Emily J. Court: Communism is Cancer.

a burnoose yen I'm trying to live on not
much money but you're even going farther with that and living without money yes I'm just sharing with you so you're helping me live without money yes and you've done a lot of coach surfing like I have it's been over three years now where I haven't paid rent anywhere I've just been travelling around and couchsurfing and what I'm I home base is still the Niagara region Toronto area for me and I have siblings who have let me I stay with them and I try to help boats and but I know sometimes I still feel like a mooch once in a while and you said you've experienced that sooo a little bit maybe maybe feeling like a mooch how do you deal with that I'd say I feel the perception from others that they think were mooches and I don't want them to feel that way it's I think a condition of the way that we are grown up in the community they don't want they don't think so much about the waste the overproduction they want everyone to participate in the community even if we have an overabundance and it's not being shared and there's people's needs not being met but don't have money to have those needs met in that system so yeah I think some people think okay yeah great you're a freegan but you're using my money you're using my couch you're using my food you're using my car I would hope that they would be open to consider it as sharing that when I was using money I would share and they have these things and they will share and it is maybe better for the community if we share a home or share meals together even if we are using money to use less money by making dal with rice which is a one dollar dinner we can share with many people in India when they make dinner for 100 people it doesn't cost them very much money I mean it's coming from the field we both know money's not real they're not really using money at all but yeah I would hope that they would be open to me giving in a different way rather than something using money and that they would be sharing basically 95% of what we're consuming under capitalism is like ethically questionable at best so you're saying there rather than rants against capitalism and money I should become a capitalist then I could open up vegan businesses and donate money to help the animals no I'll never become a capitalist there's no such thing as a vegan capitalist veganism is about equality capitalism is about inequality even if a business uses no non-human animals at all if that business is making a profit is because of exploitation they're exploiting the humans and exploiting the workers veganism is about compassion for all beings including human beings there's no ethical consumption under capitalism veganism must be anti-capitalist you know being a part of the animal rights community is really wonderful we've met so many fantastic people who are we're happy to share yeah exactly I find other activists are open to sharing because it's for the same cause so if they share a ride with me or let me coach surf they know that that helps us to have more time to go to the events to go to the vigils so we've talked to boats as far as not spending money how to get around you've done hitchhiking and I what about eat saying have you ever I tried dumpster diving with a friend once and I joined that she actually went into the dumpster and she passed the food out to me so I helped in that way but you've done quite a bit of dumpster diving yeah I love dumpster diving I teach a lot of things at the University I teach Marxism anarchism feminism post-modernism all of the radical philosophies of the day but none of these philosophies are radical in the sense that animal rights is and I began to reflect that what is so radical about animal rights as opposed to Marxism anarchism feminism post-modernism and I realized that it was a couple of things number one unlike any of those other philosophies it changed your daily practices in habits it uprooted your relationships with other people with friends and family so that if he learn Marxism you can go home and sit calmly over the dinner table smearing chicken wings all over your face and talk about capitalist exploitation without realizing the immense contradiction of that discourse and in other words you can carry on your normal life and your daily habits are not uprooted or challenged in any way but with animal rights and the logical consequence of ethical veganism those relationships become ruptured in a way that no other doctrine can cause this turmoil in your everyday life if you're living like us you have to be good company you're not going to be taken into someone's home if you're not good company but you say you haven't had any any terrifying experiences no not terrifying but it wasn't terrifying for me that someone accidentally thought I was a prostitute so I reflected maybe I wasn't dressed the best but I was dressed normally with a giant hitchhiking backpack but it was just a miscommunication the last two years only only only positive so I have nothing to share with others that I would say be scared I've mostly done it as a lone woman be approachable I don't know if that works I met guys who do it alone and they would juggle they will be holding a funny sign I definitely think to talk for a few moments before you get in a vehicle make sure that they are going the same direction that you don't have the miscommunication that you are a prostitute if you're living like us you have to be good company you're not going to be taken into someone's home if you're not good company whether we're using money or not we're highly connected highly dependent people would say okay you just depend on others through we also do when we have money bonus yen the people we've just been watching on camera are not hypocrites and the philosophy or ideology they represent is not popular in their way they're trying to be morally consistent they're trying very much to live out the philosophy that they preach however what's more influential within veganism are precisely the voices of the hypocrites hypocrites like Emily J Court esteemed reporter for plant-based news let's take a look at the title and front page of this article here opinion : veganism isn't cruelty free here's why spoilers the reason why is Andy capitalism what does cruelty-free mean anyway looky here on screen when you see a product labeled as cruelty-free that only means its ingredients or finished product wasn't tested on animals that that doesn't sound too bad why would anyone you know oppose that concept or idea why would that be something you'd objective oh right right right right capitalism okay we'll get back to that so you've just seen video of people who were living some kind of humble homeless existence so that they could really live up to their own principles of not using money not being part of the system and so on here's a Emily J court the reporter whose article were we're just a look at what what does this look like to you is this a socialist revolutionary in the jungle oh no wait Instagram is capitalism what is that a mojito what I I'm not sure what kind of cocktail that is this whole bar this whole lifestyle that she espouses or glamorized on Instagram if this isn't capitalism what is oh here we go another day another nightclub another color filter to glamorize the evening so this this isn't capitalism view this is an embracing capitalist culture the capitalist economy no living in a state of rebellion except when we go to the gym quote if I called veganism aunty speciesism sometimes I think it would be easier for people to understand just like feminism it's about the opposition of arbitrary discrimination and exploitation period no hidden agenda and that is part of the problem with being a so-called anti-capitalist or in plain