Since purchasing and consuming animal products both depends on and contributes to animal agriculture, and animal farming necessitates rights violations against nonhuman animals, not being vegan when you have the option is synonymous with support for injustice. I believe that as leftists who purport ourselves to strive towards a more just society, and as human beings who generally value nonviolence and compassion, we should hold ourselves to a standard that doesn’t allow for the perpetuation of mass-slaughter. Let’s discourse!
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Why not just go for the more simple it’s better for the environment stance. At least in most cases. Some things need to be hunted to control populations and we should of course eat their meat instead of letting it go to waste. But in general eating meat from an animal you didn’t hunt or wasn’t hunted by someone else is bad for the environment compared to a vegetarian or vegan diet.
I went vegan because the psychological impact on workers are among the worst in any industry. Communities with slaughterhouses have higher rates of suicide, addiction, overdose, domestic violence, homicide, rape, you name it. Working in industrial slaughter is literally inhuman, because we naturally feel empathy for animals. The way they struggle and scream and bleed is disturbing to all but the most psychopathic individuals, and we force the most desperate people to do it for shit wages. People who work in this industry end up with PTSD for fucks sake!
If you’ve ever been forced to slaughter a helpless animal by hand, you know what I mean. We can not expect other workers to do this dirty work for us, not when there are easy and cheap alternatives.
Consumer activism isn’t revolutionary, but cultivating an empathetic mindset definitely is.
