migrating....

I'm moving! Please check out my blog at invisiblevoices.wordpress.com

Thanksgiving, Turkeys and Traditions

Tradition has been on my mind lately. Thanksgiving is almost here, and then the maddening consumerist Christmas season will begin. Probably it already has. I've been trying to change my family's Christmas traditions for a few years now, trying to move them away from the gifts, and towards some quality time. Resistance is all I've gotten so far.

The reason we can't change things is "tradition". I'm coming to think that this is just an excuse to continue doing things that we suspect might not be right. "Tradition" is a big part of why baby seals are murdered every year in Canada, why dolphins are slaughtered in mass in Japan, and why millions of turkeys are sacrificed every year around this time. Does "tradition" mean murder, then? Seems to.

I leafleted with a couple friends this past weekend, handing out information on Turkeys. Some of the comments were interesting, in that disturbing way.

Handing the leaflet back to me, "Oh, I don't need this. Doesn't the president pardon one of these every year?" As if pardoning one abused turkey makes up for all those still suffering and dying at the hands of humans. When I mentioned that there are many millions needing pardoning, she made a face and walked away.

I would bet that she walked away grumbling about people like me, people who dare to think that non-human animals have just as much a right to life as humans do, and try to get others to see that perspective too. She probably was a bit outraged that I tried to get her to see, however gently, the abuse that humans heap upon those we decide are less worthy of consideration. Does she really not understand that she once would have been considered property? That it has been less than a hundred years since women have had the right to vote in this country? That we don't have to look very far back in our own history to the time when husbands had the right to beat their wives to death, that it was not a crime to do so? Women were property then, just as non-human animals are currently considered property.

I think it is all connected. Until we admit that every sentient being has just as much of a right to life as we do, until we stop seeing living beings as property, we will continue to abuse other humans just as we do other species.

Just consider Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay for two recent examples. Really, though, this country was founded on human abuse, and how ironic that we have a federal holiday to celebrate it.

I think it is time for new traditions - ones filled with compassion rather than murder.

Education as activism

Education as activism. Leafletting, writing letters to the editor, discussing vegan and animal rights issues with our coworkers...these are all aimed at educating our audience. But what about educating ourselves?

I was lazy about it, myself. Vegetarian for years without reading a single thing on vegetarianism. I didn't even have a cookbook for most of that time. It took only a vague reference to cruelties in the egg and dairy industry for me to go vegan, finally. And still I read nothing on the issues. Being vegan was enough, wasn't it?

A few years later I agreed to participate in a fur protest. "We have to do more," I thought to myself after my first protest, "simply eating vegan food and avoiding exploitation in my purchases isn't enough. It isn't just about our personal consumption. It is bigger than that." And so I became more involved in activism, participating in weekly fur protests and other periodic demos, starting a (short lived) brunch revolution. Yet I read nothing.

I watched Earthlings and it changed me, a bit. I didn't really understand the cruelty of the dairy industry before that. Knowing it is wrong, and seeing the horror of it are two different things, I found. You know on a much deeper level just how wrong it is after watching it. And that is just one example of the education Earthlings provided. I was motivated to do more after that, though I had no solid direction in mind. And still I didn't think to continue my education.

However I was also involved in an online community, VeganFreaks, and listened to their podcasts every week. It was obvious how much reading Bob and Jenna had done, as well as many people on the forums. I started listening to other podcasts as well, such as animal voices, and there again it was clear how much more others knew about various issues than I did myself. I went to AR06 and absorbed as much information as I could, knowing it was barely scratching the surface. I knew there was a welfare versus abolition debate within the movement, but I didn't really understand why people argued about it. I knew I was against vivisection, but was uncomfortable talking about it because I didn't know much about it. I certainly was not prepared for the debate that is sure to result from an anti-vivisection stance, namely the presupposed need to choose between non-humans and humans. Finally I realized what I should have known all along - I need to get off my ass and start educating myself. How can I be effective if I don't fully know the issues I'm trying to talk to people about?

So I started reading. I have a lot of catching up to do. In the few months since I started the process, I have managed to read only a handful of books, but already I can feel the effects. These are important resources, these books, this information. And we need to make use of them.

