Finger-pointing for Absolution: A Few Words about the Four Corners Story

Four Corners

For the past few days, animal advocates across the internet have been discussing the recent so-called expose "of the cruelty inflicted on Australian cattle exported to the slaughterhouses of Indonesia". The story broke on May 30 when the ABC (i.e. Australian Broadcasting Corporation) television program "Four Corners" aired a program containing undercover footage of the cows fattened in Australian-approved feedlots and then slaughtered in Australian-approved slaughterhouses by Australian-trained Indonesian workers. I have not seen the footage, myself, for the same reason I don't gawk at accident scenes -- I've no doubt that it's completely awful.

Judging by the hundreds of related news articles from around the world covering this story (along with thousands of readers' comments left in response to those articles) and that the link to the story has been shared just short of 7000 times on Facebook and all over other social networking sites, it's evident that even the non-vegan general public is outraged. The story has gotten enough attention that the expression "treated like Indonesian cattle" has now even started being used to describe the grossly ill treatment of humans.

Follow the Money

So much of the focus is being placed on the fact that Indonesia's "standards" for slaughtering non-humans are not as high as Australia's. A definite "us versus them" mentality has been reflected in the responses of the Australian government and cattle industry, proclaiming loudly and clearly that the cruelty involved in this whole mess is a deplorable exception limited to practices in Indonesia. The livestock export industry has promptly communicated its indignation to the press, as well. Faced with criticism for its direct involvement in the Indonesian abattoir expose -- as well as the possibility of a more generalized criticism of exporting live animals to a different country altogether for slaughter -- LiveCorp CEO Cameron Hall insisted in a press release that they really do want what's best for Australia's dear old homegrown cows:

"Cruelty to Australian animals is simply unacceptable. We will not tolerate it," Mr Hall said today. [...] Mr Hall said there was more work to be done, particularly at the point of processing, however if Australia was to cease exporting cattle, animal welfare would only go backwards. "No other nation has the same commitment to animal welfare as Australia and no other country invests in animal welfare like we do."

Australian politicians who've expressed the most indignation over the story have also been making it clear that it's not that cows are being raised for slaughter that's a concern and that Australian animal slaughter practices are somehow ethical and good. It's not even the stress of the cramming together and shipping off of animals to another country that's a concern for most. In fact, a strong argument being presented in response to the Indonesian slaughterhouse story is that ending exportation could ultimately help the Australian economy:

The end of live exports would boost domestic jobs with the processing of the animals done here rather than offshore, [independent MP] Andrew Wilkie said. "We should be processing these beasts in Australia," he said.

In tandem with this, many animal welfare groups and animal advocates have been propagating petitions to ban the further exploitation of live Australian cattle to Indonesia or featuring the story on their websites, often with gory clips from the original broadcast or with excruciatingly disturbing details of the footage which was taken.

When "Exception" is Really the Status Quo

The truth is that one need not single out Indonesia for abhorrent practices when it comes to the killing of non-human animals for human consumption; random undercover footage taken at slaughterhouses in many countries frequently display goings on which shock the general public. As Prof. Gary L. Francione commented on his Facebook page on May 31:

Does anyone believe that Australian slaughterhouses and slaughter in Australia as a general matter are "humane"? Any such belief would be mistaken. This is really a perfect example of how we try to delude ourselves into thinking that there are "civilized" ways to exploit nonhumans.

Minor punishments are doled out, promises are made to make nice with the cows and then after a collective sigh of relief is issued, it's all forgotten. Francione elaborated further by suggesting of this outrage-provoking news story that "it makes people [...] feel better to be able to point to someone else who does the same thing as 'uncivilized' while we pat ourselves on the back". Ground beef, rib roast and so on continue to appear on grocery lists and are then purchased and devoured without a second-thought being given to what a mere few weeks prior had seemed inexcusably "inhumane" -- at least until the next random undercover video of habitual goings on at slaughterhouses ends up making the rounds. Lather, rinse, repeat.

