I know this is kind of whiney for a first post but I need to vent. Also, hi!
I am just disappointed that the bar is set so low by these people. If you go on the RSPCA site (by far the largest animal organisation in the UK, they get millions in donations every year) and type vegan into their search box you get zero results. Indeed on the front page right now there's a silly woman in a supermarket holding a plastic wrap chicken. They even have a labelling scheme for their specially endorsed "Freedom Food" meat.
Ah yep the old happy meat phenomenon. I hear it all the time from meat eaters. "Oh if it had a good life then I think that's fine" and "I won't eat factory farmed meat" when you bloody know they do, it doesn't matter though as these animal people have managed to make meat eating acceptable. By making out this magical happy meat where animals gladly slit their throats after a full life out in green fields somehow exists their guilt is assuaged by association even if they're tucking into a bacon sub at Subway. Factory farming has been turned into the bogeyman everyone can get behind without changing their ways.
Then it seems like all animal rights demos are either about fur or vivisection. I am against both but in the grand scheme of things the two are dwarfed by the billions of animals killed for leather and animal products. Why keep plugging away at these two relatively tiny issues when it's not working anyway? These have been the pet issues of animal rights folk for the last few decades yet we still have animal testing and the fur trade is booming.
I also find people who are against fur, seal clubbing, dog meat, whaling or whatever who eat meat anyway quite maddening. It's very easy to criticise other cultures and their animal abuse but they don't address their own. By presenting these single issues above veganism we keep veganism as the fringe thing for "extremists" and we allow the mainstream to latch onto these single issues to prove to themselves that they have compassion for animals so they don't need to do any more than that.
Then you have tripe like meat free mondays. I mean seriously is this anything more than a celebrity photo op? Does anyone know any omnivores in real life who actually engage in this thing? Anecdotal I know but I don't. I also think it's pretty shameless of Sir Paul to preach animal rights when after all this time he is still not a vegan and the majority of the frozen dishes named after his late wife are not vegan. They even use egg pasta in all their pasta dishes!!!
You'd think the whole animal movement would be very welcoming of veganism but I feel very marginalised by it. I don't feel like animal rights has advanced at all in my lifetime and I very much feel like an outsider in a movement that thinks that welfarism and "eating less meat" should be the end goal. If veganism keeps being presented (or outright ignored in some cases) by the animal movement as this great noble sacrifice that only the crazy few can do it then of course it will stay niche and omnivores will continue to tuck into their freedom happy meat thinking they are doing enough.
Bookmarks