I have further bad news: all of the animals that go into your beef, turkey, bacon, eggs, milk, butter, and animal products of any kind also have terrible, excruciating lives, as the full documentary conveys.
If you don't want to watch this, all I have to say is: Why? Don't you owe it to yourself to know where your food comes from? What are you afraid of? That us vegans might have a point? If you're confident that you'll be a steadfast non-vegan no matter what information you become privy to, then you have nothing to lose by watching something like this. If animal agriculture didn't have anything to hide, then why do ag-gag laws exist? I thought we liked whistleblowers who expose shocking things to the public?
If you think that this clip is a shocking, out-of-context, worst-case example for what goes on in animal agriculture and that most farm animals are treated fairly and with dignity, do you actually believe that? Vegan or not, we're all already anti-capitalists on this site, and we know that any business reveres and pursues profit above all else by any means necessary, or else they would not exist for long and be chased out of the market by a more ruthlessly "efficient" competitor. And "by any means necessary" means that capitalists won't bat an eye at all at unsafe working conditions, grueling work hours, shit benefits for employees (if any), or hell, using cheaper labor if not outright slavery in Global South countries to take advantage of lax/non-existent labor laws in US client states.
Do you think that animal agriculture companies don't operate with the same mindset? Do you think they pamper their livestock and then "humanely" slaughter them when the time is right, instead of being a brutally efficient killing machine designed to extract as much profit as possible? Of course they don't, there's not as much money to be made by investing in treating livestock with dignity. These animals are treated like unfeeling machines designed to maximize profit.
Please stop eating animals and contributing to this sadistic industry when more ethical alternatives exist. Using "there's no ethical consumption under capitalism" to condone your current lifestyle does not mean that you cannot make more ethical choices within this shithole economic system. There has never been a better time to go vegan, there are many great vegan meat/dairy alternatives that already exist if you need transition products to wean you off of meat and dairy. And if that is out of your price point, there are millions of vegan recipes online and so many cookbooks that exist, I'm sure you could find some of your favorite dishes and veganize them.
If you've ever had even the slightest urge to go vegan but are too afraid to take the plunge, I think it's fair to say that many current vegans felt the same way at one point, myself included, so you aren't alone in that. But once I had the moral framework for why people choose veganism and once I did research for how to successfully transition to veganism and avoid pitfalls, it ended up being much easier than I thought it would be. You won't know until you try.
Well said :heart-sickle:
Dominion should be required viewing before every carnists meal. Animals have just as much of a right to their autonomy as people do
If you see this and think I don't want to watch that video, then you already know the answer in your heart.
If it's too awful for you to even see on a video, then you know you can't support it anymore.
If you are on this site you are a kinder person than most, you believe that living creatures should be free and not be tortured and killed.
It's not lame to care about things it's actually cool
You wouldn't harm an animal in person, why would you pay for someone else to do it.
Go vegan
You don't have to make a big deal about it, it can just be a personal thing you do . And once you're done you can join us in making fun of carnists and vegetarians
cw: animal slaughter
when I was 8, my uncle took me to a butcher shop for buying chicken. factory farming is less common in the developing country I live in. but regardless, the butcher just held the chicken down and started going at it with the cleaver, the screams were horrible, after around four times it went quiet. i couldn't stop thinking about it for over a week. i hate it, the way humans treat humans let alone other animals.
i don't eat meat and i'll abandon dairy as soon as i start living on my own. but i can't help but think about all this suffering especially when i'm depressed. socialism will make things way better for humans but i do not think humans will stop their brutal treatment of animals any time soon. everyone from the poor to the rich whether in the first world or the third world consume meat & dairy and getting them to abandon it will be extremely difficult if not impossible.
Oof, that's horrific, I'm sorry you had to experience that right in front of you when you were just a little kid, that sounds traumatizing.
