Are Meat Eaters Truly Evil?

November 25, 1999

by someone from Vegan Street (maybe Marla)

Meat eaters, parasites every one, have a total lack of

compassion, insight, sensitivity and concern for anything

other than consuming their disgusting flesh burgers. They

are the downfall of society, hellbent on pushing forward their

cannibalistic agenda, and eager to plow over anything or

anyone who stands between them and the decaying hunks of

meat that they crave. When they savagely rip apart sinew and

gnaw on bones, their taste buds sing with delight, grateful for

any opportunity to contribute to the demise of another gentle

creature. Or not?

Certainly there are people who thoroughly enjoy causing

others pain, but the truly sadistic or sociopathic are rather far

and few between. More commonly, meat eaters are people

like my grandmother - a lovely, warm person - who simply felt

that serving meat to her family was the right thing to do

because that's what she learned at her mother's knee and

that was a dominant message taught to her by society. My

grandmother was an intelligent woman and progressive in

many ways, she had enormous empathy for others, including

animals, but the idea of a vegetarian existence was never

presented to her as an option; in her world, it simply did not

exist. The concept of providing plant-based meals to her

family would have probably seemed akin to sending them out

into the snow without any shoes on.

She wanted the best for her family, and she took the task of

providing them with the most nutritious meals possible very

seriously. In addition to the difficulty of seeing beyond the

incredibly pervasive customs and propaganda of our

meat-based society, to Americans during the 1950s, meat on

the table was also a symbol of affluence. For my grandmother

and many of her generation who were also foreign born, this

was very seductive. Potatoes, cabbage, carrots and grains,

mainstays of the Old World, represented hardship and

poverty; meat, wrapped in neat paper packages by the local

butcher who always remembered exactly what cuts our

mothers and grandmothers preferred, meant security. It

meant modernity. As long as there was meat on the table,

your family was well-provided for.

In the latter part of this century, the consequences of what

should be a very simple aspect of a person's life, one's diet,

have become very complex, and, even, tragic. We in the

West can see the aftermath of our addiction to conspicuous

consumption all around us: severe pollution in our lifeblood,

the oceans; fast food wrappers, bags, and cups filling every

available public garbage receptacle and littering our streets;

billions of animals suffering enormously because of our

compulsive dependency on their flesh and their product. As

devastating an effect our diet has on those things around us,

I believe that one of the most heart-rending aspects of how

we live is the impact on individual lives by something as

seemingly simple as what we eat.

Every day around me, I see families torn apart: I see people

who should be in the prime of their lives dying slowly from

heart disease, diabetes, cancer. I see others dying more

quickly. I see a seemingly endless variety of diet aids and diet

books lining the shelves of pharmacies and book stores I

visit; sometimes it seems like the shelves are creaking and

buckling under the weight of all these products. I see people

throwing these items in their baskets, desperately hoping that

for once all the promises will be true and long lasting. I see

many, many people who are stuck in an vicious cycle of

punishment and supplication with food as the source of both

anger and comfort. I see esteemed scientists and doctors at

a loss for how to prevent largely preventable diseases. I see

a nation of people misinformed, and, ultimately, betrayed.

My grandmother had only the best intentions for her children.

Of her three children, though, two have battled serious weight

problems their entire adult lives. One has spent the last thirty

years gaining and losing the same fifty pounds, and when

one fad diet loses its efficacy or her interest, her weight

skyrockets until she jumps to the next one, ready to begin the

cycle again. She has high blood pressure, the onset of

arthritis, and she was recently diagnosed with lupus. Her

brother is in even worse condition: he has diabetes, high

blood pressure, arthritis, kidney disease, and heart disease.

He has had a number of heart surgeries, angioplasties and

" mild " heart attacks. My uncle's body is literally

short-circuiting before his eyes.

But he knows what he has to do. He knows that in order to

live a decent lifespan with a modicum of comfort, he needs to

make some major changes. He is not in denial about this. His

desire to consume those things that he knows are killing him

is greater than his will to live, though. This is as serious an

addiction as they come.

I watch him with his first grandchild, Samantha, totally

besotted with her. He loves being a grandfather, adoring this

little girl, who in turn worships him. I watch them together,

giggling and playing on the floor, and I think of my own father,

who died prematurely of heart disease. I feel utterly deprived

of the opportunity to watch him grow old, to watch him enjoy

his retirement and future grandchildren. I say to my uncle, full

of frustration and anger at the bologna sandwich in his

hands, " How can you eat that?!? Don't you want to watch

Samantha grow up? " He looks at me, his eyes brimming with

understanding and pain, and he says that he knows, he'll

stop. He puts the sandwich down, and I know that this is

temporary. Every time I see him, my arms full of magazines,

articles and books, I want to carve every detail of him deeply

into my memory, because I fear that's what he's becoming: a

memory. The resignation and helplessness I feel is

devastating. I'm already grieving his passing.

