The Politics of the Pasture by James McWilliams

Author:James McWilliams
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781590563953
Publisher: Lantern Books

As far as the first three bullet points go, they've already been sufficiently addressed to highlight the fact that they in no way come close to providing a morally satisfactory explanation for Bill and Lou's death. Just because an act conforms to a pre-existing protocol and involves the input of the entire community doesn't make it right. In all honesty, and not to be flip, my answers to them were: so what? The last point, however, grabbed me.

To claim that because people want animal products Cerridwen will provide animal products is an astounding admission of complicity with the powers that be, especially that juggernaut known as industrial agriculture. For Cerridwen to think that it can both attempt to reform industrial agriculture while, at the same time, giving people anything and everything they want is to effectively render its mission impotent. Vegan activists know better than anyone that genuine social reform means at some point saying “no more.” As GMC saw it, however, saying “no more” wouldn't go so well down on the farm. Sure, it would say “no more” to fossil fuel (while still using it), but could in no way say “no more” to meat because, well, that would really muddle the articulated and marketed mission of “sustainability.”

Similar administrative mumbo-jumbo quickly followed from the college's provost and president. Their comments came off less as assessments of the GMC decision than a carefully wrought overview of the Bill and Lou saga, one designed to shine the best possible light on a college that was, by mid-October, getting dragged through a lot of media mud for its increasingly unpopular choice to slaughter their oxen. Some would call what they were doing “posing for posterity.” That's largely what administrators do in the midst of a crisis. Take the example of President Paul Fonteyn first. He explained:

As you know, Green Mountain College has become the focus of widespread attention regarding our decision to slaughter our ten-year-old team of oxen. I stand by the decision our community arrived at through a process that insured that all members had the opportunity to express their opinions.

I also compliment faculty, staff and students who, whether they personally agreed with the final decision or not, have demonstrated extraordinary civility in their interactions with each other, and with external individuals and organizations. Some of these external groups are attempting to use Bill and Lou as mascots for their own animal rights agendas.89

There they are: those horrible people with their agendas! Fonteyn was talking textbook administration-speak. He left the impression that “all members had the opportunity to express their opinions.” But, as often as it was made, this suggestion was unfounded. For example, what should we make of Philip Ackerman-Leist's claim that, as the Bill and Lou matter was hashed out on campus, “there were people who were uncomfortable, who were opposed”? What kind of opportunity did they have to fight back? More to the point, what difference did it make if every single member of the community did have

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