"But your car isn't vegan?!?!"

Nope, it isn't (unfortunately). Vegan cars are not [yet] widely available. HOWEVER, I do not take the concessions I am forced to make in this world as license to be an exploiter in other areas. Being vegan is about doing the best you can to avoid the suffering and oppression of other sentient beings, including humans. It is not about being perfect, which in this current world is impossible.
(If vegan cars ever become available, I'll be the first in line for one!)

GREAT QUOTE:
"People look at me as a vegan and conclude that since I stepped on a snail or because the vegetables I eat resulted in a tractor death for a squirrel somewhere in Paraguay that somehow vegans are hypocrites, which of course they're not since perfection is an unattainable goal and is something to be driven towards, never actually achieved.

The difference between you and the vegan standing next to you is that while you're both going to step on a bug tomorrow, they've decided to dedicate their lives to do as little harm as possible, completely independent from what you do. So in no way does the protozoan life form they step on negate your responsibility for the lamb you're paying a stranger to cut tomorrow. And falling 1% short of an unattainable goal is really good when you're standing next to someone who won't even try."

- Shelley Williams

Decent People Being Decent

People who know me know I am generally extremely kind and respectful to all, but I am NOT going to manipulate truth and tell people it is OK to be cruel to all beings and destructive to the planet for their own selfish reasons.

Some people only surround themselves with feel-good reassuring stories that largely serve to reaffirm all they already think. I am not like that. I expose myself to sadness and suffering almost every day because there is no better way to effectively help others than to be informed and aware of HOW you can help, to understand what the issues actually are.

I freely admit, at times I feel extremely frustrated with the happy-go-lucky and the unseeing eyes of the majority of society destroying all I love. The ongoing groupthink and self-reassuring smugness can be extremely frustrating when many suffer so much. A large portion of society ignores and denies obvious facts…covering their eyes and ears and claiming to love others while they willingly wreak havoc on all.

So yes, I am sometimes frustrated, maybe at times even angry. It does not come from a desire to be hurtful to anyone. Quite the opposite, it is a reaction to witnessing the harming and being unable to stop it.

Many in society, while blindly ignoring the hurt they cause, express flippant and trite phrases such as "don't worry, be happy" and “live and let live”. These ridiculous clichés are a LUXURY. They are sayings of "I can feed my kids tonight" or “I have shelter over my head and food to eat” or "I'm not in line at the slaughterhouse" – it is a LUXURY to be so able to casually shrug their culpability in the suffering of others in trite meaningless expressions.

No, I don’t think most people are bad, but the importance of one individual’s lifestyle in relationship to global affairs is a subject that few actually consider with any degree of seriousness, despite overwhelming evidence. There are also rare, exceptional people who absorb information and are open enough to give the facts and rational thought due consideration.

If most people were informed and not severely dissonant, I KNOW most would change, I KNOW most want to do good, and I KNOW most have not seriously spent 2 minutes checking any facts on the matter, or giving any thought to why it is not their beloved dog on their dinner plate tonight, or why they would wantonly pollute and squander their future generation’s dwindling water supplies, etc.

Ongoing discrimination to others who we deem ‘less than’ us has not yet ceased. It has not stopped with religion, or color, or sexual orientation. Discrimination and oppression are ongoing, pervasive, violent, shameful, and is harmful to all of us.

If there is one thing I can predict with 100% conviction, is that the majority of us WILL realize eventually. Why do I know this? Because it just makes rational sense – IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT!
 
THE EFFECTS OUR DIET HAS ON A GLOBAL SCALE:

• Land, air, and water pollution
• New diseases such as Swine Flu/Avian Flu
• The rise of new strains of virulent organisms like E. Coli 0157H7
• Excessive chemical/pesticide use
• Antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance/development of superbugs
• Growth hormones and drugs in our food
• Dead zones (areas in waterways with no oxygen content often from farm run-off)
• Deforestation (animal consumption is the leading cause of deforestation)
• Extreme animal cruelty (look at factory farms/CAFOs)
• Loss of biodiversity (such as wolf culling, wild horse round-ups, etc.)
• Organisms in our water such as Pfisteria, Cryptosporidium, etc.
• Human health issues such as cancer/heart disease/the increased cost of healthcare
• Climate change (one of the largest contributor to greenhouse gases)
• Famine (it takes more grain to make animal foods than if you just fed people!)
• Extremely high and inefficient use of natural resources such as land and water
• Farm run-off contaminating our plant foods (such as the spinach recall - the E. Coli did NOT come from the spinach!)
• Thousands of pounds of wasted food from recalls and multiple food poisonings because of poor farming and soil practices, and the unmanageable amount of manure from CAFOs
• The unnecessary death of billions of sentient beings who wanted to live and whose individual lives held value beyond what we could ‘use’ out of them

 

What is impossible? It is impossible for someone to be a decent and moral human being AND take a good look at modern farming and the state of our Earth’s resources and NOT change. THAT is what is impossible. Decent humans WOULD change – if truly decent humans actually decided to be decent.

