Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. PETER,
Speaker 1: or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has made
Speaker 1: headlines for decades with their aggressive activism, fighting to put
Speaker 1: an end to the cruel and inhumane treatment of animals
Speaker 1: in circuses, zoos, laboratories, as well as in the fashion
Speaker 1: and factory farm industries. Pet has over three million members
Speaker 1: and supporters, making them one of the largest animal rights
Speaker 1: organizations in the world. Recently, Peter has been working to
Speaker 1: defeat the so called ag GAG laws. These laws make
Speaker 1: it illegal to record undercover videos in factory farms. Ag
Speaker 1: GAG laws have been defeated in thirteen states, but eight
Speaker 1: states already have these anti whistleblower laws on their books.
Speaker 1: Undercover video is one of Peter's primary weapons, but they
Speaker 1: employ other tactics as well, many of which have been
Speaker 1: dreamt up by my guests today, Dan Matthews, who has
Speaker 1: been with the organization for nearly three decades. In the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, Matthews enlisted the stars of the television show
Speaker 1: The Golden Girls be Arthur Rue, McClanahan and Betty White,
Speaker 1: to take a stand on wearing fur cruelty is not fashionable.
Speaker 1: Don't wear fur? Support the people who fight for animal rights. Matthews,
Speaker 1: now one of Peter's senior vice presidents, went on to
Speaker 1: create the rather Go Naked than Wear Fur campaign, which
Speaker 1: featured people, most notably celebrities, shedding their clothes and protests
Speaker 1: of those who sell or wear fur. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: from the MTV generation and Pete is all about the
Speaker 1: case work, going undercover in laboratories and slaughterhouses and circuses
Speaker 1: and busting places that are run afoul of the law.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of that. But um, I'm from
Speaker 1: the generation that knows that a lot of people are
Speaker 1: even watching the news anymore. That it was cabled and
Speaker 1: there was the Internet, there's so much competition for people.
Speaker 1: Started with Peter whim and what was it like that
Speaker 1: there was ten of us working out of a house
Speaker 1: in suburban Maryland outside of d c UM. I was
Speaker 1: in the basement answering from Rockville with silver Spring from
Speaker 1: rock from about twenty minutes. Yes, exactly. Our first case
Speaker 1: where we busted an animal experimenter who was cutting the
Speaker 1: limbs and the nerves of primates and then using a
Speaker 1: cigarette lighter and a pair of Plyers to try to
Speaker 1: get the dead nerves to spring back to life. It
Speaker 1: was just the most ungodly torture chamber. And that was
Speaker 1: Peter's first big case fromt Page the Washington Post. The
Speaker 1: guy got his grant revoked and it's set the stage
Speaker 1: for us doing so many more cases inside laboratory. That
Speaker 1: really made Peter's reputation on on a national and international level.
Speaker 1: What the people referred to was the Silver Spring Monkeys case.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. That's what Peter is all about. We
Speaker 1: are here to show you things you really don't want
Speaker 1: to see. You believe the Yeah, that's why you're there,
Speaker 1: That's why. That's why we exist. We are not. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's fantastic that we now have three million members and
Speaker 1: Peter India and Peter Europe and Peter Australia. It's great.
Speaker 1: We never set off to be a large organization. We
Speaker 1: set off to be the cutting edge organization who just
Speaker 1: wanted to bring the facts to people and aside from
Speaker 1: the philosophical idea, just see what it's like for animals
Speaker 1: in the circus, or in the laboratory or in the slaughterhouse.
Speaker 1: And we do that primarily through our undercover investigations, but
Speaker 1: to supplement the investigations to reach the masses. We do
Speaker 1: not live in intellectual times. We live, you know, in
Speaker 1: very very um imbecilic times. And in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: how does that affect the work that you do? It
Speaker 1: affects the work we do because if we you know,
Speaker 1: say I go and meet with uh Nightline or and
Speaker 1: they say, oh, this footage is too upsetting, we know
Speaker 1: our viewers are going to change the channel and put
Speaker 1: on in e true Hollywood story. So sorry, but we're
Speaker 1: not going to break your cruelty case. I come back
Speaker 1: to them and say, okay, great, well, Pamela Anderson is
Speaker 1: doing a photo shoot for our rather go naked? Then
Speaker 1: where for at our you in? And they line up?
Speaker 1: So my job you had to play their game to
Speaker 1: a degree. I would market. I would love to rewrite
Speaker 1: the rules so that the media was a little bit
Speaker 1: more intelligent. And I gotta tell you, for all the
Speaker 1: sensational things involving celebrities or sex that we do, there
Speaker 1: are fifteen pitches we did that died because they were
Speaker 1: too serious. So we are just wasn't it always that way?
Speaker 1: You think it's getting worse over time? Reduce feel it's worse.
Speaker 1: There were two things that happened. One is with the
Speaker 1: advent of cable in in the mean, cable has been
Speaker 1: around since the eighties, but it really really flourished in
Speaker 1: the early nineties and people had a lot more choices
Speaker 1: of what to watch. And I remember I had a
Speaker 1: meeting at ABC News with the producer who told me,
Speaker 1: we run your cases before, but now the ratings system
Speaker 1: is such that we know not just what shows people
Speaker 1: are watching, but the precise moment they changed the channel
Speaker 1: and we ran a graphic story about rodeos and how
Speaker 1: the groins get pinched on on the animals, and we
Speaker 1: lost a quarter of our viewers that when that footage
Speaker 1: came on. So I'm afraid we're not going to be
Speaker 1: talking any more serious cases with you. So that's when
Speaker 1: they started doing hour long specials on Whitney Houston's drug
Speaker 1: problem and things like that. You know, we My degree
Speaker 1: is in history and American University and Washington went to
Speaker 1: study history. And then when you finished the AU, what
Speaker 1: did you do well? My last year at AU, I
Speaker 1: had an animal rights group on on campus. We were
Speaker 1: able to convince the university to stop the poisoning of
Speaker 1: pigeons and to switch to netting, which was much more effective.
Speaker 1: We showed your introduction to animals. Actually, my introduction to
Speaker 1: animal rights was in high school. That silver spring monkeys
Speaker 1: case that Peter launched was the laboratory run by Dr
Speaker 1: Edward Taube. And in the wake of that bust, Edward
Speaker 1: Taube was being honored as the Psychologist of the Year
Speaker 1: at the Anaheim Convention Center outside of l a UH.
Speaker 1: And I was right near where I lived, and so
Speaker 1: my punk rock friends and I went and participated in
Speaker 1: the protest. And that was the first time. It was
Speaker 1: Peter's first l A protest. And so I was I
Speaker 1: think sixteen and so and so you're in high school
Speaker 1: and you go to this protest. Yeah, my friend's mother
Speaker 1: heard about it, and so we thought, oh god, you know,
Speaker 1: we're from the punk generation. Protest was six How was
Speaker 1: your first exposure? Yeah, yeah, and I so protest which
Speaker 1: you became known for. What's your first exposure? It was?
