Bullies, Ads, and Being Vegan. ~ Dr. Roger Yates - Animal Rights Zone2024-03-28T23:42:16Zhttp://arzone.ning.com/forum/topics/bullies-ads-and-being-vegan-dr-roger-yates?feed=yes&xn_auth=noHi Roger,
I would agree with…tag:arzone.ning.com,2012-02-01:4715978:Comment:812772012-02-01T22:27:08.356ZCarolyn Baileyhttp://arzone.ning.com/profile/CarolynBailey
<p>Hi Roger,</p>
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<p>I would agree with almost everything you have said here. I think what you have said is extremely important, and I think it's vitally important for other advocates to understand the points you have made and the reasons you have made them. <br></br><br></br>I think it's very important to understand that this small group of people feel bitter hatred for the current animal advocacy community, and wish to destroy us - all of us. But, I also think it's important to remember that…</p>
<p>Hi Roger,</p>
<p></p>
<p>I would agree with almost everything you have said here. I think what you have said is extremely important, and I think it's vitally important for other advocates to understand the points you have made and the reasons you have made them. <br/><br/>I think it's very important to understand that this small group of people feel bitter hatred for the current animal advocacy community, and wish to destroy us - all of us. But, I also think it's important to remember that they are just that, a small (smaller every day) group of people, who fail to make any attempt to understand how to educate others and to create more vegans in the real world. <br/><br/>You said: </p>
<blockquote><p><br/>"<span>As suggested, the Francione-style of abolition needs to have no care about hurting those it criticises because those it criticises are constructed as "other" and, moreover, an oppositional other."</span></p>
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<p><span><br/></span>I think that any person or group of people who honestly have no care about hurting others, any others, for any reason, and in fact have been known to gloat about hurting others, need to seriously consider what their goals and methodology is, and why they are doing what they're doing. I find it odd that these people would claim so fanatically to be THE saviours of others and against all isms, but happy to "otherise" those they cannot control. <br/><br/>I think the current movement has begun to leave this group behind, and I think it's time to move on and get on with the job, without feeling we need to answer to any countemovement or opposition who are out to destroy or control us. <br/> </p>
<p><br/><br/> <cite>Roger Yates said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://arzone.ning.com/forum/topics/bullies-ads-and-being-vegan-dr-roger-yates#4715978Comment81208"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Hi Carolyn,</p>
<p>I think it is necessary for us to understand that the Francione-style abolitionists would not see themselves as opposed to the animal rights movement but to the existing movement which is welfarist-based. The issue is that they do not regard other animal advocates to be animal rightists - just as they do not recognise anyone other than in their small group as abolitionists.</p>
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<p>In their view, when one is not "one of them," then one is an animal welfarist working against animal rights. I think that is why they believe they have no responsibility to conduct themselves politely when talking to, or about, the existing movement. Just listen to the hatred in Elizabeth Collins' voice as she describes others she sees as not abolitionist. Even vegans from birth may be attacked by this 2007 vegan. The Francione-style abolitionists have a model in their heads derived from Francione's writings which they impose on others who cannot be abolitionist if they deviate to any degree from Francionian structures.</p>
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<p>This model dictates that animal welfarists (the rest of the world) are not vegan or, if they are vegan, do not promote veganism or, if they promote veganism, do not do it in a way that satisfies their model. Therefore, even other vegan advocates are, in their minds, consistently acting against veganism and abolition. For example, others "promote" welfare or welfarists (the charge against ARZone) and support initiative such as Meet-free Mondays and single-issue campaigns - and violence.</p>
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<p>The definition of all these things is imposed by Francione, so there is no escape. Whether anyone recognises themselves in terms of this model does not matter.</p>
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<p>I have written and taught quite a bit on the relationship between social movements and their countermovements including, of course, within the sphere of animal advocacy. Sociologists have a fancy term for this relationship, the "movement-countermovement dialectic."</p>
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<p>In the Alice in Wonderland world of the Francione-style abolitionists, organisations like ARZone work in a partnership with animal exploitation industries - this is because we "promote" animal welfarists who may actually do that. We do not invite guests to ARZone and then question them, we "promote" them. There is no doubt about this in their minds because they have their model to rely on and, anyway, in this case, Francione has said it of ARZone. He has also suggested that we are not animal advocates but "so-called animal advocates."</p>
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<p>As suggested, the Francione-style of abolition needs to have no care about hurting those it criticises because those it criticises are constructed as "other" and, moreover, an oppositional other.</p>
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<p>In their construction of the world, since ARZone and all other "so-called animal advocates" are partnering animal exploitation, only <em>they</em> stand for animal rights, "proper" veganism, and abolition. They stand aside from the existing compromised and corrupted animal movement and act as its countermovement. In their minds, we are glued to the animal exploitation business, locked in some partnership, and only they are the saviours of other animals. In their minds, we are part of the countermovement to their animal rights movement.</p>
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<p>They do not want to change or educate the existing movement - that's ARZone's bag - they want to harm and destroy it as "The Abolitionist Movement" grows from strength to strength.</p>
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<p>How will it grow from strength to strength? Here we have more Wonderland moments because the Francione-style abolitionists suggest that existing vegans in the existing animal movement are not allies or potential allies - they are enemies lost in a World of Welfare from which there is no escape. Therefore, there is no point in talking to the existing vegans who are corrupted by the welfarist bug. No, their unstoppable global Abolitionist Movement will spring forth from... wait for it... the meat-eating general public who, they say, they can more easily talk to than existing vegans and, moreover, more fully "get" the Francione-style abolitionist message.</p>
