07-28-2017, 01:16 PM
At this point in time, I'm sure most of you have seen my post about visiting slaughterhouses and witnessing the animals that arrive there. If you haven't, then you must be aware by now that I am the resident loud mouthed vegan. I feel like I need to write about my experience here, because I feel like it has profoundly changed me in so many ways, and if I make the attempt, then maybe others can understand the position from which I come. I cannot even begin to articulate everything, but I feel I must try.
Where do I even begin...
Well, 2.5 years ago, I had the fortune to move to Colorado. Upon arriving here, the culture is obviously much different than that of Iowa. I joined a Vegan Colorado group on Facebook, so that we would know of the haps, learn about restaurants, etc. I'm not really a huge Facebook user, but I do post in groups far more than I post anywhere else. Occasionally, I would post in the vegan group, usually in "hot topic" threads, you know how I do... anyway, I started accumulating friends who were adding me because they liked what I had to say. It turns out, that by and large these people were directly involved in vegan activism.
We all know the eyeroll scene. I saw plenty of videos of overemotional hippies holding up signs and yelling at people eating out on patios downtown. I saw videos of Costco disruptions. Etc. Things that never really jived with me, to go and ruin someone's dinner out with veganism seems seriously counterproductive - one of the hardest things to give up in our culture is the ability to dine at any restaurant and choose from any number of exotic dishes. Obviously, going vegan seriously changes that part of your lifestyle, unless you live in a big town. Anyway, I also saw lots of really positive outreach events - like setting up a sample table of vegan goodies outside one of the health food stores. Brilliant! My circle of new vegan friends wasn't wide but it was active, and I admired their passion.
About two months ago, lightning struck. One of my more passionate activist friends started posting pictures of herself at a slaughterhouse where they were holding lambs. One video that she took stands out - of a door that was partially ajar, but held tight by a padlock - an unlocked padlock. One lamb had its nose stuck out and was trying to push the padlock off. Extremely heart wrenching and pitiful.
She stated her mission: To be there for these babies. There is actually a very large movement going on worldwide now - The Save Movement. These people visit slaughterhouses (usually giant ones) and "bear witness" to the animals in the giant trucks who are coming into the facility for their final breaths. Typically, these groups have signs, and they hold up the truck before it turns onto private property for two minutes - no more - and then let the truck go on its way. For busy slaughterhouses, they're stopping trucks like this all day, witnessing thousands of animals.
In Denver, it's different. This slaughterhouse is right downtown - buried between a bunch of junkyards. Parts of the building are even on public property (we have the official county assessor's maps). The truck has to park and unload, blocking the through traffic of a public street. We are able to walk right up to the truck, and be with it for the 30-60 minutes it takes to unload (usually faster when we are there...) and then the holding pens are just feet away from where we are allowed to stand. We are not allowed to touch the truck or the lambs (though we're not sure if this law applies, because you are allowed to touch a car on public property), and we are especially not allowed to give them any food or water. USDA regulations state that slaughtered animals must be void of food and water for 36 hours before being vivisected. The only purpose for this extreme and cruel torture is because when you are in a factory that is slaughtering hundreds to thousands of animals an hour, the excrement can get in the way of "cleanliness", so it's now just the law of the land. (Activists in Canada have been arrested for giving animals water) The ironic part is that the animals are ALWAYS, ENTIRELY covered in excrement by the the time they reach the slaughterhouse - but apparently it's more sanitary for it to be on the outside of the animal instead of the inside.
So, I'm aware in juxtaposition of many of the other Save chapters, that we have something special. And we all know this. And our main priority, first and foremost, is taking this opportunity to be near to the lambs and offer them comfort. We do just about everything we can to not step on anyone's toes and definitely not break any laws, because we don't want to lose this privilege. When I felt called to this, subversion was never a part of my plan. But, I must admit, that the "problems" we cause for the slaughterhouse are an extremely sweet side effect to our loving intentions. They've hired more security, bought a bunch of deterrent cameras (that aren't even plugged in....), put up black cloth along the kill pens (which before were totally visible from a bike trail that passes nearby), hired their own private assessors to come try rectify the property dispute, etc. We have not broke a single law, we just want to look at lambs that they slaughter adjacent to a busy public road.
