HBO Series 

I have been "DVR'ing" the HBO series Death of a Factory Farm. I hadn't been able to watch it for one reason or another - being out of town, working, extracurricular events that needed my attendance. But I had today off and once the cleaning service left, I caught up on some of the shows I had recorded. I skipped over the HBO series several times. 

It's not like I haven't seen what goes on. 

I have. 

I have witnessed such unbelievable cruelty from my fellow man - towards companion animals, those used in entertainment and for experimentation. 

I have seen turkeys and chickens being sodomized and raped. 

I have seen dogs being skinned alive. 

I have seen whales being harpooned and sharks being caught and thrown back to drown after their dorsal fin is cut from their body. 

I have seen the Japanese trap dolphins in a cove and then execute the most horrendous cruelty that it gives me nightmares. 

To say that I am deeply, deeply sensitive to these images is no understatement. 

I literally cry out when the act is witnessed - with no regard for those around me. 

It is primal. 

When an elephant screams from being bull-hooked, I cannot, actually, I will not contain my horror. 

It is so easy to drift though this life. Casually stepping over, ignoring, averting our eyes from the things we find distasteful. It is so easy to order food we find so lovely, so satiating, so cathartic to our daily experiences, with no regard for the process. 

The process.

That's the hard part.

You know how people tend to minimize? If you work in an office or with different departments you see a lot of it. Those engaged in a particular function are well aware of the intricacies but those outside, well, it's too much, isn't it? Too much to think about all that others must do in order to accomplish a job, a project. I have people in my office, actually in my department but outside my division that cannot grasp the complexities of work performed by others. And it is too much to play detective so the opposite is performed. "Easy" "simple" "quick" "just" are continually used in reference to others. Yet it is minimizing. 

Anyway. It is easy to pick up a meal, order a course without thinking about the process.

Yet our consciousness is forever assaulted by investigative reports or news stories that reveal the inevitable outcome of the factory farm environment. 

The disease. 

The substandard products. 

The pollution. 

The resource grab. 

And the extreme cruelty.

Within 13 minutes of starting the first installment I had cried out. I had paused the program and sobbed uncontrollably. 

It is a personal affront to me. 

To see the fourth most intelligent being, the pig, being brutalized, it's offspring hurled through the air and into a wheeled container, one little piglet tossed upon another until the container is filled, with some bouncing off and landing hard on the concrete floor, while their mothers watch. I cannot fathom this. I should be able to, but I can't. I cannot understand how anyone can do this to a living being. I understand that people need to eat. Of course we need to eat. 

But this? 

The mothers, after their babies have been taken from them, usually give up living - refusing to eat or drink. 

We are well past the false belief that animals are equal to machines. 

They are thinking, feeling, cognizant beings that are dependent upon us. 

Dependent on our benevolence. 

And we do this.

The screaming of these little piglets. It's so awful.

The ones deemed too small are smashed against the concrete floor, sometimes over and over and over again until they are dead. Or maybe just half dead...thrown into buckets to convulse their way into God's hands.

Buckets and buckets of dead baby pigs.

Stacks upon stacks of dead pigs dumped into a pit until it was filled with dead pigs and then covered. 

The mothers are kept in such filth that it is inevitable that disease would be rampant. Footage of these filthy conditions, of junk bins where the "downer" pigs are placed - downer meaning ill, injured, etc., the complete and total disregard for these animals. Kicking these animals that are unable to walk - kicking over and over and over as this animal desperately tries to move. 

My God. 

I cannot fathom what could have happened in a person life that would make this acceptable. Watching as they dragged all these animals out and one by one hang them by a chain from a front loader....taking 4 to 5 minutes for it to die. It is soul destroying. 

Too sensitive? Too upsetting? Sorry. Too fucking bad. This is what YOU are perpetuating when you buy the end products. You can continue to avert your eyes saying it's too much, too troubling, call it an isolated incident. It is not isolated. The people that are involved in the raising of pigs, that must perform the day in day out maintenance of intensively confined animals, hate them. 

This must stop. 

And the only way it stops is to stop purchasing the products. Buy from local, humane farms. Sure it cost more...primarily because the farms take extra efforts to be humane. The cheaper the end product, believe me, the more inhumane, the more cruelty inherent in the flesh. 

It bothers me to no end that those that consume the end products consider themselves too sensitive or the images too graphic to witness what those that have given their lives to feed them have to endure. 

To say that it's not important. 

To say that it's somehow not associated with anything you consume, is a lie. 

You are lying to yourself. 

You are disregarding the truth. 

You are pretending. 

You are averting your eyes from something that is egregious, yet consider yourself a kind, gentle, loving, empathetic, generous soul. If puppies were being slammed repeatedly against a concrete floor would you still say nothing? 

How about kitten tossed on top of one another into a large container? 

How about a beloved pet that has broken legs...being kicked repeatedly to make it move? 

Still not a big deal?

Still isolated? 

Still part of life?

DO SOMETHING! 

Think about what you are eating EVERY time you eat. Think about where that animal came from, how it came to be on your plate and what it had to go through to get there. 

I ask that you visit the Humane Farming Association (hfa.org) where the information is collected. I ask that you witness what these animals have endured to be on your plate. 

You don't have to join PETA, you don't have become some radical animal rights advocate throwing red paint on people in furs. 

You just have be a witness. 

I think about those that lived in towns abutting concentration camps that averted their eyes. I am in no way equating people with animals...I am simply pointing out what we as caring compassionate people must constantly be alert to. We as humane individuals must be vigilant, must be strong and willing to confront the evils that has been allowed to fester and grow in cloak of secrecy. 

We are better than this. I know we are. 

Do something.