August 2014 – Animal Rights The Abolitionist Approach

Video of Rutgers Conference: “Animal Ethics: Abolition, Regulation, or Citizenship?”

August 23, 2014/in Blog/by Gary L. Francione

On April 11, 2014, Rutgers University School of Law had a Conference, Animal Ethics: Abolition, Regulation, or Citizenship? that featured:

Anna E. Charlton, Adjunct Professor of Law, Rutgers School of Law–Newark, and former Director, Rutgers Animal Rights Law Clinic
Luis E. Chiesa, Professor of Law and Director, Buffalo Criminal Law Center, SUNY Buffalo
Sherry F. Colb, Professor of Law and Charles Evans Hughes Scholar, Cornell University
Sue Donaldson, independent researcher and author (co-author with Will Kymlicka of Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights)
Michael C. Dorf, Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law, Cornell University
Gary L. Francione, Board of Governors Professor, Distinguished Professor of Law, and Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy, Rutgers School of Law–Newark
Will Kymlicka, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy, Queen’s University (Canada)
David Nibert, Professor of Sociology, Wittenberg University
Gary Steiner, John Howard Harris Professor of Philosophy, Bucknell University

Thanks to the Rutgers IT folks and Vincent Guihan, we have the conference available for you to watch on video:

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If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
Board of Governors Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University

The Vegan Society: “Corporate Partners” With “Sustainable” Animal Agriculture

August 8, 2014/in Blog/by Gary L. Francione

Triodos Bank invests in, among other things, organic/”sustainable” animal farming.

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And guess who’s a Corporate Partner with Triodos Bank?

That’s right. The Vegan Society.

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Please understand: I am not saying that The Vegan Society should not accept a donation from Triodos–or anyone else. No money is clean. My point is that The Vegan Society ought not be “Corporate Partners” with Triodos and the idea that the The Vegan Society logo is attached to the bank is deeply disturbing.

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If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
Board of Governors Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University

The Vegan Society: You Decide

August 7, 2014/in Blog/by Gary L. Francione

In the face of significant criticism for embracing “flexible veganism” in the form of its “You don’t have to be vegan to be buy products with the Vegan Society Trademark” rebrand, The Vegan Society put out a statement on August 5, 2014 that read, in part, that its “aims and objectives remain unaltered from those of our founders 70 years ago.” Here is a portion of the statement:

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Is this accurate? Let’s see.

Here is Donald Watson, who founded The Vegan Society in 1944:

We can see quite plainly that our present civilisation is built on the exploitation of animals, just as past civilisations were built on the exploitation of slaves, and we believe the spiritual destiny of man is such that in time he will view with abhorrence the idea that men once fed on the products of animals’ bodies. (Watson, 1944)

Here is Watson, in a 2002 interview:

Take the broad view of what veganism stands for – something beyond finding a new alternative to scrambled eggs on toast or a new recipe for Christmas cake. Realise that you’re on to something really big, something that hadn’t been tried until sixty years ago, and something which is meeting every reasonable criticism that anyone can level against it. And this doesn’t involve weeks or months of studying diet charts or reading books by socalled experts – it means grasping a few simple facts and applying them.

Here is Jasmijn deBoo, present CEO of The Vegan Society:

The full slogans of the Love Vegan campaign so far are as follows:

“You don’t have to be vegan to love vegan lipstick.”
“You don’t have to be vegan to love vegan trainers.”
“You don’t have to be vegan to love vegan ice-cream.”

We know that we need to be inclusive and non-judgemental if we are going to encourage and support large numbers of people to go vegan and stay vegan.

deBoo justifies the shift from veganism as a moral imperative to a focus on getting people to buy products that have The Vegan Society Trademark:

As we receive no government funding, the vast majority of our income is generated by our Vegan Trademark registration scheme. Having more vegan products registered with the Vegan Trademark achieves three things: it gives people more confidence when shopping for vegan products, it shows companies and retailers that the vegan market share is growing, and it funds The Vegan Society’s charitable work.

