Archive for the 'praxis' Category

07
Nov

strategic planning for real change

By vegankid 0 Comments
Categories: praxis

I started a series of posts today over at the Deep Roots Animal Sanctuary blog about effective organizing tips. The series will focus on animal rights related organizing, but it can all be easily extrapolated to other areas of focus. Here’s a snip:

Today, I want to talk a bit about strategic planning. Too often, I see groups spending a lot of time organizing events, raising money, and so forth without taking the time to really think about what affect all the time and energy spent will actually accomplish. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the “fake it ’til you make it” mantra and am happy to see people organizing themselves in any way that shows they are tired of complacency, but that doesn’t mean we can’t move past that stage with some healthy dialog. After all, if we are going to be in this for the long haul, then we can’t keep setting ourselves up for constant action with no tangible results.

Read the full post here.

01
Dec

getting to the core principles of veganism

By vegankid 2 Comments
Categories: ability, animals, class, gender & sex and praxis

Its funny. A few weeks ago i started writing an essay about the need for vegans to look beyond speciesism at the larger picture of anti-oppression. The argument was simple. If i could boil it down to one sentence, it would be something like this: the compassion and non-violence at the core of veganism is hypocritical and self-serving if not extended and practiced beyond the focus of non-humyn animals. Of course, to explain this, i was writing way too many words and taking way too much time. And as the essay slowly progressed, it seemed like vegans all around were talking about this same concept.

I’m sure this isn’t coincidence. It probably has more to do with the fact that i’m now listening to 3-4 vegan podcasts a week and have been spending a little more time than usual in the vegan bubble. And the fact that we tend to hear and see what it is that we want to hear and see, probably didn’t hurt. But never the less, the conversations are there, and i couldn’t be more excited. I don’t care at this time to argue the finer points of abolition versus welfare/husbandry. Nor am i necessarily interested in taking on the role of the religious zealot, proselytizing everyone in my path to a diet sans animal products. Instead, i want to focus on a conversation about the core principles of veganism and how to go about spreading those principles.

When we look at the core principles of veganism - compassion and non-violence - we can see that even many vegans don’t practice these on a daily basis. Living within a dominant culture defined by violence, compassion and non-violence takes a daily practice of learning and unlearning. That practice is just as much focused inward as it is outward. That is not to say that we can’t share with others what we feel to be compassionate living, but we must also be open to the ways of compassionate living that are not at first glance connected to veganism.

Less hippy-dippy and more examples
“If the animal rights movement can move into a new phase in the coming years it will be to show that “animal rights” does not set up an automatic confrontation between human beings and animals, it enjoins them in the struggle for clarity and justice.”
- from the editorial of Abolitionist-Online #5

Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation, has been on my shit list for some time now. But now this ethics professor and “founding father of modern animal liberation” is officially on my list of people to be forgotten. In a recent interview, Singer argued that “HIV research would be more useful if it were carried out on brain-damaged humans rather than chimps.” If you are familiar with Singer’s academic work, such a statement will come as no surprise. It is not so much because Singer is a misanthrope (as it would seem at first glance), but because he approaches ethics from a utilitarian standpoint (choosing the lesser of two evils). It is the same reason why Singer recently gave his approval on a new research lab that has been targeted by animal rights organizations for its subjection of monkeys to Parkinson’s Disease.

This provides a good example of why veganism must be based on core principles. Otherwise, false notions of utilitarianism allow us to become ethically bankrupt and veganism means nothing. Once again, veganism becomes relegated to the dinner table and self-congratulatory practices of guilt relief. If, however, veganism is based on a notion of compassion, we could no more sentence a persyn with a mental disability to a life of torture than we could a monkey (and vice versa). In fact, if we are to base our veganism on compassion and non-violence, then the causes of disability rights, workers rights, hell, humyn liberation as a whole becomes an extension of veganism.

For the numerous vegans who care to spread veganism, it is vital that we take a good long look at what veganism is and how it is being represented. When ableist arguments are made in the name of animal liberation, we must speak up. But more importantly, we must work on a daily basis to dismantle our own unearned privileges and oppressive behaviors. Not because it compliments our veganism, but because it is the only way that we can truly live compassion in action and, therefore, is the vegan thing to do.

While i didn’t get to everything i wanted to, i must cut this short because i want to get it off in time for the Carnival of Empty Cages (and because i’m getting tired). However, i want to make one last point going back to what i was saying about listening to ways of compassion that aren’t at first glance vegan-based. As Jason Hribal said in his recent interview with Animal Voices, it should not have come as a surprise to PETA when their recent campaign comparing factory farming to slavery was met with protest. I’ve heard many (White) animal liberationists (even those that are often critical of PETA) defend PETA in this case. I don’t care to get into a discussion comparing the similarities between factory farming and slavery. Rather, i just wanted to point out the lack of compassion that was shown on the part of PETA and those defending them when they weren’t even willing to sincerely listen to the protests. Instead, they took the very privileged stance of charging forward without concern. By doing so, PETA further hurt their cause (which means they were also hurting the larger cause of veganism, since they are held to be representatives) because now they were exemplifying the concern that they were merely objectifying slaves in order to further their own mission.

