O.K I will try to deal with your message each example separately.
About the “green” trend.
We are not asking you to take Al Gore seriously but you must take seriously how serious he is taken. In fact he is probably the person who did the most for environmental awareness ever, and it proves our point about the world. If someone like him with his embarrassing advises in the end of "an inconvenient truth”, with his gigantic energy eating mansion, with the promotion of companies he himself is financially invested in, with the family’s cattle ranch (very environmentally harmful) and of course the total ignoring of animal based diet as the most environmentally harmful thing every non vegan takes part in and despite it is a personal decision that everyone can easily take. All that and a lot more from the man who is the unshakable environmental guru. Not by you of course you know better, but you can’t argue with the trend. And what I am asking you to do is to face it. I am sure each and every serious activist is sure that the Live Earth can only grant gore with saint savior image and the participated celebrities on the "right" side of the political correctness. But doesn’t it tell you something about the world? Sometimes I feel that all the work we invested in the manifest and in the FAQ was a waste of time, all we need to do is show Madonna on the live 8 and you’ll understand.
These events are a strong reality alarm. A man in charge of the NAFTA and GATT agreements which severely gutted environmental standards across the globe, won a Nobel price! A non vegan by definition can’t be an environmentalist (please read our article
the anthropocentric view of the environmentalists if you haven’t yet) so getting a Nobel price for it? This is the world we live in. Mister switching the light bulb is the world environmental hero and that is why he got a serious reference in our article. It doesn’t matter that his
"global warming show” is a last-ditch for his political carrier more than it’s a last ditch to save the planet from the global warming catastrophe. In the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, he re-set the course of his life to focus on climate change in what seems to be another round of claim to fame", If to quote from our article, because it is not about gore but about the green trend in a trendy world. The capitalist environmentalism is a much bigger problem than the clown in the head of the trend:
"The movie and the campaign created an oxymoronic green consumerism trend, which is harmful now and will be even more harmful in the future, because not only that this "green" trend distracts the attention from the biggest problem which is overconsumption and the consumption of environmentally devastative products like animal products, it legitimizes it”. The resistance of serious animal rights activists and serious activists in general to these pathetic Live Celebrities’ Reputation Improvement shows is clear to me, the fact that they understand that it is all public relations is clear to me, that fact that serious organizations not only will not take part in these events but resist them is also clear to me, what is not clear is when will you understand that this is the world. "Private jets for climate change" is the world. It is al gore’s and Madonna’s world not Gary Francione’s and Ingrid newkirk’s world and it’s a terrible terrible one.
I agree with what Earth to Venus wrote and want to add that even now that it’s the environmentalism finest hour, there is no chance for fundamental questions to be asked. On the contrary this trend is anthropocentricism celebration. Everything is in the same train of thought that it is humans’ world and they deserve everything, the only problem is that they have exaggerated a little so now they need to change their consumption bag to a cotton bag instead of nylon. Even now that this trend is in its prime, this is the highest that it gets. Corporations use it to blur other horrible things they do, same for governments and personal consumers cleaning their conscience with environmental friendly detergents.
It is also the welfarists finest hour as al gore proved that the only way to do things is to ask many to do little and not asking everybody to do a lot ending up with almost nothing.
And that is the connection to grassroots activism as well, ideologically strong tiny group with little effect on the mainstream.
About the supersize me issue,
The fact the only perspective of the movie was the human one and it still didn’t help but rather strengthened McDonalds only proves that the moral argument is chanceless.
Not the lies in advertising, chemicals and growth hormones, obesity and health problems and etc. none have helped. The McDonalds response was devastating and it even created an army of supporters, as we specified in the article. Some people got so furious about the movie they made their own experiment in purpose of proving the opposite. None has made even as near noise as supersize me did, but it’s still astonishing I think that quite a few people did quite a few efforts to help "the poor corporation" and it’s still a relevant example showing how trends are two-edged sword.
Trends are strong and influential but they are also provisional and backlashed. It’s not the independent (or McDonalds funded…) movies that prevented the chance of supersize me to change humans’ eating habits, or vegetarianize in massive scale or at least draw many people away from McDonalds forever, it was as mentioned in the article the McDonald’s response.