Speaker 1: It became very good at protests eventually, correct eventually, Yes,
Speaker 1: I just I had a little bit of disdain because
Speaker 1: I felt like, um, you know, there's always you've got
Speaker 1: to have new, fresh ways to affect change and protests
Speaker 1: is one way, and we do that a lot, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other ways ways of of luring people,
Speaker 1: and especially when it comes to habits. I mean, animal
Speaker 1: rights issues are about things, the things people eat and
Speaker 1: what they wear and the products they use. It's much
Speaker 1: more of a social issue than a political issue. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna get to that because obviously there are a
Speaker 1: few subjects which are as complex as this. I mean
Speaker 1: in me, even in my own life. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: you get into a car and a car was filled
Speaker 1: with leather products, and there are many many people who
Speaker 1: will say you can get a call of interior, but
Speaker 1: not maybe the dashboard, or there's gonna be some animal
Speaker 1: hide in that car somewhere. It's almost unavoidable. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's the sort of issue that we have. You know,
Speaker 1: in Virginia where I live, the roads were paved by slaves.
Speaker 1: Does that mean you don't drive on them? The just
Speaker 1: you can't rewrite history. We just try to get people
Speaker 1: to look in the future and leave bad habits behind
Speaker 1: one by one or is there a lynchpin you think
Speaker 1: to wall of this? Meaning? There are people who I
Speaker 1: talk to who will say I could give up eating meat,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't give a beating poultry. I could give
Speaker 1: a beating meat and poultry, but I'll still eat fish.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna wear leather shoes, I'm gonna carry leather bags,
Speaker 1: We're gonna carry leather walllets, but I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go and buy a conspicuously leather founded garment. There are
Speaker 1: people for whom they live their life, and in terms
Speaker 1: of practicality, there are gradations of their commitment to animal rights.
Speaker 1: There are people I know who are full blown, you know,
Speaker 1: like yourself. They've got the pleather and the vinyl and
Speaker 1: the wallets and the shoes and the belts and everything
Speaker 1: totally vegan and so forth. But that takes time, and
Speaker 1: that's a commitment and traveling and making sure that you
Speaker 1: have access to your whole wheat bread and sprouts and
Speaker 1: avocado sandwich the airport. No. No, but you're right, it's
Speaker 1: not that difficult, but people do perceive that it is difficult. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's human nature for us to
Speaker 1: instantly recognize our differences with our with each other, and
Speaker 1: that's why we've got so much violence in the world
Speaker 1: and so much hostility. I think the better side of
Speaker 1: human nature is to try to recognize what you have
Speaker 1: in common with somebody and then let it drive from that.
Speaker 1: That's why I work with Republican meat eaters like Mary Madeline,
Speaker 1: who helps lead our efforts against the agg gag bills
Speaker 1: or so. You have people, for example, who are not
Speaker 1: necessary strict vegetarians, but there's components of the animal rights
Speaker 1: message that they embrace gag exactly anti zusan circus rodeo
Speaker 1: exactly exactly right. So I think it's a matter of
Speaker 1: identifying which issue, because there are certainly a lot of them.
Speaker 1: You know, some people get involved on one issue and
Speaker 1: then they evolve and become vegetarian or vegan, or you know,
Speaker 1: there's people like be Arthur and the Golden Girls who
Speaker 1: were among our first supporters back in the eighties, and
Speaker 1: they weren't vegetarian, but they hated for and they hated
Speaker 1: animal testing, and they helped us get the mink subsidies
Speaker 1: yanked from the federal crash test dogs. I remember all
Speaker 1: those things from the early days, which was you know,
Speaker 1: crash test dogs and pigs. They'd say that this makeup
Speaker 1: company wanted to be able to walk into a courtroom
Speaker 1: and they wanted to be able to PLoP down thick
Speaker 1: reams of documentation where they said, our mascara didn't cause
Speaker 1: the problem with this woman's eyesight. We blinded fourteen thousand
Speaker 1: rabbits in order to prove that this stuff has been tested.
Speaker 1: So that was part of Peter's first achievement in the eighties,
Speaker 1: as we convinced Avon, Revlon, s day Lauder so many
Speaker 1: other companies to stop testing yea and that you know,
Speaker 1: we've we've changed that today. It remains today. It's been
Speaker 1: threatened in the last few years by China because China
Speaker 1: has these regulations that require cosmetics and products to be
Speaker 1: tested on animals. It's the old regulations that the Europe,
Speaker 1: the EU and the U S used to have. So
Speaker 1: we went to China knowing that you can't really protest.
Speaker 1: They're like, you can here. We went there and said,
Speaker 1: all right, the EU doesn't use animal testing anymore, and
Speaker 1: in fact it's illegal to test on animals for cosmetics
Speaker 1: in Europe. The US has largely abandoned it. Please revise
Speaker 1: your regulations for China, and the Chinese officials, the equivalent
Speaker 1: of the f d A told us. We don't want
Speaker 1: to hear from Peter, and we don't want to hear
Speaker 1: from any one of the companies. But if you go
Speaker 1: away and gather up all the scientists who change their
Speaker 1: regulations there, and gather up all the companies and come
Speaker 1: back to us as a board, as a body, then
Speaker 1: we will listen. So Peter spent over a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars establishing this consortia and getting all these scientists and
Speaker 1: companies together. We went back to Beijing in December, presented
Speaker 1: them the findings, and to our thrilled amazement, Chinese officials
Speaker 1: said that that made total scientific sense. They've already initiated
Speaker 1: research projects at four Chinese universities to fine tune the
Speaker 1: non animal tests for China, and they say that within
Speaker 1: five years there won't be product testing in China as well.
Speaker 1: So it just shows the kind of different hats Peter
Speaker 1: wears to get things accomplished, But there are great accomplishments
Speaker 1: of his, whether it's involved with the crash testing. That
Speaker 1: was a fun one, the crash test campaign. We got
Speaker 1: to disrupt the GM float into Rose Parade dressed as
Speaker 1: rabbits and rats. You did, yes, When was that? What
Speaker 1: he was at and that was back in the mid nineties. UM,
Speaker 1: we did a whole lot of things to get their attention.
