Today is Labor Day in the U.S., an annual federal holiday in which residents are supposed to celebrate the economic and social contributions of laborers of the United States. But humans being humans, are using this holiday as another excuse to fire up the grill, or to go to a flesh restaurant and devour some extra animal corpses.
This year, a new campaign called Meatless Labor Day was launched, encouraging humans to reduce their meat consumption during the holiday, to “alleviate the pressure for meatpacking labor workers on one of the busiest days of the year. When demand for meat is high, meatpacking workers must process more meat faster and work longer hours, significantly increasing their risk of injury.”
The combining of mistreatment of workers in the meat industry with other claims against the meat industry, and referring to the workers as another group of victims of the meat industry, is not new, and in fact is a very old cynical, sickening, and speciesist tactic used by many animal activists. But in this case the workers are not referred to as another group of victims, but as the victims of the meat industry.
It is mentioned that workers are forced to work quickly in dangerous conditions and that this increases the risk of lacerations, slips and falls.
But the effects of speed on the sentient beings which some of these workers are quickly slitting their throats, is not mentioned. And the animals’ blood that may cause many of the workers to slip and fall, is only referred to as another dangerous factor in humans’ working conditions.
It is mentioned that workers in the meatpacking industry face a significantly high risk of injury.
The fact that nonhuman animals in the meat industry face an absolute and certain torture from birth to murder is overlooked.
It is mentioned that meatpacking laborers typically work 10 to 14-hour shifts, six days a week, and are severely underpaid. But not that they should be working for zero hours, in zero shifts, for zero days a week, and should not be paid for brutally murdering animals, because there mustn’t be a meat industry.
To claim for meat reduction in Labor Day because ironically workers in the meat industry must work even longer hours and process even more meat for that day, is extremely ironic and cynical. It is extremely ironic and cynical to claim that a human worker may hurt oneself when cutting to pieces a nonhuman.
How low can we go? How much more can we ignore the real victims of the meat industry?
And the call is to reduce meat consumption, not even to totally avoid it, not even for one fucking day! And that is so to alleviate some of the pressure for workers in the meat industry on one of the busiest days of the year, despite that this day is first and foremost one of the busiest days of the year in cruelty and suffering for those who were animals before these workers made them meat.
And don’t get this wrong, we don’t put the blame on workers in the meat industry, we put the blame on the consumers as it is their hands which operate the workers’ hands. We put the blame on humanity for letting this atrocity happen. This is basically everybody’s fault.
This campaign is kind of a climax in terms of stepping over the piles of victims during advocacy. Can you imagine something of this sort when the main victims are humans?
Would you accept a campaign calling to take one day off from lashing slaves because it may hurt the lashers’ hands? Or a Rape Free Day because rapists often get scratches on their penises?
This campaign is extremely speciesist because it is highly unlikely that if the voice of the undoubtedly main victims of the meat industry – the exploited animals, is heard, they would want to offer their deepest condolences to all the humans who were injured during the murdering and processing of more than 150 billion animals per year.
It is very probable that many activists would claim that as long as campaigns such as this are reducing meat consumption, they are making the world a better place. But at the same time they are significantly strengthening and perpetuating speciesism, and by that they are making the world even worse.
And to those who claim that the world already is irrevocably speciesist, we unfortunately agree. However, the fact that the world is irrevocably speciesist is not a justification to destroy morality, it is a justification to destroy the world.
When some activists have reached the phase of talking seriously about the danger of humans slipping on the blood of just murdered nonhumans, it is time to seriously consider that the talking phase must end and the ending phase must begin.
