SUNDAY SCARIES
OF WOMEN, OF FREEDOM
Written By: Fahrenheit
The freedom to exist is one that men enjoy from birth, it is simply given to them upon arrival. For women, freedom is a hand-me-down, something that has perpetually been passed down with limited change. Their freedoms are common amongst men, whose freedom is always bought fresh off the market. This market of patriarchy is one that seeks to hand victories to women that become too troublesome to withhold further, but allows men to remain in control of female identity and intellectual expression. Men should hold no greater privilege or acceptance than that of women, as the validity of male rights are acquired through the abuse of women. Women are held to the strict moral gaze of men and when the time comes for women to obtain the “freedoms” of men, it is done so with the utmost prejudice. This perpetuates the male identity of women as subservient or “second”, allowing them to decide what they wish women to have access to, and further barring them from their true self. Patriarchy is embedded within supremacy and oppression, and understanding the intersection of these concepts is important to the progression of women in a society that has long been built to hold them down.
Patriarchy is a sludge upon femininity, it is a parasite that seeks to weigh down the minds of women with its sickness and subjugate it. Feminine identity and survival can only prevail with an advanced sense of self awareness, sexual liberation, and social independence from the patriarchy. If women were offered the same liberties they would find within themselves the same resources that all authentic beings contain, and would relinquish their shackles of masculine oppression. Toxic masculine culture perpetuates the subjugation of women through sexual oppression by shaming women for indulging in their sexual desires, denying truly liberating freedoms without strings attached or the interest of men taking precedent, and denying them a social position of power within a world that is full of freedoms. Patriarchy seeks to encapsulate the woes of women in an effort to create simplicity of their problems. This ensures that men may view the problems of women without a need for greater understanding and may downplay these issues with prejudice. This system of structural violence against women allows men to circumnavigate the worries of women and funnel in hollow victories and modifications in a world built to supply men.
In this turmoil of nothingness that women find when approaching men about the liberties they are denied, women often find ridicule and a sharp tone of disdain based on a sickness passed from father to heir. This sickness is the male experience, a privilege that most men will never reflect upon as their lives will never ask them to. They may find themselves often in a position of oppression without ever knowing that their simple existence of freedom is overbearing. Containing a freedom of sexual liberation, social validation, and a reassuring nod of approval as other men take stances of solidarity within the experience. The experience of men creates conflict as men never question what this experience entails, and how it often rips the freedom of choice from women violently. The tribulations of women who experience sexual violence, the horrors of domestic abuse, and the infantilization of women are all factors of an experience that men never had to learn. The conversation of sex, of liberties, and of voice were passed on without any talk of their denial, that men cannot experience someone denying them any of these things and so we see men take from women constantly. Patriarchy ensures that the system of creation and taking flourishes, as women constantly create beauties within a world that wants to rob them blind under the guise of equality and the delusion that choice is free. The illusions of a male world would see the progress of men maintained while women are bartered a quarter of what true freedom really is.
Women and allies alike should seek to cripple the patriarchy's control over female autonomy through direct action and the presentation of female intellectual freedom without male inclusion. Women expressing their frustration through direct action amplifies the message that oppression will not be tolerated, and that women will not simply stand by and allow male dominance to eradicate their voice. Allies of women should do their utmost to ensure that no voice prevails over women, and that the podium of free thought is open to their voice and to their presence. To be an ally to a woman is to uphold their position as equal in all aspects, and to recognize that their experience is not paved with gold and good intentions, but instead it was forged with blood, sweat, and tears to ensure that one day women would exist free of male hands forcing them down. This perseverance of women can be the anvil feminine steel is forged on, and with those tools at their disposal we may soon see a day where women walk free of patriarchy. The right for women to exist freely is a right that we should all seek to ensure, and one that we should find pride in fighting for.
YOU ARE ANARCHISM
As told by: Kevin Bacon
Anthropology will argue that within the very fiber of our being is the innate inclination for hierarchy. Yet have we gone so far in our need for solidarity that we have skewed the concept of mutual aid into the indoctrination of authority? If the answer is yes, then we must recognize the common theme within the framework of all power structures. That is that these institutions can only operate under the assumption that their authority is absolute in terms of possible and impossible. Whether we’re examining imperialist capitalism or authoritarian communism, yes, we see clear dichotomous methodologies yet we can not allow this to dilute our view from their synonymous nature of limiting freedom and undermining equality
It is their perversion of absolute truth that makes hierarchical structures set off on the ridged path towards total totalitarian rule. Thus their foundation and entire conceptualized authority relies on our limited thinking. For the system to maintain itself, we must believe in the survival of not only the structure, but the society as whole. However history paints another picture when it comes to the human condition and our relationships with hierarchies. That is the very vibrant illustration of humanity’s discord in the face of oppression which is more prevalent now than ever. This opposition to unjust authority is found in social movements and political revolutions throughout the World. From Hong Kong to Chile, from Feminism to Black Lives Matter, the urge to strike back for our right to a better quality of life is seen over and over again in every corner of the globe.
