States to Outlaw Factory Farm Investigations? (Part 1 of 4)

An interview with HSUS's End Factory Farming campaign Senior Director, Paul Shapiro

Photo courtesy of HSUS

If you've seen disturbing videos and photos of animals being beaten, tortured and otherwise abused in factory farms, slaughterhouses and other food production facilities, chances are those horrific images were brought to you by undercover investigators working for animal protection groups. If not for these courageous muckrakers, the public would probably never know about the hidden cruelty that billions of animals are subjected to every year behind agribusiness' fortified walls of secrecy and denial. That's why politicians in some states are now trying to protect their campaign contributors in the meat, dairy and egg industries from damningly negative publicity by outlawing this powerful form of animal advocacy.

Legislators in three states—Iowa, Florida and Minnesota—have recently proposed bills that would criminalize taking videos or photos of farm animals without their so-called owners' consent, and gaining employment at agribusiness facilities with intent to document conditions there. That is, rather than address the systemic animal cruelty that undercover investigations have exposed time and time again, some lawmakers want to put those who reveal these abusive practices to the American people behind bars. The proposed penalties for these “crimes” by state are as follows:

- Iowa: A felony punishable by fines of up to $7,500 and up to five years imprisonment

- Florida*: A felony punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison

- Minnesota*: First offense would be considered a gross misdemeanor, with felony prosecutions for any subsequent offenses

The first of these bills was introduced several weeks ago, so I'm admittedly somewhat late on the draw in writing about them. Since author Mark Hawthorne already persuasively articulated the animal rights perspective on this issue in his Striking at the Roots blog last month, I decided to approach it from a different angle than I've seen taken so far. Basically, I asked official representatives from the “Big Four” animal protection groups most known for doing undercover factory farm investigations to tell their side of the story in their own words. Thus begins a four-part series of interviews with these individuals that I will post as follows:

- Today:  Paul Shapiro, Senior Director of The Humane Society of the United States' (HSUS) End Factory Farming campaign

- Friday, April 22: Erica Meier, Executive Director of Compassion Over Killing (COK)

- Monday, April 25: Nathan Runkle, founder and Executive Director of Mercy for Animals (MFA)

- Thursday, April 28 Friday, May 13: Jeff Kerr, General Counsel for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)  

Photo courtesy of HSUS

My first guest is Paul Shapiro, Senior Director of HSUS' End Factory Farming campaign. Shapiro was something of an animal protection prodigy, founding the Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization Compassion Over Killing in 1995 while still in high school. He served as the group's Campaigns Director for a decade, during which time he went undercover on factory farms with camera in hand to document animal cruelty. Shapiro transitioned to a leadership role at HSUS in 2005, and has since been a major force behind the successful passage of landmark farm animal welfare legislation in states from Maine to California.

Here's what Shapiro had to say about the proposed bans on undercover factory farm investigations:

AR: Strategically speaking, why does HSUS conduct undercover factory farm investigations?

PS: Undercover investigations are an effective way to blow the whistle on agribusiness' mistreatment of farm animals, and these exposés play an important role in our society by shining a very bright light on the dark world of factory farming. They reveal not only animal welfare violations committed by individual workers and the industry as a whole, but other types of illegal activities, as well.

For example, when we investigated California's Hallmark/Westland Slaughter Plant in 2008, we uncovered criminal activity as far as animal cruelty is concerned, as well as serious food safety violations that resulted in the largest recall of meat in U.S. history—over 143 million pounds of beef. Our investigation also led to closure of the plant, which was a large supplier to the National School Lunch Program. Much of that meat would have otherwise been eaten by children, and, unfortunately, some of it was because it could not be reclaimed quickly enough. At the Bushway Slaughter Plant in Vermont in 2009, we not only uncovered criminal activity that resulted in an animal cruelty conviction for the plant's owner, but disciplinary action was also taken against the on-site U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspector for not doing his job.

These examples illustrate that exposés play a vital whistle-blowing role that is very important to society as a whole. Yet they wouldn't have been possible if the draconian laws now being proposed had been in place in the states where we conducted them. The factory farming industry should be improving its animal welfare policies and food safety procedures, but instead it's trying to prevent Americans from learning about what actually happens to farm animals.

A common accusation the bills' supporters make against animal advocacy groups is that they “selectively edit” their investigative footage somehow to make it seem as though animal cruelty is taking place when it's actually not, and that undercover investigators even “stage” acts of cruelty themselves to further their animal rights agenda. How do you respond to such allegations?

First and foremost, no one has ever presented any evidence that any animal protection group has staged acts of animal cruelty at a factory farm or slaughter plant. Of course, if it had happened, the guilty parties would be charged with violating the law, because it's illegal to fabricate footage and then use it to malign the reputation of a company. That's defamation and libel, and companies would have already sued someone over this if it had been done.

The fact that the industry has never pursued such legal action speaks volumes about their claims. Anyway, these bills don't aim to crack down on people who would stage videos. Their purpose is to criminalize all undercover videos because they accurately depict the mistreatment and abuse of animals on factory farms, which is an unpleasant reality that agribusiness desperately wants to keep hidden from Americans.

Agribusiness proponents also routinely accuse animal advocacy groups, especially HSUS, of waiting several weeks before reporting animal abuse uncovered during investigations to authorities. They say that if HSUS really cared about animals, you'd report the abuse right away. 

Unfortunately, the abuse that we document often happens right out in the open where everybody at the facility already knows about it: it's just that nobody does anything to stop it. Many times the managers and owners themselves are perpetrating the abuse. In fact, both our Hallmark and Bushway investigations resulted in criminal convictions of the managers or owners of those plants for personally breaking animal welfare laws. More importantly though, the fact remains that, if we were to uncover one act of abuse during an investigation and release that information to authorities, it would probably be dismissed as merely an isolated case. To prosecute people who violate animal cruelty laws, we often need to demonstrate a clear pattern of abuse. That is exactly what we've been able to show through many of our investigations, but only by gathering evidence over a few weeks.

