Violence – Are you Getting Enough?

How Much Violence Do We Need to Stay Healthy?

Society looks down on those who openly love violence, labeling them as bullies, thugs, or even serial killers, but let’s be honest with ourselves: 9 out of 10 of us believe that we need a daily dose of violence just to stay alive.

Whether it’s killing a cow, a chicken, a goat, a pig, or a human, violence is crucial to our everyday functioning, or at least we’re pretty sure it is. I mean, to eat those beings, they must be killed. So violence must not be all that bad, if it feeds us. It’s the juice that keeps us alive. Well, most of us.

Usually we try to side-step the violence that kills the beings we eat and focus on the nutrition provided from their dead carcasses (because it’s the lifeless final product and not the process that truly provides nourishment). But what if the nutritious value is not in the bodies of these tortured beings but in the killing?

Perhaps we are feeding off the violence and not the aftermath of the violence—the process of killing one being to fuel another.

Let’s come out of the closet and admit that violence is not such a bad thing. Raping, mutilating, confining, and slaughtering animals is something we should be proud of. Let’s get in touch with the essence of our violent diets and start being more violent ourselves.

No more keeping the violence behind closed doors in factory farms and hiring new immigrants to do our dirty work—why let them have all the fun? Let’s get our own hands bloody! Since we’re convinced that nourishment can only come from killing, then having more violence will make us all healthier.

Wait. What’s that you say? You regret that eating animal products means that animals have to suffer? You don’t want to hurt animals? Hmm… conundrum.

But… something has to suffer for you to be nourished. Someone.

Doesn’t it?

Can we live off NO violence? Eat a nutritious diet without killing any creatures who experience affectionate,  nurturing relationships with their young?

This idea is so extreme. So hardcore. So jarring.

So… violent.

Disclaimer: Obviously this post needs a disclaimer.

Don’t hurt people. Or animals.

Veganarchy.

Human and Animal Enslavement

Why Animal Rights Can’t Progress

Unless We Look at the Bigger Picture

Just after I write a guide on being less controversial, I drop this bomb. Some people devote their lives to animal rights. And it’s an area that needs a TON of work. So how could it be a waste to devote attention to it?

In order to create a non-violent world, we need people working on all types of changes, on all levels, from all angles. But sometimes, we become so entrenched in a particular area of focus, that we forget to look at it in the larger context. Some of my smartest animal rights colleagues reject looking at the bigger picture, perhaps because it’s overwhelming.

So what do animal rights activists want?

We want animals to have the right to freedom because we believe that animals want that right for themselves. This includes freeing animals from their roles in food, clothing, testing, and harmful entertainment. In effect, animal activists want animals to stop being thought of as products. But how is this possible when humans are used as products?

Let’s begin by watching this short film on human enslavement:

So who are the farmers?

The farmers of human oppression are not only those in high positions of government, those with accumulated wealth, those with the closest ties to the financial world, or even the small number of families who control 1% of the world’s wealth, but anyone who can find justifiable reasons to use violence. The ones actually making profits from human enslavement would be the owners of the farms – the instigators, but Hitler did not create a holocaust on his own.

Dominating others is the single most profitable industry on Earth. This is why the most powerful countries are at permanent war with the rest of the world—to ensure that they are feared by other nations and their own nation just enough to preserve that dominion. These same nations ensure that other ’3rd world’ nations are kept down to make their own livestock feel as though they don’t have it so bad.

How do they breed us?

Mandatory schooling. Do you remember learning about how our financial systems really work in school? Or about current human oppression in your own country? Let’s not be overly dramatic, there are many positive skills and memories one can experience in school, but it is also an institution that is focused on creating obedient employees.

Also included in this obligatory indoctrination is competition. We are judged with letters and numbers and compared to our peers so that we are less likely to join forces with them. This also has the bonus effect of creating a majority of a population who believes so strongly in their system that they will violently oppose those who point it out to them because they define themselves according to their countries/churches/hockey teams.

We are simultaneously programmed by mainstream media, which has become consolidated into the hands of fewer and fewer. Those mainstream media channels project the rights of their owners, under the guise of entertainment and information sharing.

What about all our freedoms?

