On Wed, 04 Aug 2004 01:47:50 GMT, "katie" > wrote:

>
> wrote in message
.. .
>> On Fri, 30 Jul 2004 01:18:10 GMT, "katie" >
>wrote:
>>
>> >...
>> >> I have learned that vegIns not only won't encourage
>> >> consumption of meat which involves fewer deaths than some veg
>> >> products, but they often very strongly *oppose* anyone else who
>> >> does encourage it.
>> >>
>> >you know what drives me nuts on this board? other than all the
>negativity
>> >and namecalling that mike charlton is talking about, that is. the
>> >generalizations. all this 'all vegans' this and that. we aren't a
>bloody
>> >cult, we are each individuals with our own ideas and lifestyles.
>>
>> When you have seen the same reactions, without even one
>> exception, for five years, you tend to develop a feeling about
>> a group of people.
>
>alright, i'll give you that : )
>>
>> >i for one
>> >encourage meat eaters to eat organic, grass-fed, free-range animal
>products.
>>
>> I would like to see some examples of that. As yet I have not,
>> and really don't expect to.
>
>meh. i always try to get my stepmom (who does more of the shopping than i
>do) to buy organic & 'free range' stuff, i talk to her about it all the
>time. and on the odd occasion she does, she announces it and i always give
>her a huge thumbs up, even if it means that there's a dead chicken sitting
>in the fridge making me feel sad.

Why must you feel sad? When you see a dead animal on the side of the
road, feeling sad makes more sense because the animal was killed during
what would have been a longer life had it not been hit by a car. The same
is true for animals killed in crop fields, timber forests, construction of roads
and buildings, etc... But the chicken you feel sad for was not in a similar
position. The length of its life was pretty closely determined before it was even
born, and the only reason it had any life at all was because it was raised to be
eaten. If you're going to feel sad for it--which really doesn't make sense after
it's dead anyway--then you should feel more sad that it got to live than that it
is dead, imo. If they had a decent life, I can feel glad for them that they at
least got to experience the wonders of life and others of their kind, etc, even
though they were not nearly a fortunate as you and I in that respect. Once
we're dead it won't matter whether we got 6 weeks or 60 years.

>but it's hard; she's one of those folks
>(like most folks, it seems) who will watch a news piece about some study
>linking pesticide use to childhood leukemia or something, and then as soon
>as it's over she'll say 'i think we're doing our lawn tomorrow,' in a
>completely detached way. as if what you learn about is completely
>disconnected from your actions. it's so bloody weird.

Not knowing more details it's impossible to form a good impression.
But it is a natural human tendency to resist being told what to do or
not to do, and she may be acting on that in some way. That particular
thing is one of the hardest for advertisers to overcome. They can't just
tell you to buy their product or you'd resent being told what to do...they
have to make you feel like it's a "smart" choice for you to buy their
product, or vote their way, or whatever.

>> >it's silly to try to force a hard-core steak-lover to give up everything
>> >they're attached to and pick up a slab o' tofu. obviously wasted effort
>and
>> >doomed to failure. so i'd say hey, here's how you can lessen your impact
>on
>> >animals and the earth.
>>
>> How do they respond? Do you ever point out that some types of meat
>> involve fewer deaths than some types of vegetable products, including
>> bread, cereal, tofu and rice milk?
>
>my mother tells me to shut up, since anything non-fluffish that comes out of
>my mouth makes her eyes glaze over. work, no. school, no. makes her brain
>hurt too much, i guess, unless it's bloody gossip or boy talk. *sigh*. so
>naturally, if i ever mention that something is good for the earth, i usually
>just get an eye roll. and usually also an 'enough already,' as if using
>your thinking parts spoils a good mindless pursuit.

Years ago I remember being told that most people spend more time trying
to avoid thinking, than they do trying to think. At first that seemed impossible
to me, but as time went on I've come to believe there's a lot of truth in it.
It's surely been made apparent that some people are very much opposed
to certain things being given much consideration, like the facts that some
farm animals have decent lives, and that some vegetable products involve
more deaths than some animal products.

