MICKEY Z talks Animal Rights, Consumer Fetishism, Techo-Trash, Arundhati Roy, Veganism and much more.

Interviewed by Claudette Vaughan

Mickey Z's been vegan for 9 years.  He resides in New York City with his wife Michele.  He's the author of three published books with one on the way. His writing has appeared in three anthologies and he's been the editor-in-chief of Curio magazine. He's known as "the underground poet" and he's written for a wide range of anarchist publications on topics ranging from police brutality, veganism, kung fu, chess, film, garlic, Fabio, and the Society to Eradicate Television.  Here he talks to the Abolitionist-Online about techno gadgets, animal rights, politics and veganism - to name but a few of his favourite subjects.

Q.   Talk about veganism as a form of resistance?

 A. Western culture, as I know it, is rooted in denial. We're not supposed to ponder how our tax dollars are spent, who is underneath the bombs being dropped, what happens when an elite few control all the resources, or how our food gets to our table. Veganism peels away a few layers of the propaganda paint and forces the consumer to consider more than just instant gratification. Becoming a vegan requires a human being to think independently and critically...and that's where it all begins.

 Q.  Can we talk about gadgets?  Modern-day culture is obsessed with gadgets.  There are now whole generations trained up as techno -'experts' ambivalent to the burdensome issue of consequences.  While this type of terrain fosters suspicion of independent thought, 'animal rights' is seen as utopian because the prevailing attitude is welfarism will suffice for the want of something better.  Is this the place where compulsive conformity to the norm is the expected?

A. Earlier today, I was in a store that had a small toy section. My eyes scanned the colorful items on the shelves and I saw a play cell phone, a play pager, a play TV remote, play money, and plastic handcuffs. Talk about conditioning...we are trained to settle for less pain instead of demanding more pleasure...for ourselves. How the hell will a human with such a limited range of expectations not see animal rights as utopian? It's so much easier to imagine that those running the food production crime syndicate are taking good care of those furry creatures right up the moment they slit their throats.

Q.  Half the world is fighting hunger and the other half is battling the epidemic of obesity (115 million of the world's obese people live in developing countries).  What's your take on that Mickey?

A.  The power elite are hoarding the resources. The segment of the world's population seen as superfluous are disappeared through the magic of the corporate media. The segment that has nothing to contribute except a tiny amount of income, well, they get inundated with propaganda designed to lure them away from traditional, healthier lifestyles and into the world of junk food and sitting on your ass watching TV, playing video games, and surfing the Web. Corporate propaganda has convinced even the most oppressed that true success lies in trying (in vain) to imitate their oppressors. Springsteen sang: "Poor man wanna be rich...rich man wanna be king...and the king ain't satisfied till he rules everything."

Q.    Your favourite writer and activist, Arundhati Roy, has just visited Australia and she said the WTO is saying farmers cannot receive any subsidies while Europe, America, and Australia pay their agricultural sector subsidies.   This means the current money system favours wealthy nations.  Why is so-called 'democracy' being strangled in poor developing countries?

A.  Wealthy countries shun free market capitalism. The government in the U.S., for example, is practically socialist when it comes to using public money to subsidize private industry. Of course, the profits remain privatized. For the rest of the world, the free market somewhat exists. Institutions like the WTO, IMF, and World Bank impose such a concept on Third World nations knowing full well that free market capitalism will fail miserably. When that happens, foreign multi-nationals fill the void and create the standard Third World model of 3-5% owning 90-95% of the wealth. Australia, always on the periphery of being in the major leagues, is well on its way to minor leagues for a long, long time. When Reebok starts paying Australians less than a living wage to make sneakers, you'll know it's all over.

Q.   George W. Bush arose from a culture with the upper-class notion that God rewards those who have wealth and the rest of us are meant to suffer.   Where does that leave nonhuman animals and animal activists?

