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Thursday, September 27, 2018

Let's Not Bring Home the Bacon - Warning: Distressing to animal lovers


We live in a world gone mad
where, in advance of storm,
the Keepers of the pigs and chickens
lock the warehouse doors,
climb into their comfy cars,
and flee the flooding 
that drowns five thousand terrified 
sentient beings.

They're not worried,
since insurance will repay them
for "lost inventory".

Can we scream loud enough 
to wake ourselves up
from this nightmare of corporate
indifference to all but profit?

Can we do something more
than wince and abhor?
Instead of a howl,
can we stop eating fowl?
Can we give up our bacon, 
yes, you, and yes, me,
and set all the pigs free?







for my prompt at Real Toads: Earth Grief. I have more than enough of that to go around, but this week it is the pigs and chickens that drowned in the flooded Carolinas in late September, and the massive release of manure into fresh water systems that has gotten me down.

These are all personal choices, no judgment, when it comes to what we eat. But it hit home for me, lover of dogs and of wolves, that all animals feel love, happiness, fear, pain and terror. They all want to live, free of torture, confinement, and the screams of their fellow beings dying, knowing they are next. Factory "farming" is barbaric. There is no farming going on. They say one cant be an environmentalist and eat meat, as livestock is one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases.

Turning to a plant-based diet, or at least reducing our consumption of animal products is one choice we can make to help the planet. 

My cousin calls this "no one got hurt" meals!   

To advocate for ethical and humane treatment of animals, we can bombard our legislators with a demand for regulations that protect helpless non-human beings, who are victims of our disgusting corporate culture. As are we. There is a difference in meat from factory farms and meat healthily and humanely grown, on real farms, as it was in the old days. No trauma, no hormones, no antibiotics. No fear and abuse.

For a better world, my friends. We live in hope.


20 comments:

  1. Oh Sherry! How distressing! Man's wickedness has no end!

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  2. This was a shocking thing to read.. I try to eat less meat for many reasons... but I eat a little every now and then.

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  3. Factory farming in north america is brutal, Bjorn. The animals are abused horribly, and their keepers must have had to turn off their humanity to work there.It is amazing to me what people are willing to do for a paycheque.

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  4. There are farms that raise animals humanely and humanely kill them. I have a friend who owns one in NC. She was sorely distressed and gave homes to as many that would fit in her farm and so dud several other farmers. I buy my beef, pork, chicken, and cheese from her. This really hurt me, the drowned animals left behind to die. I hope those monsters will truly reap what they sew.

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  5. My sister does the same...buys from her friends' farms. It drives me crazy the people who left their animals caged or chained with no chance at all. I heard a thousand animals were rescued, a million people. That means many thousands of pets drowned.i would not leave my pet behind. Not possible.

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  6. I first heard about the drowning in the news, an NPR reporter was interviewing some official... The coldness in the man's voice, the pure lack of feeling... made me sick, physically sick. I don't understand some people. Sometimes I wonder if they are truly people.

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  7. Sadly by our actions we are accelerating the demise of humanity. We can turn it around by not buying suspect produce. Consumers have a greater strength than they realise; we just have to convince others.

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  8. This is very distressing, Sherry. But a necessary message.. when we stop grieving, we are done for.

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  9. I have not been able to write to this grief. Can not dive deep enough, but you have. This is so sad. Can we still call these people human?

    Such deep sadness!

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  10. You have raised a powerful voice here. Hope, everybody gets the message.

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  11. You have raised a powerful voice here. Hope, everybody gets the message.

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  12. Humanity is doubly cursed, for its legacy appetites and the privileging of human over everything else in oder to plush the larder. You don't get six billion hungry humans without mass farms of sentinent victims. No wonder politicians pass policy to enable us to look the other way. Hurts so read but then I an't being eaten.

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  13. This is such a horror. My sister has been posting about this on Facebook. She is a vegan and keeps pet pigs. They are HUGE!!! Her yard is like a little farm. :)

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  14. When I pass a truck load of pigs going to market I feel an urge to become a vegetarian. But my like for ham or bacon and eggs keeps from doing this. In 1997 when our house flooded, 33 inches of water inside, Mrs. Jim and I left in the middle of the night me with our daughter under arm, Mrs. Jim with the dog under her arm. But the cat we couldn't carry, I put her in the garage. Of course she climbed to the rafters but was just fine. Pigs can't climb like that. We didn't have insurance on our furniture and only one car for water was covered.
    Thanks for the very nice prompt.
    ..

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    1. Jim, I can see your compassion is there and that is how it starts. Things have come a long way and there are alternatives for every animal product now! It’s great because we can no longer use our taste as an excuse to hold us back ❤️

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    2. It is wonderful, the products they have now. I do not miss meat one bit.

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  15. Jim, that is so sad, losing everything in a flood, as so many are doing these days. I once lost everything in a fire and insurance didnt pay me because they had money to fight and i did not. So i know the feeling. I hate those trucks full of animals, too......we humans treat animals horribly.

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  16. No, we can't set all the pigs free! (Free-range pigs have been known to eat humans.) But smaller farms could take the time to load animals into trucks, when fleeing.

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