Veganism Activists

"Vissarion’s teachings combine Christian beliefs typical of Russian new religious movements with elements of esotericism and New Age. He asserts that God, the Unifying Principle, creates the universe through an energy known as Qi in China and Prana in India. According to his teachings, the universe operates under the Law of Opportunity, which posits that each living entity primarily acts in its interests, and secondarily for the system as a whole and for others. A key consequence of this principle is the Law of the Boomerang, akin to the principle of karma, which states that individuals will reap what they sow. Vissarion teaches that Earth is a living entity deserving of reverence."

"Bitter Winter: You have written very personally about Vissarion. How would you describe him to someone who has never met him? Katya [Palkina]: I say this after meeting many respected teachers in the East: he is the most whole, luminous, and deeply humane person I have encountered. There is nothing authoritarian or manipulative in him. Nothing of the power‑hungry guru. His wisdom is profoundly practical. It teaches how to build a home, raise children, cultivate the land, and build relationships with love. His teaching is not a religion of the past. It is a guide to the future—a future humanity is desperately searching for."

"My Father, if it is Your Will that I should receive thorns again, but already on my heart, and go further down the path of sorrow, then let it be according to Your Will and not according to my desire, and I will continue to glorify Your Name to the best of my ability, in spite of the evil hissing of the puppets and the Antichrist! May the mockers, false witnesses and persecutors of the Accomplishment of Your Will be put to shame and turn to dust! Let Your Glory be, and let Your Kingdom be established on Earth for the salvation and the benefit of the human race, Your children."

"Veganism will come about as a result of the traits in humans that we are most proud of – ingenuity, intellectual honesty, progressiveness and self-reflection – while rejecting many of the traits that are most damaging – stubbornness, wilful ignorance, violence, selfishness and apathy. We are already seeing this in action, and though getting accurate population statistics is challenging, a clear theme is being revealed by polling and surveys: veganism is growing."

"People often call vegans extremists, and yet veganism is merely living by the principle that if I am against cruelty then I will do what I can to avoid perpetuating systems that cause physical and mental harm to animals. It is a clear indictment of how ingrained our state of cognitive dissonance is that we see attempts at moral consistency as signs of extremism. Is it not strange that we call those who kill dogs animal abusers, those who kill pigs normal and those who kill neither extremists? Is it not odd that someone who smashes a car window to rescue a dog on a hot day is viewed as a hero but someone who rescues a piglet suffering on a farm is a criminal?"

"It is ironic that we often believe that empathy and complex emotions only really exist in humans but we then fail to empathise with the animals who suffer at our hands."

"We have created a form of tyranny over the natural world, pillaging, extracting, using and destroying as we please. We have placed ourselves above the ecological life support systems that our species depends on for survival and exploited them for our own short-term benefit, cutting down forests and polluting rivers and oceans. We have destroyed millions of years of evolution in the blink of an eye, quite literally bulldozing our way around this finite planet. For all of our intelligence, we have still failed to grasp the simple reality that we need the planet more than the planet needs us."

"Every time we eat, we have the power to radically transform the world we live in and simultaneously contribute to addressing many of the most pressing issues that our species currently faces: climate change, infectious disease, chronic disease, human exploitation and, of course, non-human exploitation. Every single day, our choices can help alleviate all of these problems or they can perpetuate them."

"If you can’t go vegan for the animals, why not go vegan for yourself? By switching to a plant-based diet, you won’t just help save animals’ lives, you might just save the planet. The meat and dairy industries kill 70bn animals every year – and a new report has found that they are on track to become the world’s biggest contributors to climate change. … Eventually, a tipping point will come, and the planet will turn into a gigantic slaughterhouse. It won’t be just calves and piglets these industries are killing – it will be you, your children and the children they could have gone on to raise. … So each time you eat bacon, or drink milk, you have not only invested in the slaughter of pigs or the abuse of cows, you’ve signed your own death warrant. For this is a problem that is predicted to escalate in the coming decades and emissions for agriculture are projected to increase 80% by 2050. In the 1980s, people started saying ‘meat is murder’, but it could become even worse than that – meat could mean Armageddon."

