Abolition or Welfare

[Bowwowmeow]

Here is a two and a half hour podcast (http://veganfreakradio.com/francione-marcus_debate.mp3) featuring a discussion between Gary Francione and Eric Marcus contrasting the effects of either promoting total abolition of all animal exploitation, or working towards a more gradual reduction in levels of suffering without eliminating the use of animals completely.

Its a long discussion, but worth setting aside some time to really give it a listen. I may give it another listen myself, and take down a few notes on the ideas I'd like to discuss here.

In general, after my first listen, I tend to agree with Mr Francione on most points. But I want to listen again before I discuss it in detail.

[Oracl]

I am downloading that podcast as I type, to listen to later. :ears: I have listened to a lot of GF's stuff but not this particular discussion, so it will be interesting. :rubchin: Thanks BWM. :)

I like your new signature and avatar. :agree:

[Oracl]

I'm about half way through listening to the podcast. :)

[Bowwowmeow]

Having been called names by purported fellow vegans for my "extreme" views, I had to laugh when Mr Francione revealed that Mr Marcus called him a fundamentalist, in an attempt to cast him in a bad light. :rolleyes:

My opinions part ways with Mr Francione when it comes to music, though. :whistle:
Pink Floyd :blecch:
Mozart :blecch:
:o :D

[Oracl]

I finished listening to the podcast. Mr Cal would agree with GF's opinion of Pink Floyd. :agree: I like some of their really early stuff. :o

I found myself agreeing with GF but I could really relate to EM's obvious distress when he spoke of the battery hens living their whole, miserable, short lives in tiny cages standing on wire. I kept thinking that anything must be better than that, even a stinking, crowded barn. :(

Anyway, I think GF's human slavery analogy is the most powerful argument of all. We must work to abolish animal use and animals as property in the same way as human slavery was abolished. We will be seen as extreme now in the same way as people who first objected to human slavery were seen as extreme then. :soap:

OK, so I guess I still haven't worked out what we do about all the animal slaves while we wait for this to happen. :sorry:

[Fauxmage]

I'm not sure what's worse for the chickens. After a long period of whatever torment someone undergoes, a numbness sinks in, a tolerance, I guess you could call it. I'm not suggesting this as an excuse for what people do to them. No one should have to develop a tolerance to any type of torture.

I think, though, a lot of energy and time is wasted when advocates argue about the degrees of suffering, which of course is exactly what the necrotarians would like to see happen. Mr Marcus might have a decent argument, but when he casts aspersions on another advocate's ethical comittment, it looks like he is losing the debate and therefore attempting to deflect the focus on to something else. I can't view his labelling of Mr Francione as a Fundamentalist as anything other than a sad attempt to bolster his own position, and personally, I think it is disgusting for Mr Marcus to try to cast Mr Francione in an extremist light, just to score points for himself. None of us can score points for the animals when we are sent against each other. Mr Francione may not be interested in temporarily moving the chickens from the frying pan into the fire, but Mr Marcus isn't going to do anything for the chickens either by trying to foster alienation amongst animal rights advocates.

I will still sign petitions from groups like PETA and HSUS, but I don't send them money. I thought Mr Francione's questions about what these mega groups are doing with those huge piles of money they are sitting on need answering.

I don't know what its like to be a necrotarian anymore, if I ever did, even a necrotarian with the potential to be enlightened into changing my animal-abusing ways, but my own outlook makes me more sympathetic to an advocate who sticks to his ethics, rather than an advocate who tries to undermine another advocate. Not that Mr Francione has kept quiet about other advocates. But the behavior of folks like Peter Singer speaks for itself. Mr Francione doesn't have to call him names to show his weakness. He's shown it himself. Its hard for me to think of Peter Singer as an advocate for animals anymore.

In closing, I want to share a story with you about something that happened to me last weekend. We had a warm Saturday and I went over to Whole Foods to buy some organic vegetables. I was wearing a denim shirt over my fantastic new Vegan Freak T-shirt that Bob and Jenna Torres had just sent me.

