Alliance Politics
Animal Liberation Front Bulletin
Posted by Hiram Jin
http://digg.com/d31B3Ii
November 23, 2009 � Negotiation Is Over
by Dr. Steven Best
Many people have been asking what they can do to
promote Radical Abolitionism and begin to break out of the confines of
pseudo-abolition single-issue veganism. Following are ten practical strategies
to address total liberation through alliance politics. We encourage everyone to
read and expand your frame of reference, engage and get active, and share your
experiences and ideas.
1) Read and start thinking outside of
single-issue veganism:
* Read the Manifesto for Radical Abolitionism:
Total Liberation By Any Means Necessary
* Read these pages on Total
Liberation
* Read these article by Dr. Steven Best on Alliance Politics and
Total Liberation
2) Read books with a total liberation focus:
*
Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals (Edited
by Steven Best PhD and Anthony J. Nocella II)
* Igniting a Revolution:
Voices in Defense of The Earth (Edited by Steven Best PhD and Anthony J. Nocella
II)
* An Unnatural Order: Why We are Destroying The Planet and Each Other
(by Jim Mason)
* The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery (by
Marjorie Spiegel)
* Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the
Holocaust (by Charles Patterson)
* A Tale of Two Holocausts (by Karen Davis
PhD)
* Animal Rights/Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and
Liberation (by David Nibert)
3) Write to Vegan Outreach about
diversifying their message. Offer to help create new literature targeted toward
poor people, the working classes, and people of color.
4) Get active and
start educating people outside of the white middle class. Start doing outreach
in urban areas that have been entirely neglected by the vegan community. Engage
poor people and people of color and start building bridges into the other 99% of
the population.
5) Extend yourself: contact groups such as Vegans of
Color who �don�t have the luxury of being single-issue� and ask how you can help
them.
6) Form alliances within your own community. Network with
organizations fighting social oppression (e.g, LGBT groups, racial equality
movements, feminists). Try to form alliances around common issues such as
violence or discrimination. Introduce veganism as a social movement that seeks
to eradicate violence and discrimination for all animals � human and nonhuman.
Work with people and show them that we have a totally valid cause and that we
all have important things in common.
7) In response to the aggressive
pro-vivisection movement, the Alliance for Progressive Science (APS) addresses
the move to commodify research which victimizes animals in labs and harms people
with fraudulent science. Help us research and write about these issues.
8) Pick a group on Facebook or MySpace and initiate a discussion about
alliances. Educate them about veganism. Learn about their struggle. Find common
ground to work form.
9) Do some real vegan outreach and make a
difference is the lives of the impoverished. Do a vegan food drive and support
your local homeless shelter. Volunteer and prepare vegan food to feed the
hungry.
10) Write a total liberation page based on your research and
experience. Share your thoughts, ideas, and the new directions in which you are
building alliances.
.
Dr. Steven Best is NIO�s Senior Editor of
Total Liberation. Associate professor of philosophy at UTEP, award-winning
writer, noted speaker, public intellectual, and seasoned activist, Dr. Best
engages the issues of the day such as animal rights, ecological crisis,
biotechnology, liberation politics, terrorism, mass media, globalization, and
capitalist domination. Best has published 10 books, over 100 articles and
reviews, spoken in over a dozen countries, interviewed with media throughout the
world, appeared in numerous documentaries, and was voted by VegNews as one of
the nations �25 Most Fascinating Vegetarians.� He has come under fire for his
uncompromising advocacy of �total liberation� (humans, animals, and the earth)
and has been banned from the UK for the power of his thoughts. From the US to
Norway, from Sweden to France, from Germany to South Africa, Best shows what
philosophy means in a world in crisis
