Help! I’m Becoming a Speciesist!
After several recent articles hit me in the face (ouch!), I realized that I am in danger of becoming a speciesist. First let me explain about the articles. I read on the VeganViews forum (Friends of Animals) that some creative person thought it humorous to develop a stuffed animal that is roadkill. They have taken a stuffed animal, put tire tracks on its back, and have stuffed blood and guts coming out of it. The “toy” sells for $40. If there has been a recent sign that humans are detached from reality, that is it.
At least that only encouraged suffering by encouraging a detachment from the reality of animal lives. But then I heard about a new process of frying fish and keeping them alive while serving them to be eaten (see above video, but beware, it is HORRIBLE). You have to be pretty far gone to “enjoy” eating something that is still alive and has been suffering mightily.
Then Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, came out. The former governor said that people outside Alaska should know that there is plenty of room for Alaska’s animals – right next to her mashed potatoes. And if God didn’t want us to eat animals, he would not have made them out of meat — I guess Ms. Palin is suggesting cannibalism, too. And she calls herself prolife! Really???
And, there are now classes where you can kill and cut up your own once-alive animal in a cooking class (or butchering class, or just plain killing class). Getting your hands in all that blood and gore really seems to whet some people’s appetite. Ten humans standing around killing an innocent pig or lamb – that will make a man out of you!
The same week, I heard on Coexisting with Nonhuman Animals about the horrors of Live Transport, a new venture being considered in New Zealand, wherein sheep would be trekked across the globe to Saudi Arabia, so that some tender-hearted Saudis can slaughter them at their leisure – if they survive transport. I imagine the humane slaughter laws are avidly enforced in Saudi Arabia, since animals are slaughtered on the roads and in backyards. (Oh wait, that happens here in Texas, too. It is called a religious ceremony.)
I am giving up on human beings. I fear I will become a speciesist and begin to loathe my own species as the most callous, brutal, cruel and plain old evil beings imaginable. Not only do we torment one another, enslave children, destroy women, kill men off in wars, genocide, and by starvation, we destroy the earth and habitat for most other living beings. We find all kinds of devious ways of trapping animals. We skin them alive. We step on them in crush films. We pen them in tiny spaces and cut them without anesthetic, without mercy. When I started learning about what was going on with animals, I thought it was a minority of humans, that if the truth got out, surely it would stop. Does anyone care? Sometimes I wish I could wash the “human” right off of me.
Please help. I fear becoming an anti-human speciesist. If it weren’t for the vegans, it would be too much to bear.
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email Tags: Animals, fish, Going Rogue, human, mercy, New Zealand, prolife, road kill, Sarah Palin, slaughter, Texas
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I’m an admitted misanthrope for all the reasons you cited above and then some. When asked sometimes why I never donate to causes that support humans only, I say that helping non-human animals does help humans. If we weren’t out there trying to save wildlife from extinction and food animals from slaughter, we’d be left with Soylent Green.
Thanks Sheryl. Helping the voiceless indeed helps us all. Some weeks, one just has to weep for being unable to stop it all.
This is PERFECT. I will definitely be reposting again and again. Thank you so much, you have perfectly captured how I feel.
Thanks so much. You have a lovely post about your journey going vegan. I will RT and make sure others find you! Thanks again, Natasha.
Thank you for a lovely post Barbara
(Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals is my podcast)
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