Vegan – has a meaning, let’s use it

My thesis supervisor always said ‘define your terms’. That way, you explain your understanding of a concept up front. And if the reader has a different understanding, they still know what your meaning is.

This text is included in the above graphic, but depending on the size of your screen, or if the graphic is removed, the quote is reproduced below. Click to for full size, available for download.

The word “vegan” was invented in 1944, by Elsie Shrigley and Donald Watson, who founded the UK Vegan Society. The British Vegan Society defines veganism this way:

The word “veganism” denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.

Anyone who is involved with Animal Liberation today can see how since 1944, the word has been twisted and pulled in all directions. However, the UK Vegan Society founders invented the word, if this is their definition, this is what VEGAN means. If someone chooses to live differently to this, perhaps they should invent their own word.

This definition has 3 parts:
- the first part describes what it excludes, all forms of exploitation and cruelty to animals for any reason.

ALL animals: it does not say mammals, it does not say except fish, nor except invertebrates … it says all animals. And, there are also no exceptions for Bees. Bees are animals, honey is not a matter for debate. Honey does not come from plants, any more than milk comes from grass or grains or the rendered bodies of their fallen comrades. It is not possible to use an animal for any purpose without exploiting it. Just as it is exploitation of people to use them without the consent or paying a wage (we call that slavery), since animals cannot give consent, even if we think they are happy, all animal use is exploitation.

for ANY reason, eating them because someone thinks animal corpses taste good is not a reason for cruelty and exploitation, wearing animals as clothes or jewellery is not reason for cruelty and exploitation, torturing them in labs for profit is sadistic and gives in accurate results and is not a reason, using them for sport by forcing them to race or fight is not a reason, entertainment in circuses and rodeos shows our lack of creativity and is not a reason, crush films are not a reason, hunting for “sport” is not a reason, canned hunts are not a reason either and not very sporting, turning their bodies into floor cleaner and mascara is not a reason, slicing a rhino or elephants face off and letting it die for horn or ivory as a sex powder is not a reason, slicing fins off sharks for soup and throwing the shark back to drown is not a reason, anger management is not a reason, sex is not a reason despite what the author of ANIMAL LIBERATION has to say*. There is absolutely no defensible reason for using any animal for any reason.

- the second part goes on to describe how vegan is more than just excluding or avoiding products from your own life, it involves by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. Does this mean that if a vegan isn’t actively out there promoting veganism, encouraging veganism, and seeking alternatives for animal products to replacing current products on the market they aren’t vegan? It would suggest so.

If someone merely avoids bringing suffering into their own life by avoiding animal products they personally purchase, but do nothing to prevent the exploitation and cruelty of animals which they know is going on beyond their own little life, it would seem to more easily fit the criteria of ‘welfarist’, which isn’t vegan.

- the third part, reiterates the dietary part, in case people are still confused about the whole not using any animal for any reason, In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.
It does not mean a little bit of cheese now and again is okay, it does not mean it is alright to eat fish because they swim rather than walk, it does not mean it fine to use honey because some people cannot see bees as animals, it does not mean home-collected free range eggs (which I once saw a fruitarian describe as “chicken fruit” and acceptable on a fruitarian diet).

Vegan is not hyphenated, unlike vegetarian. A person cannot be lacto-vegan (lacto=milk), ovo-vegan (ovo=eggs), pesco-vegan (pesco=fish), mel-vegan (mel=honey)

If a person decides to eat cheese, fish, honey, and free range eggs, it is their choice to do so. However, they should stop calling themselves ‘vegan’ because it fails to meet even the most basic definition of vegan diet which excludes “all products derived wholly or partly from animals”.

No exceptions, no clauses, no loopholes. If it is an animal product, it is not vegan.

What vegan ISN’T is feminism, anti-agist, anti-semitic, pro-semitic, christian, atheist, anti-homophobic, pro gay rights, anti-racist, pro-multi culturalism or pro peace. It is none of these things. And when people try to claim that a person is required to be feminist or anti-racist in order to be a vegan, is missing the point completely. What they are trying to sell you is not veganism. But some bland melange of rights and justice dressed up in “animal rights” clothing.

Veganism is end the exploitation and cruelty of animals, and animals only. All these other liberations will flow from widening our circle of compassion (A Einstein). It does veganism a disservice to transform it into one-size-fits-all model of liberation.

Other liberation movements or civil rights activists are not required to free the world, why is this a necessary for animal liberation and vegans?

