WEAPONIZED with Jeremy Corbell & George Knapp - Fighting Back Against Animal Cruelty - Guest : Wayne Pacelle

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

Tens of millions of animals spend their entire live in agony and confinement, mostly because cruelty is built into the business model of huge Agri-Biz corporations. Huge, foreign-owned companies inflict unimaginable suffering on vast numbers of animals. The cruelty inherent in factory farming operations is not only terrible for the animals, but also bad for humans. Citizen groups in multiple states have pushed for laws to provide minimal standards for animal welfare, but now, Big Ag is attempting to undermine democracy by wiping out the positive changes made in recent years. Wayne Pacelle is one of the best known and most successful animal welfare advocates in the world. He co-founded two influential organizations which are fighting on Capital Hill and in state and local governments across the country on behalf of animals who are otherwise powerless. In this episode, Pacelle tells Jeremy and George about the daunting threats to animal welfare and human health by powerful interests for whom cruelty is seen as a shortcut to profits.  Learn more at https://AnimalWellnessAction.org  •••  GOT A TIP? Reach out to us at [e-mail] For breaking news, follow Corbell & Knapp on all social media. Extras and bonuses from the episode can be found at https://WeaponizedPodcast.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Most people who eat meat, drink milk, consume eggs, don't want to think the animals are tormented. When we treat animals better, there are better outcomes for people. You know, I mean, you eat too much meat, you have heart disease, you have arterioschorosis, you have lots of different health-related issues that are documented in the literature. You are what you eat. You're purchasing power, paying attention to what you buy. Pay attention, give some thought to what you eat.

Listen, we raise 10 billion animals a year. If you're reduced by one-tenth, you save all... If we all reduced by one-tenth, we would save one billion animals. I mean, that's an incredible number. Secrets, cover-ups, and strange phenomena. UFOs and ideas that challenge reality itself. All these mysteries, all this time. Are we ever going to get to the bottom of these?

My name is George Knapp. I dig into news stories that others can't or won't. I'm Jeremy Corbell, and for some reason, people tell me things they probably. shouldn't. And this is weaponized. This is weaponized. You know, we're going to do some different things in this episode. I hope those of you tuning in for our usual content. We hope you'll stick around for the discussion today. It goes to the heart of what it means to be a human, what we value, what we consider to be moral and right on this planet. You know, the only stories that I, as a journalist,

have covered more often than UFOs in my career are animal welfare issues. all kinds of species facing all kinds of challenges. Dogs and cats and pigs and cows and coyotes and wolves, bears, lions, tigers, tigers, lagers, chimps, elephants. I'll tell you this, you don't know animals until you've had a chance to get to know an elephant over a period of years, as I have done. These stories change people. They affect them on multiple levels. And hopefully the discussion we have prepared today will cause some of you to sort of pause and think and maybe even take out. action. Wayne Ficelli is our guest. He's one of the best known and most effective animal proponents in the world.

He headed up the Humane Society of the U.S. for a number of years, and then he co-founded two partner organizations. One's called a Center for Humane Economy and also Animal Wellness Action. They have made enormous progress on the state on national level, on multiple issues, but they have major fights looming. And today we're going to talk about some of those fights. Jeremy, you want to say anything before we jump into Wayne? Yeah, I'm really excited to not be doing a UFO episode because people need to catch the fuck up, like straight up. I'm posting things on social media for people to see what the last episode is and they don't even know. So everybody needs to catch up. This is also an issue that I am super excited.

I've seen you fight for those without voices, animal rights for so long on coast to coast from day one. If you look at episode number one, we said that we are going to cover the topics. It weaponize us, that spark us, that excite us. And this one definitely does because it deals with individuals that don't have the same voice that we do. And just to frame it in UFO context, what if these visitors, whoever they are, are doing experiments on humankind? What if we're being prepared, given antibiotics, being nurtured, giving grass, given food, given water for the ultimate purpose of being a commodity for an agent, alien overlord for consumption of the souls or the body. So I kind of feel like this is a very fun and pertinent issue.

Plus, people got to catch the fuck up. Yeah, what if we're an agricultural product if there's a harvest? Right, right. We're a factory farm for aliens. Wayne Bisali, always great to talk to you. I want to see if we could start with this. You know, in light of your track record on animal welfare issues, that the changes implemented and laws passed in states and the referreoles.

and things of that sort. I imagine there must be wanted posters with your face on them in corporate headquarters all over the world. And, you know, we're going to talk a lot about factory farm issues today and farm animal welfare. And I know these big ag companies want to portray themselves as like mom and pop and the kids raising Bessie and a few of her calves versus rich liberal animal lovers who want to destroy the little family farm. The reality is a lot different, isn't it? It really is, and their framing has been false for an awfully long time. And now there's an effort in Congress by the National Pork Producers Council to nullify elections, elections in California, elections in Massachusetts, where voters overwhelmingly approved, a very mainstream, modest idea, which is animals like pigs and chickens and young male calves

should be allowed to move. They should have the opportunity to stand up, lie down, turn around, and freely extend their limbs. That is hardly a radical animal rights manifesto. Voters decided that all animals deserve humane treatment, including animals raised for food. But what's amazing, George, is that the National Park Producers Council, its biggest member is Smithfield Foods. And in 2013, Smithfield Foods was purchased by the Wuhan Group, which is a China-based corporation. It acquired Smithfield after getting a loan of $5 billion from the Bank of China, which is a CCP-run operation. And now Smithfield Foods, a wholly owned China company, controls 26% of the U.S. pork market. Now, in China, I just saw a picture and image of high-rise pig factory farms,

10 stories high, 21 buildings. George, I mean, something to rival the construction of Las Vegas with all of its casinos down on the strip. That is what China is offering to its consumers and customers, and it's the same people who are now controlling Smithfield in the United States. I can assure you that no family farmer can build a high-rise factory farm for pigs. Can you characterize the Eats Act because this is where the big fight is now? You've won all these victories. You and other organizations and regular voters have won significant victories across the board, 10 states at least, and Big Ag does not like it.

And now they've taken their battle to Congress, right? Yeah, they've lost at the ballot box by landslide margins. We've never won a ballot. We've never won a ballot measure by less than 10% of the vote, in some cases, by 50 percentage points, 78 to 22, 63 to 37. Then the pork industry led by the National Pork Bridge Council went to federal court. They've lost 12 straight cases, including a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, a conservative six to three majority Supreme Court. Then immediately after losing there, they go to the Congress. Well, I can tell you that just now at the end of August,

lawmakers from both parties are speaking out against the EAT Act. I think they've got a very tough hill to climb, but they've got a lot of money. They've had a lot of influence. This is the place where they've operated for a long time. So we are not relenting. in our defensive maneuvers on this. But it's incredible. This is not just corporate agriculture. This is foreign-owned corporate agriculture that's trying to subvert American elections.

Jeremy, you want to jump in? Yeah, yeah. Look, I need to back up a little bit because you're throwing mega-ton bombs. And if people are like me, you know, my audience, George always goes right for the nuts. So here's the deal. Like, what flipped in your, what started you on this?

And can you tell us what is the basic philosophy in just like a, you know, the basic philosophy of why this matters and why you fight with your life for this? Yeah. Well, George and I go back a long way. We've been fighting these battles. So we pick up, you know, right midstream here. That's the way that that's the way that we've been rolling. Educate everybody else right now. Yeah.

No, Jeremy, it's a great question. I'm glad you asked. You know, as I've told George before, this was in me. I just had an empathy for animals when I was a little kid. And frankly, most kids have an affection and an appreciation and a fascination for animals. Most children's books are populated with animal pictures. Kids really begin to see the world by seeing other creatures. They're different from us, but they're different in good ways.

