Because we must… for their sake by Jason Miller

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by Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner June 26, 2010
June 28, 2010

Banging out this essay on my laptop as Delta Airlines ferries me from Kansas City to Portland, I’m once again preparing to table for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office at the Let Live Conference. It was about this time last year that I attended this same conference and met fellow press officers Jerry Vlasak and Camille Hankins for the first time. I also attended several demonstrations with some local Portland activists (for whom I have a great deal of admiration) and listened to several inspirational talks by powerful activists.

“What are you going to do about it?” by Jason Miller

by Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner
June 12, 2010

Two weeks ago, as I was figuratively staggering through the worst existential pummeling I’ve endured since my self-imposed sentence to Dante’s Inferno in the early 90’s, I had a profound (recovering) alcoholic’s moment of clarity.

Spiritual determination finds ways to overcome obstacles and adversity by Jason Miller

by Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner
June 1, 2010

MLK embodied the immense power that spirituality brings to a social justice movement….

Preface: While I recognize that there are many atheists in the Animal Rights Movement who adhere to veganism, and that people of many different religions and philosophies advocate and fight for nonhuman animals, my personal spirituality is the backbone of my veganism and my activism. I want to make it clear that I’m not questioning the commitment of vegans or activists who aren’t spiritual and I also want to clarify that I am not a theologian. I merely want to use this essay as a vehicle to comment on the nature of my spirituality and to express the immensity of the strength it provides me.

The illness that twists and perverts the psyches of billions of people… by Jason Miller

by Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner
May 21, 2010

At long last, the mental health community has identified, analyzed, and classified the illness that twists and perverts the psyches of billions of people, resulting in intense suffering and death for over 70 billion nonhuman animals each year. Look for it in the DSM-V, which is expected to be released in 2013.

And thankfully, there is a cure. It’s called veganism.

Anti-Animal Personality Disorder

Diagnostic Features:

While I walked away with my freedom, the primates at KUMC remain imprisoned… by Jason Miller

by Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner
Apr 9, 2010

Devin Listrom, Kyle XVX, Judy Junior, and Jason Miller in a Bite Club protest against vivisection at KUMC….

Meat-eating, racist, homophobic, capitalist-loving white men can openly tote guns and threaten violence if the government dares to spend tax money on “Socialist” health care reforms (ironically, the same angry white men are fine with hundreds of billions of dollars more of our money going to our murderous, imperialist military industrial complex).

And yet an unarmed, calm and rational-acting Animal Rights activist faces police harassment and the threat of arrest for disseminating provocative (yet legal) fliers that promote an end to cruel, barbaric, and torturous experiments on primates by a public university using our tax money.

Fuck Compassion: We whack ’em and stack ’em! by Jason Miller

Warning

Graphic photos depicting the reality and horror of war on animals/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

by Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner
June 21, 2009

Despite pleas to save the animals, Johnson County officials will employ sharpshooters and bow hunters to solve the problem of too many deer in Shawnee Mission Park.

–The Kansas City Star, June 17, 2009

Daniel Whitesel says he is forced to traverse a “literal minefield of deer poop” when he plays golf nearby.

He can watch from his home office as whitetail deer devastate his flowers and shrubs. “They walk down the street like taxpayers,” he said.

–The Kansas City Star, February 5, 2009

They’ve opted for the “whack ’em and stack ’em” approach, to quote that great conservationist Ted Nugent.

–Mike Hendricks, columnist for The Kansas City Star, June 11, 2009

Johnson Co. To Cull Park’s Deer Herd: Sharpshooters, Bow Hunters To Reduce Deer Population In Shawnee Mission Park

LENEXA, Kan. — Johnson County officials have approved an answer to the deer dilemma in Shawnee Mission Park.

The county will hire sharpshooters and bow hunters to take care of the population problem.

After a hearing Wednesday that drew more than 100 people, the board voted to use hunters to reduce the park herd from about 200 deer per square mile to 50.

–Kansas City News, KCTV 5, June 18, 2009

My letter to the Johnson County Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners dated 5/25/09:

All,

As a home/vehicle-owning (hence tax-paying) resident of Johnson County and as a relentless activist for nonhuman animals, I am writing to express my strong objection to the use of any lethal methods to manage the deer population in Shawnee Mission Park. I am a vegan animal liberationist, so I am ardently opposed to humans exploiting, torturing or intentionally killing other animals.

Heresy of the First Order: We are the “Third Chimpanzees” by Jason Miller

by Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner
June 3, 2009

Image: Bleeding Earth by =Psy-XX

“On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water, of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties, crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded.”

–Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) from “Dreams and Facts”

Russell’s nihilistic characterization of Homo sapiens injects some much-needed perspective into a world in which our species of intellectually evolved primates suffers a collective delusion of grandeur. In “Dreams and Facts,” Russell further savages our God-complex with the powerfully humbling reminder that our solar system is but “an infinitesimal speck” and the Earth a mere “microscopic dot.” He does apply some soothing salve to our wounded egos with the observation that, “No man can achieve the greatness of which he is capable until he has allowed himself to see his own littleness,” but his decimation of our grossly-overinflated sense of importance remains intact.

