Motivation

World War II, and Civil War experiences  such us:  atrocities, fear, famine, and lack of medical help, were strongly influence my thinking about them and make me dream of  a  better world.

However, as I was growing up I realized  that the level of brutality and unjust treatment of humans toward  humans became even worse. Unfortunately, wars, cruelties, and other terrible acts continue to occur, and humans, did not seem to learn from their past mistakes.

The following  is a list of such human behaviors that occur even in our days.

1. Genocides, which caused deaths and misery to millions of innocent people.
2. Human greediness, and hunger for wealth, and power were in the past and still are the  origins of exploitation and abuse of others, and
3. Wars which caused the death, destruction, and terror to millions of people.
4. Brutal dictatorships, which caused the death and suffering to thousands of people.
5. Acts of terrorism, which caused, and are still causing, the killings of thousands of innocent people.
6. Violence, caused by  fanatic behavior, poverty, injustice, unemployment,etc.  is a phenomenon that takes place everywhere.

To my disappointment, not long ago, violence has penetrated into the children’s entertainment world (toys, games, and films). I remember the period of 1950-1970, when children’s entertainment activities were truly fun to watch and their educational values were great and appropriate. However, nowadays, such activities involve a lot of violence (fighting, guns, etc.), and children are continuously exposed into it. and In turn, such exposure are  the first lessons for the creation of hostile individuals. It is regrettable, that not many people are seriously concerned about this issue now days.

Unfortunately, over the years, such inhuman and brutal behaviors have been extended to the world of animals, and to the environment.

Due to all the above mentioned facts, I was convinced that the better world that I was dreaming as a child, it was an impossible dream. For these reasons and because of many real life obligations (studies, work, and family) I let my wishful dream become dormant for several decades.

However, some events regenerated my interest about my faded dream.

In the following paragraphs, I will share with you some of these stories (events) that have to do with my regenerated interest to create a better world.

These stories are real stories and demonstrate the inhuman behavior of humans toward other humans and animals, and they formed the basis for making comparisons of the human behavior toward people and animals.

I am presenting them here hoping that you will become curious and read the rest of what is presented in this information package, learn from it, become courageously energetic and try to make things better.

Here are these stories.

When I was working at NASA’s JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), one day, I was in the office of a scientist – colleague of mine, I noticed a book on his desk. The title of the book was “DEATH ROW”, Civil War Spain 1936 (Ref. 1). The title of the book was intriguing, and what was also interesting was the fact that the name of the author of the book was the same as the name of my colleague. I asked him about it, and he explained to me that his father wrote it, and that it was a true story. He told me that during the period of late 1920 till the middle of 1930, his father, a Spaniard, was an engineer,  and a member of the famous Spanish soccer team “REAL MADRID”, and of Spain’s OLYMPIC soccer team. He told me that his father was unjustly arrested by Dictator FRANCO’s r revolutionary army, jailed for several months, but managed to escape and immigrate to the United States of America. While in America, his father wrote this book in order to inform the world about the unbelievable happenings he witnessed while he was in jail. I asked my colleague, if I could borrow the book for a few days. My colleague immediately agreed, so I got the book. I read it with great interest, and absorbed everything in it to such a degree that I never forgot even the smallest detail.

In the next paragraphs, I will summarize few events that I found in that book, which impressed me, the most. For details about these stories, please read Ref. 1 (if you wish, please go to Amazon.com where you can find several used copies of the book, and at an extremely low price).

I hope that if you read these stories, you may start thinking about what is going on in the lives of humans that live under totalitarian regimes and war conditions and furthermore correlate these stories to what is going on in the lives of animals, while you are enjoying a juicy steak or a tasty fish dinner.

The resemblance of these dramatic human stories to some even more dramatic stories of animals will be discussed in the following paragraphs. The only difference between the treatment of people versus the treatment of animals is that while the imprisonment and suffering of people, is, in most cases, only temporary (few months or sometimes years), the suffering of the animals is continuous (from the day they are born to the time they are slaughtered), and it occurs under considerably worse conditions. Furthermore, people can talk and react (resist) if anybody threatens them, while animals (and fish) can’t.

