a few things
to check out:
* getting to the core principles of veganism by vegankid
* truly brilliant :)) : Colbert Report: American Orthodox
...It's been a tough month for Christian Leaders. ... Now the Christian Coalition faces their own leadership shake-up... They had planned for Joel C. Hunter ... to take the reigns of the organization in January, but after a conference call to the group's board Hunter was forced to step down last week. Talk about a scandal! He wanted the Christian Coalition to "broaden its agenda to include reducing poverty and fighting global warming!" While you're at it, why not throw in collective farms and a five-year plan, Comrade Reverend Hunter?! ... as Reverend Hunter explained, Evangelical leaders were "deathly afraid of being labeled a liberal by other Christians, the media, talk radio." Which brings us to tonight's word: "American Orthodox."
So the Christian Coalition are afraid to be called liberal. I don' blame them. After all, there's nothing more Christian than refusing to do good works because you might get called a name. Especially the name "liberal." Because one thing we know for sure: Jesus was a conservative! ... Even the word "orthodox" comes from ... "ortho" meaning "right" and "doxa" meaning "thinking." And the Christian Coalition has always thought right [Extreme Right]! It was founded by Pat Robertson from the remnants of his failed 1988 presidential bid and it pioneered the process of bringing Evangelical voters to the Republican party with their trademark blend of traditional values [Gay Bashing®] and Reverend Hunter's agenda would've been a bastardization of the Coalition's Christian message. I mean, "fight global warming"? Our Lord was no tree-hugger! [Meek Shall Inherit What's Left of the Earth]. ...
and @ alternet:
* ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS DESTROY THE 'NO PARTNER FOR PEACE' CANARD
A new documentary that looks at the people most affected by the Israeli-Palestinian divide reminds us that lasting peace will come from popular movements, not political leaders.
* ANTIWAR VIETNAM VETS MENTOR NEXT GENERATION OF RESISTERS
About 8,000 soldiers have gone AWOL since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and many of them are looking to their predecessors for support. [yay vvaw!]
* THE CRIME OF BREATHING WHILE BLACK
A young black man and an elderly black woman each die in a hail of police bullets; a comedian invokes the era of lynching [see what kramer was really thinking @ reappropriate], and suddenly it feels like a crime to be caught breathing while black.
* CONSUMPTION HAS FINALLY CAUGHT UP WITH US
We're closer than we think to an age when gasoline becomes a luxury and restaurant meals become unattainable.
* BIG BOX SWINDLE: THE FIGHT TO RECLAIM AMERICA FROM RETAIL GIANTS
A growing number of communities are fighting back against the rising power of large retail stores like Wal-Mart. But real change won't come until we stop thinking of ourselves as consumers and start thinking of ourselves as engaged citizens.
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* Support NARAL campaign for Plan B:
Morning-after pill: Tell pharmacies to stock it, don't block it.
We all want to work together to help prevent unintended pregnancies. Plan B(R) (also known as the "morning-after" pill) is a safe, effective form of birth control that could help. The FDA has finally approved Plan B(R) for over-the-counter use, but many of the big pharmacy corporations don't have a policy requiring their stores to stock it.
You can do something to help. Sign NARAL's petition below and tell major pharmacy chains to adopt a nationwide corporate policy about stocking Plan B(R). Your voice is important on this issue.
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Tell national pharmacy chains to start stocking Plan B(R).
Click here: http://www.alternet.org/planb
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BUT also read "NARAL: WTF?" @ feministe. arrgh, wtf is with them, indeed!!
