Wrong Again!

When I began learning about how our system negatively affects all other Earthlings and Earth itself, I gave society in general way too much credit and thought they would also be absolutely horrified about the cruelty, injustice, lack of morality, the environmental damage, the health risks, and the burden they are forcing upon their kids and grandkids. I thought they’d want to continue to have breathable air and clean water. I didn’t think they’d be passive when they learned about our collapsing plastic ocean. I thought they’d have empathy when they were told of others that are being abused, enslaved, starved, and/or forced from their homes. I definitely thought there would be concern for our building antibiotic resistance problem, or the potential and actual superinfections that are causing people to die from once treatable microorganisms. I felt sure people would rally to slow the ever-increasing Dead zones and brackish waterways, to help stop the utter eradication of our rainforests. I didn’t think people would be submissive when it came to cruelty to animals, or not see the senselessness of irrationally destroying a gentle innocent soul who clear FEELS emotions deeply, just as we do. I assumed they’d worry about their children and grandchildren when told of how Earth’s resources are being squandered purely for corporate interests/profits. Even if people were just purely selfish and truly apathetic, I felt SURE they’d at least be concerned about the large doses of pesticides, other chemicals, bacteria, viruses, and even the fecal matter infecting their food, the lies about cancer and other diseases and about nutrition, putting profits over people regardless of known harm or potential harm...

...but many still reject knowledge and staunchly refuse to accept responsibility.

Waiting for the world to awake...

Photo taken at Maple Farm Sanctuary September 2013.

Whaaa...???

I’d be OK with killing the mentally disabled. After all, they aren’t like us. Some of them don’t seem to have the same senses we do. They cannot grasp my language as I do. They express love and suffering differently, and their suffering is not comparable to ours since we cannot always adequately decipher their expression of such. Additionally, despite their assumed intellectual inferiority, their biologic make up is the exact same as any other animal species – flesh and blood and bone. Therefore, I think we can safely assume they are worthless and can be killed. Whatever we decide to do with them is fine with me – eat them, make a coat from their skin, etc. The organisms in their flesh will not harm us if we cook them long enough, and we are overpopulated as it is.

The only instance I would not support killing them is if they can be used for something. Even though I refuse to accept their expression of pain and/or suffering, I will still say it is OK if we can electrically shock them (just a little, just to help teach them) or selectively feed them to train them into becoming something that holds meaning for us - perhaps if we scare them (just a little) they will work our gardens for us, or become some kind of court jester to entertain us.

Since they have no other purpose we would actually be helping them, and clearly that is all we want to do – help them and be kind to them. We humans are special, and that alone makes this somewhat random criterion OK. This is NOT the same as such horrors as Nazi Germany, etc…in those cases aware and high-thinking human beings were harmed, and I am only talking about those beings who are considered inferior. That is totally different.

If anyone questions you about your choices to eat or use the disabled, gives you all that “thou shalt not kill” bullshit, or talks to you about justice and kindness and morality – cover your ears quickly and shout “blah blah blah”, then share a copy of this with them, surely then it will all make perfect sense.

Ex-vegan? I Doubt It!

If one is claiming to be an "ex-vegan" then I don't think they actually ever went "vegan" in the first place, no matter how long they may have called themselves "vegan".

Why? Because no vegan becomes an ex-vegan, if they became vegan for vegan reasons!!!

I take the word vegan personally – it MEANS something beyond what I eat or wear…being vegan is WHO I AM. Being vegan is reflective of my morals and embodies everything that matters to me, and should rightfully matter to all of us – compassion, love, nonviolence, and respect for our body and for our planet.

I have heard it said, and worth repeating – just as one would shrink, appalled, from a murderer of children, I now shrink, appalled, from any oppression or murder of the innocent.

Would you change your mind tomorrow and decide murdering children was OK?

No?

Well, that is how I feel about being vegan.

Vegan for life!

But Cheese Tho

Answer: Not at all.

For vegans, as we realized the reality and side effects of eating meat and cheese, we stopped. Why would we ever knowingly and intentionally harm another?

Vegan cheeses continue to get better and better every day, but that is immaterial. Substitute or not, we are not the type of people to be so self-absorbed to cause another suffering or oppression because of unnecessary, irrational, and unhealthy addictions.

Cheese is not *food* to vegans - it is a block of rotting pus-filled oil composed of the bodily secretions of a once-sentient being, likely full of chemicals and an array of microorganisms. Blech…!!!

What is much more inspiring is a plant-powered lifestyle that is better suited towards the morals most say we hold – trying to help others, not intentionally harming any being, and saving lives.

Being vegan is awesome! <3

But God Intended Us to Use Animals!

 

I am not very religious, but even in the absence of any devout ritual or religion, I have, as with everything else, tried to be informed. The subject of religion is especially sensitive to many vegans, as many humans use God(s) as their reason and justification to be cruel to other beings and destructive to our planet, or be passive in the face of so much suffering.

 

Personally, I don’t care if you worship Satan, if you are Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, an Atheist, etc. I simply hope that you are a moral and kind person who accepts responsibility for your part and your choices.

 

I believe all vegan advocates have had the frustrating experience of hearing someone declare, "God made animals for people. We're supposed to eat/use animals."