I was standing in line behind a woman who had a cart full of food, including a fair amount of meat and cheese. She saw my shirt and asked me what “Vegan Freak” meant. I explained that it was a website and podcast devoted to vegan education. She asked me if I was a vegan. I replied that I was and had been for 25 years.

She said that she was a vegetarian a few years back but her husband and kids liked meat so she had gone back to eating meat but she added: “I only buy my meat here. I am a member of PETA and they gave this store an award for how well they treat animals.” She asked me if I had seen the signs back by the meat case and egg case that said Whole Foods only bought from producers who raised their animals “humanely.” I replied that I had. Whole Foods does, indeed, have such signs—large ones, actually. I told her that I did not think that the lives of Whole Foods animals were really any different from the lives of other animals and that they’re all still killed in the end anyway. Her reply, “Yes, but I hope they suffer less.”

And that is where Peter Singer has brought us. Veganism is not necessary. The “father of the animal rights movement” is not even a vegan and regards being a consistent vegan as “fanatical,” so why does anyone else need to be a vegan? We can enjoy the “luxury” of eating meat and animal products from animals who have been tortured less than others and, if we are vegans most of the time, we should feel okay to treat ourselves even to conventionally tortured animals when we splurge at a “fancy restaurant.”
If this is true, Mr Singer has just set us back about thirty years, undoing almost all the good his original book started. I doubt that spending time and money on Mr Marcus' ideas will do much to change things. While I can't stand thinking about what all the animals go through every day, I have to agree with Mr Francione that my money and efforts are best spent promoting veganism, and abolition. Though most of the time, no matter what I do, I feel like Sisyphus, pushing the damned boulder to the top of the mountain, only to see it roll back down before I get there. :(

[Bowwowmeow]

Here's an interview of Gary Francione, discussing his views on some of the recent "victories" achieved by welfarist reform groups.
Animal Voices (http://www.animalvoices.ca/files/20080909_gary_francione_2_32.mp3)
I do think his discussion of how a person can think of himself as an animal rights advocate simply by purchasing his animal corpses at places like Whole Foods, that get awards from PETA, is quite apt. Though I don't agree with everything of his that I have read, he has sure caused me to change my views on activism in the last two years.

[Oracl]

I really enjoyed that interview. :agree: I always listen to the Animal Voices podcasts. :)

[Gliondrach]

I couldn't get to it. I'll try again another day. I haven't listened to the thing mentioned in the first post.

[dreamer]

I have become disenchanted with Singer and Marcus over the past few years. I am by no means perfect (especially in the animal cruelty I support for my companion animals' food), but I know that those areas are "failures" on my own part. I would never argue that I was being anything but inconsistent in supporting the animal agriculture industry by buying such products for them. Buying "humane" meat/eggs/dairy and thinking it "superior" to veganism is ridiculous to me.

[Fauxmage]

I have become disenchanted with Singer and Marcus over the past few years. I am by no means perfect (especially in the animal cruelty I support for my companion animals' food), but I know that those areas are "failures" on my own part. I would never argue that I was being anything but inconsistent in supporting the animal agriculture industry by buying such products for them. Buying "humane" meat/eggs/dairy and thinking it "superior" to veganism is ridiculous to me.
None of us are perfect, and I am like you, in that I know when I am doing something wrong, and will face up to the consequences and bear the burden rather than try to argue that what I am doing is right, merely because I don't want to ever be wrong.

I think that's where I have problems with Singer and Marcus, and others like them, who want to make what they do look right, instead of admit that they are capable of wrongdoing. But then, sometimes I think that Francione too is not able to admit when he might be wrong. Its a rare human being, really, who can admit to being wrong, and yet no one is ever 100% right all the time, so I don't see what the big deal is, myself.

But I don't even think that buying "humane" happy meat, eggs, or milk is even equal to making vegan choices, let alone superior!

