Animal Liberation Convergence Conference

Forest Nymph

Forest Nymph

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I'm actually going this time! I've started then stopped a couple of times in the past year and a half, but I'm going to Berkeley for this and the march in the Bay Area and maybe even some direct action!!!

A local woman and someone I met on Saturday at a Vegan Club dinner are supposed to be there too. It's going to be for Rose's Law https://www.roseslaw.org/ which I've posted about here in another section. It's supposed to be the biggest conference in Berkeley yet due to the circumstances surrounding Rose's Law and the felony charges several key animal rights activists have against them for rescue actions.

It costs a little more to get in this close to the conference but you get to experience everything, including two free vegan lunches on Saturday and Sunday, and free tacos, popcorn and a movie on Saturday night. Plus you network with fellow vegans and animal rights activists, attend workshops and trainings - which are scaffolded for people with different talents and levels of bravery, from an introduction to non-violent communication, to filming factory farms with drones (I'm thinking I might do this one, it seems a happy middle ground for me), to people who are up front willing to get arrested for hands-on rescue. I think if I wasn't in grad school, I'd be willing to get arrested, but right now I'm afraid they'd keep me in jail and I'd miss classes and have to pay extra for a late bus ticket...I don't mean to sound like a baby but it doesn't seem wise for me at this juncture. Perhaps in the future.

I'm staying at the Berkeley YMCA which is a hostel with private rooms, shared showers, a full gym and a pool!!! To save on money my breakfasts are likely to be pumpkin spice bagels with nut butter or perhaps vegan cream cheese (I've got the bagels, I'll decide on the topping when I get into town), and I'm carting some vegan ramen, cans of beans, and a few bags of grains and bouillon with me to the hostel, which has a full shared kitchen. I can get fresh produce or perishable products in Berkeley (I'm excited to see if they have Heidi Ho Ne Chevre, which I haven't had since a trip to Chico over a year ago, but is always available in LA...I might go for that instead of cream cheese for my bagels). I also do plan to go out to eat a couple of times. I've heard they have a Veggie Grill there which I literally haven't had since I left LA, and a popular hipster spot called The Butcher's Son where everything is totally vegan, but it's listed on the menu as comfort foods (kind of like my idea of starting a restaurant here if I had the money). There's also a gourmet plant-based restaurant called Millennial which has been in Berkeley since the 90s which was recommended to me, but aside from the ridiculous price, I'm also a bit hesitant about "foodies." I've become really averse to foodies since I left LA, and yeah I don't know.

I haven't been this excited since I bought a ticket to see Lana Del Rey at the Hollywood Forever Cemetary in 2014. I've gone on camping trips and conferences in the interim but I have this sense of expectancy, like this might change the course of my life (or at the very least, the course of my Masters thesis).
 
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I've only been in Berkeley for a few hours and I'm already loving it. The YMCA is great. It's the cheapest room in town, but in the middle of everything, and tonight after I had the best vegan Indian food I've ever had in my life (and I love Indian food anyway) I was able to sit in a steam room, go for a quick but relaxing swim, sit in a hot tub, shower and then dry in a sauna because the gym is included in the bargain price of my thoroughly adequate room. I can definitely go back to the pool area in the coming days, and might even catch a yoga class.

Tomorrow's the convergence! I'll keep you updated.
 
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Sax said:
Jealous! I'd like to get involved in activism but there aren't any existing organizations close enough to me, and starting one seems daunting.
Click to expand...

Yeah this is the closest I've gotten to real activism in a while because cities are really better for that. I could bring a chapter of DXE to my area, and like you say ,though, starting even a branch of an existing organization is a big responsibility.
 
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1102

1103

The best thing we did today was protest inside of a grocery store, it was epic. There were like 100 of us. People had drums. One old lady yelled "**** you" at us, and a guy almost hit me with his cart. Those people won't stop talking about our surprise party for weeks.

The scariest thing we did was have "die in" in an intersection in Berkeley. We also had a sit-in at a different intersection for two minutes, but the die in was scarier, because as the name entails, we had to lay down like we were dead in the middle of the street. Of course we had police protection and DXE members specifically working in safety monitoring, halting traffic in bright yellow vests, but a couple of people got really angry. One man started yelling "what about people" and then some cars revved their engines. I found out later one idiot actually played chicken with three of the traffic monitors, and just barely bumped them (no one was hurt, but he was surely a dangerous person, and this is what scares me about sitting or laying in intersections even with police and security, because some people REALLY hate animal rights activists and I remember what happened to that poor unfortunate woman at a protest in Virginia a few years ago, and that was for human beings, not even for animals).

It was an exhilarating day. We got to listen to a panel of some of DXE's legal team, I volunteered at lunch to scoop out the Mexican rice, and the tofu enchiladas were absolutely delicious (even if they don't look that amazing). There was also a viewing of Okja at the Berkeley ARC with free popcorn and coconut water.

