#death to nonvegans

[vegantinatalist]

ACTUALLY genuinely unfair

[gumbeef]

being vegan doesn’t involve denying that death is natural. its just that if its completely unnecessary to kill animals for clothing, food, etc, then why do we kill so many of them? you guys can always make up a worse alternative to some animal products, like plastic instead of leather, but clothing isnt nonvegan so often that vegans have to wear anything different than everyone else. i know i never really have to think about it, besides my belt, which is made from recycled materials. i dont even have a reason to own fake leather boots, most vegans dont. how is being vegan preventing “the natural cycle of life and death”? we’re literally just avoiding the animal industry. and where we do put our money, its not agave or tons of plastic or quinoa or whatever. its a lot of beans. hummus, spinach, blueberries, stuff like that. its true you cant avoid human exploitation behind food production and that really sucks but you guys act like it just happens to vegan products. have you heard of what tyson’s employees go through? its crazy how much you lot will bend over backwards trying to assert that vegans are making things worse. you’re trying to use some poetic jibberish above to guide your reasoning. dont do that, read an article or something about what being vegan actually involves. “causing death is inescapable, theres nothing you can do to prevent it?” do you think vegans think that death isnt inescapable? that pigs ought to live forever? ive taken forensic anthropology and i watched a time lapse video of a piglet decay, and it was both incredibly gross and beautiful. all sorts of life sprung from its mouth and eyes and then swarmed over the rest of its body until the ecosystem collapsed into dirt. thats is natural. compare that to forcing a pig to spend its entire life crammed in a warehouse and then killing it in front of its kind, just to make them into sausage, and what a waste when i worked at mcdonalds seeing the number of sausages get thrown out after breakfast. some of those animals are killed for no reason, the rest because they taste good. that to me is unnatural.

vegans would rather wear plastic head to toe than benefit from symbiotic relationships we've had with animals for thousands of years

[gertlushgaming]

AEW: Fight Forever Review (PlayStation 5)

For our AEW: Fight Forever Review, we play a game that combines nostalgic arcade-wrestling with All Elite Wrestling finishers and moves. Featuring a big roster of AEW talent, multiple match types, robust career mode, tons of customization options, more than 40 weapons, and so much more!

AEW: Fight Forever Review Pros:

- Decent graphics. - 18.45GB Download size. - Platinum trophy. - You get both the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 5 versions of the game. - Blood can be turned on and off. - Wresting gameplay. - A tutorial pop-up happens at times but is prominent in the Road to Elite mode. - Four difficulties - Easy, normal, hard, and elite. - Officially licensed. - The exhibition has 9 modes - 1 on 1, 2 on 2, 3 way, 4 way, Casino battle royale, exploding barbed wire death match, ladder match, mini-games, and training. - Online has 3 modes - ranked match, casual match, and private match. - Custom has 3 modes - Wrestler, team, and arena. - Road to Elite is the story mode. - Challenges are daily, weekly, and ongoing. Basically, work like achievements with rewards. - The shop has - apparel, an arena, moves, an entrance, and more items. - Full stats for ranked and exhibition modes. - Online leaderboards complete with filters. - The wrestler info menu shows a description of the wrestlers and their achievements. - Match records act like stats for the mini-games. - Two referee choices - Aubrey Edwards and Rick Knox. - When wrestlers make their entrance you can control all the pyrotechnics and lighting, fog machines, etc. - The casual mode makes pulling off moves easier by removing the need for directional inputs. - Full soundtrack control by creating and using playlists. - Can rebind controls. - Units used can be ft/lbs or m/kg. - The championship management menu lets you see and change the champion of each belt. - In the Road to Elite mode, you pick a wrestler to play as. You get a video of the beginning of AEW. - Custom wrestlers let you make a male, or female or edit a pre-existing real wrestler. - You can favorite/lock custom wrestler choices. - Custom wrestler options - profile, ring attire, entrance attire, street clothes, move set, and entrance scene. - Fast loading times. - Create a wrestler allows you to create your own unique move set. - You can use a created wrestler in Road to Elite mode. - Handy menu in Road to Elite that keeps track of who has and hasn't beaten the mode. - Road to Elite settings - difficulty, diet (vegan/nonvegan) which is what food types show up, personality (hero/monster/confident/jerk/quiet/enigma), live video subtitles, and play hints pop up. - Moves at a fast pace. - You can skip the video sections. - Wrestlers voice the menus. - Entrances can be skipped, and the camera controlled by flipping through angles. - A momentum-based system where taking damage makes you weaker but you can get it back to green which makes you stronger. - You can target and damage particular body parts with a pop-up saying so. - When on the apron in a rumble you can grab and pull the top rope down. - Injuries can happen and this can eventually lead to you being unable to do particular moves. - After a match in Road to Elite, you get a 1 to 5-star rating, cash, and exp. - The gameplay is fluid and very reactive to you. - You can do double-team moves in a variety of ways. - In Road to Elite, you have to choose how you spend your downtime between matches which affects stats and your well-being, and most probably your wallet. - EXP earned for your created wrestler allows you to learn and unlock new moves and improve stats, the progress of this carries over to the other game modes. - Huge emphasis on you creating and maintaining your own character, Road to Elite serves as a tutorial and beginner area then you can face the big boys and girls. - Created characters are weak and crap if you just create one and wrestle in the other modes outside of Road to Elite. - Road to Elite downtime activities can be healing at the hospital, on holiday, dining out, going to an AEW show, or working out. - Each activity will show what it does and costs to do before you do it. - Snapshots is where you take pics of you and other wrestlers as and when you (might) meet them in a show or usually in out-of-ring activities. - The main aspects you are managing in Road to Elite are energy, motivation, and skill points. This is outside of the usual money and fame. - Motivation can have a bearing on how likely you are to get injured or how much exp you get from out-of-ring activities. - What I like is how simple and easy to pull off blocks and reversals are. - It plays and feels like the games I used to play back in the day. - You can change who you fight with a button click but the moment someone hits you, they become your target. - Weapons can be found under the ring and from the crowd and are always available. - Getting out of submissions is either button-mashing the face buttons or getting close to the ropes for a rope break. - A really cool world map where you fly around America taking on fights and watching shows. - Unlock new attire by playing the story mode. - Your in-ring performance affects how much money and exp you make in Road to Elite. - The Young Bucks host a selection of Mini games you can play from other sports to general knowledge in the Road to Elite mode. - You can do in-air reversals! - All the moves look fantastic. - Eat in each city with each one giving you a card showing their signature dish. - I like how you can't just do everything and you have to buy and euop moves for your created wrestler. - Random events can happen in the story mode like taking on outside of PPV matches. - AEW history video clips play as you progress through the story mode. AEW: Fight Forever Review Cons: - Only one United Kingdom location which is in east London. - No voice work in the Road to Elite mode which makes it look weak when in cutscenes, set pieces, and press conferences. - Some of the voice work has no life in the performance. - Not always clear when someone is injured. - As a beard guy, I find the lack of any decent beard types annoying. - Knowing when to pin is its own unknown art. - Few dubious-looking faces capture. - The occasional glitch especially with weapons. - All the side activities are good but feel so flat with no proper music or voice work. Related Post: Reverie: Sweet As Edition Review (PlayStation 5) AEW: Fight Forever: Official website. Developer: Yukes Publisher: THQ Nordic Store Links - PlayStation Read the full article

