~the big vegan communist google doc~

Hello and welcome. Please read this like we only have 10 ever-shortening years to mitigate climate catastrophe, thank you.

This document is my attempt at solving a problem I’ve noticed as somebody who is both a communist and a vegan… To put it bluntly, both groups can use to develop some better politics, and can help each other do so. For decades, the left and the animal rights movement have been at odds with each other. The left says that vegans are liberal, solely involved with consumption habits, single-issue, and do not have a good analysis of global politics as communists do. Vegans say the left ignores issues like animal agriculture and factory farming, thus are toothless in their environmental efforts, and that their refusal to stop eating meat is a testament to how little they actually seek to change the current crisis facing humanity. While some of these may be true of different groups within vegans and leftists, and blatantly false of others, I see it as a cycle. A negative, downward spiral that only lends to ecofascism. The left ignoring factory farming, a leading driver of climate change, is a failure of our politics and refusal to overcome capitalist alienation and propaganda, but also lends to the lack of a global capitalist agricultural analysis amongst the animal rights/vegan movements. Without a communist analysis, the vegan goal of animal liberation will be doomed to fail within the capitalist framework it has resigned itself to. How vegans imagine to liberate animals without working class control of industries, production, and distribution is magical thinking. But so is the left in thinking that our current food production system is only flawed in terms of distribution, and not that it’s a ready-made mechanism of the capitalist state which involves needlessly birthing and slaughtering billions of land animals and trillions of fish a year at the great cost of the planet, our ecosystems, our health, and our lives. My hope is that more vegans become comrades and more comrades become vegan, as our liberation is inherently tied to each others, to animals, to the earth, and all who inhabit it (except capitalists, the bourg, cops, and landlords, and nazi scum!!!)

A few quick notes:

-I’ve tried my best to organize the resources within this document by type with regard to what specific issues they encompass. Most encompass many areas, but no articles are repeated to keep it organized. I purposely did not include a “catch all” section, so if anything seems misplaced, it’s just in its most accurate section. Blue and underlined are links. Anything underneath will be in “quotations” if quoted from the resources and without quotations if from me. Bolded/italicised are also me.

-Feel free to let me know if there are any ways I can make this resource more accessible! Or if you have any resources to add! I hope this document will be dynamic, adding more sources as they become available to us. Suggestions/etc can be emailed to SixthWardWatch@gmail.com

-Sections I want to add: how to transition into veganism, why vegan not vegetarian (sort of encompassed in the animal treatment section), more about animals used for scientific/medical testing, and more. So if what you’re looking for doesn’t exist yet, don’t get discouraged because more will exist in the future!

~End of intro, start of info!~

  • Definition, terms, explanations, and etc.

-Veganism- “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”

  • This definition is from The Vegan Society, who originally coined the phrase in the early 40’s. Notice the “as far as is possible and practicable” that many liberal vegans and non-vegans of all politics ignore, or don’t even realize is part of the definition. We live in advanced post-industrial capitalism where there’s ~no ethical consumption~ but that is no excuse not politically demand better for us/animals/earth while trying your best to do better in your own life. You may be skeptical now but later in this document you will hear from poor vegans, vegans from all around the world, indigenous vegans, disabled vegans, etc etc etc., who show that veganism is possible for FAR more people than we’re told by anti-vegans. And for those who want to but truly are not able to, this document details how that in and of itself is the fault of capitalism, not the individual. Food deserts, food swamps, low pay, no time to cook, etc, = capitalism. This truth is, again, built into the definition of veganism.

        

-Vegetarianism - “people who abstain from eating all animal flesh including meat, poultry, fish and other sea animals. An ovo-vegetarian includes eggs, a lacto-vegetarian includes dairy products, and an ovo-lacto vegetarian includes both eggs and dairy products. A total vegetarian (vegan) consumes no animal products at all.”

  • Definition stolen from The North American Vegetarian Society. As you will learn later in this document, the industry that mass slaughters chickens is also the egg industry, and that mass slaughters the cows is the milk industry. The animal’s product and their body are one and the same, made inseparably linked by capitalist commodification of animals, and by the profit-increasing streamlining of the animals life and deaths. If you stop eating chicken but still consume eggs, you’re still funding and participating in chicken torture. Repeat for all other animal products. This is why communists, with a material and systemic analysis of capitalism, should seek to become vegan, not vegetarian or omnivore.

-Flexitarians, climatarians, reducetarians - People who’ve decided to change their diet to eat less meat and animal products in response to impending climate catastrophe.

  • All are groups of people who do not have a systemic capitalist analysis of the world today, but understand in a limited way some of the problems we’re facing, like how our global (capitalist) food system is the leading driver for climate change. While this realization should be welcomed by communists, the climatarian/reducetarian/etc way of solving issues obviously won’t work as they are individual and solely focused on purchase and consumption. (“When I started the Reducetarian Foundation, I said we would be successful when reducetarian was in a registered dictionary,” says Kateman. “In a few years, hopefully we’ll see that happen.” ...Not successful if climate catastrophe is staved off, but in the dictionary!) These groups exist in part because the larger left does not have, or is not propagating, the analysis that the capitalist global food system is the leading driver of climate change. Again, the cycle. The left would be foolish to lump veganism in with these trends, and in turn categorize veganism as individual and consumption-centered, especially after the slightest bit of inspection.

-Non-human animal- animals that are not human.

  • Adding “non-human” when discussing animals may seem simple and/or meaningless, but it’s an important distinction to make because humans are so alienated from non-human animals, so much so that we mass slaughter them, we forget that humans are animals too. Our experience is an animal experience. We are homo sapiens, primates, mammals, animalia.

  • Political+Vegan Resources

  • Food, Capitalism, and the Necessity of a Socialist Program. A must read!!! Co-authored by yours truly. To me, it encapsulates the entirety of this document, from the history of factory farming and it’s inherent unsustainability, the damage to the environment, it’s colonialism and racism, and more. If you choose to read nothing else, this is article is a good place to start.

