Another Powerful Must-See Video

Actor James Cromwell (The Queen, L.A. Confidential) narrates this powerful Mercy for Animals video on the deplorable treatment of animals in the Factory Farm Gulag. It's so effectively made, and so heartbreaking, that I'm posting it here.

These videos are essential viewing. I've always been of the belief that films - short films, feature films, documentary films - are one of the most effective ways of winning over omnivores and vegetarians to a cruetly-free vegan lifestyle.

Many folks, whatever their political persuasion, are innately kind and hate to see animals treated poorly. Sadly, there are some very kind people who are torn. They hate seeing animals treated harshly, but they want their meat, they want their eggs and milk, they want their fish and all of their animal products. The thought of not ever eating meat or eggs or fish or dairy products seems too stark to them. They hate seeing animals go through pain, but their love of animal products outweighs their desire to see an end to animal suffering.

The key with omnivores is to figure how to tip the scale so that it weighs more in the direction of wanting to see the elimination, once and for all, of the exploitation and mass murder of animals.

How to accomplish this??? Well, as I said in my Blog the other day, the Animal Rights Movement is a Big Tent struggle with lots of people trying their damnedest to end this kind of suffering and bloodletting. Who has the right approach? That is up to you to decide.

But I'll tell you who does not have the right approach: Those who believe that it is OK to consume animals, whether it is done as food or clothing (or for any other purposes). They need to understand the suffering their choices are causing. The best way to get through to them, I think, is to beam the message through audio-visual means, or to write about it or lecture about it in such a powerful way as to hit the message home clearly, and without second guessing.

And that message, as we all know, is that causing suffering - any kind of suffering, whether human or non-human animal suffering - is not acceptable and will not be tolerated by those who want to create a truly civilized society.

Call me a Pollyanna, but I'm optimistic that we're moving in the right direction. More and more people are going vegan. The Internet has been a godsend, helping to beam the message to the remote corners of the world. And it has enabled us to see that good people - in Asia, in Latin America, in the Middle East, in Europe - are mobilizing on behalf of the animals.

The recent events in Egypt have shown us the nobility of the fight for human rights and democracy. That fight must begin to spread so that all sentient beings are included in the equation. It isn't easy. The trick is for the waves to keep battering the cliffs, eroding the earth, changing the landscape. So that when future generations are writing the history of these times, they will note the barbarism of widespread animal consumption, but they will also see videos like this one and realize that good people fought the good fight and made a difference.

Another Reason to be Hopeful...

I just heard about the protest against Factory Farming in Berlin last weekend. A record 25,000 turned up to protest under the motto "We've had enough - No to genetic engineering, factory farming and export dumping." (Source)

Specifically, protesters targeted subsidies that go to factory farming. There were lots of small farmers at the demonstration who advocated what one protester called "appropriate animal husbandry." Maria Heubuch, head of the Association of Small Farmers, set the tone for many of the protesters when she said:

Factory farming and genetic engineering is a dangerous dead end for farmers and an increased risk for consumers. Animal-friendly husbandry and feeding with local grain and protein feed without genetic modification - this is our future! (Source)

This protest is extremely encouraging. The coalition consists of 120 organizations, including small farming advocates, animal rights activists, and vegan groups. The protests were triggered by the recent so-called "Dioxin Scandal," in which it was discovered that substantial amounts of animal feed - thousands and thousands of tons - had been tainted with dioxin.

When the frightening dioxin story broke earlier this month, Germany froze the sale of tainted poultry, pork and eggs. Apparently, the crisis had a huge impact on ordinary German people and it has done a great deal to mobilize them to resist factory farming and the profit-starved food production sector.

We can learn some lessons from our German brothers and sisters. They're on the march. They're taking back their food industry. They're giving it back to the people. And along the way, many are learning that veganism is the only truly ethical option and the best hope for a sane world.

These protests are refreshing. They give us hope. They give us inspiration. These men and women are role models. They're part of a tide that is slowly rising. The tide is impossible to resist. It will shake humanity to its core, convince us of the need to live ethically and nonviolently and, at long last, end the consumption of animal products.

This is a great movement. I'm just thrilled we're all alive to witness and support it.

