What Does it Mean to Do "Enough"?

Hey Everyone,

P_M here again, this time with a specific user in mind, so if someone with the s/n "anastasia" is reading this then thank you for your review of my last post and this is for you.

The question I'm answering today is a bit specific. I personally cannot tell you, the individual reader I've never met, what it means for you to do "enough" for the the sake of the billions of non-humans that face death and exploitation everyday on this planet. I can't tell you what to do or how to do it, because lets face it, if I did I'd be a stuck up power mad authoritarian jerk or just a person with way too high an opinion of herself and an overestimation of her influence. That said ,what I can do is give you some questions to ask yourself next time you feel hopeless or powerless.

Next time you watch an Animal Rights video and get that feeling like you aren't doing enough, ask yourself these questions, and remember... "enough" is standard based on love. Think about it. If someone you love almost if not more than yourself gets sick, enough becomes no less than everything you can possibly do to comfort and assist them, right? But if one those distant relatives whose names you'd forget if they weren't on your Christmas card list gets sick, enough might be a prayer and cheap get-well card. If you want to get technical about it "enough" also has a bit to do with the severity of the situation, our moral responsibilities to other beings and other factors but, as I happen to be a bit sentimental right now, I'll say that love has a bit to do with how a person looks at those other factors. (you may feel free to agree or roll your eyes at me, but since you're still reading this I can only assume that on some level you care what I think)

Any way, These are the questions that you should ask yourself to help you assess whether or not your doing enough for the cause of Animal Rights.

1. Am I vegan? - step one to taking down animal oppression is always a bit obvious (STOP SUPPORTING IT). this is the one I'd insist on. No, vegetarian isn't gonna cover it. No, don't even step to me with "cage free" "humanely raised" "read fairy-tales to and cuddled before killed" products. Going vegan is the "prayer and cheap get-well card" equivalent from my example, using the example of a sick person, anything less ranges from ignoring them to slapping them.

2. What good am I doing already by just answering yes to the first question?
3. Knowing the answer to the previous question, do i feel the need to do more? - remember this one

(If you answered yes to the last question keep on reading, if it was no, congrats your doing enough for you)

4. What do I feel comfortable doing ( leafleting, feed-ins, screenings of AR films ect.)?
5. Am I doing it and doing it effectively to inform the public of what they are supporting (factory farming, animal agriculture, legalized murder/torture) and what they can do to help stop it ( go vegan)?
6.Am I making time to do non-activism related activities that I love and other things ( like eating and sleeping as i should and not abusing the animal that I can help the most (yourself)?
7. What good am I doing by answering "yes" to question 5?
8. repeat question 3 and note in ( ) that follows it
9. If you answered yes to question 5 and still feel that you must do more, (which, if you did what i asked in #8, and are still reading is the case) Is there anything else I can actually do? - get creative.
10. Can I do it without answering "no" to question 6?

If at any point in time you answer "no" to question 6, stop!!! You're doing too much. you're probably a wonderful person to feel such a need to help, but if you burn out...well...how much can you really help anyone?

Don't let anyone (yourself included) make you feel like a bad person or a lazy activist because your definition of enough involves less activism than someone-else's. And you're not obsessed or radical if "enough" for you means doing more than others either. Like I said, It's a standard measured in love, and any amount of love, or effort, is important and has meaning far greater than what we can see in the moment.

I hope this helps,
yours ( because doing this is part of my "enough"),
Plant_Murderer

PS. anastasia, don't give up the art if you love it. It'll keep you sane. Thanks again (for the idea for this post)

Commitment and Me, or How Important is it to stay focused?

Hey All,
P_M back after what feels like a long struggle with commitment, namely my commitment to Animal Rights, and in part to my status as a proud, and joyful vegan. ( the vegan part never faltered, the "proud and joyful" part got side tracked).

At the tail end of this struggle, I'm still trying to figure out the logistics of how to focus on activism and veganism and not block out other interests, or to let my other interests stop me from being the best activist I can be, but here's what i've learned so far.


There has to be a balance.

veganism encompasses so many parts of who I want to be, that I sometimes obsess over it and while making Animal Rights the center of my world felt good for a bit, it also made me resent the podcasts and chat rooms i'd loved before. After a while, it was like that fifth container of Toffuti soy ice cream, too much of a great thing.
Likewise, not having enough animal rights in my life made me feel like I was losing a part myself.

