Let me just let it out straight : Yes I am poor. I make less than $1000 a month. I realize some have it way worse than me. But this is still poor.
Recent surveys show than on in two american lives paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford a $400 emergency in the richest country on Earth with the ability of printing as much money as it wishes. But this article is not about how much crumbs our dear leaders accept to give us.
Besides, I don’t live in the United States anymore. I chose to move back to my country of origin in 2014 : France. Guess what, the situation is not much better for the officially 11 million poor (soon 12) we currently have in a country of 67 million. Even our once superb healhcare system is crumbling from years of neoliberal politics. President Macron is the worst president we’ve ever had having channeled Reagan, Bush, Thatcher and everyone that followed.
The Covid crisis took us from 9 to 10 million poor in just one year. Meanwhile, they profit by passing more laws criminalizing poor people, repressive laws like the infamous Global Security Law (a sort of Patriot Act french style) and now openly attacking environmental and animal rights activists and threatening them with jail.
I am one of the people who has avoided, so far, the legal guillotine of being punished for defending animals. And on top of that, finding organic plant based food is more and more expensive. You know, like going to Whole Foods for just an organic salad.
How do I manage ? The same way I managed for years in Los Angeles with little income : by buying the most basic foods like beans, legumes, grains in local tiny stores like the mexican owned ones I know in East Hollywood ; getting my non organic greens from Ralph or equivalent and never ever starting to eat fast food (aka animal foods) just because it’s cheaper. That would be giving up on my principles.
Is it perfect ? Hell no. Is it better than consciously go against my principles or non harming as much as possible ? Yes. I do the same over here (although I am lucky to have a fantastic local little bulk store next to my place).
Gard’n Vrac bulk organic and local store.
From a purely health perspective, and I include diseases like Covid here, Dr Neal Barnard and PCRM have demonstrated the protective effects of fruits and vegetables and cutting (even eliminating totally) meat helps protects against COVID.
The production of meat is a cesspool for Covid, not only for the workers Meatpacking Plants Increase COVID-19 Infection Rates (pcrm.org) but also for what’s in the animal flesh itself (not including e-coli, growth hormones and all the usual niceties associated with meat).
Beans, legumes, grains are rich in tons of vitamins and minerals which boost your immune system and help you fight diseases including Covid which is showed to be virulent with underlying health issues. The healthier your diet, the better your chance of fighting the most common diseases. Like greens, they are also rich in fiber which act like natural vacuum cleaners for your body’s toxins. Healthy foods like oats, potatoes, and lentils are all nutrient-dense choices that won’t bottom-out your budget.
Another way to save money and still have some healthy food is to buy frozen foods if you can’t afford fresh (and organic). It’s often low priced, and the nutriments are not lost as the food (and its benefits) are frozen right away. They can arrive on your plate without the problem of losing their vitality in food mileage.
If you can afford berries, buy a good quantity and freeze some of it immediately so you can have some for when it’s out of season. Stores also sell them already frozen. It’s a cheap way of getting tons of nutrients.
Some foods can be stored for a while like nuts and seeds. They are packed with healthy Omega-3 fatty acids and polyunsaturated fats. Brown rice is a must have and it’s also inexpensive. I insist on brown not white because white rice has zero nutritional value. It can also be stored for month in a cool area. Gluten-free, full of soluble fiber and downright cheap, whole oats are an item you should have around the house all the time. I mix them with soy or almond milk, a banana and a little agave nectar. You can have a fantastic breakfast with just oats.
Some suggestions for what to stock up on: dried beans, legumes, brown rice, pasta (brown if possible), bread (and freeze it) or you can also find easy recipes to make it yourself, oats (for oatmeal, baked goods, and more), baking ingredients, bananas, frozen fruit and veggies. If you have those on hand at home, you already have the basics.
Make a grocery list also helps and definitely don’t visit the grocery store if you are hungry ! It will push you to buy things you would otherwise avoid. Stick to your list.
If you don’t know what to prepare, PCRM has a fantastic list of menus and recipes on their website and it’s free to join.
With a few tips and a super simple meal plan (with a few repeat meals) you can make it through the tough times and not have to give up eating healthy, or give in to eating non-vegan foods (that contribute to animal cruelty and the destruction of the planet).
All if these have saved me a anywhere from 100 to 200 Euros a month. In these troubled times when everything seems tough, remember that you don’t have to sacrifice your health and you can protect it with easy tools. If you don’t have your health anymore, you have nothing.
Sources:
Boost Fruits and Vegetables, Cut Meat for COVID-19 PCRM
Je viens de passer trois jours au CHU de Nîmes. Cette hôpital est une sorte de monstre géant et tentaculaire dans lequel vous avez la garantie de vous perdre (sérieux!). J’y suis allée pour faire enlever ma vésicule biliaire (voir plus loin à ce sujet). Etant très inquiète de l’état de l’hôpital public et de la souffrance au travail des soignants, j’ai pensé que cette intervention était l’occasion de prendre des notes sur mes observations et lors de conversations possibles avec les soignants.
Premier jour:
Ma première pensée en arrivant en salle d’enregistrement du séjour était « comment un endroit comme celui-ci garde-t-il une dimension humaine? » La réponse se trouve en chacun des soignants que je vais rencontrer sur les trois jours de mon séjour à commencer par la jeune femme qui enregistre mon arrivée. En salle d’attente, ma curiosité me pousse à demander à une dame qui vient de s’enregistrer combien de gens sont devant elle. La réponse: Vingt-Trois. Je n’en ai que deux mais il est vrai que mon séjour était programmé à l’avance. De plus, tout le monde ne se présente pas pour une hospitalisation. La salle d’attente est bondée de monde. Je dois y rester au minimum trente minutes avant que la jeune femme, que j’avais vu s’empresser d’un endroit à l’autre pour accueillir les gens, ne m’appelle à mon tour. Elle est stressée. Je compatis immédiatement car j’ai vu un bureau d’acceuil ouvert sur deux. J’en compte environ vingt. Sous effectif… déjà.
Je lui demande si ça va. Elle me répond, abruptement, qu’elle n’a pas le temps de discuter avec moi. Combien de temps a-t-elle pour chaque personne qui se présente? Trois minutes, pas une de plus. Elle termine et m’indique où aller ensuite. Ignorant son comportement, je lui souhaite bon courage et je reçois un sourire de gratitude en réponse. (A suivre).
Je continue dans le dédale du CHU et j’arrive aux ascenceurs. Un seul marche sur les deux disponibles. Une dame, régulière du CHU, me dit que ça fait des mois qu’il est en panne. Il y a les escalier mais veut mieux être valide… ou très patient.
Arrivée au bon niveau, je rencontre Corinne (1), une aide soignante très sympa qui m’installe dans la chambre et me montre tout ce que je dois savoir. Le personnel de ce service me semble moins stressé que celui de l’accueil car le contexte est différent.
Mon végétalisme est bien accepté à ma grande surprise (je pensais que manger serait compliqué). Il semble que le repas très « light », vu qu’il s’agit de chirurgie digestive, ne devrait pas poser problème.
Deuxième jour: l’opération
J’ai interdiction de boire quoi que ce soit après six heures du matin et de manger depuis minuit. J’ai extrêmement soif mais je dois prendre mon mal en patience. On m’a dit que j’irai au bloc opératoire en fin de matinée. Chaque personne qui passe me voir est toujours très gentille. Je suis dans une chambre sans voisine (coup de bol).
11h30: Il y a 3 opérations avant moi. On me permet d’avoir un doliprane sous la langue pour quelques douleurs vers 13 heures.
14 h 30: Un brancardier, jeune homme dynamique et plein d’humour, m’emmène au bloc pour la chirurgie. C’est comme une usine. Les brancards sont alignés. On vous installe les perfusions. Une étudiante en médecine et plusieurs internes s’affèrent autour de moi. Je me sentais dans un film de guerre, l’intérieur me faisant penser à un sous-marin (et l’abscence de mes lunettes n’arrangeait pas cette impression). La sortie se fit environ deux heures plus tard. Le personnel a été remarquable.
La nuit qui suit l’opération, je rencontre une interne et lui dit que je vais écrire sur les conditions de travail à l’hôpital. Elle est très contente et prend cinq minutes pour me parler. Elle m’explique qu’il y a deux infirmières pour vingt-trois patients. « Ca pourrait être pire », me semble-t-elle dire. Mais ça pourrait être mieux.
De retour dans ma chambre, j’entends un patient excédé de sa situation insulter les infirmières. J’admire leur patience et leur fermeté nécessaires. J’avoue à une infirmière que je ne pourrais pas garder mon calme (d’ailleurs pourquoi je ne me vois pas dans un métier comme celui-ci).
Je décide de me promener un peu le matin avec « Max ».
« Max ». Surnom que j’ai lui ai donné à cet objet car il ne m’a pas quitté de la journée.
J’en profite pour discuter rapidement avec une autre interne qui me décrit le manque de moyens dont elles et ils souffrent tous. Elle me dit qu’ils tiennent uniquement parce qu’ils aiment leur métier et prendre soin des gens. D’ailleurs, elle « n’attend absolument rien de la ministre de la santé actuelle ».
Pour les repas, ils ont été supers et ont fait en sorte de me fournir des plats végétaux.
Troisième jour: La sortie
Je retrouve la personne qui m’avait accueillie deux jours auparavant. Ma bienveillance à son égard a fait qu’elle se souvenait très bien de moi et elle m’a gratifié d’un grand sourire. Je lui ai conseillé de prendre soin d’elle-même.
Autre sourire de gratitude.
Les noms ont été changé pour protéger l’anonymat des soignants.