Drawing attention to the tragic fire in Iowa

Thousands of pigs perished in a huge factory farm fire in Deep River, Iowa, on Sunday, October 24. Surveying the ghastly rubble after the fire, Gene Baur, the president and co-found of Farm Sanctuary, issued a moving statement. Here is a highlight of his response to the massive tragedy:

For those unfamiliar with modern agricultural practices, it can be difficult to wrap one’s brain around such a massive loss of life. Driven by profit, the pork industry crams thousands of animals into dark warehouse-like facilities with little regard for the health and well-being of the animals. Anyone who has ever enjoyed a special closeness with a cat, dog or other companion animal, knows how heartbreaking the loss of just one animal’s life can be. Multiply that devastation by many thousands and you will begin to understand the urgency of addressing the cruelty inflicted upon animals on factory farms. Pigs, like all farm animals, possess the same feelings and sensitivities as cats and dogs, and they deserve the same consideration. (Source)

After the smoke cleared and the fire crews left, it was estimated that between 2,000 and 2,500 hogs perished in this horrific fire. This loss of life was both catastrophic and - for those tragic pigs caught in this blaze - horrific and painful beyond belief.

This fire comes in a year when there has been an epidemic of factory farm fires across North America. Blazes have erupted in the United States and Canada. Ultimately, hundreds of thousands of animals have perished in one of the most horrific ways imaginable. One of the most staggering of these fires occurred at the Ohio Fresh Eggs Farm in Ohio in March, which killed a staggering 250,000 hens. (Source.)

These fires also come at a time when numerous traffic accidents on highways in Canada and the United States have claimed the lives of countless animals.

On Monday, 40 cattle perished in a truck collision near Galesburg, Illinois. The scene was one of utter devastation, as the Galesburg Register-Mail noted:

Twelve Galva firefighters worked 10 hours lifting, moving, loading and directing traffic in the hard winds and rain and even in a tornado watch that was issued for Henry County.

A truck rollover outside of Toronto in early October killed 81 pigs. (Source.) In mid-October, another truck rollover, also near Toronto, killed at least 16 (probably ultimately more) cattle after a truck carrying 80 young cattle flipped over. (Source.)

These are but a few of the accidents that claim the lives of factory farm animals all the time. Not only is the system itself deadly and violent and based on the systematic assembly-line slaughter of sentient beings, but the creatures who are ultimately killed for their meat must live short, miserable lives, filled with violence and with no laws to protect them.

The tragedy of all these accidents is that they could have been avoided.

And I don't mean they could have been avoided by enacting tougher safety measures that would've protected the lives of these animals (although those certainly would've helped).

No, I mean they could've been avoided - should've been avoided - because we do not have the right to be murdering these animals, whether we do it for food or allow these beings to become the victims of unsafe conditions that are part and parcel of the factory farm system.

Factory farms: Monstrously immoral institutions

For those who have any doubts about how monstrously immoral factory farms really are, I invite you to read the Erik Marcus's brilliant analysis on the Vegan. com. Marcus was prompted to write this analysis by reports from a North Carolina factory farm that a failure in the ventilation unit resulted in the deaths of 60,000 chickens. He also notes a similar equipment failure that took the lives of 3,800 pigs last year. Marcus refers to these gargantuan charnel houses very appropriately as "Factory Farm Ghost Ships."

A highlight from Marcus's column:

At issue is the fact that, by their very design, factory farms are intended to run on autopilot. Between water pumps, feed conveyors, ventilation fans, and so forth, everything is in place to keep tens of thousands of animals alive unattended for weeks or even months at a time. There’s often consequently no financial reason to keep a single employee on the premises, for the sake of guarding against something going catastrophically wrong. It makes no financial sense, since it’s cheaper to simply purchase insurance that would cover the cost of dead animals, in the event of a catastrophic equipment failure.

I am sick to death - absolutely sick to death - of reading about another factory farm that caught on fire (there have been so many that have burned down this year, I've lost track); or another factory farm where equipment failure led to thousands of deaths; or stories of trucks hauling factory farm animals to their deaths that overturn on freeways and the animals - already overcrowded in the backs of these trucks - are crushed to death or released onto the highways and hit by oncoming motorists. At the end of September, a transportation truck carrying 729 pigs across Ontario crashed (allegedly due to the driver going too fast) and 334 pigs were killed in the accident, another 30 were later euthanized. (Source.)

