An abundance of other Vegan episodes, violence in its many forms, war, what is it good for?, racist groups and peaceful, creative Vegan education.
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Hello and welcome to Episode 54 of Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals, your favourite Animal Rights podcast from Invercargill, New Zealand. Mainly because its the only one, at least that I'm aware of.
Elizabeth Collins, of NZ Vegan Podcast has put out not one, but TWO recent episodes. Likewise, heres not one, but two clips from her latest work.
You met THREE Vegans in a single day Elizabeth? Hell, I've only met three Vegans in my whole life! The crew from The Daily English Show, http://www.thedailyenglishshow.com/ , and one other in Invercargill.
I'm not sure which three Vegans in a day is, a) 100% of your daily requirement, or b) a lifetimes exposure, violently packed into just a few hours. I guess we'll soon see, if Elizabeth doesn't lose her hair from radiation sickness, but instead continues life, happy, healthy and promoting Veganism, that will be the test of time.
I guess we're going to need other industries to take up slack, you know, once the world goes Vegan overnight. Never fear, the precious will soon be here, once part one of The Hobbit drops, we'll once again rule the world in terms of two hour long audio/visual experiences. Three hours for the extended version. Bye bye Bollywood, and as for Hollywood? Well, lets just say the American public will be asking Obama
hopefully Obama can find another good ol fashioned American Bailout, Hollywoods gonna need it, what does this so called Superpower have to compete with this glorious island nation in the south pacific? Avatar 2, now with 25% extra naked blue giants? Cmon, it'll be like Eagles against Fell Beasts at the end of Return of the King, hey, theres a good debate, Return of the King vs Return of the Jedi, I vote Lord of the Rings. Or, like Gandalf vs the Balrog, you don't fight fire with fire, you only need a little water, and our whole country is surrounded by the damn stuff, no landlocked dessert states here! Our country runs on the stuff too, the vast majority of our power is renewable, often hydropower, water, vs Americas lovely coal, and Nuclear, fire, and explosions, sounds marvelous. We know which one wins, fire vs water, Avatar 2 vs The Hobbit Part One.
I'd like to talk about different forms of violence this episode.
"It's not only police looking for those responsible for a heist from the Wrights Bush rugby clubrooms – some pint-sized club rugby players are keen for some vengeance of their own.
A box full of 50 Moro bars and a tray of 48 cans of Coca-Cola branded soft-drinks were taken some time between junior rugby practices at the ground off State Highway 99, leaving the players without their traditional post-practice and post-match chocolate bar and drink.
Chili Galt, 7, gave a strong reaction to the news that last night's practice would not end the way it usually did.
"I'm mad," he said. "I want to kill them."
Thomas Beck, 5, was more moderate: "It's not good."
Blayne Beck, 5, was direct: "Put them back.""
My first thought was, "huh, when *I* played rugby, we only had cut up oranges, a thin wedge each, and that was in the rare occasions when Coach remembered to bring them along!" 50 Non Vegan chocolate bars, and 48 cans of coke stolen? Thats what they get after x, after the game, "for energy"? What have we come to?
Oh, and theres that little issue of a 7 year old exclaiming how he was mad, quote "I want to kill them". A friggin seven year old, what the HELL is going on with this BLOODY world, EVERYTHING is so INSANELY CRAZY, its all WRECKED, RUINED! Where in the HELL are young children getting such violent, exagerated expressions from? :-)
We should be setting an example of being nice to one another, at the age of seven, they should be watching Mr Rogers clips from YouTube (it wasn't shown in New Zealand), they should be fed a strict diet of Chicken Friends… hmm, that doesn't sound good… I'm PISSED OFF, where are they getting these BLOODY HORRIBLE expressions of dramatic violence from? Its that DAMN television, thats whats to blame!
A little like Single Issue Campaigns that demonize certain practices, especially those which are not commonly practiced in our own areas. From the latest Abolitionist Approach episode
Oh, Canada :)
And those awful Japanese, because the actions of one small group accurately reflect on an entire country of over 120 million citizens, right? OF COURSE THEY DO! Certainly, New Zealand was NEVER settled/invaded by white "Whalers", those who killed whales, the dark ages equivalent of 2011 model New Zealanders, with their The Hobbit movies and YouTubes.
