Brother Wolf Animal Rescue Director Paul Berrys Speech :) for the Animals! Heres the text from my speech at yesterdays March Against Monsanto Rally, Denise, Cary and Karen: Can you guess the title of the speech?? Thanks to Louise Heath and all the folks who have helped to put this event on today. And thanks especially to all of you who came out today to March Against Monsanto and show your solidarity for this important cause. For the next few minutes, I’ll be your token angry vegan speaker and soon as I’m finished, you’ll get to hear Asheville’s own Free Radio, the free thinking, free moving hip-hop duo, intent on helping us all wake up to what’s going on.. You won’t want to miss them… So, again my name is Paul Berry and I’m the Executive Director of Brother Wolf Animal Rescue here in Asheville. Those of you familiar with our work at Brother Wolf know we are working to help build a No-Kill Asheville where no dogs or cats get stuck in the local shelter system. Even for all those who have medical or behavior issues, we’re doing all we can to get them out of the local shelter system and into rehabilitation so they can soon be adopted into a new home with a new family and a new chance at life. But ultimately, we know we can’t adopt our way to No-Kill. Ultimately, we know the only way to save these dogs and cats from the local shelter system is to keep them from ever getting there in the first place. So, we’re evolving our efforts, working upstream and outside the system, going neighborhood by neighborhood working with volunteers to mobilize community resources so folks are empowered to help each other keep their pets healthy, happy and in their homes and out of the local shelter system in the first place. And, if I may, I believe that’s where this movement to ban GMOs can take a cue. Yes, we have to keep working within the system to encourage reforms, including mandatory GMO labeling, but ultimately, we have to work upstream and outside the system to create the real change we all want to see including alternative systems of food production and distribution that are viable, fair and just... And we can do that here in Asheville- we have a very healthy community of local farmers who are growing non-GMO foods. And we have a great network of local farmers markets and tailgaters markets for our local farmers. And we have great local businesses like French Broad Food Coop right here working to support local farmers as well as provide other non-GMO and organic products. So we have the means here. We just need the will, right? But what does it take to muster our collective will? Well it starts with awareness and education- right? And Today, as the animal guy, I’m supposed to tell you what you probably already know- that the same GMOs that are going into mass produced food products for humans are also going into mass produced pet foods for our pets. You probably already know this and you probably already know that the same ill health effects that began increasing exponentially for humans in the mid 90s -- around the time when GMO corn and soy came into mass distribution -- that veterinarians also began seeing exponential increases in health affects in pets, including “increased allergies, asthma, skin problems, irritable bowel syndrome, leaky gut syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, colitis, recurrent diarrhea, vomiting, indigestion, abnormalities in liver, pancreatic and immune system functions, etc., etc.” Does all that sound familiar? So you know you can and should seek out healthy non-GMO and organic food alternatives for your pets. Right? Of course you do. But what I really want to tell you today is that GMOs are not just about genetically modified Corn and genetically modified Soy products. Genetic engineers employed by these huge global biotech firms are also genetically modifying animals- and they are doing some cruel and bizarre shit! Just a few examples: glow in the dark cats- cats with phosphorescent eyes that glow in the dark- just for fun. Keep in mind as you hear this list that to get such engineered animals perfected for mass production, hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of lab trials must be experimented over and over. Of course all the animals from those trials are sentient living beings that are destroyed, treated like industrial waste. They’re engineering chickens to produce only female eggs to create laying hens with better accuracy and less loss of profit. They’re engineering sheep whose milk has a protein that resembles spider’s silk that will be used to produce industrial strength materials. How do they even think of this stuff? Genetic engineers are engineering cows to produce milk that is closer to human breast milk. Of course, they’ll tell us it’s to help feed starving children in third world countries, right? But we all know it’s only about first world profits in first world markets, right? They’re engineering pigs to resist diseases inherent in the crowded, cruel and inhumane environments of mass factory farming. Now this particular feat of genetic engineering is very instructive: they’re trying to engineer a pig that is resistant to a disease called “Failure To Thrive”. It’s when pigs suffer the effects of factory farming and they just give up the will to live- it’s like they commit a slow suicide from the inside out. So, get this, to try to fix this “disease” inherent to factory farming, genetic engineers are trying to engineer a pig that’s immune to the very suffering that the system imposes on it in the first place. Trying to get your head around that? You can’t because it’s diabolical. You can’t make sense of it. It’s a broken system of thinking that cannot be justified or rationalized no matter how hard you try. We have to fix that madness from outside that system, right? How? Yes, we need mandatory labeling on all this bizarre, genetically modified madness. Absolutely! Maybe even our esteemed city council will dare take it on… But we don’t have to wait on a mandatory labeling. We have the power to help ourselves… You have the power right now to fix this for yourself- with four simple words. Next time you’re at the mega market and encumbered by all those super price-slashed mega deals and all that carefully branded happiness in boxes, bags and cartons, repeat to yourself, slowly: “Don’t Buy Their Shit.” And then just don’t! Don’t Buy Their Shit… Don’t Buy Their Shit… Repeat after me: DON’T BUY THEIR SHIT! DON’T BUY THEIR SHIT! DON’T BUY THEIR SHIT! : ) Thank you all very much! .
Posted on: Sun, 25 May 2014 16:45:46 +0000
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