UnchainedTV: Why Animal Rising Is Making Global Headlines!

0:00 Jane Velez Mitchell. We've got breaking news to bring you. You are looking at and hearing headlines that are all across the United States today. You've got the largest US egg producer in the United States, okay, with bird flu. Bird flu at a Texas plant. The largest US egg producer detects bird flu. Bird flu has been detected at the largest chicken egg manufacturer in the United States. And then you have another headline, dairy cattle in Texas and Kansas test positive for bird flu. And if that were not shocking and upsetting enough, check out this news release from the Centres for Disease Control.

0:48 That's right, our US government, highly pathogenic avian influenza A, H5N1 virus. Infection reported in a person in the United States. Adding CDC's risk assessment for the general public remains low. That is breaking news to bring you. And I can tell you right now that there is an organisation called Animal Rising that is taking to the streets to try to wake people up. Hey, we're in a crisis. We're in an environmental crisis. We're in health crisis. We've got the avian flu. We just got through COVID. We need to change our relationship with animals.

1:33 And so you'd think the public would say, yay, wow, what a great idea because we're in crisis. But no, what happens is there is really an effort to suppress the message. And also, even as the US government itself says that this is a very serious issue, actually arrest, arrest the people who are spreading this message. I wanna bring in some incredible activists. Wow, Rose, let me start with you. Tell us what your message is, not just to the people of England, but also to the people of the United States and your global message.

2:15 Yeah, hey, Jane, thanks for having us on here, by the way. And I guess it's Animal Rising, or it originally formed as Animal Rebellion four years ago. And I guess our message is that we need to transition to a plant-based food system and have a mass rewilding programme to end the animal and climate emergency. And so, yeah, we do this through a variety of ways. We use, I mean, we're best known for our direct action, which you had a lot of images there of the direct action campaigns that we do. And we also have other campaigns targeted at many transition or institutional change, like the Plant -Based Universities Campaign, Plant-Based Councils. And we're also trying to build bridges and start dialogue with farmers as well.

2:57 So we also have a Vegan Support the Farmers Campaign too. You're doing so much. And I have to say, you guys have guts because a lot of what you do, it scares me. Like, would I be willing to glue my hands to a fence? Would I be willing to climb over a fence? And one of your most famous campaigns that got global media attention, wow. Let's play it and talk with Ben on the other side because this disruption of England's arguably most famous horse race made global news.

3:38 We made front page news 12 times in 2023. Are you going to try and stop the most famous race in the world? Is that your plan? We were on the front page of the Daily Mail with our plans to target the Grand National before we even publicly launched the new Animal Rising. A vegan mob is plotting to sabotage the Grand National. It set the stage for a battle against the multi-billion pound industry. We're trying to protect those horses. I believe that the reason why we're doing it is what's most important. And the plan was simple. Ordinary people putting their bodies on the line to try and save the lives of animals dying on racetracks across the UK. So what the hell happened to the animals in our country? This day, I think, is going to be overshadowed by the protests.

4:19 But it was bigger than that. This was not just about horses and dogs suffering and dying in the racing industry. This was about repairing our relationship with all animals. It raises a big question about not only how we treat horses, but how we treat animals in general. We're not asking for smaller jumps on racetracks or bigger cages for farmed animals. We need to repair our relationship to animals. From one of use and abuse to one where we prioritise their freedom and well-being. As Sir David Attenborough acknowledged just this month, we urgently need to transition to an animal -free, plant-based food system. For them and for the sake of all life on this planet. Ben Newman, couldn't have said it better myself. Wow, we need to transition to a new relationship with animals.

5:03 Tell us how Animal Rising is doing that and where did you come from? Like you have just burst on the scene. Yeah, so we renamed from Animal Rebellion to Animal Rising last year with the launch of the Grand National. And one of the things we're doing, what we're doing to get the job done is these massive press-grabbing campaigns like the Grand National. And that really was, I was watching that video. It's reminding me what a crazy, crazy day that was. But yeah, that was the number one news story in the UK for 36 hours. We had 60 live interviews in like two or three days.

5:44 Basically had a team of people doing interviews. Yeah, a thousand print press. And yeah, we ended up with the Grand National. Although horse racing isn't our focus, we were, I suppose, using the platform to talk about all animals. The Grand National ended up changing the rules for the following year. And yeah, and I guess there was 118 arrests at the Grand National. It was pretty wild. And we were on the front page. Two weeks before it started, we had a Daily Mail journalist. So the Daily Mail was one of the main, I suppose, right-wing papers in the UK come to one of our trainings. It infiltrated it. It was on the front page of the Mail on Sunday, the UK's biggest newspaper, two weeks before it happened.

6:28 And then somehow, well, through a lot of hard work, we still ended up doing it. Well, that's amazing. And you mentioned a lot of arrests. There was also accusations of excessive force by the police. Let's listen and discuss on the other side. There seemed to be a general lack of care across the entire police force. He just poleaxed me, flattened me to the ground, hit me on this side, and that fractured my collarbone. There was no warning given at all by the police officer. They didn't care. They didn't care what my condition was. I was grabbed from behind by a security guard who put their arm around my neck and choked me unconscious. I was screaming in pain and telling them that my hands were glued together and to the jump.

