The images in the following program are very sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals.

Caring viewers, today’s Stop Animal Cruelty program features the award-winning 2005 documentary on animal suffering “Earthlings” directed by vegan US filmmaker Shaun Monson, co-produced by noted vegan US actresses Persia White and Maggie Q and narrated by Golden Globe- and Grammy-winning vegan actor Joaquin Phoenix. The film features music by the world-famous vegan DJ and musician Moby from the United States.

“Earthlings” has received numerous honors, including the Proggy Award given by the US-based animal welfare group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the Best Documentary Award in the Animal Advocacy category at the International Artivist Film Festival, held annually in California, USA.

“Earthlings” affects many viewers so profoundly that they immediately decide to adopt the compassionate, plant-based diet. For example, after watching the film professional ice hockey player Georges Laraque of Canada became a vegan and agreed to narrate the French language version.

Popular US talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and Australian actress Portia de Rossi both cite this film as a key reason they decided to become vegan. Snowboarder Hannah Teeter of the United States, a gold and silver medalist in the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics respectively, stopped eating meat a year ago following watching Earthlings.

Today in the first installment of our six-part presentation of Earthlings, we’ll learn about the heart-wrenching cruelty perpetrated by the pet industry and about “speciesism,” a concept promoted by Dr. Peter Singer, considered the father of the animal rights movement and author of the 1975 classic “Animal Liberation.”

The images you are about to see are not isolated cases. These are the Industry Standard for animals bred as Pets, Food, Clothing, for Entertainment and Research. Viewer discretion is advised.

THE THREE STAGES OF TRUTH
1. RIDICULE 2. VIOLENT OPPOSITION 3. ACCEPTANCE E A R T H L I N G S

earth-ling: noun. One who inhabits the earth.

Since we all inhabit the Earth, all of us are considered earthlings. There is no sexism, no racism, or speciesism in the term earthling. It encompasses each and every one of us: warm- or cold-blooded, mammal, vertebrate, or invertebrate, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, and human alike.

Humans, therefore, being not the only species on the planet, share this world with millions of other living creatures, as we all evolve here together. However, it is the human earthling who tends to dominate the Earth, oftentimes treating other fellow earthlings and living beings as mere objects. This is what is meant by “speciesism.”

FESTIVAL OF THE BULLS, SPAIN
By analogy with racism and sexism, the term speciesism is a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species. If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration.

No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that one's suffering can be counted equally with the like suffering of any other being. Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of their own race when there's a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race.

Sexists violate the principle of equality by favoring the interests of their own sex. Similarly, speciesists allow the interests of their own species to override the greater interests of members of other species.

In each case, the pattern is identical. Though among the members of the human family we recognize the moral imperative of respect, every human is a somebody, not a something, morally disrespectful treatment occurs when those who stand at the power end of a power relationship treat the less powerful as if they were mere objects.

The rapist does this to the victim of rape. The child molester to the child molested. The master to the slave.

In each and all such cases, humans who have power exploit those who lack it. Might the same be true of how humans treat other animals or other earthlings?

Undoubtedly there are differences, since humans and animals are not the same in all respects. But the question of sameness wears another face. Granted, these animals do not have all the desires we humans have. Granted, they do not comprehend everything we humans comprehend. Nevertheless, we and they do have some of the same desires and do comprehend some of the same things.

The desires for food and water, shelter and companionship, freedom of movement, and avoidance of pain. These desires are shared by nonhuman animals and human beings. As for comprehension, like humans, many nonhuman animals understand the world in which they live and move.

Otherwise, they could not survive. So beneath the many differences, there is sameness. Like us, these animals embody the mystery and wonder of consciousness. Like us, they are not only in the world, they are aware of it. Like us, they are the psychological centers of a life that is uniquely their own. In these fundamental respects, humans stand "on all fours," so to speak, with hogs and cows, chickens and turkeys.

What these animals are due from us, how we morally ought to treat them, are questions whose answer begins with the recognition of our psychological kinship with them. So the following film demonstrates, in five ways, just how animals have come to serve mankind...... lest we forget.

I WILL FEED YOU AND CLOTHE YOU.

Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote in his best-selling novel, “Enemies, A Love Story,” the following.... “ As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: In their behavior toward creatures, all men were Nazis. 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.” The comparison here to the Holocaust is both intentional and obvious.

One group of living beings anguishes beneath the hands of another. Though some will argue the suffering of animals cannot possibly compare with that of former Jews or slaves, there is, in fact, a parallel.

And for the prisoners and victims of this mass murder, their holocaust is far from over. In his book, The Outermost House, author Henry Beston wrote, “We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creatures through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves.

And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete...... gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained...... living by voices we shall never hear.

They are not brethren. They are not underlings. They are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time... ... fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the Earth.”

PART ONE PETS

For most of us, our relationship with animals involves the owning of a pet or two. So where do our pets come from? Of course, one of the most obvious ways animals serve man is as companions.

Breeders
For these pets, it starts with a breeder. Though not all breeders are considered professional. In fact, in this profession, just about anyone and everyone can be a breeder.

pet stores and puppy mills
For pet stores, most of their animals are acquired from puppy mills, even if they may not know it. Puppy mills are low-budget commercial enterprises that breed dogs for sale to pet shops and other buyers.

They are often backyard operations that expose animals to filthy, overcrowded conditions with no veterinary care or socialization. Dogs from puppy mills often exhibit physical and psychological problems as they grow up.

strays
Strays, if they are lucky, will be picked up and taken to a shelter or pound, where they can only hope to find a new home again. An estimated 25 million animals become homeless every year. And as many as 27% of purebred dogs are among the homeless. Of these 25 million homeless animals, an average of 9 million die on the streets from disease...... starvation...... exposure...... injury...... or some other hazard of street life.

Many others are strays, some of whom were presumably dumped in the streets by their caretakers. The remaining 16 million die in pounds or shelters that have no room for them and are forced to kill them. Sadly, on top of all this, almost 50% of the animals brought to shelters are turned in by their caretakers.

Many people claim they don't visit shelters because it's depressing for them. But the reason animals are crowded into such dreary places as these is because of people's refusal to spay or neuter their pets. Several pet owners feel, particularly men for some reason, that neutering a pet emasculates the owner somehow.

Or they may just want their children to someday experience the miracle of life, so to speak. In either case, pet owners like these unknowingly take part in the euthanasia of over 60,000 animals per day. Euthanasia, generally defined as the act of killing painlessly for reasons of mercy, is usually administered by an injection in the leg for dogs, and sometimes in the stomach for cats.

It is a quick and painless procedure for the animals and by far the most humane. But not always the most affordable. Due to the increase of euthanasia in shelters and the growing, constant demand for drugs like Euthasol, some shelters with budget constraints are forced to use gas chambers instead.

gas chambers
In a gas chamber, animals are packed very tightly and can take as long as 20 minutes to die. It is, by far, less merciful, more traumatic, and painful. But the procedure is less expensive. Perhaps some of the tough questions we should ask ourselves about animals that we keep as companions are: Can we keep animals as companions and still address their needs?

