Speciesism at Home

I've been following the activities of a local chapter of a trap-neuter-return (TNR) group called ca-r-ma. At some point a few years ago, a former coworker had posted about them on Facebook and I had become intrigued, since the work in which they engaged stood out a little from the activities of the two local SPCA shelters. I discovered soon enough, however -- and somewhat sadly -- that a common thread they share with the SPCA shelters in my city concerns the manner in which they choose to raise funds for their organization.

I was picking up some cat litter at the store a few days ago when I noticed a colourful poster up on a bulletin board promoting a "Harvest Supper" to be held on Saturday, October 22. Then I noticed that proceeds from the supper were going to ca-r-ma, as well as to The Chickadee Cat Club. Items listed as being included in the supper were baked ham, scalloped potatoes, baked beans, homemade brown bread, mustard pickles and pie. Yep. They are indeed planning to serve up the flesh of one species of animal (i.e. pigs) to raise money for two groups associated with another species (i.e. cats).

This chapter of ca-r-ma has been partnering up with The Chickadee Cat Club often over the past year, which also baffles me somewhat. The club portrays itself as a group devoted to educating people about cat welfare and "responsible pet ownership", when according to its Facebook page, The Chickadee Cat Club is also a Charter Club of the American Cat Fanciers Association (ACFA) and -- how I know it best from observing its goings on in my city -- it regularly hosts cat shows where breeders show up to promote their services as people gawk at caged cats, purebred or otherwise.

I'd brought this up with a friend who is involved with them and her response to me was to insist that most of the money they raise through these cat shows goes directly to ca-r-ma and to the two local SPCA shelters. This misses the point, however, that it is wrongheaded to use some cats as entertainment -- as things -- purportedly for the worthwhile cause of raising money for other cats. It also misses the much more obvious point that promoting the profitable breeding of cats for the supposed purpose of raising money to assist those cats who've been abandoned or left to fend for themselves is, well, kind of ludicrous. According to its Facebook page:

THE MANDATE OF THE CHICKADEE CAT CLUB IS:

To sponsor and promote the welfare of all pedigree cats and household pet cats;

To cultivate friendship among and promote the interest and education of the owners, fanciers and registered breeders of cats;

To host cat shows and promote interest in and knowledge of pedigree cats and household pet cats;

To encourage pedigree breeding toward the ACFA standard of perfection; and,

To encourage kindness and assist in the prevention of cruelty and mistreatment of all animals

The fact that a group like ca-r-ma, dedicated to spaying/neutering ferals, is partnering with a group which both promotes and provides a venue for cat breeders does not make a whole lot of sense on any level. TNR is being turned into a band-aid solution to a problem partially fed into by the deliberate breeding and bringing into this world of more domesticated animals. It's being turned by them into a justification to promote even further breeding of cats, when in the United States alone, anywhere from 3-5 million unwanted dogs and cats are killed in shelters each year. Instead of promoting the breeding of more cats and the refining of purebred traits, wouldn't it make more sense to promote spaying/neutering across the board and to promote shelter adoptions? I mean, that would be the obvious option to me, but what do I know? "But it's to raise money for a good cause," I was chastised, as if questioning their methods was somehow akin to rejecting the cause.

I find it hard to walk away from blatant speciesism, particularly when one type of animal use is engaged in and excused for the supposed sake of helping other animals. Thus, I left a polite comment on one of The Chickadee Cat Club's many posts on its Facebook page which plugged the dinner, expressing disappointment that it would choose to sell the flesh of dead animals to raise money for a different species of animal. No surprise that it was removed with no response. Having already somewhat pointlessly discussed the fundraising with animal products issue with a few of its volunteers, I haven't yet left a comment on my local chapter of ca-r-ma's Facebook page.

It's a shame that the question of rights gets buried in a confused message of welfare. It's also a shame that people who are obviously well-intentioned and who no doubt earnestly care about the well-being of a certain species of animal are unable to connect the dots and to recognize that no nonhuman animal deserves to be treated as a thing -- regardless of who benefits from it.

