The last time I visited Northampton, I enjoyed a wonderful vegan meal, smiled upon seeing a storefront sign advertising vegan sweets and generally got a good vibe from the place as I strolled around town.
I’ll next be in Northampton in early September, and that visit will bring me no such joy. I’ll be there to protest the Three County Fair, and I won’t be alone.
I’ll be standing shoulder to shoulder with thoughtful, impassioned people who, like me, are sickened by humankind’s cruel exploitation of other species.
We’ll be there to speak for all the victims who’ll be on exhibit, from the Bengal tigers who were born into captivity to be used for entertainment to those who were brought into this world to be robbed of their dignity, turned into milk machines and brutally slaughtered to feed appetites and bank accounts.
We’ll be there to speak for the beautiful lambs whose lives were marked on day one with expiration dates, for the goats and calves whose secretions and flesh will soon be served to people who won’t associate their food with stolen and tortured lives, and for all those who never had a choice.
We, on the other hand, do have a choice. I wasn’t born a vegan and don’t know anyone who was.
I was a vegetarian for years before one day awakening fully to the horrors of what our species does to others. It’s not an abstraction. It’s an atrocity, one that will only come to an end when all of us listen to our instincts, look into the eyes of the doomed, and find the compassion we were born with before being fed a head full of lies.
David Brensilver
The author is a Connecticut-based writer and animal-rights advocate.