Update on the activism video and related projects

Last summer I started working on an activism video to use in place of videos like Earthlings, which many of us have grown to dislike but might still use because there isn’t a great alternative.  (I’ll note that I’ve been using slaughterhouse footage from Igualdad Animal in recent months; most of it lacks narration, but it’s powerful footage and readily accessible for online activism.)  After I missed my ambitious goal to finish the activism video by September, I let the project go for a while—I felt burnt out, and school demanded my attention.  In January I started working regularly on the project again.

So far I’ve basically completed the first part (more than half) of the video, which addresses speciesist oppression.  I also compiled a rough ending—which discusses veganism—but I’ve recently decided to rewrite the end.  (This also means rerecording some narration.)  Besides these tasks, I have a few audio problems to fix.  I feel tempted to set another public goal to finish by some date, but after the last time, I’m not sure that’s the most effective approach for me.  In any case, I’m excited about this video.  Every time I work on it I feel a somber but powerful (and “ultimately” encouraging) feeling that this is important work.  I feel like this video is going to do something important.

Besides giving an update on the video, I want to detail some other exciting developments.  LOVE member M is now working on a pamphlet to be finished around the same time as the video, based on the same script.  This pamphlet should be helpful for mobile-video projection with the new video as well as for leafleting.  In addition, we’ve also planned to restructure our website so that it’s based on the organizational distinctions made in the video and pamphlet:

First, the bulk of the site will be categorized along the lines of “Speciesist Oppression” / “Veganism” instead of “Vegan Basics” / “Living Veganism.”  This change, grouping all the “veganism” articles into one section, reflects an understanding that any exploration of veganism as anti-oppression will naturally include an interest in advocating veganism to others: “activism” is included in “veganism.” The added space given to speciesist oppression might also mark a movement by several of us toward more emphasis on ‘veganism 101.’  We’ve found that our initial audience—established vegans who want to advocate veganism as anti-oppression—is quite small.  2010, for several of us, seems to suggest a return to focusing on outreach to primarily non-vegans.

Another big change is that the new “Speciesism” section, more thorough but perhaps less detail-oriented than our current pamphlets, will no longer be organized by industry (“Food” / “Circus” / etc.) but instead along the lines of “Exploitation” / “Confinement” / “Forced Labor” / “Ownership” / “Physical Violence” / “Killing” / “Devaluation.”  This change, we hope, will bring attention to the practices and factors that repeatedly show up in many forms of oppression, human and nonhuman.

I think this organization is more conducive to a holistic understanding of veganism and to an understanding that all forms of oppression are worth opposing for similar reasons.  I think it implies that we usually don’t  need different facts or theories for each form of vegan activism (anti-circus, anti-wool, etc.); instead, the broad principle of non-exploitation can simply, consistently be applied to each instance.  Often, the same exact phrases or sentences could be said about all forms of oppression.  Highlighting this fact might make it more clear, in an intuitive way, why vegans oppose all forms of oppression and why we don’t think that such an opposition is “asking too much.”