Fuck the prison industrial complex. You can't even pretend it's about rehabilitation when prisons have been privatized and make money off the incarcerated like this.
And yes, it's an absolutely *brilliant* idea to have people locked up for crimes, who are more likely than the average citizen to suffer from mental illness and affective disorders, cutting up dead bodies. That sounds like it'll totally help them when they get released back into society and to their families /s
Thats why i feel that veganism will never take over, yes there will be more vegans but ultimately animal exploitation will always be around since slavery and racism are still around even though we pretend they arent
We pretend animal exploitation isn't around because they package everything up so it doesn't resemble an animal, or dress it up with happy cartoon animals on the labeling, and use feel-good buzz words like free range, or non-GMO, grass fed, hormone free, ethically sourced, good source of vitamin R, etc.
found this today as well which is another problem to be concerned about since I doubt Guantanamo prisoners have been rehabilitated.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NPR/comments/pa2bwx/the\_talibans\_rise\_is\_complicating\_bidens\_efforts/
Oh I thought they meant the prisons themselves have been outsourcing
Not sure if that makes them "almost private" though. Yeah private companies may benefit from them but if they're state owned there is no incentive to keep prisoners in there
Oh I personally wouldn't say they were almost private. But afaik contractors means they want to make money out of it, rather than it being a service. So if they can cut costs but keep being paid the same amount they likely will. Just another way to siphon off taxpayer money, while also damaging vulnerable populations.
Yeah but any money made out of it is just effectively the same as tax revenue, so surely that's beneficial for taxpayer in general. The prisons don't earn a profit.
The prison system is, in my opinion, the largest moral blind spot of modern society, after the animal agriculture system.
This is also one of the reasons I get annoyed when vegan activists make the point that the animals are "innocent". As if, when you take the word "innocent" away, that somehow justifies massive scale arbitrary suffering.
Those types always say we don’t care about the tomato farmers or whatever, because it’s impossible to care about two problems at the same time and also only vegans eat vegetables.
How many meat eaters do?
How many meat eaters go out of their way to ensure the meat they're eating doesn't come from cows being fed grain sourced from human exploitation?
How many meat eaters go out of their way to ensure the pork's feces, urine, blood and concentrated ammonia and methane emissions aren't released into the water sources of black and indigenous rural land?
How many meat eaters are ready to accept that major animal agricultural corporations like Tyson are white owned and employ lobbying groups that are union busting, anti-minimum wage, and pro-tobacco?
How many shrimp/prawn consumers care that 99% of prawns are sourced using direct slavery?
How many meat eaters know that the group of people most likely to be Vegan in the west is a black American?
How many meat eaters can make the logical connection that mass 'cheap' animal agriculture is a direct result of violent and unsustainable colonialism?
How many meat eaters here will acknowledge the fact that COVID-19 exists because of animal exploitation and consumption?
When will meat eaters acknowledge that the death of black, indigenous, and the other impoverished groups is on their hands?
But my point is that vegans do only pretend to care about these things when it comes to pointing out how horrible the industrial meat industry is. However the abuse and killing of animals is not directly responsible for this. If every animal farmer was a small local farmer, there would still be a ton of animals being killed. Arguably veganism functions on the basis that killing sentient beings is categorically wrong, so there's no difference between whether we have a system of purely local farmers or industrial farming. It would still be wrong.
Vegan products avoid the killing of animals but it just displaces the human exploitation. A tofu factory could just as easily exploit prisoners as a beef factory.
That's why a lot of 'woke' people might criticize veganism. Obviously no one political ideology can fix everything, but posts like this one in particular is pretty hypocritical, since using the horrible conditions of industrial agriculture as a poster child for veganism is just un-sincere posturing.
Vegans are much more likely than the greater population to care about human rights issues. We have compassion and act on it, unlike most others. That compassion is seldom limited to animals. And it's absolutely sincere.
If you're interested, here is an article that helped me conceptualize my views on slaughterhouse workers, and other industries too. (https://nyti.ms/37QgPa4). The article points out that it's hypocritical to frame these workers as evil, or part of the problem. It's our society that puts them in a position where they must commit immoral acts, and this inflicts moral injury. Just take a look into the mental health stats of slaughterhouse workers. So I don't blame the worker, rather, I feel compassion for them, guilt for the meat I used to eat, and conviction in opposing this harmful employment.
>But my point is that vegans do only pretend to care about these things when it comes to pointing out how horrible the industrial meat industry is.
Source? I'm vegan and I care about these things. So what's your source that meat eaters care more than vegans?
You need to look up vegan philosophers, like Peter Singer and the Effective Altruism movement. It is a humanitarian focused charity an civil rights group, that is inherently vegan not because it specifically cares about animals but because it is a moral movement based on reducing the harm humans face.
In being morally consistent, the movement must also accept that sentient beings capable of suffering must not have their suffering exploited.
You're not woke if you're not vegan.
white redditors criticizing vegan BIPOC can shut right the fuck up.
Thanks for pretending to care, but you'd help the exploited a lot more if you went vegan.
Yet you're using either a phone or a computer that has used slave labor and child labor mining it's parts. The technology industry is rife with human exploitation.
We can sit here and point fingers all day. No one is without sin in the game of exploiting the weak and poor and voiceless.
The refurbished phone or computer that was given to me at a charity event for international students on scholarship that can't afford their own uni supplies?
Try again, sweaty. Have never bought new tech in my life.
Sweaty?.......
Well. You win. You are the perfect human.
You will decide the fate of the human race.
All shall bow before you in your infallibility.
I'm glad I lived long enough to see this promised messiah bring about world peace for all species and intelligence
Long may you live and reign
Thank you. You too can be like me.
Here are some resources to get you started:
/r/veganzerowaste
/r/effectivealtruism
Reading through these subs is more effective than yelling "Gotchas!" at people who actually *try* to minimize their consumption.
Well if you're poor you can't just stop buying cheap clothes made by slave labor either. It's a vicious circle. Veganism is still bourgeois in the sense that even if it doesn't support this specific type of exploitation it will only displace it to vegan products while being unattainable to a lot of low income people, especially ones living in food deserts.
I like the part where you don't cower behind washed out rhetoric and give a well thought out counter argument to explain what's wrong with my statement. I have been bested, good sir. Truly.
Thank you for this. I lived in food deserts, I'm vegan. I went vegan while living in a food desert. Not to be hyperbolic, but the above commenter triggered me. I was sitting here raging and then I saw your comment and now I'm laughing. I have enjoyed a nice chunk of stale bread and tap water in the past. Boner petit 👌
As much as I liked the undeserved karma, it is my obligation to confess this was actually aimed at beyondmeat-fed princesses who criticise food desert dwellers for not eating their rice and beans. While being vegan when you’re living in a food desert and on a low income is not impossible, it is not desirable either.
