Messages

1

General Discussion / Re: flexitarians

« on: October 13, 2011, 11:29:00 AM »

How can flexitarianism be a step foreword when it barely affects the number of exploited animals or the exploitation conditions? Flexitarian was the most widely spread word in 2003 but there wasn’t a decrease in tortured animals at the time, or in any of the following  years since. On the contrary, the numbers are on the rise, it’s likely that more vegetarians became flexitarians, and lets call them by their name and cast away the washed term, they are former vegetarians who have returned to their cruel old habits. In short: meat eaters.
If we both read the same article about the flexitarian trend then you saw a clear undisputed  mention that there is a reduction in the number of vegetarians- did your friends seriously fail to see the connection?

"Flexitarians" are somewhat like the people who are charmed - or who allow themselves to be charmed - by such despicably callous, sickening and transparent drivel.

Humans deceive themselves easily and would unhesitatingly grab hold to any available getaway in order to carry on with their unjustified deeds. In some cases it comes down to nothing more than a switch of titles. The effortlessness of it all is part of a wider issue, at the heart of which is the basic will to consume animals in ease. For a long time the organic meat industry (mostly chickens) was on a rise, and so were the grass fed animals (mostly cows and pigs) farms, ancient diets and slow food receive growing attention. All contain and legitimate meat, milk and eggs. 

I am not familiar with the works of LaVeck but I am with the works of Michael Pollan such as the book "the omnivore’s dilemma" which is one of the major contributors to the flexitarian trend and it might cause some people to reduce their meat consumption but if they don’t have a practical way to buy organic, grass fed cow’s meat from local ranch they would simply turn to consume chickens and I really couldn’t think of a worse outcome. Another supposed "contribution" of the book is convincing what I call the factory farms vegetarians or condition opposers vegetarians who don’t agree with the philosophical concepts but oppose the way animals are treated, not with the killing but with the way they are killed and etc. This group of people is getting meat consumption justification with the recent food labelling stating that the animals have been reared under strict organic guidelines and with a great emphasis on their welfare. This option opens the door back to meat eating. It’s human nature to cut coroners when there is no strict boundary, obviously it would eventually fade.  put it simply- a vegetarian will refuse meat in a restaurant, in a hotel, being someone’s dinner guest and etc. however, for someone who believes that animals should be reared in their natural conditions, fed with their natural food and not being loaded with growth hormones and antibiotics and etc, cutting some slacks every once in while is easier. Everything is so indistinct. Basically they can do what ever they feel like. Not much different than flexitarians.

And probably the worst bit of the book is its headline. Still today one of the most popular excuses pulled out is the natural order. Pseudo biological determination about how “humans are omnivores and therefore by definition are supposed to eat meat” is followed by moral statement such as  "there is nothing wrong with eating meat!", and some might go on further paying moral lip service as… "if some workers abuse animals they should be arrested but it doesn’t mean we mustn’t eat meat". By defining humans as omnivores even though it makes little difference to humans whether it is natural or not to eat meat (there is a highly recommended part about it in the article reviewing wool), the author hands them what they longed to hear. For many who swing between vegetarianism and meat eating it’s literally a death blow.

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Discussions about specific materials / Re: "Most of the creatures suffer most of the time."

« on: July 14, 2010, 02:06:37 AM »

There is a very important example in that article that really stroked me when I first read it. It became even sadder for me every time I bumped into stray cats ever since. I guess you didn’t quote it because it relates to experiments but I think it’s worth it

"When animals are faced with prolonged stressors, a pattern of nervous and hormonal activity produces a variety of physiological changes which help the animal adapt. In assessing criteria for suffering, psychological stress which is fear stress, should be considered as important as suffering induced by pain. Bateson and Bradshaw (1997) studied the physiological effects of hunted red deer and found that deer hunted by hounds were subjected to great physiological stress, compared to non hunted deer cleanly shot by professional hunters. The study found that the blood and muscles of the deer were damaged, but the authors neglected to fully discuss the damage caused by psychological stress. The cortisol levels in the hound hunted deer were very high and they never mentioned the word fear. Beringer, et al (1996) found that 12% of white tailed deer captured with a rocket net die within 26 days. Fear stress is highly aversive and subjecting an animal to intense fear stress would be very detrimental to welfare (Grandin, 1997)."