  • Why Animal Rights Is The Next Frontier for the Left. A short semi-must-read. Lightly touches on a lot of issues that encompasses the animal rights movements, animal agriculture caused climate change, and the left. Personally I do not endorse the GND, the Democrats, or this new crop of socdems but parts like that are where we add the communist analysis and take out the indeterminate “left” phrase usage.

  • A Rational Agriculture Is Incompatible with Capitalism by Fred Magdoff. Very long and sciencey but well worth the read if long/sciencey is your thing. Agriculture and food systems must be a foremost concern for a class that plans on sustainably feeding the world following any revolutionary reclamation of resources, and Magdoff details exactly why the capitalist agriculture cannot nor will ever do that. Everything we currently know and experience about food will need to be changed, as capitalist agriculture systems are one of the ready-made machineries of the capitalist state that cannot continue. The breadth of this review is astounding.
  • I cannot overstate the importance of Fred Magdoff’s work. He’s been studying and educating on Marxism, environmentalism, food systems, capitalism, and etc for decades (my description utterly fails to encompass the scope of his work). Here’s him speaking at Socialism2018, on Capitalism Vs. Agriculture (38:00). He’s also written many, many books that I will link below. His writings can be found here, everything from scientific papers on soil nitrogen to political writings on the plight of the US working class.

  • Meat and Seafood Production & Consumption - A resource to familiarize yourself with the production and consumption of animal products, in numbers and graphs, across the world. It doesn’t take long to begin to see the global inequalities with the capitalist food system. One conclusion: meat consumption tends to rise as states get richer. Also of note is that while meat consumption has increased in western countries, it’s the exploited countries in the global south and in Asia that foot the drastic increases in production to satisfy the western diet.

  • These two sister Vegan Vanguard episodes, Why Leftists Should Be Vegan and Why Vegans Should Be Leftists are some must-hears. Tbh I recommend listening to both to develop a more well-rounded line on both veganism and communism. They address many issues within the vegan community/activism that I think leftists would like to hear, while also addressing the left on it’s useless anti-vegan bullshit.

  • “While arguing that capitalism inherently harms the interests of the proletariat, Marxists are incoherent if they want to abolish capitalist exploitation and oppression in order to liberate the working class but at the same time deny that for animals. This is not a moralism, per se, but a fundamental – revolutionary – moral position that Marxists are driven by in their will to end the systematic suffering that capitalism causes. For historical materialists, there is no justifiable reason not to respect the interests and rights of non-human animals.”

  • Eating Animals Is Political - “Eating animals is inherently part of the larger problem of domination and exploitation of labour, land and individual bodies - which is why animal liberation is inherently part of the solution as well. Political analyses of oppressive governments and state control should increasingly include conversations about animal agriculture, seeing as it is one of the most violent industries of our time (towards animals and humans). Our food choices are heavily embedded with politics, there's no way around it. Not only because the "things" we are buying are individuals with the desire to self-govern their own bodies, but because quite literally the entire animal agricultural system takes advantage of impoverished and undocumented people, particularly people of color, as well as the exploitation of land and its natural resources.”

  • Lecture, YouTube, 1:04:37

People, podcasts, pages, etc:

  • Julia Feliz Brueck- “Julia has been an ethical vegan since 2008. She has always been passionate about nonhuman animals (her favorite to illustrate!) and hopes to continue to use her abilities to give them a voice and spread compassion and justice towards them, as well as to help raise the voices of people of color and all other oppressed and marginalized groups.” Articles and interviews with Julia can be found here, many will undoubtedly be linked below as well. She runs a book publishing sanctuary, Sanctuary Publishers, which solely publishes vegan anti-oppression books, cookbooks, even childrens books. She also runs the website… *drum roll*...

  • Veganism of Color - to help us “decenter whiteness in your journey to fight against the oppression of humans and animals.” Absolutely wonderful resource, full of podcasts, zines, cookbooks, articles, interviews, etc etc etc that challenges the racist notions that veganism/animal rights is a “white people thing” or that vegans of color don’t exist. Globally and historically, those are FALSE.

  • The Vegan Vanguard Podcast- A podcast of two amazing communist vegan women, Mexie and Marine. Two episodes are linked above, Why Leftists Should Be Vegan and Why Vegans Should Be Leftists. The podcast touches on a wide range of topics like colonization, Native/Indigenous rights, anti-racism, anti-imperialism, feminism, pink/vegan-washing, and etc.

  • Mexie - I’ve linked her youtube, she has a facebook page and twitter as well. She is one half of The Vegan Vanguard, one full badass. Her youtube covers topics like food systems, the IMF/World Bank, “overpopulation”, global hunger and famine, wars, labor rights, climate change, etc etc etc. A great resource for people who like to learn via video and also have a bit of time for it.

  • Vegan Warrior Princesses Attack - A podcast! More topical than Vegan Vanguard, led by two anarchist women. “Taking a pro-intersectional approach to their activism, Callie and Nichole “attack” a wide range of topics from an anti-capitalist, feminist, anarchist, vegan perspective. Episodes can cover anything from why everyone should be anti-mass incarceration to why the movie Interstellar is a sexist, pro-colonialist piece of garbage.”

  • Though she isn’t big big in animal liberation movement, a little known fact is that Angela Davis is vegan. Yes THE Angela Davis, Black Panther Party, “cop shooting”, communist, vegan Angela Davis. Linked is an article about her speech at the 27th Empowering Women of Color Conference, and here is a youtube video of her discussing veganism.

  • An interview with crop scientist Sarah Taber which dispels myths about the US agricultural industry, it’s history, it’s racism and colonialism, and more. Not explicitly vegan but helps to combat all of the inherently pro-meat myths that are spread in attempts to silence veganism and demands for agricultural change.

  • “Historian Joshua Specht explains how the 19th century cattle-beef industry shaped modern American agribusiness - pitting the interest of workers across the supply chain against each other to ensure low prices and corporate profit, and building a powerful system of control over law, labor and land that endures today.” Also not explicitly vegan but a history that vegans should understand that can be wielded against any pro-meat industry arguments. Even if you somehow ignore the animal torture, the meat industry has been exploitative to workers, to Natives/Indigenous, and to the earth from it’s start! Cattle literally drove colonization.

