We have issues...

By we I mean we human animals who live in the United States. Most of us are aware that on December 14th of 2012 a 20 year old white male named Adam Lanza entered an elementary school in Newtown Connecticut and murdered 20 children and 6 adults. We who live here in this country are sadly familiar with the news of a mass killing by, usually, a "deranged white guy" wielding a "semi-automatic firearm" of some sort or another. By the way, from the time of the Newton shooting up until yesterday (about a month and a half), we Americans have managed to kill another 1,619 of ourselves with guns (murder, suicide, accidental).

Like most other human animals who live in the U.S., I've been hearing about such instances of mass violence against groups of humans for years. According to this source there have been 62 such violent happenings since 1982...that's about one such killing spree every 6 months.

Consider this: Here's a table showing all American deaths in all the wars we've been involved in, including the first one noted....the Revolutionary war. (source)

Revolutionary War	4,435
War of 1812	2,260
Mexican War	13,283
Civil War (Union and Confederate, estimated)	525,000
Spanish-American War	2,446
World War I	116,516
World War II	405,399
Korean War	36,574
Vietnam War	58,220
Persian Gulf War	383
Afghanistan War	2,175
Iraq War	4,486
Total	1,171,177

Now one of the first things I noticed about this table was the absence of any reference at all to the number of "Americans" killed in what was actually our first "war"...the one where the arriving Europeans killed the people living here first...the Native Americans. This table implies there never was a war against Native Americans...or maybe it presents a greater truth...so few of the invading Europeans were killed that they weren't worth noting.

Context that number of dead in the preceding table...1,171,177 killed in all wars since about 1776, a span of approximately 236 years,  with the data in this figure which covers only 44 years.

 Total deaths caused by firearms in the United States (excluding war deaths, source):
 

1968 to 1980	377,000
1981 to 1998	620,525
1999 to 2010	364,483
2011	32,163
Total	1,384,171

Since 1968, since the year in which Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered with a gun (about 44 years ago), we "Americans" have managed to kill more of ourselves with guns than we have had killed in all the wars we've ever fought. When I stumbled across that information I was stunned. Just absolutely stunned. But the topper for me was the following graphic (source):

Like many, I've read about the belief by some that somehow civilians owning guns would keep the "government" from turning tyrannical and oppressing "the people". As the above figures show, for every firearm (handgun, rifle or shotgun) owned by the U.S. military or police, civilians own 79 firearms (handguns, rifles or shotguns). I'm sorry but that's simply sick. Those numbers don't reflect a concern with freedom or with rights...those numbers reflect a societal illness.

For a number of years I've been uneasy with anyone who seems to like guns. I grew up in rural Oklahoma, guns were all around and "normal". I spent some years in the military where I carried a gun every day I was on duty. Even there, even in the military, I was mildly uneasy around people carrying guns (including myself). I guess my take on guns and those who like guns is very well summarized by this graphic I saw on facebook.

Now I don't know the source of this assertion nor am I certain the issues involved are simply esteem issues. But I have absolutely no doubt that a significant number of the people in this country have issues...and guns aren't going to fix them, in fact, guns are going to make the consequences of those issues even worse than they are already.

I'm not unaware of the fact that some people do fear for their safety and it may be that their fears have some justification...If you're fearful...get a good taser or some other non-lethal device to protect yourself. You won't ever read about a "mass tasering" or a "mass pepper-spraying" where there were lots of dead. If you're determined to have a gun at least, at the very least, only have non-lethal ammunition in your gun and your home.

Bottom line, we've killed more of ourselves with guns in the last 44 years than have been killed in all the wars we've ever fought. Civilians own 80 guns for every 1 gun owned by the police or the government. Just how much more do we need to know to understand that we have serious problems with violence and with guns? We seem to be delusional and irrational about all of this...or at least many of us are. Why are we listening to people who are working out personal issues...especially when they seem to be working them out by acquiring devices designed to cause death? The whole thing is appalling and repulsive and alarming.

My posts are primarily directed toward our behavior toward our fellow animals, toward whom we are horribly violent and harmful. Well...we're also pretty violent toward ourselves, at least in this country and all of these things are connected. Certainly violence and killing is violence and killing...no matter who are the dead. The notion of thinking it is a good thing to have devices around that are designed to cause death is a notion that concerns me. Period.

