I guess now that I have a blog, I feel like I need to post my views, for the record. Isn’t that what a blog is for? Or should I be instead telling you that I sat outside on the back porch in my dormitory-like 4 bedroom apartment clipping my fingernails and drinking coffee. Yet again, I am dredging up and editing an old post to a email list that I am on. I guess I am crazy enough to spend an hour crafting an email to a list, so I might as well also post it for the world to see, or really all 3 people who might read this blog.

So the topic I am dredging up now is why I have slowly become a vegetarian and strive for eating no animal products. Lots of people like to argue, for some strange reason, that humans are not meant to eat meat. That’s a pretty silly argument since we have canine teeth like tigers and wolves, and we have the digestive tract and ability to produce enzymes that allows us to derive a lot of nurishment from meat. So I have to say I am not opposed to the idea of eating meat, and I will never deny that meat or dairy products taste really good. But there are numerous bona fide reasons that humans should eat a lot less meat, like one or twice a month at maximum.

To start with, the levels of meat eaten in the rich countries are far from sustainable It takes a lot of feed to get cattle and pigs up to market weight. The iconic image of this idea is the vast amounts of rain forest that is cleared every year to make fields for beef cattle. If the whole world ate this much meat, we would have very, very little forest left. The fact is most of the world subsists on beans for protein, not meat.

Next, cattle yards, pig pens, and chicken sheds generate a shitload of pollution. If you have ever been anywhere even close to one of these places, your nose will tell you how bad it is. And its not just odor pollution. What comes out of these places kills the surrounding plants, rivers, lakes, etc. as it leeches thru the soil. The animals wade thru it continuously in conditions so bad they need to be constantly on anti-biotics.

Then there is the issue of humane treatment. People like to think of cute family farms, where all the animals have names, but the truth of the matter is that those places are brutal meat factories. They spend their lives packed into horrible places wallowing in their own excrement. The sight of it is absolutely disgusting.

Then there is the issue of workers rights. The meat industry has injury and death rates that are 5 times the national average. Meat factory workers are treated among the worst of any out there and paid very low wages.

And if you think that its ok to gorge on meat as long as its “free range” or “organic”, read this article and think again:

It’s Not Enough to Be a Vegetarian By Christina Waters

I am sure there are other reasons as well, here’s some more on related topics:

Chemical Farm, By John Feffer

Finger-Lickin’ Bad, By Suzi Parker

Fowl Play In the Slaughterhouse, By Stan Cox

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/health/25rats.html

According to the above article, some scientists have found that they can create aggressive or non-aggressive rats depending on which genes they flip. This might be some kind of contributor to something that I have thought about a lot: why European cultures are so bent on destruction and domination. Perhaps there is something to the aggressive gene.

It seems that basically all humans fight, though on vastly different levels. Some societies have/had no organized methods of warfare while others are completely organized around destruction on a massive scale. Perhaps the aggressive gene has been rampant in Europe for millennia, because it seems people and cultures of European descent lay waste on scale that no one else comes close to, and have been doing so for a very long time.

I grew up believing that Israel was right in all it did, that it was a great socialist nation. Since I am American, I was raised in an country where Arabs where viewed as hostile, crazy, dirty people in far away lands. The town I grew up in was 30% Jewish and basically everyone supported Israel. I had many Jewish friends but had never met an Arab, so it was quite easy to believe these stories about these evil people. Things started to change with a couple key events. First, in the annual Israel-Palestine debate in my high school history class, I was put on the Palestinian side by picking a piece of paper out of a hat. I thought it would be an exercise in playing devil’s advocate, and since I enjoyed debating, I took it on seriously. So I starting to research it, and was quite surprised by a number of things I read about, as were my teammates. We ended up winning the debate, the first time that had happened according to the history teacher, and I was leave with an odd feeling that what I knew wasn’t the truth of the matter.

