Who cares about people?

A meat eating friend who says they care about humans and would gladly have a cow killed to feed some starving children has accused me of caring more for animals than for people. I told them about some of the horrors done to workers as was written by David Nibert in his book Animal rights/ Human rights. But my accuser did not care (and they watched an animal skinning video and didnt seem ed at all). Here is an article on the inhumanity to man done by the meat [email protected] wrote:

Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 10:30:51 -0400 (EDT)

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],

[email protected]

Subject: A washingtonpost.com article from: [email protected]

You have been sent this message from [email protected] as a courtesy of washingtonpost.com

Personal Message:

In addition to what they do to the animals, you have the incentive of what they do to their workers as a reason not to eat meat made in these factories.

Meatpacking's Human Toll

By Lance Compa and Jamie Fellner

Working conditions in U.S. meat and poultry plants should trouble the conscience of every American who eats beef, pork or chicken.

Dispatching the nonstop tide of animals and birds arriving on plant "kill floors" and "live hang" areas has always been hazardous and exhausting labor. Turning an 800-pound animal (or even a five-pound fowl) into products for supermarkets or fast-food restaurants is, by its nature, demanding physical labor in bloody, greasy surroundings.

But meatpacking and poultry workers face more than hard work in tough settings. They perform the most dangerous factory jobs in the country. U.S. meat and poultry employers put workers at predictable risk of serious physical injury even though the means to avoid such injury are known and feasible. In doing so, they violate the right of workers to a safe place of employment.

"Faster, faster, get that product out the door!" is the industry byword. The results are cuts, amputations, skin disease, permanent arm and shoulder damage, and even death from the force of repeated hard cutting motions. When injured employees seek workers' compensation claims for their juries, they are told, "You got hurt at home, not on the job."

The workers who face these hazards are, increasingly, immigrants, most from Mexico and Central America but also from many other parts of the world. Companies exploit their vulnerabilities: limited English skills; uncertainty about their rights; alarm about their immigration status if they are undocumented workers.

The U.S. government does little to protect meatpacking workers. As the Government Accountability Office has pointed out, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has "no specific standard that allows OSHA to cite employers for hazards" relating to line speed and repetitive stress injuries. Indeed, job safety enforcement officials do not even have data "to assess the appropriate speed at which the lines should operate." This information does not exist because companies refuse to let government regulators or independent researchers measure line speed, examine workers' knife-cutting motions or study musculoskeletal injuries from repeated hard cutting.

The American Meat Institute says that injury rates have declined in recent years. That does not answer the question of whether injury rates are still far too high. The GAO has noted doubts about "the validity of the data" on which the reported decline in injuries is based. OSHA does not even have a systematic program for auditing injury reports in meat and poultry plants.

One problem with published injury reports is that they don't include night-shift workers who perform the most dangerous jobs in the industry, using caustic chemicals and high-powered hoses to remove blood, bone and gristle from moving machinery parts. Their injuries are counted with those of hotel room cleaners and building janitors.

Moreover, company underreporting of injuries is rampant -- to an unknown extent, the claimed decline in the injury rate reflects bad numbers, not a real falloff in injuries. Workers are under constant pressure from managers and supervisors not to report injuries (many managers get pay bonuses for low reporting rates), and fear losing their jobs if they report injuries. Immigrant workers especially are vulnerable to pressure not to file such reports.

When workers seek to organize to protect themselves, meatpacking companies use tactics of fear, intimidation and interference to block union organizing efforts. For example, Smithfield Foods fired union supporters and threatened to close its massive hog slaughtering plant in Tar Heel, N.C., when workers there tried to form a union. Company police have targeted union supporters for harassment, arrests and beatings. Some of these violations of workers' organizing rights go back eight years, but National Labor Relations Board remedies have not been enforced.

The meatpacking industry has shown little inclination to respect its workers' rights on its own. Congress and the Bush administration should take decisive steps to protect the lives and well-being of these men and women. But they are unlikely to act until consumers demand meat that is not tainted by workers' blood, sweat and fear.

Lance Compa is the author of a Human Rights Watch report on meat and poultry workers. Jamie Fellner is the U.S. program director for Human Rights Watch.

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hey college,

If your friend is so concerned about starving people, including children, tell him that his meat diet is contributing to world hunger, and that you, whom he accuses of caring less for people than he does, adopt a diet that is more conducive to feeding more people!!

Here are some quick stats: While tens of millions die annually from starvation related causes and close to a billion suffer from malnutriytion, 37 percent of the world's harvested grain is fed to animals being raised fo slaughter. IN the US< that figure is 66 percent.

Converting grains to meat wastes up to 90% of grains' proteins, 96% of their calories, and all of tehir fiber. SSInce it genreally take sfar mroe grains to feed a meat eater, worldwide meat consumption greatly increases demand for grains. As demand grows, cost increases and the world's poor become increasingly unable to afford food of any kind.

