Amid the loss of human lives, limbs, homes, in the destruction of such meagre hope as formerly existed, as the huddled Gazan mass flees ululating from smashed pillar to bombed post, shocked, thirsty, hungry and terrified, it seems bizarrely sentimental, anthropomorphic to get worked up about the treatment of a donkey. There was a moment, however, early on in Gaza's internal, circular exodus which made me weep. There was a cartful of refugees, a family, I guess, maybe ten people, with all its junk, being pulled at about two miles an hour by a little donkey, tearing himself to bits.
No, I count thirteen human beings, here, maybe more.
This was a PBC piece and the man driving the cart was looking off-camera, waiting for a cue and when it came he commenced to beating the poor little creature as hard as he could with a wicked looking stick, as if to emphasise the awfulness of his own situation. Look, he seemed to be saying, I need to run away and this fucking animal won't go any faster. After enduring about a dozen furious blows the little beast just turned and shot a glance so pathetic it would have mortified a decent human being.
Here, at the other end of the Earth, I felt as though my heart had been sledgehammered. If this fat idle fuck had had half a brain he would've climbed down and walked, would've been much faster and if I had been there I would have strangled him with my bare hands and then attacked the PBC arse who had orchestrated and rehearsed the shot.
Someone at the PBC must have raised an eyebrow for the beating scene was edited out of later versions of the story; makes you wonder, though, about news reporting
and its place in showbusiness.
24 comments:
I told you previously, Mr I, that I couldn't repeat what my dad said about wogs and animals. Suffice it to say it wasn't kind to the wogs.
One can only hope, in the Hindu tradition, that the fat fuck comes back as a donkey.
Now there's a thought to which we might all usefully cling, mr mike, the beater reincarnated as the beaten.
Dostoevsky in C&P has the frenzied flogging of a horse as a marker of our ingrained evil. Everything become rotten.
Where is Nietzsche when you need him?
Animals: I don't eat them or wear them. I can look them in the eye with the respect or love they deserve.
Welcome back Mr. Ishmael; the world needs you more than ever.
Funny you should say that, mr mirage and good for you; we have been increasingly troubled by the big bovine faces which we handfeed with grass clippings, just over our garden wall, pretty, happy Jerseys, finding it impossible to look them in the eye. If it is not a howling solecism, animal welfare practice is good here. But even so.
I was a vegetarian in my twenties and it was fine, no big deal, jusy quitely. Now, we are not meat free but certainly meat less and heading in that direction.
It was kinda worse, mr bungalow bill, inasmuch as this staged frenzy, for the viewers, back home.
this was staged frenzy
My first thought chimed in with Mr Mike "and they wonder why we call them wogs".
Despicable cunts.
I used to know a print journalist once who said that the reason they were all so careful was becuase their mistakes would get printed 10,000 times before they even got home. Now, we have not even mistakes but deliberate falsifications.
It's being part of the message, Mr I. Making the story better means that there isn't a story now but a PR stunt. How about the news bringing us the frigging facts as far as they are known, and then stopping? At least in this internet age, one can search out alternatives and compare but good grief there is a lot of crap put out in the name of news.
It is the slavish following of the Murdochian 24/7 rolling news commercial which damns the PBC, in my view. News, weather, sport or other celebrity, news, weather, sport or other celebrity to the point where we find ourselves affixed to the tripe which is skymadeupnewsandfilth, across all channels, and the creation of the dire symbiosis which is MediaMinster.
Since I was a child I have wondered why is one event newsworthy and another one not ; now at least I know that what comes onto our screens and pages is honest-to-Goodness commercialism, government press releases and redneck filth, and nation shall speak shite unto nation. I said that.
I saw a program on TV a few years ago wherein a group of archaeological professors, from an Israeli university, had studied much of the content of the first five books of the old testament and had looked for any sort of evidence they could find to verify, or disprove, the claims made for the origin of the Jewish people.
The conclusion they came to was that all the Torah (first five books of bible) was fiction, written (or caused to be written) by Josiah the first "King of the Jews", in order to give himself some legitimacy.
These professors were unable to find any hard evidence of the existence of Moses and his tablets and the promise that "This land I give thee for thee and thy seed for ever" is just so much bovine excrement.
Sadly I have never been able to find any recording of that programme.
Yet people's need to believe in myth and hokum is irrepressible.
When My-kull How-ard was trade secretary, pushing through Sunday opening hours, he smirked and huffed that Oh, come now, we shouldn't be bound by these silly old customs (Sunday observance) not in the twentieth century.
A few days later I saw him on a documentary about Judaism and there he was, down the synagogue, in his shawl, chanting his oily arse off in silly old customs, customs almost twice as old as Christianity.
Hard to stomach, mr alphons, supremacists of any kind. It almost doesn't matter whether their particular scam is true or false.
