"Say, Do You and Your Kids Want to Come with Us to the Rodeo?"
Ummm. No.
posted by kate @ 11:19 AM
7 comments
Out in Left Field
Where parenting and politics meet, but don't always play nice.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Ummm. No.
kate
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7 Comments:
Wow, talk about your agenda-driven, one-sided pieces. Pure propaganda assembled by self-righteous nitwits.
What the hell do I care if the filmmakers are self-righteous or not? Just like I don't care that the cowboys are ignorant rednecks.
The thing is - dragging around those animals is cruel. Those animals are in pain. Shocking animals is cruel. They are in pain.
Squishing their balls so they'll buck harder is cruel. THEY ARE IN PAIN.
So thanks, but we'll go do something else instead. Cause animal cruelty isn't family entertainment.
Like Oldest said, "Oweeee."
Argue *that*.
The issue is suffering here. Would you treat your dog, or any dog, like that? Explain how a steer is essentially different from any other mammal. Neurons are neurons.Pain and terror exhibit the same response in all animals, and emotions and pain are things that we share with anything with a nervous system.
What I see are pink hairless primates beating and crushing cattle for entertainment purposes. Is beating animals for entertainment okay? A black sociopathic millionaire athlete is going to federal prison for just this crime. Why do white people in ass hats get a pass? Is there some way to show that bovines do not feel pain and terror as acutely as canines? Please discuss.
Kate, I thought you would appreciate this story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html?ex=1202101200&en=ae87f469b2f0f094&ei=5065&partner=MYWAY
Argue *that*.
Okay. Prove it with something other than shock tactics.
Would you treat your dog, or any dog, like that?
Wouldn't have to. Dogs are trainable. A rodeo, however, is a demonstration of lest harm techniques used to deal with large, untrained livestock.
Look, people, life on a farm is pragmatic as hell and that pragmatism can be easily confused with cruelty or a lack of heart.
"Why do white people in ass hats get a pass?" And that statement right there shows the crux of the problem.
It's all good and well to get offended when Michael Savage goes on a rant about the Koran and Muslims, implying that he doesn't respect another culture, a culture that treats women as second class citizens and occasionally kills them when they marry outside of their religion or station. Yet, at the same time, it's fine to not respect the culture of the American Livestock farmer because it's "cruel" and the animals are in "pain".
You and Adam's Professor (as always) make excellent arguments about the Savage post. I wish everyone disagreed with me that way.
I would argue against literal translations of any holy book that harms women just the way I would argue against policies that harm animals. Love those kinds of discussions.
But Savage is filled with hate and his rhetoric won't lead to understanding between our cultures. In the same vein, I would never support anyone who rants against "inbred rednecks" in an effort to get them to stop harming animals.
Those incendiary statements lead away from the very ends I'm trying to achieve.
Uhm... what is the point of "demonstration of lest harm techniques used to deal with large, untrained livestock"? Education? Do people come to rodeos to learn things? I think not. I think they come to be entertained, in the same way that the empathy-challenged attend dog fights, or Romans watched the gladiators hack away at exotic wildlife.
Why, then, does the meat industry get a pass? I have not seen any evidence presented that the practices are not cruel, and that the beasts are not in pain. Quotation marks are not evidence.
What is inherent in the meat industry that makes it a distinct culture, much less a culture demanding anyone's respect? Modern ranchers, feed-lotters, slaughterer and packers are agents of industrial food production, not cow-pokes or pioneers. To call these people members of a culture needing special protection or respect makes no sense, unless one extends such cultural respect to the endangered culture of automotive workers or soybean farmers.
Meat-eating and animal-beating are two activities among many which are absolutely unnecessary and cause a lot of suffering and damage. Why defend them? What is the agenda behind defending waste and cruelty? What is the pay-off? What are the ethics of waste and cruelty? How does one justify such things? Please to be discussing.
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