>why yes, i am bitter
>: ) on the other hand, my stepmom isn't so bad like that, thankfully. we
>don't happen to talk too much anyhow, but she won't really talk about this
>stuff with me so much, she usually just cuts off the conversations pretty
>quick. her whole argument is that she doesn't want to buy any organics or
>anything, since she thinks the stuff is secretly exactly the same as the
>other stuff, except with a jacked up price, as in, grown exactly the same
>way but with a different label. me, i'd rather take my chances on the
>labelling side than the chemicals side. but for me, talking with her, the
>vegetables/veggie milks/tofu impact stuff never comes up (nor the meat
>impact, for that matter, except for me saying 'why not buy this kind of meat
>instead, since it's possibly nicer to the chickens and not so bad for the
>environment), since she doesn't actually eat the veggie stuff. like, ever.
>she's a hard-core butter, condensed milk, pickled herring kinda lass. and
>she eats lots of bread, but no rice really since she's trying to lose weight
>(i'll never understand why she thinks white egg bread is going to be better
>for her waistline than brown rice or 12 grain bread...meh?)

Maybe she should look at the carb and fat contents of what she eats.
Maybe it would be a "smart" choice for her to do so--after all, everyone
else it these days--and mentioning it might prompt her to a new way of
thinking about what she eat. Here's a chance for you to experiment with
human nature, like the advertisers who spend their lives trying to figure
out how to get people to do what they want them to do. You could point
out the nutritional information labels on a couple of products and the
info would be right there in front of her, if you haven't already.

>she tries some
>of my cooking sometimes, which is nice n' charitable of her, but there's no
>way in hell i'd every try to 'convert' her or anything. i just want her to
>eat healthier so she doesn't die on me (ie less buttery fattening crap, more
>vegetables). but i can't lecture her since she's not a blood relative : )
>>
>> >always going for a more sustainable way of doing
>> >things. some folks like to blindly follow dogmas, whether they are vegan
>or
>> >any other ways of thinking. but that's just a kind of person; just cause
>> >you've run across some vegans who don't think critically, doesn't mean
>you
>> >should put us all in the same box.
>>
>> It's not so much that I've run into some who don't, as it is that I've
>run
>> into none who do. Not one! You may be the first, but that remains to be
>> seen, if it's to be seen at all.
>
>it's hard to assess these things on these bloody newsgroups. always better
>convos and better ideas about people when you can hash it out over some good
>neutral food : )

Yes, but usually it's not practical to do that. If you're going to be around
Atlanta, GA anytime though it would be nice to meet.

>> >you seem to have some interesting and
>> >valuable stuff to contribute here,
>>
>> Thanks. That's certainly an unusual thing to say.
>
>your welcome : ) it's true; i might not always like the way in which you
>say things (gets a little repetitive sometimes with the cut n' paste posting
>: ) ) but i read it just the same.

Sure it gets old to read the same thing over and over, but it gets even
older to write the same idea over and over every time it an issue comes
up again. The re-posting is more for people who have never seen it than
for those who have, though I suppose it's possible a person could get
something out of reading something more than once, than they did when
they read it the first time.

>best to keep an open mind for those of
>us on all sides of the fence.

Well, you seem to have an open mind especially for a veg*n. That is
something to be thankful for and appreciate imo. It's been said that most
people are just surface thinkers, and don't like to get into much detail.
That's especially true when the truth is not what we like, in which case
we don't even want to think about it at all, much less in detail. People
make a choice about something, become comfortable with the choice
they have made, and then strongly resist changing their mind later and
giving up the security they felt in the choice they had made. Stuff like
that....cognitive dissonance.

>> >why not try to contribute in a positive
>> >way and try not to alienate folks with the 'evil vegans' generalizations?
>>
>> Well, maybe in the future I can say something more like: 'I've only
>> encountered one veg*n who cares enough about human influence on
>> animals, to encourage consumption of meat which involves fewer deaths
>> than some vegetable products...', but as I said that still remains to be
>> seen. So far I have yet to see it.
>