April
2003
Vegetarian
Advocate: The Carnivores’ War
By Jack Rosenberger
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As I write these words in late March, the American
invasion of Iraq is ongoing. The American military has bombarded
Iraq, particularly around Baghdad, with more than 1,300 cruise
missiles and bombs and American ground troops are driving toward
the nation’s capital, but have encountered stiff resistance
in some areas. Countless Iraqi civilians and soldiers are wounded
or dead. As for the American toll of wounded, dead, or missing,
Pentagon officials aren’t exactly forthcoming.
As I ponder the meaning of the American-Iraq war, I think
about the differences between carnivores and vegetarians,
and it strikes me that
this armed conflict is a carnivores’ war.
Ten years ago Kim Powell, an Assistant Professor of Communications
at Luther College, wrote a dissertation on the values of vegetarians
and how their lifestyles caused nonvegetarians to change their way
of eating.
According to Powell’s research, vegetarians share six
primary values: health, coexistence, compassion, life, rights
and peace. Of
course, these values are not unique to vegetarians. Many carnivores
hold them dear.
Powell discovered that when most people become vegetarians,
they do not change their values. “The vegetarian movement does not expand
by changing the values of others,” says Powell. “It works
by persuading individuals to act on their values.”
In short, vegetarians practice what they preach. Compassion, peace,
and healthy coexistence are not mere words; for vegetarians, they are
a way of living.
The primary carnivores in the American-Iraq war are, of course,
George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein. Broadly speaking, neither
of them embody
what Powell has identified as vegetarians’ primary values. In
fact, the similarities between the two presidents are frightening.
Both men are rigid, uncompromising leaders who do not appreciate or
tolerate opposing points of view. It’s their way or the highway.
Both men have defied international opinion and used their nation’s
military forces to invade and try to subdue foreign nations. Both of
them are religious fanatics. And both use their political power to
protect their own vested interests: in Saddam’s case, it is Iraq’s
ruling Baath party; in George’s case, it is America’s wealthy
elite.
America, Home of the Bankrupt
In Yonkers, New York, Frank Multari has shown his support
of the man that Saddam contemptuously refers to as “Junior Bush” by
erecting a large sign outside his auto body shop. The sign reads: “Protestors
keep your big mouth shut. You live here, you reap the benefits!! Support
your country, your president, your troops. Yours truly, a Vietnam vet.”
Do you think Frank is a carnivore or a vegetarian?
In 2000, when Bush assumed the presidency, the United States had a
budget surplus of $236.4 billion. Today, the nation’s budget
has dropped a little. The estimated deficit is $159 billion. Yesterday,
Bush announced he would ask Congress for nearly $75 billion to cover
the cost of the Iraqi invasion for the next six months. At the same
time, he has proposed a tax cut of $726 billion which will primarily
benefit the wealthiest Americans.
As for the benefits we are reaping at home, here are a few appetizers
of information about how America is taking care of its own citizens.
• More than 41 million Americans lack health insurance. In fact, America
is almost the only industrialized nation that doesn’t provide its citizens
with healthcare.
• Some 33 million Americans live in poverty. Of these impoverished citizens,
nearly 12 million are children.
• More than three million Americans will be homeless at some point this
year. Of these unfortunate souls, one million will be children.
• Approximately 130 million citizens live in counties in which the air
is deemed unhealthy at times, as the area is besieged by at least one principal
air pollutant. Put another way, nearly half of the American population is more
or less regularly exposed to health-threatening air pollution.
And for a taste of how we treat our war heroes, nearly 700,000
American veterans will be homeless at some point this year—a staggering
23 percent of the entire homeless population—and 56 percent of
them will be non-white. That’s quite an eye-opener, considering
that former military men and women make up only nine percent of the
total U.S. population.
As for healthcare, last year thousands of veterans were turned
away from Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals due to budget cuts.
In Connecticut,
the VA’s acute psychiatric unit saw 300 beds reduced to 20. In
some states, war heroes have to wait months just to see a primary care
physician. For example, more than 42,000 veterans are on a waiting
list to see a doctor in Florida. That doesn’t seem to concern
Bush. In spite of a huge increase in defense spending, the VA’s
budget has been cut—again.
These are hardly shining examples of compassion, peace, and healthy
coexistence.
The War at Home
Dinnertime in the Levy-Rosenberger household: we’re sitting around
the kitchen table eating pesto pasta with cherry tomatoes and lightly
toasted pine nuts. Zoe, our seven year-old daughter, informs Rani and
I that during school her classmates and she wrote letters of support
to the American troops. Then she informs us, “The people in Iraq
are bad.”
It’s one of those moments that, as a parent, you wonder what
the right thing to say is. “I’m sure there’s a family
in Iraq sitting around their kitchen table right now, eating a meal,” I
tell Zoe. “And they’re probably saying, ‘The people
in America are bad.’ After all, we invaded their country.”
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