Further excerpts from “Shall We Eat Flesh?” Rational Living Library, B. Liber 1934

Radicals or revolutionists who believe in justice for men and who exclude the animals are only half-enlightened. The meat habit, handed down from a reactionary past, is being encouraged by interested capitalists. But progressive people and intelligent proletarians ought to break down all such cruelties inherited from a dark antiquity. A new world will need new modes of living.

******

Vegetarism is not merely a cranky or narrow food theory. It is a philosophy and its scope is as wide as the world. Its principals may be applied all through life and shape our personal conduct in all our affairs and relations with other people as well as the duties of society toward the individual. A thinker will apply his food thoughts to the rights of his mate and child, to those of his fellowmen and fellow animals.

A thinker should not be indifferent to the origin of the food which is going into his flesh and blood and upon which his physical strength and even his mental make-up will depend.

******

Of course, a vegetarian is against war. But not necessarily so and I am not certain whether all vegetarians will say that this is an absolute. I am convinced that a worker who is class-conscious will not oppose class war when necessary, even if he is a vegetarian. At any rate, if a vegetarian does oppose war, let him not hide away behind an excuse. If at all possible, he should openly refuse service and take the consequences. Even the “red cross” chapter during war time belongs to war and is an unsuitable work for vegetarians who are objectors.

******

True vegetarians cannot be religious. All important religions have been and are cruel and have encouraged killing and meat-eating and slave-driving and economic exploitation and “untouchability” of pariahs---and have sided with the oppressors.

******

Vegetarism has nothing to do with religion, except to be opposed to it and to its great harm. If a divinity had ordered me to abstain from meat, that would be vegetarism by force. The true vegetarian needs no commands. He is convinced both by reason and by sentiment.

The Bible says, “Thou shalt not kill.” But that never meant not to kill animals---and most Jews and Christians and most believers in the Bible are meat-eaters. It did not even mean not to kill man---during war time. “Jehovah is a warrior,” says the same book, which is full of all sorts of horrible cruelties. And does not the Bible and do not other related books prescribe just how to kill the animals for food and sacrifice to the God of the same Bible?

******

We---the cranks? We---the fanatics?

No.

There are no worse cranks than the meat-eaters in spite of the fact that they are in the majority. Particularly those who are informed from practical experience, and from scientific work that flesh is unnecessary and still fear not to be sufficiently nourished on a vegetarian or lacto-vegetarian diet and think they must have meat food.

Fanatics are those who in our times of technical progress, when animal food is no longer a necessity, continue to insist, under more or less “logical” excuses, on sacrificing life for eating purposes, just the same as their poor, ignorant, helpless, non-civilized, primitive ancestors did.

"Shall We Eat Flesh?" Rational Living Library, B. Liber 1934

Benzion Liber, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at New York. Born in 1875, Liber was a Romanian Jewish Socialist, nicknamed "The People's Doctor" who worked at the Polyclinic Hospital and was a practicing physician in New York since 1904.

And even more excerpts from “Shall We Eat Flesh?” Rational Living Library, B. Liber 1934

What proofs have you personally of the harmlessness of a vegetarian diet for the health of large numbers of people?

Harmlessness? It would be more correct to say usefulness or superiority. I cannot help repeating that during thirty years of a busy medical practice in New York, with over a hundred and fifty thousand consultations, not to speak of previous years and of my experience outside my practice, I have come in contact with tens of thousands of cases of disease where the discontinuance of meat-eating has been undoubtedly directly responsible for a healing or an improvement of the condition. And that is no exaggeration, as I have studied my cases closely, taking notes and figures concerning them. Of the hundreds of vegetarian---mostly lacto-vegetarian---children who have passed through my hands, I have followed many almost from babyhood to adult age. Most of them were children of vegetarian parents. Some were vegetarians by themselves. All of these children have become young men and women, physically healthier than the average, mentally bright, happy, almost always taller, stronger, better built than their parents and than other members of their families. During their childhood they were almost free from the common diseases and, when ill, had but little trouble in getting rid of their ailments. They certainly are the flower of humanity.

