Hate to admit it, but Bill is right. The industries that feed America are terrible. What they do (we do?) to animals is frankly horrible. It's a pity that people care more about quantity than quality. Goddess. After watching that I feel like swearing off meat.
Raising food animals in filth is only possible because we have cheap antibiotics. Antibiotics should be readily available for diseases that can't be handled with basic, practical hygiene practices. They shouldn't be so cheap that you can raise cattle ankle-deep in shit and make it all work out, mostly, by feeding the poor animal a shovelful of antibiotics.
Antibiotics are inherently valuable to society. Once they stop working we are screwed. We are squandering our valuable technology to have cheap and easy meat and eggs while maximizing profits for a small group of food processing giants. Time to renegotiate those contracts so the farmers get enough slack to afford to spread the animals out and clean up around them. Then we can use fewer antibiotics.
Well I went vegan in Oct for health reasons and after watching this, yep it was the right decision. I would like to be able to eat fish but the oceans are so polluted and over fished, that isn't gonna happen. I haven't supported factory family for years and have eaten less meat/dairy of higher quality raised locally on small farms before I went vegan. Bill did not even get all that graphic as he said because of ag gag laws. Anyhow, vegan cooking is delicious and varied and after 6 months without animal products, I don't really crave them any longer. I need to eat less anyway. But I did think that mad cow in Britain came from feeding cows diseased sheep brains.
If I weren't living with an individual who dearly LOVES his meat dishes, I guarantee I would go back to vegetarianism (embraced it MANY years ago). Yes, I could do it ..."even though"... but it takes more physical AND emotional energy that I care to take on at my age.
Nonetheless, I totally identify with Maher's remarks -- especially the caging of wild animals.
Unfortunately, $$$$$ has been the raison d'etre for far too long in this country so regrettably, I doubt anything will change.
And now, with a lot of the meat butchering plants (factories) closing due to the tRUMP Plague, the "farmers" who raise the animals are saying that with no markets to send their "product" to, they'll have to destroy them, and bury or burn the remains.
It's bad enough the animals are raised in tiny filthy cages, side by side, and stacked one on top of the other until they're big enough to be sent to the butchering plants to be killed, cut, and portioned, but now they'll just be destroyed for no purpose at all. Yes, a death is a death, but at least before, these animals were a reliable source of protein. Now, they'll just pollute the land and water if their corpses are buried, or the air, if they're burned.
Sixpence: Swearing off meat is something to consider. I did it years ago.
Anon: I think science will be able to keep ahead of the antibiotic-resistance problem -- it's certainly being worked on -- but it can't be good to eat things that were so unhealthy they had to be flooded with antibiotics to keep them barely alive.
Lady M: I don't miss meat either. The thought just repulses me now.
Mike: It is. I love how he doesn't respect anybody's sacred cows (more literally in this case than most).
Nan: The money is only an incentive as long as the public demand for meat is there. Ultimately the industry will fade away as people give up the meat habit.
Victor: The way I see it -- when the animals are euthanized, at least their suffering is over. There's no realistic scenario in which they could have been given better lives. Their deaths cause less pollution than the ongoing operation of the meat-factory would. And at least they aren't making money for the industry that tormented them.
Individualist, pro-technology, pro-democracy, anti-religion. I speak only for myself and not for any ideology, movement, or party. It has been my great good fortune to live my whole life free of "spirituality" of any kind. I believe that evidence and reason are the keys to understanding reality; that technology rather than ideology or politics has been the great liberator of humanity; and that in the long run, human intelligence is the most powerful force in the universe.
7 Comments:
Hate to admit it, but Bill is right.
The industries that feed America are terrible. What they do (we do?) to animals is frankly horrible.
It's a pity that people care more about quantity than quality. Goddess. After watching that I feel like swearing off meat.
XOXO
As the saying goes: 'He ain't wrong'.
Raising food animals in filth is only possible because we have cheap antibiotics. Antibiotics should be readily available for diseases that can't be handled with basic, practical hygiene practices. They shouldn't be so cheap that you can raise cattle ankle-deep in shit and make it all work out, mostly, by feeding the poor animal a shovelful of antibiotics.
Antibiotics are inherently valuable to society. Once they stop working we are screwed. We are squandering our valuable technology to have cheap and easy meat and eggs while maximizing profits for a small group of food processing giants. Time to renegotiate those contracts so the farmers get enough slack to afford to spread the animals out and clean up around them. Then we can use fewer antibiotics.
Well I went vegan in Oct for health reasons and after watching this, yep it was the right decision. I would like to be able to eat fish but the oceans are so polluted and over fished, that isn't gonna happen. I haven't supported factory family for years and have eaten less meat/dairy of higher quality raised locally on small farms before I went vegan. Bill did not even get all that graphic as he said because of ag gag laws. Anyhow, vegan cooking is delicious and varied and after 6 months without animal products, I don't really crave them any longer. I need to eat less anyway. But I did think that mad cow in Britain came from feeding cows diseased sheep brains.
That's probably the best piece Bill's done in a long time. Nice find.
If I weren't living with an individual who dearly LOVES his meat dishes, I guarantee I would go back to vegetarianism (embraced it MANY years ago). Yes, I could do it ..."even though"... but it takes more physical AND emotional energy that I care to take on at my age.
Nonetheless, I totally identify with Maher's remarks -- especially the caging of wild animals.
Unfortunately, $$$$$ has been the raison d'etre for far too long in this country so regrettably, I doubt anything will change.
In any case, thanks for sharing.
And now, with a lot of the meat butchering plants (factories) closing due to the tRUMP Plague, the "farmers" who raise the animals are saying that with no markets to send their "product" to, they'll have to destroy them, and bury or burn the remains.
It's bad enough the animals are raised in tiny filthy cages, side by side, and stacked one on top of the other until they're big enough to be sent to the butchering plants to be killed, cut, and portioned, but now they'll just be destroyed for no purpose at all.
Yes, a death is a death, but at least before, these animals were a reliable source of protein.
Now, they'll just pollute the land and water if their corpses are buried, or the air, if they're burned.
The horror...
The horror...
The horror...
Sixpence: Swearing off meat is something to consider. I did it years ago.
Anon: I think science will be able to keep ahead of the antibiotic-resistance problem -- it's certainly being worked on -- but it can't be good to eat things that were so unhealthy they had to be flooded with antibiotics to keep them barely alive.
Lady M: I don't miss meat either. The thought just repulses me now.
Mike: It is. I love how he doesn't respect anybody's sacred cows (more literally in this case than most).
Nan: The money is only an incentive as long as the public demand for meat is there. Ultimately the industry will fade away as people give up the meat habit.
Victor: The way I see it -- when the animals are euthanized, at least their suffering is over. There's no realistic scenario in which they could have been given better lives. Their deaths cause less pollution than the ongoing operation of the meat-factory would. And at least they aren't making money for the industry that tormented them.
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