Butters

A child crying at the death of a pet is pure emotion. Our pet rabbit died. I was sad, yes, but it really wasn't so much of a big deal for me, Butters was old. I've been jaded and numbed to the ideas of death. But today I felt a strong emotion. I almost cried. It wasn't for Butter's though, it was for this little boy and his tears. And this gives new meaning for me to the phrase, "if not for ourselves, then for the children." This same boy recently decided to be vegetarian. When he realized that he was eating dead animals he sat on the couch and cried for 20 minutes.

We have a responsibility to preserve and protect whatever we can. I think that the awareness of the knowledge of pain that death of an animal inflicts on humans and the initial guilt when it is done at our hands (directly or indirectly) means something. I can't count how many time I've heard someone say that "it makes me feel guilty that these animals were treated poorly" before they chomped into a cheese burger. It's easier when they don't have names or faces. My parents made me eat one of my pet chickens growing up. I cried so hard, I took one bite and felt ill. "Where did you think chicken came from?"

We have to numb ourselves to the idea that "it's just the way it is" and "death is fact of life" in order to swallow any of this.
It's not just the Food industry either, its all across the board.
The gas companies want to Frack in the area I grew up. This could potentially poison our watershed. But the fact of the matter is, I still use gas and oil. I'm guilty of the cause. It was easier for me to ignore the problem when the gas companies were exploiting some 3rd world country for it. Not that I didn't think it was bad. But now that the land they want to kill has a name and a face, the guilt becomes more real.

But I don't know how to stop all of this nonsense.

The government and the businesses say that the people steer the ship
that we vote with our dollars as well as with a ballot.
I think this is a lie. We live in a plutocracy where big business steers the
ship and we choose from the false display of options that they give us
and call it democracy.

Children are so refreshing.