[theonlinevegan]

[ethicallyomnivorous]

“Talked to local organic farmer about the rodent control in his field.  Approved recipe is 1 part builder’s cement, 2 parts whole-wheat flour and 1 part sugar. Mice die from intestinal blockage .  Supplies wheat to vegan bread company.” via Mick Rodgers on Twitter.

[kiloueka]

Where tf do yall find these vegans you complain about like some sort of epidemic? Been vegan for 5 years and have never encountered a single vegan that lets their cats roam outside. Also haven't met a vegan who regularly eats child slave labor quinoa (which is a myth btw) or agave nectar (vast majority of agave is used to make liquor) or wears all pleather (vast majority of pleather buyers do it because leather is expensive (and also even worse than plastic)) or any of the finger pointing things yall say. All these posts I see are always just like "yeah so i heard these vegans over there do [some wild misinterpretation or something carnists do 100x more" like ok principal skinner can I see these vegans?

Vegans make up 1-3% of the population. Even if 100% of us are doing what you say that still makes the other 97-99% of the nonvegan population letting their cats roam and kill billions of wild animals a year ON TOP OF paying for 1 to 3 TRILLION animals to be killed each year for their direct consumption (or for the consumption of their pets that didn't need to be bred into existence in the first place)

Obviously vegans shouldn't let their cats roam outside, nobody should. But this is a complete straw man argument trying to pat yourself on the back to feel less guilty about, again, paying for 1 to 3 TRILLION animals to be killed each year for your direct consumption.

"it's less about doing things that are scientifically proven to actually make a difference and more about their feelings"

"science" has said for decades is the single biggest thing an individual person can do to help the environment is to go vegan. It's a much bigger issue that fake environmental types talk about plastic straws and flying less but who still eat animals. That has a much bigger impact than the 3 vegans out there that let their cats roam around outside.

I'm begging yall to use the brains you evolved over millennia and reflect on yourselves for once.

"it's about pushing for large systemic changes"

Collectives are made up of individuals. How can yall expect to make some huge social change if you can't even change whats on your plate. Also a fake dichotomy between "consuming some expensive vegan substitute that is 100% not required to be vegan and burning down the system". Most of the vegans I know also do other types of activism but ya'll dont count that because it's annoying because it makes you think about the consequences of your actions.

"recognizing that animals are animals, death is a normal part of life, and humans are part of nature and thus a perfect world where we all never eat animals/animal products or interfere with ecosystems is impossible and even if it could be done would be ridiculously detrimental to the world as a whole."

Another wild straw man.

"Death is a part of life that means it's ok to torture and kill 1-3 TRILLION (with a T) animals each year for our direct consumption." There is absolutely nothing natural about modern farming and burning the amazon and stealing indigenous land to raise cattle. There's nothing natural about breeding chickens to lay 20-30x more eggs per year than their wild counterparts or to breed cows with udders so huge they have to be shackled so they can even stand up. There's nothing natural about entire ecosystems being destroyed and rivers poisoned because of floods of shirt or erosion caused by (mainly) cattle ranching. There's nothing natural about increasing our population while increasing our consumption (nope, shh, shh stop, let me finish. don't even think about it) of animals. If we don't want to genocide like 90% of our population so we can sustainably eat more animals than our far past ancestors could even dream of then maybe we should just stop eating animals. It's not hard. Really. You don't need to buy $12 tub of cashew sour cream.