The Meaninglessness of "Welfare" and Uselessness of Single-Issue Campaigns

A reader sent me a link yesterday morning to an article from The Vancouver Sun ("Animal rights group targets humane society's meaty menu") about the Ottawa Animal Rights Defence League and their protest of the Ottawa Humane Society's upcoming $300-a-plate FurBall fundraiser. It seems that the fundraiser, being held at the National Gallery of Canada on March 26, will feature a menu which will include meat (albeit with a token "vegetarian" option). Arguing that the Ottawa Humane Society is an animal welfare group and not an animal rights group, the Society issued a statement adding the following:

"Like most humane societies, the OHS does not have a position against the raising of animals for food, so long as the animals are raised and slaughtered in a humane manner. We are confident that . . . (the menu) has not compromised our position."

While the society offers a vegetarian option at all its events, "fewer than five per cent of our guests have opted for this menu."

"Fewer than five percent" of the well-heeled guests who will be attending this high-priced affair have opted for the token gesture offered up by the society. Given its endorsement of animal use, however, it's not a surprise that it would shrug off having a menu devoid of animal products. Also, given that it holds this position, it's easy to understand why its eager donors might also very well be laissez-faire about what's served at this event. I mean, why would you not want to eat animals when forking over money to a group that condones the exploitation of animals?

According to the article, the Animal Rights Defence League staged "a small protest" outside last year's FurBall event and although on one level, I can understand why the Animal Rights Defence League would view the feeding of animal products at any self-proclaimed animal advocacy event sort of wrongheaded, I'm not certain that I see the relevance of their protesting the Ottawa Humane Society's doing so at this event any more than they would protest any non-vegan group's serving animal products -- or any ordinary store or restaurant's doing so, for that matter unless it was to address the more basic fact that the Society condones the use of non-human animals in general.

I guess that one could say that the League's members' hearts are in the right place, but the larger issue of the Ottawa Humane Society's overall endorsement of the raising of animals for human use and slaughter would seem to me to be the more logical and appropriate focus, particularly since this very policy is why they deem it fit to serve animal flesh and secretions at their fundraiser in the first place. As long as the Ottawa Humane Society limits its scope of concern and chooses to nurture the illusion of there being such a thing as "humane" treatment when non-human animals are raised for food, why would it hold a vegan fundraiser? And how does protesting this fundraiser affect in any way how the Society will go on to condone the exploitation of non-human animals? The answer is that it won't: They're not an animal rights group.

Reading the article led me to an earlier article concerning the Animal Rights Defence League's supposed recent victory in convincing the organizers of Ottawa's annual Winterlude to ask a famous chef, someone who has "built up an exalted reputation in part for his celebration of engorged duck liver -- foie gras" from including foie gras on the menu of Winterlude's opening gala. The article soon reveals, however, what a victory this wasn't: "Several Ottawa restaurants have decided to add foie gras to their festival menus in support of Mr. Picard." Never mind the fact that animal ingredients of all sorts will still be part of the Winterlude menu. Where's the victory here?

As someone who champions vegan education, I sometimes hear animal advocates who don't view veganism as a moral baseline say that I (and others who also champion vegan education and who support an abolitionist approach to animal rights advocacy) am not seeing the "big picture", and that I need to step back and weigh the good that comes from a wide variety of types of animal advocacy, ranging from causes like "Meatless Monday" (i.e. shuffling animal products around on one day of the week) to HSUS' ongoing tweaking of the regulations concerning how we raise this or that animal for our consumption (i.e. rather than their educating the public that we do not need to -- and should not -- treat them as things in the first place). I often get told by welfarists or by those who engage in protesting the more easily marketable and higher profile animal issues (e.g. the use of fur, the seal hunt, et al.) and who sometimes choose to pay lip service to educating the public about going vegan that pitching going vegan as the least we can do for non-human animals is futile and/or extremist. I get told that I have tunnel vision for focusing on educating others about about veganism and that my focus is both too narrow and asking too much.

But in talking to others about going vegan, I am talking to them about not using or exploiting non-human animals and of not providing a demand for their exploitation. As an abolitionist vegan, I am asking them to examine their own speciesism. And is not speciesism which underlies what most of society views as the perfectly normal practice of treating non-human animals as things existing for human use? So how is getting to the very root of the problem rather than picking at this or that easy-sell single-issue campaign focusing too narrowly? How can we, when purporting to fight for what's best for animals, write off asking others to stop using them as asking "too much"?

