NZ Vegan Podcast

Listen HERE

This week I comment on a breaking story by Greenpeace NZ which has everyone up in arms about how the dairy farmers are importing palm kernels to NZ by the millions of tonnes in order to supplement the feed of the dairy cows.

Thing is, nobody is vegan, so they all eat dairy products. Ummmmm?

These are the articles by the NZ Herald about the story:

Greenpeace Moves Palm Kernel Protest to Port

Greenpeace Defiant over Palm Oil Protest

Here is a link to my Indymedia NZ article (PLEASE feel free to comment! Help! :-)

Why are we blaming the farmers?

This is a link to the BRAND NEW AUCKLAND VEGAN RESTAURANT! YAY!

Golden Age Vegan Restaurant

This are to Adam Kochanowicz's fantastic resource on Vegan FM:

Vegan FM/Is it Vegan?

Golden Age on Vegan FM listing

you can also see things like ingredients listings , animal testers, alcohols that are vegan etc.

This is a link to Vegan Help on Twitter - if you are on Twitter, join in! It is helping people go vegan!

Twitter/VeganHelp

Finally this is a link to the youtube entry that Stan uploaded for me to use to practise for our next performance (there is a little mistake in there on my part but you will get the idea)

Cows

Thanks for listening

Listen HERE

This episode I talk about my support of non violence and of the abolitionist approach and peaceful non violent vegan education. I give my reasons why, based on my own personal experience and non-expert opinion, and my core beliefs, which is all I can do. In this episode I am specifically talking about some of the things that I have read over the last few weeks in which proponents of violent tactics in the name of animal rights have been getting a lot of attention, and I have read some things that I thought were not only misguided and tactically wrong, but also deeply immoral. Not all those involved are supporters of the extreme physical violence that a couple of writings and advocates are proposing, however it was very distressing to see support of these advocates by anyone at all. I realise that a lot of the really extreme positions come from people who are deeply disturbed by what is going on in our world and are perhaps totally overwhelmed with everything, the horrific amount animal exploitation and who feel desperate. I say they need to snap out of it and help us create a peaceful vegan movement, but of course they don't agree with that, nevertheless I stand firmly in my beliefs, as always.

I also object to people who are trying to confuse the issue by dragging things like Open Rescues into the debate about violence, I think that is muddying the waters and taking the focus of the debate off where it originally began and where it should remain, which was an objection to the hate mongering, propositions of actual physical violence and an escalation in violence in general by some advocates.

Finally I think we must realise that it is important for us to be there for new vegans who may be overwhelmed by their new knowledge, and help them stay sane and positive, because they are our ethical vegan movement and we need them to not lose control, we need them to help us get the ethical vegan movement going, and that is not going to happen if they spiral down into despair and hate.

And now for the good news! These are the podcasts I mentioned in the episode:

Professor Gary L. Francione from Abolitionist Approach:

Abolitionist Approach Commentary

at the iTunes store

Vincent Guihan from We Other Animals:

animalemancipation.com - We Other Animals Radio

at the iTunes store: We Other Animals Radio

And Dr. Roger Yates from On Human-Nonhuman Relations:

On Human-Nonhuman Relations Podcast

at the iTunes store

This is the link to Barbara DeGrande's Veganacious blog

http://veganacious.com/

and this is to Corey Wrenn's Vegan Examiner articles, I hope to have Corey on as a guest very soon.

Roanoke Vegan Examiner

Thanks for listening.

Listen HERE

I am very pleased to welcome back Francis Glass, coordinator of Animal Liberation Youth, from Animal Liberation Victoria. In our last interview we talked about non-vegan volunteers handing out literature, and this episode we would like to respond to the comments and concerns that raised about this subject, as it is definitely something that needs to be discussed. Thank you to Karin Hilpisch for your comments!

We also talk about young people who are going vegan and how important they are to our future, and what it is like for a young person who is still living with their parents to go vegan, the resistance some kids get from their families and 13 and 14 year olds dealing with parents who are hostile to veganism and actively try to prevent their children from being vegan. We discuss the different reasons why the parents may be reacting in this way and try to come up with more ideas on ways to help them and their children through that. This is something us independent, adult vegans can't relate to as we control our own home environments and the products that we buy, so I am very grateful to Francis for offering us some insight into that, and for reminding us that it is not so easy for young people living in controlled environments as it is for independent adults.

