Last Friday night, a young man named Elliot Rodger went on a killing spree in the UCSB Isla Vista community of Santa Barbara, California. He succeeded in killing six people and injuring thirteen more. His motivation, according to him, was that women didn’t have sex with him. Not only did they not have sex with him, but instead, they chose to have sex with other, “less-deserving” men. He felt entitled to their bodies and felt righteous in punishing them for denying him what he felt he was owed.

Since Elliot Rodger’s shooting/stabbing spree, women from around the world are sharing their stories. You can find many concise accounts on Twitter under the #YesAllWomen hashtag. A few examples are below:

Because every single woman I know has a story about a man feeling entitled to access to her body. Every. Single. One. #YesAllWomen

— Emily (@emilyhughes) May 24, 2014

“I have a boyfriend” is the easiest way to get a man to leave you alone. Because he respects another man more than you. #yesallwomen

— Rylah (@JBRylah) May 25, 2014

#YesAllWomen because when a girl is harassed or even groped by a stranger in public, we’re told to “take it as a compliment”

— Amy Bottrill (@bottrill) May 25, 2014

Because men don’t text eachother that they got home safe. #YesAllWomen

— Addie Wagenknecht (@wheresaddie) May 26, 2014

The personal accounts of rape and sexual harassment paint a vivid picture of the misogynistic world we inhabit, but what truly exposes this truth is the reaction from many (but not all) men who view this as a personal attack against the entire male population. “Men’s rights activists” have taken to social media to stand up for their sex, claiming the feminist agenda is to purge the earth of all male inhabitants and accusing women of misandry, simply for speaking out about the oppression they have experienced and observed in their own lives.

Not surprisingly, mainstream media, men, and even some women are rushing to Elliot Rodger’s defense, saying he was just a mentally disturbed young man who only wanted something most people can identify with: to be given a chance to love and be loved — that he was someone who should be pitied, rather than despised for his act of premeditated mass murder. The innocent people whose lives were ended because of his twisted vendetta against women and the men who have “access” to them are largely forgotten and are instead banished to the category of collateral damage in the battle of the nice guy versus the world. This perfectly illustrates exactly what dissenters attempt to deny: that misogyny is such an insidious force in society that it goes unnoticed and is even itself used as “proof” of its non-existence.

Some examples of the anti-feminist backlash:

A similar hashtag, #NotAllMen, has become popular to both distract from and call attention to misogyny in society, depending on who it is used by. A comprehensive explanation of this can be found here.

The tragic incident last Friday felt all the more personal to me because I used to go to Isla Vista quite often to attend parties on the weekends and am familiar with the places these murders occurred. For all the above reasons, I feel the desire to elaborate on a couple of very memorable accounts of misogyny I have experienced while spending time in this same community. Part of what I will disclose in this post is something I have never spoken of since the day I saw it. I feel it’s time I finally get this out in the open.

In the brief time I was in college, I became friends with a guy in one of my classes who we’ll call Jake. He was a big, tall, bald, burly guy who was eager to please and always cracking jokes. He had friends who went to UCSB so we would go there together on weekends because at the time I didn’t have a car. Over the course of a couple months we all became familiar with each other and regularly partied together on Del Playa Drive (DP), which is a street any college kid could walk down on the weekends and find a party going on at pretty much every house. (It is also one of the streets on which Elliot Rodger opened fire on pedestrians.)

Jake would frequently do things to try to impress me which only wound up doing the exact opposite. One night, he drank an entire handle of Smirnoff vodka by himself. He spent the next day puking in the gutter. But that same night, while he was drunk, leaning on a wall in the hallway at some house party we were crashing, he tried to kiss me.

I took a step back and told him, “Look, Jake. You’re really drunk and anyway I’m not into you like that. I just want to be friends.” He laughed in his drunken stupor and tried again.

Again, I took a step back and told him it was never going to happen. Then he started begging and pleading with me and saying how I didn’t know what was good for me and if I’d only give him a chance I’d have to change my mind. I told him he was drunk and pissing me off and left the party.

The next day when I woke up I overheard him in the next room telling his friends, “I’m going to marry that girl. She doesn’t know it yet but just watch. If I play my cards right, she’ll come to her senses.”

I was speechless. I felt a mixture of disgust, anger, and pure shock. He wasn’t listening to me at all. It was as if only his feelings mattered and mine were utterly irrelevant, because supposedly he knew what I really wanted better than I did. Sure, he was drunk the night before, but I had looked him right in the eye and told him that I didn’t reciprocate his feelings.

I thought, “What is this, the ’50s? You don’t get brownie points for being persistent after I tell you I’m not interested. It doesn’t prove to me you’re a good guy who really cares about my feelings — all it proves is your complete disregard for my feelings.”

