“Hog producers are greater threat to U.S. than Osama bin Laden,” says RFK Jr.

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August, 2002:

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.–Four months after telling an April 5
rally in Clear Lake, Iowa, that “Large-scale hog producers are a
greater threat to the U.S. and U.S. democracy than Osama bin Laden
and his terrorist network,” Waterkeeper Alliance president Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. shows no sign of backing away from his remarks–and has
posted not just one but two denunciations of factory-style hog
farming originally issued in April at the <www.keeper.org> web site.
The conservation-oriented Water-keeper Alliance is only
peripherally involved with animal issues other than protection of
habitat from pollution, and Kennedy himself has rarely said much
about animals, but after other Waterkeeper Alliance spokespersons
tried to tone down his Clear Lake statements or claim they were taken
out of context, Kennedy spoke equally forcefully on April 18 at
Briar Cliff University, a Catholic institution in Sioux City, Iowa.

Kennedy said he was misquoted, but not about his main
points, said Des Moines Register staff writer Mark Siebert.
“I lost my law offices in the 9/11 blast, and I lost many
friends, so I don’t say this lightly,” Kennedy told the Briar Cliff
audience. “What I believe is that the threat that is offered by an
outside terrorist like Osama bin Laden, who is clearly evil,” is
less than that of “an industry that is lawless in almost every
respect.”
Reported Siebert, “He made references to religion, saying
that in the Old Testament, God told Noah to collect two of all the
animals, not just those who provide economic gain. In the New
Testament,” Kennedy reminded, Jesus “was born in a manger
surrounded by animals.”
Said Kennedy, “I wonder what Jesus would have thought about
the inside of one of these hog factories.”
Siebert wrote that most of the crowd of about 300 people gave
Kennedy a standing ovation, despite vehement on-the-spot response
from Iowa Corn Growers Association president Dave Boettger.