UnchainedTV: Will the Farm Bill Battle Decide Our Future?

0:00 Author, TV journalist and the founder of the Unchained TV free streaming network, Jane Velez Mitchell. You're about to hear a secret solution to the problems that plague our world. If you want to revolutionise your health, get truly joyful and jump to the next phase of human evolution, all it takes is one simple choice. Now here's your host, Jane Velez Mitchell. Take a look at this people. Well, New York Times, a cruel way to control bird flu, poultry, giants cull and cash in. Big poultry farms have received millions of dollars for their losses. Animal welfare groups contend that aid reinforces inhumane cullings of birds exposed to the virus.

0:48 So I am with people who have disrupted, repeatedly disrupted hearings that are designed to get this farm bill passed. This farm bill that is going to determine quite possibly the future of our planet. There you see Robert Grillo, the head of free from harm being arrested, led out of a congressional hearing as he tries to make the case that this farm bill could spell doom for planet earth. If you consider that animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change and that our government is actually subsidising animal agriculture, thereby accelerating climate change at the very time that it purports to want to solve climate change, at the very time that we are headed toward extinction, at the very time when we are killing many, many tens of millions of birds because they're getting bird flu and a lot of the birds being killed, indeed, the vast majority don't even have bird flu.

2:03 It's just let's control it and kill what, a hundred million birds at taxpayer expense. So it's a very complicated subject, but breaking it down for us is a man who knows so much about it, as well as Natalie Fulton, who spoke truth to power. Both of these individuals have spoken truth to power at recent hearings. Robert, bring us up to date. What are we facing as a nation and a world as we grapple with the farm bill that is coming up for renewal and being debated in the houses of Congress right now? So right now, thank you, Jane. Thank you for having us on and for caring about this issue because it's just not being covered enough in our movement and in general, right?

2:50 We see a lot of news headlines, but so right now, Congress is in recess through the month of August and to our knowledge, they're not planning any hearings on the farm bill until they come back. But there's also a very good chance that they might just both sides stall because the Republicans are like, hey, if Trump gets elected, then we can get this through and maybe we'll get more Republican Congress and we can get our version of the farm bill passed. And the Democrats are calculating the same thing and saying, hey, if Kamala Harris gets elected and we defeat Trump and we get some of those Republican seats, maybe we can get our version of the farm bill passed through.

3:35 But for us, the big picture here is that both versions of these farm bills provide a massive and I mean massive bailout to animal agriculture while giving a mere pittance to what they call speciality crops. You know what speciality crops are? All the crops that are grown for human consumption, nuts, seeds, grains, fruits, vegetables, all of those things are considered speciality crops. Isn't that sad that the majority of crops are actually raised to feed the animals that we consume? And they're the ones that are benefiting from this farm bill through a crop insurance programme that the Democrats are actually spearheading a trillion and a half dollars in a seven trillion dollar U.S. budget.

4:24 That's how much is at stake here. And a lot of it is going to animal agriculture. And we say, no, enough is enough. We need a change. We need to transition subsidy programme because if we can just transition the subsidy programme towards plant based agriculture and plant based proteins, that's a first huge milestone in the direction of transitioning to a plant based food system. Now, we also have Natalie Fulton here. I'm going to play her speaking truth to power at a recent hearing. And that concerns drought, which obviously we're all dealing with. We're in these incredible heat waves. I was just recently in Calabasas, California.

5:08 And I have to tell you, walking from my car to the restaurant where I was meeting people, I almost passed out. It's it's gotten to the point of being almost unlivable. And this is just the beginning. And, of course, drought is a huge part of that. So let's play this clip of you, Natalie, speaking truth to power. And then we're going to break it down on the other side. This is a climate crisis. We need to end the causes, not thwart them. Animal ag is causing the climate crisis and cannot solve it. No more money for planet killers. No more money for animal killers. Plant based food systems now. Animal agriculture is one of the leading causes of climate change.

5:49 Fifty four percent of the water in the Colorado Basin goes toward animal farming. Drought is caused by animal agriculture. And we will keep disrupting until we switch to a plant based food system. Your system is outdated and tradition is no excuse for animal abuse. Wow, Natalie, powerful. Where were you and what was your message? Thank you so much. So we were actually in Burlington, Colorado, which is a very small town. And they mentioned at one point that the reason they had that hearing in Burlington was because the ones in D.C. had been disrupted so often.