Another two examples on cows and chickens:
"Fear has a powerful ability to override pain in the chicken. The work by Gentle and Corr (1995) shows that a chicken that was pain guarding by holding it’s leg up will stop pain guarding when it is placed in a scary novel place. When electric shocks are used as an aversive stimulus on cattle, the effects of fear can not be separated from pain. When wild cattle that are not accustomed to handling are held in a restraining device for branding, the fear stress induced by restraint will raise their cortisol levels almost as high as the hot iron branding."

And if I am already in quoting and you were already in the mechanism of life, I felt that my favorite paragraph from the manifest is missing from your reply so unoriginally another quote:

We see things through binoculars and tend to think in terms of purposes and goals, even when there are none. In life there is no such thing as a purpose. Things simply occur. Just as there is no purpose behind a chemical reaction, burning of sugar for instance, there is no purpose behind birthing, metabolism and DNA duplication. It started out as basic organic chemistry, and along billions of years acquired more and more complexity. One of those "upgrades" was the ability to suffer, feel pain and fear. That’s life. Technical chemical mechanism. Animals are the victims of chemistry.
It is too inherent, too obvious for you to ignore. Suffer, violence and death are inherent parts of life and no one can really avoid them.”

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Discussions about specific materials / Re: Leather wearing vegetarians

« on: February 02, 2010, 06:36:48 AM »

I’ve come to expect so little of vegetarians, conversations with them can be more despairing than with carnivores.
I bet I was called by more vegetarians a far out missionary than by carnivores.
I can think of another place where self centered motives are very obvious - struggles in biology classes so animals test won’t be obligatory. Folks that normally wouldn’t bother attending any animal rights activities suddenly go through huge lengths, often turning to legal actions against the university if necessary, so it won’t be their hand holding the knife. Most of the time they don’t mind what the rest of the class is doing let alone what’s happening outside of the class in the world around them.

The outcome (less animal victims and a push forwards for “alternatives”) is blessed, but in essence it’s a student rights fight and not an animal rights one.
It’s just the same story as your veggie shopper, it won’t be her hand handing out the cash and grabbing the carcass in return, not her leg passing the deli’s doorstep. I don’t think there’s an activist that hasn’t heard such stories, and this indifference is beyond me. Butcheries should be closed not ignored. Vegetarians are supposed to want to shut them down instead they pass them by. Butchery is a place they don’t want to enter, not a place they don’t want to continue to exist.
It might be that vegetarians can be even more indifferent to the carnage then carnivores since they are not burdened by a guilty conscious. 

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General Discussion / Re: The Most Important Massage Ever Voiced

« on: January 22, 2010, 04:51:03 AM »

Great massage, just one important set back- words matter. This site is words
Words got you to where you are.
At first I thought why didn’t they invest all the time they have on this website on researching and raising a practical website instead? But if this group of people had sprung into the labs, as the obvious first tendency, instead of lunching this site, none of us would have been exposed to the annihilation idea as a relevant and practical option. Of course most if not all of us had thought about this idea but apparently none of us had made the decision to stop our current activism and start "the movement who will stop all the suffer in the world…"

Obviously the animal rights/liberation movement is most relevant if not the only relevant place to look for more people. There’d be more than a few activists that would attempt to hush down the OOS idea. I generally receive such an intolerant reactions to the relatively moderate criticism I voice, I’d hate to think what the reaction would be to the view that this world is inherently violent and no movement working within its perimeters is able to challenge that. Close minded can be found everywhere and with the reasoning of protecting the movement from outer criticism of extremism or even from the extremism itself some would wish to silent this call. 
Whatever their motive is, it’s up to us to make sure they won’t be able to. We keep this message alive, circulating in the more radical regions of the AR movement.

They O.O.S did their part reaching us and now it is our part reaching others. Our friends and ideological partners. We know who they are …
I know it won’t be easy it would probably be very disappointing to hear irrational reasons from our closest friends, we must consider it’s not an easy massage to face. It pictures the work and effort to have put all their lives as almost useless, it practically shatters views and believes and then suggest a mission none of us at the moment (as far as my knowledge goes) knows how to accomplish. It’s much easier to shove the massage aside.

There must be so many activists all over the world that haven’t herd of the idea yet, and it’s a first priority to reach them and the ones who did thought about the idea but swiftly rejected it. This site is the most organized kick in the butt I got, maybe it will awake a few sufferless world dreamers who will start materialize their dream.