Is our keeping companion animals in their best interest, or are we exploiting them? The answers to these questions may lie in the attitudes of the human caretakers and their abilities to provide suitable environments for companion animals. Most human beings are speciesists. This film shows that ordinary human beings, not a few exceptionally cruel or heartless humans, but the overwhelming majority of people, take an active part, acquiesce in, and allow their taxes to pay for practices that require the sacrifice of the most important interests of members of other species, in order to promote the most trivial interests of our own species.

The hope for the animals of tomorrow is to be found in a human culture which learns to feel beyond itself. We must learn empathy. We must learn to see into the eyes of an animal and feel that their life has value because they are alive.

We would like to thank director Shaun Monson and the others involved in its production for allowing us to air this powerful, moving documentary. Let’s all immediately adopt the loving, organic vegan diet and end the heartless cruelty inflicted on our animal friends so they are allowed to live in peace and happiness.

The DVD edition of Earthlings is available at www.Earthlings.com

Thank you for joining us today on our program. Please watch Part 2 of our six part presentation of Earthlings next Tuesday on Stop Animal Cruelty. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May the light of Heaven shine on us all.

What if one finds themselves lost in the wilderness? Who can help?

We search for lost and missing people. Our dogs are trained to work wilderness or urban (areas).

Rocky Mountain Rescue Dogs is the oldest, largest, most experienced canine search and rescue group in Utah.

Find out more about how these altruistic teams are assisting their communities on “Devoted Canine Heroes: American Search Dogs and Rocky Mountain Rescue Dogs of Utah, USA” Friday, April 2 on Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants.

The images in the following program are very sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals.

Informed viewers, today’s Stop Animal Cruelty program features our presentation of Part 2 of the award-winning 2005 documentary on animal suffering “Earthlings” directed by vegan US filmmaker Shaun Monson, co-produced by noted vegan US actresses Persia White and Maggie Q and narrated by Golden Globe- and Grammy-winning vegan actor and artist Joaquin Phoenix. The film features music by the world-famous vegan DJ and musician Moby from the United States.

“Earthlings” has received numerous honors, including the Proggy Award given by the US-based animal welfare group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the Best Documentary Award in the Animal Advocacy category at the International Artivist Film Festival, held annually in California, USA. The film is known as “the vegan maker” because it has prompted so many people to transition to the compassionate and life-affirming plant-based diet.

Such individuals include the Emmy award-winning US talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as well as the well-known Canadian professional ice hockey player George Laraque. Mr. Laraque was so moved by the film he agreed to narrate the French language version of the documentary. We spoke with Mr. Laraque about his efforts to promote the film.

Yes, every time I show it there’re a lot of people that make lots of changes, lots of people that became vegan. So that’s why today I did a presentation with a nutritionist because people want to know options; what they could eat. Because now there’re more and more people that are making the big change, so it’s really good. And I keep doing stuff and try to get as many people as we can. Because everybody that is vegan, it’s a step forward towards the direction of a better environment around us.

Last week on Part 1, “Earthlings” covered why animals should be respected and loved and given the same liberties and freedoms that humans enjoy. The horrors of the pet industry were examined including the untold suffering of our canine friends in puppy mills and shelters that euthanize animals after a period if they are not adopted. This week “Earthlings” explores the nightmarish lives of animals raised for food. Before we begin, let us first hear from director Shaun Monson about the cruelty of the dairy industry.

It’s not all grazing green flowing grass and cows singing like in the cheese ads you see here for instance in California (USA), where they’re all happy. I mean some animal groups tried to sue them for misrepresentation because show us this place! Where is this place where the three cows have acres of rolling land and are just walking around? That’s not the case; those cows aren’t churning out cheese like that.

They have to be perpetually pregnant because cows aren’t pregnant 12 month a year, 24/7. They are not. So they have to be kept continually pregnant. Instead of a 20-year lifespan they actually fall over from exhaustion after four years; they literally just fall over. And when the calf is born one of two things will happen. If it’s a female she will become a milking cow, if it’s a male they become veal. So the milk industry is directly related to the veal industry.

And naturally, as I said earlier, animals are very similar to us in some of the most basic areas. A mother certainly loves her child, her offspring. And the day they come to remove that baby which is two, three days after it’s born, the mother will do everything in her power to get in the way of them doing that.

And they use usually some sort of a barrier that they can move and carry. They try to put a wedge between the mother and her young and divide them, and they can separate the two, and the mother will be literally pounding it. They’ll break their necks trying to get to their baby, calling out.

And you know what’s really, really amazing? Talk about the emotion of compassion in another species, is that when they take that baby away in that truck, and it goes away and the baby is bleating, bleating out, calling out for its mother and the mother is mooing, calling out for her calf, the mother will clearly show signs of depression. She will literally just mope and go down. And what’s truly remarkable is that the others cows come around and try to boost her up, bolster her up, try to lift her up, try to encourage her.

We now present Part 2 of the documentary “Earthlings.”

PART TWO FOOD

Oh, I missed. I missed you, honey. But I'll get you again! I got you!

What happens in slaughterhouses is a variation on the theme of the exploitation of the weak by the strong.

I got you! Good boy!

More than 10,000 times a minute, in excess of six billion times a year, just in the United States, life is literally drained from so-called "food animals." Having the greater power, humans decide when these animals will die, where they will die, and how they will die. The interests of these animals themselves play no role whatsoever in the determination of their fate. Killing an animal is, in itself, a troubling act.

It has been said that if we had to kill our own meat, we would all be vegetarians. Certainly very few people ever visit a slaughterhouse, and films of slaughterhouse operations are not popular on television. People might hope that the meat that they buy came from an animal who died without pain. But they don't really want to know about it.

Yet those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed, do not deserve to be shielded from this or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy. So where does our food come from? For those of us living on a meat diet, the process these animals undergo is as follows.

branding
For beef, the animals are all branded. In this instance, on the face. dehorning
Dehorning usually follows. Never with anesthetic. But rather a large pair of pliers.

transportation
In transportation, animals are packed so tightly into trucks, they are practically on top of one another. Heat, freezing temperatures, fatigue, trauma, and health conditions will kill some of these animals en route to the slaughterhouses.

milking
Milking cows are kept chained to their stalls all day long, receiving no exercise. Pesticides and antibiotics are also used to increase their milk productivity.