Had PETA stopped to listen to concern, it would have become obvious, as Hribal states, that the protest was rightfully grounded. And from this interaction, not only could PETA have learned a great deal about public relations, but the vegan community as a whole could have had the opportunity to engage in a conversation about extending our ethics of compassion to the very community which was being objectified. In doing so, a much needed discussion on how to integrate veganism and anti-racism could have taken place in a much larger forum than currently exists.

So the point i am getting at is that we need to be careful not to view ourselves, vegans, as standing upon an ethical pedestal. Just because we don’t consume animal products does not give us moral high ground. If we wish veganism as a movement to grow, then veganism must become informed by all movements for justice, compassion, and non-violence. Rather than limiting ourselves to non-humyn animal suffering, we must also critically approach ability, gender, class, race, age, size, sexuality, and other categorizations that have been used to create violent hierarchies. To do this, we must put a great deal of effort on our own persynal growth and awareness.

I firmly believe that if we focus on spreading the principles of veganism rather than on spreading the dietary aspect of veganism, then more and more people will choose veganism. Of course, the best way to spread compassion and non-violence is not to talk the talk, but to walk the walk.

13
Nov

Oaxaca at any cost

By vegankid 0 Comments
Categories: latin america and praxis

A friend of mine down in Mexico (who has been in Oaxaca reporting and supporting the struggle), just published the following piece. Calamity is one of those people who rubs a lot of people the wrong way. But those that have spent any time with her talking about struggle and hope can’t help but love her. She’s got one hell of a fighter’s spirit and when other “allies” have come and gone, Calamity continues to fight.

Oaxaca at Any Cost
by Barucha Calamity Peller

Barricades removed by the Federal Preventive Police, during their invasion and occupation of Oaxaca City since Nov 1, may be reconstructed throughout the city as early as tonight.

Oaxacan womyn with candle“If hostility continues, if detentions and disappearances continue, we will put up more barricades…if Ulises doesn’t leave, we will put the barricades back up.” said Alejandro Benitez, a student of the university that houses the last remaining APPO radio station in the city. In an attempt to satisfy negotiations with the APPO to take down the remaining barricades, the government has released a few dozen political prisoners in small groups each day, but as some prisoners are released more people become detained or become disappeared. The approximate number of detained so far is 85, and about 34 people are considered to be disappeared. Indeed, everyday numerous acts of aggression take place against APPO members, their families, and supporters.

Yesterday, as a 5.1 earthquake shook the city, more students disappeared and received threats, prompting the occupied university to declare a red alert. Four APPO leaders with warrants on their names sought asylum in the Catholic Church for the night. Many members of APPO´s 350 integrated organizations have abandoned their homes and offices because of threats and violence from PRI party members or supporters.

“We are on the run,” said Claudia, a member of CODEP, yesterday. “They have entered our houses, or they have threatened us, so we are not sleeping or working there. We won’t just go to jail, the PRIistas will disappear us, they will kill us.”

Under so much repression, the APPO is meeting today to draw a plan of action. And on the other side, with the governablity of Oaxaca in question, governor Ulises, under pressure from all sides including the Mexican Congress, has accused his enemies in the federal government of “being afraid to apply the law.”

The Last Barricade

Cinco Senores is the last major barricade remaining after the entrance of the Preventive Federal Police (PFP) in Oaxaca City. The barricade spreads over several blocks surrounding the Autonomous Benito Juarez University and the University Radio, the only remaining APPO radio. In the past few days, the radio signal has had interruptions and can no longer be heard in some parts of the city, in response, yesterday, a march of radio supporters held a protest decrying radio interruptions. At the intersection of Cinco Senores, each road is blocked with burned buses, rebar and light poles.

Shots were fired into and towards the university four times this week, twice in the early morning, once at night, and in the early afternoon today. Twenty-two year old Marco Sanchez Mertinez was hit by a bullet earlier in the week while guarding the radio entrance and remains in grave condition in the hospital. Though the government presented the possibility of removing the Federal Preventive Police from the city if the protesters removed the Cinco Senores barricade and freed up movement on the central university avenue, the APPO decided that they would keep the barricade intact and reinforce security as long as aggressions continue.

It was here on November 2 that about 150 students and APPO supporters, some as young as 12 years old, were able to force a thousand PFP police to retreat during an attempted eviction of the radio. Although during a seven hour battle the federal forces launched tear gas from two low flying helicopters, shot water with indelible identifying ink, and aimed tear gas canisters directly at the bodies of the radio defenders, they were defeated by a rain of stones, molotov coctails and homemade firework launchers.

A twelve year old boy running through the streets that day with a paper mask to filter tear gas and sweat pouring down his face explained breathlessly, “We are the people and the people cant be defeated no matter who the police kill, fuck them.” A day later, two military officers were captured by young barricade guards and released two hours later to the Red Cross.

Apart from the new APPO planton in Santo Domingo plaza, the Cinco Senores Barricade is the only remaining image of rebellion in Oaxaca City. Before the federal forces entered Oaxaca there were close to three thousand barricades of varying sizes around the city, but today the Cinco Senores Barricade is ground zero for the flickering visibility of APPO in the city.