I walked out and said to him, in front of his friends, “I’m capable of making my own decisions, thanks.”

Later, when Jake was out getting pizza for all of us, one of his friends showed me a video on his phone I’ll never forget. Apparently, this type of thing happens “all the time,” but to me as an 18 year old who just started college, it was somewhat of a shock.

In the video, a young woman my age was laying down on her back and appeared to be very, very drunk. So drunk she could barely open her eyes or lift her head. She moved her lips a little and made some indistinguishable noises like she was trying to talk to someone out of frame but it was impossible to decipher what it was she was trying to say because she kept slurring her words and trailing off. I don’t even think she knew where she was. Someone out of frame asked her what her name was at one point and she couldn’t even articulate that. Then hands appeared in the frame and lifted up her tank top. Then her bra.

There must have been around four or five guys taking turns raping her. She didn’t fight back, but it was rape. She didn’t say “no,” but it was rape. She didn’t do anything to stop it because she couldn’t even keep her eyes open. She didn’t even remember her own name. And regardless of her choice to get drunk — it was never her choice to get raped.

For the most part, she was totally unconscious, but every now and then her eyes would roll back from inside her skull and she’d look around the room bewildered and then fall back into unconsciousness. I couldn’t watch any more. The whole time my “friends” were laughing about how much of a “slut” she was and how “stupid” she was to allow herself to be in that situation. They blamed her for what her attackers were doing to her. They thought that experience would “teach her a lesson” so she would “know better next time.”

I was dumbfounded and asked them if they knew who the guys in the video were. I think one of them did. I told them they should report it and one of them said they already did. To this day I don’t know why I believed them and didn’t continue to ask questions or do anything about it. Maybe it was because I was young and didn’t know how to react to seeing something like that. Maybe I selfishly didn’t want to get involved. Maybe I didn’t want to believe what I had just seen was real. Maybe it was a subconscious kind of self-preservation. I don’t know why I didn’t ask any more questions or do something about it. It eats at me.

They could tell I was bothered and tried to comfort me by telling me not to be so freaked out and that things like that happen all the time, even at parties I had been to. They tried to normalize it for me in an attempt to put me at ease. They couldn’t understand why I was so shocked and why I wasn’t laughing along with the rest of them. They assured me that I wasn’t a “stupid slut” and that they would protect me so I had nothing to worry about.

That was supposed to be comforting.

Needless to say, I had to get out of there. It was around 8:00 at night and I had to take a ride back to Los Angeles with Jake. On our way back he told me we were taking the long way back and he drove up a narrow, winding road to the top of a mountain. There were stars everywhere. Nothing in the sky was obscured by city lights. Everything else was dark. I didn’t know this wasn’t actually the long way back, and naively thought we were still headed to Los Angeles. We talked about normal stupid things college kids talk about. Music, movies, philosophical musings, etc. Normal stuff. Then he pulled over and said he had to take a leak. He got out of the car and I waited inside.

When he got back inside he didn’t start the car immediately. He just sat there staring at the wheel long enough to make things awkward.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Why don’t you want to kiss me?” he asked after a brief pause. “I’m a nice guy. I keep you safe at parties. I open doors for you –”

I laughed. “Jake, we already went over this. I only see you as a friend. I’m sorry, but that’s just how I feel.”

He kept looking at the steering wheel a little more and then leaned over to try to kiss me. I backed up toward the passenger window. “Stop,” I said firmly. “Let’s go back.”

Without pause, he shifted out of his seat — and mind you, he’s a big, tall, burly guy — and put his body on top of mine to try to kiss me again. Before I could think, I shouted, “Stop it!” and pushed him away from me so hard that his head hit and cracked his car’s windshield. To this day I have no idea how I was able to summon the strength to do that because he was easily three times my size. He winced in pain and rubbed his head and I ordered him to “take me home NOW,” which, thankfully, he did. I think he was just shocked. We didn’t talk the rest of the trip back.

He dropped me off at home and I never contacted him again. He called me for years after that night and would leave me voicemails asking if I had a boyfriend and what I was up to.

It was like he was still convinced that he was going to marry me some day and all he had to do was wait it out and wear my defenses down to prove that he really loved me.

These experiences are just a few examples of the misogyny I’ve personally experienced and witnessed. But it happens every day to varying degrees. And I am only one example.

I’m not saying all men are rapists and murderers. I’m not saying all men are walking around consciously detesting women. I’m not saying men aren’t ever themselves victims of sexual violence (though usually at the hands of other men). I’m not saying men are wrong for feeling lonely.

