M

Hi! i'm M. I set up this page initially to see if i could, and also to practice as i was planning on setting up a page for one of my groups. I am fairly new to animal "rights" (best description i have at the mo). After looking around some of the sites etc i decided to set up a site aimed at a 'wider audience' - for people who wouldn't necessarily look at an 'animal rights' site, and probably hit the 'back' button if they happened upon one by chance and saw the pictures a lot of them show. Also to try and dispell this stereotypical portrait of an animal rights enthusiast being ‘smelly-hippies’ and ‘freaks’ – they are not! Look at my ‘friends’ at the bottom of this page, these are beautiful people with beautiful souls! There is nothing ‘freakish’ about them – so please banish any preconceived negativity towards them and their beliefs and listen to the facts they have with an open mind.
Basically this is me "'aving a reet ol'rant " about a few issues i have looked into!!
. . . and regarding MySpace - if you request to be my friend at least have some information on your page! not just lots of pictures of girlies in bikinis!! and for gods sake speak properly!!! i got this the other day "I LIKE TO TILL U U HAVE NAIC EAYS" FFS - there is no text limit here so no excuse (besides this has almost the same amount of characters!) also - stop requesting when you have pictures of you fishing etc!! read below!!!
Also - i have now succumed now and got a face book page!!!

My Awakening
My interest in animal rights was a sort of 'awakening' that happened about 2 years ago (see my blog " My Epiphany" ). Through researching, reading, getting involved with groups, watching programmes and attending demos etc i have started to educate myself on these issues. I am currently a vegetarian - and trying to be a vegan (but admittedly finding it very difficult). I had always loved animals and hated any sort of cruelty towards them but was blinkered to the bigger picture outside the 9 o'clock news.

My personal opinion now, is that it is a sin to close your eyes to it. Many religions include variations of this theme the most well know to me was the good samaritan story. So many people claim to be 'good' and 'ethical', attend church on a sunday etc and yet walk around the supermarket picking up items that were put there through huge suffering either by animals or people. I honestly believe that when this is all over - if we meet our maker and there is any form of 'judgement' it will be a bit like the law - in that ignorance is not a defence.

Don't get me wrong, i understand people will think of me as hypocritical as i'm not a vegan, however two years ago i ate meat regularly - in fact my favourite meal was always peppered steak. I brought any cosmetic that came out no matter who made it, i owned a real fur jacket (granted it was a 70s style second hand one), i bought leather boots, bought any cleaning product etc that i wanted and i have even eaten fois gras! Now i'm a vegetarian, i 'avoid' dairy if i can, I don't wear leather and i have done research to try and buy as ethically as possible and boycott many companies now.

Choice
I don't feel its a 'sin' for countries in the third world etc to eat meat because sometimes they literally don't have a choice - its for survival - like in the animal kingdom. A lot of people seem to use animal analogies when debating, pointing out that 'animals eat each other so why can we eat them?' The point here is that animals don't have a choice. Quite simply we can exist without killing other sentient beings to survive - therefore we are making the choice to. I also believe that educated people are worse offenders - as they should know better basically, but again this comes from wearing the blinkers again!

It really doesn't take much to check who the companies are that still testing on animals just so they can re-market their products as "NEW" or "IMPROVED", my god, we introduce so many chemicals into the environment now - do we still need new ones? - i mean come on, a odour eliminator to put in your dishwasher? come on people?

God ?
I am currently stuck between two beliefs, one is that there is no god and everything just evolved. This involves a lot of belief in everything being in exactly the right place at the right time - in fact to such an immense extent that it literally commands a consideration of a godly intervention. The other is that nature is bursting with such complex relationships and synchronicity that it is believable that a god created it. If there is a god, i cant for a second believe that he created each individual, intricate living creature, gave them feelings and allowed them to feel pain if he intended us to mass farm, torture and kill them. As per the 'joke' advert i made for L'oreal (below) - for anyone who believes in any form of judgement when we die - you cant believe that "because i'm worth it!" is going to be acceptable?

