What's Extreme

That NPR Commentary by Barbara J. King

Anthropologist Barbara J. King is surprised. She wrote a short commentary for NPR yesterday about veganism ("Want to help animals? No vegan extremism is required"), weighing in on where to draw the line to qualify a vegan as an extremist. I mean, it's a really short commentary and variations on the word "extreme" show up a good half-dozen times to punctuate it. Her blurb begins by focusing on another NPR commentary written a few weeks ago, this one by Eliza Barclay and about a recently-published book called Veganissimo A to Z: A Comprehensive Guide to Identifying and Avoiding Ingredients of Animal Origin in Everyday Products.

Veganissimo as (Possible) Straw Man

Barclay's commentary ("Is your medicine vegan? Probably not") revolved mostly around how some vegans -- including one of the book's co-authors -- will actually risk their own lives by refusing to consume non-vegan medicines they need to survive. According to the book's press release, a copy of which I received (and promptly forgot about) back in early December, veganissimo is purportedly "a new word to describe someone who is as vegan as possible". According to the release, the book is mostly descriptive in that it provides the information about the prevalence and occurrence of animal ingredients in stuff (i.e. not just pharmaceuticals, but in food and other consumable products) for people to do with it what they will. Either Barclay decided to hyper-focus on the pharmaceuticals aspect of it, or perhaps the press release is vague on the book's actual slant and on its perhaps being prescriptive and persuasive. (I suspect the former, but have contacted the publisher and should be obtaining a review copy shortly to see for myself and to share the outcome with My Face Is on Fire readers. And don't get me started on this whole "new word for a variety of veganism" thing. I think I've made my position on that clear enough in the past.)

"There's No Such Thing as a Vegan"

So back to Barbara J. King's piece: She starts off talking about how "animal [people]" sometimes decide to alter their lifestyle choices to exclude different types of animal exploitation, sometimes doing so progressively until they reach a point where they decide to reject to consciously participate in animal exploitation altogether. She writes:

Now you're thinking about taking the next step: going vegan. You're ready to give up dairy and eggs. But something worries you. Can you ever be vegan enough?

Right there -- that. Every vegan has heard the lame argument brought up again and again by non-vegans -- or worse, by "former" vegans -- that there's really no such thing as veganism, since you simply cannot avoid all animal products: they're everywhere. This gets brought up -- often smugly -- as if to convey that deliberately choosing to go ahead and consume some animal products is morally OK, since you're going to end up using other animals on some level or another anyway. What's funny is that this is completely lost on King (who may very well not be vegan -- anyone know?), who tweeted her surprise several hours ago today that what she describes as her "pro-vegan" commentary is experiencing some "vegan backlash".

Matt Ball and His Unvegan Outreach

Of course, I had to take a peek at the particular blog post response to her piece which she cited as "vegan backlash". Albeit roughly written, some valid points are made in the post referenced on Of Course, Vegan. Veganism isn't extreme and it does a disservice to vegans and to non-vegans, who are more than ready to hear a clear vegan message, to blather on about where vegans should draw the line in terms of those areas where animal ingredients aren't, in fact, easily avoidable. The writer of Of Course, Vegan begins by showing a complete lack of understanding of Matt Ball's position on what it means to be an "extreme" vegan by describing him as having been "coerced" by King into "talking as if taking animal products is something that vegans should do". Anyone involved in serious vegan advocacy knows that Ball and his misnamed Vegan Outreach outfit certainly do not need to be coerced into loudly proclaiming that vegans should consume non-vegan things and engage in non-vegan animal advocacy. Ball repeatedly shames vegans who choose to avoid easily avoidable animal products in their food, accusing them of making veganism seem "too hard", and Vegan Outreach has become pretty publicly outspoken about vegan advocacy's asking too much of non-vegans. (Thankfully, Of Course, Vegan's writer did manage to see through Ball's illogical rubbish and commented on it.)

So King goes straight to Matt Ball (who shames vegans as being too extreme for 1) not consuming honey, 2) asking servers about ingredients in dishes on restaurant menus or for 3) being unequivocal in promoting veganism). In doing so, she ends up just regurgitating -- or at least perpetuating -- that same old "veganism is too hard" whine that's usually spewed out alongside the "veganism is extreme" whine of the many who want their occasional piece of cheese and to not have it pointed out that they didn't need it and that it wasn't theirs to take. She gives Ball a platform to do more of his usual shaming by quoting him repeatedly. For instance:

What we personally consume (especially at the margins) is almost irrelevant compared to what we can accomplish with thoughtful, honest advocacy for the animals. For example, influencing just one person to stop eating chickens and eggs — or even simply cutting back! — has an almost infinitely larger impact than if I avoid yet another obscure, miniscule animal product.

What my choosing to personally consume has to do with influencing "just one person to stop eating chickens and eggs", I have no idea. Ball seems to be saying that we need to stop being vegan to somehow accomplish more for other animals. This makes no sense whatsoever. None. King described her commentary on Twitter as being "pro-vegan", but it's not -- unless you consider "vegan" to involve occasionally indulging in a bowl of soup made with animal fat broth, stealing honey from bees and applauding others for shuffling a few animal products out of their diet while they continue to otherwise exploit other animals. King doesn't seem to get this, but in relying on Matt Ball as some sort of reasonable expert vegan voice, she pretty much set herself up to not "get it".

The Lo-Down on Basic Self-Preservation

Whether this book that triggered King's commentary actually encourages vegans to avoid taking life-saving medication is sort of beside the point. I mean, vegans encouraging other vegans to risk their lives is of course a form of inexcusable reckless shaming. If the book does indeed engage in that (and I'll find out when I get my review copy), its writers are crackpots. That line of argument is the same sort of absurd bunk that leads some to insist that if vegans really wanted to avoid exploiting other animals they shouldn't even eat plants, since growing plants involves displacing and killing other animals.

The bottom line is that there are medications we sometimes need to take which are derived from other animals, or that have at one point been tested on other animals -- medications for which there are no animal-free or animal-tested alternatives. Taking these to be healthy and to stay alive is certainly excusable. But doing so in no way adds weight to the argument (perpetuated by groups like Vegan Outreach) that there are times we should shrug off consuming or exploiting when it is possible for us to avoid doing so. Using Veganissimo as a lead in to bring in Matt Ball's slippery-sloped take on what should be considered "extreme" was confusing, wrongheaded and unfortunate.