"Photographs of industrial rows of cramped pens, each imprisoning a solitary calf, will shock those who still believe in the fairytale of the pastoral dairy farm … In reality, the daily practices of most dairy farms are more distressing than those of meat production. A mother cow only produces milk when she gets pregnant. So, starting from the age of 15 months, she will usually be artificially inseminated. … When she gives birth, her calf will typically be removed within 36 hours … Following that callous separation, the mother will bellow and scream for days, wondering where her baby is. The answer depends on the gender of the calf. If male, he will probably either be shot and tossed into a bin, or sold to be raised for veal, which delays his death by just a matter of months. But if the calf is female, she will usually be prepared for her own entry into dairy production, where she will face the same cycle of hell that her mother is trapped in … Dairy is proving to be a vulnerable spot for the entire slaughter racket. The public is steadily waking up to the fact that the reality of milk production is not a matter of trivial imperfections, of concern only to idealist vegans, but in fact the most dark and wicked part of all farming."

"The is expected to reach nine billion by 2050, and the animal industrial complex is predicting a 40 percent increase in "meat" production by that date. Just by 2020, it is projected that 80 percent of the world’s agricultural land will be used for pasture or for feed crop production. Despite the public health, environmental, and social consequences, the continues to promote "meat" consumption among the more affluent and states "the developing world is projected to be the most important supplier to this growing market." Such a policy will only increase violence, repression, environmental destruction, landlessness, poverty, hunger, and death."

"Even without the horrendous health, environmental, and human rights consequences of the animal industrial complex, the horrific treatment of other animals that it produces is in itself a powerful and compelling reason to resist and reject the system. Sentient beings who have preferences and desires, who are capable of profound social relationships and who have inherent value apart from their ill use by the Complex, are treated essentially as inanimate objects, as "biomachines.""

"Thus, the entangled and violent oppression of humans and other animals, which began when animals first were captured and enslaved, has expanded under contemporary capitalism into the monstrous animal industrial complex. This complex—a predictable, insidious outgrowth of the capitalist system with its penchant for continuous expansion—is so profoundly destructive as to be the contemporary equivalent of Attila the Hun. Like , the animal industrial complex is in constant pursuit of water and land to raise animals whose bodies are its source of material wealth."

"An essential part of any successful plan for the promotion of global justice must be a campaign for the elimination of the practice of oppressing other animals, especially as sources of food. As we work for a democratic global economy, we must transform the system that uses increasingly precious land and water for profitable “meat” production into a truly "green" form of agriculture organized to provide nutritious plant-based food where it is needed throughout the world—and to parts of the world where many have few alternatives to exploiting animals. In a more just global economy, with that require much less land than is now used for "meat" production, land would be available to resettle millions trapped in urban squalor. Land also could be set aside as sanctuaries for other animals—with whom humans must learn to peacefully co-exist. Such change will take more than just a challenge to the animal industrial complex; it will require the development of a social-economic as it has developed across multiple fronts of social antagonism."

"Domesecration fueled the rise of capitalism, and many of its most deplorable colonial and imperialist practices have shaped the contemporary world. Today, capitalism promotes domesecration on an enormous level. Tens of billions of animals are tortured and brutally killed every year to produce growing profits for twenty-first century elites, who hold investments in the corporate equivalents of Chinggis Khan. These new khans are the corporate "persons" whose ranks include Tyson Foods, ConAgra, Smithfield, Pilgrim's Pride (a subsidiary of JBS "Beef"), Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Perdue Farms, Maple Leaf Foods, Vestey Foods, United "Egg" Producers, United "Poultry" Growers Association, National Corn Growers' Association, American Soybean Association, the National Restaurant Association, the International "Meat" Trade Association, McDonalds, Wendy's, "Burger" King, Red Lobster, and YUM! Brands (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silvers). They display a pathological, single-minded pursuit of profit that is often more subtle but certainly as violent, destructive, and ultimately deadly as the practices of the murderous khans of Eurasia's past. These and other actors in the animal-industrial complex—including the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, agricultural departments in major land-grant universities, the Chicago Board of Trade, innumerable advertising and marketing firms, and related enterprises—exert enormous economic, cultural, and political influence to promote the consumption of "meat," "dairy," "eggs," and "seafood" and to protect the interests of those who profit from it. Contemporary domination of the world by global capitalist elites is furthered by corporate-friendly, so-called free-trade agreements and by the World Trade Organization, which has joined the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as a champion of corporate capitalism."