No, theres only one thing for it, blame those people at the other side of the world, who look and sound different to us. Blame Canada:
Now, of COURSE we shouldn't blame Canadians, we should look at our own actions. Like the last lines of Blame Canada, from The Southpark movie, or, as just played, sung by Robin Williams, "we must blame them before someone thinks of blaming US".
Clear, nonviolent, and fun Vegan education, the promotion of Veganism helps, we have to remember, not everyone has been exposed to On Human-NonHuman Relations, Veganacious or the Invercargill Vegan Society… YET. There once was a time when we ALL lived without such information
From the Stephen King book Firestarter.
HA, remember when people had to GO to a physical location, and use some crappy "decimal system", invented by either Huey, Dewey or Looey, and find the dusty old book on some shelf? And how you couldn't possibly have even a fraction of the information available to any five year old now, in 2011? Compare your local library to your daily internet use, how can it compete? Again, like fire against water, those few crappy movies from America, vs the mighty New Zealand Film industry, although, I think even this socialist nation has moved away from actual FILM, to digital, you know, that little company, Weta Digital, who, by the way, worked on visual effects for Avatar too. I'm sure we sabotage every Non Zealand movie we get paid to work on :-)
Now that the information is out there, beaming through fibre optic cables, from hard drive to hard drive, out there on the streets with a friendly pamphlet, or even being horribly misrepresented on mainstream television, damn that The Veganist, we're getting the word out.
One of the pitfalls of this "democracy" you're all so fond of, you have to put up with radical, weirdo, fringe views. Not mainstream society, like Vegans, but of White Supremacists calling themselves "The Right Wing Resistance". They're uniformly pasty, pale white guys, wearing black, because we all know that looks so good against ultra light skin, right? Well, I do, I love wearing black clothing! I'm glad we all agree, it looks GREAT when you have pale skin. Check out this clip, with the leader, Kyle Chapman, no, not the guy who killed John Lennon, that was Mark David Chapman, Kyle Chapman pops up every few years with another crackpot racist group. None of them have ever gotten any real numbers, they all fizzle out. But DAMNED if they're not horribly offensive while they exist.
Catch that? Many of "his members", theres more than one of them, and Chapman finds it "impossible to count", because who would ever run an organization with one member, hiding behind a big name, and title, and epaulets on his uniform, right? Well, these "members", who apparently cant be counted, its RELEVANT we were told, although there are the answer to all questions, 42 of them on Facebook… quote "The Vast Majority of our own members don't have THE Internet Access…"
Good heavens! I'd better get out there, on the streets with peaceful, nonviolent, Vegan information then!
They'd been handing out fliers in predominately Asian areas of cities, about the "Asian Invasion", supposedly trying to gather more members, you know, more than the founder and two of his racist mates. And thats not on. Many of my very best friends are Asian, I'm used to names like Wiriya Vaidayanuwatti, and my first reaction to seeing Chapman on television again, with all their black clothes, and "Right Wing Resistance" names, images of white fists clenched in opposition…?
"well, since you like pale white fists so much, here, have both of MINE, in the blinking face! One for each syllable! Wi-D-Ya. Vai-D-Ya-Nu-Wa-Ti!"
And what would that accomplish, if I went around and beat up other pale white people who dress in black, these ones are racists? More violence in the world.
Attention is what these little groups want, some guy out there trying to promote some social agenda, with a big fancy group supposedly behind him. Lets not be stupid, lets not use fire on fire, that doesn't get RID of fire, it promotes it, it spreads it, it gives the fire fans, or fans the fire, either way. You use water, when America goes "Avatar 2, I choose you!", you have to
NO NO NO! Thats an American movie anyway, yuck, you instead bring out The Hobbit, Part One. Not some American rehashing of Pocahanotas, or Dances With Wolves, with giant smurfs in the lead role, "ohhh, we have to save the treeeees, spirituality of native peoples!" Bugger that, its all about shorty hairy guys, trying to steal jewelry from a fire breathing dragon! YEAH! Thats the New Zealand way… surprisingly more violent than The American, for the first and last time ever.