  • “Content-wise, mocking vegans is the lowest hanging fruit. They’re difficult and self-righteous, a ready-made punching bag. Additionally, the press––including leading left-of-center media MSNBC, The Nation, and Jacobin––ignore the issue entirely. But what if the subject is worth a second look? And, what if our general cultural dislike of vegans is based not on objective experience but a cheap stereotype that allows for in-group signaling, permitting us, above all, to not ask or answer uncomfortable questions about where animals fit on the left.” 

  • Websites (more to add soon)

  • Some facebook pages to like, read, and learn from-

Big ole cache of articles:

Quick side note on the articles: here we must practice what I call Not Throwing The Baby Out With The Bathwater™. Nearly none of these sources are communist publications because communist publications aren’t really talking about some of these things (the cycle!) so nearly all of it is liberal and from sources that I don’t cosign their politics or all of their publications. So when you throw out the Bathwater (the inherent liberalism, liberal conclusions, the non-revolutionary, non-radical, and non-animal liberatory demands, etc), do not throw out the Baby (the scientific evidence regarding animal agriculture, the absolute failures of capitalisms attempt to commodify both food and animal life, the real world effect animal agriculture has on humans, animals, and the earth, etc.) I encourage people to click the links on the articles they read to get a better sense / the whole picture of the information being presented.

 I also encourage people to work on de-alienating themselves from their food, non-human animals, the environment that sustains us all, the ways in which food gets to our plates, etc. For those unfamiliar with the Marxist concept of alienation, a quick definition can be found here. A working definition could be: “Americans are so alienated from their labor and the labors of their fellow working classmates, all the way down to the labor and material production involved in the food which sustains their life, it’s as if by magic bacon appears on their plate in the morning and beef at night.” Billions of dollars a year in propaganda attempts to ensure we never think about the truth behind it all. Please familiarize yourself with labor processes involved in your lifestyle and the material consequences of choosing more destructive choices over a less destructive ones.

“Now and then a visitor wept, to be sure; but this slaughtering machine ran on, visitors or no visitors. It was like some horrible crime committed in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, buried out of sight and of memory.”

― Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

Another quicker note: it’s a common misconception of non-vegans to frame these issues as “plant agriculture” VS. “factory farming” THE BATTLE ROYALE... As if the two are completely separate, don’t feed (literally) into each other, and aren’t both interrelated capitalist industries owned by bloodsucking profiteers (and a lot of the time, all the same profiteers!) (And as if non-vegans don’t also consume mostly non-animal products but I digress.) Communists don’t make arbitrary distinctions in any issues rooted in capitalism, and shouldn’t when addressing global food systems, including both factory farming and plant agriculture.

  • The 1960s is around when farming took the industrial turn to factory farming… i.e. humans have never eaten this much meat in the history of mankind. The argument that ‘reducing meat consumption levels would be unnatural/unhealthy/whatever’ is ahistorical and ridiculous.

  • “ Raising livestock for meat, eggs and milk generates 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the second highest source of emissions and greater than all transportation combined. It also uses about 70% of agricultural land, and is one of the leading causes of deforestation, biodiversity loss, and water pollution.”
  • “In order to keep the temperature increase at under 2C (though scientists say we must keep it below 1.5C) on average, globally, people must eat 75 percent less beef, 90 percent less pork and 50 percent eggs - replacing them with legumes and nuts. In the US and UK, that becomes a 90 percent reduction in beef.”
  • “The huge amount of land needed to produce protein-rich feeds such as soy is having devastating effects on species & their habitats, especially in vulnerable areas such as the Amazon, the Congo Basin & the Himalayas. In fact, our UK food supply alone is directly linked to 33 species extinctions at home and abroad.”
  • “While uncontrolled pollution from the meat industry has been a long-standing threat to our waterways, catastrophic floods exacerbated by climate change and the destruction of natural landscape buffers are increasingly turning America’s agricultural regions into open sewers filled in part by the meat industry’s waste.”
  • “While no single cause was identified, the widespread destruction of wild areas for agriculture and the use of pesticides are considered likely factors. Climate change was also cited as playing a potential role.”
  • “the researchers explained that there is currently an “overwhelming lack of knowledge” about insects, especially basic things like what they need for housing and food, how to manage their waste and which are the most suitable species for mass rearing. … the researchers believe that we first need to get answers to those basic questions, so we don’t “risk creating an industry that replaces one environmental problem with another.”
  • “The study found that meat and dairy account for more than 75% of the impact from EU diets. That's because meat and dairy production causes not only direct emissions from animal production, but also contributes to deforestation from cropland expansion for feed, which is often produced outside of the EU.”

Oceans and waterways

  • “Around 90% of the world’s stocks are now fully or overfished and production is set to increase further by 2025, according to report from UN’s food body”
  • “The study also found that fishing nets account for 46 percent of the trash, with the majority of the rest composed of other fishing industry gear, including ropes, oyster spacers, eel traps, crates, and baskets.”
  • “The Mighty report analyzed supply chains of agribusiness and pollution trends and found that a “highly industrialized and centralized factory farm system” was resulting in vast tracts of native grassland in the midwest being converted into soy and corn to feed livestock. ... Arkansas-based Tyson Foods is identified by the report as a “dominant” influence in the pollution, due to its market strength in chicken, beef and pork. Tyson, which supplies the likes of McDonald’s and Walmart, slaughters 35m chickens and 125,000 head of cattle every week, requiring five million acres of corn a year for feed, according to the report.”
  • “Nitrates are a type of plant nutrient found in land and water ecosystems that are harmful to humans if consumed at high concentrations ... They can find their way into drinking water through runoff from fertilized land, water treatment plants, leakage from septic tanks or sewage, industrial discharge, or the erosion of natural deposits.”

