Preemptive Redemption

Confessions of a reverse-speiciesist

Elementally, undeniably, part of my personality conforms to the stereotype of the angry vegan who harbors a darkly cynical judgment of humanity as a class of beings who continually inflict a generally genocidal assault on our fellow planetarians. I always assume that anyone who carries the traumatic awareness of all the blood we humans spill, all the carnage and corpses we sweep aside in our pursuit of “progress,” also feels some form of this soul-penetrating outrage and shares my sense of encroaching doom. And, when writhing most bitterly in the throes of obsessive despair, it's typically not difficult to find a few friends of like mind who will readily agree that, yes, human beings do indeed suck – and hard.

But I must clarify that not all vegans have the same negative assessment of our species, and also that I recognize how unhealthy, futile, and counterproductive human-hating ultimately is. I am glad to say that I have met numerous animal rights advocates who temper their steely vision with a positive attitude of acceptance, and resolve to work for a more peaceful, compassionate world. It is their example of fortitude and effectiveness that makes me think I need to process my anger differently in order to change myself, and that only through such a spiritual transformation can I truly reach out to those who need to understand – and come to terms with my own existence as a member of the human species.

It's not like I don't already try, and readily admit to struggling every day to mediate between the warring factions of my psyche. I do sometimes experience brief moments or minutes of clarity when I feel an internal détente has been reached – an integrated state of calmly excited semi-transcendental awareness when distorted distinctions disappear and I can see myself and the world from a more balanced universal perspective. But such respite is temporary, for inevitably, the fierce drama and debate within reassert themselves anew, and I find myself once again a conscripted contortionist uncomfortably twisting in the gymnastics of confusion.

These days, I rarely raise the issue of humanity's inhumanity in polite society (i.e., among non-vegans). I've been told more than once in different ways that “humans are more important than animals, so people come first” – as though mechanically massacring animals were intrinsic to our species' survival. What most people don't seem to see is that human and animal suffering are directly interrelated (especially under modern industrialization), and that working for one liberation cause means you are also supporting other related causes.

Yet I remain silent because the chasm between our paradigms is just too wide to bridge, and to tell the truth, I've been too often disappointed by people who continue to place their pleasure and convenience ahead of animals' lives. When I first started writing about animal rights issues, I naively assumed that people would read my carefully-worded, impeccably-constructed arguments and have some sort of cosmic life-altering revelation (like I did upon reading John Robbins). In the intervening years, that has proved (very clearly) not to be the case, so I have come to sort of accept and expect that most others (even friends and family) will probably never take my writing seriously enough to end their participation in the slaughter – no matter how much or how well I write.

Part of my disillusionment as a vegan, activist, and writer is the apparently intractable way people think about their lives. This can often translate into anger with humanity in general for failing to make more compassionate and less harmful choices. I am reluctant to let that anger show much anymore because that only fosters resentment, while making it harder to have a positive effect on others. So I try to channel the energy of righteous fury into my work, but I also internalize a lot of guilt, turning the anger upon myself for supposedly not doing enough and engaging in self-destructive habits.

Reality can be painful to bear, and though my imagination encompasses a great deal of the inescapable horror that billions of beings must endure, I do not fully grasp the scale and extent of worldwide suffering. Unlike many, I have a high tolerance for images of violence – I can watch disturbing animal rights videos and still go on with my day – but I also want to turn away sometimes, and escape from the agony of empathy into mundane pursuits and daydreams. Yet I realize that hellish reality is always happening somewhere, every moment, and that even though my life is pretty comfy, I cannot really rest easy when there is so much bloodletting.

It is events of the current presidential race that made me want to write about preemptive redemption. With the candidates (especially Obama) facing criticism and controversy for their past associations and their characters, I feel a need to clarify where I stand vis-à-vis my human allegiance. There is also a parallel between this charge and that which is often leveled against “liberals” during the Bush Era: that we hate America merely because we disagree with the direction our leaders have taken us. That is, just as I fear and loathe liars like Bush but still love my country, rejecting humanity’s enslavement of animals does not mean I hate humans – in fact, I want us to better ourselves by respecting ourselves and other species.

And to call myself a “reverse-speciesist” implies that I put animals' interests ahead of humans', but that is something of a self-misrepresentation, as our interests are closely interdependent and for the most part mutually reconcilable. It would be more accurate to call myself an anti-speciesist, because I believe in fundamental rights for all animals – and because humans are actually animals (made, incidentally, of meat), it would be speciesist to condemn us on the basis of our species. Ideally, I strive to accord the same basic level of respect to human beings that I give so readily to non-human animal beings.

