Total Liberation

Rundown In this episode, Mexie talks with David of Robin Foods, an organization that works to address issues of food waste and food insecurity in Vienna. Robin Foods has joined activists and organizations from across Vienna in their occupation of construction sites of a disputed highway project. Their occupation has been successful in cancelling the […]

Rundown In this episode, Mexie hears from Native Hawaiian comrade, streamer and indie game developer, SilverSpook, about the disaster at Red Hill, a Navy facility on Oahu that has been leaking jet fuel into the drinking water since 1949. The most recent leak, about 14,000 gallons this year, has jeopardized the lives of Navy families […]

Rundown In this episode, Mexie speaks with Connie Spence (aka Vegan Batgirl), founder of the Agriculture Fairness Alliance and Liberation 360, organizations that work to lobby policymakers to change the laws that govern industrial agriculture and educate the public around how Big Ag operates. As Connie aptly points out, laws aren’t changed in the grocery […]

Rundown

We’ve changed our name! Mexie explains the reason for the shift and where the podcast is headed. Our new website is totalliberationpodcast.com, and our links on Patreon and Facebook have changed as well (see below).

Sources and Links

* Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/totalliberationpodcast* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/totalliberation

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Rundown

Mexie is joined by her partner Jacob and Ash and Jon from the Horror Vanguard to discuss cult classic Pass Thru by the man, the legend: Neil Breen. Breen is *so close* to a revolutionary politic -so close, Neil!- but, alas, the plot takes some unseemly turns…

Sources and Links

* Horror Vanguard: https://soundcloud.com/user-317910500* Horror Vanguard on Twitter: twitter.com/HorrorVanguard* Horror Vanguard on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/horrorvanguard/

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Rundown

In this episode, Mexie talks with Native Hawaiian comrade, streamer, and indie game developer, Silver Spook, about a range of topics. We discuss Hawaiian civilization, past, present, and future, Land Back there and everywhere, Indigenous futurism, and Silver Spook’s cyberpunk adventure game, Neofeud, which contains a number of interesting anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and decolonial themes.

Sources and Links

* Get Neofeud on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/673850/Neofeud/ * Get Neofeud on Itch.io: https://silverspook.itch.io/neofeud * Silver Spook on YT: https://www.youtube.com/user/twiliteminotaur * Support Silver Spook on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/neofeud

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Rundown

In this episode, Mexie talks with Laura Schleifer and Anas Arafat, founders of Plant the Land Team Gaza. Plant the Land Team Gaza is a vegan food justice and community projects volunteer team based in Gaza, and they recently teamed up with Million Dollar Vegan to provide 3500 vegan meals to people in occupied Palestine. We discuss how their project came together, cover the history of Total Liberationist movements in the region, and end by dispelling some mainstream propaganda about the Israeli occupation. We also talk about the marked shift happening in the vegan movement, as the vegan-washing of Isreal is much less tolerated and activists are connecting the Palestinian struggle with broader Total Liberation objectives.

Sources and Links

* Plant the Land Team Gaza: www.planttheland.org* Plant the Land Team Gaza on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlantTheLandTeamGaza* Laura Schleifer on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laura.schleifer * Anas Arafat on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008448283358* Beyond Vegan-Washing: A Brief History of Animal and Human Liberation Struggles in Israel and Palestine (by Laura Schleifer): https://issuu.com/vegfestuk/docs/forca_vegan_magazine_issue_2/18?fr=sM2YzZTM5MTc3MTM&fbclid=IwAR2iaWAy8JZcivVR36l7A76omD1hw5f0Xp9u9vroX82hOlQzEE0CE29IlTw* 7th Annual Eco-Ability Conference: https://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/2021/06/7th-annual-ecoability-conference-july-2nd-2021/?fbclid=IwAR0_eu-4vI_9X97nsU5n4ivrL4QIiKQF64eH1_CRbeSByTzu_EVGmGJuP9s* Anas speaking at the 7th Annual Eco-Ability Conference: https://youtu.be/0dcIrVd_1t8?t=2585* More links to come!

