Since the issue of vegetarianism and meat has come up again, let me ask:
has anyone been following the McDonald's libel case in England?
McDonald's is suing two environmental activists for distributing
leaflets arguing for a boycott of McD's. The arguments range from labor
practices to animal treatment to public health. The argument that I
found both compelling and relevant to list discussion was their claim
that McDonald's (and other fast food chains and commercial buyers of
meat) practices are a major cause of starvation in the Third World. Here
is the relevant excerpt from a longer version of the pamphlet.

   HUNGRY FOR DOLLARS

   McDonald's is one of several giant corporations with
   investments in vast tracts of land in poor countries, sold
   to them by the dollar-hungry rulers (often military) and
   privileged elites, evicting the small farmers that live
   there growing food for their own people.

   The power of the US dollar means that in order to buy
   technology and manufactured goods, poor countries are
   trapped into producing more and more food for export to the
   States. Out of 40 of the world's poorest countries, 36
   export food to the USA - the wealthiest.

   ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM

   Some 'Third World' countries, where most children are
   undernourished, are actually exporting their staple crops as
   animal feed - i.e. to fatten cattle for turning into burgers
   in the 'First World'. Millions of acres of the best farmland
   in poor contries are being used for our benefit - for tea,
   coffee, tobacco, etc. - while people there are starving.
   McDonald's is directly involved in this economic
   imperialism, which keeps most black people poor and hungry
   while many whites grow fat.

   GROSS MISUSE OF RESOURCES

   Grain is fed to cattle in South American countries to
   produce the meat in McDonald's hamburgers. Cattle consume 10
   times the amount of grain and soy that humans do: one
   calorie of beef demands ten calories of grain. Of the 145
   million tons of grain and so fed to livestock, only 21
   million tons of meat and by-products are used. The waste is
   124 million tons per year at a value of 20 billion US
   dollars. It has been calculated that this sum would feed,
   clothe and house the world's entire population fo one year.

Comments or corrections, anyone?

BTW, the URL for a Web page on the McLibel case is:

   http://www.envirolink.org/mcspotlight/case/index.html

Both the original leaflet and the expanded version are available there,
as well as other information about the case.

Chris Hawkins
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5065/index.html


