Lisa The Vegetarian
I don’t really feel like debating vegetarianism at the moment. I am barely getting through the day as it is. And as Luis said, it’s a very private thing and we’re never going to get the whole world to agree.
Just very shortly. I am drawn towards vegetarianism. But then there are comments like Judas’s, practically saying it’s my fault that 3B and Springbok are going to get slaughtered. It makes me not want to be a vegetarian. Kinda like if Jehova’s witnesses rang my doorbell and shouted “YOU’RE GOING TO HELL SINNER SINNER SINNER”. It would not make me join their religion. Tonight I’ll have a bloody big steak with your name on it, Judas. And it will be your fault that cow died. And I’m not being irrational. Purple monkey dishwasher.
I don’t even eat that much meat. If anything I should probably eat more of it, I am unhealthy. I still have this John Candy fantasy of dying from an overdose of chicken.
I don’t think I have ever eaten goat meat. Maybe when I was a kid and I didn’t know anything. Today I wouldn’t eat goat. Maybe there is hope for me yet. It still doesn’t make a damn bit of difference in this situation though. And I don’t understand how you can not understand the difference between killing and eating a pet and killing and eating a non-pet. Yes, this is about my feelings. It’s my blog. Of course it’s about my feelings. Of course the reason I don’t want them to die is because of my feelings. Then we can do veganism later and rescue all the other animals.
I am a very selfish person. I don’t have a problem admitting that. Just ask Skye.
Vegetarians are vegetarians so they can feel better than meat-eaters. Vegans are vegans so they can feel better than vegetarians. I’m sure there’s some cult that believe we must consume nothing but sparkling water from the mountain streams and that Vegans are dirty filthy sinners. The choices we make are always selfish. And I’m not being cynical.
No, really.
I sit in the bus and look out the window, at all the people. And I feel like I’m not like them, I am not a part of the human race. But really, I am as much to blame. When I lie in bed at night and imagine jumping off a bridge I get sick to my stomach. Isn’t it funny that my fear of heights overrides my desire to sleep with the fishes? Sometimes I stumble when I’m lying in bed. Not physically, but something snaps in my head and it feels as if I’m falling over and my whole body is shook. Like when you’re walking and you stumble, but you recover your balance so you don’t fall over. But there is still that shock in your system. The feeling of falling while staying on your feet. I never know whether to be happy that I didn’t fall or whether to be embarrassed because who trips over cracks in the pavement? That sort of thing only happens in the movies. And I am not rambling or trying to distract you.
I dont want to hear it
I dont want to know
I just want to run and hide
this is just a nightmare
soon I’m gonna wake up
someone is gonna bring me around
this is your warning
four minute warning
.
Current Music: Radiohead – 4 Minute Warning (060619)
.
August 10th, 2006 at 17:23
Atleast stop eating sausages .. It’s disgusting .. that poor quality minced
over salty meat .. full of E250 cancer invoking nitrit conserve chemical ..
I eat sausages, but very very rarely, and only in a barberque setting and
cooking fashion ..
The Fuse
Formerly mourned under the name The Fume
August 10th, 2006 at 17:35
hey,
if you d ask me i say youre not.. and i hope you know that.
being a vegetarian should be done out of idealism.. i dont get it that people feel the need to make all kind of accusations.
i completely agree that its much more important to try and make animals to get better lives then to not eat them.
talk to you soon and much thanx for the birthday wishes
love you
just busy sorry
August 10th, 2006 at 19:12
You know what? Do whatever you feel like doing. Don’t listen to people who tell you that you’re a bad person for any reason because you know that you’re not a bad person. I know that you’re not a bad person. I’m a vegan not because I want to feel better than anyone else, I’m a vegan because I don’t believe that animals should be eaten. Anyone who is a vegetarian/vegan just to make themselves feel superior is a jerk and they’re going to be jerks regardless of anything.
So, yeah, I feel terrible for you right now, I really do. I know how you feel. *hugs*
August 10th, 2006 at 19:53
“Barely getting through the day.” You’re kidding. The Lebanese are barely getting through the day. Our days, come on, now, are not that bad. Surely.
Selfishness comes in all shapes and sizes and chronic self-pity might be the worst of all because it prevents a person from seeing that they are not the only person in the world with problems and horrible truths and that, really, what other people think and feel and experience carries equal weight.
Of course humans are responsible for what happens to food animals because we control that and every person plays a part. To accuse vegetarians of being arrogant…well some may think they are and that’s silly because of relativism but in a way they are making a kinder choice. To deny that is ridiculous. I used to be a vegetarian and I was never arrogant about it, and I know vegetarians who are accommodating. I also know plenty of meat eaters who ridicule vegetarians…possibly because they feel guilty?
Over the years I’ve given nothing but support and tried to be understanding. It’s never enough. I do take your anger personally.
Anyway, maybe I’m just pissed because we had a fire yesterday in my building and Winkie killed Joanna and it’s gotten to me. But hey, I don’t have problems.
August 10th, 2006 at 20:03
Current music :
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
August 10th, 2006 at 21:12
Whatever happens to the two little goats is not your fault. You’re doing the best you can under circumstances that you’ve never experienced before. Who among us will do what you’re doing differently…or not? Unless we’re living in your skin the only thing we can do is offer support and encouragement. Should the goats be taken away and slaughtered, well that’s the part of life that isn’t so happy. But many aspects of life will never be what we want them to be. The only choice we have is to go on. Because in the end that’s all we have.
