[Ayoob_Reloaded]

And once again, I'm horrified at so many things. I had to fight the urge to throw up.

I wonder what the effects of my actions are? I eat meat all the time. I wonder how much animal suffering I have been responsible for through the years. I'm sure I've eaten a thousand chickens from factory farms, each one spending what, a year or two in a little tiny cage. At the end of its miserable life, encrusted with the shit of a dozen chickens stacked up on its head, it gets its beak BURNED OFF without anaesthesia, and maybe one of the workers decides to pull off its legs for fun. Jesus.

I drove to the grocery store, too. How much pollution did I cause, all the way back to the initial spoiling of the land, the occasional tanker spill, the stealing of the land from the indigenous population, the dead soldiers who lost their lives fighting for whatever the issue of the day was that provided a bullshit reason (other than oil) for his presence there...

Very rarely do I think about this kind of thing. I don't think about the workers paid 12 cents an hour in Burma or wherever to make the nice $60 shirt I have on right now, or the oppressive trade practices that get me my $1.70 cup of Starbux I'll drink this afternoon, the mercury in the tuna I won't eat now spoiled by the coal burned to power my computer monitor as I type this right now.

I'm just disgusted with my own lifestyle and the effects it has on the world. Is it time to break out the Birkenstocks and socks? Should I tell my girl to stop shaving her pits and get busy on the organic macrobiotic stuff? I used to be a stockbroker.

[trespam]

Awareness of what we do and what we are is critically important. But just as important is acceptance that we--like the beast in the wild--are animals. A perfect world we cannot make. Life is messy. And death and suffering are omni-present. Life feeds on life. The Buddhists desire to minimize suffering. This is a worthy goal. But they also accept suffering. And unlike the Jains, many of whom sweep the path they walk on to ensure that bugs are not slaughtered, a Buddhist will accept that death and killing are sometimes necessary.

Good post though. Welcome to our nightmare. We have met the enemy: it is us. Or is it entropy? But without entropy, the universe would be a pretty damn boring place. No choices.

[Cynus]

I would certainly say that there is no reason to inflict needless suffering on animals. It's not the biggest crisis in the world, but I would say it is certainly wrong and should be avoided if you're trying to live a moral life. But I also think that it is OK to eat domesticated animals-- cow, pigs, chickens--as long as they are not subject to such intense pain and suffering for their entire lives. I also think that peak-oilers would have their own issues with synthetic fetilizers and pesticides besides the problems these cause in water pollution. These two factors, in conjunction with being against genetically modified foods for moral reasons, pretty much limits me to organic meat and other foods. That, in turn makes me a de facto vegetarian since it isn't that easy to get organic meats, but I have been seeing it more and more as a Whole Foods store has opened up nearby. It's really not that hard to live by these principles. With organic foods becoming more and more available. it doesn't require any major lifestyle change at all, no one will notice the difference.

[Ayoob_Reloaded]

Yeah, I know. I wrote that right after seeing the video, it was very fresh in my mind. I think I'll see it in my head the next time I am standing in front of the meat counter at the grocery store.

Maybe I'll change my habits a little and make sure I only buy what I need rather than as much as I can carry.

Minimizing suffering is a good thing, IMO.

Well, off to the store to go buy some stuff to pass around to family and friends.

[The_Virginian]

The PETA video on Kosher slaughter is a complete whack job. Cows are big dangerous beasts that take TIME to die. Just cause they move around afterward, it means Nothing...just that in Kosher slaughter you have to let the animal die on its own before cutting up into small pieces (so you actualy see the "death throws".... but the animal is as good as dead with the windpipe and gullet cut with a super sharp knife.
(A ritual slaughterer will check that kinfe on his FINGERNAIL, and if he feels anything...back to the honing-stone)

Have not see the (non kosher) chicken video. As for it being encrusted in $hit, , most birds poop before they are killed, as they are frightened...not pretty, but common.

The only good PETA campain was the "Got Beer" and that never got off the ground.

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ave not see the (non kosher) chicken video. As for it being encrusted in $hit, , most birds poop before they are killed, as they are frightened...not pretty, but common

[Guest]

I went through the same type of "transformation" about a year ago. My route was through reading "Fast Food Nation" (which totally turned me away from McDonalds/Burger King dining) followed by "The Food Revolution" (which turned me into a vegetarian).

