Tolstoy quotes

"This is dreadful! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity—that of sympathy and pity toward living creatures like himself—and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life! "

"What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit for their cruelty."

Riveting essay by Tolstoy

Who else could express the inhumanity of killing a living creature but Tolstoy himself? Why try to write about it myself when expressed so vividly and clearly by the master himself. Here is the piece. It is an extract from the larger article which is also fascinating. You can find here.

Meat Market Chapter One Audio

Erik Marcus reads his chapter 1 in Meat Market which provides a background to animals used in food and the expansion of modern industrial farming business. It's very interesting, give it a listen here

This is lovely

It's important to see how animals can be when they're not confined in miserable conditions. It almost tugs at the heartstrings more than watching heinous torture movies of animal suffering.

More videos from Animals Australia

Little Green Blackbird

This album is lovely.

Striking at the roots

Here's an excellent argument on why single-issue campaigns are ineffective at stopping widespread and systematic cruelty and abuse of animals.

Mercy for animals and veganism

I just came back from a both horrifying and inspiring talk by the Mercy for Animals founder Nathan Runkle. Nathan Runkle grew up on a small family farm surrounded by farmers and hunters and saw untold abuses of animals, including animals being skinned alive by trappers. As a teenager he started Mercy for Animals which has been growing strong for over a decade. He truly is remarkable. From the talk I gathered that Mercy for Animals does vegan outreach and education, tries to improve laws, and does intensive under cover work at animal farms and slaughter houses where they reveal the most appalling abuses. In fact he showed us a 12 minute video called "Farm to Fridge" made my Mercy for Animals which rapidly shows what really goes on in the animal food industry.

When he said that he was going to show the film, my heart sank in absolute terror. I knew it would be bad and I had been avoiding it for a while. So I bore witness to 12 minutes of terrible violence and murder, many were scenes out of a horror movie. I felt sickened and desperate to the core. If only everyone could see this, they could no longer berate the vegan lifestyle and surely they would seriously question their own. Yet it truly is so terrible to watch that most will probably turn away in seconds. But I think I must share it on Facebook. People can still make a choice not to watch it, but the animals have no choice. Nobody wants this kind of cruelty to occur! Watch for yourself:

On that note, it reminds me that I am still not a vegan. I want to be a vegan but the societal pressures are making me struggle the most. Living with a meat-eating (although reduced) boyfriend, and all the pressures of his family. We just had thanksgiving and his chef uncle cooked me a delicious vegetarian meal, while everyone had stuffed quail. However, I wanted to bring my own food, but it would have been an insult. As it was I was already teased mercilessly. If it were just me, it would be easier, but I don't want my boyfriend to feel uncomfortable either. But the animals! What horror the must endure. Every day I learn of new unthinkables. Today I learnt that baby pigs are not neutered fully conscious. I in fact knew this was the case with bulls, bulls but I didn't know how. I'll tell you now. While the little piglet is awake and writhing they slit his testicle sack, and then using their fingers rip out the testes! These guys are not vets, they are just poor farm workers doing a terrible job. The pigs bleed and scream, and many never recover. They simply die in agony. You may wonder, isn't this a loss of profit? Well, pigs (and other animals) are worth soooo little in comparison to paying staff, implementing standards, etc. that loosing a few pigs is far cheaper than improving it by any other means. There are so many standard practices that are absolutely appalling but accepted. If that weren't enough, brutal and brutalized workers torture animals in many ways. I won't go into the detail, watch the videos, or read the books yourself. It's hard not to be in constant despair thinking of this accepted atrocity which occurs at a scale like never before in the history of the world.

Remember this

"Every time we choose to do one thing, we are choosing not to do another."

Matt Ball

Interesting article on animal activism

This article by Matt Ball provides some interesting insights to inform your approach for animal activism. He's article on why the "health argument" does not promote vegetarianism and veganism is an important read too.