7 comentarii:
The link to vegankid doesn't work. I fully agree with him/her. After listening this great interview with Gary L. Francione I realized that the vegan non-violent philosophy must be the core of the animal liberation movement. I think I'm going to start a debate on the issue of the best methods to achieve the animal liberation as soon as possible because i have plans :D
and indeed that Colbert report was so fucking brilliant!
thanks, i fixed the link. i also agree with her completely.
plans are good! :)
i listened to that interview, and it is quite excellent, i like a lot of what he's saying and especially the point about the interconnectedness of issues (how you can't not care about people, about women, about other ethical issues, and at the same time have a working vision of achieving animal rights etc.) - basically what vegankid says too. that's exactly my own position. i also agree that those in the a.r. movement need to be vegan, pure and simple, and need to campaign for veganism - because the most important thing we can do to first minimize and then eliminate cruelty and exploitation of animals is to reduce consumption of animal products. i agree with the abolitionist idea. but i have a couple of comments:
- unlike what g. francione is arguing, people minimizing their consumption of animal products is still beneficial and logical in this context, because if you're consuming less you're still saving animals - not as many as if you were vegan, but still a lot. yes, as a person who wants to be "ethical" you should go all the way: but it's just semantics (what "ethical" means exactly). the majority of people will not turn vegetarian - let alone vegan! - in the near future, so we should try to at least get a majority to limit their consumption of animal products (even though i agree, we should work really hard to make it clear that for most people going vegan is NOT such a daunting undertaking). so, yeah, we should abolish factory farms and all exploitation, and "animal welfare" does support the system to a great degree, which sucks, but our most common-sense realistic goals should remain the minimization of the extent to which animals are raised for food or otherwise treated as property, with the goal of elimination in mind.
- the rape analogy is actually very annoying, and i don't know why he uses it; he should use killing humans, instead of rape! because a majority of people don't already rape and never did, there's no scenario in which someone would need to rape... whereas a majority of people consume animal products, and always did, and people in certain climates cannot survive without them, and there is a logical historical basis for meat consumption: people, like other animals that are omnivorous, can eat meat if that's necessary for survival. plus, if you're in the wild, you against an animal, i don't think there's moral problem with killing the animal in self defense instead of letting yourself be killed - just like in a deadly fight with another person, you might defend yourself and it's ok, even though killing is wrong. rape is totally different: it's immoral and it's by definition unjustified (and unjustifiable) violence. period. and the thing that should be obvious to everyone is that if you tell the average person that you're against cruelty to animals just like you're against rape they'll think along the lines: everybody consumes meat 'cause it's necessary, whereas only pshychopaths rape and it's not my problem. i think it's enough to point out that ultimately we should realize that animals should not be our property just like other sentient beings are not our property. we don't need to be peta-like and draw stupid parallels between injustices and oppressions.
anyway, i don't have all that figured out exactly, but those are some thoughts for right now.
i always thought morning-after pills are available over the counter.... without any prescription
it seems you b12 level is excellent :) i totally agree with you!
On the first point you raised, I felt too that we should keep veganism as the ultimate goal and the best way to be, but at the same time allow people who are not ready to be vegetarians or at least reduce their meat consumption. It should be something close to "people should really go vegan because it's morally wrong otherwise, but if you feel it's too hard for you or you are not ready yet then please at least reduce as much as possible all animal ingredients you use, not only meat, but also diary and eggs"
On the second issue you raised I didn't see it that way, but, yeah, you *are* right 100%. I actually think you should email him. You argued very well the case of not using the rape analogy.
@pegasus: hi, thanks for commenting. no, unfortunately emergency contraception is not always available (or obtainable) otc at pharmacies in the states - even though it's now supposed to be (some stores refuse to stock it because of moral qualms etc.)! that's what that campaign is about. read here, here and here for some history, a very scary story about lack of access to e.c., and general info regarding campaigning for "plan b."
@marius: glad all that made sense, i thought it was kind of incoherent myself. :) maybe i will write to the guy. i also want to write again to this band propagandhi, who supports peta even though they shouldn't - i wrote to them a few years ago to suggest that they shouldn't link to peta because peta is sexist and terrible, and they actually wrote me back but said that peta is the most prominent a.r. group around so they should be promoted. and this from a truly anti-sexist bunch of guys whose wisdom and ethics i greatly respect. anyway, now i feel i have even more back-up to rely on if i write to them again. :)
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