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On Greyhound Extinction and Rodeos

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The pro-Greyhound racing people are very much like pro-mushers, with their "they love to run" mantra. A mean-spirited, semi-rational person ranting about Porphyry’s comment about breeding being the problem, asked me how I would feel when there were no more of my beloved Greyhounds.

For the record, I am neutral about the existence of Greyhounds, cows, fish and all other sentient nonhumans. I don’t think of them as existing for me in any way. They exist for themselves. And if they don’t, I don’t consider myself as worse off in any way because they’re not here for me.

Would I be sad if they didn’t exist? Well, considering Greyhounds exist because we create them so we can use them, either for show or for sport, if we stopped breeding them I wouldn’t have to spend the time, energy and money I do rescuing them and fighting for them. I don’t think of adopting retired racers as gaining pets. I think of adopting them as a community service, as saving lives, and as a way to mitigate some of the enormous damage the industry has caused. I’d love to be able to say I don’t feel like I have to do something to decrease some of the horror of this hideous industry that’s in my backyard. Financially speaking, no more Greyhounds would spell much more money for me, as for instance Violet’s expenses in the first year I had her were $15,000 because of what her owner and trainers did to her. Because she was created to make them money.

That doesn’t mean Greyhounds aren’t magnificent, regal creatures. It simply means they don’t care how magnificent or regal they are; they just want to live in peace. I would question my commenter if he would be so disturbed by the extinction of Greyhounds if they were slow and unattractive.

Enough said about that.

As for rodeos, the charreada is to rodeos what the ALF is to animal rights. In "Rough Events at Mexican Rodeos in U.S. Criticized," by Patricia Leigh Brown in today’s New York Times, the author describes the events at the charreada, which is a Mexican tradition (tradition: an excuse to get away with whatever we want by attaching it to our culture and thereby making it off limits or impervious to criticism). There’s horse tripping, which self-explanatory, steer tailing, "in which a charro grabs a steer’s tail, wraps it beneath his stirrup and flips the animal to the ground," and old standbys like bronc riding, bull riding and team roping.

(When you watch the audio slideshow, you’ll hear about the importance of roping the wild mare by both front legs, because you don’t want to hurt the mare when you slam "the animal" to the ground. "It’s an art, it’s an art," says Marcos Franco.)

What I don’t understand is why the charreada is any worse than the rodeos we’re accustomed to. They share a premise: use and abuse animals for fun. They share what occurs: animals are tortured and people cheer. They share an illegitimate excuse for their continuation: tradition. What’s the difference?

What’s worse is that by painting the charreada as so cruel, it makes the American rodeo look moderate. The ALF makes PeTA look moderate (to most people), and the charreada makes our particular brand of bull, calf and bronc cruelty look less cruel by comparison, hence more palatable.

We have a lot of work to do. Somehow, we’ve got to break through the insanity of clinging to using sentient beings for fun. We’ve got to break through the mentality that says it’s okay to do whatever we want to whomever we want, as long as our victim is not human. That’s not a tradition worth continuing, and it’s certainly not a tradition to be proud of.

Stay tuned for a deconstruction of Mark Bittman’s latest plea to not stop eating animals, but eat fewer of them (actually, he says "eat less meat" not "eat fewer animals).

One Comment Post a comment
  1. I wish I can understand some of your writing. I have to read them over several time to understand you linguist (very professional) and mine is not too good. Are you pro-Alf or anti-alf and from reading this I am confused. I wish you use grammar that everyone can understand for we all want to learn.

    I love the Alf

    June 16, 2008

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