Eventually, milking cows, like this one, collapse from exhaustion. Normally, cows can live as long as 20 years. But milking cows generally die within four, at which point their meat is used for fast-food restaurants.

meat
At this slaughterhouse, the branded and dehorned cattle are brought into a stall.

captive bolts
The captive bolt gun, which was designed to reduce animals unconscious without causing pain...... fires a steel bolt that is powered by compressed air, or a blank cartridge, right into the animal's brain.

bleeding
Though various methods of slaughter are used, in this Massachusetts facility, the cattle is hoisted up and his or her throat is slit. Along with the meat, their blood will be used as well. Though the animal has received a captive bolt to the head, which is supposed to have rendered him or her senseless, as you can see, the animal is still conscious. This is not uncommon. Sometimes they are still alive even after they have been bled and are well on their way down the assembly line to be butchered.

knocking boxes
kosher slaughter
This is the largest glatt kosher meat plant in the United States. Glatt, the Yiddish word for "smooth," means the highest standard of cleanliness. And rules for kosher butchering require minimal suffering. The use of electric prods on immobilized animals is a violation. Inverting frightened animals for the slaughterer's convenience is also a violation.

The inversion process causes cattle to aspirate blood, or breath it in, after incision. Ripping the trachea and esophagi from their throats is another egregious violation, since kosher animals are not to be touched until bleeding stops. And by dumping struggling and dying steers through metal chutes onto blood soaked floors, with their breathing tubes and gullets dangling out...... this "sacred task" is neither clean or compassionate.

Shackling and hoisting is ruled yet another violation, nor does it correspond to the kosher way of treating animals. If this was kosher, death was neither quick nor merciful.

When we return we’ll continue with our presentation of “Earthlings.” Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

This is Stop Animal Cruelty on Supreme Master Television. We now resume our presentation of the documentary “Earthlings” that was directed by Shaun Monson and narrated by Golden Globe and Grammy winner Joaquin Phoenix.

veal
Veal, taken from their mothers within two days of birth, are tied at the neck and kept restricted to keep muscles from developing. Fed an iron-deficient liquid diet, denied bedding, water, and light, after four months of this miserable existence, they are slaughtered.

pigs
Sows in factory farms are breeding machines, kept continually pregnant by means of artificial insemination. Large pig market factories will "manufacture," as they like to call it, between 50,000 and 600,000 pigs a year each.

FACTORY CONDITIONS

GESTATION CRATES

RUPTURES & ABSCESSES

CANNIBALISM

WASTE PITS

tail docking
Tail docking is a practice derived from the lack of space and stressful living conditions so as to keep pigs from biting each other's tails off. This is done without anesthetic.

ear clipping
Ear clipping is a similar procedure, also administered without anesthetic.

teeth cutting
As well as teeth cutting.

castration
Castration is also done without painkillers or anesthetic and will supposedly produce a more fatty grade of meat.

electric prods
The electric prods are used for obvious reasons: handling.

electrocution
Electrocution is another method of slaughter, as seen here.

throat slitting
Throat slitting, however, is still the least expensive way to kill an animal.

boiling and hair removal
After knife sticking, pigs are shackled, suspended on a bleed rail, and immersed in scalding tanks to remove their bristle. Many are still struggling as they are dunked upside down in tanks of steaming water, where they are submerged and drowned.

We conclude today’s program with some thoughts from the compassionate Shaun Monson.

To be a vegan it's not just the food you consume, it’s the products that you wear. So it's clothing, leather and animal products that might be in cleaning products in your home, that sort of thing. So you become mindful more and more of that and you make a choice. It's like every time you spend a dollar, you essentially cast a vote. So you just choose, “Well I'm not going to vote for that anymore.” That's the power the consumer always has every day.

We would like to thank director Shaun Monson and the others involved in its production for allowing us to air this moving documentary. Let’s all immediately adopt the loving, organic vegan diet and end the heartless cruelty inflicted on our animal friends so they are allowed to live in peace and happiness.

"Earthlings" may be viewed online at www.Earthlings.com
The "Earthlings" DVD is available at the same website.

Thank you for joining us for today’s program. Please watch Part 3 of our six part presentation of “Earthlings” next Tuesday on Stop Animal Cruelty. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May the Divine light of Heaven shine within all of us.

Here, warm surprises are waiting for you at every corner!

People can sit down and kiss a pig and hug lots of horses. It’s a very warm and spontaneous tour. What happens depends a lot on what free range animals are approaching us on a tour….

Join us on Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants for an inspiring visit to a caring home for farm animals in New York, USA founded by vegan author Kathy Stevens on “Catskill Animal Sanctuary, A Green Haven for All” with Part 1 airing Friday, April 9 and Part 2 on Saturday, April 10.

In our society, the law only punishes someone who has done something wrong to the society. The animals, they have never done us any wrong. They live their life quietly, they’re eating whatever God provides them; they don’t harm us in any way.

If we want to call ourselves a civilized human race, we must protect the animals’ lives, which are linked to ours. We have to protect them because they are us – because if we don’t protect them, we are vulnerable because Heaven will not forgive us, if we treat other co-inhabitants unkindly.

Also because now we are at the point where we must change while there is still time, otherwise we will face disastrous consequences and we might lose the whole world, our lives altogether. If we want to receive the mercy of Heaven for our life here on Earth, we must first be merciful in granting the same dignity and freedom of life to the animals.

The images in the following program are very sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals.

Knowledgeable viewers, today’s Stop Animal Cruelty program features our presentation of Part 3 of the award-winning 2005 documentary on animal suffering “Earthlings” directed by vegan US filmmaker Shaun Monson, co-produced by noted vegan US actresses Persia White and Maggie Q and narrated by Golden Globe- and Grammy-winning vegan actor and artist Joaquin Phoenix. The film features music by the world-famous vegan DJ and musician Moby from the United States.

“Earthlings” has received numerous honors, including the Proggy Award given by the US-based animal welfare group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the Best Documentary Award in the Animal Advocacy category at the International Artivist Film Festival, held annually in California, USA.

The film is known as “the vegan maker” because it has prompted so many people to transition to the compassionate and life-affirming plant-based diet. Such individuals include the Emmy award-winning US talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as well as the well-known Canadian professional ice hockey player George Laraque.

Last week on Part 2 of “Earthlings” we heard from Joaquin Phoenix on the horrific suffering of animals raised for food, in particular the noble and sensitive cow and our intelligent friend the pig. Staying on the topic of the abuse and violent slaughter of animals raised for meat, Part 3 examines the lives of our avian and marine animal co-inhabitants. Before we begin, let us hear from Persia White as to why “Earthlings” is such an important, must-see documentary.

I recommend everyone to take a moment to watch “Earthlings.” I can't say enough good things about it. It’s changed more people's lives then any piece of media that I’ve ever come across in over 20 years of being a vegetarian.

And there's books, there's data, there's talking but there's nothing more beautiful than when you have the power to weave together images with words and communication and let people know that this is just information you should know, regardless of whether you are a vegetarian or whether you are thinking about it or whether you never wanted to be. You should at least know what you're doing and what you're contributing to when you do participate in some of these industries unknowingly, because most of us don't know.

And it's all about informing and provoking people to think. Even if they don't change immediately, sometimes a seed can be buried just from knowing something, and then at the time when it's ripe it blooms and you become changed. So I recommend it to everybody to help the planet be a better place. It's definitely worth watching.

