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animal activism, animal rights, drawings, DXE, vegan

Ending Yulin

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yulin dog5

It’s already started. The notorious Yulin Dog Meat Festival, which takes place in southern China, is underway. The “festival” is not a celebration of dogs; it is a celebration of dog meat.

Beagles, golden retrievers, cocker spaniels, collies, chows, muts, you name it, are often stolen from people’s yards and the streets and violently beaten to death for human consumption.

The anti-Chinese racism is underway as well – much of it from passionate dog lovers. Horrified by the practices in Yulin, activists have lashed out at China, perhaps without realizing that only 8 percent of Chinese consume dog meat. Do we forget that 98 percent of Americans consume cows, chicken, fishes, goats and pigs?

Pigs, dogs — are they really so different?

People who live with pigs understand they are not. All animals feel pain, all animals love their young, all animals desire freedom of movement. If animals didn’t feel these emotions and desires, how would they survive?

Animals regarded as mere things or as cogs in a machine in this country suffer – the same as the dogs of China. Yet do you see Americans taking to the streets to protest this violence? Not often. But recently in China over one hundred thousand people came out to protest the dog trade and some animal rights groups based in the United States have joined them asking the government of China to stop this horror. So far, Chinese officials haven’t budged.

It’s not so hard to understand the reluctance. What if millions of Chinese sent petitions calling on the American government to stop the production and consumption of animal products? Would Americans suddenly shut down butcher counters, restaurants and animal farms? Absolutely not.

I would suggest that the American reaction to some Chinese eating dogs smacks of colonialism. Americans and Europeans arrive to save the day and stop the barbarism of the “developing nations.”

How easy it is to point a finger at others and fail to see our own complicity.

The United States kills some 9 billion land animals a year. Each American eats, on average, 270 lbs. of meat per year. Each Chinese person eats about 130 pounds a year. Yet we sit on our couches watching ABC’s recent episode of “Nightline” recoiling in horror at the cruel exploitation of dogs in China.

How helpful it would have been if the producers of the show had also, at the very least, noted the violence, suffering and anguish inherent in our own system of animal agriculture? While the horrors of the dog meat trade are indisputable, true change must start with an unsparing assessment of our own behavior.

True understanding must start with the realization that all nonhuman animals are deeply connected to human animals. Scientists have even shown that rats have empathy and will forgo food to help another rat.When will us humans achieve that same level of compassion?

As the noted animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) proclaims, “It’s not food, it’s violence.”

— A Vicious Vegan blog post —

animal activism, animal rights, art, cartoons, drawings, vegan, vegan psychology

MINI ACTIVISM

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I would always cringe when I would hear the gym teacher at the end of the class say, “Now go get lunch and be sure and eat a lot of protein.”

Ugh.

Yesterday was a fundraising day for the Y and this teacher who, by the way, is a wonderful person, was giving away ham and cheese sandwiches as part of the effort. She offered one to me and I said, God no, I’m vegan.

“I didn’t know you were vegan,” she said. “Why did you do that?”

I told her that it was for the animals, but I’d also learned that not eating animals has some real health benefits. She said she knew that and I asked if she’d seen “Forks Over Knives.” She said she had and then she asked if I didn’t miss those foods. I said that aside from brief cheese cravings at the beginning, absolutely not and added that since I’d found out about the animals and the health benefits, I had thought, why wouldn’t I do that?

Then somehow she managed to zero in on what can be tough about going vegan – the social aspect. “That’s the hardest part – huh?” the fitness instructor said.

I’ll cut to the chase – today after the gym class she said she wanted to invite everyone to the next fundraising day – which would be vegetarian.

– A Vicious Vegan blog post –

animal activism, animal rights, vegan

WORDS ANIMAL ACTIVISTS SHOULD NEVER SAY

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By Leslie Goldberg

If activists are going to wake up the planet to the horror of animal exploitation, we’ve got to change how we talk. We can no longer afford to play into the hands of these industries that exploit animals.

Remember how George Bush twisted words to mean the opposite of what they actually were? The Clean Air Act only allowed more air pollution, not less. The No Child Left Behind Act didn’t help disadvantaged children, it hurt them. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act branded non-violent activism as “terrorism.”

Drawing on the work of cognitive linguist George Lakoff, one of the key speakers at the National Animal Rights Convention 2015, Alex Hershaft gave his audience a hand-out detailing, well, how to talk.

Animal rights activists must never fall into meat, dairy, egg, fish industry double-speak and/or euphemism, he said. We can not let ourselves and the people around us forget that exploited animals are living, breathing, feeling, thinking individuals who want to live just like us. Animals are not things. (And that includes fishes!)

Some of his suggestions:

— Always refer to a non-human animal as “he” or “she,” never “it.”

— Don’t call companion animals, “pets.” We are not their “owners.” We’re their “guardians.”

— Say “animals raised for food,” instead of “food animals” or “farm animals.” Say “animals in laboratories,” not “lab animals” or “specimens.”

— The words “beef,” “pork,” “veal,” and “chicken,” are used to make us forget reality. Instead of these words, say “flesh” or “tissue.”

— Other industry terms that deny animal personhood are “livestock,” “cattle,” “hogs,” “swine,” “poultry,” “layers,” “broilers,” etc. We don’t want to use those terms.

— Don’t allow the dairy industry to own the words “cheese,” “milk,” and “ice cream.” If these items come from animals, designate them: “cow’s milk,” “animal-derived cheese,” or “cow’s ice cream.”

— Don’t join government agencies which kill millions of animals and deny animal personhood and which use terms like “wildlife,” “harvesting,” “trash animals,” or “by-catch.” Instead say “free animals,” “killing,” or “non-targeted dead animals.”

— Refrain from using works like “animal,” “beast,” “pig,” “rat,” or “snake” to indicate a person who is violent, uncouth, messy, disloyal, etc.

— Figure out alternatives to expressions such as “killing two birds with one stone” and “there is more than one way to skin a cat.”

— And please don’t ever, ever suggest that there is a way to “humanely” raise and kill animals for human consumption.

– A Vicious Vegan blog post –