This article and the above video include graphic images some readers may find disturbing.
An Oakland slaughterhouse, Saba Live Poultry, was occupied last weekend by more than 200 people, protesting the atrocious conditions in which animals are kept before being slaughtered. Oakland police arrested 23 people and charged them with trespassing, for entering the facility, filming abuses, and removing at least three animals for rescue.
Activists described seeing intense suffering, abuse, and cruelty. Video images — from the short film above produced by The Intercept — confirm their accounts. Live bunnies were standing atop the rotting carcasses of other rabbits. Chickens were stuffed into cages so tiny that they were prevented from breathing. Still-living quails and chicks had been thrown into trash cans along with dead ones. And many animals, who had not been given food or water for days, were cannibalizing one another in cages in a desperate, instinctive attempt to survive.
One of the activists, Priya Sawhney of Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE, said that walking onto the kill floor was “one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen in my life. We saw bodies of animals on the floor, bloodied heads of chicken, animal feet, blood everywhere.” She added, “In one of the trash cans I looked in, there were dead quail along with quails still alive, one of which I picked up to rescue.”
Animals aren't trash. pic.twitter.com/wtMbDuatah
— Mercy For Animals (@MercyForAnimals) October 31, 2017
At least three animals — a rabbit, a quail, and a lamb — were rescued, brought to a veterinarian for medical care, and are now recovering at a shelter. The police prevented more animals from being rescued by barring re-entry and by arresting almost two dozen activists.
Another protester, Samer Masterson, a 23-year-old software engineer, described the scene as “disgusting,” even for someone like him who has seen dozens of equally horrific abuses at factory farms. “When I walked onto the kill floor, I wanted to throw up. The stench was overwhelming.” When looking around, he said, “all I saw were buckets full of dismembered legs and wings and heads — it look like a scene from a horror film — and it’s just down the road from where I live.”
As atrocious as the conditions were, the activists said they are no worse than the standard factory farms run by large corporations. If anything, said Sawhney, the country’s largest industrial farms are worse, because the mass scale of slaughter and abuse, where all the abuse and killing are mechanized, makes it easier to remove human conscience from the equation.
Perpetrated by the egg and poultry industries, debeaking is to painfully cut off the tip of a bird’s beak, usually with a hot blade ?? pic.twitter.com/JLTR0lycXC
— Mercy For Animals (@MercyForAnimals) October 30, 2017
Though confronting such abuse was traumatic, Sawhney said that both the size of the protest, and the diversity of the participants, made it unique, foretelling a growing and more potent animal rights movement. “Just a few years ago, we would get 10, maybe 20, people participating in a risky DxE action like this. Now we have more than 200 people actively participating.”
Sawhney was part of a team composed exclusively of activists of color who rescued several distressed and abused animals from Saba. She described how her experience in post-9/11 America, as a Sikh-American from the Punjab region in India, led her to animal rights activism.
“It was very difficult for my family,” she said, recalling that she was often called a “terrorist.” During that era, “I wish someone did something, I wished that someone used their voice to say ‘this is wrong,'” Sawhney explained. “The reason I’m an animal rights activist, and the reason I speak up for animals today, is because of those moments when I felt really scared, when I felt attacked for not being like everyone else.”
Masterson is a Lebanese-American who was raised in the Muslim faith. In an interview with The Intercept, he explained why the principles and values instilled in him by that faith, as well as his experiences as an Arab-American, led him to his devotion to animal rights: “A core tenet of Islam is to treat others compassionately. People generally have compassion toward animals, but our actions aren’t consistent with that.”
Worse, Masterson said, is this fundamental notion at the heart of animal abuse that “humans are superior to animals and therefore have the right to impose gratuitous suffering. What’s the basis for this claimed ‘right’?” He added:
I experienced a lot of racism growing up, which opened me up to other groups that went through same experiences — including other marginalized humans. But this also applies to animals. I realized they aren’t here for us, but rather are here with us — so it’s our moral right to take care of the downtrodden. That’s another big part of Islam: the mandate to do charity work and help the poor. This applies to animals as much as it does to humans.
All of the activists who spoke to The Intercept agreed that support for animal rights is growing rapidly around the U.S. “I think it will be one of the big causes of my generation,” the 23-year-old Masterson said.
Not only are protests far larger than even five years ago, but so is online interest in animal abuse, veganism, and consumer demands against the worst corporate abusers. Animal rights is clearly on the brink of becoming a fully mainstream cause.
The latest protest, aside from generating more visibility, seems likely to produce concrete and immediate reforms. Rather than responding with anger and recrimination, Saba’s owner agreed to sit down for a vegan lunch with one of DxE’s lead organizers, Wayne Hsiung (pictured below during his arrest last weekend), to discuss needed reforms.
The Saba owner himself is an immigrant to the U.S. who works for the rights of refugees, has adopted three children since moving to the U.S., and, despite his ownership of a slaughterhouse, insists that he is committed to ending suffering, including for animals. Hsiung says his commitment to reforms, and particularly to instituting practices far superior to industrial farms, appears genuine: He has already ordered a sweeping cleanup of the slaughterhouse and has agreed to periodically allow inspections and to release animals to DxE.
In many ways, this latest protest and the impressive results it is producing are a poignant reflection of the trajectory of animal rights generally — from a fringe and widely mocked movement stereotyped as the exclusive domain of coddled left-wing activists into one that is now resonating with people of all types, who — as a matter of basic human conscience — are beginning to grasp and be horrified by the widespread, wholly unnecessary and inexcusable cruelty and suffering that animal agriculture is creating.
Well done. Great article.
Thank you TI for posting this.
Plants want to live too, veggie fascist morons. Eating fruit, unfertilised eggs and dairy is the only morally-justifiable diet if you want to unnaturally bend your habits to suit some invented moral code. You could also add maybe drinking blood as though it could cause pain and discomfort, it leaves the provider alive and well and capable of future provision, like milk or eggs. (Disturbing though that may be, our political parasites could use that excuse with their taxation and manipulation of us…)
I don’t understand vegan objections to dairy products – sure, factory techniques may be disturbing, but it is baby food created by nature with no death or nefarious manipulation required.
Plants are life-loving entities and clearly demonstrate this lusty primal drive by presenting a whole sophisticated array of ways to avoid being seriously chewed or entirely eaten. Toxins, entertaining and dangerous chemicals, narcotics, irritants itchy and burning and bitter, armour and undigestible matter, thorns, nasty tastes and smells, hiding and strategic positioning in awkward places or near more edible or dangerous alternatives, and offered-up sacrificial sweet parts like new leaves or fruits.
Most so-called “intelligent” and “sapient” animals on the other hand resort to just trying to run away, overly fixated on their major difference of not being static to the point of excluding most other options. And for the plants it seems to work as they can exist sans movement for hundreds of years, whereas “sapient” animals dash around trying to avoid death only to then die of physical burn out all rather young anyway. It is probably no coincidence that some of the slowest animals like tortoises and sloths live the longest.
It seems we are not only Racist and Speciesist, we are Kingdomist, valuing the life of a (very delicious) stupid-arsed chicken or (yummy) cute pig over a (boring) bean or (unfilling) lettuce. And beans and the like are the sort of equivalent of eggs.
It is all rather horrific when you think about it.
And vegetarians are so smug about their ignorance and prejudice. I wonder if any of their stomach flora, forced over a lifetime to also be vegetarian, will maintain such morals and turn up their little bacterial noses at the inevitable chance to digest their host post-mortem? Seems as they don’t have a brain and therefor have no discernable intelligence, they probably won’t be so facile and stupid and prejudiced.
Talk about ignorance.
Ever wonder what the dairy and egg industries do with the male offspring? Male calves are separated from their mothers at birth, and raised for veal. Male chicks, along with weak female chicks, are either gassed, electrocuted, suffocated, or tossed into grinders, and used for pet food.
How about the life of a milk cow, having its offspring taken away from it immediately after birth, kept perpetually pregnant, spending much of its life hooked up to a milking machine, in many cases standing on a concrete floor, often developing mastitis and other ailments, only to be slaughtered when it’s no longer productive and being butchered for its meat and by-products.
And then the laying chicken. On some farms kept in stacked battery cages, where those in the lower cages are shat upon by those in the upper. Where not kept in cages, commonly kept in large windowless sheds, beak to tail with the other chickens (so called “cage-free”), having its beak trimmed off with a hot knife so as not to either self-mutilate or attack the others, and then, like the cows, slaughtered when no longer productive, usually for pet food and by-products.
These are just some of the atrocities associated with the production of milk and eggs. Enjoy your cheese omelet.
I was raised as a vegetarian, and now I eat a small amount of meat. I always source any meat I do eat from local farms that treat their animals humanely and refrain from pumping them full of antibiotics.
Factory farming and Big Agriculture in general is problematic on many levels. The corporations involved are all on welfare, getting billions from the taxpayers each year.
I’m absolutely opposed to animal cruelty, but what reforms are animal rights advocates suggesting?
“Cruelty” could be defined so broadly as to forbid slaughtering animals entirely, and some animal rights activists consider it immoral to eat meat at all.
Animals can be raised and slaughtered in a manner that minimizes or eliminates pain and suffering. I do think humans have a moral obligation to refrain from inflicting unnecessary suffering on any creature that is capable of feeling pain.
With that said, I do think that humans are “superior” to animals of lower intelligence and if there is a conflict between furthering human welfare or animal welfare, I think every rational person should choose to further human welfare.
There is no conflict in this instance though. The suffering of animals and the callous indifference of the factory farm owners is absolutely NOT necessary.
You cannot be “absolutely opposed to animal cruelty” and eat meat and dairy and wear leather, wool or fur. If you truly believe that we have a “moral obligation to refrain from inflicting unnecessary suffering on any creature that is capable of feeling pain”, go vegan. Eating meat and dairy and wearing leather, wool or fur will always involve pain and suffering for animals. A vegan lifestyle is vastly better for animals, human health, and the planet.
Are you “absolutely opposed” to war? Do you pay taxes?
What Jacob does is called “reasonable”, and I do it too, partly for health, and partly for animals, and if a few million others did it we could make a difference. I try to eat less meat and eggs, and I support animal rights organizations, so shut up. And when the day comes when the world goes vegan I’ll happily embrace it. But it won’t be today, or tomorrow. Diet Nazis don’t help, they just increase the divide.
You cannot guilt people into changing their diets. It’s been tried and it has failed. I applaud Jacob’s social conscience and his taking responsibility for his own health. I am an animal rights activist.
As it happens, understanding the difference between “caring” and “cruel” treatment of farm animals has a rich history (and probably stretches back into pre-history, considering most of human civilization lived in agrarian societies). The best known examples are probably the Jewish “kosher” and Muslim “halal” dietary laws; I can’t claim any expertise in either, but I do remember someone telling me about two kosher rules for beef:
1) Any cow too sick to walk to the slaughterhouse cannot be slaughtered. If the cow makes a recovery, then it’s good to go. If the cow dies of its illness, then it can’t be butchered, for fear of spreading the disease to humans. Makes sense, since most human viruses originate in mutated strains of animal viruses.
2) Cows slaughtered under kosher conditions must have their throats slit. Unlike many factory-farms, which shoot metal bolts through the cow’s brain, no kosher beef has ever been found to contain Mad Cow Disease (leading scientists to suspect that the disease originates in diseased brain-tissue contaminated with other parts on the killing-floor).
These age-old rules have worked well for centuries; unfortunately, they sometimes conflict with the bottom-line mania of the big industrial agriculture firms. Realistically, the only people who have the authority to rein in these companies are the USDA, but that seems unlikely, since the guys running the department are the same ones who ran those companies. That’s why these rescue groups ought to keep occupying slaughterhouses, get the evidence to the people, and keep the pressure on the government to act, even if it’s little-by-little.
Nothing but awe and admiration for these souls, especially as a body of people of colour. I give special thanks and praise to Ms. Sawhney. As a fellow Sikh, I love the devotion and the willingness to put faith on the line. Blessings all the way around.
i’ve never seen more brave, selfless, soulful, tough, clear-minded, ethical, grounded, real, resilient, people than the serious animal rights activists.
I stopped eating meat 5 months ago because of the cruelty and also for environmental reasons ( the millions of pounds of poop deposited (every hour) in our lakes, rivers, oceans, wetlands and ground water. It is an horrendous problem. “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair was required reading in my HS social studies class more than 50 years ago. Just re-read it and not much has changed in the past 100 years as far as slaughterhouses and the way we treat animals and people.
I’d commit suicide if I had to work at a factory farm.
