Beating, confinement, chaining, emotional distress - the evidence of elephant suffering in circuses is overwhelming...

 "It's kind of like a conductor leading an orchestra"

- AZA Elephant Group Head Mike Keele, on using a bullhook

So why is the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' (AZA) elephant group leader defending the treatment of elephants by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus?

Tell the AZA to sever all ties with circus elephant cruelty

September 16, 2009

AZA'S COZY RELATIONSHIP WITH CIRCUSES

Despite the overwhelming amount of evidence of cruelty to elephants and other animals, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) maintains close ties with circuses. In doing so, zoos give credibility to the circus and help perpetuate the abuse and suffering inherent to the use of elephants in entertainment.

IDA CONFRONTS THE AZA

While the AZA holds its annual conference in Portland this week, IDA is there to pressure this trade association to sever all ties with the circus industry. Our activities include running a hard-hitting ad

IDA is also seeking censure of Oregon Zoo acting director Mike Keele, head of the AZA's Elephant Taxon Advisory Group (TAG) and acting director of the Oregon Zoo. In a complaint to the AZA Ethics Committee, IDA detailed Keele's self-serving and disturbingly close relationship with the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus.

KEELE TESTIFIES AS EXPERT FOR RINGLING CIRCUS

In March 2009, Keele testified as a $125-per-hour expert witness for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus at a trial in the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC. That complaint accused the circus of violating the Endangered Species Act by harming endangered Asian elephants through routine and abusive elephant handling practices. By appearing as an expert for the circus, Keele gave a tacit seal of approval to Ringling's unconscionable practices that were documented through mountains of evidence presented at trial. These include:

• Chaining elephants at the Ringling Center for Elephant Conservation for 16 to 22 hours per day;
• Using chains and ropes to tear babies away from their mothers at age two or younger (before they are weaned) to begin their training for the circus;
• Training baby elephants by breaking their spirits through maternal separation, prolonged restraint (tying up their legs), isolation from other elephants and hitting with bullhooks. (One 2-year-old baby elephant, Aria, was chained nonstop for four months and only let off chains for 40 minutes a day to be trained);
• Striking the elephants with bullhooks, the steel-tipped rods used to hit, stab and hook elephants into compliance. Ringling head Kenneth Feld, CEO of Feld Entertainment International admitted under oath that all his handlers strike elephants with bullhooks.

Adding to the incontrovertible evidence of elephant abuse and suffering in the Ringling circus is undercover video

Keele was well-compensated for his association with the Ringling circus, both in terms of the money he was paid as an expert witness and by advancing his goal of cementing closer cooperation between Ringling and AZA zoos for breeding purposes. In return, the circus received credibility from Keele, whose credentials as a zoo and AZA official were made clear at the trial.

Keele's behavior brings shame to the AZA, harms those within the industry who truly care about protecting elephants and makes a mockery of the group's stated commitment to promote "respect for the dignity of the animals in our care."

TIME FOR AZA TO CONDEMN THE CIRCUS

Several AZA specialist groups, including those that deal with Great Apes and monkeys, have officially condemned the use of these species in entertainment. It's past time for AZA's elephant group to follow suit.

Tell the zoos to sever ties with the cruel circus industry. If zoos want to educate the public about elephants, the place to start is by taking a stand against the use and abuse of these magnificent animals for entertainment.

Contact:

Jim Maddy, President and CEO
Association of Zoos & Aquariums
8403 Colesville Road, Suite 710
Silver Spring, MD 20910-3314
(P) 301-562-0777 X222
(F) 301-562-0888
(E) jmaddy@aza.org

Also write to the zoo in your community and request that it adopt a policy condemning the use of elephants in circuses and other entertainment venues. Find zoo contact information here

In Defense of Animals, located in San Rafael, Calif., is an international animal protection organization with more than 85,000 members and supporters dedicated to ending the abuse and exploitation of animals by protecting their rights and welfare. IDA's efforts include educational events, cruelty investigations, boycotts, grassroots activism, and hands-on rescue through our sanctuaries in Mississippi, Mumbai, India, and Cameroon, Africa.

