Letters to the Editor

This letter is associated with the following article:
The militant animal rights group SHAC has one goal: Cripple a lab that tests (and kills) dogs and monkeys. They say they're activists. The government calls them terrorists.
  • Your bias is showing.

    So there are these crazy animal activists, terrorizing this poor stock broker whose only crime is to support some company that's torturing a few thousand hapless animals to death every year!

    And I'm very much in favour of animal vivisection. I take medication all the time -- I'm very well aware of the fact that none of this would exist in the useful form it is without animal testing.

    So why do I think that you are, pardon me, full of shit?

    Because I know full well that the battle is not equal, that places like Huntingdon are money-grubbing corporations that care not one scrap for the lives and comfort of animals under their care -- or for anything else other than profit.

    After Ken Saro-Wiwa, it is very clear where the battle lines are drawn. These massive companies are designed, are legally set up so they have no conscience of any type. In fact, the directors of these companies would be criminally liable if they ever allowed their consciences to get in the way of the profits for their publicly-traded enterprises.

    That stock broker believes in his heart that he has no moral responsibility for the stocks he makes a market in, no matter how evil they are. This is a profound sin, a sin that is destroying the moral fibre of our civilization. If this man needs to get thousands of phone messages before he understands that he does bear a responsibility for his actions, even if they are making money, then so be it.

    Your article is deplorable, well-beneath your regular high quality, which showcases informed, compassionate writing. Huntingdon has made no attempt to negotiate, no attempt to fix up their torture chambers. Animal sacrifice is necessary to help humanity -- at the same time, needless pain for animals is a disgusting crime that needs to be avoided if at all possible.

    Decades of polite protests about the maltreatment of animals have shown how useless such things are -- we've been writing about this since Sinclair's "The Jungle" and Americans haven't even moved in self-interest to protect their food supply, let alone get fix the needlessly brutal death machines that they have constructed. These immoral, immortal, irresponsible companies will never change their ways until they are forced to. More power to SHAC!