 

However, The Bible describes the Garden of Eden as vegetarian (Genesis 1:29-30), and the prophet Isaiah envisioned a similarly peaceful end of time, when the Messiah will come and "the wolf shall lie with the lamb" and "the lion shall eat straw like the ox" and "they shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain." (Isaiah 11:6-9)

 

Also consider: Genesis: "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food."

 

But it isn’t just about the act of killing and violence ("Thou shalt not kill") - In his book, "Dominion" - a magnificent and hard-hitting argument for veganism through a religious lens - Matthew Scully writes: "Modern farming isn't just killing: It is negation, a complete denial of the animal as a living being with his or her own needs and nature."

 

When Pope Benedict XVI was asked about the rights of animals in a 2002 interview, he said, "That is a very serious question. Animals, too, are God's creatures…this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible."

 

Compassion for animals was also a prominent theme in John Paul II’s papacy. Pope John Paul proclaimed that "the animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren." He went on to say that all animals are "fruit of the creative action of the Holy Spirit and merit respect" and that they are "as near to God as men are."

 

Strong compassionate people of faith should persistently and respectfully encourage their church communities to study and reflect on what their faith really teaches about humankind's proper relationship to nonhuman Creation and Earth.

 

Buddha, a known vegan, stated, "When a man has pity on all living creatures then only is he noble."

 

By their mere existence on Earth the animals and other creatures are a gift!!! Thus great men and women recognize that we owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals…"It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly."

 

In our modern world, ALMOST ALL suffering and death of animals is unneeded!

 

Animals possess the divine spark of life - the living quality that is the soul - and they are not inferior beings, as factory farmers, fur farmers, and others who exploit animals for profit would have us believe. Animals have the ability to suffer and feel pain, to feel lonely and depressed, and to clearly demonstrate love for others and their families.

 

The Reverend Al Sharpton is a vegan and a compassionate soul. His dramatic weight loss and robust appearance of late is due to his vegan lifestyle. "We're paying for a life of misery for some of God's most helpless creatures," says Mr. Sharpton.

 

This all comes as America's churches are a becoming a starting point for a grassroots revolution in food production: From Methodists' support of compassion, to a recent statement by U.S. rabbis that humans should prevent animal suffering.

 

These movements align religious people with the morals and values they claim to hold. Gandhi once said, "It ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God, the Compassionate, if we in turn will not practice elementary compassion towards our fellow creatures."

 

Veganism is clearly a religious and spiritual ideal. There are many religious passages that oppose cruelty to animals and even more that praise compassion, kindness, and caring for the weak and the poor. When considering the harmful effects of animal agriculture on the Earth, world hunger, animal welfare, and human health, one could rather easily draw the conclusion that, if Jesus or God were among us today, he would be a vegan!!!

 

"According to religious people, God allows you to make free decision in your life...God allows bad and good things to happen, it's just up to you to interpret what the good things are and what are the bad...God may ‘allow’ this happen, but it doesn't mean he wants it to, that would be like saying he supports murderers, rapists, and pedophiles, too, simply because it ‘happens’."

- Author Unknown

 

Cardinal John Henry Newman eloquently expressed, "Cruelty to animals is as if humans did not love God."

 

Please choose a meaningful life living the values of compassion and with love for Earth and our fellow beings!!!

 

"If God intends us to eat meat, then God is either ignorant, irrational, or malevolent. If God doesn't know that eating meat causes heart attacks, cancer, strokes, etc., then he is ignorant about nutrition. If God knows that eating meat is harmful to our health but intends us to do it anyway, then either he is malevolent and wants bad things to happen to us, or he is irrational since, despite wanting us to be healthy, he intends us to eat a diet detrimental to our health. Since, by definition, God is neither ignorant nor irrational nor malevolent, it is incoherent to believe that God intends us to eat meat."

- Mylan Engel, Jr.

There is a Difference Between Veganism and Plant-Based Part 2!

When talking about nutrition and healthy eating, the proper term is ‘plant-based’, NOT ‘vegan’.

‘Plant-based’ refers to a way of eating that provides optimal nutrition for the human body and is NOT in dispute as to being the healthiest possible way to eat/obtain nourishment.

Vegans, however, do not necessarily care if they are healthy eaters. While most ARE [healthy eaters], this is mainly because they are generally more informed as to food production and nutritional needs - being “vegan” is NOT a description of what they ate for dinner or in any way a reference to nutrition. I myself have slipped in the past and said “vegan diet”, but that is very misleading as to the true meaning of these terms.

Plant-based is a healthy way of eating. Vegan is an ethical lifestyle that says we are opposed to the unnecessary abuse and/or murder of other sentient living beings, that we recognize each sentient being as an irreplaceable individual who we would surely love, hug, and comfort if we could...not abuse, enslave, or kill.

One is an ethical decision. The other is a scientific one. Both are good, for MANY reasons.

[go VEGAN!]

Ending the Health Crisis

I don’t only worry about animals, and the rainforests, and GMOs, and other humans who I do not know but try and advocate for…I worry about those I love. I am not so obnoxious to believe that my diet choices alone will save me from some horribly diseased death, I would NEVER even try to suggest that. What I will GUARANTEE is that the risk of many disease will instantly drop significantly and any current diseases, whatever they are, will very likely become better managed or even disappear. Science is science, and facts are facts.