Living as an ethical vegan means not harming other living beings. Wanting to have lots of devices designed to kill living beings...well...that seems to be the opposite of ethical veganism.

Babies...

I admit to finding the babies of my fellow Earthlings mind-bogglingly attractive.
(thanks to all the photographers...all photos were obtained from the internet or sanctuaries)

Here are some examples of why.

The wonderful being to the left is a baby wombat. The cutie above is a baby African grey parrot. All are just exquisite.

And no, the last photo isn't of a baby...just a picture of a wonderful face. Our planet has so many different beautiful babies and beings. Unless you are living as an ethical vegan...you are not doing all you can to not harm them. They deserve their lives as much as you deserve yours...live vegan and help to do your part in allowing them that which you ask for yourself.

Happy, Happy...

Vegan New Year to All!

And again:

And again:

And also, thank you from the little ones...like this baby below...thank you for caring about all other living beings. Earth and life belong to them too. Living vegan is the only meaningful way to respect that truth. Enjoy your New Year!

(thanks to all the creators of the images...all were found on the internet)

Merry Merry...

For all y'all...

Now and always is the season to be vegan...that way we can have year round holidays. Enjoy!

And:

To all beings...and especially to you who take the time to read and maybe even comment. Thank you!

Hooray for Winter Solstice...2012...

The December solstice will occur at 11:12am Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on December 21, 2012. For us living here in the central Oklahoma area that is 5:12am. If you want to know the time in your area for this event you can check here.

Image from timeanddate.com

December Solstice is the event which marks the start of increasing length in hours of sunlight for us in the northern hemisphere (conversely, December Solstice marks the start of shorter daylight hours in the southern hemisphere). While this is our shortest day of the year (hours of sunlight), this is the longest day of the year in the southern hemisphere. You might not realize that the December Solstice occurs on different days in different years: "December 20 and December 23 solstices occur less frequently than December 21 or December 22 solstices in the Gregorian calendar. The last December 23 solstice occurred in 1903 and will not occur again until the year 2303. A December 20 solstice has occurred very rarely, with the next one occurring in the year 2080." (source) The reason for this variance?

As with the June solstice, the December solstice’s varying dates are mainly due to the calendar system. The Gregorian calendar, which is used in most western countries, has 365 days in a common year and 366 days in a leap year. However, the tropical year, which is the length of time the sun takes to return to the same position in the seasons cycle (as seen from Earth), is different to the calendar year. The tropical year is approximately 365.242199 days but varies from year to year because of the influence of other planets. The exact orbital and daily rotational motion of the Earth, such as the “wobble” in the Earth's axis (precession), also contributes to the changing solstice dates. (source)

In other words...the timing for natural cycles is a bit fuzzy.

Human animals in the northern hemisphere have marked this event with celebrations and festivals for thousands of years. The light is returning, with this return spring will eventually occur...new growth in plants...new babies born to many of our wild relatives. All in all, pretty good reasons for celebration.

Greetings and best wishes to you and yours on this holiday season. Please make this a peaceful and caring celebration time by living as an ethical vegan.

These images are available from VeganPeace and you can visit there if you would like to send electronic vegan holiday greetings.

Pictures of Grasshopper, Rose, Rudy and Danny taken by Wanda Embar, Vegan Peace at Farm Sanctuary.

 Be well, be kind and enjoy! Consider visiting a local animal shelter or rescue and giving some of your time and attention to the beings there. They will appreciate it (and so will you). Thank you and happy Holidays!

Driving by the dead.

It's about 12 and 1/2 miles from my house to Heartland Rabbit Rescue. I go south out of Norman on I-35 for a couple of miles, across the South Canadian River then I turn west and travel about 5 more miles. Then I turn south on another highway and go south and west until I'm there. Once I'm there I visit Cutie.

Cutie.

She is shown out on the grounds where she will aggravate other bunnies if she gets a chance or she might undertake a digging project and move much more dirt than seems possible as she digs herself a tunnel.

Cutie again.

