This letter is in response to the column, "Campus 'meatout' supporters full of baloney," March 21. As to the author's question, "How can you bring home the bacon when there's none to be brought home?" I have several answers. I will refrain from the philosophical one that begins with "Just because an industry employs people doesn't make it inherently good," and stick with the pragmatic ones.

First, I would advise the author to read a bit more on the "livelihoods" of people working in the meat industry. Sure, if your last name were Tyson or Perdue, your life would certainly take a drastic turn for the worse if people stopped buying meat. But how about the majority of people employed by slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants, the illegal immigrant laborers who aren't allowed to unionize for fear of deportation? The same ones for whom the assembly lines will not stop even if they are rendered unconscious by a fallen carcass? So I ask the author of the anti-meatout column, what meat industry are you striving to protect, because it sure does not sound like the one in this country.

I hope people like the author of the anti-meatout column are in the minority. I believe everyone has it in them to take steps, no matter how small, to help diminish the unnecessary suffering of animals on this planet.