672:
Right now, as you read this, thousands, no millions, no, in
fact billions of beautiful, sensitive, sentient animals are struggling. They
are in a hopeless position, powerless against human oppression. They are
suffering confinement, harsh treatment, and violence. They are each victims of the
singular human intention to have them die a horrible death in an abattoir.
If you eat
anything from an animal, if you wear anything from the animal’s body, then you
are connected to the lives of these terrorised animals; you are partly
responsible for the conditions captive animals find themselves in. Harsh
accusatory words indeed! But would anyone say they were not true?
Vegans are
not connected to any of this, since they have purposely disassociated themselves
from the whole ugly situation. Non-vegans are connected (some less than others)
simply because they are unwilling to forgo animal-based foods and yummy treats.
The omnivore can’t imagine a life without ‘animal’, in much the same way as one
can’t imagine life without a car or a computer or a television. In our
materialistic world there are so many other items we’re all used to having, but
it’s likely that while each one damages the planet or damages our health, there
is even worse damage done to ourselves.
Using items
from the hell-holes in which animals are kept and hurt and executed wrecks the
human conscience. Nothing else that we do or buy or use compares to our
involvement with the grotesque treatment of farm animals. If you saw what they
do to these creatures, first hand, you would vomit. You’d scream, you’d run.
You’d swear never to be party to any of it ever again. And this is why the guys
who run these places never let you into abattoirs or intensive farms these
days. The way they treat these invisible billions, including birds, mammals and
fish is nothing short of demonic. Each creature is taken out of their natural
surroundings, deprived of every social, sensual and sexual experience they’d
normally have in Nature, and exploited to the very edge of biological
toleration, just to provide humans with their little comforts.
The
inconvenient truth of these angry-sounding words won’t do the animals
themselves much good, but if one is describing a hurricane one can’t talk about
it in terms of a firm breeze. To describe these animals’ lives in any other way
would be dishonest. I know that it’s much wiser to use softer language. If I
did you would still be reading whereas I know that most readers would have
turned away about three paragraphs ago. But, just for once, I don’t feel like downplaying
the shame, guilt and sorrow we should all be feeling. Perhaps it’s because
we’ve always talked too timidly about these matters, that we’ve by-passed the
full horror of the present situation. I think you’ll agree that this is the one
subject that is never properly talked about.
However, as
easily as I could go on at length, to describe the conditions of each animal on
the farm, whether they are living on the free-range or in intensive operations,
it wouldn’t help people to unravel their own temperamental blocks, that stop them
thinking about what they are doing, when eating animal-based foods. Most of our
most dangerous behaviours are mindless copying of what others do, because how
could you possibly enjoy eating your dinner with thoughts of suffering animals
running through your head?
Next series of blogs starts tomorrow
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