Also have never met a vegan who thinks no animals should die ever or that we shouldn't interact with the ecosystem ever.

Also also gonna need a citation on that "last "ridiculously detrimental to the world as a whole" bit. Just because you can't spend more than 2 seconds thinking about it doesn't mean it's not possible.

"even when that captivity is necessary and beneficial to the animals themselves and they enjoy being able to relax without having to spend every spare moment running from danger while trying to find food because you wouldn't like being stuck in a cage or your house all day."

More anthropomorphism while accusing vegans of anthropomorphism.

zoos have also spent the past few decades trying to distance themselves from the animal entertainment image of the past, and rebrand as conservation and education organizations. While conditions for animals have certainly improved, zoos are unable to provide anything resembling an animal’s natural environment. While many zoos contribute towards conservation efforts with their captive breeding programs, the issue is that these programs usually only conserve species for display in zoos, since most animals will never be reintroduced to the wild. Studies have also challenged the efficacy of captive breeding programs, concluding that unless animals are protected in the wild, captive breeding will not make enough of a difference.

Y'all can go on about black footed ferrets and the other handful of success cases but ignore theres tons of other types conservation efforts that are more effective than showing off animals for entertainment. But giving your money to some habitat restoration org that saves some bugs and shrews you don't care about doesn't feel as good as spending 2 minutes per enclosure looking at (mostly non-endangered) animals in cages that hardly resemble anything like their native habitat. Yes, even now with the "good" enclosures afforded to only some of the animals. but hey at least they're not spending "every spare moment" running from predators!

relatively little of [zoo] efforts go towards [conservation]. David Hancocks, a former zoo director with 30 years of experience, estimates that less than 3% of the budgets of the 212 accredited zoos of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association go towards conservation efforts. Similarly, Benjamin Beck, former associate of biological programmes at the National Zoo in Washington D.C, found that in the last century, only 16 out of 145 reintroduction programmes ever restore any animal populations to the wild.

3% of AZA accredited. Aka the "good zoos". Zoos doing any sort of conservation efforts is just like how walmart gives some piddly little amount of money to charity despite exploiting the fuck out of their employees. Many species featured at zoos and aquariums can't be captive bred and have to be wild caught, which is causing their wild decline. I'm begging yall use some of the critical lense you use on mega corps that exploit humans and the environment directly on animal-related industries too. It's possible to care about or be critical of more than 2 things!

Like here just read more with sources

You can't sustainably feed 8 billion people and their pets and other captive animals with even remotely close to what western lifestyles are used to. Yes, western consumption. The majority of the non-western world already mainly eat plant based/don't go to zoos/don't own a bunch of carnivorous exotic pets because it's cheaper. You want to still eat animals but be sustainable with 8 billion other people? Be prepared to only have like 1 steak a year. Or you can just stop being lazy and whiny and look up or ask for help how to be vegan while poor/disabled/in food deserts/etc. Giving a shit about animals isn't a rich white person thing; there are vegans across every demographic yall just dont see them because you don't want to.

"It's not about what's actually good for animals or the planet, it's about what feels good and alleviates the crushing guilt that comes from capitalism forcing us be complicit in atrocities."

The irony of this whole post gives me a headache.

Y'all don't want to think about your contributions to systemic animal abuse so you point fingers at some random vegans who are shitty in ways that are absolutely not unique to them instead of reflecting on yourselves and what you CAN do to help. You refuse to actually think about anything and instead make kneejerk posts that are guaranteed to give people aneurysms with how aggressive little you actually think about these things.

Just think. Use your goddamned brains.

people getting upset at the idea that the way to stop your cat from killing wild animals is to keep them inside is the progressive version of pro-life assholes getting mad when you point out the real way to lower abortion rates is to give people comprehensive sex ed and easy access to birth control

you have no idea how many leftist environmentalist vegan types I know who have a cat and let it outside and get very fucking upset if you point out that they're being hypocritical and that keeping their cat inside will do more good for the environment faster and sooner than giving up meat or single use plastics, and also if they care so much about animal welfare maybe they should recognize that letting their cat outside is actively harming it and vastly increasing the chances of it getting sick, injured, and/or dying young

I cannot fathom the level denial it takes to get people to think like this but it's genuinely fucking infuriating and makes me want to tear apart a brick wall with my bare hands

[baked--baker]

"I suggest that we start tagging the banned words like they do on tiktok"

A useless masterpost brought to you by my 4 hours of sleep and the consequent desperate attempt of not falling asleep on the train platform.

It gets from bad to even worse very quickly.

