by James Deal | Nov 27, 2020 | Christianity, Ethics, Famous Vegetarians, Jesus, Judaism, Religion, Theology
A KOSHER XMAS CAROL
a song by Jimmie Deal
November 27, 2020
by James Deal | May 5, 2020 | Ethics, Jesus, Music, Theology
MANKIND’S EXCUSE:
WE JUST NEVER UNDERSTOOD
James Robert Deal © December 8, 2020
In the style of a Southern Black Spiritual
THE VOCAL VERSION
MANKIND’S EXCUSE:
WE JUST NEVER UNDERSTOOD
James Robert Deal © December 8, 2020
In the style of a Southern Black Spiritual
THE INSTRUMENTAL VERSION – THE KARAOKE VERSION
MANKIND’S EXCUSE:
WE JUST NEVER UNDERSTOOD
James Robert Deal © May 3, 2020
In the style of a Southern Black Spiritual
- Some day the Lord will come. That’s what the good book has said, and
He’ be punish’ the wicked and rewardin’ the good.
And most of those remaining will be wishing they was dead.
Ashamed that they’d failed to do unto others.
They’ll be makin’ up excuses. They’ll be makin’ up excuses.
They’ll be making up excuses, sayin’ – “We just never understood.”
- There was a wise man down here. He was teaching his truth.
Matthew wrote his words down. Unfortunately they were later burnt.
Mark who spoke a different language, but doin’ the best he could.
Mark who never even met him, wrote again third-hand.
And so it ain’t no surprise. And so it ain’t no surprise.
And so it ain’t no great big surprise. He wrote it down half wrong.
- You sent us other prophets. You sent us messiahs and priestesses.
Why, the one who came last year SHE won, A Nobel prize for peace!
But they all are speakin’ esoteric languages that we don’t understand.
They are specialists too narrow to teach the overview.
And so it ain’t no surprise, And so it ain’t no surprise.
And so it ain’t no great big surprise. We still don’t understand.
- But there be some of us that’s trying to do your will.
And so we think we have some right to ask one question still.
Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, with all due respect, Lord.
Lord, if it was all so important – that we understand,
Lord if it was all so important, – why didn’t you make it clear?
- But there be some of us that’s trying to do your will.
And so we would presume to make one final request.
Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, with all due respect.
Lord, if it is all so important – that we understand,
Lord, even at this late date in time,
Please couldn’t you make it clear?
by James Deal | Jul 23, 2017 | animal cruelty, Christianity, Ethics, Goddess Ideas, Judaism, Legend, Paul, Religion, Theology, Vegetarianism
8
THE VEGETARIAN THEME IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION
MISASSUMPTIONS ABOUT JESUS AND CHRISTIANITY
Most Christians assume that Jesus ate fish and Passover lamb and therefore could not have been a vegetarian. Most feel that their religion does not place any limits on what animals they may kill and eat. Most believe that the Christianity of today is the same as the religion of Jesus’ original followers. Most assume that Jesus was a fundamentalist. I challenge all these assumptions.
OVERVIEW: THE CONNECTION BETWEEN JESUS AND MY THEME
My thesis is this: There was a Judeo-Christian “church” before Jesus, an Essene group from which Jesus got his values. That church lasted until the early 400s, when they were scattered by the newly Christian Roman emperors. They disappear from history, save one mention by a Moslem historian in the 800s. I refer to this group loosely as “Judeo-Christian,” although they did not call themselves “Christian,” at least not initially. They probably called their church a synagogue.
***
My thesis is that Jesus was one of a long line of those prophets, one of the greatest. His aim was the moral perfection of humanity. Sadly, his legacy was derailed. His memory and teachings were hijacked by the Romans and their religious allies, the new gentile Christians, particularly the Latin Christians, and transmogrified into a New Testament and a Creed that get his story all wrong, omit many of his most significant ideas, and introduce ideas he would have disagreed with, first and foremost, his deification. As I like to say, Jesus did not want to be worshipped; he wanted to be followed.
Legend has it that from Adam to Noah humankind sacrificed no animals and ate no meat, which I believe indicates that there were societies which were vegetarian or which had a vegetarian religious or class priesthood. (Genesis 1:30, 9:3.) Moses tried to return Israel to the vegetarianism of the matristic Eden but failed. (Exodus 16:15; Schwartz, Judaism and Vegetarianism, p. 6; Recognitions of Clement, 1:35 ff, Roberts and Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, 8:87-88; Numbers 11:7, 18-34.)
