Reflection

 

 

Response to "Dairy's Dark Side: The Sour Truth Behind Milk"

 

                    Whenever I watch documentaries about animal cruelty, I immediately am repulsed and have to turn the video off. However, for this excercise, I wanted to document the thoughts which are provoked in watching informational material to their most organic state. Personally, I have already made the decision to become a vegan and have been a vegetarian for eight years; and in regards to that fact, I am still shocked at how the agricultural industry treats animals. This entry is not meant to be a personal boo-hoo about how much I am affected by the animal's pain, because in reality I will never know how they feel, and I will never have to experience what they experience or hurt as they hurt. My purpose for writing this journal is to inform other people that when they do feel a deep sense of sympathy for the animals, it is normal, it has a purpose, and that they can make a difference when those emotions arise.
                   The first minute of the video is enough to make me want to turn away, but I pull through in the efforts of also re-teaching myself why I am a vegan, so that I may inform other people of the cause. There are images of animals being tortured, beaten, neglected, and manipulated. Much of the workers in these dairy businesses simply throw them around and ignore the cows as if they are rag dolls. Even worse, when there is infection, a vetrenarian does not arrive for two weeks and for the rest of time the animals are still forced to be hooked up to the machines to be milked.

                 Many people argue that cows need to be milked, or they become infected. This is a true statement, however, milking a cow does not require the abandonment of their children, the manipulation of their hormones, being caged up so close that they must stand beside the death of other animals and feces, or ignoring its wounds. Nor does it require animals to have their horns literally burned off and their tails chopped off. Within the video I learned about docking, which is performing the previous actions which I already stated. This is "required" in order to "keep the animals from knawing at each others tails and ears". Yet the cows still must cry in agony. Much of the workers also torture the animals for pure fun and it is more of an abomination than the cows being caged up unbearably close to each other. The most offensive part of the video for me was watching the man curse and beat the animal, and then laugh about it. In a resovling statement I would just like to ask, since when was that required for us to have milk? since when was that acceptable in our culture? since when did we have the right to do such things to other loving creatures who are just as loving and vulnerable as us?

 

Plain statement, it is vulgar, and a disgrace. Human kind is ranking themselves lower than the manure which these animals are forced to stand in. That is the absolute truth.