Aren't You Weaned Yet?

Chinese artist Liu Qiang currently has a work called "29h59'59" showing at 798 Art District in Beijing, China. The photo's gone viral in animal rights circles. It would be interesting to find out more about how or why the sculpture was created. Whether inadvertently or not, it's become a powerful piece of imagery symbolizing our exploitation of others.

Not 'How', but 'Why'

I read an article this morning by columnist Anne Else of New Zealand's Independent News Media ("A fair adjectival cow: Why cubicle farming is a really bad idea") that got me thinking again of how crucial it is that abolitionists continue to educate people--whether inside or outside of the animal advocacy movement--about the immorality of using nonhuman animals. When welfarists focus on regulating the treatment of animals, they miss the whole point; this focus implies that one some level, it's moral to continue enslaving nonhuman animals and depriving them of the very basic right to live out their own lives without existing solely to satisfy the selfish pleasures of those who exploit them and the others who provide the demand for this exploitation. There are so many people talking about treatment right now for any number of reasons; reading their morally confused arguments and assertions just adds so much more weight to my conviction that to do anything other than focus on use detracts from the problem at hand. Focusing on treatment is in fact detrimental when attempting to educate others about taking the interests of nonhuman animals seriously.

So, Anne Else wrote an article expressing a fair amount of outrage over a recent plan in New Zealand to house 18,000 cows being used for their milk in cubicles. In all fairness, Else makes it clear that she is not an animal activist. She writes:

I'm not a vegetarian, let alone a vegan, and I don't stick to organically produced food. But I do care about how the animals that produce my food are treated. And I'm convinced that ensuring our already rather battered claims to be clean, green and 100% pure become a reality is the only way our economy can survive, let alone prosper.

So Else is not someone who thinks that it's wrong to consume animals or their products. She consumes them quite happily herself, whether or not they have the sort of meaningless so-called humane stamp of approval they would have if certified as having been produced according to organic standards. Nope, Else is concerned about appearances. It would look bad to consumers if New Zealand farmers were to start adopting means of raising cows since the "clean green" image [they] depend on so heavily will be completely down the tubes" and the "reputation of [the] entire dairy production will be tainted". She even quotes a member of New Zealand's Green Party as saying: "British consumers literally taste freedom when they eat New Zealand butter."

Freedom, huh?

Else goes on to shift her focus somewhat to how the cows in question will be fed and the environmental impact this will have. She writes that the cows will likely be fed the recent subject of much media controversy--palm kernel expeller, and that New Zealanders will become complicit in the destruction of "fragile rainforest environments". For insight into the palm kernel expeller controversy in New Zealand, please read Elizabeth Collins' Independent Media Centre piece from this past September ("Why are we blaming the farmers?") and listen to Episode 38 of her New Zealand Vegan Podcast. There's not much else that I can say about it, except to agree wholeheartedly with Elizabeth that if there was no consumer demand for cow's milk, this palm kernel expeller fiasco wouldn't be an issue in the first place. (But I digress, since Else's article isn't about use, but about how they are used--their treatment.)

Else raises other concerns about the cubicles that deal with the cows' health and the discharge of their effluent into the surrounding area and the ensuing environmental toll. With this, she brings the article's focus back to her initial concern--that of appearances:

Even if they do manage to meet all the requirements and keep damage to cows' health, and to the environment, to a minimum, what is the point of farming this way in grassy, temperate New Zealand? There can be only one answer: because it enables inhospitable, fragile, and otherwise "unprofitable" landscapes, such as the stunning Mackenzie Basin, to be turned into a conglomeration of giant factory farms. We will indeed be catching up with the rest of the world.

So throughout this article, which takes issue with a new method introduced in New Zealand to confine cows used for their milk, it's made clear that this treatment of them will harm New Zealand's reputation as a provider of happy grass-fed cow produced milk. Hell, it will also harm the appearance of the landscape surrounding the area where the cows will be confined! This really big knot of superficial concerns revolves around the 18,000 or so cows at the center of the story who will, indeed, continue to be used as things to produce the milk products the industry wants to sell to the consumers who are demanding them.

Else managed to write an entire article loosely focused on the treatment of these 18,000 cows, and nowhere in it is the use of these cows ever questioned, since it's a given to Else (and others who in any way ever discuss the treatment of nonhuman animals) that these cows will indeed continue to be used, however it happens. It's also a given for welfarist groups like HSUS, which uses millions in donations to mount campaigns that concern themselves with how animals are used instead of questioning why they are used. This is why it's crucial, if the actual interests of nonhuman animals are to be taken seriously, that someone deliver a clear and consistent abolitionist message; this is why it's crucial that nonviolent and creative vegan education be a strong main focus of animal rights campaigns. Otherwise, we're not leaving people asking why nonhuman animals are being used or considering the morality of their continuing to use them. If we truly want to strive toward abolishing the exploitation of nonhuman animals, we need to get others asking the right questions--not 'how', but 'why'.

Talk to someone about veganism today.

Number 457

Thanks to Dan Cudahy from Unpopular Vegan Essays for the heads up on this short (but effective) SlideShare presentation that lets you have a look at the true cost of milk.