While I don’t suffer from deep-seated self-hatred and I’m not an alienated misanthrope who has isolated himself from the rest of humanity, I’m penning this brief jeremiad as a deconstruction of our species. And I’m not going to dilute my critique by extolling the real and imagined virtues of Homo sapiens. Pollyanna has fled the building. If you are too deeply immersed in our culture of narcissism to take a moment to gaze upon a collective image of humanity far more hideous and repulsive than Dorian Gray, stop reading and sprint for the television. You might get lucky and catch Paris Hilton’s latest escapade.

So who are the terrorists here? by Jason Miller

by Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner
May 31, 2009

Julie Leyva recently submitted some questions to the North American Animal Liberation Press Office. Jason Miller wrote the reply.

What is your occupation and for how long?

There are four of us serving as press officers for NAALPO:

Jerry Vlasak is a board certified trauma surgeon, a former vivisector, and a seasoned animal liberation activist who speaks, writes and debates on behalf of nonhuman animals. Jerry co-founded NAALPO and has been a board member of Sea Shepherd and the spokesman for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Camille Hankins has over 20 years of corporate marketing and management experience; co-founded Win Animal Rights (WAR), a group dedicated to shutting down Huntingdon Life Sciences, in 2004; founded the New York Animal Liberation Front Supporters in 2003; and is heavily involved in outreach to educate the public about the underground animal liberation movement.

Lin Bingham works as a writer and graphic designer. He is a vehement advocate of total liberation, including humans, nonhuman animals and the Earth. He specializes in “propaganda and agitation” and is willing and available to speak anytime one or more persons are willing to listen.

Jason Miller started with NAALPO about two months ago and is the newest press officer. I have worked as a supervisor in a call center for nine years where I’ve cultivated respectable problem-solving, conflict resolution, and communication skills. An ardent and seasoned animal liberation activist, I also founded the notoriously radical blog, Thomas Paine’s Corner, in 2004. TPC has become a popular site for activists to go for education and inspiration and to interact via comment threads. Like Lin, I too am a writer who specializes in “propaganda and agitation.”

Getting away with Murder: Whatever happened to ‘above all, do no harm’? by Jason Miller

Warning

These pictures may contain images depicting the reality and horror of violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

by Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner
April 29, 2009

Graphic: Time To Turn The Tables by ~m7

“The moral is that animal model systems not only kill animals, they also kill humans. There is no good factual evidence to show that the use of animals in cancer research has led to the prevention or cure of a single human cancer.”

—Dr. Irwin D.J. Bross, Ph.D., 1982, former head of research design and analysis of the largest cancer research institute in the world, the Sloan-Kettering Institute

Vivisection, the anachronistic practice of condemning nonhuman animals to the sterility, isolation, and confinement of laboratory cages and subjecting them to cutting, poking, sticking, burning, poisoning, and addicting, bears a much closer resemblance to medieval torture than to 21st century scientific research. Fittingly, vivisection’s history is rooted in medieval religious edicts that forbade the dissection of human cadavers.[1] And anthropocentrism is so deeply inculcated into our psyches that despite living in an “enlightened” age, we continue with our collective barbarism based on a church doctrine that held that rotting human corpses were more sacred than living, breathing sentient beings.

Banned in the UK! How the Home Office “Protects the Public Good” By Steve Best

Dandelion Salad

Crossposted at Thomas Paine’s Corner thanks, Jason.

Steve Best speaking to a group of anti-vivisection activists before the UK implemented its own version of the Iron Curtain

By Steve Best
Thomas Paine’s Corner
4/18/09

Feigned Indignation: Of marauding exploiters, their “ethical qualms,” and a new proposal by Jason Miller

by Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner
March 16, 2009

[Graphic: Greed by ~Liol]

Since there was little appetite for my recent polemic in which I advocated including necro-cannibalism as an integral part of our strategy to combat ecocide and world hunger, because very few appeared to take note of the fact that it was not my intention to carefully craft an update of Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” (I was actually hurling a hunk of concrete into the placid waters of the indoctrinated readers’ minds in order to observe the resultant splash and subsequent ripples), and since despite the depth of Homo rapien moral depravity and their sheer indifference to the suffering, murder, mayhem, and destruction that the human collective causes in order to satiate our desires and perpetuate the disease we call civilization, reader response indicated that the thought of eating our “fellow man” was taking things a bit too far, I’m advancing yet another potential solution to the myriad and complex maladies we’ve inflicted upon nonhuman animals, the Earth and ourselves.

