Episode 96: Interview with Laura Schleifer about total liberation, post-scarcity veganarchism, and why human rights are relevant to veganism

"Embracing the Future"
by the vegan artist Jo Frederiks.

This week, I am pleased to present my interview with the writer, theatre artist, educator, and activist Laura Schleifer. Laura is the Total Liberation Campaign Director with the Institute for Critical Animal Studies and a co-founder of Plant The Land Team, a vegan food justice group based in Gaza, Palestine. She is also a veganarchist and communalist who writes and gives presentations about the interconnections between human, other animal, and earth liberation. A number of her essays will be published as book chapters in forthcoming anthologies. She is currently writing her own book, titled Liberating Veganism.

In this interview, Laura describes what led her to become vegan and get involved in Critical Animal Studies, and she tells me about a concept that she has been developing called post-scarcity veganarchism. Laura explains how the oppression of other animals enables and reinforces the oppression of marginalized human groups. She also outlines the concept of total liberation and examines whether or not it’s appropriate to make comparisons between animal exploitation and the Nazi Holocaust. Then Laura speaks about the histories of and entanglements between animal liberation and human liberation struggles in Israel and Palestine; she gives her response to those who would prefer to ignore the atrocities and crises taking place around the world; and she describes some of the best things about being vegan.

Here are some additional links, based on what we discussed in the episode:

• Laura's "Post-Scarcity Veganarchism" talk on The Animal Rights Show
• Laura's article, "Beyond Vegan-Washing: A Brief History of Animal and Human Liberation Struggles in Israel and Palestine", published in the June 2021 edition of Força Vegan magazine
• Laura discussing "vegan-washing" on what is now called the Total Liberation Podcast (previously called the Vegan Vanguard Podcast)
• David Naguib Pellow's 2014 book, Total Liberation
  

How to listen to this episode

There are two ways you can listen to this episode.

1. Listen to the episode on CKCU FM's website at https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/553/60993.html.
   
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-june-21-2023.
   

You can also find Always for Animal Rights on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. If you'd like to receive an e-mail every time there is a new post on the AFAR blog, feel free to enter your e-mail address into the appropriate box in the right-hand sidebar of this site.

Go vegan, stay vegan, and let's remember to stand up and speak up for animal rights today and every day. Thanks for listening to the show!

Episode 41: Interview with Gad Hakimi about veganism and animal advocacy in Israel and the recent sightings of the International Vegan Flag

A light show depicting the vegan flag on a fountain in Zagreb, Croatia.

Happy World Vegan Month, everyone!

This week, I am pleased to present my second interview with Gad Hakimi. Gad Hakimi, who lives in Israel, is a vegan activist and the designer of the International Vegan Flag. You might remember that I previously interviewed Gad on Episode 2 of this show, back in 2019.

In this week's interview, Gad describes the progress of animal advocacy and veganism in Israel, and he tells me about some of the places that the vegan flag has been used recently. He also tells me about his family's adopted dog, Sophie. It's a great interview, and I hope you'll listen in!

Please note that this interview was recorded on October 31st, which is one day before World Vegan Day (World Vegan Day is on November 1st).

How to listen to this episode

There are two ways you can listen to this episode.

1. Listen to the episode on CKCU FM's website at https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/553/49654.html.
   
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-november-4-2020.

You can also find Always for Animal Rights on Facebook and Instagram. If you'd like to receive an e-mail every time there is a new post on the AFAR blog, feel free to enter your e-mail address into the appropriate box in the right-hand sidebar of this site.

Go vegan, stay vegan, and let's remember to stand up and speak up for animal rights today and every day. Thanks for listening to the show!

Vegan flags in Zagreb, Croatia.

 

Episode 2: Interview with Gad Hakimi, lead designer of the International Vegan Flag

In this week's show, I interviewed Gad Hakimi, the lead designer of the International Vegan Flag. In our interview, we spoke about the story of the flag, the need for vegans to be activists, and the reasons why veganism has become much more popular in Israel in recent years. For more information about the vegan flag, please visit VeganFlag.org.

This episode also includes an animal rights news segment. The theme song is "I am Vegan Hear Me Roar" by Vegan Smythe. Today's episode also includes "Groovy Vegan Song" by Vegan Smythe.

HOW TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE:

There are two ways to listen to the episode.

1. Listen to the episode on CKCU's website at https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/553/43852.html

2. Download the mP3 file from Archive.org (in the "Download Options" sidebar, do a right-mouse click on "VBR MP3" and click "Save Link As..." or "Save Target As...") at https://archive.org/details/afarjuly172019

The next episode of Always for Animal Rights will air on CKCU 93.1 FM on Wednesday, July 31, 2019, from 4:30 pm to 5:00 pm-- and, of course, it will be available to listen to afterwards as well.