[Fauxmage]

Whoa! I just came across a post by Roger Yates on another forum, where he has this from Peter Singer as his signature:

"With the benefit of hindsight, I regret that I did allow the concept of a right to intrude into my work...it would have avoided misunderstanding if I had not make this concession to popular moral rhetoric." Peter Singer

This from the so called "father of animal rights". Has he gone senile or something? Animal rights are simply popular rhetoric? Geeeeez!!!!!

Roger Yates is cool, by the way.

[Oracl]

I really like reading Roger Yates' blog. :agree: And he and I have the same opinion when it comes to the expression "fur babies"!! ;) :p

[Bowwowmeow]

I really like reading Roger Yates' blog. :agree: And he and I have the same opinion when it comes to the expression "fur babies"!! ;) :p
Ah, and what is that opinion? I got accused of thinking of animals as fur babies in the middle of a serious discussion about the importance of establishing personhood for animals. I didn't appreciate it very much.

[Oracl]

It was a while ago in his blog post: From Dock to Doctor

http://human-nonhuman.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html

This is what he said:

Some ecofeminists (but not all of them) are critical of rights-based arguments. Others, especially those with experience of grassroots contact with the general public, argue that the public are ‘not ready’ for animal rights – they understand animal welfare and ideas about not being cruel – but notions of rights and rights violations are too abstract and vague. Others do not like the road down which rights-based abolitionist views lead, i.e., they shy away from the notion of the end of the human domestication of nonhuman animals. Some think that’s a hard sell – others are too committed to having pets that they don’t like to think ‘that far ahead’ (and they satisfy their putative radicalism by calling their animal property ‘companions’ or commonly, ‘my babies’ and ‘furbabies’ – please pass the sick bag.)

[Blueshark]

I have been reading and (mostly) listening to Gary Francione on the web. Especially his podcast - which I find fascinating.

I find his arguments very pervasive and they strike a deep chord with me.

I feel I am inclined to go towards the abolition approach. In many ways that is what veganism stands for. The lifestyle non-dependent on animal products.

The welfarist approach only works if the economies are improved for the supplier. And the welfarist approach only alters the supply not the demand. As GL rightly says if the demand exists, a supply will always be there, and at the lowest price.

GL goes on to say that the abolition will succeed through 'creative non-violent veganism'. This I am in tune with - I am definitely not pro-violence, and as GL says - we would be living in utopia - if violence was a solution to anything, going by the human past.

So..this is very interesting.. I have just finished listening to a podcast with Gary Steiner. Gary Steiner is an abolitionist also, and an academic of philosophy. His views are similar to GL. They discussed that the situation is similar to slavery and their position is 'hard-line'.

I will listen to the podcast on the first post in this thread.

The links to the podcasts I have been listening to is here (http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/feed/podcast/).

[Gliondrach]

I'll try to listen to these podcasts when I have more time. I am definitely an abolitionist. Welfare leads to 'happy meat', abolition leads to happy former meat-animals.

[Bowwowmeow]

Here is an interesting article from the Guardian.

Five fatal flaws of animal activism

From tacky nude posters to dubious concepts such as 'happy meat', animal rights groups are losing the fight for real change.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/06/06/victor_schonfeld_140x140.jpg (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/victorschonfeld)
Victor Schonfeld
guardian.co.uk

Monday 18 January 2010 14.00 GMT


http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/1/18/1263823017719/Nude-Supermodels-in-Anti--001.jpg
A 1994 anti-fur campaign poster for Peta. Photograph: Rex Features

There are a few things that have kept me going, and kept me proud of how I've been living over the decades. Pretty near the top of the list is being a vegetarian for ethical reasons. That was deeply unfashionable back in 1977 when I abandoned meat-eating and went on to make The Animals Film (http://www.victorschonfeld.com/). I was over the moon when that film had a greater impact than I'd dreamed it would; and then I went back to human concerns in my creative work. It wasn't until some 30 years later at the suggestion of the BBC World Service that I returned to this terrain for the radio documentary series One Planet: Animals and Us (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005nhv5). But I'd remained a vegetarian, and so hoped to discover that the exploitation of animals for food and science had been reduced since the 1980s.

