When Activism Turns Evil: the Vegans of Cube of Truth, Anonymous for the Voiceless, & Paul Bashir.

in the early days of Av Paul would not
allow anyone to do outreach except himself there has always been this bizarre attention with this group who gets to speak who has to stand in silence Paul has always been in this movement to gain a lifestyle of this type where he can be worshipped and take the money and travel for those of us with a long memory who've been involved with vegan activism and discussion surrounding vegan activism here on YouTube we can remember who Paul really was back when he was doing collaborations with dairy rider back when he was in Chiang Mai Thailand back when it was very clear that his objective was precisely the permanent vacation lifestyle that people misleadingly call being a professional activist in the early days Paul wouldn't allow anyone to do outreach except himself the volunteers role was only to hold the laptop in a mask he literally only wanted himself associated with an audience of the voiceless this is at the expense of hundreds of interested people in a busy High Street getting spoken to I remember joking the pole wanted everyone anonymous so people would only look at him and only he would be in the photos or the videos fame is fleeting the exception being the contrast being when you have someone he's fixated on self-promotion who's fixated on the pursuit of fame someone who wants the full-time permanent vacation activist lifestyle someone like Paul Bashir the purpose of this video is not to point the finger and say bad bad bad and I'm in a privileged position to say that because I have made videos in the past that do indeed fulfill the purpose of pointed a finger and saying bad bad bad but in this video were really trying to learn something meaningful from the key study of what went right and what went wrong with the integration and disintegration of the worldwide movement known as anonymous for the voiceless associated with the phrase cube of truth when you look at this picture right here who man for those of us who've been in the game for a few years animal rights veganism ecology this brings up a lot of memories right here quote I've been reading through the discussions here and thought that people might benefit from knowing the history of this form of activism a group called London vegan actions particularly Phoebe and Jane Frampton developed a tactic called the Earthlings experience about three or four years ago so by the way I don't know when this comment was posted but that's now more than three or four years ago relative to current date in 2019 they would sit on a train and show Earthlings whilst wearing white masks they made a video telling people how to do it and share this form of activism with the world they didn't do any outreach instead they would just give little love heart cards to people with short written messages already here there's kind of so much to say Phoebe Frampton and Jane Jane Frampton they appeared on mainstream television I believe BBC News but maybe it was ITV but major British news stations interviewed them and talked to them they briefly really became kind of iconic faces for veganism and the animal rights movement and of course there's a kind of selection bias at work there I think they were like 18 at the time approximately they were striking um slim young women the reality is if you go to animal rights events animal rights conferences the majority of people are overweight and over forty five actually because if you look at this picture and there's one picture oh this stereotype that vegans are somehow strikingly good-looking or even that they have a remarkably low body mass index relative Demeter's it's not that's not what you see going to Anna Moritz conferences going to be in protests going to these events so you know these young women were the in some ways they had both social media bias in their favor in some ways they had mainstream media bias in their favor and they were briefly given kind of a big platform especially within the United Kingdom and they used that to promote this peculiar form of activism that I believe they devised primarily because they found themselves going back and forth on the subway in England and they came up with this method of sitting on the subway wearing the masks showing the vegan documentary on a portable computer screen how popular was it how big was the impact really well if you're measuring it by the long-term consequences today it seems like a little spark that came and went right and when you look back at major political movements of the last 10 or 20 years and this got a lot of hype on the internet but for one thing the charismatic leaders Phoebe and her sister Jane you know they finished school I assume they finished whatever kind of college they did they got boyfriends and girlfriends and moved out of London they moved to other cities and they settle down and they moved on with their lives I assume they got jobs you know I'm within six degrees of separation of these people but I don't I don't pry I don't ask too many questions but I mean everyone could feel when after a brief period of intense activity you know the organization you know the intensity just dissipated from your decision so that's one element of the vegan movement fame is fleeting the exception being the contrast being when you have someone who's fixated on self-promotion who's fixated on the pursuit of fame someone who wants the full-time permanent vacation activist lifestyle someone like