Now, as for the animal rights group I referenced above whose two stories got me thinking about the ineffectiveness of cherry-picking compartmentalized issues regarding animal use or treatment, they may very well engage in educating the public about veganism on some level at other times. Unfortunately, the aforementioned stories are the ones which received press attention and the ones which will leave the public continuing to conflate animal welfare groups with animals rights groups, and which will leave them thinking that eating one type of animal product is significantly ethically worse than eating a different body part or secretion of the same (or of a different) non-human animal.

Are these really the kinds of messages that we want the public to keep receiving? Rather than suggest to me, an animal rights advocate, that I should somehow embrace a wide variety of goals, methods, isolated causes and single-issue campaigns to be a better advocate, wouldn't it make more sense to look at what lies behind each and every problem inherent in the use of non-human animals and for us to focus our time and energy on fighting speciesism and on educating the public to go vegan? Wouldn't it make more sense that instead of sending out so many mixed messages to the public, we would instead come together and focus on one clear message and ask them consider the rights and interests of all sentient non-human animals and to stop treating them as things?

I have good friends -- loved ones -- who think absolutely nothing of chewing into a piece of some cow's body because they "love" the taste, and who garb themselves in the skin that would have covered that cow's body because they "love" the look. Some of them express their outrage to me, perhaps trying to bond over what they view as what must surely be some sort of shared emotion or common point in our respective ethical frameworks. But to them, giving up their ordinary day-to-day consumption and use of animals would seem absurd and unreasonable. To them, it would be taking things too far.

If single-issue campaigns were effective in making people go vegan, these people I know who would never be caught wearing fur or eating foie gras would be vegan. But as long as they're led to feel that they're doing enough in signing a petition to end the seal hunt or in sending money to help a welfarist group lobby the government to make the size of a cage a few inches larger, why would they take things further? And as long as they don't take things further, nothing will ever really change.

Please talk to someone today about going vegan.

"Animal Rights vs. Animal Welfare: Making the Case"

These are from a talk given by Professor Gary L. Francione on May 11, 2008 in the Brighton Town Lodge, outside of Rochester, NY. Here are Parts 1 through 5. The volume is a little on the low side, especially in Part 1.

ETA: While looking for more information on this talk, filmed by Rochester Indymedia, I found a transcript of it here, for those who are interested.

"Animal Rights vs. Animal Welfare: Making the Case" - Second Half

These are from a talk given by Professor Gary L. Francione on May 11, 2008 in the Brighton Town Lodge, outside of Rochester, NY. Here are Parts 6 through 10. Once again, the volume is a little low, so you'll need to adjust it on your computer.

New Updates at Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach

I linked to one of Professor Gary L. Francione's recent blog updates in a post below but wanted to draw attention to them in a separate post. "On Vivisection and Violence" discusses violence in the animal rights movement while "Truth, Love and Liberty" discusses hypocrisy in the animal welfare movement, highlighting a recent party thrown by HSUS to promote a boycott of Canadian seafood.

Peter Singer and the Catering of HSUS Events

The Arkansas Times published a review today of a new restaurant in the city of Hillcrest. Calling it a "burger joint" with a menu that makes it seem like a "gastropub", the article describes it as

the latest among, suddenly, many practicing a gourmet, organic brand of localism. Which is to say, its meat is “grass fed”; its produce and bread local, and its condiments, fries and just about everything else house-made. Michael Pollan's sphere of influence knows no bounds.

It seems that this new locavore fast-food lovers haven features an item that's been eliciting snickers from across the board:

The Peter Singer ($9), named, cheekily, for the “Animal Liberation” author, stands out in particular. It starts with what must be the answer to Miller's kitchen quest to find the ideal patty — a half-pound slab of ground lamb, pork, beef and roasted garlic. That comes topped with roasted tomatoes, basil mozzarella and basil mayo and on, as all the House's burgers are, a Boulevard Bread Co. bun.