"We Need to Start Somewhere"

I got into a brief discussion with a vegan animal advocate yesterday who'd posted a link on a social networking site to a petition to ban the exportation of Australian cows to Indonesia. I asked if she thought her time and energy were being well spent in implicitly endorsing one form of animal slaughter as preferable to another, when she could instead take the opportunity to educate people about what is inherently wrong in any situation where a non-human animal is raised for slaughter. "But we need to start somewhere," she said. Why, though, should that "somewhere" involve contributing to the delusion that there is such a thing as an acceptable manner in which any animal could be raised and then killed for trivial reasons dictated by human habit or whim? Why waste a perfect opportunity to directly question the ethics of treating sentient beings as things which merely exist for human use? Why engage in activism which merely reinforces the idea that animal use -- animal slaughter -- is normal, and that it can somehow be morally acceptable?

Why can't that "somewhere" from which we need to start involve talking to people about going vegan? Think about it.

How Do You Protect a 'Thing'?

I wonder sometimes how many hours of my life I could give up just addressing some of the more problematic information and opinions Mark Bittman releases into the ether. His Opinionator blog post from late yesterday ("Who Protects the Animals?") is certainly no exception to much of the confusion he spreads about what we do or don't owe non-human animals. He has rejected veganism publicly and periodically asserts that veganism is a bad idea because it's supposedly all about eating processed fake meat. And regardless of this, he's co-opted the word "vegan" to describe a diet by which someone only eats animal flesh for dinner.

In his recent piece, Bittman writes about E6 Cattle Company in Texas which recently came under fire when undercover video taken by animal advocacy group Mercy for Animals revealed incidents of cruel behaviour by employees, including but not limited to bashing in the heads of live cows with pickaxes. Bittman goes on to describe other widely-reported cases involving animals raised for human consumption and describes as "horror stories". He expresses what seems to be indignation over the fact that "federal laws governing animal cruelty apply [only] to slaughterhouses" where animals spend their last few moments alive before they're "dispatched". On the actual farms or premises where animals are enslaved and raised, they are only "protected" by state laws, he criticizes. He calls this, along with lack of enforcement of any laws at all in place the "root of the problem".

Bittman asserts that this videotaping is necessary to ensure that animals raised and slaughtered for human consumption are treated "humanely". Furthermore, he writes that polls have shown that "almost everyone believes that even if it costs more, farm animals should be treated humanely". Bittman's concern is over the law that's being considered in Minnesota, Iowa and Florida, by which it would become illegal to engage in undercover videotaping on factory farms. Bittman insists that because of this, welfarist groups like HSUS and Mercy for Animals must not be hindered legally from "documenting the kind of behavior most of us abhor".

At this point, I would have been ready to jump in to add that the heinous video footage that gets passed around from time to time is not the exception to the rule and that the lives of all animals enslaved to be slaughtered for our consumption are horrible lives. But Bittman himself jumps in to admit as much, stating that the video footage we end up seeing merely serves to remind us of what goes on. Of course, he specifies that this is standard on factory farms, but it's not. The same things -- the branding, the dehorning, the forced impregnation and subsequent removal of offspring from their mothers so that they may be sent off to slaughter (or otherwise enslaved themselves for human use and eventual slaughter), et al. -- they occur wherever and whenever non-human animals are treated as future food for human consumption. It's not limited to factory farms. Bittman says that "some abuse is pretty much guaranteed" when the truth is that there is no way in which you can enslave an animal -- treat her like a thing with no interest in a life of her own -- then kill her, and not call it abuse.