Despising humanity's murderous behavior is completely different from despising humanity – much like hating the sin, not the sinner. I abhor and condemn the mass-exploitation of animals and people that takes place constantly in our world, and will continue to write against the system that anthropocentrically markets atrocity. Those of you who interact with me personally may be relieved to know that, as I engage in this ongoing effort, I intend to find more potent ways of effecting change than incessantly complaining about how much humans suck.

Video of Marine Throwing Puppy Off Cliff Draws Fire

Last week, a 17-second video was posted on YouTube depicting a terrible act of animal cruelty committed by a U.S. Marine stationed in Iraq. The video begins with a soldier in combat uniform holding a tiny puppy by the scruff of her neck. Joking with the cameraman, he says "Cute little puppy" in a childlike voice, then hurls the yelping dog off of a precipice to certain death. "That's mean. That was mean, Motari," says his companion with laughter.

The soldier is believed to be a Lance Corporal with the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment from Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps Base in Hawaii, who returned home to the states in October 2007. Major Chris Perrine, a spokesman at the base, called the video "...shocking and deplorable and...contrary to the high standards we expect from every Marine." Perrine says the military has launched a full investigation, and will take appropriate action.

Incensed by the pointless killing, many are calling for the soldiers who did the deed to be dishonorably discharged and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. However, the disturbing video raises questions about what charges the soldiers would face if found guilty, because the Uniform Code of Military Justice does not specifically prohibit or punish animal cruelty.

Some claim the video is a hoax, a possibility that the military says it will address in its investigation. However, even if it is fake, it is a disgraceful thing to do, especially for a soldier who is representing our country. Many children see soldiers as role models, and after viewing the video may try to emulate this deplorable behavior by filming themselves killing animals and posting the videos on the internet.

Such atrocious acts cannot be excused, but it is important to remember that they do not represent the majority of people serving overseas. As an unidentified source at the Kaneohe Bay Base said, "We're all outraged. We're probably more outraged than the general public." The incident also stands in sharp contrast to the many heartwarming stories of U.S. troops who have rescued dogs from Iraq and Afghanistan and brought them home to America.

Please Take Action to urge Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to see that this incident is promptly investigated and the culprits fully prosecuted, and to amend the Uniform Code of Military Conduct to explicitly outlaw acts of animal cruelty.

Tiger, Tatiana, Burning Bright...

Fatalities at SF Zoo spark outrage,
but PR spin contains firestorm of controversy

It's been almost a month since the Christmas Day tragedy at the San Francisco Zoo where two victims lost their lives in a flurry of teeth, claws, and gunfire. In the aftermath of the mauling of 17-year-old Carlos Sousa, Jr., and the subsequent shooting of 4-year-old Siberian tiger Tatiana, many people wondered incredulously, how could the 350-pound carnivorous cat have escaped from her enclosure at a supposedly state-of-the-art zoo in a major American city?

While some still seek answers to this question and are demanding accountability, most now seem to be far more obsessed with a related but very different question—that is, whether Sousa and/or his two young companions provoked the attack by taunting Tatiana.

According to a January 19th San Francisco Chronicle poll, 82% of readers think the mauled Dhaliwal brothers are mostly to blame for the attack, while only 13% said the zoo was primarily responsible (and 5% said they were equally culpable). This gaping disparity seems especially odd since, on the same day, the Chronicle featured an article on the same webpage as the poll reporting that police have failed to turn up any evidence that Sousa or the Dhaliwals taunted Tatiana, and that the official investigation would probably soon be reclassified as "inactive."

In the exorbitant amount of attention paid to the Dhaliwal brothers' role in the attack, a very basic fact has been lost, which is that a tiger should not be able to escape from a zoo exhibit, no matter how much she is provoked. Even if Sousa and/or the Dhaliwals taunted Tatiana, that does not in any way absolve the zoo for putting a tiger in an exhibit that was not secure for either her or the public. Unfortunately, the focus on the relatively irrelevant question of the victims' innocence or guilt has effectively distracted the public from the SF Zoo's utter failure to protect its visitors and the animals under its care from danger and harm.

The Tatiana tragedy is just one in a long line of controversial animal deaths that have plagued the SF Zoo since Manuel Mollinedo took over as director in 2004. These include two dead elands, a hippopotamus, a zebra, two black swans, and a dozen penguins. The SF Zoo management's failure to improve the inhumane conditions in which elephants were forced to live for decades also caused the deaths of three resident pachyderms within a year. Soon after the tiger mauling, a polar bear and a leopard nearly escaped as well, and it was discovered that the wall around the polar bear exhibit also falls short of the minimal safety standards recommended by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), just as the zoo's tiger enclosure did—by four feet.

