Credibility concerns, cognitive biases, and corporate influence prevent significant coverage of animal issues. Here’s how we can overcome those blocks.
All these people that had power to show the public about all this but choose not to. How can animals have rights when every major business, leader, society is against this? Very disillusioned.
Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint is a 1992 American short PBS documentary film written, co-produced and directed by Michael Moore, featuring the director returning to his hometown of Flint, Michigan, to catch-up with some of the characters featured in his previous film Roger & Me (1989). The film's title refers to Rhonda Britton, a Flint resident featured in both films, who sells rabbits as either pets or meat.[1]
Synopsis[edit]
Britton, the so-called Bunny Lady, "grossed out millions by skinning a soft furry creature in the first film, tops her original performance. Her newest venture, designed to supplement her garnished K-mart wages, is raising mice and rabbits as snake food. This time, Moore's critique of modern capitalism features footage of a huge snake devouring another fluffy pet."[2]
In an earlier interview for Roger & Me, Moore explained the meaning of "pets or meat" in his own words: "That's the town. Either you're working or you're meat. That's GM's attitudes toward its serfs. The clubbing and skinning of the rabbit stands for the violence. Why aren't people upset by the violence of a black man getting shot two minutes later in the film? Why are there walkouts during the rabbit section, but not during the shooting? That's the image they're used to, but they eat their meat every night."[3]
The documentary opens with the warning: "The following program contains scenes of explicit corporate behavior which may be offensive to young children, vegetarians and General Motors shareholders. Viewer discretion is advised."[2] It closed with the following disclaimer: "No animals were harmed in the making of this film, though some were well fed."
John Koch of The Boston Globe notes, "if you're disturbed by the graphic scene of a snake crushing the life out of a rabbit, you should be more upset, the director is saying not too subtly, by the constricted lives of out-of-work, under-served human beings."[4]
Moore is a practising Catholic and has put religion at the core of Capitalism: A Love Story. Alongside the political arguments about inequality, Wall Street corruption and the failures of George W Bush, Moore argues that capitalism is also fundamentally unchristian.Oct 10, 2009
You and I are on the same side of social justice and politics. I appreciate your commentaries and exhortations on behalf of victimized human beings and, in a general way, the environment and the “climate.”
But I would like to know why you and the majority of “progressives” show no awareness of or interest in or compassion for the animals who share the planet with us. Progressives talk about the planet and climate change in a very abstract way. To read you and others, it’s as if nothing and nobody exists outside the human isolation chamber – a self-constructed prison containing only ourselves and our ever-mounting mountains of trash. “Out there” is “the climate” which we have to consider because our abuse of the earth and its creatures, whom we are either exterminating or incarcerating, is affecting the human animal’s pursuit of happiness (shopping, money, materialism) adversely.
Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I seem to recall hearing you on MSNBC a few years ago speaking in a somewhat jocular manner about shooting birds, for fun, with your friends growing up. Pretty soon, there will be few or no birds left, the rate of their decline, because of us, is so dramatic. The only birds will be the countless chickens, turkeys, ducks and various others condemned to live in humanity’s toilet bowls and sewers, i.e., industrialized sheds in preparation to be tortured – TORTURED – with paralytic shocks prior to having their throats partially cut before millions and millions are scalded alive each year, in this country alone, in slaughterhouse scald water tanks – all this maniacal, human-manufactured FASCIST evil for “KFC” and depraved culinary savagery.
Let us not omit the countless birds, mammals, and other poor souls being tortured, with impunity, in NIH-funded laboratories in the U.S. and elsewhere. Let us not forget the countless millions of chickens, turkeys and ducks who are being intentionally suffocated and baked alive, in laboratories and on factory farms, all to protect the poultry industry, which is itself responsible for the ever-mutating strains of avian influenza viruses, and that taxpayer are footing the bill for agribusiness indemnities paid through USDA programs. Let us not forget all the wolves, coyotes and others being shot from helicopters and poisoned by U.S. Fish and Wildlife and its state affiliates for the livestock industry. The rainforests in Brazil and Asia are being destroyed for this industry: 75-80% of soybeans grown in the Brazilian rainforest are grown to feed chickens and other industrially-confined farmed animals.
