DADDIO: Allow me to clarify my position. What I should have said was I wouldn’t consider any solution a healthy one that did not entail treating these lab personnel as anything less than criminally insane. Certainly we should practice all of the things that you’ve suggested, but clearly a major paradigm shift is in order for any long-term effect. Seeing these "scientists" as the sad sickos that they are would, at the very least, be a byproduct of the required paradigm shift if not a causal and critical component of it. I firmly contend that we are indeed BETTER than they. I didn’t ask anybody to torture animals for me so that my shampoo bottle could have a warning on it. I innocently purchased it without any clue that human beings could be so cruel for such little reason on such a mass scale. When I found out to my horror what was done with this shampoo before it hit the market, I dropped it instantly for an animal free shampoo.
Alas it turns out that the only way to completely escape participation in this hideousness is to move into the wilderness and eat berries. This is a major obstacle for most people, myself included, not having been bred to live in this manner. I’d probably die of hunger inside of a month if I tried to do this today.
So, in the meantime, I’m living in a building that almost certainly has some animal tested material in it, I’m working for a company who’s cleaning lady uses animal tested compounds to wash windows and wax floors, and any number of damn things I’m eating and wearing could be linked to animal testing. Having all this shit forced on you while you try to figure out how to escape the all pervading satanic death grip of multinationals and big government hardly merits the same level of guilt that’s mandated by burning pigs alive just to prove that it hurts. I might be naïve, fatigued, frightened, uninformed, and an unskilled woodsman, but these assholes are fucking sadistic sociopaths. So am I "better" than they are? HELL YES! And you are too.
Kevin: If you want to make a difference:
1) Go without
2) Use less if you MUST use any
3) Read your labels and look for the animal friendly symbols
4) Shop at cruelty free stores
5) Notify larger corporations of your actions
None.
