Animals Deserve Respect And Compassion

We’re Talking About The Fight Against Injustice.
I’ve been thinking about some of the distressing issues that we’ve been facing collectively.
I think at times we feel or are made to feel that we champion different causes.
But for me, I see commonality.
I think, whether we’re talking about gender inequality or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice.
We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, one species, has the right to dominate, use and control another with impunity.
I think we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world.
Many of us are guilty of an egocentric world view, and we believe that we’re the centre of the universe.
We go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources.
We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakeable.
Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal.
We fear the idea of personal change, because we think we need to sacrifice something, to give something up.
But human beings at our best are so creative and inventive, and we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and the environment.
( Joaquin Phoenix, 10.02.2020 )

Humans yet to fully evolve, fearful, small-minded cowards without conscience or empathy, who call themselves ‘hunters’, kill innocent creatures and, for a while, takes away their feeling of inadequacy and weakness.
( Rose Winfold )

Because we have viewed other animals through the myopic lens of our self-importance, we have misperceived who and what they are.
Because we have repeated our ignorance, one to the other, we have mistaken it for knowledge.
( Tom Regan )

If you could see or feel the suffering you wouldn’t think twice.
Give back life.
Don’t eat meat.
( Kim Basinger )

I’m vegan because I love animals, and I can’t in good conscience be involved in anything that causes or contributes to the suffering of animals.
Animal agriculture is a huge contributor to climate change, to deforestation, to water use, and to human chronic diseases, so although I’m vegan for the animals, it’s just a really nice by-product of veganism that it’s also a way to save humanity and our planet as well.
( Moby )

A dead cow or sheep lying in a pasture is recognised as carrion.
The same sort of a carcass dressed and hung up in a butcher’s stall passes as food.
( John Harvey Kellogg )

What do they know, all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world, about such as you?
They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation.
All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them, all people are Nazis.
For the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.
( Isaac Bashevis Singer )

Stolen babies and grieving mothers are behind every glass of milk and every piece of cheese.
( Rose Winfold )

The other mammoths were as protective of the dying as they were of newborns, and they gathered around tying to make the fallen one get up.
When all was over, they buried the dead ancestor under piles of dirt, grass, leaves, or snow.
Mammoths were even known to bury other dead animals, including humans.
( Jean M. Auel )

Farmers Are Poisoning Our Water And Our Wildlife.
Many farmers or landowners do not have the resources to avoid polluting waterways with manure, a phenomenon that’s proved disastrous for wildlife.
In 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported that more than 10 million kilograms of antimicrobials, which includes antibiotics and anti-parasitics, were sold in the U.S. for use in livestock alone.
Considering there are nearly one billion cows around the world, not to mention chicken, pigs, sheep, and horses, a staggering amount of livestock pharmaceuticals are entering the water, both freshwater and marine, experts say.
And from birth control hormones feminising male fish to painkillers poisoning vultures, the impacts of such drugs on wildlife are more far-reaching than previously believed. Most pharmaceuticals in manure enter the environment via agricultural runoff, the incomplete treatment of wastewater, and the application of biosolids, or treated sewage sludge, to farms as fertiliser.
If contaminants aren’t completely removed from wastewater, for instance, they can end up in the sewage sludge that’s then put back on crops.
Some of these pollutants, including heavy metals such as lead and cadmium, are taken up by plants or return to groundwater sources, where they can be ingested by wildlife and humans.
That’s one way that the bacterium Escherichia coli, which is a normal part of bovine gut flora, can infiltrate food crops and make humans seriously ill.
( Carrie Arnold, 08.12.2019 )

Clearly, animals know more than we think, and think a great deal more than we know.
( Irene M. Pepperberg )

Vegan:  Some people enslave cats, force them to breed, then kill and eat their kittens.
Meat-eater:  WTF!
Vegan:  Sorry, I meant cows.
Meat-eater:  Oh, ok.

I’d eat dirt before an animal.
( Miley Cyrus )

Conditioned Into Believing These Were Normal Practises.
Those we call “farm” animals all once roamed wild and free.
The cows, the pigs, the sheep, the goats, the chickens and the ducks.
All gentle creatures that man enslaved and domesticated for gain and profit.
This was not meant to be and disrupted the natural order of things.
It was immoral, cruel, and disrespected both the animals and Mother Nature.
The hunting of other wild animals soon followed and the ignorant masses were soon conditioned into believing these were normal practises.
Prior to this people were content in eating fruit, berries, nuts and plants that grew naturally and most people were generally healthy.
What followed was life-threatening diseases, those we have today.
Many scientists and doctors say that most of the diseases we contract are due to eating animal products, but we carry on as “normal”.
( Rose Winfold )

Animals are individuals who are uniquely aware of their own existence, who feel pain and pleasure, and who bond with others in systems of kinship that they value deeply and grieve for when they are gone.