"The modern , a massive network that includes grain producers, ranching operations, and , and chain restaurants, and the state, has deep roots in world history. Historically, the treatment of both devalued humans and other animals has been characterized by exploitation and violence, and the fates of the two groups have been deeply entangled. From the time humans first captured, confined and controlled the reproduction of such animals as cows, pigs, sheep, goats and horses—which largely benefited powerful elites—in turn [those activities] facilitated human social stratification, domination, and widespread violence."

"The profound cultural devaluation of other animals that permits the violence that underlies the animal industrial complex is produced by far-reaching speciesist socialization. For instance, the system of primary and secondary education under the capitalist system largely indoctrinates young people into the dominant societal beliefs and values, including a great deal of procapitalist and speciesist ideology. The devalued status of other animals is deeply ingrained; animals appear in schools merely as caged “pets,” as dissection and vivisection subjects, and as lunch. On television and in movies, the unworthiness of other animals is evidenced by their virtual invisibility; when they do appear, they generally are marginalized, vilified, or objectified. Not surprisingly, these and numerous other sources of speciesism are so ideologically profound that those who raise compelling moral objections to animal oppression largely are dismissed, if not ridiculed."

"Among the most harmful capitalist programs have been the ongoing support and promotion of industries that violently oppress other animals, especially the "animal industrial complex (A-IC)." In the United States, well into the twenty-first century, there continue to be enormous U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) support; subsidies for feed crops; the use and destruction of public lands by ranchers; the killing of millions of free-living other animals—from prairie dogs to wolves—to protect "livestock"; and legislation to silence and even criminalize industry critics."

"Most humans know little about the daily oppression and suffering of other animals. Few ponder the sentience or experience of life of other animals; most are too busy trying to make ends meet financially, or merely survive day to day. Even among the relatively few human animals who do consider, grieve, and even protest their circumstances and those of the other animals on the earth, even fewer consider the underlying roles played by the capitalist system and patriarchy. Pervasive problems such as illness, warfare and inequality are thought to be merely the way of the world, perhaps the product of human nature, and simply not amenable to change. But such a point of view fails to explain why human animals lived relatively peaceably and communally with one another, as well as with other animals, For most of the 200,000-plus years that our species existed in its present form."

"Today, based on the growing body of work by ethologists and biologists about the profound mindedness and emotional life of other animals, we can assume that, for the most part, the other animals' experience of capture, enslavement, use, and slaying was one of suffering and violence. While much of their treatment unquestionably was in the form of direct physical violence, the animals' systematic enslavement and oppression also resulted in their inability to meet their basic needs, the loss of self-determination, and the loss of opportunity to live in a natural way—an indirect form of violence known as "structural violence." Archeological findings of the remains of early enslaved other animals provide evidence of their suffering. Generally, examination of the remains of animals held captive thousands of years ago reveals bone pathologies resulting from physical trauma, poor diet, chronic arthritis, gum disease and high levels of stress."

"The enslavement of other animals necessitated invasion and large scale warfare due to the need of fresh pastures and water, and their oppression enabled the widespread warfare due to the use of other animals was rations, laborers, and weapons of war. For thousands of years, violent patriarchal societies led by warmongering men continually seeking greater wealth and power did enormous harm to the foundation of human societies and to human relationships with other animals. Millions of humans and countless other animals suffered enslavement, torture and death—and their fates were deeply intertwined."

"The rise of the capitalist class in North America similarly was founded on terrible exploitation. Some enriched themselves through the killing of beaver, deer and other animals for their skin and hair, while other continued and expanded the deadly expropriation of the homelands of indigenous humans and other animals for ranching enterprises. Still others began exploiting children, women and men in mines, nascent factories and fields, where tens of thousands of people were ruthlessly enslaved."

"Some may suggest the promotion of veganism is injurious to the poor and marginalized human population of the world. It is true that many people around the world continue to exploit animals for basic subsistence. The continued use of both domesecrated and free-living animals as food because of the absence of other dietary alternatives, linked to poverty, is itself an indictment of the capitalist system . . . Until nutritious, affordable plant-based food is available to all throughout the world, criticism of peoples who have no alternatives to exploiting animals for subsistence should be redirected against the capitalist system."

