AELLA.ORG

The message contained herein is not limited to animal rights activists nor environmentalists alone, however it is geared toward all of you, my colleagues. What I have to say to every other human being reading my words is a plea for the future of all life on Earth. I want to be very clear and succinct as this letter does indeed apply to anyone who cares for anything beyond themselves and for future generations. In this letter, I am going to make an attempt to show each of you how one industry alone affects at least four or more very segregated activist groups to prove my point.

First and foremost, it is important for me to make everyone aware that I am not only against animal abuse. It is obvious that the horrendous evils that humanity plagues our world with are not limited to pleasure hunting or animal abuse and I myself, am not “anti-human” nor is anyone in my circle of activism. My vision for any group will never be so short sighted as to forget that all human based brutality and planetary devastation are merely connected symptoms of the same horrible disease. The problems that we as animal rights and environmental activists face are not solely based on the fact that we are fractured from within due to ideological differences. Whether we realize it or not, we are individually attacking different “symptoms” of this same disease which does indeed affect and encompass all life, including humanity.

It is why we separately fail time and again in our endeavor to make a true difference in the world. This is also what “they” want. “They” have effectively fractured the very foundation of our spirit, our link to one another and how “they” must laugh every time we bicker amongst ourselves. Who are “they”? There are quite a number of organizations that we could label in this reference as “they”. Banking institutions and big oil is an example of “they”. Pharmaceutical companies and the hunting industry is an example of “they”. Fast food chains are an example of “they”. Their partner, the factory farming industry is an example of “they” and this is a good example of where we can begin to show one another that our global goals are one in the same.

HOME, THE MOVIE

For those who already know about some of the horrors which take place in factory farming regarding the way chickens are treated, the video below may not shock you. For me, being an avid bird lover, I take this as a personal stab at my soul. To know that I once ate chicken and eggs makes me cringe in my own skin. I well up in tears when I look at my parrot, Gizmo, full knowing that birds DO INDEED, FEEL. I wish to thank the Chicago based animal rights group “Mercy for Animals” for making this video as well as the information contained showing that it is standard practice for unwanted male chicks to be tossed alive into mechanized meat grinders by the 200 million each year available to the public. This video is for all animal rights activists and groups fighting the brutality connected to factory farming.

Undercover Investigation at Hy-Line Hatchery by Mercy For Animals

Below is an introduction and official trailer to the movie, Food Inc. The animal and human abuse alone is indescribable, however this statement says very little in regard to the amount of land that has been stripped and utilized for corn feed just to sustain the animals. What about the methane we introduce into our ecosystem through factory farming by rearing as many cows as 1/3 the human population in America alone? It takes a 50 to 1 grain ratio to feed a cow as opposed to a human being. Water has become an even more serious issue. Why are we growing food to feed animals that we slaughter for their flesh in order to feed only certain people? In the process we are destroying the environment with increased methane and vast overgrazing while humans all over the world are starving. We have already elevated our average global temperature by nearly an entire degree leading to the melting of polar ice and arctic permafrost which sends methane levels in our atmosphere to dramatic proportions. This is creating a greenhouse effect more deadly than any carbon output expelled by the burning of fossil fuel. Why are we on a “death race” to destroy our planet and to strip it clean of life only to feed more death to our children?

Food Inc – Official Trailer [HD]

For those of you who are unaware, in the race to compete as farmers must and with increasing demand due to human population, wildlife takes much of the brunt for our folly as animal territory becomes overrun. Yes, I have stated it properly. Animal territory has become overrun by humans. When is the general populace going to take a stand in realization that all life has its place on the planet for a purpose? Factory farming, partnered with the hunting industry has become a huge enemy of wildlife. Often, wolves are blamed for livestock being killed and are therefore culled in the areas surrounding these farms or anywhere else that humans inhabit. Wolves are on the brink of extinction in the continental United States with numbers as low as 5,000 for the gray wolf, nearly zero for the red wolf and legislation is stripping away their protection, scant as it was, layer by layer. In a nation run by serial killing hunters resting snugly in the pockets of big business, factory farming will get its way. Who’s population is out of control?

Hunting Wolves, Saving Wolves on PBS

The reason why there are starving children all over the world is directly linked to factory farming. I find it very difficult to understand how actors can do infomercials for “Save the Children” or how people in general can claim to care for their posterity yet afterward, go out to dine on a steak knowing that over 18,000 children die each day from starvation because the animal agriculture industry has set the stage for it. If you can not understand the correlation between the continuance of our flesh addiction, the destruction of our planet and the extinction of all life on Earth(which should be every human being’s concern) then you have not even ventured or dared to use the technology at hand to seek out the information regarding the subject. This should be clear enough to everyone simply by researching human population, the population of livestock and the ratio of water and grain it takes to feed these animals as opposed to humans. The amount of food and water we waste breeding livestock alone could feed every starving child, every hungry human being. Just consider for one moment what the world would look and be like if no one ate meat. Imagine a planet where no forests were being stripped for land to raise food for cattle and other livestock.

A Delicate Balance

Human and animal rights activists, anti-hunters, environmentalists, conservationists, defenders of wildlife and advocates for peace on Earth, why are we at odds for reasons of ideology? Reality places us as the last hope for a world dying from a horrible disease. We share the same enemy, a common foe. I see a planet being consumed by an organism that is lagging in its responsibility to evolve and we are the only viable catalyst. Our plight has a common source, it is that simple. This is all very clear to me because I consider myself active in all of the aforementioned groups.

I hope that those outside of the movement for change, reading these words, now understand a small part of the frightening state that we are in as a race. How can anyone continue to consume the flesh of a tortured animal in full awareness that the chemical pleasure gained from the act comes at the cost of countless human lives to starvation and the eventual extinction of all life on Earth?

A Life Connected by Nonviolence United

UNITED NATIONS SAYS: BE VEGAN!

Anthony Damiano
Founder of AELLA