Bonus episode: Vegan sociologist David Nibert's 2016 speech, "From Genghis Khan to Wall Street: Oppression of Other Animals, War, and Capitalism"

Recently on the FM airwaves, we listened to a talk by the long-time activist, sociologist, university professor, and author David Nibert. David presented this talk, which is titled, “From Genghis Khan to Wall Street: Oppression of Other Animals, War, and Capitalism”, at the World Vegan Summit & Expo in 2016. The topics that he spoke about in this speech are covered in greater detail in his third book, Animal Oppression and Human Violence: Domesecration, Capitalism, and Global Conflict.

At the end of the episode is the song "What if..." by the abolitionist vegan advocate Gülce Özen Gürkan.

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/553/61315.html.
   
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-july-18-2023.
   

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 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 77: Sarina Farb discusses "Bad Vegan", system change vs. individual change; harms of animal "gifting" programs; and why veganism is necessary for freedom, peace, and sustainability

Drawing by the vegan
artist Jo Frederiks

This week, I am pleased to present my second interview with the vegan advocate, speaker, and science educator Sarina Farb. Sarina previously appeared as a guest on Episode 61 of my show, in which she spoke about her experiences growing up as a vegan, as well as issues related to corporate influence over scientific research.

In our new interview, Sarina speaks about the overlap between individual change and system change, the approach she takes to using environmental and health arguments for veganism, and some of the problems* with programs that exploit nonhuman animals in the name of “food aid”. She also gives her review of the 2022 Netflix docuseries Bad Vegan, tells me about a speech that she recently gave at a conference in Mexico, and explains why there is hope that we can achieve a vegan world.

At the end of the show, we'll listen to the amazing song "Hold On" from Vegan Queen V's newly-released music album, Freedom Warrior.

*Of course, the main problem with animal-exploiting "food aid" programs is that they violate animals' rights by using nonhuman animals as resources. These programs are problematic in other ways too, though.

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/553/56322.html.
   
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-may-18-2022.
   

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 76: Interview with veganic farmer, researcher, and activist Jimmy Videle of La Ferme de l'Aube, Québec

This week, I am very happy to present my interview with the veganic farmer and activist Jimmy Videle. In 2014, Jimmy and his wife, Mélanie Bernier, started a vegan organic market farm, La Ferme de l’Aube, in Boileau, Québec, where they now live with their five rescued cats. In the past, Jimmy worked and consulted on eleven vegan, organic, and permaculture farms in Hawaii, Mexico, Central America, South America and Québec. He is currently a consultant and volunteer with A.U.M. Films & Media (the producers of the documentaries Cowspiracy, What the Health, and others) and the Animal Protection Party of Canada.

In this interview, Jimmy speaks about veganic farming and the practices that he and Mélanie use at La Ferme de l’Aube. He tells his story of becoming vegan, describes the importance of farming veganically, and discusses what needs to be done to help spread veganic farming methods across North America and around the world.

In research that Jimmy conducted for the Humane Party of the United States in 2018, he found that vegan organic farming was 2.2% more productive per acre when compared to growing crops using conventional methods. However, in a study published in 2019, Jimmy wrote that vegan organic agriculture can be 4198% more productive per acre than animal agriculture. This is due to the fact that animal agriculture uses a vast amount of land for grazing and growing feed crops to feed the animals who are exploited and killed by that industry. With a global shift to veganic farming, we could rewild much of the land that is currently used for agriculture.

This was such an inspiring interview. Thanks to Jimmy for being a guest on the show!

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/553/55876.html.
   
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-april-13-2022.
   

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 75: Interview with Katina Czyczelis about why veganism is essential for the animals, human health, the environment, and world peace

Social media poster by Katina Czyczelis.
Artwork by the vegan artist Lynda Bell.

This week, I am pleased to present my interview with Katina Czyczelis, who is a vegan advocate, business manager, and musician living in Australia. An essay that Katina wrote about veganism was included in an anthology titled Vegan Voices: Essays by Inspiring Changemakers, edited by Joanne Kong, which was published in 2021.

In this interview, Katina tells me her story of becoming vegan, makes the case for ethical veganism, and responds to many of the excuses that people commonly make against going vegan. We also discuss why veganism is essential in order to achieve a peaceful, healthy, and fair world.

