Rights vs Welfare

[mountainvegan]

To briefly summarize the argument for vegan advocacy and against welfare advocacy:

1) The number of non-vegans who currently advocate strongly for welfare and are outspoken against vegan living as an imperative outnumbers vegan advocates by anywhere from 3-1 to 20-1, depending on what you count as welfare advocacy. IOW, welfare advocacy does not need any help. HSUS is doing fine and will continue to do fine without the help of vegans.

2) Vegan advocacy creates BOTH new vegans AND new welfare advocates, while welfare advocacy creates new welfare advocates ONLY. Contrary to the claim that we’re just as effective advocating both abolition and welfare, we are, at best, only half as effective when advocating welfare as when advocating abolition, and more likely, we are undermining our abolition position by advocating welfare.

3) As long as animals are considered property, there will never be meaningful changes for animals, and in fact, the numbers of animals slaughtered will rise exponentially as the global population starts to consume more meat per capita. Read Gary Francione’s Rain w/o Thunder for more detailed argument regarding this very sound claim.

4) If vegans don’t pour all their resources into vegan advocacy, those resources simply won’t exist. There is a huge opportunity cost in vegans supporting welfare reform with their time and money.

5) If abolition is considered “fanatical”, “fundamentalist”, “extreme”, and “unrealistic” by advocates (like Peter Singer, who calls vegans “fanatical”), especially by vegans (like Matt Ball and Erik Marcus, who have derided vegan advocacy as “fundamentalist”), it will also be considered all of those things 10 or 20 years from now. The sooner we stop deriding vegan living with condescending and disrespectful insults, the sooner the mainstream will accept it as commonplace. It’s quite tragic, to say the least, what people who claim to want abolition spew about the abolitionists’ POV.

How anyone can come to the conclusion that vegans joining the welfare movement is somehow beneficial to abolition is very far beyond my understanding.

[Dandelion]

Nicely done mountainvegan. I was looking forward to your review.

[mountainvegan]

Thanks Dandelion.

[mountainvegan]

A question sometimes asked of abolition advocates is, how do we respond to someone who asks us what we think of [insert marketing label here] animal products? A good answer to that question is the slave-beating analogy: “Well, although it is an improvement to only beat the slaves 6 times a day instead of 10 times day, I’m opposed to slavery, so I won’t endorse any of it.”

[mountainvegan]

One excellent question that Michele Alley-Grubb of Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary has asked of welfare reformers who claim to want long-term abolition is, what is their “exit strategy”? Right now, they are acting as the marketing department for special label animal product producers. When are they going to “switch” to abolition and vegan advocacy? Two years from now? Ten years from now? When industry is capable of processing 10 billion animals economically in clean conditions without crowding them and without them enduring suffering in the transportation and slaughter routine? It will never happen. As long as billions, even millions, of animals are “processed economically”, there will be immense suffering. Welfarists are chasing an endless, elusive mirage. It is human stupidity at its height.

But back to the original question: when are welfarists who claim to want long-term abolition going to 1) shoot straight about what they really want (or don’t want), and 2) stop chasing the impossible, half-assed mirage of processing billions of animals without exploiting them and/or causing them tremendous suffering? What is their exit strategy out of advocating two contrary ideas? Since I can’t begin to understand how these people think, I can’t begin to understand what their answer to the above questions would be. In fact, it is “welfare abolitionists” (LOL @ that oxymoron) who confuse me far more than those who simply say, “I don’t give a damn about animals, got it?”

[Kat]

Originally Posted by mountainvegan

stop chasing the impossible, half-assed mirage of processing billions of animals without exploiting them and/or causing them tremendous suffering? What is their exit strategy out of advocating two contrary ideas?

For me, the half-assed mirage is expecting everyone I know to go vegan. Everyone I know has eaten meat for their entire lives. Nearly everyone I know has gone hunting, gone fishing, raised their own livestock, or worked in an animal "processing" plant. These people have the use of animal products practically ingrained into their lives, and some depend on it for their livelihood.

Some might be convinced to become vegetarian, but most, even when presented with arguments for veganism, will shrug and continue to live their lives as they see fit - hunting deer, raising cattle, slaughtering chickens, whatever.

Realistically, my options here are:
- Advocate veganism and find my efforts resulting in NOTHING.
- Advocate animal welfare and find that people I know are beginning to buy free-range and organic animal products.

Is it a shitty situation? Well, yes, but not all of us have the priviledge of living in a community where vegan social groups exist, where vegan restaurants exist, where vegan activist groups exist, or where people even know that vegans exist. (Hell, it was just established in another thread that we have two camps on the board as far as hummus is concerned - some people see it as a food that everyone is familiar with, and other people live in areas where they know that NO ONE at your average pot-luck, party, or lunchroom at work or school is going to have any idea about what it is)

The small town mentality is different. People aren't open to veganism here. Advocating it merely makes them defensive and stop listening. At least if you advocate animal welfare, you can get through to them on some level.

[mountainvegan]

Originally Posted by Kat

For me, the half-assed mirage is expecting everyone I know to go vegan.

It may be a mirage to expect everyone you (or I) know to go vegan, but it is not half-assed. Only welfare advocacy is half-assed, since it doesn’t even go half way to leaving animals alone.

The point is that welfare advocacy will NEVER, even in 1,000 years, lead to vegan living, individually or as a society. Vegan advocacy may take decades or maybe centuries to create a vegan society, but at least it goes down that road, and it’s the only road there.

How long will it take to get everyone to go vegan? It depends on whether we actually advocate for it instead of welfare, but if we do actually advocate for it, I’d say 50-150 years is reasonable. If we continue to advocate for “happy” meat along with vegan advocacy, maybe never, but certainly not as soon as 50-150 years. Most of if and when a vegan society arrives depends on activists themselves.

