What Will YOU Be Doing This Year for Animal Rights
From e-mails, comments and comments elsewhere, it’s clear that the idea of a larger organization (international, national, who knows?) makes some people quite queasy. Others are ambivalent. A handful like the idea.
And as I said in a comment, I think we need a paradigm shift regarding large organizations: what they look like, what they do, what their role is in relation to the smaller, more local ones. We look at what’s happened in the past, or even in the present with organizations we criticize, and rightfully say we don’t want any part of that kind of dysfunction (but have no fear, we’ll just create a different kind).
Where there are groups, there will be group dynamics, and we can’t get away from that but we can design something different and better than what exists. Just because X tends to happen doesn’t mean it’s destined to. X is the result of factors that get duplicated in other situations, and it should be no surprise that X keeps recurring all over the place when the factors that create it are duplicated all over the place.
But let’s table the larger group discussion for a moment and address something that doesn’t have to wait another second. Everyone talks about being the change. What does that mean to you? How are you going to be the change in 2008? With 300 animals dying every second in the US, I think that being a vegan is the most important action anyone can take. But I also think it’s not enough.
That’s why I created a pamphlet, which by the way has been downloaded thousands of times and is being translated into French. That’s why I wrote a pretty mainstream-sounding book about animals that’s being published this year. That’s why I blog every single day, no matter where in the world I am, and have done so since May 22, 2006. (At which time, by the way, I thought we could achieve abolition by incremental welfare reforms. At least I was doing something aligned with my beliefs!) That’s why I have vegan dinner parties and take friends shopping to find items to replace their favorite animal food with. That’s why I make a vegan pie each week and give it to a non-vegan friend. That’s why I speak with the owners of restaurants and ask them for vegan entrees. That’s why I promote bloggers and authors I like. That’s why I send my friends to Kerrie Saunders (Dr. Food) whether or not they’re ill. That’s why I campaign to ban Greyhound racing. That’s why I give money the way I give it. That’s why I volunteer the way I do.
All of those actions tell you who I am:
- I have a particular preoccupation with ending Greyhound racing.
- I like pie.
- I want people to be healthy vegans, not just vegans.
- I like going out to nice restaurants (I target the ones with the best wine lists first, as if the food isn’t good at least I can have a great glass of wine or champagne!)
- I work with my strengths: I can write, edit, produce materials.
- I like dinner parties.
- I’m a great personal shopper, as I’ve tried everything thereby saving my friends the agony and expense of buying products destined for the garbage.
- I like to give money with intention, and I don’t take philanthropy lightly.
- If I’m going to volunteer, it will be after deliberation about what that act says about me and my beliefs. (For instance, I volunteer at a sea turtle hospital, and there is one turtle who is healthy and used for education. I was very upset about that and was going to have a conversation about it with the Executive Director, but the rehab director realized that having a healthy turtle uses a tank that could house an injured or sick turtle, and the education turtle will soon be released–thank heavens!) It would say something about me if I volunteered and financially supported an organization that collects healthy turtles for exhibit. And I’d have to decide if I liked that message.
Who are you? What are your strengths and skills? What do you like to do? Take that list and apply veganism and animal rights to it. Craft your own mission statement. State your values. List your goals and objectives, both short-term and long-term. Figure out how you will evaluate your progress. Sometimes it’s easy. For instance: Last year I targeted a handful of people to veganize. And by the end of the year they were well on their way, although I had a few pizza holdouts. On the upside, there were other people who went vegan and credited me for it for some reason (I planted the original seed, I think), so I can consider my goal as reached. I was successful at that one part of my plan for 2007. And other parts, such as getting certain unconscious friends to stop buying pure breed dogs. But I was only successful because I had a plan. I had goals and a strategy. And my strategy always has kindness as its main component. And I work smart (for instance, I don’t speak to my father about veganism or animal rights. That would give me a headache.).
One of my strengths is strategic planning. So if that’s not one of your strengths, ask me questions! When Eric Prescott was forming his Boston Vegan Association, he called me and asked me to be on his advisory board because he knew I have a lot of experience, and success, in the nonprofit world. He’s no idiot. There’s something he needed help with, so he asked someone who has experience in that area. (Now he doesn’t need my help, by the way).
When I am confronted with having to do something I’m not good at I have two choices: hire an expert (that’s the option my husband will always choose), or learn how to do it myself. I’m a learning junkie and I don’t care how many mistakes I have to make in order to master something. (I just received the new Budokon DVD called "Flow and Flexibility" and nearly ended up in the hospital attempting the entire workout. But I’m gonna conquer that darn thing and the ridiculously fit Cameron Shayne if it’s the last thing I do.)
What is your dedication level to animal rights? If you’re not sure, look at your actions: they’ll tell you. And if you don’t like the message you’re sending, change it for 2008. If you aren’t sure about how to proceed, ask questions! Great ideas can result if you have an active listener and you’re willing to take the time and energy to work through the process of developing a personal mission for 2008. E-mail your favorite bloggers and authors. Join an online community to get ideas.
Do whatever suits your preferences and personality to create your unique plan for animal rights in 2008 and start manifesting your goals today! Veganism is great, and of course necessary, but it’s not enough.
This isn't for animal rights per se, but I have a sideline as a fiction writer. I am currently researching conservation and protection groups relating to an endangered animal species mentioned in my current book in progress, and plan to donate 100% of the eventual royalties. I figure that is money I don't have and don't particulalry need. And even writing about an animal species in fiction is exploiting them by proxy–they deservess to benefit.
No wonder you know so much about elephants when mice are your crew!
