Vegan Ramblings

Q and A

2007-06-22T07:28:00.000-06:00

Q: Instead of GO VEG should we be saying GO HUMANE?
The world will never be totally vegetarian so why not rally meat eaters to be more concerned with where their meat comes from and what kind of inhumane conditions the animals live in? If we can't change the meat eaters, why cant we change the animal raisers?

A: If you tell people that all they have to do is buy happy meat ("humanly" killed dead animals) that's all they will do, at most.

However I like many other people believe that non-human animals do not deserve to be the property of humans. Or if you prefer, we have the responsibility to treat sentient beings (animals capable of awareness, which is the vast majority of them by the way.) in a way that respects their interests in not being treated as property. To properly respect this interest one must be vegan. Indeed veganism must be the moral baseline of the animal rights movement if this movement is to mean anything. *key point* If animal rights means dead animals, animal rights means nothing.

No matter how "nicely" an animal is treated before he or she goes to slaughter they all go to the same slaughterhouse. All food animals, "happy meat approved", or conventionally produced end up in the same condition, dead.

Simply put, if you take animal interests seriously you become vegan and you respect those interests. Killing animals, no matter how "nicely" is not respecting their interest in continued existence. The campaigning you speak of is the business of meat eaters. Vegans such as myself will stick to reducing demand by creating more vegans.

My response to an ass-hat.

2007-06-04T08:41:00.000-06:00

Save the planet, eat a vegan
Jeremy Clarkson

Good news. It seems that your car and your fondness for sunken light bulbs in every alcove are not warming up the planet after all.
In fact, according to new research, power stations and transport produce lots of carbon dioxide, but in addition they also produce lots of aerosols that, in the short term at least, help keep the planet as cool as a deodorant model’s armpits.
So who has come up with this new theory? Some half-crazed nitwit with a motoring show to protect? George Bush? A bloke in the pub? No. In fact it comes from an organisation called EarthSave, which is run and funded, so far as I can tell, by the usual array of free-range communists and fair trade hippies.
The facts it produces, however, are intriguing. Methane, which pours from a cow’s bottom on an industrial scale every few minutes, is 21 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. And as a result, farmed animals are doing more damage to the climate than all the world’s transport and power stations put together.

“well, it’s debatable that farmed animals are causing more damage then fossil fuel use, but yes methane from farmed animals is a large problem.”

What’s more, demand for beef means more and more of the world’s forests are being chopped down, and more and more pressure is being put on our water supplies.
Plainly, then, EarthSave is encouraging us to go into the countryside at the first possible opportunity and lay waste to anything with more than one stomach. Maybe it wants me to shoot my donkeys. Happily what it’s actually saying is that you can keep your car and your walk-in fridge, but you’ve got to stop eating meat.

“ I severely doubt EarthSave is encouraging you to shoot anything, way to take what they said out of context. No, I’m sure they would urge you to cut back on your fossil fuel usage and quit eating meat.”

In fact you’ve got to stop eating all forms of animal products. No more milk. No more cheese. And if it can be proven that bees fart, then no more honey either. You’ve got to become a vegan.

“Oh boo hoo, no more killing animals for the lame ass reason of stuffing your face.”

Now of course if you don’t like the taste of meat, then it’s perfectly reasonable to become a vegetablist. It’s why people who don’t like, say, John Prescott become Conservatives. But becoming a vegan? Short of being paraded on the internet while wearing a fluffy pink tutu, I can think of nothing I’d like less.

“Precisely because you have never been exposed to the wide array of vegan food. But of course you are ignorant to the fact that such a abundance of vegan food choices even exists as you make painfully obvious by regurgitating the same stupid stereotypical “rabbit food” critique of vegan food below.”

Eating a plate of food that contains no animal product of any kind marks you down as a squirrel. Eating only vegetables is like deciding to talk using only consonants. You need vowels or you make no sense.

“A squirrel, quite. Oh excuse me, It’s time to brush my fluffy squirrel tail I sprouted after going vegan.”

Of course there are certain weeds I like very much. Cauliflower and leeks particularly. But these are an accompaniment to food, useful only for filling up the plate and absorbing the gravy. The idea of eating only a cauliflower, without even so much as a cheese sauce, fills me with dread.
There are wider implications, too. Let us imagine that the world decided today to abandon its appetite for sausage rolls, joints of beef and meat-infused Mars bars. What effect would this have on the countryside?

