http://www.veganactivist.net/ Blog about animal rights activism, animal liberation, antispeciesism, egalitarism, veganism and other related issues. en-us Nucleus CMS v3.23 © Blog http://www.veganactivist.net/rss http://www.veganactivist.net//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://www.veganactivist.net/ http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=212

The work of a graphic designer usually implies the abstraction of the main feature of an idea and communicate it in a clear way. Under my view, this poster summs up very well the concept of "cow" that is mainstrem in our society: cows are bottles of milk with udders/tits.]]> Visual http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=212 Fri, 30 Dec 2005 10:46:00 +0200 http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=213
"Only animals eat small fishes"The following example of a speciesist advertisement is quite interesting in my opinion. Not only does it reflect the popular employment of a false distinction "animal / person" or "animal / human", but it also shows explicitly the pejorative use this distinction usually hides, and that we hear very often: "Only animals do x" (being "x" something bad). Futhermore, if we visit the website, we will find the slogan "Be a person", that comes to reinforce, in case it wasn't clear enough, that one thing are "persons" and another "animals", and that being a "person" is something necessarily good [1].

On the other hand, and relating with some reivindications from ecologist groups -as speciesist as this ad-, the message condemns the consumption of small fish (pezqueñines), because it impedes them to grow and have offspring later on. In the long term, this will result in a smaller quantity of captures of indivuals who will be killed and eaten. This obviously threatens our "fish source" or "marine resources". The message in this ad is no different to the one expoused in my text "Whale burgers, chinese burgers", in which I show that one of the reasons why Greenpeace rejects whale hunting, is because this will imply less individuals to kill / "fish" or eat. Despite this ad is promoted by an official Spanish goverment administration (for the benefit of fishers and consumers), the logotype of some ecologist organization could have been added.

In some of my next posts I will try to show some other examples of speciesism in advertisments and will also try to write a bit more interesting text about this issue: advertising and graphic design as speciesism promotion tools.

I want to encourage you to send me -and comment through this blog or email- any speciesist ad you may find.

[1] I will write soon about the term "person" with all the different meanings it may have.]]> Visual http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=213 Thu, 29 Dec 2005 03:36:22 +0200 http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=204 Office and Attach

Federico García Lorca. Poeta en Nueva York.


Beneath all the statistics
there is a drop of duck’s blood.
Beneath all the columns
there is a drop of sailor’s blood.
Beneath all the totals, a river of warm blood;
a river that goes singing,
past the bedrooms of the suburbs,
and the river is silver, cement, or wind
in the lying daybreak of New York.
The mountains exist, I know that.
And the lenses ground for wisdom,
I know that.  But I have not come to see the sky,
the blood that sweeps the machines to the waterfalls,
and the spirit on the cobra’s tongue.
Every day they kill in New York
ducks, four million,
pigs, five million,
pigeons, two thousand, for the enjoyment of dying men,
cows, one million,
lambs, one million,
roosters, two million,
who turn the sky to small splinters.
You may as well sob filing a razor blade
or assassinate dogs in the hallucinated foxhunts,
as try to stop in the dawnlight
the endless trains carrying milk,
the endless trains carrying blood,
and the trains carrying roses in chains
for those in the field of perfume.
The ducks and the pigeons
and the hogs and the lambs
lay their drops of blood down
underneath all the statistics;
and the terrible bawling of the packed-in cattle
fills the valley with suffering
where the Hudson is getting drunk on its oil.
I attack all those persons
who know nothing of the other half,
the half who cannot be saved,
who raise their cement mountains,
in which the hearts of the small
animals no one thinks of are beating,
and from which we will all fall
during the final holiday of the drills.
I spit in your face.
The other half hears me,
as they go on eating, urinating, flying in their purity
like the children of janitors
who carry delicate sticks
to the holes where the antennas
of the insects are rusting.
This is not hell, it is a street.
This is not death, it is a fruit-stand.
There is a whole world of crushed rivers and unachievable distances
in the paw of a cat crushed by a car,
and I hear the song of the worm
in the heart of so many girls.
Rust, rotting, trembling earth.
And you are earth, swimming through the figures of the office.
What shall I do, set my landscapes in order?
Set in place the lovers who will afterwards be photographs,
Who will be bits of wood and mouthfuls of blood?
No, I won’t; I attack,
I attack the conspiring
of these empty offices
that will not broadcast the sufferings,
that rub out the plans of the forest,
and I offer myself to be eaten by the packed-up cattle
when their mooing fills the valley
where the Hudson is getting drunk on its oil.
 ]]> General http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=204 Wed, 14 Dec 2005 01:44:00 +0200 http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=203
Playmobils kit to create your own butchers shop

