Anarchism & Animal Liberation Panel @ NYC Anarchist Book Fair
Date: Sat. Apr 14 2012

Location

Train Directions: A, C, E, B, D, or F to West 4th or N/R to 8th Street, or 6 to Astor Place.

Sponsored by Occupy Wall Street Animal Issues Working Group

Description:

The panel offers a critique of animal oppression from an anarchist perspective. Veteran social justice activists and writers – all anarchists – will discuss why anarchists should care about the consumed in a system that reduces everything – workers, animals, the environment, consumers – to units of profit.

Moderator: Stephanie Scavelli, Windjammer Farms

Panelists (list not final - other invited presenters include Jenny Grubbs and Lucid Strike):

Zaac Chavis will challenge the false dichotomy presented by Lierre Kieth’s The Vegetarian Myth, which suggests that we either support killing animals for food or industrial civilization, by advocating models of consumption that require neither of these. He will be sharing information and resources regarding an abundance of invasive edible plant and fungus options which can provide viable options for human caloric fulfillment, while benefiting the environment.

Brian Dominick, author of Animal Liberation and Social Revolution and blogger for FuturEconomy, will discuss how human-animal relations would be different in a sustainable economy, as well as the lifestyle implications on present-day activists who aspire to achieve such a society.

Adam Weissman will begin with the 1999 Battle of Seattle, a milestone in anarchist mass action. He'll answer what those people in the silly turtle suits were doing in Seattle, look at why free trade agreements endanger animals, and address the ongoing struggle against corporate globalization. If time allows, he'll also switch gears and talk a bit about why animal liberation ethics make a strong case for anarcho-primitivism, how animal liberation theorists have served asapologists for human domination of the planet, and why vegan consumerismis an insufficient response to the problem of human supremacy.

Mickey Z, author of 11 books including Darker Shade of Green, will make the case that if you’re working to dismantle corporate power, expand freedoms, and create a safer, more sane culture, you already have plenty in common with animal rights activists.

Tools, Skills or Messages Participants Will Take Home:

Brian: Participants will leave this session with a contextualized understanding of how human activity impacts the nonhuman world, as well as a functional understanding of how capitalism and the food industry in particular pit the interests of workers, consumers, animals, and the environment against each other in order to exploit, as well as the social and psychic implications of mass exploitation on a society that
believes it thrives on such exploitation.

Mickey: My goal is to broaden the discussion of justice and social change to include more than just human needs. I’d want participants to leave with a better understanding of how animal rights and dark green eco-issues impact us all in major ways thus, it’s not about being a “treehugger” or an “animal lover,” but rather an activist that works far beyond single, isolated issues. I’d want them to go home contemplating the big picture and feeling motivated to get involved whatever way they can.

Zaac: The “No Farms, No Food” slogan forces a dichotomy. I will be stressed to participants the acknowledgement real and existing alternatives to acquiring food that do require farming or other disruption to habitats. To the contrary I will be urging people to feed themselves elsewhere, such as through foraging exotic and prevalent species of plants which are disruptive to native environments.

Adam: Participants will learn how corporate globalization threatens wildlife and farmed animals and leave with some ideas on actions we can take to challenge corporate globalization. If time allows, participants will also be introduced to a perspective on animal liberation rooted in anarchist perspectives on autonomy and be encouraged to consider the sweeping implications such a perspective have for how humans should live in relation to other life on this planet.

About the Panelists

Zaac Chaves coordinates mushroom tours at schools, farms, animal sanctuaries, and for Freegan.info. He authored and will have copies of the pamphlet Least Harmful Sustenance aimed at helping others learn about the edibility of common and invasive plants and fungus.

Brian Dominick is the author of Animal Liberation and Social Revolution, which popularized the term “veganarchy” and an activist, and writer on a range of social issues, including visionary economics. Writer for Znet on parecon and other topics.

Adam Weissman is the founder of Global Justice for Animals and the Environment and a member of TradeJustice New York Metro. He has been an activist for two decades, working on issues including animal liberation, environmental justice, ecological defense, indigenous rights, anti-militarism, political prisoner solidarity, trade justice, and labor rights with groups including the Wetlands Activism Collective, Rainforest Action Network, the Global Sweatshop Coalition, the War Resisters League and many others. He was a member of the Bergen County, NJ-based Anarchist League, publisher of the zine "Anarchia: For Anarchopacifist Creation" in the nineties and part of A for Anarchy in the 2000s, an effort to use the premiere of the film V for Vendetta, a watered down version of a graphic novel about anarchism, to promote anarchism through street theater, flyers, and a website.

Mickey Z. (vegan since 1995), author of 11 books including “Darker Shade of Green,” is the only person in both a political book with Howard Zinn and a karate flick with Billy “Tae Bo” Blanks. An anarchist, Mickey has written about FBI surveillance of anarchists for Znet, has spoken on panels with Derrick Jensen, got Howard Zinn to write an endorsement for one of his books and a non-introduction for another one, has been interviewed about anarchism by Press Action, etc.