Why Vegans Hate the Green Party (with Tofu Goddess), etc.

I'm a bad guy sometimes and I use and I
did a lot of bad things I wanted to be forgiven you know I want to change my line I want to live a different life now I don't wanna live I wanna live my sober life I don't want to die I'm on the verge of dying because I'm a vicious alcoholic and I've been I've been um I haven't drink up took drugs in six days and for me that's a miracle I've been lying to everybody else I think I was sober but I'm not Mike first of all we're here in Verona where do you and I find vegan food around here well lift an arm you have to bring it with you you know of course when you know becoming a vegan you have to bring feet you don't have to travel with your fuilcré that's the problem then I gotta have food in most country they're not gonna I stocked up on Clif bars and fruit at the at the gas station so like for me YouTube is it is really a selfish endeavor for me I am I get a lot from doing it and I love he like I do love hearing other people's opinions and whatnot that's one of the main reasons why I'm doing it but to say that I'm doing this because I'm trying to spread some greater message or whatever or this is ultimately gonna be so beneficial for the animals like I don't know it's it's it's it is quite selfish for me I think if people were honest with themselves a lot of people would say that it is selfish for them as well right but for me I expressed that soldiers where I say like I want to make friends that's a form of self you know it's not evil but I say no I want to have a circle of friends because I know what it's like to leave Cambodia and have no friends with me it's not because I'm a jerk it's because I left Cambodia so I lost everything I had that way in terms of friendship but that is that is selfish and that's that's been a source of conflict do you mean other youtubers everywhere it's like where I've had to say people no look I'm just trying to make friends I'm trying to make friends we're gonna last the rest of my life and you know friends based on something meaningful you have in common so you sir involved in music are you or you musician you sing or do you do sing on those lines I'm just asking because you mentioned miss pigtail oh no do DJ turntables every Saturday night DJ no no I'm just a consumer of music I once I once DJ here in China I could do it again probably what it would probably do gigs a DJ in Thailand when we go it's not me what's your what's your dj name I guess it's got to be a ballast yell now I guess there's no points you have I've got a trade on the little bit of fame of God to do gigs no nobody was just because of the knowledge I have of rap music it was the only reason I DJ that was a big hit though and look at the Green Party like I'm just gonna mention the green part yeah I was up this like party last night and you know we're talking I mean we're getting as political as you're gonna get on a Friday night before you go out but you know this one girl she says oh I really support the Green Party and she's vegan right and I just like I blurt out like I cannot stand the Green Party how could you support the green pretty alright you know I watched this debate you know I watch them MacLaine's debate and whatnot and I don't even remember her name yo who's the leader of the Green Party I hate I should know her name - because she's out by me she's out in in Victoria of Vancouver right she's she's elected out with me but am I forgetting I've sent her email when I forgot her name but yeah going I've met her actually being I met her like for the first time like 15 years ago so I still don't remember her name but yes the lady from the Green Party yeah yeah so I'm just like watching this debate and I don't know I just found it very well I didn't watch them acclaims debate to begin with no but just mentioned a long time ago I think you haven't seen on my youtube channel I did make videos drawing attention to and and and hating on the Green Party because their position on agriculture is they want the government to give more subsidies to meat and dairy agriculture and like especially dairy we're like we we support Canada's milk farmers therefore vote for the Green Party unlike the Liberals are the Conservatives like we really want to give more money to Canada's dairy industry of surreal but you know meat also both meat and dairy that's the Green Party's position and they shamelessly shamelessly flog that there they're proud of their position on it hey no use no but you you take what were you gonna say you hate on the Green Party in your own terms don't let me put words in your mouth yeah well I mean just like a blatant like just disregard lately they never seem to ever mention animal agriculture is the fact that they don't even like in terms of like eradicating it like have no interest in that yeah that's funny just kind of something unrelated just the claims debate that I don't know I don't know when it was like November or something people have time to talk about Canadian politics I was reading all these articles about how it's like American politics in comparison is just like this the circus it's this show it's entertainment which I suppose it is but you know I'm watching this debate on TV and it's just like Trudeau's response to Harper is just nobody believes you Harper these are literally his rebuttals and I'm just watching this and I'm how is this any better than what's going on in America right now how was that and in any way shape or form like an intelligent response just constantly over talking over Harper and telling them that he's a liar no one believes him he's just appealing to people blindly hate Harper because anyone