6:33 So they were hoping that they would avoid the types of interruptions that they've been experiencing. So when we showed up, we had three people and I didn't actually know I was going to be disrupting. I thought I was driving and filming and then two people disrupted before me. And then I found the courage to go and do it myself. And the entire room was filled with animal ag people, farmers, ranchers from the surrounding states. And, you know, the drought is caused by animal agriculture. It's insane how much water we use just to grow alfalfa and hay, which is then fed to cows. So they're the ones causing the drought, but they're also getting money for the drought.

7:14 And it just doesn't make any sense. So I'm really happy we had the chance to disrupt that particular meeting because they were not expecting us at all. That's for sure. Did you get a sense that anybody heard you? I mean, because I've been to similar events for various issues. And a lot of times, you know, you can't get somebody to listen to something when their livelihood depends on them not understanding that. That's an old saying, right? So did you break through with anybody, any indication that you might have been effective in terms of reaching the people in the room?

7:55 Sure. So I love that saying. I think that actually comes from Upton Sinclair. And, you know, he wrote that excellent book, The Jungle, about the Chicago stockyards. And as far as if people heard us, I mean, they definitely heard us. And then I was actually lucky because I did the last disruption. So I could hear the kinds of murmurs after my two friends had disrupted previously. And they always seem to say the same things right after the first disruption. They say, oh, we're so happy that democracy exists and stuff like that. But no, they're absolutely in complete denial. Whenever we say anything about climate change, they say, oh, we're not causing climate change. It's absolutely ridiculous. And then they go and they use industry, meat industry funded research at universities and then perpetuate that.

8:42 So absolutely, I don't think we changed any minds of the people who have been ranching for generations there. But at least we were able to make them uncomfortable and show them that we are going to fight back and we are going to continue to target them until we have achieved a plant based food system. Yeah. Wow. Very powerful. And I want to say for those who say, well, you know, meat and dairy have nothing to do with climate change. OK, here's The New York Times again. Save the planet. Put down that hamburger. Researchers examined the diets of fifty five thousand five hundred people and found that vegans are responsible for seventy five percent less in greenhouse gases than meat eaters.

9:22 Put another way, if everybody went plant based, we could collectively reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by seventy five percent. Put another way, if everybody went plant based, we could solve the climate crisis. And check this out. This didn't get a lot of coverage in mainstream media, but the World Bank, the World Bank, which is a massively important, powerful institution that controls a lot of money, is now batting for alternative proteins, calling for a shift away from meat and dairy subsidies and saying that changes in farm and food production can cut greenhouse gas emissions by a third. So there's one headline, the World Bank tiptoes into fire debate over meat emissions.

10:05 Last one I want to show you is that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wanted to recommend a transition to a plant based diet. But the meat industry blocked the IPCC's attempt to recommend a plant based diet. A leaked draft revealed how the meat industry is obstructing efforts to curb climate change. So while the U.S. government says it wants to solve the climate crisis and is spending billions of our tax dollars purportedly to do that, they are also subsidising the meat and dairy industry, which is a leading cause of the climate crisis.

10:48 So I have to go back to Robert Grillo before we play another one of your exciting clips of you disrupting one of these hearings. I mean, at a certain point, I think it's just a question of, are we a stupid species? We are experiencing the impacts of climate change in real time. Swaths of the world are very rapidly becoming unlivable. I'm talking to people who have homes in Nevada and Arizona who say they don't know how much longer they can live there because it's so damn hot. And I think that applies to California, too, because I was just 20 miles inland and it was I was frying.

11:33 How is it possible that the government continues to ignore the big elephant in the room? Well, you know, there's some really bad actors in Congress right now. And Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado is a perfect example. And but by the way, he was the target. We are not necessarily targeting ranchers and farmers. We're targeting people like Senator Bennett, who have a tremendous amount of power, who are controlling a seven trillion dollar budget. And a trillion and a half of that is probably going to be allocated to the Farm Bill and to bail out various forms of agriculture.

12:14 So, yes, it was effective to target Senator Bennett. We need to be holding accountable the most powerful people in this country that are shaping agriculture policy. And we achieved that here and in many other cases. Now, let me also say that when you you put up on the screen at the very beginning, the New York Times article that that said exactly what we have been saying at these disruptions and getting pulled out of rooms and arrested for. That is it does it really make sense to kill millions of birds and have the industry pay nothing while working Americans pay for everything and they still can't control it?

