From: viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)
Subject: Re: Eating killed animals (was Re: Gun Control Petition)
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Distribution: can
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 09:39:49 GMT

	NOTE: I just replied to Rosemary in t.p.a. only (I hope!), and those
interested might look for the article on this with my name.

g9rwaigh@cdf.toronto.edu (Rosemary Waigh) writes:

>Actually there are many people who are dying of starvaton.  If we are going to
>grow more grain than we need, it seems to me that it would be better used to
>feed those who already exist rather than breeding animals to eat it.

	Will you pay for the grain?  Starving people tend to have little money
or other items for trade, and virtually all grain is grown for profit.  If
the Somali's are starving, that doesn't make me empty the corn bins.  When
the grain elevator offers $4.50/bu, *that* empties the bins.  The grain is a
product that can be used to feed many animals or people; the ones who get the
food will be the ones who put the most money in my pocket afterwords.

	Economics are the issue here, not who is starving.  Have you sent
your petition to the Egyptian government yet?  The Aswan dam has turned the
Nile delta into a virtual desert compared to the 400 people/acre it could
support prior to the dam.  This is just one more example of how money,
not plucked heartstrings, talks.

>Why cultivate this land at all, if it will just produce a surplus of food?

	Because it is profitable, that's why.  Telling the farmer in the
Amazon not to cut another tree because it might hurt the environment is a
rather weak argument when the soil is depleted in his fields, and telling
the farmer in North America to leave that forest because there's already
enough food in the world is similarly weak.  I tell ya what: I'll pledge
to keep my 50 acres of woodland uncultivated if somebody will pledge $50K
American per year for me to do so, adjusted annually for inflation.  Deal?

>As a child I often visited my best friend's dad's pig farm.

	Did you learn anything?  Tell me what *you* saw, and why it was
done.  Did that pig farm represent the vast majority of operations?

>And the poster who wrote an idyllic fantasy about the lives lead by beef
>cattle doesn't?  I think once more people find out what really is going on
>on farms and how unnecessary eating meat is, meat consumption will decline
>even further.

	It might, Rosemany, but your posts certainly aren't informing people
of what is "really" going on.  Strange thing, that.

>This is a common stereotype, that anyone who cares about animals is a city
>slicker who knows nothing about them.  However this stereotype is untrue.  I
>myself grew up in the woods a few miles out from Almonte, Ontario, population
>~4000.  I happen to be living in Toronto right now to attend university, but
>I am hardly a city slicker.

	I grew up on a farm outside Woodbine, Iowa, population ~1000; I am in
the middle of farm and cattle country, and I have *never* seen what you
regurgitate in these posts.  I also left the farm for an education, and have
no desire to return to farming in any way or form, so I've no vested interest.

>I suppose constant exposure to violence from an early age could desensitize
>one.  

	And constant exposure to propaganda spouted by ill-informed
and highly-motivated individuals could similarly change your outlook on
reality.  It might make you forget that there will be cases of abuse, but
that the vast majority of this world don't behave this way.

< Dan Sorenson, DoD #1066 z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu viking@iastate.edu >
<  ISU only censors what I read, not what I say.  Don't blame them.  >
<  "This isn't an answer, it's a pagan dance around a midnight fire  >
<   written in intellectual runes." -- Rich Young                    >
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