Today  I went to the Student Union at Indiana University and stood in line for, I counted: 69 minutes. Why, you may ask? Well to vote, of course. Why else would I voluntarily stand for over in an hour in ANY line other than perhaps, a line to achieve “divine wisdom” or to touch a highly dense and concentrated version of “God.” So I voted early. My ballot has been cast. I’m rather proud, on some level, because this was the first time I’ve ever voted in a primary election. Ever since I was 18 years old, I’ve been proud to vote in general elections and casting my vote is a pretty damn big deal.

I’m sure you would agree that voting is pretty important, don’t you? After all, if things worsen in your country and you never voted, you certainly have no right to complain about the current situation. It seems that some people in this country just don’t care about voting, which I understand to some degree. My dad hates voting because he says, “All the politicians are evil. It’s like voting for the best of the worst.” But at least he votes so he has a right to make a difference. I found out this morning that my roommate isn’t registered to vote. She’s been eligible for six years. How is this possible? The very year I turned 18, one of the first things I did after my birthday was register. At first I thought registering would be time consuming or whatever, but it only involved filling out my name, address, email and giving it to a person at a table. How easy is that? And out here in Indiana, they make registering even easier because they give you the option to register to vote while obtaining a new drivers license… or even renewing one at the drivers license office. There really are no excuses for not being registered to vote. I highly urge anyone reading this to PLEASE register to vote. Just go online and type in “voter registration” + “your-state-here” to find out how to register in your state. It’s very important that you do this because there are DEADLINES on when you can vote for certain elections. The deadline to register to vote within the primary election is already over. But people can still register to vote for the general presidential election, which is uber meaningful.

After voting, I went to the National Economic Forum, a televised conference, where General Tony McPeak and bama’s Senior Foreign Policy Advisor Denis McDonough discussed Obama’s plans with foreign relations. There were some not-so-heavily-weighted questions from some of the audience, while others asked questions *I* would have asked, regarding national security and foreign policy. One question I liked was about the paid contractors/mercenaries sent off to Iraq who are doing acts of war crimes and getting away it because they are not expected to submit to the high standards that the military does. The answer involved making it stop. I like that. Questions asked. Real answers. That’s one thing I respect about the Obama and his campaign staff. They don’t “walk around the questions” and phrase things just to please people. They answer strongly and forthright, which is a trait all candidates should follow.

Today I sat in on Obama’s campaign, but he wasn’t physically there (he was in another Indiana city though).  Rumor has it that he is expected to visit Bloomington before May 6.

To be fair to all candidates coming to Bloomington, tomorrow morning, I’ll go to Town Hall and see Hillary Clinton. Although I have already cast my primary vote for Obama, I still feel compelled to hear Hillary speak so I can ask her some questions about animal rights. Speaking of animal rights, I did NOT get the opportunity to ask Obama’s advisor about animal rights because I felt the time and place wasn’t appropriate to bring that up as a topic of discussion. However when the meeting ended, I walked up to Obama’s field manager/director guy who is on staff and can relay information back to Obama and gave him my name and email address along with a basic question involving legislation and improved animal rights to prevent animal cruelty. I am currently awaiting a response and am confident that my question will one day end up in Obama’s hands.

It’s hard for me to decide which candidate to vote for when the general election comes up, because frankly, NONE of the candidates have spoken up about animal rights and it frustrates me. They either don’t care or it’s so far down the priority list that they feel if they speak up about it no one will listen. WE WILL LISTEN. Some of us actually care about animal rights. Some of us actually DON’T want to eat tortured food. Some of us actually CARE about anti-torture laws involving animals. The problem with animal-cruelty is that it is much worse than extreme “home abuse” cases. It’s a global epidemic. Animal cruelty happens so much that people just don’t seem to care.

I’m sure you may already know that almost every time you eat salmon, the fish starved for 10 days, are sliced open and gutted while still conscious, lived in feces infested tanks in space with 50,000 other fish with so little space, it’s equivalent to putting 27 foot-long fish into the size of your bathtub and forcing them to live there for years. There should be government-regulated legislation that prevents fish farms from being over-populated, under-nourished, abused and neglected.

