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The real anti-circus agenda-by Ben Trumble (Part I) 

Submitted by Webmaster on   4/10/2005
Last Modified

Background

The term "Animal Rights" encompasses aspects of the traditional mainstream Animal Welfare agenda and the far more radical notions associated with "Animal Liberation." Animal Rights Activists frequently subscribe to at least some of the ideological tenets of Animal Liberation.

The term "Animal Liberation" dates to the 1970’s and academic work of writer Peter Singer. Animal Liberation is an ideology based on Singer’s philosophical thesis; to wit all sentient (thinking) species are equally valuable and therefore deserve equal "rights" and protections. According to the philosophical school of thought championed by Singer, virtually all human interaction with other species involves the exploitation of those species. In Singer’s view there are no "lesser animals."

The rise of Animal Liberation. After the publication of Peter Singer’s landmark treatise on "liberation" groups quickly formed throughout Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia to promote Singer’s ideology. Dumbing down the philosophical underpinnings to "liberation" these groups focused on issues of "cruelty" in animal/man interactions. Early targets were the fur industry, lab animal testing in cosmetics, and farming practices used in the production of veal. Early on liberation groups found common group with more mainstream animal welfare societies, particularly the Humane Society in decrying the continued use of steel leg-hold traps in the harvest of wild furbearers. These early alliances proved fateful and in time liberation ideologues enjoyed increased influence over the agenda of mainstream welfare organizations, ultimately controlling that agenda on the state and local levels. The avowedly liberation oriented group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) began to use mainstream mailing lists acquired from Humane organizations to solicit millions of dollars in donations from small pet lovers, while unbeknownst to those contributors at the same time serving as "spokespeople" for the often violent Animal Liberation Front. Exploiting the favorable reputation of organizations like the Humane Society, in the 1980’s liberationists began to actively lobby for political legislation endorsing their views. By suggesting that liberation issues like ant-veal farming were animal welfare issues and by generally avoiding discussion of the broader purposes of liberation PeTA and other like organizations succeeded in drawing support from animal lovers across the political spectrum.

Regulation. Regulation of animal control, welfare, and safety laws is enforced on the local, state, and federal levels. From country to country who is charged with enforcement and where the regulations come from varies greatly. So, for example, in the UK most enforcement is ultimately at the national level, while in Australia or Canada most enforcement is at the state level. In the US broad federal regulation is enhanced by more restrictive state and local regulation. Animal Rights groups have been very successful at promoting state and local regulations particularly on the county or municipal level where laws are frequently passed without much public scrutiny. Of further benefit to liberationists, enforcement on the local and county levels is frequently left to not-for-profit non-governmental animal welfare agencies working under fee-based contract for a city or county. In the US we joke about electing dog-catchers, but more often we hire the SPCA. By controlling animal welfare organizations on the local level, liberationists control regulation. In extreme cases a single liberationist working as a regulatory officer for an animal welfare organization under contract to a city or county can run rough-shod over legitimate animal related enterprises within that community.

Influence. By the mid-1990’s Animal Liberation as a philosophical ideology disguised as "Animal Rights" and cloaked in the mantle of "Animal Welfare" enjoyed wide support in fund-raising, political action, and regulatory enforcement. Organizations like PeTA continued to raised millions of dollars a year from small pet owners while funneling money to campaigns attacking circuses, dairy farmers, zoos and fast food restaurants. Building on their earlier successes in campaigns against the fur and cosmetics industries liberationists continued to suggest that their aims were directed at issues of cruelty or public safety without hinting at their broader agenda. Suggestions by watchdog groups like the Better Business Bureau that PeTA failed to meet the standards for a legitimate charity organization did little to dampen direct-mail fund raising successes by the organization, and as a generation of students bombarded with both overt and covert liberation propaganda entered college aspects of the AR agenda infiltrated law school, medical school, and veterinary college coursework. Despite a broader public perception that liberation views were still far outside the mainstream – a perception fueled in part by outrageous PeTA campaigns suggesting that young people should drink beer instead of milk; or that eating meat was morally equivalent to the Holocaust against the Jews in the Second World War – liberation ideology moves forward. By demanding the outrageous, the covert liberation agenda, bans on circuses, removing elephants from zoos etc. seems somehow more "reasonable."

