Tag: veganism

The Tyranny of the Majority

Majority rule is an expedient way to exercise authority over the unwanted and to marginalize unpopular ethnic groups, such as Native Palestinians in Palestine.

That guy on the $20 bill made the South safe for democracy. Somewhere in Jacksonian Democracy lies a lesson, one learned by 10,000 despots: if undesirables are out of the picture, they are not a problem. Future generations can safely and comfortably observe “mistakes were made.”

After the Trail of Tears, America was made safe for slaveholders again. Cherokees are for westerns or in teepees next to a Stuckeys. Have you heard this one: “I’m 1/24th Cherokee.” Really?

trail.of.tears
Look up Nakba for a similar trail of tears.

America was great I hear. But them Indians got it made now, every tribe has a casino. Sad to say, they’re fat and lazy and coddled by Washington. Things never change, I guess. Wink. Nod.

Grocery stores near reservations are food deserts. If a vehicle becomes available a real supermarket is only 70 miles away. While you are 70 miles away from home you can stock up on health care services and relax a while at the local casino. Chill with your fellow ingrates.

Native Americans are number one in death by police.(The Counted: 2016) among all ethnic groups.

The Guardian compiles this database, but for some reason such information is not collected in the US.

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DJT is not a reader, but profound ignorance is no barrier to enormous wealth or monstrous feats of racism. Just a casual side note.

Ethnic cleansing silences voices of dissent.

Israel expelled 700,000 native Palestinians in 1948. Today the growth of settlements in the West Bank make population distribution look a lot like reservations in the formerly unoccupied American West.

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.

USAUSAUSA? Looks like Sausage to me.

As the sage dictum suggests, don’t inquire into its contents. As a vegan I now enjoy reading the ingredients in such no-animal tube meats as Field Roast, produced by artisans who sign off on their work.

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Genuine big-deal topics are not covered in this depressing election year.

Smallish asteroids are reported only after they slip by our planet. I hear that extinction events occur regularly, perhaps half a dozen of them since the planet sphered together over a few billion years or so.

extinction.event

Or is it 6,000 years ago? I’m told that your guess is as good as mine. Have I mentioned that I live close (geographically) to the Creation Museum and to that other Ken Ham production? 

Climate change is associated with extinction events but it wasn’t in keeping with the alternate reality show in Cleveland, the progressive pole of electoral Ohio. Cincinnati, at the conservative pole, get noticed every four years. I’m just south of the Ohio River. We don’t decide elections here, but there is no dearth of demagogues in Frankfort. Hell, we couldn’t even ditch Mitch.

poll.tax.now

Woody Guthrie knew fascism, synchronistically well. Guthrie’s father fell victim to the father of today’s favorite fascist. That word is not used on right-wing calling cards, but by their actions do we know them. Our fascist du jour might just give it an Ayn-Randian shrug. Where is John Galt when we don’t need him?

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Veganism is another threat to capitalist society as we know it. Death is a great job creator. Trillion dollar enterprises thrive on the death sector in our capitalist cornucopia. I sit on a man’s back… Cheers!

A vegan diet is a planet saver. It provides no answer for impending meteor strikes, but it means taking a potent step toward addressing climate change.

A vegan diet grants benefits to all and to each. You can even read about the vegan choice in one or two posts here. I leave them to your discretion; in fact, I leave everything to your discretion.

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Fascism is a disease.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tolstoy, Schumacher, Climate Change & Veganism

Personal integrity requires living ethically. Climate change threatens the livability of this planet for countless species. Veganism is not Shmeeganism.

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Pete Seeger let us know where we stand politically! I call it a metaphor for this election year and a perspective from the Smothers Brothers Show in 1967. I had a Pat Paulsen bumper sticker on my ’63 Corvair in 1968.

Waist deep in the Big Muddy! 

And the big fool says to push on!

Veganism is still a minority constituent of the body politic. But it’s good idea to stand on the side of truth.

Throwing a snowball on the Senate floor is as helpful for understanding the significance of two (2) Celsius degrees as an answer from genesis by ken ham.

Meanwhile Steve Inskeep throws softballs on NPR. Disclosure: Inskeep has been in my craw since replacing the inimitable Bob Edwards on Morning Edition. Just saying.

Celebrating ignorance and arrogance is exceptionally American. Global economies based on the trillion-dollar solutions of fossil-fuels, slave-labor, misogyny, ultra high-tech weapon systems and private prisons drive critical thinkers into exile. Intentionally.

Gross is our domestic product. Strength is our ignorance.

I sit on a man’s back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back.

Leo Tolstoy had his pulse on humanity. Select anything he wrote and discover splendid presence and prescience, including veganism and anarchism. Quotes

leotolstoy

The Long Failure of Western Arms

  • Tolstoy: Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence (1886)

Yes. If it’s a good idea Tolstoy wrote about it from 1828 to 1910. He stopped writing by dint of death: a century plus six years.  

E.F. Schumacher offered the planet some important advice in 1973, roundly and soundly dismissed at the time, but I sense a resurgence, at least a spirit of hope.

From Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative, a perspective on E.F.

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Thanks for reading.