Oppression Connections
The Breaking of Bonds and the "Sad, Sorrowful Bellowing"
Published April 02, 2009 @ 03:11PM PT
Kelly of easyVegan.info wrote a post titled "A cow is so much like a woman" the other day. She wrote much in relation to Jeff Masson's The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals (yes, it did occur to me as I wrote that just now that I plugged Jeff Masson's newest book already earlier today--you can go a head and call it Jeff Masson day around here, I suppose), but she also wrote about some personal experiences that struck me. And they are worth sharing.
When we moved to Kansas, we managed to find a house for rent on 80 acres of land; our landlord inherited the place when her father died, rusty farm equipment, horses, cows and all. She lived just down the street, so she and her husband decided to fix the house up, rent it out, and keep the “beef cattle” operation going. When you think of a small, family farm, probably you imagine a farm similar to this place.
The acreage was divided into three large grazing pastures, as well as a smaller “holding pen” which shared a fenceline with our fenced-in backyard. After the calves were birthed, the mothers and their young were separated from the rest of the herd, confined to that smaller pen, supposedly so the males wouldn’t attack the youngsters, I guess. I used to spend hours playing with the dogs in the backyard, watching the mama cows nurse their babies. Many of the cows were accustomed to human interaction, so they’d usually watch me back. (The newborns, of course, were understandably skittish.) Some of the older cows took an interest in the dogs, and would come over and sniff at them as they ran (or, in Ralphie’s case, dug) along the fenceline. To say that they enjoyed playing together wouldn’t be a product of my silly, sentimental wimmin’s imagination.
Other times, when cows were sold (whether to other farmers or slaughter operations, I know not - I was afraid to ask), the unlucky “merchandise” was placed in the pen a day or two beforehand. Many times, the calves were the ones slated to be sold off; it wasn’t uncommon to see a dozen youngish calves sequestered in the pen together, all of them wailing for their mothers. Meanwhile, a dozen females might be gathered along the perimeter of the nearest pasture, bellowing right back at their babies, trying in vain to lure them back into their protective custody. This would go on for hours on end, with few breaks - even during the night. The scene dragged on - slowly, sadly - until the calves were ferried away; usually, you could still hear a few plaintive bellows days or weeks later.
And I was only an observer of the abuse, not a victim. I can only begin to imagine the depths of the grief suffered by the mothers and babies alike. It’s heart-wrenching. To this day, I can still recall - quite vividly, mind you - the sad, sorrowful bellowing.
We live in Missouri, now, and a cattle farmer rents the pasture on one side of our house. I don’t have the pleasure of watching the mothers with their children anymore; this herd is more wary of humans, and rightfully so. But I can tell when he’s separated the mothers from their children - during these days and weeks, the long, low, mournful, melancholy bellows echo up the valley and through the treeline.
If I weren’t already a vegan, these cries of despair surely would persuade me.
I ask that vegetarian readers please remember that this terrible breaking of bonds between mother and child on farms raising cattle for their flesh takes place in the dairy industry as well; indeed, the dairy industry is built on this breaking of bonds, over and over throughout the cow's life: you have to rip the calf away from his or her mother (and most often send that calf to almost immediate slaughter) if you want the mother's milk for yourself. What you've just read is just a much milder version of what cows exploited for dairy and calves killed for veal suffer. And whether we're inflicting this heartbreak and sorrow on animals for their flesh or for their milk, it's all just so wrong.
Photo courtesy of Kelly
Honoring César Chávez--and His Call to Stop Eating Animals
Published March 31, 2009 @ 06:55AM PT
Today is the late César Chávez's birthday, and it is being celebrated as an official state holiday in California and other states. The Cesar E. Chávez National Holiday Web site tells us much about the admirable man for whom many of us, including President Barack Obama, want to see a national holiday. Yet despite a long "About" page detailing Chávez's life, beliefs, activism, and many accomplishments, there's not a word about the strong position he held regarding nonviolence toward animals. Not a word about his commitment to vegetarianism (including not only a vegetarian but even a vegan diet for at least some period) for the last 25 years of his life. Not a word about his opposition to exploitation of animals on all fronts, including research, "sport," and entertainment. The same can be said of the many news articles that are noting today's significance.