Whether or not the intention was to take a good poke at him, any serious animal rights advocate familiar with the increasingly public slippery sloping of Singer's opinions and influence since the publication of his unfortunately misnamed book, Animal Liberation, can appreciate the actual lack of irony in it.

Maybe if they get on board with HSUS' "Saves the Seals" campaign, they'll get to cater the organization's next fundraiser! They can find out all about HSUS' requirements for such things right here in Professor Gary L. Francione's recent blog post on his Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach website.

A kinder, gentler Switzerland for goldfish

More than a couple of reporters and bloggers have been amused these past few days by the news that the Swiss government has enacted new legislation intended to improve the lives of both domesticated and wild animals. What's elicited a titter or three is that it's now illegal to flush a live conscious goldfish down a toilet in Switzerland. I'm all for saving a fish the trauma of being flushed into someone's local sewage treatment plant, but have to wonder how the heck anyone would enforce something like that. I have this image of angry Swiss children morphing into Orwell's "The Spies" or "Youth League", ratting their parents out.

In theory, many of the new changes are the kinds of things I'd love to see implemented in North America, as well. For instance, the lot of fish other than goldfish may be improved, since the cruel and common angling practice of catching and releasing fish is now illegal in Switzerland, as is using live fish as bait.

Changes affecting animals kept as "pets" include that budgies and hamsters may no longer be kept as individuals in captivity, but must be provided with companionship. The tail and ear cropping of dogs will no longer be allowed, and people who adopt them will be required to take training classes designed to lower the occurrence of biting mishaps.

In zoos, social creatures such as lamas, alpacas and yaks will need to be provided with companionship, as well. Pragmatically, it will be somewhat interesting to see how some of these things will actually be enforced. The very fact that these changes in legislation have been enacted and announced, however, reflects the sort of change in mindset that's promising.

PETA and KFC-Canada -- Gary L. Francione`s take on it

The PETA / KFC-Canada story has generated a lot of discussion in veg*an circles over the internet this past week. I've gotten involved in a few of them, myself, and have been surprised at how divisive the rights vs. welfarism issue has become. Criticizing /praising PETA has also become a divisive issue within veg circles (which I won't get into today, although I'd like to write about it and about the love / hate veg*ans have for PETA at a later date). Anyway, I just wanted to post this link to my favourite animal rights philosopher, legal scholar Gary L. Francione's take on the whole PETA / KFC-Canada happenings, since I think he makes a really sound case for why it's all just been one big ol' publicity coup for KFC-Canada and why PETA's work here is far from a step forward, but is instead several steps backward for the animals in question.

Update to the KFC Canada / PETA story

WorldPoultry.net, an industry website, has published more details of the KFC Canada / PETA agreement.

- The vegan chicken substitute will only be offered in a little over half of the KFC restaurants in Canada (i.e. those owned by a company called Priszm).
- KFC Canada will merely be "urg[ing] (my emphasis) its suppliers to adopt better practices, including improved lighting, lower stocking density and ammonia levels, and a phase-out of growth-promoting drugs and breeding practices that cripple chickens", so it appears that there'll be no actual requirement for it (or if there will be, nobody's sayin' so).
- No information is provided on solid dates for the phasing in of controlled-atmosphere killed chickens.
- They'll be forming an advisory panel to monitor the changes and suggest further ones, but no information is given on who will be on the panel and how (or if) they'll have any direct sort of impact on real changes.

The list on the WorldPoultry.net website is taken directly from PETA's and there's no information at any of this at all yet on KFC Canada's website.

KFC Canada and PETA come to an agreement

After five years of dealing with PETA's ''Kentucky Fried Cruelty'' campaign, KFC Canada is ''promising improved welfare for the chickens it buys for its fast-food outlets in exchange for an end to a boycott campaign that will continue in the U.S. and elsewhere.''

KFC Canada and PETA have supposedly signed an agreement, by which KFC Canada agrees that it will begin buying from suppliers who gas their chickens to death -- a method deemed less cruel than other popular methods. KFC Canada is also going to lay down animal care guidelines by which its suppliers must abide (e.g. mostly pertaining to limiting crowding in cages and phasing out the use of hormones and drugs). Basically, they're just implementing some small welfarist changes to enhance their image and to get PETA to call of its goons. I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around the concept of PETA-approved animal slaughter.

