La République morbide de l’idiocratie

Nous vivons une étrange époque ou l’esprit critique est complètement mis de côté pour le « buzz » ou le « putaclisme » politico-médiatique. Plus rien n’est comme avant. Ou plutôt, tout est en fait comme avant mais démasqué. C’est un peu comme si Donald Trump s’était emparé de l’Elysée et avait révélé, comme il le fait de « l’élite » américaine la totale idiocratie qui règne dans les fin-fonds du néolibéralisme.

Le président de la république française est autant le comptable de cette idiocratie que le président Trump l’est de celle des Etats-Unis. Mais ils ne sont pas les seuls. Cela fait 40 ans que cela dure. Cela fait 40 que cela se délite et que la presse, qui devrait être un contre pouvoir, n’est plus qu’une méritocratie de bourgeois trop contents de bien profiter de leur place. Et ils sont très grassement payés par les milliardaires qui signent leurs chèques.

La petite presse indépendante fait ce qu’elle peut pour tenir un discours alternatif mais est, de la même manière que la presse américaine, noyéee sous le flot de médiacrates qui noient le discours avec les idées de la droite réactionnaire jusqu’à l’extrême droite. Ils glorifient la violence et le tout immédiat, ne parlent jamais des enjeux du siècle (genre la guerre sur l’eau, mais qu’importe si cela a avoir avec notre survie!) et font des exortations à plus de libéralisme, plus de droits pour le patronat, se fichent royalement que des millions d’espèces animales ou que la nature soit litérallement en train de crever du moment que le CAC 40 est heureux. Et bonus, ils font parler sur les plateaux toutes les pires crevures de ces dernières années comme Manuel Valls, un royaliste ayant déserté son mandat pour rejoindre l’extrême droite Espagnole et soutenir le coup d’état contre Evo Morales en Bolivie mais qui est surtout grandement responsable des attentats de 2015 pendant que Hollande financait les Jihadistes en Syrie.

Si nous avions une vraie presse de contre-pouvoir, ce mec ne tiendrait pas 1 minute sur un plateau.

Depuis les années de fin de règne de Mittérand jusqu’à Macron aujourd’hui, la République est en train de crever à petit feu sous les coups d’une oligarchie en lien avec la haute administration du pays qui n’en a jamais assez. Les « médias » ne sont là que pour lui cirer les pompes, promouvoir la haine raciste et islamophobe et même une tarée comme Marine LePen déclare elle-même que CNEWS est SA chaine.

Les liens entre les macronistes et l’extrême droite ne font même plus de doute. En 2017, on prétendait faire « barrage ».

Dans ce foutoir qu’est la République et notamment l’inaction criminelle du gouvernement face au Covid en refusant notamment les masques gratuits, des tests de grande échelle etc, nous avons aussi l’hypocrisie envers la réponse face au terroriste islamique qui est le cache sexe de l’hypocrisie de l’impérialisme français lui-même. Qui finance le salafisme dans le monde si ce ne sont les grands amis de Hollande, Macron et Valls, l’Arabie Saoudite. Et qui a envoyé plus de 400 jihadistes français en Syrie parce que le gouvernement français, vassal de l’empire américain, a décidé de se méler des affaires des Syriens? On le doit aux Sarkozy, Hollande, Valls, Macron et toute cette clique de néolibéraux dont le cerveau marche à court terme et surtout en fonction des cours du pétrole sur lesquels toute l’économie des Etats-Unis repose.

On peut penser ce qu’on veut d’Assad mais on peut dire beaucoup par contre du régime d’Arabie Saoudite que nos « élites » adorent et sous-traitent depuis des décennies. Pour régler la question du terrorisme islamiste en France, il va falloir arrêter de jouer les faux-culs et mettre certains devant la justice. Qu’attend d’ailleurs cette justice pour foutre Sarkozy en prison pour avoir aidé Obama et Hillary Clinton à transformer la Libye en marché d’esclaves? Non, ça personne ne veut en parler ou traduire qui que ce soit en justice. On pourrait d’ailleurs ajouter BHL à la liste des propagandistes criminels qui polluent les plateaux télé depuis bien trop longtemps.

La liste pourrait être longue mais on peut facilement découvrir à quel point nos médias sont complices de ces fanatiques libéraux depuis des années en lisant le livre de Serge Halimi par exemple.

Quand à l’extrême droite, elle a toujours été utile aux capitalistes. N’oublions pas qu’Hitler a été élu sur la débacle de l’Allemagne d’avant guerre incapable de répondre aux besoins sociaux. Mussolini a clairement revendiqué le fascisme comme étant le mariage du capitalisme et de l’état. Ce n’est pas nouveau, nous le savons historiquement. Cela fait depuis les années Chirac que l’extrême droite est sciemment banalisée et dédiabolisée par les médias au point que des tarés comme Zemmour font ce qu’ils veulent même lorsqu’ils sont condamnés. Qui est responsable si ce n’est ceux qui ont laissé faire? Les mêmes qui passent maintenant lois liberticides après lois liberticides.

Et pendant que tout cela domine les « médias », personne ne parle des 80% de mammifères en train de disparaître de la surface de la terre, personne ne s’offusque de la privatisation grampante de l’éducation nationale, de la santé, de nos forêts, de notre eau, de nos vies. Tant que l’argent coûle à flot, LES MEDIAS S’EN TAPENT.

