Death On A Factory Farm

So I heard about it on NPR. They expect this expose to have the same impact on pork consumption as it did when HBO (or was it Showtime) ran a similar expose on the veal industry. I certainly hope it does.
Now, I KNOW – I KNOW – how the meat industry is more cruel and unusual than water boarding, sleep deprivation, and nail pulling could ever try to be. And I know, I KNOW what a bad idea it is for me to watch such things.
But isn’t it important to be as educated as possible about your arguments? Know your enemy, they say. I started watching the 2nd half of the documentary and it was all in the courtroom. Anytime I thought they were going to show any footage, I changed the channel. I wanted to know the outcome. But watching it in the presence of another was making us both uncomfortable. Even though, the courtroom testimony was being edited to show just how cruel and wrong this factory farm in Ohio really was in its treatment of the hogs and sows.
So I started watching the 1st half of the documentary last nite and have been fighting back a breakdown ever since. (thank you xanax) I obviously had to stop watching. I couldn’t change the channel often enough to hear the reporting from the undercover investigator and avoid the images he was able to record in his 6 weeks at the facility. Considering his goal was to record the greatest form of cruelty, hanging the hogs/sows by a chain in an effort to euthanize them – everything else that is common and acceptable practice was devastating - absolutely devastating in the truest sense of the word.
What is missing in a human being’s brain to be able to look at an animal, any animal and exact that kind of treatment upon it?
I’m certainly off meat again. I had started making excuses, that I didn’t have the patience and I was too lazy to keep meat out of my diet all together. And those who know me know that I don’t eat much anyway, and how picky I’ve always been about what/where/how I would eat it. Well, now I’m off it again, 100%. Probably even cheese. I can’t handle the responsibility of taking life and life products from animals.
Then I start to think of the sustainability (or lack thereof) that this planet has to offer, should everyone go vegetarian, or vegan. There’s too many of us. the planet cannot sustain all of us. the mass production of food for this planet, nation, state, community….how much of the food, fruits and vegetables that overflow every market on the corner of every street rot before they are sold? (do we need a gelsons’ right across the street from Ralphs, two blocks down from a Vons? East coast friends, insert, Publix, Winn Dixie, etc) Why do we have to produce SO much, just so that it cannot be consumed? They have to pump the food with pesticides and genetically modify them to be bigger, shinier, cleaner and prettier for us to consume them. A dairy farmer was in this documentary and commented on how if people keep this up, this exposing people of their cruelty towards animals, that it’s going to put people like him out of business. “and then there’s gonna be a lot of hungry people” really? Will there be? Do we NEED to produce that much? And if people will go hungry, well isn’t that just survival of the fittest? Maybe we CAN’T feed everybody. When there isn’t enough food for animals in their natural habitat, which we have encroached upon and destroyed, therefore there is not enough “natural habitat” for them to survive ON…what happens? They starve to death, or better yet, humans get to hunt and kill them! Do thumbs really make us that more precious to survive.
I don’t know where I fit in to this equation. I don’t know how to balance my existence with the mass over-production and over-consumption of our society. I can do only what I can do, eat organic, eat local, recycle - but eating organic just contributes to the over production and consumption, and lack of sustainability, doesn’t it? last year, California voted to allow farm animals more space, so that they can “turn around, sit, and lie down” (or course, in their own waste) Why do we need them in these pens? Let alone why they need to be so small. “Free range chicken and eggs” are promoted in the stores – when do pigs get free range? Before they go to slaughter? A factory farm is not a slaughterhouse. It’s a place where the pigs are bread to go to slaughter, they send the piglets to be raised for meat processing – did my vote go towards factory farms or slaughter houses?
The documentary is sickening. It sickens me how we treat animals in the society. It’s torture. They are innocent. They can only scream and squeal and whimper. It seems to be the only reason we don’t allow torture of humans is because humans can verbalize their pain and fear. Why are we so arrogant? Because we don’t speak pig, then they aren’t in pain, don’t know fear and torture. It makes me ashamed to be human.

it's been a while

i know, i haven't posted in a while. been kinda busy with work - and a bit uninspired, i suppose. it's 5.20p and i've barely done a freaking thing at work today except fuck around. i've done a few little things here and there - just enough to get by. i decided to have a birthday party while one of my BFFs is in town from atlanta. i've invited the friends we reconnected with. which has turned out to be quite a lackluster reconnection. apparently only a reconnection in an effort to avoid any continuted drama or weirdness - not really a connection for a desired or long lost friendship or anything. that's fine - whatever. we've gone out a couple of times, people didn't talk to us at one party so we left (it was a weird house party anyway - the guy's bday & he's a douche for the most part.) we went to a club/show/party on saturday that was ok. the only problem was that the troll was there. i thought dude was gonna hit her. he really wanted to. he wanted to tell her to leave, call her a troll and threaten her with bodily harm. i told him i support him telling her to leave and calling her a troll, but he cannot threaten her with any physical harm, because that is illegal. i really with he would have. she's SUCH a troll. and she's put on weight! haha. she used to be obese - and more frightening looking, then she lost weight and the last time i saw her, she was more of a chubby chick - now she's fat again. i've put on weight too, though. but i'm starting medifast tomorrow or the day after, so i'll loose it again - plus - i'm not THAT fat! and i'm not horrifyingly ugly either!! we left that party, came home and had amazing sex for a few hours. (sigh) i LOVE having sex with him - he's SO FUCKING incredible! we have the BEST.SEX.EVER!
we got invited to a hollywood bday party this weekend (3/13) that should be a rager and a sidewhow of freaks! looking fwd to it. too bad we did the last of our droqz on saturday - cuz this one might be a good time - but then again, it might be better to see it all sober - we'll remember more of it! the guy hosting the party is a fairly notorious trainwreck, DUI's recently failed marriage, total party/drug fiend and a comic book NERD to boot!
i found a long lost friend that i grew up with on mahspace - heather. which may be a gateway into a couple of other people from my teeny tiny highschool that are on face book, which i refuse to join. i'll keep you posted.