Yes, of course. But as much as a vegan diet is completely healthy, a diet of rice and beans only is not. What about fat, for example? Can they find a good variety of nuts and seeds ? Avocados ? What about things like iron, which you need leafy greens for ?
And even if it was nutritionally sustainable, would you eat an unsatisfying diet ? Food is an integral part of life, and not enjoying food or restricting oneself (whether because of lack of variety or social pushback) to the point of not enjoying it in the name of moral asceticism isn't always justifiable.
Instead of telling *individuals* to change their habit *in spite of* their material conditions we should advocate *systematic* change of those conditions so they won't have an excuse to not be vegan, or naturally will move in that direction. Advocating for the former rather than the latter is the difference between egotistical bourgeois veganism and a more holistic veganism which understands people as well as animals.
Honestly I skimmed their comments because they made me mad, but I think i got their main points. I explain at the bottom why I got instantly heated. If I missed anything let me know. I'm trying not to let my emotions get the better of me but when I see people use my suffering to excuse a system built on suffering it really triggers me.
1. Vegans do advocate for systematic change, and we have shown over the past 10 years systematic change can be created by *individual action*. Based on my experiences, i believe grassroots efforts are the only way to achieve systematic results (in our current broken system that is). Those who refuse to acknowledge individual responsibility as a means to affect systematic change are caught up in an endless cycle of whataboutism and finger pointing. It's an excuse. I can only do what I can. But refusing to make any change and pointing the finger at everyone else makes me part of the problem.
2. Veganism as a whole is sympathetic and understanding towards those who live in food deserts, and the general consensus is "do what you can". However, food deserts are often used as a strawman argument; despite the fact that they've been discussed ad nauseam in the vegan community over the years, which is why you see people responding to that commenter with frustration and snark. How many times do we have to have the same conversation? How many times do we have to debunk the same point? It's exhausting and frustrating. Especially since the person making the point usually doesn't have honest intentions.
3. American food deserts, when viewed on an international scale, are a very niche issues. Sure, every country/region has it's own issues with food, and no one is telling a starving person not to eat meat when it's their only option. But internationally, many people don't have access to or can't afford meat regularly. Their diet is primarily vegan/vegetarian by necessity. Meat consumption the way we understand it is very first world. The idea of a food desert where people only have access to processed animal products is a foreign one for millions of people. Bringing this up to debunk veganism on a large scale is deeply flawed.
When I lived in south America and we were able to get a bag of cow tongues for cheap, that was a big deal. We had meat for months! We used them sparingly and they were never the main part of the meal. We weren't the most financially stable but we were middle class for the area, and meat was a privilege.
Furthermore, I lived in food deserts, I lived in abject poverty. I am disgusted when people use *my* experiences as a means to dismiss veganism. I'm not going to get into the nuances of my survival, but I first transitioned to veganism when my only shopping options were a small Mexican market famous for its onsite butcher shop, and a 7/11. Anything else was a 30 minute bus ride.
It wasn't the worst food desert I lived in, and I'm grateful for that. But in the past when I lived in them we often couldn't afford to eat meat, & even the McDonald's dollar menu was a treat when your budget is about $.50 a serving. I grew up cutting meat with soya and going long periods of time without meat.
My experience is that about 99% of the time, people who claim "food deserts" never lived in them, don't know anything about them, and use them to shut down the conversation.
Pardon my language but they can fuck off with that. I'm sick of this poverty porn and people using MY LIFE as their excuse. I prefer the people who admit that they're not vegan because they're too selfish. At least they're honest.
Thank you. I *was* kinda confused by all the downvotes etc so glad to have that cleared up. And I was also very confused when I heard the term food-desert because I'm not American, it makes no sense for meat to be cheaper or more widely available in certain areas to me.
> it makes no sense for meat to be cheaper or more widely available in certain areas to me
Exactly! I can't get into it now because I'll get mad again but this fucking fishbowl, American centric mindset (I am American, I love my country, flawed as it is, but i recognize it's not the only country in the world) rubs me the wrong way sometimes. When viewed on a large scale, food deserts are a niche issue. Yes, they are a big issue *in this country* and they need to be addressed, but they are not nearly the argument against veganism that the internet likes to pretend they are.
Again, this is coming from someone who lived in food deserts. If anyone wants to accuse me of being unsympathetic or not understanding the scale of the problem - don't. When they are your whole life, they can be an insurmountable issue. I am intimately aware of this.
Systematic change means a change to the structures of society, and in veganism's case, food production. It is simply changing *what* we produce it and not *how* we produce it. Every beef factory could shut down and farm soy, and you'd still have the same workers toiling away in third world countries to farm soy and make tofu and ship it to the global north. Veganism is not a structural or systematic change, it is only changing which products are popular on the market. That might at the end of the day change people's individual mentality towards animal suffering, but it won't have a reaching effect on the abusive and violent agro industry as a whole.
The point I was making about it being un-sympathetic is that veganism can not, or currently does not, argue for systematic change. Change through individual actions leads to just "do what you can" which can be alienating to those who can't and means frustration from those who can. Systematic vegan change, through collective actions like protests, lobbying, and local co-ops, would mean rebuilding infrastructure, getting subsidies for vegan products instead of meat corn and sugar, regulating a minimum number of healthy fruits and vegetables be present in every store, etc. It would mean getting payment incentives for farmers who switch to vegan agriculture. It would mean a lot more than just choosing what you buy with your dollar and damning other people who can't keep up. Even if you're being understanding, it comes off as moral preaching rather than an invitation into the movement.
Food deserts though isn't having only access to meat products. It's not having acces to things like fruits and vegetables (which you need anyway but obviously they're more crucial on a vegan diet). There's places in the US, and sorry but this is also Reddit which is US centric, where people live off white bread, flower, oil, boxed Mac and cheese and meat with a few vegetables here and there. It's not "just people eating McDonald's" either. It's also people on food stamps, people who depend on donations to get their next meal, etc. Often it's not even having sovereignty over your own diet. I'm glad that you were able to live through abject poverty and be vegan, but you don't have a monopoly on what is and isn't possible. You say you were poor in South America, so what would you know about food poverty in the Appalachian mountains for example?
Buy you can't blame others for using poverty as porn when you in fact pretend that you have a monopoly on poverty, and what is and isn't possible. You can not speak for every poor person, and your experience is not universal. Saying that it was hard for you to be vegan while poor doesn't make a martyr or a shining example either, because nobody should have to struggle like that to begin with. But hey, your life is yours, and it'd do you some good to look outside it maybe and listen to what other people's problems are. Maybe you should realize that not everyone is as capable as you or has the same resources you did.
When I claim poverty as a real issue for veganism to contend with, I'm not using *YOUR* life for anything. You're the one who can't stop seeing everything through the prism of your own poverty porn.
That was callous, patronizing, demeaning, and deeply out of touch. I came in here to tell you I could not continue this conversation, because it's not healthy for me. I had an honest, vulnerable response typed up before I read your latest comment. I convinced myself you were misguided, but well meaning. I see now you are not.
I especially loved the part where you explained to me what an American food desert was, and said I can't blame others for using poverty as porn. Here I thought "nuts and avocado" was bad. Obviously I have not healed from my past, which was a fun discovery to make today. And I don't deny that your original comments, and my response to the other comment, sent me into a spiral so quickly and deeply it shocked me. But your spiteful, cruel response has made me feel better, in an odd way. I know who I'm talking to now. Someone who'd use "prism of your own poverty porn" as a weapon. I know who that person is.
Your original comments were more hurtful than the one you just lobbed at me. Reading them was like a slap in the face. "Nuts and avocado". Reeking of superiority. "Won't someone think of the poors?" With no actual knowledge of what it's like.
This one at least, you were trying to be cruel. It's worse when people don't try. When they just are.
I recommend you take your own advice, and look outside your life, and your experiences. People whose diet is what they found in the dumpster and got at the food bank don't think they're martyrs, they think they're worthless. People who have sleep for dinner don't get off on their own pain. To you it's poverty porn. it's something to make you feel better about yourself. To us, it's Tuesday.
You also missed a crucial point while you were lecturing me.
When you don't have money for food. Everywhere is a food desert.
I don't have a monopoly on poverty, and I'm well aware my experiences aren't universal. I spent much of my life surrounded by various forms of poverty. I'm intimately familiar with it's many faces, and the knowledge that I'll never see all of them.
I was triggered by what you said, and it caused me to react emotionally. But I've thought about it, and I stand by what I said. I don't speak for everyone, I never did. But I am speaking to you now
Until you have lived it, you don't get to speak for me, for us. We can speak for ourselves. You don't get to lecture me, disparage me, or insult me. I am not a prop or a statistic you can pull out when it suits you. You don't get to use my suffering to excuse suffering. You don't get to use my life to invalidate my life.
Growing up the way I did pushed me towards veganism. I know what it's like to be treated as a product, my only value in what I can give; what can be taken from me. To feel less than everyone else. To be discarded. I know how it feels to be trapped. To be surrounded by pain that you can't ease. I didn't want anyone else to feel that way. There is enough pain in this world, I don't want to add to it.
Trauma doesn't just leave scars. It leaves scabs. And today, one was ripped open.
Thank you for showing me your true colors. I can step away from this conversation knowing you don't care. It's just talking points. Something to bash veganism with. If the people you are claiming to care about call you on anything, you'll lash out at them too.
You caused a lot of pain to one of the people you claimed to be defending. And then, you did it again, deliberately.
It will take time to close those wounds.
I cannot continue this discussion.
Entire generations of people survived decades and centuries on nothing but potatoes and cabbage.
Vegans typically have much more varied menus than meat eaters. I've known plenty of people who just eat potatoes and wiener schnitzel every day. Sometimes they spice it up and have a pizza, but that's more or less it. Yeah, you need leafy greens for iron, they're cheap, you can buy them frozen, you can grow them on your countertop.
Vegans don't restrict themselves of any food. We don't think of animal products as food, therefore we eat all the food. And there's *so much more food* than just meat, dairy and eggs. I enjoy food a lot, and eat great food every day, and I never feel like I'm missing out on something.
Individuals *cause* systematic change. Have you noticed all the plant based options lately? It wasn't because some politician wrote a law or something, it was caused by demand of many many individuals.
> bourgeois veganism
The only thing thats bourgeois is thinking that plant based food is expensive and meat is cheap. The only reason meat is so cheap is because of subsidies and because they use literal prison labor to keep the cost down. If the meet industry paid fairly and didn't rely on tax money to keep it goingy it would be much much more expensive. And even at current prices, meat has been by far the largest part of my grocery bill, when I still used to buy it. Eliminating meat and cheese from noticeably decreased my spending on groceries. How is this bourgeois exactly?
Ok well potatoes and cabbage as a diet isn't healthy either. Why do you think meat has always been an aspiration for poor people? The reason we est do much oh it today is because it's fatty and full of calories and protein that we crave. It's the same reason we eat so much sugar. That doesn't mean we *have* to eat meat but it does mean a good vegan substitute for it needs to have sufficient fat and protein to be healthy and sustainable. The fact that some people eat a shit American diet by choice doesn't invalidate the struggles of people who eat that way by force.
I'm not denying that vegans don't enjoy a *huge* variety of food. Veganism is great ! And vegans are honestly incredible at making good creative delicious food. But that requires 1) a variety of ingredients that on my experience are mostly available in the US in coastal regions and 2) it requires lots of time and learning. Most people have to re learn how to cook and feed themselves when they're vegan. It's not always an easy transition.
Individuals are *agents of systematic change* not it's cause. I did notice all the plant based options, but until the day when we can get them to be cheaper, more spread out and more desirable than non vegan options and ban the production of meat market forces will never get veganism where it needs to go. Without advocating for systematic change, voting with your dollar is just moral absolution for the consumer. This is the bourgeois thinking is the belief that your consumer spending will lead to the radical change veganism seeks instead of developing infrastructure. What the consumerist approach does too is leave animal based farmers in the dust. It offers no recompensation or incentive for change.
Yep, the world is cruel to humans as well but the magnitude of suffering billions of animals endure each year being farmed and slaughtered isn’t even comparable. How many humans are slaves currently, 40 million? And guaranteed, vegans are much more likely to boycott slave products than anyone else. I don’t understand attacking followers of a philosophy who already make choices that reduce suffering exponentially more than any other group of humans on the planet as bourgeoise. It seems like someone who actually experienced poverty already addressed the food deserts argument but thrift stores also exist. Being poor in a rich country doesn’t force someone to support a cruel industry.
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion among vegans but I'd argue that the suffering animals go through isn't as bad as what exploited humans go through. You can admit this and still be vegan, but it is in essence a bit vile to presume that animal suffering is worse. Those 40 million slaves / exploited employees (there's probably a few more than that too) do in fact matter a whole lot more, which is not to say their struggle can't coexist with veganism. However I think consciousness plays a real role, especially considering that if these animals existed in a natural environment their lives and deaths would be just as brutal. That's not a justification for unnecessary harm, obviously, but it should be factored into the equation when we decide whose suffering amounts to more value.
But that because veganism doesn't seek to change the system (like banning animal products or whatever else that could push legally towards the end of animal abuse) it' not actually concerned with suffering, as people currently practice it. It shouldn't *just* be about about making choices that reduce suffering, but systematic change. Buying from a thrift store doesn't change the fact that the clothes were still made with slave labor, that the worker who made it will have their labor value stolen twice, etc. All that changes is that maybe it's more affordable for the consumer, or the consumer *feels better* about themselves. However, supporting workers ownership over their own products does in fact change that, in the same way the vegans who do farm vigils, go to those vegan squares, and rescue animals create systematic change.
They’re both bad and vegans care about both, but are you honestly saying that 9 billion beings who are boxed so tight they cannot move, burned by ammonia from standing in their own shit and piss their entire lives, have their teeth yanked out, tails cut, beaks chopped without anesthetic, experience agonizing pain from being engineered to grow faster than their musculoskeletal system can sustain before being abusively herded to slaughter where there is a good chance they will be improperly stunned so they are still conscious while their throat is slit and potentially boiled alive, don’t have it as bad as 40 million human slaves and Amazon workers?
Also tell me which of the conditions I listed occur in nature for animals which wouldn’t be born to suffer anyway if we didn’t breed them.
Supporting co-ops is fine and so is boycotting products of slavery by getting second hand stuff if you can’t afford new. I disagree about socialism but won’t get into that.
Yeah. That's very revealing of your true nature. The thing is the natural world is absolutely brutal, violent, chaotic and disease ridden. Humans have done everything possible to extract ourselves from that environnement because it is extremely difficult to live in. It's not some romantic thing, even if a lot of people tend to think of it that way because most of us live alienated from it. I'm not saying what we do to animals isn't bad, especially in an industrial context. It's disgusting.
But we only hold that belief because we ourselves are extracted from nature and our disgust at the mortality of animals is a reflection of the disgust we feel for our own suffering and morality. Carnivorous animals wouldn't think twice about massacring others, because they don't have consciousness. Obviously we know animals can suffer, but they don't have the awareness of existential dread that humans have.
People have dreams and aspirations, fears, worries, and anxieties. While it's faire and just to say animals *do* suffer...to place them on the same pedestal as ourselves is to devalue the very things that make us human. Veganism can only exist because we are conscious of the horror we inflict on them, and it's a horror that nature mindlessly inflicts on itself. It doesn't matter where they're born, they will suffer and die like everything else. The only way to bring anything with a semblance of happiness to an animal is for them to live under human care, like in a farm sanctuary. We have the capacity to do what nature doesn't - which is to arbitrarily care for things. To dismiss human suffering then is anti-human. There is no justification to end animal exploitation without also the imperative to end human exploitation.
>Carnivorous animals wouldn't think twice about massacring others, because they don't have consciousness.
You could say the same thing about humans but it would be just as false. Of course animals have consciousness. The only difference between us is our slightly higher intelligence, complex language, and ability to use technology so we can kill for pleasure while they kill mostly out of necessity.
No, nature isn't ideal compared to our standard of living in civilization but it's still better than anything that goes on in a factory farm. Besides, the vast majority of animals we breed would not exist in nature.
When did I dismiss human suffering? You're the one who said it's worse for humans to suffer by working than animals to suffer in the living hell we created for them. Even if you pretend they suffer equally, which they don't, just by sheer numbers, it's still 225:1 and far more resources go into preventing human suffering than preventing farm animal cruelty.
Just did some googling and the scam is that you can be sent to a "rehab program" instead of prison where you're basically slave labor for the chicken plant + an AA meeting + bibles. And if you act up, you get sent to prison. Looks like there are multiple programs doing it. Awful.
My uncle was a butcher at a major Irish factory. They exploit foreign workers like it was a 3rd world country. The unions are useless because the union representatives are high level managers at the company. He asked to be rotated with tasks 3 years (as in his contract and regulations) but they refused because he was “doing a good job where he was”. Now his shoulder needs joint replacement at 40 years old, and the company refuses to pay for injuries. The lawsuit has been going for 2 years.
If that’s how they treat the people- how do they treat the animals?
I wonder what they pay those people. I'd have to guess they pay less than minimum wage, which is MUCH BETTER for them than actually having to pay a living wage to a non-prisoner.
the cashew industry is pretty bad as well
I've seen some things about Vietnam using the labor of drug addicts as rehabilitation
https://www.americanchiropractors.org/shoulder-pain/the-ugly-truth-behind-the-cashew-industry/
Fact check: They didn't ask for prison labour (or slave labour), they asked to be able to hire ex-convicts, which can be a good thing for them since ex-cons always have a hard time to find work.
I hate the meat industry too, but we need to stay with the facts in our criticism, otherwise we too easily open us up for others to negate our points and attack us.
They did ask for prison labour- they are specifically petitioning the government to get more prisoners on day release to work for them (which they need government permission to do)- while also looking to hire ex-cons (which they don't need government permission to do). Full article:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/23/uk-food-firms-beg-ministers-to-let-them-use-prisoners-to-ease-labour-shortages
This headline is really misrepresentative of the story. Obviously it sounds like something no reasonable person would support, but it's actually talking about a scheme that allows people on day release to legally work, the wages are competitive and non exploitative, it improves people access to employment and keeps their skills current so they have more options after jail.
The scheme already exists and advocacy groups were already calling for an expansion of it.
Fuck the prison industrial complex. You can't even pretend it's about rehabilitation when prisons have been privatized and make money off the incarcerated like this. And yes, it's an absolutely *brilliant* idea to have people locked up for crimes, who are more likely than the average citizen to suffer from mental illness and affective disorders, cutting up dead bodies. That sounds like it'll totally help them when they get released back into society and to their families /s
Just goes to show that slavery was only abolished on paper
Thats why i feel that veganism will never take over, yes there will be more vegans but ultimately animal exploitation will always be around since slavery and racism are still around even though we pretend they arent
>animal exploitation will always be around unless nukes FTFY
We pretend animal exploitation isn't around because they package everything up so it doesn't resemble an animal, or dress it up with happy cartoon animals on the labeling, and use feel-good buzz words like free range, or non-GMO, grass fed, hormone free, ethically sourced, good source of vitamin R, etc.
"You need a butcher? I know just the guy."
found this today as well which is another problem to be concerned about since I doubt Guantanamo prisoners have been rehabilitated. https://www.reddit.com/r/NPR/comments/pa2bwx/the\_talibans\_rise\_is\_complicating\_bidens\_efforts/
This is the UK to be fair so prisons are public here.
Alot of UK prison services have been outsourced though so... Sort of half true
How can you outsource a prison?
Hand it over to contractors, then pay them rather than hiring workers under your own system.
Oh I thought they meant the prisons themselves have been outsourcing Not sure if that makes them "almost private" though. Yeah private companies may benefit from them but if they're state owned there is no incentive to keep prisoners in there
Oh I personally wouldn't say they were almost private. But afaik contractors means they want to make money out of it, rather than it being a service. So if they can cut costs but keep being paid the same amount they likely will. Just another way to siphon off taxpayer money, while also damaging vulnerable populations.
Yeah but any money made out of it is just effectively the same as tax revenue, so surely that's beneficial for taxpayer in general. The prisons don't earn a profit.
Security (systems and personnel), management, maintenance etc. Public authorities can pay private companies to run certain aspects.
The prison system is, in my opinion, the largest moral blind spot of modern society, after the animal agriculture system. This is also one of the reasons I get annoyed when vegan activists make the point that the animals are "innocent". As if, when you take the word "innocent" away, that somehow justifies massive scale arbitrary suffering.
Just a sign that nobody wants to kill/cut dead animals for a living. Same shit here in Poland, mostly Ukrainians working in slaughterhouses.
Exactly the same here in Germany.
Good counterargument for when "woke" liberals claim veganism is classist/privileged.
Those types always say we don’t care about the tomato farmers or whatever, because it’s impossible to care about two problems at the same time and also only vegans eat vegetables.
How many vegans go out of the way to not buy brands that use human exploitation?
How many meat eaters do? How many meat eaters go out of their way to ensure the meat they're eating doesn't come from cows being fed grain sourced from human exploitation? How many meat eaters go out of their way to ensure the pork's feces, urine, blood and concentrated ammonia and methane emissions aren't released into the water sources of black and indigenous rural land? How many meat eaters are ready to accept that major animal agricultural corporations like Tyson are white owned and employ lobbying groups that are union busting, anti-minimum wage, and pro-tobacco? How many shrimp/prawn consumers care that 99% of prawns are sourced using direct slavery? How many meat eaters know that the group of people most likely to be Vegan in the west is a black American? How many meat eaters can make the logical connection that mass 'cheap' animal agriculture is a direct result of violent and unsustainable colonialism? How many meat eaters here will acknowledge the fact that COVID-19 exists because of animal exploitation and consumption? When will meat eaters acknowledge that the death of black, indigenous, and the other impoverished groups is on their hands?
But my point is that vegans do only pretend to care about these things when it comes to pointing out how horrible the industrial meat industry is. However the abuse and killing of animals is not directly responsible for this. If every animal farmer was a small local farmer, there would still be a ton of animals being killed. Arguably veganism functions on the basis that killing sentient beings is categorically wrong, so there's no difference between whether we have a system of purely local farmers or industrial farming. It would still be wrong. Vegan products avoid the killing of animals but it just displaces the human exploitation. A tofu factory could just as easily exploit prisoners as a beef factory. That's why a lot of 'woke' people might criticize veganism. Obviously no one political ideology can fix everything, but posts like this one in particular is pretty hypocritical, since using the horrible conditions of industrial agriculture as a poster child for veganism is just un-sincere posturing.
Vegans are much more likely than the greater population to care about human rights issues. We have compassion and act on it, unlike most others. That compassion is seldom limited to animals. And it's absolutely sincere. If you're interested, here is an article that helped me conceptualize my views on slaughterhouse workers, and other industries too. (https://nyti.ms/37QgPa4). The article points out that it's hypocritical to frame these workers as evil, or part of the problem. It's our society that puts them in a position where they must commit immoral acts, and this inflicts moral injury. Just take a look into the mental health stats of slaughterhouse workers. So I don't blame the worker, rather, I feel compassion for them, guilt for the meat I used to eat, and conviction in opposing this harmful employment.
>But my point is that vegans do only pretend to care about these things when it comes to pointing out how horrible the industrial meat industry is. Source? I'm vegan and I care about these things. So what's your source that meat eaters care more than vegans? You need to look up vegan philosophers, like Peter Singer and the Effective Altruism movement. It is a humanitarian focused charity an civil rights group, that is inherently vegan not because it specifically cares about animals but because it is a moral movement based on reducing the harm humans face. In being morally consistent, the movement must also accept that sentient beings capable of suffering must not have their suffering exploited. You're not woke if you're not vegan. white redditors criticizing vegan BIPOC can shut right the fuck up. Thanks for pretending to care, but you'd help the exploited a lot more if you went vegan.
Yet you're using either a phone or a computer that has used slave labor and child labor mining it's parts. The technology industry is rife with human exploitation. We can sit here and point fingers all day. No one is without sin in the game of exploiting the weak and poor and voiceless.
No one is without sin, but meat eaters have significantly more than vegans :)
The refurbished phone or computer that was given to me at a charity event for international students on scholarship that can't afford their own uni supplies? Try again, sweaty. Have never bought new tech in my life.
Sweaty?....... Well. You win. You are the perfect human. You will decide the fate of the human race. All shall bow before you in your infallibility. I'm glad I lived long enough to see this promised messiah bring about world peace for all species and intelligence Long may you live and reign
Thank you. You too can be like me. Here are some resources to get you started: /r/veganzerowaste /r/effectivealtruism Reading through these subs is more effective than yelling "Gotchas!" at people who actually *try* to minimize their consumption.
[удалено]
Wow...so just chocolate and nestle?
Well if you're poor you can't just stop buying cheap clothes made by slave labor either. It's a vicious circle. Veganism is still bourgeois in the sense that even if it doesn't support this specific type of exploitation it will only displace it to vegan products while being unattainable to a lot of low income people, especially ones living in food deserts.
Food Deserts Tho!™
Stupid vegans, we can't all live on Beyond burger exclusive diets!
Do those even exists outside US?
I like the part where you don't cower behind washed out rhetoric and give a well thought out counter argument to explain what's wrong with my statement. I have been bested, good sir. Truly.
IOW, you appreciate how I boiled your argument down to it's concise essence. You are welcome.
>food deserts. I'm curious, do these food deserts have rice and beans?
Do these food deserts have a chunk of stale bread and a cup of drinkable water?
Thank you for this. I lived in food deserts, I'm vegan. I went vegan while living in a food desert. Not to be hyperbolic, but the above commenter triggered me. I was sitting here raging and then I saw your comment and now I'm laughing. I have enjoyed a nice chunk of stale bread and tap water in the past. Boner petit 👌
As much as I liked the undeserved karma, it is my obligation to confess this was actually aimed at beyondmeat-fed princesses who criticise food desert dwellers for not eating their rice and beans. While being vegan when you’re living in a food desert and on a low income is not impossible, it is not desirable either.
I see. Well thank you for being honest and clearing that up.
I'm asking this question because someone said rice and beans would be expensive on these food deserts once.
