Zoocide, Genocide & Passenger Pigeon Martha

This morning I tried to find the right word for the large-scale destruction of animals by humans and for humans. Universal rights ignores the innocent elephant in the room: animal rights.

whaaat

A couple centuries ago there were more passenger pigeons than there are chickens in the slaughter-house chain today. The last passenger pigeon (Martha by name) is preserved and on display at the Cincinnati Zoo, the final victim of zoocide. They were edible, guns were available. So were bison. Hey, mistakes are made. No, specious arguments are made.

100.years.ago.the.last.passenger.pigeon

When multi-trillion dollar production is at stake you direct attention to a splendid table (I cite the website because of its rather more conventional approach toward food). Comfortable and cozy, but too complicit for me as a vegan. Marginal movements like veganism irritate meat eaters. Just saying.

I haven’t heard about pink slime lately, the stuff that nano technology makes available. Let us capture each molecule and direct it to a consumer. Hey, don’t mention pink slime in polite company. We are nice people.

The enormity of sentient suffering is as great as the consumer demand for the ultimate insatiable decadence. There are no articles on animal trafficking via slaughter house in the NYT Magazine this week.

animal.trafficking

Climate change may just be the only thing that jolts homo sapiens to attention. We are a species intelligent enough to discover the existence of six extermination events in the history of the planet, but arrogant enough to shrug at the prospect of another.

How comparable are extinction events? Even the possibility of an errant asteroid does not direct attention to preventive measures. We’re too busy feeding military, prison and industrial-slaughter=complex obsessions.

By the way, vegan diets are healthy, inexpensive and planet-friendly. But as trolls are ever ready to counter: they are cruel to plants. Specious arguments never end.

Recommended website: Crows Head Soup

Thanks for reading.

Ethnic Cleansing Begins At Home

Nazi ethnic cleansing began with a single unknown undesirable, but within a decade the 1 became the 6,000,000. To observe that number from the perspective of coincidence, it’s the number of Palestinians alive today: each a refugee still. There is no statute of limitation for war crimes. Just ask someone on the receiving end of genocide.

bilal.kayed

Have I mentioned that the Palestinians are from Palestine? Roots matter to olive trees and to Palestinians. Water, hummus, olives. An incomparable Mediterranean coastline. Countless cities and villages cleansed of long-established inhabitants.

Viva Palestina!

The time for Israel to stop Palestinian home demolition and pacification was 68 years ago; both demolitions and executions are crimes against humanity, against an indigenous people living under occupation today or as refugees in planet-wide diaspora.

Daily life for the indigenous Semitic people of this land: constant torment by mostly non-Semitic settlers indigenous to Europe. IDF and IOF combatants may commit any crime of their choosing, without fear of consequence or inconvenience. Any day, every day, all day. Which Semites are not included in a blanket inditement: Antisemitism! Antisemitism!

celtic.fans.for.palestine

A strange celebration of Sparta and ungodly decadence: a failed experiment, a way of life that requires several billion dollar annual infusions from the United States and the Marshall Islands.

A land-based aircraft carrier with a hundred nuclear weapons, a laboratory for testing weapon systems and conducting security experiments. Well chosen people? Well…

From the layout of the house housing a 12-year-old rock-throwing terrorist. IDF soldiers show up at 2:00 A.M. No proverbial knock on the door, just break it down and rattle the sleeping. Rattle and curse the ugliest phrases a fighting man can muster. And, so a final enough solution: indefinite incarceration for the kid, a house removed by a wrecking ball or dozer, a homeless family. But it doesn’t matter: they are annoying Arabs. Ptui.

settlers_znet

Some sources for guidance in non-violent resistance. Think Warsaw Ghetto.

Jews Against Genocide

Jews for Justice for Palestine

Jewish Voice for Peace

Thanks for reading.

Cincinnati and Dayton for Palestine

The BDS movement is gaining momentum. Inertia is important when reminding people that the “Universal” Declaration of Human Rights is not limited to a select group of nice people.

thatsnotok
No. It’s not.

Last week I uploaded a link that buoyed my spirit: a marginalized people may yet gain the attention it so desperately needs. It’s an article in Mondoweiss  that’s received 503 views so far on the CPSC FB page.

Viva Palestina! Boycott Israel Until Palestinians Have Equal Rights

SF-boycott2016b

Yesterday the Cincinnati Palestine Solidarity Coalition hosted a taste of Palestine event to celebrate solidarity in electorally significant SW Ohio. About 30 attendees enjoyed a gathering of people from a range of interests, ethnicities and ages to engage in festive spirit.

The dishes were overwhelmingly vegan and a tribute to the healthy aspects of a Mediterranean diet.

Among the gentle people there was a contingent from Dayton OH where an active solidarity for refugees of the longest lasting refugee crisis since 1948, known as the Nakba. Please visit American Support Network for Palestine for some extraordinary links on Palestine after Nakba

with.bds.and.palestine

By the way, Naksa is the Arabic word the means The World Turned Upside Down for the further occupation of land west of the Jordan River in the year 1967. From the river to the sea refers to this very body of water and the Mediterranean Coast. A land that the poet Mahmoud Darwish expresses in his poem “Unfortunately it was Paradise.”

Take a look at a map of population distribution and you see that people like to live near bodies of water, particularly where the coast is superbly beautiful.

pal.tel.aviv.beach
Today this beach has the very un-Arabic name “Gordon Beach” located at the very un-Arabic name Tel-Aviv. Turning the ancient city of Jaffa.

 

Crows Head Soup & Vegan Anarchist

I recently discovered Crows Head Soup, a site for the perplexed among us who do not view fellow sentients as simply human resources. What happens when every molecule of flesh and bone is exploited at a mega scale? Does it even rate a half-hearted shrug?

crows-head-soup-original-recipe

Poetry strums and strikes here, it’s what poetry does.

Crows Head is a site gracious enough to allow rants that dare question the horror of the status quo. The Vegan Anarchist is a related site that is quite new, it appears on FB: a shorter vegan venue.

vegan.anarchist

This evening I read one of many pieces here that pierces the heart. It encapsulates the reality of daily existence in the confines of Butchertown, an historic town near Louisville. Some thoughts:

Visiting any supermarket in the country suggests the enormity of this flesh industry and the banality of its volume. How many tons today? How rapidly are the store shelves emptied? How many shelved products contain factory extermination camp content?
Twice as many chickens on earth as people. I won’t do the math here, but more than one in every pot by rough estimate.
Yes, man’s inhumanity to man sadly exceeds the ability to imagine, but fatalities among homo sapiens does not run into the multiple tens of billions per year of fellow sentients today.

bison.skulls.1870s
Bison skulls on the fruited plain

 

 

 

Remain humane, and thanks for reading.