Call to ACTION

It has been a little while since my last blog post, however, since that time I've co-hosted three demos and attended five more, spoken at Ross Shepherd high-school for a talk with 'Fin Free Edmonton' on the threat facing shark population's and the depletion of bio-diversity in our oceans, as well as co-organized a local animal rights chapter, 'Direct Action Everywhere Edmonton.' For those unaware DxE(Direct Action Everywhere) was started in the bay area in San Francisco about a year ago. It has since grown to 60 cities, and 18 countries that take part in their monthly actions for their, "It's not food, it's violence" campaign. Their main focus is on fast-food chain 'Chipotle'. However, a lot of the cities that take part in these monthly actions don't have a Chipotle in their city, so they focus their attention on other places that normalize the killing of animals for food. We here in Edmonton have focused our attention on local eateries such as 'Meat', and 'The Next Act Pub'. Just recently I took part in the #DisruptSpeciesism challenge at 'Meat'. This is a challenge where an activist or activists along with someone filming, goes into a place of violence and disrupts their meal or their shopping experience, by reciting a quick monologue about the exploitation of animals used for mere pleasure or palate.

Since I posted my video on facebook just over two weeks ago, I've received three-hundred comments, it's been shared over a hundred times, and it has over twelve-thousand views. This shows that not only is the word spreading, but the place of my action had a lot of merrit. You measure the success of an action, or a campaign on the response you get, both negative and positive. And the response has been more than anything I could of ever imagined. It was done to cause a disruption of the 'social norm', and to spark a debate; which it did. Now on the heels of this disruption, a small group of us went back and did a small demonstration outside of 'Meat's sister restaurant, 'The Next Act Pub'. We were there not merely five-minutes when the one of the owner's who co-owns both places came out to ask us why we were targeting his two business. A good chat ensued for around fifteen-minutes, until he abruptly went back inside. Shortly thereafter, he came out a second time and stated "We've called the police, and we're going to charge you with trespassing for coming onto our property a few weeks ago." Now I truly believed that this was just some scare tactic to sway us into leaving, however, surely enough, the police showed up within ten-minutes. We were clearly following the law, as we were on public property, and using our right as citizens in a democratic country to freedom of speech. The officer went over basically everything that we already knew. We did leave shortly thereafter, but I couldn't help but think just how much our presence is being felt. That is why we have chosen these specific places of violence as the main targets of our campaign.

We are creating waves, and we need to carry this momentum forward to our next day of action, and every other action after that. This is where you come in. We are calling you to take action. If you're in the Edmonton or surrounding area, or even as far South as Calgary; we need you. If you're vegan or vegetarian; we need you. We need any and everybody who is against animal abuse, whether that be to a dog or cat, or cow or pig. In the end, it's the same. Abuse is abuse, and violence is violence. If you wouldn't hurt a dog, then why is it okay to hurt and eat a cow? It's not. This is why we are calling YOU to take action and unite your voice with ours, for animal liberation on Sunday Oct. 26th @12:30pm in the afternoon, for our October day of action. Link to event page here. https://www.facebook.com/events/1536352353243897/?ref_dashboard_filter=hosting  We will have placards and signs for everyone. If you have any questions, or concerns regarding the event than please post a comment on the event page, or you can message me privately on my facebook. For more info on DxE, go to www.directactioneverywhere.com

Note: you can view my disruption video on my facebook page. just scroll down. https://www.facebook.com/damian.chao.9

"Until every animal is Free." -DxE


Thanks,

Damian