wellington pork demo.

Wrote to TVNZ & TV3 complain this was not on the 6pm news tonight. Surely the Pork Industry wouldn't have threatened withdrawing advertising $$$$$ if either TV station aired their coverage of this protest ? Surely their editorial integrity would be a bastion against such base disregard for newsworthy items ? Yeah right.

well, firstly, theres heaps of fake meat products around, and the quality is pretty good these days. (not as good as what you can get in the UK, but its improving all the time)
secondly, meat is ultra bad for you! and devastating the planet as well
if you want some selfish reasons to go vegetarian.

in the end it comes down to how much you really care about others.....you don't need to eat pigs to survive, so its really just a question of violence and suffering for no good reason whatsoever other than ones own greed.

there is no 'deal' one can do with human animal husbandry, that is unless you want to offer your own body to a carnivious animal to get some *real* reciprocation going.

(let me know when you decide to do that btw....should be entertaining all round)

love and liberation,
c.

really, cool action!
all the best&greetings from austria!

I had a beard but it was kinda hard to rant thru the megaphone with it on, so its slipped down around my neck in the photo

sorry!

Hi Don,
(Santa Claus here)
Yes sow crates do suck and so does factory farming. And most of the public agree it should be banned, even if they continue to eat meat. But animal rights activists believe pigs and other animals should have one simple right, the right not to be property. If a pig is the property of a farmer, the farmers right to do what ever he wants with his property, will always win over the pigs right to be free and/or alive. Thats the difference between animal welfare (treat them nice but dont change the fact that they are the property of us to be used sold and killed for money) and animal rights. Which is why we are pushing the message that the ultimate solution to the problem of animal abuse is to 'abolish the property status of animals' (to use the words of Prof Gary Francione who is a very clever animal rights writer). Its kinda like the reform vs revolution debate that goes on in the left. yes we have to fight for what is possible in the present political situation (and I think a ban on factory farming is possible and desirable) but we also beleive that ultimately the heart of the problem is that animals are treated as property/slaves etc to be exploited for profit, and that has to end before animals can be free from exploitation. Its not about stopping your cat from chasing birds, its about stopping the mass exploitation of animals by humans.

Ultimately when it comes to a choice between the right of a pig to be free and not a piece of meat, versus the yummyness of your lunch, no we can't do a deal. We dont need to eat meat . We have a choice (unlike your cat) and if we choose to eat meat then we are contributing, in our own small way, to a horrible industry that kills about 100 million animals every year in NZ alone. No one is asking you to be an animal rights activist. All we are asking people is that after you have finished your weeks work and your activism, and you go to the supermarket to buy your groceries, avoid the meat shelf and get stuff from the other shelfs. Being vegetarian takes the same amount of time and money as eating meat each week, but you cut out the blood and guts and its healthier too. The leading cause of deaths in this country (heart disease, strokes etc) are caused mainly by the fact that we eat far too much meat and dairy products compared to what the human body is designed for (like apes, our bodies are designed to work best on lots of fruit and vegetables, biologically speaking, we can handle the occasional bit of meat, but certainly not every day for fifty years).

Theres two interesting articles about animal rights and the left that are worth a read if you are keen. Both are by Gary Francione who is an american animal rights author

Animal Rights from the left - a general rant about why the left should be concerned about animal rights
http://www.animal-law.org/library/left.htm

this one is a radio talk he did about talking to a lefty freind of his about vegetarianism, kinda like what Im doing now but far better written
http://www.animal-law.org/commentaries/mr14.htm

Hes also written a whole lot about why the animal rights movement should see it see itself as part of the left and start acting like it, which is also good, but I'll save those for another day!

Santa

Consumer boycotts almost always hurt workers in the industrial and service industries. If we all stop eating meat most of the country will be out of a job.

Of course, you could argue that the economy could be reorganised - dairy farmers could turn to cropping, for instance - but this can't be done by most farmers, let alone most workers. Most dairy farmers are struggling to meet mortgage payments, and couldn't afford to spend the hundreds of thousands it would take to move to, say, cropping. Meat industry workers can't retrain overnight.

The only way the economy could be reorganised away from meat production is if it was put under democratic control and an economic plan was instituted. But this means, of course, socialism. For this reason, I think all animal rights activists should become socialists. With an economy being democratically planned they'd at least have the ability to put forward the argument for a reorientation away from meat and try to win support for it.

Right now in Venezuela the agricultural sector is being reorganised on a massive scale, as millions of hectares of land is redistributed to formerly landless peasants. Some of this land consists of parts of cattle ranches that lay idle under the ownership of multinationals like Vestey's and also local landlords. Peasants are setting up collective and co-operative dairy farms on this liberated land. Personally I think this is fantastic.

The point has been made that dairy farming is quite inefficient, and this is certainly true in some instances, but it is also peculiarly suited to the transition from capitalist to socialist farming. It is possible to break up a large estate
producing cash crops or a staple like rice, and redistribute it to the landless in small plots.
But is is far harder to do the same thing with dairy farming, which is so large-scale and capital-intensive that it requires collaborative effort. There is a natural impetus driving the farmers to collectivise their effort, and in doing so break with the logic of capitalism. We can see this in practice right now in Venezuela.

(Even in New Zealand, dairy farmers formed co-ops out of necessity to fund the construction of milking sheds, freezing works, wharves, and even railways, and to market their products overseas. These co-ops had a number of very progressive features - for instance, some of them gave members free medical treatment and access to other social services. The corporatisation of the co-op and the rise of Fonterra have eroded these features, of course.)

Scott said:
The only way the economy could be reorganised away from meat production is if it was put under democratic control and an economic plan was instituted. But this means, of course, socialism. For this reason, I think all animal rights activists should become socialists.

yes, I agree. always have. lets do it. in the meantime we can continue to campaign for both animal rights and democratic control of the economy/socialism. However I think socialists should also become vegetarians as socialists surely oppose the exploitation of animals for profit? Until we get socialism and or animal liberation, its worth fighting for the abolition of animal abuse bit by bit and spreading vegetarianism as well

Santa

wow, great! Best wishes from Germany...

fucken awsome guys xoxo

The web site closure and related pig crate issue were mentioned on the 9 am National Radio news today, so that's more free publicity. Hope you can get the site up again soon.

nice action!

the website is back up again www.premierbacon.co.nz
yes Spellah, you should buy a santa suit.
are you still up near the north pole? come and visit us soon