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<p>And so, this explains their closed groups on FB and elsewhere. Their fear must be that any vegans they create will somehow "leak" into the animal welfare movement. Hell, some of them may become so lost that they'll join ARZone and then they are "gone" forever.</p>
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<p>I think what members of the existing animal movement need to appreciate, whatever you call yourself or stand for - that is irrelevant - is that the Francione-style abolitionists mean to do your movement harm. They are a separatist countermovement out to injure your movement as much as they can. They think that you are a "lost cause" because you are embedded into the welfarist movement from which, apparently, there is little hope of escape into the world of "real" animal advocates - meaning the 50 or so of them.</p>
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</blockquote> Hi Roger, Thanks for mentioni…tag:arzone.ning.com,2012-01-29:4715978:Comment:810452012-01-29T08:36:23.853ZCarolyn Baileyhttp://arzone.ning.com/profile/CarolynBailey
<p>Hi Roger, <br></br><br></br>Thanks for mentioning that. I think it's very important to make it clear that the Francionists describe themselves as being opposed to the animal rights movement, and believe themselves to be their own little countermovement. </p>
<p>I think it's important for us all to remember that the Francionists believe that the existing movement is beyond education, that an<span class="text_exposed_show">y individual who see themselves as part of it is a lost cause who is "morally…</span></p>
<p>Hi Roger, <br/><br/>Thanks for mentioning that. I think it's very important to make it clear that the Francionists describe themselves as being opposed to the animal rights movement, and believe themselves to be their own little countermovement. </p>
<p>I think it's important for us all to remember that the Francionists believe that the existing movement is beyond education, that an<span class="text_exposed_show">y individual who see themselves as part of it is a lost cause who is "morally confused," "vile," and working "in partnership" with the animal user industries.</span></p>
<p><span class="text_exposed_show">They seem to be certain that they have the best message, but, for some reason their message continues to be ignored, so they blame the audience, rather than reassessing their message. </span>They also seem to delude themselves that, by some form of magic yet to be explained, there is a public audience that "gets" the Francione abolitionist message while other vegans are incapable of understanding it. </p>
<p><br/>On your other point, I think that advocates such as Tom Regan, Kim Stallwood, Ingrid Newkirk and yourself were asking for veganism to be a requirement from those who advocate for other animals quite some time before Prof. Francione decided to take credit for being the saviour of others by dreaming up such a concept. But, you will obviously know a load more about that than me. I tend to find it offensive when others take too much credit for too little work. </p>
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<p><br/> <cite>Roger Yates said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://arzone.ning.com/forum/topics/bullies-ads-and-being-vegan-dr-roger-yates#4715978Comment80800"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Hi Carolyn,</p>
<p>I’d argue that even though Francione was the last to go vegan in terms of the others listed, he still deserves a good deal of credit for helping to establish veganism as the moral baseline of the animal advocacy movement.</p>
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<p>Of course there is an irony here in that Francione and his core group currently declare themselves to be completely apart from the existing movement and indeed opposed to it because scummy “welfarists” (like you and I and all supporters of the “vile” ARZone) cannot be educated. They are effective operating as a separatist countermovement mobilisation to the existing animal advocacy movement, not interested in educating those who they suggest cannot be educated – and that means every single existing animal advocate except the 30 “abolitionists” they recognise as abolitionists. They current charge ARZone with being in a partnership with the animal user industries, that is how dislocated they have become.</p>
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<p>The general issue was highlighted in Kim Stallwood’s podcast, I think, in the sense that Kim pointed out that there was a vegan base to the movement before Francione was even part of it but it was a latent vegan base, and vegan claims-making certainly was not the usual thing for campaigners in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I perceive a generation gap here in the sense that veganism is so central now for younger advocates that they can hardly imagine a time when the “v-word” was hardly ever mentioned in campaigning organisations. </p>
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</blockquote> I was wondering about the ord…tag:arzone.ning.com,2012-01-26:4715978:Comment:803972012-01-26T01:46:01.471ZCarolyn Baileyhttp://arzone.ning.com/profile/CarolynBailey
<p>I was wondering about the order, thanks for clarifying, Roger. <br></br><br></br>I find it interesting to recall the story of how some of these amazing people became vegan. Their stories are all so very different and they all seem to have become vegan for different reasons and in very different ways. Kim's time in a chicken slaughterhouse is interesting to hear about in his recent ARZone podcast […</p>
<p>I was wondering about the order, thanks for clarifying, Roger. <br/><br/>I find it interesting to recall the story of how some of these amazing people became vegan. Their stories are all so very different and they all seem to have become vegan for different reasons and in very different ways. Kim's time in a chicken slaughterhouse is interesting to hear about in his recent ARZone podcast [<a href="http://arzonepodcasts.blogspot.com/2012/01/arzone-podcast-29-kim-stallwood.html">http://arzonepodcasts.blogspot.com/2012/01/arzone-podcast-29-kim-st...</a>], Ronnie started thinking about veganism and vegetarianism because of someone he knew who was vegetarian, and Gary Francione was vegetarian until Ingrid Newkirk pointed out his inconsistencies and hypocrisy whilst emptying out his fridge of animal products. <br/><br/>It's interesting that very few people ARZone have interviewed, if any (I can't think of any, but we have interviewed almost 100 people, so I could easily be mistaken) came to veganism through abolitionist literature and being given a "consistent "unequivocal" vegan message". <br/><br/>I think it's also interesting that Gary Francione is the last of the people you mentioned to become vegan, yet he feels he is responsible for veganism being the "moral baseline" of the animal rights movement, which he rejects being a part of. It seems many more advocates came to realise this before he did, which makes his claims kinda odd. </p>