The dispute between carnivores and herbivores here is the kind of thing even Doctor Who would (allegedly) commit genocide over. Nonetheless, there actually is some common ground we potentially could agree on:
* Nitrates and nitrites in meat are something that are going to do away with a lot of us in the carnivore camp. The limits for what is considered dangerous were set in something like 1900, and there is substantial evidence for a role in colon cancer. Nobody is looking forward to a colostomy bag. But the thing is, nitrates and nitrites also allow companies to get away with hurried, unsanitary practices because they “cure” processed meat to the point where it is fatal to just about anything. That means that if the animal-rights crew and paranoid meat eaters can get together to alter the exposure thresholds, meat gets a bit more expensive, people eat fewer animals, but they feel less ill at ease about it. We can all win on this one.
* Unsanitary conditions are serious. As in this video even the factory owners say they care. The eaters surely do. While I don’t trust animal rights fanatics not to fake up video, we can at least agree on better inspection arrangements, which again, raises prices/reduces consumption yet won’t be too annoying to meat consumers.
* A theory of soul is still needed. Below I explained how it should be possible to design a quantum device to detect the acausal effect of free will/qualia from the universal boundary conditions set by conscious beings. The most fundamental of all political issues — what we are, who is a person, the nature of sensation, the purpose of freedom — all these things would be enlightened by a device that can establish a theoretical basis. Since I don’t think a pig will set it off, and you do, we both should agree we stand to gain by researching how to build it and doing the experiment!
The one good thing about vegans is they’re made out of meat. If we ever grow so overpopulated that factory farms and your local Chinese buffet can no longer serve up all the tasty meat dishes you can eat for the cost of an hour’s wage… at least we have something to fall back on.
Wnt: Truly a dumb comment
As one of the activists who was arrested in this action, I’m incredibly grateful to TI for publishing this piece. This allows our work to have impact beyond the three animals we rescued that day and those who saw the action in person. Can’t wait for animal rights to be seen as the social justice struggle that it is.
Disgusting and immoral but lately that’s not news.
What the hell is the goddamned issue here?
Humans should not eat animals or treat them poorly. Fine. That is a legitimate point of view.
Or is it about animals being raised, and slaughtered humanely. I can tell you that no matter how humane the the slaughter it involves alot of blood and body parts composted.
Also, as a heads up, yes poultry does not eat if it can be helped 30 hours prior to slaughter.
In case you missed it the issue is the article, the depiction of the conditions in this slaughterhouse and the question as to whether this is confined to this particular business. But aside from that.. don’t we all feel slightly guilty when we consume animals? I do.
sorry for spamming today, but i just remembered one of ther best takes on meat consumption i’ve seen (from family guy, oddly enough):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zqFjXxj5ms
it’s true and brutal. it’s trutal.
This is the best moment to remind the world of the Bush-era law: The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA)
One of the most chilling anti-activist laws ever dreampt of.
Ala the PATRIOT ACT for the protection of the animal slaughter industry.
Opra was permanently silenced after mentioning we shouldnt eat hamburgers..
Even the World Health Org has cited meat in general as a carcinogen!
Might be old news but worth repeating until its in the National psyche
So, where is this place?
Oakland, California
This article is racist.
It mentions the activists are exclusively “activists of color.” If they were white activists race would not be mentioned, because race has nothing to do with having empathy for animals. This raises the implication that somehow colored activists by default don’t have empathy for animals, and when they do this is an aberration and worth mentioning.
It also mentions the Saba owner is an immigrant who works for the rights of refugees. This is presented to somehow make it seem like he’s not such a bad guy. This raises the implication that if he were a white American who was opposed to immigration he would have no saving grace. Whether or not the owner of Saba is a legal immigrant or third-generation American has no relevance to animal rights or a slaughterhouse.
I am pretty sure divide and conquer rhetoric weaved into the story is necessary to be published on TI now.
It was shocking to read a pitch for diversity in this article, but that’s what the left has become. That’s what Greenwald has become. It’s all identity, all the time. It’s a mindless, toxic obsession.
so…your obsessive (to the point of making it the “point” of the article) fixation on ethinicity (and i’m guessing a typical western persecution complex) means greenwald is “racist”? okay.
actually, the context of the owner’s background and whatever work he does with other people are the exact point: anyone who has been aware of these issues for any amount of time will tell you the most disturbing trend is that the same people who think of themselves as “caring” and “humanitarian” when it comes to other people will be heartless bacon loving pieces of garbage when it comes to animals. adressing that (somewhat) bizarre disconnect and chauvinism is one major step toward ending the system of murder called “animal agribusiness”.
but hey – good luck with your american white guy victim fixation. i’m sure it will get you super far in life.
One thing I learned in an anti-racism training course I took was that it’s important to call out racism wherever it is and whenever I see it. When it’s implied that it’s normal for people of color to not have empathy with animals, that’s important to call out. It’s also important this isn’t mislabeled as a “white guy victim fixation.”
It seems you’re correct: Greenwald and Woodhouse are racists. That, or they’re using the race lens so much – trying to earn a diversity badge – that it is actually unconstructive and gets in the way of dealing with issues that have nothing to do with race. That’s right: some issues have nothing to do with race.
I definitely agree that when racism is brought up you should speak up and confront it. However interpreting every mention of race as racism is very harmful and divisive. When he said “activists of color,” it was tying into the next paragraph about the activist Sawhney being specifically devoted to the cause because of her experience as a minority. The video shows that her identity is something very tied into her activism for animal rights so mentioning that isn’t an effort to immediately label everyone, but rather an important emotional aspect of the story. It’s true that if it were a group of white activists, the article probably wouldn’t have mentioned it, but that’s because it wouldn’t have the emotional history and narrative this story has about the activist leader drawing on her own minority experiences. Race has nothing to do with having empathy for animals, because people come to their ethical conclusions on their own, but in this case her specific experience does tie on her ethnicity and religion. This isn’t seen as an aberration, but rather in telling a story in all its parts and causes.
Another thing is that there are growing activist groups that are kept for those of color, because minorities find comfort in uniting together (I’m part of a minority and I definitely understand that). They provide safe spaces of activism for those minorities and so this group might have been such a group. Mentioning that it is part of this growing branch of minority activism is not racist, and actually that’s really cool to hear.
As for your second point, I think this again ties into the general narrative about being a minority being connected to empathy because you understand what it means to be marginalized. Stating the Saba owner’s own personal experience, and especially his work for the rights of refugees is important in connecting him to the other activists who are also from minorities. Finding common ground is an important narrative in today’s politics and this article ended on the note of how animal rights politics, which often is very divisive, could also find common ground in this way.
Ultimately, I see a greater narrative in this article that shows how our own human vulnerabilities and bad experiences can be changed into activism for the less fortunate, in this case animals. You seem to see animal rights and race as mutually exclusive concepts, but I guess here is where we disagree. This article shows that a person’s experience as a vulnerable minority can lead them to later defend similarly vulnerable animals, and that while one runs a slaughterhouse and the other is an animal activist, maybe these groups can find common ground on their shared experience as minorities and immigrants.
I’m glad you are pointing out racism where you see it, but I hope you’re not hunting around and always searching to see what you can interpret as racist, because then a lot of valid points, and in this article’s case even points that touch upon race in a very sensitive and touching way, may come to seem very offensive to you.
Thank you Bill.
Divisive language brought the world nazis, trump, and Daesh, to name but three of the innumerable problems any one of us can bring permanently upon ourselves.
I visited TI to find trutful reportage, not merely to hear more false and inherently violent rhetoric.
.
But then, I am only a rather colorless native who tried to save other animals since the 1950s, learning both a few traditional native ways of respect and reverence for our no-, four-, six-, eight-legged and flying and swimming relatives.
The intentional whipping-up of meaningless hatred injected like a disease by even vegan activists to foment violence among a species thhat other animals, like the wolves and bears I’ve met, have to be upwind for them to identify, just as no unfamiliar could tell among the rescued chicks seen in the vid, is called in English, “invidius comparison.”
Invidious means envious, and envy is to desire something seemingly possessed by another.
So, you have it. Just as politicians desire to replace one of another label with one labeled as their own, the human animal tends to seek social superioority in any covert or deceptive way possible.
I tend not to consort withh any as a result, as they all suffer from this disease so infectious to others of our kind, including myself.
It’s an interesting exercise to step back and notice our inherent addiction to this violent impulse to fragment and attempt to relegate others as lesser beings than oneself, and as I mentioned, even supposedly caring vegans seem unable to resist it.
The greatest love of my now-lengthening life was a refugee, whose kind was native to this very land every human stands upon here, who mostly desire to kill or otherwise exclude.
Let’s highlight all the quite poor arguments here for the sake of those who do not wish to read through the entire thread:
–As a first world human, one does not need to consume meat to survive.
–Simply because something is legal or practiced by a large number of people does not make it acceptable, justifiable.
–It requires a greater leap of faith to assume that the experience of plants is meaningfully similar to non-plants (Note: not an argument for plants having no experience) than to assume the opposite. We can make this argument with other groupings as well (e.g. non-mammals vs mammals) however plants (and perhaps fungi, bacteria) vs non-plants is distilled down to the minimum necessary for survival.
–One cannot imprison, enslave, exploit another in a humane fashion (this one aimed at you too, vegetarians).
–You are not evolved to require meat consumption in 2017. You are certainly evolved to be capable of processing meat should you consume it however.
–No, sorry, B12 needs are not your “get-out-of-jail-free” cards to justify your exploitation. Just as artificial insulation exists, negating the need for furs, artificially sourced B12 exist as well. One must produce evidence for the artificial sources as being meaningfully more harmful than the “natural” sources.
One animal (a bear) eats another animal (a squirrel). Another animal (me) eats another animal (a rabbit).
Are you opposed to a bear eating a squirrel? If not then how can you be opposed when I eat a rabbit?
Are you eventually going to try and stop all animals that are omnivores from eating other animals? What about ants that keep aphids captive for their milk?
Bill, bears do number 2 wherever and whenever they feel like it and they don’t wipe afterwards. Do you emulate that in your life too? The point is: you and me, but not the bear, can control and improve our behaviour through moral thinking. We can choose actions so as to not harm, kill or eat neither humans or other animals.
To try to deny your animal essence is not an improvement, it is alienation. Your worse, not better, when you adopt irrational notions of morality, made up by alienates humans. It is throwback to obscurantist religions and other superstitions.
Have you not denied your animal essences at all then? When you’re upset do you attack? Do you go around shitting on your lawn to mark your territory? Do you not enjoy books and movies? Do you not see value in education? Simply reverting to our “animal essence” is too easy an answer. Where would this world be without people working throughout history and now that followed what you call “irrational notions of morality?” Morality is based in what’s right, and we all benefit from others doing the right thing. I know I have benefited from women fighting to get suffrage, from my parents working hard to take care of their child and give her an education, etc. Brushing aside morality as an irrational notion that’s all about distancing yourself from some “essence” makes me think you’ve met one too many person that goes around declaring their moral superiority, especially through religion. I’m not religious, but improving oneself and trying to be “moral” (which is sounds like a very religious word but I’m using it in the context of doing what’s right, trying to minimize pain for other beings in the world, being honest with yourself, standing up when you believe in something), is one of the coolest and healthiest ways to go about living. In the end you honestly sound worse than someone who claims moral superiority because at least they’re trying to achieve something, whereas you’re just throwing up your hands and saying “I just do what instinct tells me to do.” It’s almost like you’re evading responsibility for your actions in saying this is what you were predestined to do. Don’t you believe in human agency? In choice? I think morality is ultimately about the choices you make, and your method of thought is about abolishing choice, that humans have no choice because the best thing is to leave it to what “your animal essence” tells you to do. Deciding for yourself what’s right and wrong is not a “throwback to obscurantist religions and other superstitions,” it’s trying to not abuse your privilege as a self-conscious being and facing questions on your own.
In other words you are saying that humans are not equals with the rest of the animal kingdom?
Isn’t that speciesism? Why are you looking down at the bear for pooping in the woods? How do you know the bear can’t improve its life through moral thinking? Do all animals not have free will?
Perhaps the issue is not weather one eats meat or not, but how one treats animals.
IMO, the lack of respect and knowledge regarding our food supply is the real issue. And I believe this is the reason for much of modern mans mental and physical suffering.
that is some epic and wonderful carntard bait right there. the first one is spot on but misses the point: people don’t eat meat because they “need” to, they eat it because they “want” to and don’t know the difference.
another argument i hear a lot especially among “working class” folks i associate with: “yeah, well….my life is HARD okay?!?!?! eating that KFC bowl and smoking a cigarette are the only joy in my life!!!”
so animals continue to die and suffer because western society as whole refuses to get its shit together. see also: any people living in an area with oil.
bonus points for the vegetarian burn.