I also understand that a lot of the cruelty you document isn't even illegal: it's just standard operating procedure throughout the industry. In these cases, there would be no one to report the abuse to, right?

Yes, and while some exposés result in criminal convictions, we deliberately conduct other investigations to document the industry's standard operating procedures. Though these practices may be legal, most people would agree that they are still inhumane and cruel to animals. So sometimes our main goal in conducting an investigation is to expose common industry practices that are abusive rather than blow the whistle on criminal acts.

You mentioned before that HSUS has documented USDA inspectors not doing what they're paid to do. This makes me think that undercover investigations not only make agribusiness look bad, but the government as well. So, do you think that the government is actively working with the industry to pass these bills because they don't want people to know how complicit regulatory agencies are in the animal cruelty being perpetrated on factory farms?

Our investigations have often shown that government inspectors, while they are witnessing animal abuse, do nothing about it. At Hallmark, there were six USDA inspectors there, and the abuse was going on right out in the open: none of the inspectors or managers ever stopped it. At Bushway, one of the USDA inspectors told our investigator, on hidden camera, not to let him know when he found live calves in piles of dead calves because then he'd have to shut the plant down. Also on hidden camera, he told workers who were skinning a live calf, while the animal was fully conscious and kicking, that if another inspector saw them do that he could shut the plant down.

However, the government isn't a monolith: it's made up of different kinds of people with different values. Some USDA inspectors really do want to prevent egregious cruelty and try to stop it. There are people who hold positions of power in state or federal government who would like to see these types of laws passed, and there are others who wouldn't. But it wouldn't be accurate or fair to generalize about everyone who is part of the regulatory system, because some of them do want to help animals.

These proposed bills, however, really seem to highlight the close relationship between agribusiness and some elected officials. Can you comment on that?

Agribusiness is a very influential lobby in most states, and certainly at the federal level. The response to that from the animal protection movement needs to be to become an even more influential political force than the animal agriculture industry, and the way we do that is by getting more politically involved. There are a lot more animal advocates out there than people in animal agribusiness, and we need to be as vocal as possible about animal issues in terms of talking to our legislators if we are to make real, lasting progress for animals. 

Agribusiness' response in the states trying to pass these bills is to basically shoot the messenger. But I'm sure you've read in trade journals in recent years that some industry experts are acknowledging, mainly because of the results of undercover investigations, that agribusiness' treatment of animals is out of step with current societal values. These individuals openly call on the industry to initiate farm animal welfare reforms that reflect consumers' expectations. Does HSUS ally itself with those in the industry who desire change?

Yes, absolutely. We work with anybody who wants to raise the bar on farm animal welfare. Sometimes people within the industry want to do that, whether for business reasons or ethical concerns or both, and we're always happy to join forces with them. One example among many of this type of partnership is when HSUS jointly drafted legislation with the California Cattleman's Association to ban the tail-docking of dairy cows throughout the state last year. Tail-docking without anesthesia is not only intensely painful for cows, but it leaves them more vulnerable to fly bites because they can no longer swat insects away. The cattlemen wanted to get rid of the practice, so we worked with them to draft language for a bill that the legislature passed, and then-Governor Schwarzenegger signed it into law.

If the bans were to pass, how would it affect HSUS's ability to conduct undercover investigations in those states?

It really depends on what gets enacted, if anything. These bills are still in process and have many variations, so it would depend on how they were worded as actual statutes on the books.

If undercover investigations do become illegal in some places, how will the animal protection movement let the public know what's actually happening inside factory farms in those states?

There will be a black hole: it will be very difficult for anyone to know what's really happening.

- Watch HSUS's undercover factory farm investigation videos.

- Iowa Residents: Use this convenient HSUS Action Alert to encourage your state senator to oppose S.F. 431. Also contact your state senator directly, and ask him or her to oppose this bill.

* The Florida and Minnesota bills have both been defeated since I posted this interview. However, New York legislators proposed an Ag Gag bill afterwards. 

Act Now to Protect Great Apes

Tell Congress: Pass bill to ban invasive primate experimentation

"It's about the money. There's big bucks in this research, especially chimp research. We're talking millions. Millions of dollars."

– Narriman Fakier, former employee of New Iberia Research Center turned whistleblower


In March of last year, ABC's Nightline, World News Tonight, and Good Morning America shows aired disturbing video footage captured by an undercover investigator from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) which depicts the severe abuse of primates at New Iberia Research Center (NIRC) in Louisiana, where new medical and pharmaceutical treatments designed for humans are tested on more than 6,000 monkeys and chimpanzees. The exposé documents what the HSUS investigator saw during his nine-month stint posing as a lab tech, using hidden cameras to bring Big Science's dirty little secret to light: that researchers routinely violate basic animal welfare laws, and only suffer consequences when the public demands justice.

The United States is one among only four nations in the world where research on chimpanzees is still legal. Meanwhile, countries like Austria, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK have banned invasive experiments on all great apes (i.e., chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, bonobos — and homo sapiens) because the immorality inherent in such studies cannot be ethically justified on the basis of saving human lives. Seriously, torturing and killing our closest biological cousins is not the only (or even best) way to understand our own medical maladies, and yet it continues, funded by our taxes: why?

One reason is that animal research is extremely profitable. Between 2000 and 2009, the National Institutes of Health, a Federal agency, granted NIRC more than $17 million in public funds to conduct research on chimpanzees — money they used to viciously persecute primates, both within and beyond the law and often for decades on end. In this case, the government took appropriate action against NIRC, with Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack ordering an investigation of their operations and pledging to punish anyone found guilty of violating the Animal Welfare Act. But while NIRC is one of the nation's larger primate research centers, it's trespasses still only represent the relatively small tip of vivisection's animal cruelty iceberg — what remains buried beneath the depths of deception is perhaps even worse, and even during the best of economic times, the U.S. government clearly wouldn't have the means to police every facility all the time.

