Letter: Has outrage addiction taken over animal rights issue?

Graphic by Lori Deaton

Watching with interest the local dustup surrounding the Wild Abundance permaculture school. Thom Hartmann, Liz Warren and Bernie remind us we could use a little FDR. Instead, the rebel-without-a-clue crowd helped usher in the RDF — Rolling Dumpster Fire that is the Trump administration. This damaged troll and his frat-boy pit bulls have unleashed a full assault on the environment, economic justice, the park system and decency in general. Add to that the recent flurry of sexual misconduct revelations, and we have an outrage generator spinning at 110 percent, approaching burnout. Has outrage addiction taken over this local animal rights issue?

From what I can tell, this small New-Age-y enterprise seems fairly well-balanced and more or less on the progressive side of things. Yes, they provide animal slaughter education but as Ms. [Natalie] Bogwalker pointed out in the Mountain Xpress Nov. 29 article [“Front Lines: Animal Liberation Front vs. Wild Abundance Permaculture School”], in responding to the death threats, just down the road “there are thousands of animals raised for meat.” The local ALF officer indicated that the farm is cashing in on selling front-row tickets “to watch them kill animals” as if the farm decided that woolly snuff porn was a good business model. Really?

Once again, we see the tendency of the far left to attack the almost far left for not being pure or strident enough. Vegans attack vegetarians. Bernie bros attack card-carrying Dems. There are many strong arguments for going vegetarian or vegan, and I salute those who do.

Attacking the soft target next door instead of tackling the bigger picture, however, pushes swing voters even further away from a progressive center. Is there a plan to storm the gates at Smithfield Foods? How about cobbling together a global task force to confront overpopulation? What we get is: “Hey-hey, ho-ho, fill-in-the-blank has got to go.”

— Larry Abbott
Candler

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