What's Fur Got To Do With Love?

The clip below was posted by vegan advocate Jordan Wyatt who is a member of the Invercargill Vegan Society and who hosts the podcast Co-existing With Nonhumans Animals.

The debate on Prime Time Irish TV show asks whether it makes any difference whether we kill animals for the skin or for their meat?

And as Jordon observes this woman who grew up on a "fur farm", actually makes a case for Veganism.

She also makes it clear that the way these farmers "love" their animals is no different than the way others who "use" nonhumans "love" their animals too!



You'll be convinced at her "love" ten seconds in, when she giggles before acknowledging that she has skinned the minks as well.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it! Upton Sinclair

At thirty seconds she says that this can't be cruel because there's 1400 fur farmers in Denmark. She rhetorically asks "How can they justify it if they thought it was cruel?" 
If one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people. -Ruth Harrison

"They LOVE their animals!"

According to her because they do this job everyday, they can't possibly not "love" those animals. 
Whenever people say, ‘We mustn’t be sentimental,’ you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, ‘We must be realistic,’ they mean they are going to make money out of it." - Brigid Brophy

She states the "love" these farmers have throughout the breeding and skinning seasons... 
People who claim to "love" animals while paying workers to harm and kill animals for their enjoyment are frankly delusional. I sure hope none of these people ever "love" me. - Jo Tyler

She concludes that there is no difference between "loving" these fur animals or "loving" the animals used for meat, milk and eggs. She's certainly right there... 
There is no moral distinction between fur and other materials made from animals, such as leather, which also is the result of the suffering and death of sentient beings. - Gary L. Francione 

In her mind it's all okay because we've always done it. "It's in our nature."
In the course of his development towards culture man acquired a dominating position over his fellow-creatures in the animal kingdom. Not content with this supremacy, however, he began to place a gulf between his nature and theirs. He denied the possession of reason to them, and to himself he attributed an immortal soul, and made claims to a divine descent which permitted him to annihilate the bond of community between him and the animal kingdom. - Sigmund Freud 

Their "love" it appears, is all about the devotion of confining these animals in tiny cages, denying them of their freedom, their babies and eventually - their hides and their lives. 

But of course this MUST be "love"... Of money.
Our economic order is tightly woven around the exploitation of animals, and while it may seem easy to dismiss concern about animals as the soft-headed mental masturbation of people who really don't understand oppression and the depths of actual human misery, I hope to get you to think differently about suffering and pain, to convince you that animals matter, and to argue that anyone serious about ending domination and hierarchy needs to think critically about bringing animals into consideration.” - Bob Torres

Whether it's fur, food or "fun". Please think critically. Please think kindly. Please think. Go Vegan.

What's Love Got To Do With Meat?

In the recent winter storm named Atlas up to 70,000 cows, sheep and horses were left stranded, soaked with rain, and then were smothered or frozen in snow. Many of these cows were found in piles around the barbed wire meant to keep them "safe". Often buried in the drifts were young calves huddled by their mothers. 

On any site that reported this event, or in other instances where the "care" of "livestock" is scrutinized, animal users will defend their practices and habits with endless comments meant to illustrate how much they "love" their stock:

"We tenderly nurture and care for these production animals."

"Farm families love and care for each one."

"We do our best to keep our livestock comfortable; warm in the winter, cool in the summer, well fed, because we care."

"Although they may have death in the end, you can try to give them good care until then." 

"We love the animals we raise to feed the world."

At the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance you can see they "care" seventeen times on one page. Maybe they figure the more you say it... The more you mean it right? 

And Bonnie, a member of the National Turkey Federation, enters a grow-out barn singing Kumbia to the thousands of birds she claims to "love".

The pig pork people are just the same. They want you to know how much they "care" in one convincing logo. 

Dairymen are animal lovers too! You can read it seven times on one page, amid the photos of barren plastic hutches where the infant calves are "cared for" in isolation.

Or you could see the same line in a Dairy Farmers Care video where they "care" nine times in three minutes.

You can see the pattern over and over. Ranchers and "producers" "care" and "love" these animals so very much --- All the way to the kill floor.

But getting back to Atlas... The industry posted a series of photos that illustrate the impact this storm had. In one, the caption reads "Identifying and cutting ear tags from the animals we found deceased helped in keeping an accurate count of the lost." And other missing cows are being identified by their "brands" on left or right hip or rib, or elsewhere I guess...

Can't you feel the love?

And of course they have to keep track of the loss in order to be reimbursed via the Livestock Indemnity Program. Heck of a way to count the tears, through tags, brands, carcass disposal and cash. 

