By Leslie Goldberg

UPDATE ON THE DRACONIAN KING AMENDMENT

The dreaded King Amendment, deceptively called the “Protect Interstate Commerce Act,” which would destroy states’ abilities to regulate both animal welfare and environmental protection in their states, passed a House Agricultural Committee vote last week. Proposed by Rep. Steve King, a Republican from Iowa, the amendment which is part of the Farm Bill takes specific aim at California’s ban on the sale of eggs from hens trapped in battery cages. (Iowa wants to sell its eggs in California.) The King amendment could also overturn states’ regulation of puppy mills, bans on the sale of dog and cat “meat,” San Francisco’s ban on the sale of fur, and other protections. Call your representatives! (HSUS, April 20, 2018)

CALIFORNIA ANIMAL RIGHTS LEGISLATIVE NEWS

This week at the California State Capitol, animal rights activists won two and lost one. A bill banning the practice of declawing cats didn’t make it out of the state’s Public Safety Committee. The loss was possibly due to the testimony from two representatives of the veterinary association who argued that the practice was medically appropriate in some situations. On the victory side was the Iconic African Endangered Species Act, SB 1487, which bans the possession of body parts of 11 different African animals including lions and elephants. SB 1487, passed with a vote of 5 to 2 along party lines in the Public Safety Committee. Next stop is a vote in the whole state Senate. The other victory was the California Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Act, SB 1249, which passed the state Judiciary Committee and heads off to the Appropriations Committee. The act bans the sale of cosmetics tested on animals. (Reported by Leslie Goldberg)

A BIG BREAK FOR DOGS IN JAPAN

The Japanese government has now banned the testing of agrochemicals on dogs. Typically, this type of testing subjected animals to these pesticides (either ingesting or inhaling) for a year. Now the Japanese government has concluded this practice is not only cruel but ineffective. This ban is a big deal – it will save over 4 million dogs a year. (Live Kindly, April 21, 2018)

WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO GO VEGAN?

According to research conducted by the University of Albany and published in a journal called Appetite, people who grew up with pets were the most likely to become vegans and/or vegetarian. And folks who grew up with the widest variety of animals (meaning cats, rodents, farm animals and not just dogs) were even more likely to go vegan or vegetarian in later life. (Bustle, April 21, 2018)

THE PRICE OF MEAT

Eating meat in the United States costs about 10 percent more than the world average, according to a study published in the Journal of Hunger and Environmental Health. But go to Switzerland and you’ll find it costs a whooping 142 percent more! In Norway it’s 67 percent higher and in Hong Kong it’s 61 percent higher. Why so cheap in the U.S.? Government subsidies. There’s a lot not to like in the Farm Bill, besides the King Amendment. (Fin24, April 21, 2018)

BABOON JAILBREAK

Four baboons, using a large barrel which had been placed in their pen for “enrichment” climbed out to freedom from the Institute for Biomedical Research in San Antonio. The facility which houses 2,500 animals and uses them for medical experiments had been the subject of a HSUS undercover investigation. The activists found them kept in “poor conditions” where the apparently underfed animals were eating rocks, wounding each other, engaging in hair plucking and self-biting. Some improvements were made, but it wasn’t enough according to four baboons who made their way onto city streets before being caught. Human activists called for the primates to be released to a sanctuary. So far, the facility hasn’t responded. (Newsweek, April 17, 2018)

DXE CO-FOUNDER ARRESTED AT BOULDER WHOLE FOODS

DxE co-founder Wayne Hsuing said he was only trying to ask Whole Foods a question but the company doesn’t like to be questioned. A store manager in Boulder refused to answer Hsiung. Instead, she called the police and Hsiung was arrested, along with his intrepid camera person, DxE activist Ateret Goldman. As he attempted to get a Whole Foods manager to have a conversation about Whole Foods’ promotion of “humanely-raised” meat and tried to get her to look at the photos he had brought of the dismal conditions at one of the store’s “humane meat” suppliers, Deistel Turkey Ranch, she asked him to leave. Hsiung, as is his habit, took his time. In the Whole Foods parking lot he was cited for trespassing and taken to jail because he didn’t have his I.D. (Boulder News, April 24, 2018)