They're fast. They have beautiful fur. They have incredible horns or claws or teeth. we are drawn to them as kids. But somehow when we get older, we somehow become accustomed through society and culture to think of them as completely different. And then we begin to use them in certain ways,

often in ways that are quite hidden from our normal experience. We have puppy mills that sell dogs to pet stores. We have hog factories that put pork on the table. we see Ringling Brothers or other circuses that walk elephants in, but we don't know that they're beaten with bullhooks or they're on chains, 23 hours a day. So much of what happens to animals is hidden from our view. So I had an instinct to be good to animals, but I had no clue about what was going on. I didn't even know there were groups organized. It wasn't until I went to college that I began to understand that there were organized efforts to stop cruelty to animals.

And when I learned about it, when I learned about the factory farms, I learned about the fur trade, I learned about trophy hunting of endangered and threatened animals like African elephants or African lions. And I learned about puppy mills. And I learned about seal clubbing and killing of kangaroos for athletic shoes. I said, I can't be a bystander. I want to do something about this. So I've been trying to raise my voice as well as I can to speak about these issues. because the simple principle, Jeremy, is that animals are not equal to humans in all ways.

They're very different from us in many capacities, but they are our equals in their capacity to suffer. And to me, that's the morally relevant criterion that we should examine, can they feel pain if someone hits them with a bat or with a club or torments them by keeping them in a cage where they're immobilized for three years? I mean, we should be able to empathize because we understand pain. We've all experienced pain, physical pain, emotional pain in our lives. And why can't we empathize with these creatures? And it's precisely because we are so smart. It's precisely because we're so creative that we have a duty to help these animals. This doesn't, you know, absolve us of our responsibility for so-called lesser beings

because we're smarter than they are as we measure intelligence. it's a duty. And I've often felt this duty. I don't enjoy doing animal advocacy. It's very painful. Very painful to be morally alert to the suffering of animals. But I think of it like military service. You've got to do it.

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Download the Priceline app or visit Priceline.com. Actual prices may vary, limited time offer. It said everything happens for a reason, but maybe everything happens for a reases. Take noise-canceling headphones. Do they block hearing to heightened taste? Hmm. That sound seems to show. happens for a recess. One more opening question.

So thank you for that. And I think you really broke that down to something that I can understand, which is we have an equal ability to suffer. And human beings have an innate ability to be creative and intelligent. So we, you know, we have a duty to embrace this. If I summarized what you just said, is there one moment you can highlight for us in your early life where this really struck you, this relationship? have to animals, a personal experience you had that kind of exemplifies for our audience

what you're talking about. Well, I would say a couple of things if I might. I don't want to take too much time on this. This is your time. This is for you. I want to hear you. Yeah. Well, one thing was, you know, I had dogs growing up and, you know, I had a dog from my love

named Brandy. She was a Labrador mix we got from a breeder. She was a medium-sized dog with a nice thick, you know, coat. But we kept her on a chain outside. We let her in, you know, for the coldest nights, but not on many, many cold nights. And I looked back and like, here we were an animal-loving family, me in particular, and we had our dog on a chain outside in a Connecticut winter and didn't provide more comfort and protection. I think, what an idiot I was.

and why was my family not more attuned as well to tell this young kid that we've got to be better custodians? And then the other one for my pet experience, my uncle was a great animal lover. But like a lot of animal lovers wasn't aware of this backstory for animals. And he became very, very interested in the West Highland Terriers. They had these small white terriers. and he went to the pet store and he got a Westie for me and my sisters and brother. And then for all my cousins, we had a very close Italian and Greek mixed up family. And he got, our dog was named Randy.

And then for my cousins, it was Candy and Mandy and Sandy. And, you know, when we got Randy in Connecticut, New Haven Connecticut, I was a city kid. And, you know, we got her said she had paperwork from Kansas. And I thought, well, that's amazing. She said, so exotic, I'd never been to Kansas. But Randy was born there. It was only later that I realized that Kansas at that time was the number one puppy mill state. And the small breeds are the ones that are used on these puppy mills where they kind of mass produce the puppies, the females are bred.

Every heat cycle, they're exposed to extremes of heat and cold. And just a quarter mile from my home, we didn't have a local humane. society in the city. There was a police precinct that was the animal control facility. There were dogs barking all the time. They were desperate to be adopted. And here my animal loving uncle got a dog who has brought a thousand miles from Kansas to New Haven, Connecticut. When I had a dog I could have saved. Now, I loved Randy. She was a great companion. But it showed that even I as an animal loving kid had no clue how to behave. And I wasn't giving people the sort of direction and guidance to get them on the path. You know, and I'll just say one final story, which was when I went to college,

I started an animal advocacy group once I learned about what was going on and then decided to do something about it. And I took a group of students because I heard there was going to be a live pigeon shoot to raise money for the fire department in Higgins, Pennsylvania. This is in the Appalachian mountains and cold country. And what they did is they basically bought a whole bunch of pigeons from cities and other places and they put them in boxes. They'd pull the string. The pigeons would fly up and people would shoot them from about 20 feet away. And there were people cheering. There were thousands of people cheering. And I ran out and I ran into the field and opened the box and the pigeons flew out and they got away and got got got uh you know a pennsylvania state trooper

you know detained me like some of the other people who did the same thing and i thought this is madness i'm the one getting arrested for trying to stop people from shooting these pigeons from point blank range to raise money for the fire department cannot we think of some other way to raise money for the fire department that to victimize these poor animals who are dehydrated who were jammed in cages and crates, you know, driven from four hours away or five hours away? I mean, I thought it was madness. It was right then I said, listen, I'm not just going to be an activist here and an advocate and go to protest. I'm going to do my best to devote my life to this issue. Because I, and I've talked about this with George, this is a massive issue. I mean,

there are eight billion human beings on this planet, but there are tens and tens and tens of millions of animals. And so many of them are at risk because of our species. We exploit them for food and testing and fashion and sport and in so many other ways. And I just know that we can do better. And I know that really what my core value is is opposition to animal cruelty. And we have laws that say it's wrong to be cruel to animals. The question comes in applying that idea in the real world. How do we logically extend anti-cruity principles to systemic forms of animal use like factory farming and animal testing? And that's the quest that I've been on with George and others to try to turn these problems around. And we're making incredible progress,

but it's a mountain to climb. It's a much bigger mountain than you'd find in the Himalayas, that's for sure. You know, nobody wants to be lectured about what they can or can't eat. And I know I have made choices in my own life, and I don't tell people about it or lecture them unless they ask. But there is a disconnect between the foods on our plate and how it's produced. I see these commercials for bacon, this and bacon ate or that and triple bacon and four strips. And I think, you know, people have a disconnect or they think they can go out and get crispy strips off the bacon tree, not thinking about how it's produced. or the tree next to that is the chicken McNuggets tree. You have always targeted, both with Humane Society and now with animal and all this action,

businesses where cruelty is built into the business model, right? No. Yeah, please continue. Sorry. And pigs. Let's start with pigs and sows and what happens to them and how the disconnect between eating bacon and how they are produced. You know, George, I'm a student of Western. history and you look at the settlement of our country and the economic expansion, the settlement

expansion. I mean, it was not that long ago in human history when we had the meatpacking district in New York and we had the Chicago stockyards and Kansas City stockyards. People had a much more intimate relationship with animals raised for food and you'd see what happens. And in some ways, it could deaden your spirit, right? Or you could just become so accustomed to it that it's not a moral problem. Now we've moved the production facilities off into the hinterlands, and we often have, well, we have most of the animals, the vast majority of them, the chickens, the turkeys, the pigs, and these large, windlass factory farms. And there's a story there behind every one of those lives. Every one of those animals has a will to live. They have a will to walk around like you and I do,

to have comforts. And the factory farms are places of privation. There are places of misery, and the worst forms of it are the extreme confinement circumstances, and it doesn't get worse than for pigs. These mother sows who produce the piglets, and the piglets go into production. They live six months. They're fattened or finished. They weigh 280 pounds. They're sent to slaughter. So we slower about 130 million pigs a year. But the six million sows who produce the piglets, they're imprisoned in two-foot-by-seven-foot-key. in the majority of agricultural operations in the United States. This is a three to 500 pound animal that's in a two foot by seven foot cage.

