We sometimes tend to think of the Animal Rights movement as being monolithic, or of one mind, unwilling to speak evil about one of their own. For example, when Dr. Jerry Vlasak was booted from first the PCRM and later from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for his injudicious remarks (first, he opined that assassination was morally justifiable in the AR cause, then he openly advocated the practice), there was nary a criticism by PCRM nor SSCS, and Dr. Vlasak said nary an unpleasant word about them (at least no word that I'm aware of). Dr. Vlasak just disappeared quitely and without fanfare from both organizations.
But if you think about it, there are most certainly some rifts within the movement, there is some maneuvering for position: Friends of Animals, you may remember, was quick to take advantage of PeTA's publicty disaster (when two PeTA people were caught and charged with illegally killing animals and pitching their bodies into dumpsters), and condemned the pair's actions, while recruiting readers to their own cause (spaying and neutering). And then, there were the accusations of sexual misconduct leveled against Nathan Braun, who had his AR/vegetarian defenders as well as his detractors.
But gossip also exists, and we may see something truly amazing next year. Reader "David" called my attention to a piece by Robert Cohen, who is a virulent "anti-milk" person (you can track him here) and apparently has rubbed a number of AR rivals the wrong way, as they have him. Now, it seems Mr. Cohen has it in mind to publish a tell-all book about the personal indiscretions of Animal Rights luminaries, which is due out next year. He whets our appetite with some choice questions — and David speculates on the answers. (I've added my 2 cents worth, where I feel I have something to contribute.)
So here are the questions posed by Robert Cohen, and David's best guess answers.
Dirty Secrets of the AR/Veggie Movement - by Robert Cohen
We on our side of the fence are incessant critics of animal abusers. We bestow sarcasm upon meat producers and become amused each time one of them goes down with a case of heart disease, stroke, or cancer. Many of us profess ownership to the word 'compassion,' while at the same time we exhibit less tenderness and love than do our adversaries. We are equally imperfect for our lack of understanding. If only they knew the dirty secrets on our side of the fence. Perhaps they already do...
What powerful leaders of two separate and distinct AR/Veggie organizations have been a secret "couple" for the past six years, fearful of the day when the meat industry learns their secret and exposes each one's lack of independent thought and action?
Neal Barnard (PCRM) and Ingrid Newkirk (PeTA).
(Activist Cash points out that in 1995 Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People, claimed the two had lived together for many years and were lovers. Certainly, the corporate entities of PeTA and PCRM are intimately intertwined so if there was ever any doubt about the absence of "independent thought and action" before (and why should there be?), Cohen's book should put that doubt to rest.)
What famous so-called vegan doctor actually dines on turkey and ham a few times each year with his family at traditional holiday celebrations?
Michael Greger, MD.
(Greger was recently appointed to be HSUS's Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture. Here's what a recent AMP newsletter had to say about Dr. Greger:
Michael Greger, MD, who has just been named the HSUS Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture, is a longtime vegan/AR activist committed to animal liberation. From a 2002 AR convention speech: “The future of the animal liberation movement depends on our ability to unite with other social justice movements, and corporate globalization is the key bridging issue we’ve been waiting for all of our lives.”
The appointment of Greger, who gained notice when he appeared as a witness in defense of Oprah Winfrey when she was sued in the infamous 'meat defamation' case in the late 90s, and who has spent much of the past several years lecturing on vegan diets, also positions HSUS as a challenger to PCRM for media dominance on some nutrition issues.
Not listed in the HSUS news release below, among his many positions, Greger served as Farm Sanctuary's chief investigator of BSE, and is listed as an Honorary Board Member of the Center for Animal Liberation Affairs, along with Pamelyn Ferdin, the current president of SHAC,and her husband, Jerry Vlasak, MD, an activist who has repeatedly claimed there is moral justification to killing scientists who work with research animals. CALA is run by Animal Liberation Press Officer Steven Best.
Greger says, however, he is against violence and tactics of intimidation or harassment. At the 2004 AR convention, he questioned the effectiveness of the SHAC campaign and told activists, "A few pipe bombs are not going to topple a multibillion dollar industry. What they may do however is make our education efforts more difficult; it may further plant a wedge distancing our message from society...For the public, every time a person's kid's are threatened in the name of animal rights or a group pulls off some stunt degrading to women, these acts are taken as representative of our movement as a whole whether we like it or not."
Heh — well done, AMP.)
Cohen's next question:
What animal sanctuary owner euthanizes healthy animals at his famous country shelter in order to keep down costs?
David guesses Gene Bauston of Farm Sanctuary.
(If Cohen hadn't stipulated the masculine "his" sanctuary, I'd have suggested Ingrid Newkirk. PeTA's sanctuary kills animals in appalling numbers, including healthy, adoptable ones.)
Next question:
What bird rescue person uses donated funds intended to help egg layers and bribes conference organizers with thousands of sponsorship dollars (donated by others who care about the birds, not human egos) and then becomes a keynote speaker at those same conferences where additional funds are solicited?
Karen Davis.
