Isn't leather a by product of the killing of animals? I thought that animals were killed for meat?
If this is the case then it would be unethical not to use the leather for clothing and the various other uses that our ancestors used animal skins for. In this age when we will at some point have to stop using polluting plastics, surely using a by product of dead animals isn't such a bad thing.
The human race isn't going to become vegetarian overnight and actually probably never, as humans kind of have a desire for free will.
I think that it would be good if animals were treated with respect and I personally wouldn't inflict pain onto any creature.
Peace to all creatures on this planet..

Barely any anymore, it's all "top this" "top that" which means that the cows are bred specifically for their leather, to produce the best quality, with meat becoming the by-product (usually to be fed to pets etc). The leather industry is likening to the fur industry more and more every day - it's just blood for vanity. Most leather these days comes from India....so yeh, really ethical, along with ALL the pollutants to keep the leather "fresh", it's as environmental as mcdonalds. 'Cos let's not forget that skins rotts...it's the chemicals making it last for longer.

not all tanning chems are as bad as plastic ones & my leather jacket is maneuverable, tough,stays clean& looks good despite almost20 years of use, thin codura jackets actually are great so I plan to get one of them next.
But angling isnt murder & spraying against makes us look daft, many fish are put back, you can argue its torture. Personally I think small scale fishing of naturally free + well numbered species isn't that bad, though u can get better epa,dha,omega 6 from spirullina & microalgae.

Are you implying your part of the animal rights movement? Sounds far from it when if you wear animal skin! It's like saying your part of the 1930s nazi resistance movement, but don't mind a few lampshades made out of human skin --- even to this day.

You can keep your opinions to yourself on the idea that killing a fish isn't murder, but I advice you to see a dictionary for the word animal, and possibly research a bit more deeply into the subject. Possibly also murder, which is the intention act to end someones life, which is what fishing is about. Maybe you didn't hear but since the 21st century, governments, scientists and society as a whole have accepted that fish feel pain, why it has taken so long who knows! Maybe we should ask the people who denied that animals felt pain in the early 20th century, or that blacks weren't human in the same time period...

P.S - It's also cruel to to pierce your childs mouth, attach a ring, and then pull when you want your child to come closer, in the same way it is to catch a fish. But as someone who is one of us - you probably already know that! Cos animal rights means equality for all.

How long will it be before the ALF starts killing people.

Thats the position they seem to be heading for with each battle cry justifying the latest violence.

How long before someone selling a newspaper to a lab worker ends up dead for "aiding" in the torture of animals? After all anyone seen as helping such a company is a viable target these days.

If you can't make an argument without having to force your views then you didn't have an argument in the first place.

"You can keep your opinions to yourself on the idea that killing a fish isn't murder," Veggie

Hmm... its only ok to have a view if its the same as your veggie eh?

Will you now go round to his house and beat him up for daring to disagree with you. Are blackshirts now part of the ALF uniform?

You're a fish! What an absolutely ridiculous argument! Anthropomorphizing sentimental human values onto a fish does not make a fish human or afford a fish human rights. Finding Nemo was an animated cartoon, for god's sake! Guess what, fish have no concept of social justice - fish eat fish, except for the ones that eat algae or micro organisms, etc, which presumably also feel pain. It's called the food chain. Likening a fish to a human child is completely warped! Either humans are animals and animals eat animals, pain or no pain, like it or lump it or humans are superior and animals were put here for our bounty. But equal rights for animals? Are you serious? Equal rights? Madness! You're a haddock! Fishing is murder??? How many mental back flips did you have to go through to arrive at that nugget of wisdom? Pain is a motor neuron reflex which reminds us not to keep our hand in the flame. When an animal's number is up, human or otherwise, you know, you've probably seen it on those natural history programs where the murderous praying mantis chomps on the disenfranchised stick insect, or the chimpanzees rip the Collobus monkey (heart still beating) to shreds, the animal goes into shock, as natural a reaction as Mr Donkey getting an erection when Mrs Donkey walks into the field. Life is death is life, part and parcel, not some frickin' Walt Disney fantasy!

All of which is a far cry from respecting the environment and sustainability and crop rotation and biodiversity, etc.

Equal rights for fish. Yeah, right!

I agree that animal rights activists can sometimes be drawn to sentimentality in order to get their point across, but of the veg*ns I've met, the vast majority have sincere, well thought out arguments and don't have to resort to that sort of thing. I'm sure most intelligent people interested in animal rights realise that the 'OMGZ UR A MURDERER!1!' folk are daft. It's this sort of thing that annoys me, that there are so many undeniably rational arguments out there that are of course ignored of favour of folk dressing up as chickens outside KFC. Logic > sensationalism.