Ass and its Variants: Peach Emoji. And I don't mean the literal emoji. I mean We Are All Gonna Tag Out Posts About It With "peach emoji"

Death and its Variants: the classic Unalive/Unalived/Unliving

Boy: Nongirl

The various weapons: Stage Props

Girl: Nonboy

Sex and it's Variants: the also very classic Seggs

Bald: Unhairy

Cannibal: People Enjoyer (ur welcome Hannibal fans)

MILF: Mother Enjoyer

QUICK LIFE UPDATE: I almost lost the previously mentioned train because I was too concentrated making this stupid post. But let's go back to the reason you are reading this:

DILF: Father Enjoyer

Sad: Unmerry

The various Seggsual Orientations: Fruity/Unstraight

Hetero: Unfruity/Boring Peach Emoji Person

Nude: Nondressed

OnlyFans: JustHaters

Marijuana: I already made a post about that. I also suggest Star Wars Spice for all my nerdy stoners out there

Murderer: Amateur Unaliver

Serial Killer: Professional Unaliver

ANOTHER LIFE UPDATE: I successfully arrived at my destination aka clown sadly-regular university

Homophobia/Lesbophobia/etc: I was looking for an alterative to Fruityphobia but the only thing my sleep deprived brain could think of was Nonvegan

The various My Post/My Gif/My Stuff tags: OUR Post/OUR Gif/OUR Stuff because communist bugs bunny is one of my favourite memes at the moment and also capitalism can go have seggs with itself

Wet: Undry

Anxiety: Uncalmness

FINAL LIFE UPDATE: I spaced out on a school library chair and I came up with maybe the worst one so far

Incest: I do not condone incest but if you ever need to tag it you should write Villain I Have Done My Mother

If you have other suggestions/for some reason want me to come up with a specific one that is not mentioned in this post feel free to hit my inbox!

Also tag yourself as the ones that apply to you

[mickibloo]

Human Rights and Veganism

I speak frequently about my passion for human rights and how this is often dismissed by nonvegans on the basis of me being vegan, and seeing how many other vegans have related to my struggles, I thought it would be useful to compile a list of the human rights issues animal agriculture is responsible for and/or perpetuates. This will not be a list that 100% encapsulates the extent to which human rights are violated by these industries, but I think it is still a really great introduction, if nothing else, to how ubiquitous the oppressive nature of animal agriculture is. This post will be mostly guided by links to sources and some key quotes and phrases from those sources. 

1. Slaughterhouse Workers

Slaughterhouse workers are one of, if not the most, abused, mistreated, and neglected groups of workers to exist within western countries. The traumatization they face as a result of their job is often ignored by almost everyone who is not vegan or who does not research the topic. 

“A Call to Action: Psychological Harm in Slaughterhouse Workers“

“These workers perform a job that, by its very nature, puts them at risk of psychological disorder and pathological sadism. This risk emerges from a combination of many factors of slaughterhouse work, one of which is the stressful environment that slaughtering creates. A large portion of this stress comes from the exceptionally high rates of injury among the workers.

“However, slaughterhouse work is unique among major industries due to its innate violence...one of the most prominent studies investigated the impact of having a slaughterhouse in a community on crime rates within that community, using this as a metric for psychological health... Though the industries they used for comparison were nearly identical in other predictors of changes in crime (namely worker demographics, potential to create social disorganization, and effect on unemployment in the surrounding areas), slaughterhouses outstripped all others in the effect they had on crime. They led not only to a larger increase in overall crime, but, disturbingly, disproportionate increases in violent crime and sexual crime.

“Creating and sustaining oneself with “good” moral character and having another self that can mechanically end lives for hours each day not only serves as another source of psychological stress for workers, but exposes workers to the risk that their pathologically un-empathetic work selves will slip into their community lives. This is another explanation for the “spillover” that affects slaughterhouse workers’ minds and communities.

“Living with the knowledge of their actions causes symptoms similar to those of individuals who are recipients of trauma: substance abuse, anxiety issues, depression, and dissociation from reality.

(Testimonies from slaughterhouse workers): “And then it gets to a point where you’re at a daydream stage. Where you can think about everything else and still do your job. You become emotionally dead.”

“So a lot of guys at Morrell [a major slaughterhouse] just drink and drug their problems away. Some of them end up abusing their spouses because they can’t get rid of the feelings. They leave work with this attitude and they go down to the bar to forget.”

Confessions of a slaughterhouse worker

There are things, though, that have the power to shatter the numbness. For me, it was the heads.

At the end of the slaughter line there was a huge skip, and it was filled with hundreds of cows' heads. Each one of them had been flayed, with all of the saleable flesh removed. But one thing was still attached - their eyeballs.

Whenever I walked past that skip, I couldn't help but feel like I had hundreds of pairs of eyes watching me. Some of them were accusing, knowing that I'd participated in their deaths. Others seemed to be pleading, as if there were some way I could go back in time and save them. It was disgusting, terrifying and heart-breaking, all at the same time. It made me feel guilty."

I know things like this bothered the other workers, too. I'll never forget the day, after I'd been at the abattoir for a few months, when one of the lads cut into a freshly killed cow to gut her - and out fell the foetus of a calf. She was pregnant. He immediately started shouting and throwing his arms about.

I took him into a meeting room to calm him down - and all he could say was, "It's just not right, it's not right," over and over again. These were hard men, and they rarely showed any emotion. But I could see tears prickling his eyes." I remember one day in particular, when I'd been there for about a year or so, when we had to slaughter five calves at the same time.

We tried to keep them within the rails of the pens, but they were so small and bony that they could easily skip out and trot around, slightly wobbly on their newly born legs. They sniffed us, like puppies, because they were young and curious. Some of the boys and I stroked them, and they suckled our fingers.

When the time came to kill them, it was tough, both emotionally and physically. Slaughterhouses are designed for slaughtering really large animals, so the stun boxes are normally just about the right size to hold a cow that weighs about a tonne. When we put the first calf in, it only came about a quarter of a way up the box, if that. We put all five calves in at once. Then we killed them.

