Forum - Stowarzyszenie Empatia

We know that there are people, many of them, who do not want to hear what we say, and who will continue to ridicule our position and ignore our message in favor of maintaining the status quo, and the destructive habits that go along with it… We know that the majority of the human population, apparently, would rather see innocent beings killed than accept minor taste sacrifices or inconveniences. And we know that most people simply are not willing to examine their own participation in the extreme misery we have been conditioned to accept without question.

But there is something else we know. We know that every single person who has decided to take a stand against animal slavery has done so because of an experience of profound realization, and that for many, the epiphany occurred because of something they learned from someone else. That fact alone is sufficient to motivate us to continue to speak for those who do not speak our languages, until justice is served and freedom for all is attained.

The vegan evolution is occurring one step at a time, one person at a time… one realization at a time. For those of you who are on the brink of breaking through: Do It Now. Your only regret will be that you waited so long.For those of you who are not yet convinced: Perhaps, one day soon, you will join the movement of those who have experienced the joy of freeing their slaves.

Ethical veganism is nonviolence in action; it is dynamic harmlessness. It requires that we reassess and reject the insidious ideologies of domination that we have been raised to accept as “normal.”

"I don't feel superior because I'm vegan. The truth is I am vegan because I don't feel superior to others." -- Michele McCowan

The day after the 1990 March for Animals in Washington, the Washington Post carried an article about it in its local edition. The article described the march, and quoted one animal defender who sai, "We're no longer jst little old ladies in tennis shoes."
I am hoping to live long enough to qualify to be a little old lady. Since, unlike the person who made the comment, this category is something I actively aspire to, I wondered about this backhand compliment.
After all, one thing that was being said was "before the rest of us discovered the legitimate and important issues about humans' oppression of animals, little old ladies had." Perhaps when they started agitating on behalf of animals they were not little old ladies. But people's refusal to face the facts about what we do to animals made them old in the process.

What I am concerned about is the fact that farm animals are sentient beings. As such, no matter what methods are employed to bring them to slaughter weight, they can suffer. Enlightened culture reached this obvious conclusion centuries ago when it rejected Rene Descartes's claim that animals were objects devoid of sentience. We can draw all the distinctions we like between humans and farm animals—we can produce operas, they cannot; we can do calculus, they cannot; we can send smug holiday greeting cards, they cannot. But none of these distinctions undermines the fundamental reality that we're both sentient beings capable of suffering.

Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.

Because we have viewed other animals through the myopic lens of our self-importance, we have misperceived who and what they are. Because we have repeated our ignorance, one to the other, we have mistaken it for knowledge.

The proposition that humans have mental characteristics wholly absent in non-humans is inconsistent with the theory of evolution.

We do not need to eat animals, wear animals, or use animals for entertainment purposes, and our only defense of these uses is our pleasure, amusement, and convenience.

Ethical veganism is nonviolence in action; it is dynamic harmlessness. It requires that we reassess and reject the insidious ideologies of domination that we have been raised to accept as “normal.”