Carnivorous Anarchists?

[Bodhisattva]

Vegans dont eat meat primarily because they consider it will be benefitial for THEIR health.

It's been mentioned before that there both health and moral reasons people choose vegetarianism over omnivorianism. Buddhist monks versus members of an organization devoted to the treatment of animals, for example.

That said, a properly omnivorous diet is heathier than a vegetarian one, since we lack the capacity to properly digest all but the most basic of plant matter. Especially if one takes in a raw vegan diet, were even fewer vitamins and minerals are digested.

I also want to mention that cows raised in healthy and happy environments have healthier and more nutritious meat. Less fat. cholestrol, and such. Stress has an enormous impact on the chemical composition of a living creature.

Plants also are LIVING things and yes they have FEELINGS, it is a biological fact.
Are plants as living things less worthy than animals? Is a hyacinth flower uglier than a pig? is it cuter? I think it is.
Why are vegans authoritarian towards plants? Do you know how beautifull and sensitive sunflower is? Have you been in a sunflower field around dusk time? It's touching. But you are advocating that we cut them and make margarine and oil. Sunflowers are sensitive to light, air, sounds, radiations of various types - as animals are. So my friends, how does killing sunflower not rate in the same category as killing a pig? Because you don't hear it scream? If someone here understands russian i'll recomend few books about plants and the way experiments were done in the former USSR. Yes they definitely feel. And scream.

Is there something peculiar about living in the West. The more i use the net the more i'm inclined to think so.

I've done a tiny bit of reading about plant consciousness as well. I believe a consciousness does exist, if not in the same form we experience first as animals and then as human beings. The fact is, this world is built upon suffering. The Gnostic Christians believed they could escape it by committing suicide by starvation. All we (the somewhat sane ones) can really do at this point in time is try to minimize our impact as much as possible. There are ways to do that without depriving ourselves of meat should we be so inclined.

[spawn]

The fact is, this world is built upon suffering. The Gnostic Christians believed they could escape it by committing suicide by starvation. All we (the somewhat sane ones) can really do at this point in time is try to minimize our impact as much as possible. There are ways to do that without depriving ourselves of meat should we be so inclined.

The best way to minimize the suffering of animals in the various food industries is to avoid killing them at all. Since we now-a-days require no meat in order to survive and the alternative vegetarian (or vegan) diet is just as healthy or perhaps more healthy than the omnivorous diet (obviously more healthy than the average omnivorous diet), I think that we are morally ought to stop killing and eating animals.

Does the slave owner feel that he is deprived of something when slavery is abolished? Does the rapist feel that he is deprived of something when raping is outlawed? Yes, but that has no implication at all about the morality of slavery and rape. We must be reasonable though - but I think that going veg is very reasonable, especially today, with the variety of vegan food available and the many meat and dairy replacements which exist.

[Guest]

The best way to minimize the suffering of animals in the various food industries is to avoid killing them at all. Since we now-a-days require no meat in order to survive and the alternative vegetarian (or vegan) diet is just as healthy or perhaps more healthy than the omnivorous diet (obviously more healthy than the average omnivorous diet), I think that we are morally ought to stop killing and eating animals.

Does the slave owner feel that he is deprived of something when slavery is abolished? Does the rapist feel that he is deprived of something when raping is outlawed? Yes, but that has no implication at all about the morality of slavery and rape. We must be reasonable though - but I think that going veg is very reasonable, especially today, with the variety of vegan food available and the many meat and dairy replacements which exist.

Who is this "we" exactly? I suppose that you are from a western country, highly developed and with the so-called 'excess of wealth'. From where i'm standing meat is essential diet. Here at least. Here we aren't so EVOLVED as to equate slavery and raping with consuming meat because we still think human beigs are rather higher on the pedestal. And following your logic try reaing something of Vavilov's and Kirlyan's about plants having feelings! Yes comrade it's a fact. So, pushing the topic to its limits : how's killing an animal worse than killing a beautifull lower or the mighty pine. You cannot hear it scream. Given the necessary equipment you can !
So breaks the morality issue.
And if you live in US/UK or such and if you pay taxes you provide funds for killing tens of thousands of people in Iraq/Afghanistan/Yugoslavia/Panama/Libya/Grenada/Vietnam/Cuba and any other place that tax-payed bombs and missiles killed, maimed, left homeless... and will kill in the next 50-100 years (Cambodia/Vietnam - unexploded bombs and mines still kill people even today). There's your morality for you.
I'm sorry if i sound harsh but i'm from the place that was called Yugoslavia in the past and i know some bad and ugly shit first hand.

