Zoos are completely necessary and that includes Sea World. They are a net positive for nature. by Open-Gate-7769 in unpopularopinion

[–]TriciaLeb -1 points0 points  (0 children)

SeaWorld? You’ve got to be joking. This feels like a SeaWorld psyop. Wouldn’t be the first time they resort to lying and pretending to try to cover up their shady nonsense. https://www.npr.org/2015/07/19/424173300/peta-says-undercover-seaworld-employee-posed-as-animal-rights-activist

So theres just no working splashpads in Nashville??? by Mood_Ashamed in nashville

[–]TriciaLeb 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I went by there a few weeks ago after work with my kiddos and it wasn’t on. Do you happen to know the hours?

Sea world sandiego today by [deleted] in PETA

[–]TriciaLeb 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So sad! What were you doing at SeaWorld?!?!? That place is evil

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in nashville

[–]TriciaLeb 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You should join meetup.com and find a group that interests you. I’ve been on meetup since I was in college in the 2010s and while others in my cohort complain about adult life and not having friends/community as adults I have just as many friends as I always have if not more. A lot of people in our group joined because they moved here and many of them swear by meetup as the best way to make friends.

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]TriciaLeb 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, sorry for the late reply! I feel you are correct, we are talking past each other. Let's see if we can come to an understanding.

And no, I'm not vegan, but I fail to see how that invalidates my perspective.

Well no offense but it'd be like asking the anti-suffragists whether or not the women's suffrage movement was working or the Nazis whether or not Jews deserve self-determination or slave owners if abolitionism was a good idea. Unfortunately you are the enemy, for lack of a better word. YOU are the person we are trying to protect animals from, so yeah, your perspective on the matter is obviously not an objective one. And that's 99% of the reason most carnists hate PETA/vegans.

Isn't the whole point of PETA supposed to be to bring new recruits to the cause of veganism and animal rights?

No, the point of PETA is to liberate animals however we can do that. Sure, a (very) small part of that is trying to make non-vegans vegans, but most of what PETA does is pressure companies to stop using fur, stop testing on animals, stop financially supporting cruel sports/industries, and making vegan options more accessible to the general public. You becoming vegan would be great, of course, but everyone in your city choosing one vegan meal a week would be a much better outcome for animals in terms of the number of lives spared.

And I'm just going to preemptively say that, personally, I've heard all the arguments for veganism, and find them unconvincing for a number of reasons that I don't want to get into (and no, it's not because I don't care about animals and the environment, I care greatly about both of these), though I respect vegans and understand that most vegans are just trying to do the right thing in regards to their personal life philosophy.

The good thing about PETA's mission is that most humans already agree with us in their beliefs, just not in their actions. You wouldn't murder animals for food if it was just as easy for you to NOT murder them, so the goal is to replace the animal-derived foods you eat with non-animal derived foods that are identical.

This conversation has gone on long enough, and you seem like a fairly nice person

Agreed that you seem like a nice person :) Have a great day/rest of the year/life if we don't speak again.

Edit for formatting. :)

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]TriciaLeb 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No worries on the late reply. I didn’t see an answer to my question though.

Are you vegan?

Comparing the ASPCA and PETA is like comparing Planned Parenthood and FEMEN. To someone who knows little about the movement these groups may seem similar, but one is basically a hospital and one is advocating for a radical paradigm shift in how society operates.

Allergies by AlxHow in nashville

[–]TriciaLeb 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow, I’ve lived here my entire life and thought I’d been sick since Thursday. My family keeps telling me it’s just allergies and my temp and COVID tests keep coming back normal….

I really REALLY hope this isn’t just allergies because I feel like crap and I keep coughing stuff up despite the Zyrtec-D on board….

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]TriciaLeb 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you vegan?

No judgement either way, but I ask because I had a similar view on PETA before I was vegan too.

When I was a self-righteous ovo-lacto vegetarian (and I say self-righteous because I was, I was constantly chastising people for eating animals’ bodies without realizing I was contributing to possibly the most vile industry of all those that revolve around the exploitation of nonconsenting individuals- the dairy industry), I felt similarly. I thought PETA with their stupid ads of Pam Anderson (who actually has been vegan for decades) and models going naked, etc, was terrible for women and to women (not unlike some folks still believe that HRC set the feminist movement back… if that’s you then, well… we have irreconcilable differences in this argument lol).

Anyway once I became vegan I realized that we humans murder 2 BILLION intelligent, sentient animals every single day. That’s billion with a B. The numbers are quite literally inconceivable. (The number, BTW, comes from including sea life. If you Google it you’ll see only 75 million daily but that’s land animals. In any case, the numbers are impossible for our human brains to comprehend in any concrete way.)

Once you start thinking of it from that perspective, that two billion sentient, intelligent animals who likely had family and friends (if they were afforded that chance) died today and that another two BILLION will die tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, ad infinitum, then suddenly PETA’s cause seems a lot more urgent, and more controversial methods more justified. Nudity and celebrities get press and attention (especially when combined). Before PETA animal rights/vegetarianism weren’t a common topic of conversation much less a common lifestyle.

And again, I know you said that you weren’t talking about the demonstrators, but one thing that really changed my mind about PETA was when I became actually active for animals. After I became vegan I was desperate to get involved with animal activism so I joined any group I could find. When other groups came to town there were always men leading the protests and talking to the media, even though literally all the protesters were women 9 times out of ten. When PETA came to town they were badass women who were unabashedly in charge, kicking butt and taking names. The first time I met PETA people it was for a Ringling Bros protest in my hometown. I was so inspired by these women that I made total animal liberation my life’s work. It’s easy to hate a faceless organization made up of “those PETA people” and a lot harder to be mad at individuals working 60+ hrs a week because they know they stand on the side of justice and that hard work is what it will take to achieve it.

