Hola

Hey, I'm Will.

hey man. good to have ya over here

Welcome to the forums mate. Mike Mahlers training looks intense, and you're almost there to your pull up record. Good luck and feel free to ask any questions mate.

Hi Will! You made it over, welcome!

Hey Will,

Thanks for coming by. I think you're another guy I've been in touch with for over a year now.

Mike Mahler is a cool guy, I have him featured on www.veganbodybuilding.com as well. We were going to train together this summer but it looks like our schedules don't work out as we had hoped so we'll have to wait for a later time to hit it hard.

Glad to have you over here, I appreciate you coming by.

hey will!

welcome to the board

"My goals right now: To be able to do handstand pushups well, and do a set of 20 pullups (my record is a set of 18)"

good goals, you will get them!

hey Will,

Wow!! I too am in law school. We have so much in common. What year are you in? I am going into my third and last year next year. I have been so busy lately putting together my resumes, transciprts and cover letters to send to the top law firms in Toronto to complete my articles in 2006/07. Articling positions are hard to come by down here.

Cannot wait to get the bar exams over with.

What kind of law do you want to practice? Would love to work in house for PETA one day, but for now I will need a lucrative position so I can pay off my damn debts which seem to keep piling higher and higher. I know that I will always be an animal rights lawyer and advocate at heart, and if I end up practising other law as my job, I will do animal rights and environmental advocacy pro bono.

have you done any mooting yet? What courses are you going to take in your upper years at law school. Do you have an animal rights course offered at your law school? We don't.

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Hi Willpeavy,

NO I study at Osgoode Hall Law School (the second biggest in Canada, next to University of Toronto).

ya I know what you mean. I think if I worked for these wonderful groups I would feel totally guilty about taking a paycheck, like I was taking the ANIMALS' money!!!! And they need all the cash than they could get. So i too, figure, make lots of money doing commercial litigation, be loaded, so that I may make large donations to my favourite charities. BUt I have to tell you though that Greenpeace would not be one of them. Greenpeace is one of the richest environmental corps and bureacracies in the world now, and really, they are starting to come dangerously close to corruption if they are not there already.

To find out more about what I mean, please go to www.seashepherd.org and read Captian Watson's newsletter entitled something like "Going against the Current". he has a blurb in there about Greenpeace. I think this amazing man is more than qualified and fit to be a Greenpeace critic. he, as the co-founder of Greenpeace back in the 1970s, and his criticisms of Greenpeace are insightful, fair, coherent and backed up by evidence and experience and outcomes of direct interaction with Greenpeace.

I too was a Greenpeace activist and supporter, but not so much anymore since it is becoming increasingly evident that Greenpeace has sold out the animals for the sake of profit and popularity.

FOr example, Greenpeace has been inactive in the seal slaughter campaign and has pretty much suggested that geentically modified foods take priority over the mass slaughter of baby seals in front of their horrified mothers. I personally think that the latter is more urgent and pressing, since these are sentient, innocent creatures that are being subjeted to mass murder and are DYING RIGHT NOW. Anti-GMO campaigns can wait - the clubbed, stabbed and dying baby seals cannot!!!

Great talking with you willpeavy. You rock.

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Hi Willpeavy,

Greenpeace's cmapaigns are selective and inconsistent. They are targetting Korea for whaling, yet other forms of the barbaric slaughter of marine wildife in other countries like Japan are "tolerated" by Greenpeace. Why? Because Greenpeace has many (financial ) supporters in Japan and Japan is not yet ready to hear about anti-qhaling or anti-dolphinning or whatever. Greenpeace, in other words, is very strategic about its campaigns and is careful not to alienate these supporters. SO that is what I mean by selling out the animals to popular opinion. IT seems that Greenpeace's priority lately has been to go with the current of popular opinion among its supporters, rather take a firm and consistent and universal anti-whaling stance across the board. It targets the anti-whaling of one country while turning a blind eye to, or "tolerating", the anti-whaling of another.

Like I said, another reason why I am unimpressed by Greenpeace lately is because it has taken no direct action to help stop the Canadian seal hunt, and a Greenpeace activist has stated to me in a personal one and one conversation that the anti-GMO campaign takes priority over the single largest mass slaughter of marine wildife today. Based on Greenpeace's lack of action in the one case, and focus on the other, I think this can be fairly interpretted as being an accurate representation of Greenpeace policy with respect to seals and GMOs. HHmmmmmm....those priorities seem a little fucked up in my opinion, but it is, of course, your perogative to disagree, and even if you do, i still luv u

As far direct action, I absolutely condone and support the efforts of Sea Shepherds. As far as I know, they have not hurt anybody, and in fact, they are the ones that have been violently assaulted for interfering with seal kills, dolphin kills, whale kills, etc. And to be perfectly honest, I am not sympathetic to sealers, whalers, etc. whose animal killing property has been damaged as a result of Sea Shepherd actions, and will not be "crying for them Argentina" any time soon.

