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It's a possibility. Never underestimate the ability of humans to ignore suffering and injustice for the sake of conformity and willful ignorance.
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It undoubtedly does. In a historical context, no struggle for the rights of the oppressed has ever been successful without protests/boycotts. In a practical sense, protests serve multiple purposes. They are an educational tool and a vehicle for outreach and leafleting. Additionally, they apply direct and highly visible public pressure to animal abusers. At the end of the day, people who profit from the exploitation of animals want nothing more than to continue without public scrutiny. Protests shine a spotlight on them and force them to be accountable for the lives that they destroy.
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Really? First off, the life you're celebrating was a short, miserable, and painful existence, and they died screaming and fighting. And you celebrate that by financially supporting the companies responsible for this cruelty. Perhaps you should be more honest with yourself about the reasons why you REALLY continue to eat animals.
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You live in the jungle with no access to vegan food, but you have an internet connection and a formspring account? Interesting.
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I would assume it probably varies quite a bit depending on what college you go to. It could be as simple as posting some fliers asking if there are any people on campus interested in similar issues. I would guess that most large campuses have more technologically advanced ways of finding people...possibly campus message boards? Try starting a facebook page? There are tons of ways of creatively reaching out to people in your area.
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This is easily answered by looking at the rates of heart disease, cancer, strokes, diabetes, etc in countries where meat is a primary part of the diet compared to countries where meat is rarely, if ever, eaten. In countries which follow the standard American diet of meat, potatoes, and more meat, the rates of all of these diseases skyrocket, while they are comparatively rare in their veg counterparts. Also, do we even need to go into the diseases that are DIRECTLY caused by factory farming such as swine flu and bird flu?
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This is easily answered by looking at the rates of heart disease, cancer, strokes, diabetes, etc in countries where meat is a primary part of the diet compared to countries where meat is rarely, if ever, eaten. In countries which follow the standard American diet of meat, potatoes, and more meat, the rates of all of these diseases skyrocket, while they are comparatively rare in their veg counterparts. Also, do we even need to go into the diseases that are DIRECTLY caused by factory farming such as swine flu and bird flu?
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Absolutely. I'm three vegan points away from being able to pass through walls undetected.
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In the simplest terms, animal rights is the idea that non-human animals are not inanimate objects or property to be used by humans for our ends. Animal welfare is the idea that animals can be used as property as long as regulations are in place to ensure that their lives and deaths are as painless as possible.
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This is an extremely common question. The root seems to be based in the idea that, unlike meat, eggs and dairy do not require the killing of the animals in question, and therefore it is morally justifiable to consume them. This idea, however, is based on several false premises. I'm going to completely ignore the factory farmed conditions that nearly all egg laying hens and dairy cows are raised in, since I'm sure the response to that will be "well what if I just eat free range eggs and dairy from local farmers?"
Dairy cows are mammals, and just like every other mammal on the planet they produce milk for one reason and one reason only. To feed their young. Male cows born into dairy farms are useless in terms of milk production, and also useless as beef cattle since decades of breeding have made dairy cows smaller and less "meaty" than their beef cattle counterparts. The only way to make money with male dairy cows is to raise them as veal. This is true of EVERY dairy farm. Every dollar spent for dairy products is a stamp of approval for the veal industry.
Male chickens born into the egg industry face a very similar fate. Being unable to produce eggs, and being genetically incapable of putting on the massive amounts of breast meat require of a "broiler" in the meat industry, they are economically useless to an egg farmer. They are killed and disposed of within several days of being born. The 2 most common methods for disposal are: a)throwing them, still alive, into a machine that resembles an industrial wood chipper and mixing them into the chicken feed or b) stuffing them, hundreds at a time into garbage bags and tossing them into a dumpster to suffocate.
If you're opposed to any of the things that I just described then, my short answer would be "no vegetarianism is not enough". -
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