7:08 But one officer was just encouraging the others to keep on pulling. I was sprayed by an officer in the eyes with pepper spray. The police officer covered me so tight that I couldn't feel my arms or my hands. And I told him that I felt like he was breaking my wrists. He called me a little prick and told me that it was my fault and I deserved this pain. I was tackled by a police officer and another individual and another police officer in front of the fence struck my hands. One police officer was pulling me by my hair and shouting that I was a prick and that I needed to walk. I'd only just regained consciousness. One of my teammates on the other side was being viciously attacked by a security dog. He desperately asked the security guard to remove the dog. He watched the dog viciously attack my friend and take a chunk out of his leg.

7:54 Wow, brave people. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, approximately 300 people jumped over fences or attempted to scale the walls and the fences and the barricades to get to the horse racetrack. And then about 118 people were arrested. You just saw some of them. Were either of you there and what was your experience like trying to wake the world up? I mean, PETA points out that, you know, thousands, tens of thousands of horses that are deemed, you know, not quite ready for the track or sent to slaughter. Here in the United States, they get sent to Canada and Mexico.

8:36 Thoroughbreds who have served us and won races end up getting sent to slaughter in Japan. It's not just the horses who die right on the track. It's the entire system that breeding for perfection leads these discards to hideous lives at best and terrible deaths. What was your experience there trying to wake people up, Rose, if indeed you were there? Yeah, so, well, yeah, just to clarify, it was about 118 people attempting to get onto the track. So everyone was arrested that attempted to get on. It wasn't quite 300. It would have been nice to have that many people. And actually on the day, the story was a little bit different for me.

9:19 And as you saw from the footage, how seriously the police took this action, it was actually shocking how far they went to protect the event. And yeah, they were using helicopters, drones, quad bikes. They were like, I'm not sure how many. I know there were definitely hundreds of police. I'm not sure exactly how many. But yeah, it was definitely overreaching from the police. And the way they treated individuals was horrific. But actually that morning, I was on my way to my friend's wedding on a train. I'd been near the area the day before and was getting a train from the North of UK to the South basically. And police actually caught me on the train. They tracked me down to try to prevent the protest from going ahead as they knew that I was involved in organising of it.

10:03 And, or they thought so anyway. And yeah, so they actually arrested me on a train whilst I was on my way to my friend's wedding, unfortunately. So I missed the wedding and the action still went ahead. Yeah, even though I was arrested. And then you were there, right? And you were arrested and you actually ended up being convicted, but you got a suspended sentence, right? Yeah, well, this was, well, actually on the Grand National. So I got a suspended sentence later for running on Epsom Racecourse. But on the Grand National, I was one of the people who made it onto the track. Yeah, and I was quite an experience running down the middle of the Grand National at exactly five o'clock when it was supposed to have started.

10:45 But I'll just add on the response. They actually used facial recognition. I think for the first time that they'd rolled it out en masse to protesters around the country. So they'd been tracking various people from Animal Rising facial recognition around the UK. So, or at least that's what we think. And so that's like an ongoing thing. So it was quite dystopian. I wanna jump in because we've got a bunch of callers and say, people, we're so thrilled that Animal Rising now has a channel on Unchained TV. There is Unchained TV right behind me. It's a couple of seconds delay. You can download Unchained TV on any phone anywhere in the world, except China and North Korea is my understanding.

11:27 And you can also watch it on any Samsung TV. That's a Samsung TV I have there. As well as any TV using an Amazon Fire Stick, a Roku device or an Apple TV device. So we're excited that all the exciting videos that Animal Rising has put together are quite a few of them are streaming on Unchained TV. You can watch and absorb. These people are risking their lives to get these videos together. So download, please download the app. We're gonna go to the phone lines now. Wow, we're lining up. Michael in Los Angeles, your question or thought for Animal Rising. Oh, thanks for taking my call. I really love your bold actions. And I thank you for that.

12:08 My question is of all the different campaigns that you guys have been involved with, what would you say is the greatest victory as a result of your actions so far? Thank you. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Rose. Yeah, that's a really difficult question. I think in terms of, I mean, yeah, one of our main objective is to reach the public and to start this like national conversation about the way we're treating animals. And I think the Grand National Action was the one that, yeah, achieved that basically. We reached, I think it was 50% of the British public saw the action, correct me if I'm wrong, Ben. But yeah, it was like a huge percentage of the British public saw that action that day, which is amazing.

12:50 And yeah, we spoke about how much press we got in 12 front pages last year as well, mostly because of that action. So yeah, in my opinion, I think that one in terms of reaching people, I think that was the most successful. And congrats to you. It's a shame that people have to risk injury, death and arrest in order to get mainstream media coverage, which is why we started Unshamed TV after 38 years in the mainstream media business. I can tell you, I've been behind the curtain and you know who runs media? The advertisers, fast food and pharmaceuticals. So no wonder they're not covering this or not covering it fairly. Nilo Farr in Dallas, Texas, your question or thought for Animal Rising.

