NZ Vegan Podcast

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This week I talk to Pao Aldana AKA Porolita, who lives in Guatemala and is spreading the vegan message on YouTube in English and in Spanish, plus educating people in her local community about veganism and abolition.  We talk about Porolita's journey to veganism, the ease and necessity of abolitionist advocacy, the usefulness of social networking sites like YouTube to spread ideas, and what it is like to be vegan in Guatemala.   Please check out Porolita's great videos on her YouTube channel:

Porolita22

and here is the video featuring her Mom, talking about her experience with illness and her doctor's advice that she immediately switch to a vegan diet in order to save her health, and what happened after:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePc0m24aDVQ&feature=email

This is the link to Porolita's vegan cooking blog (in Spanish) which she uses to educate members of her community or the surrounding regions on how easy and cheap it is to sustain a vegan diet in Guatemala and therefore other countries with similar climates and food types:

La Lonchera de Un Vegan

This is the link to the BBC World One Planet documentary that we discussed on the podcast:

Animals and Us Part 1

Animals and Us Part 2

I would like to thank Porolita for coming on my podcast!  Enjoy!

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I have had a wonderful week hanging out with my fellow NZ abolitionists William and Vish, and we had a chance to do the street stall together!  This epidsode we talk about our experiences on Queen Street in our first street stall event of 2010.

We also mention Part 1 of the BBC Documentary Animals and Us which is archived here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005k2zy

Thanks Vish for coming up to Auckland to visit us and thanks to both William and Vish for helping with the street stall and for coming on the podcast.

Enjoy!

And remember; THE WORLD IS VEGAN!  If we want it.

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This week I am very pleased to have back as my guest William Paul.  We talk about his experience as a peaceful activist and how about an occurrence where he was challenged on his nonviolence stance while speaking out against violence.  We also talk about the NZ Vegan Society's Big Book of Vegan Products which is a fantastic new resource by this great new NZ Vegan Society.  We discuss the up-and-coming (we hope) SAFE vegan campaign and whether it will actually happen, how it will happen and whether it will it actually be a vegan campaign that we can get behind, among other things.

Also as both William and I have unfortunately been without internet access for a week, coincidentally, we came back online to discover the recent development of a wonderful new resource for vegan advocacy by Gary Francione and the team at The Abolitionist Approach which is based on John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "War is Over if you want it" Times Square Billboard:

The World is Vegan! If you want it.

Links:

theworldisvegan.com

William Paul on Facebook

William Paul on Twitter

The NZ Vegan Society on Facebook (please join and show your support!)

Please look at all the resources for The World is Vegan! if you want it resources from:

Vincent Guihan at We Other Animals

Adam Kochanowicz at The Vegan News

John Colvin

Please also read this NOTE from Professor Francione about the billboard:

Thanks everyone for all this great work and thanks to William for coming back on the show!

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Just articulating some things that I have been trying to come to terms with lately, specifically this desire to see "results" and to claim responsibility for things we really have no right to claim responsibility for.

When someone takes animal rights seriously and goes vegan, it's their "victory" and no one else's.  The benefit is for all, but the credit for that is given to the individual who takes that action.  And alternatively if people resist and turn away, that also lies with them.  Let us pay closer attention to our own actions as individuals and if more of us do that, advocates especially, then I think there will be some wonderful "results".

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The second half of my conversation with Adam Kochanowicz where we talk about issues and opinions and share experiences as two advocates for abolitionist veganism in this speciesist, welfarist world! Enjoy!

Please check out the interview with Gary Francione at The Vegan News:

All Episodes

Subscribe to The Vegan News Video

Subscribe to The Vegan News Audio

Or watch on YouTube

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This week I was chatting with Adam Kochanowicz, as we often do, and we thought it would be an interesting experiment to post our conversations about events and about what we think and what we are doing, and see if anyone else can relate!

Please check out the interview with Gary Francione at The Vegan News:

All Episodes

Subscribe to The Vegan News Video

Subscribe to The Vegan News Audio

Or watch on YouTube

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This week I address the silliness of thinking that it is "manly" to consume animal products, specifically "eating meat" because that is one of the most touted myths and one of the biggest misunderstandings of our times, and is another paradigm shift in thinking that we must dismantle and redirect towards obvious truth. Thanks for listening!

Please check out these quotes at Atheist Vegan:

Pro Slavery

Anti Slavery

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This week I have a long awaited and well worth the wait interview with Corey Wrenn from the Roanoke Vegan Examiner.  We talk about Professor of Philosophy Bernie Rollins with whom Corey is taking an animal "rights" seminar, and the many challenges involved in being the only actual rights advocate in the room, and that includes the lecturer.  We also discuss student advocacy, the absence of animal issues from the environmental movement. sociology and academia in general,  and discuss what will be involved in Corey's PhD.

