Although more Democrats than Republicans support animal issues, one notable exception to this rule is former U.S. Rep. Charles Stenholm of Texas.Stenholm yesterday criticized animal advocates' initiatives to ban the slaughtering of horses. He was interviewed on Chicago's WGN radio during Saturday's "Noon Show," which focuses on farming and animal "agriculture."
I first read about Stenholm, who served Texas as a U.S. representative from 1979 to 2004, in December in an e-mail from The Humane Society of the United States. The HSUS had written about possible nominees to fill Barack Obama's Cabinet positions. Stenholm was someone the HSUS did not want to see as Agriculture secretary.
During his time in Congress, Rep. Stenholm was hostile to even modest animal protection reforms, and he has since lobbied Congress on behalf of the factory farming and horse slaughter industries.According to the HSUS, "[s]tate legislatures [...] acted to stop horse slaughter, shuttering the last remaining foreign-owned horse slaughter plants in the U.S. in 2007." Northern Illinois had been home to one plant, and two were located in Texas.
During yesterday's interview Stenholm argued that horse slaughter shouldn't be banned in the United States because unwanted horses are suffering more than ever due to being transported to Mexico and Canada for slaughter. But instead of supporting a current bill to ban that transportation, Stenholm argued against it, saying horse slaughter plants in the United States should be reopened.
Instead of making the owners of "unwanted" (and therefore killed) horses the enemy, he preferred to criticize animal advocates. He employed a fallacy common to anti-animal arguments: It's tradition in Europe to eat horse meat. So why not give the Europeans what they want?
One interesting part of the conversation with Stenholm was his repeated use of the phrase "Humane Society PETA." By omitting "and" between the two entities, I believe he is hoping to tie the HSUS to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. If someone dislikes one organization (most likely PETA), then she must also hate the other. And since these two are the biggest animal-advocacy groups, they are often viewed as the only pro-animal groups. Therefore, if one is distasteful, then all animal advocates are viewed as being on the wrong side of animal issues.
The host of the show, Orion Samuelson, a supporter of animal "agriculture," acknowledged that not all listeners would agree with Stenholm's views and encouraged people on the other side to weigh in with their opinions. Of course, then the show ended, so no one could call in to dispute Stenholm.
(Photo courtesy of WorldProutAssembly.org.)
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6 comments:
ugh.
My come-back to the pro-horse-slaughter statement "It's tradition in Europe to eat horse meat. So why not give the Europeans what they want?" has always been:
People in China also eat dog & wear cat fur, so when my dog or cat gets old, should I have him violently slaughtered, too?
Good old Charlie Stenholm - what an idiot he is. I'm not quite sure why anyone would want this cold-hearted person to represent them.
If it was up to Mr. Stenholm, we'd be sending our cats and dogs to China so that the Chinese could dine on them too.
Mr. Stenholm should be going after the breeders, but why should he do that when he supports them. They are all in bed together for whatever reasons we can only imagine.
If the breeding stopped, there wouldn't be enough horses to go around. Oh wait! The AQHA might go out of business, since they remain in business and thrive through the continued registration of foals.
IMHO, anyone that can support this grisly, barbaric practice is not a decent person. And anyone who benefits monetarily from horse slaughter can only be called, Judas.
Stenholm makes a lot of money off this barbaric practice. If he cares so much about horses, let him go after the AQHA, which artificially breeds horses and routinely condones sending them to slaughter for reasons as pathetic as not being the "right color."
Tell ole' "Slaughterhouse Stenholm " he is wrong! Its not just Peta or HSUS against horse slaughter, its "main-stream" Americans too!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/tell-slaughterhouse-stenholm-he-is-wrong
Thanks!
How can we educate seemingly well meaning "horse lovers" to stop breeding their horses? I try all of the time, to no avail. That would be the ultimate solution, of course. But, you can't stop them any more than you can stop people from over-producing and causing the population explosion which is also a huge problem. So, the next step is this; you can't prevent the glut of beautiful horses from ending up in auctions and going to slaughter. So, the lesser of two evils would be to make sure that they don't suffer. Therefore, we are back at creating humane shipping standards and humane slaughterhouses for all animals, including horses, so they don't get shipped to mexico in tiny horrendous double decker trailers for hours, then get stabbed to death by the sadistical slaughterhouses in Mexico that use that method to paralyze them so they don't injure the slaughterhouse workers.
It's terrible, I could never do that to my own horse, (I save every animal I ever find) and I can't even bear to watch videos of animal suffering, but I am realistic enough to know that being a vegetarian or whining about killing animals gets you nowhere. You have to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and face realty. Everything dies because of one reason or the other. We should try to make that death as pleasant as possible for everyone, human and animal.
Otherwise, what are you going to do with all of the excess racehorses, and every other horse? Euthanizing costs too much money and nobody is willing or able to pay for that. It's a screwed up world we are in, but we have to start somewhere and this is the only viable solution, I think.
Anonymous, I'm against horse racing. And vegetarians spare 100 animals each year from slaughter. If it's ok to send horses to slaughter because "everything dies because of one reason or another," then why not kill people to ease overpopulation -- just as long as their deaths are pleasant?
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