Instead of calling for welfarist organisations to be allowed to engage in covert videotaping operations to spot-check for the worst forms of torture imposed on these animals we call "food", why is it so difficult for Bittman to consider suggesting that we don't, in fact, need to use them in the first place? Why is it so difficult for Bittman to consider that since "some abuse is pretty much guaranteed" that all of it could be prevented by educating people that it's wrong to treat sentient non-human animals as if they were things? Bittman inadvertently provides the answer to my questions by saying that "[t]here is, of course, the argument that domesticating animals in order to kill them is essentially immoral; those of us who eat meat choose not to believe this". He argues that allowing welfarist groups to continue videotaping animal agriculture operations would ensure that existing regulations concerning the levels of torture inflicted upon non-human animals would be better observed, while on the other hand, Mercy for Animals' Nathan Runkle elaborates that allowing them to continue videotaping "would allow the public to trust these operations rather than fear them".

And thus lies the absolute moral confusion inherent in speciesism. On the one hand, you have "almost everyone believ[ing] that even if it costs more, farm animals should be treated humanely". Yet the undeniable facts are that all animals raised for food suffer wretchedly on some level or another and that regardless of where they're enslaved or of how they're slaughtered, these animals are treated like things and deprived of being able to live out their own lives on their own terms. And while Bittman himself is willing to admit that the standard practice involved in raising and slaughtering almost 10 billion animals a year in the US alone undeniably involves tremendous suffering, he's not willing to view their enslavement and slaughter as "immoral". And rather than focus on educating the public about not using animals, welfarist organizations like Mercy for Animals work towards facilitating the public's ability to "trust these operations"-- to feel better about continuing to use non-human animals. So, indeed, who does protect the animals? Not Mark Bittman. Certainly not Mercy for Animals.

Please consider going vegan. If you're already vegan, talk to others about doing so. That's the only way to protect non-human animals. At the very, very least, we owe them that much.

Blurbs About Veganism or Animals in the Media

In a fairly upbeat article this past Thursday ("V is for vegan and very well-fed"), the Douglas Dispatch included a couple of animal-product-free recipes--one for Pad Thai and one for Hearty Potato-and-Leek Soup. Unfortunately, less than a few lines in, it becomes obvious that the article is actually about "part-time" veganism (and a "part-time" veganism that is solely concerned with food). The Pad Thai recipe is from a book called The Accidental Vegan by Devra Gartenstein, a "self-described omnivore who runs a vegetarian restaurant" who encourages people "to embrace not a complete vegan diet but a sampling of vegan dishes". The soup recipe is from "flexitarian" Pat Crocker's The Vegan Cook's Bible (of which I'd blogged back in June, mentioning that she promotes the consumption of both fish and honey in it).

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This piece ("Slaughterhouse Rules") is just a plain old bizarre example of how people condone the use and slaughter of animals if they're able to reassure themselves that any sort of regulation is in place (i.e. that supposedly protects those slaughtered animals). The disassocation involved, even in this insignificant little piece, is unnerving.

Slaughter in the City

Thanks to Keith Burgess-Jackson at Animal Ethics for posting a link to this New York Times story about the rising popularity of small-scale urban slaughterhouses. The story features an accompanying slideshow of images which leaves me wondering how these animals fare in their final days and how those who tout the supposed humaneness of smaller-scale slaughter operations over larger operations could possibly argue that this current trend is in any way more justifiable.

My favourite quote from the article about surrounding urban residents' "concerns" is particularly telling about societal norms concerning the usage of animals considered "food":

Last year, residents of St. Albans, Queens, blocked a small slaughterhouse from opening on Farmers Boulevard. One resident, Marie Wilkerson, told The New York Times that she feared its stink would ruin backyard barbecues.

Heaven forbid that you really get a good real whiff of what it is that you're eating, Marie. I mean--that would be unappetizing.

Norfolk town's schools first to be heated by burning cattle

This takes my disdain for the biofuels movement to entirely new heights (not to mention weaving a little bit of "blech" into it).

A "trailblazing" Norfolk town has begun heating many of its buildings - including the schools - by burning oil made from melted-down cow and pig carcasses. The strategy is described as "equal or lower in carbon footprint than natural gas".

Read the whole story here.