Speaker 1: One of the final things was GM wanted to sponsor
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney's US tour, and Paul me being a PETA member,
Speaker 1: brought their offer to us and we said you should
Speaker 1: probably refuse and tell them why, and he did, and
Speaker 1: then he gave us a free ad and the tour
Speaker 1: program about their animal tests, and that made such huge
Speaker 1: news that they finally threw in the town. After having
Speaker 1: killed twenty animals and crash tests, they changed their policy
Speaker 1: and now they haven't killed any since. No major US
Speaker 1: auto manufactured test computer models and stuff. But there are
Speaker 1: those people who find that the methods you've used over
Speaker 1: the years have been very very u unfair, puerile, asinine,
Speaker 1: that you've been attacked, as you know, obviously they've really
Speaker 1: really hit you pretty hard with some of the things,
Speaker 1: and and of course the most well known examples of
Speaker 1: that are, you know, flinging buckets of blood on fashion
Speaker 1: models and the edit tricks is of magazines and so
Speaker 1: forth on the streets of New York. What was the
Speaker 1: thinking behind that? Then? I mean, I I'm a supporter
Speaker 1: of Peter, and I'm a supporter of nearly all of
Speaker 1: what they do. But at that time when you felt
Speaker 1: that you had to have that guerrilla style, who was
Speaker 1: the producer of those events and the author of that
Speaker 1: script was that you as well? Well? Who was the
Speaker 1: first person to Peter that said let's throw animal blood
Speaker 1: on animal winter? Nobody ever threw animal blood. I think
Speaker 1: people used to spray paint coats on the subways, and
Speaker 1: whether they were Peter members or not, I have no idea.
Speaker 1: I carry stickers that say I'm an asshole I wear
Speaker 1: for and I very subtly put them on people. I
Speaker 1: stickered Cindy Adams at a party once you did. I did,
Speaker 1: but I love her so much and I think she's
Speaker 1: so funny that I saw it in the next party
Speaker 1: and I said, Cindy, I gotta confess, I don't want
Speaker 1: to put the asshole stick on you, but I love
Speaker 1: your column. And she thought it was so funny that
Speaker 1: she wrote a column about that. You won her over.
Speaker 1: We have to use aggressive tactics, I think the way
Speaker 1: you need to still do. Of course we do. For example,
Speaker 1: what's the current aggressive tactic here? The first I'd like
Speaker 1: to say that we are a charity. We don't have
Speaker 1: the ad budget, we don't have the power that any
Speaker 1: one of the hundreds of targets that we have. We
Speaker 1: are tiny little flea compared to a guerrilla. That's what
Speaker 1: we're doing and as a charity trying to seek this change.
Speaker 1: Unless we're willing to be as aggressive as our adversaries
Speaker 1: are and the way they market themselves as industries, we
Speaker 1: would be doomed to fail. Peters aggressive tactics. Which it's
Speaker 1: just like when there's an aggressive woman, to call her
Speaker 1: a bit, when there's an aggressive charity, they call him terrorists. Well, um,
Speaker 1: we we do what we you know, we're not terrorists.
Speaker 1: We we abide by the law. We do things that
Speaker 1: are aggressive. I had to um, you know, but I
Speaker 1: want to just do just for argument's sake, is spray
Speaker 1: painting people on subways, worrying for coaches that abiding by
Speaker 1: the law. No, it's not and that's never been a
Speaker 1: part of our program. Nothing that Peter called for the No.
Speaker 1: But I think because Peter exists as the edgy group,
Speaker 1: people just loop any activity in with us. The usual
Speaker 1: suspects exactly get rounded up and we've you know, we
Speaker 1: spent years trying to deny certain things, but in the end,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, let people believe what they want. And
Speaker 1: there's probably gonna be somebody out there who won't wear
Speaker 1: her because she doesn't want to have a five thousand
Speaker 1: dollar coat ruined by paint, and so maybe that's a
Speaker 1: small victory. So to go back for a minute, Um,
Speaker 1: you're in l A, you go to the tab protest.
Speaker 1: When does Peter come into the picture of your life? Well,
Speaker 1: when I was at AU and we had our animal
Speaker 1: rights group, um there was I knew that Peter was
Speaker 1: down the street because I got to know them when
Speaker 1: their first case broke. So they were on your radar
Speaker 1: for a well, oh yeah, since they were founded. And
Speaker 1: so I would go to the Peter headquarters to get
Speaker 1: literature for our college group, and we did all these things.
Speaker 1: We showed slaughterhouse footage outside the school cafeteria at lunchtime,
Speaker 1: anything to ruin somebody's day. And uh, when I got
Speaker 1: out of college, they just offered me a job as
Speaker 1: the receptionist and I was so thrilled. I um college
Speaker 1: degree and I landed a job making ten dollars a
Speaker 1: year at an animal rights group. I fought Peter, Yes,
Speaker 1: and what were some of the first things you worked
Speaker 1: on when they were working on them? Um, we had
Speaker 1: our first case about the undercover and the meat trade.
Speaker 1: How there's down cows, how animals who don't even have
Speaker 1: the strength to watch the down cow. Where she was
Speaker 1: an issue back then. Yeah, absolutely, that still continues today.
Speaker 1: It continues today. And I remember that the people who
Speaker 1: handle our fundraising for people who don't know what the
Speaker 1: down care wish. She was described that, well, they don't
Speaker 1: give cows much at a at a slaughter house, there
Speaker 1: are so many cows who are so sick. They're pumped
Speaker 1: full of drugs to ward off all the viruses. They
Speaker 1: get in such clear overwhement, their overweight, their bedraggled, they're
Speaker 1: over there fed so fast so that they get fat
Speaker 1: or quicker. Uh, that they are just these miserable, uh
Speaker 1: you know, genetically modified monsters by the time they go
Speaker 1: to slaughter and some of them are two weeks to
Speaker 1: actually walk up the ramp and they're dragged. Some of
Speaker 1: them are dragged kicking and screaming literally or have pitchforks
Speaker 1: that that dumped them on the slaughter lines around them
Speaker 1: and dragged them back then. Uh. In fact, we got
Speaker 1: a call from a slaughter house worker in Pennsylvania at
Speaker 1: the Mopac Hatfield Plants, and he called to say that
Speaker 1: his job was to work right near the kill floor.
Speaker 1: His job was to cut off the hoofs and lips
Speaker 1: of cows so that their skin could be peeled back
Speaker 1: for leather. The cows were arriving on a conveyor belt
Speaker 1: hoisted up by a hoof to this man, and they
Speaker 1: were supposed to already be unconscious through a captive bolt
Speaker 1: in their head, through their throat being split, and because
Speaker 1: of the quota, because of the system, because of poorly trained,
Speaker 1: illegally immigrant workers, and faulty machinery, the cows were still
Speaker 1: fully conscious when they came around to him, and he
Speaker 1: said he would have to chop off one hoof while
Speaker 1: the other hoof came around and kicked him in the head.
Speaker 1: And he complained to the on site plant inspector about this,
Speaker 1: and he was told to get back to work because
Speaker 1: they had a quota to keep. So this poor literate,
Speaker 1: toothless guy called Peter and said, Uh, they're not listening.
Speaker 1: I'm not a vegetarian, I'm all as much for my
Speaker 1: own safety as for the animal cruelty, but can you
Speaker 1: get in here and document this so and bring it
Speaker 1: to the state Department. We went up. I went up
Speaker 1: with two Peter investigators, met with him. It was thrilling.
