Good evening and thank you for coming.

My name is James, and I am the humane educator

for the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida.

Now, I am typically giving this presentation to a high school classroom,

so my audience is a little different. And I...

(Same, same level.) Same level. We will find out. We will find out.

So I pretty much know my audience.

And I can pretty much can guarantee that 99% of the kids in the class

are eating meat, dairy and eggs.

And there might be one or two kids who are vegetarian.

But it’s a very rare occasion where you’ll get a kid who is vegan.

When I speak to adults it’s a little different, you know,

I don’t quite know my audience as well.

So I want to get to know you. So here is what I want everybody to do.

I want everybody to please stand up.

Alright, now, if you are vegan, meaning

you choose not to eat any meat of the animal,

no flesh of the animals, no cows, no chickens, no pigs,

no turkey, and no fish, right surprise, surprise: fish is not a vegetable.

No dairy, no cow's milk, no cow cheese,

no cow butter, no cow ice cream and no eggs,

please have a seat.

So if you are a vegan, please have a seat.

OK. Now for the rest of you,

you’ll have to remain standing for the rest of the presentation.

Alright, everybody have a seat.

There is another benefit of talking to high school kids.

And that’s they are not afraid to participate in the presentation.

They will say whatever is on their mind. Whether I like it or not.

But with adults it's a little bit harder, it’s like pulling teeth.

Now this presentation is designed to be interactive,

meaning I want you to actually participate. I want you to engage.

When you think about the presentation, it’s like a Rorschach test.

I'll show you a picture...

and you... tell me what you see.

Alright. So the maturity level is the same as high school students’.

It is a mushroom, people. Alright.

How many of you have ever seen the movie “The Matrix”?

Alright, so more than half.

For those who have not seen the movie “The Matrix”

There's a scene in the very beginning of the film,

where the main character is presented with two pills.

One blue . And one red

And he has to make a choice

If he chooses the blue pill, he’ll fall asleep

and when he wakes up, everything will be exactly the way it has always been.

If he chooses the red pill,

he will finally learn the truth.

And I'm here today to give you that red pill.

But let me make this very clear to you:

I'm not here to tell you what to do,

I'm not here to tell you how to think, how to feel

And I'm certainly not here to tell you what to eat.

I am simply here to provide you with information

What you do with that information is solely up to you.

So what does the Matrix look like?

Let me show you.

Now, despite what you might be thinking these two circles are not equal.

I repeat, these two circles are not equal.

One is in fact larger than the other.

What I need you to do, is to determine which one that is.

So please raise your hand if you believe the blue circle is larger than the red.

Alright.

Please raise your hand if you believe the red circle is larger than the blue.

Alright, very good.

Now, before I said anything about these two circles,

what was your first instinct?

Equal, right?

Because they look equal. The reason they look equal,

is because they are in fact equal. These two circles are identical.

You know, I just got almost everyone of you to raise your hand

and say that they are not. So what do we learn?

That you can be manipulated like that [clicks]

to believe in something that goes against your natural instincts.

Just imagine, just imagine as a child

you are taught that the blue circle is larger than the red.

If you say it enough times, you convince yourself that's the truth.

If you’re told the lie enough times, it becomes part of your reality.

And if enough people were taught that lie,

that the blue circle is larger than the red,

then now it becomes part of the culture.

And if that culture then passes that misinformation

along to the next generation, now it becomes tradition.

And what we have to remember is that just because we have a tradition,

it does not mean it is morally acceptable.

Tradition and morality are not always the same.

I mean can you think of any traditions

that we once had in the United States of America that we no longer have?

That today we think back and that was immoral?

Slavery, right? Less than two hundred years ago.

And that was a tradition.

So the traditions we have today

does not necessarily mean that they are morally acceptable.

And as we evolve as a culture, so do our traditions.

Now, The Matrix is a story. It’s a story

when told enough times to enough people

it becomes a part of that culture. It becomes the tradition.

And this story is being told over and over. Everyday.

In fact, if you believe the image on the cartoon

is where you are getting your milk from, you are deceiving yourself.

This is a fantasy. It only exists in your head.

It’s a blue pill fed to you by the industry

to get you to buy their product.

This is the Matrix

the lie we tell ourselves about where our food is coming from.

The reality is far more disturbing.

90 to 95% of the milk,

the meat,

and eggs that we consume in the United States are coming from these conditions.

This is called factory farming.

This is where you take thousands of hens,

Pigs,

and cows and confine them into warehouses.