13:35 Hi, watching the few moments of police brutality was just stunning to me. And I'm thinking, is this the United Kingdom? I honestly couldn't fathom it. My question is, yeah, so this was a direct action event at the horse racing and 118 arrests. We saw the police brutality. What are the conditions in the UK prisons for animal activists? In the US, it is absolutely degrading, unhealthy and unsafe as documented by Wayne Chung recently.

14:16 And there you see Wayne Chung. Thank you for that great question on the screen. And he is the leader of the Open Rescue Movement. We're gonna talk about him in just a second. But Ben, what's it like? Is it tea and crumpets or is it pretty brutal? So I was in prison for a month last year. So both Rose and I have been arrested probably about 20 times. And so that's when you go to a police cell, which it's all right. It's sort of like going to a really boring, really shit hotel generally. Wait, most of the time that's it for protesters at least. Prison, you know, you are in, I was in Wandsworth Prison, which is a big old Victorian prison.

15:01 You don't get out yourself. You only get out sometimes not at all. Sometimes for an hour. Sometimes if you're lucky for two, there is, you can eat vegan food. You choose your food, but you have to, sometimes it ends up being baked beans, rice and pasta. So it was all right. My temperament, I think, is okay for prison. I just did lots of press-ups, wrote journal and read books. But yeah, it's not tea and crumpets, no. Well, yeah, it's brutal. And having been a reporter who's gone into prisons numerous times to interview people, and also they made me do a series where I was arrested as a prisoner and put through the whole system and thrown in a jail cell.

15:46 It's horrible. It's horrible. And that's what these folks are putting themselves through. To send a message to people that is an alarm bell about what's going on with our planet as a result of animal agriculture. And instead of getting applauded, they get a slap in the face. It's beyond comprehension to me. We've got to wake up people. It's like our house is on fire, as Greta Thunberg said. Tiffany in Los Angeles, your question or thought for Animal Rising. Yes, thank you, Jane. And thank you both for risking your personal freedom and physical injuries. I don't know anything about the group and a friend described it as a cross between ALF and EXE.

16:32 Can you tell me a little bit about your mission? Great question. You know, you guys are coming onto the US world stage, but you're obviously very famous in England. And there is a backstory there about, well, animal rebellion, extinction rebellion. What can you tell us? Yeah, so we formed in 2019. Yeah, as we said, we were called Animal Rebellion and we're kind of like a sister organisation to Extinction Rebellion, who are obviously very climate focused. And the original reason for Animal Rebellion to form was, it was actually supposed to be just a short term campaign to inject the need for like a plant-based food system into the climate messaging, because no one was talking about animal agriculture and its effect on climate change.

17:24 So yeah, I was really excited when Extinction Rebellion started doing actions. But yeah, just really disappointed that they weren't talking about animal agriculture. Yeah, that's when Dan Kidby, who's still with us, one of the co-founders plus other people, formed Animal Rebellion. And so yeah, we were very climate focused as well as bringing in the animal message. But at the beginning, it was very much climate focused. And over the first couple of years, we actually started seeing progress within the climate movement, more groups including Extinction Rebellion using our messaging basically about the need to transition to a plant-based food system. And so yeah, I feel like we've achieved that mission, like that goal.

18:08 Of course, it'd be great to see other climate groups doing that even more than they are already. But yeah, I think we were successful in that sense. And now we've been bringing the animal message in more as well, doing things like rescuing, liberating beagles and like the Grand National, but using those actions and those events to draw attention to the wider issue of the suffering of all animals. It's about ending the exploitation of all animals. Yeah, for both them and the planet. Well, speaking of actions, we're gonna get to a couple of other really dramatic actions. And I think you're showing in this video, let's check out the rescue of three lambs from the estate of the King of England, King Charles.

19:00 Animal rights campaigners have taken three lambs from the King Sandringham estate in Norfolk. I've been an animal lover my whole life. When you see a lamb jumping around a field, you can't help but be filled with joy, regardless of if you connect with the reason why they're there. It's not the differences that matter, it's what's similar. We can all experience fear, we can all experience pain, but also experience love and happiness and freedom. And that's what we want to give to these animals. If we don't save these sheep, essentially what will happen, the lambs will get taken to a slaughterhouse. Whereas if we go and rescue them, they can actually live out their lives in peace and never experience the fear of a slaughterhouse. We just don't think it needs to be like this. No animal or anyone should be born into a life of exploitation. There's no need to be treating them like that.

19:41 And by breeding them and farming them, we are destroying our native landscape. We are causing a biodiversity crisis that is speeding us towards climate catastrophe. We can't continue like this. There are barely any trees, everything's being deforested. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of the biodiversity crisis. It's one of the leading causes of the climate crisis. It is one of the most harmful industries that there is on this planet, but we can transition out of this. So you were there. First of all, tell us what it was like going on to the estate of the King of England. This sounds like something out of Knights of the Round Table and taking these lambs, rescuing them.

20:26 Yeah, so King Charles owns a lot of land in the UK. People may not realise, but yeah, you couldn't really tell that you were on King Charles' land. He has massive, massive estates and we located a sheep farm on his estate where we saw that it was during lambing season. And of course, we know what's going to happen to those lambs. They're either going to go straight to slaughter or be used for breeding other lambs who will be going to slaughter as well. I mean, obviously going to King Charles' estate is a way to get media attention. If you go to a regular sheep, yeah, basically if we'd gone to a regular sheep farm, we know we wouldn't have got front page news, but because we went to King Charles' estate, we made it onto the front page of the newspaper the following day.