I will conclude by saying, simply, that our species is the one species on Earth that no other species, animal or plant, needs in order to thrive, except perhaps for certain host-specific microbes. We bring misery, terror, depletions and poisons everywhere we penetrate ourselves into. Is this going to continue into Eternity? Are mainstream “progressives” congenitally incapable of even acknowledging the existence of beings outside ourselves? We are ruining the planet for all these creatures who are NOT ruining the planet. Are these beings really not in your consciousness at all? It isn’t just “Trumpism,” narrowly construed, that’s the problem. Toward our planet and its other-than-human individuals, species, homes and habitats, our species, with miniscule exceptions, is ALL TRUMPISM: brutal, callous, pitiless, selfish, sociopathic.
Judge for yourself.
P.S. I said MM is a Catholic regarding his attitude toward other-than-human animals, here's why (I was raised Catholic, so I know):
Moore is a Catholic. Like Alfred Hitchcock ("The Birds"). Like Biden. Like five of the six Supreme Court justices identify as Catholic. The Catholic Church detests animals: "The Catholic Church openly despises animals.... Perhaps because it evolved in a land or in a population--the Mediterranean--that by tradition wastes little love on animals, the Catholic Church...doesn't like animals and doesn't hide it: she has never wanted to spend one word against vivisection, nor any of the other cruelties that man commits against animals...." --Hans Ruesch, "Slaughter of the Innocent"
Pope Francis quoted this directly from the Catholic Catechism and incorporated it into his Laudato Si' to appear "animal friendly," but significantly omitting the following from the Catechism:
"It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. IT IS LIKEWISE UNWORTHY to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons."
The Pope always uses the generic abstraction "creation" to make nonhuman animals absent from moral concern and special status from inanimate things when he addresses climate change and how it impacts "the poor" and "the immigrants."
“Aren't five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one sparrow is forgotten by God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth much more than many sparrows!” Entire species of sparrows perhaps? Five sparrows, two pennies. SO CHEAPLY VALUED. So, Jesus compares sparrows to the hair on a human head, implying that they are WORTH LESS to God than the hair on a human head!!!! But don’t be afraid of a haircut, you are worth more than two pennies!
The really pathetic point is that Jesus seems to be implying that in God’s eyes, sparrows are just generic abstractions of a quantity of organic matter—like the hairs on a human head! [DISTORTED VIEW OF SPARROWS AS ABSTRACTIONS—A SPARROW IS A SPARROW AND ALL SPARROWS ARE THE SAME, LIKE THE HAIRS ON A HUMAN HEAD].
Very good point. The church wants kindness but not for others that aren't humans. Kindness is kindness. That's the whole point of being kind. Every living being. This society is backwards and more ignorant than i thought.
I often wonder what journalism students are being taught in journalism school. Is it the same as what students in general are being taught -- conformity and mediocrity? To shy away from facing and exposing the truth, especially if there is an intimidation factor?
And where are the schools and teachers in this scenario? Maybe they should be taken to task also.
"The purpose of journalism is thus to provide citizens with the information they need to make the best possible decisions about their lives, their communities, their societies, and their governments."
The dereliction of this duty has been going on for a very long time.
Very thought provoking as usual, Wayne. And motivating. I believe performance art, and other art forms/events, are a missing angle in terms of reaching the masses. We may have to bypass the mainstream media, like the clogged artery that it is, in order to get to the heart of the population. Music and other art have the power to do this. Some of the same barriers apply, but it's something to consider.
Soooo disappointing but not surprising. Mainstream media in Canada is exactly the same. Powerful animal ag lobbyists, advertising money from the same and an unwillingness to tell the absolute truth lest they lose readership. The science is on the side of animals and environment. Thank you for what DXE does!!!
All these people that had power to show the public about all this but choose not to. How can animals have rights when every major business, leader, society is against this? Very disillusioned.