America’s Slaughterhouses Aren’t Just Killing Animals

“I’ve seen bleeders, and they’re gushing because they got hit [by a knife] right in the vein, and I mean, they’re almost passing out,” she said, “and here comes the supply guy again, with the bleach, to clean the blood off the floor, but the chain never stops. It never stops.”

In Texas, where private employers are not required to carry workers’-compensation insurance, Tyson has opted out of the state system completely. When a worker gets injured at the Tyson beef slaughterhouse in Amarillo, Texas, in order to get medical care from the company, that person must first sign a document saying:

I hereby voluntarily release, waive, and forever give up all my rights, claims, and causes of action, whether now existing or arising in the future, that I may have against the company, Tyson Foods, Inc., and their parent, subsidiary and affiliated companies and all of their officers, directors, owners, employees, and agents that arise out of or are in any way related to injuries (including a subsequent or resulting death) sustained in the course of my employment with the company.

The pressure to sign was enormous. When a worker named Duane Mullin had both of his hands crushed in a hammer mill at the Amarillo slaughterhouse now owned by Tyson, a manager employed by its previous owner persuaded him to sign the waiver with a pen held in his teeth.

'We're modern slaves': How meat plant workers became the new frontline in Covid-19 war

The company is now measuring workers’ temperatures as they report for work, and began supplying surgical facemasks, but, according to Fields and workers interviewed by the Guardian, Tyson continues to suppress information on employees who have tested positive for Covid-19.”

One worker, a central American migrant who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect her job, told the Guardian that the company was not enforcing social distancing. 'We are all given bathroom breaks at the same time and there are hundreds of us waiting to use them. There are only seven bathrooms,' she said. 'They [Tyson] don’t care about the worker. They don’t care if we get sick.' A spokesman for Tyson said the company was taking 'several measures' to allow social distancing but did not address the bathroom break allegations."

One African American worker at a Koch facility that had been targeted by Ice, spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity. He alleged that while Koch had recently begun taking workers’ temperatures before shifts, they had also withheld details of any workers who contracted the virus. 'They ain’t offering nobody no disability, no unemployment, no time off,' the worker said. 'I just keep my hands washed up, my face covered up, my whole body covered, and I pray to myself and hope I don’t catch it. The truth is there’s a chance that everybody in [here] will catch it.'

The sociologist Lourdes Gouveia has studied the meatpacking industry for three decades and said the Covid-19 outbreak is simply highlighting again the dangerous conditions in processing plants. Gouveia said the industry has perfected a formula which allows it to maximize profit while producing relatively safe meat by resisting regulations and utilizing low cost, mostly immigrant, labor in unsafe conditions. 'All of these elements are of a highly perfected formula or maximizing profits that is unlikely to change fundamentally,' Gouveia said."

2. Environmental Racism and Classism

Animal agriculture, and factory farms specifically, tend to locate their facilities near poor communities (often black or Hispanic) who do not have the financial means to take them to court over the ways in which these farms affect their health and wellbeing. 

How Swine in North Carolina Affects real People | René Miller Excerpt

“When you go back and you look at where these hog facilities are located, there’s a disproportionate number of them that are located near communities of color, low income communities. It is definitely a human rights issue.”

“Now see, if you lived here, and saw the way they do, you wouldn’t eat no pork. I don’t eat bacon, because I know where it comes from. When they die, they go into a box, and they decompose because they swell in the heat. A truck come and pick them up, take them to the processing plant in Roseo, ground them up into feed, and feed them back to the hogs.

“It hits you right in the face. Smell like something that you had never smell before. Smell worse than a dead body.”

“When we go to the funeral, he used the spray. If we wanna have a cookout on Sunday, he’ll spray. He always sprays Sunday.

“Do you think it’s also a civil rights issue?”

“Yes, I do.”

When We’re Dead and Buried, Our Bones Will Keep Hurting

Like many other hazardous and exhausting low-wage industries in the United States, this work depends on the labor of America’s most marginalized communities. Most workers in the industry are people of color, many are women, and nearly one-third are immigrants.

In 1983, wages for workers in the meat and poultry industry fell, for the first time, below the national average for manufacturing work; in 1985, they were 15 percent lower; in 2002, they were 24 percent lower; today, they are 44 percent lower. Workers earn, on average, less than $15 an hour.

Jobs in the meat and poultry industry have long been a starting point for many groups of new immigrants to the United States as many positions require little formal education, experience, or English-language skills. In 2015, nearly 30 percent of meat and poultry workers were foreign-born non-citizens—about three times more than the percentage of manufacturing workers nationally.

Even immigrants with work authorization can remain vulnerable to coercion from employers, as many are not aware of their workplace rights, may not be familiar with technical terms in English, or are otherwise hesitant to navigate the complex, and potentially costly, procedures to vindicate their rights. The result is a significant part of the low-wage workforce who are less likely to report workplace abuses or even injuries, and are therefore more easily exploitable than US citizens, for fear of their employers’ power to fundamentally disrupt their lives and the lives of their families. “Us workers are afraid to lose our job,” said Rebecca G., an immigrant worker at a poultry plant in Arkansas. “[P]eople don't speak up or say what's wrong about the chemicals, or the speed of the line, or the discrimination.”

