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Originally Posted by ALostTexan
I heard a great talk earlier this year about the difference in "Animal Welfare" groups and "Animal Rights" groups (aka PETA). A great website was mentioned called ActivistCash.org which shows a great deal of what is behind groups like PETA and HSUS.
Definately worth a look... |
Good point...there is a huge difference between animal welfare and animal rights, I am a huge advocate of the former and not the latter.
As Mumtaz has mentioned PETA, although extremely vocal and rely upon theatrical rallies to garner attention, are not well represented in DC mainly because they are associated with ALF and ELF and listed on the FBI's most dangerous domestic terrorist groups.
BUT as Mumtaz has mentioned there are more powerful mainstream groups such as the HSUS. Wayne Pacelle is a great face for them, he is articulate, well versed in politics and very charismatic. I actually met him during Katrina and as much as I hate his politics it was very hard not to like him.
I strongly urge everyone to visit their websites. I do subscribe to these groups in order to know what is the next thing they want to do away with. They are very good at what they do. It starts with a little thing, no one really pays attention and then they chip away, and chip away. They tag legislation onto very odd bills, they lobby daily in every state and the Fed.
And as far as their "talking points" well we need to bring up how these groups have huge budgets for lobbying yet still retain their 501C3 status. They don't contribute to animal rescue, although unfortunately I have to say that HSUS does have a pretty good disaster response team, although the monies they recieved during Katrina cannot be balanced with what they spent.
If we can do anything in a small part attention needs to be drawn to these groups and the literally millions they recieve and how much lobbying they do. Point you cannot maintain a 501C3 if you spend a certain portion on lobbying. I don't know the exact figure but these groups are spending well over what the law states the may use.
Please visit these sites, subscribe so you know what is going on. I would be willing to bet that PETA has recieved "donations" in the area of 50k to 100k since that mailing Steve posted. Their main theme is to ban the exploitation of animals, so they turn around and exploit Eight Belles death. I am sickened over this. The minute they said something had happened I got that pit in my stomach, here we go again, and now it's on NBC.
Alternatively, I have actually seen Eight Belles in person at the Fairgrounds. She was a beautiful, huge, fast filly and grey, love the greys. It was so much fun to see her win by 15 lenghts at the Fairgrounds. I have met Larry Jones and his wife, they are great horsemen. I had bets on her. As all in the racing community I am truly saddened by her death, but I will remember that day she won by 15 lenghts. She did die doing something she loved to do, unfortunately the animal rights groups don't understand that.
If you don't pay attention and we ignore them, PETA, HSUS, UAN, Best Friends, et al, we will lose. I personally don't have a problem with synthetics if the track requires a surface change, some do. But as California did knee jerk reaction to make it a LAW. I can base it on my own track, while accidents occur, the Fairgrounds is usually a pretty safe surface, we are on silt, a natural cushion. So should we be mandated to change because the bunny huggers are exploiting a tragic event?
I urge everyone to be informed how insidious these groups, visit these sites.
And thank you to Steve for all his comments on the talk show. It takes a voice, they have millions we have a few and Randy Moss sold us out.
http://news.bestfriends.org/index.cf...3A8DBBA531A041
http://www.hsus.org/ see the blog
http://www.hsus.org/horses_equines/
http://www.peta.org/
http://www.uan.org/ they have nothing on their site, but I've already recieved an e-mail from them, got in an arguement with them.