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• Comment by Yaniv on August 30th, 2007 at 1:28 pm:

  Thanks for the link, chris. I’m going to check it out.

  On a similar note, I recommend listening Vegan Freak. It’s an excellent show that that approaches veganism and and promotes animal liberation from an abolitionist standpoint.

  Also, check this debate between Gary Francione and Eric Marcus, two defenders of animal-rigths who markedly differ on the stragies and tactics the animal-rights movement should adopt to end animal exploitation and oppression.

• Comment by maxpaps on August 31st, 2007 at 8:10 pm:

  Yeah earthlings is amazing! its such an unbelievable kick in the ass, a must see …
  Our daily bread is also interesting:

  http://www.mybittorrent.com/info/520407/

• Comment by soyuz on August 31st, 2007 at 11:40 pm:

  I listened to the podcasts, and they are definitely a good listen. Thanks for mentioning it. I wouldn’t have known about it otherwise.

  I also heard about Earthlings here, and I did get the DVD and checked it out. Its a very well articulated piece.

  Thanks for all the great info.

• Comment by diddee on September 3rd, 2007 at 3:55 am:

  So i take it no one here has tried the new BK Stacker, eh?

  Oooh. Tuff crowd. :-)

• Comment by zeph on September 3rd, 2007 at 4:23 pm:

  i got earthlings back when derek was talking about it on your podcast… quality work, well worth watching.

  is anyone else sick of seeing that http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ link every time any discussion of animal liberation comes up, as if it discredits the entire movement.

• Comment by Justin on September 3rd, 2007 at 10:26 pm:

  Yes, Zeph. I too am thoroughly annoyed with platitudes about PETA killing animals. I’m an advocate for animal rights, and I don’t always agree with everything that PETA does, but they’re fighting for animals.
  Regarding petakillsanimals.com, it’s important to consider the source of such “information.” The website is run by a corporate front group called the Center for Consumer Freedom. Check out their totally non-partisan list of financial supporters on http://www.sourcewatch.org. That, my friend, is what true douchebags look like.

• Comment by saoirse on September 4th, 2007 at 8:56 am:

  I’m surprised to say I really like this. I’m generally not a fan of podcasts at all, and I’m terrible at keeping up with animal issues, but a cursory glance piqued my interest in the “becoming resensitised” and “emotional stress” episodes and they were actually really interesting for me.
  Of all my principles, animal rights is one of the ones I feel most strongly about, yet since I went vegan I’ve consistently avoided facing up to what animals go through every day, because its just too unbearable and I feel too powerless. I find it debilitating, I can’t shake it off and - unlike other struggles, like anti-racism or labour rights - I don’t feel optimistic that things will be much better in 10 years. It just makes me want to pull the covers over my head, but this woman has a really great perspective on things and - as pathetic as it might sound - these podmadoofers have remotivated me a bit. I nearly puked listening to the pig one cooking my friends veganiversary dinner, and just got done listening to the excusitarian one when someone politely informed that veganism (vegetarianism, rather) was a slight on allah, but thats a whole load of nothing… I still haven’t watched Earthlings, and I don’t intend to yet because burn-out is too close on the horizon right now, but I’m facing up to this stuff more than I have in a long time and its helping me to do my bit.
  Somewhat related, Sept. 9th is International Primate Day and dirty Europeans can speak up on their behalf here: http://www.animalaid...595&rep_type=mep

• Comment by Sebast on September 5th, 2007 at 2:42 am:

  I had never seen this earthling stuff… pretty groundshakin’. Well, more like a good kick in the nuts.

  I used to be one of those “hipocritical” vegetarians, you know, “i won’t buy it, but i won’t mind eating it”. That’s changed, drastically. Cuz i’ve realised, mainly through this Doc and not by common sense (¡Oh, the shaaame!), that even if you’re not a direct buyer, consuming still leads to the offer/demand issue, ergo, i’m not a meatNazi but a meatCollaborator. And those stories never ended well…
  One by one we’ll all fall down.