Enjoy!  Thanks so much to Corey Wrenn for coming on the show.   You can follow her on Twitter at this link.

Major apologies from me for not checking my SKYPE input and using the built-in mic rather than the headphone mic.

You can play 'guess the frequency!' every time my mic comes in.  Sorry for the hummmmmmmmmm and whhhhhhirrrrrrr. :-)

(lucky I am not getting paid to do this, if I were my boss I would fire me)

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This week I talk about how as a vegan consumer in a capitalist society I am trying to work as best as I can in the system, as a consumer in my daily life, aside from the main focus of advocating to individuals for a paradigm shift, and opening people's minds up to a fundamentally different way of thinking about all other animals and life on the planet by promoting the abolitionist approach and veganism. I admit I am very uneducated about politics, history, agriculture, sociology, and a myriad of other extremely important subject matters related to vegan advocacy, so I will do my best to educate myself as best I can for the rest of my life, and in the meantime lean heavily on my colleagues and fellow advocates who ARE educated in these things :-)

So this podcast is just some of my personal thoughts, as always, and I do appreciate any advice and constructive criticism. One of the things I touch on is how we can avoid buying from companies that are direct exploiters of animals and their products, i.e non vegan restaurants for example. The truth is, most of us can't. I mean, we can easily choose to avoid some of them (non vegan restaurants for example) but what about the supermarket? What about where we buy our clothing? What about where we buy our fruit and vegetables? My fruit and vege place sells eggs and ice cream bars. Some people are lucky enough to have access and money to buy all their products from purely vegan online suppliers, but I am not one of them.

That is why I always affirm that I personally am part of the problem, which is one of the many reasons I feel such a strong urge to rectify the problem and why make it my personal responsibility to do so as best I can. Please keep in mind, this is nothing at all like some "Vegan Outreach" advocacy that says "oh don't make a fuss and try to be pure, just eat the egg product every now and then so people don't think we are too fanatical". No no no. I am an ethical vegan. I am, however, a human being, an active consumer, and I live in a speciesist society, and whether I like it or not, I am contributing to industries that exploit animals, even when I buy my fruit and veges from the fruit and vege store. BUT we must let the producers know we vegans exist—that there is a legitimate and lucritive demand for vegan products. I am not a supporter of capitalism, I would like to see a better system, but I also live in reality and face truths. Right now, today, I live in a capitalist society and am an active member and consumer in that society whether I like it or not. So in the meantime too, while we are still working for change, we must have a voice. It will grow to a thunderous roar, right now it is a whisper in the grand scheme of things. But that will change. Until it does; don't be shy! Demand vegan! Ask for vegan products. Enquire about vegan products. MENTION vegan products at the very least. Educate sellers and producers about the vegan consumer. Tell them it's a guaranteed sale. That'll prick up their greedy little ears.

Note: I don't consider "prick up their ears" to be a bad animal metaphor. That is because the way I look at it; noting that some lovely animals have ears that can prick up and using it metaphorically for human animals whose ears don't prick up doesn't have anything to do with exploiting the animals whose ears do prick up, so I think this is an acceptable animal metaphor. Thoughts?

There is SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT it is just an inexhaustible subject this animal exploitation, unfortunately. I wish we didn't have to talk about it, but we DO.

This week I mentioned some other podcasts and blogs and I would like to provide those links here, but they are also in my blog link list too.

Firstly I mentioned Gary Francione's latest episode from his Abolitionist Approach Commentary:

A Discussion of Abolitionist Principals

Roger Yates from his On Human Nonhuman Relations podcast:

Dehumanization Processes Part One

Dehumanization Processes Part Two

Vincent Guihan from We Other Animals and Animal Emancipation:

We Other Animals Radio

I must make a correction - the podcast is called We Other Animals Radio not Animal Emancipation. I am sorry!

Sam Tucker from Food for Thought Radio

fftradio podcast on iTunes

And Jordan Wyatt from Jaywontdart's Podcast has a new blog and vegan podcast:

Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals

And this is the link to my favourite vegan restaurant in the whole world (especially since it is right here in Auckland NZ)

Golden Age Vegan Restaurant

This is the video that Randy Sandberg posted:

Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood. It is blood chilling, but watch it! Knowledge is power! This is all part of it too. Thanks Randy, this is a great find.

Finally, I was wrong (in a good way) there ARE other actual physical vegan stores in the world. Here is one:

The Pangea Store in Rockville Maryland.  I am sure there must be others.   Awesome!

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Just having a little whine today. Things have just GOT to change!