Boycott Veganism

A great read and it had a lot of interesting points!!

I understand all this however, you need words for things like this... The amount of times people ask me why I "won't eat the cheese" there's no way I'm patient enough to always explain exactly why. As you said it is an umbrella term and thank goodness it is otherwise I'd be sitting there for days explaining why exactly I "won't eat the cheese".

well...... i must be a typical 'vegan' who is doing nothing for the rights of animals then or for anything else for that matter.  i clearly took this EXTREMELY different to everyone else... i personally respond well to and learn from positivity and suggestions and help in learning rather than from being attacked in the most negative way you can think of.  again maybe i completely misread this entire article but im not a fan! yeah this person has some great ideas and i think i might actually go away having taken something away from reading it to use which im really excited about... but seriously how DEPRESSING!  how dare i have any friends that arent vegan or socialise with anyone not vegan.. oh SH&* im using the word vegan... my bad how dare i have anything to do with anyone that urrmmmm lives a lifestyle i do not agree with?.... how dare i keep my job... im soooooo connfused!!!!!!!!!!

and i quote the following from the article....

"Yet despite her (the persons friend with MS)  profound suffering, my friend has lived a meaningful life -- and one far longer than doctors
anticipated. (She is now in her 30s.) And at no point did anyone suggest that she would be better off dead,
or that the world would be a better place if she did not exist. Far from it, despite her disabilities and
suffering, her life has value. She can converse with people, when she is not ill; she has desires and
awareness; and she hopes and dreams for a cure before her disease takes her life. Her life is worth living,
despite her profound disability.
The point I am trying to make is that a life of suffering is not valueless. There are good things that come
with life, as well as bad, for all of us. And for us to say that some other person's life is meaningless, (much
less bad for the world!) because it involves too much pain or discomfort, is an affront to that person's
individual dignity and autonomy.
We should say the same for non-human animal persons. Yes, they may suffer and die, if they are born in
factory farms. But we cannot say that the world would be better without them, for the same reason that I
cannot say the world would be better without my friend with MS. Every human with MS, and every poor
piglet in a factory farm, is an invaluable individual, who has as much right to existence, and to the bounty
of this world, as the rest of us."

((am i the only person that thinks this comparrison is twisted and wrong?? that actually makes me angry......   i just dont get it)


so to end this:

either this whole thing is seriously out there, i completely misunderstood it, OR im just your typical stupid VEGAN who was only going to see it the way i did anyway blah blah.....

i love my lifestyle!!! and whilst i might not be perfect and i should probably be more involved in activism and all sorts of others things... i dont believe that makes me being vegan a waste of time.  and yes I AM A VEGAN ....

.... i guess i just wish it was put across in a more positive light or didnt sound like such an attacking crock of...####...nobody likes being attacked and people usually stop paying attention when they are feeling attacked and get defensive... i felt attacked.

Well done Lars I support your decision and rational fully.

Like religious terms... it is too much of a blanket term in that everyone is like...
hey! I want to keep warm. But they often don't know what entails being collective.

I describe it as... I am avoiding animal derivatives for a more morally suited diet..
a Diet more suited to my moral core (ethics) and how I feel about the world/its' pitfalls and oversights. Something like that.

Boycott Soya if you ask me, but anyway, thank you for making this information digestible.

And it only takes a few to taint a word, so when it is the majority doing it... the few that weather these discrepancies, keep it strong... so I respect people who associate fully with Veganism (Vegan from memory translates to 'full of energy'/'lively and bright') also.

But alas... to me it is a dilemma = a choice between two equally unappealing options. To be burdened by people judging me by my actions with their weighty social prejudice complexes or to use a word I don't wholly support as an expression of myself... to divert one stereotype vision onto a subjective stereotype, subjecting me to thus.

Next time someone asks me, I endeavor to say nothing and just let the silence speak for itself.

^^

I read to page 4...that was enough for me! Im proud to be vegan!

That sounds great to a bunch of vegans. But imagine what someone who eats meat is going to say when they ask why you're not eating meat and you "state that our fight is for equality, justice, and freedom". They're going to think you're a massive wanker. It's the kind of stuff philosophy students go on about which will simply never resonate with the real world.

It does make some good points about the downside to calling yourself vegan but it also assumes people will care about the plight of animals if you simply word things differently and ignores the fact that most people couldn't give a shit about other people let alone animals.

I agree with Vegan-Lisa about the MS example. It's apples and oranges. Veganism, if I may call it that, isn't about animals with disabilities. Compare factory farming to Concentration Camps during WW2 and you get a more accurate picture. Is a person imprisoned and abused waiting to be murdered living a meaningful life? Now factor in the animals in factory farms are born for the sole purpose of being tortured and/or killed and it reinforces the point that it WOULD be a good thing if these animals were never born.

Good timing for this article Lars, I was just at the Ban Live Exports Rally at town hall last weekend, there was a very passionate lady who kept screaming "GO VEGAN" during the talks, she also led the chants and started with a "GO VEGAN". Now I do admire people with such fiery passion but I can wholeheartly say not one person who heard the go vegan scream took it seriously, people walking by would of heard just another hippy chanting. As soon as we mention vegan especially in the live export debate, you lose three quarters of the audience, eyes roll, people sigh "here we go", it detracts from the real issues at hand.

But by all means if you identify as a "vegan" and feel proud continue to. But really read the article, it saying that "vegan" shouldn't be the focal point of the whole animal rights movement. I find it quite easy to fully explain my position without having to say i'm vegan to people, in my opinion they listen more and less inclined to pull the "preachy" alarm and raise the firewall of "your a dickhead so I'm not listening".

Word : Boycott <<makes me feel like I'm part of a cult ...

the way some vegans carry on it sure looks it from the outside, it's like "join the club or you're evil! come join the enlightennnnneeeddd"