Monday, June 27, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
NZ Vegan Podcast Episode 81 - We are an abolitionist movement
LISTEN HERE
This week I talk about how important it is that we recognise and help others to recognise that our abolitionist movement for nonviolence is still an abolitionist anti-slavery movement, and our practical focus right now with regard to addressing this problem of violence and animal use has the primary goal, initially, of creating a society in which we can address the abolition of the property status of animals, because that is still where we are at. We haven't even begun to address that! The animal movement still doesn't even have veganism as the moral baseline! But the abolitionist movement does :) By promoting veganism we will create an environment in which we can actually address that, finally! Welfare reforms are useless and do not address the property paradigm. Vegan education does. As Gary Francione said in his latest interview, part of which you can read HERE:
"At this point, it makes no sense to focus on the law, because as long as we regard animals as things, as a moral matter, the laws will necessarily reflect that absence of moral value and continue to do nothing to protect animals. We need to change social and moral thinking about animals before the law is going to do anything more."
Let's not allow people, neither other vegans nor anti-vegans, to shift our focus to the defeatist, overwhelmingly negative attitudes, which seem to be fixated on all the things still currently out of our control as individuals (the majority of food production, sidewalks, tyres etc) and which prompt the vegans to identify their reason for opposing vegan education as being "too pure" or "unrealistic" (which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever) and anti-vegans to make absurd claims that animal use is an action that is equal in morality to veganism.
I want us to remind people what being vegan really means, and what our abolitionist movement really means, especially at this point in history, where we are still in this incredibly non vegan world, in which chattel slavery of sentient beings is still very much accepted as the norm and in which new welfarism is the dominant paradigm and therefore welfarism is still provided and marketed by the majority of vegans as the correct response to the issue of animal use. Wrong answer! Veganism is the correct response, as we know. We just have to continue to be a clear voice, and our voice is growing. Thank you all so much, for being such wonderful, clear voices.
Please read Gary Francione's work to learn about the importance of the abolition of the property status of animals and why veganism and the promotion of veganism is the correct response, the only response to that immoral status which still exists in our world today.
I mention Randy W. Sandberg and his wonderful advice about not feeding trolls (I am still trying to find the article he shared, will post when I find it..)
I mention Trisha Roberts from LiveVegan and her wonderful messages about insects, and I mention her organisation lobsa.org
I mentioned a video about nuclear pollution, posted by Renata Peters from The Alice Springs Vegan Society which you can also check out here at the latest article on Myl ène Ouellet's blog My Face is on Fire
Thanks for listening :)
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