Ces calculs qui m’ont pris en traître.
De tous les problèmes de santé que je pensais avoir, les calculs biliaires étaient les derniers auxquels je m’attendais. Cela faisait presque deux ans que j’essayais de trouver la source de mes douleurs dorsales. Elles m’auront bien empoisonné la vie. J’ai donc consulté médecins après médecins. Ayant des problèmes de dos depuis l’enfance (scoliose, disques esquintés), j’avais les premiers mois mis ces douleurs sur le compte du handicap moteur (et le fait que je vais avoir cinquante ans). Ensuite, cette cause éloignée, ma rhumatologue a penché pour une maladie immunitaire, vite écartée. Enfin, en faisant un jeun de deux jours, j’ai fait le lien entre manger et les douleurs. Direction le gastro-enthérologue et bonjour chirurgie.
Mais la question qui me turlupinait était celle-ci: Comment la vésicule biliaire peut-elle se remplir de calculs et j’ai donc fouillé dans les articles scientiques de mes profs, notamment le Dr John McDougall, le Dr Neal Barnard (grâce à son enseignement, j’ai éliminé mon diabète il y a des années) etc.
Les calculs biliaires, à 90%, sont liés au cholestérol. Ne mangeant aucun produit d’origine animale depuis 2006, il était mathétiquement impossible que mon problème soit récent. Les aliments 100% d’origine végétale ne contiennent aucun cholestérol et seul le corps produit donc le cholestérol nécessaire. C’est notamment une des raisons, parmi tant d’autres, pour lesquelles il ne sert à rien de manger des produits d’origine animale.
Les calculs biliaires sont une maladie des pays affluents, autrement dit riches. Ce n’est pas une maladie de pays pauvre (tout comme le diabète, la plupart des cancers, les maladies cardiaques, etc).
Comment cela se passe-t-il: lorsque la bile dans la vésicule est saturée de cholestérol, elle crée des calculs. Le Dr McDougall en décrit les causes ainsi: « Un régime très riche en aliments containant du cholestérol comme les viandes rouges, la volaille, le poisson et les produits laitiers est la cause principale du développement de niveaux très saturés de cholestérol dans la bile. Les huiles Polyinsaturatées (huiles végétales), aussi, pousseront le foie à excréter de plus larges quantités de cholestérol qui passent dans les fluides de la vésicule biliaire, et donc favorisent la formation de calculs. »
Je ne mange plus d’aliments contenant du cholestérol depuis 2006 (année où je suis passée à un régime végétalien) mais j’ai continué à utiliser (trop) d’huiles végétales.
Il y a deux situations possibles avec les calculs biliaires: soit ils sont indolores et donc vous les ignorez. Soit ils provoquent des douleurs énormes (ce qui était mon cas) et donc il faut enlever la vésicule. Fort heureusement, ce n’est pas un organe vital (comme l’appendice) et mon foie, mes reins, et mon pancréas sont en excellente santé.
Selon McDougall, un régime très peu gras et végétal permet dans beaucoup de cas d’éliminer les calculs sans passer par la chirurgie. Cependant, il précise bien que ce n’est pas une garantie. Dans mon cas, j’ai toujours eu tendance à trop aimer le gras et le problème était en évidence sous-jacent depuis des lustres.
John McDougall explique: « Une fois les calculs diagnostiqués, dans les cinq premières années, seulement 10% des patients développent des symptomes, sur vingt ans, 20% ont des symptomes. Cela veut dire que quelqu’un avec des calculs a 80% de chance de vivre sans symptomes, c’est à dire qu’il restent asymptomatiques. » Manque de bol pour moi, je me suis retrouvée dans les 10% à 20% avec symptomes. Mais cela veut aussi dire qu’il a fallu entre cinq et vingt ans pour qu’ils se développent. Je suis végane depuis 2006 et je mange majoritairement des aliments non transformés (et le plus possible bios) depuis au moins 2008. C’est bon j’ai compris. je devais trainer cela depuis longtemps mais c’étant sans douleur jusqu’à l’année 2017. Mon seul regret est de ne pas avoir réappris à manger dix ans plus tôt que prévu. J’aurais peut-être complètement évité le problème. La plupart de nos maladies modernes sont dues à nos régimes alimentaires, que l’on parle de diabètes (j’en sais quelque chose et j’en parle d’ailleurs dans mon livre « C’est Quoi le Véganisme? »), certains cancers, les maladies cardiaques, etc.
Je n’aurai jamais vraiment la réponse. Cela me conforte cependant encore plus dans l’idée d’éliminer au maximum les huiles végétales (mieux vaut manger des noix – qui ont des fibres – que de cuisiner à l’huile de noix, par exemple) et de rester végétalienne (2) pour ma santé.
2. Je me réfère au « végétalisme » quand je parle uniquement alimentation. Le « véganisme » est une philosophie de vie qui inclue le « végétalisme ».
For Spring 2012, the online magazine V-Stream from the team of Vegan Mainstream published an interview with me along other vegan professionals for their first issue.
« Je suis Végé » (I am Veg) event day in Montpellier. My sign says « Veronique, vegan since 2006, vegan coach, 46 years old. »
When I moved back to France two years ago this month, I did feel depressed for a while. I came from Los Angeles where you can find over 80 vegan/vegetarian restaurants and a vegan store, and moved to Nimes, bullfighting city on top of it with… well… nothing!
But about a year ago, something started happening in France. My first taste of French veganism was going to Paris and see several vegan restaurants as well as a vegan store, « Un Monde Vegan », which then had that one location in Paris. But Veganism has been growing exponentially in France. They have opened a second physical location in the other major city of Lyon in the center of the country and another is planned in the south; they also have had an online store for a long time.
In fact, activism in France is actually old. Americans and others are just not that aware of it. Since the 1990s, an antispiecist group has been publishing the « Cahiers Antispécistes » (Anti speciesist files) which has numerous articles on animal rights, veganism and of course antispeciesim but also translate articles from famed foreign figures. Activist associations like the Fondation Bardot (Brigitte Bardot is of course famous as an actress and for campaigning with Captain Paul Watson), L214, 269Life France, FUDA, and many others have been working on behalf of animals for either a long time or since more recently. One of my best friend is a French vegan of almost 40 years and I actually met her at the 2011 Animal Rights Conference in Los Angeles, of all places.
About a year ago, we all noticed something changing. Television programs started looking into vegetarianism and veganism from a nutritional point of view. These early programs repeated the old myths: veganism good for everyone, but not good for kids, combine foods, and other non-sense. Then it started progressing with more programs addressing vegans directly and their lifestyle, at first as weird. Then, thanks to the French association L214 and their under cover footage of several slaughterhouses (the last one just a few days ago!), newspapers and televisions started talking about it and millions of people were exposed to the cruelty of French slaughterhouses. A lot had thought until then that it was done « humanely » for the animals (of course we know there is no such thing).
The first catalyst was the declaration by the World Health Organization about the link between processed meat and cancers which really got the media going.
I organized a vegan dinner in a French Lebanese restaurant (which had only a few vegetarian options) in Nimes. The owner was very opened to the idea and we had our first all vegan dinner in a restaurant with 22 people (counting the dog). She borrowed my cookbook from French vegan chef Marie Laforet and devoured it. She has since modified her menu to include more vegan, vegetarian and even gluten-free options, clearly marked. L214 and the French Vegetarian Association (I’m a delegate and member of the dietary committee) has been doing it for a long time with the « Vegorestos » and their « Vegan places » notably and delegates of the Association Végétarienne de France organizing things in their area. But the revelations in the slaughterhouses have been a catalyst for change in a major way. Only last Thursday, I joined a national campaign of awareness in front of the notorious Alès slaughterhouse to hold vigil for the animals (who we could hear) and facing angry animal farmers. This was done in front of 33 slaugherhouses accross the country and organized by the abolitionist association 269Life France.
I have in fact never been more busy since I moved back to France with almost an event every week, sometimes several on the same days, from anti bullfighting, anti vivisection, days for the abolition of meat, vegan days, marches to close slaughterhouses, marches against speciesism like the one in Geneva with people from France, Switzerland and Belgium (and beyond), a table at Organic chain « BioCoop » (which unlike Whole Foods is really 100% organic and with tons of vegan products) to Anti Speciesist days (as I did yesterday), there is never any time to be bored.
At the same time, more and more restaurants and places offer vegan options. Just in my little (pro-bullfighting) city of Nimes, besides the restaurant « L’harbousier » where I did the vegan evening, I recently discovered a little restaurant in the heart of the city which has started including a « vegan burger menu with fries and a drink » on their regular menu. I almost fell on my butt! I discussed with the owner who was present when I saw it and expressed how happy I was to see this for all vegans in the city. Her answer was « we have to serve everyone ». And lastly, vegan restaurants are opening all over the country. We have one coming in September here in Nimes!
Big chains are now offering vegan prepared food (vegan nuggets, vegan falafel, etc.), they know where this is evolving and they are usually a good thermometer of changes in people’s purchases. I just learned that another big chain should be offering vegan cheese but haven’t seen it yet. But I’m sure it will be soon. It is to be noted that they often use the term « vegetarian » as it is more understood in France. But it’s technically vegan. The terms vegetarian and vegan tend to be still interchangeable as the word vegan is an Anglo term.
