We’re on the Same Team : Nathan J Winograd

In other words, the No Kill movement is trying to save roughly 90% of all shelter animals, all of those who are not hopelessly ill or injured, irremediably suffering, or vicious dogs with a poor prognosis for rehabilitation.

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They view the animal rights movement with suspicion and as the opposition because they believe it is epitomized by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

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In reality, the No Kill movement lies at the intersection of the movement for animal rights and a movement that describes itself as “animal welfare” oriented.

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Animal Rights News

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AR-News leadership removed PETA’s posting privileges

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Because of the opening this action provides, I am making a plea for unity between what people mistakenly see as two opposing camps on the issue of companion animals: No Kill advocates on the one hand and, on the other, animal rights activists.

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Many of the excuses that animal rights activists use to defend Ingrid Newkirk or to push for counterproductive punitive laws were dogmas advanced by many in the sheltering movement until very recently—the notion of pet overpopulation and that animals must be killed because people don’t care enough.

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What the No Kill movement is advocating for, although a lot of people within that movement do not use the term, is for sheltered animals to be given the right to live.

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And the reason many in the No Kill movement don’t talk that way, or make it a part of their overall strategy, is because Newkirk has hijacked the term “animal rights” to twist it into a dark meaning that cannot be reconciled with any rational philosophy.

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In the end, PETA’s viewpoint is not grounded in philosophy. It is not rational. It is not compassionate or ethical.

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The actions will be seen for what they are and always have been—those of a deeply disturbed individual.

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They must reject the double standard which advocates a right to live for other animals but defends the killing of dogs and cats in shelters.

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Animal rights activists must also come to appreciate that there are millions of animals alive today who owe their lives to the tireless work of people in the No Kill movement who share their love of dogs and cats and actively demonstrate that devotion through hard work and commitment—people who spend their money and time rescuing animals from death row at regressive shelters; people who spend their nights bottle-feeding orphaned kittens and puppies.

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They would recognize that on the issue of dogs and cats, these individuals deserve gratitude and appreciation for their noble, tireless, and selfless efforts on behalf of animals; that they don’t want dogs and cats killed just as animal rights activists don’t want cows, chickens, or pigs to be killed.

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And I cannot conceive of how we can stop PETA’s murderous regime without doing so together. Regardless of how many blogs and articles about PETA’s hypocrisy are written, they do nothing to stop Ingrid Newkirk.

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hese articles do nothing to give her pause or stop her, and will continue to do nothing, because bad press or condemnation from outside the animal rights movement does not affect her

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re the pressure from within the movement itself to increase, were more organizations to do what AR-News did and reject PETA’s leadership, were other leaders in the animal rights movement to begin to feel the heat from the grassroots over their embrace, association, and celebration of Newkirk, were newspapers to begin to earnestly discuss Newkirk’s position on companion animals not as the official “animal rights” position—which it is not—but the singular, bizarre, irresponsible, and murderous views of one woman who is shunned by the rest of her colleagues, PETA’s killing would lose any legitimacy it currently has with the media and the public and the movement itself

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obfuscate, divide, and conquer

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We have to actually stop it from happening.

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The goal of every social movement is legislation to gain and then protect the rights of its members or the focus of its efforts and the No Kill movement must stop acting like it is the exception.

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And we shouldn’t simply be seeking progressive directors willing to save lives. We should demand that the killing end, now and forever, regardless of who is running the shelters. And we get that in only one way: by giving sheltered animals the right to live through legislation.

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while they embrace No Kill and desire No Kill and even demand No Kill, they say they are against giving dogs and cats “rights.”

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As I noted above, these individuals and groups attack the concept of rights because to them, the term “animal rights” means the end of sharing one’s life and home with a companion animal, and it means mass slaughter of dogs and cats. In short, it means PETA.

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PETA is not an “animal rights” group.

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An organization cannot be “rights” oriented as PETA claims to be and ignore the fundamental right to life.

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And not only is PETA not an animal rights group, it is not an animal welfare or even an animal control agency

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there is no philosophical foundation for the belief that animals should be sought out and killed.

