ok, im going to say this again: in AMERICA the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has protocols they have to follow. we are in 2009, not 1965, we have people (the FDA) who come out and INSPECT slaughterhouses, to make sure they are killing animals in a humane way, especially now because of mad cow. and again im going to say that the BLM does not condone the brutal killing of animals, and kills only with approved methods.
i dont know about slaughterhouses in europe, i dont live there, maybe they have all kinds of weird-tooth missing hillbillies in their slaughter houses killing animals with pocket knives or whatever, but in AMERICA it doesnt work like that.
maybe you should read Uptin Sinclair's book "The Jungle" if you want to be really grosed out, but that book was written in 1906, and American slaughterhouses arent like that now.