Mapping the connections

As I try to brainstorm my topic, I find it extremely challenging; there are so many topics, issues, and absurdities that I could feel compelled to report upon. A project pertaining to my interests or concerns about some animal topic is like asking me to find my favorite tree amongst an endless sea of green in a tropical forest. In choosing a topic, I started with some of my most general interests and significances in my life. In exploring this idea my interests stemmed far beyond the slaughterhouse and the factory farms but to how our ancestors once lived with animals sustainably, living in a holistic manner with all living beings. How was it that we were able to live day to day with out the influence of media, money, and meat? However, in trying to peruse this, I have found that people today do not care much about a sustainable world but rather an “affordable” one, but at what price?. We have been led to accept many things that directly contradict the ideas of holistic and sustainable livelihoods, at the cost of billions of lives and the environment. Yet, no one seems to care.
My final project is going to be an evaluation and visual representation of the effects of factory farming on society as well as our economic structure. The inefficiencies of factory farming, combined with the social effects of slaughterhouse employment are only a few words to describes the complex and deeply interconnected issues involved with capitalist food production. When the only important issue involved in production is the use of animals and people as machines just as a means for increased profit for few people, there must be a reason why the majority do not see something wrong. Most of the people in the world do not benefit from this sort of intensive form of production, yet give a large fraction of their dollars in direct support to large corporate stakeholders.
For my report, I hope to use visual representations of statistical data mapping the connections that food production has skillfully entwined. We wonder why we cannot make a significant difference in bettering the lives of so many suffering creatures but we forget to connect the dots and see the broader picture of who pays and who profits. In this map we will see that no matter the species, human or non alike, we are all a mouse in the maze. Instead of electric prods and shocks we are led by psychologists who study us, just like rats, finding out which new bill board or commercial we will be more likely to pursue.
I believe that the two authors that have most pertained to my topic are Carol Adams and Peter Singer. I have enjoyed reading their works and believe they do an excellent job outlining two different aspects of my argument. Peter Singer’s argument in Animal Liberation is an ethical argument outlining the practices and effects of our behavior towards non human animals. As pertaining to Carol Adams, she is able to take Singer’s argument and tie it directly into the development of cruel and unusual effects towards women and how we view them, making them closer to the concept of meat that man.
Our complacency towards this issue and constant funding aids in the increased corruptions that occurs. As a result, a majority of people and animals are suffering horrible and unthinkable lives. The main goal of my project is to create an inclusive map with accompanying graphs and tables to show the real price of the food we eat.

Animal Liberation is Human Liberation, One Struggle, One Fight
- RIOT/CLONE