Category Archives: Factory Farming / Animal Cruelty
The Root Cause of All Discrimination, Oppression and Even Terrorism
The Beet-Eating Heeb has been thinking it, studying it, questioning it and ultimately confirming it. Now he’s just going to blurt it out:
The mistreatment of animals is the root of all oppression.
Yes, whether its racism, sexism, homophobia, or even terrorism, it all starts with justifying the torturing and killing of farmed animals.
BEH was prompted to finally write about this by two seemingly unrelated phenomena that entered his field of bespectacled vision.
One is the sickening spate of terrorist attacks in Paris, in Beirut and in the skies over the Sinai Peninsula.
The other is BEH’s recent reading of “The Question of the Animal and Religion,” by Aaron Gross, a professor of religion and animal studies at the University of San Diego.
He did mention that these seemed unrelated, right?
Here’s the connection:
It is the binary division of the world into two parts – namely, us and them – that leads to discrimination, oppression, violence, and even wholesale slaughter.
ISIS views the world this way, dividing the world into two camps: those who subscribe to their twisted version of Islam, and those who don’t. Never mind that people in both camps eat, sleep, defecate, procreate, bleed, dream and die. If you fall into the latter camp, ISIS would like to chop – or blow — your head off.
Meat-eaters, whether they acknowledge it to themselves or not, also have a binary world view: there are humans, and there are farmed animals. Never mind that humans and farmed animals are alike in that they eat, sleep, defecate, procreate, dream, bleed and die. If you have the misfortune of being a farmed animal, (most) humans would like to chop you into bite-size pieces and eat you.
Gross, whose book came out earlier this year, doesn’t put it quite so bluntly, but he does write:
“If we find there are profound limits to our ability to change the deeper structures of sexism and racism, … it is because we sometimes focus on the tip of an iceberg. If we actively defend something like the present human/animal binary, we constrain our ability to rethink the other binaries to which it is linked.
“Trimming back the relatively small part of a weed that is above ground will not eliminate it if one is simultaneously fertilizing its roots.”
By this point, you might have already posted a nasty comment on this post. How dare you, BEH, equate meat-eaters with ISIS terrorists?
Relax, this is not about the moral equivalency of meat eating and terrorist attacks. We can affirm that human life has more value than animal life, at least from a Jewish perspective.
What BEH is saying is that once we start basing our attitudes and actions on such binary, us-and-them thinking, it is a slippery slope.
In practical terms, we cannot totally free ourselves from dividing the world in binary fashion. After all, there are some differences between whites and blacks, men and women, Jews and Moslems, and humans and animals.
The trouble starts when we begin emphasizing the differences and ignoring the similarities, focusing on what separates us rather than on what unifies us.
The Torah reminds us, again and again, that humans and animals are fellow travelers on this journey through life.
For instance, in Genesis 6, humans and animals are both referred to as basar, or flesh. In Genesis 9, God tell us five times that the Divine Covenant encompasses both humans and animals. We’re even told that animals must be given a day of rest on Shabbat, just like humans (Exodus 20:10).
BEH could go on and on, but you get the point. The emphasis is on our commonalities.
When we ignore these teachings, things start going very badly – for animals, then for us.
Almost inevitably, the oppression of animals influences the oppression of people. The sordid history of slavery in America provides a perfect illustration. The whole motif of slavery – the buying and selling of lives at auctions, branding, whipping, forced labor – emanated from animal agriculture.
Author Charles Patterson, in his seminal book “Eternal Treblinka,” identified similar connections in the Holocaust. It’s not just that Jews were transported to concentration camps in cattle cars, or that Nazi propagandists likened Jews to rats and other animals. The very philosophical underpinning of Nazism – namely, eugenics – originated in animal agriculture.
The good news is, we can genuinely hope to end all forms of discrimination and oppression – including the most violent manifestations – if we can get our relationship to animals right.
BEH freely admits that this is a subject matter better suited to book form than blog post. But BEH doesn’t have time to write a book, and even if he did, you probably wouldn’t have the time – or the inclination – to read it.
So BEH will instead distill this issue to its simplest terms: If we’re not going to oppress animals, we’re sure as heck not going to oppress people. If we tip over the first domino, the others — racism, sexism, violent religious extremism — will begin falling in short order.