The Lo-Down on Speciesism

What dragging Matt Ball into her commentary seems to have accomplished is to conflate a sort of viewpoint that is extreme (i.e. vegans might as well all become breatharians since the mere act of living seems to involve animal exploitation) with Matt Ball's twisted idea that actually earnestly rejecting animal exploitation and following through accordingly and authentically in our daily lives is also extreme. Ball seems to think that we should all throw in the towel and discard holding veganism as a moral baseline in our advocacy, since even though vegan education worked to persuade some of us to stop exploiting other animals, it somehow can't possibly be expected to make a difference in the rest of the world.

Someone like Ball considers it a victory for other animals if we can all just persuade a friend or family member to skip eating meat for one or two meals out of their average week. Actually addressing the underlying issue -- i.e. the prevalent speciesism in this world -- seems unthinkable to him. But the thing is that we're not going to shift the general population's mindset without striking at the root of the problem. We're not going to permanently change their hearts and minds about treating those sentient beings as things by giving someone a high-five if she shuffles out this or that form of animal use while otherwise continuing to use other animals. We're certainly not going to convey that we in any way take the rights of other animals seriously if we giggle and shrug, then gobble up a non-vegan dish with gusto alongside them.

If Matt Ball believes that punching toddlers is wrong, would he suggest to us that we should give a parent a big old hug for agreeing to not punch their toddler one day a week? Would he expect us to  call it a victory for toddlers? Would he not agree that what we would need to do is convince those abusive parents that punching toddlers is wrong in and of itself since toddlers shouldn't be punched at all? So why settle for less with other animals and ignore that it's the underlying speciesism guiding non-vegans' behaviour that needs to be addressed in our advocacy?

So if Barbara J. King is surprised that there would be any sort of "backlash" to her article, maybe she needs to re-examine her understanding of what it means to be vegan. At the very least, she should have done her research before weaving Matt Ball's shaming of ordinary old vegans into her commentary and using a straw man to launch into what she claims is a pro-vegan piece. Far from being pro-vegan, it's just more of the same speciesist fodder from the overwhelmingly and sadly speciesist mainstream media.

Vegan Eats in Washington, DC

I've spent a surprisingly large amount of time in the DC area in the last two months: a total of around 25 days. I hadn't realized just how many days had actually added up until just a few minutes ago. My first visit there in January was my first ever to the area and my introduction to it was both gentle and thrilling. There will be gratuitous tourist shots in blog posts in the coming weeks. Over the next few days, however, I hope to stay more focused and share with you the crazy variety of beautiful and scrumptious food I got to enjoy during my stay in North Virginia (NoVA to many locals) and frequent visits into the towns and cities nearby. Although conservative with my borrowed camera during my first stint there, I hauled it out more often earlier this month to snap photos, sometimes to the quiet sighs of my hungry host, who sat waiting patiently.

Devouring the pizza with his blue peepers.

DC has some pretty vegan-friendly places to eat. One experience which was new to me was having the opportunity presented to eat vegan pizza at a number of different regular pizzerias, where they will happily top your pie with Daiya. (At least one place will apparently sprinkle on Daiya if you bring it in yourself, which is sort of silly, particularly if they charge you the same as they would charge for a pie covered in dairy cheese.) Pete's New Haven Apizza (aka Pete's Apizza) was a spot which Gary had wanted to try out, so after a day spent Smithsonian museum hopping, we drove over to its Columbia Heights location and ordered "The Green" -- artichoke hearts, sauteed spinach, oven-dried tomatoes and kalamata olives on a thin crusted pie with delicious rich and tangy oregano-scented sauce and a generous pile of mozza Daiya. It was a little pricey, but quite yummy and a treat for me, since "cheesy" vegan pizza back home in nowheresville Canada is solely concocted in my own kitchen.

A closer look.

For dessert, we drove over to Sticky Fingers on a quest for Cake-in-a-Cup or cheesecake, but were disappointed to find the display case mostly filled up with cookies and a few cupcakes. We watched a customer order what seemed to be the last sticky bun and then Gary piped up and asked if there were more. Lo and behold, a tray was brought out and we indulged. They were enormous and wonderful. I do really like this spot for sweets (don't get me started on their over-priced and bland "regular food" menu), but it doesn't compare to to the bliss that was visiting Vegan Treats in Bethlehem, PA, whose cheesecake nearly made me cry from happiness a few years ago. (No surprise that their products are even shipped in from PA to a few vegan-friendly restaurants in DC and NoVA.) Sticky Fingers is a hopping little spot with a lot of character, though; I'd gladly visit it again for a sweet treat.

There are two things that are certain when you're visiting the DC area. One is that it has the highest number of Ethiopian restaurants per capita in North America. The other is that those Ethiopian restaurants will offer up a fair number of vegan-friendly dishes. I visited one spot in NoVA during my first visit -- I can't find the photos and don't remember the name of the place. It was diner-like and Gary claimed that the food was so-so and super, super greasy. It was still sort of neat to me, since I'd never had Ethiopian food before. This last visit, though, we went to Ethiopic, a new-ish place with a relaxed atmosphere, enjoyable music, stellar service and decent prices. It got Gary's nod of approval for its fare, which was truly delicious.

Waiting patiently for the food itself this time.

There were two vegetarian sampler platters on the menu and both were priced reasonably. We chose the one with the most options. In the photo below, from the bottom left going counter-clockwise are dinich wot (a mild curried potato dish), shimbra asa wot (spicy chickpea dumpling stew), tikile gomen (a mild potato, cabbage and carrot dish), miser wot (spicy split lentils), kik aletcha (mild yellow split peas), fosalia (Gary's favourite, caramelized green beans, onions and carrots mixed with jalapeno peppers) and gomen (mild simmered collard greens). In the center was a spicy tomato salad, which provided a nice change in texture. The basket of injera, as is the norm in these places, was bottomless.

Way too much food for two hungry vegans to finish off in one sitting.

I can't write a post about eating vegan in DC without bringing up one of the few actual vegan restaurants I got to check out on my trips. Everlasting Life was my intro to vegan "soul food". During my visit in January, I got to try their "ribs" and fried "chicken" and a variety of their salads. A few weeks ago, we went in looking to indulge in their brunch offerings. It was late in the day and since I'm not generally a fan of pancakes or waffles, I loaded up on their sausages, mac and "cheese", roasted potatoes and garlicky kale. Gary, with obviously much more brunchy inclinations, switched out the kale for tofu scramble. The sausages -- some sort of tasty homemade seitan -- were incredible, as all meat subs I've tried at Everlasting Life have been. The mac and cheese of which I've heard so much really hit the "comfort food" spot, and as an unapologetic kale addict I was left pretty damn happy munching away on my greens.

Good eats.

