Animal Advocates for Agricultural Reform

Meeting Minutes

2006-09-06T23:18:00.000-04:00

Present: Owen, Clair, Carli, Debbie, Jeffrey, Nathan, Hannah, Maria, Andrea

First meeting of the semester!

On the Agenda: Introductions, presentation (Debbie) on industrialized agrictulture, reading selection for next week, new members packet, set meeting time, cage-free egg campaign update, brainstorming.

We need to discuss publicity for cage-free eggs at Trillium. Someone is going to write an op-ed or a guest column for the daily sun. Unfortunately, we have no connections to the daily sun. Also: we will do some tabling to spread the word. We also have the Wegmans Cruelty documentary to use. It's good; if anyone wants a copy let me know.

We have at least two potential speakers for this semester who have expressed interest in coming to Cornell: Harold Brown of farm sanctuary and Dr. Michael Greger, former president of CCAD. Harold Brown will talk about whatever subject we give him.

We could do a campaign around the Smithfield Corporation. Their huge and they abuse animals and workers. They also have a fairly active campaign to unionize.

The readings for the next meeting will be:
1. An excerpt from Carol J. Adams' "The Sexual Politics of Meat."
2. A testimonial from a former Smithfield employee.
3. "What's the Beef and Who Pays."
We voted to split into working groups or committees around tactics. This is still an open discussion, as one of our campaigns seems to split between labor and consumer. The three committees are:
1. Labor
2. Consumer
3. Environmental

Next meeting:
Proposed Agenda:

Vote on the agenda
Sequentially talk about the readings 10 minutes maximum for each:
- Clair kicks off Carol Adams reading
- Nathan kicks off Smithfield worker testimonial
- Debbie kicks off "What's the Beef"
Break into working groups for ten to fifteen minutes to brainstorm.
Within each working group, choose one person to report back on ideas.
Set and vote on agenda and readings for next week.

Roles:
Facilitator—Nathan
Notes—Clair
Time & Place:
Location—TBA
Time—4:30PM
Day—Wednesday

Last planning meeting! 8/23/2006

2006-08-25T17:29:00.000-04:00

Present: Carli, Clair, Nathan, Owen!

Worked on new member's packet

Talked about the dining meeting regarding cage free eggs at Trillium

Discussed 'name change' statement

Discussed posters, publicity, etc. for the first meeting

Set agenda for first meeting

Fired note taker.

Sorry. My head is POUNDING. Perhaps someone could augment this post with actual information...

Sincerely,
NM

Name Change! Meeting Report Back for 8/6/2006

2006-08-07T16:57:00.000-04:00

Roughly, the Minutes

Present: Clair, Carli, Nathan
On the agenda: name change, working on the constitution, group registration, planning for the first meeting

Name change: We have changed our name. We are now Animal Advocates for Agricultural Reform (AAAR). It's short and catchy, and it makes for an excellent conversational gambit in encouraging the question "What kind of agricultural reform?" It also means that we have to know our stuff.

Constitution: Notably, we have changed all occurences of CCAD to AAAR. Also, we have worked in farm labor and the environment. We have defined 'active membership' to mean those who attend at least 2/3 of the meetings; these are the voting members of the group. We have used the concept of "active membership" in place of "president", "vice president", and "treasurer" wherever possible. We will review the changes within the first few weeks of the semester.

Registration: we have registered with the SAO as AAAR. We must wait until the registration form is processed before we can register for web space.

First meeting: we have one more planning meeting on Wednesday the 23rd of August. Additionally, we will produce (via email correspondence) a succinct pamphlet or quarter card to advertise for our first meeting. It will be distributed during move in. Also, I'm up for chalking Ho Plaza and North Campus—send me an email if you wanna help out with any of this stuff. If I remember correctly, the first 'open' meeting is going to be on the 6th of September, at a location TBA. I should probably confirm that before I start telling people about it...

Perspective on this change of focus (Nathan M):

WHY AGRICULTURE?
If we are to take the issue of animal oppression seriously, we must do more than simply talk about fur, foie gras, cosmetic testing, and other issues that are easy to distance from one's self. We must deal with the tacitly accepted brutality of industrial farming toward animals, workers, and the environment. Here we will encounter a machine with a great deal more momentum and organization than anything our movement can currently compete with. Furthermore, we will find that no matter how much disgust with which we regard this system, we will find it inextricably tied to our own existence; we can not simply wash our hands of it by saying "Not on my plate/Not in my back yard."

