right on sister...

blogging has been one of the last things on my mind while melting through the heat and humidity of an extended heatwave here in melbourne, but that's not to say i haven't been reading the posts of others... i've had ideas but no inclination to put 'pen to paper' - well, fingers to keyboard these days! - i even let international womyn's day go by without acknowledgement...

but, having just read an article that resonated deep within me, i felt i had to share a short excerpt... it's from one of my favourite blogs - veganism is nonviolence... the writer, trisha roberts, so very passionately articulates my views time after time, and with "even when her shackles are very different from my own" she gives eloquence to my thoughts yet again...

"... Yesterday, on International Women’s Day, did we remember the 99.99% of the planet’s population who are non-human? Did we remember all the non-human mothers in the world? Did we consider in particular the non-human mothers we use as resources? If we did not, then we need to include them in our thoughts and our actions and consider that ALL mothers and their children, no matter what species, should be free of exploitation. Because if non-human mothers are not free, none of us are free. In fact there are parallels with how patriarchal society views and treats women, and how we use, exploit and control the reproduction of non-human females. The two are not unrelated. Women are no longer considered legal property as non-human animals are, but violence against women is at epidemic proportions today and violence against nonhumans is greater still."

 

all womyn - especially those who call themselves 'feminist' or 'womyn's liberationist' - need to make the connection... you can read the complete article here...

so, what’s the problem?

flesh is flesh, isn't it? so why are carnists so upset at finding meat in their meat? horsemeat to be precise, in their cowmeat!? flesh masquerading as flesh!! tell me, what’s the difference between one species and another? why is the slaughter and consumption of one more acceptable than another?

if you eat flesh, why the outrage? why the shock and revulsion at the mere thought of eating horse rather than cow, or sheep, or pig…?

if you're here in australia perhaps you're not even concerned - maybe you think australia is somehow immune from the 'dilemma', immune from the 'horsemeat scandal' sweeping europe, immune from even thinking about the horse slaughter industry - hey, we love our horses, we're a horse loving nation, we wouldn't slaughter them, we certainly wouldn't eat them! according to a recent article in the courier mail...

“SEVEN hundred horses a month - many young fillies and colts bred for racing - are slaughtered at two Australian abattoirs and shipped overseas for human consumption, including to Europe, the centre of the horsemeat scandal.

The majority are slaughtered in Queensland at Caboolture's Meramist Abattoir, where 500 horses are processed each month.

A further 200 a month are killed at a South Australian abattoir, Samex Peterborough (formerly Metro Velda).

Thousands more are processed at 33 knackeries across Australia for petmeat and hides each year, with industry reports indicating the annual cull totals around 40,000.”

hmmm, 'knackeries' and abattoirs legally slaughtering horses, here... maybe it's time to think again... if horses are 'processed' here, it's only logical to assume some of them end up as food here... do you really believe you haven't 'inadvertently' eaten horse, or kangaroo, or camel, or some other 'unacceptable' flesh at some time in your life? i was told many years ago by a 'friend of a friend', a butcher, how commonplace substitution was, that horse and kangaroo were often 'hidden in mince' - how flour was a wonderful lightener of colour, a perfect mask...

if that shocks or horrifies you, then i have to ask again, why is the flesh of cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, turkeys, etc. etc. acceptable – why do you eat some, and not others? why are you not outraged at the slaughter of all?

according to melanie joy, author of ‘why we love dogs, eat pigs, and wear cows…' 

"... in meat-eating cultures around the world, even though the type of species consumed changes, people tend to have only a small handful of animals they have learned to classify as edible. All the rest they classify as inedible and thus disgusting and often offensive to consume.

So when it comes to eating animals, what is striking is not the presence of disgust -- disgust is the norm, the rule, rather than the exception. What is striking is the absence of disgust. The question we would do well to ask ourselves is why are we not disgusted by the select few species we have been taught to think of as edible. And why don't we ever ask why? When the stakes are so high -- our food choices are truly a matter of life and death, particularly for the 10 billion sentient individuals in the U.S. every year who are no less sensitive and conscious than those we consider friends and family yet who subsist in abject misery, as their bodies are unnecessarily turned into units of production. Why do we leave our choices so unexamined? Why don't we consider that so-called edible animals have lives that matter to them, just as horses and dogs and cats do?” read more in “Why Horsemeat Is Delicious and Disgusting”

shades of sadness...

