Vegan Politics: Co-Opting and Being Co-Opted by the Left.

I get questions I got a question from a
patreon supporter if you want to right now you can click on the link below this video you can support the existence of this channel for one dollar a month less than a cup of less than the cost of a cup of coffee people only say that when they're ripping you off you notice that you know you can save starving orphans in Africa for less than the cost of a cup of coffee but it is true these days here in Victoria you'd be lucky to get a cup of coffee for two dollars and 50 cents I think the cheapest cup of coffee in Victoria is a dollar 70 now but I digress anyway I got a question from one of my patreon supporters her name is Noel and okay I guess I might as well read this question in full but for me I mean this touches on so many of the issues that I deal with in this channel and issues I'm now dealing with in real life as I try to get back into real life activism here in Canada before I was living in China so my involvement with activism was limited largely limited to youtube so noel writes quote what is your view on this comment i've received recently before getting blocked on facebook by some vegan demanding that everyone defend someone else based on their alleged view that gays slash lesbians slash transgenders should keep their sex issues' separate from veganism in rallies okay so rallies I'm just noting this is not about telling gay people to live in the closet this is this is an argument for whether or not a vegan rally can be expressly vegan and not at the same time a gay rights rally right so I continue the quote quote I was told if veganism isn't intersectional it's not veganism close quote so the comments are no well the person who has me this question doesn't say in her opinion issues such as child welfare I am an SDSU meaning amnesty for illegal immigrants in human politics are separate issues and do you not have veganism as part of their ideology so why should vegans include some or all of these issues alright I remember a video I saw in Chinese from a vegan activist in Taiwan and you know she said I think this is very true of Taiwan she said the number one response she got is being challenged on vegan politics was to ask why would you devote time and attention to this when there are these other human issues there were human realm problems to be addressed in politics in Taiwan especially in Chinese they use the word human in a way we don't really in English so often it's partly because of actually there were form of Buddhism on the island at that one it became very popular to talk about human or realm of Buddhism which is say Buddhism directed towards worldly Affairs real problems in the real world as opposed to supernatural problems so why aren't you directing your attention towards human problems and this activists in Taiwan her response was to say the reality is the number of human problems to be addressed is infinite if we always give priority to the human problems we will never run out of human problems to address and so therefore what you're really saying in making such an argument for the the paramount importance of the problems human have is that the animal problems will never be addressed they will never be the top priority so you can imagine in our lives just within the last 10 15 years which I hope everyone watching this video can remember last night of Engineers you know what not having to dig back into ancient history or whole century of history if somebody had said to you in the year 2001 well we'll deal with veganism and animal rights and ecology after we deal with the consequences of the terrorist attack in New York City in September of 2001 after we deal with that then we'll deal with veganism animal rights in ecology somebody might have said a few years later after we deal with the war in Iraq then we'll deal with vegan animal rights in ecology if somebody says after you know the civil war in Syria after Libya after the Arab Spring this is not even mentioning I mean there are numerous numerous you know crises short-term conflicts I could I could list here that of course really do completely dominate you know people's lives now not saying with any cynicism I mean there are people in Syria in the middle of the civil war who are who are so much living in a war zone that they can't possibly think about these issues right so you know it's not that there's no truth whatsoever to what some of these people are saying it's not as if they're cynically manipulating the situation to support their agenda however their agenda is flawed and it's flawed for more reasons than one one reason as already mentioned is if you give the priority to so-called human issues in this way then we will never address these issues because we are never gonna run out of crises that relate to human rights etc and the second is that it is completely false to say that veganism is an animal issue it's it's it is this is human politics I mean ecology is entirely in the sphere of human politics we cannot leave it up to the animals to preserve the forests or write ecological policy ultimately human beings with guns and taxes draw lines on a map and decide where there's a National Park and where the trees are going to be cut down as part of the forestry industry where the farm starts and where the farm stops which farms can put how much pollution into the rivers that's a hundred percent a human issue for humans to question for humans to find answers to for humans to resolve now of course the problems with human diet and human health these are also human issues but really what we're talking about what we are projecting as animal rights is an entirely human concept an entirely human affair it's one way human beings explain to each other a problem human beings have to deal with um I hate to say it but look guys whether you're talking about domesticated animals that are living inside people's condominiums or you're talking about stray dogs living wild on the streets of city either way it's a human problem we're talking about to a very limited extent are we ever talking about the dogs as such right so it's flawed in all these ways in war that there's there's no way I mean look veganism is ineluctably and inextricably part of ecology and ecology is inextricably and ineluctably a part of veganism we cannot disentangle two we can't separate the two and ecology is absolutely the domain of human beings making making tough decisions right and of course the ethics the ethical argument it's entirely on the human side of the equation and so too is the health side these are the three big foundations for veganism ecology ethics and and health all right so with all this admin said is it effective to try to disentangle in this particular case vegan activism from gay rights activism or vice-versa and some other instance would it or would it not be effective for vegans try to co-opt ongoing gay rights movements or for gay rights movements try to co-op dean ism the real-world answer is it depends my girlfriend and I were just in Seattle where the gay rights thing is so massive it's in every window that it really is possible that vegan politics can make progress can get ahead can reach an important market by basically trying to to co-opt to infiltrate to participate in gay events and you can imagine very well how that might work you know there's a gay festival or a gay parade and you decide to have pay money and have a vegan booth do vegan outreach at the gay event that could be totally successful right now there were other hard questions that come up with with co-option and with intersectionality what if there's a vent that's for typical conservation-minded people who may be involved in hunting ducks but they are sincerely interested in conservation and ecology can you that kind of event that includes people who hunt ducks and people who hunt moose and may even include people selling hamburgers but it's about ecology and conservation can you rent a table there can you co-op that can you participate that and can you come to some kind of some kind of positive outcome from doing so and you know in both cases my honest answer is here maybe maybe it could be really positive for someone in Seattle to make common cause with gay rights groups but I mean you know I would say that in the same sense and with some of the same warnings as maybe it's possible to really make common cause and really cooperate with a conservationist group that's interested in conserving a particular forest or I mean you know different ideological groups that maybe from their perspective totally unrelated to veganism but where you have to make the case hey veganism is something for you also my fundamental principle here it's a double-edged sword if you believe that veganism is for everybody then you believe that it's for right-wing people who own a truck and a rifle and go duck hunting - right if you believe the vegan message is for everybody it means it's for him also right the guy in in the truck if you believe that veganism is for everybody then you believe it's for you know this intersectional left-wing political fringe or members of the intersectional gay rights movement also it's for everybody the problem is exactly the finitude of your time how can you take the message to those people how can you effectively use your finite time and money and leverage to move forward with the vegan movement or indeed to create your own vegan organization your own vegan business your own vegan food service whatever it's it's gonna be and those decisions ultimately I think are in a word strategic thanks for your time thanks for your question - well if anyone else wants to ask me a question of a video made in response to it $1 a month on patreon hit me up