A n i m a l W r i t e s © sm
The official
ANIMAL RIGHTS ONLINE newsletter
Publisher ~ EnglandGal@aol.com Issue # 07/15/01
Editor ~ JJswans@aol.com
Journalists ~ Park StRanger@aol.com
~ MichelleRivera1@aol.com
~ sbest1@elp.rr.com
THE
SEVEN ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE ARE:
1
~ Phoenix From The Ashes? by
Bertie Senior
2
~ The Dividing Line by
Tc2b@aol.com
3
~ Victory For Animals: Minnesota Passes Felony Animal Cruelty Law
4
~ Victory In Court
5
~ GAP's Executive Director in Boston Globe
6
~ A Poem
7
~ Memorable Quote
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Phoenix From The Ashes?
by
Bertie Senior - Hrhbertie@btinternet.com
Ingrid
Newkirk, President of PETA recently stated that she welcomed the spread of FMD
through the U.S. as "it would shake up consumers." Controversial as this may sound, it appears
to be beginning to happen here in the UK.
In the early hours of this morning the BBC 24 hour news programme
broadcast a news item concerning the rise in the demand for more organic
produce, (80%) before the outbreak of FMD, and the desire of farmers to go down
this route as they have to adapt to consumer demands (note the incentive of
finances, not animal welfare). This
however
shows
a remarkable shift in attitudes to modern farming in a very short space of
time. It could well be that FMD could
be the catalyst that could see the beginning of change. Other events are also significant. The supermarket giant Sainsbury's openly
advertises it's commitment to organic farming, displaying signs above the
shopping aisles and the demand far outweighs what the UK can produce and has to
import. The government has been under
pressure for many years to reform animal agriculture from organizations like
Compassion in World Farming and Animal Aid and are now actually asking advice
from these bodies -- a huge advance in itself.
Even
on a personal level the residents of my own community have perceptively changed
their attitude towards me. This is an
area which has always been agricultural and the mentality of "You must
have meat to survive still pervades." I live close to where the epidemic
originated and their sense of guilt is tangible (if not muted) and the
vitriolic, often violent abuse that I used to have to endure has ceased (he
told us so ?).
As
for the poor farmers, tearfully bemoaning their losses, here are some
interesting facts:
1)
Farmers have received full market value for animals slaughtered. Payment
per dairy cow is as much as £1,100 and they have been granted £60 for each
lamb. Even spent ewes -- for whom the regular market had collapsed -- were each
drawing £32 compensation. The full amount is not yet known.
2) As early ago as April just over 300 farmers
received compensation totaling £1.3 million, with the largest sums going to
some of Britain's wealthiest landowners. Willie Cleave, the Devon farmer and
live exports dealer whose widespread buying and selling of sheep helped spread
disease into that county, has received £1.3 million. He was reported to be down
at his
local
pub, gloating over his good fortune and toasting the Minister of Agriculture
(Mail on Sunday, April 15). Billy Waugh the owner of the farm where the
outbreak was identified (a previous farm he ran was closed because of the
stinking, squalid conditions) was reprimanded by the government with a £50,000
handout.
3) More money was paid for sick animals
than for healthy ones. This led to farmers deliberately infecting their own
sheep (Farmers Weekly March 23). The
method is to take a rag and wipe it over a diseased sheep's mouth and then rub
the rag onto an uninfected animal. The BBC reported some farmers thrusting the
feet of live sheep into boiling water to produce FMD-type blisters. Cases were
also found of farmers deliberately moving their sheep into 'hot spots'.
4 ) Some farmers claimed hundreds of
thousands of pounds worth of subsidies for sheep they in fact did not own
(Daily mail, April 11; Private Eye, March 23)
5 ) Additional help has come from
Prince Charles, The Royal Bank of Scotland, newspaper appeals and the racing
industry. More help from the government is in the form of an "agrimonetary
compensation" -- £20 million and set to rise.
All
this for an industry that represents 0.8% of the UK's gross domestic product.
It employs around 1% of the working population, valued at £2.3 billion. Tourism
on the other hand is £64 billion and employs 2 million -- and their
compensation -- pitiful in comparison.
