"It might sound naive to suggest that whether you order a chicken patty or a veggie burger is a profoundly important decision... Deciding what to eat (and what to toss overboard) is the founding act of production and consumption that shapes all others. Choosing leaf or flesh, factory farm or family farm, does not in itself change the world, but teaching ourselves, our children, our local communitities, and our nation to choose conscience over ease can. One of the greatest opportunitities to live our values --- or betray them --- lies in the food we put on our plates. And we will live or betray our values not only as individuals, but as nations [my emphasis].
We have grander legacies than the quest for cheap products. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote passionately about the time when "one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular." Sometimes we simply have to make a decision beause "one's conscience tells one that it is right." These famous words of King's, and the efforts of Chavez's United Farm Workers, are also our legacy. We might want to say that these social-justice movements have nothing to do with the situation of the factory farm. Human oppression is not animal abuse. King and Chavez were moved by a concern for suffering humanity, not suffering chickens or global warming. Fair enough. One can certainly quibble with, or even become enraged by, the comparison implicit in invoking them here, but it is worth nothing that Cesar Chavez and King's wife, Coretta Scott King, were vegans, as is King's son Dexter --- we interpret America's legacy --- too narrowly if we assume in advance that they cannot speak against the oppression of the factory farm."
We have grander legacies than the quest for cheap products. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote passionately about the time when "one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular." Sometimes we simply have to make a decision beause "one's conscience tells one that it is right." These famous words of King's, and the efforts of Chavez's United Farm Workers, are also our legacy. We might want to say that these social-justice movements have nothing to do with the situation of the factory farm. Human oppression is not animal abuse. King and Chavez were moved by a concern for suffering humanity, not suffering chickens or global warming. Fair enough. One can certainly quibble with, or even become enraged by, the comparison implicit in invoking them here, but it is worth nothing that Cesar Chavez and King's wife, Coretta Scott King, were vegans, as is King's son Dexter --- we interpret America's legacy --- too narrowly if we assume in advance that they cannot speak against the oppression of the factory farm."
--- Jonathon Safran Foer, "Eating Animals" p. 258-259.
More about this book and some cool interview links later.
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