Here’s some incredibly niche philosophy arguments encase you ever feel the need to defend rescuing animal products that have gone past the best before date like bread with whey in it from shops for free and eating it yourself or sharing them out: Firstly it can be great animal rights advocacy in rare circumstances like so; by setting up a Food not Bombs stall in the town centre and putting up a vegan sign in front of a big pan of vegan stew and a freegan sign infront of rescued bread. The vegan sign can provoke lots of interesting conversations about the ethics of breeding and killing animals. While the freegan sign can get people talking about a further layer of if it is true that harming animals for their meat, milk and eggs was necessary to feed the population, how come so very much meat, milk and eggs ended up rotting in supermarket skips instead? Which can provoke further conversation about the evils of producing such an energy intensive product like meat to just become food waste, while people are starving around the world. Secondly non-human animals we farm don’t experience a worse quality of life worrying about whether they’re going to be eaten by other humans after they’re dead, humans do as a species norm. Thirdly there exists healthy human cultures in which humans being eaten by non-human animals after they’re dead is seen as a positive, for example in Tibet, having your energy transferred into that of a bird is seen as a beautiful thing or green burials where your body can more easily become nutrients for both animals and plants. So then, healthy human cultures in which non-human animals are eaten by humans is also likely possible. And finally, even if it’ll be a better world when everyone is vegan and we’re all disgusted by animals products (in the same way as if no one ever felt pressured by sexist beauty standards to shave their legs again), that doesn’t mean that it’s not morally permissible to consume some of those animal products at the moment i.e. it’s not comparable to cannibalism where you’re causing worse quality of life in other humans by normalizing it or normalizing the standard that women should have their genitals mutilated as neither the choice to shave your legs or eat thrown out animal products necessitates violating anyone’s rights or causing harm to anyone.

Re; Freeganism Is Evil (Vegan Footsoldier vs Ishkah)

TL;DW I advocate reasons for viewing far-left direct action positively, while my liberal opponent argues for a narrower set of justifications. Hopefully people find the dialogue around ethical foundations and campaign case studies useful. I had this good debate a few days ago in the <a href="https://discord.gg/ZfgjEqrmYa" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Arthuria server</a> on the proposition; It has been and will likely continue to be for some time, in some cases both ethically justified and good political advocacy to use direct action tactics ranging from civil disobedience up to economic sabotage and fighting evil actors today. Meaning in terms of campaigning against state, corporate and social harms, I think people should have available to them tactics ranging from purposeful; civil disobedience, to graffiti &amp; culture jamming, to hacking, to sabotage &amp; fighting. But, stopping short of political killing today under representative systems. An example of fighting evil actors would be sometimes fighting people who are displaying character vices and making them feel afraid as being the best solution, like repeat offending rapists and paedophiles. And an example of economic sabotage would be both making a statement and making it more costly for a system or person to continue doing that action, like sabotaging a draft office, disrupting the governments ability to send people to Vietnam. Here’s my longer essay on the subject: <a href="https://activistjourneys.wordpress.com/2021/02/21/on-the-far-left-effective-activism-violence" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">On The Far-Left, Effective Activism &amp; Violence</a> And finally, in preperation for the debate I started cataloging the history of revolutionairy groups and campaigns to look for interesting case studies which you can find here: <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19TBOx3gUizmo-yXxWjIO6joeJ2Av0BHW_YFUVVHFBGs/edit?usp=sharing" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Left-Libertarian History Case Studies</a>

