Animal Crackers

The AR Attack - Part 2

(continued from yesterday)

5) Approach law enforcement. This is the tipping point for the attack. The Animal Rights people take their "evidence" to law enforcement in an attempt to begin either an investigation or (better) have the target indicted outright. If the AR extremists play their cards right, they'll be able to divert primary attention away from the target's institution, and sharp-focus the law's attention on a human being himself. The role of the institution shifts, and it becomes not so much itself a target, but an institution that was brought into disrepute by the target - in essence, the institution and its members become innocent victims of the target's bad works.

Once the issue comes under the purview of the legal system, the AR people have already won, because a cascade of events will inevitably follow. For starters, the activists can step back and let the law, with all its officially impartial authority, do the heavy lifting. What this means is that the costs of the investigation of the target and/or his prosecution will be borne by the taxpayers, while the cost of defense is borne by the individual. The AR attackers are out precisely nothing.

For the AR advocates, the key to initiating the legal snowball's roll downhill is the nature of the "evidence:" it must appear compelling and unambiguous, so that law enforcement will find no reason to question its validity. This is precisely why the infiltrators took such care gathering "evidence" (eye-witness affidavits, photos, vet reports).

6) Public relations campaign. Once the legal system becomes involved, the AR people mount a public relations campaign to demonize and discredit the target. The PR campaign can take the form of demonstrations, picketers, press releases, radio and TV interviews and letters to the editor, and it is unspeakably cruel to the target, who can do little but watch helplessly as his reputation is savaged. In the best planned attacks, the PR campaign will be in place and ready to go before the actual attack is launched.

Of all the Animal Rights organizations, PeTA stands out for its ability to launch letter writing campaigns. As a relatively large organization, PeTA maintains a huge database of contributors and sympathizers, and can mobilize these people to write letters at a moments notice. To guard against letters that would strike an overly strident tone (and thus undermine the effort by portraying the target sympathetically), PeTA even offers to potential letter writers its Guide to Letter Writing.

Ideally for the activists, the PR attack would be prolonged over weeks or months. Its purpose is to make it appear that there is a spontaneous ground-swell of outrage against the "neglectful" or "abusive" target. Over time, this effectively isolates the target by eroding the support of people who initially were inclined to help him - and here, AR planners show their mastery of human psychology.

The success of a letter writing campaign depends upon authors strategically employing words like "neglect," "uncaring" and "abuse." When used in the context of animals (or children) to characterize a person, those descriptors carry tremendous moral weight, and the target, however innocent he might be, is helpless to prevent his reputation from being publicly savaged.

Even if he is completely exonerated, the accusations themselves will be remembered, and his reputation will be permanently besmirched. This effect is not lost either on the AR activists or on the target.

7) Isolation. Isolation of the target is a primary tactical goal of an AR attack, and is partly intended to intimidate and keep at bay any potential supporters of him (it is also intended to pressure him into voluntarily admitting guilt to avoid a trial - which seems hauntingly like the coerced self-criticism/confessionals in the Peoples Republic of China several decades ago). Being innocent and being under attack is bad enough, but watching friends and colleagues abandon you, and even turn on you as you are isolated, is yet another level of hell.

Initially, the attack prompts a bolus of support for the target by people who know him. But over time, support dissipates as the AR letter writing campaign has it's effects. As the letters attacking the target continue, people who once openly supported him have second thoughts and start asking themselves questions: "After all, how well did I know him? Maybe there is something to the accusations." As these questions arise, and as the negative PR continues, the concerns of supporters evolve, and former friends come to wonder how closely they want to be associated with the target: "What if he really is guilty? Do I really want to be closely associated with someone who others might believe abuses or neglects animals, even a little? Do I want to be guilty by association?" The answer is an obvious "no," and these people are likely to move from open support to guarded silence.

By focussing on the person, rather than on his institution, the AR folks can drive a wedge between the two. The target's colleagues come to see him as a liability - even if he is innocent, he's the source of bad publicity, which can hurt or even bring down an institution that depends completely for its survival on a positive public image.

So it becomes easy for those responsible for the institution, even former friends and supporters of the target, to now let the target fend for himself. They may see it as in their best interests to distance themselves from him, and they can easily come to believe that the sullied reputation of the institution can be repaired if they agree that the target did misbehave just a little, and outline corrective steps they will take to ensure that there will be no repetition.

And thus is the target completely isolated - almost literally thrown to the wolves - by former friends on the basis of their corporate decision to act in what they believe to be the best interests of the institution. The target now endures the hell of knowing that his innocence is irrelevant, but his guilt would actually serve the purposes of his former friends who have now turned their backs on him.

8) Conclusion. By now, the target may be hemorrhaging money to cover legal costs, is totally confused (few targets have any inkling at all that they are simply a pawn in an ideological battle), and is enduring a kind of private hell of self-doubt, self-hate, despair and utter hopelessness that is beyond imagination. (It is darkly ironic that people who claim to want a cruelty-free world would feel so free and work so hard to create such agony.)

What are the target's options? There aren't many. Even if a pre-indictment investigation should exonerate him, the AR people will claim that the investigation was a whitewash, and the issue could simmer on indefinitely, driven by AR propaganda, until the AR people decide that their interests are best served by letting the matter drop. In the meanwhile, not only will the target be savaged, but so too will those who investigate him and fail to conclude what the AR people want them to conclude. Regardless, the target's reputation will have been irrepairably damaged.

Should the target be indicted, he's faced with a devils choice. He can cop a plea, in which case he admits guilt, and the AR people claim victory. The target's reputation would be forever shattered, officially, by his own admission. After the fact, no amount of explanation, no facts, no logic can effect its repair.

