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| Will (most) humans one day look back at the 21 century treatment of animals the way we look at 18th century slavery? |
| Yes |
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7% |
[ 4 ] |
| Probably |
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5% |
[ 3 ] |
| Maybe |
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12% |
[ 7 ] |
| Nothing will change |
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3% |
[ 2 ] |
| No, not at all |
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24% |
[ 14 ] |
| That's nuts! |
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35% |
[ 20 ] |
| I hope so |
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12% |
[ 7 ] |
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| Total Votes : 57 |
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ChimpumCallao
Joined: 17 May 2005
Location: your mom
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 Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:22 am Post subject: |
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| Don Gately wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Don Gately wrote: |
| I'd find this thread pretty damn offensive if I were a person of African ancestry. |
Well Mr Gately, why don't you direct your outrage at the man who wrote the article. His name is Benjamin Zephaniah
And he looks like this:
You can add your outraged comments below his article: The Lives of Others
And for the record, this is not the first time I've heard black animal rights activisits compare our treatment of animals with slavery. |
So because the writer is black persons of African-American ancestry can't find the equating of the plight of 18th century slaves to that of modern-day housepets offensive? I don't care if that *beep* is magenta, that's a pretty rude and stupid thing to say.
For me to suggest the article is offensive to black people and have you answer me that the author is black as if that precludes the notion says, to me, that you believe there is a hegemony of thought in the African-American community about all issues. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many of my black friends and acquaintances think that personalities such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc. are tilting at the windmills of things like DonImus-gate when much more important work with regards to equalizing of opportunities needs to be done.
It further suggests that you should spend some time trying to get to know people outside of your own ethnic background, possibly as a priority before liberating all those enslaved Fidos and Felixs.
I guess, in summation, what I'm trying to say is I find the sentiments and underlying assumptions in your second post almost as offensive as I do those in your original post.
Almost. |
A very good point. |
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gdimension
Joined: 05 Jul 2005
Location: Jeju
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| Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 3:52 am Post subject: |
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Breaking News:
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PRAIRIE DU CHIEN, WI�Members of the radical group Animal Liberation Front swept through a 900-square-mile region of Western Wisconsin Monday, freeing an estimated 71,000 cows from their human captors.
"These cows are finally free to run wild through the wilderness," said ski-masked ALF member "Brent," loosing a 200-head Guernsey herd from Milk-Rite Dairy in Reedsburg. "No creature should have to live in servitude to humans."
Within hours of the cows' release, police departments throughout the area began receiving reports of bovine fatalities.
"We've been getting calls all night long," Viroqua police chief Dale Chambers said. "So far, 43 cows have been hit by cars, 11 have fallen off bridges and drowned, and three have been electrocuted from chewing on power lines."
Among the 71,000 freed cows were 450 Jerseys from the Cumberland Dairy Farm near Prairie du Chien, liberated by a team of activists in a midnight raid. The cows were loaded onto trucks, then transported 100 miles north and freed in a forest clearing, where, as of press time, all 450 were standing around eating grass.
The long-distance transport of the Cumberland cows was deemed necessary in light of an event last August, when 80 Milking Shorthorns were released from the Miklewski farm in Beloit, only to wander back into their pens the next day.
"It was the greatest thrill of my life to have personally broken the padlock on the gate that cruelly held these cows," Animal Liberation Front member Ross Kreutzman said. "As long as I live, I'll never forget the lazy, sluggish look in those cows' eyes as I shoved them through the gate with all my might."
Animal activists are hailing the raid as a major victory for cows' rights.
"Cows do not belong in dairy farmers' pens. They belong out in the wilderness, where they may run free with the wolves and bears," PETA spokesperson Linda McCune said. "This raid was an important first step toward returning the proud, majestic cow to its natural environs."
Monday's cow release is the highest-profile raid for the Animal Liberation Front since October 1996, when the group released three million chickens into Yosemite National Park. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:38 am Post subject: |
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| Among the 71,000 freed cows were 450 Jerseys from the Cumberland Dairy Farm near Prairie du Chien, liberated by a team of activists in a midnight raid. The cows were loaded onto trucks, then transported 100 miles north and freed in a forest clearing, where, as of press time, all 450 were standing around eating grass. |
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Bramble
Joined: 26 Jan 2007
Location: National treasures need homes
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| Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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Unfortunately, I haven't had much time for message boards lately and still don't have enough time to respond to all the comments people have made (even the ones that are worth responding to). But I saw this article recently and I really hope people will read it. I think the author makes excellent points about the direction of the animal "rights" movement, which increasingly seems to be shifting towards a "welfarist" approach. Although I supported welfarist measures to some extent in the past, I now feel that pleading for "bigger cages" and "humane slaughter" is a very flawed way of attempting to effect changes.
