Contents of V:
Technically, being vegan means consuming no animal products. I am of the
mind that this is probably nearly impossible to achieve in most pockets of
American society. Hence, there are different levels of being ãveganä - those
who just do not eat meat/dairy/eggs, those who avoid all animal bi-products, and
those who avoid all products processed or involved with animal products or
labors. It is tough to be the ãsuper-veganä, but I think that it is
admirable to try.
I feel better being vegan: spiritually, emotionally and physically. For
not a single second do I miss ice cream or scrambled eggs or pastries or
whatever else half-vegans secretly yearn for. I eat vegan food because I want
to, not because I feel guilty doing otherwise. My friends who are also vegan
provide support in this endeavor and make being vegan tolerable in a terribly
anti-vegan world.
Vegetarianism is generally accepted to mean that one does not eat animal
flesh. There are those weird ãvegetariansä who eat chicken or fish, but I
think we all know that such persons are misnamed. Becoming a vegetarian is
undeniably difficult, requiring one to reject and resist the prevailing
propaganda in favor of meat-eating. Becoming vegetarian is also incredibly
inspiring, a means of reclaiming your life from a world that tries to tell you
how to live down to the last meal.
A lot of vegetarians - who eat eggs, milk and cheese - feel guilty about
not giving up animal products altogether. While I strive to be as Vegan as I
will, I recognize vegetarianism as an incredibly vital step towards a
non-violent diet. Those who are able to become vegetarian should not feel guilty
for falling short of a 100% animal-free diet, opting instead to feel proud for
eliminating the chief products of animal murder from oneâs plate.
As LPâs are replaced by CDâs, one of the greatest losses to the musician is the potential for elaborate and substantial packaging. Art squeezed onto the tiny cover and content shrunk into the minuscule pages of the conventional CD booklet pale in comparison to the rich cover work and inserts of vinyl. However, we believe that perhaps this vast gap can be in some way bridged by breaking with the traditional packaging that is usually associated with the Compact Disc. This work is the manifestation of this belief.
Violence as a solution to the problems of humanity has been entertained
for thousands of years, while non-violence has seen only sporadic implementation
within a few cultures in the last few centuries. It seems to us a logical option
to give non-violent solutions a sustained and heartfelt try before returning to
the methods of our oppressors.
Violence
- Eradication of Firearms:
To many people, the ability to own firearms is one of the greatest
examples that they are ãfreeä. To this I would say, ãbullshitä. Bullshit because guns are manufactured for one reason: to
kill and/or injure. Killing and injuring are acts that can only take away
freedom and we must oppose the manufacture of instruments designed precisely to
fullfil these acts. Freedom should be defined as the ability to act in any way
one chooses so long as the act does not interfere with the freedom of another,
which means that an act is not ãfreeä unless it makes possible the freedom
of all. In my view, any act that does not fit this definition only serves to
limit freedom. In this way, the ownership of guns can never be an act of freedom
because the very nature of gun ownership is one which entails the threat of
violence and death (whether it be the death of people or animals - who
have every right to live - does not matter).
I am a proponent of freedom. That means that I am willing to live in a
country that allows the KKK to exist because I dislike the KKK but I do not
think their existence impinges upon my or othersâ freedom (however, the acts
of such group almost always do). The difference is that I am unwilling to
interfere with the right of people to form a group like the KKK and have little
Klan get-togethers to talk about how much they hate everybody; that sort of
activity is a personal freedom that everyone deserves (regardless of how sick it
is). However, they have no right to then go about taking away the freedoms of
others. The existence of the KKK, inasmuch as they only intend a speech-based
congregation, is not inherently freedom-taking. However, the state sanctioning
of guns, their manufacture, ownership and use, all imply an intent to injure or
kill. Therefore one can only misunderstand guns as symbols of freedom.
Guns can only be used to shoot things and unless one is shooting at a
non‑living target, the gun is taking away freedom. The gun in your purse,
glove compartment, under your bed, in the safe, in the closet are all waiting to
take someoneâs freedom away and while you consider yourself safe with said
weapon, the exact same ãauthoritiesä that deemed you safe to carry a gun
also deemed safe the person who just killed x number of people or animals down
the street. If that person wasnât there to sell you your ãprotectiveä gun,
they wouldnât have been there to sell a gun to the murderer either. People
kill people with guns. Take away the guns and what are you going to get
shot with?