3. The displacement and murder of indigenous peoples

The Companies Behind the Burning of the Amazon

The burning of the Amazon and the darkening of skies from Sao Paulo, Brazil, to Santa Cruz, Bolivia, have captured the world’s conscience. Much of the blame for the fires has rightly fallen on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for directly encouraging the burning of forests and the seizure of Indigenous Peoples’ lands.

But the incentive for the destruction comes from large-scale international meat and soy animal feed companies like JBS and Cargill, and the global brands like Stop & Shop, Costco, McDonald’s, Walmart/Asda, and Sysco that buy from them and sell to the public. It is these companies that are creating the international demand that finances the fires and deforestation.

The transnational nature of their impact can be seen in the current crisis. Their destruction is not confined to Brazil. Just over the border, in the Bolivian Amazon, 2.5 million acres have burned, largely to clear land for new cattle and soy animal feed plantations, in just a few weeks. Paraguay is experiencing similar devastation.

After years of remarkably successful conservation initiatives that cut Brazil’s deforestation rate by two-thirds, Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has reopened the doors to rampant destruction as a favor to the agribusiness lobby that backs him. That industry is accountable for the atmosphere of lawlessness, deforestation, fires, and the murder of Indigenous peoples that followed. According to data released by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon in July 2019 increased 278 percent over the previous July. Bolsonaro responded to this news by firing the head of the INPE. 

I would like to close this post by saying that I understand this may leave nonvegans with some questions; What can consumers do about this? Should consumers be expected to do anything, or would that simply be misplacing the blame for these things? Aren’t all industries awful in similar ways since there is no ethical consumption under capitalism? If you have these questions, I am more than happy to engage in a good-faith conversation about them. The purpose of this post, however, is not to answer such inquiries. I made this purely to raise awareness about these issues because the only people I ever see discuss them are vegans, and these are extremely important topics that I think deserve far more attention than they receive. 

[lilacfarm]

imo I don't think nonvegans should be so into faux leather, fur, wool, etc. because those are plastics, not made to last, and tbh I think they are a disrespect to the animal they replicate. take leather, for instance. nonvegans like myself are okay with the cow being slaughtered for food, and with it being kept on a farm for milk products. but god forbid, its skin after its death be used for quality clothing? it is okay to enjoy a steak, but to own and treasure a leather jacket that lasts long enough to pass down to your child is a reason to shun? and as for furs, if ethically sourced there is no true harm in it, in fact I think it is a sign of respect to let said animal live on in a treasured item, almost like keeping a loved ones ashes in a necklace. to me, the production of faux fur and leather makes a mockery of that animal. to pretend you have a piece of a creature, only for that same piece to tear and pollute the earth that animal lived on. fucked up to me.

[fluttersheep]

what i dislike most about the whole ‘i could never go vegan bc i like the taste of meat/cheese/etc too much’ is the assumption that we are vegan because of our taste preferences and that all of us dislike the taste of nonvegan foods, and thats why liking meat or cheese over substitutes is a valid reason to not go vegan

while vegan substitutes are incredible and delicious, i adore seafood. i never stopped loving it. seven years of being vegan later, i still know how much i like the taste of seafood. ive never found a replacement that captured that flavor the same way

the difference is that im not being selfish and im not going to pay for abuse and environmental degradation for a taste. there is definitely a degree of sacrifice in veganism (although i hesitate to call it that because youre giving something up that was never yours to take). nonvegans need to understand that we realize not all of our versions of animal products taste exactly the same as what theyre based on. sometimes theyre better, sometimes theyre worse. its just different

but the point is that we are putting their right to life over our personal pleasure. we often like the taste of meat/cheese/etc just as much as you do. we are just not willing to pay for the abuse and death of others for it

[veganfortheearthlings]

We live in a world of animal lovers. Nobody, or at least virtually nobody, would say they don't like animals. Practically everyone agrees that animal cruelty is wrong and those that commit animal cruelty should be punished. This is why we have laws in place protecting the rights of animals, or at least certain animals. But how can a world of animal lovers be the same world that also believes that the deaths of over 70 billion land animals and as many as 2.7 trillion marine animals a year is not only acceptable but actively support it's continuance, believing it is morally justifiable? So can you love animals and eat them? The answer is no, of course you can't, because the two ideas juxtapose one another. Saying you love animals while eating their bodies and secretions is like saying "of course I can love my child and beat them." If an abusive parent said that they loved their child but were also beating them we would think they were a psychopath. This demonstrates the disturbing psychology and paradoxical ideology we have as a collective society of "animal lovers" who are in fact animal eaters. To put this another way, if you love someone the last thing you want to happen to them is for them to be forcibly impregnated, tortured, murdered, and eaten, let alone pay for these things to happen to them. If you love someone you want to avoid bad things happening to them at all costs, so if you love animals then by default the last thing you would ever want is to see their murdered body parts on a plate in front of you. So no, the sense that you can love animals and eat them is not a valid justification for someone to eat animals, in fact it's not even possible. So ask yourself "can I really be an animal lover if I pay for animals to be hurt?" From the free e-book "30 Nonvegan Excuses and How to Respond to Them" by @earthlinged https://www.instagram.com/p/CDhASZoJVB0/?igshid=1v5aabgbneqsk

[ethicallyomnivorous]

“I don’t care how many hundreds and hundreds of people I personally turn off veganism by calling nonvegans names and wishing death on them, preaching nonstop, calling people liars when they say they can’t be vegan, spouting pseudoscience, and posting factory farm footage 8 times a day.. this one guy emailed me last year and said I inspired him to go vegan so it’s all worth it ✌🌿☮" 

[theveganmothership]

Reaching out to her killer moments before death, still loving, still gentle, still hoping for a mercy that never comes. To our relentless attack on life, they respond with life, to our dimwitted tyranny, they respond with intelligence, to our wanton brutality, they respond with gentleness, to our depraved appetites, they respond with hope.