Stories from the book “DEATH ROW”, Spain 1936 (Ref. 1):

• The similarities of the living conditions of FRANCO’s prisons and the living conditions of animals in the places where they are held.

In Spain, during the time of FRANCO’s dictatorship, the facilities used as prisons were old buildings and were not designed for that purpose. According to the author, the living conditions in these prisons were awful. Rooms were overcrowded with 900 people in spaces that could hold a maximum of 300 people. (people were practically living on the top of each other, and were sleeping on concrete floors on newspapers), the bathrooms were overflowed, and the windows and the ventilation facilities were practically non-existent.

At this point, a comparison between the living conditions of people at Franco’s prisons and the living conditions of animals in today’s facilities where animals (i.e. chicken, pigs, cows, etc.) are held for producing eggs, milk, etc. while waiting to be slaughtered, are similar. In fact, the living conditions of animals are much worse.

However, not many of us think about these horrible living conditions of animals and about their unfolding continuous drama of fear and agony.

• The similarities of the daily excecution of prisoners (picked up arbitrarly) to the arbitrary schlautering of animals and fish.

The next thing that struck me from this book was the occurrence of a few frightening events (known as the “SACA”) that they took place in every prison, every night at 11 pm. At that time, a squad of soldiers came to the prison and picked up a group of 12-17 inmates for execution. The names of the people to be executed were decided by a political committee and was based on unknown (and possibly arbitrary) criteria. As described in the book, the fear, and the anticipation of the inmates, who was going to be next, was indescribable. Obviously, that made everyone’s live miserable. Next, I will describe only three such SACA events.

The first event was about a crippled inmate (a guy without legs) who has done nothing more than verbally opposed FRANCO’s regime. This man was in prison for several months, and he thought that because of his handicapped condition, that he will never be picked up for execution. He was wrong. One night while he was sleeping, the soldiers came, and one of them woke him up, and told him that he should follow them for interrogation. The guy understood their intention and started reacting violently. He actually used his teeth to bite them since he had no other way to react. Then, the soldiers covered his body with a plastic bag, tied him up with ropes, took him to the execution grounds, and shot him.

The second one was about a man who had decided ahead of time to commit suicide in case his name was picked up. One night, when his name was called, he ran in full speed against an iron bar coming out from one of the walls and crashed his head. He died instantly in front of the eyes of his fellow prisoners. It is hard to imagine, the fear, agony, anger and desperation that the other prisoners felt.

The third event was about the case of a man and his dog. As usual, there was a strong bond between the guy and his dog. When the man was arrested, the dog followed the truck that brought him into the prison and stayed outside the prison for several months. The dog was even fed by the prison’s guards. One night, the man was picked up for execution. The dog followed the truck to the execution grounds and after the execution took place, the dog stayed next to his master’s dead body crying. Then, the dog followed the truck that took his master body to a mass grave. According to witnesses, the dog stayed there for several days, refused to eat, and finally died. The story became known to the people in the area and was the topic of talk for some time. The story of the dog just told, is characteristic of the devotion and strong bond that exist between animals and people (Ref. 2) .

A story from the book “SCHINDLERS LIST” (Ref. 3).

• The similarities of the living conditions of “SCHINDLERS LIST” hard labor camp prisoners and the living conditions of animals in the places where they are held.

This story comes from reading the book and seeing the movie “SCHINDLERS LIST”. Here, I wish to mention the events of the random killings that took place at a German (Nazi directed) hard labor camp, as described in this book. It happened somewhere in Europe, during WW2. The story is about the brutal behavior of the Nazi Commander of the camp. This guy was supervising (on and off) the workers of the camp from the balcony of his apartment, located in the middle of the camp. He was doing the supervision at break times, while he was having fun with his girlfriend. During these breaks, he took his rifle and shot randomly any worker whom he thought that was not working hard enough.

Similar things have been happening to animals for millions of years (animals are picked up arbitrarily and killed). Animals have the same fear,and suffer the same agony as humans do, and even more, because they can easily sense danger. Furthermore, animal parents and their children have a very close bond with each other, and a lot of species form social friendships, they feel the pain of loss and mourn the loss of their babies and friends much like us.

Clearly, animals and human suffer very much the same way, except that the animals cannot talk and react, as humans do, and their suffering is continuous without any chance for living better their short lives.