We also go on to talk about why we promote ethical reasons to go vegan above all other reasons such as health, environment etc, while still stressing that knowledge of these other aspects is essential too.

In my next interview with Francis we will discuss further comments raised about protesting in front of KFC and the like with regard to promoting veganism and not single issue campaigns. We didn't get a chance to cover that this time as we went off to talk about other things (as often happens on this podcast) however please be assured we will be talking about that, as it is also very relevant and valid topic for discussion. Thanks again to listeners for the great feedback and insight and suggestions and thanks to Francis for coming back on the show!

Here is the link to the Vegan Easy Challenge mentioned on the show: link here

This is what ALL the animal groups should be doing.

I mentioned a book written by a teenage vegan called Claire Askew, who I heard interviewed on Vegan Freak Radio. Claire wrote a book for teenage vegans called Generation V, and it is a fantastic resource for teenagers. Listen to the Vegan Freaks interview with Claire here

I also mentioned a quote by Marin Luther King, Jr. which in my usual style I had not committed to memory and so totally screwed up. Please forgive me as always. I will work on that! Here is the quote:

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

- Marin Luther King, Jr.

UPDATE: If anyone's audio is messed up about halfway through, please re-download. I am so sorry for making anyone download this twice. I totally messed up, and there is some audio from the last interview mixed in by accident. I loaded up the correct file. Please delete the messed up audio and re-download. Sorry!

Listen HERE

Part two of my interview with Francis Glass from Animal Liberation Youth, of Animal Liberation Victoria. We talk about the social conditioning we are up against, the deep rooted moral schizophrenia in our lives as human beings and the profound effect on our psyche and our peace of mind. We talk about young men, or all men, in many cultures who are terribly depressed and repressed because of being pressured into being so unreasonably "tough" and expected to be violent in order to prove their "toughness" (i.e. eat meat etc), and relate this to the violence we tolerate in our lives on a daily basis, violence we can end if we so choose! We emphasize how damaging this perpetual violence is to our world and ourselves, and discuss different methods to open people's minds to the knowledge that they no longer have to struggle with the guilt and the fear and the violence, and they can go vegan. Thank you Francis for coming on the show!

Listen HERE

Part one of my interview with special guest Francis Glass, an 18 year old abolitionist vegan from Australia,and coordinator of Animal Liberation Youth, which is part of the abolitionist vegan advocacy group Animal Liberation Victoria. We talk about activism, vegan education, the counterproductiveness and elitism of welfare reform, and emphasize the fact that the abolitionist movement is part of the peace movement. You can find information about this abolitionist activism in Australia by going to http://www.alv.org.au/ and http://www.animalliberationyouth.org.au/

Stay tuned for part two...

Listen HERE

I am very pleased to welcome back to the show Dr. Roger Yates. This is a topic I have been wanting to tackle for the longest time, and I am very glad Dr. Yates agreed to help me. The article we refer to in the the podcast is the following:

Independant.co.uk/world/australasia/australia-gets-the-hump

Please contact me if you have any comments or questions, this is an extremely complicated subject and I would love some feedback, as always, and I am happy to revisit this in the future.

I am, as always, very grateful to Dr. Yates for his insight and input and help. Thank you Dr. Yates!

Listen HERE

I am honoured to have again as my guest Professor Gary L. Francione of The Abolitionist Approach. We talk about the abolitionist approach and why it is fundamentally different from the welfare reformist approach, and we refer to the frequent discussions that occur between the two separate groups of thinkers, which is wonderfully illustrated on the blog My Face is on Fire, in a recent blog post. Please read the post and the ensuing comments to see what Professor Francione is talking about in this interview.

I also very strongly urge everyone to read this wonderful essay A Revolution of the Heart at The Abolitionist Approach which, as well as being wonderful in itself, is pertinent to the aforementioned article and commentary.

Also keep an eye out for "The Animal Rights Debate—Abolition or Regulation?" written by Gary L Francione and R. Garner - to be released from Columbia Press in the coming weeks...A MUST read for ALL involved in non human animal advocacy/activism, no matter what your position on strategy.

