Tuesday, April 10, 2001
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Tuesday, April 10, 2001 |
| Wespeak: Meat-eaters can’t support animal rights By Dan Shannon Ben, please, do us all a favor and shut up. Admittedly, your Wespeak was less stupid than Adam Cayton-Holland’s, but not by much. Trust me, just as no one in the queer rights movement is losing any sleep over Mr. Hatin’-Bawlin’s objections to their cause, I’m less than visibly upset about the fact that I’ve incurred your personal ire. But, this might be sort of fun, so let’s go through your objections and deal with them, shall we? Objection the First: that we had anti-McDonald’s stickers at our Procter & Gamble table. This seems like splitting hairs to me, but what the hell, let’s prove him wrong anyway. One reason we give out McDonald’s stickers at all of our tabling events is that people like them. I can’t get them mailed to me by PETA fast enough. Give the people what they want. But they also pertain to the issue at hand. The Procter & Gamble boycott is about Procter & Gamble on the smallest level. It’s also about animal testing as a whole, and beyond that, animal cruelty as a whole. And McDonald’s is definitely guilty of that, along with deforestation (you’re wrong about that, boyo). No Ben, cows aren’t ecstatic about being included in Happy Meals. They also aren’t ecstatic about living their entire lives separated from their parents and children, prodded with electrodes, and kept in cement cells too small for them to stand up or turn around. And finally, the reason we’re not actively boycotting animal-murdering restaurants as a whole is the same reason we aren’t actively boycotting all companies that test on animals: it’s more efficient and easier to publicize a boycott of a particular company. But I guess if you have any activism experience at all, you’d know that. Oh, you don’t? My mistake. Objection the Second: that we give the unclear impression that one can’t be pro-animal-rights if one eats meat. Sorry Ben, my bad. Let me clarify. One cannot, under any circumstances, be pro-animal-rights if one eats meat, at all, period. Is that better? I’m sick of people like you, Ben, who, when I tell them I’m vegan, say "Oh, yeah, I totally support that" as they take bites of their hamburger. Sorry, no. Could I say "Yeah, I totally support not being racist" if I throw the words "nigger" and "spic" around left and right? That wouldn’t fly, and neither does your argument. I’m not saying people who eat meat shouldn’t participate in the Procter & Gamble boycott or any other activities, but you should try and understand the whole situation. Oh, and another thing. Guess what, you can’t be an environmentalist if you eat meat, either. Fifty-five square feet of the rainforest that Ben seems to care nominally about are destroyed to produce one quarter-pounder (huh, a McDonald’s product). Think about it. Objection the Third: God forbid anyone tell Ben Ableson that something he’s doing might be wrong. Guess what, Ben, you aren’t perfect. Neither am I. We’re both open to criticism. I should probably recycle more, pay attention to if the clothes I buy are made at sweatshops, and swing at the first pitch less. You should probably stop eating meat. I don’t buy the "lifestyle choice" argument. Serial killing and child molesting are both "lifestyle choices." Should I sit back and let those happen, too? Look, you have the right to do whatever the hell stupid shit you want, as long as it doesn’t impede on another living thing’s safety. Killing and torturing animals definitely does that. So Ben, after carefully reviewing your objections, I have a solution that I think will satisfy us both. Here’s my plan: animals certainly don’t like the idea of being murdered for food and tortured for "science." You, however, don’t seem to think it’s such a big deal. So, I propose that you march your ass on over to Procter & Gamble corporate offices and say, "Hi, I’m here for the product testing." And then, after they stuff your eyes full of caustic chemicals and sew them shut, you can head over to McDonald’s (you’ll be blind by this point, so I’ll show you the way) and volunteer to get murdered, ground up, cooked, and made into a Big Mac. No big deal, right? No need to avoid buying animal-tested products. No need to stop eating meat. As long as you’re willing to go through everything the animals that are tortured and murdered to satisfy your consumer wants go through on a daily basis. Oh, you aren’t willing to do that? I thought you said it was no big deal? Right. I see. OK. Then shut the hell up, quit whining, and stop wasting my time. Shannon is a member of the class of 2001 and a member of WARN. |
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