Tomorrow will be all conference-y stuff, but then Monday there will be a lock-down action.
1104
 
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Ok, so I didn't sign up to get arrested. That was a choice, DXE is highly organized and the people who planned to get arrested trained for it on Sunday so they wouldn't be afraid or argue with the police. I took a workshop on live streaming (though we were discouraged from live streaming this event since an official publicist was doing it on their website) which can be used to film animal cruelty on public property, like in stores, on the sidewalk, or outside of a factory farm. Then you can document what you witnessed with animal control, so that there's a paper trail leading up to any sort of rescue action (which is still always illegal in CA, which is what Rose's Law/Animal Bill of Rights is about - DXE is pushing for it in England too which should be interested to see if California or a place like Brighton does it first).

Instead, I was in the group of people who marched, sang, chanted, and sat in the parking lot of the Whole Foods and posted the event on social media until the police came. Then after the police came, we stood as support for the activists who pledged to get arrested, on the sidewalk in front of the Whole Foods, still singing and chanting, and cheering for them as they got arrested to show support.

The purpose of the event was to raise public attention in a way the parade demonstration on Saturday could not (though that was important for local exposure and also teaching activists who had never participated in an action like yesterday's all the chants, songs, and safety protocol). Also, it was to try to get Jeff Bezos to talk to us. A few experienced DXE people were chained in the corporate office at Amazon while we were at Whole Foods.

Further legal action will be taken to try to advance Rose's Law/Animal Bill of Rights in the Bay Area specifically, but I'm leaving today to go back up North. The stuff they're doing today is highly localized and largely consists of letters to representatives, etc.

Maybe next time I'll sign up to get arrested, but I'm glad I had this experience. I've also been asked if I'd like to start a chapter of DXE in my own area.

Here's photos, I wish I knew how to upload my short videos here:

1109111011111112111311141115
 
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Just as a DXE update, activists in San Diego and Mexico City are on lock down today, and activists in Brighton UK did a 24 hour lock down at the same time we were active in the Bay Area. There are supposed to be actions for DXE all over the world I think until some point in October.
 
I don't know if I talked about this yet here, but I've changed my thesis/project now to have a background in the history of the animal rights movement and intersectionality with human rights and environmental issues, how DXE has improved on all of that, and then I'm going to start a local DXE chapter and compare how the movement "behaves" in a relatively isolated semi-rural area versus the pointedly chosen Berkeley home base.

This way I can simultaneously do a real-world project that takes a top-down approach instead of addressing individuals. My original project would have involved me having to start my own methods of outreach of plant-based diets for environmental reasons. Now instead I can bring a global movement into this area that's so smug in its grass fed cattle that still get "finished" at the same feed lots and slaughter houses as the factory farmed cows. I think this might be a lot more effective, especially since I would have guidance and support.
 
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Forest Nymph said:
I think this might be a lot more effective, especially since I would have guidance and support.
Click to expand...

Also, you won't have to deal with plant based for the environment getting transmuted in people's minds to chicken for the environment, since chicken farming is so much better for the environment than farming of other livestock animals. If that happened it would lead to more suffering and death, since chickens are treated worse and are slaughtered in much greater numbers, due to the small size of their bodies relative to other farm animals.

carbonfootprint_3_orig.jpg


8973559.png


www.onestepforanimals.org

About

In short, One Step works to reduce the number of animals suffering as much as possible . Five hard facts drive One Step: The vast majority of land animals who suffer in the United States today...
www.onestepforanimals.org
 
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P.s. With plant based for the environment you would have had to shout over stuff like this Oct. 1 article in the New York Times I just read:

"The Real Problem With Beef
An extensive study confirms that red meat might not be that bad for you. But it is bad for the planet, with chicken and pork less harmful than beef."

Last 2 paragraphs in article:

"That doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do. I asked Dr. Taber what we might advise people, right now, to help the environment.

“Who needs steak when there’s bacon and fried chicken?” she said."


The Real Problem With Beef https://nyti.ms/2oODxfj
 
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nobody said:
Also, you won't have to deal with plant based for the environment getting transmuted in people's minds to chicken for the environment, since chicken farming is so much better for the environment than farming of other livestock animals. If that happened it would lead to more suffering and death, since chickens are treated worse and are slaughtered in much greater numbers, due to the small size of their bodies relative to other farm animals.

carbonfootprint_3_orig.jpg


8973559.png


www.onestepforanimals.org

About

In short, One Step works to reduce the number of animals suffering as much as possible . Five hard facts drive One Step: The vast majority of land animals who suffer in the United States today...
www.onestepforanimals.org
Click to expand...

Yeah plus I could transfer into the sociology department if I need to, because I really hate my current cohort. No, I take that back, it started in the cohort above me, but to attempt to summarize, they have hijacked the program into their pet project to overthrow "whiteness." While I certainly appreciate anti racist efforts, these people are ridiculous, call out their peers over dumb things, refuse to assume good faith among classmates, and try to paint everything and everyone as racist. So far I've been treated to litanies on Israeli soldiers wearing vegan boots, the extremists in India who murder cow smuggling Muslims, and an opine on how struggling Native Hawaiians have to eat Spam. I'm about to change my university email signature to MOST RACISTS EAT MEAT before sending out a mass email to all of them.
 
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