With the pervading presence of defiance to governance, we must conclude that these systems are in complete contrast to what we actually desire. State indoctrination has manipulated our need for each other into a false narrative of dependency on them. Thus further alienating our identity as individuals as we are classified by construct on top of construct. Their exploitative dominion can only cease to exist once we acknowledge the alternate path of anarchism. Which will result in the rejection of these power seekers who pit freedom against equality with the sole purpose of their self-endurance. It is with anarchism we will come to learn that the greater the freedom, the greater the equality.
Before we look at why you’re most likely already an anarchist, we must examine what anarchism truly means. Anarchism serves as a moral baseline for our individual sovereignty. We have a general consensus of unwavering individual freedom that comes at the expense of no other individual. This voluntary agreement is the foundation for mutual aid. With the individual free to explore and create with the skills provided to them from the autonomy of their mind and body. This self exploration through experience and gained expertise, we accept that we alone do not command enough aptitude to run all the means of productions by ourselves for ourselves as mere individuals. Our mutual aid must be expanded from the respect of individual liberties to incorporate communal cohesiveness as it is imperative to our continued existence as a species. Yet, we uphold that this cooperation must not be centralized as this is corrosive to the framework of our intent. Intent focused on a bottom-up, direct action based in participatory democracy that will ensure each individual's needs are met adequately. While to most this is considered radical idealism due to our limited scope of awareness. It is important to understand that life without government existed for 97% of human history. Our continued presences on Earth makes the sustainability of a stateless, classless society viable.
We do not view the world as finite as structural institutions do or propagate this fear to harness power to use over individuals. Our revolution is an ongoing struggle of perpetual motion towards progress. We do not wish to liberate the world, but have the world wish to be liberated. It is about planting the seeds of solidarity and individual sovereignty in the hearts and minds of as many people we can. Knowing that someday, somewhere equality for all will truly be the universal sentiment of consensual expression of all people. This is why direct action is vital to keep anarchism alive and prosperous. We must continuously challenge all authority to demonstrate proof of their validity. When any system can not prove it serves our best interest it must be deemed oppressive and called to be dismantled.
Though anarchists are not all or nothing, we know until the consensus is a stateless, classless society, we have to work throughout direct action and civil disobedience to highlight the tyranny perpetuated by the state. For any act to limit an individual’s right is violence and therefore any equal reactionary measures is justifiable self-defense. This is important to remember in arguments against anarchism being chaos. The violence of anarchism is conjectural at best when compared to the violence of the state, especially when it comes to it’s ruthless submission toward dissent to it’s authority. This is only to further the state’s position as being absolute. Upon further examination of this comparison in relationship to what our direct actions represent even if we don’t identify as anarchist, we are anarchists instinctively and not statists. Each state may handle dissent differently but whether it is intimidation or appeasement, it is done for the illusionary purpose of dominance.
When we look at civil unrest from feminist battling against the oppressive patriarchal perspective, the civil rights movement and black lives matter demanding equality to vegan activists demanding animal rights, we do not see the uniformity the state requires to maintain control. What we are seeing is the very essence of anarchism and more importantly the essence of humanity. Every time we speak or act out in defense against the limited range of liberty that any hierarchy provides, we destroy the illusion of governance, politically or socially. The further we agitate the system and promote community action to sustain our needs, the more people’s actions will be influenced by mutual aid and autonomy opposed to societal dictatorship. As individuals the further we challenge the system, we will come to further challenge ourselves. The result will be the growing consensus by more and more individuals that all oppression is linked to these authoritative structures that rely on the social constructs of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation and class to further divide us. We will come to recognize this indoctrinated animosity as an endorsement of their continued command. A more authentic depiction of the root cause of all our strife will come into focus as we shift our blame from each other to the few, the power seekers, and their criminal theft of resources and labor, whether privately or by the state, to dictate behavior. The day we recognize our tendencies and let the plausibility of anarchism into our heart and in our minds, the illusion of their preeminent parliamentary position shall crumble along with the chains binding us to them.
