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Mindless Butchery on a colossal scale. Enjoy your meal.
silver
In the beginning there was nothing, and then it exploded.USA, Left coast. Veteran
Here's hoping that the vimeo I copied works.
It didn't copy the actual vimeo/video so I guess the link will have to suffice until I can figure it out...actually I guess it did work. Yay.
I can't help it, I love that thread title! 
2
Comments
Samsara, wonderful documentary. I watch it often, and it's precursor Baraka.
@silver
Maybe this is just a vegetarians view but...
why present such a horrific monument to earths human population issues and
title it as Silver's Useless Announcement Thread?
confession (I only watched 3 minutes of it)
To @how: I plan on it being a hodgepodge just like the other useless thread. I had no idea where to share the vimeo, so I figured I'd just create my own patchwork thread for now anyway.
I'm not a vegetarian btw, but I think lots of non-veggies would be utterly shocked at how our food is 'processed' and would want to make changes that would befit a meat-eater's sensitive side. It bothers me a lot the horror stories of not just veal calves but all animals caged in such a way that they can barely move. It's horrible.
I think we all need to know about these things.
Just for a reference point, the chicken processing plant is in Denmark and the others are mostly filmed in China. The dairy/cow piece is from California. Not surprisingly, US factories wouldn't allow them in. China and others were happy to show off their efficiency. If you look around at various documentaries on the topic. Conditions in US factory farms are worse than what you see in Samsara.
Yes, that's generally my understanding, @karasti. I thought the early bits were quite clean and efficient - just the magnitude is the shocker. I've heard about the many (relatively speaking) whistleblowers - people who sneak in to the U.S. factory farms and film unbeknownst to the operators and get in legal trouble for doing the right thing. It stinks!
I barely managed to watch for 2 minutes before the screen went black and the message
"Sorry, there was an issue with Playback" appeared.
Good.
My stomach was already beginning to consider giving up its contents.
Do people really not know. Hell, I knew of this since I was a kid back in the 1950s.
The worst thing (related) that I ever saw, in person, was when I happened into a huge "butcher tent" in Bangkok. It wasn't so much all the meat being carved up (no live animals), it was the thought of it hanging there in the heat with all the flies. Very appetizing.
Yes, thanks. I am.
Meat-eaters have seen things like this, all the time. They just don't care enough about the issue to stop eating their yummy breakfast bacon, their delicious kentucky-style chicken, or their tasty, ridiculously expensive and hormone-laden prime steaks. If they did, the meat-market would be suffering and I don't think it is. At all.
You think we didn't? Oooh, the threads......
Why do meat-eaters still insist on eating meat?
This is why.
The speaker in this video is actually an actress named Kate Miles, but the facts about produce and its marketing are 100% real. The audience is also real, and thus the looks of disgust are totally real too.
It suggests that a lot of people don't really care, they are attached to eating meat and don't want to give it up.
This picture was posted on FB as a discussion protesting against intensive farming and cruelty. Several commenters remarked things like "Mmm! Bacon!" and "Look at all that crackling!" and "sausages galore!" no doubt to be provocative argumentative and to flame the discussion. but it was a measure of how little they cared, and it's common.
@silver, if you want to 'shock' meat-eaters into thinking twice about how their meat is produced, start to finish, you're going to have to up the ante, to an extreme degree.
But not on here, thanks.
A little bit random, but on topic. Peasants over here - farmers, to use a more politically correct term - still grow their own vegetables and raise their own animals. This has been done for a long time and it seems that eating customs were based on the natural cycles. We would only eat meat during winter, and the rest of the year we had a mainly vegetarian diet. The enormous consumption of meat has started When animals were turned into products, something you see packaged on a supermarket shelf, something that you don't have to interact with when it is alive.
There's nothing wrong with people tilting at windmills. We all do it over some topic. But frankly, any idea that a few Buddhists are going to make significant changes in the diets of the world is just fantasy. And you don't have any EVIDENCE to the contrary.
The degree of meat consumption may change over time, but it is and will continue to be a staple of the Western diet. Most changes in meat consumption are due to price pressures (eg., the current decline in steaks in favor of chicken and pork). Or people reducing the volume of meat they eat, or having a meatless meal once a week...again, mostly due to price concerns or the pressure to reduce read meat due to health issues. But the percentage of Americans who profess to be vegetarians has remained fairly steady.
