My Column Celebrating the Men and Women Helping Animals in the Gulf Oil Spill

If you get a chance, please have a look at my column on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. It ran in the Waterloo Region Record and the Guelph Mercury. I'm including the link here to the Guelph Mercury because they posted it on their Website. My column celebrates the brave men and women from around the world who are volunteering to go down to the Gulf Coast to help the animals. Even though there are reasons to be profoundly discouraged, it is also heartening to see caring people out there doing everything they can to help in times of crisis. Check out the column - I think you'll like it.

Incidentally, in Salt Lake City, Utah, there was a fairly sizable oil spill the other day. A Chevron pipeline ruptured, spewing oil into one of the most beautiful creeks in the city, Red Butte Creek. The creek flows to Liberty Park (where there's a beloved pond) and the Jordan River. Both places are popular living spaces for animals. Now those poor oil-covered animals are turning up dead. As one local told the Salt Lake Tribune: "There's so much wildlife here. But that's not going to return in my lifetime. This is a terrible situation."

Once again, good people are taking action, rolling up their sleeves to help. But like those Good Samaritans helping with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, these wonderful citizens seldom have anything to do with the big oil companies that caused these horrible disasters.

(NOTE: I've posted a video from KSL Television here that shows the awful impact of the oil spill in Salt Lake City...)

A Few Updates on Recent Events

With so much going on in the world today, it is hard to keep up with all of the major developments. Believe it or not, I obsess about human beings as much as I do animals. And sometimes, I wish this Blog also contained posts about humans (well, I should say, posts about humans who aren't a) harming animals; or b) helping animals) and the trials and tribulations they face. At some point, I may convert this Blog to an Animal Rights & Human Rights Blog. But I also don't want to dilute the animal rights and vegan message.

Dilemmas, dilemmas, dilemmas! What to do?

For the time being, I'll keep the focus on animal rights and veganism. But you, my friends out there in the Blogosphere, should know that I care every bit as much about the fate of humanity as I do the fate of animals.

That said, there are two important developments in the North American animal world that I've been following closely. The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has actually made me lose lots and lots of sleep. I have congratulated the media - over and over again - for providing such fantastic coverage of this tragedy. Most media outlets - Internet-based, television-based and print-based - have been doing a spectacular job of covering this massive tragedy. Journalists deserve our thanks and respect.

I've read many powerful articles on the oil spill. In particular, a photo essay in the recent Huffington Post this morning moved me very deeply. Have a look if you get a chance.

Another major event going on right now is the controversy surrounding allegations (and film) of abuse at the Conklin Dairy Farm in Union County, Ohio. The video footage of cows and calves being beaten, kicked, stabbed and punched by workers has triggered a nationwide outcry against animal abuse.

Apparently, the owner of this outfit, Gary Conklin, is afraid because of the public backlash this event has caused. And within the protest community, moderate animal welfare proponents have been butting heads with militant activists. The debates on Facebook have been fierce, pitting people who want to tinker with the system to improve it (e.g., passing stronger anti-abuse laws) against people who want to tear the system down completely. Leading the charge among the militants has been Gary Yourofsky, a veteran animal liberationist who recently wrote on his Blog:

I am asking everyone who cares about justice and injustice to bring bolt cutters, bats, crowbars, pitchforks, hammers and wrenches to help destroy every piece of equipment the farm has, and tear down the sheds. (Source)

The police are taking threats from the radicals seriously. Over the past few days, 150 police have been guarding the area around the farm and the roads leading up to it. (Source)

Already, Conklin employee Billy Joe Gregg Jr. - the Lieutenant William Calley of this whole mess - has been in court to face 12 counts of animal cruelty. Conklin himself has sought to distance himself from the cruelty. As he said in a statement:

Our family takes the care of our cows and calves very seriously. The video shows animal care that is clearly inconsistent with the high standards we set for our farm and its workers, and we find the specific mistreatment shown on the video to be reprehensible and unacceptable. (Source)

Strange, then, that Conklin himself is seeing in the video kicking a cow over and over again.

