Earthlings

******WARNING******

This post exhibits extremely violent pictures/videos that may not be suitable for all readers.  However, I highly recommend you read/watch. 

This is a documentary about humanity's absolute dependence on animals for pets, food, clothing, entertainment, and scientific research.  It illustrates our complete disrespect for these so-called "non-human providers."

Christianity teaches it's followers that animals have no souls, therefore they have no consciousness. This is a ridiculous rationalisation for Christianity, and is often used to justify humanity’s mistreatment of animals.  This is an erroneous belief that humans alone possess immortal souls, and only humans, therefore, are worthy of moral consideration. The 19th century German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, condemned such a philosophy in his On the Basis of Morality.

"Because Christian morality leaves animals out of account," ... "they are at once outlawed in philosophical morals; they are mere ‘things,’ mere means to any ends whatsoever. They can therefore be used for vivisection, hunting, coursing, bullfights, and horse racing, and can be whipped to death as they struggle along with heavy carts of stone. Shame on such a morality that is worthy of pariahs, and that fails to recognize the eternal essence that exists in every living thing, and shines forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun!" -Arthur Schopenhauer

Now I'm no Bible thumper, but I do know that the Bible teaches that animals have souls. Texts such as Genesis 1:21,24 are often mistranslated to read "living creatures." The exact Hebrew used in reference to animals throughout the Bible is "nephesh chayah," or "living soul." This is how the phrase has been translated in Genesis 2:7 and in four hundred other places in the Old Testament. Thus, Genesis 1:30 should more accurately read: "And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is a living soul, I have given every green herb for meat."[source]

This documentary has definintely affected me. I am torn between telling people to watch Earthlings because it is imperative for them to know the truth, and telling people not to watch it because it is genuinely the most disturbing film I have ever watched, but does remind me of the movie "Meet Your Meat".  I had to close my eyes during most scenes, and several times I had to stop the movie and go and lay next to my dog, hold her, kiss her, and tell her how much I love her, and wait for the nausea to pass. This movie made me physically sick.

This movie looks at the five things we use animals for: Pets, food, clothes, medical reseach and entertainment. It then goes on to show how each of these aspects causes massive amounts of suffering for the animals which have done nothing to deserve being treated like that.

We think that keeping animals as pets is good because the animals have a good life, but for every pet that has a good life, there are many more that suffer tremendously. The conditions which puppies, etc are ‘manufactured’ for pet shops are appalling. Many pets are badly treated by their owners, others are abandoned. The lucky ones are euthanised, the rest are killed in less humane ways or suffer along until they die from exposure, accident or illness.

A lot of time is spent looking at the conditions in which animals are kept to fatten them to size for us to eat. There are no words to describe this behavior, other than it's criminal. Then they look at how these animals are slaughtered, a process which, by no stretch of the imagination, can ever be called humane. They way that humans treat the animals is by far sickening, and absolutely devoid of empathy or conscience. I could not stop the tears from pouring out.

In the defense of the average person, most do not know where their meat they eat comes from. The slaughter of animals for leather is even less regulated than for food and it is sickening to see how these animals are abused. I watched them rip the skin off a fox while it was still alive, it was sitting there looking at itself, wondering what had just happened. All of this suffering so that someone can wear a fur jacket as a status piece. To show everyone that they hold a better status than another. These people are absolutely sick and digusting.

Most people do not realize that millions of animals are abused and killed every year in the name of medical research. To see what they do to these animals is to see man at his planck level. It is no wonder that man is continually performing atrocious acts against his fellow man.

Entertainment from animals was also an eye opener. Circus animals are treated with immeasurable cruelty, zoo animals suffer in captivity and thousands of animals suffer and die for entertainment in bull fighting rings and rodeo rings. This reminded me of our 3 month trip to South America, where we stopped to attend a bull fight. My father had no idea that they were so bloody, and horrific. Needless to say, we left once we became aware of the cruelty, and bloodshed.

I contemplated not continuing to watch the entire documentary, and turned it off and walked away many times, but decided to watch to the end because I believe that I needed to be aware of the impact of my choices. What I eat, what I wear, the products I buy and the entertainment I choose to watch can all lead directly to the extreme suffering of many innocent animals.

My roommate eats alot of ground beef, simply because it's inexpensive, and that is what he grew up eating. I have stopped eating red meat about 8 months ago. I moved completely to chicken, thinking that I was doing some good, then I saw the movie, Meet Your Meat.  Today, I find myself eating more vegetarian as it becomes very hard to stomach the idea of eating meat from all that suffering. These two movies have impacted my life tremendously. How can it not? If enough people watch this movie, it can cause change, and we need to have our children watch this movie, since it starts from the roots up.

This is a film that the Meat Industry does not want you to watch, nor does the government backed corporations that produce this crap.

Shaun Monson began work on a series of PSAs about spaying and neutering pets. The footage he shot at animal shelters around Los Angeles affected him so profoundly that the project soon evolved into Earthlings. The film would take another six years to complete because of the difficulty in obtaining footage within these profitable industries. Though the film was initially ignored by distributors, who told Monson that the film would “never see the light of day and should be swept under the rug,” today Earthlings is considered the definitive animal rights film by organizations around the world.

