Or, “why even if you hate animals you should be vegan.”

Posted on YouTube by shelbybond.

By the way, if you’re like Dejhan and you want to go vegetarian/ vegan, here’s some info about nutrition:

• Vegan Society Nutritional Info
• Vegetarian Resource Group Nutritional Page
• Vegan Outreach Staying Healthy
• Go Veg Nutritional Information

In general, if you just eat a WIDE variety of vegan foods and DON’T starve yourself, you should be fine. You might want to take a vegan multi-vitamin and depending on your personal needs and experiences you might want to look into special supplements or diet modifications. But in general, if you eat plenty of fresh fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, and grains (and things made with them) you ought to do well on a vegan diet. And most importantly, EVERYONE needs to pay attention to their diet and eat a variety of foods, not just vegans.

Suppose that I enjoy swinging a baseball bat. It happens that in front of the only place to swing it stands a cow. Swinging the bat unfortunately would involve smashing the cow’s head. But I wouldn’t get fun from doing that; the pleasure comes from exercising my muscles, swinging well, and so on. It’s unfortunate that as a side effect (not a means) of my doing this, the animal’s skull gets smashed. To be sure, I could forgo swinging the bat, and instead bend down and touch my toes or do some other exercise. But this wouldn’t be as enjoyable as swinging the bat; I won’t get as much fun, pleasure, or delight out of it.

So the question is: would it be all right for me to swing the bat in order to get the extra pleasure of swinging it as compared to the best available alternative activity that does not involve harming the animal? Suppose that it is not merely a question of foregoing today’s special pleasure of bat swinging; suppose that each day the same situation arises with a different animal. Is there some principle that would allow killing and eating animals for the additional pleasure this brings, yet would not allow swinging the bat for the extra pleasure that this brings? What could that principle be like?

Bernard E. Rollin writes, “Plato said, when dealing with adults and ethics, one cannot teach ethics, one can only remind, i.e., help people realize the unnoticed implications of their own beliefs.” Therefore, Nozick asks, if you “fail to devise a principle to distinguish swinging the bat from killing and eating an animal, you might decide it’s really all right, after all, to swing the bat.”

I ask, then, does this hold with your intuitions and moral assumptions? Do you want to be that person?

Crossposted @ That Vegan Girl

Time I spend advocating veganism is time I’m not spending trying to stop the Iraq war or time I’m not spending working at a homeless shelter or time I’m not spending on other human problems. (Interestingly, the woman who told me this wasn’t spending her time to do human rights advocacy, she was spending her time shopping. And guess what she was shopping for? You guessed it: dead animals.)

Which is better:

• Spending your time advocating for animal rights instead of human rights, or
• Spending your time criticizing animal rights advocates instead of advocating for human rights?

But more importantly, veganism isn’t necessarily animal rights advocacy. Vegans walk the walk, but they need not advocate animal rights. Abstaining from harming animals is just the right thing to do. It’s not protecting them, it’s not being their ally, and it’s not advocating animal rights. It’s simply refraining from causing them harm.

Dan Cudahy puts it like this:

“[B]eing vegan requires no significant time or effort that would take away from one’s time or energy available to help humans. Being vegan does not entail becoming an animal rights activist any more than avoiding cannibalism entails becoming a human rights activist or avoiding a career as a pimp entails becoming an outspoken feminist. One simply refuses to engage in exploiting nonhumans (or humans or women) and goes on with life as usual.” [emphasis added]

When you drive on the freeway and you see a deer, trying to avoid hitting that deer isn’t being an animal rights activist. Avoiding that deer is just the right thing to do. It’s good for the deer, it’s good for you, and it’s good for other motorists. It’s simply acting responsibly. Veganism is the same. Vegans refrain from directly causing harm to animals. It’s good for the animals, it’s good for vegans, and it’s good for other people.

Nothing about veganism makes it harder to work for human rights. One can be a vegan and also a human rights advocate. There is room to be both.

Read more at Super Vegan >>

Despite opposition by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the Army is moving forward with its plan to shoot live pigs and treat their gunshot wounds in a medical trauma exercise Friday at Schofield Barracks for soldiers headed to Iraq.

Maj. Derrick Cheng, spokesman for the 25th Infantry Division, said the training is being conducted under a U.S. Department of Agriculture license and the careful supervision of veterinarians and a military Animal Care and Use Committee.

“It’s to teach Army personnel how to manage critically injured patients within the first few hours of their injury,” Cheng said. The soldiers are learning emergency lifesaving skills needed on the battlefield when there are no medics, doctors or facility nearby, he said. PETA, however, said there are more advanced and humane options available, including high-tech human simulators.

In a letter, PETA urged the Army to end all use of animals, “as the overwhelming majority of North American medical schools have already done.” “Shooting and maiming pigs is outdated as Civil War rifles,” said Kathy Guillermo, director of PETA’s Laboratory Investigations Department.

The Norfolk, Va.-based group demanded the exercise be halted after it was notified by a “distraught” soldier from the unit, who disclosed a plan to shoot the animals with M4 carbines and M16 rifles.

Cheng said the exercise is conducted in a controlled environment with the pigs anesthetized the entire time. He had “no doubt whatsoever” in the effectiveness of the instruction, which he called the best option available at the base.

