THE ANIMAL RIGHTS BY ROGER SHOWYATES In the first months of 2020, the routines of Planet Earth were somewhat disrupted by the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic. Since normal is violent, C-19 disturbed what was normal for humans, for example, willfully damaging the environment with perpetual international transport.
We might think this rather a good thing. Fairly early on in the pandemic, I remember sitting in the garden at the vegan-run Back into Daylight animal sanctuary in Ireland when we noticed how clear and vivid the sky above the sanctuary was. Another effect of the pandemic, amongst tens of thousands of things, was the end of vegan street outreach which, in the case of The Vegan Information Project and Vegan Educa96
FORÇA VEGAN
tion on the Go in Dublin was our regular activities, three times a week for 11-12 hours per week. When the strict lockdowns associated with the pandemic began, animal advocates, like many others such as musicians, began to concentrate on online events such as conferences and what was to become virtually daily Zoom events. And so, the barely visible and audible pilot of “The
Animal Rights Show with Jeremy and Roger” was recorded on March 20th 2020, and released on the 26th. By April 8th, we had improved the technology, had brand new fancy pants into and outro videos to top and tail the shows, and we were good to go. Jeremy Hess and I wanted to use The Animal Rights Show to try to explore the idea of rights-based animal rights, especially the ideas associated with Tom Regan the author of The Case for An-