The worker is only doing what nonvegan consumers pay him to do.

Be Fair Be Vegan Facebook

[mickibloo]

(Sorry in advance for the rather long, disorganized post. This was too much to post on Twitter so I’m typing it up here. There’s not a specific point, it’s mostly just me venting, but absolutely feel free to reblog if you wish!)

Being vegan is an almost exclusively nonvegan world can be extremely exhausting. I know myself and many other animal rights advocates and activists often feel discouraged when we see anti-vegan propaganda get hundreds of thousands of notes on Tumblr or insert itself into the mainstream media (such as the skewed coverage of the Meat the Victims protest where news outlets were lying about the actions of the activists despite hours of livestream footage covering every second of the sit-in). 

We see our loved ones feasting on the remnants of torture and death. We see these products advertised to us everywhere. We are constantly surrounded by grim reminders of how horrible the world is and how many people don’t care and/or refuse to see the truth. It can be so, so draining. I often lay awake at night thinking about how helpless I feel and getting lost in my own anger at how we can let such atrocities continue. This is not made any easier when the people endorsing these industries and defending their actions are your friends and family. It’s one thing to argue with a middle-aged man on Facebook wearing a MAGA hat in his profile picture who is trying to tell you eating meat makes you healthy. It is a different thing entirely when your own loved ones are the ones resorting to pseudoscience or fallacious methods of argumentation - or, even worse, apathy - to continue supporting something that you are completely against with every fiber of your being. There’s a certain kind of hurt I feel when I see an anti-vegan tumblr post on my dashboard. When I scroll up and see it came from a friend, however, it’s like a sword through my heart. I feel hopeless.

No movement that has questioned the status quo has ever been easy for the activists involved. Ever. We are activists and we are challenging some of the most fundamental societal beliefs that people hold onto with vigorous tenacity. That will naturally be accompanied by intense backlash. But just know that you are not alone. Your experiences are not unique, and that your pain is shared by all of us. But that pain is a beautiful thing. It means you care, that you believe in something. We are united by this pain, but that also means we are united by our compassion.

[acti-veg]

Im a bit confused bc some vegans keep saying that we get energy from carbs and that protein doesn't give you any energy. but nonvegans keep claiming that early humans ate occasional meat bc it's a great energy source. what's the energy in there? the fats?

In the most simplistic terms, we need carbs because carbs give us energy, but we need protein so that we can break down those carbs into energy. Meat contains a lot of protein, so of course meat helps with that, but there is nothing unique about the protein contained in meat, we can  get similar amounts in a healthier way by consuming plants, which is the original source of all protein. Early humans didn’t eat meat because it’s a great energy source, they knew little to nothing about how nutrition really works; they ate it because they were hungry, it was filling and it was widely available to them. 

We shouldn’t pretend that meat has no function or doesn’t give us anything useful nutritionally, because it very clearly does, it’s not nutritionally void but it’s certainly not essential either, at least not for most of us. The issue with meat isn’t that it isn’t nutritional, or even that it’s linked to so many diseases, it’s that it is attained through exploitation, violence and death. All we need to be able to prove as vegans is that we can thrive without it, which we can; we don’t need try to claim that meat is utterly devoid of any nutritional value.

[radicallyvegan]

Any advice for becoming vegan?

Absolutely!

First, try to avoid being overwhelmed. When you first go vegan, there seemsto be so much to think about and every day you learn about new hidden animalingredients in things you would never expect. If you make a mistake oraccidentally consume something nonvegan, don’t despair--it happens to the bestof us. Just say “ew” and move on. The major industries that we are fightingagainst are meat, dairy, eggs, fish, leather, fur, and animal imprisonment. Ifyou eat something that has some poorly-known by-product of the meat industry init, it’s not really as supportive to the industry as paying for a burger or asteak, so try not to sweat it.

Second, the hardest part about going vegan is the questions and judgementyou get from people you know. Unfortunately, many people get very defensivewhen they find out someone is vegan, because on some level they know that whatthey do is not moral. Some people are lucky and have very supportive friendsand family, but even in my case, where people have mostly let me do my ownthing, you get a lot of questions and annoying “I could neeeeeever do that!” Myadvice here is to try to avoid getting into heated debates and arguments overthis with people you know unless you get the sense they are genuinely curiousand interested in why veganism makes sense. Otherwise, and especially at eventswhere people are eating food, just avoid the topic. If someone asks, say “Idon’t really like talking about that while I’m eating. Maybe we can talk aboutit some other time!”