DXE TEEN ACTIVIST ARRESTED IN SAN LUIS OBISPO

DxE activists Zoe Rosenberg, who is 15, and Julianne Perry were arrested this week after chaining themselves to a pen where a cow was to be killed for a California Polytechnic University butchering class. The activists were trying to draw attention to this appalling exercise in needless cruelty. When the truck driver bringing the animal who activists named “Justice” saw the protesters he drove off, never unloading the victim from his truck. As Rosenberg and Perry wailed “Where’s Justice?” police cut their chains and dragged them to jail. (The Tribune, April 23, 2018)

DON’T EAT CATS OR DOGS SAYS CONGRESS

U.S. lawmakers advanced a bill to make eating dogs and/or cat illegal here. It’s not that a lot of Americans eat dogs or cats, but rather, as the Washington Post explained, the measure is to make a strong statement to the international community that eating these animals is wrong. It’s a way for the American government to support international animal rights activists. However, it is not a way to stop our own country’s citizens from engaging in the parallel cruelty of eating cows, chickens, pigs and others. (Washington Post, April 24, 2018)

COMMERCIAL PUPPY AND KITTY MILLS FACE MORE OPPOSITION

The State of Maryland just banned the sale of puppies and kittens in pet stores. The measure also encourages people to visit shelters if they want to acquire an animal. The message is “Adopt, Don’t Shop.” California has already got that message. In this state pet shops must sell dogs and

Is there any vegan on the planet who was surprised to learn that the Nevada moocher rancher, Cliven Bundy was also a racist, liked guns and was a tad hostile to women’s rights?

Exploiting other races or other genders and exploiting other species go together very well, kind of like a “horse and carriage” or a “horse and carriage in New York City.”

In fact, some writers on the topic of animals and racism and animals and sexism, think people didn’t even know how to systematically exploit and abuse other groups of people until they started exploiting and abusing groups of animals.

The systematic exploitation of animals started around 11,000 years ago when humans went from hunting and gathering to the “domestication,” of plants and animals. Despite the fact that “domestication” sounds like such a sweet word, implying perhaps sitting by the fire with Mrs. Tiggywinkle or house-breaking Bella the new puppy, when it comes to most animals “domestication” means violence.

The transition from hunting to herding was gradual: “(the former hunters, now herders) learned how to control animals’ mobility, diet, growth and reproductive lives by castration, hobbling, branding, ear cropping and such devices as leather aprons, whips, prods and eventually chains and collars,” writes Charles Patterson, author of “The Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust.”

This ruthlessness, detachment and brutality involved in “raising” animals was built into the culture so that it was a short hop from confining and slaughtering animals to slavery and genocide of humans.

If you look at the history of American slavery, many of the “tools of the trade” such as branding and collars, were the same as what was and is used by ranchers. If you look at the history of the Holocaust, the Nazi’s first reviled Jews by calling them “pigs” and “vermin” over and over and over again, until finally the German people agreed: the “vermin” had to be exterminated.

So as a rancher, old Cliven Bundy’s been around the cruelty and exploitation block. He knows how it’s done. When he started flapping his meat hole about black people, it all made sense to him.

— A Vicious Vegan blog post —

What is a “Vicious Vegan?” And who is a Vicious Vegan? And I’m sure you’re wondering, “Do I qualify?”

Here’s a little test to help you figure it out:

1) Have you ever suggested to someone just diagnosed with cancer or diabetes or someone who’s recently had a heart attack that you wish they had changed their diet like you told them to?

2) Have you ever suggested a vegan diet to an overweight person you know?

3) Have you ever tried to get someone to read a vegan book (instead of a booklet)?

4) Have you ever wanted to send hate mail to the Heifer Project or actually sent it?

5 Have you ever gone to a restaurant or to someone’s home and refused to sit in a leather chair?

6) Have you ever told someone they were “addicted” to animal foods?

7) Do you have a “Meat is Murder” bumper sticker or more than two animal rights bumper stickers on your car?

8) Have you ever gotten into a screaming match over animal food consumption at Thanksgiving or Christmas?

9) Have you ever gotten into a screaming match while handing out Vegan Outreach booklets?

10) Have you ever discussed factory farming at a meal while people were eating animal flesh or animal secretions?