Congratulations and good luck with the writing. Great idea to donate the royalties!
This is probably a shocker, but I like to take pictures. And since I'm at the sanctuary every weekend, I end up with loads of sanctuary resident pictures.
I have used this to a small degree so far – your pamphlet, and someone else is using my pics in a book that is being written, no idea when it will come out. I have articles published in Herbivore (but that just preaches to the choir, mostly). I have done a prototype of a calendar – animal sanctuary pics with a captioned message – and I am probably going to do a photobook ala blurb for the sanctuary. (Either for myself, or for them) I'm sort of slow at getting going on these things, but I'll blame it on having to learn some layout stuff and do some design stuff, when really I'm just a shutterbug who is just barely getting started learning the other end of things.
Still, I would love to do more with the pics, but not sure what else to do with them at this point. Any ideas?
I've done the dinner party thing, and it is fun. Though I don't think I had any real success, other than the fact that I know they make vegan dishes once in a while now. Better than nothing, but mentally they're not even close to on their way.
Overall, I don't know how to target people and be effective. I've always been really wary, maybe too wary, of bringing it up to friends. Culinary activism is good, but somehow I always feel frustrated when I give friends vegan recipes to go along with the vegan treat we've just had and their first question is to ask me how easy it would be to UN-veganize it.
I'll continue to periodically leaflet and to stock leaflets in my local libraries and coffeeshop. Oh, I am going to try to do a showing of PK when it comes out, but it seems like a big undertaking, and I'm not sure how it will go. I was offered some help, but it is pretty far out of my element, and I'm feeling remarkably inadequate! I also intend to get involved with a feral cat group here.
You never know about the success of dinner parties, Deb. It can be a seed planter. I've never had people want to un-veganize a recipe. That's pretty funny, but probably very disappointing. I forgot about Peacable Kingdom. I too want to do a screening, and I hope to sort of gently suggest it to people I know who are far more capable than I at pulling that off and do similar things all the time. I also forgot about feral cat groups. I too want to find one here and get involved. Thanks for reminding me!
I think you should get a book of your photos published. I loved that alley cat one you featured and I don't see why you can't pick a theme (farmed animals?) and do a book yourself.
Deb, you shouldn't feel intimidated about holding a screening. Hundreds of people do it who have never done it before. Through the years, we've collected their valuable feedback and creative ideas and put them together in the form of a step-by-step screening guide. Have you seen it?
http://www.tribeofheart.org/tohhtml/guide1.htm
Following the guide takes a lot of the guesswork out of the process. Plus, if you team up with others in your area who have held screenings before (I can connect you with people we know who can help), then you have the benefit of their experience, too.
Screenings are a wonderful way to know you are making a difference. We encourage people to hand out comment cards immediately following the screening, before the group discussion, and when you get those cards back and you see how affected the audience was by the viewing, it's such a great feeling! After the screening, many people are fired up to get involved, and you may find you make new friends who will participate in future advocacy events with you — and you can introduce them to Poplar Springs Animal Sanctuary. What better way to help them along on their journey than by connecting them with the farmed animals themselves?
Let's make a virtual toast of a very good champagne to end the atrocities of greyhound racing.
I live in a state (AZ) where greyhound racing is legal. The track here — Tucson Greyhound Park — has one crime after another. Last year it was that over 170 dogs disappeared and died.
Did the track ever get punished? Nope, It's business as usual. They even run the dogs with kennel cough.
Recently 16 dogs disappeared — they were taken and sold for coyote hunting in central California. Greyhounds like to run but not on uneven terrain and once they run into a barb wire fence, it's over.
Greyhound racing is a blood sport just like cockfighting and dogfighting. Cockfighting and dogfighting are illegal.
Please read the blog:
http://www.endtucsongreyhoundracing.com/blog
Speak out against greyhound racing whenever you can. Thanks for this forum.
Karyn,
Good luck in your efforts to ban racing in Tucson. I really am convinced that in my lifetime we can rid ourselves, and the dogs, of this horrid bloodsport. We still have 13 tracks here in Florida, which I try not to think about, as I'm sure Florida will be the LAST place to ever do the right thing by the dogs. But we can still campaign and get it banned elsewhere, like in Massachusetts, where there's a chance to get rid of it in 2008.
Mary, thanks for the acknowledgment and vote of confidence. Haha. "He's no idiot." I should think about putting that on my resume.
We have so much to do in 2008, and I get this feeling it's going to be a very good year for veganism.
With the Boston Vegan Association, our community is growing very strong, and we have a lot of motivated people coming together excited to promote veganism. Member education is underway. Attendance at our public speaking workshop has doubled every meeting since I started it (and the speakers so far are mostly starting out at a very solid level of confidence and delivery). We have a vegan feed-in scheduled for the Great American Meatout, serving vegan sandwiches, and maybe even vegan ice cream if we get a local business to come out and work with us on that. Restaurant outreach has also been making a subtle difference in the vegan options available to vegan options in the Boston area over the past month.
Also, as of the new year, our letter-writing campaign is getting going, as is our movie screening program, cooking and uncooking classes, and we hope to have an ethical, rights-based Why Vegan? pamphlet ready in time for our Meatout Feed-in event in March. The first draft of our vegan and AR FAQs should be done by then, too, with rigorous revisions to come. Hopefully it will develop into a FAQ model for all abolitionist-leaning individuals and organizations in months to come.
I'm also working on an article with a variety of suggestions for individual activism for my An Animal-Friendly Life column over at TasteBetter.com, which should go up in February.
Let's rock 2008!