THE HIGH CO$T OF DAIRY
As told by: Kevin Bacon
Carnism’s universal narrative of normal, natural and necessary has maimed most’s perception of cows as mere machines. The false impression of a dull minded herd animal that merely responds to stimuli has invalidated the cognitive and emotional complexities of these animals. With the only intention being to justify the myriad of malicious practices in the commodification of their bodies and their resources. Twelve millennia of domestication and an invasive marketing campaign over the last hundred years have helped to rob these majestic creatures of any identity not only as a species but as individuals as well.
To understand the rise of the dairy industry in America, we must look at the landscape during World War II. Soldiers fighting across the Atlantic were suffering from malnutrition and needed rations with longer shelf lives. To combat this, the government wanted to start utilizing processed dairy production such as evaporated milk but dairy farmers refused to get on board because it was not lucrative to increase production as the demand back home was not there. If “patriotic duty” wasn’t enough then the government needed another way to bolster production. To do so, the government cemented the dairy industry into the very foundation of everyday life through school lunch programs and the rest was history.
Today, the dairy industry thrives off a century of indoctrination and tax-payer subsidies in America. The United States spends an estimated 22 billion dollars per year on dairy subsidies which accounts for 73% of all dairy market gains. Even with consumer demand down, a staggering 98 million metric tons of milk was produced for human consumption in American alone in 2019. This increase is not just an American phenomenon as India leads the world with 60 million dairy cows followed by the European Union which is home to another 23 million dairy cows. These three countries and others all helped to push dairy productions up to 522 million metric tons in 2019. A push propagated into every corner of life to promote the idea of “happy cows” and “strong bones” while animal victimization, a ravage planet and our own jeopardized health are the forgotten side effects written in the finest of fine prints.
All and all the dairy’s persuasion to be perceived as a normal, natural necessity can be declared a success for an industry viewpoint. Common sense seemingly another casualty of carnism when objectively discussing the sentience of another animal who is not us. Conversations in relation to the intelligence and emotional capacities of cows becomes even more perplexing when people fail to recall basic concepts taught in biology class. Some only see cows as milk machines who naturally produce milk for our pleasure. Forgetting that a cow is a mammal and that no mammal just lactates at will but must be impregnated to do so. Like us, a cow carries her young for nine months before giving birth with every intent of using the milk produced to nourish her young. Does this sound familiar? Yet our perversion of these animal’s natural role has allowed for the value of their lives to be based on how they serve us, not based on their intellectual and emotional capacities. The process of commodifying cows or any other living being works to mask the horrors of their endured abuse as well as to protect you from developing any empathy towards their sentience sentenced to suffering.
Contrary to popular belief, cows are fast learners with superb memories demonstrating great success with object discrimination. Which is to say the way a cow differentiate between two objects and mentally groups those objects into different categories. Object discrimination is an excellent indicator of a cow’s mental concept opposed to responding to stimiuli. This ability to discriminate goes well beyond categorizing geometric shapes as a cow can tell whether another cow is familiar or unfamiliar to the herd. More impressively they can recognize a member of their herd just by looking at a two-dimensional photograph. Further evidence even shows that cows have conceptualized their own species as a distinct group separate from any other animal.
A cow’s deep understanding of themselves and the world around them is matched by talents as skilled problem solvers who demonstrate excitement at the completion of a challenge. Cows have the ability to mentally map their surroundings which helps them master the most complicated of mazes through the use of systematic search strategies that can be retained for up to eight hours. When given the opportunity to learn even the most complex mazes in a step-by-step fashion, a cow can recall the appropriate route for six weeks. Cows can even recall visual cues when ensured a food reward for up to one year. Their overall conceptual abilities of object discrimination and spatial navigation dispell any myth that cow’s are dull-minded.
Not only has their intelligence been the victim of smear campaign after smear campaign, their emotional responses are deemed as quite basic. Again much like ourselves, cows are distinct individuals with a complex array of emotions who not only relish in excitement of completing new challenges but who also utilizes cognitive biases based on positive and negative experiences when making decisions. Whether it is the joy of successfully coursing through a maze or being hesitant of a human being that handled them roughly in the past, a cow's emotional responses are anything but basic. With their responses not only being impacted by their own experience but also by the emotional states of other members of their herd as emotions seemingly resonate with one another. Due to their keen sense of smell, a cow can detect the release of the stress induced hormone cortisol in one of their fellow cows. These elevated stress levels can act as an emotional contagion infecting the unstressed cow to behave similar to their stressed counterpart. Just one small part of cow’s interdependence on each other to maintain emotional stability.
