We live craving for shopping. Life is a never ending search for sex, food, drugs or companionship and only rarely is it a genuine thirst for self discovery. Hedonism rules. Our providers satisfy us, but they own us. This ‘pit’, this inescapable maze, this bog that sucks us down … but when you look at it more closely, it’s really all smoke and mirrors.
The whole edifice crumbles as soon as we puff some passionate resistance at it. If we are driven by compassion for animals and a need to educate others about it (and about loving the earth) it’s no good if we remain exploited ourselves. We can’t defend animals if we eat them!
We have a choice. With some education (and if we’re living in a relatively free, so called ‘developed’, country we do have some choices) there’s a chance to stay in control of our own lives and reduce the impact of the exploiters. But food addiction is like a lump of concrete in our gut. The food constipates us but more importantly our addiction to it prevents our egress from the pit.
They know how ‘animal foods’ bring us in from the cold, to the emporiums and malls and even the corner shop. They are there, always, providing the treats and tit bits for us. This is where we eat it or buy it and salivate over it. Our providers know how to pleasure us. They know things about our weaknesses, with the help of their tame scientists tampering with flavours and additives, we don’t know about ourselves. They know we’ll put aside our thoughts of the badly treated animals. They know we’ll be hooked on tastes and textures, and they know that, by eating their foods, we’ll fit in with others and enjoy social acceptance. By ‘eating together’ we ‘stay together’.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Hand in hand
The Animal Rights movement doesn’t have funding or pro bono help from top level professionals. We can’t compete with 1%er wealth. They have all the material advantages. They own the media and advertising industries. They can buy whomsoever they please. They legally sell addictive substances to the public, in the form of a wide range of foods. Their researchers tell them how far they can push the customer who always wants a reliable supply of favourite foods. On this level, veganism can’t win people over. We have to go the longer, slower way, at least at first.
All humans in the rich Western world, especially the omnivores, are having such a good time indulging in the animal stuff that we never want to think about food, just simply enjoy it. We humans would rather shut out all thoughts about awareness of animal exploitation. We’re happy if whatever they do is done behind closed doors, just as long as we can get what we want. In this respect we’re members of a mutual encouragement society – we go along with what the 1%’ers do by giving them the nod so they’ll bring us the goodies. It’s classic drug dealing. A co-dependency between dealer and client is developed. We all get what we want and it’s in everyone’s interest not to welsh on the other.
All humans in the rich Western world, especially the omnivores, are having such a good time indulging in the animal stuff that we never want to think about food, just simply enjoy it. We humans would rather shut out all thoughts about awareness of animal exploitation. We’re happy if whatever they do is done behind closed doors, just as long as we can get what we want. In this respect we’re members of a mutual encouragement society – we go along with what the 1%’ers do by giving them the nod so they’ll bring us the goodies. It’s classic drug dealing. A co-dependency between dealer and client is developed. We all get what we want and it’s in everyone’s interest not to welsh on the other.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
The animals’ revenge
Many 1%’ers are involved in exploitative ventures. They represent the political corporations. They aren’t fussy about which “natural resources” they exploit. And succeed they must in the face of fierce competition. What today’s shareholders in the animal food and clothing industries get up to, is the modern day equivalent of rape and pillage. Business-wise 1%’ers attempt to monopolise their market, sending competitors broke if they can. They conserve their assets, expand at every opportunity and play every dirty trick in the book to keep their advantage … in that way they keep their accounts full and their customers compliant.
They produce: we consume – and we’re especially all-consuming when it comes to food. We buy items that are, to some extent, addictive. Our addiction to our favourite ‘animal’ foods (or other animal products we “can’t live without”) is in part The Animals’ Revenge. It may be that the stolen body parts of animals effect a creeping deterioration in our metabolism. If we ingest them, we pay … in more ways than one!
Animal foods are profitable to the exploiters but just as certainly not profitable to the humans who consume them. They, along with the hapless animals, are victims. But, to some extent, we humans can look after ourselves. We can learn and we can change since we aren’t entirely enslaved, whereas the domesticated animal is. Entirely. This is why vegans are calling for a stop to it all - because animals can’t defend themselves against human attack. Against human bullying.
They produce: we consume – and we’re especially all-consuming when it comes to food. We buy items that are, to some extent, addictive. Our addiction to our favourite ‘animal’ foods (or other animal products we “can’t live without”) is in part The Animals’ Revenge. It may be that the stolen body parts of animals effect a creeping deterioration in our metabolism. If we ingest them, we pay … in more ways than one!
Animal foods are profitable to the exploiters but just as certainly not profitable to the humans who consume them. They, along with the hapless animals, are victims. But, to some extent, we humans can look after ourselves. We can learn and we can change since we aren’t entirely enslaved, whereas the domesticated animal is. Entirely. This is why vegans are calling for a stop to it all - because animals can’t defend themselves against human attack. Against human bullying.
