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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Are you ready?
I'll be wearing Levis, a red sweatshirt (size large), boots, and one of those black and white Palestinian scarves wrapped around my neck.
Which is exactly what I was wearing 29 years ago, the afternoon I was raped at knife point.
Fuck you and your car stereo.
y u mad?
It's tough to be seen as both a jokester without ill intentions AND a serious critic of those who most deserve to be mocked AND a sincere advocate for honesty and consideration standing against bullying and hatred. Dan seems to be all those things, but only upon really close examination. You can rationalize away any apparent contradictions amongst his positions, but it's tougher to stomp out the more visceral emotional tensions between those roles, and sometimes all we can do is watch our own cognitive dissonance play out on the screen.
When push comes to shove, I hope we err on the side of respectful seriousness. Angry mockery has its place when we're really oppressed, and there's still plenty enough that really oppresses us. But once we've got people's attention, it works against us. Dan is at a point in his career where he's got people's attention. He could now speak with broader moral authority if he wasn't constantly defending his more flippant remarks.
i'm not an evangelical vegan, but i will admit to using my superior culinary skills to promote veganism to my friends and family as a healthy but delicious alternative :)
Also, truly sustainable vegan agriculture is likely not possible. Sustainable agricultural techniques work by creating a miniature, domesticated ecosystem that produces a surplus useful to humans. Since animals are crucial links in every land-based ecosystem, it is unlikely that you could successfully built a domesticated ecosystem without them. Since vegan moral systems typically forbid the use of animals for purely human purposes, the choices are to either abandon veganism or abandon sustainability.
"Turkey-Green Grape Toss"
1-1/2 cup diced cooked turkey
1 cup thinly sliced celery
1/2 cup canned green seedless grapes (who knew they come canned? How convenient!)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
Combine all ingredients, and serve in avocado halves brushed with lemon juice (so they don't brown) Serves six.
It's 'hilariously awesome' how you are suddenly an expert on the obesity epidemic as soon as you criticize other people for DOING THE EXACT SAME THING
I want you to come and march with me and allllll the other women there, and look at them, and talk to them, and realize that when you make your little car stereo analogy you are talking about people. People who got raped regardless of what they wore, or did, or didn't wear or didn't do.
Don't be a rape apologist anymore aardvark. Be a decent human being.
We now return to our regularly scheduled vegan bashing.
Post your dissertation or GTFO.
Tick, tock...
It helps a lot that I believe in reincarnation. I struggled with the idea of meat eating as murder when I had just become a vegetarian, and that's what really helped me get over it. That and feeling certain that many of the animals humans consume would either never be born or would be consumed anyway if humans weren't involved.
Do I want animals to be treated better while they're alive. Yes. Oh, very badly. Do I blame the people eating the meat? No! Most people can't afford grass fed beef, free range chickens, etc. Even if they can, it's their choice, and I can't step in and judge them for it any more than they ought to step into my life and order me to buy this product or that.
Do I think vegetarianism is healthier for people and the earth? Yes. But I also think that eating local, organic, fresh food at every meal would be healthier. I can't do that--I eat bananas, I eat flour and sugar and pasta made who knows where because it's cheap and I'm broke. I eat cheese and eggs and ice cream. I eat Kraft Mac and Cheese when I'm feeling cruddy. People living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, right?
To relate it to evangelism... If you believe in a different god than I do, or no god at all, then I don't feel like I should be able to judge you for that, and I don't think that you should judge me. I'm not looking to convert people to my beliefs, regardless of how passionate I am about the subject.
Does that all make sense? If not, sorry. I had a much better response typed up, but it got eaten. If you have questions, please feel free to ask.
With that, unless people address me specifically, I think I'll bow out of this conversation. I've said my piece.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21533…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfnVHp19-…
Oh! Snap!!! Sooo sucks to be @119.
But if something is unethical in your moral system - for example, breeding pets is unethical in mine - then you will speak up against it not because you feel self righteous, but because you want to give voice to those who suffer because of that practice - pets who get euthanized in shelters, in my case. I certainly can't and won't ever be OK with heartless *beep* who breed their pets and take homes away from kittens and puppies who die in shelters every day. If I could make spaying and neutering all pets legally mandatory I would - so it only makes sense to me that if ethical vegans could make veganism legally mandatory they would. Vegans fighting for meat eaters' right to eat meat sounds perverse to me - I can't imagine myself fighting for pet owners' right to produce and give away puppies and kittens, unless I got a brain tumor or something.