The SF Zoo also ignored AZA recommendations for 24-hour monitoring of animals, so no zookeepers or security guards were posted at the tiger enclosure at the time of the Christmas Day mauling, and no observation cameras recorded the event. As Sousa lay dying and the Dhaliwals ran for their lives, the zoo failed to follow its own emergency protocols, delaying police response to the crisis and neglecting to notify visitors that a dangerous wild animal was on the loose. And soon after the attack, it was revealed that many zookeepers knew and reported that it was possible for the tigers to break out of their enclosure, but that zoo officials ignored their warnings and made no structural modifications to ensure the safety of visitors and animals.

Clearly, these and other abysmal failings indicate a critical need for fundamental changes at the zoo. Yet rather than responsibly addressing these problems head-on, zoo officials instead hired Sam "The Fixer" Singer, a high-profile public relations consultant whose renowned "crisis management" skills are much in demand these days. Sure enough, Singer did an utterly brilliant job of damage control for the zoo by spinning the story towards blaming the victims, effectively shifting the media and public opinion away from criticism of the zoo, despite their chronic and dangerous incompetence.

Perhaps as a result of Singer's success, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced a series of public hearings on the zoo to be hosted by the Recreation and Parks Department Commission. This is the very same body responsible for the oversight failures that allowed Tatiana to escape in the first place, and whose members were appointed by Mayor Newsom. City officials appear to be holding the hearings to bolster the arrangement with the San Francisco Zoological Society, the non-profit responsible for daily operation of the zoo.

In Defense of Animals (IDA) charged that these hearings are an attempt to whitewash the tragic incident and the ongoing management and oversight blunders at the zoo. We therefore demanded fair and independent hearings by the SF Board of Supervisors, and the termination of Zoo Director Manuel Mollinedo. IDA has encouraged the city to hire a replacement who has a background in and commitment to animal welfare, and who will work towards making the SF Zoo a refuge for animals in need of rescue (instead of merely a money-managed menagerie).

In the wake of the first hearing, San Francisco Supervisor Sean Elsbernd called for a hearing before the full Board of Supervisors. In addition, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi introduced a resolution calling for the city to re-evaluate its contract with the SF Zoological Society to manage the zoo. Meanwhile, an investigation of all SF Zoo exhibits to assess their safety is still underway.

IDA applauds the efforts of Supervisors Elsbernd and Mirkarimi, as well as others who are trying to ensure that the real problems at the SF Zoo get addressed and resolved. We will continue to work toward holding those responsible for management of SF Zoo accountable to the public and the animals until justice is served.





San Francisco residents: Ask the SF Board of Supervisors to hold hearings to carefully evaluate the purpose and practices of the SF Zoo with the aim of improving the lives of animals on exhibit there.

San Francisco Board of Supervisors
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 244
San Francisco, CA 94102
Tel: (415) 554-5184
Email: board.of.supervisors@sfgov.org

SF Zoo Tiger Shot for Answering Call of the Wild

Tatiana on 10/26/2007, Photo by Matt
Knoth, licensed under cc3.0

On Christmas Day just after dusk, a four-year-old, 350-pound Siberian tiger named Tatiana escaped from her outdoor enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo, then killed a 17-year-old zoo visitor and severely mauled his two young companions before authorities shot her to death. This is reportedly the first time that a tiger has broken out of his or her confines at an accredited zoo, but as long as big cats are displayed for public pleasure, it may not be the last.

Not to make light of tragedy, but, being that I live in the City by the Bay, my mother phoned from Long Island the day after Christmas to make sure there were no ferocious tigers running loose in my neighborhood. I thought this was kind of funny but not unusual, since she usually calls me after every Southern California earthquake to make sure I’m OK. Admittedly (and perhaps obviously), a thorough understanding of geographical proximity doesn’t exactly run in our family, so it didn’t really surprise me that my mom might worry that a tiger could not only escape the zoo, but make her way 2½ miles up Ocean beach, and then head another 2½ miles east through Golden Gate Park to my apartment in the Inner Richmond District. Actually, if this were the country rather than a major city with cops, cars, and other urban hazards, Tatiana could have easily traversed that five-mile distance, so in a primal sense my mom’s fears were not so far-fetched after all.

