Hello dear FML friends! I read Lissete mail complaining against Marshal Farms and the later comments that in this particular phrase: "Linking the Nazi death camp with Marshall Farms may seem an effective way to blacken the reputation of the ferret breeder, but what it really does is diminishes the atrocities committed in the camps." Seems to truly believe that such horrors can not happen to animals. OK maybe he is referring particularly to MF but if there were any doubt about it I would like to share my point of view too. I live in Mexico, a developing country where atrocities to people are not so unusual, despite of this people itself seems to avenge against animals. I can swear you that there are thousand animal, domestic or not, that suffers Auschwitz and hell, here every day. There are 6 million nobody dogs in the 20 million people city, starving, thin almost like skeletons, full of mange and rash and fleas, handicapped most them because a car rush into them (8 of 10 times purposely just for the fun of doing this, I have testified it with my own eyes, and if they are killed their bodies lay at one side of the road for entire weeks and even months or in the middle of the road until they became part of the asphalt because million cars run over them, the first days there are pieces of dog everywhere) or because when they dare to beg for something to eat at one of the several informal food stands that you can find at any corner, the owner or the clients kick or hit them as strong as they can, sometimes leaving them without an eye or with the mandible fractured. For those dogs that live at a house, in most cases because of the generalized idea of "It is just a dog " they live in a 1 square meter patio, or they are chained with no more that 2 meters of freedom, surrounded by their own poop accumulated for many days, or they stay half baked, on a roof by the direct sun ray, eternally there with no contact with humans other than when they are , feed with their owner's waste The dog that my mother recently adopted used to have a "family" but they moved and left the dog locked in the old house with no food or water and what is worse with his snout tight with a rope to prevent him from barking, the neighbours realized that the dog was there 2 weeks later, they broke a window and let the dog out. You can guess he was almost dead. He managed to survive and lived in the streets for several more years, with a big trauma and afraid of humans, my mother took more than 4 months before being able to be 1 meter close to him. That dog went through hell! Other atrocities happen when they are caught by the antirrabic vans. At the antirrabic center they are killed. If they are lucky the way could be electrocuted with a circle wire connected to a power supply on their heads, it may take several discharges to finish the job, or maybe 200 dogs in a small room, one over the other, scared to death with their eyes open wide, the doors and windows are closed and the exhaust pipe of a car is connected to the room, the car is turned on and the rest is already known it takes a couple of hours to kill them all (this really sounds like Auschwitz ) but if they are not lucky and there are no other means to exterminate them, they are killed one by one stroked with a club repeatedly until they break their heads Oh! and what about the poor pigs, lambs and cows at the slaughterhouse, I know they are breed to be eaten but not to be killed this way. The guys that work there are quite insane, it is not a rumor it was a small scandal about 10 or 15 years ago (personally I don't think it has changed by far) when a TV program showed horrible images of how the guys that worked there enjoyed making animals go through a terrible pain, for instance showering cows with gasoline and then burning their backs before cutting their necks with a big knife. Or cutting their tails and ears and udder when they were still alive Or even at our research institutes where things have changed for the best little by little but there is still a lot of work to be done regarding animal ethic. I have calculated that 1% or less of all the animal sacrifice for science can produce a real benefit, and this means a lot of unnecessary deaths. And this is just what I have seen that commonly happens here around, there are other more countries where sadic traditions or habits affect and torture animals. Don't diminish animal suffering by not comparing it with Auschwitz, whatever that happened there was human against human, all countries and cultures, at different times in history have proven to be capable of great cruelty, and war is still a matter that stays among us, but what we do to animals is an abuse of our control of nature and technology and is like attempt against the most innocent of us, the children, animals are like so. As everything, there is no complete white or black and there is good people too that loves and cares about animals, but they are few compared with those that does not care at all. Best regards, Cathie and Gigio. [Posted in FML issue 3174]