Just as corporations today are learning that micromanagement doesn’t necessarily equate with more productivity, and thus providing more free time for employees to work towards assignments of their choice, so has the human enslavement model developed, allotting more freedom to humans, but only as far as it makes us more create more profit. Just like allowing cows room to graze to produce better ‘beef’.

The problem is that once humans get a taste of more freedom, we begin to feel entitled to it, leaving us to question why we need to be ruled and why we give up such a large portion of our earnings to a government who represents us only indirectly, and usually not at all. Many vegans are disgusted to know that their tax dollars go towards subsidies for animal agriculture, for example.

We are provided by our farmers with enough freedom to survive, as long as we are productive (for example, you can only be employed if your skills are needed and you comply with your employer’s policies).

Our freedom ends when we want to freely move about our planet or spend the majority of our time as we want. We are trained to think that it is not humble to even consider these possibilities. That we should appreciate what we have, which is more than others have in developing nations. And if we, as livestock, try to push against the system, we meet violence—whether economic or physical—to silence us from dissent.

How do they keep us on the farm?

Heavily manned borders. Laws that dictate who is legal and who is not. You do know you can’t escape, right? And to make livestock feel at home on their farm, sometimes special events are held, such as 9-11, in which horrifying events unite people in attacking other countries and trick them into appreciating the security that their farmers can protect them with.

Not to mention that we are born into debt… and chained to our 9-5 jobs.

As the film states: We will never escape a cage that we refuse to see.

What happens when we try to get rid of the farm?

An excellent example of how humans are prevented from actually changing the farm is evident in the film Into the Fire, which depicts what happened when the G20 Summit visited Toronto in summer of 2011. A (fucking) billion dollars of taxpayers money was spent on fencing people away from the event and costuming police with full riot gear. Police reacted with random violence, ID checks, and strange new temporary laws to deter people’s rights to protest.

Police are quick to point out in oppressing your freedom that it’s ‘for your own safety’ just as veal calves are kept ‘safe’ in dark boxes before they are led to slaughter.

Humans as a means to an end: profit

Sure, human livestock doesn’t (directly) face slaughter, like factory farmed animals. However, with the routine poisoning of the masses through toxic foods and chemicals, constant wars, and weather warfare, are we really kept as safe as we believe? If we are kept alive it is because we are of more value alive, for awhile.

Has anyone seen the Care.org commercial for women as “the world’s greatest untapped resource?”

The commercial is meant to get you to donate to helping women, but hold the phone… Does Care.org think women haven’t been working for the last 4000 years? Ok, the ad is trying to tell us that sexism lives on in some parts of the world more than others. But accidentally gives away that the larger system would optimally like to exploit women to their fullest capacity.  If a woman chooses to exert her power, it shouldn’t be as a resource for someone else’s gain.

So how did we get duped into all this?

Death Denial

The film above discusses how our fear of death makes us controllable. We are afraid to be physically hurt or deprived because we fear it will end our existence. While animals also experience this fear, humans have more cerebral capacity to contemplate death on a linear level, making us prone to fear beyond an instinctual level by our awareness of death’s effects on our future.

It is from this deep fear that we are also driven to dominate others. The film Flight from Death: Quest for Immortality discusses how people harm others to feel as though they are at least more immortal than those who they knock down.

Experiments were performed in which subjects who were given subconscious reminders of death were found more likely to cause harm to others, and less likely to destroy systems  that they felt represented them eg. an American flag and crucifix. The studies found that we aim to appease our own death anxiety by alienating those who are dissimilar to us (think Holocaust), and that humans feel a type of immortality in belonging to a greater culture, so that even if we can’t live on, we can live on as a whole eg. as Christians, Canucks fans, Nazis, etc.

{*What the documetary failed to discuss is that this knowledge of how death denial works  is a prime motivator for a group of people seeking financial domination to instill a fear of death in the masses to make them more prone to want to attack an outside source (Iraq and Afghanistan).}

This same death denial can be transferred to the animal-based diet eaten by the majority of the world’s population. We feed off of the death of other ‘lesser’ beings. We believe that our lives can only flourish through their death. We feel that energy is obtained through dominating and conquering those species that are weaker. And we put the majority of this process of domination behind closed doors so that we can shove it to our subconscious, just like our thoughts about death.

