How Civilized Are We? -- Animal Slaughter

The slaughter of the innocents

Animals are born losers.They are willing to do almost anything for us in exchange for whatever (cheap stuff) we give them to eat. But we are hardly content with using them for labor. We want to kill them and eat their dead bodies also. So much for human gratitude! 

Dogs, cats, rats, horses, snakes, tigers, insects -- you name it, we eat them all. Some of them for health, some for human ailments, and some for rip-roaring sex. We even used to eat fellow humans in our cannibal past, and still do -- as in war, famine or as a cultic practice -- in some places around the world.

We make animals carry us around, go to war with us, plow our field and do menial work for us. We put them in cages in zoos, rob them of their milk meant for their young, eggs to hatch their babies, and finally slaughter them and feast on their flesh.

We rob them of their habitat in order to make golf courses, hotels and resorts. We even decorate our drawing rooms with animal heads and tusks.

Some religions add salt to the wound by claiming their boogeymen created animals for us to use and eat. Other religions say it's a sin to kill any kind of life but then nonchalantly look the other way to the slaughter of animals in their own backyards. Doctors chime in with the pronouncement that we need animal protein to be healthy, never mind the millions of vegetarians who get on well without meat. .

Whatever the feelings, there's certainly no way to justify the slaughter and slavery of helpless fellow beings. It's just that we are hooked on meat since we were raised that way from childhood -- an addiction just like getting hooked on a particular kind of food, language, music, race, country -- in addition to alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and religion. For all we care, meat grows on trees! As a kid, ever been told to shut up and finish your pork chop?

The meat industry is a multi-billion dollar business and a country's cash cow -- just like prostitution which attracts sex tours. And it's not just the meat but also animal products -- shoes and handbags for instance -- that rakes in millions.

Even if we stop slaughtering them for food, where do we set them free? In an ever-decreasing habitat full of predators? And we still have to control their numbers by culling. A lose-lose situation for them.

It is encouraging that meat substitutes are on the horizon, but they are expensive and made in insufficient amounts for mass consumption. In fact, they were created to supplement the meat industry. So animal slaughter is here to stay no matter what. No pious lip service to civilized or humane behavior will ever likely put an end to it.

Sure, we get occasional pangs of conscience but we get used to brushing them off each time.

An old colleague once said he only ate chicken from outside his home -- not from his own garden since he regards them as something like family members.
(Nice way to still your conscience!)

A cook at a night market sea-food eatery once told me: "I beg forgiveness from the crabs for doing my job."
(Nothing personal, eh?)

Nice excuses, but a blot on our civilization nevertheless.

***

Most people would probably go without meat if they have to kill their prospective meals with their own hands.
 -- (Exact words and author forgotten.)

Any animal friendly to man usually ends up on his dinner plate.
-- (Exact words and author forgotten.)

 Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
-- Thomas Edison

Most people see a documentary about the meat industry and then they become a vegetarian for a week.
-- Jason Reitman, Canadian-American film director, screenwriter, and producer

Man takes pretty good care of his animal charges -- until it's dinner time.
-- (Me)

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we would all be vegetarian.
— Paul McCartney