(Davis is certainly a high profile amongst the "bird lovers," and the little jab about "human egos" fits well with my impression of her. This is but a taste of what I had to say about her essay "A Tale of Two Holocausts":
"A Tale of Two Holocausts" is tedious and pedantic, and weaves together cliched themes of Animal Rights moral equivalence with the fallacious logical operators of the sort "what if" "could well be" "some say" "can't show otherwise" "'can' equals 'should'" that wouldn't pass muster in any peer reviewed journal other than a post-modern rag specializing in the ivory-tower equivalent of "alien abduction" conspiracy theories ("You weren't there — I was abducted. Prove me wrong!"). "Two Holocausts" differs little from other such tracts either in its challenged logic or in pretentiousness, neither of which is an asset. But don't take my word for it — plod through the entire thing yourself.)
Next question:
What famous vegetarian nutritionist/author occasionally eats chicken when taking his wife out to dinner?
David thinks it might be Eric Marcus, who looks to me to be quite the self-promotor. But we'll need to await the book.
What food revolution author's book is filled with plagarized stories, and occasionally eats ocean fish with his very well-known so-called vegetarian son?
John Robbins and son Ocean.
(Ouch! Father John is author of "The Food Revolution"), and his son is Ocean Robbins. Ocean is co-founder of YES! (Youth for Environmental Sanity), a radical group that targets youth (duh!). In Ocean's words:
YES! has reached more than 620,000 people in more than 1,200 school assembly and conference presentations. YES! has also organized and facilitated 83 week-long camps and youth Jams for young leaders from 55 nations, published seven youth action guides, and led 150 day-long youth training workshops. Ocean has spent more 14 years as the primary fundraiser and administrator for this non-profit organization, which now has an annual budget of over $400,000. He has personally facilitated camps and workshops in Singapore, Costa Rica, Russia, Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, India, and across the USA.)
Next question:
What well-known AR advocate and conference organizer attends and lectures at bondage conferences, and has used leather whips and chains in intimate confrontations with his own female employees and with those he loves to dominate (or, dominates to love)?
Alex Hershaft of IVU (International Vegetarian Union).
(Hershaft seems to be into some pretty kinky stuff . . . Activist Cash has a piece on him here. Beyond this, Brian Carnell has an interesting post on Hershaft, dating to just after the infamous events of 2001, in which he quotes Hershaft saying:
Worldwide, every day, 125 million innocent, sentient animals are dreadfully abused and butchered for food.
These tragedies are perpetrated by a worldwide animal agricultural terrorist network that is much more threatening to planetary survival than the Al Queda network, because it kills more people and animals, because it kills them unrelentingly every day, because it is pervasive and accepted.
For every human being who dies of warfare, crime, or terrorism, 10,000 innocent, sentient animals die a violent death. A march/rally advocating nonviolence without an animal contingent would be greatly diminished.
Hershaft seems to be a real piece of work . . . )
Next Question:
What famous leader of a multi-million dollar AR industry/organization has been liberally padding his expense account for years?
David's best guess is Elliott Katz, from IDA (In Defense of Animals).
(Activist Cash points us towards Katz's ties to FARM (Farm Animal Reform Movement) — he is a Vice President of FARM — which organization seems to be funded by an industry with deep pockets:
It is widely believed that FARM gets most of its financial support from the organic- and natural-foods industries. At the 2001 “Meatout” event on Capitol Hill, for instance, vegetarian and “fake meat” dishes were served along with glossy advertisements of products from Fantastic Foods, Veggie Patch, and LightLife. Visitors were handed cents-off coupons for these three name-brand products at the end of the buffet line. All three also advertise on FARM’s “Great American Meatout” web site, and FARM actively promotes a total of 19 similar brands.
Purely apart from whether Katz is on the take — my jury is still out — it's interesting to me how close FARM is to profit-hungry business interests, and I'd think that the AR crowd would be concerned about a fairly obvious conflict of interest, given how often they use the appearance of mixed loyalties to tar their opponents. Oh well.)
Those who you thought were saints. Those who you imagined to be the ideal. Nobody is perfect. Nobody is spared.
Inspired by Jim Bouton's tell-all baseball locker room best seller (Ball Four), you'll be reading all about the Vegetarian and AR movement's dirty secrets in great detail, in the soon-to-be published (2006) book, "Fowl Ball; Bawl For."
In three days, the annual animal rights party begins in the city of angels. See:
http://www.arconference.org [Obviously, the conference has concluded . . . ed]
Hundreds of passionate, altruistic activists will sit at the feet of a few caring leaders and dozens of egotists who live for that greatest of aphrodisiacs, the microphone.
The good people will be fooled and will stand up to cheer the eloquence of the bad and the ugly who are only in it for the money. The theme of the conference will be "compassionate slaughter." All will dance at the illusion of change, while most will drink long into the night at the hotel bar to forget why they are there. The animals would snicker at the irony of compassionate slaughter, and condemn the nescient nature of man's folly.
So there you have it — the last paragraph sounds pretty angry to me — as if typed from the keyboard of a person jilted, discarded, unappreciated, someone who's reached the point where he decided to remedy the situation. His book should make for interesting reading, all the more so to test the guesses here against the specifics of Cohen's accusations.
If nothing else, what with ALF and SHAC running around doing "direct actions," Mr. Cohen has shown he doesn't lack cajones.
Thanks to David for providing the link and the speculation.
Brian