Cows and their milk

The following blogs are connected - it’s a 2000 word read.

189:
Milk - what is this white liquid?
Milk is a big issue. It’s highly down-played but not by vegans. It represents infantile associations, sucking at the breast, comfort, stomach-filling, and with additions deliciousness. So why is it so wrong?
Empathy switched off in regard to cows, yet we value them for so much of our food. Cow is machine not sentient animal. If the empathy in us HASN’T been switched off we’ll feel for the cow. We don’t need to understand her psyche to guess how she feels, when her calf is taken away? (Cows are allowed to spend very little time with their calves these days, before they’re removed). Anthropomorphically-speaking, we rely on our instincts to tell us what we can’t provably ‘know’ … like knowing how this cow feels. We can safely say she feels badly, because she’s captive and powerless and she’s forced to lose her offspring.
If we take away an animal’s freedom we may be taking away her very soul; loss of freedom is inimical to all wild creatures, and humans too. Once we grant animals their freedom and look after them in sanctuaries, then, perhaps, we can restore relations with them. And however it is, when we’re with them, as long as we aren’t violating them or disregarding them or treating them as if they were inferior, then we’re mending. Then all the main repair is already happening ... and therefore we can enjoy being close to them.
It’s just this very human trait of wanting-to-be-close. We do it best. We like it most. The buzz we get from animals is not so very different from the buzz we get from kids. Unfortunately, for some people, they’re not familiar with that sort of closeness. To them animals mean very little. They see them as objects, certainly not as equals. They’re there to be exploited.
Animals all over the world are in a parlous situation because there are humans with attitudes like this.

190:
I’m from a dangerous species
Humans might think they’re free of fear but fear is my main driver. I’m forever shoring up the banks of a raging river that flows through my life, which threatens to flood my very soul. It’s because I fear losing my freedom.
To prevent this loss we acquire power, enough to feel safer. We build up stocks of money. To that end we exploit resources, and that includes animals. We’re good at being guardians, but even better at raising money. Money is our main security-in-life.
I’m careful with money ... but not so careful elsewhere. I can be clumsy and cruel - I’ll push you aside if you’re in my way or I’ll exploit you if you happen to be useful. I don’t care if I damage the environment or hurt the feelings of an animal, just so long as it makes me more money … so I can feel safe. In my quest for security I squash my sensitivity and put on my hard skin of pragmatism. I adopt a coldness of heart.
I desensitise further ... until all traces of compassion and imagination are gone. That’s when I’m ready to take on the animals and exploit the bejesus out of them. I’m from a dangerous species.

191:
The cow
Humans will manipulate anything to gain personal advantage. We exploit resources to strengthen and protect ourselves, and especially when there’s no danger in it for us (like using captive animals). Our advantage-taking inspires systems like slavery, so that our food and clothing taken from animals is available on tap. By putting animals to work for us our livelihoods can be provided. We put them to work for us 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 to get 20-40 litres of milk from her every day. The new-born is pushed aside so that we can get its milk We’ve always stolen it for ourselves and now we hardly notice it, and we see no reason to stop it.
On the farm, the calf is dispatched as quickly as possible, having served its chief purpose in embryo - as a foetus, having stimulated its mother’s mammary glands, there’s no pint keeping it alive. Often calves are shot on day one. One or two female calves (of the five or six born to a cow) are sent to ‘calf prison’, until they’re ready for dairy duties, or for fattening purposes.
It’s a sad thought that we abuse such a peaceful creature. Anthropomorphically, we can guess that both cow and calf are unhappy about all of this. But the whole thing is still legal, so there’s not much anyone can do about it. The milk is drunk, the profits made and the cow enslaved.
Am I unhappy about this? Ashamed? Not exactly, because most people have never even thought about it, or if they have they’ve chosen to ignore it. Humans have been nicely brainwashed. Our desensitisation has reached the point where considering ‘the rights and wrongs of dairy farming’ has never entered our heads.

192:
Companion animals and the fate of others
Our attitude to animals in general is a paradox. It’s curious how we humans can be close to our cats and dogs, even sometimes closer than with human companions. We might do everything for them to make their lives happy, despite the fact they only offer us companionship (‘only’!) and produce no useful products for use. We call them pets or companion animals and value them. Mind you, when they no longer fulfil their role as ‘companions’ they may also be shot, well, ‘shot’ full of lethal chemicals to ‘put them to sleep’. But when they’re alive, living with us as working companions, we often try to give them the very best. We give them love, food, shelter and expensive medical care.
But not so other animals, who are valued not as companions but as property and edible property at that. These animals enjoy no quality of life whatsoever; a life of perpetual torture in fact.