Sooo… , then, if, for example, breeding is unethical in mine - then you will speak up against it not because you feel self righteous, but because you want to give voice to those who suffer because of that practice - orphans in orphanages, in my case. I certainly can't and won't ever be OK with heartless *beep* who breed and take homes away from orphans who suffer in orphanages every day. If I could make spaying and neutering all humans legally mandatory I would - so it only makes sense to me that if ethical vegans could make veganism legally mandatory they would. Vegans fighting for meat eaters' right to eat meat sounds perverse to me - I can't imagine myself fighting for parents right to produce children, unless I got a brain tumor or something.
Yeah… I guess I see how that works… Cool!
Well, that's not quite it. (For one thing, I'm not fighting for their rights! I'm not going to be an activist for them, and I wouldn't want to be. I think that you're taking it a little farther than I am, if you think that's what I mean. I'm just saying that they can eat it as long as no one makes me eat it.) Anyway, I think we have different approaches to our beliefs, and we hold different things as the foundations of our beliefs.
I don't want to argue with you, and I can't think of another way to put it that seems like it'll convince you without inciting a potential argument (which would be totally counter to my aims) so I may have to stop here. If you think that my beliefs are contradictory and/or perverse, well, I can't really keep you from thinking that. I just wanted to let you know that this vegetarian, at least, isn't judging you. That's all.
I'm a vegetarian, and sometimes do have fun poking people for their carnivorous pursuits. Bite into their steak and I say MOOOOO!!!! Obviously they're friends, I tend not to poke non-friendly carnivores.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lecm30iDH…
"That would work, 128, if there weren't more people waiting to adopt a child than children available for adoption."
Repeated for emphasis. This is one of the most pernicious modern lies and gets children trafficked in poor countries.
Tell that to these kids:
https://www.nwae.org/PhotoIndex-WARE-dbC…
https://www.nwae.org/PhotoIndex-IARE-dbC…
https://www.nwae.org/PhotoIndex-OARE-dbC…
https://www.nwae.org/PhotoIndex-AARE-dbC…
And last time I checked, being vegan most certainly is a choice.
@ 151, shame, I would like to hear your opinion on my comments :P
Hilarious episode.
Yeah, SALAD is crazy, homophobic or what ever you want. Why don't you insult him rather than all of us? When a gay piss me off, I don't start yelling homophobic slur. Now, even though I don't agree with this letter, Dan tend to be a prick when he starts to talk about other subjects than sex.
Being veggie is really different from being gay, since it's obviously a choice. Nobody got killed/thrown out of his house for being vegan but we also are being harassed, in a different way.
I've never tried to convert anyone, but I did many time (almost once for every person I've eaten with) had to justify why I wasn't eating meat. I had to politely listen to all the stupid identical arguments:
- but humans have always eaten meat/ got intelligent thanks to meat (even though we have a better life expectancy)
- you're lacking of proteins/iron/ vitamin B12! (yeah, half of the people I've talk believe they are nutrition experts, even though they know nothing of the subject)
- It's not natural! (...)
- You're in a sect (...)
And so many more.
You'll notice than all the examples above can be slightly modified to explain why gay is evil and gay marriage an abomination.
We are against something that cause countless suffering, help damaging the planet and isn't very healthy. Does that really make us worth of all this mocking?
Is it possible that there are "closeted" vegans (omnivores not comfortable with it), the same way there are homophobic closeted gays?
And you can choose your friends, but not your friends' friends. ^^
Yes.
They begin to mock me, literally, deriding my life choices. They will not ask questions, but just make asinine fucking assumptions about what my life must be like. They will walk over and sit next to me while I am eating (and on my break, thanks douches) and slowly eat their bloody steak. I don't go up to them and announce my lifestyle choice. They seek it out, and then harass me. This happens at least once a week.
Cool Job.
I'm in conservative-mainstream Spokane and whenever folks here find out I'm on a vegan diet they simply seem to think huh, well that's different, ok. I don't sense any instant disrespect as I have had with some in Seattle when I lived there recently. Soooo what is with you Seattle assholes anyway?
It's like deciding that anybody who avoids beans, or rice, or soy, or coffee deserves to be bashed. Other analogies, to help any idiot vegan bashers out there: It's about as dumb as bashing people for NOT liking country music, or for NOT voting for Obama, or for NOT going to the gym, or for NOT drinking alcohol. Are you people just insecure or something? Veganism is only becoming more mainstream, despite all the shit talk, so you might as well get over it.
Either that or you might as well find more demographics of people to bash for NOT living as you do. Heck, if we just all do this eventually we can all end up hating each other!! Totally by choice, with no intellect or reasoning whatsoever!!
Whatever. I have a right to Kraft brand Macaroni And Cheese because it's the cheesiest. Do not violate my rights to same or unwittingly suggest we go to a restaurant without it on the menu, or you're a Nazi hypocrite bully douchetard or whatever. Cause I got my panties in a twist and I say so. I'm so oppressed; poor me. I hate everyone. Thank you.