Speaker 1: It happened to be on my birthday, and I remember
Speaker 1: it was the most exciting birthday I ever had, going
Speaker 1: to meet in a motel room, uh, surreptitiously with this
Speaker 1: guy who remains in my heart one of the biggest
Speaker 1: heroes I've ever seen. He vouched for these two girls
Speaker 1: to come in. They had cameras hidden in their bags.
Speaker 1: As far as the slaughterhouse knew, they were just friends
Speaker 1: of his. Uh. He was able to tell them where
Speaker 1: to stand to show what was happening. They were able
Speaker 1: to do it over the course of a few days,
Speaker 1: to show that it was routine problems, not a one
Speaker 1: off problem that wasn't Yes, and the and the evidence
Speaker 1: they captured on them was in controvertial. It was incontrovertible.
Speaker 1: And I personally took it to the State Department of
Speaker 1: Agriculture and in Harrisburg and lodge a formal complaint with
Speaker 1: the State Department of Agriculture, who apologized for the plant.
Speaker 1: They aired the footage the week that the World Series
Speaker 1: was on, So I remember the watching from the motel
Speaker 1: and it was promos for the game and then teasers
Speaker 1: for this atrocious slaughterhouse case that Peter was launching. And
Speaker 1: that is why because of that, that is one of
Speaker 1: the first cases that led to the agg gag bills.
Speaker 1: Which have they started trying to do that several years?
Speaker 1: Was that this was in the early nineties, so it
Speaker 1: was that long ago, was twenty years ago that industry
Speaker 1: began to panic about this this captured video, and you
Speaker 1: began to have the earliest forms of ag gag proposals.
Speaker 1: That's right. What did proponents of agg gag or in
Speaker 1: their minds opponents of of this captured video? What did
Speaker 1: they say back then was the reason they had to
Speaker 1: have these egg gag bills? And how are the the
Speaker 1: agg gag bills are seeing no different than twenty years ago? Well,
Speaker 1: that was one of the first cases and the meat
Speaker 1: industry was very embarrassed by it. There was obviously no
Speaker 1: refuting the evidence. Plus, we had this guy who worked
Speaker 1: there who went on camera in silhouette, but it was
Speaker 1: confirmed that he was a worker there. Exposing the cruel
Speaker 1: thing and exposing what the conditions were, so there was
Speaker 1: no way they could refute it. After that case, there
Speaker 1: were countless others where we got into slaughter houses in Iowa,
Speaker 1: in in Texas, a huge horse ranch in Texas, other
Speaker 1: places in several states. UM And we were always very careful.
Speaker 1: We only would pursue cases where you were allowed to
Speaker 1: film legally. Some states you can't film without somebody's permission,
Speaker 1: so we only chose cases where we could legally film
Speaker 1: these places so we didn't have unnecessary legal challenges from
Speaker 1: the facility. Peter has a very uh tight legal department,
Speaker 1: so when we get in trouble, we know exactly what
Speaker 1: kind of trouble we're getting into, and we usually avoided
Speaker 1: at all costs uh and will challenge laws. But and
Speaker 1: with these investigations, they are always very hand picked. As
Speaker 1: for the jurisdiction. So where you see the processing of animals,
Speaker 1: be for lamb or any kind of poetry and so forth,
Speaker 1: for food. You talk primarily about um cruelty, and you
Speaker 1: talk about conditions under which they're killed or not killed.
Speaker 1: You talk about the whistleblower and the the the the
Speaker 1: the what sounds almost like the skinning alive of this cattle.
Speaker 1: At the same time, do you concern yourself with the
Speaker 1: health conditions of the of the product itself, meaning the
Speaker 1: f d A is charged with and Americans have been
Speaker 1: told again and again and again they don't seem to
Speaker 1: be overly concerned about it, unfortunate, but they've been told
Speaker 1: again and again and again that the product itself has
Speaker 1: been tainted. Enough here and they're big batches of meat
Speaker 1: called back because of ecal right, and ecal I is
Speaker 1: shipped and there are traces of feces and almost over
Speaker 1: nine of meat paths according to according to the USD
Speaker 1: is on finding. So the USD is owned finding. There's
Speaker 1: there's there's can't be aborded, that cannot be avoided because
Speaker 1: the animals are killed in such uh rapid fire conditions
Speaker 1: and they they craft themselves during this later process. You can,
Speaker 1: I mean, you can buy any package of meat and
Speaker 1: at the time you'll find the coal. I you know
Speaker 1: that any time you eat me, it's the poop poo platter.
Speaker 1: When you say that the U s d A, which
Speaker 1: I do not have a lot of faith, then no.
Speaker 1: So if it's they're they're and if they're admitting it,
Speaker 1: you know it. Hep me ten times worse than they're
Speaker 1: saying when they're there, they're just asleep at the switch.
Speaker 1: Most of the time. When you say that, the U.
Speaker 1: S d A Is telling you that of the beef
Speaker 1: is contemning with some some amount, it could be just
Speaker 1: an insignificant amount per their measurements of the COOLi why
Speaker 1: do you think more and more people still eat meat?
Speaker 1: So what is your work taught you about Americans in
Speaker 1: their diet of beef consumption. People want a dollar value meal.
Speaker 1: People are slaves to their habits, and these habits start
Speaker 1: really early. And that's why the bulk of Peter's resources
Speaker 1: go to campaigns that are to reach the youth. That's
Speaker 1: why we have so many things that are may be
Speaker 1: considered edgy by by older people, but by teenagers who
Speaker 1: have a great sense of justice and most children, of
Speaker 1: course love animals. They really respond to it. We have
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of street teamers who are a part
Speaker 1: of our Youth Arm p T two. We get on
Speaker 1: concert tours to get stuff to kids. We are very
Speaker 1: active in high schoo goals and it's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I think now there's so much success and there's
Speaker 1: a you know, back when Peter started, people thought of
Speaker 1: vegan with somebody from Las Vegas. Now every TV show
Speaker 1: has one, and it's something that has become a part
Speaker 1: of our pop culture landscape. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of that is because there's a generation now that has
Speaker 1: grown up with Peter in the background or the foreground.
Speaker 1: But we've been a cultural force, and I think it
Speaker 1: has made it something that people discussed at the dinner table.
Speaker 1: They don't always like what we do, they might have
Speaker 1: a problem with some of the things we do, but
Speaker 1: overall people have seen that we're a charity that has
Speaker 1: made an impact in culture, and now it's a it's
Speaker 1: an impact that is actually gauge double from the change
Speaker 1: is not only at the corporate level, but at a
Speaker 1: society's level. Right here in New York City. Two weeks ago,
Speaker 1: they announced that it's the first elementary school to go
Speaker 1: all vegetarians because the demand of kids, the kids, the kids,
Speaker 1: they went three days a week and the kids wanted
Speaker 1: it all the time. And so it's great. What about
Speaker 1: what's been a victory few in terms of circuses and
Speaker 1: zoos and rodeos, Well, we have been most of performance.