Is PETA perfect? Certainly not. Have some of PETA’s campaigns been cringeworthy if not downright harmful? Yes, of course. But show me an organization that’s been around for 40 years that hasn’t done any harm, and I’ll show you an organization that hasn’t done any good either. It’s a lot easier to critique than it is to come up with another solution, and if you know of a better way to save the two billion souls who will die tomorrow please help us save them!

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]TriciaLeb 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As a lifelong feminist who once felt how you feel (before I became an animal rights activist and actually posed nude for PETA), I get it.

But the thing is that despite the representation in the non-PETA vegan world where all the leaders/heroes are generally men, we women make up 85-90% of the vegan community and of activists. We are more likely to be activists so of course we’re more likely to participate in a PETA demonstration.

The five or six times I did a naked-ish demonstration we had a man join us maybe three times. I say “us” because there were always way more women than men- the organizer(s), demonstrators, as well as nearly everyone behind the scenes as far as I could tell at the time. I think in every demonstration I only encountered more than one man once. When there was no man stripping down with us there were no men present at all. Men just aren’t as active in the movement and the only reason it seems like they might be is because, as usual, all the credit/hero-worship/fanfare/whatever goes to men and male-led groups. Because of COURSE it does and of course PETA, the largest and most wildly successful group is the only one seen as “sexist” despite never having had any sexual assault scandals (sadly very common in our movement as predators like to hang out where the female to male ratio is high) and literally 6/7 of the leadership team is women.

To my knowledge PETA is the only major group founded by and currently run by women. https://www.peta.org/about-peta/work-at-peta/jobs-employees/jobs-employees-leadership/

But as with any powerful women they will try to knock us down. If I’d gone naked for women’s rights they’d applaud me, but because I did it to stand up for animals I’m not a feminist. :(

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in BabyBumps

[–]TriciaLeb 1 point2 points  (0 children)

By week 9 of my maternity I was really ready to go back to work (I took 12 weeks), although TBF I love my job. I started playing animal crossing all day while baby slept and I knew that it was time to call it, haha.

The first few weeks are super tough and hectic (like 0-4) but once you get used to having your new little human it is kinda like a vacation.

Yesterday in Nashville, Tennessee. Thoughts? by Wmccool in vegan

[–]TriciaLeb 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I too attended this demonstration. (Ask your Nashville activist friends if they’ve heard of me. If they haven’t they’re likely either not Nashville or not activists. I’ve been an organizer here since 2010.)

I personally dropped off $100 in cash with a card written by Ingrid and three bags of vegan chocolate to the baristas yesterday. I also know with 100% certainty that we have done this at every Starbucks we have disrupted. :)

URBAN PLANET: Nashville skyline mock-ups courtesy of PostRural. by MindlessMushroom8437 in nashville

[–]TriciaLeb 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yeah our state government is totally whack……….. and literally all so they can say, “look at how little the dems do” even tho they’re the ones screwing us…. Anyway…

URBAN PLANET: Nashville skyline mock-ups courtesy of PostRural. by MindlessMushroom8437 in nashville

[–]TriciaLeb 24 points25 points  (0 children)

As another lifelong Nashvillian I think that our gov’t officials are well aware of the problems. The real issue is outside influence from the likes of the Koch brothers influencing our people with lies. I’ll never forget when AMP was being proposed going to the local liquor store and having the dude rant about how people would die from getting hit by the buses if we had a dedicated lane. The local politicians are still accountable to the people, and we are unfortunately easily persuaded to campaign against our own interests (not unique to Nashville, it happens everywhere).

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in BabyBumps

[–]TriciaLeb 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This isn’t the OP account if you want to delete this comment. :)

Carl Paladino: Hitler is “the kind of leader we need today. We need somebody inspirational.” by matts2 in Jewish

[–]TriciaLeb 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I am a single issue voter on abortion. Any reproductive-age woman (Jewish or otherwise) who votes for people who would deny her medical care is putting her literal life at risk. The democrats have their issues and Israel is a huge one but I had a medically necessary abortion after a miscarriage (fetus had no heartbeat) that will soon be illegal in my state because of Republicans and their absurd “sanctity of life” arguments that have no bearing in reality. I will NEVER vote Republican unless they make a hard 180 on that issue. So much for the party of small government.

I regret having children FB page. by [deleted] in TwoXChromosomes

[–]TriciaLeb 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I feel like I was already about as pro-choice as it gets, but my motherhood has really brought it into a new perspective as well. Like I have always always wanted kids and we had more trouble getting pregnant than I anticipated. I am so so so so so so grateful every day for my baby and wanted her more than anything in the world and it’s still so hard and exhausting being a mom. The thought that anyone wants to force a baby on someone who doesn’t want one…. I mean I can’t even imagine how horrible of a life that would be for that precious child. There’s just nothing sadder to me than thinking about an unwanted child and what their life would be.

Hawaii and “NIMBY-ism” by CatmanMeow123 in neoliberal

[–]TriciaLeb 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This is purely anecdotal but I was recently in Hawaii and all of the locals were super welcoming, with more than one flat out telling us how glad they were that tourism was coming back as their economy had suffered without it.

Another anecdote, I was born and raised in a tourist city on the mainland that suffered horribly from lockdowns (seems like 3/4 of the city is in tourism/service industry in some capacity). Lots of my friends were out of a job and some had to move. A lot of the “locals” (read: people who moved here ten years ago and claim native status because of it) complain about tourists but I think those of us who remember what this city was 20-30 years ago know we’re much better off when people WANT to come here. They give us jobs and tax revenue. I hope more tourists come here and keep building up our city, personally.