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​Tim Barford's VegFestUK Helping to Bring the Vegan Animal Rights Grassroots Together and to the Fore

11/25/2015

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World Vegan Day 2015 saw the inaugural Dublin VegFest, the first ever vegan-focused all-day festival in Ireland. It was a spectacular success, not least in my view because the entire event was grassroots orientated.
 
None of the usual representatives of the “animal rights corporate sector” were there – and neither there were the usual stale superstar talkers peddling “reducetarianism” and other business-led less-than-vegan positions.
 
One of the things I remember most of the day is the number of Irish activists who came up saying words to the effect: “where have all these vegans come from?”
 
They were remarking on the huge numbers of people who no-one active in the Irish movement had seen before; people who were saying that they had been vegan* for one or two years, several months, even three or four days sometimes.
 
This raises a few important movement issues, not least the worry some people have, Ronnie Lee for example, and Bernie Wright of the Dublin-based Alliance for Animal Rights, that there are far too few vegans who are active campaigners. The other thing worth pointing out is that there is absolutely no reason to think that the word “vegan” is a societal scare word that should be avoided at any time.**
 
In the light of this Irish context – and is written from Ireland during World Vegan Month where the whole animal advocacy community is buzzing from the effects of the brilliant Eden Farmed Animal Sanctuary’s Go Vegan Ireland poster, billboard and bus/train/tram campaign – it is heartening to see the recent developments in the VegFestUK campaigns.
 
VegFestUK manager Tim Barford is focusing on, and rightly emphasising, the importance and centrality of grassroots campaigning. He’s also underlining the fact that the vegan movement is, first and foremost, a social justice movement, something elements of it seem keen to jettison or downplay.
 
I think Tim Barford shares a concern that has bothered me in the last few years: the deliberate reduction of veganism from a justice-for-all philosophy to a diet, often based on shallow, often temporary, plant-based celebrities, and increasing driven by data from sales and pop psychology research which does not necessarily fit well in a radical social justice setting.
 
Justice is not for sale – or shouldn’t be.
 
It seems to me that animal advocacy in Britain as well as in Ireland – with Barford as a prime mover (he greatly assisted Dublin VegFest) – is regaining something it should never, ever, have lost: the recognition that the nub and nucleus of a social movement is its grassroots.
 
Long may this welcome phase continue, and let’s hope that this renewed focus sees off the current fad of “reducetarianism,” again based on weak research findings (if that’s not too grand a word for it).
 
So, a big shout out to Tim Barford for helping to bringing back the heart of the animal advocacy movement.
 

​

* there’s obviously the issue of whether these people were saying they follow a plant-based diet, or the expansive philosophy of veganism.
 
** this raises the question of the use of the name “VegFest” as opposed to, for example, “vegan festival.” However, it seems fairly clear from media and movement reaction that it’s understood that “VegFest” means vegan-based.



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Educating “Meat” Eaters and Vegetarians about Mammalian Biology

11/15/2015

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As vegans we are used to non-vegans being rather baffled as to what the ethical problem is with drinking cow milk and eating dairy produce.
 
Often as not we will be regaled with the line that humans are actually doing cows a favour by milking them – it would be “cruel” not to, right?
 
I think we should start on this one by asking non-vegans the question, who “normally” milks the cows. I think the chances are that they will say, “why, the farmer of course,” or words to that effect, and think the question rather silly. It’s the good ol’ farmers doing the cows the favour of milking them!
 
So, perhaps a slight variation may bring us to where we want to be. We can ask who “naturally” “milks” the cows but, you know, I think the answer may be the same – the farmers of course.
 
So, let’s change tack – and change species. We could ask, for example, if they know of women who have breastfed their babies. Perhaps they were breastfed themselves. We could then ask, well, who “milked” this breastfeeding woman, perhaps your mother?
 
They are not going to like the term “milked” at this point but we’re still getting closer to their understanding of the issue.
 
They are going to say that the woman, or their mother, fed their children by breastfeeding. So now we ask: so who “milked” them when the baby (you) went away, you know, maybe to school, or college or university when the babe was finally weaned?
 
