Is being a vegetarian same as non-violence ?

[Guest guest]

Animal rights/vegetarian & the counter productivity of violent communication

in advocating a position.

 

Violent communication:

Name calling.. disrespecting each other for not being vegan of veg enough

or

for the " right " reasons or for offering a nonviolent approach to dealing

with issues

often occurs often in the animal rights/vegetarian community.

 

This is why Tammy has to send out emails to the list to be nice: Not call

each other names or say hurtful things.

 

We the animal rights/vegetarian community often come to our position through

our observations of effects of animal " agriculture " upon our health both

mentally, physically, and/or spiritually.

 

We start to feel angry at the unfeeling and stupid people who have hid this

from us and continue to do it.

(often forgetting we were one of them)

 

Anger is good.. it shows we have found important needs that are not being

met. And feeling I could just kill these people is just fine.. (and why stop

there kill & torture their families & friends.. destroy their whole blooming

world that will teach em a lesson). I mean it.. feeling that way is fine.

It shows the importance of your unmet needs. (of course to threaten this

would not be fine, but feeling it is fine)

 

The problem is when we think our needs will be met by punishing them

(labeling them as: bad, cowards, fools) for not hearing our reasons for why

we have chosen to live the way we do.

 

They in turn do not listen being defensive because coercion and punishment

are societal norms for dealing with differences..

 

In turn they judge and punish us for not caring about their needs by

labeling us animal rights/vegetarian nuts.. cowards, fools.

 

My point is there are much more productive ways of getting your needs

met and using anger.

 

I went to traffic school Saturday and received the following handout:

 

" The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me is more important than facts, It is more important than the

past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than

successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important

than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company...a

church..a home, The remarkable thing is that you have a choice every day

regarding the attitude you will embrace for that day, We cannot change the

past the fact that people will act in a certain way, We cannot change the

inevitable... The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have,

and that is our attitude.

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to

it, And so it is with you..

You are in charge of your attitudes. "

 

We are never going to get people to stop " pissing in the pool " ,

 

But we can choose our attitude about it and become safe, happy, productive,

depressed, unsafe, frozen.

 

Blessings Jay