There's definitely a lot to think about here:
hogwash-or-how-animal-advocates-enable-corporate-spin |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 6:32 am Post subject: |
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One solution I can think of is to get everyone in the world to find at least one agricultural animal and smother them with hugs and kisses. Literally. Smother them. They will die feeling our love and our sincere desire that there be no more "animal slaves." And they will die happy, know they are the last to be created or used in such a way. I figure it might take about a month if we get everyone in the world involved in this worthy project.
Of course, about a month after that, about a billion humans will be starving because we forgot to plant enough soybeans to replace all the protein we just put an end to ... but the bright side is, we will have made a lot of animal "rights" extremists very happy.
And that is SO important. Isn't it? |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:44 am Post subject: |
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| The Bobster wrote: |
Of course, about a month after that, about a billion humans will be starving because we forgot to plant enough soybeans to replace all the protein we just put an end to ... but the bright side is, we will have made a lot of animal "rights" extremists very happy.
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Bobster, this is nonsense. I think you fail to appreciate how inefficient meat production is in comparison with plant production. The meat you eat requires enormous amounts of plantfeed to produce it in the first place. If the improbably scenario you've proposed ever transpired, rather than there being less than enough plantfood to feed us, there'd be much more than enough.
According to this website: A meat-based diet requires 7 times more land than a plant-based diet.
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Farm animals are inefficient converters of plants to edible flesh. In 1993, US farm animals were fed 192.7 million tonnes of feed concentrates, the bulk of it corn, in order to produce 31.2 million tonnes of carcass meat � making for a ratio of 6.2 to 1. Additional feed was also provided in the form of roughage and pasture.5, 2 In terms of feed utilization, broiler chickens are the most efficient requiring 3.4 kilograms of feed (expressed in equivalent feeding value of corn) to produce one kilogram of ready-to-cook meat. Pigs are the least efficient, with a feed to meat ratio of 8.4 to 1. For eggs expressed as weight, the ratio is 3.8 to 1. For cheese the ratio is 7.9 to 1.5
Like us, animals are naturally inefficient because much of their food is converted into energy for movement, excreted as manure, or used for the growth of body parts not eaten by people. Very little can become direct edible weight gain. |
I did a very quick google and couldn't be bothered to spend anytime finding sources, but you could do your own research and soon satisfy yourself that this is so.
As for your concern about protein, I think you'll find that it is very much a myth that we require extensive amounts of protein rich food. It's a myth that seems to persist, even though it's long since been disproven. Protein is available in just about any plantfood. Think for a minute about cows. The eat grass and other plantstuff, Bobster. They didn't evolve eating soyabeans. And yet from their diet, they manage to ingest enough protein to grow into the great big beasts that they are!
The only people in the West that suffer from lack of protein are anorexics and very sick people who can not ingest much food. In fact, in the West a lot of health problems arise from too much protein. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 8:31 am Post subject: |
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Actually, Bobster, there is a very good argument that eating meat actually kills other human beings. Because of the inefficient use of land, we do not have enough land in our own countries to support our meateating habits. We therefore use land in developing countries to grow cashcrops to feed our western livestock. This land would be better used by the locals to grow precious crops to sustain their own human populations, rather than Western agriculture.
As the population of the world increases, our meateating habits are going to take an extraordinary toll on our planet, and regularly eating meat will be come less and less feasible.
I've taken this from the same website (too lazy to google at this time of night plus I've got a restless baby to entertain) but you can do your own research. If you research properly, you'll find plenty of evidence to support the argument that meat consumption is in direct conflict with eradicating third world hunger and starvation.
Facing Food Scarcity
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| There are many indicators that the world is entering an era of declining food security. Available land for agriculture has peaked and is currently declining due to industrial and urban expansion and losses to degradation. Fresh water supplies for irrigation are getting scarcer and fertilizer use has just about reached its full potential.1 Fish production per capita has reached a plateau and may start to fall, while meat production from rangelands is in decline. |
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| A shift in society toward plant-based diets would ease these problems simply by reducing livestock populations and their demand for land and other resources. On a per capita basis, the land requirements of countries with plant-based agricultural economies are only a fraction of the levels seen in countries with high meat production rates. Fewer animals to feed could lead to a rebuilding of world grain reserves, ensuring dependable supplies for direct human consumption in countries facing food scarcity. |
And another quick google:
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| Friends are concerned about undernourishment and starvation in the financially poorer countries of the world. Yet meat eating is one of the main contributory factors responsible for perpetuating this state of affairs. A great deal of food is imported into the United Kingdom to feed our farm animals. If everyone were to adopt a vegetarian diet worldwide, there would be twice as much food released for human consumption than is needed to feed the world�s hungry. Farm animals consume 40 per cent. of the world�s cereals. |
http://www.ivu.org/news/3-98/meat.html |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 8:31 am Post subject: |
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And Bobster, finally the best reason all for becoming a vegetarian - a better sexlife!