Public Feeding of Big Cats and Public Safety

I visited the SF Zoo with my parents about 10 years ago, when I was a vegetarian but hadn’t yet quite grasped the concept of animal rights. What I recall most clearly is that we observed the lions feeding in a public demonstration that zoo personnel continue to conduct six days a week. We entered the Lion House, which I remember as a large room with two perpendicular walls of lions behind glass partitions in three levels reaching up to a high ceiling. Dozens of other people watched with us as the lions ripped into slabs of raw red meat with their gigantic jaws, emitting guttural groans I could feel clawing right up my spine.

The SF Zoo also features public feeding of the tigers, but we missed that on our visit. In Defense of Animals (IDA) posits that these displays—in which tigers are coaxed into displaying aggression for the titillation of those who paid to see wild animals do something exciting—are partially to blame for the killing. Apparently, the tigers are in cages behind bars rather than glass during public feedings, and handlers have more direct contact with the animals. In fact, during one of these eating spectacles in December 2006, Tatiana decided to eat more than just the raw meat offered by a zookeeper, and chewed the flesh right off her arm.

Tigers at the PAWS Sanctuary

As a staff writer/editor for IDA, I had the privilege of joining 20 other IDA staff members and volunteers on December 10th for a trip to the Performing Animal Welfare Society's (PAWS) ARK 2000 sanctuary in San Andreas, Calif., where we saw a number of elephants rescued from zoos as well as some tigers. PAWS is a non-profit organization that only opens its doors to the public a few times a year, so if you ever get the chance to go, I highly recommend it, especially as an educational experience that will enable you to better compare zoos and sanctuaries for safety, comfort, and quality of life. For instance:

- You won’t find any public feeding going on at PAWS, and the tigers are never left unattended—keepers are on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (whereas guards were not posted at the SF Zoo’s tiger exhibit during business hours when the Christmas attack took place). PAWS caretakers only interact directly with tigers for the administration of veterinary treatment. At a sanctuary, all interactions with the animals are for the animals’ benefit rather than ours.

- PAWS has 36 tigers living on acres of hilly woods behind the tallest, toughest fence you’re ever likely to see. On the other hand, the SF Zoo’s tiger enclosure, which held four animals before Tatiana’s death, is a rectangle that is merely one short city block in length (that is, less than 200 feet), and even narrower in width. And of course, we know all too well now that their exhibit’s safety features leave much to be desired.

- While profit-oriented zoos breed animals, buy them from dealers, or capture them in the wild for public display, PAWS is dedicated to rescuing animals from abusive situations. The tigers we saw were seized from a misnamed "sanctuary" called Colton Tiger Rescue. California state authorities brought criminal charges against the owner for selling tiger parts on the black market. Apparently, one can buy a tiger pup illegally for about $500, raise the animal to adulthood, and then sell their various body parts for upwards of $20,000. Another freaky fact the guide told us: Some narcotics dealers use tigers as guard animals at drug dens and laboratories.

Finally, I felt that the most convincing evidence of the superiority of sanctuaries over zoos was what I observed with my own eyes. I stood outside the tiger enclosure for about half an hour, and only two tigers came up to the public viewing fence for a close visit during that time (though others could be seen dozing in the distance). Of course I was greatly astounded with their size and presence, but it soon occurred to me that these tigers interacted with one another just like my two domestic cats, Zelda and Jasmine, do in my little apartment. That is, they seemed genuinely happy and content, and showed none of the neurotic symptoms you’re likely to see in cats at the zoo.

I would guess the reason for this marked difference is that these tigers are living for their own pleasure instead of someone else’s. I sincerely hope that SF Zoo officials, and those at other zoos around the country, will come to this realization, and send their tigers to accredited sanctuaries like PAWS and close their big cat exhibits for good.

BK’s “Whopper Freakout” Commercial Exposes Meat Addiction Epidemic

What if there was no more Whopper, and would you want to live in such a world? This is the implicit premise of Burger King’s latest ad blitz “Whopper Freakout,” built around an “experiment” in which marketing researchers convinced customers the Whopper was discontinued and videotaped their reactions, both secretly with hidden cameras and posing as television news reporters.

In the first of what promises to be a series of excruciatingly insufferable commercials, Burger King starts out by setting an air of deadly seriousness with grave voiceovers and ominous electronic drone-music. A cashier then tells a customer that “We no longer carry the Whopper,” after which several people are shown apoplectically contorting their faces and making outraged demands to see the manager. Finally, a guy with a goatee coolly declares (with misogynistic and/or homophobic pride), “If Burger King doesn’t have the Whopper, they might as well change their name to Burger Queen,” and it ends with a frighteningly-irate man barking “Get me a Whopper!” as a threatening command.

