I think it’s safe to say that here on the Razz we’ve been quite thorough with our coverage of both the HSUS and the Michael Vick dogfighting case. Therefore, I am not at all surprised to hear that the animal advocacy organization has agreed to let Vick join their thriving dogfighting campaign.
According to HSUS President Wayne Pacelle:
“I sat with the man, but I still don’t know what’s in his heart. He told me he did terrible things to dogs. He said he grew up with dogfighting as a boy, and that he never sufficiently questioned it as he grew into manhood.
He said this experience has been a trauma and he’s changed forever. And he said he wants to show the American public that he is committed to helping combat this problem. He asked for an opportunity to help. I want to give him that opportunity.”
Personally, I believe that now Michael Vick has served his sentence he should be given a fair opportunity to prove his rehabilitation. Freedom lies in education and I’m optimistic that he has the potential to reach the millions who still condone this thoughtless abuse. In short: I’m excited to hear this news.
What do YOU think? Are you happy to see this partnership or are you still weary of Vick’s motives? Chime in and share your thoughts.
To read Wayne’s entire piece on the issues, visit HSUS.org!
29 Responses to HSUS President Wayne Pacelle Reveals Plans To Work With Michael Vick
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Michael Parrish DuDell says:
To be perfectly honest, it isn’t so much that I care about his “salvation,” as much as it is that I’m aware of how many young people look up to him.
He has the power to produce positive change for the next generation and therefore I view this partnership as an important one.
I trust the HSUS very much and I’m certain that they will make good use of his celebrity.
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Who's Looking to Profit From Michael Vick? says:
Frankly, I’m tired of HSUS attempting to capitalize financially via the Vick debacle.
An article of interest that relates to this very subject was published today by the Center for Consumer Freedom and is entitled:
“HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES IS MORALLY COMPROMISED, JUST LIKE MICHAEL VICK
$200 million animal rights group raised money with false promise to care for Vick’s dogs”
and may be read here:
http://tinyurl.com/qbtbudJust another point of view….
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Amanda M. says:
You are seriously misinformed if you are quoting an article by the Center for Consumer Freedom re the HSUS. They have a vendetta against all animal rights groups and have targeted Wayne Pacelle precisely because he has been very effective. Their interests are not those of the environmentally conscious or any animal protectionists.
And – about Michael Vick’s statement that ‘this experience has been a trauma and he’s changed forever’ what he meant no doubt is that he lost his freedom, his money and many fans, it had Nothing to do with the vicious cruelty he perpetrated on animals in his care.
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john bsker says:
So why can’t Pete Rose join gambling prevention and be in the hall of fame?
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Dear “Whose Looking to Profit”
You need to go back to grade school. HSUS is a NON PROFIT. Doh! They don’t PROFIT at all.
What are you? one of consumer freedom F&*CK’s mouthpieces?
There aren’t many organizations I can’t stand more than consumer freedom foundation of losers (except maybe the KKK_ they are the only ones worse than CFF in MY book)
Erin
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Fran says:
Anyone who trust HSUS has not done ANY research at all on either their fund raising “techniques” OR on where the money really goes. There was a expose recently on them and a team of lawyers has intimated everyone. It has ALL but been taken off ALL the news stations, web pages AND youtube video’s. Anyone with half a brain HAS to ask WHY? In case half a brain can’t figure it out it is because they don’t want a gullible public to find out where they use their money and almost all of it is used for LOBBYING and what they lobby will also really wake people up.
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Whoever... says:
Please don’t get me wrong – I’m all for second and third chances!
However, I doubt this person will ever be truly sorry for what he did.
I may be completely wrong and I do hope I am…But I’ll only believe he’s being honest (and not desperately trying to clean his image) when he starts going to schools and to places where everyone knows dogfighting takes place to talk about his experience and to tell everyone who wants to listen that abusing animals is plain wrong!!
