New favorite website

What a wealth of information, holy crap, I've been so enjoying reading every single word on this site!!! I love it so much. I've seriously been thinking so much about how people tend to react to animal rights issues.  It's soooo much more than animal rights, it's EARTHLING rights.  It's about how to abolish ALL violence in this world-- it makes no difference if that violence is directed at animals or people BOTH ARE COMPLETELY EQUAL in every way.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from this website:
http://quotesonslavery.org/about/

quotes without an author name are ones by randy sandberg, and perhaps edited by me in some cases.

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Question: What is the difference between vegan and vegetarian?

Answer: A vegan does not consume or wear or use any animal products. A vegetarian exploits animals.
~ Gary L. Francione (October 2, 2013)

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"When I was a non vegan, I was not arrogant, I was ignorant. I was ignorant of the fact that I was living in a totally speciesist way. I was unaware of the fact that I was contributing to an extreme form of violence by eating, wearing, and using animals for my own and my family’s entertainment. I was ignorant of the fact that, as I was lovingly settling my own babies to bed at night, nonhuman mothers were grieving for theirs, their babies who had been stolen from them by humans like me. When the reality of what I was doing hit home, I chose to answer the call and modify my way of living. I chose to begin to live in such a way that I would stop causing harm, wilfully and needlessly, to any other living beings, regardless of their specific characteristics. I became vegan. I believe the arrogance sets in when you are being informed of the needless suffering and deaths you are causing by not embracing a vegan way of living, and choose to continue being a part of the problem. You so affirm that your own pleasurable interests are more important than those of innocent creatures and that makes one an arrogant and self-centered human being.
~ Diane Dion (October 1, 2013)

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Criticizing discrimination and exploitation, while discriminating and exploiting, doesn’t make much sense at all.

My liberal, progressive, socialist, and anarchist friends—please go vegan and make some sense.
~ John Tallent (September 27, 2013)

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You either support slavery or you don’t—which type of animal is being used, human or otherwise, is irrelevant.

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***You are personally responsible for harming animals for unnecessary reasons unless you are vegan.***

Humans do *not* need to eat, wear, be entertained by, or otherwise use animals. Opt out of the horrific violence today by going vegan today. (The hard part isn’t going vegan; the hard part is declaring who you are in a world that values conformity.)
~ Sarah K. Woodcock (February 8, 2013)

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Veganism, whereby we stand up for the rights of others not to be exploited, extends beyond non-human animals. That is, veganism means standing up against the exploitation of ALL animals including humans. And thus, as a vegan, I stand up against the Israeli occupying forces of Palestine and look forward to the day when the rest of the world does the same.

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To religious people, I’d say treat nonhuman animals the way you would like to be treated by your god or supernatural power, which, for virtually everyone if they’re honest, entails veganism.

To nonbelievers who aren’t vegans, I’d say give your claims to secular morality more thought and importance in your life, because unless you’re vegan, your claim to scientifically-informed, rational, secular morality has a blatant and indefensible absurdity to contend with. The only reason you get away with non-veganism culturally is because you live in a very prejudiced (read: irrational) society when it comes to the moral status of nonhuman animals.

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I became vegan the day I realized standing up for the rights of others was more important to me than any perceived benefits I would gain from their exploitation.

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We must stand up to hypocracy in all of its forms to the best of our ability

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Michael Vick may enjoy watching dogs fight; someone else may find that repulsive but see nothing wrong with eating an animal who has had a life as full of pain and suffering as the lives of the fighting dogs. It’s strange that we regard the latter as morally different from, and superior to, the former. How removed from the screaming crowd around the dog pit is the laughing group around the summer steak barbecue?
~ Gary L. Francione (August 2, 2007)

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Since becoming a Vegan, I have come to realize this. The wider you open your eyes, the darker the world becomes. No matter how hard you try, you can never close them tight enough. The truth sears an everlasting image of the suffering into your retina. From then on, you’ll eternally understand that ignoring the pain of others is truly the cruelest action we can do as conscious beings. Inaction is the plague of the world.
~ Bianca Nicole Valle (December 24, 2012)

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I am a “vegan zealot” in as much as I am an “anti-racist zealot,” an “anti-sexist zealot,” and an “anti-heterosexist zealot.”
~ John Tallent (November 29, 2012)

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Today is my first vegan Thanksgiving. One year ago, I had this nagging feeling that something wasn’t right. I didn’t know being vegan was a viable option. Today, I am grateful for nagging feelings, veganism, and the hope that comes from the combination of creative non-violent unequivocal vegan education and our ability to embody radical change.
~ Sarah K. Woodcock (November 22, 2012)

