My name is Ryan and you are listening to The Vegan Report.
The Democratic National Convention was last week in Chicago and there for a few days you
had gathered the most powerful human beings on the planet.
Influential wealthy politicians leading the party at the head of the mightiest country
on the planet, the United States of America.
For various interest groups, this was a golden opportunity to advance their cause, to put
pressure through protests and other forms of activism on global changemakers.
And among them was one small group of animal rights activists called Free From Harm, who
used their wits to infiltrate the most elite and exclusive gatherings of that event and
disrupt them in the most spectacular way, to keep accountable the powerful, to remind
them of the animal holocaust they have the power to stop.
Today I am glad to welcome the founder and director of Free From Harm, Robert Griot.
As a communication professional for over 25 years, Robert once worked on a large food
industry accounts where he acquired a behind the scenes perspective on food branding and
marketing.
I recommend his book, Farm to Fable, the fiction of our animal consuming culture, which explores
the powerful narratives driving our culture of mass animal consumption.
So Robert, thank you so much for accepting my invitation.
Thank you so much for being here.
It's a pleasure.
It's good to meet you, Ryan.
So Robert, my first question for you is, you know, my public, my audience comes from everywhere
in the world, but mostly from the US.
But for those non-US people, what's the DNC?
That's a fair question.
The DNC is the Democratic National Convention.
And it's their big convention event to elect for the delegates in each state to elect the
next candidate for president and vice president.
And so it's a big media circus, basically.
It's all about like promotion and media attention.
There's I think I heard there were like 50,000 press passes issued by the DNC this year for
media all over the world, many obviously in states, but even international media, lots
of Guardian, Axios, you know, all kinds of news outlets here.
Independent as well as mainstream, YouTube influencers, other social influencers, as
well as like, you know, the mainstay reporters, so to speak.
So it's kind of like the big media event of the year for the Democratic, the DNC, the
organization behind the Democratic Party is what it really is.
And for people who wonder, you know, why is it relevant?
You know, why is this event so important?
Well, politics in the US will influence all other countries.
Whatever happens in the US will have an incidence on everything else in other countries, including
everything that has to do with factory farming, non-human animals, their treatment or their
mistreatment.
So, yeah, it's the center of power.
Yes, because if you're missing an action, then things stay the same and nothing changes.
And the other, there's so many different reasons or good reasons to attend and to participate
in this event.
Just regardless of what your political orientation or whether you even think, whether you think
the Democratic Party is for shit and the Republicans are even worse, whether you think that the
establishment is, you know, you're against the establishment.
Personally I consider myself pretty anti-establishment.
But the objective of one of our key objectives as a grassroots group is to leverage media
in our favor.
So we're looking for opportunities that will insert ourselves in our message, in our voice
into the media spotlight.
Because that's the way to, that's one path, one important path to getting more popular
support for our movement.
You know, it's interesting because today you published a post about a certain senator.
And you described how you spent, I think, an entire year trying to reach that senator,
trying to sit down that senator who is actually, I think, your senator and nothing, no response.
But then just being present at that event, you were able to talk with this person, to
interact with him.
Is that right?
That's right.
So one of our key organizers, Jackie, she lives in Philadelphia.
And Casey is her senator because he's the Pennsylvania senator.
I'm in Illinois.
But anyway, I worked with her on trying to get in front of Casey, trying to get responses
from him.
And we were particularly interested in him because he's on this very secretive, what
we call the Senate chicken caucus.
And so there's very little information about the Senate chicken caucus and what these powerful
senators are very powerful people, to put it mildly.
There's only, you know, 60 some of that senators, they represent the entire state.
They make huge decisions on our behalf, affecting a $7 trillion, somewhat $7 trillion, of the
budget, government budget, of which the farm bill and agriculture policy is about a trillion
and a half, just to give you some context for the amount of money that they hold the
purse strings for.
And so Casey is a Democrat, and he's been progressive in some ways, I guess you could
say, or speaks progressively about workers' rights and the environmental issues and things
like that.
But then here he is on the Senate chicken caucus.
And we were really scratching our heads trying to figure out why is that?
And what is the Senate chicken caucus all about?
Why is it that we can't get into their meetings, that they're not public, like other hearings,
they're private, which tells us that the industry and their lobbyists and attorneys are in there
because attorneys have the power to actually make meetings private, public meetings private,
when attorneys are involved, and that they're making big decisions that benefit the industry,
the chicken industry.
