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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
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Bravo.
Bill
The issue with factory farms is that people want their meat and they want it cheap. They value buying cheap meat more than they value having the animals treated well. My guess is that there will be a huge backlash to any kind of regulations on the meat industry -- it's all well and good to affect people's hearts and stomachs, but they still don't like being hit in their wallets. Regulations of lab animals did not directly affect consumers, but regulations of the meat industry will...
'Cause we really want to be humane to creatures we are going to grind up into sausage.
Three cheers for Dad.
Well said, Jonathan.
Abolitionists (who aim to get rid of animal-based agriculture) feel that welfarism (e.g. "happy meat" or "humanely raised meat") is a waste of time, that pushing for better standards for animals that exists only to be killed an eaten is not as effective as getting others to accept that animals have a right to live their lives as nature intended, without extensive human intereference. Some folks feel that "happy meat" will cause increased consumption of meat and related products. Which is certainly appears true after reading over recent slog posts.
That said, there are a whole lot of reasons to avoid or reduce animal foods in your diet: there are environmental and health concerns, in addition to the moral arguments that people may or may not buy into.
True and tried. Tens of thousnds of time in every city, over and over. They work.
What the fuck is wrong at the Stranger? You all are so fraked by protests, kind of un American.
You all too hip to protest, fine, show your ass and tits in a Porn show.
But, get real, your activist street smarts shit is nil.
Even dull witted.
I eat meat of all kinds, love fish and chicken, then lean beef.
Too rich liver paste, never.
How come nobody at the Stranger made fun of activists waving signs and chanting to support Mayor Sam Adams? What was different about that?
Along with reforming existing slaughterhouse practices, we have to curb the spread of new cruel slaughterhouse practices like foie gras production (which isn't new, but its surging popularity in America is new).
Say a new cruel form of laboratory testing started gaining popularity because of a legal loophole. Would you say, "focus on existing animal testing procedures" or would you take measures to stop the new cruel form of animal abuse as well?
But I'm sure that's too much to hope for.
Case in Point, Iraq War.
This whole debate seems like something that would be at home on "What White People Like". If relatively affluent folks want to pay top dollar for free range animals that's their call, but poor folks are going to be priced out of eating animal protein if every animal is produced in this way.
You are making the assumption that foie gras production is inherently cruel. There's no research that show that it is. People need to stop anthropomorphizing the birds. They have no gag reflex, and their liver was designed to become fatty. It would be cruel to force feed me with a tube down my throat, but I alas am not a duck. It would also be cruel to make me float naked in Lake Washington.
Protests helped stop the vote count in Florida in 2000. Those were street protests organized by the Republican Party, who usually mock protesters.
You always see this: snide cynics saying protests are stupid until one day it's their issue on the line, and all of a sudden they're calling all their friends and wanting them to show up carrying a sign.
Anticipating the passage of prop 8, I suggested a different tactic than ill-advised protests....
And of course in your scorn, you should note that the anti- war folks staged VERY FEW in eight years .... they sure worked to end the war in Vietnam ... hey ... and post Prop 8 they sure have worked very well ... not to mention Act Up and its fame in creative street protest ...
You are not a natural protest person, fine. But the technique is true and tried.
By the way, modern media really amplifies the message of a good protest ... h'mmmmmmmmm
And FYI everything recommended here means our food tastes better, and ultimately, that's what makes live fun. Just remember that when you see how miserable and cold the NARNits are standing outside in the rain protesting at Lark.
Anticipating the passage of prop 8, I suggested a different tactic than ill-advised protests....
"Abolitionists (who aim to get rid of animal-based agriculture) feel that welfarism (e.g. "happy meat" or "humanely raised meat") is a waste of time, that pushing for better standards for animals that exists only to be killed an eaten is not as effective as getting others to accept that animals have a right to live their lives as nature intended, without extensive human intereference."
Except, of course, in the case of dogs and cats who must all be neutered until it is no longer possible to breed them, and they will all die out. (This IS some animal rights activists' stance, and the main reason I don't support HSUS or PETA, though I DO support my LOCAL shelters, which don't get a dime from the national organizations).