Realistically, my options here are:
- Advocate veganism and find my efforts resulting in NOTHING.
- Advocate animal welfare and find that people I know are beginning to buy free-range and organic animal products.

Realistically, your vegan advocacy is what gets people to buy free-range and organic animal products more than any meat-eater’s efforts to get people to do the same. Should we expect more than we asked for? No. We are lucky if we get half of what we ask for; and if we ask for half, we’re lucky to get a quarter.

Is it a shitty situation? Well, yes, but not all of us have the priviledge of living in a community where vegan social groups exist, where vegan restaurants exist, where vegan activist groups exist, or where people even know that vegans exist.

Spare me the rant here. I live in the same kind of area – rural, redneck, ranching, rodeo, mountain town. The big city, the cow-town Denver, Colorado, is over 2 hours by car away from where I live.

Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary, an abolitionist sanctuary located in rural eastern Colorado (one of the biggest cattle “production” areas in the United States), is also in very rural rodeo-country.

I do agree with focusing advocacy on where it is more likely to succeed, which is why most of my activism and Peaceful Prairie’s activism is in Denver and Boulder, not our rural communities, which have small, entrenched populations anyway.

[grog]

Mod Note: I think probably the strong language is causing some of the disagreement here. I know everyone can make their points without it. From an outreach point of view, it's probably best to be in good practice at doing that anyway.

[mountainvegan]

Whatever. I think I've said about all I can say. At some point, it doesn't make sense to continue.

[Kat]

Bah...MountainVegan, I want to apologise. I think I'm just having a majorly PMSy week over here and lots of stupid **** has been happening, and I think this thread just made me feel kind of defensive because I'm doing the best I can over here even if it's not always the vegan ideal :/

So, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go off on a rant like that.

[mountainvegan]

Thank you, Kat. I very much share and understand your frustration.

We’re at a point (very early in the movement) where a lot of our efforts don’t show outward results, especially in the short-term. We can’t read people’s minds, so we don’t know how much they consider what we say, despite their outward behavior and even speech remaining unchanged. I try to focus on activism and ignore outward appearances or “results”, since the outward appearances and results don’t show the hidden thoughts and internal attitude changes.

At the risk of seeming like a children’s story writer, I’ve sometimes likened the animal exploiting industries to an old, evil monster with cancer. The monster isn’t aware of the cancer, and at this point, the cancer really isn’t very serious yet. There are certainly no outward appearances of poor health, nor will there be for a long time. By the time outward appearances of the cancer show, it will be too late for the monster. The cancer will have grown to an unmanageable extent and the monster will see its fate.

Individually, we may not be able to see how or if we contribute and reap satisfaction from it, but collectively and over time (like decades), I believe our efforts will pay off far more than currently meets the eye. History has repeatedly shown how drastically attitudes, mores, and taboos can change over generations.

Finally, my apologies to anyone who found my rather abrasive tone and terms (like “half-assed mirage”) offensive and inappropriate. It’s just that tons of money (hundreds of millions of dollars) goes to large welfare organizations, like HSUS et al, who either lay the emphasis heavily on welfare reform over vegan living or, like in the case of HSUS, refuse to even mention the word vegan on their web site (they’ve been asked), much less promote it. Meanwhile, the extremely frustrating part for me and other like-minded activists is the number of vegans (like Erik Marcus) who are sucked into the corporate welfare black hole both in their activism and their mentality (i.e. honest, consistent vegans are “fanatical” and “fundamentalist” while the money-grubbing corporate welfarists are “moderate and respectable”). This infuriates me enough to toss out much stronger language than anything that has ever been said on this board. /end rant.

[compassionate1]

MV,

I very much agree with you regarding this particular point:

Originally Posted by MountainVegan

Meanwhile, the extremely frustrating part for me and other like-minded activists is the number of vegans (like Erik Marcus) who are sucked into the corporate welfare black hole both in their activism and their mentality (i.e. honest, consistent vegans are “fanatical” and “fundamentalist” while the money-grubbing corporate welfarists are “moderate and respectable”). This infuriates me enough to toss out much stronger language than anything that has ever been said on this board.

That is particularly disturbing. It's enough to face the massive opposition from people outside of the movement. But those vegans who do so from inside the movement are cutting the rest of us off at the knees.

It is completely and utterly inexcusable.

Once associations are made with certain words, those associations are incredibly difficult to change. (For the clearest example, think of the nefarious way Republicans demonized the word "liberal" -- so much so that people have no idea what the word actually means, but they have a reaction nonetheless)

[mountainvegan]

Thank you, compassionate1. It is good to hear or read other vegans speaking out about this.

It is a disgrace and I have no respect whatsoever for any vegan or ethical “vegetarian” who calls vegans promoting their own beliefs “fanatical” or “fundamentalist.” The hypocrisy and moral cowardice is revolting.

[mountainvegan]

Gary Francione has posted in his blog about his dinner at Erik Marcus’s “Happy Meat” Diner:

http://garyfrancione.blogspot.com/20...eat-diner.html

I haven’t listened to it yet, but it went something like 2.5 hours, and I’m sure it was a dandy. I probably won’t get to listen to it until later in the week or this coming weekend, but I’m really looking forward to it!!

[Earth child]

Originally Posted by mountainvegan

It is a disgrace and I have no respect whatsoever for any vegan or ethical “vegetarian” who calls vegans promoting their own beliefs “fanatical” or “fundamentalist.” The hypocrisy and moral cowardice is revolting.

Ditto.

I've enjoyed reading your posts throughout this thread.