No matter what plant-based person on the planet drops dead tomorrow from a heart attack, it does not change statistics or incidence of occurrence, and plant-based diets significantly lower the rate of occurrence of almost every type of disease there is. Heart attacks and cancer, commonly referred to as ‘Western” disease, because our ‘Western’ diet KILLS people. There are NO documented cases of heart disease reversal when following current AHA GUIDELINES. However, there are MULTIPLE documented cases of heart disease reversal – more science and facts. (see Dr. Esselstyn and many associated peer-reviewed studies)

The rates of the entire spectrum of diseases just grow and grow. Diabetes, MS, Alzheimer’s, Autism, Asthma…you name the disease, the rate is climbing and climbing. The deadly combination of an unhealthy diet and eating a tremendous amount of chemicals results in products that are barely recognizable as food anymore. This includes GMOs (several clinical trials are showing health status improvement just by avoiding GMOs), and also includes animal foods, which tend to be saturated in chemicals and medications, of many kinds - not just antibiotics, pesticides, and hormones - but many that the general public know nothing about (ammonia treatments, meat glue, carbon monoxide to make it stay pink and look fresh, pink slime filler, etc.).

People try EVERYTHING, including putting MORE chemicals in their body in the form of medications and supplements to control a rash of symptoms and health issues. Yet often these people view a plant-based diet as “extreme”. I have seen it mentioned, and worth noting – having your chest opened up and having items stitched into you, your body reconstructed mechanically, or taking certain medications or supplements without giving a shot to JUST EATING REAL FOOD first is what strikes me as “extreme”!!!

I recommend you EAT. Eat as much as you can, whenever you can, but avoid GMOs unless proven safe, avoid ‘animal foods’ (meat, dairy, etc.) in any form, and don’t eat a lot of heavy oils. That’s it. Give it a month or two. Yup, you may feel weird for a week or two. You may shit a lot…that’s your body thanking you and getting out the crap (lol – literally)! Nothing works overnight. Be as fair to this as you would to anything else you were shoving in your body and give it at least a few weeks to shape the truth of what it may or may not do for you.

I am NOT saying you NEVER do anything else to care for yourself or your health. There will always be genetic disorders and diseases that are uncontrolled. Medications and other measures may still be necessary; I understand this and am not discouraging anyone from ever taking a medicine! I just know how much of a difference a plant-based diet has made in many lives, and there are so many people whose lives could be improved. People seem to perceive my plant-based diet is hard, yet I see all the struggles and medication and diet regimes, and I think that is backwards! Following a plant-based diet is quite easy in comparison!

People will notice I have, for one of the first times, referred to myself or anyone as ‘plant-based.’ A plant-based diet is NOT vegan, as veganism is not a diet. Veganism is a lifestyle.

I wish every human on Earth came to me tomorrow and said, “I care about animals, and other humans, and the rainforest, and water quality, and soil depletion and compassion and our Earth’s resources, etc. I have checked the facts and I know how much harm I do with my choices every day, I want to be vegan.”

OF COURSE that would be a dream come true for me!!! OF COURSE I would want that result. I have often mentioned I am 100% ethical vegan. Regardless of my lifestyle choice this does NOT negate facts, and the FACT is that a plant-based diet (non-GMO plant-based whole foods) is the healthiest DIET that exists.

So, yup, I want the world to be vegan. I want everyone in the world to care as much as I do. I want to end the enslavement of other beings, end discrimination and oppression for ALL beings, end any purposeless killing, and stop the utter destruction and disrespect of our planet, and I make no secret of this.

But this post is about health, and ‘vegan’ or not – people still need to be informed of REALITY and SCIENCE.

I still believe and always will that decent people would change if they understood. But, until my perfect world can be obtained, I want people to know the truth, get the facts, get off the GMOs, chemicals, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, preservatives, and ‘animal foods’ and let’s solve this health crisis!

Haven't Ever Heard That

When I withdraw from a conversation about being vegan it is NEVER because I feel any rational or valid points have been made to justify the actions and results of using animals. I withdraw because I can tell when further discussion is futile, when people staunchly refute hard core facts and insist on irrational justifications for their behavior. I can easily supply hundreds of excellent, compassionate, generous, wonderful, life-affirming, and SCIENTIFIC benefits for why I liv...e how I live every day, and non-vegans simply do not have that…in fact, from any angle, they have absolutely no rational justification at all, they are just following along with misled convictions and irrational tradition.

Vegans have heard it ALL, except for one thing – a valid rationale to continue on a path that is harmful to so many. Vegans have lots of reasons, and they are really good ones. Valid ones. Ones that completely line up with science, health, environment, compassion, intelligence, morality, empathy, nonviolence, and reality.

[go vegan!!]

Thanks but No Thanks

For all the people who have offered me food that I have refused. I do thank you for your offer, and it is not that I don’t appreciate it, but…

I simply cannot self-explain the consumption (support) of food items that harm others, and especially those that gave money to the most unethical people and corporations on this planet. Although I am sure you intended to do me no harm, most of the products offered were of great risk to my personal health as well as the Earth itself and all of the glorious fauna and flora.

Putting nourishment in my body is the most important relationship I have with the Earth and all inhabitants, and I also love my life very much, so to do any of these harm would be absurd to me. To buy or consume (support) something that contained abuse, murder, waste, Earth-ravaging effects? That would be unethical.