This is the factory farm system in a nutshell. Pack 'em in, get them on the assembly line, move them through the murdering process line as fast as possible and get 'em out to market.

But suppose these kinds of accidents never happened. Suppose there were no equipment failures, no instances of animals getting scalded alive, no overpacked trucks turning over on the freeway, no animals being kicked and punched and beaten, no tragic tales of suffering and agony. Suppose every factory farm endeavored to treat their animals well, made sure each one was comfortable, and adhered to all of the proper laws and procedures involved in what some might dub "humane slaughter." Suppose all of these things were the case and the factory farm system were as ideal as it could be.

Even if there were an iota of humanity in this system, which there isn't, it would still be an immoral system - profoundly immoral - because its very foundation is the murder of sentient beings whom we - as humans - have no right to imprison, exploit and destroy. Let's not lose sight of the fact that tinkering and reforming the system is not going to work. Dismantling it completely is the only solution.

Please Take 1 Minute Out of Your Day to Help These Abused Pigs

All it takes is one minute. One minute to help animals who need your help. Please visit this URL:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/500-pigs-starved-to-death--those-involved-need-to-be-prosecuted

I beg you to take a moment to sign this petition and let the authorities in Manitoba know that the horrifying abuse of thousands of pigs at a farm in Notre Dame de Lourdes, which resulted in the unspeakably awful deaths of well over 600, will not be tolerated. (See my Blog entry here on the subject.)

The very barn that became a ghastly pig torture chamber burned last Wednesday in a fire, not long after authorities raided it and found hundreds of dead pigs and countless others suffering. Luckily, the authorities saved 2000 of the beautiful creatures.

Our animal friends need our help right now. These are extraordinary creatures who all - each and every one - deserve to live much better lives than the awful existences they have lived up until this point.

Time to punish the offenders. And punish them hard.

Even though this case is an extreme form of animal abuse, we should not lose sight of the violence inherent in the factory farm system. Combating awful cases of abuse such as this one should be our Number One priority. The poor pigs who suffered so terribly deserve justice.

Surely, this is a cause around which omnivores, vegetarians, vegans and anyone else with a healthy respect for the sanctity of life can rally.

People Making a Difference: Kudos to our British Brothers & Sisters!

Our brothers and sisters are fighting the good fight in England. They're well organized, passionate about their cause and their efforts are bearing wonderful fruit. They are an inspiration to other animal rights activists around the world. They are waging a battle against the factory farm system. And it appears they are winning great victories. We should take note of their efforts. These men and women are truly making a difference for the better.

The New Zealand Herald notes the latest developments:

Plans for three large-scale units in England have encountered fierce resistance from campaigners who say they would cause extra noise, smell and disruption and cause more stress and disease for animals.

Animal welfare organisations fear the proposals are signs that a new intensive system of agriculture could soon replace the UK's patchwork of small livestock farms.

In the past three months, plans have been brought forward for an 8,000-cow dairy farm at Nocton in Lincolnshire and a 3,000-cow unit at South Witham, also Lincolnshire. Both have been withdrawn following fierce opposition.

There is also growing opposition to a 2,500-pig sow farm located at Foston in Derbyshire. The Foston pig farm, according to the animal welfare group Viva, will be the largest intensive factory farming pig farm in the UK. Like all huge factory farm operations, the Foston farm will place pigs in dark, disorienting and cramped places, where they have barely enough room for their piglets.

But the struggle against factory farms in the UK has been a resounding success. And animal rights activists are keeping their marching shoes on to protest the future creation of such gargantuan enterprises. Groups like Viva, Compassion in World Farming and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) are at the forefront of the struggle. Most of these activists do not want to eliminate farming. As Suzi Morris, the director of WSPA, put it:

It's all being driven by economies of scale. We have been importing a lot of milk and the UK dairy industry has been undermined and conventional dairy farmers have been going out of business. We believe that animals should be farmed for food but we don't agree there can be any justification, economic or otherwise, for the commoditisation of animals and their housing in such large units. (Source)

In an ideal world, everybody would go vegan. But it's not an ideal world. And farming is a key part of most economies. I am elated to see so many of these huge factory farm enterprises stopped dead in their tracks before even having a chance to take off. The UK activists are offering a model to the rest of the world on how to resist these giant farming enterprises.