We now present Part 3 of the documentary “Earthlings.”

POULTRY

Americans currently consume as much chicken in a single day as they did in an entire year in 1930. The largest broiler companies in the world now slaughter more than 8.5 million birds in a single week.

debeaking
Debeaking prevents feather-pecking and cannibalism in frustrated chickens, caused by overcrowding in single areas, where they are unable to establish a social order. Today, done with infant chicks, the procedure is carried out very quickly, about 15 birds a minute. Such haste means the temperature and sharpness of the blade varies, resulting in sloppy cutting and serious injury to the bird.

living conditions
As for their living conditions, anywhere from 60,000 to 90,000 birds can be crowded together in a single building. The suffering for these animals is unrelenting. It is a way of life. Although their beaks are severed, they attempt to peck each other.

For hens, they live in a laying warehouse, crammed inside so-called "battery cages." Many lose their feathers and develop sores from rubbing against the wire cage. Crowding prevents them from spreading their wings, and the hens cannot even fulfill minimal natural instincts.

transportation
During transportation, all animals suffer, and many die. And they suffocate when other animals pile on top of them in overcrowded, poorly loaded cages.

slaughter
Chickens and turkeys are slaughtered in numerous ways. Some may be clubbed to death or have their heads cut off. But most are brought through the assembly lines of factory farms. Dangled upside down on a conveyor belt, their throats are slit...... and they are left to bleed to death. Others may be placed head-first in tubes to restrict their movement while they slowly bleed to death.

Surely, if slaughterhouses had glass walls, would not all of us be vegetarians? But slaughterhouses do not have glass walls. The architecture of slaughter is opaque, designed in the interest of denial, to insure that we will not see even if we wanted to look. And who wants to look?

Let's go! Don't stop. Let's go, let's go! Come on!

It was Emerson who observed, more than 100 years ago: "You have dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity."

When we return we’ll continue with our presentation of “Earthlings.” Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

This is Stop Animal Cruelty on Supreme Master Television. We now resume our presentation of the documentary “Earthlings” that was directed by Shaun Monson and narrated by Golden Globe and Grammy winner Joaquin Phoenix.

seafood
And for those who think eating seafood is healthier than land animals, just remember how much irretrievable waste and contaminated sediments are dumped into our oceans. In the past, oil, nuclear, and chemical industries have done little for the protection of marine environments, and dumping on or under the seabed has always proved a convenient place to dispose of inconvenient wastes.

commercial fishing
Today's commercial fishers intensify this situation on massive scales. They use vast factory trawlers the size of football fields and advanced electronic equipment to track and catch fish. Huge nets stretch across the ocean, swallowing up everything in their path.

These factory trawlers, coupled with our increased appetites for seafood, are emptying the oceans of sea life at an alarming pace. Already, 13 of the 17 major global fisheries are depleted or in serious decline. The other four are overexploited or fully exploited.

disease
The recent outbreak of Pfiesteria, a microorganism 1,000 times more potent than cyanide, spawned from millions of gallons of raw hog feces and urine, poured into rivers, lakes, and oceans, turning their ecosystems into unflushed toilets, is proving the most alarming.

Threatening sea life and humans alike, Pfiesteria has killed over one billion fish, the Southeast's largest fish kill on record. And it's spreading. Traces of Pfiesteria have already been found from Long Island to the Florida Gulf, at distances of up to 1,000 miles. In fact, this water-based Pfiesteria invasion stands as one of the worst outbreaks of a virulent microorganism in U.S. history. It is a Level 3 Biohazard. Ebola is a 4. AIDS is a 2.

And this bug mutated as a direct result of our mass consumption of animals, particularly pork. With hog farms fattening millions of pigs for slaughter, grain goes in and waste comes out. This waste finds its way into our oceans and water-supply systems, contaminating the animals that live in it, as well as those who eat from it.

whaling
Finally, whaling. Though the International Whaling Commission prohibited commercial whaling in 1985, many countries continue to kill whales for their so-called "exotic meat." They use harpoons...... firearms...... blunt hooks...... even explosives...... or drive them into authorized whaling bays, where they are made to beach and can be killed with knives in the shallows.

dolphins
Every winter, between the months of October through March, thousands of dolphins are confined and brutally killed in small towns across Japan. Sounding rods beneath the water's surface interfere with the dolphin's sonar. Once disoriented and enclosed within the nets, the dolphins panic. Fisherman often injure a few captive dolphins with a spear thrust or knife slash, since dolphins never abandon wounded family members.

Mothers and babies call out in distress as they are separated, hoisted up, and dragged off, soon to be mercilessly hacked to death. These are benign and innocent beings. And they deserve better. Yet here, as they lay stricken and needful, writhing helplessly on cement floors, they are cut open with machetes...... and left to slowly suffocate. Convulsing and contorting in the throes of agony, while schoolchildren walk on by.

Dolphin meat is later sold in markets and restaurants, though often mislabeled as "whale meat." But as though cruelty toward animals raised for food wasn't enough, we've also found ways of making use of them for all our clothes. Jackets, shoes, belts, gloves, pants, wallets, purses, and so on. The next question is obviously, "Where do our clothes come from?"

In an interview with Supreme Master Television, director Shaun Monson shared his experiences of visiting a factory farm in India.

I was in India last year, shooting for this new documentary I’m working on now, which is a follow up to Earthling, and they do debeaking there with the chickens, as we do here. Debeaking which you see in the film, which is, because chickens have a social order, like humans do.

You put too many humans in too tight of a space, too close together, someone is probably going to push somebody else after a few minutes, or longer. But in any case, we have a social order, and animals do too. And so the chickens, you know when you put five hens in a battery cage that’s about the size of our chair, right here, they fight. So, what happens is they, instead of giving them more space, which is the most logical solution, is that they sever the beaks so that they can’t peck each other.

And they do this with a hot iron, so they press the beak against this hot iron. And they do this when they’re chicks, they do this when they’re quite young. And I thought this was horrific to see this in America, and when I was in India, I saw it in India as well. It was more crude in India, but still hot iron, you know, searing down the beak. It was, fundamentally the same.

Finally, here are two students with a message for Mr. Monson after they watched a screening of “Earthlings” at Chaffey College in California, USA

Keep doing what you’re doing. Because I think people are becoming more conscious and more self-aware of what they’re eating.

I just want to say thank you so much for doing this, because it’s opened the eyes of a lot of people, and definitely me. I just really hope you can get it out on public television and things like that, and just get it on DVD to people, and it’s more worldwide so people can open their eyes.

We would like to thank director Shaun Monson and the others involved in its production for allowing us to air this moving documentary. May we all soon adopt the loving, organic vegan diet so our animal friends can always live in peace and happiness.

"Earthlings" may be viewed online at www.Earthlings.com
The "Earthlings" DVD is available at the same website.