I dont know what balance will mean for you but figure it out and keep it in mind. It'll keep you from burning out and ward off friends who try to say that you're a fanatic or a zealot.

Its important to stay focused, but if you drive yourself to distraction trying to be all vegan or activist and dont leave room for every other part of who you are, you wont be focused you'll be insane.

yours as long wanted and allowed,
Plant_Murderer

I eat moss. Apples and moss.

Lentils for special occasions.



VEGANS EAT FOOD. Yes, I screamed that. And when I say 'food', I do not mean sticks, I do not mean plain raw tofu, I do not mean dry iceberg lettuce with sprouts. I mean foooooooooooood.



Let's start with some breakfast food you might should you find yourself an herbivore. There are delicious and nutritious vegan alternatives to non-vegan breakfast foods you may be used to. Many cereals (even a lot of the sugary, popular ones) are “accidentally vegan” and you can just pour soy, rice, almond, or one of the other many vegan milks out there on top of it. Scour your local health-food store for brands of vegan waffles, because they do exist, or find a recipe and make your own. Same for pancakes – a surprising amount of regular mixes are vegan and you can simply use non-dairy milk/butter with them. Make toast and spread it with jelly, peanut butter, or vegan butter/margarine. Make a smoothie with fruit and soy yogurt. Spread a bagel with vegan cream cheese or peanut butter. Have a bowl of oatmeal (most brands are vegan) with dried fruit and peanut or cashew butter in it. Have some granola like the hippie you are. Scramble tofu with spices and veggies. Take that scrambled tofu and throw it in a tortilla with potatoes and vegan sausage for a breakfast burrito. Top a rice cake with nut butter and fruit. Fruit by itself is always a good, light, healthy breakfast. Make muffins the night before and heat a few up in the morning. Break out of the breakfast mold and just heat up leftovers from the night before – I love having miso soup for breakfast. If you’re in a hurry, take a banana and a bag of dry vegan cereal with you – take a bite of the banana and then dip it in the cereal, it’ll stick. You can also find individual juicebox-style soymilk cartons to take with you. One meal down, and did I use the word 'sprouts' at all?



Lunch and dinner I'll lump in the same category. There's much than salad, that’s for sure. Not that salad isn’t great and healthy. But salad is just one of the many, many things that vegans eat for dinner. A vegan cookbook, or even a veganized recipe from a non-vegan cookbook, is a great place to start. But you don’t necessarily need a cookbook every night. Like with breakfast, in most cases you can simply replace what you used to eat with its vegan equivalent, and there are also a lot of delicious vegan dishes that don’t rely on these substitutes. Use mock beef crumbles in pasta sauce instead of beef, or just leave them out and use nice fresh tomatoes and herbs. Make quesadillas or burritos with roasted vegetables and beans. Have a bowl of soup made with veggie broth instead of chicken or beef broth. Top a baked potato with vegan sour cream, vegan butter, broccoli, mock bacon bits, nutritional yeast, or whatever other toppings you can think of. Stir-fry veggies with rice or noodles and teriyaki sauce. Make veggie and seitan kabobs. Use beans in chili instead of meat. Explore different ethnic foods you may not have tried, like Indian, Mediterranean, Thai, or Japanese food. Peanut butter and jelly is a classic. Mashed potatoes can be made with vegan butter and non-dairy milk. Replace chicken with seitan in casseroles. Use silken tofu instead of eggs in quiche recipes. If you want comfort food, try macaroni and vegan cheese. Roast potatoes with olive oil, rosemary, pepper, and salt. Marinate tempeh in barbeque sauce. Have a sandwich with vegan lunchmeat slices. Grill portobello mushrooms and serve on buns with fries. I'm done thinking. No twigs.



Snacks are of course important. Let's see...popcorn with nutritional yeast (Act II Butter Lover’s is ironically vegan, or make your own), grapes, bananas, pretzels, granola/energy bars, fruit leathers, melon, a bagel half with peanut butter, soy yogurt, frozen juice bars, trail mix, peaches, applesauce, crackers, oranges, pita/veggies and hummus, cherries, chips and salsa, peanuts, cashews, almonds, or other nuts, dried fruit, oven fries, apples and peanut butter, sandwiches, cereal, rice cakes, plums, muffins, vegan ice cream sandwiches, graham crackers, vegan nachos, salad, or rice crisps.