"It is essential for those interested in promoting justice for other animals to work together with all those who are striving to replace capitalism with a just and sustainable global system. Conversely, for everyone working for social justice and a better world for humanity, it is imperative to recognize that such a future can only be achieved by ending domesecration. It will be through such realizations and alliances that the momentum and power will arise for the creation of both a democratic social and economic order and the concomitant abolition of the oppression of other animals."

"The consequences of these decades of activity of the animal industrial complex, in conjunction with other , such as the military industrial complex, global international banking systems and global media conglomerates, have been cataclysmic. In Latin America, for example, subsistence farmers who resisted forcible removal from the land—displacement usually caused by the influx of international loans to expand ranching, feed-crop cultivation, and related enterprises—were subjected to violent repression and death by governments backed by the United States government and commonly by soldiers trained at the U.S. School of the Americas. Many subsistence farming families were forced to migrate to urban areas where they were transformed into proletarians and became vulnerable to transnational corporations seeking exploitable workers."

"Environmental destruction is another consequence of the animal industrial complex. Raising large groups of cows and sheep has long been tied to and in many parts of the world. In Central America, for example, between 1950 and 1990 the most significant change in land in the region was the destruction of forests for the purpose of creating pasture. Tropical forests in the area fell from 29 million hectares to 17 million during the period. In all of Latin America the conversion of tropical forests into pastures and ranches for raising cows for food is responsible for more deforestation than all other production systems combined. The creation of pasture accounts for roughly 75 percent of global deforestation."

"Humanity's systematic killing of other animals, as well as the subjugation of groups of humans, did not begin until males created weapons and began hunting other animals, approximately 50,000 years ago. The emergence of increasingly aggressive males, brandishing weapons, began to degrade the egalitarian nature of human societies, and the status of women and less powerful males began to decline. The corruption of human society was powerfully furthered 10,000 years ago, when humans began to capture and confine other animals and control their reproduction, and the consequences for human societal development were enormous and tragic."

"Under the early capitalist system, genocidal invasions and the and other animals around the world continued. Spain ravaged what is now Latin America, Britain wreaked havoc everywhere from Ireland to Australia to North America, and the capitalist class in these and other nations of Europe scrambled to accumulate wealth through the plundering of Africa, with the bodies of countless humans and other animals left in their wake."

"The oppression of other animals as food is unquestionably the deadliest practice; globally, more than 65 billion land-based beings are killed to be consumed as food every year, while the water-based other animals killed for food number in the hundreds of billions. The physical and emotional suffering from such horrific treatment experienced by each individual being, multiplied by the billions of individual animals who undergo it, results in a degree of severe distress and pain — every second — that defies comprehension"

"The capitalist system was and is not a benevolent social force created to best serve the needs of humans through the "marketplace," contrary to the propagandizing that has inundated at least the citizens in the West for a century and a half and that continues in educational systems and mass media today. Indeed, it would be impossible for an egalitarian, beneficial political-economic system to emerge from thousands of years of hypermasculine, violent, oppressive, and war-torn reality. In truth, capitalism, which morphed from the highly oppressive systems of "economic development" of the Eurasian past, simply represents a more sophisticated form of social relations in which the accumulation of wealth continues to result from exploitation, predation and violence."

"Truly free and democratic discussion, planning, and policy implementation for the good of all will be possible only in a democratic socialist world order free of elite social engineering and control of the state and without consciousness-consuming economic marginalization and deprivation. Moving toward an end to domesecration and the related injurious practices would be much more likely in a societal and global order characterized by and a democratically controlled state and mass media. Under a more egalitarian system, one with a much greater potential to inform the public about vital global issues—including their connection to domesecration—campaigns to improve the lives of other animals would be more abolitionist in nature."

"The "" of highly social animals—which developed out of hunting them—was no partnership at all, rather, a significant extension of systemic violence and exploitation. The emergence and continued practice of capturing, controlling and genetically manipulating other animals violates the sanctity of life of the sentient beings involved, and their minds and bodies are desecrated to facilitate their exploitation: it can be said that they have been domesecrated. Domesecration is the systemic practice of violence in which social animals are enslaved and biologically manipulated, resulting in their objectification, subordination, and oppression. Through domesecration, many species of animals that lived on the earth for millions of years, including several species of large, sociable Eurasian mammals, came to be regarded as mere objects, their very existence recognized only in relation to their exploitation as "food animals" or similar socially constructed positions reflecting various forms of exploitation."