For us the golden arches represent aggressive and exploitative corporate rule that invades and destroys everyplace, physical territories as rain forests, children’s playgrounds, sweatshops and of course animal abuse and exploitation in factory farms, and virtual territories as billboards, street signs (McDonalds 200m straight!) and TV. Still all this miniaturized standing against what it represents to most of the world, freedom of choice (and it doesn’t matter that it’s choosing between crap and bigger crap), something familiar and loved everywhere no matter where they are. Studies show that tourists prefer to eat at McDonalds rather than local food restaurants because it reminds them of home, how insane and ironic is that. McDonald’s success to make exactly the same taste in each branch in each place in the world may sound insipid, unvaried and culturally poor almost culturally supervise to us, but it is seized by many as something wonderful that makes the world small and familiar.
As depressing as the westernization aspiration, which McDonalds is one of its symbols, is, many Americans seriously believe that their government marketing democracy and this is its guiding principle in its foreign policy. They seriously see it as a light to all the nations, so it is no wonder that even with its history they still see it as freedom’s personal ambassador and that they created the so rudely pretentious "project for the American century".
And for Morgan personally, he knows that facts perfectly well, especially the health related, he is married to a vegan chef! and he made a movie against the biggest meat producer in the whole world, but still he won’t become vegan because “ham is the greatest thing ever” as he said in the movie that proves how meat is bad for humans’ health that he himself made! It’s so unbelievable that people like that exist, that you don’t even count him. But he is neither from another planet nor from a whole different culture, therefore he is a valid example for the argument that some people will never be vegan. Asshole or not he is here and he is representative for many other people. Unfortunately it is an assholes world.
About the Atkins diet trend,
Since you haven’t mentioned anything about it can I conclude that you agree with us on that one?
Anyway Tom Naughton which Declaration of the end mentioned as "a new star in the anti spurlock trend" is in fact a proof of two issues in the article. He is of course Anti- supersize me so can be added as another one of Ronald’s new friends and as being an enthusiastic low-crab advocator he is one of atkins’ successors. Since people are too lazy to read a book and prefer to watch an hour and half movie, a comedian like tom is more influential than for example Gary Taubes who wrote Good Calories Bad Calories and another important successor and unfortunately one of many who still prod diets which resemble the Atkins diet. Popular books like Protein power and Carbs Wars, Livin la vida low carb and etc. continue the low carb high suffering diet so unfortunately the trend is on. It is not only a recent history example of the fickle character trends got but it is still awfully popular.
About the Fur campaign,
Claiming that fur coming back to fashion is all resultant from cindy crawford’s repugnant changeover is totally groundless. It is giving her way to much power and influence. The spirit of the age had and still has much more significant role in Fur becoming politically incorrect back in the 90’s and in coming back to fashion in the last few years.
As written in the article:
“…the success of the fur campaign in the 90’s was part of a wider change in public attitude. As opposed to the 80’s, when it was perfectly acceptable to flaunt one's wealth through one's outfit (and fur is the most ostentatious way to do it), in the 90’s, the trend was anti-ostentation and minimalism (grunge for example), a very good ground for an anti fur campaign. The last decade on the other hand, is dominated by the bling-bling look, with rappers singing about their love of champagne, grandiose cars and diamonds.”The Crawford example was brought to point the problematic use of a model as a moral exemplary figure, and don’t get me wrong it is wrong when it is done with doctors in the anti vivisection advocacy just as much. It is not because she is a model, both cases are wrong regardless of doctors’ education and honorable reputation. Ingrind newkirk’s is much more important than any doctor or model since the animal struggle is her vocation. She knows what she is talking about when she is speaking about animals’ exploitation and about ethics.
Of course if a model or a doctor are familiar with the subject in a sufficient way to take a stand than it is o.k, however, the point is that the profession is irrelevant as long as it doesn’t give any relevant knowledge, and in this case both don’t.
Cindy Crawford was the face of PETA’s anti fur campaign so she is the perfect example for the unreliability of trends but it is not about her and it is definitely not PETA’s fault that fur comeback.
It is PETA’s fault though that they build on campaigns such as this hoping they will change the world.
