Thought those on the list might find these two letters from Carl
Phillips
(the Sci-Veg email list's founder/moderator) of interest. Carl's
"resignation letter" is below. The second letter of "parting
recommendations" is coming by separate post. Both reproduced by
permission.

***************************************************************

The open letter below written to the vegetarian community is from Carl
Phillips, founder/moderator of the Sci-Veg email list, and a long-time
vegetarian activist/advocate. Carl has decided to withdraw from what
he
calls "popular vegetarian advocacy," and has offered this "resignation
letter," reproduced here with permission. The original PDF file can be
located at:

http://www.sci-veg.org/phillips/resignationletter.pdf

A separate letter of "parting advice" for veg advocacy in general can
be
located at:

http://www.sci-veg.org/phillips/partingrecommendations.pdf

Hello, Friends et al.

It was my temptation to just not bother with this, because there is
really
no benefit to me from writing it. However, I promised you the story.
Furthermore (and this is a useful general lesson), one should always
take
the time to write a resignation letter when leaving an operation whose
future you are at all concerned about. You letter can often accomplish
more
than months of work, since it is impossible for people to fail to
recognize
that your concern was serious if you are walking as a result of it..
Feel
free to email forward (only) this letter and the postscript analysis
to
anyone you want. Since the people who like to cause trouble have no
compunction about forwarding email without permission, I figure I
should
let those of you who might do something productive with it do so.

Over the course of the last few months, I decided to remove myself
from the
world of popular vegetarian advocacy. As I have stated many times, I
think
the biggest impediment to the expansion of vegetarianism is the public
face
the advocates give to vegetarianism. I find this totally frustrating,
but I
was willing to constructively engage to try to change it. However, I
find
that I can no longer stand to be associated with a community which has
IMO
such poor integrity, and I am increasingly embarrassed about being
part of
that community -- to the point that I basically tried to hide it from
most
of my friends and peers. (I postscript this missive, under separate
cover
(www.sci-veg.org/phillips/partingrecommendations.pdf), with some
observations and suggestions on what to do about this.)

I had often wondered why so many good people who believe in promoting
vegetarianism refuse to have anything to do with popular advocacy.
This
includes most of the decent pro-veg researchers, writers, and
clinicians I
know. Ok, I am a little slow. I picture many of them sitting back
right now
saying, "we tried to tell you, Carl, but you really had to learn for
yourself." [Ironically, shortly after writing this, one of the
aforementioned people called me up and basically said exactly this to
me.
She did reassure me, however, that she and most of the others had had
to
learn for themselves also; it wasn't just me that was unduly
optimistic.] I
did not realize how difficult it was to work on promoting
vegetarianism
without being beaten up by the petty politics of a few dozen (or maybe
hundred) people who don't seem to realize how much bigger the world
is.

For me, the main problem is the one I have talked about repeatedly,
the
woefully bad information disseminated to promote vegetarianism. It is
one
thing that there is simple ignorance out there (though much of it is
fueled
by the truly guilty parties). It is a different matter that people who
should know better continue to offer incorrect and potentially
unhealthy
information, just because they don't bother to learn the accurate
info.
That seems to be the dominant mode. Worst of all are the large
factions
that explicitly say that they don't care that the information is wrong
--
they will say whatever it takes to convince people to be vegetarian.
And
yet that is exactly the response I get every time I try to urge the
use of
correct information, often in so many words. I don't even care so much
anymore about what was my main point for years: that distributing bad
information is self-defeating. I have become much more bothered that
it is
simply ethically wrong.

It is behavior you would expect out of a cult (or, at best, someone
trying
to sell magazines with a sweepstakes offer), not people who claim to
base
their efforts on scientific findings regarding nutrition and the
environment, let alone ethical concerns. I just cannot stand to be
associated with that anymore, even if my association is as the voice
of
reason trying to change it. Such distinctions are lost on most of the
world, who only see me as another one of "them". Furthermore, that
distinction was starting to wear thin in my own conscience and sense
of
intellectual integrity; in my own mind I could only participate for so
long
before I started to feel like I was condoning the behavior.