Paul Bashir right but these girls they were not like publishers or they really were girls at the time today they're fully grown women whatever it's been now you know six seven years later okay he continued any way this tactic took off and people set up Earthlings experience groups all over the world people would do it on the trains and then they started moving to the streets that began experimenting with showing different types of footage wearing different masks producing leaflets and doing outreach groups all over the world were experimenting and learning from each other's innovations and we're doing great then anonymous for the voiceless was set up in Melbourne they were originally a group of seven but when they started gaining a bit of popularity Paul and DeSales just mentioned they were a couple I don't think I don't know if they're married but they were boyfriend and girlfriend at least Paul in Dessau hijacked the group deleted the other admins and this caused a massive split in the melbourne activist community pretty much anyone who was experienced on the street activist scene left AV meeting in honest voiceless left anonymous voice was as a result and they were left with like five young inexperienced volunteers and and to rebuild with people brand new to activism this part is really telling and let me tell you something there's a singing there's a saying that the you know the head of the FBI used to quote all the time an institution is the length and the shadow of just one man the character traits of Paul Paul Bashir they tend to be reflected to a remarkable extent in the type of power mongering controlling little Hitler personalities that end up in leadership positions worldwide within this organization and there's no conspiracy there's no manifesto but people who are attracted to and want to imitate the example of what Paul is doing because the rules he plays plays by and even how he breaks the rules there's a pattern a self-reinforcing pattern of bad behavior here where you see not two three but many figures very much like publisher okay in the early days of Av Paul would not allow anyone to do outreach except himself there's always been this bizarre tension with this group who gets to speak who has to stand in silence there's this very unhealthy kind of hierarchy within every cell and then also when you scale it up on to the regional level national level global level it is a very unhealthy example of a hierarchal organization with then of course a lot of tension about money anyway we continue in the early days Paul wouldn't allow anyone to do outreach except himself the volunteers a role was only to hold the laptop in a mask if they wanted to take a break he would even ask them to leave the area rather than be seen near the demonstration without a mask he literally only wanted himself associated with anonymous of the voiceless this is at the expense of hundreds of interested people in a busy high street getting spoken to I remember joking that Paul wanted everyone anonymous so people would only look at him and only he would be in the photos or the videos a cell was also allowed to not have a mask and she would set people up with VR headsets now for those of us with a long memory who've been involved with vegan activism and discussion surrounding vegan activism here on YouTube we can remember who Paul really was back when he was doing collaborations with during Ryder back when he was in Chiang Mai Thailand back when it was very clear that his objective was precisely the permanent vacation lifestyle that people misleadingly call being a professional activist please listen up there were seven on the founding committee before Paul and a cell ran off with the org when we were in the process of registration and completing other finer details they did not start this they were only a part of a group who did it was likely that neither Paul Norris au was going to be elected president and as soon as the page started growing so the page share meaning as soon as the Facebook page started growing and taking off witnessing the potential they decided they'll take it a V was originally founded under the right intentions to not function as a typical hierarchy or business but as an incorporated Association until Paul and a sow quote took Rowena close quote as he likes to call it they were never elected he claims to not allow any human emotions in the way whilst he bans people who bo-zone therefore we are being silenced I myself and others have been kicked out of activist groups for simply answering questions and correcting misinformation this is not in the best interest of the animals Paul has always been in this movement to gain a lifestyle of this type where he can be worshipped and take the money and travel he saw this as an opportunity after his YouTube gains didn't quite gain right now there are more chapters without TVs and speakers batteries etc than with whilst they both spend tens of thousands of dollars on their lifestyle and travels they run this as a business and anyone who buys their merchandise and donates are being fooled into thinking it goes to the animals when it goes to their lifestyle not saying people don't need a salary but beasts accelerate be able to pay for their lifestyle and should only come after the chapters equipment the website says that all funds and donations go to developing and processing yet a huge chunk goes into their pockets and travels and who knows what else if not true show us be transparent so I just pause here there is controversy