Finalement, les libéraux ont réussi leur coup: ils ont transformé la France en 51ème état des Etats-Unis, bien alignée et docile et bien entendu bien arrimée à l’OTAN, la machine de guerre américaine. Ne vous y trompez pas, lorsqu’un média met très en avant des manifestations dans « certains » pays, la propagande impériale est présente. C’est son rôle, c’est ce qu’elle a toujours fait pour ses propres intérêts. La nouvelle guerre froide contre la Chine en est un exemple. Maintenant, saurez-vous avoir un esprit plus critique qu’au temps des « armes de destruction massive » de Saddam? Pas sûr. C’est ce qui fait la force de la propagande et du marketing sur les cerveaux. Après tout, si on arrive à convaincre les gens de manger des choses néfastes pour eux, on les convaincra d’appuyer d’autres guerres. C’EST LA MEME CHOSE.

Interview with Will Tuttle, author of the international best-seller "The World Peace Diet"

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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.

WPD.1

 

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© Copyright January 2016 – Vegan Empowerment/Veronique Perrot – All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or publication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given with appropriate and specific direction to the original content

#JeSuisCharlie: Why it should matter to justice activists

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“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” 

~ Voltaire

“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it. »

~ Voltaire

For the last few days and I believe for the next few weeks also, I am and will continue to grieve the events of Paris and the slaughtered people of Charlie Hebdo as well as the police officers, hostages, and the death of a poor dog caught in all this insanity. This is therefore a very difficult blog for me to write but one that I find necessary to explain certain things to the rest of the world.

Charlie has been a pillar of free speech for years before it was even called Charlie Hebdo (the name derives from the character Charlie Brown in Peanuts and is an inside joke about President Charles De Gaulle; Hebdo means weekly). Most people in France (who are old enough) remember its earlier version called Hara-Kiri. I read many people’s comments on Facebook, Twitter and the numerous articles in the world’s press. For days during the unfolding between the slaughter, the hostage situations and the manhunts, I was glued to my computer screen (and TV set) and witnessed the world’s reaction to all of this (and mourned/cried a lot). It mostly felt like a horror movie in which the ending is really bad for the heroes. I still carry a deep pain in my heart as of this writing. I particularly can’t look at pictures of Cabu without having tears.

Some said that Charlie « had gone too far ». What I find fascinating is that these comments mostly come from people outside the country who don’t understand something: French satire. So let me give you some historical context for this.

French satire is a tool to express anger, rage, revolt, humor and rejection of the status quo which has been around since the days of Queen Marie Antoinette and to ridicule and fight the then Royalist Feudal system which kept millions of French in dire poverty while a tiny elite of aristocrats were living in Versailles and other castles. They were the 1% of their time, while the rest of the country was its 99% (sounds familiar?). Satire is even older than that as you can find it in the most oppressive kingdoms in history where the only people who could ridicule their rulers were the « bouffons » or court jesters. They could be funny and obscene but they were allowed, weirdly enough, to have their say. No one else could.

Satire (particularly French satire) is based on a total rejection of any « ism », whether it is the then « Royalisme » (from royalists) of the kings and queens, or the « ism » of religion, the « ism » of capitalism, the « ism » of all racism, but also ridiculing the ridicule. It can explain also why Charlie Hebdo is also the only newspaper in France (satirical or not) which takes strong positions on animal rights (as the cartoon in this blog shows). Yes they can be vulgar, obscene, provocative, even downright unpalatable at times. But they say their truths with their best weapons: their pencils and words. That is the essence of a free society (at least ours) that what you say can’t and should never be policed by violence, whether it’s the state, corporate manipulation or in this case, fanatics.

They were not the only ones. Before he died (or was murdered, depending on who you believe), the comedian Coluche (a legend here) was also very much like Charlie Hebdo: vulgar, outrageous, provocative. He even did a mock « gay wedding » with a fellow (gay) comedian at a time when you couldn’t even talk about gay rights, let alone gay weddings. He never said he was gay (he was married) but bluntly said on television 30 years ago that « he had tried it but in the end, that didn’t work out » (and got a big laugh). This shocked a lot of people 30 years ago but now he is a reference impossible to ignore in France’s political and social discourse. Coluche’s outrageous exterior was hiding a heart of gold and he founded « Les Restaurants du Coeur » (Restaurants of the Heart), which 30 years after his death, still feed poor people (of all races and creeds), help them with legal issues, provide services to re-insert them into society, etc… The best satirists and sometimes the most outrageous and provocative people (at least in France) have proven to be also the most generous to others. Cabu was vegetarian and was seen many times protesting animal cruelty. Charb, Wolinsky, Cabu, and Tignous and the other victims present at the newspaper meeting (ironically about racism) that day, as well as Luce Lapin (who was wounded but fortunately is alive) have always took positions for denouncing absurdity while making people laugh at it. But their position on animal rights is not even the point here.

France is a secular country. As such, we don’t follow anything but secular laws, not religious laws. In fact, you’re not supposed to even show your religious affiliations in Federal systems like Public Schools (Private & Religious schools are a different matter). Racism is an offense in our laws, mocking religion is not. Charlie is anti-racist and never mocked people based on their race. But they have the right to mock religion. So whether one religious community feels insulted or not, our right to free speech is protected by law. And for the record, nowhere in the Koran does it say that you can’t do a drawing or any representation of the Prophet. This is an idea that has been around since the 15th century only and has become culturally accepted by some Muslims but not all. Religions tend to change in time. There were a time when women had no soul for the Catholic Church. Animals still don’t according to them. I was raised Catholic but would never have criticized the right of Charlie to mock the Catholic religion (and they did).

When I moved to the United States, I was ready to follow its laws. There is a reason I never moved to various countries in the world, it’s because I didn’t agree with their laws because they had religion as their state laws. Separation of « Church and State » is a sacred right we won with the French Revolution. It is not debatable even if it may insult various groups.