After
all this I can only quote Dr. Steve Best "Let us turn tragedy into
opportunity " and hope that the sacrifice of these animals will spark off
a new fire of resurgence that will light the way forward.
More
info can be found at www.animalaid.co.uk
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The Dividing Line
by
Tc2b@aol.com
Just
what is the difference that makes a difference when it comes to rights? AWs [animal welfarists] will always tell us
that being human is the dividing line, offering no justification as to why this
is so, and assuming that the answer in itself is so compelling that no further
clarification is needed.
But
if you look back in history, being human never has been and never will be the
reason for granting rights. When ARAs argue that the current state of animal
use is akin to slavery, we're told that it's different, because slaves were
human. Slaves, of course, were ALWAYS human -- not just looking back in
retrospect. In more recent times (and still today), women, minorities, the
disabled, gays, etc., were and still are in many cases denied some basic human
rights. How can this be so? Aren't they all human? Haven't women, minorities, the disabled, and gays ALWAYS been
human? So why don't they STILL have
full rights?
If
you don't believe it's true today, ask blacks in New Jersey (and elsewhere, I'm
sure) about racial profiling. Ask a disabled person about their problems in
getting decent housing. Ask gays whether they can live in a committed
relationship and share the benefits of the tax code, marriage, or even health
insurance coverage. Aren't all THESE people human and entitled to the same
rights as all other humans? One would think so. Yet discrimination exists today
as it always has, albeit in more subtle and sometimes more insidious forms.
If
being human meant equal rights, then all the discriminatory laws, regulations,
and societal mores oppressing people should have disappeared long ago. They
have not. Nor is it likely they will disappear in the foreseeable future.
Rights
have been granted -- throughout history and today -- for one reason and one
reason only, and it isn't because of species membership. Rights are granted
only when enough people to make a difference care enough to eliminate the
wrongs being done. We grant them when
we, as a society, recognize that the beings discriminated against are suffering
wrongly because of meaningless perceived DIFFERENCES between "us" and
"them."
If
you doubt this, ask yourself why gays can't share health insurance and why
blacks get stopped by police more often than whites. Aren't gays and blacks
human? Shouldn't they then already have the same rights?
We,
as a society, have only recognized rights when we understood that the
similarities between us all were more compelling than the differences -- that
is, that we had no business allowing beings to suffer simply because there was
some difference between them and us. We recognized that the suffering of slaves
was more morally important than the monetary benefit of exploiting those
humans. We recognized that the right of women to vote was more morally
important than whatever benefit was derived from their oppression.
If
this could be applied only to humans, then AR would be doomed to failure. But it can't be applied only to humans. If
it could, then all humans would already have the rights that some humans have,
and clearly, they do not. Humanity is
not the dividing line, and more importantly, it never has been nor can it ever
be.
If
you've followed this far, you've probably already figured out that rights aren't
granted -- they are withheld -- based upon differences that a majority of
people see as significant enough to deny them. Slaves ALWAYS had the right not
to be enslaved, but that right was denied them. Women had the right to vote as
soon as men, but that right was denied them. And animals have the right not to
be made to suffer, and that right is being denied them.
What
reason have we for saying that animals don't deserve the most basic right not
to be harmed? Because they're different than we are? Isn't that the exact same
justification always used to oppress other humans? Blacks, women, children,
gays, the disabled -- all have suffered and still suffer today because of the
same faulty reasoning -- that it's OK to let them suffer because they are
different and therefore aren't entitled to the rights the rest of us take for
granted.
You
can argue that the difference between animals and humans is so great that they
should never be granted rights -- but this is nothing more than a mask for the
same old argument -- that they're not HUMAN. But again, species membership has
not been nor is it today they dividing line we use to determine who gets
rights. The dividing line is, always has been, and always will be justice.
Where there is injustice, we grant rights to eliminate that injustice, insofar
as we recognize that injustice exists. When it was decided that slavery was
unjust, it was eliminated. When it was decided that preventing women from
voting was unjust, the constitution was changed. But it had nothing to do with
species membership, or the injustice never would have existed in the first
place.
So
the question is, in my mind, is the treatment of animals today UNJUST? I believe it is. And when enough people
decide that it is unjust, animals will be granted their just rights.
