Drop Paul Harvey
By Trent LoosJacqueline Domac, education manager for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), recently wrote an article in a South Carolina newspaper about FFA students. The summation of the article was that FFA left a cruel mark on young people who had livestock projects. Here is one line from her column:
The FFA program fosters a young person's natural sense of empathy and compassion for animals, then forces the children to sell the animals they have nurtured for slaughter at the county fair.
Domac listed examples such as: Miss Piggy, an animal in the William Turner Tech High School FFA program in Florida, was spared slaughter after the young student who raised her pleaded for her life at the auction.
So it should have no surprise that Paul Harvey would pick up with one of those stories and run with but yet it was for many. On the afternoon of June 9, 2004, my phone rang nonstop with the same message from more than 20 different people. “Trent did you hear Paul Harvey today?” I have known that Paul Harvey is a closet Animal Rights zealot for quite some time so I was not surprised but many others were shocked.
I don’t mean to sound all knowing but on this subject, it was not “the rest of the story” for me. One year ago I ran a weeklong series on my Loos Tales radio show with sound bytes Mr. Harvey had used in support of the animal rights community during the past ten years. His true motivation should have become glaringly apparent on April 28, 2003 when he praised PETA’s founder Ingrid Newkirk by saying she “considers her own scars insignificant compared to the endless anguish that she is committed to curtail”.
For more than a decade Harvey has aired subtle little animal rights sound bytes, but on this day in June he blatantly promoted the end of animal agriculture. He shared the PETA version of the Miss Piggy story that had been printed in the South Carolina newspaper. He only shared what was necessary to support PETA’s lies and provide a very sensationalized version of the truth. On three occasions he urged listeners, schools and “anyone who wants to know the truth” to send a fax requesting a movie called “Peaceable Kingdom”.
I have a copy of Peaceable Kingdom and I would like to share a few items of interest from that 77-minute, meatless society, made-for-TV masterpiece. To open the show, Laurie Bauston explains how people who work with animals love them but our society forces them to start killing the animals for food.
The countries’ leading turncoat profiteer Howard Lyman shares a story of how smart pigs are, particularly the one he kept at his house. Lyman decided to keep the pig at his house because “Piggo” could stand on his back feet and open the door to the house. He remarks he was particularly found of Piggo because the pig chases his mother-in-law away.
Appearing next was Harold Brown who supposedly grew up on a farm and then “saw the light.” With cows bawling in the background, Brown says, “Hear the cows. They are bellering and stuff when they go in (to a slaughterhouse). It is a pretty awful sound. Literally, in a big slaughterhouse, the screaming, it sounds like people”.
Animal rights activist Jim Mason declares that animals have disappeared from the view. Factory farms have confined all animals indoors. “If you see cattle, it is only fleetingly and it is not a very typical farm” he says.
Paul Harvey’s show is indeed called “Paul Harvey’s news and comment.” I admit that he has every right to determine what is news and comment about whatever he sees fit. My biggest problem is that Archer Daniels Midland continues to sponsor his “anti American agriculture” message. If the “super market to the world” intends to continue working with United States farmers, I expect them to put their money where their mouth is by putting their advertising dollars to work for a cause that supports rather than destroys the industry it relies on.
If by some far stretch of the imagination you agree with me on this issue, send an email to info@admworld.com and tell them to “Drop Paul Harvey”. If you do not have internet access, send a letter to: Archer Daniels Midland, 4666 Faries Parkway, Decatur, IL 62526