WHY NOT LIFESTYLE POLITICS?
Many animal rights/welfare activists (including myself) choose to abstain from eating animal products. For many of us, it is a personal statement of commitment to the cause. While this may be good for the soul (or conscience, if you prefer), it is ineffective activism. For when we finish our 5-dollar hummus and seitan sandwiches, we drive home in our bio-diesel cars, we tacitly shake our heads in disgust at poor kids eating school lunches made out of "spent hens" and at men and women working in dangerous slaughterhouses for minimum wage or less. Simply: a culture that systematically and brutally crushes the lives of animals is a culture that crushes the spirit of humanity, and we are a part of that culture.

WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
Within this group, we should focus on a more comprehensive view of animal oppression that includes the closely related issues of labor exploitation and environmental degredation. This more comprehensive analysis will not only give us more credibility, but will also help us to understand the context for and causes of the exploitation of animals. Externally, we should forge alliances and build solidarity with groups who deal with related issues: these groups will be exceedingly receptive to our cause, and will welcome and reciprocate our support. Manifestly, we should publish a newsletter that puts our analysis into action and reports on the plight of domesticated animals, human laborers, and the destruction of the natural world without putting the blame on those who are victims of the same system. We should support farm-labor movements that demand dignity, safety, and adequate compensation for workers; and we should push for sustainable practices in farming, especially where current practices are immediately harming animals and human beings.

Some discussion topic ideas for this semester/reading packet:

2006-07-31T15:50:00.000-04:00

Something on food sovereignty (Vandana Shiva)
Anything by Temple Grandin
the Animal Enterprise Protection Act/analysis of SHAC tactics
Research the environmental impact of various forms (plant and animal) of industrial farming
Excerpt from Carol J Adams on slaughterhouse labor conditions

Everyone! Post some more ideas!

N "too much iced tea!" M

Summer Meeting report back

2006-07-17T15:15:00.000-04:00

Hello friends of CCAD:

Clair and I have met twice in the last two weeks to discuss re-organizing CCAD. We went through the massively awesome CCAD archives for inspiration. Here are some of the ideas we came up with:

1. We should re-write the liberator (or whatever it's going to be called) constitution to. I have drafted one loosely based on the AnimaLife constitution from the archive. Major changes include:

a. the Liberator will be a newsletter will be a outlet for the political expression of the Cornell Coalition for Animal Defense as opposed to "a forum for the rights of animals."
b. the editorial board of the Liberator will be defined by the active membership of CCAD as opposed to a single editor who selects the next editor, as is the case in the old constitution.
c. the Liberator will be distributed every other week at locations that have yet to be decided. Liberator distribution will be included in the definition of CCAD "active membership."
d. the Liberator will be produced (1 or 2?) times a semester, with an "updates" insert when necessary.
e. Contributions are still open, but anonymous contributions will not be accepted.
f. Liberator should include a "where we stand" section in every issue; this section will reflect to-be-established points of unity within the group.

The main idea is to make the Liberator more credible and more central to our group's activites

2. We will be producing a new member's packet for incoming members. This will include the current contitution, the best of the literature we have, and a document that Clair and I are in the process of creating. If two of the group's members having complete control over the production of the new member's packet strikes you as a little un-democratic, you can think of it as "bootstrap democracy" heh... or call me with your ideas. I sent my phone number out in the first "summer meeting" email. As soon as everyone gets back in town, we will review the packet and vote on ammendments to it. And also we will get rid of all end of sentence prepositions and loose conjunctions from it.

3. We have set aside some of the better literature for a CCAD re-write. We will do some independent fact checking and updating to our collection of literature.

4. We discussed the somewhat lofty idea of a upstate NY conference of animal rights and animal welfare groups to help coordinate our efforts. The end goal of such a conference would be to establish a wider representative coalition of animal welfare and animal rights groups that could mobilize more effictively than individual groups.

5. We discussed sending out statements of solidarity to various (to be decided) progressive groups on campus indicating our willingness to collaborate on events that are in keeping with the animal rights/animal welfare. I've also been considering the idea of formal alliances to be defined

6. We briefly talked about meeting with David Skorton to discuss dining issues, animal research issues, and more generally about the aims of our group.

7. We talked again about the importance of internal education in our group; we also talked about the importance of structured meetings and documentation for achival.

This is going to be a great semester; we intend to make CCAD a more democratic and more effective group by getting MAD ORGANIZED, which in fact, is our new name. It's an acronym. Just kidding. Anyway... I look forward to seeing all of you soon. Be excited!

