John Robbins: A Hero of Truth, A Voice of Love
One of my most beloved lifelong heroes died yesterday. John Robbins transformed not only my diet (into vegetarianism and veganism) but he transformed my entire way of thinking about myself and my relationship with plant earth. John was a man who not only taught but who truly embodied speaking truth to power.
John is the son of Irv Robbins and the nephew of Burt Baskin, founders of Baskin-Robbins ice-cream, and John was heir to the empire. However, when as a university student he saw the way that the dairy cows on the farms were treated, he told his father that he didn’t want any part of this dirty business of violence and harm. He moved to an island off of Canada where he and his wife Deo lived for about 10 years. In his own words, “We knew what to say no to, but we didn’t yet know what to say yes to.”
When he came back, he posed as everything ranging from a journalist for Poultry Today magazine to a student of agriculture in order to gain access to the meat and dairy farms across the US. In a pre-smart phone or hidden spy camera era, no one suspected his true intention and he walked away with interviews, data and photographs of the unspeakable violence in the way the animals are treated. In his award-winning Diet for a New America, he revealed not only the pain and violence of animal agriculture but also the environmental impacts. This was 1987, long before everyone knew about climate change and long before the relationship had been established between what we eat, what we wear and what we buy and our rapidly dwindling water resources and food resources on the planet. John was the first one to bring the inextricable link between the meat industry and environmental destruction into the public eye.
I met John during my junior year at Stanford in 1991. I was 19. I had been a vegetarian already for four years and had not only read Diet for a New America several times cover to cover but had given copies to everyone I knew. After John’s lecture people lined up to get their books signed. I had not thought to bring my copy to the lecture but I lined up anyway. When I got to the front of the line, the only words that came out of my mouth were “Can I give you a hug?” “of course,” he said. After giving him a huge hug I said, “I want to be part of anything you do.” “Come volunteer with me this summer,” he said. I cancelled my summer plans and spent two months in the redwoods of Santa Cruz volunteering for his organization EarthSave and with his son Ocean who had just founded Youth for Environmental Sanity.
But John was so much more than a warrior for the environment , the animals and the planet. He was a warrior for truth and love. He showed how powerful simply standing in truth can be. He showed that truth without love isn’t effective at bringing change. Through that loving truth and truthful love he brought about a revolution in the way so many of us thought about eating.
But John’s legacy is about so much more than food. He showed us how to stand in truth. He showed us the power of love over money!
John dedicated his entire life to unearthing and then sharing the deepest truths around the meat industry, big pharma, longevity and so much of the way we are indoctrinated and brainwashed. He showed that we have the power to choose and to choose with love.
When John was five, in the 1940s, he contracted polio and, by God’s grace, healed and survived. But several years ago he discovered that he had Post Polio Syndrome and that he would lose first the use of his legs and then his life.
I’ve had the great blessing of seeing him several times during these last few years and although his body has gotten sicker, his mind has gotten even clearer. He embraced death with the same presence, the same openness and the same humble curiosity with which he embraced life. He showed us how to live consciously, and he showed us how to die consciously.
Today, as immigrants are torn from their families, as children are ripped out of parents’ arms by federal agents in my hometown of Los Angeles, as a California State Senator is thrown to the ground and handcuffed for asking a question in a press meet, as peaceful protestors are beaten and gassed in the streets I grew up in, I find myself even more acutely and painfully aware of the gaping hole in righteous leadership that John’s passing has created. I remember a political rally back in the 1990s where John took the stage right after a high-ranking California government official. The political leader had filled the audience with anger and outrage as catalysts for action. However, when John walked slowly and peacefully onto the stage, he said, “There is a lot of truth in this hall. But there is not a lot of love. Let’s see if we can bring some love into this hall.” May that power of truth meets love and love meets truth ripple outward and may it become the foundation from which we live, choose and rule.
John and Deo have a sign outside their home that says “May all be fed, May all be healed, May all be loved.” Today, that is my prayer and also responsibility to not only remember what John taught, but to embody what John taught.