While this slice of reality-TV propaganda is currently unavailable for viewing on the Internet, Burger King did post a 7-minute-plus video documenting their “experiment” at whopperfreakout.com which presents the deception as though it were actually a legitimate scientific study. At the end, the melodramatic narration states Burger King has proven “that the Whopper is, as we thought, America’s favorite.” But you may wonder, does showing Burger King junkies freak out when denied their favorite fix of flame-broiled flesh really prove that the Whopper is America’s favorite?

Answer: Of course not.

First, the people in the commercial deliberately came to Burger King specifically to order a Whopper. This biased sample group does not represent America – especially the 4.7 million adult vegetarians in the U.S. and tens of millions of carnivorous Americans who do not eat Whoppers for health, environmental, religious, or aesthetic reasons.

Second, McDonald's and KFC's customers would "freak out" too if they couldn't get a Big Mac or the Colonel’s fried chicken. Any competing fast food chain could have made the claim to “America’s favorite” junk food or whatever if only they’d thought of this cheesy marketing gimmick first. Such a corroborating “study” conducted by a rival company would put Burger King’s claims in proper context by making it clear that meat junkies have their preferred poisons, and will freak out (and make complete asses of themselves) when they can’t feed their particular bloodthirsty habit.

Furthermore, by presenting the Freakout as something supposedly momentous, Burger King trivializes the lives and deaths of millions of cows who are murdered every year to make Whoppers. Cattle are branded, castrated and dehorned without anesthetic, and sometimes remain conscious as their hooves are chopped off and they are skinned. But in profit-driven mass-media advertising, these atrocities are framed as insignificant when the addictive appetites of paying customers are at stake.

I say, if Burger King wants to see a real Whopper Freakout, their future TV ads should include footage from inside their supplier’s slaughterhouses so Americans can actually see who the Whopper is really made of. If you think Burger King should do real Whopper Freakout commercials, call or write the company to let them know (but, if you can, try to be more polite than me: remember that the point is to make a statement, not hassle an individual employee who’s just trying to make a living).

Halloween Horror

On Humankind's Monstrous Cruelty to Animals

Warning: The following contains blood-curdling accounts of terror that may not be suitable for the faint of heart. Read on — if you dare!

Every Halloween, millions of people celebrate by dressing up in costumes, trick-or-treating for candy, adorning their homes with festive decorations, and partying their hearts out. While this is all well and good, we must not forget that while we enjoy ourselves during this frightfully fun holiday, billions of animals are actually living out our worst fears in slaughterhouses, vivisection labs, and other hellish houses of horror. As the scariest night of the year, Halloween is an especially fitting time to cultivate compassion for those who endure such unremitting torture.

Start by trying to imagine, if only for a moment, the torment of a single animal in a slaughterhouse. Visualize yourself being herded down a metal chute towards a man in a red-spattered apron. He puts a retractable bolt gun to your head and pulls the trigger right between your eyes, but the blast doesn't damage the right part of your brain, so you remain conscious as you are shackled by the ankle and hoisted upside-down, then pulled along on a ceiling-mounted conveyer track. As you move down the line, looming ahead you see the sticker: a slaughterhouse worker wielding a large knife. Even though you are still alive and kicking, he slits your throat anyway, blood spurting and pooling on the floor. You flail wildly in pain, but another worker down the line nonetheless proceeds to chop off your hands and feet with a giant hydraulic clipper until finally you are beheaded, your body left in pieces for people to eat.

Sounds like a scene from a scary movie, right? Yet that is just one example of many, as billions of animals all over the world are killed in similarly horrific ways in fur farms and other dungeons of industry, the wild, and the privacy of people's homes. For instance, there are demented sexual deviants who make animal snuff films and post them on the Internet as an unusually perverted form of pornography. Yet it's obvious that animal abuse is not confined to a few random sickos breaking the law in their bedrooms: it's deeply embedded in our culture and society, which systematically normalize torture and terror by packaging and marketing the products of death.

People eat animals' bodies and wear clothing made from their skins every day. From the animals' point of view, this is utterly horrifying. What if someone decided to eat us, wear our skin and hair, or experiment on us? Such questions get right to the heart of what most terrifies us, and our disconnection, as one species among millions, from the unmitigated misery our actions cause others to suffer.

