Hacking at Branches: On Petitioning Whole Foods

James McWilliams recently posted a petition on Change.org to persuade the Whole Foods supermarket chain to stop selling meat. More specifically, the petition is (was?) to convince the chain to shut down its meat counters. In his petition, McWilliams does offer up some sort of quasi-broader contextualization for its focus:

Forget (for the moment) dairy and eggs and all the animal-based products dependent on systematic suffering that you believe are integral to a robust stock price. We can deal with these items later.

This contextualization does little to change the fact that for a non-vegan supermarket chain that prides itself on its offering its customers so-called "happy" animal consumption options, singling out animal flesh as significant would just send a confusing message. Whole Foods' "articulated values" (as appealed to by McWilliams) are all about providing its customers with these purportedly "kinder" options. It's not -- and never really has been -- about offering consumers an alternative to using other sentient beings. Instead, Whole Foods profits off of its lulling consumers into thinking that there is such a thing as ethical animal exploitation: This is part of its raison d'être.

Nonetheless, McWilliams suggest the elimination of its meat sales to Whole Foods as a first step it should take. He cushions it by temporarily excusing the sales of other animal products until "later" and then throws this weird bit of flattery in:

As a loyal patron, vegan advocate, and historian of agriculture, I’m asking you to do what you have done so well since the 1980s: lead.

That left me earnestly baffled. I'll 'fess up and admit that I've been reading many of McWilliams' blog posts off and on over the past several months whenever I've had time to sit back and catch up on advocacy-related reading. At one point months ago, I would actually get excited reading some of his posts since they seemed to reflect the thoughts of someone who "got it" and who was bent on forwarding an unequivocal message that other animals deserve nothing short of our going vegan. How on earth would he come to see a company such as Whole Foods as "leading"?

The thing is, though, that even if McWilliams' petition had called on Whole Foods to stop selling all of the animal products it stocks on its shelves, whether meat, dairy, eggs, honey and the other ingredients that manifest themselves in the processed foods and non-edibles it carries, the petition would have been -- however possibly well-intentioned -- really wrongheaded and pointless. As Whole Foods' co-founder and co-CEO James Mackey pointed out in his official response to McWilliams:

Whole Foods Market has no plans to stop selling meat and poultry…or seafood, eggs and dairy items for that matter.

[...]

Our first stakeholder is our customer and the most of them purchase and eat meat.

[...]

At the most, about 10 percent of our customers are strict vegetarians and probably around three percent are strict vegans. To not offer a full array of food options is basically suggesting that we voluntarily commit business suicide.

None of this should come as any surprise, yet many animal advocates have reacted to Mackey's response with outrage. You would think that he had suddenly revealed something quite shocking that should leave him worthy of being deemed evil incarnate. The bottom line, however, is that Mackey is a businessman and that perpetuating the myth that some animal use can be more ethical than other types of animal use has been and is essential to Whole Foods' operations. Asking them to cut out selling a particular animal product when Whole Foods has been insisting to its customers that all of the products it sells come from animals who've been raised "happy" goes completely against how Whole Foods justifies including itself in the cycle of animal exploitation.

Focusing on the middle-man really makes no sense where animal advocacy is concerned. If Whole Foods stopped selling meat, its customers would just go elsewhere to purchase it. Why wouldn't they? Mackey knows this and it baffles me that McWilliams wouldn't see this, as well. Mackey was right in saying that McWilliams was ultimately asking Whole Foods to engage in "business suicide".

More so than this Whole Foods affair (which is just perplexing), McWilliams' recent promotion of Melanie Joy has left me a little saddened. Joy's work emphasizes the ethics and psychology of meat eating, highlighting so-called "carnism" as she calls it instead of acknowledging the actual issue of speciesism as a whole. She chooses to publicly pooh-pooh the delivering of a vegan message as being too extreme, insisting that talking about veganism is somehow counter-productive when trying to get people to take other animals seriously. McWilliams' endorsement of her work was a sad surprise. I had come to really enjoy his writing style and his writings themselves had seemed to indicate that he did indeed understand that teaching people to not use others animals was the first step in making a difference for those other animals.

