Mr. Conklin,
Our daughter came to us last night urging us to watch the video of the abuse at your plant. She was overcome with grief that human beings could inflict such cruelty and unconscious hatred at the most benign of creatures and their infants. The shocking images were too much for her father and me but we watched enough to know where it led.
There are moments in all our lives where we face our deepest, darkest truths.
This is your moment.
What will you do?
Can you look in the mirror and see what you have done? Have you shown this to your children and family? You are a third generation farmer. Did you learn this from your ancestors?
Can you face and take the anger and sadness and grief and rage that so many will be feeling for you and your staff and accept and understand the outrage?
We know this media attention is difficult to navigate, there are many people in communications to help you but handle it you will.
Can you hold an open news conference and truly accept the responsibility, really accept it and be willing to implement change?
Can you attend education classes where you are taught kindness and compassion for all beings?
Can you then spend your lives teaching that same compassion to children throughout Ohio about the possibility to change the very nature of your beings through this exposure in the media?
We challenge you to have the courage, as the brave person who filmed this did, to open your doors and your hearts. Become the standard for safety and kindness and actually change -- change your mental state and spend the rest of your lives, and the lives of your descendants, trying to make your farm the leader in humane, clean, loving treatment of the very animals you profit from. You have the opportunity. Certainly one more than those helpless victims of your sick, tortured abuse.
This is your moment. From the ashes of your lives can you re-build yourselves?
We know it is possible, if you have the willingness. But do you?
We are all waiting for your outrage and the outrage of your children and families and friends.
We are all waiting for your next move because we certainly know what ours is....
It's all here in this petition, which we encourage everyone to sign.
~ Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest
Ohio dairy farm worker charged with animal cruelty
Conklin Dairy Farms Animal Brutality Video by Mercy For Animals
Conklin Dairy Farms Inc. | Plain City, OH | Company Profile ...
People like this are simply "no right". I just can't imagine the mental state of someone that can inflict such pain and humiliation on any animal.
Just like a bully, picking on something smaller and more fragile than himself. I don't understand why it's so damn hard to treat animals with dignity and respect? There should be no tolerance for this! The WORKER clearly needs to get his head examined because he is sick... how do you suppose this man treats human beings? We can not allow these things to be acceptable, just like we would not tolerate someone abusing a child or elderly person. It's the principal of the matter. The weak must be protected.
Google it. You will learn a lot about our feathered animals whose lives are tortuous. God bless all the animal lovers who voice their concerns and try to make a difference!!
Rina Deych, RN
NYC
Unfortunetly I think the letter Ms Curtis wrote to Gary Conklin feel on deaf ears, after all he was also shown in the video himself throwing a calf to the ground and stomping on its head. As far as Billy Joe
Gregg is concerned I hope they put him in open population and a few of the inmates show him what some of his tatics feel like, he is no different then Jeffrey Dalmer, who tortured animals from the time he was a small child, before he started doing it to people, I am best friends with a woman that used to babysit him. Hopefully it wont be one of your children that he does it to
No he wasn't. Frame-by-frame analysis of that short interval has been posted and discussed extensively in this topic. That claim has been solidly refuted. It exists only as a vicious rumor.
While I appreciate your sentiment, I also deplore your hypocrisy. You peddle yogurt on television. There is no way to exploit animals humanely, so if you consume and/or promote these products you are part of the problem. Perhaps more.
Gary Conklin (and Billy Joe Gregg) are only symptoms of our collective disease. WE demand that human beings set aside their natural and inborn compassion and raise and keep animals just so they can be sent to slaughter ... animals that are no different physiologically or emotionally than our beloved companion animals. What does that do to the humans we ask this of?
So, will YOU Ms. Curtis truly accept your own responsibility and complicity? Will you go and sin no more and become a shining beacon of empathy and compassion for others?