The thing is - this is actually a "humane slaughterhouse". There is a USDA sign stating so on the building, and stating a list of rules that they must follow. However, we see them break these rules every single time we are there. For instance, they are not allowed to use dogs, and they are not allowed to do ANYTHING to make the lambs run out of the truck. However, usually the truck driver gets in the truck on all fours, basically being a dog, nipping at their ankles, grabbing them by the hocks and shoving them into each other. I've also seen them taunt these poor starving animals with Oreo cookies to get them to move off of the ramp faster.
A week ago, Kile and I spent most of the day at the slaughterhouse. We've mostly been doing weekly scheduled vigils with a larger group in the evening (15-25), but Kile and I and another girl went up early. Shortly after we arrived, a truck came. It was about 95 degrees, just before 2pm. The truck had arrived from Wyoming. The animals inside this metal truck hadn't had food or water in 36 hours. They are standing ankle deep in their own excrement. Not only is the temperature of the truck obscene - a giant metal cage with 200-250 wool covered bodies, sitting in the 95+ heat - but the smell. I can't even begin to describe what it's like being that close to a hot box full of so much ammonia and methane. The lambs are usually coughing and sneezing - and it sounds so eerily like human coughs and sneezes, my heart is wrenching in this moment just thinking about it. Just putting your face close enough to the truck will suck all the wind out of you and burn your throat and eyes.
Still, when you put your face near them, they will reach out to you. They will lick you. They will try to suckle your nose. When we start to sing, or play instruments, the lambs cry louder. They are begging for food, comfort, but ultimately, their mommies who they never even knew. They would obviously still be suckling. Usually the lambs are 5-6 months old, but we've seen them much, much younger - 2-3 months even. The truck we saw with the littlest babies was by far the saddest.
So, my feelings are: I've immersed myself in the suffering of animals, by choice. I'm trying to look at things and watch things that most people turn away from. Obviously this really upsets the slaughterhouse, even though they are "humane", even though their building is basically on public property, they are going out of their way to hide their routine daily practices from us. They hold trucks back when we are there - last week, we were witnessing til almost midnight, because after Kile, our friend, and I showed up for the 1:30 truck, they held TWO back until after 9pm when most of the official vigil crowd had dispersed. This event alone still haunts me and is extremely hard to deal with - yes, we have upped our practices to be a bit more "disruptive", just so they won't know exactly when we arrive. But knowing that they held two trucks, one that had already traveled in the sweltering heat from Iowa, one from South Dakota, and they made those poor babies sit in an unmoving truck somewhere in the pavement jungle of Denver - that directly I was part of the cause of that suffering - strong catalyst, indeed.
The first time the group showed up, we were not there - but they literally hid a truck. Around 11pm one of the guys finally gave up staying and left on his motorcycle because he had to work at 5am, and when he drove past one of the blocks he saw a transport truck parked behind a building, with the truck driver sleeping in the cab. So everyone descended upon the truck driver there, lol. Quite dramatic. Ever since they try to wait us out, or at least wait until most of the group leaves. So, part of me wrenches, because I know our presence there causes these babies even more suffering. But I also know that these babies have suffered every moment of their life, and their "caretakers" are the ones who choose to "hide" them, and my truest and purest intention is to be there and offer some form of comfort to these beings who have never experienced love, not even from their mothers.
The other extremely hard part is the fact that we cannot offer them any physical comfort. Ra says that when you see a starving entity, that you should feed it. These entities are starving, dying of thirst, begging to get out of their cage - and I cannot do a thing. All I am able to do is offer them metaphysical comfort, and I am so glad that I have the faith to know that it does far more than it seems like in the moment.
All I see, when I see these trucks full of lambs, are trucks full of puppies. They stick their long noses out, and their curly hair makes them look like poodles. Big puppies, who baa like lambs and cough and sneeze like people. I mostly tell them I love them, that they are beautiful, that I see them, and that I wish a better incarnation for them the next time they come around.
So please, next time you imagine a vegan activist in your head, don't think of the angry people screaming at you at Costco. Think of the beautiful groups of people, such as my dear friends, who spend their free time next to a slaughterhouse, engulfed by the elemental of death, singing songs of peace, liberation, and oneness to sweet crying baby lambs who are moments from getting their throat slit and their hides skinned while they are still alive and bleeding out.
I am not posting this for kudos. Neither kudos nor scorn will affect my strong call and desire to perform this service. I just thought I should make an attempt to explain some of the extreme events that I have experienced in the past month or so, and why my "vegan activism" badge is sparkling clear and bright. I believe this place is as fertile as any to begin making huge changes to our social memory complex, with combined will and intentions. I'm not saying that I believe the whole forum should all go vegan, but I do think it would be a big step in the right direction for us to seriously acknowledge the immense trauma, suffering, and exploitation being done to our whole planet in the name of a bacon cheeseburger and a pair of Ugg boots.