Everlasting Life's an interesting spot. You walk in and through the dining area and all the way down a small corridor to the back where you pick hot and/or cold dishes available to build up a personalized plate on a tray, sort of cafeteria-style. They have specific main hot entrees each day of the week. It's a small room and when busy, it can get a little clogged and confusing in there -- something I experienced back in January after an afternoon getting jostled at . You then head back out to pay with the option of purchasing a bottled beverage or freshly-made juice. On both my visits, I've gotten the Roots Tonic, a drink made of carrots, beets and ginger that's left me determined to buy a good juicer.

To the food fetching area.

The juice bar.

Slowly-sipped gingery goodness.

I'm missing a few odds and ends and completely omitting a visit to a DC Busboys and Poets location during my January visit. There I had the best vegan nachos I've eaten since my visit to Saturn Cafe in Berkeley, CA last year (which I don't think I ended up reviewing, either). Maybe a post on vegan nachos -- and homage to them! -- is in order in the near future? At the very least, over the next few days, I'll be sharing photos from visits to other restaurants in the area outside DC itself and writing more about the vegan-friendliness of urban area.

Missed Goodbyes

I've written about Zeus several times before, most recently when serious issues arose with his health a few years back. He's the beautiful boy in my arms in the profile photo for this blog. When I first met him almost thirteen years ago, he was one of two runt kittens fostered by friends of a good friend. Their mother had apparently been found pregnant and starving in an apartment whose tenants had left. Zeus and his sister Sophie were born shortly after they were taken in by the shelter and once I met them, tiny balls of furry energy that they were, I knew we would end up sharing each other's lives for a spell.

Zeus eventually developed the same asthma that led to his sister's death in August of last year. As with Sophie, quality of life became a constant concern. The neighbourhood pharmacist knew them both by name. They were his first ever feline "customers" with their prescriptions for the inhaled corticosteroids and bronchodilators they both eventually needed to breathe. Both Zeus and Sophie's asthma seemed triggered by food allergies, but as time wore on, other triggers factored in. My home became scent-free years ago. The search for the perfect dust- and scent-free litter left me constantly exploring new products. Different foods where shuffled in or out whenever symptoms worsened. I learned to sleep lightly, sensitive to the sound of wheezing that meant someone needed urgent help; I learned to deal with the constant anxious gnawing of the fear that such an attack might occur if I was at work, at the store or elsewhere.

That same anxious gnawing left me hesitant a few weeks ago when I planned a return trip to the DC area to spend time with a human love. For the first time in my life, I hired a cat-sitter, hoping that in tandem with visits from a friend, someone would be around as much as possible to keep an eye on my feline loves and to ensure that Zeus' medications were administered regularly to mitigate any possible issues.

 
Eight days into my trip, a worried cat-mom's worst nightmare occurred. A friend just happened to drop by on a Friday afternoon and found Zeus in respiratory distress. She rushed him to his vet's where the clinic promptly took him in and then refused to deal with her since she wasn't listed with them as a contact. I'd forgotten to have her added. Worse was that I was stranded at my host's landline-free apartment, my Luddite self without a cell phone. My friend messaged me on Facebook to urge me to find a way to call the vet immediately and after a few frantic emails to my American host (who was at work), phone access was obtained and I was patched through and told that his condition was quite bad and that his prognosis with treatment was incredibly poor.

Zeus had suffered a pleural effusion. Fluid had filled up his chest cavity and by the time my friend found him that afternoon, he was already in seriously bad shape. It was unrelated to the asthma and the vet assured me that its onset is almost always sudden and an emergency, its symptoms manifesting similarly to those of asthma."You wouldn't have been able to have done anything differently had you been there," the vet reassured me. Worse, I would have been at work that afternoon and would not have found him until hours later. The staff at SouthPaw did all they reasonably could and I'm grateful that they were able and willing to look after him when he was brought in.

Zeus' suffering was brought to an end shortly after I called, my friend returning to be with him during his last moments. My heart broke from hundreds of miles away, my arms unable to hold him, to comfort him, to whisper to him how dearly I loved him and to tell him how sorry I was that I'd left. Since kitten-hood, Zeus had always expressed a preference for climbing up to my left shoulder, pressing his head against my neck as I held him to my heart. So many evenings when I've sat here at my desk typing, it's been one-handed with Zeus' warmth against me, listening to his reassuring purrs as he snuggled in more closely. Even now, I remember precisely how it felt to hold him. Sammy and I both miss him, each of us wondering where he is -- where he went.

Hey Lardass?

A few weeks ago, I had someone misinterpret something I had written in a vegan group email exchange. (Yes, I know: OMG! Something was misunderstood on the internet!) I'd cracked a pathetic joke about your average non-vegan man probably relatively packing away more animal products than your average non-vegan Hollywood starlet (i.e. strictly by virtue of their relative overall food consumption). I'm only ever accidentally funny, so it didn't surprise me that the attempt at lightheartedness fell flat. What did surprise me, however, was when someone took off on a tangent, pointing out to me that veganism and weight are unrelated (I had not suggested otherwise -- we'd been discussing two non-vegans). This somehow led to someone else's mentioning overweight vegan friends in a manner that conveyed that he was assuming the previous person's response had indeed been to my perhaps having suggested that non-vegans weigh more than vegans.

The funny thing about that is that I'm usually the first person who will pipe up to object when vegans sometimes lapse into diatribes about the supposed chronic obesity of those who consume animal products, or worse, who insist that going vegan will invariably lead to a 20-50 lb weight-loss. Not only have years gabbing it up online with other vegans shown me that this is in no way "invariable", but I can speak from experience about it. You see, I'm one of those vegans who didn't lose 10-50 lbs upon going vegan. Nope, I am one of those people who went vegan and actually gained weight. After years mired in my vegetarianism, though, I hadn't gone vegan for health reasons. Some friends and family members assumed as much, since my going vegan coincided with the death of my father following his short battle with cancer. And although at the time I certainly wasn't skinny, I most certainly hadn't gone vegan to lose weight. I'd gone vegan for ethical reasons, because a clear vegan message had left me unable to do anything but permanently connect the dots and make immediate (and permanent) changes to my overall life habits. Wandering into my late thirties may have been a contributing factor. An official "bum thyroid" diagnosis just a few years earlier may not have helped. Starting an office job where I sometimes work 10+ hours a day glued to my desk? Sure. The bottom line is that veganism was no panacea for the weight I ended up gaining.