Moses predicted that a prophet would come after him who would complete his work. (Deuteronomy 4:12, 36.) Jesus’ followers believed Jesus was that prophet (Acts 3:22) and that Jesus’ aim was to complete Moses’ work of returning the world to its Edenic peaceful state, as it was before the patriarchal invasions. Part of Moses’ work was to eliminate animal sacrifice from the Jewish religion. Jesus shared this goal and actually shut down the sacrificial system in the Jerusalem Temple for some short period of time. (John 2:14-16.) Jesus and his immediate circle of apostles were vegetarian, and so too was his Judeo-Christian church for 400 years until it was persecuted out of existence. That’s my theory.
OVERVIEW: WHAT WAS GREAT ABOUT JESUS?
Christians generally consider Jesus to have been great because he made the cosmic sacrifice—trading his life for our sins. However, the churches acknowledge he was great for a second reason—although, they rarely mention it—and that is because of the content of his ethical teachings. The points I make here will be developed more fully below.
***
He took over the temple, drove out all those who bought and sold animals, and also drove out all the animals. Thus, he abolished animal sacrifices in the Temple for some period—as the messiah was to do: “In the time of the Messiah the sacrifices will cease (except that of thanksgiving).” (Pesik 9:79, “Antinomianism,” www.JewishEncyclopedia.com; see the section of this book entitled Jesus Stopped the Animal Sacrifices in the Temple, p. 179.) And he was crucified as messiah-king of the Jews. The sign on the cross said “King of the Jews.” (Mark 15:2, 25.)
***
Jesus and those around him were vegetarian, and his followers were encouraged to “bear what they were able” regarding eating meat, which I believe meant they were to observe a vegetarian fast at lest two days per week (Didache 8:1-2), always to avoid eating the flesh of animals killed in connection with pagan sacrifices and sold in the public market, and always to avoid cruelty to animals. The rule against “eating things strangled” was a term of art or code name that stood for the rule against eating the meat of animals tortured or painfully killed. (Acts 15:20.) It is probable that vegetarianism was not an immediate or absolute requirement but a goal to be striven for. (See the sections of this book entitled James, Brother of Jesus, p. 108, and The Burden Theme, “Bear What Thou Art Able”, p. 158.)
The Judeo-Christian movement was persecuted out of existence by the 400s, although Muslim sources make mention of it as late as the 800s. Their books were banned. They were forbidden to be copied, which meant that after a few hundred years they rotted out of existence. Probably some were burnt in the bonfires that thug monks set alight in the streets.
Jesus did not succeed in establishing his kingdom of ethical monotheism in his lifetime, but that does not mean he was a failure or that his followers will not yet someday succeed in his name. He pointed the way. He was a major player in the process that I am trying to describe in this book, the process of trying to return the world to a state of peace, justice, high ethical and environmental standards; to put an end to slavery; to find a balance between the sexes; to end child abuse; and achieve a sensitivity to the suffering of the animals.
CHRISTOLOGICAL INFLATION
Paul, John, and their disciples—who aimed their teachings at gentiles—completely dropped all references to Jesus as prophet and son of man. They preferred “son of god,” and not in the sense of adopted son of god but as pre-existent logos, and only-begotten son of god. They referred to Jesus as “Lord Jesus Christ,” and they used the term “christ” to mean “messiah-god” instead of “messiah-king.”
Ultimately, through a process of “christological inflation,” a term I have coined, Paul, John, and their successors made Jesus into god coequal with the father. Matthew and Luke taught Jesus was begotten of god at the time of his conception. (Matthew 1:18, Luke 1:35.) The author of Mark taught that Jesus became god’s son at his transfiguration or enthronement. (Mark 9:7.) Paul taught that Jesus was designated son of god and begotten at his resurrection. (Romans 1:4; Acts 13:33.) John taught Jesus was begotten of god from the beginning of time. (John 1:2.) The original Ebionites teaching was that Jesus was the natural born son of Joseph and Mary, that Jesus had been “begotten” at his baptism, meaning he had been adopted, like all Israel’s kings at their coronation, as god’s honorary and preeminent son. (2 Samuel 7:14; Psalms 2:7; Mark 1:11; Acts 10:38, 13:33; Hebrews 1:5, 5:5.)