Put another way: Call BEH immediately if you find out that even one ISIS terrorist is an ethical vegan.
Reform the Scandal-Prone Kosher Meat Industry? Let’s Get Real.
Here we go again.
Two years after Israeli animal-rights investigators filmed shocking abuses of chickens and turkeys at the Soglowek kosher-meat plant, equally egregious practices were caught on film again this summer.
In a well-intentioned op-ed published in Ha’aretz on July 16, rabbinical student Ayalon Eliach observed that “the gulf between the purpose of keeping kosher and the practice of keeping kosher is now greater than ever.”
That’s an understatement.
But an even greater gulf – one of tragically enormous proportions – has emerged between the core Jewish principal of tza’ar baalei chayim and the practices of the kosher-meat industry.
It’s not just the morally repugnant practices we’ve observed in undercover videos shot in the largest kosher slaughterhouses, whether its Soglowek in Israel or Agriprocessors in the United States.
It’s the fact that the kosher-meat companies obtain virtually all of their animals from the same factory farms that serve the secular meat industry. And you thought kosher meat was more humane?
The Torah mandate of tza’ar baalei chayim forbids Jews from inflicting unnecessary suffering on an animal. Indeed, the Torah – both the Five Books of Moses and the Torah writ large – expresses exquisite sensitivity to the needs and natures of animals.
Yet unnecessary suffering is universal in factory farms, the source of more than 95 percent of our meat.
In the beef industry, cows are typically branded, castrated and dehorned, all without anesthetic. And, in the dairy industry, mother cows are permanently separated from their calves just hours after birth, causing extreme emotional distress for parent and child alike, all so that the farmer can monetize all the milk.
Chickens in the poultry industry have it worst of all. They are generally crammed into windowless warehouses, in which as many as 50,000 chickens are given an average of less than one square foot of space apiece. These are breeding grounds for disease, as we have seen this year in the U.S., where a bird-flu epidemic has resulted in the loss of almost 50 million birds.
And this is just scratching the surface of the tip of the iceberg. How’s that for an effective mixed metaphor?
All of these practices – which are the standard modus operandi of modern animal agriculture – constitute egregious violations of tza’ar baalei chayim. This is exactly why many leading rabbis now say that no meat can truly be considered kosher.
For instance, in a recent interview, former Chief Rabbi of Ireland David Rosen identified himself as a vegan and said:
“Anybody with eyes in their head can see that (factory farming) is a categorical transgression and desecration of the prohibition on causing cruelty to animals.”
Last time The Beet-Eating Heeb checked, most people do have eyes in their head.
To expound on Rabbi Rosen’s statement:
In Jewish thought, we are not allowed to fulfill a mitzvah by committing an averah, a sin. Hence, even if the laws of kosher slaughter are scrupulously observed, the meat cannot be kosher if tza’ar baalei chayim was violated along the supply chain.
Simply put, kosher-meat companies are subsidizing the infliction of unnecessary suffering, every time they purchase another animal from a factory farm.
Why is this allowed to continue?
Could it be because the kosher-meat companies are a significant source of revenue for the Orthodox community, both through kosher-certification fees and through corporate philanthropy?
BEH commends Mr. Eliach for calling for reforms in the kosher establishment. However, such calls for change have been made and heard many times before, with little effect. The industry and its rabbinic allies are highly resistant to reform.
Fortunately, there is a practical solution within our reach – and it’s found in the Torah, and in the teachings of many of our greatest rabbis.
The solution is to wean ourselves off meat, dairy and eggs altogether and to move toward a vegan diet.
The Godly ideal of a plant-based diet is set forth in Genesis 1:29 and reinforced in passages across all five books of the Torah.
As Rav Avraham Kook, the chief Ashkenazic rabbi of pre-state Israel, so eloquently stated in his book “A Vision of Vegetarianism and Peace”:
“The failure to heed the good and noble instinct to refrain from taking any form of life, whether for one’s needs or physical gratification, constitutes a moral lack in the human race.”
Another understatement.
Your Tax Dollars at Work — Starving, Torturing and Killing Animals
The Beet-Eating Heeb is back after a long layoff, tan and well-rested.