Debate. Throughout its thirty-plus year history the doctrines of Animal Liberation have been subjected to surprisingly little public debate. As a philosophical school, liberation might be justly labeled a "utopian ideology." However, while many utopian ideologies of the past -- religious, economic, and political -- from the tenets of Federalism to the rise of Marx have undergone vigorous examination, Animal Liberation seemingly avoids genuine philosophical debate or acknowledgement of its true purpose. This lack of honest discourse has led critics of Liberation to label AR groups as disingenuous at best and out-and-out liars at worst. By repeatedly citing cruelty issues, safety issues, or in the case of anti-fur/anti-foxhunting efforts economic issues of "class" liberationists have successfully avoided the broader philosophical debate and forced their opponents to defend heretofore mainstream positions. Rarely have AR opponents turned the tables and the basic question: What does Animal Liberation really want? Exposing the weaknesses in the liberation case, and the contradictions in the stated positions or public histories of liberationist organizations can only begin when "Animal Rights Activists" are forced to acknowledge that they are liberationists, thus giving some hint to their real purpose.

Labels. Just as Animal Liberationists avoid acknowledgement of their philosophical tenets and hide behind labels like "Animal Welfare," "Animal Defense," "Animal Protection," or even "Animal Rights" those in opposition to the liberation agenda frequently make the mistake of labeling activists as "Anthropomorphic," suffering from what has been called "The Bambi Syndrome." Anthropomorphism ascribes human characteristics to non-human species. The Bambi Syndrome, taking its name from a 1924 anti-hunting novel published in Hungary and later made into a wildly successful animated film by Walt Disney goes even further and suggests that all animals are really humans in furry costumes. Anthropomorphism to one degree or another is common among small pet owners – where our dogs and cats literally become members of the family – and in western countries the Bambi Syndrome is epidemic in children. Animal Liberation is not in and of itself anthropomorphic. As a philosophical school liberationists ascribe broad rights to all animal species regardless of behaviors. Only humans are enjoined from predation, solely on moral grounds. On the other hand liberationists have been wildly successful in exploiting anthropomorphism and the Bambi Syndrome to raise money, gain converts and followers, and to enact legislation based on dubious definitions of cruelty.

THE GROUPS

The following groups are frequently associated with Animal Liberation and anti-circus sentiment.

ALF. Animal Rights as a confrontational ideology first surfaced in the United Kingdom in the 1970’s when traditional anti-hunting, animal welfare, and anti-vivisection organization were radicalized through exposure to the philosophical doctrines of Animal Liberation. While early liberation efforts in the United States focused on anti-fur/anti-animal testing issues, in Britain activists targeted zoos and circuses as well as labs, farms, and traditional anti-hunting campaigns. Among the groups arising from the British Animal Liberation movement was the ANIMAL LIBERATION FRONT. The ALF moniker quickly crossed the pond to the United States and Canada. ALF is not an advocacy group. ALF and their compatriots in the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) engage in direct action attacks against labs, farms, and other enterprises using animals. ALF has been associated with arson, threats of violence, destruction of property, and so called raids "freeing" lab animals, furbearers, farm animals, etc. ALF has been termed a domestic terrorist organization. On an organizational level ALF maintains no membership, raises no money, and has no officers. ALF activists may or may not be associated with other liberation organizations. Initially ALF actions were credited to the group through spokespersons associated with PeTA. However the violent and illegal nature of those actions eventually forced PeTA to cease any official connection. To date PeTA has never overtly condemned violence and property destruction credited to ALF. Since the mid-1990s the internet has provided ALF with a means to take credit for attacks and recruit new followers. ALF "actions" are responsible for millions of dollars in economic damage to legitimate businesses and research institutions. Even inside the Animal Rights movement there are whistleblowers. Animal People, a Washington State magazine aimed at supporting the animal rights movement notes that ALF "raids" often result in the premature death of animals, not their liberation. ALF and ELF are sometimes erroneously linked to the older radical environmental group Earth First! While some ALF/ELF members may have been radicalized by Earth First!, that organization has never adopted a doctrine endorsing Animal Liberation.