Finally, on top of all the good things above, a very popular journalist, Aymeric Caron, went from vegetarian to vegan and published a book called « Antispéciste » (antispeciesist) which sold 40,000 copies according to BFM TV which is a news station similar to MSNBC. His book was part of a debate in which he defended his position extremely well in a very watched TV show for over an hour. His book is a serious game changer and gives credibility to veganism and antispecism even more. And L214 keeps on uncovering what’s going in slaughterhouses and finally a vegetarian-vegan/culinary magazine is at last available in all bookstores! it’s called « slowly veggie » and tries to push people towards vegan food in a convivial and delicious way, which is smart as we are a big food nation. The pictures of recipes are absolutely beautiful and mouth-watering and even the few vegetarian recipes are mostly easy to veganize. They clearly try to move people from vegetarian to 100% plant-based and they prove to the general population, which tends to still think « but what do you eat? » that we don’t just eat salads.
I have been roaming bookstores every day in the past few months because I constantly find articles which address either veganism, ethical issues about animals, vegan trends, nutritional aspects of plant-based eating (in a more and more positive and supporting way) and I just found a psychology magazine talking about the work of slaughterhouse workers and how it affects them. The national daily and weekly newspapers and magazines « Libération« , « Marianne » and « Paris Match » as well as « Charlie Hebdo » (which has been doing it forever) have now pro-animals journalists on their staff and write things nearly every week, whether it is about the latest scandals in slaughterhouses or animal agriculture to the benefits of plant based eating. Even the southern newspaper « Midi Libre » which is pro-bullfighting had 2 full pages about the latest slaughterhouse scandal with an interview of the co-founder of L214!!! Once again, this would have been unthinkable only 2 years ago! It is simply astonishing.
I myself have been on radio 3 times to talk about veganism, anti speciesism and the scandals of slaughterhouses notably on France Bleu Gard Lozère and the journalist even called me Thursday night to warn me about the « angry » farmers coming to the Alès slaughterhouse to confront us.
Lastly, the general population’s reaction to just what we do as activists has also evolved. I see more and more people coming to say that they agree more and more with us, have changed their lifestyle, or are transitioning to a more ethical lifestyle. I don’t have yet statistics in the number of vegans and vegetarians in France, but L214 has seen its membership explode in the last few months and they get messages all the time from people who have changed, from former hunters to just non vegans making changes. The successes of the Veggie Pride (which was created in Paris and later picked up by the New Yorkers) and Veggie World this year, with tons of participants and thousands of people are clear signs of the changes happening.
At the French Vegetarian Association (which is in fact vegan), we get asked for help constantly in finding vegan doctors and dietitians for adults and kids alike! The AVF lists vegan and vegetarian as well as veg friendly restaurants all over the country. L214 even has a list of politicians who either support or are against animals so people can vote with their conscience.
I could go on and on but this is truly an exciting time to be in France. And if you want to visit, I think you will find the country a lot more open to veg opinions and offers of plant-based options in restaurants.
Vegan evening at the restaurant « L’harbousier » a few months ago in Nimes.
Sources
Is France finally set to embrace vegetarianism? The local
L214‘s website which shows their undercover footages and more.
The website for cookbook author and ethical vegan Marie Laforet
Website for the French Vegetarian Association (Association Végétarienne de France) with tons of vegan nutrition information, vegan recipes and news. Vegetarisme.f
« Végéannuaire » (veg listing of restaurants and places) of the French Vegetarian Association.
Midi Libre about the latest scandal in the Pézenas and Mercantour slaughterhouses with interview of Sébastien Arsac, co-founder of L214 denoucing the cruelty and false idea of « happy meat » and asking for vegan menus everywhere.
Happy Cow page on vegan/vegetarian and veg-friendly restaurants and stores in France.
Find a « BioCoop » if you visit France. BioCoop.fr
2016 is the year when either big change can happen or a huge opportunity will pass again. For the past few months, people have been discovering who Bernie Sanders is and he has generated a huge movement for change which is frightening the establishment candidates, the corporate media and their lackeys.
Bernie’s ethics and integrity are nothing new to me. I first discovered him when he was a guest each Friday morning on the now defunct Air America radio station on the Thom Hartmann program. Thom had a special segment called « Brunch with Bernie » which I never missed. That was my radio program to listen to during work (back in my corporate days in Los Angeles). Listening to Bernie each Friday was like having fresh clean air blowing in my face from listening to someone with sane politics and a strong integrity of heart.
After all these years, I am still astounded at the degree of political ignorance in the general American public and what is being done in their names. Americans are champions at voting against their best interests. When Americans still believe that Democratic Socialism is similar to the Soviet Union, I am in disbelief. I didn’t realize that all Social Democracies (like France, Germany, Sweden and others) were like the Soviet Union or that our own Communist party had so much power. In the early part of the 20th century, Socialism was not seen as bad thing however; Upton Sinclair, the author of the Jungle, was himself a socialist.
Bernie has not suddenly just dropped from a tree, he has been around and fighting for us for a long time. One of Bernie’s first job in his life was registering people for food stamps. Before he was a politician, he was first a social justice activist. In 1963, as a Chicago University activist, he was arrested for protesting segregated schools. He traveled to Washington for the famous Martin Luther King Jr « March on Washington ». In 1972, he was editing the Liberty Union Party newsletter « Movement » in which he was already talking about economic inequalities. In 1981, he was elected as Mayor of Burlington not long after Reagan became President and he kept getting reelected, proof that his brand of socialism obviously pleased people. In 1987, he was named one of the best mayors in the United States by U.S. News & World Report. Then he went on the become the only independent in the Senate. And the rest, we mostly know. I just barely scratched the surface of Bernie’s bio.
Bernie is the one and only American politician who has never wavered from his beliefs in the little man, social equality and justice and his rejection of the greedy system. That is something he has done constantly during his 50 years of career. His current opponents have tried to grill him on issues like healthcare but they have failed because Bernie doesn’t flip flop on issues, he is constant.
Why does Bernie matter to a French Vegan like me?
In the past 30 years I have started noticing a slow but gradual degradation of the French social safety net. Unfortunately, in Europe, we have this tendency to always look towards the United States and import its worse aspects. We went from small farmers to American style industrial farming, from small traditional restaurants to McDonald’s, from mom and pop stores to large retail chains (we have the largest number of big malls in Europe) and our politicians have become corrupt neo-cons imitating their American counterparts (they all have money in Panama, right?).
Bernie reminds me of the old school politicians we used to have. They were strong social democrats, meaning they always stood up for the working class, the poor and against the greedy rich. A president Bernie would send a clear message not just to America but also to the rest of the world that good values are not hypothetical or utopic but should be the norm. A politician who is not corrupt and sold out to corporations, what a novel idea! And because we, in Europe, often look up to the United States (for better or worse, usually for worse), Bernie’s influence on the rest of the world would help remind not just Americans but Europeans too of what is at stake.
The French healthcare system is currently the best in the world (according to the World Health Organization) but it’s starting to be undermined from within by our neo-liberal politicians. The British National Health System is facing similar problems. This is all a result of neoliberalism. I want my healthcare system to not change, particularly after having tasted the American one for 18 years. Americans should revisit Michael Moore’s movie « Sicko » for a taste of European healthcare and they will realize that even Obamacare is terrible. This is a good movie to also revisit to see how Hillary went from supporting Universal Healthcare (like Bernie) to selling out to Big Pharma. Well, Bernie never stopped supporting healthcare for ALL. Of course, as Vegans, we are less likely to see doctors and end up in hospitals, but we are not immune to accidents and I would rather set foot in a hospital at low cost than with a huge bill.
Have you ever seen the classic Frank Capra movie gem « Mr. Smith Goes to Washington »? It’s one of those movies you want to be real. James Stewart is a young politician who is confronted to the corruption of Washington in the 1940’s (the movie is from 1939). If Frank Capra thought it was that bad then, I wonder what he would think now. Bernie Sanders is Mr. Smith, except older. But he shares with the Jimmy Stewart character the same characteristics of integrity and willingness to fight for the common man/woman. Bernie, just like Mr. Smith, also conducted a historic filibuster when he became Senator which lasted over 8 hours. Bernie’s historic speech is reprinted completely in the book « The Speech: on Corporate Greed and the Decline of our Middle Class ». When Bernie did his 2010 filibuster, it was followed by so many that it crashed the Senate server! What was Bernie filibustering about? The deal between President Obama and the Republicans which would give more tax breaks to the rich. I rest my case.
Bernie is popular with young and old alike because he stands up for us all, not for the 1% as he has consistently done so for 50 years. He never changed his opinions to fit any party lines and that is why he has remained independent and, like a modern Elliott Ness, incorruptible.
Bernie Sanders is also not a war monger (which is not something I can say about Hillary or the Republicans) and has always believed that war should be a last resort. He has voted against the Gulf War war and the war in Iraq and history has shown that he was right. I don’t know about you, but I want a President who is not trying to make the Military Industrial Complex even richer while chasing oil in foreign countries. His Foreign Policy is based on diplomatic solutions, and not war as a first resort.
Is Bernie open to animal rights?
Yes, he is already opposed to factory farming. My friends at Direct Action Everywhere have already understood this by confronting him at one of his rallies just like the #BlackLivesMatter movement did (and to which he responded). I doubt Bernie would ever support ag gag bills and other anti-activist bills. On the contrary, he has always stood against big money which is what this bills defend. Bernie is already pro women, anti racist, pro-gay and pro-environment. He has voted against the Keystone XL-pipeline and fracking while Hillary was supporting both. He has voted against NAFTA and the TPP, and pretty much all the so-called free trade deals which are destroying jobs for the middle class in either the United States or Europe as well as hurting the planet and all life. Hillary, once again, was for them until she changed her mind because it was politically convenient for her to do so.
