Something for Our Resident Meat Eaters to Ponder

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'They Die Piece by Piece' In Overtaxed Plants, Humane Treatment of Cattle Is Often a Battle Lost

By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, April 10, 2001; Page A01

Second of two articles

PASCO, Wash.--It takes 25 minutes to turn a live steer into steak at the modern slaughterhouse where Ramon Moreno works. For 20 years, his post was "second-legger," a job that entails cutting hocks off carcasses as they whirl past at a rate of 309 an hour.

The cattle were supposed to be dead before they got to Moreno. But too often they weren't.

"They blink. They make noises," he said softly. "The head moves, the eyes are wide and looking around."

Still Moreno would cut. On bad days, he says, dozens of animals reached his station clearly alive and conscious. Some would survive as far as the tail cutter, the belly ripper, the hide puller. "They die," said Moreno, "piece by piece."

Under a 23-year-old federal law, slaughtered cattle and hogs first must be "stunned" -- rendered insensible to pain -- with a blow to the head or an electric shock. But at overtaxed plants, the law is sometimes broken, with cruel consequences for animals as well as workers. Enforcement records, interviews, videos and worker affidavits describe repeated violations of the Humane Slaughter Act at dozens of slaughterhouses, ranging from the smallest, custom butcheries to modern, automated establishments such as the sprawling IBP Inc. plant here where Moreno works.

"In plants all over the United States, this happens on a daily basis," said Lester Friedlander, a veterinarian and formerly chief government inspector at a Pennsylvania hamburger plant. "I've seen it happen. And I've talked to other veterinarians. They feel it's out of control."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees the treatment of animals in meat plants, but enforcement of the law varies dramatically. While a few plants have been forced to halt production for a few hours because of alleged animal cruelty, such sanctions are rare.

For example, the government took no action against a Texas beef company that was cited 22 times in 1998 for violations that included chopping hooves off live cattle. In another case, agency supervisorsfailed to take action on multiple complaints of animal cruelty at a Florida beef plant and fired an animal health technician for reporting the problems to the Humane Society. The dismissal letter sent to the technician, Tim Walker, said his dislosure had "irreparably damaged" the agency's relations with the packing plant.

"I complained to everyone -- I said, 'Lookit, they're skinning live cows in there,' " Walker said. "Always it was the same answer: 'We know it's true. But there's nothing we can do about it.' "

In the past three years, a new meat inspection systemthat shifted responsibility to industry has made it harder to catch and report cruelty problems, some federal inspectors say. Under the new system, implemented in 1998, the agency no longer tracks the number of humane-slaughter violations its inspectors find each year.

Some inspectors are so frustrated they're asking outsiders for help: The inspectors' union last spring urged Washington state authorities to crack down on alleged animal abuse at the IBP plant in Pasco. In a statement, IBP said problems described by workers in its Washington state plant "do not accurately represent the way we operate our plants. We take the issue of proper livestock handling very seriously."

But the union complained that new government policies and faster production speeds at the plant had "significantly hampered our ability to ensure compliance." Several animal welfare groups joined in the petition.

"Privatization of meat inspection has meant a quiet death to the already meager enforcement of the Humane Slaughter Act," said Gail Eisnitz of the Humane Farming Association, a group that advocates better treatment of farm animals. "USDA isn't simply relinquishing its humane-slaughter oversight to the meat industry, but is -- without the knowledge and consent of Congress -- abandoning this function altogether."

The USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service, which is responsible for meat inspection, says it has not relaxed its oversight. In January, the agency ordered a review of 100 slaughterhouses. An FSIS memo reminded its 7,600 inspectors they had an "obligation to ensure compliance" with humane-handling laws.

The review comes as pressure grows on both industry and regulators to improve conditions for the 155 million cattle, hogs, horses and sheep slaughtered each year. McDonald's and Burger King have been subject to boycotts by animal rights groups protesting mistreatment of livestock.

As a result, two years ago McDonald's began requiring suppliers to abide by the American Meat Institute's Good Management Practices for Animal Handling and Stunning. The company also began conducting annual audits of meat plants. Last week, Burger King announced it would require suppliers to follow the meat institute's standards.

"Burger King Corp. takes the issues of food safety and animal welfare very seriously, and we expect our suppliers to comply," the company said in a statement.

Industry groups acknowledge that sloppy killing has tangible consequences for consumers as well as company profits. Fear and pain cause animals to produce hormones that damage meat and cost companies tens of millions of dollars a year in discarded product, according to industry estimates.

Industry officials say they also recognize an ethical imperative to treat animals with compassion. Science is blurring the distinction between the mental processes of humans and lower animals -- discovering, for example, that even the lowly rat may dream. Americans thus are becoming more sensitive to the suffering of food animals, even as they consume increasing numbers of them.

"Handling animals humanely," said American Meat Institute President J. Patrick Boyle, "is just the right thing to do."

Clearly, not all plants have gotten the message.

A Post computer analysis of government enforcement records found 527 violations of humane-handling regulations from 1996 to 1997, the last years for which complete records were available. The offenses range from overcrowded stockyards to incidents in which live animals were cut, skinned or scalded.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, The Post obtained enforcement documents from 28 plants that had high numbers of offenses or had drawn penalties for violating humane-handling laws. The Post also interviewed dozens of current and former federal meat inspectors and slaughterhouse workers. A reporter reviewed affidavits and secret video recordings made inside two plants.

Among the findings:

• One Texas plant, Supreme Beef Packers in Ladonia, had 22 violations in six months. During one inspection, federal officials found nine live cattle dangling from an overhead chain. But managers at the plant, which announced last fall it was ceasing operations, resisted USDA warnings, saying its practices were no different than others in the industry. "Other plants are not subject to such extensive scrutiny of their stunning activities," the plant complained in a 1997 letter to the USDA.

• Government inspectors halted production for a day at the Calhoun Packing Co. beef plant in Palestine, Tex., after inspectors saw cattle being improperly stunned. "They were still conscious and had good reflexes," B.V. Swamy, a veterinarian and senior USDA official at the plant, wrote. The shift supervisor "allowed the cattle to be hung anyway." IBP, which owned the plant at the time, contested the findings but "took steps to resolve the situation," including installing video equipment and increasing training, a spokesman said. IBP has since sold the plant.

• At the Farmers Livestock Cooperative processing plant in Hawaii, inspectors documented 14 humane-slaughter violations in as many months. Records from 1997 and 1998 describe hogs that were walking and squealing after being stunned as many as four times. In a memo to USDA, the company said it fired the stunner and increased monitoring of the slaughter process.

• At an Excel Corp. beef plant in Fort Morgan, Colo., production was halted for a day in 1998 after workers allegedly cut off the leg of a live cow whose limbs had become wedged in a piece of machinery. In imposing the sanction, U.S. inspectors cited a string of violations in the previous two years, including the cutting and skinning of live cattle. The company, responding to one such charge, contended that it was normal for animals to blink and arch their backs after being stunned, and such "muscular reaction" can occur up to six hours after death. "None of these reactions indicate the animal is still alive," the company wrote to USDA.

• Hogs, unlike cattle, are dunked in tanks of hot water after they are stunned to soften the hides for skinning. As a result, a botched slaughter condemns some hogs to being scalded and drowned. Secret videotape from an Iowa pork plant shows hogs squealing and kicking as they are being lowered into the water.

USDA documents and interviews with inspectors and plant workers attributed many of the problems to poor training, faulty or poorly maintained equipment or excessive production speeds. Those problems were identified five years ago in an industry-wide audit by Temple Grandin, an assistant professor with Colorado State University's animal sciences department and one of the nation's leading experts on slaughter practices.

In the early 1990s, Grandin developed the first objective standards for treatment of animals in slaughterhouses, which were adopted by the American Meat Institute, the industry's largest trade group. Her initial, USDA-funded survey in 1996 was one of the first attempts to grade slaughter plants.

One finding was a high failure rate among beef plants that use stunning devices known as "captive-bolt" guns. Of the plants surveyed, only 36 percent earned a rating of "acceptable" or better, meaning cattle were knocked unconscious with a single blow at least 95 percent of the time.

Grandin now conducts annual surveys as a consultant for the American Meat Institute and McDonald's Corp. She maintains that the past four years have brought dramatic improvements -- mostly because of pressure from McDonald's, which sends a team of meat industry auditors into dozens of plants each year to observe slaughter practices.

Based on the data collected by McDonald's auditors, the portion of beef plants scoring "acceptable" or better climbed to 90 percent in 1999. Some workers and inspectors are skeptical of the McDonald's numbers, and Grandin said the industry's performance dropped slightly last year after auditors stopped giving notice of some inspections.

Grandin said high production speeds can trigger problems when people and equipment are pushed beyond their capacity. From a typical kill rate of 50 cattle an hour in the early 1900s, production speeds rose dramatically in the 1980s. They now approach 400 per hour in the newest plants.

"It's like the 'I Love Lucy' episode in the chocolate factory," she said. "You can speed up a job and speed up a job, and after a while you get to a point where performance doesn't simply decline -- it crashes."

When that happens, it's not only animals that suffer. Industry trade groups acknowledge that improperly stunned animals contribute to worker injuries in an industry that already has the nation's highest rate of job-related injuries and illnesses -- about 27 percent a year. At some plants, "dead" animals have inflicted so many broken limbs and teeth that workers wear chest pads and hockey masks.

"The live cows cause a lot of injuries," said Martin Fuentes, an IBP worker whose arm was kicked and shattered by a dying cow. "The line is never stopped simply because an animal is alive."

A 'Brutal' Harvest At IBP's Pasco complex, the making of the American hamburger starts in a noisy, blood-spattered chamber shielded from view by a stainless steel wall. Here, live cattle emerge from a narrow chute to be dispatched in a process known as "knocking" or "stunning." On most days the chamber is manned by a pair of Mexican immigrants who speak little English and earn about $9 an hour for killing up to 2,050 head per shift.

The tool of choice is the captive-bolt gun, which fires a retractable metal rod into the steer's forehead. An effective stunning requires a precision shot, which workers must deliver hundreds of times daily to balky, frightened animals that frequently weigh 1,000 pounds or more. Within 12 seconds of entering the chamber, the fallen steer is shackled to a moving chain to be bled and butchered by other workers in a fast-moving production line.

The hitch, IBP workers say, is that some "stunned" cattle wake up.

"If you put a knife into the cow, it's going to make a noise: It says, 'Moo!' " said Moreno, the former second-legger, who began working in the stockyard last year. "They move the head and the eyes and the leg like the cow wants to walk."

After a blow to the head, an unconscious animal may kick or twitch by reflex. But a videotape, made secretly by IBP workers and reviewed by veterinarians for The Post, depicts cattle that clearly are alive and conscious after being stunned.

Some cattle, dangling by a leg from the plant's overhead chain, twist and arch their backs as though trying to right themselves. Close-ups show blinking reflexes, an unmistakable sign of a conscious brain, according to guidelines approved by the American Meat Institute.

The video, parts of which were aired by Seattle television station KING last spring, shows injured cattle being trampled. In one graphic scene, workers give a steer electric shocks by jamming a battery-powered prod into its mouth.

More than 20 workers signed affidavits alleging that the violations shown on tape are commonplace and that supervisors are aware of them. The sworn statements and videos were prepared with help from the Humane Farming Association. Some workers had taken part in a 1999 strike over what they said were excessive plant production speeds.

"I've seen thousands and thousands of cows go through the slaughter process alive," IBP veteran Fuentes, the worker who was injured while working on live cattle, said in an affidavit. "The cows can get seven minutes down the line and still be alive. I've been in the side-puller where they're still alive. All the hide is stripped out down the neck there."

IBP, the nation's top beef processor, denounced as an "appalling aberration" the problems captured on the tape. It suggested the events may have been staged by "activists trying to raise money and promote their agenda. . . .

"Like many other people, we were very upset over the hidden camera video," the company said. "We do not in any way condone some of the livestock handling that was shown."

After the video surfaced, IBP increased worker training and installed cameras in the slaughter area. The company also questioned workers and offered a reward for information leading to identification of those responsible for the video. One worker said IBP pressured him to sign a statement denying that he had seen live cattle on the line.

"I knew that what I wrote wasn't true," said the worker, who did not want to be identified for fear of losing his job. "Cows still go alive every day. When cows go alive, it's because they don't give me time to kill them."

Independent assessments of the workers' claims have been inconclusive. Washington state officials launched a probe in May that included an unannounced plant inspection. The investigators say they were detained outside the facility for an hour while their identities were checked. They saw no acts of animal cruelty once permitted inside.

Grandin, the Colorado State professor, also inspected IBP's plant, at the company's request; that inspection was announced. Although she observed no live cattle being butchered, she concluded that the plant's older-style equipment was "overloaded." Grandin reviewed parts of the workers' videotape and said there was no mistaking what she saw.

"There were fully alive beef on that rail," Grandin said.

Inconsistent Enforcement Preventing this kind of suffering is officially a top priority for the USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service. By law, a humane-slaughter violation is among a handful of offenses that can result in an immediate halt in production -- and cost a meatpacker hundreds or even thousands of dollars per idle minute.

In reality, many inspectors describe humane slaughter as a blind spot: Inspectors' regular duties rarely take them to the chambers where stunning occurs. Inconsistencies in enforcement, training and record-keeping hamper the agency's ability to identify problems.

The meat inspectors' union, in its petition last spring to Washington state's attorney general, contended that federal agents are "often prevented from carrying out" the mandate against animal cruelty. Among the obstacles inspectors face are "dramatic increases in production speeds, lack of support from supervisors in plants and district offices . . . new inspection policies which significantly reduce our enforcement authority, and little to no access to the areas of the plants where animals are killed," stated the petition by the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals.

Barbara Masters, the agency's director of slaughter operations, told meat industry executives in February she didn't know if the number of violations was up or down, though she believed most plants were complying with the law. "We encourage the district offices to monitor trends," she said. "The fact that we haven't heard anything suggests there are no trends."

But some inspectors see little evidence the agency is interested in hearing about problems. Under the new inspection system, the USDA stopped tracking the number of violations and dropped all mentions of humane slaughter from its list of rotating tasks for inspectors.

The agency says it expects its watchdogs to enforce the law anyway. Many inspectors still do, though some occasionally wonder if it's worth the trouble.

"It always ends up in argument: Instead of re-stunning the animal, you spend 20 minutes just talking about it," said Colorado meat inspector Gary Dahl, sharing his private views. "Yes, the animal will be dead in a few minutes anyway. But why not let him die with dignity?"

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

-- How Is Our Meat Made? (ever@wonder.com), April 11, 2001

Answers

I LOVE big FAT fucking JUICY hunks of MEAT!

Prime rib and T-Bone are especially good if the cow is slaughtered while still alive. The meat is extra fresh and juicy.

MMMMMMMM-MMMMMMM GOOOD!!!

-- HANNIBAL THE CANNIBAL (FUCK RABBIT FOOD @ GIVE ME. THE FUCKING MEAT!), April 11, 2001.


You veggie lovers don't have to worry about killing cows any more. Soon they will figure out how to clone cows without brains, and they won't even know they are being killed. You can keep all the natural cows to look at as they wander the fields, and we can make as many as we need to eat.

-- Dr. Frankenstein (man-made cows @ coming. soon), April 11, 2001.

There is already a small thread on this article.

abattoir

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), April 11, 2001.


The article only scratchs the surface.

I like meat, but I decided not to eat it, some 3 years ago 'cause I knew some stuff about slaughter, production and transportation methods which revolted me.

Nowadays, I know that all that is going on, and much, much more. I've seen tv reports about even more disturbing stuff going on in France. The question is:

When you eat meat, are you still eating "meat"?

--mixing meat from different animals and make it look like a one- piece beef with enzimes that work on the muscle fibers and glue it back together.

--feeding growth-chemicals to cattle (which make the meat whiter) and then colouring it back to red. Some workers stated the colouring process is commonly as simple as feeding rat-poison to the animals 2 days before they're killed.

--feeding anti-biotics that will certainly make diseases more resistent.

--transporting live cattle in overcroweded containers. Few of them reach the destination alive.

In fact, all you can imagine IS going on somewhere, our worst nightmares have come true.

It's a disgusting habit and it is unhealthy as hell, causes heart disease and with factory farming, you are putting all kinds of chemicals in your body, like growth hormones which may lead the future problems like cancer. This is not even taking in account all the other nasties like mad cow disease that come about by the practice of feeding dead cows to other cows, turning them into cannibals. I've been a vegetarian for 12 years with no problems whatsoever, I'm healthy and fit and I feel good. But that's only part of it.