My have read list:
Terrorists or Freedom Fighters
Sacred Cows or Golden Geece
The Dreaded Comparison

Currently reading:
Rain Without Thunder
Capers In The Churchyard

And in the ever growing pile of books waiting to be read:
Igniting A Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth
Eternal Treblinka
Empty Cages
Rattling The Cage
Specious Science
Speciesm

There are so many other books out there that I should read as well. "Slaughterhouse" is one that comes to mind, but I'm not sure I can read it - I've read a few quotes from it, and they haunt me. Other suggestions are welcome, though even more useful would be an extra few hours every day so I could make some progress.

Many AR titles can be found at your local library, or could be ordered through them. (Getting your library to carry more AR books is a form of mini-activism all on its own.) If you are interested in purchasing the books, I have found AK Press, Lantern Books, and Friends of Animals to be great sources. Always try to order from the publisher if you can.

There are many excellent videos out there as well, well worth seeing. I've only seen Earthlings, myself. I find videos very difficult to watch, and I think their educational focus is a bit different as well. Just as words can't adequately describe the horror of animal exploitation (though I think Slaughterhouse probably does a disturbingly good job), videos can't fully explore the arguments for animal rights.

We need to educate ourselves on animal rights if we are to be as effective as we can be. It is a big job, but an incredibly important one. I didn't realize just how important it was until I started on this path. These videos and books, these thoughts and arguments, are our tools. 'Every tool is a weapon if we hold it right' (ani difranco), and so we need to arm ourselves with the knowledge, the critical analysis, and even the Bizarro type humor. Self-education is so important for us, for the movement, and thus for the animals, that it becomes a type of activism itself. And now no one has an excuse for not being an activist! Read, watch, and learn.

Perspectives: a cat, a Barbie, and humanity

An (almost) anonymous donor recently sent me an odd gift, which sat awkwardly in my living room. A Barbie. I mean, really! Barbie! I didn't know what to do with it, so there it sat.

Until one day my cat suddenly realized that an alien form had entered her domain. Curious, she jumped up next to it for some investigation. The lack of response probably pissed her off, and realizing that she was bigger than it, and it was possible prey (my interpretation, granted), she bitch-slapped that poor innocent Barbie.

Barbie flew through the air and fell the equivalent of about 2 stories, so she should have been okay. But she landed funny, rolled a bit, and was clearly not doing well. Tempest, not content with the destruction she'd wreaked so far, jumped down to check out Barbie's status.



And watching her sniff around her molded plastic prey who looked somewhat human, I had an odd moment where I realized that though Tempest loves me, she is a carnivore. If it weren't for the size discrepency in my favor, I have no doubt she'd love me, but more in the sense of loving her next meal. Not the one I put in the bowl, but me, in her belly.

She's a cat. That's what they do. At least that is what they do when they have prey (other than the doomed Barbie) instead of food in their dish.

Humans might be busy destroying the earth and all of the resident species at the moment, but seems like a stroke of luck (good luck for humans, the worst possible for any other species) that humans survived at all. We're weak. We're slow. We are handicapped by our dull senses of smell, sight, and hearing. WTF?

Die In: A Farmed Animal Demo

A couple weeks ago I participated in a Die In, organised by FARM and held across the street from the US Department of Agriculture in DC. The Washington Monument on one side, and all these government buildings on another. You just can't feel more in the middle of governmental happenings than that, especially not when one of those giant green helicopters flies right over you.



This is not really a good feeling. We were a peaceful group, with the proper permits, holding signs, ringing a bell, and wearing black, yet our government will consider that terrorism with the new flavor of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. (Here is an excellent analysis of the AETA.)


Disturbing doesn't even cover it.

But the Die In. This was for World Farm Animals Day. I'd never been to one before, for any cause, and had no real idea what to expect. A nice nap in the sun was my thought, to be honest. And it really was the easiest demo I've ever participated in.

We got there a few minutes before it started, picked up our t-shirts (yes, I had to get a youth medium, the smallest size they had there) and milled around talking to people while waiting for it to start.


There were a bunch of people holding signs in a semi-circle, and then the rest of us layed down on the ground (mostly shady, to my great disappointment) and tried to look "dead, not asleep", as requested by Dawn of FARM.