The Memsahib used to be a member of the local (and best known) Donkey Sanctuary until she realised it was more interested in money-making than was healthy and so left. But some of the stories we used to read - even allowing for blatant emotional blackmail - were truly horrific. Everywhere the poor little buggers are used in the world they are disgracefully overworked by people who can't really be sentient ... and therefore inhuman in my book.
With you as one on the matter of strangling the brain dead fuckwits ... and the so-called journalist who set up the scene.
I think I have mentioned previously Mr AC Grayling's maxim on speciesism but it deserves a regular revival:
If all the animals in the world joined together to form a religion we would be its Devil.
I don't think my views on charity organisations need repeating; how long is it, now, that Oxfam's been going?
According to Wiki they became established in 1942.
Oxfam claims 82 pence in every pound goes on aid, 9 p to 'support costs' and the remaining 9p invested for future revenue. Hmmmm. I spent a few years in the Middle East and can testify that the Arabs are as cruel and unfeeling to their beasts as they are to their co-religionists.
I have heard good things of the Brooke, and SPANA, looking after donkeys and horses in the sandy areas. They take away the barbed wire bits and hand out snaffles, trim hooves and treat sores, and try to teach children that animals need love and care. A drop in the ocean, perhaps, but it has to start somewhere.
I suspect that if the beating was edited out it wasn't out of concern for the poor little creature, more a fear of alienating viewers from the humans.
I hope that's true, mrs n, and that some of them care more for their charges than for their own bureauceacy; the individuals I encountered at the Dogs Trust were an affront to everything in Creation.
Someone should teach the children to love something other than consumption. Always minded of the Ancient Mariner: he prayeth well who loveth well both man and bird and beast.
1942. That'sa a long time holding Villainy's coat for him. I don't doubt that on an individual, case-by-case level many owe the limbs and their lives to GlobaGive in all its forms, just seems to be that as long as they trumpet their willingness to clear up after the four horsepersons then we all remain in danger of being trampled by them. I also think that the levels of the senior salaries are nothing short of obscene. As long as one man insists that he is worth a hundred and sixty grand a year while his customers are not worth a drink of water then, well, I dunno, I'm speechless, really, wordless.....not part of any solution, Oxfam's CEO.
Alas for the poor Donkey. Perhaps Allah will be merciful and direct an Israeli shell to relieve him of his burden. I have always been surprised by the mistreatment of animals, especially ones on which people have some form of dependency. But as an old hippy once explained to me, many years ago, somewhere in the arse end of India (in a bar, of course), when I expressed surprise at some of the things I had seen, "poor people have poor ways". A cliche now, I suppose, but at the time a revelation to the newly graduated me (you can learn a lot of "fuck all" at University - I'm being unkind). However, equine abuse is not limited to the Middle East and the 'rabs - plenty goes on here (mostly of the neglect rather than active abuse variety judging from the local papers around here. I'm with you on the matter of Globa-Give, Mr I. Their perfidious influence is everywhere. These fucking 'sponsor me to go on holiday, go on a bike ride, walk the dog to the newsagent...' forms that circulate around... Grrrr! SG
P.S. what happened to your 'Porno-Britain' piece? 'tis gone..SG.
I dunno, blogger is playing up, mr sg.
Anyway, all this talk of animal cruelty has pushed me, no, encouraged me, to vegetarianism, in the hope that I might feel a wee bit better about myself. I wouldn't try to persuade anyone else, it's all moot, the food chain; the worms'll eat me in the end, even as ashes.
Talk is cheap Mr I - and don't be too hard on yourself. SG
No, I wasn't beating myself up, I don't feel bad about myself, well no more than I deserve, it's just that sometimes I travel down on the Shetland boat and the smell on the cattle lorry deck of piss and terror poleaxes me and as I said, I live in farmland surrounded for part of the year by cattle and sheep, y'know, I pat them, talk to them, sometimes round them up if they get out. It's just become harder and harder to eat them, too.
Yes very difficult, Mr I, when one gets to know some of the other creatures orbiting the sun with us. Many of the other 'higher' mammals also seem to have the characteristics of individuals (though, as a species we tend towards anthropomorphism, so this may just be an illusion or wishful thinking on my part). Of course, most of the animals you talk to etc. would not exist were it not for the livestock trade. But you know all this and all the arguments, I am sure, so shall not tire you with them again here. Personally I shall carry on eating meat (perhaps it is in some ways "willing flesh"). Would I kill and butcher it myself? Yes, if I had to, but I am glad of the slaughter-houses and butchers to spare me that onerous task. Regarding the transportation of animals, I agree entirely, much better that it were all done locally - then transport the meat. But Globa-Corp feels no empathy for fellow creatures (not among the 'stakeholder' groups they consult or should that be 'steakholder'...) SG
I think I have heard most of the arguments and I don't go as far as PETA but maybe as far as vegetarianism and Beauty without Cruelty, if they still exist.
As for killing meat myself, that would depend, obviously, on how hungry I was.
Post a Comment