And so we got really interested in trying to dig into this and confront Casey and other
Senate chicken caucus members, I think there's 14 of all of them, to find out, you know,
what's the big secret?
I mean, why are you guys having these closed door meetings?
What's going on in these meetings?
Why aren't you ever talking about these meetings?
What's decided in these meetings?
Where's the minutes?
Why can't we access the meeting minutes so we can see what was discussed and voted out?
And who's in these meetings?
Is it industry people that are telling you what they want from taxpayers?
And you know, all these questions are, you know, coming up.
So Jackie was ignored.
Jackie is an incredibly persistent woman, and she's really tough as nails.
And so she goes to his offices, she calls, she talks to staff and all of this, and didn't
go anywhere.
And so here we learned that at the DNC, they're going to have these Pennsylvania Dems, PA
Dems breakfast every morning for the four days.
And what we learned about the DNC was the place to be is at these breakfasts.
Each state has their own delegation.
And at a fancy hotel where they're staying, they have these breakfasts.
And famous speakers come to these breakfasts.
And it's a great way to get in front of them without having to go to the McCormick place
in the United Center, which is where the big speeches and the big power players were going
to be.
It's much more accessible to get in and out of a hotel, and much easier, less risk.
So had we known that earlier, we probably would have put a lot more focus on the breakfasts.
You know, none of us want to get up at five or something to be at a breakfast at seven
or whatever.
But anyway, we were there that morning, and we were really glad that we were there because
we didn't know Casey Senate.
They don't announce these things.
But not only did we that morning, not only did we confront Senator Casey, but we also
got to speak and have a really kind of an intense interaction with other Congress people.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was the president of the Democratic National Convention and
all that.
So a lot of people just were there.
And what we did is we tried to prepare as best as we could with the talking points and
the tough questions that we wanted to ask these people.
And if we saw them, we just had to be prepared.
We had to jump at the opportunity.
And that's what we did.
We just, I will say I was very inspired by an organization called Code Pink, which is
based in DC.
And they spend their days in the halls of Congress, and they wait for meetings to come
out or they go into meetings and they do disruptive actions or they wait until Congress people
come out and they chase them down the hall and they get them to talk about their, why
are they voting to spend billions of dollars for a war, foreign war?
And is there allegiance to a foreign government or to the US or those kinds of questions?
So that was very inspiring.
And we thought, we can do that too.
And the DNC is a great opportunity to have lots of these people that we're trying to
target under one roof.
I want to get back to Senator Casey, but first, if you look at the news coverage of that event,
you see the protesters outside and even inside the main hall of the event and they are anti-war
protesters, they are pro-abortion protesters.
You have all kinds of flavors of social issues, justice out there.
And I'm wondering, did you see any protests about animal rights against animal farming?
How many animal rights organizations were present at the DNC talking about the issues
that are important for the vegans out there?
I personally only know of one and that's only because a friend of mine, Wayne is here in
Chicago, works for PETA.
And PETA was doing some public outreach, I believe, about some animal testing issue.
I don't recall exactly what it was, but to my knowledge, we were the only group inside
of events calling attention to the corruption in our government and its policy on our food
system and the need for a transition to a plant-based food system.
So to my knowledge, we were the only ones there for that purpose.
So when you say public outreach, you mean they were not even directing their activism
to the politicians?
They were directing their activism to the different people that were present all around
the event?
That's my understanding.
Wow.
I hear that and I feel so disappointed.
I have to say so disappointed.
I mean, like we stated before, here's the DNC, this mega important event, counting
thousands of powerful politicians that will shape the future of billions of animals in
the US and maybe in the rest of the world, because like we said, the US is the most powerful
country in the world.
It will influence all policies around the globe.
And you have hundreds of reporters from all major channels, from all major media outlets,
not even in the US, but in the rest of the world.
And you're saying that you were the only one screaming and talking about defending the
animal rights cause.
To my knowledge, yes.
And I'm not making any excuses for people, but at the same time, I think it's a very
intimidating proposition for people to, quite frankly, it's intimidating for all of us.
But at a certain point, we have to make a decision whether we pursue an opportunity
because we just can't, we can't not get involved.
It's too big of an opportunity to pass up.
And I don't think a lot of people recognized it for what it is.
I think it's great that you did, but a lot of our local folks have already obligations
and commitments.
Most of the people that I know here in Chicago are working on fur campaigns and maybe some
other local things.
But even on the issue of fur, there could have been fur protesters from wherever that
decided they were going to use this opportunity to get the fur free policy message out there.
And I didn't see any of them.
