Glenn's blog

I just posted this over on the Liberation BC blog and thought I might as well share it here too.

This event is for anyone interested in animal activism, but be forewarned, you will hear the word "vegan" a lot! I mean, really, how can any of us be truly committed to helping animals if we're still contributing to their exploitation and slaughter?

1. Network with other animal rights activists and learn about other groups and campaigns - and build a stronger movement

   There are many groups in Vancouver and across Canada who are working on all sorts of issues. Fur, factory farming, veganism, health and the environment, animal testing, and many others. At Animal Advocacy Camp you can meet activists working on all of these issues and learn from their experiences.

   And, by building connections and networking, you can build a stronger and more effective movement.

2. The exciting opening and closing speakers

   • Camille Labchuck

     Among many other accomplishments, Camille has managed communications for the federal Green Party, and worked as a public relations specialist with Humane Society International/Canada. She has documented the commercial seal kill on Canada’s East Coast, and has worked on campaigns against horse slaughter, puppy mills, factory farming, trophy hunting, circuses, shark finning, and other issues. Camille has also worked on countless election campaigns at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels.Currently studying law in Toronto, Camille will bring her knowledge of politics, law, and activism together in her inspiring opening keynote.

   • Rob Laidlaw

     Rob is the founder and Executive Director of Zoocheck Canada, an organization focused on wildlife, specifically wildlife in captivity. He has also written several books, including books for children about animals.

   • Lesley Fox

     Lesley is the Executive Director of Vancouver's own Fur Bearer Defenders (otherwise known as the Association for the Protection of Fur Bearing Animals). In addition to her work with Fur Bearers, Lesley has run campaigns promoting alternatives to dissection for high school students and humane education in schools. Lesley is a very good speaker, and her opening keynote on Sunday, February 26 is not to be missed.

   • Sarah Kramer

     If you don't know who Sarah Kramer is, look on your bookshelf. Chances are you've got at least on of her many cookbooks. One of the funnest people in the animal rights movement, Sarah will be closing out the event on Sunday with a light-hearted (and knowledge-testing) game show.

3. You set the agenda

   This unconference is all about you.

   Each morning everyone at the event will have the opportunity to announce their own breakout session topics and add them to the agenda for the day.

   It's a very simple format.

   Here's how it works: If you have a particular topic you'd like to lead a discussion about, you will write your topic and your name on a piece of paper, then stand up and announce the topic to the audience. Then you will take your topic over to the agenda wall and stick it up in your selected time slot and location.

   You are free to propose any topic you want – but you are expected to lead the discussion in the breakout session. No posting of topics that you are not committed to leading. You are welcome to collaborate with others to propose topics.

   Easy, right?

To register, visit animaladvocacycamp.ca. There is a low income option available as well, so no excuses!

When you are working for social change, do you think that it is good for a movement to employ a diversity of tactics?

Tactics that do not contribute to the movements goals, that don't fit a coherent strategy should likely be discarded.

If your tactics alienate the people we are trying to reach and make them less receptive, then what good are your tactics? What is your strategy anyway?

For a few years now I've considered myself an activist. But lately I've been wondering what it really means to be an "activist."

Initially it meant that I was taking part in protests, leafleting, and other kinds of public, on the streets sorts of activities. Now it's feeling more like it means that I'm simply aware that my actions have impacts and I'm not only working to change myself, but I want to influence the rest of the world too.

I've been struggling with feeling like I don't accomplish much. Like I'm lazy and inefficient. Like I'm not working hard enough.

Part of the attraction of protests and other kinds of action-oriented activism is that they feel like you're doing something. Now, while I may be "doing" less, it's possible that I am accomplishing just as much. I mean, even though you spend 20 hours working on a project and someone else spends 5 hours working on the same project doesn't mean that you've done more. They might have actually accomplished more and been more effective in that short time.

