The Vegetarian Myth - Lierre Keith

Excerpts from Vegans of Color discussion
http://vegansofcolor.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/vegetarian-myth-lierre-keith/

"her analysis comes from a very anti-civ/primitivist perspective à la Derrick Jensen/John Zerzan; that is, civilization, and not exploitation/oppression per se, is the root of all evil; Since Keith believes that civilization and vegetarianism are “substantially the same,” the book is fanatically anti-vegetarian. For
insta...nce, Keith makes an overzealous and misguided attempt to use the Haber-Bosch process to somehow link vegetarianism to the Holocaust.

"She was a vegan for a long time before her spinal degeneration started. She started blaming it on her diet after she started taking Qi Gong lessons and her instructor told her that her pain was due to not eating meat. Chinese folk medicine thinks meat is very healthy and therapeutic.

As if no meat eaters have spine problems. Spinal degeneration is a problem common to eaters of all types, and is probably more endemic to a “sitting” culture than anything else. That she blames her degeneration on her vegan diet is simply ridiculous."

"How tightly does one have to shut their eyes to the animals’ suffering in slaughterhouses and factory farms in order to say, with a straight face, that their relationship with humans is “reciprocal?”

Seems like the idea of anti-civilization is unrealistic at best and likely a waste of time unless you enjoy putting energy into thinking about things that will not yield any value beyond enjoyable discourse."

"She might have been vegan for 20 years, but she never was animal-rightist for 20 years.

“Saving the earth” so humans can master other species (and plants, if you so insist) is not a solution. Period."

"Sadly, Lierre has been snared, thoroughly conditioned by, and with this book has sold out to the vehemently pro-meat/dairy, anti-veg/vegan weston price foundation (wpf). This is a DC-based lobbying group whose members consist of “farmers”, which of course means they breed, confine and kill animals in order to sell their parts and fluids for profit (not to mention their own culinary enjoyment on top of that).

"They claim to be anti-industrial agriculture, eco-concerned, etc, but then instead of focusing their energies on eliminating animal agriculture (which is responsible for 80% or more of all industrial agriculture in existence due to the fact that the vast majority of all crops (including soy) grown, are funneled through animals for meat/dairy production), they instead attack the vegetarian lifestyle. It is a very selfish, sad agenda, and is yet another strike against the planet."

"For instance, the foundation is prominently listed under “Resources” in the back of the book. In fact, Keith made the Weston A. Price Foundation the first resource listed, which she call, “Hands down, the best nutrition site on the web.”

"The Foundation’s “political advocacy” includes promoting heterosexism and making insidious attack that make connections between homosexuality and the “primacy of traditional animal-source foods to human health,” From the Foundation so-called “best nutrition site on the web”:

“There is no doubt that the origins and ’causes’ of homosexuality are diverse, and that long before the invention of processed food, many cultures accepted same-sex relationships as normal. At the same time, there is also no doubt that a diet of imitation foods can disrupt the hormonal development of the growing child, as demonstrated by the studies of Pottenger and many others, resulting in same-sex orientation that would not otherwise have occurred. Chief culprits are margarine, MSG (which causes injury to the hypothalamus) and soy formula (which floods the infant’s bloodstream with estrogens). We believe that it is important to provide this information to prospective parents who also want to be grandparents.”

Moses Seenarine:
- i'm vegan for 25 years, and in perfect health; keith and derrick jensen are blatant opportunists who decided to embrace the slaughterhouses in order to stock their own mansions with the spoils of civilization; why don't they both set an example in reciprocity and feed themselves to some starving carnivores? its sad that environmentalists are falling for these two self-serving assholes

Alison
wow, a lot of issues there, this will take some time to read and understand
but it always come down to dollars

Salim
Yesterday I read your wall post with comments and the blog responses too - and posted the blog on http://www.facebook.com/vegangreen

Anai
Other points -- Derrick Jenson talks about the environment, yet his books are not even on recycled paper. Jenson is also quoted on the cover of Lierre's book - a book he published - again not on recycled materials.

Glad she sent me a free copy. I wouldn't have paid a penny for this garbage let alone wasted any effort scoping out the library shelves for it.

Andrew
Thanks for posting. I read it yesterday. Can't say I'm at all convinced but it did make me interested in this particular line of thinking.

Val
Thank you for sharing this, Moses.

Stacey
She is a relentless trollop, insistent on anti-veganism. Why do some people feel the need, feel compelled, to campaign against the AR or vegan movements? Oh, of course, money...It's so much more profitable involving oneself in and enabling the torture and murder of sentient beings, excusing specieism as our "right" and making ridiculous arguments trying to establish some asinine anti-environmental element to veg*sm. Oh, and what a novelty being a "reformed" vegan ~ no doubt people can now champion their "ethical" reasons for NOT embracing veganism. This is absolutely ludicrous. And angering...

Radha
Moses,look I'm not into converting who should eat meat or not.it's just that these days they're now feeding chickens with chickens,cow with cow,horse with horse meat etc.These species are vegetarians.There's got to be a boomerang effect when we imbibe such as mad cow etc. The woman is an IDIOT!