And these groups that try inciting violence, what can they do to us? Left unchecked, they can terrorize their targets, by talking about these issues, defending others we can hopefully quench their racist hate. Until this supposed mass uprising of every racist redneck in New Zealand, a fraction of our four million population, rises up against the Two + billion people of Asia…. forget about it. They have small acts of bullying, and upsetting pamphlets. Its like calling someone "chicken", if you react badly to it, and do what they dared you to, it generally ends badly, especially if you're being taunted by Groundskeeper Willies talking tractor:
I've never understood that term, "too Chicken" to do something, yes, Chickens are gentle, soft animals, whose abilities to raise their young are second to none. But, have the people who say "you're too Chicken" ever SEEN a Mother Hen? Or worse, HEARD her? They make a gargling screech, straight from the bowels of hell. Its times like that you cant help but notice Dinosaurs and Chickens are related! That is, unless you're religious, and think fossils are Gods wake of leaving false clues, testing our faith or something.
And a male Chicken, a Rooster? Yeah, because they're not known for their fighting ability or anything, nope, and certainly, they're not also protective of their families.
I've been listening to an audiobook version of The Hobbit while I work. I'd like to share another clip:
Wait, thats not what he saw at all, although, if I lived in America, Burma or Liberia, you know, those three grand countries on imperial measurements, I'd drive at 88 miles per hour all the time, in a small silver hatchback.
This sounds more like it
<2 mutton>
<3 straight after>
I find the use of Nonhuman talking races in fiction interesting, those who consider, perhaps rightfully, human beings to be made of "meat", our muscle is flesh, no different than any animal , after all. And how we apparently to see these other creatures as somehow "evil" for wanting to kill US for THEIR food? But, what of The Food Chain? Surely, we're at the top of this chain, right? And then, right at the top, a steel cable takes over? And right above this "The Food Chain" is "The Steel Cable of Consumption"? With Trolls above Human Beings? "But its natural for Trolls to kill Humans….".
I'd like to talk about this killing of Osama Bin Laden, and how we in the Western world have reacted to the news.
I've grown up during and after 911. I cannot POSSIBLY compare its effect on myself, at the time a teenager at the end of the world, to those who were THERE at the site, who were killed, whose families were killed. I have a friend who was in the city at the time, she refuses to watch the video of what happened, she's never seen the full video. So I cant complain compared to others, who were truly, directly affected by that act of terrorism. But I remember it in my own ways, through pop culture, through daily occurrences. In New Zealand, it would have been the next day, we would have said the 11th of the 9th, 2001, 11/9/2001 , not 9/11. And it would have been the 12th, in New Zealand. But I often look at the time, and see 11 minutes past 9. And I still think of everything thats happened since that event. I think of the wars in the Middle East, of my American friends, who have to deal with metal detectors everywhere, x ray scanners, not being allowed to take more than an eyedropper of moisture onboard a plane, I hear they put you through a dehydrator prior to boarding. Of how they are "patted down", Guantanamo Bay, the sexual perversion of Abu Ghraib prison, of people posing as they did things to dead bodies, hurt naked, blindfolded men, electrocuted them, dragged them about by a leash. Of how "Waterboarding" was now "Enhanced Interrogation", The PATRIOT act, where your electronic conversations are monitored, and recorded, people living in fear of future terrorism. We don't have anything like that here in New Zealand. I think of the innocent people who have been killed, the videos that have been smuggled out of war atrocities, of "friendly fire" accidents, of landmines, IED's, Anthrax and the general Anti Middle East theme to popular culture. I've grown up with video games where you are one of two "sides", America, vs "The Middle East", supposed Good Guys, and the Bad guys. Where the US forces have superior weapons and equipment, and "The Middle East" forces are portrayed as impoverished people, with former Soviet weapons, you know, the previous evil countries we demonized. I have friends in the New Zealand Army, and my country has soldiers stationed in the Middle East. Many tens of thousands have died in these wars, and they all begun with 911.
Each day I walk past a local "dairy" processing factory. It sickens me to think of what goes on inside, of what the tanker trucks bring each day. Sometimes they dump the contents into the city gutters, and I'll be walking past the congealing white/yellow goop, it smells disgusting. The factory has two long parallel chimneys, and often I think of the planes hitting the Twin towers. It all makes me very, very sad.
