Veganism and Ecology in Party Politics: How to Build the Movement, Step by Step.

hey guys even by my standards this is an
unusually casual broadcast just on you now i'm eating strawberries I just got today this is really the start of strawberry season here in kunming the changing the season so for us that's winter nude beautiful brilliantly red strawberries and I'm just sitting and kicking it with whoever happens to be online I'm having a dinner of nothing but strawberries and soy milk before I go back to the gym I already wanted the gym once day when I want to go back I want to lift heavy this evening so I'm hoping the strawberries hoping this this is my pre-workout meal let's see how that goes maybe it'll go horribly wrong maybe I'll be barfing up strawberries after lifting a hundred kilograms but hey life life's a contact sport people play to win um look I had a question during my last broadcast that didn't get to answer mmm and for once I'm holding strawberries instead holding the microphone I had a question about what I felt the Humane party was doing wrong so the Humane party if you haven't heard of it is a very is a party that very recently came to prominence in the United States of America in as much as they've achieved any prominence or notoriety and they do also refer to themselves sometimes as the vegan party because they do require all of their members to be vegan so in a very obvious sense they are a vegan party they are a party entirely oh sorry I should they all know that all the supporters but all their candidates anyone to be a party member official or candidate has to be vegan so they're obviously wrapping the vegan cause to a significant extent and I commented in passing yesterday when I got a skosh it will look I don't really want to get into it but I think they're approaching the issue 180 degrees wrong there they've got the cart before the horse they've got things exactly backwards however you want to put it um and the guy who asking the questions oh that's a really interesting answer I want to hear more and yesterday I didn't really want to get into it I don't think other things do a nothing's talk about so I didn't say anything further at the time look building constituency what does it mean to you building credibility what does it mean to you you got to be somebody somewhere before you can be anybody everywhere you can build constituency by doing very humble work at City Hall you can build constituency by owning the corner store in a small town you know you don't need to be famous you don't need to be a Donald Trump like figure to run for president at States but it helps it helps to be a former reality TV star etc etc um many years ago when I was advising the Green Party of Canada and what they should do to build credibility and build constituency and this was back when the internet was was relatively weak medium I was really saying them you need to have an on paper magazine that shows that you are ochre all that you're up to date with your you're in the know about what's going on in the recent scientific breakthroughs now today on the internet I mean the internet existed then but it was in a more crude nascent state I'm talking about the kind of information that vegan gains so casually shows he knows that he sharp on he's aware of what's going on in peer-reviewed literature on the most recent health breakthroughs you need to have a magazine that shows you're aware of recent protests recent legal challenges in Europe in New Zealand so you know whether it's pertaining to animal rights or other ecological rights ecological legal battles ecological disasters you need to have a magazine that shows you have a staff of people with names and faces who know what's up who knows what's going on and this is totally alien to them because the keeping it all the way real in case you think I'm not already keeping all the way real on this channel most of those people in the Green Party of Canada at that time they were basically communists they were X communists or crypto communist and they felt that their legitimacy didn't come from being well informed or up to date you know in the way that again vegan get gains just seems up-to-date and well-informed he checks the articles he tells you about the science is coming they felt that their legitimacy came from adherence to a simple ideological doctrine and insisting that their doctrine was right and that they were passionate about it and anyone who questioned them was wrong because that's the way communism works especially that's the way communism works in a country like Canada obviously communism is somewhat different if you're from Estonia you know but in Canada the United States or England that really is the way communists approach legitimacy in an electoral forum they think that a simple ideological statement of their superiority of why they're right and the other people are wrong that that's how you build your credibility and it's not you would be better off building credibility you know I can use examples that mention of the videos to small community struggles a struggle at one prison to improve prison conditions a struggle at one sewage treatment plant to make the water drinkable or safe to swim in in one River you know a one like when Canada we have a lot of these examples a struggle at one you know indian reservation or First Nations reservation whatever want to say Oh in the remote countryside where you struggle and say look the government has poisoned these people's drinking water drinking water up ought to be up to these standards environmental regulations autograph these standards or you pick an example we have a lot of these in Canada too with the government has sold out its old standards you know there were stands that were supposed to be enforced for a pulp and paper company for some for-profit corporation but the government was throwing those standards that cuz you know the business makes money whatever situation is any of those little struggles just one of them build constituency build credibility and show that you have currency that your current that you're into what's going on now so again whatever 15 years ago I was talking about that being a magazine still today look within Canada if we're talking about Canada publishing a magazine on paper and sending it to your patron sending it to people who donate money you still is worth well because they're giving you money so they ought to have something they can touch and feel if you send them flowers in the mail that's great too but obviously that content to the internet and YouTube obviously there are other platforms today that would really reshape that that ice those kind of advice I was giving to the Green Party so same them don't think of this as a struggle every four years in Canada