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.