The target can fight the charges in court, in which case he will pay his attorney handsome fees. If he wins, he is out the money and his reputation is still tarnished simply be being involved in such a tawdry affair. The AR activists may opt to claim this outcome to be a travesty of justice, and condemn the circumstances of the trial, perhaps calling for an investigation (it won't happen, but they don't care - they just don't want to let a decision against them stand uncontested).

If the target loses (a real possibility, because few lawyers are familiar with how AR attacks happen, and the Orwellian nature of an AR attack may well be beyond the comprehension and belief of a jury) then the target loses everything - reputation, legal fees and fines at the least. He may even serve time in jail. Like Humpty Dumpty, all the King's horses and all the King's men won't be able to put him together again.

To be continued ...

The AR Attack - Part 1

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) has struck again. In this case, the location is Amarillo. The facility under fire is the Amarillo Wildlife Refuge. And the human target is its owner, Charles Assopardi who, in spite of his defiant words, must be existing in a special kind of hell. But then, that's PeTA's plan. The organization that steadfastly promotes a "cruelty free" lifestyle has it's own ways of inflicting pain and suffering.

What struck me as remarkable about this story is its similarity to events I happen to have substantial first hand experience with. In fact, PeTA attacks are conducted according to a script, and it behooves all who work with animals at zoos, circuses, animal shelters, research institutions, animal breeders, etc. to be familiar with PeTA's game plan, both for one's own self preservation and to avoid being a party to the savaging of an innocent person.

1) Infiltration. PeTA operatives represent themselves as wanting to work with animals, either for pay or as volunteers. They generally do not reveal their affiliation with PeTA, or otherwise indicate that they are opposed to the institution they wish to join. But sometimes they do, and you employ such people at your own peril.

2) Gathering Information. Once inside, the operatives find ways to gather incriminating information to be used against the institution and (worse) against a specific individual. The operatives may surreptitiously remove records, but will certainly write daily narratives emphasizing neglect or abuse and take staged photos. The photos are a particularly important component of an attack because of their emotional impact and because they appear to validate the affidavits.

3) Remove animals. If possible, the operatives select animals that can be removed from the institution. Sometimes, the animals are removed secretly when the institution is closed and/or under cover of darkness. In other instances, the animals may be removed under false pretenses ("I want to foster the animal at home for a week").

Key to the success of this step is to select an animal that either is particularly sick or that can be made to appear so. A second key is to represent the state of the animal as being typical of those at the institution, and to suggest that the animal is getting no treatment or that treatment is substandard.

4) Take animal to veterinarian. The purpose of this is to strengthen the case of neglect or abuse by using the opinion of a disinterested authority. The vet might be an objective party, or not (a member of the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights would hardly be objective). The operatives may lie and claim ownership of the animal, telling the vet that they "rescued" the animal from neglectful or abusive conditions at the shelter. The results of the vet's examination and treatment will be used as evidence against the target. If the vet is a member of AVAR, he may be a willing accomplice. If not, the vet may have been duped.

The mere fact of an animals condition will usually be taken to indicate that the institution is responsible for that condition, or was not providing adequate medical treatment. The idea that the animal was being treated, or that the injury or illness was not due to institional neglect or abuse is simply not considered.

In practice, accusations are seldom verified, and the AR operatives count on this. And, when the process and charges become public, the accused somehow comes to be presumed guilty, and assumes the impossible burden of proving his innocence in what will become a media circus. This is all part of the plan.

To be continued ...

Wafting above their own moral absolutes

If you haven't yet marveled at how Animal Rights groups can waft above their own moral absolutes, consider this story.

In Portland, Australia, AR extremists fed shredded ham to sheep that were scheduled for export to the Middle East.

Their tactical goal was to render the sheep unacceptable for human consumption on two counts: first, out of concern for mad cow disease, Australian law forbids domestic consumption of animals that have been fed animal products. Second, by feeding ham to the sheep, the extremists hoped to take advantage of the Muslim prohibition against eating pork, and cause the shipment to be rejected.

Their strategic goal was to cripple the Australian meat industry. The weapons they used were Australian secular law and Muslim religious law.

It was initially unclear how many of the 70,000-plus sheep in Portland holding pens might have eaten the contaminated feed, but after a 2 week investigation that cost, by some estimates, $50,000 per day, officials concluded that "only" 1800 animals had eaten contaminated food.

Predictably, the 1800 contaminated sheep were destroyed while the remainder was finally shipped to the Middle East.

This is a typical example of AR extremists preaching a morality they do not practice. They roundly condemn humans for exercising dominion over animals, and they expand the definition of cruelty to include any human act that violates an animals natural right not to be exploited. The gold standard for their ideology is that if you wouldn't do it to another human being, you shouldn't do it to another sentient creature. Or at least, that's what they argue and would have us believe.

But in this case, the AR folks exempted themselves from their own moral absolutes: the Portland extremists exercised human domination over sheep, taking actions that insured that many were to die not for food, but for a greater ideological good (the destruction of the Australian meat industry).

I wonder - where is it written that the ideological "greater good" championed by AR zealots should trump an economic or gastronomic "greater good?" Which impartial agent would the AR folks recommend to arbitrate this question? And why should we look for moral guidance to people who so easily cast aside one of the pillars of their ideology out of expediency?

Beyond this, the actions of the Animal Liberationists made them parties to a killing of animals eerily similar to what Ingrid Newkirk of PeTA and other AR luminaries have previously condemned outright when done by their ideological opponents. But don't expect AR people to see the parallel.

If AR groups say anything about the complicity of AR extremists in the killing of the sheep, it will not be to condemn the perpetrators or their methods. At best, the AR apologists will simply "not condone" the methods, while "understanding" the motivations of the perps, virtuous as they would have us believe they are.

Brian