1. RIDICULE
2. VIOLENT OPPOSITION
3. ACCEPTANCE
EARTHLINGS

earth’ling: n. One who inhabits of the earth.

Since we all inhabit the earth, all of us are considered earthlings. There is no sexism, no racism or speciesism in the term earthling. It encompasses each and every one of us: warm or cold blooded, mammal, vertebrate or invertebrate, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, and human alike.

Humans, therefore, being not the only species on the planet, share this world with millions of other living creatures, as we all evolve here together. However, it is the human earthling who tends to dominate the earth, often times treating other fellow earthlings and living beings as mere objects. This is what is meant by speciesism.

By analogy with racism and sexism, the term “speciesism” is a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species.

If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that one’s suffering can be counted equally with the like suffering of any other being.

Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater right to the interests of members of their own race when their is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race.

Sexists violate the principle of equality by favoring the interests of their own sex.

Similarly, speciesists allow the interests of their own species to override the greater interests of members of other species.

In each case, the pattern is identical. Though among the members of the human family we recognize the moral imperative of respect (every human is a somebody, not a something), morally disrespectful treatment occurs when those who stand at the power end of a power relationship treat the less powerful as if they were mere objects.

The rapist does this to the victim of rape.

The child molester to the child molested.

The master to the slave.

In each and all such cases, humans who have power exploit those who lack it.

Might the same be true of how humans treat other animals, or other earthlings?

Undoubtedly there are differences, since humans and animals are not the same in all respects. But the question of sameness wears another face.

Granted, these animals do not have all the desires we humans have; granted, they do not comprehend everything we humans comprehend; nevertheless, we and they do have some of the same desires and do comprehend some of the same things.

The desires for food and water, shelter and companionship, freedom of movement and avoidance of pain? These desires are shared by nonhuman animals and human beings.

As for comprehension: like humans, many nonhuman animals understand the world in which they live and move. Otherwise, they could not survive.

So beneath the many differences, there is sameness.

Like us, these animals embody the mystery and wonder of consciousness.

Like us, they are not only in the world, they are aware of it.

Like us they are the psychological centers of a life that is uniquely their own.

In these fundamental respects humans stand “on all fours”, so to speak, with hogs and cows, chickens and turkeys.

What these animals are due from us, how we morally ought to treat them, are questions whose answer begins with the recognition of our psychological kinship with them.

Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote in his bestselling novel Enemies, A Love Story’ the following:

“As often has Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behavior toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right”.

The comparison here to the holocaust is both intentional and obvious:

one group of living beings anguishes beneath the hands of another.

Though some will argue the suffering of animals cannot possibly compare with that of former Jews or slaves, there is, in fact, a parallel.

And for the prisoners and victims of this mass murder, their holocaust is far from over.

In his book ‘The Outermost House’ author Henry Beston wrote:

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical

concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creatures through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion.

We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man.

In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.

They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth”.

Animal products are the result of intentional torture and killing on a mass scale. Over 40 billion land animals (don’t know the numbers on the fish) are killed each year in the US alone. I don’t think that there is anything hypocritical about avoiding products of intentional torture, imprisonment, and slaughter and trying to persuade others to eliminate this from their lives in order to dismantle an utterly barbaric system, while not being able to eliminate all unintentional products of animal suffering, such as deaths of animals in farm fields or habitat destruction by the construction and operation of factories that pollute. I don’t know any vegans who feel they are perfect. In fact, most think that being vegan is the very least they can do for animals.

Being vegan is avoiding animal exploitation wherever it is unnecessary (key word being unnecessary). Unless you are truly starving and in a remote location with no alternatives, then it is always unnecessary to eat animal products. It is always unnecessary to use them for clothing. One person I encountered claimed that using any modern technology or anything plastic harms animals even more than eating animal products does. I’m not sure how using a computer harms animals, but it is something of a necessity in today’s world (I use it for my job in order to make money to feed myself, and food is kind of a necessity), and unfortunately there are no certified vegan computers…yet. Maybe there will be one day. Same can be said of a car if one is needed to drive to work. It is a necessary evil right now, but technology is moving toward developing cars and other forms of transportation that harm the environment less. Should human rights advocates stop using computers and iPhones for advocacy work because human slave labor may have been used to produce them, or should they stop advocating for human rights on the Internet entirely because otherwise they would be, in this fallacious view, hypocrites? Vegans avoid products where animal exploitation is direct and obvious and may then make it their life’s quest to continue eliminating products and practices of exploitation that are not as obvious. After becoming vegan, almost every vegan becomes very aware of his or her environmental impact, and many start making steps toward avoiding plastic or whatever other environmental disaster as much as possible, while also reducing their general consumption of unnecessary things (superfluous clothing, household items, random junk, etc.). Unfortunately in this very nonvegan world, it is impossible to avoid animal use in some way unless one goes and lives in the wild. But if more of the world does become vegan, one day it may be possible to use things that are nearly 100% free of any harms to animals, as the practices of most corporations or whatever entities provide us with resources to live will most likely be more conscientious than they are now, which is close to zero. Becoming vegan usually makes one more conscientious than ever. Veganism is a start to ridding the world of animal exploitation and not the end all, be all. It was never about intervening and ending the harm of every animal on the planet right now, so if one thinks that, then I can see why he/she would think vegans are hypocrites, but hopefully if you explain to him/her what veganism actually is, he/she will stop calling vegans hypocrites unless he/she sees a vegan engaging in obviously unnecessary animal use like eating dairy cheese (making that person not vegan anyway).

If you believe that animals have the right to not be used as commodities, then you must be vegan. Vegans never make the claim that being vegan will make you perfect and that you will avoid every single harm to animal, human or not. Being vegan is a start to eradicating violence in the world, and vegan activists are trying to get others to the starting line as well, and most are not in any way saying that this is the end of the world’s problems or problems for wild animals just because a small percentage of the population is vegan right now.

No one can know the implications of a world of people becoming more conscientious and at the same time vastly reducing resource use by worldwide adoption of veganism. Get rid of the wasteful, damaging abuses to the environment by the animal agriculture industries, and you’re going to have a world where it is much easier to always be kinder and gentler to all animals everywhere and reduce unintentional harm to them as well. To get there, we first all have to say no to all intentional, avoidable animal use.

Vitamin B12 is made by bacteria and fungi; it’s not something special made by animals that our body needs. Since there are tons of microbes in the soil, it used to be present there, but the soil has been very worn out by modern agriculture – how intense it is and all the chemicals used. So it is likely that back in the day some used to get absorbed by plants. B12 wasn’t discovered until the 1950s, and modern agriculture with heavy pesticides started right after WWII, when all the chemical warfare companies needed to find something to do with their chemicals. Also, from all the heavy usage of the soil, it’s become more and more demineralized; if there is little cobalt in the soil, then only a little B12 can be made, even if the microbes are there. (B12 is a cobalamin.) So we’ll just never know for sure if plants used to contain B12! I did, however, see a fairly recent study that showed if there is B12 in the soil, then plants can absorb some of it, which offers a possible explanation for why some vegans who do not supplement do not develop deficiencies. Animal agriculture, on the scale that we practice it, does no favors for our farmland. It takes roughly 5-10 times the crops to make animal food than it does to make farm plant food to feed directly to people. So really, this soil depletion may have something to do with the fact that many nonvegans are B12 deficient too; our food supply just is not as in tune with nature as it used to be. One of the ways cows get B12 is by eating lots of soil with grass, and as for the way other farm animals who aren’t grass fed get it – I wouldn’t be surprised if B12 was added as a supplement to their factory produced feed, since I’ve heard that dairy cows are supplemented with calcium (How ironic is that?! We subject cows to horrible living conditions so that we can feed a calcium supplement to them so they can lactate the calcium out for their baby, whom we steal from her and then cruelly confine and slaughter, and so we can take her milk instead and then drink it, all in the name of calcium. We might as well get our calcium from where cows get it naturally when they’re in the wild – plants! Or just cut out the middle man already and take a supplement ourselves.) Today’s lower quality soil could also help to explain why a significant number of nonvegans who eat plenty of animal products are B12 deficient as well. Eating animal products will not insure you against B12 deficiency. Upon learning this fact, B12 ceases to be just the vegan’s issue, but a general health issue for everyone.

Another thing is that our society has become very sanitary about our food. Some soil would stick to vegetables, like carrots and potatoes, and people probably didn’t really bother to scrub their vegetables clean like we do now, and don’t forget that the soil was much healthier and richer then (so don’t think you can get away with meeting your B12 by not washing your produce). There wasn’t such a fear of dirt then either. Also, before massive water purification systems, people would have drunk water contaminated with microbes who make B12; this is why B12 deficiency might not be such a problem in third world countries because they don’t have water where almost all the microorganisms have been killed.