I’m also not saying that women don’t in some strange ways benefit from an objectifying, patriarchal society. For example, if I got a ticket every time I’ve been pulled over, I’d be thousands of dollars in debt. But this should be further reason for us to change the status quo, not an excuse for men to play the victim. And this slight benefit is a pittance compared to the male privilege which permeates society.

Misogyny and male privilege is ingrained in society in the words we use, the movies we watch, the music we listen to, the clothes we wear, the history we learn, and the stories we tell. For far too long women have been silenced. Our voices have been drowned out; our stories have been largely stricken from history; and our perspective has been completely ignored.

When the role of men is almost always the protagonist and the role of women is almost always the love interest or sexual conquest, that is misogyny in action. When we place greater importance on the male perspective than the female perspective, that is misogyny in action. When we brainwash young girls from birth to believe that she only matters if a boy validates her or that her opinion is only taken into consideration if she is considered attractive by the opposite sex, that is misogyny in action. When we brainwash young boys from birth to believe that being male means being strong and being female means being weak, that is misogyny in action. And when Elliot Rodger went on a killing spree at UCSB because he wanted to teach a lesson to the people he blamed for getting between him and the pleasure he felt he was so entitled to, that is most definitely misogyny in action.

And whether you like it or not; whether you recognize it or not, if you’re a man, you benefit from male privilege.

True, not all men feel entitled to male privilege, but all men benefit from it.

And the sooner we as a society recognize it, the sooner we can confront it and change it.

Unfortunately, Elliot Rodger was not the first or last misogynist to hurt others out of a sense of entitlement. He was raised to have these views by living in a patriarchal society that regards women as objects to be “had.” Ultimately, he is only a symptom of a much larger societal disease. One that left untreated, will continue to have disastrous consequences for us all.

Read his 140-page manifesto.

The post Yes, All Women Feel the Effects of Misogyny appeared first on Vegan Rabbit.

The thing is, this wasn’t an animal sanctuary and these chickens were not viewed as individual beings with their own right to govern their own bodies — to be the autonomous creatures they were born to be. Instead, I was at a backyard egg producer. They even named the birds and had “favorites”, got to know each chickens distinct personality and behavior.

All might seem peachy keen on the outside, but when you dig a little deeper, the truth becomes more and more apparent and increasingly impossible to ignore.

I’ll start from the beginning of the chickens journey from the hatchery to the backyard egg producer’s home. Keep in mind, this is a typical example of the life of a backyard chicken and is in no way isolated to this one particular backyard egg producer.

The chickens are purchased from a hatchery which is usually located out of state (in this case, from Illinois). A box containing eggs (however many the person orders) is sent to their address (in this case, California). A disclaimer is packed with the box which informs the customer (the backyard egg producer) that only half of the eggs will hatch because not all of the eggs will survive transport. So there is already half of the chickens, dead for no reason at all. Of those chickens who are fortunate or misfortunate (depending on how you look at it) to hatch, half of those chickens will be roosters (males). Because males don’t lay eggs, they are either discarded right away or they are allowed to grow large enough to be slaughtered and eaten. So only about 25% of those original eggs will be female, egg-producing hens.

Those hens are allowed to live a seemingly nice life where they are allowed to attend to their basic needs such as dust bathing, preening, pecking at the earth, and other chicken activities. They are permitted to do these things only until their production declines or stops completely. Many of these breeds of chicken have been bred for so many years and artificially selected to lay more and more eggs to such an extent that their reproductive system shuts down after a few short years and they become known as “internal layers”. This is just one of many medical issues hens get between 2-5 years of age, regardless of how “happy” a life they had in their early years. Keep in mind, when properly cared for even chickens with medical issues can live 15-20 years. But because this is a backyard egg producer we are talking about, a hen who won’t lay is a hole in their pocket. In the words of this particular egg producer, “They eat my food but don’t give me anything back so they have to go.” They said this meaning they have to be killed.

How do they do this? An inverted traffic cone out back holds the chickens upside down with their head sticking out the bottom. The cone keeps their wings from flapping as they would naturally struggle to save themselves from death, as anyone would. Chickens aren’t interested in dying, and they aren’t stupid. They know what death and suffering is when it’s dealt to them. The egg producer “lovingly” bends the chickens neck back and slices it open with a sharp knife, letting the chicken slowly bleed to death. You can find youtube videos of “humane chicken slaughter” which show this method of slaughter frequently used by backyard butchers. You will see the chickens writhe in pain and frantically kick their legs. You will see them try to flap their wings in a vain attempt to escape. You will hear the guttural noises emanating from their throats as they try to cry out in agony. There is no such thing as humane slaughter. Even in places like these.