I was left with it, internalizing comments and advice from friends, coworkers, family and romantic interests who made it a point to let me know that the weight gain had been noticed or that the weight gain was deemed unattractive. Eat less, exercise more. That's what the first person I dated after a lengthy years-long relationship's break-up advised on our first (and last) date. So I ate less. I counted calories for the first time in my life, shuffled a lot more raw fruits and vegetables into my diet and would juice for several days a month. I counted calories to the point of spending most of my day tracking every single thing going into my mouth. We're talking hours of plugging ingredients into online databases, or of crunching numbers factoring in the nutritional information on the backs of cans of food. Hell, I spent so much time crunching numbers that I had little time to eat -- or even exercise! Further disincentive to eating came from knowing I'd eventually have to spend an hour documenting a salad it might have taken me a mere 20 minutes to make and eat. I bought a bike and used it daily. I actually lost a lot of the weight... and when I went back to eating ordinary vegan meals, a lot of it just came right back. Life went on. The raw fruits and vegetables were reincorporated into my diet, albeit to a lesser extent during the long cold off-season months when a small head of romaine lettuce can cost as much as $4 at one of the local supermarkets. I kept bicycling. I kept working, blogging, dating -- basically living and loving, but no longer counting calories. I still found myself -- still find myself -- perpetually aware of my shell, even more so than I do of my perpetually over-thinking, introverted and existentialist inner-self. And although I no longer count calories, I still watch what I eat every single day, as if each and every item I put on my plate could possibly amplify that miserable hyper-awareness I've developed of my shell.

It was a strange experience to have found myself dealing with what became an almost painfully raw self-consciousness about my body -- whether of how I moved or how much space I occupied, and of how others around me observed me and judged me at the time. I'd grown up with a family member with body dysmorphic disorders and had a roommate in college who'd suffered from anorexia. As a child, I'd always felt awkwardness watching my mother pick at her food during bikini season and over having anyone and everyone constantly fawning over my older sister's "petiteness" at 93-95 lbs up into her teenage years, and in college I'd watched my roommate leave behind her a trail of broken-hearted college boys. I always felt that I was an observer and that I somehow managed to keep my emotional distance relatively unscathed. Let's face it, though: We live in a society which, if we cannot admit glorifies thinness, we can at least admit vilifies not-thinness and does so particularly with girls and women. I've watched my sister refuse to eat, heard my college roommate regurgitating her meals, have listened to my size 2 coworker verbalize the loathing she has for her rear (which she refers to as "Lardass", her purported "dating nemesis").

One of my own last relationships was with someone who constantly criticized how much I ate at the table, not because I ate too much around him (I didn't -- I was uncomfortable eating anything at all around him), but because he felt I should eat a lot less to bring my weight down to something comparable to that of his lifelong-thin marathon runner ex-wife's. He used the word "fat" as a weapon in arguments, but then it's hard not to think of the word as a weapon when it's used by anyone who isn't. And as someone who's well aware that she would still not be described as "thin" if she lost 20 lbs, hearing the word tossed around by loved ones -- family, friends, lovers -- invariably leaves me feeling as if that weapon is pointed directly at me. I've been in relationships with other men who've either referred to themselves with disgust as "fat" and who've fingered other women in public as such with equal amounts of disgust. It's no unless unnerving to see that weapon pointed at another.

This same body size fixation seems to permeate vegan circles but with a twist, since it's almost always tied to criticism of non-vegans. Even now, after years of observing it, it still sometimes astonishes me to see or hear the derision with which some vegans rant about omnivorism (non-veganism, really) and obesity, as if the two are inextricably linked. Aside from the ridiculousness of vilifying non-vegans when most of us who are vegan now once-upon-a-time weren't, and when most of us have loved ones who are non-vegan, it's jarring to hear people who concern themselves with others speciesism linking speciesism with a sort of discrimination which, more often than not, is wrapped in sexism or misogyny. It's also ridiculous since far from all vegans are thin and, as I've both seen and experienced, veganism is in no way guaranteed to lead to weight-loss. Less saturated fat? Possibly? Less bad cholesterol? Sure? But less calories? A more efficient metabolism? Nope. It's not in and of itself a 100% guaranteed panacea.

Aside from being off-the-mark in terms of the assumptions it carries with it, this vilification by some vegans of the overweight thus leads to a shaming of overweight vegans. Whether or not that shaming is inadvertent is irrelevant. Isn't it enough that vegans walk around expected by non-vegans to be exemplars in terms of having super-powered immune systems (e.g. if you get the sniffles, it's because you don't eat steak). Do we now need to drag body image into the equation when thinness is no more the vegan default than being overweight is for non-vegan omnis? What vegans should have in common is a rejection of animal exploitation. What abolitionist vegans should have in common is the rejection of speciesism and of other forms of discrimination. What sort of sense of community are we fostering as vegans when we perpetuate the wrongheaded belief that eating animal products = being fat, while not eating animal products = being thin? Also, what sort of message are we sending to young girls who choosing to reject speciesism and who find themselves teetering on the edges of a vegan community that tosses at them the same old body loathing messages they're already hearing from society? What are we reinforcing? Think about it.

On Animal Use and Disassociation

I was minutes away from going to bed last night when a few quick scans of Google News brought me to an article in a publication called VICE (which is apparently available in various cities and particularly in US clothing store chain American Apparel's). "Nicola Jayne Hebson: Vegan Taxidermist Extraordinaire" is a grotesquely illustrated interview with a self-described vegan who basically carves up the bodies of dead animals and who either dresses them up in "cute" outfits to pose them or turns them into fashion accessories for public consumption or entertainment. Have a look yourselves.

I cannot help but speculate whether Hebson's interviewer was seeking to generate the sort of controversy akin to that generated whenever members of the mainstream media profile opportunists who self-identify as either former or current vegans who have decided to involved themselves in some sort of hands-on animal exploitation. Over the last few years, articles have popped up periodically about these "vegans" (i.e. whether past or present) who have become hunters or butchers, or who have opted to start up small animal-rearing farms, and who in most cases insist quite adamantly that the animals whose lives they take--whose bodies they cut up--have lived the happiest and most fulfilling of lives. You have no doubt seen at least a few of these articles.

What differs about this article about Hebson is that she (at least as far as she admits) plays no role whatsoever in what happens to those animals while they are alive and before their bodies end up in her possession.

"I would never kill or harm another animal for the purpose of my art. My only intentions are to preserve the beauty of animals that would otherwise be discarded and labeled as waste."

Their bodies are found by her or found by others who forward them to her. They are other animals whose lives have mostly ended in forests and along country roads, whether from old age, disease, predation or thanks to human encroachment. "I’m basically just recycling," says Hebson. I always carry plastic bags and a little knife with me everywhere I go just in case I stumble upon something interesting."

