Sunday, Bernie Sanders held a rally in Carson City Nevada. The rally was briefly interrupted by a group of female anti-dairy protesters, one of whom seized a microphone while others came on stage topless and poured what looked like strawberry milk over themselves:
“Bernie, I’m your biggest supporter and I’m here to ask you to stop propping up the dairy industry and stop propping up animal agriculture,” one protester, Priya Sawhney, said after taking the microphone from Sanders…
Three other topless women also crashed the stage with the words “let dairy die” written on their chests, before pouring milk cartons full of fake blood on themselves. The women who were topless were arrested for indecent exposure and are being held on $2,500 bond each, according to Direct Action
In the video clip below, you can see Priya Sawhney’s microphone was cut off pretty quickly. Sanders left the stage and then made a couple of attempts to return but quickly turned around as one of the topless women approached him. After the protesters were removed from the stage, Sanders returned and joked, “This is Nevada, there’s always a little bit of excitement.” He added, “At no extra cost.”
The protest group behind this published a press release saying the nudity was intended to make a point about the abuse of female bodies (meaning cows) in the dairy industry.
A group of women activists with the animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) disrupted Senator Bernie Sanders as he spoke at a campaign event Sunday, pouring milk cartons with fake blood on themselves and displaying a banner reading “LET DAIRY DIE.” Three women, who were topless with “Let Dairy Die” written on their chests, poured bloody “milk” over their heads to protest the dairy industry’s abuse of female bodies…
“If Bernie truly cares about justice, he will stop propping up the dairy industry, which relies on the abuse of female cows,” said protester Priya Sawhney.
Sawhney, the woman who grabbed the microphone, is currently facing eight felony charges for previous direct action:
Sawhney, a Berkeley resident, is one of the four elected leaders of the San Francisco Bay Chapter of DxE, an international organization that advocates for animal rights — often by breaking into farms and slaughterhouses to whisk away animals its members think are being raised in crowded and unsafe conditions. The organization also uses civil disobedience, direct action and the courts to fight for the rights of captive creatures intended for human consumption. Members contend that the killing of animals is so dire that drastic action is needed to stop it.
Sawhney has been arrested three times and faces eight felony charges, seven of which stem from protests against poultry and egg farmers in Petaluma in September 2018. She and other DxE members chained themselves together outside Petaluma Poultry, an organic poultry production center in Sonoma County that supplies Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon. The DxE activists “rescued” or “stole” nine birds, depending on who is doing the wording. Sawhney and 58 other activists spent 12 hours in jail. Sawhney has pleaded not guilty.
A former member of the group has described them as “crazy vegans.”
City Council candidate and former DxE member Aidan Hill challenged the group’s actions, alleging that they create a negative reputation for the animal rights movement by associating other activists with groups involving “crazy vegans” such as DxE…
Some activists, such as Hill, disagree with the effectiveness of such actions.
“Do I think they’re sustainable?” Hill said. “The answer is no. They’re very dangerous.”
These protesters are a fringe but they aren’t showing up at Sanders’ event because they dislike him, they’re showing up because they believe he can be brought over to their side. This is the kind of thing that, justifiably, makes a lot of centrist Democrats nervous. Vegetarians make up around 3 percent of the American population and vegans might make up half of one percent. In short, it’s not a winning campaign issue. And yet, announcing a plan to phase out meat and dairy over the next decade wouldn’t be any more extreme than the Green New Deal. Maybe Sanders will try it. That’s not even the group’s ultimate goal. What they really want, apparently, is a constitutional amendment saying all species are equal.
Here’s the video. Everything is blurred out in this clip:
