Are You Gonna Eat That?
Via Eat Your Vegetables.
I couldn’t turn in for the evening without passing this on, after seeing it for myself. This is what I was talking about yesterday when I posted about the ethics of eating meat. I don’t agree with everything PETA does. In fact, I think some of their campaigns and tactics actually achieve the exact opposite of what they intend (or say they intend), but whatever issues I might have with them, I can’t ignore the video PETA recently released, documenting the treatment of chickens destined for KFC’s fry vats.
The video is bad enough, but then there’s the stuff that you don’t see in the video, but which still happens.
PETA said its investigator at the West Virginia plant also obtained eyewitness testimony about employees “ripping birds’ beaks off, spray-painting their faces, twisting their heads off, spitting tobacco into their mouths and eyes, and breaking them in half — all while the birds are still alive.”
It’s this kind of thing I was talking about when I said I didn’t want to be a party to unecessary suffering by my choice of diet.
July 22nd, 2004 at 12:11 pm
I disagree with PETA sometimes also. However, just as both extremes of flamboyant drag queens & straight-acting conservatives are important contributors to the gay rights movement, such is the case with animal rights.
I prefer the kinder, gentle approach of “any meal made without meat is progress. You didn’t eat meat today? Great!” However, some folks will only listen to things with shock value.
We might disagree with others’ voices, but the animals don’t have a voice. Anything said in their defense is better than silence.
July 22nd, 2004 at 4:03 pm
It was a shock. And I agree, sometimes it takes that shock. I know it has for us (there were other shocks in earlier years) to lift me out of our complacency (its easy to forget where meat comes from when its wrapped neatly in plastic)… we are making our way to eating meat rarely and only grass-fed, free-range, ethically raised, organic meat (one way to make it rare, that’s expensive!).. eventually, we’ll be down to nothing I assume :).