Monster Mash

Judging from recurrent themes in horror movies and books, it is clear that what we do to animals is a reflection of our most primal fears as humans. For instance, the psychotic mass-murderer in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, aptly named Leatherface, is a cannibal who treats his human victims like cattle in a slaughterhouse, hanging them from meathooks before chopping off their limbs. Such brutality has its real life parallels in the crimes of notorious serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer, who is known to have tortured animals to death before he started killing and eating human beings.

Some of the most ghastly monsters are unholy cross-species abominations from the laboratories of mad scientists. In H.G. Wells' prescient 1896 novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, an idealistic but power-mad vivisector sews together human-animal hybrids who turn out to be vicious killers. In recent years, scientists have actually begun to create transmutated chimeras who are genetically part animal and part human. Such "progress" could signal the birth of Moreau's monsters at this moment in history.

These experimental lifeforms are primarily used as research subjects and to harvest organs for human transplants, so their creators try to make them as humanlike as possible to close the species gap that has always plagued animal research. While such organisms don't usually survive for very long because they are biologically flawed, contemplating what they experience while alive can make your spine tingle. Researchers have already bioengineered mice with part-human brains, and it is not outside the realm of possibility that these modified rodents might inherit from us some degree of self-awareness, and perhaps eventually even a hideous knowledge of what they are.

Such thoughts bring to mind another perennial horror classic, Frankenstein. In the 1818 novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly and many subsequent film adaptations, Dr. Victor Frankenstein creates a man from parts of human and animal cadavers. "The dissecting room and the slaughterhouse furnished many of my materials," he says of his experiments. Of course, after bringing him to life with a lightning bolt, the horrified scientist rejects his creation, who thus becomes bitter and homicidal and gradually murders Victor's loved ones. A fictional warning from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, Frankenstein's "monster" serves as a dire prediction of the untold horrors that science and technology may yet unleash upon the world.

The Hunter Becomes the Haunted

Other works in the horror genre explore the "animal" nature that lurks deep within the human soul. Many of these stories have their origins in ancient tales that have been told for centuries, with variations occurring in different parts of the world. A werewolf, for instance, is a bloodthirsty beast that transforms from a human into a wolf during the full moon and preys on people. Vampires (who can change into bats) use their sharp fangs to feast on their host's blood, turning them into vampires as well. Legend has it that some witches are able to transform themselves into black cats to roam the night undetected. These supernatural shapeshifters out of folklore have not only terrorized our imaginations down the ages, but also raise serious questions about human nature: that is, whether our tendency towards violence is innate or symptomatic of our alienation from nature and ourselves.

Such primeval mythological figures may also symbolize our fear that animals will someday take revenge for the horrors we inflict on them, as movies like Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and Stephen King's Pet Cemetery suggest. Most people remain in willful denial of the bloody killing rituals that occur every day behind closed doors, so the fear that animals will somehow return to give us a taste of our own lethal medicine is largely subconscious. Yet it is brought more directly to the surface by another increasingly popular monster: the flesh-eating zombie.

George Romero invented the zombie movie subgenre in the late 1960s with his groundbreaking film Night of the Living Dead, an allegorical tale of the undead that remains almost 40 years later a scathing social critique of violence and racism. Since then, hundreds of other films have explored the theme of cannibalism from beyond the grave, reminding us that our bodies are made of meat, too, and that there may be those out there who want to eat us alive. This metaphor for meat eating opens the potential for people to identify more closely with the non-human victims of our carnivorous consumer culture, as is the intention of Internet cartoon character Tofu the Vegan Zombie.

Alone in the Dark

When the nighttime comes creeping in, you may recall that as a child you often hid beneath the covers in frozen terror from the monsters in your closet, under your bed, and in your head. If we remember what it was like to be that scared, we can understand some of what animals feel, and that the most frightening "monsters" aren't just lurking in our nightmares: they exist in the real world. They are on slaughterhouse disassembly lines, in high-security buildings on college campuses wearing white lab coats, and on the sales floors of fur salons selling the very skins off of animals' backs.

If by chance the tens of billions of animals being killed every year are able to understand who is responsible for their enslavement, then human beings must seem like rapacious monsters who show little mercy for their victims and no remorse for their devilish deeds. Mechanized assembly line production methods have made the scale of death so massive and so brutally surreal that it is difficult to comprehend, much less communicate to others. But we must continue to try, for the sake of the animals, by taking advantage of the special possibilities for positive and effective outreach that Halloween offers.

Have a scary good time!

It's simple to give people a taste of the vegan lifestyle during Halloween without frightening them away. Try these easy ways of making compassion an integral part of your holiday celebration:

- First, be sure to keep plenty of vegan candy handy for those cute little trick-or-treaters who show up at your door.

