It’s Obvious

November 23, 2008 | 5 Comments

You can just look at it and KNOW it’s wrong:
CAFO

I agree with Mary Martin. Martin quotes Grist:

“The animal abuses associated with this type of confinement seem obvious. Cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys and other animals need the same type of space and fresh air that human beings do. Crowding them together and never letting them see the light of day is certainly inhibiting their natural inclinations as sentient beings. But we should care about CAFOs [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations] for reasons far greater than animal abuses, for they abuse our own environment and the health of our children.”

And then she comments:

“I see this a lot, this notion that protecting the environment is of ‘far greater’ importance than abusing (forget about talking about using) animals, and I find it odd. On a level of pure, concrete reasoning, I’d think that seeing and hearing and smelling hundreds of thousands of sentient nonhumans in abject terror and pain wouldn’t be backburnered to the environment, which most people don’t see as in actual, physical screaming pain. I also see no reason why the two can’t be on par, or close to it.”

There’s no need to prioritize harms caused by raising animals for food. The harms to animals, to people, to the planet are ALL important. Each harm individually is enough reason to go vegan. And when coupled together, no sane, educated, non-starving person can deny the moral DUTY to go vegan (or at least vegetarian). They can and will try to deny reality, but deep down their conscience calls. No one can look at this and not see a problem:

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Animals, Food, animal-rights, veganism 
5 Comments to "It’s Obvious"

Regarding Hate and Crime

September 30, 2008 | 2 Comments

Your government is more interested in protecting people who abuse animals than in protecting ordinary people:

“[California] Assembly Bill 2296, or the Researcher Protection Act of 2008, makes it a misdemeanor to publish personal information about academic researchers or their family members with the intent to use this information to threaten or attack those researchers.

“The bill also makes it a misdemeanor for protesters to enter researchers’ property for the purpose of interfering with their academic practices.” (source)

So, if ‘intent’ to ‘threaten or attack’ is the issue, then why not make a law like this protect ALL people, not just vivisectors? Hmmm?

As Obama said regarding similar federal legislation years ago:

“I do not want people to think that the threat from these organizations [ALF and ELF] is equivalent to other crimes faced by Americans every day. According to the FBI, there were over 7400 hate crimes committed in 2003 - half of which racially motivated. More directly relevant to this committee, the FBI reports 450 pending environmental crimes cases involving worker endangerment or threats to public health or the environment.” (source)

I think it’s sadly interesting that many feminists and anti-racists would rather spend time criticizing PETA’s marketing campaigns than spending time criticizing the government. If the claim is made that PETA “spits in the face of traditionally marginalized groups,” (source) just stop and take a look at what your own government is doing.

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Animals, Politics, Racism, animal-rights 
2 Comments to "Regarding Hate and Crime"

HSUS Promotes Veganism

September 29, 2008 | 2 Comments

The ‘Yes on Prop 2‘ gala dinner - with celebrities and fundraising - was VEGAN.

The measure, of course, assumes people are still eating animals. It deals only with their treatment in factory farming situations. (There was no meat last night — as is the custom at most animal welfare events.  The vegan dinner was catered by Madeleine Bistro. And it was good — really.) (source)

So no, the HSUS is not promoting “happy meat.” If anything, they convinced some meat-eaters to eat vegan for one meal.

Yes, I know Prop 2 isn’t going to make a huge difference in many animals’ lives. They will still be slaughtered and eaten. Yes, I wish everyone would go vegan. But that’s not going to happen any time soon.

Prop 2 is a step in the right direction. It gives animals a tiny bit more space so they can turn around in their cages. Prop 2 is a reflection that humans, even the meat-eating ones, are not evil monsters.

Related:

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under animal-rights, vegan, vegetarian 
2 Comments to "HSUS Promotes Veganism"

PETA’s letter to Ben and Jerry

September 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I’ve accentuated the important parts of the letter here:

September 23, 2008

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I’d like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry’s. Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry’s replaced the cow’s milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers–and cows–would reap the benefits.

Using cow’s milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer’s health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America’s leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow’s milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease–America’s number one cause of death.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk.

Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can’t produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can’t even turn around.

The breast is best! Won’t you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow’s milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry’s ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman
Executive Vice President
PETA

And thus you see, the human breastmilk was just a hook. They weren’t being serious. No one was honestly suggesting that B&J’s should hook women up to pumps and use their milk to make ice cream. Get real.

Oh, and PETA wasn’t hurting any women by discussing breastmilk’s nutritional value to human babies. Hello? Remember all those babies in China who DIED because they got cow’s milk instead of breastmilk?

Everyone who missed the point of PETA’s letter and who accused PETA of being sexist for discussing human breastmilk was being intellectually dishonest, anti-animal, and anti-PETA.

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Feminism, Sexuality, animal-rights, veganism 
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It’s Not Enough

August 23, 2008 | 2 Comments

It’s not enough to oppose animal exploitation. We must also oppose the protection of animal exploitation. The AETA is an immoral, unpatriotic law that MUST be repealed.

Read more here >>

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Animals, Politics, TV and Film, animal-rights, anti-animal, vegan, veganism 
2 Comments to "It’s Not Enough"

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