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Please watch this video Re: Palin's stance on wolf hunting

JoyceHJoyceH Raw Newbie

OMG, check this out. I know we’re not supposed to get political but this just confirms my fears for the US. Lately I feel like I”m living in a bad dream whenever I try to learn more about the candidates and their stance on certain issues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQobIUE1zTU

What is this country (US) coming too…..

Comments

  • I can think of many more “scary” things Palin promotes than hunting wolves.

  • Were not supposed to get political?

    Maybe I have been gone to long but why would the owners of this website want us to not be political? Personally, I think that there should be a seperate topic section just for news and political stuff like this, to share and debate alike!

  • JoyceHJoyceH Raw Newbie

    Oh my gosh! I’d love a political section. It would really make sense as I’m sure most people on goneraw truly care about political issues. And it would be cool to hear about politics happening in other countries as this is an international website.

    Rawry – yes, you’re right. I just can’t believe a person like this could be running for VP.

  • troublesjustabubbletroublesjustabubble Raw Newbie

    I think I’d be out numbered as I’m a conservative.

    Oh, and one draw back to having a political section is that this is an international site. Other countries politics often are very unknown to most.

  • kandacekandace Raw Newbie

    You’ve actually posted in the right place for a link like this – the Other Stuff section. This is a catch-all area of everything else on our minds other than raw, veganism!

  • I think JoyceH was speaking in the sense, that most of us were raised that it was not nice to speak about religion, politics, and money.

    JoyceH – That was awful footage. Not promoting any one party over another, just saying… Maybe it is time for other parties to seriously be considered…like the Constitution party… green party…etc..

    http://www.constitutionparty.com/

    http://www.gp.org/index.php

    But if I understand correctly, even as we speak now… the Bush Administration is working hard to weaken America’s strongest wildlife protection law.

    “In a stealth attack, the Department of Interior recently announced plans to drastically re-write the 35-year-old Endangered Species Act and allow federal agencies to fast-track projects that could harm wildlife—without the traditional oversight required by this bedrock environmental law.”

    Some are refering to it as the “Fast Track to Extinction”.

    It is all out of control.

  • JoyceHJoyceH Raw Newbie

    .

    Simplyraw – I’ve been following what the Bush administration wants to do with the Endangered Species Act and it makes me so sad and disgusted….

    Anyhoo, I do always respect everyone’s opinions whether liberal or conservative, even if I don’t always agree or understand

  • Cpagosa. The point that Joyce may of been wanting to make is that, or that I am wanting to make also, is that hunting for sport/population control, whether private party or government conrolled, is morally indefensible. And those who do it from the safety of helicopters or trucks are cowards.

    I can go into this further and can probably write a book on it, but I wont. One thing I will say is that an animal eating an animal, or an animal starving because of winter is NATURAL. We as humans were hunters and were hunted a long time ago, and no matter how agonizing the death was, it was still natural.

    Nowadays, these people do it from the safety of helicopters with rifles, which is as unnatural and once again, cowardly as it comes. The moral implications stem from the fact that this is a vegan website, and although there are people here who arent, we have all come to realize through study and facts that whether you purposefully kill an animal for sport or population control, or whether you torture and kill them in slaughterhouses, there is no difference and there is no morally defensible position in the Country we live in today.

    (I say country, because there are very poor parts of the world where dont have the wealth and options we have, and eating an animal may depend on their and theirs family survival, which I personally dont see as a bad thing, but I do mourn the animals life)

  • JoyceHJoyceH Raw Newbie

    cpagosa – I live on a mountain in the Vermont woods and do understand a lot about hunting. Heck, my husband used to hunt with his Dad when he was a kid (he’s now a vegetarian and would never again go hunting).