“Uh, maybe it would get a chance to recover from an unbelievably large grazing animal population?”

Where now you find fields full of grazing cows and truffling pigs, there would be what exactly?

“The flora and fauna that naturally occur there. Oh no! Now we couldn't have that.”

Hardcore vegetablists like to imagine that the land would be returned to the indigenous species, that you could go for a walk without a farmer shooting your dog, and that you’d see all manner of pretty flowers and lots of jolly new creatures. Wolves, for instance.
In fact if animal farmers were driven away, the land would be divided up in two ways. Some would be given over to the growing of potatoes – the ugliest crop in Christendom – and the rest would be bought by rock stars. Either way, Janet Street-Porter and her ridiculous gaggle of ramblers in their noisy clothes and stupid hats would still get short shrift.

“Just like all the other national parks and public use land right? Oh wait, that’s not what happens at all.”

What’s more, there’d be no grassland because there’d be no animals to graze.

“So because there are no farm animals to overgraze the grass and compact the ground making it nearly impossible for any grass to grow, there would be no grassland? I’m pretty sure the exact opposite would happen, the grasslands would make a comeback like you would’t believe.”

And there’d be no woods either because without pheasants what’s the point? I’m sure EarthSave dreams of a land as pristine as nature intended but it’d be no such thing. Within about three weeks Britain would look like Saskatchewan.

“Oh you’re a fucktard. Because we can’t shoot pheasants we might as well clear cut the forests. That’s pretty much the worst reasoning I’ve ever heard.”

So plainly the best thing we can do if we want to save the world, preserve the English countryside and keep on eating meat, is to work out a way that animals can be made to produce less methane.

“Plainly.”

Scientists in Germany are working on a pill that helps, but apparently this has a number of side effects. These are not itemised, but I can only assume that if you trap the gas inside the cow one of the drawbacks is that it might explode. Nasty.

“yep, but eating shit infested meat is a jolly good time isn’t it. Nasty indeed.”

And unnecessary. We all know that the activity of our bowels is governed by our diet. We know, for instance, that if we have an afternoon meeting with a bunch of top sommeliers in a small windowless room it’s best not to lunch on brussel sprouts and baked beans.
Recently I spent eight days in a car with my co-host from Top Gear James May, who has a notoriously flatulent bottom. But because he was living on army rations – mashed up Greenpeace leaflets to which you add water – the interior was always pine fresh and lemon zesty.
So if we know – and we do – that diet can be used to regulate the amount of methane coming out of the body, then surely it is not beyond the wit of man to change the diet of farmyard animals.

“except the side effects of changing the natural diet of ruminates are exactly why we have the problem with e-coli that we do today.”

At the moment, largely, cows eat grass and silage,

“And corn.”

and as we’ve seen, this is melting the ice caps and killing us all. So they need a new foodstuff: something that is rich in iron, calcium and natural goodness.

“Ruminants fart, quit eating them if your worried about the environment, it’s not really that difficult of a concept.”

Plainly they can’t eat meat so here’s an idea to chew on. Why don’t we feed them vegetarians?

“I got an even better Idea, lets feed them all the stupid conservative ass-hats like yourself.”

Lets get tough on activism!

2007-05-31T08:47:00.000-06:00

(Contains some non-PG material :D)

The importance of good, effective, vegan activism and outreach cannot be overstated. In some way, I’m sure it’s responsible for you becoming a vegan or considering becoming one now. I would like to address a specific part of effective activism, the part I would consider the most important, talking to people about veganism. Obviously, we can’t do very effective outreach if we don’t engage in a dialog about our veganism with our non-vegan acquaintances. However, many people much to my surprise, are very uncomfortable talking about their veganism to the point that they deem any day to day outreach efforts as evangelizing and imposing our collective vegan will on others.

One of the most frustrating aspects of this anti personal outreach trend is this demented live and let live attitude that comes along with it. “I don’t care what other people eat; they can do what they want.” Seriously!? If you really believe that then why the fuck are you a vegan in the first place? You might as well just keep eating animals at that point since you seem to have no problem with animal consumption. Lets face it, you alone don’t make that big of a difference to the animals as a vegan if you do nothing but try and hide your veganism every chance you get. It’s when we help other people to go vegan that we really become useful to the real animal rights movement, ourselves, others, and the animals.