How did you get in?
How did you get your press pass?
If you can share that with us.
That's a damn good question.
And each day was a different, totally different struggle.
So I didn't get a press pass.
The deadline for press passes was way back in April.
So we learned about press pass.
We didn't even think about the idea of a press pass until it was like June.
And by that time it was like three months too late.
That's how, you know, just to give you an idea, like April's deadline, that's how bad
people want press passes.
And they're just like cut it off in April, several months before the event.
So we have gotten into a lot of places with uninvited or unregistered.
We don't pay for registration.
We don't pay for tickets.
Once in a while we register if it's free or if it makes sense and it seems like it's fairly
easy to do and it's not going to cost us anything or not much.
But in general, we get into a lot of places by talking our way in.
And so with the DNC, the first day, it took us just two hours to find the proper entrance.
McCormick Place is this enormous complex, trade show complex in Chicago, which is where
the official business of the DNC was taking place.
And you had lots of meetings like that where you had famous people like Bernie Sanders
show up and do a three-minute speech.
And we knew a lot of this was going to happen.
So we wanted to get into McCormick Place and we were told it was open to the public.
And there was an option to register for free as a member of the public.
But then that deadline passed and I didn't register.
Some people did in our group.
But anyway, the first day I was able to get in without any credentials.
But it took us two hours just to find the entrance.
And so I got in the first day and then I came back the next day and they said there was
some disturbance inside and that they were really limiting access and that I would have
to look at my email to confirm that I had registered.
And so I talked to three different people and they were all shutting me down.
They said, sorry, sir, it's nothing I can do to help you.
And then suddenly I saw the guy from Monday that let me in, this big guy saw me.
I said, you remember me, don't you, from Monday.
I said, look, I know things have changed.
I said, look, but I was here on Monday.
You know I was here.
I was registered on.
He said, okay.
He said, I'm going to do you a favor.
I'm going to let you in because your friends are already inside, right?
I said, yeah, they're already inside.
He said, but you got to promise me you're here just to attend meetings, not to do anything
else.
And I felt kind of bad because part of me felt, oh, you know, I'm going to be telling
this guy what he wants to hear and I might be one of the activists that they were trying
to avoid getting in.
But I did it anyway for the cause because I felt like it was the right thing to do.
So I got in and so every situation was different.
The first disruption we did was on Tuesday night at this private members only club called
the Union League of Chicago.
And it's really where diplomats and like just the top crust of society have these big posh
parties.
Nobody else gets into these places.
And so we didn't know if we were going to be able to get in.
But we went up to the desk and they said, are you registered?
And we said, well, here's our name.
Look it up.
See, no, sorry, you're not in.
I'm sorry we can't let you in.
And we said, oh, yeah, you know, so we really, you know, we were registered with the DNC
and we were thinking about getting involved in agriculture and we really wanted to see
these speakers and be a part of this event.
And then it was like, okay, well, what organization are you with?
So what we did is we used, there's a journalist, an agriculture journalist here called Hagastrom.
His name is Hagastrom.
And he's been in the business for 40 years.
He's one of these really old school guys who knows everything about agriculture and he
has a blog and a paid subscription thing.
He's very well respected.
We told her that we were with his group, the Hagastrom.
And he literally despises us because we've disrupted many agriculture events.
So if he knew that we used him as a pretext, he'd probably be pretty upset with us.
But that's how we got in because we mentioned somebody that they recognized and we were
super fortunate in that context.
So I think I just have a way of trying to get into places and not always succeeding,
but most of the time I do manage to get our group in.
There was one issue, there's one, I'll shut up after this.
There's one other incredible story about getting in.
At the, in Congress, there was a farm bill hearing in May, at the end of May.
And we didn't know this because it was our first farm bill hearing.
But there was a line that formed out of the hearing room that was hundreds of people when
we got there.
And we thought, oh my gosh, and it's not moving.
And the hearing's going on, it's already started.
And we're like, this line is not moving.
No one's going to give up their seat.
And we learned that the hearing room only has 60 seats in there.
And all those seats are basically reserved for lobbyists, industry lobbyists and other
like journalists and people like that.
But this is supposed to be open to the public, but there's literally no seats for the public.
So at a certain point I told my group, I said, you know what, we're never going to get in
by waiting in this line.
I said, we're going to wait until that door person is distracted and then we're going
to slip right in.
And there was a split second, literally a split second when this guy was talking to
someone on his left.
