Am I wrong for expressing my anger toward fur lovers?

[violet13]

veggymeggy, I just wanted to tell you that picture of pretty young lady and adorable baby is so heart warming!

You are true animal lover.

 

compassionategirl, your picture is great too.

Thank you for your message.

[Kathryn]

My old flat-mate went semi-tarian

 

That would rime with "cemetarian" (would they eat dead bodies from the cemetary?)

 

 

I don't think that most fur wearers need to be sadistic to wear fur. They just make a big disconnect between the animal and what they are wearing. What happens between the time the animal is a beautiful living creature and the time it becomes what they consider to be a beautiful coat just doesn't exist in their minds. They already make a disconnect between animal and "product" when they eat meat, so this isn't much different. Though easier to change, I would think, because fur can't be seen as a necessity the way people feel meat is a necessity.

 

My father loved animals, and he rehabbed several squirrels and rabbits who had been injured by cars or by falling from trees (the squirrels!). He bought food for squirrels and birds and enjoyed watching them, and he fed stray cats. He hated hunting. But he ate meat. I think he was a potential vegetarian, but he had made that disconnect and never got the chance too reconnect before he died (from spreading colon cancer, which I think was very tied to his diet).

[CrispyQ]

I'd bet money that almost everyone in the west has a vegetarian as a friend, or at least has met a vegetarian, and therefore has been exposed to the reasoning. I don't have very much faith in the majority of people. I do think it is worth explaining stuff to them. But I also don't believe it's as simple as you're saying, and I think the number of people who would say "Oh yeah, I have been completely wrong my entire life" is actually very low, and it's unlikely that anyone would react that way. I think people are generally selfish and barbaric, and there is a minority of compassionate people, which is sad.

 

 

Everyone wants the world to be a better place but few are willing to inconvenience themselves to make it so.

 

Choosing deliberate ignorance pisses me off & it shows these people for the cowards they are -- "I support this product/activity/whatever, but I do so choosing not to know fully what is involved."

 

How many times have I heard someone tell me they don't want to know what goes on in a slaughterhouse because "I could never give up meat." Kathryn is right that part of the problem is the disconnect between the living, breathing animal & the ground round/fur coat in the store, but if a person wants to eat meat, wear fur, support animal testing, they should face it full on & witness the heinousness of what they support. There's that old saying that if slaughterhouses had glass walls everyone would be vegetarian.

[Jay]

Violet, I'm sorry that you were not welcome at veganfreaks, veganfitness and christian forums. You are welcome here.

[madcat]

violet 33 or whatever your name is.... crack is vegan, but it's not always good.

 

Good point, you should just stick to meth.

[violet13]

CrispyQ, most meat/dairy/egg eaters are playing three monkeys about their life style to contribute most horrible farm animal torture and cruel death in slaughterhouse where terrified trembling farm animals are one side and cut up meat come from other side.

These meat/dairy/egg lovers who care less about farm animal suffering remind me of child molesters who don't want to see, hear, and speak about emotional and mental damage to children who are victims of child molestation.

Only difference is child molestation is crime but eating meat/dairy/eggs is legal.

In my opinion, eating meat/dairy/eggs day after day is crime against farm animals because of maximaizing farm animal suffering.

Of course if I say this to most people who are calling themselves Christian, they are going to call me crazy, nut, and all kinds of names to embarrass me and chase me out.

Yes, most people are selfish and dishonest.

These peole don't have decency to say "Yes, I was wrong for contributing to most horrible farm animal cruelty by consuming meat/dairy/eggs".

In fact, woman said "I like cats and dogs because they are cute but I don't mind to eat farm animals because they are ugly".

Nobody can be more simple minded than this woman!

Does she think only pretty children deserve humane treatment?

Knowing she call herself Christian, maybe she feels differently about human race.

Christianity has serious deficiency for only consider human rights and removing entire animal kingdom from our circle of love and respect thesefore I don't believe in Christianity but believe in God.

War, animal exploitation, corruption, etc are all work of devil and not work of God.

[violet13]

Kathryn, yes, you are right.

We should not hate fur lovers and meat/dairy/egg lovers but when every time I visualyze actual bloody gruesome torture and killing animals, it is almost impossible for me to love people who are contributing to chilling brutalities of our brothers and sisters (animals).

In fact, I wish I can let them to experience same torture to let them to know what they are doing to animals.

In reality, many people don't stop eating meat/dairy/eggs after they are exposed to horrific treatment of farm animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses because their desire to satisfy their taste buds is greater and they have no love for farm animals.