******

The large and successful vegetarian co-operative fruit and vegetable producing colony “Eden” near Oranienburg, Germany (not far from Berlin) was 36 years old at the advent of Nazism. It was one of the rare places in Germany where meat, alcoholic beverages and tobacco could not be obtained. There was no church and no policeman. They had co-operative stores and a co-operative fruit cannery. The land belonged to the colony. It could neither be bought nor sold by individual colonists. The worker on the land received the full product of his toil. The hundreds of children raised there were in good health and normal in every respect. The vegetarian community was particularly proud of its Kindergarten, “Vegetarische Kinderheim.” It differed from other places of this sort “in that the children had more freedom; that they were treated kindly and individually; that they were most of the time in the open, in contact with nature; that, while playing farmers, they grew up to be real farmers, that they ate vegetarian food which they helped their teacher-friend to prepare.”

"Shall We Eat Flesh?" Rational Living Library, B. Liber 1934
Benzion Liber, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at New York. Born in 1875, Liber was a Romanian Jewish Socialist, nicknamed "The People's Doctor" who worked at the Polyclinic Hospital and was a practicing physician in New York since 1904.

What is Humane Education?

Humane education makes the acquisition of relevant knowledge, skills, and commitment to living ethically, sustainably, and peaceably on this planet the very purpose of education. It does this by infusing the curricula at all levels of education with meaningful information, inspiration, and tools for creating a safe and humane world for all.

Humane education examines the challenges facing our planet, from human oppression and animal exploitation to materialism and ecological degradation. It explores how we might live with compassion and respect for everyone: not just our friends and neighbors, but all people; not just our own dogs and cats, but all animals; not just our own homes, but also the earth itself, our ultimate home.

Humane education helps raise a generation that cares, that realizes that what we do matters, not just to ourselves but also to everyone our lives touch; a generation that understands the connections between both our personal and cultural choices and the fate of other people, other species, and the Earth, and takes responsibility for creating a better world. Humane education achieves these goals by inspiring people to identify the values that will guide them through life and by teaching them the process of embodying these values in the face of complex problems and needs.

The birth of humane education as a national effort dates back to 1915. In that year, “Be Kind to Animals Week” was inspired Dr. William O’Stillman, leader of the American Humane Association. AHA’s primary goals were: visiting local schools to promote the development of humane education and publicizing the good works of the nation’s humane societies.

Quality humane education uses a four-element approach that includes:

• Providing accurate information about the interrelated issues of human rights, environmental preservation, animal protection, and culture.

• Teaching critical thinking so students can discern fact from opinion and resist forms of manipulation, whether from advertising, media, peers, or social norms.

• Inspiring the 3 Rs of reverence, respect, and responsibility so students will have both the passion for, and the commitment to, bringing about positive change.

• Offering choices for both individual decision-making and group problem-solving so that students can become part of a growing effort to develop sustainable, peaceful, and humane systems by which to live.

Louisiana schools deem to ignore children and dumb animals

At the core of all curriculums, lies the state's school code. Taking a look at Louisiana's, it seems the corpse-munchers in charge do as they deem appropriate when dealing with children and dumb animals. Not vegan

Louisiana

266. Kindness to dumb animals

The state board of education may take such steps as it may think necessary and wise to provide for the teaching of kindness to dumb animals in the public schools, it being understood that the state superintendent of education, by the direction of the board, will issue such suggestions and furnish such information to the superintendents and teachers as the board may deem appropriate and necessary.

http://www.legis.state.la.us/lss/lss.asp?doc=80389

Wow, I was worried the children were not receiving Humane Education. Now I can sleep better.

More excerpts from “Shall We Eat Flesh?” Rational Living Library, B. Liber 1934

Children are often born vegetarians. They are in love with other animals. They talk to them, and understand them.

How tragic it is to take their pet, their friend, their animal-comrade and kill it for food, as it is often done! The anecdote about the child and its pet chicken is not a joke: Overhearing arrangements for tomorrow’s dinner, “Oh, mummy, not Jane! I’ve known her since she was an egg.”

Many children would never eat meat if not forced. They feel a fraternity between themselves and the animals. When you call an unspoiled child a “pig,” he is happy. He would like to be a pig.

It is just as irrational to give a child war-toys, as it is to put into his hands butchers’ blocks with imitation slaughtering tools, as I have seen it done. Of course, it depends on the spirit in which it is done. Even playing with live rabbit pets or fish in a bowl, which may seem innocent, can be encouraged in the wrong way and changed into atrocity.

When we are taught to hate or despise animals, we libel them, especially if we compare them to man and lend them our qualities or defects. All the fables in which animals are villains, are stupid and grotesque misrepresentations and calumnies.

