Don't watch the video if you are sensitive to nasty, inhuman, evil behaviour.

http://www.meat.org/index-1.asp?c=MYMblogaddr112106


What those farmers do is sick. Even though I'm thinking right now that we should have them all executed, I can't help to think that (most or) all of us share a bit of the blaim. The western society just consumes too much, which leads to extreme measurements being taken by the producers to meet our demand.

I wont take a look at that...

But, yes, I wouldnt mind if serious harm came to some individuals for what they do to feeling creatures. And, yes, we are all to blame for we dont do enough to spare animals the suffering.

I'm very sensitive about evil behaviour, even more than Minsc is.
So thanks for the warning, I didn't/couldn't watch that after I saw a video about how they make fur clothes, a guy shawing off the animals SKIN when it was still living, beating it up when it moved.
After the shaving was done, he threw the dying creature to another guy who kicked it into a pile of blood. :toofar:

Boo shall burrow through your black little soul!

I'd have everyone know that these are not the conditions in all farms throughout the world and that most farms realise that happy animals actually produce the best meat, eggs and food.

"If you drink milk you're promoting the veal industry." After saying that all male cows are put into small cages at very young ages and are subjected to massive stress from being from their mothers.

I understand that there are horrible things that happen to animals and I seriously think that there need to be standards in place but remember that the web site hosting this video is a website dedicated to vegans and vegan ideals. The image given is that bad things happen to all animals so you shouldn't eat them, eat their eggs or drink their milk.

Considering how I've worked in a slaughterhouse and on a farm I can honestly say that not all meat/milk/egg production is like this.

Evil behaviour. Come on, get real. These neo-peta groups put the absolute worst on a film (and I'd be surprised if they even scripted some of it).

Stop being hypocritical. You want your meat, but don't want to pay the additional cost for 'humane treatment'. These creatures are a product, they have one function in life and could not survive without intervention by man. Have you ever been around livestock? Do you know what it takes to raise these things? Farmers cannot develop feelings for the animals -- they have to remain distant.

I didn't get to watch the vid because of technical difficulties my computer's not competent enough to overcome.

But yeah, animal rights...I've had Peter Singer's Animal Liberation in my bookshelf for almost a year now and I originally postponed reading it until I'd become vegetarian. Now that I don't eat meat, I just haven't had the opportunity to open it up. But I'll read it eventually.

But sure animals should be treated better. Unnecessary suffering is something that should be avoided at all costs, but I don't really care about the animals as such. Suffering is the lifeblood of this world sometimes...

I'm only saying this, because addressing the rights of the animals isn't exactly the best possible angle to start treating animals better. It is a way, but as a path to treating animals better it takes a very alien way of perceiving things, a point of view most people don't have. And getting labeled as an animal rights activist doesn't help the cause, since too many animal rights activists have taken completely wrong approach to the problem and given the cause a bad name.

I don't eat meat simply because it is not only a thing that I don't need to sustain my body. But then there is the fact that growing large herds that need a lot of surface area, for the animals and for the feed is simply idiotic, especially if the ends are to satisfy our hedonistic needs to give our taste buds that delicious tingle of a fresh beef. It's even worse if the cattle is used for burgers. This surface area could be used much more productively, but of course it wouldn't give the same monetary payoff for multinational corporations. So, we'd have more food, but the big businesses would have less money. Crying shame that.

This atrocity comes only from thinking sentient beings as the same type of resources as inorganic ones, and harvesting inorganic resources isn't that problem free either. Industrializing living beings. All for the money.

Thank goodness this activity isn't replicated in all of the farms around the world, but it is terrible for humanity itself to have this type of thing going on at all, even if you wouldn't give a damn about the animals.

I seriously doubt that the treatment portrayed on the video is anything common, occational violent acts against animals happen just like they happen against other human beings. All unnecessary violence against animals is wrong and would be criminal in most western countries. All in all I think that conditions on some areas could be improved but in the end the cold fact is that domestic animals live for our food/clothing/entertainment etc.