it can be five years our elections scheduled was actually much more flexible but it wait whether you talk about four years favors this is not a struggle that's linked to the election cycle you're talking about a struggle over 50 years where you go from being a joke a small and despised minority party to being respected and esteemed and one of the ways you can do that again just coming back to vegan gains one of the ways you can do that is actually through science science is open everybody and you know it's a meritocracy in some ways your donors your supporters will appreciate the hell out of it if you took the time to do again what vegan the games does what a lot of other people do and you say hey look you know there's this controversy maybe the controversy is about whether or not it's healthy to eat eggs but maybe the controversy is about whether or not it's safe to drink the water in Lake Ontario well it could be any lake episode I'm just mentioning this as one example micelle you know some people think the water is not safe during some people think this let's sit down and look at the science you yet you took the time do that you publish that article people from across the political spectrum will respect you you're building constituencies your building credibility you're building trust in a way that communists never do the Communists never think of because one of the fundamental tenets of communism is class struggle and class struggle is not class education class struggle is not class debate class struggle is not you know class science research okay class struggle is class war just like I wrote about in my essay on nickel Davis gonna more class war means the commies go to the prison break the criminals out of the prison recruit them into the army start going house-to-house piratical eluding with the bourgeoisie in the middle class have murdering people lynching people perceive it's brutal it's ugly and I'm sick to death of hearing people make excuses for communism who never took the time to read any one historical example of what communism really means or even where the world comes I digress okay so look this example of John's obviously the question that was asked to me was about the humane part of the United States which currently is a joke and I don't even mean that as an insult when the Green Party first started the Green Party was a joke in general if you have a small political party with no money and no influence and no respect etc of course when you start off you're gonna be Joe now as it happens also the particular people in that party are not the most rational or easy to respect they have some crackpot views that's always a question how do you organize a party so that the crackpots are not at the center so they're at the fringes you have a constitution that defines what you're about but frankly even the type of discourse I've been describing now let's say in a magazine a magazine where you're also putting that information on the Internet let's say through YouTube videos but you have edited articles with standards even just by engaging in that discourse you don't just win the respect of your audience you raise the whole moral tone within your party right again something comments failed to do um when you have that standard let's just say the same standard vegan gains has where he doesn't just rant about how eggs are bad for you he actually digs up the science and shows you this is why nobody should eat eggs whatever use an example and again this is not extremely high standard this is an attainable standard I do think that that in itself sets a kind of bar we're okay so now the people who believe in crazy conspiracy theories about hiv/aids or the people who believe in crazy conspiracy theories about some vaccines or something they realize whoa if we want to join this party we have to live up these standards we have to produce our own content that you know will pass this editorial bar right um the point is of course a new party especially one that's powerless moneyless etc of course when you start off you're a joke what is the path step by step to gaining that respect to building that constituency um it's not starting off by running for the presidency it's not that's the last step you know in so many ways you could build a party you can build a movement as I say with small struggles for one prison for one power plant for one sewage treatment scandal and one article at a time one article about eggs or milk or dairy or the politics of veganism or the ethics of how animals are hunted and killed in Canada for the fur industry anything any of these issues you can build credibility this way running for the president it's not going to be your your first step at best it's going to seem like a crass publicity stunt which in many ways it is now in Canada if I were involved the Green Party let's let's keep it all the way and the Green Party asked me to run for Prime Minister of Canada where to run for office period I'd think about it I think about it seriously but again I would have exactly this kind of critical view or I'd say well what you're talking but really is nothing but a publicity stunt because you didn't build up you know that kind of constituency that kind of credibility and another thing to remember here oh this so 12 minutes into this video I've only been talking about domestic issues and I've only really been talking about ecological and ethical issues the other problem was running for president states or a similar position Prime Minister of Canada Prime Minister of England is that maybe sixty percent of the discourse minimum 60 percent in spoke foreign policy so the Green Party of Canada just tore itself apart just disintegrated debating what their position is on Israel so the israel-palestine conflict whatever you wanna say right nobody outside of the Green Party of Canada gives a [ __ ] what the Green Party of Canada has to say but this rock off of it it's neither good nor bad it's spurious it's irrelevant right but this is one of the fundamental ways in which running for president nited states or competing in federal politics in canada is just very poorly matched with veganism and ecology um some vegans are going to be Zionists I'm not one I'm not a Zionist um some vegans are going to be pro-palestinian and I think the vast majority are going to be lukewarm on the issue or indifferent to it or going to say why the hell are we debating this at a conference that's supposed to be a veganism in ecology it's just they just don't want it on the menu right so by choosing to put yourself in a position by taking that route by playing that lane you're going to debate the Iraq war what do you think do you think veganism has a unique and powerful insight into the Iraq war I don't into Isis into