The secondary problem stems from the childish behavior of the
vegetarian
advocacy community. And, no, I don't mean of a few people within the
community, but of the community itself. I will start with the analogy:
If
you live in a city and get mugged, you really shouldn't pack up and
move
away from there. There are bad people everywhere, and they are always
the
minority. But if you are repeatedly mugged, everyone in town who has
half a
brain knows it is happening and who is doing it, but the community
does not
do anything about it, then it is time to leave. (Recall all the grief
that
New York City got over the famous "I didn't want to get involved"
incident.) My role in the vegetarian community has involved a lot of
controversy. That is fine. If people want to attack what I say, no
matter
how fiercely, or even challenge my wisdom, motives, attitude,
whatever,
that is fine. If others want to support me, join the attack, or refuse
to
have anything to do with the debate, that is fine too. But the
behavior of
certain elements of the vegetarian advocacy community is not limited
to
spirited and potentially constructive debate. It is frequently
cult-like
(at best), and often downright abusive and designed to do nothing to
hurt
people.

There is no shortage of stories about this, ranging from one national
veg
group subjecting some of its volunteers to star chamber "trials" and
then
throwing them out, to farm animal shelters fighting over geographic
turf,
to groups blacklisting of many of the most reputable people around as
speakers because they won't say things that are sufficiently extreme.
Earlier this year, EarthSave International decided they did not like
one
offhand comment I made and so started a massive nationwide email
conversation about me, with the goal of excommunicating me from the
organization (I don't know if they used that word, but they might as
well
have). Among the results of this was all the key people involved with
EarthSave here becoming so sickened by the organization that we shut
down
the Minnesota chapter. This would seem utterly absurd in most realms,
but
in vegetarian advocacy it is de rigor to attack people for not being
quite
the right shade of pink, even when it is highly costly to your
organization
and its members.

These stories suggest a community that is rather unhealthy, and some
of
them suggest a strong lack of integrity. To me, by far the most
damning
statement about the lack of integrity is the attacks on me by Jeff
Nelson
(who runs Vegsource and Veglist). His years of childish and gutless
attacks
on me, my friends, and our employers (as well as various other people
in
non-related incidents) are well documented, so I will not repeat the
chronicle. The frequent advice that I received is that I am above all
of
that and should not respond. Unfortunately, this is only half true and
only
half useful. I agree that I am above it personally and morally, but I
can
only be 'physically' above it if I remove myself from the world of veg
advocacy that is the source of the problem. The wisdom of ignoring
attacks
only works when you are in a community that is willing to stand up and
put
an end to the problem. It makes sense not to respond to the crazy
person on
the street who shouts profanity at you -- the proper feeling is
sympathy,
not anger. But if he starts swinging a bat at your head, ignoring him
is
obviously no longer sensible advice. Pacifism only works in a
situation
where the larger community works to prevent the most egregious
behavior
that might be inflicted on someone. Since the vegetarian advocacy
community
does not live up to that standard, it becomes necessary to either
fight or
just stay away from the streets where the crazy people hang out.

The real problem here is not one or two bad people. Recall the analogy
of
the mugging. Getting attacked is one thing. But the behavior of the
veg
advocacy community in the face of these attacks was simply
unconscionable.
Obviously most of you are not involved in things enough that you
really
have anything to say about it, and that is fine. The problem is that
the
people at the center, who were in a position to do something about
basically said "if I get involved, what is in it for me?" This might
be a
valid answer in a fierce honest argument over policy. It is not an
acceptable reaction to a mugging. Sometimes it is necessary to stand
up for
what is right in some abstract sense, or simply what is best for the
larger
community.

For the case in point, anyone who is not totally (willfully) blind can
see
what is right and what is best for the community. Yet the relevant
people
in the vegetarian advocacy community have failed miserably to stand
up,
either for what is simply right or is best for everyone in the long
run.
Despite vegetarian advocacy supposedly being for some higher Good, or
at
least for the good of vegetarianism, there is a sad unwillingness to
actually stand up and be counted (perhaps for fear of losing ground in
the
trivial politics of the movement?). This has even included a few
people who
should of had some personal loyalty to me and/or owed me a lot of
favors.
Yet sadly enough, even many of these people still lacked the integrity
to
stand up. It is all enough to make you feel like you are back in
junior
high school.

