From: WALTER EDMUND BOND (37096013)
Date: 10/12/2018 9:19:23 AM
Subject: Compassion Vs. Consumption
Human greed and avarice has been killing the planet and this has been the case for a long time running. And now it has been ramped up to a fever pitch with the advent of the industrial revolution. Ever driven by a filthy, environmentally catastrophic smoke stack society with both capitalist and communist countries locked into a death spiral of consuming the Earth; stripping Her of all ‘raw material’ and spewing forth chemicals, pollution and disease into an environment where once there was vitality and growth.
All this ‘development’ (really destruction when looked at with open eyes) has put our species at loggerheads with all species. all for the pettiness of consumption for consumptions sake. Our way of life, eating the dead, lapping their milk and stealing their eggs has not only poisoned the environment through the mechanized slaughterhouse industry (to give only one of several examples) but has poisoned our ideals as well.
This deadening of empathy to apathy has created a wholly selfish human-centric perspective that within a few short generations has made it nearly impossible for 9/10ths of adults living within the most economically viable countries to show any serious consideration for any being outside of humanity. So prevalent is this myopic worldview that to simply have genuine concern for the less fortunate amongst ourselves is considered heroically altruistic. This overconsumption, this excess fosters a ‘warped value system’ where the silliest and most trivial wants and desires are viewed as rights. This stems from heavy conditioning by advertising that starts in the cradle and ends in an early grave.
Does an Animal have a right to live?
Doesn’t that supersede your desire for fast food?
Doesn’t that Animals right to live supersede your entertainment?
your fashion?
your profit margin?
To us, to the ethical Vegan community the answer is an emphatic, YES! But we are a small minority even amongst herbivores. Most are repellant to the idea that consideration for Animals or for Mother Earth should ever interfere with the flow of holy commerce. Their (the non-Vegan Worlds) logic is backward and twisted, as well as self-perpetuating. for the more we indulge in products of death and murder, and the longer we sit by and passively allow the slaughter, the more craving and passivity grow and the weaker becomes our resolve to put an end to it.
This sham idea sold to us, this faith in collective consumption, leaves us devoid of love and inner peace and to the contrary we become consumed by the very products of our design. We become unable to experience serenity, the satisfaction of being, and yet we know not why. It is only when we learn to put others ahead of ourselves and the community of life before our own desire for flesh as food that we start to gain an insight into our equal footing with Animals and the Earth.
Staring from the day we go Vegan, we can begin, for the first time, to see the Animals plight objectively without the prejudice of our palate affecting our better nature. For the first time we can see without a vested interest in justifying their profound lost for our petty gain. Of course capitalism is now sullying the entire point of Veganism with it’s co-modification, with its Borg like way of assimilating everything into an empty shell.
How many of us are truly Vegan for the Animals?
How many of us are still compelled by our conscious?
How many more are simply foodie Vegans ever obsessed with another delicacy, another crappy product produced by the same corporations that bring us dead Animals body parts? Only now the cardboard packages have huge green V’s and dancing cartoon vegetables on them instead of cows.
Are we content now?
Are we caring and compassionate because our food costs twice as much?
Perhaps, just maybe, we miss the point again when we internalize a message meant for those outside of ourselves. Because it’s supposed to be about them, about the chick in the grinder, under the hot wire, and crowded into filthy living conditions. Or the goat that has been dehorned by a drill bit to the skull, ruining the cuticle that allows for a horns normal growth. A dehorning process that is done without anesthesia and often leaves remnant horns growing deformed even bending back into the Animals eyes. It’s about the rabbit scorched and burned for chemical testing or blinded by having oven cleaner shoved in their eyes during a Draize test. Veganism is about taking yourself out of the cycle of abuse. But it is only the starting point and not a final destination. Not eating or using anything that has been tested on an Animal is the least you can do, if you care.
So, is your Veganism going to be a stepping stone, the crucial first step in a journey of Animal and Earth Liberation?
Or will it just become another way to get diabetes eating raw cane sugar cupcakes instead of that old nasty bone charred stuff?
Regards,
Walter Bond
ALF POW