Dr. Jude Capper is a “livestock sustainability expert” (an oxymoron) and the person behind the Februdairy initiative (her "brainchild"), an unofficial pro-dairy response to Veganuary that's gained more popularity for the hashtag being hijacked by vegans. She goes by the handle @Bovidiva. She’s a Bovine Diva... get it??

On her blog, she describes herself as being dedicated to “giving farmers and food industry stakeholders the data and messages to explain why we do, what we do, every single day.” It goes without saying that this woman clearly has vested financial interests in animal exploitation.

But she doesn’t consider using and killing individuals for profit to be “exploitation.” Riiiiiight.

Here's her Tweet that began the initiative:



Let's make #Februdairy happen this year. 28 days, 28 positive #dairy posts. From cute calves and #cheese on crumpets, to belligerent bulls and juicy #beef #burgers - who's in?

Welcome to dystopia, in which newborn animals pictured being lovingly fed are innocently included in the same sentence as their juicy flesh.

Bait & switch

Word to the wise, friends: Capper’s Twitter account is essentially functioning as a sort of self-serving cybertrap for vegans.

Under the guise of kindness and fairness and tolerance, she puts out one obtuse and intellectually dishonest Tweet after another in praise of dairy, mixed in with condescending microaggressions against veganism and vegans, sprinkled with praise for certain “fabulous vegans out there” that the others are giving a bad name (presumably the ones who don’t actually oppose animal exploitation, meaning they aren’t actually vegan). The focus is on how much dairy farmers care for their animals, but never are the routine aspects of dairying that are less palatable, like maternal deprivation or slaughter, ever boasted about.

Overall, the effect is pretty downright infuriating for the average vegan – and it seems that it is her intended effect. Although plenty of vegans calmly and clearly call her out on her lies of omission and refute her central points, some inevitably resort to responding to tone or worse, name-calling. (Welcome to the internet. This is certainly not a behavior exclusive to vegans by any means).

Then the trap is set. Capper then uses those response as proof that vegans are cruel and rude, while typically ignoring or blocking the calmer ones (yours truly included). Tada! She is now the focus and the victim instead of the “dairy” cows, who are literally parasitized and killed, or their orphaned offspring. (See Reverse Victimization in Robert Grillo’s book Farm to Fable.)

Let’s take a look at some examples, as well as some of the other patterns of recurrent tactics she uses to try to mischaracterize vegans and delegitmize veganism, and to rationalize making a living from perpetuating the exploitation and slaughter of innocent individuals.

The goal here is not to draw more attention to this person or to wander into her trap and take her bait (please don’t), but to recognize and call out these tactics being used in general by her and by similar pro-dairy social media accounts, who are getting more and more desperate as dairy declines in popularity each year. In many of these spaces, blatant censorship is rampant, as any record of critical thought or dissent is swiftly eliminated from many of these posts, with only praise allowed to remain.

Why she blocked me



First, I am not a big Twitter user, but her posts are so icky that I was inspired to comment on some of them over the past few days, until I was blocked. Here are all my comments to her Tweets, including responses to other comments on her post that she was therefore tagged in, that led to me being blocked. As you can see, I never called her names or made comparisons to humans or anything like that, I just stuck to the facts.

***



A vegan commented something about baby calves, and she replied something like “Why so emotive? Biology 101: cows have calves, humans have babies.”

(I believe she deleted that after she saw my reply, because that Tweet is now nowhere to be found.)

I replied (as @BrainOnHugs), quoting the emotive vegan propagandists who must have taken over vocabulary.com:



"Cattle are not the only animals whose BABIES are called calves. You can use the word to mean a BABY whale, baby elephant, camel, bison, elk, giraffe, gnu, hippopotamus, moose, ox, reindeer, rhinoceros, and yak." calf - Dictionary Definition: http://Vocabulary.com

(No response.)

***



In the responses to one of Capper’s Tweets, someone claimed “Cruelty is not inherent in animal production.”

Me:

If parasitizing someone and then having them killed once you can no longer profitably do so isn't "cruel," I don't know what is.

(No response.)