12:59 It's completely out of control because in reality, the industry just keeps growing and growing. Does this really make sense? Now, when we see that message getting through to mainstream media, we know we're being effective because it wasn't happening even a year ago, six months ago. We were not seeing mainstream media looking at this critically. They were just saying, oh, isn't it terrible? All the farmers losses, nothing about the tremendous cost to animal suffering or the planet, or could this be a threat? And now we're seeing critical views in the media. We consider that a huge milestone in the right direction. And it doesn't matter whether they credit free from harm or pro animal future or PETA or whoever, because the point is, even though we're the catalyst behind this change in messaging, the media is picking it up.

13:50 And we want to see more of that. Absolutely. We've got a caller, Nilo Farr from Dallas, Texas. Your question or thought for our panel on the Farm Bill. Could it determine the fate of our planet? Hi, I think it's very effective to get in the faces of of the Farm Bureau, as you know, as you've talked about it, they're extremely powerful. Let's say that we are in Texas and we are contemplating doing similar actions. Would the first step be to, you know, make an appointment with the with the staff member of a U.S. senator, sit down with them, talk to them about the ethics and environmental impact of the Farm Bill and then give them some time to respond?

14:50 We can expect what their response will be. And then the next step is to try to figure out when the next hearing is and try to do a similar approach with speaking, going into a meeting, a hearing and speaking out. OK, thank you. Excellent question, Robert. Well, I would you know, I'm so glad you're on the call, Nilo Farr. Nilo Farr was on our Action Hours last week and we were brainstorming, which is a brainstorming session to help people develop their own actions. And so we're going to continue with you and help you map this out and plan it out.

15:33 And so you can, you know, you can count on us to to be there to help you develop this. So I'm sorry we haven't been on it right right away after the call, but we will certainly be following up and we will help you through it. I want to play another example of speaking truth to power. The Farm Bill is a product of dark money that comes from the meat, dairy and egg industries who have bought your vote through millions of dollars in campaign contributions. You have betrayed hardworking Americans, but we refuse to pay for disease outbreaks that come from confining and slaughtering billions of animals, not another penny for cooking millions of birds alive.

16:21 It's time to find a slaughter free plant based food system. Stop the animal ad bailout, stop the animal ad bailout. Stop the animal ad bailout, stop the animal ad bailout. Now, if you think this is no big deal, for those listening, just take my word for it. A hundred, up to a hundred million birds have been killed just as a prevention.

17:05 Like, well, let's make sure it doesn't spread. What we're showing to those watching, but take my word for it, it's grim, is one chicken dying of ventilation shutdown. And more than 2000 veterinarians have signed a petition saying this is an incredibly cruel way to kill animals. It's called VSD Plus. And essentially, these animals are baked alive. They shut off the air, they turn up the heat, and they just let them bake to death. It's something that I would not wish on any living being.

17:46 My worst enemy, not that I have any really enemies, but I can't even imagine a society where this is considered okay, to let these animals bake to death, die a slow death by sealing off these horrible barns that they've been subjected to living in, and then turning up the heat. It's sick, I'm gonna say it right now. It makes me embarrassed to be a human being. And what makes me even more upset is that my tax dollars and yours are forced to go into this. And why is that? Because we are at a situation now where we, having just come through a pandemic, are facing the potential of another one because of bird flu.

18:33 So let me ask you, if I may, Natalie, as a taxpayer, as somebody who is pro-animal future, what do you say to people who may try to defend the way the government is handling this? Yeah, absolutely. So obviously, this is a huge problem. And as vegans, we like to think that we're making a huge difference in terms of saving animals, making the world a better place. And while we are making a big difference in that area, the unfortunate reality is that our tax dollars go toward funding this horrible industry, whether we like it or not. So that's why it drives me crazy when the meat industry pushes back against our ballot initiatives or any of this legislation and says, oh, you should just give people the choice.

19:23 If they don't wanna support slaughter, then they just shouldn't eat meat. And I think that's so divorced from reality because the government is so heavily involved with the choices that people make at the grocery store. Animal products get 800 times more government subsidies than plant-based products. And if it weren't for these subsidies, then animal products would cost two to four times more than they currently do. So I would just ask people, and whenever we talk about changing the meat industry or switching to a plant-based food system, one of the main arguments they use is economic, that it would be so bad for our economy. It would be terrible. We would lose all this money. But if they are such the economic powerhouse they say that they are, then why are they so heavily subsidised by taxpayer money?

