Effective Advocacy

From the liner notes of Propagandhi's Supporting Caste.

Effective Advocacy 101 by Jesus H. Chris

Everyone knows that the first rule of effective advocacy is to not insult people. This rule is especially important in terms of advocating on behalf of animals, mostly due to the fact that meat-eaters tend to cry and whine like a bunch of fuckin’ shitty babies when you pull down the diapers of their revolting lifestyle. Haha, just kidding. Calm down babies.

No, for example though, you wouldn’t want to use terms like “moronic”, “self-absorbed”, “chickenshit” or “disgusting slob” when describing self-professed “radicals” who insist on killing defenseless animals for food while a perfectly good supply of pimps, stockbrokers, crooked cops, politicians and Habs fans–among other sociopathic sources of protein–range freely throughout our communities on a daily basis. No, you wouldn’t want to say something like that. That would be considered counter-productive.

You also wouldn’t want to walk up and down the back lanes of your Kentucky Fried City slicing the throats of your neighbors’ pets only to dismiss the community’s subsequent outrage as “childish sentimentality”, “infantile anthropomorphism” or “cultural imperialism”. That would be considered anti-social.

And you really, really, really, reeeaaaallllly wouldn’t want to set fire to a slaughterhouse or a fur store or a whaling-vessel or an under-construction hog-barn because ... well, I can’t actually think of a good reason why you shouldn’t do that (besides life in prison). But you get the point. It’s all about effective advocacy.

So here I am! At your service! Ready and willing to ensure that people who already know better aren’t made to feel guilty about their stupid, selfish, unimaginably cruel choices! Besides, haven’t you heard? Vegetarians are classist! At least that’s what all the white college kids are saying when they fly home for Thanksgiving dinner! Haha, asswipes. You’ll be the first ones I eat when I finally snap, you fuckin posers. Whoops! Where was I? Oh yeah, effective advocacy...

But seriously folks, every social movement has its peanut gallery. In fact, I believe every serious social movement needs its peanut gallery, and when it comes to the movement against the egomaniacal cruelty humans perpetually visit upon animals, you can sign me up for season tickets and a very big fuckin’ bag of the blessed arachis hypogaea to go along with my top-hat and monocle.

And while it may be true that I take great pleasure in ridiculing morons rad dudes who eat animal corpses and their reproductive secretions, it’s important for me to be clear that veganism isn’t about purity or superiority. It’s simply about extending moral consideration to other inhabitants of a complex planet in a morally-ambivalent universe where, despite the statistical improbability of it all, we earthlings (human and non-human) appear to be the only instance of sentient life that is or ever has been.

That’s some heavy shit.

And seriously, if we as a society can’t even bother to treat a simple, unassuming, stunningly gentle and demonstrably sentient creature like a cow or a deer with a modicum of decency, how the fuck do we ever expect to be able treat each other–infinitely more complex, wildly divergent and often exasperating individual human beings–with anything even remotely resembling civility? It just ain’t gonna happen.

So with that in mind, and in the spirit of the first rule of effective advocacy, I leave you with this short list of potentially transformative resources, created by better and more effective advocates for animals than myself. And see? I didn’t even have to insult you to make my point after all. Fuck are you ugly.

Read:
Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights by Bob Torres
The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J. Adams
Animal Liberation by Peter Singer
Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won’t Eat Meat by Howard Lyman
Dominion : The Power of Men, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy by Matthew Scully

Watch:
Earthlings (AUTHOR'S ADVISORY NOTICE! EXTREMELY DISTURBING)

Listen:
compassionatecooks.com/podcast.htm
veganfreakradio.com