Any reasonable person can see right through this "love" and loss. It's not about the heartbreak of losing a friend and family member... It's about finances and lost profits. We should feel sorry for these ranchers we're told, for they'll never get to capitalize on flesh that's buried. Instead I and many others, weep for the cows, horses and sheep. I never knew a single one of them... But I know I love them more than those who "owned" them ever could.

I know what it means to genuinely care. It's someone who rearranges their whole day to rescue orphaned possums. It's someone who sets the alarm every 2 hours to insure that baby mice or rabbits are kept hydrated. It's someone who takes in a rejected calf from the dairy industry and loves him his entire life without a "lost milk tally". It's folks who pool their resources to rescue hundreds of "spent hens" . And they do it over, and over, and over and over again without the reward of one single egg as a "payment". 

It's finding a way to rescue one pig who then gives birth to sixteen others. It's rejoicing that all are healthy, without the calculated plan as to when they reach a market weight. Their value is priceless.

I could go on with how much authentic concern is given to these beings who have been rescued from the industries that profess to "care" while benefiting financially. And it's true, for some it is about the money... But not the making of it - But the sharing of it... Down to their last penny. That's a real love beyond counting ear tags and making meat.

Whether you are a consumer or a rancher - Words are hollow if they're not followed through with sincere action. Using others for your profit or personal benefit has nothing to do with love. Please if you don't do so already, live and Eat Like You Care.

Instructions For Murder. Don't Try This On Your Home Planet

There's a fund drive to produce a movie called Abattoirs Rising that hopes to make the grand finale of meat-animal-victims less stressful by means of mobile slaughter facilities.

You can also build your own portable bird killing apparatus.
Instructions and charts are included that show how to "put the bird in the kill cone first to keep it confined, then pull the head down making the neck taught and then slice the carotid with a sharp knife."

Seems everyone and anyone (brutal - do not go if you know) has a special method on how to effectively put an end to some one's life!

This woman does the job by gently stroking the bird while she prepares to "respectfully harvest" the hen. Before the stabbing, she softly coos "Hey Lady"... "Hey Beautiful"... She breaks the bird's neck. Then twists and snaps it off. She then gets teary eyed and says "It's never easy. I've killed hundreds of chickens this way".  

Or there's this man who tells his two grandsons as he's hanging the bird's legs to a rope tied to a tree, "You have to be nice to them, cause there's no reason to be mean".  (I wonder just how are the kids supposed to know what being "mean" is?)

A quick observation will show that there's a clique' of home-spun blood-lust on youtube. Some try to fancy it up by calling it "humane". While others don't pretend for a moment that it is.

But when these do-it-yourself murderers enlist and encourage the participation of kids, it becomes even more disturbing. Do children have the internal compass or courage to be able to evaluate what they're doing? Isn't it very possible that they are repulsed and unwilling, but fearful to admit it? Could Buddy have been his authentic self, if it was in rebellion to his father's expectations?

What about darlin' Darlene as she's egged on to shoot the pig in the truck? They praised her after the "perfect shot". But what kind of ridicule or punishment would she face if she had declined?

But the world we are privileged predators in, is in such a schizophrenic state. In nearly all circumstances, most of us who follow a pretense of social "rules", would never condone the harm of another being. But make it a "food animal", and let it be some one's kid being instructed to cause the damage, and we haven't the gumption to voice a peep of resistance for either victim. Clearly it's SEP.

Since we all live here though - I'm calling murder when I see it. 

And the carnists are getting away with it because there aren't enough justice seekers to put an end to it! Maybe more people ought to take the meat from out of their ears and get their minds off their stomachs, to see the real problems as they are. It's the social justice issue of our time! And the holocaust starts in our own back yards and extends to our home all over our planet!

I'm telling carnists now that your habits sicken me. The way you cavalierly dispose of other lives for gluttony and/or greed offends me beyond words! What kind of mad people are we anyway in the 21st Century? Stop with the blood-letting already - Please!

Free Range: It's About Eating The Happiest Ones...

If you want to know the sheep you eat then apparently the place to go is Kinderhook Farm. They've got tons of appealing propaganda that will ease the coldest, carnist conscience! 
It looks so picture perfect!

There' also those bonny gals that sing cheery songs about the way they procure their fix for pretty-flesh. The tribute of "eating cheek to cheek" says it all. 