  Anyway, thanks for the Ultimate Reality show and… no, just that.

• Comment by zeph on September 5th, 2007 at 4:29 am:

  thanks for the sourcewatch link, also these vegan freak podcasts are awesome.

• Comment by scotty on September 9th, 2007 at 6:40 pm:

  plants are earthlings too

• Comment by saoirse on September 11th, 2007 at 1:46 am:

  “Today, the process of denial is once again rampant. We all know at some level today that our world is in great peril.. often it seems too painful to even think about, so we block it out. We tend to deny the pain we feel because it hurts so deeply, and because it can be so frightening.
  Yet the more we succeed in numbing ourselves to our deepest human responses, the more powerless, futile and isolated we feel.The more we avoid our pain for the world, the more disconnected we become, and we repress our own feelings by filtering out the information that provokes them. Yet this is the very information, painful though it may be, that cries out for our response. Only by facing the enormity of what is happening can we discover in ourselves the response that will free us from creating such needless horrors, and at the same time, free the animals from such needless pain.
  The healing that is called for asks us to move beyond denial, to acknowledge and express our feelings about these catastrophes without apology or timidity. In the heart of our grief we can find our connection with each other, and the power to act.
  As I’ve learned what is done to animals today, again and again I have had to face my own tendencies to withdraw and go numb. There have been times I felt so overcome with grief and rage that i oubted whether there was any point in conintuing to unearth the seemingly endless parade of cruelties. There have beent times I seemed to want, with every cell of my body, to forget I had ever heard of a factory farm. But in my willingness to face the immensity of what is actually happening, something just as immense has welled up from the depths of humanity. A power has arisen in response to the horrors, a power that has transformed isolation, indifference and passivity into a committment to exposing this madness for what it is.”

  - John Robbins, Diet For A New America

  “The following pages were written in the concentration camp in Dachau, in the midst of all kinds of cruelties. They were furtively scrawled in a hospital barrack where i stayed during my illness, in a time when death grasped day by day after us, when we lost twelve thousand within four and a half months…
  You asked my why i do not eat meat and you are wondering at the reasons of my behavior… I refuse to eat animals because I cannot nourish myself by the sufferings and by the death of other creatures. I refuse to do so, because I suffered so painfully myself that I can feel the pain of others by recalling my own sufferings…
  I am not preaching.. I am writing this letter to you, to an already awakened individual who rationally controls his impulses, who feels responsible, internally and externally, for his acts, who knows that our supreme court is sitting in our conscience…
  I have not the intention to point with my finger… i think it is much more my duty to stir up my own conscience… that is the point; I want to grow up into a better world where a higher law grants more happiness, in a new world where god’s commandment reigns; you shall love each other.”

  - Edgar Kupfer, “Animals, my Brethren”, The Dachau Diaries

• Comment by Yaniv on September 12th, 2007 at 8:20 am:

  In his last latest Anti-Empire report, William Blum briefly discussed Michael Vick’s complicity and involvement in the dog-fighting industry. I couldn’t agree more:

  “Football star Michael Vick has been condemned for allegedly helping to execute dogs. But is killing a dog morally worse than killing a chicken, cow, pig, lamb, or fish which is done every hour of every day to enable non-vegans to enjoy the kind of diet they’ve become accustomed to? The fact that a dog is much more likely to be someone’s pet doesn’t answer the question; it only explains why that someone is upset over canineicide but cares much less about the liquidation of the other animals.”