EDITORIAL CONTENT:
What I would like to see is a fusion of working class struggle and animal welfare work. Agricultural workers are some of the most downtrodden laborers in the United States. We have had racist guest worker programs since the beginning of World War I to give us a steady supply of cheap labor to produce cheap food. Industrial farming is a hazard to the health of most working class people. Whether it takes the form of run-off, dangerous jobs, or unhealthy food, the working class is selectively burdened. The need for cheap food does not justify guest worker programs, low wages, union busting, slavery, animal oppression, or the strip mining of the environment. As activists we must do more than distance ourselves from the blame for these evils; we must build a class oriented comprehensive struggle to fight all of the above. In saying this, I do not intend to alienate middle class elements from the struggle; I'm merely making the point that consumer politics is only half the battle, and that labor struggles and the fight against animal oppression are not opposed, but one and the same.

Nathan

Capturing Caged Hens on Video Brings a Charge of Burglary - New York Times

2006-03-17T00:56:00.000-05:00

Capturing Caged Hens on Video Brings a Charge of Burglary - New York Times
Hey guys. Ryan just sent this to the ARA UNY list--It's an article about the Wegmans Cruelty documentary in the New York Times.

Wegmans Cruelty Showing

2006-03-06T10:57:00.001-05:00

Wednesday, March 8^th: Compassionate Consumers presents "Wegmans Cruelty"

7pm, Warren Hall 131

Please attend this event! Warren Hall is the one on the North side of the Ag Quad. CCAD will be providing free vegan food. Additionally, we will have a followup meeting on Thursday to discuss what we can do to get humanely produced eggs on campus.

Today's Meeting

2006-02-08T23:43:00.000-05:00

Here's what we talked about today:

PETA thread In 2004 we discussed the damage that PETA is doing to the animal rights movement, and came to the conclusion that we would no longer collaborate or participate in any of their campaigns. The reading for today's meeting was a digest of that discussion.
The Liberator We talked about our plans for the newsletter. We will be working on it continuously in online form, even if we don't have funding to publish it this semester. When we do have funding, we will have a large body of work to draw from.
Tabling We are going to start campaign oriented tabling on Wednesdays to promote our events.
Wegmans Cruelty Showing We talked about the date change for the Wegmans Cruelty video. The large event is now on the 8^th of march, with a planning meeting on the next day (Thursday) for those who are interested in working on a campaign to get eggs from farms that don't use battery cages on campus.
Eternal Treblinka We talked about reading Charles Patterson's Eternal Treblinka for the next CCAD reading project. There is at least one copy available in the Cornell Library System.
Crow Shoot We spoke briefly about the Auburn Crow Shoot. Anyone who is interested in going to protest should ask either Clair or Nathan who to contact. CCAD will not be attending as a group this year. www.savethecrows.org provides some good information about relevant New York state legislation regarding this and other killing contests.

The next meeting will be in Goldwin Smith 160, this coming (and nearly every) Wednesday at 5:00PM. See you there!

The Cow Logo Returns: updated!

2006-01-27T21:43:00.000-05:00

My boss sketched this new logo out for us:

I think it is significantly hotter than the one I sketched. If we use it, we have to give her some vegan cookies.

Here's the one I made:

What do you guys think?

Boundless Ethics (Ithaca College Animal Rights Group)

2006-01-27T17:37:00.000-05:00

Hey. This group doesn't have website, but I wanted to put them on the links bar. I was thinking we could do a summary of IVA, Boundless Ethics, and CCAD 'goings ons' for the liberator, perhaps in the form of group profiles. I'm contacting Dan to see if he would be interested in writing his group's profile himself.
Here are some links related to the group:

At the Last Meeting (1/25/2006)

2006-01-27T17:19:00.000-05:00

Here are some of the things that we discussed at the last meeting:

Creating a CCAD alumni network to keep in touch with people who are still active in animal rights.
West Hour/Northern Exposure food events.
The Liberator: ideas for articles.
Budgetary Potluck (TBA).
Potential Collaboration with NWAEG or the Sustainability Hub.
Creating a CCAD book group. If anyone has any recommendations for reading, please post them here or send them to the list.
Vegan easter baskets for fund raising.
Wegmans Cruelty video showing on campus.
Cornell Dining issues
Student run dining facility

Let me know if I've missed anything!

Wegmans Cruelty Links

2006-01-25T20:23:00.000-05:00

These were posted as comments on one of our posts. I'm putting them in a post so they're a bit more noticable.

Animal Slaughter Statistics, Legislation

2006-01-25T20:08:00.000-05:00

I found some online resources that could be useful for liberator articles, or at least the facts section.