Debate On The Ethics Of Direct Action w/ Walt Anderson

Debate Proposition: We should define veganism as “an animal products boycott” which is primarily against animal agriculture, and not “veganism is a way of life that seeks to place the value of animal life, health and liberty above the value of substitutable classes of goods, services and uses derived from animals.”At the 32:30 mins mark in the video, I gave a rebuttal to Shadow’s definition, on why I think myself and other vegans don’t and shouldn’t have to fit under his definition, but either he didn’t understand it and/or I didn’t explain myself clearly enough.He views anyone who would ‘substitute meat in their shopping trolley for vegetables’ as what qualifies them as a vegan (fitting under his definition), but I disagree that it has to be because you’re strictly valuing a hypothetical animal that got a chance to live, higher than the one that died to make the animal product which you’re substituting for vegetable products.I desire to grant guardianship laws to animals to collectively be able to seek refuge in a specific area of wildlife habitat because I can recognize they desire to express their capabilities, having land they can call their territory helps them fulfil this need, and I can recognize if I was born into the world as an animal or severely disabled human I would want access to resources to fulfil my needs.Another way of saying this could be I place the value of getting to see wildlife in dense wildlife habitat above the value of strip malls, business parks and open cast coal mines.I don’t think I ought place the value of animal life, health and liberty above the value of substitutable classes of goods, services and uses derived from animals.So two exceptions to the rule could be:<ol><li>I don’t think I’m viewing the value for the animal to live in the wild as being higher than the value a sheep would find on a semi-wild farm protected from predators and then turned into a substitutable class of meat towards the end of it’s life. (Even thought I think a fully wild habitat would offer more life for more animals and not slaughtering would offer a more virtuous life for the human).</li><li>And I even think that I value the class of goods of carrots above the substitutable class of goods of apples which puts the value of animals life lower in some circumstances, like turning over soil to let seagulls feast on the worms.</li></ol>My argument is simply that we ought engineer a set of circumstances in which a much higher number of animals are getting to express their capabilities in wildlife habitat. But I don’t think that necessarily has to be hashed out to ‘doing it for the animals’ or ‘because I’m viewing their life in the wild as universally of higher value to ways you could individually treat them as means to an end substitutable classes of goods or services.’ Because I wouldn’t necessarily.–Shadow Starshine’s response to the exceptions to the rule (after the debate had ended) was:<blockquote>Right, let me respond to the second point first. It’s where I’ve admitted that my definition has the highest weakness is that what a “class” is, is vague. I obviously don’t mean specific fruits and meats and whatever to constitute legitimate classes, and I want “food” to be a class of product. or “medicine”, things of that level. I agree that one can sort of twist the wording of class to mean things like you’re implying which is beyond my intention.</blockquote><blockquote>The first point is interesting, I may or may not agree with it. I’ll think on it.</blockquote>

Debate On The Definition of Veganism - Ishkah vs. Shadow Starshine

Re; Veganism vs. Animal Liberation (Ishkah vs. Eisel & DxE)