Number 457

View more presentations from Screaming Chicken.

Gilmer Dairy Farm's Edopt-a-Cow Program

A friend tipped me off to an eye-roller of a program being run by a place called Gilmer Dairy Farm that's being geared towards kids and their teachers. The program is called Edopt-a-Cow and it allows individuals or classrooms to "adopt" a cow and follow her "calving schedules" and machine-like milk production (they call it her "Cowography") and to view her pedigree. Take, for example, nearly-seven-year-old Kathy Sue, otherwise affectionately known as GDF #234. Kathy Sue's been successfully impregnated a whopping five times in her almost nine years, each time having her calves taken from her so that her almost 100,000 pounds of milk could be sold off to humans who don't need it.

The point of this program seems obvious. Under the guise of giving kids a close up and personal view of dairy production, it actually gives the whole thing a cold and detached spin. The cow becomes a machine with a cute nickname. No mention is made of the fate of her offspring or of the cruelty inherent of her being separated from each one so that the milk she produces to nourish him or her is taken from from her until her very last drop is produced and she is forcibly impregnated again. Gilmer Dairy Farm, however, presents the program as a teaching aide that helps kids learn to create charts and plot graphs, how to write business letters and most hypocritically, to "use the [cow's] pedigree to help teach the students about their family trees". Everybody knows that breeding programs are all about family, after all. Of course, no dairy propaganda--er, program--would be complete without a whole whack of educational links designed to make kids think that dairy farms are full of love and sweetness. I'm guessing that the Edopt-a-Cow program conveniently leaves out the fate that awaits Kathy Sue once she's too old to birth any more babies.

Although this page is from the NZ Dairy Cruelty website, the same information applies to cows in other countries like the U.S. and Canada concerning the ordinary lives of dairy cows. If you're concerned about the plight of animals humans raise for their flesh, but still consume milk products while reassuring yourself that there is less harm inherent in the dairy industry, think again. These sentient non-humans undergo immense suffering at various points in their lives. It is impossible to deny the repeated violations of the interest each one of those cows has to live a life that does not involve being enslaved, forcibly impregnated, having her offspring taken from her just after birth, and in the end, led off to slaughter.

There is no logical manner in which someone who chooses not to eat animals for ethical reasons can defend continuing to consume dairy. If you are merely seeking to somehow remove yourself from the cycle of animal slaughter, then every single male calf taken from its mother that ends up on someone's dinner plate is testimony to the fact that you're failing miserably. Furthermore, to promote vegetarianism where dairy consumption is presented (or defended) as one step further along the ethical path towards veganism is wrong-headed and speciesist.

For further information on resources to go dairy-free, visit the Go Dairy Free website or do a simple Google search for alternatives to dairy. Do Kathy Sue and others like her a favour--go vegan!

Vegan bits in the news

Jane Glen Haas, health columnist for the Orange County Register, has decided to embark up on a 21-day vegan cleanse à la Oprah. She wrote about it yesterday, mentioning Kathy Freston's Quantum Wellness book as her source of inspiration. The article is mostly about her cravings for animals products and her dealing with the gas and bloating she's experiencing 4-5 days into the cleanse. Unfortunately, she presents some misinformation in the column when she defines veganism by stating that a ''vegan, for the uninitiated, eats no meat, dairy or eggs. Also no sugar, gluten, alcoholic beverages or caffeine''. Veganism is about eschewing animal products, which in no way whatsoever automatically rules out sugar, gluten, alcoholic beverages or caffeine. Someone's mentioned this in the reader comments below her column, so hopefully she'll clarify this in a future column. (By the way, her column can be found here).

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PETA's been grossing people out again. They've recently started campaigning to purportedly convince Ben & Jerry's to use human breast milk in their ice cream instead of cow's milk. It obviously isn't going to happen, and PETA is just trying to shock people into thinking about the issue. The thing is that aside from maybe an increased risk in the transmittal of human pathogens, using breast milk would hardly be any more unnatural than using cow's milk. The knee-jerk reactions to the story don't reflect any understanding of this, of course, since in North American culture anyway, we view human breast milk as baby food and cow's milk as human kid / grown-up food. A typical response:

''I understand the health benefits of breast milk...to babies. I understand that a mother's milk is usually the best thing for her NEWBORN to consume.

But...I am FAR from a baby, and even further from being anyone's newborn anything.''

What this particular blog writer for South Carolina's Island Packet doesn't get is that using his own logic, cow's milk -- which is produced for baby cows -- would be even less appropriate for him.

The newspaper's blogger also dismisses the fact that there is any cruelty involved in the dairy industry:

''These people REALLY need to find something better to do with their time...and the donations that they receive. Like...rescuing lab animals. Saving whales. Helping protect the rights of animals...that are being abused! I've worked on dairy farms. And I can tell you, there have often been times when I've envied the life of a cow. How can the milking of a cow be considered abuse? Isn't that what these nut-jobs are all about???''

Someone needs to do some research before making uninformed statements. Dairy cows are probably worse off than most other factory farmed animals.