Special to the Mirror from United Poultry Concerns
Many animal activists are uncomfortable with farmed animal “welfare” initiatives because of their tendency to suggest that an acceptable alternative to “factory farming” is “ethically-sourced,” “locally-sourced,” “humanely-raised,” or “responsibly caught” animals. This approach to gathering support for an animal welfare initiative seeks ominously to sweeten the pot by offering the public a compensatory group of animals as bait for their support for an “anti-factory-farming” initiative. People are tacitly or overtly given permission to hurt this group of animals (“humanely-raised”), if only they will leave that other group (“factory-farmed” animals) alone.
The fact is that all animal farming is factory-farming, a business like any other – only the precursors of the final products, instead of being inanimate, are conscious beings like ourselves. What’s happening now, in the factory farming versus “humane” farming rivalry, is a version of George Orwell’s parable, in 1984, of how the revolutionary Brotherhood rises up to challenge Big Brother, only to become indistinguishable from its evil “opposite.” Turns out there is no real rivalry between them, because they are, at bottom, cut from the same cloth.
“The one good thing the ballot did was raise more awareness of animal suffering, but the energy and time and money spent on welfare issues has got to stop. This is such a glaring example of where it leads.”
— Cynthia Cruser, email to United Poultry Concerns on October 11, 2017, regarding a slaughterhouse for cows, pigs, sheep and birds that is under construction in Westport Massachusetts, where activists are peacefully protesting. (Photo credit UPC)
Animal rights activist, Cynthia Cruser, explained to UPC this month that the Massachusetts ballot, in 2016, “passed by a wide margin in favor of the animals. I don’t think one person I talked to did not want to sign it, so it didn’t surprise me. One man said he hadn’t voted for years but he was going to go out and vote for the animals, and another young girl, who said she had never registered to vote because she didn’t think it was worth it, said she was going to register so she could ‘vote for the animals.’ The Ultimate Betrayal is sickeningly true for these animals, but it is also true of the people who love animals in their hearts and are led to believe that somehow someone is on watch making things okay. Time to end the sabotage.”
Cynthia Cruser’s Letter, “Show compassion, and reject new Westport slaughterhouse,” was published in The Herald News on October 10, 2017, can be read here.
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