The Bigger Picture

The oppression of animals in our society is a symptom of human oppression.

Gary L. Francione writes on The Abolionist Approach that we can change human rights by changing animal rights, which means first and foremost changing ourselves to not wear or eat animal products, and secondarily taking direct action to liberate animals. I agree with Francione – animal rights is a great place to start in order to wake up to large the larger systems of oppression we live in. But it is only a place to start.

This does not mean that we forgo veganism for other causes – veganism is the building block of all non-violent progress. But it does mean that if we wish to campaign for animal rights, we need to pay just as much attention to the bigger picture of our oppressive world systems.

By learning to treat animals non-violently we are feeding something in our souls. However, if we are not aware of the nuances of oppression in our daily lives in a greater scope, then our animal rights victories will not be as far-reaching as we want them to be.

I’m not asking anyone to stop doing what they’re doing, simply to keep an open mind. It takes a lot of courage to look into factory farming and see what really goes on, but the horror doesn’t stop there.

Just as we can’t rally for no war while our bodies are graveyards, we also can’t practice veganism without properly critiquing the systems we live in. Don’t be afraid of anarchism. Check it out and learn what it means to you.

Being the person who protests the effects while ignoring the cause is like being the person who says they are against animal abuse but eats animals.

Only when we strive for the end of all oppressive systems will animals and humans truly be free.

Animal Rights Idol

Do Vegans Compete for Sainthood?

I win. You lose.

I have always found the animal rights community to be an extremely caring group of people where everyone is treated as equals. Sure, there are conflicts surrounding tactics, but even the activists who personally dislike one another can still work together for the movement. Just as we believe that animals can and should be treated equally to humans (though in some cases, as required, differently), the animal rights community has been a place where all hierarchies are put aside as we work to manifest a non-violent world.

Until the other day. I’m new to this whole Facebook thing, so I’m not sure about proper etiquette for ‘friend’ing people (although I have a personal policy to never unfriend anyone (unless they are trying to kill me, or sue me, or equivalent). And so carefully treading, I added Colleen Patrick Goudreau with a message passing on my previously mentioned compliment about her plenary speech. My basis for adding Colleen was that she has almost 5000 friends, and was also friends with a few of my friends. Clearly a popular lady sure to have some interesting discussions on her wall.

I received an almost immediate reply from a woman managing her account who called herself Colleen’s “Fan Manager”, saying something along the lines of: thanks for the compliment but what makes you think Colleen has time to receive it? This is a PERSONAL account. If you want to praise her, go to the fan page. She also mentioned that Colleen has been trying to cut down on her friends (!?) and turn them into fans, so any further friends were out of the question. Seriously? I was having images of the Queen of Narnia turning her subjects into statues.

The first thing that came to mind was: hmm, a compliment does not a fan make. I’m nobody’s fan; it’s not my style. So I replied that I prefer to communicate with people as equals.

Now. I have nothing against Colleen – quite the opposite. I could never bring myself to hate any animal rights activist. But this experience caused me to question: is animal rights a popularity contest? Is it ever okay to use our success in the movement as a way to promote ourselves for personal gain? Before I continue, I’d like to state (again) that this is not a personal rant against Colleen. That would be ridiculous; I mean how awesome is it that she reaches so many people? It is a post meant to explore our motivations (and possible distractions) as individuals within the animal rights movement.

So – is an animal rights activist higher status because she’s published and on TV? Or do the animal rights activists in masks setting free caged animals have just as much of an impact on the movement? I believe that it is extremely important to maintain a level of equality within the movement or we risk becoming ourselves exactly what we are trying save the animals from being: products. 

If we are writing books, and speaking publicly, and creating brands for ourselves with any intention in mind other than helping the animals, then aren’t we just emulating the icky media-saturated world that already exists where people follow blindly the lead of those who pretend to know and be more?

This is exactly why I do not only advocate for change in animal rights, but for the end of all oppressive systems (ie. Veganarchy).