If I'm gonna be a little :doomer: here, I don't think widespread veganism/ethical treatment of all animals will be accomplished in my lifetime, certainly not under a capitalistic system because there are so many perverse incentives (i.e. profit maximization) to treat animals like complete shit. The slaughter of animals for human consumption is not a uniquely capitalist phenomenon obviously, judging by how many leftists are still ignorant about veganism and how animal consumption exists/has existed in AES countries, but I also feel like the proliferation of the abominable factory farms are also a natural progression of capitalism and the fervent pursuit of profit. The way I envision it playing out is that worldwide socialism would have to precede worldwide veganism. Hope I'm wrong though, I would love to see both in my lifetime, and that doesn't mean I'm going to stop advocating for both anyways.
Edit: I suppose there's also stuff like lab grown-meat that would be more ethical, but I'm very skeptical about the ability to have that at scale in the near future, cuz if there's one thing about capitalist innovation, it's promising that something is "only a few years away" for like 20 straight years lol. But I admittedly don't pay much attention to news about lab-grown meat, I might be totally off base here
I'm sorry you had to see that. I cant imagine having to see that in person, especially at a young age. I'm also not hopeful of a change in how people see animals any time soon. The best we can do is continue to show them what they're participating in and demand autonomy for animals
amazing post comrade! :avoheart:
If you’ve ever had even the slightest urge to go vegan but are too afraid to take the plunge, I think it’s fair to say that many current vegans felt the same way at one point, myself included, so you aren’t alone in that
this was absolutely me as well, and all the excuses i told myself 100% boiled down to this: it seemed scary and hard, and embarrassing to have been wrong. and the first month is hard when you dont know what youre doing - i think this is important to emphasise for those who start to try it and struggle - but after that it is waaaay easier than you think. its not some life of brutal self-denial and vegans arent some special breed with superhuman willpower, we're just regular liberals like you who were mostly once right where you are now, except we made a decision to make a necessary change in line with our values and then just went on with things except with beans instead of steaks
Yeah it's really fucked up. And as easy as it is to want to shut it off or not watch it to begin with, I think Nepharoni said it perfectly: "If it’s too awful for you to even see on a video, then you know you can’t support it anymore". If anyone reacts to this with utter revulsion, it shows that you do have a conscience and a sense of ethics that can extend to all animals too, but only if you let it.
I did this shit for far too long, i.e. ignoring any of the slaughterhouse clips that vegans were posting and imploring me to watch when I used to peruse the vegetarian subreddit. Ignoring them because I was terrified that they would be right and that I could no longer justify all the cheese and other dairy products I was eating. And even after watching that first slaughterhouse clip, I was still in denial about it ("it's just one clip", "taken out of context", "isolated incident", etc.). But it definitely planted a seed, and from that point on, I kept pushing myself to seek out information that I knew might confirm my worst fears, until my cognitive dissonance became overwhelming, and I knew that my desire to be a better person was incompatible with some of the lifestyle choices I was making, and I became vegan shortly after that and didn't look back and here I am, over five years later.
Great post, friend! I'm sorry you had to go through that, that is horrific for anyone to endure, let alone a child. :meow-hug:
[CW: animal gore/death]
spoiler
I very recently just experienced a memory from when I was a kid, probably about five years old or so, that I hadn't thought of for over a decade, but I remember going to a fair in my city, and one of the "games" was one where there was a small bucket that was filled with a bunch of fish (which were likely going to be shipped to some supermarket or something afterward by my best guess), and kids would try to catch a fish from there. Well, it was my turn, and I remember catching a fish and being excited about that. Then I was instructed to give it to the people at the booth or whatever, so I did, and then one of the guys set the fish down, pulled out a knife, and immediately started slicing the life out of the fish, and my excitedness turned into horror, like I wouldn't be surprised if my jaw dropped as this was happening, I can't remember. But IIRC, no one else around me seemed to mind, including my parents, as if this shit was completely normal and rational to do, especially around little kids. This anecdote is nowhere near as awful as your own, but I'm posting it anyway to convey how this perceived superiority and normalization of using animals as food is a completely learned response and not innate at all, if an impressionable young kid like myself who hadn't fully absorbed speciesism yet was horrified by someone deliberately killing a fish.