By Susie Duncan Sexton

Thankfully, an increasingly dwindling number of Homo sapiens seem to be revealing these days that they remain unfathomably ignorant, foolishly stubborn and downright awful about an appropriately changing world. Well, hoo-ray for diminishing stats and fewer and fewer dim bulbs! Vacuous apathetic dead-heads and sniggering bullies certainly sense that they are on the losing end of history, so they feel the need to lash out at someone or something. Sad. Arguments, tongue-lashings, and pointless banter rumble all about ourselves. “We can just agree to disagree”…well, uh-uh! Certain truths do exist. All species desire to be happy, secure, and often just left alone to breathe in and out…all living beings. The justification for victimization and violence aimed at all manner of sentient beings drools and spews from smug, sneering pie holes of human zombies and Beavises and Buttheads who seem to be cluelessly partying at the expense of others. Manipulative self-involved politicians snooze in bed with insatiably ravenous lobbyists who campaign for those corporate predators specializing in live export — back again across the oceans — of the Earth’s most ancient of slaves, packed, crammed and squeezed mercilessly onto boats and now planes.

During a span of 44 years, my dad manufactured indigo blue denim jeans for men, women, children, prisoners, farmers, catalog models, country-western artists, week-end hunters, and rodeo superstars — denim, yes, a durable fabric which could withstand a rigorous level of activity; somewhere along the line folks flocked in droves to these pants as the uniform of choice and then got to swaggering around a bit — too big for their breeches? Roping steers, excavating coal, delivering campaign speeches, appearing in films about the great American West, attending sock hops, interior decorating, creating pottery, gliding along runways, snowmobiling, ripping fashionable holes into their peg-legged trousers — Americans in their official casual attire, their leggings…rugged yet preening cowboys and cowgirls in their ever cutesier costumes.

Swaggering and striding, wiggling and sashaying … and tighter and tighter and phonier and phonier … posing like gods and goddesses as the years passed until now…the present.

Contentiousness has risen up like a phoenix to no doubt crash to the earth only to be consumed in its own ashes until the wrangling starts afresh …repetitiously. We waste our breath on hateful rationales for why we do what we do…we care only about the sound of our own voices, the tooting of our own horns. We never listen. We support exclusively the cults to which we belong…the secret handshake provides entry to church homes, political persuasions of extreme almost comedic varieties, athletic contests, “wholesome” youth clubs, fraternity beer blasts, and trivial pursuits. Meanwhile each second — filled with agony for every species other than ourselves — ticks by, and who gives a damn? Well, at long last, legions of us do!

“Move ’em in! Move ’em out! Rawhide!”

Animals — bred to be killed as young as 6 months shockingly (not to mention “broiler” chickens murdered at 6 WEEKS old!)…the females of the species forcibly impregnated…are shipped to slaughter or dropped off at butchers each second of our own vanity-filled days and nights. Hunting gear is purchased for fun frolics in the wild. Factory farmers demand to rule and ruin, unchecked and unregulated and unmonitored. The agricultural “industry” shamelessly engages in indoctrination of children via agri-ganda at every opportunity. Crass, vulgar television commercials, pushing fast food down our throats, simultaneously taunt and offend. Churches and a plethora of mind-numbing committees and boards dream up and manufacture fund-raising schemes (involving wrestling pigs and throwing turtles here in Indiana)…even though both “not for profit tax-exempt” status and tax dollars keep frivolous man-made establishments rolling while coffers become engorged with currency often dependent upon the absolute torment of animals. Controversy is the journalistically blow-offish word choice and is pointed to as the unnecessary ridiculous bone of contention…the true term instead should be abuse which is factual… and the names of the contests and competitions and circuses to raise temporary cash, until the insecticide-laced crops flow in or the kickback from auctioneering arrives, feature the labels “mutton”, “veal”, “bacon”, pork” “beef”, “venison” rather than the proper genus names of sheep, lambs, pigs, cattle, deer. We classify animals subliminally and incorrectly as “harvested”? The products which farmers are subsidized by our government to harvest would be the insecticide-laced toxic grain and wheat and soybeans we feed to LIVE-STOCK (the most stunningly psychologically deceptive mind-warping classification ever devised –think about that word!) instead of our generously and responsibly sharing safe crops with starving children in third world countries from which we import even more feed for our over-reproduced “lambs to be led to the slaughter”!

Misplaced questionable ingenuity of cunningly guileful human pirates — with respect (or lack of) to the development of bullfighting contests, rodeos, zoos, circuses, “sea worlds”, shelter fund-raisers involving chopping up some poor species or other for barbecues or port-a-pit chicken — amazes more and more of us exponentially. We have become aware. We have been shaken awake. No further annihilation of man nor beast. Those of us who are empathetic and no longer asleep are not “socialists or dumbocrats or tree huggers” nor any other name-calling epithets screamed our way…we don’t all “piss while sitting down”. (We never really should have mumbled “grace” offerings while our eyes closed shut and our heads bowed over dining room-tables laden with cancer-diabetes- Parkinson’s Disease-producing Easter hams, Thanksgiving turkeys, crispy fried chicken or scrambled eggs accompanied by cholesterol enhanced bacon.) Rather a growing number of us see the concept of “right to life” as non-political and universally inclusive of all living beings…around the world… Unspeakable mass-death delivery systems or unthinkable abuses at the falsely entitled hands of man or woman or child are beginning to startle and horrify the sanest among us. Life matters. Evolution happens. No one can stop it. Discover alternatives. Explore kind, humane possibilities. Accept the inevitable, and don’t worry about justifying unjust deeds. Then we creatures great and small and bright and beautiful can ALL be happy . The peaceable kingdom is close at hand. Now, isn’t that wise and wonderful?

CAUTIONARY NOTE: Our Earth once reigned as a monumental kaleidoscope of life forms and naturally interrelated species! Biodiversity! The promising potential for a healthy eco-system? However, over-abundant exploited livestock unfortunately introduce, into our environment, an unimaginable amount of pollution through manure and urine — yearly in the United States 2.7 trillion pounds of manure which is 5 tons of waste per animal, one dairy cow alone eliminating 100 pounds of daily waste. Author Gene Bauer writes in “Living the Farm Sanctuary Life”, “…we (must) follow a plant-based diet that seeks to reverse (these) ominous trends. Living in harmony with animals and the environment is not simply a matter of being in nature and communing with our fellow creatures. It’s also about acknowledging that communing with animals rather than eating them is the healthiest choice that we can make for the planet and the future generations that will inhabit it. Plus it makes the animals happy…”

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Read about movies and nostalgia, animal issues and sociopolitical concerns all discussed in my book Secrets of an Old Typewriter and its follow-up Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels – print and ebook versions of both are available on Amazon (click the title).

The books are also carried by these fine retailers: Ann Arbor’s Bookbound and Common Language; Columbia City’s North Side Grille and Whitley County Historical Museum; and Fort Wayne’s The Bookmark. And you can download from iTunes. Meet other like-minded souls at my Facebook fan page. Visit my author website at www.susieduncansexton.com

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