The ethics of veganism... are they sensible, and are they enough?

[CynicalIdealist]

Lately I've considered adopting a vegan diet, but I'm well aware of the fact that workers are often oppressed to produce even perfectly vegan foods (probably less on a proportional level, but happening nonetheless). I think I'll be a vegan, in spite of the inevitable lack of utility that comes with that decision, but what about corporations? Are there particular corporations so heinously anti-worker, anti-animal or anti-environment that they don't deserve a single penny?

I know that PETA and greenpeace are more suitable places to discuss these issues, but I'd like some input from my new, fellow comrades.

[Stand Your Ground]

I'm vegan and to be honest I've never checked any of that out. I don't give out money to PETA or anything like that although I do support them.

[bailey_187]

No, keep eating meat, it makes no difference.

[Bitter Ashes]

I'm not a vegan and I've got no plans to be. I'm specified as an omniviorous mammal and I've got no intrest in going against that. That bieng said, I can perfectly understand if some people find the idea of putting dead animals in thier mouth a bit gross and I wouldn't suggest that they tried any more than I'd try munching on the cat litter. If it grosses you out, don't do it, unless of course there's a very good reason (e.g. If you were badly ill/injured/etc, you'd be outright stupid to put your ickiness hang-ups before your health).

Right now, I think your best bet is damage limitation. Unless you go off into the mountains to become a hermit living off wild Juniper berries, it'll be very difficult to keep yourself alive (and available for the cause) without ending up doing anything that may harm other workers. Even if you were to steal what you need, all that would happen is that the supplier would lower wages and worsen working conditions to make up for the "loss".

If you're fortunate enough to have oodles of cash, I suppose there's fair trade stuff around and there are some co-operativly run organic wholesalers like Lembas, in Sheffield, but bear in mind that's more of a bulk buying niche market. Certainly not accessable to most working class people.

So, keep your strength up with whatever food you can get, but try to avoid the most obvious and worst suppliers like Coca-Cola (for shooting union organisers), or ASDA/Walmart (for active union-busting), etc. Even this is difficult, so I'd reccomend trying this kind of level of awareness in what you buy, before you try anything more radical, first.

Most importantly though, a half-starved revolutionary is no use to anyone, least of all the poor farmers.