"Humans Aren't The Only Species On Earth,
They Just Act Like It!"


Can you imagine the immense silence if the sky was without birds, the fields
without grasshoppers, the flowers without bees? No great elephant matriarch
to trumpet her voice over the great savanna, or the homely sound of a
neighbor's dog happily barking at play?


Can you imagine how colorless the coral reefs would be without the multitude
of brilliant fish flashing in the clear ocean, or the rainforest with it's
canopy of sound, parrots. monkeys ?
Yet, all this is very possible, what with humankind's seemingly unending need
for more and more of this planets resources! Do we really need all these
'toys'? Increasingly bigger, gas guzzling cars, air conditioning on an 80
degree day, larger houses for today's smaller families, meat on our plates,
when plant sources are known to be a more healthy (and far more humane) way to
feed?


The list goes on, each one contributing to the pollution and poisonous gases
in the air, water, land. How can humankind go on, raping the land, cementing
over more and more, fencing off acres and acres of what used to be the homes
and grazing land of other beings . Either cutting off access from or having
made water, unpotable?
What is the excuse for continuing "research" with no results, except for the
torture and confinement of countless beings, who without voice, cannot resist
or defend what is rightfully theirs, a life free to live as they were meant to

be: to raise and love their families, roam unfettered where nature placed
them.


Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is:
"Because the animals are like us." Ask the experimenters why it is morally OK
to experiment on animals, and the answer is: "Because the animals are not like
us." Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction.
--Professor Charles R.Magel (1920- )


If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are
backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut
up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.
--C. S. Lewis (novelist and essayist)

Clear cutting of our ancient ones, the trees, and done, not due to the fact,
that there aren't trees grown specifically for use as wood products, just to
make a fast buck, a tree 500 year old falls at the hands of man-driven
machines, because in one fell swoop more wood footage is available. The
burning of the rain forests.. History repeats itself..clear cutting did away
with the immense forests of the United States, the island of Greece and the
Middle East are barren due to this practice in the past. Those trees and
plants yield up oxygen to sustain the fragile balance of the organism we call
earth. She needs the rains, trees, flowing streams, rivers and oceans to
exist. If she becomes a victim of humans blinded to the destruction that is
taking place, we all die too. And sadly, we'll take all the other 'peoples' of
the earth with us, be they furred, feathered or scaled.


Those who have forsaken the killing of all; those who are helpmates to all;
those who are a sanctuary to all; those men are in the way of heaven.
Hitopadesa (Hindu)


Let him not destroy, or cause to be destroyed, any life at all, nor sanction
the acts of those who do so. Let him refrain from even hurting any creature,
both those that are strong and those that tremble in the world.
Suita-Nipata (Buddhist)

The song from the Disney movie, Pocahontas is touching in it's lyrics and says
much about living in harmony with all living things. Thus, I chose it for this
page.  


You think I'm an ignorant savage                          
And you've been so many places
I guess it must be so
But still I cannot see
If the savage one is me
Now can there be so much that you don't know?
You don't know ...


You think you own whatever land you land on
The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim
But I know every rock and tree and creature
Has a life, has a spirit, has a name

You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew, you never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned?
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest
Come taste the sunsweet berries of the Earth
Come roll in all the riches all around you
And for once, never wonder what they're worth

The rainstorm and the river are my brothers
The heron and the otter are my friends
And we are all connected to each other
In a circle, in a hoop that never ends

How high will the sycamore grow?
If you cut it down, then you'll never know
And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon

For whether we are white or copper skinned
We need to sing with all the voices of the mountains
We need to paint with all the colors of the wind

You can own the Earth and still
All you'll own is Earth until
You can paint with all the colors of the wind


Footnotes:
Documentation of erosion in the Mediterranean Region extends to the ancient
Greeks. Plato described the erosional destruction of Attica in
Critias: "...The earthly high mountains that in the past carried tall forests
and large pastures have become rocky lands and they look like the
bare bones of a sick body..."(Plato from Yassoglou, 1987,p 89).