It's just a dietary choice that makes sense to me, both morally and in terms of health.
I have no comment on the original letter. You guys seem to have said most of what I was thinking. :-)
Just wanted to post because A) I am a vegan, without being a preachy pain in the ass, and wanted to say so
and
B) The fact that I share a diet with the asshat who wrote this letter does not mean that we have anything else in common, and I also wanted to say that.
Peace and love,
Doc
PS- I just told the barstool joke to a close friend (gay AND vegan) and then showed him the letter. He thinks the joke is hysterical, and the letter writer is a shitstain.
Vegans find themselves on the wrong side of every food-related argument; while gays would be very unlikely to promote homosexuality to straight people (for what would be the point?), certain varieties of vegan take it upon themselves to tell others what they should be eating. The reason people dislike vegans is the very same reason people dislike fundamentalists. How can we not expect people to behave defensively when their legal lifestyle is being compared with murder?
"their legal lifestyle" so what, legal = good? Ecologist also tells you that your life style is endangering the planet, does that make them like fundamentalists?
For the same reason that moderate Muslims will obfuscate the perils of their religion driven by fundamentalists, so will moderate vegans obfuscate the same, protecting the fundamentalists with intent merely not to reveal the truth of their insane creed.
Away going, worship your crazy mud-god. But, please first, smear yourself in mud, that we might identify you as a loony from the start.
A vegan agenda... How funny, this reminds me of something else. Oh yeah, I know, the big scary gay agenda! Sure, we all belong to a church, a very powerful, rich and influential one (we are sooo many) and we are coming for your ham. Hide yourself. Since I don't live in the same country (or the same continent for that matter) I don't know what are the group you're referring to. Not that I care. "Certain animal-rights groups hadn't committed murder" So? People I never met, whom I'm in any way affiliated to committed murder for ideas that looks likes mine. I guess I'm guilty. By the way, I tend to enjoy my properties, am I responsible for anybody who kills a thief? I like peace as well, does that mean I am responsible for all the people that declare war in the name of peace? Am I responsible as well for those who kill in the name of love and passion, because i feel that too?
I don't protect anybody, I don't belong to any group. There are crazy Muslims, crazy Christians, crazy vegans. There are also crazy atheists, crazy Americans.
I don't have any God, any sacred book, any guru. I happen to give intrinsic value to life, and in your twisted, sad logic it makes me an insane fundamentalist. Please keep your insults to yourself.
And I know too well how difficult it is to change your way of thinking and your way of life to include yet another group among what deserve to live, and to live free from cruelty (intended or not). I know it because I've been omnivorous for more than 20 years and still now I am not vegan but vegetarian. And I also know my occidental way of life partly depend on the exploitation of poor people, of the stealing of natural resources to weaker countries and harm the planet in a way that affect all those who live on it.
So you see, being a vegetarian doesn't mean I scream MURDER! in my head every day I sit for lunch. It just mean that I try to do my best not to participate in actions that, I perceive, hurt others (and not just animals. Meat industry is an ecological disaster)
I'm a vegan and I DO judge people for using animal products, but I am also too diplomatic to say so unless directly confronted. I care about animal rights and veganism is a compelling lifestyle choice for me. I think eating animals is wrong, period, but I have to work my way up to actually saying that in a conversation or else I get people freaking out that I'm soooo preachy.
I'm also a lesbian and come from an Appalachian coal town with dire poverty. No other vegan I know in person is anything but white and upper middle class. I'm acutely aware of intersectionality and privilege (perhaps I even sound like a working class academic now) and I really try to frame veganism in terms of systems of oppression at first. Vegans have said extremely classist and offensive shit about hunters, and I won't put up with that when I grew up eating hunted meat for literally lack of anything else sometimes. If we're going to be judgmental, it needs to be directed toward those who have much more control over their environments (I'm looking at localvores with their "cage free" eggs and veal who are even more classist and annoying).
Sure, maybe some people, probably children, aren't aware of the reality of meat industry, but I really want to believe that most adults aren't so freakin' clueless. Yes, most meat eaters know that animals are killed and they suffer and they would obviously be happier if they played in the sun bathed meadows for the rest of their lives until they die of old age - they just don't care.
Believing that everyone is so empathetic that they would become vegan the moment they learned about the reality of meat industry and/or reality about animals' mental capacity probably makes your life easier, but the harsh depressing truth is that you're fooling yourself.
@ 173, agreed with everything you said there.
