Weapons Of Mass Destruction

Weapons Of Mass Destruction

Throughout history, Man has developed countless ways to inflict suffering upon the masses with appalling efficiency. Fully-automatic magazine-fed rifles, sarin gas, the atom bomb, and combat drones are just a few examples that illustrate how well humans know how to end a life, or many lives, swiftly. Human intellect is a weapon of mass destruction in itself. The damage of these atrocities cannot be fully realized without living, or killing, in a war-torn country under attack.

No matter how efficient Man has become at hurting fellow humans, those efforts pale in comparison with the tools of terror used to inflict suffering upon animals, all in the name of profit. A quick web search for “Livestock Equipment” reveals horrors that should be reserved for the Dark Web. However, these instruments of torture are found at bargain prices on Amazon.com, and proudly advertised by Google.

The product listings in a local farm supply store catalog would be more appropriately found in the script for an Eli Roth film rather than something the normal brain would associate with farms. These product names alone invoke thoughts of pain and suffering. Products such as a “Side” Crusher, Bloodless Castrator, Shock Prodding Bar, Ear Tattooer and Tags, Heavy-Duty Restraint Halters, Udder Singe, Weaning Nose Rings, and Milking Machines. 

These are just a few examples of the baleful tools of the trade used in the animal agriculture industry, the list could go on and on. Animals are tortured from the day they are bred into life by Man, to the day Man takes their life away. Most people are unaware of the barbarity committed in the name of beef, eggs, milk, and bacon. The idea that animals are treated humanely and live natural lives until they are painlessly slaughtered for food is a fairy-tale people simply want to believe. Nothing could be further from the truth, humane animal agriculture has no physical presence in our reality.

Cows, pigs, chicken, and sheep are besieged by those who should care for them with a constant barrage of poking, prodding, draining, impregnating, and outright torture. To illustrate this requires more than just looking at the cartoon of a happy cow on the package at the store and feeling good about yourself for choosing “humane meat”. This is the Age of Information, and a deeper examination of the tools used in the animal agriculture industry reveals an inconvenient truth, all exploitation is harmful. 

Castration

First, a look at methods of castration. The most widely used form of castration is physical castration, as opposed to surgical or chemical castration which requires veterinary assistance and added costs. All physical methods of castration cause pain and trauma, this is acknowledged by the American Veterinary Medical Association. However, it’s cheaper than paying a vet so physical castration trumps other methods in most cases. The Side Crusher and Bloodless Cattle Banders are a couple of the violent weapons used against animals during castration.

A Side Crusher is as bad as it sounds, possibly worse. This metal implement is little more than a modified pair of pliers. The purpose of this device is to crush the animal’s spermatic cords without cutting the skin or the arteries to the scrotum, in this way avoiding infection and costly veterinary bills and antibiotics. This method causes pain and severe inflammatory responses before the testicles to dry up and the scrotum shrinks after three weeks. 

This procedure is performed without any anesthesia as the animals scream out in pain. Crying out for help as anyone with testicles would beg for mercy when they are assaulted in such a manner. This is not performed by a veterinarian, no training is involved, and no certificate indicating the person performing the procedure understands what they are doing exists.

Animals are legally considered personal property. This means anyone who owns an animal can legally buy this device from the farm supply store and just start crushing parts of the animal’s body, as long as there is an agricultural “justification”. This method of castration is widespread and routinely performed on kids and calves, as well as goats and bulls; again, with no anesthesia. 

Cattle Banding is another archaic form of cruelty that is widely used in the animal agriculture industry. To be clear, this isn’t something that happens occasionally, castration is how farmers manage the herd, it is a daily common practice. This method of torture involves the application of a tight elastic band around the scrotum and testes. The band compresses the arteries and veins impeding arterial flow and killing the tissues, resulting in ischemia. Often the scrotum fills with blood, becoming engorged and painful. 

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, “Continued ischemia induces severe cellular damage and coagulation necrosis. Ischemic lesions of the intestinal tract or limbs are widely known to cause pain during the acute phase, followed by reduced pain as the lesion progresses. Blood pressures and heart rates of 2-month-old lambs remained high 4 hours after the placement of rubber rings, suggesting the persistence of pain.” Again, this is an every day practice in the animal agriculture industry.

Prey animals have a natural instinct to hide when they are threatened and feel vulnerable. Animals experiencing this procedure will retreat and hide, they experience psychological trauma and fear, and become depressed. Often they will throw themselves to the ground screaming, roll onto their back, rub against walls or fences trying to rid themselves of the pain-inducing foreign material, all the while screaming out in agony and confusion.

