Blue Mass Group

William Saletan, the national affairs correspondent for Slate, has an interesting article in which he compares our current system of factory farming to slavery and the subjugation of women: a practice whose time is past. I personally, meat-eater that I am, haven’t been able to shake this issue since I started thinking about it a few years ago after I read Fast Food Nation. I keep wondering: How can one justify keeping pigs, creatures as intelligent as dogs, in conditions where they cannot even lie down or turn around, for months or years, until they are killed? They often, understandably, go mad from stress and distress. My dog would. Wouldn’t yours? I haven’t been able to find a respectable answer. Right now where I think I come out is that I want any animal that I eat to be treated decently before it dies for me.

The secrecy of the meat industry — slaughterhouses closed to reporters; producers that clam up, as it were, as soon as questions about the conditions of their animals start to be asked (try it and see), adds to my sense that something is awry in our carniverous Denmark.

I wonder where the Governor and LG candidates stand on animal welfare at the farms and slaughterhouses of the Commonwealth. Do they want to encourage it? Do they support alternative organic farms? What? I couldn’t find a mention of this issue on any candidate websites although the environment, health care, and guns and violence, among other issues, are discussed in impressive detail on Patrick’s website, Tom Reilly features a picture of a chap propped up on a hay bale, and Chris Gabrieli has answers for a wide variety of issue-based questions.

This issue is deep in our history. In 1641, just 20 years after the landing at Plymouth Rock, the Pilgrims included in their Body of Liberties safeguards to protect all living creatures. Our MSPCA is the second-oldest humane society in the USA. George Thorndike Angell founded the organization in 1868 after two horses — each carrying two riders over 40 miles of rough roads — were raced until they both dropped dead, according to the Society. As the inscription at the base of the statue in his honor in Post Office Square explains, an important reason to treat animals well is because the way we treat them has a direct impact on the way we treat each other.

In any event, Saletan writes:

I was at a Boston delegates event that Andrea Silbert hosted at the Milky Way in JP tonight and Felix Arroyo attended and endorsed Andrea! I am a big fan of Felix’s and love what he’s doing on the Boston City Council.  He is also the pre-eminent Latino political figure in the Greater Boston area, so to have his support should cause ripples throughout the Progressive and Latino communities. Although no one would expect Andrea to receive the number of endorsements from state reps and others that politicians like Tim Murray and Deb Goldberg receive simply because they have been in the game for so long, some endorsments mean more than others, and Felix’s is one of those.  I am so excited that my favorite councilor has endorsed my favorite LG candidate!

The Herald reports that, in response to Deval Patrick’s blockbuster financial disclosure, Tom Reilly released the following statement: The truth and Deval Patrick are clearly strangers when it comes to Ameriquest. He claims to have been the point person who set Ameriquest on a ‘better course,’ but that is empty rhetoric to the hundreds of Massachusetts families who had their homes threatened by this predatory company. Sadly, the problems continue to this day. It seems to me that he reaped a big payout on the backs of the very people who were scammed by his company. Cut through all the campaign BS in there, and focus on the text that I’ve highlighted.  The problems continue to this day??  Uh, Tom, haven’t you been crowing nonstop since January about a big ol’ settlement that was supposed to take care of those “problems”?  If Ameriquest is still behaving badly, doesn’t that reflect as poorly on you as it does on Patrick?

With all due respect, it’s time for him to go. 1)  Can’t win the big one.  We have not been able to grab the Corner Office under his “leadership”. 2)  His victory claims are unwarranted.  The Dems picked up three seats when Romney made his attempt to take some legislative seats for the Republicans.  Please point me to the how the state party helped that along. 3)  Senator Scott Brown.  Brown was and is a lightweight.  In a special election to replace a sitting Dem, and where the state party in an overwhelming Democratic state had no other race to focus, Phil could not deliver the goods. 4)  We owe it to Senator Kennedy to stop the wind farm.  Please.  Nobody is a bigger Kennedy fan than I (except amybe Phill), but it’s always bad form to base a major policy decision on being in the tank for Ted.  I guess you’ve got to give him points for candor in being against the wind farm because Ted says so – as opposed to for policy reasons).  And it’s particularly bad form to for a state chair to bash certain guberatorial candidates on the eve of the convention.  Of course, I [...]

