An absence of compassion......

....isn't the problem, according to an interesting bit of writing over at the We Other Animals blog. I suspect there is some truth to this. The post makes the point that there is plenty of publicity about the cruelty involved in human animals using their fellow animals. Most human folks obviously know that eating other animals involves killing them and killing is not generally a happy or pleasant or pleasurable event....especially for the one being killed. The taking of a life is against the will of the victim and this is not anything a non-delusional being could characterize as kind or happy....at least not for the victim.

No, ignorance of cruelty or pleasure in cruelty isn't the problem. The problem is that most human people seem to think they have a right to use other animal people. If a human animal wants to kill and eat another animal person...ok. If a human animal wants to enslave another animal person and make him or her pull their plow or their carriage for a ride in park...ok. If a human animal wants to steal the milk of a mother cow, milk she produces to nourish her baby...ok. If a human animal wants to kill another animal and tear their skin off so they can wear a piece of it on their head, or back, or feet....ok. If a human animal wants to terrify a baby cow into running from them and then jerk the baby cow off of their feet and tie them up....ok.....and on and on and on.

By the way, none....absolutely none of the aforementioned activities are necessary for a human animal to live.  Food, transportation, labor, clothing, entertainment....all these can be obtained for human animals without involving the exploitation or participation of animals that are not human.

The problem seems to be this sense that a human animal is entitled to pretty much do anything they want to in respect to an animal that is not human.

Except, and this is a curious and strange (when considered) exception, some furor and dismay is generated if a human animal has sex with an animal that doesn't happen to be human. By sex I meant some human animal is doing some activity with that non-human animal that which results in sexual pleasure for the human animal.

I am not referring to the routinized horror of the raping of cow animals and pig animals and horse animals that is called "artificial insemination".....which is done to make some sort of benefit or profit for a human animal.

No, I am writing about activity which is recognized as bringing sexual pleasure to a human animal.....that will get you in hot water quickly.

Is this not curious? Killing some other animal for pleasure is ok (called "hunting") but having sex with some other animal for pleasure will get you jail time or maybe hospital time. You can do anything else to the other animal you want (just about) but you better not do something that can be identified as involving sexual pleasure. (As an aside, if you were a cow animal and were forced to choose between being raped or being killed and eaten...what would you opt for?)

The principle issue is that most human animals believe they have the right to use other living beings, most any old way they want.

It is curious, we recognize (generally) that it is not ok to walk into our neighbors house and kill them and eat them if we are hungry, it is not ok to tear their skin off and wear it on our head if we think it would be attractive. We recognize it is not ok to take their children away from them and lock the kids up in cages so we can stare at them for pleasure. 

We recognize those activities to be bad, wrong, immoral.....as long as our neighbor is identified as a sentient being belonging to the species of animal we call human. If they (woe be unto them) happen to belong to a species we identify as a "non-human" animal species....then all bets are off. (except for the sex thingee I mentioned)

Even though, those animals that happen to not be human, have feelings, have families, love their children, have friends, cringe in fear, scream in terror, like to play, feel joy in living, fight to avoid being hurt or killed....even though they are just like us.....no matter......human animals believe they have a right to do most any thing they want to those animals they say are not human.

Therein lies the problem.

Today is the 66th anniversary of the Vegan movement.....

Way back in 1944, Donald Watson (and others) gave a formal definition for the word vegan and November 1st is marked as the anniversary.

The word 'veganism' denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose...

I found a slideshow about veganism that is pretty good. It has (for my taste) a few too many references to "celebrities" but the music wasn't bad, the pictures were non-gory......for you bunny folk there is a cool picture of a bunny and a kitten at about the 4.5 to 5 minute mark.....and the information is thoughtfully presented.

It runs about 7 minutes or so:


To my mind veganism is an elaboration of an approach to living that is both simple and profound....the notion of live and let live. Consider life.........and the effect(s) your way of living has on other living beings........

One of the positive aspects of the World Wide Web is.............

......that it makes possible accessing the writings and thoughts of others so astonishingly easy.  I am not sure that is always a good thing, but often it seems to be so.  I ran across an essay that had a quote in it referring to avoiding eating animals that is eloquent and potent:

"....Every time I sit down to eat, I cast my lot: for mercy, against misery; for the oppressed, against the oppressor; and for compassion, against cruelty. There is a lot of suffering in the world, but how much suffering can be addressed with literally no time or effort on our part? We can just stop supporting it, by making different choices...."

Bruce Friedrich's complete essay is well worth reading.  Support compassion with your choices....go vegan.