An Era of Loss

I've been denying it, but now it just seems too unreal. Everyone is dying.

My good friend's father died this semester.
My sister nearly died in a car accident this March.
My grandfather died of Alzheimers this April.
My friend Dylan committed suicide this August.
The day before his mother's birthday.
I learned that an old high school classmate killed himself last year.
A girl at my high school died of a mysterious brain inflammation last week.
A teacher's son from my high school is suffering from his second bout of leukemia.
My close friend just had a miscarriage today, after 4 months.

When everything is fleeting, what can we cling to? Maybe to making subversive pancakes, to flowers growing out of the cracks, to meaningful sidewalk art, to a stranger's smile, but fuck. There's so much loss. It hurts.

Canvas By Dylan Ravenfox

An old girlfriend would always write on my skin,
in blue or black ink. We both knew she was destined
to be a tattoo artist, though she never would admit it.
Little yin-yangs, tulips, messages like why
are you so nervous, or decisive, or spontaneous.
I let her write a poem down my spine
with a sharp black ball point,
and never found out what it said. It used to tickle
so much that she would get mad at me
for ruining the shapes. I got used to it though,
when the skin art became our ritual of afterplay,
and we kept a pen on the table beside the bed.
When she drew a stick figure angel
in between two little clouds on my thigh,
I took the pen from her and scribbled
“Don’t fake orgasms”
on her rib cage.
Eventually we broke up
because the ink was soaking in and poisoning
the whims, revealing that we didn’t really love
each other. Years later I walked into her tattoo
parlor, on a side street in Chicago.
She smiled to see that I had tracked her down,
but put a finger to my lips. She sat me down
without a word and began stabbing my forearm
with her little machine. When she was done
there was an intricate human heart, that
you could almost see beating,
colorless and real. It hurt more than I’d expected.
“Don’t worry about the girls,” she said,
“Anyone who can’t understand that
doesn’t deserve you.

From "We Are What We See" http://www.thisispush.com/read/excerpt_whereweare.htm

ShoutOut

This is a shout out to animal rights activists, who see so much pain around them, but are forced to bite their tongues in seemingly banal social settings, who are ‘not offended by the sight of meat’ when prompted -- the raw flesh of another living being, the scent almost carrying the image of slaughterhouse slashing down upon their genetically mutated bodies. But oh no, we don’t mind. We’re mainstreaming the movement, after all.

We lost a vegan voice in the movement last week: Dylan Ravenfox was an eloquent and intelligent voice for the animals. He reminded me how much we, too, are animals and how important it is to recognize our own animality. He reminded me of the importance of language and the intricacy of its structure to understanding the world we live in. The interconnectedness of social movements, and above all, the importance of art in social movements. With his loss, I feel compelled to tell you that we need to step it up a notch. He was a force to be reckoned with, and he’s gone.

Knowing that he was someone who struggled with depression for much of his life, I want to shout out to you animal advocates. The sadness that lingers behind the corners for us is real, and if you need a helping hand, I’d be happy to support you. As activists in a damaged world, we need to help each other along the path to healthiness. To healing. So that we can change this world of which we are so critical.

I feel much joy as an activist—I see the change in the world that I’m trying to create. Even though social change is slow, I see it, I see us making a difference, and it’s beautiful, invigorating, and always rejuvenating. I just wanted to take a moment to examine the shadow of this brightness – that depression is a real and serious illness and that you, me, we all must take it very seriously. Even if you’re just stumbling upon this blog, feel free to email me if you need anything at all. Sometimes having a little extra support is all we need.

Love,

Lauren

laolaughlin@vassar.edu

For radical people, they think in surprisingly binaristic terms.

(Yes I just created the word, but binary deserves a goddamn adjective.)

I'm at the Animal Rights 2010 Conference which is mad orgasmic but also challenging blur of all the best animal rights activists ever. I'm surrounded by activist 'celebrities' who really inspire me, so many who just really know what they're talking about. This includes

• Dennis Kucinich (vegan presidential candidate)
• Peter Young (ex-prisoner for freeing mink)
• Gene Baur (founder of Farm Sanctuary)
• Erica Meier (executive director of Compassion over Killing)
• Nathan Runkle (exec. director of Mercy for Animals)
• David Benzaquen (staff and previous fellow intern at Farm Sanctuary)
• Matt Rice (previous fellow at Farm Sanctuary and currently Campaigns Director at MFA) George Eisman (vegan nutritionist)
• Josh Hooten (founder of Herbivore)
• Will Potter (author of GreenIsTheNewRed.com)
• Jon Camp (founder of Vegan Outreach)
• the entire staff of COK, naturally, and all the random people I've bumped into.

Back to the title of this post:

I can not get over how goddamn divided the animal rights movement can be. I know, i know, this is old news, but seriously, there normally aren't that many of us all in a room so we don't have to address these problems.

What is the problem, you may ask? Well, here I go:

Like all other social movements, the animal rights movement is full of individuals who believe in different tactics to achieve their own defined goal of success for animals. This generally falls into two camps:

1. Animal Welfarists
2. Abolitionists

Welfarists are stereotypically the puppy-lover activists who only argue for bigger cages for slaughter animals (though many of these activists are often vegan, too.) Abolitionists do not believe in any kind of legislation that engages with, and thereby legitimizes the meat, dairy, and egg industries and only advocate for pro-veg*n education or in extreme cases, animal liberation. This has become a seriously contentious topic, because abolitionists believe that welfarists are actually hindering their own abolitionist efforts -- They argue that if legislation is passed that bans cages for layer hens, more people will feel better about buying eggs, and will actually increase their purchases of eggs--Welfarists often believe that abolitionists come on too strongly -- the most radical of abolitionists refusing to talk about anything but animal cruelty as a reason to go vegan -- which turns people off to veg*nism in the first place.

