[ 07 January 2008: Message edited by: CUPE_Reformer ]

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Originally posted by Doug:
It just hasn't been the same since they stopped using slaves and Christians.

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Any different than torturing animals in factories before being fed to hungry humans?

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Speaking of which, I just finished a book last night, called The End of Food: How the Food Industry Is Destroying Our Food Supply-And What You Can Do About It.

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Originally posted by Le Téléspectateur:
Any different than torturing animals in factories before being fed to hungry humans?

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My thought exactly. Although I do think this is different in one way - getting people to dangle chickens in front of lions as a form of entertainment is particularly disgusting, especially in front of children.

But jrose is right - you can watch animals get ripped apart as entertainment here, too. There are lots of reality TV shows like "when animals go bad". There are also tons of nature shows where they film packs of animals killing prey, and lots of kids watch those shows.

But I love this part of the article best of all, I think:

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Next to the main slaughter arena is a restaurant where families can dine on braised dog while watching cows and goats being disembowelled by lions.

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Braised dog! How heartless! How could they eat poor defenceless dogs? We westerners would never do anything so terrible as eat poor defenceless dogs! We eat poor defenceless chickens, cows, goats, and pigs instead!

I think it's a good thing to highlight deliberate cruelty to animals wherever it happens. But the whole "aren't they barbarians, they eat cats and dogs" thing is racist.

[ 08 January 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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Originally posted by Michelle:

I think it's a good thing to highlight deliberate cruelty to animals wherever it happens. But the whole "aren't they barbarians, they eat cats and dogs" thing is racist.

[ 08 January 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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I don't think it's racist - it's ethnocentric. It's very common to think uncritically in terms of your own culture. (Common, not good.)

But I think there is something disturbing about eating dogs for the simple reason that they are so dependent on us. They want to be with us and they trust us. (I know someone from China - who reasoned along those lines and always refused to eat dog. This was her practice in China, before she came to Canada.)

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Domesticated farm animals are also dependent on us, just as dependent as cats and dogs. Domesticated farm animals have been bred so that they can't survive in the wild any better than cats and dogs. In fact, I'd be willing to bet a cat or a dog would have a better chance at survival turning feral than would chickens or turkeys or pigs which have been bred to be fat, meaty and slow.

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I meant emotionally dependent: "they want to be with us and they trust us." They form relationships with us. (A human analogy: torturing and killing someone is wrong. Torturing and killing someone who loves and trusts you is, if possible, even more wrong.)

But I don't eat turkeys or pigs or chickens either and I find the way they are slaughtered to be grossly immoral.

[ 08 January 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Domesticated farm animals are also dependent on us, just as dependent as cats and dogs. Domesticated farm animals have been bred so that they can't survive in the wild any better than cats and dogs. In fact, I'd be willing to bet a cat or a dog would have a better chance at survival turning feral than would chickens or turkeys or pigs which have been bred to be fat, meaty and slow.

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Well now Michelle, there are really big differences in farm animal breeds just like an apartment dwelling cat is different than my domesticated barn cats. My cattle would survive fine on their own as long as no one ran into them with their car or such things.
Same goes for my chickens who are pretty independent and free to go where they want. They always come back at night though.
A turkey is a different story, but then wild turkeys, which we have living in our bush, are not likely to make it onto animal Reach for the Top any time soon either.

[ 08 January 2008: Message edited by: Bookish Agrarian ]

[ 08 January 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]