The bible says "thou shalt not kill", it doesn't specify species.

Human Virus
When looking at the 'there is no god' idea, it becomes more and more acceptable to believe in the 'human virus'. The idea that human beings are a virus on the planet. We behave like a virus and have the characteristics of a virus. We spread, infecting every corner of the globe, destroying everything in our path, devouring the planet with no conscience. We have even started to colonise the depths of the ocean and it wont be long until we seriously consider infecting other planets i'm sure! Even disease, illness and mother nature cant keep us restrained - we are the equivalent of a superbug!! This will of course end when we have destroyed the planet we live on - lets just hope, for the universe's sake that this will contain the infection! In the same vein, note that animals have only the number of offspring that the food supplies and resources allow, whereas we procreate constantly adding to the problem daily.

Evolution
As civilisation evolves we 'generally' realise that barbaric practices of old, are not acceptable. Civilised people now understand that the colour of your skin, your sex, your race, your religion and whether you are abled bodied or not doesn't make a difference to the person you are. Slavery has 'mostly' been abolished, women have the vote, people with disabilities don't appear in circuses any more etc. We need to evolve more and realise that we have choices, we don't need to use animals to eat, experiment on or entertain us - get a Wii ffs! Personally i believe that in the future the abuse of other sentient beings will be viewed like slavery - as an 'old barbaric practice, before we knew better' - however i don't know if the planets got long enough left before a lot of these decisions are taken out of our hands as the planets destruction starts.

Survival
Going back to the animal analogy people band about, when a cheetah kills an antelope it does it for survival only. It will only kill what it needs, if it didn't kill, it's cub will die. If you could prosecute the cheetah, the court would let it off on the grounds of diminished responsibility, as they don't 'know' they are 'killing'.

Superheros
Humans have imagined Superheros for years and many of the qualities they bestow on them are the attributes of animals, their 'gifts' if you like. In ancient times aphrodisiacs were often concocted from animals to evoke their 'gifts'! I believe that as humans, our gift is our ability to choose, to not be solely governed by instinct and as such, some people choose to use their gift for 'good' and others for 'bad'. One of my friends gave me a visualisation i like of humans being the 'protectors' of all living things, that that was our gift - to watch over and protect all things and i think this is a lovely idea.

Intelligence
Many people cling to the "intelligence" argument when justifying the abuse of animals, especially in experimentation. But if you look into this argument where does that leave less intelligent human beings? There are cases where humans with brain injury etc are less intelligent than some primates etc - so would that make it more ethical to experiment on the human with the brain injury than the primate?

"Celebs"
One of my pet peeves is 'bad-celebs' like JLo and Beyonce. People who have a 'celebrity' status, wealth, nice cars, nice home, protection and all the basic human needs several times over, any yet are despicable human beings! Beyonce in particular harps on all the time about god, and yet chooses to use real fur obtained from horrific means in her clothing range simply to increase her profit? and from a non-animal point of view she also frequents, and therefore perpetuates, the whole 'gun' and 'gang' culture though her music and associations. She can 'thank god' till the cows come home - but she aint gona explain that away at them pearly gates!! Celebrities have the choice to appreciate their fortune and become invaluable role models, or not. This in its self is an immense gift - for example, if i stand up and say i'm boycotting Iams as they abuse and torture animals, a few people will listen but if a 'celeb' like Beyonce did - thousands and thousands of people would hear and statistically this would convert more more people to the same thinking!

