Maeve Maddox

Vegans and other animal advocates are frequently ridiculed by those who feel that the only “right” an animal should have is the right to be used by a human being.

The theory is that animals exist to be exploited by mankind (one of the pernicious legacies of the Hebrew Book of Genesis).

A case brought by animal activists concerning mistreated turkeys in an Iowa processing plant has led to revelations about the mistreatment of turkey workers by the owners of that same plant.

I know from my CSI shows that serial killers begin by torturing and killing insects and animals. People who are able to ignore or take delight in the sufferings of animals are a step away from being able to do the same with human beings. 

I’m not saying that meat-eaters are potential serial killers, or that all meat-eaters are oblivious to the sufferings of animals. 

It’s one thing to eat an animal that has been raised in humane conditions and killed instantly when the time comes. It’s quite another to eat an animal whose entire existence has been one of brutal treatment and unremitted suffering.

The turkey workers in the Iowa suit are mentally-retarded men. As such they belong to a class of human beings that some other human beings regard as being less important than themselves.  

During the 30s and 40s German men and women who loved their children and appreciated literature and classical music were able to turn a blind eye to the torture and murder of Jewish and Romany people because they were “of no value.”  There’s not a nation on earth that hasn’t, at one time or another, designated one class of human being or another as exploitable and tormentable.

That’s all it takes: a mindset that permits otherwise sensitive and civilized people to categorize a segment of life as having no feelings or, if they have feelings, they aren’t as sensitive as their own. 

Like the voiceless animals they “processed” for 30 years, the Iowa turkey workers were kept in an inhumane servitude that ignored their feelings. Like the turkeys they lived in conditions that produced suffering in them and wealth for their exploiters.

Any creature that has a nervous system can suffer. 

Anyone who has a conscience has a responsibility to know where consumer products come from. With such knowledge we can weigh our desires and needs against the suffering of others. Then we can decide how much suffering we are willing to inflict on animals and on other human beings in order to maintain our lifestyle.

Chicago Tribune story

February 16, 2009 | Tags: Add new tag, animal rights, humane treatment, Iowa meat processing plant, mentally-retarded men, turkey workers | Category: A Question of Empathy | Leave a comment

Every so often I hear or read a comment  in which someone alludes to the burning of witches in colonial America.

Here is a comment I came across at the end of an NPR news story about a man in Atlanta who murdered his daughter because she wanted to divorce the husband of an arranged marriage.  

People in the Bible belt shouldn’t be so quick to jump on the “Islam is backwards” bandwagon. It was only three hundred years ago that local Protestants were burning “witches” and hanging adulterers for the same “honor” sins.

Ever read Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter”?

Some clarification is called for. 

1. No witches were burnt in the United States

The witch trials that took place in Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693 undoubtedly stand as a shameful incident in American history, but they did not result in anyone’s being burnt at the stake. 

Arthur Miller (The Crucible) aptly used these events as an allegorical representation of the hysteria stirred up by Senator McCarthy between March and June of 1954. 

More than 150 people were arrested and imprisoned during the course of the witch trials and 29 were convicted. Fourteen women and five men were hanged. One man was crushed to death in the attempt to force him to make a plea of either guilty or not guilty.  No one was burnt to death.

2. Adulterers were not hanged for adultery

Admittedly being branded can’t be much fun, but at least it leaves the recipient alive. Some Puritan communities in New England are said to have branded the chests of adulterers with the letter “A.”  

3. No one is hanged for adultery in the Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter 

Hawthorne’s novel relates the story of Hester Prynne who is punished for having a child out of wedlock. In lieu of being branded, she is required to wear a letter A prominently on her clothing. She is also publicly humiliated by being forced to stand on a platform all day. She was not hanged. Neither was her lover.

4. The practice of murdering women because they’ve “shamed” the men of their family by being raped or wanting out of an arranged marriage is not acceptable behavior.

Americans, so intolerant in many ways, generally bend over backwards to be accepting of different religious beliefs.  In the case of Islam, some accepting Americans are standing on their heads.

There’s no more one variety of “Islam” than there is one form of “Christianity.” Practitioners of both religions are able to extract every conceivable code of behavior from their holy books and insist that God wants it.  

The practice of so-called “honor killings” of women by some Muslim men is indefensible. It belongs to the savage and outdated notion that women are the chattel of men. Trying to explain it away as a “cultural difference” to be accommodated along with the hijab is lunacy.

It ought to be possible to welcome new Americans of any faith without condoning or accepting any and all cultural baggage they happen to bring with them.

American culture has its own standards of acceptable behavior. 

Gynocide is not acceptable for religious or any other “reasons.”

January 26, 2009 | Category: Mistaken Allusions | Comments (3)

Ancient Roman religion was all about the State.

The Roman Senate never did anything without performing rituals involving sacrifice and carefully-worded prayers and invocations. 

The prayers and invocations to the gods had to be spoken just exactly right. Mispronounce, omit, or transpose a single word and the whole ritual had to be done over.

Sound familiar?

At least President Obama’s advisers were satisfied to have the oath repeated behind closed doors.  

January 24, 2009 | Category: Popular Culture | Leave a comment