A SUNLESS HELL Confronting the Cruel Facts of Factory-Fa Rmed Meat "'M•

Arizona Republic Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Arizona) · 19 Feb 2006, Sun · Page 64

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A SUNLESS HELL Confronting the cruel facts of factory-fa rmed meat "'M•--

Arizonans can take stand against practices of factory farming

FACTORY FARMING completely out of sight and un any human being causes a vio mane-farming initiative, needs to hear from a broader values or a vegetarian societ y" Continued from VJ able to speak for themselves. lent panic. A mere opening or started things off wilh a blunt range of outside opinion. And on Arizona. For Klinker and Over the years, one miserly the door brings on a horrific reminder that farm animals it may surprise him to learn other lobbyists for factory Just this month, the indus deprivation Jed to another, ever wave of roars, squeals and aren't pets, and so our sympa that the problems of factory farming, surely the lesson is try's allies in the Arizona Legis harsher methods were applied cage-rattling from the sows. thy for them is misplaced. farming are becoming more !hat they should spend a little lature proposed a constitu to force costs lower and lower, Another memorable sight is "These people," Klinker told apparent, and more abhorrent, less time warning about other tional amendment to bar the and so on until the animals the "cull pen," wherein each Tucson Weekly, ''want these an to people of every political people's values, and a Jillie public from passing any laws ceased to be understood as liv and every day, the dead or dy imals raised the same way we stripe. more time examining their promoting the humane treat ingcreatures at all. Pigs, for ex ing bodies of the weak are raise our dogs and cats. I think When the conservative col own. ment of farm animals, effec ample, aren't even "raised" placed, the ones who expired mos1 people understand that's umnist George Will, for exam It is true, as he reminds us, tive Jan. 1, 2006. Nice to have a anymore, a term that once con from the sheer, unrelenting ag not how food is produced." ple, calls cruelty to animals "an that other states have far Callback position: Even if the veyed some human attention ony ofit. When you want people to intrinsic evil," citing the "pain larger "herds" than in Ari humane-fanning initiative and care. These days, in Ameri It takes a well-practiced dis- harden their hearts, however, inflicting confinements and zona's $40 million-a-year pork passes by vote of the people, as ca's 39S,000-kills-per-day pork honesty to insist with a straight it's probably not such a good mutilations" of factory fann industry. But this is hardly a industry lobbyists apparently industry, pigs are "grown," face that intensive confine idea to invite comparisons being, you know it can no longer thought to put one's mind at fear it will, they plan to nullify crowded together by the hun ment is "for their own good," tween fann animals and dogs be shrugged off as the concern rest. The same was also true, the law retroactively. dreds in the automated, scien and almost as brazen is the lib or cats. How would your dog re- of a faint•hearted few. until recently, or Utah, now Basically, pork producers tifically based intensive-con ertarian case for factory farm act if you stuffed her into a Jt~actory fanning, Mr. Will home to a sprawling network or figured out some years ago that finement facilities formerly ing, which may be summed up crale in which she could not observed in Newsweek not nightmarish "mega-farms," all If they packed the maximum known as barns. as "mind your own business." even stretch or turn around, long ago, has become a "serious or them built and run by giant number of pigs into the mini Along with this comes a haugh and never let her out? No hu• issue of public policy." And corporations like Smithfield mum amount of space, if they Unlike the old ways ty little reminder that we're all man attention or companion conservatives in particular, ap Foods, the real outsiders in all pinned the creatures down into To the factory farmer, in con the beneficiaries of factory ship with other animals. No plying that uncompromising of this. The largest of these fit-to-size iron trast to 1he traditional farmer farming, and where do you bedding, straw to lie on. No sin moral clarity on which they places, a sort or gulag for pigs, crates above with his sense of honor and ob think all that cheap meat comes gle moment outdoors, ever, to pride themselves.should not be holds 1.3 million in confine• slatted noors ligation, the animals are "pro from, and why don't we just be feel the breeze or the warmth afraid to call "vicious" things ment and produces more waste and carved out duction units," and accorded all grateful and let them manage of the sun. what they are. every year than metropolitan giant "la the sympathy that term sug• their own affairs? Another conservative writ Los Angeles. goons" to con- gests. As conservative com The argument has a certain What ifit were a dog'/ er, Andrew Ferguson or Bloom Why, Klinker wonders, enact 1ain the ma mentator Fred Barnes put it in practical appeal, provided you Your dog, a being of mtelli berg News, challenged the a law here instead or in Iowa, nure-if they the Wall Strut Journal, "On the forget that factory fanning is gence and emotional capacities "hyper-efficient agricultural North Carolina or Utah? Well, turned the old family farms, pigs and cat propped up by lens of billions entirely comparable to those of economy" and "the cruel inno for starters, maybe Arizonans "farm," in tle and chickens were raised ordo llars in annual federal sub a pig, would beg and wail and vations the modern industrial do not want to go the way of llathw short, mto a for food, but they were free for sidies, which are very defi whimper and finally ran silent farm depends upon." And Fa Utah. And In that case, now sunless hell of a lime; they mated, raised pig nitely our business. Much as