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Slavery was legally abolished in most countries, however it is more prevalent than ever in history. There are well over 200,000 human slaves right now, and billions of nonhuman slaves. We need to abolish slavery, not only legally, but in reality. We need to raise our consciousness en mass so that no sentient individual is oppressed, enslaved and violently assaulted.
~ Marcia “Butterflies” Katz (November 6, 2012)

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Becoming vegan is a courageous act. All of us at one point in our lives had an awakening. We realized that animals were being confined, tortured and murdered for our pleasure, convenience and tastes. We had to either ignore our complicity or own up to it and change our behaviors and way of life. Rather than run away from this knowledge, we made a conscious choice to remove ourselves from the cycle of violence, no matter the consequence to our personal or professional lives. Never doubt your decision to choose justice, ethics and fairness over violence.
~ Gary Smith (November 2, 2012)

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Contrary to what I thought before I became vegan, being vegan does not take willpower. It has nothing to do with resisting cravings, giving up things, or missing out on things. As soon as one decides, in her heart, she wants nothing to do with the exploitation of anyone especially those with less power (animals), it is easy.
~ Sarah K. Woodcock (November 1, 2012)

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I often get asked, “at what point do you draw the line? At what point do you stop caring? Are you a BACTERIA Activist? Surely not.”

Well, as far as I’ve read, there would be absolutely no life on Earth at ALL if it weren’t for bacteria, so, yeah. Since I see life as a good thing. Shelley Williams the Bacteria Activist reporting for duty! :-)
~ Shelley Williams (August 10, 2012)

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The three most difficult things about being vegan are: (1) being asked by people who consume rotting flesh and mucous whether my diet is healthy; (2) meeting an astounding number of people who are obsessed with the issue of plants feeling pain; and (3) being told by people that it must be difficult to be vegan.
~ Gary L. Francione (August 6, 2012)

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If intelligence mattered in regards to who should and shouldn’t be used for food then there’d be a whole lot of humans on dinner plates tonight. But, luckily for them it does not. The only thing that matters is the form of species a being comes to earth in. I pray for the day, where we value sentient beings more than our arbitrary list of species (or sub groups of species) that are somehow deemed morally acceptable to use and abuse.

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One of the statements that depresses me most is when vegans who were long-time vegetarians say, “I just didn’t know.” As animal liberationists, it is our duty to make sure people know. It is our duty to speak the truth, confront injustice, [and] creatively work together to end the animal holocaust. Let’s bring the focus back to where it needs to be, on the animals.
~ Gary Smith (June 23, 2012)

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I always wonder where the myth that vegans don’t like food comes from. All day long I see vegans posting pictures of rich, complex and delicious looking meals on their FB walls. Get two or more vegans into a room and the conversation quickly turns to food. Trust me, we like food. We don’t like oppression, exploitation and violence.

~ Gary Smith (June 14, 2012)

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A staggering 46% of Americans believe that god created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years, according to a USA Today/Gallup survey conducted this year from May 10th to the 13th. Not only has that number not changed much in the past 30 years since Gallup first asked the question on Creationism vs Evolution, it’s actually gone up 2%, from 44% in 1982 to 46% in 2012!

Gallup’s Frank Newport told CNN, “Despite the many changes that have taken place in American society and culture over the past 30 years, including new discoveries in biological and social science, there has been virtually no sustained change in Americans’ views of the origins of the human species since 1982. All in all, there’s no evidence in this trend of a substantial movement toward a secular viewpoint on human origins.”

So, why do I care what people believe? Why won’t I just let them have their fun?

Because such dogma can directly affect how non-humans are treated.

The literal belief that humans have some kind of god-given authority over every other species of animal bestows undeserved power into unreliable hands. Creationist claptrap that favors one species over another perpetuates speciesist doctrine devised to demean and control our fellow animals in the same way that notions of racial superiority were used against our fellow humans.
~ Jim Robertson (June 3, 2012)

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I feel everyone has the right to do whatever it is they wish to do in life AS LONG AS what they choose to do doesn’t step on someone else’s rights. This is the core reason I am vegan.

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Being vegan is a matter of nonviolence. Being vegan is your statement that you reject violence to other sentient beings, to yourself, and to the environment, on which all sentient beings depend.
~ Gary L. Francione (May 13, 2012)

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All living beings are prisoners in the type body we reside in. We are actually held captive, and are at the mercy of the nature of the body we occupy. I am no different. I didn’t ask to be put inside the body of a flea, just as you didn’t ask to be put inside the body of a human being. Why are you defining me by my body, and then punishing me for it?
~ Marvin Lasco (May 16, 2012)

Black churches also embrace a literal reading of the scripture because of its unique history, says Blum, author of “W.E.B. DuBois, American Prophet.”

During slavery and segregation, many blacks saw the Bible as the one document they could trust. The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, state and local laws—all found some way to ignore their humanity, Blum says.

The Bible, though, was one book that told them that they weren’t slaves or three-fifths of a person, Blum says.