Confinement and Control

How do the oppressors who run these farms keep the animals under control and keep track of the herd? Many methods are used to confine these innocent prisoners on their death row. For instance, electrified fencing fortified with cattle guards at vehicle crossings, which are used to prevent cattle from leaving the owner’s property and crossing designated paths.

A cattle guard is essentially a hole in the ground covered by bars that are spaced far enough apart so that a cow’s hooves will slip through the space between the bars, preventing animals from crossing the path. This sounds benevolent enough until the realization occurs that many animals persist in trying to cross or jump the guards, resulting in injury and typically euthanasia.

Animals are big, really big. An adult bull can weigh between 1,100-2,200 pounds. A feeble farmer cannot simply put a bull on a leash as if they were dogs to lead them around. Therefore, often the feeble farmer will use weapons such as a cattle chute. This is a small alleyway created from metal bars. The feeble farmer coerces the animal into the chute, then traps them. While confined in the chute the cows receive various forms of treatment or forcible impregnation, castration, and further abuses.

Shock And Prod

Naturally, once an animal has been corralled into the chute once or twice, the process of trapping them will become more difficult. These aren’t mindless pieces of meat meandering in a field, they are sentient beings and they will recoil and retreat from learned dangers, as all intelligent beings would. As a result, feeble farmers must coax the large, muscular beings into these vulnerable situations using weapons. One such weapon is the cattle prod. 

The cattle prod is essentially a stun gun. Its an electronic tool which delivers a high power output of 4000 volts transmitting a low current, and typically produces a high pitch tone only audible to animals. This shock and tone will hurt and frighten the animal so that they want to get away from the danger, again, as any human would do. The farmer uses the prod or smaller stun-gun versions, to push the animal in the direction they want them to move. These are often used in rodeos as well. This is considered a “humane” method of controlling animals, shocking and frightening sentient beings is literally considered humane in this society. 

Products And Property

The oppressors within the animal agriculture industry maintain large herds of animals. Cattle operations that have over 100 cattle have an average of 186 cows per farm, and if they have over 500, the average spikes to a staggering 921 beef cows per farm. There are more than 75 million pigs on factory farms in the US at all times. To keep track of the prisoners and maintain ownership of these sentient beings, farmers use methods such as RFID chips implanted in the skin, ear tattoos, and ear tags.

Ear tattoos are performed in a sadistic and barbaric manner. The tool is essentially a stamp pad similar to those found in elementary school art classes across the country. However, the ear tattooer is not an innocuous plastic container containing an ink-soaked sponge and happy hearts and stars carved from foam.

Ear tattoos are created using a cold metal hand tool with two rows where letters and numbers can be interchanged to designate that animals’ “product id” or signify ownership by a specific human or company. The letters and numbers are created with needles. The ear is then tattooed by clamping it into the device, the needles imprint ink into the skin leaving behind a number, not dissimilar from those seen on holocaust survivors.

Another method of displaying ownership and inventory tracking is the ear tag. The ear tag is basically a plastic rivet pierced through the animals ear, with a numbered tag dangling off of it. Many people think nothing of this, comparing it to an infant receiving an ear piercing. However, from an ethical standpoint neither piercings are acceptable because they lack consent and are not intended for benevolent reasons such as medical necessity. 

Babies cry for a reason when their ears are pierced in the mall by some teenager making minimum wage. They cry because it hurts; forcing needles through the body hurts. For both babies and animals there is also an element of confusion and fear because they don’t understand why pain is being inflicted upon them.

Although, babies are pierced with very thin needles, .04” to be exact. Whereas the ear tag used for animals is typically nearly half an inch thick, .43” in most cases. This is a significant difference, not to mention the psychological trauma. At least a baby is being held by their mother during the assault rather than being violated by a monster.

Anti-feminism in Animal Agriculture

Few human females have ever had to endure the onslaught of anti-feminist attacks as the female animal has. First, these animals are forcibly impregnated repeatedly by the feeble farmer. Dairy cows are impregnated every year, because this is as frequent as they possibly can be. Keeping them in this cycle ensures she will continue to produce an efficient and profitable supply of milk. 

There is no love story between a cow and a bull, this is not something that is done naturally. Insemination occurs through artificial insemination in most cases. That means that a feeble farmer scares, shocks, and prods the cow into a cattle chute, dons shoulder-length plastic gloves, and then inserts his or her arm deep into the cow’s rectum in order to position the uterus for optimal insemination.