Having said that, it would be foolish not to realize that the world is unequivocally a better place WITH both Greenpeace and Sea Shepherds than without. IT is just a shame though that Greenpeace has pretty much refused to support the Sea Shepherd crew in their direct action on the blood drenched Canadian Ice Floes with the carcusses of baby seals lying around and their devastated mothers. IN short, I think the animals and the environment would be much better served if Greenpeace and Sea Shepherds worked together and supported and assisted each other. I think both organizations need to be careful to remain pure to the cause and to the vision, and to not sell out the purity of the vision to financial considerations and popularity, and in that regard, I think Greenpeace is increasingly on shaky ground. WHALING sucks, no matter who is doing the whaling

PS I have no idea I amanged to italicize the paragraphs above and cannot seem to UNitaliicize them.

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I think it would be great if Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd worked together, but unfortunately they're never going to. There are too many personal grudges between the groups' leaders. Greenpeace is an easy target for criticism because it is so large and appeals to the mainstream - so they get slagged by the more radical elements of the movement, just like PETA does.

Hey Will!

Nice to hear from you. I was just thinking about you and hope your studies are going well. Ya, i know what you mean about Greenpeace. I did not mean to belittle the good work that Greenpeace does, but my ultimate problem with Greenpeace, along with the ones I noted previously, is that as one of the world's largest environmental organizations, how could Greenpeace not know that raising animals for food is environmentally devastating The meat industry isn't "green", and it isn't "peaceful " either. Yet, notwithstanding the fact that a meat-eating environmentalist is an utterly ridiculous oxymoron, Greenpeace does not promote veganism or even vegetarianism!!! Somebody over at veganfitness.net under the thread "Sea Sheppard and Soy Milk" said that Greenpeace, for example, sells "eco-leather" shoes!!!!!!! Ridiculous. It is sad that a leading organization in the environmental rights movement ignores the impact of meat eating on the environment. This is irresponsible and perplexing. What on earth is Greenpeace thinking? Does it not know that raising animals for food devastes the environment, or does it know but just doesn't want to "go there." I would really be interested on hearing your theories about this Will, because their lack of attention to this issue really does perplex me.

Also, just as an interesting note, while many "radical vegan hardliners" think PETA is not at all radical enough, and is too welfarist, the funny thing is that many meat eaters think that PETA is ultra -radical. For example, a law clerk (meat eater) in the office the other day was talking about how she had sent in a donation to PETA but later regretted it when she found out that PETA encourages people to feed their dogs and cats (carnivorous animals) VEGAN food. She said that peta was "too much." Another guy, an actual lawyer, said that the reason why he will not give in to peta's welfarist campaigns is because "that is not what peta really wants - it wants everybody to go vegan, and if people gave peta an inch (by boycotting KFC) then peta would take or want a mile by continuing to try and get people to go vegan anyway." The lawyer, of course, is right - peta does want people to go vegan and that is peta's ultimate agenda (which of course, is as it should be). But I just bring these points up because it is interesting to note how peta is percieved as too radical a rights organization by some, whereas among hard core animal rights people, peta is way too soft and not hardcore enough.

talk to you soon I hope.

natalie

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For me, the important question is not "What flaws can I find in the campaigns and management of Greenpeace?" (as I'm sure I could find many); instead, I am more interested in things like, "If there were no Greenpeace, then how much rainforest would be left? How many whales would be swimming in the ocean? How much toxic waste would be sitting on ocean floors? How many coral reefs would be remaining?" And so on...And I think the answer is: without Greenpeace there would be a lot less rainforest, a lot less whales, a lot more toxic waste, etc.

 

Same could be said for PETA. I strongly dislike the way that many of their campaigns seem to lack tact or diplomacy. I strongly dislike the way that they commonly distort facts, thus limiting their credibility. Despite these defects, I still would support them though. The ultimate question I ask of them is, "If there were no PETA, then how many vegetarians would there be?" And I think the answer is: without PETA there would be a lot less vegetarians.

Yes, Will, I couldn't agree with you more! As I said, the world is a much better place for having Greepeace and PETA (as well as the others). Without these two organizations, the environment and the animals would be much worse off than they already are.

P.S. The eco-leather example was not meant to suggest that support for Greenpeace should be withdrawn because they sell leather shoes. It was just meant to support the position that Greenpeace has no policy promoting veganism or even vegetarianism, and in fact, just the opposite!

peace