Dear Colleagues:

On December 31, 2009, the BBC World Service broadcast the first segment of the two-part program One Planet: Animals and Us. This program was hosted by Victor Schonfeld, who did the highly influential The Animals Film in 1982. The Animals Film was among the first—if not the first—film to reveal how humans actually treated nonhumans. Animals and Us involves Schonfeld’s return to the topic 27 years later to ask whether anything has changed since 1982. The first segment dealt primarily with the use of animals for food and focused on factory farming.

In this Commentary, sociology instructor Roger Yates and New Zealand podcasting phenomenon Elizabeth Collins, and I discuss and critique this first segment.

If you are not vegan, go vegan. It’s easy; it’s better for your health and for the planet; and, most importantly, it’s the morally right thing to do.

And remember: THE WORLD IS VEGAN! If you want it.

Gary L. Francione
©2010 Gary L. Francione

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Dear Colleagues:

In this commentary, I discuss the virtual billboard campaign, which focuses on empowering advocates with a positive message that change is possible and that we have the responsibility to effect that change. It is time to reject the vegan bashing that has become the central focus of the welfarist movement.

And I introduce Christine, the newest member of our nonhuman family!

I hope that you enjoy the podcast and that you will join our nonviolent efforts to spread the message of veganism around the world.

Gary L. Francione
©2009 Gary L. Francione

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Dear Colleagues:

In this, Commentary #11, I have a discussion with Gary Steiner, Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Bucknell University. Gary recently had an editorial in the New York Times about veganism and we talk about the reactions that he got to his editorial, including the criticisms from welfarists, many of whom praise slaughterhouse designer Temple Grandin and other supporters of speciesist exploitation.

We also discuss how welfarists refuse to engage abolitionists in debate because they have nothing to say in response to the argument that welfare reform merely increases the production efficiency of animal exploitation.

Gary L. Francione
©2009 Gary L. Francione

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Dear Colleagues:

Happy World Vegan Day to all of you.

In this Commentary, I reflect on the state of the vegan movement. The bad news: the large welfare corporations have done a great deal to marginalize veganism. The good news: in the past year, we have seen the growth of the abolitionist movement, which views veganism as the moral baseline, rejects welfare reform and single-issue campaigns, and considers veganism as essential to any coherent theory of nonviolence.

If you are not already vegan then start today. It’s easy. It’s better for your health and for the planet. But most importantly, ethical veganism represents your commitment to justice, the abolition of animal exploitation, and nonviolence.

Gary L. Francione
© 2009 Gary L. Francione

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Dear Colleagues:

Would Martin Luther King have had an “I’d Rather Go Naked than Sit in the Back of the Bus” campaign?

Of course not.

He would have recognized that such a campaign would trivialize the important message of civil rights.

Why don’t animal advocates recognize that sexist campaigns similarly trivialize the issue of animal rights and give people yet another reason to dismiss the animal rights issue?

That is the topic of our ninth Commentary.

Gary L. Francione
©2009 Gary L. Francione

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