How to simply explain what veganism is and argue for it - Part One

<h3>Part 1 – Identifying a problem</h3>&nbsp;Vegan Neo-NazisSo I’d like to tell you the story about a pair of ex-anarchists, ex-Animal Liberation Front convicts, Walter Bond and Camille Marino who have launched the website ‘Vegan Final Solution’, a Neo-Nazi platform trying to recruit from the vegan &amp; animal liberation milieu. Here are some of the ideas they promote: [1]<blockquote>WE ADVOCATE a third position beyond left and right-wing ideology; a third position that encompasses the best of both, and discards the rest.</blockquote><blockquote>WE ADVOCATE a hierarchy where those that exercise self-discipline and self-sacrifice for the good of animals and the earth are deemed more deserving of life than the gluttonous, selfish drones that shovel dead animals into their grotesque faces, simply to satiate their lust for rotting meat. With hierarchy, we separate the wheat from the chaff.</blockquote><blockquote>WE ADVOCATE a total lack of concern for egalitarian issues. The whole laundry bag of activist, and so called “total liberation” issues, not only seeks to put the focus right back on worthless people, but also undermines the animals’ safety by making society more cohesive and functional.</blockquote>So classic fascist ideology, plus a bunch of dog whistles to Classical Nazi code-speak:<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Final Solution</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Position" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Third Position</a> &amp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_unworthy_of_life" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Life unworthy of life</a>.Also letters he would send from prison had nazi propaganda on the back, so that’s always fun.<a href="https://archive.org/details/walter-bond-letter" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> [Video]</a>&nbsp;Now the case study of groups who supported or continue to support themWalter Bond was supported by the group ‘Unnoffensive Animal’ in a hopeful disregard for his fascist leanings, they were convinced by his support group that his early fascist writings were just a short lived cause of traumatic prison conditions. They encouraged vegans to send letters of support and buy his book. Allowing their respect for his actions to get in the way of transparency and accountability. [2]He was and still is being promoted by the North America Animal Liberation Press Office, SupportWalter.org &amp; Forward to Eden. [3][4][5]And finally listed on the website for people they view as ‘friends &amp; allies’ are Gary Yourofsky (ADAPTT) &amp; Black Rose Belarus. [1]&nbsp;So what commonalities can we find among all these groups?Well for one, a strong commitment to vandalism as a campaign tactic and potential tolerance for violence which goes further than that.Now disclaimer; I’m not saying all graffitiing is wrong or all revolutions are bad. I’m not even saying there’s a risk of thousands of die hard vegan anarchists becoming Neo-Nazis.I am saying there’s a risk of politically ignorant people who glorify violence (like Gary Yourofsky’s apolitical misanthropy) finding common cause with eco-fascists and not seeing the harm they’re doing promoting this shit.I think the few revolutionary groups who are promoting this Nazi website should be a wake up call. And so an issue we should work to untangle for how people get duped into first glorifying ‘propaganda by the deed,’ bodily harm and violence, for the animals today – where it would be completely unethical and counter-productive – then find common cause with Nazis.So I think we need to do a better job of explaining where some direct action goes overboard and becomes both unethical and ineffective. As well as checking in on our friends who look to be going down a bad path and provide them with the support they need.&nbsp;<h3>Part 2 – Solutions</h3>&nbsp;Step 1: Putting social pressure to bear on groups, organisations and content creators&nbsp;We need to discourage the excuses that could easily lead to this happening again.People’s appreciation for Gary’s speech turning them and others vegan also got in the way of people condemning him for his support for violence, his wishing rape on people as punishment &amp; calling Palestinians psychopaths and their rights supporters insane. [6]As well, Anonymous for the Voiceless made a post about the man who took a bunch of people hostage at gunpoint until the President made an online post promoting the movie Earthlings… ‘Just asking the question’ as to whether it was a success or failure for the animals, without clearly condemning his actions. [7]It’s really worrying that 100s of vegans on Facebook would comment in favour of the Ukraine hostage taker and have their profile public showing police everything about their life. It shows both the level of unethical-ness and the naivety that could likely easily be swayed into promoting an edgy neo-nazi who hides the real outcomes of their politics only slightly.Finally it’s important to make people aware of when the person they’re following has far-right leanings, so they aren’t sucked down the rabbit hole of bad justifications without realising where the end conclusion is leading. I’ll put a link in the endnotes to an article for further reading on racists in the vegan movement. [8]&nbsp;Step 2: Deprogramming individuals who glorify violence&nbsp;How does someone begin to take on beliefs which glorify violence?Some examples we could think of could be obsessively watching animal cruelty videos, being insulted by friends &amp; family over your vegan diet and not being able to avoid seeing people eat meat.We could simply do a better job of checking in on newly vegan friends and promoting online spaces for them to find people to talk to.Remind them they were blindly ignorant once too, so we need to have compassion for the perpetrator too.&nbsp;How does someone potentially work up to taking unethical violent acts?Blocking foxes from getting mauled to death, so gaining the confidence to get into stand-offs with fox hunters. Similarly with blocking fascists marching through immigrant neighbourhoods.Disclaimer; I’m very much pro hunt sabbing and protesting fascists, I’m pro people getting active and feeling invested by protecting each other and foxes.But, I also know people who get obsessed and all I’m saying is don’t be afraid to bring up with your friend that they may need to take a break or could be turning people away with their not comprehensible rants on Facebook. Get talking to them about other campaign tactics they can engage with for a time. [9]Remind them the best advocacy tool we have is just shining a light on their cruelty and defending the victims. The few fox hunters we can annoy into not wanting to go on the hunt again pales in comparison as a goal to the amount of people we can get to question their meat eating by just showcasing their cruelty and showing how a fox or multiple foxes lives were life was saved.