The Problem: The Human Species Itself

"Animal liberation is the most difficult liberation struggle of all because speciesism is primordial and universal. Speciesism is arguably the first of any form of domination or hierarchy and it has spread like a deadly virus throughout the entire planet and all of human history. The problem is not limited to Western culture or to the modern world, such that there is some significant utopian past or radical alternative to recover. The problem is the human species itself, which but for rare exceptions is violent, destructive, and imperialistic. Universally, humans have vested interests in exploiting animals and think they have a God-given right to do so. To change these attitudes is to change the very nerve center of human consciousness. That is our task - no more and no less."

- Steve Best -

The Walls of the Slaughterhouses are Already Transparent

The animal rights movement is "breaking" the walls of the slaughterhouses for more than 30 years. The walls of the slaughterhouses are already transparent.

You tell them the facts, and you show them the horrible reality, and it doesn’t help.

We will never understand how people can eat the flesh of someone that has been bred in misery and pain but they do.

Most humans don’t even understand what we are talking about.

Humans’ moral rule is "Do whatever you like as long as you can get away with it".

Not anymore! This is a call for the annihilation movement to rise.

* Text taken from the Only One Solution website.

Violence and Control are a Part of Us

There is a reason why humans see leather as cool and sexy.
Violence and control are a part of us.

You can fight it and explain to people that it is wrong and that animals suffer for it.
You can tell people that they can buy synthetic materials instead.

But leather is a lot more than a material that jackets are made of.

Leather is status. it is a symbol.

Trying to convince people to buy synthetic fabrics is not how you change things.

Synthetic fabric is synthetic revolution.

Humans want leather because it is a symbol of power and domination. The problem is internal and there is no jacket in the world that can ever change that.

* Text taken from the Only One Solution website.

Trends

The campaign against fur was once considered to be the most successful campaign ever by the animal rights movement. But after almost a decade of being branded politically incorrect, fur is back in fashion, coming in all colors, shapes and sizes.

The Fur Council claims that in 1985 only 42 fashion designers included fur in their collections. 20 years later the number has risen to more than 500.

The fur industry resurgence in the last 5 years is an irrefutable evidence of the sole significance of trends in human behavior and public political views.

It is not empathy, rationality, concern and ethics that dictate humans’ behavior, it is fashion, in this case ambiguously speaking. It is trends, not rational and practical compassion.

In spite of Al gore, Cindy Crawford, the Atkins diet, super size me and so many other trendy examples, activists still rely on trends and on celebrities to carry on moral and social justice campaigns.

Animal rights activists know just as we do how provisional and arbitrary trends are and that the same people that are against slaughtering animals for their fur, turn around and eat their flesh, or wear their skin.

Disappointment after disappointment, but the activists never learn.

They cover their eyes and ears because they can't control their urge for a short term goal.

The expectation that the same principle of action only using the good celebrities in a smart and sexy way will change the world is false and ridiculous. The same methods that are responsible for so much of what is wrong with the world can’t be the solution too.

Instead of looking for the current trends and how to use them for their goals, instead of dividing the world to good and bad celebrities.

Animal rights activist should ask themselves what are the chances for a vegan non-speciesist world when the moral message becomes a minor by product of the current trend and the mega celebrities’ reputation improvement efforts.

* Text taken from the Only One Solution website.

Nonviolence

The non violent approach which is both speciesist and ironically extremely violent.

The non violent approach is speciesist because it is non violent towards humans but at the same time and as a consequence it is violent towards non human animals.
It gives humans an automatic and evident power to decide whether or not they are willing to stop torturing. It is not supposed to be the abusers' decision and the animal rights activists let the abusers make this decision, a decision that regards other creatures' suffer.

The non violent approach is violent because refusing to use violence to stop much more violence is actually supporting violence. From the moment you are aware of the possibility to stop someone’s suffer using violence and you refuse to use it, you choose suffer.

The speciesist and violent approach is in the concept that the one and only duty of activists is to convince the abusers to stop abusing and not to stop the abuse.
As far as most activists think, their variety of options is expressed in persuasion methods only. The basic approach is hardly ever questioned. Convincing people to divert their diet is the only option, the differences are in the ways to do it.
If something didn't work they will try another but all the options have the same in common, they all are different tactics with the same strategy, to convince the abusers to stop abusing, but not to stop the abusers.

When you maintain a non violent approach, if you fail to convince a non-vegan speciesist, he is free to go and continue the abuse.
It shouldn’t be their choice. You don’t ask the tortures if they would like to stop torturing. You just stop them.

We know it is not easy as "just" stopping them, but it is what we’ve got to do. It begins with you realizing the absurdity. With you stop asking the oppressors to stop oppressing and start to find a way to stop it all.

* Text taken from the Only One Solution website.

Asleep

A world which battery cages could have been invented in, is a world that unlegislating them won't cure anything.

The animal rights movement must wake up.

Society is irrevocably speciesist and immoral.

Gains made are easily reversed.

History has shown that working within the cruel system and winning small battles for the animals proved to be irrelevant. The animals’ carnage continues.

Animal abuse will go on until mankind becomes extinct, or the planet is destroyed.

