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EDITORIAL  Animal Cruelty & Religion BY A KUMAR EDITORIAL, Oct 15 (VNN) — I have been a member of the Iskcon Chicago congregation for 15 years & am a life member. Over the last six months or so I was searching for something " selfless" to do. Many alternatives appeared such as helping at " Soup kitchens" or visiting old peoples homes etc etc. It occurred to me that an old infirm individual could communicate his need for thirst or food & a compassionate soul would respond accordingly. At the same time I realized the cruelty that is effected on almost every animal on the face of mother earth. These sentient beings are mute & have no choice but to bear this agony. This treatment has worsened in the last 50 years or so because of factory farming. So I decided to work for animal welfare. Having chosen my field of endeavor I set out to learn all I could from the various Compassionate Societies & Organizations. I contacted & became a member of a dozen or more of them, including PETA, Doris Day foundation, In Defense of Animals, Compassionate Action for Animals & started a dialogue also with the Illinois Humane Political Action Committee. Whose Co-chair, Dr Steven Gross, I then invited to come to the " Hari-Om" Mandir in Medinah, Illinois to speak to us about Cows. The congregation being Hindu, he spoke about Dairy Cows. I am attaching an article " Veganism versus Vegetarianism" I subsequently wrote & it was published in several weekly Indian Newspapers. Dr Gross is a Vegan, knowing how I was raised in India- the cow is revered for many reasons including the fact that it is like a mother giving us milk. I tried to become a Vegan but relented to being a Vegetarian. I thought to myself - that in the USA because of the torture that dairy cows go through, we should not be putting money in the hands of the cruel Factory dairy Owners by outlawing Prasad made with from store bought milk. Restrict it to ONLY prasad made from milk from Iskcon farms. If this could be made a requirement for every ISKCON temple it would immediately boost the milk requirements for the " Cruelty Free Milk". So I contacted the local temple President & also reconnected with BalaBhadra das who I had met on a visit to the Iskcon community started by Maduha Das in North Carolina. The connection having been made from a Chicago Devotee Mitrasena das who had moved there. I learnt that Balabhadra das was the "Minister of Agriculture" for Iskcon; but without funding & also talking to several individuals who are now members of the " Cow Conference" an email group of about 80 people from 26 countries I was horrified to learn that even at the Iskcon farms the male calf's future is very uncertain. Even in India at the Iskcon farms males have been sent to slaughter. Dr Gross's son Aaron was head of Peta in India & was very effective in curtailing the Indian Leather trade because of the cruel marches the cattle were put to, to get to slaughter. Peta has been asking about the cow protection at Iskcon farms & obviously I am at a loss for words!!!! I am really disturbed having been a lifetime member of Iskcon to realize that the leadership seems more enamored by building bigger & bigger monuments to Lord Krishna & yet allowing the herd at the Iskcon farms to in many cases be selectively slaughtered. Paying lip service to the issues of Cow Protection. I was so disturbed that I wanted to write to every GBC member & to each & every temple president & plead for them to regain their bearing. I am sure there is an explanation for this state of affairs but I cannot imagine it to be valid. . In my efforts to expose the cruelty to animals I have drafted the following article soon to be published. In it I am offering the free CD to anyone with a CD burner & willing to make atleast 4 copies to give to meat eating friends or acquaintances. ( 100 CD's will be distributed, first come first served). Send mailing address to chalissa1@aol.com CRUELTY FREE LIVING: We are truly unaware of the support we lend to cruel practices by our purchases & the selections we make for our food & clothing, if only we knewÉÉ.. The fact of the matter is that we can choose to make compassionate selections when we shop- and often we will end up with products that are healthier, more economical & more ecological when we shop cruelty free. EGGS: Lets take the case of eggs. Most of us feel that there is no cruelty in eating them, even Vegetarians feel quite justified since there is, on the surface, no loss of life. We think that the hens roam free & we humans take a few eggs leaving the rest for the propagation of the species. Not true! This perhaps may have been the case several decades ago. Today's Egg factories would unnerve even the thick skinned ones among us. There are typically 8 hens to a cage each having about 53 square inches of space/hen, not enough to even spread their wings. They are on a slanted wire mesh cage so the eggs roll into a tray that captures them. The feed & water are in troughs & these cages are stacked one atop of another. The chicken manure falling through the cage to both cages & hens below and to a steel pan that has a scraping mechanism to gather & collect it. In such close proximity hens tend to peck at each other, so a de-beaking procedure is instituted- where hot knives cut through cartilage bone & muscle of the beak. The egg layers are genetically bred to lay 10 times more eggs than the norm. Egg laying comes in cycles & is disrupted & restarted if no food & water is given for up to 18 days.