Oh, HSUS! Why Do They Malign You So?

I'm not generally one who feels strongly compelled to come to the defence of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). With an annual revenue of over $100 million, I'm sure that they already earmark a bit of pocket change for public relations. However, I simply could not resist the urge to clarify a few misrepresentations about them that I noticed being smeared across the internet this week. They seemed so unfair.

Take this rant in the Zanesville Time Recorder by Troy Balderson, for instance. The State Representative for Ohio's 94th district had a few nasty words to share about HSUS. A few of his wildest accusations include that HSUS is a "vegan organization" and that it "aims to promote vegan lifestyles". It troubles me to see HSUS misrepresented so, when it's worked so hard to establish that it honestly and earnestly does not seek the elimination of animal agriculture and does not concern itself with whether animals should be eaten--that's a non-issue for them. Just this past July, Wayne Pacelle, HSUS' dapper President and CEO, spent a fair amount of time spelling this out to AgriTalk radio host Mike Adams. When describing HSUS' initiatives, Pacelle insisted

[t]hey relate not whether animals should be used for food, but how they are treated during production, transport and slaughter. [...] We’ll have some disagreements depending on what your orientation is, but I don’t think anyone can reasonably claim that our work is moving in the direction of eliminating animal agriculture as some of the folks in the industry keep repeating.

In the rest of the interview, Pacelle insists that most HSUS staff and volunteers aren't even vegetarian, never mind being (gasp!) vegan. You can read my previous blog post about the Pacelle interview here or you can read the actual transcript here to hear Pacelle tell it like it is. Pacelle, although a supposed vegan himself, has even been known to publicly mock vegan education.

Heck, HSUS even condones the consumption of animal products at its own fundraising events. How is this promoting "vegan lifestyles"? How does this make HSUS a "vegan organization"? HSUS may recommend reducing your consumption of animals or comforting yourself that you're making a significant ethical improvement in your diet by choosing one animal product over another, but flat-out promoting veganism as the only truly humane option? Troy Balderson, how dare you accuse them of such a thing? Shame on you!

And then there's an unforgivably badly-written piece on The Examiner website by Lennis Waggoner, a supposed journalism program graduate, writer and conservative policy advisor, who decided to believe everything he reads (in this case, the propaganda on ActivistCash.com, which is run by the big industry funded Center for Consumer Freedom) and to spread even more nonsensical lies about HSUS. Waggoner writes that

HSUS and Farm Sanctuary masquerade as animal “welfare organizations”, which work for the humane treatment of animals, when they are really animal “rights” organizations, instead. There is a major difference between the philosophy of “humane treatment” and giving animals “equal rights” with people.

The thing is that on one point, Waggoner is correct: There is a major difference between animal "welfare" and animal "rights". Unfortunately, he proceeds to conflate the two in a very clumsy manner, providing no actual evidence of HSUS' actual promotion of animal rights, but plenty of their promotion of welfarism. And HSUS is indeed all about welfarism, generally spending the millions it receives from well-intentioned donors to wage one ineffective campaign after another to "pressure" companies into making ethically insignificant changes to where they source their exploited nonhuman animals. Take this recent campaign, for example, in which HSUS seeks to pressure IHOP to "begin moving away from" using eggs produced by hens in battery cages. The rest of the time, they heap praise upon one business after another that continues to exploit nonhuman animals. Where do rights figure in all of this?

So Waggoner is correct that a welfarist approach to the use of animals differs significantly from an animal rights approach; it's just unfortunate that he obviously has no understanding of what those differences--and their significance--actually are. He obviously hasn't read this latest essay by We Other Animals blogger Vincent Guihan, which explores the reasoning behind focusing on the use versus the treatment of nonhuman animals. Maybe then Waggoner wouldn't be wasting his time disparaging HSUS by accusing them of being an animal rights organization, and maybe then I wouldn't have had to use up an entire lunch break to defend HSUS against all of these unfair and wrongful allegations.

(Oh, and Mr. Pacelle, in lieu of payment for my work, could you purchase a dozen or so copies of Rain Without Thunder and ship them to me so that I can hand them out as educational material to some of these awful people who are mischaracterizing your organization as being vegan or animal rights oriented? I'm sure that you could write it off as a business expense. Thanks kindly!)