In his more recent article for Slate ("Vegan Feud"), McWilliams actually takes issue quite explicitly with the those who present veganism as a moral baseline for animal rights advocacy. McWilliams touts it as extremist. Instead, he champions HSUS, whose bread and butter (yep) is also wrapped around lulling consumers into thinking that there is indeed such a thing as a kinder, gentler and more ethical way to treat other animals as things. In his piece for Slate, McWilliams champions HSUS and then specifically singles out abolitionists and the work of Prof. Gary Francione as too, too demanding with their focus on teaching the public to take the rights and interests of other animals seriously by choosing not to participate in the use and exploitation of these other animals.

I won't weigh in on the Slate article at this time, since Francione has already done so and even extended an invitation to McWilliams to discuss all of this in a podcast via his Abolitionist Approach website. McWilliams has agreed to participate in the podcast and it should be falling into place sometime in October. I really do hope that the discussion they have brings McWilliams around to realizing that singling out those who provide consumers with what they want or asking them to stop providing in no way convinces those same consumers that they should stop viewing other sentient beings as things. The only way to fight speciesism is to get those who provide the demand that perpetuates the cycle of animal exploitation to understand that animals aren't ours to use. Limiting their options in terms of where they can obtain animal products certainly won't accomplish that.

Francione gets that. I get that. A lot of you get that and even Whole Foods' Mackey gets that. Hopefully, come October, James McWilliams will get it, too.

Meat-Free McCartney

Animal advocates on various social networking site have been getting excited over the news that Paul McCartney (formerly of some band or other) has just released a cookbook. Why the excitement? Some say that it's another step forward for nonhuman animals. Me? I say it's another step backwards, thanks to another well-intentioned celebrity who doesn't understand that animals aren't ours to use.

The Meat Free Monday Cookbook -- by Paul, Mary and Stella McCartney -- has just been released to further promote McCartney's campaign (i.e. its namesake) to get people to not eat meat one day a week. According to The Telegraph, royalties from the book will go directly into funding for the ongoing Meat Free Monday campaign McCartney's been promoting for the past few years now, whose greatest accomplishment thus far seems to have been to make people feel better about themselves for meaninglessly shuffling around various animal products so that they omit one particular type one day a week. "But meat-free Mondays promote veganism!" I was assured earlier today by a fellow vegan. "You're being too cynical," I was told by another.

Not unlike the North American Meatless Monday fad, however, the Meat Free Monday campaign doesn't concern itself with persuading people to go vegan. It doesn't really concern itself all that much with animal use at all, actually. The McCartney family's statement from the official website:

"By giving up meat for one day each week you can save money, reduce your environmental impact and live a healthier life.

In 2006, a United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, highlighted the environmental impact of meat-eating and the importance of making more environmentally and socially conscious food choices. In 2009, we launched the Meat Free Monday campaign as a simple and straightforward idea to show everyone the value of eating less meat – and to make it easier for us all to do so.

We’re not asking you to give up meat completely, we’re encouraging you to do your bit to help protect our planet."

Where do animal rights fit into all of this? How does this campaign purportedly promote veganism? Right! It doesn't. In fact, the recipes link on the official site leads to a veritable smorgasbord of animal products, with milk, cream, butter, a seemingly never-ending variety of cheeses, eggs and honey.

If you have any lingering doubts about where veganism fits into McCartney's campaign, a couple of preview glances on Amazon UK's page for the book should clear things up for you. The very first recipes listed from Page 19 of the book are for Blueberry Pancakes (which include unsalted butter, organic milk, buttermilk and organic eggs), along with one for falafel and another for quinoa salad (both of which are free of animal ingredients). The second page of recipes listed (Page 44) lists recipes for a dish called Laban Bil Bayd (which contains unsalted butter, Greek yogurt and organic eggs), then an Asparagus Tray Bake (with crème fraîche, Parmesan cheese and eggs) and then a final recipe for Lemon Pistachio Biscotti (containing eggs). The third page of recipes listed (Page 159) lists recipes for Poached Quince with Vanilla (with a suggestion to serve it with yogurt), Puy Lentils with Roasted Red Peppers and Goat's Cheese (containing the aforementioned goat's cheese) and then Cheese and Chive Potato Jackets (which include butter, organic milk and Cheddar cheese as ingredients). The very last page of recipes featured (Page 222) lists three recipes which happen to be free of animal ingredients. Basically, out of 12 recipes from the book happening to be featured on the Amazon UK site, over half of them use animal ingredients -- easily avoidable animal ingredients.