It said they were children of God.

“Throughout the 18th and 19th century, what document could they trust?” Blum says. “When the Bible says it’s so, it’s something that black people believed they could trust.”

Their enemies, though, used that same veneration of the Bible against them. Slaveholders had a simple but powerful argument when critics challenged them: Trust the Bible.

They cited scriptures such as Ephesians 6:5. (“Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling. …”) And they said Jesus preached against many sins, but never against slavery.

Since the Bible is infallible, and scripture sanctions slavery, it must be part of God’s order, slaveholders concluded.

“Slavery is everywhere in the Bible,” Blum says. “When Americans who were in favor of slavery defended it with the Bible, they had a treasure trove of clear biblical passages that accepted enslavement.”

Blum says abolitionists found it difficult to mount an effective counterargument. They couldn’t just say trust the Bible. They preached another approach to scriptures.

They said you couldn’t enslave people based on the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do to you. (Obama cited the Golden Rule and his Christian faith in supporting same-sex marriage).

“The abolitionist turned to the ethics and spirit of the Bible,” Blum says. “They were theological modernists before modernism.”
~ John Blake (May 12, 2012)

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In the spirit of July 4th----

I believe it’s a bit more complex than belief in talking snakes, though that was pretty funny. We all know the story about the Puritans and how they came here looking for religious freedom. Do a little digging and you’ll see that’s just as big a myth as the one about the English bringing all the food to the first Thanksgiving feast as depicted in the famous painting At any rate, from what I’ve been able to discern, there’s a inextricable link between religious faith and the notion of “manifest destiny” in this country. The conquest and slaughter of Native Americans was justified by religion. The enslavement of my ancestors was justified by religion. The notion of inherent white superiority is partially rooted in a belief that God and Jesus are white like the paintings we all see every Sunday (i.e. “created in His own image”). Religion justifies and underpins everything people claim as being inherently American. The Ku Klux Klan proports itself to be a “Christian” organization. Racial segregation was partially, if not fully, based on the Bible passage in Genesis that talks about “each after his own kind”. It’s “God’s will” for the US to be a great country. “God shed His grace on thee…” You see, without religion and it’s subsequent perversions, the US wouldn’t be the country that it is. I’d venture to say that those in power early in this country’s history understood the power of religion as being a “force multiplier”. If you look back, you’ll notice a heavy dose of “righteousness” and “God” in government propaganda through the years. Over the past eight years, you’ve seen the near ultimate manifestation of this notion in how Bush used religion to push this country to the brink of disaster. There were ministers, men of God, advocating for war in their churches on Sundays prior to the Iraq invasion when “war” is the complete antithesis of what Jesus stood for. They were no better than bin Laden issuing his “fatwas”. The ultimate manifestation will be when the US president orders a nuclear strike because he/she believes it’s God’s will, especially when her home church believes her home state will be a refuge during the “End Times”.
~ Ho Chi Daddy (September 29, 2008)

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Isn’t it strange that we can see beef every single day, and yet it’s often situations like this, that allow us to connect our food with being an actual painful DEATH for someone.

If you wouldn’t want to walk up to this corpse and take a bite, then ask yourself, why do you order it at restaurants?

It may not seem like the same thing to you, but to the animal, it sure as hell is.
~ Shelley Williams (May 1, 2012)

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Atheists do not believe in supreme beings commonly referred to as gods.Vegans do not believe other-than-human animals exist merely to serve human needs. That is, vegans believe nonhuman animals exist for the same reasons we do—their own.

Is there a common bond between atheism and veganism? I believe so and I suggest it is doubt. That is, in a society such as here in the USA where “more than 9 in 10 Americans continue to believe in God“, doubt is at the heart of what helps turn a believer or likely believer into a non-believer.

From my perspective, the same goes for veganism. In a world where other-than-humans are routinely thought of as things to be bought, sold, used, and possibly even killed for mostly trivial human needs, folks who think differently are a rarity. Once again, doubt, I believe, is key to acquiring this currently uncommon worldview.

So, doubt or skepticism, to me, is at the very core of most atheists, vegans, and other such freethinking individuals. Thus, if this is true, it is my prediction that as time goes by and we move further away from the age of faith and into the age of doubt—where challenging the status quo is seen as a noble act rather than an act of heresy—we will see a significant rise in the numbers of atheists and vegans alike.      

The way I see it, being vegan simply means not thinking of others as commodities that can be bought or sold. That is, being vegan means saying No to slavery.

The sooner we realise we are just another animal on this planet—a very violent and destructive animal and not “the crown of creation” we have deceived ourselves into believing—then the sooner we can start to address this violence and the way to do this is for our species to become vegan. Many other problems will be addressed when veganism takes hold.
~ Trisha Roberts (January 4, 2012)

Check out the website above for more :):)

 :-)