193:
Animals wild and enslaved
If an animal is wild (and not regarded as a pest to humans) we study them, marvel at them, protect them . . . although sometimes we hunt them. But if an animal is docile and edible or can make useful products for us, then we put them into the ‘domesticated-animal’ category. They are put into service. Their freedom to escape is out of the question. Usually their bodily movements are restricted. We take these animals very seriously indeed because they aren’t meant for entertainment or for studying but play an essential role in human-lifestyle. It follows then, that if an animal is not for cuddling or admiring it must be there to be enslaved.
It’s best, emotionally, if humans try not to get too close to these particular animals, since they’re going to be murdered when they’re either big enough or exhausted enough. We can’t get too friendly if we’re going to make them so unhappy. Their happiness is that last thing we need to be concerned about ... when we’ve got them banged up in prison. When the time is ripe ... when they arrive at their unhappiest last day, they are to be traumatised. (Perhaps it’s their happiest day, since it brings them blesséd relief from having humans torturing them).

194:
Economics of Farms
Perhaps humans have no sadistic need to harm animals for the sake of it. It’s just that economics dictates how we keep them whilst alive and how we bring them to their deaths. We do what we have to do, to get what we want from them, without spending too much money. Since the world is a very competitive place, it all has to be low cost. Those with lowest ethical standards set the benchmark. For example, eggs. ‘Cage-eggs’ are cheap, so every egg farmer in the world must cage their hens or go out of business. It’s the same with all commodities. If milk is cheaper to ship in from Singapore, then it will come from there … and Australian dairy farmers eat your heart out!
To get milk (her milk) and sell it for a profit (our profit) a cow must be cheap to produce and cheap to keep. Oceans of milk are made at a minimum cost. Rivers of milk supply maximum numbers of consumers. If this is how milk works then it’s the same for all farmed-animal produce. We want it so they have to die for it.
It’s unusual, the idea of being compassionate enough to not want it, refusing to be the cause of harm to these animals. In our culture we are so used to animal products that to voluntarily deny ourselves of them seems absurd. In our culture, the enjoyment of food is everything, especially if we think animal cuisine is an art form. The enjoyment of animal food is greater still if we think it makes us strong. It’s unimaginable to reverse all this (on the basis that these products are unhealthy and represent human cruelty).
And likewise, omnivores can’t imagine animal products being satisfactorily replaced by plant-based products. They just don’t believe it’s possible. And because they can’t imagine it (whereas of course vegans can) they continue to demand these products and, in consequence, deprive animals of their lives.

195:
Milk
So, many people today are realising that cow’s milk is not nutritionally essential, and even that it’s unhealthy. Because there are thousands of different products made with it, almost all people still continue to buy it or foods that contain it.
There’s a tendency for us humans to insist on getting what we want … perhaps it’s a ‘dominant species’ thing - we want it and prefer to get it without struggle – milk, for example, is legal, cheap (subsidised) and plentiful. It is therefore the favourite ingredient by many food manufacturers. It is a truly struggle-free product. Fresh supplies are available everywhere. We often need to go no further than a few meters down the road, to the nearest corner shop, to get our milk … at which shop they sell many other products, also made with milk (as a chief ingredient). As consumers we almost fall over ourselves to get milk, because we can only contemplate our tea and coffee with some in it (and therefore unable to imagine life without it!). Everyone has a carton in their fridge (except vegans and lactose-intolerants). There is no more prevalent consumer item on the market, and therefore milk is a guaranteed money spinner for the industry. They’ve turned it into something as natural as fresh air. They say it’s essential to human life, making the use of milk an entrenched consumer habit.
We forget that whenever we buy milk we help to finance cow prisons.

196:
Cow prisons
Why should we care about cows living on prison farms? Surely cows are the living example of how we’ve made a machine out of Mother Nature. We’ve harnessed Nature to supply our needs and insured our future survival by having so many animals ‘on tap’. Consequently we can guarantee our major food supply. We’ve done it by using our brains.
Again, it’s illustrated best by the cow. With our useful knowledge of the biology of this animal we have taken control of her, body and soul. Keeping a cow as a milk-producing machine involves forcibly impregnating her, letting her carry a calf to term, letting that biological process take its course, to stimulate her mammary glands to produce maximum milk. We also very cleverly manipulate her genes too.
By disposing of the newly birthed calf, in order to draw off milk for us, we arrive at a perfect example of slavery. Certainly in Nature ants enslave aphids and terrible predatory things happen between creatures, but everything, predator or predated, is always allowed its sense of being part of the natural world. But not cows nor any other farmed animal. They are enslaved, shut up in cages or enclosed by concrete, and in constant contact with cold hard steel. They’re attended by cold hearted humans who, when they deem fit will have their animal executed.
Something in our instinct should tell us this is profoundly wrong. But for most of us our instincts, in this regard, have been cauterised … so we see no wrong in it.