into a slate of complete broken• ther Richard John Neuhaus, would be a good time to bar the Scully metal and con lets, calves and chicks and the immiscrated animals are ness. And anyone who innicted writing in the conservative Na door. SPf:CIAl f()tt THElt(P\JeUC crete - it were protected by the farm kept on four legs by hormones such tortures on that animal, no tional Review, expressed his Prepare yourself to hear, in made every• ers They had a life. On indus and antibiotics, the entire en matter what excuses might be disgust at "the horrors perpet the coming months, these argu thing so much more efficient trial farms, they don't." terprise Is sustained by those offered, would be guilty of a uated against pigs on industrial ments and similar rubbish An obvious cost-saver, and Among the more disrepula• federaJ subsidies and billions felony. If the creatures are farms," a matter "that war from industry lobbyists, their from the induslry's standpoint, hie claims made to Justify in• more paid by government to re comparable, and the conditions rants public and governmental shill veterinarians, and anyone that should settle the matter. tensive confinement is that it's pair industrial farming's im identical, and the suffering attention." else they can trot out to make Veal, by derinition, is the actually for the benefit or the mense collateral damage to equal, how can the one be Neuhaus could cite, if he something pernicious and con product or a sick, anemic, de pigs. They "prerer" confine land, water and air. "standard practice" and the needed further authority, Pope temptible seem decent and liberately malnourished calr, a ment to grazing outdoors. They The illusion or consumer other a crime? Benedict XVI, who has warned praiseworthy, Then in the quiet newborn draHed away from need "protection" from each savings depends not only on un Next, In an interview with against the "degrading of Jiv. or the voting booth ask yourself his mother in 1he firs! hours of other's aggression scrupulous corporate Canners, Arizona Capitol Times, Klinker ing crea1ures to a commodity" why any creature of God, how life. Veal calves are dealt the If you know absolutely noth• but also on complaisant citi tried out the "sentimentalist" entailed in factory fanning. ever humble, should be made to harshest of punishments for ing about pigs, this has a zens and bli1hely indifferent line. The initiative, he scoffed, And Protestant Christians endure the dark, lonely, tor the least essential of meats vaguely comforting ring 10 it consumers who don't ask too is based on "pure emotions" - could hear a similar message tured existence of the factory And if you think people can get thal is, until the moment you many questions - least or all as opposed to factory fanning from one or their own most re farm, and what kind or people too sentimental about anunals, step into a factory farm, as I moral questions. And the indus itself, which we are to spected figures, Charles Col build their fortunes upon such try listening sometime 10 chefs have had occasion to do. Inside, try wants to keep it 1ha1 way. assume is guided at every grim son, the conscrvalive evangel misery. and gourmands going on about it becomes dramatically obvi Just buy the "cheap" meat, for stage by the light of pure rea ist who cautions that "When it The answer will send an un the "velvety smooth succu ous !hat their ceaseless, merci get the damned animals, and son comes to animal welfare today, equivocal message, to factory lence" of their favorite rare. less confinement is the cause of keep the subsidies coming. He followed up with a little Christians have allowed the farmers here and to all con "Cost-saver" m industrial the pigs' aggression, and by no Once the details are known, warning that the Humane secular world to set the agenda. cerned, 1ha1 unbridled arro livestock agriculture may usu stretch a protec1ive measure in short, 11 all becomes a very Treatment of Fann Animals ... We need to gel involved in gance, bad faith, and rank cru ally be taken to mean "moral It turns out that when you trap tough sell for factory Canners Ac1 is au the doing of "outsid shaping laws that determine elty are not Arizona values. shortcut" For all of ils "sci intelllgent, 400- to 500-pound And so far their quaint-sound ers" anyway, by which he ence-based" pretensions, fac mammals in gestalion crates ing "Campaign for Arizona means various cranks, subver ~:a~t!::~~~~ i~~~~~~~~ cM-:-a-rrh;--,-w-cs,-,"11,-wo-----,,k-,d-,-fi=-.,-- tory fanning is really Just an 22 inches wide and 7 feet long, Farmers and Ranchers" sives, and social misfits who flnd out how the ... cattle or the Arizona governors Mecham, elaborate, endless series of when their limbs are broken (brought to you by the National apparently are conspiring at earth are treated on ractory Mofford, ond Symington. A evasions from the most el from trying to tum or escape Pork Producers Council and this very moment to Mimpose farms " Christians especially, former special assistant and ementary duties of honest ani and they are covered in sores, other agribusiness trade the values of a vegetarian soci declared Colson, "have a duty deputy director ofspeech writing mal husbandry. Man, the ra blood, tumors, "pus pockets," groups) i5 not going well ety on all Arizonans." to prevent the needless tor- for President Bush, he is the tionalizing creature, can jus and their own urine and excre Industry lobbyist Jim One problem here is that if ment of animals." author of"Dominion: The tify jusl about anything when ment, they tend to act up a b11 Klinker, now director or the Klinker is going to be our de "Outsiders," aJl or them, bul Power ofMan, the Suffering of there is money in sight. It's only Indeed, the most notable Arizona Farm Bureau and lead fender of true Arizona values not lo my knowledge collabora- Animals, and the Cafl to easier when your victims are so thing is how the appearance of spokesman against the hu- against "outsiders," then he torsinanyefforttoimpose"the Mercy."