What Other Abolitionists Have Been Doing

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a long overdue list of some recent activities in which various abolitionists have been engaging. I'd meant to post a second part to it later that week, but got side-tracked, so I'm going to throw in a few things now, but will then stick to monthly updates.

So?

Prof. Gary L. Francione recently posted an excellent critique of HSUS' "Save a Seal Today" campaign on the Opposing Views website. The fundraising campaign calls for a boycott of Canadian seafood products to pressure the Canadian government to end the annual seal hunt. The message this campaign sends out is that the interests of "cute" seals matter more than the interests of all other regularly exploited sea animals, since HSUS more or less tells us that 1) it's OK to continue to consume all other sea animals as long as they don't come from Canada, and that 2) as soon as the seal hunt ends, it's OK to go back to consuming other Canadian sea animals. Most significantly, though, the messaged conveyed is that HSUS--with its annual budget of $150 million--somehow needs more money.

Read more about it here in the original piece on Opposing Views, and join the discussion.

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Sam Tucker, host of Food for Though Radio (among many, many other things), has been updating a Flickr photo set of images of foods he customarily eats. Of it, he writes:

Whenever I talk to anyone about veganism, one of the most common questions I get asked is "what do you eat?". They assume that by the time you've taken out meat, dairy, eggs, honey and other animal products off your plate, all there will be left to eat is some dry salad and lentils.

I have set this set up to bust that myth, and to prove that there are plenty of delicious foods available to vegans. I use ingredients available here in New Zealand.

You can check out his photo set here: "What This Vegan Eats".

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Vincent J. Guihan, subject of this somewhat shady and speculative Facebook page, weighed in on the recent buzz over the Slate piece by Christopher Cox proclaiming that it's perfectly justifiable for vegans to eat oysters. In "Of oysters and education: why a rights-based approach to vegan education makes sense", Guihan explains why arguing for veganism using environmental reasons or by focusing on animal suffering (i.e. their treatment) is ineffective, including that

the general secrets are out: we use animals; they suffer because we do; it is typically very bad for the environment when we do. The advocacy problem is that, historically, most people have not really cared enough to change their lives and go vegan in light of these reasons.

Guihan then calls for an emphasis on rights-based abolitionist vegan education, and particularly on community organisation to mobilize the sort of meaningful and long-lasting social change that will really make a difference to all victims of exploitation, humans and non-humans alike. To find out what you can do to help, please visit the Animal Emancipation discussion forum.