What I found, however, was more than disappointing – a complete absence of decisive progress. Austria with several new laws has come closest to meaningful change, but even there the number of animals suffering for human needs and pleasures is undiminished, and the industrialised exploitation of animals for food is spreading across the globe.

There has been one unarguable advance, though, and that's been the progressive "normalisation" of vegetarianism over the years.

When I first settled in Britain, restaurants seldom offered vegetarian choices; supermarkets barely catered to my needs at all. London's main vegetarian restaurant was named Cranks, and that said it all. Today, by contrast, families happily pop out to the corner shop to buy vegetarian foods to host my young daughter, and "veggie" options are steadily becoming staples in school lunch halls.

In light of this, one New Zealand-based listener's criticism of my work for the BBC World Service stood out from enthusiastic responses to the programmes. "So disappointing to hear Schonfeld is still a vegetarian after so many years," she complained. What she was underlining is that I had not become a vegan. Though I concluded the series with Professor Gary Francione calling for vegan education as "the moral baseline" for animal rights, that still left the question: what about me personally, and the way I live now?

I had stopped short of removing milk and eggs from my diet and all leather and wool from my clothing. I'd had my rationales for this, the main one being that I hadn't wanted to impose too zealously nonconformist a lifestyle on my family. Also, in the 1980s, one of the traps for the animal rights movement was marginalisation. So when I was interviewed about The Animals Film and journalists thought they'd caught me out in personal inconsistencies, I'd say I wore leather shoes or took milk in my coffee so that the implications of the film couldn't be dismissed by labelling the filmmaker a fanatic.

But now in the 21st century supermarkets routinely cater to vegetarian food buyers, restaurant menus regularly display vegetarian symbols, and the harm to health and the global environment caused by factory farming has become established knowledge. It's time for vegans to become vocal. Even free range eggs and organic milk production entail significant suffering and the animals are killed when their productivity goes down.

Yet we are socialised from early childhood to use a plethora of animal products without thinking. To follow a vegan path requires daily thought and effort. Here's what I've realised: getting to that ultimate zero-exploitation goal may be elusive, but the continuing efforts are empowering.

So, on an individual level I'm hopeful. But the Animals and Us series made vivid that the organised group efforts on behalf of animals have been largely fruitless to date, in terms of the end goals, and campaigns for small changes are quite possibly counterproductive. The organised activism is sorely in need of fresh perspectives.


Thus I submit here for scrutiny five fatal flaws of animal activism:

1. Instead of promoting animal rights goals as a major plank within broader social change movements, animal organisations insist on going it alone. Yet the Green party's animal rights goals (http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/mfss/mfssar.html) are as radical as any animal rights organisation's.

2. One of the world's largest animal rights organisations (http://www.peta.org/feat/stateoftheunion/f-stateoftheunion.asp) routinely employs naked young women, including porn stars (http://e-activist.com/ea-campaign/action.retrievefile.do?ea_fileid=6932), to chase mass media attention. Would a human rights organisation stoop so low?

3. Animal rights organisations have been handing out awards and lavishing praise on slaughterhouse designers and burger restaurant chains (http://www.hsus.org/farm/news/pressrel/burger_king_decrees.html) after "negotiations" for small changes (http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/peta-and-kfc-no-differences-of-opinion-about-how-animals-should-be-treated/) that leave the systems of exploitation intact.

4. Instead of animal rights organisations promoting a clear "moral baseline" that individuals should become vegans to curb their own demands for animal exploitation, groups have given their stamp of approval to deeply compromised marketing concepts such as "happy meat", "freedom foods", "sustainable meat", and "conscientious omnivores".

5. Tactics of violence and personal intimidation have at long last fallen out of favour, but activists now pour energy and resources into organisations that lack any real strategy for bringing an end to animal exploitation, whether for food or science.