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Rundown

We’re all together! Apologies for the audio quality as we kept moving and the mic picked up everything, but Mexie, Marine, and Nix from Pynk Spots got together in Portland to record this episode! We discuss the importance of being clear about what we mean when we say we’re fighting speciesism, as this has implications for how we proceed as a political movement. We also discuss the importance of making sure our anti-speciesist movements are actually political. We say often that veganism is not a grocery list, but are we actually treating it as more than that?

Sources and Links

* Pynk Spots YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFh3fDI2O4pYIurpRhnRzQA* Pynk Spots Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/pynk-spots/id1540391376

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Transcript

F1:  [MUSIC] How can we not only discover more compassionate relations with human beings but how can we develop compassionate relations with the other creatures with whom we share this planet?

F2:  There’s an us before the wound, there’s an us before oppression, and to me pleasure is the way that we tap down into that.

F3:  We live in capitalism.  Its power seems inescapable.  So did the divine right of kings.

MEXIE:  Hey, everyone.  Welcome to the Vegan Vanguard.  It is Mexie.

MARINE:  And Marine.

NICHOLE:  And Nichole.

MEXIE:  We’re all here together in Portland.

MARINE:  Woo-hoo!

NICHOLE:  Woo!  Land of Antifa.

MEXIE:  Land of Antifa.

MARINE:  And BLM.

NICHOLE:  And BLM.

MEXIE:  Apparently.  People were real upset about it, but it’s beautiful.  We’ve been hiking in the gorgeous — I guess hills of Portland and yeah, just having a great time.  We’re here to talk to you today about speciesism and basically how we define it, and a lot of the problems with both the mainstream vegan movement, also the political vegan movement.  So, we’re really excited to talk about it.  Before we get started, I’m just gonna shout out the new patrons for this month, so thank you so much to Jeff, Adelle Goodman, and Nate Stringer.  If you would like to support the show, you can become a monthly patron donor at patreon.com/veganvanguard and for just $2 per month, you can join our bi-monthly political chats which Nicole is often present at.  I co-host the Discord with Kathrin and Mad Blender.  You can also give us a one-time donation on our website which is veganvanguardpodcast.com.  So, let’s get into it.

NICHOLE:  Let’s get into it.

MEXIE:  Let’s get into it.  So, the inspiration for this podcast came about — it was actually a few months ago, but I got a comment on the Vegan Vanguard Facebook which was quite upsetting to me.  It was upsetting to various other people because a lot of other people commented as well in support of what I was saying.  I can’t remember what the original post was.  I think it was actually a photo of a manatee.  I don’t know if you remember that, that manatee that someone had etched ‘Trump’ into or something like that, and I had posted about the connections between speciesism and whi...

Rundown

In this episode, Mexie catches up with Jon Reynolds and Meagan Sullivan, two former No Evil Foods employees who were pivotal in the union drive effort at the company. Jon and Meagan joined Mexie on an episode last summer to discuss No Evil Foods’ union-busting tactics (that episode is listed below). Mexie also speaks with Jeremy, another former No Evil Foods employee who was laid off last month when NEF declared they were outsourcing production and fired all workers without notice or severance. The three talk about this experience, what led up to it, and how they stepped up to support the workers.

Sources and Links

* Mo Evil Foods website: moevilfoods.com* Mo Evil Foods on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mo-Evil-Foods-109899510744712/* So Evil Foods on IG: https://www.instagram.com/soevilfoods/* Birdie Gregson on Twitter: https://twitter.com/birdiegregson?lang=en* Vegan Union Busters: No Evil Foods (Last Year’s Episode): https://veganvanguardpodcast.com/54-vegan-union-busters-no-evil-foods/ * Mexie, Why I’m No Longer VeganTM: https://youtu.be/oY_Dt1jey4M* A Privileged Vegan, Why Veganism Must be Anti-Capitalist (NOW!!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbT2y8VR7WE* Kathrin, Veganism, Capitalism, and Intersectionality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xnx1eEJcDo

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Transcript

F1:  [MUSIC] How can we not only discover more compassionate relations with human beings but how can we develop compassionate relations with the other creatures with whom we share this planet?

