Twilight Zone: To Serve Man - "IT'S A COOKBOOK!"

Aliens arrive on Earth offering technology to end war, and to live in plenty and ease with the technologies offered by the aliens. It all seems great, until the book they brought with them is translated.

 

I think that one of the many important messages of this episode is the idea that death row is death row, no matter how "humanely" (or Kanamitly) the condemned are treated.

Doctor Who - Aliens Eat Humans

Listen here

In this skit from the episode "Animals and Science Fiction", the Doctor tries to convince an invading alien not to attack and consume humanity. Somehow, the conversation turns to veganism.
For more information, see Animals and Science Fiction at theVeganOption.org.

The sketch was written by Ian McDonald with Sally Beaumont; and performed by Sally Beaumont. It also used freeware sounds “Connecting to Earth” by Philip Bock, “Giga Core” by Cosmic Dreamer, and “Crowd Talking” by SoundJay.

Excellent Podcast on Science Fiction and Animals

Click here for podcast.

Fiction Novels With Animal Rights & Veg Themes

Fiction is a time-honored way that human beings explore social issues. Through analogy and imagination, we enjoy speculating about the possibilities of life, human behavior and love. Similarly, ethics have been a great topic for novelists, for it helps people think about tough issues in a way that is realistic, easily understood, and not personally threatening. Many authors have thus approached the issue of the ethics of eating animals (either directly or indirectly) through the medium of the novel. In the first installment of this two-part series, we turn the spotlight on five classic novels that are great examples of animal rights and vegetarian/vegan themes covered masterfully in fiction.

1. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (1906)
This Pulitzer Prize winning novelist shocked the world with this exposé of the meat industry through the eyes of character, Jurgis Rudkus. The Jungle explores the exploitation of the working class and animal cruelty in industrial Chicago. Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant, sees his life fall apart in a new country, progressively losing his family, his health and his home, forced to perform a series of degrading jobs and seeing others, including children, degraded by a system that destroys his sense of personal integrity. He becomes a labor organizer, a socialist and a vegetarian. Sinclair’s novel led to public outcry and the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Sinclair himself credited the success of his book on the grounds that people did not want to eat “tubercular beef” and that, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” You can read The Jungle online for free at Project Gutenberg.
2. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick (1968)
A science fiction novel that became the film “Blade Runner”, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is set in a futuristic world where everyone is vegetarian. Most species have become extinct as a result of nuclear radiation and those that survive are the subject of human empathy as pets, while robotic models have come to replace the real thing for most people. The issue of what it means to be human is explored through the analogy of the ‘replicants‘ that the main character Deckhard is supposed to exterminate.
3.Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
The famous monster of Shelly’s imagination was actually a gentle soul seeking love, who is rejected by all except a blind man who cannot see how monstrous he appears. Like his creator Shelley, the monster is loathe to harm animals and eats only acorns while on the run from the Scientist Dr Frankenstein, who created him. His goal is to find a human young enough to not judge him on his appearance. Due to his unmanageable emotions and physical strength, the monster sadly kills most people he comes into contact with.
4. ConSentiency by Frank Herbert (1958-1977)
A speculative fiction series by the author of Dune, the ConSentiency series depicts humans and extra-terrestrials on equal terms. The main character, Jorj, is a professional saboteur who’s job it is to slow down the actions of the government through the Bureau of Sabotage. The ConSentiency series depicts a world where most people no longer kill animals for flesh and meat is produced in flesh vats.
5. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895)
Like many science fiction novels, the Eloi of the utopian future in this classic novel are vegan. Despite this, they are also depicted as lacking in free will and basically factory farmed meat for the underworld dwelling Morlocks. The author describes the predatory nature of the Morlocks as the natural outcome of class struggle.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where we cover five fiction novels from contemporary authors that creatively touch upon animal rights/vegan themes using science fiction, horror and humor!

In Part 1 of this series, we featured five outstanding classic works of fiction that touch upon animal rights themes ranging from the meat industry, vegetarian monsters to future societies inhabited by vegans or vegetarians. In this installment, we highlight the works of five contemporary authors, many of whom have received widespread mainstream literary acclaim for these outstanding works of fiction.

1. Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk (2003)
From the author of the Fight Club, Lullaby is a grim, disturbing and sometimes humorous look at modern society and morality. The plot revolves around a reporter who discovers a poem that is actually a “culling song,” and can kill whoever hears it. As always, Palahniuk manages to create some very quirky main characters, including a vegan, eco-terrorist named Oyster. Although Oyster is a bit of a stereotype and not a very likable character, some of his rants about the way humans treat our planet and exploit animals are fairly thought provoking.
2. K-pax by Gene Brewer (1995)
The main character in this science fiction series is ‘Prot’, a fruitarian alien from a planet called K-pax, who finds himself in New York and is quickly locked in a psychiatric institution. K-pax is described by Prot as a world built on anarchist principles, without corporate laws or religions and where beings are peaceful and nonviolent vegans. The novels explore the nature of ‘truth’ and was made into a movie (in 2001), starring Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges.
3. Under the Skin by Michel Faber (2008)
Science fiction horror that explores the subject of speciesism in a clever and disturbing manner. The book follows a mysterious woman (Isserley),  an alien who’s job it is to pick up hitch-hiking ‘beefy’ men who later become fattened up for meat delicacies in her home world. It is the son of the owner of this hunting operation, Amlis Vess (a vegetarian), who affects Isserley’s views on human flesh.
4. PopCo by Scarlett Thomas (2004)
PopCo is vegan author Scarlett Thomas’ 6th novel and covers topics ranging from capitalism, advertising, math, codes, animal welfare, veganism and homeopathy. The novel also includes a vegan cake recipe of a cake that is eaten by the characters in the book. PopCo’s protagonist is Alice, a code breaker and crossword-puzzle compiler who works for a multinational toy company. She is sent to a Thought Camp where she and other PopCo employees must invent the ultimate product for teenage girls. Alice starts receiving mysterious, encrypted messages, which she suspects relate to her grandfather’s decoding of a an old manuscript or could mean that she is at the the center of an evil plot hatched by her employer.
5. The Vegan Revolution…With Zombies by David Agranoff (2010)
Yes, vegans can have a sense of humor! This novel takes a simple premise and delivers some hilarious results. Thanks to a new drug, animals no longer feel pain as they are led to slaughter. Unfortunately, once the drug enters the food supply, anyone who eats it is turned into a zombie (except the vegans of course!). Vegans, freegans, abolitionists, hardliners and raw foodists are holed up in Food Fight, Portland Oregan’s famous vegan grocery as they prepare to do battle with the undead. Fans of zombie or bizarro fiction will love this book and so will vegans, because David (a vegan himself) does a great job of throwing in several inside jokes about animal rights and vegan culture that will surely keep you entertained.

Ignoring the Prime Directive

Euthanasia and Human Superiority

Whenever I'm in the process of writing a philosophy paper my mind is almost continually sorting and sifting through ideas. At times these ideas are easy to articulate. Other times, not so much.

One of the thoughts I've had lately is of the second variety. I'm going to try to sift through it here.

Human superiority is the underlying prejudice used to "justify" our exploiting and killing animals. Most of the time this prejudice is easily spotted. For example, my recent paper on John Rawls and Animals, Animals Behind the Veil exposes this prejudice in the form of "rationality." Rawls, and others like him, dismiss animals from the moral community based on the fact that most human animals are rational and at least most nonhuman animals are not. Ergo, humans are superior to animals by virtue of their ability to do calculus. Of course this is as morally arbitrary as asserting that white humans are superior to black humans by virtue of skin pigmentation or men are superior to women by virtue of their genitalia, but you get the idea. Other justifications used to exploit and kill animals include the idea that they don't have a soul (spiritual superiority) or that they don't feel pain (at least not in the same way that humans do.) The list goes on...

In all of this, human life is deemed more valuable than animal life, hands down, case closed. This is obviously expressed in action by our eating animals, enslaving them, torturing them etc. But one of the less obvious ways this prejudice is expressed is in the dominant view about euthanasia.

I remember a period when Dr. Jack Kevorkian was in the news daily. His view, and subsequent illegal activity, on human euthanasia was considered extreme and morally abhorrent. But why? When I stop to think about his view in relationship to the dominant view on animal euthanasia, I am left concluding that the prejudice of human superiority has once again reared its ugly head. But this seems counter intuitive at first glance.

How can I assert that allowing "merciful" euthanasia for animals is somehow speciesist and wrong. Well, I'm not settled on whether it's wrong or not (though my first instinct is that it is, but with qualification*) but I am sure that the fact that we are abhorred by human euthanasia and not animal euthanasia reveals just how much more human life is valued over animal life.

Tyrone Kamienski - My puppity-doo moments after his birth.

Most of us who have shared our lives with companion animals have made the decision to euthanize one or more of them. This is heart wrenching at best. What makes it even more difficult, at least for me, is the fact that I couldn't ask them if this is what they wanted? Dr. Kevorkian's patients were all of sound mind when making the decision to end their own lives. I believe they had every right to do this. But animals are incapable of letting us know if they would prefer to die. We are left with making an analogical inference based on our own experience with pain. This fact is, in itself, ironic since so many people assert that animal pain either doesn't exist at all, or is at least less relevant than human pain. But in any case, it is unclear whether a sick or infirm animal wants to die or not.*

The fact that we have a "right" to kill animals for any reason, but we don't have the right to kill humans (including a right to kill ourselves!) makes it clear how much more we value human life over animal life. This is true even if a human wants to die and an animal clearly does not, as in the case of slaughter houses. 

