Single-issue human rights campaigns?

"'ve always believed that animal rights are entwined with human rights I don't think that single-issue campaigns are useful for non-human animals, because they have property status and therefore no rights of their own. However, when it comes to human rights, most humans are protected by some basic level of rights (although that notion in itself is problematic, because we see so many violations and exclusions). So, where do my other abolitionist friends stand on single-issue human rights Campaigns?"

Smara replied: In order for the term SICs in human rights to make real sense, one has to define what a non-SIC would be. What would it be? It would not be something equivalent to vegan advocacy, because human slavery and the property status of humans is already abolished according to the law, although it is not always applied or there are ways to go around it. The difference between SICs for humans (i.e. mean as campaigns for several human rights causes here) and SICs for nonhumans lies in that it’s the default position of most humans and the law that humans should have the right not to be property, and be protected by harm that is the result of discriminations. Exceptions of this exist, but when human rights of this nature are violated UN and other organisations can in theory intervene and he heard. The solutions to human rights violations can only be applied as a case by case matter as there is no central one that would solve them all and legislation is different in different countries. A campaign for the ending of all human slavery and discriminations won’t be even recognised as such unless specific issues are pointed out. On the other hand, it’s the default position that nonhumans have a property status with no rights that protect *them* at all, and that humans should do as they please with them without them having any interests to be protected. As a result, when one campaigns for a single issue for nonhumans, one automatically implies that this issue is more important than others or that others don’t really matter. This is being amplified by the animal organisations, that use that people that think it’s OK for nonhumans to be exploited in some ways, which do explicitly or implicitly say that this x form of exploitation is ‘more cruel’ than others, therefore it has priority, or they just don’t mention other forms of nonhuman animals use that cause human ‘discomfort’. That way, the idea that some forms of nonhuman animal use is acceptable is being reinforced + the issue is not animal rights and their any use but the x use and treatment. That way, humans feel better about using nonhumans in a, b, c, d, e, f, … ways. These problems don’t *necessarily* exist in human campaigns. Of course, a human campaign can give e.g. a racist message to people, but I can’t see any other way out of it except of trying to give e.g. a non-racist message at the same time. 

Also, by advocating for veganism and not SICs we try to end the property status of nonhuman animals and speciesism, and liberate them from human oppression once and for all. This will be achieved by the human population not using nonhuman animals themselves. There is no point in campaigning for the end of slavery for humans because it’s illegal and it’s ending where it explicitly or implicitly takes place is a matter of applying or amending the existing laws, or forming new ones , not usually or always something all humans could engage in so that it ends. And it’s not “end of all human exploitation”, as non-consensual exploitation is already illegal. The situation is also different in different countries and one has to target the particular form of human slavery. Other human campaigns have to do with particular human rights issues which each country’s government has to change by legislation, even though the same issue campaigned all over the world, when possible, is also common and may indeed have a better effect. 

Moreover, with human rights, the injustice is not a matter of good or bad treatment but the injustice is always wrong regardless the treatment or ‘enrichment’, but something that nonhuman animal SICs suffer from as well. The only issue in nonhuman animals injustice as a start is the abolition of their property status, it’s not any other rights of theirs, as any other would presuppose the abolition of their property status first. Human rights are many. And for each one, we don’t campaign for e.g. the rights of non-heterosexuals with Korean parents to be married, but for every human adult in the y country. 

In general, I can’t see how else it could be done at the moment, but campaign against particular forms of human injustice , although I also do believe that the message should be generalised as much as possible, e.g. for humans of all races, religions, sexes, etc., and target the injustice from all similar institutions, governments, corporations etc. , which is something humans wake up to as well. I also believe that when vegans advocate for SIC human justice issues – e.g. forms of slavery, discriminations, rape – they *should* also include nonhuman rights, if at all possible, (as no less important than the human rights) and give a vegan message at the same time. If it *is* possible to include them and we don’t, then I think the campaign suffers the problems of the SICs for nonhuman animals, as nonhumans are already discriminated against and the campaign approves of their exclusion from our moral community. So, maybe these should be the “least SICs” ones which involve human justice causes.

