KC star animal-firendly article

[Guest guest]

Please thank the author of the article, Frank Lingo. His e-mail addy is

franklingo (franklingo at earthlink.net). Also, please

thank editor Rich Hood and publisher Arthur S. Brisbane for allowing

the opinion. Their e-mail addresses are rhood (rhood at

kcstar.com) and abrisbane (abrisbane at kcstar.com)

respectively.

 

http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/opinion.pat,opinion/3774dbbf.a23,.html

 

Give animals their right to freedom

 

By FRANK LINGO - Special to The Star

10/23/00 22:00

 

One segment at a time, humanity has learned to liberate itself from

prejudice and persecution. First we freed our slaves.

Then we freed women. Now we're learning to free children.

 

Next will finally come our duty to liberate animals.

 

Last Saturday, People for Animal Rights presented " Compassion In

Action, " Kansas City's second animal-rights symposium.

Like the abolitionists of racial slavery and female subservience, these

21st century reformers are ahead of the curve on what

many will eventually consider self-evident truths.

 

Constitutional scholars are quick to point out that animals have no

rights. Neither did slaves or women. The Constitution

must live and breathe -- just like us, its adherents -- and it needs

expansion and clarification as life evolves, presenting new

issues.

 

Issues like puppy mills, where " man's best friends " have been subjected

to oppressively cruel conditions. Issues like cattle

feed lots and chicken coops where the animals are jammed like sardines

into a factory farm life that's devoid of contact with

the land.

 

A life on the land is something that was taken for granted a century

ago, when most people and their animals lived spread out

in rural places. Now there's suburban sprawl with little elbow room

between neighbors. This mirrors the crowded corrals

where cows are kept.

 

And it's not just cruelty to animals that's at issue, it's our own

health, too. This was pointed out by symposium speaker JoAnn

Farb, author of Compassionate Souls -- Raising the Next Generation to

Change the World.

 

Farb contends that our food choices have an impact on the rest of the

world. That has led her to become a vegan activist. Her

story and that of Robert Cohen, author of Milk -- The Deadly Poison,

even led this erstwhile dairy-loving columnist to give

it up.

 

I was raised on meat and milk. My father was a lawyer for the

Dairyman's League and the National Farmers' Union. I bet he's

rolling in his grave as I write this. He died at 64 looking like 94. Of

course, it didn't help that he was an alcoholic and a

smoker. But his carnivorous consumption contributed to chronic

constipation.

 

There are some things to admire about the way we were raised, but our

diet isn't one of them. Along with our settling in the

sprawl came a propensity for processed protein. This created an

assembly-line annihilation of animals -- all so you could

have it your way.

 

Are humans inherently carnivorous? No one knows, but there are reasons

to think we're designed as vegetarians: We have

teeth made for chewing not tearing, and our systems can't take meat raw

like cats or canines can. There is a popular

misconception about people needing animal protein. After 11 years as a

vegetarian, my life defies that myth.

 

It's also a fair guess that most burger buyers would not care to carry

out their meal's execution before ingestion. If vegetables

scream when sacrificed, I must be deaf.

 

Meat production as practiced now is a huge environmental issue. It

takes much more volume of crops and water to produce

meat as it does the same amount of grain or vegetables for human

consumption. The waste -- humongous mounds of chicken,

cow and hog poop -- have contaminated waterways in many states.

 

Then there are the drugs that are used to artificially fatten farm

animals, which have been bred far beyond their natural size;

not to mention massive antibiotics that stay in the milk and meat right

through to the consumer, likely contributing to our rash

of drug-resistant microbes.

 

It's a basic tenet of the animal-rights movement that we have no right

to kill or enslave other sentient beings just to please our

palates. Sure, we love meat and eggs and ice cream. Sure it's a part of

our culture and our economy.

 

So was slavery. That doesn't make it right.

 

For more information, visit People for Animal Rights Kansas City's Web

site at www.parkc.org.

 

Frank Lingo's column appears on alternate Tuesdays. To reach him, send

e-mail to franklingo.

 

 

 

 

 

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