Why activism?

Every second, more than 40.000 animals are needlessly murdered by us humans. If we would kill humans at that same rate, our species would be extinct within a weekend. That is ofcourse absolutely ridiculous, but nevertheless the truth, something that has been generally accepted and of which people think that it is 'just part of what we do', that it 'is necessary for your health' or that it 'couldn't be that bad, otherwise it wouldn't be like this, we wouldn't that'. The opposite is true.

What we humans do to these non-human animals, cannot be described with words. The scale and infinite ammount of different kinds of exploitation and abuse we inflict on these individuals, makes it that every example of exploitation, abuse, or even genocides between humans in our history would be almost nothing compared to it.

The consumption of meat, dairy and eggs is ofcourse the most known variant of this immense raid. Animals who are being bred for their meat, only live a fraction of what their lifespan could be. With pigs, this is often only 6 months instead of 15-20 years, with (meat)cows 2 years (or even 7-10 months for veal) instead of 15-25 years, and with chickens 6 weeks (or less than a day, see the next bit) instead of 5-10 years. In the Netherlands, there are 1.5 million chickens, 45.000 pigs and 5000 cows slaughtered every single day.

Dairy is our next item, where 'dairycows' are being forced to have a calf every year to keep the milkproduction going (different from what many people think, cows are not 'milkmachines', they are mothers who's breast milk we consume, like a sick way of breastfeeding). The calves are almost immediately separated from their mothers (what would a human-mother do if that would happen to her?). These calves become a dairy cow themselves, or a meat cow, or even a veal-cow. Dairy cows are being slaughtered as well around the age of 6 years, because het milk-production is no longer 'profitable'.

For eggs, so-called laying hens are being kept on a surface of less than 2 A4-papers per chicken (even free-range chickens only have 2 A4-papers for themselves). Most of the chickens are kept indoors and never even go outside, even with free-range chickens this could be the case (have you ever seen chickens outside?). They lay eggs constantly, somewhere between 300-500 during 17 months, after which they are being slaughtered. At birth, the hens and roosters are divided, after which the roosters will be schredded alive, unsedated, to be used for 'chicken nuggets' for example. Around 100.000 roosters are being schredded every day in the Netherlands (and this amount is nog included in the slaughter numbers mentioned earlier).

Besides this, there a countless other examples of exploitation. In a circus of zoo for example, where animals spent their entire life in captivity for our entertainment. Or they are bred and killed comparable to the meat- dairy- and eggindustry for their skins (leather, fur, etc.). Or wild animals, who are being hunted or fished upon in their own habitat. The ways in which we humans think that we are rulers of these animals, the reasons we make up to justify the way we treat these individuals, how we lock them up, let them get raped, mistreat and slaughter them like they are worth nothing, it's sickening. Who gives us the rights to tream them like this? What the fuck is wrong with us?

Be the voice they don't have. Everyone can make a difference. End abuse. End cruelty. End speciesism.