In Defense of Animals is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization. We welcome your feedback and appreciate your donations. Please join today! All donations to IDA are tax-deductible.

In Defense of Animals
3010 Kerner, San Rafael, CA 94901
Tel. (415) 448-0048 Fax (415) 454-1031
idainfo@idausa.org

Lars
- 48 minutes ago - news.yahoo.com

This is from http://www.peaceteam.net/

Please read, follow through and pass along.

Thanks

Peace

NotSilent

>>>>>>>>>>

Before anything else, we owe a couple dozen of you a bit of an
apology. We underestimated the demand for the new "Single Payer
Health Care" caps and got caught short by a couple dozen with the
shipment that went out yesterday. But we will be taking delivery on
another big batch before the end of the coming week, and they are all
going out first class, so if you don't get yours this week, you will
shortly after that, and we thank you for your patience. And if you
get a request in this week it will go out then as well. In the
meantime, all the "Convict Dick & W" caps have gone out.

Not Even Obama Will Give Up The Illegal War Powers Seized By Bush
Unless Congress Makes Him Do It

Even in appointing a special counsel last week to look into torture,
Eric Holder essentially directed him to IGNORE whether a crime was
committed in ordering torture in the first place. The only mandate
lifelong Republican prosecutor John Durham has been given is about
whether department personnel EXCEEDED the instructions they were
given. The "just following orders defense" rejected at Nuremberg has
been resurrected by our new Attorney General.

With Holder doing such a weak job of enforcing the law on his own, it
is all the more important to get Congress to reassert itself in all
these matters, in particular the abuse of war powers under which all
the torture happened in the first place. And HR 104, To establish a
national commission on presidential war powers and civil liberties,
appears to be a good step in this direction. We should not
preemptively exclude congressional commissions or investigations as a
route to real justice, for that is what Watergate was all about.
Congress must act NOW to constrain ALL future presidents, including
Obama, lest we end up with worse than Bush before we know it.

Presidential War Powers Action Page:
http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1001.php

How all those Nazi war criminals would have wished for a standard
like that set by Eric Holder. Legal opinions no matter how corruptly
or self-servingly drafted become get out of prison free cards. Never
might that there were many valiant, patriotic people in the CIA and
the FBI, the vast majority, who STRENUOUSLY objected to the adoption
of torture as accepted U.S. policy. The fact is that NO member of any
one of these agencies could have believed in good faith that the
torture techniques condemned when used by every other totalitarian
regime were suddenly squeaky clean in their hands.

That is what is so disingenuous about Holder's posture, a refusal to
actually confront the real issue. Either we are a nation of laws or
else we are not. And if the Justice Department was issuing opinions
that were patently bogus in defense of torture, it is corruption in
HIS OWN department that must be rooted out, and all involved in such
outrages must be held fully responsible.

Instead, Holder's suggestion is essentially that a couple so-called
"bad apples" should be scapegoated, just as the contractors directing
the torture at Abu Grahib, under orders that came direct from the
White House, were allowed to skate away, while the lowest level
grunts were given 10 years of hard time. At this point, the best way
to pressure Holder to actually do his job is to pressure Congress to
do theirs, and execute their own investigation into the abuse of war
powers.

Presidential War Powers Action Page:
http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1001.php

And yes, we will continue to hear lies about how splendidly well
torture worked, even though it did not, to try to seduce the American
people into endorsing the abominable. Cheney was all over the TV over
the last couple months asserting that the recently released CIA
report would absolve him, by showing how torture led to all kinds of
great intelligence breakthroughs. There was nothing like that in
there. Instead, there were detailed specific instructions on
executing torture, adopted from and imitating the worst dictatorships
in history, in clinical detail like something out of World War II
Nazi bureaucracy.