21:18 And yeah, I would say it was stressful. Obviously, yeah, you want to be successful. And yeah, just the pressure of getting the lambs and taking them and just like knowing that you're having to make that choice as well of who to take. It's just like this horrible feeling of, yeah, it's basically a luck of the draw, basically for the lambs. Obviously, they don't know what's happening, but yeah, it just felt really strange having to choose who was going. And yeah, we took Sunny City and yeah, all the way to Sanctuary where they're now very safe. And yeah, the media were very interested in locating the lambs.

22:00 The Daily Mail made it their mission to try to locate them. And we're going to Sanctuaries and yeah, trying to locate them. But yeah, they're safe. And a few days ago, we released a photo of them all grown up now. So yeah, it's really nice to see that they're living their lives out in peace. And yeah, it's unfortunate that the rest of the lambs in that field now- I have to say Prince Charles, correct me if I'm wrong, is some kind of environmental activist, environmental advocate. Seems like he's always talking about, and that's, I'm not knocking him, like better than saying it doesn't, climate change doesn't exist. However, what do you say, Ben, to his obvious inability to connect animal agriculture since he's participating in raising these lambs for slaughter?

22:49 Yeah, I mean, Kings of Charles isn't the worst. We haven't, I suppose, got a problem specifically with King Charles. He's, as they come, isn't too bad, but he's also, so he's a symbol with a massive amount of influence. But he's, but the big problem is he's the, so in the UK, the UK is a very strange place and the royal family own huge amounts of land. And almost all of that is the sheep farming. And for us, sheep farming is the most inefficient. The UK, if anyone's been to the UK, is nearly 20% of the UK is covered in sheep farming. And we only get about 1% of our calories from it. So it's the most ridiculous, ridiculous way to use land. So yeah, he should stop doing that.

23:30 But I was going to say, I think, is King Charles even, as one of the witnesses in your case, I can't remember now, his name pops up somewhere. Oh yeah, he is like, he's confirmed in the evidence that he owns the land. Obviously we don't agree with owning, but yeah, it confirms that King Charles owns the lands. But in court, so yeah, we do have a trial coming up with a jury at the end of this year. Although King Charles won't be president as far as I know, it will be his, they call them like the farmer or like the stockman basically. So unfortunately Charles isn't going to be president. But I mean, isn't there a way to capitalise on this? People are obsessed with the Royal family and frankly I have nothing against them as individuals.

24:14 My heart goes out to King Charles who's had a cancer diagnosis as well as other members of the Royal family. I mean, they're people, but if you are saying that you are an environmental activist and you want to save the environment and you are one of the biggest, if not the biggest sheep farmers in the United Kingdom, there's a complete hypocrisy there. There's a disconnect. Is there a way to use this trial as a vehicle to get that word out? Not in a nasty way, but just in a factual way. Rose.

24:55 Oh yeah, 100%. I think that's something we'll definitely do. I think reaching out to King Charles for a statement and try and have positive dialogue with him. We're not targeting him or saying he's doing anything wrong. We actually said, we genuinely believe if he knew the environmental impact of sheep farming, if he knew the true cost of sheep farming, plus if he'd known exactly what happens to lambs when they get slaughtered, he would have actually agreed with what we were doing. So yeah, I think if anyone had been in a lamb slaughterhouse, they would agree to saving their lives. So yeah, we'll definitely reach out. I just want to disagree with you on one thing.

25:35 Respectfully, you have to be living with your head under a pile of rocks, not to have, if you're an environmental expert and you're the head of the royal family and you have all these experts at your command, not to know this. I mean, yes, the mainstream media suppresses and there's been studies showing the mainstream media, which is supported by advertisers, who are the industries that are creating the problem, fast food, pharmaceuticals, et cetera. They're not talking about it, but it's not like it's a secret. The United Nations, what, back in 2006, had a report called Livestock's Long Shadow that showed that animal agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all transportation combined.

26:22 The idea that, oh, I just didn't know, we all know and we could think back in history of times where that was just a cop-out for atrocity. I don't buy the, oh, I didn't know argument anymore. Maybe 20 years ago, but not now, Ben. Yeah, well, it sounds like you should give King Charles a call and tell him. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, of course, of course. But I think that's actually part of the defence. So I think Rose is referring to, she's actually, so the, in the UK, that's a defence that you can use. Had they known, they would have allowed me to do it.

27:04 They would have allowed me to take them. So that's actually part of the defence that you can argue. Had they really known, they would have allowed me to do it. So you can steal someone's property if you were doing it for the right reason, if I understand correctly. So that's what Rose is referring to. But yeah, I do think King Charles probably does know. Yeah, and I mean, you had mentioned in one of your videos, which by the way, we're happy to say, once again, are streaming on Unchained TV, including this interview, if you want to watch it again later. And Animal Rising has their own channel now on Unchained TV, and I'm so thrilled. You know, I'll be honest, I ran into them because I had tried to reach out to Extinction Rebellion.

