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By Craig Cline - 4 Jan 2013

In Reference to: 30 December 2012 - What Are Our New Year’s Resolutions?

Dear Frank,
 
Though I am very disappointed with the lack of truly significant ( and by that I mean in terms of large numbers of people changing their flesh-eating habits) progress by those scant few of us who are vegetarian/vegan activists, I will probably not actually "give up," because I would see an action towards inaction as a violation of my duty to at least TRY to do what is "right."  
 
I have, over the past 20-plus years, been trying to show people the graphic truth about the horrors that humans visit upon other animals. Most of them neither want to hear, and certainly don't want to see, such horrors, even if they ARE the truth.  Most recently, the non-profit organization that I support heavily, Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary ( a farmed animal rescue sanctuary/www.lighthousefarmsanctuary.org) "sponsored" the showing of the documentary film "Vegucated" at our local library.

Fewer than 50 people came to see it, and virtually no one wanted any follow-up after the fact.  The Executive Director of LFS (Wayne Geiger) and I did a joint presentation before and after the film, and we were very sensitive in so doing; no "in your face" confrontation at all.  So even though LFS and I reached out (yet again, as I have done this kind of thing MANY times over the years, including bringing Dr. Will Tuttle and Howard Lyman to Salem to speak, and handing out info. (free, I might add) from PCRM, the VivaVegie Society ("101 Reasons Why I'm a Vegetarian"), PETA, Tribe of Heart literature and documentaries like "The Witness," and "Peaceable Kingdom," etc., etc., I cannot announce that I have made any REAL headway.  This lack of progress in "converting" people to vegetarian/vegan eating habits extends to my own friends and family.  Lots and lots of effort for very little progress; hence, my use of the words "very disappointed" in my first sentence above.
 
That is why I have harped on "the only meaningful and potentially effective answer" in terms of REALLY getting the attention of, and participation by, many millions of people, precisely because so many of the world's people are "religious," and therefore know full well what is behind the ethic of "The Golden Rule, is their "seeing" and buying into the expanded version of the Golden Rule, to include all creatures, and not just the human ones.
 
At this point, my personal experience tells me to ask that religious leaders across the globe first themselves "convert" to becoming proponents for and advocates of the "new and expanded Golden Rule;" then it would be incumbent on them to strongly and constantly lead their followers in the "right" direction.  Absent ACTION like this, too little progress will continue to be made, and  countless billions of God's animals will continue to suffer grievously at the hand of "Man."  I would hope that God would Himself "voice" His great objection to this behavior by His human creatures, and use His omnipotence to set them straight in the proper application of His "Golden Rule.".

Craig