Emptying the Cages

Thankfully, inspired by HSUS's repulsive revelations, Congress is now considering a pragmatic and compassionate solution: the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326). This bipartisan bill would phase out invasive research on great apes, ban the breeding of these primates for experimentation, and permanently retire hundreds of chimpanzees to sanctuaries where they would be lovingly cared for instead of callously exploited for profit. Passage of this bill would greatly accelerate our country's ethical evolution towards respect for other life forms and advance our moral standing among nations, but there is still one extremely powerful force standing in the way of our potential progress: the numerous medical research institutions that would lose hundreds of millions in revenue if H.R. 1326 becomes law.

The highly-influential Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is just one of the many scientific associations that cunningly cultivates an oh-so-purely-altruistic image, but is terrified of having their inalienable American "right" to torment animals for a living restricted in any way. Recently, this illustrious organization bombarded its members with a "Call to Action" urging them to tell their Federal Representatives to oppose the Great Ape Protection Act because "(it) would inhibit medical advances and researchers' pursuit of new vaccines and treatments to prevent disease" (hepatitis C in particular). In their sample letter to members of Congress, SfN even pretends to give a crap about non-human species by emphasizing the "number of protections in place to ensure the welfare and well-being of these animals" — conspicuously ignoring the fact that existing laws are not being obeyed or enforced, as the video evidence from inside New Iberia and other primate research labs makes so painfully clear.

While SfN boasts a membership of more than 40,000 scientists and physicians, only a miniscule minority of these are actively engaged in primate research. So why, then, did they disseminate this action alert to their entire constituency? Certainly, they fear no longer having great apes to sacrifice on the altar of empirical knowledge, but they're even more afraid of being drawn inexorably down the slippery slope. That is, if the government outlaws invasive primate experimentation today, what horrors will tomorrow bring — rights of personhood for genetically-engineered lab rats?!

Sadly, SfN officials and other dogmatists of domination are mentally enslaved by the antediluvian ideology that all of Earth's millions of species exist merely to serve human needs — an historically corrupt doctrine in which animals' interests are dismissed as utterly irrelevant. Fortunately, their outmoded attitude is not shared by the majority of society: an online survey being conducted by WashingtonWatch.com, for instance, currently indicates that nearly two-thirds of respondents support the Great Ape Protection Act. Nevertheless, it’s not We the People who will ultimately decide whether to pass this bill, but our democratically-elected Representatives in Washington, D.C.—and animal research institutions' pockets are obviously deep enough to peddle political influence. So please, make sure your Representative knows where you stand on this issue.





Use HSUS's "Humane Alert" to call and email your Federal Representative urging him or her to co-sponsor and vote YES on the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326). Then check out the other ways you can help primates, and forward the alert to your family and friends around the country.

Rescuing Michael Vick

Animal abuse and the politics of atonement

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.

- Bob Marley, from “Redemption Song”

After serving a reduced sentence of one and a half years in federal prison, sports superstar and convicted dog killer Michael Vick was recently released on probation and provisionally reinstated into the National Football League (NFL). Now, if the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback can just find a team willing to sign him*, he could be back competing on the gridiron as soon as October**. Yet no matter where he goes or what athletic heights he may reach, Vick will never be able to shake off the Stygian shadow of his contemptible legacy.

It is worth considering how the public’s perception of Vick has changed since July 2007, when he first faced felony animal cruelty charges for running a dogfighting operation at his Virginia Beach estate. Back then, I was covering the story as a staff writer for In Defense of Animals, and recall from my reading that, at first, the comments on news articles were dominated by defenses of Vick arguing either that 1) their hero was an innocent scapegoat in a racist conspiracy to discredit a prominent black role model, or 2) dogfighting was just harmless fun and animal rights activists were making a big deal out of nothing. Yet when sordid details of Vick’s dirty deeds emerged soon thereafter and his initial denials gave way to contrite confession, many football fans learned for the first time about the horrors of this illegal underground “sport,” and their ill-informed excuses for Vick’s bad behavior quickly turned to recriminating accusations of betrayal.

Now that two years have passed and Vick is once again a free man, the central debate is no longer about whether dogfighting is a serious offense, but whether the ex-con has truly paid for his crimes simply by doing some time. Vick claims that he has (at least in a statement released through his agent***), and many football fans argue that since he has met his obligations under the law, the NFL has no business punishing him any further. However, not everyone agrees: for example, according to recent polls, Vick is the most hated figure in sports today, and most people want him to be banned from the NFL for life.

Player Haters

Animal advocates in particular seem to harbor strong suspicions that Vick hasn’t reformed, and doesn’t deserve a second chance because he’s just playing the chastened supplicant to shorten his jail term and resume his lucrative career. Once the highest-paid player in professional football with a $130 million ten-year contract, Vick declared bankruptcy under a mountain of legal bills while behind bars, and is currently employed as a construction worker for just $10 an hour. Vick clearly has a powerful financial incentive for getting back in the game, so you can’t really blame doubters for being somewhat cynical about a guy who remorselessly tortured dogs for six years and claims to see the error of his ways only now that he’s completely broke and disgraced.

Opinions about Commissioner Roger Goodell’s decision to conditionally allow Vick back into the NFL are deeply divided between two main camps with diametrically opposing viewpoints: those who say the convicted animal killer has been punished enough, and the majority who contend that he can never repent for the atrocities he so callously perpetrated. However, being that these contrasting attitudes are fueled more by highly-charged emotions than cool reason, aren’t they merely two sides of the same coin? That is, neither absolving nor condemning Vick based on feelings of adoration or disgust will help the millions of dogs who are still being tortured and killed in fighting pits: only a balanced middle way of openness and vigilance can sustain the process of social enlightenment that began with Vick’s arrest.

The collective efforts of animal rights activists helped pressure the Atlanta Falcons to drop Vick from their roster, persuade corporate sponsor Nike to nix their multi-million-dollar endorsement deal, convince the NFL to temporarily suspend him from play, and solidify support for his conviction on animal cruelty charges. These were all victories for animals, and examples of how our movement effectively worked with the media, the courts, and other mainstream institutions to hold a murderer accountable. However, if we let our feelings dictate our actions now by assuming that Vick is irredeemably inhumane and beyond salvation, then we will be rejecting a potentially transformative ally in the fight against animal cruelty.