Bernie may not be Vegan, but he is the best candidate we have in terms of animal welfare. As much as I would like to see a Vegan in the White House (we had our chance with Kucinich in 2008 but people chose Obama), our humane candidates will never get as close to the White House as Bernie is doing right now. Therefore, we have to keep pushing him in the right direction. Bernie has consistently voted in favor of animal welfare: He is against commercial breeding, for applying some humane care to farmed animals (ok not perfect obviously but the others don’t even give a damn at all). He is opposed to cruelty towards animals in captivity or in the wild. He is also a strong defender of wildlife including the Endangered Species Act. And let’s not forget his strong environmental record.
As Bernie Sanders said, this is a revolution he can’t create alone. If he gets elected, we need to keep him accountable and keep pushing him to meet even greater expectations. He has showed that he could not be corrupted (50 years of proof!) and that he was willing to learn (as seen with the #BlackLivesMatter movement) but one thing is clear, he will always fight for the poor and the middle class, never for the rich and powerful. That is a constant record we need to keep in mind if we want to create a society of justice.
As Cesar Chavez connected the dots between social human justice and justice for non-humans, I believe Bernie could also eventually make the same connections but we have to have his back first! When people keep voting for the lesser of two evils, nothing ever changes. As Vegans, if we didn’t believe we could create a Vegan society, we would have given up a long time ago. So let’s not give up on this either.
With Will and Madeleine Tuttle in Geneva (Switzerland)
Note: This interview was translated in French and can be found here.
VP: You are very well known internationally in the vegetarian and vegan communities and you received numerous awards. Would you tell us a little bit about yourself as your work is not well known in France yet.
Will: My spouse Madeleine and I have been traveling now for over 20 years, presenting between 100-150 events annually, promoting vegan living throughout North America, as well as in Europe, Asia, and Australia. I’ve been a thriving, joyful vegan for 35 years now, and I’m most well-known for the best-selling book I wrote, The World Peace Diet, which has been published now in 15 languages. Earlier in my life, I was a Zen monk in Korea, and then I was an academic, with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on educating intuition (and strongly influenced by Bergson), as well as being a professional pianist and composer.
Many others (like you Veronique!) are also contributing in beautiful ways to the benevolent vegan (r)evolution that is happening. The World Peace Diet is unique in that it gives the truly big picture of the ramifications of our routine mistreatment of animals for food, including the spiritual, emotional, cultural, historical, health, environmental, and other dimensions, so that people can grasp the enormity of both the problem and of the opportunity we have today. As more people go vegan, we will see an absolutely massive positive shift in health, happiness, sustainability, and cultural creativity. There’s nothing more important anyone can do than to make an effort to understand the ramifications of our food choices. That’s why, I believe, sales for The World Peace Diet have been so strong, and why it continues to be published around the world in other languages as well.
VP: Your book “The World Peace Diet” is a major international best-seller and is finally translated in French. What made you want to write it in the first place?
Will: In writing The World Peace Diet, one of my inspirations was to bring our culture’s routine mistreatment of animals for food and other products from the periphery of cultural concerns to the very center—to help people understand that the mentality of violence required by our most basic action—eating—is the spinning fury, hidden at the core of our culture, that generates the crises and problems we face both individually and collectively. Switching to a plant-based diet for ethical reasons is the ultimate spiritual statement in a culture such as ours that routinely and relentlessly kills over hundreds of millions animals daily for food. I feel it’s essential to bring the spiritual dimension to the vegan movement. This is the foundation of ethics, justice, and vegan living—awakening our inherent compassion and wisdom, questioning the indoctrinated disconnectedness that our culturally-imposed meal rituals impose on us, and changing our behavior to reflect our natural, deeply-held human values of respect, cooperation, and caring for others. We all know that we reap what we sow, and we all know that nonhuman animals are capable of suffering.
Going vegan is both a cause of and an effect of spiritual growth. As we nurture our bodies with organic, whole, plant-based foods, we cleanse internally, and our mind and emotions can relax, and we naturally begin to feel and understand directly the interconnectedness of all life. This essential awareness lives in all of us, waiting to be awakened. That is the spiritual journey we are on, whether we know it or not, and it is intimately connected to vegan living. As we travel and talk with folks all over the world, we hear this a lot: many have told us that upon going vegan, unexpected positive internal shifts happened, and they feel more confident, relaxed, at peace, and at the same time, a greater awareness of the underlying violence and deceit in our culture. There is a lot more on this of course in The World Peace Diet.
VP: Being your student, I have read your book several times and the chapter I still prefer is the one on Sophia. Would you explain a little what you’re talking about in this chapter.
Will: Yes, Chapter 7 is entitled “The Domination of the Feminine” and it cites two prime examples: the hen and the cow. “Dominating others requires us to disconnect from them.” Humans dominating animals and also men dominating women: this mentality of domination is probably the biggest mistake we humans make. It plays out in relationships between men and women, and also in many other ways as well. Domination requires disconnection and also reduction. Most women know how it is to be looked at as “meat” and as men, we are taught early on to look at women in that way, as we are taught to look at certain animals as well. I would not say, though, that it is easy for our species to disconnect. We have to be forced into it. I refer to a crucial aspect of our innate wisdom as Sophia, who was the Greek goddess of wisdom. This sacred feminine wisdom is brutally suppressed by forcing us as children to participate in mealtime rituals of eating blood and violence. We’ve got to remember the ferocity of the ritualized programming we have all endured. It’s tremendously powerful. From the time we lose our mother’s breast, we are forced to eat the flesh and secretions of abused animals in the most significant and relentless rituals in our culture: our daily meals. Veganism is essentially the resurrection of the feminine wisdom of Sophia within all of us, the wisdom that protects life and nurtures our children and cares for the health of our communities and our Earth.
VP: Would you tell us about one of the personal stories you mention in your book?
Will: In Chapter 14 of The World Peace Diet I describe how I went fishing, caught a couple of fish, and then had to repeatedly slam them against the floor to kill them. Looking back on it now, 40 years later, I can see that it definitely was a seminal moment in my life. I was quite an avid fisher in my youth, and was always proud when I caught some fish. When I went fishing within the new context of the spiritual pilgrimage that I went on at the age of 22, I suddenly saw fishing in a whole new light, and saw the cold, cruel violence of trickery and deceit as the blinders fell away. I suddenly felt compassion for the fish I was killing! I never fished again and within a couple of months, never ate fish in my life again either.
VP: Do you consider that the foundation for a peaceful world starts with our food?
Will: Our meals of hidden violence are devastating our Earth, torturing millions of beautiful and sensitive animals daily, and laying waste the inner landscape of our thoughts and feelings. The wars, diseases, neuroses, and crimes we see around and within us have their genesis in the wars, diseases, neuroses, and violent crimes we inflict on billions of animals routinely and completely unnecessarily. The basic sense of disempowerment many of us feel to change “the system” derives directly from our daily meals, which are the rituals that keep us as domineering agents of slavery and commodification, enslaved ourselves!
I am seeing increasing numbers of us “get” the message of The World Peace Diet and begin to share it with others, and this is the foundation of the healing of our world and of our culture and ourselves. We will continue to be merely ironic in our quests for peace, justice, and sustainability until we make the connections between animals as beings deserving of respect and these animals as products on our plates. When we authentically come into alignment with our true nature of compassion and wisdom and share this uplifting and liberating understanding with others, we will then be worthy of celebrating our lives on this beautiful and abundant planet. I encourage everyone to make an effort to understand the consequences of our food choices, to teach a community course on The World Peace Diet, and to spread the message of kindness, not just for ourselves, but for all living beings and all future generations. As they say, “We are the ones we are waiting for!”
VP: What is the important core message of your book?
Will: The essential message of The World Peace Diet is that the hidden core of our culture is herding animals for food and other products. This requires that everyone born into our culture be injected with a set of behaviors and attitudes that are not in our best interest, and are devastating to animals and to the ecosystems of our Earth. Some aspects of this set of attitudes are the mentality of disconnectedness that every meal requires, as well as the mentality of domination, elitism, exclusivism, and commodification of other living beings, and of the entire living world. Veganism is the most powerful alternative paradigm to our culture’s internal and external disease, because it’s not just theoretical, it’s solidly practical. It touches every dimension of our life: our meals, our clothing, our entertainment, and ultimately, the way we think about all others in our life. Veganism is the polar and transcending opposite of our Western culture, and it is what will, ultimately, heal that violent, oppressive, and suicidal mentality and its endless woes, and usher in a new world of undreamt possibilities of freedom, equality, and fraternity for all. We don’t have to fight against the old paradigm, though! That gives it more strength! Instead, we are called to focus on the positive changes we yearn to see, and to embody them in our thinking and behavior, and share them creatively with everyone we can.
VP: L’Association Végétarienne de France (note: The French Vegetarian Association in fact promotes veganism) is involved with the Cop 21 climate conference in Paris, what message would you like to give to all the participants of this climate conference.
Will: Victor Hugo is credited with saying that nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. There is mounting evidence that global climate change may well bring an inconceivable catastrophe to humanity and to the Earth within the next century. It turns out that the main driving force behind global climate change is also behind human disease, environmental pollution, massive animal cruelty, and the whole range of dilemmas we are attempting to solve. The routine confinement and slaughter of millions of animals every day for food is catastrophic and must be explicitly addressed at COP21.
The most forcibly ignored cause of global warming is eating meat and dairy products; it’s the greatest source of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 297 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, as well as methane gas, which is 30 times more powerful. The science on this is unequivocal, and in addition, eating animals requires massive amounts of fossil fuel inputs, directly pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We are transporting over seventy percent of our corn, soybeans, oats, and other grains to animals, pumping water to irrigate these fields, manufacturing millions of pounds of fossil fuel- based fertilizer and pesticides, and housing and slaughtering billions of animals yearly. The end result of all this is that while it takes only two calories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of protein from soybeans, and three calories for wheat and corn, it takes 54 calories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of protein from beef.
