
As an activist, I’m most interested in the hard work of transformative activism that I believe is vitally important to our movement and yet so often overlooked. This approach is beautifully realized in such books as Mark and Paul Engler’s This Is an Uprising. Transformative activism is the hard work of changing hearts and minds through mass
As a regular person, I’m happy anytime I see other people happy. Lately, I’ve seen many social media friends express their excitement and enthusiasm over the introduction of plant-based meat offerings at fast food chains and giant big box supermarkets. The rise in this plant-based sector is a sign that our activism is finally having an impact on society at large. I know that the activists are the unsung heroes here, even as I watch meat corporations take credit for it and the media characterize a few meat industry elites as the champions of this movement, perhaps because our consumer culture is so conditioned to making heroes out of the vapidly rich and powerful. The less GQ reality is that meat industry giants are just doing what they need to do to survive. They are making strategic business decisions to capitalize on the growing plant-based meat market, not out of some altruistic or moral desire to help animals, marginalized communities or the planet.
It makes for a dramatic media story to present a meat industry executive as having a change of heart and embracing the plant
This does not mean I cannot share in the celebration over the growth of plant-based meats. It just means that I maintain a healthy skepticism about the intentions of an industry that defends such common practices as the grinding up of millions of baby chicks as perfectly humane. Their pathological apathy and dehumanization of other species
All this to state what is perhaps