self-righteous'.  All obviously untrue, but that’s not the point. It’s how it hits me (or even breaks me) that wins the point.  Our adversaries are on the look-out for any weakness.  As a potential danger to their peace of mind, we are enemy, and need to be neutralised.  That’s when the insults come, thick and fast.  For me, it might seem hard to take.  But so what? It’s not exactly a mortal blow.  Thankfully, it’s not a capital crime to speak freely, which makes us merely 'insultable'.  Big deal.  So, we get used to insults because we know we've got one great advantage over almost everyone we know.  Energy.  (It comes with the territory).  So why begrudge another person their fun, if they want to rubbish us?  To be quite frank, there’s bugger-all else for them to do.  They don’t have too much energy at the best of times.  They don’t think for themselves and don’t often engage very well.  Don’t think I’m saying people are dim. They’re often very bright.  It’s not that they’re incapable of intellectually taking our arguments to pieces, it’s just that they’re too compromised to even attempt it.  The bright, educated citizen is equally incapable as the poorest brain - the compromise cripples them.  And they’re in the same Catch 22 situation as almost every other human on the planet.  They’re 'stuffed' -  in more ways than one.  

Now many poor souls are starving to death.  And one great tragedy of the World concerns the inequality of food distribution - but that’s another matter.  Only to say, that if the human is lucky enough to have any food to eat at all, then what they’re eating is 'lead'!  Call it what you like.  A lot of the food being eaten is full of dark energy and bearing the weight of a heavy conscience.  It’s like being in charge of an unruly playground, where the children are screaming for more.  The many popular foods are screamed for by our unsophisticated taste buds and stomach.  The shops are full of goodies and we love them, so to be discussing the prospect of no longer using them, arrrgh!  To enjoy being vegan over the delights of enjoying our 'little weaknesses', makes most people nervous.  It also makes them giggle with guilt.  

Vegans would say there’s no need to 'do' guilt.  But we’re the idealists.  And it’s tricky being idealistic, since we can’t go on to explain why, because it looks like we’re big-noting ourselves.  But, without sounding smug, it all points to the fact that just by being vegan, we automatically drop much of that black energy.  We shed that particular guilt which initially and then perpetually comes down to food.  Hopefully, we choose chips (of inspiration) with everything. 

But there’s a necessary payment for all this delicious energy.  We’re talking altruistic gratitude here.   Appreciating what valuable things we get from the plants we eat.  It’s a clear sort of energy, light in weight (in the sense of no conscience-weight) and not connected to the hard-nosed pragmatism of the carnivore.  

This sort of energy comes about just through eating 'vegan' food exclusively.  It is made up of various energies, like the energy used when you engage with your dog, playing with it, testing its potential.  

It’s impossible to engage these energy-sources if you’re still playing cosy with the enslavers.  Vegans are lucky to have access to these energies, especially since they coincide with our ideal, that of Animal Rights and Clean-Energy Food. 

On Bees and the Stealing of Their Honey

1190: 

Edited by CJ Tointon

Our relationship with bees is important.  We are somehow plant-linked to them.  We need them as much as they need the flowers’ nectar.  Without them, human life (along with many other life-forms) would die.  

Surely, symbiotically, bee and beekeeper can be friends.  An apiary should be a nice place if bees are being sheltered there for the work they do pollinating seed and fruit crops.  Here’s the human horticulturalist securing his plants by creating an environment conducive to pollination whilst providing a safe haven for the local bees.  A harmless interaction - bees protected in hives and beekeeper protecting his livelihood ... oh, and stealing a little bit of their honey too!

And there you have it - 'steal'.  Humans love to get something for nothing or at least for bargain cost.  Bees can be a bargain.  They provide so much for so little input.  The honey flows!  But it’s not clear if the creatures readily give up their hard-earned nectar (which they’ve transformed into honey) or if they’re adversely affected by the taking of it!  But surely, you say, it’s only the excess honey (which they probably don’t need because they always over-produce) that the beekeeper steals?  Surely it's the same as someone stealing the excess money in your bank account because you don’t actually need it.  This nicking, lifting, thieving and stealing is at the heart of the change-of-attitude that we all have to adopt.  It’s wrong to thieve from animals.  But most of us do it, by being complicit consumers of abattoir products and not realising the mess we're leaving behind.  One wonders about the Karma created by those on the front line, the producers, the keepers, the cattle-prod wielders, all employees of the 'Animal Industry' - as well as the ordinary consumer.  They leave devastation in their wake.

The Producers

1189: 

Edited by CJ Tointon

                      

Our society admires people who get ahead, people who 'squeeze' the land and the animals.  These people know a good 'resource' when they see one.  The public never gets to see the actual 'squeezing', but they are grateful for the results.   In the West, the consumer is well resourced in every imaginable way and indulges in recreational shopping for everything from white goods to beef steak.   We appreciate our privileged position in this land-of-plenty.  Back to the 'admired ones'.  They often make loving friends and kind parents, but they can be ruthless, especially when it comes to their income.  We may all be guilty of taking what we shouldn’t take, but these are the mega advantage-takers.  They are society’s success stories and they did it by discarding sentimentality.  They numb their feelings and just get on and 'do it'.  