Because the denomination known as “orthodox” or “catholic” or the “great church” was so well organized, because it so fiercely attacked all other Christian and pagan sects, and ultimately because it made an alliance with the Roman government, it ended up as the official religion and used that position to suppress or destroy all other pagan religions and all other sects of Christianity. In its many councils it perfected the theory that Jesus was the cosmic sacrifice in the Greek mystery religion sense that wiped away the sins of those who believed in him. Those who expressed doubts were excommunicated and told they would go to hell. Later, doubters were killed.
***
How could so much Christological inflation have occurred so quickly? See the section of this book entitled Information from Moslem-Nazarene Sources, p. 134, for my theory as to how it happened.
Christological inflation may seem a little far afield from my topic, which is the diet of Jesus and his early followers. However, bear in mind that the process of elevating Jesus to status as deity coequal with god the father included a simultaneous deemphasis of Jesus as a teacher of ethical principles about making peace, which principles included making peace with the animals. Gentile Christians found it more convenient to worship a god who demanded certain beliefs but who put few restrictions on behavior, less convenient to follow a prophet who demanded that they make great changes in their behavior, including their dietary behavior.
FOLLOW JESUS BY BEING DEEP HISTORIANS AND STUDENTS OF ETHICS
The Christianity of today focuses too much on the New Testament and too little on the many other sources of information about Jesus, too much on Jesus’ cosmic sacrifice and too little on Jesus’ ethical teachings, too much on getting forgiveness for sins and too little on stopping the sinning—including the sins we commit against innocent animals and the physical environment.
As you read this section, you will see that I am an admirer and follower of Jesus—not as the cosmic sacrifice but as our greatest teacher of peace, law, and justice. I am an admirer and follower not of the Jesus you read about in our mangled New Testament, but of the Ebionite Jesus of Judeo-Christian history.
***
Fundamentalists will have problems with my hypothesis that Jesus ate no meat, because the gospels clearly say Jesus ate fish, fed fish to others, and called apostles who were fishermen. (Matthew 7:10, 4:19, 14:17, 15:36, 17:27; Mark 1:17; Luke 24:42, John 6:9, 21:9. See the section of this book entitled What About the Fish Stories? p. 191, for an explanation of how the fish passages arose.)
***
I will discuss the surviving sources of information regarding these vegetarians. The sources are extensive, and some are right in the New Testament. The revisionist editors did a haphazard job of purging vegetarian references as they edited the gospels. And some of what we know comes from quotations which ultra-orthodox heresy fighting Church Fathers made of now lost Judeo-Christian writings.
I will have much to say about Paul, who was not a vegetarian and who was contemptuous of vegetarians. He referred to them as being weak in faith because they would not eat meat. (1 Corinthians 8: 4-13.) He was contemptuous of the Jerusalem founders of Christianity, referring to them as “superlative apostles” and the “circumcision party.” (2 Corinthians 11:5,13, 12:11; Galatians 2:12. See Paul, James, and the Jerusalem Council, p. 122.)
***
Why do I take a critical approach? Shouldn’t I just focus on the evidence for Jesus’ vegetarianism and leave everything else about Christianity untouched—which is what groups like the Christian Vegetarian Association do? (www.christianveg.com.) Why risk upsetting the faith of unlearned Christians? Because, simply put, the CVA approach is not convincing. It appears to focus arbitrarily on the verses that favor vegetarian theory and ignore those that disfavor it.
For me to demonstrate the high probability that Jesus was a vegetarian, I must teach you the critical method and teach you the method in full. Using this tool, you will be able to read our highly edited New Testament and understand how to tell the oldest layers from those added later. A little bit of the critical method might just be enough for you to conclude that nothing in the New Testament is true. But if I take you all the way through the process, you will come out on the other side possessing tools sufficient to understand what Jesus stood for.
There is one final reason why I take a critical approach: I think if Jesus is looking over the balcony rail and observing what goes on down here on earth, he is probably tired of Christians inflating him into something he was not and completely missing what he actually was. Clarifying who he really was is a service I think he would appreciate. Something similar could be said of poor, confused Saul of Tarsus. He would probably appreciate someone undoing all the damage he did.