A society where anyone can say anything is what allows vegans, environmental and human rights activists in general to be bold and daring at exposing uncomfortable truths to society.

When I was at the Montpellier Republican March (not to confuse the word « republican » as a party as a lot of Americans did, it means March for the Republique), I felt compelled to document visually this day by not just filming the other 100,000 plus people who were there with me but to hear their voices, their feelings. Muslims talked to me. Children talked to me. Even a French-Mexican woman talked to me (I had never met a Mexican living in France, only in Los Angeles). There were people who said that Charlie Hebdo went « too far ». But all of them, Muslims included, said that what these fanatics did had nothing to do with Islam and that, even though they disapproved of caricatures of the Prophet, they also approved of the right of others, in a free society, to ridicule him. It is interesting to know that, besides the threats that fanatics (using religion as an excuse) had made to Charlie, it’s mostly the Catholic Church who sued them most over the years. But that is meaningless, Catholics burned down theaters in France when the movie « The Temptation of Christ » was released. So fanatics can use any religion as an excuse and atheists (like the former Soviet Union’s stalinists, the Nazis, and so on) can use non-religious ideologies with the same zeal to kill as well (and they killed millions of people). And as all the Muslims I met told me, the Prophet would never had agreed with this, no matter how offended he would have been.

Joe Randazzo of the Onion said it well:

« This will be framed by many as the latest salvo in an ongoing war between the West and Islam, when what this really amounts to is the slaughter of innocent people. These murderers don’t represent anyone but themselves, their own twisted view of reality. They don’t stand for an entire religion anymore than the Westboro Baptist Church stands for an entire religion or the Ku Klux Klan stands for an entire race. »

As activists, we are in a unique time. We live in an extremely bipolar society. It does a 180 in just a matter of hours on every issues. One day, Foix Gras is banned in California, the next a judge changes it back. One day, some guys write a silly cartoon, the next 12 people die for holding pencils from guys who want to police free speech and freedom of expression with violence. This has never been seen before in the West but is common place in repressive regimes in other countries where journalists and human rights activists are commonly put in jail, even killed, for far less than what Charlie did. Let’s never forget that.

I defend the rights of Charlie to continue to be funny, obscene (at times) as much as I defend the rights of people like Bill Maher to trash Rush Limbaugh (and vice-versa), or the rights of someone to trash Michael Moore. As Moore explained in his movie « Sicko », he helped a guy maintaining his website, the biggest anti Michael Moore website on the web, with a check so that the guy could pursue his constitutional right « to trash him into the ground » so he could pay the medical bills for his sick wife. I also defend South Park to also be obscene, funny and gross. I can’t always stomach South Park, but I do stomach Maher and like him (even when he trashes religion, which is not something I always find smart or agree with). No one, I hope, will walk into his show with guns to silence him. Bill Maher has a very good response, for instance, for those who hate Rush Limbaugh: « Don’t listen to him ». That’s the point. I personally can’t stomach Rush Limbaugh, therefore I don’t listen to him. But I would never tell him he doesn’t have the right to his opinions, however distasteful, racists, sexists, I find them.

I gave my business card to the mother of a child I filmed at the march and she saw on the card that I was a vegan. Her reaction was: « This is not about that right? », she said, offended. I was dealing with lots of emotions and just said « no, it’s not. » She went as far as asking me if I would spread the mini-documentary on « these kinds of Facebook platforms ». So much for free speech and freedom of being a vegan. I wanted to say « well it’s MY freedom of expression and the freedom of animals » but was too emotionally distraught and didn’t want to antagonize on that particular day. Now I regret it.

After a few days, It has never been more important to me to defend free speech because when that right is repressed for anyone in society, it is repressed for all. As activists, we already have a hard time spreading our message but if it weren’t for that free speech we cherish and the chance we have to (so far) live in societies which allow that, how far our message would go?

Joe Randazzo in the Onion, once again, formulated it well:

« Satire must always accompany any free society. It is an absolute necessity. Even in the most repressive medieval kingdoms, they understood the need for the court jester, the one soul allowed to tell the truth through laughter. It is, in many ways, the most powerful form of free speech because it is aimed at those in power, or those whose ideas would spread hate. It is the canary in the coalmine, a cultural thermometer, and it always has to push, push, push the boundaries of society to see how much it’s grown. »

Activists should applaud the ideas of free speech, even the offensive ones because without them, there is no freedom at all. Politically correct thinking is often used by politicians and corporations to repress our rights and manipulate us. Satire (even the less palatable to some), has in the past and will continue to point out the truths that others choose to ignore.

Ross Douthat, of the New York Times (not exactly a satirical newspaper) probably had the best point:

« But we are not in a vacuum. […] because the kind of blasphemy that Charlie Hebdo engaged in had deadly consequences, as everyone knew it could … and that kind of blasphemy is precisely the kind that needs to be defended, because it’s the kind that clearly serves a free society’s greater good. If a large enough group of someones is willing to kill you for saying something, then it’s something that almost certainly needs to be said, because otherwise the violent have veto power over liberal civilization, and when that scenario obtains it isn’t really a liberal civilization any more. Again, liberalism doesn’t depend on everyone offending everyone else all the time, and it’s okay to prefer a society where offense for its own sake is limited rather than pervasive. But when offenses are policed by murder, that’s when we need more of them, not less, because the murderers cannot be allowed for a single moment to think that their strategy can succeed. »

If we’re to succeed as activists of all kinds, we need to keep our society as free speech zones for all (even the ones we disagree with). Because when this freedom disappears, it disappears for all, including and particularly us. When I saw the outpouring of worldwide support, it didn’t remove the pain but it cushioned it. After all, Cabu’s cartoons were around when I was a kid. He used to draw cartoons on a children show I watched as a kid (proving that he was not just outrageous). The others were French institutions in their own rights. We lost very important people because these people were some of the few who dared resists the status quo, the ridiculous (by being more ridiculous than the ridiculous, if you know what I mean), questioning everything, mocking everyone, regardless of political, religious inclinations and, like all good satirists in history, pointed out truth where others didn’t dare go because of their bias for being politically correct, stay in power and maintain conformity.