And that's when we went through this tiny little door into this tiny little hearing
room, which had some of the most powerful people in Congress deciding on this trillion
and a half dollar farm bill.
And we got in and we stayed in.
They asked us to leave many times, but we wouldn't leave.
So we succeeded in doing that disruption, but it took like five hours basically waiting
around, wondering whether we were going to get in and then finally finding a split second
opportunity where we got in.
That's amazing.
That's truly amazing.
And I want to express my thanks to Mr. Haggister for being an indirect ally.
An unwilling ally.
Could you speak about your activism, the way, how the power of disruption in that event?
Right.
So this opportunity at the DNC and all the different events, private events, and all
these different things that were many, many opportunities all fit into this model of it
checked all the boxes of the things, the kind of things we look for.
So for one thing, like I said earlier, we look for media coverage and the likelihood
of media coverage.
We look for opportunities to confront our targets, the power holders.
We look for opportunities to be in a general audience with influential people that they
know and the general public as well.
It's not just about one-on-one conversations, but about really trying to reach all of these
audiences at the same time and doing something that resonates with them even if they don't
necessarily agree with the message.
So like, for example, like we had these banners that kind of mocked Senator Debbie Stabenow
for her crooked farm bill and it had a caricature of her on it and these chickens flying around.
So we used kind of humor and mockery in a way that I think got us some support where
we might not have gotten it if it was too serious of a message.
It was serious, but we also have this mockery element, this humor element to it.
And I think people had to stop and kind of absorb the visuals that we put forward, the
banners.
And I think that even with those, like many of those that probably had a knee-jerk reaction
and didn't like us or didn't like what we were there for, I still believe that most
many people respect the courage of those who are willing to stand out from the crowd and
stand up to someone in power.
And it's a great thing to do because it's the one thing that people remember.
They don't remember all the boring speeches.
They don't remember what drinks they had or what conversations they had.
They might remember a couple, but the one thing they're going to remember about that
is, oh, that's where USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack got disrupted by during his speech with those
people, with those pink banners that had, you know, making fun of Debbie Stavanoff's
crooked farm bill.
That's probably what they're going to remember.
And that's what we want.
Yes, I agree.
And I would add, coming back to Senator Quasi, you prefer a reaction, whatever that reaction
is to indifference, to just the coldness of indifference to your message and to what you're
defending.
Yes, it shows that they have some stake in their reputation.
They care about their reputation and that somebody is threatening their reputation,
which is an important pressure point.
We did get ignored by some, to be fair.
Bernie Sanders ignored us.
I put my hand on his shoulder as he was coming down the stage and I was trying to be gentle
and compassionate.
And I said, Bernie, you know, thank you for what you just said about the climate crisis
and supporting labor.
I said, but will you support a just transition to a slaughter-free plant-based food system
for the same reasons that you think we should end fossil fuels?
The very same reasons, because it's just as destructive or more.
And for so many other reasons, not only just for the climate, but something like that.
And I got backstage a little bit until security stopped me.
And he ignored us, but he heard us.
And then the audience heard us.
So the audience saw someone who was very passionate and upset about this inconsistency between
railing against fossil fuel industry and ending those subsidies, but not saying anything about
animal agriculture.
So we did have a big audience to hopefully get people to think for even just a minute
about this disconnect.
I want to get back to other activist groups out there.
How is it that it is so common for activist groups to enter a barbecue restaurant or a
butcher shop and be disruptive there?
But lack the foresight of thinking maybe our action would hold greater impact in the office
of our senator, among our politicians, facing the building of a lobbyist, talking to a religious
leader.
Why is this strategic mindset lacking in the vegan activism scene?
I wish I knew.
I think, I mean, I can only speculate.
I think there's a couple of things going on.
One is that people see this animal, the animal side of the food industry as such a monumental
thing that they're just not sure where they can have an impact.
I think that's part of it.
The other part, I think, is the intensely intimidating proposition of confronting power
holders.
Because if you've been doing street activism, for example, and just meeting people where
they are on the street, you could become very good at that and it could become very unintimidating.
You become unafraid of that.
But then the prospect of shifting that to talking to power holders seems terrifying
for a lot of people.
But also this idea that it's just too big to fail.
And what could we possibly do as a small group?
What I like to tell people is that everyone says we don't have enough numbers.
We just don't have the numbers to impact a system that big.
So we should just start by chipping away at the fringes and beating away at the crumbs
around the edges.
