In Our Mind’s Eye

Lately, there has been a lot of propaganda about the dairy industry: cow’s milk, and cheese by extension, is found to be carcinogenic, and the industrialization of dairy farms has changed the industry to a metal and machine enterprise rather than the cozy family farm of yore, contributing to the commodification and abuse of cows in ways beyond our imagination.

A number of years ago, I was writing for a local newspaper on a freelance basis, and I was called to cover a hostage situation.Imagine my excitement – ME! Cub reporter covering a hostage situation! I zoomed over to ground zero and discovered a local dairy farmer sitting in a ginormous tractor blocking the exit of a large milk tanker truck from leaving his property full of milk from his farm.

I kid you not. He was holding milk hostage. True story, peeps.

Now I can’t remember all the details, but I think it involved pricing, and since that has something to do with math, you can pretty much assume I didn’t understand most of it. But I took photos, got interviews, recorded a few juicy quotes – from the farmer as he wielded his oversize tractor bucket dangerously and from the bored trucker who obviously just wanted to get home to a beer and his TV – and then looked around for some background shots. That’s when I heard it.

The plaintive bawling of some creature, clearly sad and lonely, by the sounds of it, perhaps in distress. I looked around for the source and saw these tiny little white plastic huts, each with a small black and white face poking out of it. Days old calves locked away in a hut no bigger than it took to cover their backs.

I learned they were veal calves. They kept them in these huts to limit their movement and fed them special food, to ensure the tenderness of their muscles was not toughened up by movement.

It was horrible! I was not vegan at the time, and had only had veal on occasion, but I did not know this was how it was cultivated. I was appalled and at that moment, vowed never to eat veal again – which I did not.

However, my greater sin at the time was not putting all the elements of what I was witnessing together.

If the calves were in these boxes, at only days old, it also meant they were being deprived of their mother’s milk and her love. I was still so blind, in those days, I didn’t connect all the different aspects of what I saw. If I had, I surely would have stopped drinking milk and eating cheese also, based on my reaction to the veal question. But I didn’t. For years.

I still saw the dairy industry as a less invasive, less abusive industry. I still saw, in my mind’s eye, green fields of happy cows munching on their cud with the sun shining overhead. I was oblivious to the reality, preferring to gad about without questioning the veracity of what was actually in front of me.

This is what we, as a society do, everyday, peeps. With everything. We have a preconceived idea of what things should be, and despite the reality in front of us, we see that and nothing else. And if something is literally planted right in front of us, we avert our eyes, pull up that bright and lovely well-rooted notion, and STILL see what we want.

Why? Because it’s easier.

We are bombarded every damn day with crap that brings us down: high prices, low wages, leaky roofs, car repair, families in crisis, crime, illness, death, war. We are over stimulated, under appreciated, weary and jaded. Sometimes it’s just too much to allow one more injustice into our circle. We can’t bear it. So we don’t.

Like the ostrich, if we bury our head in the sand, then it isn’t really there.

But of course, it is really there, and pretending it isn’t, looking away, doesn’t right the wrongs, and it doesn’t help us in the long run.

So you see, peeps, I get it. I understand when I post an article clearly outlining the cruelty in animal agriculture, listing the poisons in the meat we consume, showing death, abuse, torture, and suffering, not everyone will see it. At that moment, the sheet drops in our minds and the movie we prefer starts playing in our heads: cue the orchestra for some lilting, light-hearted notes! It’s just too much to absorb along with everything else we already have to bear.

Eventually though, gradually, it will work it’s way into our consciousness. It did with me. It did with many others. That’s why the Animal Rights movement is growing exponentially. People are allowing the information to seep into the cracks, those cracks are getting bigger, and the facts are becoming clearer. Just like with other movements in the past, compassion and understanding has a way of spreading and growing. Good will always win over evil.

It may seep in slowly or it may, like with me a couple of years ago, make it’s presence known like a crack from Thor’s hammer to the head. We just have to try and not judge an individual’s journey to knowledge in the meantime. Our paths may differ, but the end goal is the same, and mutual support is the way we will effect change.

Just be kind. It spreads.

Some Gross Morning Thoughts…

These days, many conversations often go something like this:

“Oh are you vegan? That’s cool. I don’t eat much meat at all. Maybe like twice a week?”

Why? Why do some people I speak with find it necessary to explain their animal consumption to me once they find out I am vegan? I mean it goes without saying I would like everyone to become vegan and finally have all living beings treated with compassion and respect; failing this at least eat less meat and dairy, but contrary to what you see on my social media, I don’t ram veganism down everyone’s throats…. No, really, I don’t.

