Western culture is built upon the oppression of animals. They disappear as individuals and become objects to be bred, exhibited, hunted and devoured. What a tragedy. Most will never know the real lives of animals. You see them, but you never really know what they endure. Farmed hens and roosters exist only as unrealized potentials, slaughtered as babies without ever knowing the comfort of a mother’s wing or the reassuring sound of a rooster’s crow. The hell they experience is human-induced suffering.

Through the structure of the absent referent, our culture protects consumers from the truth about the fate of animals in slaughtering, in zoos, in vivisection labs, in forms of entertainment and production.

We do not regularly encounter the barbarities of the slaughterhouse in our daily lives.

Most of us have no idea of the extent of suffering farm animals endure. This is big business, and greedy corporations will do anything to make money. The animals are paying the price. Meat is in such demand that they can’t kill animals fast enough. Many animals going through the slaughter process are fully conscious.

Anyone who consumes animals should read “Slaughterhouse” by Gail A. Eisnitz, the shocking story of greed, neglect and inhumane treatment inside the U.S. meat industry.

Some argue that we can destroy most animals whenever we feel it benefits us to do so, because we grant them no moral standing; others differ.

Peter Singer writes, “If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit non-humans for the same purpose?”

By our actions or inactions, by our caring or indifference, we are either part of the problem or part of the solution.