But my response to that is that if we look at other social movements like the suffragettes,
like the civil rights movement, like Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, ACT UP,
there were actually very few people at the beginning stages that were willing to do direct
action, that were willing to make that kind of sacrifice, to put their bodies on the line,
to risk maybe being hurt or pushed or ridiculed.
Very few people were willing to make that sacrifice.
So it's not unique to our situation or our movement.
And I like to tell people that because I think there's this illusion that we're somehow so
unique and our cause is so different from all these other social change movements that
nothing can really relate to what we're doing.
But I think that's a fallacy.
Actually I think in this respect, we're in the same kind of situation as the early stages
of those other movements I mentioned where there were very few people to take direct
action.
But those people actually created a spark.
Those few people created the spark that was needed to get media attention, to get more
people inspired to want to take action too.
You mentioned lots of social causes and many of them could be identified as being on the
left of the political spectrum.
And of course you also crashed the DNC party.
So I wonder, did you ever think of doing the same for the Republican party, so the conservative
counterpart?
Absolutely I did.
In fact, we were all ready to go to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which is
only an hour and a half from Chicago.
But the logistics were just very difficult.
And unless we were able to stay at a hotel which was like in the center of things, it
would have been very difficult to get around the logistics of things closing off and all
that and security and all that.
But I did really have my sights set on going.
And my message to Republicans was going to be fundamentally they believe in less government.
So how are they possibly, how is that possibly consistent with increasing the bailout, the
corporate welfare for the animal agriculture industry?
And if they really believe in less government, then doesn't it make sense to cut those subsidies?
The problem with that is that we actually do believe in subsidies, but not the kind
that benefit that industry.
We'd like to see them shifted to incentivize plant-based agriculture and proteins.
So I still think though, I honestly think that our message, our primary populist message
at Free From Harm is that hardworking Americans should not be bailing out an industry for
the problems that they have created, whether it be disease crises like bird flu, or whether
it be pollution, the pollution of climate chaos that they contribute to, that it's not
our problem.
We didn't create this problem.
And therefore a $256 billion industry should be financially held accountable for the problems
that they create.
And I feel that we asked a lot of people at the DNC, but I feel like if we had gone to
the RNC and we asked a lot of different people that question, do they think hardworking Americans
should be responsible for those problems, financially carry the burden?
I believe a lot of people would have said, no, it doesn't make sense.
We shouldn't be paying for that.
I think across the political spectrum, that populist message resonates with people.
And that's one of the reasons why we chose it.
Robert, this is music to my ears.
Because I feel like so many vegans are, I guess there's this natural inclination to
being on the left, to being leftist liberals, call it whatever you want.
And so with that comes a certain hesitation to try to promote veganism among a conservative
audience.
And I find it truly, again, this word disappointing, because they're also part of the problem.
And so we should be trying to gain them in our camp as a way.
But you mentioned how you were anti-establishment.
Could you elaborate on that, and how we should stop looking at animal rights or veganism
as being a left-wing issue?
Sure.
Yeah, when I think of anti-establishment, I'm meaning that the establishment, whether
it's Democrats or Republicans, there's essentially very little difference in the way that the
system operates.
And yes, it's true.
I get into this with one of my friends, and she's a great legal mind and activist, that
the Republicans certainly accept a lot more lobbying money and contributions to their
campaigns from the animal ag industries than the Democrats do.
But isn't that an argument in itself for doing more activism directed to Republicans?
Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm exposing the corruption, regardless of what party is engaging in that and destroying
representative government.
Yeah, that's what I mean by anti-establishment.
I would do what we're doing if the only reason was that it's important for us to exercise
our freedoms and rights to protest, to speak.
And if we don't use those freedoms and rights, that they could easily be taken away from
us.
For that reason alone, we should be doing what we're doing.
Not to mention, obviously, we're doing it for animals, we're doing it for the planet,
and any other cause that benefits that I believe there's many other causes that actually benefit
from the work we do.
But if only for that reason, people that say, well, isn't it just a waste of time?
They're never going to change.
The question has so much privilege embedded in it.
It's basically ignoring the fact that any rights and freedoms that we have today were
hard fought by activists of other generations that we aren't even honoring.
We're not even recognizing the work that they did and the results that they achieved.
And we're just benefiting from the fruits of their labor.
And then we have the audacity to criticize those of us today that are trying to make
change.
And the other thing that I love is that no one has any problem with going out on the
street and talking to people about veganism or animal rights.
But as soon as you get into the spaces of power, all of a sudden, everybody's questioning,
well, why are you doing that?
And it's like, but they don't give that kind of scrutiny to any other kind of activists.