At the end of the show, we'll listen to the piano song, "Into the Sunrise", by Will Tuttle.

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/553/55522.html.
   
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-march-9-2022.
   

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 40: Kriti Sachdeva discusses the connections between the philosophy of yoga and the vegan ethic

This week's episode of Always for Animal Rights features an interview with Kriti Sachdeva. Kriti is the founder of Yogific, an organization that hosts yoga and vegan festivals in the UK and Europe and educates yogis and yoga teachers about veganism.

In this interview, Kriti tells me about the following topics:

• how the ancient text studied by yoga teachers, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, requires practitioners to practice ahimsa (non-violence) and other principles that logically lead to veganism
• how studying human rights led Kriti to veganism, and why she started holding vegan yoga events
• why more yoga teachers aren't vegan (yet!) and how we can change that.

 

This interview is great to share with yoga practitioners or anyone else who needs a reminder of why they should go vegan. :)

After the interview, we hear the song "Ocean" by the vegan singer-songwriter Rebecca Shelley. You can watch the animated music video for this song here.

 

You might also like to check out the article "Why All Yogis and Yoga Gurus Should be Vegan", which is on Yogific's website.

 
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/553/49557.html.
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-october-28-2020.

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!

 

Episode 37: David Nibert speaks about the connections between animal oppression, human violence, and capitalism

Photo credit: Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals.
(This photo was taken at a sanctuary.)

This week’s episode features my recent interview with the vegan sociologist David Nibert, Professor of Sociology at Wittenberg University in Ohio. David is the author of two books about the entanglements of animal oppression and human violence, and he is the editor of a two-volume book series titled Animal Oppression and Capitalism. He is also a co-founder of the section on Animals and Society of the American Sociological Association.

In this interview, David speaks about how the oppression of nonhuman animals has historically led to warfare between humans, as well as pandemics and environmental destruction, and how this continues to this day. He also discusses how capitalism, colonialism, and animal exploitation are connected, and he promotes being involved in activism, including vegan education, and using anti-speciesist language.

In the interview, David endorses the work of Vegan Information Project-- check out my previous interview with Roger Yates of Vegan Information Project here.

I am currently partway through reading David's book Animal Oppression and Human Violence, which I referenced in the interview. It's a very interesting book.

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/553/49090.html.
2. Listen to or download the podcast from Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/afar-september-16-2020.

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!

Episode 13: Interview with Dawn Moncrief, founder of A Well-Fed World

This week on Always for Animal Rights, I interviewed Dawn Moncrief, the founder of a non-profit organization called A Well-Fed World (AWFW).
 
Dawn founded AWFW to address two forms of suffering in the world: the suffering of non-human animals who are exploited by the food system, and the suffering of humans who do not have enough food to eat. AWFW's flagship program, Plants-4-Hunger, provides funding to plant-based school lunch programs in Ethiopia and Nepal as well as programs that plant fruit trees, provide seeds, and run veganic community food gardens. In addition, AWFW has a grants program that supports animal rescue and vegan advocacy initiatives around the world.

In our interview, Dawn told me about what AWFW does and why she founded the organization. We also discussed the following topics:

• some of the reasons why it's harmful to send farmed animals overseas as "gifts" to impoverished human families;
• how animal agriculture is connected to world hunger; and
• what she hopes to accomplish in the future.

This week's episode also includes two animal rights songs: Queen V's poignant Christmas song "Cruel World" and Dr. Aryan Tavakkoli's hard-hitting animal rights song "Sixth Commandment".

How to listen to this episode

There are two ways to listen to the episode.

1. Listen to the episode on CKCU FM's website at https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/553/46074.html.
2.  Listen to the episode on Archive.org or download the MP3 file at https://archive.org/details/afardecember182019.

You can also find Always for Animal Rights on Facebook and Instagram!

Normally the show is broadcast once every two weeks, but we'll be skipping an extra week just this once. The next episode of Always for Animal Rights will be broadcast on CKCU 93.1 FM in Ottawa on Wednesday, January 8th, 2019-- and, of course, it will be available to listen to afterwards, as well.