You can also find hundreds of questions answered on veganism and other topics here, and my inbox is always open for more. I answer every genuine question, and I don’t publish asks that aren’t anonymous unless you give permission. You may wait a couple of days to receive a reply to your ask, but you’ll always get one - just let me know if it is time-sensitive.
can anything be done to help hostages on both sides? :(
The determination of what happens to hostages on both sides ultimately rests with Israel, they have all the power right now. They’ve been offered negotiations on the basis of hostage releases multiple times and have outright refused, in order to continue their genocidal campaign.
Unfortunately, all we can do as citizens is to pressure our respective governments to cease trading with Israel and demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Israel must be forced to engage in serious discussions about funding the rebuilding of Gaza, to ensure an autonomous future for the Palestinian people.
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron (Nyctanassa violacea), Brazos Bend State Park, Fort Bend County, Texas.
You can only think veganism is just "individual action" if you are so far removed from any form of political action in your life that you think specific boycotts and a politically motivated protest taken by a community of people against cruelty and injustice against the vulnerable and our planet is an "individual action".
You are only one person voting green too. Only one person at a protest. Only one person choosing to boycott Israeli products, etc. If you understand that these are not politically "irrelevant" actions taken in a vacuum, you should understand that veganism isn't either.
Eurasian red squirrel/ekorre. Värmland, Sweden (May 10, 2022).
Norman Gary Finkelstein, for those asking.
is it more effective to create your own activist organisation or to join existing ones?
It depends what you are trying to do, but an existing network will always have more people power and more reach than an individual will. If you can find groups in your area who are campaigning on issues you care about then you should try to get involved and just see if it is for you.
You only really need to establish something new if what is already out there doesn’t align with your values or the kind of activism you want to be engaged in. The bigger organisations often have a lot of ‘baggage’ and internal conflicts, or a certain way of doing things that they’ve become accustomed to. That happens with any organisation over time though.
That said, there is still plenty you can do without being part of an organisation. I had issues with some of the groups in my area when I first started out so I went and did my own thing, which suits my disposition, my skillset and what I want to focus on. That wont work for everyone, but lots of individuals working towards the same cause in different ways can achieve just as much as a centralised organisation can.
is boycotting ineffective if we ask people to boycott too many companies?
I think that people can be trusted to make up their own minds about their priorities. You can present the argument for why a hundred companies should be boycotted, and they’ll make the decision about which ones to take part in based on their own ethics and what they think will be effective.
The alternative is that we just don’t ask anyone to boycott anything, because everyone will always be pulling from different directions. People living in consumer societies also have an abundance of alternative choices, there is no reason why we can’t at least try to boycott multiple companies, so long as we aren’t expecting perfection.
It is estimated that there are now just 8,750 breeding pairs left in the country.
Climate change is exacerbating the problem - storms and flooding endanger their colonies and it is becoming harder for the birds to access food as ocean currents and temperatures shift.
And the sardines and anchovies on which the penguins depend are also a valuable commodity for the commercial fishing industry.
Do you have any tips to help remembering to take b12 supplements or if there is an alternative? I have adhd and it make me struggle to remember taking my supplements, sometimes I can skip weeks and it levas me feeling sick
I’d forget as well if if I didn’t set it as a reminder on my phone! Set a daily alarm for it at whatever time is convenient, but making it part of your breakfast routine would be ideal. You can just use your standard calendar app for that.
If you don’t want an alarm (like me) you can use an app like ToDoist for all this sort of stuff and it’s free. It’s then just a daily ‘to do’ that you have to check off, and it’ll display a badge notification until you do. You could also put your actual vitamins next to something you will always use in the morning - I once knew someone who put them inside her cafetière which I think is genius.
You’ll form a habit when you do it at the same sort of time each day, but even then it’s best to have some sort of external reminder.
I realise that this is a known thing, but trying to find good animal images really brings home the extent to which many non-human animals are commodified to the point where we seldom even think of them as living beings anymore.
I mean, try typing 'lobster' or 'chicken' into a stock images site and see how far down you actually have to scroll before you find a picture of a sentient being rather than a corpse. I just wonder about the psychological impact of the ubiquitous objectification of animal bodies, and how that effects our ability to empathise with them.
For a bunch of people who pass around pictures of animals in flower crowns all day long you guys sure get upset when someone suggests that those animals should have some fundamental rights.
“The fact we can sit down and eat a piece of chicken without thinking about the horrendous conditions under which chickens are bred is a sign of the dangers of capitalism. How capitalism has colonized our minds.”
— Angela Davis (via veganwomxnist)
