This is serious. This is an issue most people turn a blind eye to. This is not funny and should not be trivialized because there are other important issues out there or because of people's biases against certain species. This is common. Anything goes when money is to be made, regardless of the autonomy or independent will of another being. This will not stop if people keep paying other people to beat calves in the head with pick axes and hammers. For what? Milk, cheese, veal, and other products from the dairy and meat industry. Read more at watch the undercover video from Mercy for Animals.
Additionally, here is Farm Sanctuary's Report on the Dairy Industry.
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| Calf being beaten by employee of E6 Cattle Co. Hart, Texas. March 2011 |
Personally, I'd rather drink plant milk and not eat cheese than contribute to needless suffering of animals that never even had a chance to live (let alone what it's done for my health.) Plants have evolved to grow fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains for animals to eat and spread their seed. Animals have evolved legs to run away from carnivores.
To boot, we have not biologically evolved to eat dairy for the most part, our bodies react in varying degrees of revolt against it. We are the only species that suckles from other animals, and into adulthood. There are numerous studies demonstrating as such, linking dairy intake to type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, arthritis, chronic sinusitis, allergies, asthma, Asperger disorder, breast, prostate, colorectal and other cancers, cardiovascular disease, and other illnesses that have created a modern pandemic of diseases of affluence in developed and now developing countries.
More info on lactose intolerance, and dairy's correlation to disease:
Finally, what strikes me at the heart of this particular issue, is the basic fact that humans have co-opted and exploited purely for financial gain the autonomy of billions of female mammals' reproductive cycles (and animals' repro cycles with eggs), in the most horrific and brutal ways imaginable (if you can think it, it's been done to female animals and babies in the Ag Industry.) We make commodities of cows' babies and the milk these mothers make for them. If you cannot see the intersection between feminism and speciesism, look harder. There is also a positive correlation between animal abuse (companion and farmed animals) and bestiality and sexual and domestic abuse. More on that here:
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| Mother and her calf |