So, thank you again, but your offer contains too much potential and actual harm to so many that I will happily pass.

I never feel deprived when I do not eat what others eat, and in fact it feels awesome to reflect my morals and love for others in the choices I make.

I love being vegan!!

Awakened from Sleepwalking

I have no desire to insult anyone, but generally you will only get authentic from me. I say what I mean and I welcome bold truth and honest forthright people. I believe that those who are truly confident in themselves can be open minded and think about/discuss any subject without bias. Those with a mistaken sense of confidence in themselves shun open consideration of facts or any conversation that may contradict their [false] confidence. I am never trying to be unkind, though I have been taken that way. In fact, that is the furthest from how I actually am ‘IRL’.

I do not hate Native American, Intuit, etc. If the issue is starvation as likely was when “Jesus ate fish” (common comments to vegans), I am not putting that person on the top of my ‘target’ audience. But starvation is generally not at issue for anyone reading this, and to defend the consumption of animal products (rotting flesh and secretions) is defending catastrophe, torture, and death for the overwhelming majority - humans, animals, and our planet.

I now see them as they are…a dog is a cat is a bird is a bear is a cow is a human. I personally wouldn’t harm any of them. I regret every single one I knowingly had slaughtered, under ANY circumstances. It is possible to just change - to just revere life - to realize that inherently [most] humans were born with no desire to kill anyone, especially anything with obvious sentience. Rotting corpses and animal secretions feed no one anything positive or life-affirming, and the inhumanity and violence we cultivate runs deep through society. (Check out the study where they fed prisoners a strict plant-based diet and violence, assault, and re-imprisonment rates dropped significantly. Harming others violently and irrationally is poison for our soul!!!)

As a wise person said – “Being vegan is a joy realized upon becoming vegan.”

I didn’t know. I didn’t know my taste buds had been kidnapped. I didn’t know I was hurting others so badly. I didn’t know I had something on my mind, but I guess I did. I wasn’t unhappy before, I wasn’t dissatisfied - yet being vegan changed me. My head cleared. I didn’t know it wasn’t clear! My taste buds have changed so much since then…cheese or bacon or whatever I falsely believed to be *favorites* are not missed at all, and in fact, I no longer consider dead flesh or secretions as food under anything but the most desperate of circumstance. I felt (still feel) so good about everything, never having known I didn’t feel ‘good’ about everything ‘before’!!!

I will not bypass any opportunity to defend a harmless being who is simply trying to survive. People are generally very lucky, but to them it isn’t enough – kill kill kill - then state they are against violence and war. This paradox has been written about by many scholars – many of them were vegetarian or vegan because it makes absolutely no sense to promote and feed violence while claiming to be peaceful. They believed world peace was actually attainable if we just stopped perpetuating violence!

I do not care about anyone’s traditions…most are outdated parodies, and if cruelty or killing is involved to a sentient being they should cease immediately and evolve. Animals were NOT pets ‘when our ancestors were eating them’. It was a whole different world. Now an entire society walks around with an “I love animals” attitude while dragging proverbial blood trails behind them and are generally further burdened with diseases of the heart, brain, and circulatory system while they disregard the plight of other humans, animals, and entire ecosystems.

Whole societies saw people of other color as slaves, wiped out natives, have historically oppressed others for random irrational reasons, and now we are senselessly and systematically decimating all of the flora and fauna on Earth.

I try to live gently and kindly to the world, the animals, the other humans, and as I thoroughly enjoy my varied, amazing, carefully-chosen, and passionately loved plant-based menu, I feel incredibly delighted and humbled and honored and grateful.

Sweet posts about puppies, or sea turtles, or some socially loveable animals, while brutalizing most other species. Then as a society we say we do not judge or should not judge? That we are not shallow and superficial as to appearances? We are not narrow-minded? That we are decent and kind? This is preposterous for anyone who really thinks about it. Whose suffering and oppression is unacceptable versus whose does not matter?

I would never return to the person I once was. I see it all the time - people within a short time of being vegan, say they “feel like they woke up from sleepwalking”. I would totally agree. There is something so fundamental in recognizing that we aren’t that person anymore – that we do not feed violence or slaughter, that we rebuke oppression and discrimination – the recognition that we can feel true love for others of many shapes, colors, and sizes and feel their presence sharing this great world with us. That we place value on their lives. That we do not condone violence.

Some of us would gladly stand strong in a crowd of thousands, even if standing alone. We will evolve, as we have rid slavery and are legalizing LGBT marriage, forward we march.

When people see the gentle pig or chicken as just as worthy to life as their beloved dog…
…when we see the fish or lobster for who they are – suffering beings who are suffocating to death or screaming in pain…
…when we see the truth - that if you treat a chicken or pig or cow like a dog they will form the same bonds and respond the same – with love and emotion and INDIVIDUALITY, just like us…
…when people can see themselves – wrapped in the tortured dead flesh of other animals they would not want to harm, like some ghoulish horror-movie parody of a beautiful sentient soul…
…when people allow themselves to understand the destruction of our planet that has occurred and is ongoing, when they understand how much we harm ALL living organisms on Earth with our daily choices…
…I believe people are generally decent at heart and they will change.