It's like a coffin or like a refrigerator. And they cannot move. These are animals that are as intelligent by any kind of reasonable measure of cognition as an adult dog. And what you see is lesions on the animals because they're rubbing against the bars. They bite the bars and break their teeth. They're so frustrated. They wave their heads. I mean, the worst thing you can do to a prisoner is put him or her in solitary confinement.

And we do that with these animals, but then we cluster the solitary confinement side by side by the thousands. So you get all the waste and the ammonia fills the air. And there's just a cesspool beneath them of all the waste. They don't feel sunlight on their backs. They don't feel soil beneath their feet. it is a life of unending misery for appetite. And again, appetite and taste are important measures and reflections of living and experiencing. But shouldn't we be leavening that with some of our moral consideration?

Shouldn't we recognize that these animals matter too? So whether you're a vegan like I am or you're an inveterate carnivore like most people are, this is inhumane. we should be able to agree that putting an animal in a cage where she cannot move for three years is just wrong. And that's one of the things that I've been committed to, as you noted, George, in some of our first comments about having ballot measures to stop these gestation crate confinement systems and state bills and federal bills to try to address the problem. And now, after we made a lot of progress, the Congress wants to nullify it. I should say some members of Congress from farm states,

like Iowa want to nullify it, just completely driven by the idea of the arguments of the National Pork Producers Council and that it's going to inconvenience them. And as if the pigs don't even matter. They're not even part of the consideration. Same thing with chickens. You had some success with chickens. The lives of chickens are pretty miserable too. And we heard these dire predictions, oh, my God, the egg industry will go under, the chicken industry will go under. It'll be terrible. It didn't happen, right? It didn't happen, didn't happen at all. And I've become quite friendly with leaders at the United Egg producers and others. I mean, I don't see eye to eye with them on everything by any means, but they're transitioning their industry toward a cage-free industry.

Years ago was this is impossible. It's going to drive them a lot of business. No, it's actually an economic opportunity for them because they're not going to be as far in terms of a value system from their customer base as they were. Most people who eat meat, drink milk, consume eggs, don't want to think the animals are tormented, but they're so physically removed from it, and the options are so limited for them in the marketplace that oftentimes they're not making conscious choices in this regard. They're often hostages. Now we have more choices than ever. When I started, you know, this 30 years ago or 30 years plus, I mean, no one could even pronounce the word vegan, but now, you know, elite basketball players or vegans, I mean, top athletes

or vegans, we know that there are tremendous health benefits from it. Obviously, they're environmental and climate change benefits, and then you also have the animals. You know, I've often thought this is amazing, George, that these chickens and the pigs and the other animals in animal agriculture, they're at the center of the enterprise. How can you, as the people who are managing these animals and raising them and sending them to slaughter, how can you forget about the animals? They're the ones who are giving you wealth. They're the whole reason that you exist commercially in terms of your revenue generation and your personal income. And they act as if, you know, it's just about them, not about the animals. I mean, they're part of the equation. How could we forget about them?

And how can we forget them in a nation that has 50 anti-cruelty laws and one in each state? There's a federal anti-crual laws. It's a felony. How do we say it's always, it's over? How do we say it's okay to do this, but it's not okay to do this. You know, the dogfighting's wrong. Yes, we all agree. Thank God we do. And when Michael Vic did the terrible dogfighting activities, he was punished, as he should have been. But what about these systemic uses of animals? Shouldn't we more logically apply our thinking here? And I'm not talking prison for everybody. I'm saying, just change. I don't want to have anyone go to prison. I want people to behave better when it comes to animal welfare. I got a bunch of questions, George.

You might have throw one in here? Go for it. Yeah. Start with like a very basic one that's personal to me and then just kind of big picture stuff. So I've seen this thing through mine and George's friend. There's a guy named Rod Roddenberry from Star Trek, his dad made Star Trek. And he was involved in a company. And he was telling me about it, I got him on camera telling me about it maybe a decade ago.

He's talking about making meat, not even like just bioengine. engineering cells so we could have all the protein like a steak. We could make a steak, but it's cruelty-free. I don't know where we are now. What do you think of something like that? People like the taste of meat. They think it's good for their bodies. What do you think of that change?

Are we going to get somewhere with that? And is that actually cruelty-free? Can you tell me what you think about that? Yeah. You know, I think in so many realms, it's a combination of moral intention and moral purpose and then human innovation, right? So food is something that we need, right? We need it.

We need protein. We need vitamins. We need other micronutrients in order to sustain ourselves. We must have food. If you just have, you know, if you're in a remote area and you just have some animals that you can kill to survive, there's kind of a moral argument for you to do that. But if you can figure out a better way, if you can meet all of your nutritional requirements, and if you can even have great tasting food, but you don't need to.

sacrifice these animals, then what an exciting proposition that is. And this idea of cultivated meat was a Star Trek fantasy decades ago. Now it is reality. You have companies that have investors that have put hundreds of millions of dollars into these businesses in the United States, in Israel and China and other parts of the world. It is here right now. And it's developing animal tissue without needing to have a full organism with a brain and a heart and other organs and other parts, nerve endings. And if you want meat, you can have it. And you can grow it in a lab with much less than a way of inputs in terms of water.

You don't need billions of pounds of grains, corn and soybeans. You know, we grow most corn and soybeans and feed them to animals who inefficiently convert that plant matter. into animal flesh. Francis Morelopé wrote in the early 70s that animals are protein factories in reverse. They take enormous inputs of plant matter to produce a smaller amount of protein because you have respiration, you have waste production, you have all sorts of energy expenditures that squander the calories. So this is an absolute revolution.

I mean, we have plant-based foods that have the qualities of meat. Some of these products even bleed a little bit. You know, they put like beets and other products in to give the bleeding sort of perception. And with cultivated meat, there are just no excuses. I mean, once the price point comes down right now because it's a newer industry, the price point is much higher. But over time, you know, that number should go down because energetically, you have much less in the way of inputs. So once you have the infrastructure set up to do it, it should be less costly than the animal production. And, you know, with the animal production, I mean, you have desertification of our Western lands.

You have these manure lagoons from these giant hog factories that poison rivers, killing fish, putrefying the air, dropping property values. We have overuse of antibiotics. We have classes of antibiotics that are essential for human health that we're overusing. and then antibiotic-resistant bacteria develop rendering those antibiotics no longer useful with these bacteria and other pathogens. So it's not as if we don't have a lot of costs with the existing system. Then, of course, the thing that I've been very focused on is the misery that the animals endure on these factory farms.

It's a very, you know, long way from the farms that really had been in place on the American landscape for two centuries. And we still have family farms. But my God, they're eroding with this vertical integration and these buildings. And again, this dystopian vision in China of these high-rise factory farms, 20, 30 stories high, where the pigs are on a floor from. Farrow to finish, it means they're born on that floor, and they get slaughtered on that same floor. They never even, not only do they not get out of the building, they never get off a single floor. I mean, it really is dystopian. You look at big picture issues.

