By Dr. Steve Best

8/25/08

In August 2005, when HSUS (hereafter think “H$U$”) Executive Vice President Mike Markarian publicly “applaud[ed]” the FBI for arresting and imprisoning six amazing activists from Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), my outrage over this self-serving betrayal of activists and animals alike inspired me to write “The Iron Cage of Bureaucracy,” a fierce critique of HSUS and its chief executive, Wayne Pacelle. I condemned HSUS for its divisive attacks on animal rights militants, its bureaucratic rigidity, its cowardly conformism, and its disturbingly cozy relationships with the animal exploiters they claim to oppose.

Despite a recent fluff piece in the Los Angeles Times that promotes Pacelle as a consummate animal champion and visionary leader, I am pained to report that his “humane meat” and “cage-free” egg campaigns have promoted more, not less, animal suffering and killing; that HSUS is a collaborationist with, not antagonistic of, various animal exploitation industries; and that HSUS has developed strong ties with law enforcement agencies and the FBI not only to go after animal abusers, but also animal activists, the hard-line militants prepared to do what it takes to stop the torture and murder of innocents. Specialists in political repression, the FBI has a long track record of framing innocent citizens, destroying social justice movements, and even murdering vocal opponents of the state such as Fred Hampton. They say that politics makes for strange bedfellows, but this is downright surreal.

Loretta opened her mouth in a huge yawn. Why shouldn't she? She was exhausted and now bundled in Connie’s arms with three brothers. This four and a half week old puppy and her siblings had been separated from their mother for only a couple of days. They had been rescued from unspeakably crowded and filthy conditions by the Bend Police and brought to the Shelter at the Humane Society of Central Oregon. On July 5th four of the nine in the litter—Loretta, Waylon, Willy, and Hank—had come to our house for foster care.

By Jason Miller

For Sylvia

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.

–William Ralph Inge, Outspoken Essays, 1922

Enlightened as he was, even Inge’s thinking was tainted by the toxin of ego. Who are we human animals (whose collective knowledge of our own capacity to think, learn, and know is still significantly limited), to presume to know that non-human animals do not conceptualize a Devil of sorts? And whether they are able to conjure such a mental abstraction or not is ultimately irrelevant. Objectively speaking, we human animals ARE Devils toward our non-human counterparts, whether they perceive us to be or not.

I have a horrible feeling that somehow we’ve gotten this whole endangered species thing backward. Yes, we continue to carelessly destroy habitats, introduce alien species, and randomly dump industrial waste, and that’s all bad and we should stop it. But I’ve been eating dolphin safe tuna for almost forty years now and the darn dolphins are still not safe. I thought these guys were supposed to be so smart! Meanwhile, nobody is trying to protect the Northern Pike of Lake Davis, California: Quite the opposite.

Some idiot released a couple of Esox Lucius Linaeus – Northern Pike - into the small and now very un-placid Lake Davis back in 1991 because they thought Pike would be fun to catch. Unfortunately the lake already had a stocked population of game fish, Onocorhynchus clarki – Rainbow Trout - which are not only a popular game fish amongst tourists but are also an easy meal for the voracious Northern Pike.

By Jason Miller

Blatant speciesist and self-described “liberal Republican” William Saletan recently penned a predictably narrow-minded and weakly argued anti-animal rights editorial for Slate Magazine.

Originally bowing to the will of Microsoft, Slate is now economically beholden to the Washington Post. Billed as “liberal” (which simply means they’re sycophants to the filthy status quo as they call for “reform” to a hopelessly degenerate system), naturally Slate was more than happy to provide Saletan a forum for his unbridled arrogance and bigotry.

Saletan’s inane musings, Animal-Rights Farm: Ape Rights and the Myth of Animal Equality, can be found here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2194568/)

The slaughter of cougars, wolves, coyotes, and other carnivores, has been common in North America since colonists arrived nearly four centuries ago. Today, the war on carnivores continues. The U.S government alone kills over three million animals, including 100,000 carnivores. Animals are poisoned, trapped, snared, beheaded, clubbed, shot from the air, and gassed in their dens.

By Jason Miller

Click on the link below to see the hard-hitting photos that accompany this essay:

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=566

Canine. It’s what’s for dinner.

A Satirical Examination of an Apologia for Industrialized Torture

“Again, if PETA is putting something out, I will always have my doubts - they see things one way and one way only. Theirs. In many ways the activists in this country are terrorists of a kind….” [Excerpt from an email written by a heavily indoctrinated and reactionary US American]

By Jason Miller

By Suki Falconberg

Thomas Paine's Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=443

I have seen it all before but it still shocks me. The Humane Farming Association recently shot undercover video at an Ohio pig farm which shows animals living and dying in conditions far more horrifying than one finds in any torture camp. And what I am about to describe in this article is typical of the lives of the 10 billion ‘food’ animals raised for slaughter in America each year.

By Jason Miller

Thomas Paine's Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=208

“The moral duty of man consists of imitating the moral goodness and benificence of God manifested in the creation towards all his creatures. Everything of persecution and revenge between man and man, and everything of cruelty to animals is a violation of moral duty.”

–Thomas Paine from The Age of Reason

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