The Cyberactivist

This post is done by request. If anyone
else out there would like a certain topic
discussed, don't hesitate to let me know.

Someone in the veggieboards forum
had seen PETA's "Meet Your Meat" video
and was asking if the events in this video
were sensationalized or, as the video
claims, "standard industry practice."

Well, another forum member alerted me
to this post as the person asking the
question was asking for me to answer it.

I thought that I had made that clear,
but obviously there is still some question
about this. Well, as I have stated before,
I have worked with many people through
the years at more than one plant, both
killing and catching. I even did a brief
stint at a Cargill turkey plant once. As
the poultry plant community is really a
very tight-knit one, with many workers
regularly transferring between plants, I
have also talked with and worked with those
who worked at other plants.

You could probably say that about 30-40
plants were represented with workers from
plants in AR, OK, LA, TX, and MO as to the
number of people I have talked to from other
plants. Tyson has a big fair every year where
about 12 plants get together. They have softball
teams and other events. There is quite a
bit of contact with people from other plants.

By nature, the people working in one section
of the plant will congregate with their counter-
parts from other plants. Therefore, I have
talked to a lot of other live-hangers, catchers,
and killers.

Without exception, they all tell pretty much the
same story. You always hear stories about
someone "going off" and doing something evil
to a chicken or somebody. You always hear
about some major breakdown killing a bunch
of chickens, some killer that can't do the job
properly, or about somebody getting carted
off to jail for whatever.

The main reason I have not told much about
these things is that I have been trying to stick
to the facts I can back up and/or have witnessed
myself. I have purposely omitted anything that
was just said by someone else and stick to what
I knew for a fact to be true. I have no reason to
doubt that these people were telling the truth,
but since I didn't see it with my own eyes, I
couldn't swear to it like everything else I have
recounted.

I hope that this clarifies the situation. My stories
are anything but isolated incidents. But I can
only testify to what I have experienced. If only
more people like myself had the guts to come
forward. Believe me, it hasn't been easy. I have
weathered quite a bit of heat. But, I expected
that. People don't like to have to have their dirty
laundry aired in public. And they especially hate
being told they are wrong and getting called out
on their behavior. I mean, there is just no just-
ification in the world good enough to excuse some
of the behavior and sadistic cruelty.

By all means, the scenes the video show are true,
but the saddest thing is that most of what is shown
is standard industry practice. These scenes are
actually tame compared to the stories I have
recounted here. This is perhaps one of the few
instances where PETA is not being too dramatic.
Ha ha ha! Seriously, as bad and graphic as this
video is, the events it depicts are not only common,
but far from the whole picture of the sheer amount
of cruelty that goes on.

We can do better than this. It is shameful.