KFC Canada is also planning to introduce a vegan ''chicken'' subtitute, but I have to wonder about that since it seems that everything at KFC is deep-fried together, isn't it?

Gary Francione's abolitionist theory

Gary L. Francione is Distinguished Professor of Law and Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers University School of Law-Newark and an author of several animal rights books (including Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement pictured in this post). I mentioned him briefly a few months ago. He is a proponent of abolitionism and in his work he examines how, in order to truly make some headway to reduce animal suffering, we need to destroy our view of animals as property -- i.e. to abolish the concept of our right to legally own them. He also argues that animal rights supporters need to set veganism as their moral baseline to avoid what he calls ''moral schizophrenia''.

Francione compares supporting animal rights while eating animal products to being against slavery while owning slaves. He also stresses that there is as much suffering in a bowl of ice cream as there is in a piece of steak (since animals raised for milk production are often kept in condition similar or even worse to those raised for their flesh, plus are kept longer before their production value is deemed worth of being sent off to slaughter). To claim to be an animal rights advocate while continuing to contribute to their suffering by eating their flesh or products (e.g. milk or eggs) because one enjoys their taste, therefore, would be illogical and even hypocritical.

Francione is an outspoken critic of animal welfarist groups, into which he also counts PETA. He argues that these groups have evolved into corporate-like entities and have become effective at merely making people more comfortable with consuming animal products (e.g. consuming eggs from hens kept in barns rather than battery cages, rather than considering not consuming the eggs so that how the hens are treated becomes a non-issue in the first place). Some members of the animal rights movement, as well as animal welfarists who advocate more moderate reforms, criticize Francione by calling him divisive and claiming that his position concerning animal welfare reforms only harms the animals in the end. In response to this, he asserts that large animal welfarist groups such as PETA as stifling dissent and discussion and creating a false dichotomy -- you either support moderate animal welfare reforms, or, you're against the animals!

In the following two-part interview with Claudette Vaughn of Abolitionist-Online, Francione discusses his abolitionist theory in greater detail, explaining why it's the only logical approach to ending the the suffering imposed on animals through our use of them for our own consumption.

Part I

Part II

Earthlings - Part 1 of 3

Earthlings is a multi-award winning 2005 documentary by writer/director Shaun Monson, which took around five years to put together. Narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, it examines, in a frank and often jarring manner through the use of facts and footage, how humans have come to completely rely on non-human animals, using them for food, clothing, entertainment and experimentation. We breed and exploit them for profit. As sad and awful as some of the images are in this documentary, they're an accurate portrayal of what goes on "out of sight". There's no sensationalism in this film -- just reality.

Part 1, as presented in this YouTube video, features animals raised to become our pets, as well as animals raised to become our food.

Earthlings - Part 2 of 3

Part 2 continues to examine how we raise animals for food. It also focuses on the seafood industry, including the health issues surrounding it. It goes even further to examine the whaling industry and Japanese dolphin hunts. I won't pretend otherwise -- these images are some of the most difficult things I've seen myself in a long time.

Part 2 also examines animals we use for clothing -- for their skin or fur. It also starts looking at animals used for entertainment by featuring images from rodeos and it takes a glimpse at hunting and fishing at the very end.

Earthlings - Part 3 of 3

The final third of the documentary focuses on the gruesome lives of circus animals, on the rigging and cruelty of bullfighting, and then, finally, on animal experimentation.

Meet your Meat

This short video, narrated by Alec Baldwin and produced by PeTA, has been circulating for quite a spell. For those of you who aren't strangers to vegetarianism, veganism or animal ethics, you're likely already well aware of Meet Your Meat and may very well have seen it already. Regardless of what they think about PeTA (or of what I think about PeTA, which isn't much), most folks with whom I've spoken who have seen it agree that it's impossible to walk away from it without its somehow impacting your choices as a consumer.

If you've never seen footage before of the conditions in which animals are raised for human consumption, be forewarned that this isn't light viewing. I think, however, that it's necessary viewing if you're interested in living the sort of authentic existence life where you make your decisions as a consumer while keeping your eyes wide open.