***
Most theologians take little notice of dietary matters as they construct their theories. I believe they overlook a powerful analytical tool. A focus on diet can lead to insights they otherwise might miss. I will return to this point frequently in this chapter, so I will say no more about it here.
***
Essenes were strict vegetarians, and older Essenes were generally celibate. I take the position that Jesus was of Essene background, while others say he was a Pharisee. The two positions are not irreconcilable because Essenes and Pharisees respected each other and shared most beliefs and customs.
Josephus, Philo, Eusebius, and Plinius say the Essenes were vegetarians. The Essenes shared vegetarianism and many other customs with the Pythagoreans.
***
The quest for the historical Jesus is a worthy one. At the end of this quest we do not find a Jesus of doctrinal quibbles or a Jesus who focused on finding an innocuous inner peace.
We find instead a Jesus of action who challenged injustice and illegality and sought an end to poverty, war, slavery, subjugation of women, abuse of children and prisoners, and violence in general. We find a Jesus of compassion, ethics, and right-living, all of which extend not just to other humans but to the animals as well. As I say elsewhere, we do not find a Jesus who wanted to be worshiped but one who wanted to be followed.
It is often said that Jesus was a failed messianic pretender, such as Jesus Bar Kokhba, because he did not succeed in bring peace to the world. Even after 2,000 years, I would suggest that this might be a hasty judgment. We who are part of Jesus’ tradition may yet complete his work. Is there a time limit on how long a true prophet and messiah-king has to achieve results? Christians should not give up but should rechannel their efforts in the ethical direction in which Jesus pointed us.
It is not too late for us to learn what Jesus was challenging us to do and do it.
by James Deal | May 4, 2012 | Ethical Carnivory, Ethics
The Ethicist Contest Winner: Give Thanks for Meat
By JAY BOST
Published: May 3, 2012
As a vegetarian who returned to meat-eating, I find the question “Is meat-eating ethical?” one that is in my head and heart constantly. The reasons I became a vegetarian, then a vegan and then again a conscientious meat-eater were all ethical. The ethical reasons of why NOT to eat meat are obvious: animals are raised and killed in cruel conditions; grain that could feed hungry people is fed to animals; the need for pasture fuels deforestation; and by eating meat, one is implicated in the killing of a sentient being. Except for the last reason, however, none of these aspects of eating meat are implicit in eating meat, yet they are exactly what make eating some meat unethical. Which leads to my main argument: eating meat raised in specific circumstances is ethical; eating meat raised in other circumstances is unethical. Just as eating vegetables, tofu or grain raised in certain circumstances is ethical and those produced in other ways is unethical.
What are these “right” and “wrong” ways of producing both meat and plant foods? For me, they are most succinctly summed up in Aldo Leopold’s land ethic: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” While studying agroecology at Prescott College in Arizona, I was convinced that if what you are trying to achieve with an “ethical” diet is the least destructive impact on life as a whole on this planet, then in some circumstances, like living among dry, scrubby grasslands in Arizona, eating meat, is, in fact, the most ethical thing you can do other than subsist on wild game, tepary beans and pinyon nuts. A well-managed, free-ranged cow is able to turn the sunlight captured by plants into condensed calories and protein with the aid of the microorganisms in its gut. Sun > diverse plants > cow > human. This in a larger ethical view looks much cleaner than the fossil-fuel-soaked scheme of tractor-tilled field > irrigated soy monoculture > tractor harvest > processing > tofu > shipping > human.
While most present-day meat production is an ecologically foolish and ethically wrong endeavor, happily this is changing, and there are abundant examples of ecologically beneficial, pasture-based systems. The fact is that most agroecologists agree that animals are integral parts of truly sustainable agricultural systems. They are able to cycle nutrients, aid in land management and convert sun to food in ways that are nearly impossible for us to do without fossil fuel. If “ethical” is defined as living in the most ecologically benign way, then in fairly specific circumstances, of which each eater must educate himself, eating meat is ethical; in fact NOT eating meat may be arguably unethical.
The issue of killing of a sentient being, however, lingers. To which each individual human being must react by asking: Am I willing to divide the world into that which I have deemed is worthy of being spared the inevitable and that which is not worthy? Or is such a division hopelessly artificial? A poem of Wislawa Szymborska’s, “In Praise of Self-Deprecation,” comes to mind. It ends:
There is nothing more animal-like
than a clear conscience
on the third planet of the Sun.
