Editorial - December 2005

by Claudette Vaughan

Captain Paul Watson and his crew are in Australia at the moment and we have the interview.  After 30 years of putting himself, his ship and crew inbetween the whalers Watson is as tough, relentless and unrepentant as ever.  His interview will rouse the blood and rightly so.  For instance: The method of killing whales can only be described as barbaric. The barbed, 160lb harpoon implodes inside the whale. Dying frequently takes up to half an hour and can take two hours.  It's an excruciating death. We also asked Captain Watson if it's possible to close the divide between environmentalists and liberationists. Read the interview for his views on the matter.

Australian Federal Minister for the Environment, Ian Campbell, recently boasted that he “knew more than anybody else on the planet about whaling” yet Australia remains reticent in the face of taking legal redress to alleviate and curtail the Japanese. Is it any wonder when Australia and America still refuse to sign the Kyoto Protocol? Has an opportunity for real change been squandered?

So far with both Abolitionist issues – 1 and now 2 – we have openly discussed the merits and drawbacks of the mechanics of noncompliance in the form of direct action as a force in a commercial world. The guts of it is this: The locus of power in an industrial society from where governments draw their sustenance [trade and commerce] becomes the priorities of the day. Animal activists, environmentalists, anti-war protesters and dissidents don't necessarily subscribe to their point of view. Yet stopping commerce in its tracks is regarded by still too many in the public as being worse than taking life itself.

We think language should share some of the blame for anti-life attitudes, so we have reprinted Paul Watson's brilliant commentary that he wrote titled: ‘ Polluting the English Language to Justify Slaughter.'

Things are hotting up in Australia over the kangaroo issue.  A recent conference to launch the new book Kangaroos Myths and Realities was held at Parliament House with great success and much ado. We document part of it here in a special section on the plight of the poor kangaroo. Where is this all leading? Ultimately animal rights people want the total abolition of the Kangaroo Industry.  Unfortunately this won't be imminent. We have a job to do to educate and inform the public when even the Industry itself recognises that only a very tiny percentage of Australians want to eat their National Emblem. What is occurring now, that hasn't always been the case,  is a whole series of different activists and groups working simultaneously yet separately on the issue of how to stop the slaughter. The power structures in place at the moment that are holding up this carcass industry aren't infallible. We have to remind ourselves of this at every moment. Maryland Wilson's excellent interview is here to make sure we do that.

It's quite puzzling how things happen in a dwindling democracy. Yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing the ACT animal activist Bernie Brennan on why he conducted a sting operation against illegal fireworks sellers (terrifying to animals) yet the situation conspired against him and he ended up being prosecuted himself and subsequently found Not Guilty of any wrongdoing. All this on the eve of Prime Minister Howard announcing the Australian governments intention to double the number of people directly employed by its ASIO secret police agency by 2010. These new “anti-terrorism” laws, in particular the amendments to the existing sedition laws, would be used to curtail free speech in Australia and target not only terrorists but animal activists, journalists and others as well. Thanks goes to John Kinsella for allowing the Abolitionist-Online to publish his poem on sedition.

In this issue we are proud to present the Maneka Gandhi/Mary Hutton interview on the dancing bears of India. As the irrepressible Maneka Gandhi succinctly points out “These bears don't dance”. They just want to escape the regime of pain and starvation.  The group Wildlife SOS have over 80 bears in their charge now, most being surrendered over voluntarily by their former slave owners. This sanctuary in India, struggling like most sanctuaries,  is in great need of financial assistance.  Can you help them at all? Addresses and contacts are given at the end of the interview.

Is there any indignity a mother cow doesn't endure on an intensive farm?  Or is a mother cow an actual but also symbolic creation of a larger picture that denigrates the mother principle across species? At every turn she is humiliated, isolated, mutilated. A milking machine whose reproductive organs are there to be utilised and manipulated by men in white coats. Robert Cohen, aka the NotMilkMan in a two part interview explains the violence that goes on in the intensive dairy industry of today. He rips into the Animal Rights Movement in Part One and then moves onto the Dairy Industry in Part Two.

 We also managed to track down a fascinating woman and her husband, now animal activists in their own right, who were once caught up in the intensive farming industry. See Holy Cow! The Epiphany of Cheri Ezell-VanderSluis.

Margaret Setter's done a fantastic job in reviewing: Milk A Deadly Poison. Let's see if it's as controversial as the last review she wrote. We hope it is.

Thank you also to Ken Setter for his reviews, commentary and broad advice along the way. The Abolitionist-Online would be weaker without them.

Vegan Humour. It's not a big subject of discussion at the moment but we predict it will be in the future.  Both these artists we are show-casing here are exquisitely funny and serious animal rights people. Dan ‘Bizarro' Piraro donated a new cartoon for this issue along with an interview.  Bob Pyle with his humorous “Apples and Oranges” CD is also interviewed. We invite you to contact us if you know of any other vegan artists, comics or writers that would like their voices heard and/or work published online.

The magazine,  National Geographic,  that's out now is featuring a section on the secrets of living longer. It's no surprise to learn that all of the people interviewed for it prosper on a plant-based diet and exercise. Which reminds me that our friend John Robbins has just written a book called “Healthy at 100: The Scientifically Proven Secrets of the World's Healthiest and Longest Lived Peoples”. It will be published by Random House but not until September, 2006. Look out for that interview here then.

Lastly, thankyou to all our contributors. Barbara Noske. Denise Garrett. Lee Rhiannon. Bizarro for his cartoons. Chris Lego. Ramsey Kannan. The ELF ex-spokesperson, Craig Rosebraugh. Deirdre Balaam. Eleonora Gullone. Kylie Dublich. Clare from Café Pogo. Jon Hallett. JoAnn Brown.  Important all.

Thankyou to Gary Francione for his ongoing support.

Thanks kindly for the donations Dianna Orr and Margaret Setter.

We've got bigger and better issues ahead of us, so please, if you like our work, then support us by making a donation.

We are always open to suggestions on subject matter and we are keen to get the interviews translated into other languages but the work is copyrighted so please check with us first. This website is dedicated to Barry Horne, Jill Phipps, Tom Worby, the Australian Diana Simpson. And Ronnie Lee. Claudette Vaughan December, 2005. Abolitionist-Online