<$BlogRSDUrl$> The Cyberactivist

Behind the scenes of the fight for the protection of animals and workers and the preservation of the environment - my experiences as a Tyson slaughterhouse hanger/killer turned activist. Exposing the evils of factory farming, by Virgil Butler. If you have arrived here looking for the Tyson stories, view the early archives. Some of them are now featured on the sidebar for easy searching.

Saturday, September 13, 2003

I've been quoted again 

Congratulation go out to my friend,
Karen Davis of UPC (United Poultry
Concerns) for having her letter to
the editor publiched Rockdale Citizen,
in Conyers, Georgia.

Her letter addresses the arrest on
charges of animal cruelty of seven
young men and women who broke
into a chicken house in Bulloch
County GA on Sunday, August 31,
where they decapitated several
chickens for fun and videotaped the
assault.

Bulloch County Chief Deputy Gene
McDaniel had proposed that these
young people be made to work in
a slaughterhouse killing chickens
as part of their punishment.

In her letter she used much of the
material I have written to make her
point that this would not be a good
idea:

...an inappropriate punishment if the
goal is to rehabilitate them. Killing
chickens for a living is not fun for
most people, but killing chickens for
a living does fuel cruel and sadistic
impulses in many employees, who
vent hatred of their jobs on the chickens,
their spouses, their children, their
neighbors and themselves. Torturing
the chickens at the plant becomes a
job-related pleasure for many frustrated
poultry workers, whose relationship
to the birds is, after all, a completely
violent one.

Alcoholism, amphetamine use, mental
illness, assault with deadly weapons,
manslaughter, child endangerment,
child abuse, domestic violence and animal
abuse are endemic to the slaughterhouse
milieu. As one former chicken
slaughterhouse employee explained after
giving several examples of cruelty
to the birds and to people that he
witnessed and practiced himself, "This
type of work teaches you a callous
disregard for life and an inability to
feel compassion or pity for others
who are suffering. Especially the ones
who go to the killing room every night.
It just breaks down a person's
inhibitions." (Virgil Butler, via e-mail
to United Poultry Concerns, Aug.
12, 2003).

Good job, Karen!
Posted by: # Virgil / 4:53 AM
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