Why "Cheap Meat" Exists In Less Than Four Minutes...

Or --- If you only have 2 1/2 minutes:



Dave Simon is the author of Meatonomics. No surprise too that he's also vegan. Here's an interview with him on Animal Voices. 

"How can we say we are the most advanced species on earth when we continually choose profits over principles? How can we say we are the most advanced species on earth when we use and abuse animals when alternatives are available?" - Colleen Patrick Goudreau

My Vegan Vote: I Want To Elect A Different Government

I don't want to just cast a vote for who's to be the next prez... I want to elect a different government too. Let's face it - Vegan or not... Republican, Democrat, Independent, Libertarian or Green Party - Your tax dollars go to fund some things that just don't seem like they should.

As for me, I'm not at all happy about the USDA Market Access Program (MAP) that just recently helped establish a market for cow carcasses to Sri Lanka... Yeah, the country that's mainly Hindu and Buddhist, whose diet is primarily plant based. Nothing like tax dollars going to increase the "demand" for beef.

I'd also like a country that didn't purchase $170 million of pork, lamb, chicken, and catfish.  Or a military that buys 94 million lbs. of beef, 64 million lbs. of pork, and 500,000 lbs. of lamb each year. Actually a country (and a world) that has no need for a military sounds even better.

I'd cast a vote for a country that didn't hide information about antibiotic resistance as a result of growing "food" animals.

In addition, I also would vote for a country that doesn't suppress the idea of a "meatless Monday"... One that doesn't allow certain states to violate their own cruelty laws like Pa. does regarding it's horrendous pigeons killing festivals. I'd vote for a country that didn't kill wolves or coyotes to "protect" livestock. I'd  vote for a country that left it's wild horses alone!  I'd vote for a country that banned using animals in circuses. I'd vote for a country that didn't allow programs to "swim with the dolphins", with the tiger cubs or with the alligators. 

I'd vote for a country that didn't find it acceptable to put millions of beings in a position of drowning or burning to death. I'd vote for a country that didn't theatrically "pardon" one bird while promoting the evisceration of millions of others.  

I could go on much longer regarding the country I'd vote for... And certainly no one person will be the one to make much positive change for our animal friends.  So... this sort of sums up what I'm thinking about as I cast my vote tomorrow:

Well... Not really! But what other choice is there??? :/

Speaking of Slaughterhouses & Taxes...

I've seen it time and again throughout the years... A community is either fighting to keep a slaughterhouse away from their neighborhood.  Or slaughterhouses are being built (under protest) with the grace of tax dollars: like the 2.3 million dollar tax break given to a JBS slaughterhouse in Michigan.  Or the proposed 16 million for a hog slaughter plant in Illinois.  Or the $600,000 for a Vermont slaughterhouse... Just a quick search will bring up many more.

I remember a hog slaughterhouse close to where I used to work in Secaucus, New Jersey.  Even though the facility was 20 miles away, by 9 a.m. the air was drenched with a most god-awful odor. The stink just hovered around you... Even your food tasted like the smell.  And the closer you got to the place the nastier everything became.  The flies got thicker with each mile.  So did the trash on the road... The houses block by block appeared more like a "dump" than a neighborhood.   The stores were ratty looking and the infer-structure of the roads was in sad need of repair.  Crime rates escalated too... The closer you got to the slaughterhouse the more dangerous it was for both human and nonhumans.

It took me decades to connect the vileness of the slaughterhouse to the food on my plate... But the smell of death never disappears from my memory.  I'd recognize that putrid stink anywhere.  So believe it - If you're a property owner or real estate speculator you'd be wise to invest your money elsewhere.  Because really... No one (even meat eaters) want's to live near a "packing plant".

above: A selection from Sue Coe's Porkopolis Slaughterhouse, Tucson. 
Copyright © 1989 Sue Coe  

