More seriously, though, most reasonable people can look at the war on drugs in the United States and see that it's deeply flawed. Leaving aside moral and strategic questions about the war on drugs and its objectives, it's very tactically misguided.
First, the war on drugs focuses primarily on supply when the problem is largely demand. It should go without saying that problems of economic demand (lots of people wanting to buy) are best solved by curbing economic demand (convincing lots of people not to buy). Second, it has only hastened the rise of more powerful, better organized and more careful cartels and, as a corollary, it has only empowered the government to get more involved in all of our lives. Intentional or not, it achieves a collusion of interests that mostly helps larger suppliers by eliminating smaller competitors, and allows the government to claim that even more public spending and intrusion into our daily lives is necessary because drug cartels are becoming more advanced all the time. Finally, it allows the government to claim victory over anything in a war of public relations that keeps the public focused on providing moral and financial support for a process that achieves almost nothing either for communities or for drug users. It's a vicious cycle.
Sounds great, right? And yet many vegans are very focused on attacking supply in an equally misguided way. The anti-drug vigilantism of the 80s returns in the proposed vigilantism of militant animal welfare groups. The 'war' between the state and international drug cartels (which is really a war between one set of corporate interests and another) is just replaced with a 'war' between one set of corporate interests (agribusinesses) that wants to sell animal products and labor and another set of corporate interests (animal welfare groups) that wants to regulate those sales. The former sells products. The latter, as Gary Francione describes it, sells indulgences. They ease the consciences of those who wish to buy and the price is only donations. In fact, it's not a war at all; intentional or not, it's an economic struggle between two rival economic interests that's sustained by what amounts to an economic win-win for everyone (except animals). Both are agents of Capital; neither of them is anti-capitalist in the slightest.
There are other similarities. The billions and billions of dollars spent on achieving nil on the war on drugs is matched by millions and millions in the "war against agribusinesses", which is really devoted more to sustaining a bloated bureaucracy and its attending public relations campaign for donor dollars. Leaving aside the moral and intellectual problems (and these are serious enough by themselves), that's a lot of money that could be much better spent on almost anything. Further, there are a lot of shrill slogans that are meant to close down discussion ("USERS DON'T USE DRUGS!", "ANIMALS ARE DYING!"), a lot of testosterone-laden posturing and chauvinism, a lot of very poor reasoning, and a lot of cheerleading of anything as a victory without really thinking about whether or not anything has been achieved.
There's also the mobilization of highly emotional and stereotypical imagery and words to oversimplify �the problem� to fix the case for the solution. Funny, it also sounds kind of like the war against Iraq, doesn't it? In fact, the kind of imagery the war on drugs often mobilized to make its case (e.g., African American drugs lords coercing young white women into smoking crack and sexual slavery) is just as racist and classist as much of what the animal welfare movement mobilizes to make its case (e.g., with it's shrill criticism of Michael Vick, its remarkably sexist campaigns, its general persecution of people of color, the poor, and women for their treatment of nonhuman animals instead of addressing all animal use as morally wrong, etc.).
Sounds pretty misguided, doesn't it? What bell hooks calls white supremacist capitalist patriarchy is very much alive and well in the animal welfare movement, and I hope to blog about that in the future. In short, though, many vegans are willing to look at the mismatch between what the US government says it's trying to do, what it's actually doing, and what it's actually achieving. They should. However, they don't often look at the corporate interests of animal welfare groups and their violent wings, what they're doing and what they're achieving with the same critical eye. They really should. Critical thinking is both a moral obligation and important to effective work.
For example, when someone says, �I'm anti-authoritarian, an abolitionist and a vegan�, but then turns around and supports state-based legal reforms intended to regulate animal use (fail!), refuses to promote veganism (fail!), and instead, just as often proposes an authoritarian and martial framework (fail!) to attack supply to solve a problem of demand (fail!) � very much like the war on drugs � I start to wonder what s/he's smoking. In the interests of full disclosure, I never wonder where I can also get some. I'm not trying to be mean, but it's not clear why any vegan who opposes authoritarianism and corporatism generally would embrace regulate animal use, authoritarian tactics or corporatism in the struggle to free nonhuman animals. This isn't a strategy; it's a refusal of strategy.
In fact, it's hard to imagine a "strategy" that could be more inimical to someone who is anti-authoritarian, a vegan, and an abolitionist than what some advocates propose when they propose a war to end animal use by focusing on suppliers while promoting, donating to, and laboring for state-based regulation of nonhuman animal treatment. Leaving aside the moral and intellectual questions, militant welfarism is bad economics. It's terrible strategy (and that's a charitable statement). It's impractical, and it's very likely that it would be just as effective as the war on drugs has been, which is to say, effective at entrenching existing paradigms of oppression at everyone else's expense.
Does that still sound like a good idea? I know; being in touch with reality and working effectively means we'll have to figure out other excuses to break stuff and shout slogans, but if we care at all about nonhuman animals, we should really focus our efforts on working effectively on their behalf. Don't get me wrong. Lots of people like to shout slogans and break stuff, but being a good advocate means acting in a disciplined way on behalf of those who call us to show our solidarity; it means organizing our behavior around clear strategies with respect to how to best help them as individuals, and as an aggregate of individuals, not participating uncritically in a directionless carnival of whateverism.
Thankfully, there are vegan alternatives to being misguided. Abolitionist veganism provides a moral framework that proposes that nonhuman animals have a right not to be used as property and that people should go vegan in light of that right. That is, abolitionist veganism is almost entirely demand-focused in its response to a problem of demand. Further, abolitionist veganism proposes a nonviolent, anti-authoritarian framework for action, not just fables about a world someday when we may all be nonviolent. Finally, it proposes that we rescue and care for nonhuman animals today, the millions and millions of them all waiting in local shelters, through perfectly legal means. The lives of those animals should be saved, even if they're not exotic or cuddly, and we don't get an adrenaline rush from the experience.
If you're not vegan, you should go vegan today. If you're vegan but not an abolitionist (or one of those supposedly anti-authoritarian abolitionists who supports authoritarianism, statism and regulated use), you should consider the abolitionist approach. Read some of my other articles or check out www.abolitionistapproach.com to learn more.
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