I'll also visit Albert too. He often is given the chance to

Albert.

run free and he will galoomp all over the warren grounds busying himself with whatever comes to his mind and/or attention. If he spots a human and he is of a mind to...and he is usually of a mind to. He will run really hard and fast toward that human and come to a screeching stop right at their feet and wait. He wants a head rub. If he gets what he wants...he'll take as much as he wants at that time and then he'll take off again.

Cutie and Albert are safe. They are cared for. They are appreciated and marveled over.

While driving to the rescue, after I turn to the southwest, over on the north side of the road there is a group/herd of bison.

Bison

This group certainly contains mothers and their babies, whether there are any grown guy bison in the group is not known to me.

Baby and mom.

These beings aren't safe. They aren't cared for beyond what is needed to be done to make sure they live long enough to be profitable to kill.

They are beautiful. Their ancestors were here long before any human animals. This part of North America was and is their ancestral home. Now they don't run free. Now they have tags in their ears. Now they are living but they are dead.

Seeing them every day I make the trip...seeing them on the way there and seeing them on the way back is painful and sad-making. It's quite a depressing juxtaposition. I'm traveling to a place where some beings are made safe but to get there I have to travel by the walking dead. They are beautiful beings, magnificent even...but that counts for nothing...they are dead. They are used to benefit a human or humans. Their lives, their cares, their desires, their pains, their fears, their joys big or small...all count for nothing except as might contribute to profit for some human animal.

There are other sorts of beings I drive by...cows...you may do so too. Most of us often pass by areas where the living dead are kept. If you don't do anything else...next time you see a cow or a sheep or a buffalo or anyone else that is one of the living dead...at least suffer a twinge and send them an apology of some kind. For the buffalo at least...we're not only killing them...we stole their homes too.

I'm always happy to see Cutie and Albert and each and every other bunny at the rescue and Midnite and Judy and Molly. But...every trip there and every trip back carries a load of sadness and helplessness. No matter how many are safe at the rescue...many more are dying or are the future dead.

Doing your part to end this culture of death and exploitation will necessitate living as a vegan...please don't put it off any longer. That buffalo baby doesn't deserve what is going to be done to him...and it is all absolutely unnecessary....and wrong.

The relativity of wrong.

"...when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

This quote is taken from an essay written by Isaac Asimov. When I was ten or eleven I discovered science fiction...the genre has remained a staple of my reading habits ever since. There are few authors in the field that are the equal of the late Isaac Asimov...partially because he was a bright and insightful individual.

I was struck by how relevant and applicable this thought is to the notion that all sentient beings have the right to live their own lives however they want. This may not be perfectly true...but if you think it is as untrue as believing that no living beings except human ones have such a right...."your view is wronger than both of them put together".

Truth, rightness, goodness, accuracy...all these terms refer to something that is, in the end, fuzzy. But if you think the notions of animal rights are just as inaccurate or fuzzy or as wrong as the way human animals now behave toward our fellow living beings. You're wronger than all "of them put together". 

Happy Thanksliving!

I agree with the feathered folks...I'm tremendously grateful for each being who lives their life as if others mattered. Thank you, thank you and thank you.

Happy Thanksliving!

 And...for all those animals who suffer because of us human animals...I'm sorry.

I will spend part of Thanksliving day trying to make some bunnies a bit more happy and/or comfortable. Few things are more gratifying than bringing some pleasure into the life of those less fortunate than yourself. If you can, please visit your local animal sanctuary or rescue and help out those we abandon, neglect and harm.

And I really really do appreciate all the ethical Vegans and hope you thoroughly enjoy your holiday!!!

Winter...

The two events that serve to mark the onset of winter have happened here. The first event is associated with freezing. We recently had several nights here where the temperature went below freezing and stayed that way long enough to kill off the tomato and pepper plants. Even those plants that were wrapped in sheets....flannel ones no less. Didn't matter...all died so that's the end of the summer growing season.

Behind Nessie...the remains of the tomato plants.

Nessie Ray was out helping me survey the freeze effects and is very much more interesting to look at than are the dreary brown/black plants behind her. Nessie had a very difficult molt this autumn...she is mostly through it now and her winter coat is thick and velvety feeling. For a time her coat looked pretty raggedy and her disposition matched it. No longer though...she's all spruced up and smooth.