20:10 They shouldn't need any of those subsidies if they were as profitable as they said they were. So I would just ask anyone, why do we allow this industry to violate the free market whereas we let other industries play by the same rules? We've got another caller. Matt in Franklin, Indiana. Your question or thought? Yes. Hi. First of all, I would just like to give a huge thanks to Robert Grillo, Natalie Fulton, and every activist that exposed Congressman Thompson. What I'd like to say is that according to the data, Dr. Silas Schro stated that by the year 2026, 100% of wild vertebrates will be gone.

20:55 Now, if the Farm Bill does not pass in favour of subsidising higher plant-based alternatives, should humans continue to procreate as they will be taking valuable resources away from the animals? All right. Well, that's a mouthful. Thank you for calling. I think the bottom line question there is that we're living in an age of diminished resources. And so everybody's talking about, well, the earth's getting hotter. Prices are getting higher. We've got all sorts of problems.

21:37 We're facing another pandemic. We just got through a pandemic. There is a solution to every single problem I just mentioned. And that is into a plant-based culture. It would reverse climate change. We could take the climate back to where it was in pre-industrial times 200 years ago. We could reforest the earth. Wildlife would grow. So we would end the wildlife extinction crisis we're experiencing now. We would have plenty of food to feed all the hungry people, millions of people as we speak. Are threatened with hunger and malnutrition because animals are eating so much of the food that we're producing.

22:20 And it's an inefficient food source. I mean, I could go on and on and on. All the problems that would be solved, not to mention preventable lifestyle diseases like heart disease, cancer, obesity, type two diabetes. This is what we have on Unchained TV. Hundreds of videos that outline exactly how society could heal itself by switching to a plant -based culture. And nevertheless, Robert, it seems like all the pillars of our democracy are controlled by the meat and dairy industry. You've got Congress, you've got the executive branch, you've got the media.

23:04 The media, with few exceptions, is controlled by the meat and dairy industry because look at all the fast food commercials. That's right. And how much resistance do you really see to this? You don't see very much or you don't hear too much about it either. Groups that are making an orchestrated effort to expose and hold accountable Congress and lobbyists, the industry lobbyists who are using Citizens United to their advantage. Citizens United, which made it possible for private investors to make huge investments in political campaigns of our elected Congress people and to therefore shape them into their puppets so that they can pass policies that are favourable to their industries.

23:57 This is hugely damaging to democracy in general, but also to all different areas of life, whether it be healthcare, agriculture, the environment, fossil fuels versus renewable. So we have a huge problem and until Citizens United gets revoked, we have to deal with this and we have to expose it and hold accountable the people involved. Like Senator Debbie Stabenow, who was the target of the last video that you showed. She cowered back in the corner and wouldn't speak to anybody. That's how out of touch these people are.

24:38 They're not talking to their constituents. They go into a room with a bunch of lobbyists and they talk about how they're gonna bail out the dairy industry because they're experiencing all of these losses due to bird flu. They're cowering- Speaking of the dairy industry, speaking of the dairy industry, I wanna play a clip where you disrupted a dairy industry event. Let's play it and we'll discuss on the other side. Hi, it's Robert with Free From Harm and today we're here at the Sheraton Grand Riverwalk Hotel in Chicago where there's a huge international dairy industry conference taking place. And we're going into a climate session that should be attended by several hundred industry people where they will try to greenwash their way through the future of dairy and we will be there to disrupt that narrative.

25:28 How can you greenwash dairy? How can you sit up there and pretend that the dairy industry is anything but cruel and inhumane and unsustainable? Experts have been warning about a potential bird flu pandemic for years. But now the worst part of this is that Congress is bailing this industry out with our hardworking tax dollars. It's burning down the Amazon rainforest to raise cows and crops to feed those cows. Shame on you for sitting up there and talking big about sustainability. I commend your husband to speak to this group today.

26:10 Unfortunately, we live in a country where everybody gets to give their point of views and I respectfully disagree with those. The only way people like you actually can do that is to shut up. By the way, we invite any corporation or agency or representative of any corporation or representative agency on any time. We would love to dialogue with you about this issue. Robert, you're saying this is absolutely vital, your efforts and you get in there and you disrupt and you make your point. But let me just ask a provocative question.

26:51 If they're not listening, if they're just completely shut off, where's the benefit? The job of an activist is to make people listen to about an issue that they don't care about and impress upon them why they should care. This was the basis of any successful social movement. We should be under no illusions that people care and just like in the ACT UP movement or the suffragette movement or the civil rights movement or the Black Lives Matter movement or anyone that you can mention that has had any progress started out with people not caring.

