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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I wish I had the time to write a nice, long, cited, formal response but for lack of all that this is what I have to say:
Not only does PETA show themselves to be either ignorant, insane, and/or propagandizers, it also shows the lunacy of the whole Socio-Politico-Economic TREND which the "Global Warming Game" has become. (I don't deny climate change-but so far the interpretations are crap).
I AM A VEGETARIAN - just want to throw that out in case anyone wishes to point fingers at me. What I know is: VEGETARIANS PRODUCE MORE METHANE THAN THOSE WHO ARE HOOKED ON MEAT (FLESH).
I don't preach - I don't wish to force you to not eat meat (just like I don't want you trying to force me to stop smoking cigars and drinking)... THIS WHOLE THING IS JUST LUNACY!!!
(And what's the deal with driving around in an Hummer anyway???!!!)
Captainlarab said:
"The US dairy industry sounds like it has its act together more so than the beef industry, and has learned to breed cattle that are giving more milk for less feed (I met a woman at a Maryland county fair who said her cow was producing 16 gallons a day). I'd love to see a third world development program that involved sharing these superior breeds of dairy cattle with third world farmers who are currently raising less efficient breeds (and possibly razing the rain forest in order to do so)."
This is actually a grave misunderstanding. Yes, a "third world" dairy cow may produce far less milk than a fat northern Holstein, BUT the third world cow can subsist on the scraggly dry grass, survive the droughts and flies, walk ten or twenty miles a day to the watering hole, etc. The "improved" Holstein only produces 16 gallons of milk a day in our cooler northern climate, with a supplemented grain feed, plentiful water, and it has such an enormous udder it could never go for a ten mile hike through the scrubland looking for water. Modern dairy breeds have also lost the instinct to defend themselves from predators. It's like the happy idea of giving farmers in remote "third world" places tractors, so they can plow more fields. There isn't enough fuel, there aren't parts available to repair the tractors, fields that large can't be irrigated, fertilized, etc.
The fact is, sustainable agriculture and food production works on a small scale - the kind of small farm your grandfather might have had. Industrial agriculture is not sustainable in the long term. However, without industrial agriculture, you get what people in the old days and in poor countries get: meat is an expensive delicacy, used sparingly and on holidays, or eaten mostly by the rich.
OK, I'll respond Satyrical Dude.
The issue you are alluding to with B12 has been thoroughly resolved by a Ba'hai funded World Health Organization study into sustainable diets for Developing Countries. The study was published in a huge report back in 2002 that obviously you, and you alone, missed. The Chinese Government did a similar study whose results were published in 2005. Since you obviously have the "research" skills of a 4th Grader with an Internet Connection, why not google it. But in case you find the complexities of opening a Browser to be to overwhelming, let me sum up the available research...
What research is suggesting is that "Vitamin" B12 is a myth.
You take an ethical concern about Meat and turn it into a scientific discussion of chemistry and chemical processes. Even if we all starved to death from not eating Meat, if there were compelling Ethical reasons for Not Eating Meat, then WE SHOULD ALL STARVE AS A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE, which is the real issue being discussed here. The Imperialist West does not deserve to have food at the expense of the very existence of all other life on the planet. The way that you utterly miss the point of the Ethical Discussion by throwing some wingnut chemical question into the mix is what really bugs me, Satyrical Dude. Are you simply unaware that The Ethical supercedes The Chemical? Is there any chemical fact that would bear on the ethical point that it is simply wrong to kill sentient beings.
Surely Infant Sacrificing Ba'al Worshipers in North Africa and throughout the Levant had compelling Spiritual Reasons for killing babies too. But now we see that there is no reason to kill babies, despite what you think about about What The God Ba'al wants or needs. Likewise, it simply does not matter what you are going to do about yuor little vitamin B12 problem because killing animals for food is wrong. You see, Satyrical Dude, Ethics has a power to command and compel that neither The Spirit Realm nor The Chemical Realm can claim. We can refuse to claims put upon us of both spirit and chemistry by giving good Ethical Reasons for our actions.
Anyway, notions of "diet" and "health" are completely socially constructed Narratives. We tell ourselves stories about what it means to be healthy and to have a good diet. These stories are pure fictions. If we just changed our stories alittle bit we would think that good health requires us to eat bugs and suck the brains out of monkey skulls. There is no reality to these sorts of beliefs.
Notions of Health derive from Notions of Beauty. Beauty derives from feelings about Being In Control. Diet is an ingredient in our overall quest to control the world around us.
Ideas of Health in our culture basically derive from Nazi Ideology. The US Defense department is mainly responsible for what we eat. Food policy has been based around the concept of Total War for about 5 decades now. We produce certain types of food in surplus to keep down the costs of supplying the military with food. Surplus plays complex role in the Distributed Infrastructure Defense Policies of Cold War Planners, who planned ways for us to win Nuclear Wars. Thus the shift in this country, unlike what happened in the French Food Industry in the 20th Century, toward industrial food production. We are taught to want to eat the food we eat for political, ultimately militaristic, reasons.
Defense Planners manipulate the national and global diet in such a way as to maximize our ability to fight and win wars. Health is associated with athleticism and ideas about what constitutes a proper diet are based on what sort of food would contribute to the overall atheticism of a warrior, which is why in our culture we focus so much on protein and sports. This sort of thinking was popularized by Nazi Germany. It adds to our overall effectivesness as Post-Modern warriors to actually go along with the anonymous slaughter of millions of Animals by Industrial means, incidentally.
There is something profoundly Totalitarian in the idea of basing one's diet on concerns about Global Warming. To be forced to justify what you eat not merely for Health reasons, not merely for political reasons, but also to be forced to situate the very meal you are enjoying within the framework of a complex debate about the Temperature of The Planet is like something out of 20th Century Dystopian Literature.
If the Government starts forcing us to eat a Politically Correct Diet, then it will be a supreme act of rebellion of consume the rotting flesh of a dead animal. Teenaged Children will dance around bonfires while roasting goats, much to the horror of their Vegetarian overlords. We will all be subjected to interminable speeches about how eating This Good Food is not only Good For You but Necessary For The Survival Of The Planet.
Vegetarians are perverted fetishists and should be named as such.
Most of the women I have ever met who profess to be Vegetarians are really just covering up the fact that they have eating disorders and desperately want to be thin. That's right! WOMEN WHO ARE VEGETARIANS ARE JUST HIDING THE FACT THAT THEY ARE AFRAID TO EAT NORMAL FOOD BECAUSE THEY THINK NORMAL FOOD MAKES YOU FAT! To focus on The Harm Done To The Planet or The Evil of Hurting Animals is simply a way of distracting attention away from the fact that they have an eating disorder and a poor self-image.
You cannot continue to parade around acting ethical to divert attention from your very deep anxiety that stems from your personal appearance issues. Get Mentally Healthy first. Then we can talk about The Birds and The Bees and the average Summertime Temperatures in Antarctica and so on and so forth.
It's all so transparently a cry for help, Adolph.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