I'm sorry, Jeremy, you want to go on? No, I mean, I got, Jordan, I got like a billion questions. Let's go one for one. Well, we're right there. I mean, the big picture ramifications of meat production that we don't look at, you touch on it briefly. Here in the West, Colorado River is in big trouble. I mean, aridification, drought, have become the norm, not the exception. 80% of the Colorado River water goes to grow grass, and 80% of that is animal feed, much of which we export to China.

At a time when water is becoming scarce, and the future of the West is in doubt to grow grass with that instead of crops that people could eat is crazy. You look at the same time, places like the rainforest in Brazil, being wiped out, native species being wiped out to make room to grow more cattle. It's crazy. Yeah. Well, you know, for me, and I'm sure for me and you, George, in terms of our age, you know, I remember that first picture when I was a little kid of the moon, of the Earth, excuse me, on the, the, I can't remember which mission Apollo it was.

and the astronauts took a picture of this little blue-green marble, it showed how finite our planet is. And you think of this small planet, 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by water. And then historically, a large portion covered by deserts and rock and ice, the arable land is quite finite. And when you have 8 billion people on that planet and then you're feeding them meat with all of those animals,

animals, needing corn, needing soybeans, needing grass, if it's a grass-based system, there are costs to all of that. And how we figure out this balance is very important, which is why I think that this cultivated meat strategy is really a national security issue. You know, countries have always wrestled with food security. I mean, one of the reasons that factory farming developed It was not a diabolical system to imprison and confine the animals. It was, you know, came after the Great Depression. We had, we had the dust bowl. We had hunger.

We had, you know, poverty, lots of problems. And leaders in our government said, never again, we're going to have food security. So we're going to put the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work. We're going to have the most productive agriculture. Well, productivity is one very important metric. and I value it. We all should. All of us require these foods to survive. But it's not the only metric. I mean, we can't have productivity and I forget about the animals. You know, I've said that factory farming, where you jam animals in and you have these sophisticated feeding systems, but the animals never move, I said, that is a human

innovation that was designed to achieve productivity, but it causes so much cruelty. I mean, what we need is is, and it's a system that is kind of without conscience about the animals. What we need is human innovation attached to conscience. That's when we are the best of our humanity. When we're figuring out how to meet all of our needs and having a great quality of life as individuals and as a society, but we're not victimizing the animals. And I think we can have it both. We are that good. We are that smart as a species. Look at the things that we've done. We just need to apply our intelligence and creative ways to have more balance with the animals in this world. My next question to you is kind of like, so the average person, we can get behind this idea

of protecting against cruelty. Most people, you know, they don't want to hurt innocent, sentient, helpless beings. Like, that's pretty common within the human spirit and the human heart. We can all kind of agree on that because you see that all the time. It's our natural reaction typically when we see something suffering to try to help it, right, if it's powerless to that suffering. And maybe this bioengineered meat thing, you know, could be something that changes our society if we ever get to the point where it's cost efficient as a motivation sickly enough that that's what it has to be.

But I'm curious, other animals eat other animals, right? And have human beings been eating animals since, like, the beginning of upright walking homo sapiens, because I know most of the monkeys and shit like that, they don't eat a lot of animals, right? So what's, can you tell me about that? Like the origin of man? Like, have we been doing this forever? Sure. Yeah. I mean, we, we have been around in different forms, you know, until homo sapiens developed for, you know, for a long time, but we've been around a couple hundred thousand years in this form. And, you know, clearly, you know, we, in anthropology, you know, talk about the hunters and the gatherers and, you know, there was a big

gender division of labor, you know, according to most people, although a lot of these assumptions are being questioned more and more with more research. But, you know, men were out, you know, hunting and women were gathering. And we do have the characteristics that are tied in more with with primates than then carnivores like lions or or tigers or lots of other carnivores. I mean, they've got they've got very sharp incisors. They've got very sharp claws. They've got, you know, great speed and power that allows them to take down large animals and to run fast to catch them.

We're a bit plotting in terms of our, you know, mobility. We have these incredible hands, which allow for dexterous uses, but we don't have claws. We don't have particularly sharp teeth. And then you look at the larger primates, specifically the great apes. I mean, mountain gorillas, you know, the most powerful of all the primates, wait 400 pounds of silverback. They're completely, you know, vegan. They have power and strength without that. Most, I mean, chimpanzees, Jane Goodall showed they eat a lot of.

of, they eat a lot of fruits and plant-based product, but they also kill other animals. And they have warfare. I mean, chimpanzees clash, communities of chimpanzees clash. They have a lot of the attributes of human beings. So I think it's a, it's not an issue to me of biological determinism, right? That we're not, I'm not saying that we've deviated from who we were as species. I'm saying that we have culture, we have ethics, we have civilization and society, and we have norms, and we have rules. And those rules say, don't murder your neighbor, right? And don't steal the car. We have lots of standards. And those are grounded on values, right? And protection of the community. I'm urging a larger definition of community to include these other sentient creatures who are part of our lives. So

wildlife who, you know, come into my backyard here in the D.C. suburbs, I mean, I don't want to kill the animal because, you know, a deer is in the backyard or a fox strolls across. I mean, that's part of my community. And I value that. That's one of the reasons I love living here is because I see wild animals. I mean, why do we put homes near the ocean? Because the ocean and nature are beautiful. It enhances our quality of life. Nature is good. We want these experiences. We have higher property values for homes that overlook a park because we like greenery. I wrote a book called The Bond where I argue that we humans have been around animals for all of human experience. And when animals were killed, there were often tributes paid to the animals. There were

there were prayers essentially offered to the animals, thanks to the animals. So it was a view that animals were very important and central to society. I think they're still central to us today, which is why we have pets in two-thirds of American households. Why our national parks have hundreds of millions of visitors. And one of the issues is we're overcrowding our national parks. We are drawn to animals. We are drawn to nature.

but we just have to organize our behavior in a way that doesn't result in systemic exploitation. You know, George and I have talked about our kangaroos or not shoes campaign at Animal Wellness Action and the Center for Remain Economy. We were telling athletic shoe companies that have plenty of alternatives in terms of the uppers and soccer cleats not to use kangaroo skins. Two million kangaroos are killed in their native habitats by men who go at night and shoot them in the head. from 150 feet and orphaned 500,000 joys to make socrates that we can make with other things. I mean, this is not a matter of human survival. The moral question is completely lopsided. It's a habit to do these things in this way, and we have often an equivalent or superior alternative. And that's where the human innovation comes. I mean, we can figure this out. We can strap on

soccer cleats that don't harm anybody. We can have a wonderful, healthy meal that doesn't victimize a pig or any other creature. We can have testing of chemicals and drugs that are based on human biology, not making a monkey sick or victimizing a beagle. We have all sorts of options that are available to us because of our smarts. We're just not choosing them because we don't have enough moral purpose at this point. And what we're trying to do is raise the quotient of moral purpose so that we act in a way that's consistent with our anti-cruly principles that are part of the fabric of our society. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination

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Hilton for the stay. Yes, so just to like summarize because it helps me, but also for our audience might be a lot like me, what you're saying is, is sure, human beings can eat meat. And we have since the beginning that we can look back in some capacity and a lot of other animals eat other animals. But what you're saying is that, as we evolve and as we change and as we grow because of the gifts of this creativity and

innovation, we've achieved incredible things that if we reframe our understanding of our potentiality moving forward into the future, that the alternatives could be beneficial to the planet, it could be beneficial to human biology, it could be beneficial to just not having unnecessary cruelty in this world. That is kind of the core of your message, right? I think it's well stated, and I would just add one more beat to it. is that when we're good to animals, we often have better outcomes for people, right? When you don't have to use all this grain and water on factory farms, it's better for us. When you don't put mink on fur farms and then these mink get viruses and then the viruses mutate and then they spill it back to people.