If you're vegan and thinking of picking something up for a non-vegan friend or family member, please don't waste your time or money buying this book. There are so very many excellent vegan cookbooks available on the market right now. Why waste an opportunity to show someone you love how delicious food can be without animal products? A book like McCartney's accomplishes nothing but to to reinforce to the public that animals are ours to use and that food somehow requires animal products to be tasty. We know better, though, don't we?

Help your non-vegan friends and family connect the dots about what we owe nonhuman animals; please don't follow Paul McCartney's lead and merely confuse them further.

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.

Exploiting Some Animals to Raise Money for Other Animals? No Thanks!

Welcome to Barbecue Season!

Summer is here (albeit not so much for you readers in the southern hemisphere). This means that on a nice day, each and every bike ride taken through a residential area of my small city's streets in the late afternoon or early evening brings with it an "opportunity" to get a noseful of the odour of animal parts being cooked on a multitude of eagerly fired-up backyard grills. I don't even have to travel that far to smell it, actually; I share a yard with neighbours, and over the summer months those same smells fill the air in and around my building at least once or twice a week.

Barbecue Season = $$

With barbecue season come fundraisers. After all, people like to be outside during the warmer months, right? What could be easier than grabbing a few bags of rolls, slapping a couple of cheap hot dogs on the grill, squirting them with some tasty condiments and handing them out on disposable paper plates? How about in a parking lot conveniently offered up by a local business hoping to churn up some good PR with those milling around the smiling volunteer wearing the apron and handing out mystery meat? My local paper features at least 2-3 of these a week in its "Community Events" calendar: Barbecued wieners and burgers for pee-wee baseball, for an all-girl bagpipe band, for some local group's project to build a well somewhere in some country wherever a well needs to be built... or for the local SPCA animal shelters.

Throughout the year, I periodically see notices in the paper of one or the other of the two SPCA shelters in my area holding food-based fundraisers. Some time ago, I joined the Facebook page for one of the local shelters -- the one through which I had adopted Zeus and Sophie over 10 years ago (and that's Sophie glaring at you off to the right). Over the winter, I received occasional announcements concerning its activities until one day I received an invitation to attend an all-you-can-eat spaghetti and meatballs dinner fundraiser (I think they called it a "spay-ghetti and no-balls" dinner). I posted on their Facebook wall, mentioning that I was vegan and asking if all of the spaghetti at their fundraiser came with meat-based sauce and if they would consider instead offering spaghetti with a vegan marinara sauce. One of the shelter's spokespeople responded saying that she wasn't really sure what was in the sauce, but said nothing beyond that. It wasn't an issue for her that they were selling food containing animal ingredients to raise money for other (obviously much more worthy) animals. As for the barbecues the SPCA shelters hold during warmer weather, the fare is hardly any different -- it's not vegan.

'Animal-Free' as Optional?

The topic came up again a few days ago when a local rat rescuer on Twitter tweeted about a Kindness Club barbecue being held in my city to raise money for its Spay/Neuter Assistance Program (SNAP). At this fund-raising barbecue, veggie burgers were included in the offerings, but as far as I know, so were the usual fund-raising mystery meats. The thing is that lumping in veggie burgers with the other animal-based food offerings doesn't change a thing, whether or not those veggie burgers were actually even vegan before they were taken out of the box. Why? Well, at the very least, they'd be cooked on a grill and served with utensils already covered in caked-on animal bits and animal fat. Even if they weren't, participating in an event where the flesh and secretions of animals are being sold to raise money to improve the lives of other animals means publicly condoning the message that some non-human animals' rights are more important than those of others. It also means condoning the lie that you need to exploit animals to feed humans. As an abolitionist vegan, I want to destroy the speciesist status quo -- not reinforce it.

But I Want to Help!

Some vegans might argue that attending such fund-raising events isn't problematic as long as no food is consumed, and that it can even be worthwhile since it ultimately "helps" some animals. The thing is that if you really just want to throw financial support at a specific cause, you can always -- at the very least -- write them a check. You don't need to participate in an event where there is animal exploitation to support that cause. If you do throw money at them, though, please use the opportunity to talk to them about speciesism and about the exploitation of other animals: Teach them that they don't need to exploit other animals to raise money. Want to do even more? Start up a vegan or animal rights group and hold a vegan bake sale -- or vegan barbecue -- and throw some of the money you make towards your local shelter or spay/neuter program and use your sale as an opportunity to educate the public (as well as the group or program receiving your donation) about veganism.

