(Bill Harper--citizen watchdog, member of CATS--and his "Big Board")
(Highway 70, east of New Bern, NC)
NORTH CAROLINA IS GOING TO THE HOGS!!!
THE PROBLEM: The swine industry under the guidance of the Pork Producers Association has infiltrated the NC State Legislature and Executive to the extent of gaining favorable legislation which begets the industry's own explosive expansion.
(Bill Harper--citizen watchdog, member of CATS--and his "Big Board")
(Highway 70, east of New Bern, NC)
Consequently, NC has gone, just over five years, from traditionally small-farm, managable numbers of hogs to an overwhelming 10 million of these river killers!
Traditional environmentally-friendly farming methods have been swept aside by the industry moguls and their "intensive" management practices. "Intensive" in this industry means housing 3,000 or more hogs in one sheet metal building with frequent washdowns of the excrement and urine, waste which drains into nearby holding cesspools.
The porus soil of NC's coastal plains, its high water-table, its many rivers and streams, and its volatile climate can no longer support the swine industry, because the industry's cesspools regularly empty their poisonous contents into both the groundwater and the surface waters; once-beautiful rivers are now unswimmable and unfishable due primarily to the increased pollution from the burgeoning numbers of hogs. It has been calculated that one hog produces at least 4 times the waste of a human and often as much or more than 6 times as much.
The only response from NC Legislators has been to pass "pseudo-environmental protection": laws which purport to solve the pollution problem but which actually soak the taxpayer and protect the swine industrialists. This is not surprising when many of the swine owners are also members of the legislature or buy influence through political contributions. This mutually-beneficent society actually transfers to their wealthy members large sums of taxpayers' money, under cover of their new "environmental" laws, in effect bribing or rewarding themselves for giving lip-service to so-called "best management practices (BMP's). Much of the North Carolina Hog story was reported in the News and Observer's award winning series "Bosshog."
THE SOLUTION: Force the Pork Producers Association to reduce North Carolina's hog population to that which existed prior to 1989, a year when kids and fish were still safe in the rivers and lakes, and water wells still provided a good, healthy drink. Force, in the form of economic pressure, is required because officials will undertake no voluntary efforts other than to initiate another study or appoint another commission.
How to bring economic pressure to bear on these powerful political industrialists?? Simple! We follow the grand example of Ceaser Chavez, leader of a National boycot of grape producers. In other words, we boycot hog producers by refusing to buy their pork chops, barbeque, cracklins, chitterlins, trotters, tenderloins, ham, porkribs, ham salad, and any other pig meat.
The solution is simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy. All fifty States will have to help, for many if not most North Carolinians are virtually hooked on pork barbeque. The same may be said of the "ham" part of "ham and eggs". And remember, the best way to beat pork addiction is to go "cold turkey"! Actually, there's less colosteral in a turkey sandwich than in a porkchop anyway. No matter the sacrifice, the fight must be won if we are to reverse the CATastrophic unnatural disaster that is happening to our environment.
CATS is an acronym for "Citizens Against Trashey Services", a watchdog group of informally associated but concerned Americans trying to save first one affected area of the country then another. We ask citizens all across the Cyberspace to join us in a National boycot of pork products until the industry rolls back the hog population of NC to levels that existed prior to 1989. Thank you for your support. Please let your meeeow be heard; adopt our motto:
BUY NO PORK! SERVE NO PORK! EAT NO PORK!
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