So, clearly, if your friend is GENUINELY concerned about starving people, including children, he should GO VEGAN. Feel free to copy and paste this in an email to him. If he shrugs this information off or discounts it or ignores it, then you know that he was being insincere and that his accusations to you were just another way for a meat eater to (erroneously) justify/rationalize his selfish choice. But certainly, THIS INFORMATION SHOULD BE KEPT IN ALL OUR MINDS SO THAT WHEN WE ARE ACCUSED OF RIDICULOUSNESS LIKE NOT CARING ABOUT HUMAN PROBLEMS OR NOT HAVING OUR PRIORITIES RIGHT, WE CAN SHARE THE "REAL STORY" with these people and shut them up with their stupid, uninformed accusations!!

Peter Singer has a great quote about meat eaters who accuse us of caring less about people. It might be on Rob's quotes page but it goes something like this: "When people say human problems come first, I cannot help but wonder just what it is that they are doing for the human race that compels them to support the ruthless and wasteful exploitation of farm animals."

Converting grains to meat is inefficient. With the grain it takes to make ONE steak, 12 people could eat a plant based diet. SO each time your friend enjoys his meat dinner, tell him that his meal choice has just denied 11 other "starving children" food!

I really have such a distaste for ignorrant people who knock veganism without even being informed first. Give him a book called "Diet for a Small Planet" (note that this is a differnt book from "Diet for a New America" by John Robbins) challenge him to read it and then ask him after he reads it if he still feels that vegans care more about animals than anything else.

hey college,

 

If your friend is so concerned about starving people, including children, tell him that his meat diet is contributing to world hunger, and that you, whom he accuses of caring less for people than he does, adopt a diet that is more conducive to feeding more people!!

 

Here are some quick stats: While tens of millions die annually from starvation related causes and close to a billion suffer from malnutriytion, 37 percent of the world's harvested grain is fed to animals being raised fo slaughter. IN the US< that figure is 66 percent.

 

Converting grains to meat wastes up to 90% of grains' proteins, 96% of their calories, and all of tehir fiber. SSInce it genreally take sfar mroe grains to feed a meat eater, worldwide meat consumption greatly increases demand for grains. As demand grows, cost increases and the world's poor become increasingly unable to afford food of any kind.

 

So, clearly, if your friend is GENUINELY concerned about starving people, including children, he should GO VEGAN. Feel free to copy and paste this in an email to him. If he shrugs this information off or discounts it or ignores it, then you know that he was being insincere and that his accusations to you were just another way for a meat eater to (erroneously) justify/rationalize his selfish choice. But certainly, THIS INFORMATION SHOULD BE KEPT IN ALL OUR MINDS SO THAT WHEN WE ARE ACCUSED OF RIDICULOUSNESS LIKE NOT CARING ABOUT HUMAN PROBLEMS OR NOT HAVING OUR PRIORITIES RIGHT, WE CAN SHARE THE "REAL STORY" with these people and shut them up with their stupid, uninformed accusations!!

 

Peter Singer has a great quote about meat eaters who accuse us of caring less about people. It might be on Rob's quotes page but it goes something like this: "When people say human problems come first, I cannot help but wonder just what it is that they are doing for the human race that compels them to support the ruthless and wasteful exploitation of farm animals."

 

Converting grains to meat is inefficient. With the grain it takes to make ONE steak, 12 people could eat a plant based diet. SO each time your friend enjoys his meat dinner, tell him that his meal choice has just denied 11 other "starving children" food!

 

I really have such a distaste for ignorrant people who knock veganism without even being informed first. Give him a book called "Diet for a Small Planet" (note that this is a differnt book from "Diet for a New America" by John Robbins) challenge him to read it and then ask him after he reads it if he still feels that vegans care more about animals than anything else.

Dang, thats for all of that info!

I care more about animals than about humans in general. I can't attribute blame to most animals, and I can attribute blame to most humans, I can't call an animal evil given its lack of understanding and control. This doesn't mean that I disregard humans and that I don't care about them at all. Just that they're not special, and lots of them deliberately are assholes.

It's the typical lame old "argument" of people who don't want to think or discuss anyway. There are lots of this "end-the-discussion" cudgel-arguments around.

It's ridiculous. Being vegan in no way interfers with helping humans. You can be vegan and work for amnesty international, or greenpeace, or the wwf or be just an ordinary police officer, lawyer, anything. You contribute more by being vegan than being an activist for something and don't change your consumation habits.

Pff!

I care more about animals than about humans in general. I can't attribute blame to most animals, and I can attribute blame to most humans, I can't call an animal evil given its lack of understanding and control. This doesn't mean that I disregard humans and that I don't care about them at all. Just that they're not special, and lots of them deliberately are assholes.

Thats my stance right there.