A Heartfelt Seasons Greetings from a Long Gone Comrade Who Sincerely Wishes You All Well

Hey UV! Hope you've been well!

Stick around awhile?

Wow! A liberal that talks more sense than most anarchists. Still, that ain't saying much where this topic is concerned.

http://youtu.be/amI20uj3dE0

http://youtu.be/ykTH_b-cXyE

That last one just fucking ripped me to pieces Webb, I had to force myself not to walk away from the screen. Where were the 'higher' animals? I feel lost.

UV! Happy holidays to you!

factvalue

That last one just fucking ripped me to pieces Webb, I had to force myself not to walk away from the screen. Where were the 'higher' animals? I feel lost.

And here's the thing, the meat eating, pus guzzling majority on here can beat us over the head with 'science' every bit as dubious as the woo woo horse manure peddled by vegan snake oil sellers, they can puff their chests out as a revolting display of their superiority complex, they can even come out with simpering platitudes about how eating animal products isn't wrong it's just that we need more humane methods of producing them(laugh my fucking arse off!), the truth is that if you still think it's ok to consume this shit after viewing this video you deserve to have the fucking shit kicked out of you.

Welcome back UV and a happy yuletide!
p.s. I'm almost a veggie now.

they can puff their chests out as a revolting display of their superiority complex

I think more than any other sign, when I see them actually adopting this physical posture it makes me feel how lost people are deep within the social prison.

Hey UV. I believe I first encountered your good self back on this free will thread and I think I forgot you to tell you that free will is only possible through determinism, that you can't causally effect any decision without it. Welcome back..

Good work

Webby

the truth is that if you still think it's ok to consume this shit after viewing this video you deserve to have the fucking shit kicked out of you.

Wait a sec... that video is supposed to make us feel bad about eating animals? How the hell did I miss that??

How the hell did I miss that??

Personally I took it at face value to be about factory farmed animals as commodities. Would you eat meat 'products' from these sources? I'm not being funny but since you've been saturated by capitalist culture since you were born, is it completely out of the question that your capitalist conditioning has short-circuited the connection between your intellect and your heart (not the edible organ, I mean your feelings) that's required for a person to reason correctly and reach beyond a certain ruthless egotism that is the reflection of a narrow economic outlook on life together with an attitude of entitlement and dominance? If I've got this wrong I'm sorry, but is it really compulsory for a person to have a deficiency of affect in order to be a revolutionary? Surely the opposite is closer to the truth?

I've noticed this in a lot in people who claim scientistically to have a scientific basis for their viewpoints, as if a narrow calculating intelligence could ever be enough to synthesise parts into new wholes rather than seeing them as just sums of separate, divided components, in science or anywhere else.

Primitive hunters respected the wild animals they killed through a consciousness of depleting resources, to the point on many occasions of apologising for having to take their lives. Does the sadism and destructiveness on display in the video seem in any way similar to that, any more than our modern consumption of market commodity creatures in general? How did anatomically identical people end up behaving in such contradictory ways, apart from the complete separation and alienation engendered by the minute application of division of labour, Taylorisation and the thousands of years of authoritarian conditioning required to separate us from ourselves so thoroughly? I'm no primitivist and I'm not Bookchin's number one fan but I'm with him on the link between our treatment of nature and our treatment of each other and ourselves.

A lot of this primitive 'honouring' is noble savage romanticism based either on superstitions or made up. I'm not sure we have that much to learn from our primitive ancestors and it requires being very selective so I think on the whole the fact that they did something is far from a ringing endorsement of it.
On the other hand the food industry in general is terrible for our environment and ourselves. The meat industry is horrific and to be honest those, like myslef, who continue to eat meat do it largely on the basis of ignoring the suffering caused.
Obviously someone is exploited to make everything in society but it is possible, although extremely difficult (and often prohibitively expensive) to cut out some of the cruelty.

Phoebe: Why would my mother send me a fur? Doesn't she know me but at all?! Plus, I have a perfectly fine coat that no innocent animal suffered to make!
Chandler: Yeah, just some 9 year old Filipino kids who worked their fingers bloody for 12 cents an hour.

A lot of this primitive 'honouring' is noble savage romanticism based either on superstitions or made up.

I've heard this claim/opinion more times than I can remember. What gives it validity in your case? What selection(s) in particular are you referring to?

watched the first part of that video about chickens --- looked to me like prisons in Brazil. let's save the humans before the damn chickens, eh?

I'm interested in people's motivations for holding the positions they hold, not subtexts as such just,things like this example of dualistic thinking which actually sets the treatment of humans by humans in opposition to the treatment of other animals by humans, as if they didn't come from the same syndrome of destructiveness and necrophilia which are the products of not just the past few hundred years but of our attempts to solve the problems of the human condition using only our negative, life destroying rather than life enhancing passions, which has itself been encouraged by the authoritarian societies which have been enslaving us for thousands, not hundreds of years.

factvalue

A lot of this primitive 'honouring' is noble savage romanticism based either on superstitions or made up.

I've heard this claim/opinion more times than I can remember. What gives it validity in your case? What selection(s) in particular are you referring to?

it would really be you that would need to back up your claim that they did

elraval2

watched the first part of that video about chickens --- looked to me like prisons in Brazil. let's save the humans before the damn chickens, eh?

Are the two things so separate that we can only look at one at a time? Can we not realise the connection between the suffering of all sentient creatures? We are de-sensitised to the suffering of animals. Does that not de-sensitise us to the suffering of humans?
Anyhow, saving the humans or the chickens is not the point. I've said this before: as me not abusing women or being racist will not end misogyny and racism should I beat my wife and put a burning cross on my neighbours lawn?
Not consuming animal products is easy, cheap and can be extremely healthy. There is no reason at all to be complicit in the suffering of animals used for the production of food.

Finally, of all the trite, glib piles of horse manure I've read on Libcom, the well used 'chickens are not my comrades' argument is the highest heaped and steaming.
The sense of entitlement on display with people's position regarding animals demonstrates that capital's cultural poison can be deep within even the most revolutionary heart.

radicalgraffiti

it would really be you that would need to back up your claim that they did

That seems a little lopsided don't you think? You show me yours and I'll show you mine.

Anyhow, we could learn a thing or two from animals about revolution. See for yourself;

http://youtu.be/FQMbXvn2RNI

Obviously someone is exploited to make everything in society but it is possible, although extremely difficult (and often prohibitively expensive) to cut out some of the cruelty.

In the case of animal foodstuffs this simply doesn't apply. As I've said, being vegan is cheap and easy. Of course workers are exploited producing plant based foods but I'll bet it's a damned site worse working on a factory farm or in a slaughterhouse.

Seriously, the mental gymnastics people go through to justify there fear of missing out on something or their lack of willingness to make a change is pretty staggering.

Btw Jeff, the above is not directed at you, I realise your point and I was responding to the common fallacy of 'I can't afford to be vegan'.

What about societies where eating meat/and using animal products has developed as a successful strategy to support a population, due to them living within an area not suitable for agriculture either due to climate, poor soils or lack of available flat land, think of pastoralist societies for example or Japan historically where because the land is narrow and mountainous there is not much room for agriculture and so fish made up a large part of peoples diet.

