speaking of native americans, there is a hopi prophecy that one of the signs of the ending of this era is that the seas will turn black.

i think the gallons of blood concept is very powerful, i will be using it in future writings. Will, do you have a source for this number?

there is a deep sadness, inside of me and many i talk to about the oil spill. i think the hopi are right, this is a sign of the end of our way of life. i have a sad feeling that BP is not doing its best to contain the leak, out of some hope they can keep the oil flowing for their profits. i listened to a podcast of engineers that believe the spill could be stopped by explosives (not nukes). of course that would set back the harvesting of gulf oil for some time.

what of the animals dying and possibly becoming extinct because of this catastrophe? it is incomprehensible, just as the factory farming numbers are. the devastation of life this eruption of oil is causing will not be fully realized until well into the future.

before this happened, there was a dead zone at the end of the mississippi river, where the agricultural run-off entered the gulf, from factory farms and the crops raised to feed livestock. we poison the waters we live from.

stop driving, stop eating meat. we are all complicit in these deaths, and we all need to join in the struggle to educate those around us and unplug the capitalist system that is dragging us all towards our own extinction.

Dr. Tuttle

I agree with the animal issue wholeheartedly. I am vegan, too. I think the daily killing and blood shed is horrific.

However, I didn't think it was necessary to say such negative things about Memorial Day. I take time to say "thanks" on Memorial. NOT because I worship war but because I want to honor those brave men and women who had to fight horrible things. I believe in peace...99% of us do. But peace only comes when the other side wants peace and sadly, in this often unenlightened world...that is often the case. In these cases, we need soldiers to fight...even if we don't want to.

So let's have a day for animals...a day of remembrance of their perilous place in our world but leave Memorial Day alone, OK? Good men and women have done a service and they need to be remembered. Thank you.

Hi Pamela,
Glad to hear of your progress and success, and as far as your question, briefly, it is absolutely not that we see people eating animal foods as "wrong" - it's simply they've been indoctrinated into behavior that is damaging to others (and themselves).

As far as eggs on small farms in our culture, there is still violence, in the sense that the animals are reduced to property and we have stolen their sovereignty, using them for our own ends, and they are not living freely as they did for millions of years in the jungles of Asia. You are not describing a sanctuary, but an animal confinement operation. I don't believe there's any nutrient in eggs we can't get from plant foods, without the toxins, huge cholesterol load, and forcing an unnatural way of life on them. It's hard to see it at first, but if we look a bit more closely and deeply, we see that they are being imprisoned against their will, and being manipulated by us for our own ends. Veganism is based on the understanding that the universe is not set up essentially as a malevolent place where we need to inflict violence on other to better ourselves; in fact, the opposite is true: violence and manipulation harm us probably more than the ones we are harming, though it might be hard to recognize at first.

As far as "3rd world countries" I have little to say about that. I think we should live our own lives as much as possible in alignment with our values, and work to educate people in our culture - this will help the whole world, including those in other cultures, who are being harmed by us without our actually recognizing it.

Great questions, Pamela! I do think we are on the edge of a cultural revolution, as you see -- our survival depends on it. As far as integrating absolute statements, it's very simple - we all agree that violence toward others for our own benefit is contrary to everyone's ultimate interests; we're just born into an extremely primitive and ethically blind culture that doesn't recognize this universal truth, and is in the process of massive destructiveness because of it. I believe it's up to us to bring the healing message of vegan awareness and living to our world.