The recent undercover exposure of workers at Fair Oaks Farms, Indiana went viral after workers were filmed cruelly beating, throwing and stamping on helpless baby calves not just once or twice but time after time after time. The farm is one of the flagship farms for the Coca Cola company and draws around half a million visitors a year, where they are sold the lie of happy animals.
When I shared some of the shocking footage on my Twitter account (see below) I was inundated with demands to know where the farm was and who the workers were in the footage. Although we knew the details of the farm itself, the identities of the workers have so far remained a mystery... until now. Police have now released the names of three suspects they are searching for in relation to animal cruelty offenses: 31 year old Santiago Rubalcava Contreros; 38 year old Miguel Angel Navarro Serrano and 36 year old Edgar Gardozo Vazquez. Arrest warrants have been issued for these three and police have also been interviewing 'other persons of interest' involved in the case.
A vegan who ordered an Impossible Burger from a Brooklyn branch of Burger King was shocked to discover not only that the company had sent him a 100% BEEF patty but, on pressing the management for further information, they apparently admitted that they did not even sell Impossible Burgers at that branch and had in fact been passing off beef burgers as vegan!!!
Watch the video below for more.. My Twitter account exists for one reason and one reason only - to show people the truth behind the meat/dairy industry and the wider problem of animal abuse by our speciesist society at large.
I post shocking images and videos showing what happens behind closed doors and out of the public eye. I share and expose cruelty and animal abuse in industrial factory farms and slaughterhouses, in small-scale backyard meat production, in religious slaughter and in entertainment. Because the videos and images I tweet are so shocking and graphic I get a lot of replies. Many of these replies are from vegans, which is understandable since I have a large vegan following, but many more are from people who consume meat and dairy. Despite the seemingly disparate nature of the comments from this second group, I can't help but think that many of them are all fundamentally saying the same thing - it's someone else's fault. There are people who claim the problem is large-scale industrialised slaughter that has caused us to lose touch with our connection to the animals as sensitive individuals; there are those who, conversely, claim that the problem is small-scale backyard slaughter or practices in developing countries due to the unregulated nature of such operations; there are people who love to blame Halal or Kosher practices due to the prohibition against pre-slaughter stunning, while adherents of those religions try to convince everyone else (and themselves) that the problem is exactly the opposite - that it is the non-religious killing that causes the most suffering, since it lacks the inherent 'care and respect' that Muslims and Jews show to their victims. It's all bullshit. It's all just people trying to deflect the blame from themselves, to avoid facing up to their own complicity in the horrific treatment of billions of innocent animals every year by pointing the finger at someone else. The problem is not with any one group or method - the problem is meat and dairy production per se and the speciesist reduction of sentient beings to the status of property, objects or products that we, as humans, can ultimately do with as we choose. The problem is that it all entails abuse, that it all entails needless suffering and that any killing of an intelligent, sentient individual against their will is, in essence if not in law, murder. The concept of 'humane slaughter' is a convenient lie that people cling to in order to justify their part in a totally unjustifiable, morally abhorrent way of life that belongs in the dark past of human history, yet is alive and kicking in the 21st century. There is no humane way to kill someone who doesn't want to die. It's time to accept this and be vegan. Try the free 22-day vegan challenge - click the image below...
Four vegan bodybuilders talk about how a vegan diet has effected their health and performance
Mike Huskisson has been a prominent animal rights activist since the 1970's.
He has been instrumental in exposing some of the most high-profile cases of animal cruelty - cruelty which the perpetrators would have liked to have kept hidden from the public eye. He has saved the lives of abused animals through direct action and has been an inspiration to countless activists for over 40 years. Here he speaks publicly at the 2019 World Day For Laboratory Animals in Oxford, England.
Undercover video shot at Martin Farms exposes horrifying cruelty to cows and calves on behalf of multinational food giant Nestle...
The Second World War ended in 1945 shortly after the liberation of Auschwitz. When the truth came out across the world about what had been happening to the Jewish people in Nazi Germany, the world was rightly shocked, stunned and angered.
It wasn't only the Jews who were victims of Hitler's genocidal purge - Roma (Gypsies), Poles, people with disabilities, Afro-Germans... the scale of the Nazi's campaign of hate, terror and destruction was truly monstrous. This ideology was basically driven by a twisted notion of Darwinian theory which used the idea of 'survival of the fittest' or evolutionary hierarchy to justify pretty-much any kind of abuse, torture and murder of whole groups of individuals who were seen as 'different' or 'other'. With the defeat of the Nazi regime and the death of Adolf Hitler, the world celebrated and vowed that never again would such an evil ideology be allowed to gain a foothold and flourish to the point where this scale of persecution could occur.
And yet, just two years later, these types of sheds began to appear across the English countryside.
What was going on? How could one of the most powerful and active allies in the war against fascism be apparently constructing death camps in it's own green and pleasant land? The answer, of course, is that the vast majority of people within society blindly accepted an ideology which was, in essence, pretty much the same ideology which the Third Reich used to justify their abhorrent Endlösung or 'Final Solution' - that regardless of how much suffering is caused or how many tragic deaths are meted out along the way, it can all be justified if the victims are sufficiently 'different' in some way from the perpetrators.