The Washington Post is in up to their hips with this disinformation
campaign, running a story over the weekend with a headline suggesting
that waterboarding and sleep deprivation were a boon to intelligence.
And yet when you actually read it you find that WHILE Khalid Sheik
Mohammed was being waterboarded 183 times he was giving false
intelligence that was harmfully counterproductive. It is only AFTER
the criminal mistreatment stopped, and much later, that he actually
started to cooperate.

So let us make no mistake, the people who did these things in our
name were a handful of true sickos, getting in their own sadistic
jollies to the disgrace of the good name of the United States of
America. And not just those few who willingly went along with it
without objection, those who authorized, justified it, and ordered it
must also be held responsible, right back to the desk of former Vice
President Dick Cheney, and his go along patsy, George Bush. If Holder
is so anxious to relieve CIA employees of responsibility, let them
testify against the real criminal kingpins in the White House, as the
price of their immunity.

So again, if want a "Convict Dick & W" cap we'll be shipping more of
those this week, we'll have more of the "Single Payer Health Care"
caps at the same time. And you can request either of these or any
other of our progressive advocacy gifts from the return page of the
action page above, or directly from this link.

Progressive Advocacy Gifts: http://www.peaceteam.net/all_gifts.php

And yes, you can also respond to this action through the new Twitter
gateway. Just send the following Twitter reply, and add any personal
comment you like.

@cxs #p1001

And if you want a step by step explanation of how to set up the
Twitter thing here is the link for that.

Twitter Activism Step-By-Step: http://tcxs.net/step_by_step.php

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at
http://www.peaceteam.net/in.htm

usalone331b:317514

2,045 Packs of Cards Ordered So Far!

http://act.credoaction.com/tortureteam/?r_by=-1606921-MIJuYMx&rc=taf.sticker

Also, there are several news items, and other information on here (Care2.com ) where you can find where to write, email, call and fax to demand full accountability.

Here's are a couple,

http://www.care2.com/news/member/276942576/1220761

http://www.care2.com/news/member/276942576/1230118

http://www.care2.com/news/member/471046224/1228690


Here's the Attorney General's phone number:

Office of the Attorney General - 202-353-1555


Please look for these things and follow through with them as we NEED to get more people aware!

Thanks
Peace
NotSilent

 

There are sev eral news items on here (Care2.com) and sites where ypou can go and sign petitions and send letters and make phone calls to DEMAND FULL accountability of those that ordered torture and those that carried it out. Please search for what you can do.

Not only is it wrong to torture, but if you are the type that agrees with it just take a minute and think about the repercussions. we are making more people hate us every day. So even if it is only for your own safety, please be informed and speak out against torture and demand full accountability.

Here are a few things followed by an email from IndictBushNow.org You can get on their mailing list.

http://www.care2.com/news/member/276942576/1220761

http://www.care2.com/news/member/471046224/1228690

Here's the Attorney General's phone number:


Office of the Attorney General - 202-353-1555

Speak up or give up.

And giving up is NOT an option.

Peace,
NotSilent


Click here to subscribe.

**Please circulate widely to friends and on social-networking sites**

It is Bush and Cheney who gave the orders and
it is they who must be held responsible

“The real culprits in this sordid story are those higher-ups, starting with former president George W. Bush and former vice president Richard B. Cheney, who led America down the degrading path of state-sanctioned torture and left the next administration to cope with the fallout.”

Help the IndictBushNow movement grow
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• Mock executions
• Repeatedly choking detainees carotid artery until unconsciousness
• Threatening sexual attacks against the children and parents of detainees
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• Sleep deprivation lasting for 11 days
• Violent shaking of prisoners
• Waterboarding (mock drowning) 183 times in the case of one detainee
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Good News of the Week

August 2-9, 2009, Via Organica (the "Organic Way"), OCA's sister organization in Mexico, organized our first Agro-EcoTour to Mexico, bringing US organic consumers down to the beautiful San Miguel de Allende region of Guanajuato, for a first-hand look at the budding organic Movement south of the border. Tour leaders included Ronnie Cummins, OCA Director, Alexis Baden-Mayer, head of OCA's Washington, DC office, Luc Monzies, organic farming expert, and Ana Maria Quispe, Via Organica's staff dietician and translator.

