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  Monday, February 8, 2010Ban VeganismOn October 15th, 2005, I published a blog titled The Real Cost of a Burger. I was pretty pleased with it; I said what I wanted to say on the meat industry and thought that it spoke for itself. I was wrong. Last night, I was on The Fabulous D Show, hosted by my very dear close personal friend, The Artist D, always looking to raise issues and enlighten folks as "The Internet's First Superstar." You can download and play the podcast, but what you won't ever get is the abuse I did via the live chatroom as I was on-air. The reason? I was talking about saving the planet via the simple action of eating less meat - the number one contributing factor to climate change (more so - according to the United Nations - than all the transport in the world combined). No, Al Gore didn't mention that fact: the most "inconvenient truth" of them all, Al? I was born in Doncaster, now a post-industrial town trying to recover, just like its top sports team, my beloved Doncaster Rovers, who comfortably play their home games from the brand-spanking-new Keepmoat Stadium after previous years spent struggling to survive in the bargain basements of soccer with an unscrupulous owner hiring a mob to burn the club's previous home to the ground in order to collect insurance, as documented in my film Escape from Doncatraz. Dark days indeed. Aside from that, Doncaster is famous for its railway development, the historic train the Mallard...and being the birthplace of veganism. Yep: Doncastrian Donald Watson spearheaded the Vegan Society to promote a healthy, more ethical lifestyle of a diet free from dairy and meat products. "Veganism?" you ask. "What's that all about?" Well, like I said on the show, I don't see the issue so crisp, clear, or binary. As I suggest in my latest book, Pissing in the Mainstream, we're all hypocrites just by way of living in a house; none of us are perfect - but we all do what we can, to varying degrees. All humans live on a vegan diet, some just add differing amounts of meat and dairy produce to their vegan meals! So, with that in mind, we're all on the same side here - as I told D after the show: "We're on the same team!" We don't necessarily have to agree to disagree because deep inside we all know what makes sense, and we all agree that, like, destruction of the planet kinda sucks. So why is there such a stigma attached to veganism, even from progressive people? Well, unlike declaring yourself to be anti-war - which requires nothing more than the declaration itself - admitting that veganism is in fact a great idea for people and the planet suggests that you really ought to "be the change you wish to see in the world," as that other dirty vegetarian, Mahatma Gandhi, once said. Being anti-war is easy, because it doesn't take any effort at all to, y'know, not participate in the bombing of faraway lands for oil - you just carry on as normal and refrain from rising to power and ordering armies around! But being pro-vegan suggests you ought to start doing something; it's a lifestyle choice. Me? I'd accept a simple admission that it's a good idea - that'd be a nice start. But it's rare we even get that - instead, it's people jumping down your throat quicker than an ironically-named Happy Meal, or your head bitten off faster than a slaughterhouse beheading! Clearly, due to so many vested interests, this lifestyle is not promoted by the government or the media - despite the absolutely overwhelming evidence from almost all scientific research that if you're simply doing it right (as I have for years) you'll be healthier than the average person (vegans halving their risk of cancer, for example...a hint that humans are totally designed for veganism). This is, of course, aside from the fact that by simply ditching the desires of them trivial taste-buds, you're actually helping to save the world! The diet itself ought to be promoted, proliferated, and even adopted into policy passed through political processes - such are the positives it produces. But nope! Quite the opposite. We're taught from as early as kindergarten that this whole flesh-eating, milk-guzzling business is normal; natural. And that's capitalism for you: it's a creation of wants, when we don't need it - and if they can actually perpetuate the propaganda enough to have us not only wanting it but believing we need it too, then that's a great public relations victory for the billion dollar industry (and, again, the number one cause of climate change) that is the meat and dairy business. There's a lot of money there, all in a business based predominantly in the Western world that eats more animal produce than anywhere else, and has half of all the whole world's cancers, shipping Texas cattle to fields of fodder in starving Haiti to drain what's left of their resources, fatten cattle on at least 4lbs of grain to produce a measly 1lb of beef, then send 'em back for unnecessary death. What a waste. It's insane. People are starving to death and yet here we are fattening up overpopulated bovine to eat the grain instead - presumably because the average Western waistline isn't quite yet big enough to create a circular circuit of marathon around. Yep, that beef serves a purpose - full of iron that puts us at higher risk of colorectal cancer unlike vegetable-based iron...or protein...or calcium. And of course, speaking of calcium, we drink their milk! How frickin' natural is that? We are the only species on earth that so voraciously drinks the milk from another's tit - artificially inseminating cows to become pregnant, killing their calves, and then stealing their milk! What the hell are we, Frankenstein or something? I thought Thatcher stealing milk from schoolkids was bad enough, but this is ridiculous. We got so batshit insane that we even tried feeding these herbivores their own kind, causing CJD and BSE (a little sign of how unnatural and unhealthy it is to feed meat to vegans - you see where I'm going here, right?) And yet we've been so pumped full of this propaganda from an early age that we're taught to believe all of this is perfectly normal, natural, and healthy, when the absolute exact opposite is the case. We're taught that animal produce - causing unnecessary damage to people's health, the planet, and the animals that just want to get on with their own bloody circle of life - is the right thing to do, and to even dare to question that status quo is "weird," as though some McCarthyist Thought Police ought to be called, and veganism banned. Of course. It's a lot easier to sleep at night knowing we can just go about our business as usual. And oh, what a business it is: worth billions, and wrecking the globe - all based on trivial taste. That's it! "Yeah, I'm killing the planet by eating this piece of meat, but I like the taste." Well, bully for you, bubba. Gee, it's a hard life, eh? Being asked to eat something else instead to save the planet. Man, we're like spoiled bratty teenagers, whining about any little thing that's asked of us, even if it's best for everyone. When are we going to get our heads from our own asses and stop acting like animals? In fact - as D rightly hinted - if we were restricted to the laws of nature like the animals (and our fellow herbivorous friends like those weak and frail vegans such as elephants and rhinos*), things might be a lot better. We can either accept responsibility - all of us, as a society; as a system - to embrace the role as custodians of the planet, or we can continue on this blood-covered path to destruction and environmental catastrophe, and crack open each other's heads and feast on the goo inside. I know which is easier, I know what makes it easier for us nice fat rich white Westerners. But that's not what it's about - it's about a burger in one hand, and the planet in the other. Hmm. I'm not preaching here, am I? I ought to be. Yet I don't; I leave other people to their own devices and hope they'll open their minds. And that's what's so tragically ironic about it all - it's those of us great spirits who are at least trying to do something that actually get bashed for it. Many of you know exactly what I'm talking about here. As I examined in Pissing in the Mainstream, the first thing Western society does when it sees anyone doing something good is try to tear them apart; rip them to pieces like prey caught by a predator (something we can't do with our teeth or nails, eh?) Yet again, that's capitalism for you. And the meat industry is the perfect representation of capitalism: destructive want over need, blindly going forth into the darkness of destruction with gluttonous greed. Go back to bed, Westerners. Go back to sleep. Close them eyes; close them minds. We'll just ban veganism and anything else that questions the status quo. Hell, it's only the entire planet we're talking about here. No biggie, eh. We've got meat to go eat! "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein. Yeah - he didn't eat meat, either. *You can find other frail vegans here - Jay Baker; South Yorkshire, England Jay Baker's brand-new book is Pissing in the Mainstream. You can read a compilation of his best blogs from the past several years, and a few exclusives, in the book Soon To Be Banned: Musings of a Media Activist, available here.
posted by Jay Baker at
6:18 PM
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