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.

Dairy Is Scary

You are probably seeing the billboards going up everywhere: Dairy is Scary. I’m sure more than a few of you are probably wondering “what the fuck? why is dairy scary? damn vegans!” I mean, you probably have visions in your head of the quintessential dairy farm of yore, with a lovely, green meadow filled with black and white mama cows grazing peacefully, calves cavorting at their sides, being called in twice a day for milking. Cue the classical nature music and butterflies.

In fact, outwardly, it would seem of all the animal products we consume, dairy is the least harmful to animals. Wrong again.

Dairy production is equally harmful to the animals as any other animal product process.

Consider this: Cows only lactate when they have a baby. What? Yes, it’s true. They are a mammal and like humans, only produce milk when there is a baby to drink it. We are not that baby. The calf is. However, the calf is removed from the mother almost immediately and either sledgehammered to death or, if destined to become a veal chop, they are sequestered away in little crates to limit their movement.

these babies are destined to become veal

Removing the calf from the mother causes undue distress for both – much like it would do if your child were removed from you at birth. Does it hurt them any less because they are animals? Appearances would suggest not. Both animals are frantic to reunite, crying and balling for each other. Imagine about 100 cows and babies separated like this; imagine 400; you get the picture. Not the idyllic pasture scene you imagined, is it.

But first of all, how does the mother get pregnant? Oh ho – it’s not how you think! Forget nature, peeps, it’s all on Farmer Jack’s head. The cow is tied still, and basically a special tool loaded with bull sperm is pushed into the cow’s vulva by the farmer, and the semen is dispensed into the cow that way. The farmer’s arm is shoved into the cow’s rectum and pressure from that flattens out and smooths the way for the “semen gun” to enter the cervix far enough for effective dispensing. This is not “nature taking its course” by any means.

Milk production

Once all the impregnating and baby nonsense is complete, the lactating mother cow is then pushed into a small stall, hooked up to milking machines, and milked 24/7. She is fed hormones to ensure continued production of milk. She will develop mastitis, a painful infection of mammary glands due to over-milking. She will be fed anti-biotics in large doses to contain the infection and inflammation, but all three will enter the milk stream: hormones, pus, and anti-biotics. She will be in great pain through out this, and will be physically depleted in every way by age five, at which point, she will go to slaughter. Under normal circumstances, her life span would be 25 years.

But it’s ok – she’s just an animal, right?

It’s hard to believe people actually justify this to themselves, but in retrospect, I guess if people can justify incarcerating a certain culture just because they look different, then it’s not too far a stretch to debase a whole species this way.

Dairy is scary:  Scary for the mother cows, robbed of their babies and hooked up 24/7 to milking machines; scary for the babies shoved into small huts restricting movement so they make better veal; scary for people who then consume the milk riddled with an “acceptable” level of PUS and high levels of antibiotics (to bring PUS levels down to an acceptable point) and hormones (to keep mama with milk longer). It’s bloody scary that we go along with all of this and drink this stuff even knowing what we are consuming is not only NOT good for us, but NOT necessary for us for good health.  It’s scary that there are non-dairy alternatives EVERYWHERE and we still reach for the pus-filled, hormone laden, anti-biotic infused boob milk of another animal that is meant for their babies, the same way OUR milk is meant only for ours.

It’s scary that we humans feel keeping animals in this way is appropriate because they are “just animals”. It’s scary because we are able to justify this behaviour to ourselves because we have “always done it” or “well i was raised that way and I turned out ok”. It’s scary because we have done this to HUMANS in the past and justified it to ourselves then as well: concentration camps, detention camps. It’s scary because we are doing it TODAY, right now, to humans with the immigration camps.

It’s scary because people have not made the connection, and continue to refuse to make the connection, that humans are animals too. We are animals, peeps. Our species: homo sapien. Still animals, though. A mere gene or two away from chimpanzees – not human. Do you see? Do you get it? We are a couple of genes away from a non-human animal, one which we use for experiments because they are animals…. as are we.

mouse embryo. oh wait, no, human…um no it’s a frog….no chicken….crap…

Did you know when we are in utero when we are in the “Phylotypic” stage, our embryo cannot be differentiated from a mouse, a chicken, a frog – basically any vertebrate – visually? Animals, peeps. We are animals. We are sentient animals. And so are cows, pigs, sheep, dogs and cats. We all breathe, eat, procreate, care for our young, protect each other, fight for our families, feel happiness, sadness and fear.

So yeah, dairy is scary, in so many more ways than you can imagine. But that is one thing humans can do for themselves: imagine. We can imagine a better world, one where all creatures are respected and treated kindly. One where we understand we do not need to dominate another living being to survive. One where we follow the wise women’s motto: “Do what thy wilt; an harm ye none.”