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Two new posters from Jo and me. For those who are concerned about this sort of thing, the approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text for Flesch Kincaid is 2.79 (so, just below third-grade reading level). The Flesch Reading ease is 85.64%.
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21 Feb 2012 at 6:07pm
As an abolitionist, I promote veganism because animal use is unfair. However, one of the common questions about and objections to veganism is whether veganism is nutritionally sound or healthy. It is important to understand the question of health as a vegan generally, as well as it place in the education process. Sensational stories
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14 Jan 2012 at 10:48am
As is often the case with my blog, I try to teach other advocates. I try to teach them not only how to be better advocates (which strikes me as kind of a smaller endeavour), but how to be better persons (which is often herculean). But for all those vegans who have, hours afterward, think "I shoulda said!!!" a blog on how to be funny (and
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7 Jan 2012 at 12:28pm
In no small way, 2011 has been a year that has witnessed a lot of movement in animal advocacy. Francione's work continues to surge in popularity with advocates. Even five years ago, there were not all that many abolitionists. Now there are probably several hundred, perhaps thousands, active worldwide. Active advocacy does not
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1 Jan 2012 at 2:27pm
There are mixed opinions on how best to conduct vegan outreach: are shocking images of animal use helpful to represent the violence animals endure, or are they just a weird torture porn that ingratiates advocates but turns off viewers? Should advocates participate in more online or offline dialogue? Are stunts an effective way to draw public attention?
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28 Dec 2011 at 8:14am
Beyond silly, other-worldly hypotheticals, it seems strange to me when advocates (some vegan) claim that the use of animals for human ends does not harm those who are used (not only do I believe it harms those who are used, I believe it also harms those who do the using). What these kinds of claims (that we can use animals as our resources without harming
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24 Dec 2011 at 11:16am
Dear Roger, I have decided to withdraw my challenge to debate you, as well as the post that proposed it. I hope at some point you'll change your mind about a handful of things I consider to be important to taking a strong, uncluttered abolitionist position. Nevertheless, I wanted to wish you all the best and to apologize for what were,
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21 Dec 2011 at 3:08pm
Going forward, I have decided to use strictly the principle of charity (for at least one year) in my dealings with other animals advocates where it is practicable to do so (except where abiding by the principle of charity would draw me into greater harms, issues of sincerity or other misguided positions with respect to other advocates).
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13 Dec 2011 at 7:06pm
There has been some underinformed debate recently about whether animal use has increased and whether there is any evidence for that it is increasing. Although this trend is documented fairly well in Gary L. Francione's books (among others sources), I spent about 10 minutes using this amazing tool called Google. This led me to the ultra-secret
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27 Nov 2011 at 5:01am
Those who promote welfare reform frequently argue that raising awareness about cruelty to animals is a necessary step toward better treatment. They avoid or soft-shoe veganism because, they claim, the public is not ready because they aren't even aware of animal cruelty. Leave aside, momentarily, that people realize that when they eat animals,
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21 Apr 2010 at 11:08am
This question is circulating both the vegan blogosphere with interesting pieces from Stephanie Ernst and a response from Mylčne Ouellet, as well as other social media. Since I hate to be left out of the conversation, some thoughts follow. ETA: I have changed this blog based on some feedback from a colleague, which I thought was quite helpful
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18 Apr 2010 at 6:58am
This has been a topic of conversation for a couple of months on Twitter. I do not consider single-issue regulationism to be significantly similar to adoption campaigns except in mostly superficial ways. AnimalEmancipation (hi, Jo!) does not advocate single-issue campaigning for a number of reasons, although we do advocate adoption, rescue and sanctuary
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12 Apr 2010 at 12:51pm
I've been working on a series of blog articles about vegan education and the very serious need to change our advocacy models when a truly fascinating piece appeared in Slate. Myléne Ouellet at My Face is on Fire shared it, and she'll probably blog about it. I'm scooping her, though! In the Slate piece, Christopher Cox treats us a lengthy argument
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7 Apr 2010 at 11:31am
Dear Erik, It's true that I haven't always been that supportive of you, but I hope we can put that in the past. But i wanted to write a letter to say that I think it's terrific that you finally spit your candy coated thumb out long enough to be one of the last people in the animal advocacy community to jump on the "PeTA has serious problems" bandwagon.