A “Hail Mary” Pass?

Leading the way down the path of penitence and repentance is The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), which faces harsh criticism for allowing Vick to actively participate in their community-based outreach programs aimed at keeping young people from getting involved in dogfighting. While Vick is not an official HSUS spokesperson, he has already spoken to at least one group of Atlanta youths, and HSUS hopes this will be the first in a long series of heavily-publicized events. Here is HSUS President and CEO Wayne Pacelle’s explanation for their plan:

“When Michael Vick asked to help, I was as skeptical as anyone. And then I put my strategist hat on, and tried to imagine what a guy like Vick could do to help us combat the problem. We used his case to strengthen the laws in America, and now we can use his celebrity and the story of his fall as a parable to reach kids in the cities who will pay attention to him... If this is simply a self-interested ploy to rehabilitate his image or return to football, we will find out soon enough, and we will repudiate it. But if Michael Vick is sincere, then we can, we must, use his story to advance our broader mission—saving lives and ending dogfighting.”

Vegan hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons also urges us to show Vick charity for the sake of suffering animals. “We can never undo the suffering those innocent dogs endured or bring back the many, many lives that were lost,” Simmons recently wrote. “All we can do is try using Michael Vick as an instrument, to stop dogfighting in the community while we save the lives of those innocent animals and change the karmic effect that will be felt by those who wake up and realize what they have done.”

Is Vick Still Sick?

Earlier this year, Vick visited the offices of PETA, where he met with President Ingrid Newkirk, underwent the group’s “Developing Empathy for Animals” course, and discussed possibly appearing in an anti-dogfighting ad. PETA rescinded their invitation, however, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that Vick trained fighting dogs by making them attack “family pets” and laughed when dogs tore one another to shreds. Considering the depths to which Vick’s sadistic persecution of innocent victims sank, is it any wonder that there remain many, many people out there who want him to suffer the same terrible fate as the dogs he tormented and killed?

PETA also asserted, based on consultations with psychiatrists, that Vick’s violently aberrant behaviors “fit the established profile for anti-social personality disorder” (i.e., he could be psychopathic), and urged Commissioner Goodell to order a brain scan procedure and full psychological evaluation before deciding whether to lift his NFL suspension. Goodell claims that Vick underwent testing “with animal-rights activist groups” (though apparently not PETA) before his reinstatement was announced, and that “those tests did not indicate that there was any reason he couldn’t make a transition forward.” As a preventative measure, PETA is now encouraging supporters to press Goodell to add a statement to the NFL’s personal conduct policy specifying animal abuse as an unacceptable offense.

Mercy Is Not Absolution

It’s certainly not easy to put our anger aside and have faith in someone who has so irrevocably violated others and hasn’t yet fully shown himself worthy of our confidence, but that is what we are called to do. We are summoned to reserve final judgment on a fellow fallible human being on the off chance that he may turn from a reviled enemy into a valued partner. We are beckoned now inexorably toward the immovable but precipitous zenith of the living spirit, for as Gandhi said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

That said, I hope Simmons is right in stating that Vick “understands that his true calling is just beginning,” because in dealing with a former animal abuser, we have every right to be wary that he is playing us for chumps, and to demand he work very hard to prove his sincerity and earn our trust. Speaking of which, here are some starting actions that Vick could take to fulfill his promise to make amends for his past transgressions:

1) Forcefully and frequently speak out against dogfighting through PSAs, media interviews and public events.
2) If he is signed by an NFL team, earmark a substantial proportion of his salary for anti-dogfighting efforts.
3) Ask Russell Simmons to personally teach him about the ways that different animals are legally abused for food, fashion, science, and recreation (e.g., circuses, rodeos & “sport” hunting).

While Vick’s actions were inarguably deplorable, their exposure also enabled millions of people to glimpse a dark reality that might have otherwise remained forever hidden from their sight. Ultimately, this fallen star’s redemption could get even more people to think about animal abuse (much of it legalized) in a far broader context. So, for the sake of the billions of animals still suffering, we must support Michael Vick in his efforts to become a more humane person.

* The Philadelphia Eagles subsequently signed Vick on August 13th.
** NFL Commissioner Goodell originally ruled that Vick would only be allowed to start playing in week six of the 2009 season, but then changed his mind and gave him permission to resume quarterbacking in week three (September) .
*** A week after I wrote this post, Vick again claimed to be a reformed man in a 60 Minutes interview.

Attack of the Anti-Prop 2’s!

Bills to kill farm animal protection invade three states

“This is Michigan, not California. We’re not going to allow an outside group to come into Michigan and give chickens the right to drive cars.”

- Michigan State Representative and House Agriculture Chairman Mike Simpson*

Since 2002, a total of six states have passed laws banning one or more of the main intensive confinement mechanisms factory farms use to maximize revenue (i.e., battery cages for egg-laying hens, gestation crates for pregnant pigs, and veal crates for calves). In the last year alone, four more state legislatures have introduced bills to ban all three of these industry-standard constraint systems — and they certainly won’t be the last to ponder such measures.

If you were a captain of the farm animal exploitation industry whose bottom line depended on treating cows, pigs and chickens however you damn well pleased, wouldn’t this revolting development freak you out? Well, of course, but the real question is, what would you do about it? Would you a) go about your business as usual and hope that your home state doesn’t try to restrict your legal right to abuse animals, b) proactively make operational changes that reflect current public attitudes about animal welfare, or c) go on the offensive by calling in some favors from your powerful politician friends who owe you big for those meaty campaign contributions you’ve been dishing out over the years?

You don’t need to be a whiz at multiple choice tests to know which one of these strategies corporate magnates in at least three states have collectively opted for:

- Michigan lawmakers have introduced HB 5127 and HB 5128, two bills that would create a statute to codify Big Ag’s animal welfare guidelines into law. Needless to say, their idea of “animal welfare” includes giving each egg-laying hen just 67 square inches of cage space, grinding their male chicks up alive for fertilizer as soon as they are born, and many other cruel but routine atrocities.