The primary driving force behind deforestation is cattle grazing and clearing land to grow soybeans and other grains to feed factory-farmed chickens, pigs, and fish. This is a further major contributor to global warming. In addition, sixty percent of our fish are now factory-farmed, causing severe water pollution and genetic damage to wild fish populations. Our limitless demand for fish that are used for feeding factory-farmed fish, birds, and mammals has brought our oceans to the brink of collapse. As the threat of global climate destabilization grows, we will hopefully begin to realize that the most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (and environmental pollution) is to reduce meat and dairy consumption.
Research has also revealed that buying locally grown meat, eggs, and dairy is not significant in its impact on our carbon footprint. Additionally, as the recent documentary Cowspiracy demonstrates, eating “free-range” and “organic” meat, dairy, and eggs does not substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because free- range cattle, for example, are not fattened as quickly as feedlot cattle, so they cause a greater greenhouse gas footprint in many cases.
To their credit, more journalists are coming forth, encouraging people to reduce meat and dairy consumption to save the Earth from climate break- down. Let’s amplify their call! The situation is critical. As the Worldwatch Institute has bluntly concluded, “It has become apparent that the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future.”
VP: I know you travel a lot around the world giving lectures to packed rooms. What would be a message you would give to a French audience?
Will: The main message of The World Peace Diet is to make essential connections that haven’t been made before. We have all been taught to disconnect and to practice disconnecting by our culturally mandated food practices. My work is to address this nearly invisible mentality of exclusion and its effects from many perspectives—the historic, psychological, sociological, spiritual, and ecological. What I say is not new. Pythagoras, Buddha, Da Vinci, Tolstoy, Einstein, Schweitzer, Gandhi, and many others have all said the same things, but more as aphorisms. The World Peace Diet is the first book to go into the connections in depth and show the big picture of our culture.
I feel that French people have, in many ways, a natural affinity to the vegan message. The French people are known for their sense of respect for nature and for their love of fine cuisine and their sensitivity to the romantic and loving aspects of life. Vegan living embraces and nurtures all these dimensions of our life, and also contributes to more healthy familial and social relationships. The French Revolution exemplified the idealism that the French people are capable of, and again, veganism is a deep and heartfelt dedication to the ideals of liberty, equality, solidarity, and caring, all of which are dear to the hearts, historically, of the French people. There is also the spiritual yearning that has characterized many aspects of French culture. To grow spiritually, we are called to question the official narratives of violence, and understand our cultural programming. This has been taught by Voltaire, Rousseau, Pascal, Camus, Sartre, Hugo, de Beauvoir, Bergson, Comte, Teillhard de Chardin, Durkheim, Weil, and many other remarkable French philosophers and writers.
VP: Thank you Will for all your inspiring comments. Is there anything you would like to add?
Will: Until we become aware, it’s difficult to change, but with awareness, we can grow in wisdom and contribute to a healthier and more harmonious world. The World Peace Diet points out the roots of our dilemmas and suffering, hidden in plain sight. Its main message is that we have been deceived by our cultural conditioning into seeing ourselves as essentially predatory, and by relentlessly eating like predators, we have created predatory economic and social institutions that create enormous suffering. When we awaken to our true nature, we see clearly that our greatest joy and satisfaction come in blessing, cooperating, creating, giving, encouraging, loving, protecting, and caring. We see the interconnectedness of all living beings, and can awaken to the deep spiritual truths that bring authentic freedom.
Secretary Haley: « Now that you understand the situation more clearly, perhaps you’d like to discuss it with the President. »
Klaatu: « I will not speak with any one nation or group of nations. I don’t intend to add my contribution to your childish jealousies and suspicions. »
Secretary Haley: « Our problems are very complex Klaatu. You mustn’t judge us too harshly. »
Klaatu: « I can judge only by what I see. »
Secretary Haley: « Your impatience is quite understandable. »
Klaatu: « I’m impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it. »
Secretary Haley: « I’m afraid my people haven’t. »
This 1951 classic directed by the legendary director Robert Wise is one of my favorite movies of all times (forget the more recent version with Keanu Reeves which was horrible). This movie is not great because of its old special effects or just the wonderful actors, it’s because of its message: Evolve or die! and the numerous sub-messages in the movie which set it largely apart from others of its time.
Why this movie’s message matters to me.
In our world today, we are dominated by forces who dictate to us who we need to be without regards for any consideration of our true natures. These forces are hell bent on expanding their psychotic moral schizophrenia to as many of us as they can by keeping us docile with toxic and dead foods, drugs, brainwashing entertainment which serve to keep us numbed (and dumbed) down and with the help of puppet politicians who are really serving a hidden elite of wealthy individuals who are addicted to power and greed.
We are dominated by a tiny percentage of oligarchs all over the world who pass whatever laws they want about our food, our production systems, GMOs, repressive police, their war addictions, etc.
Each day, we wake up to information overload. We are monitored from the moment we are awake through our televisions, smart phones and now we might even have to worry about Amazon using drones to ship our book purchases (which would destroy competition for even more small businesses – are there any left?).
So what’s next? Pills to make us like whatever corporations want us to buy? They already own us as consumers just through advertising alone (turn off the damn TV!). They also are in fact trying to patent our DNA which I guess would give them total control over our bodies even though some people try to oppose it. They force our kids to get vaccinated and they brainwash them into getting addicted to animal flesh and secretions.
As the website Energy Grid said very well on their home page:
« Despite living in « the free world », there are very few free men and women walking around in our democracies. Very few indeed. This is because some men and women have a human failing that drives them to want to manipulate others for the sake of power. That manipulation has enslaved humanity throughout most of its history, and still presents the most ominous threat to democracy. »
So, what are we left with?
Here comes the Vegan revolution (which I could rename the Klaatu revolution just for the purpose of this article). This is the only revolution which can potentially free us. Do we need some external extra-terrestrial force to make humans evolve to avoid obliteration, as the movie clearly demonstrates? Or can, you ask, Veganism be a solution to all this maze of control over our freedom to think?
Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is – whether its victim is human or animal – we cannot expect things to be much better in this world… We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creatures. ~ Rachel Carson (1907-1964)
As Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! once said: « We need a media that covers grassroots movements, that seeks to understand and explain the complex forces that shape our society, a media that empowers people with information to make sound decisions on the most vital issues of the day: war and peace, life and death. Instead, the media system in the United States, increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer multinational corporations, spews a relentless stream of base « reality » shows (which depict anything but reality), hollow excuses for local news that highlight car accidents and convenience store robberies larded with ads, and the obsessive coverage of traffic, sports, and extreme weather (never linked to another two words: climate change). Perhaps most harmful of all, we get the same small circle of pundits who know so little about so much, explaining the world to us and getting it so wrong. »
Amy is right (too bad she doesn’t cover Vegans however) and indeed Veganism, as well as other social movements, has grown because of people-powered media who have been able to get around the mainstream corporate propaganda and its destructive agenda. That growing awareness is fueling a growing activism around food justice, animal rights, environmental issues and other social issues. Let’s not forget that, despite being crushed, the Occupy Movement was able to survive several months through independent grassroots activism and public powered media. Others, like the Black Lives Matter movement, are creating change. And the LGBT movement just won the right to marriage equality. These movements are all fueled by people armed with only cell phones, social media and determination. The vegan/animal rights movement has proven that it can do the same but not until we stop fighting with each other over ridiculous things. Our biggest enemies are not the animal abusers, it is us when we are divided.
Issues around food are being discussed all over the world by more and more people and choosing a plant-based diet or go full-fledged vegan is the biggest tool of power we have against those who seek to control us. And the reason is that we become AWARE and INFORMED about, not just animal rights, but every other social issues and stop relying on what is being taught or told to us. We connect all the dots and get out of the imposed veil of ignorance on our minds, or as Will Tuttle calls it, the « herding mentality ».
We will never have real democracies through just the tool of voting at the booth (and I’m not saying we shouldn’t vote, I’m not Russell Brand! and I love Bernie Sanders for many reasons, most notably his record of integrity, oh well I had to say it!) but voting for someone, even an honest man or woman, is just the tip of the iceberg and doesn’t create any real change unless people keep being active after the votes and push for change as a mass movement. It is too easy to think that « well, we voted, that’s all I need to do. » We saw the result of that thinking last time. The roots of change come from people changing themselves, not trying to change a failing system which is self-destructive anyway. The powers that be will then be forced to follow after they try to repress us to stay in power. They won’t let go easily (and without causing pain) unless we are a massive force for peace and real change. It starts with, as always, ourselves. The fact that people seem to be turning to Bernie is a symptom of a real possible inner change for the end of inequalities and new values (at least I hope so). And even if Bernie doesn’t get elected, the desire for social change might be under way with or without him. He is just a symbol of it.
Dr. Vandana Shiva would say that saving seeds insures freedom for small farmers from the monsters of Monsanto and she is right. Since we have no control over the powers who control our food systems and try to control our lives (with mass surveillance, now also passed in France after the drama of Charlie Hebdo, the NSA and so on), we need to connect with each other even more than before and build our own communities, our own food gardens, our own sustainable lives and educate others to do the same by teaching them the WHYs of Veganism in a holistic way. Even in France, we talk a lot about veganic agriculture as the solution and we have regular environmental weeks which include a large emphasis on Veganism.
Until most people learn why Veganism is such a powerful tool of inner and outer change, nothing will really change. They can’t win against the police state with weapons. As many before them demonstrated (King, Gandhi, Chavez and many others), violence has never been the answer. But we can be non-violent and still resist while promoting change and give tools to others to become more independent themselves. Imagine what is possible.
