Killing Cows

THIS PARTICULAR FACEBOOK POST got my attention. The truth is, many of them do. Its almost as if some vast intelligence, perhaps of artificial origin, has been monitoring my behavior, learning about my personal tastes, and feeding me exactly what I want to see on Facebook, all for corporae profit, for the profit of a few billionaires. Come to think of it, that wouldn't be a bad science fiction movie. It was a picture of a cow, obviously entrapped by a metal barrier, being herded forward by machinary to her doom. Within moments of being beheaded for beef, she stands there, surrounded by metal walls. Her head is turned towards the camera, looking behind her, and there is a wide eyed look of sheer terror in her eyes, as if she suddenly has realized what is happening, about to happen to her. The caption says something like: "This was her last moment". It made an immediate and profound impact on me, as I am sure it did many people. I hope it has, does, and will continue to have such an impact, on millions of people, in the near future. I shared the post, ane hope it keeps being shared, by many people. I don't even remember if the post said anything further, which I am sure it did. I don't even remember the name of the organization which posted it. It must be some animals rights or humane treatment of animlas group, like the SPCA or PETA, or some such. As long as we humans are going to slaughter and eat millions of animals every day, it certainly doesn't do any harm in thinking an talking about it a little. It might even help. Its highly relevant, and appropriate a matter to discuss. I used to have a good freind who was a small scale cattle rancher. He had a couple hundred acres, a lot of grass, and he raised a few dozen head on it. He called himself a "grass farmer". A couple fo times I helped him load a calf into a pick up truck so he could take it to town, to sell, at several hundred dollars a calf. I never thought much about what I was participating in. The question I still ask, and have always asked, is, precisely: What's going on in the minds of these head of cattle? How smart are they, how aware of their situation as they approach their death in the factory beef industry? I had been told that they are too stupid to understand what is going on. And, I have heard they they are indeed smart enough to realize what's happening, and to be terrified of it. And still, I have no idea. Perhaps the answer is some subtle combination of both: of awareness, and ignorance. Either way, whatever the truth is, one truth is, or seems to be, that sooner rather than later we the human species is going to have to stop breeding and raising these large animals merely for our own consumption, because of economic and environmental considerations. In recent years corporate capitalism,in its genius, has developed synthetic meat substitutes which are delicious, indistinguishable, economic, and healthy. The people who deny this reality are the same people who deny climate change. Cattle ranching, on a small or large scale, is destined to go extinct, happily. We humans tend to read ourselves into everyting, to see ourselves in every situation. Hence, we invent religions which have anthropomorphic gods, made in the image of human kind. We tend to assume that all stray cats are wandering forlornly around, hoping against hope to be "adopted" and cared for by a human family. But is this really true? How can stray cats possibly have any idea what people are really like? I have personal evidence that it is. On several occasions stray kittnes, feral, with no previous experience dealing with humans, have shown up on my doorstep, obviously wanting to come inside my house with me. As you might guess, they all made it in, and they all stayed, for years. The same thing has happened to many people; it happens every day. Obviously, feral kittens are smart enough to understand, or to at least suppose, that we humans are good sources of food and protection. In almost every situation in which the intelligence of a non human animal is in question, we eventually learn that the animal is far more intelligent than we humans ever supposed or would have guessed. I don't feel good about what I will probably discover about cows, lined up at the slaughter house.