The second factor that confirms winter is that the mighty Princess...Gracie Rae...crept up onto our bed and slept for several nights. Bobby Ray sleeps with us every night...not Gracie though. She finds various locations around the house to spend her nights but she is an excellent indicator of cold weather because when the cold shows up...so does she. Otherwise...it is a bit beneath her to sleep with the peasants.

The sweet gum tree in our backyard is about 3/4ths of the way through losing all of its leaves and they made a nice carpet on this day.

Sweet Gum Leaves.

So...once the tomato plants die off and the Princess Gracie shows up in bed at night...that's the beginning of winter for me. What the calendar says doesn't matter.

Welcome Mr. Winter...

You can be a much more gracious companion for all the seasons and for all the Earthlings if you live your life as an ethical vegan.

A Jolly Halloween wish...

Enjoy your Halloween please. If you like "vintage" images

such as these...

You can see lots more images here.


For those who prefer some horror to accompany their Halloween, you can take a look (open a pdf table) at the results of the ghoulish and murderous behavior of the "wildlife services" department, financed by our tax money, at this link.

Remember...if you don't want to be a meanie this Halloween or any other time...please live as an ethical vegan.

What might have been...

Recently I saw a documentary produced and directed by Rory Kennedy titled "Ethel". The documentary is ostensibly about the wife of Robert F. Kennedy and Rory Kennedy, the documentary producer, is also the youngest child of Robert Kennedy. So the film is theoretically about the directors mom...but actually you see lots of her dad in it too.

Robert's wife Ethel was slightly pregnant at the time of his murder and Rory Kennedy was born many months after her father died so she never knew him. She was raised by her mother and this was, I thought, what she was attempting to highlight in the work...that no matter the legacy of her father Robert...it was Ethel who raised the children after his murder and passed on whatever foundations and values they have.

One thing I didn't remember was that while Robert Kennedy was the Attorney General of the United States, his wife Ethel was arrested and charged with and tried in court for horse theft. She had found several starving and neglected horses in a barn and brought them to her place to care for them. Apparently the owner of the horses pressed charges against her.  

What might have been? One thing the film touched on was Robert Kennedy's strong friendship with a personal hero of mine....Cesar Chavez.  And Mr. Chavez was a hero of mine from way way back to the great grape boycott of the 1960's. Mr. Chavez was a strong supporter of human rights and justice as was Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Chavez became enlightened enough, eventually, to extend his understanding of justice and rights to other animals....and at the last of his life he lived as an ethical vegan.

JFK, MLK, RFK (John F. Kennedy, Martin L. King and Robert F. Kennedy)...three sets of initials belonging to three different men...but all appeared to live lives where the pursuit of and support of human rights and justice for all human animals was a very very important value to them. All three of these men were murdered during a brief (less than 5 year span) period while I was a young man. I was reminded of the hope and belief that existed for a time (before their murders) that this country would actually strive to live up to the ideal of "created equal". I was reminded of the despair and sorrow and sense of loss their murders elicited in me...and in a real way that still resides in me and I truly believe the United States and the world would be a very different place had those men not been murdered.

None of those three were vegans...but Robert's good friend Cesar Chavez came to veganism later in his life. MLK's widow, Coretta Scott King, came to veganism later in her life as did their son, Dexter Scott King. People devoted to human equality and human rights and human justice realized that those notions of rights and justice belong to all living beings....not just human beings. What might have been had those three advocates not been murdered? We murdered three of the best of ourselves. And we did it...no "foreign enemy", no "evil outsiders". Their deaths represent, to me, a far far greater tragedy and loss and wounding than anything that has happened to this nation since then.

And...it just might be...that our fellow animals were harmed just as deeply as we were....what might have been had one or more of those folks lived to evolve into advocates for ethical veganism.



  

Haunted...

is a reasonably good word (and seasonable...seeing as how this is the month of Halloween...but make no mistake...this is about horror but not a fun horror) to describe my reaction to this post over on the very fine Animal Rights blog.

I'm going to reproduce it here because it is not too long and I think it should be reproduced....again and again.

The post:

My Vegetarian Child and Her Melt-Down

Came home last night to 6 year-old kid on couch, sobbing her head off.  Husband tells me it's because of a scene in the movie they're watching, in which two dogs (cartoon dogs) fight --and one almost falls of a cliff.