27:47 I thought, let's get some of those videos on. I didn't hear back. So then I said, well, there's something called Animal Rebellion, and then I got a notice about Animal Rising, and I realised it was an offshoot of that group. But Extinction Rebellion, the offer still stands. We'd love to stream your video, and we'd love you to talk a little bit more. You've begun, but talk even a little bit more about the connection between animal agriculture and climate change. But you know, as you move forward, what is your strategy? You've proven that you can get headlines. What's next, Rose? Well, I guess each year we kind of restrategize or like evaluate, look at what we're doing.

28:32 And I guess the end of last year, after all of those very intense actions, highly disruptive actions, so we did multiple horse races, also a greyhound race. We realised it was time to kind of calm down a little bit with the high stakes actions, because yeah, they are really risky, like you said, in terms of people's freedom, but also like physically they're risky for people too. And so over the last six months, we've been working on a campaign, which we can't actually talk about right now, which is really frustrating. So we're normally really open about what we're doing. But yeah, we're going to announce it in a couple of weeks, basically, or at least part of it. So we can't announce everything right now, but I'd say, yeah, our strategy has changed in the last year or so to, I guess we're just reflecting on the fact that direct action isn't the only way to make change.

29:22 And for the first few years, that was our main focus. And it still is a big part of what we're doing. And it's something we're really good at, but we're also acknowledging these other areas that we need to work on as well. Like I mentioned, institutional change in universities, in councils as well. And then also starting dialogue with those that we don't always have the same or like aligned values with like farmers. And so, yeah, basically, maybe Ben can talk a bit more about the university's campaign. But yeah, that's something that we're, yeah, we're seeing like massive success with that as well as like a student-led campaign. But yeah, so I'd say our current strategy is to create this like ecosystem of multiple campaigns that are all directed towards the same goal of a transition to a plant-based food system.

30:09 But they're all using like different tactics and techniques to do that. I agree, we absolutely have to reach universities and even high schools. I just did a video of the first VegFest at UCLA. And it was a whole bunch of animal groups that got together, no infighting. I said, the kids can learn something from the adults or the adults can learn something from the kids rather. And they put this great VegFest on and they said, we wanna export this to universities and even high schools all around the world to have universities and high schools having VegFest. So maybe you wanna get in touch with them because that would also be an incredible way. But I think the general idea is that we've got to look to the next generation.

30:53 Is there change? You know, Ben, the United Kingdom, particularly London, which I've been to, we did a whole tour of vegan England tour, is one of the most vegan places on the planet. Do you see, because there's a lot of attacking now of the vegan movement. Piers Morgan did a whole segment is veganism dying. He's very nasty and vitriolic about the vegan movement. I don't know why. Maybe he had a bad date with a vegan once or something, but it's really gnarly. And we had one of our hosts on, Jamie Logan, debating with him. And she certainly looked healthy enough to put it mildly. But I mean, he was trying to make the case.

31:33 Now, even stocks, even the hottest stocks, they don't just go straight up. There's always a little bit of, you know, so, oh yeah, some vegan restaurants are closing. Some new ones are opening. Some stock prices are going down. But then I was just at the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, California. And it's the largest natural products expo in the world. And it seemed like every other, or almost every booth was a vegan booth or had vegan options. I don't think it's dying. I think it's rippling under the surface, ready to explode. What do you think out of the United Kingdom? Well, from the work we're doing, it's going quite well.

32:17 So for example, the plant-based universities campaign, I'll just explain what it is. We're passing motions through student unions for 100 % plant-based campuses. Well, it's first the student unions, which in the UK normally control a few restaurants. And we've done that in 10 universities in the UK. And we're doing it now in Europe. And we've got one successfully passed. And so we've got 60 campaigns in the UK, 20 in Europe. And we're able to pass motions for 100 % plant-based campuses with student votes. They're democratic. And if you tried to do this five years ago, six years ago, even for a meat-free Monday, it would be more or less impossible. So younger people, students understand animal farming is, younger people who take climate change and the destruction of the planet seriously are okay with voting for 100% plant-based catering in their student unions.

33:07 And then we're progressing to tackle the whole universities. And we've done the same thing in councils where councillors are voting for all their internal events to be 100% plant-based. So for us, we don't really track, we're not involved in the vegan, what we call vegan capitalism so much. And I know that's been not been going so well in some respects, or at least that's what some people say. But from where we're looking, we're finding it fairly easy or a lot easier to get what we'd call transformative change than I think it would have ever been before. And then soon we hope to, and what we're doing is we're organising university students, hundreds of them. So we've got hopefully 200 UK students coming to summer camps this summer and 100 going to a German summer camp this summer.

33:47 And we hope to then now do the same thing with school students as well, where we organise school students themselves to run campaigns. And that's different to what we do. We don't contact universities directly. We give people the tools and the training to run campaigns and win them themselves. So from our perspective, we're doing okay. Yeah, but don't give up your direct actions. Boy, I do love them. I think they're very, very powerful and impactful. Easy for me to stay from my armchair, right? While you guys are going out there and taking the risks and getting arrested. And every single time you make news, check out this video of Animal Rising occupying a United Kingdom dairy farm.