As my friend Butterflies Katz once said about the Gentle World community: « Since then, the experience of living with Gentle World has transformed me into someone who is much different from the person I would have been had we not joined paths. My personal transformation has taken me from being a suburban, consumerist, superficial person – to a country girl, a naturalist who tries to live at one with her environment, and a non-consumer, a recycler and conservationist. »
In today’s economy, this is nothing short than a huge challenge (and dream) for a lot of us. I know that I depend on my own government financially at the moment. I am awfully aware of it. But I’m also aware that I need to seek solutions to this corporate/government slavery which, on the one hand allows me not to be on the street but on the other hand gives me very few ways for being independent.
I had friends recently who suggested that we take over some old abandoned villages in France. I thought this was a brilliant idea. Let’s create vegan communities in these beautiful locations, left behind by people who needed work and abandoned them. I bet there are a lot of such small towns in the USA and other countries too which could serve to create vegan communities, independent (at least for the most part) of corporate control and relying on each other for services by using the creativity and the know-how of each of us. Is this an utopist idea? Maybe it seems like it now. But I do believe this is what we will have to do in order to survive the disastrous policies of our corporate owned governments (in wherever country you are).
It has never been more important than NOW for vegans to educate non-vegans, social activists and anyone not yet part of our movement to all the issues of respect for life, environmental, animal ethics, sustainability and how we can achieve it with communities.
We truly need to be the change we want to see in the world. Because no-one is going to do it for us. We are the Klaatus that we’ve been waiting for; the ones who will make the change inevitable.
– Village des Possibles (or literally village of what is possible) in Montpellier (France). This video is subtitled in English. The village reunited various associations for the environment, economic justice, « Do it Yourself » workshops and vegan food!
I have always considered the sexual act as something between consenting people (of whatever gender) who are mature enough. Indeed, you would probably find shocking the idea of adults having sexual desires for children and sometimes acting on them. We consider pedophilia an act of absolute sickness. But it may come as a surprise to think that some animal advocate do not apply the same principles when it comes to other animals.
In the past few months, I have been deeply involved with an investigator in looking into the zoophilia/bestiality issue (to expose people who abuse other animals sexually) and I have been horrified at not only what is being done to other animals but to see where some so-called « animal lovers » actually go in the way they think of other animals. I have seen pictures of dogs being raped and people commenting things like « it’s cute! ». I have seen people (in our movement) being asked about just sexual desire for other animals and not having any problem with it.
Zoophilia is all over the web (if you know where to look) and you can find tons of « secret » groups on Facebook devoted to people who get a sexual kick at watching men (and women) having sex with other animals. My research (with the investigator) has allowed me to witness some rather gruesome and disgusting imagery and in some cases videos that these people proudly display while they get cheered on by others.
What I also found out is that some of them masquerade as animal rescuers in order to get an animal as sexual partner. So if you run a shelter, a sanctuary or simply want to find a home for a rescued animal, you may not even know that your animal is going to get sexually exploited.
From a legal perspective, laws vary by countries and states but there are exemptions like this one (quoted from Wikipedia):
Sexual handling of an animal for the purposes of veterinary practice, or animal husbandry (breeding), is normally exempted where such laws exist. In public discussion for the recently passed Oregon law, however, one animal shelter’s spokesperson wanted the husbandry exemption kept out, as he was concerned that someone might use these « accepted farming practices » as a legal loophole to then have (legal) sexual contact with an animal only for personal enjoyment. One of the legislators responded by asking if they were trying to outlaw an act (of sexual contact), or a state of mind. The veterinary and husbandry exemption was left out of Oregon’s law in the final, enacted version.
We know for a fact that some farm workers in factory farms do sexually abuse animals. It has been reported by undercover investigators over the years and by authors.
But maybe it is necessary to explain a little more what science and psychology have to say. The difference between zoophilia (the term comes from the Greek, which means « animal lover ») and bestiality are, according to Wikipedia:
Zoophilia and the law looks at the laws governing humans performing sex acts on animals. Laws against humans performing sex acts on animals, where they exist, are concerned with the actual act, which it commonly refers to as bestiality, rather than the sexual attraction to animals. For this reason, prohibitions of zoophilic pornography is more varied; they may be unlawful if an actual sex act with an animal is involved, but the status is not clear cut if there is a mere representation, such as a painting or cartoon. In that case, normal obscenity laws will normally apply. All zoophilic imagery is widely regarded as pornography.
Some people seem to think that zoophilia is not and shouldn’t be an offence or be considered as a psychological disorder. However, let’s assume Wikipedia above referred to this in the case of children and most people would be horrified. There is, as is often the case, a double standard between how we treat human versus non-human animals. Therefore accepting just zoophilia is to me speciesist because no human (I hope) would agree that a man with sexual desires for children is a healthy mentally balanced human being.
In both the case of children and other animals, one party is non-consenting. What is shocking is to see famous authors (and philosophers) in our movement in fact defending it, like Peter Singer:
But sex with animals does not always involve cruelty. Who has not been at a social occasion disrupted by the household dog gripping the legs of a visitor and vigorously rubbing its penis against them? The host usually discourages such activities, but in private not everyone objects to being used by her or his dog in this way, and occasionally mutually satisfying activities may develop. Soyka would presumably have thought this within the range of human sexual variety.
Mr. Singer forgets one thing. He would probably never say that about children. And yes the household dog sometimes grips the legs of visitors but there is a huge difference, the dogs can’t control their sexual urges, we can! And we have a moral obligation to do so because not doing so would violate an animal (as it would violate a child). And also, what does he know about a dog’s thinking anyway? We are supposedly moral animals who can choose what is acceptable or not. As vegans, we have an even better responsibility towards those at our mercy. Because a dog or a orangutan (he does quote the example of an orangutan making sexual advances to a woman) may not understand or see the difference between a human or one of his kind (even if we are closely related to apes). And, as I stated above, animals do not have the ability of controlling their sexual urges and are also probably (because of us) deprived of the necessary relief they would get with their own species in most cases. But then, not wanting to control sexual urges towards anyone is also what brings us damning statistics like the ones from the United Nations where we learn that at least one woman in three will get raped in her life. So maybe, humans (particularly men in this case) are not that good at controlling their libido!
In fact, psychology is clear about zoophilia:
[…] paraphilia wherein animals are recurrently favored or solely utilized to reach carnal arousal and satisfaction. The animal, that is generally a household pet or farm animal, is either utilized as the object of sex or is conditioned to lick or rub the human partner, called a zoophile. The most typically utilized animals are sheep and pigs, in rural settings.
As you can see in the definition above, the animals are « conditioned », therefore manipulated. This is not about the free will of the animal himself, it is about the selfish needs of humans.
Peter Singer also seems to suggest that something done through history is therefore acceptable. Then the same could be said about eating the flesh of animals, wars, slavery, and rape.
To accept the behavior of zoophilia (and therefore potential bestiality) in our movement is equivalent to the Church hiding pedophilia in its ranks for many years because it is politically incorrect. Why do we think it is a horrific act towards children but not animals? I have to ponder at the degree of speciesism still in the thinking of some people.
Michael Kiok, the president of the only (fortunately) official worldwide federation of zoophiles believes he is being persecuted by the German government for finally banning bestiality because he can’t have sex with animals anymore. Should I feel sorry for this pervert who abuses other animals for his own self-gratification?
The French author Franz-Olivier Gisbert, in his book « L’Amour est éternel tant qu’il dure » (Love is Eternal as long as it lasts) makes also the apology of bestiality and zoophilia. As someone noted on the commentary section of his book (on Amazon.fr):
This object in paper that I don’t dare calling a book is a firework of junk of all kinds. The author inflicts the poor reader who didn’t ask for much an exhaustive catalog of his sexual obsessions without notice except in Chapter 41 (if you get there!) where the charitable Mr. FOG (Franz-Oliver Gisbert) advises weak minds to go directly to [chapter] 44 to avoid the scenes of bestiality, which he seems to be a refined connoisseur. We reasonably can advise to read such opus whose title is deliberately misleading. Any honesty would add a cover band indicating that it is a text reserved for « warned » adults.
Some people (as I’ve seen in the case of Germany) go as far as having brothels so they can act on their sexual desires for other animals, which means that animals are brought in and definitely are NOT consenting to this. Where is even consent in having a sexual desire for an animal? Does a child have consent over the sexual desire for him by an adult? I leave that to the reader to decide.
From a health perspective, sexuality with other animals is linked to penile cancer. So in effect, someone having sex with a (non-consenting being) is also putting himself at risk. And let’s note also that exposing a child to acts of bestiality is considered child abuse.
What does the scientific community think of it? In a big clinical psychological study done on zoophiles (translated in English) by Marion Nasswetter, we find this:
The tenth version of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, published by the World Health Organization (2008) and in short called ICD-10, categorizes the sexual human-animal contact under F65 –deviating sexual preference. If unusual sexual fantasies or sexual urges are focused on exceptional non-human objects, on children, on suffering or humiliation of the self or other persons, then the condition may present an adverse effect in several areas of the life of the affected. Additionally, it is pointed out that almost exclusively men are found to have these deviations. Besides fetishism, exhibitionism, pedophilia, and others, the sexual human-animal interactions is subcategorized under F65.8 – the other deviations of sexual preference.
There, activities like indecent phone calls, rubbing on people on crowds or public transport (frotteurism), or sexual acts on corpses (necrophilia) are also found. The sexual intercourse with animals is called sodomy in this source.