I still don't think there is anything inherently wrong with eating meat or wearing leather ... The problem is that in order to constantly reduce costs animals are being pretty much tortured, and they are so sickly that the meat is contaminated as well.

This is VERY topical wrt peak oil -- Raising meat takes way, way more resources such as water, fertilizers and pesticides than growing plants of equivalent calories.

Some of the stuff I read in the above books:

To raise 1 pound of beef in an arid region like California or Arizona takes 5000 gallons of water. If you take 1 7 minute shower a day with an efficient shower head you would save more water not eating 1 pound of beef than not showering for 1 year.

Line speeds at slaughter houses are running 3, 4 or 5 times the speed of a century ago. This is inflicting horrible injuries and severly maiming the mostly immigrant workers who work in the slaughter houses. Also, it is difficult for these workers to properly carve up the meat, causing fecal contamination of the meat which translates to E. Coli in your beef.

Pigs are sandwiched together in vast arrays of cages, their shit falling down like rain on the pigs below them. Any one of us would vomit from the stench if we entered one of those rooms. Now consider that pigs have a sense of smell HUNDREDS of times more sensitive than humans. 70% of pigs have pneumonia by the time they are slaughtered.

Human waste is strictly regulated, yet there is 100X as much animal waste generated and it is much less regulated, even though animal waste can contain a much higher level of harmful bacteria.

The reason chickens have their beaks burned off is that they are social creatures with a "pecking order" (I believe that's where the term comes from) in groups up to 99 chickens. In the concentrations of thousands in the big chicken farms, they go insane and start killing each other.

I could go on and on. At least I have a old fashioned grocery store in town where properly paid butchers prepare meat from animals not raised in factory farms -- but that's an exception, and yes, it does cost more. I'm sure many people in the US don't have the choice after Wal-Mart comes into town and destroys the local economy.

I'm sure most Americans would pay an extra nickel or dime for their hamburgers if they knew animals wouldn't have to be mistreated to make meat. But with the power corporations have over the government, rules and laws that protect both animals and consumers are being systematically eliminated.

[FuckPETA]

I have never seen a bunch of people out of touch with reality more than PETA.

You might forgive me since my wife's alcholic aunt left her $3 million estate to the Humane Society in the town where she lived. We went through her records and she was a significant contributor to PETA. I guess this is what an old lesbian thinks is valuable. If I did not have millions myself, I would have been devistated. My wife was, since she felt like the aunt, which she adored, had thought that mangy dogs were more valuable that she.

This is just a side issue since we all need protein to survive.

Actually, this PETA bunch is a conglomoration of whacos who don't realize that in order to exist one needs to be predatory.

Do they not think that the plant life they consume is as valuable as the animal life that the majority consumes?

I say, that when the shit hits the fan and there is no longer enough energy to feed us that we go hunt PETA people and eat them. Alternatively, maybe we should let them starve and then put a big juicy steak in front of them and let the choose whether to eat and live of to die. What a bunch of fuck ups; too many reads of Banby as a children perhaps.

[jesus_of_suburbia_old]

It's Bambie, not Banby.

[trespam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FuckPETA', 'I') have never seen a bunch of people out of touch with reality more than PETA.

You might forgive me since my wife's alcholic aunt left her $3 million estate to the Humane Society in the town where she lived. We went through her records and she was a significant contributor to PETA. I guess this is what an old lesbian thinks is valuable. If I did not have millions myself, I would have been devistated. My wife was, since she felt like the aunt, which she adored, had thought that mangy dogs were more valuable that she.

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('trespam', '
')So getting us back on track, can someone provide well-thought-out information on PETA?

[UncoveringTruths]

The latest these whack jobs have done here in the southwest US is post a billboard in Houston with a dog having a hook through its lips comparing it to fishing.

I think all folks who believe in peak oil understand fishing will be a neccesity at some point.

PETA will one day endorse eating dirt, as veggies have fealings.

[SilverHair]

I live in the countryside. When I first moved here I bought a few cows, pigs, chickens, and goats.

When it came time to butcher one of the (males castrated) now steers that the cows produced, I had a neighbor who did "on the farm butchering" come down and process a steer to put in my freezer.

It was a beautiful fall day. Our little herd of cows were very confortable with us walking among them. We more that once had gone out and shook persimmon trees for them to collect fallen treates. A few of them would eat the persimmons out of our hands. Strangly, one of the heffers had become the mate to a goose we had that did not have a mate, and in the previous winter he always drove off the other cows while she was enjoying the alfalfa hay we treated them to. I digress from the mayhem at hand.

