What a waste of taxpayer’s money

Again, we the ocean conquering nation, managed to make people laugh their heads off. The party received enough votes to occupy two seats in our 150-seat parliament. Supported by vegetarians and veganists the only issue in their campaign is to expel the bio-industry from the country. Bio-industry should not be confused with biological industry, however, bio-industry in the Netherlands is an expression used by animal activist to define intensive pig and poultry farming.

It can be questioned how the party received its funding, since the €15 membership (2,521 registered members in 2005) cannot be enough to run a national campaign. In the Netherlands many lotteries donate money to charity funds and also to animal welfare organisations. Members of the latter can easily move funding to a political institute. How ethical would that be?

The party’s leading lady Marianne Thieme campaigned in a clever way by making use of people’s ignorance of today’s modern animal farming. In an interview with our national daily agricultural newspaper she was asked that when we all have changed to organic and animal friendly production would other countries not take over intensive animal production? Her answer was that child labour also was expelled form the Netherlands, but that other countries still practice this. End of discussion, but the comparison is neither here nor there.

This Party for the Animals has no historical knowledge. Animals have never been treated so well than in present farming systems. Due to ignorance, consumers of milk, meat and eggs vote for what they think is ethical, but in the supermarket their opinion is dominated by their wallet when it comes to buying food. What if the party’s lunatic ideas spread to the rest of the world? A human being was not designed to eat vegetables only. How will we be able to feed world population? There are not enough resources to support everyone becoming vegetarians. In fact, this party advocates world hunger. It is a shame that we have to spend more than €200,000 a year of our tax money to fund their seats in parliament