Maybe that isn't as much a problem nowadays, although in an anarchist society I'd think that food production would be locally based, and so if societies to some extent use animals as a successful and sustainable way to support themselves then I can't see anything wrong with that, especially if they have developed cultures and ways of life where they have historically sustained themselves in that way.

My point is that in principle at least I can't see anything wrong with eating meat, although that we have a society where we consume huge amounts of meat unnecessarily, which is both harmful to the environment and mistreats animals is another matter, and there I can see good reason to be a vegan.

factvalue

radicalgraffiti

it would really be you that would need to back up your claim that they did

That seems a little lopsided don't you think? You show me yours and I'll show you mine.

no, the emphasis is on the one making the positive claim to back it up, not the people disbelieving them

Webby

In the case of animal foodstuffs this simply doesn't apply. As I've said, being vegan is cheap and easy.

bullshit, you found it easy because of your likes and dislikes around food and your not short of money. how the fuck do you think your in a position to lecture people one there lack of empath for animals when you cant even consider the position of people different form you?

Scallywag

Maybe that isn't as much a problem nowadays, although in an anarchist society I'd think that food production would be locally based,

this is a terrible idea, its possible food production could be more local in some cases than now, but the idea that producing things locally is inherently better is a liberal disease

A vegan diet can be extremely cheap. Mine is based around grains mostly plus root veg and mainly cheap fruit. At the moment it's apples and satsumas most days. My very tasty, filling and healthy dinner tonight will cost less than a pound for a large portion. Anyhow, make accusations if you like, make assumptions about what I eat too, go on, fill your boots but don't justify torture fear and suffering by talking about personal preferences unless you're hellbent on making a complete fucking twat of yourself.

radicalgraffiti

this is a terrible idea, its possible food production could be more local in some cases than now, but the idea that producing things locally is inherently better is a liberal disease

Why is it liberal?

Producing local food means that it can be done sustainably where the people who produce the food, use it and recycle nutrients to the soil, instead of it being produced somewhere else probably intensively only for most of it not to reach local people but be transported half way across the world and accumulate waste.

Scallywag

radicalgraffiti

this is a terrible idea, its possible food production could be more local in some cases than now, but the idea that producing things locally is inherently better is a liberal disease

Why is it liberal?

Producing local food means that it can be done sustainably where the people who produce the food, use it and recycle nutrients to the soil, instead of it being produced somewhere else probably intensively only for most of it not to reach local people but be transported half way across the world and accumulate waste.

I've heard a rumour that liberals breath in and out every few seconds. We'd better stop doing that ourselves now comrades. Let's make the revolution disease free!

Why don't you try dialling it back, Webby. For someone who rattles on about humility and hating people who always have to be right, you're not exactly full of this magnanimity when it come to other people disagreeing with you. And certainly not when it comes to threatening people with physical violence for taking a different position. I realize you have the evangelical zeal of a new convert but arguing for people to have the shit kicked out of them for not being vegan is just gobby posturing.

It may have been easy for you to transition to your diet but I'd wager that most people would find a diet of grains roots and fruit to be as dismally boring as fuck.

As for eating locally, that only works in a place where there is good agricultural land all year round (like the UK or California.) Where i live the ground is frozen 6 months of the year, there are 8 million people to feed in this province and currently a cauliflower costs $8 each.

Fleur, I'm not getting into it with you - look what happened last time we squared up to each other but the perfectly blithering justification that is now predictably making it's appearance that goes along the lines of 'I wouldn't be a vegan coz I like the taste of chocolate milk' whilst ignoring the actual suffering being pointed out leaves people wide open for getting torn a new asshole.

How many hours did the happy new year last?
Wishing everyone a new start.

I get that it's probably easier now than ever to be vegan, now that more supermarkets offer vegan options and food is labelled, and I get that there are ways to do it cheaply, but surely it still takes a bit of skill learning where and what to buy and how to plan vegan meals? Its not a skill I have. I am not a good cook and it's hard enough trying to plan out meals vegan or not. I mostly rely upon ready meals as does my family and probably most other working class families that due to work don't have the time or energy to plan out vegetarian meals or even meat based meals everyday of the week. Aside from that I am a student living in student accommodation where there really isn't much space for storing veg and I got other things to worry about anyway, and other than that I am underweight and would like to build myself up more which would be considerably harder if I can only eat veg. I do feel guilty eating meat though, not really because I think its wrong, its more thinking about the large numbers of animals that need to be raised and slaughtered to continuously produce it.

Also also, happy new year everyone lol

radicalgraffiti

no, the emphasis is on the one making the positive claim to back it up, not the people disbelieving them

That's one way of looking at it. But what if there is more than one positive claim, and more than one disbeliever? What's the score here..what's next?

Auld-bod

How many hours did the happy new year last?
Wishing everyone a new start.

We could try asking the animals whose lives are unending suffering from birth till death that. I think we can guess their answer.

Just imagine living every single minute of every single day of your entire life in fear and extreme pain. Oh, but veggies are boring so let's ignore that, eh?
Seriously, the justifications are so fucking ludicrous it's embarrassing. This should be a discussion about how the problem is tackled, as it would be with racism or sexism, not whether or not it's ok to do it. That is why I'm very strident when posting on this issue - it is not a matter of differing opinions. If I said that, for instance, the mistreatment of prison inmates is ok, I would rightly be told to fuck off. Well, as a principle, this is precisely similar. There is no discussion to be had and I maintain that if anyone can view Meet your Meat and think this shit is in any way, under any circumstances, is acceptable, then they seriously need to do some work on theirself.

Scallywag #32

I’ve tried modifying my diet, though being a vegan is for me well over the top. I enjoy the occasional ready meal though they are grossly over-priced and full of chemical crap. I am a lazy sod, though I do a bit of cooking.

It is very much cheaper cooking for yourself, all you need is one large pot and half a dozen simple recipes. A good winter vegetable soup will give you four meals, more nutrition and at considerably less cost than one ready-made meal. Having shared a flat I appreciate the problems this can engender – however the fact remains - basic cooking skills are life enhancing and ‘politically correct’.

Webby #34

I have never imagined myself as Dr. Dolittle!

Seriously, the arguments you use are valid, though by painting everyone who does not share your zeal as uncaring immoral individuals only discourages people to be reflective about their eating habits.

Auld-bod

I’ve tried modifying my diet, though being a vegan is for me well over the top. I enjoy the occasional ready meal though they are grossly over-priced and full chemical crap. I am a lazy sod, though I do a bit of cooking.

It is very much cheaper cooking for yourself, all you need is one large pot and half a dozen simple recipes. A good winter vegetable soup will give you four meals, more nutrition and at considerably less cost than one ready-made meal. Having shared a flat I appreciate the problems this can engender – however the fact remains - basic cooking skills are life enhancing and ‘politically correct’.

Cheaper and easier if you know how sure. I agree with what your saying though and yeah they are overpriced shit really plus they are probably doing wonders for my health, at the time being though I think it would be too much hassle trying to change my diet, although I'd like to eat more healthy, more variety also and eventually cut down on meat, but I'd probably still eat it on occasion and I don't think I could ever give up dairy foods.