- Ohio legislators have already placed a “livestock standards” measure on the November 2009 ballot for voters’ consideration that would amend the State Constitution and give a council dominated by livestock industry “experts” sole authority to set “care and well-being” standards for the treatment of farm animals. Passage of this proposition would preempt lawmakers from debating animal welfare issues and be used to delude the public into believing that farm animals are not subjected to abusive practices when in fact they are.

- The Oklahoma legislature passed a law earlier this year that gives the the Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry exclusive authority to rule on animal welfare issues in the state. Essentially, this prohibits local governments from creating ordinances regarding “the care and handling of livestock” that are more restrictive than those enacted by the State Ag Department.

Why, you may wonder, can’t the government allow voters or their democratically-elected representatives decide where to draw the line on cruelty to farm animals? Because, as Michigan House Bills sponsor Representative Don Armes argues, these bills are needed to “ensure that livestock regulations are developed by experts at the state level who know what they’re doing.” And who are these quote-unquote “experts” to whom Rep. Armes so deferentially cedes all power? Why, the very same skilled professionals who made fortunes by enslaving, torturing, killing, and selling animals for profit, of course!

Despite such reassurances from trusted elected officials like Rep. Armes, the farm animal rights activists who have devoted much of their efforts in recent years to passing anti-confinement bills and initiatives have a different view of this matter. “These measures are obviously a counterattack against the success of Prop 2,” claims Paul Shapiro, Senior Director of HSUS’s Factory Farming Campaign. “The basic idea is to give the appearance of regulation, but in reality these programs won’t prohibit any of the inhumane practices that are already standard in the agriculture industry. In fact, they would actually codify the cruel status quo into law, effectively putting the foxes in charge of guarding the henhouse.”

Shapiro also points out that, with the full force of the mighty agribusiness lobby behind them, industry-friendly lawmakers have been able to move these bills forward quickly in an attempt to avoid legislative and public scrutiny. In response, HSUS is actively encouraging state lawmakers in Michigan to oppose the House Bills and mobilizing their members to put pressure on elected officials by contacting their offices. A campaign to inform Ohio voters about the deceptive intentions behind the November 2009 proposition is already in the planning stages, and the organization may attempt to place its own pro-animal measure on the ballot in 2010.

The crucial question here for both sides is, are these industry-driven proposals the magic bullet agribusiness needs to stop the state-to-state spread of Prop 2-inspired bills and ballot initiatives? Similarly, will they be able to deceive people into believing that current agribusiness practices — like confining animals in cages and crates, debeaking chickens and tail-docking cows — constitute “humane” treatment of living, feeling creatures? The answers depend in large measure on the outcomes in Michigan and Ohio — but much more so, in a deeper sense, on the determination, drive and energy of farm animal rights activists.

* It is important to note that, despite Rep. Simpson’s claim, chickens cannot legally drive automobiles in California: when Prop 2 is enacted in 2015, it will simply ensure that egg-laying hens (as well as breeding sows and veal calves) have enough room to stand up, stretch their limbs, and lie down without bumping up against a wall or another animal. The fact that the Honorable Mr. Simpson (sponsor of the Michigan animal "welfare" standards bills) issued this hyperbolic statement signifies nothing more than the fact that he has been watching too many old Foster Farms commercials, and that he is a pathetic suck-up and sellout to the animal corpse-food industry.

President Obama Announces Downed Cattle Ban

Decision is a milestone victory for animal welfare and food safety

Today, President Barack Obama announced in his weekly video address that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will finally ban the slaughter of all downed cows for food. This is a major win for animal protection and consumer health advocates that has been in the making since the early 1990s, when organizations like Farm Sanctuary and HSUS started pushing the government to pass legislation prohibiting producers from dragging sick, crippled cattle to the killing floor for processing. Significantly, Obama took action on this important issue only 54 days into his still-young presidency, sending the message that he takes food safety and animal welfare seriously.

Elected and appointed officials must (or should) know by now that downed animals are far more likely than their ambulatory counterparts to carry diseases such as mad cow and bacteria like E. coli that can be fatal to humans who eat their meat. During one of the eight congressional hearings held last year following the largest beef recall in U.S. history, many of them would have also seen HSUS’s undercover video exposé showing workers at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Company packing plant in Chino, California abusing downed cows by ramming them with forklifts and shocking them with electric prods. Nevertheless, the USDA has allowed producers to process cattle who become downed after reaching the slaughterhouse since 2007. The ban Obama announced today will close this legal loophole by permanently prohibiting the slaughter of all downed cattle for food, no matter when they become disabled.

Animals typically become downers because of the way they are raised on factory farms: genetically bred for fast growth, crowded together or confined in cages or crates, mutilated without anesthetic, and fed garbage, the only reason that any factory farmed animals can actually walk to their own deaths is that they are routinely pumped up with non-therapeutic antibiotics. Because downed animals are already suffering greatly when they get to the slaughterhouse, current laws must be reformed to require timely euthanization of cattle deemed unfit for human consumption in order for the ban to actually prevent animals from lingering in pain. I assume that such a provision will be put in place (but cannot presently find any corroborating details), and that some kind of enforcement mechanisms will be implemented.

Political Prognostications and Appointees

In September 2008, I wrote a blog post analyzing Obama’s record on animal issues, concluding that he would be far more likely to support and promote animal causes than his opponent, Republican candidate John McCain, based on their respective legislative histories. In January, I wrote my monthly column for The Animal World magazine about Tom Vilsack, Obama’s appointee to Secretary of Agriculture, examining his public service career and speculating as to whether he would challenge Big Ag's mistreatment of animals. Well, it seems like the administration is on the right track so far: here’s hoping they keep up the momentum and accomplish even more for animals in the coming four years.

