Freegans, Vegans, and the Privileged Class

I read articles every day, sometimes hundreds a day, and one thing that has floated to the top of my consciousness is the fact that nearly all these freegan/vegan/othergan new-age hippie types originate, self-declaredly, from upper-middle-class "establishment." Their freedom to preach to us about the wages of sin originates from the very sin that they are preaching against.



In other words, Vegans are typically extremely hypocritical. It's neither free nor easy to be a vegan, and requires extensive high-level networking to be a freegan on top of that. It's something that only a college-educated person could really pull off. The average street kids rummaging through garbage and begging for change, many of whom I'm close friends with, come from very upscale neighborhoods. One of the dirtiest "kids" I know who's 22, bruised, aggressive, vegan, and loves drugs, has parents on Camano Island. He begs for change in Seattle, and he's in many ways a pretty nice guy, apart from the routine drug problems.



I say routine because I'm talking about pot and cheap pills. Another product of a largely affluent middle-class is our war on drugs, which like most wars has been a horrible failure. You can declare a winner by killing someone, but the problems that started the conflict are not resolved. America is so spoiled that the rich kids float around intentionally living on the streets. But, that's not the full story.



We'll call him Paul. His very wealthy parents live on an island that requires a substantial income. He goes home whenever he needs medical, more pot, or just gets tired of sleeping in a blanket under a bridge. His parents think he's "creative." He beats up people who owe him money and abuses drugs heavily. He is the typical kid on a corner in hip areas like Capitol Hill and "the U" Ave. This is no work of fiction, and I see him at games on UW campus.



They tell us to live without gas, meat, oil, and whatnot, but Paul's parents own stocks in large corporations, and he's got a trust fund. Eventually he'll inherit a small company, and at least one property, for which he has never worked a day in his life. What does Paul know?



Mommy and daddy's lawyers prevent most wastrel kids from blowing the wad by feeding them an allowance from an endless trust, one that is based on the economy of American power, and upon the destruction of wildlife, forests, oceans, and HUMANS. Yet, these same privileged new-agers, also known as Trust Fund Hippies or trippies, are well-named. "They be tripping."



The most resonant expose' I've ever seen was Penn and Teller's Bullshit show about Vegans, where they exposed the wealthy roots and ironic privileges that these same people exploit in the act of going to DC to lobby for veganism. They're blind stupid, liberal in the sense that embarasses even me (an uberliberal myself,) and give health food a bad name.



At work they've created an ultra-sensitive lobby group that has entire sections of the kitchen segregated so that none of the impliments, grills, or pots have ever touched meat. Because you know, dense stainless steel retains so much grease when it's heated and washed. Not. There's MORE GREASE IN THE AIR of any restaurant with a grill, than on a washed spatula that once flipped a burger. These IDIOT Vegans are forming a new religion, where they have the right to dictate nonsense to every one else.



I smile as I watch them inhaling the greasy meat fumes from the open grill nearby as they loudly order a spirulina and soy patty, cooked specially on a green grill section and touched only with green colored utensils. Morons. There is no evidence, zero, that living without any meat is actually more healthy or even desirable. We are omnivores and require a small amount of meat to survive. We still have large Canines. You know, the kind of teeth that have one purpose: Tearing meat.



They grab for media attention, write books, influence politics, and infect our workplace. If it were based on any field of science I'd be all behind it, but it's not. It's a religion. A blind faith that eating meat is somehow bad, amoral, immoral, or otherwise wrong. The belief is based on a puritanical view of the world and actually denies significant scientific fact to the contrary. In short, a religion, as I have said.



Now, I don't have the right to force all my coworkers to bow to Buddha, my own favorite, nor do the mormons or catholics have the right or the gall to force all of us to say prayers or get rid of the caffeine in the workplace, but Vegans actually want to stop OTHER PEOPLE from practicing their own beliefs. The friends I have at work are college educated, and some of them are cooks, and what they have to say about the Vegans is disturbing. The cooks complain to me about being bitched out publicly, in very poor form, by any level employee who is offended by what is offered on the menu.



Every cafeteria I've ever been inside, in my entire life, has had a salad bar. Diversity is offered to suit hindu, jewish, and non-food-biased people, et al. There's something for everyone to eat. Nobody tries to force Jews to eat pork, but the Vegans want to force everyone else to stop eating anything but what the Vegans approve of. It's gone so far that the cafeterian manager in one building is complaining about the horrific expense of having to construct not one, not two, but three different cooking facilities in each cafe.



When an industrial dishwasher cleans dishes, including pots and knives that may have "touched meat", they reach a temperature in excess of 400 degrees. They clean with steam. The utensils all have to be able to withstand direct contact with red hot metal, and steam. No molecular remnant of living tissue could possibly remain. I know the staff and some of the cooks, and those kitches are extremely clean, because they are often randomly-inspected by the state.



But, back to my point about privilege, it's apparent that logic and hypocrisy are alien concepts to these new-agers. Those who've never worked a day of labor feel free to tell the world's poor how to live their lives. This despite the fact that in most other nations, the very act of eating every day is a challenge, and choices are slim. I'm more concerned that the world eat, have medicine, housing, and education.



Being poor is expensive. This has been proven over and over again, so much that I'm surprised anyone fails to understand it. Rich people get things for free. Rich people deduct expenses. Rich people buy in bulk, Rich people can order from far away. The poor, even in America, do not have these options. They eat the cheapest local food, which is higher in fats and starches, and have small refrigerators which generally allow fresh produce to spoil within 3 days. Thus, to eat a simple vegetarian diet, a poor person has to shop frequently, at least once every three days, and throw away a lot of food.



Guess what? They can't afford to do that.



Vegetarianism is too expensive for most people to afford. The middle class morons will stand up and say "But I can do it, so can they." No, they can't, you idiot. The simplest of all neo-fundie new-ager religions is vegetarianism, in which people eat meat occasionally but feel bad about it. Even this form of food-religion is too costly for someone living on 650.00 a month fixed income, or minimum wage. I grew up poor. I know. I used to get upset about how fast things went bad and how often I had to shop to keep veggies in the fridge. I couldn't do it, and I switched to canned goods.



Canned vegetables have very little nutritional value compared to fresh. You eat, and still feel hungry. The taste is second rate. Foods that require little preparation and are dirt cheap are what I had to get. I only had 50.00 a month I could eat on, and I worked full time. As a college student I once lived for months on ramen and baloney.



I'm not saying that poor people are forced to eat McDonalds. That's insipid. I ate pretty well. I also live in the most wealthy nation on Earth where I can eat 24 hours a day. Food is such a low denominator that it's become a religion, whereas in Africa it's more like a gift from God.



I'm sick of reading about how some rich skinny bitch gave up her BMW to eat healthier and "live green." That's nice for you, you lazy stupid bimbo who'se already prostituted herself to a major corporation. How hypocritical of you. How many stocks do you still own, by the way? Did you ever actually lift anything yourself in your entire life besides your own ego?



D