Animals Rights is the Greatest Social Justice Issue Since the Abolition of Slavery
Source Free From Harm
By Free From Harm Staff Writers
Philip Wollen shakes the rafters of the auditorium with this 10-minute speech to the St James Ethics Centre and the Wheeler Centre debate in Australia on May 16, 2012. The larger debate consists of six speakers, three that make the case for getting animals off the menu and three that make the case against it. Wollen is a former VP of Citibank and Australian philanthropist who is known to keep out of the limelight. But he sure rose to the challenge for this debate to deliver a huge performance and a powerful message. Bravo!
Join Philip Wollen and the Kindness Trust on their Facebook page. Watch the full debate with all six speakers.
This is the transcript to the speech:
On behalf of St James Ethics Centre, the Wheeler Centre,
The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, The Age
The City of Melbourne and the ABC
All of whom have worked together to make this event possible
I would like to welcome
Philip Wollen
((Applause))
King Lear, late at night on the cliffs asks the blind Earl of Gloucester “How do you see the world?”
And the blind man Gloucester replies “I see it feelingly”.
Shouldn’t we all?
Animals must be off the menu because tonight they are screaming in terror in the slaughterhouse, in crates, and cages. Vile ignoble gulags of despair.
I heard the screams of my dying father as his body was ravaged by the cancer that killed him. And I realised I had heard these screams before.
In the slaughterhouse, eyes stabbed out and tendons slashed, on the cattle ships to the Middle East and the dying mother whale as a Japanese harpoon explodes in her brain as she calls out to her calf.
Their cries were the cries of my father.
I discovered when we suffer, we suffer as equals.
And in their capacity to suffer, a dog is a pig is a bear. . . . . . is a boy.
Meat is the new asbestos – more murderous than tobacco.
CO2, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide from the livestock industry are killing our oceans with acidic, hypoxic Dead Zones.
90% of small fish are ground into pellets to feed livestock.
Vegetarian cows are now the world’s largest ocean predator.
The oceans are dying in our time. By 2048 all our fisheries will be dead. The lungs and the arteries of the earth.
Billions of bouncy little chicks are ground up alive simply because they are male.
Only 100 billion people have ever lived. 7 billion alive today. And we torture and kill 2 billion animals every week.
10,000 entire species are wiped out every year because of the actions of one species.
We are now facing the 6th mass extinction in cosmological history.
If any other organism did this a biologist would call it a virus.
It is a crime against humanity of unimaginable proportions.
The world has changed.
10 years ago Twitter was a bird sound, www was a stuck keyboard, Cloud was in the sky, 4 g was a parking place, Google was a baby burp, Skype was a typo and Al Kider was my plumber.
Victor Hugo said “there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come”.
Read the rest on Free From Harm
If animals are not loved and protected
Kept safe and free from harm
The animal species known as human
Will also “buy the farm”
We are one world
Together
And ALL beings should be
Honored and respected
Karen Lyons Kalmenson
Reblogged this on Ann Novek–With the Sky as the Ceiling and the Heart Outdoors.
LikeLike
Thank you so much, Ann.
LikeLike
I’m taking a copy of the transcript because I think it’s the best pro-V speech I have ever heard and I need to make notes. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Excellent, Sarah! (I think so, too.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on Anglo Saxon Celt Creates and commented:
This is a fabulous speech. It won’t make you feel warm and fuzzy but it might change your life.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much for sharing, Sarah!
LikeLike
I try not to do too much re-blogging but I couldn’t resist this one. It should be spread far and wide.
LikeLiked by 1 person
…and it’s already spread a bit further: http://lifeinthecitywithafuture.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/day-242-in-the-pursuit-of-love-animal-rights/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sarah, thank you so very much. Our greatest asset is our words (and emotions).
LikeLiked by 1 person
If animals are not loved and protected
Kept safe and free from harm
The animal species known as human
Will also “buy the farm”
We are one world
Together
And ALL beings should be
Honored and respected
LikeLiked by 1 person
EXCELLENT comment….and so very true. When will mankind realize that when everything else goes extinct, mans’ ass is next!
LikeLiked by 2 people
thank you…i hope the wake up call happens before there is nobody left to wake up!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exactly! Thanks, David.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Love it! Thank you so much, hon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
you are so very welcome and thank you.
honoring all god’s creatures seems so natural.
how anyone would not do so….incomprehensible!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
strong words, but how else can words be? so true. and here in france, i see even more destruction of animals and trees. eve
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for your input, Eve, most appreciated. (I think everywhere is the destruction, no animal – or green – is immune from the cruelty or the destruction.)
LikeLike
Great finally this very important issue it’s broth on a large forum! 🙂
http://goo.gl/BWcntD
LikeLike
Very interesting, I will definitely read that, thank you.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on GarryRogers Nature Conservation and commented:
Yep.
LikeLike