i got a phone call from my mother last friday and on answering was told "something terrible has happened..." many scenarios raced through my mind in a few short seconds, but none involved the suicide of my 'cousin' that took place the evening before that they had just been notified of...

my first thoughts were 'how?', 'why?' - numbing disbelief was what i felt - surely i'd heard wrong - but then shock moved aside and reality kicked in, and it didn't matter the 'how' or 'why' but that he was dead - his life journey had ended, and my major concern became how 'aunty eileen' was coping - the death of a child is not something a parent expects to have to deal with... eileen and her kids, although not blood relatives, have been part of my family all of my life, eileen being my mother's best friend of over 80 years and a nurturer, confidant and friend to me for all of my 57 years...

identification had to be made and the coronial inquest was over quickly on saturday morning - there was little to be analysed, it was a 'cut and dried' suicide with a letter left for the family...  adrian was the youngest of all of the 'kids', only 48 years old, but sadly his life had taken a path he felt he could no longer walk along...

we all came together to deal with our sadness while sorting out the 'practicalities' of death, and to celebrate the lovely, funny, but lonely young man that was adrian... that's what 'my family' does, accepts and then continues on with the necessities of life, albeit with a shift to accommodate the void left, the heavy hearts, but that weight lessened by shared memories, laughter and tears (although the funeral is still to come, so there will be many more shared moments).... some need someone or something to blame initially, but that soon dissipates... oh how sadness comes in many shades...

being into astronomy as he was, what more can i say but fly high and shine brightly mate, you will always be in our hearts...

“but it’s just not natural…”

if i had a dollar for every time i've heard or read that about veganism…

having had that said to me yet again just the other day i thought it fortuitous that i had recently watched a presentation by social psychologist and professor of psychology and sociology melanie joy, author of ‘why we love dogs, eat pigs and wear cows : an introduction to carnism’ because her wonderfully articulate words were fresh in my mind...

“what we call natural is simply the dominant culture’s interpretation of history - it refers not to human history, but to carnistic history - it references not our fruit eating ancestors, but their flesh eating descendents… we only look as far back in history as we need to justify current carnistic practices…”

in her article "shattering the meat myth : humans are natural vegetarians" author kathy freston states

"I noticed the frequently stated notion that eating meat was an essential step in human evolution. While this notion may comfort the meat industry, it's simply not true, scientifically. Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus at Cornell University and author of The China Study, explains that in fact, we only recently (historically speaking) began eating meat, and that the inclusion of meat in our diet came well after we became who we are today..."

alas, this fallacious argument is being 'redefined' by some to entrench carnism as the norm in the guise of "humane meat"...

“The new wave of pro-meat arguments is in part an attempt to defend the weakened meat-eating establishment against the very real threat posed by an increasingly powerful vegan movement. “Happy meat,” locavorism, and “paleo dieting” are signs of society’s willingness to examine the ethics of eating meat, eggs, and dairy, and they reflect people’s genuine concern for animals (and the environment and health). But they also reflect the resistance of the dominant, meat-eating culture to truly embracing a vegan ethic. The new pro-meat arguments are part of a carnistic backlash against the growing popularity of veganism, and vegans and non-vegans alike must understand and appreciate them in order to move toward a more humane and just society.” ... melanie joy (from understanding neocarnism)

graphic from "the blood shed from humane slaughter - was your food treated unkindly" on one of my favourite blogs - provoked... by the way we use animals

as an ethical vegan, totally eliminating any use and every abuse of our earthling kin is what’s important to me… so this notion of ‘humane meat’ is definitely something i find unbelievabe, let alone unbelievably frightening - a threat to real change in this world...

acccording to howard lyman, ex cattle rancher, now vegan, author and animal advocate

"My life experience has given me a better understanding of what is happening, and what a mistake it is to believe there is anything called "humane" slaughter. Animals have families and feelings, and to think that kindness before killing them is an answer is totally wrong. Humans have no need for animal products. And when we consume animal products, we're not just killing the animals. In the long run, we're killing the planet, and ourselves.