Thank you for joining us for today’s program. Please watch Part 4 of our six part presentation of “Earthlings” next Tuesday on Stop Animal Cruelty. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May we all soon realize our inherent unity with all beings and always show compassion to our animal brothers and sisters.

The images in the following program are very sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals.

Respected viewers, today’s Stop Animal Cruelty program features our presentation of Part 4 of the award-winning 2005 documentary on animal suffering “Earthlings” directed by vegan US filmmaker Shaun Monson, co-produced by noted vegan US actresses Persia White and Maggie Q and narrated by Golden Globe- and Grammy-winning vegan actor and artist Joaquin Phoenix. The film features music by the world-famous vegan DJ and musician Moby from the United States.

“Earthlings” has received numerous honors, including the Proggy Award given by the US-based animal welfare group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the Best Documentary Award in the Animal Advocacy category at the International Artivist Film Festival, held annually in California, USA.

The film is known as “the vegan maker” because it has prompted so many people to transition to the compassionate and life-affirming plant-based diet. Such individuals include the Emmy award-winning US talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as well as the well-known Canadian professional ice hockey player George Laraque.

Last week on Part 3 of our program, Joaquin Phoenix described the horrendous conditions and unfathomable suffering endured by animals raised for food. This week, we will see how animals are brutally exploited and undergo unimaginable cruelty and torture to provide us with clothing. Let us first hear from “Earthlings” director Shaun Monson on why he decided to collaborate with Joaquin Phoenix on this extraordinary project.

I wanted him from the start. I’d heard he’d been a vegan since he was three years old. He was in Venezuela or some place, I don’t know, don’t quote me exactly on that, but he had seen fishermen as a boy, throwing fish against a wall to kill them. They’d catch them in these nets and just throw them against this wall to kill them and he was so horrified by that, he wouldn’t eat animals anymore. I’d heard this about him.

And he was young, he is younger than I am and he was becoming better known as an actor and I thought he was interesting and I wanted him to do it. I wanted to get someone who was vegan. I thought someone who was living it already, might come through the voice box just a little bit different. That was the theory anyway, that it would work, which was true with him.

We now present the fourth installment of “Earthlings”; a life-changing documentary that serves as a voice for our precious animal co-inhabitants.

PART THREE CLOTHES

The demand for leather comes primarily from the United States, Germany, and the UK. Just about everybody wears it, with little or no thought of where it came from. Thousands of India cows are slaughtered each week for their skins, purchased from poor families in parts of rural India who sell them only after the assurance that the animals will live out their lives on farms.

Shoeing and roping

To relocate the animals to a state where they can legally be killed, since cattle slaughter is forbidden in most of India, the animals must be shoed and roped together in preparation for a harrowing "death march," which could last for several days. Forced to walk through the heat and dust without food or water, coupled with the sheer stress of this terrifying experience for them, many of the animals collapse and are unable to continue.

Bear in mind that most of the cattle are being placed in a truck for the first time in their lives and are likely to be frightened, especially if they have been handled hastily or roughly by the men loading the trucks. The noise and motion of the truck itself is also a new experience, one which makes them ill. After one or two days inside the truck without food or water, they are desperately thirsty and hungry, especially since it is normal for such cows to eat frequently throughout the day.

tail breaking

But when the cattle become weary and grow faint, the bones in their tails are broken in an effort to get them back up on their feet. This is done by repeatedly pinching the tail in several areas.

handlers

Handlers must constantly keep the cattle moving, pulling them by nose ropes, twisting their necks, horns, or tails. They lead, or rather force, the cattle down embankments and in and out of trucks without ramps, causing injuries like broken pelvises, legs, ribs, and horns.

chili pepper

Chili pepper and tobacco are also used to keep the animals walking. This practice is done by rubbing the pepper directly into their eyes, in order to stimulate the animal back onto his or her feet.

slaughter

And all this before the slaughter. As many as half of the animals will already be dead by the time they arrive at the slaughterhouse. But to make the experience even more traumatic and terrifying, they are often killed in full view of each other. And instead of the required "quick slice" across the throat with a sharp knife, they are generally killed through hacking and sawing with a dull blade.

tanning

Afterwards, the skins from these animals are sent to tanneries that use deadly substances like chromium and other toxins to stop decomposition. Remember, leather is dead flesh. It is dead skin, and, therefore, natural for it to decompose and rot away unless treated with such potent substances as these. And for people, the health effects of such chemicals in tanneries, in lieu of the continued demand for leather goods, is yet another issue.

retail

Ultimately, leather from Indian cattle make their way to clothing stores all around the world. Most major chains sell Indian leather. Leather that comes from completely different cows than those we eat.

When we return, Joaquin Phoenix discusses the despicable and appalling treatment of animals killed and skinned for their fur. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Viewed French language version of “Earthlings”

What’s the main message?

The main message is that we’re all connected – humans, animals, and the environment. And we need to look at that interaction, that synergy to make the world a better place for all beings.

And are we starting to see the effects of such a message here on the population in Quebec?

We are. People are changing their habits all the time. If you look in grocery stores, the amount of vegetarian/vegan products is growing all the time.

This is Stop Animal Cruelty on Supreme Master Television. We now resume our presentation of the documentary “Earthlings” with this segment focusing on how our vulnerable and innocent animal co-inhabitants are subjected extreme violence and heartless abuse in the process of being turned into so-called “clothing” and “fashion items.”

fur

And what about fur? Over 100 million wild animals are murdered for their pelts every year, 25 million in the United States alone. These animals, obtained by hunting and trapping, are kept on fur farms in conditions like these.

cage madness

Naturally, these undomesticated, wild animals are not accustomed to being caged. And cage madness develops when frightened and frustrated animals are driven crazy from the stress of confinement. These wild, free-roaming animals and their offspring find themselves unable to live a natural life, can never take even a few steps or feel the Earth beneath their feet. Instead, they are reduced to scratching, circling, and pacing endlessly.

The physical injuries these animals endure on fur farms involve broken and exposed bones...... blindness...... ear infections, dehydration and malnutrition, exposure to freezing temperatures, lack of veterinary care, and slow death. No laws indicate the killing of animals on fur farms.

Therefore, the least expensive methods are the most appealing. Carbon-monoxide poisoning, strychnine, suffocation, breaking the neck, and anal electrocution are some of the more common methods used. Removed from his or her cage with a heavy neck pole, the animal is walked past the rows of bodies of slaughtered foxes, sables, raccoons, and wolves, among others.

Death by anal electrocution is a crude process that requires a probe to be inserted in the rectum while the animal bites down on a metal conductor. Oftentimes this inept procedure must be repeated to actually kill the animal. And the skinned carcasses seen here will later be ground up and fed to the animals still caged. How much does this run? This is $49,500.

Shaun Monson has the following thoughts on the fashion industry.

The fashion industry amazes me because these designers, they’re amazing; they’re tremendous, they are so gifted. I have no fault recognizing their skill in designing clothing, for instance. Why they feel that animal is the quintessential be-all, end-all, Holy Grail of source material baffles me! That need to have the alligator boot or the python bag or something exotic.

