June
1995
The Satya Interview:
Living with a Common Cause
By Erica Lyon
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Andrew Greenblatt is the Executive Director of the New York State
Chapter of Common Cause. Common Cause is a national non-partisan,
non-profit
citizen’s lobby that focuses on government reform issues. Andrew
is a summa cum laude graduate of the State University of New York
at
Albany and a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. Recently,
Andrew was listed in the Daily News as one of the “100
Rising Stars in New York City.”
Q: What are some of the issues Common Cause is working on currently?
A: Common Cause generally works on three different
types of issues. The first is opening up the government to make it
more
accessible to people. This year we are trying to get C-Span set up
for New York State. For example, New York State has just reintroduced
the
death penalty for the first time in decades. I think the citizens
of New York should have been able to see that debate going on in
their
homes. Unfortunately, they couldn’t — not because the
technology isn’t available but because the State legislature
has never allowed cameras into the chambers before. I think that
is wrong.
The second area we’re working in concerns ethics laws. This year
we are trying to get the state legislature to ban gifts from lobbyists.
Right now we have this curious law where you can give a gift of any
amount to a legislator, but if it is worth more than $75 you have to
show that this was not an intent to buy votes. If it’s less than
$75 it can be an attempt to buy votes! I think that may make us the
only state in the union that legalizes bribes to politicians: as long
as it’s small enough. So we’re trying to get an outright
ban. It’s kind of crazy that every other American understands
that a gift from a stranger comes with strings attached; politicians
try to claim it doesn’t.
The third area we’re working in is what I broadly call electoral
reform. This includes things like voter registration and campaign finance
reform — where we try to get some of the big money out of the
campaigns in order to give candidates fair access to the ballot. Our
goal this year is to get the campaign finance information computerized.
Right now all that information is just kept in file cabinets in Albany
and if people want to know how much Donald Trump gave to a candidate
last year they literally have to go to Albany and leaf through thousands
of pages looking for his name. In the twentieth century we can do better
than that kind of “horse and buggy” technology. We are also
trying to make sure that last year’s motor-voter laws are implemented
properly. So far we have registered over 100,000 new voters in New York
State. So voter registration looks pretty good so far. However, the
budget Governor Pataki has proposed doesn’t have enough money
in it to do proper oversight in places like welfare agencies: we
are
attempting to get that money back in the budget.
Q: Does being a vegetarian tie into your political
work? Was it a political choice in the beginning?
A: The short answer is yes: it certainly does tie
into the work I do. I became a vegetarian for a number of reasons.
One of
them clearly was a sense — and this feeling has become more powerful
the longer I’ve been a vegetarian (which I’ve been for almost
four years now) — that it’s just not right to kill
something because you like the way it tastes. In weighing the plusses
and minuses of being a vegetarian, it’s not good for the environment,
and simply to kill something because it pleases your palate is wrong.
In my mind the feeling that we and our pleasures are somehow more important
than the life of something else exists in the same kind of continuum
as racism, sexism and the ideology that allows us to go to war with
other countries. The political activism I do is in the same kind of
continuum — it’s not right for someone to be able
to control the political process because of their money or their
own self-interest,
and the sense of community that leads me to be a vegetarian is the
same sense of community and responsibility to my fellow human beings
that
has led me to become a political activist.
Q: You were in law school when you became a
vegetarian. How did you reconcile the mainstream corporate law aspect
of yourself and the other part of yourself that was working towards
public interest work and being a vegetarian?
A: I never reconciled it. I was never on the corporate
law track when I was in law school. A lot of people from Harvard
are;
although a very small number of Harvard Law graduates, about 4%,
leave and go work for a non-profit. From the very beginning in some
ways I
stood out as being that “lefty nut.” In one of my first
weeks in contract law we spent 45 minutes trying to help a company essentially
break its word. The company had agreed to do something orally but had
never signed a contract; subsequently it had got a better offer from
another company and wanted to get out of the deal it had cut with the
first company. It was infuriating to me that here we were, some of the
brightest people I’d ever met in my life, and all 145 of us had
just spent collectively three-quarters of an hour of our lives trying
to help one company screw another. I raised my hand and told them what
I felt — pretty much just like that. That ruffled a few feathers,
and quickly had me pegged as that left-wing nut.
So I was never under very much pressure to sell out, because there
was a great expectation from the beginning that I was going to be
one of
the 4%. It was difficult in other ways, however; being in a place
that could do so much for the world, and seeing some of the best
and the
brightest’s talents wasted. When I was there my brother asked
me if I was glad I was going and I told him, “I will be glad
that I went.”
Q: Do you advocate for other people to become vegetarian? Do
you use the argument that more people would be fed if the world was
vegetarian?
A: I am not a strong advocate of the vegetarian
lifestyle. First, for social reasons, I don’t want people judging me and
I choose not to judge them. I do try to lead a life in a way that I
hope will set some examples as I look to others to set examples for
me. And to that extent I advocate my vegetarian lifestyle through letting
people know I’m a vegetarian. If they ask I’m quick to
explain why. I do think that there is an ethical component to being
a vegetarian.
Part of it we have discussed with the political things but I do think
the second and more powerful ethical argument comes from Kant.
Q: In what way?
A: Kant said you should act in such a way that you
would want everyone to act — a variant of the golden rule,
right? It’s a little more complicated. When it comes to be a meat-eater,
the fact of the matter is that many people make the argument that if
we didn’t eat meat we could redistribute the grain. I don’t
think that would happen. We already let food rot in warehouses. I don’t
believe just having more rotting food would solve the problem. However,
I am sure of one thing, and that is that if everybody on earth consumed
as much meat as the average American, the earth simply could not maintain
that much grain production. So it’s not that we need to eat less
meat to feed people; but rather that the whole world simply cannot live
the way we do. By consuming that much meat we are saying it’s
okay for me to act this way as long as you don’t. It’s the
same as when, before we banned CFCs, we tried to convince the Chinese
not to build so many refrigerators. If the average rice-eater said,
“Hey, I like the American diet I’m going to eat that much
meat too,” this planet would not make it one more generation.
As far as I’m concerned the ethical component is that we have
an obligation to act. I think if anybody understood the damage that
would happen to the planet if we all ate as much meat as the average
American does he or she would have to see the hypocrisy in his or
her
stand.
Q: Does being a vegetarian play a part in your
spiritual life?
A: I have a weak spiritual life. (Laughs) I am an
atheist. I really don’t believe in God. I don’t think people who
do are wrong; but I have never made the leap of faith necessary to believe
in any kind of spiritual power at all. For me, what gives life meaning
is other people, and at some level I think that being an atheist puts
a higher burden on you to act in an ethical way. If you believe in God,
if worse comes to worse, God will be the judge. But if you do not believe
in God, then there is no higher judge than you — and if you are
not ethical there’s nothing out there to save you as a person.
I once talked to a very religious friend of mine who didn’t understand
how I could be so ethical being an atheist. I asked him how he could
expect others to be ethical if they thought God would come in and save
us all at some point. My spiritual life, therefore, revolves around
being a part of others, of community, and of people: being a vegetarian
has been very much a part of that. It is very much a part of doing things
that don’t harm others and acting in such a way that you would
like others to act.
If you would like more information about Common Cause, call their toll-free
number: 1-800-300-8707.
Erica Lyon is a vegan and mother of her vegan
baby Christopher. She lives in Brooklyn. nrights activist.
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