PeTA and Peter Singer: What's the Problem?

This is just a quick post to draw attention to a couple of pieces that should be read by those sitting on the fence about a) where PeTA really stands in terms of animal rights, and b) whether Peter Singer has ever actually had anything whatsoever to do with anything even ever so vaguely resembling a serious interest in the rights of nonhuman persons. A My Face Is on Fire reader emailed me today to ask me if I'd read Roger Yates' most recent post on his On Human-Nonhuman Relations about the current public misconception of PeTA's being a radical animal rights organization (or, rather, how it misrepresents itself as such). Yates points out in his recent post that

a visitor to PeTA’s site may find herself looking for animal rights books in PeTA’s online catalogue. However, the only philosophy book on human-nonhuman relations there is Animal Liberation. There are no works of animal rights theory. Instead PeTA misrepresent Peter Singer’s texts by saying, “If you read only one animal rights book, it has to be this one.” For some reason, Singer seems to tolerate this distortion – elsewhere he’s at pains to make it crystal clear that his views have no rights-based foundation.

The reader who emailed me was wondering why it is that PeTA would misrepresent Singer as presenting any sort of philosophical framework that is rights-based if his work is not, in fact, based on a serious concern for the rights of nonhumans. (Why indeed?) She then asked me if I could clarify Singer's position in a simple manner and explain to her how it differs from the abolitionist approach to animal rights. I ended up forwarding her this link to an essay called "Peter Singer and the Welfarist Position on the Lesser Value of Nonhuman Life" by Prof. Gary L. Francione from his Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach website and I suggested that she also go directly to the source and take the time to read Singer, herself. I hope she'll check out the link in question (and the book) and respond to this post if she has further questions or concerns.

I also recommend to anyone else who's unfamiliar with Singer's actual work and with where it fits (or doesn't!) in terms of the "big picture" to take the time to go to your library and pick up a copy of Animal Liberation and read it--critically. Then go back and read Prof. Francione's essays and let the dots connect like mad. And in case anyone already familiar with Singer's work lets out a little gasp that I may be offering it up as recommended reading on this blog (I know that I just did!), I'll just point this out: It's the simplest thing in the world to nod in agreement with others--especially when you know and value the soundness and significance of their work--but to actually take the time to muddle through source material yourself to come up with an actual understanding of why you agree (if you do) is invaluable and will honestly make you a better advocate for nonhumans who haven't the voice to speak for themselves.

HSUS' Paul Shapiro Reaches Out to Meat Industry

HSUS has been keeping busy trying to reassure farmers who raise animals for their products or for slaughter that HSUS is no threat to them. Back on July 1, I wrote about an AgriTalk radio interview with HSUS President and CEO Wayne Pacelle, where Pacelle seemed to engage in a lot of damage control to assure the meat industry that HSUS wholly supports the continuation of animal agriculture. Yesterday, Lancaster Farmer (a trade publication of sorts based in Philadelphia) published an interview with Paul Shapiro, Senior Director of the HSUS' Factory Farming Campaign, that seemed to do more of the same sort of damage control. The former founder of welfarist organization Compassion Over Killing emphasizes throughout this interview that HSUS' concern is on making the animals comfortable--as they're raised for human consumption. For instance:

LF: What do you think is the most serious threat to animal welfare posed by agriculture?
PS: (Extreme confinement) is not the only threat, but it’s among the most serious. The top three (examples) are veal crates, battery cages for laying hens and gestation crates for pigs.

He elaborates upon HSUS' goals with regards to animal agriculture by stating that

[they] are supportive of raising the bar on farm animal welfare. That means working with farmers who want to help their industries move away from some of the most extreme forms of confinement.

And just in case anyone still thinks that HSUS is comprised of a bunch of wacky fringe-dwelling animal rights activists seeking to end the enslavement and slaughter of all animals, Shapiro makes it crystal clear just who and what they are:

Just think about it — we’re the largest animal welfare charity not only in the country, but in the world. Do you think that an organization that didn’t take mainstream views would be so influential? Just about two-thirds of Californians voted for the proposal we put on the ballot ... If you look at the breakdown of the vote, we won the majority of virtually every demographic ... even some of the largest ag counties.

