Environment
Vegans Are the Furthest Thing from Elite
By definition alone ethical vegans are not elitist for the simple fact that they hold little to no power or influence in the overarching animal-industrial complex that controls everything from communication and government to universities and major corporations. In fact, our efforts often run counter to and challenge the existing system of oppression upheld by the elite.
It's all too easy for non-vegans to bully and belittle minority vegans as elitist while defending and excusing their own unjust choices, which is ironic considering the forced labor of animals and the consumption of their murdered bodies, milk, and eggs elevate and sustain the upper classes. Here are some brief examples of interconnected scourges linked to financial interests in animal oppression:
Violence: Animal industries are inherently violent operations that function by remaining invisible. Animal products can only be consumed when animals are treated as merchandise—things. Supported by non-vegan dollars; the meat, dairy, fish, and egg industries profit from the forced breeding and killing of billions of beings every year. In addition, slaughterhouse workers have few options and do the revolting work of killing for those who won't do it themselves. In "Vegan in the Dairy State" Cori Mattli noted that "there is a high correlation with slaughterhouse work and post-traumatic stress disorder, severe anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, and domestic violence." Workers often become desensitized to the violence they are paid to inflict on other animals and society pays a steep price for accepting such unnecessary violence as routine. Towns harboring slaughterhouses have higher rates of domestic violence and violent crimes, including murder and rape.
War/Genocide: In his groundbreaking book, Animal Oppression and Human Violence, David A. Nibert expounded how the need for more resources to maintain nomadic herds of animals for food and labor has resulted in centuries of war and conflict. From Genghis Khan to today's commercial cattle ranching operations, the upper echelon continue to expand their capitalist interests through the manipulation and exploitation of land and animals. Nonhumans are continually used as sources of food, tools, and labor to support conflicts and conquests. The influx of cattle, sheep, horses, and other animals to North, Central, and South America from European explorers through the Columbian Exchange helped fuel military expeditions, warfare between native tribes, and genocide. As the demand for beef (and land and water for sustaining cattle) increases—even now—so too do conflicts with indigenous groups (e.g. Darfur).
Hunger: Much of the grains grown all over the world are used solely as feed to fatten cattle for slaughter. Impoverished countries have been persuaded to convert their lands to cattle rearing in order to supply richer countries in the European Union, Canada, Australia, and the United States with cheap meat. Private and public lands are often stolen by corporate and government entities for the purpose of grazing cattle, which has only increased food scarcity. In South and Central America and Africa, peasant farmers are violently ejected from their lands in order for cattle ranchers to supply Americans with steak and hamburgers, producing earnings for a small percentage of elites while displaced natives go homeless and hungry. Approximately eighty percent of US crops go to feeding live-stock which, if redirected, could alleviate the needs of at least 800 million starving and malnourished people.
Environmental Destruction: Raising other animals for food has caused worldwide soil erosion and is responsible for converting one-third of the earth's surface to desert. It also consumes most of the world's depleting fresh water supply and pollutes what is remaining with animal waste, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, hormones, and other toxins, bacteria, fungi, and viruses. From feed to fertilizer, to refrigeration and transport, enormous amounts of fossil fuels are needed to power the meat, dairy, and egg industries. Furthermore, deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane) resulting from an ever expanding human population and increased animal consumption make live-stock production the biggest contributor to climate change, which will mean more destructive and deadly floods, fires, and hurricanes.
Disease: Most infectious diseases, HIV, anthrax, bubonic plague, Ebola, and the common cold originated from the confinement and use of nonhumans. In addition, many non-communicable diseases like cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, as well as most chronic diseases are linked to the consumption of animal products. Some of the poorest and sickest US citizens reside in southeastern states in which large amounts of animal products are consumed.
CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) or factory farms are typically located in poverty-stricken communities and their employees suffer ill health as a consequence. According to a 2008 Pew Charitable Trust study, CAFOs pose major health risks not only to workers but to neighbors and surrounding communities, too.
Big Pharma, animal laboratories, and other medical facilities owned by elites continue to prosper off of preventable human diseases and the abuse of animals for parts and research. New Jersey is considered the pharmaceutical capital of the world and offers huge tax incentives to pharmaceutical corporations.