No living sentient animal has to suffer because I want to taste their blood, and I'm also not giving the meat industry any of my money for the cruelty they inflict on both people and animals for profit.

I was recently reading popular science and it had a big article talking about the rise of obesity in the united states inthe last 15- 20 years.

what i wonder if anyone else has noticed, and perhaps even done a study on, is the correlation between the explosion of obesity and the use of rBGH....

The average American has 5lbs of undigested meat festering in their colon.

-- no reason to keep eating meat (bad@habits.com), April 11, 2001.


Wait a minute. First you say you gave up meat three years ago, then you say you've been a vegetarian for twelve years? How does that work?

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), April 11, 2001.


Sorry Tarzan, I wasn't clear. I gave up red meat 12 years ago. I gave up ALL meat (including poultry and fish) 3 years ago.

-- no reason to keep eating meat (bad@habits.com), April 11, 2001.

everything man do's has conseqences,but greed blind's. ''REAPING & SOWING'' there ain't no way around it!!

I wonder where it END'S???

-- al-d (dogs@zianet.com), April 11, 2001.


No Reason --

At times, the arrogance of vegans and vegetarians appalls me. Your arrogance has certainly done so.

"I like meat, but I decided not to eat it, some 3 years ago 'cause I knew some stuff about slaughter, production and transportation methods which revolted me."

Uh huh. And I grew up on a farm, where I have participated in slaughtering hogs, cattle and the occasional chicken. I know a fair amount about slaughter, production and transportation, and I'm not revolted. If you are revolted, that's fine. Don't eat meat if you don't want to. But don't expect others to follow your lead. Your revulsion does not compel anyone else to adopt your dietary choices as their own.

"Nowadays, I know that all that is going on, and much, much more. I've seen tv reports about even more disturbing stuff going on in France. The question is: When you eat meat, are you still eating "meat"?"

What, exactly, are you asking? What is one eating that looks, smells and tastes like meat, other than meat, soy, tofu or textured vegetable protein?

"--mixing meat from different animals and make it look like a one- piece beef with enzimes that work on the muscle fibers and glue it back together."

That would still be meat, would it not? I participated in a taste test of some "reconstructed" pork chops at a major agricultural university several years ago. The researchers took scraps and processed them back together into some fakey-fakey chops which they grilled and served up. The chops had an odd texture, but they tasted fine. My experience seems to echo your claim. Still, I don't see what your problem is with it. Meat is meat. Parts is parts. Pieces parts.

"--feeding growth-chemicals to cattle (which make the meat whiter) and then colouring it back to red. Some workers stated the colouring process is commonly as simple as feeding rat-poison to the animals 2 days before they're killed."

That troubles me. Have you evidence of this claim?

"--feeding anti-biotics that will certainly make diseases more resistent."

That's a problem not only with livestock, but also with humans. However, even though diseases may become more resistant to antibiotic treatment, you have not demonstrated to us that more and more diseased animals will get through the inspection process. There's no evidence that standards will be relaxed simply because of this, is there?

"--transporting live cattle in overcroweded containers. Few of them reach the destination alive."

Have you ever ridden a cut-rate airline? Especially in a developing country? Just asking.

"In fact, all you can imagine IS going on somewhere, our worst nightmares have come true."

Sounds like a bunch of alarmist vegan bullshit to me. Just like a lot of the other alarmist vegan bullshit I've heard elsewhere. If you don't like meat, then don't eat it.

"It's a disgusting habit"

If you don't like it, then that's just too fucking bad for you. Some people like to smoke. I don't like it, but I don't call it disgusting. Some men like to have sex with other men. That's not my cup of tea, but I don't call it disgusting. Some people like to go to Toughman matches, and pay to see people beat other people up in a boxing ring. I'm not into that, but I don't call it disgusting.

If you don't like smoke, then don't smoke. If you don't like gay sex, then don't do it. If Toughman matches bother you, then don't go to them. And if eating meat upsets you, then DON'T FUCKING EAT IT.

But leave others alone and let them make their own choices.

"and it is unhealthy as hell, causes heart disease"

Not in all cases. I will put my health up against yours, Mr. Vegetarian.

"and with factory farming, you are putting all kinds of chemicals in your body, like growth hormones which may lead the future problems like cancer."

Okay, then, let's talk about factory vegetable farming. Let's talk about gene research in vegetable crops. Wonder what you're taking into YOUR body?

"This is not even taking in account all the other nasties like mad cow disease that come about by the practice of feeding dead cows to other cows, turning them into cannibals."

Now I KNOW that you are a dumbass. Cattle body matter has been used as a feed extender for over THIRTY YEARS in the USA. No causal link has been demonstrated or proven between BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephaly) and CJS (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome, the similar disease that humans get). Further, the average number of CJS cases in the US each year is less than TEN, and has been stable for over 20 YEARS. If "Mad Cow Disease" (the term used by the uninformed) was the threat to public health that you seem to think it is, then Americans should be dropping dead by the thousands.

But we're not. Maybe you're wrong. Or maybe you just don't know any better. Maybe that's a side effect of being a vegan.

"I've been a vegetarian for 12 years with no problems whatsoever, I'm healthy and fit and I feel good."

I've been an omnivore for nearly 40 years with no problems whatsoever. I'm healthy and fit and I feel good. So now what?

"But that's only part of it. No living sentient animal has to suffer because I want to taste their blood, and I'm also not giving the meat industry any of my money for the cruelty they inflict on both people and animals for profit."

How do you know that apple trees aren't sentient? How would you like it if someone ripped off your genitals and baked them in a pie? To hell with the movie "Chicken Run." Let's make "Apple Tree Run." I can hear the trees now . . . "but I don't WANT to be a pie!"

At any rate, pal, your post is nothing but blah, blah, blah, whine, whine, whine, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. If you don't want to eat meat, then DON'T. If you don't want your money going to the meat industry, then DON'T GIVE THEM ANY. Other than that, you can kiss my carnivorous ass.

"I was recently reading popular science and it had a big article talking about the rise of obesity in the united states inthe last 15- 20 years. what i wonder if anyone else has noticed, and perhaps even done a study on, is the correlation between the explosion of obesity and the use of rBGH...."

Could be a lot of other things, too. The increase in obesity seems to correlate with an increasing number of vegans and vegetarians in the US. The increase in obesity could be related to the increase in cell phone usage. Could be related to the number of Republicans in Congress. Could be related to the relative positions of the planets Mars and Saturn, and the stars Merab and Bellatrix. Without some definitive studies, your supposition appears to be a rather wild-eyed emotional claim, with absolutely no worth on its face.

"The average American has 5lbs of undigested meat festering in their colon."

And the average vegetarian/vegan has 5 pounds of non-functional meat lying around in his or her cranium.

Have a nice day.

-- Already Done Happened (oh.yeah@it.did.com), April 11, 2001.


Some workers stated the colouring process is commonly as simple as feeding rat-poison to the animals 2 days before they're killed. Thats a little misleading. I take the same "rat-poison". It is a blood thinner, coumadim, which in large amounts makes the rats hemorage. Tht is probably what is done to the cows, give them a huge amount so that blood seeps into their tissues. I wonder if any of that gets into our systems.....?

--feeding anti-biotics that will certainly make diseases more resistent. That too is kind of misleading. If we overuse antibiotics then they will not work for us after a time, they aren't trying to give the cow a long life, they will be killed long before the antibiotic stops being effective for them. And the alternative is not something I want to deal with, a eating beef of a cow that has not been protected from desease. But then again if the antibiotic gets into our systems then maybe it will stop being effective for us when we need it. If it is one we would use, that is, otherwise it wouldn't matter???

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), April 12, 2001.


E-coli

Mad cow disease

Listeria monocytogenes

Artificial hormones

Salmonella poisoning

Hundreds of first-rate health studies linking meat eating with cancers

And now this: cows are often ALIVE when they are being CUT APART on assembly lines.

Reminds of me of Nazi Germany. If you want to own a lampshade made with human skin, fine, do it. If you want to eat the meat of a sentient creature that was slaughtered alive, bit by bit, go ahead, do it -- because in this society you can.

But don't ask me to approve of your actions or shrug my shoulders and say "live and let live." Because TORTURE is WRONG.

You say it's okay to do this. That "it's just the way it is." But I say it shouldn't be this way.

I and thousands of others find cutting live animals apart with machines on assembly lines horrific..

As for plants, they don't possess sensitive nervous systems like animals. And you know it.

If you think it's fine to eat the products of animals who were butchered alive, I think you're barbaric.

Your whole post was incredibly defensive, Already Done Happened. Yes, I don't eat meat. And I'm telling you why.

And if you want to participate in this system of cruelty and torture, that's up to you.

But don't expect me to agree with you or think that it's okay to buy the body products of tortured sentient beings who possess sensitive complex nervous systems.

-- Torture Is Wrong (meat@eating.com), April 13, 2001.



The renowned humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, who accomplished so much for both humans and animals in his lifetime, would take time to stoop and move a worm from hot pavement to cool earth. Aware of the problems and responsibilities an expanded ethic brings with it, he said we each must "live daily from judgment to judgment, deciding each case as it arises, as wisely and mercifully as we can."

We can’t stop all suffering, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop any. In today’s world of virtually unlimited choices, there are usually "kinder, gentler" ways for most of us to feed, clothe, entertain, and educate ourselves than by killing animals.

There is currently no reason to believe that plants experience pain, devoid as they are of central nervous systems, nerve endings, and brains. It is theorized that the main reason animals have the ability to experience pain is as a form of self-protection. If you touch something that hurts and could possibly injure you, you will learn from the pain it produces to leave it alone in the future. Since plants cannot locomote and do not have the need to learn to avoid certain things, this sensation would be superfluous.

Plants are completely different physiologically from mammals. If you cut off the branch of a plant, it grows another one (the same can't be said for animals' limbs). Unlike animals' body parts, many perennial plants, fruits, and vegetables can be harvested over and over again without resulting in the death of the plant or tree.

If one is concerned about the impact of vegetable agriculture on the environment, a vegetarian diet is still preferable to a meat-based one, since the vast majority of grains and legumes raised today are used as feed for cattle. By eating vegetables directly, rather than eating animals such as cows who must consume 16 pounds of vegetation in order to convert them into 1 pound of flesh, one is saving many more plants' lives (and destroying less land).

Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but freedom of thought does not always imply freedom of action. You are free to believe whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt others. You may believe that animals should be killed, that black people should be enslaved, or that women should be beaten, but you don’t always have the right to put your beliefs into practice.

As for telling people what to do, society exists so that there will be rules governing people’s behavior. The very nature of reform movements is to tell others what to do--don’t use humans as slaves, don’t sexually harass women, etc.--and all movements initially encounter opposition from people who want to go on doing the criticized behavior.

Animals are not usually capable of choosing to change their behavior, but human beings have the intelligence to choose between behavior that hurts others and behavior that doesn’t.

There are very serious problems in the world that deserve our attention; cruelty to animals is one of them. We should try to alleviate suffering wherever we can. Helping animals is not any more or less important than helping human beings--they are both important. Animal suffering and human suffering are interconnected.

-- A better world is possible (with@you.com), April 13, 2001.


Borrowed from another thread.

From the New Testament, Book of the Apostles:

"10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12 It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. 13 Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat." 14 "Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean." 15 The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." "

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that it's OK to eat meat. Apparently, the animals were put here for a reason.......

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), April 13, 2001.


Not to be irreverent, but reading that passage makes it look as though meat is acceptable to eat if it arrives from heaven on a big picnic blanket alive and kicking...

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), April 13, 2001.

Tar

I'm normally not one to quote the bible, believe me! I just happen to see this on another thread and thought it fit pretty well in this discussion.

Basically, it tells me that it's OK to eat meat, that's why He put it here.

Can you imagine what the world would be like it we all stopped eating meat? We'd basically be living in animal feces.........nice thought huh. In countries where they don't eat meat, aren't there livestock just wandering through the streets, shitting where ever the mood strikes them??? That just can't be very healthy......

Give me a medium-rare rib-eye and a pile of fries anytime!!

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), April 13, 2001.


"E-coli"

It's in veggie crops, too.

"Mad cow disease"

Does not leap from livestock to humans (you obviously didn't read that part). You might as well say "Paranoid Schizophrenia."

"Listeria monocytogenes"

Pesticide residues.

"Artificial hormones"

GM crops.

"Salmonella poisoning"

Whine, whine, whine.

"Hundreds of first-rate health studies linking meat eating with cancers"

And millions of meat-eaters who NEVER get/got cancer.

"And now this: cows are often ALIVE when they are being CUT APART on assembly lines."

I'm sorry that disturbs you. However, it is not a compelling argument for no longer eating meat. It is a compelling argument for revising slaughtering procedures, but not for going vegan.

"Reminds of me of Nazi Germany."

There is no comparison between the two. You are a sick, sick individual.

"If you want to own a lampshade made with human skin, fine, do it. If you want to eat the meat of a sentient creature that was slaughtered alive, bit by bit, go ahead, do it -- because in this society you can."

I think I shall eat that meat. If you don't want to, then don't.

"But don't ask me to approve of your actions or shrug my shoulders and say "live and let live."

I didn't ask you to. Listen, jerk, I don't care if you approve of my actions or not. I do not REQUIRE your approval of my actions, you arrogant motherfucker.

"Because TORTURE is WRONG."

You have utterly failed to demonstrate how sloppy slaughtering equals willful torture.

"You say it's okay to do this. That "it's just the way it is." But I say it shouldn't be this way."

Fine. Legitimate difference of opinion. It still does not support going to a vegan or vegetarian diet.

"I and thousands of others find cutting live animals apart with machines on assembly lines horrific."

I and millions of others find those animals delicious.

"As for plants, they don't possess sensitive nervous systems like animals. And you know it."

How do YOU know what they feel? Got hundreds of first-rate studies to present?

"If you think it's fine to eat the products of animals who were butchered alive, I think you're barbaric."

And that doesn't bother me in the least. You eat what you like, and I'll eat what I like. Fair enough?

"Your whole post was incredibly defensive, Already Done Happened."

No, it CORRECTED a number of the misconceptions and just plain erroneous 'factoids' in the earlier post. I am constantly amazed by the parade of bullshit that vegans and vegetarians will present as "fact," when it is so FAR from the truth. I notice that you have failed to present any evidence to support the earlier assertions, or to counter my statements. Perhaps in your world, tofu and indignance are enough to prove a point, but in mine, a juicy steak and cold, hard FACT are more efficient.

"Yes, I don't eat meat. And I'm telling you why."

Then don't eat it. And you're not telling us why YOU don't eat meat - - you're telling us why you believe WE should not eat meat. And your argument is arrogant and is shot through with errors and mistakes.

"And if you want to participate in this system of cruelty and torture, that's up to you."

That's right. You, however, are trying to convince us not to. And doing a rather poor job of it.

"But don't expect me to agree with you or think that it's okay to buy the body products of tortured sentient beings who possess sensitive complex nervous systems."

I don't care if you agree with me or not. And if you don't want to eat meat, then don't. But don't come in here with a solely EMOTIONAL argument and claim you're giving us fact. You've given us nothing but whining and bullshit.

Shove off, Soy Boy.

-- Already Done Happened (oh.yeah@it.did.com), April 13, 2001.



Already is a psycopath who most likely tortured animals as a child and will soon be working his way to people (if he hasn't already).

No point in arguing with a psychopath.

-- (very@sick.person), April 13, 2001.


Does vegetarism cause cancer? Do vegetarians get cancer? Do vegetarians die?

-- bi (bi@gi.bi), April 13, 2001.

"Already is a psycopath"

My! What a self-righteous herbivore you are! Kind of like an embarrassed cow.

"who most likely tortured animals as a child"

What? Because I like eating meat? Please. Your lame-ass attempt to demonize anyone who disagrees with you is specious, jejune and as transparent as Saran Wrap. Which is good for keeping leftover steaks wrapped in when in the fridge.

"and will soon be working his way to people (if he hasn't already)."