If people renounce eating meat, it is still a revocable choice. For animals to have real rights – not just a temporary reprieve granted by capricious humans – a constitutional amendment is needed. And not an amendment granting them second class citizenship; that would only enshrine their exploitation into law. No, they must have full citizenship, including the right to vote. Most would choose not to exercise this right, just as the majority of voters currently choose not to vote for the clown candidates paraded before them in elections. But that must be the animals’ choice, not a choice imposed on them in violation of their natural rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Free animals would have the right to enter into contracts with humans. A pig, in exchange for a year’s provision of food and lodging, might agree to become bacon. If the pig didn’t agree, he would have no economic value, and would be slaughtered. If that choice was too difficult, a court could grant a third party (such as the farmer), the power of attorney to make that choice on the pig’s behalf.
Some would argue the end result would be the same as when the pig had no legal rights. But that overlooks the purpose of rights. Rights don’t prevent people (or animals) from being exploited; they just make them responsible for their own exploitation. So if animals had rights, people could eat meat without a guilty conscience, knowing that being slaughtered was a voluntary choice made by the animal. That would be progress.
Pig rights!? You’ve been watching Arnold Ziffle re-runs again, benitoe.
>>>”If people renounce eating meat, it is still a revocable choice.”
It’s revocable alright. It all depends on how hungry they are, imho.
I’ve been hungry. So hungry I would have eaten Arnold Ziffle without batting an eye. Honestly, I would have eaten you too .. . if I had had some salt and pepper. That’s very hungry. I’ll never forget it.
Now, puzzles the will, the question arises would I rather starve to death, eat some disgustingly diseased slaughterhouse sentient being horribly deprived of all sentiment and bodily functions. .. or dine upon you with a glass of fine wine? That’s a tough question, I’d have to mull it over.
you’re trying way too hard for too little payoff. and the idea of an animal being voluntarily eaten has been done already thanks to douglas adams.
unless the point of your “satirical” post is to mock those who think the constitution matters?
What are the ‘animal rights’ referred to in the headline? Should animals have a right not to be killed for food? If they are given that right, farmers would immediately stop feeding their livestock which would then starve to death. Freedom, if you are dependent on someone else, is a death sentence.
So I suppose my point was that rights are only meaningful if you are able to exercise them (regardless of the Constitution).
So, you are saying that other animals don’t have the right to live their lives out being the animals that they are without being killed by humans, but humans (also animals) have the right to live their lives out being who they are without having to be killed by other animals? Because we say so?
Not at all. I’m saying that in order to have a right, you must be capable of exercising that right. Domestic animals (unlike wild animals) have lost the capacity to be free. That doesn’t mean they should be treated badly. If people choose not to eat meat, they should be killed quickly and painlessly rather than left to starve to death. So if vegetarianism continues to grow in popularity, we will need to build a lot more abattoirs to dispose of the unwanted animals. Personally, I don’t know how vegetarians can live with that on their conscience, but I suppose they place their selfish pleasure in eating vegetables above animal welfare.
“Domestic animals (unlike wild animals) have lost the capacity to be free. ”
Can you possibly be serious? If we breed an animal into existence solely to serve some purpose for ourselves, and raise it in such a way that it is entirely dependent on us for its survival (until such time, in the context of this discussion, that we slaughter it), then that animal never had the capacity to be free in the first place, and its lack of that capacity is entirely a result of our actions. That said, having brought the animal into being, its life is our responsibility, and if for whatever reason we choose not to slaughter it for food, we have an obvious choice beyond either mercy killing or allowing it to live on in suffering, namely to care for it until it has lived out its natural life (just as we do with our fellow humans, and our pets). Going forward, if “humanity”, as a whole, opts to no longer breed animals for food, the problem of what to do with the spared livestock ceases to exist once those animals pass. Hence, your argument holds no water.
And, by the way, it’s domesticated, not domestic.
Definition: domestic animal
Domestic vs. Domesticated – open to debate.
https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-a-domestic-and-domesticated-animals
How about responding to my comment?
There’s not much to argue with. When I said that D-animals had lost the ability to be free, I wasn’t implying they had lost it through carelessness. Humans were responsible.
And if humans were to decide to stop eating meat, the remaining D-animals could be treated in a variety of ways. The bottom line, however, is they would eventually cease to exist. So their survival as a species is contingent on human beings wishing to eat them. Are they cheering for the carnivores? – you would have to ask them.
By definition, domesticated animals existed before we domesticated them. Why would they cease to exist if we stopped breeding them for food. And even if, for argument’s sake, that was the only way to ensure their existence, what would be the value in that for the animals, especially if they were being raised on factory farms? Would you consider your own life worth living if you had to live it in bondage, in an industrial environment, with eventual slaughter the pre-determined end?
animals are people too
Well except for beef, chicken, pork and fish. Those animals are foods.
Why not dogs and cats, too? What’s the difference?
It’s only your utter disconnect, or willful blindness, that would make you say this.
Thank you for sharing this story. It is interesting to learn of a slaughterhouse owner who is amenable to sitting down and talking with the “snowflake veganistas” about a better way. Reading the snowflake comments here is frustrating, sad and a bit maddening. This isn’t radical flaky pseudoscience we’re talking about. These animals are living breathing creatures; they communicate, they have hormones that rage when stressed, they cry – etc. Regardless of how we may have altered their evolutionary paths in claiming them as food source, the fact remains that they exist. When we followed the journey of our meal from source to plate (with Michael Pollen) we learned why we should consider the source, and why we should demand quality of life for our living food sources. Is it a wonder that so many have no problem with senseless messy murder and violence when these are acceptable practices and norms in our food industry? The level of barbarity we accept in the industry – as evidenced in the way we treat the animals -sets important cultural norms across our society and currently works against efforts for local, national & world peace. Here’s how: we know that business success, leadership and peaceful conflict resolution are all associated with soft skills attainment. Soft skills, like any other – must be taught and learned – what chance do we have in building a strong soft skills culture , when we allow – or overlook these animal abuse atrocities in our food industry? The building blocks of a thriving peaceful society – soft skills – are on such a shaky foundation with that glaring hypocrisy –> food production practices should evolve to match our awareness and concern with food sources, and our soft skills advanced perspective.
Some confusion evident in the comments here.
The definition of ‘sentience’ is the “ability to perceive or feel things,” and it is sensible to say that those creatures more starkly and obviously able to do so are ones we should certainly not exploit or cause to suffer if we would be moral.
It is *not* sensible to defend plants and microscopic organisms (whose feelings or suffering ‘throes’ are purely matters of unconvincing conjecture) from abuse in the same manner as animal rights should be defended. The idea that a plant or bacteria suffers even remotely like a suffocating fish or bludgeoned cow or bled pig is plainly retarded, and the only people suggesting a similarity are those who refuse to think with common sense and simply wish to continue consuming flesh regardless of its blatant and unnecessary repulsiveness.
I’d love to see the end of animal agriculture and live on a planet with a small enough human population that we could all hunt and fish for our meat without negatively impacting other species.
But that said, this type of animal rights issue seems like snowflake stuff to me. It’s not that I disagree with it, it’s that 1) by far the most egregious form of animal abuse takes place in laboratories; and 2) by far the most important and best thing you can do for animals is to protect the wild ones and their natural habitats, i.e. wilderness.
If this issue brings about a change in human consciousness that results in greater or, even better, equal rights for nonhuman animals, then great. But torturing animals in laboratories and destroying natural areas where they live is far worse than this stuff, because at least these animals are eaten.
Well it is another animal cruelty piece by Greenwald in last few months suggesting that Glenn’s alienation, as beacon of restrain, reason and evidence based rationality, from the TIC Russia-gate craze that infected or rather arrested the last shred of cogent editorial thinking of his colleagues grows even more as time passes and we read less and less of Glenn who sadly ended up the only one here at TIC worth reading.
Greenwald, taking on this however noble journalistic cause mostly criticizing the cruel excesses of the meat industry, imprisonment/restrain, pointless torture and painful deaths of slaughter or neglect as well as activism aimed to alleviate the situation seem to continue his previous work that focused of the same “crimes” of inhumanity but mostly against human beings.
But what worries me is that Glenn attracted an Astroturf of quasi-religiously motivated Vegan groupies, unable or unwilling to debate rationally utter cruelty of the practice legalized by US regime, and in their emotional feats hiding behind dogmas of moral superiority, theory of reincarnation or strait authority of ten commandments “you shall not kill” extended to animals which definitely was not an intention of those who compiled them.
The intention of those righteously indignant is not a rational compromise with potential applicability in the real life but a moral stand they want to aggressively impose on others and therefore sowing division and conflict among people instead, what rational debate should do, find some common ground.
Hence, I want to put moral disputation about the subject aside since any arguments in this philosophical matter would only achieve implicit goals of those who initiate it, namely divisions and conflict among people, shutting down the debate, while a remedy of this dire situation would only be conveniently ignored veiled by fervor of mutual moral indignation on all sides, while true culprit of capitalism and commodification of human and animal life remains undisputed, undebated, even unmentioned especially in emotional comments to this article.
I do not want to be swept into ideological camps of herbivores or carnivores among humans which feelings of moral superiority over the other side blinds them to overall causes of animal exploitation as a complement of overall human and environmental exploitation deemed legal and protected by police terror agencies of the abhorrent regime of death, torture and exploitation starting from human beings ending on animals and environment.
Anybody who thinks that giving up on bacon and eggs will change those horrible industry practices is as gullible as those who bought electric car or solar panels to stop global warming. The systemic changes are needed and most of all self-governance of community, that should bear sole responsibility of what is going on locally and not being imposed on by global corporations and their government stooges.
It were the local communities that created culture of animal farming and slaughtering only later corrupted by the moneyed economic system.
Long time ago I lived on small farm and I know the culture of rising animals and culture of their slaughtering.
Small farmer knew his pigs by name no more that 5-15 max, so cows, hens etc.,. all had names being “members” of family.
No animals were caged and during the night farm animals were coming [also by themselves] to barns or other buildings for protection from wild animals, never restricted in any ways that would stop them from running or roaming while some fields were protected by fences if animals wanted to eat plants there.
Most Americans do not know that in fact farm pigs are naturally quite lean since, while they eat a lot they run a lot and have social life together with other farm species, curious, learning providing a lot of natural fertilizer critical for healthy ancient [organic] farming.
The slaughtering of animal was a communal affair [not mass or solitary commercial event] often tied to occasion of human celebrations (wedding, funeral, birth etc., understood as a gift of the animal to the community], many people, neighbors, even priests came to witness, and in a sense to thank the animal for its contribution to community, making sure that no unnecessary stress or violence is done to slaughtered animal, always by an local expert [often a butcher] who killed animal where it lived surrounded by farmers who raised it, in a way of painless artery incision and rupture and controlled bleeding to death (collecting the blood as well) a form of euthanasia similarly to old sick dogs put to “sleep” but without pharma involved.
Women and children cried as it was like loosing a family member.
When banks and corporates came everything changed, farmers as well as farm animals were turned into commodities having as much value as they ability to bring profit to corporations in life or death. And that is the beginning of the real problem replacing humanistic farmers’ culture with commercial culture of greed and death.
If somebody thinks that somehow fighting for simple humanity toward humans and animals, protection of weak, preservation of the healthy environment, entire ecological chain and ultimate human habitat and self-sustained food resources facing mass corporate globalization and global change or rather global corporate exploitation and destruction of life sustaining resources is somehow mild intellectual activity, appeal to simple reason and humanity and not hard core political movement aimed directly to overthrow the US abhorrent regime he/she is utterly wrong.
Anybody who wants to protect land, water, air, stop farm animal cruelty, allowing for survival of wild animal and human species from capitalist exploitation and devastation is a enemy of the state that is founded on destruction and plundering of the environment and repugnant externalization of all the cost to be paid by population at large whose lives have been endangered by ruling oligarchy and their genocidal plans more than any atmospheric or geological events, with or without significant anthropogenic contribution that senselessly and needlessly turned into truly unnatural disasters, spawns of a continuous crawling disaster of human civilization called tyrannical, oligarchic capitalism.
And that political dimension is what’s missing in this piece and in real debate about humanism and cruelty.
“Anybody who thinks that giving up on bacon and eggs will change those horrible industry practices is as gullible as those who bought electric car or solar panels to stop global warming.”
You could not be more wrong. Without people taking personal responsibility by doing things like putting solar panels on their roofs and replacing internal combustion engines with electric ones, we’ll never get the systemic changes you want. Personal responsibility and systemic change are not mutually exclusive and we need both. Failure to take personal responsibility is just a copout.
These are policies of dominating global polluters like corporate China and India and US as well as massive pumping of fossil fuels in US, MENA and Russia has a real and measurable detrimental impact.
What do you thing Paris accord at least in spirit was about? The necessity of coordinated government and corporate intervention.
The personal responsibility mantra proliferated over the MSM is just a ploy for you and me to pay a ransom to global corporates so they can give up of their criminal ways and double charge us for what they should do for free namely stop socially, environmentally devastating activities for profit.
In fact the entire world economy is now organized for profit and globalists are so impudent that they demand that people pay for their profitable devastation of earth environment in an attempt to externalization the costs as it is fundamental principle of capitalism.
