Too many times I have seen the cold, gloved, unfeeling hand of The Man wrench innocent baby vegetables from their home! Too many times have I seen those same vegetables be tossed, stacked, piled, trollied, bundled, carted around; the children don't know where they're going, what's happening to them, or even if they will make it another day - they turn to the elders for support but even they cannot offer any.
They change from one gloved hand to another, that of the "food manufacturer" - they are lined up, tied up, blindfolded and placed against a hard place - and again I have heard too many times, the cold, dismal "thunk" off the dull blade breaking through innocent flesh, the silent screams of thousands of voiceless victims, writhing in agony, warning the others in a futile attempt to save them, screaming in agony and misery at their contemptible lot in life!
They are not given any last words, any last rights - they do not share the freedoms that you and I share, they are not even treated as beings, but obsolete objects to be harvested, handled and horrifyingly murdered! I remember one of the smartest and brightest young vegetables I knew was a green pepper, and I heard him cry out for his mother as he was placed against that cutting board, that bloody battlefield, I remember all too well the scene as he was scalped, and his innards scooped out, his corpse sliced up to be garnish on some garish dish.
Brothers, I have a dream where vegetables can live in harmony with people and animals. Where a young carrot can grow up ina field with a cow and a rabbit and a pigeon and a dolphin and a T-Rex and Godzilla and a black man and white man and a one-legged Latino male of questionable sanity who calls himself The Holy Ghost; and they would all live together in harmony, enjoying life and snacking on the fruit of the soy bean and genetically modified food products (Fuck the Soys!).
It is clear, then, that this dream, this future, will not happen on its own, by any conventional means. We must rise up, time and time again, we will march against them, and rise up and grab that cold corporate hand that monstrously and monotonously wrenches the women and children from their families - rise up and take that hand and use it to write our own page in history, to create our own destiny, our own future! Together, I know we can do it!
-Martin Luther Bean Jr.
