Copyright 1998 by Thomas E. Billings; all rights reserved. Contact
me for approval for possible re-publication/cross-posting.

Just a little background information on my absence from the recent Raw
Expo in San Francisco. I did not attend because Rose Lee Calabro, the
Expo promoter, personally asked that I not attend, as she said that David
Wolfe of Nature's First Law  (NFL) was threatening that one or more of
the following might happen:

1) the Expo would be disrupted (attacks on the SF-LiFE table at the
   Expo?), and/or

2) someone (NFL?) might attack me.

Consider the situation: you are running an Expo and someone coming to
the Expo threatens to attack another person at the Expo. The decent
thing to do would be to advise the person making the threats (NFL,
in this case), to not attend the Expo, and/or to provide security
guards and bodyguards.  Instead, Rose Lee chose to indirectly condone
the threats by NFL, by asking me to not attend.  A major factor
in her rationalizations was that NFL represented economic interest to her:
they paid for a booth, and were a featured speaker. (Side note:
I hear the talk by David Wolfe had zero content and was boring.)

Frankly, NFL does not frighten me at all. They are well known as
plagiarists - i.e, the book "Nature's First Law" is in fact a massive
plagiarism of the book "Raw Eating" by Arshavir Ter Hovannessian;
"Raw Eating" was published in English in Iran in the 1960's. So, one might
deduce that the NFL gang is willing to engage in misrepresentation
to achieve their goals, hence literally *everything* they claim -
including claims that they actually follow a 100% raw vegan diet - is
suspect. However, as NFL does have, in my opinion, the "energy" of
hatred around them, they do attract people of similar mind. Thus although
I personally gave no credibility to NFL's threats, there was a slight
potential risk of harm from fanatical, hostile followers of theirs.

So, I honored Rose Lee's request, not out of fear of NFL, but as a
courtesy to Rose Lee.  Instead, I stayed home and finished writing a
major new article for the Beyond Vegetarianism web site (URL below).
(No doubt NFL will dislike the content of that article. :-) Note that
the article in question will be on the site when open, but is not part
of the sample articles available now.)

Now let's evaluate the situation: it appears that money counts for more than
decency here; some rawists (e.g., NFL and Rose Lee) appear to think that
making threats of violence is OK, so long as the person making the threats
promotes the glorious raw vegan lunch, and represents an economic interest.
Ask yourself: Are such people "selling" their honor and decency - virtue,
in a sense - in exchange for a raw lunch? What does that tell you about
such peopler?

Also consider the overall tactics of the various extremists (the list that
follows is a general list and not specific to NFL):
plagiarism, denial of reality, the intellectually dishonest crank science
promoted by various extremists (e.g., "humans evolved as fruitarians",
"fruit is just like Mother's milk", etc.), vicious and  hateful attacks on
people who don't eat the "holy 100% raw vegan lunch" (such behavior is
the dietary analogue of racism),  harassment, bullying, threats of
violence, and so on.

I ask you: are such tactics the key to the long-term growth of the raw vegan
movement? Or are they instead a guarantee that raw vegan will remain
the "lunatic fringe" of alternative diets? The answer to this question lies
with you, for if you support or condone raw extremists, you are supporting
the kind of negative behavior listed above.

I hope you will visit the new web site I am involved in; the URL is below.

Tom Billings
Beyond Vegetarianism
http://www.beyondveg.com