  • Human Labor Conditions and Rights

In Agricultural Farming

  • “Under lucrative arrangements, states are increasingly leasing prisoners to harvest food for American consumers at a rate not seen since Jim Crow.”
  • This is a resource but also a call to action. Wendys is the last major fast food holdout in not accepting the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) Fair Food Program- a program that demands humane working conditions and fair wages for farmworkers. Please learn more about it and tell your friends! Only scabs eat at Wendys!!!
  • “It is estimated that at least 6 out of 10 of our country’s farm workers are undocumented (Southern Poverty Law Center). The vast majority of workers–78%, according to the most recent National Agricultural Workers Survey– is foreign-born and crossed a border to get here (NAWS, Farmworker Justice).”
  • “The Fair Labor Standards Act makes exceptions for many small farms, meaning they can hire children at any age—an exception that many family farms have relied on to run their businesses. On bigger farms, children with parental permission may work for hire as young as 12, and do work deemed to be hazardous as young as 16. The lack of standards for child labor in agriculture dovetail with the lack of protections for farmworkers more generally: Under federal law, farmworkers cannot legally collectively bargain, and rarely receive benefits and overtime..”
  • “It’s difficult to know exactly how many there are, as precise data on youth farm workers do not exist; however, it is estimated that there are approximately 500,000 farm workers under the age of 18.”
  • Learn who is harvesting your plants, their labor conditions, their sheer skill and mastery, and what you can do to support them and their demands for better pay and conditions. These workers literally feed you.
  • “An estimated 2.5 million farmworkers across the United States endure dangerously hot conditions on the job. As the heat climbs, workers can start to develop symptoms of heat stress including dizziness, nausea, fainting, vomiting, fatigue, poor coordination, and seizures. As their organs, especially their kidneys, start to break down, they can fall into a coma and die if not treated. Between 1992 and 2006, 68 farmworker deaths attributed to heat exposure were reported.”

In Factory Farming

  • “Don’t buy anything produced by America’s large industrial meatpacking companies. Every dollar that you give them now is blood money, literally and figuratively.”
  • “Meatpacking is dangerous, fast-moving work that relies on undocumented workers. Census data indicates that one-third of meatpacking jobs are done by immigrants, although that percentage is probably much higher due to underreporting, especially in the current environment of low unemployment where employers are scrambling to find workers. Undocumented workers are also less likely to report violations for fear of attracting attention – and deportation.”
  • “Robertson believes that the source of the ailments were chemicals used at the plant — including a little-known chemical called peracetic acid, or PAA. A colorless bleaching agent with a faintly vinegary odor, PAA has been used to sterilize medical instruments in hospitals. In recent years, escalating quantities of it have also been used to remove bacteria from the carcasses of chickens and turkeys, despite concerns from industry watchdogs that breathing it may put workers at risk, especially when combined with chlorine and other chemical treatments.”
  • An interview with Virgil Butler, once Best Chicken Killer in the State, now a vegan animal rescuer. “And all of this brutality definitely leads to violence outside the factories as well. I know that it did with me and others that I worked with. Other co-workers became violent towards their own families, even. I know that the longer I worked there, the more violent I became. Life became meaningless—other peoples’ lives became meaningless. I got to thinking that if I had this ability to kill and not care, that others also did, so I trusted no one.”
  • “Rather than perpetuating a dysfunctional system, propping up a declining industry predicated on overproduction and wasting billions of dollars every year, the best way for the government to help dairy farmers would be by helping them get out of the dairy business.”

In Animal Liberation Activism

  • “The fur and biomedical industries had spent years lobbying the Justice Department and lawmakers to go after eco-activists, who had damaged their property, held audacious demonstrations decrying their business activities, and cost them millions of dollars. When the planes hit the twin towers, industry groups seized on the opportunity to push legislation, and federal law enforcement ramped up pursuit of radical activists in the name of counterterrorism.”

  • “Animals killed worldwide for Americans' food in 2009 amount to 8.3 billion land animals and 51 billion sea animals. (So, a total of about 59 billion animals.)”
  • “Every year, over 40 million animals are killed for fur worldwide.”
  • “3-4 million cats and dogs are killed in shelters in the United States every year.”
  • “The unnaturally high rates of labor intensive, energy depleting egg production that modern hens are forced to sustain means that even on small farms and backyard chicken operations, hens are virtual prisoners inside their own bodies.”
  • “The truth is that industrial animal farming is an inherently exploitative and neglectful process. Animals are treated as commodities -- not the sensitive creatures they actually are. As a part of that, millions of sheep perish every year on large wool farms due to the disease and individual neglect … Meanwhile, the environmental effects of wool farming are catastrophic.”
  • “I myself once believed this myth, thinking that if the animal doesn’t have to die to “give” milk, what could possibly be the issue. The truth is dairy cows lead horrible lives, filled with grief, pain and suffering. Not only does the dairy industry fuel the veal industry, but the dairy cow herself is ultimately slaughtered as well.”
  • “WDFW knows that peer-reviewed research demonstrates that killing predators is not only an ineffective solution to deter depredation on cows, but it can even result in increased attacks on livestock by survivors. Killing state-endangered wolves on to benefit the profit margins of a private business is wrong on every level.”
  • “Aside from the fact that we’re feeding our cows chicken crap, this practice is worrisome because—if you can follow the gruesome flow chart here—it means that cows could be, indirectly, eating each other.”
  • “The paper continues, "The outdated stereotype about women being caretakers and most importantly child bearers remains consistent in the dairy industry, especially when we take into account the means through which these animals are exploited. A few brief examples include rape or sexual assault, nonconsensual hormone treatments, and emotional trauma related to pregnancy. Dairy cows are forcibly impregnated, or raped, in order to constantly produce milk for humans to consume."
  • “California was sued on Friday by the largest U.S. trade group for meat packers and processors, which wants to block enforcement of a voter-approved measure requiring farmers to provide more space for animals being raised for food.”

