Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Before You Write That Check
I used to give money to all sorts of organizations, (contrary to the belief of some people on here), and one of those was the Humane Society of the United States. I was helping! I was doing something for the animals. I mean, you can’t sit and bitch about something and not actually do something about it, right? That would make me a hypocrite. So I gave. I gave every year and I would get a t-shirt or address labels or stationary in return.
Now, I didn’t have a lot of money TO give so I gave about $20-50 at a time. In return I get a t-shirt? Um, I’d rather NOT get the t-shirt and have every penny I gave go to the animals, not some stupid address labels that I’ll never use.
So, I started looking hard at the Humane Society. And I discovered, over time, that it’s not really what they say it is. Oh sure, they save some animals. Some. Not very many. About 1 percent of your donations go to actually helping animals. The rest of it goes to a bunch of other crap as well as pockets.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. The following article will shed some light and gives you a few places to go to find more information about the HSUS.
And, in typical fashion, the organization attacks the author of the piece, personally, (doesn’t argue the facts he presented, just attacks him personally...which, we all know that tactic very well, don’t we), and states that we should not listen to him because he supports horse slaughter in this country.
MY God! The horror! What an asshole! Right?
Due to the efforts of HSUS and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, horse slaughter was ended in the U.S. in 2007. Before you rejoice, think of what your support for that did.
The same number of horses (or more) are still being slaughtered. We now have a decimated horse market. Horses that previously brought $1000 at auction now bring less than $100. The “killer buyers” are stuffing them in trailers and transporting them more than forty hours to Mexico with little food and water.
In Mexico their end of life is anything but humane. It would sicken you to know the way in which many are put to death. Nearly 100,000 U.S. horses a year face this plight there, but you can rejoice — out of sight out of mind.
It’s not just Mexico either. Many moons ago I was a courier and I used to go to Cargo for the airlines many times. One particular airline used to ship horses overseas for slaughter. Let me tell you the conditions these horses met before they got on the plane. Imagine a container about as long as a regular sized car, about as high as a horse and about as wide as huge Ford Truck. Maybe a Ford truck and a half.
Not so bad for one horse, you say?
How about four horses?
They would stuff four horses in to one of these containers and the horses would sit, in cargo, for hours and hours and hours, stuck in that container, unable to move at all. Sitting in their shit and piss and the other horses shit and piss. For HOURS.
Eventually they would be loaded on to a plane. There they might sit for another hour. Inside the belly of a plane, inside this small container, four of them.
Then they would take off and fly for another chunk of time, 8, 10, 12 hours. Stuck in that container the entire time. In all, they could be in those containers, crammed in, for a day or more. And then? Off to slaughter. And remember, they were flown to another country where “humane” is not in their vocabulary.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, always follow the money trail. Find out where that money is going. Find out who benefits from that money. Too often, it’s not the ones you are trying to help.
If you support the HSUS, please stop. Give to a local rescue, give to a local shelter, (NOT run by HSUS), give to a local charity. Giving money to the HSUS may make you feel good if you don’t know the truth, but the reality is, the only ones feeling good are those who run the HSUS. It’s certainly not the animals.
And might I add, it is precisely these types of people who destroy any credibility for anyone who supports animal welfare. People mock them, belittle them, turn a deaf ear because of organizations like PETA and HSUS. These organizations do FAR more damage to animals than they help and should be disbanded.
When we start to take animal welfare seriously and when people actually DO the right thing for animals, do the right thing with the donations, stop trying to turn everyone in to a fucking vegetarian, TELL THE FUCKING TRUTH and stop with the scare tactics and hysterics, only then will people listen.
Go pet your dog, cat, rabbit, chicken, horse, whatever and thank GOD that animal is not in the hands of the HSUS.