The farmers say, "We just eke a living from the land.  We aren't wealthy".  In truth,  although perhaps not rich,  much of their income is derived from animals. They make a living by 'keeping' (enslaving) animals.  When we use the 'slave' word, they get cranky.  We touch a raw nerve.  We challenge the priorities of the farmer and thousands of other wage-dependant people in the Animal Industry.  For them, a 'living-wage' trumps 'ideals'.  Their pragmatic attitude is at one end of the spectrum, ethical idealism is at the other.

There’s no such thing as non-cruel or non-abusive animal farming, even with the apiarist!   The beekeeper might be kindness itself to the bees, human and insect in symbiotic relationship, no captivity, bees free to fly from the hive, etc.  I’m not splitting hairs.  Just saying that humans are famous for harming animals.  Which is why vegans say that keeping any animal is fundamentally unethical.  It’s not all freedom and symbiosis down on the bee farm.  The beekeeper will inadvertently crush many bees when inspecting hives for disease each day (being crushed-to-death or dying slowly from being half-crushed is a nasty death!) and the queen bee is discarded when a younger queen will be more productive. 

My rule?  Don’t get mixed up with anyone in the 'Animal Cruelty' business.  Don’t sponsor them. 

My avoidance isn’t personal, even if boycotting their produce may put them out of business.   It’s just that the whole industry needs to go, and that includes all farmers and retailers of animal products.  My aim, joined with the aims of other vegans, would be to draw the financial lifeblood from any business where animals are involved.  By boycotting the lot, we are acknowledging that there’s no such thing as non-cruel or non-abusive animal farming.   Animal farming works against the laws of Nature.  Nature is the supreme exemplar of how we can all live sustainably on this planet.  In Nature there is no large scale theft and certainly not the systematic slavery humans have devised for farm animals.

Two phobias

1188:

In some ways vego-phobia is not unlike homophobia, in that people are afraid of what they don’t know, afraid of the stereotype. For the vegphobes, a throwing in of their lot with ‘animally-people’. By eating an entirely different type of food - you can imagine the impact it has on daily life.  Going vegan is thought to be taking things too far, but by others it’s thought to be going-too-soft. That applies to sexuality as well. The stereotype for my own gender, for example, is the tough, steak-eating, woman-chasing, sport-loving, macho man. It’s cool to be hard, un-cool to be soft.  Amongst women I’m sure it’s just as weird, being gay or being vegan, or both!! But whichever minority we seem to belong to, there’s social phobia everywhere about us, fear of us, apprehension about us.

In our Western society, free as we are, we minorities still face the confident wall of the majority. It’s something we have to face. Misunderstandings and prejudice.

Now, don’t get me wrong, whilst I’m not suggesting that the human overpopulation-of-the-planet could be somewhat solved by encouraging people to explore their homo- or bi-sexual natures, thus reducing their reproductive impact, I am suggesting the ethics of the planet could be solved by encouraging people to explore their soft side.

This softness of character might be, but isn’t necessarily, anything at all to do with sexuality. It’s just the softness component inside us, just as ‘toughness’ might be for the pro-surfer, mastering the waves. But today, it’s starting to look as if ‘soft’ could become the new positive,  a new tuning-into the gentler side. Nothing very new about this, since men and women alike know how to be soft. As a parent of either gender might feel, when carrying the sleeping child upstairs to bed.

Man is hard, tough, wins wars, kills, but if those times are changing it doesn’t mean men aren’t as tough, just not so needing to show off that side of themselves. Today, men are far less ashamed of being gentle.

This softness was a long time coming, perhaps because we blokes fear soft-heartedness. In the same way, we’re reluctant to develop our sensitivity, in case it all goes wrong; in case we go mad at the sight of so much darkness and not enough light.

Everyone is capable of sliding into depression, but anyone can light a spark too. If kids have spark in what they do (often unselfconscious) then we adults can spark too, when guarding the child, the cat, the vulnerable plant in the garden. We spark when protecting, simultaneously experiencing the sort of energy connected with that sort of good-feeling.

When we are getting nowhere with someone, we learn that most valuable of truths, that adults always put up obstacles. These are self-justified, locked gateways to change. They present one particular wall in front of all those seeking change - vegans, animal liberationists, humane research activists, plant-based eaters and advocates for non-violence. This is the wall we vegans specifically face concerning the notorious mind-set about animals.

Many people who are attracted by the opposite sex are confused by their own inability to understand why a person is gay - they’ve only ever been turned on by members of the opposite sex. For them their sexuality is natural (and incidentally shared by all animals), they’ve never questioned it or had cause to. Many people are equally confused by vegans, who seem overly-sensitive – in fact, sensitive enough and empathising enough with animals, to refrain from eating them. And, to keep it up for ever onwards. It’s simply beyond their ‘ken’. And if they appear confused, so be it. These are early days. Are you feeling impatient? Then swallow it. Get used to change going at snail’s-pace.

But look on the optimistic side: today many heterosexual women and men show complete acceptance of homosexuals, with no trace of homophobia. And similarly, those enthusiastic meat-eaters show acceptance and even admiration for the stance we take, regarding animal cruelty.