We know that the irrigating of Mesopotamia (after clear cutting) resulted in a
salting of the land which, over the course of just a few centuries, reduced
the Fertile Crescent to a near-desert. There is much of the transformation of
the Sahara from savannah to desert.


The demand for firewood in the foothills of the Himalayas has deforested them
so badly that now every rainfall sweeps tons of topsoil into the Ganges River,
to be carried into the Bay of Bengal.

The overgrazing and overplanting of various parts of Africa are creating new deserts.


Using cattle for food uses up more resources to maintain them (not to mention
the hormones they are injected with to encourage growth, thus many human
anomalies are being created due to ingesting these hormones, plus heart
disease and obesity due to a high fat, meat centered diet) than would plant
crops that would feed far more people per acre. If one could visit or view
footage of a slaughter house (now sanitized and packaged under the title packing
houses, I doubt many would dine without considering what is on their plate and
what suffering occurred to get it there!


A veteran USDA meat inspector from Texas describes what he has seen: "Cattle
dragged and choked...Knocking ‘em four, five, ten times. Every now and then
when they’re stunned they come back to life, and they’re up there agonizing.
They’re supposed to be restunned but sometimes they aren’t and they’ll go through the
skinning process alive. I’ve worked in four large [slaughterhouses] and a
bunch of small ones. They’re all the same. If people were to see this, they’d
probably feel really bad about it. But in a packing house everybody gets so
used to it that it doesn’t mean anything."
--"Slaughterhouse", 1997


"Usually, the first thing a country does in the course of economic development
is to introduce a lot of livestock. Our data are showing that this is not a
very smart move and the Chinese are listening. They are realizing that
animal-based agriculture is not the way to go.... We are basically a vegetarian species and should be eating a wide variety of plant food and minimizing our intake of animal foods.... "Once
people start introducing animal products into their diet, that's when the
mischief starts."
--T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., of Cornell University, director of a study of
6,500 Chinese that found a close correlation between meat consumption and the
incidence of heart disease and cancer.


"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars
of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined.
If beef is your idea of `real food for real people,' you'd better live real
close to a real good
hospital."
--Neal D. Barnard, M.D., President, Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine, Washington, D.C.


We are the living graves of murdered beasts, slaughtered to satisfy our
appetites. How can we hope in this world to attain the peace we say we are soj
anxious for?
--George Bernard Shaw (Living Graves, published 1951)

Philosophers have always been the most hated members of society, primarily
because they force us to think about issues that we are uncomfortable with, or
they challenge the accepted paradigms that society and religion set up as
standards for us to follow.


When the last great whale is slaughtered, as it surely will be, the whales'
suffering will be over. This is not the whales' loss, but man's. I am not
concerned about the wiping out of a species - this is man's folly - I have
only one concern, the suffering which we deliberately inflict upon animals
whilst they live.
--Clive Hollands (1929- )

An individual animal doesn't care if its species is facing extinction - it
cares if it is feeling pain.
--Ronnie Lee (1951- )

Compassion

All beings seek for happiness; so let your compassion extend itself to all.
--Mahavamsa (Buddhist)

When a man has pity on all living creatures then only is he noble.
--Buddha (563? - 483? B.C.)

Respect the old and cherish the young. Even insects, grass and trees you must
not hurt.
--Attr. Ko Hung (284-363 AD) (Confucian-Taoist)

The butcher relenteth not at the bleating of the lamb; neither is the heart of
the cruel moved with distress. But the tears of the compassionate are sweeter
than dew-drops, falling from roses on the bosom of spring.
--Akhenaton? (c.BC 1375)

Not to hurt our humble brethren (the animals) is our first duty to them, but
to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission--to be of service to
them whenever they require it... If you have men who will exclude any of God's
creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with
their fellow men.
--Saint Francis of Assisi (mystic and preacher)

Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character; and
it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a
good man.
--Arthur Schopenhauer (philosopher)

World Peace

"As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no
peace, no liberty, no harmony between people.
Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together."
--Isaac Bashevis Singer

