Hello!
Please join Rocky Mountain Animal Defense at the Stock Show Protest, January 14th, 2005. This is the 100th Anniversary of the event that celebrates the dark side of the American West. Bring friends, family, and fellow advocates to the National Western Complex at 11 a.m. (ending around 1 p.m.) We’ll have our body screen televisions, Duke the calf, and a human-sized veal create to demonstrate the horrific conditions in which the animals are kept.
RMAD board member, spokesperson, speaker, and author Mark Reinhardt has written an eloquent and passionate column that we are submitting to area media. Mark’s column is posted below.
ACTION ALERT: Anyone who would like to join Mark in speaking for the animals, please send a letter to the editor of your local paper.
RMAD member John Bigger’s letter to the editor regarding the killing of prairie dogs by Calvary Bible Church was printed in Saturday’s Daily Camera. That letter is included below as well. Thanks, John!
"Dining Out for RMAD Day" is Tuesday, January 31, 2006, at Watercourse Foods in Denver. Please plan on having breakfast, lunch or dinner (or all three!) at the Watercourse on January 31. Please mention that you're with RMAD, so they know that supporting us supports their business.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the post-event silent auction, which helped RMAD raise some more money for animal advocacy in 2006. If you won an item, you received an email from me. If you haven’t paid or inquired about collecting your item, please contact Chris (chrisj@rmad.org).
- Chris and Donna
Rocky Mountain Animal Defense Calendar of Events:
Saturday, January 7: Fur Demo
When: 11:30 AM. Posters and leaflets will be provided. Bring an umbrella just in case!
Where: Marks Lloyds Furs, 263 Josephine, between 2nd and 3rd in Cherry Creek.
Please help us spread the truth about fur, in Denver. Here's the scoop about fur:
http://www.furisdead.com/feat/ChineseFurFarms/
http://www.hsus.org/wildlife/issues_facing_wildlife/fur_and_trapping/
http://www.furisdead.com/getActive.asp
http://www.furisdead.com/photos-traps.asp
http://www.bancrueltraps.com/
http://www.furkills.org/
http://www.infurmation.com
Stock Show Protest: January 14, 2006
When: 11 a.m.
Where: National Western Complex
Meeting at the front entrance. Bring friends! We need a strong showing.
Dining Out Day: January 31st, 2006
When: All day!
Where: Watercourse Foods, Denver
Eat well and eat often to benefit the animals of Colorado and beyond at Denver’s premier vegetarian restaurant.
Ongoing: Vegetarian Parents of Denver Meeting
Vegetarian Parents of Denver meet the second Saturday of every month. We discuss a variety of issues, share resources and are even starting an organic food buying club. We welcome parents of children of any age. Bring the kids and we have a babysitter watch them in another room. Our next meeting is June 11 at 10 a.m.- 12 p.m. You can call 303 355 5272 or e-mail Laura Patrick (veganmom2002@yahoo.com) for directions. Or join our online discussion group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/compassionate_future/.
Why do we protest the Stock Show?
Next Saturday, January 14, at 11 AM Rocky Mountain Animal Defense will be sponsoring a protest at the National Western Stock Show, and we invite everyone to join us. As in past years, the protesters will represent a broad cross-section of our community—blue-collar workers, professionals, students, families, and senior citizens—from many racial and ethnic backgrounds. Why is this diverse group of people opposed to something as deeply ingrained in Denver history as the Stock Show? The answer is quite simple—we are repulsed by the conduct of the industry it represents.
The animal agriculture industry is big business in the United States. Each year it brutalizes and kills more than 9 billion animals and exploits hundreds of thousands of its own workers (many of whom are immigrants) on factory farms and in slaughterhouses where the conditions are horrific beyond imagination. That’s just the beginning of the story. Animal agriculture pollutes our land and water on a scale that dwarfs every other industry. It consumes more of our dwindling water resources than all other human activities combined, and it is responsible for more human disease than even the tobacco industry. The Stock Show, for all its pomp and circumstance, is little more than a slick advertisement for this exploitative and greedy industry, shrouding its appalling practices in the feel-good theme of the “Old West.” The rodeo that accompanies it is simply ritualistic cruelty to animals for the sake of human entertainment.
We understand that the Stock Show has a long tradition in Denver. But tradition, when blindly followed, has often been used as an excuse to justify repressive behavior. (We’ve had long “traditions” of slavery, racism and sexism in this country as well.) We don’t believe for a minute that the barbaric practices glorified by the Stock Show reflect the real values of the people of the West, much less the values that we want to pass down to our children.
After 100 years it’s time for the Stock Show to end. We can do better. Much better. Let’s replace the Stock Show with an annual pageant that will draw a larger and more diverse group of visitors to Denver. Let’s recognize our western heritage from a broader perspective—one that celebrates our many cultures, and one that learns from our past mistakes as well as lauding our many accomplishments. But most of all, let’s make the successor to the Stock Show a celebration of loftier values that truly represent the people of the West—our spirit, our independence, and our respect for the land and the life that inhabits it.
This year we’ll be protesting the Stock Show for the simple reason that it represents all that is wrong with the West, and none of what is right. We want and deserve something better, and we know we can achieve just that through hard work, advocacy and education. We invite the citizens of Colorado and our surrounding states to join us in this effort.
Mark Reinhardt
Denver
[Mark Reinhardt is a Denver attorney and member of the board of directors of Rocky Mountain Animal Defense. For the past 20 years he has written extensively on animal rights and health issues. His book, The Perfectly Contented Meat-Eater’s Guide to Vegetarianism, was published by Continuum in 1998.]
The recent prairie dog killings that were sanctioned by the Calvary Bible Church of Boulder were not only abhorrent, but also exemplary of the hypocritical nature of "church factories" like Calvary, who seek to disregard innocent lives when said lives stand in their paths. The utter and obscene lack of compassion on the part of Calvary only solidified the perception that this particular chain of churches will only follow the letter of its religion as long as it doesn't interfere with its attempts to hoard land for the purpose of expanding its facilities and attracting new members.
Religion by convenience is easy. Actually practicing the ideals stated by one's religion requires work, sacrifice and, in this case, compassion. It's too bad that Calvary chose the former, thereby setting a bad example for followers and, in the process, destroying life. Here's hoping that potential members will look elsewhere for their prospective places of worship and will choose an institution that is more concerned with preserving the sanctity of wildlife than with expansion at any cost.
John C. Bigger
Longmont, Colorado