Trip highlights included an all-day Organic Agriculture workshop at the Via Organica farm and conference center, attended by 250 small farmers from the area who are working with our staff to make the transition to organic agriculture; visits to regional organic farms and permaculture sites; a rural community organizing center; as well as organic retail stores, restaurants, and farmers markets.

Learn and read more about OCA's EcoTours

Sign up for the next OCA/ViaOrganic tour to Mexico October 4-11

Alert of the Week

The propaganda machine of the U.S. government and Big Pharma are busy force-feeding Americans a dubious, in fact dangerous message: don't worry about filthy, disease-ridden factory farms and drugged-out farm animals incubating infectious diseases like the Swine Flu, because Big Pharma will protect us, starting with quasi-mandatory mass vaccinations of schoolchildren this fall. Not only is the Obama Administration ignoring warnings by the world's scientists that factory farms are the source and direct cause of the Swine Flu and Bird Flu epidemics, but they are preparing to allow greedy drug companies to inject you and your children with basically ineffective Swine Flu vaccines that contain hazardous viruses and chemicals. As organic consumers know, there are practical alternatives to factory farms (organic farms and ranches). And as millions of alternative medical consumers and practitioners understand, there are clear alternatives to hazardous Swine Flu vaccines: strengthening our body and immune systems with healthy organic diets, medicinal herbs, and homeopathy.

Learn more and take action!

OCA needs your help and support. If we are to stop Monsanto's GMOs and shut down factory farms; if we are to head off dangerous vaccines and promote holistic health; if we are to make organic food and farming and green living the norm--rather than just the alternative--we need your donations today. Any size donation is welcome, but for those who can afford it, give OCA a donation of $1000 or more and we'll treat you to a royal organic vacation and tour at the Mexican organic farm and EcoTourism center of our sister organization Via Organica.

Please donate now

Investigative film director Dr. Gary Null challenges the basic health claims by government health agencies and pharmaceutical firms that vaccines are perfectly safe.

Learn more

Alert Update of the Week

Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey set off a firestorm of controversy in a recent Wall Street Journal article

Over fifteen thousand OCA members have contacted WFM in recent months, urging the nation's largest retailer of organic products to increase organic food access, implement comprehensive testing for GMOs in their private label products and eliminate dangerous chemicals from their body care products. WFM responded by bowing to OCA pressure and has promised to sell significantly more organics in 2010. We having an impact!

Tell Whole Foods to support their stated mission of promoting organics, health, justice, and sustainability

Web Forum Posting of the Week

Last week, we reported on a Washington Post article summarizing a number of recent reports

We also included a line in a sample letter to Whole Foods, asking them to stock organic soy...

Several Bytes readers wrote us to stand up for meat-eating and against soy. We've included their comments and our response in our Web forum where OCA members are engaged in a vibrant debate on the pros and cons of vegetarian and vegan diets

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GAZA FREEDOM MARCH

Just- 6 minutes ago - salsa.democracyinaction.org

Below is a letter from Leonard to us all and also a link to a petitopon for you to write to the parole board (hearing is set for 7/28/09) to support his release.

Take action now!

Click here to send a letter to the United States Parole Commission to express your support for parole for Leonard Peltier. Justice is long overdue!

Statement from Leonard Peltier, June 27, 2009

Greetings my friends and relatives,

I want to start off this statement or speech or whatever you want to call it by saying again as I’ve said before thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting me and for standing up for right wherever you are. I can’t express to you in words how extremely grateful I am not just to the people of America but to the people all over the world who have supported the cause of Indian people and myself.

