Call me cynical, but when celebrities, easily under 40, say they won’t have plastic surgery (and what about Botox?), I think time will tell whether they stick with that decision or not.

It seems to me that if you fight for justice for all non-white people — or all brown people — the lives of gay latinos would be impacted.

I had was talking to a passionate Chicano activist once who told me that gay rights weren’t his first priority; although he supported gay rights, he wanted to improve the station of oppressed brown Americans first. My response: What about gay Chicanos?

Believe me when I say I understand. I’m a Jewish, vegan gay man who is constantly trying to look for way the activism inherent in the three can interesect. There are days when my first priority is promulgate the idea of ethical animal treatment, with no consideration of the unethical treatment of, for instance, people. But I have to remind myself that all forms of oppression are intimately linked. That is, you have to bring the whole system down at once.

That’s me, though. It take a lot of time and I go a relatively short distance. To be fair, I took your one post, with no consideration for anything else you’d written and responded to it (and then posted a response on the wrong thread). I need to read more of what you all write here before having a fully-formed opinion on this site. Then I’ll be back, commenting at full force. (o:

Chris, thanks for your thoughtfulness and non-combativeness. My short answer to your questions (other than “read the rest of the blog”) is that quite honestly, for me, encouraging people to stop viewing food/eating in “good” and “bad” terms takes precedence over the kind of food ethics you’re talking about. You’re absolutely right that it’s a bit simplistic to say, “Eating is a morally neutral act” when there are loads of factors that make a given meal more or less harmful to farmers, animals, the environment, etc. But in terms of my activism, that’s not a battle I’m actively engaged in — my priority is helping people realize that they are not actually bad people for wanting to eat when they’re hungry, or for wanting to eat a particular food that’s been marked as bad because of its calorie/fat content.

If you read around the blog, you’ll see lots of discussions in comments about approaches to eating that take into account anti-capitalism, animal rights, and environmental concerns. Those conversations are always welcome here, as long as they don’t involve judgment or criticism of people who eat differently by choice or by necessity.

(Your points about poverty and the word “healthy” are indeed well covered in other blog posts here.)

I probably made them up, didn’t I.

Well, there are over 900 posts on this blog and over 1000 people at our community site, so you can be pretty sure that there are a lot of discussions happening around here.

Ok (and sorry). In the future, I’ll stick to the appropriate threads.

I’m glad to hear the the discussion is happening, and I look forward to reading what you’ve, and especially your readers, have had to say.

1. This is not the appropriate thread for this comment. Please post your comments to the appropriate threads. Even if it’s an old post, a link will show up in the “recent comments” section of the sidebar.

2. We have discussed many of the ideas you bring up, quite extensively. Please read the archives and acquaint yourself more with the blog before spending so much time writing a response to everything at once. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel!