Proposal To Working Assets To Integrate Animal, Human & Environmental Interests

Below is a proposal which I recently sent to Working Assets regarding the hiding (and now discontinuance) of their wonderfully progressive Animal Fund and their unfortunate involvement with the promotion of the dairy industry. I have not heard back from them yet. I will let you know when I do. Especially if you are a Working Assets member, please write and ask that they not kill but nurture and expand the Animal Fund. Thank you!

€

COVER LETTER

February 11, 2005

Michael Kiechnick, President
Working Assets
101 Market Street, Suite 700
San Francisco, CA 94105

RE: A Proposal to Working Assets to Integrate Human, Animal and Environmental Interests

Dear Mr. Kiechnick,

I received the disappointing news that Working Assets is on a course to slowly kill the Animal Fund by not allowing any additional members to join it. Again, the cost to administer this small but extremely progressive and pioneering fund is said to be the reason. Please reconsider this conceptual step backwards for the progressive and social justice movement s whose agenda Working Assets so successfully supports, lifts up and moves forward. Please continue, instead, on your visionary course that will help animals and therefore people and our plans for peace on Earth.

We, as a species, need to expand our hearts and consciousness’. We need to learn and decide if our lifestyle choices for food, clothing, products, entertainment, are in fact humane or just. We need to integrate the interests of all departments of the planet: human, environment AND animal. We need to learn that one cannot be considered and cared about without equal consideration of the others. The interests of humans, animals and the environment need to be integrated in progressive language, vision and scope just as all social justice movements need to integrate if we are to organize and accomplish our goals.

The animal nations will always rely on human beings to organize and speak up on their behalf. They are a special lot who are calling our hearts to open fuller to include them, speak up for them, organize for them– not close down and exclude or neglect them - as if compassion were a limited commodity. They need us. We need them. Please realize this.

Thank you for your time in reviewing this proposal and I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Kate Danaher
Animal Rights Committee of the Marin Peace & Justice Coalition
188 Greenfield Avenue
San Rafael, CA 94901
415.459.1149 voice (for animals)


A PROPOSAL TO WORKING ASSETS TO INTEGRATE ANIMAL, HUMAN & ENVIRONMENTAL INTERESTS
Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to humankind. --Albert Schweitzer

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE TO
€ Working Assets Board of Directors
€ Michael Kiechnick, President
€ Lucy Radcliffe, Donations Manager

Working Assets
101 Market Street, Suite 700
San Francisco, CA 94105
415.369.2000

REGARDING
€ Working Assets’ Animal Fund
€ Working Assets’ Co-Branding relationship with Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream

ATTACHMENTS
€ Proposal
€ Suggested Reading

FROM
Animal Rights Committee of the
Marin Peace & Justice Coalition

Contact: Kate Danaher
188 Greenfield Avenue
San Rafael, CA 94901
415-459-1149 voice
415-459-5441 fax

SITUATION

€ Working Assets is an exemplary business leader demonstrated by its precedent setting business model founded on the belief that building a business and a better world are not mutually exclusive. Working Assets has inspired customers to help generate $46 million in donations to nonprofits working for peace, equality, human rights, education and a cleaner environment. More admirable still is Working Assets’ pioneering act of including the defense and protection of non-human animals and the fight for their rights in its scope of concern. Working Assets has made a most laudable commitment to Animal Rights with the establishment of the Animal Fund into which members may choose to have their donations go. These funds are then distributed amongst 8 hard working and effective animal protection, rescue and rights groups.

€ However, the Animal Fund is currently segregated from the main Donation Recipients group by not being included in the main donation recipient funds distribution path; by not appearing on the main Donation Recipients web page and by not being mentioned in emails and other forms of communication by Working Assets to its customers.

