My Sentiments Exactly...

This is a very thoughtful video on the question of Human Rights versus Animal Rights from YouTube user porolita22. Have a look if you get a chance. It's not very long. And porolita22 manages to squeeze a lot of important arguments into this video in a way that is very friendly and accessible. If all vegans could argue this eloquently and this calmly, the movement might even win over more converts. Already, we're making great strides, and thanks to rational arguments like these, we'll keep making progress.

The Agony of Winning Hearts and Minds: A few thoughts on a recent Facebook exchange...

I had a wonderful Facebook exchange with the good folks at LiveVegan. It was a debate, of sorts, about how best to win the Hearts and Minds of non-vegans. How best to win omnivores and vegetarians over to the cause?

A lot of us not only ask this question, we feel this question very deeply. We know the clock is ticking, and with each passing hour, millions of animals around the world die violent deaths, the victims of customs and traditions and economic markets that have robbed them of their dignity and reduced them to commodities, food, clothes and so forth.

The initial post on the Facebook exchange got me thinking. It said:

Gary Francione's twitter reponse to Woodstock Farm Sanctuary's post about a new study shows sheep are highly intelligent even smarter than primates in some respects: "This suggests that intelligence is morally necessary for personhood. It isn't. Only sentience is." -- GLF

Those of you who have read this Blog in the past know by now that "GLF" - Gary L. Francione - is one of my idols. I've always had huge amounts of respect for him. I always will. There are so many things I admire about him: His brilliance, his humanism, his consistency, his unwavering principles.

But I also know that a lot of omnivores don't know who Gary is, and unless they're looking to convert to veganism (like I did), they're probably not going to ever want to read his work or understand his point of view. Omnivores, with honorable exceptions, tend to circle the wagons. They don't want to hear things that go against their customs and traditions, their ways of doing things. Many wish to continue consuming food and clothing made of animals and they aren't willing to give those things up. Again, there are exceptions - omnivores teetering on the edge of going vegetarian or vegan - but most keep the walls high.

So I posted the following reply:

I agree with Gary Francione that intelligence is not morally necessary for personhood. But I also believe these kinds of studies make omnivores pause and rethink why it is OK to eat some animals (e.g., sheep) and taboo to even consider eating others (e.g., primates).

It triggered a very friendly debate, with the moderator emphasizing the importance of a consistent abolitionist vegan message. I don't disagree with that position necessarily. But I do feel that some flexibility is needed when it comes to winning over omnivores. Hence my follow-up post on Facebook:

Well, I was speaking from personal experience, as someone who went from being an omnivore to being a vegan. When I was thoughtlessly stuffing my face with meat (and other animal products) and I found out how intelligent pigs were... and then I learned that chickens understood math... and I learned that cows formed emotional bonds... (et cetera, et cetera), it did not "reinforce speciesism" in me, Far from it. It made me start to become aware about the centrality of sentientism.

In purely practical terms, I don't know what these sorts of studies do for other omnivores. Back when I was one, this kind of information helped me embrace veganism in a way that simply saying, "This being is sentient, therefore you have no right to use her/him or destroy her/him" could not have accomplished.

The exchange went on - congenial from start to finish - but in the end, I came away feeling despair because it is so hard to get through that Great Omnivore Wall. So many of the people in my life that I love and cherish are omnivores and show no signs of giving it up, despite having a "Black Sheep" vegan in the family. I can tell you one thing: As someone who grew up in a Red State where people love their meat and their eggs, their ice cream and their cheese, talking about "sentient beings" won't likely win them over to the cause. Will anything else win them over? I don't know.

I've heard lots of vegans attack "baby steps." Purists favor an all-or-nothing commitment. I can see why. I concur that strict veganism is the way to go.

But practically speaking, we are dealing with people who don't want to change their ways. The thought of giving up animal-based products - whether meat or cheese or milk or yogurt or cottage cheese or fish or lobster or leather jackets or whatever - seems more stark to them than the suffering of animals. Call them selfish. Call them "set in their ways." Call them destructive. Call them whatever you want. This is the reality that we must confront.

