Hens -as well as other nonhuman individuals- are used for v@((ine fabrication
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Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of people who self-identify as “vegan” making pro-v@((ination posts on social media.
This is just another symptom of the main problem with “the animal movement”: most people have no idea what Veganism actually is about. As Professor Gary Francione has stated on more than one occasion, the Vegan movement is a continuation of the peace movement of the 1960s; my observation is that it’s really an enhancement of that movement through an integration of the argument for nonhuman rights with the argument for human rights and other factors, which should have been the case all along. But too many people who claim they “love animals” have bought into the false narrative that’s been perpetuated in our societal paradigm by the speciesist public for over 200 years: that having moral concern for nonhumans means merely trying to regulate the “cruelty” inherent in our immoral treatment of them, rather than completely eliminating our immoral use of them to begin with, through living Vegan and educating others about why they also need to live Vegan.
One of the mechanisms -though far from the only one- used to propagate this narrative by the speciesist society we live in, is the idea that Veganism can be thought of -and therefore morally dismissed- as merely a diet or a human health issue. Even a cursory examination of the writings of the founders of the Vegan movement yields the discovery that this is far from the truth. However, this strategy does cause many people to ignore the fact that they have a moral obligation to animals, which is the entire reason it makes for such an effective method for reinforcing speciesism in society. Unfortunately, it is true that if you repeat a big lie enough times, many people will start to believe it. Quite ironically, this only serves to accelerate the destruction of the very species who believe they stand to benefit from animal use in the first place.
Our exploitation of animals is killing them and us.
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Trying To -Once Again- Solve Our Problems By Using Violence
One thing that most people don’t realize is that the problem of most major infectious diseases -not just chronic diseases- is a problem that was created, to begin with, by the exploitation of nonhuman animals by human animals. Our species is currently engaged in the completely unnecessary mass rights-violations of breeding, confining, and/or slaughtering over 74,000,000,000 sentient nonhuman individuals who live on the land and over 1,000,000,000,000 sentient nonhuman individuals who live in the water -and we’re exploiting them in higher and higher numbers every year- which is causing the problem of disease that is associated with and stems from this to get worse each year. Our mass confinement of nonhumans for “food” not only created all of the worst infectious diseases that originated in the past, but our consumption of those innocent beings’ flesh and secretions also increases our susceptibility to contracting such disease -through the suppression of our immune system and the general degradation of our metabolism, among other mechanisms- as well as exacerbating and prolonging the symptoms of infectious disease that we experience, by similar mechanisms. And our continuing use of nonhumans in this way is creating more and more horrible new diseases and newer, deadlier strains of the older diseases every day.
Not only is using nonhumans in this way the root cause and reinforcement of almost all human disease, but -more importantly- it’s the root cause of our moral destruction, due to the massive, nightmarish rights violations that have created a literal living hell for the nonhumans we enslave. At the same time, it’s also the primary cause of the apocalyptically devastating ecological damage that is precipitating the 6th great extinction, of which not only our species but almost every other species on the planet is likely to become a final, absolute victim of -as most credible scientists now think- within 30 years. And -last but not least- it’s also the root cause of every bit of misery, despair and death we experience through all of the systemic human rights violations that morally conscious people abhor.
Each year, a number of humans suffer and/or die due to infections that are caused by micro-organisms, many of which can be transmitted from one animal -human or otherwise- to another. Our current attempts to solve this problem involve exploiting many additional nonhuman individuals. We are currently using many million of nonhumans each year in both the fabrication and testing of v@((ines in the attempt to prevent that human suffering and death. Many people have intentionally -and quite erroneously- been convinced that a small number of pathogens have become a ravening epidemic that is killing hordes and hordes of humans in developed nations each year, and that the only solution is to use nonhuman animals by the scores to save ourselves. This myth was by design.
There are some major problems there. One is that many people are ignoring many of the particulars of the pathogens that we’re trying to eradicate. Many of these infections actually don’t cause anywhere near the amount of suffering or death we’re being led to believe that they do when the affected populations have access to good nutrition, clean water, and other hygiene improvements, and as they actually do cause in otherwise unhealthy populations. And once the person who suffers from any one of several of the communicable illnesses we try to v@((inate against has successfully worked through their first bout with the disease, the pathogen confers lifelong immunity against that disease (v@((ines don’t). Not only that, but some of those diseases actually confer protection on us from other, worse diseases.