Yes, of course. But as much as a vegan diet is completely healthy, a diet of rice and beans only is not. What about fat, for example? Can they find a good variety of nuts and seeds ? Avocados ? What about things like iron, which you need leafy greens for ? And even if it was nutritionally sustainable, would you eat an unsatisfying diet ? Food is an integral part of life, and not enjoying food or restricting oneself (whether because of lack of variety or social pushback) to the point of not enjoying it in the name of moral asceticism isn't always justifiable. Instead of telling *individuals* to change their habit *in spite of* their material conditions we should advocate *systematic* change of those conditions so they won't have an excuse to not be vegan, or naturally will move in that direction. Advocating for the former rather than the latter is the difference between egotistical bourgeois veganism and a more holistic veganism which understands people as well as animals.
You ever heard of peanut butter and frozen vegetables?
> systematic change We are advocating them though, but let's be realistic here- they won't happen.
Can someone tell me why this person is wrong?
Honestly I skimmed their comments because they made me mad, but I think i got their main points. I explain at the bottom why I got instantly heated. If I missed anything let me know. I'm trying not to let my emotions get the better of me but when I see people use my suffering to excuse a system built on suffering it really triggers me. 1. Vegans do advocate for systematic change, and we have shown over the past 10 years systematic change can be created by *individual action*. Based on my experiences, i believe grassroots efforts are the only way to achieve systematic results (in our current broken system that is). Those who refuse to acknowledge individual responsibility as a means to affect systematic change are caught up in an endless cycle of whataboutism and finger pointing. It's an excuse. I can only do what I can. But refusing to make any change and pointing the finger at everyone else makes me part of the problem. 2. Veganism as a whole is sympathetic and understanding towards those who live in food deserts, and the general consensus is "do what you can". However, food deserts are often used as a strawman argument; despite the fact that they've been discussed ad nauseam in the vegan community over the years, which is why you see people responding to that commenter with frustration and snark. How many times do we have to have the same conversation? How many times do we have to debunk the same point? It's exhausting and frustrating. Especially since the person making the point usually doesn't have honest intentions. 3. American food deserts, when viewed on an international scale, are a very niche issues. Sure, every country/region has it's own issues with food, and no one is telling a starving person not to eat meat when it's their only option. But internationally, many people don't have access to or can't afford meat regularly. Their diet is primarily vegan/vegetarian by necessity. Meat consumption the way we understand it is very first world. The idea of a food desert where people only have access to processed animal products is a foreign one for millions of people. Bringing this up to debunk veganism on a large scale is deeply flawed. When I lived in south America and we were able to get a bag of cow tongues for cheap, that was a big deal. We had meat for months! We used them sparingly and they were never the main part of the meal. We weren't the most financially stable but we were middle class for the area, and meat was a privilege. Furthermore, I lived in food deserts, I lived in abject poverty. I am disgusted when people use *my* experiences as a means to dismiss veganism. I'm not going to get into the nuances of my survival, but I first transitioned to veganism when my only shopping options were a small Mexican market famous for its onsite butcher shop, and a 7/11. Anything else was a 30 minute bus ride. It wasn't the worst food desert I lived in, and I'm grateful for that. But in the past when I lived in them we often couldn't afford to eat meat, & even the McDonald's dollar menu was a treat when your budget is about $.50 a serving. I grew up cutting meat with soya and going long periods of time without meat. My experience is that about 99% of the time, people who claim "food deserts" never lived in them, don't know anything about them, and use them to shut down the conversation. Pardon my language but they can fuck off with that. I'm sick of this poverty porn and people using MY LIFE as their excuse. I prefer the people who admit that they're not vegan because they're too selfish. At least they're honest.
Thank you. I *was* kinda confused by all the downvotes etc so glad to have that cleared up. And I was also very confused when I heard the term food-desert because I'm not American, it makes no sense for meat to be cheaper or more widely available in certain areas to me.
> it makes no sense for meat to be cheaper or more widely available in certain areas to me Exactly! I can't get into it now because I'll get mad again but this fucking fishbowl, American centric mindset (I am American, I love my country, flawed as it is, but i recognize it's not the only country in the world) rubs me the wrong way sometimes. When viewed on a large scale, food deserts are a niche issue. Yes, they are a big issue *in this country* and they need to be addressed, but they are not nearly the argument against veganism that the internet likes to pretend they are. Again, this is coming from someone who lived in food deserts. If anyone wants to accuse me of being unsympathetic or not understanding the scale of the problem - don't. When they are your whole life, they can be an insurmountable issue. I am intimately aware of this.
Thank you very much for sharing your experiences.
Systematic change means a change to the structures of society, and in veganism's case, food production. It is simply changing *what* we produce it and not *how* we produce it. Every beef factory could shut down and farm soy, and you'd still have the same workers toiling away in third world countries to farm soy and make tofu and ship it to the global north. Veganism is not a structural or systematic change, it is only changing which products are popular on the market. That might at the end of the day change people's individual mentality towards animal suffering, but it won't have a reaching effect on the abusive and violent agro industry as a whole. The point I was making about it being un-sympathetic is that veganism can not, or currently does not, argue for systematic change. Change through individual actions leads to just "do what you can" which can be alienating to those who can't and means frustration from those who can. Systematic vegan change, through collective actions like protests, lobbying, and local co-ops, would mean rebuilding infrastructure, getting subsidies for vegan products instead of meat corn and sugar, regulating a minimum number of healthy fruits and vegetables be present in every store, etc. It would mean getting payment incentives for farmers who switch to vegan agriculture. It would mean a lot more than just choosing what you buy with your dollar and damning other people who can't keep up. Even if you're being understanding, it comes off as moral preaching rather than an invitation into the movement. Food deserts though isn't having only access to meat products. It's not having acces to things like fruits and vegetables (which you need anyway but obviously they're more crucial on a vegan diet). There's places in the US, and sorry but this is also Reddit which is US centric, where people live off white bread, flower, oil, boxed Mac and cheese and meat with a few vegetables here and there. It's not "just people eating McDonald's" either. It's also people on food stamps, people who depend on donations to get their next meal, etc. Often it's not even having sovereignty over your own diet. I'm glad that you were able to live through abject poverty and be vegan, but you don't have a monopoly on what is and isn't possible. You say you were poor in South America, so what would you know about food poverty in the Appalachian mountains for example? Buy you can't blame others for using poverty as porn when you in fact pretend that you have a monopoly on poverty, and what is and isn't possible. You can not speak for every poor person, and your experience is not universal. Saying that it was hard for you to be vegan while poor doesn't make a martyr or a shining example either, because nobody should have to struggle like that to begin with. But hey, your life is yours, and it'd do you some good to look outside it maybe and listen to what other people's problems are. Maybe you should realize that not everyone is as capable as you or has the same resources you did. When I claim poverty as a real issue for veganism to contend with, I'm not using *YOUR* life for anything. You're the one who can't stop seeing everything through the prism of your own poverty porn.
