In an effort to package Senator Kerry as a winning candidate, one of the recent descriptions of him is that he is "an avid hunter and deeply religious." For some of us, that phrase has the same oxymoronic ring as "humane slaughter." But that is what our culture and many other cultures are all about: "I love killing, and I love God." It's certainly what the Bush message is all about, but that is only because it is the message Americans want to hear.
At least we can make a very educated guess that Kerry, unlike Dick Cheney, does not participate in those hideous canned hunts.
One of the most disgusting moments in American hypocrisy occurred when television news channels showed videos of dogs used in poison gas experiments by Al Qaeda. Americans were outraged, which is beyond ironic, since--at the same time--then-EPA Director Christine Todd Whitman was permitting the unnessary torture and deaths of millions of laboratory animals in the United States. Also, millions and millions of factory farm animals were--and are--subjected to torture that is so obscene, I can barely stand to think about it, much less read about it.
We kill billions of animals a year, and the majority of them do not die a "humane" death. As late as the 18th Century, scientists and medical experts still maintained that animals did not feel physical pain, and all forms of experimentation were done on conscious animals, whose screams were said to be simple reflexes. Hardly anything has changed. Just as 18th Century scientists really could not have been stupid enough to think animals felt no pain, 21st Century farmers and scientists are not stupid enough to think that torture is justified. They do it for the same reason their predecessors did it: It is convenient, and it satisfies an immense greed.
The Pilgrim's Pride factory workers who tossed chickens against the wall and stomped on them said they did it "to relieve stress and boredom." Their KFC customers do not care. People get very upset when PETA says there is "a holocaust on your plate." But just as those who came before us did not believe that Jews were sentient or that Africans were sentient, our society still believes that non-humans are not sentient. Oh, many say they do not believe that, but they continue to particpate, as consumers, in the torture, and that is all that matters.
At least we can make a very educated guess that Kerry, unlike Dick Cheney, does not participate in those hideous canned hunts.
One of the most disgusting moments in American hypocrisy occurred when television news channels showed videos of dogs used in poison gas experiments by Al Qaeda. Americans were outraged, which is beyond ironic, since--at the same time--then-EPA Director Christine Todd Whitman was permitting the unnessary torture and deaths of millions of laboratory animals in the United States. Also, millions and millions of factory farm animals were--and are--subjected to torture that is so obscene, I can barely stand to think about it, much less read about it.
We kill billions of animals a year, and the majority of them do not die a "humane" death. As late as the 18th Century, scientists and medical experts still maintained that animals did not feel physical pain, and all forms of experimentation were done on conscious animals, whose screams were said to be simple reflexes. Hardly anything has changed. Just as 18th Century scientists really could not have been stupid enough to think animals felt no pain, 21st Century farmers and scientists are not stupid enough to think that torture is justified. They do it for the same reason their predecessors did it: It is convenient, and it satisfies an immense greed.
The Pilgrim's Pride factory workers who tossed chickens against the wall and stomped on them said they did it "to relieve stress and boredom." Their KFC customers do not care. People get very upset when PETA says there is "a holocaust on your plate." But just as those who came before us did not believe that Jews were sentient or that Africans were sentient, our society still believes that non-humans are not sentient. Oh, many say they do not believe that, but they continue to particpate, as consumers, in the torture, and that is all that matters.
posted by Diane at 1:29 PM
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