Culture: Changeable and Not an Excuse for Eating Animals

by Stephanie Ernst

categories: Farm Animals, Vegan

Published October 14, 2008 @ 07:02AM PT

A reader posted a comment on the Your Dog versus Your Dinner post that I've decided to address in an entirely new post rather than in that comment thread:

I personally think that this comment is based on a fallacious premise: by asking rhetorically if "pigs (and cows and chickens) are truly that different from domestic cats and dogs in any way except how we think of and treat them" it ignores that it is precisely the way in which we think and act what makes up culture, and ours was built upon agriculture and the domestication of animals, both for nurturing and  as company and labor. Originally there were none of the horrors of modern-day meat and dairy industry, where the moral strife resides. But to pet a dog while munching a 2lb rib eye steak is not a cognitive dissonance, unless being sons of our context is. The problem, industrial meat and dairy, belongs to a broader discussion involving the very nature of the system in which we reproduce.

Needless to say, given my original post (go ahead and read it now if you haven't already, so that we'll all be on the same page here), I disagree with the notion that there is no cognitive dissonance in killing and eating one animal and pampering and petting another. I do agree with the reader, however, that our own thoughts and behavior determine our culture and that our current culture is very much entrenched in certain ways of living, including raising and killing animals for food.

But here's the great thing about ways of thinking and behaving—they can be changed. I'm not ignoring the fact that "the way[s] in which we think and act" make up our culture; I'm saying that doesn't change anything. That has no impact whatsoever on who animals are, on what kind of life they deserve, or on how they do or do not differ. Our culture and history play a role in people's cognitive dissonance—they don't render the cognitive dissonance nonexistent—and the idea that group 1's perception of group 2 must define group 2, and that this perception makes whatever group 1 wants to do to group 2 just fine, is preposterous.

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Oprah and Lisa Ling Talk About Farming Practices

by Stephanie Ernst

categories: Farm Animals, Media

Published October 13, 2008 @ 08:31PM PT

Quick belated note: Tune into the Oprah Winfrey Show tomorrow, Wednesday, October 14, for an investigation into modern farming practices and how animals are treated. I'm reserving judgment about the potential impact of this program and about the topics that are going to be discussed until after I've actually seen it. More to come after the episode airs.

Find out what time you can catch the program in your area here: Local Listings.

VeganMoFo Roundup

by Stephanie Ernst

categories: Food and Recipes, Vegan

Published October 13, 2008 @ 01:25PM PT

Show Me Vegan's Black Bean, Sweet Potato, and Green Zebra Tomato Stew with Polenta

Animal rights and veganism go hand in hand, and October marks VeganMoFo—Vegan Month of Food.

Vegans across the blogosphere are writing about their meals and posting photos with even more frequency than usual (there is no shortage of blogs devoted entirely to vegan food; for a partial list, scroll down to the Vegan Food Blogs list on this page of the FatFree Vegan Kitchen blog).

If you're still under the grossly mistaken impression that vegans survive only on brown rice, tofu, and raw vegetables, get yourself to these select VeganMoFo-participating blogs ASAP (and check out the VeganMofo Flickr group!):

• Show Me Vegan
• Vegan Dad
• Herbivore Creations
• Happy Herbivore
• Ethical Pizza
• The Only Vegan in the Village
• Walking the Vegan Line
• FatFree Vegan
• The Urban Vegan
• Veggie Going Vegan

The Center for Consumer Freedom: Allow Me to Introduce You

by Stephanie Ernst

Published October 13, 2008 @ 07:17AM PT

Wherever there is vitriolic anti–animal rights, pro–animal ag rhetoric, singing the praises of meat, dairy, and eggs and coming from a supposedly reputable source, there is often (or maybe even usually) the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), which would be more aptly titled the Center for Corporate Freedom and Deception of Consumers. If you see the names Center for Consumer Freedom, Rick Berman, or David Martosko attached to any letter to the editor, press release, ad, Web site, or quotation in a news article, be aware that what you're reading is being paid for by the food (particularly meat and junk food), restaurant, and tobacco industries. And when you run into professional-looking anti–animal rights Web sites whose ownership isn't apparent, do some research to see who's really behind the sites or the organizations supposedly running them. This organization, dubiously registered as a nonprofit and run by Berman's PR company, is as much about "consumer freedom" as Ann Coulter is about intelligent thought and honesty. It is a front group.