- If you're dressing up, go as your favorite animal. Your costume could be something scary like a tiger or cute like a kitten, but make sure it isn't made with leather, wool, fur, or feathers. If you think your canine friend would like get in on the fun too, make or buy a Halloween costume for your dog. Just be sure they're comfortable with what they're wearing, and that costumes don't interfere with their normal motions.

- Host a vegan Halloween party for your friends and serve a scrumptious spread that didn't cost any animals their lives. Try some ghoulish recipes for healthy holiday fare such as Devilish Dip, Vampire's Blood, and the Warlock's Special. You can also cook seasonal favorites like Harvest-stuffed Acorn Squash and Pumpkin Pie with Pecans to go along with them.

Show some real horror films!

If you have friends who are horror buffs, Halloween is the perfect time to expose them to the horrors of factory farming, vivisection, and other terrifying realities by inviting them to watch an animal rights video with you. Your average meat eater might turn their eyes away in disgust from graphic documentaries like Earthlings and The Animals Film, but horror aficionados who appreciate spooky cinema may be receptive to the method and message of such movies. Films are a gateway for many to greater empathy for animals and humane lifestyle changes, but only if people actually see them, so order your DVDs today to have them in time for Halloween!

Reach the People!

Towns throughout the western world host Halloween festivals and parades, which in the largest cities are attended by thousands of people. These make great places to leaflet, especially dressed as your favorite animal, and being in the Halloween spirit might make people more open to the information you have to offer. To get started, order or print copies of IDA's new flyer on meat eating and the environment to hand out.

Identity Crisis

Celebrity exploits and the animals caught in the limelight

Whether you love or hate (or love to hate) Paris Hilton, she’s virtually impossible to ignore. Spend some time channel surfing, flipping through a mainstream magazine, or standing in a supermarket checkout, and you’re liable to have the latest news of the hotel heiress’ exploits crammed down your brainstem. And on her arm, you’re just as likely to see a tiny dog in a skimpy dress as you are an obscenely expensive leather handbag.

At the peak of her stardom, Hilton’s iconic image was largely defined by two distinct “items”—a pair of oversized designer shades, and her perpetually-quaking Teacup Chihuahua, Tinkerbell. While Hilton’s publicists insist that the celebutante is a bona fide “animal lover,” she has very publicly treated Tinkerbell, and all her subsequent “pets,” more like fashion accessories than sentient beings. Emulating Hilton and other celebrities, people actually purchase little purebred “toy” dogs and parade them in trendy outfits as though they were playing with dolls.

You might ask, what’s the harm in a little dress-up? Nothing, except when it’s done primarily for the human’s pleasure and without consideration for the dog’s feelings, it perpetuates the view that animal companions exist not as individuals in their own right, but only to enhance their “owners’” self-image.

While they may be on different ends of the spectrum, the same mentality that drives Paris Hilton also holds sway over Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, who finally pled guilty to federal charges of conspiring to run an illegal dogfighting operation out of his Virginia home. Like Hilton, Vick exploited dogs to boost his own ego, but rather than turning animals into fashion accessories, he used them as expressions of violence, power, and control over the “weak.”

Between 1999 and 2007, Vick and his cohorts cruelly primed hundreds of pit bulls to kill one another for this vicious blood sport, and the star quarterback is alleged to have executed numerous dogs himself—by shooting, hanging, drowning, and electrocution—simply because they were not good fighters. In the wake of these disturbing revelations, psychologists speculated in the media that Vick liquidated these “losers” because he identified with their “weakness” and took it as a personal humiliation, while proudly projecting his own personality onto dogs who won fights. Based on case histories of other dogfighters, it’s likely that Vick felt his dogs’ performance in the ring reflected directly—whether positively or negatively—on his own strength and masculinity.

Like all animals viewed as commodities—the billions killed for food, fashion, “entertainment,” and “science”—animal companions who are treated like ornaments by their “owners” are in a no-win situation. Whether they suffer from intense cruelty, as in Vick’s case, or indignity, as in Hilton’s, these animals have little choice in their lot, and often suffer silently. It is up to us to speak for them, and to remind others of all that animals give us—and the caring attention we owe them in return.

Vegan Ultimate Fighter Ricardo Moreira

Ricardo Moreira is a rarity in the world of Ultimate Fighting -- an extreme sport that pits martial artists of all fighting styles against each other, often inside a cage, where they punch, kick, and wrestle one another. In fact, the soft-spoken 26-year-old seems to be one of only two vegans on the international cage fighting circuit. "There are a lot of pescetarians who still eat fish, and there are fighters who sometimes stop eating meat and dairy to lose weight before a competition," says Moreira. "But besides me and Mac Danzig, I don't know of anyone else competing in mixed martial arts who doesn't eat any animal products at all, ever."