Do we really need leaders and gurus and experts to tell us how to live as vegans? Do we need to debate and philosophise about veganism? Do we need to be told what do in the fight to end exploitation and cruelty?

How much money is diverted from saving animals to propping up and lining the pockets of groups and leaders who use “veganism” and “animal rights” to push their own agenda.

Vegan has a meaning, let’s use it. And not try to transform it into something that never was and shouldn’t be.

What is not including in this definition is the means to how the end to exploitation and cruelty will be achieved. It does not specify ‘non-violence’, nor does it advocate ‘pro-violence’. It simply encourages us to do it, not how.

The ‘How’ we achieve that is up to each and every one of us who choose to take up the fight on behalf of animals. There is no right way or wrong way.

————————————————-*–SOURCES–*————————————————-

* Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation (1975) who wrote Heavy Petting, (Nerve, 2001) (original article), which he defends sex with animals as “mutually satisfying” (Singer) and it’s not so bad as using them for food is worse.
I would like to point out, that one of the definitions of rape of humans includes sex without consent, since an animal can NEVER give consent, it is always rape, and always exploitation and cruel.

Lynda Stoner: Going undercover to reveal the bloody truths of pig dogging

This article, written by Erik Jensen, appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on 5 June 2010.
And is found here at the Sydney Morning Herald
and here Animal Liberation NSW

Lynda Stoner: Source Sydney Morning Herald

MR AND Mrs Brown seemed like regular pig doggers. They talked about hunting pigs, blooding hounds and listened to jokes about stray bullets killing sheep.

It would take close inspection to notice Linda’s wedding ring had been bought for $12 at Paddy’s Markets – that she could see perfectly well without her large glasses, that her marriage was a fake, and her hair a wig.

“I was Linda with an ‘i’. It’s better not to make things too complicated,” says Lynda Stoner, the former star of Cop Shop and The Young Doctors, after spending a weekend undercover for Animal Liberation at the Game Council’s first pig-dogging workshop.

”Without Animal Liberation doing these sort of things, a lot of information would not get out. You cannot get this information by knocking on the door and asking for it.”

Pig dogging – in which pigs are pursued and caught by dogs and then killed with knives – has been legal in declared state forests since March 2006. About the same time, Animal Liberation says it began receiving phone calls from farmers troubled by the brutality of the practice.

”It’s such an underground culture. I’ve spoken to other hunters; they are so disparaging of pig doggers. They are the lowest of the low,” Stoner said.

”If they’re proposing this is to reduce the number of feral animals, it’s the most disgusting, most barbaric, most brutal thing they could do.”

Last month, an opportunity presented itself to Animal Liberation: ”the best pig dog event this year,” as the state government’s Game Council described it. It was a two-day workshop on dog training, game dispatching and meat preparation.

Stoner and a colleague – both vegans – signed up. ”The only way to do it is to go in there and try to dissociate, to mentally put yourself in another place and know that you’re doing it to try to get this terrible thing stopped,” she said of the time undercover, though she confessed she did not stay the entire weekend.

”I kept thinking we would get done but I don’t think they had any idea. You joke with these people, listen to them joking about killing, and you’re one of them. You just do it. Afterwards, there’s lots of showers.”

The pair found the workshop run without a syllabus, which the council has since admitted. Trainers advised gored dogs could be wrapped with cling film to hold in their intestines, that more superficial wounds could be fixed in the field with a stapler.

”These comments,” the Game Council later said, ”were not part of the actual dog care and first aid classes … and were not given as any form of official advice.”

They found the session on humanely killing pigs was carried out on a rubber creature that more closely resembled a deer.

”When the workshop commenced,” said Steven Whan, the minister responsible for the council, ”the rubber pig body could not be located and a rubber deer body of similar body size had to be substituted at the last minute.”

And yet the event was described as a success. ”It is clear that the event was regarded as one of our most successful training workshops to date,” a council spokesman said.

Mr Whan said it was a ”hands on” course that could not be taught effectively from the sort of syllabus other licensing bodies would be expected to use.

”The Game Council’s support for pig dogging as an effective means of feral animal control is based on the statistical success of it in hunting, and the lack of suitable alternatives,” he said, citing the 3914 pigs killed this way in state forests since 2006.

The information Stoner gathered at the workshop, typed and provided to the Greens will form the basis of Animal Liberation’s campaign against pig dogging – a sport the group describes as akin to dog fighting, and surpassed only by factory farming as a concern.

