With Northwest Animal Rights Network (NARN) protesting Lark over Foie Gras, and the (expected) backlash, I feel like it’s time to have a pro-animal rights post. Not pro-NARN, mind you. I want to praise the animal rights activists who created, implemented and supported the research animal use regulations.
Rather than go after an outright ban on animal use in labs, these effective activists came up with a regulatory structure—a set of rules an overwhelming majority of people could agree with. Animals used in laboratory research have strict housing and care guidelines—requiring a vet checking over things, no overcrowding, fresh food and water and as disease-free of an environment as can be created. All animal research must be pre-approved by a panel—including vets, fellow scientists and citizens (i.e. animal rights activists.) Everyone working with animals must undergo extensive training—renewed at least once a year. And so on. Animals used in a lab are treated better than children in the care of most States.
It was an adult path to take—recognizing the ethical interest in both developing new cures or health knowledge through scientific study of animals and the preventing cruelty to animals. This path took much work—time spent talking to vets, scientists, reading and writing laws, lobbying politicians and building public support. It’s much less fun than meeting up with your buddies for a Friday night protest outside a small business.
It worked in almost every way possible. By forcing all labs to engage in the highest level of animal care practices, animal research became more expensive and onerous. As a result, the decision to start an animal study is a profoundly serious one in labs—with every alternative exhausted. Fewer animals are used, and those used are cared for in the best and kindest way possible. Labs that violate these rules are subject to the severest penalties—including a total loss of funding.
Imagine what the twenty or so NARN activists—currently wasting hours with childish comments on SLOG, or purposeless protests of a single restaurant serving a single dish—could do if they switched tactics. Most of us—omnivores and vegetarians (such as myself)—are totally and completely disgusted with the practices of industrial farms: the use of hormones and antibiotics, the use of disgusting industrially rendered and non-physiological feeds, the overpacking, the mutilation to allow overpacking into cages, the total lack of concern about disease and health. The details coming out about this month’s salmonella outbreak could be applied to outbreaks in hamburgers, berries, or a dozen of other abusively produced foods.
How about NARN—these same small handful of people—sitting down with vets and food safety experts and drafting up a set of realistic regulations for industrial farms: no clipping of beaks, no overcrowding of animals, no pro-acidic diets for ruminants, no autophagy—for example. Demand that any industrial farm directly or indirectly receiving federal subsidy follow these guidelines. Go after people’s hearts through their stomachs.
It would take work—long boring hours reading scientific documents, writing proposals, lobbying politicians, and educating the public. More importantly, it’ll take an adult recognition that while you might not want to eat meat, others will. If you are serious about the betterment of animals—instead of whining about silly bans—focus on small, broadly agreeable changes in how food animals are treated. By crafting regulations that both vegans and omnivores can agree upon, you’ll genuinely help animals and actually advance your cause in a meaningful way.
It worked for your fellow activists concerned about laboratory animals. You should learn from them, NARN.
Jonathan
Bravo.
Bill
Nicely done, Jonathan. But… Berries are abusively produced?! I’m gonna go cry in a corner now.
Awesome, Jonathan.
@2, Good find!
A new book that addresses this issue in an accessible way is The Compassionate Carnivore, by Catherine Friend. She and her partner raise lamb and chickens in SE MN, and she writes eloquently about the ethics of raising animals and how we can support small farmers that do so. I found her advice even more helpful than Pollan’s on much the same subject.
I totally agree. These are very reasonable proposals.
Jonathan, stop being realistic. You’re freaking me out.
!APPLAUSE!
Gee, The Stranger thought street protests were so valuable in the aftermath of Prop 8. Remember that, Mr. Golob? Where were you then, telling Savage and Holden and Sanders to stay out of the streets and spend their time being well behaved little queers politely lobbying for their rights?
Agreed. It’s interesting, if people really were successful in reining in factory farms and creating regulations for the meat industry regarding the ethical treatment of animals, then, presumably, the same thing would happen as happened with animal studies. The price of meat would go up, and people would less inclined to buy it.
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…
Do Pediatricians check on the Homo Sapien embryos in research labs?
@9- You’re missing the point. Go read the post again, but pull your head out of your ass first.
this is all inspiring.
‘Cause we really want to be humane to creatures we are going to grind up into sausage.
Thank you Dad for the lecture. Adults will surely appreciate being told to “act like adults.” I’m sure your lecture will be very effective.
Three cheers for Dad.
