Encouraging Signs Of Late

Staring into the abyss too long not only hurts the eyes, it can crush the soul. To allow yourself to empathize with suffering animals is noble. However, taking in too much suffering, seeing nothing but agony, and seeking out only the negative, can leave the sensitive person feeling defeated, traumatized and alone. That is why here at We're All Animals, I encourage kindred spirits to take out a moment from time to time to look on the bright side. Sometimes it's easy to miss the good things, the encouraging developments. They don't always generate headlines. But they're there.

There are five encouraging developments that are worth highlighting here. All three given me a heightened sense of hope about the future.

1. Denny's is now going gestation crate-free! They'll be joining McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and other fast-food giants in moving away from the practice of forcing pregnant pigs into tiny cages.  It's hard to grasp the significance of this development unless you know a bit about the history of Denny's. Growing up in a conservative Red State, I remember Denny's being the restaurant of choice for ordinary folks, working stiffs, truckers, night owls, flapjack-loving patriots and elderly men and women who sought out big plates of food for cheap prices. Denny's was always the all-American joint, usually located near the freeway, promising comfort food at all hours of the day and night. Denny's, according to the L.A. Times, has more than 1,650 locations across the United States. And they serve an awful lot of food made out of various pig products. So when they start the move away from gestation crates, that will have a big impact.

Said Greg Lindford, Denny's vice president of procurement and distribution: "Denny's takes its role as a responsible corporate citizen seriously. We will endeavor to purchase products from companies that provide gestation crate-free pork and are committed to influencing our suppliers to share in a gestation crate-free vision for the future."

Score one for the movement to jettison gestation crates. Actually, score many! Up here in Canada, the massive doughnut chain Tim Hortons is moving in the same direction.

2. While we're talking gestation crates, the grocery store chain Safeway in the United States is also going gestation crate free. Some vegans may say this is not enough. And they're right. But for these huge chains to acknowledge the cruelty of gestation crates, an issue that wasn't even on the table five years ago (honestly, who in 2007 even knew about gestation crates?) means the animal rights and animal welfare movements are having a huge influence on these corporations.

3. According to Mercy for Animals, meat consumption is on the decline in the United States. This is great news. As MFA notes:

In 2011, compared to 2010, the number of land animals that died for American consumption fell from 8.4 to 8.2 billion, or 242 million fewer animals - including 1 million fewer cows, 5 million fewer pigs, and 240 million fewer chickens. That's a nationwide drop from 8.9 billion in 2005 to 8.2 billion in 2011, or 725 million fewer animals killed. 

It is true that the number of animals dying is still staggering. But the decline is an encouraging sign. MFA points to a growing awareness of cruelty to animals, as well as such gruesome industry practices as the use of "pink slime."

4. The state of California is banning foie gras. The statewide ban goes into effect on July 1. There is also talk that other states may follow California's example (source). For those of you who don't know what foie gras is (even in my omnivore days, I never ate it), it means, literally, "fatty liver." One again, I'll let the wonderful folks at Mercy for Animals explain:

Its production entails extreme animal cruelty and suffering. Pipes are painfully shoved down ducks' throats and they are forced to ingest several pounds of food at once--far more than they would eat naturally. This process is often repeated two to three times a day. The ducks' livers become engorged and diseased, swelling up to ten times their normal size, and resulting in horrific emotional and physical suffering of these unfortunate animals. Most ducks find it difficult to walk and breathe normally. Many suffer from ruptured organs and die. Ducks are typically crammed into small, filthy cages for the duration of their lives, unable to move, walk, or spread their wings. They become so distressed, they sometimes tear out their own feathers or cannibalize each other. 

Kudos to California for banning this hideous "delicacy." Let's hope that other states follow California's example right away. Make no mistake: This ban on foie gras wouldn't have happened were it not for the rising influence of animal advocates.

Finally:

5: The Collapse of Ag Gag?: Earlier in the year, animal rights advocates became alarmed about the passage of repressive "Ag Gag" laws in Iowa and Utah that have introduced harsh penalties against whistleblowers who expose (through videos or photographs) the insides of slaughterhouses and factory farm operations. For a time, it seemed that Ag Gag laws were spreading across the United States like wildfire. But the movement's momentum is slowing. Efforts to introduce Ag Gag have either died or are dead in several states, including Florida, Illinois and Tennessee (source). Sadly, an Ag Gag law has just passed in Missouri, but thanks to compromises made as a result of pressure from animal advocates, there is a loophole in the legislation that gives whistleblowers 24 hours to report incidents of animal abuse or neglect to law enforcement should they witness such acts. Not surprisingly, the pork industry is calling the law "diluted" (source). 