We wrote a lot about how ingratiated, human oriented and speciesist activism is bad for the long run and that it strengthen anthropocentrism and speciesism. Most of the conventional organizations initiate and participate in these kinds of activities and PETA is no different in that sense. Even in the notorious sexist activities PETA is not unique, they most definitely take it to the extreme as we saw in this year super bowl, but if you’ll randomly visit in many other organizations’ websites you‘ll find how many partners they have to these kinds of tactics. But that’s not the point. Except direct actions in the spirit of the Animal Liberation Front, most of the activists initiate and participate in speciesist activism in the spirit of
"for your health, for the planet, for the hungry, for the animals" and please read
the most selfish argument in our article section for that matter.
Meatouts are very popular by many organizations and they are a very relevant example of anthropocentric and speciesist activism. Even when there is no big sign with the
"for your health, for the planet, for the hungry, for the animals" it still is an acceptation of the human tyranny, it still is the axiomatic approach that it is humans’ decision what to eat and the activists are there trying their best to convince them to choose the vegan food instead of their regular. It is principally putting the animals’ fate in the hands of humans hoping they won’t choose to hurt them, knowing that if the almighty humans won’t like the taste of the vegan food, the suffering continues.
It is associated with your criticism on PETA because in so many cases their tactics are exaggerations of many other organizations activism, not something totally different. And for the general matter of this trendy world which is the article and this discussion topic after all, even if the leading nutritious line will change and the prevailing opinion will be that veganism is the best diet for everybody regardless of blood type, ethnical origin and age, it will still be vegansim in human orientation. I know that the animals don’t care about the reasons as long as they don’t suffer in factory farms anymore and so should I, and I am. But besides the fact that animals in other farms and under other types of exploitation systems still suffer, the problem is that the anthropocentric reasons can easily change by the spirit of the age. It is a feeble basis that can easily reverse and besides it is only relevant if you seriously believe such a desirable but unfortunately imaginary trend is possible.
And if you do, you should read the Denmark case in the manifest
If Denmark is a macro example, Morgan spurlock is the micro. His answer why he is not vegan is the lousiest but also very honest what makes it one of the best arguments to destroy the world.
You can find a very interesting discussion regarding the real reasons humans eat animal based foods (especially meat) under the name of the slideshow:
Culinary Investigation, I recommend you all to read the discussion after watching the slideshow. And in this context and for conclusion, people are doing what is good for them on immediate and personal level anyway, so strengthening the already strong self concentration perception by blandishment and fake worry to ones health is totally terminating the almost nonexistent chances to put animals suffering in focus.
You can tell yourselves that you are "introducing vegan food items which are not familiar to many meat eaters, otherwise they wouldn’t know that there are plenty of healthy and tasty vegan dishes". But what do you think that the animals would think if they saw you begging for passer-by meat eaters to taste tofu cutlet while only in the time they hold the cutlet, suspiciously examine it, hesitate if to taste it or not, millions of animals are slaughtered? Every second 1,600 chickens are violently snatched from the box that led them from the shed they lived in for 6 weeks of hell, hanged upside down on iron shackles, electrified while fully conscious and than slaughtered. 1,600 a second. While you are looking at the meat eater chewing the tofu cutlet preying that he will like it and maybe even consider buying it instead of meat once or twice…hundreds of thousands of animals are cramped, kicked, burned, stabbed, scared, debeaked, starved, thirsted, electrified or severely beaten. That is our real problem with PETA and with the rest of the movement just as much.
If you would happen to witness a rape occurring in front of your eyes, would you offer the rapist to masturbate instead? Would you offer him your available friend who is looking for relationship?
Would you explain to him that it is wrong and he should look for other ways to satisfy his desires? Would you ask him to suppress his desires and suggest to introduce him to a few matching websites?
Maybe you offer him money to go to brothel where he can rape in acquiescently?
Or perhaps you make do with giving him a few bucks to rent a porn movie?
And what if none will convince him? Wouldn’t you smack his head unconscious if you could?!
Offering meat eaters vegan food is like offering the rapist all of the above. And if they are not convinced, you are letting them continue after the conversation and the taste tests end.
Of course there is a difference because if you will stop a rapist in the action you will be rewarded and if you stop a meat eater in the action you will be arrested. That is one of the reasons why we don’t suggest killing meat eaters sporadically but all of them and as much as possible, simultaneously. There are many other reasons and all of them are specified in the Manifest and in the FAQ, Please read them thoroughly.
