The pandemic has thrown into high relief some of the longstanding issues surrounding working conditions in meatpacking facilities. John Oliver explains why g...
And I get that you don't have to flag every opinion you have as an opinion, but when it's a claim that you and like 5 other people have you should probably hesitate pronouncing it as a universal truth.
Communism isn't the only revolutionary leftist tendency, non-communist forms of anarchism, syndicalism and communalism are all examples I can think of that are revolutionary but don't call themselves communist.
Some vegans here are fucking obnoxious, sorry not sorry.
I do think that vegans piss off omnis for the same reason that leftists piss off liberals. No one likes being called out. And honestly, I'm making every effort to not call anyone out.
Vegans also care about giving undocumented people better opportunities and work conditions than the literal plantation conditions of a slaughterhouse.
These people are given no choice but to work here or starve, and can't report abuses because of threat of deportation. John gives the example of a worker who had both hands crushed being forced to sign a contract waiving all liability with a pen in between his teeth.
The respiratory issues that arise from working in a slaughterhouse mean most of them have gotten sick from breathing in the concentrated fumes.
Switching demand from meat to plant agriculture means jobs with better working conditions for these people. Fighting for path to citizenship is a part of that.
Can I ask an question? I grew up in a dirt poor Mormon family that lived on church food. How does someone go vegan when all their food is supplied to them based on charity?
It's about doing as much as you can. If you're not in control of your food it can be harder, especially if you aren't even the one picking the food you get. If one can get enough staples like rice, beans, canned veggies, it can be possible, but one shouldn't sacrifice their own health over it either. Other ways to live closer to a vegan lifestyle would be to avoid purchasing firsthand as much leather, wool, etc. as possible (secondhand thrifting is better since you aren't directly paying a leather producer). There are also places like Food Not Bombs and Sikh temples that provide exclusively vegan/vegetarian food to people in need.
Once you have control over your own food supply, though, its easy to be vegan and frugal. I eat on about $5/6 a day, and that includes vegan breakfast sausage and the occasional vegan cheese splurges. I can give you a sample grocery list after my shift if you're interested
I personally have not been in leftist circles for long and I also grew up with farms around me. Let me tell you there is not many Sikh temples in Hooper, Utah and your social safety net is the Mormon church and that is it. You keep chickens out of necessity in those types of places. I can understand wanting to live a more vegan lifestyle but it seems like something that people choose more out of convenience than circumstances to my family members. Which is why I have always sort of rode it off as an ideology thing, and never really talk to them about it more seriously. This is not even broaching the subject of how their religion says that God created the earth and how they can do with the plants and animals what they want. I personally can be as vegan as I want but like 99% of the people around are not even going to have it on their radar and might even think less of you for it.
Thanks for answering my question and listening to me rant a little bit.
Because I enjoy the flavors of fennel, clove, and maple together with a nice protein source. The point is to move away from the torture and suffering of animals, not to completely alienate oneself from the foods we've come to know and love.
Again, small stuff like terminology isn't what's important. Cue the "no ethical consumption" quote, but one literally requires a cow to go through a brief, painful life, consuming 16x as much food to produce the same amount, and be slaughtered by humans who are also suffering massively from their work environment. The other also has some downfalls of capitalism in its making, but nothing was forced to die for me.
every living thing requires something else to die in order to keep living, it's just how we compartmentalize "death" & rank organisms in the hierarchy of worthy consideration
for instance, Jains in addition to being veggie, do not eat carrots or potatoes & other root vegetables because they believe that such plants have a higher "spirit" than other leafy greens... these ethical concerns are after all not universalizable. but I do agree that animals under human care should not be tortured or unduly harmed
You're right about the ethics, which is why ethics is one of the weaker points to make for veganism, but its only one of many reasons why veganism is the better choice (water scarcity, deforestation, waste pollution, ocean dead zones, methane production, zoonotic illnesses, mass use of antibiotics and antidepressants in livestock, slaughterhouse working conditions, etc.). If you are truly concerned for animal welfare, you should watch some slaughterhouse footage and see for yourself whether you should be supporting it with your money.
animals & other living things are killed all the time in the production of food both unintentionally and intentionally... killing agricultural pests & removing predators & varmints on farm land are both key to successful harvests
but fantasizing about what choices the consumer can look forward to in the vegan "free market" is itself commodity fetishism, except we are patting ourselves on the back for engaging in it.
There's this scientifically questionable idea that more field mice are hurt than livestock animals. Assuming this is true...
