Yes, Virginia, there are liberal anti animal rights advocates.

In general, most staunch animal welfare anti animal rights supporters are conservatives, but there are a few of us who are progressives politically and do not support animal rights. We are few and far between, but we do indeed exist. It can be problematic to be pro animal welfare and liberal. We have to endure rabid gun rights advocates who equate legislation that is harsh for animal owners to legislation that they FEAR will take away their gun rights. Side note: President Obama has actually been more conservative in allowing gun control measures than any other Democratic President and even more so than the former Republican President. However, he is constantly accused of getting ready to slip into your home and have federal anti gun troopers come and take your guns.

During the last campaign everyone of us got emails claiming that Barack Obama wasn't born in the US, or that he was a secret Muslim, or he was secretly a communist, fascist, socialist, a radical black activist who was trained by that radical Rev Wright. How he could be a secret Muslim and a trained radical attending a CHRISTIAN church was never addressed in any logical manner of course. How his mother and state of Hawaii had determined prior to his birth that he would someday run for President and so colluded to falsify his birth was never addressed in any logical manner, either.

My point here isn't to harp on our political climate - most of those who follow this blog know I am a dyed in the wool liberal and and equally a dyed in the wool animal welfarist. Recently on a social networking site some "friends" posted a video entitled "Ringling Bros Over the Top Circus Cruelty" with a link to a website titled "Ringlingbeatsanimals". When one goes to that website you see a video that starts with the word PETA and has several other links to PETA productions and websites. The video itself shows two individuals in particular that appear to beating and whipping the elephants into submission. HORRIBLE, terrible - animal cruelty should never be condoned, but honestly coming from PETA I don't trust this video. One of them used what looked like a riding crop. Elephants have very thick skin, I seriously doubt that the elephant noticed the riding crop.

PETA has proudly proclaimed over the years that they have no compunction about editing videos to make them appear worse. After 10 years of suing Ringling Brothers the HSUS and friends lost their suit. It seems the person filming the videos had been paid over $100,000 to "get the goods" on Ringling Bros. The judge dismissed the case. Ringling Bros has now filed a RICO suit against HSUS.

When I pointed out that the video was PETA produced and consequently lacked credibilty there was a hue and cry from my liberal cohorts. I was slammed for using the word "use", I was reviled for not jumping on the bandwagon of anti animal cruelty! I explained that as progressives hadn't we seen the results of passing on innuendo and supposition in the recent Presidential campaign? Hadn't we loudly shouted about certain misinformed people talking about "death panels" and that people would be put in prison if they didn't have insurance? Again, I was told that had no bearing on this incident.

WRONG - if we as liberals or conservatives are to win the war against animal rights it behooves us to object to anything that isn't factual, relies on supposition and innuendo. Those of us progressives against animal rights must apply the same strict adherence to FACT that we insist on in our political views. Conservatives must steer away from fear mongering without fact as well. The poster of the video claimed she didn't realize it was a PETA video - how that is possible when PETA is the first word seen on the video, I'm not sure.

Not one liberal on the thread was willing to acknowledge the true agenda of AR, in fact most were proud pet owners! How can we get through to an entire group of people who are blindly supporting two powerful groups who want to end the entire animal/human bond when they can't see past the propaganda. With one exception all on the thread agreed that while they didn't think PETA always did things correctly, they really helped animals. Again, I was chided for trying to turn the thread into a PETA bashing experience.

A recent post on HumaneWatch.org is all about the founder of the HSUS being a (hold your breath now) COMMUNIST! The blog post is McCarthyism at it worst - it pulls at the worst fears of a fearful and shameful era in the US. I don't like to think that we need to use the same fear mongering tactics that HSUS and PETA use. HSUS and PETA are bullies, I think we can do better than that. The AG community is stepping up, but the fancy needs to now as well. We are seeing some movement, but as a group we need to make sure we put out FACT, not emotional rhetoric. We need to educate and we need to take every opportunity to get the truth out there. Recently on one of the pet law lists a member posted a well written, well thought out letter that she sent to all the major networks. It was a great idea. NAIA is putting out great info with their billboard campaign. A new movie being promoted is heavily slanted to pro AR and part of the profit is going to HSUS. We blew an opportunity a few years ago with Molly Shannon's Year of the Dog. The producer was inundated with so many foul, nasty emails, threatening and insulting that he actually became a PETA supporter! We havce a second opportunity with the new J-Lo film, let's not blow this one!

Liberal or conservative, we as animal lovers and owners must pull together and present a well educated, sane, and compassionate picture to get our message across. I won't be able to be at the local Springfest in May, but am getting a booth at the one during the 4th of July. I plan on having brochures, dogs, kids and whoever I can find to support the human/animal bond and counteract the AR agenda.

 

Clarkens Don't Stop Me Now - Harry.

Harry is being dried off after being forced to walk in the rain. You can see his poor suffering face. What a ham!

Comments

[Bill]

Great blog! You are 100% dead on target. Keep up the good work.

[Pemmom]

Thanks, Bill! I'm doing my best!

[Laura Sanborn]

"In general, most staunch animal welfare anti animal rights supporters are conservatives"

I'm not sure I agree with that. I worked with many people in the fight against AB 1634 and SB 250 (mandatory spay/neuter bills) in California. Politically, this is an incredibly diverse group of people. If I had to guess I'd say they reflect what we see in the California electorate overall -- lots of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.

It's certainly true that many anti-AR discussion groups and forums are weighted more toward conservatives. But I'd argue that's because the frequent anti-Democratic rants have chased many liberals away. I've quit some discussion groups because of these rants, and barely read others for the same reason.

[Pemmom]

While that may be true in CA, it's not elsewhere. I'm on Pet-Law and actually started my own list because of the serious right lean on that list. However, HumaneWatch.org can't be called anything but conservative as is BlueDog. I don't mean to generalize, but the vast majority of those who I've posted with on the anti side are hard core right leaning folks.

I also saw and continue to see a lot of those protesting AR meetings along side our "friends" the Tea Party. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one Laura.

[Laura Sanborn]

The yahoo pet-law list cannot be used to get an accurate measure of the political leanings of the anti-AR forces. The list owner is right leaning and has allowed that list to be taken over by right-leaning diatribes, including his own. It's a 100% moderated list, and yet all manner of O/T right wing rants get posted. Many liberals have either quit that list or rarely if ever post.

This isn't about California vs. elsewhere. It's about the tendency of a small percentage of those on the right to hijack the anti-AR movement for their own partisan political purposes, and they don't care that their actions are undermining the anti-AR cause.

California's main pet legislation discussion list was ruined by right-wing rants. It is now so far to the right it's basically an adjunct of the Tea Party movement.

We had to start a new California animal legislation list where partisan political rants are not allowed in order to have a constructive discussion list.

While many of the email lists get dominated by right wing venting, the real measure of who is effectively involved in these fights is found elsewhere.

Look at the people who actually write the letters, who make the phone calls, who show up at legislative hearings, who visit legislators' offices, and who lead these fights. That's where the REAL action is, these are the people doing the effective work. From that perspective it's a very diverse group of people politically.