So what does the "largest animal welfare charity in the world" do with all of those contributions that well-meaning folks fork over, thinking that they're helping them fight the good fight on behalf of animals? Well, it seems it's mostly spent on getting retailers to buy animal products. Shapiro says:

By working with retailers to drive demand away from the more inhumane practices and toward better practices. For example, take eggs. Just four years ago, only 2 percent of eggs sold in the country were cage-free. Now, that’s about 6 percent, and a lot of that has to do with our work moving retailers to cage free producers.

Ask the folks over at Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary what sort of victory a 4 percent increase in cafe-free eggs really means to the chickens. They'll show you if you're willing to handle the truth. Is this really and truly what HSUS views as being in the best interest of an animal's welfare? It certainly does nothing to defend or protect their rights. In fact, crunching numbers seems to be what's important. The rest of the interview is spent discussing various issues, such as regulationism in general and the profitability for egg farmers to go cage-free. For instance, Shapiro states that

Of course, the profit margins on cage-free eggs tend to be greater than on cage-raised eggs, so you’d imagine (it does help the farmer). [...] The egg industry’s own economic analysis demonstrates that it costs producers less than a penny per egg more to convert to and produce cage free eggs.

When asked about his own dietary preferences, Shapiro states that he's a vegetarian, but tempers it by stating his reasons for being vegetarian, as well as how HSUS manages to appeal to both those who choose to consume animals and to those who eschew their consumption:

Animal welfare is one of them. Personal health is another. Concern about global warming is another. I think that one of the important aspects of our campaign, (though), is it’s attractive to both vegetarians and meat-eaters. Whether we eat meat or not, all of us can agree that animals who are raised for food should be able to turn around and extend their limbs.

Is this really raising the bar for animals, though? For those of you who refrain from consuming animals or their products, are this organization's ideals the sort of lowest common denominator at which you feel comfortable throwing your financial support? Or behind which you'll throw your vocal support? Shouldn't the non-usage of animals be the starting point? Shouldn't veganism, as abolitionist blogger Dan Cudahy put it, be your minimum standard of decency? It's certainly not HSUS'.

As Professor Gary L. Francione states, veganism should be the "moral baseline of an animal rights movement"--no exceptions. Anything else just endorses the perpetuation of their consideration and usage as property--as things. If this is the sort of "mainstream" stance that Paul Shapiro and the people at HSUS are embracing, then I think that vegans and animal rights activists supporting or sitting on the fence about HSUS need to do some serious re-thinking of their own positions.

Applauding Token Gestures: HSUS and Wendy's

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) announced yesterday that it's applauding Wendy's for its recent decision to use a minimum of 2 percent cage-free eggs. It's such a token gesture that's so clearly designed to just drum up some positive welfarist PR:

"The Humane Society of the United States applauds Wendy's for responding to customers' concerns about animal welfare and taking this positive step," stated Paul Shapiro, senior director of The HSUS's factory farming campaign. "Wendy's new policy is reducing the number of birds confined in cruel cages, and is sending a clear signal that it's time for the egg industry to move away from inhumane confinement."

If Wendy's customers were indeed so concerned about animal welfare, would changing how a mere 2% of the chickens used by Wendy's are treated really have that much of an impact on whether or not they continue to spend their money at Wendy's? An overwhelming 98% of the chickens they'll continue eating there will still be subjected to the same brutal confinement. How does the change in treatment of 2% of the chickens in any way make it more ethically acceptable for them to continue supporting Wendy's and continuing to eat the other 98% of the sourced birds?

I wonder what the real concerns were in the first place and suspect that it's not really so much about the chickens as it is about people wanting to try to alleviate some of their guilt. If Wendy's customers were indeed so concerned about the well-being of these chickens, then wouldn't it make sense for them to just not eat the chickens in question? Are Wendy's chicken products so bewitching and addictive that Wendy's customers just can't not stuff them into their mouths? I guess that they really aren't that concerned after all.

