“I Never Thought…”
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A YouTuber wrote this comment in response to one of my videos:
When I used to hear “animal rights” I thought “small cages, ho hum sucks to be them, let’s get some burgers“.
I never thought they were being hung alive, having legs and other appendages chopped off while conscious, being dunked into boiling water alive, electric prods shoved into eyes and ears, beaten to death with pipes, baby pigs being slammed onto concrete and running around with their eyes popped out, genital mutilation, live animals thrown into dumpsters, etc.
This book [Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer] turned me vegan.
That’s what a lot of people think. They don’t truly understand what tremendous suffering happens in animal agriculture until they go out of their way to learn. They just don’t understand veganism until they read a book or a pamphlet, watch a video or visit a factory farm.
It’s up to the brave undercover investigators to reveal the truth:
Elaine,
I’m a criminal justice major and trying to make animal abuse fit into my term paper on white collar crime. I have seen tons of videos showing abuse on an individual level, but would you happen to know of any vids or information which shows a more company wide level of illegal abuse? I am having a hard time making this fit. We have to give a 10 minute presentation so I am trying my best to make animal abuse fit into white collar crime…maybe I will “convert” someone…
Thank you for any info you can forward (here or via my email)!!
HI Aubrey,
I think the documentary on HBO called “Death on a Factory Farm” clearly shows that animal abuse on factory farms is such an accepted practice that it doesn’t even constitute a crime! Hanging sows to death from a forklift and bashing piglets’ heads into the ground are given the euphemism “euthanasia.”
Here is a clip from that film:
And here’s my blog post on the film:
http://www.vegansoapbox.com/review-death-on-a-factory-farm/
Furthermore, the are clips above from undercover investigations by Mercy For Animals show the abuse on factory farms is so routine that it’s not merely a few bad apples, it’s the entire system.
However, for your project it might make more sense to focus on activities that are already determined to be crimes. You might want to use the lawsuit against Westland/ Hallmark Meatpacking Company as your topic. Here are some links about that:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=8667187
http://www.humanesociety.org/news/news/2008/01/undercover_investigation_013008.html
Thank you, your suggestions are quite helpful.