NEWS: Vegan Gains Dragged Out of Vegfest by Security for… Preaching Veganism?

a completely unsubstantiated rumor from
Facebook reports that vegan gains has been forcibly removed from onstage at some kind of animal rights conference I'll now read this unverified first-hand account giving you a sense of its gravity and seriousness by using a hand puppet and putting on a silly voice to ridicule the source That awkward moment when somehow Richard Burgess aka vegan gains who has some of the most oppressive garbage politics got invited to a vegan influences panel at a veg food fest then decided to publicly and disruptively shame a veg food fest organizer during a Q&A on a separate panel for having a vegetarian for five years and not yet vegan um pardon me by repeatedly accusing her of participating in the rape and torture of animals while organizers and security guards tried to remove him this is what happens when the movement as a whole continues to uphold trash while refusing to listen to or actively silences critical intersectional perspectives if there is video tape I haven't seen the videotape I've only read this first account if Richard is gonna come forward and speak on the issue I haven't heard him say anything about the issue however the question we have to ask yourself in these situations is what do we hear for guys why did we even hold a conference if we can't be honest with one another at talking about the conflict between vegan and vegetarian within the animal rights movement if we can't be honest with one another about say the conflict between veganism and reduce it arianism conservationists who still go duck hunting all these issues whatever they may be if we can't be honest about it why did I buy an airplane ticket to come here why did I pay for a hotel you know real talk if we can't be honest about this here and now why are we here and I think what you run up against is the assumption that people are going to be less honest in real life than they are here you know the safety of the keyboard the safety of the computer screen is safety of the internet and I think that's I think that's putting things the wrong way around I used to be a scholar of Buddhism and I went to a very memorable Buddhist studies conference that was in part academic and in part monastic which is to say Buddhist monks were invited and the Buddhist monks were almost entirely just dead weight at this conference they had no interest they had no interest in the research being done in in the study of Buddhism for the most part but at one moment during the conference there's a senior white British scholar called professor Richard Gombrich self on stage and a Buddhist monk comes to the microphone and he asks a somewhat provocative somewhat confrontational question and professor Gombrich can take the heat and he's getting he's getting a little bit worked up in his reply the man who was the head of the conference the chief organizer he comes out and tries to just end the discussion he says oh we can talk about it later we could talk about it like behind the scenes after the conference like during the lunch break or sometime and to his credit professor Richard Gombrich said no why did I come here why did I buy an airplane ticket and fly here and come here to this conference what was the point of everyone gathering here if not to talk out this kind of issue and of course he was right when else is a traditional Buddhist monk in full robes going to confront you know a secular Western academic spurt in the history of Buddhism and Buddhist literature but it's philosophy everyone say when are you gonna have that confrontation won't even have that Q&A period or whatever it is when are those issues gonna get talked out if not now then when if not here than where now what he said at that moment it's different when I've just said right now he's making basically the same point but he talked about the fundamental value of democracy and the fundamental value of academia and the concept that in a democratic society an academic institution exists for this kind of debate this kind of confrontation of opposing values and not to silence them not to split up nuts he made an interesting he made an interesting statement of principle and you know just one other example of a flashpoint in that conference there was a white guy I believe American who stood up from the audience and made a slightly hostile point about the interpretation of a certain text and it's a very well known suit on Tet it's a very well known quotation from the ancient Canon and same guy on stage professor Richard Gombrich he openly laughed in his face he said look what do you mean look I I don't I'm not reading that in English I'm not relying on a modern translation I read the original scripture I read the ancient palette I really and he said in this case it I was just rereading out this morning before I came of this conference you're joking you gonna tell me um I think I think that guy was a little bit emotionally devastated by that and I've heard a lot of stories about PhD students with that that that specific professor people being kind of scarred for life by these kinds of these kinds of confrontations very often in a conference very often with that distance of the microphone and the audience and everything and you know I think somebody may be watching this video comes out of a science background or architecture background or even a theater or background if you're gonna have a writers room you're gonna have writers sitting around a table discussing what changes they're gonna make to a script you've got to be ready to debate that you got rid of speaker piece but obviously the type of people who study Buddhism there's a self-selecting bias here in the sample these are conflict avoiding people these are people who've been used to nothing but positive affirmation again and again and again being told what you're doing is so wonderful just like veganism you're gonna save the planet make the world a better place and so it's so great that you're doing this now you know they've only been getting positive feedback up to a point until somebody laughs in their face says like what do you even think what do you mean you haven't read this book I have what's the matter with you and has you both of those conflicts that really was what it came down to all like with both the Buddhist monk and with the American guy in the audience really what Richard Gombrich was saying was I've read this book and you haven't it one point that exact same situation he said to the guy in the audience he said to the Buddhist monk that he had more respect for the Muslims because at least the Muslims would leave the Koran at least the Muslims read the sacred text their religion is based on the Quran of that hadith they know what they're getting themselves into whereas this religion of Buddhism in the 21st century it's the blind leading the blind there's another layer to this this parallelism this construction because at that very conference and then also the next time I met with Gombrich man to man face to face you know I really confronted him about the fact that he still eats meat he's not vegetarian he's not vegan he never has been vegetarian or vegan and the question is no matter how nicely you want to word it what are you doing flying around the world going to conferences and sometimes talking about very fine point of doctrine concerning Buddhist ethics about whether or not you can kill a mosquito or something and your killing and eating cows every day you're killing pigs fish whatever you know what's what's the so what does any of it mean if you can't take that basic step Richard you know in this case he may be he may be dead wrong it may be that tomorrow some tremendously embarrassing video footage is gonna come out of this and we'll all have a laugh at how ridiculous it looks but you know being wrong is something that happens to human beings once in a while sometimes you got a choice you don't sometimes you have control over it sometimes you don't sometimes it's a decision you make sometimes it's not being wrong is something that happens to human beings once in a while at least Richard is keeping it real a commitment to keeping it real that's a commitment you can make and it's a commitment you can struggle to keep you can't ever make a commitment to never be wrong again you can't make a commitment to always be right when you're wrong notice that you're wrong try to feel good about yourself because if you've been wrong about something it's a sure sign that you're still learning I mean really people like to disrespect my truth but the fact is that you know my name is I don't know