The Greens’ spokeswoman on animal welfare, Lee Rhiannon, says the Game Council is a ”bankrupt model” for controlling feral animals. Her party has a bill before Parliament to have the council disbanded and its $3.5 million in annual government funds directed into other means of pest management.

“The Game Council is a child born of an unhealthy relationship between the government and the Shooters Party,” she said.

“[It] is bent on advancing the interests of recreational hunters who then send their votes onto the Shooters Party.”

For Stoner the issue is more base still.

“There’s no one out there policing what people do to these animals. If it’s the Game Council with all of their wink wink, nudge nudge, there’s no policing.”

9.6 million dead animals… business as usual

There are approximately 9.6 million animals euthanised in the United States… the bulk of these animals for no reason except the expense it takes to care for them long enough to find them homes….

This is just the animals rejected at the shelters – in one country.

Why does this not shock people? How about the fact that the majority of these are killed/murdered/slaughtered by ASPCA, PETA and HSUS – The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and The Humane Society of the United States.

MUST SEE VIDEO!. ASPCA, PETA AND HSUS .. EUTHANIZATION “THE COVER UP”

How “humane”, “ethical” or “cruelty prevention” is the deliberate preventable deaths of almost 10 million animals?

Questions need to be asked before anyone hands over their donations as to exactly where they spend that money.

Just like you would for any charity or animal organisation, a pretty name can disguise their real agenda.

As discovered here Celebrity Vegans and Vegetarians – any person or group can say they are for animals, but words are meaningless without actions

Almost 10 million animals are murdered and to these large organisations not only is it business as usual, but it is also very profitable business.

Feedback welcome.

21 Stupid Things People Say To Vegans

A collection of things people say to vegans, because sometimes you just have to laugh.

1. The number 1 stupid thing people say is “Where do you get your protein?” Arggghhh! People are not short on protein. If a healthy person eats enough calories on a range of foods, chances are they will meet their protein requirements. However, meat and dairy and eggs contain NO FIBRE, so the most logical reply to that is “Where do you get your fibre?”

2. But Hitler was a vegetarian. And the response is “How is that even relevant?” In online debates, the first person to mention the Holocaust loses, except when it comes to vegetarians and vegans, then Hitler is proof of … who knows what in the minds of people making this point. (And, by the way, NO, he wasn’t.)

3. If we didn’t eat animals first, they would eat us. Elephants, horses, bulls – some of the strongest animals there are, are also vegetarian. 65 Billion animals are killed for food (not counting those killed for other reasons) a year, there are less than 7 billion people on the planet, that’s a sort of disparity in numbers.

Image via Wikipedia

4. I like animals too… smothered in gravy, next to the mashed potato. Is there anything more moronic? Is there any response to that, except roll your eyes and walk away.

5. If God didn’t want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat? Ok, if God didn’t want us to eat people, why did he make them out of meat. Generally it is the same people who never set food in a place of worship who say this.

6. Oh, I could never be vegan, I like meat too much. How about a rapist saying, Oh I could never stop raping, I like it too much. or A drug addict, Oh I could never stop drugs, I like them too much. or, Oh I could never stop driving way too fast, I like it too much. Just because you like something does not mean that it is good for you, or good for others.

7. But vegetables feel pain too. I saw this on a vegan forum once, a response so brilliant, I wish I could take credit… “I tell you what, I will jab you in the eye with this carrot – let’s see who feels more pain, you or the carrot”. If plants could feel pain, they would have evolved a mechanism for avoid it. And meat eaters are still eating plants, it is just processed through the bodies of animals, so if they really cared about plant-rights they would give up meat.

8. But fish/bees/chickens don’t feel pain. They use this to justify eating fish, honey, eggs. Sometimes it is said by the same people who think vegetables feel pain. Any animal with a central nervous system feels pain, that includes bees and fish. I am at a complete loss where this idea that fish don’t feel pain comes from.

Image by Antonio Machado via Flickr

9. and 10. On telling someone you don’t eat honey, they may say “Bees aren’t animals” or “but honey comes from flowers“. What? What do you mean, bees aren’t animals? Since when? Of course they are animals, and honey is produced from bee-vomit. They swallow the pollen and partially digest it, then regurgitate it. Honey comes from from flowers in much the same way that steak comes from grass and corn.

11. But god told us to eat animals, it’s in the bible. Well, actually, No, apart from the whole -how accurate is the bible?- debate. Page 1 of the bible, God puts all the good stuff right up front, it’s a long book, he knows some people might get bored and skip pages so, page 1 GEN 1:29 “Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.”

