While his post in particular might not seem relevant to a vegan website, the truth is that that vegan bake sales are taking place across the nation to earn money for Haiti. That fact is entirely relevant to Vegan Soapbox. Even more relevant is the fact that the organization Ed suggests donating to is the same one that many vegan organizations, such as Food Fight, are choosing to donate their bake sale earnings to: Partners in Health.

Without further ado, here is Ed’s post:

I grew up in New Orleans — 15 years through high school. While I was living in Las Vegas at the time it hit, Hurricane Katrina affected me very personally. Both my parents lost their homes to flooding, and my childhood home and neighborhood were, for most practical purposes, wiped off the map. It was surreal to see the havoc the storm had wreaked on my home city.

After I heard news of the earthquake in Haiti, my mind naturally started drawing parallels. I had a disturbing thought. If New Orleanians had not had forewarning of the hurricane — if it had all happened suddenly like an earthquake — the death toll in New Orleans would have been far, far greater. Both mom likely would have died, as well as hundreds of the people I knew growing up in the city.

This thought helps put the magnitude of Haiti’s disaster into context for me. And while New Orleans is a poor city by American standards, Haiti is poorer by an order of magnitude — one of the poorest places on earth.

I’m donating to Partners In Health. It is a charity recommended to me by several different people I know who are more familiar with Haiti than I am and whose opinion I trust on such matters. PIH have been working for more than 20 years in Haiti to build a relatively decentralized health care infrastructure that provides care to people regardless of financial status. They are today helping to provide emergency care to those injured in the quake.

Are you donating? Are you having a vegan bake sale? What organization are you donating to? Let us know!

Likewise, how are you “drawing parallels” between the suffering of others (be they human or animal) and the understanding you have of suffering in your own life?

amoral, adj. 1. without moral quality; neither moral or immoral. 2. lacking or indifferent to moral standards, criteria, or principles

moral, adj. 1. of, or pertaining to, or concerned with the principles of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical

I watched Earthlings for the first time last week with a group of university students that were also seeing it for the first time. Now I’ve been fighting and speaking up for the rights of animals for almost 10 years and I’ve seen a lot of sickening, twisted and horrible animal cruelty caught on tape. I thought I was immune!

But what I saw in Earthlings was so vile and so overwhelming that it truly disgusted me to be associated with the rest of humanity. I wasn’t myself for days. I won’t go into the graphic details of the film, as I’m sure most of you reading this have already seen it. But if you haven’t, I recommend you do, animal activist or not (albeit armed with a good supply of tissues).

As I facilitated the post-film discussion, I asked the teary-eyed kids in attendance if they thought the people committing the incomprehensible acts of violence in the film were psychopaths or if our entire society was psychopathic to allow, promote and participate in the institutionalized cruelty we so easily and without provocation inflict upon the animals.

I believe our society, hell, our whole damn species, is psychopathic. I can’t think of any sane reason for what we do to the animals. We know they feel pain. We know they suffer and bleed and fear death. We know that when they’re beaten they cry out in agony.

We know they can sense when they’re about to be slaughtered and we know they try to avoid it with every fiber of their being. We know they experience terror and we know that their screams are screams of terror and not of indifference. We know it but that knowledge doesn’t stop most of us from doing it.

And what do we make of people like ourselves; part of this violent and sadistic culture yet dedicated to peace and compassion? What makes us different? Not everyone who sees Earthlings, or sees the inside of a slaughterhouse for that matter, will go vegan (although I’m certain many will). Why do some people change while others do not?

Is it perhaps that we are the next link in the evolution of humankind; homo sapiens pathiens (from the Greek pathos meaning to evoke pity or compassion): the wise and compassionate human? I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers.

But I do know that sooner or later some of us will ask ourselves: how do we go on? How do we keep on fighting when 99% of humanity – our friends, family, co-workers and community leaders – have such utter contempt and disregard for the feelings and suffering of animals? How do we go on when it seems like we’re powerless to protect the animals from the evils of the human race?

The answer is we just do.