- This is called forced molting. Many hens die during this process. In Illinois House, a bill was proposed by the Illinois Humane PAC to ban the practice of forced molting & de-beaking, this was in April 2001. Though having over 16 cosponsors, It was defeated by the agriculture committee. Is your legislator on the Agriculture Committee? Let your state legislator know you want laws that promote animal welfare! All layer hens are slaughtered every year and a half or so. These hens having lived their entire lives in a wire cage, are often featherless, unable to walk, sick & have extremely brittle bones. Tired & ill, these birds are often trucked thousands of miles to Canada, without food or water to be slaughtered. If they are not trucked, sometimes the birds are buried alive, in a process the producers call " Composting" Replacements for laying hens are subject to the same cruelties. In addition, half of the chicks are males who are of no economic value. Often they are killed by being thrown alive in plastic bags one falling on top of another until all are dead from suffocation. You may think this is perhaps a small number, Not so. About three hundred million male chicks experience this inhumane killing every year. In order to speed up the killing process some facilities have set up decompression chambers & the male chicks explode & are collected as fodder for the mink farms. So the egg, creamy oval & polished is in fact tainted with blood, the blood of the bleeding beaks & the millions of male chicks that perish So we humans can enjoy Eggs Florentine & Eggs benedict & the flaky pastries & omelets. VEAL: Veal is the white meat of a newly born or young calf. In order to maximize profits. The newborn is taken away from its wailing mother within hours & at most 3 days & put in a dark confining stall, where it cannot even turn around. It stays in a fixed position for several weeks and is fed gruel with no iron, so that the meat retains its white color. The animal becomes very anemic & has diarrhea yet its weight increases sufficiently for it to be profitable for the Businessman to do this. The first time the calf sees daylight is en-route to the slaughter house. In other words veal is the white tender meat of a sick anemic baby animal. TURKEYS: Even first generation Americans feel very much at home in our new country of allegiance to thank the Lord for our blessings at Thanksgiving by participating heartily in this tradition of enjoying our largesse by eating turkey. The sad part is that the turkey perhaps is giving thanks that its short painful existence has come to an end. Turkeys are bred to have huge breasts. This is what humans like on their plate. So much so that both males & females have these characteristics & are so lopsided that they cannot mate. The species is propagated by artificial insemination every few weeks. This process is harsh & cruel, and aptly called " The rape rack" by the industry. Birds run in terror as they are kicked, hit & otherwise subdued by those who forcibly inseminate them. These animals are confined in pens & are transported without food or water to the slaughterhouses & many perish en route, sometimes due to inclement weather. CHICKENS The Law requires that animals destined for slaughter be stunned & rendered unconscious, unless they are destined for ritual killing. This Law does not apply to poultry & therefore does not apply to chickens; they are transported to the slaughterhouse, then strung upside down on rows of stirrups with their heads hanging down & on a conveyor belt. A rotating knife severs their neck to a bleeding tank a de-feathering tank etc, etc. There are about 18 to 20 million chickens slaughtered in the USA every day in this fashion. About 165 million broilers are scalded alive every year in the United States. BEEF: Despite the fact that federal law requires all cattle not ritually slaughtered be stunned before being killed, a large " error" rate is tolerated by the industry so that hundreds of thousands of cattle end up by having their throats slit while fully conscious each year. Many are still conscious as their hooves & legs are cut off, and some even after their hides are ripped off . See Gail Eisnitz' expose in the Washington Post earlier this year " They die bit by bit". Those that go through ritual slaughter are strung up on one leg while fully conscious & their throat slit half way. These thrash about upside down, screaming in agony, for up to several minutes till the blanket of death envelops them. Many of the cattle become lame from being on concrete