These people don't want to hear about morality and only thing they think about is having good time.

Sadly, this is attitude of most people, that is why I don't have much trust in human race but we must not give up.

[compassionategirl]

Violet, I'm sorry that you were not welcome at veganfreaks, veganfitness and christian forums. You are welcome here.

 

You're a good guy Jay.

[madcat]

I get the most crap about being vegan from my aunt, a very devout Christian. She constantly makes comments about how gross she thinks soy is, how she could never give up meat because she “likes the taste of food too much” and other comments about me being weird. Her defense is that god made animals for people to eat. The funny thing is I remember, when I was about 10, her and my uncle got in to an argument about littering. He said it was ok because god had made the earth for people to use. She said he was wrong and that people were meant to look after the earth.

 

I don’t understand how someone could think we are here to take care of the earth, but that we can do what ever we want to animals…

[compassionategirl]

if somebody has been made aware of the cruelty, and simply doesnt care, or closes his ears and eyes when people are trying to inform/educate, well, that is ing in my opinion.

 

That's what happens with basically everyone I've ever talked to. My old flat-mate went semi-tarian after knowing me for 3 years, but that is all. Even then, after hearing the reasoning and the facts the first time, he argued and argued, and it wasn't until 3 years later that he did something.

 

I know there are some people who do react to the truth, but the vast vast majority of people actually don't care, or at least, the people I have talked to. Everyone knows about vegetarianism at least, yet they dismiss it. It's not like vegetarianism is a secret. I'd bet money that almost everyone in the west has a vegetarian as a friend, or at least has met a vegetarian, and therefore has been exposed to the reasoning. I don't have very much faith in the majority of people. I do think it is worth explaining stuff to them. But I also don't believe it's as simple as you're saying, and I think the number of people who would say "Oh yeah, I have been completely wrong my entire life" is actually very low, and it's unlikely that anyone would react that way. I think people are generally selfish and barbaric, and there is a minority of compassionate people, which is sad.

 

Unfortunately, I think you may be right.

 

If only ar had got to me sooner, I would have had that paradigm shift years earlier.

 

And I really think that precisly because the animals are up against powerful industry interests AND the natural human inclination to be slefish and NOT inconvenienced, it issnt just enough to be vegan anymore. I think we all need to be activists about it, to some extent or another. By activists I dont mean shouting "bloody murder" at people (even though that IS what I am thinking ). I just mean making effective use of opportunities to raise awareness about their plight.

 

Which reminds me by the way, the other day I did "the talking on the phone in a grocery store line up "trick" about meet your meat." The lady behind me inquired about it further and wanted to jot down the website info for it and said she wanted to see it! So hopefully, the ribs she had in her shopping cart will be the last time she eats animals.

[compassionategirl]

My father loved animals, and he rehabbed several squirrels and rabbits who had been injured by cars or by falling from trees (the squirrels!). He bought food for squirrels and birds and enjoyed watching them, and he fed stray cats. He hated hunting. But he ate meat. I think he was a potential vegetarian, but he had made that disconnect and never got the chance too reconnect before he died (from spreading colon cancer, which I think was very tied to his diet).

[compassionategirl]

I think people are generally selfish and barbaric, and there is a minority of compassionate people, which is sad.[/b]

 

 

Everyone wants the world to be a better place but few are willing to inconvenience themselves to make it so.

 

 

Agreed.

[madcat]

I like that you said “potential vegetarian”… I feel like I have always been vegan but I just didn’t know it till three years ago.

[compassionategirl]

I like that you said “potential vegetarian”… I feel like I have always been vegan but I just didn’t know it till three years ago.

 

Yup, exactly. When I first went veggie years ago, I described that experience like this:

 

"It was like I met myself for the first time." What a glorious day of awakening that was.

[Kathryn]

I like that you said “potential vegetarian”… I feel like I have always been vegan but I just didn’t know it till three years ago.

 

Do you have that feeliing, too? Like you were always meant to be a veggie? And somehow circumstances came about to make it possible?

 

I didn't even know what a vegetarian was until I was home from my first month of college on vacation and read an article about some models in "Coed" magazine (1975, folks) talking about how they stayed in shape. One of them talked about being a vegetarian and gave some addresses.

 

Even though I had never heard the term before (small town girl!), it just clicked, like I instinctively knew. I sent for info from the places she mentioned, and when I went back to campus, I cleaned out all the meat from my cupboards (luckily, I lived in a dorm where we did our own cooking in a tiny little kitchen) and never ate any after that (though I was heavy on the cheese for a while---I had absolutely NO IDEA how to go veggie, but I did it).