Third, try to strike a balance between trying new things andveganizing old favourites. If you eat a lot of burgers, buy or make veggiepatties. If you eat a lot of pizza, order ones with no cheese or vegan cheeseif you like it. Surprisingly, pizza without cheese is delicious as long asthere’s enough sauce to keep it from getting dry. List foods you already eatand enjoy that are vegan, like peanut butter and jam sandwiches or avocadotoast or pasta with tomato sauce—there’s already a lot that you eat that’seither vegan or easy to make vegan. At the same time, try things you maybehaven’t tried before or have been conditioned to think are gross, like tofu orseitan or tempeh or different kinds of vegetables. I found that after goingvegan, I was introduced to a whole new delicious world of foods that I’d nevereaten before. When I “could” eat whatever I wanted, I always had the same oldthings—chicken breast, burgers, etc.—but when I had this “limit” of veganism inplace, I was trying and enjoying all kinds of new things.

Fourth, try to make friends with other vegans. See if thereis a vegan meetup group in your area, either on Facebook or meetup.com. Maybethere’s a yearly Veg Fest nearby where you can go and meet others. These peoplewon’t necessarily replace your current friends, but it is really nice to spendsome time with other people who ‘get’ it and who won’t make a big deal aboutwanting to go somewhere with vegan options, etc. If you’re pretty remote, findcommunity online—there are tons of FB groups and Instagram accounts relating toveganism and you’re sure to find some like-minded people.

Fifth, avoid getting sucked into pseudo-scientificextremism. Unfortunately, what started as an animal rights movement hasattracted some people who are “vegan” for health reasons or who are just drawnto “extreme” movements. There’s a lot of bullshit in the vegan community and aLOT of dangerous ideas. Take it from someone who knows their shit when it comesto veganism and nutrition and please, please heed the following advice:

Take a vitamin B12 supplement. Vegans (and many nonvegans) absolutelymust supplement, or you risk permanent nerve damage.

Get vaccinated. Yes, vaccines have small amounts of eggingredients. Yes, you still must vaccinate. If you don’t, you put others atrisk and negligence causing the death of immunocompromised babies and childrenis the opposite of vegan. Get your vaccinations and vaccinate your kids.

Don’t worry about protein. If you eat a varied diet, youwill get enough protein. High protein foods include legumes, beans, tofu,seitan, nuts, seeds and whole grains. Eat those and you will get enough.

Don’t worry about food purism—there’s a lot of crap onlineabout soy being harmful, gluten being harmful, etc. etc. but unless you have anactual allergy, all fruits/vegetables/nuts/seeds/legumes and fungi(mushrooms/yeast) is fine to eat regularly. Ignore people who try to say thisor that is poisonous or not good for you, and just eat what you like. The healthiestway to eat is by prioritizing whole plant foods and eating a wide variety ofthem, but having a deep fried oreo now and then is not going to kill you.

Raw veganism is not healthier than regular veganism. Anall-raw diet can have negative health outcomes for a variety of reasons—many nutrientsare not well-absorbed in raw foods and many people on raw diets do not getenough calories/protein. People who eat nothing but 20 bananas a day are notgetting a varied diet and there is absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoeverthat this way of eating is best or even good for you.

Don’t expect to never get sick. Vegans get sick, vegans getcancer, vegans die. Veganism is a movement focused on eliminating the exploitationof animals. Many people who were eating terrible diets before going vegan doexperience an improvement in health, but it’s not a guaranteed cure-all. If yougo vegan and get sick, it’s probably not your diet. There’s no reason to becomean ex-vegan if you get sick while vegan, that’s just life.

Do not expect that just because someone is vegan, they are agood person. I’ve been heavily involved in the vegan community for 5 years, andI have met misogynist vegans, racist vegans, ableist vegans, and every otherkind of terrible person who happens to care about animal welfare. It is verydisappointing, but unfortunately people think in very compartmentalized waysand many don’t see the parallels between different movements.

Lastly, use all the great resources that are out there. I’lllist a few websites, books and films here that have been very helpful for me,and that are not full of pseudo-science junk. Feel free to contact me with anyother questions or concerns. Best of luck!

Websites:

The Vegan Society

Addressing common objections to veganism

The Vegan RD (Ginny Messina is a treasure! Evidence-based vegan nutrition info)

Vegan Health (evidence-based vegan nutrition info)

Barnivore (vegan booze guide)

Happy Cow (international veg-friendly restaurant listings)

Books:

Animal Liberation by Peter Singer

Eating Animals by Jonathan Saffran Foer (very highly recommend this one!)

Vegan for Her by Virginia Messina - vegan nutrition info specifically for women at all life stages including pregnancy and breastfeeding

Vegan for Life by Jack Norris - as above but not female-specific

All the books by Ruby Roth - she is an outstanding spokesperson for veganism (her calm, intelligent demeanor in interviews is enviable) and focuses on working with children toward a vegan future. Incredible visual artist.

The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J Adams - about the parallels between animal rights and women’s rights.

Every Twelve Seconds by Timothy Pachirat - a look inside the slaughterhouse industry by someone who worked there undercover

We Animals by Jo-Anne McArthur - a photojournalist’s documentation of the plight of animals in photos.

Films:

Earthlings (very graphic but so effective at showing what animals go through on a regular basis, and why we all must go vegan)

Forks Over Knives (health-based stuff but interesting nonetheless)

A Peaceable Kingdom (not graphic at all, focuses mainly on farm sanctuaries)

Cowspiracy (not graphic, focuses on environmental benefits of veganism)

Organizations:

Mercy for Animals

Farm Sanctuary

Wishing Well Sanctuary

Viva!