"Until he extends the circle of compassion to all living things, man will not
himself find peace."
--Albert Schweitzer

"Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is--whether its
victim is human or animal--we cannot expect things to be much better in this
world... We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any
living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic
delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity."
--Rachel Carson


The human commitment to harmony, justice, peace, and love is ironic as long as
we continue to support the suffering and shame of the slaughterhouse and its
satellite operations.
--Karen Davis, PhD (Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs; 1996)
The relationship between cruelty to animals and cruelty to humans

Out of 135 criminals, including robbers and rapists, 118 admitted that when
they were children they burned, hanged and stabbed domestic animals.
--Ogonyok(1979) (Soviet anti-cruelty magazine)

Cruelty has cursed the human family for countless ages. It is almost
impossible for one to be cruel to animals and kind to humans. If children are
permitted to be cruel to their pets and other animals, they easily learn to
get the same pleasure from the misery of fellow-humans. Such tendencies can easily lead to crime.
--Fred A.McGrand (1895- )

Vivisection (Animal testing)

Vivisection is the blackest of all the black crimes that a man is at present
committing against God and his fair creation. It ill becomes us to invoke in
our daily prayers the blessings of God, the Compassionate, if we in turn will
not practise elementary
compassion towards our fellow creatures.
--Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)

Results from animal tests are not transferable between species, and therefore
cannot guarantee product safety for humans...In reality these tests do not
provide protection for consumers from unsafe products, but rather they are
used to protect corporations from legal liability.
--Herbert Gundersheimer, M.D., member, PCRM (Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine), Baltimore, Maryland,
1988

Doctors who speak out in favour of vivisection do not deserve any recognition
in society, all the more so since their brutality is apparent not only during
such experiments, but also in their practical medical lives. They are mostly
men who stop at nothing in order to satisfy their ruthless and unfeeling lust
for honours and gain.
--Dr. med. Hugo Knecht, Ear, Nose, Throat and Chest Specialist, Linz, October
5, 1909

Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are
called medical research.
--George Bernard Shaw (playwright, Nobel 1925)


I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained
with innocent blood I count as of no consequence.
--Mahatma Gandhi (statesman and philosopher)

During my medical education at the University of Basel I found vivisection
horrible, barbarous, and above all unnecessary.
--Carl G. Jung (psychologist)


Eating animals' flesh / meat-eating

The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion.
--Mahaparinirvana (Buddhist)

It is strange to hear people talk of Humanitarianism, who are members of
societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals, and who claim
to be God-loving men and women, but who, nevertheless, encourage by their
patronage the killing of animals merely to gratify the cravings of appetite.
--Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish (1844-1936)

Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the
same impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though
not our own.
--Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on
Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.

--Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a
justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should
not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also
been done since the earliest of times.

--Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904- )

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian. We feel
better about ourselves and better about the animals, knowing we're not
contributing to their pain.
--Paul (1942- ) and Linda McCartney

Suppose that tomorrow a group of beings from another planet were to land on
Earth, beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel
yourself to be to other animals. Would they have the right to treat you as you
treat the animals you breed, keep and kill for food?
--John Harris (1946- )


"A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if
he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his
appetite. And to act so is immoral."
--Leo Tolstoy

For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who
sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.
--Pythagoras (6th century BC)

But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun
and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the
world to enjoy.
--Plutarch (c.AD 46-c.120)


I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when
men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the
murder of men.
--Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect
any ideal conditions on this earth?
--George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.
I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human
body.
--Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)

We stopped eating meat many years ago. During the course of a Sunday lunch we
happened to look out of the kitchen window at our young lambs playing happily
in the fields. Glancing down at our plates, we suddenly realized that we were
eating the leg of an animal who had until recently been playing in a field
herself. We looked at each other and said, "Wait a minute, we love these
sheep--they're such gentle creatures. So why are we eating them?" It was the
last time we ever did.
--Linda and Paul McCartney (musicians)
My own interjection here. I remember years ago a friend's little girl in the
supermarket asking her mom what was in the packages in the meat department,
and instead of saying bacon, or veal, or chops, the mom told her it was cows,
pigs, fish etc...which upon the little girl threw herself to the floor and
screamed in horror and cried unceasingly. (out of the mouth and actions of
babes!)