But every day of the week, I read about wonderful animal rights activists struggling to get their message across. They beam their message in a hundred different ways. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals stages protests and organizes advertising campaigns that are very "in-your-face." Groups such as Woodstock Farm Sanctuary issue studies about the intelligence of sheep and provide loving safe havens for beautiful animals. Gary Francione crisscrosses North America (and the world) giving lectures, he Blogs, he Twitters, he works endlessly. Philosopher Steven Best, based at the University of Texas at El Paso, advocates more militant forms of direct action. And there are some vegans who press for "flexible veganism" or "flexitarianism" (a.k.a., semi-vegetarianism), thinking that some animal product reduction is better than no animal product reduction.

So who's right? If you think about it, these struggles take on elements of religious and political debates. People argue. Some critique moderates and "welfarists." Others embrace sectarian positions and try to police the tiny vegan movement that does exist. And voices of moderation in the movement lament the presence of militants. Adherents of nonviolence argue with those who advocate more extreme forms of resistance.

Do you know what that makes us? A lot like every other social protest movement in modern history. This is a "Big Tent" movement, or as Walt Whitman might say, "A movement of movements." And yet, I think at the end of the day, most of us in the movement feel - at the very deepest level - the sorrow of losing these beautiful animals who are being obliterated en masse by a brutal social order.

In the end, my final post on Facebook read:

I really like this debate. I think it's a wonderful exchange (and very friendly, which I love). I do consider myself an abolitionist, and I ultimately reject welfarism. I suppose I'm trying to grapple with some of the complexities of winning hearts and minds (which we can all agree isn't easy). There are lots of issues to think about. But I'm glad this is such a lovely community of kindred spirits and we can talk about these things. And I also think veganism has made huge gains in recent years, thanks to lots of wonderful people like you and Gary Francione. I know we're all trying to grapple with the best way to spread the message. And, at the end of the day, I'm not even sure what I said above is right. It breaks my heart to think about all of those animals who are born into such a hellish short and violent existence. I think knowing what's happening to these sentient beings while I'm struggling with how best to convince omnivores of the error of their ways (the clock is ticking, precious lives are being taken) is what's most agonizing in this whole equation.

The unfortunate toll that violence takes on good people

I received an invitation to join a new Facebook group called "Animal Revenge Movement." The poorly worded description on the group's page reads: "With 156 billion animals being killed world wide [sic] every year just for what animal eating humans call food? Animal Revenge Movement is for people that believe it's okay to kill humans to help and save animals."

The group's Facebook page is a gathering place to celebrate the maiming, mutilation and death of human beings by animals (and, presumably, by animal rights advocates who have the proper credentials to tell us who deserves to live and who deserves to die). The page includes unsettling pictures of animals harming human beings. The group's profile picture is of a person whose face is concealed by a bandana, wearing a black T-shirt with white lettering that says, "IT'S OK TO KILL HUMANS TO SAVE ANIMALS." And on their Facebook wall, malcontents post messages praising animals that inflict pain and death on human beings.

It's a grim, sad spectacle. It's depressing as hell to see. This group's page is brimming with nastiness. What do you expect from a place on Facebook where people assemble to fantasize about inflicting violence on "corpse munchers" (as one caustic poster calls omnivores)?

Needless to say, I'm not about to hit this hateful group's "Like" button.

The most unfortunate thing about this grim page - and all of the other spots on the Internet where infantile misanthropes gather to wish ill upon the human race - is that it shows the violence of the system rubbing off on people of good conscience. You can find this ugliness in other places on the Internet. The website of the North American Animal Liberation Press Office includes a page called Payback that tragically celebrates acts of animal violence carried out against human beings. The following is fairly typical of the tragedies listed on the NAALPO's Payback page:

28 June 2009
Longmont, CO

A 12-year-old boy was killed Sunday when stomped on by a bull that threw him while he was competing in a rodeo in Colorado, authorities said. Boulder County Sheriff's Deputy Cathy Bryarly said the youth was tossed from the bull's back before he completed the 6-second ride and the animal's rear legs came down on his lower abdomen, missing a protective vest he was wearing, the Longmont Times-Call reported. The accident occurred about 11:20 a.m. during the Little Britches Rodeo at the Boulder County Fairgrounds. The boy, whose name wasn't released, was conscious when rushed to Longmont United Hospital, where he died, Bryarly said. "Although youth rodeo events use animals that are age-appropriate in size and demeanor, there is always an inherent risk to rodeo participants when dealing with these animals," Sgt. Mike Dimond of the sheriff's office said in a statement. Dimond later told the newspaper such accidents tend to be rare. "It could happen any time," he said. "I'm just surprised it doesn't."

