Henry Spira

[Guest guest]

Last night I purchased " Ethics Into Action: Henry Spira and the Animal Rights

Movement " by Peter Singer (author of " Animal Liberation " ). Every time I'd go to

World's Biggest I'd look at it and I finally picked it up. In case you're not

familiar with Henry Spira, here's an interview with him by Erik Marcus (author

of " Vegan the New Ethics of Eating " which was dedicated to Henry) and here's a

review of the book http://www.vegan.com/issues/1998/sep98/singer.htm

 

 

You've been involved in the animal rights movement for some time. When did you

begin?

 

About 25 years ago after I read Peter Singer's essay in the New York Review of

Books on animal liberation.

 

How did the essay inspire you to get involved?

 

I spent a quarter of a century fighting for human rights, and it's basically the

fight against exploitation, against domination, and against the strong pushing

the weak around. And in this whole hierarchy, it's really the animals that are

on the bottom of the pile. Singer pushed the animal liberation issue as an

extension and an expansion of fighting for human rights.

 

Up until that point, what was your attitude about animals?

 

I had a cat that somebody had foisted on me. I bonded with this cat and I began

feeling awkward about stroking one animal while sticking a knife and fork into

another one on the dinner plate. So I'd been uncomfortable about it but I hadn't

yet taken action. After I saw Peter Singer's essay it got me to thinking on the

inconsistencies.

 

At the time, in 1975, what was going on in the animal rights movement and how

did you think your approach could be different and perhaps better?

 

At that point most of the activities were focused on antivivisection.

Organizations were sending their members information about atrocities and asking

for money, and then the next month they'd send them more atrocities stories, and

it wasn't really focused on changing anything. It was really focused on

generating outrage, as if outrage alone could be productive. What we did was

adapt the strategies of the human rights movement to the animal cause.

 

What became the core of your animal rights strategy?

 

I think you've got to be aware of where the public's thinking is, you've got to

be aware of what your objectives are, and you've got to figure out how you're

going to move the public step-by-step in your direction. It's about getting

people to rethink givens, and make considered choices. For instance, once we

started pointing out the absurdity of the animal tests that had been done for

half a century, people started rethinking them. Much of our effort goes to

suggesting alternatives that are better for animals and for humans. The idea

that you're trying to promote change, and that your agenda is not simply about

giving people ulcers.

 

You've said in the past that you only try to make the opposition look bad as a

last resort. Given that these people are responsible for all kinds of animal

experimentation and slaughter, why do you hold off on mudslinging?

 

We try our best to get our adversary to see that our suggestions make sense, and

that it's something they can live with. We also demonstrate that they are not

going to lose face by complying with our requests. So the point isn't to have a

victory over somebody else but rather to effect change. And change is a lot more

rapid and a lot more enduring if you get the cooperation of what would otherwise

be your adversary.

 

Can you talk about how winning your first campaign at the Museum of Natural

History made it possible for you to take on Revlon?

 

We were looking for a campaign. It's hard to get people fired up about

generalities. The public does respond to an issue when there's a sharp and

specific focus. We were looking around for a good place to start. We discovered

this brutal laboratory right in New York City's Museum of Natural History. For

over twenty years they had been deliberately mutilating cats and kittens, and

then they would observe their sexual performance in order to learn something

about human sexuality. We knew it was something the public would find absurd. It

was a great target because all they were doing is creating victims and not

helping anybody. It defied common sense.

 

We tried to talk to the folks at the Museum of Natural History but they refused

to talk to us and that's when we started our campaign. We stayed with it for a

year and a half. Persistence is everything. If you target an organization, you

stay with the target until you finish.

 

So for a year and a half you did what?

 

We did demonstrations every weekend. We pressured all the donors to the museum

whether they were city government, or corporate donors, or just individual

donors. We just pressured everybody to get the museum off these animal

experiments.

 

Was there any sign that these protests were making a difference and hurting the

museum?

 

We were getting quite a bit of media coverage, and about 120 members of congress

asked the National Institutes of Health what on earth was going on. There was a

lot of adverse publicity. The museum's own internal memos talked about how many

calls they were getting and how many people had cut them out of their wills. So

they were really in an indefensible position and things were only getting worse

as time went on. And they weren't even getting the support from the science

community which would normally rally around any time a vivisector was under

attack.

