Kalel: Fake Vegans, Fake Buddhists, Fake Communists.

in the immortal words
of eminem nowadays everybody wants to talk like they've got something to say i'm making this video because i really have something to say and yeah i see you out there i see the other vegans trying to jump on this cattle cullen controversy and maybe you managed to drum up some outrage maybe you managed to drum up some i don't know random insults stermindrong but most of you just have nothing to say i'm real familiar with these types of situations because before i was ever vegan i was a buddhist i was a member of the orthodox theravada buddhist faith and we dealt with exactly these issues all the time and before that season one isil mazzard season zero islamizer isil mizard the prequel i was a communist and not by any choice of my own i was born and raised to be a communist in 20th century slang i was what you'd call a red diaper baby which is to say my parents raised me with uh the works of karl marx lenin and mao zedong on the bookshelf i was taught to be a communist from the cradle to the grave and instead i think i was a communist up to about age 15. i wouldn't put a precise year on it but at some point i started i started asking tough questions and got my way out of that that mix of politics and religion okay among the things that's most dragging to me in this discourse surrounding calal and her ongoing rejection of her fellow vegans while claiming to represent the highest principles of what vegans are supposed to stand for is that so many people including kellogg herself say that she has just done so much for the movement but she's done so much she's done so much for she's done so much and then she's suffered so much she's suffered the slings and arrows of controversy she's endured so much let's keep it all the way real here people who has done less who has suffered less growing up as a communist i was inured to the expectation that i like other rebel leaders would literally live in a cave with a machine gun at some point in my life maybe for years maybe for decades the assumption of of persecution um civil war revolution in the proper sense of the word revolution a lot of people died with things being revolutionary without really thinking what that word means the assumption that my life in future as an adult would not be so different from i don't know uh people in the caves of northern vietnam and laos people who are in fact still fighting at that time in in some places like cambodia still during my childhood the khmer rouge were still out there cutting people's heads off by the way all that was was still going on um you know the question of what have you done for the movement what have you endured what have you suffered i came into this game as a child as a young adult with with some very different standards and expectations right um in terms of what you do and what you represent then when i was a young man an adult but a young man and i got deeply involved with buddhism you know we dealt with this kind of controversy all the time because vegetarianism not even veganism but just vegetarianism has a sort of controversial gray area status within buddhism it's definitely not official church doctrine to be vegetarian or vegan and yet i would have to ask buddhist monks and buddhist leaders because sometimes the leaders are not monks they're laypeople but who become full-time preachers of buddhism in the same sense that i'd say someone like unnatural vegan is a full-time preacher of veganism um i'd have to ask them what credibility do you have giving a lecture about the importance of not killing a fly the importance of not killing cockroaches when you have literally eaten beef for lunch and then you're gonna go home and eat pork or chicken for dinner afterwards what is the credibility you have in lecturing on the buddhist virtues of non-violence which of course extend to things like war uh but very often do indeed involve tiny uh life forms that we you know if if you're a practicing buddhist i can remember doing this myself i'd always keep a ceramic cup that i would use to trap insects without harming them and then put them outside instead of killing them i can remember when i was doing humanitarian work in northern laos one of the greatest struggles when there was an enormous cockroach that got inside my suitcase so it was in there like hiding with the clothes and my trying to get this cockroach out of the suitcase without killing it or without harming it if you take the precepts of buddhism seriously then actually living with and around insects is one of your greatest problems in life but we get in these same questions in veganism like how can you talk seriously about not killing animals or not eating meat or not buying meat if every day you're buying you know dead cows that have been cut up and put into a metal can so that you can feed it to your cat so that you can feed your dog these are tough questions for everyone these are glaring contradictions a lot of people live with but obviously the question for a buddhist monk or for a buddhist leader is different than it is for a private rank-and-file buddhist of course one of the reasons there is exactly that there's someone preaching these virtues rather than merely imperfectly trying to practice these virtues and the other reality is just the economics of where their money comes from sure somebody like unnatural vegan i'll come back to calhoun somebody like a natural vegan to my knowledge she pays her rent and she's saving up money to put her kid through college on the basis of donations from other vegans so why would it be too much to ask for her to strictly and assiduously follow a vegan diet and to i don't know talk in a consistent and coherent way about vegan ethics to kind of live up to the bare minimum standard of veganism in both principle and practice now within the buddhist religion there's actually another really important parallel here about monks living up to the standards they preach and that is celibacy now obviously it takes a little bit of imagination to see how this applies to