• Comment by blackmetal666 on September 12th, 2007 at 2:46 pm:

  I just read the new newsletter, I love it/look forward to it. It’s amazing how many people think it’s different when it’s on their plate. I can’t help but feel that A LOT of the animosity towards Vick and NFL players in general has a lot to do with the color of their skin as well. I’m not condoning what he did, obviously, as a vegan and humane person (if he did commit those crimes he’s a fucking jerk-off and should drop dead, but he is entitled to a trial) but I love how the football fan crowd here in the good old U.S. of A. likes to call them all “thugs” and such, often much worse. Seriously, I don’t know if any of you people outside of the states have ever had the, ahem, privilege of being around a bunch of middle-class white men watching football on a Sunday, but it’s fucking disgusting what gets said around the bar/recliner. Some douche called into a sports talk show a while ago and stopped just short of calling Vick a “nigger”……then they talked about eating chicken wings.

• Comment by diddee on September 14th, 2007 at 11:07 am:

  I love it/look forward to it. It’s amazing how many people think it’s different when it’s on their plate.

  Hold on a minute … i’m making moves towards a vegan diet myself and have already eliminated all corporate farming products from my plate. So i ain’t knocking it.

  But there is a big fuckin difference between the majority of those who eat meat out of tradition (because they had it drummed into them since childhood that meat is a normal & natural part of the human diet) and some sadistic motherfucker who gets thrill out of watching the agonizing pain and bloodshed of two animals tearing each other apart and then electrocuting the surviors.

  And i don’t know to many normal meat eaters with rape stands in their back yards.

  I for one was somewhat surprised and delighted to learn that there is even a law on the books that criminalizes dog fights.

  I can’t help but feel that A LOT of the animosity towards Vick and NFL players in general has a lot to do with the color of their skin as well.

  No it doesn’t. It has to do with some damning testimony against him that he gambled over bloodsports coupled with the physical evidence of rape stands and numerous corpses of butchered and murdered dogs which were found on his property.

• Comment by diddee on September 14th, 2007 at 11:26 am:

  I can’t help but feel that A LOT of the animosity towards Vick and NFL players in general has a lot to do with the color of their skin as well.

  Gee, then i wonder why the likes of Bill Romanowski (Psychoski) and “Cryin” Ryan Leaf got bad press?

  If ye act like a thug, then you’ll be portrayed like a thug.

• Comment by blackmetal666 on September 14th, 2007 at 2:15 pm:

  You’re right, there is a difference between the two, but I’m not sure it’s as big a “fucking difference” as you said. There are a lot of sadistic fucks who slaughter and torture the animals everyone is consuming. I’m playing devil’s advocate here, but what “friends” of his are trying to save their own asses by copping pleas first? Where is the testimony coming from? I’m not trying to argue here, I just feel differently than you apparently. I never said that I supported what he allegedly did, but jesus christ if you think that this has nothing to do with him being african-american I think you’re sadly mistaken. A lot of people have been calling him a thug, but I think that the same people are equating ” thug” with “black”. I think if the guy is convicted of the crimes then fuck ‘em, but I’m not gonna string him up before the guy even gets to trial. There are plenty of thugs in the NHL, but they’re white guys, by and large, and they can go about beating they’re girlfriends/wives or setting up gambling rings and nothing happens.

• Comment by diddee on September 14th, 2007 at 6:07 pm:

  I guess the difference i’m trying to point out is that the average conventional meat eater is surely more capable of being “reformed” if you will, than someone who gets a thrill out of watching bloodbaths — which obviously the “thrill” of the violence is the main reason for holding the event. Gambling just makes it all the more “interesting” and thrilling.

  You can gamble on anything … why choose bloodsports?

• Comment by diddee on September 14th, 2007 at 6:08 pm:

  BTW: I don’t follow hockey much … but i can tell you that i do hope Todd Bertuzzi burns in hell.

• Comment by diddee on September 14th, 2007 at 6:17 pm:

  Fuck i’m a space cadet…

  i meant to say a good analogy between joe meat-eater and mike vick would be someone who goes hunting for food (like our ancestors did) and someone who goes out into the woods w/ a Kalishnikov and strafes a deer while laughing and walks off … leaving the carcass to rot.

  I would say one of those two hunters might be more prone to becoming a Ted Bundy type.

Dialogue has ended on this post.

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