Animal Crackers

Mark Hyman spends an entire commentary talking about supposed the supposedly shady finances of the group People of the Ethical Treatment of Animals. What he doesn’t do is explain why.

The specific charges he makes are that PeTA helped fund militant animal rights groups such as the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and that they rake in a lot of money but, according to Hyman, only spend a tiny fraction “influencing legislation and public opinion.” What, asks Hyman darkly, is PeTA spending its money on?

As far as I could tell from a bit of surfing, the charge about PeTA contributing to militant groups boils down to a some relatively small donations the organization made to the legal defense fund of an ALF member. I couldn’t find anything suggesting PeTA was actively bankrolling ALF or ELF vandalism.

And on the issue of the missing PeTA money, the organization publicly reports its income and expenditures, and they spend most of it on educational and activism programs. They also report the salaries of their top employees, and it sure doesn’t look like anyone’s getting rich working for PeTA.

As to why would the FBI have such voluminous files on PeTA for Hyman to troll through, the answer is that apparently PeTA is one of several mainstream organizations that’s been targeted for scrutiny for any possible connections to “terrorist” organizations. So far, this search seems to have come up empty, and the legality (to say nothing of the productivity) of the investigations is questionable.

I’ll put my cards on the table, here. I love animals. I also enjoy eating them on occasion. I’ve also taken medicines that I’m sure were tested on animals. I feel we owe animals basic kindness, decency, and respect. However, I don’t think this is at odds with using animals to better human life as providers of food and medical knowledge. I sympathize with PeTA’s stance on animal issues, but I probably come up short of embracing their full agenda.

As far as groups like ALF and ELF, I don’t have much time for them. When I was in Iowa City, members off ALF vandalized the psychology lab at the University of Iowa and “freed” lots of mice and rats (they also destroyed tens of thousands of dollars worth of property, including records of research). Apparently in the process of committing the vandalism, they ended up causing many of the rodents to drown. They not only freed the animals from captivity, but from this mortal coil as well. With friends like ALF, what rat needs enemies?

Having said that, labeling these groups “terrorist” organizations is despicable. Vandals? Yes. Criminals? Yes. Self-righteous, counterproductive twits? Yes. But terrorists?

That’s a word that should be reserved for those who do violence to human beings. Lumping ELF and ALF into the same category as the KKK, neo-Nazis, and al-Qaida does a huge disservice to those who have actually suffered violence at the hands of terrorists. While ELF and ALF have done millions of dollars in damage, I’m not aware that a single human being has been physically harmed by their actions. They’re crimes have been against property (along with some animals that have been “collateral damage”).

If animal rights groups are “wacko” for placing animals on the same level of importance as human beings, how much more insane is it to place inanimate objects on that level?

But for conservatives, it’s not insane.

And that’s where we get back to Hyman. He never says why he has it in for PeTA, but my guess is that PeTA is a stand in for the larger pro-environment movement that Hyman and most conservatives have such disdain for. This puts him in the company of most of his fellow conservatives, for whom the environment is a tool to be used as we see fit. The notion that any issue beyond profit should factor into environmental decision making is anathema. Rebulations on the treatment of farm animals, restrictions on hunting certain animals, setting aside habitat for preservation, restricting the ability of factories to vent pollution into the biosphere . . . all are obstacles to the great moral good of the free market.

This is also why folks like Hyman and similarly minded folks in the administration and beyond can call groups like ELF and ALF “terrorist” groups and use their names in the same breath as groups that murder human beings. Not only do these groups destroy private property (which would be bad enough), but they often specifically target businesses they feel are hurting nature and do what they can to thwart them.

Most people (including me) would agree that this is lawlessness which should be punished. But for conservatives, it’s something more. It’s an attack on their fundamental values. Destroying inanimate objects is not mere vandalism. It’s an attack on individual freedom and the spirit of entrepreneurship. It’s an attack on the source of morality itself.

Ergo, attacking an organization that champions any environmental cause is a good in and of itself. It’s a chance to hammer away at the ideas the group represents rather than the group itself. Ultimately, Hyman couldn’t care less about how PeTA spends its money or what its FBI file says beyond his ability to take these facts and twist them to embarrass and defame the ideas it stands for.

Hyman can’t be straightforward about this because A) he’s not entirely cognizant of his own motives, and/or B) most Americans, while not vegetarians, support restrictions on what companies can do to the environment and feel animals should be treated with respect.

But if he can get people to be skeptical of organizations that champion such values, he can weaken environmental causes without necessarily changing anyone’s mind about the issues themselves.

And if we don’t call people like Hyman on their rhetoric, common-sense rules about how nature should be used (and how it shouldn’t be abused) will go the way of the dodo.

And that’s The Counterpoint.

Hyman Index: 3.50

P.S. Friend of this website and champion of media issues generally, Nicholas Johnson, happens to have written a cogent, concise essay about one possible way of bridging the gap between our desire to care for animals and our desire to use them in research. You can read it here.