I eat vegetables and fruit along with fish and birds. Thats it :)

Scallywag

I get that it's probably easier now than ever to be vegan, now that more supermarkets offer vegan options and food is labelled, and I get that there are ways to do it cheaply, but surely it still takes a bit of skill learning where and what to buy and how to plan vegan meals? Its not a skill I have. I am not a good cook and it's hard enough trying to plan out meals vegan or not. I mostly rely upon ready meals as does my family and probably most other working class families that due to work don't have the time or energy to plan out vegetarian meals or even meat based meals everyday of the week. Aside from that I am a student living in student accommodation where there really isn't much space for storing veg and I got other things to worry about anyway, and other than that I am underweight and would like to build myself up more which would be considerably harder if I can only eat veg. I do feel guilty eating meat though, not really because I think its wrong, its more thinking about the large numbers of animals that need to be raised and slaughtered to continuously produce it.

Also also, happy new year everyone lol

I just can't buy this. Surely with something this serious you should take the time to educate yourself? There's not much to learn anyway.
As for vegan options - I rarely go anywhere near them. They're full of fat, salt and chemicals, taste like shit and cost a fortune.
Building weight is no problem either, vegan foods have more than enough protein. Nuts, seeds and pulses are Choc full of it. Even many fruits have a fair bit. Buy the right bread, eat brown rice and you'll be full to the back teeth with protein. It's all so simple.

Webby

I just can't buy this. Surely with something this serious you should take the time to educate yourself? There's not much to learn anyway.

Really can you not accept that this is something people have varying abilities to deal with and sure I can and eventually should learn, but at the time being really its the least to worry about. I mean its easier just to get ready meals, worry about how its affecting my health sure, but at least not have to worry about what I am going to eat, whereas cooking for myself adds a whole other layer of anxiety.

Also you totally don't understand how much hassle it can be for some families to cater for specific diets, my sister tried to be a vegetarian once and it honestly did stress my mum out trying to get her stuff she would eat and figure out how to cater for her. I mean yeah she shouldn't have been left to do that herself, but my family is patriarchal where my mother has the traditional domestic role as well as having to work, so it was a case of I help out as much as I can and eat whatever I get.

EDIT:

In any case this isn't an excuse for continuing the status quo of having a society where we eat a lot of meat, I agree that that needs to be reduced although disagree that eating meet is immoral and needs to be stopped entirely. Its really just your view that its easy for everyone to switch to vegetarianism/veganism, that I object to aside from biocentric notions of animals and humans being of equal worth or on par with humans.

Seriously, the arguments you use are valid, though by painting everyone who does not share your zeal as uncaring immoral individuals only discourages people to be reflective about their eating habits.

I don't believe it's a straightforward matter of stridency of discussion styles, although there seems to be plenty of that to go around, for reasons that could be fruitfully examined if people weren't so afraid. It's pure narcissism to only concern yourself with your own opinions, endlessly attacking others for daring to pierce your bubble. The certainty in your own ideas or the ideas of some ideology that appeals to your emotional state and then the furious defense of the so-called facts proclaimed by that ideology as the truth are the tell-tale signs of an intense state of narcissism, with which it is impossible to have any constructive exchange. It's a shame that it's happened so quickly, and it's really boring.

Rationalisations are about the repression of awareness, including self-awareness. They're more powerful than fully conscious lies. From this perspective, one problem with doing things on a local level that is reminiscent of the Hobbesian liberal view of humans as barely tamed ravenous beasts, would be that you might be forced to face the destructive aspects of your own personality, that having been conditioned by capitalism, a part of you just doesn't give a shit or actively enjoys the idea or the spectacle of animal suffering, despite the rationalisations.

The priority is to get rid of capitalism, sure, but to me this involves destroying every layer of it everywhere, internally as well as externally, or if the time ever comes we will fail. Changing systems without changing people is the real bullshit we should address.

Auld Bod, I actually don't think persuading people is of any use at all. The evidence of how fucked this stuff is clear to see. People need to examine themselves and try to understand why they are so cold about it.

FV is absolutely right here. I need to look at why I'm unable to contain my fury and others need to address why they are so compelled to make flaccid excuses for their choices.
Partly, I'm so frustrated at the pitiful, half arsed arguments that always appear whenever this issue comes up, partly it's my disappointment that people that I generally have respect for are just so lame around this issue but mostly I'm upset that, despite accusations to the contrary, I have more empathy for my own species and see this revolting activity that we are collectively implicit in is harmful to our physical and spiritual wellbeing. As FV implies, a revolution without an internal revolution would not be a revolution at all. It would be a fucking disaster.

I might just remind people that contentious debate over this very issue is the reason UV left libcom the first time...

Anyway, Webby, what are your reasons for being a vegan - in the sense of is it political or moral or whatever?

Webby #41
‘Auld Bod, I actually don't think persuading people is of any use at all. The evidence of how fucked this stuff is clear to see. People need to examine themselves and try to understand why they are so cold about it.’

And my point is - you do not persuade people by moral grandstanding. If you are not trying to change people’s minds, what else are you doing? As FV stated:

‘The certainty in your own ideas or the ideas of some ideology that appeals to your emotional state and then the furious defense of the so-called facts proclaimed by that ideology as the truth are the tell-tale signs of an intense state of narcissism, with which it is impossible to have any constructive exchange.’

I feel this is spot on, remembering we ALL live in glass houses.

Chilli Sauce

I might just remind people that contentious debate over this very issue is the reason UV left libcom the first time...

Anyway, Webby, what are your reasons for being a vegan - in the sense of is it political or moral or whatever?

The simple answer is watch the Meet your Meat video. That's all you need. I feel I can only repeat myself here as it's pretty simple and I've said it many times;

No, it's not overtly political, within capitalism it will never be much more than a gesture, like 'ethical shopping'(lol), but that doesn't mean I have to be absolutely complicit any more than I would want to be complicit in sexism, racism, homophobia or any of the other abominations created, encouraged and utilised by capital's power relations tactics.

