Yes I love fried chicken.  Yes, I ate more than one fried chicken sandwich this weekend. Yes, I enjoyed them.  And yes, I heard about the massive marketing campaign dubbed ‘chickenwars’ between Popeyes and Chick-fil-A last week.  A ‘twitter war’ between corporations, which is code for ‘free corporate advertising’.  The two chains used the desperation of influencers, youtubers, and click baiters who LOVE a good fake controversy, almost as much as we love to eat fried chicken.  And they don’t care if it’s a complete ploy for free coverage, they just want the clicks.

Seemingly every ‘news’ outlet from Time Magazine to USA Today covered the fake chicken spat continuously.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about that’s a good thing.  Basically, Popeye’s Chicken came out with a new chicken sandwich.  Chick-fil-a, being the good Christians that they are, tweeted something passive-aggressive in reference to it, and Popeyes responded with something equally unimpressive.  But because Chick-fil-A is an openly religious, anti-gay, pro-life, and an all-around conservative organization, a lot of people on Twitter could not wait to virtue signal, or vote on one side or the other.  Hundreds of thousands of retweets and comments ensued, with everyone trying to chirp the loudest, over a fast-food sandwich that costs $3.99.  Meanwhile, Popeye’s gained over 100k followers after their pretend ‘twitter war’, and sold out of their new sandwich all over the country, without having to spend a dime on marketing.

Bun + Chicken + Pickles = all the ❤️ for the original. pic.twitter.com/qBAIIxZx5v

— Chick-fil-A, Inc. (@ChickfilA) August 19, 2019

Popeyes response:

… y’all good? https://t.co/lPaTFXfnyP

— Popeyes Chicken (@PopeyesChicken) August 19, 2019

While everyone was yelling at each other about a sandwich, no one was talking about how Chic-fil-a and Popeyes both use factory farms to get their meat cheap, in conditions that are truly disgusting.  They don’t raise chickens, they ‘grow’ them like tomatoes these days.  The difference is tomatoes at least get sunlight, Popeye’s chickens are raised in the dark, sitting in their own waste, and they get 56 days to live before they are slaughtered.

If that wasn’t a horrific enough existence, try being genetically altered to such a state that you can no longer fly or walk around without pain.  The chickens of today are grown so fat and bulky they can’t move, they are essentially sacks of meat, waiting around in the dark, to die.

Last year you may remember Californians voted overwhelmingly for Proposition 12, which passed on Election Day and also mandated an elimination of cages for egg-laying chickens, that was a small but very positive victory for chickens in California.  But factory farms simply move to States who do not have regulations or pay fines instead of following regulations.   And the Trump administrations have rolled back all the Obama era regulations that would put more controls on massive meat producers. (and they weren’t enough to begin with)

So the conditions are still disgusting and unethical so that massive corporations can make more money, and consumers can save a buck, and we simply block out the reality or don’t care.   I, for one, would happily pay an extra dollar for a chicken sandwich that was not harvested in a hellscape.

For more information about what goes on every day in factory farms across America, check out this article www.humanesociety.org or follow the Humane Society on facebook here, for continuous animal rights coverage, and pay attention at the ballot box.