Now I’m not saying we should go around punching everyone in the face that eats a turkey sandwich (although that might be effective outreach too :D). What I am saying is that it is vitally important that when the topic comes up you do engage in a conversation about veganism. You don’t necessarily have to make a compelling case for abolitionist theory the first time you talk to someone, but strive to drive home main points such as: animals should not be used by people for any reason, there is no morally relevant distinction between using animals and using humans, and if you take animal interests seriously you must be vegan.
I strongly recommend visiting Professor Gary Francione’s website to learn more about abolitionist animal rights. It’s always much easier and fun to talk to someone about something you are familiar with and veganism is no different.

In conclusion try to talk to everyone you can about veganism, make it a goal to talking to at least one person a day about it. Start slow, just make sure you don’t make concessions in your argument to makes the conversation more pleasant. Other people may not agree with you and that’s fine, but for veganism to mean anything it must be a moral baseline, it must be nonnegotiable. Now get out there and talk to people!

Vegetarians and Animal Rights

2007-05-23T08:49:00.001-06:00

I’m sure we have all met the vegetarian that claims to support animal rights. Maybe you are that vegetarian and if so you might just be wondering where this is headed. If so, I ask that you merely wait to dismiss what I have to say until the end of this post.
(Vegetarians as I will speaking of it them here is meant to refer to people who do not eat animal bodies or slaughterhouse by-products, such as gelatin, but who do still consume eggs and dairy products and may wear wool.)

The vegetarian lifestyle as defined above is still participating in the exploitation of animals. By consuming dairy, you are still directly supporting the veal and leather industries. By consuming eggs, you are complicit in the killing of billions of “spent” hens yearly. The most important point to understand about the dairy and egg industries is that they rely on the eventual, untimely killing of the cows and chickens that are enslaved to them as much as meat producers do. it makes no difference whether the farm is organic or “free-range” or “humanely raised” with Whole Foods seal of approval, the process is the same. Therefore vegetarianism, wile still much better than eating animals, is inconsistent with basic animal rights theory as it violates the most basic right not to be treated as the property of others by requiring animals be enslaved and killed to bring said vegetarians milk and eggs.

For the rights of animals to mean anything even if just in theory at this point in time, the people who champion the cause cannot be living a lifestyle incompatible with rights theory. Would you take someone seriously who spoke of equality for men and women if you knew that person beat their wife? Why should anyone take a movement seriously that speaks of rights for animals, most importantly the right not to be treated as property, when some in the movement continue to exploit animals and are complicit in their use as property?

If you are already a vegetarian going vegan is a quite easy next step. Eliminating dairy and eggs is almost effortless if you take a week to research other food options to prepare to replace dishes you currently eat that contain eggs and dairy products.

If you take animal interests seriously, and I hope if you are reading this that you do, then I urge you to consider making the next step. Become Vegan.

-MH

Q & A

2007-05-15T09:32:00.000-06:00

Question: I am vegetarian, but I still eat cheese. I have been trying to research the treatment of organic or biodynamic dairy animals. I want to know if they are only milked when they have had calves naturally, or if they treat them the same as intensive dairy farming where they keep impregnating them. I can't seem to find the right information.

Answer: Their is a pervasive misconception among many that organic is synonymous with "cruelty-free". This could not be further from the truth. The practices engaged in by organic dairy farmers are identical to the handling practices of conventional farmers in all important ways. All the organic label is signifying is that the milk is supposed to be hormone and antibiotic free, and that the animal was fed on organic feed. Even the so called "cruelty-free" products are hardly what they claim to be. for dairy and egg products to be produced animals must die. Unfortunately their is no way around the reality of this situation. For this reason vegetarianism is incompatible with the animal rights position, because vegetarians still engage in easily avoidable exploitation and by consuming dairy and eggs condone the killing of the animals they claim to want to accord basic rights to. It is important that we make every attempt to be ethically consistent in our positions and therefore we must become vegan and quit using animal products all together. To fight for the rights of animals wile still willingly participating in the exploitation of animals or condoning their use in any way is effectively shooting yourself and this movement in the foot.

When fish tanks are no-no's, go SCUBA diving instead!

2007-05-08T21:28:00.000-06:00

As a vegan, keeping a fish tank presents some fairly obvious ethical problems. That's why I have finally decided to take up SCUBA diving. I've always been fascinated with underwater life. Cliche or not, it is another world down there. So if we can't keep the fish in our home (and with all the work that entails, especially for salt water, who would want to anyways?) we'll just go to were the fishies live.

I'm still trying to save up the money to begin my training but once I do I'll be sure and keep you posted about the underwater world.

I would love to hear your stories about SCUBA diving or related pursuits. Leave me a comment with your story's.

"They're not vegans. They're baby killers!"

2007-05-03T09:28:00.000-06:00

Full article

ATLANTA (AP) — A Superior Court jury convicted a vegan couple of murder and cruelty to children Wednesday in the death of their 6-week-old, who was fed a diet largely consisting of soy milk and apple juice.

...prosecutor Mike Carlson told the jury Tuesday during closing arguments: "They're not vegans. They're baby killers!"

It's horrible that a baby died at the hands of these morons, but I'm thrilled that the prosecutor said, "these people aren't vegans..." and that the paper printed it. I'm so happy that in a case that could potentially carry so much negative publicity for vegans that the point was made that A. vegans can raise their baby's without killing them, and B. that killing your baby is not a vegan thing to do.

Fun little point by point

2007-05-03T09:15:00.000-06:00

I don't know about you guys but I find it fun to read others aguments from time to time. So here is a short point by point responce to a fellow user on Yahoo! Answers:

“A lot of people are against eating meat because they think that killing animals is the same thing as killing people. Let me be one to pop that little bubble of delusion.”

-Oh god, thank you. You have no idea how long I’ve waited for you to come set me straight.

“To all animal rights advocators,”

- Err, let me stop you right there, the proper word is this situation would be advocate. Anyways, go ahead…

“ to all vegans, to all those who believe eating meat is morally wrong. WAKE UP!!! We are not talking about humans: we're talking about animals. ANIMALS!!”

- You know, you’re smart, I never thought of it that way.

“ Creatures incapable of reason or rational thought. Animals don't think the way humans do."

- Easy there buddy. Why don’t you take your half-baked pre 18th century philosophy somewhere else? Plenty of animals express all those qualities and there are many humans that do not. Therefore, the above characteristics are not valid reasons to exclude animals from the moral community.

“...They don't have human emotions, they don't have brains as advanced as we are. Why? Because they're animals.People need to stop equating the life of an animal with the life of a human. You have to make the comparison. If dogs and cats and cows and chickens were just as important as humans, and could think as humans, then why haven't they changed?”

- I find it quite ironic that you ask such a question wile we could shortly be facing a crisis due to honeybee’s, of all things, becoming under populated. All things are connected, and all things are equally important. Lets be realistic here, I couldn’t care less if you died today, I probably would never even find out. Yet to you this is a great harm. Some may say, and I would agree, that this is the ultimate harm. Similarly, the cow that your beloved steak comes from is quite harmed by your decision to set in motion the machine that will kill him or her. Point being, this is not an issue of cognitive ability. This is an issue of sentience, and it’s an issue of suffering.

“ Where are the signs of rational thought and behavior in the animal kingdom? There are none. Why?”

- How about Elephants banding together to help rescue other trapped Elephants? Orca’s working together to hunt their prey, and sharks that do the same? How about Alex ( http://www.alexfoundation.org/index2.htm... )? I could go on but I think you get what I’m saying. You see none because you don’t look, not because they are not there.

“Because animals are not human, animals are animals.”

- Humans are animals as well. Of course, this is only accepted when meat eaters are making an augment for how “natural” meat eating is.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with eating them or killing them.”

- Then there should be nothing wrong with killing and eating similarly abled humans, such as the mentally retarded or infants. But there is because this is about more than the level of cognitive functioning one possesses.

“You talk about morals. Aren't morals found in religious texts such as the Bible? Take, for instance, the Bible. In the Bible, the Jews were allowed to eat certain kinds of meat. You can read about this in Leviticus. OK, now let's take the Quran. In the Quran, Muslims are given guidelines as to what meats they are allowed to eat. “

- Your ignorance is showing. Plenty of moral systems are build upon secular believes.

“So, the next time you see a skinny, anemic-looking vegan holding up a poster that reads, "save the cows," give a little chuckle, turn away, and enjoy your slab of ham.”

-And I hope right as you turn away, someone takes a bite out of you. That would give me a little chuckle.

Happy Meat!

