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vivid V
vivid Nov 14, 2010 10:19:31
Replying to nigelswift

nigelswift wrote:
vivid wrote:
I feel impotent in the face of such indifference to the suffering of farm, circus etc. animals.
Well, Bobby Roberts has packed in for the Winter but next year he's bound to visit your area, you could always go and have a word with him.

As for the Tories and cruelty, that's part of the mindset isnt it? Me, me, me.
I bet 99% of diagnosed psychopaths always vote for them.

;)

I was made fully aware of the mindset of such people at a young age - around seventeen - when I worked on a farm. I witnessed lambs being slaughtered, in front of other lambs in crates who were next in line; calves being cut out of cows due to them being too large to be delivered; I helped to feed guinea pigs which I didn't realise at the time were due to be sold on to laboratories and also 'veal calves' who lived in crates which were too narrow for them to turn around.

Something clicked when I fully felt the terror from a cow - number 10 - as she was driven into the back of a wagon headed for the slaughterhouse because she wasn't a good milker. I will NEVER forget her eyes when I looked through the slats into that wagon. I began to hide and refused to do jobs and was made redundant. I became a vegan.

As these realisations were taking place, the farmers (father and son aged in their 60s and 30s) seemed to enjoy traumatising a teenaged girl as well as 'their' animals - the older one delighted in telling me about the old days in the slaughterhouses before stunning techniques were used (*not that I believe killing methods are much better now) - describing how many times he had to swing this implement at a cow's head, who would fall and get up again, fall and get up again. He also told me how you stopped a horse rearing by smashing a bottle over its head a few times til it got the message. etc. etc. etc. They didn't see anything wrong with using animals for fur coats, cosmetic testing, let alone for food etc. Let alone the personal abuse I experienced by one of the filthy bastards.

I feel impotent because I need to build-up some psychic strength to be ABLE to get back into fighting for the rights of animals as I used to do in my twenties - I CAN'T just "go and have a word" with such people at the moment as I need to figure out a new tack which doesn't feed feelings of utter despair.

I feel joining these forums is positive at least and hope to be able to discuss environmental, human/animal rights' issues with people.

Apologies for the rant.

G GLADMAN
GLADMAN Nov 14, 2010 12:00:40
Replying to vivid

vivid wrote:
I feel impotent in the face of such indifference to the suffering of farm, circus etc. animals.
Well, Bobby Roberts has packed in for the Winter but next year he's bound to visit your area, you could always go and have a word with him.

As for the Tories and cruelty, that's part of the mindset isnt it? Me, me, me.
I bet 99% of diagnosed psychopaths always vote for them.

;)[/quote]

I'd have thought blaming 'The Tories' for just another example of humankind's blatant inhumanity towards anything and everything when it gets the chance is somewhat selective, to say the least - particularly when we've just had about the most appalling Labour government in living memory, led by arguably one of the most unbalanced men you could ever have the misfortune to meet in 'Mr' Blair... not to mention his unelected - ahem - friend.

Both Hitler's and Stalin's regimes (as obvious examples) - at opposite ends of the political spectrum - showed what can happen when people are let off the leash. How those SS 'officers' - many educated men with doctorates etc) - could return to their wives and children after a shift at the concentration camp is utterly beyond my comprehension. Totalitarianism, authoritarian governments are therefore the real enemy and Labour took us a significant way along that path without people seeming to realise... if you don't agree with us you are the enemy.... Only if we, as as species, can one day actually treat our fellow humans with due respect will the rest will follow. Perhaps we are trying to run before we can walk, which is why we keep falling over? We need to identify the divisions - religion is perhaps the most obvious - and work on reducing these. A glacially slow process.

In my opinion we will never be able to erradicate animal cruelty with human populations spiralling out of control, no thanks to the pope and his ilk. We can just keep plugging away.... teach your children to love animals BUT in a worldly-wise manner. If a fox was destroying a farmer's poultry farm is he justified in shooting it? Perhaps. But I'd defend the fox to my last breath against a tally ho hunt for nothing other than 'sport'. Bastards. Buy free range eggs and apply pressure to supermarkets to only source from farms that do things right. Money makes people sit up and listen. Is vegetarianism the answer? For some, perhaps, yes. But natural evolution has provided me with processing and digestive systems (incisor teeth, one stomach etc) to live on a mixed diet and I do not have the arrogance to decide I know best and millions of years of nature devising the 'best fit' is wrong.