Is it moral? Well, I guess so but not just for morality's sake. I believe that this cruelty is detrimental to our culture, it marks our race out as cruel and barbaric and rightly so but isn't that what we anarchists are about, bringing an end to cruelty, exploitation and the violence that is used by capital to secure it's power? The wilful myopia of those that dismiss this as a topic even worthy of discussion demonstrate, as does the video, how deep in the mire of entitlement and misguided self interest our culture has become. To see what happens to food production livestock and say yeah, but veggies are boring, so I'm unwilling to consider changing or making a small amount of effort to educate myself is the result of desensitisation of the utmost power. This is so out of whack with revolutionary vision of how we could live as a species that the mind boggles. And it turns my stomach. I don't see that as me taking the moral high ground, it's a natural reaction to the cold ad callous stance being presented to me. If a vegan diet is boring(and it's not by the way) then that's just too fucking bad! Jimmy Saville found healthy consensual sex boring but that doesn't make it ok that he was a kiddy fiddling corpse fucker.
Almost all of the objections(excuses) have no grounds in reality. I respond to them and act like a dick out of frustration at how pitiful they are which is my defect that I would like to change about myself. I just don't know any other way of dealing with them other than derision because they are so flawed that they don't really warrant s serious response. Is this egotism on my part? I don't think so but I will no doubt be accused of it.
The idea RG proposed that it's alright for me coz I happen to like vegan food is typical of this - making daft assumptions to excuse yourself doesn't make you right. Before changing I ate meat and cheese every single day, it was rare to have a meal without animal produce in it. Fuck, I'd even start the day with a chunk of cheese if I didn't have time to prepare breakfast. Saying it's easy for me coz I have a few quid is equally laughable. There is nothing cheaper to eat in the UK than rice and potatoes. Don't like rice or potatoes? How about pasta, noodles, bread. I go to Tescos and get 8 apples for a quid, if I get to Aldi they're even cheaper. FFS, even in Waitrose you can buy a bag of penne that will generously feed six for a quid. Of course there's loads more cheap food but I'm not Jamie fucking Oliver, so I'm not gonna write a book on it, I'll just say one further thing; condiments.
Science gets bandied about on both sides, prehistoric man, teeth, hunter gatherers etc but I don't give a shit about that. The point is that we're at a stage in our history where the consumption of animal foods is totally unnecessary. So why the fuck would we do this shit other than for selfish reasons? It just doesn't stack up.

You're right, UV ditched Libcom coz she just couldn't stomach the attitudes on here. Libcom has lost a valued poster as a result. Maybe she should have stuck around and accepted it but this means a lot to her and causes her a great deal of pain. It is understandable that she has made the choice to ditch Libcom. Right now I feel like fucking it off too - I want to engage with real honest feeling people, not the dogmatic machines that many present as on here, at least when this topic arises.
UV's posts were put here in good faith, I speak to her every single day either by text or phone and know that she hasn't looked in on Libcom since she did the OP. Do we really want to create the sort of atmosphere that caused this? I realise that my style of posting often doesn't help but when presented with such hateful nonsense as has been seen on other threads and to a lesser degree here it's very hard to know how to react other than with belligerence.

So, does that explain my reasons???

Auld-bod

Webby #41
‘Auld Bod, I actually don't think persuading people is of any use at all. The evidence of how fucked this stuff is clear to see. People need to examine themselves and try to understand why they are so cold about it.’

And my point is - you do not persuade people by moral grandstanding. If you are not trying to change people’s minds, what else are you doing? As FV stated:

‘The certainty in your own ideas or the ideas of some ideology that appeals to your emotional state and then the furious defense of the so-called facts proclaimed by that ideology as the truth are the tell-tale signs of an intense state of narcissism, with which it is impossible to have any constructive exchange.’

I feel this is spot on, remembering we ALL live in glass houses.

That's a question I'm asking myself right now. It seems impossible to have a reasonable conversation about this and I'm well aware of my part in this. I think though, that 'moral grandstanding' is a little unfair and inaccurate. I guess it's kind of like this, I'll be going to Dover on the 30th to demonstrate my total revulsion at the views of the fascists and to show solidarity with the migrants and refugees that are the target of their hate. I dare say that like has happened on Libcom I will become abusive with those that I am so at odds with.

DP

I feel this is spot on, remembering we ALL live in glass houses.

Agreed, this was implicit. I was going to use 'we' instead of 'you' but that always sounds a little too close to a liberal primary school teacher talking down to infants and makes me throw up in my mouth a wee bit.

factvalue

radicalgraffiti

no, the emphasis is on the one making the positive claim to back it up, not the people disbelieving them

That's one way of looking at it. But what if there is more than one positive claim, and more than one disbeliever? What's the score here..what's next?

if the emphasis isn't on the person making the claim then there is no way to distinguish some shit someone just made up from things with masses of evidence behind them. trying to shift the burden of proof to the person disbelieve is popular with conspiracy theorists and related types for a reason

Scallywag

I enjoy the occasional ready meal though they are grossly over-priced and full chemical crap.

stop saying things a "full of chemicals" as a equivalent to "bad stuff" everything is made of chemicals.

Auld-bod

Scallywag

It is very much cheaper cooking for yourself, all you need is one large pot and half a dozen simple recipes. ....

Cheaper and easier if you know how sure. .....

no amount of cooking skill is every going to make cooking your own food easier than say just shoving a pizza in the oven

If there are two contradictory 'positive' positions, why don't they both require evidence? If a claim is denied, there is just as much 'onus' (what is this about?!) on the 'disbeliever'. So unless we're only interested in this weird, puerile point scoring, perhaps you might to like to provide some?

stop saying things a "full of chemicals" as a equivalent to "bad stuff" everything is made of chemicals.

Ignore my previous post, you're clearly in this for the points

no amount of cooking skill is every going to make cooking your own food easier than say just shoving a pizza in the oven

Righto.

Scallywag

EDIT:

In any case this isn't an excuse for continuing the status quo of having a society where we eat a lot of meat, I agree that that needs to be reduced although disagree that eating meet is immoral and needs to be stopped entirely. Its really just your view that its easy for everyone to switch to vegetarianism/veganism, that I object to aside from biocentric notions of animals and humans being of equal worth or on par with humans.

this is particularity annoying, along with the idea that all animals are the same, a lot of what vegans claim depends on the assumption that bees and chickens and cows and humans all have the same basics experience of the world, which is so absurd.

this is particularity annoying, along with the idea that all animals are the same, a lot of what vegans claim depends on the assumption that bees and chickens and cows and humans all have the same basics experience of the world, which is so absurd.

The problem with duck and cover guerilla posting from a heavily defended position is that you're often too busy accumulating points and keeping score to hold all aspects of the plot in your mind:

#41

Partly, I'm so frustrated at the pitiful, half arsed arguments that always appear whenever this issue comes up, partly it's my disappointment that people that I generally have respect for are just so lame around this issue but mostly I'm upset that, despite accusations to the contrary, I have more empathy for my own species and see this revolting activity that we are collectively implicit in is harmful to our physical and spiritual wellbeing.

So was it too much like hard work to provide the evidence? What was your motivation in posting at all if that's the case?

Webby

Chilli Sauce

I might just remind people that contentious debate over this very issue is the reason UV left libcom the first time...

Anyway, Webby, what are your reasons for being a vegan - in the sense of is it political or moral or whatever?

The simple answer is watch the Meet your Meat video. That's all you need. I feel I can only repeat myself here as it's pretty simple and I've said it many times;

vegan propergander is no solution to anything

Webby

The idea RG proposed that it's alright for me coz I happen to like vegan food is typical of this - making daft assumptions to excuse yourself doesn't make you right.

excuse myself for what?
besides, you clearly have weird tasts in food

Webby

Before changing I ate meat and cheese every single day, it was rare to have a meal without animal produce in it. Fuck, I'd even start the day with a chunk of cheese if I didn't have time to prepare breakfast. Saying it's easy for me coz I have a few quid is equally laughable. There is nothing cheaper to eat in the UK than rice and potatoes. Don't like rice or potatoes? How about pasta, noodles, bread.

you cant live on carbohydrates alone, of cause you can live on beans and rice for a vary long time before you die of B12 deficiency. but is that kind of diet really worth living on?
food has two functions to provide nutrition and to be enjoyable.
you cant have low price and nutritious food and ease of preparation and good flavour and vegan, no one has denied that vegan food can be healthy or that i can be cheap, but to be all the necessary things is much easier with dishes that contain meat.

