- Hey!
- My name is Jake! I am an anarchist person of color, anti-facist, feminist and animal liberation advocate. Anarchism is the most important underlying principal of my political philosophy as it influences all my ideologies; it gives me the framework to analyze multiple forms of oppression in which consideration is taken for all living things. The overlap of anti-authoritarian politics in many different issues is part of my mindset simply because I do not think you can be an anarchist if you are not a feminist, you can not be for earth liberation if you are not willing to deconstruct the systems of oppression that perpetuate its destruction, you can not fight for animal liberation without fighting the coercion and oppression present under capitalism. I seek to destroy all forms of oppression, not limited to humans, while recognizing my own privilege. Seeing all forms of oppression as connected is particularly important to me(and all of us at BWM) because I stride for total liberation. Single issue politics posses inherent weaknesses due to their inability to look root causes, and because under that frame we are unable to address other aspects of oppression present in our lives.
- I am originally from Southern California but currently live in Portland, OR. I spend most of my spare time taking care of two cuddly puppies, riding my bike, or drinking coffee. I am extremely excited to be part of Because We Must and contribute an anti-authoritarian perspective to the topics of animal, humyn, and earth liberation. For Total Liberation! Because We Must!!!
- xoxo Jake!
Salutations,
My name is Justin. I wish to see the end of the human empire, with all of externalities manifesting as the various forms oppression we seek to destroy. Our imperialism on this planet is the abhorrence of all existence. I will be writing about ecological freedom and dignity, as those concepts establish themselves in various philosophical, social, scientific and political discourses.
I consider myself an egalitarian but do not subscribe to a single political identity. I am not an anarchist (although I often support anarchist movements or tactics), as I believe that anarchist schools of thought are inherently rooted in anthropocentrism. I hope this creates diversity among a fairly politically myopic movement, and that various political ideologies (excepting those that are oppressive, discriminatory or unjust) are welcome in an environment of dialectical process.
My interests: Animal tracking (especially wolves), plant (especially conifer tree) identification, mushroom identification, survivalism, books (sociology, economics, political theory, moral philosophy, political memoirs, political journalism, revolutionary strategy, theoretical physics, ecology, biology, geology), tree climbing, backpacking, maps, vasectomies and over-priced food.
I organize with regional (guess which region) animal rights and environmental organizations, and work with social and political justice groups, particularly on the issues of prisons, political prisoners, and feminism.
~Justin
Hi Folks,
I believe in total liberation. I want to better connect ideas of human, animal, and earth liberation to create a more unified radical movement. I think it’s really important that we work towards stretching the traditional ideas that humans are at the top. As radical thinkers, we should work towards ending any hierarchal notions. I want to end domination and exploitation in all forms- not just a few. As a vegan feminist lady, I hope to illuminate the interconnectedness of the oppression of women and the oppression of non-human animals. I do, however, recognize my privilege as a white, middle class, mostly heterosexual person and hope that you all can bear with me as I grapple with that.
My name is Rylee and I currently live in Portland, Oregon. I take classes at the university here and study things like Lesbian Literature, Social Change, Minorities, Spanish, Elementary Education, Queer Studies, Black Feminism and so on. I work really hard to push myself out of my comfort bubble to better understand systems of oppression that I am less familiar with. I work at a collectively run café cooking vegan food for students. I’m currently working on a radical-themed embroidery series that I’m really excited about. Two friends and I are working on a zine that focuses on the role of men in feminism. I love lemonade and knitting and sleeping. I have been reading a lot. Fall is the best season. I like pumpkin baked goods more than anything in the whole world. If you’re in Portland, let’s be friends.
Let’s do this. Because We Must.
Hello everyone,
I am a self-taught computer scientist. I’ve been doing that for about 10 years. My specialty is low level programming and computer security. I’ve been vegan for 6 years and I volunteer as an organizer for an animal rights group in the town I live in.
I will be writing about computer security tactics, current events related to computers and their security, and I will be posting tutorials to help activists stay safe.
As activists, we feel it is important to know defensive strategy when working online or on a computer in general. I feel most activists naively use computers to conduct their research and set themselves up for compromise. It is my goal to help change this and start a movement of activists that can detect fundamental vulnerabilities early.
Well, my cats are hungry and are begging to occupy my bed, so I will leave you with the promise that I will help you use a computer securely. Word.
Hey Ya’ll!
I am very excited about this website, and very excited about how awesome this blog is going to become. My name is Jeff, but I will be posting under the name ‘BWM’ (Because We Must). For the last 6 years (or so), I have been blogging, and running the website veganTHIS.org. VeganTHIS was a website dedicated to all things vegan & animal liberation. It was a fun ride, but my politics don’t stop at animal liberation. I felt like I needed to build a site that was a perfect blend of my politics, and the politics of the people who I organize and work with. If you try to go to the site, you’ll notice that it now directs you to Because We Must. This new website is going to be everything I wanted veganTHIS to be and a lot more. This means the site will be focusing on all things social justice, and the people who make the movements up. I am very excited for this organization to grow, and I hope you enjoy watching, and helping us grow. Now that you have the ‘deets’ about the transition, I feel like you should know a bit about me.
Although I have been vegan for quite sometime, before I was on the streets fighting for animal liberation, I was on the streets fighting for human liberation and the rights of working migrant people. I grew up in southern california, home to the racist vigilante group known as the minutemen. As a teen that grew up in the punk scene, myself, along with friends felt that it was our duty to counter the actions of the minutemen. The main course of action of the minutemen was to protest day-labor sites where working people get picked up by folks looking to hire some manual labor. They would try to scare the employer into not hiring an ‘illegal-alien’ by telling them lies of jail or prison time. We would dumpster food, and bring the food to day labor sites for the workers to bring home to their families, we attended city council meetings to show our support for day laborers, and counter the (also present) minutemen. We showed up at every event, or location the minutemen were at. Sometimes it got very confrontational, even physically violent, but we knew we had to do it. We worked with the day laborers, and other local indigenous rights groups, outnumbering the minutemen 50-1 and effectively shutting the minutemen down at nearly every demonstration. As of right now, the minutemen are so burnt out and beat that they are barely functioning, and this means they are not accomplishing anything.
This struggle is only one of the examples of what sort of info I will be discussing. I will be all over the board, as my passion for liberation is everywhere.
I put in the same effort in fighting for the rights of the people, then I do to fight to give animals the rights they deserve.I fight as hard for the people as I do to keep the forests standing as they should be. ¿por qué? Porque Debemos!
