Food Rights

My friends, I have come here today to speak to you about a very important topic. 

It's 2015, and rights are rising in America. Yes, that's right. America is righting itself. It is finally breaking free from its blighted, rightless past.

Oh, we've had the Bill of Rights. The inalienables. You call those rights? HA! Stone-Age rights, that's what they were. The right of free speech, the right to peaceably assemble. They're barely even rights. They're practically wrongs.

NOW, we're starting to see RIGHTS. Rights for animals. Rights for the earth. It's a start. We're not even CLOSE to where we should be, but it IS a start.

This morning, I would like to talk to you about a portion of our society that endures unthinkable violence and insult every single day. I would like to talk to you about the inalienable rights of Food.

This morning, I stand before you, filled with shame for the hard-hearted citizens of this abhorrent land. For centuries- CENTURIES, my friends! Our food has had no protection WHATSOEVER. Think of the wilted lettuce. Think of the cooked macaroni left out at room temperature! Think of the hamburgers, rotting in McDonald's trash bins!

And physical comfort is just the beginning. How would YOU feel if YOU only had physical comfort?

Now, I would like you to close your eyes and imagine this scenario. You're in a box. It's warm and dry. Nothing is poking you, or scratching your skin. You're not in any pain.

But every day, people tell you exactly how they're planning to kill you. They discuss it right in front of you. When you give a start, or let a look of fear creep into your eyes, they laugh at you.

Now you know how the potato in your cupboard feels.

No. I don't want to assume. I would rather think that my distinguished audience is above such things. I'll say, now you know how the potato in your NEIGHBOR'S cupboard feels. You know- that bulky neighbor with the frizzy yellow hair. She looks like just the type to threaten her food and then laugh about it.

We're going to talk about hate speech right now. Are there any children in the audience? Yes, I see them. Please take your children to the back hallway, where we are providing several options of politically correct, diversity-oriented childcare. Are all children removed? Thank you.

I would like to know if you remember the hate-spewing hate fiends that you used to go to elementary school with. I don't want to shock you, but there's one phrase they used which I have to focus on in particular.

Cross my heart and hope to die and stew and fry.  

Ladies and gentlemen, genderfree and never-gendered, THIS is what we are fighting against.

We often don't think about the things that may be said, constantly, very near to us, in the privacy of our neighbor's homes. But we must think about them. We must keep the awareness, the horror alive. This hate speech STILL goes on. Every day. Right here in America… right here in Greenville, South Carolina. Your neighbor's children? They probably say things like that every day. Sing-song voices, flippant words- CRUEL words that only mock the death and destruction which will come to the contents of their parents' refrigerator.

Let's talk about labels for just a moment. My friends, I cannot- I CANNOT believe that we still have labels, in this SO-CALLED CIVILIZED nation.

Would YOU want "high-fructose corn syrup" plastered on YOUR forehead?

The sticky residue that is left behind, eternally, only adds insult to injury.

I know this is painful, but we have to face the facts. When people talk about food, what do they say? Someone help me.

Taste! Yes. Taste. That's exactly right.

Do they discuss its personality? Oh no. Admire its intelligence? Not them. Do they list its likes and dislikes? NO. THEY DON'T.

They talk about its TASTE. The pleasure that it gives to their slimy tongues. As though THAT is all that matters.

It's actually frightening. We who are enlightened know- the way we treat the weakest is the way we will one day be treated.

Do you want to be constantly degraded, with no reprieve?

Well, it is degrading. To reduce food, in all of its individuality and intelligence, to TASTE! Just taste, that's all. As though its amazing internal qualities simply did not exist. As though they never existed.

I want to shout from the housetops- You can pretend a ravioli does not have a memory! But one day, it will forget YOU!

We're in the trenches, friends. Those of you standing in front of the grocery stores, protesting? Thank you. Those of you who write "Pickles Have Feelings Too" on signs? We are grateful. We CANNOT afford to spare ANY effort in this great and worthy cause.

We must fight. Fight!

Yesterday, after I delivered this lecture in Atlanta, I went to an Ihop to gaze upon the victims. I saw a pancake lying, helplessly, on the plate of a man whose shirt was half untucked. This subhuman hefted great blobs of fat on each arm. They wobbled with every motion. This monster- MONSTER! just wafted a deadly fork up in the air. Its four tines glinted in the sinister light of a green-shaded lamp. And then he stabbed that pancake. He stabbed it.

Excuse me for a moment.

Yes, he stabbed it. It glistened in the light, as though its syrup had little tears mixed up in it. And I watched him stab that pancake, as though he wanted to make sure it had NO LIFE LEFT in its poor, tortured little body.

My friends, that pancake has inspired me. I shall name it Libby. Libby could not be with us today. Libby: we will never forget you.

But one day, Libby the pancake, you will look out from the gastrointestinal realms of a half-human fiend, and you will look out upon liberty. Yes, you will see liberty throughout the land. For food that was once in the gravest danger will then be free from any threat of harm.

For Libby's sake, we must press on. Please, help me make that dream a reality. For Libby the pancake. For food, everywhere.

Thank you.