San Francisco Sentinel
June 28, 1990
Street Talk
Our Little Brothers and Sisters
By Doris Fish
I had difficulty feeling like part of an oppressed minority last week. If only for a few days, we were on top of the heap. We’ve been abused for centuries, we’ve been the faggots on the bottom of the pyre, but last Sunday, I saw us, it seemed like millions, all glowing, all smiling, and all believing. “We are the Future!”
Our struggles are not over, but at least we have a voice; our victories are sometimes slow in coming, but the outcome is now almost inevitable, and our righteous cause will prevail.
As bad as it’s been for us, there’s another group in our society that has suffered a great deal more and has never uttered a word. Some of them are our best friends, some are lucky enough to live in our homes as favored companions, but most live lives of utter despair, never knowing even one ‘nice day’.
Our little brothers and sisters, our companion animals on this planet, have been the victims of our greed and cruelty for centuries. Recently a small wave of opposition began welling across the nation culminating in The March for the Animals in Washington a few weeks ago. 75,000 was one estimate, and I’m proud to say I was one of the “Animal Rights Terrorists’ as Louis Sullivan called us. He’s the same Mr. Sullivan who was given a perfectly wonderful hard time at the AIDS Conference last week. He’s Health and Human Services Secretary, which basically means it’s his job to see that we have as little health and human services as the Administration can stand.
We don’t need a common “enemy” to see the connection between the Gay Rights movement and the growing Animal Rights advocacy. The time is right for compassion for all living things, and the growth of the Animal Rights movement is a natural progression if you believe in Freedom and Equality.
You don’t have to go out and scream and get yourself arrested to make a difference for the animals. There’s a lot you can do in your daily life to alleviate animal torture. The first and the best thing to do is to give up eating your little brothers, or at least limit your carcass consumption. Many people, some of them animal lovers, are under the misapprehension that today’s farming methods are benign and even humane.
Factory farms are concentration camps. Veal calves are torn from their mothers at birth, chained by the neck in tiny crates without bedding or light, and forced to stand or lie for 16 weeks on wood slats covered with the excrement, unable to stretch or turn. They are fed a diet deliberately deficient in nutrients so they will become sickly, and their flesh will become pale. They are fed antibiotics which fail to prevent chronic diarrhea and respiratory disorders that kill thousands of these innocent babies before slaughter.
A chicken’s beak is its most sensitive body part, yet on factory farms it is often cut off with a hot iron. This is done because the birds are crammed so tightly together that they kill each other just to get a little more space. Many go completely insane, refuse to eat and die, which really annoys the factory owners. Pigs are mistreated in a similar manner, having their tails removed to prevent stress-induced cannibalism caused by overcrowding.
Switching to a vegetarian lifestyle not only helps our little brothers and sisters, but it is far healthier for us, too. Over 90 percent of all heart problems, cancers and diabetes, as well as many other diseased are related to overconsumption of animal products. This is a fact. Researchers have also discovered that vegetarians have immune systems that are twice as powerful as meat-eaters.
“But people have always eaten animals. It’s natural,” you may be inclined to say. And I could reply, “People have always fought wars, too.”
The fact is we have teeth and digestive systems very similar to our primate cousins, whose natural diet is mostly fruit. There’s lots of muscle building power in a little banana, just ask a gorilla. It is simply not true to say that meat-eating is “natural”.
Let me finish with a few wise words from a few distinguished fellow vegetarians and Animal Rights “Terrorists”.
“As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.” “A vegetarian diet is the acid test of humanitarianism.” — Leo Tolstoy.
“Until he extends compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.” —Albert Schweitzer.
“Spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures.” — Mahatma Gandhi.
“Thou shalt not kill.” — God.