Tyrone was euthanized in 2012 - RIP Puppity-doo

I'm not sure I'm done with this idea yet, but this is a good start. In the end it's just more of our moral schizophrenia with regard to animals. 

Is Vegnism "Extreme"?: Excerpt from Eat LIke you Care by Gary Francione and Anna Charlton

I've experienced all sorts of reactions to both my vegetarianism and, more recently, my veganism. Most of them thoughtful and reposed. Some of them supportive. Others defensive or dismissive. A few filled with vitriol and anger. Expressing viewpoints in opposition to the dominant view is always considered "extreme." Have I been on a soap box about animals lately? Yes, I most certainly have. I am willing to stand by my conviction. But let's think about what "extreme" really looks like:

• What is extreme is eating decomposing flesh, milk produced for the young of another species, and the unfertilized eggs of birds. 

• What is extreme is that we regard some animals as members of our family while, at the same time, we stick forks into the corpses of other animals. 

• What is extreme is thinking that it is morally acceptable to inflict suffering and death on other sentient creatures simply because we enjoy the taste of animal products. 

• What is extreme is that we say that we recognize that “unnecessary” suffering and death cannot be morally justified and then we proceed to engage in exploitation on a daily basis that is completely unnecessary. 

• What is extreme is that we excoriate people like Michael Vick while we continue to eat animal products. What is extreme is pretending to embrace peace while we make violence, suffering, torture and death a daily part of our lives. 

• What is extreme is that we say we care about animals and we believe that they are members of the moral community , but we sponsor, support , encourage and promote “happy” meat/ dairy labeling schemes. 

• What is extreme is not eating flesh but continuing to consume dairy when there is absolutely no rational distinction between meat and dairy (or other animal products). There is as much suffering and death in dairy, eggs, etc., as there is in meat. 

• What is extreme is that we are consuming a diet that is causing disease and resulting in ecological disaster. 

• What is extreme is that we encourage our children to love animals at the same time that we teach them those whom they love can also be those whom they harm. 

• We teach our children that loving others is consistent with hurting them. That is truly extreme— and very sad. 

• What is extreme is the fantasy that we will ever find our moral compass with respect to animals as long as they are on our tables. 

• What is extreme is that we say we care about animals but we continue to eat animals and animal products.
 

Which is the more rational view after all?

Francione, Gary; Charlton, Anna (2013-06-24). Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals (Kindle Locations 1555-1565). Exempla Press. Kindle Edition.

Shaba and Connie: Animals and Emotion

I lived in Tucson AZ for over four years. My house there is within walking distance of Reid Park Zoo where two elephants - Shaba and Connie - were held captive for many years. It is a well established fact that elephants are emotionally sensitive animals and can die of broken hearts when separated from their mate. Even though there was widespread public outrage, the city of Tucson and Reid Park Zoo planned to separate these two friends. 

Shaba and Connie

Psychology Today followed the story of Shaba and Connie. Public outcry succeeded in keeping the pair together during the transition, but Connie became ill and was soon after euthanized at the San Diego Zoo.

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Zoos are one of the many ways in which animals are exploited and enslaved in the name of human enjoyment. The nature of zoos and the connection between racism and speciesism was exposed in this article about a man who was displayed in the monkey house of the Bronx zoo in 1906:

"Is that a man?"

In his first few weeks, Benga wandered around the grounds of the zoo freely. But soon, Hornaday had his zookeepers urge Benga to play with the orangutan in its enclosure. Crowds gathered to watch. Next the zookeepers convinced Benga to use his bow and arrow to shoot targets, along with the occasional squirrel or rat. They also scattered some stray bones around the enclosure to foster the idea of Benga being a savage. Finally, they cajoled Benga into rushing the bars of the orangutan’s cage, and baring his sharp teeth at the patrons. Kids were terrified. Some adults were too, though more of them were just plain curious about Benga. “Is that a man?” one visitor asked."

 All exploitation is underwritten by prejudice. Deeply held prejudice takes a great deal of time and struggle to overcome. Speciesism is one of the most deeply held of all prejudices. The struggle continues!

"Real" Tears and the Prejudice of Human Superiority

...when you inform family and friends that you no longer eat animal foods and that you are doing so because you think that it’s morally wrong, what they hear is that yuu’re saying that they are immoral people. They take offense.  - Gary Francione and Anna Charlton

A recent discussion about my veganism has left a friend of mine feeling offended and defensive. Gary Francione is right about the implication of your telling someone why you choose not to use animal products. But here's the thing. Only those who are experiencing the moral schizophrenia associated with our cultural view of animals will feel offended. They are experiencing a cognitive dissonance between what their moral intuition is telling them is wrong and the fact that they participate in it. These are the people who do KNOW that animals are worthy of moral consideration. They just aren't ready to act on it. All vegans were once there. Veganism is a hard decision to come to given that we are culturally trained otherwise. Those who have no empathy are the ones to really worry about in terms of advancing the cause of animals.