Eating meat has given me a dense musculature, strong bones and a predator's instincts. My aggressive nature has also made me more capable of tracking, stalking and rapidly overwhelming my prey. While I do not, at this time, indulge in "long pig," you can be assured that if the supply of cow, hog, chicken, sheep, goat, duck, turkey, fish, ocean-dwelling arthropod, horse, alligator, snake, bivalves, deer, buffalo, cute fuzzy bunnies, elk, squirrel, turtle (mmmmm, endangered . . . ), ostrich, antelope, bison, bear any any other kind of meat on two legs, four legs, fins, flippers or wings gives out, then you can be assured that I'm coming for you.

Now, I'm sure that your eyes have evolved to be on opposite sides of your head (like they are for many herbivores, like cattle and sheep) so that you can more easily spot predators like me as they approach. And I am certain that your long ears will also give you ample warning that I am in the area. And I bet that your multi-chambered stomach allows you to subsist quite nicely on the grazer's menu of hay, prairie grasses and Quaker's Rice Cakes.

However, the rest of us LIKE our place at the top of the food chain. No one here has so much as questioned your dietary choice, let alone called you psychotic for it. Yet you breeze in here, full of piss, vinegar and bean sprouts, tossing off lies, inaccuracies and total bullshit to shame meat-eaters into joining you at the salad bar. Instead, all you have done is alienate people, and in some cases, made them even MORE committed to eating meat.

Tell me, sir, you're REALLY a member of the American Beef Council, aren't you? This is a new tactic to get people to EAT MORE BEEF, right?

No point in arguing with a psychopath.

If you think this is an argument, then your perceptual handicap is greater than I had hoped. Since you can't tell your ass from a hole in the ground, sneaking up on you ought to be REALLY easy.

See you around, "Meaty."

-- Already Done Happened (oh.yeah@it.did.com), April 14, 2001.


**If you want to eat the meat of a sentient creature that was slaughtered alive, bit by bit, go ahead, do it -- because in this society you can.

I think I shall eat that meat. If you don't want to, then don't.

Wonderful argument there, Already. Just brilliant. No thought involved. Just, in short: I think I will buy products of animals that were tortured alive, because I can, and because I like the taste of them. And because I like the taste, it doesn't matter to me how I gain that taste, even if animals are tortured.

Great!

**But don't ask me to approve of your actions or shrug my shoulders and say "live and let live."

I didn't ask you to.

But you kept lecturing the first poster about how he should just live and let live, when in fact all he was doing was simply explaining why he doesn't like to eat meat. And why he personally doesn't trust the way it produced. You took it personally, as though he were lecturing to you, when in fact he was just telling HIS STORY.

And when I tried to explain why I don't eat meat, you get defensive and say :

Listen, jerk, I don't care if you approve of my actions or not. I do not REQUIRE your approval of my actions, you arrogant motherfucker.

Brilliant argument. So rational, so restrained. A real piece de resistance!

You have utterly failed to demonstrate how sloppy slaughtering equals willful torture.

Perhaps you ought to revisit the article above. It describes how animals are skinned alive, bit by bit, in industrial manufacturing slaughterhouses all over the nation, day after day, and how virtually nothing is being done to stop this.

If being skinned alive is not torture, what is it?

"Sloppy slaughtering"?

Please.

**As for plants, they don't possess sensitive nervous systems like animals. And you know it.

How do YOU know what they feel? Got hundreds of first-rate studies to present?

Actually, it doesn't require much science to prove that plants do not have complex nervous systems. The post above explains this in detail. Plants can grow new limbs, for example. They do not have a spinal system with a branching complex nervous system. Plants are entirely different living entitites than mammals. That is why they are classed differently in taxonomic systems.

But, you knew that.

Look, you can keep justifying this til the "cows come home." But the cattle and meat producing industries in this country use an enormous amount of feed, food that could go toward supplying the world's human hunger; the industry is the number one polluter of fresh water sources; the meat is often contaminated with bacteria, contains dioxin, which causes cancer, and artificial hormones, which have also been linked to cancer; and on top of it all, we now learn that our cows are being butchered alive.

If eating the products of a system that skins animals alive appeals to you, then that's your choice. Your moral and ethical choice. But I will never believe, and don't think that many believe, it's right to support a system that skins and chops up live animals.

This slaughtering system is a living hell on American soil, day after day, supported by our dollars, and our choices.

We don't need meat to live healthy lives, and are in fact healthier without it (study after study shows it). Each of us can begin to eat less meat, until we eat no meat at all. But even eating less will help lessen a system of industrialized torture.

We most of us have, now and then, higher impulses to do what is right, what is moral.

If any one of you looks into your heart and discovers that you cannot, in good conscience, support with your dollars industrialized animal torture, then it's one small corner being illuminated with insight and light toward a better world.

"The animal is satisfied with a modicum of necessity; the gods are content with their splendours. But man cannot rest permanently until he reaches some highest good. He is the greatest of living beings because he is the most discontented, because he feels most the pressure of limitations. He alone, perhaps, is capable of being seized by the divine frenzy for a remote ideal." --Sri Aurobindo

-- Meat isn't at all necessary (for@health.com), April 15, 2001.


Meat,

So you're against eating meat, as it's cruel to kill a live animal with a central nervous system? Tell me meat, are you opposed to abortion too, or does the "right to privacy" supercede the torture and piece by piece murder of the infant? Why not think of it this way, The cows are just the children of the farmer who is aborting them? See? Nice & moral now. And you get new shoes to boot.

-- Hypocrite (veggie@leather_shoes_are_ok.though), April 15, 2001.


Actually, I think it's Already who is making the "solely emotional" argument. Meat has been shown to be cancer causing, its production degrades water sources, it produces bacteria that can kill children, etc. This has been proven by science and statistics, not emotion.

It's not "emotional" to want to use plant resources to feed the world's hungry instead of America's cattle. Feeding the world's poor is a rational argument for lessening meat consumption -- not an emotional arguemnt.

Objecting to torture is not an "emotional argument." Objecting to torture has always been borne of reason, even in the Middle Ages. Defending torture is borne almost wholly from emotional diversions and outbursts, such as Already has already displayed, and such as the one above about "abortion," a mere histrionic diversion which has nothing to do with the argument at hand.

It is Already and the other meat eaters here who have employed solely emotional arguments for their defense of eating meat.

As for you, Deano, the Taliban says the Koran tells them to stone women for adultry, and beat them until they're hospitalized for accidentally showing an ankle.

Is the Koran right, Deano? After all, the Taliban says it is written thus. Are the Taliban correct to follow their religious "rule of law"? Does doing so justify beating and stoning women? If not, please explain.

-- Meat eating not at all necessary (for@health.com), April 15, 2001.


Meat,

Hee Hee, Good call, I give you that. You didn't answer the question though. Why is it wrong to kill a live cow but not a live human?

-- Pretty (Stupe@your.values), April 15, 2001.


"Animals are God's creatures, not human property, nor utilities, nor resources, nor commodities, but precious beings in God's sight. ... Christians whose eyes are fixed on the awfulness of crucifixion are in a special position to understand the awfulness of innocent suffering. The Cross of Christ is God's absolute identification with the weak, the powerless, and the vulnerable, but most of all with unprotected, undefended, innocent suffering."

--Rev. Andrew Linzey

Jesus' message is one of love and compassion, yet there is nothing loving or compassionate about factory farms and slaughterhouses, where billions of animals live miserable lives and die violent, bloody deaths. Jesus mandates kindness, mercy, compassion, and love for all God's creation. He would be appalled by the degree of suffering we inflict on animals to indulge our acquired taste for their flesh.

Christians have a choice. When we sit down to eat, we can add to the level of violence, misery, and death in the world, or we can respect His creation with a vegetarian diet.

The Garden of Eden, God's perfect world, was vegetarian (Gen. 1:29- 30). Immediately, God calls this ideal and non-exploitative relationship "good" (Gen. 1:31). There follow many years of fallen humanity, when people held slaves, waged war, ate animals and committed various other violent acts. But the prophets tell us that the peaceable kingdom will be nonviolent and vegetarian; even the lion will lie down with the lamb (e.g., Isaiah 11). Jesus is the Prince of Peace, who ushers in this new age of nonviolence. When Christians pray, "Your will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven," the one prayer given to us by Jesus, this obligates us to change our lives, to make choices that are as merciful and loving as possible. There will be no factory farms and slaughterhouses in heaven.

God created every animal with the capacity for pain and suffering. But on today's factory farms, animals are dehorned, debeaked, and castrated without anesthesia. To maximize profits, they are crowded together in the least space possible, and are genetically bred, so that most suffer lameness, crippling leg deformities, or bone breaks, because their legs can't keep up with their scientifically enhanced bodies. Finally, they are trucked without food or water, through all weather extremes, to a frightening and hellish death.

-- What is the Christian thing to do? (think@about.it), April 15, 2001.


May God bless you

-- (tears@tears.tears), April 15, 2001.

To poster about abortion:

This thread is about the industrial production of meat in America, and about meat eating in general, not abortion. My personal opinion about abortion is quite complex and, in any case, immaterial to the subject at hand.

Why not start a new thread about abortion if you wish to discuss it?

Thanks.

-- Please keep on topic (keep@topic.com), April 15, 2001.


What,

You STILL haven't answered the question, so you probably can't. You should avoid the Christian argument BTW, Jesus is known to have eaten the paschal lamb (a young animal!). While some of his nutty followers became vegetarians, He obviously wasn't.

-- Waiting (for@n.answer?), April 15, 2001.


Didn't see your last post before I posted. It is on topic, I can't believe that you believe farming meat is cruel, but killing humans isn't. How you can have compassion for the suffering of a cow but not a child is staggering.

-- Figure (It@out.dingo), April 15, 2001.

"Wonderful argument there, Already. Just brilliant. No thought involved."

Far more thought than you seem to think, but that's okay. I will slow down so that even you can understand.

"Just, in short: I think I will buy products of animals that were tortured alive, because I can, and because I like the taste of them."

Incorrect. I think I will buy meat products because I can and because I like the taste of them. Torture has nothing to do with the argument, and your constant invocation of "torture" is nothing more than YOUR emotional argument. I have not argued in favor of animal torture even once on this thread. However, the various anonymous vegan/vegetarian posters on this thread insist on equating meat- eating with torture. That is neither logical nor defensible. And you can't support it.

I will eat meat as long as I please. If you feel that the methods outlined in the original post are unnecessarily cruel (and perhaps constitute torture), then fight to CHANGE THEM. However, your emotional myopia has led you to the erroneous conclusion that the better approach is to attack the meat industry altogether. This is a poor choice on your part, as you cannot logically connect the two (you must rely on a shrill emotional linkage to attempt to make your point), and because you aim your anger at the wrong target.

You CLAIM to be opposed to torture, but rather than attacking the torture itself (and calling for the meat industry to clean up its act), you posit that the ONLY POSSIBLE solution is to join you in a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle.

Bad logic, bad reasoning, bad conclusion. You lose.

"And because I like the taste, it doesn't matter to me how I gain that taste, even if animals are tortured."

Wrong. Again with the erroneous connections. If you can prove to me that animals are "tortured," (and I reject that slaughtering is by definition torture), then I might help you attack that torture. However, I will not go along with shutting down the meat industry.

>"I didn't ask you to."

"But you kept lecturing the first poster about how he should just live and let live, when in fact all he was doing was simply explaining why he doesn't like to eat meat."

Incorrect. He was telling why WE should not eat meat. He was lecturing to the thread from the get-go. I responded in kind.

"And why he personally doesn't trust the way it produced."

If that's all true, then I don't trust the way SOME of it (you have failed to prove that the alleged torture is endemic in the meatpacking industry) is produced. You and the other vegan/vegetarian posters are very, very slack on proof and evidence, and you ask us to accept your assertions as error-free, and for us to make a major lifestyle change based solely on your say-so. Sounds like an emotional argument to me.

"You took it personally, as though he were lecturing to you,"

He was lecturing to all present.

"when in fact he was just telling HIS STORY."

I disagree.

"And when I tried to explain why I don't eat meat, you get defensive and say:"

>>>Listen, jerk, I don't care if you approve of my actions or not. I do not REQUIRE your approval of my actions, you arrogant motherfucker.

You are a lying ass. You said "but don't ask me to approve of your actions," as if I cared whether or not you approved. You appear to have a rather overinflated sense of your own importance. Why I would need the approval of an anonymous vegan/vegetarian in order to live my life, I have no idea. But you seem to think that your approval has value, and that I should want it -- no, REQUIRE it. Well fuck that, and fuck you.

"Brilliant argument. So rational, so restrained. A real piece de resistance!"

It is an appropriate response to an arrogant ass with a vegger-than- thou attitude. No one requires your approval, asshole. If you don't want to be spoken to that way, then don't act as if your approval has such value.

>>>You have utterly failed to demonstrate how sloppy slaughtering equals willful torture.

"Perhaps you ought to revisit the article above."

Perhaps you ought to present some additional evidence. Just as I am not willing to make a major life choice based on your say-so, I am not willing to make a major life choice based on what a Washington Post reporter has written. At any rate, what is happening is that animals are simply not being stunned properly before slaughtering. The article clearly makes that point. However, you have taken that to mean that such failure is intentional and that it constitutes torture. You are in error.

"It describes how animals are skinned alive, bit by bit, in industrial manufacturing slaughterhouses all over the nation, day after day, and how virtually nothing is being done to stop this."

However, it does not point to willful, endemic wrongdoing in the industry (as you allege), which might be supportive of your call for a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle, if you could prove that such willful, endemic wrongdoing does exist. There is at least one senior official of the American Meat Institute stating quite clearly in the article that "handling animals humanely is the right thing to do." Maybe you need to read more closely yourself.

The article also does not claim that this is standard procedure in ALL slaughterhouses, or even in a simple majority of them. However, you and others have made such a leap of logic. Based on this article, you have obviously made the logical leap that such misdeeds are committed at ALL slaughterhouses, that all members and leaders of the meat industry are fully aware of and complicit in the misdeeds, and that there is no possible way to reform the industry, and that the only possible solution is to simply not eat meat.

Bad logic, bad reasoning, bad conclusion. You lose.

"If being skinned alive is not torture, what is it?"

I said "willful torture." You have not demonstrated how this alleged torture is WILLFUL. Reread.

"Sloppy slaughtering"? Please.

Ah. I see. You would rather question the question than answer it. I thought as much. Please address my misgiving about the logical basis for your position above. If you and your associates would concentrate more on evidence, proof, logic and supportable conclusions, then perhaps you wouldn't have to deal with people like me kicking you so hard.

**As for plants, they don't possess sensitive nervous systems like animals. And you know it.

>>>"How do YOU know what they feel? Got hundreds of first-rate studies to present?"

"Actually, it doesn't require much science to prove that plants do not have complex nervous systems. The post above explains this in detail."

I thought that "cruelty" was your standard for not eating something. Now your criterion appears to be "complex nervous systems." So which one is it? If you bounce between an emotional reason and a logical one, then you'll never be able to form a cogent argument, much less a coherent plan of action.

"Plants can grow new limbs, for example."

So can certain species of reptile and amphibian. I presume that those animals are okay for me to eat by your logic?

"They do not have a spinal system with a branching complex nervous system."

Is this your standard for what I am and am not supposed to eat? Please answer in the affirmative. I would love to show everyone how your stated emotional reason and your stated logical reason contradict each other.

"Plants are entirely different living entitites than mammals. That is why they are classed differently in taxonomic systems."

I don't eat just mammals. I also eat avians, reptiles, fish and arthropods, among others. What's your problem with me eating arthropods?

"But, you knew that."

I apparently know more about it than you do. Take today to read a good biology textbook, won't you?

"Look, you can keep justifying this til the "cows come home." But the cattle and meat producing industries"

Again with the "the whole industry does it" argument. Yet not a shred of evidence that the misdeeds you allege are endemic. Lousy reasoning, upon which is based an erroneous conclusion, and a faulty call to action.

"in this country use an enormous amount of feed, food that could go toward supplying the world's human hunger;"

It could. Or other countries could simply use US agricultural methods to achieve similar results. There is absolutely NO REASON why the US should feed the world when US ag methods can be used just about anywhere. My father is a senior professor of agriculture at a major southeastern university, and in the last five years, he has worked in China (twice), India, and an assortment of other Asian nations. In addition, professors and governmental dignitaries from those countries have also come to his university to study American agricultural methods and practices. The fact of the matter, Mr. Vegan/Vegetarian, is that there is nothing magical about the United States and its land. You could set up farming in just about any country on the face of this earth, and with appropriate equipment and management, you could achieve nearly the same results as received here in about five years.

