Yeah, employees. Right.
May. 1st, 2008 12:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
So, I just read this post on Ravelry, and my head nearly exploded. For those who can't go there, it's a thread about Australian wool being cruel because of mulesing. Here's the post:
Bolding mine, of course.
Yeah, 'cuz when you own your employees and they're considered property, it's called slavery. Vacations? What the fuck? You can't go, "Hey, Bossie! Enjoy your weekend! Hope you don't get mastitis!" Because livestock are not people. They never will be!
Stop anthropomorphizing, goddammit.
If the climates and pest situations are so different, why are people raising sheep there in the first place if the environment isn’t suited to them? It’s like trying to start a massive pineapple farm in Canada and then building a gas-powered greenhouse to suit it. There are clearly better solutions.
Honestly, there are so many other great yarns out there to knit with that I could be a happy knitter for years without getting wool. I also know that for no reason should a small (or large) business have a right to cause unnecessary pain solely because of the bottom line, and operate my own animal-related business in the same manner. When you’re in this business, the animals are your employees and you have to treat them as such- benefits, vacations, and all.
Bolding mine, of course.
Yeah, 'cuz when you own your employees and they're considered property, it's called slavery. Vacations? What the fuck? You can't go, "Hey, Bossie! Enjoy your weekend! Hope you don't get mastitis!" Because livestock are not people. They never will be!
Stop anthropomorphizing, goddammit.
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Date: 2008-05-01 10:56 am (UTC)As for raising sheep in this country, well it's been done successfully for a couple of hundred years now, so I'd say that it is suited. Sheep as employees? That's a novel way to look at it...!
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Date: 2008-05-01 04:31 pm (UTC)>Sheep as employees? That's a novel way to look at it...!
How do you get a sheep to sign a contract? Are they unionized? Do they get get two breaks for every eight hour shift?
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Date: 2008-05-02 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-01 11:06 am (UTC)It can be really easy to anthropomorphize animals, especially pets. I'm guilty of it all the time with my dogs. But I do also recognize that they're DOGS, and their needs/desires are much different than mine. And I'm ultimately responsible for their care, because in a lot of ways they can't do it themselves.
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Date: 2008-05-01 04:20 pm (UTC)I'll get behind animals needing vacations just as soon as they start paying taxes.
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Date: 2008-05-01 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-01 12:05 pm (UTC)Does the farmer/shepherd get to go on vacation with the sheep? Because I know Miss Ginsie would NOT want to go on vacation without me! Okay, maybe she would but it would be with my Mom and/or Dad then....aka "Camp Grandma". No anthropomorphizing there, huh? :-)
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Date: 2008-05-01 12:47 pm (UTC)I'm certain the shepherds would rather do without, but there seems to be no viable alternative, and there's a lot of people in Aus who are dependant on the industry.
Regarding anthropomorphizing; ya, everyone does it, but people these days are so isolated from farming as children that they have trouble dealing with the realities of food and animal product production. My brother had a pet steer named "Fred". He was delicious.
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Date: 2008-05-01 03:25 pm (UTC)>I'm certain the shepherds would rather do without, but there seems to be no viable alternative, and there's a lot of people in Aus who are dependant on the industry.
The Australian government is actually working to phase mulesing out by 2009 or 2010. There are new technologies being made available, but it's only been in the past 5-10 years that they've caught on. Which doesn't really change the fact that shepherds aren't mulesing because they think it's a hell of a good time.
>Regarding anthropomorphizing; ya, everyone does it, but people these days are so isolated from farming as children that they have trouble dealing with the realities of food and animal product production. My brother had a pet steer named "Fred". He was delicious.
That's exactly what pisses me off so much about the division between urban and rural people. People who have never lived near a farm before do so, and then they start complaining about how the smell of the manure is destroying their bucolic home.
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Date: 2008-05-01 05:53 pm (UTC)Oh my. This almost compares the the argument I got into with a vegan friend who thought shearing a sheep kills it. She thought that a sheep could be shorn once, then it died. Like a bee stinging and dying. It's seeming like everyone should have to do a turn through the FFA.
And this is why I tend to stay out of the Ravelry forums.
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Date: 2008-05-02 04:59 am (UTC)I love you icon!
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Date: 2008-05-02 05:00 am (UTC)Thanks!
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Date: 2008-05-06 05:07 am (UTC)