Where do I even begin...
Well, 2.5 years ago, I had the fortune to move to Colorado. Upon arriving here, the culture is obviously much different than that of Iowa. I joined a Vegan Colorado group on Facebook, so that we would know of the haps, learn about restaurants, etc. I'm not really a huge Facebook user, but I do post in groups far more than I post anywhere else. Occasionally, I would post in the vegan group, usually in "hot topic" threads, you know how I do... anyway, I started accumulating friends who were adding me because they liked what I had to say. It turns out, that by and large these people were directly involved in vegan activism.
We all know the eyeroll scene. I saw plenty of videos of overemotional hippies holding up signs and yelling at people eating out on patios downtown. I saw videos of Costco disruptions. Etc. Things that never really jived with me, to go and ruin someone's dinner out with veganism seems seriously counterproductive - one of the hardest things to give up in our culture is the ability to dine at any restaurant and choose from any number of exotic dishes. Obviously, going vegan seriously changes that part of your lifestyle, unless you live in a big town. Anyway, I also saw lots of really positive outreach events - like setting up a sample table of vegan goodies outside one of the health food stores. Brilliant! My circle of new vegan friends wasn't wide but it was active, and I admired their passion.
About two months ago, lightning struck. One of my more passionate activist friends started posting pictures of herself at a slaughterhouse where they were holding lambs. One video that she took stands out - of a door that was partially ajar, but held tight by a padlock - an unlocked padlock. One lamb had its nose stuck out and was trying to push the padlock off. Extremely heart wrenching and pitiful.
She stated her mission: To be there for these babies. There is actually a very large movement going on worldwide now - The Save Movement. These people visit slaughterhouses (usually giant ones) and "bear witness" to the animals in the giant trucks who are coming into the facility for their final breaths. Typically, these groups have signs, and they hold up the truck before it turns onto private property for two minutes - no more - and then let the truck go on its way. For busy slaughterhouses, they're stopping trucks like this all day, witnessing thousands of animals.
In Denver, it's different. This slaughterhouse is right downtown - buried between a bunch of junkyards. Parts of the building are even on public property (we have the official county assessor's maps). The truck has to park and unload, blocking the through traffic of a public street. We are able to walk right up to the truck, and be with it for the 30-60 minutes it takes to unload (usually faster when we are there...) and then the holding pens are just feet away from where we are allowed to stand. We are not allowed to touch the truck or the lambs (though we're not sure if this law applies, because you are allowed to touch a car on public property), and we are especially not allowed to give them any food or water. USDA regulations state that slaughtered animals must be void of food and water for 36 hours before being vivisected. The only purpose for this extreme and cruel torture is because when you are in a factory that is slaughtering hundreds to thousands of animals an hour, the excrement can get in the way of "cleanliness", so it's now just the law of the land. (Activists in Canada have been arrested for giving animals water) The ironic part is that the animals are ALWAYS, ENTIRELY covered in excrement by the the time they reach the slaughterhouse - but apparently it's more sanitary for it to be on the outside of the animal instead of the inside.
So, I'm aware in juxtaposition of many of the other Save chapters, that we have something special. And we all know this. And our main priority, first and foremost, is taking this opportunity to be near to the lambs and offer them comfort. We do just about everything we can to not step on anyone's toes and definitely not break any laws, because we don't want to lose this privilege. When I felt called to this, subversion was never a part of my plan. But, I must admit, that the "problems" we cause for the slaughterhouse are an extremely sweet side effect to our loving intentions. They've hired more security, bought a bunch of deterrent cameras (that aren't even plugged in....), put up black cloth along the kill pens (which before were totally visible from a bike trail that passes nearby), hired their own private assessors to come try rectify the property dispute, etc. We have not broke a single law, we just want to look at lambs that they slaughter adjacent to a busy public road.
The thing is - this is actually a "humane slaughterhouse". There is a USDA sign stating so on the building, and stating a list of rules that they must follow. However, we see them break these rules every single time we are there. For instance, they are not allowed to use dogs, and they are not allowed to do ANYTHING to make the lambs run out of the truck. However, usually the truck driver gets in the truck on all fours, basically being a dog, nipping at their ankles, grabbing them by the hocks and shoving them into each other. I've also seen them taunt these poor starving animals with Oreo cookies to get them to move off of the ramp faster.