So the cycle goes every couple years. Another box, more dead chickens in eggs, more dead roosters, and soon enough, more dead hens. All in the name of greed, gluttony, food addictions, willful ignorance, selfishness, and a complete disregard for the rights and feelings of each creature to own their own life and to be free from exploitation.

Thankfully, they let me have three of their older chickens (just a few years old). Two hens and one rooster. The hens were no longer producing eggs and the rooster was getting “old” so they wanted to make room for the “new” ones. So instead of being turned into chicken soup, these chickens are able to live out the rest of their lives in a safe place. All three chickens have new homes. The two hens are living out their lives in an animal sanctuary with the resources to tend to their reproductive medical needs. The rooster is living with another vegan animal rights activist on two acres of land. He should have a flock of hens joining him (rescues) very soon. And to think these beautiful beings would have been someone’s meal. They are so much more than that.

If you aren’t already vegan, know that you have it in you to change if you want it badly enough. Align your actions with your beliefs. If you don’t believe you are a cruel person, but you are still participating in a system which is inherently cruel (even in the most “humane” places), ask yourself “Am I okay with being ethically inconsistent?” If actions speak louder than words, ask yourself, “What do my actions toward animals say about me as a person?” If you consider yourself a rational person and yet you find incongruence between your beliefs of compassion toward others and your actions of causing harm to others (by paying for someone to be killed), wouldn’t the logical and rational next step be to stop causing harm to others? All of the vegans in the world are living proof that this option is absolutely possible and I don’t know a single vegan who would deny someone help with transitioning to a vegan lifestyle.

The world is changing. Can you keep up?

More info on backyard eggs and “humane” meat.

The post “Humane” Meat, Local Free-Range Eggs, and Backyard Chickens appeared first on Vegan Rabbit.

About Liz Marshall:

Liz Marshall is a Gemini-nominated, award-winning auteur filmmaker who fuses character-driven cinematic storytelling with social and environmental justice issues. Since the 90s she has created a body of documentary projects shot all over the world which focus on a range of subjects including animal use and animal sentience, the right to water movement, HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, sweatshop labor, censorship affecting writers and journalists, war-affected children, music icons and the written and spoken word. Liz is well versed in the craft of conceptual point-of-view storytelling as a means of exploring complex issues.

About Jo-Anne McArthur:

Award-winning photojournalist Jo-Anne McArthur has been documenting the plight of animals on all seven continents for over ten years. Her documentary project, We Animals, is internationally celebrated and over 100 animal organizations, among them Igualdad Animal, Sea Shepherd and the Jane Goodall Institute, have benefited from her photography. Many organizations have also worked with her closely on campaigns and investigations. The first We Animals photo book is being published by Lantern Books in late 2013. Recent awards and accolades include: co-recipient (with Liz Marshall) of the 2013 Compassion for Animals Award in Toronto, the 2011 Canadian Empathy Award (art category), one of CBC’s Top 50 Champions of Change, Farm Sanctuary’s 2010 “Friend of Farm Animals” award, HuffPost Women “Top 10 Women trying to change the world,” one of 20 activists featured in the book The Next Eco Warrior, and the “Shining World Compassion Award” by Supreme Master Ching Hai.

What is The Ghosts in Our Machine about?

Liz Marshall: The Ghosts in Our Machine is multilayered. Its primary trajectory is to illuminate the lives of individual animals living within and rescued from the machine of our modern world, and to pose the moral question, are non-human animals property to be owned and used, or are they sentient beings deserving of rights?

I grounded this thesis through a character-driven human narrative: the heart and lens of animal rights photographer Jo-Anne McArthur. Through Jo-Anne’s story the audience meets a cast of animal subjects over the course of a year, and each encounter and photograph is a window into global animal industries: food, fashion, entertainment and research. All this is part of an epic photo project called We Animals, where McArthur has documented the lives of animals around the world with heart-breaking empathic vividness. The Ghosts in Our Machine charts her efforts to bring wider attention to a topic that most of humankind strives hard to avoid

What types of images can viewers expect to see?

Jo-Ann McArthur: The “Ghosts” film seamlessly blends its beautiful cinematography with both the images I took while we were shooting the film and images from the We Animals archive. The images are, for the most part, intimate portraits of animals in the situations that we put them, such as fur farms, dairy farms and macaque breeding farms. The photos aim to connect the viewer with the animal, extending the experience of what it must be like to live in a cage, or in an aquarium, or even at a sanctuary where rescued animals live. The images are meant to be beautiful, thoughtful and artful. I’m always trying to make images that draw the viewer in. I don’t want to repel anyone, even with the the heart-wrenching images. The idea is always to connect us to the animals

What inspired you to make The Ghosts in Our Machine?

