Laura said:
I highly, HIGHLY, recommend reading "The Vegetarian Myth" right away for everyone. It is loaded with super important nutritional information. ...
Initially I read the last chapter to find out what her conclusion is, then the footnotes. I noticed Mollixon the founder of the Permaculture concept and Sally Fallon the author of Nourishing Tradtions, The three of them together pretty much covers the whole spectrum from soil to kitchen to health, society and politics.
Now I have completed the whole book and all the information on nutrition makes for an informative read. She goes into a lot of details concerning carbohydrates, soya and saturated fats, many of the subjects, which have been on the forum and which take up all of chapter 4 which means 100+ pages.
But how does Keith want to save the World? This is the topic of chapter five, but before that there is in chapter 3 on Political Vegetarians:
129 said:
Merkel, who wants to make room for the animals and the wild, for the rest of our siblings, suggests 600 million as a sustainable number. My guess is his number is way too high; the fossil fuel and fossil soil aren’t visible to him, or to the political vegetarians he’s drawing his calculation from. My number would be much lower. But does it matter in the end what number I come up with? There needs to be fewer of us. Dramatically fewer of us. And in wealthy countries, we need to consume dramatically less. A truly local economy could make that necessity both plain and possible: not only would it be obvious that logging, mining, agriculture, and other extractive activities were necessary for our McMansions and our computer chips, but when those “resources“ ran out, so would the life that is build upon them. But money buys us distance, Buffering us from the murder of the world in a sweet dream of abundance.
An example of a sweet dream of abundance could be this one?:
_http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml said:
Article 1.
• All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2.
• Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
[…]
Article 25.
• (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
The argument of food is often brought up as a reason for growing more poisons (GMO), giving more pain to the farmers and to the land. But if there are too many of us, who is to go away, and who decides who should go away, or is it just natural abstinence from making children? Keith will mention human rights so bear these in mind what we just read or check all of them up on the net.
How does the author develop this concept of introducing changes to the civilization?
page 264 said:
Liberals essentially think that oppression is a mistake, a misunderstanding, and changing people’s mind is the way to change the world. Hence, liberals place tremendous emphasis on education as a political strategy.
I guess her publishing of the book is a liberal style of changing the world as is for that matter what we do here on the forum.
page 264 said:
Radicals understand oppression as a set of interlocking institutions, and, one way or another, the strategy for liberation involves direct confrontation with power to take those institutions apart.
Experience shows that attack can be directed on those who are using the liberal style of spreading knowledge and educating people.
I am looking forward to find more about what she considers to be radical, which she further contrasts with the liberal approach in the following.
page 265 said:
The related dead end of individualism is the extreme personal purity of the “lifestyle activists.” Understand: the task of an activist is not to negotiate systems of power with as much personal integrity as possible- it is to dismantle those systems. Neither of these approaches – personal psychological change or personal lifestyle choices – is going to disrupt the global arrangements of power. They’re both ultimately liberal approaches to injustice, rerouting the goal from political change to personal change. This is easier, much easier, because it makes no demands on us. It requires no courage or sacrifice, no persistence or honor, which is what direct confrontations with power must require.
Keith wrote this book including long sections about how difficult it was for her to make a lifestyle change from being a vegan to become a former vegan. But if it really was as easy as she writes it is, why did she not do it before. Or should I just confess that I consider it rather difficult to just change old ideas and old habits. A few go easy, and many require effort, a lot of effort and work, therefore I do not agree with her on this point.
page 265-166 said:
To point out the obvious: power doesn’t care. […] Power will only care when you build a strategic movement against it. Individual action will never be effective. To quote Andrea Dworkin, we need organized political resistance.
‘Strategic movement’ is a good word, but is it true that ‘individual action never will be effective’? I am not convinced totally. Sure what I can do is not effective, but it does not exclude that somebody else could not be, though it also depends on how effective it has to be in order to be effective.
Even if one does not opt for the radical style, there is a liberal menu also:
page 266 said:
So if you need your personal fix, here are the three most effective things you can do.
[…]
Refrain from having children
[…]
Number two is to stop driving a car
[…]
Number three is to grow your own food.