Speaker 1: That's right. We have been on Ringling Brothers trail all
Speaker 1: across the country and we have been documenting which of
Speaker 1: the animals have crippling arthroatis based on their walks and
Speaker 1: how long has Peter been been going toe to toe
Speaker 1: with ring At least twenty years, Yeah, I mean since
Speaker 1: I've been there in eight five. We would do protests,
Speaker 1: but then we started hiring elephant experts, people who really
Speaker 1: knew how to assess the health of ane captured video.
Speaker 1: In three instances, we had video of elephants being beaten
Speaker 1: as an elephant that drowned, and we filed a complaint
Speaker 1: with the U. S c A asking that these cases
Speaker 1: be prosecuted. And under the George W. Bush administration, these
Speaker 1: cases were allowed to expire without any reaction whatsoever. So
Speaker 1: when Obama was elected and he hired a new U
Speaker 1: s t A UH secretary, we had Pink, the singer Pink,
Speaker 1: who is a big elephant advocate, do a big blitz
Speaker 1: to get the Obama administration to reopen these cases based
Speaker 1: on the video evidence. And they reopened the cases and
Speaker 1: they find Wringling two hundred and seventy thousand dollars and
Speaker 1: it's sent shock waves through the circus industry. Why do
Speaker 1: you think people who abuse these animals and Ringling brothers,
Speaker 1: why do they do that? Because the elephants won't obey
Speaker 1: the commands unless they are beaten with these bullhooks. It's
Speaker 1: these sharp metal So this is the most significant aspect
Speaker 1: of this, which is something I would say over and
Speaker 1: over again about animals and performance, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't come out of the womb with a top
Speaker 1: hat in one hand and a cane in the other.
Speaker 1: In order to make these animals perform in ways that
Speaker 1: they were not meant to perform, They've got to be
Speaker 1: beaten and abused to do that exactly. And I think
Speaker 1: one of the most amazing whistleblower cases we ever had
Speaker 1: was from Ringling's elephant handler. We got a call from
Speaker 1: a guy who worked for twenty years, sorry, eleven years.
Speaker 1: I I can't kids I say his name right now. Um,
Speaker 1: it's part of ongoing, ongoing process. But he worked there
Speaker 1: for eleven years. First he was just kind of a
Speaker 1: lackey working in the animal compound. Then he became an
Speaker 1: elephant handler and elephant trainer, and one of his jobs
Speaker 1: was to rip the baby elephants away from their mother's dragging,
Speaker 1: kicking and screaming. They tied them down, they beat them
Speaker 1: until they would stand on one leg, until they would
Speaker 1: stand on their head. They became completely reliant on the trainers,
Speaker 1: food deprivation, beatings, shocks to get them to perform these
Speaker 1: stunts that you see in the arena. And they have
Speaker 1: to start doing it when their baby independent does ringling
Speaker 1: or anyone like that. Because I want to be careful
Speaker 1: in terms of the legality of this. The people that
Speaker 1: are doing this to these animals in order to make
Speaker 1: them ready for their close up so to speak, are
Speaker 1: they wringling employees or the independent and really leases the
Speaker 1: animal because you would they would. They are very careful
Speaker 1: to only hire people at their compound who they exactly
Speaker 1: And this guy worked there for eleven years and he
Speaker 1: wasn't in the elephant compound at first. But what happened
Speaker 1: was he told his wife when he got back to
Speaker 1: the trailer after work about his work and the elephant compound,
Speaker 1: and his wife said, for years, I don't mind you
Speaker 1: working at the circus, but I think it's awful what
Speaker 1: you're doing with the elephants. And they took pictures for
Speaker 1: years of the training methods, not because they thought they
Speaker 1: are cruel, but hey, look it's me beating an elephant
Speaker 1: and tying a baby elephant down. And his wife a
Speaker 1: few years ago got cancer and on her deathbed said,
Speaker 1: please release these information. Is the one thing that I asked.
Speaker 1: He called us and he turned all the year. This
Speaker 1: was about five years ago, So this is still an ongoing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it fueled so much fire for a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of legal cases trying to get the federal government to
Speaker 1: use the Endangered Species Act to stop this this kind
Speaker 1: of treatment because he's actually endangered at elephants that there,
Speaker 1: we've now got the goods from their own trainer. On
Speaker 1: Ringling Brothers had to go on there today's show and
Speaker 1: talk about how it's just these pictures are misleading. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're really just gently trying to teach these animals to
Speaker 1: do things. But people could see that from the photos
Speaker 1: and the fact that they're separated from their mothers and
Speaker 1: beaten and shocked. Ringling bys in bulk this gray makeup
Speaker 1: that they put on the elephants when they're paraded before
Speaker 1: the crowds to hide the blood and the bruises from
Speaker 1: hooks from bullhooks, Yes, because they beat him behind the knees,
Speaker 1: behind the ears, the areas that most sensitive. And they
Speaker 1: actually put these bullhooks up their sleeves so that only
Speaker 1: the metal hook comes out, so that people can't see
Speaker 1: them very casually jab the elephants. Peters working very aggressive
Speaker 1: legally because in each city, in most cities across the country,
Speaker 1: they have laws aimed at keeping sick animals from working.
Speaker 1: And we know that several animals have crippling arthritis and
Speaker 1: they should not be allowed to work because of those laws,
Speaker 1: and so we are working with city governments. The problem
Speaker 1: is that the local animal control they know about dogs
Speaker 1: and cats, they don't know about exotic animals like elephants
Speaker 1: who are just passing through town for a week or so.
Speaker 1: So we've hired elephant's. One of the benefits that Rainly
Speaker 1: has is that they're always passing through town exactly. And
Speaker 1: so what Peter has done is we've hired elephant experts
Speaker 1: and sent them around the country to work with local
Speaker 1: animal control to recognize these things and to be their
Speaker 1: ready the inspection. In a minute, my guest, Dan Matthews,
Speaker 1: Senior Vice president of People for the Ethical Treatment of
Speaker 1: Animals explains why Peter actually owns a stock in Kentucky
Speaker 1: Fried Chicken. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,
Speaker 1: or Peter as it's known, has gained notoriety with its
Speaker 1: high profile, attention grabbing, undercover videos and other shock tactics
Speaker 1: used to change the behavior of large and powerful industries.
Speaker 1: But as my guest Dan Matthews explains, they don't just
Speaker 1: fight from outside the system. We were able to pressure
Speaker 1: Burger King and McDonald's and a lot of others to
Speaker 1: make some basic improvements. We had to fight hard for
Speaker 1: McDonald to stop buying meat from slaughterhouses that failed inspection.
Speaker 1: We look at very molecular level at the government regulations
Speaker 1: and what the uh and did they agree to that.
Speaker 1: They did agree to that, but it took seven years
Speaker 1: of campaigning for even to get them to go to
Speaker 1: that that basic way. Right now we are trying to
Speaker 1: persuade McDonald's and KFC to stop boiling chickens alive and
Speaker 1: the feathering tanks. Why don't they kill them first? Well,
Speaker 1: in Europe they've changed too much more modern, more humane standards.