  • “In the last 16 years alone, 100,000 Bornean orangutans have been lost. All three species – Bornean, Sumatran and the Tapanuli, a species discovered only last year – are now on the critically endangered list. … More than 69% of Sumatran elephant habitat has been destroyed within one generation, and there are fewer than 100 Sumatran rhinos left in the wild. People are part of this conflict too. Land grabbing and exploitation of workers, including the use of child labour, is endemic. And decades of deforestation for palm oil have created conditions ideal for furious forest and peatland fires. These fires, often deliberately started by companies clearing the land, threaten the health of people across southeast Asia and drive climate change.”
  • “While exploring this topic, it did not take long to come across the environmental justice impacts of genetically modified crops, and their particularly disparate impact upon indigenous peoples across the globe. Not only are GMOs threatening biodiversity and our planet, but also the very existence and cultural foundations of many indigenous groups”
  • “PepsiCo has offered to stop pursuing four small farmers in India it accuses of illegally growing a variety of potatoes registered for exclusive use in its Lays chips. … The company's actions are "against food sovereignty" and the "sovereignty of the nation," said Kapil Shah of Jatan, one of the advocacy groups helping to defend the farmers.” - Small farmers vs multinational billion dollar corps and their proprietary GMO plants in action. We should expect more of this.
  • “This is not the first time the USDA has attempted to revise its GMO rules. Most recently, a 2017 Obama administration proposal that would presumptively regulate most genetically modified organisms was tossed out by the Trump administration. Trump officials withdrew that proposal after industry groups claimed it would create too many regulatory burdens.” (Regulatory burdens = Monsanto can’t claim ownership to every single seed on earth fast enough)

  • “However, as stated above, meat consumption often—within our contemporary system of globalized food markets and neoliberal trade policies—contributes to world hunger by making it more profitable for transnational corporations to produce crops for export as animal feed than to grow crops to feed the local population. This creates a lack of supply and an increase in local prices that makes it more difficult for many developing countries, even if they have vibrant agriculture, to adequately feed themselves.” (A must read right here. Industrial meat production cannot, will not, and is an active hindrance towards solving world hunger.)
  • “Additionally, studies have found that air near North Carolina ‘swine concentrated animal feeding operations’ (CAFOs) contains ammonia and “is potentially hazardous for nearby human populations at community locations, particularly homes and schools.” The ongoing stench from the farms has also been shown to raise the blood pressure of some North Carolina residents… The maps make clear that the highest density of CAFOs exists in low-income communities of color.”
  • “For years, residents say, North Carolina regulators shielded the identities of polluting farms, burying public complaints against them and leaving those who lived nearby with few avenues for redress. Neighbours said their complaints were going unheard.”
  • (Article in which people from the UK are freaking out that they might start importing the nasty ass chemical laden chicken from the US that Americans eat all day every day…)
  • “Three decades after the FDA determined that growth-promoting uses of penicillin and tetracycline in agriculture were threatening human health, its own data shows that 80% of all antimicrobial drugs sold nationally are used in animal agriculture.”
  • “According to Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), drinking just two glasses of milk a day increased cancer risks to 60 percent, and eating 35 grams of dairy protein increased cancer risks by up to 32 percent. Meat consumption was linked to a 28 percent increase, and the average Western diet (rich in processed and fast foods) increased risks by 200 percent.”
  • “Very expensive mistakes: The Dept. of Agriculture admitted to $3.7 billion in “improper payments” processed since 2004. Just in the past two years, $650 million in subsidy overpayments were shelled out to farmers. In 2011, the Internal Revenue Service reported that $1.1 billion was paid to 172,801 deceased farmers over a six-year period.
  • “Animal protein production requires more than eight times as much fossil-fuel energy than production of plant protein while yielding animal protein that is only 1.4 times more nutritious for humans than the comparable amount of plant protein”
  • “The new analysis shows that while meat and dairy provide just 18% of calories and 37% of protein, it uses the vast majority – 83% – of farmland and produces 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions.”
  • “Just 55 percent of the world's crop calories are actually eaten directly by people. Another 36 percent is used for animal feed. And the remaining 9 percent goes toward biofuels and other industrial uses.”
  • “The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified processed meat as a carcinogen, something that causes cancer. And it has classified red meat as a probable carcinogen, something that probably causes cancer. IARC is the cancer agency of the World Health Organization.”
  • “One viral cherry photo was posted by Michigan cherry farmer Marc Santucci of Santucci Farms in Traverse City. He captioned the photo: “These cherries are beautiful! But, we have to dump 14 percent of our tart cherry crop on the ground to rot. Why? So we can allow the import of 200 million pounds of cherries from overseas! It just doesn't seem right.”
  • “According to plea papers, the two men admitted to selling uninspected, misbranded, or adulterated meat–including whole cow hearts labeled as “ground beef”–to 32 prisons in 18 states.”
  • “The new paper takes the earlier findings a step further by showing a higher likelihood of the presence of BLV [bovine leukemia virus] in breast cancer tissue. When the data was analyzed statistically, the odds of having breast cancer if BLV were present was 3.1 times greater than if BLV was absent.”
  • “Much of the ivermectin given to cattle is excreted onto the ground, where it can harm and outright kill many arthropod species, including dung beetles.
  • “If contaminants aren’t completely removed from wastewater, for instance, they can end up in the sewage sludge that’s then put back on crops. Some of these pollutants, including heavy metals such as lead and cadmium, are taken up by plants or return to groundwater sources, where they can be ingested by wildlife and humans.
    That’s one way that the bacterium Escherichia coli, which is a normal part of bovine gut flora, can infiltrate food crops and make humans seriously ill.”