Animal activists have not been asking themselves the difficult questions, and organisational self-promotion stunts substitute for the less glamorous work of figuring out how to help each of us change the way we live. Much noise, little change. Perhaps it's time to reverse that.

[Gliondrach]

Very true.

The Green Party AR policies seem better than any other party's - as far as they go. But they don't have any chance of being elected and they might be making promises they know they won't have to keep. Still, I would vote for them if a candidate stood in my constituency.

[Blueshark]

I think point raised regarding the use of sexual conatations to promote animal rights is important. I think that if we have to resort to using sexual imagery to 'sell' our argument makes us look desperate.

I think the point of abolition of animals as property is that, it is a fundamentally a basic right, which we choose to ignore in favour of our personal convenience. We don't need to 'sell' it, we just need to be consistent and truthful. I think it is right to assume that the majority of people have morals that include that animals should not be tortured and slaughtered for our benefit. It is just necessary to unlock these morals in people, and let them know that there is a path where the person is better off. I am referring to the touted health benefits of veganism also.

Veganism is better for the person, the animals, and the environment.

[Gliondrach]

What you say is true. And you are wise beyond your years. Although, most people know about the suffering their diets and other life choices cause. The difficulty lies in trying to get them to put the lives of other animals before their own desires for meat and other things they desire from the animals.

[Bowwowmeow]

I've been chided by hardcore AR people for presenting the health aspects of an exclusive plant based diet, as they claim that it waters down the importance of presenting it as an ethical obligation. I understand their views, but I counter with the idea that if eating according to vegan principles were damaging to people's health, few would be willing to engage in it, if it meant a short and sickly life. I would, but I am not an average person it would seem.

If we were truly obligate carnivores or obligate omnivores, would it be ethical to expect us all to give up animal based foods? We don't expect other omnivorous and carnivorous animals to abstain from what they are biologically dependent upon. I think it is quite fortunate for those of us who value the ethics of non-exploitation of our fellow sentients that our biology allows us to thrive on an exclusively plant based diet. I don't see focusing on the biological aspects of human nutritional needs as detracting from the ethical argument for veganism. I see it as added support.

[Gliondrach]

As long as people give up meat, dairy and eggs, I don't care what their reasons are. There will be less cruelty. Use whatever arguments will fit the purpose, I say.

[Gliondrach]

This link is to the second part of Schonfeld's broadcast. It's about vivisection. There's a link there to the first part, about factory farming, and a link to the trailer of The Animals' Film.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005nhv5

[Blueshark]

Thanks for that link.

[Gliondrach]

My pleasure.

[Gliondrach]

From Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary

A Safe Haven for rescued farmed animals who have been given a second chance at life.

Letter From A Vegan World

(also in Spanish, Italian, French, German, Dutch, Norwegian )

Dear friends and fellow activists,

At a time when most animal rights organizations are actively promoting, advocating and rewarding "humane" animal products and farming methods, I am writing to you on behalf of three of the recipients of that mercy.

To the industry, they are known as production units #6, #35, and #67,595. To the "compassionate" consumer, they are known as feel-good labels: "organic dairy", "rose veal", "free-range eggs". To welfare advocates, they are known as "humane alternatives". To each other, they are known as mother, son, sister, friend. To themselves, they are simply what you and I are to ourselves: a self-aware, self-contained world of subjective experiences, feelings, fears, memories – someone with the absolute certainty that his or her life is worth living.


#6, is a first time mother. She is frantic. Her baby is missing. She is pacing desperately up and down the paddock, bellowing and crying, and calling for her lost boy, fearing the worst, having her fears confirmed. She is one of the thousands of defenseless females born into a quaint, verdant, organic dairy farm. She will spend her entire short life grieving the loss of baby after baby. She will be milked relentlessly through repeated cycles of pregnancies and bereavements. Her only experience of motherhood will be that of a mother's worst loss. In the prime of her life, her body will give, her spirit will break, her milk "production" will decline, and she will be sent to a horrifying slaughter, along with other grieving, defeated, "spent" mothers like herself. She is the face of organic milk.