So as you might understand, these bovines were our pets; we had a mutual trust. My neighbor had ended the existence of many an animal, being an avid deer and turkey hunter. He used his .22 rifle to shoot our steer just a little north of right between the eyes. His wife and my wife and I just walked out in the field among my little herd. Our butcher man just raised his rifle to take careful aim and squeezed. I knew it needed to be done and I was a little shut off to know that one my companions was to be executed. My neighbor after the shot, just walked calmly over to my pet who was not glazen eyed on the ground. He slit his jugular and we four people just stood and talked as we waited for the blood to flowed onto the gound; there was a little involuntary kicking of hind legs, but no real distracting convulsions. The rest of the heard jumped at the shot, but just walked around and sniffed the strange smell of blood on the gound. No protest, and eventually a resumption of grazing the sparce fall growth.

After a while, my neighbor slit the area in the lower part of this steers now quite leg to make a place for meathooks to be inserted. He then attached a chain to the hooks and drug the carcus behind his old pickup truck from the openness of that pasture to a large oak tree on the edge of the pasture. A chain hoist was thrown across the oaks accomidating limb and the steer was hoisted up hangind from his hind legs.

The process began with a slit down his midsection from his neck to the area between his hind legs. Also a ring was cut around his neck. A little at a time his hide was skinned away, beginning at the neck so that eventually his entire hide fell to the ground and was put in the back of the pickup truck to be later sold to buyers of hides. This steers head was then decapated and thrown to the ground where my dogs had a great time fighting over it (I still have the hollow horns which would make great power horns for those so inclined.)

One could see the muscles along the fleshy surface of this steer quivering in a minature of a death throw. After we joked about the similarity between this muscle twiching and orgasm, the gutting began. A slit down the midline, a careful disection of the genitals less the urinary tract contanimate the meat, all right down to the esogaphus till the innards all ploped on the ground. The liver was found and the gall baldder carefully disected less the liver be contaminated by bile. A plastic bag full of liver was the first prize. The pancreas whs then disected; as was the stomach; as were the kidneys. The remainder lay in a clump on the ground. The big meat hacksaw then drove vertically down the entire spinal column and we had two free hangind sides of beef. These were each quartered and placed on plastic in the back of the pickup to be transported to a small local processing plant to hang for a few days to become more tender before they were cut up into the desired portions of steak, roast and ground meat.

We enjoyed many a good meal from our pal.

This is what you need to know if you are to be able to get sufficient protein to exist in a post peak world.

After the shock, it becomes everyday. You can choose to die or to kill and live, and these out of touch PETA mental defectives can encourage you to die, but Darwin tells you to live. If you follow the PETA view then you just make space her on earth for the rest of us you choose to live and follow our nature.

[trespam]

Hmmm. A story about a cow, but still nothing but ad-hominem attacks on PETA. I'm not a vegetarian, and my post above indicates my position, which I think it fairly balanaced. Overall, I think people eat far too much meat, particularly red meat. Their cholesterol levels prove their excess.

But once again I ask: why are some like Silverhair so afraid of PETA that they resort to ad-hominem attacks without any substantive references to what they've done wrong. They've run some billboards? Who cares. What have they done that is so horrible to require the vitriol? So far I hear nothing. Since the vitriol exists, they must done something bad. Did they kill someone? Did they tortute someone? Did they ban meat in certain parts of the country? What is it?

Or is this just another example of paranoia because someone has a different opinion and spends time and money to convince others. I call that the free market. Shame on them.

So cut the silly stories about the muscular orgasms analogies and provide some information.

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('trespam', 'H')mmm. A story about a cow, but still nothing but ad-hominem attacks on PETA. I'm not a vegetarian, and my post above indicates my position, which I think it fairly balanaced. Overall, I think people eat far too much meat, particularly red meat. Their cholesterol levels prove their excess.

But once again I ask: why are some like Silverhair so afraid of PETA that they resort to ad-hominem attacks without any substantive references to what they've done wrong. They've run some billboards? Who cares. What have they done that is so horrible to require the vitriol? So far I hear nothing. Since the vitriol exists, they must done something bad. Did they kill someone? Did they tortute someone? Did they ban meat in certain parts of the country? What is it?