Whatever a person’s irrational excuses are for perpetuating utterly unnecessary violence to others, recognize that none are rational or hold any credibility when exposed to light. For me, I simply feel it is very important for me to make that reality clear for the people who would choose to know a different path (as I did) - a path of love and nonviolence.

"Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act"
~ Albert Einstein

[go vegan!!!]

FREE!

FREE!

Please read about her story:

This sweet pig who was numbered 2171 had lived her entire life on a crowded farm. She was extremely sick, always being fed chemicals and antibiotics and GMOs. Since pigs are extremely intelligent and aware, as many animals are, she was clearly depressed and perhaps slightly insane, as she endlessly jostled the cage door seeking any shred of freedom. The day the transport truck arrived it was freezing. With no protection from the elements this gentle pig and all her pig friends were loaded up and trucked a long distance to the slaughterhouse without any food or water. Not all of the pigs survived the harsh trip, but this sweet girl did.

Being dragged in to the slaughterhouse she could hear the screams of the pigs before her and she thrashed and struggled to escape. Having never being touched gently, or with any human kindness, her fear was palpable yet ignored by the desensitized slaughterhouse worker. Unexpectedly she felt an extremely hard blow to her face and she collapsed. Within seconds she was fixed and lifted to a meat hook, where her throat was cut. She thrashed for a few minutes while dying, still unable to perceive this happening to her, still hoping for any chance at a normal life, or at some kindness or compassion for her life.

It did not come.

Alas, 2171 is free…from a life as bleak and unnoticed as her death. A life only as a profit, a commodity. I wish things could have been different for you 2171, and for all sentient, gentle, innocent beings. I continue to hope that someday people will awake to the realization that we don’t have to treat anyONE like this. We can live gently, live kind, live nonviolently.

[go vegan!!!]

-----------------------------------
A Little Story about a Pig and a Dog
Romping together on the grass. The sun above.
The afternoon. But the Pig was sad. The dog noticed.
"I have to tell you something," said the Pig. "I will not be with you anymore."
"Why? Don't you love me? Aren't you happy with me?" agitatedly answered the Dog.
"I adore you. We are Brothers," answered the Pig. "But the men. They are coming for me."
"What do they want from you?" asked the Dog.
"I prefer not to tell you. It is too sad."
"I am very afraid..." said the Dog.
"Do not worry for yourself. You are man's best friend. They even write poems about you." said the Pig.
"And not for you?" asked the Dog, not understanding.
"Not for me." said the Pig.
"But we are of the same blood!" cried the Dog. "We have played together, we are equals … you see the world just like me…your heart is like mine!" and he anxiously added: "so then, what are you to them?"
A flock of happy birds passed across the high sky, filling with their song the far blue mountain range and the field.
There was a dense silence and the pig's voice answered, with a drowned sob, with his snout sunken in the grass:
"Nothing."
 (A Little Story about a Pig and a Dog written by The Poet of the Voiceless, Ángel Padilla)

It is SO Obvious

People had to fight against the tolerance and acceptance of human slavery for a long time before changing societal perspectives. Now human slavery is generally agreed upon as inhumane and is not tolerated.

I can understand how past activists felt - shocked and utterly incredulous that other 'decent' humans could not *see* - or how they could be such monsters.

Something that was so OBVIOUSLY wrong - being ridiculed, harassed, or even physically harmed - for what they absolutely KNEW was right. The frustration of seeing something so blatant, so self-evident - so clear and plain - yet few others can see...

Those who are still exploiters and violent killers simply do not understand yet...
But they will.
How do I know they will?
Because it is so OBVIOUS.

[go vegan]

SomeOne, not SomeTHING

Get to know any animal for a few days – go to your local small sanctuary – the sanctuary owners will be able to describe each animal’s personality, their likes and dislikes. Some animals are super-sweet and friendly, some you bond with so closely it becomes an intense relationship, others seem to simply tolerate your presence, or somewhere in between. Personally I have loved every animal I have ever met and appreciated their individuality.

People tend to say “HUMANS feel differently” than other beings - they say "they are not like us" (that sounds familiar in a very unpleasant way). What people fail to realize is that all are unique - they are all individuals. There are not ‘billions of them’ – there is only ONE of them. We can describe unique personalities to each INDIVIDUAL.

They are not yours – my pets are not ‘mine’ - they are EARTHLINGS – their life belongs to THEM. They feel love for others and love for their independent sentient life. We think it OK to bully and destroy, especially to those we do not understand or have not traditionally bonded with…this is nothing but an irrational excuse for our ongoing domination and enslavement of INDIVIDUALS.

I have NEVER looked at an animal with any intent to do them harm, and I never will. I have also NEVER felt an animal was “just like the one next to it” even if their skin was the same color (THINK).

I am NOT living in some unrealistic world…I live in the real world – the world where I am so incredibly grateful to care, to know I want no harm to come to any individual for no rational purpose, and the world in which I confidently know I have absolutely no sociologic or dietary need to harm anyone. Fellow Earthlings will never be my commodities, my meals, or anything but my dear friends. Yes, I know, you “love bacon.” Enough selfish crap already and stop abusing and murdering my friends, destroying our planet, and harming all the humans on Earth.

