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Animal Agriculture a Top Target at National Animal Rights Meeting
Published Friday, September 05, 2008 at 05:17 AM
September 4, 2008 - Animal agriculture was a top target at Animal Rights 2008, the oldest animal rights conference in the nation, when it has only received cursory attention for the past few years. The disdain the activists have for animal agriculture was evident as many cringed at the very mention of the term.

The surprising embrace of an incremental approach to abolishing animal agriculture was an interesting theme at the meeting. Alex Hershaft, President of Farm Animal Reform Movement (FARM) and a leader in the movement to repeal the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), voiced his true feelings that "abolition (of meat) provides the long-term solution" but also emphasized in the same presentation that farm welfare reforms, though not a long-term solution, provide a means to accomplishing that end.

The concept of an incremental approach to abolishing animal agriculture was echoed in presentations by well-known activist Karen Dawn and animal rights attorney Sean Day who emphasized that every step made to move animal agriculture towards activists' definition of animal welfare was a step towards animal liberation.

As usual, terrorism was a major topic of the conference. Camille Hankins, co-founder of Win Animal Rights (WAR) and also a Press Officer with terrorist mouthpiece North American Animal Liberation Press Office, spoke in support of the Santa Cruz bombers, defending their firebombs by saying the bombers were "acting in the best interest of other beings." On August 2, two University of California-Santa Cruz researchers were targets of firebombs. One researcher's parked car was destroyed and the other's home was hit, forcing him to flee his house with his wife and two young children.

But this was just the beginning of rhetoric supporting terrorist actions. Statements like "sometimes the needs justify the means" were tossed around by Hankins. And Steve Hindi, President of the egregiously misnamed Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK), exhibited his animal instincts when he wondered aloud, "You want media? Al Qaeda gets media....Why don't we get that?"

Other items high on the agenda at the conference included effective ways to appropriate religion and co-opt environmentalism, how to maximize the value of YouTube as a communication tool, and ideal techniques to indoctrinate children and youth.

The majority of attendees at the meeting, held in Washington, DC, August 14-19, 2008, were middle-aged, single women. The professions most represented by those our reporter met were lawyers and teachers - a disturbing fact. The meeting retained its attendance of roughly 400 or so animal rights activists during the course of the event, despite the meeting having been boycotted by animal rights giants Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) for the past three years.

A full copy of a report on the conference can be accessed by Alliance Gold Members on the password-protected Members Only section of the Alliance website. The Animal Agriculture Alliance, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, is a broad-based coalition of individual producers, producer organizations, suppliers, packer-processors, private industry and retailers. The Alliance's mission is to communicate the important role of animal agriculture to our nation's economy, productivity, vitality, security and that animal well-being is central to producing safe, high-quality, affordable food and other products essential to our daily lives.

© 2008 The Nebraska Rural Radio Association. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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