gefunden bei facebook und ich muß weinen, wenn ich es lese… und es ist so ein wichtiger Text, daß ihn mitbringe:
If Pigs Could Speak
by Andrew
Kirschner
I am a pig.
I am a happy and
affectionate animal by nature.
I like to play in the grass
and nurture my young.
In the wild, I eat leaves,
roots, grass, flowers, and fruits.
I have a terrific sense of smell and I am highly intelligent.

I am a pig.
I can learn tasks as
quickly as chimpanzees and faster than dogs.
I wallow in mud to cool
down
but I am a very clean
animal
and don’t excrete anywhere
near where I live.

I speak my own language
that you cannot understand.
I am often loved as a house
mate.
I like being in groups and
live a long natural life in the wild or a safe home.
I enjoy interacting with
people and I am very gentle.

I wish I could do and be
all of those things
but I was born on a factory
farm like billions of other pigs
and so I experience none of
them.

I am a pig.
If I could speak
I would tell you that I
spend my life
in a crowded and filthy
warehouse
in a tiny metal
crate.
The owners call it a farm
so you won’t feel bad for me.
It’s not a farm.

My life is miserable from
the day I’m born until the day I die.
In many cases, I live my
entire life in a gestation crate
where I can’t even turn
around.
I try to escape but
can’t.
I suffer severe emotional
and physical ailments
as a result of my
confinement.
I have bruises all over my
head and face
from trying to get out of
my cage.
I bang my head against the
bars.
It is analogous to living
in a coffin.

I am a pig.
If I could speak I would
tell you that
I don’t ever feel the
warmth of another pig.
I only feel the cold metal
bars of my cage
and the feces that I am
forced to sleep in.
I don’t see daylight until
a trucker drives me to a slaughterhouse.

I am a pig.
I am beaten often by
ruthless factory farmers
who take pleasure in
hearing me squeal.
I am constantly
impregnated
and do not have any
interaction with my piglets.
My feet are tied together
so I am forced to stand all day.
When I was born, I was
separated from my mother.
In the wild, I would have
stayed with her for five months.
Now I am forced to have 25
piglets a year through artificial insemination
as opposed to six per year
I would have in the wild.
Being in a constant state
of pregnancy is slow torture.

Overcrowding and the smell
of being covered in raw sewage
causes many of us to go
insane
and bite each other through
our cages.
Sometimes we kill each
other.
It’s not our
nature.

My home smells of
ammonia.
I sleep on
concrete.
I am tied up so I can’t
even roll over.
My food is loaded with
artificial fats that cause me terrible health problems
so my owners can make more
money off my size.
I am never able to forage
for food as I do by instinct in the wild.

I am a pig.
I am bored and have nothing
to do
so I bite my tail and the
tails of others
so the factory farmers cut
off our tails
without any pain
killers.
It is excruciating and
causes infection.

When it’s time for us to be
killed,
we are supposed to be
stunned to death with a bolt gun
until we can’t feel
pain
but often the gun is not
properly charged or the stunner misses,
or we’re too big for
it
and it fails to work
properly.
Sometimes we go through the
slaughter process
sticking, skinning,
dismembering, and eviscerating —
alive,conscious, and
kicking.
I am a pig.
If I could speak
I would tell you we suffer
horribly.
Our death is slow and
violent torture.
It can last as long as 20
minutes.
If you saw it
happen,
you would probably never
eat an animal again.
That’s why what happens
inside factory farms
is the best kept secret in
the world.
I am a pig.
You can dismiss me as a
worthless animal.
Call me filthy even though
I am clean by nature.
Say I don’t matter because
I taste good to eat.
Be indifferent to my
suffering.
But now you
know,
I feel pain, sadness, and
fear.
I suffer.
Even though I will be
killed
and deprived of a humane
and natural life
You now know it is
wrong
and if you continue eating
animals like me
when you don’t need to eat
them to survive
it will be on your
conscience
and you bear responsibility
for the cruelty
because you’re funding it
by purchasing meat
99% of which comes from
factory farms.
You have a choice
to live a cruelty-free
life
and go vegan.
It’s much easier than you
think
and it is a very fulfilling
lifestyle —
healthier for you,
better for the
environment,
and most of all,
it does not
contribute to the abuse of animals.
Please give it some
thought.
I am no more meant to be
eaten by you
than you are meant to be
eaten by me.
The idea of eating me is a
human creation for profit
not a divine one or one
born of necessity but rather choice.
If you could choose not to
abuse an animal, would you?
If the choice of ending
animal cruelty
meant making some simple
changes in your life,
would you make
them?
Forget about cultural
norms.
Do what you know is
right.
Align your compassionate
heart and mind
with your
actions.
Please stop eating pork,
ham, bacon, sausage
and buying other products
made from pig body parts such as leather.
I am a pig.
I’m begging you to develop
the same respect for me
that you have for your dog
or cat.
During the time it took you
to read this message,
approximately 26,000 pigs
were brutally slaughtered
on factory
farms.
Simply because you didn’t
see it happen
doesn’t mean it didn’t
happen.
It did.
I am a pig.
I had only one life on this
earth.
It’s too late for
me
but it is not too late for
you to make a change
like millions of other
people
and save other animals from
the life I lived.
I hope animals’ lives will
begin to mean more to you now –
now that you
know.
I was a pig.

If you would like to keep
in touch with Andrew Kirschner, you may join his public figure page, a forum for
animal rights activists to exchange ideas:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Andrew-Kirschner/183091688376324