I’ve just watched this Video. Warning: it’s horrific and meant for shock value. If you do watch it, take time either before or after to read some of the comments. I tried to comment but, as usual, my comment was too long.
Here follows my full comment: Firstly, get over it–animals are our food. If we didn’t eat them then there would be no reason for them to be around. If we tried to keep them around without eating them then they would out populate us and create a stinking mess. Either way, bye bye safe comfy warm and fuzzy feelings. Cruelty can come in many ways. Slaughterhouse or farmer abuse or do-gooders who break healthy animals free only to kill them with neglect or carelessness.
You should be shocked and horrified. I have been on many farms, and have farmed for the last 15 years. I would never treat an animal like this, nor would I want my animals to ever be treated like this. This video shows the worst of humanity (and some of it doesn’t even look like its from the US). Not the rest of us who obey the laws both moral and temporal.
So if you have been a carnivore up until watching this video, ask yourself what you can do to help these animals. Stopping eating meat isn’t going to do a damn thing, short of putting a bandaide over your conscience. Why not be a part of the solution? Support farmers who treat animals humanely. Help to put a stop to dairy and slaughterhouse abuse–not just of the animals, but the workers who may have no other choice but to work there and because of the trauma of the job turn to abuse and neglect and loss of their moral compass.
Creating a Vegan Utopia isn’t the answer, just like the licensed abuse portrayed in these videos isn’t the answer. But think about what you’ve seen. Don’t just go off all churrned up by emotion and react. That is not a solution. And protests and vandalism against farmers and business owners is wrong too. That only radicalizes the situation without putting an end to the problem or stopping the behavior.
Animals can lead a happy, well looked after, content life with humans, on a farm, and when there time is up can, without pain, become part of the Human food chain. None of the abuse depicted here need take place, nor does it on thousands of small, local farms around the country. Globalization and centralization of our food system has lead to this. Decentralization and supporting of local farmers and economies can help dismantle it.
Oh, and I love how the video ends–with happy animals on a well looked after farm, as if the scenes of horror and abuse only happen if you eat meat, and the happy prancing piglets only come running to recognized Vegetarians. . . .