The following 3 stories are additional demonstrations of the cruelty and lack of sensitivity of people towards animals.

A story from the winter Olympic Games in Russia, a few years ago.

This story happened at the time of the winter Olympic Games in Russia, a few years ago, and was shown on the American TV channel which was broadcasting the games. The American TV crew was interviewing a group of Americans who were there for the games, and at that time were at a Russian restaurant which was serving lobsters. Here is what took place: one of the employees of the restaurant came in front of the American’s group table with a large plate. On the plate there was a huge live lobster. The employee of the restaurant showed the live lobster to the group and asked them if they wanted to have the lobster as their dinner. One guy from the group said, “sure we want it”, and added with a laugh addressing the lobster, “BABY, IN FEW MINUTES YOU WILL BE IN MY STOMACH”, and everybody laughed with the joke. Then, the restaurant employee returned to the kitchen in order to prepare the lobster for the group’s dinner.

A story that took place in a supermarket in Arcadia California.

I was inside a Chinese supermarket in Arcadia California. In the supermarket, there was a fish market selling live fish from a tank. A shopper, decided to buy two fish from the fish tank. He asked the supermarket’s employee to catch them for him. The supermarket employee used a fish net and took the two fish out, he placed, one fish at a time, on a wooden table, and used a heavy hammer and hit each fish on the head two or three times. The fish made few erratic movements for few minutes and then died. The shopper and other people around watched the show without any emotion. After that, the employee, placed the two fish in a plastic bag and gave them to the shopper who left without any sign of human emotion.

A story of the sclaughter of a lamb.

The story I am describing here is about GREEK EASTER CELEBRATION AND THE SLAUGHTER OF A LAMB. The story was broadcasted in one of the major Greek TV channels. Here it is:

The Greeks, traditionally celebrate the Easter with lots of food and other joyful activities. One of the main dishes they eat is roasted lamb. A few days before Easter, millions of lamb are slaughtered to be ready for the celebration. At the time of the broadcasting, there was a shortage of slaughtering facilities while there was a great demand for lamb for the celebration. For that reason, it was decided to use an available empty lot as a temporary slaughtering space, near the modern OLYMPIC STADIUM, where thousands of lambs were awaiting their death.

Here is what happened:

A customer was visiting the place intending to buy a lamb for the Easter celebration. The seller (who obviously was also a butcher) and the customer exchanged a few words (it looked that the customer had been asked by the seller which lamb he wanted). After the decision was made, the seller-butcher went to the group of lamb, grabbed the selected lamb from the left back foot and dragged it to the slaughtering place, sliced his throat, took the skin off the body of the lamb, put the skinned lamb’s body into a plastic bag, and gave it to the customer. The customer paid the fee, took the plastic bag with the lamb’s body in it and threw it into the trunk of his car. Then, he went home to celebrate with his family the Easter dinner. The entire event was sickening.

I wish to point out that similar occurrences happened everywhere in the world for celebrating major religious events such THANKSGIVING, CHRISTMAS, and the likes.

Furthermore, in order to satisfy the great number of meat and fish eaters and other needs, such things occur almost every second all over the world (it is estimated that 28,000 of animals are slaughtered every minute in the U.S.A. alone, and more than 300,000 animals per minute are slaughtered worldwide, excluding fishes)¹.

Unfortunately, we humans do not think about what is going on in the lives of these powerless creatures. The only things we are thinking of are, our own enjoyment (gastronomical), and the profit we make out of it.

Naturally, since most humans are money hungry, they created profitable industries out of animals/fish (the meat/fish and meat byproducts industry). For millions of years, animals and fish are the relatively easy accessible victims for business exploitation. That is why the smart humans took advantage of them and turned such killings into profitable businesses. They even went further, by inventing ways to raise them fast, and in great numbers, and created several cruel methods of killing them (efficient computerized slaughtering machines), and then found ways to sale them for money (created delicious meat and fish based gourmet foods, restaurants, and other businesses). It is also amazing that humans, in order to feel psychologically good, invented all kinds of excuses to justify their horrible acts (they even misinterpret the BIBLE which represents GOD’s wishes. For example, the Christians were not eating meat before 326 AC, but they start eating meat after the decision of the Nycea council – a decision made by humans). Humans, in their effort to maximize their materialistic and gastronomical desires, failed to recognize that these acts badly affected their own lives (their health, the environment, and the world’s economy).