Slavery/Sex trafficking: For centuries, human and nonhuman slave labor on plantations, ranches, and mines were bankrolled through the sale, trade, and consumption of animal flesh, skins, and furs to benefit European monarchies and aristocracies. The transatlantic slave trade comprised both human and nonhuman slaves and profited from the sale of animal skins and the use of animal bodies to feed human slaves. As animal industries expanded into other less developed countries, so too did slave labor. According to Nibert, "between 1995 and 2001, 49 percent of the cases of slavery in Brazil occurred in cattle ranches and 25 percent were related to deforestation" in expansion of cattle ranching. Women have been particularly vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation. Those who have had their land expropriated have resorted to prostitution or have been lured to cities with the promise of jobs only to be sold into the sex trade.
Poverty: High turnover and low wages have been staples of industries that exploit both human and nonhuman animals. Very little has changed from the stockyards and meat packing plants of Chicago at the turn of the 20th century (illustrated so vividly in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle) to today's slaughterhouses and fast food restaurants. In "Injustice for All", Mark Hawthorne found that the average abattoir worker earns just $11.42 an hour and is required to kill a large number of animals per minute. Many workers are immigrants (38%) and a growing number are undocumented, keeping them silent and powerless to meager pay, substandard conditions, and work-related injuries.
Death: Over the centuries, zillions of domesecrated and free-living animals, as well as millions of humans, have been directly and indirectly murdered through the promotion and expansion of animal abuse industries. With our continued ignorance, indifference, and greed, millions more will die.
Treating nonhuman animals as less than, as living slaves for labor, science, and entertainment, and marketing and consuming their dead bodies, skins, babies, fluids, and flesh satisfies an immoral capitalist economy and the rapacious captains of industry, not to mention our depraved pleasure for the taste of another's flesh. Our continued consumption bolsters elitism and promotes all the interconnected and preventable tragedies listed above and then some.
Animal abuse is human abuse and vice-versa; all of our lives and deaths are intersected. Each time we eat nonhumans, buy products made from their tortured bodies, or endorse their abuse and manipulation, we foster a system built on oppression and inequality. In essence, we join the oppressors, we endorse the elites and the status quo, and we hasten our own demise.
It's all too easy for non-vegans to bully and belittle minority vegans as elitist while defending and excusing their own unjust choices, which is ironic considering the forced labor of animals and the consumption of their murdered bodies, milk, and eggs elevate and sustain the upper classes. Here are some brief examples of interconnected scourges linked to financial interests in animal oppression:
Violence: Animal industries are inherently violent operations that function by remaining invisible. Animal products can only be consumed when animals are treated as merchandise—things. Supported by non-vegan dollars; the meat, dairy, fish, and egg industries profit from the forced breeding and killing of billions of beings every year. In addition, slaughterhouse workers have few options and do the revolting work of killing for those who won't do it themselves. In "Vegan in the Dairy State" Cori Mattli noted that "there is a high correlation with slaughterhouse work and post-traumatic stress disorder, severe anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, and domestic violence." Workers often become desensitized to the violence they are paid to inflict on other animals and society pays a steep price for accepting such unnecessary violence as routine. Towns harboring slaughterhouses have higher rates of domestic violence and violent crimes, including murder and rape.
War/Genocide: In his groundbreaking book, Animal Oppression and Human Violence, David A. Nibert expounded how the need for more resources to maintain nomadic herds of animals for food and labor has resulted in centuries of war and conflict. From Genghis Khan to today's commercial cattle ranching operations, the upper echelon continue to expand their capitalist interests through the manipulation and exploitation of land and animals. Nonhumans are continually used as sources of food, tools, and labor to support conflicts and conquests. The influx of cattle, sheep, horses, and other animals to North, Central, and South America from European explorers through the Columbian Exchange helped fuel military expeditions, warfare between native tribes, and genocide. As the demand for beef (and land and water for sustaining cattle) increases—even now—so too do conflicts with indigenous groups (e.g. Darfur).