PETA's 'Mister Manners' Tells Vegans to Eat With (and Even Kiss!) Meat-Eaters

A press release was issued by PETA today to promote a new book called The Animal Activist's Handbook. Co-written by welfarists Vegan Outreach's Matt Ball and PETA Vice-President Bruce Friedrich, as well as endorsed by both welfarists Peter Singer and Matthew Scully? Buyer beware!

My favourite bit from the press release: "[Friedrich] argues against questioning waiters in restaurants about the ingredients in menu items". Uh, so what? Don't eat? Pretend you're not vegan? So now PETA is saying that if I adhere to an ethical framework that permeates every aspect of my life, including what I eat, that it's "impolite" and somehow harmful to the animal rights cause to find out if what's offered on a menu is suitable for me to eat? I'll guess that they'd probably OK my doing so if I had a life-threatening food allergy, so why should merely asking be portrayed as socially unacceptable if you're doing it for ethical reasons? Why seek to shame people for merely informing themselves?

The full text:

New Book Tutors Activists on the Finer Points of Being the Biggest Nags in Town (and at the Table)

For Immediate Release:
May 8, 2009

Contact:
Jake Smith 757-622-7382

Dear Editor,

That irritating animal rights activist who never stops bugging you about your leather shoes and complaining about meat at the office potluck is about to get a makeover--courtesy of a new book by PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich, a man with a mighty bullhorn and a life mission. Along with colleague Matt Ball, Friedrich has authored The Animal Activist's Handbook, a first-of-its-kind guide that explains to activists that if they want to be effective, they'd better brush up on their social skills and appearance, or people may just ignore the message and shoot the messenger.

In the book, Friedrich--a vegan for more than 20 years--knocks down quite a few of the "sacred cows" of the animal rights movement. Taking on the role of PETA's "Mister Manners," Friedrich explains the importance of socializing and breaking bread with meat-eaters--and even dating them. After all, he explains, boycotting holiday meals or applying a vegan litmus test to our love lives will only alienate friends and family and cut down on our dating pool and sphere of influence.

Friedrich gives specific examples of what to say in "mixed" company when the topic of eating meat comes up. He suggests that meat-eaters should be fed faux meat rather than ethnic or other less familiar foods as their introduction to vegetarianism, and he argues against questioning waiters in restaurants about the ingredients in menu items.

The book has gotten raves from a diverse group of reviewers that includes Rory Freedman, number one New York Times bestselling coauthor of Skinny Bitch; Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University; and Matthew Scully, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Scully wrote that Friedrich's book "is full of good sense, thoughtful advice, and practical action on helping all of us to reduce the needless suffering of our fellow creatures. I recommend it."

With an inspiring foreword by PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk, The Animal Activist's Handbook also addresses several tangential issues, including why striving to make the world a better place is the most rewarding endeavor anyone can undertake as well as why Friedrich and his coauthor believe that animal liberation is not only possible but also inevitable.

I hope you that will consider running a profile on Friedrich and The Animal Activist's Handbook.

Best regards,

Jake Smith
Media Coordinator

Peter Singer's Interview w/ Slow Food Movement International Revisited

At the beginning of the week, I posted about a recent Peter Singer interview in which he seems to come right out and embrace all that is touted as ethical in the "happy meat" movement. Gary L. Francione expressed his thoughts on the same interview in a blog post on his site on Wednesday. Francione goes into much greater detail to show exactly how the rift between the abolitionist and welfarist approaches to animal ethics issues has continued to grow.

Slow Food International's Interview w/ Peter Singer

It seems that the purported father of the animal liberation movement is now openly embracing a lot of the views espoused by the "happy meat" movement. Peter Singer's been making statements for years in favour of welfarism, but this interview seems to nudge his views further away from anything remotely resembling animal liberationist views.

Some excerpts:

Professor Singer, it’s almost 20 years since your influential book Animal Factories was published. Could you summarize briefly if, given the sensation caused by the book, there have been any significant changes in farming systems? If not, what are the main reasons why there hasn’t been a radical change in consciousness?