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Discussions about specific materials / Re: Trends

« on: October 27, 2009, 10:19:35 AM »

Trends in general, the green trend specifically and animal rights meet in another place.
"Scientists at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have found that replacing Australia's seven million cattle and 36 million sheep by 2020 and replacing them with 175 million kangaroos would produce a similar amount of meat for consumption, yet would lower greenhouse gases by three percent each year.
Methane expelled from cattle and sheep accounted for a staggering 11 percent of the country's total greenhouse gases. Kangaroos, by contrast, give off very little methane."

This adds up with the already promotion of low carbon meat like chickens, rabbits and ostriches (which are also promoted as healthier meat - low fat like chicken but taste like beef).
In order to decrease the nation’s greenhouse gases countries may tax high carbon industries and subsidize lower alternatives. In this case the standing will be "More chicken less beef".
I am not sure if in this case I want people to care enough to do something about their part in global warming?

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Discussions about specific materials / Re: Trends

« on: October 18, 2009, 08:28:09 AM »

yes I think so

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Discussions about specific materials / Re: Trends

« on: October 17, 2009, 11:48:28 AM »

This comment is a little strange. Don’t you think the fact that McDonalds and the fur industry got strengthen despite the harsh attacks means something?
I don’t think the fact that the attacks are completely different, by their nature and by the characters, is relevant. It is the fact that both of the attacked figures came out stronger which is an indication of a trendy world which is the point of the article.
I think you focus on the drivers and the regulators too much while the orientation of the article is on the easily driven public.
It is clear that supersize me is not a film by the movement and that Peta’s campaign, whether you like it or not, is. Still the result is what is compared not the intentions, the result and the figures behind the intention. The public’s memory is very short. Very soon people forget and get back to their old convenient and harmful habits.

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Discussions about specific materials / Re: culinary investigation

« on: October 06, 2009, 02:29:41 AM »

Milk again is a very strong evident for the irrelevancy of this idea. As you all know there are various vegetable milks available but people prefer "the real thing".
Irrational and nutritiously inapposite as it is, the people have spoken and they are speaking loud and clear. They prefer baby abduction, dehorning, branding, castration, systematic rape and daily udder squeezing. Engineered meat will fail just as plant based milk (rice, almonds, soy, coconut, sunflower, sesame and oat) and as soy burger.
People eat symbols not food.

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Discussions about specific materials / Re: culinary investigation

« on: September 30, 2009, 05:46:38 AM »

I heard that when food production costs rose and meat became priceier, people didn’t buy less meat and relied more on plants, they bought cheep processed meat, which is basically junk combined with some more artificial ingredients, as long as it says meat on the label. The fixation on eating animals is so strong people would rather have minced cartilage, marrow and god knows what else than buy beans.

Adding to that are the roasting and carving rituals themselves that seem to cross cultures, all the accessories that come along with them and more generally the fuss about knives, their manufacture which is considered a form of art and their becoming a decoration prop in the kitchen, with sets half a dozen huge shiny, sharp knives hung on the walls or rest in a specially made holder on the counter. And these are just the things that popped in my head in the last half an hour… 

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Discussions about specific materials / Re: A thrill to kill

« on: September 26, 2009, 07:03:59 AM »

I recognize there is a certain level of progress in the passing of the act, a symbolic call that significant parts of the public don’t accept this blood sport. But that all there is to it- symbolism, since the hunt continues uninterrupted.

It would reduce the number of hunted animals in the specific place where it was banned

From news I've been getting this hunting act made little to no difference for the foxes and hares in the field! Hunt thugs that are above the law, sided by the police that admittingly overlooks these criminal offences and instead turns against those committed to the ban, actually doing the cops’ job enforcing the law - all in this bleak report, I pasted the most important bits in my view:
“It’s pretty much business as usual hunt sabbing in the fields of rural England, three years after the hunting ban came into force - if you can call it a ban; week in week out we see hunts chasing and killing foxes in direct violation of the ban.” - H.S.A. Press Officer