A lot of people likes animals. Sure, they care more about the cute ones or those who looks like humans. But they care, more and more. Have you seen the reaction to the football player who kicked an owl during a match. It was a public example of animal cruelty, and it made a lot of people, not just vegans, react. If you don't believe me, go down the street and, I don't know, stab a cat in front of people. See if nobody care. But people are ready to pretend they don't know that way worse is happening every day for their pleasure, as long as they don't have to watch it.
It use to be normal to go on public places to watch a man get its head cut off, people would cheer. Today, not so much. Sensibilities evolve.
Are you as much aggressive with every person you have an ideological disagreement with? You really must hate environmentalists. And everybody that doesn't vote like you.
Depends on the disagreement, if they're violating someone's rights then I am.
I know that most people (who are not sociopaths) prefer humane conditions for raising livestock and humane ways of killing animals. And many are against fur trade, too. And killing / kicking animals just for the sake of killing / kicking is considered obviously wrong. This all means that they care about animals - just as long as there is meat on their plate. Pamper the cows, keep them in best stables, feed them the best food, kill them so painlessly they don't even notice - and you will get support from virtually every meat eater. But don't u dare suggest we don't kill them, because that means that majority of humans have to give up some pleasures in life (for some, even a major pleasure), and that won't happen.
Gays would have never won any rights if heterosexuals had had to sacrifice some of their rights. Because Majority won't sacrifice. You can either make it sacrifice from above (Russian Tzar's abolition of slavery, abolition of slavery in the US) or the oppressed classes can rebel and win (the French revolution, and subsequent revolutions in the European countries). Since the latter is not possible with animals, the former remains the only way - enlightened dictators can force veganism on entire countries. Which, while possible in theory, is highly improbable.
But you say that the abolition of slavery in the US was an act of dictatorship?
My turn to call you naive. The condition in which livestock is raised is not only far from what you describe, but it certainly isn't getting closer, as the demand for meat augment. But you are right to say that it would be an argument if it was true, since people often make uninformed claim on the well being of animals, and I can only guess it is to give oneself a clear conscience.
And even the law agree. It is forbidden to torture animals. It is forbidden to rape them. But it is allowed to kill them. Which is kind of ironic when you think that it has often been observed that animals, like humans, are capable of inflicting themselves a great deal of pain in order to save their lives.
They prefer the pain over death. We (pretend to) offer them the opposite.
So because we groom empathy in people virtually everyone would prefer to eat animals that were well cared for rather than animals that were tortured - as long as they can afford it of course. If buying meat from well cared for animals is so expensive they would have to give up some other pleasures in life, the care stops there. Because we don't sacrifice. Unless the law makes us.
And you're right, I am saying that slavery in the US wasn't abolished through democratic process - the abolition was forced on the Southern states when they lost the war.
Animal and human well-being are not two mutually exclusive things.
The love for animals isn't perfect to bring brotherly love for all humans as testify all the lunatics who love their dog more than humans and train them to attack all trespassers. But I guess there is some truth in what you say: we raise kids by telling them it's bad to hurt animals, but ok to do whatever you want to them in slaughterhouses. And you end up mostly with kids that wouldn't hurt their neighbor but couldn't care less if their i-whatever, their branded clothes or shoes,... are made by underage, underpaid, exploited people in china. I guess there is some mimicry.
But I don't see how you draw this weird line. If you torture animals, you might torture other humans but if you do worst with the intent of selling their skin, their flesh or to test the last shampoo, there is no risk? You got me confused.
But even if you may be partly right about the social use of pets, there is more to it. If I go out and shoot my neighbor's dog (not that I have a gun), I can assure you that the first thought he'll have won't be "she could do the same to me" but rather something like "the mf killed my Médor" and he'll be sad. And angry. Because he cared for him, and not just as an educational tool or a property.
I do want to point out though that I found vegetarian food tasty long before I decided to become vegetarian, so I'm not sure where the bland stereotype comes from.
Um, excuse me but when the fuck did that day pass? Did I miss the memo?
I still cannot get notebooks that have the rings on the right side so they don't eat up my left wrist when I write. I cannot even get a left handed desk to use at my University. Every doorknob and water faucet handle is either on the wrong side or turns the wrong way.
You wanna see how great and easy it is to be left-handed in our faux-accommodating world?
I dare you to not use your right hand for a week and see if it doesn't drive you crazy being surrounded by everyday items you have to struggle to use.
Um, excuse me but when the fuck did that day pass? Did I miss the memo?
I still cannot get notebooks that have the rings on the right side so they don't eat up my left wrist when I write. I cannot even get a left handed desk to use at my University. Every doorknob and water faucet handle is either on the wrong side or turns the wrong way.
You wanna see how great and easy it is to be left-handed in our faux-accommodating world?
I dare you to not use your right hand for a week and see if it doesn't drive you crazy being surrounded by everyday items you have to struggle to use.