In case you want to show your son/daughter the role non-human animals play -unfortunatelly- in our societies, or to allow them to play creating their own butchers shop, take a look at Playmobils suggestions.
































All images are property of Playmobil
]]> General http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=203 Tue, 13 Dec 2005 22:42:08 +0200 http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=192
"Freedom Food" logotypeRSPCA Freedom Food is the label that appears over the corpses of the non human animals who were bred, deprived of freedom and finally killed for human animal consumption according to RSPCA guidelines.

They have registered the brand "Freedom food" and have created a logotype with the F of Freedom and now charge every direct exploitator who wants the desired logotype of "freedom" in his/her trays of flesh, milk, yoghourt, eggs or fish. That brand has the desired function of calming consumer consciousness, assuring in this way the demmand of that kind of "products" and even increasing it. That logotype brings benefits to non human animal exploitation and RSPCA wants to take part of it as the manager of the brand, in concrete 0,3% of every product plus a daily tax of 510 euros per inspection.

It's not the first time that a company that sells flesh claims in it's ads how good it's products taste after stating how well their prisoners has lived before been murdered. Freedom is an added value they want to associate with their products, it's the peak of non human animal exploitation marketing: those companies dedicated to kill non human animals talk to us about freedom. But, apart of these examples, it's the first time -as far as I know- that a related non-human animal 'non-profit' organization certifies the liberty contained in such products, allowing us to eat our victims without any feeling of guilty.

Such is the way they support the consumption of that products (after all, the higher the demmand, the higher the benefits they will obtain as managers of "freedom food") that in their web site we find several recipes that include non-human animal flesh. Another example of the way RSPCA supports these products is that the mentioned organizations prizes those who fill a survey at their website with salmon, cow flesh, yoghourts, cheese (made of cows milk), eggs and dead hens (the winners can choose among the products):

"Two lucky winners can choose from a variety of RSPCA Freedom Food labelled products, which include salmon, beef, yogurt, eggs, cheese and chicken. (Winners may choose selected products)."
Would you like to win a delicious freedom food hamper to the value of £100?

Freedom is not a label we can stick on a flesh tray and charge for it. Either RSPCA doesn't know the meaning of freedom or freedom of other-than-human animals means for them deprivation of it and murder. All those non human animals used to satisfy our consumption are not free, they are regarded as our properties to breed, to cofine, to milk, to kill. If the flesh RSPCA now offers as a prize -or show us where to buy it- came from human animals, they would never stick their freedom food label on it and tell us how to cook it.


[1] Fees RSPCA charges to assure non human animals sold as "Freedom Food" have been used and murdered according to their guidelines:

LICENCE FEE CHARGES
0.3% of wholesale value for meat, salmon and poultry products (including fresh, processed and by-products)
4p per case of 30 dozen for eggs


INSPECTION CHARGES
Pullet rearing units £95 for first house or multiple
houses + £45 per house thereafter

Laying hens £95 for first house or multiple
houses £45 per house thereafter

Laying hen producer & packer As above - plus £45 for packing facility
Chickens, ducks & turkeys Day rate of £350 or pro rata
Beef £95 per unit (incl Williams trailers)
Sheep £95 per unit (incl Williams trailers)
Beef & sheep £95 + £45 = £140 (incl Williams type trailers)
Pig breeder £95 up to and including 250 sows
£125 for herds over 250 sows

