They Can Count On Me

This is the first irrefutable truth I discovered in my life; that eating and using animals is, no matter how you look at it, an act of abject cruelty. When we eat or use animals, we are hiring the butcher or dairyman or furrier to kill or abuse the animal for us. We are, in effect, guilty of murder for hire.

I became aware of this fact personally when I witnessed the slaughter, by sledgehammer, of a screaming bull. I felt at the time as a German citizen might have felt in 1943, had he suddenly become aware of The Holocaust.

Imagine what a life-changing awakening that would have been for the German and was for me! We both discovered we were living a lie; the lie being, in each case, that there was no holocaust going on.

My soul made a promise to that bull and to all animals. I gave my word that I would do all I could to end the horrific human treatment of animals. My first course of action was to stop my own eating and using of them.

I later learned that the path of Ahimsa or harmlessness I had embarked upon was named VEGAN. I made that promise 44 years ago. I will never go back on my veganism or my word. I trust that, by now, the animals know that they can count on me.