FW: (KR) ITS LEGAL! Barbecued dogmeat in Korea

[Guest guest]

>On September 28, 2008 the law to regulate dog farms under

>the Livestock Act began implementation in Korea .

 

This is a matter of serious humane concern.

 

 

 

> This is just the first step towards the complete legalization of dog meat.

 

This is a possibility.

 

 

 

>Because of this law there will be an increase in the number of dogs

>slaughtered for this cruel custom. Dog meat for the barbecue may

>soon be available in all supermarkets throughout South Korea.

 

 

This is an unsubstantiated leap to the conclusion that there

is a greater potential market for dog meat than has so far been

served -- in which case decades of campaigning and public education

have failed.

 

If the market is in fact growing, attempting to politically

suppress it may be as foredoomed to failure as most other efforts to

suppress vice.

 

However, at the recorded peak of dog meat consumption, it

was consumed by only 6% of South Koreans, and 6% consumer interest

in a product is well short of the threshold necessary to get a

product into U.S.-style mega-supermarkets, let alone the much

smaller supermarkets of South Korea.

 

The rest of this posting progresses to some flagrantly

over-generalized and perhaps overtly racist claims.

 

For example, this incident was widely denounced within South

Korea when it happened, and occurred in the first place because the

protesters -- who had a certain amount of support, but not the

political upper hand in advancing their issue -- were attempting to

shock their audience as an attention-getting device:

 

> " S. Korean Political Protesters Torture and Kill Pig as

> " Performance " ...

 

 

Similar episodes have occurred in the U.S., Britain, and

many other nations, where aggrieved and angry people have

" scapegoated " animals to show the rest of the public just how angry

and potentially dangerous they are.

 

 

>Woo Bum Kon carried out the largest known incident of spree killing

>in modern history. His victims included 58 dead and 35 wounded.

>Seung Hui Cho committed mass murder of 32 people and wounded 25 in

>what has come to be known as the Virginia Tech Massacre.

 

Just as almost every nation has had political demonstrations

featuring animal abuse, sometimes in the form of photo-ops for

candidates shown shooting cage-raised birds or attending bullfights,

almost every nation has produced some spree-killers and serial

killers.

 

Dog-eating may be in the backgrounds of those of South Korean

origin; sport hunting is frequently in the backgrounds of those of

U.S. origin, where about the same percentage of citizens hunt as

consume dogs in South Korea.

 

Both dog-eating and sport hunting warrant abolition. The bad

examples they set for young people are certainly part of why.

 

To assert, however, that the practices of minorities of a

population are indicative of depravity on the part of the whole is to

assert, in effect, that attempting to abolish any cruel behavior is

futile.

 

The hope for abolishing dog-eating in South Korea resides in

the reality that the overwhelming majority of South Koreans do not

eat dogs now, have not eaten dogs in the past, and never intend to.

 

Politically organizing the non-dog-eaters to oppose the

dog-eating oligarchs who now control much of the wealth and political

authority in South Korea can succeed. Attacking all South Koreans

over the vices of primarily older, affluent men merely gives the

dog-eaters a political shield, in that they use these attacks to

assert that the real issue is anti-Korean racism.

 

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

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Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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