Brands are for cattle?
269 - a meme written in flame?
As far as demos go, it would have been a dramatic one. Until the Daily Mail pissed over it with a sensationalist story on “the horror of 'human branding' coming to Britain”.
Last October animal rights activists in Israel pulled a painful stunt. They publicly used a red- hot iron to brand each other with the numbers 269 – the significance of the number being the branding on one calf featured in footage of a slaughterhouse. Chained to metal railings, volunteers had the numbers burned onto them to show the suffering and torture inflicted on animals in the meat trade.
The stunt attracted the attention of hardcore activists in other countries and similar '269' actions were set to take place in London, Leeds, Washington DC, Buenos Aires and Prague. But the London one at least has been put on hold after the Daily Wail ran a story personally attacking a participant and causing her to back out. She'd felt the backlash of the singeing criticism in her personal and professional life and, understandably, couldn't hack the notoriety.
The '269' meme isn't limited to public branding demonstrations. Vegans the world over chose to tattoo the number on themselves as part of World Vegan Day 2012 in November, as political statement and personal protest.
Footage of the original Israel demo organised by the people behind 269life.com can be seen here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA4q1pU957c
That's gotta hurt.
Each to their own.
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