&nbsp;<h3>Part 3 – What are the philosophical justifications for violence</h3>&nbsp;1. Self-defence by proxy.Reasonable grounds that when confronting systemic violence, you are preventing the total number or rate at which animal lives experiencing unjust cruelty stay the same or goes up. Not true of today.Reasonable grounds that there was no way of avoiding injury to the perpetrator or any potential injury would be less than the well-being gained for the lives saved. Not true of today.You could grant that in a hypothetical future if we were to get to a place where 99% of the world were vegan and less animal products being produced causes a drop in demand, yet we still hadn’t made meat eating illegal, then; you could risk injury to the perpetrator by citizens arresting them, while you free the animals where there was no other option than risking potential injury because the value for the sentient animals being free to live in a sanctuary is greater.&nbsp;2. Desire for a war of self-determinationAnimals can’t conceptualize a tactical war to achieve rights, so they can’t desire it. We aren’t even able to alleviate their suffering like we could human prisoners with the optimistic notion that direct actions done in other places now, may one day lead to an end to their suffering.You could grant in the socialist case if 99% of society had been fully socialised and a previous factory owner had locked themself in and was refusing to move for wanting to employ only who they like and keep the profits to themself, some force in picking them up and moving them would be acceptable. Obviously revolutions are a lot more complicated than this hypothetical and I do commend cases like the Kurdish uprising in Northern Syria which took power from a regime who had rolled tanks on demonstrators and outlawed teaching of their native language.But, even in the human case there are key foundations you need to work from, like the probability you won’t just give an excuse for the oppressor committing even worse horrors as was the case with the Rohingya militants who ambushed a police checkpoint, resulting in army &amp; citizen campaign to burn down many villages, plus murder and rape those that couldn’t get away.As well as a responsibility to put down arms after winning political freedoms and a majority are in favour of diplomacy through electoral politics, like in Northern Ireland today.Much of the problem I think is animal rights activists confusing these two arguments. But what do you think? What other ways can you think of for talking someone down from their beliefs glorifying violence?&nbsp;Part 4 – Closing Arguments&nbsp;Time on earth is the greatest gift we haveEven if it could be argued that a war of terror, killing those involved in animal agriculture was the easiest route to reducing the number of animals bred into living horrible lives… I would still say it’s ethically wrong to be the person who takes another’s life just because it’s the easiest way. You could have worked to become president and outlawed it with one signature, you could have inspired a 1000 liberators to break every cage.It’s an act of self-harm to treat life with such disregard when you could have been that same deluded person shrouded in the justificatory trappings of society treating your behaviour normally.What I see is vegans in mourning for the animals, angry and wanting to find an outlet for that anger. After the vegan activist Regan Russell was killed, many ALF actions happened in response, and if taking the risk to slash slaughterhouse trucks’ tires in the dead of night is how you develop stronger bonds with a group of people and gain the confidence to do amazing things like travel the world and learn from other liberation struggles, then I’m all for it…But, I don’t think the way we win today is treating a cold bureaucratic system with equally cold disregard in whose life we had the resources to be able to intimidate this week. Time on earth is the greatest gift people have, to make mistakes and learn from them, so I could never condone risking injury to people when fighting such a monolith as the animal agriculture industry today.Let me know your thoughts in a comment down below, all the best, peace.&nbsp;<h3>Endnotes</h3><ol><li><a href="https://veganfinalsolution.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://veganfinalsolution.com/</a></li><li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/liberateordie/photos/a.261410787880915/579192992769358" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/liberateordie/photos/a.261410787880915/579192992769358</a></li><li><a href="https://animalliberationpressoffice.org/NAALPO/2020/07/28/vegan-final-solution-com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://animalliberationpressoffice.org/NAALPO/2020/07/28/vegan-final-solution-com</a></li><li><a href="http://supportwalter.org/SW/index.php/2020/07/25/new-website-created-by-camille-marino-and-walter-bond-officially-launched-today" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">http://supportwalter.org/SW/index.php/2020/07/25/new-website-created-by-camille-marino-and-walter-bond-officially-launched-today</a></li><li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/forwardtoeden/posts/3118564944864698" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/forwardtoeden/posts/3118564944864698</a></li><li><a href="http://veganfeministnetwork.com/hero_worship/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">http://veganfeministnetwork.com/hero_worship/</a></li><li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/anonymousforthevoiceless/posts/3264530266902514" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/anonymousforthevoiceless/posts/3264530266902514</a></li><li><a href="https://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/index.php/Racism_in_Veganism" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/index.php/Racism_in_Veganism</a></li><li><a href="https://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/index.php/Common_Allies" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/index.php/Common_Allies</a></li></ol>