@13 Yes, we do. It’s no different than a hunter respecting the deer he shoots and takes home to eat. Even if you don’t believe in that “circle of life” hoodoo, we would be improving the quality and naturalness of the food by not pumping animals full of antibiotics or hormones or transgenes.
Well said, Jonathan.
Maybe everybody could sit down over a nice, yummy dinner of Sea Kittens and get their differences worked out.
This is actually a pretty big debate in the animal rights world–welfarism versus abolitionism.
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.
Protests are an Americian tradition – from unions to Mothers Agaist Drunks.
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.
@12 Golob’s point was classic GOP Bushism: industry can regulate itself. Let’s sit down with the energy companies and they can help us write a set of rules we can all live with. Let’s sit in the offices of the polluters and beg them nicely to choose to do the right thing. Golob works for these people; you can’t expect him not to take the side of the scientific establishment.
How come nobody at the Stranger made fun of activists waving signs and chanting to support Mayor Sam Adams? What was different about that?
Come on. Like I said in the other thread, I’m not a member of NARN and don’t know anybody who is, but animal testing, existing factory farming, and the spread of new cruel practices are different things.
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?
Amen, Jonathan. One of the promises of the Obama campaign was that we would once again put the adults in charge. Maybe that means that I, a carnivore with significant concerns about the way meat is produced, could actually join forces with animal rights groups without it degenerating to them calling me evil and me calling them stupid.
But I’m sure that’s too much to hope for.
@18 Do protests actually work?
Case in Point, Iraq War.
Well said- thank you Jonathan!
Julie in Eugene, you’ve nailed it. Nobody is against animal cruelty until they have to pay $25 for a chicken at Safeway.
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.
@lizzie
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.
@22
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.
I, like , believe that street protests (against the Iraq war, for gay rights, against animal cruelty–whatever) are ineffective.
Anticipating the passage of prop 8, I suggested a different tactic than ill-advised protests….
Well Put!
#22
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
Will the NARN nuts be happy with this reasoned and intelligent posting? I doubt it. That’s why they’re nuts. They’re like pro-lifers and abortion clinic bombers and protestors: people so convinced with their own morality, they simply can’t be reasoned with. But then they’ll start comparing their struggle with geese with black civil rights, gay rights and Jews in the Holocaust: they’ll never do that in front of a actual black, gay or Jew mind you.
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.
I, like Matt Taibbi, believe that street protests (against the Iraq war, for gay rights, against animal cruelty–whatever) are ineffective.
Anticipating the passage of prop 8, I suggested a different tactic than ill-advised protests….
Quoting from someone up higher:
“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”.
Great ideas Jonathan, but unfortunately, they seldom are effective when groups like NARN are involved, for the simple reason that they tend to be more about making their constituencies feel good about themselves than they are about effecting any sort of positive change.
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.
@17
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.
Jeez, you people. Nobody is being an extremist for some kind of hippie ideological purity. Foie gras is incredibly cruel and it’s very reasonable to add foie gras production to our many existing animal cruelty laws. It’s a very moderate stance, just like previous animal cruelty laws that have already passed.
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…
Julie in Eugene:
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.
Sorry @19, classic Bushism was only inviting the people who work in their own industries to draft regulations, excluding activists and other critics, and doing it in secret. Golob’s post described a process where activists and others were part of the legislation process, with results satisfactory to all parties involved.
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.”
@37: My thoughts exactly on all three points.
“Here’s a video for people who doubt how cruel foie gras production is:”
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.
@37
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.
@17:
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”.
@40, umm, yeah, the reasonable ones sound good to me. As opposed to the unreasonable ones. You can tell the difference because the reasonable ones are trying to come up with a functional solution, while the unreasonable ones are standing in the street waving a sign around and screaming at people. Mike O’Brien, reasonable. Juan The Frye Apartment Guy, unreasonable. Its not hard to tell the difference.
Freebie @39:
Please provide links to stories of or testimony by women who had late-term abortions for convenience.
Lacking that, fuck off.
#36
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 ….
The main reason these whackos hate fois gras is 1). it’s expensive and they hate wealth and 2). it’s pleasurable to eat.
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.
@42
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.”
Johnathan,
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.
“animals have a right to live their lives as nature intended”
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.
Well, I’ll give credit to Jonathan for replacing the denial and outright hostility of previous posts with just, well, dismissiveness. But even Jonathan is guilty of somewhat of a rationalizing lens.
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.
To follow my previous post @49…
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.