In response to the first poster, an animal's skin actually adds considerable value to the carcass. I'm not sure of the exact percentage, but buying leather new unequivocally supports the meat industry. No one is saying the human race is going to become vegetarian overnight; that's an impossibility. Veg*nism isn't some moral crusade to convert everybody, despite what the loonies at PETA may tell you. It's a personal decision which people make for various reasons. Some choose to take direct action, some choose to enjoy their mung beans in a nice dahl instead. The idea is to provide people with information about what's really happening behind the walls and closed doors, to challenge the anthropocentrism that is so worryingly prevalent. No one is advocating equal rights for animals in the sense that they should be able to vote or owt ridiculous like that; we mean equal rights in the sense that, as fellow animals, they shouldn't be tortured unnecessarily. Not too much to ask, surely? Also, mega lulz at someone with a name like "Environmentalist" who, I presume, eats meat. Not a personal attack, you understand, just funny.

The ALF's greatest strength, and possibly its greatest weakness, is its completely non-hierarchical, clandestine nature. Thousands of activists may believe that (relatively) NVDA is the way to go, yet all that is needed is one loony with a nail bomb doing something stupid and everyone who acts under the banner of the ALF, and indeed the entire animal lib movement, falls into disrepute and are branded as terrorists. Needless to say, killing in the name of life is rather silly. For every blown-up vivisector, another will take their place, albeit reluctantly. Systems are made of people, but simply killing those people isn't gonna do owt in the long run. I reckon anyway.

Ho hum.

"How long will it be before the ALF starts killing people.

Thats the position they seem to be heading for with each battle cry justifying the latest violence.

How long before someone selling a newspaper to a lab worker ends up dead for "aiding" in the torture of animals? After all anyone seen as helping such a company is a viable target these days.

If you can't make an argument without having to force your views then you didn't have an argument in the first place.

Worried of Kent"

I would advise you to the read the ALF credo for yourself which can be found here:  http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/alf_credo.htm

In particular I would like to draw your attention to the following: 4. TO take all necessary precautions against harming any animal, human and non-human.

The ALF does not kill people, end of story. If someone does not follow the credo and harms a life be it animal or human then they are not acting in the interests of the ALF. There is no ifs or buts, the ALF does not have a membership and actions can only be claimed as ALF if they follow the credo.

Fair enough to both those posters - you aren't fish. NVDA and informed argument is the way to make a point, and that's coming from an omnivore. How do you folks feel about recent (ish) trend of celeb chefs doing the accountability with slaughter thing, you know, where they raise their own animals and are at least present for the dispatch? It reminds me of a heated debate Radical Routes had once upon a time, where a farm in Cornwall which did likewise (rather than buying mass produced battery produce in cellophane wrapper off supermarket shelf) were threatened with excommunication for not towing the vegan line.

In regards to the celebrity chefs' "ethical" effrontery, I can't help but feel distaste for the whole thing. Capitalism's insidious encroach upon almost every aspect of our lives means that horrific conditions in modern 'farms' have become the norm. While obviously any attempt to improve these conditions is to some extent commendable, it's by no means the ethical revolution some people are making it out to be. I can't help but question the motive behind it all. It seems to me that with animal rights, as with issues such as climate change, people are happy for things to change as long as it doesn't inconvenience them too much. 'Ethical' issues are unequivocally the new cause célèbre, championed mainly by the middle class as at the moment they seem to be the only ones who can afford to buy free range and organic products or a shiny new Prius. One article I read describes free range products as “a niche market, typically bought by those who decide to throw money at the problem", and I'm inclined to agree. As someone mentioned on the mung bean thread, "richer than thou" has now become "greener than thou", with concern over one's appearance and, ultimately, convenience overtaking any genuine concern for the issues at hand. Otherwise we'd see a dramatic decrease in the amount of cars on the road, people eating animal products, etc. But we don't. What we see an increase in the production of "environmentally-friendly" cars, washing machines, mansions etc. It's all about maintaining the same level of consumption, when what is actually needed to remedy the problems is a decline. Look, for example, at how the multinationals have staked their claim in the 'ethical' food market, acquiring UK brands Green & Black's (Cadbury's) and Seeds of Change (Mars) among others.

But I digress. When it comes to free range products and "humanely slaughtered" animals I can't help but ask why people don't take it that one step further and wonder why they eat meat at all. It obviously causes pain and distress to billions of animals no matter what way you look at it, is horrendously wasteful and damaging to the environment, and comes with increase risk of heart disease among others. The fact that an animal has been kept in decent conditions up until its death doesn't change the morality of killing it. Reminds me of summat a certain Glaswegian politician once said about going to a gas chamber in a limosine...