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25 Mar 2010 at 6:17am
"I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against." Malcolm X I haven't read Lierre Kieth's book in its entirety and I can't say that I care that much about it. I know that she is an ex-vegan, and I wish it were otherwise. But someone hit Keith in the face with pies (allegedly) laced with cayenne pepper at a recent speaking engagement.
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18 Mar 2010 at 12:36pm
Let's imagine that we encounter Simon, who is torturing a dog by burning the dog with a blowtorch. Simon's only reason for torturing the dog is that he derives pleasure from this sort of activity. […] Simon is violating a moral and legal rule that just about everyone agrees with—that it is wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering or death on
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16 Mar 2010 at 9:08am
Will Tuttle's The World Peace Diet hit number 1 yesterday on Amazon.com. Today, it's number 11 (Amazon updates hourly), but still, this was a serious feat. I like to research questions to inform my views (and I like data as a general matter). So, I did some quick key word search at Amazon and at Google. As I understand "best-seller",
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15 Mar 2010 at 9:24am
Jo (hi, Jo!) and I are often asked why AnimalEmancipation does not support single issue campaigns. With that in mind, we have written some notes on the various problems we see with SICs, some of which are political and some of which are practical. We hope that other advocates will find them useful as they think about how best they can help other animals
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6 Mar 2010 at 1:18pm
“I am for the truth, no matter who tells it” –Malcolm XI am often surprised by the lack of sincerity and the underhandedness of many of the 'would-be figureheads' in the animal advocacy community. Misrepresentation has become a business model. But in spite of their protestations about “understanding the differences between welfare and abolition”, so
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5 Mar 2010 at 7:00am
Lulz, I posted this to the wrong blog. This post is here: http://www.veganimprov.com/2010/03/roasted-vegetable-and-hummus-sandwich.html
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4 Mar 2010 at 4:51pm
For those who are into stickers, another batch. These are all designed for the 1.5" circle size, except for the obvious 3x5 one. Feel free to download, print and distribute. More materials (e.g., posters, fliers, etc.) are available here: http://www.box.net/shared/o2trrjs7b0
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23 Feb 2010 at 2:00pm
This week, at Opposing Views, many animal advocates raised their voices in a clear and spirited defense of other animals and nonviolence. It reminded me how important it is to other animals that we must each be bold and courageous in the struggle against pessimism about our capacity to change the world nonviolently; we must each be clear and steadfast
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20 Feb 2010 at 8:06am
The following are just small sizes (1.5" round stickers, 2x3s and 3x5s). AE has a number of larger pieces available for download and printing here (or available through the widget no the right): http://www.box.net/shared/o2trrjs7b0 1.5" Round stickers 2x3 (Business card size)
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12 Feb 2010 at 7:25am
Forget Victor Schonfeld's piece in the Guardian, forget Gary Steiner's piece in the New York Times, forget figure skaters like Johnny Weir: when Family Guy (an often remarkably reactionary show in a prime-time Sunday slot on FOX, an often remarkably reactionary network) addresses the issue of animal use, it's unquestionably a public phenomenon.
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3 Feb 2010 at 8:37am
A couple of people have asked for a greyscale version of the Stop Violence poster. So, here it is in grayscale for legal sized (8.5" x 14") paper.
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3 Feb 2010 at 7:25am
Joanne and I have designed a new poster that speaks more broadly to veganism, nonviolence and its relationship to other forms of oppression. One of the criticisms of the animal welfare movement is its too frequent focus on bourgeois politics and, just as often, it's reactionary take on sexism and racism. I certainly agree with that, and as an abolitionist
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1 Feb 2010 at 5:13pm
I want to thank everyone for the overwhelmingly positive response to my previous blog (as well as to the blog before the last one). I was surprised and very touched by some of the comments of complete strangers. After I clicked 'publish post' yesterday, I started the clock to see how long it would take for another animal "advocate"
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31 Jan 2010 at 8:07am
Honestly, I don't start off all of my articles like this (with a call for an apology and an encouragement to go vegan). But your agent has said in the Huffington Post that you were contacted by a number of animal advocacy groups, including PeTA, Friends of Animals, and others. Gary L. Francione and Mylčne Ouelett have already blogged about this,
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30 Jan 2010 at 9:26am
One of the things I addressed in a recent podcast with Roger Yates and Gary L. Francione was how the community is shaping and reshaping itself. Definitely worth a listen if you haven't already heard the podcast. In this article, I wanted to follow-up and expand on my comments. As I said during the podcast, In my view, the advocacy community
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29 Jan 2010 at 9:40am
Mortified by the sexist and/or racist overtones in PeTA's latest State of the Union campaign? Horrified that PeTA (according to Newsweek) has killed tens of thousands of dogs, cats and other animals since 1998? This article is for you. With PeTA's latest round of antics further enriching them off the backs of nonhuman animal slavery, I decided
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26 Jan 2010 at 1:47pm
I understand there's been some passive aggressive bad-mouthing going on the Internet that accuses me (among others) of having ‘hegemonic tendencies'. I don't take offense. Insults are always the hallmark of lesser thinkers. It is hard to take seriously. But I do want to put this debate to rest once and for all. Do I have hegemonic tendencies?
