Violence – Are you Getting Enough?

How Much Violence Do We Need to Stay Healthy?

Society looks down on those who openly love violence, labeling them as bullies, thugs, or even serial killers, but let’s be honest with ourselves: 9 out of 10 of us believe that we need a daily dose of violence just to stay alive.

Whether it’s killing a cow, a chicken, a goat, a pig, or a human, violence is crucial to our everyday functioning, or at least we’re pretty sure it is. I mean, to eat those beings, they must be killed. So violence must not be all that bad, if it feeds us. It’s the juice that keeps us alive. Well, most of us.

Usually we try to side-step the violence that kills the beings we eat and focus on the nutrition provided from their dead carcasses (because it’s the lifeless final product and not the process that truly provides nourishment). But what if the nutritious value is not in the bodies of these tortured beings but in the killing?

Perhaps we are feeding off the violence and not the aftermath of the violence—the process of killing one being to fuel another.

Let’s come out of the closet and admit that violence is not such a bad thing. Raping, mutilating, confining, and slaughtering animals is something we should be proud of. Let’s get in touch with the essence of our violent diets and start being more violent ourselves.

No more keeping the violence behind closed doors in factory farms and hiring new immigrants to do our dirty work—why let them have all the fun? Let’s get our own hands bloody! Since we’re convinced that nourishment can only come from killing, then having more violence will make us all healthier.

Wait. What’s that you say? You regret that eating animal products means that animals have to suffer? You don’t want to hurt animals? Hmm… conundrum.

But… something has to suffer for you to be nourished. Someone.

Doesn’t it?

Can we live off NO violence? Eat a nutritious diet without killing any creatures who experience affectionate,  nurturing relationships with their young?

This idea is so extreme. So hardcore. So jarring.

So… violent.

Disclaimer: Obviously this post needs a disclaimer.

Don’t hurt people. Or animals.

Veganarchy.

The World You Live In

when you argue with the ones in charge…

A four part video produced by Irish Indymedia:

Berlusconi’s Mousetrap

“The Protests against the G8 in July 2001 in Genoa Italy were the biggest and most significant protests in Western Europe since the Poll Tax riots in the UK. Italian Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi, wanting to impress his new best mate George W. Bush, orchestrated a brutal Media/Police preemptive strike on the Anti-Capitalist Movements’ biggest First World mobilisation to date. When the weekend of protests ended Carlo Guiliani was dead and a school full of sleeping activists had been attacked in what is popularly referred to as the ‘Chilean Night’.

The film traces the events of the three days of protests in detail and poses the question – Was it all a setup? If Seattle was ‘Star Wars’ then this is ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. It is made from a combination of footage of the Genoa protests against the G8 shot by 10 members of IMC Ireland, material from the Italy IMC Archives and material from various other sources. This compelling footage combined with on the spot interviews and reenacted voiceover commentary and analysis from various websites which were active during the protests provides a in-depth blow by blow retelling of the story of the three days of the Genoa protests against the G8.”

Watching this four part video changed my view of the world. Why is news like this dismissed so easily? Same reason 9/11 has been dismissed. Supporters of the 9/11 terrorist theory back up their claims by saying: “if the government was really involved, don’t you think people would make a bigger deal out of trying to bust them?” Insinuating that if the media is not making a big deal of something, then it’s not a big deal – not even real, probably.

In the world we live in, the “kings” get together behind closed doors claiming to try to solve poverty, then brutally attack those who claim to represent the poor, by beating them to bloody pulps.  The human rights violations faced by unarmed protesters in these videos, by a faceless, unaccountable army, with masks, gear, sticks, and helmets is sickening.  This could happen to you, too, if you disagree with the democratically elected leaders of the Northern Hemisphere. Democracy is not freedom.