Duped

1201: 

Even though conspiracy theories abound and we laugh at them and call them preposterous, somewhere in our mind we suspect we really are all being taken for a ride.

Those with vested interests, whose livelihoods depend on us buying the products of the Animal Industry, they neither care about animals nor our conscience.  They’re buoyed by politicians, media and scientists.  They know not to bite the hand that feeds them.  As shareholders in the Animal Industry, they appreciate what their backers do for them.

It’s all a matter of mutual benefit, with each playing into the others’ hands, to conspire against the consumer.  If they’re peddling unhealthy food, we the public are led to believe it’s NOT harmful.  We believe what we want to believe.  And they must be sure that if there’s any cruelty to animals that we, the public, will raise no objection.

The consumer has a choice, albeit seemingly difficult.  We would all like to do the right thing, but we have no incentive to choose wisely.  The trouble is that it’s too tempting simply to follow the lead of others, and need make NO major lifestyle changes.  We stick to the same food we’ve always eaten, buy leather shoes just as we’ve always done.  Since there’s nothing illegal in the Industry’s methods of treating animals, it follows that there’s nothing immoral in buying animal-harming or health-damaging products.  Consequently the chief animal abusers are getting richer by the minute.

But the strangest thing is this - these same people are falling on their own swords.  The profiteers of the industry are wealthy enough to eat ‘well’ and usually that means eating all the richest food and, you’ve guessed it, that includes a lot of animal product.  It’s ironic that the same animals that provide their wealth break their health.

The big question is, why don’t they avoid these foods?  You’d think they’d be advised by their own well-informed food scientists.  These highly trained men and women would almost certainly know the dangers associated with animal foods, but if they do they’re not telling their sponsors about it.

Health concerns aside, you’d think the spiritual leaders would warn people.  You’d think they’d pounce on the opportunity, using the horror stories of animals on farms and in abattoirs to show up the folly and wickedness of using animals the way we do.  They could so easily show the spiritual damage it’s all having on us, and our need to change what we do in order to save our souls.  But no.  Nothing is said.  Perhaps our leaders’ reputations rely too much on conformity.  To be a whistle-blower on animal issues spells anything from loss of popularity to social suicide.

For many reasons conformity is essential.  If anyone in the Establishment spoke up, there’d be hell to pay - the scientists would lose their grants, the politicians their pre-selections and the priests their parishes, which is why no one’s rushing to speak-up.  No one who isn’t already a vegan is willing to represent animal interests or promote vegan principles.  Perhaps that’s because they all still eat meat, and any preaching of what they don’t practise themselves would prove another, perhaps bigger problem for them.

So, the habit of using animals continues, with the authorities giving the general public the wink and consumers numbing their feeling for these ‘edible animals’ by refusing to look at what’s going on.