Liz Marshall: A combination of things, my own journey of grappling with the issues (which I believe we all do when confronted with the staggering realities of animal use and exploitation), of being an animal lover, of believing in social justice, and being in a relationship with a longtime animal rights activist, Lorena Elke, who effectively challenged me to tackle the animal issue in a documentary. So, it’s been a process that began for me when I read Diet For A New America almost 25 years ago. Making The Ghosts in Our Machine has changed me, broadened my worldview considerably

What do you hope to accomplish by making this film?

Liz Marshall: To be part of the zeitgeist of social change that is taking place. We want the film to be a catalyst for change and inspiration. The biggest goal is to affect a consciousness shift.

What makes The Ghosts in Our Machine different from other animal rights films?

Liz Marshall: There are many important animal rights films out there. The Ghosts in Our Machine was created to reach a broader audience. I think it is different in its tone, its form, and because it leaves the audience with open-ended questions. It’s not a polemic style film. It’s a gentle film with dramatic impact.

Did you make this film with a specific audience in mind?

Liz Marshall: A broad and diverse demographic consisting of activists of all stripes, animal lovers of all stripes, and cinephiles of all stripes!

What was your favorite part of making The Ghosts in Our Machine?

Liz Marshall: All of it! It is hard, hard work that involves hundreds of thousands of details, and attention to scale and to the big picture at all times, simultaneously. I have nothing to complain about. I love filmmaking, I love helping to usher the film into the world, and I love connecting with people, engaging in dialogue, and being part of the change.

Jo-Ann McArthur: I think seeing it come together in the editing suite was the best part. Liz shot 180 hours of footage and seeing it be whittled down and laboriously shaped, piece by tiny piece, into the magic that has become The Ghosts in Our Machine, was a really beautiful thing to behold. I’m thankful that Liz was open to my ideas and thoughts during editing as well, so I got to give my two cents once in a while if I really liked something, or thought something didn’t fit. And then hearing them build the soundscape to the film, which is such an important component, was really cool. The film really came to life when the sounds came in…the sound of pen on paper, the sound of Maggie’s tail cutting the air as it furiously wagged, the sound of Fanny and Blitzen’s sniffing when they first meet. Beautiful stuff!

What was the hardest part of shooting the film?

Liz Marshall: The painful realities of bearing witness to the four main animal industries featured in the film: animals used for food; animals used for fashion; animals used for biomedical research and teaching; animals used for entertainment. Bearing witness happened in very intense ways while documenting the fur farm investigation, and visiting zoos and aquaria, but it also happened while filming mundane urban scenes to illustrate the many ways that animals have been reduced to ingredients and bits and parts.

Jo-Ann McArthur: I actually can’t say that there was a “hardest part” to shooting the film. Perhaps only that I generally fly by the seat of my pants in life, but, we couldn’t do that with the film, as so much planning was involved, and so much was at stake. It wasn’t just me and my camera, or me and an investigator or two, it was a whole team of us, which was an absolutely huge amount of work for us all to coordinate, especially Liz, of course. It wasn’t hard to get used to the cameras either because the team of cinematographers was absolutely stellar. Really unobtrusive people that I felt comfortable with immediately.

What action do you hope individual viewers will take after watching the film?

Jo-Ann McArthur: To face cruelty to animals is to face our complicity and our responsibility in that cruelty. People are hesitant to face these things; both are hard to handle! However, the film unravels in a way that allows the viewer to reflect. We aren’t hitting anyone over the head with a direct message. The film opens doors and opens up a dialogue as well. Are animals sentient creatures deserving of respect, or are they property? I want people to leave the film in a contemplative mood, and I’ll hope that it will lead us all to questions about how we can alleviate cruelty through our own actions. We can stop consuming animals, and products tested on them. We can consume less in general. We can become more informed and responsible stewards of the earth. We haven’t a second to lose; the time to make changes is now, for all the right reasons, and I know that “Ghosts” will be one of the many catalysts in the ongoing global shift to make the world a better place for animals. I hope that viewers will be a part of the change. They’ll see how great it feels to be active, even in small ways, in helping animals.

When can everyone go out and see it?

Liz Marshall: We’re conducting an Oscar-qualifying theatrical release in the U.S. in four major U.S. markets between November and December 2013: New York; Los Angeles; San Francisco (TBA) Chicago (TBA). This follows an 11-city theatrical release across Canada, and 3 prestigious international film festival awards. Here are the dates coming up:

New York: Village East Cinema, November 8-14 (6 screenings daily)

Los Angeles: Laemmle Theatre, Music Hall Beverly Hills, November 15-21 (3 screenings daily)

Buy tickets and spread the word.

