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

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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?

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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.