Thanks for coming on the show again Professor Francione!

Listen HERE

Part two of my interview with Adam Kochanowicz from The Vegan News, The National Vegan Examiner and abolitionistvegans.org.

We continue our talk about activism, abolition versus welfare, and the best news of all - there are vegans EVERYWHERE!

And remember to check out http://abolitionistvegans.org/ where you can get all you need to make your own Vegan Kiosk! If you have new ideas and modifications to suit different places and needs - please do it, and update us and share this with us too!

Listen HERE

This week I interview Adam Kochanowicz from The Vegan News! We talk about what Adam found out after he discovered veganism, packed his bags and went to Europe, looking for the animal rights movement, and looking to find out what people meant when they called themselves "animal rights activists" to see what kind of action they were taking. We talk about veganism, abolition, and all that good stuff.

Check out Adam's bio at the National Vegan Examiner, I recommend reading the great articles already written and keeping up with future articles, and please leave comments! Also check out http://abolitionistvegans.org/ where you can get all you need to make your own Vegan Kiosk!

Listen HERE

This week I read an essay written by Eva Batt, long standing member of the UK Vegan society. It is so well written, I am going to print it out and hand it around as part of my activism. Thanks to Nathan Schneider who has it available on his blog Vegan Abolitionist and to Randy Sandberg who added it to the text page here at Abolitionist Approach

One of the things I loved about the article was this point:

"...veganism has no connection with any political party or system, national or international. Similarly, individual vegans may be deeply religious, perhaps devout Christians or disciples of one of many other faiths and creeds in this world, but this is not a requisite of veganism, which is an everyday, fundamental way of life concerned with living without hurting others. The hereafter may, or may not, solve all our problems; but what we do now certainly affects all those around us..."

That is a wonderful statement is it not? There are many more gems like this in the article. It is worth a read or a listen, and I will be passing it along.

Enjoy!

Cool! - as I was uploading the audio, I watched Episode 7 of The Vegan News hosted by Adam Kochanowicz, and the show featured this very same article! Check out the coverage at Vegan FM

UPDATE: Professor Roger Yates left the following comment, and we were trying to get the links to become hyperlinks but I can't figure that out in the comments section either so I am posting the comment here, so you can access the links here:

Hi Elizabeth,

There are a couple of things I’d like to say on this important issue. First, we should remember that we are also vegan pioneers but in different and better circumstances. For example, we have the advantages of the internet and need never feel as isolated as the first vegans probably often did. Being a vegan is easier now than in the 1940s and 1950s (even compared to the 1970s when I became vegan). However, some new vegans are going to find it harder than others and we should help these new pioneers as much as possible, for mainstream animal advocacy neglects the fact that there is a vegan moral baseline to animal rights advocacy.

This brings me to the second point: what are we campaigning for. It seems to me that campaigning to grow the ethical vegan community (the surest means by which we can help other animals at this time) is campaigning for what we WANT as opposed to campaigning for what we DO NOT WANT in the name of politics, or pragmatics, or ‘living in the real world.’

For example, look at this 3-min video (just released this very week) about a cage-free system: http://www.worldpoultry.net/news/video-special-layer-aviary-system-4066.html Do we want to campaign FOR this sort of thing as many do, or do we want to campaign against by growing the numbers of ethical vegans?

Look at the pictures here: http://www.ciwf.ie/farminfo/farmfacts_egghens.html We could say, ‘spot the difference,’ but the picture on the left is an ‘enriched’ battery cage and the other is a standard one. The first will probably have a perch in the back and maybe some ‘nesting material.’ Leaving aside the issue of who is going to monitor this new way of regulating atrocities, do we want to campaign FOR this sort of thing as many do, or do we want to campaign against by increasing the numbers of ethical vegans until we have enough numbers to make some real changes for nonhuman animals?

The real question is where do we put our energy, commitment, time and money. Do we concentrate on what we actually want, or on something else - which we then have to campaign against anew later on. The advocates of ‘cage-free’ (or one big horrible cage) must assume that, later, they will be campaigning against the system they helped to put in place in the first place.

Roger Yates