"the industry is the number one polluter of fresh water sources;"

Specifically, the hog industry is. But there have been great research strides made in this area in the last 15 years. There are now totally natural methods to reduce organic pollutant levels in livestock farm waste water, and I'm sure that even you could get behind totally natural methods, right?

But of course you knew all this already, didn't you?

"the meat is often contaminated with bacteria,"

And vegetable and fruit crops are often contaminated with pesticide residues, e. coli and other assorted bacteria and just plain unnecessary GUNK like Alar. But you don't want to talk about those. Wonder why?

"contains dioxin, which causes cancer,"

Didn't come from the livestock, did it? Wasn't produced in the livestock, was it? Your invocation of dioxin is an effective argument aginst DIOXIN, not against meat. You really are quite bad at this, you know.

"and artificial hormones, which have also been linked to cancer;"

Of course, the jury is still out on GM crops. I notice you didn't respond to my broaching THAT topic. Wonder why?

"and on top of it all, we now learn that our cows are being butchered alive."

We now learn that SOME of our cows MAY BE butchered alive. Even so, that is not a logical reason to abandon eating meat altogether. By the way, we also learn that vegans and vegetarians like yourself like to butcher facts in order to get people to buy into your solely emotional argument.

"If eating the products of a system that skins animals alive appeals to you, then that's your choice."

You have not proven that the entire system is at fault, and, in fact, the article you invoke appears to indicate that the entire system (and specifically its leaders) do NOT engage in or support those faults. Yet you persist in claiming that the entire industry is at fault. Intellectual dishonesty, disguised as an emotional argument.

"Your moral and ethical choice."

It is also your moral and ethical choice whether or not to abandon your logically unsupportable position. It is your moral and ethical choice whether or not to claim as fact that which is not proven. It is your moral and ethical choice whether or not to admit that you have dishonestly maligned an entire industry in order to advance your personal dietary agenda.

I'd personally rather eat meat than be a liar.

"But I will never believe, and don't think that many believe, it's right to support a system that skins and chops up live animals."

Ah. Again with the "system" doing all this wrong, when you have not even established that the entire system is at fault. Poor reasoning. Poor argument. Poor you.

"This slaughtering system is a living hell on American soil, day after day, supported by our dollars, and our choices."

No logic. Just emotion. Amazing.

"We don't need meat to live healthy lives, and are in fact healthier without it (study after study shows it)."

Irrelevant. I can live a healthy life with meat, your objections notwithstanding. Produce your studies.

"Each of us can begin to eat less meat, until we eat no meat at all."

This course of action is not supported by any of your poor reasoning, nor by anything you have presented here. This is simply your agenda, which is a personal choice. Surely you don't object to people making their own personal choices, do you?

"But even eating less will help lessen a system of industrialized torture."

Which you have not proven to exist.

"We most of us have, now and then, higher impulses to do what is right, what is moral."

Perhaps you will soon have a higher impulse to stop lying and come clean with us all.

"If any one of you looks into your heart and discovers that you cannot, in good conscience, support with your dollars industrialized animal torture,"

Which you have not proven to exist.

"then it's one small corner being illuminated with insight and light toward a better world."

In your opinion. I much prefer the kind of illumination, insight and light that comes from reason, logic and honesty. All of those seem lacking in your alleged "better world."

"Actually, I think it's Already who is making the "solely emotional" argument."

I have already taken care of that particular assumption on your part. Your claims are based on supposition, leaps of logic and unsupportable claims. OTOH, I have demonstrated how your calls to action, rather than being well-reasoned and cogent, are actually erroneous emotional appeals to join you in an unpopular life choice. You're uncomfortable with anyone eating meat, but you can't convince people to join you using honest arguments. So you abandon honesty for lies, untruth and just plain bad science. Oh, yes, and an emotional argument.

If you disagree, then try, try again.

"Meat has been shown to be cancer causing,"

Now, you know that's not true. Meat does not CAUSE cancer. Eating meat CAN make SOME individuals MORE LIKELY to get cancer. However, meat does not CAUSE cancer. More emotional arguments from the lying veg.

"its production degrades water sources,"

Which can be addressed with natural waste processing methods.

"it produces bacteria that can kill children, etc."

Oh, HORSESHIT. You're invoking e. coli, which you KNOW can also be found in vegetable crops. What an intellectually dishonest dirtbag you are.

"This has been proven by science and statistics, not emotion."

No. It has not. You have taken nuggets of scientific truth and dressed them up in vegan propaganda. That is EMOTION, not science. That is LYING, not proof.

"It's not "emotional" to want to use plant resources to feed the world's hungry instead of America's cattle."

People can feed themselves using American ag methods. There is no need or reason for the US to feed the entire world. If the entire world could subsist on vegetables and grains, then why can't India feed itself? Not because of its cruel meat industry, that's for sure.

"Feeding the world's poor is a rational argument for lessening meat consumption -- not an emotional arguemnt."

No, it is an emotional argument. It mistakenly assumes that world agricultural production will remain at the same level, or keep pace with the world population increase. It does not account for a faster increase in ag production, which would happen if US crop production and management methods (and transport and storage methods) were instituted in other nations. If American ag methods are figured into the equation, suddenly the American diet -- meat and all -- is eminently defensible, because all other people in the world SUDDENLY HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT.

And that fucks up your whole argument. Didn't think you'd get screwed over by a sack of potatoes and an ear of roasting corn, did you?

"Objecting to torture is not an "emotional argument."

It is when you object to systematic, industry-wide torture that you have not proven to exist. You are objecting to what appears to be localized torture, but we have not even gotten corroboration of THAT.

"Objecting to torture has always been borne of reason, even in the Middle Ages."

You are not objecting simply to torture. You are calling for the closure of an industry by claiming that the entire industry has engaged in and is complicit in that torture. And, as you have not proven those imputed claims, you are not -- for all your protestations to the contrary -- objecting simply to torture. You have seized upon some evidence of localized "torture" as "proof" that the entire meat industry must be shut down.

You're not upset about torture. You're upset about meat. Period.

"Defending torture is borne almost wholly from emotional diversions and outbursts, such as Already has already displayed,"

Incorrect. I have not defended torture. I challenge you to demonstrate where I have defended torture.

"and such as the one above about "abortion," a mere histrionic diversion which has nothing to do with the argument at hand."

I fall on the pro-choice side of that argument, but it seems to me that your answer to those questions being asked might, depending on your answer, point to a significant level of hypocrisy on your part. It certainly seems that thou doth protest too much at the pro-lifers asking you questions.

"It is Already and the other meat eaters here who have employed solely emotional arguments for their defense of eating meat."

Incorrect. I have used extensive reasoning in this post and others to both defend my position and to disassemble yours.

"Jesus' message is one of love and compassion, yet there is nothing loving or compassionate about factory farms and slaughterhouses, where billions of animals live miserable lives and die violent, bloody deaths."

I think the xtians here would claim that their god gave them dominion over all those creatures, and so animal slaughter is just dandy by him.

By the way, today being Easter, isn't this a special day? If Jesus sees his shadow, aren't we supposed to have six more weeks of self- righteous bleating by the far right? Or is he just supposed to go back into his hole? I forget.

"Jesus mandates kindness, mercy, compassion, and love for all God's creation. He would be appalled by the degree of suffering we inflict on animals to indulge our acquired taste for their flesh."

I think that the xtian god, if it actually existed, would be more appalled at your attempt to speak for him.

"Christians have a choice. When we sit down to eat, we can add to the level of violence, misery, and death in the world, or we can respect His creation with a vegetarian diet."

Arrived at with faulty logic. The history of xtianity is replete with violence, misery and death, its stated goals notwithstanding.

"But the prophets tell us that the peaceable kingdom will be nonviolent and vegetarian; even the lion will lie down with the lamb (e.g., Isaiah 11)."

I can't WAIT to see a lion grazing.

"There will be no factory farms and slaughterhouses in heaven."

I don't expect that the Washington Post will be there either. Chuckle.

"God created every animal with the capacity for pain and suffering. But on today's factory farms, animals are dehorned, debeaked, and castrated without anesthesia."

Oh, look. An emotional argument!

"To maximize profits, they are crowded together in the least space possible, and are genetically bred, so that most suffer lameness, crippling leg deformities, or bone breaks, because their legs can't keep up with their scientifically enhanced bodies."

Wow! Another one!

"Finally, they are trucked without food or water, through all weather extremes, to a frightening and hellish death."

And a third! Is there no end to the emotional arguments of the veggie boys?

"To poster about abortion: This thread is about the industrial production of meat in America, and about meat eating in general, not abortion."

To arrogant vegan poster: this thread is about anything anyone cares to post. You know full well that threads mutate and change during their lives.

"My personal opinion about abortion is quite complex and, in any case, immaterial to the subject at hand."

Obviously, the poster thinks that it is QUITE pertinent to the subject at hand.

"Why not start a new thread about abortion if you wish to discuss it?"

Why object three times, when you could simply answer? Unless, of course, you don't WANT to answer.

Here's a final nugget for you to consider, vegan. You object over and over to torture, yet when you call people to action, you never advocate halting the torture. You INSTEAD call for them to stop eating meat. This is an erroneous coupling borne of dishonesty and an emotional argument.

If you're so upset about torture, then why not fight the TORTURE ITSELF? Oh, no, you call for people to stop eating meat, and to stop giving money to the "meat industry." Well, Soy Boy, how many more animals are going to have to die while you wait for the meat industry to die a slow death -- assuming it ever does? If you're so interested in stopping torture, then why aren't you doing something to STOP IT?

I'll tell you why. Because it is not torture that bothers you. It is eating meat. Invoking torture is simply the emotional argument that you use to convince people that something must be done. But when the time comes to do something, you ask them not to stop the torture, but rather to stop eating meat. Your call to action has NOTHING to do with your argument. They simply go together quite conveniently.

Your objection to torture is actually an argument FOR people to eat more locally produced meat and less factory-farm produced meat (assuming you can prove that the meat from a given factory farm was produced using your alleged cruel methods). Too bad your argument doesn't support your call for a vegan lifestyle.

How about this -- let's say that I know a farmer who raises free- range cattle and chickens, and he will allow me to view the slaughter of any animals I purchase from him. If I personally view the raising and slaughter of these animals, and if I can verify that no torture takes place, and that they are, in fact, dead when the slaughter begins, then where does that leave your argument?

Out in the cold, that's where. Kind of like you.

-- Already Done Happened (oh.yeah@it.did.com), April 15, 2001.


Already, I’m going to brush aside your numerous ad hominem attacks, your insulting and bullying speech, your various diversions, and go directly to your assertion that forms the “meat” of your argument:

You are calling for the closure of an industry by claiming that the entire industry has engaged in and is complicit in that torture. And, as you have not proven those imputed claims, you are not -- for all your protestations to the contrary -- objecting simply to torture. You have seized upon some evidence of localized "torture" as "proof" that the entire meat industry must be shut down.

Let’s revisit the Washington Post report, shall we? It is tedious to do this, and I would prefer not to, but you continue to resist the written and verbal evidence.

….Enforcement records, interviews, videos and worker affidavits describe repeated violations of the Humane Slaughter Act at dozens of slaughterhouses, ranging from the smallest, custom butcheries to modern, automated establishments such as the sprawling IBP Inc. plant here where Moreno works….

"In plants all over the United States, this happens on a daily basis," said Lester Friedlander, a veterinarian and formerly chief government inspector at a Pennsylvania hamburger plant. "I've seen it happen. And I've talked to other veterinarians. They feel it's out of control." ….

While a few plants have been forced to halt production for a few hours because of alleged animal cruelty, such sanctions are rare. ….[Ergo throughout, violations occur even more flagrantly and frequently.]

The government took no action against a Texas beef company that was cited 22 times in 1998 for violations that included chopping hooves off live cattle. In another case, agency supervisors failed to take action on multiple complaints of animal cruelty at a Florida beef plant and fired an animal health technician for reporting the problems to the Humane Society. The dismissal letter sent to the technician, Tim Walker, said his dislosure had "irreparably damaged" the agency's relations with the packing plant…..

In the past three years, a new meat inspection system that shifted responsibility to industry has made it harder to catch and report cruelty problems, some federal inspectors say. Under the new system, implemented in 1998, the agency no longer tracks the number of humane-slaughter violations its inspectors find each year.….

"Privatization of meat inspection has meant a quiet death to the already meager enforcement of the Humane Slaughter Act," said Gail Eisnitz of the Humane Farming Association, a group that advocates better treatment of farm animals. "USDA isn't simply relinquishing its humane-slaughter oversight to the meat industry, but is -- without the knowledge and consent of Congress -- abandoning this function altogether." ….

"Handling animals humanely," said American Meat Institute President J. Patrick Boyle, "is just the right thing to do."

Clearly, not all plants have gotten the message. ….

The offenses range from overcrowded stockyards to incidents in which live animals were cut, skinned or scalded….

One Texas plant, Supreme Beef Packers in Ladonia, had 22 violations in six months. During one inspection, federal officials found nine live cattle dangling from an overhead chain. But managers at the plant, which announced last fall it was ceasing operations, resisted USDA warnings, saying its practices were no different than others in the industry.

[Here the meat producers themselves directly dispute you, Already.]

"They were still conscious and had good reflexes," B.V. Swamy, a veterinarian and senior USDA official at the plant, wrote. The shift supervisor "allowed the cattle to be hung anyway."…. [Is this not a “willful” action and decision on the part of the shift supervisor?]

In imposing the sanction, U.S. inspectors cited a string of violations in the previous two years, including the cutting and skinning of live cattle. The company, responding to one such charge, contended that it was normal for animals to blink and arch their backs after being stunned, and such "muscular reaction" can occur up to six hours after death. ….

As a result, a botched slaughter condemns some hogs to being scalded and drowned. Secret videotape from an Iowa pork plant shows hogs squealing and kicking as they are being lowered into the water….

Those problems were identified five years ago in an industry-wide audit by Temple Grandin, an assistant professor with Colorado State University's animal sciences department and one of the nation's leading experts on slaughter practices.

One finding was a high failure rate among beef plants that use stunning devices known as "captive-bolt" guns. Of the plants surveyed, only 36 percent earned a rating of "acceptable" or better, meaning cattle were knocked unconscious with a single blow at least 95 percent of the time.

[Grandin then goes on to say the rate of improvement is better recently, but the entire article contradicts this assertion because with the abandonment of federal regulatory control and oversight, the industry itself is not doing a good job of policing itself.]….

"The live cows cause a lot of injuries," said Martin Fuentes, an IBP worker whose arm was kicked and shattered by a dying cow. "The line is never stopped simply because an animal is alive." …

After a blow to the head, an unconscious animal may kick or twitch by reflex. But a videotape, made secretly by IBP workers and reviewed by veterinarians for The Post, depicts cattle that clearly are alive and conscious after being stunned. ….

Some cattle, dangling by a leg from the plant's overhead chain, twist and arch their backs as though trying to right themselves. Close-ups show blinking reflexes, an unmistakable sign of a conscious brain, according to guidelines approved by the American Meat Institute. ….

More than 20 workers signed affidavits alleging that the violations shown on tape are commonplace and that supervisors are aware of them. The sworn statements and videos were prepared with help from the Humane Farming Association. Some workers had taken part in a 1999 strike over what they said were excessive plant production speeds…..

"I've seen thousands and thousands of cows go through the slaughter process alive," IBP veteran Fuentes, the worker who was injured while working on live cattle, said in an affidavit. "The cows can get seven minutes down the line and still be alive. I've been in the side-puller where they're still alive. All the hide is stripped out down the neck there." ….

The company also questioned workers and offered a reward for information leading to identification of those responsible for the video. One worker said IBP pressured him to sign a statement denying that he had seen live cattle on the line.

"I knew that what I wrote wasn't true," said the worker, who did not want to be identified for fear of losing his job. "Cows still go alive every day. When cows go alive, it's because they don't give me time to kill them." ….

Although she observed no live cattle being butchered, she concluded that the plant's older-style equipment was "overloaded." Grandin reviewed parts of the workers' videotape and said there was no mistaking what she saw.

"There were fully alive beef on that rail," Grandin said. ….

In reality, many inspectors describe humane slaughter as a blind spot: Inspectors' regular duties rarely take them to the chambers where stunning occurs. Inconsistencies in enforcement, training and record-keeping hamper the agency's ability to identify problems.

