My Response to the Thanksgiving Message

Here’s what I wrote to the fine person who sent me a thoughtful (in his world) Thanksgiving message:

Dear xxxxx,

Thanks for the lovely message of both thanks and giving. I’d like to add my own message: that we broaden our circle of compassion beyond humans to other sentient beings who have the same capacity for pleasure, pain, fear, boredom and affection as we have.

The nearly 50 million turkeys bred, de-beaked, de-toed, and pumped with antibiotics and hormones, only to be slaughtered for one day (there’s another 230 million slaughtered the rest of the year), many who are dismembered while they are still alive, are also worthy of the justice you speak of.

You can read the story of Melvin the turkey here: http://peacefulprairie.blogspot.com/2006/11/what-were-thankful-for.html.

And go here, http://www.peacefulprairie.org/residents.html and click on Melvin to see more gorgeous photos, and look into the eyes of an individual–an individual turkey.

You wrote of preserving the earth and helping the environment. One of the top few causes of global warming–the real inconvenient truth–as has been demonstrated by the University of Chicago (here’s the press release: http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/06/060413.diet.shtml) as well as the United Nations (http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.htm), is animal agriculture: eating animals.

Please consider this Thanksgiving, that nonviolence is a decision each day that begins with breakfast. Thanksgiving dinner is an opportunity to choose justice and nonviolence and compassion. Or not.

Thank you for reading.

Mary