"Another
Bacon Burger, Anyone?"
By Jason Miller
28 March, 2007
Countercurrents.org
“If my competitor were drowning, I’d stick a hose in
his mouth and turn on the water.”
--Ray Kroc
“….a funny,
jowly, canny, barbarous guy who lives in a multimillion-dollar condo
on Park Avenue in Manhattan and conveys himself about the planet in
a corporate jet and a private yacht. At sixty-seven, he is unrepentant
in the face of criticism. He describes himself as a "tough man
in a tough business"….."The animal-rights people,"
he once said, "want to impose a vegetarian's society on the U.S.
Most vegetarians I know are neurotic."”
--Jeff Tietz’s
description of meat processing magnate, Joseph Luter III (from his Rolling
Stone article, “Boss Hog”)
Despite
the obvious signs that our nation is declining rapidly and despite the
increasing global animosity against us for our greed, excesses, hypocrisy,
and belligerence, we US Americans are defiantly “staying the course”.
Neither harsh reality nor the ire of the world community has shaken
our foundations. Mouthing hollow platitudes about freedom and liberty
while supporting a war machine perpetrating genocide in Iraq, we mindlessly
buttress a socioeconomic system some of history’s most notable
fascists would envy.
While many of us mollify
ourselves with the belief that the malevolence of the Bush administration
is merely an anomaly in American government, the reality is that the
current administration has simply become emboldened enough to dispose
of the false mask of benevolence worn tightly by its predecessors.
Let’s face it. We are
obsessed with American Capitalism, a system so rotten that it actually
encourages, enables, legalizes, and richly rewards pathological degrees
of narcissism, greed, competitiveness, and ruthlessness. While millions
suffer and die because of us, we cocoon ourselves in impenetrable bubbles
of denial and continue feeding our pathetic addictions to fast food,
gas guzzling automobiles, American Idol, military domination, video
games, the NFL, “righteous” Christianity, and the acquisition
of material possessions. Yet we actually expect human beings who are
not mentally incapacitated to believe that the United States is a beacon
of hope for humanity on a noble quest to spread “freedom and democracy”?
How could one maintain a
straight face while asserting that a Constitutional Republic (alleged
to be premised on Enlightened principles) could co-exist with such a
deeply depraved socioeconomic system?
We’re talking about
the system that made the “successes” of men like Ray Kroc
and Joseph Luter III possible. Those eager to assuage their guilt or
avoid the mental exercise of critical thinking can simply embrace the
inane mythology that those who rise to the top of the economic hierarchy
in the United States are harmlessly enjoying the fruits of their labor
they so richly deserve. Yet for truth seekers, this conclusion reeks
with a stench that rivals the pungent stink of Boss Hog’s factory
farms.
Since the meat industrial
complex represents such a rich example of the abject inhumanity of American
Capitalism, corporations like Smithfield Foods and McDonald’s
were so instrumental in the growth of this complex, and men like Kroc
and Luter profited so handsomely from such a massive entity’s
existence, let’s scrutinize the devastation this abominable entity
is wreaking upon our fur, feather and scale-bearing cousins, the Earth,
and humanity.
According to muck-raking
journalist Eric Schlosser, US Americans spent over $110 billion on fast
food in the year 2000, more than they did on higher education. Aside
from being a tragic indicator of our grossly misplaced priorities, this
shocking statistic is an indictment of McDonald’s and its ilk.
Ubiquity, affordability, convenience, laboratory-developed great taste,
and a capacity to manipulate public opinion that puts Bernays to shame
enable fast food giants to spread like noxious weeds, annihilating hapless
“mom and pop” competitors like so much “collateral
damage” in a US imperialistic invasion.
And what red-blooded American
would leave the drive-thru without a Big Mac, chicken nuggets, sausage
biscuit, bacon burger, fish sandwich, or some other delightful victual
containing meat?
To keep up with the sky-rocketing
demand for meat caused by the mass-production and mass consumption of
fast food, men like Luter jumped to the fore to pioneer factory farming
and “vertical integration” of the industry.
Thanks to corporate behemoths,
livestock producing family farms are all but extinct. In the United
States, 54% of cattle are raised by 5% of the nation’s farms and
corporate entities produce a staggering 98% of our poultry.
While many pets in our country
receive better care than billions of deeply impoverished humans in developing
countries, we consume the flesh, fat, and muscle of sentient beings
merely to satiate our carnivorous desires. Compounding this barbarism
is the fact that this behavior enriches those who condemn millions of
pigs, cattle, fish, and chickens to abbreviated and miserable existences.
