someone’s life, they are not something.

Yes I agree, you and I are not living in a survival situation. We all have a lot of brainworms regarding animal exploitation that we must fight against as it has become so normalized nowadays in almost every aspect of our life. Cognitive dissonance makes us justify things in ways that if examined rationally or applied to other scenarios we would discard immediately.

Thanks for the recommendation and the explanation, I’ll add it to my reading list.

As animal liberation is one of the subject in which I am the more active, let me try to get you to understand my view on this subject as a vegan.

First, yes this is a systemic change and only individual changes would never amount to anything. The commodification of animal life is driven by profit. Currently this is the material basis for it that is then justified via speciest ideology. However, consumption is not neutral. The problem does not start at consumption but it is in part maintained by it.

For me living as a vegan it feels like a political statement that I’m expressing at a minimum 3 times per day around other people. This is praxis and helps challenge the exploitation that is pervasive in our society. It shows we can and must do better. It is in itself a small act and of course this won’t overthrow the specieist system and capitalism, it helps however raise collective consciousness about the issue and shows solidarity with the oppressed animals.

As most vegan will tell you, being vegan is not the end of the road, it’s only the start. Organize around the subject. Join political movements, join organizations that support workers transitioning out of these industries. Promote systemic changes/alternatives.

Finally let me answer to your last point: "the animal is already dead". I feel like this is a really bad argument. Just because other people decided to do a terrible action does not mean you need to compromise your values and partake in it. Imagine yourself applying the same logic to humans. Especially when in the grocery store you might have alternative close by (think any legumes) that might be cheaper.

Imagine going into a store where there are two kinds of shirts. One is created by slave labor and the other is not. Would you accept someone saying, well I’m used to the kind of t-shirt created by slaves and these are already made anyway so why would I bother choosing the other? My point is of course if your medication contains animal product no animal liberation militant or vegan will berate you for using it, but when the alternative is literally 5 feet away in the same grocery store or a few blocks away then the arguments stops working.

You can draw a parallel to what Lenin says about compromises in "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder. A striker compromising with their oppressor because their strike fund is empty is not the same as a strike-breaker "compromising" with the oppressor. Some compromise are justifiable, others are not. Here you are "compromising" with your morals because you’re used to meat.

any ideals that are not rewarded by a material base I’m not sure I understand this sentence, could you get into it more or give me some book recommendation on this?

BTW I’m digging more into their position and found this bit again about identity politics:

These claim that some parts of the working class benefit from the oppression of others - which is in essence the same lie as the capitalists' claim that oppressed workers take other people's jobs.

What the fuck is this first part?! Do these people not understand systemic racism and how it can up to a point benefit working class white people? I mean also living in the imperial core is literally benefiting from the oppression of the periphery.

The idea that we can just become one big working class is an idealistic model of class politics that doesn't represent historically successful communist parties.

You mean by pretending there are no oppressions between members of the same class ?

Sorry, I see this a lot bit never got what it's supposed to mean.

That's exactly how I felt reading it lmao!

Nice to hear your talk went well :)

I’m not that familiar with trots, but I would hope they are not all reactionnary shitheads. Still I was getting excited of having a leftist org near me... Guess I’ll take the advice of looking for a remote org as I don’t have the energy to start an org at the moment.

That’s actually not a bad idea, I might look into it thanks!

Yeah...

I read the blog post and it felt like a drunk chatgpt article. There was no coherence, it just jumped from topics to topics whenever the author felt like it.

Critical support for this comrade AI.

Here is another study that seeks to evaluate the impact of various diets on multiple things (GHG emissions, land use, water use, biodiversity, etc.) https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00795-w. You’ll see that a vegetarian diet although better stays close to that of a low-meat eater (and fish-eater) regarding GHG emissions, land use, biodiversity and eutrophication. A vegetarian diet is clearly not good enough.

The only realistic solution for our food system to become sustainable is to switch to a global plant-based diet. Furthermore, individually, the most impact you can have on climate change is by switching to a plant-based diet. Basically, I think we need to both transtition to clean energy and a plant-based diet.

I also happen to think sentient beings should not be murdered or exploited. That’s why I advocate not only for a plant-based diet but for a vegan life.

They try to justify their shitty takes by saying "if your solution is not perfect and does not cover any imaginable scenario, I’ll just keep the status quo". Oppressors always have the same arguments.

Animal ag fucking everything it can, once again. Grow the fuck up and start drinking some plant milk like a normal human.

And then gas them once they are done and just buy a new batch for the next experiment they devised...

Animal breeding facilities for laboratories are also abhorrent.

Just to keep you updated: I read more into the case and this time the court did not require a signed order for his release. They should not be able to do the same thing. Let’s hope the appeal rule in his favor as well.

Last time a court gave the same verdict it was also linked to an obligation to leave the country. Valls the minister at the time simply refused to sign this order to kick him out of the country thus rendering the verdict moot.

I expect the same shit this time around.

Edit: Just read more into the case and this time the court did not require a signed order for his release.

I found this pdf on the Law on Higher Education straight from a ukrainian official source https://dduvs.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/files/ENG/2020/la.pdf.

I have not read it entirely because I couldn’t be bothered to read 100 pages of this however from a cursory glance it looks like the law is aiming to align their education system with the rest of the EU through the European Higher Education Area (meaning ETCS, bachelor, master etc.)

Of course it’s full of neoliberal ideology, but that’s what you’d expect from a EU law.

This Law sets forth the principal legal, organizational and financial foothold for operations of the higher education system, creates an environment to enhance cooperation between state authorities, businesses and higher education institutions on the principles of institutional autonomy for higher education, integration of education, science and industry intended to foster and promote competitive human capital for the country’s high technological and innovative development, individual self-fulfilment, and meeting the needs of the society, labour market and the State in skilled labour force.

facilitation of public-private partnership in the area of higher education;

I can see some good stuff like:

adequate government support to education and training of individuals with special education needs by creating free access to education experience and ensuring specialized learning and rehabilitation support;

All in all my guess is that these changes were done with a EU membership in sight in the next X years. I did not see clear mention on ultra-nationalist focused education, but rather a goal to raise a generation that would probably be culturally aligned with the EU, through education ties and way wore aligned with liberalism. However, it looks like the changes are not going smoothly and the atlantic council ghouls don’t like that.

In the end, I cannot speak as to how this impacted education in Ukraine since 2014 and whether they did some other stuff as I don’t know a single person that was still in school during this period in Ukraine.