JM: Unfortunately, many radicals and leftistspeople who would be nearly ideal allies for animal and Earth liberationistsare hardened humanists. Their anthropocentrism inflicts them with a human-centric myopia that prevents them from recognizing that defending nonhuman animals, the Earth and oppressed humans are struggles that we need to integrate. Many leftists take the position that we need to focus on human suffering and exploitation first and then focus our efforts on animal rights and environmental justice. Why pick and choose which sociopathic tendencies of our species we work to eradicate? We need to go after speciesism and dominionism as tenaciously as we do racism, classism, and patriarchy.
FJS: You're a pretty radical thinker which is great to be. Were you always so radically inclined? Or was there a specific catalyst for your change of perspective; was it a sudden epiphany? For me, the transition from being a good little capitalist to a radical writer and thinker, recognizing the atrocious imbalances intrinsic within the dominant culture's power complex, was a painful experience. Was this the case for you?
JM: No, as in no I've not always been radically inclined. My indoctrination into our planet-murdering capitalist socioeconomic and cultural paradigm was pretty thorough. I spent my first 26 or so years on this planet as an allegiance pledging, money-driven, relatively narcissistic, speciesist, meat-eating, property-worshipping, anthropocentric, NFL obsessed good citizen of the American Empire. I didn't flee to my position far from the maddening crowd. I walked at a very slow pace. My evolution to anarcho-veganism was gradual; there was no epiphany. It was painful though in that the catalyst was my self-inflicted descent into spiritual, emotional, social, and financial hell.
Yet hitting rock bottom was the best thing that could've happened, as my intense soul-searching, tenacious struggle to pull myself back from the brink of self-annihilation, and loss of nearly everything and everyone in my life enabled me to shatter the shackles of the dominant culture. I reconstructed my worldview from scratchand it bears little resemblance to that of my inculcation.
FJS: Are you ever castigated as an extremist?
JM: I'm often castigated as an extremist.
FJS: What's your response to this?
JM: My response to this gross mischaracterization is that our planet and animal murdering system is extreme, as are its ardent proponents and its recalcitrant, unrepentant enablers and participants.
FJS: It's so easy to get overwhelmed by today's atrocities and I really like what Derrick Jensen has to say about this, which is: We're so fucked. But life is so good. What makes you most happy? How do you remain grounded despite a surfeit of calamitous problems we face in these times?
JM: Following my conscience, fighting for my core beliefs, and being with nonhuman animals and with people who share my worldview are sources of great happiness for me. I stay grounded by knowing my purpose in life (which is defending nonhuman animals and the Earth as a polemicist, thinker, publisher, and activist) and fulfilling it.
FJS: Who have you been influenced by?
JM: My influences are far too numerous to name without writing a book. As an autodidact and one who is addicted to reading, many people have mentored me in the abstractthrough the pages of their books, but I also have forged my eclectic and holistic worldview with the help of a number of excellent mentors, teachers, and allies. Dr. Steve Best, a leading theorist of the animal liberation movement whom I met several years ago, was my most recent mentor and remains a very close ally and confidante.
FJS: As a writer, I often wonder how significant of a role we (writers) all have in the struggle for emancipating the planet from the fetters of a dominating culture. Can you talk about the importance the role of the writer plays in influencing effective activism?
JM: I'm a bit biased on this topic because I'm a writer too. However, I also engage in on-the-ground activism, so that adds a bit of objectivity to my response. Emancipating the planet and its other sentient inhabitants is a revolutionary undertaking. Polemicists, propagandists, theorists, and philosophers, who are writers of course, have been essential participants in every major revolution and social movement in history. Thomas Paine catalyzed the American Revolution with his widely-read pamphlet, Common Sense. Without Marx, Lenin would've had no philosophy on which to base his praxis. William Lloyd Garrison was instrumental in both the Abolition and Women's Suffrage Movements. There are myriad other examples.
FJS: What role do corporations play in the exploitation and destruction of the world and its inhabitants? What role does the state play in all of this?
JM: The corporate-state complex bears nearly all the responsibility for the exploitation and destruction of the world and its inhabitants. While it's important for individuals to evolve towards anarchist, vegan, and anti-capitalist worldviews and ways of being, the system and its most unrepentant and malevolent overlords are our enemy. Most people have years of indoctrination to overcome in order to evolve, but many can change and join us. Nearly every individual is a potential ally. We need to work to educate and convert individuals while assailing the corporate-state complex, an entity which utilizes pernicious propaganda and hollow materialistic incentives to lure most people to act as accomplices in its profit-seeking, murderous agenda.
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