|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
STORMING THE WALLS OF VEGETABLE CRUELTY
Face it. Eating lots of meat IS bad for you, and Americans probably should eat less of it, so why do vegetarians come off like total idiots when they tell you?
|
|
|
"Eating a salad kills dozens of living organisms eating a hamburger, kills just a small portion of one."
---Kent Mahle, founder, PWEETA (1935-1983) |
|
|
Armed with protest signs like, "Axe your dog and eat it," and "Meat is Love!" we set up a table on the Venice, California boardwalk to redress the balance of stupidity by promoting the voracious consumption of flesh.
We handed out fliers and talked to people one on one about how they felt about meat. Since 90% of Americans eat red meat, most people seemed pleasantly surprised that we were "for meat". Many of the vegetarians we talked to weren't against other people eating meat. In an informal poll of the crowd we found a number of people who would try human meat if it were legal.
Some people did not like our being there. But by being unrestrained by facts and logic we we're able to bully our way through any discussion until they walked away in disgust.
At one point our fervor was so heated that the bike police asked us to stop screaming our diatribe through a megaphone and eventually asked us to pack up and leave.
Now, to be extra sure our message was heard by the people who matter most, we purposely set up our rally about 50 feet away from Jingles, a militant vegan who has a table condemning the meat-eating public. Jingles often wears a sign around his neck which says, "end the violence". He also likes to don a black ski mask when he's feeling extra-militant.
As the police were making us move, Jingles approached us and asked if we were seriously a pro-meat organization. We reassured him that we really were a group of citizens concerned about the public's negative images of meat. Reassured, he issued a challenge. Come down to his table and engage in debate on meat.
So girding our loins of ham and hoisting our battle flag of beef tongue on a stick we went to his table to take him on. A crowd, sensing a battle royale was about to commence, gathered around us.
He stood on a chair and asked, "Do you support the meat industry?"
"Yes."
"Then you're criminals." I guess we were evil vivisectors bent on the destruction of all animals.
In his home court, he would not listen to our meaty reason. To get his attention, we leaned in with our juicy meat products to torment him. I sort of brushed him with a nasty beef tongue. Disgusted (it was pretty gross looking after a few hours in the sun) he recoiled and asked me,
"Have you heard of karma?"
"So?"
"So thanks to your karma, you're going to have your tongue ripped out of your mouth in your next life."
While it's not surprising that a complete idiot would confuse karma with irony or poetic justice, it is surprising he would resort to cursing me in my next life instead of just this one.
He then accused us of being on the dole of the "meat interests" so we accused him of being a puppet for organic farmers and the humane society. Then he threatened to bring a bunch of other vegetarians down to the boardwalk the next weekend and, "take a yard out of our ass." When we asked him how he could say such a thing while wearing a sign around his neck which says, "end the violence," he backed off and said, "We're vegetarians. We never killed anyone."
 Eventually he refused to speak with us so we started to walk away and the crowed dispersed disappointed at the lack of blood.
I happened to be the straggler of the group and Jingles sensing that I was alone pounced. Snarling as spittle dropped from his lip, he told me to go fuck myself, to stay off of "his" boardwalk, gave me the finger, and said to never come back.
Unfortunately for us, our video camera battery died earlier and we only got a tiny precious moment of Jingles on tape.
If we we're really serious and we did show up with our meaty denizens the following week, would there really be vegetarians there to fight us? And could you take a bunch of jaundiced tofu eaters down easier in hand-to-hand combat?
We're big pussies and never found out.
MJ LOHEED recently had his jaw wired shut. |
|
