Demonizing people

I have noticed that some animal activist demonize some people, people who wear fur, vivisectors, hunters, or people with whom they disagree on tactics. Name calling, demonizing people is counter-productive and not helpful in efforts to educate the general public. Those actions make us look mean. How can you possible claim that those thing are good, they don’t belong in education toolkit.

Let’s take hunters for example, because I have read many activist posting things against them like death threats etc. By the way it’s immoral to advocate for anyone’s death. What’s the moral difference between hunters and other non-vegans? Hunters kill other animals by themselves, other non-vegans buy animal products in the store. Have you seen a moral difference? There is none. All non-vegans kill other animals and to separate and demonized one group because of their methods of acquiring animal products is different drives away of the main problem, which is animal use.

I know that reading and watching videos about atrocities committed against other animals makes you mad. It makes me mad too. And I sometimes say some bad things against people who are doing those things, which I regret later. After bad words are said I realize that I was wrong because all animal use requires abuse and I have seen one portion of that abuse and if I focus on one form of use/abuse, people will think that use is wrong, not all use. In time I learn to control myself but yet again inconsistent thing are said sometimes.

Best thing you can do is to channel your anger into something positive, use it to educate people, to say to them that those awful things which they see on videos are common practice. And if those awful things are not done, using other animals is abuse by itself. Other animals are not ours to use in any way.

Raw cream cheese of sunflower seeds

Ingredients:

200 grams of raw shelled sunflower seeds

2 lemons

Spices like pepper, salt etc.

1 glove

Preparation:

Soak sunflower seeds overnight in twice as much water. Pour off the water and wash the seeds on the following way: gently rub the seeds between the palms to remove the skin which will come to the surface. Repeat that process several times to remove the skin. Put seeds with lemon juice in the blender. Add little bit of water and grind that. Now add spices and grind it to a point where it looks creamy. Transfer sunflower seed cheese in the jar and leave it in the fridge. Recipe says that it lasts for few days

Peaceful Abolitionist: You don't need money to make a difference

Peaceful Abolitionist: You don't need money to make a difference: It's that time of year again when those big animal welfare organisations are asking people to volunteer their time to go out and raise money...

LGBT rights = Human rights

I thought for a while to write a post about human rights and finally I got the inspiration so I will publish this on Human Rights day, because it’s appropriate. LGBT rights are part of fundamental human rights. This post is going to about LGBT rights and how it’s idiotic and hateful to oppose it.

I cannot understand how you can discriminate against anyone. And discriminations are form of violence. They should be actively opposed. People hide against their religion and claim that their god hates and discriminates, they just follow orders. Due to the fact that there is no evidence of the existence of your god, when you say god hates something, which means that you hate that.

"You can tell you've created god in your own image when it turns out that god hates all the same people you do". ~ Anne Lamatt

If your beliefs discriminate or deny rights to any sentient beings, your belief mustn’t be respected and must be opposed. You cannot find common ground with people who hate or have no desire to change.  

People who oppose LBGT rights deny to huge number of people equal rights on the basis our holy book says it’s wrong or it’s not natural. Those books are written in times when we knew so little about the world and they contain some horrible things. And you want to use books who justify rape and killing as your example. You are making a mistake when you equate being natural with being good. Other animals are doing stuff which we considered wrong like rape etc. And do you consider rape, because it happens in nature, to be good. By the way homosexuality is so ʺunnaturalʺ http://www.news-medical.net/news/2006/10/23/20718.aspx

It’s idiotic to oppose something which doesn’t concern or affect you in any way. You won’t lose any right if they get rights. So why oppose it.  And it’s hateful to deny same rights which you have to other humans.

Some argue if same-sex marriage is legalized, pedophilia will follow.  You thinking process don’t make any sense. You are comparing same-sex marriage with one of the most hideous things known to mankind. Think again, this time, use your brain.

Do opponents of same-sex marriage under traditional marriage consider a marriage of two unequal parties, when one is owner of other, when she is just a breeding material whose place is in kitchen, or the newest traditional marriage of two equal parties? Marriage is a contract, union of two people in love. That covers same-sex couples. Or do you argue that they cannot be in love.

I am very passionate about human rights. We are all animals. And I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all animals are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness. On which side of history you want to be, on the right side fighting for equality, or on the side of hatred, immorality. 

Inability of single issue campaigns to work

SICs are favorite and frequent tool of animal activist. But they don’t work. They can work in human rights because human animals are not considered property unlike other animals. Yes, use of other animals is pervasive and it will probably take a very long time to end. Some argue because of that we need to in the mine time use them, to help other sentient beings. Do they help? Banning production of fur in one country doesn’t save those sentient beings used for fur if the demand for that animal product is there. They will be transferred to a country where production of fur is allowed. Same thing applies with banning of sale of fur in any city. You, know there are other cities.

We come to one the main problem which I have with SICs is that they send confusing and inconsistent messages that some use is worse than other. General public can be confused by messages like Fur is murder, Meat is murder as those are the only animal products which require suffering and death of other animals.  

One reason behind SICs is that general public cannot take or understand the big picture that all use of other animals is wrong and we need to go after one use at the time. That’s an elitist stand. How could you understood and became a vegan. Are you assuming that you are smarter or better in some way than other people? But the abolitionists are the ones who are called elitist. That doesn’t make sense. I am not accusing animal activist who use SICs of being elitist, I am just trying to understand how we are called elitist when we advocate veganism, unequivocally and claim that people can understand the vegan message, but you are not called that.