Vegans! eat! food!

You're so brave/strong/etc.

I really do not understand why this even comes up. So many times have I told people about my veganism, or heard stories of others doing the same, only for the person to say "You're so strong!" or something along those lines. I understand that this person is just wrapping their head around the idea of veganism, the idea of giving up some convenience for some principles, and that if you've never really been vegan it does seem like a gargantuan choice with lots of struggle, but, really....

it's not.

Are you strong for not enslaving another human being even though it would be easier for you to have someone else do all your work?

Does it take courage and grit for you to not use gender epithets (e.g. slut, skank) even though other people around you may do so?

I don't wake up in the morning biting my lip, thinking about all the challenges I've brought upon myself for being vegan, glad I've got moral steel instead of mere moral fiber.

I just wake up. I wake up and live my life in line with my ethics, square against the things I think are wrong and cruel and shameful, celebrating the things I think are good and true and beneficial for the world. That's all I do. That's what veganism means to me, and it's not hard at all.
It seems hard to non-vegans simply because it doesn't seem ethically necessary to them. It seems difficult to me to, say, never wear the color green because one thinks it's unethical. I can't wrap my head around why wearing green would be morally wrong, so, to me, it seems unnecessary, overly hard, and I think a person committed to not wearing green would indeed need some fortitude. Same thing with being vegan! An omnivore can never truly step into a vegan's pleather shoes (without ceasing to be an omnivore), so the task of consuming absolutely ZERO animal products might seem daunting, but for us it's the exact opposite. It's just what we do. Hell, it would take strength for me to not be vegan! It might be more convenient, sure, but silencing my conscience would take pounds, tons, endless amounts of strength, far far more than being vegan ever would.

"The Animal Was Already Dead (By the Time It [S/he] Reached My Plate)"

I'll respond to this in two ways.

Response 1:

This statement might be true if you scraped roadkill off the highway and ate it. (Although even then, there is a valid argument that you should leave the heap of rotting flesh to the scavengers who are truly dependent on it.)

The meat on your plate (and, indirectly, the eggs and dairy products on your plate) came from animals who were created and killed only for one reason: You, and others like you, were going to buy the flesh, bodily fluids, and eggs from the animals. In other words, you are financing - in effect, dictating - that those animals be killed. They are killed because of your demand.

If you stopped eating meat, fewer animals would be killed. If many people stopped eating meat, the number of animals killed would drop precipitously.

The choice is in your hands: You decide whether animals are going to be bred and killed for your pleasure.

Response 2:

You're not that stupid. You know this rationalization is bogus. Imagine an alien shooting and killing you, chopping up your body parts, and feeding it to another alien who says "The human was already dead."

You may not be an expert on animal agriculture, but you know that animals are killed because the meat industry can bank on people like you buying the killed animals' flesh.

So I have to ask, why bring up such a flimsy, illogical, unsupportable defense? I think it's ultimately because you have a conscience. You know at some level that killing - and inflicting torture - for pleasure is wrong. Instead of confronting that harsh realization, you make up woefully unconvincing excuses. It's an avoidance mechanism.

With full respect and best intentions, let me make this proposal: Don't fight your conscience. Superficially, maybe you get some satisfaction from making up excuses for doing something that you know is wrong. Maybe they're even clever sometimes. But you're not fooling yourself or anyone else - or the victims. Moreover, it's never really satisfying when you engage in activities that you know deep down are morally troubling. There is still turmoil inside, and one way or another, it will manifest itself, and it could be ugly and could get in the way of your leading a fulfilling life.

Give in to your conscience. Thank God and/or biology that you have one. It is perhaps humanity's best feature, and saving grace. Follow your conscience, honestly, even though it may be difficult at times, and you're likely to have a truly satisfying life, and help others - humans and non-humans - do the same.

"Since I can't prove to myself that they feel pain, I should treat them as if they don't feel pain."

This is a selfish, oppressor-centric viewpoint. The more moral stance is:

"If there is more than a remote chance that they feel pain, I should treat them as if they feel pain."

As pointed out in the comments in the previous post, the argument shown in this post's title is sometimes used by people who want to exploit bees for their honey.

