"I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other."
~Barack Obama~
When I first heard the saying that how we treat our animals reflects how we will treat other humans, I was a bit skeptical. I thought that this idea in reference to meat production especially was a bit extreme, mostly because we eat meat and are not planning on eating each other any time soon. But I have started to see the similarities. If you saw the film Cloud Atlas (2012), this may be a consideration for you as well. This film presents several different worlds, one of which is the future of capitalism. In this future, the human looking beings that fill the role of service workers are manufactured, and they are, in fact, treated very much the same way that our food animals are treated today.
This is just a film, I am not claiming it as a reference to what the world is actually like. But I have had the same gut reaction while watching films like Food Inc. (2008), which depicts the way we treat our food animals, that I had while watching this film. I was disturbed by the idea of abusing living beings solely for monetary gain. More recently, upon reading Eric Schlosser's book, Fast Food Nation, I was surprised to find some similarities between reality and the futuristic world of Cloud Atlas, mainly treating humans as if they were disposable.
Imagine standing in a room full of dangerous machinery that is nearly impossible to see through a thick fog. Now imagine that you and your fellow workers must clean this machinery. Any volunteers? How about if you and each of the other workers were hosing down that equipment with 180 degree water mixed with chlorine. 180 degrees Fahrenheit is enough to give you a burn that takes a few weeks to heal. Tea ordered from your local Starbucks is usually about this temperature. Scared yet? Now take away your hearing, the machines are too loud. Oh, ya, and these machines are designed to disassemble large animals: cattle. One more thing: you're cleaning up blood, guts, feces, and rendered animal parts, and this is your job...
The people that do the work that I described above are slaughter house sanitation workers. They are regularly injured or killed by the machinery they clean, sometimes ending up disassembled like the cattle they are cleaning up. Or they are burned by each other's hoses of hot chlorine mixture, or poisoned by the fumes of that hot mixture. These workers often end up being treated, both physically and emotionally, like the animals that we eat. "They are the ultimate in disposable workers: illegal, illiterate, impoverished, untrained." (Schlosser, pg. 178). We feel about as responsible as a society for how these workers are treated as we do for how our beef is treated before it gets to our plate.
I am fully aware of the limitations of this example in making my point. But I do see a case where humans are being treated in the same manner as animals. It is one thing to engage in a system that allows severe abuses of animals (I don't mean simply killing animals here, I mean the abusive way they are regularly treated), but it is another thing to engage in a system where humans are not only treated like animals, but are routinely subject to similar abuses to those of our food animals. The abuse of these workers is systematic, making it challenging to change. But it must be changed. When profit is made a higher priority than not only humane animal treatment, but humane human treatment, there is a serious problem. This issue is complicated, and will take time to address, but it must be addressed for the sake of humanity.
What can you do?
-Advocate for workers rights.
-Practice "Meatless Monday"(www.meatlessmonday.com).
-Buy local beef.
-Support local farms and businesses.
-Advocate for government support of local farms and businesses.
-Advocate for more regulations and better enforcement in the meat industry.
These are only a few of the many things that can be done to make this problem better. The fist step, as with most things, is self-reflection. Try to see more clearly your own role in the way meat is processed and how the workers who produce that meat are treated. Remember that you are involved, but not entirely at fault. Once you have a realistic view of your part in this system, you can take little actions, baby steps, to change it. If each of us takes a small step to change our own part in the food system, we would make a substantial impact together.
If you are unaware, then you are not at fault for abuses like the ones I described. But now you know more about how your decisions about eating meat impact other human beings. Now it is your responsibility to do something, no matter how large or small of an impact it may have. I hope that the situation I described here was just disturbing enough to motivate you to take action. It is not my intention to disgust you, just to motivate you.
If you are unaware, then you are not at fault for abuses like the ones I described. But now you know more about how your decisions about eating meat impact other human beings. Now it is your responsibility to do something, no matter how large or small of an impact it may have. I hope that the situation I described here was just disturbing enough to motivate you to take action. It is not my intention to disgust you, just to motivate you.
(4) Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser http://barclayagency.com/schlosser.html
