Animal Abuse is Suicide, We, the Flora, Fauna, Microbes, Minerals, Forces and Faeries, Are One

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations [CAFOs] aren't limited to cattle abuse. Chickens are just as brutally abused by their confinement in battery cages and hogs suffer equally in both feeding 'barns' and the confinement of pregnant pigs in gestation crates. The fact is that industrial agriculture is the systematic abuse of every living thing including the animals in its concentration camps, the air and water we all share and the humans who consume it's products.

Why? So that the immoral corporate shareholders can get richer from the short-term 'profits' which are flim flam and lies created by accounting tricks that disregard the full costs of their abusive schemes. "This, the externalizing of costs, is corporate capitalism's biggest lie. Be it water pollution, air pollution from particulates, greenhouse gas emissions, antibiotic resistance or the abuse of those cousins of ours named livestock, the corporate shareholders, including pension plans, only consideration is profit, that's capitalism. Serving the interests of the profiteers, that's politics. Choosing which politicians serve which profiteers, that's democracy." - The Mud Report

Several jurisdictions, including the entire EU, have outlawed some of the worst CAFO abuses. But as soon as one form of abuse is regulated the disgusting capitalists and their bankers either find a slightly different tactic or bribe and coerce those enforcing the regulations. The reality is that, as in all forms of capitalism, as long as consumers demand the crap - no matter how unnecessary, environmentally destructive or abusive the production of it is - capitalism will find a way to meet those demands. As Pogo famously said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Animal rights is the idea that nonhuman animals are entitled to the possession of their own lives, and that their most basic interests – such as an interest in not suffering – should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings. Advocates, including me, oppose the assignment of moral value and fundamental protections on the basis of species membership alone – an idea known since 1970 as speciesism.

As Peter Singer said in his 1971 manifesto for an Animal Liberation movement - 'Animals, Men and Morals' - "We are familiar with Black Liberation, Gay Liberation, and a variety of other movements. With Women's Liberation some thought we had come to the end of the road. Discrimination on the basis of sex, it has been said, is the last form of discrimination that is universally accepted and practiced without pretense ... But one should always be wary of talking of "the last remaining form of discrimination."

Have you read about the bull who cried?

Workers in a slaughterhouse in Hong Kong were surprised when the bull suddenly knelt and cried before it was taken into the slaughterhouse. Shiu, one of the workers, said that he trembled when he saw the bull’s teary eyes.They continued trying to pull the bull inside, but failed. The crying bull just would not budge. The workers were moved and decided to gather funds to purchase the bull and give it to monks, who would take care of it. When they decided not to kill the bull, the creature stood up and followed them. Peter Singer and i applaud them.

So if you must eat animal products, 'Eat Wild', because pasture based farming enhances animal welfare. Real farms aren't mono-cultures, real farms are mixed farms where one form of life feeds another. Real farmers aren't capitalist businessmen beholdin their bankers. Real farmers love their farms and their animals. Choosing meat, eggs, and dairy products from grass-based farms is an effective way to enhance animal welfare.

One day humans will either come to understand that we - the flora, fauna, microbes, minerals, forces and faeries - are all one, or we will be eliminated as an unworthy genetic aberration as so many others before us were.