i originally posted this blog entry as a reply to a link posted on reddit by grrlscientist to her blog entry titled "The Humane Society University Now Offers 4-year Degrees". i didn't expect that my first contribution to this blog, which i made and promptly neglected 3 years ago, would have anything at all to do with animal rights, as i am little more than an occasional sympathizer with that cause. but grrlscientist's blog post was so obnoxious and contrary to fact (as i discovered in the process of researching this reply), that i feel compelled to republish it in a place where it may receive slightly more exposure than in the comments section of a reddit post that currently sits at 0 upvotes, thanks to my solitary down vote.
anyway, enough of that, and on to the reply:
what an asinine blog post.
grrlscientist claims that this "fringe animal rights group", who are apparently bomb-making trrists, "does not own any shelters in this country". this is funny, because there's a humane society shelter and vaccination clinic right here in houston. they own actual offices, and have employees, volunteers, and facilities to shelter animals! crazy, i know. they also work hand-in-glove with another terrorist organization, the houston SPCA, to nurse animals in my area back to health and to find homes for as many of them as possible.
maybe the humane society doesn't own shelters at the national level, where it functions purely as an administrative body*, but its local adjuncts do. having driven by this humane society shelter before, i was intrigued as to how it happened that an organization which owns no animal shelters could come to have its name on the signage of an animal shelter. so i decided to look into it.
while googling grrlscientist's claims, i discovered the website humanewatch.org, which is apparently the original source of the misleading information grrlscientist passes off as fact in her blog post. whether she received her information directly from that website, or through secondhand sources, i cannot say.
regardless, it turns out that humanewatch.org is run by the "center for consumer freedom". sounded like doublespeak, to me. and after 2 minutes of research, i discover that -- ta-da! -- like so many other corporate-funded "astroturf organizations" with deliberately misleading names (think "the national wetlands coalition", which is funded by oil lobbyists like exxon), the CCF is funded by corporations and industries that have a vested interest in the very thing that the humane society deplores, which is animal research, of the kind that is very often cruel.
funny, that.
humanewatch.org, and its parent organization, the CCF, have been rightly criticized for being a front for corporate lobbyists, who not only sit on the board of that organization, but also comprise its principle leadership. From wikipedia:
Berman runs several industry-funded non-profit organizations such as the Center for Consumer Freedom[1] and the Center for Union Facts.[2] Berman's companies have run numerous media campaigns criticizing and even ridiculing advocacy groups concerned with the dangers of obesity, smoking, mad cow disease, drunk driving, the minimum wage and other issues.[3][4]
60 Minutes has called him "the booze and food industries' weapon of mass destruction,"[4] and his nickname (from both friends and enemies) is "Dr. Evil",[4][3] an alias in which he takes pride.[4]
some of CCF's funders include: philip morris (provided the seed money to start the organization), coca-cola, wendy's, cargill processed meat products, and tyson foods. because the CCF are a "non-profit" private organization, they don't have to fully disclose who funds them. one could speculate that full disclosure of the donor list might prove to be even more revealing.
here is the wikipedia entry on the center for consumer freedom.
it's disheartening to see a scientist passing off received corporate propaganda as fact, but there you have it.
*EDIT: curious to know more, i visited humanesociety.org, where i discovered that the national organization itself does, in fact, operate a handful of prominent shelters and wildlife centers in california, massachusetts, and texas, including the black beauty ranch. so humanewatch.org's claim that the humane society "does not operate a single shelter in the united states" is beyond misleading. it is an actual lie.
needless to say, humanewatch.org doesn't cite its sources. i also find it telling that humanewatch.org accuses the humane society of being a "wealthy lobbying organization." oh really, dr. evil? fascinating.
