lierre keith, the lady who wrote the vegetarian myth got pied at the anarchist bookfair.
it was pretty much awesome and full of lulz.
some people who i know thought the pieing was lame, but none of them really knew who she was or what her book was about. so here is the low-down.
she was a vegan for 20 years, did it in a really unhealthy way, and now blames veganism for her health problems. it's stupid, you can be a healthy meat eater or a unhealthy vegan. just because chocolate cake is vegan doesnt mean it's healthy!
her book is weird, because a large chunk of it is about how industrial farming and monoculture is bad, something most vegans i know agree with.
she makes some faulty claims and most of her sources are from internet websites. the internet is not exactly a reliable resource. if you are going to write a book about environmental science, nutrition and health, and moralism, you should probably use a lot of peer-reviewed journals, not websites.
there have been a number of factual errors in her book, such as the ridiculous claim that a glass of soy milk contains 60 grams of protein. go read the label of any soy milk product and you will see it is 1/10th to 1/5th of that amount. when someone makes such blatantly false claims, I'm not very likely to take the rest of their arguments very seriously.
one thing in the book that did give me worry was that it is impossible to have organic sustainable farming without animal products and animal manure. apparently, the Veganic movement shows otherwise.
nor is grass fed beef all that great for the environment.
i, along with most of the vegans i know agree that industrial agriculture is not sustainable. it would be awesome if we lived in a world with a sustainable amount of people and in a society with a sustainable food production process. but in todays industrial capitalist society a vegan diet is more humane, (when done right) more healthy, and better for the environment than one that includes meat. buying local fruits and vegetables is better than buying local meat. her book made me look up a few things, but in the end it is very unconvincing and disingenuous.
the way she writes of vegans in her book is really condescending and mean. she says vegans are all naive and veganism is an eating disorder which causes anger problems. this is super offensive and reason enough to get pied for. she lumps all vegans together, and assumes that all vegan diets are the same (she seems to have no idea that there are plenty of vegans who dont eat soy.)
the worst part of her book is that a lot of people who dont know any better might read it and turn away from vegan/vegitarian diets which would be better for the planet, better for their health and better for the animals.
finally, a lot of people claim that even if they disagree with her, the pie throwers should have let her speak. this is silly. there are plenty of people who i would not give a platform to. especially at an anarchist event. i might have been more into it if it was an actual debate between Keith and an informed vegan, and both were given equal time, but im not interested or sympathetic to giving Keith half an hour of time to speak without any kind of opposing point of view. oh, and fuck anyone who calls the police and gives them a 20 minute statement because someone threw a pie at them.
basically, her book is going to do a lot of harm to the planet, people's health and the animals of the world. her getting pied was hella funny.
16.3.10
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haha...ok first, your grammar is shit, and so is your attitude and blog. And it's very obvious you didn't read the book! Very simplistic non-rebuttals to stuff that was addressed at length in the book!
ReplyDeleteThe shift key can be used to make capital letters.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that anarchists are almost always illiterate, stupid, and wrong?
ReplyDeleteRight or wrong, the woman's only mistake was thinking she was speaking to adults, instead of a roomful of retarded little children.
Tim Blair's blog, read widely across the world, is using this video to demonstrate that anarcho-kiddies like this blogger are cowardly bullies who assault people for disagreeing with them, or alternatively sit in an audience watching a woman being attacked by three (physically) grown men, and cheer it on.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably the biggest anarcho-own-goal since Makhno organized all those pogroms, in fact.
I agree! Freedom of speech should not be permitted for those who hold incorrect views.
ReplyDeleteWords can be violence. Lierre Keith's words are violence. Smearing veganism or expressing other rightwing lying views in public is a violent assault on the Earth and humanity. People may believe what they hear and act accordingly. Lierre Keith committed an act of violence on her audience and on the human race, simply and literally. A violent response in self-defense was not merely justified but necessary.
ReplyDeletePies don't exactly cut it, when somebody's trying to rob and murder you.