This attitude is one that comes up often with self-described vegans who sometimes attempt to justify engaging in freeganism and in consuming animal products they find. Why let it go to waste? There are a few possible response to this question, the first of which I think requires that we ask ourselves whether the animal product in question would in fact "go to waste".  In the case of dumpster-diving or otherwise sourcing discarded foodstuff, how could an individual be certain that a non-vegan trailing behind him or her would not eagerly claim and consume the animal product in question? Where the bodies of other animals retrieved from nature are concerned, what about the carnivorous or omnivorous animals (from mammals to insects) who rely on these bodies to nourish themselves or their families and extended communities? Or the nutrients from these decomposing or decaying bodies that leach into the soil to nourish trees and plants that provide shelter or food for those other animals?

Hebson's opportunistic "recycling", however, differs somewhat from the animal use shrugged off by freegans. In both cases, attempts are made to justify animal use by disassociating oneself morally from how the animal was treated while living and by pointing out that one was not complicit in the taking of that other animal's life. If you think about it a little, this sounds eerily similar to the sort of mindset cultivated by vegetarians who justify their continued consumption of eggs and dairy by insisting that they source them from the "good-hearted farmer down the road who just lurvs his animals as if they were his own children" and who insist that consuming an animal's secretions somehow differs morally from consuming her flesh, since she she needs to be slaughtered for the latter. (Of course, you and I know that animals lives are indeed taken in the egg industry with millions of male chicks sometimes ground alive to be disposed of at hatcheries, and with spent hens sent off to the slaughterhouse to have every last cent squeezed out of them by turning them into frozen pot pies or pet food). We know that cows are repeatedly impregnated in the dairy industry and that their calves--those who are not plugged back into the cycle by being forced to follow in their mothers' paths--are sent off to become "veal", boots and wallets.)

The thing is that with freegans, gobbling down the food in question (whether vegan or otherwise) is usually the end of it--unless the freegan walks around self-identifying loudly as "vegan" and basically communicates to all of the non-vegans around him or her that vegans sometimes consume easily-avoidable animal products deliberately, and that this is morally excusable and perhaps even acceptable. However, there is nothing vegan about choosing to consume easily-avoidable animal products, regardless of whether one was complicit in the taking of the lives of those animals from whom those products are derived. Using "avoiding waste" as an excuse is bunk, whether or not a non-vegan is in fact waiting in line to snap up the animal product for herself. To label it "waste" if it is not consumed by a human seems to imply that the product's worth or value continues to be measured in terms of its use for humans. If we as vegans claim to believe that other animals aren't things for us to use, it it not strange to weigh products derived from them in this manner?

Hebson claims that she uses the found bodies of other sentient creatures in her "art" so that these bodies not be deemed "waste" by others. What she is doing, though, is seeking to profit from animal use. She mutilates their bodies to transform them into odd and sometimes shocking commonplace or dresses them up to construct what I guess is expected to amount to an amusing or entertaining presentation. She says in the interview:

I think society at large has a schizophrenic and often hypocritical relationship with our fellow creatures here on earth; I often reference these issues in my work. I think if my work creates debate, if it stimulates critical thought, and questions the so-called “norms” of society then I can only see that as being a good thing.

She is certainly correct in suggesting that society has a schizophrenic and often hypocritical relationship with the other sentient beings on our planet. She may indeed get people--like me, for instance--thinking and talking about this schizophrenic and often hypocritical relationship. What Hebson has me thinking, though, is that she's quite confused to call herself vegan while treating other animals as things whose sole ultimate purpose (lest they be deemed waste) is to have existed dead or alive for human pleasure. Yet she mutilates animals and sells these parts for the pleasure of others; if you read the article closely, her language also belies the great pleasure she derives from both her finds and what she ends up doing to them.

As a vegan, I would certainly never buy the animal parts she sells at her Etsy shop, "Dead Good". Vegans don't just not eat animal products. We do not consume or otherwise use animal products because we reject, on moral or ethical grounds, participating in others' exploitation. Whether she consumes or sells animal products, Hebson is indeed participating in animal exploitation and is far from vegan. Her misrepresentation as a vegan in this article either represents a deliberate attempt to rile up controversy, or it represents--no thanks to many large animal welfare organizations--the pathetic culmination of overlapping layers of misunderstanding spreading out in the media about what veganism actually is about and about what it stands for. I'm hoping for the former, but am resigning myself to the latter.

A Few Thoughts on Conflating External Criticism with Infighting

Welfarists/regulationists are desperate to deflect our criticism of their advocacy when their advocacy falls short of condemning the exploitation of others. They insist that this criticism is tantamount to "infighting" and that it should thus be disregarded or dismissed as baseless whinging or nitpicking. They insist that it interferes with The Movement's integrity and solidarity and that it sets The Movement back. They say that our criticism of advocacy that doesn't plainly condemn animal use somehow gobbles up valuable time and energy and thus harms other animals. Welfarists/regulationists try to shame abolitionist animal rights activists into shutting up about teaching/asking/begging others to reject animal exploitation and to go vegan. When we don't shut up, they sometimes even go so far as to insist to the non-vegan public that our teaching/asking/begging them to go vegan is unreasonable and extremist--that they should dismiss us, too. We're just pesky trouble-makers, after all.

The undeniable truth which I think we need to face at this point is that we are, in fact, two separate movements. One movement seems somehow too mired in its own speciesism to accept that other animals simply aren't ours to use. If its members do see this, it's most certainly not reflected in their advocacy. The second movement--my movement and hopefully *your* movement--consists of individuals who respect the rights and interests of others to not be exploited and and of comrades who accept that the very least we owe those others is to use veganism as a starting point for our own choices, as well as for our advocacy work.

As for accusations that criticism of welfarism/regulationism is "hurting The Movement"? Which movement? The welfarist/regulationist movement? So what? As long as they continue to promote the myth of "happy" animal exploitation, applaud so-called flexitarianism and teach the public that not eating flesh one day a week--or shuffling out one animal product for another--is somehow morally relevant, they're teaching the public that some other animals are more OK to exploit than others and we're left struggling to undo this damage. We're focused on teaching people to go vegan as a starting point, while they drag them several steps back, telling them that veganism is just one of the several things they can do. Why on earth would we not want to criticize, interfere with or "hurt" a movement which facilitates and often encourages and applauds the continued use of other sentient beings? 

I truly hope that our criticism does indeed hurt their movement and that instead of constantly having to undo the damage they cause, we can instead focus 100% of our own time and energy on spreading a clear vegan message. Hopefully some of them will hear it too and eventually come 'round and join in. Until then, we should allow nobody to shame us into shutting up on behalf of other animals.