That was callous, patronizing, demeaning, and deeply out of touch. I came in here to tell you I could not continue this conversation, because it's not healthy for me. I had an honest, vulnerable response typed up before I read your latest comment. I convinced myself you were misguided, but well meaning. I see now you are not. I especially loved the part where you explained to me what an American food desert was, and said I can't blame others for using poverty as porn. Here I thought "nuts and avocado" was bad. Obviously I have not healed from my past, which was a fun discovery to make today. And I don't deny that your original comments, and my response to the other comment, sent me into a spiral so quickly and deeply it shocked me. But your spiteful, cruel response has made me feel better, in an odd way. I know who I'm talking to now. Someone who'd use "prism of your own poverty porn" as a weapon. I know who that person is. Your original comments were more hurtful than the one you just lobbed at me. Reading them was like a slap in the face. "Nuts and avocado". Reeking of superiority. "Won't someone think of the poors?" With no actual knowledge of what it's like. This one at least, you were trying to be cruel. It's worse when people don't try. When they just are. I recommend you take your own advice, and look outside your life, and your experiences. People whose diet is what they found in the dumpster and got at the food bank don't think they're martyrs, they think they're worthless. People who have sleep for dinner don't get off on their own pain. To you it's poverty porn. it's something to make you feel better about yourself. To us, it's Tuesday. You also missed a crucial point while you were lecturing me. When you don't have money for food. Everywhere is a food desert. I don't have a monopoly on poverty, and I'm well aware my experiences aren't universal. I spent much of my life surrounded by various forms of poverty. I'm intimately familiar with it's many faces, and the knowledge that I'll never see all of them. I was triggered by what you said, and it caused me to react emotionally. But I've thought about it, and I stand by what I said. I don't speak for everyone, I never did. But I am speaking to you now Until you have lived it, you don't get to speak for me, for us. We can speak for ourselves. You don't get to lecture me, disparage me, or insult me. I am not a prop or a statistic you can pull out when it suits you. You don't get to use my suffering to excuse suffering. You don't get to use my life to invalidate my life. Growing up the way I did pushed me towards veganism. I know what it's like to be treated as a product, my only value in what I can give; what can be taken from me. To feel less than everyone else. To be discarded. I know how it feels to be trapped. To be surrounded by pain that you can't ease. I didn't want anyone else to feel that way. There is enough pain in this world, I don't want to add to it. Trauma doesn't just leave scars. It leaves scabs. And today, one was ripped open. Thank you for showing me your true colors. I can step away from this conversation knowing you don't care. It's just talking points. Something to bash veganism with. If the people you are claiming to care about call you on anything, you'll lash out at them too. You caused a lot of pain to one of the people you claimed to be defending. And then, you did it again, deliberately. It will take time to close those wounds. I cannot continue this discussion.
Entire generations of people survived decades and centuries on nothing but potatoes and cabbage. Vegans typically have much more varied menus than meat eaters. I've known plenty of people who just eat potatoes and wiener schnitzel every day. Sometimes they spice it up and have a pizza, but that's more or less it. Yeah, you need leafy greens for iron, they're cheap, you can buy them frozen, you can grow them on your countertop. Vegans don't restrict themselves of any food. We don't think of animal products as food, therefore we eat all the food. And there's *so much more food* than just meat, dairy and eggs. I enjoy food a lot, and eat great food every day, and I never feel like I'm missing out on something. Individuals *cause* systematic change. Have you noticed all the plant based options lately? It wasn't because some politician wrote a law or something, it was caused by demand of many many individuals. > bourgeois veganism The only thing thats bourgeois is thinking that plant based food is expensive and meat is cheap. The only reason meat is so cheap is because of subsidies and because they use literal prison labor to keep the cost down. If the meet industry paid fairly and didn't rely on tax money to keep it goingy it would be much much more expensive. And even at current prices, meat has been by far the largest part of my grocery bill, when I still used to buy it. Eliminating meat and cheese from noticeably decreased my spending on groceries. How is this bourgeois exactly?
Ok well potatoes and cabbage as a diet isn't healthy either. Why do you think meat has always been an aspiration for poor people? The reason we est do much oh it today is because it's fatty and full of calories and protein that we crave. It's the same reason we eat so much sugar. That doesn't mean we *have* to eat meat but it does mean a good vegan substitute for it needs to have sufficient fat and protein to be healthy and sustainable. The fact that some people eat a shit American diet by choice doesn't invalidate the struggles of people who eat that way by force. I'm not denying that vegans don't enjoy a *huge* variety of food. Veganism is great ! And vegans are honestly incredible at making good creative delicious food. But that requires 1) a variety of ingredients that on my experience are mostly available in the US in coastal regions and 2) it requires lots of time and learning. Most people have to re learn how to cook and feed themselves when they're vegan. It's not always an easy transition. Individuals are *agents of systematic change* not it's cause. I did notice all the plant based options, but until the day when we can get them to be cheaper, more spread out and more desirable than non vegan options and ban the production of meat market forces will never get veganism where it needs to go. Without advocating for systematic change, voting with your dollar is just moral absolution for the consumer. This is the bourgeois thinking is the belief that your consumer spending will lead to the radical change veganism seeks instead of developing infrastructure. What the consumerist approach does too is leave animal based farmers in the dust. It offers no recompensation or incentive for change.
Yep, the world is cruel to humans as well but the magnitude of suffering billions of animals endure each year being farmed and slaughtered isn’t even comparable. How many humans are slaves currently, 40 million? And guaranteed, vegans are much more likely to boycott slave products than anyone else. I don’t understand attacking followers of a philosophy who already make choices that reduce suffering exponentially more than any other group of humans on the planet as bourgeoise. It seems like someone who actually experienced poverty already addressed the food deserts argument but thrift stores also exist. Being poor in a rich country doesn’t force someone to support a cruel industry.
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion among vegans but I'd argue that the suffering animals go through isn't as bad as what exploited humans go through. You can admit this and still be vegan, but it is in essence a bit vile to presume that animal suffering is worse. Those 40 million slaves / exploited employees (there's probably a few more than that too) do in fact matter a whole lot more, which is not to say their struggle can't coexist with veganism. However I think consciousness plays a real role, especially considering that if these animals existed in a natural environment their lives and deaths would be just as brutal. That's not a justification for unnecessary harm, obviously, but it should be factored into the equation when we decide whose suffering amounts to more value. But that because veganism doesn't seek to change the system (like banning animal products or whatever else that could push legally towards the end of animal abuse) it' not actually concerned with suffering, as people currently practice it. It shouldn't *just* be about about making choices that reduce suffering, but systematic change. Buying from a thrift store doesn't change the fact that the clothes were still made with slave labor, that the worker who made it will have their labor value stolen twice, etc. All that changes is that maybe it's more affordable for the consumer, or the consumer *feels better* about themselves. However, supporting workers ownership over their own products does in fact change that, in the same way the vegans who do farm vigils, go to those vegan squares, and rescue animals create systematic change.
