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Facing Animals: A Dutch Documentary about Our Wildly Conflicting Perceptions of Animals

Why do we look away from millions of animals in industrial farms while pampering and humanizing others? Such is the fundamental question posed by a fascinating new documentary film by Dutch photographer and filmmaker, Jan Van Ijken. “The film takes the perspective of the animal, but actually is about man who in his inscrutable wisdom labels one animal as a cheap piece of meat, and the other as an interesting research object, beauty ideal, pest, pathetic creature or partner/mate/child. In Facing Animals, I give the hidden animals in the industrial farms a face. I invite the viewer to think about the value of an animal,” writes Van Ijken. … READ ON

What All Animal Advocates Need to Understand about Denial

All social justice advocates, including animal advocates, can expect to face a huge challenge when talking to people about why their cause is important. In the animal advocacy world, food choice is the elephant in the closet. Denial is the norm and it takes many forms. We must not be deterred by it. Accept the reality of denial and seek ways to move beyond it. That is the given that all serious advocates must embrace, rather than become paralyzed by, if we are to become more effective at getting people to warm up to our position. … READ ON

Author David Coles: Compassion Must Be the New Intelligence to Save Humanity from Itself

“Compassion will be the new intelligence that will guide humanity into an expansive state of existence beyond the illusion of choice that currently pervades human thought… It is no longer a theory or a prediction, it is possible now. The future has arrived,” writes David Coles, author of The Insanity of Humanity. … READ ON

Moving from the Power of Denial to the Power of Witnessing

We live in a society in which our perceptions of food are shaped largely by fantasy, escapism, deception and immediate gratification. This allows us to see just the juicy steak on the menu and block our awareness of the reality of the animal who suffered for it. Our food choices have become so ingrained, so habitual, so far removed from the scrutiny of critical thinking. But bad habits were meant to be broken. … READ ON

When Food Choices Negate Free Choice

On many occasions I have read or listened to defensive reactions from people who claim that no one can force them to change what they eat, as if someone had their mouth pried open and was attempting to shove a russet potato down their throat. They defiantly proclaim their freedom to make the choices they want. But how free are they — really? … READ ON

Slaughtering Chickens For “Art” Cancelled in Lawrence, Kansas

During the past month, United Poultry Concerns, working with Animal Outreach of Kansas (www.animaloutreach-ks.org), has published 5 Action Alerts urging people to contact the Spencer Museum of Art and related institutions in Lawrence, KS to insist that an “art” project that these institutions were supporting, called “The Story of Chickens” by Amber Hansen, an artist-in-residence at the University of Kansas, be cancelled. To view these Alerts, see www.upc-online.org/alerts/. … READ ON

The River of Blood That Flows from Dallas, TX to Koscierzyna, Poland

The coincidence of finding the same kind of story in two completely different parts of the world on the same day seems uncanny. Or is it far more common than we care to know? On the same day, I found two news stories surface, one about a river of pig blood coming from a slaughterhouse in a small town in Poland called Koscierzyna and the other, about pig blood flowing down a river in Dallas, TX. … READ ON

Bearing Witness: The First Stage in Changing the Paradigm for Animals

If you are an animal advocate or just someone who is concerned with animal issues, the first most important task we have is to find creative ways to get people to bear witness to the suffering of animals for food and other uses. You can’t have a meaningful conversation with someone who has not yet been exposed to the reality you too have witnessed. The act of witnessing forms the basis of a constructive dialogue about our impact on animals and what we can do about it. … READ ON

Martha Stewart Denounces Factory Farming in New Video

Martha Stewart denounces factory farming in a new video recorded by Farm Sanctuary. The interesting thing here is that the focus is only on factory farming which is simply the result of a mindset that views certain animals as commodities to satisfy human pleasures. She does not denounce eating animals on principle because doing so reduces their value to mere commodities. And yet it is precisely this belief—that animals are here for our use—that is the justification and catalyst behind a system of food production that uses animals as resources on a scale of mass production that we have come to know as factory farming. Therefore, to denounce factory farming without providing a solution, leaves her audience wondering, what should I do? Look for humane products? Go vegetarian, vegan? The answer is unclear.
… READ ON

How Huffington Post Promotes Animal Exploitation

At least once per week I come across a story in the Huffington Post Food section about how to raise or hunt and kill your own animals for food. One week it was a story about how to salvage road kill and turn it into a tasty meal. Another week it was an amateur urban chicken “farmer” intent on having her first chicken slaughter experience but didn’t have the heart to kill her own hens so she went out and found a wandering hen who had escaped from a live market which she brought home and slaughtered for a meal. The stories of these so called “conscious” people who are taking the journey to trace where their food comes from seems to have an endless stream of variations on the same theme. Yet the underlying premise of all of them are predictably consistent: these animals are here for our use, for us to raise, kill and eat as we see fit, because they have no other value or meaning in life other than to be our food. … READ ON