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Yesterday I discovered this is National Justice for Animals Week, sponsored by the Animal Legal Defense Fund. Fortunately, I did my part without even realizing it.

On Thursday, I attended (by invitation) Humane Lobby Day in Frankfort, Kentucky, the capital of the Bluegrass State. Most states have a Humane Lobby Day, which is a brainchild of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). It’s the annual designated day when animal welfare advocates from across a state gather to persuade legislators to craft laws that protect animals from neglect, cruelty, and abuse and to support those laws with tougher sentencing and better law-enforcement training. At least, I thought that was our mission.

Instead, I found a disheartening small number of attendees (though the event organizer announced it was the largest turnout for the event in the 10 years it’s been held), speakers who couldn’t hold the audience’s attention, and too many under-informed, first-time advocates (like me) sent to speak one-on-one with legislators (the three people I was assured would do all the talking in my meeting with a Congressperson didn’t show!).

The clear (yet unintended) message of the day: As you were, legislators. Go ahead and keep doing whatever agribiz lobbyists and “sportsmen” want you to do. Most Kentuckians don’t care about animal welfare, and the few who do may easily be ignored.

What the legislators didn’t know was that the event was by invitation only. Or, more specifically, you had to RSVP to attend. This is understandable for the folks who agreed to meet with legislators at appointed times. But as far as networking with like-minded people (another goal for the day) and rallying in front of the press and Capitol visitors, the event should have been widely publicized—should have pulled in as many supporters as possible to show Frankfort and the media that animal advocates are a force to be listened to.

“I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.”
—Abraham Lincoln

The refrain I heard again and again on Thursday regarding humane animal treatment was “It’s just common sense.” It’s just common sense that after animals have been abused, they shouldn’t be returned to the abuser. It’s just common sense that farm animals should be able to turn around in their pens. It’s just common sense that sick cows that can’t even stand up for slaughter should not become the beef served to schoolchildren in the U.S. It’s just common sense that a double-decker truck built for pigs shouldn’t be used to transport horses. It’s just common sense that animals need food, water, exercise, shelter, medical care, and attention.

Newsflash, folks: It isn’t. It’s not at all about common sense, which is apparently in short supply in the Bluegrass and Washington, D.C. Animal advocates aren’t fighting unused common sense. They’re fighting GREED and a LACK OF COMPASSION—the driving forces behind the Iraq War, the housing debacle, and the new Sandhill Crane hunting season in Kentucky. Animal advocates are up against the Dark Side of Capitalism and the free rein given to sociopaths. The battle is fierce. It requires wit and wisdom and patience and perseverance—and every single compassionate human we can persuade to join us.

Today is the last day of National Justice for Animals Week, but it’s not too late for you to take part. With a click of your mouse at POPVOX, you can voice your support of animal welfare legislation being considered by Congress. Yes, you’ll have to register, but it’s short and easy. Plus you can see how legislators across the country voted on other issues important to you. Or go to Change.org and sign a petition.

Please speak up for the voiceless. If not today, soon.

The Bond: The Money Flow, The Victims, The Need for Change

Whew! I finally finished Wayne Pacelle’s The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them. The text is easy to read, the details difficult to digest.

If you’re already concerned about large-scale animal welfare, or you’re a vegetarian or vegan, you’re probably familiar by now with most of the anecdotes Pacelle delivers. For those of you who are unfamiliar with these stories, you may be assured that Pacelle’s storytelling lacks emotion and even omits many of the goriest details. That is to say that the book doesn’t trot out one horror after another. Nor is it one sweet, transspecies friendship tale after another. It’s a mix, heavily loaded with the accomplishments and failures of the Humane Society of the United States (for which Pacelle is CEO) and its efforts to change the world.

I know the HSUS isn’t everybody’s favorite animal advocacy organization. But despite how you may feel about it, and despite your dietary choices, you should read this book—especially if you’re a registered U.S. voter. The Bond shows U.S. lawmakers and lobbyists in action, and it’s appalling. Sure, we have an idea about how legislation gets passed and the shenanigans of the process. We need look no further than the recent impasses regarding federal expenditures. But the blatant pettiness of these politicians plus their attentiveness to a tiny fraction of the people they represent and their total disregard for matters that don’t immediately create wealth for someone are exposed in The Bond. The book should goad every American voter to at least monitor the voting records of his/her Congresspeople. We should find out who is working for whom and then speak out about it or vote accordingly.

Here’s a short list of facts about government agencies and laws that should get your dander up:

– “Almost as a rule, high-ranking political appointees at the USDA come straight out of corporate positions in the meat industry. And they don’t see much difference between their jobs in government and their jobs in the industry.”
Which is to say that neither our safety nor animals’ suffering is top of mind for these bureaucrats.

– “[T]he USDA doesn’t apply the humane slaughter laws to poultry, even though birds are more than 95 percent of all animals slaughtered (about 9 billion chickens and 250 million turkeys are killed each year).”
This closely parallels the Animal Welfare Act…

– The Animal Welfare Act sets the minimum care standards for animals used in testing. Yet the law doesn’t cover lab-bred rats, mice, and birds because the “research industry excluded them in the definition of ‘animal.’”
Oh, if they only had a dictionary…

– “The U.S. Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service admonish forest users to ‘never feed bears,’ but they make an exception for baiters who dump millions of pounds of food in the woods during the hunting season in order to get an easy shot. The bears regularly visit the bait sites—making them less wary of people and more inclined to raid other human trash resources.”
I thought I understood the term “bear baiting,” but I had no idea how much it resembles a canned hunt.

As you can imagine, The Bond has been a slow, painful read for me. I’m grateful Pacelle didn’t include any photographs. He did make me laugh at one point, though, in a chapter about the aerial hunting of wolves and polar bears. A quote from a pro-aerial hunting Alaskan governor represents, for me, the mindset of too many people:

“You just can’t let nature run wild.”
—Walter Hickel