I'm sure that it will take many years before the majority of humans learn as I have that actions, and not words, are the true proof of our understanding of the term humane. Living my life as I do now, as a total vegan, gives me great joy in knowing that no animal has to die for me to live."

do you believe the myth? want more information? why not check out humanemyth.org - "deconstructing the myth of humane animal agriculture" - there are some 'well worth the read' articles...

and of course here's melanie joy's presentation - see if she gives you something to think about...

as plain as the nose on your face...

walking past the fiction shelves in the back room at work the other day - they’re the shelves holding the new novels waiting to be catalogued - a very stunning, yet simple cover called out to me… i opened up ‘the secrets of mary bowser’ by lois leveen and was drawn into it immediately – i reserved it and couldn’t wait to read mary’s story…

this is an historical novel based on the life of mary bowser, a womon born into slavery and owned by a wealthy merchant john van lew... on his death his daughter elizabeth, an abolitionist, freed all of his slaves and sponsored mary’s education at the quaker school for negroes in philadelphia – a ‘free’ but ‘segregated’ community where mary learns valuable insights and questions much (including the notion of freedom!)...

after graduating she gave up her ‘freedom’ to return to richmond, virginia as part of an underground network transporting 'runaway' slaves to freedom... having a photographic memory, her ability to retain everything she reads, sees and hears, and relay information word for word, soon saw her take her place as an integral player in the union spy network... with underground assistance mary was 'installed' as a house slave in the confederate white house of jefferson davis – the perfect place to glean the movements and plans of the enemy and feed them back to the union…

very little information remains of mary’s exploits... according to the women in history website “After the war, the federal government destroyed the records of Southern spy activities, to protect their lives -- including Mary … In 1995, the U.S. government honored Mary Elizabeth Bowser for her efforts by inducting her in the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Corps Hall of Fame in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. During the ceremony, her contribution was described thus:

Ms. Bowser certainly succeeded in a highly dangerous mission to the great benefit of the Union effort. She was one of the highest placed and most productive espionage agents of the Civil War. ... [Her information] greatly enhanced the Union's conduct of the war. ... Jefferson Davis never discovered the leak in his household staff, although he knew the Union somehow kept discovering Confederate plans."

while reading this book i couldn’t help but think about our modern day slaves – i saw the parallels to those society uses and abuses because of their physical difference – the perception that they are less than – that they are sub-human…

according to the website on nonhuman slavery in an article “The Dreaded Comparison: Martin Rowe on Marjorie Spiegel’s Groundbreaking Book” ...

“the ideologies of slavery that kept these human beings as property continue to be used with non-human animals today…

This comparison—between the conditions of slaves and the conditions of animals in factory farms, as victims of the hunt, and in laboratories—may not seem particularly surprising. After all, as Spiegel documents, slaves in the antebellum United States were considered literally sub-human….

Of course, this type of thinking does not only extend to slaves or African Americans. It extends to Jews, who were rounded up by the Nazis into cattle-cars and sent to the camps because they were considered less-than-human viral infections in the Aryan body politic. It extends to women who have been thought of as bitches, foxy ladies, vixens, bats, old cows, and less-than-male (i.e. fully human) for centuries. But, and this is Spiegel’s dreaded kicker, this comparison extends to non-human animals—who continue to be beaten, abused, tortured, confined, hunted, and made the play and work thing of those in power."

 can you see the parallels???

can you really not see the parallels?

there are so many others enslaved - from the fur factories, to the feed lots, the slaughterhouses, the puppy farms, the bile farms, the circuses, the 'bestiality brothels', the vivisectors torture chambers - there's such a long list that makes up the current slave trade in sentient beings... i won't add any more graphics though - i will leave it to your minds eye, your conscience, because surely now you can see them? surely now you can understand the parallels of this modern day slavery??? surely it's as plain as the nose on your face?

one of my favourite bloggers, vegan feminist agitator, has recently written a wonderfully articulate post - the next emancipation - after seeing the film 'lincoln' (recounting his efforts in 1865 to get the 13th amendment passed which would abolish slavery) - where she states "I do think that there are parallels, though, with slavery: the concepts of ownership, of sovereignty, of emphasizing the powerful majority’s “right” to the entitlements they want to preserve versus the right of those not so endowed to simply live their own lives. In short, the chilling mentality of exceptionalism..." it's a post well worth reading...

"We can see quite plainly that our present civilization is built on the exploitation of animals, just as past civilizations were built on the exploitation of slaves." ... donald watson