  • “The new ministry will be headed by politicians from the “beef caucus,” a group of lawmakers who have historically opposed indigenous land conservation, supported agricultural expansion, and attempted to relax slave labor laws.”
  • “Cattle ranching is the largest driver of deforestation in every Amazon country, accounting for 80% of current deforestation rates. Amazon Brazil is home to approximately 200 million head of cattle, and is the largest exporter in the world, supplying about one quarter of the global market.”
  • “However, the food industry, with its factory farms and slaughterhouses, can also be considered a major contributor of pollution that affects the health of communities of color and low-income communities, because more often than not they locate their facilities in the areas where these people live. “Swine CAFOs [Confined Animal Feeding Operations] are disproportionately located in communities of color and regions of poverty …”
  • “There’s a single, major occupant on all this land: cows. Between pastures and cropland used to produce feed, 41 percent of U.S. land in the contiguous states revolves around livestock.”
  • “Brazil's environmental protection agency IBAMA, which has been starved of funds in recent years, lost authority when he [Bolsonaro] took office in January, and the forestry commission was moved to the Agriculture Ministry, which is run by farm industry allies. For Marcio Astrini, Greenpeace Brazil's public policy coordinator, Bolsonaro's government is "anti-environmental" and has pushed to reduce forest protections without presenting a plan to fight deforestation.”
  • “Drawing on these insights, I argue that a broader context for considering colonialism and its dismantling ought to include animals and human-animal relations. Conceptualizing colonization as extending beyond human lives presents opportunities for intervening in discourses of reconciliation that are still rooted in colonial logics and frameworks of understanding. Articulating harms done to human and animal bodies, the relationships between them, and the lands that support them, opens up different material entry points for thinking about reconciliation and, necessarily, decolonization. The extermination of the free-ranging bison herds is a significant example of such colonial harm.”
  • An extensive investigative report on how cattle grazing, and the soybean needed to sustain them, is driving deforestation, viewed through the supply chain of Burger King, the worst of the worst of fast food joints in respects to deforestation.
  • Article in Portuguese, but the fires burning the Amazon (starting around August 10th, 2019) were set by cattle ranchers to signal to Bolsonaro they’re ready to work with him in his plans to continue deforesting the Amazon, genociding indigenous Brazilian, and more (see articles above re: Brazil)
  • “The idea that the park service is going to kill native wildlife for the sake of ranches in a National Park unit is shocking,” said Laura Cunningham, California director of Western Watersheds Project. “The parks should be managed for native wildlife, not the commercial cattle industry.”

  • “The training is very often fear-based and a bullhook (stick with a metal spike on the end) is used as a means of control. .. Tigers are often speed-bred so that cubs are always available for tourists to snuggle. Adult tigers may be drugged or even declawed to make interaction safe. Sloths or other small mammals like slow lorises may be poached from the wild for use in tourist attractions.” (Fuck Nat Geo for making the full report $)
  • “So it is especially ironic that disability in some animals is so highly valued that people see it as an entertaining spectacle while the appearance of a disabled animal in many other contexts is downright unforgivable if they bear no value as an exploitable good, especially if a disability is the result of a chronic or degenerative condition, amputation, or (heaven forbid) old age.”
  • “A few days ago, a healthy 2-year-old giraffe at Copenhagen Zoo, named Marius, was killed. The zoo decided they didn't have space for him. So he was shot in the head and his body was fed to the lions - in front of a crowd of spectators."
  • “After she diagnosed a horse with a stress fracture in the hind leg at a racetrack in Pennsylvania, the horse’s trainer promised to rest it for three months to allow the injury to heal, she said. But the owner transferred the horse to another trainer, who ignored her advice, gave the horse painkillers and then entered it in a race. "That horse raced and was pulled up with a broken leg, with his leg dangling, and had to be euthanized on the racetrack,”

  • “This is why the NIH reports that over 95 percent of drugs that pass tests on primates and other animals fail in humans, with each failure representing a loss of $2 billion and more than a decade of work.”
  • “The United States is one of the last countries allowing invasive research on chimpanzees. Biomedical research on chimpanzees commonly involves maternal deprivation, social isolation, intensive confinement, and repetitive invasive procedures. These physically harmful and psychologically traumatic experiences cause many chimpanzees to develop symptoms of psychopathology that persist even after relocation from laboratories to sanctuaries.”
  • “Ahead of the Iraq war, medics sought to find out what happens to a wounded creature who receives further wounds. To do this, they attacked pigs. One of the medics explained: "My pig? They shot him in the face with a 9-millimeter pistol, and then six times with an AK-47 and then twice with a 12-gauge shotgun. And then he was set on fire." Finally, after a 15-hour ordeal, the pig died. … animals tortured and killed so our leaders can learn the best ways to torture and kill humans.”
  • “Category E is the ugliest. It means “We’re experimenting on these animals, and they’re in a lot of pain, which we’re not helping.”...  According to USDA data, in 2016 there were 71,370 animals suffering in Category E experiments. That’s not even counting mice, rats, and birds, incidentally, as the Animal Welfare Act still doesn’t recognize those as animals deserving of protection.””

  • “At the same time, a handful of heavyweight lobbyists were spending millions in support of the interests of milk, cheese and yoghurt producers in the US. The IDFA spent $1.3m lobbying on a variety of issues, including school milk, according to Senate lobbying disclosures. It gave another $260,000 to candidates, two-thirds of whom were Republican, ... The Dairy Farmers of America spent $924,000, including on school milk, according to CRP.”
  • “The NCBA [National Cattlemen’s Beef Association] in turn uses this public money to buy ads encouraging you to eat more beef, while also lobbying to derail animal rights and other agricultural reform activists, defeat meat labeling requirements, and defend the ongoing consolidation of the industry. … Nearly 99 percent of all the beef tax dollars collected by the government, some $45 million a year, winds up in the hands of just one group, the NCBA, which relies overwhelmingly on this public money to support itself.”
  • “Furthermore, the financial dependence and institutional centrality of hunting for the Department of Natural Resources and Department of Fisheries and Wildlife mean they are not responsive to democratic demand but rather are merely the state arm of the pro-hunting lobby. A sober account of the financial assets of the hunting industry is necessary if we are to effectively understand the power it may exert over policy and public opinion.” (Great article on how the Department of Wildlife management groups are effectively the state arm of the hunting lobby)

  • “The Resnicks have mobilized the California pistachio industry, turning them into foot soldiers in the attempt to keep financial pressures on Iran; at the same time, The Wonderful Company has been one of the foremost figures in commodifying water, donating to specific political campaigns and figures that would support their business over the entire population of California.”
  • “The national Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad, is offering farmers in Hasakah a high, subsidized price for their wheat. But the US-backed local Kurdish government has “said no wheat can leave the region under their control,” AFP reported.”
  • “That same year, the World Bank estimated that agricultural cultivation of West Bank land currently under full Israeli military control would deliver an additional $700 million per year to the Palestinian economy. Palestinians are prevented from cultivating their land and are deprived of income, forcing many to “seek employment in settlement agriculture, often under deeply exploitative conditions,” Who Profits notes.”
  • “At some point, [Roen] Kraft [heir to the Kraft cheese fortune] started raising money among his own circle of fellow trust-fund friends for what he described as a “private coup” to be carried out by Silvercorp, according to two businessmen whom he asked for money.
    Kraft allegedly lured prospective donors with the promise of preferential access to negotiate deals in the energy and mining sectors with an eventual Guaidó government, said one of the businessmen.