Merry Christmas! Uncle Santa Gifts Dairy - The Whole Year Through

Before I was "Provoked" I was in business for myself... For decades I managed with the market to adjust, tighten my belt, be innovative, work harder, and "flow" with the economic times. When sales were down - my business sense said to change my approach... Or even my product. The customer is always right... Right? When my widgets in my enterprise weren't selling - I suffered the losses and moved on. This is the beauty of the free market... It is based on fair exchange of values... My product purchased without coercion - My buyers, likewise, would give me something I was willing to trade for: "payment". All is equitable in this system. It is the way free exchange and free market contracts are supposed to work... I like those arrangements in finances - Personal responsibility for good and bad decisions. By all that is right and just - a down turned market should be left alone... To sink or swim. To succeed or not. And in the worse case scenario... You can always open up a crisis hot-line for financially challenged farmers... Still, in a free economy neither the truth or the economics would be warped to codify and protect losers. Bailouts would not happen because that would be against the mandates of the consumers dollar - Their "vote". But seems our money is no good around this corrupt scheme. This system that rewards failure by creating an artificial reality... These artificial props allow flunkies to avoid due consequences. A "business" that has been rewarded and gifted for their declining sales is animal agriculture. Indeed the best "customer" to animal ag is Uncle Sam...err, I mean Uncle Santa.
One such package arriving b/4 Xmas is this: "Meat the Need" program which establishes a "tiered-purchase program for the dairy and pork industries", as well as a one-time purchase of "turkey" products. Under this plan - Uncle Santa Sam is buying the "extra" 500 million pounds "goods" to off-set decline in demand/sales. And if cows have been too good at "giving" milk - The Feds can step in with another market adjustment like the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) Objectives To maintain and expand existing markets for dairy which are vital to the welfare of milk producers in the United States. What it is is twisting markets to carry the slack and make payments to "producers" who don't have enough customers.
Let's not forget SNAP Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
And this in August: The government announced a three-month increase in U.S. dairy support prices on Friday that would put an additional $243 million into farmers' pockets and offset the lowest milk prices in 30 years.
In November: Dairy Economic Loss Assistance Payment (DELAP) Program 290 million to dairy
And now to close out the year Uncle Santa is gifting dairy with payments before Christmas. It’s part of the $350 Million dairy relief package passed by Congress to help struggling producers. Sixty-million will be used to buy cheese for government food programs, starting next March. The remaining $290 Million is direct payment relief.
Relief, bailouts, buyouts, subsidies, and dairy farmer support and welfare... What an odd combination to pass as "business" or as "producers". No one wanted these products when they were "cheap"... But now with the Feds help... the taxpayer is forced to buy them... Quite a system they've got! I hope when these "farmers" are at the bank waiting for their stolen money, they take a good look at who is their keeper. They leech from both the exploited cows and humans alike... Indeed they are already "milking it" into the next year: 4 million in grant money coming in 2010 to research why cows aren't making enough babies.
Animal ag... bah-humbug!

HOMELAND SECURITY BIO DEFENSE MEAT ANIMAL LIVESTOCK LAB

Homeland Security Wants to Build Bio-Defense Lab in Kansas. This facility, once built, will continue to experiment, drug, examine, breed and kill thousands of animals to find ways to keep them healthy so that we can slaughter them for "food".

This proposed new defense lab will protect the livestock industry against the introduction of foreign animal and zoonotic diseases. Testing on animals for Foot and Mouth Disease, hog cholera, African Swine Fever, Rift Valley Fever, Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia, and other assorted viruses that effect livestock.

Ouch! from what I read those diseases really cause immense pain and suffering... And sadly, the animals are killed in the end - anyway.

30,000 different tests on "livestock" animals have been taking place at the current animal disease center off the coast of Long Island - a facility in operation since the 50's. The 840 acre Plum Island experimental lab's official statement is: "We work to protect farm animals, farmers and ranchers, the nation's farm economy and export markets... and your food supply."

Not hardly, I don't consider animals "food"....

In 1991, Plum Island's freezers (which contained polio samples), were threatened following a power outage. It's only been open to news media since 1992. And in 1995, the Department of Agriculture was issued a $111,000 fine for improperly storing hazardous chemicals on the island.

And the Department of Agriculture is responsible to pay whom for this violation?

In 2002 many scientists and government officials wanted the lab to close because the center did not merit its $16.5 million annual budget. Later that year the Disease Center was transferred from the United States Department of Agriculture to the United States Department of Homeland Security.

Of course there will be tests on anthrax as livestock are exposed to this threat daily from the spores on the vegetation they ingest.

Congressional law stipulates that live foot-and-mouth disease cannot be studied on the mainland as it is extremely contagious among cloven-hoofed animals, and people who have come in contact with it can carry it to other animals. Accidental outbreaks of the virus have occurred in 1978 in which the disease was released to animals outside the center, and two incidents in 2004 in which foot and mouth disease was released within the center.

Human animals can be infected with a strain of this disease - causing illness with headache, fever and possibly blisters appearing on the hands or feet, or in the mouth.

Aptly named: Hand Foot Mouth Disease...

Dr. Michael Carroll in his book Lab 257, alleges a connection between Plum Island Animal Disease Center the outbreaks of three infectious diseases: West Nile Virus, Lyme Disease, and Dutch duck plague. Two years ago, Plum Island scientists analyzed horses that were dying on Long Island and found the West Nile virus that mysteriously turned up in mosquitoes in the New York area.

Hummm... Unfortunately, Plumb Island operates at only Biosafety Level 3 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-9 mandates a facility capable of level 4 biosafety capabilities. The proposed National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) would research biological threats involving zoonotic, "high-consequence" livestock diseases. There will also be a National Veterinary Stockpile containing sufficient amounts of animal vaccine, antiviral, and therapeutic products to appropriately respond to the most damaging animal diseases affecting human health and the economy. This new disease center will protect the nation's food supply, insuring that livestock owners investments are protected.

With a $650 million price tag to American tax payers I have to ask why are we footing the bill to protect the interests of cow ranchers and pig farmers? I run a business too, no one "secures" my interests with tax dollars. And my business doesn't even risk exposing anyone to deadly zootonic disease. Nor does it perform painful needless tests and cause injury to innocent animals... What about the taxpayers, who don't consider "animals food" - And who thrive on a plant based Vegan diet?

Oh not to worry, this new facility will also include A National Plant Disease Recovery System. It will be studying wheat smut and soybean rust... Which by the way, are a main "feed" staple... for livestock.

source:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/02/20040203-2.html

http://www.dhs.gov/xres/labs/editorial_0762.shtm

http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=19400000

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-26-092.asp http://cattletoday.info/anthrax.htm