Typical leftist tripe: it’s all the fault of the rich and the big bad corporations — who do have a very large portion of the fault, but not all of it — and meanwhile no one should take any personal responsibility for what they do. Do you have any idea how illogical and ridiculous your position is? People who participate in destruction by doing the wrong things like driving and not putting solar panels on their homes are just as responsible as anyone.
And I explicitly said that we DO need systemic change. What you clearly don’t get is that we won’t get it until and unless individuals start acting more responsibly. The Paris Accord that you seem to like so much is far too little, far too late, and is strictly voluntary; while it’s better than nothing, it’s more of a distraction than anything.
One of the main problems with you leftists is that you’re just as obsessed with money as right wingers; you just have a different idea of how it should be distributed (yours is more fair and equitable). The environment and all life are infinitely more important than any amount of money. So on the issue we’re discussing, for example, people should give up driving internal combustion engines or give up driving altogether, and should put solar panels on their homes. Where the money goes is a minor detail compared to how much environmental harm would be saved by doing these things.
Having no single rational argument to hold on to, short of ridiculous insults and utterly wrong political labeling , only helplessness, desperation and anger is what you have been left with, only because somebody forcefully and rationally contradicted your embedded narratives. Just deal with it.
But what is more worrying however, is general attitude regarding American debate, if such a thing even exists.
“Proud” Americans often say:
Are with me or against me? My way or highway? A totalitarian talk embedded in American brains like a parasitic worm of celebrated anti-intellectualism.
Americans do not learn lessons. It is against of American religion of anti-intellectualism and required for Horkheimer’s subjective reasoning i.e setting arbitrary goal before concocting public justification of it.
Americans reject debate and go straight for verbal fight often as a foreplay to violence since their goal is not to learn anything from one another but to dominate. So instead of questions and answers they have verbal attacks and responses verbal and if deemed necessary violence and verbal intimidation that is ultimate goal of any American debate.
Sadly you seem to be proponent of such.
“Having no single rational argument to hold on to …”
Um, that would be YOU. You didn’t respond to one issue or argument that I raised. Instead, you engaged in a meaningless diatribe about je ne sais quoi. None of your diatribe is relevant to anything I said here.
You obviously think that I’m a right wing American, when in fact I’m pretty much the opposite. I agree with the left on most issues, though I’m not a leftist, mainly because I’m a radical environmentalist first and foremost, and thus have totally different priorities. And I do take issue with the left’s cluelessness about individual responsibility; just because someone isn’t rich doesn’t make them innocent.
Most of the images in the video did not show anything wrong – just blood and body parts. If people are disturbed by blood and flesh, that’s a sign of their own alienation from the facts of life and nature.
Here are a quite a few things that are wrong from sanitary and food safety point of view: parts of animals and blood left to “rot” present a major risk of contamination and are a risk factor. Its obvious the condition in the video do not comply with some of the most basic rules for processing meat or running a slaughterhouse.
“they aren’t here for us”
Actually, they are. Almost all farm animals species exist solely because of humans. Wild species were domesticated up to 10,000 years ago and they simply would not be around in the current form and numbers if it was not to serve humans. Opposing meat production/consumption is to stand against the very existence of these animals. It is analogous to ending the suffering of a people via genocide.
Domestication does not justify treating animal cruelty in any way (the same way it does not justify being cruel to your own children although they exist because of us).
I agree with that. But it does dispel the other motives of animal activists, who think is wrong to farm and slaughter animals.
Domesticated animals should be put out of existence. They did not evolve naturally and are therefore environmentally and ecologically destructive. Domesticating animals is just another of the many harms that humans have done to the Earth and its naturally evolved species.
Oh boy, that is such load of crap. Thank you for exposing the bizarre mentality behind much vegan/animal “rights” movement.
This is a complete obscurantist and ignorant belief system. First of all, everything that we do is part of nature, so it makes no sense to suggest their evolution is unnatural. Second, the idea that they are ecologically destructive because they did not evolve naturally is nonsense – destruction of environments happens as a natural part of evolution of species. Environments are created and destroyed as part of natural selection and evolution, swinging from stable states to change and back.
You’re so blinded by your hatred for the natural world that you can’t see straight. In the first place, I don’t support the vegan or animal rights movement, except that I advocate that people eat a lot less meat, that we move away from animal agriculture toward eating wild animals, and that humans stop torturing animals in laboratories.
Your anti-environmental claim that everything is natural is absolute bullshit. “Natural” means of nature as opposed to of humans. If everything is natural, the word has no meaning. Furthermore, there’s a huge difference between the environmental and ecological destruction caused by humans and the natural ebbs and flows of nature and ecosystems. Humans are so much more destructive that we’re the sole cause of the Sixth Great Extinction, the first one ever to be caused by a species.
You’re just another human-worshiping asshole who has no clue about the natural world and no idea what they’re talking about.
Outstanding coverage of our growing awareness of the totally unnecessary cruelty inherent in eating animals. Thank you helping to shine a light on our need to wake up to this sad way that we treat our fellow earthlings!
Thank you Glenn Greenwald for covering animal rights. There aren’t enough words for me to tell you how grateful I am. Love Boe Devi
Dogs too, especially all the imported leather wallets, accessories, pants, etc in that finer leather— no it is not lamb. Since dogs are not previously clean killed for food, they are bludgeoned, tedious and, not very effective, so often still alive when skinned.of course, your first source is Walmart!
So why then does DxE partner / support / affiliate with PETA? Principles out the window ….
An aside, but a sincere question for those who might know: Is there an ethical argument for veganism being superior to vegetarianism? The objection to the gratuitous harm done to animals is the obvious ethical argument against eating meat, but that argument is not strictly applicable to vegetarianism. There appears to be nothing inherently cruel or abusive about collecting milk and eggs from animals, as it does them no harm, in itself. It can be abusive, of course, and it often is, but it’s not necessarily so. One could persuasively make the argument that to eat anything produced from eggs and milk in today’s society (unless you’re harvesting them yourself) is to support the industries that do indeed abuse these animals, and therefore it’s unethical to eat this way. But that’s more of a practical argument for a better ethical outcome, not an argument in principle against vegetarianism. Does anyone make that case?
If you did some research about the dairy and egg industry, you would find that they are both part of the meat industry and they are both inherently cruel. Do you know that dairy cows have to be pregnant to produce milk? They are forcibly impregnated every year. Their calves are taken away within 24 hours. Imagine what this means for the cow and calf. The cows have been bred to produce 10 times more milk than is normal. Mastitis is much more common because of this. They are slaughtered after only 4 or 5 years when their production declines.
Egg laying hens have been bred to produce 300 eggs a year. In the wild they would produce only 12 to 20 eggs a year. They are slaughtered after only 1 1/2 to 2 years. And there is no humane slaughter.
I could say more, but please do your own research. Watch some videos and you will see that there is no humane dairy or eggs.
Mammals, such as cows, must give birth in order to produce milk. Forcibly impregnating an animal and taking their child away is cruel and abusive. In the case of dairy cows, the calves are usually slaughtered for veal.
There’s currently no way to determine the sex of a chick before they’re born, so it’s only after chicks are hatched that all male chicks are killed – either ground up alive, gassed, or put into plastic bags. That’s cruel and abusive. The female chicks grow up to be egg-laying hens, most of who are confined either in battery cages or “free-range” barns (that are still crowded enough for them to resort to cannibalism). That’s cruel and abusive. After a year or two, hens no longer lay firm enough eggs for shipment, so the “spent” hens are killed. A hen’s lifespan is 8-10 years – “spent” hens are killed when they’re 2-2.5 years old. That’s cruel and abusive. Moreover, the process of laying an egg is energy-consuming for a hen, and in the wild, if there isn’t a rooster nearby to fertilise the egg, the hen will eat the egg to replenish calcium stores. Disrupting this cycle of replenishment by taking eggs is cruel and abusive.
For a cow to lactate (give milk) she has to be impregnated, and for many vegans the systemic unnatural artificial impregnation and confinement for profit is exploitation of sentient beings; similar to this the stealing of chickens’ eggs (not to mention the industry-level wholesale genocide of male chicks – thrown into grinders alive at factories) and bees’ honey is seen as exploitation and usually means a good deal of abuse. There are more and less humane ways of doing these things, as you note, but strict vegans argue that even, for example, the collecting of sheeps’ wool is often horrifically abusive (which it is, due to the speed and other things like ‘mulesing’), and that there are more and less humane ways of murdering the animals too – but that this doesn’t mitigate the moral crime.
All in all you make a fine point, that vegetarianism is a noble choice and that humane methods of collecting animal products are certainly possible; veganism is however in logical terms ‘more’ noble in that it avoids any possibility of approving inhumane practices in what is still across the world mostly unsupervised exploitation of living creatures who have obvious sentience.
But being vegetarian is wonderful, and being vegan can be damned difficult – so just “do your best” as a vegetarian (with vegan inclinations) would be my advice for anyone finding veganism too much of a challenge, constantly maintaining an emphasis on treating animals with respect and care.
There is absolutely nothing humane about separating calves from their mothers so that we can have the milk. The dairy industry is in many ways even more cruel than the beef industry, and in fact is not really a wholly separate industry at all, given that both the male offspring of dairy cows and the females themselves are all eventually slaughtered for meat (and raised for veal in the case of a significant percentage of the males).
This is exactly why I expressed cynicism about ‘more or less’ humane ways of exploitation, as even the most idyllic and kindly farm is a terrifyingly abusive place from a realistic perspective. I do, however, encourage people to take steps toward animal rights in whatever ways they can. Ultimately, pet ownership is horrendously perverse, but I wouldn’t expect even Glenn Greenwald to see this.
“Ultimately, pet ownership is horrendously perverse …”
You’ve hit on something important and problematic there, which I’ve been considering. If we take seriously the claim that consuming milk and eggs, even when collected under the must humane and non-industrialized conditions possible, is abusive and/or exploitative (and I’m not opposed to that argument; it’s pretty persuasive), then I don’t know how I can look at these two delightful cats beside me and rest easy with the fact that nearly from birth to death I’ve imprisoned them in my house, taken control of their mating and reproductive habits, and totally restricted their food supply, all for my enjoyment. Is it acceptable because they seem to be happy? That’s as weak an argument as it gets.
I did a lot of horseback riding as a kid, and I’ve always looked forward to doing it again sometime. I don’t know how I’m going to rationalize it, though.
See this is what immigrants do. Build the wall and get rid of them!
Ah, but what of the horrors of nature? One needs only view a graph of ecological populations over time to see these terrible places are not much worse. These factories are only as evil as wolves.
http://8thgradesciencejadahyman4b.weebly.com/uploads/2/9/4/6/29460477/9368495.gif?338
but yeah we should follow laws and avoid unecessary suffering. a very good protest, commendable for nonviolence and empathy.
I think a reasonable look at ecological populations over time shows quite persuasively that humans are far more dangerous than nature to the health and diversity of non-humans.
The comparison between wolves and factories is absurd.
Thank you for shedding light on one the most important topics of this generation.
Thank you. We love the fur babies and want to liberate all of them.
OH!
Never mind- I can tell from the videos that he chickens already have big red vagina hats on.
Apparently, they are born that way, so I understand the “animal empathy” better now.
Yay! Liberate Animal Farm!
Down with humans!
Up with teh Prison Industrial Complex!(those animals-mostly male- belong in prison!)
Where’s my vagina hat???!!
Just once I would love to see the left organize, and take on an issue that requires actual courage…..
Really. Cruelty for free— that is you. You even berate your own body, what idiocy. Mean too. Not much love in your life?
Apparently you missed “Occupy” and the worldwide (including in the U.S.) large scale marches in protest of the impending invasion of Iraq in 2002/3?
Regarding Occupy, I can’t blame you. The MSM honored their Wall Street patrons and overlords and squelched any sympathetic coverage.
But why don’t you have the courage of your convictions and actually make some suggestions?
Mark-
I bet I have more courage than you do. Wanna try me? Let’s exchange lists of who is targeting us-how bout’?
Then-yeah, I feel real bad about missing Occupy- I was too busy getting shot at, jailed, slandered, harassed and stalked and wiretapped endlessly by all the good guys-since 2001. It seems I might have fared better if I wore a nicely knitted vagina hat on my head, or an anonymous mask on my face, instead of wearing actual women on my head (or my face).
I was an early casualty of the neo-con world order, going back to 1993, and then again when I was followed all over the country by ADL-ish spies and traitors-and their trainees in the other organizations ranging from the white-ish NAACP, and the clueless (but highly intelligent) Asian Law Caucus types, etc. and a few psychotic Jewish girls of course, from the SESTA state of Ohio(and why doesn’t the Intercept write about THAT little democracy killer?)
