Dear Colleagues: At least five times a week, I get some version of the following question: In arguing for veganism, should we stay with just the moral argument and is it somehow “wrong” or “selling out” to rely on the arguments based on human health and the environment? I am going to do a podcast […]
Dear Colleagues: In response to my comments (1,2) about the Johnny Weir matter and to my general comment on single-issue campaigns, some have suggested that if the Johnny Weir matter is a single-issue campaign, then all campaigns, including efforts to promote adoption/rescue, sanctuaries, and even veganism are single issue-campaigns. This suggestion reveals a profound lack […]
Dar Colleagues: From an article, The Rise of Dog Identity Politics, in New York Magazine For Singer, and for Newkirk, bestiality is not, in all circumstances, prohibited. “If it isn’t exploitation and abuse, it may not be wrong,” she has said. Singer, you will recall, argued a few years back that there can be mutually […]
Dear Colleagues: Last evening, I received the following email in response to my blog posts about single-issue campaigns: Prof. Francione: If single issue campaigns are not good, then does that mean that we should not support efforts to assist the suffering in Haiti because we’re not assisting the suffering everywhere else? Doesn’t that lead to […]
Dear Colleagues: As I stated in my blog essay, I think that the Weir matter was ill advised. Given that all the skaters are wearing leather, wool, etc., the effort was akin to trying to get one person at a steak banquet not to consume one teaspoon of her portion of ice cream. The Open […]
Dear Collegaues: Sixty-two years ago today, Mahatma Gandhi was murdered. Let us meditate for several minutes today on Gandhi’s fundamental teaching of Ahimsa, or nonviolence. Gandhi said many things worth meditating upon. Two of my favorites are: You must be the change you want to see in the world. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness […]
Dear Colleagues: It was reported yesterday that the American figure skater, Johnny Weir, has decided not to add white fox to the left shoulder of his free skate costume after he received “‘hate mail and death threats’ from animal rights activists.” Some animal advocates are calling Weir’s decision a “victory.” I find this puzzling. First, […]
Dear Colleagues: Victor Schonfeld, director of the influential 1982 film, The Animals Film, followed up his two-part BBC World Service program, One Planet: Animals and Us, with an editorial, The Five Fatal Flaws of Animal Activism, in the Guardian, one of the leading U.K. newspapers. Schonfeld once again made clear that the mainstream movement had […]
Dear Colleagues: In Ingrid Newkirk’s attempt to deal with Victor Schonfeld’s powerful essay, Five Fatal Flaws of Animal Activism, Newkirk tried to defend welfare reform in the following way: For those who decry gradualism, the practical philosopher Peter Singer would ask, “Would you prefer to live in the horror you’re in, bred to grow seven […]
Dear Colleagues: In 2007, I wrote an essay in response to PETA’s State of the Union Undress for 2008. PETA has now done a State of the Union Undress for 2010, this time featuring the full frontal nudity of a woman of color—all “for the animals,” of course. PETA ends this video with a quote […]