There are so many families going through this exact crisis:

watching loved ones being wrenched away too young. I really

feel compassion for meat eaters, and empathy for those who

can't do much more than idly stand by and watch their loved

ones kill themselves. Meat eaters are not monsters; they are

not callous, sadistic cretins. They are as interesting,

passionate, and beloved as vegetarians; the difference is

that they are addicted, in varying degrees, to lifestyle

that is deadly.

Those of us who no longer eat animals and their products

should be deeply grateful that we've been able to break the

chains of tradition and myth. We should also be aware of our

responsibility to others. They don't need our condemnation,

or our pity, but they do need our help. Let others know what

you know. Be accessible. Be generous. And remember that

any time someone can't decide between a long life and a

bologna sandwich, that person is addicted to something

fierce.

http://www.veganstreet.com/news/vegspirituality.html

November 25, 1999

Well Folks, here it comes, get ready:

Are meat eaters truly evil? Educated ones are. Once they have the knowledge

and the facts, or if someone has appealed to them with an argument based

purely upon compassion, then they are selfish and don't feel that the animal

argument (compassion) is good enough for them. I believe that selfishness is

a prevalent quality in an evil person. Old people, young people, it doesn't

matter, as long as we are conscientious in our decision making, then we are

accountable for our actions.

It's interesting that I received this article in the email this morning, as

I had a pretty big blowout at home with my room mate this morning (there was

a litre of chocolate milk in the fridge after we haven't had milk in the

fridge for since we have been living together). I shook my head at the site

of the chocolate milk, my roomy asked what was the matter, I said, " I can't

believe you are drinking real milk? " She went on about the osteoporosis

thingy, I refuted this argument and began pointing out the holes in it and

in the end she ended up saying that " Well, I need to do what I feel is good

for me. " Yes, she is right, however, does that make her an evil person?

Well, half of one, she is a lacto-ovo vegetarian, so she is half evil.

After reading the " Are Meat Eaters Truly Evil? " I think, once again, we are

met with the philosophy that animals are not as important as human beings.

As vegetarians, we need to end speciesism and fight this form of persecution

the same way gays, blacks and women did in the 60's for their basic civil

rights. Gay people didn't say, " Hey listen, if you are a nice person and you

bash a fag to death, well, maybe that's okay because that's all you know,

and that's what you are used to. " Not!

Just because someone is nice, doesn't mean we should condone killing. If

they eat meat, and they have the facts, then they condone killing.

Traditional values should have no place in this argument. Customs, belief

systems, etc. are not justification for killing. Does that mean we should

allow the native fur trapper to continue killing to earn a living and

contribute to his/her's cultural survival? You weigh the options, cultural

survival and customs? or killing, persecution and torture? Which issue is

more important? If you believe that one's cultural survival is more

important than the cessation of killing animals, then you don't believe in

animal rights. My mother is a very sweet person, she is great, but I have

educated her on vegetarianism for the past 13 years. She knows better, but

she continues to eat meat (albeit much less than she used to), so, I can say

in my heart, that there is selfishness rooted in her.

Perhaps in the 50's we can say that " meat was a symbol of affluence " (even

though for the past three thousand years, many of the most intelligent

people in society were vegetarians), but today, people know better. Our

Canada Food Guide has changed dramatically over the past 20 years, more and

more doctors are saying, eat less meat, or eat no meat. I am sorry but if a

vegetarian diet represents a symbol of poverty and hardship, I guess we will

have to deal with that. As the article (Are Meat Eaters Evil) stated, the

tragic consequences of a meat based should be enough to turn around most

meat eaters (in my opinion, those people rooted in selfishness should be

most moved by this argument), so there are no arguments left. Either you are

compassionate and don't' want animals to die for your diet (the altruists

argument) or you care about your health (the selfish person's argument).

Perhaps it's just that I am lucky, and I don't have addictions (However,

look at River Phoenix, he was a vegetarian who was hooked on smack), but I

don't understand the concept that meat eating is an addiction, it's a sick,

twisted, selfish crime. If an addiction didn't hurt any outsiders, then I

would look at it as an addiction (crack smoker smokes crack, kills self, end

of story), but eating meat is a crime. It's murder. It's not just an

addiction. Let's get that very straight.

I appreciate a lot of aspects of the article (especially the aspects which

appeal to other vegetarians to spread the good word). She is right, we need

to generous, accessible, and knowledgeable. As she said, we have a

responsibility to others. So let's get the good word moving and lead through

example. But, and this is a big but, please don't let speciesist arguments

sway or muffle our appeal for compassion on a higher level than most humans

are willing to accept.