language a crypto communist within veganism is that you do have a hidden agenda but it's interesting that you say here that it would be better to be vegan without a hidden agenda I agree especially when your hidden agenda isn't ideology that's linked to the starvation and persecution of millions of people in some of the worst dictatorial regimes in the history of planet Earth China Russia Cambodia you name it and we continue oh here she is again on Instagram at the gym our anti-capitalist poster girl Emily Cort what's this oh is this more capitalism no no I'm sorry um this luxury vegan pizza was purchased in a communist country so so this this makes it not capitalist right this is purchased in Hanoi Vietnam maybe it was her positive experience as a tourist in Vietnam buying this kind of fancy vegan pizza that made her think that capitalism is the problem no I can't imagine oh here we go quote if you're looking for my paychecks then go straight to all V Halifax ok so this at least this we can call capitalism you see this subtle contrast between luxury vegan food in Vietnam and luxury vegan food in the decadent capitalist West in Halifax Canada yeah oh here's a here's an antique a post idea quote who wants to crowdfund me to live in london question mark well gee maybe she really is closer in principles the people were just seeing talking about living a life without money living a life without paying rent because she's interested in her donors paying for to live in this capitalist paradise of London England quite a high rent place to live are you sure you wouldn't rather live in a in a communist country sure you wouldn't rather live in a non capitalist society given where this article is going okay here we are enjoying a fabulous luxury capitalist vehicle with leatherette seating and here you are with the staff members of plant-based news oh I'd like to imagine that they pay you a salary but maybe they don't for all I know you guys are organized on collectivist wage free principles okay we begin at the bottom here a quote when we call something cruelty free while overlooking the fact that it is the product of exploitative industries in developing nations we leave ourselves open as advocates to detracting from our own message instead of having a comfort instead of having a conversion of God so this even as a nun corrected typos instead of having a conversation she means to say about liberation reducing harm we end up having conversation about human rights which while equally important detracts from the topic at hand here's a politically correct photograph everyone putting their hands in the circle people of all uh no genders and races and what-have-you problematic notions using the term ultimately perpetuates the idea that once a person goes vegan and stops investing in histories that are by nature exploitive again that should be exploitative not exploitive anyway they've ascended to a higher moral plane and are beyond reproach this simply isn't true period capitalism is destructive consumerism is destructive and animal agriculture is not the only cruel industry in existence we do ourselves other people and animals a disservice by acting like it is veganism is a great place to start but it's not the finish line we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that it is um in putting together this video I really did try to do a survey of the anti-capitalist vegan left I tried to get some sense of how numerous they are and how active they are and I was really surprised before I ever came on YouTube I was involved with the intellectual demi-monde of vegan tumblr or written blog and being on the Internet you often notice the voices that are not the most numerous but are the most noisy and the most malcontents and you really get the false impression that there's a whole lot going on on the anti-capitalist left within veganism but the reality is the silent majority the silent majority by far are not making any kind of backhanded comparison between capitalism and communism nor between capitalism and feudalism nor between capitalism and some kind of fantasy about cashless primitive anarchism those really are marginal voices than the vegan movement and I think it's important in terms of how we organize the movement now we present information that we make it clear that that shouldn't be the mainstream news broadcaster news presenter that shouldn't be treated as a definitive central or default position within veganism these are voices from the margins of what's already a marginal movement to begin with veganism there are two types of voices in this fringe debate one group are the people who really sincerely practice what they preach and you almost eliminate themselves in the movement because economically it ceases to be possible for them to participate let alone lead the movement because they're either gonna go and live in a cage there are they gonna go and live in a cave or they're gonna be perpetually hitchhiking couch surfing etc like some of the people you heard in the first half of the video and then the other hand we're gonna continue to get sarcastic sniping from people who are hypocrites people who in fact in terms of how they live their lives are indeed capitalists but who still preach a kind of hypocritical doctrine of crypto communism as I said years ago on my blog before I came on YouTube veganism is fractious and fragmentary it's incredibly diverse ideologically economically in every conceivable way we have people who come to veganism out of a traditional Hindu religious background out of a Buddhist background paradox ly enough out of an Orthodox Jewish background big vegan movement in Israel some of its secular some of the religious so on and so forth there's a dazzling array of left wing right wing every shade of gray in between so some of these debates can legitimately exist within veganism and some of these debates are gonna in effect get people kicked out of veganism can I get them kicked out of whatever movement they have to be a member of I've had many many videos asking the question of where do we draw the line and when do we in effect kick people out for being so right-wing that they're in effect neo-nazis or you know when it's just somebody like durianrider when it's somebody whose behavior is someone acceptable and disruptive and immoral that they have to be excluded for other reasons that may be completely apolitical those are very difficult questions answer and they're very difficult to enforce I think the way forward if you have people in your life who subscribe to a nebulous and hypocritical doctrine of anti capitalism is to really sit down with them and get them to talk through what et capitalism means I think it's an ideology that thrives on vagueness innuendo shadow and contradiction and that when people are really honest that they don't want to go back to a feudal society that they don't want to go back to a communist society that in fact the idea of cash lessness really is the kind of religious ideal whether it appears in Christianity Buddhism or in this kind of secular left-wing ideology I think that the vast majority of people who at some stage of their life worship an anti-capitalist doctrine are simply going to move on I remember reading an article that said about the communist country of Laos a country I lived in did a research and did humanitarian work and simply put Buddhism proved to be more aesthetically durable than communism the communism had taken over the country but just didn't last in the same way my hope is that veganism is going to prove more aesthetically durable then all of the fad ideologies that arise and fall within it which unfortunately has included the crazy 30 bananas a day diet of freely to all these inane varieties of left-wing radicals [Music] evolution