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21 Jan 2010 at 9:41am
Banners in Czech.
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22 Dec 2009 at 10:20am
Banners in Dutch. Thanks to Elizabeth Collins and one of her colleagues for the translation.
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22 Dec 2009 at 7:18am
Banners in French.
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21 Dec 2009 at 8:36am
Banners in Italian.
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21 Dec 2009 at 8:33am
Banners in German. I want to thank Mesiu for help with the translation.
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21 Dec 2009 at 8:31am
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
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19 Dec 2009 at 2:05pm
I have updated the rest of the banners and now they are available in various languages at various sizes on separate pages. English: http://weotheranimals.blogspot.com/2009/12/world-is-vegan-if-you-want-it-banners.html Dutch:http://weotheranimals.blogspot.com/2009/12/de-wereld-is-veganist-als-jij-dat-wilt.html French:
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18 Dec 2009 at 9:06am
"I'm sorry for my inability to let unimportant things go, for my inability to hold on to the important things." --Jonathan Safran FoerI read an interesting blog article over at My Face is On Fire about a recent interview with Jonathan Foer. I tried to listen to this interview. But in all honestly, and I am not saying this to be snarky, at all
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17 Dec 2009 at 10:46am
Banners in Portuguese. I want to thank Vera Cristofani for help with the translation.
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16 Dec 2009 at 11:34am
Banners in Spanish. I want to thank Pao Aldana for help with the translation.
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16 Dec 2009 at 10:07am
A few people have asked for HTML and what not to post these to their blogs. Codes follow the image. For Blogger and WordPress, you just want to add an HTML widget (vertical images for a sidebar widget or horizontal ones for a top or bottom banner widget). Select and copy the HTML code, create the widget and then past the code into the widget. But
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16 Dec 2009 at 7:36am
Dear University of Arizona, I understand that you granted Dr. Jean Kazez a PhD in 1991. I realize that you cannot be responsible for what happens to your students after they graduate: whether they do well, or do ill, whether they improve or whether they lose intellectual ground the way a popped balloon loses air. University of Arizona, I'm not
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6 Dec 2009 at 10:40am
The number of regulationists using social media to engage in silly personal attacks seems never-ending the last few weeks. Now, Erik Marcus joins in. On Twitter, he writes: "Bashing activists and groups behind protected tweets is completely cowardly. @garylfrancione"I have to say though, I think it's really cool when someone uses the Internet
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5 Dec 2009 at 7:07am
It is an ad hominem that is one part common and one part simple-minded to suggest that abolitionists want to leave nonhuman animals in the worst possible conditions in order to make their case. I have read it several times over the years in various, equally boring and misguided expressions. But it is often the way of those who cannot address arguments
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4 Dec 2009 at 9:46am
It's troubling to read bits like the following from another 'animal advocate', 'academic' and 'moral person':"I probably lashed out at you a bit just out of annoyance with your follower Alex Chernavsky. It was annoying to me to have him trash my NYT letter and immediately follow up with yet another of his links to your website (which I am tired of).