Secretary Vilsack called the downed cow ban "a step forward for both food safety and the standards for humane treatment of animals," which is a brave statement for someone in his position, given that most previous Secretaries of Agriculture have been unwilling to even acknowledge farm animal welfare as a legitimate concern for fear of blowback from powerful agribusiness interests. For his own part, President Obama also made some bold assertions in his video address. For example, after qualifying that "the United States is one of the safest places in the world to buy groceries at a supermarket," he called the nation’s food safety inspection system a "hazard to public health," noting that the annual number of contaminated food outbreaks in the U.S. today is more than triple what it was just 15 years ago.

Alerting viewers to the fact that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been so underfunded that it can only inspect about 5% of the nation’s food processing facilities every year, President Obama promised that his new pick for FDA Commissioner, Margaret Hamburg, will change all that — and start by hiring more inspectors. "Dr. Hamburg brings to this vital position not only a reputation of integrity," Obama said, "but a record of achievement in making Americans safer and more secure." There’s absolutely no question about it, Hamburg's résumé is impressive, so it’s not surprising that both public health advocates and food industry groups are praising the pick. According to Obama, the work of Hamburg and her Deputy Commissioner at the FDA, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, "will be part of a larger effort taken up by a new Food Safety Working Group" that will advise the president "on how we can upgrade our food safety laws for the 21st century; foster coordination throughout government; and ensure that we are not just designing laws that will keep the American people safe, but enforcing them."

Pigs: The Other Downed Animals

The downed animal ban announced by President Obama applies only to cattle, leaving downed pigs, sheep, goats, and other farm animals to suffer the cruelty inherent in dragging, pushing or otherwise coercing large animals onto the kill floor. Pigs are also known to carry transmissible diseases from which humans have died and approximately 100,000 downed pigs go to market each year, yet for the foreseeable future, these animals will continue to suffer cruelty while the pork-eating public remains at risk. And don’t forget that salmonella poisoning kills about 1,500 humans every year, and that approximately 15% of chickens sold in the U.S. are contaminated with salmonella.

People who eat meat must understand that as long as agribusiness corporations insist on treating animals like interchangeable biomachines instead of individual living creatures, meat will be swarming with bacteria from feces and other unsanitary substances that are part and parcel of the assembly-line factory farming system. That is, improvements in animal welfare and food safety are intimately connected — and you can’t have one without the other. So please, urge your legislators and President Obama to expand the downed animal ban so that it protects all farm animal species.

Leaked NRA Pamphlet Targets “Animal Rights Terrorists”

"You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!"
- Former NRA President and Oscar-winning actor Charlton Heston

On December 22nd, a blog called Wonkette.com posted a leaked 27-page fundraising booklet that they said had been produced by the National Rifle Association (NRA). It was such a bizarre piece of propaganda that many thought it a hoax. However, the pamphlet soon proved to be the genuine article—a highly polished draft of “Freedom In Peril: Guarding the 2nd Amendment in the 21st Century”—mysteriously “stolen” from an NRA office.

This NRA pamphlet casts the world’s fate in highly alarmist tones, warning of an imminent and violent clash between a conspiracy of “evil” forces on one side and God-fearing, law-abiding gun owners on the other. The dreaded result: forced disarmament of the entire country, and thus total and irrevocable loss of Freedom, Democracy and Civilization. The NRA’s terrifying demons include shadowy Democrats and their Zionist financiers, mushy-headed “One World Extremists” who want to surrender America to the United Nations, subversive celebrities like Rosie O’Donnell and Katie Couric, the liberal media as a giant devil head coming through the TV screen, and even “Illegal Alien Gangs” of menacing minorities making cryptic hand signs. And, of course, there are also “The Animal Rights Terrorists,” among which are PETA, HSUS and the Fund for Animals.

“The Animal Rights Terrorists”

One can first infer the crimes of the “animal rights terrorists” from the amazing illustration* on page 18, which provides a fascinatingly rich level of visual detail and a priceless glimpse into the minds of NRA leaders. The image is fertile with secret symbols, hidden meanings and subliminal messages.

In the foreground strides a hairy-legged, Birkenstock-wearing hippie gal carrying a flaming torch and a can of gasoline. She sports a tattoo on her arm that has been described in the blogosphere as “a kitty-cat Satan” or “a kitler, a cat that looks like Hitler.” She is cut off at the neck (implying that these underground agitators are able to hide their faces and identities), and her male co-conspirator wields a baseball bat and a snarling black dog on a leash.

In this strange, distorted interpretation of Orwell’s Animal Farm, activists have apparently succeeded in training all the other animals—cattle, pigs, chickens, owls and an incredible land lobster—to fight for their own liberation without needing to be physically controlled. The beasts’ facial expressions are of anger, outrage and resolve: they know what they are doing, their crimes premeditated. The owl is so gung-ho that she’s carrying a clutch of dynamite in her talons, and, significantly, the pig actually seems to be flying. (If the NRA opposes evolution, this might be the reason.)

Even though the picture is pure fantasy, I think it is an accurate rendering of the NRA’s deepest fears: that the future holds wild packs of pissed-off animals roaming the post-McDonald’s® wasteland seeking vengeance against their bipedal oppressors. Obviously, once animals are freed, they will murder and enslave humans in retribution: an apocalyptic twist on  the old adage that if we didn’t hunt, eat, experiment on and otherwise torture and kill animals, they’d die of starvation and (I guess) inability or unwillingness to breed.

In the context of this booklet, this picture is clearly meant to scare readers by painting a dark portrait of animal rights activists as “terrorists”: they are, after all, carrying explosives and other implements of destruction (to presumably blow up a vivisection lab, factory farm and Red Lobster® franchise, in that order). Yet looking past the violent overtones, this is a somewhat inspirational and iconic image that uniquely captures (however inadvertently) something of the movement’s essence: that is, the animals are fighting, as equals alongside humans, for their rights. If only this reflected reality, we could end humanity’s enslavement of other species within a generation.

“Freedom’s Enemies”

The text mirrors the distorted conception of animal rights activists depicted in the illustration by lumping all animal rights organizations—from the most mainstream to the most radical—into one category, seamlessly morphing from Constitutionally-protected activism to the most hard-core “terrorist” activities in a single sentence:

“(Animal rights groups) run commercials, print propaganda, stage rallies, infiltrate schools with animal rights material, blow up medical labs, burn down buildings, destroy hunters’ property and poison hunters’ dogs—with enough left over to hire top-dollar lawyers if they get caught.”

