INDIEchouette

A friend wants to go vegetarian.  I have advised her not to go by PETA’s terms, but I’m not sure that she understands the gravity of the situation, and how labeled she will ultimately be if she does choose that path with her animal rights journey.

Here’s my thing.  I watched Earthlings with her yesterday, narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, yeah yeah.  Many of the video clips in the film were reminders of just why I chose to go vegetarian in the first place.  And now that I look back at them, I wonder why I didn’t just go vegan from the start.  A lot of the clips were new, especially those pertaining to the dairy industry.  But I wonder how someone can watch all that, listening to Joaquin’s eerie voice, and seriously not immediately think, “I need to go vegan.”  I mean, vegetarianism is a serious jump for some.  But Earthlings covers everything involving animal use, from Pets to Food, Clothing, Entertainment, and Research.  There’s no room for argument.  Once you’ve seen it, you have virtually no excuse in the whole world.  Pescetarians have no good reason as to why they eat fish.  You have no backing behind your leather belts.  And “kosher?”  Come on, America is capitalist.  Capitalism treats animals as resources, as things.  And do you really expect capitalists to regard things with any respect, even relating to any religion (ya, even Christianity)?

So I’m saying watch it at your own risk for enlightenment, but watch it anyway.  And some of you (Travis) will disagree with me.  Some of you will think I’m being an extreme terrorist, but when coupled with the narrative, I think this provides essential information.  And I’m not really one for handing out extremely graphic animal rights videos.  But when you hear those screams, when you picture all the organs as though they’re hanging from your dying best friend or beloved cat just like they did from that “kosher” cow, you have to pay attention.  When you consider the agony of the dolphins being separated from their kin and see the schoolchildren walking by unperturbed as these dolphins are slaughtered, you’ve got to wonder what’s wrong with us.  We don’t want to know what goes into our food, our foolish whims, but for the record, we’re already desensitized anyway.

Oh, and also, you can’t help but wonder what kind of a life your cat led before you.  And I guess you’ll never know, either.  You’d just like to imagine it was good, or that you saved her.

For the record, I’ve known and loved Babygrrl since she was born.  For the record, the cats I live with at home are spayed.