Pig breeder & weaner enterprise £95 + £45 = £140 up to 250 sows
£125 + £45 = £170 for herds over 250 sows

Pig rearer £95 per unit
Pig finisher £95 per unit
Pig rearer & finisher enterprise £95 + £45 = £140
Pig breeder, rearer to finisher £95+£45+£45 = £185 up to and including 250 sows
Enterprise £125 + £45 + £45 = £215 for herds over 250 sows
Dairy £150 per farm or £350 day rate
Dairy & Beef £150 + £45 = £195
Dairy & Sheep £150 + £45 = £195
Dairy & poultry £150 + £95]]> General http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=192 Thu, 17 Nov 2005 05:23:53 +0200 http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=191
Rosa Parks in the busRosa Parks has died at the age of 92 in Detroit - Michigan. Maybe her name is not well known for many, but her life implied a change in the lives of uncountable people that probably don't remember her now. My interest in remembering this afroamerican woman [1] is not because she was a vegetarian, but because of the decission she took one day on December 1955 and from which an important group of afroamericans has benefited since then.

In 1955 in Montgomery (Alabama) there was a law that allowed afroamericans to sit in the front side of the buses, just as long as no white person required the place. That day, Rosa Parks was coming back from her work and was quite tired. She sat down in the front side of the bus with three other afroamericans. After a while, a few white men required the seats the afroamericans were occupying. Rosa Parks was arrested and fined because she was the only one not willing to give up her seat, and that small and subversive incident started a boycott movement against the bus company that ended up some time later in the official end of racial segregation in EE.UU. [2].

Her act of rebellion against all authority and the stablished status of afroamericans[3] benefited uncountable afroamericans and will do so for very long despite Rosa Parks recent death. In my opinion, her story is an example of how powerful a small gesture can be, how important it is to fight for what we believe is fair, and an example of how big the consequences of our small acts can be.

Surely afroamericans would have seen the end of legal/official racial segregation anyway some time later. And there is no doubt that the context in which this bus incident took place fuelled it's consequences. But it's important to remember that we are the ones who shape the context of others, and I am sure that with our little acts against the injustice of non human animal discrimination, we help them even after we have died.


[1] If I say she was afroamerican it is because it's relevant in this concrete case, and not because race or ethnic origin is something relevant in general.
[2] If I use the term "official end" it is because our societies are far from being free of racism and xenophobia, despite these biases were more evident in the past.
[3] Rosa Parks fought against the social status of black people, we are now fighting against the social status of non-human animals.]]> Activism http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=191 Wed, 16 Nov 2005 23:02:00 +0200 http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=190
A mother, her son and the father]]> Visual http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=190 Sat, 12 Nov 2005 02:23:01 +0200 http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=184

In case we haven't realized what leather shoes imply for cows, a shoe shop has summed up this domination relationship for us.]]> Visual http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=184 Thu, 3 Nov 2005 15:17:16 +0200 http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=145

Same as other-than-human animals, humans animals are also made of meat, meat, blood and bones. Our bodies are also edible. Although we don't like to think in this possibility: to be eaten. We have interest in living and enjoy our lives, in avoiding suffering and death. Non-human animals too.
Don't consume animal products: go vegan.]]> Visual http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=145 Tue, 25 Oct 2005 21:08:00 +0200 http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=171

When I was just a kid, I use to spend my summer holidays in a village having fun with my friends. I lived in a house a few meters from the stable that shows this photo. Inside this, some cows spent all of their nights and some of their days. They were exploited and deprived of freedom in order someone else obtained milk from them. While I was playing, they were being enslaved a few meter away.

When they didn't produce enough milk, they became more profitable as flesh and were killed as their sons/daughters were already killed before.

It's not about they should have spend more time outside the stable.. it's about being fair and refuse to regard them as our resources or as means for our ends.. it's about respect them as our equals.

It's time to abolish slavery.. reject the consumption of non-human animal products (dairy, flesh, eggs..): go vegan.]]> Visual http://www.veganactivist.net/index.php?itemid=171 Sat, 15 Oct 2005 03:15:35 +0200