    I didn’t just hap hazzardly post this. I’m a member of the Humane Society United States and feel very passionate about what this organization does to protect animals. I have the utmost respect for the HSUS and fully trust the motives and all the information it provides. I often want to quit my job and volunteer full time for the HSUS. It’s people like this that restore my faith that not all humanity is inherently evil….I cut and pasted this from the HSUS.

    http://www.hsus.org/press_and_publications/pres…

    The Humane Society of the United States Says Stop Bounty Hunting of Alaska Wolves

    March 22, 2005

    WASHINGTON – As interest in the aerial shooting of wolves wanes in Alaska, the Board of Game has revived a long abandoned bounty program to increase the incentive to kill the animals. In a statement on Wednesday, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game offered nearly 200 pilots and their gunners $150 for turning in the legs of freshly killed wolves. The Humane Society of the United States is calling for an immediate halt to the program.

    “Alaska Fish and Game’s own data has shown that killing wolves does little to reduce predation rates,” said Lauren Nolfo-Clements, wildlife scientist for The HSUS, “As alpha wolves are killed, surviving pack members increase their reproductive rates, leading to greater predation rates to feed the additional pups.”

    “The proven ineffectiveness of bounties and the broad scale environmental disturbance caused by aerial hunting programs make this proposal sound like something from half a century ago,” said David Pauli, regional director of the Northern Rocky Mountain Office of The HSUS. “Surely modern wildlife professionals should have learned not to recreate the mistakes of the past and to look at habitat based solutions, and the maintenance of naturally balanced ecosystems.”

    Facts

    • Every year, pilots and their gunners fly into the Alaskan wilderness to track wolves in the snow, chase them to exhaustion, and then shoot the weary animal.
    • Alaska Fish and Game staff members are currently requesting to be permitted to shoot wolves off of moving helicopters to increase the number of animals killed.
    • So far this season, 98 wolves have been killed by hunters, trappers, and aerial gunners.

    The states’ target kill is 400 to 700 wolves for this season.

    This year, due to high fuel costs, reduced wolf numbers, and diminished snow cover, pilots and their gunners have shown little interest in shooting wolves.

    30

    The Humane Society of the United States is the nation’s largest animal protection organization – backed by 10 million Americans, or one of every 30. For more than a half-century, The HSUS has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education, and hands-on programs. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty—On the web at www.humanesociety.org

    Contact Infomation

  • JoyceHJoyceH Raw Newbie

    PS – wow, I couldn’t agree more with jkd_soccer801! Well written!

    Hunting from a plane is just plain cowardly and completely unfair. Yes, it’s vicious when animals hunt other animals in the wild, but a lion doesn’t have a choice. As humans, most of us do have a choice to kill or not to kill.

  • JoyceHJoyceH Raw Newbie

    PSS – wow, I’m on a role today..must be all the cacao in my buckwheat ‘rice crispies’....

    cpagosa – I do believe a lot of animal rights activists also care deeply about human rights as well. Check out this article. It sums up what I think. I’m going to post the link as Tim NyBerg is a better writer than myself and hit the nail on the head!

    http://www.octanecreative.com/reinform/abortion…

    Oh and on my way home from yoga this morning there was something rather interesting on VPR (Vermont public Radio) saying that during republican administrations, abortion rates are much higher then when democrats are in office. I thought that was interesting. I’m trying to see if I can find it on the VPR website…

    Anyhoo I don’t want to be stirring up too much trouble, but Palin has really gotten me riled up lately, usually I’m quiet about this stuff….but a VP candidate wearing furs, inquiring about banning books, than firing the librarian, providing her unqualified friends with high paying govt the jobs, the list goes on and on….. Oh Hilary, you would have made such a wonderful president….

  • MeditatingMeditating Raw Newbie

    JKD SOCCER I am always amazed at how we block the images of our poor from our minds in this country. I don’t know where you live, but I have lived in two states where there are plenty of families who would starve to death if they did not hunt. Despite being able to hunt, many of them have children who still don’t get enough to eat. I know of a man who lives in a metropolitan city TODAY who shoots crows to feed his family because they can’t afford to buy enough food.

