The Irony... Vegans Are So Judgmental!

"Vegans are so judgmental!" 

I say you who eat meat are the ones who "judge"... After all, don't you decide which animals are to be born, grown and fattened on your behalf?  Don't you judge that it's okay to suffocate male chicks so you can have eggs?  Don't you judge that it's fine to steal babies so you can indulge in the mother's milk?  Don't you judge that it's quite alright to pay someone to kill animals for you?  Your dollars will even buy you the myth that it's all "humane"... No muss, no fuss! And fortunate you are that your neighbors judge that it's okay to eat animals.  And your friends and family judge it's okay too.  And you judge what they judge, as peachy-keen!

YOU judge that it's acceptable to confine animals for their entire lives.  You judge that it's fine if sometimes those places burn to the ground with animals trapped inside.  You judge that the bodies of animals can be subjugated for flesh, fur and fun.  You judge that it's okay to dominate and willfully terminate the lives of horses, pigs, cows, chickens, mice, ducks, geese, starlings, frogs, prarie dogs, bears, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, wolves, rabbits, fishes and alligators. Why? Well, because you've judged them to either satisfy or to compete with your wants!  As a nonvegan, it is YOU who judges that it's hunky-dory to manipulate, castrate, impregnate, and eviscerate Others... Still, I'm told over and over again - It's the vegans who are judgmental.    

But the way I see it - I'm not deciding who lives or dies so I can have a leather couch or a woolen scarf or an ice cream cone... I'm not the one who "judges" it's okay to imprison elephant, tigers or dolphins so they can do tricks for me...  I'm not the one who sanctions making breed dogs because I "judge" some to be better than others.  I'm not the one who decides life and death --- As a nonvegan, You are the "judge" of that.


Vegans aren't the ones putting animals on the earth to judge what their lives should be and when/how/why their deaths should occur.  I don't know that there is any single thing more critical than the "judgment" over life and death...   I'd say the whole setup kinda puts YOU in the self-proclaimed "gOd" seat - doesn't it?  So please... The next time you have the urge to call a vegan "judgmental" - Take a good long honest look in the mirror of your conscience and you be the judge. 

Calling vegans "judgmental"... Oh the irony!

Kids & the Humane Myth - There are No Happy Meat Meals

In this age of instant gratification... and touch screen technology, it's no wonder a fast-food parent opts for the quick and easy: Child: Mom... what's a vegetarian? Mom: Someone who doesn't eat meat. Child: Why don't they eat meat? Mom: Because they don't like how it tastes... Would you like some more bacon dear? It's obvious most parents don't want to slow their child's brain with thoughts that might sway them from the burger patch mentality. Especially if doing so might might cause them to confront their own (unpleasant) demons as well. Yet, I am society's child... and I'm burdened repairing the many shortcuts conveniently taken. Could you not have spared the time to divulge an awkward truth? Could you not have had the courage to battle this ancient wrong? Or are you to be pitied too... for you inherited the lies as well? Kids of all ages... time to grow up. There's no such thing as a "happy" meat meal... and we don't "need" to eat animals at all. Go Vegan

HOORAY ANIMAL VEGAN ADVOCACY - MEAT CONSUMPTION DECLINE

WASHINGTON - Numbers are in and it looks like consumption of *meat* is at it's lowest in 7 years! And if trends continue, through 2009 - 2010 figures of consumption will decline to levels not seen in about 12 years.

So hooray vegan advocacy and animal persons! We're making progress... They're finally listening that less meat is better - That NO MEAT is Wonderful - That NO MEAT/DAIRY is IDEAL! Now I wonder which of the following reasons tipped who and how?

4 reasons 5 reasons 5 reasons 5 reasons 10 reasons 10 reasons 10 reasons 10 reasons 10 reasons 21 reasons 22 reasons 28 reasons 49 reasons 101 reasons As if you needed another reason

A Gentle Peaceful & Joyful Vegan Thanksgiving

I am thankful for a Gentle Thanksgiving I am thankful for all the rescues at Farm Sanctuary And for Joanna Lucas at Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary who shares with us the plentiful bounty that exists when all life is deemed of value:

