Killing horses – nothing new

The shocking pictures on t.v. today showing horses being crammed into a stunning pen at an abbattoir are nothing new.   Horses are treated like commodities with no consideration given for welfare.  It is something that goes on every day and has done for years.   Why aren’t these people being prosecuted for cruelty?   Killing horses like this is a dreadful and cruel business.  It diminishes us as human beings.  How we treat animals is indicative of how civilised a society we are.   Obviously still barbarians.  Because we cannot see it, we ignore it.   All animals, not just horses, are killed in the most terrible way at slaughterhouses.   It’s remote from the neatly packaged, cello wrapped meat in supermarkets.   They are terrified, they scream, they bleed, they know what’s coming.

We have seen inside abbattoirs, we know what goes on at meat markets, we campaign tirelessly to change things and have done for years.   There is an Animal Welfare Act now that tell us how we should treat domestic pets but does nothing about the real cruelty, which is to farm animals and horses destined for the meat market.

But there is a way that this cruelty could be changed almost overnight and this is up  to the public.  If there was no demand for meat the butchers and supermarkets would stop selling it.  No matter how much they promote their insincere ‘family and friends’ campaigns, they are businesses and it is about is profit and making money, no matter how much hypocritical outrage they profess when they are caught out.

There is no need whatsoever for human beings in the western world to eat dead animals.   We can get complete sustenance from a vegetarian diet and indeed, this is healthier for us.  The production of meat and it’s transport to the supermarkets is a major contributor to global warming.   Perhaps when this beautiful planet of ours is completely destroyed and all the animals are dead, then there will be regret for the cruelty inflicted and our inhumanity  towards our fellow creatures.

Does anyone remember a film called Soylent Green?   Set in the future, the food dished out to the people includes recycled humans.  It will come.   Perhaps a quicker fix would be to make it compulsory for everyone to spend a day or two in a slaughterhouse.