I remember how these wars were portrayed in our media, and in international news. Initially, "The Good Guys" were to be greeted as liberators, remember that? Spreading democracy? Stopping violence?
It was year after year of horrible failure, and thats based on what we know, with photos of our soldiers coffins being censored, along with who knows what else. All that money, all those lives, and for what? To go to the other side of the world, shoot and kill, and be shot and killed. It was awful, awful.
And now we're told "hey, don't worry, we got The Bad Guy, its not Vietnam 2.0, we WON! woo!" It makes me feel physically sick. Theres a revolting humor to the idea Bin Laden WASNT shot, that the US forces can just say, "oh yeah, we actually won this invasion we started, yeah, we shot him through the eye, cant show you the proof, too gory for you, but don't worry, we threw his body into the ocean, so you don't have to bother with evidence".
Here are some clips from the last 60 Minutes show, with President Obama talking of this victory. Remember, this is a man who promised to leave all these wars, to shut down the awful prisons, to stop this violence. He got a nobel peace prize.
Pride? And using the word "execute" too, yeah, a man was KILLED, shot through his eye apparently, with the photos too awful to show the public.
Who would sign up for that job? Does a President NEED to run these wars? Can they not "cut and run"? Is that the worst that can happen if they "back down", "you're a quitter", "you hate our troops, you want to cut and run"? I'd rather be called those names, than have my friends and family out there dying in the desert.
<4 justice done>
Well Mr President, I need my head examined. I *do* think these wars have been horrible, I find it awful, apparently my new favourite word, awful that they can now be seen as "successful". Trillions of dollars, tens of thousands of lives, but we killed a man, and so, this time, its REALLY mission accomplished.
I enjoy the audio podcast version of Bill Mahers "Realtime" show. I don't always agree with Maher, sometimes, often he's very funny, and I like that he's such a vocal atheist, but I didn't enjoy his comments from the last episode. Here are some of them.
Now, I knew Americans said "aluminium" wrong, a loo min num instead of al oo mini yum, but Maher, or should I say mayor says Titanium wrong:
Weren't people getting all upset about an ANDROID (typical) game about dog fighting? Encouraging people to dog fight? And yet its ok when the Military does it? Is that a Michael Vick style dig? Bling, grilles? And if true, I think thats horrible, giving dogs metal teeth? Surely, that sounds over the top, it couldn't be true…right? I mean, its not like the Americans would ever have two billion dollar per unit stealth bombers, or….
I hate hearing the guest laugh on that one.
I don't want to think of war as something thats WON or LOST. I think we always lose, we always lose lives through violence. Whether its violence against people who've wronged us, who've killed our countrymen and citywomen, or violence against other animals, I don't want to be part of it.
To hear the leader of a country talk about killing people as "just part of the job", it really is sick. Heres an end of show clip from No Agenda I found sobering, about the end of World War 2.
I wish things could have been more like that, Osama is dead? Nobody would celebrate and cheer, PETA wouldn't have made chocolates in the shape of his head, to be sold, or delivered free to American soldiers… why they did that, I don't know… apparently there was some explanation that he allowed dogs to be killed in weapons tests or something… I don't think we should celebrate anyone being killed, regardless of what they've done. That we could realise that Huh, YEAH, Good Dog Y'all, War is good for absolutely nothing.
And when a president is given a peace prize, has spoken about ending wars and prisons overseas? He should stick to his word, he should stand up for t hat nonviolence.
I'd like to include one more clip, from a former New Zealand prime minister, David Lange, who spoke out against Nuclear Weapons. This is from the mid 80's, New Zealand is a Nuclear Free zone, we want nothing to do with that technology, and we were being pressured by many larger countries to adopt Nuclear arms. Well, we couldn't play rugby with those, or hug our children, or Chicken Friends with Nuclear Arms, what good are they? The full speech is about 30 minutes long, and I've linked to it, I have a couple of minutes to include here, the funniest moments, when our leader spoke out against these weapons, and our whole country was behind him, standing up against America, Great Britain, perhaps much of the world, because we believed it was the right thing to do. I like the American guy,
"you're not taking up the burden of having Nukes everywhere, of having bomb shelters, of teaching kids to duck and cover"
and "living in peaceful shadow of the bomb", that sounds horrifying.