What This Vegan Eats

I've grown really irate over Blogger's recent changes to how folks can upload images to blogs. They seem to have grossly limited flexibility where sizing photos is concerned. If not for that fact that I'm currently exploring a different web-based advocacy project altogether with a vegan friend, I'd be spending more time looking at shimmying My Face Is on Fire over to WordPress or another blog hosting site. I may still do so. Meanwhile, here are some photos I've shared on Facebook of things I've gobbled up over the past while. Veganism doesn't mean restricting yourself in terms of diet; if anything, it allows you to really branch out and try new things and to eat so much more healthily (if, of course, you choose to do so. Knowledge is power an' all that jazz, right?

Visting New Friends

It's been a while since I've had a chance to update. I've been busy trying out recipes for cookbook reviews, planning a new animal advocacy project with a friend and (perhaps best of all) traveling. I recently spent a little over a week in Virginia, DC and Maryland to visit a vegan pal and to meet a few others with whom I've been corresponding or interacting online for years. I got to sample Ethiopian and Burmese food for the first time ever and enjoyed such a wide variety of vegan fare that it's a puzzle how I was able to roll myself into my plane seat to make it back home.

Perhaps the best part of my whole trip was an afternoon we spent walking around and meeting the furry and feathered residents of the 400-acre Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary in Poolesville, MD. I was also introduced to the two vegan humans -- Terry Cummings and Dave Hoerauf -- who also call it home. Earlier in the week, I'd met Deb Durant who writes the Invisible Voices blog and who also volunteers at PSAS. She'd offered to show us around a little the following weekend, but we ended up scheduling a visit during the week instead since I was flying out on Sunday. It would have been great to hear each of the residents' stories. Dave shared a few when our paths crossed and Deb's filled in some blanks since then. I've also been spending time reading up on them over on PSAS' website and Invisible Voices (and you should too if you'd like to learn more about the place or would consider sponsoring one of their residents).

It's heart-wrenching to know what some of them have been through.  Then again, it's heart-wrenching to think of the lot of each and every other animal who ends up bred for exploitation and slaughter. Meeting these individuals and seeing the joy with which they're now living their lives left me grateful more than ever that I yanked myself out of that cycle of exploitation by going vegan.

Mini Moo

Chelsea was a sweet walking companion during our visit.

Duchess, precious sentry who held me at bay for several minutes.

Napoleon, who along with his buddy Sebastian off to the left, is a pygmy goat who was rescued from a hoarding situation.

Sal, who is blind in one eye, was rescued from a hoarder a few years ago.

Harley was rescued as a piglet when he fell off a truck heading to an auction.

Lance was rescued from a reptile show last April.

Ainslie was rescued as a calf before being sold for slaughter at a "veal" auction.

Enjoying the sun on an otherwise chilly day.

My host, Gary, enjoying a cuddle with Zachary a baby who arrived at the shelter less than a month ago. Zachary was seized by animal control officers after someone heard him bleating from a small cat carrier outside on a neighbour's porch. He was going to be killed in a sacrificial ritual and the only reason they were allowed to take him is that it was illegal for residents to keep "livestock" in the area in which he was found. Now he'll get to spend the rest of his natural life at PSAS.

As the afternoon neared its end and it was time to go, all I could think of is how beautiful it had been to see the sanctuary's residents finally living out their lives in comfort, no longer victims, but instead sheltered refugees.

Vegans Writing About Veganism in Mainstream Media

I was scanning through online newspapers today, looking for vegan holiday meal features. Anyone who claims at this point that veganism is still some sort of obscure ideology of which most people have never heard either don't watch television or don't read the paper or magazines. The word is indeed in circulation and people are curious about it -- for all kinds of reasons.  It's being discussed in entertainment and fashion magazines, in food and health columns, in news stories about rates of chronic illness or the environment. Of course, people are mostly talking around it or using it as a buzz-word, misrepresenting it or taking it out of its ethical context. More than ever, now is a great time for ethical vegans -- for abolitionist animal rights advocates -- to submit opinion pieces on veganism to their school papers, to volunteer to write food articles for their local papers, or to comment on articles we see where veganism is maligned, misinterpreted or lumped together with some other food fad.

Missed Opportunities

Take for instance this short bit in Carlisle, PA's The Sentinel, in which vegan writer Lisa Wardle shares a recipe for homemade black bean burgers and fluffs it out by talking a little bit about veganism. Great opportunity for a wee bit of education, right? Except that she touts it as being good for your health and good for the environment, with nary a single mention of how it's actually remarkably "good" for other animals who'd otherwise end up on someone's plate. Her focus in the article is on food and she presents veganism as being more akin to having an apple a day (y'know, to keep the doctor away) than what it actually is, which is a commitment to rejecting animal exploitation. Indeed, she mentions "not eating animal products once or twice a week" and being "an occasional vegan" as quite beneficial to one's health.

Of course there are indeed health benefits to lessening one's consumption of animal products -- but lessening one's consumption of animal products from time to time doesn't make one "an occasional vegan" any more than not pressing a female employee for sexual favours in exchange for a job promotion a few times a week would make a male manager "an occasional feminist". Think of the seeds that may have been planted in readers' minds by simply changing two or three sentences.

An Opportunity Taken

In Newfoundland & Labrador's The Independent, Jess Dawe went a more elaborate route to write about veganism. I like the piece. It's well-written and a fair amount of thought and research were put into it. She starts off explaining that veganism "is a lifestyle choice" and that it involves avoiding animal use going beyond food and extends to the avoidance of other animal products. Where Dawe unfortunately confuses matters, though, is with her insistence that all kinds of reasons can lead someone to become vegan. For her article, she focuses on health, the environment and then ethics and she then writes:

What I’ve provided here is an overview of three of the most popular reasons someone may adopt a vegan lifestyle. The reasons explored are by no means exhaustive, as there are many other reasons why someone may choose to adopt a vegan lifestyle.

While there may indeed be various triggers to get people thinking about different aspects of their animal use, I doubt that concern for one's health will lead to one's avoiding an animal-using circus or to eschewing leather belts.  Dawe seems aware of this herself as she specifies that switching to a "vegan diet" would be the result of being motivated for either health or environmental reasons. This seems to suggest, though, given that the health and environmental reasons are listed as two of three of "the most popular reasons someone may adopt a vegan lifestyle" that becoming a strict vegetarian and simply not eating animal products (while otherwise continuing to participate in other facets of animal exploitation) qualifies as being "vegan". Veganism isn't just a diet.