How many did you score on that one? Now on to the next:
page 268 said:
There’s also the hell that we’re making for animals, both domestic and wild, the CAFOs and the shrinking ice, the cornfed cows and the oil-sickened birds: the cause is the same. It’s called civilization, especially its consumption, including its food. If you’re against the one, you have to be against the other.
And finally, liberal remedies will never serve a radical analysis. There is inherent contradiction in understanding that systems of power must be dismantled while only embracing personal solutions. To put it more bluntly: if agriculture is at war, why aren’t we fighting back?
Therefore why am I not fighting back? I must be guilty of this civilization or consumption. So what to do?
page 268-269 said:
The first things we’re likely to lose are human rights and democracy. Teach people about direct democracy, get local participatory governments in place, and defend the concepts of universal human rights at all costs, especially if you work with children. […] What kids really should be reciting is the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The book was written in 2009. Were the human rights and democracy as intact as let us say before 9/11? But yes, it is true it can get worse than it is - and it will! As for the human rights I mentioned them above, the philosophical basis can be traced back to the Age of Enlightenment to which John Locke, and Immanuel Kant among others were contributing. If anyone wishes to ponder the details try _http://www.iep.utm.edu/hum-rts/
On another site about the philosophy of human rights which about the environment has:
_http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-human/ said:
3.3 Environmental Rights
In spite of the danger of rights inflation, there are doubtless norms that should be counted as human rights but are not generally so treated. After all, there are lots of areas in which people's dignity and fundamental interests are threatened by governmental actions and omissions. Consider environmental rights, which are often defined as rights of animals or of nature itself. Conceived in this way they do not fit our general idea of human rights because the rightholders are not humans or human groups. But more modest formulations are possible; environmental rights can be understood as rights to an environment that is healthy and safe. Such a right is human-oriented: it does not cover directly issues such as the claims of animals, biodiversity, or sustainable development (Nickel 1993. See also Hayward 2005).
The right to a safe environment can be sculpted to fit the general idea of human rights suggested above by conceiving it as primarily imposing responsibilities on governments and international organizations. It calls on them to regulate the activities of both governmental and nongovernmental agents to ensure that environmental safety is maintained. Citizens are secondary addressees. This right sets out a minimal environmental standard, safety for humans, rather than calling for higher and broader standards of environmental protection. (Countries that are able to implement higher standards are of course free to enact those standards in their law or bill of rights.)
A justification for this right must show that environmental problems pose serious threats to fundamental human interests, values, or norms; that governments may appropriately be burdened with the responsibility of protecting people against these threats; and that most governments actually have the ability to do this. This last requirement — feasibility — may be the most difficult. Environmental protection is expensive and difficult, and many governments will be unable to do very much of it while meeting other important responsibilities. The problem of feasibility in poorer countries might be addressed here in the same way that it was in the Social Covenant. That treaty commits governments not to the immediate realization of social rights for all, but rather to making the realization of such rights a high-priority goal and beginning to take steps towards its fulfillment.
Implementing a new right has opportunity costs. If no new resources are available, implementing a new right will mean that fewer resources are available for the implementation of existing rights. Rights are not magical sources of supply (Holmes and Sunstein 1999, Nickel 2006, ch. 5). This is not to deny, however, that successful implementation of a right can reduce threats in some areas and thereby reduce costs. For example, success in protecting the rights of minorities may reduce ethnic conflict and the threats to rights that it generates.
The way I read this it that the UN declaration is very anthropocentric and nothing is going to change that if only left the UN. Therefore if Lierre Keith is serious about reciting the UN declaration at the beginning of a school day, then considering all else she writes I fail to understand why, except as to legitimize what she is up to?
This was a long comment on her first suggestion, now comes the second suggestion:
page 269 said:
Second is building local economies, especially local food networks, and all the survival skills for a post petroleum world. […]
Chapter 14 of
Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual by Bill Mollison has much information on building a society.
The author continues:
page 269-270 said:
And we need new food that protects prairies and forests and wetlands, food that’s a partnership between animals and plants, oil and us. We need a spiritual practice that keeps us connected to the sentience of the world, and a sexual practice that begins in justice.