My personal conclusion:
I consider animals under my care as my children and friends, not potential sexual partners but they are, as psychologists suggested, conditioned, therefore not willing participants. What can two different species, although capable of affection towards another, communicate in terms of what one party wants or not? There is a huge difference between « petting », caring and loving an animal in the case of protecting, sheltering him/her, feeding him/her and making sure he/she is healthy and imposing a sexual « preference » on him/her which he/she can’t agree verbally with. You might as well try to explain to a child why you want to have a sexual relationship with him. In both cases, you have no real consent or dialogue with the other being because that being doesn’t have the capacity (in terms of communication or maturity) to understand it and agree with it. Therefore, you’re dealing with someone who can’t consent at all unless, as mentioned above, manipulated into agreeing.
I find zoophilia and, in its worst form, bestiality, to be a psychological disease which I place on the same level as wanting or having sex with a (obviously non-consenting) child. Zoophilia, just like pedophilia, should be something that vegans should be aware of and outright reject.
And let’s not forget that, as Dr. Will Tuttle said many times, what we do to animals, we end up doing it to humans. It isn’t a coincidence that most cases of bestiality are committed by men just like in the case of rapes towards women.
Sources:
– If you want to sign a petition against bestiality in the USA: Forcechange.com
I received a post from a fellow activist recently that this was going to be her last action with us and this really bothered me in the sense that she obviously expressed burn out but also despair in her comments.
In essence, she was saying that this was her last action because « I am tired of people who don’t care and don’t listen to us ». We’ve all been through that. And it’s important to recognize how this burn out affects all of us.
We are surrounded by a lot of dark forces in the world right now. Whether we talk about « religious » extremism, state sponsored terror, corporatism, government spying, social inequalities and of course the plight and horror of what our animal friends go through, there is a lot to despair about. Is it any wonder that so many justice activists (in any social movements) just drop out? As vegans, we also face ridicule, incomprehension, social pressure and so on. There is nothing easy about fighting for any just causes and pushing social progress in the mentality of the masses.
In fact, the pressure is even getting worse as we see a rise in extremist terror, corporate and government overreach and manipulation. For instance, we saw the terror attacks in Paris and Boko Haram which were both horrific and linked to fanaticism. We see the spying of our governments on our privacy and their use of police brutality (whether we talk about innocent African Americans in the US, Environmental activists being killed in France or in South America or whether I get tear gassed by the police for standing up against bullfighters). We see also a war on women with damning statistics showing that « globally 35% of women have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence » (UN Statistics), forced into marriage as children or go through sexual mutilations.
All of this, as Dr. Will Tuttle would say, has its roots in our routine violence towards other animals and the constant suppression of feminine values of caring, compassion, nurturing of the Earth, the animals and each other. Extremism stems from a challenge to patriarchal rules wrapped in « religious » bigotry. Government spying results from a challenge from justice activists of all sides to question the status quo. And corporate domination result from people wanting governments actually representing them, paying them decent wages and corporations being greedy, pillaging entities who only care about the bottom line and the hell with our future on this planet.
The fact that it is getting worse is to me a good sign that big changes are under way in the background. This may sound like crazy thinking but read on.
Let’s get back to social justice for animals. Why are corporations so determined on buying up politicians to enact laws to prevent filming in factory farms? Because we are a threat to their bottom line. I don’t believe laws can be changed unless they come from grassroots efforts to put pressure on the puppets who want to control us. But when powerful elites feel threatened, just like kings, they will try to turn us more and more into serfs until, like in the French or American Revolution, we have finally enough and more and more of us rise up against them.
For the past few months, I have been doing Vegan education on the streets of Montpellier (France) and before that in Los Angeles, California. What I find fascinating in France is this thirst to learn more and this bigger openness to animal rights and veganism which is completely contrary to what I had expected since I considered Los Angeles as a « headquarter » of Veganism and Animal Rights thanks to the large number of activists and Vegan restaurants (compared to here). But the truth is that French people are generally less brainwashed and better educated (sorry Americans, it’s not to put you down as the good people that you are) and therefore more critical of their government and what they are told in general. The difference is really striking. The reason we have so little Vegan education in France is that Vegans and Vegetarians are extremely marginalized and that no government agencies recognizes plant-based eating as a healthy diet (America has the American Dietetic Association’s position on plant-based diets). And we also have (sic) our sacro-saint French cuisine recognized as « world heritage » which re-affirms the beliefs of people that a plant-based diet is not healthy.
Just this Saturday (Jan 31st), I held my first AVF (French Vegetarian Association) stand, which despite its name, strongly promotes Veganism and Veganic agriculture. I became a delegate for my region a few months ago because it is one of the few non-profits who directly promotes Vegan nutritional information to the public. I met so many people who thanked me for doing this, telling me that they were either vegetarian, already vegan, or trying to get there but didn’t know how (as there is not much education done in this country, except through the AVF and a few debates on TV) that I gave more business cards in one day than in months in the US. Of course, I also met the usual deniers but at least most of them took the time to try to understand and see our side of the story.
Now, let’s come back to the issue of women. Is it any surprising that there is an all time high of violence against women and suppression of their freedom around the world? No, it’s not. And it’s obviously because women are starting to come into their own power. We just have to look at the incredible example set by the most recent Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai who, even though she was almost silenced by patriarchal religious extremists, never gave up and keeps fighting for the right of girls to have education. What a powerful example! The violence against women and also the rise against their reproductive rights is similar to the way females are being exploited in animal husbandry. We are dealing with a 10,000 year old patriarchal mindset, also set in the religious institutions (if you really look at them, they are patriarchal) in which women, like other animals, are still seen as inferior by a lot of the world’s society.
The same way Vegan/Animal Rights activists are being repressed, women in general still can’t in many way achieve gender equality because of the rampant sexism, violence against them, work inequalities, religious bigotry, and so on… But the fact that both social justice movements scare the hell out of the ones who seek to control us, this violence on both sides is increasing.
I am reminded of these words from Ghandi: « When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always. »
Because we are getting stronger and there are more of us each day, these evil forces who seek to silence us and oppress us and other animals will eventually collapse like the castle of cards that they are. They are not build out of bricks, just out of sand because they don’t stem from truth and that is not sustainable. I believe more and more people are becoming aware of the inner truth of our world and are rejecting the status quo. The reaction to the attack on cartoonists in Paris and seeing an historical 4 million people on the streets (including myself) was a powerful statement that you can’t silence an idea when its time has come (whether you agree with Charlie’s work or not).
Let’s not forget what history teaches us. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was declared enemy #1 and called the « most dangerous negro in the US » by the FBI. Cesar Chavez (himself a vegan) connected the dots between oppression of humans and other animals and was also threatened multiple times. Environmental activists, like our Rémi Fraisse here in France, are murdered by the police for defending the land and biodiversity while Peruvian environmentalists are being murdered for defending their ancestral lands. Vegans are put in jail as well as other animal liberators and human rights activists. Yes, it is a tough world when you are on the side of justice.
But in the end, justice always prevail. The civil rights act was passed, women got the right to vote (at least in western countries), young women and other women are starting to rise up in Arabic countries where they are horribly oppressed, men are getting more and more in touch with their inner sensibility, and let’s not forget: more and more people are connecting the dots and going vegan.
So this is what I responded to my friend quoted above:
« I understand where you’re coming from. But we can never be sure of the impact we can have on other people. I have been an activist for almost 10 years (in the USA and now in France) and there is progress. The problem is that it is difficult to quantify our impact on others statistically but we do have one! I give you several examples:
– In the USA, almost all the non-vegans who came to me directly (and not solely through the internet) have become vegans and are now activists for other animals themselves. – In France, recently, at an anti foix-gras event, a young woman came to me to ask help for going vegan because she wasn’t sure how to go about it and was disgusted by the violence towards animals.
The problem is not that we don’t make any difference, we do! It is that we are still a minority. If we persevere (and I saw big changes in the USA in only a few years), we bring over more and more people to our cause who themselves influence others around them. It’s that simple.
If the suffragettes had given up because they were being ridiculed and were a minority, women would probably not have had the right to vote until much later. If blacks in the US had not persevered, racism would still be a legal institution. It doesn’t mean obviously that there is no longer any racism or sexism but that there are laws against some forms of discrimination.
The animal struggle (even though Greek philosophers already had positions in favor of animals and vegetarianism) is still in its infancy. The end of racial segregation in the USA took over 200 years (although there is now economic segregation, if not legal). We are not the ones who will see the changes, we are the pioneers. Our job is to plant the seeds which will grow principally in the future. »
The way to combat burn out is simple: stop for a while. It doesn’t mean giving up completely. But we are not machines, we have responsibilities, pressure, we feel down whenever we see cruelty and as vegans, we are especially sensitive to the pain of others. That’s what sets us apart from the blinded masses. We also face family pressure, social pressure. There is a time when it’s best to take a break and renew ourselves. What good is a burn out activist when it comes to educating people? It’s a waste of time. I would rather have people with me who are energized, passionate (passion mellowed with a little bit of wisdom) and committed to the goal of animal liberation than people who are too down and incapable of talking to people. We are still sensitive beings too.
It’s important to balance all the cruelty we see by seeing the other side. Animal photographer Jo-Anne McArthur is an example of someone who constantly takes horrific pictures of animal cruelty (and suffers from PTSD because of it) but renews herself by going to Farm Sanctuary on a regular basis to take pictures of happy animals, free of exploitation. We have to strike a balance in order to have the strength to keep going. Animal sanctuaries are a fantastic way of reminding ourselves why we do what we do and seeing happy animals is totally uplifting. But not everyone has a sanctuary close by to go to. I like watching uplifting videos also reminding me why I am into this, like this one from FUDA (A French Animal Rights group – United Forces for Animal Rights) called FUDA Together (subtitled in English) or this wonderful one from Evolve! Campaigns called Why Vegan? Go back in nature for a while, do a retreat. The important thing is to come back stronger than ever, and a better advocate than ever.
