Cattle Rancher's Perspective on Vegan & Animal Rights News
07 November 2015 [link youtube]
"Meanwhile livestock producers are kept busy devising welfare plans, environmental farm plans, codes of practice, best management practices to show they do deal with their animals humanely. But we know it will never be enough." No, it will never be enough, will it? ;-)
Link to the full article: http://www.canadiancattlemen.ca/2015/10/19/dropping-in-on-the-animal-rights-movement/
The image in the thumbnail for this video was, in fact, a rare case of animal cruelty (on a farm) that led to real jail-sentences. Warning, this link contains disturbing images: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2101693/Pig-farmer-slammed-RSPCA-horrific-cruelty-animals-dead-suspected-suicide.html
Youtube Automatic Transcription
he's using obtaining those small steps
both activist gathering video evidence that could be normally read magazines that are produced by and for these cattle ranching cow slaughtering industry but there's quite an interesting article on veganism and animal rights in the October issue of Canadian cattle man magazine and it really makes me think that maybe vegans should pay more attention to the strange demi-monde of publications that are produced by and for animal exploiting industries um the very first paragraph of this article written and written quite well by Greg Winslow he makes very precise you stay english-language throughout here the very first paragraph remarks that various industrial lobby groups Pro meat industry groups do send spies to attend vegan conferences so um you know vegans have a sort of elevated interest in what's going on in the meat industry and those who profit from the meat industry have a elevated interest in what's going on with veganism so the article reads the animal agriculture alliance the industry's advocacy group in the US recently sent me a report by two young interns who were sent to blend in at the national animal rights conference held outside washed in the summer to gain some insight into the movements plans the short answer is more of the same as 1500 activists from 47 states and 22 countries spent three days discussing ways to eliminate the consumption of meat and advance the vegan diet so already here there are two really interesting points implicit in this article one is that he is claiming he is reporting that at this major animal rights conference the central issue was veganism now that was not at all just twenty years ago if you talk to people who were involved in animal rights 20 years ago 30 years ago and so on all of them are aware even guys like Gary Francie ohne who have now been vegan for a long time all of them are aware that veganism has gone from an incredibly marginal position to a very central position and now the old-fashioned animal welfare groups face serious demands of saying look how can you do these kind of take care of homeless puppies programs while ignoring in enormous pressing ethical issues that surround meat consumption so interesting this this may not be fair or accurate that's article and reporting this but if that's true if veganism and eliminating weakens up here were the central issues at this animal rights conference that tells you something profound about how much animal rights has changed just in the last few years really on the whole it was a chilling summary chilling there were workshops on everything from organizing factory farm campaigns to the use of drones to gather damning video and how to garner media attention for the cause chilling over all the Alliance pulled five themes from this report people need to be convinced they're doing the greatest good for the greatest number target young people because they want to be different lead people's step-by-step to veganism focus on the public because the government and police are not your friends vandalism is warranted if it can gain media attention and pressure restaurant and retailer policies none of this is secret information animal rights organizations have been following this manifesto for decades now if anything this report seems to show that the movement is becoming more widespread and more organized over time you know it is really a brilliant use of the English language that he just starts this paragraph with the statement none of this is secret information it just implies it just insinuates that this could be or should be secret information if I say to you right now the Japanese government is planning to restart and expand its nuclear reactors none of this is secret information without my telling you it's a bad thing or a dangerous thing already it's somehow establishes this tone yeah some of the workshops got into the nitty-gritty of direct action one well-known activist mapped out a strategy by which college kids opposed to health research on animals could trick the university into banning students from a building used for animal testing then he told them how to enflame the story to make it into something the media would pick up and pressure the university to respond to um a very famous political figure here in Canada who was one of my university professors Bob Rae who is still kicking around in Canadian politics Bob Rae used to always say compare it to the alternative actually I don't even feel like quake is such a corny line but his line was don't compare me to the Almighty compare me to the alternative he said that a lot I'm guessing still in the halls of Parliament he uses that line all the time was one of his favorite catch phrases this criticism although left vague and indirect what are you comparing vegans to you may feel that these are unethical