Options
In this day and age we have more alternatives than ever before. You can be perfectly healthy, in fact more so if you read a lot of the research if you stick to a vegan diet (see blog 'Avoid Meat Says Government' , 'Fight Global Warming by Going Vegetarian' etc). We ha ve a lot of alternatives to experimenting on animals - see Dr Hadwen Trust site. And as for entertainment - we have more sports/music/concerts/video games/dvds/books/pubs&clubs/shopping etc etc etc than ever before! There was a video on here (myspace) the other week of a sloth that was being passed to tourists to hold on a beach somewhere! needless to say i wrote a comment about how despicable this was. A few other people were too but on the whole most people were fawning and coo'ing about how 'sweet' it was. This lack of intelligence still astounds me, a lot of the comments were even slagging off the people pointing out how wrong it was. Again this comes back to education, people who choose not to see the truth behind how these animals are captured from their natural environments, parents probably shot or snared, taken as young, keep by individuals who don't have the knowledge to look after them and probably don't care as they are a money making gimmick, not to mention the fact that they are endangered! However if stupid, ignorant tourists wouldn't go to them - and instead make a stand and say its wrong -they would have to stop as it wouldn't be worth it for them. The stupid b*tch perpetuating this behaviour by not only participating in this exhibition but also putting the video on here to 'promote' it even had the cheek to say she loved animals!

"Your dog, my child"
The animal v human test argument is another one. The usual line i get is something along the lines of 'it's ok to kill a hundred mice to cure cancer' etc or the age old 'your dog, my child' (see bolg What People Say and Steve Best article " My Dog or Your Child ") See the Dr Hadwen trust page for details of alternative research methods etc. Think about it - we all know about the huge media hype about the TGN1412 trial - the drug was given to humans and almost killed them even thought is was to be safe in monkeys and mice with a much higher dosage. There are many, many other instances similar to this where the results in humans are drastically different from the effects on animals for example :

* Less than 2% of human illnesses (1.16%) are ever seen in animals. Over 98% never are.
* At least 50 drugs on the market cause cancer in lab animals. They are allowed because it is admitted that animal tests are not relevant.
* When asked if they agreed that animal experimentation can be misleading because of anatomical and physiological differences between animals and humans, 88% of doctors agreed.
* Rats are 37% effective in identifying what causes cancer in humans. Flipping a coin would be more accurate.
* According to animal tests lemon juice is deadly poison, but arsenic, hemlock and botulin are safe.
* 40% of patients suffer side effects as a result of prescription treatment.
* Over 200,000 medicines have been released most of which are now withdrawn. According to the World Health Organisation, 240 medicines are essential.
* Thousands of drugs passed safe in animals have been withdrawn or banned due to their effect on human health.
* Aspirin fails animal tests, as do digitalis (heart drug), cancer treatments, insulin (causes animal birth defects), penicillin and other safe medicines.
* They would be banned if results from animal experimentation were accurate.
* When the producers of thalidomide were taken to court, they were acquitted after numerous experts agreed animal tests could not be relied on for human medicine.
* At least 450 methods exist with which we can replace animal experiments.
* Morphine puts humans asleep but excites cats.
* 95% of drugs passed by animal tests are immediately discarded as useless or dangerous to humans.
* One is six patients in hospital are there because the drug they have taken had been passed safe for us on humans after animal tests.
* Worldwide, at least 22 animals die every second in labs. In the UK one animal dies every five seconds.
* The contraceptive pill causes blood clots in humans but it had the opposite effect in dogs.
* We use aspirin for aches and pains. It causes birth defects mice, rabbits and rats.
* Researchers refused to believe that benzene could cause cancer in humans because it failed to in animal tests.
* Dogs failed to predict heart problems caused by the cardiovascular drugs encainide and flecainide, which led to an estimated 3,000 deaths in the USA.
* Heart by pass surgery was put on hold for years because it didn't work on dogs.
* If we had relied on animal tests we would still believe that humans don't need vitamin C, that smoking doesn't cause cause cancer and alcohol doesn't cause liver damage.
* It was denied for decades that asbestos caused disease in humans because it didn't in animals.
* Polio researchers were mislead for years about how we catch the disease because they had experimented on monkeys.
* As one researcher points out, the ultimate dilemma with any animal model of human disease is that it can never reflect the human situation with complete accuracy."