Yet for some reason, without prompting, many people I meet seem to feel it necessary to explain to me how LITTLE meat they eat as soon as they learn I’m vegan – and I have to wonder why.

Is it guilt? It could be guilt because they know vegans in general are against the abuse and cruel treatment of animals, and the animal agriculture industry is being exposed, more and more, as proponents of the commodification and abhorrent exploitation of domesticated animals. It could be because they know vegans are also against the fur and leather industries, animal lab experiments, and puppy mills, and these folks know definitively these industries also profit from the cruel useage and eventual death of innocent animals.

So as I sit here drinking my tea with almond milk, I THEN start to wonder if they feel this guilt, then they KNOW, or at least SUSPECT, that the consumption and commodification of living, sentient beings is unquestionably WRONG so the next question is: WHY ARE THEY STILL DOING IT?

Why is it still such a battle for us who advocate for animal rights? I mean, they already actually know or they wouldn’t be justifying themselves to me, and if they know…well….why would they want to be part of it?

If you are eating less meat and dairy, or transitioning to veganism at your own pace: good for you! I’m so happy about that! The best method to being heard is affecting these industries where it hurts: their bank accounts. Every little bit you don’t consume helps get the message across – slowly – but still. And they are not going bankrupt, peeps, don’t worry about that. They will – and are – responding by filling alternate plant-based demands which are getting more and more popular all over.

But if you are, by making this statement, acknowledging there is something wrong with the animal product industry, and yet NOT actually working towards cutting it out even a little bit, then you are a hypocrite. And I don’t actually want to hear how many times a week you don’t eat meat. Because all I hear is the how many times you still do eat the flesh of a once living, breathing, feeling creature.

That’s another thing: it’s flesh – skin, muscle, tendons, blood, bone, capillaries, nerve endings, veins, all things we have, too. That crispy coating your licking your fingers over is SKIN, with hair follicles and bruises and scars. It could be your skin – but it’s not, luckily. It’s some other creature’s skin. You know in Nazi Germany, the skin of the Jews was used to make book covers, furniture covers, and lamp shades…but I digress.

Gross eh?

Anyway, that’s my gross thought for today. Maybe someone out there has an answer for why people explain themselves to me when they learn I’m vegan. I think it’s guilt. Guilt because they know and understand how cruelly animals are being treated for our consumption, and that makes me feel sad because if that is the case, then it’s going to take a lot more than some undercover videos of the inhumane treatment of pigs to stop people from eating bacon. If you already have the knowledge, and you do it anyway, that doesn’t bode well for humankind on this earth.

Why One and Not the Other?

Let me play devil’s advocate for a minute.

What if pigs, cows and chickens were not used for food. What if they were, let’s say, roaming the wilds like elephants, deer, and rhinos. And what if you found out, through some undercover activists, that there were places where these animals were kept and bred for an unnecessary use, like trophies, rather than for food. And what if this enterprise kept these animals in dirty, deplorable conditions; beat them, cut off horns and tails without anaesthetic, forcibly impregnated them to control births, prevented them from seeing the light of day by keeping them in tight metal cages and just generally abused them in order to profit off them. And they are not food. Think elephants, dogs, cats…

Would you be appalled? Would you be angry? Wouldn’t you do everything you could to lobby for the animals’ freedom? Wouldn’t you picket these organizations; produce petitions to be signed; sneak in to take videos to show the world what is actually going on? A warehouse full of dogs kept in metal crates, their puppies laying in their own filth around them. Like puppy mills but for cows, pigs, and chickens.

Wouldn’t you think this is a bad thing? That humans were evil to the core to be able to do that to innocent beings? I mean, they are not being used for food, we have loads of other things to eat – remember this is hypothetical. Try to be honestly neutral here.

You would, I know it. I can see the articles being shared on Facebook, IG and Twitter. I can see your comments. They are the same ones I see under pictures of abused dogs and cats. The same ones I see plastered all over; photos of Trump Jr. and his slaughtered trophies; Michael Vick and his bait and fighting dogs; carcasses of elephants missing tusks. I know you would think it was wrong.

So why is it alright now?

Why is it ok for cows, pigs, and chickens? Because we eat them? So there are certain animals we can abuse and some we can not. Why? Are they lesser in some way? Are they ugly? Is that it? An abomination to our senses? No…Do they damage our property, encroach in our neighbourhoods, steal our children? No…What do they do that gives us the right to maim and kill them when other animals are protected?

Why one and not the other?

That is All.