Meat consumption is alive in well in Thailand, where 95% of the people are self-proclaimed Buddhists. Meat at dinner, meat at lunch, and often meat at breakfast. Meatballs in sweet chili sauce, stir-fried meat dishes, all right along the street or in restaurants. Every where, all the time. Less volume of meat than in the West, cheaper types of meat than in the West, but still meat at most meals except for the very poor.
Almost every school I ever worked in had some vegetarians who would harp on the subject. I don't recall them ever changing a single colleague's eating habits.
This topic comes up over and over and over again on this forum. And nothing significant changes. Spin your wheels. Spin your wheels. Spin your wheels. And go nowhere.
Honestly, there are many good causes where you are far more likely to have some success. My advice: invest the time you have here on earth more wisely.
Just to be sure that my words are not misinterpreted, I was referring to my comment.
I think it's a question we need to ask ourselves. Do we personally want to contribute even in a small way to the slaughter? Do we care or not? And if we don't care or are too attached to meat, then let's at least be honest about that, and not try to rationalise away our behaviour.
Are we content to pay lip service to Right Intention when it suits us? Does our compassion not extend to animals? Are we content for somebody else to break the first precept and do wrong livelihood on our behalf so we can satisfy a dietary preference? And so on.
Is anyone suggesting that? Basically your post is saying that it's pointless to discuss ethical questions like this because nobody ever changes their behaviour. So should we just give up talking about ethics completely? Pretend that it isn't part of the Buddhist path? Just do what suits us without any concern for the effect our actions have?
There was a case in my part of the world a couple of years back where two workers on a turkey farm were filmed using a live turkey as a football, kicking it all over the place and having a great laugh. I suspect this kind of cruelty is quite common because the workers lose sensitivity over a period of time.
I think it's fine to discuss. It's pointless to make assumptions about large groups of people though. I still eat meat. And nope, it has nothing to do with not caring. There are also a lot of different ways to go about it.
A lot of people live in ignorance by choice. They don't want to think about where their neatly wrapped food comes from.
A lot of other people know and think it's fine. Human dominion over animals that were placed here for our enjoyment and all that (I know more people in that category than any other).
A lot of other people know, but don't know what to do about it because eating meat is so engrained in our culture (as is eating in general) that thinking of not eating it is very difficult. A lot of them aren't so attached to the meat but attached to family holiday dinners and not ready to have the necessary conversations. They don't have the courage yet, but maybe will get there one day.
A lot of people feel they need the meat for the protein. Yes, you can get protein other ways, but as far as convenience, meat is by far the easiest way to get protein B vitamins and Iron. I have a very, very difficult time eating legumes and beans. Sensory problems that have had since I was a child. I can only eat them if I swallow them whole and then they don't digest, so kind of defeats the purpose, lol.
I know many people who have tried vegan or vegetarian diets and they just don't work for them. Everyone is different and perhaps one diet is not for everyone on the planet. Our genes are programmed to accept an optimal diet...for that genetic map. What people in the arctic have thrived on for generations, I likely would not. Same with a tropical diet. But those people likely would not do well on a typical diet in this part of the world, either. It's not so simple as "everyone can do it!" because they cannot.
I'm quite cautious of where meat we eat comes from and how the animals were raised. Most of it is locally purchased from small family farms that we have visited. I fish up my own fish, and I accept the karma that comes from that. I'd rather do that than support places that poorly treat their fish. Might I give it up one day? You never know. I have meatless days a few days a week. I didn't used to have any. But right now, we cannot afford to budget for our family to have so many separate meals. It is unlikely my husband will ever give up meat. So that means 2 meals every dinner. Not in the budget right now. I have greatly increased my veggie intake and as a result my meat intake has declined. But I find I do not feel well after going too many days without it.
The general direction of meat consumption is in decline, particularly red meat. People are concerned with both the health risks and the environmental risks from the costs to the planet of producing red meat on such a massive scale. It takes a long time for minds to change. But as it has declined here and seems to be continuing to do so, it is on the rise in other countries, particularly China and Brazil. In the decade leading up to 2007, meat (including poultry) consumption in the US was down 12%. From 2006 to 2010 (with an overlapping year) it was down another 6%.
http://www.researchscape.com/health/meat-consumption-trends
I would never be a freak about it (in either direction), fwiw. Sure, most of us modern folks are used to going into the supermarkets and picking up packages of meat, BUT when I learned about the factory farms and the horrors in them, I cared about how these poor creatures were raised and treated. I'm not going on a crusade about it any time soon, though. But, I figure any little exposure about the realities to those who never have had a clue, is worth that small effort.