27:34 Well, guess what the job of activism is? To get people to care, to make the case, to create the spark for change and to make people question the status quo and say maybe there is a better way forward. Yeah, and this gentleman says, US House of Representatives passed the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2023, a bill that would allow for whole milk to once again be served in schools. I didn't even know whole milk went away because we've covered stories where people have had to sue, parents and their children have had to sue school districts in order to get plant-based milk served to them, which is crazy when you consider that the National Institutes of Health on its own website, which I have access, says that 67% at least of people experience lactose malabsorption, which is another fancy way of saying most people are allergic to dairy products.

28:34 At a certain point, there seems to be almost a level of, not just denial, but self-destructiveness. We know that humans can be very self -destructive. When people are addicts, they can do things that are incredibly self-destructive, but can institutions, Natalie, be self-destructive in the same way? Because we are on a track to a climate apocalypse as we speak, and the farm bill could easily determine how much in the billions of subsidies animal ag, big ag will get, thereby perpetuating big ag, thereby ensuring our collective demise, or at least living in a dystopian world.

29:27 Totally, even just speaking about milk in schools, one of my memories from being in elementary school was that I couldn't even go to recess until I finished my gross milk carton that tasted rancid, and I would drink it, and I wouldn't feel good, and I wouldn't know that it was the milk because they didn't talk to us about that. So it's absolutely ridiculous that kids have to drink milk in schools, and they have to have doctor's notes in a lot of cases in order to get the plant-based milk option. As far as if the industries are self -destructive, I am not sure if they would think of themselves in that way. They think that they are vital to human health.

30:08 They think that they're saving the world. They're denying the climate science. They have scientists they work with, like Frank Mitloehner at UC Davis, and he creates these studies and then uses it to legitimise their talking points. So they say that they're actually not causing that much climate damage, that methane isn't really this big problem, and that they can use technology to solve the methane issue instead of reducing the number of animals. So I think it's more just a complete denial surrounding the situation, and it is very ironic because their industry is one of the industries that's the most dependent on having a healthy climate, and they're the ones who are destroying the climate.

30:52 But we see similar things with fossil fuels and tobacco. I think it's just a huge amount of denial that they can't face the truth because earlier that quote you used about how their profit depends on them, not seeing the truth. So I think that's what- I do wanna say, we invite any individual, including the person you mentioned on, anytime we would love to dialogue with any individuals, agencies, corporations, universities, you have an open invitation. I would love nothing more. Paige, in Los Angeles, your question or thought for our panel on the front lines of the Farm Bill battle.

31:32 I think about when I learned about the vote for larger cages for the pigs, and I remember people who were not vegan were telling me they were gonna be voting for larger cages. How do we get the general public to realise how essential this is to shift? How do we do that? Because I think common sense for people to actually put two and two together, like having larger cages, whether they're gonna be drinking the plant milk or not, that their tax dollars are going to be the wasted milk in schools, for example, right?

32:15 Most people are aware they don't really wanna have the wasted food. That's kind of mainstream information. Let's not waste food. So how do we get this information into the hands and to the minds of the general public who are not paying attention, per se? Great question. As we get the answer from Robert, let's watch him do his thing at a congressional hearing on the Farm Bill. He is walked out while shouting that this is a corrupt process where people who want alternatives don't get a chance to really weigh in.

32:59 I mean, even though some of these politicians say they're going on listening tours, those are all prearranged, as you showed in one instance where when you really ask an honest question, they really shut you down. They do not wanna hear the honest questions. They've got all the prearranged orchestrated questions and you have literally gotten arrested, Robert, trying to speak truth to power. So what would you say to Paige's question? So Paige, I think we need to have a populist message that resonates with the public, that builds popular support, rather than an over -professionalised message.

33:41 Because the more we professionalise our movement, and that's not to take anything away from the doctors and the scientists and the nutritionists and the veterinarians and all of those people that do such fantastic work, but the bottom line is we need a popular, emotive message that appeals to the average working American. And if we want to broaden our base, and they are going to be non-vegans. They're people that we're gonna target that hopefully will one day become vegan, but in the meantime, we need them to back our movement for a plant-based food system. And groups like Pro Animal Future, of which Natalie belongs, and others, are doing research and finding, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they're finding that most people see the reason, the common sense in transitioning to a plant-based, soda-free food system.