No vegan stops consuming animal products because they dislike the taste. Of course we like the taste! The thought of never eating carrot cake with dairy cream cheese frosting sucks! And finding vegan saxophone pads was difficult and might have a negative impact on my playing. But eating cake and using kangaroo leather pads isn't worth knowing that I'm participating in the torture and murder of other sentient beings who have the same inviolable right that I have to live and flourish. Our decision is based on the fact that the torture and death of other species in the name of our pleasure and convenience is wholly wrong. It was interesting to watch my friend go through almost every single "But" that Francione points to in his book. But the final "But" was that she would save her energy for those who cry real tears.

There is little disagreement in the scientific or philosophical community that animals do feel emotion.  Animals expression of pain is different from humans', but that does not make it irrelevant. "Real" tears are expressed in many ways, even among those belonging to the same species. Underlying this statement is the speciesist prejudice that human pain is somehow superior to non-human pain. The notion of superiority has been used to justify all exploitation.

• WHITE superior to BLACK = RACISM
• MEN superior to WOMEN = SEXISM
• HETEROSEXUAL superior to HOMOSEXUAL = GAY/LESBIAN BASHING 
• HUMAN ANIMALS superior to NONHUMAN ANIMALS = SPECIESISM

It takes a very long time and a lot of struggle to overcome deeply held prejudice. We continue to struggle to change the way we think about race, sex and sexuality. Speciesism is even more deeply rooted than racism, sexism and homophobia in many ways. It will take an enormous amount of effort and struggle to radically change the way we think about nonhuman animals. These struggles are far from mutually exclusive.

[T]he war on compassion has caused people to believe that they have to help humans first. As long as we treat animals as animals, as long as we accept there is the category "animals," both the treatment and the concept will legitimize the treatment of humans like animals. - Carol J. Adams, The War on Compassion 

I know that my moral view on animals isn't going to be popular. Views that go against normalized,  dominant power structures never are. Take racism and sexism fore example. People have died in the name of expressing their view that racism and sexism are morally wrong. People were offended when someone spoke out against them. For the same reasons many will feel offended and defensive about my views. 

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Most —but not all—animals do not cry when they are terrorized and made to suffer; most— but not all— humans do not cry when they see or hear about factory farms, animal laboratories, or hunting fields. — Mark H. Bernstein 

 


They are not human, 
but in the ways that matter most,
 they are we. - 
Mark H. Bernstein

Farm Sanctuary Walk for Farm Animals

Farm Sanctuary Walk for Farm Animals

Genuinely Happy Cows! This will make you smile. :D

We share the same lust and joy for life with all sentient beings. After years of being forced to be perpetually pregnant and sucked dry, these cows have been spared the added torture of the slaughterhouse and will live and die in peace. :D

QUOTATIONS: Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals by Gary Francione and Anna Charlton

"When it comes to animals, we suffer from moral schizophrenia. Clinical schizophrenia involves delusional thinking. Our moral thinking about animals is literally delusional. We think of animals as having moral value; we think of ourselves as having an obligation not to impose unnecessary suffering on animals. We object to the imposition of suffering on animals when there is no compelling reason. We then proceed to impose horrible suffering on billions of animals without any reason that is more compelling than pleasure, amusement, or convenience."

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"In Genesis, we are told that God created the world and gave “dominion” over it to humans but—and here’s the surprise— no one was eating anyone in the beginning. God told humans “I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed ; to you it shall be for meat.” [12] And then God told all the animals and birds, “I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.” [13] So in the beginning, before Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree and were driven from the Garden of Eden, everyone— humans and animals alike— ate only plant foods. It was only after God destroyed the world with a flood that he told Noah that humans are allowed to eat “[ e] very moving thing that liveth.” [14] So we started off in harmony with God as beings who consumed plants. When we fell out with God and were driven from Eden, God permitted us to kill animals as an accommodation to our imperfect state. The Old Testament at least suggests that we should be moving in the direction of getting back to the ideal state.

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"Humans compare physically much more to herbivores than to carnivores. Carnivores have well-developed claws. We don’t have claws. We also lack the sharp front teeth carnivorous animals need. Although we still have canine teeth, they are not sharp and cannot be used in the way carnivorous animals use their sharp canine teeth. We have flat molar teeth, as seen in herbivores, such as sheep, that we use for grinding. Carnivores have a short intestinal tract so that they can quickly expel decaying meat . Herbivores have a much longer intestinal tract as do humans. Herbivores and humans have weak stomach acid relative to carnivores who have strong hydrochloric acid in their stomachs to digest meat. Herbivorous animals have well-developed salivary glands for pre-digesting fruits and grains and have alkaline saliva that is needed to pre-digest grains, as do humans. Carnivorous animals do not have similar salivary glands and have acid saliva."