For me, eating meat is ethical when one does three things. First, you accept the biological reality that death begets life on this planet and that all life (including us!) is really just solar energy temporarily stored in an impermanent form. Second, you combine this realization with that cherished human trait of compassion and choose ethically raised food, vegetable, grain and/or meat. And third, you give thanks.
Jay Bost, who says he has been “a farmworker, plant geek, agroecologist and foodie for the past 20 years,” teaches at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, N.C., and plans to head to Hawaii next year for a Ph.D. in tropical plant and soil science. His deepest interest is in agrobiodiversity, a field he will be better able to explain once he and his partner, Nora Rodli, get their 5-month-old son, Kailu Sassafras, to sleep.
Thanks to the New York Times.
by James Deal | Apr 20, 2012 | Ethics, Goddess Ideas
Corporations by today’s definition, are obligated to make as much money as they can. But a new kind of corporation is changing that and potentially our economy, too.
April 15, 2012 |
Photo Credit: Shutterstock/Dusit
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In 2012 corporations reign supreme. Citizens for Tax Justice reports that 26 Fortune 500 companies — including General Electric, Verizon and Mattel — paid
no federal income taxes from 2008 through 2011. Big banks have gotten big bailouts, while kicking back
hundreds of millions to elected officials and political parties in the last year alone. It took the government only 18 months to award BP another permit for deep water drilling in the Gulf after its catastrophic well blowout in 2010.
It doesn’t seem to matter if corporations cripple the economy, destroy communities or trash the environment, it’s still an all-you-can-eat buffet for them. The 2010 Citizens United decision was icing on the cake. Politicians eat from the hand of the corporate kingmakers. The rest of us muscle for the crumbs.
It hasn’t always been like this. When the American colonies were first starting out, incorporation was granted for things that would benefit the public good — like building roads. But corporations by today’s definition, are obligated to make as much money as they can. They are legally beholden to shareholders and the bottom line and that makes being “good” difficult and risky.
“The public benefit has all too often been subverted as a result,” writes Francesca Rheannon on the Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire. “Those corporations that sincerely wanted to operate according to the Triple Bottom Line (variously characterized, but traditionally defined, as ‘People, Profits, Planet’) have had to privilege profit over the other two goals, or risk shareholders’ wrath if pursuing environmental or social goals lessened potential financial returns.”
But that may be changing with the nonprofit B Lab, which started a program less than two years ago to certify a new kind of corporation — a Benefit Corporation or B Corp.
In that short time over 500 companies have become B Corps. Legislation to change corporate law and make B Corps official entities has been signed in seven states — Maryland, New Jersey, Vermont, Virginia, California, Hawaii and New York — with legislation pending in seven more states. The folks behind B Corps believe that, “Governments and nonprofits are necessary but insufficient to solve today’s most pressing problems. Business is the most powerful force on the planet and can be a positive instrument for change.”
Our vision is simple yet ambitious: to create a new sector of the economy which uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. This sector will be comprised of a new type of corporation — the B Corporation — that meets rigorous and independent standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.
B Corp in Action
In 1995 in Corte Madre, California, Helen Russell and Brooke McDonnell launched Equator out of a warehouse with a few employees. Today the company has grown into a successful boutique artisan coffee roaster. It has 22 employees and roasts 700,000 pounds of coffee annually, supplying some of the best restaurants, including many San Francisco Bay Area favorites like Thomas Keller’s French Laundry, Pascal Rigo’s La Boulange bakeries, Tracy Des Jardin’s Jardinière, and Sharon Ardiana’s Gialina.
Equator has been praised for its quality as well as its mission. “They started out very modestly, and as they have gotten bigger they have had to make choices concerning their growth,” said Ardiana. “They have always had a keen eye concerning making choices that are sustainably based, rather than purely profit driven. Equator really is a model for other businesses, no matter how large or small, to evaluate their practices and make changes. Because every little bit does matter! They have a huge composting program that incorporates all of the chafe and coffee grounds. They even rethought their bagging. Going from a black treated bag to a natural brown one, even though the black one from a branding prospective was their look.”
“We’ve always been fairly progressive and thoughtful in how we run our business — we’re women-owned and green-certified,” said Equator founder Russell. They also bought Priuses for service cars, a biodiesel delivery truck, and an energy efficient roaster that uses 80 percent less natural gas. They worked to build direct relationships with coffee growers, aided their efforts with micro-loan programs, and started their own farm in Panama, which is a year away from harvest. Their employees have health insurance, opportunities for professional growth and profit sharing.