"The way to draw characters is always in constant evolution: the more you draw and improve your technique, the more you see yourself able to find different aspects to represent all kinds of psychological behaviors and expressions. At the same time, trying different techniques allows you to discover that some of these techniques let you do easily textures that you can use to create atmospheres and different kinds of shadows and illuminations. As it’s important to mature in your personal life, it is equally important for your language when you create an illustration as well. One insignificant situation can be a beautiful visual poem depending on how you represent it."

"Veganism is the direct response of my activism with animal rights. For me, to defend and protect animals means not to eat them, use them as clothes, use products tasted on them, pay people that want to show them in cages, all this. It is like someone that works for an ONG that protects children in poor countries: he would never buy products made by children under slavery conditions, wouldn’t he? It is a matter of being coherent with oneself, you cannot separate the two things."

"My mission is to show that we have the power to create a more just democracy that represents all of us."

"One person, one vote is the great equalizer of humanity."

"History shows that voting is the sword that cuts through all injustice."

"When I interned for the American Hero, the Honorable John Lewis, I learned that this will be a tough fight, yet we must be determined to stand against injustice. Civil Rights are Human Rights and human rights are Environmental Rights… NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT."

"Civil Rights are Human Rights and human rights are Environmental Rights… NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT."

"It is only in the cracks of division that corruption can seep in and pollution can spew out."

"My message to him, my message to President Trump, would be that there is no more time to continue to accept money from the fossil fuel industry. There’s no more time to continue to be bought off and paid for, because this is our lives that we’re fighting for. We’re fighting for our children. We’re fighting for our sisters and brothers. We’re fighting for people that are drowning."

"The word vegan should not just be used when referring to people who choose not to eat animal products because being vegan includes doing our best to abstain from participating in the other ways animals are exploited, including animal testing, wearing them, etc. Clearly there is a lot of buzz about the word vegan these days, which is great, but I think it is imperative that we keep the dialogue about this word focused on what it truly means. Veganism is simply about one's ethics and not contributing to the suffering of others."

"Food justice is incredibly important, because food touches all of our lives daily. We have to look at how [food] impacts everyone, from the waiters and waitresses and cooks at restaurants, to the produce workers who pick our food, to the animals who are suffering and dying so we can eat them. We have the responsibility to speak out against these injustices and make sure we hold those who are doing the exploiting accountable."

"Whether we’re talking about human or nonhuman animals, the abuses in our food system are similar—living beings are treated as commodities for profit."

"I founded OneMillionOfUs to empower, educate, and register one million young people to vote in the 2020 elections and beyond. As a great and honorable president once said, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” We are no longer waiting, we are acting."

"All farm workers, including migrants, are some of the most exploited people in the U.S. They work from dawn to dusk, often with no breaks in the heat of the day. Workers go out into fields that are often still wet with pesticides. Unable to wash, they are forced to eat with the pesticides on their hands. Many employers fail to provide them with enough water—or any at all."

"The first time I ever saw footage of a mother pig, in a more natural environment, making a nest for her babies, it brought me to tears realizing the frustration they must feel in farrowing crates."

"I am here on behalf of young people worldwide. For the young girl in Guatemala starving because of drought; for the young boy in Sumatra whose entire rainforest community is set ablaze for the extraction of palm oil; for the mother in Beijing who attended her 3-year-old daughter’s funeral because she breathed in the toxic air of the city. I speak for the millions suffering at the destructive hands of the fossil fuel industry."

"When people look at fishing, sometimes they’re only looking at the fact of the animals who are actually consumed by humans, so we’re not necessarily looking at all the animals who are caught in the drift nets, all the other animals who are killed in the industry."

"Most guys my age can't keep up with their grandchildren. My grandchildren can't keep up with me. When I went from an animal-based diet to a plant-based diet, my blood pressure went down to, like, 110 over 70. My heart rate sometimes has been under 50, like, 48, 47. I'm more focused, I'm more relaxed and I notice that I have a lot more energy because of the plant-based diet. … People in their 20s, they come in here, we do a workout, I sustain the workout a lot easier than they do."