Monday, January 4, 2010
It’s only animals
How did the ‘1%’ers’ ever get so much power? It comes from knowing their customers and by their own unconcern about being wicked? They are far too wicked to worry about it.
Their plan has almost worked. They’ve constructed a maze to keep their ‘clients’ trapped, or in shopping parlance, they stop their customers leaving the store without all the essential animal products in their shopping trolley.
1%’ers operate on a set of values (to do with the exploitation of resources) which most of us could never accept. We take what they give us and by our buying, do what they tell us. We don’t fully realise how dangerous our shopping habits are, since we are their playthings - they’ll do whatever it takes to keep their advantage. They’ll do things based on conserving what they have. They’ll always act within the law. They always protect themselves by never seeming to be directly accountable for what’s being done. They don’t usually act openly against the interests of humans. They wouldn’t draw attention to themselves that way. But for all their stealth and careful image-making, they know their customers don’t really care to know too much. They know they won’t notice or even care about what’s being done to “non-humans”, as long as they keep the good times rolling.
Their plan has almost worked. They’ve constructed a maze to keep their ‘clients’ trapped, or in shopping parlance, they stop their customers leaving the store without all the essential animal products in their shopping trolley.
1%’ers operate on a set of values (to do with the exploitation of resources) which most of us could never accept. We take what they give us and by our buying, do what they tell us. We don’t fully realise how dangerous our shopping habits are, since we are their playthings - they’ll do whatever it takes to keep their advantage. They’ll do things based on conserving what they have. They’ll always act within the law. They always protect themselves by never seeming to be directly accountable for what’s being done. They don’t usually act openly against the interests of humans. They wouldn’t draw attention to themselves that way. But for all their stealth and careful image-making, they know their customers don’t really care to know too much. They know they won’t notice or even care about what’s being done to “non-humans”, as long as they keep the good times rolling.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Trouble in the ranks
“1%’ers” have been successful at cementing our shopping habits. They not only give us what we want but mess with our minds at the same time. They effectively do our choosing for us, do it by brazen temptation and by way of misinformation. Subtly and subliminally they secure our loyalty to their products – we the customer support them (the animal industries) to serve our own interest. Other than vegans, have we ever seen anyone routinely not wearing animal skins somewhere on their body or not eating abattoir-derived foods? And you don’t need to look too closely to see that most adults over 40 are already ill from their life-long use of these products.By using misinformation, the “wicked 1%ers” persuade the spending dollar from peoples’ pockets and have no compunction about generally screwing up the future of the planet as they do so. They conserve what they have (in their bank accounts) and discourage radical changes … so that when their sons or daughters announce “I’m going vegan” you can bet they’ll respond - “Not if we have anything to do with it you won’t”!!!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
The factory farm
We no longer chase and hunt animals to kill them for food. Instead we keep them captive and, in this age of factory farms, we cramp them together behind bars and treat them like machines. The wealthy animal industries are owned by people, the “1%’ers”, who from the 1920s devised the intensive system.
I quote from J.S. Foer’s Animal Eating, “Modern industrial agriculture has asked what hog farming might look like if one considered only profitability – literally designing multitier farms from multistory office blocks …”. The ruthlessness of these designs reflects the worst imaginable outcome for the animals themselves.
The wealth of the animal industries comes from the “99%’er” customer, who has “gone along with it” and doesn’t want to know too much detail. Humans have conspired with the use of industrialised methods in farming. We, the customer, have allowed agribusiness to wield the same powers as lords of the manor have done in the past. They’ve woven us into a maze that seems inescapable. We shop, they profit.
I quote from J.S. Foer’s Animal Eating, “Modern industrial agriculture has asked what hog farming might look like if one considered only profitability – literally designing multitier farms from multistory office blocks …”. The ruthlessness of these designs reflects the worst imaginable outcome for the animals themselves.
The wealth of the animal industries comes from the “99%’er” customer, who has “gone along with it” and doesn’t want to know too much detail. Humans have conspired with the use of industrialised methods in farming. We, the customer, have allowed agribusiness to wield the same powers as lords of the manor have done in the past. They’ve woven us into a maze that seems inescapable. We shop, they profit.
Soul food
Friday 1st January 2010
Eating animals: “But they have no souls so it’s okay”. “They don’t feel things as we do”. “They can’t reflect on their situation or see up ahead to what’s in store for them”. Whether any of that is true or not, does it matter? New information today says that it’s safe to eat only plant based foods. So why not simply do just that? In our world of misinformation people concur with what they’ve been told - that animals have no souls and that meat is good for you. Their main fall back position is a powerful one: “We’ve been eating meat for two million years so why stop now?”
Perhaps it’s timely to stop this habit now because we know we can survive safely without animal food but also because we’ve shown how cruel the human system can be when it is making money from selling certain foods. Just look at what hell holes the factory farms are!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)