“Those alternative methods just can’t replicate what the troops are going to face when we use live-tissue training,” he said. “What we’re doing is unique to what the soldiers are going to actually experience.”

Cheng didn’t have details about the number of pigs, how they were acquired or the weapons involved in the training.

“We understand (PETA’s) concerns and point of view. At the same, the Army is committed to providing the soldiers with the best training possible,” Cheng said.

The pigs are anesthetized therefore the pain should be minimized. However, according to P.E.T.A.’s Shalin Gala,

“The pigs will be released in a field and shot by high powered M-16A2 and M4 rifles…They are being shot while fully conscious and they’re fully aware of the pain”

This dispute aside (although if they’re experiencing pain, have we really left the Dark Ages?), we do know that suffering in its other forms - distress, frustration, and other psychological manifestations - will not be neutralized by medication. Each individual pig will be conscious of this experience.

PETA is urging the Army to use advanced human simulators like those seen at the University of Hawaii Medical School. The University of Hawaii Medical School told KITV that U.S Navy medics have used its robot patients for training in the past. The Army responded by arguing that simulators are not adequate to the task. (It’s okay for a Navy medic though, who also deals with in-the-field trauma and battle conditions?)

I don’t know whether or not these alternatives are sound; however, it’s reasonable to believe that given the necessary impetus adequate alternatives would be created. As Francione has argued,

if a mechanic uses the same gloves everyday and finds success, how are we to know whether it is the gloves themselves that allow for this success, as opposed to the mechanic himself (or some other tool), unless this same mechanic either does a job glove-free or with a different brand perhaps?

As we are talking about sensitive creatures, individual animals that experience the world in which they live, we ought to - morally speaking - see if it’s the “gloves” that allow for a successful test. Why shouldn’t we?

Medical schools once said they couldn’t do without the torture of animals; today, the world over sees “animal models” going by the wayside (although not all of them have been enlightened). The Army simply needs a reason to look for an alternative - as opposed to relying on past methods because it’s easier and cheaper.

Let’s predicate this impetus for action on what justice requires of moral people - on what I believe to be the core of the animal rights movement and our commonly held system of ethical constraints: Jeremy Bentham wrote,

“…the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?… The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes…”

“What else is it that should trace the insuperable line” between those whose interests count and those whose interests do not? Species membership perhaps? Why not race? How about gender? Left-handed or right-handed? or any other arbitrary grouping that just so happens to include the people defining the group. Just push impartiality and full reasonableness (therefore morality) to the side.

Take action on this issue here.

Crossposted @ That Vegan Girl

My travel partner and roommate in the motel is a good friend who eats meat. Nevertheless, she was open to having food from a nearby vegan restaurant, which could be delivered to the motel. You can imagine my delight at finding this menu at the front desk of the motel! We enjoyed two meals in our room from this restaurant.

At other times we ate at restaurants or at parties, and it was here where I was once again reminded of how casually my friends and family eat meat, eggs, and dairy products. These are people who are dear to me, who are compassionate and care about animals. I am never interested in shaking everything up and making them wary of even talking to me, so I don’t raise the subject of veganism. Everybody knows that’s how I eat, nobody tries to convince me it’s bad, and in fact I suspect most of them recognize that my diet is healthier than theirs. But they would never stop to consider making that leap themselves.

Thus, while I love being with my family and close friends I also feel an obligation to the animals. After this trip, during which time I did not meet this obligation, I hunted for resources. Among others, I found Vegan Outreach (probably mentioned in these pages before), which offers a brochure: Why Vegan? You can download it or order copies. It describes factory farming conditions, offers tantalizing pictures of what vegans eat and lists of easy meals and snacks, and supplies additional information on vegan resources. This site also offers other materials, including a brochure called “Even if you like meat”, that promotes simply reducing consumption of animal products. PETA, of course, offers dozens of materials just for the asking.

From now on, then, I intend to have these materials with me when I get together with my nonvegan family and friends, and I will offer copies casually, hoping that some of them will look at them later. If the subject comes up for discussion these materials will help to make my case easily and consistently. I am also thinking of creating a brochure of my own to explain my own trip to vegan town and why I think it is more important than ever to live here.

I have often asked what’s the deal here? All I said was I don’t eat meat. I didn’t ask them what they ate or didn’t eat, I didn’t challenge anyone to a duel. What if I had said “I don’t eat mustard”? Would the reaction be the same? Why not?

There are others who are not defensive at all. I usually tell people I am not an evangelist, I am not trying to convert anyone (I might be lying a little when I say this). Several people I know take me at my word. And stop there. They will tell me of meals they have had that they loved, they will gush over the fish they are eating when we eat out together, they will be protective of my position (”Can you get anything to eat here?”) but at the same time essentially oblivious to it.

The first group, the angry group, actually understands more. They know that what I am really is a challenge to what they are. The second group hasn’t gotten there yet. The second group, in my case, contains close family members and friends, people who love me. I think I have a better chance, down the line, reaching this close group, but for now it is deeply frustrating knowing that they don’t get me at all.

Whether or not the snappy responses are snappy enough, this page does offer a nice collection of answers for those common questions in a nice, neat format. Good for those about to embark on a holiday dinner with the fam or a buffet with the office gang.