And this is inexcusable.
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Where Your Wool and Mutton Come From--And Who Really Pays
Published February 22, 2009 @ 08:43AM PT
Thanks to Mary Martin, I read this article this morning: "In Loneliness, Immigrants Tend the Flock."
Yet another example of how exploitation of animals = exploitation of humans too, of how oppression breeds oppression. Some people think their meat, dairy, eggs, leather, wool, and whatever else of animal origin they purchase are expensive. But the reality? They're getting it all for much, much, much cheaper than they should.
First, we all--including vegans who don't even buy any of these things--pay far more than the sticker prices for these animal-exploiting purchases because of insane government subsidies. And another reason that people who buy these spoils of animal exploitation get them for as cheap as they do is that animal-exploiting industries pay the people doing the dirty work as little as possible, not anywhere near a living wage. Animal-product purchases should be costing consumers a hell of a lot more. But we treat animals in horrific ways and treat humans in horrific ways, all to make sure those prices you see stay low.
My hope is that more and more of the people who eat meat, dairy, and eggs and who purchase leather, wool, and other animal products will start awakening to the realization that the costs of these purchases are so much higher than they once realized--and that others are the ones paying dearly for those purchases.
For more on what happens to sheep, see these resources:
- Sheep at Animal Liberation Victoria (even if you don't eat lamb or mutton, but you love your Merino socks and sweaters, you need to read this)
- What's Wrong with Wool? (from VegSource)
- SaveTheSheep.com (from PETA)
Plant-Based Hunger Solutions: Feeding More With Less, Part 2--Scarcity and Distribution
Published February 19, 2009 @ 05:32AM PT
First, a brief recap of part 1, from yesterday:
Global food scarcity is an increasing problem, which is made worse by increases in inefficient, resource-intensive meat production/consumption. It's not just that we need to feed more people (a linear increase). Low- and middle-income countries (with large population bases and high population growth rates) are consuming more resource-intensive animal products, so the effect is multiplied. The United Nations predicts that this, combined with the already high per capita consumption rates of the wealthy nations, will result in global meat consumption doubling over 50 years (2000-2050).
Scarcity and Distribution Are Connected
So meat consumption is increasing, and more people will go hungry? Yes, because we have more people to feed due to population growth and because distribution is increasingly uneven, with more meat-eaters bidding away food staples from the world's poor.
It's common to hear people (even experts) say that hunger is a problem of distribution, not scarcity. But it's not a question of scarcity versus distribution--scarcity and distribution problems are connected.
When scarcity is high, distribution issues are exacerbated because there is even less to go around. It seems obvious, but it needs to be made crystal clear--increased scarcity increases hunger, and meat increases both scarcity and distribution disparities.
It's basic supply and demand.
Eating meat increases the demand for basic food supplies (grain, corn, soy, etc.) much more than consuming these staples directly.
The increased demand for basic staples increases their price and makes it more difficult for the world's poor to buy food. Instead, those who are better off buy the food for animal feed to produce meat. Some countries actually export food during famine, selling food for feed while their own people starve because they can't afford it.
In short, your hamburger increases the price of their corn, grain, soy, etc.
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Plant-Based Hunger Solutions: Feeding More With Less, Part 1
Published February 18, 2009 @ 05:58AM PT
Guest post time! Contributor Dawn Moncrief, executive director of FARM and Well-Fed World, will be sharing her wide-ranging knowledge and experience (see her bio in the post's sidebar) with us both today and tomorrow, writing on the connections between eating animals and environmental concerns and, especially, world hunger. Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow. -SE
Part 1: Let's Be Reasonable
Vegetarians and vegans are sometimes dismissed as being irrational and driven by our emotions, which is ironic, considering that we can claim both the scientific and the moral high ground.
We are very fortunate that "kicking the meat habit" is not only a better way to feed ourselves and the world more generally, but also the best choice for the environment and (of course) the animals, farm animals and wildlife in particular.
