From Robert Grillo, Free From Harm
Happy New Year! I feel so content looking back on 2011, but of course any
major effort in life is full of mixed emotions. As an eternal optimist I
promise I will leave you with good reason for optimism if you get to the end
of these highlights from my year as freefromharm.org's founder and editor.
Comfortably numb
Some of my saddest moments this year were at the dinner table with friends
and acquaintances, listening to the talk of these well-educated and
well-intentioned people who make absolutely no connection between the
animals they are eating and the animals they love as pets. Some glaring
examples are the dog lovers who also declare their love of ham and bacon
while denying the identity of the animal behind the food, never referring
directly to the pig, who is as sentient as their pet dogs and, according to
most behaviorist, possesses the intelligence of a 3-year-old child. At such
moments I am reminded of Ed Van Winkle, a slaughterhouse worker, who is
featured in the book, Slaughterhouse by Gail A. Eisnitz. "Pigs down on the
kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had
to kill them... I can't care," he says.
What is unnecessary
Two years as a vegan has strengthened my resolve that animal products are a
completely unnecessary part of our diets, thanks to visionaries like Colleen
Patrick-Goudreau who gave such an impassioned talk at the 2011 World Veg
Fest. Gary Francione helped me understand that subjecting 58 billion land
animals a year to a life of misery to feed our planet's population is not
just unnecessary; the only justification we have for doing so is that we
like the way they taste. Francione asks us to see the intrinsic value
animals possess in and of themselves instead of a value defined by the
extent to which they serve as a "human resource." Dr. Adiel Tel-Oren helped
me understand how protein becomes toxic, a source of pollution to our
bodies, in our age of animal protein worship where marketers would have us
believe we can never get too much. The works of Melanie Joy gave me a deeper
understanding of the psychology and sociology of why we eat some animals and
love others without questioning the moral schizophrenia behind our actions.
Zoe Weil made me realize how important humane education is in educating a
generation of "solutionaries" who can successfully tackle all the big issues
we face today. And there are countless other famous and not so famous
visionaries who have left deep and lasting impressions on me. One of those
is a 9-year-old named Justice.
The 9-year-old Who Gets It
My friend Marla's nine-year-old son Justice moved me with the homemade video
he made for his class to explain why he is vegan. What strikes me as so
utterly ironic about children like Justice is that their emotional
intelligence is clearly more evolved than that of many grown folks who have
regressed into a state of, well, comfortable numbness. As a result, I find
some of my most engaging conversations with young people these days. They
hold the key to a future that does not rely on violence and exploitation of
animals, humans and the environment.
The Wing Bar
In the video short I produced this fall called The Wing Bar, I take my
viewers on a journey that starts with the Chicken Wing Bar at the
supermarket, to a cottage in California where I befriend the chickens there
in a matter of hours, then back to my home to see what it's like to live
with four rescued hens, and finally inside a chicken factory farm to
ultimately discover where all the wings are coming from.
Rats with More Empathy Than Humans?
While I focus on animals in agriculture, the recent University of Chicago
rat study has such universal importance, I could not help but write about
this. The story became by far the most popular page on the website, ever.
Now I don't support the use of animals in research, but nonetheless, the
findings of this study are absolutely sobering and should give us all pause.
Researchers show that rats engage in empathy-driven behavior, helping to
free a trapped cagemate for no reward other than relieving its fellow rat's
distress. Rats chose to help each other out of traps, even when a stash of
delicious chocolate chips was on the line. Now what's truly fascinating and
sobering is the fact that humans have evolved to a point where they can
block their natural empathy for other sentient beings in distress. We can
live in denial about suffering and show no mercy whatsoever, but a rat, a
species we commonly view as nothing more than a "pest," exhibits an
unwavering perseverance to alleviate distress in his mates. What does this
say about how we define intelligence? I believe we need to seriously re
evaluate this!
The emerging Free from Harm community
I'll leave you with my happiest and most satisfying thought this year. I
launched freefromharm.org with the goal of reaching as many people as
possible with what I believe is an urgent message, literally a matter of
life and death for billions of innocent, sentient beings as well as the
survival of the very habitat that sustains life. Never in my wildest dreams
did I imagine that freefromharm.org would be getting 13,000 new visitors per
month and visibility by countless others who interact with all of our social
media touch points. These results drive my enthusiasm to push ahead and make
all the time and effort so worth while. I move into 2012 ready to seize this
momentum knowing that there is much more work that needs to be done.
May the new year bring you all that you hope for!
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