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"Yes there are laws that supposedly require that we treat animals “humanely” and that we not inflict “unnecessary” suffering on them. They exist in every state in the United States ; they exist at the federal level ; and just about every country in the world has some law requiring “humane” treatment. Despite any differences, all of these laws share one feature in common: they are useless....

eating animals and animal products is not necessary for human health. Therefore, all of the suffering incidental to using animals as food is unnecessary!...

Even if these laws were effective, which, as we will explain below, they are not, there would still be a great deal of animal suffering under the very best scenario....

the moment we start talking about a law that prohibits imposing “unnecessary” suffering in the context of an activity that is itself not necessary, we are talking nonsense....

Sure, it is always better to do something morally wrong in a less harmful way than a more harmful way. But that does not mean that doing something immoral in a less harmful way makes the immoral act moral."

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"The most “humanely” raised animals are still kept and killed in horrible circumstances. Period. All of this talk about “happy” animal products is about us; it’s about making us feel more comfortable about doing something that nags at us. It’s about keeping us from having to recognize that we are all Michael Vick so that we continue to consume animal products. It’s really got nothing to do with the animals. They continue to suffer horribly irrespective of what “happy” label—“free-range,” “cage-free,”“organic,”“Certified Humane Raised and Handled,” or “Freedom Food”—is slapped on their corpses or the products we make from them."

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"The solution is not to restructure things to treat animals we are going to eat as we do dogs and cats. Third, as a philosophical matter, this question assumes that if we were able to use animals without making them suffer, our painlessly killing an animal does not, in itself, amount to harming the animal. This is in marked contrast to how we think about humans. Yes, suffering is bad, but we view death, even a painless one, as a bad thing. We humans have an interest in continuing to live. Death frustrates that interest, which is separate from an interest in not suffering. We don’t want to suffer; we also don’t want to die. Animals, many say, don’t want to suffer but they don’t care about dying unless the act of killing involves suffering; it is the suffering that is a problem for the animal, not the killing."

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"To say that a ny sentient being is not harmed by death is most peculiar. Sentience is not a characteristic that has evolved to serve as an end in itself. Rather, it is a trait that allows beings to identify situations that are harmful and that threaten survival. Sentience is a means to the end of continued existence. Sentient beings , by virtue of their being sentient, have an interest in remaining alive; that is, they prefer, want, or desire to remain alive. To say that a sentient being is not harmed by death denies that the being has the very interest that sentience serves to perpetuate. It would be analogous to saying that a being with eyes does not have an interest in continuing to see or is not harmed by being made blind. The Jains of India expressed it well long ago: “All beings are fond of life, like pleasure, hate pain, shun destruction, like life, long to live. To all life is dear.” [30]"

******

"Even if everything we just said is completely wrong and it were possible to have animal agriculture with the animals being treated like dogs and cats and not suffering at all, and being allowed to die of old age, the reality is that products made from such animals are simply not available now in the world in which we live, so what difference does it make to your choice about what to eat tonight? The answer is clear: None."

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"There is no such thing out there as a “food chain.” It’s a concept that we have devised so that we can make our exploitation of animals look as though it has some basis in the natural world. It doesn’t. The proclamation that we are at the top of the food chain is equivalent to a proclamation that we are capable of oppressing and exploiting all of the other species on the planet. That may be true but it carries no moral significance."

Species of the Earth Unite!

The acceptance of human superiority over nonhuman animals (animals) has led to the greatest atrocities on the planet earth. In the United States alone, each year over 8 billion animals are tortured and killed in the name of human enjoyment and convenience. This doesn't include the billions of marine animals that are also murdered. Humans don't need to eat animals for any reason, and are in fact physiologically herbivorous. In addition, human obsession with dairy and egg products results in unfathomable misery for billions of creatures who are forced to live their short lives in unimaginably cruel environments, only to end up being dragged to the slaughterhouse for their services.

In addition, factory farming is, by far, the greatest contributor to the earth's pollution and global warming. The amount of food it takes to "produce" meat and other animal products could be used to feed a far greater number of human beings.

I am a graduate student at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, working toward a masters degree in philosophy. This blog is a place for me to think out loud about ideas relevant to my thesis on the moral status of animals.

Right now, my focus is on presenting a multicultural, citizenship model of relating to animals whereby humans are mandated by law and culture to treat animals with the inherent moral value they possess as sentient creatures.

If you are at all interested in advancing the cause of ending suffering on this earth for all sentient creatures, please chime in.