Their kinship is further exemplified by their formation of small groups within the herd of two to four cows who will spend a majority of their time together and participate in grooming rituals similaring seen in chimpanzees. Grooming partnerships are a primary component of each other stress levels as cows are extremely sensitive to the touch. Communal living is not only essential for stress relief, a desire for companionship is demonstrated at a young age that will instill the emotional and cognitive abilities of this socialistic herd of individuals as they learn from one another. Even with this innate need for social bonding nurtures the well-being of the cow’s psyche and their great dependency on one another, not all relationships in the herd are equal as cows have been known to hold grudges against one another for up to a year.
Dairy cows in particular are not only great emotional support for each other, they’re fiercer mothers. Mother cows, regardless of individual personalities, all demonstrated protectiveness over their own young. In one study, researchers observed an unfamiliar vehicle moving towards a cow and her calf and in almost every instance, the mother cow moved in between her offspring and the vehicle. The bond between mother and young is no different than it is with human beings and is vital to the welfare of the young calf’s mind. When this bond is cut short, it not only is detrimental to the development of the calf but also elevates the stress of both individuals. The delusion of human’s dairy necessity has prevented a mother from doing the job of providing nourishment to her offspring. A job she does with great knowledge and cares even providing additional sustenance for when a calf is underweight.
Researchers are only starting to grasp the true cognitive and emotional capacities and as more studies become available, we are learning more about how each cow is a unique individual. Cows placed in social isolation did not display similar responses but instead demonstrated different movements and various vocal responses to the stress and fear of being removed from the herd. Regardless of the proof being limited at this time, the evidence unequevolity destroys carnism’s convictions about the value of cows. What we are beginning to realize is the high cost of dairy leaves it’s victims suffering silently shrouded from public view. Wall-to-wall industrial violence churns out maximum yields each year to satisfy your palate pleasure for dairy as the unrelentless death machine pushes forward. The economization of cows from the early Neolithic era to now, from a place of survival to a place of purely profiteering, illuminates the truth about the dairy industry as the gravest example of expansionary exploitation by humans upon another species that has ever existed.
The dairy industry is full of injustice preying on these animals for profit that take its exploitive toll on the bodies of dairy cows. An exhaustive life cycle that cuts most of their lives short by fourth of their natural lifespan of twenty to twenty-five years. In most cases, a dairy cow will spend a majority of her life confined in crowded feedlots forced to move around through excrement while provided little access to a pasture or shelter. In America, 9 out 10 dairy farms are primarily indoor operations with more than half of the cows tethered by the neck to a barn stall. The unsanitary conditions are the beginning of the life charted out for these animals.
For the dairy cows chosen to join the herd, their suffering must last until they are considered spent. Her first months will be in isolation in a calf hutch fed on milk replacer absent of real nourishment and social bonding. She will soon be reunited with the herd and after another year, the remainder of her life will be a constant assault on her body by her captures. An assault that will include a cycle of invasive violence as she is forcibly impregnated against her will over and over again. This act is carried out 80 percent of the time with the use of an Artificial Insemination (AI) gun. The process involves inserting the AI gun into the cow’s vagina while your other arm, gloved and lubricated, forcefully penetrates the cow’s rectum to feel around to ensure the gun is correctly positioned at the cervix. Next, the person grips the cervix while using a rod at the end of the gun and threads it through the cow’s cervix until close enough to the uterus to deposit a sample. Once finished the cows are released and 9-months later, their young come into the world ready to be nourished by their mothers but that’s not the way the story goes for the bovine.
Within hours of birth, calves are stolen away from their mothers causing a traumatic experience for both individuals that can lead to sickness and weight loss from no appetite. Mothers have been known to chase after their kidnapped children and calves have cried so much their throats become raw. Meanwhile, worried mothers unable to comfort their young are hooked up to milking machines mandated to give away their nourishment to you instead of their own young. A demand that leans more on fabrication than consumer confidence has given way to a horrific form of vivisection being carried out on these animals. Extensive biological manipulation of cow’s bodys now has a cow producing twelves times than is required for their young. While good for the dairy industry’s wallet, the long term effect of this Frankensteinian science is the key contributor to their shortened lifespans. The unnatural levels of milk production leads to a high number of mastitis, a painful udder infection which causes swelling, and other issues such as lameness. This theft of her milk will continue for about ten months before the process is restarted again until she is deemed “spent” and will be sold for cheap beef. A fate for 3 million of these battered and abused mothers each year.
