Peaceable Kingdom

Some thoughts on the film Peaceable Kingdom...

I haven't cried at a movie in awhile. This is a documentary film about farmers in the agro-business, raising cows, chickens, sheep, and whatever else we eat, as a commodity. After years of running these businesses, these few farmers realized what they were doing did not connect with their heart and soul. They believed that by having a farm, raising cattle, they were doing what they loved, they were caring for animals. Eventually the volume got out of hand and one farmer is raising 7,000 cattle. And still telling himself every day, I love these animals. I love them because they are putting food on the table in the form or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even the farmers who had much smaller volume farms had to accept the day when the sheep they had been caring for and had become a part of their family was sent to slaughter. They would shed a tear and then move on.

The farmers shown in the documentary have since opened their land to animals in another form, as farm sanctuaries. They have changed their diets to reflect their love of animals. This is a remarkable thing to do, especially for a man who has nourished his belly in the form of animal flesh for over fifty years. Howard Lyman, also known as the Mad Cowboy, was at the screening on Thursday and took questions from the audience. He spoke candidly about his vegan diet and joked about how to successfully order at a restaurant. This was particularly heartwarming to me, as some days I give up hope on that generation of people! I think many older people do not realize that farming has changed. These animals are purely commodities and just as any big business is run, Target, Wal-mart, etc, these animals are treated as only objects that make money. Even if they are raised on a family farm, the day still comes when someone decides they will be slaughtered. There is no such thing as humane slaughter. Animals are intelligent and they can sense what is happening from the moment the slaughter truck comes to pick them up. And the people who work in slaughterhouses have been desensitized and are unable to treat the animals with love, kindness, and respect. The entire experience is traumatizing and extremely cruel.

It is just so hard for me to believe that so many people can keep living in ignorance, believing that the dead flesh that they purchase at the grocery store was humanely killed. That is an oxymoron! Especially when the being that is killed is killed for profit. Not because they are in pain, not because they are old and dying and no longer able to live a happy life. They are killed so that the people who raised them and slaughtered them can get a paycheck.

Ugh. I'm done for now. I could go on and on, but I'll keep it to myself. As it relates to my study, these farmers were relating to animals, they thought they loved their jobs because they were working with animals. They were placing symbols on animals, dollar signs and hamburgers. And in a way, these symbols, for a time, made the farmers love the animals even more. The animals were providing a living for these farmers, they were making their house payments, car payments, and putting food on the table. Once this turned around, the farmers continued to relate to the animals, but on an entirely different level. They no longer see the animals as symbols. They see them as intelligent, loving, creatures who deserve respect. They see them as having emotions, habits, patterns of behavior, just like themselves, but, they simply speak another language. They are able to relate to these animals in an entirely non-selfish way. The balance of what they are providing the animals and what the animals provide them is equal. They are living a life together. They are allowing these animals to live the life that they deserve.