Three years since the ban on hunting with hounds was passed through parliament, has it made a blind bit of difference to the bloody fate of persecuted British wildlife? No – but it has provided an invaluable lesson on how people with cash and influence can buck the law with impunity. Not only that, but those trying to curb their illegal activities face police harassment and hunt thuggery.  
Bloodsports enthusiasts carried on their merry way, initially using the flimsy legal camouflage of ‘exempt’ hunting. What this meant in fact was that some hunts took to having a bird of prey on hand (falconry isn’t banned), others a few bumpkins with shotguns (because it’s allowed to use two hounds to flush prey towards guns) and others still took to dragging smelly rags around miles from the action in attempt to pretend they were drag-hunting. Once it became apparent that across the country police were not about to take any action anyway even these pantomimes were dropped. For example on Saturday 5th January, the Surrey Union foxhunt chased and killed a fox on the village green at Ockley, Surrey. This was photographed by sabs. Efforts to interest police in the footage were met with the thin blue line of complete indifference
As one greying veteran of the anti-bloodsports battles told SchNEWS, “Screw this monitoring lark: no more standing around with cameras while still getting attacked by the huntscum and arrested by the plod – let’s get back to old fashioned sabbing...”
The report failed to mention the instance parliamentary effort that was put in the passed years, some say a few decades, to reach this empty piece of parchment.
I don’t live in England but I happen to know there is plenty of frustration in light of the failure of the ban to hold on to it’s promises.
When police do turn up, naturally they haven’t developed a sudden sympathy for the anarchists in their (t)rusty black landrovers. In November last year, sabs out with the notorious Old Surrey and Burstow fox hunt, filmed huntsman Mark Bycroft blatantly urging his hounds on to a fox.
One sab told us, “They were on to their third fox of the day – it broke out of some woodland and we were standing there filming. Police arrived and told the sabs, “You lot move away or you’ll be arrested.” When we asked what for, we were told aggravated trespass. Pointing out that we were disrupting a unlawful activity didn’t do any good as at that point Bycroft rode up and told the police, “You lot sort ‘em out or we will.” The cops then immediately jumped on one cameraman and wrestled him to the ground, putting him in handcuffs. Minutes later they arrested me. ”All charges have since been dropped
Of course it’s not surprising that the boys in blue line up with the chinless in pink – some of them ride with the hunt! On Saturday 9th February 2008, Sabs on the South Downs and Eridge hunt were bemused to have an off-duty WPC from Surrey ride up to them flashing her warrant card. Strangely enough two sabs were later arrested and held for 22 hours. “Basically our vehicle had been blocked in by hunt thugs. After one female hunt sab had been ridden down we’d asked for police assistance and been told that the matter ‘had already been dealt with’ – i.e. they’d asked the WPC if everything was OK. To try and get out I rolled forward with the Land Rover and cracked a brake light on the 4x4 blocking the road. When the police eventually did turn up I was nicked for criminal damage!”

I wasn’t naive enough to think the ban would mark the end of pack hunting but it’s the first time I hear such a blunt shameless breach of the law by the law keepers themselves.
I don’t tend to place hopes in parliamentary work and this is such a classic example why.
The laws themselves are neutral, they are only as relevant as their level of public support otherwise there would be no implementation.
Usually legislative work is drawn out of context down the long road to the vote, by either changes of language, adds of clauses and subclauses or any other underhanded tactics. And for whatever left of the text that manages to pass all impediments- there is no promise for enforcement.  
In principle parliamentary work always strikes me as bizarre considering the unequivocal fact that politicians are in the pockets of big businesses interested in preserving the status-quo, and no where there is a more noticeable interest considering the large profits nonhuman exploitation provides
Countless lawful acts against public interest aren’t being stopped since they fit a small group of interests like pollution of residential areas, GMOs, wars or privatization of public services…and everyone stays mute. And in chance public action starts to take shape it’s soon settled as public officials are clever enough to throw protesters an empty gesture in the form of legislative work with a promising title and no gist, providing a sense of achievement and ensuring at the same time no more than small shifts have to be made. That’s the way it’s been so far. If legislation couldn’t provide clean water and nontoxic food it’s hard to envision any significant improving for the lives of nonhumans coming from within the parliament anytime soon  

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Discussions about specific materials / Re: culinary investigation

« on: September 23, 2009, 07:10:08 PM »

The assumption that food preferences are rational is itself irrational. 
There is no doubt that food preferences are culture conditioned. All along history it can be seen clearly how both the form and content of a meal indicate much more than its actual food value. Taste is very much culturally conditioned, not to mention the social aspects that were already mentioned here.
If food, or eating for that matter were so rational and out of social context how come in cases of emergencies (plain crashes in the desert or in icy areas for example) humans would rather starve to death than turning to cannibalism, eating each other or at least the bodies from the plain crush?
Social conditioning can easily override even basic hunger, as when poverty-stricken families give of their last reserves to entertain a guest.
Food habits are inherent to the social context. Once humans have met basic survival needs, eating becomes a matter of desire, status, social belongingness, self-esteem, manhood and of course dominion. I agree with the OOS. It is pointless to show how many healthy, nutritious and tasty vegan food items are out there, we need to fight the human dominion.