And you probably know better than anyone that cows are so mistreated that much of the beef is diseased to due neglect and abuse. Just this year, 143 million pounds of beef were recalled by the USDA. That’s a LOT of beef. Why did the recall it? Because they were packaging beef that came from lame, sick, and abused cows. Why would anyone want to eat something filled with mucus, disease, and dangerous toxins? Cows often have their testicles sliced off while they’re screaming, have their horns pulled off their heads while they are still conscious, have their bodies branded with prods that are thousands of degrees in temperature until smoke is coming off their bodies and they are screaming hysterically. Often times, they are gutted alive, have their eyeballs gouged out by human thumbs, or have the skin on their legs sliced open while they are standing up simply so they won’t run away. How sick is that? I want this to change. We need new legislation in this country to prevent this from happening. I’m sure any intelligent human being would agree that animals shouldn’t be tortured and mutilated while they are still alive and conscious.

And perhaps you already know that pigs are tortured every day for things like bacon, sausage, and hot dogs. Sure, many people enjoy the taste of those products, but many people just don’t care how those products were obtained. Did you know that pigs have their balls cut off while they are still screaming and conscious? That they are often put in pens where they have little room to move. In fact, they have so little room to move (whether in cages or big giant shared pens), that they have hardly any room to lie down, turn around, and NO room to run or enjoy the social things animals need to remain healthy. Many of them go crazy or insane in those cages out of pure boredom. Then they are tortured and mutilated in horrible ways while still conscious, before finally dying and being sent the assembly line. If people are going to be allowed to kill animal, then there should be enforceable LAWS that prevent the outright abuse, neglect, and torture of the animals. Animals in agricultural farms deserve the SAME RIGHTS as animals that people have as pets. I’m not against the killing of animals. I am against the torture of animals. There are alternative methods we can use to prevent this from happening.

And we all know that chickens get some of the worst of the treatment. Their beaks are burned at thousands-of-degrees of temperature while still conscious. They often live in feces-infested cages with thousands of other chickens where they have no pecking order or social stimuli. They are slung by the handful into metal trucks, their bodies forcefully flung by their wings or their feet where their bodies slam into the truck, often times causing injury and death. They are put on assembly lines with water so they are electrocuted and paralyzed to prevent them from running away, but they still feel everything. They still feel all the pain. They are still conscious and their wings are still flapping when they get sent to the throat slicer. The throat slicer goes so fast that it doesn’t take the time to make sure the chickens’ throats have been sliced all the way before sending them down the assembly line. Almost always, the animal is still alive and kicking after having its neck sliced. Then it gets sent into hot, scalding water…. boiling water… while still alive…. so the chicken can be de-feathered. Isn’t that some sick shit? Those kicking chickens are forcibly put into boiling water with their open throats gashed open… they’re flapping trying to get out… and the machines are too shallow to allow drowning. Those that survive the torture of being boiled alive, get gutted… alive. Deskinned and gashed open while still feeling all the pain, still feeling all the torture… and being powerless to stop it. WHO WILL BE THE VOICES FOR THESE ANIMALS? There are alternative methods we could be using instead, such as using controlled-atmosphere-killing (CAK) which involves the painless killing of 400+ chickens within an odorless gas environment. The cost is relatively cheap, given context of how many animals it could terminate at one time in as littler as 30 seconds. WE NEED TO USE THESE ALTERNATIVES. I urge any of you reading this to PLEASE use your voice for animal rights in this upcoming election. Get involved. We need to speak up for these crying, tortured animals. Those who are strong in compassion, please make the stance that we, as Americans, ARE INTERESTED in knowing how the candidates stand on the issue of animal rights.

For those of you who have to “see it to believe it,” I DARE you to watch these sick videos. My stomach can’t handle it.

I care about animal rights. Will you care about them too?

Love
Isabella
xoxoxoox