I mean, COVID-19, there's a debate whether it was the Wuhan Institute of Ruralogy that was the origin point or whether it was a live wildlife market in China. I mean, I think the evidence shows that it was the live wildlife market, but even if there's dispute, it doesn't matter. The principle is that when we mistreat animals, when we take wild animals and we put them in captivity and then we interact with them, we create the potential for a viral spillover. I mean, 75% of human diseases, things that afflict us started in animals and they jump the species barrier. This is a matter of our health and well-being. When we treat animals better, there are better outcomes for people. You know, I mean, you eat too much meat, you have heart disease, you have arteriosclerosis, you have lots of different health-related issues that are documented in the literature. Eating a plant-based diet or a more plant-based diet is going to allow you to live longer.

It's going to allow you to have a better quality of life. So on so many levels, when we do the right thing for animals, we help ourselves. Horses. I've been reported on horses many times. You and I have talked about horses, in particular, wildhors. Here in Nevada right now, they're wrapping up a multi-week roundup. Three thousand horses have been rounded up from vast ranges in the Great Basin. Dozens of them have been killed.

Hundreds of them have been injured. They get these helicopters and drive them for miles across the hot, rocky desert. They fall down, they break legs. They've committed to this project in the hottest time of the year and the folling seeds. And a folling season, cruelty is built into it, and they never change. It's illegal to slaughter horses in this country, and it's illegal to sell wild horses for slaughter. Yet both of those things still happen in effect. Where does that stand?

What are you guys working on? Well, listen, George, no one's done more reporting and better reporting than you to expose this government problem. This is a problem of government. Of course, it's driven by the cattlemen in Nevada and some of the other livestock. interests. But this is a case of the government run amok. The Bureau of Land Management is part of the Department of the Interior. It's supposed to enforce the Wild Horse and Free Roaming Burrow Act of 1971 that was driven to passage by a woman who saw wild horses on trucks that had been rounded up from our public lands and there was blood trailing from the truck. And these abuses

have been going on for a long time, you know, from Republican administration, Democrat administration, we just don't seem to get change. I mean, Biden is not doing a good job on wild horses. He's letting the BLM run amok. And, you know, the horses are threatened in so many ways by climate change and desertification, but nothing more than human behavior. And by the agency that was supposed to be the custodian. So I'm afraid, George, I don't have a great answer for you on turning it around. I did speak with a congressman yesterday, a Republican who's going to introduce a new bill on this subject, and we're going to get a great bipartisan group and try to jam something through. But the Western livestock interests have been potent, and they brainwash people that,

you know, even though we have four million livestock on these public lands, we have 80,000 horses. Somehow it's the horses who are overpopulated. I mean, do we not understand basic arithmetic? I mean, it just doesn't make sense to me. We still have exports of horses, though. We can't slaughter them here, but we send them elsewhere. Yeah, well, we're going to stop that. I can tell you that, George. We at Animal Wellness Action are laser focused on passing the Safe Act,

saving America's forgotten equines. And we've stopped horse slaughter plants in the United States. There were dozens operating a century ago or 70, 80 years ago. Now they're none. We've stopped them all as of 2007, but we're still exporting live horses to our North American neighbors, to Canada and Mexico. In 1990, we were slaughtering 400,000 American horses and plants in the U.S. and Canada and Mexico. Now it's down to 20,000, 16,000 going to Mexico, 4,000 to Canada. We're going to end all of that with an amendment to the Farm Bill.

And we ask all of your listeners and watchers to contact your two U.S. senators and a U.S. representative to co-sponsor the Safe Act and support an amendment to the 2023 Farm Bill to address this issue. George, you and I have been working on this issue for decades. This is the year. It was not this year, the beginning of next year, to end this practice in the United States. We're also going to close out the Greyhound racing industry in the United States. We're going to even strengthen our anti-dog fighting and cockfighting laws. we're going to close out some of these horribly cruel industries that have been bothering us morally for decades. And then, of course, we're going to be tackling these larger problems of factory farming and animal testing that don't have any immediate, you know, elimination opportunity, but we're making steady incremental progress.

And we just have an enormous task. And when you think about we're trying to reorder our human relationship with thousands. of species on the planet and do better by them, it's a bigger task than any other social cause has ever confronted. And the victims of this abuse can't speak for themselves where they're proxy. So that increases the degree of difficulty for us. And of course, the other degree of difficulty is that you've got so many companies profiting from this.

But now we have many companies that are profiting from alternative uses. So there's a counterweight in that regard. And this social change is going to continue to accelerate over time. But like anything, it requires leadership. And we've got to provide that leadership. I got a question is these are just things that I personally, you know, have asked, you know, myself many times. But like, you know, kind of where's the line? Like, how do we think about, how do you think about, like, animals in our lives?

Like, where's that line? Like having a pet that you care for and you love. and you would give your life for compared to riding horses, compared to eating animals. Like, where is the line we should be, or how do you think about that line? How might we think about that line? I think of it as a blurry line, and I think where that line is is going to be different for many of us. And I don't want to get hung up on precision on where that line is, because I know a whole

bunch of stuff is on one side of that line, the wrong side of that line. And factory farming and animal testing and, I mean, needless, duplicative animal testing and higher mammals, those things we've got to address. And it's very morally clear. We cannot be wearing fur any longer. I mean, we have so many options. It's absurd to wear a make coat or to wear a bobcat coat from animals trapped in the wild. It's crazy to think about trophy hunting of elephants. I mean, a living elephant generates millions of dollars in terms of.

tourism. But one trophy hundred pays 50,000 for the opportunity to shoot the elephant. I mean, what's the better economic outcome for our society? Have the elephant continue to generate ecotourism or have a one-time use and have somebody slay the animal and bring the tusks back? Meanwhile, it's okay for the American to go to Zimbabwe and shoot the elephant for the ivory, but it's not okay for the native Zimbabwean to kill the elephant, for the ivory to sell to the Chinese. I mean, we have so many contradictions that are at work here, and I don't get hung up on the boundary, right? A lot of people say, well, you know, where do you draw the line on food? Are crustaceans okay? I'm okay with people, you know, landing wherever they are on that. I want to deal with

the stuff that is morally clear, and I don't want to get hung up on the exceptional circumstances. Yeah, fascinating, man. Animal testing. So this seems like a pretty easy call. I had a couple of year colleagues from animal wellness action on the radio on coast to coast a month or so ago, they were terrific. And they filled me in on, it was a major victory to get the FDA to change this archaic 75, 80-year-old law that required animal testing for ridiculous reasons. Because the fact is the results do not translate. You do some horrible, painful tests on monkeys. It does not translate into better drugs for humans. And dogs. The fact that it is still going on. And now the FDA doesn't require it anymore, but it's still happening. Tens of thousands of

beagles being carved up and tested upon and injected with poisons. It's, again, it's one of those things that's out of view so people don't think about it, but it needs to stop, doesn't it? Well, you helped us really shot a spotlight on that, George. And I think in my career, this was one of the most important victories is getting through Congress, the FDA Monetization Act 2.0. As you said, most Most animal testing is for new drugs, a heart drug, a pain drug, a cancer drug. And 75% of all animal testing is driven by drug testing. And we had a statute from 1938, the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetics Act, that had an animal testing mandate.