P.S. All of anarchist topics that deal with serious subjects like how to weaken/abolish the state, taxes, media and so on - have 1/10 of replies compared to issues like : vegetarianism,gay-rights,animal-rights and similar marginal topics but ones that catch the imagination of 'western anarchists' very fast... It makes me sad...
If one thing could be said - set the PRIORITIES first...

[Francois Tremblay]

Yea... plants don't have feelings or feel pain. Neither do crustaceans or insects.

Either way, whether a being feels pain or not has no bearing on whether we should eat it or not. It's a red herring. We don't grant rights to other animals based on whether they feel pain or not.

[spawn]

Well, according to "Diet For A New America" by John Robbins-

Number of people worldwide who will die as a result of malnutrition this year: 20 million
Number of people who could be adequately fed using land freed if Americans reduced their intake of meat by 10%: 100 million
Percentage of corn grown in the U.S. eaten by people: 20
Percentage of corn grown in the U.S. eaten by livestock: 80
Pounds of potatoes that can be grown on an acre: 40,000
Pounds of beef produced on an acre: 250
Gallons of water needed to produce a pound of wheat: 25
Gallons of water needed to produce a pound of California beef: 5,000

These statistics illustrate the wastefulness in the meat industry. Using lands currently used for the production of meat, if used for growing vegetables, far more people can be adequately fed.
The truth is that there is enough food available to adequately feed the entire planet. Of course, big corporations and food manufacturers have no interest in feeding the world's hungry, their sole interest is self interest. In many countries, including my country, a vegetarian diet is much cheaper than the standard omnivorous diet. That is also true of 3rd world countries. Many people are becoming vegetarians, having no choice - they no longer have the money required to sustain an omnivorous diet.

It is misleading to present the choice of vegetarianism as a matter of "your life or the life of a cow" since the human race now-a-days has no need for eating meat. If I would ever need to decide between my life or the life of an animal, I would most likely choose my life over the life of that animal. But this is almost never the case, and you must at least agree with me that it is not the case in developed countries.

Plants have no central nerve system, and no brain capable of processing feelings.
By eating plants instead of animals, I cause far less plants to be killed anyway, since the animals that I might have eaten would need to be fed with many plants.
And yes, if it was ever proven that plants are conscious, sentient and are able to feel pain and there was an alternative to eating plants (such as a pill) I would advocate not eating plants and instead consuming such a pill.

And if you live in US/UK or such and if you pay taxes you provide funds for killing tens of thousands of people in Iraq/Afghanistan/Yugoslavia/Panama/Libya/Grenada/Vietnam/Cuba and any other place that tax-payed bombs and missiles killed, maimed, left homeless... and will kill in the next 50-100 years (Cambodia/Vietnam - unexploded bombs and mines still kill people even today). There's your morality for you.

Here you seem to propose that because society does certain immoral things, it is permissible to do other immoral things. I obviously oppose all the activities that you mentioned.
Lets go back a couple hundred years.. Slavery is immoral, yet widely practiced, does that fact make it okay for me to kill/rape/any-other-immoral-act someone?

P.S I live in Israel

[Francois Tremblay]

"Using lands currently used for the production of meat, if used for growing vegetables, far more people can be adequately fed."

Actually, meat production uses a lot of land that is NOT usable for cultivation. There's actually only a very small percentage of land that can be used for cultivation: in the US, 19%, Mexico 18%, Australia 6%, China 13%.

[Guest]

I agree Francois. People here usually keep one pig a year. Just to be able to eat some meat. Because pig is omnivorous it means that it's easy to feed it untill it reaches some 80-100 kilos. (cca. 200 lbs).It eats anyhing you give it like leftovers and anything one can think of. Also rabbits are more and more used for the same reasons - providing cheap meat even cheaper than chicken meat.
It's a bizzare notion that it requires 5000 gallons per pound of beaf, subsequently 1,000,000 gallons / 4.500.000 liters for an animal of 100 kilos/200 lb. How,why, it will burst. Pig doesn't drink gallons of water every day. Neither do the cows. Masai of Kenya/Tansania usualy keep dozens of cattle per tribe or hundreds depending on its size. So 100 cattle will consume 450.000.000 liters of water.

Quote : "Do plants engage in dynamic conscious dialogue with the ground and other beings? Empirical discoveries made throughout the century by notables such as Bose, Hieronymus, De LaWarr, Backster, Lawrence, and others give adequate proof of this dialogue. We learn that plant tissues can be used and relied upon for establishing "objective" qualitative criteria. The remarkable sensitivity of plants to external conscious and auric influences is providing us all with a revolutionary new means of experimentation. This "objectivized" qualitative sensitivity becomes extremely important for those who wish the maintenance of pure qualitative approaches to experimental research."

for further info : http://www.borderlands.com/newstuff/res ... antsas.htm

Anyway, it is a personal preference to eat or not to eat meat or plants. It always will be. Spawn equals it with slavery or rape which is unbeliavable! Cruelty towards animals is one of the things current societies do and of course is bad. First stop paying taxes to the state because an F-16 or a Kfir fighter-bomber makes a lot more suffering than eating meat. Or it doesn't? Ah, yes and it costs 6000$/flying hour. Then continue to worry about animals/plants.
Jus't don't stay hungry.