Melvin and I have much to be thankful for. I for one am thankful for Melvin's presence next to me today, for his life, for this moment of connection we are sharing under the wide open sky. And for the luminous memory of his five brothers: George, Stanley, Alfred, Elmer and Archie. As a group, they were a slow motion parade - an extravagant display of panache, moxie, charisma, flamboyance, and supreme self-confidence. Not a group of mere mortals to know and love, but a magnificent cavalcade of richly feathered tails, quivering wings, shifting color, triumphant song and vibrant dance to experience and be awed by. We WERE awed. These big, beautiful birds, whose bodies had been systematically mutilated and broken in the name of "Thanksgiving" dinner, never ceased to express with inexhaustible passion and panache not only their absolute love of life but, most heartbreakingly, their absolute certainly that life loved them back - missing toes, severed beaks, fractured joints, brittle bones, collapsed lungs, struggling hearts, terminally broken bodies and all. One on one, they were just regular turkeys: curious, inquisitive, sensitive, communicative, friendly, affectionate. Regular guys, with good and bad sides, good and bad days, ordinary and extraordinary qualities, personal errors and personal triumphs. Generally friendly. Sometimes shy, cranky, or foolish but always aware, always full of feeling, perception, memory and, astonishingly, always full of enthusiasm. If I had to use only one word to describe turkeys it would be "enthusiasm". Not euphoria, not excitement. Enthusiasm, straight from the root of the word: "en theo", "with god". I haven't met anyone who is more connected with the throbbing grace of every living heartbeat, and more intent on communicating this awareness than turkeys are. And they communicate it constantly, contagiously, and with the touching certainty that they are heard and understood. They used to follow us around, issuing forth an almost constant stream of melodic replies, opinions, observations, remarks, wisecracks, and comebacks that our limited hearing range distinguished mainly as gobbles and clucks, but that their infinitely more sensitive ears discerned as complete and meaningful musical phrases that were constantly enriched with color and touch signals - colors we can't see because we are blind to ultraviolet light, and touch we can't feel because we are numb to the touch that can be felt only through the tips of feathers. So we listened humbly to these beings whose experience of the world's colors, scents, and sounds is so vastly richer than ours, whose awareness of the world's beauty far surpasses ours, and we kept listening even though we were aware that we understood only a fraction of what they communicated. Probably, they voiced things that are interesting to all of us - friends, foes, finds, fears, pleasures, loneliness, hope - and things that are interesting only to other turkeys. Whatever it was, it was obviously worth expressing. Often, the six brothers approached sanctuary visitors as a group, but just as often, they separated from the flock and visited alone with their favorite people. Like most turkeys, they were both perfectly gregarious and perfectly independent, blessed with a remarkable gift for both vibrant social interaction and quiet solitude - sometimes gregarious, sometimes, with equal ease, solitary creatures. Today, it's just Melvin and me. I sit on the ground and he climbs in my lap, warm and pulsing with the mysterious life within, and the soft bare neck, the beating heart, the living stillness of his being. A wide open heart, a vast field, a free sky, a warm breeze, an ape and a turkey, communicating about what matters most - love, loss, life - one being speaking to the being of another. We have much to be thankful for. Thank you for this moment of grace. Thank you for Melvin's luminous presence. Thank you for his brothers' glorious days of freedom. Thank you for those of us who find it intolerable that countless persons like Melvin are forced in and out of short, miserable lives, mutilated, mocked, raped, forced to live in their own excrement, tormented, mass murdered, dismembered, burned, used for an evening's amusement, and flushed into mass graves. Thank you for the growing number of hearts who refuse to ignore this atrocity, refuse to support it, refuse to perpetuate it and, certainly, refuse to give thanks for it.
And I am thankful that I've been able to break from "tradition" to see my way to a more compassionate and ethically consistant life...

Peter Singer Newsweek Interview on Animals Rights

Animals Rights is Now a Mainstream Movement Newsweek International Newsweek.com: "Many people see this movement as a logical continuation of the fight against racism and sexism, and believe that the concept of animal rights will soon be as commonplace as equal pay and opportunities for women and minorities. If that happens—and I believe it will—the effects on the food we eat, how we produce it and the place of animals in our society will be profound. As the demand for animal products dwindles, the meat industry would breed fewer chickens, turkeys, pigs and cattle. If this sounds radical, so did suffrage and civil rights a few decades ago. The notion that we should recognize the rights of animals living among us rests on a firm ethical foundation. A sentient being is sentient regardless of which species it happens to belong to. Pain is pain, whether it is the pain of a cat, a dog, a pig or a child." Yep... that's the idea and surely we can start in that direction as individuals and attempt to square up our moral alliance with animals NOW - by going vegan - NOW.