Big Ag doesn't like what's happening in the realm of public opinion, so they're doing what many massive multinational corporations seem to do when confronted by activists: They go behind their backs and attempt to elevate themselves above our reach:
Hands off agriculture.And they call animal activists radical. Corporations are leveraging the legislature to further the power they have grown accustomed to wielding these past 100 or so years. In altering the constitution, they not only would kill initiatives currently in the works to provide pigs and veal calves with a small increase in the size of their "enclosures," it effectively would put corporate interests ahead of citizens:
That's the message of a bill that would restrict the ability of the state Legislature and citizens to pass laws regulating the agriculture industry.
Aimed, in part, at quashing a citizens' initiative on farming practices that is opposed by the industry, the proposed constitutional amendment would go much further.
It would constitutionally bar legislators or citizens from passing agricultural laws, and experts worry it also could exempt the industry from broader state laws such as a state minimum wage law or even new environmental regulations. Critics are calling the measure absurd and radical and questioning the logic of putting a single industry out of reach of citizens or their elected representatives.
"It scares the heck out of me," said Tim Hogan, executive director of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest. "It carves out an unprecedented exemption for agriculture. It seems like a radical departure from the way we have governed for a couple hundred years in this country."I'd like to take a moment to remind readers that occasionally animal rights activists and vegans are accused of elitism, but can you think of anything more elitist than this?:
[snip]
Cheryl Naumann, president of the Humane Society of Arizona and chairwoman of the Humane Farms campaign, said everyone should be concerned about this bill, even if they don't support her initiative. If legislators can carve out an exemption from future regulation for one special interest, what is to stop them from giving similar concessions to other industries or from blocking legislation and citizen initiatives on other key issues and "taking the voice of the people away"?
"Next time is it hands off children's issues, hands off environmental issues, hands off growth and development issues or health care issues? All of those causes have people passionate on both sides and all of their voices deserve to be heard. What's next?" Naumann asked.
"Should people who live in Phoenix be able to make up a law to govern agriculture?" asked Tom Miller, executive director of the Arizona Pork Council, which has five members statewide, including the one major pig farm. "Do people in Phoenix know better than people in agriculture?"This is merely one more major push by industry to keep the doors and windows shut so that their consumers cannot see in. Self-policing is notoriously lax and ineffective, and of course these companies are going to push their hardest to avoid being held to the highest (i.e., cost-raising) standards. It's like they want to be magicians ("Pay no attention to what the hand behind my back is doing while I wave a wand over this top hat!") that keep audiences slack-jawed and ignorant of their deceptions.
Says constitutional expert Paul Bender, a professor of law at Arizona State University (who also called the proposal "nutty"):
This is an industry trying to exempt itself from regulation. Any industry that can get legislators to exempt them from all future regulation, with some limits, must have lots of power.Animal activists want to stop animals from being tortured and needlessly killed. For that, we're called extreme. What industrial agriculture is attempting to do here (and elsewhere) is far beyond extreme, if that's the case. We're not even talking about animal issues anymore... This is becoming more and more of a human rights issue, as big corporations try to take away our right to self-governance.
I sure hope this backfires. While Republican agriculture supporters are likely to be keen on less government and regulation, surely they believe that corporations should not be legally ensconced out of the reach of the citizenry?
Categories: animal agriculture