34:31 And by the way, for those watching and think there's nothing wrong with dairy, just take a look. Everyone does love animals. And it's just the case of really acting on that as a society and as a planet. We're here today at this dairy farm where there are thousands of baby calves. Rows and rows of little babies trapped. They're in these little plastic pens in isolation and away from their mothers so that we can have their milk. We don't need to use animals. And if we say we love them, our actions need to line up with that. And this isn't it. This isn't what love looks like. It doesn't have to be this way. You can tell this isn't right. They seek that interaction they should be getting from their mothers.

35:12 Over here, they're running around. They want to play and they have no space. This is completely unnatural. You've only got to see the heartbreaking situation that's here at this moment in time. And you can see that our system is fundamentally broken. We're all trapped in a system which is just based on greed and reducing everything to numbers. And this farm isn't the exception. It's the rule. These animals are victims in a terrible system. It's a monster and it's horrific. If we stop using animals and we move away from having them in our food system and towards a plant-based food system, it's not just creating a future for them. It's creating a better future for all of us.

35:54 We need to stop these industries that harm animals completely, whether that be in animal agriculture, in horse racing, in animal testing. The way we exploit animals is so prevalent and so ingrained in our society. It's so completely unnecessary. And if we claim to be this nation of animal lovers that we so often say we are, then things need to drastically change. Wow, so powerful. And again, we started off today with breaking news because yes, the animals are suffering, but this is also affecting people, consumers. The largest U.S. egg producer detects bird flu at Texas plant. Largest U.S. egg producer detects bird flu.

36:36 These are the headlines all across the United States today. Bird flu detected at the largest chicken egg manufacturer. And dairy cattle in Texas and Kansas test positive. And if you say, well, this isn't going to affect me, I don't understand how people can sleep at night. When, let me just read one article, one sentence from the article. Bird flu has cost the government roughly $660 million. No, the government is what's keeping all these industries alive with their insurance payouts and their subsidies.

37:17 But in recent times, this has raised the price of eggs and poultry. Again, why do we have to look at it just in terms of price? When frankly, people would be healthier by eliminating this food from their diet. And then it says at least 58 million birds were slaughtered last year to spread, limit the spread of the virus. At least 58 million birds were slaughtered last year to limit the spread of the virus. And I think they're talking about just the United States. Now, anybody who can read that, and this is one of the things that I had a problem with when I was a mainstream media reporter.

38:00 You're not allowed to say, oh, isn't that terrible? Because you have to disregard that as almost just economic news. And that's part of the sickness of our system. And that's why people like Ben and Rose have to go out there and get arrested. Because if they were simply to say, wow, this is not just animal suffering, it's posing a risk to us to wit. The CDC just issued this, highly pathogenic avian influenza A H5N1 virus infection reported in a person in the US, still maintaining that the risk of the general public is low.

38:42 But that's scary. All of us who have lived through the pandemic, which again was certainly a zoonotic illness, whether it started, which it most likely did in the wet market in Wuhan, China, where all these animals were being slaughtered and there was faeces and blood and pus and wild animals mixed with domestic animals, or whether it started nearby in the Wuhan lab where bats were being tortured. It was our abusive animals. And we just lived through that pandemic. And I just spent three years, I never got it, isolating in this place right here where I'm sitting. And still the general public and the US government and governments around the world are not connecting the dots.

39:24 Honestly, I'm fed up as a taxpayer and a citizen of this world who doesn't wanna have to go into hiding again for another three years because of another pandemic. I mean, what the hell's going on? What is it gonna take? And I would like to round Robin this. What do you think, Rose? I mean, yeah, it's such a massive problem, I think. I mean, yeah, it's quite frustrating seeing people just going back to like business as usual after the pandemic and after everyone having to go into lockdown. And then I guess, yeah, during that time, we were still doing actions where we could. And it was, yeah, an interesting time to plan actions because, yeah, we were trying to do things socially distanced and things, and hoping that, yeah, the pandemic would change things.

40:11 But yeah, I guess it just feels like almost nothing happened and everyone's forgotten that that ever happened. And people aren't changing their behaviour because of that. And yeah, it's just, it is beyond belief like how dissociated people are. Like people are not making that connection or not wanting to make the connection between what they're eating and pandemics or what they're eating and climate change and also animal suffering. So yeah. We're gonna jump in again because we've got another caller. Sarah in Venice Beach, California. Your question or thought for Animal Rising. Hi, I actually have a question. I wanted to find out, do you think the reason why they're trying to ban TikTok is because they don't want people to see all the cruelty?

40:55 Because I feel like now that I was thinking about this, about TikTok the other day, it's really depressing. I don't wanna watch it, but it seems to wake people up to what's really going on. And I wanted to find out, do you think that's good? Or what is the number one way that you can reach the youth of our nation to find out what's really going on? Because I feel like it's still really being suppressed. So thank you so much. Thanks. Good question, Ben. What do you say? Well, actually we keep having our TikTok taken down actually. Cause yeah, TikTok does reach, but it's quite strict actually. It's specifically on TikTok.