I do not like eating meat because I have seen lambs and pigs killed. I saw and
felt their pain. They felt the approaching death. I could not bear it. I cried
like a child. I ran up a hill and could not breathe. I felt that I was
choking. I felt the death of the lamb.
--Vaslav Nijinsky (dancer and choreographer)

Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore.
--Franz Kafka (novelist)

Vegetarianism/Veganism and health

When we kill the animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their
flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for
human beings."
--William C. Roberts, M.D., editor of The American Journal of Cardiology

"All red meat contains saturated fat. There is no such thing as truly lean
meat. Trimming away the edge ring of fat around a steak really does not lower
the fat content significantly. People who have red meat (trimmed or untrimmed)
as a regular feature of their diets suffer in far greater numbers from heart
attacks and strokes."
--Michael Klaper, M.D., Medical Director, EarthSave Foundation, Santa Cruz,
California

"If you step back and look at the data, the optimum amount of red meat you eat
should be zero."
--Walter Willett, M.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital, director of a study
that found a close correlation between red meat consumption and colon cancer.


"The thousands of people who have suffered food poisoning after eating beef
will, no doubt, appreciate that their beef was aesthetically acceptable, even
though it made them ill. `Lovely to look at, dangerous to eat' is not a
standard that is likely to help
beef sales."
--Carol Tucker Foreman, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture during the Carter
administration, commenting on the inadequacy of
the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Streamlined (Meat) Inspection System
(SIS).

In every respect, vegans appear to enjoy equal or better health in comparison
to both vegetarians and non-vegetarians.
--T. Colin Campbell, PhD Professor of Nutrition, Cornell University (letter
dated 3/29/98)

The human body has no more need for cows’ milk than it does for dogs’ milk,
horses’ milk, or giraffes’ milk.
--Michael Klaper, MD, author of Vegan Nutrition: Pure & Simple

Meat-eating and Cruelty to Animals

This [video footage from the movie Babe] is the way Americans want to think of
pigs. Real-life "Babes" see no sun in their limited lives, with no hay to lie
on, no mud to roll in. The sows live in tiny cages, so narrow they can’t even
turn around. They
live over metal grates, and their waste is pushed through slats beneath them
and flushed into huge pits.
--Morley Safer, Pork Power, 60 Minutes, 9/19/97

Again my interjection: I and friends saw Babe as an animal rights movie underlying the light-hearted childrens movie it was presented as.

Can one regard a fellow creature as a property item, an investment, a piece of
meat, an "it," without degenerating into cruelty towards that creature?
--Karen Davis, PhD (Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs; 1996)


There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun
and destroy those who are weaker than he is.
--Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904- )


Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and
death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.
--Froude (1818-1894)


When a man wants to murder a tiger, it's called sport; when the tiger wants to
murder him it's called ferocity.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

my interjection again, and elephants, those intelligent , grand beings, who after years of being chained, forced to entertain humans in humiliating ways (Circque de Solei is one of the few circuces that have no other species forced to entertain..and that type of circus is growing...the day WILL come when we will see no more Ringling Bros. parading of captive animals.) and seperated from their families, beaten, give way to anger and strike back are hunted down, if they have managed to find freedom, cornered and killed.  For what? Not wanting to be a slave?    Years back a grand matriarch was electrocuted to death, because after years of torment at the hand of her keeper...(such as hiding lit cigarettes in treats he would give her) she turned on him and gave in kind.