who's intelligent would notice that that's just really nique I was that at all a good argument so I guess I just find the political landscape in general from what I see on media to be very that's that's our that's our national pastime in Canada is pretending we're better than the Americans and there are so there are so many issues on which it's really a huge stumbling block like you try to talk to white Canadians about First Nations and it's really very often the first thing they say to you is oh but at least we're better than the Americans on that and you you have to like I've had situations where you just blank the person it's like have you visited a Navajo Reservation I are you actually have you actually compared how residential schools worked for the Navajo versus the Cree but are you actually making the claim because in my honest opinion you know I studied I really only studied the Canadian side of it but I have I have done some brief comparison we look at the Americans I think the Americans have been better today - better - they're still existing indigenous people the Canadians we're really just toying with the most recent 100 years and you know you can come down to specific policies and you can talk about it but on so many issues and you know I've seen that with the meat production where the only thing Canadians have to say to you as well it's a problem but at least we're better than the Americans on ecology what have you this is the big distorting bias that comes into it but the other is just the left versus right factionalism and in Canada within my lifetime the left-wing vs. right that right-wing thing has been you know really quite meaningless everyone wants lower taxes okay this is not really not really a debate worth having but you know I saw really two different green parties in Canada Green Party of Ontario and when I was in Ontario basically the federal Green Party also exists there the the National Green Party really is the Green Party of Ontario they don't have a separate existence and then in Saskatchewan I got to see a really interesting drama play out with with the Green Party there but in terms I mean the Green Party in both places it's like veganism like what we were saying with Venus before they had really recruited people who used to be cult members either of a communist cult or of a Hindu cult or of some other kind of cult but you got a lot of extreme left wingers and then if the party did anything that wasn't anti-capitalist enough by their definition they would stand up and quit or cause a commotion or what have you so you got a situation where really it's like you're not acting as a Green Party you're acting as a crypto Communist Party with the kinda layer of green paint over it and you can't you can't do any of the pragmatic things that really create respect and constituency for a small party in Canada over time you know there is a role for that and I'll just mention that proponent I know this will change the topic or keep the same but you know in in Saskatchewan one of the crucial events because they had over five years say they were doing some small activism that involved negotiation with the government advocacy advocacy I guess you'd say and one of their members who is diagnosed with a serious mental disorder I forget which one I may not have known I forgot what it was schizophrenia but it was something at that level but a to all accounts he was a nice guy and he really did put in a lot of time volunteering for the Green Party he had a psychotic episode at Parliament inside the Parliament building and he he took off all his clothes and I assume was you know nattering incoherently would have you know yet disassociated episode we he didn't know where he was and what have you but he wasn't he wasn't trying to rape someone or anything he just he got naked for no reason and he was banned from the Parliament building and there was a very real question of whether or not he be charged with a crime and I don't know ten years of hard work and the Green Party went to waste because of one unreliable person and you know I've had recently with in patreon I think you're not you're not a member of my patreon group right I've had I've had discussions with that because you know I talked to some of the people white pariah she's a big advocate for mental health mental illness issues would have you and I am honest and saying to people know when you put together a real political organization with real responsibilities and real consequences for your actions and money you know fundraising which I've just done I raised six thousand five hundred dollars in one day it's ridiculous but I've now done fundraising for veganism one unreliable person again to all accounts he was a nice guy people said he was a really caring nice guy but he's unreliable one bad person does discredit your movement that's another reason why I find it kind of a bit of a bad joke like oh let's let's all beat up on sorcerer Morava or something for discrediting veganism I'm interested in talking about you know the real problems of discrediting veganism this is only one type or one issue but that also leads us to thinking about politics and friendship and cooperation in a very different way short term and long term when you recognize the fragility of that and how much you need from the people you cooperate with yeah well I mean Sasha is certainly just one of many who's doing the exact same thing so you know just the amount of like heat she's getting you know I found it a bit ridiculous because this guy it was just happy stance that that she just happened to do a video on him and he just happened to see it or whatever I don't even know I don't really care