Rubashkin Set To Open New Nebraska Slaughterhouse In Cooperation With Oglala Sioux And Pine Ridge Indian Reservation – USDA Must Approve But Is Expected To Do So Tomorrow – USDA Still Refusing To Release Results Of Last Year's Investigation

GORDON, Neb. -- An Iowa meatpacking firm that has drawn fire from an animal-rights group has bought an old packing plant in Gordon, Neb., and plans to process kosher beef, lamb and bison products using workers from the nearby Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

If the plant passes a U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection scheduled for Friday it could begin slaughtering cattle as soon as Monday, according to Tally Plume, executive director of the Oglala Oyate Woitancan Empowerment Zone, which encompasses the reservation.

The firm, Local Pride, announced this week that it would begin hiring and training local workers for the plant. The plant will employ 40 to 50 local residents, according to a Local Pride news release. Plume said many of the workers would be tribal members.

Local Pride is owned by the Rubashkin family, which also owns Agriprocessors, operators of a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa.

Local Pride is working with the empowerment zone, created on the reservation in 1999, along with the Oglala Sioux Tribe Workforce in Action Program, the city of Gordon and the Nebraska Department of Agriculture.

Plume said the empowerment zone board expanded the zone, with USDA approval, to include 300 acres where the plant is located in Gordon, 36 miles southeast of Pine Ridge village.

Plume said the project considered Gordon for a site because the reservation lacks infrastructure to accommodate such a facility.

By being in the empowerment zone, Local Pride will be able to get a tax break for hiring tribal members, Plume said.

Reservation residents already have undergone training at the Postville plant.

"The potential for employment on this project could get pretty high," Plume said. He said the Postsville plant began with about 50 employees and now has 700 workers.…

Meanwhile, Plume said he was not worried about allegations by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that Agriprocessors' Postville plant uses cruel slaughtering methods that violate federal rules and strict kosher slaughtering standards.

PETA cited a video secretly made by an activist working undercover at the plant that showed workers using large knives to slice cows' throats, as required for kosher preparation. The video also shows some of the cows then stumbling around for as long as three minutes. PETA says the animals were still alive and suffering.

Plant officials say the animals' movements are involuntary and that massive blood loss to the brain brought on by slitting their throats renders them insensitive to pain within seconds.…

Plume said he is confident that the USDA probe will exonerate the Iowa plant. He said rabbis will be present at the Gordon plant as well.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency also filed a lawsuit accusing the Postville plant of exceeding limits set in wastewater discharge permits and failing to submit proper risk management plans or hazardous chemical inventory forms.

Plant spokesman Mike Thomas told the Courier that those matters have already been resolved with city and state officials.…

The USDA is expected to find against Rubashkin in the PETA-exposed throat-ripping scandal. But the USDA has been moving slowly and has refused to release the findings from last year's investigation.

The Jewish community has a long history with Pine Ridge and the Oglala Sioux. Most of it good; some, not. The tribe's positive exposure to Orthodox Judaism has largely been through left-leaning Orthodox Jews, including at least one rabbi, Moshe Lichtman, who practice a sort of social action, peace and justice style, Judaism and who work with non-Orthodox Jews.

But the Rubashkin family has a history of illegal and anti-social behavior – a history that includes bank fraud, misappropriating union dues paid by it's employees, the documented recruitment of illegal alien workers, repeated EPA violations and the original Postville controversy.

One wonders whether the Oglala Sioux have trusted too much, based on their past experience with an atypical "bein adam lehaveyro"* Orthodoxy.

*In Judaism, the mitzvot (commandments) are broken down into two main parts, "bein adam lehaveryro," between people, and "bein adam lemakom," between people and G-d. Although both parts are meant to be equal, Orthodoxy tends to put more weight on commandments between people and G-d (for instance, prayer and keeping kosher) and to minimize the interpersonal and social justice commandments (for instance, not stealing union dues).

Comments

[bubba]

Sounds like a good pairing. In Lakota Sioux, "maza-ska" means "money." It sounds almost like "Moshiach". Could it be a coincidence?

[Neo-Conservaguy]

Jobs for the needy natives, and more money in the pockets of the company, no matter what the moral cost: makes me think of this song by Midnight Oil...

