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Adam Weissman, I still do not see or understand your argument.

Adam Weissman, I still do not see or understand your argument. I tell you that H$U$ does NOT promote veganism and I give you concrete examples – including video – and even in the words of H$U$ executives. You tell me to go to an H$U$ link to prove your point, where the word “vegan” cannot be found and then you go off on some rationalizing tangent hypothesizing  why H$U$ may prefer promoting veganism with the word “vegetarian” , which you certainly must know is a word that has been hijacked to now seem to include animal “products” such as “dairy”, eggs, and even fish and chicken. You laud the imprecision and lack of specificity by H$U$ in promoting “veganism” on its website while ignoring the very specific words of its executives to not go vegan – even to not mention going vegan when collecting signatures for the “Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act”. Adam Weissman, you send me to an H$U$ website to prove to me that it promotes veganism, with the headline at the top of the page quoting an irresponsible public health figure who is against veganism herself who is promoting a “LARGELY VEGETARIAN” diet at the top of the H$U$ page. And then, you go off on “Meatless Mondays” as proof that H$U$ promotes veganidm. “Meatless Mondays” are to the VEGAN ANIMAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT what “Rape-Free Wednesdays” are to the women’s liberation movement. H$U$ shows the same urgency toward saving animals, human health, and the environment as if it were casual Friday – only it’s ‘Meatless Mondays” and we can be casual about animal torture and murder Tuesdays through Sundays, and we’ve done our part, the same as eating “humane meat” is doing your part – even more than going vegan, as you may have seen on the video I sent you – if you bothered to watch. And then you say Michael Greger isn’t saying “eat cheeseburgers”. Well, someone has to tap into the vegan revenue source of donations, so why not send Greger out to talk to vegans to tell THEM being vegan is great, and please eat cage-free chicken liver pate, and make your check out to H$U$. I say – H$U$ should schedule Greger to speak at the United Egg Producers convention, or Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant, or the Nebraska Farmers Union conference, and have the pig murderer Vice President and Michael Vick represent H$U$ at animal rights gatherings – just to help sort things out.  You had me  link to an H$U$ website with Greger promoting “humane eating”, which you know means animal flesh to H$U$, don’t you, Adam? Then as you asked, I visited the H$U$ guide to Meat-Free meals, which again promotes “LARGELY VEGETARIAN” and NEVER uses the word “vegan” in any of the text where Paul Shapiro is uncomfortably pictured as the perch for a chicken whom presumably Shapiro wants to condemn to the permanent irreversible horrific conditions mandated in the “Rotten Egg Bill” promoted by his organization on behalf of the egg industry. Adam Weissman, you have solidified my argument that H$U$ does NOT promote veganism – except, it seems, in your imagination.  To promote veganism, you have to use the word “vegan” at least once.

One Response

  1. Adam Weissman
    Adam Weissman May 24, 2013 at 5:50 am | | Reply

    Uh, Bob? If you’re going to direct articles at me, you think you might want to, y’know – let me know about it?

    No time to respond point by point, but

    “Meatless Mondays” are to the VEGAN ANIMAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT what “Rape-Free Wednesdays” are to the women’s liberation movement.

    is a really terrible analogy.

    – Over 96% of people in the US eat meat and for an awful lot of them, it’s something they do daily or several times a day. Now I know rape is under reported, but I do not suspect that a comparable percentage of the population commits rape 7-21 times a week.

    – Meat is legal and ubiquitous. While we can argue that we live in a rape culture and rape is shockingly, disturbingly common, it is in NO WAY normalized or accepted in the way that meat consumption is.

    Frankly, analogies like this make animal activists seem like nutballs off in space and make it very hard for normal people to take us seriously. We can think that the meat industry is hideously awful – and it is – but we can either get high off our own sense of moral superiority, or we can meet people where they are at and pull them in our direction.

    Meat Free Monday opens a conversation. It gets people to start thinking about why they might want to not eat meat – something that I get is the central question of your life, but for most people is something they NEVER THINK ABOUT. By allowing them to flirt with a little bit of vegetarianism without feeling like they have to go all in all at once, it opens a door for people who might otherwise say “give up meat? No way – not gonna happen.” And in doing that, in encourages them to grapple with climate change, animal suffering, their own health, etc. And once they do that, a Meatless Monday may become a meatless Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

    Does this actually work? I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s an anti-vegan strategy. It’s a strategy designed to push people in the right direction. Which is probably more effective that coming off as a rigid culture obsessed with our own standard of purity on an issue that for most people isn’t even a serious concern.

    Another thing about Meatless Monday – it’s something that we’ve seen institutions embrace. And that’s a big deal because it starts to shift thinking about meat consumption away from being the habit of an obscure and marginal lifestyle subculture to being a legitimate question in consensus reality. And let’s face it – we’re NEVER going to have a vegan world based on individuals going vegan one by one. Social change doesn’t EVER happen that way. If the country and the world do move in a vegan direction, it’ll be because society as a whole comes to see animal consumption as a serious question and ultimately crafts public policy to facilitate a shift.

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