Hey there. So if you came over from Gary's main speech this is the question and answer
session that he held directly after. Now if you didn't come here from the speech the link
to the main speech is in the description below, and it’s going to be at the end of the video.
So sit tight and I hope you enjoy this question and answer.
You guys have any questions? You want me to clarify something I said that makes no sense
to you whatsoever? How I got started, how you should get started?
Question: What is your opinion of PETA?
Gary: My opinion of PETA? PETA sucks. By the way, I usually write that on the board I didn't
write that today. I usually write “no I am not with PETA”. Now PETA sucks for a
lot of reasons, and by the way I don't want you to take this out on the animals because
PETA sucks. A lot of people and a lot of groups involved in a lot of movements suck. But you
still have to understand the message and forget about the messenger. PETA sucks for a couple
reasons. Number one they exploit women. Constantly using naked women in their campaigns, I don’t
understand how exploiting one species to try and help, and the exploitation of another,
is productive. And I understand that women, and everyone has their right to do to their
body what they want. I have some friends, of course, over the years who have worked
at PETA. Some of them were women who have done these naked campaigns, and I had a friend
tell me once, “Gary, It’s my body, and I want to use it to help the animals.” Okay
I get that, but you are objectifying women. And on top of it, it doesn’t even work.
Like I know why sex is used to sell things. You guys know why. You tell some guys spray
some stuff on your body and 12 women are going to attack you in the hallway and rape you,
guys will say “hey give me some Axe man, spray in on.” You tell a guy you’ll get
laid if you drive a Harley. Guys I'm saving up to buy a Harley. But you show Pam Anderson’s
boobs on a billboard? How is this teaching people about what pigs go through and what
cows go through? Now I’ve talked about this with Ingrid Newkirk the founder and president
of PETA over the years. She goes, “Gary, do you know how many more people see Pam Anderson
billboards than your speech?” I said "Oh it’s not even close. But are you telling
me guys are walking through times square - ok there's four guys walking through Times Square
and it's like “hey, look at those tits. Let’s go get some tofu it’s on me!”
It’s not what’s happening. At least if it worked I can understand why they would
do it but it doesn’t work.
I’ll give you another horrible example. In 2002 now just to be fair and open I’ve
taken money from PETA in the past, from 2002-2005. I’ll take money from McDonald’s if there's
no strings attached. And there were never strings attached. My speech, my words, my
thoughts, my lecture too. They invited me in 2002 to come down to their headquarters
in Norfolk, and while I was there it was staff meeting day for the month. So they go into
a big room, 110 people sit there and watch all the media that they've done for the month.
Well in ’02 they were using Tracey Bingham, one of Pam Anderson co-stars on Baywatch,
in another naked women campaign. They had her marked up like a cow, different parts,
and of course the main focus because she was sitting like this with her ass out, and it
said “rump.” So Jay Leno that night, the following day, after this campaign, Jay Leno
in his opening monologue on the Tonight Show comes on and says. “Man did you guys see
that PETA campaign with Tracy Bingham? With a rump like that I'll never go vegetarian.”
I shrink and I was like “ah” and everyone in the room was like “yay”. I lean over
to the person next to me and I ask “why is everyone clapping?” “Jay Leno mentioned
PETA!” “He said he’d never go veg.” “But he mentioned PETA!” This is PETA’s
goal? Just to get mentioned? As if that does anything. It’s so ridiculous. And the other
problem with PETA is that they kill homeless dogs and cats. And Ingrid Newkirk is a psychotic
serial cat killer. If you go to my website and click on “other animal issues,” I
have an essay titled “PETA and homeless animals” where I expose everything they’ve
done. I don’t believe in that old boys network stuff about not telling on someone because
they supposedly believe the same things you believe in. Like the cops not telling on other
cops when they’re beating up people in prison. So I expose them profusely for this stuff.