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3 Dec 2009 at 7:51am
Dear Jean Kazez, In a recent blog on your letter to the Editor re: Gary Steiner's mostly good essay in the New York times, you received some constructive criticism from abolitionist commenters. In reply you stated (and here I quote): "Essentially, [Francione] wants to keep animals in the worst possible condition in order to rally people
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29 Nov 2009 at 6:44am
Whoever is fundamentally a teacher takes all things seriously only in relation to his students—including even himself. –Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)It's not a holiday in Canada this week. We have our Thanksgiving in October, but since I am from the US, most of my childhood memories of Thanksgiving are of Thursdays and Fridays around the house
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27 Nov 2009 at 12:29pm
I don't want a lot of emails about how seriously mean I am. The title correlates with a bit of tongue in cheek. But I woke up to find this gem in my Twitter stream this morning. Humane Research: @VincentJGuihan - A series of personal attacks and a blog with closed comments. Hmmm... #cowardice"Lulz. So, what's the next step? A duel at dawn? Or
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22 Nov 2009 at 8:21am
A colleague tweeted a link to this article, which I found rather amusing. This is the kind of stuff you're supposed to read about government spending or on The Onion. I thought I would share it. The full length article is here: http://www.humanespot.org/node/2790 It's written by Che Green. It starts: "As a social scientist,” Stop.
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20 Nov 2009 at 8:23am
I've wanted to write a blog staging out the animal advocacy movement as a musical for a long time, and I've finally had a quick opportunity. I imagine it as a Sgt. Pepper's meets Jesus Christ Superstar. Prepare to be insulted! First, you'd have the traditional welfare groups. A colleague has suggested a wonderful Beatles
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19 Nov 2009 at 11:40am
A short blog this time: the numbers speak for themselves. Since 2005, the Humane Society of the United States has realized more than US$515million dollars in revenues. Not a dollar of this has been devoted to promoting what helps other animals most: their right not to be used as property and veganism as the unequivocal moral baseline for taking that
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17 Nov 2009 at 5:58am
There are, of course, some advocates who oppose the personal adoption of nonhuman animals, and some who promote euthanasia or abandonment as the solution. According to Newsweek, “PETA has killed more than 17,000 animals, nearly 85 percent of all those it has rescued” since 1998. There are others who propose that using other animals is morally fine,
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9 Nov 2009 at 9:56am
One of the hipper excuses not to go vegan these days is that veganism is somehow bad for the environment. Common sense tells us that this is wrong, but guess what? So does the science. Turns out, the 100-Mile diet, sometimes shorthanded as locavorism, is an unscientific fad. What's all the fuss about? Forget, say the locavores, all those
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28 Oct 2009 at 10:34am
There's been a lot of talk about Chipotle's new veg'n offering. I write veg'n because it's not clear that it will be properly vegan (that's if it comes into being). Erik Marcus has actually tweeted that: “If you're not excited, you might not have a pulse.” I'm not sure nonhuman animals will share his excitement. Baffling and rather speciesist.
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23 Oct 2009 at 6:15pm
Often in the animal advocacy movement, the problem of animal use is phrased as an absence of empathy or a lack of compassion. "If only people had more empathy! Veganism is a compassionate choice." What are we to make of these claims? It is important to distinguish between empathy as a kind of emotional motivation that may or may not lead
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21 Oct 2009 at 1:46pm
A couple of colleagues have written to me recently with questions about social events. Is it wrong or impolite for a vegan to decline a social event where nonvegan food will be served or to make arrangements to arrive after the food has been served? I wish these were uncommon questions, but a great many of the questions I field have to do
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18 Oct 2009 at 9:16am
I know the title probably sounds incendiary, but relax, it's only a metaphor. The similarity is not that HSUS, other agribusinesses or the state of Ohio are dictatorial regimes bent on world domination and eugenics (although I'm not an insider to any and can't make any claims one way or another); it's that they are content to participate in a haggle
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7 Oct 2009 at 7:01am
No one ever asks me: what about cuttlefish? I hesitate to link to Wikipedia, but most of the accessible Internet material on cuttlefish are about cuttlefish as food. Maybe if I lived in Italy I would hear this question more often. For those who don't know, cuttlefish are an invertebrate sea animal, a type of cephalopod (cuttlefish are actually
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5 Oct 2009 at 8:19am
Two interesting critiques of PeTA have been published back to back, one by Veganacious (yesterday, 1 October), and another by Katie Drummond (today, 2 October). Both are bloggers. Both are former members of PeTA. In the interests of full disclosure, I have never been a member of PeTA. I like a good critique, though, and I don't want to be left out.
