Would Americans eat less meat, and would animals be treated more humanely if slaughterhouses were made with glass walls and we all could see the monstrous killing apparatus at work? This is the query at the heart of Timothy Pachirat's new book "Every Twelve Seconds" — the title a reference to the typical slaughterhouse's cattle-killing rate.

Before you think this is a column merely about food, recognize that Pachirat's question isn't (only) about the immorality of the cheeseburger you had for lunch. It's about the larger phenomenon whereby modern society has reconstructed itself to hide so many horrific consequences from view.

Calling this the "politics of sight," Pachirat's blood-soaked experience inside a slaughterhouse spotlights only the most illustrative example of how we've divorced ourselves from the means of producing violence — and how, in doing so, we have made it psychologically easier to support such brutality. Sadly, billions of factory-farmed animals dying barbaric deaths are just one subset of casualties in that larger process.

Today, for example, free trade policies that promote offshoring allow Americans to enjoy consumer goods at ultra-low prices without having to see that those low prices represent companies taking advantage of the developing world's poverty wages, environmental destruction and human rights abuses. A veritable slave may have assembled the iPad you are reading these words on, but thanks to the supply chain's geography and Apple's lack of transparency, you can easily avoid dealing with the ethical implications of that reality.

Another example: Many Americans drive gas-guzzling SUVs, proudly slapping patriotic declarations on their bumpers. This seems perfectly reasonable, but only because many either don't live near polluted oil-drilling sites or don't have to personally ...

Where are the left-wing Christian voices in American politics? The rise of Rick Santorum to a contender position in the GOP primary race, alongside the current debate over contraception has shown proof positive that Christian conservative politics are near the height of their power in guiding the national conversation.This month, while questioning President Obama’s Christianity, Bill O’Reilly said, “A Christan wouldn’t be telling other Christians that you have to put your belief system aside and do what the government tells you as far as birth control or anything else.” On every front it appears that this year’s Republican political race will be defined by theology, but why is the Christian perspective so one sided?

I, like nearly one in four Americans, am not a Christian. In fact, I was raised as secular and my understanding of the Christian faith has been an education from afar. I have never belonged to a church and likewise I have never seen any reason to deny anyone of any faith their right to worship. Over the past decade I have to admit that my primary source of information about the Christian church has been through mainstream coverage of fundamentalist talking points. I know that by human nature there must be a difference of political opinion within Christianity, if there wasn’t then numbers alone would dictate that the 78% of Americans who are Christian would continually out-vote liberals. But where are they in the national media? Why do these Christians allow conservative fundamentalists to dictate the popular perception of their faith? The answer is more complicated than it would seem.

In some schools of thought Christians are not supposed to, by virtue of their faith, publicly disagree with any church leaders. This is a bible-backed mandate based upon interpretation of scripture. In a February 14th, 2012 sermon on the nationally syndicated radio show The Gospel Truth (1), Rev. Andrew Wommack is ...

The protests of 2011—from Wisconsin to Wall Street—finally tore off the gag of silence about corruption and economic inequality in our country.

But the pundits at FOX “News” are not wrong when they say that our movement is nowhere near as powerful as the Tea Party movement—at least not yet. That is in part because the Tea Partiers used the momentum from their protests to seize a piece of institutional power through elections.

Today there are Tea Party caucuses in Congress. There are Tea Party-sponsored presidential debates. The actual “tea parties” are no longer well-attended. But the movement is still in a position to continue implementing its draconian agenda.

Candidate Barack Obama also successfully converted rising frustration and activist energy into an electoral triumph in 2008. But thus far, Occupy Wall Street has not tried to occupy the institutions of established, formal political power (e.g., elections and political parties).

This omission is not by accident. Rather than getting caught up in electioneering, Occupy is choosing to focus on the hard, risky, and often-thankless work of direct action protest. They are building their own community, presence, and power through participatory democracy. They fear that too much entanglement with the existing system would kill their independence, idealism, and chutzpah.

Theirs is a sensible stance, as far as it goes. Larger movements often need a bright spearhead, propelled by pure ideals that are untarnished by the exigencies of ordinary politics.

But the question remains: What about the rest of us? There are tens of millions of people who never slept outside in a tent—but