And all of those white women in vagina hats- it’s hard to take any of it seriously anymore. I mean-why do they even NEED hats? I would think having their self-involved heads stuck up their….oh never mind.
Here’s my first suggestion-and I promise you won’t like it: investigate the spying of the ADL and all of its umbrella organizations and police affiliations/graft/payoffs NOW. Then get the white women OUT of the party leadership, and especially OUT of the PR stream (look how well all that ‘RAAAAAAAAPE is everywhere!’ paid off…)
If any party wants a win in 2020? Yeah- start there. You want to break the NSA/alphabet spying down? Yeah- start there, with that-it’s the seeds of our modern police state-and the neo-con job redux that we are seeing with the downfall of Weinstein et al. More of the same “oh those poor millionaire hookers,” and all of that as they willingly step up on a new auction block.
The ADL crapifies EVERY discussion with identity politics and Israelification. More than wanting to see Hillary or Trump in jail? I would love to see a few of them on trial as they should have been in 1993-but all their buddies in high paces have me on lockdown. Yeah, I eat big fat courage sandwiches for breakfast-and lunch, and….
Of course-the Intercept is that last venue any *thinking* person would ever speak that out loud, but….it has to be said. Neo-con jobs and speech prohibitions started THERE and this is poison to a Democracy and organization, and real change-and they know it, and exploit it to a fault.
Roch-
Yeah, don’t get me wrong- I love my fat ass, and all my curves-because I can always eat myself like a big navel gazing whiner when I am done eating up everything else. And frankly, a little body shaming of women can only help-because they have sicc’d a police state on steroids on the rest of us.
First, I snacked on skinny little men who had nothing but their opinions, and some pocket litter…and then….I fed them to the prisons, and hungrier men….and then (first he came for the skinny little men, but I wasn’t a skinny little man…)
They do and are quickly shouted down as soft on crime or told that they hate the police.
Patrick-
Yah-see what happens when you raise a few generations of kids who are afraid of bad words and loud voices?
And WTF soft on crime? That’s a police term. I don’t think actual liberals are worried about cops being soft on crime-real liberals understand that police help CREATE crime, and then enforce it.
It’s all the alliances between the public sector unions-police and teachers/ propaganda-propaganda enforcement that are defeating reform.
Then, too, most reasonable people know that once we take away police paychecks-well, we see sudden new upticks in crime, and new gangs…..correlation mebbe?
Kosher & Halia slaughter house by-laws say the animals must not suffer any more than absolutely necessary…..
Thank you for this.
the first article led to me giving up pork and beef, now it’s chicken. how do you know what “free range” means, the label just gets slapped on. i’m down to fish.
I became a vegan the night I commented on that first article.
The oceans have been drastically overfished, with many large dead zones, and the oceans on track to be essentially out of fish within the next 40 years. Fishing is one of the most wasteful industries, with up to 10 animals killed for each one that goes into the food supply, due to bycatch. Pollution has caused many fish to be laced with heavy metals like mercury. And labor conditions in the global fishing industry are terrible, with some operations accused of slavery.
Don’t take my word for it, google it, or maybe Glenn will write about fish soon and set you on the path to vegan eating.
Well…I believe this marks only the first, maybe second time I do not wholeheartedly agree with Glenn’s argument.
And the reason for this is quite simple. I am aware of what an inferno of woe and gratuitous suffering the meat industry is, pretty much by definition. What is shown in the article is not even the tip of the iceberg. And gratuitous suffering horrifies me.
However…
I do not think that the suggested answer – namely vegetarianism or veganism – is much of an answer at all, really. Plants and fungi and even bacteria are just as alive as the animals, and just as loath to die for the benefit of our eating. It’s just that they represent a mode of existence so different from ours – or that of other animals – that it is too easy to lose track of this fact. The motivation here is to reduce suffering, which is quite praiseworthy, but also makes it all too easy to neglect other types of suffering. That is, to lose track of the fact that vegetarian/vegan alternatives only remove suffering that is recognizable and relatable to us. Just because we can relatively easily empathize with animal suffering (being animals ourselves) does not mean that we can get a moral blank check by turning vegetarian, either. Plants and other non-animal life also suffer – it’s just that it’s a suffering far removed from our everyday experience. Just thought it important to point this out too.
As a child, I used to have a very strong hay fever: whenever I smelled hay, I’d get an asthma attack. The pleasant aroma of freshly mown hay was nightmarish to me. And although I will not claim any special mystical connection to plant life, it struck me much later, when I learned biology, that my asthma attacks were actually an informationally correct interpretation of the smell of fresh hay. Because I then found out what that aroma meant, in plant terms. The mown grass was literally screaming in pain, chemically signaling it all over. To most humans, that is just a pleasant smell. See my point?
Other than someone inventing purely synthetic food, and in quantities sufficient for all humanity, we are unfortunately still set up in such a manner that we can only live by eating other living things (whether we kill them ourselves or delegate that part). Kudos for bringing the focus on the awfulness of factory farming of animals – that stuff needs to go, and not just for moral reasons, I certainly agree with that part – but let’s just not forget the whole picture too.
Being a vegan I don’t have arguments to counter your theory that plants suffer as well but humans do not recognize that type of suffering because is not relatable to us. Possibly valid point.
What you are not saying is that even if that theory is true (which may be the case), veganism reduces suffering enormously not only to animals but to plants as well, since the vast majority of plants raised in the world are food for livestock.
That’s an interesting angle, Ernesto, did not think of it before myself. Good food for thought (pun intended), thanks for pointing it out, will sure think it over. Much appreciated!
A tip for you, Ernesto – and sorry if I’m stating something you already know – avoid palm oil if you can. Oil palm monoculture is, ecologically speaking, among the worst things ever – because it destroys the biodiversity in many of the world’s most biodiverse spots (example: Borneo).
Seriously. Bacteria, fungi and plants are just as loathe to die for the benefit of our eating?? That’s just silly. Alan Watts, I think, said it well: Cows scream louder than carrots.
Plants and Bacteria do not feel pain and don’t have nervous systems, plants and bacteria do not fear death or pain. You wrote a long article with mostly false accusations to push a false narrative. This small inkling of doubt is exactly how companies like this slaughter house and the major agriculture industry at large get people to continue eating unhealthy and cause catastrophic environmental damage to the earth. Your entire argument is based on a futility fallacy that it’s pointless to stop eating other sentient beings because all things feel pain. Their is literally zero proof that plants or single cell organisms feel pain, stop pushing lies, stop pushing fallacy’s.
Ach…how dogmatic. Have to admit I used to think that once, too. Well, by now I changed my mind.
But please – why the personally hostile tone? First you give unsupported statements which seem to indicate you have first-hand knowledge of what it is like to be plants or bacteria or protista or archaea (all of which DO try their best to avoid noxious or lethal conditions, last time I checked), then you accuse me of “mostly” false accusations without specifying which ones, and end up claiming that I’m “pushing lies”, which is frankly insulting (I do not recall insulting anyone myself in my comment), but quite unconvincing.
As for the “futility fallacy”, if you only expend the effort to actually read my comment, you will find that I EXPLICITLY say that factory farming has to go – for moral (suffering), health, and practical reasons (say the amount of hormones and antibiotics ingested in factory-raised meat. And I believe I also mention that the things shown in the video and article are not even the tip of the iceberg of everything that is wrong with factory farming. Now, this is EXACTLY why I emphasize that – because I do not want my argument to be used by apologists of factory farming.
And even if you assume plants don’t suffer, factory farming of plants isn’t exactly healthy either – an average apple gets, if I recall correctly, about 17 sprayings of insecticide (often endocrine disruptors), and is then dipped in industrial wax before it even hits the market. Some time ago, when I lived in the US, I tried to avoid meat because of all the hormones and antibiotics, only to find out that industrial-scale vegetarian products were frankly also garbage, veggie burgers were as if someone took miscellaneous plant leftovers & ground them up – which was probably not far from the truth.
And – believe it or not – I actually rather enjoy well-prepared vegan food. Tough to find, though.
Mushrooms, most fruits and vegetables, nuts, and grains harvest the fruiting body of the organism and do not involve “suffering” to the plant and often function as the plant’s best route for further propagation. Most root crops, carrots, turnips, beets), and bulb crops ( leeks, onions, garlic), and some cole crops ( cabbage, brussel sprouts) are annuals that are being picked near the end of their natural life cycle. I have read some of the literature on plant sensitivity, and don’t recall specific tests on carrots, beets, onions or even cole crops . Do you have a reference for something like that?
Mushrooms are actually sex organs (the meshlike body is below ground). Nuts and grains are effectively like animal eggs, only in a plant context, am still thinking that one through myself. Thanks for pointing out the life cycle info, will look it up. And I agree that propagation needs to be taken into account too. (My example there: elephants. I once read an article that did a damn fine job of conjuring up what elephants feel like. However, the conclusion offered was that elephants should not be kept in zoos at all. Not even in large, comfortable enclosures. This was endearing, but it blissfully ignored the fact that wild elephant populations are nosediving because of poaching & expansion of agriculture – so the end result may unfortunately well be that there will in the end be no elephants anywhere.)
As for having a reference – no I don’t. I do have a bio degree from a very highly regarded university, I hope that does indicate I do have some scientific credentials. My opinion is based on the observation that all living beings avoid deadly and/or noxious stimuli and/or conditions to the extent that they are able. If you want to learn about plant reactions to such things, just find some reading on chemical signaling within and between plant(s) exposed to such conditions. Jaw-dropping stuff.
As for specific tests – well, those that I know about are mostly crackpot stuff, but this does not invalidate my overall argument (neither does it, by itself, validate it). It’s like measuring a soul. Or trying to figure out why complex colonies of specialized cells – namely ourselves – appear to have something we call “self-awareness”, and how exactly to define this self awareness…
And do remember that even Glenn once inadvertently quoted a scientifically dubious study – however, in my opinion at least, this did not at all invalidate the otherwise quite well-reasoned point of his argument.
Thank you to all those people. I think the more people see what it takes for “cheap” meats to actually be produced, the more they may reconsider their eating habits. It is also true the heavy meat based diet in America is literally killing us!!! And of course them, and what a life they have before they’re killed. Thanks for another great story, because suffering IS suffering, no matter who’s doing it.
Wow! Amazing coverage. I especially loved the video. Thanks for helping bring the animals perspective into the mainstream!
Great article and video. I was there and this is accurate.
Raising and killing animals for food, as pointed out by many commenters, is an inefficient use of resources (compared to, for example, growing and eating fungi). So the answer is poverty. Once people’s resources are rationalized, the problem of meat consumption (and animal slaughter) goes away.
Not only this, but people with fewer resources will reduce their energy consumption (helping the environment) and war (also an inefficient use of resources) will become unaffordable (resulting in world peace). In addition, people don’t want to immigrate to a country with few resources, so the problem of illegal immigration goes away.
So if you want to save animals, protect the environment, promote world peace and stop illegal immigration, just send me all your money.
Money is definitely the problem! It drives the production of artificial resources, i.e. resources that are not produced in a sustainable manner by Earth. It took 100 million years to produce the world oil supply and only 300 years to deplete it. The world became overpopulated as the natural human life span doubled in 500 years to become what it is now (76 yrs of age average). Money and wealth continues to drive research. We think we will become immortal?
What, you’re not going to do anything about my weight loss? What a Gip!
The weight reduction will allow you to fit into the packed buses and trains you’d ride in the packed streets you’d travel. No airplanes with that poverty, yenno.
(Il Duce, of course, can afford air travel thanks to your involuntary donations, and that works perfectly because he needs to keep any money-hoarding traitors in check—which means he needs a quick method of travel to…personally respond. His jumbo jet also allows for easy transport of those forfeit assets and their late former owners to his Italian mansion.)
I belong to an online community sponsored by Con Agra.
I posted both of Mr Greenwald’s articles – pigs and the FBI and the chicken farm lying about their sleazy practices in re their Whole Foods contract.
The response was overwhelming, as far as I was concerned.
I’d say 18 of 20 people were supportive of this movement, very disturbed, and repulsed. One was against eating vegan, but was willing to divest stocks. A few were too upset to view/read about the carnage.
People are wonderfully diverse.
A decent end to a horrible story.
Thank you, guys.
This is an incredibly powerful video and article. Thanks so much, Glenn and Leighton. Anyone wondering how Resident Chump and his cabal could get elected in this country need look no further than the plates on our tables. If we’ve reached a place of denial where we can tell ourselves that what we’re doing to animals, the environment, society and our health is okay, all bets are off. Once we’re okay with hunting down (or forcibly impregnating), imprisoning, torturing, killing and then consuming our fellow inhabitants of this planet, everything after that we may do is nuance in terms of degrees of evil. To those who say, “Help humans first!” Or, “How can you even think about this with all the human suffering in the world?,” I say that’s exactly why we need to focus on this now. Because it’s the single best way to address every other thing that is plaguing the human condition. Disagree? Do your homework.