2007-05-02T09:04:00.000-06:00

The above term is one of my favorite circulating in the abolitionist animal rights movement currently. These two simple words illustrate much of what is wrong with the new-welfarist approach to animal rights, at once describing activist policy and public perception.
The public views Happy Meat (humanely raised, free range, etc.) as a morally superior choice to non-humanly produced meat, or rather a morally superior choice to meat that is not marketed as humanely produced. When it comes right down to it the real difference is in the labeling. The suffering the animals experience sure doesn’t change much with free range production, and humanly raised animals are still killed. The public’s perception of happy meat and the so-called animal “protectionists” that peddle it as morally superior is that they are doing something good for the animals. More importantly the consumers feel their choice to eat “happy meat” is sufficient. I can’t tell you how many people I have talked to that say “well I only eat free range, isn’t that ok?” The more informed ones might even bring up the fact that animal “protection” groups endorse and fight for humanely raised products, assuming a seal of approval from these groups. The fact that some deny the incredibly negative impact this sort of campaigning has on public perception and more importantly; the number of animal lives lost is astounding. Maybe I live in some backwards bubble unaffected by the rest of the world (and somehow judging from the stories of others I doubt it) but where I live people that are uncomfortable with eating regular animal products are just fine with eating free range animals. I call them Whole Foods customers, but whatever terminology you like is fine too. We are effectively taking people who may have went vegan given some encouragement, and delayed their growth by making them complacent with a “kinder, gentler” form of exploitation. This is also quite a poor move from an activist standpoint because it causes us to spend money campaigning to get people to eat happy meat, and then we must engage these same people again to try to get them to go vegan. The money and time wasted getting people, companies, university cafeterias, and the like to adopt free-range options would be much better spent getting people and establishments to adopt vegan lifestyles and offer vegan options.
Of course as an abolitionist, I would love to see a real focus on vegan abolitionist education campaigns on a large scale. I feel we give the public too little credit for their ability to change their perceptions sometimes. Maybe I’m mistaken, but if people understood the life’s of the animals they ate and the effect their choices really have, I think they would be less likely to continue their current habits. By peddling happy meat as animal protectionists do, we abandon the very animals we claim we are fighting to protect, and retard the growth of a strong coherent vegan movement.

P.S. The image above is of a "free-range" egg facility. You can make your own judgements as to the appropriateness of this title.

Quit lying to the kids!

2007-04-25T09:00:00.000-06:00

Did you know the “store” makes eggs? I sure didn’t. Why must we lie to our children about where our food comes from? A hen had to suffer in horrible conditions to produce those eggs that you so ignorantly agreed came from the store, and no, I don’t care if they were free range or “humanely raised” whatever that means. Anyone who cares to analyze the situation objectively will easily see that by resorting to lying to our children or telling them half-truths about where their food comes from we tell the world that the truth is too horrendous for a child to take. I understand the need for keeping concepts at age appropriate levels. Depicting cow slaughter to a child under ten years old most likely would be a bad idea for example. I do think however, that an age appropriate explanation of where the slab of flesh on said child’s plate comes from is important. For that matter I think an explanation of where Nikes come from is important as well, but that’s a different topic.

The problem is (for the exploiters anyways) is that kids get this stuff. They haven’t had the years of cognitive dissonance to be able to shrug off the truth like some adults can. No, when our children are told the truth they see things such as this for what they really are, atrocities of the highest scale. That’s why we are scared to tell them because they, unlike many of us, will put two and two together and realize that the animal you just told them about, a being that they understand to be an individual with the ability to suffer, is nothing but a distant relative of the animal that was killed to feed them.

The world can’t have honesty when it comes to food production. If we told our children, what really happens many more people would grow up Vegan today. We all know the saying that goes “if slaughterhouses had glass walls more people would be Vegan.” Well I bet if more people were honest about where our food comes from at a young age, more people would be Vegan too.

-Matt Hastings

When “restrictive” actually means liberating.

2007-04-23T12:32:00.000-06:00

Ask any Vegan and I doubt they could count how any times that someone has told them their diet is too restrictive for that person. I understand the reaction, I had it myself before I was Vegan in fact. Many of us did. As all of us Vegans soon find out though, outward appearances can be very deceiving. Lets face it, the idea of eating nothing but salads for the rest of your life makes you a bit apprehensive even if it meant you would be given a million dollars. Most people, when they think about a Vegan diet believe than we eat “twigs and berries” or salads all day. Even as an ethical Vegan, I try to steer any conversation about my Veganism or the possibility of the person I’m talking to going Vegan to questions about diet first. Wile I would personally prefer to talk about animal rights and abolitionist theory I think that it helps if wile you are talking about these important issues the person is not contemplating a life of twigs, berries, and salads.
I know many of you might see this as a minor point, “animals are getting slaughtered, we don’t have time to talk about my lunch.” But we need to see things though the eyes of our ignorant Vegan in training. Take a moment to think about some of the questions you asked as a vegetarian transitioning into Veganism, or even as a new Vegan. Now think about the discussions you have with people about Veganism. Do your main points of conversation cover the common beginner questions, or do you leave the person you are talking to with the same questions you had because you were too eager to talk about AR?

