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Vegans, Stop the Nastiness
Oct 4, 2008
Veganism is a personal choice that should not be used to vilify those who have not made that choice. I am sick and tired of personal attacks by a small group of vegans who routinely post ugly personal comments about non-vegans - everyday Care2 members who do not mistreat or abuse animals.

Not all people who raise animals for food, especially folks who keep a small amount of livestock for personal use, treat those animals as a product or a thing. My mother-in-law, dead now for 4 years, raised chickens for their eggs and they had the run of her entire yard during the daylight hours. She fed them nutritious greens and fruit and well as grains. If one sickened, she put the sick bird out of its misery quickly and humanely. She gave her delicious, often double-yolked organic eggs away to her family, neighbors and friends. I refuse to condemn her as a person who cruelly mistreated or exploited animals. The only animal I can recall her ever putting down that was healthy was an absolutely vicious rooster that she raised from a hatchling from one of her own chickens - that bird bit and clawed everything and everyone. He did go into the soup pot for stock - and he was put down quickly and humanely.

If all animal farming was abolished right now with a flick of a vegan magic wand, every cow would be dead, and die horribly, within a month or less. So would most chickens. ducks, pigs and many other creatures that humans have domesticated.

Yes, I hate factory farming and animal cruelty, but people who keep and raise animals for food and  who treat their animals with love, respect and kindness abound. And when the animals are killed, it is done humanely, and every scrap is generally used - nothing that can be utilized is wasted. I do not fault people who keep animals for their food and other products, such as milk, eggs, fur, etc. if the animals are well-cared for throughout their lives. I used to buy raw milk from a family farm here in Connecticut. In order to sell raw milk, this family and their farmhands had to meet the strictest standards of animal and equipment care and cleanliness.

Vegans, you have embraced a lifestyle that suits your diet and your conscience. I respect that. But please stop attacking those who do not subscribe to your beliefs. Because someone consumes animal products does not make that person an unfeeling monster.
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Posted: Oct 4, 2008 3:12pm
The Great Divide
Sep 14, 2008
I hear nothing from either of America's major political parties that tells me anyone has a CLUE how to to begin to rectify the utter and complete financial mess the Bush Regime has made of our country. I keep waiting for an announcement of intended true change in the approach of our potential leadership as they barnstorm from coast to coast. Instead, I hear adolescent exchanges of insults and recriminations and fluffy, puffy speeches about pie in the sky, national security and reform - and every successive promise seems to contradict the others.

Our economy is in a major tailspin - every economic indicator screams it: it's reflected in all the major commodity markets, in the rising unemployment figures, in foreclosures, in the number of bankruptcies filed, in the failing of major banking and brokerage firms, in how far you can stretch your own paycheck to cover your every living expenses, even in the abandonment of beloved pets when their owners can no longer afford to care for them.

We are trillions of dollars in debt to foreign interests, the bottom is rapidly dropping out of our GNP, we are selling our landmarks, our businesses and even our roads. Big business is gleefully outsourcing every service and production location it can in the interests of the bottom line. There are more homeless, more people living in poverty, more dysfunctional schools and more services being slashed by state and federal agencies every day that passes. Where improvements are being made, they're floating on borrowed money.

Most of us hate to admit that our country's well-being is inextricably tied to the health of our economy. Many prefer to think that if only government cared enough things would be better. To this I say: read history. Read the total history of our country, not just the political or social roots, but everything - the foreign relations history, the economic history and how all of these disparate factors have in the past been divided, producing failure, and integrated, producing success.

If someone - or some group - intelligent enough, knowledgeable enough, willing enough to take the heat and who cares enough about all aspects of America doesn't come up with a viable program to correct the strangling economic mess here at home soon, you can kiss everything - and I mean everything - else goodbye.

We do not have another FDR, with his powerful ability to tap the greatest financial and philanthropic minds of his age, on the horizon to rescue our beloved country. I do not believe either set of presidential candidates is informed enough, equipped enough, in touch enough or un-self-interested enough to correct our financial course anytime soon.

People, it's difficult to motivate folks who are barely paying their daily expenses, barely able to keep themselves and their families solvent. If you think people are apathetic about the causes many of you rightly embrace & promote now - animal welfare, environmental concerns, rights for the mentally and physically disabled, education, world peace, etc. - wait until Americans are standing in line for handouts again, instead of being employed, able to feel good about themselves and feeling like they live a society that values their contributions to it.

Please visit my newest photo album for a brief glimpse of the great economic divide in America today. I welcome insights and observations regarding how we, the people, can bring about effective change to restore the United States to the morally and fiscally responsible nation it once was and could be again.
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Posted: Sep 14, 2008 10:53am

 
 
 
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RC deWinter
female, age 62, divorced
Middletown, CT, USA
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