A possible factor: Religion, as in the case of "progressive" Michael Moore, for instance:
Michael Moore (a Catholic) on the animal rights movement: “This shit makes me want to kick my dog” (from PeTA website.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets_or_Meat:_The_Return_to_Flint
Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint is a 1992 American short PBS documentary film written, co-produced and directed by Michael Moore, featuring the director returning to his hometown of Flint, Michigan, to catch-up with some of the characters featured in his previous film Roger & Me (1989). The film's title refers to Rhonda Britton, a Flint resident featured in both films, who sells rabbits as either pets or meat.[1]
Synopsis[edit]
Britton, the so-called Bunny Lady, "grossed out millions by skinning a soft furry creature in the first film, tops her original performance. Her newest venture, designed to supplement her garnished K-mart wages, is raising mice and rabbits as snake food. This time, Moore's critique of modern capitalism features footage of a huge snake devouring another fluffy pet."[2]
In an earlier interview for Roger & Me, Moore explained the meaning of "pets or meat" in his own words: "That's the town. Either you're working or you're meat. That's GM's attitudes toward its serfs. The clubbing and skinning of the rabbit stands for the violence. Why aren't people upset by the violence of a black man getting shot two minutes later in the film? Why are there walkouts during the rabbit section, but not during the shooting? That's the image they're used to, but they eat their meat every night."[3]
The documentary opens with the warning: "The following program contains scenes of explicit corporate behavior which may be offensive to young children, vegetarians and General Motors shareholders. Viewer discretion is advised."[2] It closed with the following disclaimer: "No animals were harmed in the making of this film, though some were well fed."
John Koch of The Boston Globe notes, "if you're disturbed by the graphic scene of a snake crushing the life out of a rabbit, you should be more upset, the director is saying not too subtly, by the constricted lives of out-of-work, under-served human beings."[4]
Moore is a practising Catholic and has put religion at the core of Capitalism: A Love Story. Alongside the political arguments about inequality, Wall Street corruption and the failures of George W Bush, Moore argues that capitalism is also fundamentally unchristian.Oct 10, 2009
Michael Moore, PeTA https://www.peta.org/blog/michael-moore/
Karen Davis's recent email to Michael Moore:
You and I are on the same side of social justice and politics. I appreciate your commentaries and exhortations on behalf of victimized human beings and, in a general way, the environment and the “climate.”
But I would like to know why you and the majority of “progressives” show no awareness of or interest in or compassion for the animals who share the planet with us. Progressives talk about the planet and climate change in a very abstract way. To read you and others, it’s as if nothing and nobody exists outside the human isolation chamber – a self-constructed prison containing only ourselves and our ever-mounting mountains of trash. “Out there” is “the climate” which we have to consider because our abuse of the earth and its creatures, whom we are either exterminating or incarcerating, is affecting the human animal’s pursuit of happiness (shopping, money, materialism) adversely.
Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I seem to recall hearing you on MSNBC a few years ago speaking in a somewhat jocular manner about shooting birds, for fun, with your friends growing up. Pretty soon, there will be few or no birds left, the rate of their decline, because of us, is so dramatic. The only birds will be the countless chickens, turkeys, ducks and various others condemned to live in humanity’s toilet bowls and sewers, i.e., industrialized sheds in preparation to be tortured – TORTURED – with paralytic shocks prior to having their throats partially cut before millions and millions are scalded alive each year, in this country alone, in slaughterhouse scald water tanks – all this maniacal, human-manufactured FASCIST evil for “KFC” and depraved culinary savagery.
Let us not omit the countless birds, mammals, and other poor souls being tortured, with impunity, in NIH-funded laboratories in the U.S. and elsewhere. Let us not forget the countless millions of chickens, turkeys and ducks who are being intentionally suffocated and baked alive, in laboratories and on factory farms, all to protect the poultry industry, which is itself responsible for the ever-mutating strains of avian influenza viruses, and that taxpayer are footing the bill for agribusiness indemnities paid through USDA programs. Let us not forget all the wolves, coyotes and others being shot from helicopters and poisoned by U.S. Fish and Wildlife and its state affiliates for the livestock industry. The rainforests in Brazil and Asia are being destroyed for this industry: 75-80% of soybeans grown in the Brazilian rainforest are grown to feed chickens and other industrially-confined farmed animals.
