What We Owe What We Eat by George Will

[shockra]

What We Owe What We Eat

Why, Matthew Scully asks, is cruelty to a puppy appalling and cruelty to livestock by the billions a matter of social indifference?

By George F. Will
Newsweek

July 18 issue - Matthew Scully, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, is the most interesting conservative you have never heard of. He speaks barely above a whisper and must be the mildest disturber of the peace. But he is among the most disturbing.

If you value your peace of mind, not to mention your breakfast bacon, you should not read Scully's essay ''Fear Factories: The Case for Compassionate Conservatism—for Animals." It appeared in the May 23, 2005, issue of Pat Buchanan's magazine The American Conservative—not where you would expect to find an essay arguing that industrial livestock farming involves vast abuses that constitute a serious moral problem.

The disturbing facts about industrial farming by the $125 billion-a-year livestock industry—the pain-inflicting confinements and mutilations—have economic reasons. Ameliorating them would impose production costs that consumers would pay. But to glimpse what consumers would be paying to stop, visit factoryfarming.com/gallery.htm. Or read Scully on the miseries inflicted on billions of creatures ''for our convenience and pleasure":

"... 400- to 500-pound mammals trapped without relief inside iron crates seven feet long and 22 inches wide. They chew maniacally on bars and chains, as foraging animals will do when denied straw... The pigs know the feel only of concrete and metal. They lie covered in their own urine and excrement, with broken legs from trying to escape or just to turn ..."

CONTINUED

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525632/site/newsweek/

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. I watched the Meet your Meat video with Alec Baldwin posted by

someone here.... and it honestly forced me to choose a shrimp sandwich today.... even though the barbecued chicken and the pork thingy was odoriferous.... (smelt perty good) EVERYONE needs to see that video "if" they can handle it.

[terrya]

2. Weirdly enough, I'm reading about the same thing...Morgan Spurlock's book

"Don't Eat This Book". Spurlock's book (an excellent read, BTW) goes into the same thing...the absolutely grusome conditions in the corporate agribusiness...the raising (and slaughtering) of cattle, pigs, chickens. It literally is stomach churning to read about the appalling conditions (it's enough to seriously wonder why I still eat meat)

I'm surprised...I guess pleasantly so...that a conservative would take up the same issues.

[shockra]

8. Glad to hear it has substance.

I saw it at the bookstore yesterday, but didn't thumb through it because I was afraid it was just something put out to capitalize on his popularity.

Now I'll have to add it to my list.

[CoffeeAnnan]

3. Willy Wanka beats his meat.

With polysyllabic Quotes to boot.

[smbolisnch]

4. Awesome article. This sounds like a conservative I would like to have

a conversation with.
I have asked myself this same question a million times, yet so many people just don't seem to get this :shrug:

"The difference is the capacity for enjoyment and suffering. So why, Scully asks, is cruelty to a puppy appalling and cruelty to livestock by the billions a matter of social indifference? There cannot be any intrinsic difference of worth between a puppy and a pig."

[delete_bush]

5. Maybe there's hope for conservatives after all,

start with livestock first, if that works out perhaps they'll work their way up to humans somewhere down the road.

[pretzel4gore]

6. if geewill would bring this to light...

mind you, he's only doing it to confound the debate when it looks like his hero geebush is getting a noticeable smell, from endless stupidity, failure and downright brutishness...
even then, go geewill go! (you slimy mediawhore you! lol)

[shockra]

7. I just bought Scully's book yesterday at the used bookstore.

Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy

It's supposed to be one of the best on the subject out there. I also got Fast Food Nation, which I've been meaning to read forever. It's hard to see how anything could top John Robbins's Diet For a New America in describing the gruesomeness of factory farming, but I guess I'll find out.