The Only Way to Be Humane is to Be Vegan

Personally, in years of research and awareness, I have never come across a truly 'humane' farm. A few reasons why:

1. Forced insemination – farm animals do not have sex! They must put their arms inside female animals and impregnate her forcibly.

2. Kidnapping – for cows, after her baby is born they cannot allow the baby to drain her milk. There are two ways mother and calf can be ‘separated’ and both are awful. One is veal crates. The babies are put in these tiny little hutches with very restricted movement (said to keep the meat tender), being fed a watery diet that makes them sick (said to make the flesh ‘paler’ for consumption); OR; they can putting a nose ring on baby that prevents him/her from suckling. The videos of these babies, so desperately wanting their mother’s milk, is quite heartbreaking. Also, it is widely known that when babies are taken from them, mother cows have searched and cried for their baby for days – these mothers love their babies and these actions are a terrible abuse of motherhood!

3. Bodily mutilations without anesthesia (dehorning, debudding, debeaking, branding, castration, mulesing, etc.). Videos are easy to find of these tiny, family-run farms all over the world practicing the most horrific cruelty as if it were just the most normal of things – because, to them, it IS. To me it is CLEARLY just barbaric cruelty. Watch a few videos and decide what you think (will post a few video links at bottom of page).

4. The brutal disposal of unwanted animals: such as veal calves, as already discussed, or the practice of simply ‘disposing’ of unwanted male baby chicks (the egg industry doesn’t need males like they need females, so billions of male baby chicks are destroyed yearly. They do this most often by throwing them in dumpsters or grinding them up while still alive). Baby pigs that are runts or sick or unwanted for whatever reason can legally have their head slammed into a post or floor to kill them – called ‘thumping’, and many still die a slow death after being ‘thumped’ and are simply thrown in the trash. Any animal activist who is informed have seen the dumpsters and pits full of dead and dying animals, carelessly discarded, thousands of times.

5. Death. Finally, no matter what the circumstances, the end results is death in an awful place (often while extremely ill from lack of attending to their needs), often done in horrific ways, usually after being transported many miles to the slaughterhouse without food or water, in any extreme of temperature. It is a known fact that animals have been found frozen to sides of trucks when unloading after transport in the freezing cold…do you think they gently pulled them off and treated their wounds? NOPE. They RIPPED them off and forced them off to a terrifying and painful death. Regardless of ‘how’ their death is imposed, I object to needless killing, violence, oppression, and death.

Picture in your head someone pulling a carrot out of the ground and eating it. Now picture someone slashing an animal’s throat, covered in blood, while the animal thrashes and quivers until death. Which action is horrific and extreme? Which action would you feel good allowing small children to witness?

6. Being humane to human animals - Science can easily show that no animal farm, no matter how small, is good for the environment or human health or prosperity. What people fail to see is that this irrational ‘habit’ of eating and using animals is detrimental to the entire Earth and its inhabitants as a whole in almost every way it could be harmful, and it DOES NOT benefit us to keep blindly and insistently on the same path of violence and harm and illness and pollution and waste and death.

'Humane' animal products are simply a marketing term - propaganda - they do not exist.

If you were to be murdered, assured it would be quick and rather painless, would you be agreeable to that, or would you try to escape because you place inherent value on your individual life? All sentient beings value their life and all try to escape pain and death because they want to LIVE, because they can feel suffering, because they are individual lives and NOT things.

Let’s just be rational. In our hearts we know there is not a difference. We know mowing our lawns is not the same as killing a cow. We know the slaughterhouse is a bloody, terrible place. We know that animals are not things – they are individuals! In our hearts, those of us with empathy for others do not desire to have them brutalized or killed. In our rational minds we know that ALL animal abuse is morally wrong (not just dogs and cats), but somehow we are able to disconnect that from our own actions each day – the actions that are the very cause the abuse of animals, humans, and our entire planet. This issue is a human problem, an animal problem, and a GLOBAL problem. It only takes a few small steps to begin to open your eyes to the really BIG picture.