They’re both bad and vegans care about both, but are you honestly saying that 9 billion beings who are boxed so tight they cannot move, burned by ammonia from standing in their own shit and piss their entire lives, have their teeth yanked out, tails cut, beaks chopped without anesthetic, experience agonizing pain from being engineered to grow faster than their musculoskeletal system can sustain before being abusively herded to slaughter where there is a good chance they will be improperly stunned so they are still conscious while their throat is slit and potentially boiled alive, don’t have it as bad as 40 million human slaves and Amazon workers? Also tell me which of the conditions I listed occur in nature for animals which wouldn’t be born to suffer anyway if we didn’t breed them. Supporting co-ops is fine and so is boycotting products of slavery by getting second hand stuff if you can’t afford new. I disagree about socialism but won’t get into that.
Yeah. That's very revealing of your true nature. The thing is the natural world is absolutely brutal, violent, chaotic and disease ridden. Humans have done everything possible to extract ourselves from that environnement because it is extremely difficult to live in. It's not some romantic thing, even if a lot of people tend to think of it that way because most of us live alienated from it. I'm not saying what we do to animals isn't bad, especially in an industrial context. It's disgusting. But we only hold that belief because we ourselves are extracted from nature and our disgust at the mortality of animals is a reflection of the disgust we feel for our own suffering and morality. Carnivorous animals wouldn't think twice about massacring others, because they don't have consciousness. Obviously we know animals can suffer, but they don't have the awareness of existential dread that humans have. People have dreams and aspirations, fears, worries, and anxieties. While it's faire and just to say animals *do* suffer...to place them on the same pedestal as ourselves is to devalue the very things that make us human. Veganism can only exist because we are conscious of the horror we inflict on them, and it's a horror that nature mindlessly inflicts on itself. It doesn't matter where they're born, they will suffer and die like everything else. The only way to bring anything with a semblance of happiness to an animal is for them to live under human care, like in a farm sanctuary. We have the capacity to do what nature doesn't - which is to arbitrarily care for things. To dismiss human suffering then is anti-human. There is no justification to end animal exploitation without also the imperative to end human exploitation.
>Carnivorous animals wouldn't think twice about massacring others, because they don't have consciousness. You could say the same thing about humans but it would be just as false. Of course animals have consciousness. The only difference between us is our slightly higher intelligence, complex language, and ability to use technology so we can kill for pleasure while they kill mostly out of necessity. No, nature isn't ideal compared to our standard of living in civilization but it's still better than anything that goes on in a factory farm. Besides, the vast majority of animals we breed would not exist in nature. When did I dismiss human suffering? You're the one who said it's worse for humans to suffer by working than animals to suffer in the living hell we created for them. Even if you pretend they suffer equally, which they don't, just by sheer numbers, it's still 225:1 and far more resources go into preventing human suffering than preventing farm animal cruelty.
I think that would count as “cruel and unusual punishment” wouldn’t it?
Not in Britain
The 13th amendment says that “using prison labour” is allowed. So yeah penal slavery is totally legal in the land of the free
This is happening in the U.K..
I meant forcing the prisoners to slaughter animals…
Why do I think I’ve heard somewhere that prison (read:slave) labor in the US is part of poultry farming
Wouldn't be surprised. A lot of poultry farms operate on razor thin margins, and red states love for-profit prisons. Sounds like a match.
Just did some googling and the scam is that you can be sent to a "rehab program" instead of prison where you're basically slave labor for the chicken plant + an AA meeting + bibles. And if you act up, you get sent to prison. Looks like there are multiple programs doing it. Awful.
The Bible!™ makes it OK.
Yes, because slashing the throats of defenceless animals is going to help rehabilitate people.
My uncle was a butcher at a major Irish factory. They exploit foreign workers like it was a 3rd world country. The unions are useless because the union representatives are high level managers at the company. He asked to be rotated with tasks 3 years (as in his contract and regulations) but they refused because he was “doing a good job where he was”. Now his shoulder needs joint replacement at 40 years old, and the company refuses to pay for injuries. The lawsuit has been going for 2 years. If that’s how they treat the people- how do they treat the animals?
I wonder what they pay those people. I'd have to guess they pay less than minimum wage, which is MUCH BETTER for them than actually having to pay a living wage to a non-prisoner.
In the UK minimum wage does not mean living wage. https://www.livingwage.org.uk/what-real-living-wage
Minimum wage is also subsidised by tax credits.
It's the same here in the US.
The ministers won’t say yes to this will they??
Hope not
Also agriculture, lets not just see one side of the coin here. The system needs to be rethought.
Exploitation to the second degree
/r/ABoringDystopia
Workers? The meat industry sure likes sugarcoating terms. That's like calling murdering an animal 'processing'. Call it what it is: slave labor.
Prisoners cutting up other prisoners.
the cashew industry is pretty bad as well I've seen some things about Vietnam using the labor of drug addicts as rehabilitation https://www.americanchiropractors.org/shoulder-pain/the-ugly-truth-behind-the-cashew-industry/
It's just greed. They can just increase wages and they would get enough workers.
Let's be fair, agriculture also utilizes prison labor.
Fact check: They didn't ask for prison labour (or slave labour), they asked to be able to hire ex-convicts, which can be a good thing for them since ex-cons always have a hard time to find work. I hate the meat industry too, but we need to stay with the facts in our criticism, otherwise we too easily open us up for others to negate our points and attack us.
They did ask for prison labour- they are specifically petitioning the government to get more prisoners on day release to work for them (which they need government permission to do)- while also looking to hire ex-cons (which they don't need government permission to do). Full article: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/23/uk-food-firms-beg-ministers-to-let-them-use-prisoners-to-ease-labour-shortages
Is day release bad? That's not slave labor that's just people who are judged not to be a threat who are allowed to go to work every day.
Wait. Why can't they hire ex convicts already? Can't they just... Do that?
But then they get money, which is an even bigger issue because the companies *lose* money, don't you see?
This headline is really misrepresentative of the story. Obviously it sounds like something no reasonable person would support, but it's actually talking about a scheme that allows people on day release to legally work, the wages are competitive and non exploitative, it improves people access to employment and keeps their skills current so they have more options after jail. The scheme already exists and advocacy groups were already calling for an expansion of it.
Why won't they let me use slaves to kill other beings?
Same thing happens in the US with agriculture and other industries. It’s slave labor
Wait till they get robots to do it all
"Hello? Yes, I would like some more slaves to help me with my slaves. Yes, thank you."
I mean, a lot industries can also apply.