There is no sexism no racism or speciesism in the term earthling

It encompasses each and every one of us, warm or cold blooded mammal

vertebrae or invertebrate, bird, reptile,

Amphibian fish and human alike

Humans therefore being not the only species on the planet share this world with millions of other living creatures as we all evolve here together

However it is the human earthling who tends to dominate the earth

oftentimes treating other fellow Earthlings and living beings as mere objects

This is what is meant by speciesism

By analogy with racism and sexism, the term speciesism

Is a prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of members of one's own species and

against those of members of other species

If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration

No matter what the nature of the being the principle of equality requires that one's suffering can be counted equally with the like suffering

of any other being

Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of their own race

When there's a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race?

Sexist violate the principle of equality by favouring the interests of their own sex

Similarly speciesists allow the interests of their own species to override the greater interests of members of other species

In each case the pattern is identical

Among the numbers of the human family we recognize the moral imperative of respect

Every human is a somebody out of something

morally disrespectful treatment occurs when those who stand at the power end of a power relationship treat

The less powerful as if they were mere objects

The rapist does this to the victim of rape the child invested to the child molested the master to the slave

In each in all such cases humans who have power exploit those who lack it

Might the same be true of how humans treat other animals or other earthlings

Undoubtedly there are differences since humans and animals are not the same in all respects

But the question of sameness wears another face

Granted these animals do not have all the desires we humans have granted

They do not comprehend everything we humans comprehend

Nevertheless we and they do have some of the same desires and do comprehend some of the same things

The desires for food and water shelter and companionship

freedom of movement and avoidance of pain these desires are shared by non-human animals and human beings

As for comprehension like humans many non-human animals understand the world in which they live and move

Otherwise they could not survive

So beneath the many differences there is sameness

Like us these animals embody the mystery and wonder of consciousness like

Us they are not only in the world they are aware of it

Like us. They are the psychological centers of a life that is uniquely their own

In these fundamental respects humans stand on all fours so to speak with hogs and cows chickens and turkeys

What these animals are do from us how we morally ought to treat them are questions whose answer begins with the recognition of our psychological

kinship with them

So the following film demonstrates in five ways just how animals have come to serve mankind at least we forget

Nobel prize-winner Isaac Bashevis singer wrote in his best-selling novel enemies a love story the following

As often as Herman who witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish he always had the same thought in

Their behavior toward creatures all men were Nazis the smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased

exemplified the most extreme racist theories

The principle of might is right

The comparison here to the Holocaust is both intentional and obvious

one group of living beings anguishes beneath the hands of another

Though some well argued the suffering of animals cannot possibly compare with that of former Jews or slaves. There is in fact a parallel and

For the prisoners and victims of this mass murder

their Holocaust is far from over

In his book the outermost House author Henry Beston wrote

We need another and a wiser and perhaps more mystical concept of animals

Remote from Universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man

in Civilization surveys the creatures through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and

the whole image and Distortion

We patronize them for their incompleteness for

their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves

and

Therein we err and greatly err

For the animals shall not be measured by man

In a world older and more complete than ours. They move finished and complete gifted

With extensions of the senses we have lost or never tamed

Living By Voices we shall never hear

They are not brethren they're not underlings

There are other nations

Caught with ourselves in the net of life and time

Fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth

For most of us our relationship with animals involves the owning of a pet or two

So where do our pets come from

Of course one of the most obvious ways animals serve man is as companions

For these pets it starts with a breeder

Then not all breeders are considered professional

In fact in this profession just about anyone and everyone can be a breeder

For pet stores most of their animals are acquired from puppy mills even if they may not know it

Puppy mills are low-budget commercial enterprises that breed dogs for sale to pet shops and other buyers

They are often backyard operations that expose animals to filthy overcrowded conditions with no veterinary care or socialization

Dogs from puppy mills often exhibit physical and psychological problems as they grow up

Strays if they are lucky

Will be picked up and taken to a shelter or pound

Where they can only hope to find a new home again?

