Submitted by Pachamama
In this article we shall connect the environmental discourses, to ‘development’, to energy usage, to cruelty to animals, to calls for innovation, to militarism, to finite petroleum. In fleshing out a path towards a radical veganism our conclusions will include that, as a political-economy philosophy, it holds the best chances for saving Pachamama from the actions of us all, since the Industrial Revolution. It represents the pathway towards the sublime, the beautiful, if we able to change our belief systems and build cultures of wellness. There will be ironies and internal contradictions!
Some of those who like to pretend to talk about progressive agendas take it to themselves to set certain litmus tests as to who is a progressive or not. Who is is communist or not. Who is an anarchist or not. Who is a radical or not. Whose philosophy is absent. These intellectual gadflies have not yet learnt that even some ultra-conservatives can be progressives, are progressives.
It certainly does not help when the small-minded societies from whence we come will never find ways to be early adopters of radical views, at their centres of cultural activity. This will only over-complicate their simplistic notions about the sanctity of ‘man in the street’ political discourses. So if one is a self proclaimed radical but fails to join misguided efforts to impose the unhealthy practice of ‘bulling’ universally, for example, in their minds there is to be some fundamental contradiction.
The internal logic of veganism cannot sit comfortably with dominionism either. For it is dominionism which teaches us that we are more important than all other organisms. That humans have some misbegotten ‘divine right’ to destroy all life support systems for a few dollars or short term survival. That everything has to have a price. That clean air, clean water, organic food, medicine, real education and security are not to be parts of the commons, but commodities to be sold to the highest bidder, the most powerful of us.
We currently slaughter 2,000,000,000 animals every week for ‘food’. Between 200 and 100,000 organisms are wiped out annually. The ability of the oceans to sustain life will be too compromised by 2028. The oceans are dying. Despite the efforts of the Sea Shepherd, the Japanese insist on their right to kill whales ostensibly for ‘research’ but they end up in the human food chain. In the animal kingdom, only the human virus behaves like this. Industrial agriculture produces a major part of the green house gases and we hold steadfastly to our ‘divine right’ to unhealthy edible substances and petroleum.
Two grazing hoof animals require five (5) acres of land, on average. But five acres of land could also sustainably feed 10,000 people with organic foods and with a marginal or positive environmental impact. But the nexus of petroleum and industrial agriculture together are almost entirely responsible for greenhouse gases. So arable land is not generally the issue, we have the non-chemical technologies to make almost any land arable. But we are locked into a mindset that says if you don’t eat meat you must be weak as central to a mindless culture of indifference as to where our food comes from. We remember well how some would eat their meat first to avoid ‘a possible sharing’ with a would be visitor.
In spite of the presence of Seeds of Death, large numbers still eat organic foods in several circumstances. Sometimes they are unable to secure artificial fertilizers, GMO seeds and other big-Argo chemically-based inputs. Of course, these have not attracted the stamp of approval of the FDA and have no other such markings. Vandana Shiva has led an heroic campaign to protect the diversity and culture of organic seeds and their traditional exchange by farmers from those who would wish to patent everything in nature for profit.
The addiction to killing animals for food is leading to the death of us all. Still we have 600,000 vegetarians on earth and many less vegans. Our existence is barely registered even when we have surpassed the much haunted McKibben, 350 parts per million, and are now nearer to 400 parts per million – way pass this significant tipping point, and in quick time.
But Bill McKibben, like most of the leadership of the established environmental movement, in the West, has been compromised by global corporate interests. And there will never be a determination by the environmental aristocrats to challenge vested power at its centre. We could also include the Sierra Club as another institution which provides the illusion of political diversity, for a fictitious left of centre. However, this has been a mere political diversion to protect the centres of corporate control, not aimed at the radical transformation needed, but the reverse.
To be a vegan is the most radical expression of consciousness in our times. It’s not merely limited to what we eat, drink or wear but must have the same transformative influence on all other spheres of existence. It represents a direct confrontation to the corporates which are willing to ceaseless commodity all living organisms. A personal decision to embrace a self-defined veganism says to biotechnology companies that the irrational modification of life is unacceptable. Its a personal statement of resistance, in the defense of Pachamama.
These are the environments in which we hear calls for innovation. But innovation has too often meant more extraction of resources from mother earth. It has been the main driving force pushing us over the cliff. It has brought the extinction of the human as a not so distant possibility as our environment does not guarantee a linear or gradual deterioration in circumstances. This must be dealt with!
That trajectory is guided by aristocrats around the world as they compete with each other for power, influence and resources. It is a vision built on fiat currencies and undergrided by the wide spread use of petroleum products in every facet of human activity. But all the aristocrats around the world still hold a deep fear of the people, not other aristocrats. The latent power of the people is the last best hope in avoiding an extinction event, if time allows!
Veganism must mean the absence of a reliance on fossil fuels. While this is true, another truism is that we cannot continue the way we currently exist, in the absence of petroleum. While wind and solar technologies have the potential to make a larger contribution to energy needs, together they cannot come any way near replacing fossil fuels entirely, given current and escalating human demands and the 300 byproducts produced from oil, gas and coal. We have long past ‘peek oil’. But, the interlocking aristocrats around the world could careless that new discovers, for over forty years, have been far exceeded by annually increasing demands.
So unless we want to innovate ourselves out of existence we may have to consider the suggestion by a famous philosopher about the inability of Pachamama to sustain any ‘development’ beyond that of stone age man. A thinking based on the notion that we will be unable to make the personal transformation required to save our Mother. His is not an unrealistic assessment.
In an age when it is thought that all kind of medical breakthroughs have been made we like to hear about which pharmaceutical could heal which ailments or perceived sicknesses. Nobody hears all the side effects new drugs come with. Sometimes the medicine is worst than the disease. We still don’t known the active ingredient in Bush Tea, no pun intended, or weather it may have some marketability beyond Grand Mama’s command to drink, drink…….. no matter how bitter it was. All bush tea is meant to be bitter medicine! Not umami or sour or sweet or salty ……….. bitter! But vegans eat a wider range of foods that most would imagine.
Moving beyond capitalism. We need not wait until the contradictions reach a certain point before start to think about what comes next. We need not see capitalism as a whole system. We could break it down into its constituent parts. As an entire system the task maybe too daunting.We can look at all the struggles we have and take them on one at a time. We could measure economy in different terms. Not GDP and the likes. We could have other consensus wellness indicators. Or happiness indicators. Or fairness indicators.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.