A pair of articles today from our primary provider of print news, the NY Times company, that starkly underline how important it is for our political leaders to support animal welfare in Massachusetts. First up, the Globe explains how organic dairy farming has created jobs in Vermont. The article would have been better if it had also included some reporting on Massachusetts dairy providers — there are some — but the basic point that treating animals decently has led to jobs in New England should not be lost on any candidate.
Second, Bob Herbert writes in the NYT about the harsh working conditions at the union-busting Smithfield foods abbatoir in Tar Heel NC where 32,000 hogs are killed every day. He quotes former Smithfield worker Edward Morrison, whose job required him to flip 200- and 300-pound hog carcasses, hour after hour, as follows: “Going to work on the kill floor was like walking into the pit of hell. They have these fire chambers, big fires going, and this fierce boiling water solution. That’s all part of the process that the carcasses have to go through after they’re killed. It’s so hot in there. And it’s dark and noisy, with the supervisors screaming, and that de-hair machine is so loud. Some people can’t take it. I would go home at night and my body would be all locked up because I was dehydrated. All your fluids would just sweat out of you on your shift. I don’t think the company cared. Their thing was just get that hog out the door by any means necessary.” Anyone eating this company’s products should think carefully about the provenance of their sausages.
The reason to treat animals well is because it makes good economic sense, when one takes a long-term view and factors in the ancillary costs of factory farms, and because treating animals badly degrades our entire society and leads to poor treatment of people. These two articles, I submit, offer support for these propositions. Candidates who want to distinguish themselves from the herd, as it were, have much to gain by adding support for animal welfare and local farmers who treat animals decently to their campaign platforms.
Certainly animal welfare is a topic of interest to many, though mostly to progressives. The Smithfield Foods description sounds gruesome, but Upton Sinclair wrote all about this 100 years ago.
<
p>
I don’t see any difference between the local butcher in Chinatown grabbing a clucking, flapping chicken from its crate and lopping its head off in front of the customer or having Frank Purdue do it. In both cases the chicken is cacciatori.
<
p>
How does animal welfare equate to jobs in MA? Do you mean more jobs than if large-scale agribusiness were promoted in MA? Or do you mean that large-scale farms are impossible in here and promoting small-scale ones would at least add some jobs?
<
p>
Lastly, you state “treating animals badly degrades our entire society and leads to poor treatment of people.” Can you provide any citations? I’m curious … are you a vegitarian?
<
p>
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. On the average voter’s list of important campaign issues, does this even register? What would the average voter think of a candidate who raised this issue? My sense is they’d think the candidate would be a not-so-serious office holder if they’re spending time on animal welfare issues when MA is losing population and jobs.
The Politician who pushes for animal rights will have 1) 100% of the cow and chicken vote; 2) votes of animal rights activists that he’d have gotten anyway; 3) wasted his time advocating against factory farms when there are none in Mass nor is there any real prospect for them in Mass.
The Globe story shows that Vermont, which aggressively supports local farmers, has added jobs. Massachusetts should step up its efforts in this area. It would be best if the local butcher Miss. Shepherd (evidently a mutton fancier) cites were chopping up a free range Massachusetts organic chicken. As to the connection between brutality toward animals and aberrant behavior in people, here is a citation, as if any were needed. Voters respond to candidates that are focused on real-world solutions. Treating animals well creates jobs and reduces the number of serial killers: that’s a combo worth voting for.
The 2 studies cited by your citation claim dangerous psychopaths also were mean to animals. I don’t see the “drinking alcohol leads to drunk driving” cause-and-effect.
<
p>
Many arguements I see on BMG employ faulty logic similar to how accurately sun-spot activity predicts World Series winner. Accurately predicting something doesn’t prove causality.
<
p>
You think Jeffery Dahmer was normal until he started to mistreat cats and dogs?
If you have to be convinced that drinking alcohol leads to drunk driving the regressives are in even worse trouble than I thought.
He pointed out, with sarcasm, that your “obvious” point was ephemeral.
<
p>
Just because it has been observed that violent and sadistic people who victimize other people also victimize animals (the photo in your link seems to suggest that the animals in question are the neightborhood kitties) does not mean that any person has been violent to any other person because Tyson raises chicken in “factory” farms.
I was trying to say that while drunk driving is always caused by drinking, mistreating animals is a likely subset of a mental problem which is at the root of murder or other violent crime directed at man.
Bob: “there are some”? Try Our Family Farms, a dairy co-operative in Western Massachusetts.
There are some.