The eviction of barricades gives Oaxaca City the appearance of normalcy, something important for Ulises Ruiz, since he is under a serious threat of being ousted by the Mexican Congress (after being ousted by popular decree of the people of Oaxaca) due to the blatant ungovernability of the state. The image of “normalcy” is also in the interest of exiting President Fox , who insists that Oaxaca is not a major problem and does not suggest the instability of the country as a whole. He makes these declerations despite increasing solidarity protests throughout the nation, in which highways are blocked and the idea of barricading “business as usual” is recreated from Chiapas to Morelia.

The barricades must also be routinly torn down if the social movement of Oaxaca is to be controlled, because for months the barricades are the place where people have come together to sleep and eat, talk politics, and where the youth practice launching rocks in slings and laugh and play.

The barricades, along with the new APPO planton at Plaza Santo Domingo in the center of city, have become exactly what APPO represents; a rebellious intersection of lives that were previously segregated by their common social and economic marginalization. Because the APPO is based in the teachers movement and Mexican teachers have traditionally been the ones with the greatest ability of communicating with “el pueblo”, the people, rural and urban social movements have fused around the teachers from different parts of the state. And at the barricades and the APPO planton, Oaxacan people have began to recognize each other and their similar plight of poverty and misery, in the looming shadow of neo-liberal privatization and development plans.

Life of Terror with the PFP and the PRI

The presence of the Federal Preventive Police in Oaxaca City has greatly empowered supporters of the governor and members of his PRI party. Radio Ciudana, a PRI controlled radio station, has openly threatened members of the APPO, calling on PRI supporters to go to houses of APPO members and to hurt them. There have been reports that molotovs have been thrown into houses of some APPO members. At night Oaxaca City falls quiet, and people rarely walk around unless in large groups, for fear of being disappeared, arrested, or killed.

The government and the paramilitaries alike have used the death of indymedia journalist Brad Will as a tool to step up their aggression. A caller on the same PRIista radio called on people to kill any foreigner they see with a camera, and it is believed that the government used the death of a foreigner as a a justification for the need of “order” in Oaxaca and to carry out more arbitrary detentions of protesters.

“Ulises has made the political practice of terror a constant,” says one of APPO’s best known faces, Flavio Sosa.”These types of acts have been a pratice of the government of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. For example, the assassination of Brad Will permitted, accelerated, and justified the entrance of the Federal Preventive Police. This environment of fear has been a provacation by the federal government.”

More than three hundred warrants have appeared for APPO members, and there is a search warrant for the University Radio, apparently to look for weapons.

As reports of threats, disappearances, and torture inside prisons continue to pour in, there remains a spirit of confidence among the Oaxacan people who are resisting the government.

Although the Federal Police hold a 24-hour standing blockade in full riot gear on all the streets surrounding the Zocalo, people still insist Oaxaca City cannot be occupied by anyone but the people themselves. Late one night, protesters took pounds and pounds of the day´s trash from the APPO plant on in Santo Domingo plaza to a huge dumpster that sits in front of a line of police with shields protecting the Zocalo. The protesters stuck their fingers to the air and, discovering that the police were down wind, lit the trash on fire. As the police were forced to remain standing in the smoke of burning trash, people walked by on the street and shouted insults at them.

During Tuesday’s march of 10,000 APPO women in memorial of those dead and disappeared, white flowers rained down on the police standing guard outside the Zocalo as the women chanted “Assassins!”. In response, the federal police sprayed the march with water from tanks and launched stones at protesters with slingshots.

Despite these confrontations it has seemed that this week both the PFP and the APPO have been careful of major provocations, and that there was small room for give and take on both sides. But all of that is likely to change with the recent buildup of PRIista, paramilitary, and police repression inflicted through scattered acts of violence.

In The APPO’s Gaze

Though the exit of governor Ulises Ruiz seems to be APPO’s primary concern, and indeed APPO was formed as a reaction to the violent attempted eviction of the teacher´s union sit-in in June by the governor, there exists a deeper political desire within the APPO.

“…Later on, the idea matured of not only looking for the fall of Ulises, but also to transform the conditions of our lives that we have, and in our bases to create a new relation between society and the government.” says Sosa.” We have debated with civil society about the changes that Oaxaca needs, and towards where the type of government that we want must walk. The APPO is taking this avenue. The other is the struggle in the streets…that lately has been converting itself, not only as a peaceful movement, but a movement that is able to respond to the aggressions that we suffer from the PFP”.

But it is difficult to tell what will happen when and if Ulises Ruiz leaves, if the APPO will struggle for an autonomous or assembly controlled state, or if they will appeal for reforms with the next governor. The APPO seems to be quite coherent in the need to address conditions caused by neo liberal policies, and in their movement there has been a transformative analysis of political parties, authoritarianism, and the mass media-something that has been extremely tangible with the takeovers of mainstream television and radio networks by APPO women.

While crafting the vision of the future in the APPO Constitution Congress this weekend perhaps the APPO and its support bases will form a clearer idea of their desires and needs, and the new way “of doing politics.”

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