This year, they took their commitments to the next level by becoming a B Corp. “We want to be a truly triple bottom line company — and how do you do that?” asks Russell. “We felt it was a good way to educate our customers and consumers about the work that we’ve been doing. It is a way for consumers to easily identify what our values are and mission is. It’s the same thing that Fair Trade certification did for coffee 15 years ago.”
The B Corp process assesses companies on their environmental, community and workforce impact. While Equator scored high enough to qualify for the program, they’re already seeing ways in which they can be even better.
“One of our roles as an organization is to educate the consumer,” said Maureen McHugh, Equator’s vice-president of operations. “We feel strongly that this is a positive role for business.” The B Corp label helps them take the conversation with consumers to another level. It becomes not just about ensuring a “green” or socially conscious end product, but about guaranteeing the entire process is sustainable and fair. “Capitalism is changing — we are moving to more of a stakeholder economy. Equator coffee is such an identifiable chain from the farm to here — there are so many stakeholders in that chain,” said Russell. And the B Corp program helps to make that chain transparent to consumers and investors.
Russell see B Corps as the changing face of business. “There is a shift happening, there is a need for it. It can’t just be about shareholder value, it’s about everyone in the chain, all boats have to be raised or I don’t know where the capitalism model will go if we don’t go in this direction.”
The model for Russell’s company gets to the heart of B Corps. “We have to grow revenue to grow our impact — the more coffee we can sell, the more we can do for our employees and farming partners. Grow revenue, equals grow impact.”
The Business of Saving the World
While the coffee world has set up some of their own product standards through Fair Trade certification, most other industries operate without third-party verification and it can be hard to tell a green and socially conscious business from just clever marketing and a big ad budget. B Corp, however, holds a company accountable for not just its impact, but its mission. In fact B Corps have a Declaration of Interdependence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident:
- That we must be the change we seek in the world.
- That all business ought to be conducted as if people and place mattered.
- That, through their products, practices, and profits, businesses should aspire to do no harm and benefit all.
- To do so requires that we act with the understanding that we are each dependent upon another and thus responsible for each other and future generations.
Last month B Labs released its list of the top companies that are the “best for the world.” In terms of overall impact, they highlighted companies such as Method Products, Better World Books, Global Green Energy Corp, Namaste Solar, Piedmont Biofuels, New Resource Bank, Re:Vision Architecture, to name a few. They also recognized the top performers for environmental impact like Patagonia, Bullfrog Power, Guayakí Sustainable Rainforest Products, IceStone, gDiapers, Larry’s Beans. For community impact there was Change.org, Care2, Cap Global, Virginia Community Capital, Ideal Network and for worker impact there was Exponent Partners, Heller Consulting, King Arthur Flour Company, Peaceworks Technology Solutions, Sungevity. The full list of top companies can be found here, along with high-fives for most impactful small companies, too.
While there are a few big names on the list — like Patagonia, Method and Change.org — many of the companies are ones most consumers likely haven’t heard of. As Alex Goldmark writes for GOOD — that’s because many of these companies are actually business-to-business operations. “These businesses deserve twice the recognition because they don’t face the same public pressure to go green,” writes Goldmark. “Of the 19 companies that took the title ‘best for overall impact,’ more than a third are business-to-business. Another third also provide some mix of consumer- and commercial-focused offerings … B Lab measures results and brings us companies that toil away on principal even when nobody’s looking.”
It’s easy to see why a consumer would seek out a B Corp when looking for a product or service. But there is more in it for companies than just winning over progressive-minded consumers and earning the accolades. “For one thing, Benefit Corporations can’t be held liable by courts for failing to place profits over everything else,” writes Jamie Raskin for the Nation. “This is an important shift in law. The fear of shareholder litigation has driven many public-spirited businesses, most famously Ben & Jerry’s, to take the high bid rather than the high road in a corporate takeover fight. Becoming a Benefit Corporation declares legal independence from the profits-über-alles model. More important, having Benefit Corporation status sends a powerful message to shareholders, employees, business partners and consumers about what kind of company you’re running.”
