STOP THE EVIL CHICKEN BUTCHERS : EQUAL CHICKEN RIGHTS NOW

THE CHICKENS SPEAK

By : Mr. Woodrow D. Beakman, L.L.M., a Chicken; Escapee, Selma (Alabama) Poultry Processing Plant; Formerly Known as a "Grade D Fryer - Strong Style;" Self-taught in English and Human Communication; Avian; Honorary Master's Degree Holder in Human Rights Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C. (2008); Author, "Fried Chicken Holocaust : America is a Death House for Birds Everywhere" (Forthcoming, HarperCollins™ 2010).

America is a great Nation because it respects life. It fights for dignity and freedom abroad. It believes that all living creatures have a right to exist. America trusts life because it knows that life represents potential greatness for all. Life is good. It is worth saving. In short, America stands up for life.

Yet America has failed to stand up for life when it comes to chickens. To the contrary, America has committed heinous crimes against chickens everywhere. In every State, America allows men to ruthlessly imprison, mistreat, pluck, murder, slaughter, dismember, disembowel and process helpless chickens on an industrial scale. Worse, America even encourages bloodthirsty criminals to butcher chickens in the name of "commercial advancement."

This is an outrage against life and dignity. As chickens, we demand that America cease its genocidal campaign against us at once. We may be chickens. But we are people, too. We deserve to live just as much as a brain-dead human child or an endangered humpback whale. We refuse to allow our brethren to die in poultry slaughterhouses so that greedy profiteers can sell our breasts, thighs, wings and gullets. We refuse to allow our mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers to end their existence beer-basted and fried at the bottom of some God-forsaken Styrofoam bucket. Put simply, we demand that America respect all life--including chicken life.

Why does America refuse to see us? Indeed, America seems almost willfully blind concerning our daily ordeals. Rather than express outrage over our horrific treatment, Americans actually praise the men who orchestrate our slaughter. Just last week, for example, the Wall Street Journal ran a piece analyzing the "highly successful business model" employed by two notorious chicken butchers: Harlan David "Colonel" Sanders and his protégé Dave Thomas. According to the Journal, these two "entrepreneurs" devised an "exemplary food processing and delivery system," in addition to creating "a shrewd marketing scheme designed to maximize consumer interest in chicken meals." As a result, said the Journal, "Sanders and Thomas stand as giants in the business community." In conclusion: "Every food service entrepreneur should study the Sanders/Thomas Method well."

Giants in the business community? Exemplary food processing and delivery systems? Sanders/Thomas Method? Does the Journal even understand what made these men "giants?" Does any American really understand what methods made these men "successful?"

Sanders and Thomas are not heroes. Rather, they are evil chicken butchers who scorn life. They achieved their "success" by purposely breeding, corralling, beheading, gutting and packaging millions of innocent chickens. Yet Americans celebrate these butchers every day, not just in the Wall Street Journal, but also in rundown chicken shacks from coast to coast. Every day, Americans sing praises to Sanders and Thomas as they greedily feast on the flesh of our kin.

This is not dignity. This is not respect for life. This is genocide.

According to international law, "genocide" means the intentional killing of any identifiable ethnic, national, racial or religious group because of animus against that group. Chickens are a racial group. Our genetic combinations result in a unique racial identity. Racially, we are chickens. And because villains like Sanders and Thomas hunt us down and kill us because we are racially chicken, that makes them genocidal mass murderers, not entrepreneurs.

America should think long and hard about glorifying these killers. It should think about its principles. After all, America prosecuted Nazi war criminals for genocide after World War II. It prosecuted Slobodan Milosevic for "ethnic cleansing" in Yugoslavia. It even investigated Iraqi officials who allegedly killed minorities in that country. Hollywood superstars have lobbied for aid to Darfur, where ethnic groups make war on each other.

