Do You Have An Itch For An “ISM”? Try Doughdoughism!

By Rich Kozlovich

How many "Isms" are there? There's one writer that claims an "Ism a doctrine, theory or thought system. How many ism's are there? In its Truest meaning, there is one for every person on the planet. The definitions are constantly changing as our senses provide new information for the brain to process. The thousands of thoughts that we have every second are constantly effecting what we believe to be True. This can be seen in the fact that within so called established (ism's) like socialism no two believers have the very same beliefs."

Within the socialist movement there's the left wing of socialism, communism - and the right wing of socialism, fascism! Two sides of the same coin. Then there're the sects and sub-sects of socialism such as environmentalism, and "Isms" that don't end in an "Ism" such as belief in Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). I don't know if there’s an "Ism" for animal rights activists, but as with environmentalist's and all AGW aficionados, it’s a secular/religious movement.

Enough about that - lets talk about foie gras! This is the liver that gourmets go into a state of rapture over. As it turns out the animal rights activists are enthusiastic about foie gras also. The difference is they want to ban it, and there has an awful lot of green house gas being emitted by these people over this issue. So much for AGW!

How many have tasted foie gras or even know what it is? It's liver! But not just any old kind of liver - its goose or duck liver! But not just any old kind of goose or duck liver. It seems that when you force feed a migratory goose or duck species (this doesn’t work on non migratory species) that it gets a really large liver - which supposedly tastes really great. Foie gras, (pronounced fwa gra) is French for “fat liver”. This is achieved through a process of force feeding that goes back to ancient Egypt. “Foie gras is described as rich, buttery, and delicate, unlike that of a regular duck or goose liver.”

Now clearly this isn’t the kind of liver my parents and grandparents generation doted on. That generation will go to a restaurant with a huge menu and go into rapture because liver and onions is the special the day! Of course that is usually beef liver, but they even like chicken livers as the special of the day. I have always been amazed at that, but I’ve also believed there must be some rational reason why anyone would like liver, and I think I know why that generation is so enrapt with it. They only liked liver because that was one of the few meat items they could afford during the depression years. Liver, gizzards, chicken wings and pork ribs were mighty cheap back in those days, and some of it was free. People struggled in those days, even using chicken feet to make a stock for soup.

In years gone by, average people didn’t have meat three meals a day. In the Great Depression days many didn’t have meat once a week. Those old enough to remember the Little Rascals will remember an episode when Alfalfa was all excited because he was going to have meat at dinner that night. Meat was a big deal and if liver smothered in onions (the only way it could possibly be eaten) is all you can afford, and you have it enough in your youth, you might have the tendency to think the stuff is pretty great.  Personally, I have always thought that anything that tasted that bad must be toxic.

People who buy their food at the market and have never lived or worked on a farm should have no say about this - or anything else farmers do. None of these things ever became an issue until there were so many people living in the cities and so few living on farms.

One hundred years ago over fifty percent on the population was involved in agriculture of some msort. Two hundred years ago most of the population farmed or at least raised some of their own food because the population in the cities was relatively small. Industrialization changed all of that, especially after WWII and so did attitudes.

We must remember that this is a process I call incrementalism - a one step at a time "ism". The reality is that they are against eating any part of an animal and this is just one more step in the process. Today foie gras, tomorrow the goose, the next day ducks, and then chickens and so on until eating of all animal flesh is banned. At least that is their goal, but make no mistake about this - these are people who need an Ism - and if they hadn’t chosen animal rights it would be something else.

Take the Swiss for example. The Swiss really went overthe edge. They added an amendment to a law that requires the Swiss to recognize the "dignity" of all living things to include - wait, here it comes - plants! Yes, even the“decapitation” of wildflowers at the roadside “without rational reason”,will be punished.

What if someone starts a movement that claims wheat plants feel pain and suffer during the "decapitation" of harvest and therefore we shouldn’t eat bread and longer? Would that be called Doughdoughism? Or should that be spelled -Dodoism - as in dumb as dirt? I can just see them protesting in New York City now - The march of the Dodos!  

Folks, we have to stop being so anthropomorphic. We meed to stop placing human values on non human things. It's irrational, it's misanthropic and it's a sure sign of being morally defective.  And it's dumb as dirt!