She's just bawling.
I sit between them and look at Husband, bewildered.  He whispers, "She's also upset about Thanksgiving."

I whisper, "What? Why?" before the epiphany hits that they're probably talking about turkeys at school and daycare all the live-long day.

He whispers, "The turkeys."

Of course she hears us; we're right there.  And she just Loses her Shit.  Oh my god.

"Why do people eat animals? why why why why why? I wish the whole world were vegetarian. Why why why why why??"

She's just sobbing. Her eyes are puffing up and everything.

I'm so saddened and so surprised, as I always am, because I just try to play this vegetarian/vegan life we have on the down-low.  She asked me last week if she could have the chocolate milk at school on Fridays and I said yes.   But, of her own accord, she is consuming fewer and fewer animal products.

Then, she reminded me of the story she told me last year, about one of her friend's uncles shooting a bear.  "For a carpet!" she sobs last night.  "He killed a bear for a carpet!"
Then, she's inarticulate for a while.

I look at Husband.  Part of me wanted to whisper, "She doesn't know the half of it" ( but I remembered her excellent hearing.  I thought to myself:  imagine if she heard what I just heard at my meeting at the Humane Society).


She cheered up a bit when I told her that more and more people were stopping eating meat and that more and more people were reducing it in their diets.  And that I just came from a place where people love animals too.

She liked that.  (I had recently talked to a friend who told me his 12-year old boy was freaking out about climate change. I told him to tell him about activists for the environment, that people were working hard for it.  He thought that was a good idea.)

Then, I gave her a candy I managed to dig out of the bottom of my bag (might've been older than she was).  She chewed it quietly and calmed down.

I felt wretched.  I still do.  I had never wanted to make her so sad.  I am trying to figure this out.

One of the things that isn't often talked about when we consider ethical veganism is the suffering and horror that is inflicted on human children as they are made into unwitting bystanders and/or accomplices in the depravity that is at the heart of exploiting and killing sentient beings for profit or fun.

The suffering and misery and pain we inflict on our fellow animals doesn't stop just with them...when our children realize what is happening they are tainted by that knowledge and they feel pain too.

Are we witless? Doesn't the sorrow of this human child...of all the human children tell us something? Instead of stopping and changing our behavior we try to hide it from them...we lie to them...we distort reality for them. We damage their ability to clearly perceive the world around them. We do all these things to ourselves too but doing these sorts of reality-scuttling operations on children is much worse because it deforms them as they grow...it twists how they see the world...it blinds them and makes them crooked. They look to us to help them comprehend their world...and we gift them with lies and distortions and minimizations and avoidances and euphemisms.

We all were once them, and each of us who came to veganism as adults, we each have had to struggle with seeing clearly, with regaining our sight, as it were, with being able to see our behavior toward other animals as it is...not as we were told it was. We were gifted with the added misery of having to accept our own complicity in the ongoing horror story of we human animals. All because we got twisted when we were small. And part of the reason we got twisted was because no one wants to cause a small child pain. No parent wants to see their child in misery....no society wants to see its children suffering. But our parents and our society cheated...instead of evaluating and changing the behaviors that caused the misery...they lied...they hid things...they distorted...they sabotaged reality and in so doing they damaged our ability to see....to comprehend...to know.

The original harm...exploiting and hurting and killing our fellow animals was compounded by more harm...by lying and hiding and twisting what we were doing...instead of just stopping the harming.

I'm upset tremendously simply by writing about this...I have thought about this post over and over ever since I read it. There's a big big truth here if only we will not hide it from ourselves.

The mother writes that she had never wanted to make her child so sad...she didn't...the truth made her child sad. And we have fashioned a truth...the truth of our treatment of our fellow animals into a truth that is sad...that should make anyone sad. Anything that sad and terrible demands that it be ended...that it be changed, most especially since it is unnecessary...it does not have to be that way.

But...those that create this truth generally don't feel that sadness...they hide from it....they hide it from themselves...but it doesn't disappear...it doesn't become any less sad because of the hiding or avoiding. It sits there waiting, becoming more and more monstrous the longer it continues...waiting to be encountered by an innocent child's eyes and heart...and it wounds her just as it wounds all of us. But hers is a special wounding because she is powerless and guiltless and innocent. She had no hand in making it this way. It is our legacy to her...and it is a miserable thing.