If there’s a one-sentence message you want viewers to take away from The Ghosts in Our Machine, what would it be?

Liz Marshall: As consumers, we can all make a difference for the Ghosts, each and every day.

The Ghosts in our machine are a reality we are seldom faced with.  They are hidden from us and yet they are there, suffering in a seemingly eternal unrest.  Our duty as fellow inhabitants of this planet is to recognize their existence, bear witness to their suffering and take action.  We must always remember that as long as our silence persists, our non-human brothers and sisters will remain ghosts forever.

The post The Ghosts in Our Machine: An Interview With Liz Marshall and Jo-Anne McArthur appeared first on Vegan Rabbit.

Though I have never met you, in many ways, I believe we already know each other very well.   Our struggles have not been identical, yet I am sure we have shared many.  The world is a tough place to live in, especially for a person who chooses not to follow the path of least resistance.  This is why I am writing you this letter: to tell you to never give up.

Fear is a weapon used to keep change from happening, effectively halting progress.  Fear comes at you from all directions.  From the government, giant corporations, your teachers, your friends, your family and even yourself.  They will tell you: “you are just one person, what difference could you possibly make?”, “what you’re doing is far too difficult” and “your actions will get you into trouble”.  Sometimes no matter how long you’ve been in the game, you can feel as though you will succumb to those negative thoughts simply because they never stop.  They replay constantly in your mind, dragging you down until you stand petrified — paralyzed by fear.  This is exactly what they want.

You may feel alone.  You may feel hopeless.  You may feel as though the entire world is against you.  You may feel as though giving up would be so much simpler and easier than continuing to fight.  These are feelings every activist has wrestled with.

I won’t lie to you and tell you that these feelings will ever completely disappear.  The truth is, they are always there in the shadows of your mind, waiting for the moment you are most vulnerable to present themselves.  They grow and fester like a disease in your psyche, whose symptoms go unnoticed at first, but in time grow to become unbearable and impossible to ignore.

This is the life you have chosen.  The feeling of loneliness in a crowded room — of existing separate from the rest — is something that will remain constant.  Seeing life as it really is, rather than the façade you were brought up to not question or look past will haunt you at every turn.   It is a life of conflict, of grief, and often of solitude.

But it is also a life of gratitude, joy and boundless love.  It is a life of honesty and integrity.   It is a life characterized by your unwillingness to turn a blind eye to suffering.  It is a life of purpose beyond the self.

This world needs people like you.  People who are willing to speak the truth no matter where they are or who is listening.  People who are willing to act.  People who always eagerly ask “how can I do more?”.  Because the truth is, these are the only people who have ever changed the tides of history.  The world is full of bystanders; those who see injustice happening right in front of them and are too afraid to stop it; who think “someone ought to do something about this” and not doing something about it themselves.  The world needs people like you, who will take a stand against injustice and oppression.

I would not ask you to be fearless.  To be fearless is to be reckless and in this context is not only unwise but also nearly impossible.  Instead, what I am asking of you is to be courageous.  Courage is not the lack of fear, but the willingness to overcome it.

Fear seeks to control — to immobilize.  In this life you have to learn to challenge your fears so that you can overcome them.  You have to be willing to venture out of your comfort zone, do what needs to be done and be willing to accept the consequences.  The satisfaction you will get from knowing you are true to your beliefs in times of conflict and uncertainty will far outweigh any negativity you might encounter.

So, dear friend, though you do not know me, have never met me and likely never will, take some comfort in knowing that even from separate ends of the Earth I am here fighting right beside you, pushing you to be better and most importantly, steadfastly believing in our cause: the cause of total animal liberation.  We must believe and we must persevere, because to give up means that fear has won, and that is something people like you and I do not allow.

“Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.” ~ Robert F. Kennedy

[This post was inspired by the question: “What would you have wanted to hear when you were a new vegan?  What would have helped?”, asked by Letters to a New Vegan as a part of their compilation of letters from vegans and activists of different backgrounds to newly aspiring vegans and animal rights activists.  They are considering submissions through January, 2014 of letters no longer than 1,000 words.   I wrote this letter to inspire others to be active and vocal and of course, to never give up.]

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It is a ritual called Kapparot (also known as Kapparah, Kaporos, Kaparot, Kaporot and Kapores) that is part of the observance of the highest of Jewish holidays, Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement).  In this ritual a rabbi swings a live chicken over a person’s head to channel the sins of the human into the chicken.  This is to ensure a good year for the human full of health and prosperity.  A rooster is used for men and a hen is used for women.  A few passages are read from the Torah (the “Old Testament”) and the following is recited three times:

“This is my exchange, this is my substitute, this is my atonement.  This rooster (or hen) will go to its death, while I will enter and proceed to a good long life and to peace.”

