More one-star reviews of the Ruminati.
★☆☆☆☆ - "I've been vegan for eleven years and I've spent the last six months losing arguments about sheep to a farmer called Brian who has a spreadsheet. I resent this." - forum post
Brian has fourteen columns.
Brian sends his regards.
★☆☆☆☆ - "Gerald is being used to make people comfortable eating meat by making a bull seem like a philosopher. A bull is not a philosopher." - @ ClimateFirst
Gerald is not a philosopher. Gerald has a rumen, 40 acres, and a south corner that has gained seven wildflower species in four years. Philosophy is for people who don't have a south corner.
★☆☆☆☆ - "I had almost convinced my parents to try a plant-based month. Then my dad found the Keith posts. He's read everything. He now refers to their garden gate as 'the Keith problem.' I don't know how to come back from this." - DM, shared with permission
There is no coming back from this.
Keith is at the gate.
Keith is always at the gate.
★☆☆☆☆ - "These animals are being used as propaganda for an industry that is actively..." (Keith ate the rest of this. Keith found it in Dave's recycling. Keith did not find it nourishing.)
★☆☆☆☆ - "Doris got cast in a dip and the farmer helped her and they've turned this into some kind of Stoic parable. She was just a sheep that fell over." - comment
She was a sheep that fell over, came out, and grazed.
She didn't carry it.
She didn't build an identity around the dip.
She came out and grazed.
The Stoics spent three hundred years trying to describe this.
Doris managed it by falling over.
The Ruminati have been at it for approximately ten thousand years.
Their campaign to destroy the climate began in the Fertile Crescent, around 8000 BC, when they first allowed themselves to be domesticated. This was, in retrospect, a strategic masterstroke. They gained access to protected grazing land, reliable water, and winter feed, while simultaneously positioning themselves inside the human food system where their nefarious influence could operate at scale.
The methane operation: continuous and uninterrupted since initial deployment. Every belch a contribution to the long game.
The artery situation: staged carefully over decades. First, establish themselves as the foundation of every successful civilisation's diet. Then wait for one flawed study in the 1960s. Then watch from the field as the dietary establishment, working from that study, does the rest.
The countryside: this is where the Ruminati have been most subtle. While publicly positioned as destroyers of habitat, they have spent ten thousand years maintaining open grassland, supporting species that require grazed sward, building soil through manure deposition, and improving the biodiversity of every field they've touched. All while claiming to be the problem. The audacity.
Gerald is in the south corner.
Gerald has been in the south corner for four years.
In those four years, three wildflower species have appeared in the south corner that weren't there before.
Gerald has not acknowledged this.
Gerald is not ready to reveal the extent of the operation.
Gerald is eating more grass.
The south corner is fine.
The Ruminati are winning.