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Mid-Hudson Vegetarian Society, Inc.
38 East Market Street, Rhinebeck, New York 12572 USA -
845-876-2626
Vegetarian - Vegan - Animal Rights - Health - Nutrition - Environment
The mission of the Mid-Hudson Vegetarian Society, Inc. is to promote the vegetarian ethic in the Mid-Hudson (New York) region, educate the community and aid anyone in the pursuit of a totally vegetarian (vegan) cruelty-free and healthful lifestyle.
Newsletters
Fall 2001 Issue
What’s the best way to prevent animal suffering?
By Terry Sullivan
Be a vegan.
This was the theme of speaker after speaker at the Animal Rights 2001 Conference that I attended this summer in McLean, Virginia.
More than nine hundred animal rights activists took part in the conference, which was organized by FARM — the Farm Animal Reform Movement.
FARM founder Alex Hershaft said he’s changed his primary focus from trying to improve the conditions under which farm animals are raised and slaughtered to a new emphasis on promoting veganism. Hershaft said that it has been almost impossible to get significant improvements in laws and regulations because of the power, money and influence of the factory farm industry. He added that he is now convinced that the best way to reduce suffering is to reduce the demand for animal flesh and animal products.
Erik Marcus, the author of the book Vegan said that beside living a vegan lifestyle, animal activists should concentrate on converting others to veganism. He stressed, "If you can get a college age person to go vegan, you’re talking about two thousand chickens saved over his or her lifetime. It’s like pulling a tractor trailer into a poultry plant in the middle of the night and taking out two thousand birds and driving them to Farm Sanctuary — but instead of having an activist going to jail you have another activist joining the movement." Marcus said his goal is to become an "animal millionaire" — someone who has saved a million animals by becoming vegan — and who has convinced others to do the same.
Lisa Lange of PETA said the primary message of the animal rights movement should be "If you’re not vegetarian today, please go veg. If you’re vegetarian, please go vegan. It’s the single most important thing you can do to help the largest number of animals."
Return to Fall 2001 Newsletter
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