Make a Real Difference!

Don't be afraid to educate others! Make yours a clear and unequivocal message in this mess of mixed messages in the so-called animal movement. If you don't, then who will? And how will things ever change for non-human animals?

Fur

What could possibly be a more stereotypical image of animal rights activists in pop culture than that of their demonstrating outside a fur store? For almost 20 years, groups like PeTA, as Prof. Gary L. Francione recently discussed on his Abolitionist Approach website ("The State of the Movement"), have been mangling perceptions of animal advocacy horribly by nurturing this stereotype, while singling out the fur industry as particularly worthy of the ire of those who take the interests of nonhuman animals seriously. But is the fur industry really any more worthy of such ire? As one advocate recently pointed out Twitter, for instance, 'fur' is skin and hair while 'leather' is skin. To obsess over people's wearing of fur while turning a blind eye to others' wearing of leather (which is much more common and involves so much more loss of life) seems odd and illogical. Furthermore, as Prof. Francione often points out when discussing anti-fur campaigns, considering that a large percentage of those who wear fur are women, fur becomes a convenient and sexist target. After all, when's the last time you saw PeTA demonstrators bombard a leather-clad biker with paint-balls?

Single-issue campaigns are problematic on many levels, not the least of which is that in focusing on this or that thing, other equally relevant issues get sidelined or marginalized. The impression given is that the object of the single-issue campaign in question carries more ethical significance. Sometimes, the very focusing on a single-issue can even lead advocates themselves to get a little lost--to lose sight of the wider or broader reasons that campaign may have been deemed important. This all becomes so tricky in a morally schizophrenic and speciesist society where we already have people categorizing some nonhuman animals as "pets", some as "food" and some as "pests". It becomes tricky in a society where many are drawn into believing that the consumption of flesh is more ethically troublesome than the consumption of animal products like milk or eggs, and then choose to eschew one for the other and convince themselves that they're making a huge difference in the lives of those nonhuman animals.

Somewhat telling (albeit somewhat less significant when looking at the big picture) is that with all of these years of anti-fur campaigning, PeTA hasn't even managed to effect any sort of tangible and permanent change in the general public's thinking concerning the wearing of fur. A recent article in the UK's Telegraph ("Why Fur is Fashionable Again"), for instance, discusses the resurgence in popularity of wearing "vintage furs", but as the editor of Red fashion magazines states in it:

I think the wearing of any fur at all, vintage or otherwise, anaesthetises the wearer. You’re only one gold card away from a new fur coat if you’ve bought an old one.

Ironically, another industry insider quoted in the article--one who admits to wearing so-called vintage fur--actually nails the problem with single issue campaigns and the resulting confusion from their mixed messages quite effectively, saying: “I can’t understand people who’ll [...] eat supermarket battery chickens, and then give me a hard time for wearing fur.” Where does this confusion come from? Animal advocates engaging in the sort of welfarist campaigning that either a) flat-out condones certain forms of animal exploitation (e.g. Erik Marcus applauding Jonathan Safran Foer, a promoter of "happy meat"-- see here and here) or b) lauds wee incremental changes to small segments of a wider-scale problem (e.g. HSUS spending so much money from its supporters to pressure restaurants to use cage-free eggs rather than educating consumers about not consuming eggs or other animal products in the first place).

More recently, the organisation Friends of Animals posted an open letter on its website to figure-skater Johnny Weir, in response to a New York Times article describing an outfit he wore at the US Figure Skating Championships as including fox fur. Priscilla Feral, Friends of Animals' President wrote:

Please consider that there’s nothing pretty about the fox that suffered and died to trim your outfit. The beautiful fox was likely anally electrocuted, or may have had its head bashed in, only to serve as decoration for someone’s performance.

If you buy fur, no matter what size piece, or which animal it comes from, you’re supporting an industry that has no respect for animals.

Feral announced on Twitter yesterday that "Johnny Weir's NEW decision to not perform in real fur at Olympics--victory for Arctic foxes, lynxes,wolves- free-living animals in nature." Um, OK... But what of the leather skates that Weir will inevitably wear, not unlike the skates worn by most professional figure skaters? Why all the fuss over one bit of skin and hair worn by a celebrity athlete, while ignoring that he and most of his fellow-skaters customarily wear skin (and otherwise consume animals)? Considering the several postings on the Friends of Animals website, the numerous tweets from Feral and others, the supposed faxes sent off hither and thither (including one to his costume designer, as reported here) and the claim that Weir's decision is somehow a "victory", one is left to wonder if the victory is more in terms of the publicity generated for the group than one for nonhuman animals.

