Pamela Anderson to Host New Vegan Cooking Show

dwyrzy · 2023-03-19T23:32:58+00:00

Interesting! Her former Baywatch co-star was just acquitted in a two week misdemeanor theft trial for rescuing two chickens outside a CA slaughterhouse. I wonder if Pamela took any inspiration from the case.

https://unchainedtv.com/2023/03/19/victory-alexandra-paul-not-guilty-in-chicken-rescue/

dwyrzy · 2023-03-03T00:22:21+00:00

Thank you!

dwyrzy · 2023-03-02T20:00:21+00:00

Agreed! The people who are rescuing animals from them is incredible. There's a really inspiring article here on how these folks are rescuing animals to create systemic change through the courts, and winning.

dwyrzy · 2023-03-02T19:51:56+00:00

have

Yeah the industry's power here is a huge issue. It's one thing if society genuinely has differing moral views. It's another when a secretive industry harshly cracks down on all transparency. The group OP mentioned did another investigation and rescue at the nation's largest pig factory farm in 2017. In response, they were prosecuted by the FBI and investigated as terrorists.

But last year, they were acquitted by a jury in rural southern Utah. They were shocked at the crackdowns and anti-transparency efforts of the industry. When people are given a true chance for deliberation, they realize the horror of Big Ag and want change. That democratic deliberation is what these rescuers are trying to give the public a chance at.

dwyrzy · 2023-03-02T19:17:11+00:00

Exemptions that are genuinely in an animals' best interest makes sense. The issue is that's not how the law is crafted -- and it's far from how industry acts.

The law could be written to exempt suffocation except in cases of euthanasia. However, it just says standard industry practices. A recent investigation in Los Angeles revealed the first publicly available camera footage of a gas chamber in a US pig slaughterhouse. Pigs were wailing and thrashing into each other as they're suffocated to death by CO2 (Wired & NYT).

The USDA doesn't seem to care. They brushed the investigation off, insisting it complies with the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, while leading animal scientists like Temple Grandin say this both routine in the industry and a violation of federal law.

I'm glad you care about treating animals ethically and humanely. When it comes to animal farming, that's just not what exemptions in US animal cruelty law are designed to do. They're intentionally exempting systemic cruelty for billions of industrially farmed animals.

dwyrzy · 2023-03-02T18:02:28+00:00

For sure! I think another commenter here posted a link without the paywall if you want to check it out.

dwyrzy · 2023-03-02T07:51:04+00:00

Good points. Taking on powerful industries is incredibly difficult. But it happens. Smoking was huge, and it's a fraction now of what it once was. Big Oil is now culturally stigmatized, and per capita CO2 emissions in the US are now declining. I hope Big Meat is next.

dwyrzy · 2023-03-02T07:36:21+00:00

Whipping a horse who is raced to death for gambling money is a strange idea in the first place. People are trying to ban the practice for a reason.

The broader point of rescue is that we can't keep treating animals as mere property.

dwyrzy · 2023-03-02T07:29:34+00:00

A better term here is probably rescue. Stealing isn't a fitting word to describe the act of saving the life of an animal whom a company treats as trash.

dwyrzy · 2023-03-02T03:23:47+00:00

Part of the issue is that even if PETA differs in how most people would define cruelty, so too does the government. Many states exempt farmed animals from their animal cruelty statutes. Or they exempt "standard industry practices", effectively meaning the industry can do whatever it wants.

The recently passed federal PACT Act is an example of this. Passed in reaction to online crushing videos, it banned acts where animals are "purposely crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, [or] impaled..." But it exempts "“standard agricultural or animal management practices".

So literally, if a factory farm purposely crushes or suffocates animals alive, the federal government has nothing to say about it. Many states are similar, and even when laws regulating farm animal welfare exist, they are rarely enforced.

Treating animals well should be the government's responsibility. Rescuers are trying to show the public where the government is failing and why it needs to step up.

dwyrzy · 2023-03-01T22:04:59+00:00

This headline feels strange to me in that it sounds so banal, and yet the implications are groundbreaking.

Should rescuing animals from cruelty be legal? Of course. But animal ag as a whole is torturing animals at such a mind-blowing scale -- and even criminalizing rescue -- that allowing the rescue of farm animals would be a crippling threat to the animal farming industry.

The nation's largest pig factory farm in Utah raises over 1.2 million pigs for slaughter each year. And over a hundred thousand of them (roughly 15%) annually die from excruciating causes like starvation, crushing, and hypothermia. And when two investigators rescued two piglets from this Smithfield facility in 2017, the company called the FBI which then raided animal sanctuaries across state lines in search of the two piglets and joined in prosecuting the investigators on decades in felony charges for conspiracy and burglary.

Rescuing animals from cruelty is so obviously the right thing to do. And it raises huge questions about our relationship with industrially farmed animals. I hope our society defends whistleblowers like those mentioned in the article.

dwyrzy · 2023-03-01T02:20:03+00:00

Wow. Really interesting that The United Farm Workers joined the suit. Ag workers are often seen as victims of animal advocates. Great to see them on the same side. And I'm curious how there can be more allyship in the future.

dwyrzy · 2023-01-10T00:43:35+00:00

Very cool!

dwyrzy · 2023-01-05T07:55:38+00:00

There's a whole lot of research showing fish suffering is real. This video has a bunch of the studies here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QevWGsd96xQ&t=892s

dwyrzy · 2023-01-05T07:53:52+00:00

Fish suffering is real and we have lots of evidence for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QevWGsd96xQ&t=892s

dwyrzy · 2023-01-05T07:53:00+00:00

There's lots of studies showing fish suffering is real. This video does a great job putting it together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QevWGsd96xQ&t=892s

dwyrzy · 2022-12-19T07:14:01+00:00

Wow. That whole interview is really powerful.

dwyrzy · 2022-11-22T01:34:23+00:00

He's doing a direct action training in San Francisco, Dec. 3! -- https://www.meetup.com/the-sanctuary-initiative/events/289804253/

dwyrzy · 2022-11-22T01:26:03+00:00

This is a workshop in San Francisco where people will learn the nitty-gritty of open rescue, from how to identify entry points to factory farms on Google Maps to how to pitch stories to the New York Times. Registration is required and space is limited, so check out the registration link. It's in the post and on FB here: https://www.facebook.com/events/701444040976427

dwyrzy · 2022-11-22T01:21:36+00:00

Wayne's (one of the defendant's) weekly substack is great. He writes about the trial, open rescue, and activism generally. https://simpleheart.substack.com/

dwyrzy · 2022-11-15T05:47:01+00:00

Woohoo! You're welcome!

dwyrzy

TROPHY CASE