Webby

Science gets bandied about on both sides, prehistoric man, teeth, hunter gatherers etc but I don't give a shit about that.

that was obvious when you spent pages defending someone promoting lies about nutrition last time.

factvalue

If there are two contradictory 'positive' positions, why don't they both require evidence? If a claim is denied, there is just as much 'onus' (what is this about?!) on the 'disbeliever'. So unless we're only interested in this weird, puerile point scoring, perhaps you might to like to provide some?

you said

Primitive hunters respected the wild animals they killed through a consciousness of depleting resources, to the point on many occasions of apologising for having to take their lives.

and jef costello

A lot of this primitive 'honouring' is noble savage romanticism based either on superstitions or made up.

and i'm saying that if you believe this to be true then its up to you to proved the evidence because its vary difficult to prove a negative. i'm not sure what the purpose of your agument here is? do you genuinely believe that people should be able to assert any bullshit they want and then its up to other people to prove it wrong?

[youtube]qACxfKB3iP4[/youtube]

Sums up everything I hate about american liberal politics.

Chilli Sauce

I might just remind people that contentious debate over this very issue is the reason UV left libcom the first time...

Anyway, Webby, what are your reasons for being a vegan - in the sense of is it political or moral or whatever?

Didn't know this, but I do feel wrong for commenting on this thread when it was supposed to be a new years thread and when the general forum is supposed to be for light discussion anyway, so sorry if I've upset anyone.

Sorry also to Webby and others who have strong opinions over eating meat, I don't find it fundamentally wrong to eat meat, but I can respect those who do.

I really hope that no one is seriously considering leaving the forum.

webby

If a vegan diet is boring(and it's not by the way) then that's just too fucking bad! Jimmy Saville found healthy consensual sex boring but that doesn't make it ok that he was a kiddy fiddling corpse fucker.

You're comparing eating meat to child abuse? GET THE FUCK OUT, YOU STUPID, NASTY LITTLE MAN

Scallywag

I really hope that no one is seriously considering leaving the forum.

It's crossed my mind a lot recently, due to the obnoxious behaviour which Webby seems to enjuy.

Mr. Jolly

[youtube]qACxfKB3iP4[/youtube]

Sums up everything I hate about american liberal politics.

That....that was fucking amazing. I might just add that, at least in American terms, those ideas - certainly "specieism"- would be viewed as radical. The people in that video, assuming it's not just and amazing joke, would be far more likely to view themselves as anarchists than to vote for the Democratic Party, I'm afraid.

Webby, so your argument basically seems to be that the pain and suffering animals experience doesn't justify the enjoyment/nutrition that humans gain from eating them. That is a moral argument.

So, like this for example:

I believe that this cruelty is detrimental to our culture, it marks our race out as cruel and barbaric and rightly so but isn't that what we anarchists are about, bringing an end to cruelty, exploitation and the violence that is used by capital to secure it's power?

I think there're a lot of problems and assumptions just in this one sentence. One, the ability to cook and preserve meat played a huge role in the success of a humans as a species. I'm not sure something that enabled our species to thrive can be dismissed so quickly out of hand.

You could argue that it's the industrial/capitalist meat production is barbaric (and it is) but, again, I think that's a different from arguing that humans have some basic moral imperative to stop eating eat. I speak as a (lazy) vegetarian, but I don't think we as workers or consumers should be blamed for the production processes laid down by capital. Or, to put it another way, if - under capitalism or outside of it - we could reduce animal suffering to a bare minimum, would you still advocate a vegan diet?

Finally, I have trouble finding the slaughtering of animals (which has occurred throughout the entire history of humanity) analogous to the exploitation and violence of capital. Meat consumption occurs throughout the animal kingdom and there's no question that, biologically, humans are omnivorous. And exploitation, in the sense of the extraction of surplus value, doesn't occur when an animal is killed for food.

I might also point out that in post 45 you effectively compared meat eaters to fascists. That might be why charges of moral grandstanding are getting leveled, man...

Scallywag, Auld Bod and Factvalue - thanks for proper engagement whether I agree with you or not.

Fleur - I will treat your vile accusation with the absolute contempt that it deserves. Save your steel toecaps for some other poor bastard.

Chilli - how the fuck did you figure that one out??? I used the fascists as an example of people I don't expect to change but that I do want to be vocal against. That is hardly accusing people of being as bad as fascists for eating meat, is it. Come on mate, your smarter than that aren't you?

Radical Graffiti - hahahahahaha! Fucking hell, do your research before you start posting or you're gonna look like a right fucking numpty. Oops, too late!
Ah, the good old protein argument, what a load of old tosh. I am on a HIGH PROTEIN regime at the moment due to liver failure, under the supervision of an NHS dietician. It's a piece of piss.
B12. Ever heard of yeast extract or other derived products?
But here is the dumbest of all - I clearly have weird tastes in food! Of all the drivel I've seen posted on this topic by the likes of yourself, this tops the fucking lot. What does it even mean? So weird food includes bread, pasta, fruit, vegetables, soup, potatoes( you know, the things that the weirdest of all foods, fries and chips are made of). How about peanut butter or jam? My gran used to like jam, what a fucking freak she must have been! Oh, and of course takeaway food like chinese, noodles, curry, pizza. Weird shit dude.

I could dismantle your arguments(lol) and barely engage a braincell, so utterly devoid of any basis are they but that would be like shooting fish in a barrel, and as a liberal, lifestylist hippy I clearly would never do such a thing as kill da poor little fishy wishies would I?

I used the fascists as an example of people I don't expect to change but that I do want to be vocal against. That is hardly accusing people of being as bad as fascists for eating meat, is it.

If that's not what you meant, fair enough, but this does read as if you're "so at odds" with the pro-meat folks on libcom as to respond to them in the same way you intend to respond to fascists:

I'll be going to Dover on the 30th to demonstrate my total revulsion at the views of the fascists... I dare say that like has happened on Libcom I will become abusive with those that I am so at odds with.

And even if that's not what you meant, it does seem pretty grandstandy to bring up fascists as if they're somehow relevant to this conversation.

Anyway, I sort of feel like you ignored the rest of my post and while I think there's a bit of you sort of responding to arguments that others on this thread haven't actually made, the arguments I made in my post aren't addressed by talking about protein or B12 or taste.

Fleur - I will treat your vile accusation with the absolute contempt that it deserves. Save your steel toecaps for some other poor bastard.

So what the fuck did you mean then? You made the analogy, make some sense of it. It sounds like the usual airheaded claptrap which comes out of the fuckwits at PETA, comparing farming to rape.
And nice one, coming from you, a wannabe bootboy who is always fantasizing about people "having the shit kicked out of them."