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| Veggies -better in bed! Evidence suggests vegetarians suffer a reduced risk of atherosclerosis, one of the known causes of impotence. A low fat vegetarian diet has even been found to reverse the process of atherosclerosis. |
From: 99 Reasons to become a veggie |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 8:57 am Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| The only people in the West that suffer from lack of protein are anorexics and very sick people who can not ingest much food. In fact, in the West a lot of health problems arise from too much protein. |
Congratulations on winning the Monthly Bobster Award for Lack of Perception of Satire and Irony.
The point you missed and will never likely address, is that the reason a lot of animals exist is to be food for humans. If you want to eliminate their servitude, the only option is to kill them, or allow them to never reproduce. Whiich means you are advocating extinction. Just to make you feel better about things. And making YOU feel better is the most important thing - we ALL want to make YOU feel better.
All of humanity has to commit this atrocity, of course, as soon as possible, to prevent all the future generations of animal indemnity. The only way to prevent this lingering bad feeling among the vegans among us that all animals must die now if they were bred to provide sustenance for humans.
Everyone wants vegans to feel good about the world, so we'll happily smother a chicken with love in our hearts, so no more chickens will exist to make you guys feel bad. (It's actually not something I want to do, but it seems to bother you that such animals exist, so hey, I'll do my part, if everyone else chips in.)
Big problem? Chicken is delicious. Prawns, too. Yum, that's my favorite. First time I had them in Korea they were trying to crawl out of the skillet because they didn't like dying. Felt a little bad, but then a few minutes later I decided it was their own fault for being so tasty.
They should have known better, what I figure. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 9:03 am Post subject: |
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| The Bobster wrote: |
The point you missed and will never likely address, is that the reason a lot of animals exist is to be food for humans. If you want to eliminate their servitude, the only option is to kill them, or allow them to never reproduce. Whiich means you are advocating extinction.
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In fact, because of the enormous amount of land we must use to support a meat based diet, the opposite is true. We have destroyed so much wildlife habitat in order to create the surplus farmland we need in order to supply food to these animals we eat.
Besides, you're suggesting that any old life, even if it is a horrific life with practically every moment spent in pain and discomfort, is worth living. I'd disagree. Quality over quantity IMO. |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 9:25 am Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Besides, you're suggesting any old life, even if it is a horrific life with practically every moment spent in pain and discomfort, is worth living. I'd disagree. Quality over quantity IMO. |
Watched my mother die of diabetes that took a decade and a half to cripple and kill her, and in high school I worked in a convalescent hospital and fed people with a spoon every day who did not have the ability to wipe their own asses. Quality over quantity? Glad the likes of you never got near my mother or the people I knew in that hospital.
Human life IS quality.
Comparing the human pain I've witnessed with my eyes to the ways chickens are treated in a henhouse ... sorry to be so brutal and honest, BB, but you disgust me, even to hint at such a thing.
At it's core the essence of "animal rights" is actually hatred and dislike of human beings. And animals. Take that.
Go ahead. Kill all the chickens. Smother them in your arms and tell the birds you are doing it so they will not create future slaves. Changed my mind, I'm gonna opt out of the project, though. Decided I don't have the stomach for your brand of kindness.
Quality over quantity, huh? Excuse me while I vomit, because I just realized there's someone in the room who wants to decide what "qualities" are important to let other creatures exist ...
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 9:54 am Post subject: |
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So suddenly life is so important to you? So why are you so keen on killing these animals then. You want to give life so you can take it away. I think you're rather confused.
Secondly, you think it's worth subjecting millions and millions of unfortunate birds to 6 weeks of life just so they can endure misery and pain for a few short weeks of life?
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Record numbers of chickens and turkeys are being raised and killed for meat in the U.S. every year. Nearly ten billion chickens and half a billion turkeys are hatched in the U.S. annually. These birds are typically crowded by the thousands into huge, factory-like warehouses where they can barely move. Each chicken is given less than half a square foot of space, while turkeys are each given less than three square feet. Shortly after hatching, both chickens and turkeys have the ends of their beaks cut off, and turkeys also have the ends of their toes clipped off. These mutilations are performed without anesthesia, ostensibly to reduce injuries that result when stressed birds are driven to fighting.
Today's "broiler" (meat) chickens have been genetically altered to grow twice as fast and twice as large as their ancestors. Pushed beyond their biological limits, hundreds of millions of chickens die every year before reaching slaughter weight at 6 weeks of age. An industry journal explains that "broilers [chickens] now grow so rapidly that the heart and lungs are not developed well enough to support the remainder of the body, resulting in congestive heart failure and tremendous death losses." Modern broiler chickens also experience crippling leg disorders, as their legs are not capable of supporting their abnormally heavy bodies. Confined in unsanitary, disease-ridden factory farms, the birds also frequently succumb to heat prostration, infectious diseases, and cancer.
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I'm tired and I'm off to bed now, but that is not the best example to illustrate the horrific misery these poor creatures must endure in their very short lives. For one thing, it doesn't mention that these poor birds are forced to stand in their own excretement and suffer horrific and painful burns from amonia as a result. But that's all hunky-dory because they have graciously been bestowed a few weeks of life to make up for all their horror and misery. |
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