The data showed, though, that you do years of animal testing, and then you move to clinical trials after that, and the animal tests simply were not predictive of the human reaction. It failed 90% of the time when you tried to translate the animal test to the human circumstance. So these companies were spending $800 million or a billion on the preclinical testing using animals, and then it would all just get wiped out because it didn't translate. 90% failure rate. So it was, from a business perspective, it was terrible. So we made the case that it was bad science. We got agreement from the biotech companies. We got agreement from the pharmaceutical companies. This wasn't some, okay, animal groups are attaching their science to their moral value system.

We took their data and they agreed with it and said it was stupid and a waste. And we finally got that done. I can't believe it took 84 years. But no one else did it. We got it done actually within one two-year Congress. And we had Rand Paul from Kentucky, a libertarian, Republican conservative, and Cory Booker, a liberal Democrat. They led the effort. There was a similarly diverse effort in the House. I'm so proud that we got that done. Now, what we want to do is codify this notion of the three R's. The research and testing industry has said that they all subscribe to this idea of refining techniques, if you're using animals, refining techniques to minimize pain and distress, reducing the numbers of animals in a protocol if you can, then replacing animals with

non-animal test methods where they exist. We want to codify that. It's so easy for these companies and institutions to say, oh, I'm for three R's, but then they keep testing on animals. Well, put your money where your mouth is, and it'll be better for your company. So we've got big plans on the animal testing front in the Congress, and George, you helped us a great deal with the FDA modernization act. I want to thank you for that again. Welcome. Jeremy. Yeah. I mean, my next question is like, can you give us an example of what kind of one of your person, like your personal person to person transformations, like in a conversation or something like an individual story compared to like, you know,

a big, a big animal farming wind that you've had, like a story that, like where communication, there was a result that everybody can relate to, the whole audience can relate to. Was there something that you were like, wow? I mean, listen, I've just been to the thick of this for so long that you know, you usually don't see a light that goes off, like immediately. I mean, we're just not a species that gives that kind of signal. But I would say politically, I mean, I am so heartened.

You know, Rand Paul has had not been all that active on animal issues. And, you know, he has a larger philosophical framework that sometimes got in the way for him of supporting animal welfare. But I have a great friend and supporter, John Mackie. He was the founder of Whole Foods Market, and he's a libertarian conservative, and he was a big backer of Rand. And I said, listen, I think this FDA modernization act is a great issue for Rand. It's a government requirement that's been a place for 80 years. It's government on an autopilot. And it's just a crazy waste of money and all these poor animals, millions of them a year are dying.

What if, you know, will you help me and we'll talk to Rand together and see if we can get them interested? And Rand said, Senator Paul said, listen, my sister-in-law was just talking to me about the beagles and all the terrible experiments. And I love this idea. I think this is great. And I saw his heart open up on this issue and he worked so hard to get this bill over the finish line. And I feel like we've just got a great ally in him. And he's someone who is an unpredictable ally. People said, oh, my God, Rand Paul's doing this. This is a shock. And I think it's the unlikely allies that I feel are so good. I've got two agricultural veterinarians on our team. One of them, the same is Jim Keen. Jim grew up on his family's farm in South Dakota, rural South Dakota.

He worked at the University of Nebraska vet school as a PhD and a DVM, but he worked at the Meat Animal Research Center in Kearney, Nebraska, Western Nebraska. They were basically designing new factory farming systems and re-engineering the animals to produce more, even though the bodily limits said no to these manipulations. And Jim saw these terrible experiments going on at this facility and said, I just can't be part of this. And he spoke out and he gave the information of the New York Times. New York Times put it on the front page and it exposed these ghoulish experiments at a U.S. research center. So I think of everybody has an opportunity to do something good for animals. We have all these tests in our daily lives about the food choices that we make, the clothing

choices, the sneaker choices. But then you also have opportunities to speak up and be courageous. And when people do the right thing, God, it feels so good. I mean, it's like philanthropy. When you give a gift, sometimes you feel better than the receiver of the gift. I mean, it's just part of our humanity, wanting to do good and wanting to help others. You know, you go help a neighbor, you know, who can't do something. What a great feeling that is. And I just want people to see that they can feel good by helping animals. I see that, Jeremy, every day.

I see that. I see these transformations. I see people who are living better and being more conscious of their food choices. And they are so much happier and healthier. You can make incremental changes, too. You don't have to quit eating meat, and no one would suggest that. But you could buy, you know, go meatless on Mondays. You could try Beyond Burger, Impossible Burger, once in a while.

You know, those choices didn't exist 25, 30 years ago, but they are out there now. I mean, you're purchasing dollars go a long way. I wonder, you know, people get cynical about things like cage-free eggs. You buy them and you wonder, is it really cage-free? Is there just kind of a word game there? Can people make informed choices? Can we trust those kind of choices when we go to the grocery store? I don't think we can have perfect faith in a lot of these labels.

I mean, some of them are completely amorphous and meaningless, like natural. That means nothing. But cage-free is an objective standard, and it would be false advertising to sell eggs from hens kept in cages. So there are differences. There's a final rulemaking that's going on called the Organic Livestock and Poultry Protection Act. Now, organic in the marketplace now basically means no hormones, no pesticides, no antibiotics. But it doesn't really mean just about anything when it comes to animal welfare. Now the organic label is going to be broadened to include all sorts of animal welfare metrics.

No mutilation of the animals like cutting off the pig's tails, no gestation crates, access to pasture. these are very meaningful and legal standards. So if someone markets their product is organic and they're not adhering to those standards, there is liability there. So, George, I think your point, though, the broader point that you make is so spot on. We need progress, not perfection. Nobody's perfect. I am far from perfect.

I am a flawed human being. I've always been flawed. And I'm just trying to do my best. I'm marching ahead, trying to make choices. that are reasonable, but I'm also trying to live a normal life. I'm not asking people to be an ascetic, not asking people to be monks, live a good life, but make some choices, and it's easier than ever. You know, in my lifetime, the choices have exploded.

I mean, I used to really be the odd man out, the cafeteria in college when I was going in the back and talking to the cooks to get a vegan option. they didn't exist. Now, now there are options everywhere on so many of these issues. Yeah, I think of these athletic shoe companies. We're just about done. You know, we're going to, we're going to finish all of them off. Nike and Puma agreed to stop sourcing kangaroo skins in March. I'm hoping we're going to make an announcement with New Balance very soon. And then Adidas is the other outlier. I'm convinced we're going to get there because these companies can't withstand this heat. Why would they withstand the heat? They can make the shoes from something

else. It's better. You know, you look at the European soccer championships, the World Cup, the Men's Cup, the Women's Cup. None of them are now wearing kangaroo-based shoes because innovation and moral purpose are combining to get other things on their feet. And we don't have to kill wild animals in their native habitat to play a game of soccer. We have this kind of cool connection. I want to just, you know, tell our audience because it was transformative for me. I mean, George has actually taught me a lot just by the way he eats. But we started talking before this. And when I was growing up since nine years old, my Jiu-Jitsu Sensei is a guy

named David Meyer. He was one of my top teachers, you know, all the way up until I left high school. And I was 17. And man, he was saying these words to me as a kid, vegetarian, vegan. Honestly, I didn't know. I didn't grow up like that. But something you guys were just talking about. I mean, so here's a guy.

He could kick my. my ass any day of the week. He's older than me now. He could still kick my ass. And I've tried to kick his ass since I was nine years old. This guy's a powerful martial athlete. The thing is, is that he was able to perform at a level. And he was so zen about it. And so over the years, he started teaching me. And one of the things, he said, I go, look, man, he goes, why do you think he eat meat? I go, well, because it tastes good. And he's like, exactly. He goes, it tastes good. But have you thought about it? I'm like, well, I don't know. And he goes, look. nobody's perfect. You're not going to change overnight. And I'm not telling you to change.

