Hollywood-style awards shows aren’t my “thing.” Watching people saunter down red carpets and parade across a stage to say they were “so shocked” to win is rather boring. Music award shows don’t appeal to me either.
Who sold the most records or who had the role/performance of a lifetime isn’t important to me. I haven’t bought a CD in years (and the last one I did buy was a Christmas gift for someone else). The last concert I went to was while I was in college, and I don’t like going to the movie theater. The best songs will be on the radio and movies will eventually be on TV, so why spend the money or fight the crowds?
With my “I don’t care attitude,” I missed a speech by an-award winning actor chastising the dairy industry. Thanks to modern technology, I was able to view the speech, and for those of you like me who do not watch award shows, here’s what was said:
“We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow, and when she gives birth, we steal her baby. We take her milk that’s intended for her calf, and we put it in our coffee and our cereal. And I think we fear the idea of personal change because we think that we have to sacrifice something.”
The actor must be some kind of joker, right? Well…
It’s obvious Joaquin Phoenix, has not been on a dairy farm to see how well cows and calves are cared for, and how the welfare of each every animal on all farms is of the utmost importance to farmers and ranchers.
It appears Phoenix, like many celebrities, has eaten from the PETA propaganda tree. With a little research, I discovered Phoenix was the 2019 PETA Person of the Year, is a believer in the Animal Liberation movement and a vegan since the age of 3. On the PETA website, Phoenix said he has seen atrocities against animals, which is why he has opted to continue being a vegan and speak for those who “do not have a voice.” The atrocities he claims to have witnessed are from “investigations” done by PETA.
PETA claims going vegan saves lives and campaigns that all animals have emotions. The majority of the animals, specifically dogs and cats, “rescued” by the organization, however, are put to sleep within hours of being taken by PETA. There have been criminal charges against PETA employees for animal abuse and neglect, as well as civil suits for pets being stolen from families and euthanized. PETA’s “mission” and its actions appear to contradict.
Phoenix also claims in his speech that “we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world, and many of us, what we’re guilty of is an egocentric worldview – the belief that we’re the center of the universe. We go into the natural world, and we plunder it for its resources.”
Farmers and ranchers are the most “connected” people I know. There is no plundering of natural resources. There’s been lots of seed and fertilizer bought the last few months to help improve and enhance what God created. Special care is given to ensure water supplies are pure and clean on farms because chances are the farmers and their families are drinking from the same well as their animals.
The “natural world” is not always the happy place with rolling meadows and blue-green skies Phoenix and his friends think. Without farmers and ranchers, there would be no one to aid ill or injured animals, no one to protect them from predators. There would be no one there to warm up and feed a rejected newborn. There would be no one to assist with a difficult birth. There would also be no one to keep livestock away from roads.
The chance Phoenix reads this is slim, but I believe he and others like him are the ones at the center of their own universe – a universe that’s a ways out there.
Farmers and ranchers are too busy to play games with Phoenix and organizations like PETA. They have to get up each and every day, no matter what the weather, to feed the world. That leaves little time to worry about Hollywood, and that’s no joke.
Julie
Julie Turner-Crawford is a native of Dallas County, Mo., where she grew up on her family’s farm. She is a graduate of Missouri State University. To contact Julie, call 1-866-532-1960 or by email at [email protected].