In sum, one of the duties of a functioning community is to police its
own
and take some collective responsibility for their actions. Those in
vegetarian advocacy overtly refuse to take any responsibility for the
misinformation and downright nastiness being spread by their
colleagues.
This is not respectable or responsible behavior, and dooms the
community to
a very poor reputation.

I could fight, but it takes time and energy that I could be using to
make
the world a better place through my non-veg-related work rather than
wasting my time with the petty politics that dominate vegetarian
advocacy.
As I said, I was thinking about not even bothering posting this
letter. It
would take me days to simply catalog the lies that have been told
about me
recently, much less to put together a refutation of them. (It is the
personal version of that informational entropy / war of attrition
thing I
talk about on Sci-Veg.) I know that most of you respect and trust me,
most
of you genuinely don't care about this at all, and a few of you are
intent
on attacking me. The ones in the latter category will not listen to my
story and those in the second category will not even bother to read
it. As
for those in the first group, you know enough about the goings on to
know
that my claims are righteous (and perhaps have come to the same
conclusion
as I about staying away from pop veg advocacy).

It is just too much of a pain in the ass to fight, even though I am
pretty
sure the truth I have on my side would prevail. I have *so* much
better
things to do, and no one in my real world (i.e., coworkers, friends,
professional colleagues -- including those involved with veg stuff)
takes
the criticisms of me even a little bit seriously. Besides, much of
what I
have tried to do on Sci-Veg has been directed at helping people figure
out
what sources of information to believe. For those who don't understand
this
point, one more attempt by me is probably not going to matter. In sum,
no
one whose respect I care about needs to hear my case, and so I am not
going
to present it. People intent on playing junior high school-style
political
games within vegetarian advocacy will say whatever they want,
regardless of
what I show them. There is nothing more to say about it.

I have come to find pop veg advocacy as it currently exists to be a
ethically bankrupt endeavor. It is difficult to see how a cause
supposedly
founded on ethical claims can be anything more than a cult if it does
not
maintain high ethics. But that is not my fight anymore. I hope others
who
have listened to me over the last few years will keep up the fight to
improve the ethics in the community, but I don't envy you the task.

Anyway, I have been removing myself from the world of vegetarian
advocacy
for a while now. The universal reaction from most of the people I
respect
is "I only can't believe that you did not do it sooner." The hardest
parts
about completely removing myself were figuring out what to do wrt my
advising of Vegan Outreach and, of course, Sci-Veg. I was worried that
I
would not manage to get far enough away because I did not want to
abandon
those contributions. I am taking recent events as a gift from God to
make a
clean break possible. Matt Ball of Vegan Outreach obviously made the
first
of these a lot easier for me -- it is not too difficult to lose your
desire
to help someone when they start broadcasting your private email and
writing
lies about you (even when those lies are pretty transparently someone
else's dictation).

As for Sci-Veg, it seemed like a shame to gather together by far the
best
collection of experts in the fields and then just dissolve it. One of
the
purposes of the list in the first place was as a research list which
attracted people working in the relevant fields. It has never quite
been
able to serve that purpose because of the high traffic, so much of
which
was oriented toward advocacy issues or "I am a new vegan and want to
know..."-type questions. The latter of these are a shame to not be
able to
answer, but we cannot be all things to all people. More generally, I
feel
bad about no longer providing a forum for the constructive but less
formal
discussions for which Sci-Veg was really the only outlet. I guess the
best
I can say there is that I have demonstrated that it can be done and
have
shown how to do it. All it takes is someone else with the time and
courage
to put up with doing it.

Anyway, I was exploring the possibility of changing format sometime in
the
near future when events overtook me and I decided to just go ahead and
do
it. Changing format when I changed service providers seemed like the
easiest thing to do. So why the new service provider for Sci-Veg? The
old
provider, Matt Mackall (b.k.a. [log in to unmask]) who runs waste.org
was
involved with the founding of Sci-Veg and is involved in vegetarian
advocacy. Indeed, he was the one who started the conversation that
lead to
the creation of Sci-Veg. I very much appreciate the help he has given
me,
but he has not been substantively involved with Sci-Veg for quite a
while.
Nonetheless, some combination of a highly-incomplete observation of
recent
conversations and some (presumably misleading) complaints from the
outside
lead him to physically seize control over the Sci-Veg list. I had no
warning about this, and he did not so much as ask me what was going on
before locking me out. I don't know exactly what he thinks happened or
who
he is listening to, and I don't much care to bother to figure it out.
He
asked (demanded, I suppose, given that he thought he was holding my
list
hostage) that I explain my side of things to his satisfaction. As I
said
above, I have little doubt that I could make my case but, you know, I
just
don't care to do so anymore. Moreover, I had no intention of standing
for
interrogation or defending myself against the attacks on me (a
combination
of absurd claims and misrepresentative betrayals of my trust, neither
of
which I will dignify with an answer -- I am not going to participate
the
"blame the victim" game by defending myself)..