The drawing of a Molotov cocktail, some pipe bombs, and an envelope with a razor blade inside sitting in a pool of blood is supposed to be straight out of PETA’s toolbox:

“PETA is linked to a growing network of embedded cells of dangerous people willing to achieve their ends through violence... Many don’t know that PETA wants much more than to take a fishing pole from every child’s hand, take away their pet cats and dogs, ban milk from their breakfast, and shut down all their circuses, zoos and aquariums. PETA wants much more than to take Seeing Eye dogs away from the blind, and take bomb-sniffing dogs away from our airports. PETA wants to stop all medical advancements that use animal research in any way… (Research scientists) receive hate mail, letters loaded with razor blades and rat poison, death threats and bomb threats.”

It seems that America’s precious children are in grave danger of growing up in a world where they might question whether it is ethical to hunt, own or eat animals. Even the great tradition of imprisoning animals and forcing them to perform for our amusement is at stake. The great news for the animal rights movement is that, according to the NRA, we are winning: collectively, animal protection groups comprise a “frightening force” that has already been incredibly effective in achieving our nefarious aims:

“Medical research on the verge of breakthrough screeches to a halt. Our most promising labs are shut down…The antihuman, pro-animal frontal assault is broad and pervasive, spanning from political initiatives to indoctrination of schoolchildren to hunter harassment.”

The “Animal Rights Terrorists” section concludes with a plea “that patriots of financial position pledge to stand with freedom’s fighters forevermore.” Which is the whole point of this booklet, actually. In an introduction called “The Coming Confrontation” on page 3, the NRA’s Executive Vice President and Executive Director claims:

“(The) NRA is the only guaranteed investment for Second Amendment survival, as well as for all the business benefits that come with it. Only the NRA energizes the powerful pro-freedom voting bloc, resulting in election outcomes good for both American gun rights and for American business. Candidates who support the Second Amendment also support you. They're typically pro-business people who fight for free-market issues, from tort and estate tax reform to immigration policy and the global war on terror.... The Second Amendment needs freedom-loving financiers on her side, or she will be drowned in the tsunami of cash flowing from freedom's enemies."

The Real Terrorists

Conspicuously absent from the NRA’s rogues’ gallery of supervillains is al-Qaeda, the global ultraterrorist organization that destroyed the World Trade Center with hijacked airliners, killing thousands of people. You’d think they might have at least merited a chapter called “The Suicide Bombers” or “Allah’s Demonic Army” or something. Interestingly, 9/11 is mentioned only once throughout “Freedom In Peril,” and only in passing.

It’s surprising that the NRA doesn’t take these terrorists seriously. Branding peaceful, nonviolent, law-abiding, and civil-disobedient animal rights protesters as “terrorists” only serves to minimize the real dangers the public faces from actual terrorists, as well as from pro-NRA militias that stockpile weapons but go unchecked by the FBI. Instead, as the booklet points out, the FBI itself has identified “animal rights terrorists” as the number one domestic threat to the U.S., even though animal activists have not caused a single person’s death.

The NRA wholly supports the Bush Administration’s War on Terror in that, like those who framed and passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), they define animal rights activists across the board as “terrorists” because we endanger the profits of corporations that exploit animals. “It’s inevitable that terrorists will infest America for generations to come,” they say, as though we are termites and the NRA is the exterminator. It is definitely ironic that a group whose main mission is to promote the use of deadly weapons calls people working to stop violence “terrorists”—and sad that their sensationalistic attacks have so often succeeded.

“The U.N… (has) already been successful in orchestrating gun bans in once-free countries like England, Australia, Canada and South Africa,” the pamphlet says. So, in the NRA's alternate-reality universe anyway, South Africa was free under Apartheid, which preceded the gun ban in the country, just because everyone could get guns (well, white people, at least). The NRA is especially fond of spreading the myth that banning guns will provoke more violent crimes. Yet guns kill more than 30,000 people a year in the U.S., and Americans are three times as likely as Canadians to be fatally shot. A new Harvard study shows that higher homicide rates occur in states with more gun owners. But it doesn’t matter to the NRA. Danger and death are simply the price Americans must pay for living in a still-free country where the Second Amendment reigns supreme.

Our country faces real threats: global warming, wars (in Afghanistan, Iraq and possibly Iran), corporate hegemony, income inequality, the national debt, a crumbling education system, institutionalized racism and sexism, the Standard American Diet, etc., etc. Instead of recognizing these problems, the NRA creates boogie monsters to distract attention from issues that actually matter. Their hateful invective against all those who challenge their belief system seems like some symptom of collective mental illness.

Cold Dead Hands

Despite the costs, the ideologues at the NRA cling to their fundamentalist interpretation of the Second Amendment: that it means no gun control at all—period. In contrast, most Americans believe that, alongside the “right” to bear arms, we have a more primary right to be safe from violence, and greater gun control would make us safer. Governments have a responsibility to protect their citizens from danger, and most Americans favor limits on gun ownership and use. In a 2004 Gallup poll, 54% of respondents wanted gun laws to be stricter, compared to only 11% who said they should be less strict.

The pamphlet says: “In the minds of those who framed our Constitution, the right to armed self-protection in times of pandemonium was so obvious and innate that it didn’t warrant mention.” In other words, the less the Constitution has to say about something, the more essential it must be to our way of life. Yeah—that makes sense.

It continues: “That’s why the Second Amendment is brief in language but broad in scope, serving as umbrella protection for lawful use of arms in almost any circumstance.” In NRA-speak, that means gun owners have the right to shoot people whenever they personally determine it's justified. One may wonder: what are the limits of these circumstances? Do they include shooting those who challenge strict adherence to a radical interpretation of the Second Amendment?