11) Do you regularly use the phrases, “animal flesh” and “animal secretions?”

12) Do you snub vegetarians?

13) Do stay awake at night trying to figure out how you could get this one particular person to go vegan?

Even one “yes” can qualify you as a Vicious Vegan. It’s fine to be a Vicious Vegan, but it’s likely you could be a more effective Vicious Vegan, if you learned some vegan manners. Unfortunately for vegans like me it’s easy to forget vegan manners, which can result in some missed opportunities as well as some knock down, drag out fights.

There’s quite a bit of debate about how to best approach the animal eating issue. Should you be nice or should you be an asshole? I’m voting for “nice.”

If you listen to one of my favorite Vicious Vegans, Dr. John McDougall, the author of a lot of great vegan health books, what we vegan activists need to do is “get in their faces” and “tell the truth!” We need to buy a dozen copies of his newest book, “The Starch Solution,” and hand it out to friends and family. If I did that, there would be 12 books in the recycling bins the next day.

I have to say, “The Starch Solution” is a wonderful book. It really is. It’s probably the best vegan diet/health book I’ve ever read.

Another one of my favorite Vicious Vegans is the artist Sue Coe. Have you ever looked at Sue Coe’s work? I’m guessing no. Have you seen Dan Piraro’s art work? I’m guessing yes.

Piraro is also a Vicious Vegan, but he’s been tamed. He’s been schooled in vegan etiquette. Sue Coe is a freaking genius and a pioneer, but geeze, her books sat on my shelf for almost a year, before I could actually look at them.

This is important stuff, Vicious Vegans, we’ve got to stop alienating people with our viciousness. And we’ve especially got to stop alienating vegetarians. They’re almost with us. They’re the last people we want to insult! I think it’s our mistaken belief that they’re family and we can just let ‘er rip when we’re with them. Wrong.

— A Vicious Vegan blog post —

This post is about acting nice. Vegans, please understand, it’s essential to stop arguing with anyone about eating animals.

I repeat: IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU LEARN HOW TO AVOID ARGUING WITH ANYONE ABOUT EATING ANIMALS.

You also don’t want to argue about wearing leather, wearing wool, deserted islands, going to circuses, going to rodeos, eating honey, eating animal “secretions,” medical research, hunting, fishing, global warming, bull fighting, “humane” meat, cosmetics, dolphins, soy products, polluted rivers, lakes and oceans, antibiotic use on factory farms, protein, what the cave men ate, barbecues, calcium, world hunger, heart disease, Marine World, family traditions, fast food places, cancer, tigers who kill, obesity, the meaning of Thanksgiving, essential fatty acids, what Jesus would do, Bill Clinton, what God said to Adam and Eve, olive oil, Michael Pollan, the Dalai Lama, the lives of indigenous peoples or PETA.

Each of these topics is booby-trapped. If you get hooked, both you and your adversary will dig deeper and deeper into your own side of the argument. You will actually help your debating opponent to become even more entrenched in his point of view. You might even find yourself at the family Christmas Eve dinner with another relative screaming at you: “Are you a doctor?”

Oddly, even if you ARE a doctor, they’ll still be screaming at you. Maybe it’ll be “Are you God?” or “I don’t recall you ever being MY doctor!”

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t go to the protest at Ringling Bros. or at KFC. I’m certainly not suggesting that you stop handing out Vegan Outreach booklets. It’s very important to go and do these things. It’s also important to smile. It’s important to listen. It’s important to be a happy vegan, even if you’re not feeling particularly happy. It’s important to laugh and it’s important to duck if someone throws a punch. It might even be important to go to jail, just leave the arguing to your lawyer.

Consider also leaving the arguing to Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society United States and Dr. John McDougall of the plant-based diet world and to the United Nations and its report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow.” These people are paid to argue, you are not! All of the arguers above have websites and books. Send your naysayers there if they want to yell at somebody.

OK, maybe you, Ms. Vegan agree: no arguing about animal foods. But what about a discussion? For the passionate among us, (And what vegan isn’t?) a discussion is usually like that first drink for the alcoholic. Please just one itty bitty reasonable talk and the next thing you know doors are slamming and tears are rolling. Again, send them to the internet if they want info. It’s 2014, most people know how to use the Google machine and the public library.