Our bodies, too, are nature — to be respected
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Posted on February 23, 2008
Filed Under Deep ecology, Ecological hope, Consumer culture, Earth spirituality, Inspiration and reflection
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
The big sports story in Milwaukee the other day made me smile. The Brewers’ big homerun slugger, Prince Fielder, who blasted a breathtaking 50 of them last season at the ripe old age of 23, has decided to become a vegetarian.
That’s right, a vegetarian, Milwaukee’s big power hitter. Now, it’s no secret that Fielder, at 6 feet and 260 pounds, is a guy who loves his red meat. So what did it? Health issues? Nope — like many other follks recently, Fielder has just discovered the morally repugnant way in which animals are treated by industrial agriculture.
If we didn’t know before, it became glaringly clear last week when the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) secretly filmed the maltreatment of so-called “downer” cows, cows too sick to stand up anymore, as they were shocked and prodded and shoved and forklifted to the slaughter — and into our food chain. The expose resulted in the largest recall of beef in U.S. history.
When we speak of ecology and not mere environmentalism, we are speaking of the whole, the connections. We are speaking of an attitude, not an issue, of relationships, not causes. We are speaking of our own identities within the fabric of life, for we, too are biological creatures. If animals are sacred, so are we, if ecosystems are sacred, so are our bodies that live within and are integral aspects of those systems.
We are what we eat — not only in terms of what we take into our bodies, but in terms of how that food came to us. We are as human as the way we treat nature, and practices like those filmed by the Humane Society show just how much we have compromised our humanity.
But just think about what this means as well in terms of how contaminated are the natural systems that we rely on for all we need to live, our air, food, and water. Why would we think that the industrial world, and the government regulators in bed with them, would protect us from toxins in the air we breathe or the water we drink any more than they did the food chain or the dignity of these abused animals?
As the HSUS points out, they picked this particular California slaughter plant, Hallmark Meat Packing Co., of Chino, at random, so imagine how much of this is going on ‘out there.’
Now I want to relate this to something else I read recently in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Area’s toxins may be sickening people — Group exposes hidden U.S. report.
Pollution created by several active and abandoned Milwaukee County industries may be contributing to the ill health of thousands of county residents, according to a government report.
Okay, we know this stuff has been going on a long, long time. This report comes from the Centers for Disease Control and should always have been a public document. But your government did not want you to have this information. You can read in the article about how the CDC first suppressed release of the report and how they explain themselves.
Here’s what they didn’t want us to know:
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report indicates that it may be exposure to PCBs, lead, mercury and other industrially produced toxins in Milwaukee County that is contributing to the county’s higher-than-average rates of infant mortality, low birth weight, premature births and deaths from colon cancer, coronary heart disease and stroke.
Oh my friends, does this not make our ecological crisis intensely personal?
How does this relate to the abuse of cows at slaughter houses? How does it relate to the government’s appalling decision to remove the grey wolf from the protected species list?
How does it relate to this other recent abhorent story in the local news here — Thrill killers alarm wardens — Suspects say boredom drives them to commit criminal acts against wildlife. This is about killing animals for the sheer fun of it, to cut off heads, to leave carcasses to rot, to relieve boredom. And this is a phenomenon on the rise in my home state.
Really, folks, what is the matter with us? How cut off can we possibly be from this natural world that is also us? Who is raising these people, with what values? What is happening in the schools and churches these people attend?
This is alienation in the extreme — violent, indifferent, and cruel.
And so the way we treat the animals we consume. And so the indifference with which we take toxins into our bodies as if we don’t have a choice about this. And so the rising health bills for cancer treatments and other diseases and disorders related to the toxins of our industrial and post-industrial society. (For some fun reading on toxins and health, check out this web page at ScienceDaily.com.)
We use the word ecology for this project because ‘environmentalism’ simply will not do. Ecology means the whole with all the interrelated threads that hold the fabric together, that give it color and beauty and strength. We are shredding that fabric in our slaughter houses, in our lakes and rivers, in the air we breathe, and in our own bodies.
When I read stories like these, about the cows, the wolves, the thrill-killing of deer, I can easily despair that we can ever heal this spiritual sickness within us.
But then I think of the HSUS people that went into the slaughter house with their hidden cameras, and I think of those appalled at the thrill-killing, and I think of all those people trying to restore their relationship with nature –
and I think of a young athlete who may be one of the great power hitters of his generation, and I get hopeful again.
Technorati Tags: Prince Fielder, vegetarian, Humane Society of the United States, downer cows, Hallmark Meat Packing Co., animal abuse, toxins cause cancer, industrial toxins in Great Lakes, Centers for Disease Control
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The number of us who feel the way that you do on issues like this is steadly growing.