Being vegan is quite easy, btw, and is also delicious, is known to prevent and cure heart disease and diabetes, prevents about 60% of cancers ... and is MUCH better for digestion than any yogurt :)
I highly recommend you read The World Peace Diet by Dr. Will Tuttle (on Amazon in paperback, or via free pdf download at http://www.worldpeacediet.org) ... and take a look at some of these amazing vegan recipe sites (there are hundreds out there) ...
http://www.herbivoracious.com/
http://www.rawon10.blogspot.com
http://www.veganyumyum.com
http://www.vegweb.com/
people should certainly follow any diet that they feel is best for them, but it might good to note that dr tuttle's title derives from his phd in education, not, so far as I have been able to determine from online resources, from any other doctorate in any field directly relevant to health, diet or agriculture
That's just one resource. I think Tuttle's Phd is in Philosophy. He was a Buddhist monk at one time. But ... speaking of a diet that's "best" ...
Every single study of nutrition says that fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains and legumes are health giving to humans. And every single study of nutrition says that meat, dairy and eggs are detrimental to human health in one way or another.
If you can find me a single study that says that meat, dairy, or eggs are better than fruits and veggies, OR if you can show me a single study that says meat, dairy or eggs are necessary for human health ... I'll gladly eat your shorts :)
All evidence says that whole food vegan diets reverse heart disease and type 2 diabetes ... and all evidence says that it's the only thing that can. Mainstream medicine is increasingly coming to understand this and it's more and more common for vegan diets to be prescribed for those diseases of lifestyle.
I don't feel condescending towards you. I do believe you are misled and uninformed, however. I also believe that, if you eat dead animals, you are harming not only the animals but rest of the world you live in as well.
The more people who buy their foods locally, the better it is for our personal health and the health of our economy.
I frequently write about health and food at www.averyjenkins.com
This abuse is NOT an "isolated incident". This happens at ALL farms. Dairy cows live the most miserable life of all. Is the $ Dannon pays you to push dairy products worth supporting the industry? If you continue, how will you be able to look at YOURSELF in the mirror?
"Downers" are spent dairy cows, lame from the calcium being leeched from their bones. They are exhausted spent from the CONSTANT pregnancies every year, and steroids to produce 10 times what they would naturally. If they can't stand at slaughter, the farmer makes nothing off her. 100% of hamburger is from “spent” dairy cows.
I do hope you'll wake up and smell the manure they all spew when busted about "Animal welfare being top priority". Gary Conklin said it himself and he not only knew about it, but was in the video kicking a downed cow in the face, head and throat because she couldn't get up.
Shannon Morgan
President, Animal Connection of Texas
Dallas, TX
This statement is a lie, and propaganda.
*100% of hamburger is from “spent” dairy cows.*
This statement is a lie, and clear evidence of your ignorance concerning dairy farming.
I have no beef with you hsanson2 (no pun intended), and you sound like you took caring for your cows seriously. Unfortunately, even in the equine business I have seen abuse and neglect that bogles the mind. I agree with you, that a reasonable person would presume that most people would treat their animals with care because after all they are a financial investment. But to my amazement and horror I have seen abuse and neglect of equines regardless of the economic loss.
actually we don't really know that yet, for certain, about conklin himself
please see qwerty52's posts on the frame by frame analysis of that section of video, and consider susanelizabeth1949's reminders on chain of custody for the video
the prosecutor's office says there are 4 persons on the video involved in the abuse - not all have been postively id'd yet as far as a public statement - only gregg, and he has been arrested, charged and arraigned, and is under 100k bond
gregg, by his own declaration is a disabled veteran and at his arraignment did not exhibit normal awareness and appreciation of his own prior actions - this is not to excuse, just an observation, his mental health status has not been determined
conklin has not been id'd as an abuser by the prosecutor, has not lawyered up, and is cooperating fully in the investigation
no one, again, is defending or excusing anything
just waiting for the investigation to complete and get all the facts
no one here defends the horrific abuse on the video, but it actually has not been established that mr conklin is an abuser
also, there are reports that he was not at the dairy, or in town, for part or all of the time the video was made
since gregg is also on the video bringing weapons on premises, shooting weapons on premises, and bragging about stealing weapons while on military duty in iraq, it seems more than likely mr conklin was not there
if a dairy owner heard gunshots in his dairy, would he not enter the scene to determine what was happening?
some things here may not be quite as initially reported, altho, should it prove mr conklin is a brutal madman, too, of course he should prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, as I am sure he will be, in the event
shall we permit animal husbandry for the purposes of necessary, life-saving animal source medicines (for which there are no adequate synthetic substitutes), one of the advocates here for the "no animal husbandry for human use" position has said:
no
is this the official position for the movement to abolish animal husbandry for human use? can anyone direct me to a website of any organisation that might answer this ?
thank you
I signed up here at HuffPo just to answer this ridiculous question you keep asking over and over.
