I stand by last comment post.
It’s best to tell the truth and define what veganism is. Then it’s up to the non-vegan to decide where to go from there in striving to get rid of as much animal products as possible from their lives.
I see nothing wrong with striving to be as close to being perfect as possible, heck we do with other things in our lives, like striving to the best parent you can be, the best at what you do in your occupation–so why should veganism be any different?
You seem to want to focus on allowing animal products in your life and still be called vegan. You have the wrong mindset. You (or anyone else) should be focusing on how you can get rid of animal products as much as possible.
Is deliberately eating honey once a year doing the best one can? Is keeping a strip of fur on a coat doing the best one can? And regarding being poor, you can get almost new to new coats under 10 dollars at resale shops.
If there’s a will there’s a way. If you want to you can find plenty of excuses not to give up on having animal items that you really don’t need.
And I’m not even mentioning cars, planes, etc. I agree with Gary there; some things would make it hard to impossible to live especially if you live out in the country…But animal items like clothing, sorry but there are even places that GIVE away clothing, coats, shoes for FREE if you are that poor. Churches for one give free clothing away, gloves, hats, scarves, canned vegan foods and a lot more. My church does. You can find plenty of vegan items there and they are not even deliberately giving *vegan* items away; it’s just that cruelty-free clothing/accessories are so common. Absolutely NO EXCUSE to still have animal clothing in this day and age. There is a TON of “accidentally vegan” clothing around. So much so, that I’m personally looking to buy foods and clothing owned by vegans–taking another step; obviously just buying vegan items is being vegan regardless who the owner is, by the truth definition of the word, but I seek to challenge myself and go further in supporting all these vegan own and operated places. And there are other vegans going towards lessening more and more things they buy that is owned by non-vegans.
Anyway, I know you have your opinion and will most likely stick to it no matter what. This is the last time I will be commenting on this subject. As I said, the problem is watering down the definition of veganism–which IS politicking to make veganism more popular (which Gary is totally against), and simply not being truthful. You can define veganism any way you want but that doesn’t make it true. Like I can say the sky is jet black but that doesn’t make it true. It’s confusion by calling veganism what it is not that will be the downfall of animal rights/liberation, not the truth.
There are ways to talk to non-vegans without overwhelming them, but still always speaking truth. There should be more animal rights workshops to help vegans to know how to talk to non-vegans. Talk to them in truth and love, not in watering down the definition to make people feel all fuzzy and warm inside. People should be disgusted in keeping animal products. Absolutely disgusted. And that being disgusted is what will drive people to getting rid of everything they can that is cruel–some even making huge sacrifices. But so do people when fighting for human rights….
Veganism can be a challenge but this is a matter of life and death. There should be way more animal rights/liberationists in this world but with watering down animal rights, now we have this movement where people think being vegan is some sort of happy club when it’s really a serious social justice movement.
Focus on the positive in concentrate on eliminating as much animal products as possible as that makes the best representation of a vegan–for the animals’ sake. It’s not good to focus on trying to find ways to keep some animal products; that is very dangerous and many people will start to easily rationalize/ justify keeping animal products if they concentrate on trying to keep it.
I also strongly believe that in order for animal rights to succeed, we need other social justice groups to get involved. The deal is they also promote animal liberation and we also promote their cause as well, like GLBTQ rights, womens’ rights, etc. There is power in numbers and some groups are just better in social cause activism and can teach us better in animal activism as we can teach them how to go vegan. For more information on this, check out animal rights activist Dr. Steve Best blog. https://drstevebest.wordpress.com That’s another thing AR people need to start discussing.
