In the “San Diego Vegan Examiner,” a dedicated vegan column for the Los Angeles, US-based Examiner.com, writer Liz King recently discussed the implications of an undercover video and its extremely disturbing contents of farm animal cruelty.

At a randomly chosen dairy farm, investigators for the US-based vegan animal protection group, Mercy for Animals, documented weeks of daily animal abuse toward cows and their babies.

The violence was some of the worst the animal activists said they had seen and entailed such actions as ruthless beating of cows’ heads and udders with fists or crowbars, repeated stomping on calves heads, and stabbing confined cows’ udders with pitchforks.

Liz King’s thoughtful article, “Ohio's Conklin Dairy Farm Investigation Awakens the Masses,” speaks of a wish to avoid the reality of animal cruelty, which reflects a wider aversion to the cruelty of killing itself.

“As a child, I remember thinking that I loved animals and what a strange thing it was to eat them. I knew I wouldn’t eat a cat or a dog, but why? What’s the difference? So for many years, I continued to do so.
All I had to do was not think.”

VOICE: Ms. King goes on to note that almost all meat and dairy products originate from factory farms, where profit and mass production forces loss of any animal welfare. However, this cruelly produced food by no means should be accepted as a norm. “Bottom line, if you are not raising an animal for the benefit of the animal,
you are raising an animal for the benefit of you... They have given you their whole lives in the form of a single meal without thanks or even acknowledgement. It’s time to stop doing this.”

VOICE: In the final part of her essay, the writer addresses readers who may wish to stop participating in animal cruelty. “Being vegan means shouldering the knowledge that although my life choices seem only to create a miniscule dent, it is something. I can tell you that it means the world to the one cow you may
save this year alone. A whole cow. One beautiful, smart, sweet and loving, playful, funny friend who will never suffer in a factory farm.”

VOICE: Thank you, Ms. King, the San Diego Vegan Examiner and Mercy for Animals for your efforts to encourage readers to make a difference for ourselves, the planet, and our innocent co-inhabitants, the animals.
Our prayers that everyone will choose to end such brutal treatment and instead adopt the compassionate, lifesaving vegan fare for health and peace of mind.

http://www.examiner.com/x-46498-San-Diego-Vegan-Examiner
http://www.examiner.com/x-46498-San-Diego-Vegan-Examiner~y2010m6d2-Ohios-Conklin-Dairy-
Farm-Investigation-Awakens-the-Masses-Part-34