And WAY back in the day, we were probably eating a lot more like the primates we are, a diet of mostly fruit and greens with some insects, dirt, and feces mixed in, all of which are sources of B12. B12 is made by bacteria in your intestines, so yes, you can get B12 from eating your feces; there was actually a study published in the British Journal of Haemotology where B12 was extracted from B12 deficient vegans’ feces and fed back to them, and there was enough B12 in it to get their B12 levels back up to normal. I hope no one would want to do that! But at least it makes a little more sense when you see some animals, like rabbits and other non-ruminant herbivores who can’t make absorb B12 from their digestive tract, eating their own feces. Unfortunately, B12 is made a bit past where it gets absorbed by your body, so you can’t rely on your intestinal flora as a source that you can re-absorb. However, there was a study of Iranian villagers published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and they ate a very small amount of animal products, like a serving of dairy a week and a serving of meat a month, but they had great B12 levels, even though having one serving of animal products everyday, not just once a week/month, would not even provide the B12 RDA. The researchers speculated that their low protein diet allowed the B12 producing bacteria to travel farther up the intestine (probably due to variances in intestinal pH more friendly to the B12 producing bacteria) where it could be absorbed.

Another interesting thing is that we have a very small requirement for B12, I think the smallest of all the vitamins. It’s like 2 micrograms a day. Our bodies hoard it like crazy; your stores can last for years with no intake. It’s almost as if our body knows it’s not a super plentiful vitamin in nature, and we’re only going to come across it infrequently. I think some of it can be recycled in your body too. This is a lot different from how your body treats plentiful vitamins, like C, by just excreting the extra in the urine.

As you can see, this is a very complex issue; it’s not a black and white one that some would like to believe, where we can say we need something that we find pretty much only in the animal products in our food supply now, so that means we must/should eat animal products. Even though at first glance, the B12 question makes people think we must be carnivores, the truth is we’re much closer in physical traits to animals who are mostly herbivorous/frugivorous. To see that, we just need to look to comparative anatomy/physiology. It is so basic, but you probably never learned much about it in school, unfortunately. Please have a look at this chart – (link) And this is a pretty good write-up – (link).

The thing that is really compelling to me that shows we’re not really designed to eat much meat is our basic anatomy. If we were in the wild, naked, could we take down an animal with nothing but our bare hands, blunt teeth, and soft nails? Could we rip apart the animal and eat it? Could we make a clean kill right to the throat like a carnivore does? Could we even catch the animal and hold it in place long enough to hack away at it with our teeth and nails in the first place?! Most animals can outrun humans, obviously, and they can usually squirm away from them once they’re caught too. And would we even have the desire to work that hard to get it? Surely the taste of plain, raw meat isn’t that alluring to make us perform these feats. So a lot of people would say, well we’re meant to kill animals because we have the ability to make tools!…Really? Our rational thinking and intelligence can take us anywhere, make us do anything! Just because we can do it, doesn’t mean that it is right, natural, or healthy for us. Anything our brain can dream will most likely far outpace the human body’s ability to evolve. Fast food, cigarettes, synthetic recreational drugs, processed food, the modern conveniences that allow for sendentariness: all are products of various technologies the human brain dreamed, calculated, and created, and there is no way our body is going to evolve quickly enough to thrive on, let alone safely handle those things in large quantities. Tools used for killing animals are just a much more basic technology we created, and our body has not quite caught up with what it has provided us with. And don’t forget about atomic bombs, torture devices, and chemical/biological warfare; technology does not always take us down the enlightened and peaceful path, and I certainly don’t think that the cavemen technology of spears and rocks is the brightest and best idea so much so that we should perpetuate it with the updated technology of slaughterhouse machinery. I won’t deny that there were times in our history when it was necessary for humans to eat meat to survive, but just because we can eat and digest something (processed food, McDonald’s, cockroaches, dog and cat meat, cardboard, etc.) doesn’t mean it is optimal for us. Our species evolved in the tropics and then eventually migrated from there; we no longer had our optimal food available in the cold climates we moved to, so we had to make do with what was available in each location. If we would have stayed in the tropics, we probably never would have taken up meat eating with the abundant, appealing fruit available to us there.

Take a look at instinct vs. choice when it comes to food. Right now we eat almost exclusively by choice. If we strip away all cultural and habitual conditioning that direct our food desires and just take two things in their raw, natural state: a live rabbit and a ripe apple. Going only on our instinct and not informing our choice from what we have been taught to eat, which one would almost all people choose 100% of the time? Would the rabbit smell appetizing to us? (He would to dogs and cats, since they have such a strong sense of smell; they can probably smell the meat of the rabbit under his fur.) Would the apple smell appealing to us? Of course. What about the taste of each – do we have taste buds for plain, raw meat with no salt or seasoning added to it? Or do we have taste buds for fruit? Babies are born with a desire for sweetness. There have been experiments where babies are calmed with sugar water; I doubt anyone would try to pacify a baby with a hunk of raw meat. Also, the sight of the apple would appeal to us. Bright color attracts our attention (which is why fruit doesn’t turn a vibrant color until it is ripe and ready to be eaten); some (all?) carnivores are color blind; it’s not important for them to see bright colors and to know when fruit is ripe. So not only is our body hard-wired to tell us to eat the apple, but what would most (normal) people’s instinct make them want to do to the rabbit? Cuddle, hug, and protect him, right? So like I said, now with our food environment vastly different than what would be available in the wild, we eat by choice and not instinct. The crazy thing is even though we don’t eat by instinct anymore, we don’t even truly make much of a choice in the matter, since what we eat is really determined by the culture we were raised in, what was put in front of us as a kid, what is served at social functions, and what is available to us in grocery stores and restaurants. Eating a vegan diet is deciding to take back your choice in the matter a bit more and to maybe eat a little closer to what our instincts would have led us to hundreds of thousands of years ago.

I think it makes sense to look at our most similar genetic relative, the chimp, to see what they eat. We are more closely related to a chimp than a horse is to a donkey, and the latter are so close that they can actually mate with each other. Chimps survive mostly on fruit and greens. I’m betting they get their B12 from insects, worms, and soil on the vegetation they eat. I much rather just take a supplement than eat insects and worms :) Sometimes our technology can help us to improve on nature. I’ve also heard that since humans don’t possess any of the traits of a natural predator, we may be more like opportunistic scavengers instead, sometimes feeding on animals that have already died or ones that predators killed. Again, I much rather stick with the supplement than eat roadkill!

This MD has summed up the B12 thing in the best way I’ve ever seen – “I realize some people think there is something ‘unnatural’ and bad about taking supplements, but it is the price we must pay for eating less dirt, feces and insects than our primate ancestors.” http://veganmd.blogspot.com/2007/12/vegan-must-knows-on-vitamin-b12-d.html

Or you can take a different approach to this question entirely: just brush it off. I read part of the chapter on B12 in vegan dietitians Ginny Messina’s and Jack Norris’s new book, Vegan for Life: Everything You Need to Know to Be Healthy and Fit on a Plant-Based Diet, today, and they say, just forget about trying to argue that humans weren’t meant to eat meat and that it’s not natural. Veganism is about changing the future. It’s not about looking to the past and figuring out how to eat and act from there. It’s about showing people it’s time for our society to evolve. The point is that the evidence shows we can be completely healthy on a vegan diet supplemented with B12. If it’s not the most natural way, who cares?! Who’s eating a 100% natural diet from the wild in this day and age anyway? We live in an unnatural society that is very difficult to break away from. I will happily and proudly take my “unnatural” B12 supplement if it means sparing the life of an animal, thank you very much. It’s a win-win situation. I live; an animal lives.

Now since I’ve mentioned Ginny and Jack, I don’t feel right to end this post without reminding everyone…if you are vegan, TAKE A B12 SUPPLEMENT EVERYDAY. (And do it too, if you’re not a vegan.)

Vegan MyPlate

What would USDA’s MyPlate look like if meat and dairy lobbyists weren’t involved? If the health of the country was actually more important to them than making money and keeping government subsidies as they are?

Nutritionist Dr Bernard says:

The protein portion of the USDA’s MyPlate is unnecessary, because beans, whole grains, and vegetables are loaded with it. And it is a shame that MyPlate reserves a special place for dairy products, which are packed with fat and cholesterol and may increase the risk of health problems ranging from asthma to some types of cancer. There are many more healthful sources of calcium.

But for taxpayers and members of Congress, the new plate has a special significance. There’s a stark contrast between the USDA’s plate and federal food subsidies. While the USDA’s plate encourages fruit and vegetable consumption and advises Americans to limit high-fat products like meat and cheese, federal agriculture subsidies do exactly the opposite: They spend billions of dollars promoting production of high-fat, high-calorie food products.

Despite skyrocketing obesity and diabetes rates, more than 60 percent of agricultural subsidies in recent history have directly and indirectly supported meat and dairy production. In recent history, the federal government has spent about $16 billion a year on agricultural subsidies. Less than 1 percent has gone to fruits and vegetables.

These figures are especially galling when you realize that the taxpayer-funded food system is literally making us sick. More than 60 percent of the deaths in the United States are caused by heart disease, cancer, and other diet-related diseases. Approximately 68 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. In 2008, the direct medical costs associated with obesity added up to $147 billion.

It’s time for Congress to fix this problem and address our country’s epidemics of obesity and other health problems.

(http://pcrm.org/news/blog/index.html)

Ben & Jerry’s ice creams advertise that their milk comes from well treated cows in the Netherlands.

You can see what they say here: http://www.benjerry.co.uk/caringdairy

I was curious to find out some information that they didn’t really talk about on their website, so I sent them some questions.

1- Are the cows free to roam most of the day? how long is she milked for in a 24 hour period?