Since bees are sentient, avoid danger, possess memories, make choices, learn about their environment, communicate with each other in fairly sophisticated ways, and appear to have interests that they pursue, there is more than a remote chance that they feel pain. They may also derive pleasure from gathering nectar, or from discovering a meadow of newly-opened blooms and leading their hive members to it. They may have a will to live; they certainly take measures to escape from harm.

When considering whether our non-essential, easily avoidable actions may cause pain to other beings, the benefit of the doubt should go to the most vulnerable, the ones who have the most to lose, the ones who would be forced to make deep sacrifices because of our demands.

Consider that:

- Most marine biologists now agree that fish feel pain; 50 years ago that was not the case. (Recent studies also show that fish have individual personalities, use tools, play games, and have long-term memories.)

- Two or three generations ago, a majority of scientists thought that non-humans were incapable of emotion; that position has been completely overturned.

- In the 19th century, when the animal experimentation industry started, researchers claimed that animals were automatons; the animals' screams in response to being tortured were merely mechanical sounds.

- Only in the last 10-15 years have scientists in any number concluded that chickens, with far smaller and simpler brains than humans, not only have impressive cognitive skills and a sense of the past and future, but a rich emotional life.

- Recent scientific research supports suspicions that lobsters, crabs, and other crustaceans feel pain.

We have consistently underestimated animals' sentience and, particularly, their capacity for suffering and experiencing emotional states.

Some humility would be in order.

(Actually, I suspect that our intuition about animal sentience has been fairly on target throughout the ages; it's our science and reasoning on this matter that has been deficient, or blatantly self-serving.)

Suppose we assume that bees feel pain and we're wrong. What is the cost? Honey in our tea and on our toast. An indulgence. A pleasantry. Agave nectar and other sweeteners are excellent substitutes. In other words, the cost is trivial.

Suppose, on the other hand, we assume that bees don't feel pain (perhaps because the notion suits us) and we're wrong. What's the cost? Widespread infliction of pain on helpless beings, for no good reason. And possibly an irrecoverable deficit in our moral obligations to fellow sentients.

But our relationships with animals, and with other beings who are less powerful than us, are more than utilitarian equations. By developing compassion and empathy for individuals across a vast spectrum of species, we foster peace - both inner and outer. We cultivate harmony and goodwill. We rejoice in our kinship with the sentient creatures with whom we share the earth. We become allies, partners, and friends with animals, not oppressors and dominators. Our hearts are gladdened not by extracting resources from them, but by seeing them thrive, and helping them fulfill their goals. Their satisfaction is our happiness. We have no desire to exploit them or steal from them, or to look for excuses for doing so.

Living in peace with our nonhuman neighbors provides benefits that are profound, mutual, and non-violent. Enslaving nonhumans for their flesh, reproductive capabilities, or bodily functions provides superficial, fleeting benefits that are extracted at the expense of the enslaved, and that produce inner turmoil and less-than-honest self-dialog in the enslavers.

The assertion that victims of our exploitation do not feel pain is a defense mechanism. It is a self-protective, weak rationalization to control and plunder for pleasure. Spreading our compassion as widely as possible, following the golden rule to the best of our ability - basically, living according to our deepest morals - rids us of exploitative desires and the need to conjure up justifications for morally questionable behaviors.

Thoughts on Honey

Farming bees for honey is essentially an act of domination. You can have bees, just as people running farm sanctuaries can take care of chickens, but things get... hm... 'sketchy' once you begin to take the things that they make. And bees make honey for themselves - namely, for their pupae. If you're taking that honey, they may not have enough to sustain the hive - that's one reason for CCS. Another is the idea that, because commercial bee farmers often take all the honey and give back only sugar water, the bees have been physically and psychologically susceptible to diseases because of that deficiency.

Taking honey from bees is an act of violence... It is an act that says, 'because I can, and because I 'own' you, I will do this.' It is might makes right all over again. Is veganism not against that? Is veganism not against all exploitation of animals - be they cows, mollusks or even bees? Why call yourself vegan if you do not subscribe to its implicit ethics - that animals are not ours to exploit? That animals are not ours to brutalise? That animals are not ours to steal from, however 'nicely' we may do it?