So? From this mini media blitz, the public is left confused about the ethical significance of wearing one part of one animal's body rather than another's. Where Weir himself is concerned, he's no further ahead in terms of having had his conscience shifted; the reason Weir touted as being behind his decision to forgo wearing the fur is that he's purportedly received "threats" concerning it since the blitz started. Where is the victory here? All I see is a lost opportunity to earnestly educate people about the exploitation of animals and to educate them about veganism. (Check out Gary L. Francione's blog post from earlier today on the Weird story.)

The truth is that whether one chooses to wear leather, fur or silk, animals are exploited and treated as though they're ours to use. Whether one eats flesh, milk, eggs or honey, animals are exploited and treated as though they're ours to use. It seems to me that the most straightforward, simple and honest message that we can deliver as members of the "animal movement" is this: The only way to remove oneself from the cycle of suffering into which billions of nonhuman animals are enslaved and slaughtered every year is to actually remove oneself from the cycle altogether. When we start playing fast and loose with the term "ethical" or obsessing over single-issue campaigns, we lose sight of advocating for the most logical means by which to attain the best-case scenario for nonhuman animals. Instead of spreading (or implying) the misleading message that it's worse to consume one animal product over another, why not advocate for veganism?

On Vick and Vegans

Most vegans who have spent enough time mulling over human behaviour acknowledge it as a given that speciesism is so deeply and firmly entrenched in mainstream North American culture, it's sometimes hard to figure out where to even begin teasing it out and addressing it. It manifests itself each time a well-enough meaning omni friend asserts great love for the family dog over dinner, while carving up a slice of a turkey's breast. It manifests itself when that same dog is abandoned at a kill-shelter, given up when lack of time and interest leave him more an unwanted burden--a thing that's exhausted its use--than a member of the family. It's also manifested itself quite prominently over the past couple of years (and more so in recent weeks) in the much-publicized case of former/future football great Michael Vick's involvement in dog-fighting and his subsequent arrest for it.

On a visceral level, when I'd first heard of the case I'd branded Vick a monster. To both organize and profit from the deliberate torture of animals seemed the most heinous of acts. Upon giving it further thought, though, after that initial knee-jerk reaction, I came to agree wholeheartedly with Gary L. Francione's 2007 piece on the whole matter in which he wrote the following:

Michael Vick may enjoy watching dogs fight. Someone else may find that repulsive but see nothing wrong with eating an animal who has had a life as full of pain and suffering as the lives of the fighting dogs. It's strange that we regard the latter as morally different from, and superior to, the former. How removed from the screaming crowd around the dog pit is the laughing group around the summer steak barbecue?

Since Michael Vick's recent release and subsequent reinstatement in the NFL, the internet has been swamped with heated discussions in message forums, outraged blog posts, indignant tweets on Twitter, anti-Vick petitions and the creation of innumerable groups on social networking sites calling for the boycott of NFL sponsors (as well as those of the Philadelphia Eagles who signed Vick) until Michael Vick is shown the door.

In one such group on Facebook, I'd posted a link to Prof. Francione's essay and asked this simple question: "How many of those here calling for a boycott are actually vegan?" and the very first response to my question was from a woman who asserted that Michael Vick was a monster and that she enjoyed her steaks, thank you very much. A few days later, the group's moderator emailed me to state that she was vegan, but felt that veganism was a "personal choice" and that the Vick issue transcended that and should be the sole focus of the group's discussion. The following day, my link and question were quietly removed. Basically, what she was attempting to convey to me is that this single issue concerning one man and a certain species of nonhumans is somehow more relevant than the widespread exploitation of other nonhumans by the overwhelming majority of humans. For those of us who do consume animals and their products, who wear their skins and fur, who pay to watch them pace behind bars to delight our children: How can we so vehemently loathe that which we do ourselves every single day?