F2:  There’s an us before the wound, there’s an us before oppression, and to me pleasure is the way that we tap down into that.

F3:  We live in capitalism.  Its power seems inescapable.  So did the divine right of kings.

MEXIE:  Hey everyone, welcome to the Vegan Vanguard.  It is Mexie, and following up on our last episode on the union-busting of vegan company Lush Cosmetics, we’re doing a little vegan union-busters mini-series here sadly, because it’s sad that there are so many vegan union-busters that we can make a whole series.  But we’re following up today with workers from No Evil Foods, the vegan food producers who used socialist iconography and messaging to market their products and then proceeded to bust the workers union drive and fire several of them, and recently have just fired their entire staff without notice or severance.  Yay; yay vegan capitalism oppressing and exploiting human animals while not mounting a significant challenge to growing global meat consumption.  Yay.

I will just reiterate from the previous episode on Lush that until the vegan movement understands speciesism as a systemic oppression and understands that animal agriculture as we know it today grew out of white supremacy and capitalism, the mainstream vegan movement will continue to promote false solutions to this problem, namely that everyone should just change their grocery lists while not actually challenging the systems at the root of both non-human and human animal oppression.  It’ll make a lot of money for certain vegan capitalists and as we have seen,

Rundown

In this episode, Mexie talks with former Lush Cosmetics employee, Hannah, about the company’s gross union-busting tactics and why she and others formed the Global Lush Union. As the mainstream vegan movement continues to focus itself on consumption under capitalism, it’s no wonder that vegan brands are replicating the same kind of colonizing and inequality-producing tendencies of capitalism itself.

Sources and Links

* Global Lush Union: https://globallushunion.com/* Global Lush Union Petition: https://globallushunion.com/our-petition-1* How Lush Cosmetics Tried to Crush a Union Drive: https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkd77m/how-lush-cosmetics-tried-to-crush-a-union-drive * Lush Cosmetics’ employees say the company leadership is trying to quash their attempt to unionize — despite supporting unions at other companies: https://www.businessinsider.com/lush-leadership-rejects-union-despite-supporting-them-for-other-brands-2020-12* Help No Evil Foods workers: https://www.moevilfoods.com/

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Transcript

F1:  [MUSIC] How can we not only discover more compassionate relations with human beings but how can we develop compassionate relations with the other creatures with whom we share this planet?

F2:  There’s an us before the wound, there’s an us before oppression, and to me pleasure is the way that we tap down into that.

F3:  We live in capitalism.  Its power seems inescapable.  So did the divine right of kings.

MEXIE:  Hey everyone, welcome to the Vegan Vanguard.  It is Mexie and today we have on Hannah who is a former Lush Cosmetics employee to talk about the company’s union-busting and why she and others formed the Global Lush Union.  We have talked previously on the podcast about vegan companies engaging in union-busting and other anti-labor practices.  If you will remember about a year ago, we had on workers from No Evil Foods which is a vegan company that branded itself using socialist iconography which not only busted up unionization efforts a year ago but recently fired all of their employees without severance.  Absolutely unbelievable, so please go follow @soevilfoods on Instagram to see how you can help support those workers.

I believe they’re on Twitter as well, but as you probably know, I have deleted my Twitter.  But it’s really sad that the mainstream vegan movement has been so co-opted by capital.  It’s been so focused on consumerism and just trying to get everyone to buy vegan products that it hasn’t been terribly effective in actually transforming government policies.  I mean, certainly there have been great victories, right, but it hasn’t been terribly effective in transforming our global food systems for lasting animal liberation.  As we talk about a lot, we’re killing and people are eating more animals today than ever before.

Yes, of course our population has grown, but meat consumption is also rising at a pace that is outstripping population growth, so it’s just really sad to see the mainstream vegan movement so co-opted, amenable, so fused with capitalism that it’s just becoming yet another capitalist industry that harms workers who are human ani...