Help Us Beat Their Deceit

They treat animals like units of production. They overcrowd them and put our food supply at risk. They pollute the land and water.

“They” are Big Agribusiness, and they have raised and allocated $10 million to defeat a landmark initiative in California that would ease the suffering of millions of animals now confined in tiny crates on factory farms and suffering terribly. It’s called Proposition 2, and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof called it “the most important election you’ve never heard of.”  Indeed, because California is a trendsetter, this election has the potential to establish a better future for farm animals across the U.S.

Because of that, Big Agribusiness is investing millions in deceptive and false ads to disparage Prop 2.

The only thing that can stop them is you and me. We can match them ad for ad and tell our story to the people of California.

That’s why I am urging you to make a special gift today to the YES! on Prop 2 campaign.

If not you and me, then who will stand up to Big Agribusiness?

Just who are these underhanded foes of animals, who on a single day donated nearly $5 million to defeat Proposition 2? They’re Pilgrim’s Pride, chipping in $25,000, where a whistle-blower employee videotaped chickens being stomped and thrown against the wall. They are the United Egg Producers, adding $185,000 to the opposition’s pot, fined to settle false advertising complaints. They are Moark LLC, donating more than $504,000 against Prop 2, which paid $100,000 to settle criminal animal cruelty charges. They are Cal-Maine Foods, leading the pack with nearly $600,000 in campaign contributions, cited for spilling chicken parts and manure into waterways and killing tens of thousands of fish. The list goes on…

These are not the kind of farms we read about to our kids before bedtime. This line-up is straight off the crime blotter. Cruelty to animals. Threatening the safety of the food supply. Despoiling the environment. And deceiving consumers.

We need to raise $1 million by the end of the month as part of our offensive to counter their deception and dirty campaign tactics. Please make an emergency gift right now to put television ads on the air to challenge every one of their claims. If just 5 percent of you who read this message make a gift of $20—a symbolic amount to reduce the suffering of 20 million farm animals—we’d reach our $1 million goal today.

Without your help, we will not be able to counter the deceptive claims of an industry that insists on cramming animals into insufferably small cages and crates—to increase density, and thus profits.

The claims made by these companies reveal them for the shameless hucksters they are. Here is their wildly false assertion about Prop 2 straight from their published propaganda:

Undermines animal welfare and food safety in California.

Ha! Remember what the California factory farmers were doing recently for “animal welfare” and “food safety”? They were patting themselves on the back and accepting performance awards for providing healthy food to the National School Lunch Program. Then one of our undercover investigators went into a Southern California slaughter plant. He secretly filmed the torturing of animals—horrors like a fallen cow being smashed in the eyes with a blunt object and another downed cow with a water-hose shoved in her mouth to simulate drowning. He showed plant operators routinely risking the health of children to get these potentially ill “downer” cows on their feet so they could be herded into the processing line for the lunch program.

The industry tried to deny that any such things could happen. But videotape evidence exposed their deceptions and false assurances. The result? The largest meat recall in U.S. history.

The nation was horrified by the abuse of these cows, who were literally minutes away from being killed. If we are concerned about the downer cows—as we should be—then we must also be concerned about the animals suffering in cruel confinement day after day for months or years on factory farms. Here is this remarkable one-time chance to do something about their suffering.

For the sake of creatures who don’t have a voice in this watershed election, please join us in speaking out for them. Make your emergency donation to the YES! on Prop 2 campaign today.