I heard of one company, this is shocking, I cannot believe this, that couldn’t find fur that was soft enough, and so it would take an animal, may have been a baby lamb or something. A mother would go almost full term with the baby, then they would abort it just before, weeks before. Because inside the womb the fur was the softest of all.

And so you think about this and you think, “You guys can design bags and clothes and jackets and pants and stuff out of anything, textiles of all kinds, manmade materials, whatever the case may be, make it look fantastic, really.” So it be great if the designers frankly had the guts to not be afraid to say, “I’m not going to use leather for this.” Because to get leather, which isn’t from the same cows that we eat, a different bunch of cows.

For instance, we break their tails, we stick chili pepper in their eyes, we do all the stuff you see in the film to get this part that you then wear. So we find another way. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if a company could create a product that wasn’t at the expense of humans, animals or ecology. Am I asking for the Moon here? I mean, am I asking for too much? Wouldn’t it be great to create conscious products, totally conscious products?

There is something that every one of us can do to stop this unspeakable cruelty to our fellow animal co-inhabitants and that is to vote with our wallets. Before buying any product, whether it is a food or clothing item, consider if an animal had to suffer in order to produce it. Then act with compassion and choose not to support violence and inhumanity.

We would also like to convey our humble appreciation to director Shaun Monson and all those involved in the making of “Earthlings” for their passionate and sincere efforts to protect all beings. May we all soon switch to the loving, organic vegan diet so our animal friends can always be at peace and free.

"Earthlings" may be viewed online at www.Earthlings.com
The "Earthlings" DVD is available at the same website.

Thank you for joining us for today’s program. Please watch Part 5 of our six part presentation of “Earthlings” next Tuesday on Stop Animal Cruelty. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May all beings on Earth be forever respected and protected.

The images in the following program are very sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals.

Honored viewers, today’s Stop Animal Cruelty program features our presentation of Part 5 of the award-winning 2005 documentary on animal suffering “Earthlings” directed by vegan US filmmaker Shaun Monson, co-produced by noted vegan US actresses Persia White and Maggie Q and narrated by Golden Globe- and Grammy-winning vegan actor and artist Joaquin Phoenix. The film features music by the world-famous vegan DJ and musician Moby from the United States.

“Earthlings” has received numerous honors, including the Proggy Award given by the US-based animal welfare group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the Best Documentary Award in the Animal Advocacy category at the International Artivist Film Festival, held annually in California, USA.

The film is known as “the vegan maker” because it has prompted so many people to transition to the compassionate and life-affirming plant-based diet. Such individuals include the Emmy award-winning US talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as well as the well-known Canadian professional ice hockey player George Laraque.

Last week on our program, Joaquin Phoenix described how our innocent animal friends are first tortured and abused and then violently slaughtered to make so-called “fashion items” from leather and fur. This week covers how animals are exploited, demeaned, and killed for so-called “entertainment.” Director Shaun Monson now introduces this week’s segment of “Earthlings.”

Part four, entertainment –- circuses, zoos, rodeos, bullfights, I mean worldwide, animals used for entertainment. I was in Rome (Italy) this last year working on this new film, and I went to the arena and I stood inside that arena. I looked around and thought, “There was a time here, 2,000 years ago, when people literally gathered together and watched the slaughtering of humans and animals.” I mean the sands of the arena were just wet with blood.

We wouldn’t tolerate that today. We’d look back on that and sort of be abhorred by it, to think that a civilization would go and eat food, sit there in the sun, and be entertained by this! Okay, we don’t do that anymore today.

However we have a different sort of gladiator games going on today, which are the ones I mentioned with the circuses and the zoos and the rodeos and the bull fights and so forth, and I would go as far as to say that future generations will look back on us and see that as abhorrent.

You know, you wonder and ask yourself, “What will future generations look back on us and say?” “What are they thinking! Are they blind? Total apathy for the well-being.” So that’s what we cover in the film, we show some of these areas that animals are abused.

The zoo’s people say, “Well, the zoo is educational, it’s… the animals are safe, they are better than the wild.” And I always think “better than the wild?”

The animal naturally lives in the wild. So this is a whole new forced enclosed space and they have their problems there as well, they are under the domain of humans, they’re fed the diets that humans determine is best for them. And they are isolated and they suffer and they die, as we see a lot with the elephants for instance.

We now present the fifth installment of “Earthlings,” a documentary that seeks to awaken humanity to adopt a more empathetic and compassionate way of living.

PART FOUR ENTERTAINMENT

And so we move on to entertainment. Mark Twain once said, "Of all the creatures ever made, he (man) is the most detestable. He's the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain."

rodeos
In rodeos, bulls and broncos don't buck because they're wild, but because they're in pain. A belt called a flank strap or a bucking strap is secured around the animal's body over the genital area.

As the animal leaves the chute, a tight jerk on the belt is enough to start him bucking in pain. Apart from other injuries animals incur at rodeos...... such as broken legs...... they are also worked up by being slapped, teased, given electric prods, and otherwise tormented, to bolt out of the chute in a frenzy.

roping
Roping, as seen here, involves throwing a rope around the neck of a frightened animal running full speed, jerking the poor creature to a halt, and slamming him or her to the ground.

gambling
Like any other business, dog racing and horse racing are industries motivated by a common denominator: profit.

fair grounds
At fair grounds across the country, animals are used to race, bet with, and spectate over. Training for these events is accomplished by withholding food and sometimes water. These animals, unfamiliar with their surroundings, the noise, the crowds, even what they're supposed to be doing, are all too often injured and discarded, in pointless, trivial, outlandish contests designed to make profits and entertain.

hunting
Besides loss of habitat, hunting is the number one threat to wildlife today. Hunters kill over 200 million animals every year. Deer, rabbits, and squirrels top the list of desirable targets. There is no denying it, if hunting is a sport, it is a blood sport. The targets are living, and they undergo violent deaths.

fishing
Fishing is also a death sport, wherein the nonhuman animal suffers. Researchers have distinguished that fish show pain behavior the same way mammals do. Anatomically, physiologically, and biologically, the pain system in fish is virtually the same as in birds and mammals. In other words, fish are sentient organisms, so of course they feel pain.

For those who think fish die "gentler" deaths, consider that their sensory organs are highly developed, their nervous systems complex, their nerve cells very similar to our own... ...and their responses to certain stimuli immediate and vigorous.

When we return, we’ll hear from Joaquin Phoenix on the horrendous conditions animals kept in zoos and circuses, endure. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

This is Stop Animal Cruelty on Supreme Master Television. We now resume our presentation of the documentary “Earthlings” with this segment focusing on the immense brutality inflicted on our animal co-inhabitants for the sake of so-called “entertainment.”

circuses

When going to the circus, rarely do we stop for a moment and consider: What incites an animal to do something unnatural, even dangerous, such as jumping through flames, balancing on one foot, or diving into water from shaky platforms high in the air?

