Savages
I feel sick to my stomach and horribly guilty. I’ve always eaten meat, worn leather/suede shoes and I’m currently sporting a leather jacket. Why do I feel guilty? Because I’ve been doing a little research.
It all started a couple weeks ago when I picked up the new Goldfinger album. There’s a track called ‘Behind The Mask‘ which starts off with a woman narrating – talking about being in slaughter houses and looking into the animals’ eyes as they’re being hung up by the neck. Gutted for us to eat, skinned for us to wear.
Today a friend on my MSN list had the url JLoDown.com beside her name. I checked it out and spent the next hour watching video footage and reading [horror] stories that have me in tears.
How can we do this? How can we let this happen? Is it because we don’t have to witness the killings? Does that make it ok? I know a lot of people think it’s really not that bad. The animals are killed quickly, cut up and that’s that. If you think that’s how it goes down, you’re either masking the truth for your own sake so you can continue to consume guilt-free or you’re completely ignorant. I just watched a video of a dis-membered cow laying on the ground with it’s throat cut. As it’s struggling to breath, a worker walks over to kick blood in it’s face just before it’s hoisted up in the air by a hook that’s been implanted into it’s back. Does that sound like a quick and painless death to you?
Although the cow video was horribly disturbing – the footage of animals being skinned alive was far worse. I don’t recommend that you watch it. I already knew these things happened, but for whatever reason, I made myself watch. I don’t think I can even describe the scenes in that video. …nope – just tried. There’s absolutely no reason people should be killing animals this way. We don’t need to wear fur any more. There are many, many alternatives now-a-days and there’s just no need to keep slaughtering animals like fucking savages.
Funny how animal rights activists are often viewed as ‘nut jobs’ or psychos. Is it really that hard to understand why they would be so angry and why they would take such drastic measures to get their point across and to be heard? I don’t think so. Having seen how animals are skinned – I don’t think I’d think twice about throwing a bucket of blood onto a person wearing a fur coat.
So why do I feel guilty? Because I eat meat. I wear leather shoes and a leather jacket. I give people a reason to keep killing animals. Not only that, I give them money to do it. I can’t live with that. Not any more. And knowing is not enough. As GI Joe said… ‘Knowing is half the battle‘. Action is the other. And it’s time to actually do something. How can things change if we don’t change?
I have to thank Goldfinger and my friend Amanda for opening my eyes. I hope I’ve opened a few more with this post.