If everyone stopped eating meat or other animal products tomorrow, the pigs and cows and chickens would all die out. They are not "as nature intended".
You're absolutely correct in that bringing about these kinds of changes requires a great deal of work, and most do-gooders, for all their talk, aren't really into putting a great deal of time and effort into their "causes". Their idea of effecting social change only requires them to devote one or two hours a week, at most, after which they can pat themselves on the back for "fighting the good fight", and return home to the comfort of their white, urban, middle-class lifestyles, where they'll devoutly listen to "Democracy Now!", whilst perusing the latest copy of "Mother Jones", and smugly consider themselves "soldiers for the cause" for having put in the absolute minimal effort on its behalf.
The other thing reaching such agreements requires is compromise; the recognition that effecting meaningful change requires some give-and-take between the opposing groups. The old saw that, "if both sides are unhappy with the outcome, it's probably a good one" usually applies in these cases, but it's extremely difficult for the True Believers to let go of even the smallest iota of their moral agenda, lest they be seen by their peers as having "sold out the cause". And so they stick to their "all or nothing" guns, which, while it inevitably results in little, if any real progress being made, but which still lets them cloak themselves in the shroud of moral superiority.
Because, in the end, it's all about maintaining 100% idealogical purity for these folks. In their minds achieving 90% of the goal is tantamount to collaboration with the enemy, because they know there will always be that handful of hold-outs who will cling to the last few percentage points as proof of their own moral superiority.
You will never convince most people not to eat meat. Regardless of what rhetorical devices you use. If you really want people to eat less meat, you need to make it more expensive.
That's the only way. Period.
It's very simple: Don't torture animals unnecessarily. Do you really think that is extreme?
Here's a video for people who doubt how cruel foie gras production is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IWN8UGDy…
That's a great point. I've been thinking about it, and doing a bit of reading on the subject.
Factory farming, as currently practiced, relies on monoculture and massive scale--having a huge farm producing only one product. The overall agricultural system connects one monoculture megafarm to another--resulting in vast amounts of waste and inefficiency. It's only cheap when oil is cheap.
Given the advances in information technology and our knowledge of plant and animal physiology, it seems like we could devise a more efficient polyculture system--a farm where cows eat grass, chickens eat grubs from the cow feces, the chicken droppings fertilizing the soil for example. Such a farm would be inherently kinder to the animals--allowing them to live in a manner much closer to their physiology--eliminate the massive waste lagoons as well as the terrifying dependence upon oil in the current industrial food system.
If you could do something like this properly, I think you could make food cheaper than it is now as well as healthier and with a better respect for the animals.
And as far as the Stranger not criticizing protests related to prop 8 or Sam West, those are highly visible, publicly debated issues that have broad ramifications within state and local government. These are issues being actively debated by the public. They are not narrow focus pet issues. If prop 8 protesters only picketed , say, 1 person who voted for prop 8, to the exclusion of other businesses and large donors, I'm sure you'd hear the Stranger ripping those people a new one. Ditto if the only protest supporting Sam West only involved picketing the house of one newspaper editor who suggested West step down.
And Jonathan, sounds like you've been reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma."
Lizzie, if I showed you a video of a late term abortion, would you change your mind on your right to choose? Oh that's right, killing geese for food is unacceptable, killing babies for convenience is fine.
Ask Golob how you decide which activists get a seat at the table. Probably the "reasonable" ones, right? The ones who aren't asking for anything too, you know, significant. Meaningful. Expensive.
How do you think they got so many people to vote for animal rights initiatives that recently passed in California and Arizona? Not by listening to the hypocrites who write for the Stranger.
There's a whole slate of animal rights questions on various ballots around the country next time around. Watch and see how they do compared to your pet issue.
It's the "animals have a right to live their lives as nature intended" point where the Absolutionist argument breaks down, IMO, because "nature" is inherently ambivalent in the sense that, depending on where a species falls in the food-chain, it is destined, at best, for a rather short, cruel, bleak, disease-infested life that inevitably ends in the stomach of a larger predatory species. What nature is NOT is some romanticized, anthropomophicized world where cute little bunnies and birdies merrily frolick in a sunny, daffodil-carpeted meadow, ala some Disney cartoon, although I get the sense that's the image many animal-rights activists form in their heads when they hear the word.
