“Don’t cry over spilled milk.”
Mothers worldwide have long given this advice to their children. The lesson is simple. When people make mistakes, the most desirable course is to clean up as best they can and then move on with their lives. Excessive sorrow, endless contemplation and overly-profuse apologies solve nothing.
Rebellion on Aisle Three!
However, a radical English movement, Animal Rebellion, makes it a point to cry over spilled milk. Its activists pour milk on supermarket floors and over food products to express their outrage over so-called anthropogenic climate change. These acts of political theater are done in high-end supermarket chains where milk is sold. They aim to stop milk consumption that they claim causes climate change.
Activists rejoice in the mayhem that they cause. Their website reports on the success of a £100,000 (roughly $112,000 U.S.) attack on a London location of high-end grocer Fortnum and Mason. Police charged two supporters with criminal damage and theft. The revolutionaries also brought their escapades to Harrod’s and Selfridge’s in London and stores in Norwich, Manchester and Edinburgh. Videos of these incidents have gone viral.
Animal Rebellion does not limit its activities to spilling milk in retail marketplaces. These eco-terrorists claim to have disrupted seven dairy distribution facilities every day for four months. The disturbances included destroying truck tires, occupying feed silos and stopping milk deliveries by climbing on top of the trucks. The organization also took credit for shortages. “Empty milk shelves in London,” it boasted. “Animal Rebellion has stopped the supply of dairy.”
“Non-Violent” Violence
They call their mischief “nonviolent direct action.” They need to check their dictionaries. Nonviolent doesn’t mean what they think it means. The Cambridge Dictionary defines nonviolent as “not involving fighting or the use of physical force.”
The activists do not strike or shoot anyone, but they are violent. The same dictionary defines that as “using force to hurt or attack.”
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These milk-spilling incidents are attacking and hurting people. They destroy private property and ruin other nearby products. Other people, mostly low-paid store employees, must clean up the mess. Those who cannot afford more expensive almond or soy-based milk substitutes have to do without this essential food product. These same people will suffer the most if producers need to raise prices to cover the enormous costs of the damage and disruption.
The Complacency of Ignorance
Films of the events show young adults, presumably in their twenties, standing in the stores with grim looks on their faces as they pour milk onto the floor. In most of these films, workers in the stores stand by silently.
One of their members stated the rationale.
“A plant-based future is the key solution to the climate and ecological emergencies. Moreover, it would enable us to produce more food for more people with far less land and fewer resources. It would also reduce the suffering of billions of animals whilst restoring habitats to our beautiful wildlife.”
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Of course, their solution is to increase the power and cost of government. The state, they say, must “support farmers in the urgent transition to a plant-based food system and allow the freed up land to be rewilded in order to restore wildlife populations.”
The Intolerance of the “Tolerant”
These acts display the intolerance of those who preen their psyches with myths of their own tolerance. They clearly think that they are doing something great.
A recent article in Commentary, “You Are What You Don’t Eat,” summed up the attitude of these eco-warriors.
“These episodes and others like them are revealing of some shared principles on the activist left… a level of judiciousness sufficient to establish boundaries for oneself and others.”
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Once again, the left insists that it knows more than its detractors. To cap it off, even if the Animal Rebellion folks get their way, it won’t make any real difference for the environment. It will, however, significantly alter everyone’s daily lives. The Commentary article continues.
“A Virginia Tech study published in early 2021 determined that the sudden disappearance of all dairy cattle from the United States would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a staggeringly small 0.7 percent, all while dramatically reducing the available supply of essential nutrients for human beings.”
A Dose of Reality
Despite their ability to grab headlines by committing senseless acts in public, Animal Rebellion and its kindred are pitifully small groups. However, throughout history, such groups have served a purpose. Catholic thinker and man of action Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira notes that “the explosion of these extremists raises a standard and creates a fixed target whose very radicalism fascinates the moderates who slowly advance toward it.”
The anti-milk extremists have friends in governments, academia and business that sympathize with the green agenda. Moderates feel fear while silently sympathizing with green activism. The media do everything possible to present the ecologist narrative in a positive light.
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It is the role of those who defend order to expose the errors of the anti-milk extremists for what it is: crass vandalism and eco-terrorism. The God-given goods of this earth exist to serve humanity, which has every right to use and develop them. The delights of milk, butter and cheese must be defended against the eco-left’s hatred of civilization.
Indeed, the sinister standard of the eco-activists is merely a smokescreen to cover up their real purpose: the destruction of what remains of Christian civilization.
Photo Credit: © Alphonse Mc Clouds – stock.adobe.com