Amazing coverage of this historical event
Wow! Truly inspiring and fantastic coverage of this action! I’m so grateful to the brave activists who saved those babies from senseless slaughter. Those chickens are slaughtered at a mere six weeks of age, but are bred to be the size of an adult chicken. Their average lifespan, if left to live at a sanctuary, is a year. Their wild ancestors lived for 20 years! There’s no justification for what we perpetrate on animals-we don’t need it for survival, for taste, for convenience. Eat beans and rice which is far cheaper and healthier in the long run, or you can buy tempeh, tofu, soy protein meats, seitan, nuts, etc. No torture and murder involved! Thanks Intercept for your continued support of progressive social justice issues.
Each year I obtain a hunting tag and go way out into the back country and harvest my meat for the year. I hunt mostly small game and hoofed animals. I dont trophy hunt.
Each year I get about 200 lbs of meat. Thats less than a pound per day for the year. That is plenty.
The problems all started when we stopped hunting and gathering. We lost touch w nature and our own humanity. Every animal ive killed has been prayed over and respected. They were able to live free and natural lives. They werent treated inhumanely.
Anyone who chooses to consume factory farmed meat, in my opinion, becomes aflicted with the sickness of our society. I will choose to be vegetarian before I ever eat meat I havent honored by killing myself.
I agree with you that what you do is much superior to eating factory farmed meat. But it seems to me that you would honor these animals more by letting them live. Why not become vegetarian? The wild could not support everyone following your path.
The cycle of nature is universally perfect. We are out of harmony with the Earth, overpopulated and species-centric. People have chosen vegetarianism on moral and ethical grounds that is at odds with nature because we believe (as a species) we can control the universe, nature and suffering. We cannot.
We cannot escape the life and death cycle of which we are intertwined. We can only learn to accept it and find solace where we can (religion, enlightenment, etc)
Nature is out of balance you are correct about that. And Nature is due for a correction. I hunt and eat meat because it is in my nature, no different than any other carnivore or omnivore, and provided for by Mother Earth, God, the Creator, or whatever higher power one chooses to believe in. Humans are very much a part of the cycle of life on this planet no different than the animals.
That said, my diet is almost exclusively vegetables grains and fruit. The game I take is taken ethically, with a mindful consideration to allowing the population to flourish. For every animal I take one time per year, four more are born in its place. Ethical management of the wild is our human responsibility. We have failed miserably and nature is about to correct that, whether I chose to be vegetarian or not.
There is plenty of wild in this world, but we choose not to honor it.
There is no ethical way to kill someone who wants to live.
So you think predators like lions and omnivores like bears are evil? Their prey want to live, so what? We live on a planet where animals eat each other. Furthermore, plants want to live too. The only logical conclusion to your ideology on this issue is to starve to death.
Most people won’t agree with your method but it’s much better than factory farming and more in line with what takes place in nature. If we’re going to produce food on an assembly line, go all in. We should fund the technology for lab grown meat where every cell can be controlled to produce a superior product devoid of the emotion involved with factory farming. I once worked with Adidas and they are looking into lab grown leather.
Do you test for bacteria disease, etc.? What’s your method to avoid eating tainted meat? I’m thinking such meat would be more healthy for you being exposed to the natural life cycle.
Finally, a sane person in this group of comments! The vast majority of modern humans are so out of touch with the natural world that they have no clue about this or other environmental and ecological issues. Both sides of this argument are nutty extremists: one side insists that we don’t look sideways at nonhuman animals, the other side doesn’t give a damn about anything but humans and wants to breathe meat.
I don’t hunt, but I limit my meat consumption to wild fish and seafood. I also limit my meat consumption to once every week or three; the rest of the time I eat unprocessed foods (nuts, beans, whole grains, vegetables, fruit, etc.). And I have no kids, so I don’t contribute to the overpopulation problem.
Meat eaters don’t want unsanitary conditions that pose a health threat, obviously. But the rest is so much insistence on an arbitrary standard. It is profoundly insulting to compare victims of slavery, the Holocaust, or other world-class atrocities to animals. The human beings who suffered were not passive; they were able to understand the injustice done to them, to communicate it, to protest against it, and to make other human beings see it as wrong. With animals — you just project beliefs onto them. The cows never have a Nat Turner to lead them!
I think it may actually be possible to detect the human soul and, in the process, to confirm the bad old lowbrow version of the Copenhagen Interpretation. We need to be able to isolate a system (like Schroedinger’s cat), put a quantum computing module in with the cat, and see whether the cat collapses the state-vector and prevents quantum computing involving the degenerate state of cats that see two different things. (Animal rights activists would be relieved to see we can’t kill the cat since that kind of interferes with the question) I would hypothesize that consciousness relies on the causality violation produced by highly controlled precognition (you make a decision based on what you’re going to decide, i.e. neither random nor a consequence of physical law but a boundary condition of the universe). If this is true, then the *boundary condition* imposed by qualia (affecting backward in time) or free will (the same but forward) will be the cause of the collapse — and hence, stop the quantum computer from functioning (using something like Grover’s algorithm). This is not technically possible to do at this time AFAIK, but I think it is not physically impossible – and it ought to be usable to neutrally evaluate animals, fetuses, neural network AIs etc.
One thing is for certain: if you need to prove the existence of a soul in any living creature, you’ve only proven your own lack of one. A quantum computing model isn’t necessary.
Every fly, every worm, every bacterium? Plants? Really???
Like me you draw an arbitrary line without enough data. But I think that souls have obvious, chaotic effects on the world, and aren’t just on board every protozoan that dries out in the sun solely in order to suffer.
Yes actually. Every naturally evolved species is a necessary part of the web of life and furthermore has just as much right to live and thrive as you do. Of course humans have gone so far in the opposite direction that it will take thousands of years to get back to living naturally and not substantially harming other species.
It really amazes me that people give more priority to humans than to other species considering how grossly overpopulated humans are. Humans are thriving while most other species are being depleted by humans. If you really want to do something for the downtrodden, nonhumans are the ones for whom you need to advocate.
Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust
A Book by Charles Patterson
Educate yourself, fool.
Until we can neutrally evaluate animals, and despite their unfortunate inability to communicate, protest, etc., we can note that animals raised for food have nervous systems comparable to ours and react to pain much as we do. For many of us, that is enough to understand when they are suffering.
OK – now greenwald has completely mocked his own self. Self parody at its best.
What about fixing the problems with human rights before bothering with (other) animal rights?
Then again, the intercept is clearly a stupid, corrupt joke (funded by paypal).
Hey greenwald let me know when you publish all the snowden docs. Unless you you are just an accomplice of the US government.
Oppression is oppression. We will never have human rights until all animals are free from abuse.
True, but we will never free animals when unborn human beings can be ripped limb from limb in their mother’s womb and the parts sold for medical research for far more than meat.
The remoteness of both slaughterhouses and “clinics” and their practices (see Kermit Gosnell) makes the abuse remote – not unlike “collateral damage” in Afghanistan.
Then there’s Halal and Kosher slaughtering practices which aren’t even mentioned and can often be worse, but wouldn’t want to bother Jews or Muslims?
One simple thing would be to have to hunt or buy and butcher the animal yourself. Farmers, Ranchers, and Hunders, are neither abusive nor sentimental. They realize what it means to kill and animal and what it means to have to prepare it to eat. If you have to kill, clean, and prepare a chicken yourself, you will have a different attitude than if you just go and buy Chicken sandwiches, tenders, or nuggets at the restaurant.
We also forget there are carnivores and predators. Coyotes, wolves, mountain lions, or even your “nice” pet house cat are carnivores and will kill and in ways more unpleasant than a human can do. Denying that is to deny nature from the other side. We need to respect nature, including our nature, and not dismiss nor deny it.
There are factory plants. Glyphosate causes plants stress even when Monsanto has created a frankenveggie that isn’t killed. We need to get back to nature.
The horrible illegal abortion practice of Kermit Gosnell was as dirty as it was precisely because… he had an illegal abortion clinic. Which occurred because of the lack of qualified abotion providers, TRAP laws, and things like randomly determined roadblocks and limitations.
Women who need abortions will get them, it’s been true for thousands of years, and won’t stop even if all abotions are legally prohibited. You’ll just end up with a lot more Gosnells. And dead women, and their born children orphaned.
Halal and Kosher meat processing requires that the animal does not suffer, in life or in death. I have both Jewish and Muslim family members, and their processes are more humane than CAFOs, to be sure.
Be blessed.
Thanks for covering such an important story! Animal abuse is never okay.
another good one. thanks for this.
now that the pleasantries are out of the way, i’m going to state a few simple facts.
1. there is no such thing as “humane slaughter”. to say otherwise is the equivalent of believing in “sexy rape”. milk, by the way, involves a LOT of raping. they rapee the bulls to get their semen then rape the female cows with machines to impregnate them. got forced vaginal penetration?
also, the fat pricks at the next table want to thank you for the veal. your “humane” decision to “only” consume the mother’s breast milk instead of her meat has “humanely” produced a bunch of male calves that are “of no use” and therefore get rammed into a crate where they wait to die. and you thought your childhood was rough, rite?!?!
2. as usual, despite occasional groups of amazing people like the ones in your article, most of america will be tardy to the party. european countries are getting their shit together and banning fur farms and whatnot but even their glacial pace seems supersonic compared to the roadblock of america’s lust for dead animals. you can go on vegan reddit and see lots of great restaurants here and there across the states – even a hellhole like texas has good ones – but for the most part they’re a shit sandwich with the coastal types playing the bread.
on the one hand i like to think of a vast sea of bloated hick corpses still reeking of KFC and mountain dew roasting in the sun while a bulldozer shoves them into a ditch (good news, middle america: you’ll eventually turn into the oil you love so much!) but on the other hand that just takes too damn long. thank god for opioids, amirite?!?!?!?
not trying to be harsh or anything; it’s just hard to see anyone who still chooses to eat the murdered flesh of another creature as worthwhile at this point (and it is 100% a choice and not a necessity despite whatever pseudoscience shite carntard paleo types spew online). another example of western types to differentiate between “want” and “need”.
the more of these pieces written the better. ditto the traumatising pictures. thanks again.
Could one of the authors clarify what the “impressive results” are that have been produced from this action? It’s been a common refrain from large, corporate animal welfare groups for decades to point to “victories” while animal use has steadily increased during the same time period.
The single, most important and impactful thing you can do for animals is to be vegan and convince others to do the same. Since our advocacy work is a zero sum game, I’m not sure why we should be spending resources on these protests that could be better spent spreading vegan advocacy.
What’s a proper slaughterhouse? Are there any examples or videos of how slaughterhouses are supposed to act/behave with the animals before they kill them. I completely agree that watching industrial slaughter and mistreatment of animals is stomach churning. But I’m just wondering if there are companies or countries in which slaughterhouses treat animals humanely before the slaughter.
Humane murder is a stupid oxymoron and I doubt you’ll find the evidence of nonexistent practices you espouse.
“Humane murder is a stupid oxymoron and I doubt you’ll find the evidence of nonexistent practices you espouse.”
Perhaps that’s true but I think there are better and worse ways to die. My example of a ‘humane’ murder is from the non-human world:
Baby topi falls in drainage ditch and is surrounded by jackals. The jackals can’t immediately kill this relatively large animal so they tear at it and pull off chunks of it while it screams and moans. The sounds are horrible but they alert a near by lioness who comes and scatters the jackals and in 2 seconds suffocates the animal, immediately ending its suffering, and takes the topi back to its cubs. I heard it; I saw it and have no doubt that the way a lion kills is far more ‘humane’ than the way those jackals were going about it. The jackals had no choice. We do.
Calling animal slaughter murder…
You’re just like anti-abortion idiots!
These reports are some of the most important to me.
25 million chickens and 300,000 pigs are slaughtered each day in the United States. Source: US Humane Society, 2015.
A man’s gotta eat.
Yup sure does, just doesn’t know when to stop…41% of middle aged men in the US are obese.
In Canada too, this video taken at a Dairy Farm in the Fraser Valley outside Vancouver BC. The farm and one of its directors were charged and found guilty and fined more than $300,000. Three workers were charged, jailed and banned from owning or working with animals for 4 years.
http://canadadairy.mercyforanimals.org/
All of this could be avoided just by changing to a healthier diet by going plant based whole food Vegan! Or just Vegan.
Excellent work by brave and selfless activists. Until every animal is free!!
Great piece! It’s simple. We don’t have to hurt animals to live well.
Thank you Glenn and Leighton for this important story!
As one of the investigators who shot footage at Saba — but who has also been in dozens of other factory farms — I can say that EVERY slaughterhouse has just as sickening conditions as this one. If anything, these smaller local establishments are doing a better job. When 10 billion animals are being killed every year, we just don’t have the time, land, or human power to treat these animals with an ounce of decency. Heck, 80% of all farm land in this country is already being used to raise animals.