I’ve had the chance to meet Will Potter and Nathan Runkle, other busy, successful “famous” activists. They didn’t emit the same “untouchable” vibe, and that affirmed for me my lifelong place in this movement. Joanne Chang, Glenn Gaetz, and Brian Vincent are some of Vancouver’s most known animal rights activists and are all media figures… and yet they are totally accessible. approachable. “touchable” (hey now, not in that way). But my experience with Colleen’s “fan manager”? (Again, really?) sort of reminded me of elementary school. “Oh, sorry, I already told Steph, Lexy, and Megan they could eat lunch with me… there’s not really enough room for any more people, ie. you.” (Hey – we all have to learn that we’re not followers somehow).

Many vegans hold themselves above “mainstream” people as being more intelligent and more evolved (don’t lie). And this holier than thou attitude can also translate amongst our own community. Let’s not measure our successes. Let’s not develop complexes about who we think we are. Let’s remember that in order to treat the animals as equals, we must always treat each other as equals, too.

In a movement where the process often depends on some who lead and others who follow, let’s not label those who follow as fans, or even as followers. Our ideas would mean nothing if others did not gather to listen to them.

Being a “Good” Vegan

What does it mean to be a “good” vegan?

Am I going straight to hell? (It's faux, needless to say?)

My friend and I had an interesting conversation today as we were fighting the battle against fur together on the street. This friend is an extremely innovative and courageous activist and this is why I enjoyed our debate.

The convo began with whether vegans should wear faux fur, but it branched off into what makes a “good” vegan.

What is a “good vegan”?

- Someone who doesn’t eat anything from animals OR insects (honey)?
- Someone who is not only vegan, but an animal rights activist?
- Someone who won’t eat a veggie burger off a barbecue where meat has been cooked?
- Someone who doesn’t have pets? (Some believe animals aren’t meant to be domesticated)
- Someone who adopts as many pets as possible?
- Someone who abstains from faux fur?
- Someone who abstains from faux fur and faux leather/pleather?
- Someone who refuses to work with any animal products? (Service industry, etc.)
- Someone who doesn’t wear any of the old leather or wool items they purchased before becoming vegan?
- Someone who doesn’t fly or drive on top of being vegan, out of respect for the entire natural world?
- Someone who chooses to feed their pets a vegan diet despite the sometimes difficult experimentation process in establishing their dietary balance?
- Someone who feeds their pets some animal products, some vegan products?
- Someone who ensures that all the meat they buy for their pets is wild and not factory farmed?
- Someone who buys only personal care products that aren’t tested on animals?
- Someone who boycotts all mainstream medicine because it’s tested on animals? Including birth control pills? And/or antibiotics?
- Someone who eats vegan but won’t cook meat for their partner or family?
- Someone who doesn’t smack mosquitoes on their arm? Or kill spiders?
- Someone who lets their home be infested by bugs or mice because they don’t want to hurt anything?
- Someone who shuns not only animal products, but the system that treats the animals as products? (ie captitalism) Engaging in other activist strategies to change the bigger picture as well?

Vegan Grey Zones

Many of these questions are GREY ZONES. Questions that many vegans feel strongly about in one way or another. Being vegan is actually quite relative, and personal.

I’m not vegan as a role model for others. I’m vegan because it feels good to me. And if others observe this, then great if they choose to investigate this lifestyle for themselves.

BUT, if I try to be vegan according to another’s definition of what a vegan should be, then I feel obligation and I’m not a conformist. If I conform to the majority of a vegan group I socialize with and work with, this is not acting independently.

Vegans don’t conform to the mainstream diet, but we also shouldn’t feel obliged to conform to each other. All vegan choices should come from within.

Also, I’m not vegan in an attempt to be ascetic or pure. In my mind, a vegan should have just as many options as a consumer of animal products.

We can imitate whatever products we miss with creative solutions: including veggie burgers, faux fur, pleather, soy milkshakes, etc.

All ideas are born in the natural world (eg. umbrellas = tree tops), so I feel that the idea of the texture of fur will never go away as long as we admire the coats our animal friends and observe this soft layer of warmth. (Faux fur can be warm, to vegans who feel it’s simply aesthetic.)