€ Working Assets’ main Donations Recipient groups (excluding the Animal Fund) as of 2005 are as follows:

PEACE & INTERNATIONAL FREEDOM
Africa Action
American Friends Service Committee
Global Fund for Children
Global Fund for Women
Human Rights Watch
International Medical Corps
Ipas
Ploughshares Fund
Union of Concerned Scientists
Women for Women International

EDUCATION & FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
American Library Association
American Progress Action Fund
Democracy Now!
Free Press
Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network
Independent Press Association
Media Matters for America
National Center for Science Education
National Coalition Against Censorship
Public Education Network

ENVIRONMENT
Coral Reef Alliance
Earthjustice
ForestEthics
Global Greengrants Fund
International Rivers Network
Natural Resources Defense Council
Oil & Gas Accountability Project
Organic Consumers Association
Rainforest Action Network
Rocky Mountain Institute

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
ACORN
Center for Policy Alternatives
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Drug Policy Alliance
Families USA Foundation
National Coalition for the Homeless
National Employment Law Project
Oxfam America
Project on Government Oversight
Wellstone Action

CIVIL RIGHTS
American Civil Liberties Union
American Constitution Society for Law and Policy
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Center for Constitutional Rights
Feminist Majority Foundation
Human Rights Campaign
NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Project Vote
Public Campaign


€ Not included in Working Assets’ main donations distribution path are groups specifically working to help non-human animals.

THE ANIMAL FUND
In Defense of Animals
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Defenders of Wildlife
Humane Farming Association
National Anti-Vivisection Society
Primate Sanctuary of the United States
WildAid

ISSUE

€ The separation of the Animal Fund from the main Donation Recipient group effectively enforces a gulf of compassion between human culture and non-human species as it segregates and alienates the Animal Rights movement from other progressive movements when in reality it is most deeply connected to them all.

€ The segregation of the Animal Fund significantly reduces donations that would otherwise go towards helping non-humans. The 50 groups in the main Donation Recipients group each receive between 30 and 60 thousand dollars per year while the 10 groups in the Animal Fund each receive between 1 and 4 thousand dollars per year, depending upon donations received any given year.

€ Because Working Assets does not include the Animal Fund in the main Donations Recipients group web page nor mention it in their communications with customers, it is extremely difficult and rare for customers to learn that the Animal Fund exists. In fact one can no longer locate the Animal Fund on the Working Assets web site as it no longer resides at the URL where it once did: http://www.workingassets.com/longdistance.cfm?formid=IR-166-ANW-1 In addition, a search of the site turns up nothing related to the Animal Fund. This policy further directs potential donated dollars away from animal protection, rescue and rights groups and impedes progress towards peace and justice.

€ Working Assets members who choose the Animal Fund for their donations are not allowed to have their donations equally distributed to the other 50 worthy organizations in the main Donation Recipients group. This policy further alienates the Animal Fund and Animal Rights Movement.

WORKING ASSETS & THE ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Working Assets’ reason for separating the Animal Fund from the main donation recipient groups is based on a voting process from which resulted the perception that only an insignificant number of Working Assets customers are interested in either supporting Animal Rights groups or opening up the main Donations Recipients group to include Animal centered organizations. With not only respect for those of us interested in our donations also going to groups working for the rights and protection of non-humans but perhaps with a deep knowing that it is the right thing to do Working Assets established and maintains the Animal Fund. For this we are grateful. However positive this is, we maintain that it is not enough. The extent to which non-humans are exploited, brutalized and killed by all groups of people and across all classes of society and industries is staggering. To be able to measure and perceive the violence against these beings at any given moment in time in total would stop any breathing human in their tracks and likely bring them to their knees. Because the pain and violence is so profound and so closely connected to each of our lives due to our lifestyle choices it is not surprising that a common response is to turn away, ignore, resist opportunities to be educated and to continue making daily decisions which cause extreme pain and suffering to non-humans. It is also not surprising that Working Assets’ progressive mainstream customer base appear to be not ready for Animal Rights. Inherent in Animal Rights education is the inevitability of having to look at one’s daily decisions and see the connection between them and the extreme pain and suffering of others. For too many this prospect is too painful. Similarly the vast majority of good and caring white people back in the 1600s who were also not ready to consider it an issue that African people were being sold, beaten and killed. Most of these people, also, looked away. As a powerful and successful business founded on progressive ideals and invested in activism Working Assets has the opportunity (and we would suggest the responsibility) to take an even more proactive stand against the violence against animals that is so extensive in human culture and open its scope of concern wider by desegregating the Animal Fund and folding it into the main Donations Recipient Groups as the 6th Issue Area.