Which takes us back to Dawe's introduction, which states outright that veganism isn't just a diet, so why she would list "reasons" that may lead one to merely change one's diet as "reasons" people go vegan is quite confusing. It is no doubt even more confusing to her readers who are constantly bombarded in mainstream media by stories about strict vegetarian Bill Clinton being "vegan" or of other celebrities who've adopted a completely (or mostly) plant-based diet purportedly being vegan. Is it any wonder when we run into leather or wool-wearing folks (I'm looking at you, Kathy Freston). 

I do love many of the points she raises, though -- about being vegan not necessarily meaning you're more healthy, about the ethical reasons one may go vegan not merely revolving around the horrors of factory farming, and so on. The points she raises about the health and environmental aspects of rejecting animal consumption are valid, but health and environmental arguments are really just ancillary when it comes to veganism, whose focus is not on ourselves but is instead on other animals -- or at least it should be if we expect to convince others to respect the rights and interests of those other animals. So reading her article is kind of like reading a pretty decent book, then finding a chapter missing and the order of a few others jumbled.

What about you? Have you thought about writing about some aspect of veganism for your local or school paper? Have you started a blog? Have you considered publishing a 'zine? There are all kinds of opportunities to get the word out there whether in a stealthy or overt way. Others would not be writing about it if the public was not interested in reading about it. Why not give it a shot?

The "Little Steps" that Count

The response to my post from Friday on Mercy for Animals' failure to both combat speciesism and promote veganism has been almost overwhelmingly positive, whether from emails I've received, to comments left on the  blog's Facebook page. Many have agreed that it's essential for animal rights advocates to know the actual ethical positions on which these large groups are basing their advocacy.

Elsewhere on the interwebs, particularly in the anti-abolitionist slanted vegan subreddit of the social news website Reddit, the old familiar accusations of nit-picking and being divisive were the norm, along with my personal favourite: "Well, if you have such a big issue with them, why don't you shut up and go out there and do it better?" As if one wee blogger should be shamed into silence for not being able to compete with the $1.3 million in annual revenue enjoyed by a group like Mercy for Animals! It's funny, though, how none of the negative responses to my blog post actually addressed the content -- and legitimate concerns -- of the blog post. "Every little bit counts," they said about Mercy for Animals' campaigns. " When those so-called little bits involve placating the general public into feeling comfortable with continuing to participate in the exploitation of others, though, where is it that they actually count? Surely not in the interest of those other animals?

Each time HSUS insists that it's not out to end the farming of animals for human consumption, it's telling the public that it's alright to use animals. Each time that PETA or Farm Sanctuary -- a sanctuary, for pete's sake! -- chooses a non-vegan celebrity spokesperson, it's telling the public that it's alright to use animals. Each time Vegan Outreach insists that vegans should shrug off easily avoidable animal ingredients when around non-vegans to avoid looking nit-picky, it's telling the public that it's alright to use animals. Each time Mercy for Animals insist on its website that asking members of the public to go vegan is off-putting, it's telling them that veganism is too hard. And when abolitionists say that veganism is a first step, these groups tell the public that we're extremist and unreasonable. When abolitionists say that all animal advocacy should have veganism as its moral baseline, these groups tell the public that we're critical and divisive. Joe Public nods in relief, forks over a donation and signs a petition, then goes home to a roast chicken dinner.

How absolutely sad that it's become taboo in animal advocacy circles to actually assert unequivocally -- to even merely suggest -- that other animals aren't ours to use. How so very much more crucial it's become for those of us who do reject animal exploitation to speak out. If we agree that veganism should be the starting point for any meaningful advocacy in our fight against speciesism, we should not allow ourselves to be shamed and silenced by those groups who profit from its perpetuation. 

We may not have the millions these organizations do, but every single one of us has the ability to affect someone -- to change someone's heart and mind. Those are the real "little steps" that do count. We need to speak out. If we don't, who will?

So What's the Matter with Mercy for Animals?

I often get into conversations or exchanges with advocates who'll bring up this or that group or organization to mention that they like one of its posters or pamphlets, or that they heard a quote from one of its heads and that this quote really got their attention. Often, I'll find myself nodding and then shrugging, remembering this or that bit of information I'd filed away at some point which had left me dismissing the group in question, whether for its being speciesist and regulationist and as promoting ineffective campaigns, or for its endorsing and condoning (whether explicitly or implicitly) what are portrayed and presented as lesser degrees of animal use. Sometimes the group in question will have  used things like sexism or the threat of violence to promote whichever message it claims as its own. More often than not, the group will have seemed more concerned with fundraising for all of its wrongheaded campaigns than in earnestly effecting serious and permanent change in the public's continued use and exploitation of other animals.

Whatever the reason, there invariably seems to be something that leaves the group either falling short -- often far, far short -- of championing the rights of others or failing altogether to present any sort of clear message to the public about animals not being ours to use. Sadly, there also seems to be a growing tendency for animal groups to publicly distance themselves from the concept of veganism, from the word "vegan" itself and even expressing hostility towards those who refuse to equivocate when it comes to what we owe other animals. Sometimes these animal groups will perpetuate stereotypes and even ridicule those who are unequivocal in asking the public to consider that these sentient beings over 98% of us view as things existing for human use should be left alone. "Every little step counts," they'll assure non-vegans as they cash they donation cheques. "Not everybody will go vegan, so we have to applaud and encourage whatever they're willing to do," they'll argue. "Mentioning veganism is pushy and pushing them is judgmental," they'll insist. It should come as no surprise that validating (again, whether explicitly or implicitly) others' continued use of animals can be profitable.

Over the next while in a regular series of bi-monthly blog posts, I hope to examine some of the better known animal groups whose names get tossed around in activist circles. I'll try to highlight examples of where their advocacy doesn't jive with abolitionist animal rights advocacy and evaluate what they have to say about veganism, whose promotion is the starting point for any earnest and meaningful animal advocacy geared towards combating speciesism.

Mercy for Animals and its SICs

Mercy for Animals has certainly been in the news these last few years, earning itself a fair bit of mainstream media coverage thanks to its taking undercover footage of the abuse of animals at specific factory farms or slaughterhouses. Recently and just in time for the US Thanksgiving holiday, its cameras focused on one of Butterball's turkey facilities to offer up an expose of the horrible treatment endured by the turkeys at the hands of that facility's workers. Mercy for Animals even set up a website called Butterball Abuse on which you can find disturbing portions of the video footage, photos, expert testimony that the footage shows bona fide abuse and then a call to take action by going "vegetarian" (which for Mercy for Animals means adopting a plant-based diet), spreading the word about the Butterball Abuse site and.... making a donation to Mercy for Animals.

