is it safe yet?

can i come out of hiding? is the 'fleshtival' over?

can i walk into a supermarket without my eyes being drawn to the tinselled, highly lit dismembered bodies of sentient beings murdered for human consumption? can i turn on the television without being assailed by the horrendous imagery of body parts of beings i consider someone, not a food ingredient? unfortunately this happens all year, but the bombardment of butchery increases dramatically at this time when religion and commercialism get together with 'celebration'...

i hope edgar's mission don't mind my use of their banner!

i had this week off work, not for the celebratory time some see it as - i'm not religious so don't subscribe to the fairytale fable - but because i couldn’t, didn't want to, deal with the inevitable and often distressingly (disturbingly!, alarmingly!) descriptive conversations about 'festive food' - who people would be eating and how they would be serving them...

from evolve campaigns

while many sat down on 25 december to 'family feasts' of necrovore gluttony in the form of putrid, decaying flesh and body fats (yes, if you hadn’t thought about it, the moment someone dies they start to decompose no matter how you ‘dress them up’) - i sat down and decided it was time to watch speciesism, the movie…

not sure what speciesism is? a huffington post article '"speciesism : the movie" may change your world view' states “The word "speciesism," which has been popularized by Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer, refers to the assumption that a vast gulf exists between the ethical value of human interests and the ethical value of the interests of other animals. At its extreme, we may see ourselves as the only species that matters morally, and view other animals as existing merely for our use: to eat, to make into clothing, to perform experiments on, to be entertained by in circuses and zoos. Like those who grew up having overt racist beliefs assimilated into their worldview, some degree of speciesism has been so well-assimilated into the worldview of most of us that it does not even appear to be worth questioning.” ... in other words, subscribing to the human superiority myth...

i was definitely in for some mental stimulation watching this film…

this is the first film by mark devries and, according to an article on the free from harm website 'could mark devries' first film change the world' “Before making his maiden movie, 25-year-old George Washington University law student Mark Devries was, well, a speciesist. He believed, as most of us do, that the arguments for animal rights and against speciesism were absurd and easily dismissable. But in the course of his interviews with the world’s leading philosophers on the subject — Peter Singer, Gary Francione, Tom Regan, evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins and Marc Bekoff — he had a complete shift in consciousness and became a vegan. He claims that their arguments make an irrefutable case for animal rights, and he’s equally moved by the absence of valid counter arguments."

it doesn’t contain the full-on, in-your-face confronting imagery of ‘earthlings’ or ‘meat the truth’, but it questions the processes and secrecy surrounding big agricultural facilities, it exposes the environmental damage and searches for answers - it is definitely thought-provoking and no less confronting morally and ethically… it's another important expose of the continuing holocaust of those we brutalise and enslave by the billions year in and year out – they are someone, not something…

“The word "holocaust" is defined as "destruction or slaughter on a mass scale." In modern times, the word is applied most often to the plight of European Jews at the hands of Hitler, but the word was not invented for this event. There have been many holocausts before and after, many on a larger scale. Even so, to compare the slaughter of non-human animals to the slaughter of humans is not to degrade the deaths of humans but to dignify the deaths of non humans.”... dan piraro

the two articles mentioned above speak volumes on this movie and are both worth reading, and i would highly recommend watching the movie if you can get your hands on a copy (i bought mine online here and will be donating it to my local library)...

have i mentioned i hate this time of year? sadly there's another form of necrovore delight prevalent on these lovely summer evenings - the barbecue - unfortunately evenings are often tainted with the smell of burning flesh from yet more victims of speciesism - you know that invasive, pervasive odor that can't be 'locked out' - there is no escape...yes, there are definitely  moments when i hate this time of year...

for anyone who has read down to here, and is interested in the etymology of words, holocaust has actually been around since the 13th century... you can read more at the online etymology dictionary...

you can change the world...

how? by thinking about your food choices... veganism, animal rights, worker's rights, child labour - lauren ornelas connects all the dots in this short video - perhaps she will make you think outside the box, make you look behind the propoganda and see the slavery that exists amongst human and nonhuman animals alike...

you can find out more on the food empowerment website or check out her appetite for justice blog...

and while on food choices, i just had to share this graphic from vegan street

from vegan street's daily meme 7/11/2013

we're bombarded on a daily basis with 'meat industry' propoganda - brainwashing by any other name - yet i'll bet there isn't a vegan around that hasn't been accused of 'pushing' their philosophy on to others, and often all that takes is to say 'no thanks, i'm vegan'... please, think about your food choices, question the industries that benefit from exploitation, help change the world...

still procrastinating...

well, here it is, october now and i still don't have the incentive to get back into blogging - amazing considering there is a wealth of subject matter out there... i often think about it, but then i just move on without doing anything... i've had a lot of personal stuff to deal with over the last few months and it seems to have worn me out... so while i procrastinate a little bit longer and try to find my spark again i'll just share this youtube video with you... blues-y, rock-y music with a message, by a young man who goes by the name of evan rock...

a 'share' from vegan feminist agitator...

i'm almost back to blogging - but not quite... having just moved - yes, time to get my own space again, with shadow and petey of course, and dealing with 'life crap' - the ending of something i should have realised had ended ages ago, a sick mother hospitalised, etc. etc.,  i just couldn't pass up sharing this brilliant post from the wonderful marla of vegan feminist agitator...