"I got the idea because I was filming some public service announcements. It was mostly domestic animals, dogs and cats, and when they were killed on the street or euthanized in the shelters, they were put into this room that resembles a large refrigerator. But when I saw them piled up in there, it suddenly made me think of meat in a refrigerator. Even though they looked nothing like meat, there was this parallel – dead animals kept in a fridge – and that made me think of cows and chickens and pigs and eggs and milk, and so on. That was the beginning of Earthlings really, the first spark of inspiration."

So instead of making a couple of public service announcements on one issue (in this case spaying and neutering domestic pets), it began to encompass food. And as I thought more about food, then it was like, “Well, hang on a second, what about clothes?” And it grew from there. Of course then I felt overwhelmed about how I couldn’t do it, how vast the subject matter was, how problematic, and who was I to make this film, there’s simply too much information, etc., etc. But that’s how it began. And all I could do was just work on it until it was done."

I have been fighting an uphill battle with my dog current health. I have been fighting the option of having her put down, not really understanding how this takes place, never having had to put an animal down myself. That was the most disturbing part of the movie for myself, considering my current predicament. I know there is a reason for everything...and I know I had to watch this movie for the entire message, but most importantly I saw a clear message, that I hold personal.

The beginning and ending are so beautiful and inspiring...with the intervening parts so heartrending and shaming...but each in its own way should confirm and renew our commitment to all animals.

Mankind wallows in the quicksand of eternal narcissism. The only rights that matter are their own. The only lives that have worth are their own. The only suffering that merits consideration is their own.

Most of the footage was similar to the footage in the documentary Cruelty, USA, but what was different in this movie, was that they did speak about Kosher meat, which I found very enlightening. For all you Kosher meat lovers, take a look at what is "really" happening to your Kosher foods.

Did anyone know that Monsanto has been trying to patent a Pig?

The film talks about how we are killing our fish in the sea by our total disregard for what wastes we allow to eventually get into our oceans and seas. Anywhere from dumping drums filled with toxins off ships to fecal matter from the largest pig farm in the United States. Which earlier this year, was determined to have orginated the H1N1 virus. [read more]

We can send men to the moon (and that fact is actually in question) - but when it comes to moral evolution, we are still cave-dwelling Troglodytes torturing and murdering each other and animals under the banners of sexism, racism, religion, nationality, and speciesism.

It is the latter that is most pervasive and resistant to reform. I have alot of so called "spiritual" friends, people who are "awakening"....each one of them eats hamburgers, bacon, eggs, fried chicken....without any thought about it. Well actually, I recently asked a spiritual advisor how he dealt with eating animals. I was having a difficult time after watching Cruelty, USA. He said it hasn't stopped him from eating meat. I will tell you this right now, that if your eating meat, eggs, chicken...wearing leather, fur..etc....then you are no where near an "awakening", nor are you in any way "spiritual". If someone tells you they are spiritual, and are awakening, ask them a simple question...

When is the last time you ate another being?

People say they want change. People do not want change.  Most people are afraid of change. People just speak up so they can feel good about themselves.  Now you know where your meat comes from....the question will remain....will you still eat another being?

Take a look at our behaviors, they are indictive of our parents behaviors. We were taught by our parents and it's perpetrated by society. You folks are familiar with the Happy Cows of California right? There are no happy cows, I assure you.

It's a veil being pulled down over your faces, and the sad thing is they fall for it, and do not even realize it. It's no wonder people who drink milk and eat red meat get prostate cancer, and heart disease. We easily recognize the blatant evil with acts of wanton abuse displayed in this film- but we are less willing to acknowledge its more subtle form cloaked in the ignominy of indifference. It is my unwavering observation through my 44 years on this planet, "that he who is most cavalier toward the pain of others is usually most sensitive to his own" - and he who is the most dismissive of the rights of others usually exhibit vociferousness the same."

I love this quote from the documentary, "Human beings have an infinite capacity for suffering, as long as it's someone else who's suffering."

Let me translate this into American slang...."As long as it's not MY fat ass, Who f'ing cares?"

If you have read this far, then I suggest you watch the documentary now, even if you can't get through the middle portions at least watch the first segment. If these animals had to go through what they did, then by all means, your fat ass, better stand up and bear witness! If you want to continue eating these tortured animals, then by all means YOU should bear witness. 

The questions that I ask are:

Who are these people working in these slaughter farms?
Who are these bull riders?

Who are the people working in these dog farms? 
Who are all these people?
Who raised such monsters?
How can their parents be proud?
How do these people sleep at night?

The answer is:

Your father, your brother, your uncle, your cousin, your mother, your sister, your friend, your neighbor. 

Why?  Because you and I allow it. 

If you are going to continue to eat  meat, then  the least you could do is bear witness...and watch Earthlings in it's entirety.

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