From Watson’s vision of veganism as a moral imperative to deBoo’s vision that “You don’t have to be vegan to buy products that have The Vegan Society Trademark” and not being “judgemental” about the exploitation of animals.

Watson in 2002:

We don’t know the spiritual advancements that long term veganism -I mean not over years or even decades, but over generations, would have on human life. It would be certainly a different civilisation, and the first one in the whole of our history that would truly deserve the title of being a civilisation. Full stop.

Vegan Society Ambassador Fiona Oakes in 2014:

Veganism is not “for everyone” and “not probably for very many people.” (Oakes, BBC Radio)

“[U]naltered”? I know what I think. But it’s for you to decide.

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If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
Board of Governors Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University

Speciesism in a Nutshell

August 3, 2014/in Blog/by Gary L. Francione

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If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
Board of Governors Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up: Vegan Society “Ambassador” Claims That Promoting Veganism as a Moral Baseline “Damages” Animals

August 1, 2014/in Blog/by Gary L. Francione

Fiona Oakes, Marathon runner and “Ambassador” of The Vegan Society, who stated on BBC Radio that veganism is not “for everyone” and “not probably for very many people” and who reinforced the notion that those who promote veganism as a matter of moral baseline and moral imperative are “aggressive, petty. . .fundamentalist nutters” stated that my position critical of her upset her “for the animals, the damage such comments and aggression do them.”

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So those who advocate for veganism as a matter of moral principle are causing “damage” to “the animals.”

Ms. Oakes made this statement in a thread on the Facebook page of Tim Barford Manager of VegFestUK, who supported Oakes, claiming:

Sadly it it is true that many people don’t get on well with a vegan diet and get very ill on it. Not an ethical justification obviously, but a plain statement of fact.

Yes, that’s right. Just in case that you cannot wrap your mind around this, here’s the post:

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Also, in response to a claim by someone that “people…like” me “prevented [him] going vegan for years. To think of all the animal cruelty [he] contributed to because the frightening enthusiasm of such people held [him] back,” Oakes expressed agreement and stated:

People are generally frightened of what they do not know or understand at the best of times but when it is presented to them in a ‘frightening’ way also, then they just back away and the aggression they are encountered with gives them the perfect ‘ excuse’ to do so.

Hard to believe, isn’t it? Well, see for yourself:

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So Oakes agrees that promoting veganism as a moral baseline is preventing people from going vegan and that explaining veganism as a moral baseline in a creative, nonviolent way is “aggression” and “frightening”?

You really cannot make this stuff up.

In my judgment, people like Fiona Oakes and Tim Barford are doing tremendous damage by reinforcing the idea that there are two options: (1) being a “fundamentalist nutter” who acts like a “radical extremist who just appears to be dictating to everyone what they should and should not do” or (2) stating that veganism is not “for everyone” and “not probably for very many people” because “many people…get very ill” on a vegan diet.

There is a third option: creative, nonviolent vegan advocacy.

But that does not fit with the new program of moral relativism and “flexible” veganism of The Vegan Society, for which Oakes and Barford are acting as cheerleaders.

Many people do care morally about animals. It is time that we stop treating them like idiots and engage in discussion with them about why their own moral concern should lead them to stop participating in the exploitation of animals and to go vegan.

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If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
Board of Governors Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University

ADDENDUM, added August 6, 2014:

Bob Linden of Go Vegan Radio invited Fiona Oakes to his show to discuss these issues with me. She declined. Her spokesperson stated:

[W]e don’t want to continue the debate as it is essentially detrimental to the animals and the vegan cause.

So saying that veganism is not “for everyone” and “not probably for very many people,” and referring to those who promote veganism as a moral imperative as “fundamentalist nutters” is not detrimental to the animals and the vegan cause, but discussing it is.

You really can’t make this stuff up.