From: ac@apmaths.uwo.ca (alka chandna)
Subject: Re: UPC chicken vigil at Perdue plant in Salisbury
Organization: Applied Mathematics, University of Western Ontario
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 17:11:56 GMT

I (Alka) wrote: 

>>I would suggest that you open your eyes a little to try and understand what a 
>>chicken is all about.  Blindly accepting the notion that chickens are dumb 
>>animals that operate as automata is precisely that.  You may mock my ideas 
>>by referring to them as being "sooo moral", but at least i've arrived at my 
>>ideas by subjecting myself to scenarios which challenged aspects of my 
>>upbringing and the indoctrination of the status quo.  I wonder if you can 
>>say as much about your *thinking* (not condescending: thinking) on the issue.

To this, Jennifer responded:

>Let me insert an informed opinion.  I have raised chickens.  They are
>literally too stupid to fly away from dogs, or to come in out of a
>hail storm.  Chickens are Dumb with a capital D.  You do them a
>service by keeping them in a temperature controlled, predator free
>environ with lots of food.  Food and sex is all that motivates them.
>Perdue chicks get plenty of both.

My response to *this* is:

Great comment, Jennifer.  I certainly appreciate your close contact with 
chickens.  Do I think that your "hav(ing) raised chickens" constitutes an 
informed opinion?  Not in the least.  Reading chronicles of the views of 
white slaveholders in the Antebellum United States, one finds that these 
people felt they knew what was good for their black slaves.  Many of the 
slaveholders felt that the blacks were better of in the U.S. where they were 
"housed, fed and watered"; it was a prevailing opinion that these "
underlinks" would have been killed "barbarically" back in their villages in 
Africa by rivalling "savages", etc. etc. etc.  It's absolutely mind-
revelling to have read these accounts which I've described briefly, and then 
to read your comments.

A friend of mine is a lawyer in New York city.  She had obtained an Easter 
chick from her neighbours (who were going to throw the animal away after 
Easter) and kept him as a companion animal.  This chicken would sit at the 
table and eat with my friend, would snuggle with her in the evenings, and 
would even watch for her from the window to see if she was coming home!  In 
fact, when he did see her, he would run down the stairs, and wait for her at 
the landing, hopping up and down with excitement.  

Have you, in your extensive contact with chickens Jennifer, ever experienced 
anything so marvelous?  I would guess not.  To paraphrase Alice Walker, we 
sometimes only see in another being that which is of interest to us.  When 
raising chickens to be slaughtered, sometimes all that one sees is dollar 
signs ... how unfortunately tragic that one should lose such an 
opportunity!  And this loss is not only for the chicken who loses his or 
her life as the result of human ineptitude, but indeed, the human loses 
as well.  To paraphrase Tom Regan, there is an understanding of self that 
one obtains only by passing through the door of animal rights.

	-- alka

Xref: sparky dc.general:722 rec.food.veg:4205 talk.politics.animals:4930