(This song refers to the Wittenoom asbestos mine in Western Australia where blue asbestos was mined between 1947 and 1966)

Hey, hey-hey hey
There’ll be food on the table tonight
Hey, hey, hey hey
There’ll be pay in your pocket tonight

My gut is wrenched out it is crunched up and broken
A life that is led is no more than a token
Who’ll strike the flint upon the stone and tell me why
If I yell out at night there’s a reply of bruised silence
The screen is no comfort I can’t speak my sentence
They blew the lights at heaven’s gate and I don’t know why

But if I work all day at the blue sky mine
(there’ll be food on the table tonight)
Still I walk up and down on the blue sky mine
(there’ll be pay in your pocket tonight)

The candy store paupers lie to the share holders
They’re crossing their fingers they pay the truth makers
The balance sheet is breaking up the sky
So I’m caught at the junction still waiting for medicine
The sweat of my brow keeps on feeding the engine
Hope the crumbs in my pocket can keep me for another night
And if the blue sky mining company won’t come to my rescue
If the sugar refining company won’t save me
Who’s gonna save me?

But if I work all day...

And some have sailed from a distant shore
And the company takes what the company wants
And nothing’s as precious, as a hole in the ground

Who’s gonna save me?
I pray that sense and reason brings us in
Who’s gonna save me?
We’ve got nothing to fear

In the end the rain comes down
Washes clean, the streets of a blue sky town

[Crazy Guy]

Case and point: Shmaryoohee claims to keep halacha. But in reality, he runs a weblog full of nothing but lashon hara and rechilus.

[Crazy Guy]

INDIAN TRIBE TO HOST RUBASHKINS SLAUGHTERHOUSE

"PLACEVILLE, IA The Indian tribe of Ahavas Yisrael has stated their desire to get along with the religious Jews who run the Rubashkins plant. Chief Ichbinatalmudchochom related the following: 'Our tribe could really use the influx of capital that Rubashkins promises. Furthermore, the Rabbis that we've been in conversation with seem to be nice, genuine people. Also, I have a thing for steak!"

It should be noted however that Rubashkins is the very same Rubashkins who was recently implicated in the famous PETA scandal, in which PETA snuck cameras into the AgroProcessors mill and successfully proved that Rubashkins KILLS COWS as part of their daily routine. This matter has been under investigation.

In a completely unrelated note, PETA branches in 12 localities have been indicted for animal cruelty, including the dismembering and beheading of Pets belonging to registered Republicans.

The Ahavas Yisrael Tribe has stated that they trust that the stories about Rubashkins are 'mostly hype,' and look forward to building a 'positive relationship.'"

Shmaryoohee: STUPID GULLIBLE THEM. Everyone knows that Jews (including myself) are hateful disgusting people. Therefore, I now know that Indians are stupid, and the Jews are hateful disugsting people (except of they're not REALLY Jewish, like the Ethiopains).

~Sharyoohee

[John K. Diamond]

We need to keep in mind that this latest effort by Rubashkin has followed on the following lack of progress since the AgriProcessors' scandal went public:

1. The failure of the USDA to issue any information regarding the PETA Complaint.

2. The failure of the Iowa Waukon County DA to issue any information on another PETA Complaint.

3. The failure of the OU, KAJ and others to come clean and begin moving on eliminating cruelty on factory farms.

We need to accept that there will, most likely, be no progress in the future on the above.

But Jews who are concerned can simply vote against Rubashkin in the marketplace by purchasing animal products from humane sources, such as Rosenblatts' outside of Dallas, Blackwings Kosher Bison or from other sources such as these. Better yet, one can decide to eliminate animal products from their diets completely.

John K. Diamond
Member, Advisory Board
Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA)

[Neo-Conservaguy]

"But Jews who are concerned can simply vote against Rubashkin in the marketplace by purchasing animal products from humane sources, such as Rosenblatts' outside of Dallas, Blackwings Kosher Bison or from other sources such as these."

We'll make a moderate out of you yet, John. ;-)

[John K. Diamond]

To Neo-Conservaguy:

Thanks for your kind thoughts!!!!!

I am a moderate when it comes to respecting the rights that the Torah gave Jews to eat meat, but not from animals raised under modern-day cruel conditions on factory farms and/or slaughtered improperly, as at Postville.

I am not a moderate, however, when it comes to demanding that the Orthodox Rabbinic leadership that we have in this country takes responsibility for their past failures, and begins the process of cleaning up abuses in the Kosher animal business as well as cruelty on factory farms.

I am not a moderate, either, when it comes to insisting that meat-eating Jews have readily available supplies of humanely raised and slaughtered meat while, at the same time, urging them that they, the animals and the earth would be much better off if they eliminated animal products from their diet completely.

John

[Inredulous]

John,

Would you state for the record that you advocate shechita? Without any qualification.

[John K. Diamond]

Inredulous,

Although I have been a vegetarian for over six years and believe that the we, the animal kingdom and the earth's environment would be much better off if people would eliminate animal products from their diet, I respect the right of Jews to eat meat but would urge them to obtain this from humanely raised and slaughtered animals. In this respect, I do advocate shechita when properly done, not as it was, and maybe still is, being done in Postville. Please do a web search under "Dr. Temple Grandin" to find out what proper schechita is.

John