An estimated 25 million animals become homeless every year

And as many as 27% of purebred dogs are among the homeless

Of these 25 million homeless animals an average of 9 million die on the streets from disease starvation

Exposure

Injury or some other hazard of street life

many others are strays some of whom were presumably dumped in the streets by their caretakers the

Remaining 16 million die in pounds or shelters that have no room for them and are forced to kill them

Sadly on top of all this almost 50% of the animals brought to shelters are turned in by their caretakers

Many people claim they don't visit shelters because it's depressing for them

But the reason animals are crowded in such dreary places these is because of people's refusal to spay or neuter their pets

Several pet owners feel particularly men for some reason that neutering a pet emasculates the owner somehow

Or they may just want their children to someday experience the miracle of life so to speak

Another case pet owners like these unknowingly take part in the euthanasia of over 60,000 animals per day

Euthanasia generally

Defined as the act of killing painlessly for reasons of Mercy

Is usually administered by an injection in the leg for dogs and?

sometimes in the stomach for cats

It is a quick and painless procedure for the animals and by far the most humane

But not always the most affordable

Due to the increase of euthanasia in shelters and the growing constant demand for drugs like youth - saw

Some shelters with budget constraints are forced to use gas chambers instead

In a gas chamber animals are packed very tightly and to take as long as 20 minutes to die

It is by far less merciful

more traumatic and painful, but

The procedure is less expensive

Perhaps some of the tough questions, we should ask ourselves about animals that we keep as companions are

Can we keep animals as companions and still address their needs is?

Our keeping companion animals in their best interest, or are we exploiting them?

The answers to these questions may lie in the attitudes of the human caretakers and their abilities to provide suitable environments for companion animals

Most human beings are speciesists

This film shows that ordinary human beings not a few exceptionally cruel or heartless humans, but the overwhelming

majority of people take an active part

acquiesce in and allow their taxes to pay for practices that require the sacrifice of the most important interests of members of other species in

Order to promote the most trivial interests of our own species

The hope for the animals of tomorrow is to be found in the human culture, which learns to feel beyond itself

We must learn empathy

We must learn to seed the eyes of an animal and feel that their life has value because they are alive

What happens in slaughterhouses is a variation on the theme of the exploitation of the weak path a strong

More than 10,000 times a minute in excess of six billion times a year just in the United States

Life is literally drained from so-called food animals

Having the greater power humans decide when these animals will die where they will die and how they will die

The interests of these animals themselves play no role whatsoever in the determination of their fate

Killing an animal is in itself a troubling Act

It has been said that if we had to kill our own meat. We would all be vegetarians

Certainly very few people ever visit a slaughterhouse and films of slaughterhouse operations are not popular on television

People might hope that the meat that they buy came from an animal who died without pain

But they don't really want to know about it

Yet those who by their purchases

Require animals to be killed do not deserve to be shielded from this or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy

So where does our food come from

For those of us living on a meat diet the process these animals undergoes as follows

For beef the animals are all branded in this instance on the face

Dehorning usually follows never with anesthetic, but rather a large pair of pliers

In transportation animals are packed so tightly into trucks. They are practically on top of one another

Heap freezing temperatures fatigue trauma and health conditions will kill some of these animals in route to the slaughterhouses

Milking cows are kept chained to their stalls all day long receiving no exercise

Pesticides and antibiotics are also used to increase their milk productivity

Eventually milking cows like this one collapse from exhaustion

Normally cows can live as long as 20 years

But milking cows generally die within 4

At which point their meat is used for fast-food restaurants

At this slaughterhouse the branded and dehorned cattle are brought into a stall

The captive bolt gun which was designed to reduce animals unconscious without causing pain

Fires a steel bolt that is powered by compressed air or a blank cartridge right into the animals brain

The various methods of slaughter are used in this Massachusetts facility the cattle is hoisted up and his or her throat is slit

Along with the meat their blood will be used as well

Though the animal has received a captive bolt to the head which is supposed to have rendered him or her senseless as

You can see the animal is still conscious

This is not uncommon

Sometimes they are still alive even after they have been bled and are well on their way down the assembly line to be butchered

This is the largest Glatt Kosher meat plant in the United States

Glatt the Yiddish word for smooth means the highest standard of cleanliness

And the rules for kosher butchering require minimal suffering

The use of electric prods on immobilized animals is a violation

Converting frightened animals for the slaughterers convenience is also a violation

The inversion process causes cattle to aspirate blood or breathe it in after incision

Ripping the trachea and esophagi from their throats is another egregious violation since kosher animals are not to be touched

until bleeding stops