Last night I finally got around to sitting down and watching a documentary that a friend recommended. She's a newly found friend from the Pagan group that I joined. She makes a mean chocolate cake and is Vegan.

We've been chatting online for a few weeks now and she mentioned to me that she saw a very powerful film called "Earthlings". I found the program on Top Documentary Films.com. A note about this website. They have some really good content here. The majority of it is free to watch online. There are many powerful films available and I highly recommend it.

Now, Back to Earthlings. For the last three years, I've been a vegetarian. I've changed my purchases to buying organic when ever I can and I try my best to stay away from animal products. However, I know that I am not Vegan. I do have a passion for leather and riding a motorcycle with hubby, we use the leathers to protect us from harm when we ride. I look around my house and generally it's pretty animal friendly. Meaning, the little fur babies that live here, live very well and the objects in my home are for the most part, not made from animals.

For a long time I didn't understand why PETA stance on keeping animals as pets was so strong. I felt that it was basically ludricis to think that we should not have pets. I am a good person and I take care of my pets. Watching this program last night however they showed the actual bodies piled up from the gas chambers where unwanted "Pets" are literally dumped out of the little box cages and piled onto the concrete. It was heart wrenching. I get it now. Because a few people are not responsible enough to correctly care for their animals, their stance is that no one should have them.

The prospective of this film is that Earthlings, are everyone and everything that live on Earth. It shows how racism, sexism and speciesism are actually all very similar in the Human race. When you think about it, White Supremacy for example, is a belief that they their particular race is superior and other races, "lower races" are not worthy of the same respect as their own. Their race is the master, and all others the slaves. Now looking at sexism we can see the same type of belief structure. One group, in this case "gender" looks at it's own gender as being the master and all others the slave. We can see that Feminism was brought about just to empower females and combat misogyny. The new word that I was introduced to in this film was Specisism. The belief, that the Human Species has a greater right or is superior to any other species on the planet. I never really considered this. I mean I look around at the animals here and I think that they need to be protected. They really only need to be protected by us, FROM US.

We, as humans are the ones that are destroying them. We, as humans are the ones who are removing their habitats, poisoning the oceans and streams and polluting the air. If we didn't do this, they would not need us to save them.

I could not watch the entire show. The images were extremely graphic and I was in tears nearly immediately watching it. I switched it off and took on a new film called "Westboro Baptist Church: A Family in Crisis". I watched as the Fred Phelps' family proceeded to explain why they are superior and why everyone else was worthy of only hate and death. I watched as this group removed members of their own family and shunned them for not being "godly". I couldn't help but compare the venom they spewed as being on the same level as those that seek out to harm others based on race, gender, sexual orientation and yes, species.

I cannot say that this film has made me Vegan. I can however say that I will never look at our fellow Earthlings the same way. We are no important than the beetle bug or the butterfly. We are just a neighbor, living here on this planet and sharing this Earth with every other living being here.


Namaste & Blessed Be
Sosanna
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