To start with, I'll say that i've always had a strong empathy with animals, being raised by a family who did exotic and domestic animal rescue. I've seen horrible things and heard horror stories about how these animals came to be with us. It makes you realize how horrible some people are, but you still retain the basic belief that most people are good. When I was 15 I became a vegetarian, though my friends and family believed it was a phase and often laughed at me, I stuck with it and now, after 7 years, i'm still a vegetarian. I've never been the type of vegetarian to tell other people that they were wrong, that they shouldn't eat meat. It was more like... I do my thing and you do yours. i never realized why a vegetarian, who is constantly persecuted, would try to shove their beliefs on another (puritan symdrome) but now, I believe, I understand. This video: Earthlings will show you why. Please, do not watch this is you have a weak stomach or are overly squeamish.. unless you eat meat in which case you should watch it no matter what.
In watching just the first quarter of this movie i started understanding that the term inhuman, generally reserved for such horrible people as Hitler, Stalin, and president bush, is really quite the opposite. These people aren't inhuman. They are, in fact, human. As much as i would like to believe otherwise, people are NOT generally good or kind.. they are horrible, cruel, and dominating. In this sense of the word it's people like I and other animal rights activists, vegetarians and vegans that are really inhuman. We somehow defy the inate cruelty that is in every human being. I'm sure EVERY person knows someone who is human in this horrible way. My husband' step father... he loves to regal me with tales of hunting and animal cruelty from his youth.
This video explains that speciesism is no better or different from racism or sexism and it results in some of the same genocides. Speciesism is the idea that any species is better than another and has the right to dominate other species. Those who eat meat are the perfect example. Men and women who work in slaughter hosues control every aspect of these animals lives and deaths. They control where they live, how they live, where they will die and how they will die. This holds true for many human=animal relations outside of slaughterhouses. In one clip from the video, two men toss a wounded dog into a garbage truck. The dog is still alive but not for long as the truck crushes it to death (as it does with any other garbage). Pounds and animal hospitals use gas chambers as a cheap alternative to humane euthenasia and in these cases the animals are packed tightly into a small box which is then flooded with poison and the animal dies, taking up to 20 minutes.
and all that is only from the first section on pets. This is only a small portion of how animals are treated by human hands. Humans tend to recognize the fact that other humans should have respect and basic rights but fail to bestow these same rights and respect on our fellow creatures of the earth. Watch the video. If you're not vegetarian/vegan already, this video may seriously change your mind.
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