for several years I was gonna say many years the organization hasn't existed for that many years but for several years there was a huge controversy because it was incorporated legally only as a business not as a charity and still to this day neither the charity nor the business have ever disclosed what happens to the money so there's been an intentional consistent lack of transparency consistent refusal to deal with very reasonable requests for financial accountability from donors from volunteers and so on however they do now have an incorporated charity as well as an incorporated business and all these questions since the founding of the organization they are very much still circulating they're very the questions are still being unanswered they're still up in the air you don't need a poll in a sales corruption and scam you don't need a notice with a voiceless your group will do better we now let's pause her sitting here she says you don't need Paul you don't need this you don't need them what what do people need most people need leadership right most people need colleagues companions friendship one of the most fundamental needs that activism caters to is that people don't want to feel alone and most vegans live lives where they're very much isolated they're very much along whether or not anonymous voiceless sees it this way or admits it to themselves this way people volunteer and go to these events and spend so many hours doing a completely useless repetitive task that could be done by a mannequin you could have a mannequin holding the computer monitor they do this mindless task because they want to meet other people you know whether for friendship love romance colleagues collaboration whatever and that's not evil I have one friend friend of note for many years and he said to me he was not joking he said man talking to you has ruined anonymous for the voiceless for me he came he can't get any pleasure out of this anymore he knows how bad the organization is he knows how useless this particular forum bag doesn't he knows everything that's wrong with it but but he said he still goes he still goes to meet women he's he's a heterosexual man now I mean again for not everyone is it romance could just be friendship colleagues or what-have-you okay most people want leadership precisely because they don't want to be alone they don't want to feel alone and they are willing to pay they are willing to pay to have the privilege of being lead they're willing to pay for the privilege of being a follower that may sound strange and perverse but this is a very fundamental fact of 21st century life long earth what I have found again and again is that the worst people on earth people who really are power mongering little Hitler's become the tyrants of these anonymous for the Foxes groups and they ruled them with an iron fist and they rule them with all the pettiness of a kind of gossipy school cleek I see that pattern again and again and again and I don't think there's a conspiracy and I don't think it's written into the Constitution I think that you know an institution is the attenuated shadow of just one man people are attracted to this they respond positively to what they see in Paul's character and Paul's behavior the example Paul is setting and they behave accordingly something similar might be said at the meetings I've had where I invite other vegan activist to meet up with me when I was in Chiang Mai Thailand I had meetups of this a couple years ago now and you know obviously some people were in Chiang Mai at that time because they met durianrider that wondered that was Paul was there at the same time me and Paul were in Chiang Mai at the same time as far as I know Paul was there imitating durianrider trying to both imitate him as a person and economically imitate a success that was what Paul wanted Paul wanted to be the next daring writer have a youtube channel that paid for this kind of permanent vacation less though I was there as someone who was a critic of during Ryder someone who rejected during writer rejected what was going on in the being a movement that way and other vegan activists who came to meet me you know why did they choose to meet me again there was no conspiracy it was was no Constitution for them to sign up they were people who respected what I had to say there were people who in some sense wanted to imitate the example what I was sitting down so you know this this is a clustering effect within political organizations and sadly there's a lot more harm than good the construct cui bono who benefits who benefits from activism it's people like Paul Bashir who benefit from activism no special absurd it's not people like me it's not people like you it's not the animals who benefits from the political process professional politicians and there were a lot of wealthy people who want to make the world a better place I can sympathize with them just as much as I can scorn them I know that Paul has benefited from the direct intervention of a small number of wealthy donors in much the same way as Gary Yourofsky in the past benefited from the intervention of a small number of wealthy donors and of course we know that Paul has met with Gary Yourofsky probably some of those donors are the same people so we live in a world where the power of political speech rests in the hands of those who are wealthy it rests in the hands of those who are able to convince wealthy people to donate their money and those who are willing to make the moral compromises to ask for that money and to take