CHICKEN HOLOCAUST: Can photos of farmed animals change our eating and buying habits and politics?
If ever there was an appropriate use of the term 'countless', it is for the millions of farmed birds killed recently to prevent further spread of bird flu. Like Covid, the current avian flu was abetted — if not begun — by animal mistreatment and the oppressive incarceration of factory farming. But notice how big food and news outlets (funded by big food) have avoided displaying landfills of 'depopulated' animals and 'terminated' chickens. Why? Because a gory and emotional photo or video can make a big difference if not censored by commercial interests. It might ruin people’s appetite -- and sales.
MARTHA ROSENBERG: If ever there were an appropriate use of the term “countless,” it is for the millions of farmed birds killed recently to prevent further spread of bird flu and loss of profits…. Like Covid, the current avian flu that is morphing to cows, pigs, pets and zoo animals before our very eyes was abetted — if not begun — by animal mistreatment… and the oppressive incarceration of factory farming…
Notice how big food and news outlets funded by big food have avoided displaying landfills of depopulated animals and terminated chickens. It might ruin people’s appetites… and sales! (Of course, some of the terminated animals were fed to other animals — why waste good “protein”? Is that how bird flu got in cows’ milk, Big Food? Economies of scale?)…
No one wants to be called bad and feel bad for their diet — and as long as there is more than one channel on peoples’ devices, they will tune out upsetting images… ‘Yeah, yeah—we know veal calves are taken from their mothers at birth and allowed to freeze to death. We know chickens miss the knife and get boiled alive. We know newborn male chicks are ground up alive at hatcheries. What else is new? The problem is they still taste good and the cruelty videos ruin your appetite!’… Yes, a gory and emotional photo can make a difference if not censored by commercial interests or ridiculed…
New York Times’ columnist Nick Kristof was no wild-eyed vegan but this is what he wrote after video of chickens legally boiled alive was released. “Workers grab the birds and shove their legs upside down into metal shackles on a conveyor belt. The chickens are then carried upside down to an electrified bath that is meant to knock them unconscious… A circular saw that cuts open their necks so that they bleed to death before they are scalded in hot water and their feathers plucked. Even when the system works as intended, the birds sometimes have legs or wings broken as they are shackled, the investigator said. And when it doesn’t work correctly, the birds’ end can be horrifying”. SOURCE…
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