Also, animal exploitation is a problem of violence. Trying to solve the problem of violence with violence doesn’t work. It only compounds the problem, by adding not only your violence to the equation but also by encouraging others to use violence, thus multiplying the violence exponentially. Similarly, trying to solve a problem that’s caused by animal exploitation through even more animal exploitation won’t work. The only way to solve a problem that comes from animal exploitation is through the categorical rejection of animal exploitation, just as the only way to solve a problem of violence is through the categorical rejection of violence.
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Non-Vegans Who Are Pro-V@((ination – The Genesis Of The Problem At Hand
The general ideology that non-Vegans use to justify using nonhumans for v@((ine fabrication works like this:
- People in our speciesist society generally accept the erroneous idea that nonhumans are not as morally valuable as humans (or not valuable at all) so we torture them and otherwise exploit them to obtain v@((ines (if you want to understand the arguments that prove that humans are not morally superior to nonhumans, you can read this and then come back to finish this post).
- Since nonhumans are not biologically identical to humans, using nonhumans to obtain v@((ines -and then also using even more nonhumans to test those v@((ines- means that the v@((ines are not only less effective than if we tortured humans to death to obtain them (I’m not interested in talking to those who claim that we would ever be morally justified in allowing consenting humans to be tortured to death, that argument is a non-starter. When -in a just and fair society- would that ever be allowed?), but will also cause more suffering for innocent humans who are prescribed the v@((ines after the testing phase is over. This means that logically speaking -from a purely practical scientific standpoint- it would make more sense to torture humans to fabricate and test v@((ines than to use nonhumans; more human suffering would be avoided and more human lives saved. Interestingly, most people have been conditioned by our speciesist societal paradigm to ignore this reality to the point where they almost always don’t even think about it.
- The average non-Vegan’s moral objections against using humans in this way are that “Humans are morally valuable, therefore they have the right to not be used that way. That is why we should use nonhumans instead.” But what most people attempt to ignore is that human animals are not morally more valuable than nonhuman animals. So if it’s immoral to use humans -such as infants and the severely intellectually underdeveloped- for these purposes, and so ostensibly it must never be done, then that is exactly why we must never use nonhumans for those purposes either.
The basis for this speciesist argument -the idea that it should be morally justifiable to “save” a set number of beings by harming a different set of beings- is a product of the moral framework called “Utilitarianism.” Utilitarianism itself is a product of a philosophy called Consequentialism, which is a moral system whereby the ends unequivocally justify the means. In other words, you should be able to commit harms to X amount of beings if “more than X” will benefit to the same proportion per being. So in Utilitarian terms, if I can save a billion humans from a certain amount of suffering and death each by inflicting proportionally the same suffering and death each on a million humans, it’s morally justifiable for me to inflict that suffering. Utilitarianism is diametrically opposed to Deontology, which is a moral system based on the idea that an act can be right or wrong regardless of the consequences, which leads to the notion that sentient beings have what we call “rights.”
However, most people in our society are severely confused about this, because we usually fail to stick to either one of these opposing moral systems and instead switch from one to the other -always without even realizing it- when a physical characteristic is changed in the argument. When humans, in general, talk about whether it’s morally acceptable to harm nonhumans, we use a Utilitarian framework to determine our arguments. But when we talk about whether it’s morally acceptable to harm humans in the exact same situations, suddenly the argument changes and the way the same people more often determine if it’s acceptable or not acceptable is by the argument “humans have rights.” The thing is, “rights” for anyone, human or nonhuman, don’t exist in a Utilitarian moral framework.
- Note: Utilitarianism is nonsense, to begin with since there is a very easy way to determine that a die-hard Utilitarian either does not understand or does not believe in what they’re advocating for (or has severe psychological problems). This involves pointing out that they can’t coherently answer who should be the one to decide which of the Utilitarian interlocutor’s loved ones should be included in the group to be tortured to obtain the v@((ines or other medical treatments (or whatever negative outcome there would be for them in regards to whatever issue you’re addressing).