What this teaches us all is that we have to fight for all to express themselves or none is free to speak.

And let’s not forget the others who died or helped in this tragedy. Several policemen/women died in this tragedy, among them a Muslim and a black. Others saved hostages, like a Muslim man working at the kosher grocery store. At the march, I saw Jews and Muslims holding hands in solidarity because they recognized that these killers in no way represented ANY religious beliefs. But they also recognized that this freedom of speech and expression is what gave them their right to practice their faith. It’s what gives us OUR right to be the voice of the voiceless, to be vegans, to be animal, human and environmental rights activists.

This is a wakeup call to the world and the world responded by saying #IAmCharlie. But certain forces (you saw them heading the Paris march) will make sure that we try to forget this moment of truth by pushing us back into the darkness of ignorance and conformity. In fact, I know for sure that, if Cabu had been watching the march, he would have drawn a cartoon to mock these political opportunists the following day. They are already taking advantage just like they took advantage of 9/11. Some people here are even starting to talk about « False Flag » attacks. Look up the term.

It is up to us all whether this tragedy taught the world a real lesson and to see how far we have grown and how far they will keep us ignorant.

Below various links and cartoons as well as two videos: mine from the march in Montpellier (subtitled in English) in which I interviewed as many people as I could to hear the voice of citizens (not the official media) and one on the New York Times website about the Charlie staff in 2006.

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Cartoon from Bidu: What are cartoonists still able to laugh at?

« I drew a tomato… » « It’s pretty, it’s cool, no risk with a tomato! »

« Mmm I don’t know… Have you thought about the fundamentalist vegetarians? »

My video (subtitled in English) of the Montpellier (Hérault region of France) march with over 100,000 people and various interviews.

Charlie Hebdo is not dead. Guns can’t kill free speech. 3 million copies (compared to the usual 60,000) out because the world demanded it. Article from The Independent.

As of Jan 14, 2015: 5 million copies out in various languages, including Arabic (online only).

More on what is Charlie Hebdo about and its history on Wikipedia

Interesting article of Islam’s hijacking by extremists.

Video on the New York Times website (subtitled in English) of the Charlie Hebdo staff in 2006.

Excellent article from the New York Times: Islam’s Problem With Blasphemy

Update January 16, 2015: Finally someone said the truth on TV. Chris Hedges about Charlie on Breaking the Set

Update Jan 16, 2015: Great article from Chris Hedges about the real problem with North Africans in France, Message from the dispossessed.

Update Jan 16, 2015: Also great interview on Democracy Now! of Tariq Ramadan and Rick McArthur about the bigger picture.

Jeremy Scahill on the Hypocrisy of World Leaders at the Paris march.

I agree with Bill Maher on this: Real Time with Bill Maher: Self Censorship vs. Free Speech (HBO)

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Below: I can’t be manipulated. I support the families of Charlie Hebdo but, however, the emotion doesn’t affect my capacity to think.

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INTELLIGENCE OF THE HEART

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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).

This is also well documented by Dr. Will Tuttle in his article What Did American Indians Eat, Actually? As Will explains beautifully:

« 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?

Photo courtesy of http://www.pixabay.com (Free stock pictures)

Sources:

Thom Hartmann on the Iroquois: « The Edison Gene: ADHD and the Gift of the Hunter Child » (extract from his book)

See also this video of Thom Hartmann on the Iroquois: Iroquois Confederacy

Will Tuttle: What did American Indians Really Eat?

Rita Law, Ph.D. : Native Americans and Vegetarianism

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.

© Vegan Empowerment/Véronique Perrot – December 2014 – All Rights Reserved – No printing without permission but sharing is encouraged.

Committing Genocide to Celebrate Another Genocide

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I don’t think I’ve ever know a more ridiculous holiday than Thanksgiving in my life either in my country of origin or in the US and Canada (or any countries that I know off).

The American (and Canadian) people sit down at a table with their families to gives thanks for something which is more like a fantasy while stuffing the corpse of a turkey’s behind (and I am being polite). Millions of these poor animals are killed all year long but particularly on this holiday and for most clueless Americans, this symbolizes some form of sick psychosis un-related with the original Thanksgiving.

The most ridiculous part of this sick holiday is probably the « pardon of the turkey » by the president. And what exactly are turkeys guilty of? Wanting to live? I wander if Dennis Kucinich (who was the only vegan in Congress), had he become president, would have refused to participate in this grotesque insult or took it as an opportunity to deliver a message of compassion for the fate of these animals. We will never know because, unfortunately, he was not chosen to run against the Republicans.

But let’s not also forget that it is a total insult to the first people of the Americas: Native Americans & First Nations (as they are called in Canada) who were brutally slaughtered, pillaged, raped as soon as the first white people showed up on the continent they lived on. If the pilgrims were around today, they would be called Jihadists!

So, I want to be thankful for only one thing: the fact that more and more people are aware of the cruel irony of this holiday for both the animals and the people who were massacred.