I know a lot of you have given up a lot to help so many in my predicament. Daily I am made aware of political prisoners around the world. Many who have been killed or tortured or who knows what for trying to right the wrongs in their area, country or nation. I have been asked to make statements in support of other movement people around the world from time to time, South America, Europe and other places. People who love freedom, people who love the earth, people who love their family, people who love the freedom to make their own choice with their own resources, and all indigenous people—we share a common bond. The bond of brother and sister hood, the bond of believing there is a greater power than ourselves. And I don’t mean some government power; I mean the greatest power in all the universe the Creator Himself.

We also as human beings upon this earth have to recognize that there have always been those who suffer from an illness called greed. They have an appetite for gaining material wealth that is never satisfied. They have an appetite for land that is never satisfied. And the most common symptom of their illness is indifference to the suffering they cause with their quest. These people are the ones that have identified themselves as our common enemy. It is so terrible that under the guise of religion and shouting freedom they pit one people against another. This isn’t something new. All down through history it has taken place. All down through history there have been men, spiritual men, holy men, great thinkers and philosophers who have tried to unite us against this common enemy.

Today my brothers and sisters I want you to know that if nothing else if we don’t unite against the destruction against the Mother Earth we will have a common future that is void of clean air, clean water, and basic freedoms. We must reach our hands out to embrace others to the cause of life. We must do our best from where ever we are with whatever tools available to enhance and further our quality of life. We must find a way to break down the barriers that divide one people from another. We must find the things we have in common and find ways to solve our differences as basic humanity. We must evolve to a higher level of thinking or to as you might say a traditional level of thinking which obviously is superior to what they call progress today. Our traditional values taught us to live in harmony with Earth the greatest manifestation of the Creator that we have to relate to. Our traditions taught us to respect our bodies the greatest gift we have or possess as an individual. Our traditions taught us to preserve the environment for our children and all our future generations. As a member of the American Indian Movement these values are what we were about. Poverty isn’t solved by money, poverty is solved by attitude. The problems we have today among all our people are caused by attitude. They are caused by an attitude that was given to us in boarding schools and on reservations that were nothing more than concentration camps in the past. They are attitudes by people who came to us talking to us about God and wanting us to embrace their version of religion and as one brother said once, “They told us to bow our heads, and when we looked up our land was gone, our culture was gone, our children were gone, our way of life was gone.” And now the air itself is dwindling.

I have been in this cage for some 34 years and though I have been caged I have sought the spirit in prayer of our brother the eagle, I have sought to have an overview of things for as anyone can see I don’t have the freedom to examine life from a close perspective. And from this distant view, abstract view, this detached view, at times I get to see the destruction and divisiveness that these political powers that have scattered us for so long have involved themselves in promoting among our people. I don’t know if it is because I am older now or because my future is so uncertain or if through some spiritual inspiration I deeply want to say so much. I deeply want to move you to do something to save our earth and our children and our children’s future. I didn’t get to raise my children; I haven’t got to really know them or my children’s children. I may never get to, but I love them all just the same. And I love life as much as anyone on the outside. And I don’t know how long I will walk this cage. Some days I feel quite healthy and energized and some days I feel like the 64-year-old man that I am. I’m always hopeful that I will be free at some point, perhaps in the latter part of July after my parole hearing, and perhaps I won’t. The people that hold me, the FBI and the conglomerate corporations that have for so long controlled the resources of this country and others and for so long have done their best to stifle, to denigrate, and to vilify the voice of the oppressed are some of the most formidable well-funded political people on Earth. I was told that the FBI themselves are some 10,000 strong.

