I believe that love is a material force in the universe. I believe that there was love in the world before I was born. I believe it will be here after I die. And, as often as it may seem otherwise, my blogs are often written from a position of love. There are, of course, plenty of days when I wonder how many animal advocates would have to piss on a third rail or fall down a flight of stairs before anyone would even notice. The world might ask itself: "where's all that shrill shrieking gone to?" or "what happened to all that mouth breathing and muttering?" But it hurts me to think so.
As much difference as there may be between all of us who are sincerely concerned about how to help other animals about how to do so, many of us are united in our sincere moral concern for them no matter how misguided the expression of that concern. It's not because people hate nonhuman animals that they might not miss animal advocates; it's because they are confused about what they owe nonhuman animals. And it is because, rather than educate them about the morality necessity and the practical ease of going vegan, most advocates instead alienate the public, either on one hand with lukewarm and confusing messages about why it's fine to keep using nonhuman animals or on the other hand with a lot of mouth-breathing posturing about violence.
As an advocate, I've read a million cliches passed off as 'critical and individual thinking': not everyone will change; not everything is black and white; animals are dying; we have to help animals now; veganism is hardcore; veganism is absolutist; all vegans are angry; we'll never have a vegan world; I just believe in two track activism: regulating animal use now and ending it in the future (read here: never); we have to hurt the oppressor economically; we have to work with industry to promote change. These are all various formulas that accept failure on their face, whether the speaker understands that or not. They are meant to excuse the speaker (intentionally or not) from the hard work of promoting veganism and the rights of other animals. They also reflect a kind of uncritical unwillingness to show the courage and determination required to reshape the world into a more just and more compassionate vision.
We cannot meaningfully help nonhuman animals get free so long as we promote their regulated use. We cannot meaningfully work to achieve a nonviolent society through violent means. Promoting justice, compassion, love, nonviolence, creativity and equality makes us all vulnerable. I am not saying, at all, that it is easy to be an advocate. I'm saying that courage is among the most important virtues that any advocate should cultivate, and that each of us can be brave with practice (so, get out there and practice!).
But for all this talk about change, I haven't seen much. The animal welfare advocacy movement (in both it's militant and nonmilitant strains) is even more sterile, less organized, less passionate, more opportunistic and less disciplined than the environmental movement (hard to believe when you look at Al Gore, but I believe it's true). Oh, yeah, I left out clumsier. More important, I still have yet to read one substantive argument against a principled, disciplined, creative and nonviolent movement organized strategically and tactically around the abolition of animal slavery through vegan education and the restoration of nonhuman animal personhood with the abolition of the property status.
Not one.
I have read, however, a lot of poorly reasoned catch phrases about the nature of change that are meant to shut down discussion that wouldn't get a passing mark in a first year philosophy, sociology or history class, much less in an adult social justice movement. Bullying other advocates with silly and irrational rhetorics as so many of the self-appointed mouthpieces of 'the movement' do is not a kind of activism. It's a way of hiding (but also revealing) just how small and broken they really are as human beings while they trade off the slavery of nonhuman animals. Now, I'm not blaming anyone for being broken. But is this the kind of stuff that helps nonhuman animals? Is that the best we can do?
We could be a movement that not only proposes but makes social change on a level that's unmatched in human history. A right not to be used as someone else's property summons not only an immediate, unequivocal and unconditional end to animal slavery, it pushes us in the direction of environmental change, economic change, anti-sexism, anti-heterosexism, ant-racism and all of the other social transformations that we must make if we wish to earn our survival as a species. Instead, many of us content ourselves with games, name-calling, silly rhetorical flourishes, threats of violence and other forms of posturing. It's sad.