When I first made the transition to eating plant-based, I foolishly thought veganism was just about diet.
But the more I learned, the more it was obviously so much more than that.
Veganism changed me.
It taught me to look past myself – to consider how my choices affect others – the animals, the people around me, and the planet we live on.
To me, veganism is consciousness.
( Katherine Von Drachenberg, known as Kat Von D )

We live in a world when your choice to respect the rights of all sentient beings is seen as an act of extremism. 

Do not unjustly eat fish the water has given up, and do not desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals, or the white milk of mothers who intended its pure draught for their young, not noble ladies.
And do not grieve the unsuspecting birds by taking eggs, for injustice is the worst of crimes.
And spare the honey which the bees get industriously from the flowers of fragrant plants – for they did not store it that it might belong to others, nor did they gather it for bounty and gifts.
I washed my hands of all this, and wish that I perceived my way before my hair went grey.
( Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī, 973 – 1057 )

Killing animals for pleasure is psychologically linked to psychopaths, sociopaths, child molesters, serial killers, and sexual dysfunction.
These “hyper-masculine” activities are often used to compensate for feelings of sexual inadequacy, and an inability to achieve social integration.

Some Tory MPs and their blood-thirsty supporters want to bring back fox-hunting.
How repulsive and medieval, the sight of chinless wonders wearing fancy dress, on horses and chasing frightened animals around the countryside in the hope they can witness their frenzied hounds tear one to pieces.
( Rose Winfold )

We Are The Awakened.
We are few, but we are the awakened.
We were all born into a beautiful, loving world.
We were then brainwashed by our cruel, greedy ‘masters’ into believing that exploiting and killing non-human animals was normal, that it was necessary for our survival.
We now understand the truth – that all living beings have the same right to be here as we have, the same right to a life of safety and freedom.
We have the vision that one day this will be.
We will continue in trying to awaken the brainwashed masses until there is freedom for all those we share this wonderful world with.

Animals are incapable of the kinds of cruelty that humans deliberately inflict on animals.
( Rose Winfold )

For centuries poets, some poets, have tried to give a voice to the animals, and readers, some readers, have felt empathy and sorrow.
If animals did have voices, and they could speak with the tongues of angels, at the very least with the tongues of angels, they would be unable to save themselves from us.
What good would language do?
Their mysterious otherness has not saved them, nor have their beautiful songs and coats and skins and shells and eyes.
( Joy Williams )

I have spent 20 years being lectured by those that love hunting and shooting, about its benefits to conservation.
It isn’t.
It’s just used as an excuse to shoot stuff for fun.
( Ben Fogle )

Home is where them cruel humans ain’t.

We all have a voice.
I have this platform and so, not to use it correctly would be wrong of me.
Nobody is perfect, I’m certainly not, but this is happening every day to so many animals worldwide.
This is why I have decided to go to a vegan diet.
Yes, it’s hard, nothing’s ever easy, but I’ve felt the best I’ve ever felt.
( Lewis Hamilton )

In their behaviour toward creatures, all men are Nazis.
Human beings see oppression vividly when they’re the victims.
Otherwise they victimise blindly and without a thought.
( Isaac Bashevis Singer )

We don’t need to eat animals to survive and thrive.
You can live a full, happy, healthier and abundant life as a vegan.
The animals deserve respect and compassion, I think we all know this in our hearts, and we just have to make compassionate choices.
And in terms of choice, there truly is no better time in history to go vegan than today.
( Evanna Lynch )

If you choose to eat meat, you love pets not animals.
( Miley Cyrus )

No Means Of Escape From The Cowards With Guns.
Canned hunting is the killing of animals in an enclosure too small to allow an animal any chance of escape, or the killing of captive animals which have been released just to be killed by cowards with guns.
Animal loving tourists may well be unknowingly contributing to the “trophy hunting” industry by taking part in activities such as meeting lion cubs in southern Africa.
These activities often allow tourists to play with and feed tame lion cubs – but most do not ask what happens to the lions once they are too old to be petted.
In some cases the truth is uncomfortable.
The older lions can be moved on to ‘canned hunting’ estates, where they will be released into an enclosed area.
Trophy ‘hunters’ can then ‘hunt’ these lions – lions which are accustomed to humans and have no means of escape.