The meat inspectors' union, in its petition last spring to Washington state's attorney general, contended that federal agents are "often prevented from carrying out" the mandate against animal cruelty. Among the obstacles inspectors face are "dramatic increases in production speeds, lack of support from supervisors in plants and district offices . . . new inspection policies which significantly reduce our enforcement authority, and little to no access to the areas of the plants where animals are killed," stated the petition by the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals.

But some inspectors see little evidence the agency is interested in hearing about problems. Under the new inspection system, the USDA stopped tracking the number of violations and dropped all mentions of humane slaughter from its list of rotating tasks for inspectors. ….

Now Already, in the face of the reports above, you actually write this:

You are objecting to what appears to be localized torture, but we have not even gotten corroboration of THAT.

I have just provided material that shows this torture is not only localized, but occurs on an industry-wide basis. And yes, it is willful torture. People are choosing to kill animals in this manner, supervisors are choosing to overlook live animals being slaughtered. The industry as a whole, composed of people who act and live in purely willful volition, day to day, are complicit in how this butchering takes place.

You are the one who insists on adding the word “willful.” Fine. Because people are acting of their own volition (no one is FORCING them to engage in such slaughtering practices), the skinning, cutting, and scalding of live animals -- torture -- is being conducted daily in a willful manner.

You seem to be suggesting that people in these plants are somehow insensible, as though their eyes and ears were shut, and they were completely unaware of the actions they consciously engage in.

Well, the article has disproved you.

The history of xtianity is replete with violence, misery and death, its stated goals notwithstanding.

Does this justify your argument that the slaughter and killing of animals is therefore justified, because history is replete with violence?

Some argument!

As for your assertion that I should be fighting the method of slaughter, I should very much like to see a halt to those practices which constitute animal torture. In the meantime, the most basic, fundamentally effective action any individual can take is to reduce one’s consumption of meat products, especially given that the meat industry itself is very powerful, and has influential lobbyists in Washington who already have lessened federal regulatory functions so the industry can “police itself” (chuckle).

For spiritual reasons I have chosen to avoid eating meat, as have millions of Hindus and Buddhists and Christians. However, I am also a pragmatist, and believe that as long as one desires to eat meat, one should as far as possible look into how the meat they are consuming is produced, and investigate the slaughtering process to see that it is humane.

Good luck trying to find out, though. Most people have no clue where their meat comes from, or how it was produced, and will be resisted if they try to track its source too far.

You further assert I am equating meat eating with torture. That is untrue, and a rather blatant distortion on your part. I am suggesting that by eating meat products that were produced in an industrialized system that consistently (or “daily”) employs torture, you are, even unwittingly, participating in that industry by supporting it with your dollars. You are not, however, engaging in torture itself.

Do you ascertain the difference, Already? It is not complex.

I actually agree with you that it is better to not attack the industry itself. I believe that meat eaters do not consciously wish to support animal torture, and will oppose it when they hear of it or witness it. One way a concerned person can resist participating in this system which sometitmes employs animal torture is to simply avoid eating meat. This is not an attack on the industry itself, it is a conscious, personal, and deliberate choice made by an individual for ethical, spiritual, or health reasons, or for a combination of reasons. There will always be plenty of people who will support the industry.

I have never claimed that a vegetarian lifestyle is the ONLY POSSIBLE (your words) solution to this problem. I support any effort or act on the part of the government to change the way the industry slaughters animals. I acknowledge the reality that people will eat meat, and therefore would support any system of slaughter that would ensure that cows and other mammals are killed humanely. For purely humanitarian and spiritual reasons, I hope that someday we will forego meat consumption altogether, but do not expect this to occur in my lifetime.

We have established that I would support a change in how meat is slaughtered. So let me ask you this, Already. Given your intimate familiarity with modern agricultural practices, what solution(s) do you propose, in a pragmatic sense, to stop the “faulty” stunning of animals in modern slaughterhouses, and to see that such a solution is enforced?

In closing, I would merely add that in your responses you have attacked me personally and engaged in a number of illogical arguments that are transparently refuted by the article above. Still, I do not hold it against you. I think your irrationality and bullying are merely symptomatic of your conscience having been stirred, however dimly, by the horrific and disturbing picture the article dauntlessly portrays.

Despite your ridicule, in truth I am trying to live in a way that furthers the betterment of our planet. If the earth's arable land were used primarily for the production of vegetarian foods, the planet could easily support a human population of 20 billion or more. No conversion to modern American industrialized agricultural practice is required. That is a principle worth fighting and living for, n’est pas?

Even Albert Einstein asserted that "Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." The case for vegetarianism is more than animal protection, it is also soundly based on bettering our environment and helping the world's starving populations.

If you decide to respond to me again, Already, I have but one request. I would appreciate your restraint in using profanities such as “fuck you” and “asshole.” Though familiar with these comomplaces, I would respect your argument more, and think we might make progress in coming to any mutual understanding, if such ad homimems are simply avoided.

Finally, this being Easter and all, I will leave you again with these thoughtful -- if idealistic -- words:

"Animals are God's creatures, not human property, nor utilities, nor resources, nor commodities, but precious beings in God's sight. ... Christians whose eyes are fixed on the awfulness of crucifixion are in a special position to understand the awfulness of innocent suffering. The Cross of Christ is God's absolute identification with the weak, the powerless, and the vulnerable, but most of all with unprotected, undefended, innocent suffering."

-- Meat eating not at all necessary (for@health.com), April 15, 2001.


I can't believe I waded through 20 pages of this bunko. Already has a good argument but it gets lost in his desire to respond to his opponent line by line. The most salient point Already makes is this:

Your objection to torture is actually an argument FOR people to eat more locally produced meat and less factory-farm produced meat (assuming you can prove that the meat from a given factory farm was produced using your alleged cruel methods). Too bad your argument doesn't support your call for a vegan lifestyle.

Never once does anyone advocating vegetanarianism decry the terrible mistakes that are occuring on meat packing lines. And they are mistakes, rather than willful torture, no matter how you try to paint it. In fact, the Washington Post article makes it clear that animals who are alive in the butcher line actually hurt their profits. "Industry groups acknowledge that sloppy killing has tangible consequences for consumers as well as company profits. Fear and pain cause animals to produce hormones that damage meat and cost companies tens of millions of dollars a year in discarded product, according to industry estimates." Bad for the cow, bad for the meat packers (live cows can hurt people) bad for the companies. A lose- lose situatiom all around needs to be addressed. Yet weirdly, the only method of addressing it that you come up with is to stop eating meat.

I think that you have decided that you, personally, object to meat and meat eaters. You've referred to Already for instance as immoral and compared him to a psychopath who will any day graduate to cannibalism simply because he likes a nice pork chop or cheeseburger. Ridiculous. There's no direct line from Charles Manson to Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's. In making this ridiculous argument, what you have done is betray your concern that other people are living a lifestyle you find objectionable, yet you seem to know, on some level, that people don't respond well to being told how to live (or in this case, eat), so you build your argument on an article that details horrible mistakes in the meat industry, but never once do you suggest doing anything to end the torture until Already called you on it, and even then you address it only in passing.

To say that some cattle are suffering when they're butchered, so we should all stop eating meat is like saying that some people are killed in car accidents so we should all stop driving. It's not a logical solution, it's using a terrible situation to advance your own agenda. In otherwords, Already may have built his argument on hyperbole, but you've built yours on the torture and suffering of animals.

I have to ask you what would happen to the cattle, chicken, swine, and other animals in the farm industry if we were to all stop eating meat at once. In your grand scheme, would these animals be simply turned out and allowed to roam free to live out their lives naturally, including breeding like crazy and eating the grain and other crops you would feed the world with? There's an enviornmental disaster for you! Or would we... kill them? No, of course not, that would be cruel. And where would we get the products we get from them, such as pet food (Fido and Mr. Whiskers lack the capacity to chose a vegetarian lifestyle), glycerin (which has almost innumberable uses, such as soap and clothing), medicines (such as insulin and the pig heart valves that are often used for people in the late stages of heart disease), and leather (whose production causes much less enviornmental impact than plastic substitutes)? Should we simply do without housepets, soap and fibers, diabetics, heart patients, and shoes? What I'm trying to figure out is how we'll transition from our current, immoral society to a shining utopia built on grains, legumes and tons and tons of synthetic products.



-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), April 15, 2001.


One more note, to Meat.

I re-read your article and was struck by it's arrogant tone, firstly in regard to the people who work in meat-packing plants. These places are, for the most part, in very rural areas where they are the only industry. The type of workers they attract are uneducated (often illegal immigrants) who have little choice in potential employers. In accusing them of being complicit in torture, you seem to be saying that they can simply pick up and get a job in a nice, clean office. It's hard to go against the boss when you're working in the only business in town and lack the resources to pick up and move somewhere else. True industry reform will come when the workers have the power to object. They are there 24 X 7, something even the most diligent government inspector could never hope to accomplish. Your efforts should start with those people. HINT: You won't get very far by calling them "torturers".

I also think your steadfast refusal to produce any evidence whatsoever beyond the Washington Post article is telling. You expect Already to simply take your word for whatever you say and ignore all requests for documentation, then you act surprised when he considers your arguments to be based on emotion. Honey will catch more flies than vinegar, and evidence will change more minds than opinions.

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), April 15, 2001.


Yet weirdly, the only method of addressing it that you come up with is to stop eating meat.

If you read my last post, Tarzan, I did in fact state I am supportive of any effort that is made by government to reduce the slaughtering of live animals. In the face of massive federal deregulation, however, a basic, first step to decrease inhumane factory farming would be to stop buying products produced by a system that utilizes animal torture. Whether such torture is produced by "mistake" or not, it occurs regularly, is regularly overlooked by the industry, and needs to be addressed by the government. Until then, we can all make our own decisions whether to abstain from supporting an industry that engages in animal torture.

You've referred to Already for instance as immoral and compared him to a psychopath who will any day graduate to cannibalism simply because he likes a nice pork chop or cheeseburger.

Actually, I did not write that Already was a psychopath, and do not know who did. I find it entirely arrogant and presumptive that you attribute words to me without any evidence that I have penned them.

In this connection, I do note that Already's statement that "you can be assured that if the supply of cow, hog, chicken, sheep, goat, duck, turkey, fish, ocean-dwelling arthropod, horse, alligator, snake, bivalves, deer, buffalo, cute fuzzy bunnies, elk, squirrel, turtle (mmmmm, endangered . . . ), ostrich, antelope, bison, bear any any other kind of meat on two legs, four legs, fins, flippers or wings gives out, then you can be assured that I'm coming for you" does seem to imply a kind of willing to engage in cannibalism, even if in a somewhat "tongue-in-cheek" fashion.

I have not suggested a way to end the torture because I simply do not know how to respond to it on a national scale, other than federal regulation. I mean to investigate the work of organizations that are working toward this end. Government regulations have been severely curtailed. In the face of this, I suggest that each of us consume less meat, or at the very least, investigate where the meat they are consuming comes from, and how it was produced. Why is that so offensive to you, Tarzan, especially that meat eating has been linked to cardiovascular disease and cancer?

In the absence of any national effort by our federal government to regulate how meat is produced, what is your solution? My solution is to avoid eating meat. I have asked Already for his ideas in preventing this live animal slaughtering, especially as he seems intimately familiar with modern agricultural practices. Perhaps you, too, can offer your own solutions and/or ideas instead of merely ridiculing and trying to shame me for abstaining from eating meat.

It is true that I have partly built my argument on the torture and suffering of animals. I believe that it's wrong to kill animals in industrialized settings as outlined in the article above. I believe that eating products produced in such an environment is wrong because we are supporting with our dollars the pain and suffering such animals must endure.

What's wrong with that, Tarzan? Am I not a culprit for wishing to end the financial support of industrialized animal pain and suffering?

I am also trying to figure out how to make a transition to a world where animals were not entirely disposed of, but are raised and killed in a humane fashion. In this culture they are clearly not being treated with the modicum of decency and humanity that we ought to accord them as sentient beings.

Whether a worker is educated or not, whether he is disadvantaged in the social scale, whether he is an illegal immigrant or not, he still has a choice to either stay in a meat packing plant or to move on to a less violent form of work. Needless to say, I reserve most of my contempt for the supervisors who overlook the violations and who punish workers, many of them severely injured, for speaking out against them, as is well documented in the article.

There is plenty of evidence that supports my position other than this article. For starters, I refer you to:

http://www.hfa.org/

I do not take offense at your insulting words, Tarzan. I merely ask that instead of condemning me for finding animal torture morally offensive, you work to find ways to address it as well. I am working in my own fashion by abstaining from eating meat. If vegetarianism bothers you, it's your problem, not mine.

Wilful or not (and I believe that our actions, at least while conscious, are always wilful), skinning, cutting, and scalding live animals constitutes torture. It is therefore up to every one of us to decide whether or not we wish to support an industry that engages inadvertently -- yet daily -- in the torture of animals.

By the way, Tarzan, I don't have "an agenda." I do, however, have a heart, and a conscience. If you want to abuse me for my conscience, so be it. I shall not abuse you in kind.

-- Meat is not at all necessary (for@health.com), April 15, 2001.


Factory farm conditions result in severe physiological as well as behavioral afflictions in animals. Anemia, influenza, intestinal diseases, mastitis, metritis, orthostasis, pneumonia, and scours are only the beginning of a long list of ailments plaguing animals in factory farms. By ignoring such basic needs such as exercise, fresh air, wholesome food, and proper veterinary care, factory farms are a breeding ground for stress and infectious diseases.

Factory Farm Disease - A Human Dilemma

Factory farms attempt to counter the effects of intensive confinement by administering continuous doses of antibiotics and other drugs to the animals. This "cost effective" practice has a significant negative impact on both human and non human animals.

The deprivation to which animals are subjected on factory farms has provoked concern among knowledgeable veterinarians and animal protection activists for years. Today, criticism of factory farm practices is widespread among human health care professionals as well. Medical doctors now warn that the tragedy of factory farming reaches well beyond the farm animals themselves. According to a broad spectrum of scientists, the high level of contaminants in factory farm products now poses a serious danger to human health. Studies in the New England Journal of Medicine and research by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, National Resources Defense Council, and the FDA all warn that the levels of antibiotics and other contaminants in commercially raised meat constitute a serious threat to public health.

Antibiotics - Squandering a Medical Miracle Approximately 50% of all antibiotics manufactured in the United States are poured directly into animal feeds. The most commonly used antibiotics are penicillin and tetracycline. The squandering of these important drugs in livestock production is wreaking havoc for physicians in the treatment of human illness.

Widespread overuse of antibiotics is resulting in the evolution of new strains of virulent bacteria whose resistance to antibiotics poses a great threat to human health. Doctors are now reporting that, due to their uncontrolled use on factory farms, these formerly life- saving drugs are often rendered useless in combating human disease. Dr. Jere Goyan, Dean of the School of Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco, states that the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in animal feed is leading to "a major national crisis in public health. Unless we take action now to curb the use of these drugs in the livestock industry, we will not be able to use them to treat human disease."

Dr. Karim Ahmed, head scientist of the National Resources Defense Council, has long urged Congress to impose immediate controls on the use of antibiotics in animal feed. According to Dr. Ahmed, unless swift action is taken, "we are going to have an epidemic of untreatable stomach ailments, many of which will end in death." Unfortunately, the crisis has already begun. Scientists now calculate that the misuse of penicillin and tetracycline in animal feed is implicated in more than 2,000,000 cases of Salmonella poisoning each year, resulting in as many as 2,000 human deaths.

These illnesses and deaths need not occur. The routine use of antibiotics and other chemicals in animal feed is a dangerously irresponsible attempt to counter the harsh, disease-ridden conditions to which animals are subjected in factory farms.

Factory farm equipment and drug companies tell us that farmers need intensive animal confinement facilities in order to make a large profit. In reality, it is the equipment companies and giant pharmaceutical corporations such as Lilly, Upjohn, American Cyanamid, and Pfizer (which collectively sell farmers over 15 million pounds of antibiotics each year) that profit most from factory farming. Family farms are being squeezed out of business by their inability to raise the capital to compete with huge factory farms. Traditional farming is labor intensive, but factory farming is capital intensive. Farmers who do manage to raise the money for confinement systems quickly discover that the small savings in labor costs are not enough to cover the increasingly expensive facilities, energy, caging, and drug costs.