Oh and although most of organizations like HSUS are non-profit (or so they claim), please don’t be fooled by this! No one is 100% honest. They make a living out of activism and even though I believe a small minority of NGOs are in fact doing everything in their power to change things, the sad reality is that the majority have as their main goal making as much money as possible.
I don’t deny they do a lot of good work (much more than I will ever do) but then again they must show results in order to get as many supporters as possible, right?I’m saying this mainly because several months ago I sent an email to tens of Animal Rights and Environmental NGOs all over the world asking and urging them to put their differences aside and join efforts to create one global organization to fight for AR and the environment. These NGOs included PETA, ALF, Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd, WWF, Ocean Conservancy, etc, and HSUS! (I’ve already mentioned this here at Ecorazzi).
Guess how many of them replied to me? TWO and they were none of the above – and they told me they were not interested.
In the email I sent I also included a list with the email and site addresses of all the organizations I had sent my email to. Nothing happened!!Curiously, a few days afterwards I started receiving from a few of those tens of NGOs their newsletters and also emails asking for donations!
So no one can convince me that NGOs that together have tens of millions of members worldwide couldn’t, if not create one global organization, at least work closely with each other in order to truly change things and a lot faster than they do separately. I mean, take a look at companies in trouble – what do they do? They merge so that they can get stronger and more powerful! If it works for them why wouldn’t it for NGOs?
Can you imagine for instance if 10 million people would send a personal email to all the fashion designers who still use fur demanding them not to use fur in their clothes any more, otherwise they would boycott them? Can you imagine the impact that could have? Now that would really make the difference!! And it wouldn’t cost thousands of dollars in campaigns!!
Not everything that shines is gold!!
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VeggieTart says:
Who’s Looking–the Center for “Consumer” Freedom is a lobbying organization for Big Tobacco, Big Booze, and Big Food; they could not care less about the needs or wants of consumers. You do know the founder is a tobacco lobbyist, don’t you? So I’d take anything from their site with a giant saltshaker. They even protest the CDC!
As for Michael Vick, I would rather not see him in the public eye ever again. I certainly don’t want to see him don an NFL uniform again. But if HSUS can help him put his dog fighting days behind him, and if he can be a voice against animal fighting, I can’t object too loudly. He’s probably not the first guy to speak out against doing what got him in trouble.
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hil says:
Whoever- I think you have an excellent point! It is staggering how many similar organizations there are out there. It would seem that working together would have a much stronger impact…I think that the organizations are getting in their own way by not joining forces. I wonder what it is that keeps them from wanting to collaborate? I assume it is because of the time they spent forging an identity that they don’t want to lose…but then that’s not really fighting for the cause but fighting for an image isn’t it? Hmmm…
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All: Juicy stuff! As someone who’s just started his own nonprofit (more on that later, Razzi readers), I have a fairly good idea as to WHY these nonprofits won’t/can’t join together.
First, it’s basically illegal.
A nonprofit organization is legally bound by their by-laws and articles of incorporation. Just because they all share a common goal, “make the world better for humans and animals,” that doesn’t mean they agree on how to execute programs that will achieve this. And execution is a big part.
For instance, PETA and the HSUS handle things VERY differently and probably wouldn’t agree on most campaign choices. I’m not saying one method is better than another, but having one massive organization that doesn’t get along would actually serve as a detriment to the community.
While there should always be solidarity in the movement, having “competition” actually makes each organization stronger by challenging them to take it to the next level. Imagine if all the health food stores in the world joined together for the sake of making the world a healthier place. The goal is noble, but it would be a disaster! Competition is necessary in a capitalistic society and nonprofits aren’t immune to this.
A word on finances:
While employees of nonprofits can’t reap the benefits of their fundraising, they certainly must make a profit if they want to survive. However, like for-profit companies they aren’t receiving massive bonuses at the end of the year based on their quarterly profits. By law, a nonprofit’s books must ALWAYS be open to the public eye. If you’d like to find out how much the staff members are making, simply visit CharityNavigator. com and do the research.