She actually sends people out into Norfolk, Virginia every day with traps and they catch
live feral cats. Take them back to the PETA compound and kill them in the backyard in
a shed. I've seen it with my own 2 eyes several times. Insane. Ingrid has convinced herself
and everyone else (they have deified themselves) that cats, and dogs by the way, are not happy
unless they have human companionship. Now, I've been on the road for a long time. 2,500
lectures in 30 States, I have driven to nearly all these states too, from Michigan to California.
Do you know how many times I see a dead cat on the side of the road? Almost never. You
know what I see though every 50 to 100 feet dead on the road? Squirrels and raccoons and
possums. So if their goal is, and this is what she claims: “well they’re going to
get hit by cars,” well then why don’t you round up the squirrels and the raccoons
that are always getting hit by a car? Oh well we don’t have that affinity for them as
we do for the cats. But listen cats are completely fine on their own. Feral cats? Do you know
that cats aren’t even a domesticated species, even though they live with us they’re an
oddity? For some reason they enjoy our company like dogs do but cats are completely wild
creatures that’s why they can survive outside. And be the little killers that they are. Killing
birds and mice, they don’t need any help to survive, none whatsoever. But check out
that essay on my website.
You have a question?
Question: So, you are saying that we shouldn’t eat this meat and that we should care about
all these other animals and all these great things. What do you think about animals that
are in other species that do the same thing? Such as lions, tigers, jaguars, wolfs, panther,
hyenas, dogs, bears, and cats as you just mentioned?
Gary: I don’t like it one bit. And I'll be the first vegan activist on this planet
to say this. To me the only evolved species on this entire planet is the herbivore animal.
The zebra, the antelope, the deer, the elephant, giraffe, rhinoceros, hippopotamus. Fortunately
75% of animals on this planet are not killers, they’re not carnivores, and omnivores, they
are herbivore animals. And I don’t think we should be justifying human behavior based
on lion behavior, it’s awfully unfair. Have you noticed that meat, dairy and egg eaters
always wanna say, “Hey but lions eat zebra's, I can eat a cow!” But the lions do a lot
of other things that we don’t do. Why is that the only thing we want to imitate from
them? Lions sleep outside naked. Have insects crawling all over their bodies and their orifices
and all that stuff. They eat bloody raw flesh. Blood dripping down their face. They see animal,
chase it down and tackle it. When was the last time were driving on a country road you
saw a cow and said “Stop the car, hey man I'm gonna jump that fence and go tackle that
that cow, dig my jaw into that cow’s abdomen and eat some blood and guts!” We don’t
do anything they do. So I will make a promise to everybody. Once my species stops murdering
and committing genocide against billions of innocent beings on this planet, I will fly
to the jungles of Tanzania and try to convince lions not to eat zebras. But that is not my
focus. Because lions also don’t claim to be created in the image of God. Lions also
don’t claim "We know right from wrong. We're compassionate, we're civilized beings!" As
long as we make these claims of being civilized and knowing right from wrong, I'm gonna be
in everyone’s face saying go all the way with it. You can’t pick and choose who to
be kind to. Which is something, as you’ve probably noticed throughout history, we love
to do. Why do we always have to go to the table of peace, year after year, decade after
decade, and say hey, hey, can you let these black people free in American please? No!
Please can you let them free and give them their equality? No! This goes on for 400 years
and then near the end it’s like, "Um, can you please give us our freedom now?" “Eh,
Maybe. We're talking about it." And then we end up doing it. Same thing with women, “No!
Can’t have your equality! Please can we go to the same school everyone goes to? Can
we have a vote in our government?" "No!" "Can we please have the same rights as men? (Sigh)..Maybe.
We’re talking about it." And now we are doing it with homosexuals. "Hey can we have
the right, please, to see our loved ones when they are dying in the hospital?" "No!" "Can
we have the same freedoms that all other married couples have?" "No!" "Please?" "Maybe. We’re
discussing it." Do we have to really discuss justice and equality over and over? Why do
we remain the most brilliant species technologically, yet the stupidest one when it comes to ethics?