The benefits are so far-reaching that it's not an exaggeration to say that "going veg" is one of the best choices (if not the best choice) we can make to help solve the world's most pressing and stubborn problems. Huge benefits are available for an incredibly small price: a little effort to make the change and a little inconvenience while more restaurants and grocers continue to increase their options.
So why the resistance? Why are Americans the largest per capita meat consumers in the world (40% more than Europeans)? Eating meat is not motivated by our concern for health. Heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes are America's top killers in large part thanks to meat, which is fiber-less, vitamin-free, cholesterol-filled, and saturated with saturated fat.
It's not like we don't have other options. There's plenty to eat without eating meat. Look closely, and you will notice that it is meat-defenders who are quick to deny hard facts as if they were Jim Perdue with billions to lose. Eating meat is not only emotionally motivated and habit-driven; it is also irrational and less sustainable.
Want proof?
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Slaughterhouse Keeps Disabled Workers in Squalor and Financial Exploitation for 30 Years
Published February 09, 2009 @ 03:00AM PT
Perhaps you recall the late November post that discussed the ways in which slaughterhouse workers--particularly undocumented immigrants--are exploited and endangered in their jobs ("Slaughter: Deadly for the Animals, But Dangerous for Workers Too"). Mass killing and the cutting up of dead bodies is dangerous, dirty, traumatizing work, and few people want to do the killing demanded by people who consume animal flesh, dairy, and eggs, even if they're consuming all of these themselves (see also the post "Inside the Chicken Slaughterhouse: One Worker's Firsthand Accounts"). So the ones who end up in these low-paying, undesirable jobs are often the most vulnerable and the most desperate.
And animal agriculture as a whole is a system predicated on the exploitation (and killing) of those more vulnerable than those doing and supporting the exploitation; it is an industry predicated on oppression and the use, for our own benefit, of beings whom we deem lesser than us. So a part of me isn't even surprised at the news that came out of Iowa this weekend--furious and saddened, yes, but shocked, no--about one company's shameless exploitation of an especially vulnerable set of workers for the last three decades.
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Toward an Oppression-Free World
Published February 02, 2009 @ 07:18AM PT
This morning's planned post has been delayed a bit, but luckily, there's some fantastic reading elsewhere today. I've written on several occasions on how animal rights issues connect with other issues of injustice, prejudice, and oppression, and I've pointed out on several occasions that none of the animal rights advocates I know are narrowly focused, single-issue advocates--they care about and advocate for nonhuman animals, but they care about and advocate for much else in this world as well. The blog and group L.O.V.E., which considers itself "neither an animal welfare group nor an animal rights group, but something new: an anti-oppression collective," works to make the connections between various forms of oppression and to encourage activism and ways of living that incorporate awareness of and concern for all such forms. L.O.V.E. is not alone in this effort or philosophy, but it's doing great work and presenting great writings in the area. Please see this morning's post, "Toward a Vegan World," at L.O.V.E. Here's my favorite part, the introduction:
I want oppression to be really gone, for good. I don’t just want to get rid of the most “cruel” kinds of oppression in the short-term, leaving the bigger structure in tact, or leaving new forms of oppression free to arise in the future. I want to get at the root of the problem. I want to get at the root and dig out that root and do my best to make sure nothing ever grows there again.
I want a world where people see force and exploitation as wrong by principle; I want a world where, because of that, all forms of slavery are really gone—where the poor aren’t at the mercy of the rich, where women aren’t at the mercy of men, where people of color aren’t at the mercy of whites, where the “Third World” isn’t at the mercy of the “First World,” where other animals aren’t at the mercy of human animals.
In a true vegan world, ableism, ageism, classism, heterosexism, racism, sexism, speciesism, and all other forms of oppression—they’re gone. Because if people reject force and exploitation by principle, and reject violence by principle, and affirm everyone’s equality by principle, then they reject all oppression by principle. If people reject the use of other animals without consent, don’t you think we’d also reject the use of fellow human animals without consent? Don’t you think sweatshops would finally be out of the question? Don’t you think we’d collectively take poverty and inequality a lot more seriously? This is the world I want.