    The motive being killing is always important. (I doubt any one of us would want to give up our right to defend our life if we felt it were threatened. That right is grounded in motive,)

    Killing animals for kicks is one thing and, in my personal opinion, has always been more along the line of a personality disorder than a mere character flaw. Killing animals for food in an entirely different matter.

    Like it or not, certain types of animal population control are properly motivated and sincerely intended for the benefit of the animals. It is difficult to be the one to make those hard decisions, especially when others don’t listen to or appreciate your motives and instead just criticize your actions.

    I once took a shovel and killed a small kitten that had just been hit by a car. It had been bleeding profusely, screaming, and writhing in pain for quite a while. I am sure many would love to have been there to tell me what an incredibly horrible person I was, despite the fact that I genuinely wanted to end this animal’s suffering. It was a hard thing to do and it would have been much easier to just stand by and criticize someone else who may have took it upon themselves to resolve the situation.

    There are difficult situations where motives are born from good intentions or conflicting interests exist(like abortion, where some choose to view the woman as a person deserving of consideration and not just a container). We don’t live in a world where everything is always warm and fuzzy.

  • JoyceHJoyceH Raw Newbie

    Meditating, I think what you did for the kitten was an act of kindness and extremely brave to end his unspeakable suffering. You are an excellent writer as well Meditating, btw

    My husband and I were grief stricken when we had to put down our 10 month old kitten who had FIP which is an incurable, horrible, feline virus. Our vet told us it that it was an act of love and I’ll never forget those kind words.

    Of course I feel compassion for the struggling family that has to hunt in order to stay alive.(there are situations like that here in rural Vermont) This is completely different than the rich guy shooting innocent wolves from a plane for sport and for fun.

  • Meditating, as always, you provide an alternative perspective that is valid.

    I agree with treating ALL living things humanely. I believe that means allowing no suffering or killing unnecessarily. Sadly, we live in a world where suffering occurs.

    Meditating and Joyce, it was humane to put those animals out of misery. When I was a teenager, I found a butterfly almost completely covered in wet sand in the surf at the beach. I saw it’s body move a bit and I almost crushed it with my foot because I didn’t want it to suffer. Instead, I felt I should try to pick it up and help it. Over the course of hours, I gently swept the sand off it’s wings, gave it some sweet water that it drank out of the palm of my hand. The next morning, it was flying around my room, landed on my hand and I carried it outside, and went over to a small treed area in the middle of the island I was on and released it – it was one of my best memories.

    When it comes to politics, remember, there is sooo much hidden that we don’t know about the personal lives of candidates. We will not find a perfectly humane, agreeable person that holds all of our personal values. We have to think about the qualities of a good leader and who embodies these qualities…. (just for the record, I don’t align myself along only one party line or another).

  • I just thought that I would add a perspective on the issues of hunting. My son and husband I am sure has spent over 158.00 dollars this year on hunting licenses and tag fees. Also there are very heavy taxes on ammunition. This is just for hunting one deer with a total success rate in my state of 11 percent. They do not go out and shoot indiscriminately anything that is moving in the forest. The tags are for adult male animals only although in other states this may vary. This money goes to pay for conservation and protection of ALL the wildlife. Without that money there would be no protection at all against poaching which is an illegal theft of wildlife from the people who live in the state. This money also goes for water and habitat improvement. Volunteer organizations such as the Rocky Mountain Elk foundation and Ducks Unlimited has raised money via contributions to buy up breeding lands and have made a large impact on the number and spread of different animal species. If a person would want to hunt migratory birds there are many special fees and stamps that are added to this total. All animals in the wild are benefiting from hunters who pay for those programs so even though I no longer hunt I do support them. I have much greater problem with people who claim they love animals and get all emotional about it and then will go to the store and buy meat, milk or eggs from tortured, malnourished animals that never had a chance at any quality of life at all. By doing that the blood is on their hands whether or not they acknowledge it or not. To me this is the height of hypocrisy while they rail at hunters being so cruel.