Basically, I chalk this up to him being yet another victim of the lies
and
harassment and I feel no animosity about it (though I am disappointed
by
the apparent naivety). But the obvious thing to do was to just move on
to
someplace that was completely untouched by the ugliness of the veg
advocacy
world, as well as finding a service provider who does not have a
mistaken
impression about who runs Sci-Veg. (Yes, I make no apologies for
flatly
stating the obvious, that Sci-Veg is run by me. It is what it is (and
was)
because of me. This is not a big surprise -- someone has to be in
charge of
a project, whether it is a mailing list or a lemonade stand, though
some in
the veg community can't seem to figure this out. This is not to say
that it
exists _for_ me or because of me _only_, of course. Nor is it
something
that I think gives me any bragging rights or is any defining
characteristic
of my life. Mostly it is just something that someone needed to do and
I
happened to be the one who could do it (in the wrong place at the
wrong
time, I suppose).)

As I mentioned in the welcome message from Onelist, you were, last I
knew,
still subscribed to the waste.org account, and I don't know what has
happened to it. I have no physical control of it anymore. I trust the
people at waste.org have just shut it down, but I can't be sure. (Hey,
maybe someone else will put together something that really works and
relieve me of the job of providing the list. I can dream, can't I?)

One last thing about the old Sci-Veg list. I will keep the email
addresses
of everyone subscribed to [log in to unmask] as of when it changed
format,
since I know that many of you will probably be less interested in the
new
list format and unsubscribe. If I become aware of new resources with
Sci-Veg quality and topicality, I will let you (and current
subscribers to
Sci-Veg, of course) know about it. Rest assured that I will not share
the
list with anyone, sell it to advertisers, etc. If you would like to
add a
different address to the list I am keeping, just send it to me. Thank
you
for all of your support with Sci-Veg and my other efforts. (To the ton
of
you who have written me personal notes since the Onelist list came up,
I
hope to be able to answer you all, but it might take a few weeks.)
Sci-Veg
has been a very worthwhile project for me. I have learned a lot and
have
hooked up with several great collaborators and coauthors. Furthermore,
I
have made lots of friends, including a climbing partner and S.O., so
what
more could I ask for? :-)

Despite that, though, these efforts keep me in contact with the vast
majority of the unpleasant people I have to deal with in my life, as
well
as the only people I ever deal with that I consider, without
hyperbole,
evil. I deal with lots of people in lots of different communities,
including some that were formed around people working for strongly
opposing
goals. I am sad to report that of all the groups of people I deal
with,
vegetarian advocacy is the one that is so miserable to be a part of
that I
won't do it anymore. Every day that passed following the lockout of
the old
Sci-Veg list, days in which I had no dealings with the veg
advocacy/internet world, dramatically brightened my outlook on life.
Dealing with the people that brought me in contact with was by far the
least pleasant aspect of my life (ranking somewhere below commuting or
shaving). Indeed, I am so happy about not having to deal with the veg
advocacy community anymore that I have found it hard to summon up the
harsh
words that this letter required. (Kind of the opposite of writing a
letter
under the influence of anger -- writing under the influence of joyous
indifference.)

This is a very sad commentary about the chances of keeping good people
involved with anything relating to vegetarianism. It is especially sad
since the fact that I am sending this out testifies that there are
tons of
you whose company I would like to share. Unfortunately a community is
not
defined by its best elements but by the behavior of the whole, which
is
different from the sum of the parts. This community really needs to
get its
house in order if that whole is really going to contribute to making
the
world a better place. Thanks again. Talk to many of you later.

--Carl

Carl V. Phillips, MPP PhD
Sci-Veg Moderator and Founder
September, 1999, St. Paul, Minnesota