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Discussions about specific materials / Re: Imagine and anti war protests

« on: September 05, 2009, 03:02:46 PM »

"there wasn’t one second of peace in this world"
The blood stained human history makes a solid prediction for an ever lasting general warfare state in the future. This took me back to a lecture I’ve heard and luckily was able to trace back and rehear, it’s called God and War by professor Mark Juergensmeyer from the University of California taken at Princeton, here’s the link. I strongly recommend you to take the time and watch it.
In generally he draws a very thin line between war and religion and in many cases bound them together. Not in the sense of a religion serving as grounds for wars or fueling them but in a sense of a common denominator between the two. Juergensmeyer explains how they function similarly; both provide alternative perceptions of reality, an alternative framework of order in a disordered society, provide meaning in a meaningless world and arrange it socially and existentially. Religion provides an alternative framework of order that reconcile life’s deep anomalies on a transcendent plane, especially in the sense of immortality since humans know from early age that they are mortal there is a great comfort in the idea of after life, reincarnation, reward and punishment and heaven and hell. So religion provides immortality, it gives meaning to death. It places the daily sufferings and anomalies in a greater context and that’s very comforting. And wars provide an alternative reality based on the moral absolutism of social conflict and that provides an important social comforting. Social tension creates a great opportune moment for wars to make sense, since they divide the world to black and white, good and bad, right and wrong, and humans’ Odd Appeal of War, as the professor calls it, add the emotional fuel.
Humans’ want to confront with disturbing reality scenes such as car accidents, terror attack, natural disasters and etc. the confrontation makes sense of the chaos. War too puts sense in a senseless situation. It is very freighting but there is something comforting in war. It creates a sense of control unity and meaningfulness. It arranges the world. It arranges the social anomaly. It is not rational but at least you know who you are (sometimes by defining what you are against) and what you are doing. There is a war there is a meaning.

The human need and even dependency on religion or at least god is nothing new but the connection to war in the philosophical plane was new to me. Wars need religion. It clarifies the nature of the struggle. Provides a moral justification to the killing. Demonize the enemy. It makes sense in bombing attack. Both are visions of humans’ consciousness, patterns of understanding reality and that’s why they will always be part of reality. And that’s a hell of a scary thought.

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Discussions about specific materials / Re: 50 billion cripples

« on: September 04, 2009, 04:15:14 PM »

I totally agree, but I don’t think that it changes the equation because in my calculation I didn’t consider the long term affect and the broader affect of the chicken meat industry as a very environmentally harmful industry. And even if we ignore the extensive harm, every day about 136 million chickens are murdered so in just a few hours there are more murdered chickens than all the casualties in all the recorded wars of the twentieth century, so I don’t think that there is a doubt regarding the quantities.

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Discussions about specific materials / Re: 50 billion cripples

« on: September 03, 2009, 02:19:18 PM »

I know how you feel Euthanasia brigade. When I saw the counters in the homepage I had a few moments of shock. I also tried to comprehend, and it was actually the human counters running beside the animals counters who made me think about the enormous gaps between them in the sense of death, even though I know it is not what they had in mind when they put them there.

The years 1939 – 1945 are considered by many as the worst in human history.
But there are more chicken victims in just one day than the number of casualties during the second world war, the soviet political purification and the Nazi ethnic purification. And that’s chickens alone in just one day. Not even the worst day in chickens’ history but any given day.
Every day about 280 million animals are murdered in factory farms. In just a few hours the number of animal victims reaches the number of human victims in those most horrible years.
If you change the species type then the years which are considered the worst in human history, are a few hours of everyday from a quantitative point of view.

My point is not that we live in a speciesist world, it’s so obvious I’d be wasting your time. My point is that if those years were the everyday reality of humans, day by day, year after year, then the number of the Only One Solution movement supporters was enormous. Probably most if not all of the ones who are not in power.