but like it could have been any big youtuber like a really big one who decides to choose any like radical vegan on YouTube to them exposed right it wasn't just sorta it is kind of like a problem with YouTube in generals I thought the response that she got from all these vegans it was kind of like you said kind of like missing the nail right like no one was really talking like I guess some people were but I thought she got a little bit too much hate when she's just doing what she's been taught to do by write freely essentially look I mean I didn't know you were Canadian until like a couple days before this conversation like when we were arranging to talk on skype oh you're in Canada but I mean this is also the by a sense of it like people come on YouTube and say oh you should stop messing around you should be a real activist like me you should do what I'm doing because that's real activism and I you know I'm unusual in many ways on YouTube but one of the ways in which I'm unusual is that in the one hand I do not portray what I'm doing now is real activism on the other hand I do not tell other people to do what I do like I don't think we need another ten people doing what I do on YouTube and if they do you know they can't reach your bigger audience than I do I said recent like I think it's wonderful that video I had talking to the lawyer in Washington DC about you know getting political organized 2,000 people watch that it's a huge number to me you know it's never gonna reach a reach a mass audience of people who are playing this YouTube game if you want to talk about legit activism take a look at the channels that are doing what you do activism and you'll realize okay maybe 500 people let's review maybe maybe I'll take you years to build up an audience of 500 people cuz that's the other for you but on the other hand what I am doing is actively trying to organize real activism for the future and I especially I mean this is why I'm totally biased and prejudice oh you're Canadian it's pathetic but legally speaking so you know like Maude vegan is also in Canada and is not not insane as far as I know you know she seems you know we've talked and so on you know I've said you were openly like look um it wouldn't matter if I hated you you don't want to be a best friend because I if you want to actually create a legal foundation in Canada have a legally registered charity if you want to do lobbying and again lobbying on education policy you can get big results with a very small amount of time and money but this is what I say like I in some ways I'm the least Canadian person in the world I'm obvious I'm not a nationalist and so much of my adult life has been in Cambodia Laos Thailand China Taiwan it's been outside of Canada but the Canadian passport is the only passport of God so whether it's you or Maude vegan or the light twins I was delighted I I didn't know those guys had a political bone in their body tons of people thanked me they say hey you know the light twins when they did that interview with you that's the first time I knew those guys were really motivated about political you know they are but like great you know so yeah yeah so in terms of putting together a foundation force for something in some point in Canada long term this is another inequality I if you are the same person but you're an American citizen living in California I'm a lot less interested because legally I need to I need to work with other Canadians right you know I'm just about the yeah improving the education of Buddhism education system or whatnot I see I hear that and that it is quite optimistic but I'm thinking of the reform I get although I guess this would be optimistic as well like the reform that you had in Ontario about sex education I'm sure you must have heard about it it was like a big story how people were getting upset that we're gonna start in the first grade and teach first graders that about gender or whatever um I think that is like in particularly that's like that's great like that gives me a lot of hope because like you know sex education that's a very sensitive topic subject right you know Buddhism like you said like yeah we a lot of people don't really know anything about it they don't really have any emotional reaction towards it so I just hear like the sex ed reform that occurred here in Ontario and you know people were like complaining about it of course but it still it happened alright and but I mean I think the contrast England is also significant because in England you know technically it's it's not a secular country that you know the angle Church is part of the government and the government supports the Anglican Church so you get a different kind of opposition yeah it's just in England if nobody takes the Anglican Church seriously but the anglich they sit in Parliament they sit in the House of Lords yeah you get a different of resistance because in England they still really have an elite who are who are religious in a way that almost nobody in Canada is I think our elite is less religious than the poor I think in Canada you know if you hang out with rich hang out with rich people who go to cottages and snort cocaine snort cocaine and do waterskiing you know rich people again don't believe in much anymore um anyway this is you see how prejudiced I am against Canadian culture by I'm stuck with it it's my only fast-forward I have to do vegan activism in Canada I can't I can't do it anywhere else yeah I'm gonna pretend we're a tony mode education in reform right right right but you know what the other thing is so you know like when I was in Germany this time the German language in every language figuring out if something is vegan or not is a