I don't get it.
I don't get it either.
Another pertinent point that I don't see represented often in all of this public discourse
around animal rights is how big ag is a threat to our democracy.
You talked about this secret hidden chicken comedy.
You talked about the lobbyists and then how you can't access your senator to talk about
this important issue that has a great impact on our health, on public health, on the lives
of so many workers, if we stay on the human centering plane.
So could you maybe represent that point, that argument of how big ag is really this enormous
threat to our democracy?
Yes.
I would like to, on that note, I have to credit a book that is recent.
It's called Barron's, Poland, Money, Power and the Corruption of America's Food Industry.
It was released on March 26th, 2024.
And it was written by an investigative type reporter guy.
His name is Austin Frerich.
And I follow his Twitter feed.
He does a lot of really incredible investigative work into this industry and just how this
whole system works between this whole lobbying game, how these trade groups set up shop in
Washington DC and have these lavish parties.
I was able to confirm what he is writing about because we have seen it for ourselves.
The meat industry, the trade groups, the egg industry, the dairy, they have these lavish
parties at these members only clubs.
And they have the power and access to the most powerful people in government, inviting
them to speak, whining and dining them.
And limousines pull up, the armored cars pull up, these people come in and out.
But they have no time for advocacy groups like us.
And what he wrote in this book confirms the experiences we've had.
No access without creating access.
It's the only way is creating access for ourselves.
And I tell people that phone calls and emails from no matter how many hundreds, no matter
how many thousands are never going to be enough.
And protesting even on the sidewalk has this perception, this public perception of us being
on the outside of power.
Whereas when we get into the spaces of power, we are physically present.
And the perception is that we are reclaiming the power and that we consented to others
to govern us and that we're no longer okay with this relationship, the social contract.
And so being in that space, that physical space and seeing, looking at these people
face to face and speaking to them face to face is incredibly important for the optics
of the activism, I think.
Yes, I mean, I wouldn't put it, I don't know how to put it in a better way than you just
did.
And, you know, of course, I will add a link to the book in the description for people
who want to check it out.
You make me want to purchase the book.
I think I will get it.
I think that's for sure.
I will get it.
You're incredibly fearless for doing this.
How did you get so brave, you know, to just speak up in a room filled with people who
are completely opposed and have interests, including monetary interest in being against
what you're pushing?
Well, that's very kind of you to say.
Let me first say that I don't think that I'm, I mean, I do agree that it does take
certain amount of mental preparedness and psychological orientation and courage to speak
truth to power and get into these situations.
But I also recognize that some activists have taken far greater risks and made far bigger
sacrifices than I have.
So I'm very much humbled by some of the things that I've seen.
Like I'll give you an example.
There's a group called the Fearless Grandmother Society.
I think that's their name.
Oh, the Society of Fearless Grandmothers.
And I came across some video workshops of theirs and I was really moved by what they
were doing.
Their mission is to put their bodies in front on the line in a roadblock or in other situations
where there's risk to protect everyone else because they're the mothers, they're the grandmothers
that are expected to play that protective role in society.
And I thought that was incredibly powerful and brave.
They're putting their bodies on the line in some cases.
And to me, that's much further evolved than what I'm doing in terms of, you know, speak
outs or disruptions.
So I want to honor that because I think there's definitely levels of risk and sacrifice that
people are making and putting their lives at risk.
Like you know, all the time and all over the world that often don't get any recognition,
by the way.
Again, most of us privileged people think that, you know, we don't recognize the sacrifices
that other activists make and how it contributes to the freedoms that we enjoy and the lifestyle
that we enjoy.
And the media doesn't give any attention to them either.
The media, so the media credits the politicians.
So for example, really brief example, after years of really profound activism in the animal
a gay liberation movement with groups like Act Up in New York, all of a sudden one day
the Supreme Court made gay marriage the law of the land.
And Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton all went on record saying that marriage
is between a man and a woman, period, for years.
But when that Supreme Court ruling made the headlines, it was all about making the Supreme
Court the hero of the gay liberation movement, which just be getting married isn't necessarily
liberation.
It just means you can get married.
But anyway, that's a different issue.
But the politicians then said Barack Obama and Bill Clinton said, I've always believed
in gay marriage.
I've always believed in the right to freedom to marry.
And I don't know what you're talking about.
They lied through their teeth and they took credit for something that they didn't they
actually resisted.
And none of the credit went to the activism movements that created that that made that
possible.