Homo rapiens, who, judging by the state of the world, outnumber Homo sapiens by a wide margin, are a self-centered, mean-spirited bunch. Maybe their swarming hordes can get behind an idea that saves their asses, eases what little conscience they have, requires little or no risk or effort on their part, and doesn’t involve the possibility of their cherished grandmas winding up as hotdogs rather than worm fodder or cinders.

Averting the China Syndrome: Response to Our Critics and the Devotees of Fundamentalist Pacifism By Steve Best & Jason Miller

by Steve Best and Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner
February 24, 2009

For all the political prisoners of the animal liberation movement, for everyone involved in militant direct action for animals and the Earth, and for all the nonhuman animals themselves who suffer at the hands of human barbarity.

We can’t say we’re disappointed with the responses to our publication of “Pacifism or Animals: Which Do You Love More? A Critique of Lee Hall, Friends of Animals, and the Franciombe Effect in the New Abolitionist Movement.” We accomplished what we set out to do, and more.

We brought much-needed attention to the uncritical reception of Hall’s self-published polemic against militant direct action (MDA), Capers in the Courtyard. We alerted an unknowing UK activist community to the slander and distortions of militant anti-vivisection campaigns in England and the United States. The ensuing fiery commentary on our article (as it appeared on blogs such as Thomas Paine’s Corner and Mary Martin’s Animal Person) helped to expose the propaganda and advertising tactics that Hall, Priscilla Feral, and Friends of Animals (FoA) use as masks for “objective” review of Hall’s regrettable book.

The discussion – featuring the bitter encomium and slew of ad hominem attacks by Feral’s husband, Robert Orabona, against former FoA lawyer, Derek Oatis (we wonder what überpacifist Lee Hall thinks of Orabona’s approach and language) – casts a bright light on the problematic nature of FoA itself and perhaps has some value for the historical record as it serves to document some of the inner conflicts of FoA, a long-established animal rights organization. An insider expose revealed that Feral and Orabona pay themselves a hefty salary (which we verified to be over $180,000 a year) from donor money intended to help animals rather than to boost their bank account. As we quickly discovered, Hall is not wanting either, pulling down $82,000 a year, about $15,000 more than her annual salary in 2005.

The absurd persistence of domination: Of speciesism, capitalism, and shaking their foundations

by Jason Miller
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE
Dec. 29, 2008

Even the most ardent reactionaries, deluded ‘patriots,’ and apathetic cynics, whose myopic, Panglossian perspectives ensure that they continue to reflexively genuflect to the deeply criminal enterprise of American Capitalism and rationalize the savage imperialism of US foreign policy, are beginning to concede that we are in the midst of a crisis of epic proportions.

So lack of awareness, which is usually the first obstacle to solving a problem, isn’t the real enemy here. Our chief foe is a swarm of greed-driven, self-absorbed, mean-spirited locust-like human beings who are dedicated to “reforming” and perpetuating capitalism, the very system that has led us to this woeful state of environmental, economic, social, and political affairs.

The Grinch Who Stole Thanksgiving By Suki Falconberg

Dandelion Salad

By Suki Falconberg
11/27/08

The turkey on your table went through a lot before she got there. She was ‘factory farmed.’ This involves procedures that can be defined as extreme torture. Within the first three hours of her birth, the baby turkey had three-toes chopped off and she was debeaked, all without anesthetic. Debeaking involves amputating the highly sensitive beak tissue with a hot blade, and it causes life-long pain and suffering. Both debeaking and toe amputation are regarded as ‘necessary,’ so the birds will not peck and claw each to death out of misery and frustration in the warehouses where they ‘live’ until slaughter.

Factory farming, also called ‘intensive confinement,’ crowds thousands of birds together in large barns where they stand in their own excrement, breathing in the ammonia fumes caused by the build up. They live their entire lives under these conditions, which cause ulcerated feet, destroyed lungs, and eyes burned out by the fumes—not to mention emotional frustration, stress, and eventually insanity. They’re also fed a steady diet of antibiotics, to keep them alive in their hell long enough to get them to slaughter.

[…]

via » The Grinch Who Stole Thanksgiving (link no longer working)

see

Over the River and through the Woods By David Irving

Over the River and through the Woods By David Irving

Dandelion Salad

By David Irving
bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE
11/27/08

(Four Thanksgiving Day Vignettes)

I

The Hunter

Among twenty snowy mountains the only thing the hunter saw in the early morning light from behind his blind was a deer moving at the edge of the woods. The young doe lifted her head and sniffed the crisp air just as the 160 grain bullet tore into the flesh of her left hip and shattered the bone there. A whine cut the air as the doe leaped in agony. Adrenalin poured through her system, fear coated her eyes, a gush of red erupted onto the snow at her feet.

“God dammit! Missed the fucking bastard again!” the hunter swore, smacking the side of his 7mm Remington Magnum with his paw. He pressed a gloved thumb against the right side of his nostrils and blew out a wad of snot on the snow at his feet. “Wish the hell Harry would hurry and get back with the God damned coffee!!”

[…]

via » Over the River and through the Woods