Consider what our fellow
living beings endure that we might indulge ourselves with burgers, filets,
chops and such:
“Unfortunately, this
trend of mass production has resulted in incredible pain and suffering
for the animals. Animals today raised on factory farms have had their
genes manipulated and pumped full of antibiotics, hormones and other
chemicals to encourage high productivity. In the food industry, animals
are not considered animals at all; they are food producing machines.
They are confined to small cages with metal bars, ammonia-filled air
and artificial lighting or no lighting at all. They are subjected to
horrible mutilations: beak searing, tail docking, ear cutting and castration.
Even the most minimum humane standards proposed are thwarted by the
powerful food conglomerates.”
The 9 billion chickens raised
each year for their meat are packed into horribly over-crowded, filthy
and under-ventilated sheds. Pharmaceuticals and genetic manipulation
accelerate their body growth to the extent that their internal organs
often fail or they become severely crippled. Denied their natural inclinations
to roost, nest, and bathe in the sun, their wretched lives end with
a slash of their throats by a mechanical razor.
85 million cattle die each
year to put beef on our tables. Four corporate conglomerates account
for 80% of this massive slaughter. Ravaged by diseases and metabolic
disorders caused by unnatural diets, over-crowding, and cocktails of
growth-enhancing hormones and antibiotics, cattle fare little better
than their feathered counter-parts. Branding, castration, waddling,
and dehorning are often performed without anesthesia. In spite of the
Humane Slaughter Act, many cattle are improperly stunned before their
throats are slit to bleed them in preparation for the final mutilation
of their remains.
“Pigs have the cognitive
ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly
[more so than] three-year-olds,” says Dr. Donald Broom, Cambridge
University professor and former scientific advisor to the Council of
Europe.” Yet each year in the United States we torture and kill
100 million of them. Factory “farmers” keep sows confined
in tiny spaces and in perpetual states of impregnation for several years
until they are eventually slaughtered. Hogs are “fortunate”
in that their sentence to a life of profound misery is a “mere”
six months before they “nobly sacrifice themselves” to provide
us with ham, sausage, and bacon. As with cattle, pigs are subjected
to multiple mutilations without pain-killers, including tail and tooth
removal. Cursed by their own intellect, the porcine “farm”
experience is perhaps the cruelest. Packing them into claustrophobic
enclosures causes them serious mental distress, often leading to cannibalism,
self-mutilation, and repetitive, compulsive behaviors.
Commercial fishing has decimated
fish populations to the extent that nearly 30% of the seafood we consume
now needs to be raised on aquafarms. Aside from driving some varieties
of fish to near extinction, commercial fishing techniques cause the
deaths of over 100,000 marine mammals each year. Fish raised on aquafarms
face many of the same horrors as their terrestrial cousins. Over-crowding,
disease, and injury kill approximately 40% of farm-raised fish before
they reach market. Aquafarming also has disastrous environmental consequences
resulting from the release of “tons of fish feces, antibiotic-laden
fish feed, and diseased fish carcasses.”
What does our overwhelming
support for this systematic torment and massacre of millions of our
fellow creatures say about our society? Patrice Greanville, board member
of Animal People Magazine, editor and publisher of Cyrano’s Journal
Online, and renowned Leftist radical, put it like this:
“This moral blindness
is inexcusable for those who rightly see themselves as the moral vanguard
of humanity. For the bottom line is that speciesism—a surreptitious
form of human fascism applied to animals and nature in general—is
by far the oldest and most pervasive form of brutal tyrannization encountered
in the sorry annals of human history. I don't use the word "fascism"
as hyperbole in this context or for dramatic effect. I wish it were
hyperbole. But the fact is that fascism is noted for its unilateral
proclamations of superiority by a certain race or breed, endowing said
race with the "right" to dominate, exploit, and annihilate
at will any group deemed "inferior." If that pretty much doesn't
describe eloquently our despicable behavior toward non-human animals,
I don't know what does.”
Speciesism is yet another ugly manifestation of the hubristic narcissism
that has infected our collective psyche here in the United States. While
tormenting and butchering “lesser beings” simply to please
our palates is reprehensible behavior, there is a less obvious but equally
sinister component to the meat industrial complex. Let’s explore
it, shall we?
Consuming meat is a luxury that comes with an extremely high human cost.
While dated, agricultural economist Rene Dumont’s observation
rings even more true in 2007 than when he made it in 1974:
"The overconsumption of meat by the rich means hunger for the poor.
This wasteful agriculture must be changed - by the suppression of feedlots
where beef are fattened on grains, and even a massive reduction of beef
cattle."
Dr. Aaron Altshul, author
of Proteins: Their Chemistry and Politics, concluded that the foods
cultivated to sustain a vegetarian diet provide enough calories per
acre to support twenty times more people than the meat produced by raising
livestock. Altshul further observed that the Earth could support up
to 20 billion people if available agricultural land was devoted to cultivating
vegetarian sustenance.
