Richard Mellor
This woman's presentation is brilliant. I lived in an English village for a while and we had pigs. It started when a local farmer, a friend of my dad gave us. a runt. It couldn't compete for the teat and would die he said.
We named her Annabelle. She lived in the house with us and was a domesticated animal. She eventually got too big and we had to put her outside. Our kitchen window was at ground level and we used to sit at the table eating our breakfast looking out in to the big back yard we had.
Then Annabelle came up to it. She didn't like being outside and was irritated we could see. We guessed what was going to happen but couldn't stop it and Annabelle jumped straight through the kitchen window on to our table as we ate.
By this time dad saw some money in raising pigs and we had another runt called Suzi but she didn't live inside. He got a couple more and before long I had to go to a farm a couple of miles away and walk this boar named Jumbo back to serve our sows. He did a good job except that Annabelle would have none of it. She would allow him to mate and damn near chewed his ear off. She was a domestic pet. She bit the vet once too.
But our pigs were range fed if that's what it's called. So were our chickens. We gave them human food and once dad gave them ten gallons of off mild. People of my age will remember that beer ( I lived in a pub). They all got drunk.
My sister and I would go out in to the back yard and sit with the pigs around a fire and we'd roast marshmallows. I had a chat with a friend on Facebook from back in those days and he reminded me of the times hanging with the pigs. It did not last. My dad sold Annabelle and I remember the truck from the abattoir coming to pick some pigs up and Annabelle was one of them. I remember her screams as they pulled her up this ramp with me protesting and crying alongside them. I never forgave my dad for that and have never forgotten it.
This woman's comments are important and right on. They are very powerful and she delivers them with great sincerity. When she raises at the end about the big "elephant in the fucking room". I thought she was going to refer to capitalism. But no matter. She is very clear that we have to change how we produce food and that we need to shift to a more plant based diet.
I do not think it is wrong to eat meet that is "grown" in a healthy way by small producers. Or when people eat what they hunt. It is industrial farming that is threatening the planet. I am not sure how it should be organized but it has to change and it will not change without a revolutionary upheaval and the end of capitalism and the madness of the market. As the speaker points out, and it's something we all know, the owners of the means of producing food, the agricultural giants along with their media, their scientists and their control of the universities and all education, lie to us all the time. They lied to us about climate change, they lied to us about cigarettes, they lied to us about the need to kill three million Vietnamese and the so-called threat of international terrorism. The so called legitimate forces in society are the liars and the terrorists.
The amount of money advertising the need to eat meat is astronomical.
This is a very good presentation from someone who knows, someone from the shop floor as we say.
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