Who did their mother this “milking favour” when they stopped feeding from the breast?
 
Is it possible, just possible, at this point that they’ll recognise the truth of mammalian biology – that it’s the child, the offspring, who “milks” the mother? Moreover, it was pregnancy that prompted lactation. Furthermore, there was no need for anyone but the child to do their mother a favour as a general matter but, in any case, the mother does not just keep on “giving” milk. There’s this magical thing called weaning when the growing mammal needs less and less milk and the mother makes less and less until she produces none.
 
For her to begin lactation again would need another pregnancy. What’s true for human mammals is true for cow mammals also!
 
Here endeth the lesson in mammalian biology – live vegan.

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VIDEO: The Commonalities of Oppression [or We Can't Just Jiggle One Piece of it Free] by pattrice jones

11/8/2015

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In this excellent video, pattrice jones talks not only about the need to understand the importance of intersectionality but gives some initial hints on how best to "do it."

We have to take all the wall down, not just parts of it.

I was particularly pleased to see pattrice jones explain how interlinked oppressions intertwine and multiply, rather than just add up (see the slide I used in a foundational sociology class for several years at the University of Wales, Bangor - top left).

For those following the new reducetarian fad in the animal advocacy movement, jones notes that we need to appreciate that the "mainstream" is not the majority, the majority is the collection of communities outside of the mainstream, alienated by "mainstreamness."

By uncritically pandering to the "mainstream," or what feminist-inspired sociologists have called the "malestream," - which is quite probably the most sexist, racist, and class privileged sectors in society - we push away and alienate the most radicalised and politicised elements of society.

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VIDEO/SLIDES: How We Grow Up as Animal Loving Animal Users(2015)

11/3/2015

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I had the pleasure of attending the inaugural Irish vegan festival, Dublin VegFest which, fittingly, was held on World Vegan Day, November 1st, 2015. I think it’s fair to say that the huge success of Dublin VegFest exceeded everyone’s expectations, and great credit is due to the organisers who did a marvellous job.
 
I gave a short presentation at the festival, entitled “How We Grow as Animal Loving Animal Users,” which was based on a snippet of my sociological research work. Essentially, the talk was about the important and powerful processes of socialisation. We are born and brought up in societies that are deeply speciesist, based on hierarchies, oppressive power relations, and inequalities based on gender, “race,” and several other interlinked variables.
 
I keep my talk down to about 15 minutes because this was the format the organiser’s favoured. I agree with them that speakers tend to speak for too long and do not give enough time for questions and observations from the floor.
 
For me, Dublin VegFest was especially noteworthy because it was totally uncontaminated with the corporate sector of the animal advocacy movement in the shape of the large, and largely welfarist, national groups. Dublin VegFest was all about the grassroots, and we in the grassroots showed without a shadow of a doubt that we can organise and put on a vegan festival as good, and as promising, as any.

[Thankyou to Eszter Vagvok for her camera work]



Talk for Dublin VegFest 2015 from Roger Yates
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AUDIO: A World Vegan Month Interview by Gerry Kelly of LMFM Radio

11/3/2015

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"There wasn't a rasher in sight as Vegans Roger Yates and Rod Shishnu popped in for a chat with Gerry," write LMFM to describe the visit to the radio station of myself and the one and only Rod Shishnu on November 3rd, 2015.

Presenter Gerry Kelly was keen to talk about the Dublin VegFest spectacular of the previous weekend, and the latest developments with "Neville" the Vegan Information Project van who was stolen recently and then recovered following a Hollywood-style chase through the streets of Dublin. The VIP have a crowdfunder in place to help get Neville back on the road so the unique style of vegan education outreach that VIP offers can begin afresh in 2016.

The thinking pig's pig, Pig Freud, also got a mention - and check out his fund raiser in aid of grassroots vegan education groups.

ENJOY!!!

Listen HERE or click on the media player below...

​


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    Roger Yates

    Dr. Roger Yates is a rights advocate and sociologist

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