The chicken is then killed with a sharp blade dragged across his or her throat.

Many Jews prefer to use money instead of chickens because of their acknowledgement that the use of chickens in the Kapparot ritual is animal cruelty.  To many Jews, the use of chickens in Kapparot directly violates a principle which bans “unnecessary” animal cruelty, known by Jews as “Tza’ar ba’alei chayim” (literally translating to “the suffering of living creatures”).  They say that because money is an acceptable alternative, it is not necessary to use chickens.

A week ago, I didn’t know about any of this.  My father mentioned the ritual to me a long time ago, telling me how his grandfather used to practice the ceremony on him when he was a child and how much he hated seeing a chicken suffer in that way, but over time I forgot about it.  I was invited to a protest against the use of chickens for Kapparot, organized by Rabbi Jonathan Klein and Gina Palencar, co-founders of Faith Action for Animals.  Over one-hundred activists and locals (many of them Jews) showed up for the protest on Sunday.

We expected to be met with resistance.  We expected to see chickens suffering.  But we could never have expected what actually transpired.

A protest which originally was supposed to last one day stretched on to an entire week, beginning on Sunday, September 8th and ending Friday, September 13th.  Whatever plans I had for this past week were forgotten.  Protesting and rescuing became my entire existence.  My life has been consumed by chanting, crying, laughing, screaming, hugging, supporting, driving, standing, walking, pacing, debating and trying to maintain my sanity.  My garage has been the half-way house between misery and freedom for almost all the sixty-three chickens who were fortunate enough to make it out alive.  Many of us have put in 12-hour days, having only enough time for one meal a day and three or four hours of restless sleep each night.  My body feels like I got hit by a bus.  The incredibly disturbing things we have seen, heard and smelled over the course of one week are enough to make anyone question their faith in humanity.

We witnessed firsthand horrifying cruelty and neglect.  Chickens, who were crammed in cages, stepping on each other, bleeding, defecating and laying eggs over each other that would crack open and ooze through the wire cage floor onto the chickens below, becoming caked on what few matted feathers they had.  Chickens with nails two inches long.  Chickens panting in the 90 degree heat.  Chickens with puss-filled holes where their eyes used to be.  Chickens who were given no food or water except for the occasional hose-down after enough pleading from activists to “please be merciful” (though we tried to give them as much water as we could from our own bottles).

We witnessed firsthand disgusting exhibits of waste, environmental destruction and malice.  Workers dumping entrails and blood into storm drains.  Garbage bags full of stinking, rotting chicken corpses.   Workers throwing the hacked up remains of chickens at protesters and laughing about it.

We witnessed firsthand the early indoctrination of speciesism and human supremacy onto little children not even old enough to walk.  Families with children of all ages from infancy to young adulthood witnessing the slaughter of chickens in the wooden huts erected to shield their despicable acts of torture and murder from the public eye.  Children begging their parents to not take them inside.  Other children picking out which chicken they wanted to have slaughtered, “This one is fluffy and cute!  I want this one!”, stroking and petting the trembling chickens who would be murdered in front of their own eyes a few moments later.

(This was one of the most heartbreaking moments for me.  We were unable to save this little girl.)

We were called anti-Semites, racists, drug addicts, drunks, extremists, crazy people and countless other things.  Many sexist slurs and insults were lobbed against female activists by orthodox Jewish men.  One woman was actually told by a man of the Ohel Moshe synagogue “you deserve to be raped — you’d like it, wouldn’t you?”.  People laughed and mocked the chicken’s cries of anguish.  Dead body parts were thrown over fences at us.  Fights broke out.  Half a dozen police cars were on site, as well as a police helicopter.  It was sheer pandemonium.  It wasn’t a protest — it was a war.

But this all came from a very small section of the orthodox Jewish community.  The majority of the community who live in the immediate area of the temples in which the murders were carried out confessed that they agreed with us.  They don’t like hearing the cries of chickens being butchered through the windows of their homes.  They don’t like people killing chickens if it “isn’t necessary” (as many of them eat meat, but disapprove of ritual sacrifice).  They don’t like what they call “big business” and have told many of us that the rabbi’s running this ritual slaughter are doing it for the money, calling them “crooks”, “greedy”, “liars”, and “an embarrassment to the Jewish community”.

We were not protesting against Judaism, religion or religious rituals — we were protesting against animal cruelty and murder.