41:36 So that's our one platform that I think anything that looks a little bit illegal, they just take down. But how do you reach young people? I don't know. We're on Instagram, Facebook's a bit for older people, we use Instagram, but we do get a lot of news. And getting viral videos, we've got a lot better at designing viral videos, which I take off on Twitter. And we've had somewhere like 10s of millions, while we're on with 15 million views. So I'm not sure, I'm afraid if I had the exact answers to that, probably wouldn't be in the state we're in. Well, I look back to my youth when I was in high school and college was the Vietnam War.

42:18 That's what everybody was talking about. And the protests were enormous. And I remember hearing a famous musician. And honestly, I wish I could remember, was it Joan Baez or Joni Mitchell? One of them was saying, the movement was a political movement until music entered the picture. And once music started, songs started being written about the Vietnam War, all of a sudden it became a cultural and a social phenomenon. And that's when all the quote unquote, kids, the students, the college students really got on board. And that's why I think what you're doing in colleges is really important.

42:58 But what about bringing in that music component? That's one of the reasons why we put up a music category on Unchained TV. Anybody who's written anything about animal suffering, I've written a couple of songs myself. We invite you to do a music video because it's a video channel and submit it. We'd be happy assuming it meets certain technical criteria to put it up. But where are we? If you look at the example of the Vietnam War protests, the anti-war protests, which really went from a political issue to a cultural issue that enveloped anybody, everybody. Where are we on that, Rose? Yeah, I think we're so far from that right now.

43:42 But I think it's really important. I guess it's like two ways to approach it like in the music industry, because yeah, you can have like animal rights activists or vegans creating music. However, I don't think many people or to reach people with that music is quite difficult. But I think really we need to be, well, the ideal would be for people that already have influence, like Billie Eilish, for example. She's vegan. She's already speaking out for animals and against climate change as well. And she's already got that platform. So I think we need more people like her. Also people like Cillian Murphy, who stars in Oppenheimer. He recently came out as going vegan or at least plant-based. So I think we are slowly seeing more people with celebrity status, which to me, it shouldn't matter if it's a celebrity thing.

44:28 But yeah, those people do have influence on young people and the general public. And I think it's important that those people do speak out for animals. And it is nice seeing more people doing that. And we are seeing a lot of support from people like, for example, Moby recently reached out to us. We're not even having to reach out to them anymore. It's like Moby reached out to us to support the Plant Based Universities campaign. Brian May has also supported, publicly supported our campaigns too. We're seeing a lot of celebrities coming out and support without us even having to reach out, which is really cool. So yeah, I think things are changing a little bit, and I think they see it as being risky for them to be speaking out, I guess, in any way, like any political way.

45:09 But yeah, particularly around animals, I think it's quite controversial still. So it's quite a risk for them. It's funny you said come out, like they're revealing their sexuality. And I'm speaking as somebody who came out, I was one of the earlier journalists to come out as gay publicly on the radio. But it's almost like coming out, because yes, you're right. To reveal that you are a vegan is considered a political statement. But here's the thing I can't really understand. What is it going to take? We are in a climate crisis.

45:50 Your videos have referred to the climate crisis that we're in and deforestation. And the New York Times recently reported a story that wasn't picked up by anybody, okay? I thought, is this going to be on CNN? Is this going to be on NBC? Is this going to be on ABC? Crickets. Even though they play catastrophe porn all day and show people, you know, houses going up in flames and going into the water and people drowning. I call that catastrophe porn. When it comes to solutions, unless it's fossil fuels. You know, half the people marching couldn't even identify exactly what a fossil fuel is.

46:31 But people know what a hamburger is. So it's much more threatening because people could take the power back. But I mean, Oxford University, as reported in the New York Times, did a study that showed that heavy meat eaters, which is most Americans, could reduce their greenhouse gas emissions footprint by 75% by switching to a plant -based diet. It was in the New York Times. Nobody else reported it, right? Even though they're on TV. What can we do? What can we do? Yeah, drive a fancy electric car that most people can't afford. That's not the answer.

47:12 But what's it going to take for people to connect the dots? One of your videos, Ben, mentioned Sir David Attenborough, who has a great documentary called Breaking Boundaries. There's only about nine. We're already crashing through about six of them. I mean, we're going to get to the point, we have a documentary on Unchained TV called Countdown to Year Zero, which I produced, which says we have only until 2026 to transition to a plant-based culture. That's two years away. What is it going to take, Ben, for people to wake up? Well, I'd say one of the really annoying things in the UK is, and around the world, is the big NGOs, the big nature NGOs, the big animal NGOs, and the big climate NGOs not talking about animal farming.

47:59 So that's something that we tried in the past and we'll probably try and get in the future, is pushing those big organisations to actually say stuff on animal farming, which is really frustrating. But I'd also actually highlight, Jamie, is I think the media environment in the US is particularly hostile. So when we talk to our friends DXC in the US, it sounds that the media are a lot more hijacked by big ag in the US and also in Australia than they are in the UK. It's not great. It's not great in the UK, but that's part, I think we've got it slightly easier in our, we don't yet have like proper ag-gag laws.