  • JoyceHJoyceH Raw Newbie

    And what about trying to remove polar bears from the endangered species list!

    http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5689165&...

    Another scary prospect is her desire to drill in the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge (even McCain said that would be like trying to drill in the Grand Canyon)......so very sad….

  • Meditating. I should of made myself more clear Im sorry. When I said “world” I mean those in all the world that are poor. I should of made myself clearer I believe, for I do agree that in cases of hardships that hunting and fishing can and do help families and individuals survive. I am not against hunting for myself either, because I know if a hardship happens, and I can no longer afford the food I need for me and my family, I as a kid have been taught to hunt and fish.

    But I believe there is a large difference from that and game hunting or population control.

    I know that in todays world the more we enlarge our population the more we are stepping into mother nature. In my opinion, population control (ie. wolves, deer, etc) and protecting a farmers interests (sheep, cattle) from the wolves is a faulty system, because as long as human population increases the less room we will have for mother nature and all its animals, thus the more “hunting” from helicopters to kill those things that never would have bothered us in the first place.

    My friends and I pulled over once to help a cat that had just been hit by a car. We had the choice to break the cats neck, but animal control told us they could help. They took a full hour to get there, and by the time they arrived, they didnt give the cat a shot or nothing, just threw it in a metal cage in the back of their truck to wait for it to die. I felt heart broken, and realized that I should of just put the cat out if its misery in loving arms, that a cold steel truck.

    In that circumstance I can see the correct position. But never population control / game / fur hunting.

  • OMG Meditating, I’m appalled that anyone in this day and age has to shoot crows to feed a family! Isn’t part of becoming raw that we should not have to take from the animal kingdom? and in doing so, reduce the world’s burden of feeding cattle (requiring huge areas of land which could be used for growing grain/vegetation) in order for us to eat them (in McDonald’s in particular?) Man-made mistakes like this, if rectified, may even give us a chance not only to assist the wildlife that starves in some way, but also to help those starving in Africa I would have thought…..

  • vegan2rawvegan2raw Raw Newbie

    wow I have felt unsure of either front runner and have been looking more into Nader and alll the other outside the box candidates but I had no idea she was this unconcious. A lot of conservative supporters are unhappy with her and mcain as choices ( I grew up in texas and all my fam is there) I think we need a no party system and then more people would be able to see past the stage and really get to know the candidates

    BTW my dog is dingo shephard wolfe and husky and I have known people to have full wolves I think if supposed dangerous animals can be tamed and peaceful loving pets than we can learn how to do that and find less violent ways of solving problems

    I also agree that no animal should be left to suffer and die if unsavable Things will get better people need to be scared awake Peace

  • Although this may not be a popular opinion, I think that Palin shooting animals unnecessarily from her helicopter is sad, but I also think that it’s not one of the biggest issues to be worried about. What I think is very sad is the possibility that abortion may become even more widespread than it already is. That is sad to me.

  • Clarity- What is the difference?? It’s still killing unvoiced beings! People need to practice safe sex, so there is not so much impregnating going on and then abortions. We are over populated as it is, mouths can not be fed, land is being destroyed! We need to not be irresponsible and safely practice safe sex and teach people how to sustainably live

    I find this to be disgusting. It has upset me since the beginning of Palin running with McCant. The amount of stress factory farms, hunting, animal abuse, and so-on puts on me, is unbelievable. I feel sick to my stomach. The worst part is, most people don’t realize it is going on, or don’t care to because it will “distract” them from their already distracted lives! Ugh, this is so upsetting, not just about Palin, about it all. Everything, every last bit of cruelty that goes on.

    WE ARE PEACEFUL BEINGS!!!

  • yes, people should practice safe sex if they are not ready to raise a child. i think there is a tremendous difference between a child and an animal. you are right. it is upsetting that many people don’t care.

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