| |
|
|
On Tuesday and Wednesday, March 10th & 11th, ABC World News
Tonight With Peter Jennings did a two-part series on illegal
immigrant workers in the U.S. poultry industry. The poultry
industry knowingly hires many illegal immigrants to work in
slaughterhouses and do the dirty work of chicken catching. Every
night in this country over 30 million chickens are rounded up for
transport to slaughterhouses. Many birds die of heart failure,
suffocation, and hemorrhaging during catching. Their legs, wings,
hips, and necks are broken. Birds are terrorized and traumatized
to the point of "tonic immobility" in which their muscles become
paralyzed, as indicated in the heaps of "frozen" living birds
glimpsed in the footage.
While we commend "Peter Jennings" for airing these scenes, we condemn the fact that the show completely ignored the brutal bashing of the birds by the workers. Some comment about this cruelty to the birds and their suffering should have been made. "Peter Jennings" showed human beings at our worst and said Nothing. It showed 7-week old baby birds treated like footballs and said Nothing. Please complain LOUD AND CLEAR.
Paul Friedman |