It is unsettling to see this type of story celebrated, even though I completely understand the frustration that drives animal rights activists to cheer on such acts of violence. I often share that frustration, that sense of despair, that feeling that everything is hopeless. How many entries have there been on this blog where I've lamented the collective callousness, ignorance and violence of the human race? How many times have I felt a deep sense of despair about the billions of animals murdered each year by human beings? More than I care to count.

And yet there is something profoundly tragic about embracing the violence that forms the very foundation of the global animal killing machine. The factory farm system, the fur coat industry, the foie gras racket - these are all things that should have been done away with long ago. These institutions are eating away at the human race like cancer. Do not be surprised when those who resist these ultra-violent systems become tainted by the violence, eventually embrace it and take great satisfaction from acts of brutality, degradation and, yes, even death.

The alternative to such destruction is Mahatma Gandhi's concept of ahimsa or nonviolent action. Ahima predates Gandhi by centuries, but he successfully wove the concept into his teachings. Gandhi, more than most people, understood the toll that violence takes, both on the recipient and the aggressor. If there is hope for humanity, it rests in our ability to completely jettison the cultures, customs and traditions of violence that we have consciously and subconsciously embraced over the years. Each one of us has it within us to become living, breathing examples of ahimsa, if only we rise above the brutality that engulfs us and promote a new and different way of living, one free of exploitation and bloodshed.

A Few Thoughts on the Power of the Image

The reaction in the United States to the violent treatment of cows and calves at Conklin Dairy Farms in Ohio has been surprisingly strong. It is an indication that Americans are sick and tired of seeing animals being abused. None of this would've been possible - and those poor animals would likely still be victims of abuse and violence - without the trump card of hidden video.

The power of the image - both still and moving - cannot be underestimated. Images have transformed history. Ask any veteran of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and she or he will tell you that photographs and film footage were the some of the movement's greatest resources.

Little has changed in the last fifty years. Today, hidden video is one of the most powerful - if not the most powerful - weapons in the arsenal of animal rights activists and vegans. Films and images have helped convert countless men and women to the cause. Speaking from personal experience, I converted to veganism after watching HBO's Death on a Factory Farm, a film about the appalling conditions in an Ohio pig farm. The scene of the pig hanging from a forklift (above) was particularly powerful. The film still haunts me to this day, especially the image of one of the workers (the son of the man who owns the facility) picking up a piglet by its back legs and slamming her head against a wall. He dumps the piglet into a garbage can, where the poor creature is captured on film quivering.

Since then, I've watched countless animal abuse videos. I keep telling myself, "You're a convert. You're firmly in the vegan camp. You don't stray. Why torture yourself?" But I keep subjecting myself to these images. And they always haunt. Images of dogs and cats who have suffered violent beatings; of skinned animals still alive; of female ducklings being gassed in a garbage bag at a facility that breeds ducks for foie gras (only male ducks are used, so females are put to death - but many are thrown into garbage cans still alive); of farm animals being slaughtered while still conscious; of a worker at a pet supply place filling a garbage bag with hamsters and slamming them against a table.

Believe me, I've seen some unbelievably violent film footage. And it always leaves me shaken and upset.

So why keep watching it? A lot of sensitive souls - omnivores, vegetarians and vegans alike - cannot bring themselves to watch these images. A friend on Facebook remarked that she couldn't bear to watch the terrible beatings of the cows and calves at the Conklin Dairy Farm.

Sometimes, I must admit, these films leave me feeling powerless and demoralized. They force me to take a hard look at the worst - the most depraved - side of humanity. That's why I take time out each day to search the Internet for the men and women who are fighting the good fight. There are plenty of them out there. They deserve our support.

These videos are vital because they tear down the wall of denial that we build around ourselves. The wall that surrounded me was high when I was an omnivore, but, like the Berlin Wall, the power of truth turned it to rubble.

And the reason I could no longer keep that wall in place was a powerful made-for-HBO documentary. It was troubling, hard to watch, and gave me nightmares. It also slapped me into awareness. As depressing and hopeless and brutal as it was, the film proved to be an instrument of hope. It won me over. It has undoubtedly won others over, too.

So it turns out that poor little piglet, dying the loneliest death imaginable in a garbage can, kicking her legs and quivering in her last moments of agony, did not die in vain.