If you eat a pig that had a grain to mean conversation ratio of 8 to 1, or a cow that's like 20 to 1, won't less field mice die if we eat the plants directly? You realize that most grain in the US goes to feed livestock, right?
Edit: "won't less field mice die if we eat the plants directly. OMG I feel dumb
veganism when possible and practical. no one should judge someone who actually can't feasibly cut out animal products. it's when you're in a position to be able to that you should take action, in my opinion
If its worth anything I think you are right. Like I would totally would have the world swap over to a system of non-suffering. I am just trying to square the circle of poverty and I never can figure it out on my own short of ripping the whole system down.
for all the people going "omg the preaching vegans are so annoying," did you know that (cw bestiality)
spoiler
most bestiality laws in the us were specifically written so that farmers could continue literal sexual abuse of animals without being prosecuted by the state?
this type of thing is why we believe that leftism and animal liberation go hand-in-hand. I know it's annoying to be called out and I know you probably just want us to shut up, but this is why we keep saying it. by the way, if anyone wants a source on that, I'd be happy to provide.
Do you mean they were written with caveats for what farmers do or that they were created in order to sanctify what they do with outlawing bestiality as an excuse?
so it's different for every state, but for most states, the laws have claims in them saying that they don't apply to animal husbandry. I don't think most people realize what animal breeding actually entails but in order for it not to be prosecuted there has to be a loophole in the law (so, one was created). there was actually a huge backlash in Missouri(?) when bestiality laws were being proposed because the farmers believed it would directly harm them and their business.
(I put a question with Missouri because it may have been Michigan and I can't remember off the top of my head)
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I mean only if you assert that they do, which tons of people don't.
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And I get that you don't have to flag every opinion you have as an opinion, but when it's a claim that you and like 5 other people have you should probably hesitate pronouncing it as a universal truth.
Chapochat start using qualifiers to make distinction between opinions and assertions challenge
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Che is not a leftist because i saw him sticking 5 hot dogs in his mouth at once
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Not perfect != Not a leftist and conflating the two is like classic motte and bailey shit posting.
Kill Yr Idols everyone, no one is perfect
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I needed a stand in meat product and it was highest on the mental stack.
Animals aren't a part of the industrial reserve army of labor.
This isn't a materialist take.
This is a moralistic take trying to strengthen its legitimacy by piggybacking on other struggles.
(In before getting called a class reductionist for not standing in solidarity with all my comrades in George Orwell's "Animal Farm")
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Communism isn't the only revolutionary leftist tendency, non-communist forms of anarchism, syndicalism and communalism are all examples I can think of that are revolutionary but don't call themselves communist.
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Why?
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oh god that is a very very scorchingly bad take wow
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I honestly can't see anyone saying otherwise.
I do think that vegans piss off omnis for the same reason that leftists piss off liberals. No one likes being called out. And honestly, I'm making every effort to not call anyone out.
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Vegans also care about giving undocumented people better opportunities and work conditions than the literal plantation conditions of a slaughterhouse.
These people are given no choice but to work here or starve, and can't report abuses because of threat of deportation. John gives the example of a worker who had both hands crushed being forced to sign a contract waiving all liability with a pen in between his teeth.
The respiratory issues that arise from working in a slaughterhouse mean most of them have gotten sick from breathing in the concentrated fumes.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5355534/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16419092/
Switching demand from meat to plant agriculture means jobs with better working conditions for these people. Fighting for path to citizenship is a part of that.
Can I ask an question? I grew up in a dirt poor Mormon family that lived on church food. How does someone go vegan when all their food is supplied to them based on charity?
It's about doing as much as you can. If you're not in control of your food it can be harder, especially if you aren't even the one picking the food you get. If one can get enough staples like rice, beans, canned veggies, it can be possible, but one shouldn't sacrifice their own health over it either. Other ways to live closer to a vegan lifestyle would be to avoid purchasing firsthand as much leather, wool, etc. as possible (secondhand thrifting is better since you aren't directly paying a leather producer). There are also places like Food Not Bombs and Sikh temples that provide exclusively vegan/vegetarian food to people in need.