Prime Minister Lange was NOT against violence, or other weapons, he was against what would now be called "Weapons of Mass Destruction", he didn't want our country to be burdened with them, because they made us a target to OTHER nations, who were against the west. It was one of my countries greatest moments, right up there with being the first nation to give all citizens, including Women, the right to vote, the right to be heard, the right to matter.
Real life isn't like the movies, we're not the hero, out to kill the lead vampire or werewolf, so all the victims magically transform back into healthy people.
Surely, if trillions of dollars were spent on these wars, tens of thousands killed, we were engaged in them regardless of cost, or life, couldn't Osama have been taken alive? Could they not have thrown in tear gas, tazed him, used mace, what we call Pepper Spray in New Zealand, used a tranquilizer gun or something? Its good enough for US citizens who protest, why not use non lethal capture Public Enemy Number One? When you're a superpower, when you are far superior in terms of strength, why not take the moral highground?
Again from The Hobbit
Whats the worst he can do if taken alive, kept in prison, curse "the Americases, we hates it forever?". And in the end, we could have shown decency to our enemy, someone who hated us, who would hurt us, we could rise above it. We could take pity on this wretched creature, who lived in caves…or mansions in Pakistan. Perhaps we could have changed the enemies mind, that The West was not "The Great Satan", we could have saved at least one life.
I hope I havnt been too political this episode. I was trying to bring different forms of violence together, a sort of, violence convention, where the different kinds get to know one another. And then we peaceful folk hit a button, and all the windows are barred, the doors lock, and violence is trapped inside forever.
I thought War, and claiming victory after killing someone had a lot to do with killing 56 Billion land animals each year, for our enjoyment, of seven year olds saying they wanted to kill people who'd stolen their junkfood, one member "Right Wing Resistance" groups spreading hate, and of blaming Canada.
I'm glad other podcasters have put out more episodes recently. It motivates me to get out there in public and do more Vegan activism, to work online too. Elizabeth Collins was so inspired by meeting a lifetimes supply of Vegans in a day, she's had TWO recent episodes. Barbara DeGrande has also put out another episode of Veganacious. I'm hoping more still will release podcasts soon. After an endless campaign of bullying, "whens the next episode coming out, whens the next episode coming out, whens the next episode coming out", Roger Yates finally snapped, and put out another On Human Non-Human Relations episode, and I even got to appear on it! So, whose my next target? How about Mr Tim Gier? Whose name I always want to pronounce Gear.
Mr Gier had a pilot episode a while back, understandably, those new show ideas can sometimes pop out, and then never receive a sequel, a bit like some guy and a "This Week in Vegan" thing. Lets listen to some clips of Tim, from his first, and so far only episode:
Nice intro, off to a good start, sad music, could do with a pinch more Jackson Five, but a good start, a great start.
Hmm, we'll see about that, when we all connect directly to the internet through a port in our heads, because that could never end up badly, right? When we're all matrixed together.
Again, I disagree, theres three perfect beings in my backyard right now, flapping their pretty little wings
Oh yeah Tim? I know a Mr Gimon Sarfunkel who'd say otherwise, with every shutins recluses favourite anthem:
Ah that 1960's music, right? They were probably having a bad trip, and wanted to lock themselves in a room, to stop the screaming banshees.
Hell YES! You know your governments oppressing your rights when Barbara DeGrande, a nonviolent Vegan activist living in Texas, the blinking Lonestar state, renegades, mavericks, people who don't take no guff from them gubermint office boys, well, she's not allowed to give away homebaked Vegan goods, when Elizabeth Collins, living in a Socialist, as in having hospitals and stuff, country, CAN. Whats going on dude?
Hmm, not sure on that one, not Australia, but somewhere close… how about New Zealand? Ignore the fringe political parties popping up, and that one racist guy pretending to have a giant organization behind him while he pushes a social agenda, we're great here! We'll even wait until you arrive before telling you about the three hours of gravity per day, government rationed, oh, and that 20GBs a month of broadband (10KB a second), before you get that amazing speed reduced further.
