thought this would be of interest to all those high heeled lovers of Big
Macs on the list . . . .

jt

>
>
>The Japan Times
>September 18, 2000, Monday
>
>Kinder, gentler animal farms
>
>It's funny how McDonald's - the much-reviled little hamburger stand that
>
>grew - has become the world's handiest barometer of social change. It is
>the
>standard-bearer, or more often the whipping boy, for economic and
>cultural
>globalization, with progress or regress thereto measured in degrees of
>"McDonaldization." According to economist Thomas Friedman, it is the
>unwitting harbinger of a new world order in international affairs. No
>two
>countries that have opened their doors to McDonald's, he says, have
>since
>gone to war with each other. And now, the burger behemoth is at the
>leading
>edge of another wave of change: the slowly evolving concept of animal
>rights.
>
>Last month, the chain announced plans to improve the way U.S. poultry
>farmers care for their hens - something it is well-placed to do, since
>it
>buys 1.5 billion eggs from them annually. McDonald's has told suppliers
>that
>its continued custom depends on their compliance with strict new
>regulations: Each caged hen must be given 50 percent more space; the
>withholding of food and water to enhance egg production is banned; and
>the
>practice of cutting off the overcrowded birds' beaks to stop them
>pecking
>each other to death is to be phased out.
>
>This is not a first. The European Union has already banned nonfeeding
>and
>requires the phase-out of all cages by 2012. But it is a giant step in
>the
>United States, where the government has lagged far behind industry in
>following the European trend of regulating the way food animals are
>raised.
>The significance of it is that McDonald's' sheer size and high global
>profile has the potential of turning the trend into standard practice
>worldwide.
>
>As in Europe, McDonald's has been at pains to emphasize the human-health
>
>benefits of regulating animal care more stringently (in the case of
>chickens, for example, stressed birds are now thought to be more
>vulnerable
>to salmonella infection). This is probably necessary if industries are
>to
>accept changes that will make their produce more expensive. But it is
>surely
>secondary. What if better conditions did not benefit human health? Would
>
>that make it all right to lock a full-grown hen into a space smaller
>than
>the area of this editorial, or not feed it for up to two weeks to make
>it
>lay more eggs? The issue here is not human health; it is, as McDonald's
>has
>also belatedly recognized, how human beings can even think of doing such
>
>things to other living creatures.
>
>And that, of course, is where the real revolution is taking place: in
>the
>way we think about animals and their place in the human scheme. As a
>species, we have long exhibited a peculiarly schizophrenic attitude to
>animals: On the one hand, we idolize and anthropomorphize our pets, wax
>sentimental about endangered wildlife (while continuing the habits that
>have
>endangered them) and make fetishes of racehorses and show breeds. On the
>
>other hand, we think nothing of eating a still-squirming fish or the
>near-raw flesh of a quickly seared cow, which we know has experienced
>the
>highest degree of fear and pain during its trip from pasture to plate.
>We
>pay a small fortune to pamper an exotic parrot while turning a blind eye
>to
>the well-documented agonies of battery chickens. We shoot deer in cold
>blood
>and weep over Bambi. Why is one animal our furry friend, another our
>food?
>Where is the logic?
>
>There is no logic, but there is certainly a history. According to
>Harvard
>law professor Steven Wise, author of a recent, seminal book on the legal
>
>rights of animals, it took humanity centuries to extend the concept of
>what
>the U.N. convention against torture calls "the inherent dignity of the
>human
>person" even to all human beings. Slaves, conscripts, convicts and
>native
>peoples were perceived as beyond the pale of the species, fair game for
>the
>gallows, the lash, forced labor and other forms of mistreatment.
>(Prisoners
>and fetuses still occupy a gray area in some countries, including
>Japan.) To
>an 18th-century European, a slave ship, with all its cruelties, would
>have
>been no less utilitarian than a slaughterhouse is today. A century ago,
>how
>many women could vote? A decade ago, how many South Africans could?
>Evidently, the pale can shift.
>
>Wise's point is that just as attitudes to slavery and torture and voting
>
>rights evolved, so will attitudes toward the selective mistreatment of
>animals. In fact, it is beginning to happen. The Buddhist-like
>recognition
>that "inherent dignity" is a property of all sentient beings, not just
>humans, is at the root of the European animal-rights movement that is
>making
>people rethink everything from fox-hunting and fur coats to diet and
>zoos
>... and chicken farms. Seen in this context, some cynics have already
>said,
>McDonald's may just be sensing which way the wind is blowing and making
>a
>shrewd public-relations move before it has to. But if you were a
>chicken,
>would you care?
>




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