Once you have control over your own food supply, though, its easy to be vegan and frugal. I eat on about $5/6 a day, and that includes vegan breakfast sausage and the occasional vegan cheese splurges. I can give you a sample grocery list after my shift if you're interested
I personally have not been in leftist circles for long and I also grew up with farms around me. Let me tell you there is not many Sikh temples in Hooper, Utah and your social safety net is the Mormon church and that is it. You keep chickens out of necessity in those types of places. I can understand wanting to live a more vegan lifestyle but it seems like something that people choose more out of convenience than circumstances to my family members. Which is why I have always sort of rode it off as an ideology thing, and never really talk to them about it more seriously. This is not even broaching the subject of how their religion says that God created the earth and how they can do with the plants and animals what they want. I personally can be as vegan as I want but like 99% of the people around are not even going to have it on their radar and might even think less of you for it.
Thanks for answering my question and listening to me rant a little bit.
why does vegan food have to imitate meat & animal-derived shapes & flavors if the point is to move away from such conventions?
Because I enjoy the flavors of fennel, clove, and maple together with a nice protein source. The point is to move away from the torture and suffering of animals, not to completely alienate oneself from the foods we've come to know and love.
fennel and clove & maple flavor can go in lots of things without calling them "sausage" and "cheese"
this seems a lot more about building a better mouse as far as privately-produced commodities & consumerism are concerned
Again, small stuff like terminology isn't what's important. Cue the "no ethical consumption" quote, but one literally requires a cow to go through a brief, painful life, consuming 16x as much food to produce the same amount, and be slaughtered by humans who are also suffering massively from their work environment. The other also has some downfalls of capitalism in its making, but nothing was forced to die for me.
every living thing requires something else to die in order to keep living, it's just how we compartmentalize "death" & rank organisms in the hierarchy of worthy consideration
for instance, Jains in addition to being veggie, do not eat carrots or potatoes & other root vegetables because they believe that such plants have a higher "spirit" than other leafy greens... these ethical concerns are after all not universalizable. but I do agree that animals under human care should not be tortured or unduly harmed
You're right about the ethics, which is why ethics is one of the weaker points to make for veganism, but its only one of many reasons why veganism is the better choice (water scarcity, deforestation, waste pollution, ocean dead zones, methane production, zoonotic illnesses, mass use of antibiotics and antidepressants in livestock, slaughterhouse working conditions, etc.). If you are truly concerned for animal welfare, you should watch some slaughterhouse footage and see for yourself whether you should be supporting it with your money.
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animals & other living things are killed all the time in the production of food both unintentionally and intentionally... killing agricultural pests & removing predators & varmints on farm land are both key to successful harvests
but fantasizing about what choices the consumer can look forward to in the vegan "free market" is itself commodity fetishism, except we are patting ourselves on the back for engaging in it.
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There's this scientifically questionable idea that more field mice are hurt than livestock animals. Assuming this is true...
If you eat a pig that had a grain to mean conversation ratio of 8 to 1, or a cow that's like 20 to 1, won't less field mice die if we eat the plants directly? You realize that most grain in the US goes to feed livestock, right?
Edit: "won't less field mice die if we eat the plants directly. OMG I feel dumb
growing plants kills many animals, as well as the plants
if we're concerned about things dying, then I think the best choice is to not eat
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veganism when possible and practical. no one should judge someone who actually can't feasibly cut out animal products. it's when you're in a position to be able to that you should take action, in my opinion
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If its worth anything I think you are right. Like I would totally would have the world swap over to a system of non-suffering. I am just trying to square the circle of poverty and I never can figure it out on my own short of ripping the whole system down.
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for all the people going "omg the preaching vegans are so annoying," did you know that (cw bestiality)
spoiler
most bestiality laws in the us were specifically written so that farmers could continue literal sexual abuse of animals without being prosecuted by the state?
this type of thing is why we believe that leftism and animal liberation go hand-in-hand. I know it's annoying to be called out and I know you probably just want us to shut up, but this is why we keep saying it. by the way, if anyone wants a source on that, I'd be happy to provide.
Do you mean they were written with caveats for what farmers do or that they were created in order to sanctify what they do with outlawing bestiality as an excuse?
so it's different for every state, but for most states, the laws have claims in them saying that they don't apply to animal husbandry. I don't think most people realize what animal breeding actually entails but in order for it not to be prosecuted there has to be a loophole in the law (so, one was created). there was actually a huge backlash in Missouri(?) when bestiality laws were being proposed because the farmers believed it would directly harm them and their business.
(I put a question with Missouri because it may have been Michigan and I can't remember off the top of my head)
tbh that seems like a no-brainer
like I said, I don't think most people know the nasty shit that goes into animal breeding
that's very true
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This might be the most meaningless insult I've ever seen. What are you gonna call them a muggle next?
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Usually their name.
I was agreeing with you until "bloodmouth"