A mother breast feeding her three year old son is apparently newsworthy, and people are quick to express their disgust. Perhaps it is a bit strange, but really—who gives a shit? What IS genuinely disturbing and downright vile is a grown adult consuming cow milk.
~ Holly Wilson (May 15, 2012)
Source: Holly’s Facebook comment
Today, think about the suffering and death you support just because you like the taste of dairy, cheese, butter, yogurt, ice cream, etc. Think of what that means for cows, the gentle mothers whom we exploit. Ask yourself if it’s worth it. If your heart says “no,” go vegan.
~ Gary L. Francione (May 13, 2012)
Source: Some Thoughts for Mother’s Day 2012
Go vegan for all of the human and nonhuman mothers today. Human mothers are starving in obscene numbers due to the lack of food caused by animal agriculture. Over 70% of the world’s corn, wheat and soy are fed to animals, for human consumption. Nonhuman mothers are the most exploited in the meat, dairy and egg industries. Cows have their babies stolen away each year for your milk and cheese. Chickens have their male babies ground up alive for your eggs. It’s time to show respect to all mothers and go vegan.
~ Gary Smith (May 13, 2012)
Source: Gary’s Facebook comment
Despite our desperate attempt to remove ourselves from our non-human brethren, we are animals, and we have a lot more animal instincts than we like to admit. Every woman will tell you that her drive to protect her young—what we call maternal instinct—is pure and fierce and real. We even call it an instinct—the maternal instinct. Any right-minded person would agree that this instinct exists in ALL animals. If we know this to be true, then how can we so arrogantly deny animals their desire to fulfill that very basic, fierce, real, powerful instinct?
~ Colleen Patrick-Goudreau (July 31, 2007)
Source: Motherhood & Maternal Instincts
Black churches also embrace a literal reading of the scripture because of its unique history, says Blum, author of “W.E.B. DuBois, American Prophet.”
During slavery and segregation, many blacks saw the Bible as the one document they could trust. The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, state and local laws—all found some way to ignore their humanity, Blum says.
The Bible, though, was one book that told them that they weren’t slaves or three-fifths of a person, Blum says.
It said they were children of God.
“Throughout the 18th and 19th century, what document could they trust?” Blum says. “When the Bible says it’s so, it’s something that black people believed they could trust.”
Their enemies, though, used that same veneration of the Bible against them. Slaveholders had a simple but powerful argument when critics challenged them: Trust the Bible.
Wearing fox fur used to support a fox shooting and trapping industry here in Australia[,] rabbits as well.
Now [that] so called conservationists have stopped people wearing fur[,] foxes and rabbits have been able to breed and spread damaging native animals to the point of extinction.
People need to realize ethical hunting of feral animals is environmentally sound.
~ Doug Steley (May 12, 2012)
Source: Doug’s Facebook comment
Stop using mothers for your milk consumption. You kill their babies and contribute to their suffering every time you buy milk. Make the connection and STOP!
I know many of these mothers who live just down the street from me. I’ve gotten to meet them the day after they’re born, until about the time they’re killed less than 3 years later. NONE of them, whether babies or their moms, are HAPPY—AT ALL. It breaks my heart that I cannot ride in like a superhero and SAVE them ALL!!
~ Beth Hardesty (May 12, 2012)
Source: Beth’s Facebook comment
I believe it’s a bit more complex than belief in talking snakes, though that was pretty funny. We all know the story about the Puritans and how they came here looking for religious freedom. Do a little digging and you’ll see that’s just as big a myth as the one about the English bringing all the food to the first Thanksgiving feast as depicted in the famous painting At any rate, from what I’ve been able to discern, there’s a inextricable link between religious faith and the notion of “manifest destiny” in this country. The conquest and slaughter of Native Americans was justified by religion. The enslavement of my ancestors was justified by religion. The notion of inherent white superiority is partially rooted in a belief that God and Jesus are white like the paintings we all see every Sunday (i.e. “created in His own image”). Religion justifies and underpins everything people claim as being inherently American. The Ku Klux Klan proports itself to be a “Christian” organization. Racial segregation was partially, if not fully, based on the Bible passage in Genesis that talks about “each after his own kind”. It’s “God’s will” for the US to be a great country. “God shed His grace on thee…” You see, without religion and it’s subsequent perversions, the US wouldn’t be the country that it is. I’d venture to say that those in power early in this country’s history understood the power of religion as being a “force multiplier”. If you look back, you’ll notice a heavy dose of “righteousness” and “God” in government propaganda through the years. Over the past eight years, you’ve seen the near ultimate manifestation of this notion in how Bush used religion to push this country to the brink of disaster. There were ministers, men of God, advocating for war in their churches on Sundays prior to the Iraq invasion when “war” is the complete antithesis of what Jesus stood for. They were no better than bin Laden issuing his “fatwas”. The ultimate manifestation will be when the US president orders a nuclear strike because he/she believes it’s God’s will, especially when her home church believes her home state will be a refuge during the “End Times”.
~ Ho Chi Daddy (September 29, 2008)
Source: Ho Chi Daddy’s comment
Isn’t it strange that we can see beef every single day, and yet it’s often situations like this, that allow us to connect our food with being an actual painful DEATH for someone.
If you wouldn’t want to walk up to this corpse and take a bite, then ask yourself, why do you order it at restaurants?
It may not seem like the same thing to you, but to the animal, it sure as hell is.
~ Shelley Williams (May 1, 2012)
Source: Shelley’s Facebook comment
Atheists do not believe in supreme beings commonly referred to as gods. Vegans do not believe other-than-human animals exist merely to serve human needs. That is, vegans believe nonhuman animals exist for the same reasons we do—their own.
Is there a common bond between atheism and veganism? I believe so and I suggest it is doubt. That is, in a society such as here in the USA where “more than 9 in 10 Americans continue to believe in God“, doubt is at the heart of what helps turn a believer or likely believer into a non-believer.
From my perspective, the same goes for veganism. In a world where other-than-humans are routinely thought of as things to be bought, sold, used, and possibly even killed for mostly trivial human needs, folks who think differently are a rarity. Once again, doubt, I believe, is key to acquiring this currently uncommon worldview.