Part of their success has been using populist arguments to their advantage - siding with the small farmer over the impersonal giant factory farm. It's working in the UK. Here in North America, where we have many factory farms and they are fairly well entrenched, that argument is a harder sell. But it is important, nonetheless, that we learn lessons from the struggle in the UK and take heart. Our side is making gains. Each day, animal rights activists have something good to show for their efforts. We're gaining traction. Our ends are noble. Our fight won't end until the life of every animal is respected.

Yet Another Reason to Just Say No to Dairy

I am a veteran of watching these animal abuse videos, but even this one is hard to take. The video consists of hidden camera shots of workers in Conklin Dairy Farms in Plain City, Ohio, brutalizing the cows in the facility. The images are deeply troubling. Workers punch calves in the face and kick them in the head. Pitchforks are used to jab various parts of cows. Cows in too much pain to stand (from the savage beating they've endured at the hands of these thugs) are kicked repeatedly. Workers whack cows with crowbars, snap their tails, and they joke about their ability to beat the shit out of (and sometimes kill) innocent, defenseless calves.

Conditions in dairy facilities often leave a lot to be desired, but the ones in Conklin Dairy Farms are particularly brutal. Dr. Bernard Rollin, distinguished professor of animal science at Colorado State University, had a difficult time watching the video and was horrified by what he saw. "This is probably the most gratuitous, sadistic, sustained animal abuse I have ever seen," he said. "The video depicts calculated, deliberate cruelty based not on momentary rage but on taking pleasure through causing pain to cows and calves who are defenseless." (Source.)

Dairy is as brutal as meat. This video shows the day-to-day violence of the factory farm system at its most extreme. In all likelihood, the workers who abused the cows and calves at Conklin are family men - loving husbands and fathers - who aren't earning much money and walking the tightrope to make ends meet. My purpose here is not to dehumanize them. No, my purpose is to show how the factory farm system dehumanizes good people. And make no mistake: It is a system that asks us, the consumers, to look the other way at the shocking treatment of animals.

Even in dairy facilities where workers do not abuse the cows and calves, these poor animals live lives in cold, sterile and unnatural conditions. And when they can no longer give milk, they're not handed a gold watch and allowed to go off and enjoy the sun in some lovely pasture. They meet the same end as all animals in the factory farm system.

So it's not just a matter of ending the abuse at Conklin Dairy Farms in Ohio, although that's a good start. The real goal is to bring a halt to the factory farm system and recognize that we human beings do not have the right to do what we are doing to farm animals.

Going vegan - thereby reducing demand - is a good place to start.

Book Alert: David Kirby's Animal Factory

Journalist David Kirby has written a book about the factory farm system called Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment. I haven't read the book yet, but you can pretty much tell from the subtitle that this is going to be a damning indictment of the factory farm system. Kirby gave an OUTSTANDING interview to Time magazine about his new book.

PLEASE READ THE TIME MAGAZINE INTERVIEW AND PASS IT ON TO OTHERS!

The factory farm system is one of the most profoundly obscene institutions on the planet earth. The sooner these massive killing machines are declared illegal and promptly dismantled, brick by brick, machine by machine, cage by cage, the better. These immoral industrial plants should have been done away with long ago. Animals housed in these barbaric places need to be liberated right now and each factory farm should be promptly destroyed. This is capitalism at its worst - the free market run horribly, horribly amok. These are America's killing fields. They are what pushed me into veganism and I can never go back to being an omnivore. Sometimes you can say never - and must. And I knew that as long as I consumed animal products, I was perpetuating one of the most ghastly forms of human barbarism that exists in the world today.

Until every cage is smashed open, until every animal is liberated, there will never be peace.