floors, these are called " downers". They get moved by being dragged by winches, a most painful process. See the " Meet your Meat" VHS tape put out by PETA ( People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) which shows a cow being dragged in this gory fashion. SHEEP A very significant percentage of the world's wool comes from Australia. The Shearing operation is usually started a few weeks before the weather has warmed up, primarily for business reasons, upto a million sheep perish due to this. The shearing operation for those that have witnessed it say it is one of the cruelest treatment meted out to any animal. The speed with which this is done with sharp shears takes apart noses, ears & other parts of the animal and practically all are injured in one way or another. In order to get finer wool some sheep have the skin removed from their legs! These sheep are transported live to the middle east by ship that may take several weeks they are herded without any room to move about, many pregnant ewes give birth & the newborns are trampled on disembarking. Usually these sheep are part of a ritual, the process of dying may take several hours from start to finish. PIGS Factory Farming is in vogue. The animals are confined in small pens & kept in low level lighting to minimize movement and fed antibiotics to stave off disease. The breeding sow is confined so that she cannot even stand, she lays on the side so that the piglets have easy access to the teats. At the time of slaughter - the pigs skin is to be softened by boiling water. The animal is supposed to be stunned, but like the cattle many are missed & are literally boiled alive. DOGS & CATS: PUPPY MILLS: When you walk into a Pet store & look at the limpid eyes of a little dog or cat & tempted to take it home! If you did you would be supporting an industry thriving on cruelty, inadequate care & complete callousness towards the animals they breed & sell. Many of these puppy mills have animals suffering from all kinds of serious diseases & rarely if ever get veterinary care. They are in close confinement. The companion animals that we see with doting owners is the case for the fortunate few, those that are in these puppy mills languish under extreme cruelty. It is a business to make money & maximize it In Korea there are many facilities where dogs are raised for meat, they are tenderized by putting them in a sack & beating them to death, cats are boiled alive for pharmaceutical reasons. FUR: This is truly a travesty. Man made fibers today outdo fur in every way & fur as adornment is not necessary, at all. Baby seals bludgeoned to death in front of their crying, wailing mothers! Leg traps & body traps for wolves & foxes & other unfortunate creatures. Animals have gnawed of a foot to get free. Even in the farms - minks are raised in abominable conditions & put to death through electrocution between genitals & the ear; others through injections- not painless but through use of chemicals that are cheap but take many, many minutes of suffering in agony! Is this what you would give your lover! To nestle their nose & chin into? ANIMAL TESTING: The Governments would never do this! But imagine instead of the labels that most foods carry- telling you of Sodium & Cholesterol & Potassium, saturated & unsaturated. Set up your own Moral & ethical Chart that spells out: Pain content- how much was the suffering involved in making this product. Were animals subjected to extreme pain or not- again Peta put out an expose called " Biosearch - Animal experimentation" just plain awful! Boycott all the products that use animal testing- The list is available through Peta. Unfortunately the testing done is not always reasonable- it is sometimes for protection against litigation. In other cases the results are not transferable to humans from animal testing. CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS: Perhaps it may give us joy & we puff up with pride when we give a few dollars to charity! Be picky many Charities endorse & fund Cruelty! Animal testing. DON'T BE PASSIVE: Dr Steve Gross who is co-chair of the Illinois PAC for the humane treatment of Animals is doing selfless work & has been doing so for decades; he is the author's mentor. If you would like to play an active role in living cruelty free & turning the tide by providing your time or other resources please contact Dr Gross . His email is Sgross@ais.net If you believe in not contributing to cruelty, then check out the companies that get your $'s & make sure that they practice compassionate treatment of all beings. If you would like to know more about this look up the Peta fact sheets as follows: http://www.peta.org/mc/facts.html The " Meet Your Meat" VHS tape put out by Peta is available as a CD-rom. If you have a CD burner & willing to make atleast 4 copies to give to your meat eating friends then get your free copy by sending your mailing address to Chalissa1@aol.com Learn to live cruelty free; the sentient beings of the world thank you!  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