Leftist Skepticism of Veganism:

  • “... That being said, I attribute the main driving force of animal commodification to white supremacy and capitalism in their utilization of imperialism and colonialism. This is an imperative distinction to make when discussing Palestine as it is the contemporary textbook example of settler-colonialism and military occupation..”

  • “For her, though, being Māori is integral to her veganism, and this gives it an added dimension. “In the Māori worldview,” she says, “the rivers, lakes, and forests are our ancestors. They are part of us and we are part of them. But right now, our rivers and forests are sick, and intensive animal agriculture, and especially dairy in New Zealand, have played a huge role in that.”

  • “Further, I describe the historical and ecological relationship between animal exploitation, colonialism, and the genocide of Amerindians. Finally, I put forth evidence that people of color within the United States (and in other countries) are still marginalized and whose lives are put at risk in order to increase the profits of animal-exploiting, multi-national corporations.”

  • “Israel is indeed utilizing all the social movements that are emerging to improve its image at the international level. The new Vegan Birthright program is one example of how the Israeli government exploits veganism and uses it in the service of colonialism. … In fact, the moral price we pay for disconnecting the struggle for animal rights from the struggle for human rights is reproducing, reinforcing and making other oppressions sustainable.”

  • “Let me speak very frankly here. Black liberation and animal liberation do not exist in opposition to one another. Placing them in this false binary is something I constantly see people do. Not only is it a tool of white supremacist institutions to pretend that these are mutually exclusive, it’s ahistorical. The 20th century is littered with black human rights activists who also called people to account for animal violence.”

  • “Though this series may frame veganism as a privileged political position and lifestyle, a careful reading of these posts (especially parts 3 through 5) ought to prove otherwise. As I have documented previously, historically within Western culture (especially in modern times) "meat"-eating corresponds with male, white/European, and class privilege;* and as I suggested in part 3, veganism should be thought of a socio-political justice movement that challenges all privilege that comes at the subordination of others.”

  • “Christopher-Sebastian was quick to note that  “the commonality of [black people and animal] oppression under the scope of white supremacy … does not mean it is making a comparison; it is the fact that whiteness has analyzed us and decided that we are not worthy of our individual selves and our individual bodily autonomy and that we get to be objectified and used. Both of us, black people and animals.”

  • “As one of many African American animal activists who testified at the hearing in favor of the ban, I found it insulting that the fur trade would use my community as a smokescreen. … Many black vegans and black animal rights activists are rightfully shocked that furriers have brought race into this discussion. I’ve marched with Black Lives Matter in Charlottesville and gotten hit with tear gas by white supremacists. I know what a threat to the black community looks like. This fur ban ain’t it.”

  • Is veganism just consumption/personal/apolitical?

  • If you’ve gotten this far and still think “yes”, I really don’t know what to tell ya… here are some more resources anyways!

  • “You’re not a real man, it says, unless you eat meat. It’s so pervasive it dissolves seamlessly into everyday life—until someone rejects it.” (Amazing read)

  • Vegan Bill of Consistent Anti-Oppression - “Even though we are trying to break down one form of supremacy, a supremacy hierarchy continues to exist within veganism. One of the results is that the voices of many communities have been silenced or ignored–including women of color, LGBTQIA+ people, fat people, neurodivergent people, and disabled people –as we articulate concern for nonhumans.”

  • “The answer, in both cases, is that compassion seems to beget compassion. People who strongly favored government help for the sick “were over 80 percent more likely to support animal rights than those who strongly opposed it,” the authors write. The finding held even after controlling for factors like political ideology. Support for animal rights was also correlated — though the size of the effect was smaller — with support for LGBT individuals, racial and ethnic minorities, unauthorized immigrants, and low-income people.”

  • “Veganism at it’s root is a philosophy, an idea that the animals don’t exist for us. Just as a disabled person, I don’t exist to be someone’s inspiration nor target of pity, animals do not exist to be our meals and clothing. They have their own lives and exist for themselves. This may not be the mainstream way of thinking, but as with all forms of oppression, just because someone decided that a particular demographic is inferior, doesn’t make it true nor does it justify the oppression. “

  • “The prevailing logic also assumes that healthy and nutritious vegan food is inherently expensive and that unhealthy and processed meat and dairy products are inherently inexpensive, both of which are false.”

  • “When it comes to income, both diets (vegan and vegetarian) are more common among people earning less than $30,000 while they are rarest among high earners.” Source is Forbes but outlines this Gallup poll re: vegans/vegetarians. Admittedly, the sample size is small. Here is another resource of the demographics of vegans from 2017, with a much larger sample size and similar findings. But YES, half of the vegans in the US make less than $30k a year, and the largest concentration of vegans in is in the sub-$50k a year bracket. Anybody who says veganism is expensive or solely practiced by rich people is wrong and is spreading a lie that discourages the working class from considering veganism. Globally, this lie falters even more so.

  • Here I would like to remind everybody the definition of veganism, “Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.” Obviously, we wouldn’t be the working class selling our labor for a wage to in turn buy our life-sustaining commodities if we didn’t have to sell our labor and buy life-sustaining commodities. Many of us are struggling to afford food at all, are deprived of adequate grocery stores and supermarkets, or have issues more pressing to survival than allows them to make these changes. All of the circumstances that prevent people from being vegan are due to capitalism, which the left is already seeking to address. It nearly all boils down to the fact that food should not be commodified, and that every single human should have a healthy and bountiful diet, collectively as humanely and environmentally sustainable as possible. This will only be possible when our food system is under the control of the working class, and we will only get there in part by beginning to reject the capitalist food system now. As far as is possible and practicable, the working class need to be practicing veganism. Vegans need to be more understanding of those who are not fully able to practice veganism, but the left needs to stop using excuses that are valid of others but not of themselves as an excuse to reject veganism entirely.

