by Walter Bond

11-6-2010

I am an Abolitionist Animal Liberation activist and you should be too.

How many more Animals have to die before we stop being concerned with ‘The Big Picture.’ 100 billion? A trillion?  How much more of our Mother Earth must be decimated and clear-cut before we draw a line in the sand or forest, as the case may be.

I am not a scholar or politician. I am and always have been a street activist. You know, the street. That’s where real revolutions are fought, not the halls of academia, where long after the smoke clears, will always pretend to have won what others fought, bled and died for.

What I see creeping into the Animal Rights community here in America is a lot of exalted cowardice. That’s not to say that there aren’t a lot of amazing and selfless folks doing a lot of much needed work on behalf of Animals. There most definitely is. However, as Veganism has grown, so have the cling-ons and posers that think because they are on a Vegan diet they know far more than they do about activism. I hate to rain on the parade, but doing nothing is still doing nothing.

I support Veganism 100% because when everyone follows it strictly, it will be the end of Animal use and abuse. That means it is fundamentally true, because its application is universally good for all. Personally, whether we argue that Veganism has a profound effect or none at all, I adhere to it because I do not want to partake in the worst, deliberate holocaust of innocent life in the history of the planet. That’s called doing what’s right simply because it’s the right thing to do.

That being said, my Veganism isn’t saving 90 or more Animal lives every year. The world’s population is not static, it’s growing. On the day you or I go Vegan, 100,000 kids get weaned into eating flesh as food. That is why it is ridiculous to sit around and eat Vegan brownies and act as though you are saving the world.

The true Abolitionist Animal Liberation activist is the person that not only confronts slavery and death in their own consumerism but also opposes it in the world around them. For Abolitionists of every era before us, this has translated into being courageous, resisting the system, and accepting the consequences. Let’s look at these one at a time.

Being Courageous

By courage I mean not succumbing to fear when the task at hand demands it. A simple and casual example of this is simply saying what an Animal in a cage would want you to say.

Far too often I have seen ‘activists’ fall into this “you have to meet people where they are” school of thought. No you don’t! How people react to the truth is not your responsibility. You cannot always challenge the status quo and be seen as part of it, all at the same time.The belief that Animals exist for their own purposes and not human ends is diametrically opposed to current industrial society.

A more extreme example of courage would be putting yourself directly in harm’s way for Animals by opposing their oppressors. For example, in a home demonstration where cops and confrontation are bound to ensue, I would rather have one courageous and caring activist by my side that is willing to put her back into her beliefs than 50 cowards that like to play games with words and talk of ‘The Big Picture’ or the ‘long term goals of our movement!’

Animals are suffering and dying now. So we should be confronting and saving their lives now; it’s not very complicated.

In order to be bold and unafraid, it helps to learn to internalize the message. One trait of a coward is that their number one priority is their own absolute safety and comfort. Any tactic that threatens that is always reflexively seen as wrong no matter how effective it obviously is.

Look at it this way, if it was you on the chopping block, would you want someone to act on your behalf or have a really interesting philosophical conversation about your impending doom and how we’re gonna reform the way it’s done by the year 2045. Cowardice is not a virtue and courage is no vice.

Resisting the System and Accepting the Consequences

When you fight the system it is going to fight back. Depending on how effective you are, the oppressor determines the degree to which they will retaliate.

By accepting consequences, I do not mean accepting government repression. What I am saying is expect resistance. No matter how ‘well within your rights’ you are, or ‘opposed to illegal activity’ you may be, you don’t decide the resistance you will meet. Some cop, fed or agent does and they are nothing more than security guards for private corporate interests.

In a consumer society you have the right to purchase things and shut up. Conversely, the only true crime is messing with business as usual. When you brace yourself for government, state, or county chicanery, the element of surprise is gone and that is a powerful tool to take out of their hands. To a certain extent it is a compliment. If the security forces of Animal exploitation think well of us then we should think worse of ourselves.

We cannot stop challenging the system. Until we see the changes occur in our society that we believe in, actions for Animal and Earth Liberation must not only occur, but increase.

There is not one all encompassing approach. Animal exploitation is not a single-issue problem, it is hydra-headed and multifarious. It encompasses many species and the Earth that is home to us all.

So when I speak of resistance, I am not talking about one tactic or avenue. I am talking about the defiance that keeps our movement vital, energetic and an actual threat to the practice of interspecies slavery and objectification. Whether as writers, street level activists, educators, philosophers, or just Vegans, it’s good and necessary to feel the immediacy and urgency of our beliefs and of the Animals’ pain and sorrow; without passion, resistance is just another bullword. As Veganism and Animal Rights begins to take root in the public consciousness, it is imperative that the message not get lost.

I am incredibly happy with many of the gains over the last 10 years. Even as a prisoner, I am able to request and receive Vegan food. But as the mainstream grows, so must the grassroots; else it becomes just another market for consumers, growing alongside the standard diet of cruelty but never truly diminishing it.

We Abolitionist Animal Liberation activists cannot let advertisers turn Veganism into a group of food-obsessed hypochondriacs, or Animal Rights into the philosophical debate society. These issues that we fight for are a matter of life and death for ourselves and countless others. Let’s start treating them with the seriousness they deserve and not like a hip new diet fad.

Animal Liberation, whatever it may take!

Walter Bond is in prison until the year 2021 and cannot use Facebook or the internet.  The website supportwalter.org and the Walter Bond Facebook page were set up to support him.

Walter Bond is in need of donations to enable him to buy vegan items from the prison commissary.  For more info on sending funds to him in prison, please visit this page on the support site: https://supportwalter.org/SW/index.php/donate/  

Here is his mailing address (he can only reply to letters that include a full name and address):

Walter Bond

37096-013

USP Marion CMU

PO Box 1000

Marion IL 62959