veganism as opposed to just talking about monks eating eating cow meat within buddhism uh eating cow meat while preaching that you shouldn't harm a fly um if you really believe in the core philosophy of buddhism it's very clear that at least buddhism 1.0 real buddhism historically actual buddhism is is utterly based on glorifying a life of celibacy and that this life of celebi the life of celibacy results from a profound realization that in the words of the canon the words the ancient scripture results in you tearing up desire by its roots so after you have this realization you're no longer going to feel this kind of desire you're not going to go going to want to have sex and then you're going to live in celibacy uh as a result how can a buddhist monk receive donations and you know pay for all the things he has in life and let's face it in the 21st century most buddhist monks do live with the comforts of the modern world they're not living in a cave they're not living in a cave like a communist revolutionary they're also not living in the cave like an ancient monk from years ago they're not living this kind of simple humble life there are monks who own cars have a driver's license there are monks who have cell phones and computers and all this kind of thing um but how are you going to receive these donations and preach this philosophy um when you are yourself seducing and having sex with your followers when you are seducing and having sex with let's say other men's wives married women or i mean in some ways it's it's more damaging if you're talking about them seducing and having sex with younger women who've never been married these are circumstances that in some cases tear buddhist communities apart there was one buddhist monk in toronto i am not going to use his name but he was willing to publicly talk about the way in which his sex life had really interfered with his his buddhist practice i remember an article written by him so not out accusations go against him where he said in a very down-to-earth way that he was celibate for a certain period of his life then he fell in love with one of the women who was one of his followers a woman he was teaching meditation to and i believe they got married and then a couple years later they got divorced and then he was unsure if he should just openly like date his followers or if he should go back to living in celibacy and you know he talked about kind of his next girlfriend or wife after that and so on uh you know i can remember him i remember this one particular uh and he was an asian monk he wasn't uh he wasn't a white man uh living in toronto and talking about the ins and outs of this the problem is not dating itself the problem is not sex itself and the problem is not the same if you are a buddhist monk or if you are just a follower if you're one of the donors at the church if you're one of the donors and you happen to meet and date other women who are there as donors you know that situation is completely different from being a leader an authority figure and someone who is the recipient of those donations especially in the context where the philosophy you're preaching is exactly one of tearing up desire by its roots and then moving on beyond sexual desire to to live in celibacy and attain nirvana and these things now look i don't know what the future holds your buddhism it's very obvious that something like buddhism 2.0 has got to come up there's got to be a form of reformed buddhism that gets rid of some aspects of their religion that don't really work in the 21st century like the belief in hell the belief in the afterlife generally the belief in demons and yetis uh magical things if buddhism is going to survive into the 22nd century they're gonna have to be changes and there was a time when i thought i might play my role as that kind of reformer intellectual leader in buddhism at this moment doesn't seem to be on my on my list of priorities uh there already are terms out there for what kell is and she's preferring to try to change the definition of veganism and you know keep her cards close to her chest about what she believes what she preaches and what she practices because she doesn't like any other terms that are already out there you know what kalel is is a fake vegan now i wish i could follow that up by saying and that's okay the problem is precisely that she's someone who put herself in the position of a leader of a public figure um i can't say if she received donations from this i think she just makes enough money off of her youtube channel directly that she doesn't solicit donations for veganism as a cause but she has very much played the card of presenting herself as a murderer which is really absurd and grotesque and shameful especially in the context of this controversy she herself is saying that she has done so much for veganism that she has suffered so much for veganism uh now again who has suffered less for any movement that tried to change the world in the history of the world the leaders of the gay rights movement african-american leaders of the civil rights movement the movement to abolish slavery again communist revolutionaries living in the jungle with their you know machine guns student protesters in myanmar who wanted to replace a military dictatorship with a democracy i read the autobiography of one of those guys and he really did literally live in the jungle with you know a machine gun and a machete tough life um who has suffered less and in calel's case indeed you know it deserves to be asked who has done less what is it that she imagines she's done for this movement looking at her instagram i can see she did a photo shoot where she was posing with a chicken and this is an example of her her vegan activism so she got dressed up in fancy clothes in a corset and had a professional photographer take a picture of her holding a chicken and she preaches some kind of vegan virtues next to it well how would you feel if this were a buddhist monk and he were in the same pose or what have you uh there are buddhist monks who have instagram or other blogs or profiles