34:35 They might not be vegan yet, but they definitely see the rationale in doing that. So we already have a tremendous amount of support. And then you add to that our populist message at Free From Harm, that hardworking Americans should not be paying for problems that the industry created, like spreading diseases like bird flu, and costing us an immense fortune to try to clean up. Most Americans across the political spectrum believe that it's wrong for corporate welfare like that. So there you go. There's a populist message that we could work with, and we're finding that it's resonating. Well, I hope you're right.

35:17 All I hear about is people talking about, this is, I think, the conundrum. People are complaining about the high price of food. It is a major issue in electoral politics. And so in order to basically counteract meat and dairy, we would have to let it go to the price it would be if it wasn't subsidised by the government. So I've heard the average hamburger could be $25, $30. So these dollar burgers that you see, the only reason they're dollar burgers is that our tax dollars are being funnelled to prop up this industry.

36:00 So what we would have to do is not just reduce those subsidies, but redirect subsidies to healthy food so that that food isn't as expensive. And that's a tall order. And that's why this farm bill is so very important, is that potentially, if they all had a moment, an epiphany, all these people who are in these powerful positions had an epiphany and realised, oh my gosh, we could be literally signing the planet's death warrant. Of course, the planet will survive us. We're talking about the living beings on the planet. We have to make a switch.

36:40 It's just gotten to be too much. Like hit bottom, just like addicts hit bottom when they've had a really bad night and they wake up the next morning and they say, I can't live like this anymore. I mean, our government needs to hit bottom on subsidising animal agriculture and wake up and start subsidising healthy food. Is there any chance, is there a snowball's chance? What do they say? A snowball's chance in hell of that happening, Robert? Well, yes, but we have to be smart about what we leverage. So bird flu is an Achilles heel for the industry. If things keep going bad, this is really going to be a problem for the chicken, egg and turkey and dairy industries.

37:26 And we need to leverage that. There's not enough of us demanding change in the places of power where change can be made. People, consumers will follow changes based on what our food system provides and markets to them. Unfortunately, most people are followers in this way. We're social animals and we go with trends. We go with marketing. We're very much seduced by the propaganda of the food industry. So that could actually, we could turn that into, instead of trying to addict them with animal products, we could try to actually, like you said, subsidise healthy foods.

38:09 We're not against subsidies. We just think the subsidies should be changed. But we need to have more people focussing on those who actually have the power to change the system, not the consumers, because they have no power over this. And just for the record, what is the amount that the Farm Bill and the US government is subsidising animal agriculture versus how much our government is subsidising foods that human beings eat, fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, and legumes? My understanding is it's completely, utterly lopsided. Can you elaborate, Robert? According to the Environmental Working Group's recent study, which is the best thing we have so far, the government has subsidised animal agriculture 59 billion since 1994 and only 124 million for alternative plant proteins.

39:06 And that's all I'll say because I don't wanna take up too much room so Natalie can talk too. That's right, but I mean, that's crucial, Natalie. I mean, look at that. That basically, yeah, you know, game, set, match. Yeah, absolutely. It's crazy how much more attention animal products get. And I've heard different numbers in different places. The one that I heard was that we subsidise animal products 800 times more than plant products. I've also heard that only 4% of subsidies go toward plants grown directly for human consumption. A lot of plants get subsidies when they're used to feed farmed animals like corn and soy.

39:48 But absolutely, we need to subsidise these speciality crops as they're called, which is just really crops that humans can eat. What I see over and over again is that nobody is connecting the dots. For example, I just read an article that the sea lions and the seals are suffering again from another tide that is toxic and they're getting poisoned. And all these people are rushing to pull them out and to go to a rehab centre and then re-release them. And I went to a re-release recently, not far from where I live, several were being released.

40:31 Nobody's talking about what is causing the algae bloom. What's causing the algae bloom is that California is America's largest dairy state with millions of cows. And all those cows are producing cities worth of manure that is going into our streams, our rivers, and ultimately into our oceans. This did come to a head at Point Reyes National Seashore, where in defence of animals has been fighting a battle to at least allow the Thule elk who are on the national property to get water. The dairy industry wants to keep that water for itself and is literally trying to deprive these animals of even water.