But don't take my animal-loving, meat-hating, dairy- and egg-eschewing word for it. The PR machine also goes after environmental groups, health organizations, teachers' unions, and even Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), and its deceptive front-group status and shady tactics are well documented:

• "Beware Corporate Wolves in Consumer Watchdog Clothing," from American Chronicle
• "Assholes You Should Know: Rick Berman," from La Vida Locavore
• Center for Consumer Freedom entry at SourceWatch
• "Our Pious Babylon," by Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post (scroll about halfway down for the discussion of Berman, or search the page for his name):

But even the MOD Squad [Merchants of Death, from the film Thank You for Smoking] is a pale imitation of the reality of the Beltway's most outrageous advocate, who goes by the name of Rick Berman. . . . Berman's salvos against unions are just the latest in a line of attacks he's leveled against drunk-driving laws, anti-smoking statutes, food safety ordinances and minimum-wage standards. He is, broadly speaking, the lobbyist for the Hobbesian state of nature.

• "Sticking Up for the Big Guys," from AlterNet
• "Don't Worry, Eat More Fish," from E Magazine
• "'Worst teachers' contest is ruse for big money agenda," from the Flint Journal
• "What's in a Name?" from USA Today

Featured Video: A Life Connected

by Stephanie Ernst

categories: Environment and Global Warming, Oppression Connections, Vegan, Videos

Published October 12, 2008 @ 09:22AM PT

Included in the 10 Recommended Animal Rights Videos list, the following video from Nonviolence United provides a gentle and intelligent illumination of the connections between the raising, killing, and eating of animals and the problem of world hunger, the health and well-being of humans, and the health and well-being of the planet as a whole. It is a beautiful, eye-opening production.

Save the Life of a Soldier's Dog Seized by the Military

by Stephanie Ernst

Published October 10, 2008 @ 02:11PM PT

Update: Take action here.
Edit: The original post indicated that the soldier has been in Iraq 15 months, but I made an error in my rush to get this out: she has been in Iraq 15 months beyond her original commitment to the army because of the stop-loss policy.

Time could be running out for the beloved dog companion of an American soldier stationed in Iraq. The dog was on his way to the airport with Baghdad Pups, along with 15 other dogs, to be flown back to the United States, where he was to live with the soldier's parents until she comes home later this month, after serving in Iraq 15-plus months beyond her original military commitment (because of the stop-loss policy). But the commanding officers of the soldier's base, upon learning of this, actually stopped the convoy and removed the dog:

It is against military regulations for active duty troops to befriend animals—soldiers can face immediate court-marshal and some even see their animals brutally murdered by a direct gunshot to the head from commanding officers who will not bend the rules. Hundreds of U.S. soldiers in the Middle East befriend animals in the war zone to help themselves cope with the hardship and terror they face every day. These dogs and cats become their lifeline—saving them from deep depression and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

The military refuses to help or formally recognize the lifeline these animals give to our mentally wounded soldiers. Veterans returned from Iraq are committing suicide at twice the rate of average Americans. The dogs and cats befriended by our troops rescued by Operation Baghdad Pups are providing proven pet therapy to soldiers who may otherwise suffer from PTSD and deep depression. (SPCA press release)

Please read the following post on Ratchet's time-sensitive situation and what you can do to help: How You Can Help Save a Soldier's Dog. There will be a Change.org action up by late tonight, but in the meantime, if you are able, please follow the suggestions for how you can help and whom you can contact in this Help Ratchet post.

Thanks to Kinship Circle for sending out an alert about this.

HSUS Sues Egg Industry; Egg Industry Accuses HSUS of Conspiracy

by Stephanie Ernst

categories: Dairy and Eggs, Farm Animals, Politics and Law

Published October 10, 2008 @ 06:27AM PT

Oh boy. Yesterday the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) filed a lawsuit against United Egg Producers (UEP), the largest egg industry trade association in the United States, which has a history of deceptive practices, as well as MoArk, LLC, and R.W. Sauder, Inc., two of the nation's largest egg producers. Why? The UEP likes to slap a "United Egg Producers Certified" logo on packages of eggs and present its certification program as ensuring the welfare of its companies' egg-laying machines hens. The reality? Factory farms and battery cages (see the glossary if you're not familiar with these terms, and while you're there, take a look at "cage-free" and "free-range" too--we'll be talking about those later). And the individual egg producers in this lawsuit are violating the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act with false animal-welfare claims and price-fixing schemes.

From the HSUS press release:

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