So ask yourself, if this is the case - there is a very strong likelihood that somewhere cures have been found but because it killed rounds and rounds of cats, for example, it was binned or discontinued. Also due to the irrelevance of a lot of the research - we are probably looking in all the wrong areas. If you, or a member of your family, or a loved one, or a friend has a terminal condition etc - you should not be turning on animal right activists and saying things like "if you had some one you loved dying of [whatever], you would understand!" you should instead be turning on the scientists and asking why they are not performing more accurate non-animal research with your tax pounds that has more likelihood or finding cures! See information from Europeans for Medical Progress . It is the scientists and the government who are allowing these people to die. To help you visualise this think of the members of various animal rights organisations, working tirelessly, for free, from their own homes and in their spare time to aid their cause and juxtapose this to the billionaires who own the pharmaceutical companies and ask your self what are the motives behind what they do?

Choice again
Another pet hate of mine is the slagging off of 'ill' people who support animal rights. I do not believe it's hypocritical for a cancer sufferer for example to accept drugs to help them. Basically it comes down to choice again - the sufferer doesn't have the choice to bob down to Boots to get the chemo off the shelf and choose the one that hasn't been tested on animals - as there simply isn't one. I believe it would be wrong for them to deny themselves the treatment when it could help them continue fighting for animals. It would be a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face - it wont help the cause if you're dead. Drugs are not like lipsticks - you cant choose the ones that haven't been tested on animals. The way some things are heading - getting 'anything' that hasn't been tested on animals is going to be impossible with the introduction of the REACH programme and such like - but we can try our best.

Responsibility
I believe it's a parents responsibility to educate their children in ethics etc. think of it like this - there is a likelihood that you could be saving their souls!

The Clash
Yet another pet hate of mine (am i beginning to sound bitter yet?) is the 'clash' between groups within the animal caring world. People slag off PETA for their inconsistencies and now BUAV have some controversial issues however this is a waste of energy. I see it a bit like a war on animal abuse, and this means having fighters at every level. Yes we need the 'foot soldiers' of the grass roots and direct action campaigners but we also need the 'big guns' and 'propaganda machines' of organisations like PETA etc. The smaller organisations would not have the financial capability to promote such huge advertising campaigns against celebrities etc and on the reverse, the larger campaigns probably cant afford the luxury of pure ethics? i'm not saying the 'issues' are acceptable, but war is dirty and publicity plays a huge part! We need action at all levels.

The Link
It has been widely documented that there is a link between cruelty to animals and sex offences / murderous etc, so this is obviously proof that it is an extremely deviant behaviour.

* Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s first victims were the dogs he killed, severing their heads for a macabre display behind his childhood home.

* School shooter Luke Woodham, who killed two classmates and his mother in 1997, wrote in a journal about killing his dog by setting her on fire, a violent act he called “true beauty.”

* “Vampire cult leader” Rod Ferrell, who is serving a life sentence for the bludgeoning death of a Florida couple, first drew the attention of law enforcement in Kentucky, where he was charged with breaking into an animal shelter where two puppies were tortured, killed and mutilated.

* Of all the women who enter shelters to escape abuse, 57 percent have had a pet killed by their abuser.

* Patrick Sherril, who murdered 14 co-workers and then killed himself, stole pets, then tied them up and allowed his own dog to mutilate them.

* David Berkowitz, the so-called "Son of Sam," shot his neighbour's labrador retriever.

* Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler," shot arrows into boxes of trapped cats and dogs.

* Brenda Spencer, who fired 40 shots into a crowd of children, murdering 2 and wounding 9, had a history of setting the tails of neighbourhood cats and dogs on fire.

* Edmund Emil Kemper III, who murdered his mother and 7 other women, used to abuse cats and dogs.

* Carol Edmund Cole, who murdered 35 people, admitted that his first violent act was strangling a puppy.

* Richard Allen Davis, kidnapper and murderer, doused cats with gasoline and set them on fire. (see ArkOnline.com )

A recently published book by University of South Florida professor Kathleen Heide and animal activist Linda Merz-Perez provides new research into the connection. The study of 45 violent inmates in Florida prisons and 45 prisoners serving time for drug and property offences found more than half of the violent offenders had committed animal cruelty as children. By comparison, just 20 percent of the nonviolent offenders had a history of attacking animals.