We're on par with parasites. All we do is oppress, harm, and torture, and murder somebody
else who doesn't look and act like everybody else in the majority. We need to focus on
our behavior. This is unnatural. This is a massacre. This is the biggest holocaust that
has ever existed. The worst form of slavery that has ever existed. Number one business
on the planet by the way, since the beginning of time, animal slavery. Which is why this
has been going on the longest. And if you ever wonder why we can’t get along with
each other? You know we have practiced all the atrocities on the animals first? That’s
why we are experts at killing each other, harming each other, oppressing each other,
exploiting each other. We tested it out on the animals first, became masters at this.
Speciesism, being a speciesist, this is the root of all hatred on this planet. The root
of all evil. First form of hatred human beings are taught, kill the animal. Animal didn't
count. Or depending on which part of the world you are in, certain animals count. In America,
the western world, hey dogs and cats are precious. Horses. But screw those cows, fuck those chickens,
screw those turkeys. Kill ‘em. Cut their beaks off. Kill ‘em while they’re still
alive. Those lobsters? Boil them alive. We do some pretty horrible things just for a
sandwich.
Question: In the vegan argument, is the suffering of plants not acknowledged?
Gary: No it is not, because it is ridiculous argument. If I came in here by the way and
talked about the broccoli holocaust how long would I be allowed to speak? 5 seconds, 8
seconds? It’s a really ridiculous argument. By the way my best friend since when I was
8 years old is still a non-vegan and when he asked me, “man, so what kind of arguments
did they use this time?” I said "well they called me a carrot killer in this town and
a mushroom murderer." And he is forever embarrassed as a meat eater, when people say the carrot
stuff. But let me explain this in a couple of ways. Number one, I think everybody should
know a word, and if you don’t, here's a new word for you. It's called sentient, S
E N T I E N T. It can also be pronounced sentient. That’s having a central nervous system connected
to a brain, connected to your heart, your liver, your lungs that means you feel pain,
you experience joy and happiness. Animals and humans are sentient beings. Carrots, mushrooms,
broccoli, these are insentient beings. Incapable of suffering whatsoever. But a couple of things
I want you to think about. We talked about this during the speech. 50% of all the crops
on this planet are set aside as animal feed. So if we truly were concerned about plants,
we would destroy a lot less plants if we ate them directly instead of growing them all,
destroying all this land, to feed them to the 150 billion land animals on this planet
every year. You know I've got a quote on my website from a group called The Council for
Science and Technology. And they stated in the 90's, this shocked the vegan world by
the way. This is a group of animal agriculture people, they said "with all the crop land
in America alone, we could feed the planet twice over. But there has to be one stipulation,
everyone would have to be vegans." This is how much less land and less plants we can
destroy if we just ate the stuff directly. And since we are herbivores, and I know this
probably shocks people, everybody thinks we're omnivores and carnivores, there is nothing
omnivorous, carnivorous about us in anyway whatsoever. As herbivores we need to eat what
we were meant to eat unless you guys know how to become breatharian, let me know and
we can live off the oxygen. But you need to eat what you were meant to eat. And real quickly
about humans being herbivores, if your lower jaw goes from side to side in a grinding chewing
motion like this, 100% herbivore. If you were an omnivore or a carnivore, your jaws can
only go like this, up and down. Vertically rip and swallow. If you have a dog or cat
at home, watch them eat. There is no chewing and grinding. If you sweat through your pores
on a hot day, you’re 100% herbivore. If you are a carnivore or an omnivore you would
pant to cool yourself down. No claws on the human hand. Claws are a trademark of the carnivore
and the omnivore. The length of our intestines are somewhere between 7 to 13 times the length
of our torso. It’s a very long intestinal tract. The same length of all herbivore animal
intestines on this planet. The length of the intestines on real meat eaters, lions, hyenas,
jaguars, only 3 to 6 times the length of their torso. And I used to make a challenge back
in the day, Brandon probably remembers this, that if you really think humans are naturally
meat eaters, find a 2 year old child, put that child in a crib with a bunny rabbit and
an apple. If the child eats the bunny rabbit and plays with the apple, sent me an email,
I will buy you a brand new car with a leather interior. And I’ll buy you a steak sandwich
too. Hey we have zero carnivorous instincts, zero omnivorous instincts whatsoever when
we are young, when we are born, when we are growing up. And about the plant thing, one
more thing. I just put this on my website by the way. It’s coming around again, I
noticed in the last 11 years of lecturing certain topics are hot for the public right
now. All of a sudden the last year everyone is bringing up the plant argument again. Somebody
must have said something on the radio, "the plants are suffering and the plants are feeling
pain." Here’s something interesting, how come in the history of human kind, not one
firefighter has ever ran into a house to rescue the plants? And don’t say it's discriminatory
because animals are the most discriminated species on this planet, and there's still
a protocol for rescuing them. Now it's humans first of course, you get in the house and
there’s people in there, let’s go save the humans. And then if they come back out
and are like "hey wait my dog is in there, my dog!" Ok it’s safe to go in, and you've
seen the pictures of big hulking fire fighters coming out with a little puppy with a litte
oxygen mask “Aw that’s sweet.” Even if it was safe for a third time to go back
in, no fire fighter is going to say, “Hey I’m going to get the chrysanthemums!