So we can see how the moral double standard works here in relation to which species the subjects of our argument belong to. Since we think nonhuman animals are morally inferior to humans, instead of bothering to torture humans, we would just torture nonhumans instead… our double-standard in this issue shows that when we use Utilitarian methods to determine our actions, we are severely morally confused. The truth is, since humans aren’t morally superior to nonhumans, either it’s true that both human and nonhuman animals have the right to not be tortured to save some other animals, or it’s true that neither of us has that right. If neither, then that proves that we should be using unconsenting humans instead. If both, then that proves that we should be using neither human animals nor nonhuman animals as unconsenting subjects.
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General “Pro-Vaxxer” Arguments Against “Anti-Vaxxers”
When people try in general to refute the idea that we shouldn’t be using v@((ines, the argument used almost always relies on some number of 3 main points:
- “V@((ination doesn’t cause autism, so the people making the claim that it does are either ignorant, stupid, or insane, which in turn means that there is nothing wrong with v@((ination and so we should use v@((ines.”
- “V@((ination is at some level of effectiveness in eliminating diseases, and there is ample evidence because we now have eliminated many diseases through v@((ination where other methods failed, so we need to keep using v@((ines.”
- “Without v@((ination, many more innocents will suffer/die each year than would suffer or die if we v@((inate everyone.”
None of these 3 arguments is sound in the first place: there is ample evidence against each of them being a valid basis to justify using v@((ines. Of course, when you try to explain an argument against v@((ines to a non-Vegan pro-v@((ine person -most of whom will refuse to view actual peer-reviewed evidence when it’s presented to them- the most prevalent response you’ll get is “blogs and youtubes and googles aren’t valid evidence.”
However, there is an airtight case against v@((ination -if you want to follow a consistent moral code of minimum harm, which is the entire point of Veganism- that does not rely on any of the above points.
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V@((ines Cause Massive Unnecessary Harm – *Regardless* Of Their Harm To Humans
Using v@((ines is morally wrong, aside from any sort of argument as to whether they cause humans injury, based on 2 main points:
- 1) Currently, the fabrication of all v@((ines (I’m not talking about how v@((ines are tested, but the fabrication of their ingredients) relies on the infliction of suffering and death on nonhuman animals:
- 1a) It’s morally wrong to do this because human animals are not morally superior to nonhuman animals, which means that if it’s wrong to use humans, then it’s wrong to use nonhumans.
- 1b) If we used unconsenting humans instead of unconsenting nonhumans we would save more humans from suffering or death; thus -in order to not be morally contradictory- if we’re not going to stop using others for v@((ine production, we should be using unconsenting humans instead of using nonhumans. It should be illegal right this minute to use nonhumans, not in some vague, undefined “someday” time period (which will never come when we refuse to understand that the time needs to be now).
- 1c) The fact that we’re not doing that -based on our confused moral stance against using humans but in favor of using nonhumans- shows that our use of nonhumans for this purpose is a moral atrocity and needs to simply end without any alternative since -due to the fact that it’s morally wrong to use individual members of any animal species to obtain them- there doesn’t seem to be any. Just as if the only way to obtain cures for diseases was to use unconsenting humans, the only morally justifiable option would be to refuse to use said humans without any other option. A violation of a sentient being’s rights doesn’t suddenly become Morally Just simply because an individual with a different species membership was used as the victim in place of using an individual of the human species as the victim. And inflicting unnecessary suffering and death on others who did not initiate a conflict with us doesn’t become morally justifiable simply because our life or health happens to become threatened by an illness, which was not the fault of the nonhuman we’re torturing for the “cure.”
- 2) V@((ination is not necessary since changing our behavior in regards to nonhumans to a 100% consistent moral code -not to mention learning even just a tiny bit about v@((ine science– would eliminate the need for anything that resembles v@((ines in the first place.
If people really meant what they said when they said it’s wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering and death on animals they would do everything in their power to make sure there wasn’t a valid argument that using v@((ines fabricated from nonhumans was unnecessary. But the general response of the pro-v@((ine people who call themselves vegan is “all pro-v@((ine people say v@((ines are good, which means that anti-v@((ine people are either ignorant, stupid, or insane, therefore they have no evidence, therefore I am not going to look at their evidence.” This is not a rational mindset. If you think this way, you should not be calling yourself a reasonable person, let alone a Vegan.