Laura Kamienski

Inspirational Quotations

Humane farming is cultivating a plant-based diet. Inhumane farming is breeding any sentient being for production and consumption.” Cheri Ezell

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Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity - George Bernard Shaw

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[A] relationship exists between deception and suffering. Let's face it--most of us will respond emotionally to a description of another's suffering. Language that describes suffering shouldn't be avoided simply because of that. But most people don't want to respond emotionally. Dealing with our feelings can be difficult, especially when we ourselves directly or indirectly participate in harm to others. Deceptive language helps us deny both the suffering and the cause. Once those who suffer and those who cause the suffering are rendered absent, there is no act of violence, just business as usual. --Carol J. Adams

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Veganism is about ethics NOT diet or health. If you doubt this just pause for a moment and consider and examine the incessant hostile reactions to vegans and veganism

If it were just about diet or health, why would it raise so much cognitive dissonance? -- Gary V C Gibbon

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Speciesism is like racism/sexism/homophobia:

it involves using a morally irrelevant criterion

to block membership in the moral community. -- Gary L. Francione

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It were much better that a sentient being should never have existed, than that it should have existed only to endure unmitigated misery. -- Percy Bysshe Shelly

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If one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people. —Ruth Harrison, Animal Machines 

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Animal abusers aren't just the dog fighters, puppy mill operators and backyard breeders of the world. When you consume animal products you are an animal abuser. When you pay the hitman you are the murderer. -- Marlaina Mortati

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 The past two centuries of scientific progress have made it difficult to sustain a belief in human exceptionalism. -  (world renowned Caltech neurobiologist Christof Koch in Scientific American Mind)

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I No Longer Steal From Nature

You are diseased in understanding and religion.

Come to me, that you may hear something of sound truth.

Do not unjustly eat fish the water has given up,

And do not desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals,

Or the white milk of mothers who intended its pure draught

for their young, not noble ladies.

And do not grieve the unsuspecting birds by taking eggs;

for injustice is the worst of crimes.

And spare the honey which the bees get industriously

from the flowers of fragrant plants;

For they did not store it that it might belong to others,

Nor did they gather it for bounty and gifts.

I washed my hands of all this; and wish that I

Perceived my way before my hair went gray!

~ Al-Ma’arri (973-1057), Baghdad (modern Iraq)

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[T]he idea that animal defense requires controlling individual behavior, as if animal exploitation arises from an innate willingness to take advantage of other species, ignores the taming of compassion and outrage that proceeds every day as an integral part of the business of exploiting animals. In this society people are domesticated, trained through external rewards and punishments, through myths and lies, through instilled fear and ignorance, to disconnect from animals, especially those animals designated as "game," "livestock," or "guinea pigs." So animal liberation is not so much a taming of ourselves as it is a refusal to be tamed in support of anthropocentrism.                                                              -- Brian Luke 

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Humans are not the measure of things; we are only one measure among many. -- Gary L. Francione

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 A lifestyle choice is whether to have carpeting or hardwood floors in your house. What--no, WHO, you eat is a moral choice, involving another living creature who wants to be free of suffering, and who wants to live, just as much as you do. -- Sandra Bauer

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We do not exploit animals because we are superior to them, we claim superiority in order to excuse the exploitation. --Brian Luke

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Who would not want to detach herself (himself) from a culture that rests upon violence toward all those beings designated as "other". -- Marian Scholtmeijer

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The animals you unnecessarily ate today - ate the grain that could have fed me. Don't speak of human suffering, and how you pray for peace, calling yourself an environmentalist, a humanitarian, an animal lover if you are not vegan - If you can't control your appetite for dead flesh- If you can't see the true destruction that the exploitation of animals is doing to our planet, and all life upon it. -- A Peaceful Planet

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Megaphone, please.

"I am battery hen. I live in a cage so small I cannot stretch my wings. I am forced to stand night and day on a sloping wire mesh floor that painfully cuts into my feet. The cage walls tear my feathers, forming blood blisters that never heal. The air is so full of ammonia that my lungs hurt and my eyes burn and I think I am going blind. As soon as I was born, a man grabbed me and sheared off part of my beak with a hot iron, and my little brothers were thrown into trash bags as useless alive.

My mind is alert and my body is sensitive and I should have been richly feathered. In nature or even a farmyard I would have had sociable, cleansing dust baths with my flock mates, a need so strong that I perform 'vacuum' dust bathing on the wire floor of my cage. Free, I would have ranged my ancestral jungles and fields with my mates, devouring plants, earthworms, and insects from sunrise to dusk. I would have exercised my body and expressed my nature, and I would have given, and received, pleasure as a whole being. I am only a year old, but I am already a 'spent hen.'

Humans, I wish I were dead, and soon I will be dead. Look for pieces of my wounded flesh wherever chicken pies and soups are sold." - Karen Davis, PhD , United Poultry Concerns

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A holy man once gave two men a chicken and told them to go and kill the chicken where no one could see. The first man went behind the fence and killed the chicken. The second man walked around for two days and came back carrying the live chicken. When the holy man asked what happened he said "Every where I go the chicken sees - Ram Dass

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Murdering animals (yes, murdering them:  I am tired of using euphemisms) is not humane.  Period, full-stop.  There is no “more humane” way of cutting throats, gassing hundreds of avians in CO2 tanks.  There are only relatively “less brutal” ways.  Techniques of extermination can be made more or less aesthetic, more or less horrifying.  But changing such techniques, swapping out the mechanisms of doom, does nothing to make the violence any less extreme or unconscionable.  You can murder me less brutally, but you cannot murder me “more humanely. - John Sanbonmatsu, associate professor of Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute 