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2 Oct 2009 at 10:55am
In this podcast, I discuss welfarism as an objective that is inimical to abolition as an objective, and why abolitionists take the rights of nonhuman animals and veganism as a moral baseline seriously because nonhuman animals are sentient, because they have interests, because, in light of those interests, they have moral rights, and in light
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2 Oct 2009 at 8:47am
I've blogged a great deal recently about both direct action and economism, and I return to this topic, but with an unusual focus: the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). There is a misunderstanding among some advocates that helping alleviate the suffering of some nonhuman animals while leaving the systemic slavery of other animals intact is
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30 Sep 2009 at 7:46am
A colleague has written with some questions: I get a lot of people to admit that the way we raise animals is cruel and that we should avoid that but very few think we shouldn't use animals at all. For those people who are going down the happy meat path, what do you say? How do you start on the abolitionist notion? How do you appeal to a sense that
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18 Sep 2009 at 7:35am
To reject compromises "on principle," to reject the admissibility of compromises in general, no matter of what kind, is childishness, which it is difficult even to take seriously. A political leader who desires to be useful to the revolutionary proletariat must know how to single out concrete cases when such compromises are inadmissible, when they are
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16 Sep 2009 at 11:44am
There's been a strange rumour floating around on the American left since the 1990s that smashing GAP windows from Boston to Buenos Aires is seriously anticapitalist activity. No political economist takes this kind of stuff seriously (not even Hardt and Negri). Working people don't see their struggle reflected in this kind of activity in my experience,
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13 Sep 2009 at 6:42pm
I'm not sure why Matt Ball is picking on me. He has written that “animal rights and veganism attracts some people who are very angry and unable to get past their anger." Maybe a small minority, but most vegans? Certainly not proper animal rights advocates. "The movement also attracts many with an extremist / fanatical personality – people who obsess
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11 Sep 2009 at 6:37am
To the indefinite, uncertain mind of the American radical the most contradictory ideas and methods are possible. The result is a sad chaos in the radical movement, a sort of intellectual hash, which has neither taste nor character." Emma Goldman I'm not sure how to phrase it any other way, and so instead of being clever, I'll just come out and
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6 Sep 2009 at 9:06am
“We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water.” —Fred Hampton, Sr.Goya captions his 43 etching of his collection The Caprichos: “The sleep of reason produces monsters”. For those who don't know art history, Goya painted in Spain around the turn of the nineteenth century.
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5 Sep 2009 at 6:44pm
Dear Colleague, I want to thank you personally and publicly, brother, for all the work you've done with us and for us: twenty-five years of answering the same question over and over and over and putting up with the same behaviours from other "advocates" who, apparently, can't even find their own asses with two hands well enough to understand
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4 Sep 2009 at 7:19am
In this podcast, I tackle how to answer a question about veganism, why beeganism is a moral and intellectual problem (bees are animals!), and why promoting veganism remains critically important to nonhuman animals. Download or listen to the podcast now ->
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31 Aug 2009 at 7:13pm
I know some of you will be offended just by the title of this blog, but I refuse to be silenced by the atheist wing of the animal advocacy movement. No, but seriously, although atheism is not uncommon among animal advocates, there are also a lot of religious people who are vegan or otherwise interested in animal rights. In fact, although I'm not religious
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29 Aug 2009 at 7:22am
In the interests of full-disclosure, I never took a business class in university. I did, however, wash windows over some of my summers as a teenager with my father (Gene) and a friend of his (Ron) for street-level businesses in Chicago as a "family business": Casey Brother's Window Washing. Now, they were neither brothers, nor were they Caseys. But
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28 Aug 2009 at 6:17am
If you asked most vegans what they thought of the war on drugs in the United States, most of them would probably describe it as a failure (at least I hope they would). They could tell you that attacking supply does very little to curb demand. They could also tell you that the war on drugs often functions as a thinly veiled war on the poor and people
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27 Aug 2009 at 5:26am
Even if it's only: so, what do you eat? the 'vegan' experience as a daily experience is one that's often defined by the curiosity of others. I can only imagine, for example, how many times someone like Gary Francione has answered "but aren't plants sentient?" He has an excellent FAQ on his Web site, which, if you've never read it before, you should.