Outside grazing is an important part of Caring Dairy and all our dairy cows are able to leave the barn in the summer time. In the winter however, most of them stay in the barn, since it is too cold and wet outside for them in the Dutch climate. In the winter time they are housed however in free stalls where they can walk around.

Sadly she didn’t answer the second question.

2- When the cows give birth to the calf, how long does it stay together with her?

To prevent the spread of diseases like para tuberculosis, calves are advised to be separated from their mothers 1 day after birth.
Scientific  research has shown that separation so soon after the birth is less stressful for both the mother and calf than separation after a couple of weeks or months.

Rather than going for “less stress” it would be great if they went for “no stress” and left the mother with her baby until he grew up. Imagine how horrible it must be for a mother to get her newborn baby taken away from her? And how horrible it must be for the newborn to grow up without a mother?

3- Does the calf have full access to drink milk when he/she wants to?

That depends on the farming system. In farming systems with automatic feeding systems for milk the calves have free access to milk 24h. In other farming systems the calves are fed twice a day (after milking in the morning and the evening). Calves have always unlimited access to water and feed.

4- If it’s a male calf, where does it go after it grows up?

Male calves are raised on the farm for two weeks and then go to a bull calf farm for at least another 6 months. This is based on strict regulations in the Netherlands regarding calf housing and animal welfare.

So male calves are taken away from their mother after 1 day, stay in the farm for 2 weeks and then 6 months later is slaughtered for their muscles.

5- How often do the cows give birth to a new calf?

On average once every 13.5 month (starting from the age of 2)

A cow’s gestation period is 9 months. So 4.5 months after she has a calf she is forcefully impregnated again.

6- What happens to the cow when she is old and no longer able to produce milk?

On average dairy cows in the Netherlands live for around 6 years. Part of the Caring Dairy programme is to increase the average age of the cows by preventative health care measures e.g. close observation of cows to promote a healthy well-being as opposed to just treating symptoms when they are already ill. This is good for the cows (longer healthy life), the farmer (longer source of income from one cow) and the environment (less replacement of cows). When cows are no longer able to produce milk they are sent to an abattoir.

A cow’s normal life-span is of 20 to 25 years, yet their cows only live for 6 years. In that time period they’ll have had 4 babies taken away from them. Then they are killed.

Officer, Mike Fowler, said this has been one of the most gruesome acts he has dealt with in his 10 year career as an officer.

The pig, a bright 1 year old had been subjected to a gruesome attack as he grazed in a field with his friends and family.

Mrs Kingsbury, a school teacher, said: “This was an entirely species motivated attack.  That pig was killed and eaten purely because he’s of a different species to us – it’s not fair, he couldn’t change which species he was.”

Superintendent Terry Sherwood, of the National Police Association, told the BBC’s Today programme that the murder was “an unequivocal indication that the cancer of speciesism is still here”.

“Unfortunately, young, innocent animals are subject to it, and I think it is a sad day,” he said. “I have every confidence that the police will catch these people and put them before the courts and demonstrate that we will not tolerate these abhorrent acts of speciesism on young, innocent animals.”

Speaking last night, the chief constable, Larry Sullivan, said: “It is a disgrace that a young pig has been brutally murdered. It is even worse when you think that the only reason for this attack was the victim’s species.”

“Any murder is awful, and this one is particularly abhorrent since the men have allegedly eaten the pig’s body. I can’t emphasise enough the part that the community and members of the public have in helping us to find those responsible for this despicable murder.”

“We are determined to arrest those responsible for committing this murder”"

When witnesses Ginny Messina and Leah Fiennes saw the pig being attacked, they ran off to get help, trying to flag down passing vehicles and banging on doors.

When they returned minutes later, they found him slumped on the ground with his throat slit and his limbs cut out

The local priest, Mrs Sanders, said that these attacks are “entirely untypical of the community in which it happened”, which she described as “settled, peaceful, decent”.

In reply to this comment:

Whatever diet you choose to eat,it should provide all the nutrients you need from plants and/or animals that occur naturally. A vegan diet is deficient in B-12. It is necessary to take an artificially produced supplement­. This to me indicates that a vegan diet is not one naturally suited to humans.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

And why is taste, the crudest of our senses, exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other senses? If you stop and think about it, it’s crazy. How would you judge an artist who mutilated animals in a gallery because it was visually interesting? How beautiful would the sound of a tortured animal need to be to make you want to hear it that badly? Try to imagine any end other than taste for which it would be justifiable to do what we do to animals.

It’s easy to make oneself feel better about it by buying “humane” meat. Unfortunately however there’s no legal definition of humane – it’s simply a label that you have no control over. The margins are low, they can’t afford not to mass produce these animals as through they are objects. In the end they are all killed in the same slaughterhouse as all the others. The stun guns only work 80% of the time. Every day animals get skinned alive in the factory process.

These things happen whether in humane farming or factory farming.

And many people seem to be tempted to continue supporting factory farms while also buying meat outside that system when it is available. That’s nice. But if it is as far as our moral imaginations can stretch, then it’s hard to be optimistic about the future. Any plan that involves funneling money to the factory farm won’t end factory farming. How effective would the Montgomery bus boycott have been if protesters had used the bus when it became inconvenient not to? How effective would a strike be if workers announced they would go back to work as soon as it became difficult to strike?

Before child labor laws, there were businesses that treated their ten-year-old employees well. Society didn’t ban child labor because it’s impossible to imagine children working in a good environment, but because when you give that much power to business over powerless individuals, it’s corrupting. When we talk around thinking we have a greater right to eat an animal than the animal has a right to live without suffering, it’s corrupting.

If we are at all serious about ending factory farming, then the absolute least we can do is stop sending checks to the absolute worst abusers. For some, the decision to eschew factory-farmed products is easy. For others the decision is hard. To those for whom it sounds like a hard decision, the ultimate question is whether it is worth the inconvenience. We know, at least, that this decision will prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural areas, decrease human rights abuses, improve public health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in world history. What we don’t know, though, may be just as important. How would making such a decision change us?

Setting aside the direct material changes initiated by opting out of the factory farm system, the decision to eat with such deliberateness would itself be a force with enormous potential. What kind of world would we create if three times a day we activated our compassion and reason as we saw down to eat, if we had the moral imagination and the pragmatic will to change our most fundamental act of consumption?

Compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use, and the regular exercise of choosing kindness over cruelty would change us.

It might sound naive to suggest that whether you order a chicken patty or a veggie burger is a profoundly important decision. Then again, it certainly would have sounded fantastic if in the 1950s you were told that where you saw in a restaurant or on a bus could begin to uproot racism. It would have sounded equally fantastic if you were told in the early 1970s, before Cesar Chavez’s workers’ rights campaigns, that refusing to eat grapes could begin to free farmworkers from slave-like conditions. It might sound fantastic, but when we bother to look, it’s hard to deny that our day-to-day choices shape the world.

• Animal testing
• Bullfighting
• Child molestation
• Circuses with animals (including aquatic animals)
• Dairy and eggs (in most cases)
• Eating meat
• Hunting / fishing
• Kidnapping
• Buying leather / fur
• Murder / serial killing (depending on the killer and reason)
• Pesticides / “pest” control
• Racial cleansing
• Rape
• Slavery / low paid workers
• Theft
• Torture
• Zoos (in some cases)

Let me ask you some questions to help us come to a conclusion.

Were the Nazis bad because:

1. They tortured/killed human beings en mass?
2. They tortured/killed beings that were able to suffer?

Meaning, if they had tortured/killed brain dead humans (who were not able to feel pain/fear) would it have been just as bad or would it have been forgotten by today?

And if they had tortured/killed millions of monkeys who were able to feel the same amount of pain as the Jews, would it still be remembered today?

If humans are animals, and if human intelligence is unrelated to the ability to feel pain, which is shared equally amongst most animals, then why is it so shocking to torture a human but not an animal?

How is it that our intelligence grants us the right not to suffer? Isn’t that like saying that our sight grants us the right not to be shouted at? Are these qualities connected in any way? Can a person with high IQ suffer more than one with a low IQ? In fact, can’t children, who are unable to rationalise their pain, seemingly feel more pain than adults?

Why has the holocaust stuck in our minds for so long because of a few million tortured Jews but the hundreds of billions of animals who were since equally tortured for food are not remembered?

And would the holocaust have been any less shocking if the Nazis didn’t kill Jews because of hatred, but simply because they enjoyed the taste of Jewish meat and killed them to feed their families? Equally, would it have been just as shocking to you if the Nazis had tortured and killed millions of cows because they hated cows? If not, why not?

Is it the reason for unneeded torture (hatred, taste, convenience) that makes it horrific or is it simply the torture itself?

So why is it that we grant rights to some but not others?

Was it relevant to the Nazis that Jews were humans? How about the slave masters and the blacks, did they care about their species or was race only deciding factor to them?

You, I assume, care about all humans regardless of anything, so long as they are human. But why do you stop there? Why do you not care about all animals regardless of species?

One is black, the other white, one has fur the other not, one can write poems the other cannot. But are those attributes relevant to the right not to suffer? If so, should a severely retarded human be stripped of their rights?

And under what logic should the right not to suffer be based on color, gender, race, height, religion, sexuality or species? Would it not make more sense if the right not to suffer was based on the mere ability to suffer?

I would appreciate it if you could share your logic on the subject and explain why you believe you are better than the Nazis/slave masters and deserve not to be compared to them.