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Emotion easily divides from reason when we are divorced from the immediate impact of our moral decisions. A possible step, therefore, in striving to fuse these divisions is to experience directly the full impact of our moral decisions. If we _think_, for example, that there is nothing morally wrong with eating meat, we ought perhaps, to visit a a factory farm or slaughterhouse to see if we still _feel_ the same way. If we ourselves, do not want to witness, let alone participate in, the slaughter of the animals we eat, we ought, perhaps, to question the morality of indirectly paying someone else to do this on our behalf. When we are physically removed from the direct impact of our moral decisions--that is, when we cannot see, smell, or hear the results--we deprive ourselves of important sensory stimuli, which may be important in guiding us in our ethical choices. -- The Liberation of Nature:  A Circular Affair, Marti Kheel, PhD

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Why we should accord "marginal human beings," or even "nonmarginal human beings,"... rights is never established. The limitations of rational argument may, in fact, make it impossible to prove rationally why anyone or anything should have rights. Again, we fall back on the need to recognize and affirm the significance of feeling in our moral choices. - The Liberation of Nature: A Circular Affair, Marti Kheel, PhD 

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[T]he war on compassion has caused people to believe that they have to help humans first. As long as we treat animals as animals, as long as we accept there is the category "animals," both the treatment and the concept will legitimize the treatment of humans like animals. - Carol J. Adams, The War on Compassion  

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Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are like us.' Ask the experimenters why it is morally OK to experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are not like us.' Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction. - Dr. Charles R. Magel

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But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. ― Plutarch 

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Thousands of people who say they "love" animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the awful suffering of the terror of the abattoirs. - Jane Goodall

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I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her. ~ Ellen DeGeneres

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Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. — Albert Einstein

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Dr. Holly Cheever, now with the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association, was a large animal vet for many years. During her practice, she was called out one day to a dairy to try to solve a mystery. A farmer contacted her and said that one of his cows, who had recently given birth to a calf and should be producing milk, was returning to the barn each day with an empty udder. The farmer was stumped as to why she was not giving milk. Upon arriving, the vet inquired about the cow and found out that she had given birth three times before without incident. Dr. Cheever was also puzzled, as there seemed to be no medical reason for the empty udder. She decided to return in the morning and follow the cow out to the field, as this lucky girl had the rare pleasure of daily access to a grassy pasture. Dr. Cheever followed her all the way to the edge of the grazing land where the grass met a tree line of forest, and there, in a thicket of bush and trees, lay a quiet baby calf awaiting her morning milk. The cow had given birth to twins, and in a heart-wrenching “Sophie’s choice,” had returned one to the barn, knowing full well that the calf would be taken from her, and then hidden the other, safely tucked in the trees, where she could come and care for her every day. -- Hope Bohanec

It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food, and shelter if you deny them the most basic right—to live out their lives—and condone or are complicit in their slaughter. - See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/the-ultimate-betrayal-is-there-happy-meat-an-excerpt-from-the-book/#sthash.OKZXj5ih.dpuf

It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food, and shelter if you deny them the most basic right—to live out their lives—and condone or are complicit in their slaughter. - See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/the-ultimate-betrayal-is-there-happy-meat-an-excerpt-from-the-book/#sthash.OKZXj5ih.dpuf

It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food, and shelter if you deny them the most basic right—to live out their lives—and condone or are complicit in their slaughter. - See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/the-ultimate-betrayal-is-there-happy-meat-an-excerpt-from-the-book/#sthash.OKZXj5ih.dpuf

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 It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food and shelter if you deny them the most basic right--and condone, or are complicit in their slaughter. -- Hope Bohanec

It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food, and shelter if you deny them the most basic right—to live out their lives—and condone or are complicit in their slaughter. - See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/the-ultimate-betrayal-is-there-happy-meat-an-excerpt-from-the-book/#sthash.OKZXj5ih.dpuf

It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food, and shelter if you deny them the most basic right—to live out their lives—and condone or are complicit in their slaughter. - See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/the-ultimate-betrayal-is-there-happy-meat-an-excerpt-from-the-book/#sthash.OKZXj5ih.dpuf

It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food, and shelter if you deny them the most basic right—to live out their lives—and condone or are complicit in their slaughter. - See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/the-ultimate-betrayal-is-there-happy-meat-an-excerpt-from-the-book/#sthash.OKZXj5ih.dpuf

It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food, and shelter if you deny them the most basic right—to live out their lives—and condone or are complicit in their slaughter. - See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/the-ultimate-betrayal-is-there-happy-meat-an-excerpt-from-the-book/#sthash.OKZXj5ih.dpuf

