http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=1174



May 25, 2009 by Nathan J. Winograd

Over the years, Wayne Pacelle, the CEO of the Humane Society of the
United States, has shown how little he appears to care for animals. Time
and time again, he has taken positions that are the antithesis of what
you would expect from the head of the nation’s largest animal protection
organization. Time and time again, he has sided with regressive and even
cruel animal shelter directors, championed the killing of dogs and cats,
and worked to hinder the progress of the No Kill movement.

From Tangipahoa Parish, LA where he legitimized the unnecessary mass
slaughter of shelter animals to Wilkes County, NC where he embraced the
mass slaughter of dogs.

From San Francisco, CA where he fought shelter reform legislation which
would have saved lives to the post-Katrina Gulf Coast, where he claimed
“Mission Accomplished” and left with tens of millions in HSUS bank
accounts which belonged to the animals who continued to suffer.

From legitimizing a round up and kill campaign for cats in Randolph, IA
to fear mongering over the bird flu by telling people not to help, feed,
or touch stray cats but to call animal control when they see them,
agencies with a history of mass slaughter, even as the World Health
Organization was telling people cats posed no risk.

From New Orleans, LA after Hurricane Gustav where he fundraised off the
largest evacuation of animals in U.S. history conducted by a rescue
group by falsely claiming it was an HSUS effort, to Virginia where he
demanded that the Vick dogs be killed only to fundraise off of them by
telling donors that they were caring for them, when they were not.

Given a history of anti-animal positions he has taken, it would seem
unlikely that Pacelle could choose to do anything that would still have
the power to shock us. But I must admit that Pacelle stunned me with how
truly low and vile he has sunk with his latest scandal: helping Michael
Vick—the most notorious animal abuser of our time—reform his image.

On hearing the news of Pacelle’s embrace of Vick, Bad Rap, one of the
groups who helped care for Vick’s victims, responded:

I just can’t get myself away from the swimming pool in Vick’s yard. I
first learned about it while riding in the back seat of a federal
agent’s car that sweltering Tuesday back in Sept 07. The agent was
assigned with escorting us to the various Virginia shelters so we could
evaluate “the evidence” otherwise known as 49 pit bulls – now known as
cherished family pets: Hector, Uba, Jhumpa, Georgia, Sweet Jasmine and
the rest. I’m not sure if sharing insider information with us was
kosher, but you know how driving down long country roads can get you
talking. I imagine she just needed to get some things off her chest. She
said she was having trouble sleeping since the day they exhumed the
bodies on the Moonlight Road property. She said that when she watched
the investigators uncover the shallow graves, she was compelled to want
to climb in and pick up the decomposing dogs and comfort and cradle
them. She knew that was crazy talk, and she was grappling with trying to
understand such a surprising impulse.

Her candor set the tone for this entire saga. Everyone we worked with
was deeply affected by the case. The details that got to me then and
stay with me today involve the swimming pool that was used to kill some
of the dogs. Jumper cables were clipped onto the ears of underperforming
dogs, then, just like with a car, the cables were connected to the
terminals of car batteries before lifting and tossing the shamed dogs
into the water. Most of Vick’s dogs were small – 40lbs or so – so
tossing them in would’ve been fast and easy work for thick athlete arms.
We don’t know how many suffered this premeditated murder, but the damage
to the pool walls tells a story. It seems that while they were
scrambling to escape, they scratched and clawed at the pool liner and
bit at the dented aluminum sides like a hungry dog on a tin can.

I wear some pretty thick skin during our work with dogs, but I can’t
shake my minds-eye image of a little black dog splashing frantically in
bloody water … screaming in pain and terror … brown eyes saucer wide and
tiny black white-toed feet clawing at anything, desperate to get a hold.
This death did not come quickly. The rescuer in me keeps trying to think
of a way to go back in time and somehow stop this torture and pull the
little dog to safety. I think I’ll be looking for ways to pull that dog
out for the rest of my life.

So that’s where I’m at. A second chance for Vick? An HSUS sponsored
spokesman for ending torture? In my mind’s eye Vick is still in the
shadows at the side of that pool. As many times as this scene plays out
my head, he hasn’t yet moved towards that dog to pull him out. Not there
yet.