The Birds Have Little Chance Of Escaping.
The term ‘canned hunting’ has also been used to describe ‘game’ bird shooting in the UK, as captive pheasants and partridges are factory farmed before being released into an area where they will be encouraged to stay near to a food source.
Disorientated and not used to being in the wild, the birds have little chance of escaping when they are scared into the air in the direction of the waiting guns.

Look into the eyes of animals and you will see the same innocence and bewilderment in the eyes of young children.

Some people will pray for mercy, but are unwilling to extend it to animals.
Why should they then expect mercy from God?
( Rose Winfold )

Animals are the bridge between us and the beauty of all that is natural.
They show us what’s missing in our lives, and how to love ourselves more completely and unconditionally.
They connect us back to who we are, and to the purpose of why we’re here.
( Trisha McCagh )

Like Us, They Are Earthlings.
We are all animals of this planet.
We are all creatures.
And non-human animals experience pain sensations just like we do.
They too are strong, intelligent, industrious, mobile, and evolutional.
They too are capable of growth and adaptation.
Like us, first and foremost, they are earthlings.
And like us, they are surviving.
Like us, they also seek their own comfort rather than discomfort.
And like us, they express degrees of emotion.
In short like us, they are alive.
( Joaquin Phoenix )

The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right.
( Isaac Bashevis Singer )

Who Would Have Thought.
Something that can’t be bought.
Something that can’t be bribed.
Something that’s not interested in money or material things.
Something that can’t be persuaded, even by torture.
Something that doesn’t discriminate against race or gender.
Something that all the nuclear weapons in the world can’t defend us from.
Something that all the military personnel in the world can’t defend us from.
And guess what?
It was created by the greedy, ignorant behaviour of humans.
The result of abusing and exploiting animals and interfering with natural order.
The result of cutting down rainforests and destroying animal habitats.
A deadly virus that kills the aggressors but not the victims.
Just another warning from Mother Nature :
“STOP FUCKING WITH THE ANIMALS AND THE EARTH”.

Without doubt, greedy humans and corrupt governments are responsible for the destruction of Nature, the destruction of all creatures that inhabit our planet, and the destruction of our planet itself.
( Rose Winfold )

Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral.
( Charles Darwin )

Maybe it’s animalness that will make the world right again: the wisdom of elephants, the enthusiasm of canines, the grace of snakes, the mildness of anteaters.
Perhaps being human needs some diluting.
( Carol Emshwiller )

Some animals are no longer on Earth’s endangered species list because they are no longer on Earth.
( Anthony Douglas Williams )

If you talk to the animals they will talk to you and you will know each other.
If you do not talk to them you will not know them and what you do not know you will fear.
What one fears, one destroys.
( Chief Dan George )

Can You Imagine How She Must Feel?
She gave birth three hours ago.
The ‘farmers’ have already taken her baby away.
She carried him for nine months.
She will never see him again.
Can you imagine how she must feel?
The only reason her baby was taken away is because she is a dairy cow.
A cow cannot produce milk if she doesn’t give birth.
The milk she produces is not for him, it’s for humans.
He has either already been slaughtered and dumped in the garbage or will be slaughtered in a few weeks and sold off as veal.
Within a few weeks, she will be artificially inseminated with a metal rod and a human hand, and the cycle starts again.
When she is spent and stops producing calves, she will be brutally slaughtered and sold off as cheap meat.
Everyone who consumes dairy products should be aware of the suffering and the brutal death inflicted on these gentle creatures.

Trophy hunting is a ‘sport’ for morons, cowards and bullies.
The people who take part should all be in jail.
They’re committing crimes against the planet.
How dare they think they can kill off our wildlife just to entertain themselves.
( Sir Ranulph Fiennes )

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
( Samuel Butler )

The absence of consciousness in the world is one of the main reasons why animals are made to suffer.
( Rose Winfold ) 

To be a vegetarian is to disagree — to disagree with the course of things today.
Starvation, world hunger, cruelty, waste, wars — we must make a statement against these things.
Vegetarianism is my statement.
And I think it’s a strong one.
( Isaac Bashevis Singer )

The Most Stupid Animals On The Planet.
As far as eating is concerned, humans are the most stupid animals on the planet.
We kill billions of wild animals to protect the animals that we eat.
We are destroying our environment to feed to the animals we eat.
We spend more time, money and resources fattening up the animals that we eat, than we do feeding humans who are dying of hunger.
The greatest irony is that after all the expenses of raising these animals, we eat them; and they kill us slowly.
And rather than recognise this madness, we torture and murder millions of other animals trying to find cures to diseases caused by eating animals in the first place.
( Mike Anderson )