But that new culture can’t just be an alternative. It has to be self-consciously oppositional to the dominant culture. That means it has to encourage and support political resistance. It doesn’t mean everyone has to do direct action.[…]But even if we’re not personally on the front lines, we have to support the people who are willing and able to do what’s necessary. We need true culture of resistance that actually supports a resistance movement. Because thirdly, we need those direct confrontations with power. In the immortal words of Frederick Douglass “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will.
In some ways it’s very simple: where does it hurt? Where does your body hurt, where does your land hurt? Then ask, who’s in charge of inflicting that pain? Then ask, where are they weak, and where are you strong? Enough people could stop global warming, […] by standing between fossil fuels and what’s left of our planet. Massive civil disobedience is one tactic that could do that.
It’s time to put away the fairytales, all of them, and assume our responsibilities, the adult responsibilities that begin with adult knowledge. Our planet needs us. She needs us to think like healers and act like warriors. And if you think that’s a contradiction, then get out of the way.”
Adult responsibility is mentioned in the beginning of the book where she quotes Martin Pretchel to whom one of the Mayan elders explained:
page 5 said:
“The knowledge that every animal, plant, person, wind, and season is indebted to the fruit of everything else is an adult knowledge. To get out of debt means you don’t want to be part of life, and you don’t want to grow into an adult,”
.
To find out what has happened since the book came out in 2009 I looked at her website: _http://www.lierrekeith.com/Links.htm It turns out there is a new book that she has coauthored and which came out just a month ago. It seems to continue right from where the Vegetarian Myth ends:
_http://www.lierrekeith.com/work.htm said:
For years, Derrick Jensen has asked his audiences, "Do you think this culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of life?" No one ever says yes.
Deep Green Resistance starts where the environmental movement leaves off: industrial civilization is incompatible with life. Technology can't fix it, and shopping—no matter how green—won’t stop it. To save this planet, we need a serious resistance movement that can bring down the industrial economy. Deep Green Resistance evaluates strategic options for resistance, from nonviolence to guerrilla warfare, and the conditions required for those options to be successful. It provides an exploration of organizational structures, recruitment, security, and target selection for both aboveground and underground action. Deep Green Resistance also discusses a culture of resistance and the crucial support role that it can play.
Deep Green Resistance is a plan of action for anyone determined to fight for this planet—and win.
Without knowing the details this appears to be like militia terms, and I do not think that I will go there.
It turns out that the above book is a key for Deep Green Resistance see more on _https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Deep_Green_Resistance
Deep Green Resistance is according to the Wiki linked to concept of deep ecology, anarcho-primitivism, green anarchism, and radical environmentalism.
On the website of Deep Green Resistance: _http://deepgreenresistance.org/ one finds the code of conduct: _http://dgr.lierrekeith.com/faq/whyadheretocodeandprinciples/ Oops did we not go back to Lierre Keith site? It goes deeper and deeper .... .....I stop here!
About myself I was a vegetarian too for almost 25, but then I read the C’s sessions and I also read the above mentioned book on Permaculture by Bill Mollison. The Permaculture book along with practical experience helped me to understand that the vegetarian approach is not so easy on its own. I reasoned with myself that if I wish to be vegetarian and eat vegetarian food then it is acceptable to buy the kiwi fruit from New Zealand, but I have to consider that part of the money goes to the people who help get it there and they are not vegetarians, and the fuel for the plane or the car or whatever is laden with blood from wars or the odd accident, so on the whole something had been overlooked in the argument (moral and political) for being a vegetarian. As a result slowly, slowly I changed.
Whereas I think that the health of some people fare as badly as Lierre Keith describes, it is not everyone, I was among ordinary vegetarians not vegans and most did fine, relatively speaking, not to say that I could not have saved myself some problems. The individuality of genetics and the ability of the code to adapt is important. Now I am still waiting for my body to accept a very high intake of fat. I have had dream of ryebread and lately rice. I have resisted, even though the type of dream does not have the feel of temptation. Sometimes I ask myself if I have just become another type of fanatic than I was before. I do not really feel so much better that it is worth writing home about – yet. Perhaps because I felt alright before, except overeating is becoming less frequent and maybe that is worth the discomfort all the fat frequently gives. It takes time for me to learn so one day it may work out.
All in all a nice book to read and a good deal to think about, but the Deep Green Resistance project is a bit scary.