Whenever someone tells me animals have human rights I snap. I can't help.

Yes, we ought to treat animals well. I do, for my part. Most ranchers do. But still, a cow bred to be butchered in a large staple, well, it's how it is. There is nothing to be squeamish about. I think the people who enrage themselves most about it are most detactched from it. Ever seen a pig being slaughtered by a butcher? I did. It's a helluva mess. Well, if you're feeling repulsed you miss something - this is normal for the rural world. A part of life. I think it helps seeing it that way.

The problem emerges when animals are merely seen as an element in an industrial process. Which, in our times is inevitable. We'd have malnutrition if we'd be an agrarian west. I find it utterly wasteful when premium meat is thrown away - after all, to get some 500kg of filet, you need to kill some 40 or so cows. But that's something else.
Eat what you kill, and use the rest, and you can justify killing it. That, however, is difficult in a society built on specialisation, and work- and burdensharing.

That said, I didn't see the video, and I will not.

I seriously doubt that the treatment portrayed on the video is anything common, occational violent acts against animals happen just like they happen against other human beings. I think that's an important observation. Treatment of animals mirrors the way we treat our own kind. It shows our overall state of developement. Nothing to be proud of.
The day we stop killing - through force, neglect, indifference - will certainly be the day we refuse to degrade and consume living, feeling creatures. True appreciation of life, instead of this peculiar sadism.

what the video showed, that of it that i could see, was a very biased view on animal treatment, what it showed wasn't nice, but what it failed to show, was that this dont take place on all farms.

the chickens for instance, this is what we in denmark call caged chickens (best translation i can do), while we also has the word, free roaming chickens, the later has a lot more space to move on and get out more. every form of meat in denmark is marked, so you can see the conditions under which the animal was raised, so you can choose what to support through what you buy. naturaly the better the animal has it, the more it cost to raise it. so eggs and meat from free roaming cost more then the former.

honestly i dont really blame the farmers, we the consummers support it, by buying the cheap meat and eggs. secondly while its not nice to warch, you must remember, this is food, not humans, so while it might sound cold, they arent really supposed to do anything but be killed and eaten.
that said, the complete encroachment and beating of them, im very much against.

After reading the above posted comments, I admit I didn't even bother to click on the link.

When I first saw the thread I thought it was going to go in the other direction and show how many westerners care more about their pets then other human beings. That to me is more disgusting than animals bred for food.

When I first saw the thread I thought it was going to go in the other direction and show how many westerners care more about their pets then other human beings. That to me is more disgusting than animals bred for food.Not if you watch the video...

OMG! I'm finding myself agreeing with Ragusa!

Breath... breath... one at a time... :D

Dont fuss, Ragusa. You made some sensible points regardless. :grin:

I've seen most of the clips from the video before. If I remember correctly, some of them are from the UK, and the people who perpetrated the crimes (and yes they are crimes) were prosecuted successfully.
Unfortunately, because casual farm labour tends to pay very badly, positions are often filled by people who really don't give a Sh*te about what they do and will get their kicks however they can. I think it is one of the better things that animal rights activists do in exposing these individuals so the law can act accordingly.

I'm not convinced the Eastern world treats animals any better.

Standard/"humane" method of slaughtering a pig. Stun it with a bolt-gun, stab its throat, let it bleed to death.

Mutton. Slit its throat then snap its neck.

Cow/cattle. Similar to pig.

As for the branding/castration and such to use pain killers would pretty much make the industry non-profitable. Not to mention that, yes, it's painful for maybe a day and in rare cases a few days but it is only done once in their life and to invest so much money into pain killing procedures to only be used once per animal is just financially stupid.

The occurances shown are few and far between, most are illegal and others have a negative voiceover using words like "tortue" and "tormented" when the reality is far from it since both words imply the pain/distress caused is intentional.

When there is no bolt gun, you can also beat the animal on the head with the blunt part of an axe. It will then be dazed, and before it will regain full consciousness it will pass out due to bloodloss. That's as painless as possible under the circumstances.