41:14 Right. And the dairy runoff is going into the waters off Point Reyes National Seashore. And the activists say they did tests and they're saying the water's polluted. And millions of people come there to experience not dairy industry, but experience the Thule elk and go swimming in clean water. So nobody's connecting the dots. And when I talk about drought, the first thing people say is, oh, those almonds. But they don't talk about the fact that the cows, National Geographic says a vegan diet saves 600 gallons of water per day per person. It's like the truth that dare not speak its name over and over again.

41:57 This is the big problem. How do we burst through this wilful denial, Robert? I think we may not, but like I said, I think the strategy that is going to work and really have the kind of sweeping kind of change that we want is by focussing on those in charge of the food system and making the change happen there because consumers I think will follow and they don't know what to think and they don't think they have any power. So we have to show people, even those that aren't activists, just everyday working people, that this is how you can get involved.

42:38 This is how you can become civically involved in this process. And it does matter because the collective voices is what changes things. They might come back and say, well, if I go vegan or if I go plant -based, that's not gonna change the world. And it's gonna make a small change relative to the huge problem we're dealing with. But if they become civically involved and realise that they have an important role to play, which is what we want to convince people of, then that's the path to the kind of change we want. And if we take cues from other successful social movements, that's how it's done. But our focus has to be on the powerful.

43:20 And I'm afraid we just haven't arrived there yet. We just don't have enough groups working on the power holders of the food system. Let's take a look at another speak truth to power moment. Bailing out the chicken and egg industry for a bird flu nightmare that they created. The USDA's mission is to create safe and nutritious foods. Yet instead, you are the chicken industry's puppet, protecting an industry, making record profits and betraying America's health and safety. This industry forces billions of birds to live in squalid confinement, perfect conditions for new pandemics with a constant supply of new hosts.

44:07 As I said on an earlier occasion. Defund factory farms. Defund factory farms. Stop the bird flu bailout. Stop the bird flu bailout. Please don't touch me, that's assault. Stop the bird flu bailout. Stop the bird flu bailout. Where are we going? Okay. Stop the bird flu bailout. Not another penny. Where are we going?

44:51 Stop the bird flu, I'm sorry. So where was that, Robert? That was at the National Press Club with Tom Vilsack's speech. You may have heard that he mentioned what a great thing democracy is and that people can speak their voice. I don't think we necessarily live in a democracy. A true one. But it's ironic, it couldn't be more ironic that he is a championing democracy when he is presiding over one of the most corrupt food systems in the world in which animal agriculture money pours in and controls policy.

45:40 And he used to be- By the way, Tom Vilsack is the USPA, the head of the United States Department of Agriculture for those who do not know. Yes, and he was a dairy industry trade group leader. So that's another issue, is that the people who are in power in the government used to work for the very industry they're supposed to regulate. The revolving door. It's a revolving door. And he served twice. This is the second time that he is serving as the head of the USDA. It's just, it's really bizarre.

46:21 You see this with other issues that are in the animal rights sphere, like vivisection. The people who are running the National Institutes of Health are to a large degree vivisectors who came up torturing animals in laboratories. So of course they're gonna think that that's a good idea to continue when obviously we live in the 21st century and there are many high-tech methods to determine the safety or lack of safety of a particular product, other than sticking it in the eye of a monkey or a mouse. But they like to do it their way because that's how they've been doing it. And so you have the revolving door.

47:02 And I just, I just very, very, very concerned about what could happen with this farm bill. So, you know, I have to go back to you, Robert. Where does it stand? When is it likely to be passed? And what is likely to be in it? Right. So in a nutshell, I'm just gonna say, we don't have high expectations for making any big meaningful change in this farm bill. But what we can do is get the narrative chain, starting to change the narrative and getting the media to report on the farm bill and bird flu and other issues related to agriculture policy in a more critical light, infusing it with our message.

47:48 That's a first big step. And maybe the next farm bill will see something a little bit different. This farm bill unfortunately is corrupted on both sides of the aisle. The Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans, even though I guess you could say the Republicans take more private money. But in terms of the massive bailout, it's the same in both sides. And right now we just need to get the message out that we can't stand for this anymore, that there needs to be a change. And so we're not gonna see any big policy change, but what our hope is, is that we can inspire people to join us and we can start getting the public's attention that there is another path forward.

48:41 And when they see activists doing things highly publicised like this, it makes them realise that there's a desperate need, urgent need for change. How much publicity did that disruption get in front of the USDA secretary? I mean, it's hard to measure, right? Because there's a lot of social media posts from the different reporters that were there. And there were some stories published in Bloomberg, not stories, but newsletter mentions in Bloomberg and Politico. So it's really hard to measure that. Because one of the reasons we started Unchained TV is that the news media is not reporting on these things.