For those of you about to say: ãBut we need to protect ourselves from our
government if it ever (or already is) too powerful.ä Please examine the part of that sentence in which you say
ãourä. If it is indeed Îourâ government then shouldnât we be able to
ensure our safety in a non‑violent way? Perhaps youâre scared of the
government because weâve allowed it to become too scary or because its gotten
too scary on its own. If the goverment were ours perhaps it would be
something that protects us - not something to be protected from.
For those of you about to say: ãBut we need to protect ourselves from the
government if it ever (or already is) too powerful.ä I would say that youâre at least a little closer to the
mark. Consider why you are only
allowed to purchase a collection of handguns whereas the government is allowed
to develop absurd technological weaponry, which could be used to wipe
out you and your small arsenal in a whimsical fell swoop.
No matter how many guns, grenades, rocket launchers and surface-to-air
missiles you buy, the government will always laugh at their meager potency.
I think you should be able to do what ever you want: shoot up in your
bedroom, buy sex from total strangers in a hotel with consenting management,
perform shock therapy on yourself in your bathroom, have sex with your uncle in
the living room (assuming he consents), whatever, so long as no one is
implicated who does not desire to be. Purchasing a gun instantly threatens me
because, unlike a private act of masturbation or a giant wild orgy involving
consenting adults and assorted vegetables, the use of guns is never private. My
freedom is jeopardized by the so‑called freedom of owning a gun.
Violence
- Eradication of My Own Arms:
I carry a bat in my car. I
donât play baseball. I carry it
to hit people with. Or at least threaten them with the possibility of getting
hit on the side of the head with a big piece of wood if they insist on fucking
with me. The summer I turned nineteen I got into two confrontations in which I
was the object that someone wanted to turn into a punching bag, for, literally,
no other reason than that I happened to be standing there. On both occasions I
was able to talk my way out of it without having my face pummeled (though on
both occasions each asshole did manage to land a few punches before I was able
to convince him that the best thing would be for me to leave without any more
fighting). What if next time I canât talk my way out of it and I get the shit
beaten out of me? Or they break bones or whatever? The second to last thing I
want to do is hit someone with a bat - the thought of it truly sickens me
because I honestly detest violence. But the last thing I want to have happen is
have someone hit me with a bat. So if the choice comes down to it, Iâll
use it. What makes this any different from owning a gun and perpetuating that
which I hate? Nothing. But someone decided they had to show a friend and me that
he was tougher than us about a month ago and if the car wasnât already started
and I wasnât free to back up down the road away from this asshole then I would
have broken out the bat to save us from a beating. I want nothing more than to
throw that bat away but I donât think Iâm idealistic enough to believe that
I can reason with every asshole who has something to prove. Smart? No. Right?
No. Necessary?
Violence
- Further Complications:
There is a very clear contradiction between my belief that guns should be
eradicated and the fact that I carry a baseball bat in my car whose single
purpose is to beat heads in. How is this reconciled? I could throw out the bat,
which is something Iâve been considering strongly. Otherwise, I must live with
the contradiction. However, while I
may scream for the eradication of guns on one level and somehow explain the
presence of a bat in my car on another level, there are those whose lives
dictate that a bat is no form of protection in the least. In some corners of
this city there are people who would laugh if someone ãarmedä themselves
with a bat. For some people there is the threat of having a gun held to your
head by a police person while you are sodomized with a broomstick. It is nothing
less than privilege to not be counted among them. For these people, it is much
harder for them to throw away their guns than it is for me to throw away my bat.
When they are confronted with a violent situation it is on a level that goes far
beyond a Louisville Slugger and for this reason it is privilege to call for the
eradication of guns while carrying a bat. These
people, found in a situation analogous to mine, in their environment, would be
defenseless. Iâm not ready to give up my bat yet but Iâm more than ready to
ask them to give up their protection. Most people reading this, including
myself, probably have no idea what itâs like to live that kind of life, yet we
are willing to invade, judge and make decisions whose outcomes we will never
feel.