Speaker 1: But they put them in a room, they take out
Speaker 1: a part of the oxygen. The chickens go to sleep
Speaker 1: and they never wake up. There's no gas, there's nothing
Speaker 1: like that. It's just they take out part of the
Speaker 1: oxygen and they go to sleep. Here we're still using
Speaker 1: old methods because the factories have been doing it since
Speaker 1: the fifties. Where they hoist them by a foot into
Speaker 1: a conveyor belt. There's a spinning blade which is supposed
Speaker 1: to either chop their head off or slice their throat.
Speaker 1: But the chickens, who look like little old men, desperately
Speaker 1: swing to not get the blade exactly, and then they're
Speaker 1: dumped into the vative. They're bad. Look if they end
Speaker 1: up alive in the boiling text boil boiling exactly. It's
Speaker 1: the defeathering tank. And so when you have a chicken
Speaker 1: McNugget or a KFCA meal, you're eating a bird that
Speaker 1: was boiled alive. That's how they died. Possibly most likely, yeah,
Speaker 1: most likely. And we've got all the char and we
Speaker 1: speak at their shareholders meetings. We're trying to get them
Speaker 1: to just at least match what is being done in Europe.
Speaker 1: They're very, very slow to change because it's a you know,
Speaker 1: a million dollar layout to upgrade their facilities, and why
Speaker 1: should they have to do that If they can save
Speaker 1: two cents and show shareholders that they've saved two cents
Speaker 1: per bird, doesn't matter how despicable their methods are. They
Speaker 1: think that's progress. And so as a cultural force, PEEDA
Speaker 1: has been able to infiltrate stockholder We buy shares of
Speaker 1: stock and all of our adversaries and raise this issue
Speaker 1: when we try to get more percentages each time, so
Speaker 1: that shareholders take this issue more seriously. But it takes years.
Speaker 1: It takes new generations of shareholders to come up and
Speaker 1: and insist on these changes. But tom, but if they're happening.
Speaker 1: We also meet with the companies to try to get
Speaker 1: them to uh switch their methods, and we have some
Speaker 1: success with that. But what about augmenting or modifying the
Speaker 1: menus themselves to provide healthier options? Is that your bag
Speaker 1: at all? It is definitely our bag, and it's other
Speaker 1: people are doing it as well. But we persuaded KFC
Speaker 1: in Canada to add a vegan chicken sandwich on their menu,
Speaker 1: which was a real feat, especially because that guy who
Speaker 1: owned that that chain was very hostile at first. We
Speaker 1: do veggie burger giveaways all over the country. We do
Speaker 1: promotions that every season we go to gas stations whenever
Speaker 1: there is a gas prices spike in a particular town
Speaker 1: and offer to help people fill their tank if they
Speaker 1: try a new vegan thing. And it gets a huge
Speaker 1: amount of press in these h towns where we do it,
Speaker 1: we have a pretty good response. I would say, was
Speaker 1: there ever a time did you ever sit there and
Speaker 1: look at material and look at evidence and look at
Speaker 1: a story and you said, we're gonna go in and
Speaker 1: we're gonna kill these people, and you went in and
Speaker 1: you got it wrong? That ever happened. Our lawyers are
Speaker 1: too good for that. Everything that we don't I don't
Speaker 1: even mean in a malicious way, even accidentally. Did you
Speaker 1: ever sit there or were you out to now? We're
Speaker 1: because of the nature of the industries that we target,
Speaker 1: are very litigious. We are dead solid, absolutely absolutely. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the evidence is always so overwhelming and so hideous that
Speaker 1: sometimes we have to tone down the worst things because
Speaker 1: people literally can't stomach them. Like the fox on the
Speaker 1: Chinese fur farm who skinned alive and the only thing
Speaker 1: left that's furry is the poor foxes eyelashes still beating
Speaker 1: as he's gasping. Just it looks like a it looks
Speaker 1: like a video on video. That's what got Martha Stewart
Speaker 1: to finally renounce for and host our video expose condemning for.
Speaker 1: My favorite thing is really reaching people who, um, what
Speaker 1: was the victory in the fur industry? What what designer
Speaker 1: Calvin Klein? So Calvin Klein was a hero there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that he illustrates really why Peter has to do actions
Speaker 1: the way we do. When we first started targeting designers
Speaker 1: back in the nineties, Calvin was the designer who was
Speaker 1: most visible with Fury'd had a line for nineteen years.
Speaker 1: We asked to meet, We asked to show him the evidence,
Speaker 1: and we never got a call back. So I went
Speaker 1: to his office, UH and case the place. I were
Speaker 1: all black, so it looked like I might be part
Speaker 1: of the fashion pact that was there, made friends with
Speaker 1: a security guard UH, and came back the next day
Speaker 1: with a dozen other interns and we went up and
Speaker 1: took over his office and we put literature on all
Speaker 1: the desks. We were screaming, chanting Calvin Klein kills animals. Uh,
Speaker 1: somebody spray painted kills animals beneath the Calvin Klein logo.
Speaker 1: His wall had a Calvin Klein silver and boss logo
Speaker 1: in his office, in his office at the entry way,
Speaker 1: and so somebody, So what happened again? I just want
Speaker 1: to because the people that are your critics talk about
Speaker 1: those things which your acts of We knew that we
Speaker 1: had to do something with nobody returning our calls in
Speaker 1: the fashion world. And I'm not questioning your motive is
Speaker 1: that I understand what I'm saying. When you deface someone's
Speaker 1: private property, what happens to you? That there was everybody
Speaker 1: went to jail, that the cops were called and it
Speaker 1: was got arrested. Yes, everybody go to rent to jail.
Speaker 1: Everybody went to jail. But Calvin uh was so more
Speaker 1: defied by this that he and we did. We timed
Speaker 1: it because he was about to get some big award
Speaker 1: and he thought, you know, so Nobel Prize Profashion. He
Speaker 1: I picked up my phone, uh four days later, and
Speaker 1: it's Calvin Klein's vice president asking if I would come
Speaker 1: in for a meeting. I gotta tell you, I was
Speaker 1: much more nervous going back as an invited guest than
Speaker 1: as a as a protester, and we sat down and
Speaker 1: I showed him the video showing how beavers are drowned
Speaker 1: and underwater traps, and Shinchila's are genitally electrocuted, and all
Speaker 1: the other hard execution exactly of foxes to preserve them,
Speaker 1: the pelt and every exactly on the profacot. When I
Speaker 1: first learned that, I thought I was going to faint.
Speaker 1: And it's dozens of animals for one coat that that
Speaker 1: has that kind of suffering. I went back to his
Speaker 1: office and he said, oh, leave the video and I'll
Speaker 1: watch it. I said, no, I'm not going to leave
Speaker 1: the video. I'm gonna stay here until you watch the video.