Fun fact: In Germany animal protection legislation was introduced under the Nazis. Background: They propagated 'humane' killing of animals as opposed to 'cruel' butchering after jewish traditions. Protecting the poor animals, cows if I remember the propaganda film right, from those bloodthirsty cruel Jews became a tool for demonisation in their propaganda.

My point: The scenes in the video are used in a similar way. Despite the different direction of the message, is nontheless an agitating piece of propaganda, aimed on generating a particular emotional response.

Hint: I doubt it is an accident that it is published it on a vegetarian site.

Fun fact: In Germany animal protection legislation was introduced under the Nazis. Background: They propagated 'humane' killing of animals as opposed to 'cruel' butchering after jewish traditions. Protecting the poor animals, cows if I remember the propaganda film right, from those bloodthirsty cruel Jews became a tool for demonisation in their propaganda.Which is odd, considering that "kosher" means literally that the animals are butchered in a way in which care is taken to make sure the animal doesn't suffer.

:confused:

Since when does propaganda concern itself with such trifling details?

Heh. Good point. :heh:

Fun fact: In Germany animal protection legislation was introduced under the Nazis. Background: They propagated 'humane' killing of animals as opposed to 'cruel' butchering after jewish traditions. Protecting the poor animals, cows if I remember the propaganda film right, from those bloodthirsty cruel Jews became a tool for demonisation in their propaganda.

My point: The scenes in the video are used in a similar way. Despite the different direction of the message, is nontheless an agitating piece of propaganda, aimed on generating a particular emotional response. NGO clips showing starvation, poverty, sexual exploitation of women, abuse of children, the misery of refugees are to be likened to Nazi methods of demonizing then? All highly emotional, all appealing to the human quality of mercy.

Here we have people, who, for better or worse, refuse to eat meat, let's say for moral reasons. They want to win over others by showing an excess.

That excess, however, if the previous poster is right, is over. The people have probably been prosecuted and punished. They continue showing the video anyway - because it is believed being effective in triggering the response they want to get, be it only their own outrage.

Techniques of propaganda are value free. What do you think is marketing about?

But you are not really suggesting cruel treatment of animals has seen an end with this incident, surely. It doesnt matter what case is brought forth when each one can only be an example of the ongoing madness of this industry. Nothing but a deft kick in the groin to shake people out of their apathy.
More recent attrocities would lend weight to the entire discussion, you think? To the goals of the site in question? Whatever the tastes and standards in excesses may be, I have no doubt procuring some shocking reports and pics wont be too challenging.

Certainly. First the Nazis, demonizing through agitation, pointing at the similiarities, then the lecture on the neutrality of propaganda techniques.

Feh.

/drops out

I really don't understand why the outrage for such as this. Drunkard husbands beat their children and their wife across the country and no one cares. Yet when some sadist farmer harms animals it becomes a major news piece across the country and the greens are ready to lynch the man. Interesting to see how mistreatment to animals is to some more important than the mistreatment of human beings. As I said earlier all unnessessary violence against animals is not ok and should be punished but the coverage these things get compared to crimes against humans is just wrong.

Dendri,
of course there are probably other cases going on, which are unreported, and could be seen as examplified in the video in question. But gimme a break: The site is of course pushing people into a certain direction. It is not asking for responsible buying of meat produced under decent conditions, but suggests to give up meat as food altogether. That video on this page is not exactly pointing out something wrong like investigative reporting on scandalous conditions in the agriculture industry would do. That's not neccessary because meat is bad anyway. They just pray their mantra and show off their scare-crow video. "Booh! Still wanna eat meat?" Every year in the U.S., more than 27 billion animals are slaughtered for food. Raising animals on factory farms is cruel and ecologically devastating. Eating animals is bad for our health, leading directly to many diseases and illnesses, including heart attacks, strokes, cancer, diabetes, and obesity. In response to animal welfare, health, and ecological concerns, compassionate people everywhere are adopting a vegetarian diet.Right. So meat eaters are ... what? ... Collectively guilty of fuelling the meat industry that wrecks the environment? Am I by extension incompassionate and irresponsible, suspect to become obese before I'm going to die an early gruesome death?! I dissent. Meat is not unhealthy. Eating large quantities of meat daily is unhealthy. Ranching is not destructive. Industrial scale ranching is. Not all meat is produced in factories, much less under the conditions described. But that is beside the point because all meat production is part of an all-encompassing system called the meat industry:
If you eat meat, you're complicit in acts like on the video. Sorry, but that's :bs:

Whatever else they are, these people are not value free in the point of view they promote by showing the video. They are activists, and they have their utopia. They will probably be showing this video in 10 years, if they don't find anything scarier in the meanwhile.

What they don't get is that, if we went back and turn food production to pre-industrial 'happy times' standard, the amount of food produced would be insufficient to feed the current populations. In every country.

/peeks in

That's all well and good, Ragusa.
I've had a brush with Death Rabid about something related. PETA and such bullpoo.

I dont get you guys. Seriously. Who *cares* what these people promote?
Your post? Fully absorbed with what you think about their ideas. Their "ideology". :rolleyes: What a waste.

Bother me not with that. I wont discuss people when I want relief for animals. What this video has to show counts, not who provides it.

Ranching is not destructiveFarming animals in small scale produces less food than cultivating crops on the same small surface area. Maybe it's not destructive as such, but it's not the best possible way of producing food.

Shouldn't be jumping to conclusions that I'd be advocating animal rights here though, just so that this would be clear.

Farming animals is a waste of space and resources. Agreed, meat is a ready source of protein, when no other source is available, but it's not even the best source of protein. Peanuts, for instance, contain more protein than meat.

What they don't get is that, if we went back and turn food production to pre-industrial 'happy times' standard, the amount of food produced would be insufficient to feed the current populations. In every country.I don't really give a damn about what those animal rights activists are about in that webpage as such. If they really would want to go back to pre-industrialized times, then they're pretty dumb, sure. But the point I'm making is that if you think about farming animals as means to feed people, then it's a damn wasteful method of doing that.

In most of the hunter-gatherer tribes, most (80-90%, varies according to geographical location) of the food is gained from gathering. Not hunting. They can sustain themselves mainly by harvesting plants. Now making this relate to modern-day society, the ratio between agriculture and herding in food production doesn't need to change from what ratio between hunting and gatehering is with those tribes. Humans don't need industrial scale meat-production to sustain themselves.

Now I understand why people arguing for meat production are appealing to how emotional animal rights activists are, and are labeling anyone whose not for them as animal rights activists, hippies and yahoos. It's because their position is hard to defend otherwise. Now you should start talking about how culinary delights are a human right, more valuable than feeding more people, or that how meat industry will create prosperity without which this world wouldn't run as well as it does now.

Somehow you should be able to answer the question what for is meat industry required, especially at this scale it's' running today. For food? Not a good answer. Basic ecology: Energy transfer between trophy levels is usually less than 20% efficient. Most of the energy a cow gets from the plants is wasted and a big chunk of that is wasted as body heat, which doesn't return to the soil. Now as humans can sustain themselves with plant food, why should we have this wasteful process of making meat?

Appeal to the hedonism of humans. If you know something about economy, appeal to that. But meat as food is a tremendously wasteful so don't go saying that we need meat industry for food, since we don't. Saying this, however, is a little like going against nuclear power on the basis that we're able to get only 10% or so of the energy produced by nuclear fission. But it is a perfectly viable stance if there is another, more efficient way of producing a lot of energy, which would create much less unwanted side effects.