OK, purple and over-worked.
So what provoked BEH to start writing again?
This: http://nyti.ms/1AGgtZw
That is a link to the most damning, most disturbing, most important animal-related investigative story you will read this year. Yes, BEH knows it’s only January. But this is a real doozy.
ICYMI, The New York Times on Monday, January 19, published a startling front-page expose about the federal Meat Animal Research Center. Let that sink in for a second.
On its face, it’s absurd and offensive that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is conducting research on farmed animals for the benefit of the meat industry.
Once you learn what actually has transpired at that center, you’ll find that words like “absurd” and “offensive” are far too mild.
The Beet-Eating Heeb urges you to read the entire article. But, as a service to his time-conscious readers, he will summarize a few of the main findings. Brace yourself.
- Cows, which normally give birth to one calf at a time, were genetically re-engineered to have twins or triplets, resulting in an unusually high rate of still births and deformities.
- Newborn lambs were abandoned in open pastures, left to starve to death or to perish in harsh weather or in the jaws of predators.
- Pigs were bred to produce unnaturally large litters, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of piglets.
- In one case, a young female cow was placed in restraints so that a group of bulls could take turns mounting her. Her injuries were so severe that she died just hours later. All for a study on the sexual libido of bulls.
This is just a sampling of the horrors that have occurred at this previously obscure center in Nebraska.
Granted, the Standard Operating Procedure on America’s factory farms is not much better.
But that’s private enterprise. In the case of the Meat Animal Research Center, we’re talking about a taxpayer-funded, government-operated facility. This is being done in our name, with our money (if you’re an American).
The Center is a grotesque stain on the moral fabric of our country, a country that has the audacity to refer to itself as “one Nation under God.”
Excuse The Beet-Eating Heeb for pointing out that God insists we treat animals with compassion, respect and sensitivity, if the Torah/Bible is any indication.
In Jewish terms, the Research Center’s activities blatantly violate Tzaar Baalei Hayim, the prohibition against causing unnecessary suffering to animals.
It’s the heartless treatment of the little lambs that really gets to BEH. In our religion, the two greatest leaders in history, Moses and King David, were chosen by God because of the compassion they each showed for sheep in their care.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, in response to The Times’ article, has ordered his staff to produce an updated Animal Welfare Strategy within 60 days. The new strategy is to include the creation of an independent panel to review research practices, according to a Reuters report.
Sorry, Tom, but this tepid, bureaucratic response is wholly inadequate. Nothing less than the immediate and permanent closure of the Center will suffice. Something is rotten in Denmark, or Nebraska. If the people running the Research Center don’t care about the well-being of the animals there – and they obviously don’t – then the problems will resurface.
The vegan-advocacy/animal-rights community has taken notice. By The Beet-Eating Heeb’s count, at least four petitions and action alerts were in circulation within 72 hours of the appearance of the Times story.
But there is a real danger, even a high probability, that this issue will fade from our consciousness by the end of next week, if not sooner.
Sustained pressure must be put on Secretary Vilsack, President Obama and Congress to do the right thing and pull the plug on the Research Center. BEH would love to see our government leaders try to defend the continued existence of that hellhole. It cannot credibly be done.
You don’t need to be a vegan or vegetarian to get this one. What the Times’ reported will shock the moral conscience of all but the most hard-hearted people.
So just don’t sit there. Here’s a few things you can do:
- Respond to one of the Action Alerts. BEH recommends this one.
- Call the White House, your Senators and your Congressional representative to demand the immediate closure of the Research Center.
- Educate people by submitting a guest op-ed to your local newspaper, by posting the Times’ article or this blog post on your social-media feeds, and by telling your friends, family members, neighbors and co-workers about this situation.
- Finally, counteract this horrible misuse of your tax dollars by donating generously to nonprofits that are working to end the exploitation of farmed animals. If you’re Jewish, BEH suggests you join Jewish Vegetarians of North America.
You know if The Beet-Eating Heeb is back at it again, that this is a serious issue.
Will this shameful Research Center be allowed to continue its sadistic experiments or be mercifully shut down? The answer may well depend on us.
The Beet-Eating Heeb 