If people understand that there is a whole universe of food to explore outside of animal products that you are enthusiastic about, they will be less likely to worry about the things that turn into non-issues once you become Vegan (such as eating some really great food) and more concerned about the important stuff such as Animal Rights. Think about it.

-Matt Hastings

Were your vitums at? (Or why retail really sucks)

2007-04-23T09:53:00.000-06:00

*We now break from our regularly scheduled PG program for a rant. You’ve been warned.*

Yep, Vitums. What the hell is a Vitum you ask? In do time my friend, in do time.
So I’m standing there straightening an isle when some lady walks around the corner and calls out from about fifteen feet away and asks... “Were you vitums at?” yep just like that. I have no motherfucking clue what the hell she is talking about. “Vitums?” I ask. Hoping she will clarify herself, but no such luck. “Yeah, vitums wher’d day at?” She asks again. I figure, fuck it, I’ll just start guessing things right? I mean if she can’t be bothered to speak clearly using normally accepted words in the English language I don’t have to be that nice to her do I? After a few guesses it dawns on me that she is asking for vitamins. You might be thinking, yeah, duh dumbass, but trust me you wouldn’t have known what she was talking about either so shut up. I hate people like that.

Retail sucks. The pay sucks, the job sucks. They expect more work done with less people getting paid less money. Guess what? They get what they want. How, I have no idea. Big Box retail is the perfect model of everything that is wrong with the capitalist system, and I have to work at one right now. I wish we could burn the fuckers down.
Anyways, I’m write something about Veganism soon since this is suppose to be a vegan blog.

Talk to you later.

-Matt

How humanely raised do you feel now?

2007-04-18T09:15:00.000-06:00

This is a little "guided meditation" on the subject of humanely raised animals. I would like to write a longer one in the future and this is the rough draft of a first attempt. I would like to know what people think, what works for you, what doesn't.

What if I was to confine you for a year? You are well treated, you have food, water and a few things to do. All in all your treated pretty well. Then one day I come in scoop you up, bring you outside and throw you into a truck with a bunch of other people. You are scared now, somehow the past year of being pampered still doesn't make up for even this little bit of torment. The truck stops and you are roughly tossed onto the ground were you are told to form a line and follow the others in front of you. As you walk into this building single file people are waiting their turn to enter a door you can see up ahead. When it's your turn you walk in and are quickly strung up by your legs upside down. To add to the immense terror you already feel at this point, a man with blood stained clothes turns around and begins approaching you with a knife in his right hand. With an emotionless expression on his face he proceeds to sever your windpipe and the arteries of your neck despite your screams of protest. It’s like he didn’t even hear you. As your drown in your own blood, gasping for breath, I think we can both agree that right now it makes no difference how you were treated before you were cut open. You will still be dead in a moment, and you will die terrified and tortured.

Q: Why are more Americans not vegetarians?

2007-04-16T08:50:00.000-06:00

A: Because they prefer to live the last 1/3 of their life's with preventable diseases. It's an American past time. If you break this tradition your probably just a terrorist. Or intelligent. You know... Whatever.

Vegans in the news

2007-04-13T06:56:00.000-06:00

Here's a nice news story that portrays Vegans in a positive light. Since they sometimes can be hard to find, I figured I'd mention it. Hope you all have a great day, and stay warm!

Abolition and Massage- an Animal Exploiter’s Worst Nightmare

2007-04-12T11:42:00.000-06:00

We all know that massage therapy is great for relaxation, relieving soreness and muscle tension, and a great number of other things. But did you know it could help make you a better animal advocate?
One thing that all people who spend time focused on others, human or nonhuman, have in common is they consistently neglect themselves. It’s easy to do. With everything we have going on in our lives the idea of stopping for a little me time can even seem selfish, but taking time out for you is essential to your ability to continue to help others for many years to come.
As animal advocates and especially as abolitionist’s we suffer from a great deal of stress in our pursuit to help animals. After a wile, this stress accumulates and many people become overwhelmed. This leads to the high burnout rate that the animal rights community experiences. To combat this high burnout rate I suggest groups of activists seek out Massage therapists they feel comfortable with, or alternative stress relieving activities.