Here's the thing about using animals ... nearly every single one of us will die *prematurely* from either heart disease or cancer. Almost all heart disease is caused by animal products. About 60% of cancers, possibly more, are as well.
So, if we eliminate animal products, we will prevent the premature death of nearly every. single. person. More than a MILLION people every year will NOT die prematurely.
We ALSO would free up all that research money to look for non animal treatments and cures for the VERY rare case of disease that currently is only treatable by animal products.
And in the rare case that someone may die from a lack of animal product drugs, there is always the option to use human cadaver source ... which is actually better but more costly. But we'll have all that money we're saving on heart disease and cancer.
Is it the goal of the abolitionist movement to abolish the use of animals for human benefit?
YES
Which would save more lives and prevent more misery than anything else in human history.
much confusion about my query and no little reluctance to answer directly, hence, asking more than once
1. my query does not address animal testing or research at all, rather it addresses, exclusively, animal source medicines of a single class: those medicines derived from animal tissue retrieved post-mortem
2. the 2 conditions exampled as treated with medicines of this class - addison's disease and hypothyroidism - are neither of them the product of poor dietary choices, only one form of one of them a product of dietary insufficiency, that of goitrous hypothyroidism (lack of dietary iodine), that form of the disease least met with in the developed world
3. no, you cannot make these medicines from the tissues of human cadavers, I cannot think from where or whom you got such a notion - unless you are conflating tissue used for surgical repair - a singular group in this class - with all animal source medicines of the class under discussion
4. the tissues used must be retrieved from animals healthy at their decease, else the product would not be medicine, but rather something that would further sicken the patient
you may feel this query to be "ridiculous" - others have used "fringe" and "irrelevant" - but for those whose lives depend on these animal source medicines, I can assure you the query seems both pertinent and eminently central to the discussion
now that we've done a fairly thorough back-and-to on the subject you signed on to huffpo to address, and we, as we were bound to, have come bang up against the fact that, whether we like it or not, there are, to this day, a number of life-threatening conditions which cannot be successfully treated without resort to animal source medicines and/or surgical products
for these conditions, there are not yet developed adequate synthetic or vegetal source remedies; resort to cadavers as a source is not an option
the question remains, in light of the facts just reviewed, shall we have a total ban on animal husbandry for human use, including for production of medicines
jotyler says, yes
jelliet says, he's on the fence
what do you say? and, if you or anyone could direct me to a website or other resource, I would like to know the position, or range of positions, on this question, of the "no animal husbandry for human use movement"
And another FAQ with a different approach: http://ar.vegnews.org/
does your linked FAQ address the question of necessary animal sourced medicines?
See PCRM.org - Physicians' Committe for Responsible Medicine for all the information you could ever want to know about the science behind veganism and the fraud of animal "research".
I personally know a Research Analyst for them (a former animal "researcher" who finally had enough of a wasteful, horrifically cruel, worthless pseudoscience) and now campaigns, lectures and is a very sought after figure being a cardiologist and former Harvard Faculty Member among much more and now works to end this useless and antequated "research".
we've looked at a rare disease treated by an animal sourced medicine, now let's look at a common one
hypothyroidism
depending on severity, this too, can be a direct cause of death, if left untreated; less severe cases will contribute to the development of other life-threatening diseases and conditions; and of course the case of a destroyed or surgically removed gland will most assuredly prove fatal if left untreated
the treatment is replacement of the missing thyroid substance
and while there are synthetic forms of 2 of the total number of thyroid hormones - 5 T's + calcitonin (some researchers posit more) - in the natural substance, the synthetics do not work for and/or are not tolerated by all patients
so what shall we do? tell the patients that they must suffer and die?
natural thyroid is derived from both bovine and porcine sources, but interestingly, the balance of the hormones in thyroid substance from pigs is very, very close to that of human thyroid
cardhu1 has mentioned lovenox, another animal source medicine, among over 300 in use today
so I'm wondering where anyone/everyone who is against all animal husbandry for human use might stand on this
I look forward to your comments
Where as: the stated goal of various animal rights groups; PETA, HSUS, etc. is the elimination of livestock farming and even fishing.