So the historical record is basically that the big, powerful people are the ones that
actually enacted that change.
And that's sad because the public will never really know what was behind that.
But it's our job, I think, also to, you know, we got to set the record straight.
The title of my last week's episode that I published was Who the heck should we vote
for?
So let me ask you, Robert, who the heck should we vote for?
Well, that's that's a great question.
I think in our presidential election, I understand people that on the uncommitted side, that's
that there's there's an uncommitted position.
And they're going to use their vote to make a statement or their lack of voting to make
a statement that they don't support either party.
I think that's one way of looking at it.
And then, of course, the mainstream way of looking at it is that we can't let Trump get
reelected.
And so we have to vote for Kamala Harris because it's going to be a tight election and we got
to make sure he doesn't get in.
To me, in the end, I'm not sure that voting matters all that much because both sides,
there's very little distinction between the Republican and the Democratic side.
So for the kind of change that we're looking for, that we say we want, we need a radical
dismantling of the current power structure.
We need new leadership and something very different than we have that neither the Democratic
or Republican parties will ever get close to.
And so if you want to make the lesser of two evils argument, I'm good with that.
I'm not going to argue.
I'm not going to debate that with people because actually that the cause that we're presenting,
we are presenting it to everyone and saying that we think this makes sense to a broad
spectrum of political orientations.
So you want to vote that way or this way.
I'd much rather not see Trump in office.
I think that's probably shared by a lot of people.
But people like Glenn Greenwald and other political pundits are saying, well, he wasn't
really able to do that much.
He's talked a lot about what he was going to do and how it sounded terrible, but that
he wasn't really able to change things all that much.
And maybe he has a point.
I don't know.
Although he did get a lot of Supreme Court judges that he wanted in there.
So that's something.
And on a more uplifting note, what was the most enjoyable interaction you had with one
of those politicians who hide from the sun to do their dark farm related business?
What was the funniest moment?
Or is that what you're?
Yeah, I have to say that we've disrupted the USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack.
For those that don't know, the USDA is the United States Department of Agriculture, and
it's a cabinet position that is appointed by the president.
Tom Vilsack was previously a dairy industry lobbyist before he spent 13 years as the USDA
Secretary, the most powerful person in agriculture, you could say.
We've disrupted him about four times.
And every time he says something like, isn't it great that we live in a democracy where
people can say what they want?
And we have this kind of, you know.
And I turned around to him the last one on last Tuesday and I said, you're not kidding
anybody.
Your food system is completely anti-democratic.
It's corrupted by animal industry lobbyists.
And you know it because you are a lobbyist yourself.
So you're not fooling anybody.
And he was appointed by the Democratic Party.
He was appointed by Biden, but he also served under Trump.
I think if I'm not mistaken.
And he also served prior to that under other Republican administrations.
So these people care about their careers.
They don't care about, yeah, sure.
I'll parrot your Republican agenda or your Democratic agenda.
If it works, I stay in office and I hold onto power.
Yeah, sure.
I can be easily swayed.
But Robert, Kamala Harris uses almond milk in her coffee every morning.
That's what I read on all sorts of medias.
That by all means vote for her.
I think, you know, that reason alone, right?
By the way, we know that Tim Walz is a nightmare.
He brags about being the best shot in Congress.
And then USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said in an interview on Sunday.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Maybe it was last week.
He said that he knows how to Tom Vilsack knows how to put on a plaid shirt and take down
a pheasant and that that was how he could relate to rural America and right wing America.
And that that's why he was such a good pick.
And I thought to myself.
Right.
So pheasant hunting is basically canned hunting where they artificially breed thousands of
pheasant chicks in an artificial hatchery, just like the chicken and egg industries.
They raise them in captivity and then they release them as very tame birds with no survival
skills into hunting grounds to be sometimes these birds are so tame that you they will
not even run when a human runs up to them.
And you'll see these canned hunters actually kick the bird into the air to shoot at them
at point blank range at like five or 10 feet.
And that's considered having a good shot, like being having some kind of shooting skill.
So like when you know about pheasant hunting and you hear something like that, you realize
just how cynical and maligned someone like Tom Vilsack is that he would be willing to
deceive us into thinking that that was some kind of skill and that that's what's going
to make him, you know, brave, looking like a real, you know, strong man or whatever to
the right wing.
And that's pretty, pretty disgusting.
I did not know about that.
I'm not surprised that and without mentioning his ties with the dairy industry.
And let me ask you this question because I'm very curious.