What we truly need is government action. At DxE, we are aiming to achieve a bill of animal rights in one nation, and to make Berkeley the first vegan city in the world. We need your help with this, so please join our campaigns!
http://compassionatecity.org
> the diversity of the participants
that’s more important than protecting animals. but of course there’s no conflict because diversity makes every group stronger and more effective. groups composed exclusively of whites never got anything done, nothing good anyway
> Sawhney was part of a team composed exclusively of activists of color
that may be too diverse, if such a thing is possible. it’s probably better to include a few token whites, if only to learn from their mistakes
The worldview required to make such a comment is at least partially responsible for the decline of Democrats, nationally. I read this carefully, looking for signs that it was snark, but no, it seems genuine.
There is no debate with this person. They clearly live in a different world.
Open Rescue is a tactic that saves lives and mobilizes people. Thank you for featuring it!
It is impossible to imprison, enslave and murder non-human animals (NHA) humanely or acceptably for purposes of pleasure. Just as it impossible to imprison, enslave, and murder dark-skinned humans acceptably.
There is nothing the concentration camp owner can do besides shutting down.
You, first world readers, have no survival need to exploit NHAs. Your selfish desire for pleasure at the expense of others must cease. This is not open to compromise or negotiation.
Glenn
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/10/the-95-theses
I know you’ve recently tweeted that these second rate academics aren’t worth suing. Fair enough. They probably aren’t given the difficulty in proving damages in a libel suit against any of them and notwithstanding Prof. Loomis (who is otherwise good in his discipline–labor history) apparently not understanding the fundamental difference between libel and slander. Or apparently the importance of secret ballots or the right to keep who one voted for in any election to him/herself.
But I’m really not sure why you don’t flatten this “you’re a coward” slam by inviting them onto an Intercept podcast do discuss whatever they think it is you’ve written about any of them (or anyone else for that matter) that is “slanderous” or that you’ve “hired racist writers” at the Intercept [presumably Lee Fang and Zaid Jilani who they seem to despise as much as you].
Seriously, unlike me, you have the patience of a saint at times, and one of the thickest hides (99.9% of the time) I’ve ever encountered given the amount of baseless ugly shit you’ve had to deal with since you became a public figure.
Yeah. Reading the replies on Glenn’s twitter feed, one can’t help but wonder, how the hell he has the ability or the patience to stand it all, and not just go “fuck it, I’m out.”
To be fair, the Intercept has hired and continues to employ the services of writers who are openly racist. Not Zaid or Lee, mind you, but Shaun King.
Why do you racists think that defending those you hate is actually a racist attack on you? I guess it helps to believe you’re the real victim, while those you attack are the real bullies. Makes it possible to sleep at night.
That’s what they do. MLK was a racist for challenging white supremacy, that’s how they think. Any challenge to an ideology that has been proven disruptive to all societies is racist to them.
It’s not new. This mindset has existed among white supremacist for centuries. The dust up with Kelly proves it. The compromise with secessionists wasn’t a compromise at all. It left their bankrupt ideology in place, yet, they were still offended.
We have no choice but to completely expose the weakness of their argument but we can’t be hypocrites either. Passive aggressive racists exist in liberal circles.
I know this is slightly off topic but I think the same mindset allows us to treat animals in this manner. We justify the existence of any system that makes us comfortable, as long as we never see the true brutality of that system.
Slaughterhouses by their nature are always going to feature blood and guts. Anyone who is grossed out by this video or unwilling to slaughter an animal should think twice about eating meat. Ideally all animals we eat would be able to roam relatively free until their humane slaughter.
Personally I’ve been a vegetarian for 15 years because I don’t want to kill animals for my own survival. However I think humans are designed to eat meat and if people choose to do that then it’s okay.
It’s a good point that caring and empathy for animals stretches across all race and socio-economic lines – makes sense that it should. However the people in this video did seem like a lot of coddled Frisco left-wing activists.
I have to wonder who exactly you are speaking for. You claim to be a vegan, yet you are OK with “humane” slaughter and state that people are “designed” to eat meat. And the ad hominem at the end is ridiculous. It sounds like you get your talking points from lobbyists for cattle, restaurants, and related interests.
The fact that we’re designed to eat meat isn’t controversial, and as animals ourselves we have just as much right to eat other animals as we do to procreate.
The ad hominem is a quote from the article (I suspect you didn’t read the article or my comment well).
Regarding that last part – it seemed to me like the people in the video were just as horrified about the poor living conditions as they were horrified at the normal stuff you would find in a slaughter house: animal remains, a bucket of blood, etc. At least they aren’t hypocrites if they don’t eat meat, and I don’t blame them for being horrified at the whole concept of slaughtering animals. There was also a video clip showing slaughtered pigs and cows being conveyed on meat hooks – also typical stuff for a slaughter house.
Yes, I’m okay with humane types of slaughter where the animal suffers as little as possible. I’m against poor living conditions for animals and general unnecessary suffering.
Well if we’re all just animals, and eating “meat” is what this particular species of animals (Homo sapiens sapiens) is “designed” (i.e “evolved”) to do, and all this is not “controversial” in the slightest sense, then presumably you have no moral problem with eating domestic dogs, cats or for that matter your fellow humans?
And if you do, please state why you do, because I think any reason you’d posit would make your blockquoted statement either self-contradicting or morally incoherent.
But thanks for playing.
There are a lot of places where humans eat cats, dogs, horses, and so on. Even though I’m a long time vegetarian (and will be so the rest of my life) I have no problem with other people eating meat if they so choose. I’ll repeat that ideally everyone would hunt their own meat (implying the animals have lived a free life in the wild) or raise domesticated animals that have a good life. And ideally the slaughter would always be humane with as little pain as possible.
As for eating other humans, I’m not one to impose my beliefs on other cultures that do that. Personally I’m opposed to that and I would expect if cannibalism were to be acceptable the majority of people in that culture would have to agree on that. If there were laws against cannibalism, again approved by the majority of people (as is the case in the vast majority of the world) then the people who practice cannibalism should face their culture’s system of justice (i.e. go to jail or a mental hospital).
If you are interested in “playing” then feel free to explain why homo sapiens sapiens have canine teeth designed for tearing the flesh of animals, and why our digestive system is capable of digesting meat and rendering it a useful addition to our bodies.
Excellent reply, except it doesn’t address your argument or my question really.
But in answer to your question, I concede that humans are designed (“evolved”) as omnivores not strict carnivores as a function of their teeth. Similarly, our digestive system is capable of digesting only vegetable matter and render it a useful addition to our bodies. It does not need “meat” to survive or necessarily thrive. By contrast, a human diet based solely on meat probably wouldn’t be viable over the course of a human life. In fact, one could argue with ample scientific citation that the majority portion of our diets as humans is evolved for vegetable matter vs. meat.
But moving back to the argument you posited, based on I believe my and any person’s fair reading of it, was as follows:
Humans are animals.
Animals are meat.
Some animals are “designed” [or “evolved”] to eat other animals [i.e. as “meat”‘.]
All animals “designed” to eat “meat”, including specifically humans as it is non-controversial that human are a subset of all animals, have an equal moral “right” to eat other animals [just as all animals have an equal moral “right” to procreate] because they were designed to do so.
It logically follows that you do not believe it is immoral for humans to engage in cannibalism because eating “meat”, and “meat” necessarily being animals which includes humans, is what humans are designed to do.
Now you can move the goalposts or try some other way to clarify the implications of your argument (or defense or justification for eating meat), but you’re argument is that: “if a thing is designed to do a thing, it is not morally wrong for the thing to do that for which it is designed”.
You positive you want to stick with that argument?
You are tip-toeing around the simple fact that our digestive system incorporates meat from other animals into our bodies. It can do the same for plants. It can get what it needs from both, and is designed to accommodate both.
You want to put morality and logic on the same spectrum – that doesn’t always work. I think cannibalism is immoral – maybe justifiable for someone in a situation like the Donner party – because I think it’s immoral to kill other people except in self defense.
Why do I think cannibalism is immoral? I just do. Why am I friends with person A and not person B? Just because. Why do I like chocolate and not vanilla? Just because. You have to acknowledge that for some logic-defying unexplainable reason people have their own personal preferences, and sometimes 99 percent of people will share the same personal preference for no logically identifiable reason.
What about you? When you are sick do you take anti-bacterials? You know you are killing living organisms inside your body and inside your gut. If you got worms in your liver would you take medicine to kill those worms? Do you stay at home all day and never go outside? Because when you go outside you are squashing living creatures with your feet. Do you ever drive in a car? Because you are going to splatter bugs on your windshield if you do, maybe even run over some field mice (you might even do this if you’re biking too). Riding on a bike/in a car is not necessary for living, but you do it anyway. I was riding my bike the other night and I ran over a little vole.
It seems that by the logic you’re implying, if you were serious about not killing animals then the only real solution is to kill yourself. Where do you draw the logical line? Killing bacteria? Single-celled organisms? Multi-celled organisms? Insects? Animals? Why are animals worth more than insects, which are worth more than multi-celled organisms, et cetera.
If you want to start talking about what morality is in general you’d first better mail me some weed and a lava lamp.
And by the way, I didn’t say in general that cannibalism is immoral; I said it is up to each society to decide their own laws and morality.
Got it. You’re a moral relativist. And a species supremacist. Which you haven’t or can’t defend on the logical or moral merits. At least not in any way anyone would recognize thus far.
And necessarily, you are someone who believes human beings have “rights” [that’s the language you used not me], as opposed to simply the physical power, to decide when and under what circumstances other animals get to live or die to satisfy your food preferences (as opposed to “food necessities” which I’d argue does not include meat, which is also demonstrably true, unless you’d like to attempt to refute it–I actually help you below).
But it does in this instance and why I’ve suggested you are evading your own argument, and the moral implications of it.
Here’s the definition of a “right”:
noun
noun:
1. that which is morally correct, just, or honorable.
Synonyms: goodness, righteousness, virtue, integrity, rectitude, propriety, morality, truth, honesty, honor, justice, fairness, equity;
More: lawfulness, legality “the difference between right and wrong”
antonyms: wrong
2. a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way.
This is your own choice of words, you believe you have a “right” to “eat other animals” just as you have a “right” to “procreate”. That’s what you stated unequivocally–I blockquoted it above.
It follows that you necessarily believe it is a moral good to do so, at least on balance (given most “rights” are subject to other competing “rights” and the prohibition against infringement against the “rights” of others.) Otherwise you aren’t employing the word you want to instead of claiming you have “a right” to do something.
Unless of course you’re now going to claim the a human being’s choice to eat other animals as a function of dietary preference has no moral implications whatsoever? Because arguing “necessity” is the only way you can even scratch the surface that there isn’t a moral implication to the act of exercising a choice to eat meat.
It is simply and demonstrably false that humans need to eat meat to survive or thrive, notwithstanding the fact that they have evolved as omnivores and are capable of eating both meat and plants. But I’m not doing your research for you on that idea. It’s too widely accepted to even warrant citation.
But here I’ll help you–other than Inuits (and only because they both eat parts of it most human wouldn’t, and can get certain vitamins and minerals the body needs from fish and game by eating it raw) and possibly the Masai and the latter is debatable, there really are no significant populations of human beings that survive on meat only diets–basically throughout the “human history” of which we are aware or have knowledge of as a function of various scientific endeavors.
So you have only two very small isolated populations of human that we know of historically, and presently among the 6+ billion humans on the planet that even come close to an all meat diet that is even arguably viable. But it certainly isn’t replicable on a global scale or even desirable if it was, for obvious reasons, and that’s not really debatable either.
And again, so what?
It elides both your stated argument, and I’ve stated it accurately — “for any thing that is designed to do a thing by evolution, it is morally justifiable and good for the thing to do that for which it was designed” and evades the necessary moral implications of believing you have a “right” to eat other animals rather than simply the power.
You simply haven’t defended those ideas with evidence or anything remotely resembling coherent logic or morality. Or English isn’t your first language and you don’t know what it means to claim you have a “right” to do or think something.
But as I said you would, you moved the goalposts “morality is situational or cultural” (i.e. Donner party vs. every society has a right to agree cannibalism isn’t a moral bad) and/or refused to address the logical or moral incoherence and implications of your own argument.
Or you’re attempting to make unsupported/unstated idea or argument that human beings must eat meat (other animals) out of necessity (i.e. we can’t live or thrive without doing so).
Which is it? Both have moral implications necessarily.
I’m not tip-toeing around anything. And I stated it as such–human beings are evolved as omnivores. That’s just a fact and a human’s digestive system reflects that like their teeth. That’s my point, not yours. Your point is that because human beings are evolved to eat meat, they necessarily have a “right” to eat meat. That’s your language and your argument.
