NZ Vegan Podcast: August 2014

"...as far as what we say to people who don’t ... I’m not really interested in designing campaigns – I mean look, Erik, there are going to be people who disagree, they’re going to be people who aren’t interested at all. So shall I design
my campaign and shall I target my efforts to the people that don’t care?

You know, last night I saw this movie Amazing Grace, it wasn’t a perfect movie, but it was certainly, given the grand scheme of horrible movies these days, it was a worthwhile movie to see. It was about Wilbur Wilberforce, who actually with Richard Martin, I
think this is accurate, that he started the RSPCA in England, but William Wilberforce
was also an abolitionist with respect to slavery. And it was very interesting, because he had to confront this very issue. That, at the time that he decided slavery should be abolished most people thought slavery shouldn’t be abolished, and yet, he didn’t propose that we ought to make slavery more humane. He took an abolitionist position continuously, and eventually he prevailed. So I’m not really interested in worrying
about – yeah, are there some people out there that don’t care?
You used the expression “gratuitous cruelty” I don’t even know what the hell that means, Erik. I really don’t even know what that means, gratuitous cruelty. What does that mean? We don’t need to eat animals at all. Nobody maintains – its 2007, nobody, not even the United States government maintains that we need to eat any animal products to be optimally healthy. Indeed an increasing number of mainstream healthcare people are telling us that eating animal products isn’t good for us. So, all suffering in connection with animals that we’re raising for food is gratuitous. So I don’t know what you mean when you say gratuitous cruelty.
But, are there people who don’t care? Yes, Erik, there are people who don’t care, and there are a lot of people who do care. And what I’m interested in doing is reaching those people, and when I reach them, the last thing in the world I want to tell them is, “Hey look, you’re going to go from Abu Ghraib to a minimum security Connecticut prison if you buy cage-free eggs.” I’m not going to tell them that. I’m going to tell them if they care about this issue there’s one choice: go vegan. And you know what? Some people are going to turn off to that, and some people are going to turn on to that, and what I’m interested in is the people who turn on to it, because every person I turn on to it decreases demand. That’s what we’ve got to do, is decrease the demand. And the way you decrease demand is you get people to stop using these products altogether. You don’t do it by imposing opportunity costs that are so deminimist that producers can pass those costs along to consumers and not lose a cent of profit. Indeed, there is a huge markup. I don’t know if you’ve shopped at Whole Foods recently, but they’re making a lot of money. Those products are marked up tremendously. Those producers are making a tremendous profit. I don’t think that’s the solution. As a matter of fact, I’m sure it’s not."

Here is my Facebook status I read out: https://www.facebook.com/NZVegan/posts/541388332629761

"Listening to the second part of the debate between Gary Francione and Tim Barford. So far we are at just the first question, re: having groups like "Part-Time Carnivore" attend Veg Fest. Tim is justifying this by saying cutting down to say 20% animal products is still going to have an immensely positive effect on the environment and human health, as well as decreasing by 80% the amount of animals used.

Nobody is disputing that less harm is better. Nobody is disputing that or has ever disputed that. It is not an issue that is focused on in human rights campaigning against fundamental human rights abuses like rape (I mean, less rape is better right? So should we campaign for 'less rape'? NO!!! We should and do campaign for NO RAPE!)

The main theme of Tim's position and of every single other welfarist I have debated myself in various places, is the same one. Their position is: if you advocate for veganism unequivocally, not only will people not even begin to think about these issues at all, and therefore because they won't even begin to think about them that means they will therefore never start to examine their animal use, leading them to start to cut down on their animal use anyway, of their own volition, based on these issues they are beginning to think about because they were talked to about veganism - not only will they not do that, but that they will completely and utterly, down to the last person, freak out, reject the entire thing entirely, and will make NO reductions and might even increase animal use out of some kind of perverse notion and will never, ever go vegan, or ever cut down, or ever have their consciousness awoken in the slightest bit about the immorality of animal use.

This is their claim. Based on this erroneous belief, they claim we *have* to promote "meat free Mondays" or "part time Carnivore" or welfare 'reforms' or 'cutting down' etc and we cannot promote veganism unequivocally or hold veganism as the moral baseline. Otherwise, they claim, NO ONE will make ANY CHANGES. EVER. That's their position.Does that make sense to you? That doesn't make sense to me either."

Thanks for listening