It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food, and shelter if you deny them the most basic right—to live out their lives—and condone or are complicit in their slaughter. - See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/the-ultimate-betrayal-is-there-happy-meat-an-excerpt-from-the-book/#sthash.OKZXj5ih.dpuf

It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food, and shelter if you deny them the most basic right—to live out their lives—and condone or are complicit in their slaughter. - See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/the-ultimate-betrayal-is-there-happy-meat-an-excerpt-from-the-book/#sthash.OKZXj5ih.dpuf

It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food, and shelter if you deny them the most basic right—to live out their lives—and condone or are complicit in their slaughter. - See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/the-ultimate-betrayal-is-there-happy-meat-an-excerpt-from-the-book/#sthash.OKZXj5ih.dpuf

It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food, and shelter if you deny them the most basic right—to live out their lives—and condone or are complicit in their slaughter. - See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/the-ultimate-betrayal-is-there-happy-meat-an-excerpt-from-the-book/#sthash.OKZXj5ih.dpuf

It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food, and shelter if you deny them the most basic right—to live out their lives—and condone or are complicit in their slaughter. - See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/the-ultimate-betrayal-is-there-happy-meat-an-excerpt-from-the-book/#sthash.OKZXj5ih.dpuf

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Caring about animals in a moral way is not a matter of “liking” them or thinking that they are “cute.” It is a matter of moral vision; of seeing animals as beings with moral significance and caring about that insight. -- Gary L. Francione: The Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights

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Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they’re only animals.
― Theodor W. Adorno

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Being vegan is easy. Are there social pressures that encourage you to continue to eat, wear, and use animal products? Of course there are.

But in a patriarchal, racist, homophobic, and ableist society, there are social pressures to participate and engage in sexism, racism, homophobia, and ableism. At some point, you have to decide who you are and what matters morally to you.

And once you decide that you regard victimizing vulnerable nonhumans is not morally acceptable, it is easy to go and stay vegan― Gary L. Francione

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Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. ― Mark Twain

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You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If slaughterhouses had glass walls, surely we would all be vegetarians. But they do not have glass walls. The architecture of slaughter is opaque, designed in the interest of denial; to insure that we will not see, even if we wanted to look. And who wants to look. - Joaquin Pheonix, From his film, Earthlings

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The consumption of non-human animals harms everyone. Being a vegan harms no one. - Laura Kamienski

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The idea that we have the right to inflict suffering and death on other sentient beings for the trivial reasons of palate pleasure and fashion is, without doubt, one of the most arrogant and morally repugnant notions in the history of human thought. ~ Gary L. Francione

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I have from an early age abjured the use of meat , and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men. - Leonardo da Vinci

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Just how destructive does a culinary preference have to be before we decide to eat something else? If contributing to the suffering of billions of animals that live miserable lives and (quite often) die in horrific ways isn't motivating, what would be? If being the number one contributor to the most serious threat facing the planet (global warming) isn't enough, what is? And if you are tempted to put off these questions of conscience, to say not now, then when? ― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

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If we are concerned about puppies, but indifferent to the fate of, say, veal calves, this may well be because we understandably but irrationally, accord the latter, but not the former, some sort of ‘associate membership in the family of men. ― Michael Lockwood 

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Most animals suffer and die without tears; most of us stand by without weeping. Physiology explains the animals’ behavior; ignorance explains ours . The animals need— and deserve— a change in our minds and hearts. Only then will we change our actions. - Mark H. Bernstein

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Being a pacifist between wars is as easy as being a vegetarian between meals. ~ Ammon Hennacy  

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Our treatment of animals will someday be considered barbarous. There cannot be perfect civilization until man realizes that the rights of every living creature are as sacred as his own. ~ Dr. David Starr Jordan,  American Biologist and Educator

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It takes 50,000 liters of water to produce one kilo of beef. 1 billion people today are hungry. 20 million people will die from malnutrition. Cutting meat by only 10% will feed 100 million people. Eliminating meat will end starvation forever... Poor countries sell their grain to the West while their own children starve in their arms, and we feed it to livestock so we can eat a steak? Am I the only one who sees this as a crime? Every morsel of meat we eat is slapping the tear-stained face of a starving child. --Philip Wollen

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It is considered cruelty, so extreme that you could acquire a felony charge and jail time, if you kill a dog —but kill hundreds of cows a day, and you get a paycheck. -- Hope Bohanec

It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food, and shelter if you deny them the most basic right—to live out their lives—and condone or are complicit in their slaughter. - See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/the-ultimate-betrayal-is-there-happy-meat-an-excerpt-from-the-book/#sthash.OKZXj5ih.dpuf

It is absurd to speak of humane treatment of animals when it comes to their handling, management, food, and shelter if you deny them the most basic right—to live out their lives—and condone or are complicit in their slaughter. - See more at: http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/the-ultimate-betrayal-is-there-happy-meat-an-excerpt-from-the-book/#sthash.OKZXj5ih.dpuf