Leo_DramaQueen,
First of all, if I am going to try and be a bit more polite this time, may I ask your name? I think I remember it being Kate, but please let me know, as I find web aliases quite disconcerting, and not exactly condusive to polite discussion. Now I'm going to answer point by point. I know these quote things look rude, but it's not exactly easy typing in this little box..
Gary is actually one of the main reasons that I am vegan...
Well it's great that Gary helped you to go Vegan. May I ask if you were vegetarian first? I would suspect, although I may be wrong, that it was something other than a philosophy book that set you on the path to vegansim.
For me the primary things that set me vegetarian were The Animals Film, and the animal rights events that made the National TV news in the UK in the 70s. They set me on the path. Also going bird watching as a child. It actually took my doctor, who told me to 'Go Vegan!' to prompt me to make the next step.
I don't he promotes doing nothing!
Well a lot of people use him as an excuse for not turning up to leaflet or go on demos. And I am of the opinion that if I don't have a group doing exactly what I want to do, I will join one who are doing some good. For example, I feel most strongly about vivisection, however Animals Australia has some good resources for doing stalls about live export. So I often spend my Saturday's organising live export stalls in Melbourne. Not because I feel very strongly about it, but because that is something I can help with. Once in a while one has to put ones ego to one side and help where one can.
I see so many people doing nothing because "it's not abolitionist". Frankly I believe many of them they are lying, and wouldn't have come leafletting or to a demo whatever it was.
The AR group I am involved is built on the principles of Francione and I don't think we are inactive at all.
I know of ARA. From what you have said you seem to be doing some good work.
I've been leafleting at unis for years, handing out "Why Vegan" pamphlets, I've screened Earthlings at my university and I'm working on a Vegan Guide to Perth to make it easier for people to be vegan.
May I ask where you get your "Why Vegans"? Do you print your own?
And would you do a vegetarian restaurant list like VNV? Have you seen what VNV does here in Melbourne?
How can you say that people who believe in Gary's theories are not "real AR people who do things and make great sacrifices" and that he "pushes a religious agenda which is giving activists an excuse for doing nothing".
I sound harsh. Firstly I believe that Gary Francione's position is religiously motivated, and not in the best interest of the animals.
However, more importantly I am very very tired of an attitude that I have found amongst some vegans in Australia over the past year. This is characterised by:
1) Criticism of others
2) A holier than thou attitude to their veganism
3) A predicable quoting of Gary Francione, and seeming not to have any ideas of their own.
4) Finding excuses to not do any activism, even peaceful vegan education, because the brand of vegan education isn't 'Abolitionst'.
5) Ignoring what (to me) seem like the flaws in Gary Francione's philosophy.
6) Their primary activism being criticising others on forums (and for this I am now obviously guilty!)
I find this utterly tiresome. It seems that you have broken the stereotype as you are indeed doing vegan education. This is very good. However, since your dislikes on your profile are "Welfarism, and new-Welfarism" and this is a forum run by what you would probably term a "New-Welfare" group I really do wonder if you have honourable motives for being here.
My above list of criticisms, is one I have acquired though unhappy experience I am afraid. And I really do try to not allow my feelings over this cloud my actions (you may wish to know that I am currently involved in organising a national animal rights event, to which ARA have been invited).
I think people buy free-range eggs because they think they are honestly doing something good ...
I never mentioned free range eggs. However we both agree that they are better (you say marginally), I agree, it is because it is so marginal that I am vegan!
However do you believe that *all* welfare is bad? I think that absolutes like this are a little niaive.
"PETA Pushes U.S. Fast-Food, Grocery, and Poultry Industries to Adopt Less Cruel, More Profitable Method of Chicken and Turkey Slaughter"
I know that you are quoting this as you are appalled by the "More profitable" bit. Personally I like to think I am pragmatic. If I can get someone to be less cruel using a profit motive, I have nothing wrong with that.
How can people supposedly promoting veganism argue for "less cruel, more profitable" methods of slaughter?
Well they can. I'm not sure what you are saying when you say "How can they do it?" They just type it and it appears on their website. If you mean how can they be morally inconsistant, I suspect that it is because they, like myself do not care about philosophical consistancy at all! I just want to do the most good they can.
And Peta goes on to kill many animals every single year rather than promote no-kill shelters.
Here we agree, Peta should leave the companion animal stuff, they don't do it at all well.
I don't Ingrid Newkirk can make up for that by leafleting in her lunchtime.
It's the background she is from. I'd love Peta to move on from the running shelter stuff. Other people do it so much better.
However, in one thing we are in agreement, if someone had suggested I go vegan a little earlier, I may have gone vegan sooner (perhaps when I was 36 rather than 38). In this we have some common ground. I think a vegan message is important, however. If someone had suggested veganism in an at all critical way to me when I was in my 20s I may have been put off for life.
And fankly in my 20s, I was a bit of a nerd, and could barely cook toast, so going vegan was out of the question.
The vegan message is important. We agree on this. But I do think how it is presented is very important.
I see an anaology to this debate in a crowd of people I knew in my 20s, who were revolutionary socialists. They argued that society's ills would only be cured by a socialist revolution, and would never give to charity (as welfare was counter productive).
These miserable people have, in my opinion, done nothing to make the world a better place for all their revolutionary rhetoric. I, as an atheist, have no problem in donating money to say, the Salvation Army, as I know they do good work, despite there being a deep philosophical chasm between the SA and myself.
I don't care, my aim is to make the world a better place. I have no use for philosophy, moral rights, moral consistancy, vegan puritanism,or any of this stuff.
(or lists of animal derived food additives for that matter)