That isn't hyperbole. Read what David Kirby has to say about the factory farm system. In particular, I was haunted by the closing paragraph of his interview with Time magazine. I'll let Kirby have the last word (note: when he uses the acronym CAFO, it means Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, a 50-cent term for "factory farm"):

One time I visited a pig farm, a regular farm — not a factory farm — in Illinois. Right across the street was a hog CAFO. The owner didn't live there, of course. There's no farm house on a factory farm, just business offices. At night, all the workers would leave, and all I'd hear as I was trying to fall asleep was the sound of the pigs fighting each other, biting each other, squealing, screeching all night long. It was like nothing I've ever heard before in my life, and it just didn't stop. It sounded like kids being tortured over there. I'll never forget that sound. It was very sad.

In Praise of Lynn Henning: An Activist Who Has Made a Huge Difference

Kudos to Lynn Henning (right), who received a well-deserved Goldman Environmental Prize in San Francisco earlier this week. The prize was named after prominent Bay Area philanthropists Richard N. Goldman and his late wife Rhoda, and they honor people who have made a difference in the fight to protect the environment.

Henning's struggle is also related to animal rights. She spent years working to expose the horrible pollution caused by factory farm companies in Michigan. As a result of her actions, factory farms were exposed for being the horrible polluters that they are, and the biggest offenders were slapped with hefty fines for water quality violations. In awarding her the prize, Goldman Prize officials noted that Henning helped steer attention to the "runoff of animal excrement" that creates a "'toxic brew' of bacteria, antibiotics, chemicals, and sometimes carcasses." (Source)

Henning's story is fascinating. She's actually a farmer herself. And she's a member of the Sierra Club and dedicated environmentalist. She owns a farm near Hudson, Michigan, about 70 miles southwest of Detroit. Using a combination of aerial photographs, water samples, and thorough research of relevant documents, she fought a one-person crusade against the factory farm system. In the process, she endured a barrage of lawsuit threats, anonymous warnings and dead animals thrown on her porch. But she kept the good fight going. "I'm a redneck from Michigan," she proudly proclaimed. When asked about the Goldman Prize, she said, simply, "I'm humbled." (Source)

Henning's efforts have helped discredit the factory farm system. And a blow to that system is a victory for animals. As the Detroit Free Press notes: "Michigan has more than 200 concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFO's, defined as those with more than 700 cows, 2,500 hogs or 10,000 poultry..... Giant farms near Henning's farm in Lenawee County have been cited for more than 1,000 violations in the past decade." The same article goes on to say, "The farms are home to 20,000 cows and produce as much waste as a city of 200,000 people."

Nowadays, more people are waking up to the fact that not only are factory farms giant killing machines, they're also terrible polluters. Henning is a living, breathing example of a person who cared enough to make a difference. People like her are invaluable in democratic societies - people who stick their necks out for their beliefs, regardless of the consequences. Exposing the factory farm system, as she has done, has brought their harmful practices to the attention of millions and embarrassed the bigwigs.

That Goldman Prize couldn't have gone to a more deserving recipient.

More Victims of the Immoral Factory Farm System

A follow-up to my recent post on animals dying in factory farm fires: The Washington Post reported earlier this month that 100 cows perished in a factory farm in Frederick, Maryland. There were 170 cows and calves in the barn and 70 were rescued. According to the local fire marshal, the barn was incredibly flammable due to the dry "hay, hay dust and grain" within.

A more recent blog entry on the Washington Post's "Crime Scene" blog indicated that 114 cows perished in the fire.

Any comment I make on this tragedy is just stating the obvious. Not only are factory farms dark and cold and frightening gulags for animals, but they're also deadly firetraps. Even in farms like this one, where the cows were apparently cared for well and it is a family-run operation, tinderbox conditions exist.

Even the best factory farms - run by conscientious people - are prisons for animals. We can only hope a great change will come.

More Slaves of the Factory Farm System

Plans are underway in England to construct a factory farm that will house approximately 8,100 cows. It is apparently known as a "Supersize" cattle factory. The cows will have next to no room to move around and will seldom enjoy any sunlight or fresh air. The facility will operate 24 hours and produce 430,000 pints of milk per day. The company, Nocton Dairies, has assured the public that the cows will get to go outside from time to time and that a veterinarian will be on staff full time to monitor their health. Adds spokesman Peter Wiles: "We will have a visitor centre to show the public around. We are aiming to have exceptional standards." I'm sure these cows, if given the vote, would agree with Linda Wardale, spokeswoman for the group Vegan Lincs, who said: "Cows should be in the field, nibbling on grass, but here they're going to keep them in sheds." (Source)

Nocton Dairies will commence operations in September. Sadly, this state-of-the-art facility is about as good as conditions get in the factory farm system. It is a new facility, shiny and clean, where the cows will probably not be physically abused (unlike a lot of dairy farms in North America). But make no mistake: These cows are still treated as enslaved property. Like all dairy cows, these thousands will be kept perpetually pregnant to give milk. And guess what happens to their babies?