Appeal to the hedonism of humans. If you know something about economy, appeal to that. But meat as food is a tremendously wasteful so don't go saying that we need meat industry for food, since we don't. The thing is though that in more troubled times when you can't just import everything you eat from distant lands getting the necessary proteins in vegetable form, when that time comes you can't just go back to having domestic cattle in a blink of an eye. Also the greatest problem with hunger is the unequal distribution not so much the lack of food (atleast not yet). If the west gave up on meat the starving children in Ethiopia would not be any better off anyhow. When it becomes a trouble for us to feed our own population some sort of regulation of meat (sky-high taxing) or even stopping its production might be an option but as it is now we really can afford the luxury.

I'll eat meat because I damn well love the taste. I'll wear leather because it's bloody durable. I'll drink milk because it's good for me and there's no better way to start the day than a fried egg on toast.

I've killed animals. It's a messy business but these things were bred to be killed and eaten and humans are natural omnivores by nature. You just need to look at our teeth to see we were designed to eat both flora and fauna. I both love and loathe vegetarians. I find their habits unnatural and just plain wierd how they turn down meat and think its horrible to do so but at the same time I realise that if they don't eat meat it means there's more for me!

When I eat eggs I love the yoke because that's where the baby bird is. Yum!

These neo-peta groups put the absolute worst on a film (and I'd be surprised if they even scripted some of it). Sorry, but the stuff in that film is actually pretty standard in the US.....something you can verify by looking up any industry-written books (a good place to start is college textbooks for animal husbandry majors) on intensive animal agriculture. There's absolutely no reason the group would have needed to script it since everything in there is standard procedure in most facilities throughout the US.

Somehow you should be able to answer the question what for is meat industry required, especially at this scale it's' running today. For food? Not a good answer. Basic ecology: Energy transfer between trophy levels is usually less than 20% efficient. Most of the energy a cow gets from the plants is wasted and a big chunk of that is wasted as body heat, which doesn't return to the soil. Now as humans can sustain themselves with plant food, why should we have this wasteful process of making meat? the human digestive system is not ment for all plant food or all meat for that matter, to stay healthy we relly on a mix of both, with more plant then meat ill grand you. our teeth, do not have enough protection to handle all the plant acid and our stomach cant digest a large part of the plants.

so its only through import of a large variety of plantproducts that we can sustain a living of plants, often with the help of vitamin pills and so forth.

to gain a fair few vitamins and the prime sourc of protein and fat,we need meat. especially in does countries that cant impornt a lot of the plant products or who cant afford it.

thirdly you cant farm the same peace of land constantly, the soil looses all its neutrisions and the crops fail, so when you rotate soil, you might as well let livestock grass there. i know its not how its done in our part of the world, because we have industialised our farms and aimed for mass production of one thing, instead of farms that have a little of everything, but to be fair, that works better.

Eating meat is horribly wasteful and as far from optimal use of resources as you can get. A piece of land that could feed 100 people with crops would perhaps feed 10 people with meat. That said, I really dnot care. I like my meat and am not ashamed. This general outrage we see when animals are mistreated disgusts me, it is hypocrisy at its finest. Every day humans, children, innocents are killed, tortured, raped and maimed in ways is on the level and often beyond anything seen in these propaganda films. This doesnt only happen in some distant war torn place but everywhere around us. Neighbours beating their children, gangsters executing opponents, parents sexually exploiting their children. If you cant bringh forth the outrage for this how can you care about some chickens not being "happy"? Food animals live to die, they exist to be food and are truly not much different from a stalk of wheat or a tree grown for lumber. Maltreating them is bad, of course it is but it is also illegal and is being dealt with as much as possible. However, just as we have pedophiles and murderers we have people who mistreat animals. It is just sad that people are more upset over the lack of living space for chickens than they are over starving children far away.

I actually agree with Joacqin on this one :)

It must be a new year's miracle

What joyless nations y'all call home where people seemingly care more for livestock than dying children etc. What's even worse, it must be pretty disproportionate, too; why else this strong feeling of bitterness. Hmm.
Cant say the same for my own.

I dont buy that nonsense anyway. Unreflected rambling, employed by people who dont lift a finger to aid anything or anyone out there.

How's that for generalization?

[ January 02, 2007, 20:16: Message edited by: Dendri ]