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Victory For Animals:
Minnesota Passes Felony Animal
Cruelty Law
from
ASPCA news-alert - news-alert@list.aspca.org
Congratulations
to everyone who called, wrote and worked so hard to pass this legislation!
On
June 30, Governor Jesse Ventura signed into law a bill, authored by Senator Don
Betzold and Representative James Clark, that increases Minnesota's penalties
for intentional torture or cruelty to companion animals. Explains Nancy Minion, president of Second
Chance Animal Rescue, the
new
law "was a long time coming for animal protection advocates who began this
initiative at the Legislature five years ago."
Effective
August 1, 2001, new penalties for intentional acts of cruelty increase as the
harm to the animal increases:
*
An act of cruelty that results in great bodily harm or death to a companion
animal carries a felony charge and a maximum penalty of up to two years in
prison, a $5,000 fine, or both.
*
An act of cruelty resulting in substantial bodily harm is considered a gross
misdemeanor and carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison, a $3,000 fine,
or both.
*
The penalties are elevated for intentional cruelty to service animals, such as
hearing and seeing eye dogs.
*
If the act of cruelty is done in a manner to threaten, intimidate or terrorize
a person, the maximum penalty for substantial bodily harm increases to two
years in prison, a $5,000 fine, or both; the maximum penalty for great bodily
harm or death increases to four years, a $10,000 fine, or both.
"What
a wonderful victory for Minnesota!" exclaims Minion. "There were many
individuals and organizations who were crucial to this victory, particularly
those who testified at hearings," she says. "Humane societies,
veterinarians and animal control officers made the plight of abused and
neglected animals real to legislators. Many volunteers lobbied the 201
legislators throughout the 2001 session. Letters and phone calls from supporters
all over the state poured into legislators' offices."
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Victory In Court
July
13, San Jose, Calif.
Andrew
Burnett, the man who tossed Leo, the fluffy little Bichon Frise dog to it's
death in an apparent bout of road rage last year, was given the maximum
sentence today -- three years behind bars.
Judge
Kevin J. Murphy said Burnett's release would pose a danger to the community, as
he sentenced Burnett to the maximum possible for felony animal cruelty, even
though a sentencing report from the Santa Clara County Probation Department had
recommended probation and Burnett's mother pleaded for leniency, calling her
son an animal lover.
He
also faces four charges of perjury for allegedly lying to authorities to get
out of speeding tickets.
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GAP's Executive Director in
Boston Globe
from
GAPNews@aol.com
The
Great Ape Project's Executive Director, Paul Waldau, was featured in the Boston
Globe Magazine on July 1st. Here is the article.
The Interview
By
John Koch
ETHICIST
AND FORMER LAWYER Paul Waldau, 51, writes about animal law, rights, and public
policy. He teaches related subjects at
the Tufts Schools of Veterinary Medicine and Boston College School of Law. Waldau is also Executive Director of The
Great Ape Project.
Q
~ What are your objectives?
A
~ My work is dedicated not only to nonhuman animals but to ecological awareness
of all of us being connected together. I don't like the division between
environmental ethics and animal protection -- they're flip sides of the same
coin. My objectives include making legal systems more responsive to nonhuman
animals, but my preference is simply to see people become more compassionate
generally. It elevates us to protect other animals; it makes us aware that we
live in a rich universe.
Q
~ Why use the phrase "nonhuman animals"?
A
~ It's a way to emphasize the connection we have to the rest of the living
world. It's scientifically accurate, and it's logical, because humans are
animals.
Q
~ You also use the word "speciesism." What's that?
A
~ Speciesism is the reasoning that you only have to give special moral
protections to members of your own species. I believe you should look at an
animal's individual traits rather than its species membership to determine
whether or not it deserves protection.
So a chimpanzee might qualify even though it's not a member of the human
species.
Q
~ Give some specific examples of speciesism.
A
~ Chimpanzees locked away in laboratories because they've been given virulent
diseases in order to use them as test tubes.
Such research assumes that they're so like us physically that we can use
them as models for our own bodies, so they're obviously very complicated -- yet
so unlike
us
morally that we can do this to them. We wouldn't do this to Tibetan orphans.
