As he left his hotel in Turin Nietsche saw a coachman mercilessly whipping his horse. Nietsche ran up to the horse, put his arms around its neck and burst into tears. That was his apology to the horse.
We have a lot to apologize for. I live in a country where we kill 5 million animals for fur, 18 million for classroom use, 20 million for research, 220 million for hunting, and a whopping 7 billion for food. We don’t just kill them, we engage in a systematic orgy of gratuitous cruelty. The way they are reared, transported and finally slaughtered, if you only knew, would make your flesh creep.
Animal abuse has a long and shameful history. A Descartes-like view prevailed for a long time of animals as ‘machines’ over which the Lord had given dominion to humans. Their heartless exploitation led to some anti-cruelty laws in the 19th century. These laws, both at national and state levels, have now been virtually eviscerated and the situation in the US is getting worse.
We have a lot to apologize for. I live in a country where we kill 5 million animals for fur, 18 million for classroom use, 20 million for research, 220 million for hunting, and a whopping 7 billion for food. We don’t just kill them, we engage in a systematic orgy of gratuitous cruelty. The way they are reared, transported and finally slaughtered, if you only knew, would make your flesh creep.
Animal abuse has a long and shameful history. A Descartes-like view prevailed for a long time of animals as ‘machines’ over which the Lord had given dominion to humans. Their heartless exploitation led to some anti-cruelty laws in the 19th century. These laws, both at national and state levels, have now been virtually eviscerated and the situation in the US is getting worse.
The reason many of the laws were passed was less to spare cruelty to animals than to avoid such cruelty being replicated on humans. The scope of such laws is now limited, their enforcement languid. In Europe you cannot move animals by train or truck for more than eight hours without food, water or rest; in the US you can do so often for 36 to 48 hours. While states are expected to have laws for humane slaughter, several do not ban vicious methods like a sledgehammer and several others overlook most violations. Penalties are often trifling, $100 to $250, and the laws simply have no teeth. Implementation is at best half-hearted, because at state level the prosecutors are overburdened with other duties, and at the national level it is responsibility of the Department of Agriculture, whose principal loyalty is not to the animals but their owners.
But the biggest loophole is that these laws apply mostly to domestic animals and don’t apply to farm animals, who represent the vast majority of the seven billion animals killed each year. This huge population has no protection from appalling cruelty. Because these animals are destined to be killed for food, the sickening assumption is that anything goes. Pigs are castrated, their tails chopped, without anesthetic. For better veal, calves are given only liquid diet and forced in stalls they can’t move. Crippled or day-old animals that can’t walk are dragged to their slaughter. Conscious animals are shackled and hoisted by a hind leg for a coup de grace. Chicken beaks are sliced and they are confined in the smallest space possible; laying hens are starved to force them to the next laying cycle; male chicks are simply suffocated.
But the biggest loophole is that these laws apply mostly to domestic animals and don’t apply to farm animals, who represent the vast majority of the seven billion animals killed each year. This huge population has no protection from appalling cruelty. Because these animals are destined to be killed for food, the sickening assumption is that anything goes. Pigs are castrated, their tails chopped, without anesthetic. For better veal, calves are given only liquid diet and forced in stalls they can’t move. Crippled or day-old animals that can’t walk are dragged to their slaughter. Conscious animals are shackled and hoisted by a hind leg for a coup de grace. Chicken beaks are sliced and they are confined in the smallest space possible; laying hens are starved to force them to the next laying cycle; male chicks are simply suffocated.
aThis can happen because a few giant corporations control the major farms. Twenty companies produce 80 percent of US poultry; in fact, four produce nearly a half. Four companies control one-third of the turkey market. The top four companies have 69 percent of the beef market. Five companies sell 20 percent of all eggs. Their lobbyists have rammed through Congress the Animal Enterprise Protection Act to penalize any effort to fight these inhumane practices. Malpractices at big farms have come to light only when activists have secretly videotaped abuses at great personal risk. State laws in many cases even preclude the use of such material to prove the charge of animal cruelty.
As a result, people in general are unaware of the horrendous treatment. To hide the reality of suffering animals, meat always arrives in a consumer’s kitchen reshaped, cooked, artfully packaged, with not a hint of the blood and anguish involved. The food industry has developed an extensive vocabulary of deception: cows come to our table as beef, calves as veal, deer as venison, sheep as mutton and pigs as bacon, sausage or pork. It refers to animals as biomachines and grain-consuming or food-producing units.
As a result, people in general are unaware of the horrendous treatment. To hide the reality of suffering animals, meat always arrives in a consumer’s kitchen reshaped, cooked, artfully packaged, with not a hint of the blood and anguish involved. The food industry has developed an extensive vocabulary of deception: cows come to our table as beef, calves as veal, deer as venison, sheep as mutton and pigs as bacon, sausage or pork. It refers to animals as biomachines and grain-consuming or food-producing units.
The terrible truth is that, absent cultural pressures, the economic pressures dominate and the US corporations – in sharp contrast to the improving practices of European countries – are steadily fine-tuning their husbandry practices to extract more dollars from their hapless animals. The legal façade of the Animal Welfare Act provides no protection, for it allows, amazingly, any practice that can be shown to be “normal” or “customary.” In other words, I can implement any cruel practice in my farm with impunity if I can show that ten other farms are doing it too.
Gandhi insisted that the moral progress of a country was to be judged by its treatment of its most helpless denizens, the animals. All pretences apart, we don’t seem to have advanced much.
Gandhi insisted that the moral progress of a country was to be judged by its treatment of its most helpless denizens, the animals. All pretences apart, we don’t seem to have advanced much.
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