This is yet another reminder of why this system ought to be abolished.

Jonathan Safran Foer Strikes Back

Jonathan Safran Foer. I can't say enough good things about this man. His book Eating Animals is superb. Now he has written an article in the British Guardian titled "How Cows Become Beef." It should be required reading for omnivores. If people want to eat meat, that's their business. But each meat eater ought to know the suffering involved when he or she consumes the flesh of animals. For years, I was able to eat meat because I successfully disassociated. I lived in denial. In many ways, my ignorance was self-imposed. I sort of knew the truth in the back of my mind, but I wouldn't let myself "go there," if you know what I mean. Once the veil is lifted, it's impossible to lower it again. Frankly, I don't ever want to put meat in my mouth again. But as a recent convert to veganism, I must admit, I do miss milk and dairy products, such as yogurt and cheese. Badly. But then all I have to do is read Foer's column. It doesn't make me necessarily miss dairy products less. It does, however, reinforce my commitment to veganism and help me understand that the factory farm system is profoundly diabolical.

But I digress. Read this article by Foer if you get a chance. It is so very important.

Got Milk? Better Question: Got the Stomach for the Truth?

Kudos to the ABC television show Nightline, which aired footage showing the terrible treatment of cows at Willet Dairy, one of the largest dairy operations in New York state. (See the full story here.) I'm proud of ABC for having the courage to air this video. Those who insist the media are not doing their jobs when it comes to animal rights are not entirely correct. Two years ago, CBS featured a similar muckraking report on the harsh treatment of cows in the factory farm system (see the story here).

Do yourself a favour: Follow the link on the ABC News story. Watch the video. It's incredibly hard hitting. And hard to watch.

And while you're at it, consider the facts:

• Most cows imprisoned in the factory farm system are never allowed outside. Instead, they're forced to stay in dark, cramped, cold spaces.
• Factory farm cows routinely have their tails docked without painkillers, so the tail won't get caught in milking machines
• Many of the factory farm workers abuse the cows by hitting them, pushing them, dragging calves across the ground, etc.

If anyone is still under the impression that consuming dairy is somehow more humane than eating meat, then watch the video below.

Cows, like all other factory farm animals, are not ours to abuse, use, exploit, enslave, drag around, kill, etc. Simply improving conditions and making sure the cows are more comfortable is not the solution. And passing laws or enacting regulations to protect the welfare of the cows will not address the deeper issue.

To solve the problem, we must go to the root. The solution is to recognize that all animals have inherent worth and dignity, and all of them deserve to live in freedom and happiness with their families. Animals must be liberated. They've been butchered, scalded, mutilated, mistreated and separated from their families long enough. Time to put an end to such barbarism.

Not tomorrow. Not next year. Not ten years from now.

Now. The factory farm system must go.

The Possibility of a Huge Breakthrough in Ohio...

The following alert was sent out from the wonderful folks at Farm Sanctuary in New York. It's fantastic news and has the potential to be a huge breakthrough in animal rights!

If you get a chance, please visit Farm Sanctuary's Website. These people are absolute saints.

Dear friend of farm animals,



For years, Farm Sanctuary has worked with dedicated members like you to help pass some of the most important reforms in the history of the farm animal protection movement. With you by our side, we helped ban gestation crates in Florida, gestation crates and veal crates in Arizona, and, for the first time in U.S. history, gestation crates, veal crates and battery cages with the recent landslide victory of Proposition 2 in California – the nation’s largest agricultural state.

Standing together with you, we continued to build on the momentum gained from these successes as anti-confinement legislation was enacted in more states across the U.S., including Oregon, Colorado, Maine, and Michigan. Now, we have our sights set on passing the most sweeping initiative yet in Ohio, and we need your support to make it happen.

Over the next five months, we will be working to collect 600,000 signatures in the Buckeye State for a ballot initiative that will:

End the use of cruel factory farm confinement systems for tens of thousands of veal calves, 170,000 breeding sows and roughly 27 million egg-laying hens who are denied even the ability to turn around or stretch their limbs.

Stop the slaughter of downed cattle for human consumption, and consequently bring an end to the practice of dragging, prodding, pushing, and beating these sick, weak or injured non-ambulatory animals to move them to slaughterhouse kill floors.

Ban the use of inhumane euthanasia practices that cause tremendous suffering for sick and injured animals prior to their deaths.

Never before has one ballot initiative proposed to do so much to end cruelty to farm animals. But the road ahead will not be easy. Factory farm interests will use every means available to them to maintain the status quo and continue engaging in these egregiously cruel practices. Ohio farm animals are counting on us to stop them, so we must win this fight!

Please find out what you can do now to help us with efforts on the ground. If you live elsewhere, please send this alert on our Ohio initiative to any friends, family and colleagues you have in the state and help us build the network and team we need for a successful campaign to pass this measure.

It is only through your support that we are able to create meaningful change and bring relief to suffering farm animals state by state. Thank you for your dedication and compassion. We look forward to making history with you once again!

Yours for farm animals,



Gene Baur


Co-Founder and President
Farm Sanctuary

Are the Do-Gooders Really Doing Much Good?

Last night, I watched a show called Beef Inc., a Canadian documentary made about 10 years ago. It was one of those lefty documentaries that excoriates big corporations. The bad guy, in this case, was Cargill, a gargantuan agribusiness and the largest private corporation in the United States. Cargill is about twice the size of the Empire in Star Wars and owns damn near half the planet. Not only did the film attack Cargill, it was also a celebration of the independent, small cattle farmers.

Like I said, the movie is a little more than a decade old, so it's sort of a forerunner of the contemporary "Happy Meat"/"Conscientious Carnivore" movements. The film's message was clear: Giant, impersonal corporations = Bad Guys. Small farmers who allow their animals to enjoy nature = Good Guys. All of the commentators on the show, who were mostly academics, reinforced this decidedly populist point of view.

On the surface, it's a sensible position. In Canada and the United States, small farmers are almost regarded as sacrosanct in the popular imagination (indeed, Thomas Jefferson called them "God's chosen people"). And who wouldn't support the underdog - the small farmer - over huge and powerful agribusinesses that have been gobbling up land and resources and making gargantuan profits for decades?

Interestingly, at the end of the documentary, the interviewer - perhaps hoping to end on a note of levity - asked the pundits on the show how they like their steaks prepared. Most of them laughingly answered "medium rare." Only one said, "I prefer my steak inside the cow, and I like the cow to be playing happily in the field."

Right on!

I must admit, I was taken aback when I watched the film that these liberal anti-corporate types - preaching the virtues of the small farmer over the big corporation - had NO ability to relate to the animals that were being slaughtered. Before I came around to veganism, I probably would've sounded a lot like one of these people if asked about the deleterious effects of gigantic agribusinesses. I most likely would've attacked the big guys and stood up for the small farmers.

Thanks to the efforts of brave souls like Gary Francione, more and more people are starting to see right through the phoniness of the "Happy Meat" and "Conscientious Carnivore" movements. True, the animals in these free range settings are better off than those held captive in the factory farm system while they are actually alive. But make no mistake about it: These animals are still enslaved and exploited, slaughtered for their meat to feed human beings who do not actually need that meat to survive. To quote Francione:

The “happy meat” movement is intended to make the public feel more comfortable about animal exploitation and to ensure that social discussion about animal ethics remains focused away from the relevant question—why are we eating animals in the first place given that it is not necessary for human health, is an ecological disaster, and, most importantly, results in our imposing suffering and death on sentient nonhumans? The “happy meat” movement is achieving these goals, and that does not represent any sort of progress. Quite the contrary. The “happy meat” movement represents a significant step backwards.

As I watched Beef Inc., I thought: What a sad thing that most of these anti-corporate commentators cannot recognize that the very same impersonal forces that drive corporations to exploit people, deplete communities, maximize profits, quash small competitors and sacrifice their own (through downsizing and relocating overseas) - that these very same institutions also stun billions of animals, hold them upside down by metal clamps, slash their throats and drain them of all of their precious lifeblood.

