Enewsletter

From Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People:

You Can't Win an Argument

Lincoln said, "No one who is resolved to make the most of themselves can spare time for personal contention."

Buddha said: "Hatred is never ended by hatred, but by love."

So rule number one in how to win people to your way of thinking is:
The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

• Requests and News
• Feedback
• Feature: Why vegan outreach?
  
  

Requests and News

Please send us your events

For our end-of-the-fiscal-year report, and to qualify to take part in next year's Combined Federal Campaign, we need to document our services in fifteen states. If you distributed copies of Vegan Outreach's literature between July 1, 2001, and June 30, 2002, please email us with a summary. It can take the form similar to the following:

On November 18, 2000, Ross Strader (of Pittsburgh, PA) and Eddie Lama (of New York City) handed out 100 copies of Why Vegan on the streets of Manhattan.

During March, 2001, Theresa Morreale of Greenfield, MA, distributed 300 copies of Why Vegan at colleges, bookstores, health food stores.

Thank you!!

Nonhuman Rights: Florida initiative fuels debate about animal protection

Atlanta Journal Constitution:

"Probably most influential have been the arguments of secular philosophers, notably Peter Singer, whose Animal Liberation has sold more than 500,000 copies and continues to be reprinted.

"Humans' mental superiority is no defense for what some are now calling 'speciesism,' he argues. If it were, then it would be all right to discount the pain of people without full mental abilities – infants or the mentally retarded, say – and to perform painful experiments on them.

"'What we must do is bring nonhuman animals within our sphere of moral concern and cease to treat their lives as expendable for whatever trivial purposes we may have,' Singer wrote."

Example of Different Spins on News

The National Academies of Science recently released a report regarding cloned and genetically modified animals. Different news organizations covered it differently.

CNN's first paragraph:
"Eating meat or drinking milk from cloned animals is probably safe, experts from the National Academies of Science concluded after reviewing what little research exists on the topic."

The Washington Post's first paragraph:
"Genetic manipulation of animals poses serious risks to the environment and potentially to human health, and federal efforts to manage those risks are disorganized and probably inadequate, a panel of the National Academy of Sciences said yesterday."

From The Onion: Two New Burger King Sandwiches Negate Each Other

MIAMI-In a gala ceremony at its Miami headquarters, the Burger King Corporation rolled out two new sandwiches that conceptually negate each other. "The new Veggie Burger, with just seven grams of fat, is a refreshing, heart-smart alternative to the usual fast-food junk," Burger King vice-president Robert Fass said. "And brace yourselves, meat lovers: The new BK Hickory Bacon Triple Stack - three juicy, big-beef patties topped with crispy bacon and slathered in a rich, smoked-cheddar sauce - is gonna blow you away." Burger theoreticians posit that the sandwiches could destroy each other if sold in a single order.

New Meet Your Meat CD-ROM

If you have a CD burner & a pledge to make at least 4 copies to give to your friends, send your request to Chalissa1@aol.com.

Feedback

Thank you so much for everything you said in "Reclaiming Vegan for the Animals." It seems like almost every other vegan I have met has given in to the dogma that has become so closely associated with veganism. It's sad that so many vegans have gotten so tied up in their own agendas that they've forgotten why they became vegan– to help prevent the suffering of animals.
KM, 8/25/02

Your essay, "On Being Vegan" was very helpful to me – especially the section "Surviving the Long Haul." I have tried to become a vegan before, and always found myself getting wrapped up in anger and disappointment at other people who didn’t share my views – as well as guilt and anger at myself when I "slipped up." I found the essay very helpful and encouraging.
AS, Portland, OR, 8/20/02

Your vision and work is amazing. You always bring home the point that it is all about opposing cruelty to animals and decreasing suffering! Thank you for the incredible work you do for the animals!
SH, York, SC, 8/20/02

After receiving your Vegan Starter Pack and Why Vegan, I plan to go vegan. Based on the effect it had on me and my husband, I would say your efforts would be best served by getting this booklet into as many hands as possible!
MW, Santa Fe, NM, 8/19/02

It was so hard to look at the pictures in Why Vegan, but so effective. I love animals so much, I can’t believe I was eating them. The pictures woke me up.
NS, Moab, UT, 8/19/02

I am now off all meat, eggs, and dairy – all due to your wonderful brochure and the dear people who place these in waiting rooms, libraries, and book shops! Please send me lots to distribute – every little bit helps! Thanks SO much!
DO, Surrey, BC, 8/14/02

On behalf of State Control Records, please accept this contribution to your group. Please send us as many Why Vegans as possible. We have a stack of them here, and they get picked up by people you would never expect to be interested!
EM, Ann Arbor, MI, 8/14/02

Why vegan outreach?

In reference to Vegan Outreach's call to focus on outreach for farmed animals, someone asked: "Why limit someone's passion to confront cruelty wherever they are moved to fight it, no matter how insignificant?" Nathan Nobis, who teaches philosophy at the University of Rochester, replied:

The answer is simply this: we are up against so much cruelty that none of us can address it all. Even thinking about horrors that millions of animals are enduring right now is difficult for many people (myself included). Given this, we all need to pick which issues to address. And it seems sensible to address the biggest issue, factory farming, since it (a) impacts the most animals and (b) most people are in some way involved with it, since most people eat meat, etc., and (c) unlike some other issues (e.g. vivisection) it is totally clear that all this suffering and death is unnecessary. Since this is the most significant issue, we should focus on it. To focus on other issues would be to neglect this issue and the opportunity costs might be too great. Simply, we should try to do the best we can and to focus on anything else might not lead to the best outcome.

Focusing on vegan/vegetarian issues, does not preclude one from spending some time on other issues. But still one should wonder what is the best use of one's time. For example, say someone spends a lot of time working on an animal-related but not specifically pro-vegetarian campaign: is it really all that likely that the people who learn about this are going to "make the connection" and become vegetarians? I kinda doubt it, and I suspect that, in this case, one would do more good by spending that time trying to directly influence people to go veg, rather than hope that they might make the connection. For example, probably few, if any, people who were involved in that pigeon shoot in PA are now veg because that got cancelled.

So the general point is that we have options for which evils to confront. Vegan Outreach's perspective is that we should take the option that will, hopefully, yield that best outcome for animals and most likely change people's fundamental perceptions of animals.

If we should do the best we can, and doing the best requires focussing on factory farming, then we're obligated to not focus on the other issues. I want, in the end, my efforts to bring about the most good I can for animals. I think, and have some decent evidence that, focussing on farming will do that. Since I think that, I think it'd be wrong for me to focus on anything else.

Vegan Outreach is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing the suffering of farmed animals by promoting informed, ethical eating. All donations are tax-deductible. Vegan Outreach POB 30865, Tucson, AZ 85751-0865