Yah, exactly, Jon. And "srsly", I can't believe how many people, even many who firmly espouse to be 'animal lovers',
still don't even think twice about buying and wearing fur, or leather, or even getting fur toys for their kidlets. Where do they think that fur comes from anyway? Willy Wonka's chocolate fur factory?
I
had a local 'friend', whose supposed 'animal loving' ways I questioned in my head a number of times due to her answers, reactions and actions about animal matters, including but not limited to my own grief over Nissa.....something she NEVER truly understood, despite all the airs she put on about being so compassionate and understanding. Things she did and said were just off the mark, both I and my H thought.
Then one day she sent me this disgusting "forward" of a Chinese open-air market where all sorts of animal meat was being sold, including dog and horse meat (it was clearly labeled).....and her attached comments dealt with LAUGHING her head off about it....and she'd just euthanised (for convenience, I wonder?) her own dog that same year, no less! Meanwhile, that was the same time period where I'd been writing those letters of protest and posting about the cat slaughter in Beijing, China, reading all about how they skin those cats (and all sorts of other animals) live...and then eat their flesh, too. I'd never made any bones about how I viewed animals and their inherent value, so she should have known better than to send something like that to me, of all people.
Despite years already of my attempts to
gently enlighten her on animal issues, and tolerating being made fun of for my stances and beliefs about animals, and trying to also help save the felines under HER 'care' (I use that term quite lightly in her case as she kept, in secret and lying to me about, threatening to 'get rid of' their own cat due to his emotionally-based peeing issues, but her own husband told me what she'd
really been saying at home), her TRUE beliefs came out in this last "forward", and I became totally fed up with her attempted deceptions. It may have been mean of me, but her ostrich-like, "la-la-la-la-la-la....I can't heeeeear you!" way of moving through the world when the truth inconvenienced her lifestyle finally got the best of me and I sent her back a video showing how these animals are skinned alive for their markets (and the N. Amer. markets that also blindly use such by-products), telling her that it certainly WASN'T a laughable matter to ME. My H even added a comment to her, too, which she passed right over of course. Needless to say, end of 'friendship' in a flash....after she made all sorts of excuses for herself. Good riddance. She and her own treasured, REAL fur coat (wolf, I believe) can visit places like China and STAY there, for all I care now.
As I'd once told someone else here......
"Often anger is a sign of engagement with life. People who are angry are touched deeply by the events of their lives and feel strongly about them...Anger is just a demand for change, a passionate wish for things to be different...." ~ from Kitchen Table Wisdom ~ And this woman pushed one too many of my passionate buttons. So while I'm not proud of how, exactly, I ended this relationship, I'm betting that she'll never be able to stay in her self-imposed ignorance and laugh at these particular atrocities so lightly ever again. I know I'LL never forget the torture I saw those innocent animals go through, in the name of vanity, frivolity, profit, 'superiority' and utter indifference.