Corporate cruelty

This particular corporate cruelty is down to Hormel (industrial food corporation and makers of Spam) and highlighted in a secret video made by Compassion Over Killing. But Hormel are not the only corporation involved in these kinds of practices. The corporate sector is geared towards profit maximisation only – legally obliged to maximising returns for shareholders. Corporations are not ‘for’ anything else. The fact that they provide any jobs at all is incidental. If they could replace all humans with machines, they would – and in fact they’re trying.

But back to animals. The profit maximisation obligation means that speed is crucial in corporate slaughterhouses. This one kills 1300 pigs per hour (yes, I had to read that twice too). There’s no time to think about the welfare of the pigs. Many are punched, kicked, pulled along the floor with metal clamps on their mouths, they’re stunned incorrectly and herded, terrified into cramped, metal containers filled with the stench of death.

Here’s the video that COK made. But be warned, it’s quite harrowing.

This is what happens when meat production is corporate and therefore profit-driven. It’s a system that ruins everything, but it doesn’t get much worse than inflicting torture on captive animals.

Do you really want to be part of this system, and to contribute to this kind of cruelty? Here’s what you can do:

1. Become vegetarian or vegan. At the end of the video, the commentator suggested that you ‘keep them off your plate’. This is the obvious option if you want to make absolutely sure that your diet doesn’t contribute to animal cruelty – although if you’re vegetarian, but eat eggs and dairy, you should think about what happens to male calves and chicks, that don’t produce milk or eggs. The vegan option is the only way you can make really sure that you don’t cause any animal deaths.
2. Sign this petition – the US Department of Agriculture is considering allowing more ‘high-speed’ slaughterhouses and reducing the need for inspections. Tell them what you think.
3. If you eat meat, don’t eat corporate meat, especially processed meat like Spam.
4. Support local farmers whose animals are not slaughtered this way. Now you may think that this isn’t good enough, and that we should stop eating meat altogether. Here’s a discussion on whether or not it’s ethical to eat meat. Maybe one day, humans will become herbivores. It’s possible, but right now, humans eat an awful lot of meat. Let’s persuade people to a) reduce their meat consumption, and b) restrict their meat consumption to animals raised (and preferably slaughtered) on mixed smallholdings rather than animals raised in factory farms and dispatched in ghoulish ‘high-speed’ slaughterhouses.

Spam’s not quite so funny now, is it?