And fwiw, chickens are not my comrades. I'm very picky about my friends and comrades and a lot of people don't make that cut.

Lol webby it wasn't even me who said you had 'weird tastes in food', I did say that it would be considerably harder for me to gain weight if I could only eat veg, but it wasn't me either who made any arguments about vegan diets being inadequate/not providing you with all needed nutrition, I know it can be done.

Scallywag

Lol webby it wasn't even me who said you had 'weird tastes in food', I did say that it would be considerably harder for me to gain weight if I could only eat veg, but it wasn't me either who made any arguments about vegan diets being inadequate/not providing you with all needed nutrition, I know it can be done.

Sorry mate, I obviously meant RG. I did actually offer props to you at the beginning of my post.

Webby

Scallywag

Lol webby it wasn't even me who said you had 'weird tastes in food', I did say that it would be considerably harder for me to gain weight if I could only eat veg, but it wasn't me either who made any arguments about vegan diets being inadequate/not providing you with all needed nutrition, I know it can be done.

Sorry mate, I obviously meant RG. I did actually offer props to you at the beginning of my post.

no probs, I get that now, but it confused me a bit lol

Webby

Scallywag

Lol webby it wasn't even me who said you had 'weird tastes in food', I did say that it would be considerably harder for me to gain weight if I could only eat veg, but it wasn't me either who made any arguments about vegan diets being inadequate/not providing you with all needed nutrition, I know it can be done.

Sorry mate, I obviously meant RG. I did actually offer props to you at the beginning of my post.

i#'m not seeing a response to me, did you imagin something that was easer to respond to perhaps?

radicalgraffiti

Webby

Scallywag

Lol webby it wasn't even me who said you had 'weird tastes in food', I did say that it would be considerably harder for me to gain weight if I could only eat veg, but it wasn't me either who made any arguments about vegan diets being inadequate/not providing you with all needed nutrition, I know it can be done.

Sorry mate, I obviously meant RG. I did actually offer props to you at the beginning of my post.

i#'m not seeing a response to me, did you imagin something that was easer to respond to perhaps?

I've edited your name in and no, I didn't see anything easier to respond to - there is nothing on this planet easier to respond to on this earth when it comes to this topic you daft bastard!

Chilli Sauce

I used the fascists as an example of people I don't expect to change but that I do want to be vocal against. That is hardly accusing people of being as bad as fascists for eating meat, is it.

If that's not what you meant, fair enough, but this does read as if you're "so at odds" with the pro-meat folks on libcom as to respond to them in the same way you intend to respond to fascists:

I'll be going to Dover on the 30th to demonstrate my total revulsion at the views of the fascists... I dare say that like has happened on Libcom I will become abusive with those that I am so at odds with.

And even if that's not what you meant, it does seem pretty grandstandy to bring up fascists as if they're somehow relevant to this conversation.

Anyway, I sort of feel like you ignored the rest of my post and while I think there's a bit of you sort of responding to arguments that others on this thread haven't actually made, the arguments I made in my post aren't addressed by talking about protein or B12 or taste.

Chilli - I realise I was an antagonist twat in my first two posts on this thread. I tried sincerely after that but I now, once again realise that I'm an idiot for getting involved here. Complete waste of time. So I'm not going to bother answering your questions or posting on this thread anymore and spend time fending off a highly skilled bully or a cringemakingly inept one.

Bully. Lol. Pot. Kettle. Black.
You've been verbally abusive, antagonistic, spoiling for a fight and behaving like a persecuted victim when someone responds to it. Par for the course for the last year, where you have behaved like an utter ass. You have to be especially clueless, or antagonistic, to make allusions to fascists and child rapists and not expect a response.
And you can go to hell Webby. You thought it was totally OK to disclose personal email correspondence to make a point in a thread, where you were having another temper tantrum. I wouldn't trust you to water a plant. You're great at talking the talk, shouting your 2 cents worth on the trigger warning thread, where it doesn't cross your mind to put one on the torture porn you like to post.
UV isn't the only poster who's ceased posting here. I've talked to a number of others, fed up of the forums being total asshole magnets.

RG:

and i'm saying that if you believe this to be true then its up to you to proved the evidence because its vary difficult to prove a negative. i'm not sure what the purpose of your agument here is? do you genuinely believe that people should be able to assert any bullshit they want and then its up to other people to prove it wrong?

Jeff:

A lot of this primitive 'honouring' is noble savage romanticism based either on superstitions or made up. I'm not sure we have that much to learn from our primitive ancestors and it requires being very selective so I think on the whole the fact that they did something is far from a ringing endorsement of it.

A sham coherence has been imposed upon the material of each member of this sequence of very loose assertions through the reliance upon neither logic nor evidence but upon a commonly accepted and very shop worn common framework. These are all positive claims, which of course doesn't guarantee that they are any easier to prove than a negative, and thus far no evidence has been produced for them, which doesn't necessarily mean that they're true mind you, or perhaps you're saying that since I have provided no evidence for my claims then you/Jeff know more about what I'm saying than I do, who knows?.. Whatever the case may be, that once again was my point, so to speak. Back to you again.

Throwing in my two cents un-asked, but just to say that, sure, Webby's been a bit, uh, recalcitrant on this issue, but he is a good guy on a personal level and he's one of the few people on libcom who've I seen make truly heartfelt apologies. It would be a shame to see him - or anyone who's annoyed with him - stop posting on libcom.

That said, Webby, the fash thing, probably let that one go. The Jimmy Saville thing, the posting of the personal information (although did I somehow miss that one?), maybe one of those apologies might be in order...

Webby

radicalgraffiti

Webby

Scallywag

Lol webby it wasn't even me who said you had 'weird tastes in food', I did say that it would be considerably harder for me to gain weight if I could only eat veg, but it wasn't me either who made any arguments about vegan diets being inadequate/not providing you with all needed nutrition, I know it can be done.

Sorry mate, I obviously meant RG. I did actually offer props to you at the beginning of my post.

i#'m not seeing a response to me, did you imagin something that was easer to respond to perhaps?

I've edited your name in and no, I didn't see anything easier to respond to - there is nothing on this planet easier to respond to on this earth when it comes to this topic you daft bastard!

this

Webby

Radical Graffiti - hahahahahaha! Fucking hell, do your research before you start posting or you're gonna look like a right fucking numpty. Oops, too late!
Ah, the good old protein argument, what a load of old tosh. I am on a HIGH PROTEIN regime at the moment due to liver failure, under the supervision of an NHS dietician. It's a piece of piss.
B12. Ever heard of yeast extract or other derived products?
But here is the dumbest of all - I clearly have weird tastes in food! Of all the drivel I've seen posted on this topic by the likes of yourself, this tops the fucking lot. What does it even mean? So weird food includes bread, pasta, fruit, vegetables, soup, potatoes( you know, the things that the weirdest of all foods, fries and chips are made of). How about peanut butter or jam? My gran used to like jam, what a fucking freak she must have been! Oh, and of course takeaway food like chinese, noodles, curry, pizza. Weird shit dude.