Where as: 99% of the population consumes animal products and not likely to change their consumption.
Therefore: the only way to achieve eliminate livestock farming is through legislation and legally banning said farming, a prohibition, as it were.
I would naturally follow that this ban would have to be world wide, as prohibition in the US would not stop livestock being raised in other countries.
As long as there is a demand for animal products, there will be someone providing them, legal or otherwise. Essentially a black market will be created. Animal products will be produced and demand met; whether from wild species or from unregulated, underground farms, or from pets.
cont...
I guess we should have not done anything about it because of that?
I agree with you on that, but can you please clarify your statement "the stated goal of various animal rights groups; PETA, HSUS, etc. is the elimination of livestock farming and even fishing"? I'm curious where you read this since I was not aware it was a goal of these groups to eliminate fishing and livestock farming completely, especially not the HSUS. The HSUS has 11 million members and is considered a mainstream animal advocacy group so I would be surprised if they took such an extreme stance on fishing and farming.
The war on drugs is a perfect example of the failure of prohibitions. "The road to hell was paved with good intentions."
Does the US food system need reform on all levels? Yes! Is it possible to raise safe and humanely treated livestock? Yes, it is being done on many farms. Is banning the production of animal products the answer, as proposed by several comments here and the ideologies they represent? No!
Or are you redifining "humane" to suit your financial and culinary preferences?
If you want to eat meat, fine.
But let's not pretend its "humane". That's a major whitewash.
your thoughtful and provocative post deserves, in turn, a more thoughtful answer than I have time for at present, but it is more than worth examining the ideas you've put forth
in fact, you'll have me going to my bookshelf on a couple of things ...
one of the things I've noticed here in this discussion I have also encountered throughout my working life: ideas are wonderful, acts of imagination are the first and best time machine, and, imagination, informed by moral agency, is perhaps our most wondrous capacity as a species
however
the man on the ground, wrestling everyday with the physical world is best placed to know how to care for that world
he knows (often by costly experience) most intimately that the world of physical properties can only be accurately and closely observed for wholesome adaptation - we cannot bend, nor attempt to bend, the world of physical properties to our will - neither our notionally "high" moral will, nor our base, grasping will - without inviting catastrophe
the kind of veganism-as-religiosity seen on here is the opposite pole to the monetary religiosity that is ruining the gulf of mexico
no farming of animals means no medicines from animal sources
to this day, smart as we are, there are animal source medicines for which no synthetic can be made, or for which the synthetics are so inferior/inadequate as to cause shortening of life or even death
one rare disease, one common:
addison's disease is rare, incurable, and, left untreated, invariably fatal
President John F Kennedy suffered from it
for most of his lifetime, the only treatment for addison's was a preparation made from natural extract of beef adrenal cortex, given by injection, without which kennedy would have died
addison's disease requires lifelong replacement of adrenal cortex output - there is no surviving without it
to this day, despite intense and costly research to synthesise the most life-necessary chemical(s) from the cortical extract- volatile chemicals, extremely difficult to work with in the lab - the total composition of the natural substance has not been fully identified and analysed
while there are now synthetic forms of just one of the 41 total chemicals identified so far in the natural whole extract, these are neither tolerated by nor adequate to treat all addison's patients, and carry, often life threatening, unavoidable side effects
so what to tell the patients? sorry, if the synthetic doesn't work for you, you'll just have to die?
common disease next, in part 2
Another red herring.
you just don't want to answer the question
if ALL animal husbandry for human use is wrong, and should be abolished, then should we stop making animal sourced medicines?
it's a simple question
maybe someone else will answer it
and I would hardly characterise president kennedy as just any old "someone" with a rare disease (not that any old someones aren't also important, mind you) - how different might modern world history have been had he died before coming to adulthood?