Notes on the animal liberation and the local food movements

(Deleted from draft of email to Vasile Stanescu)

I agree; there are plenty of ways for animal liberationists to further build our alliances with people working on other causes such— as you say—- ending food deserts, ending subsidies for monoculture and factory farming, as well as ( I would add ) supporting farmers doing their best to grow food without pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

How do you feel about buying produce from, or voicing support for an organic farmer who is taking better care of the soil and water but is still raising animals for meat, dairy, or eggs, which would likely, if not certainly, entail at least some remnants of speciesist abuses ?

Also, in your critique of the local food movement, you seem to be saying we’re ethically required to do a better job of accounting for energy and resource throughput, as well as taking a more holistic or global view of how our choices of food (as well as many other goods and services) pertain to justice, fairness, empathy, and compassion.

Your critique of the local food movement seems to involve an argument for action based on holistic thinking, and an argument against compartmentalization. Perhaps thinking of issues in silos occurs when not-for-profits and others in the cause imitate big corporations—whether intentionally or subconsciously—-by trying to sell the general public on their cause by way of branding.

It’s a process that inevitably leads to over-simplification and other counter-productive misunderstandings. Your article points out some of those distortions when it comes to the local food movement.

That’s one of the reasons I try as a journalist to avoid cheer leading any cause, even animal liberation. Dealing with the devil in the details brings to light possible complications and contradictions that often aren’t compatible with PR campaigns.

But my guess is that dealing honestly with seemingly inconvenient complexity is a way to help the animal liberation movement—and other movements—-reach its long term triumph.

I ask you these questions in order to help build alliances by coming to terms with complexity. I want to help identify obstacles so as to help overcome them, rather than viewing obstacles as something that cause movements cancel each other out, and thereby promote the status quo by default.

Whether it concerns alternative energy, animal liberation, civil rights for Queer Folk, or addressing the concentration of political and economic power, the issue of obstacles comes up repeatedly. I sometimes am adroit enough to ask people —including myself—whether we are citing obstacles in order to overcome them or to have an excuse for not trying.