The animal welfare advocates are calling on Conklin to be shut down as a result of the terrible treatment of cows and calves.

Punishing Conklin and his employees for this gratuitous brutality is a step in the right direction. But it is naive to assume that it will solve the problem. As I've said here many times, the factory farm system is, by its very nature, inherently violent. I'd guess - though I have no way of verifying this - that most workers in the dairy industry do not abuse cows and calves in the manner shown in the video. I could be wrong. And obviously I have no hard evidence to prove that guess.

But the dairy workers who refrain from violence do so in spite of the nature of the system. Bear in mind, this is an assembly line that keeps cows in a permanent state of pregnancy, whisks babies away to be turned into veal, and murders the cows when they can no longer serve milk.

Certainly, AT THE VERY LEAST, all of these dreadful sins are on a par with beating, kicking, punching and stabbing cows and calves and snapping their tails. Some people - like me - would even argue that the sins of day-to-day Standard Operating Procedure are even worse than anything we saw in the videos shot at Conklin Dairy Farms.

So punish the abusers. But use this terrible moment as an opportunity to ask the deeper and more troubling questions about the factory farm system.

A Great Punishment for BP Oil Execs

BP execs have lied and lied and lied about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They've lied so much that they're now spreading lies on top of lies on top of yet more lies. Their lies are so thick, one wonders whether these slick corporate officers are even capable of telling the truth. Do they even know what the truth is?

Let's wrestle with the Truth for a moment: This spill is now the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. This spill has already taken a devastating toll on wildlife, with dead sea turtles and fish washing up on the Gulf Coast every day. The oil is now invading the marshlands of the Mississippi Delta and threatens to spread around Florida. The oil might even make its way up the Atlantic Coast. Wildlife is threatened. Aquatic life is threatened. The entire ecosystem of the East Coast of the United States is in jeopardy.

Dollar amount? We don't know and we probably won't know the final amount for years. The toll on the environment and living creatures? Impossible to estimate.

And these Fat Cats with BP - whoops, sorry, I shouldn't use the term cats in such a horrible context... those of you who read this Blog know I love cats. Start over: These fuckers at BP (sorry - sometimes that is the ONLY word one can use) are so full of lies and bullshit that it's oozing out of the little holes in their head called ears. What a transparently sinister collection of amoral, ruling class leeches. And all they care about is the bottom line. Profits. $$$. Don't let them fool you into thinking that they give a rat's ass about the Gulf of Mexico, because they absolutely do not.

Sorry, but I just can't contain my rage anymore, as I'm sure is evident in this Blog Post. At this point, I think it is appropriate to recall the immortal words of the late, great activist and Berkeley Free Speech Movement leader Mario Savio (1942 - 1996):

There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part; and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop, And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all.

But BP continues to insist, borrowing from Orwellian Double Speak, that the oil spill really isn't that bad (even though they have admitted to initially downplaying the severity of it).

Note the steady stream of lies:

"We are containing the spill." - BP Chief Tony Hayward (Source)

"... and very little of the oil is getting to the shoreline." - BP Chief Tony Hayward (Source)

BP's response has been "extraordinarily successful." - yep, you guessed it, BP Chief Tony Hayward (Source)

Extraordinarily successful???

OK, so if it's extraordinarily successful, here's my advice about a proper form of punishment for these greedy assholes: Make these execs disrobe down to their skivvies and force them to take a dip in the oiliest locations of the Gulf of Mexico. Then maybe they will be able to feel the excruciating pain that animals feel who are forced to swim in this sea of chemicals.

The oil leads to a slow death as it is absorbed into the skin and makes its way into the bloodstream, the lungs, the digestive system, until so much of this poison sludge is in one's body that it is impossible to go on functioning.

So enjoy your swim, BP execs.

Because, as we all now, justice will out and the wrongdoers will pay. Right?

Right?

Anybody?

Right?