I could dismantle your arguments(lol) and barely engage a braincell, so utterly devoid of any basis are they but that would be like shooting fish in a barrel, and as a liberal, lifestylist hippy I clearly would never do such a thing as kill da poor little fishy wishies would I?

isn't a response to me

Yeah, I did do that email thing but the context in which it was done and the actual information, or rather complete lack of, didn't seem at all damaging especially as I was using it to make a point about how Fleur's behaviour had upset me precisely because we had been on very good terms and confided in each other. Bad form though clearly and I am sorry for it.
As for the Jimmy Saville comment, if anyone is daft enough to believe, or determined enough to do a character assassination on me by suggesting that I was comparing the crimes of Saville to those of non vegans that's their problem, not mine. FFS, it's clear as day that I was using an example as a way to demonstrate a principle. Admittedly it had a fairly hefty amount of topspin on it but that just made it more clear that I wasn't speaking literally.

Anyhow, thanks for your kind words but I don't think there is any point to this thread. Same old, same old;

Topic comes up, I wade in like a bull in a china shop, people chat shit about protein and helping people before animals as if the two are mutually exclusive, I insult people with sardonic humour, in desperation they come out with hilariously ill informed opinions, I make fun of them were n a fairly unkind to way as I have here with RG and the few people that engage in completely good faith are pushed to the back. Fucking pointless. I still think that many posters need to get torn a new one but it doesn't do any good whatsoever. I can't in all honesty say I'm sorry or that I regret what I've posted here, I stand solidly by it but I do regret posting at all.

Webby

I insult people with sardonic humour, in desperation they come out with hilariously ill informed opinions, I make fun of them were n a fairly unkind to way as I have here with RG and the few people that engage in completely good faith are pushed to the back..

i don't know what you think your' making fun of but it aint me, how about you start here if your going to"respond" to me

radicalgraffiti

Webby

The idea RG proposed that it's alright for me coz I happen to like vegan food is typical of this - making daft assumptions to excuse yourself doesn't make you right.

excuse myself for what?

Referring to private correspondence - about our kids, no less - just to make a point in a stupid fucking forum was scummy behaviour, no matter how obtuse you feel it was and was a gross violation of privacy and trust. It's also guaranteed that there will be no more private correspondence.

It is also gross stupidity if you think that making a comment that Jimmy Savile found consensual sex boring, in the next sentence to saying that non- vegans find vegan food boring, is not going to be construed as something offensive. I suppose the best thing I can think of that is that you're guilty of stupid hyperbole but it was as offensive as fuck. It's exactly this sort of crap which gives vegans a bad name and it's certainly unlikely to persuade anyone to come over to your point of view.

Given that you've been throwing around insults and fantasizing about giving us pus-guzzlers a good kicking, it's hard to work out how I'm supposed to find your sardonic humour very funny. Animal rights seems to be the only fucking thing you want to talk about, yet whenever anyone tries to discuss it and has another point of view, you shoot it down, not even able to countenance a different point of view and exhibiting a total lack of empathy for anyone else. What about some of that humility you're forever going on about.

Seriously, fuck you Webby.

I have a large carton of popcorn (coated in soya marg), tofu jerky, pretzels and some beers, settle down and read this bad boy thread.

...

Hi UV, you started this thread being passive aggressive and i see you mean to carry on that way.

the thing with videos like that is everyone knows that the people making them put in all the worst stuff they can find.

i don't know about elsewhere but in the uk keeping animals in cages to small for them to turn around is not the norm, it might actually be illegal, lots of animals can be see in fields if you go to the countryside, of cause its not particularly nice to keep animals confined and kill them for food, but when your entire argument consists of the worst stuff you can find anywhere in the world then your not arguing for people to stop using animals for food, your arguing for rules on how they are treated. if you want to argue that animals should never be used in food production you need to take the best case scenario and show its still unacceptable

I don't think this hand-waving anecdotal style is conducive to reasoned debate rg, and has been shown in this thread to be counterproductive. Can you at least provide some factual evidence for what you're saying?

In our techno utopian future we will all be eating real meat constructed from stem cells grown in vats manipulated to create the correct taste and texture, proper milk and cheese from genetically modified yeast or something.

Simple

Scallywag

radicalgraffiti

this is a terrible idea, its possible food production could be more local in some cases than now, but the idea that producing things locally is inherently better is a liberal disease

Why is it liberal?

Producing local food means that it can be done sustainably where the people who produce the food, use it and recycle nutrients to the soil, instead of it being produced somewhere else probably intensively only for most of it not to reach local people but be transported half way across the world and accumulate waste.

why does the proximity of the production of food to the consumers of the food correlate with sustainability? it doesn't, the idea that it does comes from liberal ideology, support your local farmers and all that crap.
Of cause your right that the literal crap should be reused to fertilise crops, if with modern technology we can transport food from a place then we can certainly transport shit back.

Not that its bad to grow food as close to where its consumed as possible is a bad thing, it just has no inherit virtue.

How ever, in the future with hydroponics and and growing indoors under artificial lights growing food closer to where its used will probably become more practical

factvalue

I don't think this hand-waving anecdotal style is conducive to reasoned debate rg, and has been shown in this thread to be counterproductive. Can you at least provide some factual evidence for what you're saying?

i don't find your posts conducive to reasoned debate, half the time i have trouble figuring out what your trying to say or who its aimed at.

what is it your lacking evidence for?

I think there is a big difference between concern for animal welfare (which is totally valid in my view) and a perspective I earlier called biocentric which views all individual organisms as being of equal worth and thus deserving of the same rights. The later I think that has a lot of problems some of which have been brought up in this thread, but basically I think it has potential to be misanthropic, it views a way in which humans have (and still rely on in some places) for supporting themselves as fundamentally immoral as Chili said back in #60 and lastly I just think it is absurd that all individual organisms have the same intrinsic worth to each other, whether that's an insect, a virus, a cow, chicken, fish, dog or human. Anyway I think this thread has passed boring now, and given the antagonism its caused between members it should probably just die.

Mr. Jolly

In our techno utopian future we will all be eating real meat constructed from stem cells grown in vats manipulated to create the correct taste and texture, proper milk and cheese from genetically modified yeast or something.

Simple

at least some of that it likely to happen in our dystopian cyberpunk present pretty soon

Mr. Jolly

In our techno utopian future we will all be eating real meat constructed from stem cells grown in vats manipulated to create the correct taste and texture, proper milk and cheese from genetically modified yeast or something.

Simple

Lol we'll probably destroy the environment and be eating some powder supplement :(

i don't find your posts conducive to reasoned debate, half the time i have trouble figuring out what your trying to say or who its aimed at.

Yes I came to the same conclusion a little earlier. I'm not lacking evidence for anything, but to initiate a constructive discussion rather than just continuing with your game of word ping pong, you're going to have to back up what you claim, rather than wasting people's time with the likes of 'everyone knows' or the ludicrous 'lots of animals can be see in fields if you go to the coun'tryside' (F.F.S.!). I haven't been paying much attention to the thread but just looking at your response to UV:

1. 'in the uk keeping animals in cages to small for them to turn around is not the norm'
2. 'your entire argument consists of the worst stuff you can find anywhere in the world'

What where the numbers, where are the proofs which convinced you of these deeply held convictions?

factvalue

i don't find your posts conducive to reasoned debate, half the time i have trouble figuring out what your trying to say or who its aimed at.