Next, the assailant forces a sperm-filled instrument into her vagina to perform the insemination. These people should be on a sex-offender registry somewhere, as should the people who buy their products knowing how this happened. From a compassion and ethics perspective, purchasing a jug of milk is not much different than purchasing a rape snuff film. 

Pigs must endure pregnancy twice annually, often artifically inseminated by an assailant, or confined to a rape-cage and impregnated by a male pig. To make matters worse, they are then confined to gestation crates. A 2’x7’ torturous crate where they cannot turn around or hardly move, while their babies are taken and stored in farrowing crates, which prevent them from moving around too much too. The assailants want these animals fat, not fit.

It’s Not Kidnapping When You Own Them

Once they’ve delivered their babies, they have very little time to be mothers. Typically calves are taken from their mothers as soon as possible, as little as three, but no more than eight months after birth. To ensure the calf doesn’t drink too much of the farmers precious investment, the calves noses are pierced and clamped with a weaning nose ring.

A weaning ring is a plastic or metal device that is adorned with large spikes. When the calf tries to suckle from their mother as they naturally should, the mother is forced to back away from the pain of spikes poking into her udders. It’s not difficult for anyone to imagine the psychological damage this must do to both mother and child. The mother who has a natural inclination to care for her child is heartbroken because she cannot; and the child confused and feeling abandoned and hungry as mommy backs away. 

Once the calf is old enough to be taken from their mother, the cow is connected to a milk collectors which are hooked to milk machines. Milk collectors are essentially tubes that connect directly to the cows teats with suction, and then connect through tubing to the milk machine. Next, the impregnation cycle begins again.

Fire And Brimstone

Although a cow’s udders appear to be bald from a distance, they are actually covered in fine hairs. These hairs prevent proper suction. Therefore, dairy farms routinely use an udder singe to burn the hair off of their udders and ensure a good connection for the milk collectors.

The udder singe consists of a small propane tank carried by a feeble farmer, who then approaches the cow with a wand. At the end of the wand is a large flame. The feeble farmer waves the flame underneath the cows udders to literally burn off all of the hair. The animal receives no anesthesia for this attack. 

The milking machine and milk collectors also often cause mastitis, an inflammation of breast tissue, by acting as a reservoir for pathogens, and directly implanting pathogenic organisms into the streak canal (teat/nipple), also causing long-term deterioration of the teats.

As for the calf who was taken away from their mother after a psychologically damaging weaning process, the mother is replaced with a feeder bucket. The feeder bucket is exactly as described, a bucket full of weaning ration, a mix of nutrients and grains to prepare them to graze, and a cold rubber teat to replace their mothers warm nuture. 

The End

After all of this torture, when the young calf grows into an adult beef cow, they meet a very dark end. The animals are typically not slaughtered where they were raised, they are instead taken to slaughterhouses, places that specialize in mass-slaughter. The faster they can kill an animal the more profitable they become.

The doomed to die are then loaded into a truck as tightly as possible, transported, often in extreme temperatures at high speeds becoming injured and ill during the trip. When they arrive at their final destination many must be dragged off of the truck with ropes and chains because they are unable to walk on their own. 

Finally, they are loaded into a cattle chute one last time and shot in the head with a captive-bolt gun. This doesn’t kill them, it is simply meant to stun them and numb the pain to come. However, these workers do not care about the animal’s welfare and are often seen on video beating the animals.

Slaughterhouse workers are paid very little, hurried through their work, and unskilled, so the bolt gun is often ineffective to prevent any pain and instead causes further suffering. Ultimately, the animals reach the end of the line where their throats are slit with a large blade, the pain and horror can be seen in their eyes as their pupils grow large and wide, making one final attempt to make sense of the painful life they’ve experienced. They try to scream out in agony and fear, just before the life leaves them and they gurgle their final breath through the rush of blood and anguish.

After that, their lifeless bodies are bled-out and desecrated into the products found in the local grocery store. This is where the most important step takes place, the most powerful and destructive tool used in the animal agriculture industry rears its ugly head, the consumer’s dollar.

Every atrocity, every horrendous act, every violent tool of the trade mentioned in this article is made possible entirely by how consumers spend their dollars. If people stop buying the end product, the rest of this misery will disappear. How do you spend your dollars? Their lives are in your hands.