Good-bye 2017, Hello 2018

2017 has gone, and the paint is still wet on a brand new 2018.

It is usually at this time that we pause to reflect on the year gone by, and set plans for the year to come.

Sadly 2017 was the year that Tom Regan passed away.

The world has lost one of the genuine pioneers of the animal rights, and vegan movement.

Despite not knowing him personally, I will always be indebted to him for the impact that he has had on my advocacy and understanding of animal rights.

If you are making a list of things that you want to do this year “for the animals”, please make sure that reading one of his books is at the top of it.

Most Read Posts

The most popular post for the year was:

The Truth About The Movie ‘Lucent’:

Despite being written in 2014, it is still regularly read by visitors to the site.

#2: Review: “How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach” by Tobias Leenaert
There were three articles about the misnomered vegan strategist that made it into the top 10. This review of his book was the most popular for the year.

#3: What’s Wrong With The Vegan Strategist?
This piece highlighted some of the confusing parts of his “strategy”.

#4: Why I Won’t Be Voting For The Animal Justice Party. And You Shouldn’t Either
Another piece from 2016 that made it into 2017’s list. This one was the most popular of my the pieces that I wrote about the Animal Justice Party.

#5: Why Highchester ‘Shutdown’ Was A Failure
Published in November, this piece explained why the Highchester shutdown was a failure for “the animals”.

#6: The Straight Edge Strategist – A Hypothetical
This hypothetical is uses the strategies of the “vegan strategist” though within the context of the straight edge movement.

#7: About That Kiss…
This one would have to take the prize as being the most controversial of the year.

#8: Activists Shut Down Slaughterhouse… For Nothing
My first thoughts on the protest at the Highchester slaughterhouse.

#9: Why Can’t I Eat Backyard Eggs?
An article from 2014 on why vegans shouldn’t be eating backyard eggs.

#10: More Animal Justice Party Lies
In the lead up to the Qld state election, this piece exposed some more of the lies, or misinformation by the Animal Justice Party.

Thoughts On The Year That Was

As a whole, I would have to say that 2017 was a bad year for veganism and “the animals”.

The reducetarian movement gained a foothold in Australia. An unfortunate consequence of a tour and indoctrination campaign by Tobias Leeneart and Melanie Joy.

Those who are worshipped by “the masses” were safe knowing that regardless of what they did, their sins would be forgiven. Simply because they were an “animal person”. (This includes consuming animal flesh and rejecting veganism).

For Me

The year wasn’t as productive for me as I had hoped.

I only managed to publish 23 articles, and two podcast episodes.

My activity on YouTube was worse with only 10 videos published.

Something that did surprise me, was the level of hostility that I received for some of the pieces I wrote. In particular the articles relating to Animal Liberation Queensland, and the Animal Justice Party.

Sadly, it seems that far too many ‘open minded’ vegans are happy to be told what to do and think. It seems that finding the information out for yourself automatically goes in the “too hard” basket.

What’s In Store For 2018?

I did have plans on being a major supporter of a Qld based charity. I decided that was a better option than starting a charity myself. Though with conflicting information coming from that charity, these plans have been put on hold until the matter is sorted.

January marks the launch of the Australian Vegan Party.

This will be an unashamedly vegan political party. I will talk more about that one in a later article.

January or February will also see the launch of the Vegan Motorcycle Club. The aim of this club is to obviously develop a dependable group of people to go for bike rides with. And to encourage people to join, there will be a “club bike” or two for use by members. More information about this one will be released closer to launch date.

Article wise, I do plan on publishing one every few days, and there is a new podcast episode due to be published on Wednesday.

I will also be focusing more on building up GoodVeganBadVegan.com to be a safe place for people to write and publish articles. The antics of social media over the past few months have shown me that is something that is needed.

There are plans for my first book to be published around March.

What it will be about is a secret, those who subscribe to the Vegan Police Gazette will be the first to know. (Yes I know that was a shameless plug, though someone had to do it).

There are more things to come, though for the rest, you will have to wait and see.