It is true that animals are dying all around us in huge numbers as a result of human cruelty on a massive scale. But people are waking up. Pressure being applied steadily and rigorously to big corporations is working. Slowly, painfully, there is movement away from the insanity, in the direction of what might truly be called "civilization." If we ever get there, we have those kind men, women and yes, even children, who took it upon themselves to become voices of the voiceless, and who fought for the well being of animals, to thank for it. 

McRib=McHell for Pigs

It should come as no surprise that McDonald's is coming under fire for buying meat from a producer that abuses its animals. Smithfield Farms in Virginia is especially notorious for the way it abuses and exploits pigs.

So notorious, in fact, that the company produced a slick piece of propaganda called "Taking the Mystery out of Pork Production." This surreal short appeared on this blog earlier in the year. It featured Dr. Temple Grandin - a shill for the biggest mass murderers on earth - defending Smithfield's procedures. It would be downright laughable if there weren't so many lives at stake.

Now the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is filing a lawsuit against Smithfield for its terrible treatment of pigs, including routine castration without painkillers and keeping the poor beings confined to gestation crates. As Paul Shapiro of the HSUS noted:

They make outlandish claims: that their pigs live in ideal living conditions, that every need of the animals is met. It's hard to imagine that a pig crammed into a cage where she's unable to turn around for months on end would consider that to be ideal.... It doesn't take a veterinarian to know that locking up a 500-pound animal in a cage barely viable for movement is inhumane. (Source)

The HSUS's lawsuit is laudable in many respects. It has received a lot of publicity. It has made McDonald's look bad. It has spoken truth to power. How anyone can put a McRib sandwich in their mouth, even if the murdered pigs were treated "humanely" during their short lives, is beyond me. But the fact that the pork used in those ghastly things is saturated with pain and misery makes it doubly perplexing.

Equally perplexing to me is the insistence by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the HSUS that getting rid of gestation crates is all that is required to remove McDonald's and Smithfield Foods from the shit list. As Shapiro stated, "It's time for McDonald's to make gestation cages part of the company's past."

Agree. But it's also time to make mass murder and the exploitation of animals part of the past. It's time for McDonald's to stop the assembly-line slaughter of pigs and chickens and cows.

Condemning McDonald's for using pigs raised in gestation crates sends out the wrong message. You know what will happen? McDonald's will get a little bad publicity. The gestation crates will be jettisoned. The bad publicity stops. The mass murder continues.

In the past, McDonald's has actually been praised by animal welfare groups for using "humanely" treated animals. In 2005, the BBC reported that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals singled out McDonald's for using "humanely" killed animals:

Burger giant McDonald's has won an award for its humane animal treatment. Firms which promote better treatment of animals were recognised this week at the RSPCA's first Alternative Awards held at the Natural History Museum. McDonald's was praised for changing egg suppliers to those that use only free range eggs, and its cattle handling standards also drew RSPCA plaudits. Now McDonald's can use the RSPCA's logo to identify it as a business committed to higher welfare standards. (Source)

Is this really the message that we want to send out to McDonald's? Just tweak a few of the worst animal abuses and then mass murder is acceptable?

Think about it. What message does that send to the millions and millions of pigs that are sent into this Kafkaesque hell? It says that human beings are concerned only with cosmetic "feel good" measures that - once instituted - make it perfectly acceptable to butcher pigs en masse.

There is an alternative message: Stop the killing now. Stop the exploitation now. It is immoral to murder pigs. It ought to be illegal to murder them. The McRib sandwich will still taste of misery and heartache and pain, of life cut short, even without gestation crates, even if pigs are anesthetized before being castrated.

As long as human beings exploit and murder animals there will be no peace. Do not give McDonald's and Smithfield a way out by only cleaning up their act slightly, and thus ending the negative media scrutiny.

When you think about it, that's about as Orwellian as it gets.