I was just futzing around on Facebook and as I belong to PETA’s group, I read one of their update articles. I am SO sickened, disgusted and upset, I cannot do anything else but think about what I just read; and I guess the best way to work through it in my mind is to blog it. So off we go, time for more Goddess ranting… PETA has a new campaign called “McCruelty: I’m Hatin’ It” to expose the insane and cruel methods McDonalds still uses in their ‘meat production.’ Be warned – the video is quite disturbing but REAL and true and based on undercover cameras from real chicken slaughter houses. You know, the kind you patronize every week when you buy their evil.
McCruelty: I'm Hatin' It--Learn More.
PETA has put together an UNHappy Meal which teaches children that not only will the contents of their McDonald’s Happy Meal damage their own health, but is a big ol’ box of animal suffering and human cruelty. Read more about this UNHappy Meal here. I saw this bit of text on the website “PETA's spoof of a McDonald's chicken sandwich box features the image of a knife-wielding Ronald McDonald, along with pictures of birds who have been mutilated and scalded alive and information about controlled-atmosphere killing (CAK), the less cruel method of slaughter that PETA is asking McDonalds to adopt.” and decided to follow the link to CAK. That is when I became glad I haven’t had breakfast yet, because surely I would have vomited.
So, kind friends, let us explore what does happen in the vast majority of poultry slaughter houses in the USA (all following quotes taken directly from the PETA website):
- Electric immobilization, the conventional method of slaughter in North American poultry slaughterhouses, causes an array of animal welfare, economic, and worker-safety problems. The process involves dumping and shackling live birds, running them through an electrically charged bath of water to immobilize them, slitting their throats with a machine, and defeathering them in tanks of scalding-hot water.
- Birds endure bruised and broken wings and legs and can suffocate when they are dumped and shackled.
- Frustrated workers often commit gratuitous acts of abuse and have been documented tearing live birds apart, spitting tobacco in their eyes, spray-painting their faces, stomping on them, punching them, kicking them, and even sexually assaulting them.
- Electric current levels are too low to render birds insensible to pain, and all birds are conscious as their throats are slit.
- Those who miss the blades—and millions do each year—are scalded to death in defeathering tanks.
- This abuse is permitted because the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, the only federal law designed to protect animals from abuse at slaughter, doesn’t protect chickens or turkeys. Chickens and turkeys make up more than 95 percent of the animals slaughtered in the U.S.—9.5 billion chickens and turkeys are slaughtered each year, compared to about 100 million pigs and 45 million cattle and sheep.
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!! They sexually abuse the birds?!? I cannot even fathom or wrap my mind around this one. The people who work in these factories have no souls, no brains and no consciences – I shudder to think what their karma must be like. I do applaud PETA, however, for pointing out how the typical methods outlined above are also dangerous for the workers themselves.
Now, I know some of you think of PETA as a radical, leftist terrorist organization who wants to take your fur coats, hotdogs and good ol’ American fun away from you. I will say you’re wrong, we do not want to spoil anyone’s fun – least of all, the animals'. Selfishness and absolute gratification are not good American values that need any defending.
I am somewhat pleased to report that more humane methods of killing, such as CAK advocated above, are the norm in Europe and in my home, the UK. While I am still categorically against the taking of animal life for any reason, at least if they are still to be slaughtered, the method of death should be less evil.
Whenever I post a little blurb on Facebook about the cruelty of eating meat or the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle, I ALWAYS get little self-conscious, defensive (but friendly) replies from my friends, nervously defending their own meat-eating choices. 99% of the time it reads something like this – ‘well, we really don’t eat meat all that often, only once a day/ week/ month, but I try to be environmental otherwise…” In other words, they know I'm right deep down, but want me to think highly of them anyways. I love my friends a ton and I know they are generally good people, but…
I am sick of dicking around. IF YOU EAT MEAT YOU ARE A BAD PERSON. IMMORAL, CRUEL AND SELFISH TO THE MAX. No more hand-holding, ethical relativism or ass-kissing. You just cannot eat animals and retain any degree of conscience today. And if you feed it to your children, you’re a double shit. And please do not accuse me of crude self-righteousness here. That is not what this is about, and as I still eat fish once in a while, I'm in the same unethical shithead boat as the rest of you. Plus, I have thought deeply about all these issues, and think about them every day. I’m too smart to merely be up on my ethical high horse here. And so what if I am?!? You’re the shithead who practices cruelty on a daily basis, then licks the delicious BBQ sauce right off your fingers.
PLEASE please please chose compassion and humanity over cruelty and selfishness. It won't cost you anything! Thanks for reading and listening and thinking...