 A.  I'm not convinced that Bush gives two shits about god, religion, or anything of that realm. It's part of his role. When you get hired to be the public face of America, Inc, it's in your contract that you must pray, attend church, and praise god as often as possible. Since such holy men and women see themselves as being made in god's image, animals don't enter into the equation except as food, entertainment, and pets. As you allude to in your question, such arrogance to humans and animals strips our leaders (sic) of any moral standing and it's then understandable when those being stepped on start to push back.

Q.   The modern animal rights movement has not made much headway into schools to educate younger generations on animal rights issues and factory-farming. Corporate sponsorship is already there, manifesting itself as only it can; the subtle seduction of subliminal advertising.

 A.  I always come back to the quote from Australian scholar, Alex Carey. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, that the 20th century saw three important developments. The first was the growth and spread of democracy. Second was the growth and spread of corporate power. Thirdly, we saw the creation of corporate propaganda to protect corporate power from democracy. The creative minds in America are so often seduced into the slime of advertising. Clever humans handsomely paid to use the full range of their creativity to convince others that they need something that is not only useless, but dangerous. Goebbels would drool. The late comedian Bill Hicks used to ask if anyone in the audience if they worked in advertising. Inevitably, a handful would raise their hands. Hicks would then, in total seriousness, suggest that they kill themselves as soon as possible. Everyone would laugh but he's say, deadpan: "No, dude, I'm serious. You're scum and you'd be doing us all a favor by killing yourself." I'm not advocating mass suicide but, man, I can relate to what Hicks was putting out there.

Q.  Did you know that in the U.S. now, leather seats in cars are impregnated with the smell of artificial leather?   Why are we still killing cows for leather in this day and age and why isn't that a question of primary importance to a consumer/commodity orientated society?

 A.  In America, leather is cool and anyone (like me) who challenges it is met with the classic answer: "But the cows were dead anyway." This effectively demonstrates the perception of animals in America because I could reply, "Well then, why all the fuss about Nazis making lampshades? Those humans were dead already." That reply, 100 out of 100 times, is greeted with some variation of: "That's different." Humans can be programmed to accept anything: genocide, slavery, animal experimentation, Dick Cheney. When you're wound up like a toy robot and pointed in the direction of the nearest SUV dealer, the leather industry is not even on the radar screen.

Q.  Andy Warhol's portrayal of Coca-Cola bottles and Campbell's soup cans as the ultimate consumer fetish, has functioned for decades as a critical political statement.  How can we get veganism to do the same thing or shouldn't we even try to play that game?

A.  The odds are stacked. Even if the top person at the top ad agency defected and decided to design pro-vegan ads, who could afford to place them? How can we compete against the billions of dollars being spent by multi-nationals to keep us distracted and obedient? If it can occur, the social revolution will be completely from the ground up.

Q.    Is television the Prozac of the masses?

A.  A drug for sure...part babysitter, part opinion-giver, and part hypnotist. The TV has come to dominate human life like no other invention. We learn what to eat, how to dress, what to say, and how to think all from that glowing box in our bedroom and living room...and kitchen and laundrymat and gym and bank and airport (there seems to be a TV everywhere one goes). The payoff for all this spectatorship is a lifestyle based on imitation, competition, materialism, and self-delusion. The TV keeps us inactive while our biology desires movement. The TV sells us junk food while our bodies crave nutrients. The TV trains us to be obedient while our minds yearn for freedom. The TV teaches conformity while our souls demand individuality.

Q.  John Maynard Keyes said of capitalism: "It is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all."  Your thoughts?

A.  Keynes put into words the reason why capitalists need so much propaganda. Humans are naturally skeptical and the truth about capitalism is not hard to see...unless it's cleverly disguised and juxtaposed with the "evil" of communism, terrorism, etc.

Q.  To control the management of consumer demands the modern-day corporation is in the business of mass persuasion as it is with mass production.   Isn't controlling what the consumer "needs" the real meaning of computer mind programing and perhaps is more important to them than the control of prices?