48:40 So if you report on, you know, if you say anything bad about animal farming, you can be pursued and sued. So I think we'll probably get there over the next couple of years, but we're not quite there yet. So we do have it a little bit easier than what you have in the US, I think sometimes. Well, yes. And this whole idea of crackdowns, you talked about excessive force being used on you. I just wanna play some video of an open rescue in action. This is in Northern California and you could see the police turnout. Now the protesters are holding flowers and singing songs, a la Peace Knicks in a way.

49:24 And there's, look at the police presence. And you know, I'm scared to walk my dogs after 10 o'clock at night because I could get mugged very easily. Okay, crime is rampant. Their big box stores are closing in California because of mass thefts. Where are the police? Well, they're here cracking down on animal activists who are trying to point out that what's going on inside these factory farms is a lot of suffering. And they allege that there's violations of Prop 2, which is a proposition passed overwhelmingly by California voters that says that animals have to have certain rules, certain room, blah, blah, blah.

50:12 There has never been a single prosecution based on Prop 2 since it was put into law in 2015. So either you could presume that there's never been a single violation or they're just not enforcing it, which kind of makes the voters of California suckers, including me. I collected signatures for Prop 2 and for Prop 12. And actually I threw a big party for Prop 2. And here we are all these years later, almost a decade later, and it's never been enforced ever. So it's really a problem. And the crazy thing is, I don't know if you saw this film, Don't Look Up, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but it's a metaphor for climate change where these people know that there's a meteor coming and they're trying to alert the media.

51:06 And the media is like, you're so strident, you're so extreme, calm down. Do you ever get that sense of like, hello, you're not getting a commission every time a chicken is saved. You're doing this for a greater reason, Rose. Yeah, definitely. I love that film as well. And yeah, I agree. It sounds like we're just like screaming into the wind. And it's like the problem to us is so obvious and so severe as well and serious. And the suffering is so great and no one's listening. So yeah, I definitely, definitely relate to that. So yeah, it's just, yeah, trying to get people to wake up is just, yeah, it just shocks me.

51:48 And yeah, it's beyond belief sometimes. We've got another caller. We've got Annie in Los Angeles. Your question, your thought for Animal Rising. Hi, thanks, Dane, for taking the call. And oh my gosh, I love you guys. Like you, Dane, when I searched for animal rebellions, I found you. You are so incredible. I am just impressed by how you got together and do all these incredible world-changing actions. What motivated you? What got you to get together? And what bonds you together? It's just impressive. And I can't thank you enough. You're heroes plus infinite.

52:28 Love you all. Thank you so much. Great question. So why you, Ben? And I always wonder why some people get it and others don't. Well, I went vegan. And then I think I watched Dominion. And then I spent three months ranting. Then my mom said, stop ranting at me. Go do something about it. And yeah, I'm not like an overly emotional kind of person. I mean, I can't remember the last time I cried, except when I watch videos of what happens to pigs and stuff. So yeah, so that's. And you, Rose? Yeah, I guess I went vegan almost 12 years ago now after watching the Earthlings documentary.

53:13 And yeah, it just made me, I guess since I was a child, I've always felt a strong connection with animals and felt very angry. When there was anything that was ever unjust, I felt like, yeah, anger. And felt like life doesn't have to be unfair. You can make it more fair. And I always felt like that as a child. And then, yeah, learning about what's going on in the dairy and egg industries after going vegetarian and then vegan, I don't know, yeah, just straight away, I was like, I need to do something. I felt just really moved to do something and wanted to wake, help wake people up. And then four years ago, I guess I was doing a lot of outreach as well as some covert animal rescues for years. And then, yeah, then found Animal Rebellion, met Ben in, I joined in 2020.

53:58 And then Ben joined a few months later. And yeah, we've just got the best team. Just the most amazing, passionate, dedicated group of people. And we just have a real, we're just all so motivated and know that we can do this. And yeah, we're just, I don't know, we just work so hard to make things happen. And we're just good at making things happen, I think. And it's animalrising.org, correct? Yeah. Yes, go to animalrising.org and get involved. And I assume that you as a nonprofit take donations, right? Yep, that's right. Yeah, so I think it's super important to support Animal Rising. Are you coming to America?

54:40 We've had some issues getting into America. We'll try, we'll try. What I like about you guys is you're so laid back. Like you're like, yeah, we're doing open rescues. We're rescuing the king's sheep. But it's like, you're very chill about it. I think you're accomplishing some really amazing stuff. And I just am very grateful that you agree to allow us to stream some of your videos and keep them coming because they're really, really good. So I think you're working on all cylinders because you're also documenting the work you're doing in creative ways and getting it out to the media.

55:22 And everybody would like to have the same luck as you have, but it's not luck, it's strategy in getting the mainstream media to cover this. So I just wanna say thank you both. It's late at night in England. They're both coming to us from England. I'm in Los Angeles. And of course, I always leave you with, please download the Unchained TV app. It's free. We're a nonprofit run by volunteers. You can download for free on your phone, on your TV, Samsung, Amazon Fire Stick, Roku, Apple TV device. It's all over the world. There it is. Download Unchained TV and be part of the team.

56:03 This is a community and we are trying to wake up the rest of the world. So see you next time here on Unchained TV.