I would never go vegetarian because my body responds so well to a high protein diet. Even if I only ate eggs for the rest of my life, that would be ok. I'm, not much of a fruit eater because of the high sugar - even as a kid - and I loved orange juice - if I drank too much my whole mouth would get sore. When I go to a buffet, I get a few pieces of pineapple and melon, but that's about it.
I admire and look up to the Jewish, who prepare their meats 'kosher'. I think it's a part of me who appreciates all animals 'on the hoof' as well as on the plate. I don't think it's healthy, physically and spiritually, to not care how the animals we plan on eating are treated while they're alive such a brief time. That would be considered mindless and I don't want to operate like that. I don't want others who are involved in the factory farms to treat the animals in a sadistic way and that includes how they are only allowed to live in such cramped quarters - that is an extreme that I could never approve of.
Yes, that is exactly the kind of sadistic behavior I mentioned. I'm reasonably certain that this behavior is in response to something that is NOT natural or healthy and maybe it's even a form of PTSD or something like that. I feel for them, too, now that I think about it...I mean why be angry (although I am to a certain degree), but they too are put into an unnatural situation there.
It must be soul-destroying work. And if we buy meat we're condoning it, we're expecting others to do the butchering on our behalf.
There is also the simple fact that, despite financial resources and time not being issues, some folks quite honestly cannot thrive on a veg*n diet. It's not that they're doing something wrong; it's just how they've been cobbled together, and I imagine human evolution within various cultural groups might play a part in it. In that case, it's worth looking into sustainably- and humanely-raised and butchered meats, as well as eggs, dairy, etc. Unfortunately, the U.S.'s current Ag-Gag laws are making it difficult to call out producers who are not raising and slaughtering animals humanely. There's buying local, which is an option that may (or may not) be available.
And, yes, I am vegan. Part of it is due to my own personal ethics, and much of it is simply because I seem to fare the best with a vegan diet. That, and unless it's grapefruit (Ick!), my wife calls me "The Vegan Garbage Disposal."
I can only hope that there's a way to not let such work become soul-destroying but then how to destroy something that some people don't even believe exists...I get it though. Like I said at the beginning, people are just not aware or if they only HEAR about it, they just shrug and move on whereas, if they SEE it even if on a video, then they're more likely to sit up and take some degree of notice! Every chance I get I sign on-line petitions about changing these things.
You like to use a lot of absolutes, @SpinyNorman. Simply purchasing meat doesn't guarantee support of factory forms.
Here in MN we are the biggest turkey producer in the country. Recently, a strain of bird flu is going through several of the large farms, and they destroy all the animals at the farms no matter whether they are sick or not to try to stop the spread. Last I saw the other day, we are at 240,000 turkeys killed. It's amazing to me (not in a good way) how non-chalant society tends to be about such things. The only concern is that the price will go up. So little concern for how many animals were killed, even if that would have been their destiny no matter what. I guess, on the positive side, they won't have to suffer for many months in poor conditions. But they will just be replaced by other turkeys.
Overall, people are paying more attention and demanding more, so that is good.
Though, I can say that while I also prefer an animal live a natural and wild and free life, life in the wild is nothing romantic or nice. It is a constant daily struggle and their lives are very, very difficult. Right now near here there is distemper going around the fox population. It is a devastating illness and not much can be done to stop it. A wild life is not an easy life, even if it is a free one. So don't fool yourself into thinking that an animal never raised in a cage lives some romantic life bounding through the meadows. Most of the suffer greatly and die horrible deaths.
Toadally agree, @karasti -- This is what I believe the Bible says when it talks about man being in dominion over the animals etc. I think it should have stressed or worded it differently to mean that we don't rule over them, but we are their stewards. Maybe something was lost in translation or how modern man chooses to translate this dominion business.
And the thing about the animals in the wild, and talking about this stuff brings up one word in my mind: Impermanence.
Few topics place such a search light on our unwillingness to threaten our own attachments like what diet choices represent more harmlessness than others.
I think it's enough that to see these things could/should/would make us think more deeply about how things are done around here, in some places in the world. I don't think we should feel guilty but some other feeling or thought about it would be appropriate - we all arrived here where we are through no fault of our own. Like that comedian Dennis (forget his last name - had a tv show) - one of his famous lines is "It was broken when I got here!" ... or something like that.
Dennis Miller?
Yes.
@silver.
You showed a video intended to show folks the consequences of mass animal food production.
It bothers me a lot the horror stories of not just veal calves but all animals caged in such a way that they can barely move. It's horrible.
But just not horrible enough to stop supporting (eating) that which creates this harm.