 

How did things end up with that campaign?

 

After a year and a half they stopped the experiment dismantled the lab.

 

In what ways did your museum campaign pave the way for taking on Revlon?

 

We gained a certain amount of self confidence from the Museum campaign. And

talked with us and talked with us and gave us a lot of access but they didn't do

anything. So then after a year of talking with nothing happening, we did a

full-page ad asking " How Many Rabbits Does Revlon Blind for Beauty's Sake? "

 

Shortly after our advertisements hit the papers, the person we were dealing with

got fired and the new person that we dealt with worked out an agreement with us

real quick where they would push money to Rockefeller University to find

alternatives to the Draize test [a test done on the eyes of living rabbits to

assess the irritancy of a substance]. As soon as Revlon did that we contacted

Avon and Avon made the same financial commitment within a matter of days. And

then we went to the other cosmetic companies who decided to chip in and set up

the center for alternatives at Johns Hopkins.

 

I think the campaign worked because we showed Revlon was in an indefensible

position: on the one hand they were marketing this dream of beauty and on the

other they were creating a nightmare for the rabbits. Again, once Revlon

realized that we weren't going away and the campaign was spreading globally they

became responsive. With Revlon's about-face, the other cosmetic companies saw

that they too would need to join in the effort to create alternatives to animal

testing. So I think it's kind of important to position things as reasonable and

rational.

 

The companies learn that there's a better alternative, so they may as well get

involved sooner rather than later.

 

In the 1990s, you turned your attention towards poultry and livestock. What was

your reasoning behind that?

 

Since over 9 billion animals are being slaughtered in the US each year, it means

that 95% of the pain and suffering is with farm animals. And the other thing is

that I don't believe you're going to eliminate vivisection as long as people see

animals as being edibles because that structures our whole thinking about

animals. We focused our efforts on two fronts: one was to try to raise awareness

about animals should not considered edibles and the other was that as long as

animals were edibles, we must do everything possible to reduce their pain and

distress.

 

Those were the two fronts we started operating on and again we were looking for

an entry-point for a campaign. The entry-point that we used was the [east coast

chicken magnate] Frank Perdue campaign, just because he was bad news all over

the place. We did a lot of ads and a lot of publicity and I think we gained a

certain amount of attention to the issue. I think it also made it easier for us

when we started contacting other meat producers, to show them the Perdue ads and

to suggest that they wouldn't want to be placed in a similar position.

 

What were the consequences of dealing with Perdue? Did any changes happen?

 

No they totally ignored us. But when we went into the campaign against shackling

and hoisting, we were able to send the Perdue advertisements to the cattle

slaughterhouses and we got a quick response, and I think the Perdue

advertisements were a great calling card; it got our opposition to recognize

that either we can dialog or we can campaign on you, and from that point of view

it would be better to be responsive to us rather than face an attack. It meant

that we didn't have to launch a campaign on those slaughterhouses. Meetings,

phone calls, and letters were all it took to accomplish our goal of getting the

shackle-and-hoist systems eliminated from the slaughterhouses we contacted.

 

What were your goals with these slaughterhouses that used shackling and

hoisting?

 

In the past, they wrapped a chain around an steer's leg, and hoisted the

conscious animal into the air and slit his throat. Temple Grandin had developed

this system where you don't have to shackle and hoist a conscious animal. You

put him on a double-rail restrainer system. You can still do the Kosher

slaughter but the animal wouldn't be traumatized the way they would be with

shackling and hoisting. So we suggested this option that Temple Grandin had

developed to these companies, and also pointed out that it had a big positive

impact on worker safety, in addition doing away with perhaps the cruelest

practice involving the slaughter of cattle.

 

And one of the next things you took on was just a couple years ago with the face

branding of Mexican cattle. What was going on there, and how did you set out to

change things?

 

We never even knew about the face branding until there was a small item in the

Federal Register saying they were going to expand face branding of cattle

imported from Mexico.

 

What was face branding?

 

Face branding involves taking a hot iron brand and pushing it on the face of

animal in order to identify the animal. There were some health problems

associated with Mexican cattle, and the USDA wanted a big M branded on the faces

of animals imported from Mexico. We figured the public wouldn't go for that,

that the pain involved in face branding was above and beyond what the public

would find acceptable. So we tried to talk to the USDA and they kind of jerked

us around. They were going to have a meeting and then they weren't having a

meeting, than kind of thing. So then we sent somebody down to get photographs of

the face branding.

