1586:
The Animal Rights movement
doesn’t have funding or lots of pro bono help from top-level professionals. Whatever
we do has to be largely self-generated and done at low cost. We can’t compete
with the exploiters’ wealth or chicanery. They have all the material
advantages. They own the media and advertising industries. They can buy whoever
they please. They can't be prosecuted for what they do to animals. They can legally
sell addictive food substances to the public. Their know how far to push the
customer. On this level, veganism can’t win people over. We have to go the
longer way around. Via something I'll mention at the end.
All omnivorous humans who are
living in the rich Western world are having such a good time indulging in
animal stuff that you can hardly expect they’d want us to spoil their
fun. They don’t want to think about food, just eat it and enjoy it.
They’d rather not know about animal exploitation, and thanks very much, they’re
grateful it’s done behind closed doors.
In this respect, our whole
society is like a mutual encouragement club – the customer goes along with what
the exploiters do, just so long as their favourite animal products are
available for purchase. It’s a classic drug dealing system - there’s a
co-dependency between dealer and client, so we all get what we want. It’s in
everyone’s interest not to betray the other.
If our providers give us
satisfaction, then they also own us. If we continue buying their products we’ll
have less and less chance of weaning ourselves off them. How seductive is their
product? Well, when you look at it more closely, it’s just smoke and mirrors,
it’s an illusion which convinces the brain to associate colours with
excitement, pretty packaging with pleasure-giving. Look at a burger, the whole
thing is a mass of colour. It's attractive to the eye. And the brain plays this
little game - "Give it a try, and find out what level of pleasure you can
reach by sinking your teeth into THAT!"
One’s attachment soon crumbles
when we puff resistance at it. And that resistance comes from a deeper, more
passionate, compassionate inner self - something we can all be proud of
but something we often keep locked up. (And for good reason, so as not to be
seen as a wimp.)
If we do decide to rouse the
sleeping compassion within, then it’s obvious what we have to do. And it isn't
a small gesture of good-will, or a token-contribution to a good cause. It's a
fully adult decision (sometimes profoundly made by kids). It is to drop the lot,
drop everything connected with animals.
Once you become vegan, a
whole new opportunity arises. Yes, suddenly, the body feels it. And it doesn't
necessarily feel so good. There's an ever-present lack of things. There's a
jumpy, twitchy, last throes feeling in the stomach and in the throat. A disaffection.
A sense of loss. But a sense of 'clean'. Or at least clean enough to enjoy the
bigger meal, where we can get our teeth stuck into talk. This talk was all-prohibited
before. Now we have a chance to educate. And not just others!! Suddenly we find
ourselves in a strong position to speak up about something we’ve suppressed for
a long time (whilst we ate them!!) - the animals, the ‘animal problem’.
The act of boycotting animal
produce is a statement and a half. It hits familiar foods, it hits your shoes,
it hits your favourite warm jumper, it hits the friend who gave you that jumper
last Christmas. But it hits the heights too. It's The Chance. To discover
things about ourselves, like patience, and like determination, and like the unconditional
love we can feel for every sentient being. So, to being their spokesperson.
This was always going to be my chance to get back at the 1%ers. Our chance. We
can reduce the impact of the exploiters and effectively help to put them out of
business, and all the while be doing it for the greater good - a noble cause.
But back to reality! Food
addiction is like a lump of concrete in our gut. The food binds body and mind perhaps
more than we realise. All of our life we’ve been ‘doing it’ - we've been salivating over delicious things (like having a
‘dopamine reaction’). Shopping is huge. Shopping is spending and exerting power.
It can also be a chore. But what is food shopping? It's making decisions
for oneself and others, about what we are going to be doing; defining who we
are, together. Conforming. "We will break bread together tonight". So,
shopping becomes part of our day-out, going into the malls, the supermarkets
and corner shops, to get our fix. The 'providers' who provide treats, meats and
food luxuries. By the shelf, we plan our meals and snacks and indulgences and
choose from eye level, pretty-packaged products, which 'they' know 'we' want. And
when we are looking for a theme, we know this is the big one, the title statement
of the meal ahead - the main ingredient of the meal. This feels like real adult
contemplation, the cuisine of it, and how we can drool over the kitchen smells,
and later the communal pleasure, and then again, our own increase in social
acceptance - ‘eating together: staying together’. It’s a powerful reason to
forget about animals and emphasise the need to feed ourselves and others with
what pleases us.
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