Activists strategize at the Animal Rights National Conference
Animal rights extremists are going to ramp up their efforts to abolish animal agriculture and move to a meatless society. Here’s their plan.
August 16, 2019
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog titled, “On activists, cyber bullying & meatless propaganda.”
The post emphasized the various strategies that animal rights and environmental extremists employ to harass producers, confuse consumers and widen the divide between rural and urban America.
A great example is the religious angle.
“The last barrier for animal rights groups is to win the war on religion,” said Wes Jamison, PhD, associate professor of public relations at Palm Beach Atlantic University. “Christians believe that we were created in the image of God, and animals are not. Activists understand this, so they are taking a philosophical call to arms against Christians to change the way we view animals and people. They want to try to influence people that eating animals is somehow morally wrong.”
If you missed my blog post on that topic, you can check it out here, “Yes, Jesus would eat meat & you can, too.”
Additionally, in recent weeks, we’ve seen activists target 4-H youth at county fairs.
READ: Activists vandalize youth 4-H projects at the county fair
We’ve seen these extremists try to team up with law enforcement and even buy Facebook shares to control the rhetoric on social media.
However, these ploys are just the beginning for these activist groups. The Animal Agriculture Alliance (AAA) attended the Animal Rights National Conference in Virginia in late July.
According to an AAA press release following the conference, “The event was organized by the Farm Animal Rights Movement and sponsored by Mercy for Animals, The Save Movement, Compassion Over Killing and The Humane League, along with other animal rights extremist groups.
“‘Animal rights extremists are becoming increasingly aggressive in their efforts to end animal agriculture,’ said Kay Johnson Smith, Alliance president and CEO. ‘Releasing reports from major activist conferences enables everyone in animal agriculture to prepare for strategies and tactics targeting their livelihood.’”
AAA reports that speakers made it clear their vision is animal liberation, not promoting animal welfare.
“There is no such thing as humane slaughter and anyone who tells you differently is simply lying,” said Michael Budkie of Stop Animal Exploitation Now.
“We need to say that all animal agriculture is cruel and wrong,” said Karen Davis of United Poultry Concerns.
Demetria Atkinson of Redefine Your Mind argued “Animals are people, too.”
According to AAA, “A key theme of the conference was the desire to create a vegan world by 2026 to save the environment, but many activists had doubts.
“Activism is so sad right now; when I look at our movement, I am incredibly disappointed,” said Lauren Ornelas of The Food Empowerment Project.
“We vegans carry a heavy burden. No matter how hard we work, we will likely never see the end of it,” said Melanie Joy of Beyond Carnism.
“We are not even close to being on the cusp of global veganism,” said Bruce Friedrich of The Good Food Institute.
AAA reports, “Speakers also focused on the use of ‘undercover’ videos and the media to damage the reputation of animal agriculture and reach their goals.”
“Investigations are the single most powerful tool to expose the inherent cruelties in large-scale animal agriculture,” said William Rivas-Rivas of Animal Equality.
“Make sure you start with something dramatic...That’s much more likely to go viral,” said Jane Velez-Mitchell of Jane UnChained News Network.
These quotes are direct from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, and it’s quite clear that their intentions are not to negotiate or compromises, but to batter, bully, harass, litigate, legislate and destroy the reputations of animal-owning Americans.
The opinions of Amanda Radke are not necessarily those of beefmagazine.com or Farm Progress.
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