Proubasta Reader: Vigil for Chickens

I got this announcement from PETA:

Please join Springdale Animal Save for an upcoming vigil. The Save Movementconsists of groups around the world that bear witness to farmed animals en route to slaughterhouses in order to raise awareness of their plight, to encourage people to go vegan, and to build a huge grassroots animal-justice movement.

In Springdale ... Tyson’s Seventh Circle of Hell? “I’ve gotta see that,” I said to myself.

Some time ago I read “With the Eyes of Love” by the Rev. Christa Blanke, founder of Animals’ Angels in Germany. It’s a series of short stories written with gripping simplicity, of how its members follow or meet animal trucks at slaugherhouses in Europe and the Near East where for brief moments they try to comfort with a drink of water, a touch, even soothing whispers or songs those about to be viciously slaughtered. They hold candlelight vigils at the unloading docks. The pain these people feel is etched in their faces, but it is nothing compared to what those just unloaded are enduring. These good people are helpless; all they can do is bear witness to the savagery of man.

“Auschwitz begins whenever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: ‘They’re only animals,’” said Jewish philosopher Theodor Adorno.

I marvel at the detachment of people driving next to concentration trucks crammed with cows, pigs, chickens, horses, sheep, turkeys ... in their desperate condition. The only humane reaction, if we were what we claim to be, would be to break down in tears, or better yet, pull the driver out of the cabin and proceed to rescue the cargo. I have not seen a single instance of courage to stand in front of the truck and yell at the driver, or pray, or piss on the radiator ... Nothing.

Of course Germans knew what awaited those riding the trains to extermination camps! So did all passive observers to innumerable human attrocities through the ages ... and so do we. But we are worse: We pay to eat the victims!

Freezing temperatures notwitstanding, on 26 November 2018 at 2 PM I drove to “Tysondale” as I call it, concerned only by the possibility of my 1982 Volvo breaking down in a community I rank alongside Tijuana or Caracas for personal safety.

Tempered by many demonstrations ... the 1987 International Finals Rodeo in Tulsa in particular, where cowboys and, worse, cowgirls threated four helpless women and a child protesters with such ferocity that two mounted police came to our rescue .... I laugh at Tysondale’s Chickenkilling Cartel. Also in my favor, hablo español.

I waited near the address given --300 Barry St., Springdale AR-- for almost hour. No one came. Actually the 300 is 214-1/2, "La Esperanza" a supermercado-cum-barber shop ... an elegant concept!

Intermittently I drove up and down Berry in search of demonstrators and while I saw several Tyson instalations, including an ominous "Live Haul" entrance, the only people I saw there were guards and illegal aliens changing shifts. How could I miss a "vigil" with people holding placards in a narrow two-way street! But I did according to PETA’s outreach coordinator Faith Robinson. Two brave Springdale Animal Save people stood by the Live Haul gate. I wish I had stood with them.

However unsuccessful, my sojourn to Springdale was not wasted. It confirmed that gore gives rise to ugly communities because only the worst of humanity can bear living in them. Serial killers good neighbors don’t make. What amazes is that even in a bonafide shithole like Springdale there are people willing to stand by the gate of the Seventh Circle of Hell to bear witness for the victims of Tyson’s greed, pointing their fingers at the Devil himself.