We were giggly at first, or at least I was, and it was hard to not feel peaceful and prone to smiling. But Dawn talked about the animals in terms of numbers. In terms of how many we represented, the 50 or so of us who showed up. 1 million animals each, killed for the profit and pleasure of humans.

Every time the bell rang, every 30 seconds for 27 minutes, was symbolic of another 10,000 animals killed in those 30 seconds. 10,000 animals in 30 seconds. That really is the rate that animals are killed in this country.

It was not hard to be somber when considering these numbers. As I watched the clouds drifting across the sky, they didn't look like bunnies or snowmen, they looked like connective tissue under the microscope. They looked like processed and rendered bits of formerly sentient beings.


At the end, right before we descended upon the treats provided by Java Green and Sticky Fingers Bakery, Dawn talked about how difficult it can be to hold still for 30 minutes, that though it is not actually a long time, it can seem like a long time when you are so restricted. Yet laying on the soft grass with a gentle breeze, hearing the birds chirping and not smelling anything in particular, breathing freely, not moving, yet not constricted...compare this to life inside a gestation crate or a battery cage. Life isn't long for them, but every second must be agony.

Andy Rooney, of all people, recently said,

I often pass a farm with cows grazing in the field and I think to myself how terrible it is that human beings grow other animals just to kill them and eat them.

Isn't it, though? The good news is that human beings don't have to exploit animals at all. That we do is horrifying. That we have no need to use them, for medicine, health, entertainment, or transportation, is something everyone should be thinking about.

AR06

A couple weeks ago I went to the Animal Rights conference in DC. It was my first AR conference, and to be honest, I was going mostly because I would be in town already and some friends were attending. So I joined the crowd and signed up.

Looking back, it surprises me that I was ambivalent about the conference itself leading up to it. Maybe because I didn't know what to expect? Or maybe because I was in the middle of moving across the country and was a bit consumed by that.

Either way, I was going more to hang out with friends than anything else. And I don't think there is anything wrong with that, to tell you the truth. Networking is never a bad thing, and it can certainly be hard enough as a vegan, as someone passionate about the animals, to find people to connect with. An entire weekend surrounded by vegans? And I was in town anyway? Yeah. Oh, and Temptation Soy Ice Cream. That, alone, was worth it!

The conference itself...I was pretty blown away. For each hour long session, there were choices of what topic to hear. Amy, one of the friends I mentioned, and I ended up having the same interests, and we were focused a great deal on how to actually do things. How to research, how to engage the media, how to make changes.

With each session I got more and more fired up. I had previously gone to fur protests and to a Free The CU34 protest, I'd written a couple letters here and there, but I am not sure I was convinced that I was acomplishing anything. But here, I heard how people were doing things, and exactly what they were accomplishing. And they were telling me how I could do the same.

I came away with so many ideas, and so much fire. I am worried that it won't last, that I will have these intentions but not act on them. Hopefully I'll surprise myself.

So far, I've signed up for DawnWatch's Alerts and when I get an alert, I act on it based on Karen's advice. I'm doing something, at least.

I also bought a monkey tag from Jeremy at Primate Freedom Project and I will do my best to track down my guy. Hopefully T82004 won't be just a number. He was born in 1982. If he is still alive, he has had 24 years of experimentation. If he is still alive, I hope I can help him.

This post would be incredibly long if I tried to detail all the people I heard and all the ways they helped me, taught me, opened my mind to more ways to make a difference. I've mentioned a few people, but there are at least fifty I could have talked about.

Walking around the exhibit area was almost comical the way I'd find myself exclaiming out loud "Oh, the bizarro guy!" and have a chance talk to him and get a really cool drawing in the book I bought. Or wander by Lantern Books and say "hey, I heard you on the vegan freaks podcast!" I felt like a groupie some of the time, but it was amazing the way all of these famous (to us) people were so accessable. Karen Davis sat down and had lunch with us one day and I ended up talking to her about Peaceful Prairie and the folks in the Denver AR scene. I was talking to someone at the PeTA table, and someone else overheard our conversation and said "Oh, you're from Denver? Do you know Ann?"