49:24 I mean, look, we went through a pandemic and it really doesn't matter whether you thought it started in the Wuhan market in China, where they were keeping thousands and thousands of animals of many different species in cramped conditions and slaughtering them with blood and guts and faeces and everything else, or whether you think it started in the lab where they were torturing bats. It's a zoonotic illness. And the pandemic that people fear now with the bird flu would be a zoonotic illness. That did not get people's attention. That's what worries me. Even a pandemic that shut down the entire world for several years did not get the attention because the news media did not connect the dots.

50:12 They showed the Wuhan market in the very first days of the pandemic and then, right? Just like Michelle Obama tried to get people hooked on veggies when she did her garden in the White House with the vegetables, and what happened? Suddenly it was turned into let's move. I don't wanna sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it switched to exercise. So there is, I think, a conspiracy of silence about these issues. And I'm not saying that everybody gets together and has a meeting, but it's a cultural thing. I mean, it reminds me of LGBT, right?

50:57 The love that dare not speak its name. And now we have the truth that dare not speak its name about animal agriculture's horrific impact on a wide range of issues. And so that's a big problem. That's, can I just say something real quick is that if you, how other social movements got the media's attention is very interesting to look at. They did bold, creative actions that compelled the media to cover it, that they couldn't ignore it because it was either interesting or created enough controversy that the media glammed onto it. But they're not gonna cover us standing on a street corner.

51:38 They're not gonna cover us doing routine things. They've gotta be extraordinarily different or things that they just can't avoid covering. So like, that's why we stopped complaining about the media not covering our previous events. And we said, we're just gonna go where the media is going. They're gonna be in this Farm Bill hearing. Every single major media outlet is going to be at this Farm Bill hearing. And we are gonna get right in front of the cameras with our message, with our voices and our signs and get covered. So that's what we, if we want media attention, we have to get in front of them. Yeah, well, you know what they say, if we wanna get attention in our movement, we have to either get arrested or get naked.

52:21 And then when you get arrested as you have, Robert, they say, well, you know, they're disruptive. And then when you get naked, they make fun of you. So they try to put you in a situation, a context where there's no win, just like with the vegan movement in general, where people would say, what do you eat, grass? So we created all these alternatives where there's veggie burgers and even veggie ribs and veggie eggs and veggie cheese. And then they say, oh, it's processed. So they try to put you in a situation where you can't win. And guess who is the real loser? They are, because when we go down, we're all gonna go down, okay?

53:03 So certainly people in certain climes are gonna suffer more severely and sooner. I mean, large swaths of Latin America and large swaths of Africa are already suffering, but it's affecting everybody. And we have here in California, they don't wanna give insurance to some homes because of climate crisis. We have situation where it's people, delivery people are collapsing on the street from the heat and still nothing gets through to the media, to the government, to members of Congress. It's a scary situation.

53:44 I do believe in the law of unintended consequences. I believe personally that big thinkers, the very smart people, whether they're in Silicon Valley or wherever they may be are gonna realise, woo, it doesn't matter how much money I have. If we have a completely unlivable planet, my money isn't gonna mean that much. Maybe they, maybe they will decide that they've gotta take action and change the system. I wanna thank both of you so much for being here. We are gonna stay on top of this farm bill because I honestly believe it is perhaps the most important issue of our time because all of those fast food restaurants you see in every Miracle Mile across the country, nobody would be walking into them if the burgers and the chicken wings cost what the market would bear, which would be exponentially higher.

54:42 The only reason those items are as cheap as they are is because your tax dollars are being forced to subsidise them. Think about that. And please think about your food choices because ultimately this is a consumer issue. All of this would go away overnight if people started switching to vegan plant-based options. And no, vegan is not a dirty word. So that's why we do what we do at Unchained TV. I wanna thank you again and urge everybody to download Unchained TV, whether you download it on your phone, very easy to do so, right on your phone, completely free, or whether you download it on your TV, behind me, or on a tablet, it doesn't matter.

55:30 Download Unchained TV and become part of the solution. Discover Unchained TV and transform your life for free. Unchained TV is a nonprofit organisation producing plant -based content built with tips and tricks to spice up those healthy veggies, grains, and legumes. For more information on Unchained TV productions, just visit unchainedtv.com.