Who's really behind the Great Beef Raid of Aught 8?

By now you've all read about and digested the Agriprocessors raid. You know what it means for your local meat prices, for kosher meat processors in general. You may even have some thoughts of how it fits in with other immigration issues, and whether it matters that hiring illegal workers is standard practice in the meat packing industry.

But you don't know the real story. You haven't heard who dropped the dime on Agriprocessors, who set them up, who encouraged that nun to claim people were sexually harassed, all in the name of halting the production of sweet, sweet beef. And chicken, but those of us who wear the Fancy Pants (man, even I'm getting sick of the name) are less upset about the chicken. Because the secret, sinister cabal behind this whole mess is...bovine.

Yeah, I'm calling them out. You thought I forgot about them, didn't you? How could I forget my nemeses, comprised of an entire species? I don't want to go through the whole litany again - the stupidity, the whole tipping craze, the deliciousness - but cows are meant to be our food. And if we don't eat them, they'll start evolving. Once they start remembering how to turn it's only a matter of time before they figure out what we're doing. Then, a leader shall come, and it's tofu and wheat gluten forevermore.

And from this fiasco, it looks like they're finally wising up. Going after what is ostensibly and traditionally the most careful and ethical portion of the meat business is pure genius, because it then calls into question the rest of the meatpackers. This means they're organized, and thinking strategically. To anyone who loves their steak, this is a serious problem. We have to ask ourselves: how is this happening? Who is guiding the bovine insurgence? PETA can't even get out of its own way - although I will say their anti-fur ads with the naked ladies is compelling. It makes me want to be a naked lady who doesn't wear fur. Greenpeace is all about whales right now, so they're always at sea, away from fields and other places cows hang out. I don't know - bowling alleys? Is that a big bull market (I've tried pretty successfully to hold off on the puns. One won't kill you.)?

The liberal in me wants to blame this on Karl Rove. Partially because he's Satan's fat unathletic middle child, but also because he looks kind of like a Guernsey. But deep down, I know this can't be the case. All proud conservatives are carnivorous in keeping with Straussian philosophy. So I have to look at the blue states.

Massachusetts? No, not enough cows. Plus, even the cows have problems taking orders from someone with that crazy accent. And it won't be someone from Washington or Oregon, because marijuana and indie music combine to make a really effective bovine sedative. In fact, I hear some meat processors pump in the new Death Cab for Cutie album to make the slaughtering go more smoothly.

So California then. But who's got the stones, the sheer brazen audacity to turn on their own species? Who is so despicable, so fundamentally anti-human, that they would try so hard to take away our hamburgers, our milkshakes? Maybe this conspiracy goes higher than even I could imagine...