Animals taste good and since I am more powerful I feel I have the right to eat them. Animals are inferior beings, they don’t have our level of intellect so I don’t see anything wrong with eating them. They were bred for this purpose so their suffering is non-important as long as I get meat on my plate. Our society has eaten animals for hundreds of years, it’s a part of our culture and I’m not the one who’ll change that.

Use them at work and spread the message!

Dear thousands of cows, chickens, fish, shrimp, pigs and insects,

I paid someone to hold you captive in tight quarters. To remove your genitals, your beaks, your tails and to brand you, all while wide awake and without anesthesia. To forcibly impregnate you and keep you that way all your life. I paid them to remove you from your children and from your parents at birth. And finally to kill you. I paid them to treat you as a commodity, a slave, as an object that existed only for my benefit. As if you could not suffer, or as if it didn’t matter if you could or not. All of this when it was unnecessary to do so. I did this solely for my own pleasures. A tasty meal, a full belly. You gave me comfort, you gave me a way to fit in with others and with the crowd. You gave me a center piece around which I and my family could celebrate. You were there to fill an empty space when I had a longing that I didn’t know how to fix. You made me feel safe. I know you can’t answer me directly, but I want to make this right. I feel I do not yet understand how to do this fully. Until then I will do what I can.

I love you,
Eric

God gave man dominion over the animals.  Animals are one of God’s creatures that we are to love and respect.  I do not want to support an industry that tortures and mistreats animals.

There, that’s pretty much a light summary of what I believe.  Of course this is usually followed up by one or two notorious questions:

“So if you don’t eat meat, how do you get protein?”

and

“So I can understand not wanting to kill an animal, but what about cheese and eggs? Nothing dies for those.”

This is good reinforcement for you as to why you believe in being vegan and also can be used as a chance to spark conversation with people who would never think to consider where their food comes from. Also, for new vegans, this might serve as something to hold on to so that when confronted, you have something to say that will, hopefully, knock their socks off.

So here is my question for you guys:

What is /your/ vegan elevator speech? and what are the most common follow up questions?

First of all, there’s absolutely no way to know that animals don’t think. Just because they don’t communicate in any verbal human languages does not mean they don’t think. For all we know, cows are smarter than Einstein, but they choose to never talk and to instead eat grass all day. Anyhow, there is actually plenty of scientific evidence that animals do think. Pigs can play video games for a food reward. Rats can solve mazes. Gorillas can communicate with humans using sign language. And even if we could prove that animals couldn’t think, the important thing is that they certainly do feel. Babies and mentally handicapped people don’t think anything like human adults can. Should we kill and eat them too? The ability to think like a human should not be the grounds for moral consideration. What shapes most moral codes? Usually, they are tied in with feelings. They often have an ultimate goal of maximizing happiness and/or minimizing pain and suffering – both which deal with emotional or physical feelings. Let’s say there is someone who can only think and not feel at all (kind of like an android or complex computer) – no pain, no emotions, no desires – murdering this “person” wouldn’t be so bad (as long as they had no family who could feel emotions and grieve) precisely because there could be no fear, disappointment, or pain, but switch that hypothetical situation around – if someone could not think at the level of a human being but could feel 100%, death would still be a terrifying, painful experience. And that is why we base morals on feelings.
It is obvious that animals feel pain and emotions. This requires far less proof than the claim that animals can think. Anyone who has ever lived with a cat or dog knows that animals have emotions and can feel pain. Animals also have families and care for their offspring, just like humans do. They also show great distress when they or their offspring are in danger, just like humans do. There is even an account of a cat who kept returning into a burning building to carry each of her kittens to safety, even though she was already badly burned.
The thing is we don’t need meat to live. The only reason we kill is for taste. Is it truly worth putting a sentient being through hell (and I do mean hell – http://www.watchearthlings.com) just to have a few minutes of pleasure?

Here is an excellent post that elaborates on the issue of the value of human vs. nonhuman life – http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/peter-singer-and-the-welfarist-position-on-the-lesser-value-of-nonhuman-life/

sooo… i don’t understand the “exploited animal” thing.

is a dog that serves as a seeing eye animal, a dog that is well feed/cared for/loved, and then put to sleep at the end of his/her life exploited?

what is the role of an animal? are pets okay? are they not supposed to play a role in our society at all? we domesticated animals to serve a purpose in our society, was that wrong?

i guess what i don’t understand about vegans is what they think animals are for. i mean, i think everyone earns its keep. like on a farm. horses work, chickens give eggs, dogs herd and protect.

Here is my response. I may want to elaborate more on this in the future, but I think I already hit one of the most important points that I would have wanted to make in that post.

Vegans are concerned because animals are exploited for unnecessary commercial products. The fact is that we can live healthfully and abundantly without consuming any animal products.

You can’t compare seeing-eye dogs and dogs as pets to animals exploited for food or clothing products. Dogs in these cases are usually seen as more than property – a beloved member of a family, like a child. Do you consider it “exploiting” your children because you force them to live under your care until they’re adults? Vegans are divided on the issue of seeing-eye dogs, but at least the dog is performing a very noble service that GREATLY helps a person and GREATLY enriches his or her quality of life for many years. Farm animals are usually treated terribly, kept in awful conditions, and killed in pain and dread just so someone can have a momentary gustatory pleasure that’s not even healthy – like a burger or a sausage.

As to your question – “why are animals here?” Let me ask you why are you here? Why am I here? Why is anyone here? There is no objective answer to this question. Wouldn’t it be best if we all let each other (including our fellow earthlings) decide the peaceful course of his or her own life?

Also, chickens don’t “give” eggs as much as you don’t “give” eggs to anyone when you ovulate. They are your eggs, not anyone else’s. Eggs are just part of a chicken’s menstrual cycle, and the nutrients found in eggs are there for the baby chick to eat as he or she grows. Not all dogs herd and protect. What about chihuahuas? Should we find them another purpose – kill them for meat perhaps? Most horses only work because we’ve forced them to and “broken” their spirits into being terrified to do anything but what we tell them. It’s almost as if you’re saying if something doesn’t have a clear purpose for human benefit, then we need to give them one no matter how much it infringes on their right to live life as they want. What would you say about a severely mentally handicapped human who can’t do much of anything and has no living family? What is that person here for? They can’t work a job and contribute to society. They don’t have a family to make happy. In fact, they’re probably a drain on society because tax dollars have to support them. But why do we allow them to live in society and still support them? Because life is valued by many as sacred. And vegans extend that reverence for life that most humans have for other human life to include animals as well. Believe it or not, some people used to say, what good are black people for anything other than to pick cotton as slaves? It’s the view that we can define another sentient, emotional being’s life that gets us into trouble.

I’ve just read Roger Yates’ blog post Neo-Welfarist Animal Liberationists where he introduces the term neo-welfare animal liberationists (N-WALs) in an attempt to use something that will be less objectionable to the people who Gary Francione terms new welfarists.

Traditional welfarists are people who care only about the treatment of animals but who support the use of animals for food, entertainment, research and other uses. Francione coined the term “new welfarist” to refer to those animal advocates who would like to see an end to such uses of animals but who believe that incremental welfare reforms will both ultimately lead to that goal and alleviate suffering in the meantime. Francione disagrees with this position and believes it undermines abolitionist efforts by presenting a confusing message, by making people more comfortable about their “humane” use of animals, by legitimizing and further entrenching the institution of animal slavery, and by taking away resources that would be better devoted to vegan education. Francione also argues, from his experience as a lawyer, animal rights theorist and activist, that such reforms do not lead to fewer deaths or substantially better conditions for nonhuman animals.

The so-called new welfarists object to the term because they feel it lumps them in with conventional welfarists. Since their ultimate goal is the abolition of the use of animals as property, the “new welfarists” find the term offensive and misleading, and they point out that pursuing welfare reforms is only one part of a multi-pronged approach which also includes vegan education. They call themselves abolitionists since they advocate welfarism (among other approaches) as a way of moving towards abolitionism. They believe welfare reform will lead to shifting attitudes that will eventually lead to an end to animal abuse. Francione and some of his supporters argue that the label new welfarists is accurate simply because they promote welfare reforms, and the largest such organizations like PeTA devote most of their resources to promoting and publicizing welfare reform measures. Francione and Dan Cudahy, one of the commenters below, insist that new welfarism and abolitionism have nothing to do with each other.

Yates agrees that the new welfarist label is accurate but was hoping to find a term that the so-called new welfarists would be comfortable with. He is concerned with the fact that the term “animal rights” has lost the clear original meaning in which Francione and Regan use it. He believes that the so-called new welfarists are rightly called abolitionists, but should not associate themselves with the animal rights term or movement. I think this is an interesting point, although I’m not sure I agree with it, since some of the people in this group are in favor of animal rights, even if the leadership of PeTA approaches the issue from a utilitarian rather than a rights-based philosophy.

By way of background for those who are unfamiliar with utilitarian philosophy, utilitarianism generally deals with maximizing happiness/pleasure and minimizing suffering/unhappiness. The preference utilitarian view of Peter Singer  is based on equal consideration of interests, which may lead to different treatment and different rights. According to utilitarians, rights are relevant only to the extent that they increase or decrease happiness or the ability to pursue one’s interests. That’s why rights-based abolitionists object so strongly to the term “animal rights” being used by or applied to PeTA and to followers of Singer. Singer is a utilitarian and has never been interested in rights, although unfortunately on occasion he has used the term for the sake of convenience which has led to some confusion. The fact that he has been called “The Father of the Animal Rights Movement” (which even he finds strange) further adds to the confusion.