different struggle but they had made reforms relatively recently because I can remember being in Germany a number of years ago and then now and I'm one of the simple reforms they made was having words like egg egg and milk in bold you know bold font even when it's in the middle of a compound word because in German you can have a long word and in the middle there are two letters II I I and it really means egg so it's some kind of ingredient derived from egg protein it's a long you know desiccated egg powder something or another but in there there's I which is their word for egg and they put that in bold and makes a huge difference it may not sound political but really it is and by contrast they have other words where the word egg appears but it actually doesn't mean egg so again this is a difference from English if something says egg it means egg and then it's not in bold yeah so like they're their word for protein is literally egg white but it doesn't mean egg white it just means protein so you know kinds of struggles you know Canada I don't do it today do it someday when you have a really long attention span but on any of these issues if you look up our debates in the Senate the Hansard tends to be in the Senate you get these debates not in the not in the normal Parliament nobody knows what they're talking about you know they don't have a great depth of expertise and you know passionate well-informed over search people and then when you get to City Hall you know is Senate is the highest level you look through the answer to see all if any of these issues are being discussed in government it's just not the case that they're inundated with you know actionable proposals for how to make the world a better place from people who know their stuff and can back it up and what-have-you and that's true you know across the board Canadian Senate I remember looking up a debate about what Canada's policy in Myanmar was and all these people in Canadian government none of them know as much about the politics of Myanmar as I do I'm not the world's greatest expert on Myanmar but you know you're reading that it's depressing so you know those those discussions that go on again whether it's about nutrition education there's so many headings under which veganism can be a struggle I think you know you're gonna find that there's not that much resistance the other side there's there's my optimistic statement for the day you know and he also remember me Canada is not is not the United States this stereotype of having enormous corporations influencing government in this stuff we don't have those corporations in Canada in Ontario the most powerful corporation when I was there controlling the government was Dom Tarr great evil name sounds like a villain from a comic Dom Tarr you know Dom Tarr is a pulp and paper company and I was you know in terms of my ecology I was really interested in trying to get involved with more habitat conservation forests tree type stuff then you're going up against Tom Tarr you know they own the government that's the corporation's government but you know we we don't have the headquarters for Monsanto or these other great you know they kind of villain and presumed villains that oppose veganism so in some ways you know and again for my life I don't know it's possible like the whole where my life will be in Canada it's possible and it's also possible I'll be living in Myanmar or Hong Kong or you know somewhere else you know pretty soon after I finished that diploma because I'm gonna have to make I'm gonna have to make hard decisions so yeah okay great first conversation with you by the way I feel I feel like we're old friends yeah yeah hopefully I mean if you didn't find anything worthy for your podcast that's cool it was nice talking to you Israel tell you I'm happy to promote you on my channel to my small you know audience of extremely cynical and sophisticated vegans it's a small audience but it's a good audience you know to me those the viewers you want you want to be a Bella see you see how viewers coming over but no for me as I've just been saying it's it's not really about that long term something I've said sorry I said this recently to to cheetah you know cheetahs never been to cold we did sorry she is a college student now but in the past you never went to college I said to cheetah look when you graduate from college like a normal college student like you or something III asked people when you graduate from college do you have 50 friends if you say yes you're lying you're lying to me you're like yourself well you might have 50 Facebook friends but nobody at the end of college has 50 friends and then how many of them do you do you know really cling on see the wonderful thing about what we're doing on YouTube you could really have 50 friends like 50 meaningful friends and the same sense like I really do have a meaningful friendship with Charles with the vegan cheetah you know it's not it's not just about fame or money or something and you know if I can if I can really have a network of if I have five people like that in my life it's wonderful but if you have 50 you know there's there's real strength in numbers and so on and we just saw that from light from my rather pathetic position I raised six thousand five hundred dollars in one day yeah that was fantastic that was amazing right and it's not unprecedented you know Aaron Janis did something similar when she raised money to help one zebra one zebra and one donkey she reached out to reviewers in an avalanche of I forget it was 48 hours or what but she reached it right away so that's a big contrast to other forms of humanitarian work activism or what have you and that really could