Shame on us...shame on those who harm...shame on those who use our animal relatives...for goodness sake! We can do better than this, we can't leave the world in the hands of the liars and the wounders and the hurters and the killers and the profiteers and the thieves. We mustn't. We owe this little girl much more than that...we owe our fellow animals much more than that...we owe our planet much more than that....we even owe ourselves much more than that.

I admire and respect these parents so very much. I have no doubt that human beings as a whole would be a much better and kinder and brighter group if all parents were like these. I can only ache for them and thank them and apologize to them and their daughter for the behavior of my fellow human animals. Living as an ethical vegan means not inflicting gratuitous misery on our fellow animals...it also means not inflicting gratuitous misery on our own children either. 

The Shmoo

For those of you who don't remember Al Capp you might want to read about one of his creations, the Shmoo. My wife recently asked me if I remembered Shmoos and that prompted me to refresh my memory about his work. Mr. Capp was a complex and interesting fellow who became rather embittered in his later years. You can learn more about him and his work by following the links provided.

The Shmoo was a mythical animal he introduced in his cartoon strip Li'l Abner in 1948. This little being rapidly became a national phenomenon, according to the Wikipedia article. Some of the characteristics of the Shmoo were:

• They reproduce asexually and are incredibly prolific, multiplying exponentially faster than rabbits. They require no sustenance other than air.
• Shmoos are delicious to eat, and are eager to be eaten. If a human looks at one hungrily, it will happily immolate itself — either by jumping into a frying pan, after which they taste like chicken, or into a broiling pan, after which they taste like steak. When roasted they taste like pork, and when baked they taste like catfish. (Raw, they taste like oysters on the half-shell.)
• They also produce eggs (neatly packaged), milk (bottled, grade-A), and butter—no churning required. Their pelts make perfect bootleather or house timber, depending on how thick you slice it.
• They have no bones, so there's absolutely no waste. Their eyes make the best suspender buttons, and their whiskers make perfect toothpicks. In short, they are simply the perfect ideal of a subsistence agricultural herd animal.
• Naturally gentle, they require minimal care, and are ideal playmates for young children. The frolicking of shmoon is so entertaining (such as their staged "shmoosical comedies") that people no longer feel the need to watch television or go to the movies. (source)

Looking at the fantasized features ascribed to Shmoos, we can perhaps see that many of our cultural narratives surrounding our exploitation of animals more closely resembles a cartoon strip than it does reality. We prefer to think our fellow animals just want to serve us and that they gladly give up their freedom and their lives to satisfy our whims and our appetites...that they don't mind and certainly they don't suffer...or if they do, their suffering is brief and they willingly endure it...all just for us. (Aren't we special?)

We can enjoy fantasy...just as we can enjoy cartoons...but when we confuse fantasy with reality about our fellow animals, there is often a severe price to pay. Sadly, most human animals inflict that price on the innocent of the Earth...our fellow animals. Cows are not Shmoos, chickens are not Shmoos, pigs are not shmoos...no real animal is a shmoo. None. They value their lives, just as we do ours, and their lives belong to them...not us.

Unless you are living as an ethical vegan...you are likely, on some level, to be guilty of inhabiting cartoonland...not reality. Time to grow up and become a responsible member of the community of life.

A request...

There is a movie named Margin Call that seems to me to provide some compelling illustrations of some of the things I wrote about in my previous post regarding market values. The comments on that post were cogent and stimulating enough that I've found myself thinking about their content a number of times.

My request is that you watch this movie with the post about corruption in mind. Watch this movie and try to identify folks exhibiting corrupted behavior and values...Or maybe no one exhibits corruption. Whatever the case is, please watch and let me know what you think. Who's the bad guy(s) in the movie? Are there any bad gals or guys? By the way...the movie is particularly well done (I thought) and does an excellent job of summing up some of the major factors which helped drive the recent (and ongoing) economic debacle...and does so in such a way that doesn't make you go to sleep...or start twitching.

An apology is in order for the decrease in my posting. I've been (and still am) struggling with some computer issues that have interfered with my online time. They are still occurring, so I can't be certain that more delays won't happen. Technology can be useful...it also can be unreliable.