Then shortly thereafter, we had “International Day” at the high school. People from all over the world who lived in the area were invited to give a talk about their country. Somehow my mother had recently met a visiting professor from Palestine, and naturally invited him to speak since she was sure there were no other Palestinians speaking yet. This was not a hidden political maneuver, my mother was and still is an ardent supporter of Israel with many Jewish friends. Then the mother of a good friend of mine found out about this, they were Jewish and fervent supporters of Israel. This mother demanded that this man be banned from speaking because he was Palestinian. My mother disagreed and thought everyone should have the right to speak, they fought over it, this mother said I was no longer allowed to hang out with her son any more, and they would no longer speak to us at all. Something seemed very wrong here and this experience embedded in me the desire to get behind the facade on this issue. And over the decades, as I have read the history myself, as I have seen Israel’s actions for myself, it has become blatantly apparent that Israel, at best, was not a force of good in the world.

After college, I moved to New York City, a couple of years later to Brooklyn. By chance, I moved to an old Arab neighborhood, and for the first time in my life, I interacted with Arabs. My childhood view of Arabs derived from the racist American popular culture (Arnold Schwarzenegger’s True Lies is the perfect example) had faded, but I still had this vague impression left. As I began to regularly interact with Arabs, I made a couple of Arab friends, I was shocked to find how different Arab culture is from the ridiculous stereotypes. From what I now know, Arab culture is one of the warmest and most generous of any that I have experience.

Then Sept. 11th hit, I still lived in the Arab neighborhood, and it was obvious that this neighborhood was going to be a target for people’s anger. I wanted to do something to prevent that. Atlantic Avenue, normally a bustling strip of Arab stores and restaurants was a ghost town. Thankfully, the NYPD had posted cops all up and down the street to prevent a repeat of the attacks that had happened as a reaction to the first World Trade Center attacks in 1993. I went and ate in the restaurants, I shopped in the stores. I saw signs for a rally in support of the neighborhood to prevent violence against Arab-Americans. This was the most emotional march I have ever attended. Thousands of people of all kinds of backgrounds showed up, many religions including orthodox Muslims and many Jews, every race, a real cross-section of New York. We were there to say that we do not hate our Arab neighbors whether in Brooklyn or on the other side of the world. “Our Grief is Not a Cry for War!”. That was the prevailing mood and I was truly optimistic, it was an amazing time. The fact that the U.S. has responded with stepping up the level of wanton destruction and violence still bears extremely heavily upon me. But I am still proud to say that over 75% of New Yorkers who voted voted against Bush and his war mongering, despite the fact that we were the ones who were directly attacked. I am also proud to say that I have many Jewish friends who have also had similar awakenings and now feel compelled as citizens of Israel, whether by law or in spirit, to speak out against the gross injustices that both the U.S. and Israeli governments support there.

Now since I am writing this in the context of the current Israeli invasion of Lebanon, I have to say that this is the background of why I oppose military action whoever is doing it. And this is part of why I feel so compelled to argue vociferously against Israel. I am used to being surrounded by people who blindingly support Israel, as I had previously. I feel I must also open people’s eyes to the truth of the matter. Everyone should be held responsible for their actions, there is no denying that. That of course includes Hezbollah, Hamas, the IDF, the PLO, and the citizens who actually have a voice to affect these things. I think there is already a massive chorus of criticism against the Arab parties in this conflict, and I certainly make sure that none of my money or effort goes to support violence of any kind. But against my wishes, my money is used to support violence because the US sends tons of military aid to Israel. It is clear that extremists have taken over on all sides involved, and we should not support any of them.

Every American should take an active interest in this situation because we are directly and massively involved in it. The U.S. sends billions of dollars of military aid to Israel every year, and regularly acts on behalf of Israel in the UN and other contexts. We are currently rushing more massive bombs to Israel so it can continue to demolish apartment buildings, roads, hospitals, etc. I believe that as a citizen and taxpayer of the U.S., I need to make my views on the subject heard, and I need to act upon them. It is not only Israel that I express these views about, it is anywhere where the US is actively involved and/or funding terrorism, war, destruction, and corruption. Sadly, there are many places in the world where the US is guilty as charged.