The truth of the matter is that, outside of the admittedly cruel realities of the industrial livestock industry, most animals raised for human consumption have a much higher quality-of-life than they would if left to fend for themselves in their "natural habitat".
Please provide links to stories of or testimony by women who had late-term abortions for convenience.
Lacking that, fuck off.
Your farm is the romantic illusion, circa. 1870, of the urban nerd know nothing, circa. 2009.
Is there a reason farmers must live in dire poverty? Or, that many people starve, can't pay the expensive price of under production. Too say nothing about feeding millions in the third world?
As a farm boy, living the whole thing for years, you are just too silly to imagine.
By the way, no farmer does pesticides, only in the most dire situation. VERY expensive. Nor do they ever mistreat animals, very expensive property and neighbors who might react with violence.
To survive in the real world of modern family farming, per thelast 6 decades, you need brains, brawn, machines, luck and good weather. Fools do not survive.
They move to the city ....
These folks hate wealth and pleasure. Look at their angry, stupid, cold asses out on the sidewalk next week if you don't agree. Sex and food are the two things all humans can find immensely pleasurably.
The right-wingers want to end sex and pleasure (along with some feminists) and these far left wing animal-fuckers wants to kill off the pleasure of food. Puritans of the same cloth.
Like "Don't ask don't tell." That was a reasonable compromise agreed upon by reasonable people. The ones who opposed it were called radicals and shut out. Just like the ones who said there were no WMD in Iraq were shut out.
I'll take being right over what you industry toadies call "reasonable."
Fine by me. I already buy expensive, designer, free range, organic, cuddled to death while having sex so it dies happy meat. (Interesting fact: Caviar harvested from Sturgeons that die in distress is spoiled by chemicals the Sturgeon releases.) I think it tastes better. But by your own admission, wouldn't forcing all farms to engage in the highest level of animal care practices cause meat production to became more expensive and onerous.
Won't effect my lifestyle, other than it may give me more expensive better quality versions of the food I buy, and I've always said I don't want more choices just better things.
But what about the people who rely on inexpensive mass produced food to feed their families?... I don't know what a Happy Meal costs these days, but I bet its a lot less expensive than the equivalent allowance of protein under your proposed production methods.
Or is it morally acceptable to let the poor starve if it means better lives for chickens everywhere?
As to Foie Gras. Love the stuff! It tastes fucking awesome. What other meat can legitimately be served as dessert? But think about it for a minute. Its targeted by nutters like NARN largely because its viewed as an unnecessary luxury for the rich. Why? Because it's expensive. Why? Because (cruel or not) its method of production (like Caviar) is very expensive. (Not unlike what your proposal would result in.) I guarantee that if Tyson could mass produce the stuff at the cost it does chicken, Froi Gras McNuggets would be a huge hit with the McDonald's class.
NARN isn't interested in your proposal primarily because their real goal is the elimination of choice. Regardless of production method, they don't want people to be able to choose to eat meat (at all (ever (because they find it morally reprehensible) period) hard stop), and Froi Gras is just a first step on the slippery slope they would like to drag us down. Just like pro-lifers don't want people to be able to choose abortion (at all (ever (because they find it morally reprehensible) period) hard stop), and late term abortion is just a first step on the slippery slope they would like to drag us down.
I am deeply disturbed by anyone who wants to eliminate any other persons ability to choose based on their own certain moral proclivities.
What about me then? My nature is to eat other animals (as it is for many animals). My nature is to enjoy pleasuable food and sex. My nature is to eat fois gras. What about my natural rights or do they not apply to humans? You sound like a religious nut.
He appears to be assuming--not just with the treatment of animals but in general--that there is no practice, however incorrigible, that should never be banned, as long as it doesn't directly harm another citizen. This takes a woefully simplistic view of the responsibilities of a government and civilized society.
Sure, the animal activist movement has had a lot to gain by securing legislation that ensures the humane treatment of animals. California's Proposition 2 is an awesome example of that.