The Stress Connection Agribusiness companies tell us that animals in factory farms are "as well cared for as their own pet dog or cat." Nothing could be further from the truth. The life of an animal in a factory farm is characterized by acute deprivation, stress, and disease.

Hundreds of millions of animals are forced to live in cages or crates just barely larger than their own bodies. While one species may be caged alone without any social contact, another species may be crowded so tightly together that they fall prey to stress-induced cannibalism.

Cannibalism is particularly prevalent in the cramped confinement of hogs and laying hens. Unable to groom, stretch their legs, or even turn around, the victims of factory farms exist in a relentless state of distress. "When animals are intensively confined and under stress, as they are on factory farms, their autoimmune systems are affected and they are prone to infectious diseases," reports veterinarian Dr. Bruce Feldmann. "When animals are treated with care, there is no need for continuous low-level antibiotic feed additives. It is as simple as that."

The public relations firms retained by agribusiness companies will publicly deny the existence of farm animal stress. Ironically, these PR campaigns are paid for out of the millions of dollars made selling drugs to treat stress and stress-induced diseases on factory farms. If a private citizen confined a dog or cat in a manner common in factory farms, he/she could be charged with cruelty to animals. There is an area, however, that federal laws protecting animals do not touch. The powerful agribusiness and pharmaceutical lobbies have seen to it that farm animals are explicitly excluded from the federal Animal Welfare Act. There are virtually no Federal laws which protect farm animals from even the most harsh and brutal treatment as long as it takes place in the name of production and profit. It is left entirely to the preference of the individual company how many egg- laying hens are stuffed into each little wire cage, or whether an artificially inseminated sow must spend her entire pregnancy chained to the floor of a cement-bottomed cage.

-- Enjoy your ham (factory@farming.com), April 15, 2001.


Here's more from the Washington Post on this topic:

Based on a seven-month investigation, this series reveals major flaws in the U.S. government's meat-safety net. A joint effort with Dateline NBC examines the spread of deadly E. coli bacteria. The Post reveals how increased production speeds at many processing plants causes the botched slaughter of cows and pigs, condemning the animals to a slow and painful death.

The transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Somewhere, USA: It seems we are mostly interested in this issue of "humane slaughtering" because of its impact on human health.

I wonder if we can reach a point of selflessly viewing this issue from the perspective of cows, pigs, chickens, and sheep, regardless of its impact on us.

Gail Eisnitz: I agree. We have to start giving consideration to the wellbeing of the animals themselves. Meat contamination aside, this is fundamentally a question of ethics. Right now in the United States, hundreds of thousands of animals are needlessly tortured in slaughterhouses sue to neglegent corporate practices and virtually non-existent federal oversight.

Fairfax, Va.: Thanks for your work to discontinue these horrific practices. What can I do to put pressure on politicians and administrators to enforce the law and treat animals humanely?

Gail Eisnitz: There's a lot that the public can do. You can start by by contacting Governor Gary Locke in Washington State and demand that he ensures that IBP - Wallula is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. For more information on this campaign, please visit our website at www.hfa.org.

Washington, D.C.: As in the case of the young girl who died from E. coli, how is it possible that meat can be "repeatedly exposed" to feces?

Gail Eisnitz: Most animal carcasses are not tested for the majority of contaminants that are causing deaths and illnesses in people. In addition, inspectors are being taken off the lines, being replaced by the company's own employees, and the bottom line is that the production line doesn't stop for anything. It's been shown time and time again, that the industry's self regulation is a recipe for disaster.

Takoma Park, Maryland: I was horrified by the article in today's Post and would like to know what everyday citizens can do to help? It seems the industry understands the pocketbook ramifications of this, so, is the only way to make a point to stop eating beef and let them know it?

Gail Eisnitz: That certainly sends a powerful message to the industry. I'd like to point out, however, that in my investigations and as documented in my book Slaughterhouse, I've uncovered the fact that hogs are routinely immersed in scalding tanks, as are millions of chickens.

Los Angeles, Calif.: How do farms and the beef industry in general respond to these allegations of animal abuse?

Are there federal laws in place to protect farm animals or is it up to us to create an uproar?

Gail Eisnitz: They're first response is to deny that any problems exist. However, when they're presented with irrefutable evidence of widespread animal abuse, such as the videotape obtained by HFA at IBP- Wallula, they're tactic changes somewhat. When caught red-handed, they will claim that these were "isolated incidents" and they will attempt to have seeming "independent" third-parties act as spokespersons in an attempt to cast the company in a favorable light.

No one should be led to believe that the policies announced by McDonald's and other fast food outlets are preventing these atrocities. While McDonald's touts their audits in improving slaughtering conditions, consider this: IBP -Wallala, which is currently under civil and criminal investigation, has been a supplier of McDonald's. When originally audited by McDonald's, despite the fact that large numbers of cattle were being skinned and dismembered alive, IBP-Wallula passed McDonald's audits.

Los Angeles, Calif.: With all due respect, why is this all of a sudden an issue in people's minds? Cruelty to cows, pigs and chickens has been ongoing for decades. It is why many of us quit meat altogether.

There's a saying, "If slaughterhouses were made of glass, we'd all be vegetarians."

Gail Eisnitz: It has been very difficult getting the mainstream media to cover this issue. My book discusses the reluctance of the mainstream media to cover this issue. That's why it's encouraging that the Washington Post and Dateline are taking a lead in this area and tackling this important yet long-neglected issue.

Prince Frederick, Md.: I am disgusted the way these poor animals are treated, to say the least, and I have now sworn off beef and pork. But aren't they bled after stunning? And if so, I would think they would die from that. What gives? --Allen D.

Gail Eisnitz: There a few reasons. First, in many plants, animals are skinned and/or dismembered literally within seconds of having their throats cut. Second, conscious animals react to being bled by contracting their muscles which enables them to hold their blood in. Third, due to fast line speeds and the fact that conscious animals are often struggling, the person who cuts the throat often can not make an accurate cut, leading the animals to bleed to death very slowly. The net result is increased cruelty to animals and increased incidents of worker injuries.

Sickened: Your group has animals' best interests at heart but I worry that your efforts are overshadowed by strong consumer demand for beef. Getting it into the marketplace comes first, no matter who suffers (slaughtered animal or sick child with E. coli). Without constant monitoring, how can you get these slaughterhouses to change for good?

Gail Eisnitz: Good point. Without constant monitoring it won't change for the better and it will remain in its currently dreadful state. That's why the Humane Farming Association and the meat inspectors union are in the process of filing a formal petition with the federal government to demand fulltime monitoring. In the meantime, HFA investigators are busy documenting additional abuses at slaughterhouses nationwide. Please see our website at www.hfa.org for further info about our campaign and how YOU can help on this and other efforts to alleviate animal suffering.

Gail Eisnitz: Although time is limited here, I'd like to refer people to my book SLAUGHTERHOUSE which documents the atrocities which take place in packing plants across the country on a daily basis. It represents first-ever interviews with workers who have spent their lives behind the locked doors of America's slaughterhouses.

Reston, Va.: I saw the videotape of the IBC slaughterhouse and found it very disturbing. The images nearly brought me to tears! The vegetarian movement might have another "convert."

If members of the federal and state governments feel powerless (particularly in Texas, where beef production is a major revenue), what venues of activism does your organization use to encourage companies to follow the Humane Slaughter Act?

Gail Eisnitz: Our approach is two-fold. One is for HFA to continue to document and expose the widespread abuses that are taking place. Secondly, we need to bring that documentation forward to state and federal authorities as we have in the Washington State IBP case in order to bring appropriate charges against companies that are in violation of the law.

Somewhere, USA: It seems to me the meat industry as a whole enjoys a lot of freedom and very laxed laws from how they slaughter to how they handle meat before it arrives in our supermarkets.

Do they have such a strong hold on Washington with their rigorous lobbying that they seemingly can do as they wish?

Gail Eisnitz: The answer, unfortunately, is yes. That's why we've made the most progress not through legislation but through consumer education, and working with state and local officials to enforce state laws.

Seattle, Wash.: Are the workers who blew the whistle on the inhumane slaughter going to retaliated against by IBP? What can be done to protect them from being fired or disciplined?

Gail Eisnitz: The workers have been under enormous pressure, they've been threatened, interrogated, and suspended. Humane Farming Association has retained an attorney to help protect them from company retaliation.

washingtonpost.com: That was our last question today. Thanks to Gail Eisnitz, and to everyone who joined us.

-- Meat not at all necessary (for@health.com), April 15, 2001.


Another interesting transcript from the Washington Post. This one forcuses on food borne illness.

Based on a seven-month investigation, this series reveals major flaws in the U.S. government's meat-safety net. A joint effort with Dateline NBC examines the spread of deadly E. coli bacteria. The Post reveals how increased production speeds at many processing plants causes the botched slaughter of cows and pigs, condemning the animals to a slow and painful death.

The transcript follows.

washingtonpost.com: We'll be getting started shortly....

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: Good morning everyone. We are glad to be here and take your questions. --Joby and Lea

Silver Spring, MD: Your story says that the outbreak was caused by contamination of watermelon with meat. Even the safe handling label on meat tell us not to cross contaminate. So why is this story all about meat packing instead of food preparation? What did the state public health department have to say?

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: Whenever an outbreak occurs, there are generally multiple breakdowns in the system. Many people have explored problems that occur b/c of cross contamination and improper cooking. But as we see in this story, the victims were completely defenseless-- there was nothing for them to look for or to prepare themselves for.-- Joby

And they were in a restaurant which by anyone's definition was considered to be sanitary. --Lea

And so it becomes important to trace what happened at the production end and to see if everything possible was done to make the meat safe. In this case, there is a very strong suggestion that there were lapses in the system.--Joby

Stafford, Virginia: How can I avoid consuming meat processed by plants with repeated sanitation violations?

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: You can't. The problem is you really do have to depend on the govt's inspection system and the plant's willingness to worry more about the safety of our food than it does about its bottom line production costs. And that really is the basis of our story. --Lea

Warrenton, Virginia: i wanted to submit a comment. edit it as you see fit for your livetalk. first, i think your story is uncannily timely; i suspect that i just suffered a bout with e coli which began thursday evening (with all the classic symptoms) subsequent to my eating a rib-eye steak that i purchased at my local grocery store. as a long-term, bona fide meat lover (limited to once-a-week indulgences), this first-time recent experience has opened my eyes to my complacency on the subject(i used to think that e coli might be a PETA or vegan "backlash"). i am now someone who is suspicious about my meat.

sincerely,

sandy panek

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: Sandy, it could very well be that you did. Most people never connect their stomach upsets to food borne pathogens. The fact is that 73,000 people are sick each year just from E Coli and millions more from other bacteria found in meat. Unless you get so sick that you end up in a doctor's office or a hospital, you don't know.--Lea

Food borne illnesses as a group are HIGHLY under-reported. In the Milwaukee case, as few as 500 and as many as 700 were believed to have been affected. Only 62 had lab confirmed cases. --Joby

And understand, that's just over a very short period of time in one restaurant where some bad meat got through the system. --Lea

Chevy Chase, MD: How do E. coli 0157:H7 outbreaks from meat compare to outbreaks from other food sources? Is it always from beef?

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: No. E Coli is found naturally in the intestines of all mammals. The deadly strain was just discovered 20 years ago and since then it has been showing up in an increasing variety of places from watermelon to brussel sprouts to swimming pools where toddlers play to petting farms. In every case there is ultimately a connection to meat or a live animal. --Joby

White Plains, NY: Can I tell just by looking at a cooked hamburger served to me at a McDonald's whether it is tainted? I guess what I'm asking is what does an infected hamburger look like?

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: No you can't see any of these bad bacteria and you can't smell them either. That's what makes them SO insidious. The only way you can know if they are if you test for them. --Lea

I'll first say that you can look for signs that the meat is undercooked, although pinkness is NOT always an indicator of the cooking temperature. In defense of the retail industury, chains like McDonald's are taking this problem EXTREMELY seriously and they are requiring their suppliers to undergo extensive testing for pathogens - - tests that are much MORE strenuous than the USDA requires. --Joby

People have said to me "Do you mean to say that I actually have to get a thermometer and test my meat before I eat it?" The answer is: YES. You can get one in any grocery store. Beef, pork and lamb have to be cooked to 160 degrees. Poultry to 165. --Lea

But obviously this does you little good if you're eating out which is what happened in the Milwaukee outbreak. --Joby

Loisville, KY: Ms. Thompson- you said the restaurant was sanitary by anyone's definition- wasn't that restaurant and another owned by the franchised shutdown for sanitary practices?

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: It wasn't shut down. It shut down on its own volition. But, what I'm saying is this was not a slop house. This was a favored family restaurant that most people probably would not think had terrible food handling practices. --Lea

This particular restaurant had been owned by the same 2 partners since the mid 80's w/out ever having any serious violations that we are aware of. However, another Sizzler restaurant about 8 years ago was linked to an E Coli outbreak that occured under very similar circumstances -- a case of cross contamination that affected non meat foods. --Joby

Fairfax, Virginia: If inspectors and so called consumer groups do not like the modernized inspection system, how do they propose to eliminate microscopic organims that are found everywhere in the environment, not just on meat,amd even in the disgestive systems of healthy humans? Why does your story only focus on the problem and not suggest solutions?

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: In theory there is no question that the new system, HACCP, is more suited to addressing problems w/microbrial contamination. The old system of relying on the senses of inspectors clearly is not up to the challenge of eliminating invisible bacteria. This story more raises the question of what happens when companies violate their HACCP plans... at what point does the government take action to fix problems. I, like many, was surprised to learn that the USDA has very few enforcement options to use against repeat violators. It can't, for example, order a recall of tainted meat. --Joby

Charlottesville, VA: I am a little confused over the way these numbers are being reported. It seems to me that the percentages involved are extremely low considering that we all eat at least once a day and that beef is a staple of the American diet. I am concerned about peoples safety but I believe that the main reason you guys are developing this story the way you are is to just sell more newspapers.

What do you think?

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: They are low numbers, but if you're one of those numbers, you and your family are affected forever. As one inspector told us, we can never get rid of all of the contamination on our food, but there is a lot we can do, to lower those numbers and I don't even work for a newspaper. --Lea

Our art graphic today in the paper shows that the USDA is finding more E Coli each year in its random samples of ground beef in grocery stores and beef plants. This is partly due to better sampling technology, but the number of positives is now approaching 1 percent. That means a 1/100 chance that the ground beef you buy will contain this particular deadly pathogen. And that doens't include samonella, which the USDA acknowledges is present on about 6 percent of ground beef and more than 1/3 of all turkeys. --Joby

I just talked to a woman this morning who was affected by samonella poisoning when she was pregnant and as a result delivered a seriously retarded child. It's hard to tell her that these are just low numbers. --Lea

Corvallis, Montana: As a restaurant owner, how can I be sure that my supplier gets meat from a "safe" meat packer?

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: It's great to hear from someone like you who must feel like you are caught between a rock and a hard place. It seems to me that you can do the same thing that some of the large fast food restaurants do which is to require your meat suppliers to show you E Coli testing from their plant. Remember the government doesn't require that. --Lea

Washington, DC: How will the industry / USDA salmonella testing court case impact efforts to strengthen food safety laws?

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: This is an extremely important case that is being closely watched by consumer groups as well as the industry. The meat industry argues that the requirement to meet standards for raw meat and samonella is unfair and does not necessarily reflect how well they are running their plants. The consumer groups and an obviously retailers like McDonald's think it's very important and relevant to know how good a job plants are doing at eliminating dangerous microbes. Many groups are anxiously waiting to see how the Bush administration will weigh in this controversy. -- Joby

Arlington, VA: Exactly what options does the government have to use against repeat violators and how did they change under the new system? And isn't a recall a little late in the process?

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: Recalls are often too late. Generally the test results showing a positive sample aren't known for at least a week. By that time, some of the meat is not only in a grocer's counter but already consumed. --Joby

Under the old system, an inspector who saw a serious problem could actually stop the line and fix it. Under the new system, inspectors feel they have almost no authority to do that. Some suggest that that the laws are there, they are just not being carried out and that the USDA is afraid to take on these major meat companies. --Lea

Consumer groups and many members of Congress have been arguing for years that the USDA needs enhanced powers of enforcement. Currently, a repeat violation results in a series of warning letters that give companies a deadline for coming up w/proposed fixes. In the worst case, the USDA can only withdrawl its inspectors which results in closing the plant temporarily. That is not often done. --Joby

I think you'll see on our Dateline piece tonight the frustration that inspectors feel when they know there are serious problems, but they feel they can't do anything about them. --Lea

Vienna, VA: I heard that it's possible to rinse meat with an acid solution, i.e. vinegar and water, that would help kill pathogens yet is harmless to consumers. Is this something that the USDA is looking into?

Isn't this e-coli strain a mutant one, infected by a virus that changed it's dna?

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: Acid rinses are one of several new technologies that have been developed to kill microbes at the processing plant. Some other include chlorine rinses, something called "steam pasteurization." The point while these technologies are reducing pathogen counts, the industry concedes they are not anywhere close to 100 percent effective. The only things that kill ALL germs are cooking and irradiation which at the moment is highly controversial. --Joby

Regarding E Coli, it's a new organism first identified in the early 80's. Generic E Coli is completely benign, but this microbe somehow mutated to acquire these lethal properties. --Joby

Both the industry and the government have to stay on top of this. Who knows what is around the bend. --Lea

Ottawa, Canada: From my experience as the father of a child who has permanent kidney damage from a bout of e.coli O157:H7 in 1995, I would like to point out that the majority of cases are not associated with outbreaks. Your own CDC has documented that there only need to be as few a 10 bacteria for E.coli O157:H7 to cause an infection. Cross contamination during meat handling becomes a very real concern at these low levels. This evil bacteria must be addressed at the source (the cow!) and the blame of infection must not be put on the last person to handle the product. That person could be a child in a grocery store.

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: I'm sorry to hear about your child. You of course are right. Most cases come individually and unfortunately it is only the very sick that we hear about. It doesn't take much bad E Coli to make you sick. --Lea

The USDA is developing a "farm to table" strategy to try to address the various sources of E Coli and other pathogens. One thing that has emerged so far is we know very little about the microbe. On the production end, we are not sure how it spreads or how cows become infected in the first place (among herds). Considerable effort is devoted currently to developing remedies that can be applied on the farm. --Joby

A number of you have asked us whether we eat meat, whether we've changed our eating habits and whether we practice what we preach. Joby and I have covered meat for a long time and I think it's fair to say that we are pretty careful. One thing I learned a long time ago is that you don't take the steak to the barbecue grill on the plate and then after the meat is cooked, put it back on that same plate to bring it back into the house. --Lea

Lombard, Illinois: What are the early symptoms of E-Coli illness? At what point should you determine that it is not a "routine" bout with diarrhea?

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: The early symptoms feel like the flu and that's what most people think it is. --Lea

Severe vomiting, painful diarrhea and often bloody diarrhea which is caused by E Coli's assault on blood vessels in the intestines. About 5 percent of victims develop a complication that can shut down the kidneys and other organs. Young children and the elderly are particularly suspectible to that complication known as "HUS." --Joby

Cincinnati, Oh: How can we help? Who can we contact to tell the government we want this to get a higher priority and give the inspectors the authority to quickly shut down problem plants.

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: Good question Ohio. Last year, legislation was debated that would have increased the USDA's ability to respond when it finds plants that are having trouble controlling their process. That legislation was narrowly defeated as it had been for 3 previous sessions. The sponsors say they are going to try again this year. You might want to give your local lawmaker a call. --Joby

You might also ask your favorite restauranteur what he/she does to make sure the meat is safe. Ask if he/she requires extra testing from the plant. Ask about the restaurant's food handing procedures. --Lea

This is a critical moment in the nation's food inspection system because decisions will be made in the next few years about whether to expand current testing for microbes or perhaps eliminate testing entirely as some have proposed. --Joby

Vienna, VA: Norman Rockwell would probably have to paint his beloved Thanksgiving turkey with a meat thermometer sticking out of it, if he were creating it today. Isn't it ironic that the the very symbols of prosperity and celebration in our culture, turkeys and big, juicy steaks and burgers, may be carrying a ticking time bomb for consumers who eat them. I have 4 children and this story makes me feel sick. I don't think people, not even those in the food industry, take this issue of food safety seriously enough. Yet...

Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson: Thanks for joining us today. Be sure to watch Dateline tonight, a special edition at 8 pm EDT/7 CST. And also look for the 2nd part of the Post's "Modern Meat" series in tomorrow's paper. --Lea and Joby

washingtonpost.com: That was our last question today. Thanks to Joby Warrick and Lea Thompson, and to everyone who joined us.

-- Meat not at all necessary (for@health.com), April 15, 2001.


“Already, I’m going to brush aside your numerous ad hominem attacks, your insulting and bullying speech, your various diversions, and go directly to your assertion that forms the “meat” of your argument:”

Actually, the ad hominems are in great supply on your side of the argument. If you plan on brushing them aside, then perhaps you might want to stop using them.

My “insulting and bullying speech” is no more objectionable than the speech of vegans/vegetarians who insist on claiming that anyone who eats meat or who is involved in the meat industry is engaging in willful torture.

And as far as “various diversions” go, I notice that many items I presented that you failed to respond to were originally invoked BY YOU. Observe.

You claimed that "meat has been shown to be cancer causing," but that’s a lie, you know it, and I demonstrated why it is a lie. Now you say it’s a diversion?

You claimed that meat "production degrades water sources," but I told you that there are new natural waste processing methods that address that issue. Now you say it’s a diversion?

You claimed that meat "produces bacteria that can kill children, etc." when Escherischia Coli can be found in vegetable crops, too? I bring that up, and you dodge past, claiming that it’s a diversion?

You claimed that meat contained dioxin, and I observed that the problem lies with dioxin, not meant. Suddenly that’s a diversion? You brought it up, Soy Boy.

If you make a claim and I disarm your claim, that is no “diversion.” It is a failure of your argument. If you fail to recognize or admit that, then it is further proof of your intellectual dishonesty.

>>>You are calling for the closure of an industry by claiming that the entire industry has engaged in and is complicit in that torture. And, as you have not proven those imputed claims, you are not -- for all your protestations to the contrary -- objecting simply to torture. You have seized upon some evidence of localized "torture" as "proof" that the entire meat industry must be shut down.

“Let’s revisit the Washington Post report, shall we? It is tedious to do this, and I would prefer not to, but you continue to resist the written and verbal evidence.”

In the first place, your argument thus far has used nothing but the Washington Post to buttress it. I don’t think that you would prefer not to – in fact, I don’t think you can do any better. Further, you have presented neither written nor verbal evidence. One newspaper article constitutes a claim, not proof. And your “verbal” evidence (if that’s what you call your claims) has been pretty thoroughly debunked. If you can’t be bothered to present further proof of your claims, then that’s your problem, not mine.

“Enforcement records, interviews, videos and worker affidavits describe repeated violations of the Humane Slaughter Act at dozens of slaughterhouses, ranging from the smallest, custom butcheries to modern, automated establishments such as the sprawling IBP Inc. plant here where Moreno works…. “

Dozens does not equal “all,” or even “most.” Yet you claim that the entire meat processing industry is complicit in the misdeeds you allege. The article contradicts you here.

"In plants all over the United States, this happens on a daily basis," said Lester Friedlander, a veterinarian and formerly chief government inspector at a Pennsylvania hamburger plant. "I've seen it happen. And I've talked to other veterinarians. They feel it's out of control." ….

If this is true – and you have not proven that it is – then I agree that something should be done. However, this does not support your ‘entire industry’ indictment, either.

“While a few plants have been forced to halt production for a few hours because of alleged animal cruelty, such sanctions are rare. …. [Ergo throughout, violations occur even more flagrantly and frequently.] “

No, this is no proof that violations occur even more flagrantly and frequently. So this STILL does not support your ‘entire industry’ claim.

“The government took no action against a Texas beef company that was cited 22 times in 1998 for violations that included chopping hooves off live cattle. In another case, agency supervisors failed to take action on multiple complaints of animal cruelty at a Florida beef plant and fired an animal health technician for reporting the problems to the Humane Society. The dismissal letter sent to the technician, Tim Walker, said his dislosure had "irreparably damaged" the agency's relations with the packing plant…..”

Egregious cases, if true. Yet your characterization indicates that these are standard practice, not exceptional instances of totally unacceptable behavior. Again, this does not support your ‘entire industry’ claim.

“In the past three years, a new meat inspection system that shifted responsibility to industry has made it harder to catch and report cruelty problems, some federal inspectors say. Under the new system, implemented in 1998, the agency no longer tracks the number of humane- slaughter violations its inspectors find each year.…. “

I would like to know more about this inspection system, and detailed figures on violations for several years prior to the commencement of the new system. You might be able to use this to buttress your argument.

"Privatization of meat inspection has meant a quiet death to the already meager enforcement of the Humane Slaughter Act," said Gail Eisnitz of the Humane Farming Association, a group that advocates better treatment of farm animals. "USDA isn't simply relinquishing its humane-slaughter oversight to the meat industry, but is -- without the knowledge and consent of Congress -- abandoning this function altogether." ….

At this point, I must ask if you feel that the Humane Slaughter Act ensured sufficient controls on the meat processing industry to assuage your conscience. It appears that you may be in support of that Act, so I would like to know if you think it goes far enough. If so, why? If not, why?

“Handling animals humanely," said American Meat Institute President J. Patrick Boyle, "is just the right thing to do." “Clearly, not all plants have gotten the message. …. “

Yet your comment suggests that you feel that SOME plants HAVE gotten the message. And that statement contradicts your own ‘entire industry’ indictment. Rather sloppy work on your part.

“The offenses range from overcrowded stockyards to incidents in which live animals were cut, skinned or scalded….”

Is it not worth observing that those deeds are referred to as “offenses?” The characterization earlier in this thread of meat- eaters as “psychotic” does not stand if we observe that mistreating meat animals constitutes an “offense.” This part of the article contradicts your position and supports mine.

“One Texas plant, Supreme Beef Packers in Ladonia, had 22 violations in six months. During one inspection, federal officials found nine live cattle dangling from an overhead chain. But managers at the plant, which announced last fall it was ceasing operations, resisted USDA warnings, saying its practices were no different than others in the industry.”

“[Here the meat producers themselves directly dispute you, Already.]”

No, “managers at the plant” are disputing me. And I think that the “managers at the plant” were probably trying to downplay their own misdeeds and keep their jobs. The claims of nameless plant managers do not constitute solid evidence, and I think you know that.

"They were still conscious and had good reflexes," B.V. Swamy, a veterinarian and senior USDA official at the plant, wrote. The shift supervisor "allowed the cattle to be hung anyway."….”

“[Is this not a “willful” action and decision on the part of the shift supervisor?] “

Possibly, but the language here is unclear. Did he “allow” it, or did he “direct” it? By whose order was that done? And in any event, even if the shift supervisor were to blame, surely you realize that demonstrating that ONE shift supervisor willfully caused animal torture is a far cry from demonstrating that the entire industry is complicit in such behavior. You nibble at the edges and claim that the entire sandwich tastes like the crust of the bread.

“In imposing the sanction, U.S. inspectors cited a string of violations in the previous two years, including the cutting and skinning of live cattle. The company, responding to one such charge, contended that it was normal for animals to blink and arch their backs after being stunned, and such "muscular reaction" can occur up to six hours after death. …. “

I have slaughtered animals myself, and that’s a bullshit claim on the part of the meat industry.

“As a result, a botched slaughter condemns some hogs to being scalded and drowned. Secret videotape from an Iowa pork plant shows hogs squealing and kicking as they are being lowered into the water….”

If true, then this would appear to be a gross violation. Have you access to this videotape?

“Those problems were identified five years ago in an industry-wide audit by Temple Grandin, an assistant professor with Colorado State University's animal sciences department and one of the nation's leading experts on slaughter practices.”

How was his report disseminated? Was it distributed to Congress? The meat processing industry? Do you have any more information on this?

“One finding was a high failure rate among beef plants that use stunning devices known as "captive-bolt" guns. Of the plants surveyed, only 36 percent earned a rating of "acceptable" or better, meaning cattle were knocked unconscious with a single blow at least 95 percent of the time.”

This directly contradicts your ‘entire industry’ claim.

“[Grandin then goes on to say the rate of improvement is better recently, but the entire article contradicts this assertion because with the abandonment of federal regulatory control and oversight, the industry itself is not doing a good job of policing itself.]…. “

You are going to have to go with Grandin or against him. You can’t have it both ways. However, I agree that no industry should be allowed to police itself. I have no objection to governmental oversight of the meat processing industry.

"The live cows cause a lot of injuries," said Martin Fuentes, an IBP worker whose arm was kicked and shattered by a dying cow. "The line is never stopped simply because an animal is alive." …

Sounds like a gross violation, but we need more evidence. This could be anecdotal, and without more information, we simply don’t know for sure.

“After a blow to the head, an unconscious animal may kick or twitch by reflex. But a videotape, made secretly by IBP workers and reviewed by veterinarians for The Post, depicts cattle that clearly are alive and conscious after being stunned. ….”

Again, we need more evidence. Did the Post share this tape with any TV news outlets? Any chance of seeing this?

“Some cattle, dangling by a leg from the plant's overhead chain, twist and arch their backs as though trying to right themselves. Close-ups show blinking reflexes, an unmistakable sign of a conscious brain, according to guidelines approved by the American Meat Institute. ….”

If true, then it’s an obvious violation. Yet you have not demonstrated that this is an industry-wide problem, which you continue to claim. Rather, the article seems to concentrate on IBP only. Do you not recognize that?

“More than 20 workers signed affidavits alleging that the violations shown on tape are commonplace and that supervisors are aware of them.”

At the plant or plants those workers are employed in. You really make this too easy.

“The sworn statements and videos were prepared with help from the Humane Farming Association. Some workers had taken part in a 1999 strike over what they said were excessive plant production speeds…..”

Sounds reasonable.

"I've seen thousands and thousands of cows go through the slaughter process alive," IBP veteran Fuentes, the worker who was injured while working on live cattle, said in an affidavit. "The cows can get seven minutes down the line and still be alive. I've been in the side- puller where they're still alive. All the hide is stripped out down the neck there.”

Sounds like IBP may have a serious problem. But not necessarily the whole industry, as you continue to claim.

“The company also questioned workers and offered a reward for information leading to identification of those responsible for the video. One worker said IBP pressured him to sign a statement denying that he had seen live cattle on the line.”

Definitely against Federal employment regulations. The individuals responsible for the inquisition should have Federal charges filed against them.

"I knew that what I wrote wasn't true," said the worker, who did not want to be identified for fear of losing his job. "Cows still go alive every day. When cows go alive, it's because they don't give me time to kill them."

This directly contradicts your claim that the entire industry engages in willful torture. Obviously, this unnamed individual wants to have the time to do the job correctly, and seems disturbed when live cattle more forward in the slaughtering process. It’s right there in black and white. Shame on you.

“Although she observed no live cattle being butchered, she concluded that the plant's older-style equipment was "overloaded." Grandin reviewed parts of the workers' videotape and said there was no mistaking what she saw. "There were fully alive beef on that rail," Grandin said. ….”

This is an indictment of IBP, not of the entire industry. Shame on you.

“In reality, many inspectors describe humane slaughter as a blind spot: Inspectors' regular duties rarely take them to the chambers where stunning occurs. Inconsistencies in enforcement, training and record-keeping hamper the agency's ability to identify problems.”

As I said, I have no objection to Federal oversight of the meat processing industry. Have you?

“The meat inspectors' union, in its petition last spring to Washington state's attorney general, contended that federal agents are "often prevented from carrying out" the mandate against animal cruelty. Among the obstacles inspectors face are "dramatic increases in production speeds, lack of support from supervisors in plants and district offices . . . new inspection policies which significantly reduce our enforcement authority, and little to no access to the areas of the plants where animals are killed," stated the petition by the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals.”

Got to fix that. But fixing it is preferable to shutting it down, don’t you think?

“But some inspectors see little evidence the agency is interested in hearing about problems. Under the new inspection system, the USDA stopped tracking the number of violations and dropped all mentions of humane slaughter from its list of rotating tasks for inspectors. …. “

“Now Already, in the face of the reports above, you actually write this:”

>>>You are objecting to what appears to be localized torture, but we have not even gotten corroboration of THAT.

“I have just provided material that shows this torture is not only localized, but occurs on an industry-wide basis.

No, you have not. You have provided a single, uncorroborated newspaper article that points to localized violations, NOT to industry-wide violations. Further, there are numerous point in the article that directly contradict your claim. Either you’re totally deluded, intentionally distorting what’s in the article, or you’re just plain incapable of logical analysis.