No organization is perfect — that’s for sure! However, I truly believe that 90 percent of the nonprofits we cover having pure intentions.That’s why we cover them!
Oh yeah and the Center for Consumer Freedom is a fraud. Show me a reputable source and we’ll talk.
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Amy says:
I think it’s great that HSUS is partnering with Michael Vick. While unfortunately he may only be doing this to be able to play in the NFL again, he has the potential to influence thousands of young men. Those that either may already be involved in dog fighting, or those in areas where they are likely to be around it in some way. So if HSUS and Vick can make a positive difference in these people’s lives, I’m all for it. And hopefully Vick actually has learned his lesson and feels some remorse for the terrible things he did.
And as for the CCF, I don’t know why anyone would want to listen to them. They obviously don’t care about whats best for consumers, since they are just a front for alcohol and tobacco. They even oppose Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. Way to go guys.
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Judith Auletta says:
I am a member of HSUS and am about to resign that membership because of Wayne Pacelle’s position concerning Michael Vick. Vick’s acts of cruelty against those dogs were acts of depravity. His criminal record for the past several years shows a steady decline in his behavior. Of course, now he will put on this act of contrition. After all, there’s all that money at stake–he needs to be reinstated by the NFL, and the position taken by Mr. Pacelle is what Vick, his agent, his attorneys, and all the others that want their share of the largess, had hoped for and will use to their own advantage.
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don miguelo says:
Justice for those killed dogs didn’t end with some fines and 23 months in jail or whatever it was. They aren’t coming back, that is something he can’t make right in his lifetime.
Does he have ulterior motives,– of course! Can he do good things for dogs now, — yeah!But that doesn’t clear him of anything in my book.
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I totally respect your opinion Michael, I really do!
However I beg to differ on a few points:
- When I mentioned that NGOs should join together in one, I meant they should create a new and global organization. That wouldn’t be illegal, I think…
- Regarding their strategies and campaigns, they obviously would have to reach a consensus before taking that huge step. I mean, ultimately, it’s not their campaigns that change anything whatsoever but instead the number of people who join them on their campaigns! Why couldn’t they have different strategies and campaigns within that global organization? What I wanted to say was that the number of supporters would be immensely bigger and that’s what would make the difference. Extrapolating this to regular corporations, each one of them also has different products and brands but nonetheless it all belongs to the same company!
- NGOs should not compete with each other (in my opinion) because their goal is supposed to be the same – stand up for animal rights and the environment -, contrarily to health food stores and all of the others whose main objective is to make a profit in order to survive, because no one is going to donate money to them! And yes, it’s good that these compete with each other so they can make better and cheaper products for all of us.
- When it comes to profits and keeping their books open to the public eye, well there are a lot of donations that aren’t official and therefore they don’t even get in the books. And who supervises the bank accounts of the people in charge of these organizations?
I’m not claiming that the non-profit NGOs you cover aren’t legitimate or that they don’t have pure intentions. But I have a hard time trusting most of the NGOs out there, because I strongly believe they would be so much more effective if they didn’t put their own interests ahead of the cause they are supposedly defending which is AR and the Environment.
I wish I was wrong, I really do, but everything I see and read makes me believe I’m not! All the suspicions surrounding some NGOs, their apathy regarding certain issues, the compromises they make, the long time they take to effectively persuade certain corporations, groups and individuals to change their actions towards animals and the environment, etc.
All of this would be so different if we had a kind of MacDonald’s (I know it’s an awful example!) for AR and the Environment – there would be a delegation in each country and all of them together would lobby for AR and the protection of the environment!
If we continue to have these same organizations and support the same strategies they use, it will take forever to radically change things worldwide! And the problem is we don’t have the time any more! Time is running out and fast!