In many families children are vegetarians of their own accord and in spite of the great opposition of their parents and their entire environment, in spite of ridicule and even corporal punishment or enlisting their doctors to scare them---and they fare well.

"Shall We Eat Flesh?" Rational Living Library, B. Liber 1934
Benzion Liber, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at New York. Born in 1875, Liber was a Romanian Jewish Socialist, nicknamed "The People's Doctor" who worked at the Polyclinic Hospital and was a practicing physician in New York since 1904.

Excerpts from “Shall We Eat Flesh?” Rational Living Library, B. Liber 1934

Our best propaganda is the “propaganda by the deed”---just by being a vegetarian everywhere. All meat-eaters with some intelligence and sense of justice feel guilty in the presence of a vegetarian. They always begin to apologize without the least provocation: “I eat but little meat. I cannot stop it on account of my circumstances.” They are always on the defensive.

*******

In your enlightening work do not disregard the children. They may be and often are the best vegetarians without our teachings, but, generally, it is not difficult to make them see your point.

*******

Generally, persons who have not been vegetarians from their youth will not go to the trouble of adopting a new way of eating in advanced age. It is rare that such people should make an effort to change their habits. They are too conservative. Vegetarism is a revolution, a symbol of youth, of life and enthusiasm for a living idea. Only those young in spirit are capable of taking it up aggressively, confronting the surrounding scoffers and living it with their entire being.

*******

Those of us who eat eggs and milk products are guilty of forcing people to keep, and indirectly also to kill, animals.

*******

Whenever possible, it is best to reach an understanding about vegetarism before mating.

*******

As soon as one sees the truth contained in vegetarism and continues to eat meat, he is no longer innocent and ignorant of his mistake. He is guilty of crime.

*******

You may say the vegetarian is a sentimental, and therefore weak-willed, individual. Yes, he is sentimental. But he has a strong will-power as he is not going with the current, but against it, not imitating the unthinking flesh-eating majority or submitting to the dictates of the ignorant masses.

*******

They think they accomplish much by living a life apart from the rest of their fellow-men, adopt an attitude of superiority and are satisfied with their capacity not to soil their bodies with corpses.

They are, if they remain unchanged, forever paralyzed in their self-admiration and condemned to a limited activity and to mental sterility.

Their vegetarism is so strictly vegetarian, so unconcerned with larger human problems, that it is really non-vegetarian. They are so much in love with peace, that, by their silence and tolerance of the great social crime against the exploited class, they are criminals and are on the side of the criminal class, and are waging war against those who are chained and enslaved.

*******

"Shall We Eat Flesh?" Rational Living Library, B. Liber 1934
Benzion Liber, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at New York. Born in 1875, Liber was a Romanian Jewish Socialist, nicknamed "The People's Doctor" who worked at the Polyclinic Hospital and was a practicing physician in New York since 1904.

Barack Obama follows the Socialist Doctors’ dairy health care blueprint for America mapped out in 1934

The Socialist Doctor
VOLUME II. NUMBER 3 MAY, 1934

The Official Organ of the Socialist Medical Association

NESTLE'S MILK Richest in Cream [WTF?]

NUTRITION NEEDS PLANNING
By Dr. Leslie J. Harris (Nutritional Laboratory, Cambridge).

INTEREST in the subject of nutrition is at present almost universal, and opinion as to the needs of the community and the presence of under-nourishment among the working classes varies enormously. Nevertheless, there are certain facts which are indisputable and which demand free publicity. From these basic facts readers can be left safely to draw their own conclusions.

I am thinking primarily of those diseases, mainly “deficiency diseases,” for which modern medical science has now found the remedy- remedies of which there is no inherent shortage in nature, but of which man is nevertheless still kept deprived, solely because of the stupidity and ignorance of a society which fails to apply its knowledge, or to make proper use of its available resources.

It is useful to look back and see how much has been already accomplished, not in any spirit of self-satisfaction, but to give us confidence of how much is possible.

Again compare a picture of any group of elementary school children of thirty or forty years ago, and you cannot dispute the remarkable change for the better in the corresponding group of to-day. The year-by-year improvement in physique can be seen from the reports of the Ministry of Education. In 1927 the average five-year-old child was no less than four pounds heavier than the corresponding child in 1921, and half-an-inch taller. A good achievement for a short space of six years.

