Business-as-Usual = Animal Abuse | Mickey Z.

Photo credit: Mickey Z.

Mickey Z. -- World News Trust

Feb. 25, 2014

"Not to know is bad. Not to wish to know is worse."

—African proverb

There are many ways to deal with atrocity, e.g: expose it, condemn it, defend it, justify it, smash it, to name a few. Perhaps the simplest and most common of all is to hide it. Just ask the global animal agriculture industry.

As Will Potter explains, so-called “Ag-gag” bills are being introduced “around the country in an attempt to censor whistleblowers, investigators, and journalists who expose animal welfare abuses on factory farms and slaughterhouses.”

But what I'm wondering is exactly how one might go about discerning "animal welfare abuses" within any industry that -- by definition -- utilizes barbaric practices like veal crates, battery cages, castration, de-beaking, and mass slaughter as policy.

It calls to mind the shutting down of a certified organic Vermont slaughterhouse named Bushway Packing, Inc., in October 2009 due to numerous videotaped cases of alleged animal abuse. In that case, the Humane Society charged some of the animals handled by the plant were "so young they still had their umbilical cords attached and could not walk" and that Bushway workers tried to "force the animals to walk by slapping, kicking, dragging the animals and using electric prods."

Taken at face value, such reportage appears to expose examples of atypical cruelty. But again, what exactly constitutes "cruelty" in a goddamned slaughterhouse? When cows are regularly hoisted upside-down by their hind legs and dismembered while they are still conscious, doesn’t it make the whole cruelty thing a moot point?

(When you add in that animal byproducts are responsible for 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year -- 51 percent of annual worldwide human-caused greenhouse gases -- it’s clear the cruelty and abuse have gone global.)

Here in the Land of the Free™, of course, we reflexively choose to turn away our gaze and pretend we don't see what's being done in our name. This intentional ignorance is that much more effortless to rationalize when we stand by and allow it to become illegal to do otherwise.

"People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction," wrote James Baldwin. "Anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster."

News Flash: Innocence has been dead and decomposing for a long, long time, friends… so no matter how much we try to convince ourselves otherwise, this is our fight.

The stakes have never been higher and we're the lucky ones charged with the most important mission in history: survival. This mission, I submit, includes a clear and immediate recognition that animal abuse is not an anomaly. It is, in fact, intricately woven into a cultural system that must be dismantled from the ground up as soon as possible.

It's either that or become one of Baldwin's "monsters." Which side are you on?

#shifthappens

Note: To continue conversations like this, come see Mickey Z. in person on March 4 at Bluestockings Bookstore in NYC.

Order Occupy this Book: Mickey Z. on Activism here.

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Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on a couple of obscure websites called Facebook and Twitter. Anyone wishing to support his activist efforts can do so by making a donation here

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