My favorite patriarchy blamer has come out as a vegetarian! At least methinks so:

A couple of years ago I got called on the carpet by a vegetarian blamer who was deeply grossed out by blogular photographs of my meaty lunches. At the time I demurred, not having fully worked out the connection between women’s oppression and the global megameatyocracy. But today I lounge before you in my lime green recliner and declare that there is no legitimate argument on behalf of consuming corporate meat. Convenience is not a legitimate argument. Price is not a legitimate argument. The delicious flavor of applewood smoked bacon is not a legitimate argument. Tradition is not a legitimate argument. Culture is not a legitimate argument.

Culture, as a matter of fact, is never a legitimate argument for anything. Fuck culture.

I am prompted to state the obvious by the reports of ground beef recalls and animal cruelty circulating around the media today. An undocumented immigrant meat industry worker has been arraigned for “illegal movement of a non-ambulatory animal,” which is a sanitized way of saying that he savaged sick cows with electric prods and forced them to their feet with fork lifts, among other things.

Despite the protestations of the corporate spokesperson, this slaughterhouse sadism cannot and must not be considered an anomaly. It is a documented fact that whenever human beings are given authority over lower-status beings — whether the lower status beings are cattle or women or slaves or prisoners of war — those in authority are unable to contain their vicious impulses and quickly morph into sadistic amoral assholes. This is a cornerstone of patriarchy. As is the rationalization, parroted, unsurprisingly, by the meat worker: “I was only following orders.”

Thus we can but conclude that hamburgers and radical feminism are mutually exclusive.

(Emphasis mine.)

Bonus pleasant surprise of the day: a majoroty of the Blamers are responding positively to Twisty’s proclamation, with many singing the praises of veg*nism themselves. Even most of the omnivores are expressing some degree concern for animal welfare, as evidenced by their support for organic/free range/hand raised meat and dairy products. Hey, it’s a start. And it’s much better than the widespread scorn we misanthropic animal lovers/people haters encounter on other *cough* feminist blogs *cough*cough*.

Now if ya’ll will excuse me, I have to go wipe a tear. This may be the happiest day of my life (on the interwebs, that is).

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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare feminism blogs blogging ibtp i blame the patriarchy vegan veganism vegetarian vegetarianism meat factory farming the internets quotables