Incorporating a therapist into your activist community could be as easy as inviting them to do 10 min chair massages at your next potluck for a fee you agree upon. You could even work out a group discount that everyone receives if a certain number of people book a treatment. Look within your community first, you might just have a Vegan massage therapist in your ranks already. A few things to keep in mind when talking about prices is the same rules for tattoos pretty much apply here. Haggling is never a good idea, but trades are normally welcome by all, such as free advertising or something similar.

Combating burnout is something that urgently needs to be addressed. By implementing some of the suggestions above, I hope activists can keep “making Vegans” for many years to come.

-Matt Hastings

P.S. Since my girlfriend and I are interested in working within activist communities in the ways described above when we move to Chicago, please let me know how it’s going if anyone tries this. Thanks!

Distorted View, It's a Place for Freaks like you!

2007-04-12T08:53:00.000-06:00

Seriously, Distorted View rocks. It's my second favorite podcast, right behind Vegan Freaks. One my favorite things Tim does on the show is when he sings his version of Blue by Eiffel 65. "I'm Blue daba debble do bobble.. dabal na na do." DV is not a show for the children, or really anyone who is unable to check their morals at the door and I mean all of them. If you like sick humor, and don't mind taking a half hour out of your day to laugh at kids being put in driers, you should really check out this podcast if you haven't already. I wonder if Tim knows he has Vegan listeners?

So tune on in, to distorted view.

Question: What's the silliest question you've been asked by an omnivore?

2007-04-11T10:09:00.000-06:00

Answer: I think my favorite silly omnivore question would either be the "don't plants have feeling too?" question because it's so ridiculous and easy to disprove. A close second would have to be the "but agricultural farming kills millions of little animals too" question because on the surface it seems plausible but when you really think about it, it seems very unlikely that many animals at all die when a field is harvested.

Do you have a question? Leave a comment below and maybe it appear on a future blog entry!

WTF Mate?

2007-04-11T09:04:00.000-06:00

Um. It's April 11th and there is snow on the ground. We had a thunderstorm in the middle of winter and now we have snow in spring?

Your political affiliations aside, something weird is going on here.

Why Vegans Should Embrace Complementary and Alterative Medicine

2007-04-09T11:21:00.000-06:00

We live within a system of government that is far from perfect. Ask anyone on the street and if they are being honest with you, they will probably agree with the above statement. Now ask them how they feel about the quality of their medical care, and assuming that they are part of the fortunate that have insurance, they will most likely tell you that we have some of the best medical care in the world. But do we?

The belief in the greatness of America’s health system is a delusion on the scale of the belief that milk builds strong bones. Both have a tiny bit of truth to them, but in the end, both are false. Misdiagnosis, drugs, physician error, and hospital negligence are the third leading cause of death in the United States. The system responsible for keeping us healthy and curing us when we are sick is killing us. We are not the only casualties of this system unfortunately. Millions of animals every year are needlessly killed in experiments that more often than not do nothing to advance our knowledge of disease. If anything, our use of animals in medical research is hampering our search for the cures to our most common diseases. Every day in the United States and other western nation’s, people die from diseases that are curable and more importantly preventable with complementary and alternative medicine.

There are many advantages to CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) practices. They are generally not invasive, non-toxic, are safe to test on humans, work with the body as opposed to against it, and focus on prevention. CAM therapies can include practices such as Chiropractic, Massage Therapy, Yoga, Naturopathy, and Herbal medicine. The allopathic medical community has tried it’s best to suppress CAM treatments by discrediting them, or by attempting to ban their practice as was the case with Chiropractic. With the out of control cost of medical care under the current system, and a growing dissatisfaction with the level of care provided it is becoming harder and harder to suppress these CAM therapies.
The Vegan community will benefit greatly if society chooses to embrace the CAM movement. Since most if not all CAM therapies are safe, testing them on humans would be possible, accurate, and pose minimal risk to the people involved. Best of all, no animals would have to be tested on to establish the effectiveness of CAM treatments. One of the biggest augments against the use of CAM therapies is that they are unproven. This is disingenuous considering the reluctance to test these therapies because if they are proven safe and effective companies cannot patent them which means the money invested to test them will almost certainly be lost. With over half of the public using at least one CAM therapy and that number continues to grow yearly, (the most popular being Chiropractic and Massage) the necessity to research and advance alterative methods of healthcare will become overwhelming.