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26 Aug 2009 at 11:38am
Many people already believe that they owe at least some moral consideration to at least some other animals (human and non). Many of them already believe that nonhuman animals have value beyond their value as property, or beyond their value as someone else's pet, that they have value unto themselves that is inherent to them. Many of them already believe
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25 Aug 2009 at 2:44pm
"How can you thank a man for giving you what's already yours? How then can you thank him for giving you only part of what is yours?" —Malcolm X How many of us are not paying other animals (human and non) what we owe? Anyone who is not vegan, no matter how good his or her intentions, is giving them nothing at all (besides good intentions). The answer
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24 Aug 2009 at 7:01am
I don't want to sound like a broken record on the importance of nonviolent behaviour to a nonviolent movement. I podcasted about it a bit yesterday. I have a couple of recent blogs on my views. But I read this morning that people were harassing Gary Francione because he's nonviolent. I denounce absolutely these kinds of personal attacks in the movement
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20 Aug 2009 at 7:46am
In this podcast, I address the finer points of some of the logic behind animal advocacy that promotes regulated animal use rather than the abolition of animal use. Learn helpful things like: the “indirect approach” is really a cop out; evidence matters; people who promote regulated use, promote regulated use, and not abolition; the lives of nonhuman
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19 Aug 2009 at 12:19pm
For those who don't know James Yettaw's name, he recently embarked on a self-appointed adventure to protect Aung San Suu Kyi, as CNN reports it: Yettaw, 53, a former military serviceman from Falcon, Missouri, was sentenced last week for a May 3 incident when he swam across a lake to the house of Suu Kyi and stayed, uninvited, for two days. Myanmar's
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16 Aug 2009 at 1:42pm
I've been keeping the real circumstances of my birth and my mother's virginity a secret. No, but seriously, there's a lot of discussion in the blogosphere (vegan and nonvegan) about Michael Vick. I want to draw your attention to Gary L. Francione's piece in the Philadelphia Daily News, both because of the quality of the writing and the message: all
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14 Aug 2009 at 1:07pm
Once again, I battle the poor audio quality of my headset and my inability to enunciate properly to wonder 'what the eff is a veg'n?' in order to promote animal rights, veganism, the abolition, not the regulation, of the property status of nonhuman animals, as well as an understanding of our relationship to nonhuman animal slavery, not as a matter
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14 Aug 2009 at 9:13am
New (first) podcast: "I would throw 1000 ancient redwoods out of the lifeboat to save one kitten!" In this podcast, I take on non-vegan green primitivism, ecofascism and more. Since it's the first podcast, I'm still debating whether to ever do another, but hopefully at least some of you will find it useful even though I mumble a lot! Listen
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13 Aug 2009 at 6:03am
When a welfarist group does something antic-based, sexist, racist or otherwise deeply misduied, typically, I'm the first in to rush to the Internet, login to a forum or my blog and post: "OH MY GOSH THIS IS DUMB!" But that doesn't necessarily help anyone to understand why a campaign is problematic or how it could be fixed. There is a clear oligarchy
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12 Aug 2009 at 7:02am
Those who know me know that I tend toward legal formalism. I like the rules! I consider it a serious moral and process mistake to make decisions intuitively based on our limited understanding of what we hope the consequences will be. I also prefer the plain reading of moral and legal guidance based on evidence as the basis for forming moral decisions,
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9 Aug 2009 at 11:21am
“This striving toward connectedness with the totality of life, with nature itself, a nature into which we are born, this is the deepest meaning and the true essence of National Socialist thought.” --Ernst Lehmann (1934). Let me make it clear, up front, that I'm in favor of 'the environment' (although I'm definitely opposed to fascism and National
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8 Aug 2009 at 6:03pm
Please note, this post is almost entirely porn. The porn involved is entirely vegan, and food related. But still, read at your own risk. It may surprise some of you to know that I don't spend my days and nights thinking up snarky things to say about others on the Internet. Among a number of other things, I also run a vegan food blog (www.veganimprov.com)
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7 Aug 2009 at 5:18am
A couple of years ago, I was bored and so, I thought, why not give this militant new welfarism thing a try? (This is not an entirely true story, by the way, but it comes from a true place. I trust many of you are familiar with this gem of the English language). I know a lot of you will be shocked, but everyone else was doing it and I didn't want to
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6 Aug 2009 at 8:41am
