Earlier today a vegan made a post with a white supremacist dog whistle by satirizing a person who's people "have been eating dog for thousands of years". Another Indigenous person and I did our best to call out the white supremacist nature of the discussion, so the poster later edited the title to specifically reference European people, which may have been well intentioned but only served to gaslight us by making it look like we were over-reacting and looking to be offended.
I came here for the leftism, and stayed for the Trans Rights. I'm a 2-spirit, native leftist. I have myriad reasons why I may or may not choose or even have the choice of veganism and any moralizing or condescension that comes from white vegans is an extension of over 500 years of an imposition of an alien value system which is profoundly disconnected from this land and the plants and animals which are our blood relations.
I won't exclude omnis; we all want to overthrow capitalism, and we can't agree on everything
but well-being for all means animals too; killing and exploiting animal comrades is wrong for anyone and everyone. if your conditions mean you'll actually die without some animal product, that's pretty different. but yeah eventually veganism should be integrated into leftism, it's just amending who the subjects of exploitation are
I disagree with veganism being mandatory of a leftist vision. I'm not going to discuss meat consumption right now. I agree veganism is good in the current conditions that most of us live in, but I disagree with thei idealization of veganism outside the capitalist system.
Most visions of socialism in the modern era include a symbiotic relationship to the natural world, and that doesn't need to stop with animals.
Having a pet and maintaining humane living conditions for them isn't exploitation. At most, they may provide emotional labour, but they're generally quite eager and happy with their compensation.
Now say that pet is a female chicken. It lays eggs. Do I have to leave those to rot? Throw them away? Can we not have sheep? Can we not shear their wool? What about goats and their milk?
These are all byproducts or surplusses of natural processes. If we live together in a commune with these animals, is utilising that surplus immoral?
Our biological processes are designed to work together to maintain an ecosystem. We may have dramatically reshaped that ecosystem, but when we remove the system that's actively pushing us to destroy it, we can rekindle that connection to other lifeforms.
utilizing that surplus is immoral because there's basically never a way to do it harmlessly
-here's some of the cruelty involved in wool (CW animal abuse): https://youtu.be/dUnTyjBuxkk
-taking in rescue pets is a good thing, but producing pets through dog farms results in a lot of animals getting culled
-both goat dairy and cow dairy require animals to be constantly impregnated (r*ped) so they can produce milk, and calves are separated from their mothers which is horrifying
-even if you just mean backyard eggs, female chickens were bred to lay many times more than they would naturally, and as a result suffer from calcium deficiencies, which result in lots of broken bones
even under socialism, we would continue to selectively breed animals in ways harmful to their health, and there would always be an incentive to treat them only well enough to get a product out of them. we have to remove the idea of getting labor/products out animals, because if we allow that, it means many people will take in animals just for those products. it's basically incentivizing mistreatment
I'm not watching any videos posted by vegans. Y'all have been terrible with content warnings so I don't trust any links. You can give haircuts humanely.
Animals have sex too. If you have a male and female together, you'll get a baby. It's only with truly monsterous levels of selective breeding that we've created a few breeds that need insemination. Removing calfs is optional. All animals produce a surplus. We've spent centuries finding ways to increase that surplus.
We have guided chicken evolution into a new niche of a symbiotic relationship with farmers, providing eggs in exchange for food, safety, comfort, and medical care. All species have weaknesses, but a major concern of chicken farmers is providing extra calcium.
Arguing about specific conditions that can be changed doesn't advance your position when we're discussing a post-capitalist world where we can change those conditions.
I mean veganism is about trying to eliminate the exploitation and suffering of animals for human gain so if you're able to devise some system that has no exploitation of suffering that still lets you consume animal products then crack on but why bother coming up with some post-capitalist hypothetical system when we already have the means to eliminate animal suffering and exploitation by just not using animal products.
We've had sustainable, ethical relationships with wild and domesticated animals since before we were human. While those relationships no longer predominate, they still exist.
We do not have the means to eliminate animal cruelty through individual action. Boycotts don't work. That's why we've always imposed the requirement for change on political institutions and systems of production. Our consumption patters are based on innumerable factors and you can not fix any problem by focusing on one, single factor to force people into changing their consumption.
I thought we were talking about a post capitalist world and a vision of socialism not on boycotts and how to reach this post capitalist world. I probably made my point badly but what I'm trying to say is if you're envisaging a socialist world with ethical relationships with animals, why would you envision one where you have to come up with a way to consume animal products ethically when you can just envision a world where you don't use animal products at all.
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The same occurs with our reliance on the labour of other people. The answer is to remove the commodification, not the relationship with animals or workers.
Animal comrades?
Orwell wrote a book about those...
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