The Vegan Police: the Vegan Outreach perspective

 

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2012: (Actually published on November 1,  2012.)
Politics,  personal conduct,  and the Vegan Police:  the Vegan Outreach perspective by Matt Ball,  cofounder,  Vegan Outreach http://whyveganoutreach.blogspot.com/ 
Having been prompted to do some broader thinking about the status of animal advocacy in the past year,  including contrasting the AR-2012 conference in Washington D.C. with past AR conferences, I have a somewhat different perspective on the issues raised by the editorial in this October 2012 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE,  “Politics, personal conduct,  and the Vegan Police,” compared to my concerns when we were starting Vegan Outreach in the 1990s.

EDITORIAL: Politics, personal conduct, & the Vegan Police

 

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2012: (Actually published on November 1,  2012.)

Long before the Scott Pilgrim comic series introduced the Vegan Police duo,  a male hippie and an apparent Buddhist monk who metamorphized into a more conventionally police-like pair in the 2010 film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World;  long before there was a Vegan Police blog site discussing the interface of race,  politics, gender,  and diet;   and decades before the term “vegan police” entered mainstream usage,  the vegan police vigorously critiqued animal advocacy. Read more

California foie gras ban takes effect

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2012:

California foie gras ban takes effect

LOS ANGELES–A California law forbidding the sale of foie gras took effect on July 1, 2012, almost eight years after passage–and was challenged in court less than 24 hours later by plaintiffs including Hot’s Restaurant Group, the foie gras trade organization Association des Éleveurs de Canards et d’Oies du Québec, and Hudson Valley Foie Gras, the upstate New York firm that is the largest foie gras producer in North America. Read more

Dog-eating surfaces as U.S. presidential campaign issue

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  May 2012:

Dog-eating surfaces as U.S. presidential campaign issue

       WASHINGTON D.C.— “What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?”  U.S. President Barack Obama asked at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on April 28,  2012,  citing metaphors used by 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin to describe herself.
“A pit bull is delicious,”  Obama answered himself.
The joke was Obama’s response to an April 19,  2012 gibe from 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain,  who posted a photo of his son Jimmy’s bulldog Apollo on Twitter with the caption, “I’m sorry Mr. President,  he’s not on the menu!” Read more

Meat consumption falls 12.2% amid health concerns

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

CHICAGO-“Americans will consume 12.2% less meat and poultry in 2012 than they did in 2007,”  the U.S. Department of Agriculture projected in December 2011.

Analysts ranging from the commodities trading firm CMI Group and the Daily Livestock Report mostly attributed falling meat consumption to higher feed grain prices, which have made meat and poultry more expensive.  Food writers,  however,  tended to note that the number of self-declared vegetarians in the U.S. has increased from 1% in 1971 to 3.4% in 2009. Read more

ANIMAL PEOPLE festive tofu roast (serves 15-20)

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

Festive tofu roast  (serves 15-20)

By Kim Bartlett

Start with six pounds (96 ounces) of extra firm tofu-the type sold in plastic wraps,  not in tubs of water.  If you can only obtain tofu that is sold in tubs of water,  you will have to mash it up well,  put it in a cheesecloth-lined colander,  put a heavy (5-pound) weight on it, and leave it for several hours (or overnight) so that as much water as possible drains out of the tofu. Read more

BOOKS: Vegan is love: Having a heart and taking action

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

Vegan is love:
Having a heart and taking action
Written & illustrated by Ruby Roth
North Atlantic Books (c/o Random House
(1745 Broadway,  New York,  NY 10019),  2011.
40 pages,  hardcover.  $16.95.

Vegan is Love delves into animal mistreatment at zoos, circuses,  marine parks and aquariums–all common destinations for schools and families.  “You do not have to be an expert to know that animals do not want to balance on balls or jump through hoops of fire,”  says  author Ruby Roth.  Roth explains that Orca whales live in the wild and asks how can we learn “from prisoners in a pool?” Read more

Veg or Non-Veg? India at the Crossroads

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2012:

Veg or Non-Veg?  India at the Crossroads
by Mia MacDonald & Sangamithra Iyer
Brighter Green,  2012.  Free 46-page download: <http://www.brightergreen.org/files/india_bg_pp_2011.pdf>

 

Brighter Green founder Mia MacDonald and associate Sangamithra Iyer ask,  “Can India provide enough food for its people as well as support hundreds of millions of cows and buffalo and billions of chickens in increasingly industrialized conditions?  And can it do so while protecting its natural resources and the global climate,  and ensuring progress in human development?” Read more

What’s the difference between eating plants and animals?

BY KIM BARTLETT, Animal People

 

A common objection posed by meat-eaters to considering a vegetarian diet is that “plants have feelings” which may be comparable to the feelings of animals, or that the result of a vegetarian diet is for more plants to die than animals and thus the net amount of killing is somehow equal.

While it is essential to realize that these arguments are virtually always made by people as a way to dismiss the idea of not eating animals without having to seriously consider the moral advantage of a vegetarian diet, the vegetarian advocate must be prepared to respond to these objections.  There are three main points to understand. Read more

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