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.

AR Activists Fight For People Too

I often hear “Why are you so worried about animals? What about the human rights issues?” Being a vegan and animal-rights advocate and humanitarian are not mutually exclusive. One feeds into the other in multiple ways.

When I rail against the treatment of agricultural animals at factory farms and slaughterhouses, one thing seems to get swept under the rug: who is committing these atrocious behaviours? We are presented with these clandestine videos of horrific abuse perpetrated on these innocents, and we heave a collective cry of “Animal Abuse” and that is what we tend to focus on: the action of the abuse and the suffering of the non-human animal on the receiving end.

What about the person behind the steel-toed boots and heavy work gloves? Who is he/she? (I will continue on with this article using the pronoun “he” for simplicity’s sake) Why would anyone take a job like this? Are they really ok with this behaviour? Do they behave this way with their own pets or children? WHAT THE FUCK?

I was perusing Twitter this morning and saw a post by @agargmd stating the animal agriculture business is not a friend of minorities and migrant workers and the American diet supports the industries and politicians who continue to oppress these peoples.

BING! I had an Oprah Lightbulb Moment that flashed like stick lightning striking ground.

Of course! An industry of oppression uses the oppressed to fuel it.

The Guardian states: “Most farm work in America is performed by immigrants, most of whom are undocumented and therefore exploitable. The big agribusinesses that hire these immigrants will tell you that they need an unfettered supply of cheap foreign labor, because they cannot find Americans willing to do these jobs.”

Another quote: “According to a report compiled by Eric Ruark (pdf), the director of research at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (Fair), as of 2006, only 27% of workers hired by agribusinesses are American citizens, 21% are green card holders, around 1% are part of the guest worker program … and a whopping 51% are unauthorized immigrants.”

50 PER CENT are unauthorized immigrants! Holy fuck!

In Canada, upwards of 25,000 migrant workers are brought in legally to do work farmers need which citizens apparently won’t do; the exact number of undocumented migrants was estimated in 2004 as more than 36,000, doing a variety of jobs such as cleaning, nannying, labour and farm labour.

Ok so there is no shortage of illegals to hire for these less-than-desirable jobs in the agricultural industry. These people face working conditions which just barely meet industry standards in most cases, risking life and limb daily. In 2004 Tyson received a citation for an employee who inhaled hydrogen sulfide and was asphyxiated – did I read that right? A CITATION? For a death?

Between 2003-5, Maple Leaf Farms was issued 18 violations and fines for unsafe practices including hazardous machines and chemicals, and a number of other unsafe procedures.

Child labour is a thing too. 57 Guatemalen under-age workers were found at a kosher meatpacking plant in Iowa. What the ACTUAL fuck?

Clearly, this industry is death for everyone: humans and non-humans alike.

These migrant families work in this industry because even an unregulated salary is better than no salary at all. The farmers not only have these people by the pursestrings but also by the heartstrings, as they are working towards a better life for their family than they had in their home country. Unable to legally enter the country for various reasons, they resorted to illegal channels and are forced to take whatever job is available no matter how abhorrent and with no safety net of lawful protocol with which to protect themselves.

So here is one way Animal Rights meets Human Rights.

By policing these industries and advocating for animals, we are also assisting humans caught in this cycle of oppression and suppression. We are educating the public at large not only of the great inhumane treatment of innocent non-human animals, but also the inhumane treatment of men, women and children caught up in this life or death system which functions right under our noses, in our neighbourhoods, down our streets, in our backyards.

Yeah, right there.

And we are blind to it, because we prefer to look away from nastiness and pretend it isn’t happening. Because we see our “food” (read animal flesh) packaged up nice and cleanly in open freezers with little fake parsley garland at the edges and Enya playing on the overhead speakers. Get those rose-coloured glasses off, peeps, there is as much inhumanity being perpetrated in our own country as in those we castigate as barbaric and condemn to outer reaches of civilization.

We are animals too; Animal Rights includes us all.