international trade relations into currently the triangular relationship between Australia India and Japan very interesting in geopolitics what what is Canada's role in that or what is Donald Trump's position on the strategic partnership between Australia Japan and India that's real hard foreign policy that's that's what political science is made of well we don't want to be internally divided over those issues and we also don't want to sell ourselves we don't want to present ourselves to the public to our donors or in our magazine if this before is described amazing we don't want to take up pages with that we don't want our the photo on the cover of our magazine is not going to be a woman holding a baby in Iraq with bombs falling and the city on fire that's a different magazine right I'm not maybe I'd like to read that magazine also i'm into politics what have you so uh it's so many ways the approach of the humane party is dead wrong now i haven't even bothered here to critique the particular ideas some of which are crackpot they came out of the humane party as you've already heard I mean you know like I have experience across the board right so I mean I have experience with crazy communists a lot of just cry z crazy left-wing extremists in Canadian politics obviously the crazy right-wing is probably even worse take your pick I don't think that's special I don't think it's unique I think there are very hard questions you have to face up to procedurally about how you're going to effectively marginalize and silence those people within your own party some aspects of what political parties do or democratic and some are not when I was asked at a green party plenum so a formal Democratic Green Party event and I was talking about having this magazine somebody asked me what's the difference between a magazine and a message board what because we already have a message board the Green Party had a shitty message board you know people just posting whatever is on their mind you know my answer was excellence editorial process it's nothing democratic about that right somebody has to decide either yes this article is good enough to be printed in the magazine no it's not or this article could be good enough but we need to improve it either we give it back to the author and ask for revisions or we ask for the author's permission to have another author fact check it and correct it make some changes that doesn't happen in a message board in a message board just like the comments below this video on YouTube anyone can write any garbage right so it's not democratic one person is the editor and one person is the author and another person is the reader total inequality but we can through those non-democratic aspects we can raise the tenor and quality and tone of the whole discourse and we can prove to ourselves to our membership to the outside world that we you know we have credibility we have currency we are current were up to date we're not talking about something that happened in 1975 we're not diagnosing to happen in 1917 were not stuck on you know the ghosts of the past were up to date on what's going on in ecological politics or animal rights or any of these issues in New Zealand in Europe around the world and we know about cases again if you're kicking Canadian we know about this small town in Canada where there was a disaster because the garbage dump had a leak and toxic fluid from the garbage dump got into the river we know about that we care about that vote for us donate to us give us your money and you know again if you're in America it's a small town in America if you're in Australia it's well obviously you can apply this Johnson where that's not easy to deal with it's not easy to manage because I've been talking about this form of basically facing up to the elitist aspects of how those institutions run but what if the person who's the editor of the magazine is themselves a crackpot what if the person who's the editor of the magazine is freelee the banana girl just one bad person gets into that position and you can't replace them quickly and your whole movement is destroyed and you don't have control over it because democratically the donors money has to go to that institution that is you can't just close down the magazine to start a new one that happens a lot in politics right okay so that's it man that's enough for this video 18 minutes solid brass tacks politics I got to get back to eating these strawberries um yeah when I look at the humane party I think they have it 180 degrees the wrong way around and they're repeating a lot of the mistakes that the green party made its early days a lot of small party movements make those mistakes I do think that in general conservatives have a huge advantage over communists to be blunt over the far left simply because conservatives are very much influenced by the way churches are organized a typical american protestant church knows how to fasten onto a specific issue like that whether it's the garbage dump or the prison or the school and they know how to have a picnic and a fundraiser and have people come to a lecture and they have people singing at the lecture you know it's not too boring they have the choir or whatever they have someone with a guitar they know how to make that stuff happened they know how to build constituency in a community they know how to build credibility they know how to test how much trust they've got they know how to collect donations but not to abuse that trust there's actually a lot shall we say schematically that the right wing learns from how small churches operate so real time with small protestant churches not the catholic church on a centralized organization like the catholic church picnics and fundraisers and going out and shaking people's hands look at them in the eye all that stuff in many ways the right wing tends to have a very useful political education provided to them by their religious foundations and the left wing isn't just lacking that they tend to be in many ways echoing old myths that were set up by communists and you know socialists on the extreme left that all you need to do is stand up with a megaphone and shout something shrill and extreme enough and the working man is supposed to rise up and follow you just because you're right and you say you're right and neither of those are democratic paradigms for politics churches are not democratic labour unions are not democratic but you know communist revolutionaries are not democratic but I do think it's much easier to adapt the institutional attitudes that people have from the church picnic to small party politics to ecological politics the vegan poke that's much easier to adapt one to the other in useful way than it is to adapt the attitudes you encounter on the far left wing hit me up