How many other forms of atrocities around the world continue unabated by this same reasoning, that it existed before I was aware of it, that I do not want to feel guilt about it, it is no fault of it is mine?
My post simply said this is what will give this thread it's legs.
Pointing out where a practice remains theoretical and where it is actualized asks everyone of us," How much do we really care about anything when it challenges a personal attachment?".
All Life requires the death of other life to continue. I only advocate trying to practice that what dies, so that I continue, do so with the least amount of suffering for all.
I've been lucky to live the life I've lived in spite of it all. I don't think brow-beating or shaming someone into living or believing a certain way makes for the kind of sustainable change in attitudes and outlooks. Heck, you'd have better luck if you physically beat me! But my mind wouldn't necessarily accept and adopt and adapt to what you want me to believe and behave. It brings to mind in the movie, "Contact" where Elle's father said to her: "Small movies, Elle...small moves."
Please, don't eat meat because you really don't need to.
Like I said, protein seems to keep me healthier and if I could eat only eggs as a source, I'd be okay with that, too. Everybody's system seems to have subtle but marked differences in apparent requirements. I'm not willing to tell someone they have to eat nothing but fruit and/or vegetables.
I would not hold out hope for much help from anyone's mind if it looks anything like mine. Ducking back and forth like it's playing doge ball with my ego.
The heart however can connect to a much wider expanse that holds out hope for us all.
I was reading my favorite book (Old Path White Clouds) yesterday and it happened to be the part where the three brahman brothers and their groups decided to follow the Buddha after Uruvela Kassapa listened to the Buddha explain how things work. I couldn't help but laugh a bit, when he instructed them to release all the animals that they had been raising for food and sacrifices...I can well imagine that these animals are going to suffer more then, because they are used to being fed and cared for by the humans and now they have to fend for themselves...it had to be chaos for the poor things! These things need to be thought through - of course I wasn't there, but peeps do things and they mean well, but...
You get proteins from plants, too. And for me it's ok to consume milk products. After all, I'm not the centre of the Universe, so I don't care if I shall die to the lack of animal proteins.
I'm sorry, @silver, I don't buy it.
There are perfectly good proteins available in some grains and vegetables which more than amply make up for the protein "lost" by not eating meat.
I am living proof of that.
I NEED protein because I am thalassemic.
But I can't eat animal protein because it gives me horrendous cramps.
I substitute this protein by eating pulses, Quinoa and other grains and nuts.
My doctor tells me I have the health and constitution of a person in her 30's.
You eat meat because you want to.
be honest about it.
Me too, although I have had some other vices than meat during the past years. All the blood teast results are really good.
@Polja : I stand by what I said earlier because that has been my experiences all throughout my adult years, and because I'm diabetic (before I was diabetic, I tested as a hypoglycemic during my pregnancy in the late 1980's -- I can't deal with too much sugars whether they be from fruits OR grains. We are not all from the same mold, so I think it's best to let others judge what and how they eat depending upon their own experiences -- I don't think it would be fair any other way.
I'd contend that I eat meat because that's how I was raised. I eat less meat every year (and less of everything else) because my experiences tell me that is the move I have to make.
I came from a British sweet meats diet. My first introduction to a vegetarian diet was in a monastic 3 month retreat. I didn't realize until my first day that the monastic's were vegetarian.
I remember asking the cook as a naive 19 yr old, how he thought I was not going to die with out any meat.
He said " My death was already pretty much guarantied whether I ate meat or not. All a vegetarian diet might change is how many others I might grace with harmlessness by not eating them. He said that being a vegetarian didn't resolve sufferings cause but it was a definite step I could take towards caring about something other than myself.
That was 40 years ago and not a bad teaching for the first day of a retreat.
@how, what the cook said is so descriptive and straightforward at same time.
@how there was no intention with the video, so don't attention one to it where it doesn't belong. Samsara (the video that this clip was taken from) is meant to be a thought provoking moving meditation for people to arrive at their own conclusions about. It is not a film made as a statement about the food supply or overpopulation or anything else.
@silver I really need to read that book, I have it and have not read it.
Our son is also a diabetic and his diet is dictated by nutritionists and his endocrinologists. Animal protein specifically is part of that. So are grain and plant proteins but to a differing degree because he is limited in the amount of carbs he can have per meal and then per day. Because he is 6, his diet impacts the entire family and we have no choice but to adapt our diet around his needs for his health to stay stable.