Heide is a criminologist who has drawn national acclaim for her 20 years of research into children who kill. Merz-Perez, who now lives near Vancouver, Wash., said she proposed the project after spending 10 years as a public school teacher and also as an animal shelter director who saw the aftermath of animal cruelty cases (see AnimalsVoice.com )

"According to a 1997 study done by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and Northeastern University, animal abusers are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people and four times more likely to commit property crimes than are individuals without a history of animal abuse. Many studies in psychology, sociology, and criminology during the last 25 years have demonstrated that violent offenders frequently have childhood and adolescent histories of serious and repeated animal cruelty." (see PetAbuse.com )

Reduction of Suffering
Another issue for me is the 'reduction of suffering' arguments. Many animal rights organisations will have nothing to do with these. For example 'more humane' killing methods. An analogy i once heard was that of a paedophile - you know what they are doing is very wrong, and wouldn't find it acceptable for people to be offering to give the kids toys before he starts to make it more pleasurable, or ensure that it didn't last too long etc. So its not acceptable to give a cow a field to graze in first before it is shot with a bolt through it's head, or say that you can only sew the kittens eyes up and perform experiments on it one day of the week etc. I have had a couple of wobbles over the reduction of suffering issue as if i was a chicken waiting to be part of a bargain bucket - i would have already lead my short, drug filled life in a horrifically crowded barn, never seeing daylight, walking around on the bodies of my dead and deformed neighbours and probably had my beak sawn off without aesthetic, if i had a choice i would prefer to end it by being gassed rather that hung upside down by my feet in metal clasps, watching all my panicked neighbours in the same situation all terrified and squawking, being dipped into a vat of water and after the electric shock didn't quite work having my head cut off while fully conscious or being scaled alive.

Royal Disgrace
I think our Royal Family are a disgrace and another example of people with power, abusing it and being terrible role models. They are a bunch of blood-thirsty, out of touch neanderthals. Below are just a few of their many crimes along with the use of real bear fur for the guard's headdress, the many many shoots they participate in, not to mention the countless horse racing events they attend ( Prince Charles and Camilla were asked by animal rights campaigners to boycott the Cheltenham Festival in which 8 horses died, but the royal couple turned up for the event). Diana was the only decent one, refusing to attend a hunt and expressing her disapproval of her sons involvement - and yet they do!

Get Involved - it's easy to be a desktop activist!

There are plenty of sites with details of how you can help various campaigns (below are a few examples). You can help by writing letters and emails - if you set up some templates in areas like 'hunting' or 'fur' with basic arguments and facts, quotations etc and then personalise them to the particular cause. Try and do a letter a day in your lunch break! But remember be polite and use a spell check!

Action Alerts
www.circuses.com/getactive.asp
www.vgt.at/actionalert/circus/todo/index.php?country=uk
www.ifaw.org/ifaw/general/default.aspx?oid=17846
www.animalactivist.com/actjoin.asp
www.peta.org/alert/index.asp
www.peta2.com/TAKECHARGE/t-onlineact.asp
http://wspa.org.uk/takeaction.asp
www.caughtintheweb.co.uk/c.omL4KkN2LtH/b.981627/k.327C/Take_ Action/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx
www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/ACTIVE/
www.speakcampaigns.org/letters.php/
www.speakcampaigns.org/Contact_the_funders.php/
www.buav.org/getactive/index.html
www.navs.org.uk/take_action/
http://arcnews.redblackandgreen.net/index.php?option=com_con tent&task=category&sectionid=12&id=43&Itemid =39
www.ciwf.org.uk/involved/index.html
www.huntwatch.info/about.htm
www.viva.org.uk/campaigner/index.html
www.keeponfighting.net/staticpages/index.php?page=current-ca mpaigns
www.shac.net/ACTION/what.html