 

And just a week or two later, when I had to go into town to cash a silly little $2 rebate check my dad had sent me---he'd fill in the rebates and have them sent to me--I passed a whole food, vegetarian, co-op, looked around inside, and was intrigued. Within the same week, I saw some posters about the coop having an organizational meeting, I went, started working there, and eventually became a co-manager.

 

And when I read articles by Victoria Moran in Vegetarian Times, it was like we were moving on very parallel paths. I'd often think "that's EXACTLY it!"

 

Man, it's like findin' religion!

[Nakeddragon]

In my experience with omni's the main problem appears to be the lack of empathy.

 

So I am left wondering what can we as individuals and collectives / groups do to engage people to experience the reality of those who suffer when they have become conditioned, by society / culture / community / etc, to be otherwise. And then to positively alter their personal reality due this experience.

 

Pete...

[Kathryn]

In my experience with omni's the main problem appears to be the lack of empathy.

 

 

I think you've got something there. A lack of empathy, for humans as well as non-humans, also seems to be a cause of many of the world's woes.

 

I think many people have empathy for those who are like them, but far fewer have empathy for those (human or non-human) who are not like them.

 

Maybe the key is to show people that animals ARE like them (but then, we get accused of "anthropomorphism," of being "bunny lovers," or being illogical and overly emotional. After all, they are "just animals," right? )

[madcat]

I don’t understand how people who are around animals can lack empathy toward other animals. I’m not talking about the people working on the farms because some people will do anything for money. Do you think all of the Nazis were heartless monsters who loved their jobs? I doubt it… they were just doing what they were told. (Side note, if you don’t mind subtitles watch the movie The Experiment). I can not even begin to fathom how a person with pets can still justify the notion that animals have no souls or are below us in any way.

That blows my mind!

[Kathryn]

I I can not even begin to fathom how a person with pets can still justify the notion that animals have no souls or are below us in any way.

That blows my mind!

 

I don't understand it, emotionally, either, but I think I've figured out how it works for some.

 

There's "us," and there's "them." "They" are "others," and are treated differently from "us." Pets are welcomed into the circle of "us" (at least to some extent), but "food animals"are "others." They are different.

 

Also, it's hard to have empathy for someone you could eat at any moment! If you did, you couldn't eat them (obviously). But maybe being vegan allows one to be more empathetic (something you have to deny if you are going to eat meat...kind of a vicious cycle: you have to have empathy in order to not eat them, but you want to eat them, so you squelch that empathy.... )

 

When I was a kid, I was an omni, just like my parents. But there were certain "meats" I wouldn't eat: deer, lamb, duck, goose. All animals that hadn't made it into the category of "food" for me, and where I still saw the animal behind the meat. Not the same with beef or chicken (as long as I didn't have to see the raw product!), which were "food." I had empathy for the deer and lambs (which weren't part of my regular diet), but kind of ignored it, or denied it for cows, pigs, chickens, which I didnt think about when I ate...though now, when I see a hunk of dead carcass, that's what I see... an animal, not "food.")

[Jay]

In my experience with omni's the main problem appears to be the lack of empathy.

 

So I am left wondering what can we as individuals and collectives / groups do to engage people to experience the reality of those who suffer when they have become conditioned, by society / culture / community / etc, to be otherwise. And then to positively alter their personal reality due this experience.

 

Pete...

 

I wish to write books that are as popular as Narnia, LoTR, Potter that will get people primarily while they are young and make them really think about this. Standard D&D with an emphasis on vegan elves versus meat eating ogres maybe. I'm not a natural writer though so it's been a very slow process. For it to be popular the vegan message would have to be not quite too obvious. But then even Narnia's pretty obvious christian message I don't think had anything to do with anyone becoming christian.

[madcat]

i don’t feel too bad that animals die to feed people. It is utterly unnecessary so I don’t see any reason to eat them my self, but sooner or later they will die of something. We all will. And I don’t really think its any different if a fish dies because it is eaten by a bear or by a person. The only exception being that people have the mental capacity to find other food sources. What I do hate, however, is that fact that animals bred for consumption send their entire lives in misery. That is inexcusable! If I had to choose between eating a cow or a deer, I would pick the deer hands down. Of course I would be sad that an animal had to die so that I could live, but it would ease my mind (somewhat) knowing that it was free and had a happy life.

 

The things that farm animals have to live through would be considered abuse if it were done to a cat or a dog.

[Nakeddragon]

Jay wrote

I wish to write books that are as popular as Narnia, LoTR, Potter that will get people primarily while they are young and make them really think about this.