***

In the responses to one of Capper’s Tweets, someone wrote, “If you all abandoned your animals tomorrow what would happen to them? A complete lack of acceptance of the cycle of nature.”

Me:

Are you suggesting that continuing the cycle of exploitation & slaughter of special breeds of animals not found outside of human confinement/control in perpetuity would be better? Are the only 2 options to continue to breed/exploit/kill (repeat) them forever, or "abandon" them?

(No response.)

***



@bluemorphovegan:

@Bovidiva would you be opposed to doing what we do to cows, to humans?

@Bovidiva:

Making sure that #cows are given shelter, comfortable bedding, balanced and targeted diets, excellent veterinary (medical) care, a good life... No, I think those are all things that most people would enjoy @bluemorphovegan. #Februdairy

Me:

I see you have omitted routine aspects of dairying like maternal deprivation and slaughter. I can’t imagine why.

(No response.)

***

@Bovida

Replying to @BennyMalone

Farmers care for their cows while they are alive, yes. Obviously dead animals do not have welfare issues.

(Note: Ick, ick, ick. She actually said this. The fact that an animal is killed for profit, even if just to keep costs down because she could not longer be profitably used, means that her welfare, a.k.a. well-being, was gravely disregarded, even if she had remained unviolated up to that point, which she wasn’t.)



@BennyMalone

Replying to @Bovidiva

Slaughtering is part of caring? #Februdairy #Desperate

Me:

Yes @Bovidiva, the "dead animals" the farmers killed. If you've deliberately killed someone in decent health, it's safe to say their "welfare" (state of being or doing well especially in relation to happiness, well-being, or success) was solely contingent on their profitability.

@BennyMalone

Animal agriculture slaughters animals as soon as possible. The younger the better isn’t it, as soon as it is profitable. Wouldn’t make much business sense to keep animals alive longer than necessary for their purposes. So you kill animals as young as possible.

Me replying to @BennyMalone @Bovidiva

Here's a typical example of how much dairy farmers "care" for their animals that I just came across on https://www.facebook.com/MyBeefCheckoff/videos/10156098915044717/ …

David Z: i shipped a dairy cow who wouldnt breed back 2 weeks ago beautiful cow nice and big and got .46 cents a pound.

(No response from Capper)

***

Here's when I get blocked!

In the comments of one of Capper’s Tweets:

@sweetgeorgiab_:

Farmers are not the opposite of vegans. As Paul said, we all need farmers three times a day no matter what diet we're sticking to. Massive thanks to @Southacrefarm #BackBritishFarming



Me:

@sweetgeorgiab_ @Bovidiva

You're conflating animal exploitation with farming. We need farming three times a day, but we don't need animal exploitation at all.



(It was here that @Bovidiva acknowledges me, for the first and last time. She “hearted” my Tweet, meaning apparently she’s pretending that using and killing animals for profit isn’t exploiting them? So she was confused and thought I was pro-dairy?)



@sweetgeorgiab_:

We definitely don't need animal exploitation, you're right 👍

(This person too apparently agreeing that using and killing animals isn’t exploiting them?)



Me:

Using and killing animals for human consumption and profit is exploitation.

...aaaand I'm blocked. As you can see, I did not resort to name-calling whatsoever. Guess the truth hurts.

Singling out hostile responses / vegan trap

So while she ignores and blocks people like me who calmly stick to refuting her points and don’t insult her, Capper instead amplifies vegans calling her, for example, “vile” or a “monster” or a “psychopath” by retweeting them, telling them smugly and condescendingly to “be nice” and eat some cheese. Like clockwork, a chorus of her sympathizers, apparently mostly dairy farmers and fellow industry schills, quickly chime in, offering moral support and reassuring her that vegans do things like “create drama” and “don’t live in the real world.” The impression is that vegans are all mean and angry and clueless and sitting at home on the internet, without knowledge or jobs or lives, but dairy farmers are out there hard at work parasitizing cows and and busting myths. How DO they do it?

News flash: there are always going to be some people who don’t know how to follow “Graham’s Hierarchy of Arguments.” Making a big show out of pointing those people out out so you can become the victim is unnecessary, and simply a diversion from the real victims. But please don't give people like this ammo to work with.