Or is this just another example of paranoia because someone has a different opinion and spends time and money to convince others. I call that the free market. Shame on them.

So cut the silly stories about the muscular orgasms analogies and provide some information.

[SilverHair]

My problem with PETA is that they, like you, Trespam, wish to impose your views by force upon the rest of us. You consistently express your abhorance for freedom and free will via your support of things like socialism.

Whether you realize or not, you are a Hitler type wantabe. Your limted intellect to you is what must be imposed upon the rest of us based on your morality.

In fact you are just a little pissant failure in life. Give us a view of your successes, based on your own standards, not ours, and then we will see that your are just one jack off.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FuckPETA', '
')Do they not think that the plant life they consume is as valuable as the animal life that the majority consumes?

[aldente]

This topic seems to awake strong emotions. I started to eat vegetarian 16 years ago just to test how much control I had over myself and my eating habits. For the first few weeks I made it a rule to eat a "Schnitzel with Pommes" every Sunday though, since I thought I couldn't exist without it. The periods of time become more lenghy and after 6 month I weaned myself completely from the habit of eating meat.

But here comes the difference where I have absolutely nothing in common with PETA kind of people: When invited somewhere I eat what's on the table. That's good from a social point of view plus necessary in my business, selling wine to Restaurants. And after all it can taste quite good.

I never make a big deal about the whole issue and consider my eating habits a private preference. If I had to choose between access to meat or wine for the rest of my days the answer would an easy one. The PETA bunch is too radical for my taste, they should drink more. I rather have a good buzz than a full stomach. As a general statement to end this post I have to note though that it is total crap to believe that one needs meat to live, its a bad eating habit that's all.

[mindfarkk]

while it has never been proven that plants have consciousness or experience actual pain, let alone emotion, it has been demonstrated in reproducable scientific studies that 1) animals have emotions and 2) animals empathize. in fact, harvard university has recently conducted some studies specifically based on the premise that animals do in fact have emotional awareness and emotional lives.

therefore it is conceivable that an animal waiting in line at the slaughterhouse knows what is about to happen, feels terror, anguish, horror, and pain, and grieves, similar to what we might feel. in fact, they don't have that pre-frontal cortex to moderate their feelings, so they probably feel it in a much more raw and immediate way, kind of like when you are so angry or scared or horrified you can't think straight.

not to mention that the conditions most commercial livestock are raised in, are inhumane at best.

the *pus* level in milk permitted by the U.S.D.A. is DOUBLE that permitted in europe and most of the rest of the world that bothers to regulate things like food quality. why is there pus in milk? because these are healthy, well-tended cows?

the simple fact of the matter is that plants are simpler organisms without nervous systems as we know it. any supposition that they experience pain or anguish as a result of being eaten is pure supposition based on the possibility that there is an experience similar to emotion, similar to pain, which can exist outside of the known physiological base of both those experiences.

whereas, animals have nervous systems and brains. there is no reasonable argument that can be made based on any appreciable evidence to suggest they *don't* experience life and aliveness in a way that is similiar to some degree to our own.

the bottom line, to me, is that the thought process that goes into rationalizing eating meat is the same thought process that allows us as humans to rationalize exploiting and destroying each other, that allows us to see the "other" as inhuman, monstrous. it's what we are doing to the middle east and what the moslem fundamentalists are doing to us.

that's my own feelings and thoughts on the matter. not perfectly thought out, but, it makes sense to me. i just don't eat meat anymore and i stopped buying leather. i try not to eat dairy, which isn't too hard except for cheese, because i have to wonder what happens to the calf that was born, assuming it doesn't become a milk-cow itself someday. i eat eggs from free-range chickens. and you are talking to a woman who loved her steaks.

i don't usually bother to say anything about this, but since the subject was raised i thought i would respond. i dn't know much about PETA one way or the other and i don't care. i couldn't watch the video in question. i wouldn't need to anyway. even if none of it's true, my reasons for not eating dead animals hold anyway.

[PenultimateManStanding]

The cellular level of life evolution was billions of years in the making. Our current scientific understanding is not as advanced as we would like to think it. My point is that we shouldn't assume an all knowing attitude to current scientific knowledge. Perhaps the cellular level is still where its at from a life point of view and we are deluded to think our structure (nervous system, brain, etc) is end all be all. I think that's what the Theosophists were saying and I'm receptive to their message.