#35 is a two-days old baby, his umbilical chord is still attached, his coat is still slick with birth fluids, his eyes are unfocused, his legs, wobbly. He is crying pitifully for his mother. No one answers. He will live his entire short life an orphan, his only experience of mother love will be one of yearning for it, his only experience of emotional connection, one of absence. Soon, the memory of his mother, her face, her voice, her scent, will fade, but the painful, irrepressible longing for her warmth will still be there. At four months old, he and other orphans like himself will be corralled into trucks and hauled to slaughter. As he will be dragged onto the killing floor, he will still be looking for his mother, still desperately needing her nurturing presence, especially at that dark time when he will be frightened and needing her more than ever in the midst of the terrible sights, and sounds, and scents of death all around him and, in his despair, in his want for a shred of consolation and protection, he, like most baby calves, will try to suckle the fingers of his killers. He is the face of the "rose" veal we are encouraging "responsible restaurant leaders" to use.


#67,595 is one of the 80,000 birds in a family-owned "free-range" egg facility. She has never seen the sun, or felt the grass under her feet, she has never met her mother. Her eyes are burning with the sting of ammonia fumes, her featherless body is covered with bruises and abrasions, her bones are brittle from the constant drain of egg production, her severed beak is throbbing in pain. She is exhausted, depleted and defeated. After a lifetime of social, psychological, emotional, physical deprivation, she copes by pecking neurotically at phantom targets for hours on end. She is two years old and her life is over. Her egg production has declined, and she will be disposed of by the cheapest means possible – she will be gassed along with the other 80,000 birds in her community. It will take three full work days to finish the job. For two long days, she will hear the sounds and breathe the smells of her sisters being killed in the gas drums outside her shed. On the third day, it will be her turn. She will be grabbed by the legs and taken outdoors for the first time in her life and, like every single one of the 80,000 "spent" hens, like every single one of the 50 billion annual victims of our appetite, she will fight to go on living, and she will accept no explanation and no justification for being robbed of her pathetic only life. She is the face of the "free-range" eggs we are encouraging college campuses, businesses and consumers to use.


These are the "beneficiaries" of the "humane farming practices" that we, the animals' defenders, are developing, promoting, and publicly rewarding by encouraging "compassionate" consumers to buy the products of what we know to be nothing but misery. "Humane" practices that, if any of us were forced to endure, none of us would experience as humane.

We, the activists, know that there is no such thing as compassionate, responsible or ethical farming on any scale. We know that the only humane and ethical alternative is vegan living.

Why are so few of us telling the truth? Why are we describing "free-range" products as "humane" when we know the horror such practices inflict on their victims? Why are we lying to the public, and ourselves, that "compassionate" animal farming is anything but a myth, a marketing scheme, a deceptive label? Why are so many of us offering up the lives of animals by encouraging the consumption of their flesh, eggs and milk, when our only duty is to fight for their lives as if they were our own? Why are we promoting the practice of consuming animals when we know it to be brutal, inexcusable, unconscionable and completely unnecessary? Why are we rewarding consumers for demanding more of the the very thing we are struggling to eliminate? Why are we strengthening and rewarding the worlds' entrenched speciesist assumptions, when our job, our only job, as vegan educators and activists, is to challenge and change those assumptions by offering a new model of thinking about nonhuman animals, a new model of interacting with them, a new practice of living, a new way of being in the world?

Many of us justify our endorsement of "humane" animal products and our pursuit of welfare reforms by saying that the world is not ready to change, that it may never go vegan, that the most we can hope to accomplish in the meantime is to reduce the suffering of today's doomed animals. But this is not true. This is not a fact. It is a fear – a fear of action, a failure of will, a self- defeating attitude and, ultimately, a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The truth is, the world can change. Indeed, the world has changed many times before, and it has changed in ways that seemed impossible at the time. The truth is, the world will change, but only if we work towards creating that change. It will stay the same if we, the self-proclaimed agents of change, encourage it to stay the same. It will change if all of us tell the whole truth that there is no such thing as humane animal farming, or animal use of any kind, the truth that the only humane alternative is vegan living, the truth that animal farming on any scale is an ethical and environmental disaster, the truth that animals are persons like you and me who happen to be nonhuman and who have the same inherent right to life and liberty as you and I. The truth that vegan living is not a "lifestyle choice", but a moral imperative.