I like meat. I don't feel a need to hide that. But I would be ok giving it up, too. I like beer. Probably more than I like meat. But I can give it up whenever I want and I frequently go on stretches where I won't have anything to drink for months at a time and it doesn't bother me one bit. I can't do that with meat, but I am fine only having it a few times a week so that is where I am right now.
@federica where diet is concerned "I am living proof, it can be done!" is not good evidence, ever, for health. What works amazingly well for one person, does not work at all for another. That is the reason managing obesity and nutrition is so damn hard. There is no across-the-board recommendation that can be made because everyone is different and it is based on so many different factors. One guy can lose weight eating nothing but McD while the next person will gain weight, even if all other factors are the same (age/gender/weight/calories taken in and expended and so on). Myself, when I eat a clean diet, I lose weight and I stay healthy. Even if my calories are exactly the same in #, as soon as I add in too much alcohol or junk food I gain weight. So for me, it is not simply a matter of quantity of calories taken in versus those expended. For other people, that is true. And those people say the same thing "You're lying, that's not possible. It's simply math. You're doing it wrong." No, no I'm not. My body is just different from theirs and it happens in all sorts of ways. Not everyone can be a vegetarian just because you can. I don't know if it's because my family genes are from (and continue to live in) a cold northern climate, or what. But we thrive on more protein and fat than most people do. Other people would find themselves unhealthy on the diet we eat. And yes, a lot of what your body needs is tied genetically to foods your ancestors thrived on.
Yum. Sausages!
NOM, nom, nom, NOM nom.
Delicious.
[Lobster fails again, caught eating his friends]
@Karasti
I actually attributed Sugar with that attention, as her following posts attest to, not the video.
That I happened to see the video as the inevitable result of trying to feed the world's population on an animal diet was my conclusion.
But I do understand that there are some Buddhist traditions out there who simply don't share the rest of Buddhism's care about animal slaughter verses plant slaughter.
Didn't need to watch it I've seen footage before. The most troubling thing is that that's the size of our consumsion. First off it's scary to think that these buddhas live the way they live and are killed in a similar fashion. Sad to say but as a whole people are so careless that it's past the point of having a farm with livestock. On the same measure farmland is maxed out also. Thank you for being Buddhist people and for knowing the connection between all things. My greatest hope is that the technology that has derived from the slavery it has been will soon go to work for the greater good. After all I think that's what they wanted. To stop killing ourselves. Happy Easter sunday from the good ol US of A
On a related (kind of) note, with California putting in never before heard of water saving measures, it bothers me that farms are exempt. They use 80% of the water, and if CA is suffering that much, then the farms need to change their ways, too. It's ridiculous that people have to control what they use a very minimal amount of water for, when farms are free to keep using the vast majority of it without having to change methods. The water usage that goes into farming animals, especially beef, is incredible and it is probably the biggest factor in the reductions of meat that I've made.
Karasti, desalination has been around for a long time can could maybe be processed with solar technology. I saw the news last week and felt both sad and mad for all the right reasons. With the polar caps melting shouldn't we be saying hip hip haray? All the desert out there and were worried about fuel pipelines and cell phone charging. Im certain that at some point in time when people really wake up the humanity will take shape and quite possible that we as people will learn how to live. I'm sorry if it's directly related to you. that sucks. If not give it time it will work itself out. With greed comes suffering and might just explain the great discourse that some spoke of. Happy Easter
It doesn't directly affect me, no. Thankfully, I live in one of the largest accessible fresh water supply areas in the world. I can walk a block down the road and get all the fresh (though we'd still boil it, giardia is no fun, lol) water we'd need.
Generally speaking, I'm not sure what we thought would happen. We've long had information even about basic climate behavior of the planet...and to think we thought we could circumvent nature to the degree that millions of people live in a desert but treat it like it's not was bound to run them (and the rest of us) into problems. If you live in a desert, the area should be preserved as a desert. Not treated like a subtropical rainforest when it's not.
As for desalination, my understanding is that it's currently quite expensive to desalinate the amount of water that is needed in the SW US.
Canadian parable
The next most dangerous thing to
not having what you need in difficult times
is having what others need in difficult times.
Well said and more than capable. I do think that we started terra forming this planet from industry and good things will not happen if we stop now. So all for land conservation if it works. Plain and simple way to put it, does someone consider the implementing a strategy on weight and wind when a sky scraper up. Guess what the technology out there is fully capable of doing so rather than just checking for ground faults. I say no matter what stop dyeing in vein and grow up before we have more sunamies. Earth store. there is no blood in sands if a forest has sprung forth. Don't let Federica read this, she'll yell at me for my spelling. lol