.. the art of angling, the cruelest, the coldest, and the stupidest of
pretended sports.
--Lord (George) Byron (1788-1824)


The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.
--Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)


Killing animals for sport, for pleasure, for adventures, and for hides and
furs is a phenomenon which is at once disgusting and distressing. There is no
justification in indulging in such acts of brutality.
--His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet (1935-)


Religious quotes


Thou shalt not kill.
--Exodus 20:13 (The Bible)


"He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man..."
--Isaiah 66:3


"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing seed which is upon
the face of the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding
seed: to you it shall be as meat...."
--Genesis 1:29


If you have men who will exclude any of god's creatures from the shelter of
compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their
fellow men.
--St. Francis of Assisi


Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.
Do not trouble their joy, don't harrass them, don't deprive them of their
happiness, don't work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on
superiority to animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness,
defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your
foulness after you - alas, it is true of almost every one of us!
--Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)


Mercy to living beings, self restraint, truth, honesty, chastity and
contentment, right faith and knowledge, and austerity are but the entourage of
morality.
--Sila-prabhrita (Jainism)


All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain nor
treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. This is the
pure unchangeable law.
--Sutrakritanga (Jainism)


To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana.
--Buddha


May all that have life be delivered from suffering.
--Buddha


"All beings tremble before violence. All fear death, all love life. See
yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?"
--Buddha


There is not an animal on the earth, nor a flying creature on two wings, but
they are people like unto you.
--The Koran


All beings hate pains; therefore one should not kill them. This is the
quintessence of wisdom: not to kill anything.
--Sutrakritanga (Jainism)


Even in the worm that crawls in the earth there glows a divine spark. When you
slaughter a creature, you slaughter God.
--Isaac Bashevis Singer (author, Nobel 1978)


Law and Justice
We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty
of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence
somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he
entered it.
--Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)


The important thing is not to stop questioning.
--Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

My interjection: Silence is Consent!


"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its
animals are treated"
--Gandhi, the Moral Basis of Vegetarianism

 
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor
political, nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him
that it is right.
--Martin Luther King Jr.


Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out of her (or his) own
conscience, thus helping to bring the collective conscience to life.
--Norman Cousins


If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they
don't want to hear.
--George Orwell (author)


Suffering
"The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? But rather, Can
they suffer?"
--Jeremy Bentham, 19th century Philosopher, Oxford University


"All the arguments to prove man's superiority can not shatter this hard fact:
In suffering, the animals are our equals."
--Peter singer - Animal Liberation


"There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in
their mental faculties... The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel
pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery."
--Charles Darwin


"When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel
pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy."
--Ingrid Newkirk


To one whose mind is free, there is something even more intolerable in the
suffering of animals than in the sufferings of humans.
For with the latter, it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that
the person who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly
butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any person were to refer
to it, they would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime.
That alone is the justification of all that humans may suffer. It cries
vengeance upon all the human race. If God exists and tolerates it, it cries
vengeance upon God. (my highlighting and my agreement!) this hangs over my desk at work.


--Romain Rolland (from his 1915 Nobel Prizewinning novel, Jean-Christophe)
Humans - who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals - have
had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A
sharp distinction between humans and "animals" is essential if we are to bend
them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them - without any
disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave
so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer.
The behavior of other animals renders suchpretensions specious. They are just
too much like us.
--Dr. Carl Sagan & Dr. Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, 1992


Other/Philosophy


Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution.
Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
--Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931)


The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for
humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men.
--Alice Walker


The thinking [person] must oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply
rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must
avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another...
--Albert Schweitzer


"Look deep into the eyes of any animal, and then for a moment, trade places,
their life becomes as precious as yours and you become as vulnerable as them.
Now smile if you believe all animals deserve our respect and our protection,
for in a way, they are us, and we are them."
--Philip Ochoa, Board Member, ALL FOR ANIMALS


Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens
will die this year in slaughter houses.
--Ingrid Newkirk (PETA)


I am in favour of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a
whole human being.
--Abraham Lincoln


Bless The Beasts and the children
Bless the beasts and the children
For in this world they have no voice
They have no choice

Bless the beasts and the children
For the world can never be
The world they see
Light their way
When the darkness surrounds them
Give them love
Let it shine all around them
Bless the beasts and the children
Give them shelter from a storm
Keep them safe
Keep them warm

the Carpenters