Rutgers and animal rights - stopping cowards

For those of you who read my posts about the Rutgers basketball coach this week, calling for him to be fired, you might have been surprised to read about sports in one of my blog posts. With such violence and anti-gay slurs coming from a person in power, I felt I had to write about it.

But what we saw in the videos from Rutgers we have seen before.

If, like us, you support all of the groups out there who do undercover work to give animals in factory farms and in labs a voice, the actions and abuse of power coming from a coward is nothing new.

Recently Mercy for Animals has made headlines with their undercover work. I decided not to show a video (Mercy For Animals is linked on our main page if you'd like to take a look). Their videos have a lot in common with the Rutgers video: people in power doing unspeakable things to those they are charged to care for. In the MFA videos we see, time after time, terrified animals being kicked, thrown, tortured and sometimes killed. By cowards.

In some stats, legislators are talking about passing bills to stop undercover investigations. In Iowa this is now law. These so called "ag gag" bills are meant to keep people who care about animals away, to keep profit up, and to be able to treat their product as they see fit.

I think "ag gag" is going easy on them. I prefer calling them "coward protection" laws.

Whether it is a group of factory farm workers beating a piglet with a shovel, teens bulling a perceived gay student or a basketball coach who makes $700,000 a year to perpetrate violence and fear on young players, cowards exist among us.

They can be stopped, which is why I felt the need to write about the Rutgers coach. He was fired. And then the athletic director resigned.

We have the power to be a voice for the voiceless and we have the power to stop these cowards.

Sometimes I may sound like a broken record when I write about getting involved, in connecting with your state legislator, in writing a letter to the editor or visiting your local chief of police.

These actions make a huge difference to those affected by the cowards.

Our silence strengthens the cowards. Our voices and actions can stop the cowards.

Thank you for reading!

Fighting the cowards

There is a Mercy For Animals video that is out there about the dairy industry, asking folks not to consume dairy. I decided a long time ago not to add videos or photos of animals being mistreated just to give our readers a break from that. If you'd like to see the video I'm sure it's on the MFA website. And I should also add that Mike and I donate a lot of money to MFA because we absolutely believe in their work.

I felt compassion for the cows in the video. I wanted to take away their pain, suffering and fear. I wanted to stop the cowards who were inflicting these things on them.

My compassion extends to all living beings. I mean all. Not just dogs. Not just animals. All living beings. The video I watched this morning while enjoying my morning coffee surrounded by our furry companions brought the cruel reality that cowardly and weak people torture animals and feel good about it.

I wonder what happened to these people to make them so horrible that they have to beat or kick or instill fear into a living being just because they can.

And this is what the meat and dairy and egg industries are all about. This is what happens every day, every night, behind closed doors so everyone who eats the nicely packaged product has no clue how the it got there.

Well, these days they do. Every day that I see an undercover video I feel good that the story of cruelty and torture and fear is being told. The light shines on the cowards. In some cases, they are actually being charged with felony cruelty to animals.

I believe the best way to fight the way these folks treat animals is to not pay them. I mean don't financially support what they do by purchasing or consuming their product. Tell them that you abhor their actions by cutting them off.

Your employees brutalizes an animal; I support you no more. Your industry says it's OK to instill fear on animals and torture them before you kill them for meat; I say that I will not support your industry. You are a politician who takes money from and supports companies that treat animals this way; I say that I will not vote for you and I will fight against your support of cruelty.

Is this radical? No way. Radical is continually watching cowardly people kick, beat and torture animals without doing anything to stop them. Radical is saying "I know it's terrible how they treat those dairy cows" while chugging down a glass of milk.

Cruelty continues with permission. Let's take that away.

Thank you for reading. Please support those groups that are shining a light on animal cruelty and animal torture.