*Disclaimer: Test faux fur before you buy. Take a lighter into the dressing room and burn a strand or two. Faux will melt and smell plastic – real fur will smell like human hair caught in the blowdryer.

Vegan Hedonism

I aim to be a vegan hedonist. I don’t give things up, I simply get creative in finding a way to live the life I want to live in a way that’s not violent or entitled.

We live in an animal product consuming world and we can bend our ideals to make the journey sustainable, but only if we pay attention to our internal compasses and not those of our neighbors.

Veganity

	Veganity:
	“A religion for the new millennium, the foundations of which are formed by the principles of veganism. At its core is the desire to curb excessive usage of non renewable resources and thus perpetuate the existence of a habitable planet, and hence the human race.” Urban Dictionary

Is Veganism a Religion?

No, no it’s not.

Recently I started going by a different professional name in order to prevent myself from being discriminated against due to non-violent political and dietary choices. As a public persona, anyone can google me and see that I don’t buy animal products and do advocate the end of all oppressive systems, a lifestyle best described as veganarchy.  I have been asked not to talk about veganism or animal rights at a job, and have also been asked not to answer questions asked to me about my “beliefs”. (What employer you ask? Well I won’t name names. Ok, I will: Spa Utopia! ) But veganism isn’t a belief, yo – it’s an event as current as Obama. I’ve even been called a Bible thumper by my own hardcore barbecuing Albertan family, though I’m actually anti-religion, which brings me to my point: veganism is not a religion.

1. Religions are gangs groups of people who believe that there is one truth. You can’t be two religions at once. And yet, you can be vegan and any religion you want, or none at all. Veganism, while it reflects a non-violent morality, is a consumer choice.
   
2. Religions are based on speculative literature. Whether it’s the Bible or the Koran or The Watchtower, religions are filled with fables and shoulds and predictions. Veganist literature only discusses the here and the now. Factual, pertinent information to show where your food comes from and how your decisions affect yourself and the planet. Veganism doesn’t have ten commandments and doesn’t care if you get loaded or sleep around or trespass against thy neighbour or trespass onto thy neighbour’s driveway or whatever that one means. It only poses questions like: what is nourishment, really? Or, how can we do this differently?
   
3. Vegans don’t want to convert you so that you’ll “be saved”, so your soul won’t burn in eternal damnation, so you’ll donate, or so they can recruit another vegan babymaker for the new vegan race – vegans just want to end the long chain of suffering of confined, abused animals. It’s that simple. Sure, they’d love to go for dinner with you, but vegans have no plans of world domination.

Anarchy: “Self-control as the preferable form of government rather than external legislation.”

Veganism: First, do no harm.

Veganarchy: Liberation for all, not just the workers.

Veganarchy

When you realize that soylent green is made of sentient beings…

Go Veganarchic!

(*Isn’t that the prettiest symbol?)

Check it out yo:

http://veganarchy.net/

“ Only a perspective and lifestyle based on true compassion can destroy the oppressive constructs of present society and begin anew in creating desirable relationships and realities.

— Brian A. Dominick, Animal Liberation and Social Revolution: a vegan perspective on anarchism or an anarchist perspective on veganism.

“ To decide one oppression is valid and the other not is to consciously limit one’s understanding of the world; it is to engage oneself in voluntary ignorance, more often than not for personal convenience.

- Brian A. Dominick

*You can download a free issue and/or print it out and circulate it.

 

What is Veganarchism???

Veganarchism is the political philosophy of veganism (more specifically animal liberation) and anarchism, creating a combined praxis as a means for social revolution. This encompasses viewing the state as unnecessary and harmful to animals, both human and non-human, whilst practising a vegan diet. It is either perceived as a combined theory, or that both philosophies are essentially the same. It is further described as an anti-speciesist perspective on green anarchism, or an anarchist perspective on animal liberation.

Veganarchists typically view oppressive dynamics within society to be interconnected – from capitalism, racisn, and sexism, to human supremacy, and redefine veganism as a radical philosophy that sees the state as harmful to animals. Ideologically, it is a human, animal, and Earth Liberation movement that is fought as part of the same struggle. Those who believe in veganarchy can be either against reform for animals or for it, although do not limit goals to changes within the law.