[Bodhisattva]

Anyway, it is a personal preference to eat or not to eat meat or plants. It always will be. Spawn equals it with slavery or rape which is unbeliavable! Cruelty towards animals is one of the things current societies do and of course is bad. First stop paying taxes to the state because an F-16 or a Kfir fighter-bomber makes a lot more suffering than eating meat. Or it doesn't? Ah, yes and it costs 6000$/flying hour. Then continue to worry about animals/plants.
Jus't don't stay hungry.

What's unbelievable about finding all living things as important as human beings? There are stories of Buddhist monks offering themselves to starving animals so as to diminish the suffering of those animals. Even if Spawn isn't a Buddhist or even a member of a religion (in spite of, probably), I find that sort of general compassion touching.

I agree in the end, though. I eat meat, though I've become extremely conscious of what I eat and where it comes from. A little self awareness on all of our parts would more than help us in the fight for liberation, which is the biggest issue.

[Guest]

A state of mind/spirit where one offers him self to hungry animals is beyond me. I don't know that much about budhism apart from Hesse's Sidartha. It's so unselfish that urges a redefinition of altruism itself.
All living things apreciate themselves first. A tiger, a rat, a walrus, a pig, a parrot, a rose, eucaliptus tree, grass, seaweed... it does what it needs to survive/thrive and it does it in a manner that doesn't destroy earth balance. Of course certain spicies like rats or termites given the conditions engage in offensive 'operations' but nature always balances this in one way or another. Carnivorous animals don't kill something they cannot consume and thus there are always much more herbivorous animals alive.
Nature is self organizing principle of the highest order. Except for humans. Some entities in human form (capitalists,politicians etc.) need bizzare amounts of goods. Golden toilets and 200.000$ watches... this has no known comparison in nature.
Lurning Biology i found forms of life that are analogue to politicians/capitalists etc. in humanity - viruses,bacterias and other PARASITES. Parasite doesn't care about it's host it will drain everything to the point of it's hosts death and subsequently it's own. How do we fight parasites? With medicine. I'll take none is concerned with apparent 'virocide' or 'bacteriacide' when administering medicine to cure one self. Killing all those billions of viruses/bacterias. And how do we fight human parasites? We don't.We nurture them. We pay taxes, we work all our lifes for them. We are patriotic. We are 'law obiding, god fearing' citizens. Anarchism is one and only entity that even considers fight/defense from this 'people'.
Of all living forms only parasites do not deserve a right to live. Because if they do we won't.

I went a bit out of the topic sorry about that.

[don]

Why is it that vegetarianism/vaganism is almost exclusively tied to large urban areas?
Why peasants never thought of it?
Why is it that veg-isms are much more widespread in wealthiest countries?

Peasant populations have "thought of it". The question of why "veg-isms" are much more widespread in the wealthiest countries" is rather interesting to consider. What sort of evidence is there that this is a fact? If it is a fact, what does it mean? Does it mean that vegeterianism is somehow "bourgeois"?

[quote=”Guest”]From where i'm standing meat is essential diet. Here at least. Here we aren't so EVOLVED as to equate slavery and raping with consuming meat because we still think human beigs are rather higher on the pedestal.[/quote]

I’m a little confused as to what you’re getting at. Why exactly is meat so “essential”? Is it due to “humans being on higher pedestal” or is it due to some economic necessity? If the latter, perhaps the socio-economic stratification you describe is a product of capitalism and its fundamentally exploitative and hierarchical nature? Much as the consumption of non-humans is based on exploitative and hierarchical justifications?

Arent veg-isms compatible with capitalism 100%? One lives is capitalist society, is a vegan (doesn't eat meat and dairys and else) end of story. Try to avoid taxes and you'll see what's compatible with the capitalist state.
How will eating/not eating meat contribute to anarchy?
In my country corn/grain companies are much richer than meat producing ones. End of capitalism?

Veg*ism certainly is compatible with capitalism. I don't think that's what's being argued. The original question which started this thread centred around whether killing and eating non-humans was compatible with anarchy (i.e. is it hierachical)? I think the answer is undoubtledly that meat eating does involve archy. Keep in mind that one can at once understand robbery as an exercise of power over someone else, and as a product of odious socio-economic realities – just as one can understand the role of rational self-preservation in the decision to kill and consume other animals – without necessarily justifying either per se.