It's all about trying to choose activities that will have a larger impact, or will build a foundation for a greater return. Looking at problems in the long term versus the short term can sometimes help to see that value of seemingly less action-oriented activities.

But I'm still struggling with my own activism. Where does it go from here?

Every now and then I come across someone who says and lives what I have been trying to articulate for so long.

My friend Paul just posted an essay announcing his exit from the "vegan community."

It is, at the very least, challenging. Especially to me - since so much of my identity is wrapped up in being an animal rights activist. The vegan community is one that I value as a way to support people in moving away from animal products and towards a lifestyle that respects the animals' right to live their own lives.

But, like any community, the people in that community define rules to regulate its members' behaviour. People bring many diffeent definitions of what vegan means and how people should live.

This leads to a lot of arguing about who or what is vegan, a lot of judgement, and potentially a lot of arguing. The focus becomes the rules rather than celebration of living a life of compassion - or, as Paul puts it, "love."

Because, really, being vegan is an act of love. Yet people who decide to go against the grain of the world around them and announce that they are now "vegan" face intense pressure - from inside the vegan community as well as from outside. Living vegan means more now than simply striving to live a life free from animal products - it has become in invitation to be measured, to be judged, to be critiqued for one's mistakes, definition of vegan, and so on.

For sure, it makes sense to have a strong definition of the word vegan. I mean, who among us hasn't faced a waiter who has proclaimed that it's ok for vegans to eat fish? Or the aunt who asks us if it's ok for us to eat garlic, or potatoes, or mushrooms, or chocolate? So I get the frustration of someone calling themselves vegan while wearing a wool sweater or someone being 99% vegan but having an egg once in a while, or any other of the infinite variations we see.

Being vegan then becomes something that we not only live ourselves, but a word, a way of life, that we need to defend from becoming diluted (like has happened with "vegetarian").

Does this hypersensitivity to what's vegan and what's not really help at all? Or does it create an environment where we are tied to a label, forgetting why the "vegan" way of life was conceived in the first place? Do we forget the animals?

And do we also forget the love? What would it mean to really and truly embody "veganism"? Peace, love, compassion. How would that be manifest?

I tend to think of Gandhi as the ideal vegan. He lived a compassionate life and concentrated inwards, working towards perfecting himself and leaving the lives of others alone.

But he was also an activist, standing up for the sanctity of life. He was non-violent in word and deed.

Today's vegans are a mean and angry bunch, quick to attack and slow to forgive. I'm primarily talking about how I see veganism reflected in myself.

The challenge then, is how we can be animal rights activists while living a vegan life. Maybe the word is a mistake, maybe it does make sense to toss it out and work on a world where we are not bound by labels but are instead dedicated to an ethical life and our ethical responsibility to each other (and all life by extension)?

What do you think?

P.S. once again I have to apologize for the haphazard nature of my thoughts. I hope you are able to glean a bit of what I am trying to say.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how vegan and animal rights activists treat each other. We seem to have this tendency to forget that we are each sensitive, feeling beings who can be hurt.

Those of us who are more theoretical and appreciate a good "debate" (I'm raising my hand here) are prone to call into question the tactical and strategic decisions of others. While we may regard our "critiques" as constructive, are we actually causing harm by ignoring any psychological effects our words may have?

In certain environments debate of ideas seems to be standard and expected, but outside of academia, courtrooms, and political campaigns, how much bad feeling, resentment, and anger might it generate?

Sarah Palin represents so much of what is wrong with the world. She's wealthy but playing at being "of the people," doesn't care about the natural world, enjoys killing animals for sport, is divisive in her rhetoric, religiously avoids logic or intellect.

But, she is somehow very popular and her popularity has grown in spite of (or possibly because of) all those negatives.

What can we learn from her? And what can we learn that we would be willing to actually apply to our own lives and our own activism?