This, Raskin writes, is one of the most powerful shifts we’ve seen in business. “We can have a market economy without having a market society, and we can have prosperous corporations that act with conscience.”
Right now the mighty power of 500 B Corps may be a drop in the bucket compared to the huge multinationals that control our economy and politics. But our business-as-usual model in recent decades has put us on the fast track to financial and ecological ruin. Without a dramatic shift toward revolutionary change, we’re in a mess of trouble. By changing the way we do business, B Corps may be providing an invaluable part of the equation for change.
“It may take a while to displace the rent-seeking leviathans that get rich off lobbying, power plays, pyramid schemes and defense contracts,” concludes Raskin. “Then again, a lot of those companies have relocated their operations abroad in search of cheaper labor, while the Benefit Corporations are taking root and blossoming right here in America, restoring the bonds of community while doing honest commerce. This is what economic recovery looks like.”
by James Deal | Feb 1, 2011 | Ethics
South Carolina Scientist Works to Grow Meat in Lab
Published January 31, 2011
| Reuters
In a small laboratory on an upper floor of the basic science building at the Medical University of South Carolina, Vladimir Mironov, M.D., Ph.D., has been working for a decade to grow meat.
A developmental biologist and tissue engineer, Dr. Mironov, 56, is one of only a few scientists worldwide involved in bioengineering “cultured” meat.
It’s a product he believes could help solve future global food crises resulting from shrinking amounts of land available for growing meat the old-fashioned way … on the hoof.
Growth of “in-vitro” or cultured meat is also under way in the Netherlands, Mironov told Reuters in an interview, but in the United States, it is science in search of funding and demand.
The new National Institute of Food and Agriculture, part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, won’t fund it, the National Institutes of Health won’t fund it, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration funded it only briefly, Mironov said.
“It’s classic disruptive technology,” Mironov said. “Bringing any new technology on the market, average, costs $1 billion. We don’t even have $1 million.”
Director of the Advanced Tissue Biofabrication Center in the Department of Regenerative Medicine and Cell Biology at the medical university, Mironov now primarily conducts research on tissue engineering, or growing, of human organs.
“There’s a yuck factor when people find out meat is grown in a lab. They don’t like to associate technology with food,” said Nicholas Genovese, 32, a visiting scholar in cancer cell biology working under a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals three-year grant to run Dr. Mironov’s meat-growing lab.
“But there are a lot of products that we eat today that are considered natural that are produced in a similar manner,” Genovese said.
“There’s yogurt, which is cultured yeast. You have wine production and beer production. These were not produced in laboratories. Society has accepted these products.”
If wine is produced in winery, beer in a brewery and bread in a bakery, where are you going to grow cultured meat?
In a “carnery,” if Mironov has his way. That is the name he has given future production facilities.
He envisions football field-sized buildings filled with large bioreactors, or bioreactors the size of a coffee machine in grocery stores, to manufacture what he calls “charlem” — “Charleston engineered meat.”
“It will be functional, natural, designed food,” Mironov said. “How do you want it to taste? You want a little bit of fat, you want pork, you want lamb? We design exactly what you want. We can design texture.
“I believe we can do it without genes. But there is no evidence that if you add genes the quality of food will somehow suffer. Genetically modified food is already normal practice and nobody dies.”
Dr. Mironov has taken myoblasts — embryonic cells that develop into muscle tissue — from turkey and bathed them in a nutrient bath of bovine serum on a scaffold made of chitosan (a common polymer found in nature) to grow animal skeletal muscle tissue. But how do you get that juicy, meaty quality?
Genovese said scientists want to add fat. And adding a vascular system so that interior cells can receive oxygen will enable the growth of steak, say, instead of just thin strips of muscle tissue.
Cultured meat could eventually become cheaper than what Genovese called the heavily subsidized production of farm meat, he said, and if the public accepts cultured meat, the future holds benefits.
“Thirty percent of the earth’s land surface area is associated with producing animal protein on farms,” Genovese said.
“Animals require between 3 and 8 pounds of nutrient to make 1 pound of meat. It’s fairly inefficient. Animals consume food and produce waste. Cultured meat doesn’t have a digestive system.
“Further out, if we have interplanetary exploration, people will need to produce food in space and you can’t take a cow with you.
“We have to look to these ideas in order to progress. Otherwise, we stay static. I mean, 15 years ago who could have imagined the iPhone?”