Even PETA, a butcher of a different sort, finally got it right:

To clarify misleading stories regarding PETA and Michael Vick, PETA
withdrew its offer to do a TV spot with Michael Vick last winter when a
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report on Vick’s dog fighting
activities revealed that he enjoyed placing family pets in the ring with
fighting pit bulls and that he laughed as dogs ripped each other apart.
PETA believes that this revelation, along with other factors in the
report, fit the established profile for anti-social personality disorder
(APD), and we called on Vick to have a brain scan to help confirm this.
People diagnosed with APD are commonly referred to as “psychopaths.”
They are usually male, prone to lying and manipulation, often take
pleasure in cruelty, and cannot feel genuine remorse, which frequently
leads to recidivism. PETA had previously been in talks with Vick’s
management, public relations, and legal teams about shooting a public
service announcement to help combat dog fighting, upon Vick’s release
from prison. In December, after consulting with psychiatrists, PETA
withdrew the offer for the TV spot, and in January, we called on NFL
Commissioner Goodell to require that Vick undergo a brain scan and full
psychological evaluation before any decisions were made about the future
of his football career.

Everything to Lose

When the Vick case occurred, the entire nation was horrified. The
public’s outrage was unequivocal. This was the correct response, and a
symbol of just how much people love dogs. But Pacelle, the leader of the
nation’s largest animal protection group, is asking people to question
that outrage and response. His actions threaten to paint a sympathetic
portrait of Vick, despite Vick’s true one-dimensional nature as a sadist
who takes pleasure in torturing and killing dogs.

Ultimately, the lesson this embrace of Vick imparts is that the brutal
abuse, torture, and killing of dogs is forgivable. That they are only
dogs. That the public’s response to the Vick horror was misplaced and
overblown. In the end, Pacelle is helping Vick create a false image of
himself as “reformed” so he can play in the National Football League
again; to avoid the consequences of his actions by getting back the most
important thing he cares about—even as he took away from many dogs the
thing that mattered most to them: their very lives.

After the depths of Vick’s depravity were fully revealed, the punishment
was swift and severe, as it should have been. He was banned from the
NFL. He was convicted by the federal courts. He was sent to prison. He
was bankrupted. He was despised by the American public. Now, Wayne
Pacelle is asking us to sacrifice this precedent. After all, if the head
of HSUS is willing to forgive, why shouldn’t the public and the NFL?

Are we really willing to lower the bar on how our society should react
to such blatant animal cruelty in order to help a vicious animal killer?
What could we possibly stand to gain that would be worth undoing that?
Are we really that gullible that we believe Vick can actually influence
people not to fight dogs? Are we really going to believe that a PSA or
neighborhood talk is going to make people who enjoy watching dogs tear
each other apart suddenly have a change of heart? Even if there were a
small chance that this was so, without integrity, the “lesson” he is
supposed to impart will fail. And it is no surprise that Pacelle can’t
anticipate this because he himself appears to lack sincerity for the cause.

So we are left with the question of whether we are really going to
accept a few meaningless PSAs and public appearances for an end to the
permanent, righteous consequences that Vick must endure by remaining
reviled as a monster; by never being reinstated in the NFL; by remaining
bankrupt so he cannot afford to rebuild the “Bad Newz Kennels.”

Working to dissipate the righteous anger, working to remove the
consequences of Vick’s actions, Pacelle is opening a new chapter to a
story that already had the best of possible endings our movement could
have hoped for: When Vick was caught torturing innocent animals for
sadistic enjoyment, he received a permanent and lasting punishment. He
lost his freedom, he lost his career, he lost his money, he lost his
reputation, he lost virtually everything. That is exactly how the story
should stay ended. And Pacelle’s actions threaten to undo it all.

Nothing to Gain

In the process, Pacelle is helping undermine that which we
achieved—showing dog fighters the high cost of punishment; sending the
message that dog fighting is unforgiveable and will be met with swift,
complete, and permanent recrimination.

To embrace Pacelle’s position, we have to believe that Vick has become a
repentant animal abuser who now wants to help dogs. To justify all that
we stand to lose as a movement—all the dogs stand to lose—we have to
believe that Vick holds the key to ending the scourge of dog fighting.
It would be foolish and naïve to do so.

Vick could not care less about stopping or preventing dog fighting. Vick
did not have a cathartic realization he was wrong. This isn’t some soul
searching effort to make amends. He got caught, pure and simple. Even
his guilty plea was not a sincere admission of guilt but a strategic
decision (given the overwhelming evidence and a certain conviction) to
avoid federal sentencing guidelines which would have locked him away for
far longer if he did not plead guilty. And even while he was pleading
guilty, he denied killing dogs. Had he not been caught, Vick would be
torturing and killing dogs, and taking great amusement in it, to this
very day. Our work is about protecting animals, not embracing their
abusers. And because our movement stands to gain nothing by this
association, Pacelle is asking us to sacrifice the former for the
latter. And in so doing, he is undermining our movement. Tragically, it
is not the first time.