SHORT TERM SOLUTIONS

€ Working Assets has indicated that the main reason it does not more fully support the Animal Fund is that it cannot afford to publicize it. At no additional cost Working Assets can immediately “cut and paste” information about a customer’s option to choose the Animal Fund on to its main Donations Recipient Web Page.

€ Working Assets can immediately, and at minimal cost, “cut and paste” information about a customer’s option to choose the Animal Fund on to emails and other communications materials going out to Working Assets customers regarding Donation Recipients.

€ Working Assets can immediately and at minimal cost include Animal Fund brochures at future trade show and community tabling events.

LONGER TERM SOLUTIONS

€ Working Assets can desegregate the Animal Fund and fold it into the main groups as the 6th Issue Area allowing for the fair and equal distribution of donations to all Working Assets donation recipients groups.

OR

€ Working Assets can recognize that Animal Fund groups are also related inherently to the five main issue areas and add at least one animal group into each:

Civil Rights
Non-human animals differ from humans in their dependence upon us for protection and their inability to live a human-like life such as choosing an education, a career, a particular lifestyle or living arrangement. Instead they are dependent upon us when we either enforce these choices upon them or allow them to maintain their natural life styles by not intruding upon them. That both cases occur in the lives of billions of animals in society infers that the development of rights and liberties in their behalf is essential.

Sample Organizations: Primate Freedom Project

Economic & Social Justice
The meat, dairy, and egg industries profit at the expense of the public. Their abuses of animals (and people and the environment) are motivated by an amoral quest for profit at all costs. After the animals themselves, workers and people living in rural poverty bear the greatest share of the costs of factory farming, big corporations and their wealthy investors reap the only real benefits. These trends are made worse by trade globalization, which helps corporations to evade local regulations. (Bravebirds.org)

Sample Organization: Humane Society of the United States

Environment
Factory farming causes pollution and wastes natural resources. Runoff and effluents from confined animal feeding operations pollute the land and the water. At the same time, meat, dairy, and egg production consume excessive amounts of water and energy. The only "winners" are the wealthy corporations who reap the profits of factory farming operations. For these reasons, the Union of Concerned Scientists has recently highlighted meat eating as a consumer choice that produces significantly negative environmental impacts. (bravebird.org)

Sample Organization: Sea Shepard

Peace & International Freedom
As long as humans choose to allow systemized abuse, exploitation and torture of non-humans in remote factory farms, underground research laboratories, fur farms - the river of blood and silent screams will go on and will - without question – impede our efforts to make peace on this planet.

Sample Organization: International Fund for Animal Welfare

Education & Freedom of Expression
True freedom will have a chance when we learn the deep-rooted reasons human culture has developed to oppress non-humans and how we can learn to an all encompassing way to become more peaceful and healthy. Humane education is essential to continue the momentum forward to a future free of prejudice and violence and war. When one discovers that they can today in one moment make a choice for peace with their dollar, with their fork, they will move humankind one step closer to peace and freedom for all beings.

Sample Organization: Performing Animal Welfare Society


ADDENDUM:

WORKING ASSETS & THE DAIRY INDUSTRY

Working Assets promotes the dairy industry through it co-branding campaign with Ben & Jerry’s Ice cream. We believe Working Assets and its customers, like many people in society, have not been thoroughly educated about the reality of the cruelty inherent in the life of dairy cows - even cows in non-factory farm systems.

For example:

€ Because cows produce significant amounts of milk for only ten months after they have birthed a calf, they are forced to continuously have babies in order to keep the milk flowing.

€ Calves are separated from their mothers a day or even a few hours after birth. Cows love their babies and calves love their mothers. Each suffers great loss in this separation.

€ Male calves are separated from their mother and slaughtered a few days old for low-grade ’bob’ veal or transported to auction and sold primarily to veal farmers who place them in small wooden crates where they cannot turn around or walk. Every year, approximately 750,000 calves are confined in these crates and are often chained by the neck to restrict movement. After four to five months of intense confinement they will be transported to a slaughterhouse where they will suffer their final indignity and be sold as milk-fed veal.

€ A majority of the female calves are taken away from their mothers, fed some alternative to their mother’s milk and once old enough, turned into milking machines like their mothers.

€ High milk production leads to udder ligament damage, lameness, mastitis (inflammation of the udders), and metabolic disorders. After years of having their babies taken away, their milk production will go down. Dairy Cows will be slaughtered at about 5-6 years of age when her normal lifespan would be 25 years.