In short, America says it cares about stopping genocide. Why, then, does it call "Colonel" Sanders an "entrepreneur" rather than a chicken-slaughtering thug? America says it recoils from systematic, racially-motivated killings worldwide. Why, then, can it not see that chickens endure racially-motivated killing every single day? Chicken genocide proceeds on an unimaginable scale. Only 400,000 Rwandans perished in that country's genocide. Yet billions of chickens have been left writhing to die in grime-covered barrels since America took a liking to "Original Recipe" hot wings. And that's just in America. Other countries like to eat us, too. China, for instance, does not just violate human rights. It massively violates chicken rights, too. Put simply, no human genocide in history can compare to the intentional butchery chickens have suffered.

Chickens deserve to live the American dream. They deserve a chance to live in peace, prosper, propagate and find some happiness before they die. America guarantees that dream to all humans who live in its borders. It also says that all life is valuable. If that is true, why does America condemn chickens to systematic exploitation, pain and death? What about a young chicken's dream? Don't chickens get a chance to go to school, find love, work at a job and go to the movies on weekends? Don’t chickens get a chance to raise children and find meaning in life? Humans do. Why not chickens? We are living, breathing creatures, too. We have cells and brains. Our brains may not be as large as men's brains. But that is no reason to pluck us alive, cut our throats, batter us, fry us and feed us to a Little League team along with Grape Soda and potato salad.

We are more valuable than vegetables. We are living, breathing avians, not plants. We are not inanimate turnips or cabbage heads. Put simply, it is morally wrong for America to discriminate against us because we have feathers and small brains. We have webbed feet and gizzards. So what? America says it values diversity. Yet it kills us because we have gizzards and humans do not. America can benefit from all life, including creatures with gizzards. The fact that we have gizzards does not make us inferior. We are no less alive than a college professor or a superstar athlete. We all breathe the same air. We all give birth to young. True, we lay eggs and humans pop children out alive. But our distinctive reproductive methods are no reason to slaughter us and eat us; they are part of "who we are."

Federal law and the United States Constitution prohibit discrimination based upon reproductive capacity. It is no answer, then, to say that "chickens deserve differential treatment" simply because they lay eggs. In a word, America says it values equality. Like humans, we are "living things." Viewed in that light, we are equal. We demand EQUALITY NOW.

But this debate is not just about the law. This debate is about America's conscience. After all, how can America continue preaching about equality, dignity and "respect for life" when it condemns an entire segment of its living population to industrialized slaughter? How can America maintain its moral rectitude when it sets aside an entire segment of its living population to be greedily eaten along with sweet-n-sour sauce, cole slaw and biscuits? And how can it maintain its respect for individual autonomy when it refuses to allow chickens to form their own identities?

Every chicken is special. We refuse to be labeled "Grade A Fryers," "Finger-Lickin' Drumsticks," "Nuggets" or "Dark Meat Specials." We are unique individuals with thoughts, dreams and desires. America exists to allow every living individual to reach his maximal potential in all things. America exists to protect everyone's right to live. In that light, we demand that America live up to its principles. It must stop praising chicken butchers like "Colonel" Sanders and Dave Thomas. It must stop dooming our relatives to frozen death in microwave dinner boxes. In short, how is it American to allow a human to go to college and prosper, while allowing a chicken to live a wretched existence before being thrown into a steel plucking machine?

It is time to stand up for what is right. It is time to stand up for life. Chickens have so much to contribute to American life. We do not just exist to die and fill human stomachs. We do not just exist to peck around farmyards and cluck. No, we are living, breathing creatures. We can achieve great things. And if America cares about stopping genocide, it can start by bringing men like Sanders and Thomas to justice, not calling them "successful food industry entrepreneurs."

There is nothing "entrepreneurial" about mass murder. As chickens in a Republic that values diversity in all living things, we demand a voice. We refuse to be exterminated, chopped up, bagged and drowned in barbecue sauce any longer.

That is not our destiny. And that is no way to treat an entire race in America.