PeTA. Certainly the best known of the avowedly liberationist organizations in the "animal rights" movement, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals both acknowledges its radical agenda in its mission statement and downplays that same agenda in its direct mail fundraising. PeTA’s direct mail campaigns raise between ten and twenty million dollars annually and pay for liberation efforts on the local, state, and national levels. PeTA activists and volunteer coordinators have managed successful bids to assume control of more mainstream animal welfare organizations on the local level in many communities, and PeTA’s media outreach is rentless. While the public perception of PeTA may be generally negative owing to the organization’s use of outrageous and offensive rhetoric in public awareness campaigns, this has not hampered the group’s veneer as a source for seemingly authoritative information. How credible is PeTA information? From 1986 through the late 1990’s PeTA orchestrated a boycott of personal grooming products manufactured by Gillette. According to PeTA Gillette conducted needless lab animal testing in its product safety reviews. For a decade the Gillette Boycott was a centerpiece in PeTA direct mail solicitations. Well into the 1990’s PeTA failed to acknowledge that Gillette had already reduced its lab animal testing by more than 90 percent.

In the words of PeTA founder and President Ingrid Newkirk, "Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it."

Journalist Jon Entine, writing on corporate responsibility says of such a position: "There are potentially dangerous consequences if the animal rights issue continues to be commercialized under the guise of ‘good intentions.’ The stated agenda of the best-funded animal rights activists like PETA is no less than to convert society to vinyl shoe-wearing vegetarians. All animal testing would be banned, even on life-saving drugs. Yet, some of the most dramatic breakthroughs in medicine, from the latest AIDs protease inhibitor drugs to menopausal treatments for women, have resulted from the responsible use of animal tests. Scientists and government agencies in the US, Germany, Japan, Israel and the European Union remain unanimous in support of limited use of animal testing. Liberal research organizations such as the Investor Responsibility Research Center, which has sponsored many corporate resolutions to limit testing, make it clear that no alternative safety tests are on the horizon."

If PeTA is less than forthright in its funding raising, why should we believe them when they’re pontificating on other issues? PeTA urges supporters to closely "inspect" local animal shelters to withhold financial support from shelters using pet food from companies that fail to meet its standards for humane animal testing. Yet according to the Lake City Reporter, PeTA’s own contributions to small animal shelters amounts to only $25000 annually. PeTA urges it’s reported 750,000 supporters to press for the adoption of "No Kill" policies in local animal shelters across the United States. Yet in 1999 PeTA’s Hampton Roads, Virginia animal operations took in 2,103 stray dogs and cats and euthanized 62% of those animals. In point of fact in 2000 Ingrid Newkirk stated that "No Kill" policies are: "at best, naïve."

According to Michael Mountain of the respected Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, in Kanob, UT, an early No Kill shelter, "We have received unsolicited reports from former PETA staff, describing how they joined because they wanted to help animals, only to find that they were sent out to kill them. We have also heard from numerous people who were visited by people calling themselves PETA volunteers, offering to 'find a good home' for homeless pets, and saying that the animals would be taken to a 'PETA shelter.' These people discovered too late that there is no PETA shelter and that no one at PETA would even tell them what had become of the animals. Local rescue groups reported that PETA basically competes with them, trying in many cases to kill the animals before they can be rescued."