I’m very pleased to say that there have been a lot of changes, especially in Europe, but also some in the US and other countries. In Europe, all the worst and most abusive forms of factory farming are being modified. New laws are being phased in that require giving veal calves and pregnant sows room to move a little and turn around, at least. Hens will get more space, and have a nesting box to lay their eggs in. These laws will bring improvements for hundreds of millions of animals across the entire European Union. In the US and Canada, the biggest pig producers have agreed to phase out individual stalls for sows, and in Florida and Arizona, citizens have voted to ban sow stalls. There has also been a big change in consciousness, with consumers becoming much more aware of factory farms and many more of them buying organically produced animal products instead.

[...]

Reading your book, it seems that the only truly ethical conclusion is the vegan diet. Indeed, for those who choose to follow this choice, difficulties are still lower than a few years ago but, however, according to your opinion, what is the most common attitude towards vegans?

The vegan diet, especially buying organically produced plant foods, does solve more of the ethical problems about eating than any other. But I admit that it is not for everyone, and it will take a long time before it becomes widespread. So I don’t want to give the impression that it is the only thing one can do to eat ethically. Just avoiding factory farmed products is a big step in the right direction, even if you continue to eat a moderate quantity of organically produced, pasture raised, animal products.

Rush Limbaugh as HSUS Mouthpiece

OK, this is just so weird on so many levels that I can't stop giggling. That Limbaugh is becoming a spokesperson for welfarism is funny enough on its own. That HSUS continues to be linked to veganism and described as extremist by conservatives and animal slaughter industry types, though, still gets me shaking my head a little in disbelief.

Limbaugh a spokesman for vegans? Say what?
By Drovers news staff | Friday, April 17, 2009

Several news organizations are reporting that Rush Limbaugh has recorded Public Service Announcements supporting the vegan-driven Humane Society of the United States. According to the Animal Agriculture Alliance, worse still is that one of the two audio spots promotes HSUS’ outreach to religious organizations.

One commentary by Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow in bioethics, says Limbaugh supporting HSUS “is really against everything for which he stands.” Read his comments here.

The Animal Agriculture Alliance has urged livestock producers to e-mail Rush today at ElRushbo@eibnet.com to urge him to further examine HSUS and reconsider his support of the organization. AAA also urges you to write your own letter expressing your feelings, but to get you started AAA has written a sample letter that is available here.

I tried to copy the text from that sample letter, which is a .PDF file, but failed. It stresses, basically, that HSUS' true agenda is to "eliminate animal protein from people's diets" and put ranchers and such out of business.

The link to the comments by purported ethicist Wesley J. Smith leads to an Opposing Views piece that's really nothing but an excuse to park a rant or temper tantrum. The Opposing Views piece also features this YouTube video with an audio track of Limbaugh speaking out against dog fighting (and talking about his "little cat Punkin) in one of two PSAs he's done for HSUS:

Anti-Cruelty Legislation as Empty Gestures

I read an insightful piece on the FindLaw website this morning by Sherry F. Colb, Professor of Law and Charles Evans Hughes Scholar at Cornell Law School. It's called "An Empty Gesture to Soothe Conscience: Why We Pass Laws Protecting Chimpanzees and Other Animals From Cruelty". In it, she explores the reasons that motivate us to pass anti-cruelty legislation, citing a paper by Pace University law professor Luis Chiesa:

The four purposes are, roughly: (1) protection of property rights (of animals' owners); (2) apprehension of dangerous people (whose dangerousness to fellow human beings is made manifest in their mistreatment of nonhuman animals): (3) promoting the moral sensibilities of those who feel that animal cruelty is immoral; and (4) protecting potential animal victims from harm.

Chiesa expressed that the best account of modern anti-cruelty laws is the fourth, even though this begs the question

Why, if the goal of these laws is to protect animals, are there so many exemptions to the laws, leaving them inapplicable within and throughout the meat, dairy, and egg industries, not to mention the use and killing of animals in clothing production, scientific experimentation, and hunting?