"We put love into every single pig" and "the pigs play with us".  The tune continues praising the happy sheep and bouncy lambs that live on grass... And how nice it is that these creatures are so content and well cared for. And how you're going to appreciate all those yummy-viscera-goodies that go so well with roasted beets!
They really have got the good times mapped out, don't they?

Apparently it's very important for some folks to know up close and personal who their victims are. They so desperately want to know that their meat "donors" lived a good life and that their chicken was a happy bird! 

By that logic they should feel really good about going into a peaceful pasture... With rolling hills, a running brook and lush shade trees. A paradise called Happy Meat Land! 
Up with the swell of angelic violins please!

Here the goal is to source out the most contented, serene and joyful victim possible. The happier they are the better! Once that totally satisfied and blissful one presents himself, the finger should point and say "That one! I'll take that one! The most radiant of all! That's the life I'll take! That's the casualty of my lust. And it ought to be a delicious treat!"  

Disturbing isn't it?

While down the path of Happy Meat Land they'll say they are doing such an honor (and sacrifice)... To go this route of "ethical" "beef", "pork" or "chicken"... They'll tell you often that it cost them so much more time and money to do so! And that you should support and respect them as they make an attempt to reduce the suffering their diet choices inflict.  

Ah hem.  (If you don't want to harm anyone you just don't eat them!)

No... I'll argue that even if they wanted to live by a more "kind", and "conventional", utilitarian ethic, it makes much more sense to liberate those who are enslaved in miserable cages and endure absolute and utter frustration! If those "locavores" "humane," "compassionate," "cruelty-free," "cage-free," "free range," "paleo," "pasture-raised," or "organic" fanciers were honestly attempting to minimize their negative impact then why steal a gleeful being from their slice of nirvana while good old American factory farmed misery is so plentiful? We know their lives are so meaningless... There are no songs being sung for them... Their carcasses get no special labels to commemorate their contribution as being a "quality" commodity.  Robbing a fine life seems even more mean spirited than your average-run-of cheats! It's being a double life-sucker! But of course it's not really about being kind at all! Most "animal-friendly" meat consumers are into it for their health or some other vain, narcissistic excuse. Don't you know? It's all about the show!

I'm calling them phonies!

I'm also calling it a crime to snuff any one's life! I'm calling junk-malarkey on stealing any bit of an other's piece of the here and now! You have no right to it no matter how wretched it is... Or how "nice" you make it sound... It's simply is not your life to claim!  "Humane" meat is an ugly oxymoron! 

More info on "the good life and one bad day" paradigm:

FREE RANGE - A SHORT DOCUMENTARY

The Free Range Myth

Understanding Neocarnism: How Vegan Advocates Can Appreciate and Respond to “Happy Meat,” Locavorism, and “Paleo Dieting”

Holocaust on a Conveyor Belt - Assembly Line of Death

Holocaust on a Conveyor Belt - Assembly Line of Death



Scenes taken from the film Samsara

The Holocaust to nonhumans as explained by Gary Yourofsky.

"Before they reach their end, the pigs get a shower, a real one. Water sprays from all angles to wash the farm off of them. Then they begin to feel crowded. The pen narrows like a funnel; the drivers behind urge the pigs forward, until one at a time they climb onto a moving ramp. The ramp's sides move as well as it's floor. The floor is cleated to give the pigs footing. The sides are made of blocks of wood so that they will not bruise, and they slant inward to wedge the pigs along. Now they scream, never having been on such a ramp, smelling the smells they smell ahead. I do not want to over dramatize, because you have read all this before. But it was a frightening experience, seeing their fear, seeing so many of them go by. It had to remind me of things no one wants to be reminded of any more, all mobs, all death marches, all mass murders and extinctions, the slaughter of the buffalo, the slaughter of the Indian, the Inferno, Judgment Day, complicity, expensive races, races living at the expense of the race."
~ Richard Rhodes from Watching the Animals 

There is a more civilized way to live... Live Vegan.

MEXICO REFUSES U.S. CARGILL TYSON MEAT

USDA spokeswoman Amanda Eamich said Mexico had raised concerns about the general condition of meat products, including "possible pathogen findings." Mexico halts meat imports Or some other reasons perhaps? Maybe the smart citizens in Mexico have come to conclusions that it is not necessary to eat meat... that killing billions of animals is "needless".... that man can and does thrive on a plant based diet... that livestock and animal agriculture greatly compromise the environment... that reducing/eliminating meat consumption, would help end world hunger... and use all resources more efficiently... not to mention avoiding those nasty pathogens... Hooray! To all you good people in Mexico who have made the compassionate and healthy choice to go Vegan.