Some SICs ask people who just sign petition and support that campaign. Those people don’t kill seals, whales, dolphins, etc. so they won’t be affected if killing those other animal is stopped. Because of that they can support those campaigns. And they can go home and eat/wear animal products thinking that they done something for the other animals, but in fact they done nothing.

Let’s take for example ban on slaughtering of horses in US. That didn’t stopped killing of those sentient beings, they were just taken in Mexico and killed there. And they endured more suffering because they had to be transported to those countries. I am in no way supporting killing of horses or any sentient beings like some so called animal rights organization. That campaign actually had done nothing good for the horses. But I cannot understand why people again are campaigning for that ban.

One of the longest running SICs is a campaign against vivisection. Surprise, surprise it’s not working. In England use of other animals is up http://bit.ly/nOzUpF

Vivisection is a voodoo science. It’s unreliable and dangerous to us and it brings unimaginable suffering to other animals. If we relied upon animal testing we would have killed millions of people. We wouldn’t have drugs like penicillin, digitalis, cortisone, morphine, aspirin, chloroform, insulin etc. Up to 90% of animal test results are discarded as they are inapplicable to humans. How can some people discard scientific facts to prolong inflicting suffering and killing of other animals in pointless experiments?

And do we have evidence that weflarism and SICs decrease use of other animals. No, we don’t. But we have evidence that use of other animals is increasing http://bit.ly/vqZdPM it seems that SICs aren’t working.

Will you continue to use SICs or promote veganism, unequivocally? Choice is yours.

Some misconceptions about veganism

There are many misconceptions about veganism. Although the term vegan was coined in the 1940's there are still people who don’t know what's veganism is about. The general public cannot take all the blame. Some of that blame is divided amongst leaders of big welfarist organizations who purposely mislead general public about what veganism is really about and so called vegans who insert their personal agenda into veganism. 

Let’s begin with something which is considered to be controversial, honey.  But there is nothing controversial about that animal product. One of that definition of veganism specifically names honey as something which vegans don’t eat. Here's that definition: “A way of living which excludes all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, the animal kingdom, and includes a reverence for life. It applies to the practice of living on the products of the plant kingdom to the exclusion of flesh, fish, fowl, eggs, honey, animal milk and it's derivatives, and encourages the use of alternatives for all commodities derived wholly or in part from animals.”  Question whatever honey is vegan or not is solved a long time ago. Maybe some think of being vegan as some badge of honor. But it's not; it’s the bare minimum of what we owe to other sentient beings.  I don’t like when someone is attacked for eating honey while calling themselves vegan. But I happy to find out there a vegans who don’t eat honey. It’s crazy, but when I am searching for some recipe on line, often there is honey in it.  People say but there is little bit of honey in that food. So, you admit eating of animal product, intentionally. I don’t care how someone is calling themselves, but if deteriorates the term if you don’t adhere to the definition.  You can call me militant or member of a vegan police if that will make you feel better for putting violence in your mouth.

Now we come to being vegan is being an elitist. What is elitist in veganism? Veganism sees no hierarchy among sentient beings. Being non-vegan is an elitist stand. Non-vegans divide other animals into categories based on the usefulness to them.

How can veganism be a sacrifice, in other words, how can you sacrifice something which you aren’t entitled in the first place. You have no right to use other animals at all. You may find that veganism is a sacrifice, but other animals have a different opinion.

Here's one misconception which isn’t completely baseless: veganism is a cult. I have written about that in my blog but I will repeat. Some continuously say we shouldn’t criticize each other’s or have some discussions about controversial topics, because something bad can happen like learning new things. In a cult there isn’t room for discussions or critique. Those people would like to be in a cult, to let others think for them.  I don’t blame non-vegans entirely for believing that veganism is a cult, those opponents of critical thinking make veganism look like a cult.

End of factory farming

I heard about revolutionary campaign which will "help" nonhuman animal so much. It doesn’t matter that problem isn’t how we treat the other animal that we use, the problem is that we use them at all. And if that campaign is successful it would just change the way how other animals are exploited.

You may ask but other animals will suffer less if factory farming is abolished. That’s questionable. And how do you know that they will suffer less. And any suffering which we inflict on other animals is unnecessary. End result of all farming, small or factory is the same, torture and death.

It’s often asked of animal exploiters to give more room to farm animals or to change how they kill other animals. So many campaigns are asking for something which exploiters will give anyway. But why the resist. You know, why. Because can you imagine large producers of animal products to just accept propositions of welfarist groups. Majority of demands by welfarist organizations are in favor of the industry because they increase the efficiency of exploitation of other sentient beings. Some exploitation is inefficient. Welfarists attack those inefficient practices demanding efficient practices. Crazy, right. That’s so going to help the other animals. 

When they started factory farming they didn’t know that putting large numbers of other animals in one place, not allowing them to move, will lead to stress, diseases. They are treating those diseases with drugs which lead to drug-resistant bacterias. And some of those bacterias can transfer to humans. By giving more room to other animals they can decrease level of stress.

Do you know why they stun other animals before they kill them? Not because they are concern with suffering of that person, rather than it may injury the worker if he works with large other animals, or that poor sentient being will injury herself while experiencing excruciating pain, fighting for the next breath.

In unlikely event that one country bans factory farming, it cannot stop the import of animal products from other country where factory farming isn’t banned due to many free-trade agreements.

I don’t understand why we need to help the industry by asking for more efficient exploitation. Welfarists say we need to do something now. But who those so called victories take years and years to implement. I though we need to do something now. And we can do something now which really helps all sentient beings, it’s called unequivocal vegan advocacy.