The AR world is small indeed, and I'm so happy to feel a part of it. What an amazing crowd of people that was! I really feel like we can make a difference. With this passion, how can we not?

Sanctuaries...a comparison

I've posted a few times about Peaceful Prairie, the farm sanctuary in Deer Trail, CO. That was the first sanctuary I'd ever visited, and it was exactly as I pictured a farm sanctuary would be. A simple farm, the bare necessities, the dedicated people running the show, giving all of their time and resources to save the beautiful animals. Chris and Michele. Michele knows all of their rescued residents by name, by personality, by bleat and cluck and moo. She knows what they need when they call to one another, knows what she can do for them, and what they need each other for. It is a community, it is a family.

Recently I had the opportunity to go to The Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY, about 35 miles outside Ithaca. It was a beautiful location. I didn't feel like I was at a farm, though. The buildings were beautiful, everything was almost eeerily spotless. Not that things are messy at Peaceful Prairie, but they're definitely lived in.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is awesome that The Farm Sanctuary is doing everything it does to bring awareness to people. I don't know if they're the first of their kind, but they're definitely the first that most people hear about. But they not only have several brand new barns going up, replacing barns that looked perfectly servicable to me, but they have this huge gorgeous "people barn" with a gift shop. And some cabins that you can rent to stay the night at the farm.

I have such mixed feelings about this. I think about Chris and Michele busting their asses at Peaceful Prairie, Chris literally busting his back without a complaint. I think about the fact that they're begging the community to raise $24k so they can get a tractor. A tractor. Not another tractor. Just one. The first one they will have ever had, if they can raise the money for it.

And thinking about that, remembering the few hours we spent raking up one small part of the farm, the blisters (from the rake) and bruises (from goosifer) I earned, how tired we were from a mere 2 hours of work one day, and how great a need Michele and Chris have for any help at all, the comparison seems cruel. Farm Sanctuary is clearly bringing in a lot of money for them to be able to spend money on what seem like supurfluous luxuries. At least compared to Peaceful Prairie.

I can't help but to wonder how many more animals could be saved if the money had been spent on the animals instead of the people barn? Yet maybe Farm Sanctuary gets so much money because they have these special things, these extras? Many of us were upset, knowing that many people visit the Farm Sanctuary, treating it as a sort of petting zoo. I can see how that mistake would be made, to be honest. I never did see any sign of the people who founded the Sanctuary. I saw some people working, but I was only ever told the name of our tour guide. And that bothered me too, though it is more difficult to explain.

It was an odd experience overall. I can say unequivically that I prefer visiting Peaceful Prairie. Several people were deeply depressed by visiting the Farm Sanctuary, seeing it as a drop in the bucket. I think part of this feeling stems from the fact that the entire experience kept us so far removed from the animals. Yes we got to pet the cows and goats and pigs, we were told a bit about the personality of a few select animals, but overall...we were on a guided tour, guided by someone who has limited experience with the Sanctuary, and it felt very distant to me.

I contrast that to being at Peaceful Prarie, no gift shop to be found, but stories about Graebel fighting off four coyotes (not a typo!) and having to be pulled off the last coyote so it could get away...I hear about Sherman hiding from the slaughter truck, John Lee taking care of his flock, and Goosifer's neurotic behavior. They are family. And they are my family now. In comparison, visiting the Farm Sanctuary was as personal as visiting a museum.

Harsh, I realize. Still, I think we all would agree that the "little guys" are generally overlooked, whatever we're talking about. And so I urge you to support the "little guys". I can pretty much guarantee they need the support more. Your money, time, and effort will mean more to places like Peaceful Prairie, and I'm positive there are many more like them out there, getting much less attention, and therefore much less of the desperately needed money, than they deserve. These are people putting it all on the line, dedicating everything they have to the animals. And you know, this is how Farm Sanctuary started too. I'm not denying what they've done, or that they're busy saving animals, more animals in fact, than Peaceful Prairie. But right now...right now Chris is in almost constant back pain from the 20 years work he's put in on the farm. He works 60 hours a week in Denver to earn the money that supports the farm and comes home to put in backbreaking labor. Well, I think it is clear where I stand. I'll leave you to come to your own conclusions.