Even as your "colleague", much less a member of the public, how am I supposed to take seriously someone who's afraid to promote veganism tirelessly? How am I supposed to take seriously someone who's afraid to say what they mean clearly? I can't take someone seriously if they've already given up before they've even gotten started, and I can't take someone seriously if they're always in the process of taking back what they say and saying one thing, and then another. If advocates want to talk trash in between sucks of their thumbs, it's unfortunate. I am not saying that people shouldn't defend themselves then their views are misrepresented. But no one who is unwilling to stand up for the rights of all sentient beings unequivocally, human or non, should expect more than the sand I shake off my shoes.
I don't care whether rhetorical games are meant to be funny, sarcastic, ironic, satirical or any of the other words we use to avoid saying what we mean. I have a sense of humor, but I'm completely humorless when it comes to my work on behalf of nonhuman animals. They call me to be serious, not juvenile. And the sad, not funny, truth is the I couldn't refer to the "violent wing" and the �indirect wing� of the animal advocacy movement as clowns without being threatened with a defamation lawsuit by the American Clown Lobby (no offense to clowns or their lobby).
Mostly, the leadership of the advocacy movement seems to consist of a bunch of over-privileged babies with diaper rash (and their propaganda machines and flunkies) who know little about even less than little, least of all organized, socially transformative political work. I'm not trying to insullt anyone, just capture reality in an appropriate metaphor. They either fail to understand the arguments of abolition, or they appropriate them in an effort to turn them back into the same watered down welfarism we've had for decades now, or they actively misrepresent them as straw arguments because that's all they can deal with. Perhaps that was too harsh; in the interests of full disclosure, I don't meant to disparage babies nearly as much as that comparison implies (I'm even more afraid of their lobby than the Clown Lobby).
Frankly, I think it's a shame that so many apologists have passed themselves off as John Browns in our movement. There's a sense among vegans that taking turns kissing the ass of welfare reform (for years and years and years) and cashing in on a public that knows it needs change but also wants to continue using nonhuman animals, while promoting a rhetoric of hysterical confrontation to move poorly written books, blogs and Web sites is radical. It's anything but radical. Too many of the movement's figureheads live in the house (and not just in the house, but in plush offices of the house) and call it the field. But they shouldn't think that the grassroots of the movement haven't noticed.
I'm not angry, nor am I surprised. I'm not even disappointed because I never had any serious expectations on anyone except for myself and other abolitionists. But I hope someday many, if not all, of our movements 'leaders' and their devotees will figure these things out, stop stewing in their diapers and take up some real work. Solidarity work is not an academic exercise, a trip to the mall, an apologia, a t-shirt or a text-messaged death threat before you pop into KFC. It's hard work, good faith and sincerity guided by sound principles and discipline. It's a debt we pay to the living and the dead, and we'll spend the rest of our lives paying it.
As an activist, I may run either hot or cold depending on the mood in which you catch me, but I'll never be lukewarm. I believe that animals have a right not to be used as property, and I'm vegan because that's the minimum of what I owe them. I pay what I owe. I'm not afraid to say that I'm vegan. I suppose people play games when that's what they have to do, but the rest of us have work to do, change to make, history to form, nonhuman animals to save and a social transformation to nurture. We'll keep busy without you. I'm not about to shrink from a clear and sincere expression of my views or the work that my views entail. As a vegan and an animal rights advocate, violence is inimical to me, but so is complicity.
What will be sad for me is that at least some of my readers won't even know that this letter was written to them out of love. While others may have written you off your entire lives, I still believe in you. If I let you content yourselves with being less than the best that you can be for nonhuman animals without saying anything at all, I'd be selling you and them short.
Our activism could be more than pranks to pass the time or ways to grab attention for yourselves or for poseurs. I hope someday we'll all put away these childish things and that we can build something together. Until then, I have to keep my eye on the prize. I hope some of you will give sincere thought to what I've written and decide to focus on creative nonviolent vegan education as the basis for building the mass movement we'll need to make change for nonhuman animals. And if not, may peace still be upon you.
The world is vegan if you want it and you're willing to work for it. If you are not vegan yet, you can start by going today. Be a movement unto yourself. If you are vegan but not an abolitionist, you can lear more about the approach at www.abolitionistapproach.com.
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