Yes I came to the same conclusion a little earlier. I'm not lacking evidence for anything, but to initiate a constructive discussion rather than just continuing with your game of word ping pong, you're going to have to back up what you claim, rather than wasting people's time with the likes of 'everyone knows' or the ludicrous 'lots of animals can be see in fields if you go to the coun'tryside' (F.F.S.!). I haven't been paying much attention to the thread but just looking at your response to UV:

1. 'in the uk keeping animals in cages to small for them to turn around is not the norm'
2. 'your entire argument consists of the worst stuff you can find anywhere in the world'

What where the numbers, where are the proofs which convinced you of these deeply held convictions?

so everything is say is a deeply held conviction now?

well you can look at the laws about animal welfare here https://www.gov.uk/guidance/animal-welfare

this part says regarding freedom of movement

Freedom of movement

9. The freedom of movement of animals, having regard to their species and in accordance with good practice and scientific knowledge, must not be restricted in such a way as to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury.

10. Where animals are continuously or regularly tethered or confined, they must be given the space appropriate to their physiological and ethological needs in accordance with good practice and scientific knowledge.

As for what there argument consists of, they have been telling us all through this thread that we just needed to what this video, that should be enough to convince us, if we have any empath at all, that veganism is the only way. Typical vegan propaganda consists of bad things happening to animals, and lies about whats in fast food, from what was said, and the first few seconds of the video, i guessed it was the former kind.
now do i know that they picked the worst stuff they could find in the hope of provoking the strongest reaction? no i don't, but i would be vary surprised if they didn't.

When I was a kid I had impetigo on my forehead. It was itchy as hell and not to be scratched. This thread is a bit like that as new posts pop up and I know I should not look.

Alright! I'll have a look at that, in particular it would be relevant to check if there were equivalent animal welfare laws where the videos were filmed.

Really briefly;

What is the vegan response to accusations that the practice is just a gesture of personal disentanglement from a moral abomination (as Webby indicated)?

If this is true, the world is full of numerous opportunities for similar gestures; like not buying from particularly abusive employers and so forth.

Additionally, many other human practices and desires besides meat consumption cause animal suffering and death. Agricultural runoff causes untold suffering in marine life in that its eventual effects deplete the oxygen in water and slowly suffocate the creatures.

The kind of moral consistency of the sort that factvalue and Webby are on about would seem difficult on this shit show called earth. :-/

ultraviolet

radicalgraffiti

the thing with videos like that is everyone knows that the people making them put in all the worst stuff they can find.

Radicalgraffiti, you've embarrassed yourself with this post. It's totally clear that you didn't watch the video, you didn't read my post, and you didn't even read the bold parts of my post. If you had done any one of these things, you would have realized that:

> It was not a video of "the worst stuff" or any negative treatment of animals. It was about a friendship between a man and a goose named Maria.

i only looked at the video in your first post, i assumed you where reposting the same thing, do you really expect people to watch videos posted with no description?

edits ok there was a description, but

you start like this
ultraviolet

Here is a video from my heart to all of you, as a holiday gift and greetings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfCvelT4QtE

and expect people to not expect the same here?
ultraviolet

E v e r y o n e ... I dare you to watch this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0czs_OtqrLA
and not get that there is something horribly wrong with what we as a species are doing to animals?

ultraviolet

Hi Scallywag. You don't have to believe that every animal has the same intrinsic worth to each other -- whether human or chicken or whatever -- to see that it is really fucked up to murder/kill or mistreat/harm non-human animals for food, when there are other food options available to live a good and healthy life.

Sure UV I agree that its wrong to lock up animals in confined spaces and eat huge amounts of meat when there is no need to, this for me comes under animal welfare and environmental concerns though. I can even somewhat accept the view that its wrong for us to kill animals simply to satisfy our want for lots of good tasting meat. I could question why we should apply this moral standard to ourselves when there is no morality within the animal world to stop animals from eating each other simply for taste, but carnivores most times usually fail to catch their prey, humans on the other hand due to our technology and intelligence are much more successful so we easily have the ability to massively exploit nature just to satisfy our manufactured wants.

So, I don't want UV to stop posting on libcom, so I think we should all try to keep this as civil as possible. But I do sort of feel like UV and Webby have put forward arguments that don't rise above an emotional level.

I don't think anyone on this thread feels that any animal - reared for food or otherwise - should be subjected to anything more than the bare minimum of pain. No one supports factory farming and I think we'd all probably agree that in a sane and rational world, meat consumption would drop considerably - and I think that comes through in most people's posts. Yet, the response to that has to post videos that show the show the horrors of factory farming or videos that, while very sweet, aren't actually an argument against meat consumption.

Hey UV

Sorry about this but I've been thinking that it would afford me a little pleasure to punch you in the face everyday. Now I know this is entirely unnecessary and would cause you a good deal of pain, and I feel a bit guilty about it but that's just an emotional response and so not a valid argument against face punching, which means, of course, that I'm gonna have to keep punching you in the face. I'll do it as humanely as possible of course, I mean, we're not barbarians are we.

In better news, I saw some people walking freely down the street earlier today which put a smile on my face. It was just nice to see some irrefutable evidence that prisoners in the UK have plenty of room to stroll around their cells.

What makes the choice to be vegan different from not shopping 'sweat shop' goods and the whole rest of the sort of personal, moral boycott stuff prominent in liberal milieus (e.g. "I'm not shopping at Wal-Mart cause ______")?

Booze, I think that's been well covered already in earlier posts. Anyhow, I've already fucked up by posting again and I sure can't be bothered going over things ad infinitum on a thread where desperate people will say absolutely anything to justify themselves while they quiver with fear at the idea of their loss of privilege.

http://youtu.be/T5evsxRdkJw

Scallywag #97
‘I could question why we should apply this moral standard to ourselves when there is no morality within the animal world to stop animals from eating each other simply for taste…’

This reasoning is very dubious as the very fact that humans can pose this abstract question clearly demonstrates we can think beyond our immediate needs and objectify our desires. So humans are part of and different from the animal world.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to do lock this thread as it seems people just can't be civil when it comes to talking about animal rights.

While certainly there has been flaming on all sides, I think the initial moralising and misanthropy (claiming that the majority of the world's population deserves to get the shit beaten out of them) was entirely unhelpful. Especially as that same moralising could be directed straight back at those individuals.

… as they post on the internet on gadgets made by nonwhite workers in the developing world who work in sweatshop conditions and drive themselves to early graves, if not hurl themselves to their deaths from the roofs of their factories. With components dug from the ground by more workers of colour, many of whom die for it, all while wearing clothes sewn by more perhaps children working in near-slave conditions, and possibly being killed in factory fires or collapses, all the while using electricity whose generation is destroying the whole planet. Surely anyone who doesn't boycott these products of exploitation, destruction and murder deserves to have the shit beaten out of them…