David Sirota: The Politics of Sight

[marmar]

from truthdig:


The Politics of Sight

Posted on Apr 26, 2012
By David Sirota


Would Americans eat less meat, and would animals be treated more humanely, if slaughterhouses were made with glass walls and we all could see the monstrous killing apparatus at work? This is the query at the heart of Timothy Pachirat’s new book “Every Twelve Seconds”—the title a reference to the typical slaughterhouse’s cattle-killing rate.

Before you think this is a column merely about food, recognize that Pachirat’s question isn’t (only) about the immorality of the cheeseburger you had for lunch. It’s about the larger phenomenon whereby modern society has reconstructed itself to hide so many horrific consequences from view.

Calling this the “politics of sight,” Pachirat’s blood-soaked experience inside a slaughterhouse spotlights only the most illustrative example of how we’ve divorced ourselves from the means of producing violence—and how, in doing so, we have made it psychologically easier to support such brutality. Sadly, billions of factory-farmed animals dying barbaric deaths are just one subset of casualties in that larger process.

Today, for example, free trade policies that promote offshoring allow Americans to enjoy consumer goods at ultra-low prices without having to see that those low prices represent companies taking advantage of the developing world’s poverty wages, environmental destruction and human rights abuses. A veritable slave may have assembled the iPad you are reading these words on, but thanks to the supply chain’s geography and Apple’s lack of transparency, you can easily avoid dealing with the ethical implications of that reality. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_politics_of_sight_20120426/

[xchrom]

1. du rec. nt

[CrispyQ]

2. Outstanding article.

k&r

[orwell]

3. I worked in a meat processing plant for 2 weeks...

...in my early 20's.

It turned me into a vegetarian.

If more people understood what they were eating their choices would change...