Animal rights is the next logical step in a slow-moving but continually-creeping-along realization of what discrimination, mercy, nonviolence, and LOVE really means. There is no comparison to a lion in Africa or the ‘circle of life’, so don’t even go there. For humans, feeding life is NOT the consumption of slowly rotting flesh. We are not Intuit. Plants don’t scream. Farmers DO NOT love their animals, certainly not as they enslave, forcibly breed, suck fluid meant for their babies, or kill…that is NOT love unless you are some delusional sicko. Bugs on my windshield or an accident involving a field mouse does not absolve anyone of wanton intentional violent harm to others. Enough of the silliness and let’s align with what we claim are our moral codes.

Nonviolence. Go vegan.

I Prefer Feeling

The people I know who have actually killed an animal ALL said, "the first time(s) was/were hard, but then you kind of adjust."

Who WANTS to adjust to taking another's life? Who WANTS to be desensitized? Who WANTS to cultivate what society generally defines as antisocial and psychotic behavior? Who WANTS to murder other individuals for no rational purpose?

Not me. So grateful that is not who I am.
- - - - - - - - -
“Slaughtering an animal, it takes something away from you. It made me physically ill…the first time. The next time around it was a little easier; the next time around it was a little easier…to the point where I didn’t feel anything at all.”
~ Harold Brown, former animal farmer, now works to save lives, not end them
- - - - - - - - -

I prefer to FEEL.

Eating Cat

 



“An Edmonton teen who killed a cat and cooked parts of it in a ravine has been sentenced to 10 months in jail.”

“This was a brutal and senseless killing of an innocent and defenseless animal,” provincial court Judge Donna Groves said, according to the Edmonton Journal. “These activities are so egregious, they fall into the category of unspeakable.”

Hummphhrrrr…Judge Donna probably had a ham sandwich for lunch and has no idea how silly she sounds to those of us who are no longer dissonant! ALL animals are “INNOCENT”, ALL animals are “DEFENSELESS” against human domination, and ALL killing is “BRUTAL”. Most people believe they love ‘animals’ when they clearly are not demonstrating love or compassion for any animals other than dogs and cats. Why does this story bother some people but the sight of the dead flesh of other brutally killed animals does not give them pause for even one moment to consider the suffering involved?

This story and this brutality is no more nor less of what most people are putting in their mouths or wearing on their bodies every day. If this story is as abhorrent as the public thinks it is (and I agree it is awful), then most of society needs to be put in JAIL immediately for the acts of animal cruelty that they perpetuate daily. Irrational groupthink and self-defensive denial doesn’t change the reality of the cruelty nor absolve each individual from responsibility.

Stop discriminating against innocent, defenseless souls - use RATIONAL thought, and GO VEGAN.

There is no difference between a dog and a cat or any other sentient being, except in the unexamined mind.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/10/08/zachary-mckinnon-killing-cooking-cat_n_5953542.html

Love For ALL

As I have said before, if I were to dedicate much of my life to saving dogs and cats, everyone would just think I was an awesome and dedicated animal lover. But because I work to save ALL animals I am viewed as a bit emotional and maybe even irrational. Personally I don’t think NOT causing suffering or death when it can be easily avoided is irrational or overly emotional at all. I also don’t think NOT destroying our ecosystem and wasting tons of resources ...is overly emotional or irrational. My choices are actually based in science – they ALL feel, we don’t NEED to harm them, our ecosystems are collapsing, and they ALL value their own life and are sentient beings – all facts, sans emotion.

Why harm ANY other when we don’t have to? What is irrational is this persistent discrimination that allows humans to continue to judge the value of another life and exterminate individual beings and entire ecosystems at will by brute force. That is what is irrational.

Might does not make right.

GO VEGAN.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“Whatever your reason is for being nonvegan, recognize that it is not valid.”
~ Diane Dion

Organic? Grass-fed? Cage-free?

What happens when you eat organically raised meat or dairy?

1. Male chickens and/or male baby cows are still killed for being ‘useless’ or for veal

2. Approximate gallons of water needed to produce a pound of beef: 5,000, approximate gallons of water needed to produce a pound of wheat: 25. Raising animals for food wastes precious resources!

3. Sick animals are infrequently treated because any administration of antibiotics would have the animals considered ‘no longer organic’ and would cut into profit margins

4. Organic farms have no regulations on whether or not the animals are kept indoors or out

5. You waste about 20 times the grain that would be needed to feed you for an entire year if you just ate the grain instead. Organically raised or not, I find it hard to waste so much food when so many are starving to death.

6. Baby cows are still forcibly separated from the mothers or blocked from drinking the milk intended for them to preserve their milk production for humans to consume. It is known that many mother cows cry for their babies, often searching for them for many days.

7. You continue to kill animals for no need other than selfish personal desire.

8. If a baby pig or other animal is sick or is to be killed (a runt, developmental problems, etc), they do NOT humanely euthanize as we do our companion animals…farms are known to hold the animal by their back legs and bash their head against the floor or a post (called ‘thumping’ in the industry), or they use a bolt gun which stuns them but rarely kills them and bleed them out. There is nothing humane about needless slaughter.

9. You continue to risk your own health and contribute to the healthcare crisis, since statistically as you consume these products your risk of disease rises exponentially.