“And yes, it is willful torture.”

You utterly failed to demonstrate this. The initial posting of the article didn’t do it, so why you would think reposting it would do so, I have no idea.

“People are choosing to kill animals in this manner,”

SOME people. Not all, as you claim.

“supervisors are choosing to overlook live animals being slaughtered.”

SOME supervisors. Not all, as you claim.

“The industry as a whole, composed of people who act and live in purely willful volition, day to day, are complicit in how this butchering takes place.”

You erroneously indict employees and industry leaders who object to the violations, and who do so IN THE ARTICLE. You are a liar, sir, plain and simple. You claim that individuals who object to the violations are complicit in the misdeeds simply by dint of their employment in the industry. Any first-year philosophy student could spot the logical fallacy you’ve engaged in.

“You are the one who insists on adding the word “willful.”

Yes, I am.

“Fine. Because people are acting of their own volition (no one is FORCING them to engage in such slaughtering practices), the skinning, cutting, and scalding of live animals -- torture -- is being conducted daily in a willful manner.”

No. You erroneously indict employees and industry leaders who object to the violations, and who do so IN THE ARTICLE. You are a liar, sir, plain and simple. You claim that individuals who object to the violations are complicit in the misdeeds simply by dint of their employment in the industry. Any first-year philosophy student could spot the logical fallacy you’ve engaged in.

“You seem to be suggesting that people in these plants are somehow insensible, as though their eyes and ears were shut, and they were completely unaware of the actions they consciously engage in.” And you seem to be suggesting that people who object are somehow automatically guilty of willful torture, and that they are as guilty as the individuals who order the violations.

“Well, the article has disproved you.”

Wrong. It didn’t do it the first time, and it didn’t do it this time, either.

>>>The history of xtianity is replete with violence, misery and death, its stated goals notwithstanding.

“Does this justify your argument that the slaughter and killing of animals is therefore justified, because history is replete with violence? Some argument!”

You really are a dumbass. Your invocation of xtianity as a prime reason to engage in a vegan/vegetarian diet was totally erroneous and totally misplaced, which I demonstrated in the portion you extracted above. This tactic speaks to desperation on your part.

“As for your assertion that I should be fighting the method of slaughter, I should very much like to see a halt to those practices which constitute animal torture. In the meantime, the most basic, fundamentally effective action any individual can take is to reduce one’s consumption of meat products, especially given that the meat industry itself is very powerful, and has influential lobbyists in Washington who already have lessened federal regulatory functions so the industry can “police itself” (chuckle).”

No. Your action presumes that the ENTIRE INDUSTRY is complicit in those misdeeds, and you have still failed to prove that. Until you can prove that, your action is basic, yet not necessarily fundamentally effective, or even aimed in the right direction. It is aimed more at making you feel better than at effecting a solution. Further, you failed to answer my question regarding locally produced meat. If I can PERSONALLY verify the humane treatment and slaughter of meat animals, then what’s your objection?

“For spiritual reasons I have chosen to avoid eating meat, as have millions of Hindus and Buddhists and Christians.”

I work with a considerable number of Hindus and Buddhists. I respect their dietary choices as they respect mine. Unfortunately, it seems that many Western vegans and vegetarians can’t keep their choices to themselves, and see fit to hassle people who don’t agree with them. By the way, there are considerable numbers of Buddhists who eat chicken and fish. Got a problem with them?

“However, I am also a pragmatist, and believe that as long as one desires to eat meat, one should as far as possible look into how the meat they are consuming is produced, and investigate the slaughtering process to see that it is humane.”

You erroneously assume that I have not done so. You further use erroneous data and information, and when I strike it down, you claim that it’s a diversion. Well, you can go fuck yourself.

“Good luck trying to find out, though. Most people have no clue where their meat comes from, or how it was produced, and will be resisted if they try to track its source too far.”

I’m not “most people.”

“You further assert I am equating meat eating with torture. That is untrue, and a rather blatant distortion on your part.”

You are lying. You said: “Wonderful argument there, Already. Just brilliant. No thought involved. Just, in short: I think I will buy products of animals that were tortured alive, because I can, and because I like the taste of them. And because I like the taste, it doesn't matter to me how I gain that taste, even if animals are tortured.”

You are a lying sack of shit.

“I am suggesting that by eating meat products that were produced in an industrialized system that consistently (or “daily”) employs torture, you are, even unwittingly, participating in that industry by supporting it with your dollars. You are not, however, engaging in torture itself. Do you ascertain the difference, Already? It is not complex.”

I can see the difference. Obviously you are backing off your earlier claim. I thought you would.

Can YOU, however, see the difference between ‘meat industry employees,’ ‘meat industry employees who see violations and do nothing,’ ‘meat industry employees who engage in violations’ and ‘meat industry employees who object to violations?’ The difference is not complex, but its subtle nature may elude you.

“I actually agree with you that it is better to not attack the industry itself.”

I think you are being intellectually dishonest again when you say this. You were quite vehemently attacking the industry earlier, and now you’re backing off that. In fact, you seem to be in retreat.

“I believe that meat eaters do not consciously wish to support animal torture, and will oppose it when they hear of it or witness it.”

Sure they will. But they won’t agree with you that willful animal torture is endemic in the industry. And you have still failed to prove that.

“One way a concerned person can resist participating in this system which sometitmes employs animal torture is to simply avoid eating meat.”

Agreed and accepted.

“This is not an attack on the industry itself, it is a conscious, personal, and deliberate choice made by an individual for ethical, spiritual, or health reasons, or for a combination of reasons. There will always be plenty of people who will support the industry.”

Well-stated. I will hold you to these statements as we continue to debate.

“I have never claimed that a vegetarian lifestyle is the ONLY POSSIBLE (your words) solution to this problem.”

Oddly enough, you have claimed that a meat-eating lifestyle is fraught with all sorts of dangers and hazards, even presenting demonstrably false claims to that effect. Why attack meat-eaters so harshly and falsely, unless your aim is to convert people to a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle? Seems to me that you probably do believe that a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle is the only possible solution to that problem.

“I support any effort or act on the part of the government to change the way the industry slaughters animals.”

No proof of the industry’s misbehavior as a whole. Yet you persist in speaking of it as if it were fact.

“I acknowledge the reality that people will eat meat, and therefore would support any system of slaughter that would ensure that cows and other mammals are killed humanely.”

I will hold you to this. I will also observe that you are retreating from your earlier position, in which you bitched about the amount of water and feed used in livestock farming, as well as bacteria, dioxin, artificial hormones (incorrect, BGH is a naturally-occuring hormone) and cancer. What you have done is backed off your previous position, and tried to disavow previous comments. I believe you did this because an aggressive, better-informed omnivore (myself) gave you what-for.

Please try to be honest about your positions and the shifts you’re engaging in. You will get more respect from me if you can do that. I will kick the living daylights out of you if you continue to behave in an evasive manner.

“For purely humanitarian and spiritual reasons, I hope that someday we will forego meat consumption altogether, but do not expect this to occur in my lifetime.”

Good. Because I’m not stopping until a doctor or death forces me to.

“We have established that I would support a change in how meat is slaughtered.”

We have also established some rather significant intellectual dishonesty and some position-changing on your part.

“So let me ask you this, Already. Given your intimate familiarity with modern agricultural practices, what solution(s) do you propose, in a pragmatic sense, to stop the “faulty” stunning of animals in modern slaughterhouses, and to see that such a solution is enforced?”

Tighten up the Federal standards. Direct the USDA to resume policing the industry, and give them teeth when it comes to enforcement. However, you should know that I think that sanitation and worker safety should come before humane slaughter. If an animal is slaughtered humanely, but sanitation suffers, then human lives are potentially made worse as a result. And if an animal is slaughtered humanely, but a worker’s arm is shattered, then we’ve not improved matters.

“In closing, I would merely add that in your responses you have attacked me personally and engaged in a number of illogical arguments that are transparently refuted by the article above.”

Wrong. You attacked me personally, and you have failed to present any evidence to support your erroneous claims. You have failed to read the article with any sense of logic or with any understanding of agriculture at all. You have failed to use any form of reasoning whatsoever, and have instead used unsupportable emotional arguments, and you have called my effective refutations “diversions.” Rather than being “illogical,” as you claim, I have engaged in a logical, yet lively, opposition to your claims.

And you still fail to present any evidence other than the Washington Post article. Pathetic.

“Still, I do not hold it against you. I think your irrationality and bullying are merely symptomatic of your conscience having been stirred, however dimly, by the horrific and disturbing picture the article dauntlessly portrays.”

Wrong, and that’s a personal attack of the kind you just objected to. Rather, my logical rationality and aggression are borne of indignance that is stirred by the lying and misleading emotional arguments of vegetarians who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.

“Despite your ridicule, in truth I am trying to live in a way that furthers the betterment of our planet.”

Ah. And now you are contradicting a claim that YOU made earlier in the post to which I am responding.

“If the earth's arable land were used primarily for the production of vegetarian foods, the planet could easily support a human population of 20 billion or more. No conversion to modern American industrialized agricultural practice is required. That is a principle worth fighting and living for, n’est pas?“

Uh uh. If we converted the world to modern American industrial agricultural production, then people could eat what they liked, rather than submitting to a vegocratic dictatorship, and the earth could STILL support a population of 20 billion or more. Why do you resist the good that can come of advanced agricultural procedures? Do you not want to feed the hungry?

“Even Albert Einstein asserted that "Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."

I don’t listen to Einstein’s commentary on diet any more than I listen to Richard Simmons’ lectures on atomic quanta. Neither should you.

“The case for vegetarianism is more than animal protection, it is also soundly based on bettering our environment and helping the world's starving populations.”

Except that you can’t defend any of your claims about “bettering the environment,” and because advanced ag methods would do a better and faster job, all without submitting to an alleged moral and ethical code to which I (and millions of others) do not subscribe.

“If you decide to respond to me again, Already, I have but one request. I would appreciate your restraint in using profanities such as “fuck you” and “asshole.”

I refuse. If you continue to lie, dissemble and make the sorts of arrogant claims and statements that you have been, then, if anything, I will use them more frequently. If you don’t like it, then that’s too bad. I refuse to post in the manner you request when you refuse to stop lying and when you refuse to present proof.

“Though familiar with these comomplaces, I would respect your argument more, and think we might make progress in coming to any mutual understanding, if such ad homimems are simply avoided.”

I don’t think you respect my argument at all. I think you fear it, and that’s why you don’t respond to my refutations of your fanciful accusations. Tell us again how meat causes cancer, Soy Boy.

“Finally, this being Easter and all, I will leave you again with these thoughtful -- if idealistic -- words:”

Don’t bother. I am an atheist, and don’t much care for your religious platitudes.

“If you read my last post, Tarzan, I did in fact state I am supportive of any effort that is made by government to reduce the slaughtering of live animals.”

You are a lying sack of shit. You said that: “I acknowledge the reality that people will eat meat, and therefore would support any system of slaughter that would ensure that cows and other mammals are killed humanely.”

“In the face of massive federal deregulation, however, a basic, first step to decrease inhumane factory farming would be to stop buying products produced by a system that utilizes animal torture.”

Except that you have not demonstrated that the system AS A WHOLE utilizes what you so colorfully term “animal torture.” More failure on your part.

“Whether such torture is produced by "mistake" or not, it occurs regularly, is regularly overlooked by the industry, and needs to be addressed by the government.”

You make no distinction between mistakes, violations committed under protest, and violations willfully committed. And I reject your continued use of the word “torture.”

“Until then, we can all make our own decisions whether to abstain from supporting an industry that engages in animal torture.”

More emotional hyperbole. Plus, you cast the question in terms of “either you don’t eat meat and therefore don’t support animal torture, or you do eat meat and you do support animal torture.” You cannot defend or support this linkage, yet you continue to use it. You continue to use illogical, emotional arguments, you you accuse your opponent of doing the same. Pitiful.

Tarzan --“You've referred to Already for instance as immoral and compared him to a psychopath who will any day graduate to cannibalism simply because he likes a nice pork chop or cheeseburger." “Actually, I did not write that Already was a psychopath, and do not know who did. I find it entirely arrogant and presumptive that you attribute words to me without any evidence that I have penned them.”

I believe that you probably did write them. Tarzan might care if that upsets you, but I certainly don’t.

“In this connection, I do note that Already's statement that "you can be assured that if the supply of cow, hog, chicken, sheep, goat, duck, turkey, fish, ocean-dwelling arthropod, horse, alligator, snake, bivalves, deer, buffalo, cute fuzzy bunnies, elk, squirrel, turtle (mmmmm, endangered . . . ), ostrich, antelope, bison, bear any any other kind of meat on two legs, four legs, fins, flippers or wings gives out, then you can be assured that I'm coming for you" does seem to imply a kind of willing to engage in cannibalism, even if in a somewhat "tongue-in-cheek" fashion.”

You’re a sick, sick individual. Fuck you.

“I have not suggested a way to end the torture because I simply do not know how to respond to it on a national scale, other than federal regulation.”

How interesting. That’s the only way I can think of to deal with it, too.

“I mean to investigate the work of organizations that are working toward this end. Government regulations have been severely curtailed. In the face of this, I suggest that each of us consume less meat, or at the very least, investigate where the meat they are consuming comes from, and how it was produced.”

Suggestion noted.

“Why is that so offensive to you, Tarzan, especially that meat eating has been linked to cardiovascular disease and cancer?”

I’ll tell you this – meat eating does not CAUSE cancer, as you falsely claimed it did. I think you have some apologies and corrections to make before you start demanding answers to your questions, you arrogant jackass.

“Perhaps you, too, can offer your own solutions and/or ideas instead of merely ridiculing and trying to shame me for abstaining from eating meat.”

Perhaps you can develop constructive approaches for engaging meat- eaters, rather than merely ridiculing and trying to shame them, simply because they eat meat.

No one is trying to ridicule and shame your diet. No one here has attacked you for your dietary choice. You have been attacked because of your high-handed, erroneous, illogical and unsupportable claims AGAINST meat, none of which you have been able to prove or defend.

Keep your eye on the ball, Mister.

“It is true that I have partly built my argument on the torture and suffering of animals.”

It certainly is. And the remainder of your argument has been built on misdirection, lies and emotion.

“Whether a worker is educated or not, whether he is disadvantaged in the social scale, whether he is an illegal immigrant or not, he still has a choice to either stay in a meat packing plant or to move on to a less violent form of work.”

That is not necessarily true, and Tarzan pointed that out to you from the get-go. What an arrogant bastard you are. “Listen, Mr. Uneducated and Disadvantaged Meat Packer – you must find other employment in your isolated rural life, as I am made morally and ethically uncomfortable by the implication of your work, about which I know little.” You go to hell, Soy Boy.

“Needless to say, I reserve most of my contempt for the supervisors who overlook the violations and who punish workers, many of them severely injured, for speaking out against them, as is well documented in the article.”

I agree with this position.

“There is plenty of evidence that supports my position other than this article. For starters, I refer you to: http://www.hfa.org/”

I took an hour to read their website. No footnotes, no names, no citations, no data on research, etc. As far as I can tell, some monkey with an HTML editor put this stuff up. Without scientific studies, citations, evidence and the like, this is no more acceptable than your own myopic opinions.

“If vegetarianism bothers you, it's your problem, not mine.”

And if meat-eating bothers you, then it’s your problem, not mine. No one here is bothered by vegetarianism. We are bothered by the arrogant bullshit of ONE particular vegetarian who seems to be claiming that if we oppose him, we are in favor of willful torture, cannibalism, and against vegetarianism.

Listen up, asshole – you do not represent all vegetarians any more than I represent all military veterans. You are ONE woefully uninformed vegetarian. Opposing you means simply opposing you, not opposing all vegetarians, or even vegetarianism itself.

“Wilful or not (and I believe that our actions, at least while conscious, are always wilful), skinning, cutting, and scalding live animals constitutes torture. It is therefore up to every one of us to decide whether or not we wish to support an industry that engages inadvertently -- yet daily -- in the torture of animals.”

I reject your illogical construct. This rather tortured line of reasoning serves no purpose other than to justify your belief system, and it is unsupportable, illogical and indefensible.

I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain simply to wallow in your bullshit and eat rice and beans.

(Extensive unsupported HFA piece snipped)

-- Already Done Happened (oh.yeah@it.did.com), April 15, 2001.


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