 

 

I think this is a good idea, to promote veg*nism within youth culture would be a good way of educating the young for future decision making.

 

Which probably also leads to the need for more veg*n role models within youth culture.

[violet13]

AnnB, thank you for posting meaningful message.

Now I understand why I wasn't most effective to promote animal rights movement to help animals.

Yes, I need to change my attitude toward cold blooded barbarians who care less about animal suffering.

Important thing is not who is right but to be effective.

Knowing these things, I still have difficulty to control my anger.

I hope I am wrong but do you truly believe people who speak about respect and kindness toward cold blooded barbarians never hate people if they are tortured to death exactly same way animals are tortured to death?

My guess is when people experience same torture and death animals are experiencing, there is no way for them to not to hate people who influcted so much torture on them.

How anybody can stand to be skinned alive, drowned to death, strangle to death, burned to death, etc?

I am 99.99% sure when people are experiencing exactly same torture animals went through, there is no way for these people to not to hate their tormentors so how anybody can expect other people to love, respect, and kindness to cold blooded barbarians who torture animals to death when they put themselves in place of animals?

I think the reason why some people speak about respect, love, and kindness toward cold blooded barbarians is because they are not experiencing exactly same torture and death animal went through.

I believe in much heavier penalty for animal abusers and tomentors.

I know I sound confused.

I still believe you are right but I also believe that what I am saying is not totally nonsense.

[Richard]

words like 'hate' really get people into arguments. I really dislike animals being killed, and I really dislike a person who does it, and I really dislike a person who thinks it's okay to kill animals. People think there is more to 'hating' than really disliking something, and in my opinion there isn't. But people get upset about the word 'hate' because it suggests that you're going to do something like punch people that you hate etc, which isn't the case.

[compassionategirl]

AnnB, thank you for posting meaningful message.

Now I understand why I wasn't most effective to promote animal rights movement to help animals.

Yes, I need to change my attitude toward cold blooded barbarians who care less about animal suffering.

Important thing is not who is right but to be effective.

Knowing these things, I still have difficulty to control my anger.

I hope I am wrong but do you truly believe people who speak about respect and kindness toward cold blooded barbarians never hate people if they are tortured to death exactly same way animals are tortured to death?

My guess is when people experience same torture and death animals are experiencing, there is no way for them to not to hate people who influcted so much torture on them.

How anybody can stand to be skinned alive, drowned to death, strangle to death, burned to death, etc?

I am 99.99% sure when people are experiencing exactly same torture animals went through, there is no way for these people to not to hate their tormentors so how anybody can expect other people to love, respect, and kindness to cold blooded barbarians who torture animals to death when they put themselves in place of animals?

I think the reason why some people speak about respect, love, and kindness toward cold blooded barbarians is because they are not experiencing exactly same torture and death animal went through.

I believe in much heavier penalty for animal abusers and tomentors.

I know I sound confused.

I still believe you are right but I also believe that what I am saying is not totally nonsense.

 

Violet, I am not sure who this message is directed to?

 

At any rate, I dont disagree with the contempt you feel for those who KNOW and just dont care. I feel it too. But what I am saying is that if you are a tortured animal, you would want your advocate to be EFFECTIVE in changing the hearts and minds of these barbarians. Being right alone is not going to help the animal and so will not stop his torture, which is what you so desperately want, right? They need us to be effective so their suffering stops - not just right. Otherwise, we can be as right as we want -- they will continue to suffer barbarically anyway.

 

That is all I am saying. I agree with your strong feelings of , outrage and contempt.

 

Do what works - what actually works in changing people's hearts and minds. And that requires learning to be flexible and adaptable - being adept in different techniques because what works for changing one person's heart will not work for another.

 

SOmebody once told me also, that too much passion can wind up hurting animals more than helping them. I think this was good advice. Passion is a feeling and so you cant just turn it off like a switch, but you have to make sure you can control it when doing so would be MORE HELPFUL to effecting change for the animals.

 

Know what I mean?

 

SO you are right Violet in feeling the way that you do (at least in my opinion). But go and be effective to help animals.

 

In other words, I am not asking you to love any barbarians. I am asking you to work to change their barbaric ways. And being right alone is not going to do that (with most people), and therefore not help the animals.

 

I hope you think about what I say. I have been where you are, but received some very good advice that helped me rethink my approach to helping animals.

 

It isnt easy though because animal suffering brings out the violence in me -- i just want to make the culprits suffer just like the animals they exploit do. But since that isnt really possible, I need to be effective and calm if I really want to help animals.