Is it a crazy, pipeweed dream to imagine a whole bunch of Vegans moving to some little island nation, at the bottom of the world? I don't think so. Perhaps its a generational thing. When I first started getting interested in Veganism, in promoting it to Non Vegans, my more conservative father mentioned "ya cant change the world". He was a Freezing Worker for a decade, he worked in a slaughterhouse, he is not Vegan.
I'd expect that kind of attitude though, just think of the music he must have grown up with. I mean, this guy was considered a musical genius back then :
Dylan Bob just mangled that wonderful song of Mr Jacksons! If THAT was the great poet, the great inspiration of his formative years, no wonder he sees real change as delusional! Who'd want to be like that guy?
Some of us grew through different times, with POSITIVE SOUNDING music, not just written by, but PERFORMED by Mr Jackson. Music about looking in a mirror, being kind to mice, counting numbers, remembering the alphabet. Blaming it on a boogie, whatever that was, either the things in your nose, or some musical style from the 70's, same thing really.
Like I tell the Farmers, the nayseighers, the nonbelievers,
"We are here to change the world. So just surrender, cause the powers deep inside my soul, sang it, we are here to change the world."
Immortal words from the worlds greatest 3D movie, actually, more like 4D, it had smoke machines and lasers in the theatre, Captain EO, starring a young Michael Jackson, literally walking on a moon, well, in the movie setting, and saving evil alien queens and her whip warriors through the power of positive thinking, and funky, synth driven music. Oh, and the help of his little muppet robot thing friends. If one guy and a few NonHuman friends can transform aliens into backup dancers, IN A MOVIE, I see no reason why this young Vegan couldn't successfully promote Veganism, with the inspiration and gold standard example of his Chicken Friends. For full inspiration, you can find the full short movie Captain EO on YouTube, I'll link to it in the shownotes. It cost nearly 2 million dollars a minute, and thats in 1986 US dollars too, its worth every penny. And uh, theres quite a lot of pennies involved in a 17 minute movie costing about 30 million bucks.
And theres another song that comes to mind too, the true, original, recorded the night before demo, with piano by one of his brothers, as it should be, keeping it in the family, no Bob Dylan trying to ruin a more talented artists career…
a little "We Are The World"
And we are, change the world? We're within the world, if we change, so does a part of it. Sure, if one person changes their actions towards others, thats one out of 7 Billion odd, but a change none the less. And if a "Right Wing Resistance" can get all one of its member in the mainstream news, why cant we be just as effective at working on POSITIVE change? We're part of this world, we're working to make it a better place, for you, and for me, and the entire human race. As well as all other animals.
There are many groups throughout the world working on this same goal, of a Vegan world, of promoting Veganism.
The little Invercargill Vegan Society, the Auckland Abolitionist Vegans Association, Animal Rights and Rescue of North Texas. Vegan Ireland, Animal Equality. We're all in this together. And we know what we're working for, its the same thing that keeps us together
Thats right, make it funky on those wood veneer covered organs! Even greater are the two songs I'll include after the outro clip. We Are Here to Change the World, and the demo, Michael Jackson with one of his brothers on Piano of We Are The World.
Never forget who you are, someone trying to make the world a better place. Never forget who we are, a large group of Vegan friends, gaining momentum, and really making a positive impact on the world, of which we are a small part.
Thank you for listening to Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals.
You can find the script for this episode, as well as downloads for every episode of Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals at coexisting with nonhuman animals . co .nz
If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to jaywontdart@gmail.com, or on Twitter, and the more popular Facebook, Jordan Wyatt, I'd love to hear from you.
Thank you for listening.
Sources
Elizabeth Collins, NZ Vegan Podcast
http://nzveganpodcast.blogspot.com/
Barbara DeGrande, Veganacious
http://veganacious.com/
Roger Yates, On Human-Non Human Relations
http://human-nonhuman.blogspot.com/
Tim Gier,
http://timgier.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_EO
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AstW05bDiQU
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2Zt-57Cg0U
The Hobbit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit
Theft from Rugby clubrooms, chocolate bars and softdrink, 7 Year old "I want to kill them"
http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/4998060/Thieves-steal-chocolate-from-kids
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