800 Attend AR2004 in Nation's Capital

Nearly 800 animal rights activists from throughout the U.S. and several other countries packed the Sheraton Premiere Hotel near the nation's capital on July 8-12, 2004 to map the movement's national strategy for the coming year.

The Animal Rights 2004 National Conference featured nearly 90 presenters from 60 groups representing nearly every faction of the movement. They presented in 70 sessions, including keynote addresses, briefings on various forms of animal abuse, workshops on organizing and outreach skills, 'rap' sessions, and campaign reports. More than 50 videos were shown, including four premiere screenings. More than 70 organizations exhibited their literature and merchandise.

PETA Vegetarian Campaigns Director Bruce Friedrich and Animals Voice President Laura Moretti were elected to the U.S. Animal Rights Hall of Fame. Veteran St. Louis activist Janet Enoch received the Animal Grassroots Activist of the Year Award. "Bizarro" Cartoonist Dan Piraro was honored with the Media Celebrity Animal Advocate of the Year Award. Aryenish Birdie from Kansas City won the Rosenberg Award for outstanding contribution to farmed animal liberation by a teenager.

Other prominent speakers included University of Texas philosophy professor Steve Best, Washington Post syndicated columnist Michael Fox, film star Tippi Hedren, former rancher and "Mad Cowboy" Howard Lyman, University of North Carolina philosophy professor Tom Regan, and Greenpeace co-founder Paul Watson.

Animal Rights 2004 is sponsored by FARM, a national public interest organization advocating wholesome, nonviolent plant-based eating. Other supporting organizations included Animal Rights Online, Animals Voice, In Defense of Animals, Lantern Books, Pangea Vegan Products, Satya Magazine, Vegan Essentials, VegNews, and Vegetarian Times Magazine.

Click here for Conference photos. For audio MP3 files send e-mail to JOB Recording Service.

CHOICE Promotes Vegan School Lunches

Last April, the New York State Legislature unanimously passed a resolution encouraging local school districts to provide daily vegan meal options to their students, to replace a la carte and vending items with healthier choices, and to provide nutrition education reinforcing these healthier options. The resolution was introduced by the New York Coalition for Healthy School Lunches formed by FARM's CHOICE (Citizens for Healthy Options in Children's Education) and New York's Animal Welfare Trust. Hawaii and California have enacted similar resolutions in the past two years.

Currently, CHOICE is engaged in the twin mission of implementing the California resolution in several state school districts and getting similar resolutions enacted in other states, including Pennsylvania, Florida, and Massachusetts.

CHOICE's mission is truly vital to saving millions of animals from caging, crowding, deprivation, drugging, mutilation, and inhumane butchering. Each vegan child potentially prevents the agony and death of more than 2,000 animals. Faulty childhood eating patterns become lifelong addictions to animal products, with their disastrous consequences for animal welfare, human health, and environmental quality.

In May, In Defense of Animals joined FARM in sponsoring the CHOICE program. A number of manufacturers of meat-free and dairy-free food products are coming on board as well. CHOICE urges parents, school officials, and other concerned citizens who would like to provide a vegan school option to visit www.CHOICEUSA.net or to contact Susan at 877-6CHOICE.

In the past seven months, we had more than five hundred letters to the editor printed in metropolitan newspapers throughout the U.S. The topics included the Atkins diet, Meatout, Easter, Mother's Day, Iraqi prisoner abuse, Fourth of July, and cholesterol.

Here is one example: "The abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers bears a striking parallel with our abuse of animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses. In fact, this morning's Washington Post notes that some of the photos showed "a cow being skinned and gutted and soldiers posing with its severed head."
The abuse of Iraqi prisoners is merely a manifestation of our culture of violence and insensitivity to the suffering of those we view as "the others." It matters not whether "the others" are Iraqi prisoners, Vietnamese villagers, or animals raised for food. It's a culture that gives otherwise kind and gentle farmers a license to keep dairy calves, pregnant sows, and laying hens in cramped cages, drugged, and deprived of natural food and sunshine. It's a culture that leads otherwise normal slaughterhouse workers to skin, dismember, and disembowel cows and pigs while still conscious.
Punishing a dozen soldiers and apologizing to the Arab world merely places a band-aid on this cultural scourge.
The only effective long-term solution is to instill in our children the notions of kindness and sensitivity to all suffering. A good time to start is when they first ask where hamburgers come from."

Please contact Marissa, if you would like to join the Letters From FARM network.