Notes From The Field #2

The date is August 27. Today i am writing from a public library in Portland, we traveled from Bellingham, to Tacoma, to Olympia, onto Portland, and later in the day we will be leaving for Nest. A ground troop of forest activists located somewhere east of Albany, OR. If the past few days are any indication i believe this journey could prove to be quite the roller coaster. Olympia for example, was full of more surprises than a B class movie trying desperately to keep you on the edge of your seat. Within the first hour we were swimming in the deschutes river, scaling, then leaping off log jams and of course taking in the drunken stuper of some men barely able to stand. Next we decided a good frolic in a field was necessary. What we didn't know was that the owner of zed field wasn't quite so warm and fuzzy about the prospect of social dissidents tromping through his grass. We were able however to eat a quick dinner and lose a wallet before we took off thanks to the friendly warning of a passing nieghbor. Later that evening the missing wallet forced us to return to the field where we were promptly met by the sound of a roaring quad and an elitist prick who is so concerned with keeping people on the other side of his 4 foot fence that he began filming us immediately, so as to report us later. After a brief exchange and some "fuck you's" we thought it prudent to leave as quickly as we had come. the rest of our evening was filled with parkour, wine, and the typical dubious activities that follow wine. All and all it was a damn good day.

As for Portland, the same thing tends to happen to me every time i show up here. Militant veganism. Apart from our hosts who themselves are vegan and extremely giving and caring people. we met numerous individuals who began preaching the tenants of veganism- it may as well have been the bible. Before i get too far let me clarify, i have nothing wrong with veganism, vegetarianism, or meat eaters. I animatley oppose factory farming, i am in complete agreement that we should free those animals and abolish that form of farming. However, if i choose to respectfully raise a cow, on ample amounts of free range grassland, and never take from that animal more than i need, i have no problem with this. human are omnivores we have historically eaten meat for our entire existence. It becomes important to realize that we are animals, there are other species of animals who indeed eat more animals. this is called the food chain. The problems today are not the we kill animals, It is that we raise them in incarceration, then slaughter them. There is nothing natural about this. It would be like conflating killing during war time operations or out of sport, with killing for survival and necessity. So my only problem with veganism is that is becomes yet another means for people to gain the elusive 'moral high ground'. i have no interest being proselytized to, i could just as easily pick apart aspects of their lives, but that would not grow the kind of unified movement we need. Thus i will end with this, all of us need to further our respect for the land and the creatures that inhabit it.