So while we savor our succulent T-bones, relish our tender pork loin,
and feast upon our marinated chicken breasts, over 35,000 of our fellow
human beings starve to death EACH DAY. 30,000 of them are CHILDREN UNDER
THE AGE OF FIVE.
Consider these disturbing facts (most of which can be found here):
--80% of starving children live in countries where there is actually
a grain surplus, but farmers use the grain to feed livestock in order
to sell meat to wealthier nations
--Due to its profitability, cattle ranching is rapidly replacing the
cultivation of essential crops in Central and South America (where millions
of people are malnourished or starving). Deforestation to create cattle
pasture is also occurring at an alarming rate.
--Over 70% of the grain that we grow goes to feed livestock. Of the
calories animals derive from this grain, only a small percentage yields
meat for human consumption.
--In a world in which potable water is becoming increasingly scarce,
the United States devotes 50% of its supply to livestock production.
--Raising crops to feed humans requires far less land than producing
meat. Today there is 2/3 of an acre of arable land per person on the
Earth. Within 40 years that figure is expected to drop to 1/3 of an
acre.
--Typically, 60 gallons of water will yield one pound of wheat. It takes
about 2500 gallons to produce a pound of beef. While water is a fairly
renewable resource, the meat industrial complex does its best (or more
appropriately, worst) to ensure that such renewal is seriously compromised.
The EPA has determined that livestock waste, 1.4 billion tons of which
were released into our water supply in 1996, is the principal water
pollutant in the United States.
--“Vegfam, a British non-profit organization also claims that
10 acres can support 60 people when growing soybeans, 24 when growing
wheat, 10 when growing corn, 2 when raising cattle. Also, PETA claims,
"because of deforestation for cattle land, each vegetarian saves
1 acre of rainforest a year."”
Pork chops, fried chicken, bacon, and KC strip steaks are delectable
in a way that defies description. Yet like so many of the tantalizing
offerings dangled before us by our corporate masters, they are contributing
to the demise of the human race, our animal brethren, and the Earth
itself.
The system we have been conditioned to accept, support, and adore is
unsustainable, vile, exploitative, and, frankly, murderous. American
Capitalism is little more than an “evolved” form of feudalism
in which corporations have replaced lords and the working class has
been condemned to economic serfdom. The concomitant symptoms of this
global malignancy, including runaway industrialization, imperial conquest,
technological advances sans ethical considerations, environmental destruction,
fascism, racism, speciesism, neoliberalism, and rampant consumerism,
are straining the Earth and its inhabitants beyond reasonable limits.
Don Robertson, the American Philosopher, has concluded that “we
are all moral barbarians today.”
If we wish to evolve into
more civilized human beings and perpetuate life on Earth, we need to
put some serious effort into embodying Robertson’s moral imperative:
“The moral imperative of life is to live a life that detracts
not at all from the lives available to those who will follow us into
this world.”
While not easy, shunning the egregiously deleterious meat industrial
complex is a simple first step. (To learn more, go to http://www.goveg.com/)
Disclosure Statement: The author of this essay converted
to vegetarianism two months ago. As a result, he has experienced spiritual,
physical, and mental invigoration. He highly recommends it.
Jason Miller is
a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually
and spiritually. He writes prolifically, his essays been widely published,
he is an associate editor for Cyrano’s Journal Online, and he
volunteers at homeless shelters. He welcomes constructive correspondence
at [email protected]
or via his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/
End Notes:
(1a) http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/
12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_
producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters
(1) http://sociology.ucsc.edu/
whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
(2) http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2525/
(3) http://www.idausa.org/facts/factoryfarmfacts.html
(4) http://www.goveg.com/factoryFarming.asp
(5) http://www.factoryfarming.com/poultry.htm
(6) http://www.factoryfarming.com/beef.htm
(7) http://www.compassionatecooks.com/blog/
2007/02/ugly-reality-of-mutilation.html
(8) http://www.downbound.com/Pork_s/462.htm
(9) http://www.factoryfarming.com/fish.htm
(10) http://www.fishinghurts.com/FishFarms.asp
(11) http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/current.html
(12) http://www.bestcyrano.org/
(13) http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/2007
/01/he-who-says-speciesism-says-fascism.html
(14) http://www.hknet.org.nz/Cost-of-meat-page.htm
(15) ibid
(16) http://www.starvation.net/
(17) http://www.goveg.com/worldHunger-
animalAgriculture.asp
(18) http://everything2.com/index.pl?
node_id=1323852&lastnode_id=0
(19) http://www.vegsource.com/
articles/pimentel_water.htm
(20) http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/
2007/01/brief-schematic-of-morality.html
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