However we all might be voting in the current election, one thing I think is undeniable. It’s a horrific crisis our politicians have forced us to pay for.

Everyone killed by the military forces we’re funding was somebody’s baby or parent, defender, teacher, or muse. All, no doubt, would have liked the chance to flourish on this planet for a while. Who among us consents to anyone raiding our accounts to fund the annhilation of bodies, minds, and spirits?

So, what’s happening to Palestine and Lebanon at this moment, happens against my will. As do the attacks on Iran, Syria, and Yemen. And the living beings within all these beaten and scorched territories.

We could be different. We could define ourselves as the tribe of humanity. We could define ourselves as a biological community within a tapestry of many living communities.

Why is this not a goal for us? Isn’t it what life is all about?

Massive Need for Human Transformation

The trauma we create in each other through prejudice, war, and ethnic violence corresponds with the trauma we inflict on other-than-human beings. Vanquishing living communities—human and other—and usurping untamed places, the colonial mindset menaces every living community on Earth.

The displacement of indigenous communities and the crushing of biodiversity for domesticating other animals has created the Anthropocene epoch. As Earthly beings we’ve deprived nature and ourselves of biological diversity.

Presently, the body mass of mammals known to inhabit Earth is “overwhelmingly dominated by livestock and humans.” Meanwhile, loss of habitat contributes to rising temperatures that imperil most living beings on this planet.

Thank You for Not Dominating 

Prominent vegans, back in the 1940s and 1950s when the word vegan was new, declared themselves conscientious objectors to war. They defined themselves through vocal, steadfast resistance to the human war on other living communities—which includes the human ones.

And they resisted half-measures. Dominion needed to be let go of, not administered more carefully. Veganism is the antithesis of the so-called stewardship mode that claims to preserve patches of the nature we subjugate. Veganism would resist stuff like “deer management” (stalking, baiting, killing). There are “so many deer” because humans are so keen on displacing their natural predators. Who needs to be controlled?

How did humanity lose the concept of nature as its own real steward, the expert of its own patterns and balances?

Time Is of the Essence

CNN published an interview piece this week that included someone who drove a bulldozer over human beings, both dead and alive. The driver now can’t look at meat because it’s a reminder of the bodies. Yes, slaughter is slaughter—for any victim.

Climate crisis will only exacerbate the competition for territory, the displacement of cultures, and the destruction of those who are animalized.

We humans must change course. The othering needs to stop. Those who set out to beat others into submission need to be stopped. The cycle needs to break. Caring for the well-being of anyone alive on Earth, and respecting their ability to live on their terms, nurtures our collective humanity. It’s high time we pursued real priorities.

Love and liberation,

Lee.

Photo source: Aia Fernandez, via Flickr (CC-BY SA 2.0 Generic).