tactics you may feel they're unethical even relative to other movements that are on university campuses I think if you take a look it's not so bad on the spectrum of forms of political activism that are ongoing in 2015 to use a fairly anodyne example there were communists on my campus at the University of Toronto this was around 1999 and I remember they broke onto the roof of a building on campus was an historical building I think was over one years old that building and they repainted part of the roof with the Communist flag so a red flag with a hammer and sickle that sort of thing um so you know this is vandalism I'd may be harming a building of some historical significance it's also endorsing an ideology that has killed millions of people and you know there was actually tolerance for it the university did not kind of crack down on these communists which is an interesting contrast to some other extreme movements and some other political symbols that might get painted on a wall um you know activists aren't perfect and a lot of methods of activism you know step on people's toes and causing conveniences and disruptions but it's important to compare them to the alternatives but come on here apparently from the perspective of the cattle ranching industry using completely legal methods to draw attention to animal vivisection on University campus he's shocking if a university is not a place where philosophical and ethical questions can be debated what is that debate in Canada is not gonna happen at City Hall it could and it should it should be that at City Hall the equivalent to Socrates is putting on his robe and standing up in front of the crowd and debating these kinds of issues doesn't happen so universities inevitably become places where some of these issues get contested at least in Western culture at least in Canadian culture another encouraged activists to look at every action as a stepping stone to scale back their initial demands to something acceptable and then build on each small victory toward the end goal one example would be to campaign for the end of battery cages in poultry operations on your university then push to end them in your state and eventually end them in the United States his means of obtaining those small steps involves activists gathering video evidence that could be viewed as animal cruelty could be this strategy really hit home to me as I scan through the report as we've had a few fresh examples of its success hitting the news wires first came the announcement that McDonald's was going to gradually switch to free-range eggs over the next decade starting with five percent of its supply last month according to Silva Charlevoix of the University of Guelph food Institute McDonald's was a hundred and twelve twenty million eggs a year in Canada alone that requires the services of 3.2 million egg-laying hens that must be pulled from cages over the next decade to satisfy this one customer he makes excellent use of the English language here this requires the services of 3.2 million hands that would be pulled from their cages he doesn't just make this sound like an inconvenience but as if we the vegans would be harming these birds we would be disturbing them in their restful slumbers in their cages by pulling them from their cages because of the high ethical standards of the McDonald's Corporation what what a tragedy what a terrible thing just to satisfy this one customer because the only question are is the of the scruples of this one customer not of the 3.2 million hens that are providing services in cages that they do not want to be pulled from very well written paragraph think about as a challenge as a creative writer how difficult it is to make that sound convincing or reasonable and he does it excellent excellent job very well-written slowly over time enough of the public has been encouraged to believe battery cages are bad that a major buyer is now forced to tell its suppliers to switch it means higher costs which in Canada will certainly be passed on but we can only imagine that McDonald's factored that into its decision so this is the cattle ranching industry magazine complaining that McDonald's has too high an ethical standard that there are two self-sacrifice oh what a what a strange vision of the world this article presents the problem is the McDonald's cares too much about the attitudes of ethical animal rights activists and they just don't care enough about profits and prices the same company has the cattle industry ramping up to raise fully sustainable beef although the exact details of what that means are still to be determined this too is in response to public pressure much of it traced back to the actions of activists in September the animal Legal Defense Fund released a video taken at at Ison plant in Texas and filed complaints with the USDA for inhumane animal handling practices and food safety violations then asked the Attorney General Delaware to investigate Tyson Foods for similar violations this is brilliantly written he's not suggesting that any of these people are not guilty he's not suggesting there isn't he's not suggesting that this Factory in Texas where animals are slaughtered is not guilty of inhumane practices and is not guilty of food safety violations it's just a problem that these accusations exist at all you could almost hear them planning it at the annual convention which by the way had a whole section on dealing with government law and politics these stories are so frequent now we sometimes grow numb to them especially when they hit other sectors or another country but activists don't think that way they are happy with the long view every little success counts meanwhile livestock producers are kept busy devising welfare plans environmental farm policies codes of practice best management practices to show they do deal with their animals humanely but we know it will never be enough if this report from the Alliance says anything is that the activists end goal is the elimination of the livestock industry maybe we need to start asking what is our hidden to strategy
both activist gathering video evidence that could be normally read magazines that are produced by and for these cattle ranching cow slaughtering industry but there's quite an interesting article on veganism and animal rights in the October issue of Canadian cattle man magazine and it really makes me think that maybe vegans should pay more attention to the strange demi-monde of publications that are produced by and for animal exploiting industries um the very first paragraph of this article written and written quite well by Greg Winslow he makes very precise you stay english-language throughout here the very first paragraph remarks that various industrial lobby groups Pro meat industry groups do send spies to attend vegan conferences so um you know vegans have a sort of elevated interest in what's going on in the meat industry and those who profit from the meat industry have a elevated interest in what's going on with veganism so the article reads the animal agriculture alliance the industry's advocacy group in the US recently sent me a report by two young interns who were sent to blend in at the national animal rights conference held outside washed in the summer to gain some insight into the movements plans the short answer is more of the same as 1500 activists from 47 states and 22 countries spent three days discussing ways to eliminate the consumption of meat and advance the vegan diet so already here there are two really interesting points implicit in this article one is that he is claiming he is reporting that at this major animal rights conference the central issue was veganism now that was not at all just twenty years ago if you talk to people who were involved in animal rights 20 years ago 30 years ago and so on all of them are aware even guys like Gary Francie ohne who have now been vegan for a long time all of them are aware that veganism has gone from an incredibly marginal position to a very central position and now the old-fashioned animal welfare groups face serious demands of saying look how can you do these kind of take care of homeless puppies programs while ignoring in enormous pressing ethical issues that surround meat consumption so interesting this this may not be fair or accurate that's article and reporting this but if that's true if veganism and eliminating weakens up here were the central issues at this animal rights conference that tells you something profound about how much animal rights has changed just in the last few years really on the whole it was a chilling summary chilling there were workshops on everything from organizing factory farm campaigns to the use of drones to gather damning video and how to garner media attention for the cause chilling over all the Alliance pulled five themes from this report people need to be convinced they're doing the greatest good for the greatest number target young people because they want to be different lead people's step-by-step to veganism focus on the public because the government and police are not your friends vandalism is warranted if it can gain media attention and pressure restaurant and retailer policies none of this is secret information animal rights organizations have been following this manifesto for decades now if anything this report seems to show that the movement is becoming more widespread and more organized over time you know it is really a brilliant use of the English language that he just starts this paragraph with the statement none of this is secret information it just implies it just insinuates that this could be or should be secret information if I say to you right now the Japanese government is planning to restart and expand its nuclear reactors none of this is secret information without my telling you it's a bad thing or a dangerous thing already it's somehow establishes this tone yeah some of the workshops got into the nitty-gritty of direct action one well-known activist mapped out a strategy by which college kids opposed to health research on animals could trick the university into banning students from a building used for animal testing then he told them how to enflame the story to make it into something the media would pick up and pressure the university to respond to um a very famous political figure here in Canada who was one of my university professors Bob Rae who is still kicking around in Canadian politics Bob Rae used to always say compare it to the alternative actually I don't even feel like quake is such a corny line but his line was don't compare me to the Almighty compare me to the alternative he said that a lot I'm guessing still in the halls of Parliament he uses that line all the time was one of his favorite catch phrases this criticism although left vague and indirect what are you comparing vegans to you may feel that these are unethical tactics you may feel they're unethical even relative to other movements that are on university campuses I think if you take a look it's not so bad on the spectrum of forms of political activism that are ongoing in 2015 to use a fairly anodyne example there were communists on my campus at the University of Toronto this was around 1999 and I remember they broke onto the roof of a building on campus was an historical building I think was over one years old that building and they repainted part of the roof with the Communist flag so a red flag with a hammer and sickle that sort of thing um so you know this is vandalism I'd may be harming a building of some historical significance it's also endorsing an ideology that has killed millions of people and you know there was actually tolerance for it the university did not kind of crack down on these communists which is an interesting contrast to some other extreme movements and some other political symbols that might get painted on a wall um you know activists aren't perfect and a lot of methods of activism you know step on people's toes and causing conveniences and disruptions but it's important to compare them to the alternatives but come on here apparently from the perspective of the cattle ranching industry using completely legal methods to draw attention to animal vivisection on University campus he's shocking if a university is not a place where philosophical and ethical questions can be debated what is that debate in Canada is not gonna happen at City Hall it could and it should it should be that at City Hall the equivalent to Socrates is putting on his robe and standing up in front of the crowd and debating these kinds of issues doesn't happen so universities inevitably become places where some of these issues get contested at least in Western culture at least in Canadian culture another encouraged activists to look at every action as a stepping stone to scale back their initial demands to something acceptable and then build on each small victory toward the end goal one example would be to campaign for the end of battery cages in poultry operations on your university then push to end them in your state and eventually end them in the United States his means of obtaining those small steps involves activists gathering video evidence that could be viewed as animal cruelty could be this strategy really hit home to me as I scan through the report as we've had a few fresh examples of its success hitting the news wires first came the announcement that McDonald's was going to gradually switch to free-range eggs over the next decade starting with five percent of its supply last month according to Silva Charlevoix of the University of Guelph food Institute McDonald's was a hundred and twelve twenty million eggs a year in Canada alone that requires the services of 3.2 million egg-laying hens that must be pulled from cages over the next decade to satisfy this one customer he makes excellent use of the English language here this requires the services of 3.2 million hands that would be pulled from their cages he doesn't just make this sound like an inconvenience but as if we the vegans would be harming these birds we would be disturbing them in their restful slumbers in their cages by pulling them from their cages because of the high ethical standards of the McDonald's Corporation what what a tragedy what a terrible thing just to satisfy this one customer because the only question are is the of the scruples of this one customer not of the 3.2 million hens that are providing services in cages that they do not want to be pulled from very well written paragraph think about as a challenge as a creative writer how difficult it is to make that sound convincing or reasonable and he does it excellent excellent job very well-written slowly over time enough of the public has been encouraged to believe battery cages are bad that a major buyer is now forced to tell its suppliers to switch it means higher costs which in Canada will certainly be passed on but we can only imagine that McDonald's factored that into its decision so this is the cattle ranching industry magazine complaining that McDonald's has too high an ethical standard that there are two self-sacrifice oh what a what a strange vision of the world this article presents the problem is the McDonald's cares too much about the attitudes of ethical animal rights activists and they just don't care enough about profits and prices the same company has the cattle industry ramping up to raise fully sustainable beef although the exact details of what that means are still to be determined this too is in response to public pressure much of it traced back to the actions of activists in September the animal Legal Defense Fund released a video taken at at Ison plant in Texas and filed complaints with the USDA for inhumane animal handling practices and food safety violations then asked the Attorney General Delaware to investigate Tyson Foods for similar violations this is brilliantly written he's not suggesting that any of these people are not guilty he's not suggesting there isn't he's not suggesting that this Factory in Texas where animals are slaughtered is not guilty of inhumane practices and is not guilty of food safety violations it's just a problem that these accusations exist at all you could almost hear them planning it at the annual convention which by the way had a whole section on dealing with government law and politics these stories are so frequent now we sometimes grow numb to them especially when they hit other sectors or another country but activists don't think that way they are happy with the long view every little success counts meanwhile livestock producers are kept busy devising welfare plans environmental farm policies codes of practice best management practices to show they do deal with their animals humanely but we know it will never be enough if this report from the Alliance says anything is that the activists end goal is the elimination of the livestock industry maybe we need to start asking what is our hidden to strategy