I will conclude by saying, simply, that our species is the one species on Earth that no other species, animal or plant, needs in order to thrive, except perhaps for certain host-specific microbes. We bring misery, terror, depletions and poisons everywhere we penetrate ourselves into. Is this going to continue into Eternity? Are mainstream “progressives” congenitally incapable of even acknowledging the existence of beings outside ourselves? We are ruining the planet for all these creatures who are NOT ruining the planet. Are these beings really not in your consciousness at all? It isn’t just “Trumpism,” narrowly construed, that’s the problem. Toward our planet and its other-than-human individuals, species, homes and habitats, our species, with miniscule exceptions, is ALL TRUMPISM: brutal, callous, pitiless, selfish, sociopathic.
Judge for yourself.
P.S. I said MM is a Catholic regarding his attitude toward other-than-human animals, here's why (I was raised Catholic, so I know):
Moore is a Catholic. Like Alfred Hitchcock ("The Birds"). Like Biden. Like five of the six Supreme Court justices identify as Catholic. The Catholic Church detests animals: "The Catholic Church openly despises animals.... Perhaps because it evolved in a land or in a population--the Mediterranean--that by tradition wastes little love on animals, the Catholic Church...doesn't like animals and doesn't hide it: she has never wanted to spend one word against vivisection, nor any of the other cruelties that man commits against animals...." --Hans Ruesch, "Slaughter of the Innocent"
Pope Francis quoted this directly from the Catholic Catechism and incorporated it into his Laudato Si' to appear "animal friendly," but significantly omitting the following from the Catechism:
"It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. IT IS LIKEWISE UNWORTHY to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons."
The Pope always uses the generic abstraction "creation" to make nonhuman animals absent from moral concern and special status from inanimate things when he addresses climate change and how it impacts "the poor" and "the immigrants."
“Aren't five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one sparrow is forgotten by God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth much more than many sparrows!” Entire species of sparrows perhaps? Five sparrows, two pennies. SO CHEAPLY VALUED. So, Jesus compares sparrows to the hair on a human head, implying that they are WORTH LESS to God than the hair on a human head!!!! But don’t be afraid of a haircut, you are worth more than two pennies!
The really pathetic point is that Jesus seems to be implying that in God’s eyes, sparrows are just generic abstractions of a quantity of organic matter—like the hairs on a human head! [DISTORTED VIEW OF SPARROWS AS ABSTRACTIONS—A SPARROW IS A SPARROW AND ALL SPARROWS ARE THE SAME, LIKE THE HAIRS ON A HUMAN HEAD].
Very good point. The church wants kindness but not for others that aren't humans. Kindness is kindness. That's the whole point of being kind. Every living being. This society is backwards and more ignorant than i thought.
I often wonder what journalism students are being taught in journalism school. Is it the same as what students in general are being taught -- conformity and mediocrity? To shy away from facing and exposing the truth, especially if there is an intimidation factor?
And where are the schools and teachers in this scenario? Maybe they should be taken to task also.
"The purpose of journalism is thus to provide citizens with the information they need to make the best possible decisions about their lives, their communities, their societies, and their governments."
The dereliction of this duty has been going on for a very long time.
Source: https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/journalism-essentials/what-is-journalism/purpose-journalism
Very thought provoking as usual, Wayne. And motivating. I believe performance art, and other art forms/events, are a missing angle in terms of reaching the masses. We may have to bypass the mainstream media, like the clogged artery that it is, in order to get to the heart of the population. Music and other art have the power to do this. Some of the same barriers apply, but it's something to consider.
Thank you. This is the closest I've gotten to understanding how issues so large that affect so many are given so little media attention.
SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS CODE Of ETHICS
adherence to this seems non-existent
https://www.spj.org/pdf/spj-code-of-ethics-poster.pdf
Soooo disappointing but not surprising. Mainstream media in Canada is exactly the same. Powerful animal ag lobbyists, advertising money from the same and an unwillingness to tell the absolute truth lest they lose readership. The science is on the side of animals and environment. Thank you for what DXE does!!!
Media ignores animal rights is very disappointing because they have the opportunity to expose cruelty..
Awesome 👌 thanks for leaving me feel hopeful... seriously you will go down in history Wayne