He goes, but if you think about it, you can just eat less meat. He's like, that's kind of easy to do. Just less meat, like George just said, meatless Mondays or whatever. I think that's so important to tell people like you just did, which is that no matter what your belief system is, it is inherently obvious that if you were just to eat a little bit less meat, you would have a big impact. If that's all you can do, that's a big deal. Is that true? Do you believe that? It's true. Listen, we raise 10 billion animals a year. If you reduce by one-tenth, you save all, if we all reduced by one-tenth, we would save one billion animals. I mean, that's incredible number. I mean, one billion animals, does that change? You darned tootin, that's change.

That's incredible. That's just one-tenth. What is it in the human mind? Like, so my wife's been vegetarian, you know, over 13 years we've been married. And, and she's been vegetarian, mostly vegan or whatever, you know, she could tell me something every day. But what she does is she'll just make, like, a lot of her food, and it just tastes better than what I can make. And so then I'll eat more a vegetarian when I'm with her. What is it that, like, I don't know, what does that mean?

I don't know what that means even. Well, she's teaching by example, right? And she's giving you options. I mean, listen, the world has a thousand foods, right? I mean, there's just infinite number of options for consumption if you have access to supermarket and, you know, other food retail outlets. And we're just limited by culture and training and custom. I mean, look at all the different cultures of the world.

The Chinese eat a certain way. The South Koreans eat a certain way. The Australians have their preferred cuisines, the Italians, the Greeks. I mean, my father was Italian. My mother was Greek. We had Greek and Italian food. I mean, every culture is different. What does that tell you?

It tells you it's a choice. It tells you that there are preferences that have been ingrained in cultures over time. We can change. And we have substitutions. And the medical science as well as the kind of climate science, atmosphere science, is all telling us, let's do more plant-based. And I just think it's obvious, but, you know, habit is hard to change. I mean, we're a stubborn-minded set of individuals, we humans.

You know, some of these issues, Wayne, seems so big that they're so daunting that we wonder if there's anything we can do. And maybe the only thing that people want to talk less about than quit eating meat is climate change. Those words produce a visceral reaction in so many people. It just don't want to hear it. It has nothing to do with us, but you look around and, you know, crabs. I don't want people to stop eating shellfish.

they want like crabs, but crabs are vanishing. Salmon, vanishing. You know, cod. I've read these stories about cod were so plentiful in the North Atlantic a century ago, two centuries ago. You can almost walk on them. They were gone. They were pretty much wiped out in that region because we harvest too many of them. And now the climate is changing around the world and so many species are struggling. 60% of our wildlife has been wiped out globally, I think in the last 50 years is what I read. How do you, how does animal wellness action tiptoe around that? How do you deal with climate issues and the big picture challenges to wildlife all over the planet? Well, you know, there's a, there's a phenomenon. You see a lot in animal shelters, George,

It's called compassion fatigue that people who are working on these issues, they're so close and it can feel so overwhelming. You see animals streaming into the door every day and you see ignorance and malice at work and you feel like, oh my God, what can I do? How can I stop this? I just give up. And when you're talking about these larger issues, many of them derivative of human population, right?

And the resources that we consume and the consequences of that mass consumption resources and settlement and habitation, it can become daunting. And for me, you know, the notion is that we've got to demonstrate that if you're part of say animal wellness action on the center of the human economy or if you're, you know, with some other group of people who are organized themselves to try to do something, you've got to show that your work can make a change. And I always think of, you know, that old story. you know, about the starfish that you and I have talked about, you know, guys walking on the beach.

And there had been a terrible storm the night before. And all these starfish got washed onto the beach. And the storm blew out all the clouds. And the sun was shining brightly. And these starfish were kind of baking on the shore. And people were watching this guy walking. And he was bending down and throwing a starfish, you know, into the, into the water. And he'd walk ahead, bend down, throw a starfish on the water.

the people walk down from the house that they're watching and said, what are you doing? This beach goes for miles and miles. How can you make a, how can you make a dent in this? There are thousands of them. You don't have enough hours in the day. And he picked up the starfish. He threw it in. They said it made a difference to that one.

So I've often felt that my purpose and the purpose of so many people like you and others who are so caring and who works so hard to illuminate these. problems and to drive change, we are making a difference, right? We may not get there all the way, but if we get there 5%, that could be billions of animals. If we get there 50%, that could be tens of billions. So I feel like our work is not in vain. We don't have to solve every problem to feel complete. It'd be great if we did. Hopefully future generations will get there, but we're putting future generations in a position to have greater success. And all of those future generations are going to stand on our shoulders in terms of what we do now. And I just believe in logic and I believe in reason and I believe in science. And I think we've got amazing arguments. I think we can

have a good society, a great society without victimizing animals. I think we're going to be a better society. I think this is holding us back. And I think morally it's just a, it's an embarrassment. me, you wonder, you look back to the Antebellum South or you look back to the 19th century on women's rights or suffrage. My God, how could these people have exhibited this collective unconsciousness about these problems? You wonder. But it did take people to agitate and to demand change.

And this will be a set of issues that people in the 22nd century look back and say, my God, what the hell were these people thinking? How could they do this? How could they do this? We've got to be the ones, like the abolitionists and others in the anti-slavery movement, to begin to turn this around. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. Jeremy. What about some music, man? Do you know that album, Annenberg?

Animal by Pink Floyd, of course you do, right? Right, okay. I'm musically stunted. George is teaching me stuff anyway. Has there been a like, so the way you can get up, so with the UFO thing that George and I do, sometimes it feels like the movie don't look up. Like you're just like, is right there. It's right in front of you.

Just look up. We're not asking for belief. Just look up. So when it comes to like culture and the way that it changes, what are, because people always ask me, what can I do for the UFO? I'm sure they always ask you, what can I do for, you know, the animal thing? Are there things that are very powerful? Like if you're a musician, make music, if you're a writer, right, I get that.

But are there things that have been more impactful along this path than others that we should know about? Like, you know, has an album or music itself or what has changed the hearts and minds of people to just start asking the question, not changing the question? not changing their lives, just asking the question. What have you seen has been, has worked? I mean, I think it's all of it, Jeremy. I mean, obviously music has such an important role. You know, I think of Marvin Gaye's song about, you know, in the early 70s, you know, mercy, mercy me and, you know, really lamenting the fate of the planet, you know,

was kind of coincident with Earth Day. And I think, you know, you think of Woodstock and you think of all that music and, you know, people demanding change. And there's so many incredible artists. I mean, and then you think of like, you know, artists who record animal sounds, the songs of the whales. I mean, that is an incredible sort of anthem in its own right. I mean, art and literature, you know, I was just this week thinking about the Eats Act,

this federal bill to nullify our, you know, our state law. I was thinking of George Orwell's animal farm. And I was thinking of, you know, the theme, the story in animal farm was that the animals were basically conducting a rebellion against the farmer. And there was one character, a pig named Squealer, who was kind of the propagandist. And he thwarted the rebellion. And, you know, I think obviously, you know, that was that was a book that was set. just before the end of World War II, and it was an anti-Stalinist track and an anti-totelitarian track. But story has always been important, and I think that animals have always been at the center

of the human experience. They're in art. You go to the Louvre, you go to the Muzé Dorsay, you see animal art. You listen to music. Animals are part of our musical traditions. Animals are part of our religious traditions, often in very good ways, not as, as, animal sacrifice and some of the worst expressions of the use of animals in religion. Animals have always been at the center of the human experience. It's just that sometimes we're not as conscious as we should be. And of course, you know, we've looked at the great periods in human history and prehistory. And now we're in the industrial era and we're moving into the, you know, the digital era and technology. I mean, industrialization

really led to industrial exploitation of animals in so many ways. The industrial whaling ships just about wiped out the whales. Industrialization applied to agriculture led to factory farming. But now the digital revolution is changing so much of this. And you have the, you know, the creative impulses with fabrics and cultivated, meat and all these realms that give us options that we never had. I mean, the changes in mapping the genome and human biology are going to make animal testing look like a terrible diversion for us. So I think arts, culture, science, literature, our movement has to be broad. It has to be inclusive of all of those things. And we all have different talents. So I tell

writers write musicians create song do all of these things it's just part of raising consciousness in our society i'm thinking about the movie babe i'm sure it changed a lot of minds that was a cool i know one mind it changed james cromwell the actor who played the farmer in that movie he stopped beating meat after that he's a he's a ufo guy by the way jeremy we have to get him on the show on these i mean oh we got it man yeah i'm wondering if there's like an allegory like those seem to really influenced me, so like Plato's cave, that ancient allegory, is there something in your community that is something said way before it's time by somebody? Oh, my God. I mean, yes. I mean, you just, you look at what the Greeks said, the Romans, you know, great thinkers through time.