But now, if we accept the axiom that Governments are responsible for the welfare and health of their citizens, it seems to me that there can be no halfway house in the process of amelioration. The very first call on the administration must inevitably be the health of the individual; and we should no longer tolerate the position which we know to-day, in which the means of health, although known and recognized, are still beyond the means of many. How anomalous, by this criterion—not because of any lack of knowledge, but rather because of shortage of money! What an astounding sidelight on our civilization will this appear to our more enlightened descendants.

But I err in tending to see the mote only in my neighbor’s eye, and, after all, charity begins at home. When we consider what might be done, and what little has been done, have we in this country so much to be proud of? We know from large-scale and carefully-controlled clinical experiments carried out in orphan asylums and in other institutions, among elementary school children up and down the country, what wonderful improvements result in physique, health, and good spirits when extra milk is added to the child's diet. Yet how many school children in this country are able to receive the full amount of milk which modern science demonstrates to be desirable?

What seems much more to the point is the demonstrable and admitted fact that many working-class people have not available even the limited sum needed for this bare sustenance allowance, and that after paying rent only, and making no allowance for such elemental necessities as clothes and coal. I think attention might be concentrated on this essential point, rather than on the relatively small differences between the two bodies. It deserves to be pointed out, moreover, that the scales which have been put forward seem to be based on the rather unnatural assumption that the un¬employed person possesses so perfect a knowledge of dietetics and nutrition that he is to be able to choose his dietary constituents to the best (or meanest) possible physiological advantage (as well as in the cheapest market).

HOW ARE THE CHILDREN?

THE question of whether a child can be fed on a sum of 2s. or 3s. per week or not is one that can be considered from many angles. It may be discussed from the theoretical aspect by counting the cost of a diet giving an adequate caloric value. It may be considered from the statistics available for the cost as it works out in private homes and in institutions. It may also be discussed from the aspect of obvious results, from the effect on the health of children whose parents cannot have more than a bare minimum with which to provide food.

Further, the observer must necessarily be influenced by what he has come to regard in his own mind as the average, or rather the normal. If he has been working in a poor district for some time, he will quite naturally and unconsciously tend to accept lower standards of what constitutes the normal than an observer in a good-class community, such as a Medical Officer to a public school, where the majority of the children come from well-to-do homes.

Hence the points to be aimed at are the greater use and dissemination of such information on nutrition as already exists, the stimulation of further inquiries, and a much wider distribution of free milk and meals in a planned, directed, and purposive effort to direct is an upward trend towards the optimum for the greatest possible number.
Caractacus.

SOCIALISM AND PUBLIC HEALTH
By Somerville Hastings, M.S., F.R.C.S. (Chairman of Hospitals and Medical Services Committee, L.C.C.)

During the last half-century there has been a steady and continuous improvement in our people's health and a corresponding reduction in mortality rates. It is a little doubtful, perhaps, how long this improvement will continue to be seen, for the privations necessitated by the world crisis and the economy campaign must have had an adverse effect on the national physique and resistance to disease. Still, we have this to our credit, that during the last half-century the expectation of life for the average citizen has been increased by some twelve to fifteen years. Now if we look round carefully for the causes of this decreased mortality, we shall find that it is due much more to diseases which we have prevented than to those that we have cured. By careful supervision of our water supply we have almost completely wiped out those terrible epidemics of typhoid fever that we had in the past; by instruction given in our maternity and child-welfare centers we have to a large extent disposed of those attacks of infantile diarrhea that used to be such a menace to child life; by notification, isolation, and disinfection we have been able to reduce both the incidence and mortality of infectious disease.

The history of Public Health legislation and administration in this country during the last fifty years is for the Socialist both inspiring and convincing. It is the story of how people who did not believe in Socialism and did not want it were compelled to adopt it to obtain not only efficiency, but any results at all, because private enterprise invariably let them down whenever they depended on it.

And people are beginning to ask why should not the principles that have served us so well in connection with preventive medicine be applied to clinical medicine also? If Socialism has been so effective in preventing disease, why should it not help us to cure it as well? And it is not only members of the Labor Party who are asking this.

How can we expect improved results in the treatment of disease when we adopt our present individualistic, disorganized, and utterly chaotic methods for dealing with it?