What's most ridiculous is that these so-called boycotts being encouraged to get Michael Vick trounced from the Eagles and NFL ignore the fact that this very sport itself involves animal-eating athletes wearing animal products while running around a field chasing a ball that's made from a cow's skin. These games take place in stadiums where spectators consume mass quantities of animal-based hotdogs and hamburgers. There is not one single aspect of this game that doesn't involve the suffering and exploitation of animals. As for boycotting sponsors "just until" Vick is trounced? The Eagles' sponsors include (but aren't limited to) Tastykake, Dunkin' Donuts, Papa John's, KFC and Taco Bell. As for boycotting NFL sponsors, according to the NFL's Canadian site alone, some of those sponsors include: Campbell's, Maple Lodge Farms, Burger King and Nestle. Need I really explain the ridiculousness of boycotting companies whose very existence is based on the exploitation of animals to punish one single man who's exploited animals?

As Dan Cudahy pointed out quite effectively on his Unpopular Vegan Essays blog, single issue campaigns are problematic on many levels, including that they encourage us to single out the value of one species over others-- they "cultivate speciesism":

they don’t also call for an end to ALL animal exploitation and abuse, they cultivate speciesism. SICs do this by implying, via the silence regarding other forms of exploitation, that forms of exploitation other than the one on which the SIC is focused are either not as important or unimportant. SICs can avoid this problem by putting it front and center that ALL animal exploitation is wrong and ought to be abolished, but they almost never even mention other forms, much less make them front and center of the campaign.

Keeping this in mind, it's troubling to me that some vegans--particularly those who purport to support the abolition of all animal exploitation--have been very vocally against pointing out the ethical inconsistency and hypocrisy of branding one man's exploitation any more significant than the daily habits of most people that lead to the mass slaughter of over ten billion nonhumans in the US alone each year. For instance, Virginia Messina (a registered dietitian specializing in vegan nutrition) recently expressed that Michael Vick should, in fact, be singled out as a monster and that faith in the "good hearted" nature of omnivores should leave vegans absolving them of any accountability in their own roles in the torture and slaughter of those over ten billion aforementioned nonhumans and keeping their fingers crossed that they'll come around:

[W]e are good at psychological self-preservation which means we can distance ourselves from the pain of the masses in order to do what we want. Some people are far better at this than others, of course. But even those of us who care a lot about suffering and who make changes in our lives and also become active to make changes in the world, still do it to some extent. Just as many meat eaters do it by choosing not to think about the effects on animals of their diet and lifestyle choices.

To her credit, she does admit that this sort of behaviour is not, in fact, "defensible". This assertion seems empty and meaningless, however, when she elaborates by saying

[t]hat’s what keeps so many vegan activists going—the very fact that many omnivores are, in fact, good hearted, compassionate animal lovers. We know that if we can just get people to really think about what happens on factory farms, there is a good chance they will change their behavior.

She then jumps into the exact same sort of vilification of Michael Vick that's been echoed across the internet by humans of all sorts, regardless of their own exploitation and consumption of nonhuman animals. But isn't Messina's "psychological self-preservation" really just a euphemism for what Gary L. Francione calls "moral schizophrenia"? And rather than reinforcing this moral schizophrenia in others by supporting their vilification of Michael Vick, wouldn't it make more sense to do as Gary L. Francione points out in his recent podcast concerning the Vick issue, which is to use the very issue as an opportunity--a way in--to "get people to really think about what happens on factory farms"?

Allow me to play devil's advocate and consider that maybe this "psychological self-preservation" is indeed leaving some otherwise well-intentioned consumers with a blind spot. If that's the case, then does allowing the "good hearted" to continue ignoring the roles they play in the suffering and exploitation of nonhumans not do them a disservice? If I were harming others I would otherwise not seek to harm and was ignorant of it and had it pointed out to me, I would surely appreciate it so that I could alter my behaviour. Is allowing others to continue deluding themselves into thinking that Michael Vick's exploitation of dogs is wrong, while the direct roles they themselves play in the continuation of the torture and slaughter of others is "understandable" not--at the very, very least--patronizing? And at the very worst, how does crossing one's fingers to hope for the best while perpetuating this moral schizophrenia help those nonhumans who continue to be slaughtered?

As a vegan, how consistent am I being in not intervening to take every opportunity I can to educate others about veganism? As an abolitionist animal rights advocate and activist, does turning a blind eye and deluding myself concerning what really works not leave me, in fact, accountable and complicit in the continuation of the mass slaughter of nonhumans? We may toss words around and argue theoretical points while continuing to make excuses for our fellow humans, but at the end of the day, should this not be about effecting change? Rather than worrying about stepping on toes, should the focus not be on ending the exploitation of animals?