10. The raising of animals for food is still the largest contributor to greenhouse gases and climate change.

11. If everyone bought their animal products from small local farms, these farms would have to TURN INTO factory farms to meet the demand! The amount of resources and land needed is what generated confinement facilities. To raise farm animals with the proper space so we didn’t have to give them so many antibiotics to in turn feed people, would require the equivalent of 2-3 planets. It is impossible & unsustainable.

12. Eating or buying these products does not lower the overall demand for meat and animal products and therefore perpetuates factory-farm raised animals, the pollution, the cruelty, and the clearing of our rainforests.

13. Pigs are as intelligent, or more intelligent, than dogs, chickens have a string nurturing instinct and have been known to coo to their babies while still in the eggs, mother cows have been known to cry for their calves for days…if you really feel that their souls are of equal value, if you really feel they are worthy of life, why do people continue to kill them for no justifiable reason?

14. There is NO SUCH THING as humane slaughter. ‘Grass-fed’, ‘cage free’, ‘free range’, ‘humanely raised’ are all a bunch of consumer marketing propaganda. The reality is people do not purposefully harm or kill those we TRULY love, and these are innocent and gentle INDIVIDUALS being treated as nothing more than mere ‘things’.

Benjamin Franklin: “So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”

Go vegan, or willingly participate in exploitation, violence, abuse, oppression, and destruction.
There is NO third choice.

Why Most of us are Abolitionists

This post has potential to make some people upset, but that is NOT why I wrote it. Seems there is a lot of claiming of words and silly discussions over semantics, so I am just writing to clear this up, at least as far as fact and definitions go.

“Why most of us actually are abolitionists and why you should be proud to be one!!!”

I have heard an awful lot of negative comments the past few weeks about ‘abolitionist vegans’. “Crazy” “Nazi” “Extreme” “Mean” and “Judgmental” were some of the words used.

I talk to A LOT of vegans every day, and I can say with total confidence that accepting and kind vegans are the overwhelming majority, no matter what they ‘call’ themselves. Obviously there are “mean people” in EVERY GROUP, and vegans are no different in that sense. Admittedly, there are also some who come across as a total jerk at times - I get it.

But abolitionism was defined before anyone had ever heard the word ‘vegan’. It doesn’t belong to us any more than the animal’s lives belong to us. The words abolitionism and abolitionist have a clear definition. As an example:

In the era of slavery here in the U.S., there were welfarists. The welfarists may have kept slaves themselves. They probably felt they had always ‘treated them well’, maybe even ‘like members of our own family’. Perhaps some welfarists didn’t keep slaves, but didn’t see a problem with slavery as long as the slaves were kept in ‘humane conditions’ and treated ‘humanely’. That is a welfarist. They failed to see that the problem was THE SLAVERY ITSELF!

So, my dear vegan friends - Is that you? Is that who you are? It is NOT who I am.

Most of us do actually see the problem - the *use* itself, and we seek to end it entirely, e.g. abolitionist.

I am an abolitionist, and I am happy to ‘label’ myself an abolitionist. Actually, I LOVE all my ‘labels’ - vegan, organic, environmentalist, activist, ABOLITIONIST - every single one of those words matters a great deal to me!

I am an abolitionist to the core of my being. It is NOT our word, but it sure as hell means something. Some will disagree, and perhaps some will argue that abolitionism is a certain kind of outreach or theory, but I would argue back with facts and definitions – it is NOT our word.

At the risk of angering some - most vegans ARE abolitionist vegans as an ideal - an end goal.

To reach this *end goal* however, the many contradictions involved with SICs (single issue campaigns), the entrenched speciesism at times found within some *outreach* and orgs, and the mis-messaging and mixed-messaging when attempting to *sell* veganism as a *healthy diet* or to *save the planet* are all subjects worth thinking deeply about and reading some of the many articles available for effective activism.

It can only help our personal ability to both research and discuss the contradictions with others. Keep an open mind. Continue to learn. But if there is one thing that is of utmost importance is that the message is always veganism. As the LEAST we can do. The moral baseline.

Some blogs and sites are super-intimidating, I have seen that for myself. Anyone can talk to me anytime if they have a question or want some support…the only ‘deal’ I make is to expect nothing less than an honest response and don’t get self-defensive and upset by possibly not hearing what you would have preferred I say. Grown-up truthful honest dialogue is requested.

I am so lucky to know so many amazing, kind, intelligent, compassionate, open-minded people, and I am proud to be a part of this movement. I am an abolitionist vegan, I live without *using* animals and want to see *use* ended in entirety. If you are vegan, then most likely, so are you (*abolitionist* vegan).

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Repost of a snippet of my blog from the other day in case anyone did not know what I meant when I said “contradictions”

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From Earlier Blog:

What if animal products suddenly were made to be healthy? Or produced in ways that did not negatively affect the environment? Of course that won’t happen, but the baseline questions is “Would you still be vegan”? If all pigs for slaughter ran on green fields and eaten only when died of natural causes, would you still be vegan? I would be vegan no matter what, so giving other definitions to veganism is mixed messaging, because in reality, there is only one reason for being ‘vegan’.

I definitely talk about health, and I definitely talk about the environment, and famine, and all the other great reasons there are to be vegan, but the very bottom line, and the very essence of the word ‘vegan’ embodies a moral stance that says animals are not ours to enslave or oppress, and that we have no rational reason to live violently and harmfully. That must be the baseline message. Is attending a circus any different morally than eating at a restaurant that serves meat? Our message must be as broad as possible to avoid further speciesism, while narrow enough to save individual lives.