We can’t wait for people to become aware of these problems…
If we look back in History, we quickly realize we’ve basically haven’t learned much from the past mistakes of mankind!Thanks
Sorry for the extension of my comment…
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Windy and the Pittie Grrls says:
Vick and his ilk are not and never will be worthy of public redemption.
These so-called ‘men’ did not humanely euthanize dogs that did not make the cut for their heinous operation. We all remember the reports of Vick personally hanging dogs by their necks, slamming their skulls into the concrete until they convulsed and died and throwing family pets into the pit to train his fighters to kill. But what about this report, taken from a blog post by Donna, co-founder of BADRAP (www.badrap.org)?
“Jumper cables were clipped onto the ears of underperforming dogs, then, just like with a car, the cables were connected to the terminals of car batteries before lifting and tossing the shamed dogs into the water. Most of Vick’s dogs were small – 40lbs or so – so tossing them in would’ve been fast and easy work for thick athlete arms. We don’t know how many suffered this premeditated murder, but the damage to the pool walls tells a story. It seems that while they were scrambling to escape, they scratched and clawed at the pool liner and bit at the dented aluminum sides like a hungry dog on a tin can.”
They actually sat around and thought up indescribably cruel methods of torture and agonizing death for their own pleasure and entertainment. Who watches while another living thing screams, bleeds, shatters, and slowly dies under his own hand? I’ll tell you who- Vlad the Impaler, Josef Mengele, Saddam Hussein… people whom have been granted the title, “monster” by humanity and will forever be hated and reviled. Let us not forget this as we struggle with ‘forgiveness’ of Vick and his cronies who clipped jumper cables to dogs’ ears and slammed their broken bodies into the concrete.
Is it possible that Vick was just disadvantaged and didn’t know any better and he’s “all better now”? I don’t believe it! What about the thousands of disadvantaged youth who see dogfighting and DON’T get involved because they are driven by an internal compass that tells them torturing and killing is wrong? I don’t think evil can be expunged from someone so twisted at their core that they could count their money and cheer as they watched their ‘best dogs’ rip the flesh from each others’ bones and condemn the rest to violent and agonizing deaths at their own hands.
Vick may have served his time for racketeering, but he plead “Not guilty.” for the charges of animal cruelty. His so-called ‘remorse’ for his actions after the fact were well-rehearsed, as evidenced by a scrap of paper left behind at the podium where he sang his sorry song. This whole collaborative effort with the HSUS was not his idea- it was a clever PR move staged by his agents and handlers to help buy him public sympathy and help make him appear more deserving of re-instatement to the NFL- his real motive behind all this.
Has he ever once asked after his former dogs, the ones who survived his prison camp and training center and are being cared for people with real compassion and altruism? Did he ever once make a statement during his incarceration indicating true understanding of the crimes of morality he committed against those innocent creatures under his care?
Is he a “powerful and persuasive” entity who can sway at-risk youth and thousands of rabid football fans to buy into his latest rhetoric? Sure. Most sociopaths are disarmingly convincing when they want something; it’s part of the clinical definition. As a nurse, I used to work with severely disturbed youth in a psychiatric institution, many of whom had tortured and killed animals. I remember looking into the dull and soulless eyes of one boy who had gouged the eyes out of every one of a litter of kittens and he described how they squished and popped like little grapes between his fingers. When I asked him why he did that, he said he simply LIKED watching the blinded kittens stagger about in pain and terror, crying out for their mother. That’s when I knew evil existed for its own sake.Picking up Vick is like making a deal with the devil. He’ll be a messenger alright, but the message will be, “Orchestrating and personally conducting the maiming and killing of countless dogs for pleasure and profit while lying, bold-faced, about it for six years is OK, as long as you convince enough saps you’re a victim of your past and were too weak to make moral decisions on your own. Oh, and it helps if you have a good PR machine and lots of photo ops with the doggie crusaders.”
So long, HSUS- I won’t be donating any of my hard earned money to an organization that will be spending it on Vick’s image rehabilitation.
