The icon of American culture that was once hunted to near extinction has now been bred for one of the trendiest new flesh products. Broken Wagon Bison Farm outside of Chicago offers visitors a chance to pet and feed gentle and friendly bison and then visit their store where they can stock up on bison flesh products and fashion apparel made from their skins and bones. Here you have yet another variation on the Orwellian fantasy of animal husbandry.

The strategy is always the same: package the experience to carefully conceal the violence, suffering and slaughter at the core of the enterprise and replace it with language and images of patriotism, a petting zoo, American Indians “thanking” buffalos, nostalgia, machismo, and of course, family fun. Then tie a ribbon around it that tells people you’re really doing the buffalo a favor by bringing his population back — performing “species conservation” — if only to slaughter him when he reaches a suitable weight in his youth and if only in the name of profiting from his slaughtered body. Soon you will not only have otherwise intelligent people buying into your Orwellian fantasy; you’ll also have them defending it against critics like myself.