I’m going to get the rhododendron! I'm going to get the tomato and the basil plants!
quick, somebody get my plants!” Listen I want to be fair, I like plants, I do. I've
got 5 at home, actually I've got more than that, I've got 5 succulents and 3 cacti at
home. I dig them. I watch them all the time. It’s a little forest I've got right on my
counter. Hey but when my plants die and they've died over the years, you know what I do? Take
them out of the bowl, and throw them outside. My dog Rex passed away January 24, 2004. Still
know the day. My father passed away October 29, 2009, still know the day. I think about
them every single day. Never think about my old succulents and the cactus that I once
had. Completely different life forms. But check out my website, if you go to the all
about veganism section, I have a section entitled The Insipid Killing Plants Argument.
Question: I was going to say so are you okay with people then, feeding their household
animals meat? Or do you recommend a vegan diet for them?
Gary: I recommend a vegan diet but I want to be clear about this, I’m not here to
turn your dogs and cats into vegans. That's not why I travel the country seven and a half
months a year, and it’s not why I've been arrested 13 times and kicked out of five countries
to convert dogs and cats into vegans. But if you change your life, it's not a bad idea
to change the life of somebody else you truly care about. Rex by the way who passed away
when he was 15, he was a vegan the last 9 years of his life when I found him, just like
his daddy. And he was super healthy. 15 is a nice ripe old age. In fact if you go to
my website in the dog and cats section, the world’s oldest dog by the Guinness Book
of World Records, a 27 year old vegan dog from birth. It’s great for them and it’s
great for us too. Now here's why it's so great for them. That commercial dog food we feed
them, and all of it, I don’t care what they're saying about, "it's natural." Its garbage.
It’s literally garbage. It's meat that’s not fit for human consumption. It's recalled
meat, E.coli, salmonella. Recalled vegetable, E.coli, salmonella. The last place you can
sell something to that nobody wants to eat as a human, sell it to the pet food people.
So this is why it's always better for them. Now dogs are pretty easy to turn into vegans.
In fact I rescued a dog over the summer, Doyle. He is a 10 year old lab, 85 lbs. you guys
know bigger dogs have hip problems, dysplasia. When we got him, he couldn't jump on the bed,
and he couldn't jump around outside. He wanted to play, he always loved to play fetch they
told us. We took him outside and his old legs hurt. Less than one year, guess who’s jumping
around like a bunny rabbit on a vegan diet? Guess who’s jumping up on the bed whenever
he wants to? It's healing him, and it heals us too. You want to eradicate the majority
of all diseases? And listen we've got enough stress in life. Everyone’s stressed out
right? We have enough problems going on, enough sugar and empty carbohydrates coming into
our bodies. Why compound your problem, your risk for disease by shoving things down your
throat that don’t belong there? Meat, cheese, milk and eggs does not belong in our bodies.