It is far easier to relate to small farmers who have a human face than to gigantic corporations. We can understand their challenges and dilemmas, their vulnerability and courage in the face of adversity. It is possible to be sympathetic to these farmers and their plight, yet also see right through the delusion of "humane slaughtering." I have no problem with peacefully coexisting with meat eaters. As I've said before, I ate meat most of my life, and I wouldn't have wanted some over-zealous vegan to pass judgment on me.

But I do wish the "progressive" do-gooders would abandon all this B.S. about Conscientious Carnivorism. The "free range" cow whose artery is slit open feels the agony of death every bit as much as the cow who was confined to a coffin-like space in a factory farm, yet the people who insist on devouring "happy meat" are in a complete state of denial about this fact. "What is a Conscientious Carnivore to do?" asked the Website Eco Child's Play. "The answer is three-fold: Buy small, buy local, buy grass-fed."

At least the Sarah Palins of this world don't fool themselves into believing there's a nice way to slaughter animals. When she proclaimed in her memoir Going Rogue her love for hamburgers, pork chops and the "seared fatty edges of a medium-well-done steak" and said "there's plenty of room for all Alaska's animals - right next to the mashed potatoes," at least she didn't try to place a lot of politically correct widow dressing around her decisions. You could almost envision Palin wearing a bib, tearing into the T-bone, and letting the juices run down her chin.

There's far more honesty in that sort of Red State gusto than in all of this mealy-mouthed talk of Conscientious Carnivorism.

Don't Swallow It!

Leave it to people to come up with new ways of denial and self-delusion. The so-called "Happy Meat Movement" is a perfect example of the lengths that people will go to fool themselves. These days, you hear a lot about "humane" methods of slaughter and "conscientious carnivorism." "Eating animals is apparently hip again," noted the New York-based Gothamist Blog, under the headline "Is Vegetarianism Dead?" The Blog entry noted that some vegan restaurants have even started putting meat back on the menu, in response to declining customer demand. The owners hope the new meat dishes will bring the old clientele back and maybe even win over new customers.

The drift toward "conscientious" meat eating, such as the consumption of free-range animals, is a response to the exposure of horrific factory farm slaughtering methods in such documentaries as Death on a Factory Farm and Food, Inc.

As someone who has been a meat-eating omnivore most of my life, I can tell you that the words "humane" and "slaughter" do not belong in the same sentence together, any more than "peaceful" and "war" do. It's nothing more than an effort to soothe the guilty conscience. "Humane" is a misnomer in this case. If there was really truth in advertising, it would be sold under the label "Slightly Less Barbaric." Slightly.

This is more denial designed to assuage those who are uneasy about the mass extermination taking place in the factory farm system, yet not ready to make the leap into vegetarianism or veganism. If you don't want to become a vegetarian or vegan, that's fine. But please, spare us the adjectives like "humane," "painless," "conscientious," "local," and "alternative." Those words might help you to avoid staring into the abyss, but if you insist on using them in this case, they will lose all meaning. It's sort of like all of those loud-mouthed lefties in the 1960s overusing the word "fascist" Now "fascist" is essentially meaningless. Or these right-wingers who insist on calling Barack Obama a "socialist." Talk about another word that has lost all meaning.

Time to let Australian animal rights activist Katrina Fox have the last word, from her wonderful column in the Sydney Morning Herald:

As we enter not only a new year, but a new decade, it's time to refocus our attention on challenging our use, not just our treatment of animals. No animal goes willingly to the slaughterhouse, happy for their corpse to be served on a plate. There is nothing humane about slitting a sentient being's throat - regardless of whether it's been raised in a factory farm or pasture.

The real revolution isn't happy meat, it will be the establishment of veganism as a cultural and social norm. This is no easy task. The perception of veganism is that it's extreme or radical.... But it's important to remember many of the great liberation movements were first thought of as extreme and radical. Now is not the time for compromise. Anti-slavery advocates didn't call for better conditions for slaves, they called for the abolition of slavery. It's time to abolish the modern-day equivalent: animal exploitation, and the easiest way to start is by choosing not to eat them.