Utilitarians don’t object to the use of either nonhumans or humans, as long as no suffering is involved. Singer does not object to the use of animals for food or for other purposes that involve their death because he believes that while animals have an interest in the quality of their lives, they have no interest in continuing to live. He has no moral objection to using nonhumans for food as long as they are raised and slaughtered humanely. He has also said that there are possible scenarios where painful vivisection might be morally acceptable if the gain to humans were great enough.

It should be noted that not all utilitarians think alike. Negative utilitarians put more emphasis on the reduction of suffering than on the maximization of happiness. Negative utilitarian philosopher David Pearce does not agree with Singer that it’s morally acceptable to use and kill nonhuman animals for food, no matter how humanely they are treated. He does not believe that any experiment on nonhumans is acceptable that would not also be acceptable if performed on humans. Pearce has also pointed out that utilitarian and rights-based approaches are not necessarily incompatible.

I like the fact that Yates tried to come up with a term that the “new welfarists” would not object to, and I also think it would be good if those who do support rights were differentiated from the utilitarian ones who don’t. Yates says his proposed name was not well-received. If anyone has suggestions for names, please mention them in the comments. Maybe something that suggests the multi-pronged approach they take?

Yates’ blog post led to a long discussion in the comments section about different abolitionist approaches, between Matt, a reader who would be considered a new welfarist by Francione (but who himself rejects the term) and Roger Yates, Dan Cudahy and Gary Francione. The exchange went on for over a month and is more than 30,000 words long. It is often repetitive but there are some interesting things brought up on both sides. I have summarized some of the main points and given excerpts here, but at the very least I recommend reading the initial post, reader Matt’s initial comment and Roger Yates’ response. If you read on and want to give up reading after Gary Francione’s two comments, you won’t miss much.

One of the things discussed in the comments was the common objection that Francione-type abolitionism is too hard and too radical for most people, or at the very least too inconvenient. I tend to agree with the people who argue that it really isn’t that hard, but I think it’s important to acknowledge that most people still aren’t willing to do it. And no matter how hard it is, I’m surprised when the difficulty of becoming vegan is used as an argument for supporting welfarist reforms as it is here by Matt, the “new welfarist.” The difficulty of becoming vegan is not related to the number or effectiveness of welfare reforms enacted. People’s continued resistance is an indication that we need to find ways to make it easier and more convenient to become vegan, both dietarily and socially. I think it would be worthwhile to devote more resources to getting more and better meat and cheese alternatives on the market, and making vegan choices more accessible and more socially acceptable. I also agree with Dan, who wrote: “The more vegan education that happens, the easier it will be to go vegan.”

Here’s my summary/abridged version of the post and the comments that followed. As you are reading, please keep in mind that this is not the complete exchange. I’ve attempted to pull out the most important points and remove most of the parts that are repetitive, irrelevant, and merely argumentative, and in so doing, shaved off about 25,000 words. It’s possible that the people involved in the discussion would object to having only parts of their arguments read, so to get a truly accurate understanding of the views represented, please read the whole thing. This is just to give an overall impression of the discussion and what seemed like the most important parts to me.

Roger Yates starts out by reprinting excerpts from earlier forum posts of his:

I think I might try the notion of ‘neo-welfare animal liberationists’ (N-WALs) to differentiate such people from rights-based animal rights advocates for a while.

My chief concern is misrepresentation. As we know the KFC campaign is led by PeTA who insist on (1) calling themselves the ‘biggest animal rights organisation in the world’ while adopting Peter Singer’s utilitarianism for their philosophy on human-nonhuman relations and (2) deliberately calling Singer’s position a rights-based one consisting of animal rights philosophy.
The latter is a blatant lie but they care not about that. For his part, Singer tells me to stop wasting my time trying to persuade PeTA to alter their claims. Since I realise that Singer regards moral rights as ‘nonsense’, following Bentham, I cannot expect him to care much about the aspirations of rights-based animal advocates. It seems that PeTA are in the same boat.

In recent debates involving two leading reps of PeTA they both said that they use the term ‘rights’ as a convenience (Singer uses rights as ‘political shorthand’).

…

Neo-welfare animal liberationists believe that their reforms can lead to animal rights – they would seriously claim that ‘pushing’ KFC to gas chickens is a step toward that goal. So, in this sense, in the internal logic of the argument, they are entitled to regard themselves as abolitionists – what they cannot do is characterise themselves as animal rights advocates without doing violence to animal rights theory.

and:-

One major problem with it is that we have the major organisations within the animal protection movement moving AWAY from veganism and presenting veganism as just another option. Neo-welfare animal liberationists use terms like ‘veg*n’ and use the terms ‘vegan’ and vegetarian’ interchangeably as though they are in the same ethical region.

They certify meats as ‘humane’ and suggest that one can be a ‘conscientious omnivore’. Francione points out that Singer has begun to talk about veganism as a ‘fanatical’ position and suggests that advocates can have the ‘luxury’ of not being vegan sometimes – but he always did have such views in terms of the logic of his utilitarian position which is not opposed to killing nonhumans painlessly and replacing them with others and has said consistently since Animal Liberation that he cannot see a major ethical problem with free range farming. Essentially his position is firm on factory farming from the cruelty angle but then it gets all wobbly on less intensive use systems.

Yates summarizes by writing: “I am less concerned that such groups regard themselves as abolitionists than the fact that they may be characterised as animal rights mobilisations.”

A commenter named Matt attempted to explain his position. He is what Francione would call a new welfarist, but he considers himself an incremental abolitionist (a term that many Francione supporters would like to claim for themselves). He writes: “Some animal rights activists see welfare reforms as a pragmatic method to realize the goal of animal liberation… No abolitionist would support a welfarist organization.”

He is offended by Francione’s term new welfarist and his position in general towards anyone who supports welfare reforms for any reason. “Francione deliberately used the term ‘new welfarist’ to refer to abolitionists who take the incremental, welfare reform, approach to animal liberation because it is inflammatory and insulting.”

He points out that he is in favor of vegan education but wants to do other things to reduce the suffering of animals in the meantime. “I think that we certainly should advocate veganism to the general public. Everyone can change his or her own diet and lifestyle. But, in the meantime, while we work on getting people to go vegan, billions of animals are still suffering on factory farms and agribusiness is profiting.”

Yates responds to some examples given by Matt of welfare reforms that he (Matt) believes could lead to reduced animal use.

I do know that some advocates say one can successfully use animal welfarism ‘tactically’ to end some animal use. You say the Chicago example is such a case. Eliminate the use of bullhooks, you say, and bingo!, end of elephant circuses. Why? Elephants cannot be controlled without them? There is no substitute for a bullhook? Let us say you are right and the advocates are ‘tactically’ calling for the end of bullhook use because it is cruel and harms the welfare of the elephants and the public might agree. The circus people say they must use bullhooks but accept there are cruel and non-cruel ways of using them. Since we are in the purview of animal welfarism, those who decide this matter are likely to apply the welfarist ‘cornerstone’ concept of not causing ‘unnecessary suffering’ and ask, ‘how do circuses usually control elephants.’

It is pretty likely that the result will be a tightening of the regulation of elephant use by the means of bullhooks – the complaint is articulated around the cruelty, not the use or control, right? So, already we get embroiled in the messy business of regulating atrocities. In the meantime, energy, money and time will have been diverted away from vegan education: the very best thing we can engage in for animal rights.

Too often this false choice is presented: do vegan education that gets virtually nowhere and takes hundreds of years –v- bringing about meaningful welfare reforms which really help nonhuman animals and can be achieved quickly.

You talk about the gestation crate ban in Florida. This is an animal rights goal, is it, to get these crates banned in Florida? Do people in Florida eat less pig flesh as a result or does it get shipped in? For vegans in Florida, of course, it matters not where the bits of pigs come from because they do not eat pigs. What’s the score in Florida now, animal welfare-wise? Do you have any way of telling? Do you know, for example, if you can be sure – is there any way of measuring – that more pig flesh from places with worse welfare standards than originally pertained in Florida is not being sold there now? Overall, welfare-wise, is it not possible that the situation is worse now? I am far from sure that these welfare measures do all that is claimed for them. After all, most often the nonhumans concerned are left in the hands of the same speciesists who were exploiting them before.

…

In his work, Francione explains the merits of the abolitionist position, which you say he does not do fairly.However, I suspect you mean by this that the rights-based position contains within it a critique of animal welfarism, be it traditional or new. but developed during and since Francione was acting as PeTA’s lawyer and after he began to see how the animal protection movement was busy watering down the notion of veganism as a baseline position and relying more and more on welfare reforms for their ‘victories’….

You write, “Everyone can change his or her own diet and lifestyle. But, in the meantime, while we work on getting people to go vegan, billions of animals are still suffering on factory farms and agribusiness is profiting.” Is it not the case that, while we work on anything, billions of animals will suffer on factory farms? The issue is what we work on, why, and what our claims-making is based on. Or, are we back to the notion that welfare comes easy and quickly and with meaningful change while abolition or rights will never come?

