Manifesto of the
League Against Turgorial Discrimination
For some time now it has amazed, and worried, some of us, that there
are people who consider plants to be lesser creatures than animals.
Indeed, to our horror, there are people who actively discriminate
against plants, not only by treating them with contempt, but even by
actively loading them with burdens that they refrain from inflicting on
animals. This pains us so that we have decided to organise ourselves on
the plants' behalf, in order to urge the world to put an end to this
discrimination. We have decided to call ourselves the League Against
Turgorial Discrimination, and this is our manifesto.
Let it be known, then, that
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because we consider all life equal, not just those of us in the happy
possession of mobility and cell membranes, and are appalled by the
truly shocking treatment that has been given to those living beings
who happen to have been blessed by nature with cell walls, turgor, and
photosynthesis, on no better basis than that the human species thinks
itself better than our green fellow beings;
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because this shameless discrimination and exploitation has, if
anything, grown steadily worse since the Romantic movement discovered
what it pleased them to call "nature", which discovery consisted
mostly of venerating the animalic members of this nature, while
regarding the vegetable members as mere backdrop, good enough for
covering a ruin in which a prize horse takes pride of place, often
imbuing the animal with anthropomorphic properties and at the same
time exploiting their cellulose-enhanced companions as almost dead
matter; an attitude that has culminated in these days in people who
cynically call themselves "green" and "nature-friendly", but whose
treatment of plants consists mostly in smoking them, cutting their
reproductive organs off for decorative purposes, and eating them in
preference to their animals counterparts;
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because the often-used argument for discrimination against our
differently beturgored friends that "plants constitute better,
healthier food than animals" is easily disproven by pointing not only
to the vast amount of animals, fungi, and yes, even plants, that feed
upon animals, nay veritably thrive on them, but also to vastly the
larger part of human history, when our species has always considered
both our cellulotic and our membranic friends as suitable food - an
attitude entirely justified by the continuing survival of our species
on this diet;
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because the reasoning that claims that omnivorism worsens the current,
undoubtedly deplorable, state of plenty in part of the world and
hunger in many other parts, by using vast quantities of plants that
are used to feed the animals that are then eaten by humans - plants
that would be, so the claim goes, far more efficiently used to feed
humans directly - is immediately seen to be of theoretical import
alone when one considers that it is not so much a lack of food that
plagues the world as an uneven distribution thereof; that, when food
were distributed fairly, there would be enough for all human-,
animal-, and plant-kind, even, no, especially when the burden of being
eaten were also fairly spread amongst these groups; and that, though
all of the Western world should become so discriminatory as to eat
only our photosynthetic brother-creatures from now on, it would not
for a moment enter the minds of any cattle-breeder, grain-farmer, or
junk-food-merchant, to give their produce gratis to the poorer parts
of the planet, but, on the contrary, that they would be more likely to
recoup their losses in the West in these other parts, thus only making
them poorer;
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because it lies not in the power of our cellulotic friends to defend
themselves, being as they are not only immobile, but also, alas, deaf,
mute, and otherwise completely incapable of protesting against this
inhumane treatment by our fellow men and women, and because it
therefore behooves us, who have been equipped by nature to be more
visibly active, to protests upon their behalf;
we, the League Against Turgorial Discrimination, have decided to let our
voice be heard.
Let there be no more discrimination against the less mobile creatures
of nature, or for those who happen to be closer related to us. Let us
regard all members of this great plethora of beings as equal, regardless
of which taxonomic kingdom they belong to, and above all let us treat
them as equals; not degrading our greener friends to mere food-stuff
while looking upon the black, white, grey, and brown members as
brothers, but loving, consuming, and respecting, each being to the
degree it fully deserves. Let us allow soggy leeks or mushy peas no more
than we allow burnt pork-chops or tough chicken-breasts; let us always
enjoy our food for what it is: a beloved member of the living universe,
giving up its life so that we may eat it, whether it be carrot or
mushroom or cow.
Let us treat each plant as a treasure of nature. Let us refrain from
mistreating them. Let us consider them, and love them. In short, let us
always remember that plants are people, too.
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