Quote: Smara AnAnimal

Vision for nonviolent vegan permaculture-community promoting veganism and human rights

Is anyone interested in living in a self-sustained, growing food using sustainable vegan permaculture-methods, off-grid, ecological, non-speciesist vegan community?

Important principles: Justice, no exploitation and discrimination towards humans (i.e. no to sexism, racism, homophobia, ageism, etc.) and other animals (no to speciesism), uncompromisingly stand for these moral values and to educate the rest of the world in order to stop all injustices towards humans and nonhumans, nonviolence in words and deeds.
No breeding of animals, but all animals are very welcome and adopting animals from animal shelters is encouraged. Living as a community, but also interacting with and educating the population that is discriminating against human and nonhuman animals.

Why is this important?

-Showing the world how we can live sustainably and ecological in communities; and that we can live a lifestyle that doesn’t exploit humans and other animals.
-Vegan permaculture is important because of that common non-ecological or ecological agriculture isn’t usually vegan, it isn’t ecological and it is very, very destructive for the planet. Usually animal manure is used and methods are used to kill the insects. All monocultures are very destructive. They use huge amounts of fossil fuels and fossil fuels is a major contributor to environmental pollution and global warming. They deplete and destroy the soil and can and have many times lead to desertification. We should as a moral imperative go over to vegan permaculture, which is sustainable and healthy for the planet, and thus us humans and all nonhuman animals.

Transportations also involve lots of environmental pollution, burning of fossil fuels and greenhouse gases. By growing our own food locally we don’t need to contribute to this and can minimize our own ecological footprint. To see the destruction of greenhouse gases and pollution, I refer to the resources below.

I recommend this resources which touch on monocultures and other important environmental issues, etc.: http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2014/04/vegan-permaculture-vegan-ecological-and.html

Off-the-grid: “Off-the-grid homes are autonomous; they do not rely on municipal water supply, sewer, natural gas, electrical power grid, or similar utility services. A true off-grid house is able to operate completely independently of all traditional public utility services.”

This is important to minimize ones ecological footprint. More independence of the capitalistic political system. Why is capitalism a moral problem: http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2014/04/moral-problems-of-capitalism.html
Why nonviolence: http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/on-violence/ ; Nonviolence in words: http://legacyofpythagoras.wordpress.com/2014/04/14/no-they-dont-deserve-it/
Why veganism: www.whyveganism.com
Why non-speciesist. Learn more here: http://www.vegankit.com/learn and http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/abolitionist-animal-rights-abolitionist-veganism-in-a-nutshell/
Why educating others/tips of how to educate others: http://www.abolitionistvegansociety.org/tavs-challenge/#.U0wiS1fzISM and http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2013/08/arguments-for-veganism-and-counter.html

Self-sustained: Grow all the food we need through vegan permaculture. No need to buy food in a food store. Sell the food and other ecological, home-made products on markets (and taking the opportunity just like every other opportunity and combining it with vegan advocacy) – in order to get the small amount of money one will live when living a sustainable, ecological, non-consumerist, minimalistic lifestyle. To a much larger extent we will decide over our own time, and we won’t have to go to work and work on someone else’s premises to earn money for them.

The community would likely consist of a big plot of land, big areas for growing vegetables, areas for animals, sustainably and ecologically built inexpensive houses,etc.
What do you all think? What are your practical ideas? Anyone who wants to live like this? I will likely do this in Europe. I would hope like communities like this will be built all over the world. I know that there are some quite self-sustained communities in Europe, but don’t know if there is some based on all these principles. Love to hear your comments and ideas!

I also created a group for this. Feel free to join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/688426811196469/

Please like and share to spread this post and to educate others about these important principles. Sharing is caring :) .. When no one comments or shares, very few people see the post.
I tagged some people in this post, since most people don't see it otherwise. Feel free to tell if you don't like being tagged and I will think of this next time. Thanks for reading! :)

-------More resources:
Veganic gardening: http://gentleworld.org/beginners-guide-to-veganic-gardening/

Facebook-post that I posted: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10202403572585264&set=a.10200507163856231.1073741828.1071775080&type=1

Animal agriculture is an ecological disaster, exacerbates poverty and injustices

“There is also broad consensus that animal agriculture is an ecological disaster. Although estimates vary, there is no question that animal foods represent an inefficient use of plant protein in that animals have to consume many pounds of grain or forage to produce one pound of meat. For example, according to Cornell University Professors David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel,[2] it takes 13 kilograms (a kilogram is 2.2 pounds) of grain and 30 kilograms of forage to produce one kilogram of beef; 21 kilograms of grain and 30 kilograms of forage to produce a kilogram of lamb; 5.9 kilograms of grain to produce a kilogram of pork; 3.8 kilograms of grain to produce a kilogram of turkey; 2.3 kilograms of grain to produce a kilogram of chicken, and 11 kilograms of grain to produce one kilogram of eggs. Livestock in the United States consume 7 times as much grain as is consumed by the entire U.S. human population and the grains fed to livestock could feed 840 million humans who had a plant-based diet.

The Pimentel study states that one kilogram of animal protein requires about 100 times more water than does 1 kilogram of grain protein. According to another study,[3] one kilogram of beef requires 15,415 liters of water (a gallon is 3.78 liters); sheep meat (lamb and mutton) 10,412 liters; pork 5,988 liters; and chicken 4,325 liters. A kilogram of apples requires 822 liters of water; bananas 790 liters; cabbage 237 liters; tomatoes 214 liters; potatoes 287 liters; and rice 2,497 liters. Most estimates vary between 1000 to 2000 gallons of water to produce a gallon of milk.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations states that animal agriculture contributes more greenhouse gases, which are linked directly to global warming, to the atmosphere than does burning fossil fuel for transportation.[4] According to Worldwatch Institute, animal agriculture produces an estimated 51% of the worldwide total of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. Moreover, a significant amount of fossil energy is required to yield an animal-based product. The average fossil energy input for all animal protein sources is 25 kcal of fossil energy input to 1 kcal of animal protein produced, which is more than 11 times greater than for grain protein production.[5]”

Quote from: http://www.eatlikeyoucarebook.com/

And we don’t have any nutritional need for animal foods, so the suffering, violence, and death that animals go through in the production of meat, milk and eggs is completely unnecessary. Go vegan to opt out of animal exploitation and to opt out of injustices towards humans.

2. David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel,
“Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the
environment,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
2003; 78 (suppl): 660S-3S, available at
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/660S.full.pdf.
[3]. Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Global Food:
Waste Not, Want Not (2013), at 12, available at:
http://www.imeche.org/docs/defaultsource/
reports/Global_Food_Report.pdf?sfvrsn=0.
[4]. FAO Newsroom,
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/.
[5]. See Pimentel study.
More to learn here: http://bloganders.blogspot.no/search?q=human+rights&max-results=20&by-date=true

Human rights and animal rights, against violence and discrimination

This article will illustrate some ways that I help human rights.

I steadily encounter human right organizations that want to help humans by efforts that are harming and killing animals, in order to provide e.g. food and clothing.

How do they think that we can get a more peaceful and just world by inflicting completely unnecessary suffering, violence and death to sentient beings with an interest of not suffering and an interest of a continued existence? It is unnecessary, since they can provide nutritious foods for an optimal health from non-animal sources [1], and they can provide clothes created from non-animal sources.

Violence anywhere, hurts everyone, everywhere. A violent means, apart from being immoral, doesn’t work to reach a nonviolent ends.

As long as there as people think that violence can be justified for completely frivolous reasons, such as the violence in the production of animal foods, people will think that other forms of violence also are justified, that are much less frivolous.

A human rights-organization sees a need, e.g. a freezing child that is starving. They feed her/him animal foods and put on clothes from sheep wool. In this process animals are harmed, killed and exploited for completely frivolous reasons, frivolous since the starving and freezing child could have been fed by foods from non-animal sources, and clothed from non-animal sources. In the process of helping the kid, animals are exploited, people are taught to believe that violence is justified for frivolous reasons and that it can be used to help people; poverty and starvation is exacerbated because of all plants, water and energy required to feed the animal who is killed for frivolous reasons. People start wars, and use violence, for what they believe are justified reasons; because they have been taught that violence is a justified means (reinforced by having violence on their plates 3 times per day (violence that was used to produce animal foods), and using violence as their clothes everyday (violence that was used to kill and domesticate the animals used for fur, leather, down, etc.)) to reach a peaceful ends; and in this process poverty and starvation is exacerbated, which again human rights activists try to alleviate through being violent towards animals.  And thus this is all a vicious circle.