Matt responds:

… In my experience the people in the trenches often view things more pragmatically than the theorists. I think Martin Balluch wrote a great analysis of this pragmatic approach to animal liberation here:
http://www.vgt.at/publikationen/texte/artikel/20080325Abolitionism/index_en.php
…

In my own experience, I have noticed similar changes in people’s view of animals because of welfare concerns. I used to think that vegan advocacy was the most important thing to do because more animals are suffering in the “food animal” industries than any other industry and because if someone goes vegan they are likely to also reject fur, animal testing and animal based circuses. But then I started to meet a lot of people who were outraged by the abuse of elephants in the circus who started to get more involved in animal rights and eventually decided to go vegan. Many of these people said they would have never considered veganism before because they thought it was too radical. But after becoming more exposed to the concept of veganism and animal rights through a moderate animal welfare reform campaign such as banning bullhooks in Chicago, the concepts of veganism and animal rights started to seem less daunting to them.

In the same way, Prop 2 in California was clearly an animal welfare campaign with no obvious animal rights agenda. However, millions of people were exposed to the atrocities of factory farming because of Prop 2. Many of these people never considered animal rights or veganism because they thought it was too radical. But after being exposed to the issue via a more moderate campaign they started to think about the issues differently and eventually went vegan and became ardent animal rights supporters.

In my experience, pure vegan education is meaningful and we should all be doing that. But when we fail to recognize that welfare reforms can also play a significant role in moving society’s attitudes about animals along the continuum toward animal rights then we are missing something very important. Relatively few people are prepared to make a radical change in their lives. We are social animals and going against the norm is so extremely uncomfortable that many of us would rather die than be considered radical or worse, an outcast from society.

If we are to succeed as animal rights activists, we have to move away from this “all or nothing” mentality and start to work within the framework of human psychology and sociology. Welfare reforms play a very important role in moving society as a whole toward considering the rights of animals more seriously. As more people start to consider animal rights, the pure vegan education methodology will become more effective. Ideally, we will reach the critical mass needed to overturn the pervading dogma that humans can treat other animals however they please.

But again, my problem with Francione and others is the intentionally divisive and slanderous rhetoric they use against people and organization that are on his side. He can disagree with the methods of PETA and others all he wants and in some cases I may even agree with him. But when he falsely labels animal rights activists who see the importance of welfare reforms for the realization of animal rights as people who think it is okay to use animals (or welfarists) than I take issue with his position… We are all on the same side, but as long as there are those who will slander the positions of those with whom they disagree, we are not going to get anywhere.

…

I do not think it is okay to use animals for any reason. However, I also realize that the majority of society is at the opposite end of the continuum from me and I think that welfare reforms can be used as a sort of bridge to bring people over to my way of thinking. Very few people are willing to leap across a vast ideological chasm, but many will take a bridge across if you make one available to them.

At this point Dan Cudahy joins the discussion and writes:

Even if I were to accept your position on advocacy (and I do not at all), the facts are that the majority of the money and effort of the corporate welfare organizations that Francione criticizes goes toward welfare reform and goes toward welfare reform as a matter of Singer-style utilitarian *principle*.

PETA and HSUS are the abolitionist movements biggest obstacles. Yes, they are bigger obstacles than agribusiness itself because the public looks to them as the “authority” on “animal rights”. That is pathetic and disturbing, but true.

Matt responds to Dan with:

I think the ultimate goal of an animal rights advocate should be the abolition of the human use of animals for any reason. Right? It doesn’t so much matter to me if that goal is realized through welfare reforms that lead to eventual animal liberation or the purist abolitionist approach if that can lead to animal liberation. All I am interested in is getting to animal liberation.If you call someone a welfarist you are saying that they think it is okay to use animals if it done so “humanely.” If you call someone who believes in total animal liberation as a goal and the welfare reform approach as a method a welfarist then you are not only being inaccurate, but you are being insulting and divisive.

…PETA clearly states that it believes animals are not ours to use for food, for clothing, for entertainment, for research or for any other reason. PETA thinks that the way to realize its goals of attaining 100% animal liberation may be to work for welfare reforms that serve to educate the public and cripple or weaken the industries involved in exploiting animals. You may disagree with PETA’s approach, but you would be disingenuous to call it a welfarist organization.

Dan’s response to that was:

PETA and HSUS have a ton of money, yet PETA uses most of it for welfarism. HSUS doesn’t even have the word “vegan” on their website (unless they’ve recently added it, which I seriously doubt). These groups could finance major public vegan education campaigns, teach people how and why to go vegan, but it’s more lucrative to buddy up to corporate agribusiness in an industry- welfarist partnership, so that’s what they do….The way I see it, there are two movements: 1) the abolitionist movement, which promotes veganism as the only way to respect the important interests of sentient nonhumans and rejects and criticizes any and all forms of welfare reform, whether the reform is thought to be an end in itself or a means to an end; and 2) the welfarist movement, which consists of everyone who wants to reform animal exploitation and murder, some as an end in itself and others as a means or “tool” to “reduce suffering”, sometimes even to “dismantle factory farming” and wants to get along and go along with animal exploiters of all stripes, as long as they reform or “take a step in the right direction” (which is welfarese for “VICTORY! Send us your donations!).

…For more information on why I think like I do and for many more arguments, read Gary Francione’s Rain Without Thunder (have you bothered to read that book?); read all of Francione’s blog, and read the following links:

http://www.humanemyth.org/mediabase/1014.html
http://unpopularveganessays.blogspot.com/2007/08/proven-beyond-reasonable-doubt.html
http://unpopularveganessays.blogspot.com/2008/10/picking-low-hanging-fruit-what-is-wrong.html
http://abolitionistanimalrights.blogspot.com/index.htmlMatt responds:

I would only support welfare reforms that were strategically designed to educate the public about veganism and to cripple the ability of animal exploiting industries to exploit animals. Welfarist ideology has no place in the animal rights movement. Welfarist tactics can sometimes be used to achieve animal rights goals.You say: “PETA and HSUS have a ton of money, yet PETA uses most of it for welfarism. HSUS doesn’t even have the word “vegan” on their website (unless they’ve recently added it, which I seriously doubt). These groups could finance major public vegan education campaigns, teach people how and why to go vegan, but it’s more lucrative to buddy up to corporate agribusiness in an industry- welfarist partnership, so that’s what they do.”

PETA’s annual budget is about $30 million. HSUS’s annual budget is about “$120 million. KFC’s annual advertising budget is about $200 million. $30 million dollars may sound like a lot to you and me, but when you consider that PETA’s entire budget is only a small fraction of just one fast food companies advertising budget, you start to see that PETA isn’t really that rich after all. PETA could spend its entire budget on vegan advertising and still not come close to the advertising capabilities of just one fast food company.

In addition to promoting some welfare reforms in the industry, PETA does a lot of vegan education. It’s website GoVeg.com is an award winning website that surely has convinced hundreds of thousands of people to go vegan: GoVeg.com: http://www.goveg.com/. GoVeg.com has lots of tips for activists to promote veganism and PETA will even give activists free materials and lots of personal advice to promote veganism. I have gotten thousands of dollars worth of free vegan promotional literature from PETA over the years. It’s http://www.vegcooking.com is designed to help the restaurant industry add vegan options to menus and provides restaurants and chefs with the resources they need to offer vegan items to customers. It also has lots of advice and resources for activists to use to promote veganism to the restaurants in their areas. Nowhere, on any PETA website do they promote anything that isn’t vegan. They don’t promote “humane” meat, dairy, eggs, honey, silk or anything else. It’s all 100% vegan. All of their literature promotes 100% veganism. At the same time PETA promotes veganism, it also uses other methods (some I agree with, others I don’t) in an effort to promote kindness to animals and ultimately achieve animal liberation. It’s a multi-pronged approach.

When a vastly weaker army is confronted with a vastly superior army, the weaker army has to make compromises. It has to sacrifice some of its soldiers. It has to use guerilla tactics, espionage, and many other methods all together in a concerted effort to even stand a chance of victory…. A multiplicity of methods is in order. That doesn’t mean that every tactic that someone comes up with is right, it just means that we need to be open to any and all ideas if we are going to win this war. Saying you have the one and only right answer is just not going to cut it.

…

If we can bring people who are way on the other side of the fence a little closer to our position with welfarist reforms then I support that. Once those people start agreeing that animals deserve some consideration that may make it easier to use vegan education to bring them 100% in line with our ideology. I think that if we don’t offer some way for people who think that veganism and animal rights is too far removed from their current worldview to even consider some way to come closer to understanding our position, we are never going to win those people over – and sadly, those people make up the majority of the population.I’ve read almost all of the links you have provided already. I have been engaged in this debate for some time. I agree 100% with the animal rights ideology. I don’t disagree with the method of vegan education. I just don’t think that Francione and others who advocate for only vegan education and nothing else have convinced me of their position.

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If PETA needs to promote some rather minor welfarist “victories” to keep the morale of its activist base up, to raise money to continue the fight, to get activists motivated and optimistic enough to keep working for animal liberation, then I say good for them. Promote every little victory that you can. Keep the conversations going. Keep the industry backpeddling.