Once we accept this, it prompts the question: “so if we used no nonhumans or humans to obtain them then mandatory v@((inations would be ok?”
Answer: No, because mandating v@((ines is forcing moral agents (or patients) to do something that isn’t necessary, and that’s still a human rights violation.
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Many People Who Claim They’re Vegan Are Wrong (about v@((ination *and* Veganism)
Generally speaking, the argument in favor of v@((ines used by people who call themselves vegan is always similar to this:
- “Veganism is only a stance against ‘unnecessary’ harm. I have moral concern for nonhumans, but v@((ination is necessary for my health, so it’s vegan to v@((inate.”
- “People who are against v@((ination are either intellectually impaired or have severe psychological problems (a more technical version of “stupid or crazy”), so the arguments they use against v@((ination are nonsense. Thus I have no need to actually examine any evidence they may claim to have that v@((ines are unsafe or ineffective.”
But living Vegan doesn’t mean only doing the right thing when it’s the easiest thing to do. At the very least it means doing the right thing even though it may mean we have to spend a few hours, days or even weeks researching something until there are no questions left to be answered as to whether it’s necessary or not. Anyone can do the right thing when it’s the easiest thing to do. The real test of whether someone is Vegan or not is if they actually put enough effort into learning whether it’s necessary to harm animals when putting forth that effort is difficult to some extent.
And “researching” something doesn’t mean we only look at the evidence that was supplied by people who agree with everything we already believed; that’s called “confirmation bias.” It means looking carefully at all the evidence we haven’t already looked at that’s supplied by the people who have the opposing viewpoint to ours. This is what I did when I heard that some people believe the planet we’re on is a flat disk, it’s what I did when I first got interested in learning why some people argue that a deity exists, and so on. If we truly did have moral concern at all for nonhumans we would never entertain the idea of dismissing anti-v@((ination dissenters without first obtaining as much research as we could from them.
Pro-v@((ination people may then ask: “but even if using nonhumans to obtain v@((ines isn’t morally justifiable, at the very least it’s morally excusable, right?”
The term “morally justifiable” means that there is nothing wrong with an action, regardless of the circumstances surrounding it. In other words, engaging in that action hurts no one. “Morally excusable” means that an action is morally wrong, but because the actor was under duress (for example, in fear for their life if they didn’t engage in the action) they should still be forgiven for that action.
Under some imaginable circumstances, using nonhumans for certain reasons could be unjustifiable morally, but still morally excusable. In other words, still absolutely wrong, but forgivable due to the exigent circumstances. However, an action like using v@((ines is not even morally excusable. The only way it could possibly be morally excusable is if we can prove that there are exigent circumstances; in other words, if we could absolutely prove that there is a necessity to do so. And not only has that not been proven, but when we ridicule the people showing us the evidence that it had not been proven we’re proving that we’re not actually interested in learning why, which is an anti-Vegan action.
The fact that even people who call themselves vegan refuse to stop using nonhumans in this way while not even bothering to study this issue at all shows that those people are not Vegan. Veganism means a moral stance against using nonhumans based on their right to not be used, which they share with us. If those people were Vegan they would first research whether v@((ines are necessary or not, and then take a moral stand against v@((inations based on that right, rather than just shrugging their shoulders and going ahead with the animal use because they’re too lazy to exhaust every avenue of study open to them on the issue. The animal use is still a moral wrong, which means that the only way it’s excusable would be if we still did our absolute best to prove that it’s still necessary. And that has never been done with v@((ines, by anyone.
Update: Many so-called “vegans” are now pointing out that they think that CoViD-19 v@((ines will be “vegan” because those v@((ines are not going to be tested on nonhumans. But that is a misconception:
“Evaluation of the mRNA-1273 Vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 in Nonhuman Primates”:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa2024671
The arguments in favor of v@((ines are no stronger than the arguments in favor of consuming animal flesh and secretions as “food.” Those who call themselves vegan but support v@((ine dogma need to recognize that what they are doing is no different than what anti-Vegans do to them every day.