• Understand that you can't please everyone. Palin actually embraces this and uses it. She knows that she will appeal to a certain audience, and appeal to them strongly, by not trying to please everyone. She really embraces the love/hate dichotomy - the more one side hates her the more the other side loves her. We might consider this divisive, but do we as animal rights activists worry too much about trying to appeal to everyone instead of building our base of support by appealing to our strong supporters and accepting (even possibly using) the hate generated by the other side?
• Speak your mind. Palin doesn't worry about offending - and because of this she actually does offend some people but speaks directly to the heart and emotions of the people who will be her strongest supporters. Are we too worried in our activism about speaking what we truly believe? When asked about veganism are we afraid of offending someone by saying that we think all animal exploitation is wrong?
• Make yourself impossible to ignore. We might actually do a good job at this already, but Palin is always ready to speak to issues from her own strong perspective.
• Stick to your ideals. If there's one thing that Palin does effectively, it's sticking to her ideals. Possibly even in the face of empirical evidence. (Note: one thing she would never do is use the word "empirical.") Do we really do ourselves and the animals a service when we compromise our beliefs to appeal to a wider audience?
• Speak plainly. Palin knows the right language to use to appeal to her core audience and always speaks that way. Animal rights activists have this tendency to speak like academics - which is fine if we are trying to appeal to university professors and PhD students - and pay very little attention to the actual audience we are trying to reach.

Are there any other lessons we can learn from Palin?

I've just started this course with the Institute for Humane Education. Here's the course description from the website:

Learn to tap into your deepest values and help create a peaceful, just, compassionate, sustainable world while cultivating your own inner peace and joy. Join us for a month of inquiry, introspection and transformation. Through our A Better World, A Meaningful Life course, you’ll have the opportunity to assess your life, examine your values, explore new information and make a difference in the lives of others while improving your own life at the same time. This course will educate and inspire you to do more good for yourself, other people, animals, and the environment.

I'm going to do my best to post my responses to the exercises on this blog. Feel free to post any responses or thoughts in the comments.

On my recent trip to Texas I read the book Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. They are the founders of 37 Signals, a small and very successful company that makes applications for project management and CRM, along with some other things.

This isn't a book about activism, but I found many valuable ideas in it that can be applied to activism and small organizations that can potentially make us more effective and powerful.

37 Signals has built a successful business by breaking the normal rules of business. They've stayed small, opting for sustainability over growth. They embrace constraints, simplicity, and have flipped the traditional software development process on its head. Their first book, Get Real, was a very fun-to-read look at their software development process and is worth reading for anyone working on projects of any kind. (If you follow that link you can read the whole thing online for free.) A lot of the ideas from that first book are contained in this second book as well, but more refined and with broader application.

Rework focuses on the authors' ideas about starting and building a business – ideas which can be very easily applied to animal rights projects and organizations. Here are some of my favourite little gems of brilliance, but I'll leave it to y'all to think about how you might apply this to your own activism (or any aspect of your life).

Stanley Kubrick gave this advice to aspiring filmmakers: "Get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all." Kubrick knew that when you're new at something, you need to start creating. The most important thing is to begin. So get a camera, hit Record, and start shooting.

If you want to do something, you've got to do it now. You can't put it on a shelf and wait two months to get around to it. You can't just say you'll do it later. Later, you won't be pumped up about it anymore.

Don't make up problems you don't have yet. It's not a problem until it's a real problem. Most of the things you worry about never happen anyway.

The most common excuse people give: "There's not enough time." They claim they'd love to start a company, learn an instrument, market an invention, write a book, or whatever, but there just aren't enough hours in the day.

Come on. There's always enough time if you spend it right. And don't think you have to quit your day job, either. Hang onto it and start work on your project at night.

Instead of watching TV or playing World of Warcraft, work on your idea. Instead of going to bed at ten, go to bed at eleven. We're not talking about all-nighters or sixteen-hour days—we're talking about squeezing out a few extra hours a week. That's enough time to get something going.