Doing it with chimpanzees is very facile -- just based on tradition. The use of chimpanzees in entertainment for
the benefit of humans, using them as props, requires that you take us them away
from their family. Like us, they have incredibly emotional connections to their
kin. That's another very flagrant example of speciesism. There's first-rate
scientific evidence that shows that they think, feel, emote, empathize, and
that pulling them out of their natural context creates wreckage, as it would
for us.
Q
~ What is The Great Ape Project?
A
~ An organization with supporters in dozens of countries. Its goal is to
provide basic protections for gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and
bonobos. That is, to keep them out of
captivity, to provide situations they would choose naturally to live in, to
keep them out of biomedical experimentation, and to protect them from being
killed. It leads to an abolitionist position on those animals being in zoos.
Q
~ What inspired your work on behalf of animals?
A
~ The most immediate experiences I think of are swimming with dolphins in
Southern California and recognizing that when I interacted with them, they were
masters of their environment, in which I was located, and they would come up
and interact with me as individuals. They would look at me, puzzle over me, and
be quite curious. This made me wonder about the complexity of other animals and
their intelligence. Dolphins lured me in.
The other thing was just growing up in a religious tradition -- the
Catholic tradition. Although I left it
fairly early, I always remember that sacramental sense that the world matters,
and it's a richer world if we're accompanied by other animals that we care
about. That's been my experience. I come from a large and wonderfully emotional
family, and it made me able to care about all kinds of living beings. It wasn't
a politically active family, just very compassionate. It came from my mother --
so, Mom, thank you.
Q
~ How does your life reflect your commitment?
A
~ Through diet. I'm a vegan: I don't eat animal products. I don't buy
them. When I buy new shoes, I buy non-leather
ones -- but I have plenty of shoes left over from my lawyer days, and they're
going to last a long time. I don't use pesticides in the yard. If bugs show up
in the house, I'll get a glass and a piece of paper and slip them under and
take them out.
Q
~ Do folks think you're nutty?
A
~ I rarely run into that. I have good friends, and I'm an articulate
person. I was a lawyer, a pretty
conservative profession, and I'm not bombastic. As an ethics teacher, my goal
is never to tell classes what my ethics values are but to teach a process and
let students make their own decisions. I can't think of an instance when
somebody came and said, "You're a nut." One time on the radio,
someone said, "Get this idiot off." I thought the person was in a bad
place if they couldn't appreciate somebody who cares this much.
Q
~ Do you miss practicing law?
A
~ I just taught the first animal law class at Boston College Law School, and in
the coming year, I will teach the Harvard course, too. Doing this is a privilege,
although I didn't want to be dragged back into the law. I worked in a huge law
firm and made an incredible amount of money, but I wanted to live a meaningful
life. I thought, I don't want to turn around at 60 and shoot myself in the head
because I'm empty and rich. There's a
wonderful quote: "There is only one success -- to be able to spend your
life in your own way." And that's what I chose to do. I get up each
morning and
enthusiastically
do what I do. I live a nice life even if I don't get paid much.
<> <> <> <> <>
<>
Carry
with you the lives of nonhuman great apes... Order an Equality Link.
Email
gap@greatapeproject.org for ordering details.
The Great Ape Project
P.O. Box 19492
Portland, OR 97280-0492
Email: gap@greatapeproject.org
Website: www.greatapeproject.org
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A Poem
An
overlooked pain, is the despair of the animal lover
Barraged daily
by blatant displays of torture
Supermarket
check-outs stained with the rancid blood of their feathered and
hoofed friends
restaurant
plates full of their dismembered arms, legs, organs
an
overlooked pain ... is the despair of the animal lover
a man
strapping his dog with a leash in the park
a manager
"removing" a family of ducks
from the lake
a popular
movie ... shows a little dog tossed through a window like a football
and the
audience laughs
The feeling of
alienation is painful
each cruelty
felt as a personal blow
This
is a word of recognition
for
the pain suffered
by
people who love animals.
~~ Anonymous
Source: Psych
SLW@aol.com
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Memorable Quote
"The
time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of
animals as they now look
upon the murder of men."
~
Leonardo Da Vinci
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Online
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The Animals'
Agenda Magazine: WebEdition
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