Speaker 1: So they had to get somebody to set up the TV.
Speaker 1: We watched the video and he said he was horrified.
Speaker 1: He said, I have spent nineteen years avoid that video
Speaker 1: and now I can't in good conscious use for anymore.
Speaker 1: And I said, fantastic, But I needed in writing. How
Speaker 1: did you get so tough? Well? How did you get
Speaker 1: this way? I grew up in the punk scene. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe I always get to where you're in
Speaker 1: Calvin Klein's office saying I'm not leaving until you watch
Speaker 1: the video. And then well, there was actually needed in writing.
Speaker 1: I had a copy of for World, the trade magazine,
Speaker 1: that said that Calvin had just inked a deal for
Speaker 1: a new line. So after he agreed to do it,
Speaker 1: agreed to put it in writing, and I said, and
Speaker 1: what about this? And he said, uh, don't you can't
Speaker 1: believe everything you read. I'm out of the fur trade.
Speaker 1: So he called in his communications vice president Lintazoro was
Speaker 1: her name. I'll never forget, and we did a mutual
Speaker 1: statement and it was in the New York Times the
Speaker 1: next day, and it sent shockwaves throughout the fashion world,
Speaker 1: and it showed that, you know, obviously remained faithful to that.
Speaker 1: Then he's not only remained faithful to that, but he's
Speaker 1: become a good friend. And he always tells me the
Speaker 1: extraordinary He said, you know, extraordinary matter. If you ever
Speaker 1: worry about going too far, just think of this case.
Speaker 1: And this is the only way to get people like
Speaker 1: like me to get our attention. Because in the fashion
Speaker 1: world we don't care about it. There are people that
Speaker 1: have swung the other way, who actually take pride in
Speaker 1: the They're the last remaining bastion of f Yeah and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I met with Michael Cores and said, you're
Speaker 1: doing broad tail lamb. These are baby lambs who are
Speaker 1: literally killed as they're born, before there's even the after
Speaker 1: birth washed off because the afterbirth makes the skin so
Speaker 1: much softer. These animals the only thing they see in
Speaker 1: the world is a club coming down to beat them
Speaker 1: to death in the head. And this is what broad
Speaker 1: tail lamb is. And how can you and good conscience
Speaker 1: sell this? And he said, as long as it's not
Speaker 1: illegal wherever they're producing it, I'll do it. I don't
Speaker 1: care if there's a market for it, I'll do it. Um.
Speaker 1: And he, you know, said this to my face. It's
Speaker 1: actually in my book. I wrote a memoir Committed which
Speaker 1: to go to this conversation type place about eight years ago,
Speaker 1: and he's been unrepentant since. That's right. So you're in this,
Speaker 1: uh what we'll call, you know, the Hollywood Walk of
Speaker 1: Fame of the animal rights world. Um. And in that group,
Speaker 1: people wouldn't put you with them. But Animal Liberation Front is,
Speaker 1: of course another well known organization. Do have you always
Speaker 1: kept them at arms length? Have you had any kind
Speaker 1: of contact with them? What's your relationship like with them? Actually,
Speaker 1: I got involved in animal rights through the Animal Liberation
Speaker 1: from when I was in high school. I was not
Speaker 1: involved myself, but they were involved in the tile protest.
Speaker 1: My best friend in high school, Connie, and I write
Speaker 1: about this in my book Committed. Because the Statute of
Speaker 1: Limitations has expired long ago. My best friend Connie would
Speaker 1: do surveillance outside of City of Hope and outside of
Speaker 1: other laboratories. You see a riverside before these laboratories were rated,
Speaker 1: not just to get the animals out, but to get
Speaker 1: up the documents showing that the research protocols weren't followed
Speaker 1: and that the animal welfare guidelines weren't followed. This was
Speaker 1: even before Peter was so known. So that was my
Speaker 1: link and that's how I got involved with through a
Speaker 1: direct action sort of point of view. But to me,
Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up in a Rundown apartment complex
Speaker 1: that didn't allow animals, and I had a mother that
Speaker 1: urged us to bring in all the cats that were
Speaker 1: being abused by bullies in the alley. People are really
Speaker 1: kids can be really mean to animals, uh, And I
Speaker 1: just grew up with the understanding that you know, if
Speaker 1: an animals being abused, you do something about it. I
Speaker 1: grew up with the idea that you're supposed to react
Speaker 1: and correct and expose and fight the sort of abuse.
Speaker 1: So what's your relationship where they left now? Um, there's none.
Speaker 1: I mean I haven't done. You feel you have to
Speaker 1: be very careful. I mean when you're talk in one breath.
Speaker 1: But the caution that you use that you employ in
Speaker 1: terms of your protest work because of the lititiousness of
Speaker 1: the Ringling brothers and so forth and other corporations, what's
Speaker 1: that like for you in terms of your relationship with
Speaker 1: a canea left you have to keep them in arms
Speaker 1: like Well, I think it's just it's all different now.
Speaker 1: Now we have whistleblowers that are on the inside who
Speaker 1: get us into film. You know, the laboratories that were
Speaker 1: rated back in the eighties have become bunkers now. I
Speaker 1: don't think that there's much of a way to get inside.
Speaker 1: And I think what Peter has done in a very
Speaker 1: savvy way due to our lawyers, as we are in
Speaker 1: it for the long haul. We are in an organization
Speaker 1: that has lots of roots, but we want to be
Speaker 1: around for the long haul. So we're very very careful
Speaker 1: to pick cases that spot like whistleblowers findings that are
Speaker 1: are lawful investigations of cruelty, and they become so successful
Speaker 1: that now the meat trade is trying to change the
Speaker 1: law so that we can even work with whistleblowers to
Speaker 1: get this evidence, of which is the gang bills. People struggle,
Speaker 1: no doubt with UM achieving a kind of deep, deep,
Speaker 1: ascended level of devotion toward animal rights and a level
Speaker 1: of purity in terms of their diet and their consumption
Speaker 1: and so forth. But if you said to them, here's
Speaker 1: one thing I think you should give up, what would
Speaker 1: you say? I would tell them to watch our ten
Speaker 1: minute Paul McCartney video called Meet Your Meat, which you
Speaker 1: had had hosted as well at some point, and we
Speaker 1: put updated it with new footage, and decide for yourself.
Speaker 1: Decide for yourself what you want to give up. And
Speaker 1: you may find that you had no idea that that
Speaker 1: chickens injured that, or that pigs injured that, or you know,
Speaker 1: just I don't think people should think of it as
Speaker 1: a devotion to to animals necessarily. It's just like it's
Speaker 1: just basic respect and as a respect for yourself as well.
Speaker 1: It is a primal it is I mean, I want
Speaker 1: to come clean with you and be honest with you,
Speaker 1: which is I gave up beef in n and I
Speaker 1: gave up poultry in you know. I mean, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a big, big, no hypocrisy supporter of the animals and
Speaker 1: performance and I'll never go to a circus or a
Speaker 1: zoo or so forth. I'm big on the crash testing
Speaker 1: and a lot of things I'm really really strong about.
