Essays and Musings on Animals and Society

Friday, November 18, 2005

"Meat Market" Book Tour - Part 11 

Note: The following two excerpts refer to dismantlement, Erik Marcus' term for the gradual abolishment of animal agriculture, primarily through reducing demand for its products and increasing opposition to its business practices to the point where the industry is no longer viable. Mr. Markus' vision of dismantlement is bold in that he sees animal agriculture—at this point in time, at least—as illegitimate, vulnerable, and with its days numbered. The animal agriculture industry is vast and immensely powerful right now, but so were the Roman Empire and the slave trade. I'll focus more on dismantlement in future posts in this series.

"[Nineteenth century]Abolitionists could reasonably expect to win help from the federal government. People seeking to overcome animal agriculture, by contrast, should have no similar hopes. Animal agriculture is one of the most politically powerful business interests in America, and there's no possibility that lawmakers will rush to outlaw this industry. In consequence, we can't expect the government to take a leadership role in stamping out animal agriculture. So dismantlement relies, not on government, but on individuals and organizations to take action against animal agriculture"

"Since we can't expect the government to take the lead in abolishing animal agriculture, we need to construct a movement that inspires people to join in the struggle to end farmed animal exploitation. The key to winning over the public is to have an honest, accurate message that primarily emphasizes the ethical problems with animal agriculture."
— Meat Market, by Erik Marcus, page 81; 85

The law for farmed animals is a sick joke. At the Pilgrim's Pride poultry processing plant, where extensive video footage showed workers throwing live chickens against the wall, tearing them in half, ripping their beaks off, and intentionally crushing them with their boots, all the cruelties were done with impunity.

At Sun Prairie pork producers, workers put lit cigarettes on pigs' backs, suffocate them in headlocks, and bash their heads with hammers. Barns are over capacity by 1000 animals, pigs die of thirst when their legs get stuck in floor slats, pigs cannot reach water because of the overcrowdedness, pigs are periodically forced to swim in shoulder-high waste water filled with excrement, sick pigs are not given water and are left to suffer. A USDA Animal Welfare Act inspector said of Sun Prairie, "I believe it to be a well run and managed operation and the manager and employees need to be commended for their efforts."

Farms are exempt from practically all animal cruelty laws. Nearly every type of animal abuse you can imagine, and many you cannot imagine, take place on a regular basis on factory farms, with virtually no fear of penalty. Physical and psychological torture, violent assault, mutilation, disfiguration, and sadistic acts are legal, common, often institutionalized, and ignored or accepted by authorities. Real punishment for farmed animal cruelty is rarer than meteorite explosions. So don't count on the law to make any meaningful reforms.

In the next post, more on the impotence and the utter corruption of farm animal law—and what some folks are doing about it.


Here are some other incidents witnessed at Pilgrims Pride:

—On November 17, 2003, [an employee] twisted the neck of a live chicken until the head popped off; he then used what remained of the bloodied body of the chicken to write graffiti on the wall.

—On November 17, 2003, [an employee] intentionally squeezed two live chickens so hard that feces squirted out of them. [He] directed the feces into the eyes of seven other live chickens, exclaiming, "They shit all over us every day."

—On December 22, 2003, [an employee] placed a live chicken on the floor and jumped on the bird; the bird exploded under his weight, and her intestines were visible.

(full report here)

Judgments of livestock experts after viewing the evidence on tape:

University of Guelph Professor of Applied Ethology Dr. Ian J.H. Duncan writes, "This tape depicts scenes of the worst cruelty I have ever witnessed against chickens...The sum total of the pain and suffering inflicted on the chickens in the scenes is enormous and it is extremely hard to accept that this is occurring in the United States of America." Dr. Temple Grandin, associate professor at Colorado State University and industry consultant for slaughter and handling issues, states, "The behavior of the plant employees was atrocious...This is the WORST employee behavior I have ever seen in a poultry plant. Repeated kicking, stomping on and throwing of chickens is cruel animal abuse. Scientific research has clearly shown that chickens feel pain. Using chickens as footballs is horrible."

"[KFC] never had any meetings. They never asked any advice, and then they touted to the press that they had this animal-welfare advisory committee. I felt like I was being used."
—Dr. Adele Douglass, former animal welfare advisor to KFC, Chicago Tribune

Full headlock quote at Sun Prairie:

"And this one guy—he run and jumped on that pig there and give him the headlock, he'll fall down, and he'll hold that pig in a headlock. And that pig was kicking and kicking. And after it stopped kicking, he'll let it go...You'd give him five or 10 minutes and he'd snap out of it. He'd get up and he'd be flopping all over the place. He can't hold his balance. And they thought it was funnier than heck."
Posted by: Gary / 2:13 AM
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