But I wish one thing: either someone renames this holiday « Honor Native Americans Day (and the turkeys) » or that this ridiculous gluttony be finally abolished as something that should never have been celebrated in the first place.

If you still decide to « celebrate » this lie, please do it the Vegan way and join many vegans in North America who chose to eat WITH the turkeys and not the turkeys themselves and give thanks for being Vegans.

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Photos: Courtesy of http://www.Pixabay.com

© Copyright VeganEmpowerment/Véronique Perrot – Nov 2014 – All Rights Reserved. No republishing allowed without permission – Sharing is encouraged!

CONDITIONING, HISTORY & SCIENCE: Breaking Free to better Advocate for Non-Humans and Humans

March 2nd, 2014

The Animal Advocacy Museum presents a talk by Veronique N. Perrot, World Peace Diet Facilitator, Holistic Vegan Coach and Certified in Plant-Based Nutrition, on the power of our society to condition us and how we can break free and help others get free by recognizing the signs of our own conditioning.

Part 1 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij0IRH0molw

Part 2 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM7pB9M6980

Part 3 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgOGeyn-3bE

WHY PROTESTS ARE FOR THE MOST PART USELESS

Protests have been part of our history and all cultures of the world for the longest. People have protested all sorts of things, from war to poverty to women’s rights and animal rights. But how useful is it to even protest? With this article, I am possibly bringing a controversial take on the effectiveness of protests but I need to make a point here.

The need to protest is something I completely understand. I did protest in the past, against wars, for immigrant rights, against fur and animal cruelty. Then I came to realize that it was a waste of my time. The reason for this is that it has little educational value.

During the Vietnam War, thousands of people were drafted against their will and even though there were a lot of protests, the war was ended because a strong minority of people were against the draft and refused to go to war.

When Bush decided on the war in Iraq, there was no draft forcing some of us to go to war. War is now a voluntary venture. If you decide to put a uniform on, you are for war, whether you think you have a valid reason or not. The decision to start the Iraq war prompted the largest peaceful protest in human history, with millions of people all over the world peacefully protesting against it. Did it stop the war? Well we know the answer to that one. But why not?

Let’s look at how society functions and for that matter it applies to animal rights as well. Most people are cogs in a machine. They don’t function consciously. There is so much going on in their daily routine that they can’t see beyond what’s going on in their lives. No one is making a case to them that there is value in changing a few things in their lives and opening their minds to a different way of thinking. There are however a lot of groups out there to tell them to change their light bulbs, change their cars and buy so-called “free range” eggs, that’s about it. Where is the profound shift? Telling someone to change light bulbs or buying “free range” doesn’t create a meaningful or profound shift in the person’s belief system; it keeps the status quo in place. However, challenging peoples’ deepest held beliefs in a peaceful and non-preaching way forces them to think (maybe for the first time in their lives).  People are made to believe in myths, whether these myths are about what’s good for their country or what’s important in their daily lives. Societies are built on conditioning and false beliefs to which people are held hostage to. All of this is controlled by a tiny elite who has all the financial power to keep the status quo going and no incentive to change in order to keep said power in place. The Iraq war happened because some of us put on a uniform and were ok going to war, therefore feeding our masters. Most people are not even aware that they are being controlled and manipulated against their own interests. Can talking to people possibly change them? Yes. Will it change a lot of people? That will depend on our effectiveness as speakers and how we make our case. But if we are ourselves still part of the general conditioning, we need to change first so we don’t become the blind leading the blind.

It is the same in the animal rights movement. We protest but we keep buying from corporations, McDonald or Wal-Mart types corporations as well as animal type corporations (read the large animal “rights” organization). The latter are telling us that protesting is good and that giving them money is good because it will make a difference to the animals just like we believe that shopping at Wal-Mart is good for us or that sending our sons and daughters to war is good for our country.

In all cases, this is delusional. We are still manipulated and brainwashed. If protests worked, they would have stopped most wars and killed the animal industries a long time ago. But they simply don’t because they do not change people from the inside and deprogram or change their habits. Protests may get others to think but there is usually little education done. Protests usually attack the institutions but they do not change the ones who feed these institutions. As long as you have soldiers, you will have wars. As long as you have people who believe that a piece of land is more important than your neighbor’s well being, you have wars. As long as you believe that your religious beliefs matter, you have wars. As long as people eat animals, you will have starvation and therefore wars. Violence feeds violence and ignorance keeps people enslaved and pawns to the elites who are the ones who keep profiting. If you believe all the above doesn’t apply to you, you are even more brainwashed than you think. As long as you have people spending money at McDonald’s or Wal-Mart you have corporate masters who buy governments. As long as you don’t create peaceful community education, you won’t change how people think and show them how to stop feeding the system which enslaves them and other beings. The only changes possible are those which address the roots of our problems and not its symptoms.

What can be done? So far the Peace Movement has not made the connection with the Vegan Movement and recognized that they are part of the same fight. The first step is for the peace movement to connect ALL the dots. You can’t have peace in the world if you have violence on your plate three times a day. How do you expect to feed the starving when you munch on a cow’s corpse for lunch and dinner? Your meat is directly linked to starvation in the world as most of the grain (which could feed people) is fed to cattles (up to 80% of the US grain currently). Your meat is also directly linked to environmental devastation as the Rainforest is currently torn down for cattle grazing and feed for bovine slaves. Animal “foods” are behind most of the soil erosion and water and air pollution of the word. Don’t believe me; check what the United Nations’ report “Livestock Long Shadow” and the WorldWatch Institute say about this. If you care about the environment and desire peace, you have to change your lifestyle completely. Your health is directly linked to what you eat. When you eat that steak today, think about what it does to your body and how this benefits big pharma and their drug industry. You directly contribute to a disease care system which keeps you drugged and docile.