VIDEO: Small Family Farms
VIDEO: Pull and Rip
VIDEO: Don't Believe the Lie

Taking Responsibility

I have seen many vegans debate the methods of approach to vegan outreach. The debate of whether pictures or videos of farm abuse is effective, the debate whether being bold and truthful or soothing and sweet is more effective, etc.

This is irritating. Regardless of personality, vegans should not take personal blame for a ‘bad approach’ if people do not listen to them. This reflects NOT upon the vegan but on the PEOPLE’S refusal to consider some very simple but overlooked principles.

I have seen every story ‘under the sun’ as to why someone went vegan. Sometimes a nice vegan friend, an article, book, a visit to a zoo, a discussion with a protester at a circus, etc., and sometime it is simply a hard kick in the ass.

When I was told I was an animal abuser I listened. I wouldn’t ever want to be that. I wasn’t told nicely, there were no flowers or apologies, just the facts. I went vegan immediately. No excuses. No ignoring my part. No more.

I’ve learned sooooooo much since then. I realize now how much I didn’t know. Now my thinking is so different than it used to be. I would never go back to the person I used to be…why would I want to? Why would I harm anyone or cause another to suffer if I could avoid it?

So, if I feel like posting something that is blunt, I will do so. If I like something lovey and sweet I’ll post that too. If my nonvegan friends want to ignore the posts and continue on this destructive and violent path of oppression and horror? That reflects upon THEM, not upon me.
______________________________

(To be clear, this is about personality., NOT about things like SICs. The message is VEGANISM and no other. Veganism as the LEAST we can do. This is about how people choose to express that message.)

Active Participants Needed

Seems maybe there was some sensitivity to a post I made praising vegans for bringing positive change to the world. Let me say this… I did not exclude anyone from the ability to make positive change in the world. However, there is no other group I can make such a blanket statement about (e.g. all women, all men, etc.).

If I meet 100 people randomly, many of them are not terribly engaged in the world, and most only see their small circle of reality. If I meet 100 vegans I guarantee you 98% (often 100%) are engaged and aware in many important world issues. Many are not only advocates for animals, but many are fighting against huge corporations, trying to protect your ‘right to know’, to ban or label GMOs, trying to force the media to report the truth, rallying for food safety, trying to save our oceans, spreading the word about preserving our future, saving lives, and fighting the encroachment of a complete takeover of our most precious resources – our food, our water, and our planet, amongst many other activities that indicates an involved, compassionate citizen. Vegans are CLEARLY fighting on behalf of all the NONvegans, even if the nonvegans are still sleeping.

Our government does not work for us, and hasn’t for a really long time, regardless of current party or power. Our system does not work for us. The media blatantly lies to us and often doesn’t cover the subjects critical for people to understand. People would not want to be a part of it if they knew. If people only let themselves understand…they wouldn’t want to be a part of it. Only the completely heartless would continue forward as if nothing were different, if they knew.

So, I am quite fed up with so many vegans being viewed as ‘negative’ or ‘extreme’ for telling the truth. Yes, it sucks to be told you are responsible for such horror, such devastation and destruction, and it sucks to be told you are wrong. The normal reaction of most is to rationalize or deny and absolve themselves of responsibility by explaining their irrational behavior, with the sentences all vegans have heard thousands of times (“it has always been like that” or “farmers love and respect their animals” or “you can’t get adequate protein from plants” or “God put the animals here for us to eat them” or “humans are born carnivores” [not scientifically true] or “if we stopped slaughtering, we’d be overrun by farm animals” [yes, really, we hear that all the time], or, just “yum, bacon”). There are others, too, but those are generally the most common EXCUSES. Yet, the true merit of these excuses is rarely analyzed (they are all empty, unscientific, and completely irrational).

Vegans grow tired of the excuses people make to convince themselves that it isn’t their fault, and are completely fed up with willful ignorance (inexcusable). We are frustrated in knowing what is happening with the other beings on Earth, and to our land, water, and air on a massive scale, and that this just isn’t very important to so many people. It is maddening at times, to see the pain and destruction people inflict with their ignorance.

I could not fathom having children or grandchildren and NOT wanting to know, NOT wanting to change the path we are on. I wonder to myself ALL the time - don’t parents feel responsible for their family’s future? I sincerely do not understand. Future generations may be struggling to survive in a violent, war-torn land where little clean water exists…or adequate soil, or pollination to grow crops. It is all a vicious cycle, and the only way anyone can break the chain is to STOP BEING A PART OF IT. Not by a little, not here and there, but in EVERY WAY one has control over.