As long as human rights activists exploit nonhuman animals to reach their goals, we won’t have any end of all violence and injustice inflicted towards humans. And the same goes the other way around. As long as “animal rights” activists justify violence and harm against humans, including sexism, to promote animal rights, the exploitation of nonhuman animals will continue. It is all a vicious circle that only can be broken by opposing all violence and discrimination towards both human and nonhuman animals.

Here is one example of how feeding starving People animal foods exacerbate starvation, injustices and poverty:
“Currently, the continent as a whole has the arable land capacity to feed its entire population with plant protein, but it does not have even close to the land capacity to feed all of its farm animals. The European Union found that only 20 percent of what Europe’s farm animals eat comes from the continent, while the remainder must be imported. Because most of these imports use up the land in developing countries, this animal-based method of feeding Europe contributes directly to the depletion of the resources of developing nations, thus contributing to their continued impoverishment. What it essentially boils down” (..)

“even if you are only concerned about human rights issues, you ought to be concerned about animal exploitation as well because it is directly connected to a significant human rights issue. As we discussed earlier, the amount of resources required to produce animal foods is multiples of what is required to produce plant foods. Although there are certainly political issues that hamper the distribution of food, it is also the case that animal agriculture and a diet of animal foods is increasingly a threat to world hunger, our water supply, our topsoil, etc.”

-Quote from Eat like you Care ; www.eatlikeyoucarebook.com

Note 1: See the end of http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2013/08/varfor-vegan-for-att-det-ar-omoraliskt.html

More references:
How violence and domestication of animals, leads to violence against humans:
Animal Oppression and Human Violence, by David A. Nibert, Professor of Sociology at Wittenberg University.
http://www.cupblog.org/?p=10179

http://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/660S.full.pdf
http://www.imeche.org/.../reports/Global_Food_Report.pdf...
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/
http://www.ncifap.org/issues/environment/

Fler resurser:
https://www.facebook.com/DjurensRattigheterAvskaffaDjurslaveriet/posts/554732297952812Richard Oppenlander, Your role in Global depletion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drS5hHdelR8

Does animals have the right not to be killed for food?

I wrote this to a person who claimed that animals rights are conditional, just like he claimed humans rights are 'conditional', using e.g. the example of imprisonment of a human:

We recognize that humans have a moral, and thus they have the right not to be treated as a commodity. This includes the right not to be tortured, not to be used and not to be exploited. I would certainly include the right here not to be beaten by a parent as a punishment- regardless of what it is called. A child has a moral value and the same right not to be beaten by his parent for ‘discipline’, as the parent has not to be beaten by the child for ‘discipline’.

Whether our society recognizes and acts according to the moral value of an individual or not doesn’t change the inherent rights that an individual has being a being of inherent moral value. Society disregarded the rights of individuals of another ethnicity, and still to a great extent do – today e.g. the Western world sponsors the well established slavery of the carpet and the cocoa industry and many other industries with a widespread slavery. See the documentary ‘Slavery: A Global Investigation ‘. However, this doesn’t change the inherent moral value of these humans, just like the widespread disregard of animal rights in our society, doesn’t change the inherent moral value of nonhuman sentient animals.

The only reason, ideally, why we would imprison people is only as a temporary protective measure for the time of the rehabilitation of an individual. And the only reason why we ever would have to temporarily limit some individual’s right is in order to stop violence, i.e. to stop someone using violence against a person. Violence is an action which is treating an individual as a commodity and that is disregarding his/her moral value. This conditional and temporal limiting of someone’s right is done in order to stop violence, it is done out of necessity.

To compare an action that is done out of necessity, is in no way analogous with an action that is done despite the lack of necessity, as the action of abusing and killing an animal for food.
To first state that it is unethical to kill and harm another sentient being for pleasure or convenience, and to in the next second harm and kill another sentient being for the pleasure of the taste of food – is unethical and doesn’t make logically or morally sense. It is so sad that people are outraged by animal abuse and rightly call it a moral atrocity, to in the next second take a bite of a dead animal – and sponsor the moral atrocity themselves of killing another sentient being for pleasure.