When signing certain petitions, such as taking foie gras off a restaurant menu, do the cows, pigs, and other animals served there not get a petition? It is animal ‘use’ too, and certainly entails much needless suffering. If people boycotted the restaurant for menu foie gras removal, do they resume eating there if they stop serving it? Even if the restaurant is still serving pigs, chickens, cows, etc.?

I’m NOT saying never eat out again. I'm NOT saying to never sign a petition. I'm NOT saying not to protest cruelty at every opportunity. I am just talking about the way we communicate our goals to others in the most effective way.

Whole blog post can be found here: http://vegan-evolution.blogspot.com/2014/10/abolitionist-welfarist-why-does-it.html

A great article: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-psychology/humane-meat-and-veganism/

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The simplest of thoughts can be the hardest to communicate - we have the power to stop suffering on a massive scale, so why wouldn’t we? Why exploit others when we clearly don’t have to?

I LOVE being vegan!

Abolitionist? Welfarist? Why? Does it Matter?

I call myself an abolitionist vegan. I have read debates and analyzed this subject, and for me the bottom line is there is a difference in how abolitionists view issues that go beyond the individual’s personal ‘journey’.

The simplest way to sum up the abolitionist approach is not to send mixed messages. And really, there is only ONE message when we are talking about true veganism.

I'm NOT implying all abolitionists would agree with me, or feel as I do. We are all different and there are differences amongst everyone, I am just going to give some examples of things I’ve read and/or what thoughts come to mind when I think about welfarism vs. abolitionism...

What if animal products suddenly were made to be healthy? Or produced in ways that did not negatively affect the environment? Of course that won’t happen, but the baseline questions is “Would you still be vegan”? If all pigs for slaughter ran on green fields and eaten only when died of natural causes, would you still be vegan? I would be vegan, no matter what, so giving other definitions to veganism is mixed messaging, because in reality, there is only one reason for being ‘vegan’.

I definitely talk about health, and I definitely talk about the environment, and famine, and all the other great reasons there are to be vegan, but the very bottom line, and the very essence of the word ‘vegan’ embodies a moral stance that says animals are not ours to enslave or oppress, and that we have no rational reason to live violently and harmfully. That must be the baseline message. Is attending a circus any different morally than eating at a restaurant that serves meat? Our message must be as broad as possible to avoid further speciesism, while narrow enough to save individual lives.

When signing certain petitions, such as taking foie gras off a restaurant menu, do the cows, pigs, and other animals served there not get a petition? It is animal ‘use’ too, and certainly entails much needless suffering. If people boycotted the restaurant for menu foie gras removal, do they resume eating there if they stop serving it? Even if the restaurant is still serving pigs, chickens, and cows?

I’m NOT saying never eat out again. I'm NOT saying to never sign a petition. I'm NOT saying not to protest cruelty at every opportunity. I am just talking about the way we communicate our goals to others in the most effective way.

Pursuing welfare reform such as larger cages is generally a meaningless gesture designed to soothe people's conscience and is not effective in ABOLISHING (e.g. abolitionist) the death and suffering. (see article posted at bottom of page for interesting reading)

If one truly felt animals mattered morally, then their suffering is of dire need – right now. As noted, we would not say a rapist should rape less nor a murderer should murder less. This is because lives are at stake, suffering can be prevented – right now - and we care about those lives! So, no, we don't advocate for 'journeys' or 'baby steps'. The need is immediate for many.

I am not talking about not encouraging or helping someone become vegan. I am not unkind to those who state they are "trying." But I do not deceive anyone to believe one form of use/abuse is better than another, nor that time is not of the essence for many whose lives hang in the balance as I type, and certainly I will [kindly but bluntly as is possible] voice my confusion as to why someone would continue to do something nonsensical and cruel.

Why WOULDN’T one stop - immediately - if they were able to grasp that message all at once? That they were critically important to help stop oppression and suffering? That is what I am trying to figure out, as the one thing I know for sure is [so far at least] there is no perfect way to communicate this to others!

I am not saying I know everything, again, these are just some of the things I have thought. Debate on method, approach, and perception is unlikely avoidable and is likely healthy to the movement, but we should be in alignment with the long-term goals and continue to read, learn, and strive for the best ways to make those goals a reality.

I personally feel it is OK to talk about other things (health, environment, etc.), but the message should not be mislabeled. I went vegan a long time ago after reading something PETA sent me, so I certainly ‘get it’ and had to resolve my own turmoil with how they have been known to relay the *message* versus their impact on me personally. I am not currently a PETA supporter despite the positive effect they have had on my life, and I had to really think ling and hard about that - due to the loyalty of hem saving my life. But it isn't about me, it is about what I feel is effective for reaching *most* others.

There are conflicts within, no doubt, but the baseline message needs to be that veganism is NOT difficult, it is the LEAST we can do, and that IT IS NOT ABOUT US. I posted a great article below about how welfarism-type tactics are likely very detrimental. There is a lot of debate about this subject online if anyone wants to read further - and they really should.

Please everyone hug now lol. Thank you.

http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-psychology/humane-meat-and-veganism/

"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.
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(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.