”Guest”]And following your logic try reaing something of Vavilov's and Kirlyan's about plants having feelings! Yes comrade it's a fact. So, pushing the topic to its limits : how's killing an animal worse than killing a beautifull lower or the mighty pine. You cannot hear it scream. Given the necessary equipment you can !
So breaks the morality issue.

The sort of slippery slope dilemma that’s being presented here as an argument against veg*ism is rather self-defeating. What it comes down to is not so much a repudiation of the claim that non-humans are sentient and deserve consideration of this fact, but that there exist non-humans who blur the lines of “consciousness” and that this justifies the enslavement of all non-humans. Unfortunately, this same line of thought can be applied equally to justify the enslavement of humans.

[Zazaban]

Just because a plant somehow chemically reacts to something doesn't mean it can consciously 'feel' it.

[joebob]

Seriously you guys? Seriously? I thought this was a joke at first.

Who gives a fuck? Eat what you can. Pull your head out of your ass and stop acting like life is special. It's not. It's fucking everywhere. We are humans, top of the food chain.

Anyone who doesn't eat meat doesn't deserve any food.

Thats all. I don't want to continue and this subject.

[Guest]

ah, joe-bob. YOU don't deserve any food, lol.

non-one equated meat with rape, it was a comparison. why do so many meat-eaters have trouble with this point, i wonder?

the whole issue here is one of minimising suffering. less animals harmed, less people starving...

and the point about land where animals live and plants can't.. how are these animals being fed? by importing produce from arable land? i think this land is unable to support a monoculture farmed in a mechanical way, which is very different to being unable to support crops. learn permaculture.

my priorities-
a comfortable life for as many as possible, always raising the bar
a sustainable and efficient system
a tolerant and forward-thinking society.

[spawn]

Well, it is a fact that the meat industry is extremely wasteful, is an environmental disaster and is extremely cruel to animals.
(actually I believe that capitalism is the major cause for the extreme cruelty to animals in the animal-derived food industries--those people are not sadists, they don't enjoy abusing animals, they do it for the money)

All living things apreciate themselves first. A tiger, a rat, a walrus, a pig, a parrot, a rose, eucaliptus tree, grass, seaweed... it does what it needs to survive/thrive and it does it in a manner that doesn't destroy earth balance. Of course certain spicies like rats or termites given the conditions engage in offensive 'operations' but nature always balances this in one way or another. Carnivorous animals don't kill something they cannot consume and thus there are always much more herbivorous animals alive.
I went a bit out of the topic sorry about that.

It's perhaps true, but there is absolutely no need for humans to eat meat now a days (atleast in developed countries, I'm sure you all agree with me on this point) and it is done merely for the pleasure of it.
The animal-derived food industry causes almost all cases of harsh cruelty against animals, and I think that you all agree that cruelty against animals should be avoided.

Anyway, it is a personal preference to eat or not to eat meat or plants. It always will be. Spawn equals it with slavery or rape which is unbeliavable! Cruelty towards animals is one of the things current societies do and of course is bad. First stop paying taxes to the state because an F-16 or a Kfir fighter-bomber makes a lot more suffering than eating meat. Or it doesn't? Ah, yes and it costs 6000$/flying hour. Then continue to worry about animals/plants.
Jus't don't stay hungry.

I did not equal it, I used it as an example in order to show that because something is socially accepted does not mean that it is moral. It cannot be a personal preference to eat or not eat meat - because in doing so, you immorally harm others, and you don't have the right to do that - obviously not when your life are not at stake (and in this case - atleast in developed countries, you must agree with me, peoples life are far from being at stake 'cause they don't eat meat). To use the rape example again (and I don't equal killing animals needlessly with rape, I merely compare them since I believe both are immoral), raping or not raping is not a personal choice, because raping is immoral.
Telling me to first stop paying taxes is completely irrelevant and is just a way of evading (and by the way, I am not even required to pay taxes yet [my parents do] and it's possible that I'd be sent to jail for refusing to go to the army).
Of course governments do an enormous amount of immoral things - but one struggle does not come in stead of the other - I believe in the liberation of all animals - both human and non-human.

[MStirner]

Vegetarianism is a lifestyle choice, it has nothing whatsoever to do with anarchism, unless you can argue that state control somehow depends upon promotion of eating meat.

I am vegetarian because I live in a wealthy society in which I can afford to be sentimental. In such an environment, my vegetarianism is driven by the same emotions which drive my other beliefs - ie the desire to inflict as little pain on other beings as is practicable.

If my only source of protein was from animals,however, I would drop my lifestyle choice like a shot.