The Anarcho-Socialist revolution must be vegetarian!

Death to the capitalists and power to the proletariat! Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle' is a grim portrayal of the working conditions in the slaughter houses of 19th century Chicago as well as a damning critique of the capitalist society that created them.

Through the struggles of Jurgis Rudkus, we see society as a system of inequality driven by ruthless politics of greed and 'efficiency' towards tragic and destructive ends: the newly arrived immigrants are robbed, lied to, driven into wage-slavery and left fighting for their lives amidst snow storms and lay-offs. The sheer horror of this tale should force the reader to conclude that: firstly, eating meat is FUCKED up and secondly capitalist societies are essentially based upon hierarchies driven by insecurity, deprivation and fear.

I've come to realise in the last few months that being a vegetarian/vegan in an animal-'hating' society is actually quite a radical and often isolating act. In the fight for an equal and just world, the ambivalent and hypocritical treatment of sentient beings (human or non-human alike) is a primary psychological motivator behind the perpetuation of systemic and individual acts of violence. Many social norms are constructed on the basis of hypocrisy and double-standards: we shouldn't eat dogs or destroy the rainforest but its completely fine to buy plastic-wrapped meat products imported from the other side of the world. Added to the gross waste of resources that comes from raising meat, the workers who raised the animals, slaughtered them, packaged them and then delivered their decaying corpses to be stocked on waiting shelves were all paid a small fraction of the profit from the animals' lives whilst putting their own health at risk.

But enough ranting, and some facts:
- In 1997, 4 companies processed 80% of all beef and steers in the US
- The repeated-injury rate (injuries that develop over time) for US workers in the meat processing industry is 27 times higher than the national average.
-Calories of fossil fuel expended to get 1 calorie of protein from beef: 78
-To get 1 calorie of protein from soybeans: 2
-Number of people worldwide who will die as a result of malnutrition this year: 20 million
-Number of people who could be adequately fed using land freed if Americans reduced their intake of meat by 10%: 100 million (I copied the last four from the Consumericide blog, but they are powerful little pieces of information, even if statistics only highlight so much)
I grew up in a small rural town where the major industry was meat processing for the farms in our region. Nearly every other industry, small business and other service (like the hospital laboratory where my mother worked) that supplied the wants and needs of the local people was directly or indirectly dependent on the slaughterhouse/freezing work for survival. If the freezing works closed then most of the population would have to go elsewhere to look for work. A society that allows its economy to be limited to one resource that is in the hands of a few corporates trying to maximise their own profits is inevitably exposed to uncertainty about the future.
Where there is insecurity and lack of control there is also fear. People will not risk their daily bread to criticise the industry that keeps them trapped but tenuously alive in their social prisons. What we are left with is corporate consolidation of power and money at the expense of animal and worker rights and less means to strike back or convince the slaughterer that the cow's life is also of intrinsic value and should not be given up for capitalist profit.
Capitalist, capitalist, capitalist!!! I just had to get it out.
The Jungle is a powerful book as it touches on many political and social issues that remain extremely (painfully) relevant today: sexism, racism, environmental destruction, sex worker discrimination, sex negativity.
Aside from Sinclair's stirring cry for the Socialist revolution, I would also encourage a piercing scream that might hopefully shatter some of the false ideas people sustain towards meat eating and the values they support that allow the whole sickening process to continue.