Dan responds:

*Vegan Education Paradoxically Helps Encourage Welfare Reform*Vegan education – because of its inherent nature of educating about animal agriculture (among several other things) – paradoxically encourages welfare reform. One of three broad reactions arise when people are faced with vegan education as it relates to animal ag education: 1) indifference or sadistic enjoyment; 2) aversion, but not enough aversion to go vegan, and 3) aversion sufficient to go vegan. The group in category 2 are the ones who get interested in happy meat and welfare reform. They are a large, wealthy, and growing part of the population in industrialized nations. They are the ones buying happy meat, maybe going l-o veg, supporting HSUS and often PETA (they make up the vast majority of PETAs membership). Vegan education helps their ranks grow and does not hinder their progress except for a few of them eventual get exposed to enough vegan education to go vegan.

*Welfare Reform Hinders Vegan Education*

Welfare reform, on the other hand, not only has no causal nexus to veganism, but actually hinders efforts at vegan education by reinforcing the status quo that there’s no real need for veganism, especially when groups like HSUS and PETA are endorsing it. Sadly, the general public looks to HSUS and PETA as the authority on what “animal rights” people think. The general public is not aware of the differences between Gary Francione and PETA/Singer, and the differences are enormous. When PETA strikes a deal with KFC Canada, the public looks at it as an endorsement of KFC, and it is an endorsement!

*Welfarist Abolitionism: An Inherent Contradiction*

Which brings me to another point: the inherent contradiction of combining welfare reform efforts with efforts at vegan education and abolition. Lately, I’ve seen some new welfarists (what you call “incremental abolitionists”) criticize ‘humane’ animal products. Now these are folks who are vegan and should criticize ‘humane’ animal products – that’s not the problem at all. The problem is that these people see criticizing support for welfare reforms as “divisive”, thereby lending support to ‘humane’ animal products. So on one hand, they are supporting welfare reform, but on the other hand, they are criticizing ‘humane’ animal products. This is contradictory. The lunacy must stop.

*A Philosophical Difference: The Primary Reason We’ll Never Agree at the Superficial Level Unless We Agree Philosophically*

Abolitionists are concerned to abolish the use or exploitation of animals. The use or exploitation is the core issue for abolitionists. We think of less cruel treatment as better than more cruel treatment, but treatment is not the core issue. The abolitionist view is essentially a deontological view (I say “essentially” because there are nuances within the broader deontological view and in meta-ethics on which abolitionists may disagree).

Welfarists and new welfarists (what you call “incremental abolitionists” [which, remember, is what I call us]) are concerned primarily about the treatment of animals. It would be fine and good with PETA, et al, if we all went vegan. That is, new welfarists think of abolition as better than no abolition, but the core issue for new welfarists is treatment. The new welfarist view is essentially utilitarian (again, “essentially” because there are also nuances here).

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Abolitionists know as well as anyone that welfarism isn’t going away any sooner than animal exploitation is going away. Our criticism of welfarism in all forms is literally a criticism of animal exploitation itself. We will continue to state our case, and as Roger says, make our claims.

If people are receptive to welfare reform but not to veganism, it is because welfare reform requires either nothing or almost nothing from them, while veganism requires them to actually respect animals and the rights of animals (which REALLY is NOT that difficult!, welfarist claims notwithstanding).

Matt responds:

You say: “Welfare reform is always about bogus notions of ‘humane’ animal products for non-vegans.”Not true. Welfare reforms are about taking positive steps in the right direction toward alleviate unnecessary suffering for animals. They are about educating the public and making it more difficult for animal exploiters to do business. Abolitionists like myself do not see welfare reforms as an end point, but rather as a necessary rung in the ladder. Once battery cages are banned we don’t sit on our laurels, we start working on the next step toward abolishing the use of chickens altogether.

You say: “vegan education is the *only* thing that can possibly lead to more vegans”

That contradicts my own experience. In fact, I have witnessed many more people come to veganism through welfare reform activism than through direct vegan education. Like it or not, veganism and animal rights are considered “radical” and “scary” concepts. They exist outside the social norm and few people are willing to step outside of social norms and make changes to their lifestyle that could turn them into outcasts from society. However, many people care about animals and will get involved in a fight to alleviate their suffering. Many of the people who get involved in welfare reform campaigns do eventually lose their fear of social ostracism and take the plunge into veganism. I’ve witnessed it many times first hand.

You say: “Vegan Education Paradoxically Helps Encourage Welfare Reform”

Yes, that’s true.

You say that “welfare reform, on the other hand, not only has no causal nexus to veganism, but actually hinders efforts at vegan education by reinforcing the status quo that there’s no real need for veganism”

Not true. Welfare reform campaigns have a wider reach than vegan education alone because welfare reforms are easier (less radical) for the mainstream media. Since a greater number of people are reached via a welfare campaign, and many people choose to go vegan and adopt an animal rights philosophy after becoming involved in a welfare campaign, these welfare reform actions actually are great tools for introducing people to veganism. Compared to the number of these animal welfare reform advocates who go vegan after getting involved in a welfare campaign that is coupled with vegan education, I believe there are relatively few animal welfare reform advocates who decide to go the “humane” animal products route.

As for the general public, yes, welfare campaigns do encourage members of the general public to purchase “humane” animal products. But vegan education alone doesn’t convince the general public to do anything at all because veganism is so far outside the social norms.

So yes, when PETA strikes a deal with KFC to improve its welfare standards and offer vegan meal options, it is an endorsement of KFC. The general public will now think that KFC is better than other chicken joints. Now, those other chicken joints will have to make similar welfare reforms in order to compete with KFC. The chicken industry will now have to put a lot of time, money and energy into changing its business practices. That means less time and money that can be spent on advertising. The animals, though still killed and exploited, may have slightly better lives. Now the general public knows they can eat something vegan even at places like KFC, so veganism doesn’t seem so hard or outside of the social norms anymore. Now PETA’s vegan education efforts will be more successful. Many animal welfare advocates who were involved in the KFC campaign have become vegan after learning so much about the industry and by becoming more at ease with the vegan lifestyle through regular exposure to it. Sure, the general public takes PETA’s deal with KFC as an endorsement. So what? It wasn’t a final victory for the animals, but it was a major step in the right direction.

You say: “The problem is that these people see criticizing support for welfare reforms as “divisive”, thereby lending support to ‘humane’ animal products. So on one hand, they are supporting welfare reform, but on the other hand, they are criticizing ‘humane’ animal products. This is contradictory.”

I don’t think there is a contradiction at all. I am saying very clearly that it is not okay to use animals, even if it is done “humanely.” I can still support a campaign that educates people about animal rights and makes it harder for those who exploit animals to do business. You can believe in animal rights and still support campaigns aimed at eliminating the worst abuses of animals. If that makes some people think it is okay to eat “humane” meat, I can’t help that. Most of those people were eating meat anyway. But I can tell you from my own experiences that many people who eat meat and get involved in a welfare reform campaign end up going vegan.

You say: “Abolitionists are concerned to abolish the use or exploitation of animals.”

Yes, I agree. So the term abolitionist can be applied to myself and to groups like PETA.

You say: “Welfarists and new welfarists… are concerned primarily about the treatment of animals.”

That’s not entirely true. Welfarists are concerned primarily about the treatment of animals. “New welfarists” are concerned with to abolish the use or exploitation of animals and think that welfare reforms may help achieve that goal. Since so called “new welfarists” are primarily concerned to abolish the use or exploitation of animals, then they are abolitionists, not welfarists. The term welfarist is viewed as insulting and inaccurate to people who fall into this category because their primary concern is to abolish the exploitation of animals. The term welfarist implies otherwise and so I take issue with that word. I believe that Francione and others who use this word understand this point, but use the term welfarist anyway because it is so divisive.

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“Neo-welfare animal liberationists” is certainly a better term because it at least includes these people in with the animal liberationists. Use whatever term you like. If you want people like me to agree with your position, then best to use a less offensive term.

You say: “If people are receptive to welfare reform but not to veganism, it is because welfare reform requires either nothing or almost nothing from them, while veganism requires them to actually respect animals and the rights of animals.”

Very true. Veganism also requires that people become social outcasts (in many circumstances). I’m not saying it isn’t possible or necessary (I went vegan overnight without a second thought) but going vegan in a non-vegan world does make life a lot more complicated. Some people simply do not have the will or the drive to stick with it for long. That’s why I think we need to strike at the roots – or chip away at the animal exploiter’s ability to do business. If it is more expensive, less convenient and less socially acceptable to eat factory farmed meat, then people will eat less of it and/or go vegan. If it then becomes more expensive, less convenient and less socially acceptable to eat “humane” meat, then people will eat less of it and more people will go vegan.

Dan responds:

You claim that welfare reforms make it more difficult for animal exploiters to do business. I disagree. I think welfare reforms are a strategic opportunity for animal exploiters to make people feel better about exploiting animals. I think welfare reforms are a “win-win” for corporate welfare organizations (like PETA) and industry. PETA gets victories and more donations. Industry gets moral public support from the welfare organizations.

It may be true that, as you say, many people who started out in welfare campaigns went vegan, but if you think that correlation is causal, I disagree. I think it is because they were exposed to vegan education and had contact with vegans. It is vegan education and the contact with vegans that *caused* these people to go vegan, not the welfare campaigns themselves. The only legitimate point you might have here is that welfare campaigns may attract the kind of non-vegans who are more likely to be influenced by vegan education, but to claim a causal connection is mistaken. Further, there are probably less expensive ways of attracting the kind of non-vegans who would be receptive to veganism than welfare reform campaigns.