Second, people who want peace (and are vegan) need to truly educate others as to the reasons why they should do everything in their power to starve the system. Once again it is a matter of individual choices. If you pretend to be for peace but you are ok with your son taking on the uniform to become cannon fodder for the rich, you are living a dream. If you are ok with feeding the system by shopping at Wal-Mart, you are feeding those who profit from it, the ones at the very top or the 1% as we call them. You are not a human being anymore, you are just a consumer. Why do you think Bush said to people to go shop after 9/11? Because he knew that people’s habit of consuming would dumb them down and the power elites could do whatever they want. If you have a dumbed down and ignorant citizenry, it is easy to dupe them and do whatever you want for profit.

The Peace movement just like the Animal Rights movement is somehow cowardly when it comes to truly educating people. The large animal “rights” organizations waste millions of dollars on managing exploitation. In the 19th century, if abolitionists had wasted their time on regulating exploitation of slaves, we would still have institutionalized slavery. Slavery, in itself, is unfortunately not gone, but no one (except maybe a few staunch racists out there and giant corporations who profit from slave labor) would agree that it is ok to enslave other humans. If instead of protesting, we had tables everywhere in the country (and possibly the world) on peaceful vegan education and how to be true citizens (as opposed to consumers), we could educate thousands of people. And better yet, educating people on how to be true earthlings would be even more empowering than the idea of nationalist citizenry which just continues to reinforce separatism among people and other beings of this planet.  

Maybe you will perceive me as fantasist and unrealistic. Possibly. However, I have never seen any real effectiveness in protests, except as a good way to vent our frustrations. Tomorrow, we can all have a town hall and decide to band together to provide solar panels to our communities to reduce the demand for fossil fuels. Tomorrow we can have a town hall and explain to people why their demand for flesh is starving others and destroying the environment, their health and the lives of non-human victims uselessly. Instead of blindly following the so-called non-profits, we can have groups of people setting up educational workshops. Why don’t we do this? Because of the constant brainwashing that our institutions and the so-called peace and animal rights organizations impose upon us because we let them. There is no profit in Vegan/Peace education. But there is a lot of money to be made in single campaign issues for either humans or non-humans.

We will never change the system by protesting the institutional abusers (of humans and non-human animals) if we don’t eliminate demand for everything which oppresses us. But we have to become conscious of our own oppression and conditioning. We will however make changes when all of us finally decide to work together and peacefully educate others on how to de-condition and deprogram each others. Then and only then can we hope for a better world. Peaceful Vegan education is the key, so go out there and talk to people.

© copyright May 2013. All rights reserved. No printing without authorization.

SOY Beans – Misunderstood beans

This article is also published on my website at http://www.yourveglife.com/soy-beans-misunderstood-beans

A short history of soy (also called soya or soja)

Soybeans are a species of legumes originally from East Asia and have been grown there traditionally for thousands of years, even before recorded history. They are still a major crop in China, Japan and Korea. According to an ancient Chinese myth, in 2853 BCE, legendary Emperor Shennong of China proclaimed that five plants were sacred: soybeans, rice, wheat, barley, and millet. Before it became a fermented food, soy was a sacred crop for its beneficial effects on rotation crops as a fertilizer.

Soy was then introduced in Europe in the 18th century and in North America in 1765 by Samuel Bowen, a sailor who visited China. Benjamin Franklin mentioned soy in his letters as something he would send home from England. But soy didn’t gain its notoriety until 1910 where it was just an industrial product. It was first used as food in 1920. Soy was also introduced to Africa in the late 19th century. It is now everywhere.

During the Great Depression, soy was used to regenerate the soil of lands who suffered from the dust ball. Henry Ford spent almost 2 millions dollars on soy research and consequently, his cars all contained soy in their manufacture, from paint to soy-based plastics. He created the “Soybean car” in 1940. He also promoted soy as a food and developed the first US soy milk, ice cream and all vegetable non-dairy whip toppings! His research even produced artificial silk (or Azlon). However, DuPont’s Nylon won the market of artificial silk.

During World War II, soybeans became a major protein substitute in the USA and Europe as well as oil. And it also was discovered to be a good fertilizer.

The main producers of soy today are the United States (35%), Brazil (27%), Argentina (19%), China (6%) and India (4%).

Uses as food

The non-fermented uses of soybeans include soy milk, tofu (invented in China) and the fermented versions include soy sauce, bean paste, natto, tempeh, etc. Soybeans are also used to make vegetarian versions of flesh products like meat as well as TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein), which easily replaces traditionally containing flesh meals and has been around for 50 years. However, the highly processed vegan meats out there are not very healthy uses of soy and should be limited or avoided.

The myths about soy

A lot of so-called studies which seek to demonize soy come from meat industry advocacy organizations, such as the Weston Price Foundation. These organizations promote the consumption of meat, dairy and eggs and so-called ancestral natural diets.

It is interesting that they claim to promote ancestral diets when we know that the consumption of dairy didn’t start until about 10,000 years ago and is therefore fairly new in the human diet. People are not lactose intolerant because it is a disease but because it is normal. The WPF denies a lot of scientific facts and promotes a lot of quack. On the other hand, soy was already grown for thousands of years by the time dairy was introduced in the human diet, which would qualify it as a true traditional food unlike cow’s milk. It is therefore ironic that the WPF hates soy.