According to Moreira, "the most important fight is not in the ring, but out in the world where animals need our help." That's why he has been fighting for animals since he was a child growing up in San Francisco's Mission District, a tough neighborhood where he learned out of necessity to defend himself and others who couldn't defend themselves. For instance, young Ricardo got into many a scuffle in the schoolyard and on the street with boys who derived pleasure from kicking pigeons or stomping ants. Moreira joined the fight for animal liberation more formally in his teens, when he started attending IDA protests, and today talks with his fellow fighters about how animals suffer. "It takes both inner and outer strength to help animals," says Moreira. "I work on developing physical strength and skill in martial arts to show that we vegans can be just as strong in our bodies as we are in our convictions."

Once a vegetarian, Moreira was inspired to go vegan by the example of two vegan bodybuilders—Kenneth G. Williams, spokesperson for IDA's Vegan Campaign, and Robert Cheeke. Moreira figured if they could be bodybuilders without eating any animal products, then he could be a vegan professional cage fighter. "Like Kenneth and Robert, I want to set a positive example by being someone who is healthy and confident, hopefully inspiring athletes to go vegan and vegans to stay physically fit."

Moreira exercises a lot of discipline in order to compete in his chosen sport. He has a black belt in karate, a contact sport in which he won a state title, and studies other martial arts, such as aikido and jiu jitsu. He also adheres to an ultra-healthy straight edge lifestyle, consuming no alcohol, tobacco, or drugs. In fact, he doesn't even use curse words. "The only things I'm addicted to are training, competing, and animal rights," he says. He also gives private karate and kickboxing lessons at the Northern Tiger Kenpo in San Francisco, and hopes to open his own martial arts studio in the city someday to teach his personal style of street-level self-defense. Excelling at the increasingly popular sport of Ultimate Fighting will help Moreira establish a name for himself as someone who people seek out for training.

"This sport is not about violence or beating your opponent," he says of his fighting and teaching philosophy, "it's about being present and doing your best in the same way a batter wants to hit a home run or a basketball player wants to execute an amazing slam dunk. Feats of skill require physical and mental focus rather than anger, which ultimately weakens concentration and your ability to win." Underneath Moreira's calm yet intense demeanor, one can detect a deep sense of outrage regarding animal abuse—whether it takes place in slaughterhouses, fur farms, research labs, or so-called "sports" like rodeo, hunting, and dogfighting.

"I choose to get in the cage, but animals don't have a choice," Moreira says, pointing out that an activity is not a "sport" if some competitors are being forced to participate—especially when they are at such great a disadvantage that they could die. "At the core, sports is about becoming your best by competing with opponents who are at least evenly-matched to your skill level. Shooting a deer at long range with a high-powered rifle is about as fair a fight as me stepping in the cage a 10-year-old kid who's just had his first karate lesson."

Moreira continues, "Chasing and terrorizing animals is not a sport, it's a power trip. A lot of guys who try to prove they're tough by exercising power over defenseless animals would never step foot in the cage where they might feel some of the pain that they are inflicting on others. My nose was broken in my last fight, and because I feel like that pain gave me some insight into what animals suffer, I have more compassion for them—especially since what's being done to them is thousands of times worse."

Moreira's lifelong emotional understanding of animals continues with his dog, Janet, an eight-year-old Rottweiler-Bulldog mix who he has raised since she was a puppy and the smallest of the litter. "Dogs are pack animals, and I really feel like Jan and I part of the same pack, which is basically the same thing as a family," says Moreira. "She's like my daughter, and I treat her as such." He also has a 17-year-old goldfish named Nemo who is the last of his tank mates but still going strong in his golden years, even with only one fin left.

"I've always felt like the underdog, so that would explain why I identify with animals so strongly," says Moreira. "I fight to show that real strength comes from caring about and protecting those who need help, not abusing them. That is what a true guardian does."

- Learn more about IDA's Guardian of the Month, Ricardo Moreira, by visiting his MySpace page.

- Arrange private martial arts training with Ricardo at the Northern Tiger Kenpo by contacting him at Muaythai3@aol.com or (415) 350-9140.

- If you live in or will be visiting the Bay Area, come see Ricardo Moreira compete at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco in March, 2008. Get ticket information.