Animal trainers would like for the public to believe that animals are coaxed into such behaviors with the promise of rewards. But the truth is that animals perform because they fear punishment.

Let's go, let's go, let's go. All right, let's go. Let's get going.

In essence, circuses condemn animals who are wild by nature to live out their days isolated in tiny, barren cages, denied normal exercise and socialization...... shuttled around from place to place...... and shackled in chains for up to 95% of their lives.

training
Elephants are taught to perform with positive reinforcement and never hit. Never hit. Never, never, never will you see anyone use the ankus as anything other than a guide or a tool.

No. Dominance, subservience, and pain are integral parts of the training process. Hurt him. Don't touch him! Make him scream. If you're scared to hurt him...... don't come in this room. When I say rip his You know how I am about touching him, right? So, if I say rip his head off, rip his foot off, what does that mean? 'Cause it's very important to do it, right? When he starts squirming too much, both hands, boom! Right under that chin! Sit, and he better back up.

Don't grab that leg. You sink that hook and give everything you've got. And when it's in there go.... And he's going to start screaming. When you hear that, then you know you've got their attention a little bit! Right here in the barn. Can't do it on the road. She's going to do what I want. And that's just the way it is.

All right, let's go. Becky! Becky! Get up here!

Come here, Becky. Move up, Becky. Move up, Becky. All right, Tubs. Tubs! Come here, Tubs! Hey, get Loony. Hey, Becky. Go on, move up. Hey, I'm alive. I'm not a dead man. Move up! Come in line. Come in line, Becky.

Yeah, come over here. Yeah, come in line. Come here, Tommy. Why do they have to go through that. because you don't want to listen? Back up. it's just the way they die.

We know animals feel. They feel fear, loneliness, and pain, just like humans do. What animal would choose to spend their entire life in captivity if they had a choice?

retaliation
On the count of three! One. Two. Three. Take him. You've got to shoot.

zoos
Are zoos valuable educational and conservation institutions? Sure, zoos are interesting, but they are only educational in the sense that they teach a disregard for the natures of other living beings. Besides, what can we learn about wild animals by viewing them in captivity? Zoos exist because we are intrigued by exotic things. And to zoo-goers, zoo animals are just that: things. In both cases, at circuses or zoos, wild and exotic animals are captured, caged, transported, and trained to do what humans want them to do.

bullfighting
At best, the term "bullfighting" is a misnomer......as there is little competition between the sword of a nimble matador, which is Spanish for "killer," and a confused, maimed, psychologically tormented, and physically debilitated bull. Many prominent former bullfighters report that bulls are intentionally debilitated with tranquilizers and laxatives, beatings to the kidneys, and heavy weights hung around their necks for weeks before a fight.

Some of the animals are placed in darkness for 48 hours before the confrontation, then are released, blinded into the bright arena. In a typical event, the bull enters and is approached by men who exhaust and frustrate him by running him in circles and tricking him into collisions.

When the bull is tired and out of breath, he is approached by picadors, who drive lances into its back and neck muscles, twisting and gouging to ensure a significant amount of blood loss and impairing the bull's ability to lift his head. Then come the banderilleros who distract and dart around the bull while plunging more lances into him. Weakened from blood loss, they run the bull in more circles until he is dizzy and stops chasing.

Finally, the matador, this "killer," appears and, after provoking a few exhausted charges from the dying animal, tries to kill the bull with his sword. And this bloody form of amusement is bullfighting. The pleasure derived from all of these activities and sports......

a communion with nature, some would say, can be secured without harming or killing animals. The commercial exploitation of wildlife erroneously assumes that the value of wild animals is reducible to their utility relative to human interests, especially economic interests.

But wild animals are not a renewable resource, having value only relative to human interests. That perception can only be that of a speciesist. Nevertheless, these practices exist only because we do not take seriously the interests of other animals. In this light, are humans not the most callous speciesists of all?

By always refusing to patronize events where animals are being used for entertainment, we can end this heartless and savage treatment of them. We would like to sincerely thank Shaun Monson, Joaquin Phoenix and all those involved in the making of “Earthlings” for speaking on behalf of the voiceless. May we all soon switch to the loving, organic vegan diet so all animals can live in peace forever.

"Earthlings" may be viewed online at www.Earthlings.com
The "Earthlings" DVD is available at the same website.

Please join us next Tuesday for Part 6 of “Earthlings” here on Stop Animal Cruelty. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May our world only know kindness and virtue.

The images in the following program are very sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals.

Wise viewers, today’s Stop Animal Cruelty program features our presentation of Part 6 of the award-winning 2005 documentary on animal suffering “Earthlings” directed by vegan US filmmaker Shaun Monson, co-produced by noted vegan US actresses Persia White and Maggie Q and narrated by Golden Globe- and Grammy-winning vegan actor and artist Joaquin Phoenix. The film features music by the world-famous vegan DJ and musician Moby from the United States.

The film is known as “the vegan maker” because it has prompted so many people to transition to the compassionate and life-affirming plant-based diet. Such individuals include the Emmy award-winning US talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as well as the well-known Canadian professional ice hockey player George Laraque.

Last week on our program, Joaquin Phoenix described how animals are exploited, demeaned, and killed for so-called “entertainment.” This week the utterly heartless world of animal experimentation is examined.

Medical research is probably some of the hardest footage I ever watched. They have a process called LD50. LD50, Lethal Dose 50, which is when they’re testing some new drug, they’ll test it to a degree that kills 50% of test subjects, for instance the rats, and then start to back it off from there, until it gets under 50. And then it becomes safer for human consumption, that’s the idea, so that’s LD50 for instance.

We now present the final installment of “Earthlings,” a documentary that seeks to awaken humanity to adopt a more empathetic and compassionate way of living.

PART FIVE SCIENCE

vivisection

The term vivisection is used to apply to all types of experiments on living animals and is said to be a form of medical science. The reason for experimentation of this type is to allegedly discover cures for human ailments and illnesses. But those who hope to find remedies for human ills by inflicting deliberate sufferings on animals commit two fundamental errors in understanding.

The first is the assumption that results obtained on animals are applicable to mankind. The second concerns the inevitable fallacy of experimental science in respect to the field of organic life. Since animals react differently from human beings, every new product or method tried out on animals must be tried out again on man through careful clinical tests, before it can be considered safe. This rule knows no exceptions.

Tests on animals are not only dangerous because they lead to wrong conclusions, but, furthermore, they retard clinical investigation, which is the only valid kind. Just remember the fact that any disease deliberately provoked is unlike any disease that arises spontaneously.

medical experiments

Unfortunately, such methods still sail today under the flag of science, which is an insult to true science, as well as human intelligence. And so, vivisection applies to medical experiments, done with the administration of noxious substances...... electric or traumatic shocks...... unanesthetized operations... burns...... drawn-out deprivations of food and drink...... physical and psychological tortures that lead to mental imbalance, infections, and so on.