August 10th, 2006 at 21:28
You certainly have started something, haven’t you? I don’t think you should have to defend your choices about food, whatever they may be; I agree with Luis. It’s probably not worth the drama to fight the fume, fuse, monkey, or whoever.
If you try to help the goats find a new home, that’s amazing, but even if you just visit them and feed them lots of thistles, then you’ve done something to make their lives better. That matters. You are in no way obligated to save every other animal that’s part of the food industry. A small difference in someone/something’s life is still a difference.
August 12th, 2006 at 6:44
ever heard of the straw man fallacy? http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html
Does it really make you feel better to complete distort everything I or anyone said into something stupid and petty and seemingly unnecessarily cruel? Silly goose. I’m not talking from any zen-soy fat free sugar free free range high horse. I’m not vegan. I just see vast self-centered whiny hypocrisy, when you on the one hand, say that you are so sure that animals are indeed sentient, highly intelligent, loving/capable-of-feelings-and-emotional-attachments, creatures and you love them oh so much, and on the other hand, see nothing wrong with eating these intelligent and loving creatures who mean so much to you?
I don’t have a problem with eating a cow or a goat, but then again I don’t consider it to have characteristics that would deem it something that I have no right to eat (i.e. intelligence., looks like my mom, etc.) I don’t understand the difference between killing a pet and killing a nonpet because I don’t understand if the cow on your dinner plate is a lesser being, just because you are not there, around it, to appreciate its humanlike qualities (even though there is no dispute in the scientific community that said cow does indeed possess such qualities) and therefore it doens’t have any and therefore deserves to be eaten? If it doesn’t, then I don’t see how you can justify eating it, other than your own self-centeredness. Because the goat at the zoo serves a purpose of making you feel happy/whatever, and the animal at the farm does not do anything for you personally.
Vegetarians are vegetarians because it makes them feel better. And yes, it is completely different from the motivation for veganism. Educate yourself before making claims like that. Be cynical all you want, but it’s not as fun if your cynical claims are actually not a cynical perspective/interpretation of things, but an actual factual inaccuracy. (e.g. the glass is half empty is a cynical perspective. Saying the glass is purple when in fact it is green, is not. It is just wrong.) Because a vegetarian’s abstinence from just meat alone does absolutely nothing to further the cause they supposedly are supporting, but that is not true for vegans.
If you still consume dairy products, you are still supporting the same industry. For example, you can delude yourself that you are a good person because you’re not eating that fuzzy little chicken, and that if you just eat the egg, you’re not harming the chicken. But in reality, the dairy industry, because you decide to buy the egg, is going to keep all the chicken packed in extremely crowded cages, in the dark, where they can’t move, and in order to prevent them from pecking each other, their beaks are cut off, and to biologically force them into producing for eggs for your delicious ice cream, the chicken are starved for days on end. The drugs that are pumped into the animals also pollute the environment. Do you want to get into cows? In nature their life span is about 25 years, but in factory-farms (to produce your precious yummy milk) they are so abused that they live about 4 or 5, after of which they are sent to the slauhgterhouse. The Environmental Protection Agency also cites dairy-farming and the manure produced by cows as the main source of environmental pollution of waterways. Furthemore, the vast majority of arable land is used in some manner associated with the factory-farm system (either to feed them or to grow the types of food used to feed them), but if those land are used to farm crops that can be used to grow crops for humans, kaboom, world hunger instantly solved. So if I were being really melodramatic, I would accuse you of putting your gluttony for that juicy steak with my name on it ahead of the need of starving children to live. Har har.
Is it easier for you to just say that vegeterianism is a “private choice” and not open for debate? Because guess what, it’s not. What you eat, what your dollar buys, what industry it is supporting, affects a whole lot more than you. Do you say that you using cocaine is a private thing even though your dollar goes to support the human trafficking and lifestyle of the drug lords and enables them to buy their guns they use to shoot innocent people and uphold oppressive regimes that they have symbiotic relationships with? Do you think civil rights activitists ought to say that they hope everybody be nicer to the black people, but don’t want to impede on people’s freedom to think and do what they please because it is a private choice? How is the fact that you don’t eat “that much meat” an excuse? Do you think “I don’t rape that many children” or “I don’t lynch that many niggers” are ok defenses? Since when is a difference in degree not kind, in quantity not quality, a good enough answer? You’re unhealthy that’s your own fault. There is plenty of cruelty-free options out there that are healthy, you just choose to ignore them. Meat-eating (yes, even lean meat, white meat, skinless boneless chicken breast meat) is pretty widely accepted as unhealthy for humans. The research is certainly out there. Some people are just uninformed.
August 21st, 2006 at 8:07
To judas monkey sam broke
I am interested in reading the research identifying meat as an unhealthy dietary element for humans that you referred to. Could you provide some links for me please? Most of the things I have come across in the past if looked at critically have been at best pulp science and at worst blatant misrepresentation of poorly performed ‘research’. I have no doubt some well conducted research is out there, I’m just not able to get my hands on it. Cheers.