The case of the farm in Cornwall you mentioned is still, in my eyes at least, immoral. I feel the unnecessary killing of any animal is wrong and although this has been horribly augmented by global capitalism, it's still wrong on a small scale IMO. However you also mentioned that they were "threatened with excommunication", which I certainly don't agree with. Veg*nism shouldn't be some special purity club with the rotten evil meat-eaters cast out from our midst. And certainly not from collectives where one's dietary choice doesn't actually have owt to do with their work, though I can understand eyebrows being raised if you were to sit munching through a steak bake at an ALF meeting. :P

Your missing the point of what the vegger said; denying that killing an animal is killing, is called denial. It's not an opinion, it's stated fact, hense why he said look in a dictionary you idiot.

You can have your opinion, but like those who said that women weren't worthy, children were retarded and blacks weren't human....saying a fish isn't an animal is stemming from the same tree - ignorance! Surely it should be ever so simple to notice?

P.S - People should just get over it, vegetarianism is increasing (now 10% in the UK), was 5% only 4/5 years ago, so it's doubled since then. That's no "AR statistics", that's quoting HardTalk with Keith Mann in June 2007. Some countries are as high as 15-20%...

Do I really need to do this?

Fish are aquatic vertebrates; Vertebrates are one of the two (main) categories of animals; those who have back bones and those who don't. To check I'm being serious, have a feel on your back and you'll notice something similar about your biological features, to those of fish.

It's time the likes of B and K and their horrendous practices were given some attention again, going back a year or so ago a group were very active against them.

"Your missing the point of what the vegger said; denying that killing an animal is killing"

What do you eat that doesn't involve killing something?

Oh wait, its ok to kill plants because... erm well thats what you eat and you need to eat something?

Unless you eat only fruit you don't have any moral high ground over a meat eater.

Its like the argument that you shouldn't eat meat unless you kill it yourself. Should people only use indoor plumbing if they are willing work down the local sewage plant?

If you think eating animals is wrong then by all means be vegan or veggie. Just don't force others to comply with your views.

I really don't understand why most of you people chose to read an ALF article on indymedia.

and then comment.

why?

To be concerned? huh?

Stick to your 911 stuff and bonecrunching please, it takes too long filtering you out...

"What do you eat that doesn't involve killing something? Oh wait, its ok to kill plants because... erm well thats what you eat and you need to eat something? Unless you eat only fruit you don't have any moral high ground over a meat eater."

The difference between plants and animals is that plants don't have a nervous system and therefore cannot feel pain. Animals clearly can, as anyone who has ever watched slaughterhouse footage or witnessed animal cruelty firsthand can testify to. Assuming folk have stopped taking Descartes' word as gospel, that is.

"Its like the argument that you shouldn't eat meat unless you kill it yourself. Should people only use indoor plumbing if they are willing work down the local sewage plant?"

I think you've misunderstood the argument. The point is to try and highlight how the vast majority of people who eat meat don't particularly enjoy animal slaughter and would probably be reluctant to tackle, say, a cow with a knife themselves. Out of sight, out of mind, aye? God forbid folk think about how the piece of meat actually got onto their plate. And if people disapprove of the methods used to get that piece of meat onto their plate, why are they supporting the industry at all?

"The difference between plants and animals is that plants don't have a nervous system and therefore cannot feel pain"

Cool, you your happy with people eating meat provided the animal doesn't suffer when its killed.

Nice one.

I agree with you for what its worth.

"Cool, you your happy with people eating children, provided the infant doesn't suffer when he/she is killed."

Seriously....nobody is with you on this one! It's the concept of "right to a life", this is why we don't eat our fellow species, and shouldn't eat others.

Stop justifying things that are really sick....this really isn't the place...

"Cool, you your happy with people eating meat provided the animal doesn't suffer when its killed."

Nope, and I never said I was. I was pointing out the reason why I'm morally OK with eating plants but not animals. There are a lot of reasons why I choose not to eat animals, the inherent cruelty and suffering involved being just one of them.

>How long will it be before the ALF starts killing people.

I'm sure someone probably said the same thing 30 yrs ago when the ALF sprang into action.

Still no deaths.

Poor you.

Do you believe this is the most prescient urgent issue facing human beings today? By making the assumption that humans are not naturally designed to be opportunistic and eat what is available, isn't that a case of rewriting history? Was the "hunter gatherer" period purely invented? Isn't it the case that most humans eat what is available in order to survive, whether that is animals, insects (small animals with external vertebraes) or plants (of which some are more apparently animate)? Would you prohibit "murder" of animals? How do you outlaw pain? Does that make child birth illegal? Much seems to be being made of "evidence" but what are the criteria? Do you foresee a paradise in which everyone is just like you? Can you call that paradise? You have the absolutism of your practise, and that's fine for you, but if you don't have the choice, does that make you bad? Does the focus of living your every day, caring about the rights of animals, make you animal centric, so that you start to forget about your own species, about the injustices and cruelty and torture and murder which are perpetuated on your own kind? Is this what you should be fighting for? Maybe we shouldn't have vets to interrupt the natural flow of pain and death. Do you have a rationale?

To ?,

Uuhhh ????