be the basis for doing something very positive long term in the future I certainly hope so I mean like I have I haven't mentioned this either but like my both my parents are vegan actually what whoa oh okay oh wow okay sorry cuz I thought you're gonna tell me you were born vegan or something all right Jesus okay that changes my opinion of you okay Wow so you converted your parents unbelievable but look I reminds me I had fan mail recently people hate me for using for a fan mail but what the fight Sammy boy I had fan mail from a guy who was a medical doctor and he was writing to me saying the he felt powerless and he couldn't make it so he's a medical doctor who's vegan I think he I think he just recently started becoming vegan so he's not yet Harper somebody you know he's already in principle believes in veganism and you know he was saying the same way so many youtubers and tears do that he feels so power whatsoever the world I send people I'll send you nail send you got my resume my CV you know but I have to write back to those people and it's not false humility and it's not bragging but a lot of people like assume I'm some kind of successful academic and I've never been an academic I'm never gonna be and it's like no look I may be working at Starbucks in the future and if so like you'll see it on my youtube channel like I'll talk about it I'll talk about it like I'm not it's not going to be a secret if I'm working in Starbucks but it's like no like like I'm not saying this to insult you but look like here's my CV here's the reality of my work experience in my background I understand that you feel powerless but the fact that you're a medical doctor the fact that you have a home like you actually have advantages over me that you you may be blind to you may not be seeing you know I talk to other people they're an architect or whatever I mean anything just you have a steady job you can make a difference so this site I talked about relatively once I'm going my channel the stuff about direct action everywhere effective activism protests you can make a difference and I guarantee there's a better way for you to make a difference than standing on the street and screaming at strangers I guarantee it you know what I mean so yeah whether you're medical doctor and architects or if you just have a steady job that really provides you with it with a home and stability as a base of operations different people can contribute in different ways you know I've got a lot of illustrators and graphic designers visual artists who are my fans you work fan whatever my viewers you know and and they really can contribute to a project and a different way from somebody else before I asked you if you were if you were in music through musician or a singer the reason I'm asking is because that again you can you can get you in a different way or what have you you know and I know I know people some people think I hate bikini models or something I'm actually fine with that too I think some people are bikini models and their way to contribute to vegan activism probably is through bikini modeling just I'm against the delusion that everyone should be able but different people can contribute different ways and medical doctors and so on these are examples really taken seriously medical doctors research scientists you know all these people have been reaching out to and trying to talk to ya real real potential some calls in them but help obviously that changes your Christmas plans the fact that your parents are vegan that's you know that's reliable for you so that's great yeah like I mentioned like how my my family my father actually hates tradition religious look that's wonderful because I mean you know I remember I made a joke on the internet this is before I had a youtube channel so it's just a joke in writing on the internet that got a ton of thumb thumbs up and shares and likes and M reactions because somebody wrote a question the internet asking like well like on the official day I decide to become vegan because they decided whatever like July 1st they were going to become you know forever loose you know what do you actually do like what like you know what and my reply was a citizen lines of well it's traditional to have a screaming fight with your parents that ends with one side of the other saying I don't even know who you are anymore at the top of your voice then walking then walking out of the room and slamming the door I made this joke but so many people related to it so many people were already back using yeah that's you know their experience or have you so you know obviously any anything positive or even just neutral from your parents you know that's with their parents vegetarian and then she got me to go vegetarian and then I wanna begin and make her go vegan and then my dad went vegan afterwards but so I didn't necessarily have that experience simply because my mom was already a vegetarian and I don't know when curry doesn't generally speaking you know very very chill I suppose I consider myself very fortunate and that burns but I never had that family feud right okay look I say so this is midnight where you are and it's new where I am so I got to go and get real food I told you I have no kitchen here so I have to add restaurants but wonderful talking to you and I can say the same thing I said before I hope I still know you five years now help with something ten years from now and because you're Canadian even if I hated you I would really really be trying to tell this friendship because I think we can cooperate politically in the future and what have you but whatever the future holds you know stay in touch yeah absolutely I think you wonderful great to meet you