A week ago, Kile and I spent most of the day at the slaughterhouse. We've mostly been doing weekly scheduled vigils with a larger group in the evening (15-25), but Kile and I and another girl went up early. Shortly after we arrived, a truck came. It was about 95 degrees, just before 2pm. The truck had arrived from Wyoming. The animals inside this metal truck hadn't had food or water in 36 hours. They are standing ankle deep in their own excrement. Not only is the temperature of the truck obscene - a giant metal cage with 200-250 wool covered bodies, sitting in the 95+ heat - but the smell. I can't even begin to describe what it's like being that close to a hot box full of so much ammonia and methane. The lambs are usually coughing and sneezing - and it sounds so eerily like human coughs and sneezes, my heart is wrenching in this moment just thinking about it. Just putting your face close enough to the truck will suck all the wind out of you and burn your throat and eyes.
Still, when you put your face near them, they will reach out to you. They will lick you. They will try to suckle your nose. When we start to sing, or play instruments, the lambs cry louder. They are begging for food, comfort, but ultimately, their mommies who they never even knew. They would obviously still be suckling. Usually the lambs are 5-6 months old, but we've seen them much, much younger - 2-3 months even. The truck we saw with the littlest babies was by far the saddest.
So, my feelings are: I've immersed myself in the suffering of animals, by choice. I'm trying to look at things and watch things that most people turn away from. Obviously this really upsets the slaughterhouse, even though they are "humane", even though their building is basically on public property, they are going out of their way to hide their routine daily practices from us. They hold trucks back when we are there - last week, we were witnessing til almost midnight, because after Kile, our friend, and I showed up for the 1:30 truck, they held TWO back until after 9pm when most of the official vigil crowd had dispersed. This event alone still haunts me and is extremely hard to deal with - yes, we have upped our practices to be a bit more "disruptive", just so they won't know exactly when we arrive. But knowing that they held two trucks, one that had already traveled in the sweltering heat from Iowa, one from South Dakota, and they made those poor babies sit in an unmoving truck somewhere in the pavement jungle of Denver - that directly I was part of the cause of that suffering - strong catalyst, indeed.
The first time the group showed up, we were not there - but they literally hid a truck. Around 11pm one of the guys finally gave up staying and left on his motorcycle because he had to work at 5am, and when he drove past one of the blocks he saw a transport truck parked behind a building, with the truck driver sleeping in the cab. So everyone descended upon the truck driver there, lol. Quite dramatic. Ever since they try to wait us out, or at least wait until most of the group leaves. So, part of me wrenches, because I know our presence there causes these babies even more suffering. But I also know that these babies have suffered every moment of their life, and their "caretakers" are the ones who choose to "hide" them, and my truest and purest intention is to be there and offer some form of comfort to these beings who have never experienced love, not even from their mothers.
The other extremely hard part is the fact that we cannot offer them any physical comfort. Ra says that when you see a starving entity, that you should feed it. These entities are starving, dying of thirst, begging to get out of their cage - and I cannot do a thing. All I am able to do is offer them metaphysical comfort, and I am so glad that I have the faith to know that it does far more than it seems like in the moment.
All I see, when I see these trucks full of lambs, are trucks full of puppies. They stick their long noses out, and their curly hair makes them look like poodles. Big puppies, who baa like lambs and cough and sneeze like people. I mostly tell them I love them, that they are beautiful, that I see them, and that I wish a better incarnation for them the next time they come around.
So please, next time you imagine a vegan activist in your head, don't think of the angry people screaming at you at Costco. Think of the beautiful groups of people, such as my dear friends, who spend their free time next to a slaughterhouse, engulfed by the elemental of death, singing songs of peace, liberation, and oneness to sweet crying baby lambs who are moments from getting their throat slit and their hides skinned while they are still alive and bleeding out.
I am not posting this for kudos. Neither kudos nor scorn will affect my strong call and desire to perform this service. I just thought I should make an attempt to explain some of the extreme events that I have experienced in the past month or so, and why my "vegan activism" badge is sparkling clear and bright. I believe this place is as fertile as any to begin making huge changes to our social memory complex, with combined will and intentions. I'm not saying that I believe the whole forum should all go vegan, but I do think it would be a big step in the right direction for us to seriously acknowledge the immense trauma, suffering, and exploitation being done to our whole planet in the name of a bacon cheeseburger and a pair of Ugg boots.
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