Such questions are moot to the NRA because they are militantly inflexible about their “right” to own and use guns without restrictions. They are also trying to preserve a way of life that kills people and animals while placeing corporate interests above society's. Part of their intent is to redefine freedom so that it means the freedom to make money from the blood of innocent animals and to make a financial killing selling guns. Firearms are a global multibillion-dollar a year enterprise, one of the biggest moneymaking operations on the planet. The NRA’s connection to the international arms industry gives them a huge financial stake in stopping gun control efforts in the U.S. and abroad.

The political system runs too much these days on money and backroom business deals rather than ethics or trying to improve the state of the world. Increasingly, the pursuit of our “national interest” is becoming the unquestioned protection of corporate profits against any criticism. The NRA and other fanatical pro-business groups will continue to fight for their “right” to go on harming people, animals and the environment, even though in doing so they are violating the rights of billions.

Happiness is a Warm Gun

As one of the world’s most powerful lobbying organizations, the four-million-member NRA has so far been able to block almost all legislative efforts to regulate guns. They literally see themselves as the “guardians” not only of the Second Amendment but of freedom itself. In fact, they believe that without unfettered access to guns, Americans would swiftly lose all of our other freedoms.

Yet in the narrative of “Freedom In Peril,” the NRA (oddly enough) consistently portrays gun owners as helpless victims. All the “good” people in the pictures are fighting a losing battle, under siege by insurmountable forces. The NRA argues that guns will protect our freedom when the time comes. But in this booklet that time has actually come, and guns are shown to be completely useless.

Think about it: What good is granny’s handgun supposed to do against seven commandos with automatic weapons (page 13)? (Incidentally, this illustration is allegedly based on an actual event that took place in post-Katrina New Orleans.) How is a shotgun going to enable that dad perched on his rooftop (page 14) to protect his family from the roving hordes coming up the street filled with overturned cars and burned-out houses? And on the final page, next to the Epilogue, the father seems to have just given up: he’s not even holding a gun, just waiting with his wife and son to be engulfed by the encroaching tidal wave that has crested their driveway.

Obviously, guns cannot protect people from what the NRA seems to believe is coming. Actually, the spread of firearms will only bring about chaos that much quicker. Instead of focusing on causative solutions and preventive measures against society’s collapse, their answer is that everyone should have guns: then we’ll all be safe! The pamphlet warns, “If we do not heed the lesson of Katrina—that survival in disaster is ultimately the responsibility of the individual—the next tragedy will almost certainly include further devastation of American freedoms.”

This directly denies that the government has any responsibility to help its citizens during disasters. It also clearly states the NRA’s core philosophy: that it is every man for himself in this world, especially in times of crisis, so you’d better be packing serious heat if you expect to survive. The NRA embodies the “You’re either with us or with the terrorists” mentality that came into vogue with the post-9/11 posturing of Bush & Co. If you support gun control, then you’re not with the NRA; therefore, by this simplistic and flawed logic, you must be against them and therefore a “terrorist.”

Now What?

The NRA has held a stony silence on the story behind “Freedom In Peril.”** Some commentators speculate that it was intended as a mailer to the group’s rank-and-file, but it seems more likely that it was designed as a special fundraising tool to target wealthy donors. The book's epilogue concludes that “victory can no longer be borne solely by the masses,” which means they’re fishing for more than just $25 yearly donations. If they are scaring people without just cause merely as a cynical ploy for money, then they are insulting their constituency, whether it’s Joe Sixpack or Billy Bob Billionaire. What is scarier is the thought that this isn’t all about money, and that the heads of this powerful organization actually believe we’re on the verge of an all-out social collapse or apocalypse — and that guns, of all things, are the solution.

I hold out hope that this pamphlet doesn’t represent the viewpoint of the majority of NRA members, and that most will be offended by it. Some may revoke their memberships, perhaps realizing the need for a less extreme pro-gun organization that sees the logic in regulations. A blogger and gun owner named Buffalo wrote: “My respect for the NRA decreased to almost nil when I read the pamphlet… This piece of crap tarnishes their image and should shame them.”

For all the talk about firearms, the key issue “Freedom In Peril” raises for the movement is not necessarily the question of gun control, but rather the ubiquitous spread of the perception that animal rights advocates are—by definition—terrorists. We need to counter this stereotype, but in order to do that we must thoroughly understand how our opponents think. “Freedom In Peril” is therefore something of a gift to the animal rights community because it so blatantly lays out how some of the most extreme extremists perceive us. I think it bears very close study.

What would be really amazing is if the animal rights movement could produce something as visually compelling as “Freedom In Peril.” If there are any great artists out there who are interested in collaborating on something like this, please contact me at mathomas@gmail.com.


* It must be noted that the graphic-novelesque design and artwork for this booklet by Arizona-based draftsman Chris Gall are of the highest quality almost throughout, but this is one of my favorite drawings. Given his plethora of high-powered clients and awards, I am curious whether Gall believes the NRA’s ideology or is just prostituting his formidable talent.

** I did a search for “Freedom In Peril” on the NRA website thinking I would find something that tells their side of the story, but instead got a “0 document(s) retrieved” message. So the NRA is basically pretending this brochure doesn’t even exist, and hoping that this will all blow over soon if they just lay low for awhile. Clearly they are embarrassed about being so exposed. (It must be noted that I conducted the same search on the PETA and HSUS websites and came up with zero results, as well.)

Links:

Here are some of the articles and blogs I read in researching this story:

NRA Pamphlet: “Freedom in Peril: Guarding the 2nd Amendment in the 21st Century”

NRA's Graphic Attack on Its Enemies Leaked Onto Internet

NRA already taking shots at the incoming Democratic Congress

NRA Sounds Alarms on Gun Control

The Infidel Sage

Streich(er) One

YOUR NEW REALITY: Weapons Of Mass Information

Wonkette: NRA's Secret Graphic Novel Revealed!

Boing Boing

NRA comic called a hoax, but accusations later withdrawn

NRA Sounds Alarm of Not-So-Imminent Threat

Matthew High

NRA's Purloined Pamphlet Seeks Support of Big Business

AnonymousLefty

Gun Guys