Sux

Friday 11th September

Humans will manipulate anything to gain personal advantage. We exploit resources to strengthen and protect ourselves, and we do it with most enthusiasm when there’s no danger in it (like using animals in captivity). We call our advantage-taking pragmatism. It lets us dream up systems and put them into practice, factory farming being the most extreme example. We hold animals captive and subject them to slavery, so that our food and clothing supplies are available on tap. Whole livelihoods are provided, courtesy of animals. And we do it to them because we can, because there are no negative repercussions. (Or so we think!)
Take the cow for instance. She is the victim of theft and assault on a daily basis. Her fate is in the hands of humans who want her milk and who use force to get it, 20-40 litres being sucked out of her each day. The new born calf is pushed aside so we get the milk … we steal it for ourselves, shoot the calf … and this is the way things have always been done. Now we hardly notice it.
The farmer gets rid of the calf (usually shot on day one) or if ‘its’ really unlucky it’s kept alive, to be tortured by force feeding (called ‘fattening’) or if female sent to ‘calf prison’ till ready for ‘milking’. The calf serves its main purpose in embryo. The foetus stimulating its mother’s mammary glands. Afterwhich it’s no longer useful to the farmer and worth more dead.
It’s a sad thought that we abuse such a peaceful creature. I guess, anthropomorphically, both cow and calf are unhappy about all this, but the whole ugly industry keeps rolling on. And will do so while it’s still legal. This is why us beautiful vegans have got to campaign the bejesus out of it.
The milk is drunk: the profits made: the cow enslaved, and does this make us unhappy or ashamed? Not exactly, because most people have never even thought about it, or if they have they’ve chosen to ignore it. Maybe this is today’s Main World Problem – we’ve been nicely brainwashed, to the point where we no longer discriminate for ourselves. We ingest thousands of product containing milk and yet never once think about the rights and wrongs of mechanically sucking milk out of animals. It hasn’t entered our heads.