In the pursuit of high yields for higher profits, another surplus is also created. With 226 million dairy cows worldwide, a high volume of births will happen each year and for male calves, who serve no purpose to the industry, some will be killed instantly and discharged with others being sold and transported for commercial slaughter. Calves are usually deprived of essentials such as milk and water for prolonged periods of time. The intense circumstance of these long travels are highly stressful for these young animals and most will not lay down for the first 15 hours of their descent into hell. Standing for long periods of time is unnatural for animals of this age and further exacerbates the situation. The magnitude of the stress combined with cramped conditions and extremes in weather can lead to sleep deprivation, post-transport respiratory infections, heat stress and hypothermia. Bruising and injury is also common from handling rough aggression between unfamiliar animals and careless driving. This routine journey across the highways of American everyday will cost more than 21 million calves their lives to fuel the leather, veal, beef and pharmaceutical industries.
These highly intuitive, social yet individualistic beings are subjected to a life of torture. An agony amplified by their acute sense of pain as they are branded and castrated without any pain relief. The industry standard of dehorning has been shown to have lasting traumatic effects even after the pain has subsided. Tail docking is another barbaric practice that the industry claims to be hygienic. The act involves using a sharp object to simply cut off the tail or placing a tight rubber ring around the tail until it falls off. The long term effects of tail docking will be felt during an immensely painful fly season without tail for protection. Whatever the justification for any of the practices from forceful insemination to tail docking, only exists because of your silence.
For as much of the torment executed onto the animals goes unnoticed by most of the general public. The same can be said about the ill-effects on our bodies caused by the consumptions in part to the American government’s continued support of the industry. In the meantime, dairy products have become the number one source of saturated fat contributing to illnesses such as Alzheimer’s Disease and Type 2 Diabetes. The consumption of dairy also increases our risk for prostate and breast cancer. Then add in the cholesterol from dairy products, you have the makings of the key contributors to America’s top killer in Heart Disease. Dairy comes with other risks as well such as tooth decay, kidney disease, irritable bowel syndrome and acne. On top of all these health concerns, worry should be placed on the number of contaminants contained in dairy due to industry practices. Cows are constantly injected with bovine growth hormones to increase production and these hormones have been traced back to dairy products. Besides hormones, both antibiotics and pesticides were prevalent in dairy samples. Things like dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls, both found in dairy, have been linked to cancer. As the evidence continues to mount against milk doing a body good, at the same time, the industry’s foundational claims of strong bones has been refuted as studies show dairy products to have little to no effect on bone health. False claims of an industry that gets one step closer to bankruptcy every year yet is continuously propped up by booming productions, political affiliations and subsidies.
Dairy is not essential to our continued mortality but it has far graver consequences to the very sustainability of our planet and future generations. Animal agriculture accounts for 25% of our global water footprint contributing a fifth to that total. The average dairy cow requires 5,000 gallons of water per day and in America alones, our 9.4 millions require 47 billion gallons of water. California leads the nations in the number of dairy cows and with the water demanded by the industry to operate, it’s easy to see the impact the industry has had on the droughts that have plagued the state. Not only is dairy demands for water high but the toll it takes on the environment in regards to greenhouse emission and global warming. Cows produce methane which has 100 times more global warming potential than carbon dioxide. The average cow produces 400 litres of methane per day which for the global industry equates to 106 billion litres of methane in a year. Methane is not the only culprit in the dairy industry’s role in global warming as nitrogen is also released by cows having a 300 times more global warming potential of carbon dioxide. The nitrogen along with phosphorus, which are found in manure, which is used for fertilizer, can make its way into waterways after rainfall due to run off.
The toll on animals' lives, the threat to our body and the peril of our planet unfortunately is a distant second to profit margins. Anyone who consumes dairy, whether a vegetarian or not, must understand the ramifications of supporting such an industry comes with these very high costs and someday, the damage done will be irreversible. The dairy industry and their scientific claims to maintain their position are just that, vested interest in their own survival. There is no profit margin in being vegan, the only pursuit we have is restoring the value of life to these beautiful creatures.