How do you choose between humans and animals?

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Recently there have been discussions on the inhumane treatment of animals raised and slaughtered for human consumption. This is a topic close to my heart and a passion of many other MyLot members. I am an animal lover, and don't feel the need to tell of all I have done for animals over the course of my years in this discussion. This is more about the inhumane treatment of humans. I am not talking about prisoners of war, the starving in Darfur, the female castrations that happen within some cultures, or any of the other atrocities that have been dealt to the human lot. It was only about 30 years ago that I began working in an "institution for the mentally insane and retarded". I was very fortunate to have started there right after the "Snake Pit" era was over; but the buildings where that type of behavior happened in were still on the campus grounds. Since I was hired in a managerial position, I was able to unlock the doors to the buildings and get a true vision of the past. There were still shakles on the walls where human beings had plastic mattresses thrown onto concrete floors to sleep on. The "shower room" was nothing but a 4-walled room with 3 hoses attached to 3 walls and a huge drainage hole in the center of the room. People were stripped naked, then taken as a group into the room where the staff turned the hoses onto them and wet them down. There were buckets that had been sitting since the beginning of the shift with bars of soap melting and several wash cloths. Staff members would grab wash cloths out of the buckets and lather these folks off. Once again the hoses would be turned on them. They would then be led out of the shower room where another bunch of staff was ready to dry them off with towels, apply baby powder, a diaper, and a half of a hospital gown that tied in the back. The "dining room" consisited of a long table that was bolted to the floor. At meal time, the plastic hospital type trays were delivered; but since most of the people that lived there had never been trained to feed themselves, it was a fight for survival and whoever could grab the most food from other people's trays was the one that ate that day. By the time that I arrived at this institution, there had been quite a few changes in societal thinking. When I arrived, the name of the facility was changed and it was no longer politically correct to say mentally retarded. New and modern housing was built. The highter functioning "individuals", as they were now called (who in the he!! is not an individual? why could they not just be referred to by name or as people?), lived in dorm-like settings. They now had the luxury of real beds with dressers and closets and beautifully furnished living rooms. The government also had come to realize that these human beings actually DESERVED a chance at life. They were provided (depending on their age), with either an on-campus school (with certified teaching staff), or an adult day program. These "individuals" now had Advocates working for them, in fact they had a whole team of professionals working for them and providing them with programs to increase their daily basic living skills. They now wore clothing and sat down at tables of no more than 6 to a table with a staff person at each table to eat home style meals. They also had on grounds jobs where they had the opportunity to earn money. They were taken off grounds on trips. Life was looking up for them. Please note that all of the above paragraph was about the "higher-functioning individuals". The rest of the people that lived there did have some positive changes in their lives. They too, were dressed daily in clothing. They had the same dressers in their rooms; but their rooms were not nearly as elegant. In fact, their building was much like a hospital ward. Most rooms housed 4 adult sized metal cribs. There were a few rooms that house 8 of these huge cribs. These folks could not feed themselves, so at meal times the staff would go from bed to bed and and feed them one at a time. After all of the "easy feeders" as the staff called them when they thought no one was listening were fed, the staff all went to The Dreaded Room! That was the room where the most frail and the most challenging to feed lived. They would be waiting to eat with towels around their necks and their tall wheelchairs arranged in a circle around the room. The staff would go from one to the next getting as much food as possible into the person's belly while wiping their mouths with the towel and gossiping with all of the other staff in the room. There were approximately 15 of these folks that lived in this room. It was in this room where when I was making my rounds and observations, with all of the staff present in the room, that I noticed one of the young men in his bed in a rather awkward position. Since he was already in bed I assumed he had already been fed. Not wanting to disturb the staff that were still feeding, I went over to help him rearrange. There was no rearranging to be done. Indeed he was in an awkward position. His head had become trapped in between the metal bars of the crib and under the plastic mattress. By the time that I got to him he was no longer breathing. The clinic was only one door away and I didn't want to waste time by starting CPR in a crowded room so I jerked him from the crib and ran next door with him to the nurse where she and I both worked on him for over an hour. It was too late. These are true facts. These are sickening and horrid. But.....the staff did not know any better. Our society didn't know any better???? Is that really true? In my heart can I really believe that it was only within the last 10 to 12 years that all institutions were closed down? Has it really taken this long for us to realize that human beings deserve better than this? We have moved these people to now to group homes. There are still some institutions of teaching and instruction. In a perfect world what would it look like? In a perfect world how would you decide which cause to rally for? Would you have the mental and/or the emotional capacity to rally for both causes?