And...if you want to reduce your own corruption level...one way of doing so is to go vegan. The planet and our fellow animals will thank you (and me too).

Corruption...

Is an evocative word...usually of not so pleasant things. A politician taking bribes, decay, contamination....these are all meanings given by dictionaries (source, source).

In a book titled "What Money Can't Buy", author Michael J. Sandel points out that we often associate corruption with ill-gotten gains. He then notes that the word also means, when referring to a good or a social practice, degrading or treating something (or someone) to a lower mode of valuation than is appropriate to it. (p.34). His book is full of examples where "market values" have come into vogue as a way of looking at things and as a way of allocating 'resources'. Proponents of this way of looking at virtually everything argue that there's nothing wrong with such a view and indeed this is an efficient and fair and neutral way of operating in the world.

It seems that there is a serious and disturbing 'unintended consequence' of using the "market" as an allocator of goods and services and that is that there is a persistent and ubiquitous tendency of the "market" way of allocation and market-oriented way of thinking to displace nonmarket ways of thinking and allocating.

For me, the most potent and stimulating point in this book is that we have slowly and imperceptibly tumped over from a society with a "market economy" to a market society. In my lifetime I have seen this and been disturbed by this but until reading this book had never quite put it into clarifying and useful terms. Sandel says this has happened without serious and persistent public debate and one of the main thrusts of the book is that a public debate about this needs to occur.

Those interested can read reviews of this book here and here.

Simply put...ethical veganism is, in one way of looking at it, as a call to change how we value living animal beings that are not human animal beings. They have been relegated to a calculus or "valuation method" that "corrupts" their essence, their 'worth' and that must be changed. Justice, morality, compassion and "common sense" all demand and require a change. Our fellow animals have been "corrupted", lowered to a way of seeing and thinking and feeling about them that is below the truth of them, ....and ethical veganism is a way of "repairing the world"...at least in this aspect.

For this to happen, I believe, is going to require a lot more than just according our fellow living beings the respect and freedom that is theirs. A lot more. Because unless and until we "get our heads and hearts straight" about our planet, about our environment, about our place in those and about how we live in this world our fellow animals are not going to be safe from us. We are dangerous...not only to our planet and the other life thereon...but also to ourselves. How could we have practiced slavery on ourselves for as long as we have without being, maybe, somehow deranged?

Look at how seemingly difficult living with justice (fairness, equality) appears to be for human animals. Look at the length of time, thousands and thousands of years, "market values" dominated our thinking about human animals. It is astonishing (to me anyway) to realize that human slavery was everyday practice (and disgustingly enough, still is, albeit not "legally") for most of the recorded history of our species. From what I could find, it seems that the last country to legally abolish slavery did so only 31 years ago (1981). And even then, they didn't 'criminalize' it until 2007. Put it another way...it was only 5 years ago (2007) that it finally became a criminal offense in all human societies to "own" another human animal being. Think of how many thousands of years there have been human animal societies.

It is amazing to me....that the injustice of and unfairness of one human animal "owning" another human animal's life has only been prohibited by law with criminal penalties, everywhere on planet Earth, for only 5 years. Appalling. (And I know full well these despicable practices still exist and still occur even though universally illegal)  In truth, whatever pit we've been crawling out of, either we are so slow as to be enshrined in Ripley's Believe It or Not, or the pit had a depth which is maybe immeasurable. If this sort of stuff doesn't make you shake your head...well...wow....just wow.

Check out Sandel's book from your local library. It isn't the most fun read and sometimes is tedious and really doesn't have any answers, only questions...but ...it will likely bring some clarity and some "aha" moments for you to ponder.

It certainly brought to me a new way of thinking about "corruption". In some instances a "market" can be a useful tool. We've become intoxicated however, and have been for a long time, with this powerful but trivial tool. We're like the person with a hammer...everything looks like a nail. Well, the truth is, when you use a "market" to value...you almost invariably "corrupt" that which you are valuing....and your thinking....and yourself....and other beings....and planet Earth.

Look around...there aren't many ills that can be identified as having human origin that can't be traced back...in some degree or another to a corruption by market valuing.