"I don't have enough time/money/people/experience." Stop whining. Less is a good thing. Constraints are advantages in disguise. Limited resources force you to make do with what you've got. There's no room for waste. And that forces you to be creative.

Forgoing sleep is a bad idea. Sure, you get those extra hours right now, but you pay in spades later: You destroy your creativity, morale, and attitude.

Keep in mind that the obvious solution might very well be quitting. People automatically associate quitting with failure, but sometimes that's exactly what you should do. If you already spent too much time on something that wasn't worth it, walk away. You can't get that time back. The worst thing you can do now is waste even more time.

When is your product or service finished? When should you put it on the market? When is it safe to let people have it? Probably a lot sooner than you're comfortable with. Once your product does what it needs to do, get it out there.

You can turn a bunch of great ideas into a crappy product real fast by trying to do them all at once. You just can't do everything you want to do and do it well. You have limited time, resources, ability, and focus. It's hard enough to do one thing right. Trying to do ten things well at the same time? Forget about it.

So sacrifice some of your darlings for the greater good. Cut your ambition in half. You're better off with a kick-ass half than a half-assed whole.

A strong stand is how you attract superfans. They point to you and defend you. And they spread the word further, wider, and more passionately than any advertising could.

Strong opinions aren't free. You'll turn some people off. They'll accuse you of being arrogant and aloof. That's life. For everyone who loves you, there will be others who hate you. If no one's upset by what you're saying, you're probably not pushing hard enough. (And you're probably boring, too.)

I'm on my way back to Vancouver from Texas, waiting for my flight to board. Reading through my rss reader I saw a new post from Seth Godin that caught my eye.

This post is titled "Sabotage!" but has nothing to do with the Beastie Boys song. What it is about is how we often undercut our own potential by doing what's safe and comfortable.

This paragraph in particular:

Or consider the way we resist opportunities to lead, to connect, to do work that matters. We don't resist because we're not capable of it... we resist because if our marketing fails, if we don't get the job or earn the trust, then we're off the hook. No promises made, which means no promises to keep.

I see this happen in animal rights activism a lot. I've seen people come up with an idea but immediately start thinking about ways that it won't work, reasons why they shouldn't even start working on it.

I've listened to conversations about how people would do more if only they could quit their job, if only they could work for an animal rights organization, if only they could win the lottery. What they're doing is creating fake constraints that prevent them from working hard and taking risks and possibly failing.

It's all self-sabotage.

I've done more than my share of this sort of thing over the years. It's hard not too. It seems like it's a part of our very nature.

But that still doesn't excuse me from taking those risks, from working on projects even if I don't feel like I have enough experience, from doing things that are uncomfortable and a lot of work.

This post reminded me of an activist here in Vancouver who recently decided to start tabling at events, even though she had never done it before. She's really taking this to heart – when something needs to be done, we can't wait around for someone else to do it, we have to get in there and make things happen ourselves. We're the only ones we can count on. And by we I mean each and every one of us.

What great projects and ideas are you sabotaging?

I found this photo of me the other day.

It got me thinking about being willing to jump.

As a child I was often climbing up trees, taking jumps like this, doing all sorts of things that seemed as if they could have gone terribly wrong. Of course, I was pretty safe. I climbed trees I knew would hold me. I jumped onto areas that didn't contain old boards or junk. I checked around before I jumped.

But I still had to make the leap – and there is always uncertainty when jumping. Maybe I could have slipped right as I was jumping and hit my head. Maybe I could have misjudged the terrain and could have landed in a hole.

My point is, no matter how much I checked before I ran and jumped, I was still taking a risk by making that leap.

I'd like to get back to the spirit of that little boy, ready to jump. But not just off of buildings – I want to have that spirit in life. Am I as willing to take on projects where I might fail? And now that failure means losing money or possibly being embarrassed, am I less willing to leap than I was when it meant breaking a leg?

And not only leaping, but leaping with joy.