Like many "utopian philosophies" apparently PeTA’s view of Animal Liberation allows for casualties on the road to Paradise. The question arises, should entire species be written off as casualties? Consider PeTA’s position on elephants in circuses and zoos, a position shared by several other liberation groups. PeTA believes that zoo confinement is needlessly and intentionally cruel. PeTA believes that circus training is needlessly and intentionally cruel. PeTA believes that all elephants currently in zoos and circuses belong in "Sanctuaries" operated by persons endorsing "Animal Liberation." PeTA does not approve of captive breeding. PeTA has fought to prohibit the import of wild caught elephants. By all accounts wild populations of elephants continue to dwindle in both Africa and Asia through poaching and habitat destruction. PeTA and other groups spend no money at all on habitat protection of anti-poaching efforts. According to the well respected Elephant Managers Association and the American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s Species Survival Plan(s) for both endangered African elephants, and for endangered Asian elephants maintaining a genetically viable population of elephants in captivity will require the import of more wild caught animals. PeTA opposes such plans. As quoted above, PeTA takes a strong stand against animal testing for medicine, even if it results in a cure for AIDS. AIDS is currently creating havoc throughout Africa and parts of Asia, destroying economies and destabilizing governments. These same now vulnerable economies and governments provide the only protection for the last wild elephant populations. Clearly PeTA’s position on elephants, shared by the Performing Animal Welfare Society, In Defense of Animals, and other like-minded groups would only result in elephant extinction.

Finally, PeTA’s status as a "charity" is questionable. The Better Business Bureau has said that PeTA fails to meet the ethical standards set by the BBB for organizations soliciting charity. The three member national board of directors that helms PETA isn't run by a disinterested outsider as the BBB suggests, rather it's run by the organization's salaried President. The board -- which oversees PETA policies and resources -- watched the group raise over thirteen million dollars in fiscal 1998; while spending approximately twelve point five million dollars. How much of that money went to actual animal rescue? The PETA budget for Research, Investigations, and Rescue was 3.2 million dollars. Less than twenty-five percent of its total outlay. Where does the rest go? More direct mail-funding,

PAWS. The California based Performing Animal Welfare Society has been active in ant-circus efforts since its founding. An argument might be made that PAWS is less a true liberationist group or welfare society and more of personal fiefdom for founder and former Hollywood animal trainer Pat Derby. Like PeTA, PAWS has enjoyed significant success with direct mail fund raising. In fact donations have allowed have allowed PAWS to become significant property owners both around their original "sanctuary" in Galt, CA and the Sierra foothills where they have acquired more 2000 acres for a larger animal compound. PAWS was among the first AR/AL organizations to posit that elephants are simply too dangerous for circuses (and more recently, neglected in zoos.) Too dangerous for the circus ring. Too dangerous for rides. Interestingly neither the insurance companies that write bonds for circuses, nor emergency room physicians who presumably treat elephant accident victims, nor elephant managers have lined up to support this PAWS contention. . On any given weekend in America more riders are injured in equestrian events than in all of the elephant accidents in this decade. The National Farm Medicine Center studied one typical rural medical center over a two year period in 1994 and 1995 and reported 74 cases of horse related injures requiring in-patient treatment in a single community with a population of fewer than 59,000 people. In contrast in the two hundred years since the first elephant was exhibited in America even the Performing Animal Welfare Society, reports only 120 approximate injuries directly or indirectly linked to elephant accidents -- with fewer than half of these accidents involving spectators at the circus. Sixty elephant related circus spectator injuries in 200 years in all of the United States versus 74 horse related injuries in 24 months in one rural area with less than 59,000 people -- it's amazing that PAWS isn't suggesting the closure of every stable in the United States. Moreover while PAWS reminds us that OSHA deems working with elephants to be a "dangerous occupation," they suggest that elephants will thrive in shelters, operations frequently staffed by volunteers with no professional experience and little training. If elephants are so dangerous in the circus by virtue of the fact that they are wild animals, then why aren't they equally dangerous when housed at the PAWS "sanctuary?"