Head injury research

Head injury research involves partially or fully conscious baboons strapped down with restraints and their heads cemented into a metal helmet, which will be thrust at a 60 degree angle at a force of up to 1,000 Gs. The purpose of this experiment is to simulate auto crashes, football, boxing, and other head-related injuries. And this process is often repeated again and again on the same animals.

military research

And finally, military research. This one speaks for itself. From sending monkeys into outer space...... and testing atomic blasts on helpless dogs, to exposing primates to nuclear radiation. 20 years ago, the number of animals dying of tortures through the practice of vivisection was astronomical, estimated at 400,000 per day worldwide, and growing at an annual rate of 5%. Today that number is almost beyond comprehension. 19,000 per minute. 10 billion per year.

Some uneducated persons pretend to know that less intelligent animals don't feel pain the same way we do. In truth, we know very little about how specific animals may "feel," except that they must also submit to the universal law that causes every organism dying by unnatural means to suffer greatly before that final release.

But it's nonsense to say that the animals do not suffer because they have a lower order of intelligence. Pain is pain, conveyed by nerves to the brain. And there are other nerves than those of intelligence, nerves such as sight, smell, touch, and hearing.

And in some animals, these nerves are much more highly developed than in man. We know that there has never been an epoch in which we could learn something about the physiology of man by torturing animals. We only learned something about animals.

And if there is something we can learn from them on the psychological level, it is not by means of steel or electricity, much less so through psychic violences. The systematic torture of sentient beings, whatever the pretext and in whatever form, cannot achieve anything more than it already has: to show us what is the lowest point of debasement man can reach. If that's what we want to know. "As long as there are slaughterhouses...... there will be battlefields." Leo Tolstoy

Ignorance is the specieist's first line of defence. Yet it is easily breached by anyone with the time and determination to find out the truth. Ignorance has prevailed so long only because people do not want to find out the truth. "Don't tell me. You'll spoil my dinner," is the usual reply to any attempt to tell someone just how that dinner was produced.

Even people who are aware that the traditional family farm has been taken over by big business interests, that their clothes come from slaughtered cows, that their entertainment means the suffering and death of millions of animals, and that some questionable experiments go on in laboratories, still cling to a vague belief that conditions cannot be too bad, or else the government or the animal welfare societies would have done something about it.

But it is not the inability to find out what is going on, as much as a desire not to know about facts that may lie heavy on one's conscience, that is responsible for this lack of awareness. After all, the victims of whatever it is that goes on in all these awful places are not members of one's own group.

It all comes down to pain and suffering. Not intelligence, not strength, not social class or civil right. Pain and suffering are, in themselves, bad and should be prevented or minimized, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the being that suffers.

When we return we’ll present the conclusion of “Earthlings.” Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

This is Stop Animal Cruelty on Supreme Master Television. We now feature the concluding segment of Shaun Monson’s “Earthlings.”

We are all animals of this planet.

We are all creatures. And nonhuman animals experience 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. Most of them being, in fact, vertebrate, just like us.

As we look back on how essential animals are to human survival, our absolute dependence on them, for companionship, food, clothing, sport and entertainment, as well as medical and scientific research...... ironically, we only see mankind's complete disrespect for these nonhuman providers.

Without a doubt, this must be what it is: to "bite the hand that feeds us." In fact, we have actually stomped and spit on it. Now we are faced with the inevitable aftermath.

Diseases caused by meat eating

This is evident in health reports due to our over-excessive consumption of animals. Cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, strokes, kidney stones, anemia, diabetes, and more. Even our food has now been effected, and at its very source.

With antibiotics used to promote weight gain in animals who can't gain weight under the stressful, overcrowded living conditions in factory farms, with the overuse of pesticides and insecticides, or artificial hormones designed to increase milk production, litter size, and frequency, with artificial colors, herbicides, larvicides, synthetic fertilizers, tranquilizers, growth and appetite stimulants, it’s no wonder that Mad Cow Disease, Foot and Mouth Disease, Pfiesteria, and a host of other animal-related abnormalities have been unleashed on the human public.

Nature is not responsible for these actions. We are.

Nature is not responsible for these actions. We are. So a change is inevitable. Either we make it ourselves, or we will be forced to make it by nature itself. The time has come for each of us to reconsider our eating habits, our traditions, our styles and fashions, and, above all, our thinking.

So, if there is any truth to the age-old saying: "What goes around, comes around," then what do they get for their pain? Do we even give it a second thought? If what goes around comes around, what do they get for their pain?

They are earthlings

They are earthlings. They have the right to be here just as much as humans do. Perhaps the answer is found in another age-old saying. And one equally true.

"We reap just what we sow." So of course animals feel, and of course they experience pain. After all, has nature endowed these wonderful animals with wellsprings of sentiment so that they should not feel? Or do animals have nerves in order to be insensitive? Reason demands a better answer.

they all die from pain. Each and every one

But one thing is absolutely certain. Animals used for food, used for clothing, used for entertainment, and in scientific experiments, and all the oppression that is done to them under the sun, they all die from pain. Each and every one.

Isn't it enough that animals the world over live in permanent retreat from human progress and expansion? And for many species, there is simply nowhere else to go. It seems the fate of many animals is either to be unwanted by man or wanted too much. We enter as lords of the Earth, bearing strange powers of terror and mercy alike. But human beings should love animals as the knowing love the innocent, and the strong love the vulnerable.

When we wince at the suffering of animals, that feeling speaks well of us, even if we ignore it. And those who dismiss love for our fellow creatures as mere sentimentality overlook a good and important part of our humanity. But it takes nothing away from a human to be kind to an animal. And it is actually within us to grant them a happy life, and a long one. On the heath, King Lear asked Gloucester, "How do you see the world?" And Gloucester, who is blind, answered, "I see it feelingly." "I see it feelingly."

Three primary life forces exist on this planet. Nature. Animals. And humankind. We are the earthlings. Make the connection.

We are the earthlings. Make the connection.

Here are some final thoughts from “Earthlings” director Shaun Monson on animal exploitation.

Don't buy products that are tested on animals. Medications that come from animals later have after effects and people have to stop using them. This is when we get back to food that you eat – that your food can be your remedy and your healing, not some product that coats and hides something. There is a way to be compassionate for everything and have greater health as well and not at the expense of anything.

To end animal cruelty the key step we all can take is adopting the organic vegan lifestyle. To not harm animals or the environment in our daily lives is the most benevolent way of being. We would like to sincerely thank Shaun Monson and Joaquin Phoenix as well as all those involved in the making of “Earthlings” as their documentary serves as a powerful voice for all animals in the world by calling on humanity to return to its original noble nature.

"Earthlings" may be viewed online at www.Earthlings.com
The "Earthlings" DVD is available at the same website.

Thank you for joining us for our presentation of “Earthlings” on Stop Animal Cruelty. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment after Noteworthy News. May we restore peace and harmony on our planet by honoring the rights of all sentient beings.