€ Dairy cows at retirement suffer the terror of transport to auction and then slaughterhouses where 95% of them are killed to become hamburger meat.

SHORT TERM SOLUTIONS

€ Working Assets can immediately investigate the cruelty inherent in Dairy Farming for Dairy cows and their calves and take into reconsideration their co-branding relationship with Ben & Jerry’s Ice cream.

€ Working Assets can make an official request that Ben & Jerry’s Ice cream manufacture a vegan ice cream option for Working Assets’ Members.

LONGER TERM SOLUTIONS

€ Working Assets’ can end their involvement with the dairy industry by ending its co-branding relationship with Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream.

RECOMMENDED READING

Kanzi: the Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind
by E. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Roger Lewin (Contributor), Savage Sue Rumbaugh
The story of a pigmy chimpanzee who communicates by punching symbols on a keyboard and who understands spoken English.

When Elephants Weep: the Emotional Lives of Animals
by Susan McCarthy (contributor), Jeffrey Masson
A study of the complex emotional lives of animals. The book provides fascinating insights into animal emotion, and offers a compelling analysis of the ways in which humans treat other animals.

Bird Brains: the Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies and Jays
by Candace C. Savage
Members of the crow family have powers of abstraction, memory and creativity that put them on a par with many mammals - even higher primates. Bird Brains presents these birds, together with a large collection of colour photographs.

Animal Thinking
by Donald R. Griffin
If animals think, what do they think about? Do they use intelligence simply to take care of business - to find food and avoid predators - or do they also imagine? We know that some play; but do they fantasize?

Animal Minds
by Donald R. Griffin
Griffin gives examples of foraging behaviour, predatory tactics, artifact construction and tool use, and the experimental psychology of animal cognition. He gives us instances of animals communicating vocally and symbolically, revealing some of the surprising intricacies of their thoughts and feelings.

The Animal Mind (Scientific American Library, Vol. 51)
by James L. Gould, Carol Grant Gould
Taking a fresh look at the evidence on animal capacities for perception, thought and language, the Goulds show how scientists attempt to distinguish actions that go beyond the innate or automatically learned. They describe a number of animal behaviours - some revealed to be more or less pre-programmed, some seemingly proof of a well-developed mental life.

Through a Window: my Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe
by Jane Goodall
Through a Window is the dramatic saga of thirty years in the life of a community. It reads like a novel, but it is one of the most important scientific works ever published. The community is Gombe, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, where the principal residents are chimpanzees.

Animal Liberation
by Peter Singer
This is the "bible" of the animal welfare movement. First written in 1975, Animal Liberation was the book that launched the modern animal rights movement. According to The New York Times Book Review, "Singer's documentation is unrhetorical and unemotional, his arguments tight and formidable, for he bases his case on neither personal nor religious nor highly abstract philosophical principles, but on moral positions most of us already accept".

Of Mice, Models and Men
by Andrew N. Rowan
This is the first study to combine regard for the welfare of laboratory animals with a belief in the continuing need for research involving animals. It presents, in a manner accessible to both sides, all the relevant historical, social and scientific information required to form an opinion on the subject.

The Great Ape Project
edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer
This is a compelling and revolutionary work that calls for the immediate extension of our human rights to the other great apes. The book is a collection of thirty one essays by the world's most distinguished observers of free-living apes.

Pawprints on the Soul
by S. Francis
This book is an excellent resource for campaigners. It includes a series of quotes from well-known people, such as Abraham Lincoln, Carl Jung, Gandhi and Roosevelt, and even an Air Chief Marshall. There is also an analysis of some of the most pressing problems in animal welfare.

Babies and Beasts
by Daniel A. Dombrowski
Both its defenders and detractors have described the argument from marginal cases as the most important to date in defense of animal rights. The argument concludes that no morally relevant characteristic distinguishes human beings - including infants, the severely retarded, the comatose, and other "marginal cases" from any other animals.

Animal Rights and Human Obligations
edited by Tom Regan and Peter Singer
Edited by the two leading philosophers in the animal protection movement, this volume provides a comprehensive overview of historical and contemporary writings that address both the nature of non-human animals and our duties towards them.