First, the Globe article doesn’t say a word about jobs added. I suspect that the growth of the organic milk business stems the loss of farm jobs and adds few. I don’t think State government can claim any hand in the success here; it’s just farmers responding to the market place. Good for them.
<
p>
Second, the candidate who comes out in support of fuzzy animals and against serial killers is really going on a limb, huh (sarcasm mine).
<
p>
My only point is that ‘factory-farming’ is so minor in Massachusetts that the politician who takes a stand on something that affects so few constituents misses the bigger points or else, is pandering.
<
p>
But last, assuming you have expectations from your political candidate about how an animal should be treated, I’d first like to share my work experience growing up on a rural NC farm.
<
p>
As a teenager, I had the experience of working in both a (large) chicken house and a (small) beef slaughter house.
<
p>
Each was a great incentive to not be a farmer.
<
p>
Each slaugherhouse was a dark, dusty, unpleasant, generally dirty, large structure where animals are stored until they are killed. I’d leave work each day covered in dirt and filth, blowing my nose to get rid of a seemingly infinite supply of dust, despite wearing a dust filter while in the chicken house.
<
p>
BTW, neither slaugherhouse I worked in is what you or I would consider a “factory-farm” although any chicken house is typically pretty big.
<
p>
Killing a steer was usually quick. They would use a ‘weapon’ (instrument, thing…not sure what it was called) with a gunpowdered charge to the steer’s head. Now I understand the large houses use a mechanical sledge.
<
p>
Small slaugherhouses do it in smaller volumn than large houses, but now, both do it using the same technique. Once dead, the steer’s throat was immediately sliced and it was immediately hung upside down to drain before butchering.
<
p>
I’m not sure how the large poultry farm kill chickens, but I’ve seen the free-range organic chicken farm methods:
<
p>
Slowly make the pen (even free range chickens are raised in large wire pens) area smaller and smaller with netting; then round them up and capture them by grabbing their legs (the “catchers” catch and carry 8-10 chickens at once; I worked as a “catcher”), fling them onto a block, chop the head then fling the chicken away as it flops around for several minutes until its dead.
<
p>
Those who weren’t so deft with an axe would grab the chicken by the head and spin it until its neck broke.
<
p>
When you’ve seen the slaughter at a large factory or a small one, you’ll probably agree with me that killing an animal is pretty unpleasant in either case.
<
p>
Now, given my description of my experiences, and assuming you believe my descriptions are accurate, should the politician of your choice attempt to regulate anything I’ve described?
<
p>
Do I understand your posts to say that you are seeking for a candidate to have a platform for regulations that describe how animals should be raised and killed?
What is so hard about this? Candidates should encourage growing industries, including organic milk farms and facilities that produce meat using systems that are not cruel to animals. There is a reason places like Whole Foods are selling at P/Es above industry averages and that Wal Mart is starting to sell organic foods: people want them. As to your specific experiences, my comments were about how animals were raised, not how they were killed. If there are facilities in Massachusetts where animals, and the workers who tend them, are treated badly, I think a candidate who fights for decent food and for worker protections will do better than one who supports cruelty and workplace abuses. Where would your sympathies be?
I like your idea, Bob, but I think any candidate looking to try to help agriculture in the state should add organic to their portfolio. But they should refrain from making it a shibboleth. We do have dairy farms and they need our support. We have maple sugarers and they need our support. We have vegetable farmers and Community Supported Agriculture projects and pickle packers and sausage makers and they all need our support. You say organic is a growth industry, which may be true. But even in the Globe story, it says that organic is a small percentage of the overall Vermont dairy industry. If your proposal is to favor organic producers in lieu of helping out existing agriculture generally, I fear it may end up causing more harm than good.
I also think candidates should support bio-tech. That doesn’t mean I think they should not support the GE plant in Lynn or other high-tech manufacturing businesses. We need jobs, and higher incomes! Right now, though, on the topic at hand, I can’t see any discussion from the candidates about helping Massachusetts agriculture and growth industries like organic farming and decently raised animal products from eggs to free range broilers — and that, to me, is an opportunity for aggressive candidates and a something that critics like our humble blogosphere should point out. Deval Patrick, for example, writes that he sees “expanding agricultural enterprise in western Massachusetts, including environmentally sensitive forestry on state lands.” Very good, but it would be even better if he wrote something like “in particular organic farmers and establishments that treat animals in a decent manner because those areas can be an engine for job creation and rising agricultural incomes in Massachusetts.” Nothing at all about agriculture from Gabrieli or Reilly. Anyway, I think you and I agree, and I think the dyspeptic folks who have been sniping are reacting with misplaced emotion rather than reason. Maybe they’re not eating well.