You say that compared to the number of people who go vegan after getting involved in a welfare campaign coupled with vegan education, the number of people who decide to go the ‘humane’ animal products route are relatively few. That is hard to believe. However, I could believe it if the vegan education component is very strong among those involved, and perhaps it is. But that would only reinforce my claim that it is vegan education that is the cause of veganism, not welfare reform campaigns. In my experience, people who really believe in ‘humane’ animal products DON’T go vegan. In my experience, it takes serious vegan education to break people of the belief that ‘humane’ animal products are okay.

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I think you wildly overestimate the economic burden of KFC, et al, changing its business practices. Here’s a question for you, Matt: Why do PETA and HSUS present welfare reforms in terms of their profitability to animal exploiters? The fact is, industry has been seriously looking into gassing chickens CAK (or CAS) for a few years now because of *profitability*. Yes, CAK requires less personnel costs, results in less damage to chicken carcasses, and over time, the capital investment is supposed to pay off huge. Not to mention the profitability that comes from better PR. Further, it is questionable how much less chickens will suffer since they will still be handled cruelly in transportation, including all of the sadistic torture that bored workers put them through. For more information on the profitability of CAK, see the following link:

http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/?p=144#more-144

Francione and others (including myself) use “new welfarist” because it is accurate as defined and we are frustrated with the overwhelming focus of time and effort of the likes of PETA and Farm Sanctuary, including many vegans, on welfare reform efforts. We are also frustrated with the idea of veganism as merely “a(n) (optional) tool to reduce suffering” and merely “a boycott of cruelty” rather than as a moral baseline, or minimum standard, of a movement that seeks to abolish animal exploitation. When people see veganism as a “tool” or a “boycott”, it is no wonder that they go back to eating ‘humane’ animal products after they find animal products that they consider ‘humane’.

PETA promotes Peter Singer as the “Father of the Animal Rights Movement”, but Singer sees nothing wrong with consuming so-called ‘humane’ animal products. As long as PETA, et al, promote welfare reform, don’t see veganism as a moral baseline or minimum acceptable standard, and promote Singer as “our father”, we will call PETA, et al, new welfarists.

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I disagree with you 100% that veganism “requires that people become social outcasts (in many circumstances)”. Wow. I’m almost speechless. While it is true that veganism can be extremely difficult for children due to parents, even up through high school, for normal adults veganism most certainly does NOT require one to “become [a] social outcast.” Matt, I live in the middle of ranch and rodeo country. I’m a partner in a CPA firm. Most of my clients (which are mostly local governments), many of them in very rural, animal exploiting ranch and rodeo areas, know I’m vegan and they also know why. They get along with me fine. In fact, most of them love working with me. I even go to lunch with them occasionally and if there is any avoidance of lunch, it’s on my end, not theirs. I have non-vegan friends, most of whom I’ve had since before I went vegan. I’m anything but a social outcast. Granted, if I started bringing up veganism all the time, I probably would be shunned to the extent that I did. But with people I deal with on a regular basis, I think living by example is the best advocacy. They will come to respect “radical abolitionist animal rights activists” by knowing and getting along with me for years. They may even go vegan themselves someday. People don’t refuse veganism because they’re afraid of being social outcasts (with a few exceptions); rather, they refuse it because they are not sufficiently educated about veganism (the how and why and how good vegan food actually is) and because it is socially acceptable to be non-vegan. We really have to get away from this notion that “veganism is difficult” if we are to move forward at all.

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You talk about making it easier to go vegan. The more vegan education that happens, the easier it will be to go vegan.

You say you support the banning of battery cages, but oppose “cage-free eggs”. Public support of banning cages, especially heavy public support (e.g. PETA), is an implicit support of cage-free eggs, whether you like it or not. We can use battery cage information, slaughtering method information, and other information in our vegan education, but we should always criticize all exploitation of all forms. Because of our use of cage information in our vegan education materials, industry might try to eliminate them as a strategy move, but we should not be their advisers on how to exploit animals “better”. This speaks to the point I made earlier that you ignored: new welfarists are concerned primarily with *treatment* or *how* animals are exploited, and eventually want abolition, but now is not the time for that. Abolitionists are concerned primarily with abolishing exploitation eventually and incrementally via vegan education and see welfare reform as a strategic goal of animal exploiters.

Matt responds:

I admit that it is vegan education that “causes” people to go vegan in the scenario I presented, but it is the welfare reform campaign that attracted their interest to begin with. Without the welfare campaign, many people who view veganism as too radical will not even consider going vegan. That is why I say you sometimes need both the welfare reform campaign and the vegan education working together – like PETA does.

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PETA promotes Singer as the “father of the animal rights movement” because he is historically viewed as such. His book Animal Liberation may have inspired PETA, but he isn’t on PETA’s board nor does he have any direct influence on the organization. Equating PETA with Peter Singer is another one of the misleading tactics that Francione uses that I find unpalatable. PETA cannot be held responsible for everything that every animal rights or animal welfare advocate ever says. PETA only has control over its own messaging.

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As long as PETA’s goal is animal liberation and the organization offers some reasonable justifications for its welfare reform efforts as a means to achieve animal liberation, one can justifiably call PETA an abolitionist organization. I’m sorry if you are confused by the concept of promoting veganism and animal liberation while at the same time working on welfare reforms aimed at chipping away at the foundation of animal exploitation. But again, as I’ve explained, I think vegan education and welfare reforms can work together to gain more ground than either tactic can do alone.

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Martin Balluch’s analysis of this combined approach has empirical support behind it.
http://www.vgt.at/publikationen/texte/artikel/20080325Abolitionism

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The number one reason why people don’t go vegan is that they don’t think it’s convenient enough, and we all know people whose reason for not going vegan is that they “can’t” give up cheese or ice cream. But instead of making it easier for them to help animals, we often make it more difficult. Instead of encouraging them to stop eating all other animal products besides cheese or ice cream, we preach to them about the oppression of dairy cows. Then we go on about how we don’t eat sugar or a veggie burger because of the bun, even though a tiny bit of butter flavor in a bun contributes to significantly less suffering than any non-organic fruit or vegetable does or a plastic bottle or about 100 other things that most of us use. Our fanatical obsession with ingredients, or being 100% pure, not only obscures the animals’ suffering—which was virtually non-existent for that tiny modicum of ingredient—but also nearly guarantees that those around us are not going to make any change at all. So, we’ve preserved our personal purity, but we’ve hurt animals—and that’s anti-vegan.

The same is true of activism. If we strive to be 100% pure in our vegan activism efforts, we sometimes run the risk of turning people off, or making it less likely they will become vegan. If we make it less likely that other people will go vegan, then we are hurting animals and hurting our chances of achieving animal liberation. So, if a welfare reform campaign can serve to open people up to the idea of veganism, then I support that welfare campaign.

Gary Francione joins the conversation with:

Dear Everyone:

What Matt and others like him do not seem to understand is that we are not “on the same side,” as Matt seems to think. I see groups such as PETA doing nothing more than making animal exploitation more acceptable and further enmeshing animals in the property paradigm. In many ways, PETA has developed into the most significant impediment to meaningful social change for nonhuman animals.

Moreover, Matt’s rhetoric reflects the unfortunately cult-like atmosphere that characterizes the new welfarist movement. Discussion is not permitted. Anyone who disagrees is “divisive.” Matt does not address the substantive arguments that I make. He just says that I should not make them because they are “divisive.” Such an approach does nothing to facilitate the progress of ideas. And discourse can only be “divisive” if there is a unity to divide. There isn’t.

I continue to believe that those who endorse the abolitionist approach spend their time and resources educating the general public about veganism in creative and nonviolent ways. Let the new welfarists, animal protectionists, animal liberationists, or whatever you call them, go naked rather than wear fur, promote the gassing of chickens, or give awards to Temple Grandin. We are really involved in fundamentally different enterprises.

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If X promotes welfare reform and Y characterizes X as a welfarist, then that is an empirically accurate description. The fact that X believes that welfare reform will lead to abolition someday (despite the complete absence of any empirical evidence supporting that belief) does not mean that X is not a welfarist. I characterize such people as “new welfarists” because they differ (in certain respects) from most of the classical welfarists. But the bottom line remains the same: if X promotes welfare reform, X is a welfarist. Whether X hopes to achieve abolition, or hopes to secure more and more welfare, is really irrelevant. X is a welfarist. No “slander.” No “mudslinging.” Just a plain old empirical fact.

I note that you keep using the expression “animal liberation.” You should know that this expression is usually applied to those who subscribe to the views of Peter Singer. And Peter Singer certainly does not advocate abolition as the ultimate goal. He maintains that animal use can be morally acceptable if our treatment of nonhumans gives greater weight to animal interests.

Matt objects again to being characterized as a welfarist: “You say that supporting welfare reform means you are a welfarist. This is not true because the word welfarist refers to an ideology that views animals as property and welfare reform refers to a tactic to improve the lives of animals. One can be in favor of improving the lives of animals and not view animals as property.”

The discussion between Matt and Dan continues without any progress being made…