Minimum Adequate Allowance for Children

The diets were carefully scrutinized, and a selection made of these cards in which the diet appeared adequate without extravagance, rich in vitamins, and embodying at least one pint of milk per day. In this group the average cost per week was, for children one year and under, 4s. 9d. and for children from one to two years, 4s. 9¼ d. A small group of children, from two to three years, gave an average of 4s.11½d.

None of the mothers included anything for cooking, and they were not asked to include any sum for clothes, heating, &c. From reading the diets and analyzing the figures, one is prepared to state that a child cannot be given a diet adequate in every detail at a cost of less than 4s. 9d. per week. A nation which tries to rear its future citizens on less will find itself in later years populated by people who have never had a chance to build a strong, healthy, and disease-resisting bodies.
D. S. M.

AMERICA NEEDS A NEW HEALTH SERVICE

WHILE contending forces are struggling for supremacy in the American business world, quite a large section of the community is taking a very active interest in the need for reorganizing the medical services of that country. A writer in the "Journal of the American Medical Association," early this year, stated that "at least 100,000 persons in the United States sorely need hospital care, but are not getting it. Why? The answer seems to be that only two-thirds of the beds are in use!" He adds, however, as a less satirical reason, that only 2-5ths per cent, of those attending hospital clinics are able to pay the fees.

For such reasons, meetings of the medical profession and of social workers generally, are being held everywhere to discuss what can be done, and the American Academy of Political and Social Science has passed a resolution that America needs "a socialized health service that is adequate, effective, easily available, and cheap, if not gratuitous."

It is an interesting point that the London correspondent of the "Journal of the American Medical Association" goes out of his way, week by week, to produce arguments, based on English experience, against the National Health Insurance Acts, and against the whole idea of a socialized medical service. He constantly reiterates that there is really no support for such a scheme in this country, shutting his eyes to such phenomena as the new L.C.C.

Nevertheless, American opinion is gradually being built up in favor of either an insurance system or a complete free service, and the director of the Milbank Research Fund has declared "that some insurance system should be developed—providing every type of medical service to every member of the family of people having incomes below an amount sufficient to guarantee medical service in every contingency." It is insisted that, while there should be a joint committee of lay people and doctors to deal with complaints, the professional service and personnel should be under professional control.

It is too early yet to say what the medical profession will say to this, but when the situation in America becomes clearer it may be that one of the results of the depression will be some form of State organization of the medical services of the American Continent.
M.O.H.

MOVEMENTS

A committee has also been meeting to discuss the cost of a State Medical Service, and an immense amount of detailed matter has been considered. This is a very big problem, and certain figures have proved difficult to get, but the work is progressing, and it is hoped that at an early date a report will be available.

The third committee has been formed to consider disease in relation to social and economic factors, and have begun on the subject of nutrition. Already the ground has been cleared, but it is obvious that a large number of problems are involved, and the committee proposes to tackle each by asking one of its members to prepare a paper on the subject.
ON-LOOKER.

MILK

MILLIONS of gallons of it! Yet we don't use nearly enough of it in this country. A lengthy report has just been issued dealing with the consumption in Scotland, and this confirms the backward position of the country as a whole. It is shown that the amount of milk was a little less than 0.5 pint per person per day. The consumption varied greatly in different districts, but even the highest did not reach the figure for the United States, which in 1926 was just over one pint per day. An increase in our daily consumption would not only mean a big improvement in the position of farmers, but, as numerous experiments and observations show, a big advance in the health of the nation.

This is only one of the problems offered by the milk question, and the Socialist movement, and the Socialist Medical Association in particular, will have to decide what it is going to do about the production, distribution, and control of milk in this country. The report quoted above mentions that it was found that in nearly all towns the largest proportion of the milk was handled by the co-operative societies. Are we to organize the milk supply through the already existing machinery of the Co-operative Movement or, as has been suggested in some quarters, through a new national and municipal organization?

More important, from the medical point of view, is the question of how milk should be produced to prevent its being, as it can and is, one of the worst of disease-carriers. Should pasteurization be made compulsory or should we go all out for a complete elimination of disease among milk cattle and their attendants? The latter would be a lengthy and. expensive business, and while tuberculosis can probably be got rid of, other conditions, such as Br. Abortus infection, are difficult of elimination, and there will always be some bacterial contamination of even the best milk. This is particularly the case with the milk supply of large towns, and in these cases, pasteurization seems to be the best method of ensuring safety. One thing must be insisted on, namely, that all milk sold should be subject to the closest bacteriological and chemical control.
D. P. H.