Thinking about Mylčne Ouelett's recent post over at My Face is On Fire about utilitarianism and veganism, it's a very, very strange coupling. But it also draws me to a common question: is horsebacking riding vegan? There is an argument common among horseback riding enthusiasts (even among those who self-identify as vegans) that horses receive pleasure
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5 Aug 2009 at 9:04am
I still remember, not so fondly, the first time I ever heard the word 'veg'n' pronounced out loud by someone. It was years ago, and only now has the trauma subsided sufficiently that I can blog about it. I was on a noisy, but relaxed, patio of a local cafe, drinking an espresso. I had been vegan for a few years already and yet, the term was still
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4 Aug 2009 at 4:43pm
At the risk of sounding slightly paranoid OMG, THEY WALK AMONG US!!!!111 I don't know the exact number of crypto-welfarists in the State Department, but I know that it's common for activists to embrace self-identification as an abolitionist before fully understanding what that entails. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does mean that more education
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3 Aug 2009 at 8:07am
Shockingly, about once a month, sometimes more frequently, someone manages to summon the courage to blurt: “You're bad for veganism!” at me. I don't take it personally. I could quote William Garrison's eloquent self-defense as an abolitionist radical, but that seems like a waste of poetry. In fact, I'm always grateful if they take the trouble to spell
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2 Aug 2009 at 8:15am
I'm regularly surprised and somewhat impressed with the roundabout ways and lengths that people will go in order to avoid taking nonhumans seriously and to go vegan. At least people are creative, even if I'd wish they'd use that creativity to different ends. Common, but difficult to understand, objections: “I'm in favor of human rights!”, “I'm an environmentalist!”
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1 Aug 2009 at 11:15am
Like all good (recovering) Catholics, I try to keep my birth and early childhood shrouded in as much mystery as possible. Nothing ruins a legend more than the ordinary details of a mundane birth. No manger with a star overhead, just the smell of a sterile hospital, off white walls and off white sheets, doctors, nurses, orderlies, fluorescent lights,
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1 Aug 2009 at 5:00am
There's a certain kind of mystical, pseudo-Zen to the rhetoric and thinking of those who propose more regulated animal use in order to end animal use altogether. For reasonable people, it's often very difficult to understand the regulated-use position and requires a lot of repetition to take (you know, sort of like a mantra). Because I'm an open-minded,
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31 Jul 2009 at 7:47am
When Marx and Engels argued for a dialectial materialism (in distinction to Feuerbach's contemplative materialism), they began the work of creating for themselves (and the rest of us) a set of tools for engaging more accurately with moral reality. In redux, they were calling on us to leave behind a process of sitting around, imaging how the world works
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30 Jul 2009 at 7:01am
This just in: people are cruel, the world often sucks, there's injustice everywhere, everything seems hopeless. You may be the only anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-heterosexist, anti-speciesist you know. In fact, you probably are. You family and friends may be unsupportive or outright hostile to your views. Your coworkers may all be idiotic douches.
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29 Jul 2009 at 1:19pm
When I went vegan a decade ago, I was almost always happy to meet another vegan (or hell, even a vegetarian, but I was a different person in those days). Today, when I find out someone is an animal advocate, I tend to worry. Are they even vegan? It's an unfortunate reflex, but it seems like a declaration of a tip of a lengthy iceberg of personal problems
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28 Jul 2009 at 11:07am
I was recently discussing questions of violence and activism (a couple of months ago) with a colleague at Vegan Freak Forums. It was part of a related discussion that prompted my lengthy post below on militant new welfarism. But it's been on my mind lately as I read even other abolitionists (to my disappointment) coming out in favor of coercive activism.
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27 Jul 2009 at 8:12pm
Writing about the recent election in the United States, Immanual Wallerstein reminds us of the tendency towards reaction, even in social justice movements. His critique provides the basis for a similar critique of the contemporary animal advocacy movement. “When, however, after the Civil War, the U.S. Congress adopted the Fourteenth Amendment
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22 Jul 2009 at 6:44am
Ten ways to be a better animal advocate Take animals seriously, go vegan, stay vegan and encourage others to do the same. As Gary Francione has argued, veganism is the baseline. It is the bare minimum that any vegan owes animals (human and nonhuman). Be unequivocal about it. Explain it to others even though they're annoying, tiresome and
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24 Feb 2009 at 5:22am
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