Contrary to what a lot of meat eaters and environmentalists (who decided to fight Vegans over soy) believe, soy crops, for the most part, are not fed to Vegans. Soybean oil is the primary source of biodiesel in the United States, accounting for 80% of domestic biodiesel production. The majority of soy crops go directly to feed farmed animals which then feed the western world’s appetite for flesh based products. So the idea that Vegans are responsible for the destruction of the Amazon forest is ludicrous. The truth is that anyone who eats flesh directly participates in the destruction of the environment and the Rain Forests.

 “About 85 percent of the world’s soybean crop is processed into meal and vegetable oil, and virtually all of that meal is used in animal feed. Some two percent of the soybean meal is further processed into soy flours and proteins for food use… Approximately six percent of soybeans are used directly as human food, mostly in Asia.” Soyatech.com

 “According to the National Directorate of Forests, Argentina is experiencing the most intense deforestation in its history due to the replacement of forests with soy plantations, and Córdoba is the province where the most devastating environmental damage has occurred. From a 2009 article, More Soy, Less Forest – and No Water (Inter Press Service).

So the less than 5% of Vegans in the United States who don’t all eat soy can largely be ignored as so-called destroyers of the environment. However, the so-called environmental movement who still refuses to point out the effects of their meat centered diets on climate change is the one who should be ashamed. Changing light bulbs and switching to a Prius are meaningless actions if the Bill McKibbens of the world don’t go Vegan. But you won’t hear that from them.

The GMO issue

The GM variety that is planted in 89% of US soy acres gets its foreign gene from bacteria (with parts of virus and petunia DNA as well). “ Institute for Responsible Technology.

“As of 2004, 85 percent of the U.S. soy crop was genetically modified, accounting for some 63.6 million acres of soybeans. Statistics for 2003 indicate that at least 55 percent of soy worldwide is now genetically modified.”Grist.org

According to another source, “In 1997, about 8% of all soybeans cultivated for the commercial market in the United States were genetically modified. In 2006, the figure was 89%”.

“In 2010, the figure was 93%.” Wikipedia.org

And of course for people who eat other animals, these animals are fed soy and it is next to impossible to detect GMOs in the end product. However, Vegetarians and Vegans are less likely to eat GMO soy as the products are usually easier to detect and are usually labeled.

It doesn’t mean however that we shouldn’t be well informed about GMOs in our tofu (or other processed foods). For instance, I now buy tofu that is either Organic or has the Non-GMO Certified label which I can even find at my local Smart & Final. So GMOs can be avoided by educating ourselves and we shouldn’t be avoiding our soy products because of the scare. Please see my article on GMOs.

The companies behind the largest production of soy are also the ones who promote GMO beans: Archer Daniels Midlands, Dow Chemical Company, DuPont and of course Monsanto Company. That gives you an idea of which products to avoid.

The benefits

Soy beans contain large amounts of phytic asic, alpha-linolenic acid and isoflavones. Soybeans are considered to be a source of complete protein because they contain all the essential amino acids that our bodies require. Essential means that our bodies can’t synthesize them naturally and therefore it must be provided through food. Soy is a good source of protein and Omega-3 fatty acid, amongst many others and everyone can benefit, not just vegetarians and vegans. According to the US Food and Drug Administration:

“Soy protein products can be good substitutes for animal products because, unlike some other beans, soy offers a ‘complete’ protein profile. … Soy protein products can replace animal-based foods—which also have complete proteins but tend to contain more fat, especially saturated fat—without requiring major adjustments elsewhere in the diet.”

Soy is also linked to later puberty for girls and a reduced risk of breast cancer. Meat consumption is tied to early puberty in girls; soy is shown to delay puberty. The consumption of soy products also reduces the occurrence of hot flashes during menopause. We know that the western diet is behind the early menarche of young girls and it is coming earlier each year. This dangerous trend will determine the rates of breast cancers in women of the future.

Soy is also very high in protein (38 to 45%) and high in oils (about 20%).

Some people have raised concerns about the phytoestrogens contained in soy because of their resemblance to women’s estrogens. However, it may also explain why there is a reduced chance of breast cancer. As Dr. Neal Barnard explains:

“Why should soy products reduce cancer risk? Most research has zeroed in on phytoestrogens found in soybeans (phyto means « plant »). These compounds are in some ways similar to the estrogens (female sex hormones) in a woman’s bloodstream, but are much weaker. Some have suggested that phytoestrogens attach to the estrogen receptors in a woman’s body, blocking her natural estrogens from being able to attach and stopping estrogen’s cancer-inducing effects. By analogy, the estrogens in a woman’s body are like jumbo jets that have landed at an airport. Phytoestrogens are like small private planes that are occupying the Jetways, blocking the jumbo jets from attaching. This explanation is probably overly simplistic, but it may serve to illustrate how soy’s weak hormonal compounds can have beneficial effects.”

Soy also reduces the risk of fibroids, therefore reducing the need for hysterectomies. Soy also shows reduced prostate cancer risks for men which is logical as both breast and prostate cancers have dietary origins. Soy doesn’t appear to have an effect on the Thyroid either.

Allergy

Soy can trigger an allergic reaction in some people and therefore should be avoided. The reasons for the allergies are not clearly defined, however, just as many other allergies, the incidence of soy allergies have skyrocketed since the first GMOs were introduced in the food supply.