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The So-Called “Necessity” Of V@((ination
In the arena of debate, there is a logical fallacy called “The Nirvana Fallacy.” This is when someone takes a perfect -but unobtainable- solution to a problem, and compares it to an imperfect -but still good- solution, and discounts the good solution because it’s not the unobtainable perfect solution. This is also called “making the perfect the enemy of the good.” People who consider themselves vegans are now falling to a sort of reverse of this fallacy, where they believe that as long as they avoid the forms of animal use that are the easier ones to avoid, that they don’t have to worry about the ones that are harder to avoid. In other words, that as long as they don’t make being unable to avoid some animal uses -like the fact that there are substances extracted from animal blood in plastic, metal and concrete- a reason to live non-Vegan, that they are just fine not even trying to avoid using animals in other ways (medicine, “organic” food or vaccines, for instance).
This has caused people who call themselves vegan to not only become lazy, refusing to acknowledge that there is something they still need to learn about in regards to forms of animal use, but to actually become dishonest with themselves on the issue as well.
There is also the point that v@((ination -like bio-medical testing on unconsenting sentient beings of any species, including humans- would be largely unnecessary if around 98% of our species were not consuming animal flesh or secretions since the levels of infection we currently see for pretty much all infectious disease is maintained by both the production and the consumption of animal substances in our diet.
Almost all chronic disease (chronic meaning long-term disease not caused by a pathogen) is now understood by scientists to be caused by animal flesh and secretions in our diet. The chronic disease that may not be caused by animal substances in our diet is still severely exacerbated by them. This is not really even a question anymore, scientifically speaking. There are some doctors who deny this, of course, but mainly either they haven’t read the science or they are desperate to not admit to themselves that they are inflicting unnecessary suffering and death on animals and promoting the same deadly habit to their patients.
So we have the fact that chronic disease is created and supported by eating animal substances. Then add to that the fact that pretty much every major infectious disease was created by the mass confinement and consumption of nonhumans. Not a lot of people know that, but the whole story is there for people to learn if they actually bother to check.
And the third factor in this problem is that habitually consuming animal substances is a major cause of depressing your metabolism, immune system, etc. This causes us to be not only more susceptible to contracting infectious diseases, but also to increase the duration -and exacerbate the severity- of the symptoms of those diseases. The science shows that Vegans who consume a 100% whole-foods plants-only diet get less colds, flu, and every other infectious disease than non-Vegans.
When you put all 3 together, you get a perfect storm that results in animal-laden diets causing the majority of the cause and the duration of infectious disease in our society. This means that the Earth’s entire human population living Vegan would eventually result in a massive decrease in not only the rates of chronic disease in our species, but infectious disease as well. This would almost completely eliminate the need for anything even similar to v@((ination. But that can’t happen unless we all start living Vegan and stop using v@((ines as part of that new, Vegan paradigm.
Under our current paradigm, the public is generally opposed to Veganism, as most humans have been indoctrinated by our mainstream media to believe that Veganism is nothing more than some “extreme,” ill-founded “diet” that will kill us. And there’s a very good reason this idea is perpetuated by many small but extremely vocal facets of society. Think about it: If all opposition to Veganism stopped and we went Vegan en masse, the 1% -who are not only inveterately speciesist but also rely on selling the results of the massive exploitation of nonhumans to maintain their death-grip on their power over everyone- couldn’t keep us as slaves anymore either.
So, is it any wonder that we’ve been spoon-fed this myth that we need to torture animals to obtain injections that are meant to prevent us from suffering from many diseases that wouldn’t even exist to begin with if we weren’t torturing an uncountable number of animals to death every year and consuming them?
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Some Conclusions We Can Make:
As I said at the beginning of this essay, our species is currently engaged in the completely unnecessary mass rights-violations of breeding, confining, and/or slaughtering over 74,000,000,000 sentient nonhuman individuals who live on the land and over 1,000,000,000,000 sentient nonhuman individuals who live in the water each year, and we’re exploiting them in successively higher numbers each year, which is causing the problem to get worse every year. Not only is the mass confinement and exploitation of nonhumans the original cause of every major infectious disease, but every year we’re causing worse strains of these diseases and horrible new diseases to emerge through this morally unjustifiable behavior.