These two poles have been created, and I scratch my head. This is supposed to be one of the more radical conferences, and these people make me want to eschew away from the identity of a radical-progressive! The politics of animal rights is a continuum and organizations and people can occupy multiple points on that line when they have multiple campaigns. Must I always bring up the word spectrum? It is not an either-or question, nor should we all agree. The palpable tension and hostility between these two main camps is really frustrating, but I guess inevitable.

Gah. If anyone has ideas or suggestions as to how to navigate the strange political waters of social movements, don't hesitate to throw stuff out there. I'm all ears. I'm really passionate, but it's difficult to deal with sometimes. (It also makes me feel very wary about analyzing the role of gender in the animal rights movement for my thesis, because that will only serve to divide the movement.)

Fancy New Blog Design

Because Blogger is still free.

Diane di Prima

Stumbled upon some delicious Beat poetry. Not my words, di Prima's. Enjoy.

From her Revolutionary Letters:

#29

beware of those

who say we are the beautiful losers

who stand in their long hair and wait to be punished

who weep on beaches for our isolation

we are not alone: we have brothers in all the hills

we have sisters in the jungles and in the ozarks

we even have brothers on the frozen tundra

they sit by their fires, they sing, they gather arms,

they multiply: they will reclaim the earth

nowhere we can go but they are waiting for us

no exile where we will not hear welcome home

'goodmorning brother, let me work with you

goodmorning sister, let me

fight by your side'

This One's for You, Col.

Alright, so apparently more people read my blog than I think.

So it's time for an update.

The House (not Haus):

Intergenerational living is rad, difficult, but rewarding. The chore system is way different from Ferry's and it's really annoying/difficult. Essentially, you have to do way more work because there are messy kids who don't do any of the chores and adults who have to clean up after them. Plus we do our own yardwork, trash, maintenance, etc. It's a completely independent house, unlike Ferry. I don't like the amount of work, or the fact that it's a first-come first-served signup.

There have been a number of days where I've just wanted to climb into my room on the top floor and never come out. Sometimes the workday is really damn long, and I have a tendency to have depressive and anxiety episodes, which really doesn't help much. Over the past couple years, I've been hovering in this strange struggle between introvertedness/isolation and extrovertedness. I consider myself to be a nurturing person, and am genuinely interested in the wellbeing of all the people with whom I cross paths, so cooperative living seems to make sense, even though I do have those down times when I have a tendency to isolate. Fortunately, my housemates often support me when I'm feeling weird or shitty, which is awesome. I feel connected here to a lot of my housemates (there are varying levels of commitment, like any cooperative), and have become good friends with some of them. It's nice to come home to a cooked dinner, and great people. Coop: 1. Mainstream Society: 0.

The Job:

Working as an outreach intern has its boring times, where I'm sitting at the computer, editing vegetarian restaurant guides for hours, but I get to leaflet, and write weekly letters to the editor, organize future events, and do generally rad stuff. I've gotten pretty good and leafleting and really feel like I'm finally coming into my activist skin after my 3rd year post-enlightenment. (Thanks, Tom(?)). Working in a vegan haven like that seems feel pretty basic to me and my mental well-being. Trying to figure out whether I'd want to do non-profit work post graduation (probably will.)

Strokes of Luck:

There have been so many strange serendipitous events accumulating over the past couple months that I'm questioning my hesitation around spirituality/my usual athiesm. It was a hard semester, what with my sister's near-fatal car accident and my grandfather's death, but the goodness in life is beginning to thaw me back into reality. This is probably way too personal for a public blog, but whatever, we're all going to die anyway and I have nothing to hide from anyone.

Examples:

-finding a great guitar half off in a random mall in New Jersey that I had never been to before and will probably never go to again the day after I decide I seriously want to learn the acoustic guitar

- finding an intentional community less than a mile away from my job

- finding a housing scholarship through my hometown (of all places!) to pay for that housing

- finding an internship semi last minute with an organization I really support after everyone else was like 'fuck you'

- Dumpstering skills! 'nuff said.

- Randomly running into a fellow Vassar activist at the Capital Pride Festival (where I was tabling for COK), and finding out that she's doing an animal rights internship this summer! She was only in the DC office for a week, and I managed to grab a vegan meal with her.

-opening the Takoma Voice paper for the first time ever on an otherwise banal metro ride and seeing that Amy Goodman would be speaking that day two miles away. After serious disbelief and confirmation calls, I went and bought a $10 ticket to hear her speak. When she signed my book, I mentioned Vassar and she mentioned Joe Nevins. I drooled. I love her.

- Randomly meeting the supposed founder of the organization I work for, and finding out that he used to go to Vassar and take class with Bill Hoynes (Bill told me about this guy who "dropped out his freshman year for animal rights") What are the fucking odds I would meet this exact guy? Small world

- Randomly making an amazing Swedish vegan progressive friend in a vegan bakery in DC who I talked to for many hours about politics, culture, and language-- who was only in DC for 2 days. (Life is fleeting but beautiful.)

- running into an awesome floormate/previous classmate from Vassar on the metro (who was only coming into town for the weekend)

- being able to attend 2 amazing animal rights conferences in D.C. later this month / having free housing because I'm already here, bitches.

What the fuck. So much interconnectedness. So much awesomeness. When I look at it all like this, it makes the banal shit seem actually bearable. Everything is fleeting, but there's so much beauty, too. Count your blessings, folks. It's not cliché, it's how we survive.

Alright, this was a sufficiently personal post. Hope you enjoyed crawling inside of my mind. Make sure you shut the door on your way out.