It's personal and Political.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

So, I first saw this as just an amusing macro.
Then I got the book in the pic as a xmas gift. I have been working my way through it. It's not a straight-up case for vegetarianism. It is written by a vegetarian--who admits as much. But from my reading of his work the authors point isn't to convert you, but to inform you and let you decide.

Now, I'm not a vegetarian. But I may become one. This book is making me pause and think.

Also I think I should say this early on: what I am discussing generally applies to the "first world". In places where food choices are not as plentiful as in the US or other industrialized and developed nations, perhaps the "choice" to eat an animal is one that is easily made as it's eat the animal or starve. So, forgive me if this doesn't exactly apply to you: I know we have an international crew here, but hear me out, if you would.

(for the sake of this post, I shall use "animals" to mean non-human animals)

We can all agree that animals have feelings, right?
Any of us who have had dogs or cats as pets know that they can feel pain, e.g. when we accidentally step on their tail, they shriek in pain and we acknowledge that. We use pain to teach our pets: if a dog does something he shouldn't we give him a thwack on the nose (not too hard of course, but enough to let him know: "don't do that!")

We imprison Micheal Vick for his dog-fights, right?

So we all agree animals can feel pain. And if you don't like my stated assumption that will not be contested in this post (looking at you, horse lover) you can ignore my post. There will not be a discussion of if animals feel pain here. It is assumed and accepted that they do.

Now, dogs aren't so different from pigs or chickens. Yes, there is a difference between them, but there's no reason to assume that pigs, turkeys, chickens and cattle don't feel pain.

Now, if you don't know, you should know that 95%+ of the meat eaten in the US is factory farmed. Now, factory farms are quite what you might imagine them to be. Gigantic "farms" that operate like a factory. The humane element has been removed and replaced with cold efficiency. If baby pigs aren't of the proper size, they will be picked up by their hind legs and have their heads smacked into the concrete floor and then tossed down a chute waiting for the truck that collects all the many pigs killed this way.

The horrors of factory farming are nearly too long to list. Not only do they morally mutilate those who must work in such factory farms, but they also cause significant health risks to humans. Factory farmed animals are fed antibiotics before they are sick--because the "farmers" (more appropriate might be: "factory owners") realize the conditions that their animals live in are so atrocious that they are *expecting* them to get sick.

Then there's the environmental damages done due to the billions of pounds of shit these animals produce. Now, usually shit can be useful as manure--right? But this shit is loaded with all sorts of crap (like antibiotics) and is created in such a quantity that it is not so great for the planet.

Then there's the fact that to produce all the meat we eat, we must feed the animals--and there are starving children who would very much like the food we give to our farmed animals. And yet, we don't. We give it to Bessie so we can have a nice big burger later.

So, I am here asking for help. Tell me, how may I order my next bacon cheeseburger without lamenting the utterly cruel treatment that my burger was built from? The expected death and suffering of factory farmed animals is documented and proven. There's an annual % of the animals *expected* to die at the farm, in transport, and an expected % of them who will not be stunned properly before being killed and an expected % of them will be improperly killed and thus suffer longer than needed. These expected percentages are such because the goal of factory farms is to make money: not to produce animal meat that comes from animals that were treated humanly. We treat our animals with no humanity--nor humanely. We speed up the process that animals are raised in by genetically mutating them. Turkeys on factory farms are *incapable* of reproducing on their own. The insanity of it all is just too much.

So yes, help me. I love my bacon cheeseburgers. They taste AMAZING.
But how can I ever order another one?

Is it as easy as:


And again: in places where meat is a needed part of the diet to fend off starvation, this doesn't apply. But in the US and Europe where factory farming is the predominant method of getting animal meat--can we really allow the cruelty to animals to continue? When we buy food at the supermarket for our BBQ aren't we really farming by proxy and thus supporting the inhumane treatment of our factory farmed animals? Do we need laws to prevent the inhumane treatment of animals? or should we all just be vegetarians and reduce the demand for meat so that the industry doesn't need to fit 5000 chickens in a space that could humanely fit 100?

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

My point with this is that we're soon to hit 7,000,000 and this rising population will render the entire discussion now moot. The US Capitol was built by slaves. Should we detonate and rebuild it from scratch by free labor? The amount of money that went into your computer could have saved 18,000 lives. Are you going to chuck it in the trash? The clothes you wear, if made in China or Malaysia or somewhere like that were in all likelihood made by wage-slaves (and perhaps full slaves). Are you going to live in a nudist colony for the rest of your life? Unless you're under Blood Quantum laws an Indigenous person who happens to live in the same state your ancestors always lived, you live in land gained by genocide. Are you willing to give that land back and return to Europe?

This is an excellent moral question but like most moral questions it's only going to be rhetorical. Sorry, that's just how it is.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Except, this is NOT rhetorical.

You CAN stop eating the corpse of an animal that was treated cruelly. There is nothing rhetorical about this. You are being quite the coward right now. You desperately want to justify to yourself why you don't need to care. But DEAL WITH IT. It's a reality TODAY. It's a reality YOU ARE PART OF. And, perhaps most importantly, it's a reality you can STOP being a part of.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So are you going to go back to Europe and give your part of Manhattan Island to the Leni Lenape who were cheated out of it by the Dutch? There's blood on all our hands we don't think about too much, well, most people don't. I know it's there and am not particularly bothered by it. I *can* stop eating corpses of animals treated cruelly, yes.

I am no more interested in that than I am in giving the part of the state I live in back to the descendants of the Ishak people who rightfully own it. I need no justification for this or for the other. Particularly since you're trying to rile me in a way that simply is not what can be done with this kind of discussion.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Which part of Europe would I go to? I'm a mutt, so I'd have to live in many different countries.

You cannot brush aside a morally wrong action by pointing out OTHER morally wrong actions. That is not how morality works and I have trouble thinking you are dumb enough not to know that.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That's why moralism bites.

That's nice, dear. It applies only to people who think morality should have a place in politics. I'm not one. Run along now. *pats you on the head.*

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

you fucking sociopath

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not a sociopath, someone who believes in realism as a basis for politics as opposed to moralism. If that were required the entire US political leadership from the last few decades would all be swinging from the gallows, whether Democratic or Republican.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And whether serving at present or retired.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

A) Carter?
B) What is unrealistic about YOU not eating the corpse of a tortured animal?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

A) Yes. Carter. Due to continuing to back the Shah and SAVAK he's as much blood on his hand as everyone since FDR did. As I said, there is not one US Administration, Congress, or Supreme Court that has been morally squeaky clean since arguably 1790. If we're going to make morality the basis of public policy and do so *consistently* we'd require the largest mass hanging in the country's history.

B) I'm a college student and health food is far more expensive than meat is?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I'm not asking you to eat "health food" which is more expensive, but non-meat food is cheaper than meat food.

Pizza bites might not be health food, but they aren't MORE expensive when they DONT have pepperoni in them.

So B is a load of bullocks.
Also, as a college student you don't have a dinning hall or some such? I'm shocked if your school doesn't have a dinning hall and I cannot imagine that they don't have options for any vegetarians at your school.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

They do have a dining hall, however they have very limited options for *vegetarians* and none whatosever for vegans. This is the South, and Louisiana in particular. People consider crawfish and beer divine blessings.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I don't recall suggesting switching to veganism.

And anything to my other point, that outside of dinning halls it's cheaper to buy veggies and grains and fruit than meat?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Also, if your explanation for B is "it's cheaper to eat meat than non-meat" then you have done more than I possibly could to explain why our system is fucked.

But since that argument is bogus (I know vegetarians who went that way *strictly* cause it was cheaper) you are just looking to justify your own actions without thinking about the ethical ramifications of them.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Next one is screened.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Indeed. These cases keep piling.