 

I saw some of the photographs and you can actually see the steer wince when the

brand is applied, and there's all this smoke. It was very disturbing and moving.

How did you use these photographs to get the USDA to change their mind?

 

We used the photographs for full page advertisements in the New York Times and

the Washington Post and the Washington Times. We asked the public to contact the

USDA, and they did in vast numbers. In fact, such large numbers of people

contacted the USDA that the agency decided that not only were they not going to

expand the practice of face branding, but that they were going to do away with

the practice altogether.

 

Once they did that, we did a full-page advertisement thanking the USDA for being

responsive. Perhaps as a result of our thank-you advertisement, the agency set

up a farm animal well-being task group which is trying to look at animal

agriculture in general.

 

A lot of people around the country are interested in the type of work you're

doing, but they're first time activists and may not have the money or the

ability to work full time on activism. What would you tell them about how to get

started?

 

We did the campaign on the American Museum of Natural History while I was

working full-time as a teacher, and we did the Revlon campaign when I was still

a teacher. People generally have more discretionary time than they realize. If

you truly feel you should be accomplishing something, I think you'll find that

you can make a lot of time.

 

I think you can start off by writing letters to the editor, by doing op-ed

pieces, by writing articles for the local community papers and school papers.

You don't have to start out with full-page advertisements in the New York Times.

Once you build a track record you can access the funds necessary to do that sort

of stuff. You've got to start by building a track record.

 

There are a lot of venues where you can get your material published. It's all

about working on things seriously and producing good material.

 

What is the most common mistake among animal rights activists?

 

One mistake is the idea that you can abolish everything overnight, which I don't

think we can. I think it's a step-by-step process. You've got to start by

something that's doable, that has a beginning and an end. For example, asking

for more vegetarian options in your school or work cafeteria. You can ask your

supermarket manager to stock more vegan options. You can get a letter that

raises awareness published in your local paper. Or getting somebody at your

local paper to develop enough interest in how your dinner arrives at your table

to do an article on it. You don't have to write the article yourself, you can

just influence a media person who you have particular regard for to write the

article. You can urge your public library to carry your favorite books on

veganism and animal rights. There are a lot of things you can easily accomplish

on your own, and step by step you can work your way up to bigger things.

 

I'd imagine that there's been a lot of times in your activism where you've

witnessed things that have turned your stomach. The cat mutilations at the

Museum of Natural History, the face branding of Mexican cattle, some of the

Revlon tests and so forth. Do you feel angry when you see that kind of stuff and

if you do, how do you deal with that?

 

I think it's important to see the world as not divided between saints and

sinners or good guys and bad guys. I think to a large extent people were

programmed to do what they're doing. They don't make a conscious decision to eat

animals, for example. When they are little kids, they're told to eat meat

because it will make you strong. It's sort of accepted that researchers do

animal experiments, it's not that people make a conscious decision about it. I

think what you're attacking really is not the individual, and you don't see the

people as specifically vile, but rather that you want to change the system. Once

you recognize that, then you can focus on the issues rather than get caught up

in individual personalities.

 

What kinds of changes do you think we're ready for in 1998 and 1999. What things

should activists be taking on these days that are achievable and doable?

 

I think the most important thing is to raise awareness about factory farming.

It's also vital to promote the vegan diet, both from the point of view of

personal health and protection of the environment. I think particularly

important right now, although I don't know if as individuals we can do much

about it, is that the emerging economies are moving towards a meat-based diet.

In the case of China, that's one-fourth of the world population switching from a

plant-based to a meat-based diet. One of the things that we're trying to do is

to encourage the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future to have colloquiums

to discuss the health costs and environmental costs of moving towards a

meat-based diet. I think it's important that people realize that no matter how

small their efforts, it's significant.

 

And by doing little things now you may pick up the confidence to do bigger

things later?

 

Yeah I think that's what it's all about. If you get one letter published in the

newspaper it gives you added confidence that you can do it. If you get your

cafeteria to have an additional vegetarian option, it can give you the

confidence to move on to bigger things. I think you've got to start with

something that's achievable and doable, and also network with folks who think

similarly to yourself.

 

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