The other major place that Veganism stands to benefit from CAM is preventive or Lifestyle medicine, specifically in regards to diet. It’s no secret, at least not to us, that the overwhelming majority of research about diet is showing that the closer we can get to a Vegan diet, the better. We are now learning that diet has the power to prevent and cure most of our major diseases, without surgery and without drugs. As this information becomes more mainstream, in other words the more we talk about it, the more people will embrace a healthy Vegan diet. The entire Vegan community benefits here, not just the health Vegans as would seem apparent. Ethical Vegans (and I consider myself one) will have a much easier time convincing a health Vegan to jump aboard animal rights issues than a meat eater, and I doubt many people would disagree with that.

Advocating CAM therapies is in many ways advocating for Veganism. By encouraging disease prevention though diet, lifestyle, and stress reduction, we show our commitment to ending Human oppression as well. Instead of promoting a system that is benefiting the rich and privileged wile countless millions die unnecessarily, we will support a system that does not require animals to test it’s procedures, a system that is affordable, cost effective and that can cure and prevent the most common diseases.

This is not to say that traditional medical care does not have it’s place. Medicine today as it is currently practiced is wonderful for emergency medicine. There are plenty of people alive today that would not be if it were not for the life saving abilities of modern medicine. The problems, as outlined above, begin when we try to apply too much technology and fight against our bodies instead of trying to support it. Currently the best defense we have against disease is our own immune system. Neither a drug nor surgery currently available today comes anywhere close to the power of this amazingly complex system inside all of us. I merely am suggesting that we work with the innate intelligence of our own body to cure and prevent disease. By adopting this approach, we will increase our quality of life and save more life’s, both humans and non-human.

Relevant links:

http://pcrm.org
http://vegsource.com

- Matt Hastings

Lamb Kabobs

2007-04-08T10:33:00.000-06:00

Hello Bloggyland! Welcome to the first annual Easter blog. Where I complain about something involving Easter. This year's topic, lamb kabobs.
I find it quite disturbing that people choose to eat lamb on Easter. Before I get accused of being sentimental, think of it this way. Lambs are often depicted with the Easter bunny on children's Easter products. Could you imagine if people ate rabbit on Easter? "Johnny, would you like Mr. Cottontail's leg, or a Breast?" Oh no, think of the children!

You would think that if the Christian church world choose any day to eat vegetarian this would be it. A holiday that honors the reincarnation of Jesus is celebrated with the death of countless animals. Why not eat live plants that did not have to suffer and die as you commemorate life and rebirth? The choice to eat dead flesh on this day is the height of irony. But as us Vegans know, you can't celebrate anything without something dead on the table.

So I'll leave you with a picture of a lamb to show your uncle as he takes a bite out of him lamb kabob to remind him of the sorce of his meal.

-Matt Hastings

I like the word Kellogg's because it has ello in the middle of it, like the British greeting, "ello governor!"

Yahoo! Answers and Vegan outreach, a call to “arms”

2007-04-07T10:38:00.000-06:00

I spend a good bit of time in the Vegetarian & Vegan section of Yahoo! Answers posting under the username MattH. The questions and answers you will see here range from well thought out and respectful, to downright nasty. Since I’ve been answering questions there for a wile my posts and views have become quite well known. When I first started posting here many people were hostile to my views. Even so, I spoke my truth and defended abolitionist animal rights.

Recently though, a small but noticeable shift has been occurring on Yahoo! Answers. Topics I use to get thumbs down for, recently have been gaining support from other users. My views have not changed, if anything they have grown stronger in favor of the abolitionist approach as set forth by Gary Francione. It seems to me people have started to open up to considering the abolitionist theory in this forum.

My purpose for posting such a mundane topic is simple. I would love to see more people advocating abolitionist animal rights and Veganism on Yahoo! Answers. Post questions to get people thinking, or answer other users questions. Currently we have two people who are unequivocally supporting abolitionist theory, another Vegan Freak listener, and myself. I could not imagine the impact it may have if that number jumped to even ten people, or twenty. Please consider posting on Yahoo! Answers no matter how infrequently as a small addition to your Vegan outreach.

-Matt Hastings