(Pictured above: A dead sea turtle, another victim of offshore oil drilling...)

Early Signs of the Devastation on the Gulf Coast

According to The Los Angeles Times, the carcasses of 23 sea turtles have been found along Mississippi's Gulf Coast. The heartbreaking picture on the right is one of those dead sea turtles.

The L.A. Times also cites an Associated Press report of dead turtles found along the beaches of Texas.

If there is a silver lining in this dark cloud, it is that the media are really doing their job. Some of the best investigative reporting I've seen in recent weeks has been coming from the Gulf Coast of the United States.

The right-wing blowhard Rush Limbaugh managed to piss of a lot of liberals when he suggested that environmentalists were behind this oil spill. (Source) It was dimwitted Limbaugh at his worst - or is it his best? Hard to say. His comments, as usual, are so inane that they defy any sane response. Best to let Nikki Gloudeman of one of my favorite websites, Change.org, have the last say:

He's been spouting anti-environment rhetoric for so long, the Environmental Defense Fund issued a report on errors in his eco-attacks back in 1994. More recently, he hyped coal and overconsumption on Earth Day and said he hoped New York Times environment reporter Andrew Revkin would "kill himself."

The question is: Do these attacks matter? Have they mattered?

In one way, it feels silly to turn Limbaugh's eco-outbursts into news. He says offensive things about different people all the time, so it's hardly shocking. But on a deeper level, his words reveal a sad truth about conservatism and environmentalism; that in some cases, the antagonistic relationship is reactionary rather than ideological.

The Disaster that Looms for Animals in the Gulf of Mexico

The oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico last week that resulted in the tragic deaths of 11 workers now threatens to become a disaster of gargantuan proportions. As many as 5,000 barrels of oil per day continue to spill into the Gulf where the rig collapsed and sank into the water. That's 42,000 gallons per day, according to The New York Times. To make matters worse, the oil slick is rapidly moving to the Gulf Coast, despite round-the-clock efforts of workers to stop it.

CNN's Website ran a fantastic story headlined "Oil spill could be a disaster for animals, experts say." The story is absolutely painful to read. The approaching oil threatens huge bird sanctuaries, stretches of coastal inlets where otters live, 400 species of fish, not to mention the blue crab, oysters and turtles along the coast. CNN quotes U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official Tom MacKenzie: "The best case is, the wind shifts and the oil doesn't hit. I'm not real confident about that.... We're doing everything we can to prevent it, but it could be a bad one."

Louisianans still have awful memories of an oil spill a few years ago near the state's Breton Island National Wildlife Refuge that killed about 800 pelicans. This spill could prove far worse.

It is difficult to point fingers in this case. Obviously, nobody meant for this to happen. And no individual was really to blame. It was a tragic accident, and we should not forget the sorrow of the families of the 11 workers who were killed. They deserve our sympathy and compassion at this moment.

Still, I can't help but think of the Exxon Valdez disaster in Prince William Sound, Alaska, back in March of 1989. It was horrific in every sense of the word. I will never get out of my mind the ghastly images of those suffering animals covered in toxic black sludge. We will never know the final death toll from the Valdez disaster. As many as a quarter of a million seabirds died, along with 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 247 bald eagles and at least 22 orcas. We will never know how many fish were destroyed. The number is likely staggeringly high.

Flash forward 21 years, to 2010. A headline in The Independent (UK) said: "Oil spill in Gulf of Mexico 'could be worse than Exxon Valdez disaster.'"

Wherever human beings go, we somehow manage to fuck everything up. Sometimes it is exceedingly difficult to be hopeful about people. Sometimes it's impossible to fake optimism and say good things about humanity. And sometimes - just sometimes - one quietly hopes that this short-sighted and selfish race will go the way of the Neanderthal. I know it's impolitic to talk like that or think in those terms, but moments like this certainly seem to justify it.

Post-script: For another excellent articles on the threat of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to animals, see David Knowles' column on AOLNews.