If I am correct, and eating/taking honey is an act of violence against bees just as is taking an egg from a chicken - for, by taking the egg from the chicken, you doom her to a short life of osteoporosis and nutritional deficiencies - then eating/taking honey is morally unacceptable.

It is acceptable, however, to begin colonies on your land to support your land without taking the honey. In this way you become symbiotes. In this way you become, not necessarily friends - which cannot happen when two live in such different worlds - but allies nevertheless. Just as it would be acceptable to put up birdhouses, it is acceptable to take care of bees - because you do not steal from them...

If they pollinate your fruit trees and plants, and if you eat those fruits and plants but do not take their honey, then you are truly symbiotic. You need each other, and you live in peace with each other, rather than either of you taking what was not made for you, but for someone else.

It boils down to this: you are an exploiter even if you exploit 'nicely' - so why not just not do it?

What About Plants? And the Topic of Sea Creatures

For starters, let me just say that the "What about plants?!?!" question strikes me an awful lot like, "What about the men?!?!" whenever somebody brings up a feminist topic. There doesn't seem to be a genuine interest in the ethical implications of it; it's just a way to distract the question-asker from their own underlying feelings of guilt and threatened privilege.

Now. Ask yourself: do you honest-to-gods believe that cutting up a head of lettuce and cutting up a live, unanesthetized dog is the same ethically?

If you do, let me just say that you don't need to be on the internet. You need to be on a video with the caption, "This is what drugs did to me."

Now, since you likely do not believe that at all, let me ask you: why? Well 'cause, guess what, likelihood is that you don't really think that plants feel pain, just as you wouldn't think that bacteria (also alive by a scientific definition) feel pain. That's an important consideration. Just because something is alive does not mean it feels pain. While I have been told by several now-graduated students of marine biology that, in fact, most sea critters do feel pain because they possess, rather than a central nervous system, a "nerve net", plants have no nerves whatsoever. You can't use oysters as your scapegoat (hah) in this situation.

If there is nothing there to feel pain, if there is nothing there to feel at all, why worry about it? One only needs rights if one possesses emotions; rights only apply to those who will suffer if they do not have them.

Life, liberty, and bodily integrity. These are the three basic, essential rights of my moral code to any being with a self.

"Self" need not be humanlike to be important. Yes, sure, we know that we have selves, and we can recognise them in other mammals, avians, reptiles, amphibians and cetaceans where we cannot so easily recognise them in sea creatures. That doesn't matter; just because someone is different from you doesn't mean that they're unworthy of those essential rights.

However, again, there has to be something there.

Most people who honestly think that there might be a chance that plants feel pain point to the book The Secret Lives of Plants, which contained the results of a "study" (I use this word loosely) on plants that supposedly showed that they feel things and/or think. I'll note here that the author has actually not allowed anyone else to replicate his experiments through the withholding of information about his method, therefore it is extremely unlikely that it was true in the first place.

Another "study" was done on a plant using a polygraph test that supposedly showed "reactions" in the plant with random events. Now, if you know jack shit about polygraph tests, the results might in fact seem plausible. However, I do know something about polygraph tests. They are the so-called "lie detector test" machines, and they rely on the measurements of three physical characteristics that plants do not have: heart rate, skin perspiration, and... damn, I forget the last, but I believe it was muscle tension.

How the hell would you be able to tell anything from a test that depends on criteria that your subject doesn't even have?

But really, let's get back to why we're really being asked this question, which goes back to my first point: this is a distraction. It doesn't really matter if plants feel pain - the ones we're discussing are animals.

First, if you were really serious about plants feeling pain (which you're not), then you wouldn't eat animals because animals need plants to grow and you'd be eating several dozen to hundreds of times the plants that you would need to go directly into your body to sustain you - calorie expenditure, after all - in fact, you would be morally obligated to become a fruitarian so as to never cause plants pain again, which is also vegan.

Second, even though you can't fix everything doesn't mean you can't stop the pain you directly or indirectly cause others through your intentional actions. Or, put another way: just because you can't be perfect doesn't mean you're excused from trying to be better than you are. Life is, as they say, a series of trials and tests. You either grow as a person or you go back to the starting block because you keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

It is, however, the second that leads people to ask this question. So to all of you who have this question to ask, I say:

Stop fucking making excuses and go vegan.

Because the animals don't care about your excuses.