"Because elephants are uniformly mistreated in circus training and they're forced to perform," they tell us. And where's the evidence to support that? Elephant related accidents are relatively rare, and when they do occur those accidents are as likely to happen in a zoo (where the animals don't perform) as they are in a circus. Even PAWS acknowledges that a video they provide purporting to secretly document abusive training was more than ten years old and involved not a circus but a zoo

So it's not really about safety, it's about performing. The activists are outraged by the traditional role of animals under the bigtop because they find it demeaning. Not a "sexy" issue when your groups is pushing a legislative agenda.. PAWS founder Ms. Derby is quite up front on her internet site. Her desire isn't to protect human visitors to the circus, she wants to eliminate the traditional role of circus elephants. A PAWS celebrity appeal from actress Kim Basinger is particularly disingenuous. Ms Basinger may dislike the use of elephants in US circuses -- but she was perfectly comfortable working with circus elephants in South Africa during the shooting of a film there several years ago. Ms Derby would prefer to see elephants in the wild. Wouldn't we all. PAWS likes to trumpet violations of USDA Animal Welfare Act standards by circuses traveling with elephants, but a look at the actual violations cited reveals that most of these violations were minor, not unlike the several violations racked up by Pat Derby’s own sanctuary in Galt.

And then there's TAOS, the association of "sanctuaries" founded by PAWS guru Pat Derby. The pro-activist magazine Animal People's article base includes stories noting that several highly respected exotic animal shelters want nothing to do with TAOS and its autocratic dictates. And other award winning exotics programs are excluded from potential TAOS membership because they participate in American Zoo Association reproduction programs aimed at species survival. We can only infer that Derby's TAOS would rather see an animal become extinct than see it bred in captivity in an accredited shelter. Animal People further reminds us in their archives that PAWS Executive Director Derby lost a multi-million dollar libel judgement in August 1990 in a Nevada lawsuit brought by orangutan trainer Bobby Berosini. Derby was named in that suit along with PETA and others. Although the verdict was overturned upon appeal, apparently the 1990 jury decided that Derby and other activists weren't credible sources for information.

In recent years PAWS and Ms Derby have enjoyed some successes in "acquiring" elephants from Ringling Bros, in settlement for an ill-conceived espionage effort against the animal rights group, and from the San Francisco Zoo, which bowed to pressure for liberationist group and city council to give up its animals. How will the elephants do under Derby’s care? One zoo elephant has already been euthenized, according to Derby from the long term effects of captivity. Given her record one can’t be sure that that "bull" will be the only casualty. Derby rarely mentions how in her days as a trainer and operator of a roadside zoo in Buellton, CA another elephant in her care died in a barn fire.

PAWS would probably say, "at least it wasn’t the circus."

IDA. Northern California based In Defense of Animals is a true liberationist group dating from the early 1983. Founded by a small animal vet Eliot Katz, of Mill Valley, IDA avoids the outrage sometimes sparked by PeTA while touting a similar ideology. IDA frequently mounts protests against circuses and other animal attractions, and can often be found videotaping in close proximity to show animals while attempting to provoke violence from circus employees, rodeo participants, etc. IDA successfully joined in an effort to remove elephants from the San Francisco Zoo, and touts "protected contact" as the only legitimate means for elephant management. (Though to date no so-called "sanctuary" endorsed by liberationists is physically capable of sustaining a true protected contact environment.) To their credit, IDA is the only Animal Liberation organization funding habitat protection in Africa. IDA is currently at the forefront of efforts to outlaw the production foie gras, pushing through successful anti-pate legislation in Califonia. IDA’s militant promotion of a vegan lifestyle recently led them to crown a "Mr Vegan" Bodybuilder. On the circus front they seek to dissuade children from attending the circus through horror stories and anti-circus coloring books.

HSUS. The Humane Society of the United States is a mainstream animal welfare organization increasingly "radicalized" as liberationists gain control of local chapters. HSUS has supported anti-circus legislation. Like the ASPCA, in some communities HSUS is charged under contract with animal control, and regulation. HSUS inspectors on the local level are a frequent sight on show grounds.

(Reprinted with permission of Ben Trumble)

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