Letters to the Editor
ELYDOG
Published Letters: 498 Editor's Choice: 43
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Play Beethoven
[Read the article: Alicia Silverstone's naked PETA ad]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't care if you play Beethoven to the animals while you kill them, you're still killing them. I don't care if you hand feed them organic chow, the effects of energy intensive agriculture are higher for animals than for vegetables and grains.
Of course there is a sliding scale, where beef is the SUV of foods and chickens are more like Toyota Priuses. Of course it is better to eat organic, local, free range animals than factory animals. Of course you can reduce the amount of meat you use. But as the author of the "Ominivore's Dilemma" pointed out, not all 'free range' animals really are. Here in Minnesota, corporate 'organic' Archer Farms, backed by the Target Corporation, have been found to not use organic or free range methods, but advertise their products as such.
Such are the minefields. I am a 'fish' vegetarian, and I know full well species are overfished or are otherwise destroying environments, like Chilean salmon or some Indian shrimp. Another minefield.
After all that, the qualitative environmental line still remains between meat on one side, and grains / fruits / vegetables on the other. I can't put it any clearer. Those who think we can feed a massive world population with 'free range' meat are deluding themselves.
This was the message of "Diet for a Small Planet' back in the early 70s and it still is true, nearly 40 years later.
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Governments usually love religion
[Read the article: Divine politics]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Laura Miller thinks that religion is somehow 'natural' and is going to be with us forever. I don't doubt that it will continue to exist, but in what form? I think there are external factors helping religion, not just the ostensible 'search' for spirituality.
What if government no longer supported religion anywhere in the world? Why is it that governments have usually used religion, and the establishments of religion, for very unmoral purposes?
The war in Iraq is the obvious recent American example of religion being used to back a government/corporate grab for oil, but you could cite case after case of religion supporting the powers that be in other countries. The treasured Buddihists of Japan supported the emperor's war during WW2. Hindu religionists, Gandhi among them, twisted the independence struggle in India and alienated the Muslims. Even exceptions, like liberation theology, were crushed by the Catholic hierarchy in the Vatican, to the cheers of U.S. imperialism and every tinpot dictator in Latin America.
What if government no longer propped up religion? I.E. right here in the U.S. we could remove the tax-free basis of religious real estate, and make them pay what every non-profit pays. Do you think we'd have all these glorious, expensive buildings on so many blocks? I doubt it. They'd have to pay their way. Bush has propped up religious groups with tax payments for abstinence education, prisoner rehabilitation, youth counseling, poverty 'counseling', etc. to the tune of millions of dollars. How about stopping having chaplains in the U.S. armed forces? No swearing on the bible in court? No prayers at national government events?
Religion should be a totally private matter, but it's support by government belies it's claim to being totally 'natural.' It is really part of the way the rulers rule the ruled.
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Zionism
[Read the article: Ahmadinejad, big man on campus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Unfortunately, Zionism is the main form or support for Israel in the Republican and Democratic parties. Nothing else matters, so we should not be surprised Bollinger approached the issue the way he did.
Given that, Ahmandinejad said some stupid things about the Holocaust and homosexuals, and one smart thing. And that was, why are the Palestinians bearing the brunt of blame for the Holocaust? Because they are.
The ruling circles of Germany and Italy escaped attention, and their companies still exist to this day. The massive anti-fascist parties in Germany, the Social Democrats and Communists, were not supported by the governments of England or the U.S at the time. The U.S. government refused to allow Jews to land in the United States. The 'allies,' except the USSR, refused to aide the anti-fascist struggle in Spain, and handed that country to the fascists and their German/Italian allies. These people have far more to do with the triumph of the 'final solution' than anything the Palestinians have done.
Thoughts are different. The reactionary Muslims that moved to Palestine from Egypt brought anti-semitism with them. They supported the Germans in the war. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (Amin al-Husseini, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and IIRC) traveled to Berlin. Fundamentalist Islam, like fundamentalist Christianity or Catholicism, has always had an anti-semitic strain. But we cannot confuse the two.
We should really look at the 'plan' by British imperialism, infused by Christian end-times dogmas and the most right wing elements of Judaism, to create an Israeli state in the middle of the middle east. History will judge it to have been a very bad idea.