Hunger: Much of the grains grown all over the world are used solely as feed to fatten cattle for slaughter. Impoverished countries have been persuaded to convert their lands to cattle rearing in order to supply richer countries in the European Union, Canada, Australia, and the United States with cheap meat. Private and public lands are often stolen by corporate and government entities for the purpose of grazing cattle, which has only increased food scarcity. In South and Central America and Africa, peasant farmers are violently ejected from their lands in order for cattle ranchers to supply Americans with steak and hamburgers, producing earnings for a small percentage of elites while displaced natives go homeless and hungry. Approximately eighty percent of US crops go to feeding live-stock which, if redirected, could alleviate the needs of at least 800 million starving and malnourished people.
Environmental Destruction: Raising other animals for food has caused worldwide soil erosion and is responsible for converting one-third of the earth's surface to desert. It also consumes most of the world's depleting fresh water supply and pollutes what is remaining with animal waste, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, hormones, and other toxins, bacteria, fungi, and viruses. From feed to fertilizer, to refrigeration and transport, enormous amounts of fossil fuels are needed to power the meat, dairy, and egg industries. Furthermore, deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane) resulting from an ever expanding human population and increased animal consumption make live-stock production the biggest contributor to climate change, which will mean more destructive and deadly floods, fires, and hurricanes.
Disease: Most infectious diseases, HIV, anthrax, bubonic plague, Ebola, and the common cold originated from the confinement and use of nonhumans. In addition, many non-communicable diseases like cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, as well as most chronic diseases are linked to the consumption of animal products. Some of the poorest and sickest US citizens reside in southeastern states in which large amounts of animal products are consumed.
CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) or factory farms are typically located in poverty-stricken communities and their employees suffer ill health as a consequence. According to a 2008 Pew Charitable Trust study, CAFOs pose major health risks not only to workers but to neighbors and surrounding communities, too.
Big Pharma, animal laboratories, and other medical facilities owned by elites continue to prosper off of preventable human diseases and the abuse of animals for parts and research. New Jersey is considered the pharmaceutical capital of the world and offers huge tax incentives to pharmaceutical corporations.
Slavery/Sex trafficking: For centuries, human and nonhuman slave labor on plantations, ranches, and mines were bankrolled through the sale, trade, and consumption of animal flesh, skins, and furs to benefit European monarchies and aristocracies. The transatlantic slave trade comprised both human and nonhuman slaves and profited from the sale of animal skins and the use of animal bodies to feed human slaves. As animal industries expanded into other less developed countries, so too did slave labor. According to Nibert, "between 1995 and 2001, 49 percent of the cases of slavery in Brazil occurred in cattle ranches and 25 percent were related to deforestation" in expansion of cattle ranching. Women have been particularly vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation. Those who have had their land expropriated have resorted to prostitution or have been lured to cities with the promise of jobs only to be sold into the sex trade.
Poverty: High turnover and low wages have been staples of industries that exploit both human and nonhuman animals. Very little has changed from the stockyards and meat packing plants of Chicago at the turn of the 20th century (illustrated so vividly in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle) to today's slaughterhouses and fast food restaurants. In "Injustice for All", Mark Hawthorne found that the average abattoir worker earns just $11.42 an hour and is required to kill a large number of animals per minute. Many workers are immigrants (38%) and a growing number are undocumented, keeping them silent and powerless to meager pay, substandard conditions, and work-related injuries.
Death: Over the centuries, zillions of domesecrated and free-living animals, as well as millions of humans, have been directly and indirectly murdered through the promotion and expansion of animal abuse industries. With our continued ignorance, indifference, and greed, millions more will die.
Treating nonhuman animals as less than, as living slaves for labor, science, and entertainment, and marketing and consuming their dead bodies, skins, babies, fluids, and flesh satisfies an immoral capitalist economy and the rapacious captains of industry, not to mention our depraved pleasure for the taste of another's flesh. Our continued consumption bolsters elitism and promotes all the interconnected and preventable tragedies listed above and then some.
Animal abuse is human abuse and vice-versa; all of our lives and deaths are intersected. Each time we eat nonhumans, buy products made from their tortured bodies, or endorse their abuse and manipulation, we foster a system built on oppression and inequality. In essence, we join the oppressors, we endorse the elites and the status quo, and we hasten our own demise.
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