The Vegan Police: the Vegan Outreach perspective

 

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2012: (Actually published on November 1,  2012.)
Politics,  personal conduct,  and the Vegan Police:  the Vegan Outreach perspective by Matt Ball,  cofounder,  Vegan Outreach http://whyveganoutreach.blogspot.com/ 
Having been prompted to do some broader thinking about the status of animal advocacy in the past year,  including contrasting the AR-2012 conference in Washington D.C. with past AR conferences, I have a somewhat different perspective on the issues raised by the editorial in this October 2012 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE,  “Politics, personal conduct,  and the Vegan Police,” compared to my concerns when we were starting Vegan Outreach in the 1990s.

More about trials of calcium chloride as chemosterilant for male dogs

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  October 2012: (Actually published on November 1,  2012.)

 

Thank you for your September 2012 article “Trial of calcium chloride to fix dogs succeeds in Nepal,”  bringing attention to calcium chloride dihydrate nonsurgical sterilization,  which I believe has the potential to help dog welfare organizations make their funding go further,  and to spare dogs the trauma of transport and surgery.

Surrender prevention programs brought drop in New York City shelter killing

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  September 2012:

As the July/August edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE reported, New York City has reduced municipal shelter killing to just one dog or cat per 1,000 human residents.  The previous lowest ever ratio was 1.3 in San Francisco, which has a human population base of only 750,000.

How did New York City accomplish this?  By introducing two major surrender prevention programs:  a telephone hot line to assist pet keepers in crisis, and a super low-cost mobile full veterinary service.  Both of these programs were initiated by the Companion Animal Network. Read more

Who is helping to fight bullfighters?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2012:

Why are none of the major international animal advocacy
organizations currently campaigning against bullfighting?
This should be priority #1. Bullfighting is nothing more
than a traditional spectacle of sadism. It keeps the floor of animal
welfare at a low level. For example, how can one criticize brutal
treatment of animals in slaughterhouses when bulls are allowed to be
tortured to death in public? There is no place on earth where people
have not seen pictures of bleeding bulls and “brave” matadors and
cheering crowds, and such representations have a desensitizing
effect on children everywhere. Bullfighters have tried to stage
bullfights in such places as China, where there is no tradition of
it, trying to whet the appetite for sadistic spectacles.

Read more

EDITORIAL: Agribusiness, green politics, & the art of compromise

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2012:

Editorial feature: Agribusiness, green politics, & the art of compromise

KFC sells dead chickens from 17,000 sales outlets in 105 nations. Part of the $66.5-billion-a-year PepsiCo. empire, KFC boasts revenue in the U.S. alone of $4.6 billion.

Founded by honorary Colonel Harlan Sanders in 1952 as Kentucky Fried Chicken, KFC would not appear to need much help defending itself in any defensible cause. Even a 10-year-old PETA “Kentucky Fried Cruelty” campaign, attacking abuses in the KFC supply chain that were captured on video camera, appears to have accomplished relatively little against KFC corporate intransigence. Nonetheless, the far-right advocacy front Consumers Alliance for Global Prosperity on June 11, 2012 appealed to supporters and media to “Help Fight The Attack On The Colonel!” Read more

Let us not call for donor support for small farmers

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2012:

Let us not call for donor support for small farmers

By Erika Abrams, cofounder, Animal Aid

Like many and perhaps most grassroots animal advocates, I appreciate the tremendous work that the Humane Society of the U.S. and their global arm, Humane Society International, does for all animals, including cattle and chickens. I want to say at the outset that any of the following discussion that appears to be a “welfare versus rights” argument is not offered to enhance that sense of versus, because I don’t much believe in it. I see that HSUS/HSI, like other organizations campaigning on behalf of chickens, are helping to raise consciousness that people can make choices, with their pocketbooks and what is served on their plates, that have a positive influence on the well-being of animals. Read more

LETTERS re "Proposal for an Accord Between Animal Advocates and Biomedical Researchers"[May 2012]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  May 2012:

Letters re “Proposal for an Accord Between Animal Advocates and Biomedical Researchers”

HSUS president:  “We must work with our traditional adversaries.”

When I got involved with animal protection in the mid-1980s as an undergraduate college student,  the use of animals in research, testing,  and education was one of the hot topics in our cause. Peter Singer,  in his enormously influential book Animal Liberation, put that issue along with factory farming at the top of the to-do list for the new generation of animal advocates.  Readers recoiled as Singer described,  in his well- researched manifesto,  duplicative experiments,  protocols involving the use of animals with no relevance to the human health circumstance,  and animals enduring extreme pain and distress as routine and normal practices in the laboratory setting. Read more

EDITORIAL : Exporting lab animal use does not help to end it

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  May 2012:

Editorial feature: Exporting lab animal use does not help to end it

Respectively representing the National Association for Biomedical Research and public relations firm Berman & Company, speakers Matt Bailey and James Bowers opened the 38th annual conference of the Animal Transportation Association in Vancouver on March 19,  2012 with flamboyant warnings that animal advocates threaten the future of biomedical research by inhibiting the international exchange of animals for use in laboratories. Read more

Editorial

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2012:

Editorial feature:
Don’t let irrational extremists define the cause

    This April 2012 ANIMAL PEOPLE editorial is written amid an unusually fiercely contested series of primary elections and state caucuses to select the Republican nominee for U.S. President in the November 2012 national election.
Animal issues have barely surfaced during the many months of speeches,  debates,  and electronic media commercials through which the candidates seek to rally the electorate.  Almost the only mention of animals so far has come from a web site called Dogs Against Romney,  posted to publicize and decry how front-runner Mitt Romney in 1983 hauled his family’s English setter Seamus on a 12-hour drive to Canada in a carrier tied to a roof rack.  Several Dogs Against Romney viewers demonstrated against Romney on Valentine’s Day outside the Westminster Kennel Club dog show in New York City. Read more

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