“Since compassion for animals is so intimately associated with goodness of character, it may be confidently asserted that whoever is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.” ~
Arthur Schopenhauer, The Basis of Morality -
Windy and the Pittie Grrls:
You actually made a great point!
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Denise says:
Check out what Nathan Winograd has to say about the whole debacle of the HSUS and Wayne Pacelle – http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=1174 I just wish Michael Vick would fade away and Wayne Pacelle is making it really hard to happen.
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Wayne Pacelle's Spray On Tan says:
Wayne Pacelle is just as much a criminal as Vick. This “partnership” is disgusting and makes me sick. The only thing Vick is sorry about is getting caught. If you enjoy hurting animals it is always in your heart, no jail time is going to change you. Wayne Pacelle enjoys killing dogs just as much as Vick. HSUS needs to be investigated by the government!
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Vick Supporter says:
I think its a good thing you guys are doing. I would be willing to support the HSUS.
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Jeanette says:
To me, this partnership is just Vick trying to save his behind. He has shown no remorse whatsoever, who in their right mind would believe that he cares about animals? And as far as Pacelle, I see how he’s trying to get something positive out of it, but I don’t think it will work, because Vick isn’t believable. We’ll see if Vick doesn’t start giving some “donations” to HSUS now that he’s been reinstated, then we’ll know what Pacelle was after.
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Luke Thomas says:
The HSUS seen the USDA report where Vick admitted to throwing in family pets into dog fighting rings because he thought it was funny. That means their were fully conscience when they got ripped to shreds, disemboweled, extremities ripped out of their sockets – a helpless creature screaming in agony because he thought it was fun. This is the TRUE face of Vick: A sadist, who did dog fighting when he was already a multi-millionaire. It was not for the money: It was for the PLEASURE. His dog fighting was going on for years. I now realize what kind of organization HSUS is. It will be a cold day in Hades that I ever donate a red cent to them ever again. Now when PETA seen the USDA report back in November 2008, they dropped Vick like a hot potato. That’s not the case with HSUS.
It’s sickens me that the HSUS may have helped Vick get his old NFL job back. Now America will cheer a dog fighter and be the role model for America’s young. With a poor economy, and purses of $50,000 per fight – If you think dog fighting is bad now-you have not seen anything yet when Vick struts his stuff on the field.
I truly have my eyes wide open. HSUS is all about money-NOT about helping animals. I urge people to stop donating to them – instead donate to your LOCAL SHELTER.
PS-the Humane Society of the United States has NO AFFILIATION with local shelters in any manner, shape or form. What you donate to HSUS will *NOT* go to your local Humane Society shelter.
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SANDI says:
The dogs didn’t get a second chance why should he?
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Monica says:
To reiterate what has been said above, the HSUS does NOT run any shelters or adoption centers.
The HSUS is NOT the Humane Society where you take your children to adopt a pet.
If you donate money to the HSUS, it does NOT go towards helping any abused or homeless animals. However, it may go towards funding some of ALF’s terrorist activities.
Wayne Pacelle, President of HSUS, would rather see cats and dogs put to sleep than in people’s homes as pets.
Wayne Pacelle ran a funding campaign to raise millions that would supposedly go towards helping Vick’s dogs. Two weeks later, he makes a statement that all the dogs should be euthanized. He can’t keep his own stories straight.
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PatA says:
I am resigning my membership to the HSUS immediately.
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I read that HSUS just accepted $50K from the Philly Eagles. Blood money! I encourage all to stop their contributions to HSUS and instead give to your local nonprofit animal shelter that does not receive funding from HSUS.
PETA’s leftovers…or Promising Partnership?
Who knows what’s in the mind of that man? There’s probably so many years of damaged thinking and environment, it will be hard to convince him of the injustice of inflicting that type of pain on an animal.
But praises to the Humane Society for having the balls to attempt to work with him.