But the Jewish community is understandably very tight-knit.  The jewish people have been persecuted for millennia and have had to work together and support each other unquestioningly in order to survive.  To speak out against any fellow member of the Jewish community is seen as a deep betrayal of trust, so even Jews who are against Kapparot with chickens are forced to keep silent for fear of ostracization.   This makes it easy for a very small minority of orthodox Jews who support Kapparot with chickens to put social pressure on other members of the Jewish community who are opposed to the practice to keep silent, telling them that speaking out against it would cause a rise in anti-Semitism.  I was told by many people, children mostly, but adults as well, “I agree with you guys, but please don’t tell anyone because they won’t want to talk to me”.  This is halting progress from being made within the Jewish community — very few people in the Jewish community are willing to confront their friends and family about this issue, but we can’t hope for things to change if we won’t talk about them openly.

It’s important to note that we were not protesting against Judaism, religious rituals or religion in general — we were protesting against animal cruelty and murder.  This week, the members of these synagogue’s saw us protesting in front of their place of worship, but what they do not see is all of us the other fifty-one weeks of the year protesting anywhere else injustice and oppression are perpetrated, whether it is a slaughterhouse that kills animals, a restaurant that sells animal products, a clothing store that sells fur and leather, a university that funds experimentation on animals, an airline that ships primates, businesses that profit from the exploitation of animals as entertainment (such as a circus, a rodeo, or a zoo), a “pet” store that sells animals, or a home of a vivisector.  The fact is, if they weren’t harming living beings we wouldn’t have been there — we would have been protesting somewhere else.

A large portion of the hard work many of us put into this week-long event went toward the negotiation, rescue and homing of chickens.  In total, we were successful in rescuing sixty-three chickens from slaughter.  This victory is tempered by the thousands of chickens who died in the Los Angeles area alone this year and who were unfortunately unable to be saved.  Though this victory is bittersweet, for sixty-three chickens who are now living in activist’s homes and animal sanctuaries, life will never be the same.

These chickens will no longer be valued by the quality of their meat or eggs, but by their intrinsic right to life, freedom and happiness.

These liberated beings are now finally free to learn how to be chickens.  They will learn from their rehabilitated peers how to scratch at the earth, dust bathe, groom their new plumage, stand up big and tall and stretch their wings — all for the first time in their life.  They will no longer be surrounded by fellow prisoners — they will now be surrounded by friends.  They will no longer feel the forceful, clenching hand of a farm worker, but the gentle touch of a guardian.  They will no longer be valued by the quality of their meat or eggs, but by their intrinsic right to life, freedom and happiness — things that all beings crave — and these things will be given to them in abundance.

I want to issue a gigantic THANK YOU to all who were a part of the rescue team.  Negotiating, acquiring, care-taking, transporting, and homing: Vida Jafari, Niloo Veggiloo, Gina Palencar, Rabbi Jonathan Klein, Cory Mac, Jennifer Mack, Nicolas Tomas, Brenda Calvillo, Amy Nicole, Rachel Hoyt, Evey Rothstein, Fred Rosenbloom, Jesse Lama, Teague Vernell, Jen, Joanne, Alicia Pell, Christine — and please let me know if I’m forgetting anyone.  I would also like to thank everyone else for contributing in other very important ways: showing up and participating, bringing tools and equipment for signs and other necessary things, documenting with film and photographs, providing a shoulder to cry on, and so much more.

Though we accomplished much, it is important to acknowledge where we failed.  This war had many casualties, numbering in the thousands.  We failed to rescue all the chickens who died in those filthy shacks.  We failed them miserably and they paid the ultimate price.  For this, I and many others will never forgive ourselves.

But we did succeed in other things.  As a result of our protests, an animal rights issue has received far more favorable news coverage than I have ever seen before, with a message of compassion for all sentient beings reaching hundreds of thousands of people.  Slaughter operations were shut down for environmental safety and health code violations after much public outcry and media attention.  Alliances and bonds were formed within the animal rights community, empowering our movement and making us even stronger — we are a force to be reckoned with and we get shit done!  And most importantly, the lives of sixty-three beautiful, innocent, perfect beings were spared so they may finally live their lives in peace.

But our work is not yet finished.  Though Kapparot is finished this year, we will be working to make sure that Kapparot with chickens will be out of business for good, starting in the Los Angeles area and expanding until it is eliminated everywhere.  We also cannot forget that there are other traditions constructed around the death of innocent beings.  We must prepare ourselves to protest another upcoming tradition of murder: Thanksgiving.

We will not allow slaughter to be a tradition any longer.  We will not rest until every animal is free.  Stay tuned…

To read about three of the chickens who were given a home by Farm Sancuary’s Animal Acres in Acton, CA, click here.

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