But there are certain practices that can never be made humane, that are inherently cruel, and which civilized society has every right and duty to ban. I can think of:
* steel-jaw leghold traps
* cockfighting
* dogfighting
* canned hunts
* pigeon shoots
Unlike beef or chicken or even veal perhaps, there is just no way for foie gras to be produced in a humane way. Coming up with a humane way to produce foie gras is a bit like trying to devise a form of waterboarding or sleep deprivation or electric shocks that would not constitute torture.
I can assure you that there was no ban--or, for that matter, no piece of humane legislation--that ever happened without some kind of protest, that happened only with animal activists being strictly polite, little lobbyists.
Sure, there are effective protests and ineffective protests. There are protests that just turn more people off than they win over. But find me any great social or reform movement in history that happened without protest.
This in itself suggests a pretty ill-formed view of human nature and history on Jonathan's part.
Modern factory farming, along with government subsidies, have created the current model where cheap (and very unhealthy) meals exist. Besides e coli and other problems that didn't exist in food til recently, these unhealthy meals are the cause of our ballooning rate of obesity and all the health problems related to it. (Ever wonder why so many poor people are fat?)
I'm guessing that the compassion for the poor you express is disingenuous, and I know that your understanding of the problem is nonexistent. Read up on this before you comment.
Hey NARN, try this on for size, a story from the BBC on those who clean the sewers of New Delhi:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/fr…
Picketing one local chef is the singularly least effective way you can come up with to achieve your goal - in fact, your tactics have increased consumption at Lark.
There are atrocities occurring on an unimaginable scale around the globe - foie gras production doesn't even rate.
How about helping to unionize slaughterhouse workers in the deep south, who are injured and maimed at an alarming rate, while working for minimum wage? Successfully unionizing those workers would do far more to slow industrial farming practices than your little self indulgent snit in front of Lark.
Why is it people at the Stranger seem so daft when it comes to the role that activists play in our society? Do you think that social change comes from the top down? Without street heat, so to speak, do you think we would even have these "adult" regulations of animal testing? And do you think, once you pass a law, that it just enforces itself, and that the need for activism disappears and the only thing left to do is become a bureaucrat?
It is misleading and cynical to use a truism-- that activists need to work with people in power and not completely alienate the people whose behavior they seek to reform-- to then basically argue that there is no need for activism.
And don't tell me when I'm being disingenuous. You know nothing about me.
Yes, but we really don't need much protein. USRDA is less than a gram/day/kg. That's 6 ounces of meat for an average individual (less than a half pound). No one will be unhealthy if they can't eat a Happy Meal for every meal.
I alluded to cheap corn syrup in my post. You must have missed that. Anyway, cheap corn syrup can be found in happy meals (the burger and fries, not just the soda) and many other cheap foods you wouldn't think of, so while you're sights are set on the right culprit, you were also (inadvertently) defending it in the 3rd paragraph of your first post. You'd remove the choice of cheap food more effectively than anything being proposed here.
Bring something relevant to the argument or fuck off, your condescending tone makes you sound like an ass and your illogical comparisons are tired.
scary tyler moore, how many cows would be saved if everyone quit wearing leather?
"focus on small, broadly agreeable changes in how food animals are treated." ...like don't serve Foie Gras because these animals aren't treated well...
would eventually work. this is how i choose to do it, and not stay in the background wispering to the live baby butter injected pig eyeball producer on why he should change and quit the business.
Charles Patterson: A jewish vegan. Author of Eternal Treblinka
Coretta Scott King: Ethical vegan. Wife of Martin Luther King Junior. "King called her adoption of a vegan diet in 1995 a blessing. Her son, Dexter, had been vegan since 1988, saying that an appreciation for animal rights is the "logical extension" of his father's philosophy of nonviolence."
Vegans of Color: Network of non-white vegans, cataloging and discussing the implications of animal abuse and the struggle for the rights of all living beings.
Nathan Runkle: Founder of Mercy for Animals, an animal rights based group with 25,000 members nationwide. Brutally attacked for his homosexuality.
Not only are these people not offended by the relationship between human and non-human oppression, but they have made it their life's work to help others understand that the same ideology and prejudice that allows humans to abuse one another is what allows us to commodify animals for our own selfish desires.
Your only "allusion" was to "modern factory farming, along with government subsidies".
Even the most modern factory farm does not grow Corn Syrup. It is a processed product manufactured by refiners. As such, I would not count Corn Syrup as food but a chemical additive and on that basis I am completely in favor of criminalizing.
Not because its cruel to the defenseless corn. Or even because its cruel to the uneducated and/or poor (and you would have to be uneducated to eat anything with it in it). But because it is an unnecessarily costly burden on society (The obese poor are expensive to maintain and provide little or no return on that investment) and the void its absence would leave can be easily filled by a healthier and equally equivalent ingredient (Sugar Cane) that could be equally cheap and available if Big Corn's subsidies were rerouted to its producers.
Unfortunately you can't grow Sugar Cane in Iowa and Hawaii is not a caucus state.
The example of the Happy Meal was not meant to describe the ideal meal of the poor, McDonald's was meant to represent a dinning out option that is as accessible to the poor as somewhere like Lark is to myself.
But I would venture to guess that pound for pound Foie Gras and Happy Meals are comparably unhealthy (in cholesterol content alone) and as such completely agree that they should be consumed only in moderation.
3 people out of 6 billion on the planet. I'm impressed.
Yes, apparently being a fascist vegetarian makes you more likeable to fascists.
Being an omnivore is not an opinion, it's our nature. It's how we evolved. Being a vegetarian, however, is just an opinion, like being a Jesus freak.
you forgot Rush Limbaugh
Does it really seem like a coincidence to you that eating as much meat as we do, colon cancer is so prevalent? Does it seem like a concidence that we regularly consume the mammary secretions of pregnant animals and have seen a near-epidemic rise in breast and ovarian cancer, not to mention early onset of menses in young girls?
Also, humans are the only animals ever to continue drinking milk past infancy. Does that seem natural to you? Name a single other species that has seen the disease rate that we have. Do you think evolution is really on our side right now??
FYI most causes of cancer are genetic, not dietary.
The last thing I will say is that history has revealed that our oppression of non-whites, non-christians, non-heterosexuals, non-males, and so forth is essentially bankrupt from an ethical perspective. Recognizing the right for non-humans to preserve bodily integrity as so many humans have asked from each other will be the next major hurdle for us to climb as a civilized and reasoned species.
I'm not talking about the animal rights angle; I'm actually in full agreement with your conclusions about NARN's motivations and aims. (I am opposed to cruelty to animals and most factory ranching practices as a result, but don't consider the act of taking their lives and eating them "cruel.")
The Happy Meal comment was more apt than you seem to think, however. Subsidies for corn have resulted in corn syrup being used in almost every processed food, and processed foods are all that the poor can afford. It also has resulted in more naturally produced foods to see their costs become artificially high. "Organic" and "cruelty free" ought to be affordable, but in our free-market-rules, let's-make-a-maximum-profit culture it is not.
You know lots of non-whites oppress other people and animals, too right?
Ever met been to China or Korea? I'll tell you from first hand knowledge, dog is greasy and gamey, and not really my taste. The mink whale I had in Shibuya? Oily, not to my taste. Snake in Cambodia? Yikes, no seconds please. Crocodile I ate in Laos? Tasted like chicken. The dolphin I hate in Lamalera Indonesia? Superb! Of course, you probably want to impose your white, American values on these people too.
And you realize we're living longer and healthier lives now as humans than in any time in human history right?
It's a crying shame you'll be worm food before that even comes close to happening.
Where are you getting your information?? You make it sound as if the entire human population thru out history only eats a miniscule amount of meat and thats simply not true, thru out history or now. Look at the inuit population that historically has thrived on eating whale, or any of the other indigenious peoples of N America. Yes sustained nutrients are provided by fruits veggies and berries but only sustained not maintained. Only in today's supplement happy ecosystem buffered w grocers able to get a variety of veggies and fruits in year round are veggitarians getting their required nutrients.
It can also be historically shown that puberty in both males and females has gotten earlier and later depending on the time frame in question, putting other factors like access to food, stress, quality of life and such as mitigating factors pointing to a cause for the shift...not just an utter puss diet. (milk is gross)
no really.
How's that degree from Evergreen State helping you out there in the job market?
the fact that human beings are capable of digesting meat doesn't imply that any non human animal on the planet lacks a central nervous system or natural lifestyle of it's own.
did you know that one of the earliest legendary trolls was when someone in an artificial intelligence newsgroup got marvin minsky into this same meat/veggie debate?
First, with respect to the Animal Welfare Act and its associated regulations, they are largely ineffectual. Although they regulate cage size and provide modest welfare improvements, they have a very small effect on the state of animal experimentation in the U.S.. For example, they do not prohibit any type of experiment, no matter how painful, how speculative the outcome, or how tangential the benefits to human health. They also exempt mice, rats, and birds, which are the subjects of the vast majority of animal experimentation. The the function of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs) that approve experimentation protocols is largely to rubber stamp research proposals. I encourage anyone who thinks that the AWA has improved animals' lives to read protocols that have been approved by the University of Washington's IACUC and the documents about animal experimentation that animal rights groups have obtained from the USDA under the Freedom of Information Act to understand the magnitude of suffering that is permitted under the AWA.
Second, Mr. Golob's accusations that NARN does nothing more than engage in protests and that we don't have the patience for arcane research are simply untrue. In fact, NARN is the plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the exemptions to the state animal cruelty statute for routine practices in animal agriculture. NARN has also challenged cruel treatment of animals under complex environmental laws. As an attorney on NARN's board, I have worked on litigation under the Animal Welfare Act, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, and other animal welfare legislation. Although we do engage in protests when we believe that they will be an effective avenue, our twenty-two year history of litigation, legislative efforts, educational events, and outreach belies Mr. Golob's claims that protesting is all we do.
For such a presumably silly and ineffectual action by NARN, it sure seems to have upset the Stranger staff to no end. And you do know that NARN's position re: fois gras is not compatible with political dialogue or the oh-so-adult crafting of regulations, don't you, Mr. Golob?
Just come out and say what you want to directly: direct action against restaurants that serve foie gras is counterproductive to the vegetarian cause. It's a debatable assertion, and intelligent, well-meaning people may agree or disagree... but at least you won't come out looking like a condescending asshole with inane suggestions about crafting regulations that have nothing to do with the issue at hand.
OH - she did quote the web site of Sonoma Foie Gras, which claims that its foie gras production is humane. Not once, but twice. Because we all know that a producer would never, ever, ever fib or lie or distort the truth about their products or practices.
Bethany, if you believe that, I've got a peanut factory in Blakely, Georgia to sell you.
What's even funnier is that her colleagues, the very ones who invented "Stupid Fucking Credulous Hack", and who lob that term at any reporter they think is guilty of one-sided hack reporting, swarm around her in support. Isn't that precious? They can create all kinds of standards for others, but they themselves are above such petty conventions. I'm starting to see how things work over at the Stranger. It's kinda pathetic, because there used to be some smart people running the show.
No, mice, rats, and birds are NOT the most-used laboratory animals. Fruit flies and roundworms make up over 99.9999% of all lab animals. I grow more roundworms on a single Petri dish than there are mice in our entire animal facility. But worms and flies aren't cute, (thank goodness), so nobody is protesting their use.
And I can't speak for UW, but our IACUC does turn down some proposed experiments, and all NIH grant panels I've been on do look at how to use the minimum number of mice required to make an experiment work.
Of course, the number of mice that all research uses is dwarfed by the number that can be legally tortured or killed by householders who find them in the kitchen, where there are no regulations at all on how you can trap, poison, torture, or squash them. But I haven't heard of anyone proposing to outlaw killing rodents or insects in those situations. At least in the university, you have to justify the experiments as having potential benefit to human health.
Assuming that researchers go into it out of a desire to torture animals is as insulting as assuming that all animal rights groups value cute furry animals above human lives. It's easy to point out disgraceful examples on both sides, but dehumanizing the "enemy" is inconsistent with the goal on both sides, to make the world more humane, don't you think?
http://www.komonews.com/news/15988507.ht…
It's like you are validating what we are doing.
Thank you.
man, that caused a huge financial catastrophe at the Acme Corporation. Next to go are the anvils, I reckon.