Why I am not a vegan

[Diana]

At any rate, no sense in discussing further. You are obviously not interested in feeding hungry children in Africa or finding common ground for agreement on this issue.

Monica answered this as it was directed at her. But I feel compelled to say something. The above is a very low blow in addition to being made up and inaccurate. I personally don't know anyone as involved in actually taking action to help the world as Monica is.

Additionally, you keep comparing what you are doing here on a random internet forum to abolitionists and civil rights activists. Really no comparison, they did much much more than debate with people on an internet forum. They showed up marching in places like Washington, made huge sacrifices to make the changes they believed in. They were able to convince others by the power of their love and compassion in action ( not by empty verbage) to make societies needed changes. In fact in the civil war 750,000 people died! Sacrifice! If you are going to invoke those powerful social movements get some oomph behind it and get involved to make the changes needed. March on Washington, call your legislators, get those feedlots and torturous factory farms abolished. That is something I could get behind for sure. But this endless unfruitful dialogue is no where near the sacrifices those people made for their causes.

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This makes no sense at all. On the one hand, Monica does TOO much by expressing her opinions—which by the way, include a LOT of facts—and are perceived as rigid and fundamentalist, but on the other hand, you would respect her if she did MORE (which you don't know that she doesn't). I realize from your posts, that you take issue with the way Monica expresses herself, but perhaps you could forgive her for "rubbing you the wrong way." We are all different. And Monica feels (com)passionately about this.

I would love to get back to the issues at hand in the thread. But it seems to be inevitable that this subject churns up volatility. I was very disappointed that the first thread, In Regards to Eating Meat, was shut down. I will never understand why in a place that flows from the Ra Material and the LOO, where "catalyst" is presumably understood, a thread should be closed because it got too heated. What's wrong with that? If someone steps over the guidelines, then deal with that, don't shut down the venue where catalyst is working its magic for us all.

I never did like that new-agey "all is well" and "anger is bad" and "let's just smile and be happy" BS. Anger just is, when it is. And "all is well" may be true for beings so advanced they actually KNOW this from a much larger perspective. And smiling and putting on a happy face when inside you are stuffing down real feelings is folly in my opinion.

So I say, let the discussion continue, but may we all stay focused on the ideas here, and try to be honest with ourselves and others. May we be respectful, and not jump to conclusions when we are triggered.

Let's discuss a topic of great importance in an effort to gain, and participate in adding to, enlightenment on it. This will include facts and opinions and points of view that will trigger us. So what? Let the triggers fly. We may be making more work for the mods in doing so, but I'm sure they'll forgive us.