There is cruelty is nature, yes. But there is less often rape, murder out of no physical necessity, enslavement or ownership. There is not planetary destruction nor the utter eradication of Earth’s resources. We confine and enslave and dominate and ‘own’ and destroy and pollute…we proclaim we are against cruelty and violence while we support it, we insist that we have a right to clean water while not knowing what dangers lurk in it, and expect that the food we buy is safe, when in fact it isn’t.

Here’s the facts: Animal products are detrimental to your health. Period. There is plenty of protein in plants and beans. Plant-based whole foods is the most optimal diet for the human frame. Killing NEVER equals love or respect. It should equal survival (e.g. unable to avoid, generally for purposes of sheer necessity). It does not equal survival in humans, so any killing is a poor excuse for being unable to quell your taste for flesh, pus, and blood. The water supplies are being heavily polluted and the ocean is on the verge of collapse. A huge portion of our ocean is a plastic soup. Algae blooms grow larger every year and there is mass pollution. We are turning our soil into a toxic mush with fertilizers and sludge, and the run-off is killing the few remaining viable water supplies. The bees are dying in massive numbers. They crop dust us with chemicals. Some plants are registered pesticides. GMO crops are cross-pollinating and changing the DNA of food. All this, yet there is so much more.

We are happily selling off the last remaining items in an “Everything Must Go” sale. Furthermore, we have no need to do any of this but seem to simply enjoy the experience of killing and using and dominating and destroying, which is utterly irrational.

I know most people don’t believe anyone would intentionally harm their family or Earth, but they WILL and they ARE. It is imperative that people check facts, and check them carefully. The reality is there - and it’s kinda awful - but there is nothing like empowering yourself with knowledge and taking back your power.

Humans anger me every day, and I make no apology for my frustration… the horrors and hurt I witness in the name of ‘human’ are abhorrent. The excuses I hear are empty and without depth or true meaning. But I would fight for you (and I do fight for all), I would sacrifice my time and my never-ending energy and enthusiasm to aide you. I would go without to help you, and I would share all I have willingly. I simply refuse to soothe the overblown human ego, and I refuse to shy or look away from the truth. However you define me is up to you, as I have nothing I feel I need to prove to anyone.

You shift the power by caring. You shift society by being an active part of it. Vegans are an active part of it, and I have only rarely met another vegan who was not a caring, involved, knowledgeable, compassionate soul who often humble me with their overall love and kindness, so I make no apology for praising them, and thanking them for generally being the leaders in the movement to bring peace and nonviolence, to bring appreciation for our Earth and all others (both human and non), standing steadfast with love for all beings, and to ending discrimination in all forms.

I LOVE being vegan! Positive vegan love to all!

Yes, It is Ridiculous, I Agree

A typical vegan conversation with a few words changed to emphasize the point of how ridiculous our conversations are:

Person 1: "I love all ‘people’ and I think we should act nonviolently to each other."

Person 2: “I love all ‘people’ too but I can’t stop killing Mexicans.”

Person 1: “Well, that is not love! You can’t kill something and proclaim love!”

Person 2: “I don’t kill a lot of Mexicans, only a few times per month. I do so love all people.” [now getting angry]

Person 1: [still trying to be nice] “That makes no sense! Mexicans value their life and are just as aware as other races. It is discrimination and false beliefs that lead you to kill Mexicans. If you were raised in another country you might prefer killing Americans or Africans…you make NO SENSE whatsoever.”

Person 2: “You always push your belief on others, and you should respect my personal choices. How dare you suggest I don’t love people just because I like killing Mexicans? You are a self-righteous jerk. I’m going to go kill 3 Mexicans now, just because you pissed me off so much!” [storms off]

Roadkill :(

Out today – dead animals all over the road.

I think many animal lovers are saddened by what people commonly call ‘roadkill,' including me.

That got me thinking:

Scenario 1) You accidentally hit a baby deer, and it breaks your heart. If the deer was able to run away, you worry about the suffering involved in the likely-dying animal. If the baby deer is lying there, alive but dying, you ache to have it be over as soon as possible, so this poor sweet being doesn’t have to endure any misery. You feel sad and you offer comfort and love as best you can, and you try to relieve suffering.

Scenario 2) You swerve to ENSURE you hit the baby deer, intentionally harming him/her. You stab the frightened animal until dead, throw him/her in the back of your car and haul him/her home. You then feast happily upon the corpse of this animal, or make a ‘pretty’ coat, and claim you are peaceful and/or respectful.

One is a vegan (occasions of inadvertent harm with no violent intent), the other is non-vegan (intentional violent aggression to another). Make the connection. Love and non-violence to ALL.