A.  Our independent spirits are powerful. Corporations know that. You cannot expect everyone to willingly and easily surrender her or his individuality. Enter the advertisers, the filmmakers, the TV producers, the politicians, the pundits, etc. Through repetition and a not-so-subtle system of reward and punishment, our humanity is either beaten out of us or relinquished voluntarily. Hearts and minds...

Q.  There's a mood existing in the animal rights movement today that animal welfare equates to fighting cruelty issues so animal rights concerns must take a back-seat until the animal welfarists sort out the cruelty issue first.

A.  Part of the reason so many are willing to settle for longer chains and bigger cages (both literally and metaphorically) is the conditioning I've been talking about. As someone who analyzes a broad range of issues, let me say this debate is not unique. In politics, for example, do you vote for Nader or vote at all in the hope of incremental change or do you spend all your time working to completely dismantle the current system? Whether it's animal rights or human justice, I sadly do not see this debate being settled any time soon. In fact, I wonder if it's one of those conflicts that will find resolution through external stimulus.

 Q.   What do you perceive as the future for the animal rights movement?

A.  Like most radical political movements, I can't imagine things getting better before they get much, much worse. People are too comfortable, too uninformed, too alienated and isolated to work in solidarity...and we need more, more, more solidarity. Look back the Black Panthers, Young Lords, American Indian Movement, for example...they all made a difference and woke up a fair amount of folks but were ultimately crushed--in one way or another--by overwhelming state power.

"Take what is useful and develop from there," as Bruce Lee used to say. AR activists are bold and creative but we need more boldness, more creativity. The powers-that-be are laying the groundwork for their own demise. As more and more people are shoved to the have-not side, the ranks will swell. Will we see drastic change in our lifetime? Who knows? That great journalist I.F. Stone reminds us, "If you expect to see the final results of your work, you simply have not asked a big enough question."

Q.  Why do you think capitalism is so resilient?

A.  Tricky question because I believe genuine capitalism is neither common nor resilient. What we see in the U.S. for example, is mutant form of corporate capitalism propped up by massive government subsidies. So, it's easy to see how such a system remains in place. In a more abstract sense, no matter what you label the U.S. economic system, its genius lies in the fact that it gives us peons just enough material wealth and freedom to seduce and pacify us. We're bought and sold by the big money chase and a society literally trained to worship money is not likely to challenge the method by which individuals obtain it. We've got our SUVs and our cell phones and our Air Jordan sneakers and our iPods...meanwhile, the propaganda system spoon-feeds us the bullshit about freedom and democracy and justice until we're patting ourselves on the back wondering how anyone in the world could possibly hate us.

Q.  How do you make the world a better place Mickey?

A.  Whether I make the world a better place or not is subject to debate...but my efforts in that noble direction range from immediate relief to systemic analysis. Recently, I took part in a fundraiser with fellow writer Rich Joseph (http://www.transcend.ws), my wife Michele and Rich's wife, Lisa to raise money for orphans in Bolivia, South America's poorest country. It was a rousing success on the level we worked on (check out Rich's site for details and photos of the kids). Did we do anything to challenge an economic system of exploitation that creates widespread poverty on a planet with abundant resources? Absolutely not. Did we improve the lives of some 30 desperate children and help give them a fighting chance? We certainly did. Sometimes you have to put down the manifesto and do something. The suffering is everywhere. Take action...and stop looking down your noses at those who don't "get it."

On a bigger scale, I work every single day to disseminate information that can help challenge the white supremacist, capitalist patriarchal messages being rammed down our throats. In mid-2005, my first book, a radical history of WWII, is being re-released in paperback as "There is No Good War." Later in the year, Disinformation is publishing a book of mine called "50 American Revolutions: People's Patriotism Since 1776," which will attempt to provide the motivating power of example for radicals seeking solutions, strategies, and hope. A look back before taking a leap forward. I call my books, my articles, my poems, and my website ( http://www.mickeyz.net ) my "weapons of mass instruction."