We can do better. Indeed, we have an obligation to do better.

I invite you to see for yourselves how much can be accomplished when a small group of dedicated activists commits all of its time and resources to vegan education that is consistent with, not undermining of, our ultimate goal – Animal Liberation – and when the Go Vegan message is central to every single one of its communications, from online resources, to printed literature, to ads, demos, and billboards, to outreach events, to the in-depth exploration of farmed animal personhood detailed in the individual portraits published on the Prairie Blog.

On a shoestring budget, with an all-volunteer core of vegan educators who are determined to tell the whole truth about meat, dairy and egg production, a small, grassroots organization like Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary has built something that large, wealthy organizations have not only failed to bring forth, but have consistently undermined through years of anti-vegan advocacy: A vibrant vegan world growing in the middle of the nonvegan world, a place where the animal refugees are regarded and represented as the persons they rightly are, a place where the human residents advocate tirelessly for nothing less than total liberation, a Free State in the heart of the human-subjugated world, a place where the principles of abolition are applied in word, thought, and deed. A vegan enclave whose very presence has already changed the world's physical, political, psychological and spiritual geography.

I invite you to experience it for yourselves. Join us in our struggle to expand its reach. Help us make it borderless.

Joanna Lucas,
Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary

Download Letter From A Vegan World in PDF format and print your own flyers, or contact PPS and order in quantity

Please note:
All of our downloadable literatue may be copied and distributed freely, but it may not be modified or used commercially.
Thank You!

http://www.peacefulprairie.org/letter.html

[nagev]

Thanks for bringing that up Gliondrach and thanks for posting in this thread. I haven't read much of anything of G. Francione nor have I heard him speak. Then again I do not know much of Marcus either. I should see about reading some about those two.

I'm not sure exactly what it exactly means to be abolitionist nor welfarist. While I am not opposed to welfare measures, I certainly support the complete end to all animal exploitation and would like to see more effort and measures going towards that direction rather than the half-assed attempts to be 'humane' (whatever that means) or have some kind of 'happy-meat' or some other such non-sense.

Out of this whole thread, I feel the following with regards to what I do.

Though most of the time, no matter what I do, I feel like Sisyphus, pushing the damned boulder to the top of the mountain, only to see it roll back down before I get there. :(


I suppose I can try harder.

Tying this in with the self-sufficiency thread, I have also thought about the commune as being an animal sanctuary as well. One more possible voice and hopefully growing voice as well as an example of what can be done.

[Gliondrach]

That letter is a very powerful piece. Anyone with a heart couldn't fail to be moved.

As for the Abolition/Welfare argument, I read a persuasive support for welfare from someone defending PETA. They said that making slaughter a bit less painful or cages a bit bigger might not mean much to us but to the victims it could mean a lot.

It's true that slaughter - if it is going to be done - should be as painless as possible, but we should campaign for its abolition and for a vegan world. But as the writer said, that is not going to happen very soon. I think he or she was saying we should do whatever is practicably best in the moment for those who are suffering now and who will soon face violent death.

I often condemn 'ritual' slaughter methods and argue that prior stunning must take place. Of course, I want all slaughter to stop but am I playing into the hands of the corporate welfarists whose only aim is more profit and who think that welfare reforms will satisfy the public that they are getting happy meat? If I call for an end to ritual slaughter, am I supporting slaughter?

Could 'welfare' reforms eventually lead to abolition by the ratchet effect? Small improvements in the conditions of victims until there's no further step to take except abolition?

I'm not completely sure what the answer is but I would always press for abolition.