In fact, every year in the U.S. 10 billion...

Yes, 10 billion cows,

Pigs,

and chickens are being slaughtered for food.

So what that works out to be is that every second in the U.S.

300 animals are killed. Just like that.

So 300 600

900 1200

By the time I am done talking today

there’ll be over a million animals that have been slaughtered.

And most of us do not even blink an eye

and I mean how is it possible that in the United States of America,

we can kill,

we can slaughter 300 animals, every second,

and not question that.

Because of the story we have been told. The story justifies the action.

If you say it enough times, you actually convince yourself that’s the truth.

And how many of you were told as a child you need to eat meat to get protein?

I know I was.

How many of you were taught you need to drink cow’s milk

to get strong bones?

Not dog milk,

not chimpanzee milk,

not elephant milk, not rhino milk,

not hippo milk, not tiger milk,

not lion milk, not giraffe milk,

not elephant milk, did I say that already,

I think you get the point.

Not even our own mother's milk,

we need to drink cow's milk to get strong bones.

The absurdity of drinking the milk from any other species,

and any other being beside our own mother,

when it said enough times, loses its absurdness.

So all we’re gonna do today

is to find out if the Matrix is telling the truth.

Now, the first we have been taught is that our diet is natural.

We eat meat, dairy and eggs, so therefore it must be natural.

So let's find out.

You have two images on the wall.

Alright, again. Remember the Rorschach test.

You have two images on the wall.

I want you to tell me all the thoughts that come to mind,

when you see the image on the left.

Do not be afraid to scream out. Nobody is going to get sent to the Principal.

What do you see?

Fresh, yum, sweet, alright?

If I came into the room with a basket of strawberries

that looked just like that, organic.

And I put it on a chair right here, now, what would be your thoughts?

OK, same thoughts.

What would you think if one of us got up and started chewing on the strawberries?

Maybe you want to join in.

If I come into the room with a basket of strawberries

how many of your mouths would start to salivate? You mouth starts to water?

If I take a strawberry and put it under your nose, what do you smell?

If I take a knife and slice that strawberry in half

and put that under your nose,

now what do you smell? Strawberries -

Note that all the sensations remain the same.

You see a strawberry and it looks like strawberry.

You smell strawberry, and it smells like a strawberry.

And you take a bite out of a strawberry

and surprise, surprise, it tastes like a strawberry.

Exactly, it’s a strawberry.

But, what thoughts come to mind when you see the image on the right?

Cute,

it’s kind of a rigged audience... you are in a vegan restaurant.

But you know, when I go to a classroom,

half the response, you get half of the kids, “Oh, cute, animal,

pig, Wilbur, Babe."

So half the class will see an animal and the other half of the class will see

bacon, sausage, ham, pigs, rib, pork and hot dog.

Those see a food. It’s one or the other.

Either you’re seeing an animal, or you’re seeing food.

Now, what would happen if I took one of the pigs living,

brought it into the room right here and put him right in front of you?

Does that change it? Now what do we see?

I mean, what would we think if one of us got up and start chewing on the pig?

Not very normal.

If I come into the room with a pig under my arm,

how many of your mouth starts to salivate? Alright!

If I take a pig and put it under your nose, what do you smell? Smell pig.

Just like if I take a dog and put it under your nose, you smell dog.

A cat, you smell a cat.

If I took a knife, and I sliced that pig in half. And put that under your nose,

Now what do you smell? (Blood.)

You smell rotting corpse, bacteria, decomposing flesh.

You see there is a process involved, and I am here today,

to show you that process of how you convert this animal, into this product.

Why should it be kept a secret?

Why should we not know what we are participating in?

And what we are putting in our body?

Now let’s make the situation slightly more realistic.

If I were to put a pig on this side of the room living,

and a butchers knife on the side of that room, how many people would be willing

to pick up the knife and take the life of that animal?

It’s very rare right?

And if somebody did that, that’s alright,

but how many people would try to stop that person from doing it.

Right. Would we try that?

of course, that’s compassion.

That is the greatest quality of the human race.

There is no other species on this planet

that has that level of compassion to extend to all living beings.

But, if you would stop somebody from killing a pig in front of you

and then go home and have this for breakfast

that’s called hypocrisy.

Just because it comes in a nice neat package all dressed up in the supermarket,

just because you didn’t take the knife and shove it through their jugular

just because you didn’t get blood on your clothes

and just because you didn’t hear their screams,

it does not mean that you did not participate in the killing.