Simultaneously, the US government -bolstered by those people in our society who refuse to learn the facts at the center of this issue- is gearing up to force everyone to submit to having poison regularly injected into their bodies against their will. Does it really make sense to allow them to poison us with something that ostensibly wouldn’t even be necessary -regardless if it was even effective at all– if we weren’t joyously participating in the cause of the very problem the poison was supposed to be able to solve?
The best way to eliminate disease in our species -both chronic and infectious- would be for the highest number of people possible to start living Vegan and to quit v@((ination wholesale. Since v@((ines are not only completely unnecessary but also can be understood to be counter-productive by anyone who is not totally bereft of understanding regarding how our bodies need to be maintained and cannot be used without unnecessary suffering and death being inflicted on both nonhumans and humans, this shows that v@((ine technology clearly needs to be abolished, and not just “made safer” or “reformed.”
The arguments presented in this essay are also pretty much identical to the arguments against vivisection, so they can be used equally well on both subjects. And that brings me to the main point: the people who call themselves vegan but are in favor of using v@((ines that use nonhuman animals are largely the same people who recoil in horror at the thought of what nonhumans are subjected to when they’re used for vivisection in regards to products and uses that are transparently frivolous, and can’t wait to condemn that use of nonhumans; but when the subject of v@((ines comes up, their response is that there’s no evidence to refute their belief that v@((ines are safe or effective and so anyone who would even question them is either stupid or insane.
It’s absolutely ridiculous that the same people who claim that the government, pharmaceutical industry -who have most doctors either under their thumb or completely bamboozled- and the mainstream media -all of whom they know are lying when they try to convince the public that animal use is necessary and normal for their own agenda- would never lie to us when they tell us that v@((ines are safe or effective or that they are the only way to save us all from infectious disease. Their decision -instead of calmly agreeing to look at the evidence for the argument presented- is to ridicule the ones trying to educate them about v@((ines, just like anti-Vegans ridicule Vegans trying to educate them about why any other form of animal use is wrong.
The so-called “vegans” who are pro-v@((ination are completely willing to trust the government and doctors who take enormous bonuses as long as they get almost all of their patients to allow them to inject them with poison -the very people who they themselves usually think are engaged in misinformation regarding the idea that animal exploitation is natural, normal or necessary- over fellow Vegans who are trying desperately to get them to stop inflicting unnecessary suffering and death on animals. This is irrefutably anti-Vegan behavior.
There is also a mountain of evidence regarding the actual harm done to human health by v@((inations as well as the fact that most of the disease that people claim was eliminated by v@((ination actually wasn’t, which I’ll cover on this site.
Research what Veganism and “the myth of human moral supremacy” actually mean. Research what v@((ine pushers are really trying to obtain. Stop immorally exploiting animals for medical benefits that we never even needed to begin with. End speciesism. Live Vegan.
If you’re not already Vegan, and you think animals matter morally, then please go Vegan. It’s incredible for the animals, easy and great for you, and wonderful for the planet. If you’re already Vegan, please educate non-Vegans about why they should go Vegan. Please rescue, volunteer, adopt, foster, spay, and neuter the nonhuman refugees of domestication whenever you can. Please feed your nonhuman family Vegan where you can. These things are the most important, morally responsible things to do and are desperately needed by everyone.
To learn more about Abolitionist Veganism and the issues I’ve outlined in this post, check out The Master List Of Vegan Info:
https://legacyofpythagoras.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/master-list-of-vegan-info
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Disclaimer: My only goal with this list is to produce as comprehensive a resource for Vegan information as possible. I am 100% Abolitionist Vegan and 100% against exploitation of nonhuman or human animals, any type of violence against human or nonhuman persons or property, welfare regulation, any form of speciesism, ethnic bigotry, genderism, ableism, cis-sexism, etc., any of the large governmental or non-governmental nonhuman animal organizations, “happy meat,” vegetarianism, veg*nism, Meat-Free Mondays, or other forms of reductionism and anything else that makes it seem like any form of violence or exploitation of animals is ok. If any of those positions are endorsed on any site in this list, or any language is used to imply that, it’s not that I included that link because I agree, but simply because I don’t control every bit of information on all of these sites.