All of those, you know, Democrats, politicians, they all must know a vegetarian and even vegans
in their lives.
Since most vegans and vegetarians are liberals and we know, you know, they have higher degrees
and all of that.
So they're most likely part of that circle of friends or who knows what that composes,
you know, and the community of those people.
So why are those vegetarians and vegans not, you know, going to their friends, their politicians
friends and asking them, you know, what are you doing?
You should know that this is not good.
And, you know, so have you ever thought about that?
Yes.
And I don't claim to know.
But I what I speculate is that what I see on social media and just the chatter that
I hear is that we need to disregard all this until they get elected.
And then we can hammer them for what they said and what they think they're going to
do.
Okay.
I mean, either way, I think it should be out there.
And I think, like you said, we should we should hold people accountable.
I mean, again, it goes back to the, you know, someone's going to come back to the argument
of the lesser of two evils and make that argument.
It's the same kind of argument, though, that people make about like welfare reforms, like
trying to get corporations to go cage free and saying, like, at least it's a step in
the right direction.
But then there's there's a lot of nuances in that because a lot of times it benefits
the corporations.
It gives them the humane base PR move that they need.
And then it's just a pledge.
So they're not even required to be audited and to prove that they actually did adopt
the change.
It's just simply a pledge.
And so they might not do it.
They you know, and I think we should be strong.
You know, we should that's not holding corporation or person accountable in either case.
But if people want to wait until they get elected, OK.
You know, so be it.
Do you think there is a filter?
You know, I'm thinking of vet school, you know, often there is an interview before getting
in the veterinarian school.
And if they discover you're vegan or vegetarian or you have this animal rights inclination,
they will most likely reject you and reject you as a student.
Do you think there is something like that with those political parties that they don't
want anyone who is sympathetic to the animal rights cause or who is surrounded with vegans?
Or, you know, no, I don't know that they.
They're singling out that issue is something to disassociate themselves from necessarily
so much as they are.
Looking to please a wide spectrum of constituencies that have different interests and trying to
juggle their messaging so that they don't piss off one over the other.
And that's the problem with being a politician.
If you choose this profession, which obviously some people need to be, you have to.
You have a lot of special interests to juggle, and I think you have to make some hard choices
about what you really believe in and what you want to see the future to look like.
And you have to listen to constituents, but you also have to make hard decisions that
you think benefit the greater good.
But politicians today are opportunistic and more career driven rather than mission driven.
And so the nature of politics is corrupted by that kind of, you know, narcissistic pursuit
of career over public good.
And that's something that I think getting money out of politics is a key thing to work
on.
It's also something that can align us with so many other movements.
We talked about allies, we talked about finding common ground with other movements.
Well, getting money out of politics could go to such a great length to solve the problem
that we're looking at.
We want animal ag money out of politics.
Other groups want fossil fuel money out of politics or big banks money or pharmaceutical
industry money out of politics.
They all represent this common idea that this is damaging a representative government.
It's corrupting our elected officials that are serving us and we need to take back that
power.
So that's the underlying problem that we're dealing with.
And while most of our movement like that has anything to do with you'll notice that most
of the groups that are working on the farm bill have very specific modest demands.
There's the safe act that they want to pass to protect horses.
And then there's the eats act, the eats act, which is undoing prop 12 in California, which
were modest protections for farmed animals.
They want their all the groups are rallying about how important it is that we stop the
eats act in that language.
But they're not actually addressing the underlying problem, which is money, animal ag money in
politics.
And there's always going to be an eats act.
There's always going to be pernicious type of maneuver by animal ag and their politicians,
their elected Congress people that they're allies to pass anti animal, anti planet, anti
climate mitigation laws and protect their industries.
Will we address this issue of money in politics?
So we need to be really, you know, talking about this much more.
And these groups aren't saying a word about it.
Very true.
Robert, this has been an amazing conversation.
And my admiration for you has increased tremendously.
I wanted to ask, you know, do you have anything more to add before I stop the recording?
I'm good.
I feel like I've my voice is almost shot.
So I think I unless you have more questions, I feel like I'm in a good shape.
Well, let's let's stop here.
Let's stop here.
And please come back to the show.
Truly.
I would love that.
Amazing.
So, Robert, once again, thank you.
Thank you so much for having taken the time to be here.
It was my pleasure and it was great to talk to you.
Thank you everyone for listening.
I kindly invite you to share this podcast with the vegans, you know, let's encourage
more people to take action.
Again, thank you so much for caring.
And I will see you next Tuesday for a new episode.