Vegetarian politics
An interesting factoid I picked up today: in the middle part of last century, there was a political party called the Vegetarian Party. A man named John Maxwell was the Vegetarian Party candidate in 1948, but was ineligible to serve as president because he was of English descent. His Vice Presidential candidate was Daniel J. Murphy.
In 1952, Murphy was the presidential candidate and Symon Gould was the Vice Presidential candidate.
In 1956, the party nominated Herbert M. Shelton, who is also known for introducing the Raw Food diet. Symon Gould was again the party’s vice presidential candidate.
Unfortunately, there’s not much more information out there on the Vegetarian Party, but it’s interesting to know that even 50 years ago, vegetarianism was enough of a movement to claim its own political candidates.
Why hasn’t someone resurrected the idea?
If you really think things out, it is obvious that we need the Vegetarian Party now, more than ever before. When you see the American diet, you see disease. That’s what the medical professions want to see, and the drug companies. The extent to which people are addicted to meat and tons of other junk foods, sugar, etc.,is at the heart of our system. Think of the violence against animals on this planet. Plants and even rocks are subjects of violence, but it is mainly the animal issue that has “desensitized” people to the cruelty. Now see the issue of war as an all to much like slaughterhouse. I really don’t think it’s something you can just change by legislation. People are slow to change, but there is a greater awareness now of the enormous benefits of a simple, raw diet.