  • “It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases”
  • “Vegetarians have also been found to have lower risks for diabetes, diverticular disease and eye cataract. Overall mortality is similar for vegetarians and comparable non-vegetarians, but vegetarian groups compare favourably with the general population. The long-term health of vegetarians appears to be generally good, and for some diseases and medical conditions, it may be better than that of comparable omnivores.”

  • “Right-wing adherents do not simply consume more animals because they enjoy the taste of meat, but because doing so supports dominance ideologies and resistance to cultural change.”
  • “There is a corollary in advertising: it treats women like meat and also suggests that dead animals who become meat are sexualized beings who desired their fate. Many meat advertisements blur the lines between sexual assault and consumption of animals. Misogyny is hiding in plain sight.”

Eco-Fascism

  • If you aren’t familiar with eco-fascism or related eco white supremacist trends, this resources is a goldmine of information. Too often does the left write off environmentalism as “inherently left-wing”, and that the masses will magically realize that overthrowing capitalism=solving climate catastrophe, when that just isn’t true. A growing section of nazis are fully aware that the earth is rapidly becoming uninhabitable for humans, and they’re organizing for environmentalism that ensures the future of white people and white people only.

  • “What prevents ecological politics from yielding reaction or fascism with an ecological patina is an ecology movement that maintains a broad social emphasis, one that places the ecological crisis in a social context. As social ecologists, we see the roots of the present ecological crisis in an irrational society — not in the biological makeup of human beings, nor in a particular religion, nor in reason, science, or technology. On the contrary, we uphold the importance of reason, science, and technology in creating both a progressive ecological movement and an ecological society. It is a specific set of social relations — above all, the competitive market economy — that is presently destroying the biosphere.”

  • “The current rise of eco-minded white supremacy follows a direct line from the powerful attorney, conservationist and eugenicist Madison Grant – a friend of trees, Teddy Roosevelt, and the colonial superiority of white land stewardship. Grant, along with the influential naturalist John Muir and other early Anglo-Saxon conservationists, was critical in preserving the country’s wildlands for white enjoyment. Muir, who founded the Sierra Club environmental group in 1892, was disturbed by the “uncleanliness” of the Native Americans, whom he wanted removed from Yosemite. Grant successfully lobbied, in equal measure, for the creation of protected national parks and the restriction of immigration by non-whites.”

  • “But eco-fascism is a longstanding political ideology that is currently undergoing a revival in the fetid culture of the contemporary extremist right. In general, unlike many on the political right, eco-fascists concede the reality of looming ecological catastrophe. But the “solutions” they propose are frankly genocidal.

Eco-fascists have lamented the despoliation of nature, which they associate with modernity and an industrial society which they feel has diminished the connections between race and territory. One of their principal concerns tends to be what they see as human overpopulation, and the tendency of migration and multiculturalism to move races out of their homelands.”

        

Documentaries

  • Cowspiracy - “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret is a groundbreaking feature-length environmental documentary following intrepid filmmaker Kip Andersen as he uncovers the most destructive industry facing the planet today – and investigates why the world’s leading environmental organizations are too afraid to talk about it. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, water consumption and pollution, is responsible for more greenhouse gases than the transportation industry, and is a primary driver of rainforest destruction, species extinction, habitat loss, topsoil erosion, ocean “dead zones,” and virtually every other environmental ill. Yet it goes on, almost entirely unchallenged.” (Streaming on Netflix)

  • Dominion - “Dominion is a feature-length documentary presenting an uncompromising, damning exploration of the various ways animals are used and abused by humans, particularly in the meat, dairy, egg, clothing and entertainment industries. Filmed in Australia, ‘Dominion’ combines footage from handheld, hidden, and aerial drone cameras, much of it never seen before, to convey both the terrifying scale of an empire built on secrecy – and the individual stories of its victims. Focusing on the legal, industry-standard practices that occur all over the world, the film questions the morality and validity of humankind’s dominion over the animal kingdom, advocating not for minor improvements to their welfare but for a deeper conversation about our right to exploit those we deem inferior to ourselves.” (Streaming free via the link)

  • Earthlings - “EARTHLINGS is a 2005 American documentary film about humankind's total dependence on animals for economic purposes.  Presented in five chapters (pets, food, clothing, entertainment and scientific research) the film is narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, featuring music by Moby, and was written, produced and directed by Shaun Monson.” (Watch it free here - vimeo link)

  • Forks Over Knives - “Forks Over Knives examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the chronic diseases that afflict us can be controlled or even reversed by rejecting animal-based and processed foods.” (Streaming on Netflix)

  • The Ghosts In Our Machines - “This animal rights focused documentary sheds light on the individual lives of animals locked inside the "machine" of our animal exploiting industries. The film follows photojournalist and activist Jo-Anne McArthur who presents us a window to these animals that are all too often out of sight, out of mind.” (Available for stream or purchase on Amazon)

  • Live and Let Live - “Live and Let Live is a feature documentary examining our relationship with animals, the history of veganism and the ethical, environmental and health reasons that move people to go vegan. Food scandals, climate change, lifestyle diseases and ethical concerns move more and more people to reconsider eating animals and animal products.” (Streaming on Netflix)

  • What The Health - “The film exposes the collusion and corruption in government and big business that is costing us trillions of healthcare dollars, and keeping us sick. What The Health is a surprising, and at times hilarious, investigative documentary that will be an eye-opener for everyone concerned about our nation’s health and how big business influences it.” (Streaming on Netflix)

  • Farm to Fridge - 12 minutes long, link is to vimeo. WARNING: GRAPHIC, but if you can’t even watch it, maybe don’t pay somebody else to do it… “Narrated by Oscar-nominee James Cromwell, this powerful film takes viewers on an eye-opening exploration behind the closed doors of the nation's largest industrial farms, hatcheries, and slaughter plants -- revealing the often-unseen journey that animals make from Farm to Fridge.”

Charts

Books