It’s time to open our eyes and admit that we shall never overcome.

The opposition is stronger, better financed, and more numerous than animal defenders.

If you are only interested in clearing your conscience, you better stay in the conventional movement.

If you are interested in liberating billions of animals and humans from life full of suffer... there is only one solution.

* Much of the text taken from the Only One Solution website.

Eating Meat is Just a Symptom

To convince someone to go vegan as an attempt to save the world is similar to an attempt to save a sinking ship by tossing out water with a teaspoon.

The world is not just an unfair and cruel place, everything is rotten from the roots.

The world is too sick, and life itself is the disease.

Wake up!

A world, that battery cages could have been invented in, is a world that unlegislating them won’t cure anything.

Battery cages are just a symptom. Eating meat is just symptom.

Two of the severest ones, but still symptoms.

The only way to stop the symptoms of the problem is to identify the main root cause and directly work to abolish it.

Stop dealing with the symptoms and start dealing with the causes.

* Much of the text taken from the Only One Solution website.

Reason is Not Enough

Have you ever wondered why is it so hard to convince someone to go vegan?

We don't need to tell you how morally initiatory and how nutritiously simple veganism is.

So how come it is so hard, even for many people who define themselves as "animal lovers", to become vegans?

Could it be that the obstacle to veganism is the messengers? Not enough health food stores? The price of soy milk? Not enough vegan celebrities? Not enough visual evidence about what is going on in factory farms?

You know it is not any of these.

The animal rights arguments are so simple and right. They are based on solid facts and evidences. Nobody can confront them rationally.

So why is it so hard to convince someone to go vegan?

The reason is that reason is not enough. Good arguments are not relevant.

Rationality is not enough in this world. It has proved itself as an insufficient element in order to change people’s habits.

Rationality can’t beat motivation.

"... humans are much more social than rational creatures. In everyday life on average, people try to merge into society, behave correspondingly, and afterwards rationalize their behaviour, i.e. find "rational" reasons why they act as they act. This observation is so obvious that it does not seem to merit quoting empirical support."
- Martin Balluch -

* Non-quotation text taken from the Only One Solution website.

Vegan Education - the problem is with the addressees

Gary Francione is wrong. The world is not vegan and as long as humans exist, it never will be.
To think creative vegan education can somehow, sometime, cause the human race to act in non-speciesist manner is to ignore human nature.

How high the human barrier is?

Excellent & comprehensive explanations are given by the Only One Solution team on their FAQ page:
1. Why not work hard to make a vegan world?
2. Social revolutions are possible. Don’t you believe a revolution in the way society seize non human animals is possible?
3. The human race perspective on itself and on the world has changed through time and will keep on changing, all we need is to be patient

One way the team from WhyCulturedMeat.org try to confront vegan educators/converters is by asking "If an individual is a good person, rational, intelligent, loving and caring, even wealthy, how come he/she is not a vegan?". Then, they give plenty of examples to support their position.

Do you still believe a vegan world is possible?

Cognitive Dissonance among Vegans

Consider the following:
A. Most vegan activists will agree that humans - as all species - are selfish and violent by nature and that most of them do not care about nonhuman suffering.
B. Most vegan activists dedicate their activity time to vegan education and believe animal exploitation will end within 100 years.[1]

Don't you agree these two cognitions are inconsistent with each other? It is impossible to convince humans - who hold the freedom of choice - to behave against their own nature.
Vegan education is based on moral justice, while humans' choice is based on self interest. In our case, these are two contradictory things.[2]

It's so frustrating to admit, but the reason this dissonance is so common among activists is selfishness (which we all struggle with):
"Let's be honest. The animal rights movement as we now know it will never become a revolutionary struggle because the representatives of the oppressed enjoy enough privilege from the system they oppose to prevent them from supporting, let alone engaging in actual revolutionary activity that would risk those comforts."
--Rod Coronado, "Hypocrisy Is Our Greatest Luxury" (no longer available online)

The Only One Solution Manifest begins its attention to vegan education with the next paragraph:
"Have you ever wondered why is it so hard to convince someone to go vegan?
We don’t need to tell you how morally initiatory and how nutritiously simple veganism is. So how come it is so hard, even for many people who define themselves as "animal lovers", to become vegans? It is a question we have constantly asked ourselves when we were "vegan converters". Could it be that the obstacle to veganism is the messengers? Not enough health food stores? The price of soy milk? Not enough vegan celebrities? Not enough visual evidence about what is going on in factory farms? You know it is not any of these.
The question we are asking ourselves now in the only one solution movement is how come animal rights activists don’t see that the problem is with the addressees?"

Most activists probably know deep down it is not the messengers but the addressees, but as Rod Coronado put it so well, the price is too high.


[1] According to recent survey (which is no longer available online) that was first presented in the 12th International Vegan Festival, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 22-25, 2009.

[2] Some people would argue that acting morally is part of anyone's self interest, but this is not true. For most people - morality is a negligible consideration, it is important for them to feel peaceful with their choice. Meaning, they will seek (and find) a justification to continue with their violent acts ("animals in nature kill and eat other animals all the time", for example) and continue to ignore the most basic moral principle ("Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you").