12. Yeah, but god said, we have dominion over animals. GEN 1:26 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” That says dominion, it does not say, “you have dominion, and eat them”. For Christians, god was pretty specific about what he meant for food – Every Tree That Has Fruit With Seed In It. It’s hard to believe that 3 lines later, he would forget to add that part about eating animals.

Image via Wikipedia

Besides, the bible also says, Ex 20:13 “thou shall not kill” it is one of the 10 commandments. It is actually number 6, why it is not in the top five commandments, is a debate for theologists. For people who believe in the literal translation of the bible (eg, the earth is 6000 years old, stone the homosexuals) seem to twist and turn this very basic commandment to mean whatever they want it to mean.

13. Animals were raised for food, to not eat them is disrespectful. How about all those children in Third World countries, that were sold into slavery or make 20C a day making sports shoes, to not buy them would be disrespectful. Or all those women who are abuses and raped in porn movies, to not watch them would be disrespectful. The animals didn’t raise themselves to be eaten or raped to produce milk, people did that, and they did it for money! It is only disrespectful to large multinational corporations that have their profits as a main concern and not your health, the planet’s health, or the animals welfare in mind.

14. Animals give their life for food, when I eat them I give thanks to their spirit and honour them. Ok, to be perfectly clear, animals don’t GIVE anything, they have their lives STOLEN from them, they have no say, they have no choice. And whether you give thanks or not, they are still just as dead, slaughtered, murdered. I would like to murder your child and cook ‘em up in the deep fry, would that be ok, as long as I gave thanks and honoured their spirit? No? Really? What a surprise.

15. A wise native man told me once, that is the circle of life, we eat animals and when we die, our bodies are returned to the earth and animals eat us. Ok, I will give you this one, you are only allowed to eat your body weight worth of worms, bugs, insects, maggots and bacterial slime in the entire course of your life time. Fair trade? But sheep, cows, chickens, pigs being vegetarian animals are off the menu, they would not eat you, so they are not part of your life circle.

Image via Wikipedia

16. What about all those animals killed in the combine harvester, so in fact, vegans cause more deaths than meat eaters. Most grain in this world is feed to animals raised for food. U.S. Could Feed 800 Million People With Grain That Livestock Eat, Cornell Ecologist Advises Animal Scientists. So if someone cares so much about the mice and locusts that get killed during harvesting, they should stop eating meat and animal products as a first step.

16. If we didn’t hunt animals, the world would be over run by all the lambs and chickens and coyotes that we don’t eat. If animals weren’t breed for food, they wouldn’t be breed. Farmers don’t raise animals for fun, they do it for profit, if there is no profit, they won’t do it. And as for animals like deer, kangaroo, foxes, coyotes, these animals only appear to be over-running the suburbs with their increased populations because we are now putting subdivisions and roads in their homes. We are taking their land, there have no where else to go.

17. Fur is green, and leather is warm, by wearing animal skins we are keeping cheap synthetics out of the landfill. Fur is not green, it is the skin of a slaughtered animal, which takes masses amounts of chemicals to process, or it would decompose, like all dead bodies. And if land used to raise natural fibres was not being used to raise animal, there would be no problems.

18. I would be vegan, but I like ice-cream too much. So, give up everything except ice-cream. If ice-cream is the one thing stopping you from being vegan, why are you still eating meat, cheese, cream, honey, eggs?

19. My neighbours, cousins, brother-in-laws, sisters boss was a vegan once, and got very very sick, ate a steak and felt better. Ok that is anecdotal and if you don’t actually know this person, does that count? Most people I know eat animal products, and they get very very sick with cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes.

20. “If I go vegan, I’ll get weak, pale and ill” or “vegans are hard core terrorists“. Well, were you pale to start with? Make up your mind, violent and aggressive or weak and pale.

21. It’s my right to eat animals, wear animals, experiment on animals. Your rights stop where another life is affected, you don’t have the right to kill, abuse, torture, slaughter, any living creature, that is not a right.

Feedback welcome.

Putting A Price On Life

In fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.”
Ruth Harrison
author of Animal Machines

The life of an animal is valuable, because it was born, and is a unique being, alive and with feeling. It should not be about what we can take from that animal, whether eaten or hunted or worn.

Most humans put a higher price on the dead, slaughtered body of an animal than they value the living being.

Feedback welcome.