Furthermore, the scientific community (universities, and research institutes) kill animals for biological, and medical research and education, even these animals have very little resemblance to human anatomy and physiology, and the usefulness of their research findings on animals may be very risky, when applied to humans.

In addition, sports like activities (i.e. hunting) contribute greatly to the suffering of these creatures.

It is truly regrettable that almost all of us think that animal killings are natural acts necessitated for our survival. We just say:

“ANIMALS ARE HERE TO BE KILLED FOR FOOD AND PROFIT”, which highly unethical.

At this point, I wish to end the story telling about my motivation and my sensitivity about the drama of animals by telling you about an experience that I had with one of my dogs more than 25 years ago.

This dog was the last of four dogs that I rescued over a period of 10 years and he was attached to me because I was paying a bit more attention to him. The color of his hair was red and he was a good looking dog. His name was Stud. 

NOTE: As a result of such human insensitivity, I wish to inform you about the astonishing large number of animals and fishes which are killed every year worldwide to feed the world’s population (which is about 7 billion), to do scientific biological and medical research, and for other purposes. The exact number is not known, but it is estimated to be somewhere between 100 and 150 billion for (land) animals, and more than two trillion for fish. In addition, a great number of them are used to serve human needs (i.e. hard labor work, and entertainment). The reasons humans are using to justify such numbers of animal/fish killings, are summarized elsewhere in this information package.

THE FINAL STORY THAT MADE ME  CREATE FKW.

At this point, let me finish my story telling the story which regenerated my interest to pursue my “impossible dream”, To create FKW.

It is about an experience that I had with one of my dogs more than 25 years ago.

This dog was the last of four dogs that I rescued over a period of 10 years and he was attached to me because I was paying a bit more attention to him. The color of his hair was red and he was a good looking dog. His name was Stud. 

On the Summer 1992, my family and I went to Greece for the wedding of my daughter, for a period of 6 weeks. I left the dog in my house, in excellent condition, assuming that a friend will come every day to give him food and some love. When I returned, to my surprise, the color of my dog’s hair was almost white, and he was senile. The veterinarian said that he suffered from severe depression. He died in my arms shortly after my return. Obviously, the dog had strong feelings for me and my family and could not tolerate the separation. This incident changed my way of thinking about animals, and it has very much to do with the creation of the current information package and my conversion to vegetarianism.

However, apart from the humanitarian reasons mentioned earlier, I wish to mention here that eating animal meat involves serious risks to our health. As it is discussed in many parts of this information package, land animals and fish are highly overmedicated;  land animals contain high fats (especially saturated), cholesterol, and meat protein which are proven to contribute to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, allergies, respiratory, neurological and other chronic diseases (all of them incurable).

In addition, another potential problem is the transmission of animal diseases to people, since animals suffer from cancer, leukemia, lyme and other diseases. Unfortunately, there are not enough inspectors and related checking facilities to check the billions of animals, fish and their byproducts (milk, yogurt, cheese, etc.) that we consume daily to ensure that they are safe foods.

As far as fish meat is concerned, the story is very similar (oceans, lakes, and rivers are greatly contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals, heavy metals, and in some cases even radiation). Regarding farmed raised fish, it is important for you to know that over medication is also a problem and a source of human body inflammation which is the very source of most of the chronic diseases.

Finally, I wish to inform you about another disturbing fact: According to a Consumer’s REPORT article (Ref. 4) an amount of 25-50% of the meat and fish flesh is thrown away yearly (maybe because there is not enough refrigeration storage space) while people are without food and billions of animals and fish are killed and wasted.

References

1. “Death Row”, Spain 1936, By Patricio P. Escobal. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. (1968).
2. “The Bond”, by Wayne Pacelle, William Morrow trade paperback edition 2012.
3. “Schindlers List”, by Thomas Kenelly, A Touchstone Book, Published by Simon & Schuster (1993). Schindler’s List – Official® Trailer [HD]
4. “Spoiler Alert”, by Mary H.L. Farrell, Consumers Report, September 2016 Issue.