So? So the public was horrified. Calls to boycott Butterball popped up all over the internet, whether singling the company out for the obviously (not) out of the ordinary and extreme cruelty caught on film by Mercy for Animals, or for its being involved in factory farming in general. Non-vegans across the interwebs were outraged. How dare Butterball leave them potentially feasting on the carcass of some poor bird who was somehow mistreated? The idea of it was just repugnant. Thanks to Mercy for Animals, participating in animal cruelty could be avoided. Armed with knowledge of Butterball's facilities' workers obviously extraordinarily heinous treatment of the turkeys in its possession, members of the general public were left able to source a turkey from some other company (i.e. in whose facilities no such awful footage had been taken). I've no doubt that it was a relief for those who may actually believe -- or want to believe -- on some level that the majority of turkeys lead perfectly wonderful lives and die quick painless deaths to end up a carved carcass on a holiday table.

When the Exceptional is no Exception

The truth that gets overlooked is that there's no such thing as the humane enslavement and slaughter of any sentient being. From birth to death, other animals raised for human consumption are confined, mutilated, deprived of the chance to form relationships with others (whether kin or not). They're often deprived of even basic things like clean food or water and are just ordinarily treated like things with no interests of their own. Their lives alternate between being filled with terror and boredom. Butterball? Butterball was just an extension of the same old, same old. The company is just particularly well-known and thus made an effective target to single out to be able to grab the most media attention. It worked, but what did it really accomplish? So some Thanksgiving turkey consumers bought their turkeys elsewhere. Maybe a few even skipped over the turkey altogether and opted for a meat-free Thanksgiving, inspired by Mercy for Animals' ChooseVeg.com site -- its "guide to vegetarian and vegan living", which although it offers up a lot of animal-free recipes uses the terms "vegetarian" and "vegan"  interchangeably and thus confusingly.

Limiting the Focus


On its "About" page, the group describes itself as follows: "Mercy for Animals is dedicated to preventing cruelty to farmed animals and promoting compassionate food choices and policies." Right there, we have it stated outright that Mercy for Animals concerns itself with those animals we call "food". Furthermore, this concern zooms in on not whether there should be animals farmed for human consumption, but on how these animals are treated as they're farmed for human consumption. Once upon a time, as evidenced by all of the now-dead links on its "Site Map" page, it engaged in plenty of other single-issue campaigns that are ordinarily very popular and fast-cash-grab types of campaigns -- anti-fur, anti-circus, anti-vivisection, et al. These days, though, the group has limited its scope to highlighting worst-case scenarios when animals are raised to end up on supermarket shelves.

Why "Veg" and not "Vegan"?

In what is perhaps its most bewildering article on its site, one called "The 'V' Word: A Note about Terminology", Mercy for Animals explains why it has chosen to sometimes deliberately avoid using the word "vegan". The group states that it 

always has, and always will, unapologetically encourage people to adopt a lifestyle free of meat, dairy and eggs, based on cruelty-free, plant-based alternatives.

This description, of course, focuses on that part of one's "lifestyle" which concerns itself with eating. When it then addresses how people often ask why it sometimes uses the words "vegetarian" instead of "vegan", it responds by implying that the term "vegan" is off-putting to some segments of the public and that shuffling it out is part of what it calls a "carefully considered strategy" to appeal to those members of the public who are apparently a little skittish. It lists off a bunch of vague or misused  terms -- "pure vegetarian, plant-based, plant-strong, herbivore, or just plain ethical" -- it says are all used to describe "a cruelty-free lifestyle" and explains that it is reclaiming the word "vegetarian" in the sense in which it was initially meant to be used -- to describe a diet free of animal products.

So what's wrong with that? Nothing, I guess, if you're merely advocating an animal-free diet. However, Mercy for Animals lumps the word "vegan" in with the rest of those (apparently interchangeable) terms when what it's really talking about is limited to diet. Veganism isn't a diet... yet the group describes quite plainly that it limits its focus to diet and nonetheless insists that it is in fact advocating "veganism". It makes perfect sense to me, given that the group doesn't promote veganism, that it doesn't employ the word "veganism" to describe any aspect of its advocacy, but hey -- what do I know?

The piece goes on and on about how the word "vegetarian" facilitates more discussions with people and how it's a lure that can be used to grab peoples' attention so that discussions can eventually be had about (whatever it is that it thinks is) veganism. It also goes to great lengths to drive home that using the word "vegan" is alienating and leads to

conversations generally focused on the seemingly endless list of obscure ingredients that are nearly impossible to avoid or how hard it seems to give up cheese or ice cream.

One can't help but wonder how on earth members of the general public could possibly view the word "vegan" in any sort of possible light, given Mercy for Animals' obvious conviction that even just talking about veganism is harmful to advocating veganism -- which Mercy for Animals isn't even advocating in the first place.  And not only does Mercy for Animals try to make a case for its not advocating for whatever it thinks veganism is, but it goes on make a final assumption that "humans" are just incapable of hearing a vegan message at all -- from anyone, and that somehow promoting vegetarianism and with it the idea that there's something ethically significant about just avoiding meat is the only really effective way to fast-track someone to not eating any animal products at all.

As a species, humans tend to have very "all or nothing" mindsets. Because they view veganism as impossibly difficult, they will often write off making any lifestyle changes at all. But when presented with the prospect of going vegetarian, people tend to be much more open-minded and will often take that initial step toward cruelty-free living. Once they’ve taken that first step, the next step is that much easier.

What Mercy for Animals misses, though, is that to "get" veganism, once must accept that it's unethical to use other animals. It in no way follows that condoning different degrees of animal use will somehow facilitate someone's connecting the dots that animals aren't ours to use at all. 


Summary

So there you have it. Mercy for Animals' campaigns emphasize the treatment of only certain species of animals -- those we raise for human consumption -- rather than educating the public about whether all animals are ours to use. It profits off confusing people into thinking that some forms of animal use are worse than others and (whether inadvertently or not) by misleading people into thinking that all animal food production isn't always inherently torturous for the animals involved. Furthermore, it misrepresents veganism as a diet and then criticizes using the word "vegan" (whatever it is that it understands this word to mean) as too extremist and as ineffectual and potentially detrimental. How on earth could anyone who takes the rights and interests of other animals seriously support or condone an organization like Mercy for Animals? I certainly couldn't.

Further Listening/Reading:


For information on why vegetarianism isn't a gateway to veganism, listen to Gary Francione's podcast on the topic and then read his follow-up post about it.

For more on the wrongheadedness of SICs, see last month's MFIoF blog post on the topic.

Check back over the next week or so for a feature I hope to do on successful grassroots advocacy in New Zealand, Australia and North America with stories from folks who've taken an abolitionist vegan message to the public.