Finding Our Voice

Through HSUS, Pacelle has:

* Participated in the slaughter of some 150 dogs, including
puppies, in Wilkes County;
* Lobbied to stop No Kill legislation in San Francisco;
* Lobbied to stop No Kill legislation in King County, WA;
* Supported breed discriminatory legislation in Indianapolis, IN;
* Told USA Today and Newsweek that killing in shelters is
acceptable and that No Kill was warehousing;
* Misled the public about an epidemic of dog bites to convey the
view that trying to save Pit Bulls was irresponsible and put children at
risk;
* Told the court to kill Vick’s victims even as he was asking
people to give HSUS money so he could “care” for them;
* Left New Orleans with tens of millions given to HSUS for the
victims of Hurricane Katrina even while those animals were still suffering;
* Legitimized the slaughter of virtually every animal at Tangipahoa
Parish animal control;
* Told people not to adopt animals during the holidays, effectively
accepting the deaths of 1,000,000 animals as the alternative;
* Told the Randolph, IA community that he did not have a problem
killing stray cats.

And now this. This unconscionable, abhorrent, and vile embrace of a
sadist who takes pleasure in the torture and killing of dogs.

This movement has been too forgiving of Pacelle. Time and time again he
has acted in a way that is the antithesis of what the leader of an
animal protection movement is supposed to do. Still, activists in this
movement fail to condemn him, even as he now asks us to embrace the most
notorious animal abuser of our time. To be equally forgiving of that
monster, as we have been of him.

Can anyone imagine the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
embracing wife killer O.J. Simpson as a spokesman? Can anyone imagine
the National Organization to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children embracing
pedophile John Geoghan as a spokesman? Can anyone imagine the Rape,
Abuse, and Incest National Network embracing rapist Josef Fritzl as a
spokesman? It is unthinkable. And yet we in the animal movement, under
Pacelle’s direction, are threatening to do this very thing, to having
our movement embrace our version of Simpson, Geoghan, and Fritzl as a
spokesman. It is beyond obscene. It is unthinkable.

When someone tells and shows us over and over who they are and what they
stand for, we should believe them. No one can doubt that Vick is a
monster. But sadly, despite the heartfelt pain expressed so eloquently
about the dogs drowning in Vick’s backyard while he sadistically enjoyed
himself, even Bad Rap, who deserves nothing less than unbridled
accolades over their role in saving some of those poor dogs, refuses to
see and condemn Pacelle for who and what he is. That is our movement’s
own myopia. Just because Pacelle claims to value animals and he works
for an organization with “humane” in its name doesn’t mean either is
true. His actions time and again belie both claims. Which is why Bad
Rap’s conclusion about Pacelle’s decision to embrace Vick as a spokesman
that they are “not there yet” is not enough. None of us should ever be
there. Ever.

If the dogs Vick tortured and Pacelle lobbied to have killed by the
court could speak on their own behalf, their condemnation would be
unequivocal. As they cannot, it is our solemn duty to do it on their
behalf. And it is a trust we must not betray in deference to the power
and position of those in our movement who abuse that power and betray
our cause. As with any social justice movement, progress requires us to
courageously defend what is right, even when doing so places us at odds
with those in positions of power. We must put our allegiances to our
ideals above allegiance to personalities and institutions. And this
compels us to expose, reject, and condemn those in our midst who
masquerade as leaders, such as Wayne Pacelle, but who use that power to
willfully undermine our goals.

It is time for Pacelle to resign. It is time for him to leave us, and
the animals, alone.

"Char" wrote in message
m...
http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=1174

So we are left with the question of whether we are really
going to accept a few meaningless PSAs and public appearances
for an end to the permanent, righteous consequences that Vick
must endure by remaining reviled as a monster; by never being
reinstated in the NFL; by remaining bankrupt so he cannot
afford to rebuild the “Bad Newz Kennels.”

--------------------------------------------------------------

Perhaps if Vick were required to donate 20% to 50% of his future salary
toward animal shelters, as a condition of reinstatement, it would be a
meaningful gesture and would substantially improve the lives of thousands
of animals. It may not exactly counterbalance the hundreds of dogs who were
abused and killed, but at least many more would have a chance they might
not otherwise have. The fact is that he is a top notch football player
(which, of course, may be due to his brutal nature). But as long as the
American public is willing to support blood sports and pay obscene amounts
of money for those who excel at legitimized violence on playing fields, we
might as well try to access some of that money to be used for good causes
rather than the personal aggrandizement and wasteful conspicuous
consumption that typifies many of these players.

Paul and Muttley