Maaskarpone [they/them]
I am consistently seeing in the struggle sessions people calling out bad faith ‘vegans’ and not bad faith omnis. So many character assassinations of vegans. My first day on this site I was accused of racist, classist, ableist behaviours (despite veganism being a radical anti-ableist philosophy!)
Nigh any criticism of a non-vegan leftist is being met with a wall of “I don’t give a shit!” or “you colonialist scum!” There are bad faith actors on both sides of the vegan/non-vegan divide, absolutely. We can all do with gaining an extra nuanced perspective.
This is not what happened at all. You’re massively revising history. I for example was polite when I came here, yet the insults were endless and vile.
The abuse was so vile that the experience gave me some relational trauma to online communities.
Never again will I court carnists or coddle their ableist and speciesist paradigms after the abuse I and my comrades suffered at the hands of reactionary radlibs.
veganism cannot be reduced to just a consumer position in capitalism.
you get corps like beyond and impossible that test on animals that have plant based products. you get corps like alpro and gardein that are subsidiaries of massive animal ag corporations (alpro is a subsidiary of danone, for example) with lobbyists for animals. also funding alpro funds danone’s growth, for example. you get plant based violife cheeses that is owned by a company, that is owned by an investment firm, that invests in oil and pharmaceuticals that test on animals. venture capitalists are a big pain in the ass, too.
these all have business models that are magnitudes worse than supermarkets - because the business models of supermarkets have instead a thin profit margin truly adhering to mass supply and demand. they are also necessities in our societies, which crap like alpro, gardein, just egg, beyond, impossible are not. (I can find a US-oriented list of good and bad plant based companies tomorrow for you, if you want)
we have to be diligent about this as vegans. we have to make try make the best ethical choices for our core health/nutrition needs. it’s why most long time vegans end up WFPB
edit: on a side note, veganism is a doctrine incompatible with utilitarianism on so many accounts. any bs arguments utilitarian ‘vegans’ make about animal welfare isn’t vegan.
Putting this up here for the lurking carnists who don’t think animals are worthy of personhood - despite knowing love, joy and pain and suffering - and actively deny them emotive and charged language for their experiences.
Preach!
meat and dairy and eggs all do the same horrible things.
CW WARNING FOR SEXUAL AND OTHER VIOLENCE ANIMALS - THEY HAVE SUBJECTIVITY TOO!
CW WARNING HERE
dairy: farmers fist anuses of cows to hold their cervixes whilst artificially inseminating and violating them.
dairy: farmers violently kill calves at birth to cut costs. or farmers steal them from their mothers and raise them for three months for veal
eggs: blend male chicks alive in industrial blenders called macerators
and so so so so so so so so so much more
Please can you re-read what I just spent the time writing out, including the edit.
How can it purely be a consumptive choice?
What about medicine? Also: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4594046/
What about pets? Think of all the abuse these animals go through because of their commodification. Instead of treating them as beings with subjectivity, they are commodified for our own purposes. Think of the puppy mills, cat mills, bunnies yadda yadda yadda.
Veganism and anticapitalism align very closely.