Furthering Oneself from the Culture of Meat: Good or Bad?

I keep asking myself if it's a bad thing that I'm losing my connection more and more to the culture of meat-eating. On the one hand, that's a good thing. It's a great thing! But by losing my tie with this huge part of our culture (current culture, I should add) am I separating myself too much from omnivores? That is to say, from a campaigning standpoint, am I losing my ability to connect to meat-eaters ? Am I losing my ability to effectively rework the culture of meat, but removing myself from it? Culture is moldable, after all, and just requires a good bit of time and energy to change. Here's the equation for you right-brained people (also I'm bored, and procrastinating on homework)

TIME + starting a VeganDialogue + vegan cupcakes + SUSTAINED PATIENCE

= Vegan Revolution !

So I ask myself, am I still able to effectively relate to the people I'm talking to?

It's true there are always the lines like ---

• "I used to love meat!"
• "This tastes just like meat, try it."
• "I know that veganism sounds kind of extreme but... "

all of which help the non-vegan in question from feeling judged. Also to keep her/him from completely tuning me out, and everything that I have to say, for fear that I've just lost it.

Making Non-Veg Alliances? This has consequently led me to consider developing slightly odd ties/alliances with my friends who are vegetarian or omnivore and get their insight as to how best campaign. For instance, I could show them a series of pamphlets, videos, presentation methods and they could respond with their feedback. Especially when it comes to vegan food, I sometimes question how people really find Isa's cupcakes of heaven (As for me, I don't remember what milk tastes like.. though I was mildly lactose intolerant for most of my childhood anyway. As are many people.) AND! If you ask someone about this business, they may *MAY* actually listen to what you have to say for once.

---%---

But as I was thinking about how far I'm separating myself from the culture of meat, I have to pat myself on the back. Once you've seen all the pain, suffering, and madness that goes on in the meat industry, you just kind of want to run out into the street and scream at the top of your lungs "DIE YOU MOTHERFUCKING AGRI-INDUSTRY OF HELL!" And sometime it really hurts. It really fucking hurts at first to see so much and feel so disempowered. To see a mother bellowing for her calf in just 8 oz. of milk. A putrid, ammonium-wreaking, file-cabinet-sized hen facility in every little egg. And a serving of meat? Tail-burning, beak-clipping, ineffective stun-guns, "kosher" lies, scalding tanks.

Sometimes it hurts, but when you realize how much of an impact you can have, everything kind of looks up. I've been a vegan activist for not too long, and I can already see the impact I've made on my friends and family. And as W.E.B. DuBois once said,

One thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long.

Time sure as hell is long. But it's important to keep that in mind. Because change is a-happening.

Luxembourg: Marche contre la FOURRURE

(see official website here)

This weekend I trekked out to Luxembourg (4h drive from Paris) for a march & tabling event against the fur industry with the organization I've been working with : Fourrure Torture. Because the AR movement and activism in general is not as developed in Luxembourg as it is in a super-urban setting like Paris (according to the people I spoke with there), I think it made quite an impact even if it was smaller than most of the events I've attended before.

There were about 8 organizations tabling, and there was vegan food up for sale, thanks to an organization from Luxembourg called SAVE ANIMALS:

Deets for the Eats:

1euro for a bowl of vegan pasta and 2 euros for a large plate. Basic white-flour noodles with carrot and cucumber bits and a creamy vegan sauce. Preserved in monster tupper-ware-ish boxes. I can't imagine that costing too terribly much, and think I'm going to look into doing that for another event.

Another thing to remember! Activists need to eat, no matter what, so why not bring your vegan catering to non-vegan events? That's a form of activism in itself and shows people that vegan food is not only edible but damn tasty!

However what was super about these guys were that they were environmentally friendly and they bought actually dishes and silverware so as to avoid buying disposable plates and dishes. Really smart idea, and they just added a deposit fee so that people don't forget to bring back the dishes. They went to their home in Luxembourg and washed them allll around 6pm and then served us dinner at the bar/café at 8pm (where I did not take photos, sorry). Dinner was a pumpkin soup of heaven with super-oily, therefore delicious home-made croutons and parsley garnish.

Requirements: Crockpot + silverware + dishes and they were ready to get the vegan party started.

Signs from a German Org:

Above: "Fur Trade is Death Trade / Boycott the Murder of Furbearers"

Right: "Don't say you didn't know about it!"

There was one German AR org who REALLY had their shit together : TierFreunde (which means Friends of the Animals). I was quite impressed. Check it out:

They were playing Earthlings from the TV screen in the back of their car!

(English is one of the languages they speak, in addition to French, German, & Luxembourgeois.)

TierFreunde had

• an official-looking banner
• traps with [fake] stuffed animals
• orange umbrellas and tables to match their theme
• professional looking signs (see 2nd photo)
• an old van that they converted to an AR-Mobile!
• Lots of Pictures

**super idea for stands, if you have a tent: clothes line/string + clothespins + pictures = more visuals for your table!

Here were the rest of the orgs:

Fourrure Torture (FR) (DE)

Animal Justice (LUX) Bite Back (Dutch)

------------------------ Bite Back -------------------------

Regarding the image of the halloween mask + fur coat: not a bad display, I must say . I think the best part was when these giggly 13-yo/14yo girls walked by and wanted to take a picture with it. They walked up to it to take a picture and then were like "Oh! This is AGAINST fur?" I'm pretty sure that made my day. I couldn't believe that a halloween mask had the ability to be ambiguous.

Some Snapshots of The Protest

I don't think there were any welfarist groups present (which was kind of nice... as much fun as it is to hear people hypocritically chatting about how horrendous it is that cat and dog fur is secretly used in fur coats.) There was a slight tension, as always, between the more radical and non-radical groups. For instance, when there was chanting "One Struggle, One Fight! Animal Liberation, Human Rights!" or "ALF! ALF!" my friend and I looked at each other and kind of scratched our heads.

Unfortunately, the Animal Rights Movement is not one struggle and I don't think it ever can be. There are and will continue to be moments when we can work together for the most part, but of we all had the same ideas, we would only be one organization with multiple subgroups. Also, we see these kinds of divides in pretty much every social justice movement ever (ex: women's rights, civil rights, etc.) If you ask me, it's somewhat problematic to go through the streets chanting things about the ALF because the ALF is technically an illegal organization. I'm making no comments whatsoever about my own support or non-support for the ALF, but there is something to be said for allowing moments for non-radical AR groups to do their thing.

Albino

This German hiphop artist was kind of amazing -- really eloquent lyrics that tie speciesm to other methods of oppression such as sexism, capitalism... all with some ass-kicking beats. I would definitely go see this guy perform. If you can understand German, *please* check out some of his lyrics here or the music here.