I support freedom of speech and expression absolutely and without reservation, in all cases, no exceptions, ever. But freedom is not a suicide pact. The truth has a right to defend itself against untruth. Censorship is when you silence the truth for reasons of power and ideology, and of course we all oppose that. I'd die to protect Lierre Keith from censorship. Putting a stop to Lierre Keith's violence is the exact OPPOSITE of censorship. Would it be censorship or violence if Rush Limbaugh were silenced, summarily and permanently? Obviously not. It would be a statement of truth against untruth. It would be a calm, sane, thoughtful act of truth-telling and humanity and courage. The same goes for Lierre Keith.
McNothing is the true spirit of fascism.
ReplyDeleteSo basically, KILLING someone is okay if you don't agree with them? Let me know how that works out.
ReplyDeleteGood blog post, thanks!
ReplyDeleteTake a look at REALITY here, naysayers! BILLIONS of animals are killed UNNECESSARILY, and Keith suffered the temporary humiliation of being pied!?
Of course, since many who support her misguided efforts as a born again carnivore must agree that there really is no difference between a carrot and a cow, I guess that explains the outrage over vegan pie filling, and the blindspot about the flesh on all those dinner plates tonite having originally belonged to someone OTHER.
In any event, this blogger is right on. Generally speaking, vegans are far more conscientious about their food choices than 'average' eaters, so suggesting that vegans are naive adolescents, is a ridiculously shallow put down by Keith, obviously more interested in scoring brownie points with all the angst ridden carnivores who will prefer to buy her argument lock, stock and barrel, than figure out for themselves why her poetic(to some)polemic is a tragic diversion from solutions for the REAL world...
Here are a couple of critiques developing out there more than well worth a read. Please share the information widely about stockfree farming (veganic agriculture), if you truly care about the fate of our planet...
http://permavegan.blogspot.com/
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2010/03/15/correcting_the_vegetarian_myth.pdf
So, McNothing, visiting violence upon people who you disagree with is OK, so long as you personally believe you are morally justified in doing so? Got it. But I bet you also think that your ideological "enemies" are irrational, fanatical nutcases if they feel the same way.
ReplyDeleteOoh yes, "it would be awesome if we lived in a world with a sustainable amount of people and in a society with a sustainable food production process..."
ReplyDeleteYep, which means YOU think there is just enough of you and too many of THEM. How PC racist and ecofascist of you. How deep.
So which millions exactly, are you thinking of eliminating, bub? And the food, goods and services you dream of come from what kind of magical box?
Yes, that nasty capitalist free market food production that feeds billions is sooooo UNAWESOME! It should only be used to feed say, affluent urban Marxist product sodden leftard hypocrite control freaks. You know, the moral vanity narcissist spoiled clueless brat ones like er, you.
Carry on, you witless irrational nihilist twerp. Wnat an unread collectivist phony...as per usual.
Oh and you spout the usual fascist speech control utopia junk. Nasty little Hitler youth, Mao Red Brigade violent radical thing, ain't cha?
Er, how many millions do you feed, employ, house etc again? Wow, you're the hero of millions...of ecofascist frauds.
You are dismantled at zombietime com eco-imperialism com greenspirirt com thepeoplescube com PJTV com michellemalkin com
ANY P.J O'Rourke greenhellblog com Tim Blair blog lookingattheleft com dissectleft blogspot com steynonline com breitbart com wattsupwiththat com climatedepot com Andrew Bolt com. Toodle ooh.
Colonel Robert Neville blogspot com.
Er, riiight.
ReplyDeleteYou: "words are an act of violence?" Er, balls. Utter Marxist leftist anarchist logical fallacy tripe and uber laughable lies, you dull witted clod.
Look in a dictionary and the definitions under the rule of law...Violence is ACTION namely ASSAULT and ASSAULT is what these phony little natural ecofascist brats would be charged with. Ya fulla mass in doctrinated crap, kid, and ya know it.
You are being circus geeked at the massively globally read Tim Blair blog. Bwhahaha! What a backdated and unoriginal embarrassing leftard drone putz.
Colonel Neville.
How come pretty much everybody was in favor of and cheered GW Bush being thrown a SHOE, but it is somehow wrong to PIE Keith? They're equally idiotic, and don't tell me Keith is less of an idiot or guilty of harming others...
ReplyDeleteHer book is unscientific, biased and wrongly researched and cited. It is offensive from a scientific point of view since it offends our intelligence; it is violent from a vegan point of view since spreading lies and thereby harming a group of people is violent, wouldn't we all agree.