In their rush to jump aboard this gravy train, the farming community were quick to adapt many of the very methods that Hitler's regime had so recently developed and perfected. To this very day, gas chambers are used to kill millions of pigs every single year - pigs that have mostly been raised in these concentration camps, treated as objects rather than living, feeling, intelligent, sensitive individuals, beaten, mutilated without anaesthetics, left to die in their own filth, crammed together, very often diseased and at the end of the day, are treated as either 'produce' or 'garbage'.
And, of course, it's not just pigs...
It is almost inconceivable that people fail to see - or refuse to acknowledge - the blatant parallels between these two holocausts. For that is undoubtedly what the meat and dairy industry is. The word holocaust is defined as 'destruction or slaughter on a mass scale' and nothing fits this definition more clearly than the slaughter of the billions of animals society perpetuates every single year. Just look at the figures from the UK alone...
What happened in Germany in the thirties and forties happened because ordinary people allowed it to happen. Not only allowed it, but actively facilitated and supported it... builders, train drivers, policemen, shop keepers, factory workers... all were part of the infrastructure which allowed the Nazi regime to carry out their barbarous work. That is also the reason why non-human animals continue to suffer and die such agonising, brutal deaths on a mind-blowing scale today.
Simply put, whenever you recoil at a story or video of farmed animals being abused and murdered in the most horrific ways imaginable, it is vital to remember that this is happening with the support of the vast majority of the human population. We claim to be a nation of animal lovers yet every day we turn a blind eye to cruelty and torment that surely only a psychopath could condone. We facilitate it in our jobs and we pay for it with our hard-earned cash. It's easy to look back at Nazi Germany and wonder how ordinary people could allow such an atrocity to happen, but if you want to get an idea of how you yourself might have acted in that situation, look at your actions today with regard to non-human animals. Are you supporting genocide because "that's just the way things are"? Are you making excuses for your inaction? Or are you making a stand for what's right? Every day, millions of people across the world are waking up to this crisis and refusing to support the mass-slaughter of those who are 'different' any longer. The vegan movement is snowballing like never before and it's easier than it ever has been to make your stand and say "Enough! I will no longer be part of this regime!" With every meal you make a choice - will you support the ongoing holocaust or will you refuse to be a part of it any longer?
It's almost impossible to comprehend the sheer scale of the cruelty, the brutality and the horror which is happening to innocent, frightened animals hour after hour, day after day, year after year.
Just watching this, the mind screams in horror and despair at the atrocities which are inflicted on our gentle brothers and sisters all around the world for nothing more than a quick buck and a quick snack. Please share this video in the hope that it wakes someone up. If only one animal can be saved from this torture it would be worth it but by going vegan you can help save the lives of 200 helpless animals every year. Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that many of my Tweets contain shocking and disturbing images/footage of animal abuse.
I've heard it said many times that as moving as these images are, they do little to change the hearts and minds of omnivores. I've heard it said that most of the people who like and retweet these images and videos are already vegan, that they simply turn people off from the message, shut people down or give people an excuse to turn away from the issues. I heartily disagree. Whilst it is true that a vegan Twitter account will always have a mostly vegan following, many of the people who like, share and comment on such Tweets readily admit to not being vegan. Many of them eat meat and dairy regularly. They will often start replies with something like, "I eat meat but there is no excuse for this kind of cruelty". Many omnivores will attempt to argue that these are extreme or rare examples or that they obtain their animal products from more ethical sources. This then opens up dialogue and the opportunity to show that there is no such thing as ethical abuse and that the entire meat and dairy industry is inherently cruel. I've also had people tell me directly after viewing such footage that they are now strongly considering going vegan, or at least not eating meat any more and I know that other vegans who also share graphic and upsetting footage have also had similarly positive feedback. I also know from personal experience that it was horrific images of cruelty to animals that made me change my ways more than 30 years ago. Long-term vegan friends have told me the same thing. Yes, veganism is the only logical choice but many, indeed most people do not live their lives purely by logic. It often takes something to effect us on a deep emotional level before we will make an deep and lasting change to our habits. Also, going vegan is only half the story. Staying vegan is what ultimately makes a real difference. It's helpful to be reminded, as vegans, why we do what we do and who we are fighting for. I've ran polls to find out why people are vegan and overwhelmingly the driving force is an abhorrence of animal abuse. Sure, lots of people go vegan for health reasons, to lose weight, etc. which is awesome, but the records show that left to their own devices many of these people will, sooner or later, regress to eating animal products again. Those who stay vegan for the rest of their lives and dedicate their lives to spreading the message to others are almost always those who do it less for themselves than for the victims. Propaganda from the multi-billion dollar meat and dairy industry is all around us - we are constantly being bombarded with messages and imagery designed to tempt us on a deep, emotional level to consume their vile products. I believe that if we are to overcome that on a mass scale then shocking, disturbing and upsetting graphic images showing the real TRUTH behind the façade are not only effective but VITAL in changing hearts as well as minds. And that is how we will win. |
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