I am an animal lover. I am also a meat lover.
I get great pleasure from tucking into a freshly-roasted joint of pork. I've also had some remarkable encounters with pigs, who are incredibly intelligent, contemplative and playful. I remember going to a Christmas market in the nearby town of Sierck-Les-Bains, just over the border in France, and seeing a wild boar on an open spit fire. This was the closest I ever came to becoming a vegetarian. I never will, of course, because I am also a part of this Darwinist set-up, and I firmly believe in the circle of life.
However, I believe in killing as part of the circle of life only as a necessity, for example as food, or to avoid infestations. So as you can imagine, I am a firm supporter of the least harmful ways of going about this. Speed of death being one. We are humans, after all. In the animal world, when I see a cat throwing a bird into the air so that it crashes onto a hard surface, I know that cat is softening up the meat. And although it is awful to see a bird being devoured by a cat, this is the circle of life. And death. Many creatures, when they know they are going to be eaten, go into shutdown mode, and curl up ready for their last second.
Cats, who are notoriously fickle creatures, and may actually abandon the prey before eating it, or even leave it still alive but completely destroyed, have the air of harmless little things in front of their owners, yet carry the reputation of scourge of the garden amongst the rodent and bird populations. But they are cats. And they have little or no real understanding of the world around them, other than this strange instinct that they need to behave similarly to their ancestors back in Africa and Asia, although they don't know why. I hate seeing a dead bird abandoned or half-eaten on my doormat or in the garden, because I know, especially at this time of year, that poor creature had a family somewhere that relied on it to bring food, and the callous cat didn't even have the decency to finish it off. The circle of life. And what a circle it is. A majestic balance of nature that maintains the order of hierarchy among us living things.
And we are at the top.
This means we have a duty to tend to our planet, to act as custodians of the Earth, and to maintain the laws of nature. But we do not. We allow dastardly organisations to defile our food chain by wiping out the bees; we allow nefarious multinationals to stick out their sharp elbows and run farms into the ground in the name of their equally barbarous customers, the supermarkets; and we allow the killing of animals for the sake of vanity. And this I find to be the greatest tragedy to befall us in the 21st century. That the silent majority goes on buying utter rubbish in the supermarkets, feeding their families on stuff that comes out of plastic packets and paper boxes.
This has to stop. We are ruining our world by not doing anything about it. By buying the stuff that these multinationals fabricate to allegedly make our lives easier or better, we are also making others' lives much more miserable or of a much lower quality. Not just humans, but also mammals and fish, trees and plants. And this, just to save a few cents on an evening meal.
Why aren't more of us angry? How are we learning to live with and accept this? I'll tell you.
We are slowly learning to edit our lives. It's an unconscious thing, but it is happening. We are airbrushing out the cruelty that is going on in our world, from the unfathomable barbarism that humans are capable of, right down to Facebook's ridiculous policy of censoring some body parts, even in factual posts. They are being wiped out by politically correct zealots who complain that "this sort of thing is not suitable for people to see", by social media admins who control what you show to the world very rigorously and by yourselves, when you question whether you should show or introduce something to a wider audience. It also has to stop - we need to see some things in order to stop them. That's what warnings are for.
That is why I am posting this video from PETA (this contains appalling scenes of animal cruelty):
http://bcove.me/xr0y5f9m
It is the most extremely shocking thing I think I have ever seen. It is barbaric beyond all comprehension, that people - PEOPLE - in the 21st century can still care so little for another living creature which, however far down the food chain it may be, still has complex feelings. But it is also beyond belief that PC nutters are also likely to point their pious fingers in the direction of those who expose this cruelty and tell them to remove it for fear of scaring those of a delicate constitution.
Well they can go to hell along with the monsters who kill innocent creatures for fur in the first place, for they are both supporting each other in helping to maintain the status quo. Next time someone wants something removed because it's upsetting, remind them that they too are helping the perpetrators by not passing on the gravity of the acts, all because they don't want to get too upset. Poor dears.
This is how I rationalise my world, and how I see the role of humans in it. Hunting in Africa, especially rhino and elephants, the fur trade, and dangerously cheap goods - the paper trail leads back to one country - China. There are other countries in the world doing this too, and I am sure the Chinese propaganda experts are, as you read this, finding ways to show me that other nations are a lot worse than the Chinese. I am sure they will try to disprove this or denounce me, but WMYTIGAF? I really don't. The more vociferous the denials, the truer the scandal they are trying to cover up. The more they try to expose their critics, the smellier the shit they are hiding. To be attacked by that lot I would regard as a badge of honour.
And so this leads me to the final thought on this matter: what should we do about it?
Well, just stop buying anything from China. Anything at all. You won't do much to their economy by boycotting just this awful animal trophy trade. Most do already. You need to make a principled and conscious effort to shun, ignore and denounce anything at all from there. I know it's hard, especially with computer equipment, but in other areas like toys, clothes, furniture and the like, there are richer pickings, and the more trade China loses due to its moral standing, the more embarrassed their leaders might become. Initially, probably not, but if it hurts their economy, they may sit up and take note that, despite the corrupt and nepotistic nature of worldwide politics these days, at least the ordinary people are doing something.
It is said that the behaviour of a nation's people towards their animals shows how advanced their civilisation is. I will let you draw your own conclusions.
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