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Last year GoDaddy was forced to pull a Superbowl ad (the infamous puppy ad) because of angry people taking a stand. The ad showed a puppy falling off the back of a truck, becoming lost and afraid, then finding its way home only to be sold. There was so much indignation over this that the ad was shut down.
These days in the news, a dentist, a big game hunter between root canals, is on the lam because he killed a lion. The wrong lion, it turns out. Not only did the dentist kill a beloved and protected lion, turns out he has a bad habit of killing plenty of big game, sometimes illegally. He is what most of us would call a Class A Jerk. At any rate, the outrage can be heard around the world as social media climbs frenziedly onto its collective soapbox to condemn the man for his action.
We hate to see the slaughtered lions, we hate to see the clubbed baby seals, we hate to see the puppy mills, we hate to see elephants killed for ivory. Man, we really do hate to see animals suffer.
But there’s a disconnect here. . . .
The caring seems only to apply to important animals. Wild ones count. Pets count. Cute ones count. Food animals, not so much.
Do you eat meat? Sure, why not. I have no problem with meat-eaters. At one point in my life I did, but I’m older now and wiser to the realities of life, one of which is that the world will not turn vegetarian anytime soon.
Food animals are not as majestic as the lion or bear. Food animals are generally not as cute and fluffy as the dog or cat. Food animals are, well, just food for us to eat, once they’ve breathed their last. But does that mean we shouldn’t be advocates for them? Should we not care about the way they are treated while they live? Shouldn’t we make sure they are humanely killed? The person who is aghast at photos of a horribly abused dog must surely be equally aghast at the horrific treatment of food animals. If not, why not?
I have a friend who is a powerful advocate for dogs. She is magnificent, a lion in her own rights, fighting against the cruelties, the abuses in the system, the cluelessness of many pet owners, and she fights for better safety, better controls, better everything for dogs.
But there’s a disconnect here. . . .
One day I asked her about food animals, and she told me that she loves eating meat, was not going to give it up, and did not want to know about the treatment of food animals because it was really upsetting to her.
That’s a big disconnect.
Do you buy your meat through regular channels without much thought about the source? Join the crowd, few give it a thought. Fact is, most of your meat comes from factory farms. Factory farming is why the meat you eat comes to you cheap. And the things they do - the bloody awful, the bloody ugly, the bloody unacceptable things they do - to ramp up production while cutting costs to the bone would make your blood curdle. It’s not right. It’s a brutal and ugly thing, and it’s something worth fighting against.
How can you fight something so big? You fight it the same way you fight against puppy mills or big game hunters or poachers of ivory and the like. You take a stand, you say ‘no’ to the crap sold in grocery stores. You make a loud demand for ethically raised meat, and if you do that it will eventually become available, because store owners will hear your anger and see your money withheld. You just have to be strong enough to tough it out. You have to care enough to make it happen.
Support the small ranches, small farms. You’ll pay more, but that’s what you do when you’re fighting for something worthwhile, when you want to make a difference. You’ll pay more, you’ll be more inconvenienced, you’ll have to be more outspoken in stores and restaurants, sometimes you’ll even get jeered at (ie “but what about the poor slaughtered vegetable, haha”). It’s not an easy road to take, but it’s the right one.
And you know, the cause you fight, if you choose to do so, is one that not only helps the food animals, it helps the hardworking independent farmers and ranchers who provide for us. They are struggling to keep going. If we lose them, we’ve lost.
Once you open your eyes to what happens to factory farm animals, you will find it harder to shrug your shoulders and declare, ‘Well, but what can I do?’ The question is, are you ready to look?
If we demand that food animals be treated humanely, they will be, if our voice is loud enough. Isn’t that the most beautiful thing imaginable? We have that power. We have the power.
Go ahead. Be outraged about the lion. Be outraged about the puppy. But be just as outraged by the millions of food animals who suffer in ways that the lion never did.
Be lion-hearted. Because it matters.
Photo: Contributed
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