I mean, yes. I mean, literature, Tolstoy. I mean, you have animal themes in in so many of our great works of literature. Give me one good one that I can read, like, something, you know, somebody that was like ahead of their time. I mean, I mean, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy both wrote about, about animals. And I can't remember which one. I think it was, I think it was Tolstoy, you know, talked about how, you know, our, our bodies should not be graveyards for, for animals in terms of animal consumption.

Wow. So it's, it goes back. It goes back to the earliest days of human civilization. People were thinking about animals. Seneca and the Greeks and so many big thinkers have talked about animals. We've talked today about the kinds of things that regular people can do. So, you know, you are what you eat. You're purchasing power, paying attention to what you buy, pay attention,

give some thought to what you eat, and whether changes can happen there. You suggested writing to Congress, and that actually does work. on these animal issues if they hear from a lot of people. Is there anything else? I mean, can we vote with our investments, with our dollars, with our 401ks, what we put money into? Yeah, I think all of that, George, but I think the most important thing is to get involved with a group, like get in the information flow, right? Because there are people like me who think about, I think every day, what can we do as a

nation, as a globe, as a planet to make things better? And we have campaigns that people can plug into it. to and help. And it's much easier if you don't have to invent all this yourself. So join, go to our website, Animal Wellness Action.org, or center for your main economy.org and sign up. You get in the information flow and then we'll guide you and help you. And again, as you've said, you don't have to change everything overnight, but just start doing something. It's empowering to do something. You'll want to do more. I didn't expect that answer. That's really interesting. I was going to ask you, like today, everybody listening to this right.

now today. If they feel, hey, I don't want to hurt another animal unnecessarily if I don't have to, but I can't change something right now. I feel so lost, if it's so powerless, I want to do big things. I want to save every animal. What can I do today? Truly, I didn't expect that answer. So you're saying if they go to animal wellness.org, that they'll get inside of an information flow. And within that information flow, then they can be guided. They don't have to reinvent the wheel of like how they can be more powerful if they, you know, choose to accept the mission kind of thing. So I didn't expect that answer. So that is something that they can do today right now. One other thing I'll suggest, because I'll do it. I'll do it today. I'm making you today, whatever day this is. I'm doing it.

I'm not going to eat meat today. So just today, just for one day, I'm going to look at my plate and eat this beautiful melody of vegetables or whatever. My wife will indeed cook, I'm sure, and it'll be delicious. But I think everybody can do something just one, thing today and see if that puts them on a path, right? 100%. I love it. I mean, the only reason I say I don't want it to come across the self-serving to go to Animal Wellness Action.org or the other groups. But if you're on a hike and you have a great guide, you're going to have a better experience on that hike. And we've been thinking about these issues for a long time and we know where the path is and the best vista is. And that's

why I want to guide that. I think on the personal, that's a great, Jeremy, thank you for making that pledge today. That's great. Let me just say that the average American eats 32 animals a year, right? So if you can reduce that to 25, I mean, that's like saving seven dogs. You're doing seven dogs that you're rescuing, bringing into your home, but you don't have any of the feeding costs and you don't have to go to the vet. You just abstain a little bit and you save seven lives. And you put that day together with a few other days, you can get there. And our personal habits have direct consequence around. As I tell people who work with us, you'll never have an opportunity to reduce more suffering in the world than by being an animal

advocate and joining our team. Because every year when we drive these new laws or corporate policies, we're saving millions of animals, millions. And that's where it gets to the point of like fueling our work that we're not feeling so depressed that the problems are so big and overwhelming because we're taking a bite out of them. And every one of them counts. It's a 100% victory when you save that pig or you save that chicken or you spare that kangaroo or you get that beagle out of a lab. That doesn't solve everything. But for that one animal, it's a 100% win. Wayne, my count, we only have 45 more issues, animal issues to talk about, but we're going to, we'll do that next time. Thanks for your time.

This was long overdue. We'll do it again. Thanks for being here. Well, you guys are great. Thank you so much. Thanks for all you do. And congratulations on all of your thought and telling the story of UFOs. It's been amazing to see how you've been vindicated in this regard.

I think if we're doing an animal show, you guys got to meet Wiley. Come here. Sounds good. He's been in. That sounds good. Let's see Wiley. This is my boy, Wiley. You can kind of see him.

He's been in a movie. The Babazar movie. He's a Swedish boy in the world. We've got to have one animal besides us in here. Hey, man, look, actually, I think this is more powerful in some way because I have listened to you. I've heard you on Cuscoast, with George. I've watched George. My wife is like, there goes.

George, again, disappointing the UFO people and doing another animal rights on coast to coast. And it's so cool. But seeing your face and kind of seeing the way that you explain it, I think it's going to be a lot more powerful to people to be able to just put a face to the voice. So thanks so much for George is so worried not doing a UFO thing. I think this is kind of more actionable, George. I wanted to do it from the start. This was on a list. I know we're going to get some crap for it, but that's okay.

Yeah, it is okay. Yeah, this is actually the first one I think George told me when we do this, he goes, look, man, I got to go and do the animal thing with Wayne. I got it. And I'm like, yeah, let's do it, man. So. Well, I mean, one of the little constructs that I've always thought about, and I know, you know, this is not original. And I know George, you know, I've talked about it. What if there were a life force from some other part of the galaxy that came and was more powerful than us? Would it be okay for them to to start eating us and factory farming us? experimenting and honey. I mean, I think that really relates. So we're not the only life presence in the, in the universe here. Yeah, that's absolutely right. All right, man.

Thanks. Thanks, Wayne. Okay, guys. Thanks, Amelia. Great to see you guys. Man, that was so different and so cool for me to actually see Wayne. I know you and Wayne have had this long, ongoing conversation. And you jump, like, right into it.

I was like, whoa, whoa, wait a second. Like, I am not ready for this. but it was it was so cool man so yeah i think if everybody has one thing they can do that's so neat but just hearing it just listening to that was really helpful and cool for me so thanks for bringing them on george yeah you know not everything has to change overnight i would never want to preach to somebody and lecture them about what they can or can't eat you make your own choices you can make informed choices to make a big difference you don't have to change everything right now but each of us can make incremental changes, small changes,

that would have a huge impact on the lives of animals right away. So anyway, hope you enjoyed this episode of Weaponized. Jeremy, talk to you soon. See you soon, man. I would like to say, though, don't worry. Next week, going to be filled with UFO atomic bombs, baby. Never has so few, has so much to tell, but could say so little. Following this and webinarized, the presentation of Jeremy Corbelle, George Knapp, Dark Course Entertainment, and Cadence 13 Studios.

Available now for free on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your shows.