Liberator

2005-12-05T14:12:00.000-05:00

Hello all.
At the last meeting we discussed re-designing the liberator to be a 16"x7"(?) fold-over publication with an inexpensive card stock cover. Theoretically, we are moving the editting and reviewing of content to this website. This means we will submit our drafts to be reviewed and editted as entries in this blog. If you want write access to this blog, please send me (feralvegan@gmail.com) an email, and I will send you an invite. If you don't want access, or don't want your work posted, please send it to me (Nathan) or Clair.
Contributions can include, but are not limited to, articles, book reviews, creative work, recipes, correspondence, and consumer information.
Summary: hotter than hot-off-the-press stuff is going to happen right here. Happy posting.

Carol Adams in Cornell Sun

2005-11-11T22:53:00.000-05:00

http://www.cornellsun.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/11/11/4374476b5b0ba

Carol Adams: two events

2005-11-09T14:14:00.000-05:00

What: Carol Adams speaks at Cornell, followed by a book signing
When: THURSDAY, November 10th, 7:00PM
Where: McGraw Hall Auditorium
(more details several posts below)

~and~

What: Carol Adams eats food
When: TODAY (Nov. 9), 6:30
Where: Moosewood Restaurant

Cow Logo

2005-10-20T18:31:00.000-04:00

I made this last semester.
Eh?
Nathan

Star Trek IV

2005-10-19T18:21:00.000-04:00

Thursday, Oct. 20 at 10:00pm in Robert Purcell Community Center.
Star Trek IV and free food. What more could you want?

Carol J Adams

2005-10-18T16:30:00.000-04:00

Ecofeminist philosopher Carol J Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat will speak on Nov. 10 at 7:00pm in McGraw Hall Room 165.

"Carol J. Adams has been an activist on antiviolence issues since the 1970s. After receiving her Master of Divinity from Yale University Divinity School in 1976, she and her partner started a Hotline for Battered Women in Chautauqua County, New York, housing it in their home for the first year and a half of its existence. During that time Carol was the Executive Director of the Chautauqua County Rural Ministry, Inc., in Dunkirk, New York, an advocacy and service not-for-profit agency addressing issues of poverty, racism, and sexism. During the next decade, among other things, she served as Chairperson of the Housing Committee of the New York Governor's Commission on Domestic Violence (1984-87); coordinated a challenge to a local radio station license because of its racism, misrepresentation, and disregard of FCC rules (this resulted in the first revocation of a radio station license brought about by a community group during the Reagan years), co-ordinated a suit against a city for racism in its housing practices, and began writing what became The Sexual Politics of Meat....

Carol has published close to 100 articles in journals, books, and magazines on the issues of vegetarianism and veganism, animal advocacy, domestic violence and sexual abuse. In addition, she has contributed entries on "vegetarianism" for numerous academic encyclopedias and dictionaries. She is particularly interested in the interconnections among forms of violence against human and nonhuman animals, writing, for instance, about why woman-batterers harm animals and the implications of this (see Animals and Women). Her article, "Bringing Peace Home: A Feminist Philosophical Perspective on the Abuse of Women, Children, and Pet Animals," represents her approach to these interconnections. (It's in her book Neither Man nor Beast)....

Recently she received awards from The Greater Dallas Coalition for Reproductive Freedom and Planned Parenthood of Dallas and North Texas, "for her help in understanding the psychology of the radical right, for her commitment to women and for her brave stance against the tyranny of Operation Rescue."...

She has been a speaker at various colleges and universities including Yale, Harvard, Trinity College (Dublin), the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Columbia, CalTech, the University of Pittsburgh, University of Cincinnati, Smith College, University of Michigan, Skidmore College, Ohio University, Kent State University, Denison College, Southern Methodist University, Oberlin College, Cornell University, UCLA, and Virginia Tech."
-excerpts from the biography on her website.

upcoming activities

2005-10-17T11:50:00.000-04:00

*Vegan barbecue on the arts quad Monday from 10AM-2PM.
There'll be veggie burgers, veggie dogs, veggie kebabs,
and other stuff, all for the uber-cheap price of $1.

*West Hour will be at 10 PM in Noyes lobby on 10/19.  A free vegan
feast and a movie showing--all you have to do is come.

*Northern Exposure is the next day, same time, but in RPCC.  Look for
the "Free food" signs.

*Mark your calendar - renowned ecofeminist Carol Adams to speak at
Cornell at 7:00pm on Nov. 10 in McGraw Hall Room 165.

Meetings every Wednesday at 5PM in Goldwin-Smith 160.
EVERYONE--omnivorous, carnivorous, vegan, and vegetarian alike--is
welcome at our meetings and events.  The idea behind CCAD is to enable
everyonewith an interest in helping animals do so in whatever ways they
feel comfortable with.  We don't judge.  Thus, please come to any meetings
you like, if only to get to know us. (You may even get free food.)