America must confront its own fundamentalism Most Americans are appalled at how primitively fundamentalist some Middle Easterners are. Yes, some are extremely primitive. But by far the greater causes of terrorism are the primitive and fundamentalist aspects of America and Western Civilization. After all, historically, it’s Western Civilization’s brutal intolerance that forced the Jews to create a country in the Middle East — Israel — to find safe refuge. And the existence, and U.S. military support, of Israel are some of the main reasons much of the Middle East hates America. Even today, America harbors large numbers of virulent anti-Semites. In addition, America is so primitive that we’re fundamentalist hostages of an 18th-century economic theory that requires ever more oil to fuel ever more economic growth. Thus we must attack Iraq with its second largest deposit of oil on earth and occupy Kuwait. Thus we maintain military bases in 11 other Middle Eastern countries, according to the No Bases Network. Eleven! And that’s not including our evisceration of Afghanistan and collateral killing of thousands of Pakistani civilians with heartless predator drones. Meanwhile, because of the same fanatical worship of capitalism, we won’t even provide basic health care for tens of millions of our own people. Once America withdraws our ignorance from the Middle East, Middle Easterners will be able to better appreciate areas in which America is
superbly advanced and tolerant, and the terrorists will stop attacking us. — Bill Branyon Asheville
Want to help reach 350 ppm? Stop eating meat! With all the recent 350 ppm hoopla, I am astonished at the lack of mention regarding the effects of animal agriculture on, well, everything. The surrounding events hit all the basics — land, water, energy, pollution — yet nothing and no one focused on the biggest contributor to all of these topics. It was like Al Gore coordinated the event (he who also failed to mention animal-ag in his documentary). In 2006, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization released a report “Livestock’s Long Shadow” stating that animal-ag is the biggest contributor to global greenhouse gasses — 18 percent at that time, but now believed to be at 51 percent (Livestock and Climate Change, by Goodland & Anhang). Furthermore, 80 percent of agricultural land in this country is delegated to raising livestock (Vesterby and Krupa, 2001), not to mention that livestock creep onto designated range-land and decimate public forests as well (www.fseee.org/appeals/frog); one-third of all U.S. raw materials are used in the [animalag] process: feed, water, fuel (E magazine, “The Case Against Meat,” Motavalli). One mid-sized feedlot (dairy or beef) churns out a half-million pounds of manure each day; the methane that cattle and their manure produce has a
global-warming effect equal to that of 33 million automobiles (Center for Science in the Public Interest, “Six Arguments for a Greener Diet”); the pollution strength of raw manure is 160 times greater than raw municipal sewage (John Lang, “Manure Proves to Be Massive Environmental Problem,” Scripps Howard News Service, 24 April 1998). I’ll stop there; I’d need a feature or two just to summarize the basic details. I know many people eat “free-range” and “pastured” meats, but would it not be greener to re-wild those pastures? Just because the land can’t grow crops for us does not mean we need to utilize it to satisfy our palate. We do not need to, nor should we, eat meat anymore. The health implications are for another letter. It’s time for us to evolve — for the health of our species, biodiversity and the climate. — Joseph Jamison Black Mountain
Say and eat what you want In reply to Scott Smith’s letter on vegetarians [“Vegetarians Are Too Pushy About Their Lifestyle,” Nov. 4]: Dear Scott, I am sorry that you are so offended by vegetarians. No doubt this is a free country, and you can say and eat pretty much whatever you want. But lifestyle does come with a price. Despite the faulty logic in comparing eating vegetables to slaughtering an animal, you forgot an even more compelling argument for reducing meat consumption, if not becoming totally vegetarian: The impact of meat-farming on the resources and health of the planet is tremen-
dous. In addition to severe water pollution from animal production and slaughter, the carbon footprint of the meat industry accounts for 18 percent of all man-made greenhouse gases. To add insult to injury, meat farming involves inefficient use of resources. It is a well-known fact that growing grains for direct human consumption will feed six to 10 times the amount of people with the same plot of land. With the earth’s human population reaching near carrying capacity, meat eating may well be become the gas-guzzler habit of the future. — Rudranath Beharrysingh Sylva
I’m not falling for Republican tactics any more I have yet to hear a Republican offer an apology for what their administration did to this country and its citizens, yet they now want us to trust them again. That’s ____. I’m 74 and worked hard all my life, and because of the Republicans and their greedy friends, I am now living in subsidized senior housing and having to live off of my [Social Security] funds. When I retired, I had retirement funds, which have disappeared. And today my car was repossessed because I could no longer make payments. I will forever despise the Republicans and their “friends.” — Lloyd Kay Asheville
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NOVEMBER 11 - NOVEMBER 17, 2009 • mountainx.com