[nagev]

As for the Abolition/Welfare argument, I read a persuasive support for welfare from someone defending PETA. They said that making slaughter a bit less painful or cages a bit bigger might not mean much to us but to the victims it could mean a lot.

I agree and I have heard an argument similar to this one. This is why I do not necessarily oppose measures to make slaughter less painful or whatnot.

It's true that slaughter - if it is going to be done - should be as painless as possible, but we should campaign for its abolition and for a vegan world. But as the writer said, that is not going to happen very soon. I think he or she was saying we should do whatever is practicably best in the moment for those who are suffering now and who will soon face violent death.

Unfortunately, it's just not clear to me that this is completely sound. Using the same approach, almost sounds absurd to me with respect to other situations, like say robbery, murder of humans, rape, slavery, discrimination, sexism, etc. Should we really argue for as painless as possible. Give awards to companies for 'humane' sexism? 'Happy-racism'? Pat people on the back for 'humane rapes' or 'humane killings'?

I recognize that the consumption of animals is for the most part socially acceptable and perhaps the only way to really get people to start recognizing this is by ratcheting up the requirements for the care of non-human animals until hopefully there will be a tipping point and people will realize that what they're doing is messed up. I just do not see any need to celebrate, award, etc the efforts of actions I simply do not agree with (that being the killing of another sentient creature).

From another perspective as well, take a company like KFC. Built in the very nature of that business is the consumption of chickens. How can that business ever be vegan? The survival of that business in a sense rests on the very idea of the commodification of chickens (and other animals). The welfare measures at best will condone the actions to further support that idea, so long as they meet public opinion and be 'good' about the commodification of animals then there is no issue. I would at least submit that it might secure their position even more. Some would (and I know many around my location here who do) stop there at the questioning. Similar to an earlier comment about Francione that people were comfortable as long as it had that stamp of approval. ('Humane,' 'happy-meat,' etc)

Not that I'm arguing with you, just reflecting.

I often condemn 'ritual' slaughter methods and argue that prior stunning must take place. Of course, I want all slaughter to stop but am I playing into the hands of the corporate welfarists whose only aim is more profit and who think that welfare reforms will satisfy the public that they are getting happy meat? If I call for an end to ritual slaughter, am I supporting slaughter?

Not necessarily, however in arguing for at least some measures like stunning, some (and perhaps many) see that as condoning slaughter.

Could 'welfare' reforms eventually lead to abolition by the ratchet effect? Small improvements in the conditions of victims until there's no further step to take except abolition?

I think it's possible. However, it's not clear what is the appropriate thing to do. To me at least. (although I think a cost/benefit analysis is in general futile).

Although I find it difficult to believe that the small improvements would lead the entire way. There comes a point when it's more like a tipping scale (perhaps that's the way I view my transition at least) or it will plateau and people will be content. I'm concerned many measures I see lead to the latter, especially among people I know in real life.

I would like to challenge people's ideas rather than condone ideas I do not agree with.

I'm not completely sure what the answer is but I would always press for abolition.

Agreed.

[Gliondrach]

Unfortunately, it's just not clear to me that this is completely sound. Using the same approach, almost sounds absurd to me with respect to other situations, like say robbery, murder of humans, rape, slavery, discrimination, sexism, etc. Should we really argue for as painless as possible. Give awards to companies for 'humane' sexism? 'Happy-racism'? Pat people on the back for 'humane rapes' or 'humane killings'?


If I remember correctly, that writer was saying that sometimes welfare reform is all we can really expect. Not that we should give awards.

I don't remember exactly what it was that made me decide to become a vegetarian. I had known all about the cruelty for many years. I think I began to feel more and more guilty and hypocritical that I was eating meat when I opposed cruelty to the animals that made the meat. There must have come the tipping point you mention.

[nagev]

If I remember correctly, that writer was saying that sometimes welfare reform is all we can really expect. Not that we should give awards.

Yeah, I think I was more just responding to a welfare approach in general, not necessarily that specific one.

[Blueshark]

I don't like Francione anymore prefer Marcus.