But giving up completely is not an option because I know that we are slowly winning. And by the way, my friend is back in action. Sources:
– Martin Luther King Jr.’s inspiring forgotten speech « Beyond Vietnam » on the military industrial complex, corporate and government power, war and why we need to keep on struggling for justice in a non-violent way on Breaking The Set.
– Jo-Anne McArthur’s extraordinary work can be seen in the movie The Ghosts in Our Machine. The movie can be bought in « instant watch » on Amazon.com and her book We Animals is a must read.
Photo: I am holding Chloe the Hen at the Gentle Barn Sanctuary in California (2013).
It always strikes me as odd that, otherwise educated people, can be so ignorant (or indifferent) about the plight of animals or human beings in misery. It is as if being educated makes you intolerant and ignorant instead of intelligent. But it is also true of non-educated people. It then brings the question of what is real intelligence.
First of all, intelligence has nothing to do with education or lack thereof. That is intellectual baggage. Real intelligence is from the heart, the kind that opens to others without prejudice, hate and bigotry. You can be the most educated person in the world but be the worst bigot, hateful person there is. You can also be a vegan and call other vegans « names » (as it happened to me recently because of one misunderstanding).
Intelligence is not about having an encyclopedic mind full of data (often useless, like what year such and such war started?) but is about opening up to new ideas, theories, and ask questions and more importantly not accepting blindly what is being taught to us.
Non-intelligent people think they know everything and often disguise it behind either diplomas, ego or false humility. The masses, often ignorant and blissfully (or not) manipulated by the media display non-intelligence and ignorance based on cultural dogma for which education, the medias and corporations have a great deal to do with.
As Thomas Jefferson once said: « He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. » And he also said: « Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. » And he wasn’t referring to education through corporate media obviously. But Jefferson himself, of course, was a product of his time, as would his slaves had testified and he never claimed to be perfect or right in everything.
Life is a constant re-examination of our knowledge. It is not acquired by accumulating information mindlessly (as if watching reality shows and Fox News equaled intelligent information). Our intelligence develops when we open our hearts enough to embrace everyone, even the worst of the worst and do everything we can to help them, not to do evil things of course, but to improve and heal from their sickness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: « To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. »
As society is trying to constantly mold us into robotic zombies, it is good to remember a few things:
We are not born with hate, bigotry, the desire for animal flesh or their secretions, sexism, racism and speciesism and even violent tendencies. That is injected into us over and over and over again by the propaganda machines that we and our parents and our grand-parents, and so on, have heard for thousands of years. Therefore we are far from wise, not because we don’t have wisdom in ourselves, but because it is deeply suppressed and repressed by ourselves and others.
The depth of humanity’s non-intelligence as well as intelligence is highly visible nowadays. Just spend a day on Facebook and you will see it all: from loving, caring people rescuing animals and helping the poor to deeply sick people who have secret Facebook groups on bestiality and display it in living colors (I am currently involved in trying to shut down one of these). We see people moving you with words of kindness as well as hateful people (vegans included ironically and sadly) bashing others because they don’t fall into their criteria of what THEY consider acceptable (or vegan enough). Who made them intellectually superior? God? The Blair Witch? Who?
Intelligence of the heart is about questioning not just the world but, most importantly, ourselves…. every single day. If someone has a negative reaction towards you, don’t ask what’s wrong with him/her. Ask what’s wrong with yourself. Because when you really are deeply centered and kind and have a strong message, it is hard to argue against it. Of course, they will try but you already planted seeds in them. And, for the record, I’m not saying here that I am always successful. In other words, I constantly work on myself to be better to the best of my abilities (and I consider myself still highly selfish). There are very few people in the world I truly consider intelligent (in their heart). Intelligent people are not those who put themselves on a pedestal as if they were superior to others, they are the opposite. They are usually the most humble (case in point, the most intelligent man I know in our time: Dr. Will Tuttle).
Juddi Krishnamurti once said: « There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning. »
Intelligence is also not about punishing but helping. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world (with only about 5% of the world’s population). Does it help stop violence? Of course not. If it did, America would be the safest country in the world. Opposite to this, there is the example of Norway. Norway’s longest penal sentence is 21 years (even for rapists or murderers). They have one of the highest standard of living in the world. Their prisons look like summer camps (obviously isolated so they don’t escape). What do they do? Instead of treating even violent criminals like dirt and humiliate them, they help them getting safely re-inserted into society as productive contributors. Norway has one of the lowest rate of recidivism in the world. By the way, it also has the lowest crime rate in the world. Coincidence? I think not.
But this is not a new idea. Native American nations like the Iroquois Confederacy understood that. In fact, the US Constitution was greatly inspired by the Iroquois Confederacy (little conveniently ignored fact not taught in US schools). Women, in fact, made the most important decisions. In the meantime, white Europeans (while thinking the Iroquois had good ideas) denied white women, African Americans and other people of non-white descent and white men who didn’t own property the right to vote.
Iroquois had their murderers too. How did they deal with them? Did they lock them up? No. They considered someone who committed a crime to be sick and they helped him/her accordingly. If the person could not be healed/cured, that person would be banished from the tribe. In the 21st century, we still lock people up in solitary confinement and we wonder why they commit crimes again? We lock up mentally disabled people, teenagers, non-violent offenders, a majority of them African Americans. And then, when they get out, we tell them, sorry, you’re not a citizen anymore (even though you spent 40 years in prison and paid your sentence) therefore you can’t vote and participate in society anymore (let alone find a job). And then there is capital punishment (banished in France since the 1970’s but still considered « useful » in some parts of the US). That is not intelligence, that is a mentality which has its base in the dark ages.
It is also interesting and not surprising to note that, contrary to common white myth, most native tribes of North America (with a couple of exceptions like the Inuits and the Apaches) were eating a mostly plant-based diet before the Europeans showed up on their shores. In order to demonize others and take what they have, you have to depict them as blood thirsty monsters. In fact, as documented by Choctaw Native American author Rita Law, the bulk of the diet of most Indians were plants. Dr. Law talks about her own native culture in this way:
« More than one tribe has creation legends which describe people as vegetarian, living in a kind of Garden of Eden. A Cherokee legend describes humans, plants, and animals as having lived in the beginning in « equality and mutual helpfulness ». The needs of all were met without killing one another. When man became aggressive and ate some of the animals, the animals invented diseases to keep human population in check. The plants remained friendly, however, and offered themselves not only as food to man, but also as medicine, to combat the new diseases. «
Ironically, that is exactly what is happening in our time. We fulfilled the creation myth of the Cherokee people (and of course we can find a similar creation myth in all religious and spiritual societies of the world, the Bible most notably).
« What I continue to discover is how far from reality are many of the “official stories” that we tell ourselves and teach our children. They are stories that serve a specific purpose, which is to justify the existing order, and they are passed on effortlessly and subconsciously, because they make us all comfortable in believing, in this case, that our current practice of enslaving and slaughtering huge numbers of animals for food (75 million daily in the U.S. alone) is somehow a normal and natural expression of who we are as human beings. It is no accident that we term native cultures “hunter-gatherers.”
But intelligence, in the case of animal abusers, is also understanding why they have become that way. I researched and wrote extensively about this in my article Link Between Violence to Animals and Humans: A Deeper Look. But to summarize what I say in that article for the purpose of this one, we live in a society that teaches us to disconnect from our inner compassion from birth. It starts by convincing us to eat animal foods and their secretions while we « pet » cats and dogs. So we create this schizophrenic mentality of loving some species of animals on one side and hate others at the same time by consuming their bodies. We then start this cycle of mental instability that follows us into adulthood. In other words, we live in a sick society and none of us are immune, whether you call yourself vegan or not. As Khrisnamurti once said: « It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. »
People who abuse children have often been abused themselves as children. People who abuse other animals often have also been abused as children and dealt with their sense of powerlessness by abusing someone even more defenseless than themselves: other animals. If this is not taken at the root, this is carried into adulthood.
So let’s learn to really listen intelligently to others. « So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it. » ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
As Vegans we carry huge burdens: we know what is being done to other animals, the environment and the health of human beings. But what we generally ignore is what has been done to ourselves. Until we remove these roots (of intolerance, bigotry, sexism, hate, ego and so on) from our own sub-conscious, it will be very hard to really move the world in the right direction. We have an extraordinary opportunity to save all beings and the eco-system on this planet. So I am asking you? What do you do about saving yourselves from your own shortcomings and become the example you want others to follow?
Michael Moore’s documentary Sicko (about the Health Care system) is online. Unfortunately, the segment about Norway was deemed too « radical » for American audiences compared even to the segment about France and therefore does not appear in the theatrical release but is included on the DVD of the movie in the special features. The version linked here is subtitled in Spanish.
Obligatory reading: The World Peace Diet by Dr. Will Tuttle, which beautifully and clearly explains the roots of our culture.
// leonardvincent.net — Éclats politiques en aparté, littérature française partout ailleurs. — "Moy, je m’offre par mes opinions les plus vives et par la forme plus mienne." — Montaigne, Essais III.
« Je ne plierai pas, je ne m’en irai pas en silence. Je ne me soumettrai pas. Je ne me retournerai pas. Je ne me conformerai pas. Je ne me coucherai pas. Je ne me tairai pas. Le courage, c’est de chercher la vérité et de la dire ; ce n’est pas subir la loi du mensonge triomphant » (Jean Jaurès).
C'est Quoi le Véganisme - Véronique Perrot 