Targeting the consumers

1400: 

A young vegan woman once told me that people should think of their beloved cats and dogs at home while they strolled down the aisles of the supermarket – it would help them remember similar animals who are not so well loved, notably the ones living on farms.

         

As vegans, we must try to touch consumers’ hearts, in order to help them make a transition from animal-eating to plant-eating.  If we try to remain aloof, we’ll be seen as too righteous.  They won’t grasp why we are advocating for animals to have a right to a life.  They won’t want to know what the Animal Industry is up to.  And they’ll find it easy to slip back into ignorance and believe we are too different from them.

Instead, they’ll be content to identify with other people, like their fellow omnivores who collectively accept the breeders, rearers, killers, packers, processors, producers and retailers of the food and clothing they themselves use.

By having no role models for whom they can feel respect, they’ll continue to be indifferent towards the feelings of the animals.  They’ll see them as objects and have no more empathetic thoughts for them than wood chippers will think of sparing the forests they are cutting down.  If we are equated with impossible expectations or if we sell vegan ethics as some sort of restriction, then ethics will be sidelined and everything will continue as it is at the moment.

And to make the eating of animals doubly secure for the Industry, the truth is kept from the consumer - the Animal Industry keeps the farm doors firmly shut to the public gaze. Since animal farming is still legal, the industry is secure and made more so by scientists who say “we must eat meat” and spiritual leaders who say, "Go ahead. It’s all okay". Consequently 95% of all adults in every country of the world, have been sucked in. This is why consumer re-education is such a high priority.