Stein and LaVeck Launch New Website

Jenny Stein and James LaVeck, of Tribe of Heart have launched a one-stop shop for advocacy for animals at HumaneMyth.org and I encourage everyone to spend some time there. In my opinion, it's the most focused, user-friendly treatment (on the Internet) of what we do to animals we've decided to use as food. It's accessible in language and design, and it deals with the topics that at least this vegan talks about many times a week: "humane" farming, the reality that there's more suffering than most people could ever imagine in the "production" of a glass of milk, and the reality, despite what some advocacy groups tell the public, that cage-free eggs aren't cruelty-free.

I particularly like the section "Farmed Animal Experts Speak Out." There's no advocate more powerful than a convert, so I've always been partial to Howard Lyman's story. He makes me feel hopeful for people of my parents' generation and I just might see if I can pay him to go to New York and school my father. (I think I just found a new business idea for the former cattle rancher!)

"Deconstructing the Humane Myth in the Media" is of course my favorite section, and it's loaded with excerpts from mainstream and not-so-mainstream articles, juxtaposed with a brief "Humane Myth Analysis" to aid in the development of critical thinking.

For your daily activism, there are downloadable resources, including entire slideshows as well as leaflets (you can also purchase ready-made trifold handouts in "Gear Up").

For me, this site is realistic. It deals with the topics I get asked about every day. No one has ever asked me about property rights, and though they are certainly a root cause of our use and horrendous treatment of animals, I spend most of my time talking about--in one way or another--why the phrase "humane farming" is an oxymoron, and why if you don't want to hurt animals you shouldn't be eating them.

Of course, I'm constantly sending people to Peaceful Prairie (and check out what Michele Alley-Grubb has to say in "Farmed Animal Experts Speak Out"), and now I have another place to send well-meaning people who are trying very hard to find a way to make their consumption of sentient nonhumans acceptable (in their own minds).

The conclusion you must reach--meaning there's no way around it, not I'm telling you what to conclude--is that there's simply no way to create sentient nonhumans and entirely take over their lives only to kill them, and then describe that process with the adjective "humane." And for those who say:

What about the small farmer a couple of miles away who has chickens running around and there are some cows and everyone's outside and looks happy? What's wrong with buying my meat, eggs and milk from him? He loves his animals!

I give you Cheri Ezell-Vandersluis of Maple Farm Sanctuary:

So yes, you can raise them and have them graze in green fields of grass and brush them every day, but when you ultimately put them in someone's truck or on a livestock trailer, and they go to be slaughtered, I don't care if you say a prayer before they're slaughtered or if you simply send them into the slaughterhouse. Their throats are still slit. They feel pain. They gasp for air. I can't imagine what goes through their minds. If you look into their eyes you can see the fear, and the abandonment. You've loved this animal, and then you've sent them off to this horrible death. So I can't imagine "humane" and farming going together for raising any sentient being. The words just don't go together for me.

They don't go together for me, either.

Finally, as Patty Mark, founder of the Open Rescue Movement said:

It's not about how we 'care for' or treat the billions of animals we mass produce to keep in line, it's about erasing the line altogether.

Visit HumaneMyth.org, examine your own thinking, and help erase the line.

Comments

[Elaine Vigneault]

Wow, this site is great.

[mindy]

Thanks for the website recommendation - it's a great site!

[Bea Elliott]

Welcome clear thinking here.... Many thanks!