or these things and the buddhist monk is preaching celibacy but you know he's sleeping with his followers how would you feel if it was a buddhist monk preaching non-violence but you know that he's eating beef for lunch how would you feel if you know that it's a self-appointed leaguer leader of the vegan movement a self-appointed leader who does not have the fortitude or self-discipline to even refuse buying popcorn and a movie theater when she knows that it's covered with butter to refuse to buy a chocolate bar or a doughnut that she knows is not vegan that's the situation that we're in with kell and i don't think this is the last challenge veganism is going to face from within this way i'd like to follow this up immediately by recording a video where i talk a little bit about the progress of the movement and in that context it's always important to point back to what a low point we were at the meteor of the vegan movement with a guy named peter singer peter singer is not the start of the vegan movement but he was a major famous leader for veganism who utterly undermined and contradicted the most basic tenets and principles of veganism i'll get into that in another video now likewise you can say buddhism has had to endure having buddhist monks who utterly undermine and contradict the most basic principles and tenets of buddhism this is a struggle however it may be that veganism is going to make progress in this world it's not going to be by selling out its own tenants its own principles it's not going to be by making hypocrites of ourselves that we convince the rest of the world to step up and take on this higher level of moral responsibility all right guys as i say i come at this from a very different angle from other vegans there are people who got into veganism in the first place just because they were interested in health beauty and weight loss that's very very different from approaching this from the perspective of somebody who was raised to be a communist revolutionary later in life got very skeptical about what communism was that really entailed but then who came out of that still wanting to make a fundamentally positive difference in the world still caring about poverty and the plight of the poor and the aftermath and effects of devastating wars that america had engaged in that other countries engaged in too um you know of wanting to make the world a better place but of knowing how deeply wrong um the ultimately violent methods offered by communism were who then got involved with history and politics of asia languages of asia through buddhism and then relatively late in life after the failure of a number of different attempts at ways of making the world a better place i'm someone for whom veganism emerged as my as my primary identity as my primary form of activism and it's the form of activism for which i'm now planning to go back to college get another college degree devote more of my time and yet again i'm not the one out here saying that i've suffered so much i don't think i suffer when i refuse to eat popcorn or refuse to eat a chocolate bar to me that is absolutely surreal i'm not even out here saying that i suffer when other vegans threatened to murder me explicitly murder me in other threats have me beaten up in the streets dragged to the police station face false charges i have in this sense stood up to persecution of a much more literal and direct kind and not persecution from the meat industry not persecution from dairy farmers other vegans rival vegan activists rival vegan leaders in the vegan movement did this to me right and all i've got to say is from my perspective coming from my background who has suffered less kalel i'd love to say that you have a lot to offer veganism in the future but i'd be lying to you if i said that kalel i'd love to say to you that i don't judge you by your past actions and your past mistakes and that i instead judge you by your future potential to do good to do something positive for the moment but here's the reality kell cullen sorry she her nickname of the internet caleb kitten is somebody who puts absolutely all of her time effort and energy into her physical appearance and the beauty of the interior decor of her apartment so that she can marry a rich man she slept her way into youtube she slept her way into fame and she is planning to sleep her way out of youtube she has repeatedly slowed down or stopped making youtube videos because she thought she finally found a man who had those properties a man she could marry who would then take care of her and she's repeatedly lost those relationships broken off those engagements for marriage etc so everyone knows this she stopped making youtube videos because she found some guy who was allegedly gonna marry her buy her a house etc um if this were true of myself as a man let's let's just step back and look at this in terms of gender equality if i were a man who devoted all of my time to my physical appearance through exercise diet and plastic surgery because oh yes i believe cullen by her own count has had more than eight plastic surgery procedures before she's turned 30. by age 29 she's had many many plastic surgery procedures if i devoted all of my time and energy to my physical appearance exercise diet plastic surgery makeup hair and the affectations of outward beauty involving designer purses designer shoes the interior decoration of my apartment and makeup and if i did all this as a man with the explicit purpose of one day seducing and settling down with a woman who was wealthy enough to take care of me what would what would your opinion be of me as a man how would you judge me in those circumstances and how would you judge me as a potential political leader for the vegan movement or for any movement i think the judgment would be incredibly harsh and we haven't yet reached the point in terms of the sophistication of our cultural response to gender inequality where it even occurs to us to look at calal cullen khalil kitten and judge here by the same standard in the same way all right guys i had something to say and now i am out