Looking at Life Through the Vegan Lens

“It's not what you're looking at that matters, it's what you see.” - Henry David Thoreau

For most of my life, I have walked around in a comfortably fuzzy world; it’s a misty place with blurred, dull edges, and I love it here for the most part. Acclimated to my astigmatism and poor eyesight, I still prefer it this way. I recently got glasses, though, and suddenly everything is so very sharp and crisp. I am noticing faces in a way that I didn’t before but this new clarity of vision also means that the dirt on the floor is much more pronounced to me as well. There is comfort in the blurred edges and sometimes the laser-sharp clarity of the world I can see so much better now has me longing to retreat to that old hazy landscape. It’s better to be able to see but it’s not without its challenges. 

I believe that the same could be said about those of us who have altered the lens through which we see the world. This is what happens when you go vegan. I think that once you can truly see life from this new, radically different framework, the lens through which you view the world is likely to be altered forever. For some of us, when the old lens shatters, it becomes obsolete, useless to us. We can no longer pretend to see things the way we did before so we can not go back to living as we did before. Others do what they can to tape the broken lens back together, a piece of tape here, some glue there, in order to not have to discard it. A successfully transformed perspective from a shattered and replaced lens is one that rearranges how we see our place in the world; though it is unsettling to suddenly see things that our culture doesn’t want us to see, things that are pervasive and disturbing, we can remedy that disharmony by changing our lives to accommodate our new vision. Whether it was because of a searing epiphany or a more gradual toppling of the excuses we clung to, the end result is that we are not the same as we once were. We are changed in fundamental ways that are often invisible but no less tangible, and this altered perspective can often make us incompatible with accepting what we once did as “the way things are.”  We are vegan.

A fundamental aspect of being vegan means that we now see the world in new ways: we see dead cows where others see hamburgers, we see tortured birds where others see omelets, we understand that we are equals in suffering. It’s not because we necessarily want to see this way but because we often cannot “un-see” it. It is our new lens no matter the challenges because living with a clarity of vision is so essential to us.

As vegans, we are often told that we are insipid or melodramatic for seeing things the way we do, and, implicitly or explicitly, we are asked to stop making life uncomfortable for those who want to continue eating animals unabated. How can we do that, though? Simply by existing and often without words, as vegans, we represent the elephant in the room and the truth about the violence we inflict needlessly. Most would prefer not to see this. We are provocative simply by existing and we can’t help that. The dissonance between what we see and what we are asked to pretend not to see is a bizarre tension vegans are expected to simply accept as an unspoken condition of adapting to life.

Needless to say, this is hard to accept.

We are being asked to not see (or to behave as if we don’t see) something that would be obvious to anyone who wasn’t complicit in maintaining the avoidance of this, and something that we see nakedly, without artifice and without trying. That we see violence and we see killing isn’t necessarily a judgment, it is a statement of fact: we see this because this is what is happening. We’re not supposed to say, think or even see this, though. When vegans, approximately 2% of the population, are told that we are oppressing others because we speak, think and simply see the truth about the horrors that are inflicted on animals, a dysfunctional dynamic is in place. We are being asked to maintain a lie about something when we cannot avoid seeing the truth.

We are looking at the world through a different lens and this lens changes everything. It makes life challenging at times but being able to clearly see and then act on what we see is an incredible honor and privilege. How fortunate we are to have this rare vision. What a responsibility, too. That we could spend a fraction of our lives letting people know what we are able to see and perhaps help them to develop a new lens is a blessing beyond measure."

marla's wonderful 'wordsmithing' never ceases to uplift me and put a smile on my face for her articulation and validation of me and my thoughts - you can't 'un-see- what you have seen, you can't 'un-know' what you know... thank you wonderful womon...

strength, bravery and compassion...

what a combination... and they all come rolled up in this one man, damien mander, ex special operations unit sniper for the royal australian navy - now avid environmental and animal rights activist and founder of the international anti-poaching foundation (iapf)

the following video is 'doing the rounds' at the moment... i first read of it on the free from harm blog where the author of the article, ashley capps, states... 

"I’m always grateful to come across stories of men whose own struggles with received ideas about masculinity and violence have led them to confront, and openly challenge, meat’s grip on the male psyche. How does a self-described extreme meat-eater and former hunter, for example, a professional killer with the words “SEEK AND DESTROY” tattooed huge across his chest, become inspired to stop eating animals and devote his life full-time to animal rights and wildlife conservation?"

want to know the answer to that question? well, with so many sharing this i felt compelled to share his powerful message too, and to introduce you to one of the most inspiring men i have listened to in a long time - damien is a rivetting orator and watching this will be 12 of the most incredibly mesmerising minutes you could imagine - believe me, this is 12 minutes well spent!

oh if only there were many more damien manders in this world - who knows, perhaps this will be the inspiration that will allow others to look into their own hearts and find compassion, search their own psyche and find wisdom... perhaps this will help some make the connection, understand the truth of speciesism and the need to fight for justice for all...