From Jon Keller’s blog: Some items of immediate note: -Patrick earned $360,070 last year from ACC Capital Holdings Inc., the parent company of controversial mortgage-lender Ameriquest; -He earned $3,129,126 in 2005 from his work as a “consultant and former senior executive” for the Coca-Cola Company, where he formerly served as general counsel; -He made $295,266 last year from Reebok International of Canton, even though he resigned from their board of directors in April 2005; -Patrick is currently paying off three separate mortgages (valued at more than $300,000) on property he owns in Atlanta and Richmond, Massachusetts; -He lists ownership of 250 different securities and investments, including the likes of Bayer, Biogen, Cablevision, Chevron, District of Columbia muni bonds, Dow Chemical (!), Marriott, Marathon Oil, Merck, Petsmart, and Verizon; [that's my link from Dow] -Under “trust-owned securities and investments,” Patrick lists such holdings as Archer Daniels Midland, Chubb, Domino’s Pizza, EMC Corp., Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. Lots of interesting narratives in that info; Patrick’s had an interesting life on the way to making lots of money. The Coke settlement is enormous, of course, and probably represents the acrimonious situtation in which he left; they must have wanted to [...]

Although I committed early to support Deval Patrick at the convention, I have not yet made a decision about whom to support for Lt. Governor.  Here are my thoughts on the candidates so far.  I’m very open to well-reasoned arguments and respectful opinions from the BMG community. Tim Murray I know very little about Tim Murray.  This alone is a concern to me, as I have learned quite a bit about the other two candidates via their campaigns.  Mayor Murray’s campaign, on the other hand, has sent me only a couple of mail pieces with little substantive information and has not otherwise contacted me. I do think there’s something to be said for someone with direct (and reportedly successful) experience in an executive-branch office.  Being mayor of a city like Worcester is no easy feat, and he’s done it in a way that has allowed him to maintain and build support over three terms. Andrea Silbert As a Deval Patrick supporter, I’ve noticed that many other Deval supporters are backing Andrea Silbert.  This makes me wonder what they know that I haven’t figured out yet.  From what I’ve seen, her positions on some of the big issues aren’t substantially different [...]

It’s hard to know how much to make of this, but I just got an interesting call from the Chris Gabrieli campaign.  They called because I was on their list of committed delegates for the convention.  If they were correct, it wouldn’t be an interesting call.  As a committed Deval Patrick delegate, however, who has been very public with his support of Patrick and has never had a communication with the Gabrieli campaign, I found it interesting indeed. Now, if I’m the only mistake in their database and it was a result of clicking the wrong name in a list or something, this is no big deal.  If, however, they have several “false positives,” the Gabrieli campaign could be in for a big surprise on Saturday.

Bill Weld’s New York minute will come tomorrow when the state Republican Party holds its convention. The Daily News has already endorsed the former Massachusetts governor and would-be educator. The New York Times covers the story here. Weld is considered the likely Convention favorite because his opponent John Faso, a darling of the extremist Conservative Party, is considered too regressive to win in this increasingly blue state. Faso, among other positions, opposes abortion rights.

Deval Patrick disclosed today that he had $3.8 million in income in 2005. He gave $300,000 to charity and paid $1.5 million in taxes. Hey, Frank Phillips, seems that Patrick can pay those monthly mortgage bills without too much difficulty, don’t you think? Also seems like he may be able to contribute more money to his campaign down the stretch if he needs to. Massachusetts has elected a lot of rich guys to high office: Kennedy, Kerry, Weld, and Romney come to mind. Some were born into money, some made it themselves. Anyone want to explain why being rich will be a problem for Patrick? (I just wonder why he waited this long to do his disclosure.)

I was just checking out the OCPF website, looking at the newly formed committees. An individual named Ted Sarandis filed as an un-affiliated for Governor’s Council. Does anyone know if this is the same Ted Sarandis formerly of WEEI? (I always thought that Dennis and Callahan was the most political show on that station, but that’s a matter for another posting….)