Here is the definition of the word bully: "A person who uses strength or power to harm or intimidate those who are weaker." Many of us know firsthand what it's like to be bullied. We know what it's like to be vulnerable and scared, and to have that be taken advantage of. I never considered animals to be a part of that equation.
Then, a few years ago, a random discussion on a talk show led me to research factory farming, a practice that produces 99 percent of the animals we consume in the U.S. I not only read about the horrors of these places, but, thanks to countless undercover investigation videos posted online, I saw them. I saw baby calves being screamed at and punched in the face by desensitized farm workers. I saw turkeys being kicked and thrown against walls until their wings broke. A saw a baby pig having its head bashed in with a brick. These poor animals were being abused, tormented, and killed by merciless beings many times their size. They were being bullied.
Even though I was never in situations this extreme growing up gay, many LGBT people are. They are regularly verbally abused, physically assaulted, and even killed. And while there undoubtedly is a difference between people and animals, the question must be asked: when it comes to things such as fear, pain, and suffering, aren't animals much more like us than they are not like us?
I know we all love a good burger or turkey sandwich, but isn't our consumption of these foods perpetuating the power-hungry and cruel attitudes we so strongly oppose? Is it really such a stretch to ask that all those who feel be liberated from the suffering caused by bullying? Because whether you want to admit it or not, that's precisely what it is. This realization, subconscious at the time, led me to become a vegan. By choosing to avoid animal foods, I feel I'm sending a strong message that I won't be a party to bullying in any form.
I know it's difficult to imagine giving up some of your favorite foods (you'll discover new ones, trust me) but I invite you to learn the truth about where those foods come from. Really think about it. Sit with it. Be honest with yourself. Does knowing that you pay other people to treat animals this way feel good in your soul?
A brilliant writer, Laura Moretti, once said this about animals:
Animals are the most victimized living creatures on earth; more than children, more than women, more than people of color. Our prejudice enables us to exploit and use them, as scientific tools and expendable commodities, and to eat them. We do to them any atrocity our creative minds can summon. We justify our cruelties; we have to or we can't commit them.
Chew on that.
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I just wish so many more people would get this. It breaks my heart all over again each day knowing that billions of animals all around the world are subjected to the most indescribable forms of cruetly at the hands of humans. It is hard to live a peaceful life, when you know that so many of your fellow sentient beings have to live the horrendous lives and die the most dreadful of deaths. Animal Liberationists are making gains, but they seem so small and so slow. At times it feels so hopeless. But we can never give up. We have to keep being a voice for our gentle voiceless fellow creatures, as hopeless as it does feel sometimes.
"And while there undoubtedly is a difference between people and animals"
Humans are animals, and we all have the same right to live free from exploitation, on our own terms, with or families, experiencing everything that is natural to us. That is what veganism is all about. Its not just about the suffering and factory farming, those are merely symptoms of the way we human animals view other animals.
And the quote from Laura Moretti makes it sound like all animals are one group, while each gender, race, and sex of humans are another group with equal weight. Perhaps not the best way to end an article that is supposed to be about veganism.
2. As far as there being no difference at all between people and animals, I'd have to disagree. Animals don't factory farm other animals. Animals don't build bombs. Animals don't believe in religions that allow them to torture and slaughter other animals. There is a difference, of that there is no doubt.
3. I stand by the Laura Moretti quote. I think it's brilliant and drives the point home that discrimination and devaluing of life, any and all life, allows for the basest of human character.
What everybody and their dog missed re primate origins, the unique symbiotic association with hormonally and bio-chemically rich developmental environments/sex organs. Such an association effectively re-writes the primitive mammalian genetic code resulting in a symbiotic organism with very unique physiology and highly advanced neural architecture.
End the association after millions of years and the mammalian DNA in isolation does what it always did, builds an effective but 'primitive' survival neural system. The mammal slowly reverts to type, aggressive, competitive and without much self awareness or empathy.
The unique and rare traits ie high cognitive function, enhanced perception and empathy etc erode to the point that there is no subjective awareness of the problem.
Humans are the most obvious example, progressively more aggressive/stupid and increasingly deluded. The condition results in a peculiar neurology/psychology whereby those most afflicted are most frightened and aspire/are driven to take control. The result, the most dysfunctional members of our society take control, just look around.
Despite staggering implications already attracting broad spectrum support.
Rough outline here, other links on page
http://beyond-belief.org.uk/node/8
For meat-eaters (including myself, who prefers eating vegan but will take what I'm served in social situations), ignorance is bliss. But the more a person learns the back story on animal products, the more painful it becomes to see that turkey on the table. I appreciate people speaking out, like you have done. I'm just a little more inspired in my own convictions now. Thanks.
I do wish, however, that activist writers who write about animal farming would not distinguish between factory farms and family farms. While no one can argue that the immediate lives of the animals raised on these local/smaller scale farms are generally treated better during their lifetimes than those in factory farms, animals on smaller farms also suffer. They suffer the intense loss of friends and family.
They may develop a bond with the people who tend them, causing them enormous betrayal when those same people ship them off to be murdered. The relationships that animals have to one another and even to humans shouldn't be dis-counted as we think about the issue of animal farming.
Also, all kinds of animal farming reinforce the commodification of non-human animals and continue to entrench in our public psyches that torturing someone based on her species is not only okay, but it is absolutely normal and expected.
And indeed, I write this as a lesbian who was bullied in middle school. So I am always grateful for articles connecting animal and LGBTQ issues.