I am but a common man, I am not a speaker but I have spoken. I am not all that tall but I have stood up. I am not a philosopher or poet or a singer or any of those things that particularly inspire people but the one thing that I am is the evidence that this country lied when they said there was justice for all. I am the evidence that they lied when they extradited me from Canada. I am the evidence that they can lie at your trial, they can manufacture evidence at your trial, they can intimidate witnesses at your trial, they can have back room conversations and agreements with the judge at your trial. I am the evidence that the attitude, the powers that be still hold us in a grip. They hold us in an emotional grip. They hold us in a poverty grip. They hold us in a cultural deprivation grip. I could go on and on about the things that go on that weigh so heavily against our people but the bottom line in my case is well documented by court after court after court, by hearing after hearing after hearing, by statement after statement after statement. And we as a people are the evidence that this country fails to keep its treaties, this country fails to keep its word. This country has failed to follow its own Constitution—the treaty between the people and the government. We are that evidence. I am nothing more than evidence. That is why people all over the world and here at home have supported the cause of justice in my case. In my particular situation I can’t say that there will ever be any level of justice.

They cannot give back the 34 years of life that have been taken from me. They can not give back the life of Joe Stuntz that they took June 26th 1975. They cannot give back the lives of the 60 something people that they directly or indirectly caused the death of. They cannot give back the thousands upon thousands of Indian people that were killed and abused since the inception of this government. But the one thing we can do, we must do, is find a way to change their attitude. My brother Leonard Crow Dog once said, “If you want to change the white man you have to change his religion.” And religion is a word that means how you do something on a regular basis; most generally it is associated with your spirituality. Perhaps with global warming as it is and the changes in the weather patterns and the questionable future that faces the earth, they will start to listen. Maybe they will reach back and embrace the words of our people foretold again and again. We must live the way that the Earth will renew itself every spring. We must help them reach back. We must speak to them at every opportunity. We must make an effort to reach back ourselves to our own cultural values. And in doing so we can start to solve the many destructive challenges we face. We must more than ever before find a way to heal the wounds of our children and prevent the social illnesses that are so prevalent across our reservations and communities. We have the tools, we have the teachings, we have the philosophies, we have the culture, we have the artists, we have the singers, we have the philosophers, I could go on and on but in essence what I am trying to say is it is imperative that we bring together all our resources to enhance the future for our children in a way that they themselves can further the healthy teachings of our culture and way of life; and in doing so I have no doubt that we can change the world.

If I am freed next month or if I die in prison remember my words and remember we are evidence that the Creator made a beautiful people a people that respected the Earth and nature and each other. We are evidence on every level of goodness that when the Creator made us He meant for us to be free. All our traditions have taught us this way. And even this very form of government that exists today was copied from our people. Our people with our foods, our medicines, belief in freedom and right to choose have influenced the world. It's too bad they didn’t adopt a healthy attitude that we had toward the Earth or an attitude of respect for us the first keepers of this portion of the Earth. If there is something about me that this government can point at and say is wrong or any person say is wrong I will by my own choice, if it proves to be fact, seek to fix it myself. But I also want to remind them the policies that have been in place for so long have made us what we are today. The policies that have been in place for so long, have created another reservation called Iraq and another reservation called Afghanistan, and the list goes on and on, you see what’s happening over there is what happened here and all down through North and South America.

I am just a common man and I am evidence that the powers that put me here would like to sweep under the carpet. The same way they did all of our past leaders, warriors and people they massacred. Just as at Wounded Knee the Fifth Cavalry sought its revenge for Custer’s loss and massacred some 300 Indian men women and children then gave out 23 Medals of Honor and swept the evidence of their wrongdoing aside. Perhaps this statement is somewhat more lengthy than the others I’ve made; perhaps it is some things I should have said before and perhaps more, if so I hope you will forgive me. I recently was thought to be having a heart attack because of pain in my chest. After having been beaten and kicked and stomped in the last year, I am not quite sure what was causing the pain. I had never been beaten, kicked and stomped like that before. And also I have never been 64 years old before. The one thing all this did for me is it really brought home my sense of mortality. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in this prison. And I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life in some prison of the mind, heart or attitude. I want you to enjoy your life.

If nothing else give somebody a hug for me and say, “This is from Leonard.”

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

Leonard Peltier

http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?news_iv_ctrl=-1&abbr=ANS_&page=NewsArticle&id=9127#statement

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