The bizarre case of vegan Neo-N*zis & deprogramming vegans who glorify violence

<h3>Full Transcript</h3>&nbsp;[This is the intro to a debate that happened between 2 YouTubers on the topic of veganims and animal rights.At the 1:10 mins mark Vaush presents an argument, then I jump in to mock debate how I think the conversation could have more ideally gone.]Vaush: HowdyAY: So, you currently are not a vegan?Vaush: That is correctAY: Now if we replaced all the animals in the factory farms with humans you wouldn’t say it’s morally wrong…Vaush: We can skip a few steps, I include animals in my ethical system, I agree that meat eating is morally unjustifiable. I’m not… “believes meat eating is fine,” I’m… “knows veganism is correct and is too much of a moral hypocrite to go forward with it.”AY: Oh ok, well honestly I don’t know how much I have to say to you then, I’m not like a psychologist who can work your brain.Vaush: Yeah, no, what we do is unironically monstrous with the factory farming.My argument here, and this is one of defending hypocrisy, so I recognise my bias in this respect, but the argument I would have here is comparable to the argument I would make for not for example telling people to not buy t-shirts that were made in China. It’s that we live in a system of such unfathomably inhuman production and it’s so convenient to adhere to the ethical modes of production in which we live, that I don’t know if I can condemn a person ethically on an individual level for participating in systems that are so much larger than them. You know?Script: Okay I can answer that, so it’s important to acknowledge where someone is either unaware of or incapable of following a vegan lifestyle, that they are not individually responsible for the act of eating meat, even though the act itself is still unethical.But we should be wary of extending that lack of individual responsibility away from extreme situations like being stranded on a desert island, to today where a lot of industry happens to be unethical.Because even if we grant there’s a better system we can move to such that all consumption under capitalism currently is unethical, there exists a scale of immorality such that we hope once people become aware of particularly bad industries, they will get on board with living a low-impact vegan lifestyle.So there’s two things:<ol><li>There’s the potential harm in playing down the effectiveness of the vegan boycott, because a really important positive attribute to acknowledge about this lifestyle is it’s a broad food category that in its wholefood form is easy to distinguish on the shelf. Therefore experimenting with the diet doesn’t need to feel like a burden to take on board in the same way researching and seeking out conflict-free minerals in everything you buy can be for example.</li><li>The potential harm in exaggerating exceptions to the rule of individual responsibility.</li></ol>But yeah you accept buying animal products is unethical, it’s just a case of some of the individual responsibility gets shared more evenly with the collective society for say voting parties which maintain the status quo, which in turn alienates/socially conditions you into not having full agency.Vaush: Yes, I agree that meat eating is morally unjustifiable. I’m not… “believes meat eating is fine,” I’m… “knows veganism is correct and is too much of a moral hypocrite to go forward with it.”Script: Cool, so yeah, you just have a critique of where activists put their energy?Vaush: Yes, I just think advocacy is more effective when it’s being done outside of the demand by consumers, I don’t think there’s any likelihood or any possibility of getting the vast majority of people off of their meat diets.Script: Well I would say existing as a vegan in the world is this really positive step to showing your seriousness and dedication you’re willing to put in, so then being better able to find each other and get organized, for example people’s willingness to start a food not bombs stall or guerrilla garden.Secondly It’s not the case that we need to win over everyone to veganism in order to make massive change, if a large enough minority can create breathing room for legislation and food co-ops on the way to a vegan world, I do think it’s both an obligation to attempt it and to make the transition easier saving humans and wildlife. As well as driving less, buying second hand, etc.Thirdly, boycotts have the effect of bringing communities together under a liberation politics. For example car-sharing during the Montgomery bus boycott, students leading the call to stop subsidising Israel and before that South Africa, the widespread boycotting of a reactionary tabloid newspaper in the UK that ran stories saying mass suffocation at a football stadium due to overcrowding and fences were the fans fault. So boycotting to show your real felt ties to the land you stand on as necessary optics for seriousness on the left.And finally I’d just say there’s a way you could take this concern for shifting the blame onto individuals too far the other way, in that I think we’d agree if someone was obscenely rich and spent all their money on luxury items, never donating to campaigns or charities that we would need to bring about a better society you would think badly of this person because they would be displaying the same indifferent behaviour you’d expect of someone who say participated in systemic racism, for example excluding your generationally low-income black friend with no car from playing on your sports team by never seeing it as your responsibility to offer to drive to pick them up so they can join in.Vaush: Yes. Look forward to discussing this more.Script: Great, also if you could look into some animal rights news stories to cover on your stream, I do think there’s a lot of damning political stories which would do the job of bringing people further left as well as hopefully towards veganism. I’ll leave links to some in the description you can take a look at.Alright, take care.Vaush: Yes. Have a good one.

How To Advocate To Pro-Vegan Leftists (Mock Vaush Debate)

I'll release audio of my video essays and discussions here in the future. I use my channel as a place to promote campaigns, exhibit educational resources, archive movement history and storybook my life/interests. Check out all my ongoing projects: <a href="https://activistjourneys.wordpress.com/ongoing-projects/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">activistjourneys.wordpress.com/ongoing-projects/</a>

Ishkah

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