What Swisscheese said. And it’s quite fresh for you to make the accusation of moral relativism and not respond to what I said about antibiotics, killing single-celled organisms, killing multi-celled organisms, killing liver worms, driving your car/riding your bike for leisure (or even walking) and killing field mice, and so on. The reason you didn’t respond to that is because then it would show you’re a hypocrite who is guilty of your own “moral relativist” accusation and your entire argument falls apart.
Yes, as you said humans are omnivores. We can eat plants and animals. Do you eat nuts? Nuts are not necessary to survive, and cultivating nuts uses tremendous resources compared with growing wheat. Are you saying we should only eat flour paste and water because that is the bare minimum we need to survive? Do you only eat flour paste?
This is the question:
“then presumably you have no moral problem with eating domestic dogs, cats or for that matter your fellow humans?”
This is the answer:
“There are a lot of places where humans eat cats, dogs, horses, and so on. Even though I’m a long time vegetarian (and will be so the rest of my life) I have no problem with other people eating meat if they so choose. ”
“As for eating other humans, I’m not one to impose my beliefs on other cultures that do that. Personally I’m opposed to that”
But you concluded:
His reply does not address your question.
Dude, did you even read his answer?
Layman term:
Swiss people believe eating dogs is immoral. Many South Koreans believe it is not.
Many predominently Muslims countries ban pork because they believe eating it is disgusting. Most Americans love pork.
This is what the Swiss, South Koreans, Muslims, Americans BELIEVE. Nevertheless, whether you are Swiss, South Korean, Muslim or American your body is designed to eat dogs or pork. The human body is designed to do certain things like running. It is not designed to fly or to breath under water.
You’re dead wrong. Humans need vitamin B-12 and the only natural source of it is meat or eggs (dairy is not natural). The fact that all humanoids have been eating meat for millions of years should tell you that we need it for something; it’s a lot easier to gather non-meat (nuts, fruit, veggies, etc.) than to hunt, and people wouldn’t have expended the energy hunting if it didn’t provide a physiological benefit.
Also, your illegitimate conflating of eating any species including humans is ridiculous. Most omnivores eat certain animals only, and none are cannibals that I can think of.
I meant a nutritional benefit, don’t know why I said “physiological.”
All advanced (wo)men are herbivores. It’s a known fact.
Oh… poor plants…
We are glad to hear that Bill, it means you won’t have a problem when we come to your town to kidnap the fertile women so we can breed them to produce a steady supply of meat and milk. After all, we’re evolved to eat meat so if we choose to then it’s OK.
Don’t worry, we’ll treat them humanely before we kill them. And we promise to put hoods on the mothers prior to taking their newborns (can’t have those little parasites stealing our milk or profits might go down) so that their distress will be minimized.
Thanks to the 2nd Amendment if you came to my town and tried to kidnap/kill anyone I would defend, and I would be backed up by the law. If you want to change the law to make it illegal to slaughter any animals then you’re welcome to try.
If I was walking in the forest and eaten by a bear I would have no ideological problem with that.
Perhaps now that you’ve displayed your “masculinity” to all of us you’d like to actually engage the issue?
We’ll even give you a bit of help: There are many things that were once legal which we suspect you would find reprehensible today. Try to avoid hiding behind things like “law”; “tradition”; “culture”; or “evolutionary needs” that are not applicable to a modern first-world human.
Or you could just admit that your pleasure is more important than another’s exploitation and suffering.
I wouldn’t say that shooting a wild deer through the heart and eating it amounts to exploitation it or causing it to suffer.
I didn’t mean to distract with my masculinity; I meant to make the point that we (the vast majority) as a society don’t accept kidnapping and murder of our fellow humans, and we do accept the slaughter of animals for food. The laws are written to reflect that.
You can make your own moral choices for yourself but if someone else wants to make a reasonable choice for him/herself then you don’t have a say in that. Of course “reasonable” is subjective and we could argue endlessly about it. I think it’s reasonable for people to eat meat because our bodies are built to use meat as sustenance. As omnivores we have many choices for what foods we consume to live and meat is one of those choices.
Are you opposed to a lion eating a rabbit? What about a pet dog eating a mouse? Why are humans any different? We are animals too.
You want to talk about human behavior without concepts like law, tradition, culture, etc. Those are all innate to us and applicable to any discussion about humans. It shows me that you want to limit the discussion to some kind of theoretical unrealistic model that I suspect you’re about to tell me.
> After all, we’re evolved to eat meat so if we choose to then it’s OK.
In times of desperate need, it has sometimes come down to that. But we choose to eat animals first because, like every other species, we have a preference for our own kind. All you’re doing is insisting that we should treat animals as if they were humans, but they are not.
If we choose not to eat animals, it’s not because we have decided that they have rights, or we lack rights; it’s because we have developed empathy for animals, and therefore causing them pain, suffering and death causes us to feel pain. If laws are passed and rights are granted, it’s only because that empathy is present in a sufficient percentage of the public. Empathy increases with familiarity, which is suddenly very easy to attain.
So, it would be better to skip the speciesism and flood the world with unbearably cute and unbearably horrible animal videos. The latter are being suppressed only because they are effective. We should give people all the relevant information and let them choose. What a radical idea!
Quite false. Plenty of humans have engaged in cannibalism. Not to mention all the other species who do so. There’s no magic universal experience and behavior to fall back on.
What you describe is simply cultural preferences, which are entirely created by ourselves. There is no logical argument for why it is OK to eat non-plants but not OK to eat a human. One must fall back to “traditions” and “mainstream culture” both of which have allowed easy justification of quite horrific things in the past (e.g. slavery) as well as horrific things in the present (e.g. non-plant consumption outside of survival needs; non-plant laboratory testing).
Look, if one wants to eat meat, just accept that one is saying that one’s luxury pleasure takes preference over anothers. Won’t make you a much better individual but will make you more honest.
“Humane slaughter” is a bullshit, logically invalid philosophy that’s force fed to idiot consumers.
Do you think the same about hospice care? What do you think about euthanasia for terminally ill people? The point is some ways are better to go than others.
If I’m walking in the forest a bear might eat me starting with my feet. If I was going to eat a cow, I would rather slit the cow’s throat with a sharp knife than slowly butcher it starting with its legs.
I can see your point Bill.
Humans have *evolved* to eat meat, but humans are *designed* to evolve. So let us have compassion for these beautiful innocent creatures – Let’s *evolve*.
If we’re talking about feeding everyone on the planet, bear this in mind: it takes many times more grain to fatten up livestock to slaughtering weight than it equals in the end. It would be far more efficient to just feed everyone without an animal middleman.
I am censored when I post to other articles. Is it author specific, that is, does the author have control or input into which posts/posters are allowed?
Am I censored by the entire The Intercept site?
How many other posters are censored and have just given up and moved on?
Couldn’t imagine Glenn Greenwald censoring, but never take *anything* for granted these days.
Posts are delayed, at least according to my experience:
1. for first time posters, with a new handle/new email
2. If you have more than on e “link” in your post
My posts have been deleted, where I called someone a ‘c’ word, and was overly angry in my reply.
Otherwise, I think most posts are allowed.
Thanks for your input.
What you offered doesn’t apply to me at all, though, not even remotely.
Want to discuss the root causes? Answer the following questions – look up the Wikipedia for the correct answers – then think about it:
– What was the US population 50, 100 years ago?
– What is the US population today?
– What was the world population 50, 100 years ago?
– What is the US population today?
– How many people are expected to live on Earth, in the US in 50, 100 years?
– Therefore, should we bring more immigrants?
By the way, same-sex marriages COULD be a good way to slow and eventually stop population growth. Just a thought.
Human overpopulation isn’t the problem. It’s the amount of animals we breed and consume. If the world went vegan we could easily (and I don’t use the word ‘easily’ lightly) sustain our growing population and then some.
We could end word hunger and return vast stretches of land to nature.
You see, it’s really not about feeding more people, it’s about making money the cheapest way possible for a few people. It has nothing to do with immigration, because if you believe in human rights, borders are gratuitous to some extent, especially in the richest country on earth. Listen to the owner of the slaughter house on the film – he’s invoking property rights, not human rights or animal rights. We could feed all the people on earth with little trouble if we put our resources in the right place. But it’s all about making money from an unprotected commodity. Human debtors and agricultural animals share one attribute above and beyond all others – they’re all waiting to be processed. That’s now the proper role of our government. We’re protected from terrorists abroad only to be politically terrorized by an oligarchy at home. Poisoned by our air and water, chastened by the monopoly of “too big to fail,” threatened by corporations that increase their control over our lives while offering more bogus financial products doomed to crash the economy in their favor each time – that’s the reality of our ongoing exceptionalism. It’s not about how many mouths to feed – it’s about how few hands get to take and take.
Yeah but… there are facts and then there’s the ‘magical thinking’.
And the facts are that there are 3.2 times as many people in this country as they were 100 years ago. And if you go by ‘weight’, there’s probably 5-6 times more human mass to be fed on a daily basis. What does that mean in terms of animals that have to die?
Think of it this way: 3 times more people means A LOT less space left for growing the crops and growing the animals. As people crowd themselves in impossibly huge cities, living like rats and WITH rats, the animals that people eat are raised in more crowded spaces and the need to produce ‘more’ as efficiently as possible leads to what this video shows.
Magical thinking is that more, fatter people have nothing to do with the ‘agro industry’ or whatever they call it producing ever more animal protein the way they do but, then again, magic is something that exists in our minds only. Sadly, we are fast approaching the Soylent Green revolution in feeding.
Seriously, there’s too many of us and most of us are useless AND overweight. So, what’s to do about it.
And, one more thing.
I understand that there are the ‘one percenters’ that can afford to pay ridiculous sums for their organic veggies and free range chicks but the proles have to manage some tiny, overstressed budgets so, they are going to buy the cheapest meat they can buy to keep themselves fat at the lowest possible cost. Therefore what you see in that video.
And if some regulations are issued to mandate the ‘humane’ treatment of animals that would also triple the price of meat produced domestically then… guess what is going to happen. Hint: there’s Mexico and a bunch of other countries to the South of us and they don’t care about no stinky badges or regulations.
“I understand that there are the ‘one percenters’ that can afford to pay ridiculous sums for their organic veggies and free range chicks but the proles have to manage some tiny, overstressed budgets so, they are going to buy the cheapest meat they can buy to keep themselves fat at the lowest possible cost.”
That’s simply not true. I’ve never been more than working class and I’ve been buying strictly organic produce and truly free range eggs since the 1970s. It’s about priorities and choices, not affordability. The amount of difference between buying organic local produce and buying cheap meat is negligible for all but the poorest Americans. I’ve seen poor people drinking and using drugs, while buying crap food, for example. And having kids, which are expensive, is nothing more than a lifestyle choice on this grossly overpopulated planet.
I don’t know what you are saying, exactly, but if more and more people will need to be fed, then meat is not the way to do it. Not only is it cruel, but it is unsustainable.
Resources used in the production of livestock:
33% of world’s fish catch
38% of the world’s grain harvest
50% of all the water used in the US
60% of Brazil’s grain harvest
70% of US grain harvest
80% of US corn harvest
Almost half of all energy expended in US agriculture
All of these resources would go much, much further in feeding people.
No, you don’t get it.
‘More and more people’ is not a given. What we need is ‘fewer and fewer people who are not fat’. One way to accomplish it is to aggressively promote same-sex marriages. I can think of some other ways.
OK, I see you come from Bizarro World.
You have to remember that for some people it’s “magical thinking” not to accept the “reality” (animal agriculture) already in existence. That would destroy the necessity of blaming a non-existent reality (fat people need to eat more, no place to grow plants) for broaching the “reality” being defended.
Bizarro World is a destination, not origin.
Whether you like it or not, bringing more useless people into the country and encouraging everyone to get fat does increase the demand for food.
I know… ‘new math and everything’ makes you believe that more useless people eating more has NOTHING to do with the need to making more food as quickly and as cheaply as possible. So, forget about reality, just keep believing that some day all animals we eat are going be grown happily on green pastures and killed in their sleep while having happy dreams of said green pastures. Sure, it CAN be and it WILL be that way. You DO believe it, don’t you?
Overpopulation didn’t start 50-100 years ago, it started 10-12,000 years ago when agriculture replaced hunting and gathering as the human method of getting food. Like all other animals, the increased food provided by agriculture caused the human population to greatly increase. THERE’s your root cause.
Human overpopulation and overconsumption are the biggest, most important, and most fundamental problems on Earth. However, abuse of animals by animal agriculture is not a major symptom of overpopulation; in fact, it’s barely affected by it except for the number of animals that are abused.
We should be eating a lot less meat per person, and our meat should be from wild animals, not domesticated/confined/tortured ones. Of course in order to do that we need A LOT fewer people on the planet.
Thank you for giving importance to and shedding light on this topic.