It is from this starting point that Colb proceeds to examine how it is that human society manages to justify -- even when there is inherent and obvious cruelty in certain acts -- that the benefits received by humans in performing some of these acts outweigh the harms that are in-turn inflicted upon the non-human animals involved. Colb agrees with Chiesa that the key to addressing animal cruelty is to address these nonsensical distinctions that are, in fact, so telling of our actual "moral schizophrenia" (Colb quotes Gary L. Francione in her piece). According to Colb:

Chiesa's thesis is important because it implies that if one wishes to legislate more aggressively against the infliction of harm against nonhuman animals (for example, by outlawing the slaughter of nonhuman animals as food), one need only make the case that the benefits derived from a legally permissible activity – such as farming animals to meet the demand for meat, milk, and eggs – are in fact no greater than they are in the case of prohibited activities like bull-fighting or (in some jurisdictions) the production of paté de foie gras.

However, Colb disagrees with Chiesa that protecting potential animals from harm provides the best account for what drives anti-cruelty legislation, although she does him the kindness of referring to it as "mistaken". She focuses on the incoherence of how we view some animals as adorable, and others as edible or wearable, and expresses how this is something that's instilled in people as early as childhood. According to Colb

People grow up eating, wearing, and otherwise consuming sentient, nonhuman animals. Children, on occasion, feel confused and upset when they learn that their food was once a live animal, but parents counter the confusion with a combination of false information (such as "The animals have very good lives until they die" and "We need to eat and wear animals") and majoritarian reassurance ("Look at all the people eating animals – it can't be wrong if everyone does it"). Then parents might purchase (or even adopt from a shelter) a dog or cat and demonstrate to their children that they – and their children – really are good to nonhuman animals, because they feed and care for one in their own home and even consider him or her to be a part of their family.

From this, she assesses that "[a]nti-cruelty laws, properly understood, represent self-soothing gestures within that denial structure" and that promoting anti-cruelty legislation -- the sort of baby steps that even some vegans view as worthwhile, actually does little other than leave people feeling more comfortable about eating animals than bringing us any closer to the end of our using them as means to our purportedly pleasurable ends. It's a well-articulated article that raises many points that come up time and time again in discussions questioning the philosophical split between welfarism and abolitionism in the animal rights movement.

A Rant and Rave About the Rise in Pro Bono Work for Animal Rights

I read an article this morning whose title started off making me feel hopeful. A few lines in, I was then left me mired in a desire for clarity and consistency. According to an article in the National Law Journal yesterday, pro bono work done by lawyers on animal rights issues has been spiking. A lot. The study of animal law, itself, is one of the fastest growing. So the article presents this increase as if it's a reflection of these attorneys' interest in defending non-human animals -- in defending animal rights. There are so many inconsistencies in it, though, and there's such ample opportunity to cock an eyebrow or two in suspicion or derision.

For instance, the article describes the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) as an "animal rights" organization, when it's in fact a welfarist organization, and it focuses on HSUS and the Animal Legal Defense Fund as two groups to which attorneys seeking to do pro bono work are drawn. The article mentions that Latham & Watkins is one of the only firms HSUS will mention as one of its major contributors. Far from being goodly, Latham & Watkins has a lengthy history of fighting on behalf of everyone from humungous pharmaceutical companies to the Church of Scientology and Monsanto.

The article goes on to quote a Latham & Watkins attorney extensively, including how his summation of the various reasons behind attorneys' increasing involvement in animal "rights" and how he desbribes that what "makes the Humane Society and the ALDF attractive clients is they avoid most of the extreme stances and practices that some animal rights groups are known for" and then quotes him as stating: "I may not be a vegetarian, but I can still agree that a calf shouldn't live its entire life in an enclosure so small it can't turn around," he says.

So basically, an article presented as an increase in pro bono work for animal rights by compassionate attorneys who are purportedly getting behind the cause is really an article about an increase in pro bono work for new animal welfarism by attorneys of all ethical persuasions.

Oprah Wins PETA's Person of the Year Award

Sure, she did a show on puppy mills, became a strict vegetarian for a heartbeat and dedicated a show to her dead dog. Her actions also reminded everybody of the double-standard by which most people live: Some animals are our beloved friends, while other animals are our tasty food. The fact that Oprah can get a pat on the back from an animal welfarist organization like PETA for purportedly being a powerful voice for animals as she continues to eat them is no surprise. All this award does is drill home that PETA thinks it's OK to be a hypocrite.