Speaker 1: But I would remember that. I mean, I went and
Speaker 1: didn't need poultry from two thousand and four, and then
Speaker 1: I snapped and I ate a turkey sandwich in a
Speaker 1: moment of complete freak out. My friend ordered a turkey
Speaker 1: sandwich and I was sitting there. It was like a
Speaker 1: scene from Altered States, where like the primal gene came
Speaker 1: leaping through me and I ate the turkey sandwich. Well,
Speaker 1: there's nothing like that flesh ripping sensation. Fortunately, nowadays there's
Speaker 1: the products that you can get that have that same chewy,
Speaker 1: grizzly that's what. That's what, that's that's where I went
Speaker 1: up going. There's so many great ones, especially in New York.
Speaker 1: There's fantastic restaurants all the town, but Blossom has. You
Speaker 1: can get a bacon cheeseburger at Blossom. I'm not kidding,
Speaker 1: and it's really, really, really something. It is good. When
Speaker 1: did you stop eating meat? I stopped eating meat when
Speaker 1: I was fourteen, on a fishing trip with my dad.
Speaker 1: I used to go fishing back. I never went back.
Speaker 1: The only kind of animal I ever killed was a fish.
Speaker 1: And so that's where I started. Because I I was
Speaker 1: I used to get beat up for being gay and
Speaker 1: for being a punk rocker in high school. And one
Speaker 1: day between classes, some kid hauled off and slugged me
Speaker 1: in the stomach and I was doubled over, out of breath,
Speaker 1: laying on the ground, gasping for air. And I looked
Speaker 1: up and there was just all these people staring down
Speaker 1: looking at me and laughing, and I couldn't even speak,
Speaker 1: I couldn't breathe. A few weeks later, I was on
Speaker 1: a fishing trip with my dad and I caught a
Speaker 1: flounder and it was a big, heavy fish. Got him
Speaker 1: on the deck, two eyes on one side of his head.
Speaker 1: Somebody omped on and pulled the hook out of his mouth,
Speaker 1: and I looked down and here's this poor creature gasping
Speaker 1: for breath, looking up at the circle of people standing
Speaker 1: around him, and everybody was looking down and laughing at him,
Speaker 1: and I thought, wait a second, now I'm the bully.
Speaker 1: I went vegetarian then, except for it took a little
Speaker 1: a little while longer with chicken, and I went vegan
Speaker 1: a few years later when I started working at Peter.
Speaker 1: I want to learn more about that, but it was
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, But it was the visceral thing that
Speaker 1: I had just plucked this creature from the bottom of
Speaker 1: the ocean into this horrible world with these people just
Speaker 1: laughing at his misery, and I thought, who the hell
Speaker 1: am I to do that? So that was the turning
Speaker 1: point moment in my life too. I want to participate
Speaker 1: in blood and guts. Of course, hamburgers and stuff that
Speaker 1: you get in the drive through. You don't see the
Speaker 1: chain of violence that you're responsible for. But it hit
Speaker 1: me right home that day, and um, that completely changed
Speaker 1: my my thinking about this issue. My friend Mary Brosnahan
Speaker 1: is the executive director of Coalition for the Homeless, and
Speaker 1: she has given her professional life. I mean, she's a
Speaker 1: grown woman with a child and she's worked for I
Speaker 1: think twenty five years with Coalition for the Homeless has
Speaker 1: been her professional career since she was a very young woman,
Speaker 1: and you, similarly a couple of years shy of being
Speaker 1: fifty years old. It's hard to believe that the eternally youthful,
Speaker 1: the Peter pan as I'd like to think of you,
Speaker 1: of the animal rightsman with Dan Matthews, the great Dan
Speaker 1: Matthews is almost going to be fifty. But you yourself
Speaker 1: have given your professional life to one cause and to
Speaker 1: one group of people. And I was wondering as we
Speaker 1: as we fade out here, why why have you stayed
Speaker 1: with Peter all this time? Well, because it goes back
Speaker 1: to my history degree. I know, I've studied other movements
Speaker 1: throughout history, and I've studied what made the women's movement
Speaker 1: finally clicked the civil rights movement, and it was always,
Speaker 1: without exception agitation. There always had to be a cutting
Speaker 1: edge group that may not have been popular in its day,
Speaker 1: but historically was deemed the breakthrough organization to put this
Speaker 1: issue into the public discourse and finally get some change.
Speaker 1: And so um. Luckily, I'm a kind of a notious person,
Speaker 1: so I have no problem being an agitator, but I I,
Speaker 1: you know, have a really clear focus on what we're
Speaker 1: doing and what the outcome can be, and what the
Speaker 1: outcome has been. We've got so many great cases of
Speaker 1: success now, and all of them show that I had
Speaker 1: a lot of successes. And I think I just take
Speaker 1: your obnoxious. But I think you're determined. I think you're
Speaker 1: committed so beyond the bacon cheeseburger that you could refer
Speaker 1: to it blossom. What does um one of the great
Speaker 1: princes of the animal rights movement, the great Dan Matthews,
Speaker 1: what does Dan Matthews have for dessert? Um, let your
Speaker 1: go to vegan dessert. I really like sorbet. You can
Speaker 1: find it anywhere. It's usually good. I know it sounds simple.
Speaker 1: I know it sounds really faggy, but what can I say.
Speaker 1: It's that simple. It's exactly no to foodie cutis. I
Speaker 1: like that stuff. I mean when you find it. I
Speaker 1: really like ethnic foods. I really like spicy things. I'm
Speaker 1: not I don't have a big sweet tooth. But you
Speaker 1: know you can find a Goldenberg's peanut chew in any
Speaker 1: drug store that's vegan. We have on our website. Even
Speaker 1: stuff you can find, uh you know at seven eleven
Speaker 1: or Target that's vegan, but um, you cant. I rarely
Speaker 1: go to a vegetarian restaurant. I go to wherever I
Speaker 1: happen to be for a meeting and grab what I can.
Speaker 1: And now it's getting so easy. It's I think a
Speaker 1: new generation has decided it doesn't want to make the
Speaker 1: same mistakes as our grandparents and parents that died of
Speaker 1: heart disease or got whatever form of cancer and now Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1: Were just evolving as a species away from a meat
Speaker 1: based diet, just as we've evolved away from other bad
Speaker 1: practices in the past. I think we're just evolving emotionally
Speaker 1: and spiritually away from this idea that animals have to
Speaker 1: die for us to live. Actually, their animals dying for
Speaker 1: us is keeping us from living fully. Dan Matthews says
Speaker 1: he's always been drawn to extremes and find traditional activism dreary.
Speaker 1: This fall, he'll be working with former TV game show
Speaker 1: host Bob Barker, who's been a vegetarian for over twenty
Speaker 1: five years, on Peter's new campaign Food for Thought. This
Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing