"Vegan Batgirl" Connie Spence, Part 2 of 4: The Giant Spotlight

In today’s program, Connie walks us through the history of the food system and politics in the US – more specifically, how the system is “rigged” to undermine the law of supply and demand in favor of the livestock industry.

“I started checking the USDA numbers to see how many animals we saved, because some of my messages with the Batman Light would say, each person can save 100 to 200 animals a year by not eating them.”

To her surprise, Connie found out that the livestock raising business had continued to expand, all the while raising and killing more animals. “And what I found out is basically that the production keeps increasing, and I'm like, this can't be the case every year. I started looking at losses, and there are a lot of years with reported losses, a lot of losses in money on headlines. But then, sequentially, you'll find a headline talking about the bailout.”

“But the sad truth is that our tax dollars bailing them out, is in direct competition with your consumer dollars. Yeah, this is a great segue to where this activism changed course. And I realized that I can't just focus on consumer behavior. Because the Farm Bill is a great example of a bill that undermines our veganism because it helps and supports, so drastically with our taxes, the agriculture system – not the agriculture system – specifically, livestock and dairy.

We must change the way our taxes are being used. It's thievery in my opinion. I am so consciously making sure that my shoes aren't leather, my purses aren't leather, that nothing on me or in my house exploits an animal. But then your taxes are taken out, 20 to 40% of them every year and it's going to do the opposite of what your intention was, and all those animals you thought you were saving… they're just saying: ‘Hey, we have your taxes.’

We have to create a channel of communication to politicians; we have to make our demands; and we have to hold them accountable. We can't do that by holding a sign outside. Activism augments our lobbying demands.”