The UK is one of the few countries that conducts a yearly evaluation of food allergies. In March 1999, researchers at the York Laboratory were alarmed to discover that reactions to soy had skyrocketed by 50% over the previous year. Genetically modified soy had recently entered the UK from US imports and the soy used in the study was largely GM. John Graham, spokesman for the York laboratory, said, “We believe this raises serious new questions about the safety of GM foods.”Institute for Responsible Technology

What used to be a rare condition (and it is the same with Gluten intolerance) is now more or less an epidemic. Although Gluten free products reap the prize for most commonly known allergen, with dairy as a close second, soy allergies need to be watched for.

How much soy should we eat?

According to Dr. Michael Greger’s excellent NutritionFact.org website, soy is high in IGF-1 levels (Insulin-like Growth Factor) which are associated with cancer just like in animal products. If we consume a diet very high in soy, we get a level similar to eating animal flesh. Soy is the only plant which boosts the level of IGF-1, because of a different ratio of amino acid. Other plant foods do not have any effect on IGF-1. If you consume between 7 to 18 servings of soy a day, you may neutralize some of the beneficial effects of avoiding animal protein.

However, to encounter that risk, we would have to drink either 2 to 4 large cartons of soy milk or eat at least 8 to 10 or more blocks of tofu each day. I don’t know many Vegans who eat just soy all day long, but who knows. In fact, Asians who eat the most soy have much lower levels of breast cancer than their western counterparts.

Here is what Dr. Greger says however: “With that much added soy, the vegans in the study got literally pounds of more protein in their diets than the meat-eating controls, but it was all added plant protein. Soy, however, one of those rare plants that mimics the protein profile of meat. So with that much more animal-type protein in their diet were they even worse?

Surprisingly, they ended up with values about same as the meat eaters. But wait a second, in Asian countries, where they eat the most soy, they’ve traditionally just had a fraction of our breast and prostate cancer rates. Well the researchers found something interesting, the isoflavones, the phytoesterons in soy, may actually bump up production of IGF binding protein. So even though they had similar levels of IGF in their blood, in those eating vegan more of it may be bound up and unavailable to stimulate as much cancer growth.

Also, even in China and Japan, they don’t eat 7-18 servings of soy a day.

Doctor Greger, however, recommends a maximum of three servings a day.

Conclusion

Go ahead and eat Tofu or other soy products. The evidence is that eating soy is not harmful unless you eat very large quantities as described above. But always watch for Genetically Modified soy and always buy organic, Non-GMO Certified or better yet, learn to make it yourself. It is also easy to make your own soy milk.

It is not mandatory to be a soy loving Vegan. Lots of Vegans choose not to eat soy based products. I certainly don’t recommend the vegan meats as a daily intake as they are highly processed and often contain not only ultra processed soy but other undesirable ingredients beyond the scope of this article. However, if, like me, you enjoy baking or frying a block of tofu once in a while, there are plenty of recipes out there to satisfy you. The benefits of eating soy products far outweigh any animal products you may have had in the past. And it is also cruelty free and better for the environment.

Additional information based on Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s book « Super Immunity »: « It is now clear that soy intake during adolescence, a time when breast tissue is most sensitive to environmental stimuli and carcinogenesis, may reduce the risk of breast cancer later in life. Recent articles in Cancer Epidemiology and The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported that soy consumption during childhood and teenage years reduced the risk of breast cancer in adulthood by 60 percent and 40 percent, respectively.

Soybeans are rich in isoflavones, a type of phytoestrogen. Phytoestrogens are plant substances that are chemically similar to estrogen – and since higher estrogen levels promote breast cancer, some people predicted that soy would too. Now we know that the phytoestrogens in soy actually block the effects of the body’s estrogen. Despite myths propagated on the Internet, the most recent and reliable clinical studies support a strong protective effect of minimally processed soy foods against breast cancer. »

Additional information from Dr. Neal Barnard in his book « Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes: The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes without Drugs » 

« Soy products have a special cholesterol-lowering effect. Aside from the fact that they have no cholesterol or animal fat, there is something about soy protein that brings down cholesterol a bit further. If your burger is made of soybeans instead of beef, you will not only skip beef’s cholesterol and fat, you will also get an extra cholesterol-lowering benefit. »

Sources:

Soybean” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean

“As We Soy, So Shall We Reap” by Angel Flinn http://gentleworld.org/as-we-soy-so-shall-we-reap/

“The Truth About Soy” VegWorld Magazine – Issue 9 – April 2013 Interview with Dr. Michael Greger.

“Too Much Soy May Neutralize Plant Based Benefits” by Dr. Michael Greger http://nutritionfacts.org/video/too-much-soy-may-neutralize-plant-based-benefits/.

‘The Truth About Soy” by Dr. John McDougall on Soy http://youtu.be/wu2OjHvXFVw

“Weston A. Price Foundation: shills and quacks” by Tom Swiss from The Unreasonable Man blog http://unreasonable.org/node/1642

“Nutritional Facts and Fiction – Fanciful folklore is no match for modern science!” By Dr. Joel Fuhrman – VegSource.org http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/fuhrman_facts_fiction.htm

“Settling The Soy Controversy” by Dr. Neal Barnard – The Huffington Post  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neal-barnard-md/settling-the-soy-controve_b_453966.html

“Genetically Engineered Foods May Cause Rising Food Allergies”—Genetically Engineered Soybeans  – Institute for Responsible Technology http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers/health-risks/articles-about-risks-by-jeffrey-smith/Genetically-Engineered-Foods-May-Cause-Rising-Food-Allergies-Genetically-Engineered-Soybeans-May-2007

Dr. Joel Furhman « Super Immunity – The Essential Nutrition Guide for Boosting Your Body’s Defenses to Live Longer, Stronger, and Disease Free » page 159.

Dr. Neal Barnard « Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes: The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes without Drugs »

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