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No other movement would allow someone to remain in her position without a massive outcry and public condemnation when their actions are so counter, so anathema to their movement’s foremost principles. The child protection movement would not allow someone who kills children to run an organization dedicated to children’s rights. The human rights movement would not allow someone who kills people to run any of their organizations. But the animal rights movement—a movement founded on the principle that animals have a right to life—allows a very public, avowed, shameless animal killer to run an animal rights organization. And with the exception of Friends of Animals, the rest of the nation’s animal rights groups remain deafeningly silent about it.

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But what is driving this continued association and cooperation with PETA within the animal rights movement is not a shared vision but rather simple cowardice and uncaring. It is not an agreement with the principles or the extermination campaign.

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In other words, they are not defending PETA as a rational reflection of their belief in animal rights; they do so because PETA lies to them.

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ewkirk knows that a campaign for animals to be sought out for extermination would gain very few followers. And though PETA’s killing has absolutely nothing to do with sheltering, she makes the killing more publicly palatable by packing it in the false dogmas which have been used for decades to justify shelter killing

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he can’t truthfully reveal the full depth of her depravity and that of her staff who participate in the cruel slaughter

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because of pet overpopulation

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lies and says that PETA has no choice but to kill

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saying that all the animals PETA kills are irremediably suffering

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lies to them by telling them that all controversy about her actions is being manipulated by industries that exploit animals

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and people who want to destroy the animal rights movement.

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some animal rights activists rally to her defense because they believe her lies, not because they agree with the notion that dogs and cats should be slaughtered

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Whatever else she does for animals or however much suffering she claims to have seen is irrelevant; it obviously does not give her a blank check to cause enormous amounts of pain and suffering herself.

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And, of course, it ignores that it is not who is right that must be defended, but what is right.

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these particular activists aren’t motivated by a philosophical agreement that dogs and cats should be killed because sharing one’s home with companion animals is evil.

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they support a group like PETA, which gives them an identity.

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nd even when PETA acts in contradiction to the principles of animal rights, their allegiance remains with the institution because “I’m with PETA” has a social connotation of being radical, and that makes them special, separate and distinct from the rest of us.

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or these people, it isn’t and never has been about the animals but about them; it isn’t about what they can do to help animals, but about what their association with PETA gives them

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those at PETA who actually participate in the killing

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aren’t motivated by any real belief that these actions are consistent with a larger animal rights agenda either

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Newkirk is a charismatic and manipulative leader, not unlike other diabolical figures in history who have succeeded in bending weak-minded followers to their will by speaking the language of the greater good, even while their actions, their true vision, is dark and twisted. This is the nature of a cult.

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And those who see and participate in the slaughter and support it are doing so because of a cult-like adherence to Newkirk. They are an archetype: weak-minded, low self-esteem, intellectually stunted, with an affinity to animals because animals don’t judge them the way people do (and, not coincidentally, find them wanting), and their relationship with PETA (and with animals) gives them what they so desperately crave but get nowhere else: attention, power, and control.

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There is no animal rights agenda to exterminate dogs and cats.

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Making such actions illegal would stop Newkirk and her minions.

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It makes no logical sense to respond to PETA’s anti-animal position by embracing a response that is also anti-animal and that supports—rather than challenges—PETA’s position.

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common enemies.

Those enemies include regressive animal control directors who find killing easier than doing what is necessary to stop it, including turning away volunteers, rescue groups, and feral cat caretakers who would help obviate the perceived “need” to kill.

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Wayne Pacelle and his minions at HSUS

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Compared to HSUS and PETA, the No Kill movement seeks more compassion, more accountability, and more results.

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Some of these advocates may not call it “rights,” but that is what it is

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Among the public, there is the erroneous perception that PETA represents the most progressive voice of animal rights.

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The term “animal rights” is not going away, and it shouldn’t. It is a term intended to put the movement in line with other social justice movements—to cash in on the heritage of other rights based philosophies that have benefited from building on the work of those movements which have come before them.

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By rejecting the mantel that is rightfully ours, the No Kill movement inadvertently cedes the moral high ground to those who use it to justify killing.

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Without disagreement and dissent, a movement can stagnate and become ineffective.

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