Not free to choose

Even though conspiracy theories abound and we laugh at them and call them preposterous, somewhere in our mind we suspect we are being taken for a ride. To those with vested interests, our money spent on animal industry products is more important to them than considering our welfare. To those who care little about animal cruelty, customer conscience doesn’t concern them. The ones who could help, the law makers, the politicians don’t help at all. Their inaction, their complicity with scientists and the shareholders of animal industries guarantees their own support base. Each benefits from the other. They play into each others’ hands to make money out of the consumer, win our support and we let them. When they poison the public (or at least peddle unhealthy food to us) the consumer lets them get away with it. When they are complicit with animal cruelty we raise no objection. The consumer is the victim of an outrage here but consumers, as individuals, have a choice. And they must choose in the end because what is going on, there’s nothing illegal about it. Our own compliance is legal as is the industry’s cruelty to animals. It’s still legal to be an omnivore. It’s legal and therefore socially acceptable. And of course it is very acceptable, economically, to the chief animal abusers who are getting richer by the minute.
But the strangest thing about all this is that these same people are falling on their own swords. The profiteers of the “animal abuse system” are wealthy enough to eat ‘well’ and usually they’re inclined to eat rich food, and, you’ve guessed, that includes a lot of animal products. Ironic! The same animals they use to make their wealth ruin their health. The big question is, why doesn’t it occur to them to avoid these foods? They may be wicked enough to produce them but not bright enough to avoid poisoning themselves with them. The scientists especially should know the dangers associated with animal foods. And you’d think the spiritual leaders of our communities would respond to the horror stories about animal farms and abattoirs. But no, they say nothing. It seems that social status in our community relies so heavily on conformity (and that includes communal dining), that to blow the whistle on it would be social suicide, Whatever group we associate with, it’s our own security we value most. And conformity is integral to that. If anyone from 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. That’s why they wouldn’t ever consider supporting vegan principles. No one in their right mind would inflict that on themselves. So, the habit of using animal products continues. And for the consumer to be part of that they must numb their feeling for animals and oppose the idea that animals should have any rights.