The industrial egg industry has truly lost its collective head over the prospect of Californians passing Proposition 2, the legislation that would give farm animals the luxury of stretching their limbs.
Julie Buckner, the Californians for Safe Food spokesperson who went on Oprah to claim that Proposition 2 would destroy California's egg industry, is trying a really tacky new tack, according to last Thursday's New York Times.
Buckner told the Times that Winfrey's implied support for the measure "only codified her sense that the ballot measure is being pushed by "wealthy, narrow-minded elitists" who do not understand its real-world consequences."
She went on to dis the Humane Society, who's sponsoring Proposition 2, for being funded, apparently, by diamond-encrusted dog-loving dilettantes:
As opposed, I guess, to the salt of the earth Agribiz bigwigs who are funding the fight against Proposition 2. Read The New York Times Magazine piece on The Humane Society's groundbreaking campaigns on behalf of farm animals, and Carol Ness's great post on Grist detailing the egg industry's desperation to derail Proposition 2, and you'll understand why Buckner and her partners in slime are so anxious to frame the issue of animal welfare as some kind of anti-populist cause with dire consequences for your average egg-lovin' Joe and Jane Six Pack.
But this battle on behalf of our farm animals isn't about the rich -- if I may get biblical for a moment, it's about the rich in spirit, -- as opposed to those who are hellbent on callous consumption and ill-gotten profits. Buckner and co. would have you believe that compassion for our fellow creatures is a luxury only the wealthy can afford. But doesn't a culture that can't figure out how to feed itself without resorting to torture impoverish us all?